The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 340 - Aaron Rodgers, Chargers HC Brandon Staley, Michael Chandler, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

On today's show, Pat and the boys chat about the possible destinations for Matt Stafford, look ahead to the Super Bowl, and chat more about all the speculations involving Aaron Rodgers. Joining Pat and AJ as he has every Tuesday, is the eventual 2020 NFL MVP, and friend of the program, Aaron Rodgers to chat about the NFC Championship game, his comments after the game that sent the media into a firestorm, recapping the 2020 season, what he's got planned for the offseason, and much more (19:16-1:04:15). Next, new Chargers Head Coach Brandon Staley joins the program to chat about his rise to Head Coach, his coaching philosophy, playing Quarterback in college, having a guy like Justin Herbert, his thoughts on the use of analytics in helping form decisions, his coaching attire, what his demeanor will be like on the sidelines and in the locker room, and more (1:05:47-1:33:38). Later, Pat welcomes the former Bellator legend and new UFC Superstar, Michael Chandler coming off his highlight knockout at UFC 257, to chat about his career path to this point, why he ultimately wanted to be in the UFC, living a fighter's lifestyle, his thoughts on fighting Khabib potentially, who he wants in the Lightweight division, his thoughts on his old Mizzou teammate Ben Askren fighting Jake Paul, how seeing some of the fighters in person helps humanize them, and more in an electric conversation (1:35:11-2:04:48). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow and listen every day on Mad Dog Radio, Sirius XM Channel 82. We appreciate you all for listening, come and laugh with us, cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

hello it is aaron rogers tuesday january 26 2021 years after zero can't thank you enough for choosing to join us if you enjoy this show please be a friend tell a friend if not just act like it never happened um had no idea if this was going to happen today it happened i'm thankful for it this shows this might be our best show my favorite show of the's, this might be our best show. My favorite show of the year, for sure. Might be our best show we've ever done. Yeah. So for all those shitty shows you guys have listened to, this is one of those ones where you're like,

all right, happy I stayed. Yeah. Subscribe to this show. We appreciate you so much. Let's get to it. Is it Aaron Rodgers Tuesday or not? Great question. We do not know. I said I would give an updategers Tuesday or not? Great question. We do not know.

I said I would give an update on whether or not Aaron Rodgers will be joining us today. There was no update to be had, so there was no update to give. We have no idea, but we do know we have the new head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, Brandon Staley, joining us in about 22 minutes. Can't wait to chat with him. He used the word a gate in his press conference. It was a big deal, which by the way, a gate tie is a common rock formation.

Of course it is. Big analytics guy. He moves from the Rams to the Chargers as a head coach. Can't wait to hear what he's got to say about, you know, things happening in the NFL, the future of the Chargers. Justin Herbert, they got a guy. How are you going to do it moving forward?

Let's go. Also, Michael Chandler, the fighter from the United States of America. Hell yeah. Had an American flag around him. He was a wrestler at Missouri, I believe. And this past weekend, he made his UFC debut after 11 years in Bellator. He made his UFC debut after 11 years in Bellator. Made his UFC debut and hit the guy with a jab to the sternum, overhand right to knock him out.

By the way, a move that I frequent in the Oculus Arena. I'm a big fan of this guy. He cut a promo after the win, reminiscent a la Ric Flair at the Royal Rumble with a tear in my eye. This is the greatest day. He didn't do the tear in my eye, but he cut a promo afterwards. I did a backflip off the top of the cage. He seems to be a guy. We got a guy joining us today. Pumped for that.

He called out Khabib, Connor, Poirier, and everybody in the light heavyweight division, 155, whatever it is, what is it, lightweight? Lightweight. I know fighting. Hell yeah. We'll talk about it. I can't wait to chat with him.

That's in the second hour. And then in the third hour, A.J. Hawk will definitely be joining us. Hell yeah. Will we be joined by anybody else? TBD. At some point, hopefully today, we... Big question marks there, though. Don't want to...

I mean... We got to keep those on there. This is not a tease or anything like that. This is real life. This is inflection on that last thing going. There's a real who knows. Who done it?

Not us. 1-888-MADDOG6 We want to chat with you. There's a lot of stuff happening in the sports world. Allegedly the man who's potentially going to be joining us. We're not sure. There is no indication that he is right now but potentially who knows by the time the time comes, joining us.

Legend, contract extension negotiations that are being popped up. Who knows who Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk, he's reporting that Aaron Rodgers potentially wants several things from the Packers. One thing he wants and deserves is a new contract. Okay, maybe. We talked about this throughout the season. There is a new contract. Okay. Maybe we talked about this throughout the season. There was a couple of times throughout the season where we mentioned, oh, Aaron's going to be gone after this year. He's playing great football. And every single time Ty would say, Hey, can we wait for the season? Right, Ty? Yeah, exactly. By the way, there was

a little bit of a conspiracy fodder on, uh, in the YouTube comment section yesterday that uh you made a comment about something uh Brett Favre I think and then the we lost connection on YouTube and then whenever we came back you were you were gone oh there was people saying I fired you well I mean by the way that that that won't happen first of all. That's not how I would operate. It wouldn't be like immediately go to commercial break. Pack your bags. Hey, by the way, don't ever fucking show up. Get the fuck out.

You have to at least talk about a deep drive to left by Casa Lama. Before you get fired. At Tundink's talking about old pal over there in Cincy. Tom Brenneman. There it is. Ty is edited. How many podcasts at this point? 500 plus.

500 plus podcasts. There was often nights where Ty did not sleep because he was trying to post something. If you think Ty saying something about Brett Favre is going to get him fired, you're out of your goddamn mind at this point. And have a little bit more respect for the respect that I have for Ty, for those that were talking about that. That was a real thing. Yeah, I was not privy to that and I didn't get any tweets or anything.

So that's how I was in the in the YouTube. Yeah, yeah. I was in the Billy Tubes is the one that brought that up to me. He said, by the way, new conspiracy on the tubes. You fired Ty during a commercial break. And I was like, I did. Why did they say that? And then he said, well, we lost connection and blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, all right. But anyways, during the season, we said, Aaron Rodgers is gone after this year because they drafted Jordan Love. They're pushing him out. He's having his best year. Here we go. And we got quarterbacks moving. You know, he's gone.

And Ty would always say, let's wait until the end of the season. And then as you continue to watch the season go, how it went with how awesome it was going for the Packers. By the way, there's only one team that doesn't have a terrible ending to the season. I mean, it is a very true thing. But as it was going, it was awesome. Here we are. And we thought, you know what?

Hey, you can make it right. Just give them a seven, eight-year deal. Yeah. Just go ahead and lock them up as a Packer. $500 million. And we'll pay you until you want to retire. And then when you retire, we'll just kind of see you later. It's all good.

And that was a conversation we had a couple weeks.'re like i'll just give him a long-term deal it's and now florio's reporting that sources are telling him which who knows who those sources could potentially be everybody has their sources and i would assume people like florio aren't putting things out if they hadn't heard it right like that's not something going on so maybe it is like aaron's like and maybe even the packers are like hey let's go ahead and lock this thing up long term although the conversation yesterday was awesome to talk about him walking in there and saying i never play another fucking snap here yeah i ultimately i mean we we said it yesterday and people are still saying like hey stop spinning that i mean i don't

think he's leaving he said we said it before every single conversation exactly nothing he said makes us think he's going to retire or leave the packers but if we're all talking about it let's talk about it but yeah i a lot of stuff i read said that he doesn't want to be in like a lame duck situation in 2021 i mean the guy obviously deserves you know i think they should have to they you know i mean he can get that like okay either you're gonna re-up with me and we're gonna we're gonna move on we're gonna get back to the super bowl or like let's put a clock on this thing and let me get out of here and go pursue it somewhere else interesting this is all happening because he said there's a lot of futures that are uncertain mine myself included that could be about anything by the way well there's a lot of guys on the team too that probably

aren't going to be around next year yeah so i, there's a lot of conversation to be had that we have had, but we hope that Aaron Rodgers does whatever the hell Aaron Rodgers wants to do. Absolutely. At Boston Conner, Michael Lombardi chatted with us yesterday on Hammer Don, which is our gambling podcast that we do out of the studio. Diggs, Gumpy, myself, and Michael Lombardi, formerly Cleveland Browns GM and coaching consultant or advisor or whatever for the New England Patriots for a long time he has two kids that coach in the NFL I mean a guy he's wrote in books Gridiron Genius incredible football mind whenever we're whenever you listen to him talk it's awesome he

knows Walsh he knows Davis he knows Belichick he knows everybody and his last name is Lombardi I mean there is it is listening to him chat about football is incredible. Yesterday he was like, hey, don't not rule out the Patriots in the Matthew Stafford game. They got the cap space. They need a quarterback. And then I think the question was brought to him like, yeah, but with who? Like who is he going to go there for?

Then he mentioned a couple other players. How about Allen Robinson, Hunter Henry? How do you feel all of a sudden Julian Edmonds out there? How do you feel about that all of a sudden? And then as a Patriot fan, you have to think. Alan Robinson, Hunter Henry, how do you feel all of a sudden Julian Edmunds out there? How do you feel about that all of a sudden? And then as a Patriot fan, you have to think Nicky O'Hare. Yeah, come on. Third, fourth year's the best year.

Matthew Stafford's going to be an Indianapolis Colt, but the thought of him potentially going to the Patriots is something that I had no idea about as a Patriot fan. That has to feel good knowing that somebody who probably has a pretty good feel for what's potentially going to happen in places saying, hey, they're going to be in the quarterback market, just like Chicago is going to be.

England's going to be in the market big, and they're going to have cap space. What are they going to do? Who are they going to go? And are the Patriots dead forever, or are they one missing piece away from maybe becoming relevant again? We're one missing piece away. I mean, Matt Patricia's going to butter himself up, go on over to the Ford house, and he's going to get Matt Stafford. I'm sorry to you and your Colts,

but Carl Wentz is coming up from Philly or coming over from Philly. No, he's not. Wherever the hell PA is, and he's putting on the blue and white, okay? No, he's not. Number 11 is going to look fantastic throwing to Mike Pittman, and Stafford's going to look fantastic handing the ball off to Damian Harris and

throwing deep balls to Nikhil Harry and Zubin Mahenty. See you in the Super Bowl. Will you move your mic or me? The mic's just right in your chest. Well, it keeps dropping down. I don't know what it is. It just levels the stupidity way in there.

That's the truth. The more you talk, it just. That is a real feeling, though. I have that with just Bill Belichick, and I think that's because the last 20 years has kind of brainwashed me into thinking that if Bill Belichick does it, it's going to make sense. Even this year, they paid Cam Newton, but next to nothing, he threw five touchdowns.

Eight, excuse me. Going into last weekend, five touchdowns. excuse me going into last weekend five touchdowns six exactly aaron threw five i think in one game or whatever but the the thought of that team potentially being like this year i didn't want to openly pick against them because it was like yeah belichick that old guy up in the sky ernie and mcdaniels will be able to figure something out over here and then now if they get a stud quarterback, there's going to be a lot out there. I mean, not that Darnold is going to get traded from the Jets to the Patriots, but Carson Wentz maybe goes up there to New England.

I mean, there's a guy that could potentially really fit in, want to buy in. Thankful. Thanks for having me up here. Last year you guys paid Cam Newton $1 million. You didn't even talk about Stidham again. Even as the season went on, I wasn't playing great, or Cam Newton wasn't playing great, and they didn't even talk about bringing Stidham in to start. I mean, there wasn't even a conversation about that.

Carson, you down there in Philly, what, you threw a couple picks early, you know, played some terrible football? They were calling for your backup immediately. We don't do that up here in New England. Carson Wentz goes to New England. That makes a lot of sense, especially if they're going to be in the quarterback market. Let's get Carson goes to New England That makes a lot of sense Especially if they're going to be in the quarterback market Let's get Carson up to New England

And see if we really want Carson's You know career To have a fairness to it You know because he's been playing in a stadium With a statue of his backup Outside And an ex-coach out there who didn't like him or whatever Should we not be wishing for him to go

To Statistically historically the best coach of all time yeah absolutely get him up there go and bring stafford down to the colts okay no big deal matthew stafford comes to the colts send carson wentz up to new england let bill kind of give carson wentz that feeling that he should have and let's all move forward i think that's a good idea and schaefter saying there's potentially 18 new quarterbacks next year 18 new quarterbacks in different faces or in different places next year that is insane carson wentz with the patriots seems like one that's potentially going to happen look i like carl wentz but there's no mallards in massachusetts and i want him to be happy before anything and that's why when he comes back to indianapolis and him and frank reich can sit in the church for 15 hours talk it out and then they can go ahead and you

know maybe win the division maybe beat the titans you know and wentz can restore glory to indiana once again listen carson wentz is an unbelievable football player yeah that's why i as a fan kind of want to see him with Bill Belichick up there. Get him up there. Get him up there. Get Carson Wentz up there. And although there might not be Mallards, I'm sure there's something for him to fucking hunt up there.

Oh, yeah. There's plenty of game up there. He doesn't love the pheasant hunting or the quail hunting. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's all we got. I don't even know what a quail is. That's all we got. The thing about it is.

We're overpopulated in this area. That's where Carson needs to go. That's where he needs to go he needs to come right here he needs to come home to frank come back to frank this stinks for the eagles okay this absolutely stinks for the eagles parson wants i guess they're keeping him right that was the entire move that's why they got rid of doug because he wanted to keep our since jaylen's potentially traded who's going to trade for jay and give him any pick that's worthy whenever you you know okay Deshaun Watson's out there Matthew Stafford's out there there's going to be what they said 10 other quarterbacks that are going to be potentially on the move I mean who there's a

lot of quarterbacks out there yeah this is going to be insane just like last offseason obviously there was Tom Brady moving and Phillip Rivers was moving and drew brees was potentially retiring then he was canceled then he was back it was there was so much movement in the quarterback position it started to feel a little bit like the nba right the nba the stars uh kind of control the destiny they control the storyline and they control who's good and who isn't good i mean there are some players that will stay obviously in a team that didn't get completely built around them to potentially go get a championship, knowing that when it's all said and done, they're going to be judged by how many championships they win. So it's almost an

incentive for the star players to go places where other guys are. Although they get mocked for it, it's like, well, what do you want us to do? If it's about winning, there's an easy way to win and there's an incredibly impossible way to win. And it feels's an easy way to win, and there's an incredibly impossible way to win, and it feels like the easy way to win, to at least be in a conversation, is to kind of join forces in places. And by the way, I would assume the NBA thinks it's good. Now, the ratings, the traditional Nielsen ratings haven't been great, but I think more people are consuming NBA content.

They're going to have to figure out how to fucking make money off of that for sure. But it feels like now with the NBA, the way guys move and everything like that, it's always big names that happen. And the trade block is always active. The NFL is slowly becoming that, and I am here for it. Hey, if we get a chance to talk about shit like that, there's going to be people that hate

that. There is people that are going to hate it. Don't want it. What's wrong with building your team and staying loyal or whatever? By the way, I respect what you're talking about. Okay, I only played for one team, retired. I understand that. But from an outsider talking about a sport that, not an outsider,

but somebody that's not in the league, talking about a sport that got, what, 47 million viewers for its NFC Championship game? Yeah. Like, hey, in the offseason, if a couple of those stars that, I'm not saying in that particular game although tom brady was a free agent but if some of these people that are getting 50 million people to watch them 45 million people to watch them potentially want to move a little bit so there's like a little bit of action and maybe teams getting built and super teams

being built and getting a chance to see things that are happening like in kansas city and stuff like that i'm here for it i think the parody of the nfl will remain although if you look over the last 25 years, there hasn't been much parity if you really look at who's done it and who hasn't. But normally the games are all pretty competitive, which I don't think will ever change in the NFL. But I don't mind guys potentially picking spots on where they want to go.

I think it's good for the game, and I think it's only going to happen more often. And the people that are going to lose out are the general managers who think they put an entire good team together, and then all of a sudden, what, you're not happy you come on what do you mean come on you're fucking our team stinks sorry our team stinks good for the game great for us great for us for us in particular as a very selfish uh statement great for the show but for you guys as fans i feel bad i mean bears colts patriots packers lions you guys don't know

what your quarterback situation is going to be here i am two potential potential first round future hall of fame quarterbacks on the steelers roster pretty awesome who ben rossberg dewey haskins oh yeah look out i feel bad for you i forgot dwayne haskins came in their 850 000 deal by the way no incentives let's go ahead and see how this plays out futures deal um I'm excited to see how that guy incredibly talented obviously Urban Meyer commented about how talented he was in all of his years of coaching by the way whenever he did his press conference in Jacksonville what a week or two after Dewey was cut or whatever I mean so the guy tremendous talent interesting decision making maybe Tomlin's the guy, tremendous talent, interesting decision-making. Maybe Tomlin's the guy to turn the whole thing around.

Maybe not. They just promoted from within. But Matt Canada, Canada's new offense coordinator, so they're going to be running the same system basically. Here we go. Steelers doing the same thing they always do. They always win games, though, because that's what Tomlin does. Will they get back to the Super Bowl, though? And I saw you lobbying for Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers as your quarterback on the Internet

with two very poorly put together Photoshops. I saw you lobbying. By the way, I'm a big fan of the Internet just becoming very cool with poor Photoshop. Yes. It has been a run now. There was one I saw somebody put a little square head on top of somebody else's. I mean, it was awesome. The Internet is kind of loosening up

the expectations of Photoshop and I'm here for it, by the way. I had to kind of do a little bit of a bouncing act because, yeah, it would be fucking awesome to have Rodgers or Stafford, but I know that's not going to happen, so I have to pump the fires on the quarterbacks that we do. Yeah, Ben Roethlisberger, we'll hold that against you and who knows how

next year's going to end up with that. Pretty good, right? Boy, Tony. Pretty good. Roethlisberger will hold that against you and who knows how next year is going to end up with that pretty good right boy Tony pretty good that's good people spend hours doing that photoshopping it is so much such a diligent work oh yeah meticulous and I want to let you know we appreciate what you have done for the internet the jersey swaps and the things like that all the way down to what seems to be like a 16th of a centimeter all the way around there and it looks unbelievable like yeah for instance this is very hard but i think the internet is everybody's trying to get into that game and they're they're all taking some shortcuts i think and and i don't know if i don't know if they put as much effort in as you graphic designers do. Probably not.

But I want to let you know, your work will not go unrecognized, but it does feel like the Photoshop game is about to get flooded with people. There's a lot of people that are like, all right, I'm done with trying to figure out how to do this. I'm going to put this over there on the Instagram story. I'm going to screenshot it afterward, and then I'm going to go ahead and move forward. Yeah, I just want to be fuel to jet, first to market.

That's the game plan. Your poll for today, please. Who will finish with more Super Bowl appearances? We have Patrick Mahomes last 27% and Tom Brady 73%. I like you said he's last because he's also second, depending on how you look at it. Oh yeah.

In a two-horse race, you can be silver medalist and last place. Which is something to think about because in this particular conversation, both these guys are winners. Yeah. Both these guys are winners. That's right. Joining us now is a man who is a Super Bowl champion for the Green Bay Packers,

ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hall. Yeah! A.J., how you doing, pal? Sorry, guys, it's just me. Well, you know, I was trying to figure out how to address that all day because a lot of people were tweeting, you know, because this weekly tradition that started this season has been, in my eyes, some of the coolest conversation I've ever been a

part of, you know, a lot of people automatically assume as soon as some things start to happen, I start getting tweets, you know, like, hey, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? And the season has ended. So therefore, the conversations that we, you know, talked about and chatted about have have kind of come to a conclusion. There was zero expectation by any of us for this man to join us today so it was like one of those things where i didn't know how to address the whole thing but ladies and gentlemen joining us right now the 2020 nfl mvp aaron roth what's up dude i expected to be on here so i don't know what you're talking about

okay all right well i'm. Okay, all right. Well, I'm happy you did, all right? Because for me, I assume this happens to AJ, who is a known friend of yours. Anything that you say or do, obviously, boom, Firestorm comes with it. And now, because of this show, I'm the one that sees some tweets from it. And I am so thankful you joined us, man. The mustache looks incredible. And the fact you're wearing that shirt,

I am eternally grateful for, pal. Well, yeah, we might as well drop some bombs on this show. You know what I mean? Better than those scrubs out there. Oh, man. I don't know. Let's not lead off. Can we start with this sign spinning thing?

What is this sign spinning thing what is this sign spinning conference all about i just need to get caught up okay for those that don't know they're listening on serious during the commercial breaks on youtube we run videos of my my former life escapades whatever the hell it is and in walking the streets of los angeles i was leaving flight club by the way which is a shoe store there. I bought gold-plated Air Force Ones from Flight Club. They were in my bag. I was turning the corner in Los Angeles,

and this guy, we had to wait because the little white walk person wasn't up there yet. This guy was tossing this thing up in the air. He was punching it, and then he headed it, and then people were just walking right by him or whatever, and I was obviously very high at the time i was mind blown by what this guy was doing so that's that entire situation right there i gave him a couple hundred bucks he deserves a lot more but there's a lot of talented people out there aaron that's that's a great story i appreciate that hey no problem hopefully how have you been? You been okay? Miserable. Miserable.

I told a story about we lost the Super Bowl and it was the most miserable room I've ever been in. And a lot of people have talked about this with you now and everything. The season ends so abruptly out of nowhere. It is a disheartening thing. And I think that is why I potentially thought you weren't going to join us today because it is a very tough thing, especially whenever you've given so much. How has the last couple of days been? You all right? The mustache looks fantastic.

Anything else? No, that's about it. Next question. It's tough, man. I think that's, as you guys both know, being former players, just the abruptness of the season. You know, one day you're competing, the next day it's, oh, everybody's leaving, we're done. And you just know that that group of guys is never going to be together again,

that same group. And often, you know, it's more than that. It's, you know, personnel, coaches, equipment people, trainers. You just never know. Like, we came back this year and one of our longtime equipment guys was gone. You know, he went into retirement. That's a guy, you know, you spend 15 years with and you hear him, you know, every Wednesday, hey, it's ticket day. You know, AJ, that's what I'm talking about, you know.

But just such a sweet guy that you love. You love the conversations and the friendship. That's just one of many people who turn off from last year. It'll be the same with this year. There'll be new guys in different positions, new people around. That's the hard part is just knowing how special each group is individually. And then, you know, season ends and it's over. individually and then you know season ends and it's over hey were you at all surprised to see the the wild speculation out there after your uh post-game comments when you're a guy you act

like you're everybody's uh future is up in the air it was awesome by the way we we ran for an hour with it uh you know i didn't uh i didn't really see a whole lot until maybe yesterday, and then I realized there were some things swirling around. I don't feel like I said anything that I hadn't said before. You know, I said it the first time I talked to the media. It was more a realization, I think, that ultimately my future is not necessarily in my control. And I think that was what just kind of hit me in the moment. I was thinking about Aaron Jones and Corey Lindsley and other guys we have under contract, Big Dog,

guys who I don't know what their future is going to be, and myself included. Now, obviously, after the season that I had and potentially winning MVP, and we obviously made it to another good run, I don't think that there's any reason why I wouldn't be back. But, look, I think there's not many absolutes, as you guys know, in this business. So to make an absolute statement about something that is, is not an absolute, it's just, I, I didn't do it, you know? And I, I guess that's why it went kind of, kind of nuts. So I think everybody though, the reason why,

and thanks for clarifying that, by the way, I think a lot of us yesterday kind of pieced that together. I mean, that was, you know, but the conversation was obviously huge but you know when everybody now the reaction to what you just said there is going to be so aaron doesn't even know if he's going to be on the packers team next year because he's like a big dog or like aaron jones or something like that that's going to be the speculation now it's like does aaron feel as if he is the piece, the Green Bay Packers? Like, that's the shit that's going to come from that statement, you know? Well, I don't know. And frankly, Pat, you know me and Adrian, I don't give a shit about that. I mean, I couldn't care any less about speculation off of that.

I don't think people are used to hearing the truth from athletes. So when they hear the truth, it's so, like, surprising at times. That's why this show, I think, has been so different. It's because you're hearing somebody who, you know, has been around a long time who talks to people that he likes and shares, like, real, non-pre-rehearsed, non-robotic comments. That's all I said after the game. You know, it was like, obviously said after the game you know it was like a obviously in the you

know i'm 15 minutes from crying in the locker room with you know some of my teammates i come and sit down do this interview and they ask me questions i give real answers like i do on this show and to me a reality not a certainty or an absolute is that my future is not in my hands absolute, is that my future is not in my hands. Now, that's really the case for all of us, I think, as players. But you can't, I think, naturally, there's times where you let your mind go to maybe, I'm going to be a packer for life, or I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be like a Tim Duncan or a Jeter or a Kobe and play with one team my entire career. I think, naturally, you dream about that. I mean, that's kind of like a tag career. I think naturally you dream about that. I mean, that's kind of like a dream scenario.

And I've talked about that for much of my career. I think, you know, when they drafted Jordan, it was more just like the reality kicking in going, hey, that's actually never the case. There are no absolutes in this business. And I think it's a beautiful thing to sit with and to wrap your head around. And I did. And I got to a beautiful place about it.

It doesn't mean that that's not still a reality. I think that's the only reality, is that there is no absolutes in this business. I just reiterated that after the game, and I get it. Some people are like, well, you just threw 48 touchdowns and probably going to win MVP. Yeah, I understand that. But again, there's no absolutes in this business. So I gave a real answer in the moment. And then people obviously, it's a slow week.

So there's things that we haven't talked about. Yeah. You're renegotiating a contract right now? Yep. You were at the Colts for a while. I had you at the Colts for a couple of days, like a couple of hours, I mean, yesterday. It was pretty cool.

Well, you're not helping. No, no, but I did say, I would like it to be known that I did say, even on Get Up yesterday, I was on Get Up yesterday to talk about it. Obviously, anytime you do anything, they want me to talk about it. And, you know, I apologize for taking a little shine there and getting an opportunity to get on there and do the whole thing. But I preface. There you go.

You don't. I do, I do, I do, I do. But I did preface the entire thing with, you know, I listened to that. I don't think there's anything that was said there. But if we're going to do it, let's fucking put him in the Colts. I mean, if we're going to have the conversation, let's move him to at least the Colts. So I do apologize for what I added in there. But I think we were pretty clear that we did not think anything was going to happen, as did much of the world, but it's a good conversation piece. AJ, I'm sorry

there, bub. No, you mentioned speaking the truth to the media and them not being able to handle it. What is the truth then for you right now? You have all the leverage. If you want to go back and say, give me 40 a year, do something. Do you have 50? I guess, where are you with everything's going on right now? I know we're only a couple days removed from the loss. 60 a year, maybe. Yeah, 70. Well, you know, I think in general that's a weird way to look at it. You know, you start talking about leverage and different things.

Like, I don't know. The only leverage I feel like that I have is the way I play, you know, and that speaks for itself. That's why you have it. That's why you have all the leverage because of how you play. You're pretty good. Well, I know, I know. But I did see, thanks to Tom Fanning,

I did see some of these comments being made. And I don't want to go through them one by one and talk about the falsehoods being said out there, but I haven't even had the conversations yet. Look, this is day two yesterday was exit meetings and so i had my meetings with you know my quarterback coach and offense coordinator and you say goodbye to your teammates and stuff and then you start to clean your locker out but i'm around this week so i'm not like i'm not like jetting out of town and and

you know sayonara Green Bay. Like, there's conversations to be had. I'm going to have them with the right people. But it's the same conversations we have every single year. You know, there's nothing, you know, there's no, like, big, you know, I'm going to come to the table with, you know, I need this and this and this. Like, look, we have honest conversations about where we're at every single year. And whether that's with Brian, Matt, Mark, I've had these conversations for years.

I think it's part of being a leader on the squad and having a pulse of the team and the direction that we're going. And we'll have the same conversations we do every year. And I always look forward to those conversations. What are you thinking? NFC championship back-to-back years i mean anytime you're a part of the final four teams in the biggest league on earth 47 million people watch that game uh legally i'd assume a lot more people streamed it uh it was the biggest biggest i mean it's 47 million fucking people watch you play football the other day, by the way. That is, don't think about it.

Don't want you to change anything the way you do, but that is insane. But NFC Championship, two years in a row now, you're playing your best football. What are your thoughts going into the offseason? I mean, two days, obviously this is very unfair to you, but I mean, we're kind of in that situation now. What are your thoughts for next? How do you, with the moving pieces, and you talked about even behind the scenes and everything like that, what are your thoughts on the state of the Packers

and how we get to the Super Bowl next year and take that next step? It's impossible to get to the NFC Championship back-to-back years. It is very difficult to do that. Nobody really talks about it. But what do we take to the next step, Aaron? How are we getting to the Super Bowl? So now it's a we. Yesterday you traded me to the Colts, and today it's a how do we get there. Nobody really talks about it. But what do we take to the next step, Aaron? How are we getting this? So now it's a we. Yesterday you traded me to the Colts, and today it's a how do we get there.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn't Ty Schmidt over here asking a question. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You traded me to the Colts. No, no, no. You go to the Colts, we too, dude. Yeah. It's still we.

You're getting it all wrong, pal, okay? Okay, okay. So you're on team team 12 yeah okay yeah yeah well i think very clear by the way this year i think it's been pretty clear but what is the thought going in the next season you think look i think the first thing is to get away you got to get away from it and i was talking with uh with luke yesterday gutsy and you know just you realize just what a grind it is and I think it's always important to just recharge and and that's why you know after the game and you know the first

few days when it's still raw and there's so many emotions tied up the last thing you want to do is to make like some grandiose statements about next year the year the future whatever it might be just because there's there's just a lot of emotion tied up. There's a lot of just sadness about the abrupt ending and everything. That usually gets replaced with, I think, a lot of pride and appreciation for the year and the ups and downs and what you accomplished. And that will kick in at some point.

It hasn't really kicked in yet, but at some point that will kick in. But I think it's important to really get away And that'll kick in at some point. It hasn't really kicked in yet, but at some point that'll kick in. But I think it's important to really get away and just try and recharge mentally because it takes a lot to kind of go through the grind and get through it. I think from an overall health standpoint, this was a great year for me. The low number of sacks. It was the first time in my career, I believe, that I went through without missing a practice and without being on the injury list once.

So to be 37 and start every game, to not have any injuries, was new and fun and exciting and makes you feel like you can play four or five more years and not think twice about it. So that's a really good feeling, for sure. Obviously, the way that I play, that we played on offense, gives you a lot of hope and a lot of confidence. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens with every team around the league.

If the salary gap does indeed come down to $175,000, it's going to put a strain on a lot of players who are making kind of good money. Not even great money, but just kind of good money. It's going to make teams have some really tough decisions. Have you watched the film on the game yet? Will you watch the film? Yeah, I'll watch it.

I haven't seen it yet, though. When will that be? Will that be sometime down the road, or will it be in the near future yeah i think like uh 4 20 on saturday probably p.m central time really get in there you know so you can put yourself back in really good yeah you got your ass kicked though you got hit a lot dude i was worried about you out there a lot of hits yeah there were a few there were a few. There were a few more. They got a good defense, man.

They got a really good defense. They got a good front. They got a good scheme. They got good players at every level. They're a really good team. Ty. Oh, I'm sorry, AJ. Oh, no, I just wanted to go back to the game quickly.

How did you guys feel going in with your plan and everything? I was impressed by the Bucs' D, not only the pressure they could get on, but I know you guys ran a similar little route with Devontae down in the red zone. They had it covered. They passed things off. Like, I guess from what your plan was going in to how you executed it, how do you think you did? Yeah, I thought the plan was good. The execution, it was pretty, I thought it was pretty good. You know, we were fairly efficient. What hurt us, obviously, was the turnovers. Both of them, they turned into touchdowns. The one right at the end of the half, which was really disappointing,

and then obviously the one coming out of the second half, which put us in a big hole. Then we fought back and had a chance. We had two drives in the fourth quarter there after interceptions, and then just missed a couple plays and had two three-and-outs, and that kind of put us in a difficult situation. But I felt the execution was good, especially a defense like that, which has been pretty formidable for most of the season.

I thought they didn't really bring as much zero pressure. Their whole goal was bringing edge pressure. They brought the nickel off the slot a bunch. They brought the safety or corner to the tight end side a good amount. And then when they had two, they played a lot of two-man kind of in the fourth quarter, which was a good adjustment. We had some opportunities and just kind of missed a few plays. The conversation about the game outside, I know you haven't heard much of it even though a lot

of it was about you is the fourth and goal situation where they kick the field goal and you had to talk about it afterwards obviously in that same press conference where you mentioned the emotions you had previously going into there and you did the whole thing you you saw why Matt did what he did but you weren't a part of that decision have you seen the conversation that revolves around it about how you know like hey Tom Brady's on the other side the guy has done that a lot in this situation and have you and Matt talked about it and whenever Matt makes a decision like that is there ever a thought in your eyes to be like no no keep it off because a lot of people want that and by the way if you do that it doesn't work you're the worst human of

all time the next day so I mean that is but that whole process have you and matt talked about it because there's a lot of speculation outside about how you should feel and a lot of people think like yo mvp give the guy the damn ball with eight yards yeah i mean that's a difficult question because uh as a critic you set yourself up for a win-win situation. You know, whatever happens, you know, you can basically say, hey, if, you know, if we say, no, no, we're going for it and don't get it, and then we stop them after that, it's a terrible decision. If, you know, we kick the field goal, we stop them, they don't call the penalty on third down, we get the ball back, we want to score a touchdown and win by one or three.

What an amazing decision that was. What a gutsy call. If we hit the touchdown and get the two-point conversion, it's the what-if game. It's so easily set up, again, for critics to write the slant, whatever they want to write. Look, in that situation, first goal on the eight, I thought it was four down territory.

On four down when the guys were on the field for field goal, there's five, six guys on the field. There's not a whole lot to do there unless you call timeout. So, you know, we just got to trust we're going to stop them. You know, I understand the thought that if you don't get it there, you know, they're backed up, and either way you've got to score a touchdown. So the two-point conversion becomes, you know, either a part of it or not. If we go four and fourth, throwing a completion, you know,

it's them first and ten on the eight-yard line. Either way, we've got to stop them, right? You know, if we kick the field goal. If you stop them, they punt, we might get the ball to 50. We have a 50-yard field to go score a touchdown and get two-point conversion. I understand all the thought processes and those

angles. As far as what I wanted, it didn't really matter at that point because I saw these guys around the field. Unless I wanted to call timeout. Hey, that would have been awesome. Hey, that would have been awesome. Aaron, that would have been awesome. You turn up.

No. How much time? No, no, no. That would have been the dramatic 47 million people watching that, by the way. It would have been awesome. The what-if game, though, and if you score there and tie it up with two minutes left, what if they go down?

I mean, you're 100% right, but there's a lot of thought behind, you know, it's Aaron freaking Rodgers, dude. Give the guy the ball. Ty, what do you got? Aaron, I don't have a question, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say, in a really shitty year, I think I can speak on behalf of a lot of Packers fans. Thank you for, you know, giving us something to look forward to, not only with coming on this show every week, but watching you play every Sunday.

I mean, it didn't end how we wanted to, but I'll look back on this season very fondly for the rest of my life. So, appreciate you. Boy! Just count on Ty to always bring it back home. And I echo the sentiment right back. This has been been with all due respect to

my weekly media responsibilities this has been the best the best media stuff I get to do every week and I just really look forward to the conversations and it's really meant a lot to me pat you and the boys

age puffing on your cigar i think it's been fun to see you know for people to see not just sides of my personality but uh to hear aj hawk talk once in a while and pat you know you and the boys do such a great job. And I meant what I said a long time ago about you guys being such a powerhouse in the sports media environment. And I'm just really happy to be associated with you guys. Thank you. Aaron, that was all a bunch of bullshit. No, we are very thankful you did this.

Okay, you did us a massive favor. So we appreciate the hell out of you doing that. And the conversations have always been riveting. And I don't want to talk about the game on Sunday too much. What I would like to talk about, have you seen Ted Lasso yet? Like, that would be the perfect thing right now. I think that would be the perfect thing for you right now. I did.

I saw a preview. Oh, no, no, no. Because you watch the preview and go, this is going to stink. Then you watch the first episode and you're like, wait, does this stink? Then you get to the second episode and you're like, there's no reason this is as good as it is. And then I think you'll be all in. I think you'll be all in on it.

Well, now is the time. So now is the time to figure out what shows to watch. There's a lot of people in St. Queen's Gambit, though, so I'm not sure if that's a direction I should go. Yes. I guess there's a lot more chess nerds after this show, so that's probably a good thing. Well, the thing that happens while you're in your season, you know, like you're hibernating basically away while playing football and the world's doing a bunch of other things.

These things come into our lives. We watch them. For instance, I watch Queen's Gambit and and I'm a big-time checkers guy. Always have been. Don't know why we're playing long-term. Let's just jump over whoever fucks in front of us, and let's get kinged as quick as possible. Okay, I've always been a checkers guy.

Never understood it. I watch Queen's Gambit. I bought a board. I bought some real life-size things that we could put in the office, and I'll tell you what, that lasted about three, four days. I'm fucking done with chess now. But you'll probably go through the same situation. That is also very, very good, yeah.

I already have a chess, a couple of chess boards. Oh, you know, close Sicilian, dude? Wait till I fucking get the pawns out there to battle it out. That's what I thought. That's what I thought that's what i thought what is yeah i want to see you and age go at it and chess that'd be a good be a quick game i just knock over my guy if i can i'm done with it uh what is the off season you travel normally right you're a big time travel guy i don't know if you can do that this year go back to uh some house

you bought that has been all over the market because you in la because you got a house you got a house out there that's been a part of market because you in L.A. because you've got a house out there. That's been a part of the conversation. What is the plans for you now? Long season, grind of a season. You've got to accept an award via Zoom, I assume, here in a week or so. I mean, what does the offseason look like? Well, I'm going to extend an invite to Ty and his future bride to come out

maybe to have a nice little weekend at the Haas. I turned the boo. I've been through so much trying to plan a wedding through COVID. It's just got to be crazy. Pat, you lucked out. You got in just in time. I agree. I agree.

But, no, I'd like to travel a little bit. I have no idea what the rules and regulations are going to be, so it might just be a more sedentary off-season again. But I'll definitely take some time off, like on the lifting. I'm not saying I won't get in the power lift and do some squats. Again, that's an unpaid free advertising there. You know that's an Iowa company. You know that's an Iowa company?

Yeah. I did not know that. And Iron Grip. You know that's an Iowa company? Yeah. I did not know that. And Iron Grip. How do you say Iron Grip? Iron Grip, yep. You got it. But I'll definitely take some time to relax and just kind of recharge the old body

and then get back into it as soon as I'm ready. And there's some events that are fun to, again, I don't know what's going to happen this year. Is the Kentucky Derby going to be on? Is Tahoe going to be on? There's some things that are fun. They already canceled Pebble Beach, the Pro-Am in California, but then they just reopened outdoor dining.

I don't know if that's going to be back on. Who knows? There's a lot of what-ifs. I just know that it's going to be a good recharge and we'll start thinking about the next season. Hey, when will you throw a football again? Maybe end of July. No, there's some NFL guys out west that once everything winds up,

I'm sure I'll see a few of those guys. That'll definitely take about six weeks at least in that throw. You need somebody to run some routes out there? You know what I mean? You need somebody to run some routes? I'll put some gloves on out there. I would BJ if you need it. I don't know. How's that knee doing, bro? True. I'll do a stationary

one. That's very, very true. We have to wrap up the season for a couple things. That's very, very, very, very true. We have to, we have to wrap up the season for a couple of things. There's a couple outstanding things I've, I've realized in the minutes in the notes section, you watch film from 2010 before the season, you saw something in film,

you took it to practice that next week in practice, it was training camp and we got pictures of you just sending them out to everybody. How you doing? Deep ball. Keep it moving. How you doing? Bingo, there's another one.

And that kind of led to this magical run that was this year for you, MVP season. What did you see in film? Has it already been discussed, and you did it under, like, a little bit of a guise of just regular talk? What was in that film that you saw? Well, I mean, I've loosely mentioned a lot of it over the year, but the key that I saw was just the rhythm in my hitch. And I was realizing the thing that I was working on back then so much

was the sinking into the hitch at the top of my drop. And that was one area that I think was lacking based on my injury and some of the adjustments I had to make fundamentally to deal with a knee and a leg that just wasn't as strong as it used to be. And that's part of the reason why I really got back into squatting was because I wanted to build that thing up so I could put a ton of weight and pressure into that knee and those legs because the deeper I was sinking into my hitches the more on time I was throwing the ball

and I really just saw how much of an emphasis I was doing that in 2010 2009 2011 and what that was allowing me to do was I was throwing the ball on time and all these games I was watching I would my timing was very very good I mean I was literally the entire route tree and concept concept concepts I was able to perfectly hitch to them and that's why I felt like I was so accurate so from that point forward I literally you know watched a few of those things and and the next day I went out and worked on them, and things just started clicking. And it was kind of a daily reset for me to just really feel into those feelings that I hadn't had. And I started realizing with confidence that the leg strength that I had 10 years ago was back. leg strength that I had 10 years ago was back.

And again, a lot of it is due to the work that I did in the offseason with Tommy and with Ryan and then with our guys in Green Bay, really getting under a squat bar and then doing a lot of single leg pro perception stuff, balance stuff. Of course. And I think all that stuff really just helped me to get that balance and rhythm back in the drop. And because of that, I played on time. The ball came out.

And when the ball comes out on time, I've always been very accurate. This year, I set a personal completion percentage record. And a lot of it, again, I think is due to this little things i picked up on film and then all the all the work i did uh you know my body what are you referring to just so we know so you boom wherever you get to your because you're known for extending place like that's like the the one thing is like oh when when Aaron extends plays is when it gets really dangerous, especially with Devontae and everything like that. You're saying the on-time routine of the play kind of led to everything else.

It kind of helped you out there? I'm talking about fundamentally at the top of your drop. There's different quarterbacks have different ways of getting the ball out. For me, I've always tried to use the back of my drop to get momentum into throws. But it's also a timing mechanism because there's different types of hitches you can take. You can take short, quick ones. You can dig into it and have a longer one. And each fraction of a second allows your receiver to get to a spot where the ball can be thrown on time. And that's what I realized that I did really well in the old film and wasn't doing as well in some of the newer stuff

just because I didn't have that confidence and that trust that I could sink into my knee as much as I wanted to. And I just trusted it. I started trusting it again because I had done the work and I had been doing all these things to kind of build it back up, but still hadn't maybe transferred the trust onto the field and done the reps. And then once I did, things just started to really fall into place and the timing and the balance especially really returned

and the accuracy kind of fell in line. Let's keep that for next year. Let's keep that one in. Keep doing those. Keep doing those squats. So you said can, can a lot at the line of scrimmage this past game or got picked up, it seems like, more than others. I know Dane Orszlowski tweeted something about what he thought you were doing.

Are you allowed to tell us what that means exactly? I just got a text from Dan, by the way. Dan Orszlowski? Yeah. Dane. Dane. That's TV Dan Orszlowski? Yeah. Dane. Dane. That's TV Dan Orlowski. Yeah, he's a big TV guy now, huh?

He's awesome. He is absolutely awesome. I've come a long way from UConn, you know, in that Elite 11 camp where I met him. I've come a long, long way. I'm happy for him. He does a good job. And he actually. I agree.

He brings some style to it, you know. Brings some style to it. I got some good job. And he actually – I agree. He brings some style to it, you know. Brings some style to it. I get some good outfits. Maybe an ascot might be. Bala Seawood, huh? So you're not going to tell us what can-can means? Can-can is much like alert in other teams' offenses. You know, it can mean adjustments to plays,

and it also is used as a dummy,'d say you know that's that's what you have to do in the league now is you have to have dummy stuff so there's dummy cans and dummy alerts i'm sure um we used to do a lot of we used to call them alarms but somebody has a word that that can get you from run to pass or run to run or pass to run. And those are, you know, ways of doing those things. Scary Ninja. Let's talk about it. Scary Ninja. Yep.

What is it? I'm not telling that one. I like that one. Nobody says it. This thing must be very important. Scary Ninja. It must be very, very important. Have you ever seen a Scary Ninja that wasn't important?

Have you seen Operation Condor with Jackie Chan? Probably. I mean, I don't know for sure. I mean, I was a Jackie Chan guy. Whenever they would air, you know, after the credits, whenever you'd see how. That's a badass dude there. I bet you he's squatting a lot, Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan's best movie, 3, 2, 1, go.

Rush Hour. Which one? All of them. Like, three of them. Just the entire thing. Who's your favorite actor of all time? Steven Seagal. Oh, wow.

No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Keanu Reeves. Hey, what's this one where he just kills everybody? Johnick john wick what a badass movie that is huh yeah he's amazing i think he's one of the best character actors of all time shane falco did not fuck around did you take anything from his game into yours yeah just the flow you saw me growing the hair out yeah you were mocked on the internet i don't know if you saw because it was perfectly right down the middle when you took the helmet off are you going to continue to grow that thing or what i think at some point it's going to start really laying back

on its own and the middle part's going to go away that's what the that's what the hope is they get them although as a kid i like i said before i think on the show i i always wanted the middle part and the undercut i used to have that too with my blonde hair oh my god we all had it it was oh yeah for sure come on tips oh yeah no i bleached the whole thing but then if you're not as you know up to date with it it becomes the tips everybody's like oh you got bleached tips it was like whoa it was the whole fucking thing but i got a little lazy can we get off my ass you know what i mean you used to talk like that to your friends yeah yeah by the way yeah i actually would were you how old were you when you drank your first iron city man that's a teenager thing you know very

early teenager in pittsburgh it is so bad i love the fact that you know what it is but it is god awful that beer i mean i appreciate what they represent for the city you know iron city we and they got a mango now i guess i assume that is very good from what i've been told but yeah there was plenty of evenings with iron city light lights oh yeah come on not the heavy not the heavy one what'd you guys do in northern california did you guys just you guys just smoked that dope whenever you were in high school is that all you guys did 40s bro really 40s were big in the in the early 2000s yeah you know we learned a lot about where you were from because tom's from here you're from here i didn't know you were that inland i didn't know that you were inland up there in northern cal yeah it's the

valley bro aj go ahead i i is uh i'm curious why Keanu is your favorite, guys, because the shots we see on the internet of him in the subway smoking heaters and just being a normal human. I mean, that's part of it. I think if you watch a movie like Street Kings or 47 Ronin or, I mean, I don't know. Pick a movie that he's been in. You're going to see some unbelievable acting. Oh, the bus.

The bus. That goddamn bus. They could not slow that thing down. And then, you know, for him, what's the, where he's a cop in the surfing movie? Point Break. Johnny Utah. Point in the surfing movie? Point Break. Johnny Utah. Point Break. Thank you.

Point Break. He said John Wick. Well, Johnny Utah is in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Johnny Utah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about Phillippe? You're not –

Oh, Ryan Phillippe. No Phillippe. Let's close up some loose ends on the season here. How about Ryan Phillippe? What about him? You guys had that little skirmish, and then it carried over onto the internet. Are you a fan of him still? What skirmish do we have?

AJ? For being Rain Man, your memory is not very good when it comes to things like this. I think this is made up. That's why. Ryan Phillippe alleged the same thing, by the way. I would like to let that be known. Ryan Phillippe did say that this was all made up. What rumor did you make up,

AJ? I didn't make up any rumor. I mentioned on the show a while back how you were up there. And then he responded while the show was still happening. You mentioned what? Oh, that he punked you. AJ said that he punked you out at a celebrity event

at one of those high, those big events you guys have. Oh, yeah. Was that when I was talking about the guy who big-timed me at Tahoe and you said it's Ryan Phillippe? Yeah, that was exactly what it was because we were guessing the entire roster from that golf that particular year. That was on the putting green, right? Somebody stood you up?

I would say a little more than stood me up, but let's move on. There's no way I can move on. Can't move on. Can't move on. What happened? Do it for the brand. Okay, I'll move on. Great shirt.

Thank you for wearing that, by the way. Very nice of you. Aaron, you're the best, dude. Have you got your MVP speech already written? I do. Will you shoot that from the hip, would that be yeah probably i i'm gonna thank ty i don't know if i can have enough time to get yeah it should be early by the way ty shout out uh if i win um and then maybe laura for dealing with AJ all the time. And my favorite Hawk kid, besides the other three,

he knows who he is. You just started an absolute war, I bet, in that Hawk house. There's three boys, so, you know, just keep them guessing. Will you make it, like, inspiring? You know, because I'm always intrigued by watching these award shows when people win awards you know and especially this year we take a cue from some of my favorite hollywood people and just making my own personal rant you know you know i won the mvp playing football

but this isn't about that let me fucking tell you about that's what those award things become. Sometimes it's like, all right, I'm excited to see how they deliver here. I'm excited to see their message. Nano robots. Hey, have you studied a Joaquin Phoenix and his acceptance speech a couple of

years back to see what you may do? Those cows, that milk. It's unbelievable. No, I didn't, but I'm worried because I was watching South Park one time, and one of my favorite episodes is about smug.

And people at South Park start buying hybrid cars, and they get very smug, and they say good for you with their eyes closed all the time. And there's a big disaster coming because the smug from South Park, it's like smog, but it's called smug right is interacting with the smug from george clooney's acceptance speech yeah it's part of atomic bomb so i'm gonna try and avoid uh too much smug coming off that's very nice of you hey i think i've realized this year with the conversations you do seem to be a rather normal human which is very

interesting right i assume for a lot of people to hear AJ said no you're not a normal human but how how is how do you I don't know because all the stories about you before this year to be honest a lot of people the way they believe is you were the smug king almost is what the thing about it and then getting a chance to chat with you it's like well that's not the case at all how is that like something you have to focus on? I assume it gets hard whenever you're hanging out with, you know, Scott Stapp is hanging Aaron Rodgers jerseys up in his goddamn office. That has to be pretty weird. Well, look, I think that's an interesting thing to talk about.

I think a lot of times, you know, people have said things about me and it's been the same few people and that's been kind of the prevailing story or thing that's reflected on um i think for me you know i talked a lot about the work i did on myself it was nice and it wasn't intentional like i didn't sign the show to have like and you guys know we've talked about this off off air but there wasn't like some agenda doing this it was like fucking talk to pat and aj every week yeah it sounds pretty awesome it has been by the way it sounds amazing but what it's allowed me to do is i think silence all the douchebags out there who were you know talking for me and and either uh making themselves more relevant by using my name or you know running with stories that were not really based in any type of fact um and look i've grown as a person uh you know i've said things and done things that

i wish i'd handle a little better, but this was a great, uh, natural, authentic, like whatever, whether it was 15 minutes of the stadium or 45 minutes to just like bullshit and have a conversation, you know,

and this is, if you, you know, if you're a friend of mine, if you know me, I think this is about as normal as interaction you're going to see from me. It's not a lot of BS. You're not going to hear cliches and garbage. I'm going to, you know, shoot from the hip mostly tell you as much as I feel comfortable telling. I feel like I've been as honest as I could be. I've told you guys a lot of fun stuff. That's fun for me. Cause

then I don't have to like maybe rehash it on a Wednesday or people get to see a different side of you that maybe they didn't even know was there or didn't think was there. And it's been, it's been fun for me. I really have, I've appreciated every single week we've done these. Um, and like I said, the best part is there was no agenda. There was no, like, there was no plan. I mean, even us, like we didn't know we were going to go like 10 minutes or 15 minutes or an hour. We just started fucking talking. Right. And then this,

this came out and it's, it's been a lot of fun. Well, I want to let you know, we appreciate the hell. And I'm talking about not just us and me in the show, but also I think everybody that's watched, we appreciate you for allowing yourself to put your guard down and chat with

us and allow a lot of people to learn about you. This year has been very cool. Ty said he'll remember it forever. I think a lot of us will because of just how awesome it's been to kind of pick your brain a little bit. Now you get a chance to go rest that thing. Hopefully your mustache will continue to grow because it's glorious, and I appreciate you, MVP.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Rodgers. Thank you, man. Woo! Love you, 12. Oh, he didn't hear it. He didn't hear it. It's all right. He did not hear it. He did not hear it.

That was unbelievable. I want to let everybody know how that happened. Yeah, he did. Actually, you're right. He does love you. Very much so. 159 Eastern Standard Time. I get a text from aaron yo and i'm walking back to my office there and i go you in question mark he goes in and then lfg and then i respond let's go then i walk in here we're live so whenever i was introducing that whole thing

i didn't i don't aj i don't even think you knew did you at that point are you or not where you are sure i didn't know some people in here didn't even know it was a very i mean what a dude obviously he does answer the bell whenever something bad happens that's what aaron is that's what we've learned he is obviously i think the world has learned this year and i've been very grateful i'm very thankful he popped in here we had a lot of fucking people watching i assume a lot of people listening and uh i'm very thankful for that guy very very thankful for that guy i'm sure it felt good too for him to to kind of talk a little bit about you know the whole situation it's still so fresh so raw like he said the game just ended and you have to come in here and talk for 45 minutes

about it it's got to be kind of tough to kind of process, I guess, all of that, everything that went into that, all the emotion. And the way we're feeling about how he should feel towards the floor with the fourth and goal there, he's been around the NFL long enough, I'd assume, where he's like, there's a lot more situations we could talk about where if we would have done this and this and this. That's just kind of how the game is. And the NFL is a hindsight business.

You run a fake and it works, you're a genius. You run a fake fake and it fails you're the dumbest coach of all time fire him you know what i mean there's just a lot of different situations that can happen i still am firmly in the camp i would like to let everybody know even after what aaron said in that whole thing i am firmly in the camp give the guy the fucking ball okay put the ball you give him the goddamn ball we got eight yards okay this is the biggest play take a timeout do what you gotta do let's get the best play we got we got the mvp here let's go ahead and do this thing i mean it seems like aaron's in that camp too it did feel like he understands that that is a potential idea he explained all that most guys have tried a lot of different ways to you know try to last a little bit longer when making love.

Think about your baseball team. That's a boring sport. That'll turn me off, right? Absolutely. Maybe you start listing off cities and states. Maybe you start doing the alphabet backwards. Whatever you end up doing, you need to not do it anymore. Not at all. None of it's going to work.

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Shout out to you. Shout out to GetRoman.com forward slash Pat McAfee. We're being joined now by a man who is a former Dayton Flyer quarterback, now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, Coach Brandon Staley. Hey, boy, coach. Hey, boy, coach. How you doing? Appreciate you.

Flyer pride. I love the Flyer pride shout out. Hey, Dayton's Attaboy, coach. How you doing? Appreciate you. Flyer pride. I love the flyer pride shout-out. Hey, Dayton's like 90 minutes from here. It's not that far. It's over there, you know, West Ohio. I respect the fact you went over there. I think you went 16 and 5.

16 and 5 as a quarterback? 16 and 5. Yep. We had a good run. Wow. Hey, that's not bad. I remember all five losses way too well. What type of offense was it? You know, Pat, it was kind of like pre-spread,

like right before everything went to the shotgun and everyone started spreading it out. We were more of a play-action, you know, option-type team, but more from quarterback under. So, you know, we were good, though. We had a good offense, that's for sure. So you're like an old school pro style quarterback out there. Yeah, I wish, you know, the way that people play now would have suited my game a lot better.

Oh, you could sling that thing. I was more of a point guard. You know, I didn't have like, I was pretty medium arm strength, Pat, you know, pretty medium, but, you know, didn't have like I was pretty medium arm strength pat you know pretty medium but you know heady tough all the things that you say when you're not like that talented you know so a lot of it you know I had to had to play with a lot of intangibles okay when did you know you're going to be a coach while you're playing immediately following it did a coach at Dayton say hey you should get into the coaching game because what 15 years later now, you're the head coach of an NFL team. How do you go from court?

Did somebody say you should do this, or did you always kind of, because you're a heady, hardworking, lunch pail, first one in, last one out, coach's son, high motor. When did you realize, like, okay, I should probably get into the coaching game? Well, Pat, it really started, you know, 7-year-old kid, wanted to be like my dad, got up early with him, drinking coffee, reading the sports page, you know, as a young guy, you know, and watching my dad kind of, he was a coach, my mom was a teacher. And, you know, that's really where it began for me, you know, and my parents are my heroes. And, you know, that's just the truth.

You know, I was one of those kids that was a gym rat that always wanted to be around the game. I was one of those kids that was a gym rat that always wanted to be around the game. And I felt like being a coach was going to be the route that fit me best. And I fell in love with that part of the game as a young kid. It was that other side to competition. And I got to see it up close with my parents. So I think back then I was off to a good start. And I've been working every day since to be as good as I could be. Coach's son, Jim Ratt.

High motor. I mean, let's go, Coach. You go. Yeah, you were coaching in the SEC. I think you coached in college a bit. Then you obviously move into the NFL ranks. Was the NFL where you wanted to go? Because, you know, there's college coaches that live in the college world.

And obviously we're seeing it now with a lot of college coaches trying to make the jump to the NFL. Urban Meyer being the most recent. Who knows how that will go. But how did you see the football in college? And then you were like, you know what, I think I should make the jump to the NFL. How did that whole thing, how did that process it? Yeah, Pat, I've always wanted to coach in the NFL. Like, you know, the way my brothers and i were raised is to go where the competition is you know and we always

thought you know the nfl for me you know that's where the best players in the world are so that's always been a dream of mine and i knew you know there's obviously a process to get there and i knew you know that uh we were going to have to really work at it because you know you know how challenging it is you know that's what makes the n the NFL so special is very few people are in it. So, you know, I've just been working at my game, you know, for a long time. But when I got into coaching, you know, being able to have that kind of double education where you're coaching in college, but you're kind of getting ready, you know, hopefully to, you know, have a chance to compete for a job in the NFL. And so that, you know, my college journey was really trying to,

you know, engineer, you know, being ready for the NFL. So always been a dream of mine to be right where I'm at. Everybody has come out, by the way, that's awesome. But everybody has come out that has played for you and say, hey, this guy, great at connecting with his players. This guy can get a message across. And in the NFL, everybody knows it's about, like, can you communicate with grown men? You know, can you communicate with them? Can you get them to rally? Can you get them to believe in something?

Are you just a very transparent guy? Or are you, like, what is your method, you think, of reaching your players as much as possible? Yeah, Pat, I think, as you know, like, one of the guys that I think coach you, Tom McMahon, you know, he he's told me a bunch of Pat Mack. And so we can, you know, but, you know, the reason why you're laughing there is because your relationship with him, you know, and I think, you know, there's something I learned at a young age from my parents is you've got to listen to people and learn about them. If you're going to be able to teach or lead them, You know, it just can't be you talking at somebody. You've got to go with someone.

And the only way you're going to do that is if you're invested in them and you know one another. And, you know, I've been fortunate to coach a lot of big names that a lot of people know about, you know, Ramsey, AD, Khalil, Vaughn, Bradley Chubb, you know, and I think at the hallmark of all those great players was a big-time relationship, you know. And I think, you know, and then there's hallmark of all those great players was a big time relationship you know and i think you know and then there's other names um of a bunch of guys that you that no one's you know that no one knows about that has allowed me to get to this position right now and so

you know relationships are the big part of you know what we're going to build here with the chargers and once you get that right then you get to the competition okay so you got a guy you got a dude a quarterback i got a dude, a quarterback. I mean, a lot of people were talking about the Chargers job being maybe the most desired job of this offseason when there was like seven or eight positions that are open because you have a guy. Everybody's waiting and trying to find a guy.

Justin Herbert, sixth overall pick last year, had a season where everybody was like, this guy's a guy. Have you talked to him yet uh did you have to come in whenever you're interviewing interviewing for the job about like your ideas for Justin Herbert and how you like did you have to do any of that during the whole process and how has the relationship started with Justin Herbert yeah Pat a whole bunch of that you know I think a whole bunch of that went into the to the interview process you know is your vision for you know, I think a whole bunch of that went into the, to the interview process, you know, is your vision for, you know, not only Justin, but how are you going to play on offense? And I think so much of what happens now, Pat, is you like subcontract the side of

the ball and it's not aligned with the vision of the team. And, and so, you know, me being a former quarterback and, you know, really my entire defensive background, being able to see the game through the lens of the quarterback, uh, it's just been so instrumental in my own, you know, journey as a defensive coach. But, you know, we want to uniquely shape our offense around Justin Herbert because he is unlike any other quarterback. And I think that when you study the great quarterbacks in the history of the game, you know, they've had systems that have been built for them, you know, and I think that that's what we're going to try and do with him.

As you guys know, he's unique. I mean, this guy's 6'6". He can throw it. Mobility, you know, super sharp. I mean, mentally, got a great head on his shoulders. Command of his teammates, you know, talking to the guys over the, you know, this last week. I mean, just the presence that he already has within his team, which is so hard to create as a rookie uh just all that good stuff it's been amazing i talked to justin you know when i got hired on my way back you know to thousand oaks um i got to you know connect with him on the phone and then you know on the way down to the press conference my wife amy and i facetimed him and we just wanted him to know that hey listen we're you know this is

a big day for us but you know we want you to know that you're a big part of this and and then you know it's been fun getting to also talk to his teammates, you know, and the way they talk about him. You know, so we're off to a great start. And as you know, Pat, you played with a stud. I mean, Andrew Luck, you know, you go into the building as a player, Pat, and you got somebody like that. You feel like you can win every game. People work a little harder. You do some extra reps.

You don't miss anything in the film. You kind of, in the offseason, you're like, okay, we okay we got a guy like we got a guy that can get us there that's why whenever a tom brady's on the market if you're a team that you should think about bringing them in or whatever you know that kind of goes to that whole thing because if you get a guy on your team everybody's better and uh that's awesome you guys got herbert there so you lived you lived on the north side of la whenever you were with the r there so you lived you lived on the north side of la whenever you were with the rams and the chargers are on the south side of la so what's that seven hour trip is that what is that and are you pre-pandemic seven hours about an hour and a

half so we've shrunk that down you know timing like so much of life is timing so i think you know the timing is right right now i've been doing a little bit of the back and forth and you know uh it hasn't been too bad but again i am not confused about what la really is i'm ready for it and hopefully i get down here before i have to deal with uh the seven hour uh commute yeah i hope you do as well uh you that la you get you hey you they will park your ass. They do not. Now, listen, now there's some, there's some underrated Pittsburgh traffic. I know that you're a Whippeo guy.

There's some underrated bridge traffic coming in and out of that place. My brother lives in Mount Lebanon. So that's some, there's some sleep, you know, some kind of sleepy traffic there now. I agree. I agree. And there's weather. Okay.

And there's only two ways in. You've got a mountain you have to go through on one side and a mountain on the other side, and it all goes from like four lanes into two. So it is problems. But L.A., you can get caught for six hours and not even know it, not even run out of gas while sitting in the middle of traffic. It just comes.

By the way, great weather. Hey, head coaches, great head coach head coach is a great head coach of your team hey new stadium new everything is that any do you have any mind i guess you're with the rams who had to kind of do the whole thing right there but this is a brand new franchise basically in la herbert's the quarterback chargers have this new stadium it's a los angeles team now no longer uh really any affiliation with san die except for the OG fans or whatever. Is there any thought process to that? Like, okay, this is a whole new, we're basically building a brand new organization here in Los Angeles. I think the way that my family and I looked at it, Pat, and why we were so excited about it

is the word that just kept coming to our mind was possibility. There's just a lot of possibility. And I think that the city of Los Angeles kind of represents that. You know, one of the great, you know, sports cities in the world, certainly in the United States. And I think where the Chargers were, Pat, like, you know, just trying to, you know, really embrace our past, you know, and our present and now where we can go. I've been able to talk to a lot of former players, you know, former Charger greats, and I've been reaching out to people. And I think you hit it. There's just an excitement, and I think there's an energy,

and now we've got to get started on the work. So, very, very, very exciting time. Great jerseys, too. The equipment managers. Hey, great jerseys out there. Go ahead. For the brand, man. Hey, I've got to get you a shirt. Tom wore one on Hard Knocks. It was unbelievable. As soon as I saw it, I was like, Tom Teles the brand, man. Hey! I got to get you a shirt.

Tom wore one on Hard Knocks. It was unbelievable. Yeah. As soon as I was like, Tom Telesco is the man. What do you got, Diggs? Coach, you were obviously with the Bears and then the Broncos, and you saw what was going on around the league. Was it your goal to just get on McVay's staff?

Because if you know, if you went there, you were going to get a head coaching job. It happened, by the way. Congrats. Yeah! That was the goal. You nailed it. You nailed it. You know, by the way. Congrats. Yeah. That was the blur. You nailed it. You nailed it.

You know, life is strategy. You know, that's so much of, you know, marrying my wife, great strategy. You know, just total deception. So, yeah, you know, coaching with Sean McVay sure doesn't hurt because the truth is that he's one of the best coaches in the game, you know, and he's earned that mantle, you know, in his four seasons as a head coach. And, you know, it certainly, certainly helped my cause for sure. Yeah. I mean, he,

people are getting hired if they accidentally had lunch with him. It was like two years ago. It was like, yeah, you know, McVay, you ever meet him? You've been in his pool? You see his dog? You've been shirtless with him on hard knocks? Come on. Come get a head coaching gig. Come get a head coaching gig. The defense over there.

Now, I will say this. Last year, Chargers were in like, it felt like every single game. It came down to the final couple minutes. And there seemed to be, I don't want to say some execution, but situational awareness. Going out of bounds when we should try to keep the clock running, things like that. Is that because you have a young team, you think? And how do you address that type of stuff? Because we looked into you a little bit,

we listened to you, you're a big analytics guy. I would assume, and by the way, that's not a knock, that is just like you said, like, hey, we need to use all the information we have to kind of do that whole thing. But is that something that you'll have to like, is that something you'll focus on in teaching? Like, okay, here, this is a situation, we have to kind of do that whole thing. But is that something that you'll have to, like, is that something you'll focus on in teaching? Like, okay, here, this is a situation. We have to go through this. Like, how will you address that, which was a problem last year for the Chargers moving forward?

And even if it wasn't the Chargers, it was just a team you were coaching. How do you address that? Yeah, Pat, well, I think you just hit on a bunch of really important points of NFL football. I think the first thing you've got to do is you've got to bring your team together in all three phases of the game. You've really got to connect the guys, and I think you know that being a teams guy. Your entire football team has got to be aligned

in how you're going to play each and every game. And there's so much to cover in an NFL game or an NFL season. And I think that the more aligned you can be in all three phases, the better chance that you're going to be in know, be in those situations where you got to have it. You know, I call them GTHI, got to have it situations. So I think it really starts there being a connected team. And I think where data analytics, you know, all this stuff, this movement where it's really helped is you creating a process to make a better decision. Not that you're going to make a perfect decision, but you're certainly going to have a better process in making them.

And as you know, things are happening so quickly in an NFL game. You know, the more people that you can have aligned, you know, to create that, you know, communication that's so vital in the moment, you know, I think that's what we're going to try and create is that, that communication, that process where, you know, in these tight games, in these big situations, you know, we can make decisions that we're proud of, not that are perfect, but that we're proud of, that we can live with. And all we can do as a team is make sure each and every day, you know, you understand what's at stake. And you got that. And that's what I talk about, Pat, creating a competitive environment,

like you got to create a competitive environment. so those situations aren't a big deal when you get to them. Every day with the Chargers is going to be engineered that way and hopefully we'll be able to thrive. That's awesome. Are you a hat guy, shorts guy? What do you wear at our practice? Yeah, I'm a shorts hoodie guy. I'm a hoodie.

I kind of like to go with the longer sleeve, sweat it out. Cleveland, Ohio, Midwest, we're not going to forget where I came from now. What are you on game day? Are you going to have the boys swagged out? Because Sean McVay has come and changed the game a little bit. You're on the ramp staff for what you wear on the sideline. LaFleur has done that a little bit. There are some old school looks on the sideline of the games,

but I do believe that is your decision. What are the coaches looking like on the sideline? Are we wearing khakis? What do we got going on? Khakis. He's like my high school coach, Bob Ridley, man. Coach Ridley. I don't know if we're going that direction, Pat.

I want our guys to be ready to compete and coach some ball. I'm not really concerned about their attire. I want our guys to, number one, be looking fresh in Chargers colors. You have to. Again, it's all about the brand. But I think we're going to be a pretty casual, competitive outfit. Casual, competitive. That is an awesome thing.

Business casual, casual, competitive. I like that. The boys got a That is an awesome thing. Business casual, casual competitive. I like that. The boys got a couple more questions for you. We thank you for your time. Talking to Brandon Staley, new head coach of the Chargers. I'm going to put you in a hypothetical. I'm going to put you in a hypothetical here. Alright. You guys make it to the AFC Championship. Congrats.

Congratulations. Coach, you guys make it to the AFC Championship. Okay. You guys are down eight. Alright. You guys are it. Congratulations, Coach. You guys made it to the AFC Championship, okay? You guys are down eight. All right? You guys are down eight. You're on the eight-yard line going in. Your quarterback, Justin Herbert, just had an MVP career. There's about two minutes left.

What are we doing? It's fourth down. Are we kicking the field goal? Are we letting Herbert go out there and get there? Are we weighing the options? This is just a hypothetical, by the way. We just kind of drew it up out of nowhere. What is the idea there? And as an analytics guy, does that make you more aggressive, you think?

Or does it make you more like, what do you think the analytics do in the decision-making process? Number one, I just love this whole hypothetical. You just got your creativity right now, where your imagination is. It's cold. It seems like it's cold, baby. Yeah. It seems like it's a little cold, you know? I also like the fact that this is kind of like a rhetorical question because, like, you already know the answer. So I think that that's kind of a cool thing. But with a couple of days of hindsight, number one, you know, man, like, just there's a bunch of different directions that you could go there.

You know, and I think I understand exactly why Matt did that. But I think that I think this, Pat, you know, if you believe in your quarterback, you believe in your guys, you know, you got to give them a chance, you know, to to compete there. And then, you know, if you don't get it, they got 92 yards to go. Certainly that's going to change their thought process offensively being backed up, even with a guy like Tom Brady. You know, hopefully, you know, your defense with three timeouts in the two minute, hopefully you can, you know, get it done if it doesn't go down for you. And then you still have field position on your side, you know. In hindsight, it's always 2020. It's going to happen to you throughout your entire career. It's going to be us saying it, by the way. It's going to be like, hey, Coach Day, what the hell is he doing?

Hindsight's always. I told my wife Amy, I said, get ready for it now. I said, get ready. By the way, it's all fake. It's all bullshit. None of it's personal. It's all just, that was a bad decision. The analytics, though, do you think that will make you more aggressive?

Because we see more people going for it on fourth and shorts instead of punting in the past there's a lot more go for do you think that is the analytic side of things kind of uh showing its face i think the probability is is big you know i think that when you just talk you know when you really study the way this movement has gone i think pat in the last five to seven years, I think that really it boils down to, you know, being a poker player, being a chess master, you know, and you trying to, you know, have this strategy that's literally going to give you a better chance, you know, to win. And so, as you know, like that's becoming such a big part of the game, but then there's that, that feel, that context, you're on the field, living it. And, you know, there's that part of the game too, that a lot of people don't understand that it's a balance of both.

If it was all one thing or another, everybody would be doing it. It's the balance that you've got to create, and that's certainly what we're going to try and create here with the Chargers. Are you a good card player? Do you play cards? Never. But one of my favorite movies of all time is Rounders. Oh! You play cards? Never. I love, but one of my favorite movies of all time is Rounders. Oh!

You know, like, that's like one of my, you know, sort of staple movies. It's kind of like, you know, I feel like Define Me. So, yeah. Mike McD is one of, you know, my favorite movies of all time. Are you going to be a, are you a big talk guy, like night before game, before game? Are we given a run-through-the-wall type situation? Or is it like, for instance, Jim Caldwell, I had an opportunity to play for a team that he was the head coach of.

After games, it was, hey, business. We did business. Peyton was quarterback and everything like that. And before the game, it was like business. But that was an older team, right? I think it was kind of like an older team I was uh just kind of dropped in to that squad and then Chuck every once in a while Chuck would have like a little bit of a feel on where the team's at and he would give a little bit what do you think you kind of go towards more in your career thus far and how do you think that's going to go going forward I think the

closer you get to the game you got to make it a more peaceful situation for your players because you know if you're doing it right uh during the week i think the closer you get to the game the more your players got to be at ease so i'm not big on you know wearing the guys out as the game gets closer you know to me like if i when i was playing and you know all the players hit I've been fortunate to coach uh they don't want to be worn out before this game they want their mind clear to go compete they got enough to worry about and you know it's kind of like hey coach I got you I love you leave me alone so uh I think uh the closer at least my philosophy is hey get your

work done at the beginning of the week and as you get to the end of the week, hey, man, this game's about the players. So I like to talk about peace a lot. I want it to be calm for these guys so they can go compete like crazy. Well, that's, by the way, peace and happiness and positive is Aaron Rodgers' mantra this season. He just threw 40-some in less than five interceptions, by the way. Not a bad play over there in Los angeles uh ty what do you got coach pat alluded to it earlier about how everyone was saying that the chargers job was probably the the best one going into the off season but there are a lot of people that were also saying it was maybe one of the least desirable

with patrick mahomes in the division did you did hit did he cross your mind at all when you were making the decision or was it just like again you know there's a lot of possibility here yeah i think you know you kind of hit it but i think this guys you know when you're a competitor um you're not really worried about anybody else you know you're just worried about you know your situation i think great competitors aren't driven by what's going on with anybody else and you know uh you know today we all know in the city of los angeles you know with kobe bryant i think that that guy um embodies that more than anybody you know uh kobe bryant wasn't worried about anybody i know the guys that i look up to michael jordan a rafa nadal who's a kind of like i love him like they're not worried about the competition and neither are we we're just

interested in getting this program started the right way and getting to know our guys and the people in this building and um i know that if we do that, then we can compete against anybody. Well, that was awesome, by the way. Rest in peace, Kobe, one year ago today, by the way, absolute legend. Hey, that's an awesome mindset, by the way. I'm pretty excited to see what your team does over there. Like, I am very excited to see you and tom seem like a great tag team tom tolesko i mean did you know him previously to this uh hiring and what will that be like is it what's the the the what's the future look like for the way you two kind of do business together i think i you know i always respected him from afar you know i worked at john carroll and he's kind of a john carroll guy but we had never really we had never met in person you know i was, I was in the division one year in Denver when he was here, but, uh, you know,

I just think we knew a lot of similar people, uh, but it never really connected in person, but I had always, you know, admired what he accomplished with, with the Colts, you know, with Bill Pullian, who's the guy that I have the utmost respect for, uh, building that team over that many years and just a hall of famer, you know, Bill's a guy that I just have so much respect for. And then, you know, you always, you know, have respect for how somebody was trained and so learning from him and then being able to take, you know, this team and the transition. And, you know, if all you got to do is look at our team, you know, the type of players we have, I think, and over his whole time here, being able to create a team that's competed and

certainly, you know, all the guys that we have right now are a good example of his ability to evaluate. And, you know, I'm really excited about that partnership because he's a great man, as you know, just the type of character that he has and the type of capacity. You know, that's how you get it done in life is you join up with people that have both of those things. And, you know, we're excited to get going.

Yeah, Tom's awesome. He's the reason I made it in the NFL. I probably shouldn't have, so I'm very thankful for him you play tennis you play tennis you talked about rafa you play tennis yeah huge tennis guy um ping pong one of those maybe you could help me help me with it i i gotta see this guy play before he gets done you know so the head coach of the chargers dude you're gonna be able to do whatever the hell you want yeah don't you worry about that i'm not gonna help you with that you're the head coach of the chargers dude go watch them play go watch them put more people man you know like people are watching you now i know it's stupid to be honest

how many people are watching at this point i do not deserve it we do not deserve it but we're cool with it but do you play ping pong you know yeah a little bit yeah i mean hey listen i'm sending you an oculus like i played all the sports i mean i was one of these guys my twin brother my younger Do you play ping pong? You know, yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, hey, listen. I'm sending you an Oculus. Like, I played all the sports. I mean, I was one of these guys. My twin brother, my younger. We played. We did it all.

You know, I mean, you name it. That's what we were doing. My parents were like, hey, get out and go compete. Figure it out. Learn. You know, that's how we were kind of brought up. I'm going to send you the Oculus. Okay, the Oculus.

You don't have a lot of time right now. Whatever, everything slows down. We can play ping pong against each other. It's real in there. It's like a virtual reality game, and you play ping pong against people. I've been having a blast. You can buy your own, actually. You just became a head coach.

Whenever you get it, let me know. Connor, what do you have? Coach, when you were a D coordinator with the Rams last year, you guys played the Seahawks three times, and DK Metcalf just came out and said they were too predictable on offense. Was that something you guys saw in film study and ultimately helped you guys win in the playoffs? And does that happen on a regular basis in the NFL?

It seems like that's happened a couple times now. That conversation's happening. Like Lamar came out and said that the other team was predicting them in the middle of the season. DK just came out and said something. Is that something that happens in the middle of the season. DK just came out and said something. Is that something that happens in the NFL? And how do you stop that from happening to your team? Yeah, I think, you know, guys, I think that, number one, that DK Metcalf guy,

man, so defending him three times was a real pleasure. You know, very stressful. And so his game is just taking off. So, number one, you know, a lot of respect for DK. But, you know, I think. I think this, guys, I think every I think it's so competitive in the league and games like that happen. I think that, you know, what you got to be able to say going into a game is, hey, we're not going to let DK Metcalf take the top off this coverage. You know, I mean, you got to decide in every game, how are you going to go down? And I know that we weren't going to go down with DK Metcalf, you know, you know, launching a 65 yard touchdown over our head. Like that wasn't,

you know, sort of our plan, you know? So I just think that, you know you know, I think it's tough in this league and, and, you know, I think guys like DK, what he's going to discover is, you know, like a Julio Jones and like a Mike Evans, all these great players, they're going to be different ways that they've got to beat you. With DK, he's so explosive. I think most of the league is probably saying what we did. Okay, got you.

That was like such a compliment to T.Y. Hilton. When T.Y. became the guy that they were shifting coverages to after Reggie kind of left, I know it kind of sucked for T.Y., obviously, because all of a sudden his game production went down for a couple. Everybody's like, is T.Y. dead? And it's like, oh, no, T.Y.'s the guy now. He's the guy that's getting covered. That's a big deal in the NFL.

Excited to see what D.K. does. Also very excited to see what you do in Los Angeles. You've been awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Coach. Thank you, Pat. It's been awesome. Hey, go see the guy play. You're the head coach of the Chargers. Hey, global pandemic, there are a lot of issues, but that is a goal of mine.

I'm telling you, that's a goal of mine. Ten-year anniversary coming up. Maybe we can get that done, Amy and I. What are you going to wear? Are you going to wear gonna wear the headband you're gonna do the whole thing whenever you go out there see i'm disappointed that he left like the cutoff and the capris like that's like the old rafa like i kind of hope that at the end he goes back to it like that would be amazing because i feel like i've been with him the whole the whole way you know like yeah so i will say you're the first diehard rafa fan we've ever had on this show

man i'm appreciative of that hopefully we get you connected to him we'll make some calls we'll make some calls in a tennis community coach uh ladies and gentlemen brandon staley everyone wants to keep their home and family safe whether it it's from a break-in, a fire, flooding, or a medical emergency, SimpliSafe Home Security delivers award-winning 24-7 protection. With SimpliSafe, you don't just get an arsenal of cameras and sensors, you get the best professional monitors in the business. They've got your back day and night, ready to send police, fire, or EMTs when you need them most straight to your door.

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and did a backflip off of that thing in celebration and then following being crowned the winner cut a promo afterwards calling out every other person in his division he spent 11 years at bellator his first fight in the ufc he knocks a man out the new king of the division, ladies and gentlemen, Michael Chandler. What's up? Hey, your promo was fantastic. You know that. I know that.

I'm pumped you delivered it, though, whenever you're a little bit tired and in beautiful fashion, Michael. Thank you. Yeah, you never quite know how those things are going to come out, man. You just get done with the craziest rollercoaster of your life. For me, even more so because it was my first fight in the UFC, the biggest stage I could ever ask for, co-main event of a Conor McGregor pay-per-view. And had to make it happen, and we did.

Hey, you delivered not only in the fight but in the promo. It hit the Internet running, by the way, as soon as it gets going. Anytime somebody can do that, especially with what you're talking about, the rollercoaster of emotion, to bring it all back together and put together a very coherent, very entertaining, very direct shot at a lot of people is a beautiful thing,

all the while draped in the American flag. Congrats on a magical moment. I assume you'll never forget it. 11 years in Bellator. Is that right? I was talking to Ariel Hawani this morning uh he'll be joining the show on friday by the way just everything in his life has crashed so the buffalo bills lost you know connor lost after a sit-down interview with him i mean that's a whole conversation but i was talking with him he said that whenever you became a free agent in the fight game it was

a big deal because normally guys don't become free agents and there was places that were thinking about get you you come to the ufc was the dream all along to get to the ufc because normally people go ufc bellator right i don't think i know everything to come up through from strike force through bellator to get to ufc this long journey was this always the goal and did you think it was did you ever give up and think that it wasn't going to happen? Yeah, you know, I guess it was more like we alluded to again. It was kind of an emotional roller coaster. You know, I had a phenomenal career with Bellator, very comfortable, very predictable. Truthfully, I was, you know, one of the faces of Bellator, if not the face of Bellator. I was kind of their homegrown talent, their indispensable asset. And that's what I always tried to make myself. Number one, put on great

performances. Number two, be a great employee. And things always work out well. It just got to the point where I always thought about the 40-year-old me, the 45-year-old me when I'm done and retired. And I just pictured myself laying my head on what would feel like a cinder block every single night. If I did not make that jump to the UFC and test myself against the cream of the crop, the highest level guys, the best guys in the world, and give myself the opportunity to become the number one lightweight on the planet, which I truly believe that I am. But it was just lip service unless I actually made the jump. So I had the opportunity to fight out my contract, did fight out my contract,

had offers from four organizations, all the major organizations. Obviously, the UFC was where I wanted to be because you can't just say you're the best lightweight in the world. You've got to go out there and prove it. So that's what I did. September, I signed. October, I had the backup for the world title fight right away because a couple guys said no. And then finally we got the fight with Dan Hooker,

who was the number six lightweight in the world. Now I've staked my claim, like you said, called everybody out, put everybody on notice, and we're heading to the top in 2021. It was awesome. Is the roster at UFC in the lightweight division one of the reasons why, obviously, you had to pick UFC, not only because it's UFC, but that roster is, what, littered with talent, right? I mean, I just watched Cormier in Ariel Hawani.

They put something out on Ariel Hawani's Instagram where basically Cormier was designing what he thought should be a tournament, almost, for the title or the vacated title or whatever. They're going to do that with that whole thing. I mean, that is a – just in your promo alone,irier conor mcgregor khabib if he comes in fights for his 30th fight uh you compliment him in your promo too so you obviously have a lot of respect for him and his style and everything like that but i mean that is a that is a big ticket those are numerous big ticket fights that has to that had to have gone into your mind and now that you're going to

get those is that change anything will those, does that change anything? Does that change anything about how you train? At this point, do you know your exact system on how you'll fight or anything? What's the process behind that? Yeah, so essentially, kind of like I alluded to, Bellator is a phenomenal organization, but they don't have the depth. You're not considered the best lightweight in the world if you are the Bellator world champion. I knew I needed to come over to the ufc i knew it was a

murderer's row it is the deepest division in the in the world in the ufc it's the most electrified most hyped up most energized division obviously anchored by conor mcgregor um the biggest combat sports superstar on the planet and uh i wanted the opportunity to fight those guys and truthfully pat the reason also that i that i made this move was i've trained all over the world i've trained from east coast to west coast and everywhere in between and i live a championship lifestyle that is just different and levels above every other guy that i think gal that i've ever trained around i was training for my Bellator World title fights or even contender title fights in Bellator that didn't have the clout like we just saw on Saturday night.

But I was training as if I was fighting the number one guy in the world. So how do you live a championship lifestyle, do everything, you know, in my mind I do everything right and I deserve to be talked about with the best light wits in the world. Yet I didn't have the opportunity to fight those guys and step inside the arena with them. So I had to make the jump. That's why I did it. I left relative certainty with Bellator. I left a great contract. I left predictability. I knew I was going to fight twice a year, be the poster boy, live a comfortable life. But man, you cannot grow in comfortable scenarios. I want to live my life out on the fringes outside

of my comfort zone in order to get everything that God has given me and get to the top of the division, get to the top of the world and get every ounce of talent that God gave me since I was a small child and just a small kid from a small town who picked himself up by his bootstraps just like my mom and dad, right outside of St. Louis, Missouri. And I've been all over the world, and now it's time to go out there and stake my claim as the best lightweight in the world. What? Oh, yeah!

Hey, I thought there was two to three different endings there, and each one of them just continued to talk themselves. The bootstraps. I'm going to keep you on your toes. I literally stood up in the middle of that. I mean, mean i was getting ready to go and then it just kept going that's so you you're the old you don't have to get ready if you stay ready is is that something so you don't really have fight camps you're just like almost always in shape and then you just have to change your strategy for whoever you're gonna fight you've never had a sandwich or a pizza no i haven't had a carb since 1993 so so do the math i don't know

i do stay ready man it's it's just easy for me you know this isn't a job it's it's you know you you did it you're an athlete like you know you got to train but man what what we get to do people buy tickets for people people wake up in the morning they put on their their pat mcafee jersey just to go watch the game man like now people are buying my merch and they're they're now they're gonna buy pay-per-views to watch me fight i am living an absolute dream so i've been given so many great gifts so many great abilities and to give anything less than my best every single day man man, I'm just squandering those gifts. And I know, just like you could say, Pat, like eventually someday I'm going to take off those gloves for the last time and be in some arena somewhere and about to shower and be done with my career. I'm going to have to look in the mirror at myself and ask myself honestly and truthfully, Michael, did you give give everything you possibly could with these talents that you were given so i got 365 days a year uh for the next five years or so

to get everything i possibly can and man now the sky's the limit uh literally and figuratively i will never do a backflip off the cage like that again it was probably a bad idea ill-advised yet entertaining but i'm not here for a long time. I'm here for a good time. Okay, love the quote. Love that. That's what life's all about, by the way. I will say, it looked like you were very comfortable.

I mean, you got on top of that. By the way, jabbed at his sternum overhand right. I do that in the Oculus Arena every night. There's no chance of me getting punched in the actual face. But that is what I go with every single time. It was beautiful. And you got to the top of that cage quicker than I think I've ever seen anybody else get to the top.

You got up there as if you were a cat. Was it just natural instinct there? And who did you say didn't like it? Oh, Dana White. He got on the Post-Fi press conference, and he's like, does anybody effing hate the backflips as much as I hate the effing backflips? This guy, the kid finally gets his opportunity in the UFC. It looks like he's going to blow out his knees, his ankles, his spine.

And I was like, that's a bad idea. But, man, listen. Great fucking form, though. Hey, look at that form. Hey, that's what the kids are calling full send. Full send. And right there, it was at that moment right there on that picture where I was like, okay, this is either, either the greatest celebration of all time or the, the, the most

ridiculous sports eventual funeral that anybody will ever see live on pay-per-view. So, uh, either way, we're here to talk about it and I'm blessed to be on your show. Okay. Well, I'm pumped. You're here too. too um were you always just a guy heavy hand because you were a wrestler right you you wrestled at missouri alongside ben askren i believe you guys were on the same team somewhere i was at missouri and tyron yep and tyron woodley they were like my big brothers they were really the reason i got into mixed martial arts oh so that that wrestling room there was pretty insane it seems like that was yeah i would fathom. Those practices that people don't get to see,

I assume there's some legendary stories out of that operation? Oh, big time, man. Yeah, I mean, I didn't throw my first punch when I got into MMA. We'll put it that way. There's always five guys behind you nipping at your heels trying to take your spot. So you got to, you know, there was punches thrown. And, man, it was just the wrestling mentality. It's a hard nose, in-your-face, blue-collar, balls-to-the-wall,

nonstop pace at all times. And that's what we did, Tiger-style wrestling. And it served me well inside the cage. And so, yeah, I started out as a wrestler. But, man, like I said, man, I've been given some great gifts. I feel like I got lightning in both hands. Usually knock guys out with the right hand because I'm right-handed, but been kind of expanding my repertoire, if you will,

and I knocked out my last two guys with the left hand. So just getting more dangerous, man, and can't be happier. Well, I'd say, by the way, I got lightning in both hands. It's an awesome thing to be able to say. Okay, that is an awesome thing to be able to say okay that is an awesome thing to be able to say shout out to you are you gonna uh are you gonna start trying to build like a um I guess like a shield around your your right calf because uh what Poirier uh Poirier Poirier did to Conor McGregor's leg there are you is that something that you see somebody else does

and you go oh yeah yeah see that would be a pain in the ass if that happened to me and then you to Conor McGregor's leg there? Is that something that you see somebody else does, and you go, oh, yeah, yeah, see, that would be a pain in the ass if that happened to me, and then you have to start prepping? Is that something that you automatically pick up, even if a fight isn't scheduled against him, but that's something you think, okay, this is something I do have to figure out at some point? Yeah, it's one of those things, man. You talk about getting crushed in the face, crushed to the body.

You talk about all these big, all these big time impacts that we make. It's like being in a car crash at all times inside that cage. But these little calf kicks, it's called a calf kick. You obviously aim below the knee between the ankle and the knee. And as strong as strong as your legs are, that calf muscle, those couple little calf muscles are dainty muscles and they're so important and essentially your whole base your whole body depends upon being able to those those muscles working at the right time those muscles firing and not stiffening up so what Poirier did to Conor was was it wasn't hurting him uh from a pain standpoint but it immobilized him and immediately took him off of his game.

So, yes, it's something that I do practice a lot. And actually, in my fight against Dan Hooker, he's a long guy, freaking six foot tall. I look like a midget out there fighting him. And he threw his long legs, threw a bunch. He opened up with a bunch of low calf kicks. And me and my coach, Henry Hoop, have trained this a lot because guys see my low stance, my wide stance,

my wrestler stance, short legs, and guys will target them. So it's something I have worked on. It's something that I'm willing to eat a couple to be able to throw and land some big punches, as you saw on Saturday night. And it's something that I work on, something I will be ready for if and when Dustin Poirier and I share that octagon together for the lightweight gold. Sorry, I don't know as much as I should about your style of fighting. You got lightning in your feet, too? I don't. I know you do.

I was going to say, I give you a little thunder down there. See, the funny thing about me is i actually hate kicks because i do have short legs and most of the time the problem is god didn't create bones to crash against other bones without negative impact right so when i throw a kick nine times out of ten i end up falling short and crushing my toes on someone's knee yeah hurting myself more than i hurt them so i just try to stay away from kicks all together they don't work for me I'm just going to throw hands as hard as I possibly can until the ref pulls me off that's like that's brilliant by the way that's like in football whenever you try to go punch for a fumble and I tried this one time it worked one time got cocky tried it again I punched a guy right

in his elbow so hard so hard I just was like oh my god i'm not doing that ever again i'm done for that thing because when you're kicking with your leg aren't you hitting them with your actual shin isn't that like a kick mitrione kicked me one time all right because i wanted i trained down there a couple times like two times he tapped me out four times in a minute broke both my arms i didn't understand any of it but i was like i feel like i could probably be a pretty good kick you know i feel like i could probably give a good kick or whatever and i was kicking the bag with like my foot or whatever and he was like don't kick it with your foot move up use your shin or whatever and he stood in front

of me he was like here ready and he goes how do you how's this feel and he hit me with his foot and i was like yeah not good and then he hit me with the shin right, it almost dropped me like immediately. So you're kicking like with your shin. Is that what you guys are kicking with? Not that you do, but the guys that are kicking, are they kicking each other with their shins? Yeah. What's the deal?

In a perfect world, yeah, you want to take that shin bone and hit it right in the belly of the muscle. But as we said, nine times out of ten, I end up really botching it in front of millions of people so i just i just decided to stay away from it uh but yeah matt mitchell is a friend of mine we trained together down in florida uh and a guy like him he's got a little bit longer legs and he's very mobile for uh for a heavyweight but it's always a moving target too that's the problem you're like you get zoned in you get the beat on them and then all of a sudden they move and then you just really regret it about

90 of the way you realize okay this one's falling short and this one's gonna hurt uh do you know obviously you called out connor and dustin have you met them and what are relationships like pre-fights because you saw dustin and connor actually have a moment uh with the hot sauce beforehand and then sometimes you see fights where it's very contentious what are the relationships like normally because I always find it so interesting that you guys have the ability to flip the switch between sport and reality and whenever you're getting punched in the face by somebody and somebody's trying to knock you out and everything and then dancing on your grave like and then you guys have the ability to flip that off and be like uh thank you have a good one like i have i have a lot of respect for that

is it like that after fights before fights like what is is there any interaction normally between fighters yeah so i mean you know we we had a press conference and it was actually a really cordial pretty positive press conference to be honest with you um i i sat right next to dustin poirier before weigh-ins, just chopping it up. Because it's funny, before the fight, after the fight, he's a man, he's a human being, he's a father, he's a husband. They're guys that I respect. I mean, you've got to respect anybody who does what we do for a living and puts our bodies through what we do for a living. But when that cage door closes and it's time to compete, he doesn't have a soul,

he doesn't have a brain, he doesn't have anything. He's got two arms, two legs, and it's time to compete he doesn't have a soul he doesn't have a brain he doesn't have anything he's got two arms two legs and he's got a couple targets on him and you're there to do a job he's just another guy between you and put putting food on the table for your family um yeah this is a very cordial kind of uh experience you saw connor and dustin chopping it up i sat next to connor at the press conference first time that i met him um and it's nice too you see these guys on TV. You see them on the Internet. You know, you size them up from afar, but when they're there in the flesh, it's much easier to get a beat on them, and it humanizes them a little bit.

You kind of realize, okay, I can pick this guy up and slam him on his neck. You know, I can do some damage to this guy, right? You know, realizing that Connor's got some really great photographers around him to make him look seven foot tall and a really huge guy. And he's not, not as big as, as I thought he was. Not that he's not a great athlete and not that he's not a decent size for a lightweight, but it just, it humanizes them. Right. But all in all, man, I come from the wrestling, the wrestling background where, you know, you got 28 guys in your bracket, you're weighing in next to them. You're, you're eating next to them before you go wrestle with them.

You see them. You pass them in the hallways. You freaking end up at the urinal next to them. And you're like, dang, okay, I got to wrestle that guy here soon. You know, you just, you get used to it. Like, to me, it doesn't matter. Me being friends, not friends, but me being friendly with you, me showing you respect is not going to hinder my performance,

nor decrease my chances of going out there and taking your head off so i prefer to just you know be cordial i'm a pretty positive guy pretty joyful guy i don't need to go around me mugging people that's kind of my demeanor okay so you just said a lot of awesome things there obviously by the way seems to be a pretty regular thing for you which is also awesome good for you the um whenever Whenever you said you got a chance to see him and it humanized him a little bit, that happens in the football world too, right? With the Patriots, everybody talks about the mystique of things. Whenever there's like a mystique and then you get a chance to see, you're like, oh, okay. Those people poop the same way I do. Okay. It does kind of have that situation. I've always wondered whenever you guys have that, um, this stare down or whatever the hell it is. And I assume that's just for photos, but it feels like there is a

little bit of like, uh, are you, are you sizing it? Cause at that point you already have your plan for what you're going to do, right? Whenever you're doing that, is there anything happening in that aside from just a photography moment or is there real potential gamesmanship happening in there at all? For me, no. For a lot of guys, there is. I truly think that Conor McGregor uses those opportunities and has used those opportunities every single time to stare into a guy's soul. You know, he always does a thing.

He puffs out his chest. He takes off his glasses. He stares through your soul. And he kind of just starts mentally breaking you before the fight. For me, I'm just like okay whatever dude we'll take this photo op and then in about a day 48 hours from now i'm gonna go out there and do my job um but you know even even to your point like you know with the patriots yeah i mean we we watch we watch them and they look unbeatable right but then you see them in the flesh and

you're like man these guys put their pants on one leg at a time just like just like i do and and it was the same thing i did when i got done with my fight i wanted to go be cage side and watch connor and poirier because when you watch it on tv you watch it on the internet it looks so much faster so much more violent but then you see it you see it in person 3d it slows it down a little bit and it even human humanizes it even more and you can visualize yourself inside that octagon doing exactly what I did to Dan Hooker to one of those guys. So whenever you're walking around town, are you just thinking, well, not now because there's no humans walking around any towns,

but, you know, when towns are open, when you do have the ability to walk around towns, do you ever just look at somebody and go like, okay, if that person wants to even look at me sideways, I could give a two-piece to the jaw right there. For instance, Jorge Masvidal, whenever he was doing an interview last year at Super Bowl, I think with Rich Eisen,

he said that whenever he sees a fighter or whatever, he sees like an equation, basically, or something like that. I forget how he broke it down, but something like that. Is that how you have to look at guys? Because you said targets. You said they're just two arms and a couple targets. And I assume that changes for every fighter. But is that something you have to do?

Is that the mindset in that whole thing? Yeah, kind of. I mean, truthfully for me, I feel like I have a leg up because I've been well-versed in hand-to-hand combat since I was, you know, 14 years old. Like, cause wrestling, we're not throwing punches. We're not throwing kicks, but my goal is to grab your wrist, grab your head, grab your leg, pick you up, put you down, control your body, break you. So I've been doing that. I did that for, you know, 15 years. Then I started fighting and now it's essentially the same thing, except now we can choke people. We can punch him. We can hit him, uh,, we can hit them with all of our limbs.

But yeah, the body only works certain ways, right? Your knees only bend a certain way. Your arms only bend a certain way. Guys have certain habits, certain tendencies, certain idiosyncrasies in the ways that they move. And they don't usually stray outside of those things. So you're watching film. You're breaking things down, you're maybe listening to their interviews,

you're trying to maybe get inside their mind and maybe how you're going to mentally break them while you're physically breaking them. So there's a lot more in-depth than two dudes just going out there and swinging for the fences. These days especially because as we've seen the sport of mixed martial arts evolve and now you've got a guy like me, I have a college degree, I didn't have to fight, I chose to fight because I believe it was the sport of mixed martial arts evolve, and now you've got a guy like me. I have a college degree.

I didn't have to fight. I chose to fight because I believe it was the calling on my life, and I enjoy doing it. So you're getting a lot more educated people, a lot more people who are living the lifestyle of a martial artist, whereas when the sport started back in the early 90s, it was kind of just barroom brawlers, and the sport has really cleaned itself up a lot Over the last couple of decades

And then Gracie came in And just started breaking people's arms everywhere Excuse me, how you doing? Yeah, that's when And that was back when there was no weight classes So that was back when people started realizing Holy cow, this guy at 170 pounds Just choked out this

370 pound sumo wrestler Maybe size doesn't mean everything you know yeah i do believe that was found out quickly ty what do you got michael pat mentioned it earlier i'm sure uh you've heard that ben askren is going to be fighting uh jake paul how do you think he's going to fare in uh that fight i love it man i wasn't sure if that was going to happen man i just love every great thing that happens to ben askren because ben askren say what you want about him a lot of people don't know him like i know him he's like a big brother to me um he's a guy that i would

consider uh one of my best friends and teammates for life i'm excited about it number one let's be honest ben wasn't ben ben isn't the most talented striker so if you're jake paul you chose the right mixed martial artist to step inside the box but i'm telling you right now i'm telling you right now man don't put don't put uh don't overlook my man ben number one i think it's great because i hope ben's getting paid a grip number two i'm tuning in i might even be there freaking out cage side or boxing ring side wherever the heck it, because that's going to be a fun one. And I think it's awesome. And truthfully, I would never hate on anybody for making a living

and doing what they're doing. The Paul brothers, man, fighting Mayweather and the guy, the basketball player and KSI and all that kind of stuff. It's not real sport necessarily, but it's fun. It's fun to watch. So I guess it's good for the sport. It's entertaining. And you're just going to keep seeing it more and more as the world of combat sports just grows and grows and grows it's something that people want to do you know there's you can't go and watch

ufc 257 this past weekend and watch these performances and watch the the how big these these spectacles are and and what is on the line without without wanting to to taste that a little bit right i truly believe every every man was created uh for an adventure to have a beauty to win and a battle to fight so especially for us as men we all want a battle to fight so um that's why people are drawn to mix martial arts and you're going to see keep seeing more and more of these these big time shows happening. Well, I love it. I can't wait to see what happens there. Ben Askren was on the show, gave us a great interview. He loves

disc golf, that guy. He's ranked in the world in disc golf. Okay. Well, I'm happy his passion is paying off. I mean, it was a great conversation about that whole thing, man. Mike, after 257,

Dana came out and said that Khabib had mentioned to him that he wasn't impressed at all by Conor or Poirier's performances. Have you had any sort of talks behind the scenes? Was Khabib paying attention when you stepped into the octagon for the first time? Man, I hope he was. But yeah, I mean, at the post-fight press conference, I heard Dana saying that Khabib essentially said, Dana, come on, these guys are levels below me. And he's got every right to believe that. Man, the man is 29 and 0 for a reason. He's undefeated. He has looked unbeatable inside that UFC octagon for so many

years. But man, I just, I truly believe that I did do something spectacular that night. I do have a wrestling pedigree that I think can rival his. I do believe that I have a recipe to beat the man, and that's why I wanted to call him out. I think in his quest for 30-0, he's got to beat somebody, so why not me? I truly believe if we step into the cage, he will become 29 in Chandler, and that's what I'm going with. And if he ever does come back, maybe I've got to beat Poirier, get the title defended a couple times to woo him out of retirement.

But either way, the division moves on. The show must go on, with or without Khabib. We don't need you. Sail off into the sunset. Go do your thing. You got a whole country on your back, a whole religion on your back. You are doing some amazing things for your people. Go do your thing.

But don't hold up the division and definitely don't be tweeting about Conor McGregor after the man just stepped inside the arena and lost. don't be tweeting about Conor McGregor after the man just stepped inside the arena and lost. The worst thing that you can do as a man, as a competitor, is when you see one of your foes, one of your former opponents, even if you hate the guy, throw a tweet out there for all the world to see just kind of basically, like Pat said, dancing on his grave and celebrating his falling short. At least the man stepped into the arena. At least the man went out there, wore his heart on his sleeve, and took his L like a man.

So, good riddance if he wants to leave. If he wants to stay, man, I got a two-piece ready for him. 29 and Chandler, by the way. I'm a big fan of that. I'll send you a shirt. Okay. Please do.

You got like four of them here from today. You know, he was swimming against a frozen river. I watched like four of them here from today. You know, he was swimming against a frozen river. I watched a video of him. He wrestled a couple bears over there. Any cool training things that we can start talking about that you have done? Have you

wrestled a bear? Is there any chance? No. First of all, it was a cub. Second of all, it was a trained cub. Third of all, that's just second of all it was a trained cub third of all And it's just some weird thing them Russians do Good old-fashioned passionate American Twisted steel getting out there and getting after him. I don't care. I got some weights. I'm gonna throw around I got some bodies in the wrestling room. I pick them up and I put them down. That's all I got

I do some backflips here and there that's about it. So Khabib can take his bare wrestling and do whatever he wants with it. But it doesn't interest me. Hey, man, this has been an incredible conversation. I appreciate you so much. I hope we get a chance to chat again whenever, as you ascend this UFC ladder like you did Bellator for all those years. Of course, man. Yeah, holler at me.

I'm always down, man. Big fan of the show. My brother Eric watches it religiously. He always talks about it. He always said, man, of course man yeah holler at me i'm always down man big fan of the show uh my brother eric watches it religiously he always talks about it he always said man you haven't made it until you get on the pat mack no man no no no no that's not the way he called me hey they said the ufc called me and said pat mack if he wants to talk to you and i said oh man that that means a lot i appreciate that tell eric we said what's up as well And by the way If he's watching What's up We assume

That the reason Why you're on the show And why everything You just said there Is bullshit Is because once you Get way up there It's going to be hard

For us to get to you It's going to be hard For us to get to you Yeah it is You're going to be You got lightning You got lightning In your hands

I'm going to text your producer You're right You're right But I'm going to Use my hands And I'm going to text your producer. I'm going to send you my number. Perfect.

You'll have my phone number, so I'll hop on whenever. Bang! Let's go! Ladies and gentlemen. Let's go! Michael Jansen. Hey, he was awesome. Yes.

Yeah. He was absolutely awesome. Electric. That was electric. Walks in the cage. Doesn't have a soul. Doesn't have a brain. Just two on each couple targets. Electric. That was electric. Walks in the cage. Doesn't have a soul. Doesn't have a brain. Just two on each couple targets.

Wild. Just flip the switch and then just walking about the rest of us. He's just walking amongst us by the way. Never know. Hey. That was a trained bear. Yeah.

Cut. Hey, that was a trained bear. Cubs, Cubs, Cubs, Cubs. Can't thank you enough for choosing to join us today. Obviously, massive thanks to Michael Chandler. Yep. Great conversation with him. Big thanks to Brandon Staley, new head coach of the Los Angeles Rams. Yeah, he was great. Great conversation.

I think they're going to do what? Or Los Angeles Chargers, sorry, just got hired from the Los Angeles Rams I think he's gonna do a great job over there seems like a type of coach I would want to play for and then obviously big shout out Aaron Rodgers yeah absolutely also big shout out to you like I said I mean just being able to ask him questions all season during a year when he wins MVP I I mean, thank you very much. That was fucking awesome. We all won here. We all won here.

Very thankful for Aaron. We'll be back tomorrow. Big show tomorrow. Huge show tomorrow. Hey, listen. Subscribe, rate, and review this show. Tomorrow's show, huge, man. Yeah, maybe even bigger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. All right, that's the show. We'll be back tomorrow. Be a friend, tell a friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. All right. That's the show. We'll be back tomorrow. Be a friend, tell a friend. Ty, please play some independent music and propel these people into a beautiful Aaron Rodgers Tuesday. I'm a I'm a I'm a

I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a

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