The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 573 - Mike Rupp, Ian Rapoport, General Bob Carpenter, Michael Lombardi, & The Birthday Celebration For AJ Hawk

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

On today's show, Pat, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about the unfolding Antonio Brown situation in Tampa Bay, Bruce Arians comments responding to the whole situation, and when we'll ultimately see a resolution in this situation. They also celebrate AJ Hawk's birthday with the Ohio State alumni marching band and General Bob Carpenter. Also joining the show is Stanley Cup Champion, co-host of That's Hockey Talk, NHL Network analyst, and friend of the program, Mike Rupp. Rupper breaks down who is good in the NHL right now, why we'll be watching more hockey soon, and he tells some hilarious stories from his time in the league (23:21-50:40). Next, NFL Network Senior Insider, Ian Rapoport joins the show for his weekly wrap up to chat about the Antonio Brown situation and if he could ultimately play for another team this season, and what else we should be looking at as we approach the playoffs (1:10:15-1:37:49). Later, former Cleveland Browns GM, Special Assistant to the coaching staff for the New England Patriots, best selling author, host of the GM Shuffle podcast, friend of the progrum, Michael Lombardi joins the show to chat about the NFL as we head into the playoffs, the issues with the voting for MVP and other awards, who he see's making it to the Super Bowl from the NFC and AFC, and why the New York Giants need an intervention (1:55:08-2:25:23). 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 Thursday, January 6th, 2022. Happy birthday to A.J. Hawk. Big thank you to you all for allowing us to be a part of your day here. Ian Rappaport joins us. A.J. Hawk joins us. Mike Rupp joins us. Michael Lombardi joins us. The boys are on fire.

Let's have a day. If you enjoy the show, by the end of it, please be a friend, tell a friend. If not, just act like it never happened. Let's get to it. Brouching the last week of the regular season of the NFL Thursday, January 6th. But it ain't about that. Although that harsh reality smacked me right in the mouth earlier when at-busting Connor of the Toxic Table came over to me with a very straight face,

with a hilarious mustache and a flowing mullet. And he said, hey, hey, Bob, there's only six games next weekend. And then it only gets less after that. And we're five weeks away from no football. And I said, holy shit, why are you doing that to me on this particular Thursday? And he said, well, I'm a friend, and you need to recognize that we only have a few more days left of all 32 NFL teams being in the NFL season. We're staring down the offseason. Now the postseason, the playoffs is going to be absolutely electrifying with super wild

card weekend, adding a Monday night football game. It's going to be spectacular, especially because that weekend is going to be a same game parlay holiday for FanDuel. So it's going to be one last big time run with the most amount of games, most amount of teams, most amount of people available to bet on same game parlay. I think they're going to be giving back like 50% of the money bet on same game parlay.

Whoa. I think I'm not 100% sure. There's once again, these are the things that go in. And speaking on that note, if the tweet that we just received from a guy that works for The Citizen or something like that, Robert Harding, big news, mobile sports betting platforms can begin operating at 9 a.m. Saturday in New York. CC at us.

That's 1158 a.m. We literally just saw that tweet six minutes ago. Had a completely different way To start this entire show Saw the tweet Said Zito Pull that son of a bitch up Let's go New York

Welcome to the show New York Let's go Now obviously New York City Is a massive place With a lot of incredible people And it's very dense And there's a lot of people That have been betting

Probably for a long time With bookies on a quarter of incredible people, and it's very dense, and there's a lot of people that have been betting probably for a long time with bookies on a quarter, fifth, and blah, blah, blah. That's right. But all the way up there in Buffalo, Bill's Mafia, ready to go, who's been living by the same rules as everybody else down there in a much different world. Upstate New York, the entire state of New York, we can't welcome you fast enough, quick enough, and big enough.

Welcome to the Fan Duel Show. We are so happy you are here. It is time to make some money because this NFL season is wrapping up quickly. And there's a lot of storylines, and there's a lot of situations and scenarios that are still to be figured out. We will watch along this weekend with absolute awe of the greatness of the best league in the world. And it is something you should think about when you look in the mirror

and say, you know what? There was a time when there was no NFL football. And that time is ticking closer and closer. Yes, it is. Dark time. Yes, it is. I didn't even think about it. I've been riding the wave of this NFL season.

Who's doing what? Who's going where? Where's the Super Bowl? Oh, is it in LA or is it now in Dallas? Ooh, Texas? We'll talk to Ian Rappaport in about an hour about that. What's the inside information in the NFL? Because there is now a conversation about whether or where the Super Bowl is supposed to be.

But my Verona might move that thing to Dallas, Texas, because Jerry said we ain't losing any bucks. Hey, you know what? Let's go down to Texas. Well, I know the one half of the hammer. God. Cowboys at Tone Diggs, who's in the middle of getting into the best shape of his life

so that at Super Bowl Radio Row, we look yoked. Yoked! Not everyone's participating. That's their loss. Yeah, that's right. At Ty Schmidt here, one half of the toxic table, eating four chocolate chip cookies this morning and a couple quarter pounds of cheese. Hey, you hit the Peloton.

You can do that. Oh, so you're doing the Kurt Warner method. I'm playing basketball, doing all this cardio, so I can eat like shit. Boom, thank you. And then you'll get a movie made after you that is awesome. Yeah. Get my own American underdog. Hell yeah.

Yeah, you are an American underdog. Thank you. I appreciate that. But anyways, a lot going on here. Congrats to New York. Can't thank you all enough for joining us on this No Thursday Night Football Thursday, January 6th. We'll have Mike Rupp join us, Stanley Cup champion and host of That's Hockey Talk in about 13 minutes or so. He moved his chiropractor appointment for this.

Good guy. Rupps! He had a chiropractor appointment. He had to get that big lumbering goon body in the shape. And he moved it back 30 minutes so he could have a chat with us because a lot of things are happening in the hockey world as well, which is what we have to start looking at now because once again, 18th week of the regular season, which is the last week of the regular season, is just a few days away.

Thank you for the extra week, though. Thank you, NFL. Thank you, players, for sacrificing your body for one more game. Thank you, the NFL PA and the NFL eventually, inevitably agreeing to have 18 games because of the amount of money that is being added with just one more extra game.

And although the bodies aren't going to be able to make it of all the NFL players, thank you to everybody for making the decision to make it a 17-game season. Thank you, 18-game season. You guys did great. I think we properly thanked everybody. I think we did too.

We had to. Let's talk about a player that's injured. And we're learning more and more about an injury as the days roll on here. There is a scene brewing down in Champa Bay Q Gronkineer country. Just less than 12 months removed from a Super Bowl being won in Tampa Bay by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tom Brady and Mike Greenberg and Jason Light

and Bruce Arians bringing the entire team back, signing everybody, including A.B., who actually posted on a Tampa Bay Buccaneer Instagram after Tampa Bay Buccaneers Instagram flex that we brought all 22 starters back from the Super Bowl winning team. Somebody else go ahead and figure out if that's ever been done before. Good luck. AB actually puts under there, sign AB. So they bring AB back. AB's back in the fold. Bruce Arian so much so says, actually

you know, whenever we first brought him on the team last year before we won the Super Bowl, I was, you know, hey, if he slips up at all, he's gone. I've had history with him. I'm not, actually the first time it was mentioned, he said, I've done the AB ab thing before i don't need to do it again tom brady came in a ba came in they made a decision here we go they bring him back ba said he'd been a model citizen for the buccaneers whenever he got there was the turning of a page a brand new player that's why whenever

the three-week suspension gets enacted for a fake vaccination card in which, you know, BA and them could have, I guess, looked at it as, oh, this son of a bitch lied to us. He didn't lie to us. He jeopardized everybody because he was being treated as a vaccinated player, but he's non-vaccinated. But, I mean, what will hindsight say about the stats on who's missing games in the NFL, especially with Omicron not seeming to give a damn? Now, symptoms much different, different allegedly depending upon who you

listen to cdc dr drew told us symptoms much less if you are vaccinated booster whatever the case he said he was vaccinated was treated as a vaccinated player was not a vaccinated player thought it was going to happen we all assumed that whenever we saw those vaccination cards and we had a friend that maybe made fake ids for back in the day, that it was like, oh, that is going to get duplicated quickly, especially with the modern technology that we currently have. Thought it was going to happen. A lot of trust, though. Everybody, hey, for the good of society, for the good of the world, let's get back into this. The fake vaccination card thing happens.

How did they find out? Well, it's because a chef who lived at his house was pissed off, kind of said some other things. They buried. He gets suspended. a chef who lived at his house was pissed off kind of said some other things they buried he gets suspended then depending upon which report you hear i heard from a source that's not in the building but it's close to people that are in the building and kind of given their depiction on it because i didn't want to jeopardize or put anybody in any situation that is in it because we have close friends in there and i could call and say what the fuck is going on you know but who would

tell the truth who would not i don't want to put them in a compromising position either so i'm talking to people though that they're not scared to put people it sounds right so my sources are telling me hey after that three-week suspension ab did not feel as if he was appreciated or respected enough or they didn't have his back enough he and uh rich stroud of the tampa bay times we've been there for 30 years he backed up that he said he heard the same thing so then now there's a mistrust, it feels like, during that suspension between A.B. and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Whenever I was told the story about what happened on the sideline, I was told conversations happened, and then boom, it blew up.

We still don't know what those conversations are saying. B.A. said that he was never mentioned any ankle injury. There was nothing that B.A. came out and said he didn't want to go in the game, so we didn't want to have him in the game. We'll talk about't want to go in the game. So we didn't have him in the game. Well, we'll talk about the people that are in the game and people that didn't quit or whatever.

Now, A.B. has come out and he has given his side of the story in lengthy posts that are very well written. And actually, when you read through it, you're like,

okay, obviously can't do what you did. But he admits that he's still working on himself, still becoming a better person. He might not have handled it right, but he felt as if he was triggered. Here's the entire message from Antonio Brown. This was posted last night, I believe.

First of all, I'd like to express my gratitude to the Bucs fans and my teammates. So a lot of people immediately start going, the grammatical correctness of this post is top five in the history of the internet by the way this is not anybody saying antonio brown did not write this but i think as you're watching it even has the comma after fans before and i mean you're talking like this is rl style yeah i would not whenever you're watching how this is put together and we read through this is what the internet notice and it's hard not to, there's double space even. I mean, it is a very, it is an incredible message.

The Bucs helped me, but also gives us his perspective. So even if he didn't type it up, he told somebody what happened in his side of the story, so we get a chance to hear it. Whatever the case, people are going to go after players if they put out a statement that contradicts what the people already believe anyway. So I'm not saying AB's right, but the immediate reaction by the people that don't believe AB is, he didn't put this out. There's no way he put this out.

Because there's even indents in the next paragraph that never happens on the internet. I mean, that is just not something that happens. So it is very easy to point out some things that make you go, did AB actually type this out? Or did AB talk to somebody, ghostwriter, they put together his sentiments, why he ended up in there? Let's assume it is the latter. Nonetheless, this is Antonio Brown's side of the whole thing. Yeah, right.

First of all, I'd like to express my gratitude to the Bucs fans and my teammates. The Bucs helped me return to productive football after I had difficulties that could have ended my career. We worked together to resolve those difficulties, and I always appreciate that. Being part of a Super Bowl champion team and then a contender is a dream come true. I make mistakes, I'm working on myself, and I have positive influences around me. But one thing I don't do is shy away from playing hard on the field. No one can accuse me

of not giving it my all every play. Because of my commitment to the game, I relented to pressure directly from my coach to play injured. Despite the pain, I suited up. That staff injected me with what I now know was a powerful and sometimes dangerous painkiller that the NFLPA has warned against using, and I gave it my all for the team. I played until it was clear that I could not use my ankle to safely perform my playing responsibilities. On top of that, the pain was extreme. I took a seat on the sideline and my coach came up to me, very upset,

and shouted, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? I told him, it's my ankle. But he knew that. It was well documented and we had discussed it. He then ordered me to get on the field. I said, coach, I can't. He didn't call for medical attention.

Instead, he shouted at me, you're done. While he ran his finger across his throat. Coach was telling me that if I didn't call for medical attention. Instead, he shouted at me, you're done, while he ran his finger across his throat. Coach was telling me that if I didn't play hurt, then I was done with the Bucs. I didn't quit. I was cut. I didn't walk away from my brothers. I was thrown out. Being fired on the sideline for having a painful injury was bad enough.

Then came their spin. Coach denied on national television that he knew about my ankle. That's 100% inaccurate. Not only did he know I'd missed several games with the injury he and i exchanged texts days before the game where he clearly acknowledged my injury he obviously knew i was on the injury list and the gm acknowledged after the game in text messages to my camp that i did tell coach about my ankle pain on sunday is that the end of it there that's page one yeah now we got to go to the next picture um so he's laying out his side i knew i know we were losing to the jets and that was frustrating

for all of us okay yeah yeah yeah the jets it's the jets come on what if like so let's assume i mean maybe ab did write this not 100 sure he has impeccable grammar, if it was Antonio Brown that did it, and he deserves a lot more credit for that entire thing. But think about whoever was potentially talking to him. We was losing to fucking Jets. It was not good for anybody in that person writing. I know we were losing to

the Jets, and that was frustrating for all of us. I don't even have to play in the NFL, and I know that that was frustrating for everybody. Go ahead, Tony. I think it helps if you picture him walking around sipping a cognac next to a fireplace with a monocle in and the guy's on a typewriter. Okay, and the guy typewriter is punching it in, following

him on a scooter. Phenographer. Yeah, okay, perfect. But I could not make football plays on that ankle. Yes, I walked off the field, but there's a major difference between launching from the line and taking hits compared to jogging off the field with a rush of emotions going through your mind. I'm reflecting on my reaction, but there was a trigger. The trigger was someone telling me that I'm not allowed to feel pain.

I acknowledge my past, but my past does not make me a second-class citizen. My past does not forfeit my right to be heard when I am in pain. First they cut me, now they cage me. Instead of asking how I felt or getting to the bottom of it, the team texted my camp promoting a totally false narrative that I randomly acted out without any explanation. They even told us in writing, don't spin this any other way. I have stress, I have things that I need to work on, but the worst part of this has been the Bucks repeated effort to portray this as a random outburst. They're telling people that first I

walked off, then I was cut. No, no, no. I was cut first and then I went home. They threw me out like an animal and I refused to wear their brand on my body. So I took my jersey off. As part of their ongoing coverup, they're acting like I wasn't cut. Now demanding that I see a doctor of their choice to examine my ankle. What they did not know until now is that on Monday morning, I had an urgent MRI on my ankle. It shows broken bone fragments stuck in my ankle, the ligament torn from the bone and cartilage loss, which are beyond painful. You can see the bone bulging from the outside, but that must and can be repaired. The MRI has been read by two top orthopedic surgeons in New York City, including Dr. Martin O'Malley.

Let's go to the results. Mo! At hospital for special surgery, not realizing that I had already scheduled a surgery at HSS. The Bucks ordered me under penalty of discipline with a few hours notice to show up to a more junior doctor at HSS for another opinion. What a joke. They're playing like I wasn't cut, giving me a surprise attack order to show up to another doctor with no reasonable notice and setting this whole thing up as a basis to cut me because they did on Sunday. What they did on

Sunday was not legitimate. Sorry, GM. I already received a confirming opinion that the top doc at the hospital you ordered me to go to. I love the Bucs fans. I really do. I love my teammates and everyone who showed me grace and believed in me. I gave the Bucs everything I had on the field. What the organization is doing now needs to get cleaned up. I do not understand how people publicly claiming to be concerned about my mental health can do these things to me in private.

Once my surgery is complete, I'll be back to 100% and looking forward to next season. Business gonna be booming. That's a lot of words. That's a very well thought out, hey, this is my side of the whole thing. Now, if you do recall,

Aaron Rodgers, after an off season of getting buried, he sat at a press conference for 45 minutes. A lot of words explained his side. This is Antonio Brown doing the same thing. Once again, do not get distracted by the fact that it probably was not him that typed this whole thing up that immediately is what people are trying to do to illegitimize this entire story and narrative

and he did run a route against the Jets in which he literally burned a guy turned him around cut back very guy fell down basically 14 16 yard whatever it was, and then after that whole thing. So now the conversation revolves around text messages that were released from AB talking to BA. It was a picture of him getting his ankle worked on. Actually, it started out with BA saying, make sure you're ready to go tomorrow. We are not resting for the playoffs.

And then he followed up with a call me. Antonio Brown sends a picture of him getting his ankle worked on and then says I'm all in coach really can't get to full speed I want to win want to be there if I wake up tomorrow feel better I'll be ready kind of rolled it outside on two-point play I want what's best for the team let me know when you're free I'll call you okay Okay, much different typing strategy than what we just read in the entire long thing. But it's a private conversation as opposed to a public announcement.

BA says, come see me in the morning. We'll talk it out. Definitely want you with us in case you're ready. Okay, so I don't know. I didn't know that the narrative was that BA said he didn't know that AB had an ankle injury. Now. said he didn't know that A.B. had an ankle injury. Now, granted, he did say that in the press conference. He said, I didn't know about an injury or whatever.

I think what B.A. was referring to was on the sideline. Everything is about the sideline conversation at this point. But A.B. definitely has photo proof that B.A. knows that his ankle is injured. Now, granted, there's no way BA has any grounds on to stand that he didn't know about the injury at all or existing because AB literally missed like four or three weeks before the three-week suspension so it gets even deeper now so now AB's uh not just you know exposing the conversation he had with BA now he's also exposing the conversation he had with Alex Guerrero and And he said, basically, Tom Brady guy, Alex Guerrero, charging me $100K,

never doing the work on me. How do you even work with people like this? This is what I was dealing with. So then on Friday, December 24th, before the game, obviously, before this all happened, Antonio Brown texting at 6.51 a.m., hey, up early. Working. Working.

Hey, working. Like, legit. That was one of the first things I saw. Like, okay okay he's sending texts at 6 a.m hey ag if uh if we're not going to work anymore that's fine let me know about the 100k i paid you only fair get back half my money let me know how to proceed alex square responds like two hours later good morning ab i appreciate you reaching out to me i completely understand that you want to go in a different direction thank you for the opportunity to work together you are a wonderful person i hope for

your continued success on and off the field please let me know where you want me to send the balance big hugs my friend so at our office there's been kind of a split reaction at the balance i didn't know if that was what he thought ab owed him or a lot of people thought that was the money he's going to send back in answer to what ab said there i don't know how alex guerrero is getting buried in this i thought that message was uh a pretty yeah i guess i not i don't i don't know i'm not saying class act but i don't know how else he was going to answer that especially if they decided not to work together anymore to dive in quickly here before we get to rupss, because I can't wait to chat with Rupps of Hockey Talk.

Alex Guerrero has a crew of people that have been doing this pliability, body guruing for a long time now. So much so that I've actually met a couple of them because they worked on a couple of players that maybe played for the Indianapolis Colts that might have been at the New England Patriots before. Might have been at the New England Patriots before. That was something that not just Adam, Tom, there's a lot of goats from that New England Patriots team that were getting worked on by this crew of physical therapists that go deeper and have this pliability thing. They would fly around team to team, and you would be able to set up appointments.

Those appointments were very expensive because what they're able to do with your body, we're seeing with Tom Brady, we're seeing with a lot of other greats, and they're not doing it for free. So $100K sounds like a lot, but I don't think Alex Guerrero is going to do with your body we're seeing with tom brady we're seeing with a lot of other greats and they're not doing it for free so 100k sounds like a lot but i don't think alex guerrero is going to do shit for free for anybody they're obviously business decisions being made here uh but that is not that many sessions if what i was being told on how much a session is costs each time it's a massive investment i was too young when i first encountered it to even

think about investing in it my whole body hurt the day after i was gifted a session from veneteria i said i'm not signing up for that ever again and i think it was kind of like if i make it to 10 years in a league 11 years in a league 12 years in a league i'll get to this because i'll have enough cash to pay for it and also my body will need it and require it so who knows there's a lot going on that old sidelines mic'd up though yeah like we're gonna know exactly what happened i think i like i would assume right now the buccaneers if they feel very confident in what was being said they're going right to nfl films and saying hey we need all the boom mics and all those things on the sideline to get this entire interaction

they'll probably release that on their side i don't know if they want to do it now because there's a lot of drama but ab also knows that everything is mic'd up and everything like that. He feels very confident about everything that happened. It's only going to continue to go here. I can't wait to see what the truth is. The truth is going to have to lie somewhere. Adam Schefter just had a tweet. I assume it was about this.

Buccaneers are releasing Antonio Brown today. League sources tell ESPN he is, as Bruce Arians proclaimed Sunday, no longer a Buc. Okay, so AB has been officially released because that was a part of his statement, but they're keeping him in a cage. They tell him he can't play, get out of here. Then they keep him and say he can't go. They're probably trying to figure out all the backside of the whole thing.

After these statements come out, the Bucs release him. That means the Bucs are probably confident. Yeah, well, if he had surgery, he's definitely not going to be able to play next week or anytime soon when the Buccaneers will be playing a different team. Well, and the scans, by the way, could show an injury, but it's also week 18 of an NFL season. So I think that's probably what a lot of the Bucs people are saying. But if Antonio Brown is right in saying that they forced him to play

and he didn't feel as if he could play, that's going to become a massive thing. Excited to see where the truth lies. We'll talk to Rappaport in about an hour about that. Let's see what he knows because he has source within the AB camp, right? Yeah. So he has a source within the AB camp because he broke something from there. Can't wait to dive into that more. It's going to get good down there.

Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Hey, once again, this is Super Bowl champion team. Yeah. Week 18 of the NFL season. Primarily going to playoff run. And this is what's going on. It's crazy.

Super Gremlin. Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Fucking Danny Boy Hustle Hardss involved that's right it's insane it is and what you just said about the bucks and the audio on the sideline because it hasn't come out that's what's kind of intriguing to me because they would just put that out if they thought ab was full of shit and none of that happened when do you think they would just immediately after him tweeting that they would put it out? Reach out to the NFL films people who have it at least. So the NFL is going to, you know, because this is a big deal.

If the NFL, if coaches are forcing players to play and cutting people on the sideline being injured, the NFL is going to want to get to the bottom of that as well. Who knows? We'll see how it goes. Let's turn our attention to the sport that was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Wow. Yes. Wow.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's talk NHL hockey with a Stanley Cup champion, former Penguin, and host of That's Hockey Talk every Wednesday night, 8 p.m. Eastern at youtube.com forward slash that's hockey talk. You can see him on the NH nhl network which is owned by the mob network ladies and gentlemen mike rups what's up fellas hey that's a lot to unpack right there that you guys are that was some deep stuff you're going through before i came on man a lot to unpack well i tried to get through it because i knew you were sitting here on deck waiting to chat and every time we talk to the rups or i hear the rups speak, some magic comes out about hockey.

But that is a massive story. Does anything like that happen in hockey? Like in the NFL, there's always been a history of mistrust, I think, between players and trainer staff and coaches and owners. Anytime there's money and injuries involved, does that happen in hockey or no? Yeah, I mean, it happens sometimes. And you have, I mean, we saw it happen this year with jack eichel right so he needed to have surgery and he needed to have a something done on his neck and they didn't know if they're going to do disc replacement or um you know spinal fusion type thing and then there's this big recourse where you start getting

the players association involved agents getting involved um you know kind of forcing the hand of the team to trade the player because you can't agree on medical i mean there's there's there's different levels of it that happen but a lot of times you know it's you you have different you have team officials and team doctors and i feel like the one thing that's kind of in all of sports and you would would know this, Pat, is like there's times where you – listen, I've been on teams where it's fantastic and the relationships are great. But at the end of the day, sometimes you wonder, who's this best interest for?

Is it to get you back on the ice or back on the field? Is it to – what's the long-term plan here? And so you get second, third opinions and you do all those things. That's stuff we've seen in hockey before. All right, we're going to call you back. Our connection isn't as great as it should be, but that's a great conversation pivot there because there is a natural pessimism to the thought that,

oh, the best interest is being looked out for the player when it's not the player paying these people or the future of these people's lives is dependent upon the player. There's going to be more players probably that come through in the tenure of the medical department that has been with the team forever it's it's always an interesting that's why the second opinion thing came in where it was like players are actually forced to get a second opinion outside of the building i was very lucky at the colts i got along very well with our training staff they rehabbed me from three four uh surgeries they it felt like they were always did have my best interest but then you hear horror I was very lucky at the Colts. I got along very well with our training staff. They rehabbed me from three, four surgeries.

It felt like they always did have my best interest, but then you hear horror stories from other places. I think Chris Long came on and told a story about his ankle definitely being broken and them just saying, Yeah, let's go. We'll look at it in the offseason. Pain tolerance. Yeah, we'll see if you can get through it or not.

Yeah, pain tolerance is like, are you tough enough to play or not basically it's like how you word it welcome back ladies and gentlemen stanley cup champion rups uh co-host of that's hockey talk we can't thank you enough for being here let's dive right into the hockey season how's the season going none of the games are on tv rup what what we signed we signed two deals with turner and espn last night we finally got a prime time sydney crosby-Pittsburgh-Pangwin best organization in the entire fucking league on primetime television against St. Louis Blues. And Sidney Crosby ragdolls some young punk,

gets an assist, and then scores the game tire. Is that what the rest of the season is going to look like? This is good for hockey, I think. You know, as far as watching the games, it's going to take a little adjustment. I mean, we're going into that phase now, and I think what you're seeing is like, you know how you've got the NFL that's got different outlets, got different nights of the week. The NHL's kind of getting into that avenue now or that kind of walking down that road

where it's going to take a little bit of time for people to understand, all right, we've got ESPN Plus on these nights. We've got ESPN. Then we've got Turner. And there's all these different ways of kind of shaking it out. But last night was the first night. You're right. We talked about before, when the AEW was finishing up, Turner has a primetime slot now the rest

of the year. So we sit here and we're looking at the Penguins primetime last night, St. Louis Blues. So we'll start seeing more of those 8 o'clock kind of starts or 7.30 starts on TNT. But, man, that was a good one. Our watch along on that's Hockey Talk. You were on there, Pat. You talk about a comeback. Wow, what a game.

What a game to have a watch along with. And this guy right here, and you were on. Got all bloody nose. His schnoz was bleeding. Got punched in the nose. You don't wake the bear. You don't poke the bear, man. Sidney Crosby comes back in that game and shows why he's one of the best of all time.

And that was good, man. That was a cool watch-along, right? Yeah, it was awesome. Do you think Turner is just going to decide, we'll just put Sidney Crosby on primetime television? Listen, for instance, Brock Lesnar goes to Monday Night Raw. All of a sudden, the ratings are up. You put Sidney Crosby, and he has bloody nose after beating the fuck out of some 18-year-old punk.

Just beating the shit out of him. Gets an assist. Then all of a sudden, in front of the goal, getting pushed in the back, elbowed by the goalie, kicked to himself, fucking goal to tie this thing. I mean, he's electrifying on the ice every single time are they going to pick and choose what teams go are they actually thinking that far ahead like should we put our stars on these primetime games because it feels like the nhl has never been a league that has thought forward strategy wise marketing is that something they're getting into

do the networks decide or what do you think the case is? Yeah, I think we're going to, well, see, the thing is that up to this point, I don't think Turner's had some primetime kind of matchups because of you know, they haven't wanted that 8 o'clock, they haven't had the ability to put that 8 o'clock game on or that 7.30 game on. Now they do, so I think

we're going to see better matchups. I mean, last night's game, St. Louis and Pittsburgh are both two teams that I would not be surprised to make long playoff runs. So you've got that. I think it's going to pick up from here on out. And I think they're going to try to brand that Wednesday night. Wednesday night's going to be like that's Turner's night. That's TNT's night.

And we're going to see some good matchups coming up down the stretch, especially with some of these make-up games and try to get some of these on nationally. So I saw Biz with the mustache afterwards, and it's nice to see these networks investing in hockey. Honestly, there's only like, what, two or three teams this year that could really go. It's the Pens, then what? Golden Knights.

Red Wings. No, I don't think. Detroit, are we saying Detroit, we're just going to get all the representation in studio there? No, no, listen, Red Wings, they weren't even invited to the tourney a couple years ago. You guys weren't even invited. We're on the way back. Stevie Wise got us back.

You guys were 25 minutes from the bubble in Canada. Weren't fucking invited. You were the closest team to the thing. You weren't even invited. I'd like to get a good pop out of the rupper there. That's a joyful thing there. But how many teams really have a chance right now? And once again, I think I asked you this the last time you weren't even invited. I like to get a good pop out of the rupper. That's a joyful thing there. But how many teams really have a chance right now? And once again, I think I asked you this the last time you were on,

when does it start to matter? Like the Pens are on a nine-game run right now. Is this good? Is this bad? And what team should we keep an eye out for? It's awesome. I mean, any time you get on a run like that, it's amazing. So this Pens team, I think if Genny Malkin potentially could be back tonight. I don't

know if he will be back tonight. You know, that's the tough part, though. Like, how do you, you don't want to break stride in what you're doing, but I mean, you're talking about an all-world player, right? So how do you, how do you try not to disrupt the run that you're on? But, you know, you could say they're peaking early here, but hey, you'll take this any day of the week. Anytime you can get a run like this, you go with it. It's about kind of getting into a groove like that in the last five, six games of the season. When you look across the league, man, there's some teams that are powerhouse teams out there. Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning going for three cups in a row.

I mean, they're unbelievable. And how about your boy A.Q. Shipley? Is he a Bolts fan? Have you talked to him about that? No, he's a Penguins fan, but I guess he has partied with the Lightning a couple times. He said they go, and he does like them a lot. He said they're a good group of dudes down there that are also incredible at hockey. They got a great opportunity to three-peat here, man. The Colorado Avalanche are another one.

That's kind of like the Carolina Hurricanes. repeat here, man. So it's, you know, the Colorado Avalanche are another one. And then, you know, that's kind of like the Carolina Hurricanes. So there's the Eastern Conference is putting up about three teams that are probably the favorites. And then there's the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Washington Capitals. These teams can make some noise. So it's going to be great, man. We've got a lot of teams that the East is going to be really tough to get out of. That's the kind of thing right now. It's the timing in hockey. You talk about the TV stuff. Everybody's watching football. Everybody loves football. All hockey players, hockey fans love

watching football. Once football season ends, you kind of change your focus here on hockey. It's the greatest part of the hockey season, man. That home stretch going into the playoffs. The playoffs are unbelievable. It's a whole different animal from some other sports. And so we're going to see that picking up here in probably late January, early February.

The NHL playoffs are electrifying. Now, granted, I lived in a city where the team in which I cheered for normally just ran right the fuck through it. You know, you guys would know back with the original six they used to do that. It was like maybe when your grandfather, your father's father.

Actually, the first 22 years of my life. When your father's father. 22 years of my life. Yeah, when your father's father was maybe a hockey fan. Maybe that's when the Red Wings would go on a run. And don't even tell me about the stupid fucking Bruins. Bruins, please. When the Golden Knights weren't even around.

Okay, they weren't even around. Every year we go to the playoffs, man. We don't know where we're at. It's like not going to the playoffs. Anyways, can we talk a little bit about hockey culture? Is it true that the Russians drink vodka like water? Is that real? And are the NHL players doing that or no?

I mean, yeah, they drink vodka. I mean, I think that would taste what you're starting to see, though. When you're talking about back in the day, I mean, we had stories. We'll have Vancouver's head coach, Bruce Boudreau. He said he'd come on and we'll find a time to get him on. We talk about the old days. Is that Gatapolis, former coach? He's not coming on.

No, but he's got stories, man. We had Dallas Stars head coach, Rick Bonas, come on. He's talking about some guys not too long ago. I played against these guys. They're having smokes, you know, in intermission. They're on the back room. And he was told the story of Danny Markoff, who was back in the trainer's room. And, you know, he had the washer and dryers in the equipment room.

And he's back there. And he's having a cigarette in between periods. And he's blowing it into the dryer. So just throwing all the smoke into the dryer and trying to let it go out the vent in the dryer. And it's like the game's changed so much over time. You know, now it's like it's 365 days a year, training, eating right, sleeping right.

So do the Russians drink vodka? I'm sure they do, man. That's in their blood. But nowadays, i don't think the guys go out i don't think the guys go out like they used to so um you know it's there's like no room for error nowadays so those russians uh probably just do that in the off season well and also going out is no longer the same because if you get caught doing anything you're done if you slip a tongue at all and say you're better than somebody oh my you're in the middle of a

beef all of a sudden. I mean, there is – it's a much different world with cameras being on phones than back in the day, so that might be a little bit guarded. I just assume that they were just absolute – I mean, I've heard stories that you hockey guys used to go – like I remember accidentally stumbling into a hockey house maybe late night, and it's – the hockey dudes could always go. It's a hell of a culture over there i love the sport go ahead time well you mentioned that rubber but so it's like ovechkin i'm on an anomaly then i mean this guy's drinking 12 packs of dr pepper on the ice like how does a

guy like that just do whatever the fuck he wants and still go out there and score you know three four goals a night that guy's a machine man I've never seen anything like it. Just from playing, listen, I'm never going to try to compare myself or really any other player to him as far as, you know, but the way he goes, right, the tempo he plays at every single shift in every single game, it's incredible. I mean, there's nights where you just simply don't feel good, right? You just don't feel like you got your legs. you got to be a wily vet and kind of you know outsmart the situation because you don't have the the physical attributes that night this

guy has it every night man and and he uh i saw the staff the other day which is it was just crazy about him and maybe hey maybe that's the secret sauce maybe you throw back 24 bud lights and uh you got that extra weight in you or whatever. But this dude, he sits there. So we know that he's coming up, right? He's making a run for the Wayne Gretzky all-time goal record. And he's going to get it in the next couple years. And we started running these stats saying, like, I've just never seen a guy like this.

Like, he's the best goal scorer I think right now the league has ever seen. And he's up there with league leaders and hits every single year. So we started doing some comparables of like, all right, so who has scored over 400 goals or whatever the number was, 400 goals, you know, in that span of Ovi's career? And where are they at in the hits department? And Sid was number two. So Sid had number two most goals over that time.

But then you look in the hits department? And Sid was number two. So Sid had number two most goals over that time. But then you look at the hits numbers. Sid has like a career, 894 hits. Ovi had 3,600. Dude, like this guy, since he's come in the league, Ovi, and what was that, 2005, he's got the most goals by a lot. And you compare, he's number four in hits since 2004 and the guys he's out there with uh the or sorry up there in that list with they're like kel clutterbuck you know matt martin um dustin brown these dudes like they're paid to hit like you know what i'm saying like

hey a a rapper uh we're gonna pay you x amount of dollars you're gonna go out and you're gonna hit everything that moves those guys ovi's in there. Ovi's paid to score goals and he's hitting with the best of them. He's a freak of nature. And dude, I don't think this guy's going to stop anytime soon. He's so electrifying. And as soon as the Penns Capitals just became a thing, you know, we had Gino, we had Sid, and all anybody wants to talk about was like, Ovi, this guy is just a wizard at goal scoring. He posts up on the left side. He'll even skate backwards for like two seconds. And as soon as that puck is even over there, it's a goal. It's a guaranteed fucking goal.

And it's coming harder than anything. He's a sniper. You see his work. And then you start realizing like, oh, he takes runs at people too. Like he is. He takes runs at people. I wish he was a penguin. We should trade for him.

Is that going to happen? Is he going to be? Hey, hold on though. I thought we were trading for Mc We should trade for him. Is that going to happen? Hold on, though. I thought we were trading for McDavid, though. We are. What are you talking about? If you want to play in the NHL, you play for the fucking penguins. Don't think so. Who'd you guys have on the show last night? Guy who never played for the Pens? He might as well have never been in the NHL.

He was from Nash, Vegas. Now you're going to have goddamn Boudreaux on this goddamn thing? I watched that 24-7 for the they played outside or whatever. That guy's talking a lot of shit on the Pittsburgh Penguins. I don't know if that guy necessarily should be allowed a microphone. Pat, I got something for you.

I got this for Connor, man. You saw Tukarask. Tukarask just got signed. He's going to be on this trial. He's going to play, I think, tonight or tomorrow night in Providence. So, Pat, I'm going to let you in on this, some of the listeners here. This thing, man, I called this a mile

away, and I've got to toot my own horn for calling this. The Boston Bruins have some issues on their team. They need some depth players. They need a goaltender. And what they did, they've had Tuka Rask has been their guy for years, years and years, right? And he had some surgery in the offseason. So he's gone. No contract. Everybody knew

when this guy eventually gets going they're going to bring him in, league minimum, and they're going to go on a run with one of their all-time great goaltenders. And I want to ask you this, Connor, because I think David Krejci is going to be coming back here down the stretch too. This guy

went home to play in Czech Republic and he's like, I just want to go home. I'm done in the NHL, and the Boston Bruins need a center iceman, and they're going to be all cutesy and get this guy coming out of his Czech League season, and he's going to come back in. So the Boston Bruins are going to be revving up here with some of the old school guys down the stretch. So you can't sleep on that.

We're fucking pulling your armor, dude. Don't worry about it. We're pulling your armor back for the fucking playoff. Nah, I've heard through the grapevine, Fenway Sports Group's actually, if crazy, doesn't come back. They're trading Crosby back up to Boston, where he should be. Oh, you shut the hell up.

There's no reason for that. Sydney's gonna retire a penguin right now. Yeah, no doubt about that. Yeah, so we got the two greatest hockey players of all time. It's awesome. Go ahead, Tom. Yeah, Rupert, with all due respect, and Pat about that. Yeah, so we got the two greatest hockey players of all time. That's awesome. Go ahead, Tom. Yeah, Rupert, with all due respect, and Pat just mentioned the guy, fucking Ovi couldn't hold Yags' jockstrap, okay? That's first and foremost.

Let's get that out of the way, okay? Secondly, they say championships are built up the middle. Was there anyone ever better built up the middle than when it was you, Sid, Giorno, Evgeny, and fucking Flyer. No, man. That's got to go down in history, man. Y'all are just players, huh? Anytime you could be a part of a group like that that's got probably 900 goals, even though I'm only responsible for about a handful of them, I'll take it, man.

You got to take that center ice down the middle right there. Hey, one thing you touched on there. Hold on a second. You're trying to tell me. Why don't you like Jager? Hold on one second. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Jager.

There's a conversation happening behind here where everybody's telling me, hey, he does not like Jager. What does that even mean? That's what I'm trying to tell you. You're trying to tell me that you like Jager. I know you're Pittsburgh through and through. You bleed that black and gold. You're trying to tell me that

O can't hold a candle to Yogs? Listen, when 6-6 and 6-8 were going up in the game. I got a couple Yogs stories for you. Yeah, Hayden. Now we're going to NHL Network. Storytime with Roper.

All right. So here's the thing, and you can call this, and Yogg's I've always heard. Listen, man, I'm going to be square with you. I've never heard a bad thing about him. So don't add to it. No, no, don't say anything. All right?

Don't say anything bad. I have heard, though. I have heard he likes to march to the beat of his own drum, which is fine, right? Like we know superstars do that. So New York Rangers, years back, I'm not on the team, but a guy told me this story that was on the bench next to Yogg's. They're down the stretch.

They're battling to get into the playoffs, the shootout, right? So we all know what the shootout is at the end of the game. And so what happens is as soon as regulation or sorry overtime ends we go into the shootout the coach has to write down on a piece of paper three names and he passes that off to the referees they bring it over to the scorers table they know who the first three guys are and then after that it's sudden death and you send guys over the wall so jogs is one of the greatest players that's ever laced him up man we know that and he didn't like he didn't like shootouts he didn't like breakaways this team's down the stretch and uh so i heard uh tom renny was the coach at the time and he'd sit there before the shootout and like they needed this they needed this win this extra point to make the playoffs

and so he's going down the bench and he comes up behind yags puts his hand on his shoulder and he goes what do you say big man we really need you here what are you thinking and he said and i heard the yags just sat there straight up and just goes said nope not going he wouldn't go he wouldn't go and i'm like i'm like are you kidding me like on his team like are you losing your mind and the guy is telling me he's like he's like what are you supposed to say like he's saying he doesn't want to go but we like need him to go and he said that all sudden tom renny would like look to the next guy and just be like all right big boy we need you let me know i'm like i thought to myself like that's little things like that is a team guy would drive me nuts man yaks you're the best of all time.

I get it. This isn't your wheelhouse. But Mario would never do that. Sid would never do that. Well, Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock. Stoner, Boston would never do that. Listen, all these guys you're speaking of, great hockey players, obviously Wayno would go.

But Yarmour Yager, he's from the goddamn mud. All right? Sure. Shootouts are too easy. Yeah. This dude, he likes gritty. He likes grinding. He likes beating people.

He likes taking a little bit of abuse. He likes saucing and dicing people. He doesn't want just open ice. Yeah, I know. Anyway, Jarmer Yager does rock. Pat, Pat, Pat, I know you joined us for that talky talk last night, but you joined a little late because when Ruppert initially jumped on, he told

us the story of how Jags played Mario and he played the Penguins organization and he used them for leverage to get more money to go join the Flyers. And while doing so, it led to Ruppert leaving in free agency because he was put on the back burner because they tried to sign Jags again. Jagr ran

Ruppert out of Pittsburgh. It is bullshit that that happened. You know what? It all comes full circle. I've got an axe to grind. How about our truth? Boom. Yager our truth. He is. He's got a personal

agenda. Yags ran him out of town. He wanted to die in Pittsburgh. I'm not happy you got run out of Pittsburgh. I'm not happy at I'm not happy you got run out of Pittsburgh. Okay? I'm not happy at all. Hey, but that's the whole point. It's your boy. Your boy never even came. He said, I'm coming. I want to make things right. I want to be in Pittsburgh. I want to come full

circle. Mario, yeah, we're tight. We're good. I want to make everything right. And the dude used him as a negotiating ploy to go sign in Philly, man, of all places. He signed with the Flyers. Come on. Revisionist history in my head. Didn't have any of this happening. I was in Spiderman last night,

so I didn't catch that part of Hockey Talk, so I apologize, Rapper. I do apologize, Rapper. I'm not happy Yogg's did that to you. Messed up. No, I'll give you the Cliffs notes. This guy might still be on the Pens, and Sidney wouldn't have to be fighting fucking 18-year-olds.

All right, here's the deal. I'm playing in pittsburgh we finished the season we got three penny ufas uh it's pascal dupuis tyler kennedy and myself so it kind of in in order of importance of signing, that's the order, right? So we're looking, and I knew if I went to free agency, I was going to be leaving because the Penguins couldn't give me what I thought I could get on the open market, and they couldn't give me the term. I wanted to be in Pittsburgh.

I wanted to stay in Pittsburgh and retire in Pittsburgh. So, you know, the conversations are going good. All of a sudden, Yager was playing in the KHL for the last few years. And now he has this rule and the collective bargaining agreement where he can come in and he has access to speak to all teams three days before free agency. So he comes back with that jargon. I want to make things right in Pittsburgh. I want to win another cup in Pittsburgh. And I want to make things right with Mario.

So all of a sudden, those us three guys who were kind of in that pecking order, we got put on hold, our negotiations, because they wanted to talk to Yogg's. And Nick mentioned this around Pittsburgh, there was hashtag Yogg or Watch. It was nuts. Every day, Yogg or Watch, Yogg or Watch, Yogg or Watch. People were tracking planes. Is that probably Yogg or Watch?

Yeah, exactly, Yogg or Watch. So every day that's happening, people are getting updates on this. And what the guy ends up doing, he says, it's not about the money. It's about the opportunity. And it's about kind of closing this circle here in Pittsburgh. And he signs with the Flyers because they paid him more money. And what ended up happening is he did that, and it took us all to free agency.

So now I start hearing these other offers, and I have to leave. He used the pens in this to kind of get what he wanted. And that's fine. That's his own thing. So I guess in my opinion, I was kind of pissed. I had a little chip on my shoulder for Yogg's. We're playing against them in the Winter Classic. That didn't get here.

Outdoor game in Philly. I'm with the Rangers. I score a goal. I do the old Yogg's salute, right, in Philly. The whole with the Rangers. I score a goal. I do the old Yager salute, right, in Philly. The whole place wants to kill me. Their team wants to kill me. Everyone's telling me how disrespectful I am to Yags. We won the game. Cool, whatever.

I had to get beat up a couple times after that because of what I did, but it was fine. So fast forward years later. I'm in L.A. covering. I'm working for the NHL Network covering the All-Star game. Yager's playing now in Florida for the Panthers because they paid him the most money. Still playing. And so he ends up at the All-Star game, and I'm at the hotel.

He goes walking into the elevator. I'm getting ready to go in the elevator from a few feet back, and I'm like, eh, I'm going to wait until the next elevator. I don't really feel like talking to this guy. And so elevator goes up. go upstairs i change i'm renting a car to go out for the day because we have uh some time during the day i hop in a cat or an uber go two miles outside the city and go to this mom and pop car rental place i walk in this fucking place and who the hell is sitting in the chair yaks sitting right there in the rental car place and i walk in the room and he's like hey rupper i'm like hey yaks how are you man congrats on the

all-star game blah blah blah cool thank you and stand there and i'm like i'm like you know none of this was about disrespecting what he was as a player and i didn't like when people were saying that i was supposed to be a thorn in your side i did that to to kind of fit that that role so i'm like i gotta say something here so i'm like yucks listen i walk up to him i go hey man remember a couple years ago winter classic you know i remember i scored those couple goals and we won the game uh and i did that i did the yager salute i mean that's your thing right like i did that no hard feelings nothing but respect for what you've done you're one of the greatest of all time he's like no man don't even worry

about that i'm honored that you use my celebration like're one of the greatest of all time. He's like, no, man, don't even worry about that. I'm honored that you would use my celebration like that. He goes, don't worry about it. He's like, it's all good. I'm like, all right, cool. So I felt like this is beyond us. It's fine. Two minutes goes by. All of a sudden, he turns around and goes, hey, rapper, I want to tell you, man, you're really good on TV. I think you're great. You do a great job. I love watching you. And I'm like, holy shit, this guy's really, now I'm feeling like a piece of shit. So I'm like i'm like oh man you don't have to say thanks dude i really appreciate it he goes you are so much better than you were as a hockey player and i'm like you son of a bitch i go i go fuck you i'm like we're one one we're tied like it's

over and it was kind of funny it was good, we kind of gave it a little big, a handshake and it's over with. So I got nothing but love from now. But at that time, man, I was pissed at Yachts because I wanted to stay at Pittsburgh. Well, we wish you were stuck around a little longer.

You know, it would have been nice to meet you down there, South side a couple of times. I would have seen your big lumbering head. I assume I would have walked into Mario's and said, well, you're a big son of a bitch. What's going on,

dude? Would you like to have a beer? And that would have been awesome. I and said, well, you're a big son of a bitch. What's going on, dude? Would you like to have a beer? And that would have been awesome. I think the city respected and appreciated you. I don't know if you're ever going to pass the auger, though. But with that being said, I'm happy to hear that you guys put your swords aside. Yeah.

That's good news. We moved on. We moved on. Well, look at you now. You're on NHL Network. You're on That's Hockey Talk. You're a Stanley Cup champion, former trasher. I mean, what a legend you are, pal.

And we appreciate you for joining us, man. You were supposed to be out of here like 12 minutes ago. We appreciate you sticking around. You're the best. Awesome, buddy. Love you guys. Talk to you later. Hey, you too.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ruffs. Yeah! Ruffers! Happy birthday to the guy that's joining us. He was a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup champion, COVID survivor, and he's just completed another trip around the sun. Ladies and gentlemen, the man with the

mangled fingers and the home plate face doll on, A.J. Hawk. Happy birthday, A.J. Happy birthday, A.J. A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! Hey, my boy, A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk!

A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! Woo! Who started that, Ben or A-Rod? I think it was us talking to you because his name is A.J. Hawk and he does sports talk.

He's as toxic as anybody on the job He just survived another year Can't wait to hear about what he loves And what he cheers He beat COVID, the Ryder Cup, college, and the NFL And every single day COVID, the Ryder Cook, college, Indiana, and they fail. And every single day, we don't know what the hell he's going to ruin for us with his toxicity. And maybe this is the year that it won't be seen because A.J. is such a special guy.

He lies all the fucking time. He talks. Sorry about it, A.J. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. I love you, A.J. He's trying to a special guy. He lies all the fucking time. He talks. Sorry about it, AJ. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. I'm just trying to rhyme with it. Yeah, I didn't mean that when I said there about you lies, but it's hard whenever you get that deep into it.

I should have prepared a little bit closer because I am a musician now. I play guitar on TV. Yeah. It's pretty crazy, though, that he forced you to sing that song just when he came on. Well, that's the thing is I sing songs for other people, and AJ said, for my birthday, please. Please. I would just like a little bit of a guitar solo,

and I appreciate the Bugle Boys getting in the back. Yeah, you bet. Appreciate you, man. I mean, sorry you had to go through that. I mean, the gourd on this guy to ask you to sing a song for his birthday. On the spot. Thank you, guys. On the spot.

Thank you, guys, for fulfilling my request. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, AJ. You're welcome. It's like a cameo, basically. Yeah. Which, by the way, have we reached out to try to get AB to do one? Well, I think it's going to get interesting to do those now.

BA, speaking about the whole situation, have you seen what is going on here now? AB has put out his statement that was very well written and thorough and full about his feelings on the entire situation. His ankle was injured. He told the coach he couldn't go back in because he was too hurt to play. He had a super specialist in New York look at it. He's got surgery coming.

The fact that they wanted him in there is basically against everything. He's not a second-class citizen just because he's fucked up in the past. He was cut by the team. He didn't leave or walk off. He acknowledged that he does have some flaws. He does have to fix some things. It wasn't perfect. In this statement that was perfectly crafted through his words, I think

even though people will pick part, it wasn't him that actually said that. He's planning on getting surgery coming back next season. Business is booming. The Bucs have caught him. B.A. has come out now and this is via an NFL Dove climbing tweet. It's a two minute actually it's like a minute 30 of BA explaining his side uh to counter argue what AB has laid out let's go and

take a listen to that right now and I'm listening to it in real time for the first time as well because it was too long to listen to during the break that we took did he ever ask the trainer or doctor about his ankle. He never went through. That's the normal protocol. You go through protocols during games. I was never notified of it. So obviously that was the disturbing thing when we were looking for him to go back into the game.

We always had, he was very upset at halftime about who was getting targeted. Got that calmed down. Players took care of that. It started again on the sideline. We called for the personnel group that he had played in the entire game. He refused to go in the game. That's when I looked back and saw him basically wave off the coach. I then went back, approached him about what was going on.

I ain't playing. What's going on? I ain't getting the ball. That's when I said, you're done. Get the F out of here. And that's the end of it. And we were working on Carolina. That's the end of the. We are working on Carolina. That's the end of the story.

Hopefully it ends today. Hold on. He accused you of making a throat slash. I don't know. Is that a throat slash? That's all it was. The finger did go across. You cannot force a player to play.

You can't force a player to play. You can't force a player to play. I mean, they have that choice. It's their body. And he decided to play. He and Mike both were on pitch counts. All right? And we were trying to manage that as best we could in the first half. Have you communicated with him?

Because he had posted some text messages that were reported to you guys about his ankle. Had you guys texted during the week at all about his ankle? I know you weren't actually physically here. No, you saw the text. I mean, it was out there. So, you know, if you can go on Saturday, I want you with the team in case you can go. He participated in the Saturday walkthrough like he was going. So there was never another question about it.

It's fascinating aj because all this is miked up on a sideline now that's ba side we read antonio brown's entire side earlier in the show he basically said that they're forcing him to play he didn't want to play he said i can't go anymore even after he did look great on that one particular route that has made its rounds around he because he says in his message it's a lot different to skip off a field than to get off the line so maybe he hurt himself on that particular play but it's all it's all mic'd up aj it's all mic we're gonna learn we're gonna find i think we're gonna learn but i think bruce mentioned that which i give bruce credit i'm sure there's lawyers of tampa bay like they're trying to figure out what they how they should handle this but ba said at

halftime it sounds like ab had a little bit of a meltdown or freaked out in the locker room because he wasn't getting targeted as much as he would like to he had he had an issue with something going on on the field whether he's not getting the ball enough or he's not in the right personnel groupings and then that kind of continued I guess once they got out there can somebody look up Danny Boy hustle hard on the Barstow podcast which one it was and what he said because I had heard this leaking around the internet that Danny Boy mentioned something about Gronk getting targets. And I don't know. Danny Boy Hustle Hard is a massive piece of this entire thing.

He's the driver, right? Yes. Danny Boy Hustle Hard. So Barstool brought him in and got him on a podcast already? Yeah, I think so. Just yesterday. I don't know which podcast it was, but I do remember seeing it on the internet.

I think Danny Boy alluded to something. Yeah, I think it was on part of my take. And then also there was a video that came out yesterday of the whole entire team, the Buccaneers team, like basically breaking down a team huddle at midfield and AB just walking off on his own. And I don't think that was halftime. I think that was before the start. That was definitely before the game.

I saw that video for the first time yesterday, and I actually almost tweeted out, how are we just now seeing this? It seems as if there was maybe some shit brewing since the beginning of the suspension, you know, via the fake Vax card. But it is continuing to unravel, it feels like, this story in the middle of a playoff push. Week 18. This is not what you should be thinking.

This is not what B.A. and everybody down there wants to be focused or worried about. But it's very legitimate. It's one of the greatest football players of all time. And Antonio Brown making some very serious allegations, not just about the bucks, but as the NFL as a whole in the NFL has done a lot to try to combat the narrative that they're forcing players to play against their will or when they're injured, looking out for the future health and safety of the players,

because that is big negotiation tool and bargaining tool by the NFL, P and the NFL. So I think this is going to get settled with the, the mics. It should be. Yeah. I mean, they should figure all of that out, but also the Guerrero stuff that he put out doesn't make Guerrero look bad at all. Like the, his response seemed perfect. So he was on part of my take, obviously the big cat PFT, Hank, Liam, and that they are an incredibly talented group of folks.

According to Danny boy, hustle hard, the driver that picked Antonio Brown up, I'm going to be honest, it's because he wasn't getting the ball, says Danny Boy Hustlehard, who was there immediately afterwards. And he was listening to whatever conversations Antonio Brown was having with whoever. And we saw him, hey, what up, Cheeks? Hey, Bizzle? Shooting him there.

He's talking about his Netflix series at the end of that, if you turn it up loud. He probably heard some other conversations that were happening as well. So it's – That doesn't help A.B.'s case at all. No. Danny boy coming out and saying, let's be honest, it's because he wasn't getting the ball.

I don't know if it's great, but I do know this is something that has happened in football before. Wide receiver's not happening. This happens a lot. It happens all the time on every team. At some point, there's going to be a receiver that's upset that they don't get enough targets, which is how it goes. That's why they say there's only one ball.

There's only one ball. There's only one ball. That's always – there's all these – you know, whenever you listen to like a preacher or a pastor give a sermon, you know, they are relying on stories that are as old as time, right? These stories have been tried and true and tested over the years, and they just have to put their own spin on it. Like, hey, this story is a hitter.

You deliver it however you want to deliver it, however you want to put your own spin on it so your congregation can understand it better. But these stories go. There's all these excuses that are already built in for wide receivers when they get pissed off oh there's only one ball oh you're doing that like there's coaches and handling wide receivers being pissed off about not getting the ball is a real part of coaching in the NFL I think I don't know about college I have no idea about college I don't know if that's the case because in college you are basically at the mercy of the head coach on

whether or not you further your education you play get to the nfl your dreams come true or not so i don't know if that happens but in the nfl this has been something that is like as old as time basically in the time being that they throw the football in the nfl well didn't quichon write a book that said throw me the damn ball yeah it wasn't a title of his book like that's yeah that's what happened but it's true though you can have you could have three or four receivers on a team that are all studs that all believe they should be getting more targets so it is up to the the quarterback but quarterbacks usually taking what's open what the defense gives them he's not like unless you see a one-on-one matchup you like we see aaron and davante all the time and ab is that guy too

for at times with tom brady so yeah there's a lot of distractions going on. This isn't how the Bucs want to roll into the playoffs, but it's also something that they could easily rally behind and come together. And you're saying that the quarterback is just throwing to the guy who's open. I mean, Odell Beckham Sr. ain't saying that. That's right. But also the incentives based on catches and how much money you make and the living you get to live from catching balls

is directly correlated with getting the ball. You know, like that, your success rate is to get the ball. That's why I always say, if you're a receiver, say you're playing for the Packers and you become a free agent, I would take a pay cut to stay with Green Bay if Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback. Because your life depends on who's throwing that ball to you. Well, and that's the conversation about like Devontae what's he gonna

do next year Devontae I'm saying like Jordy did Jordy got under under market value I think his whole career because he understood too like it's pretty awesome place that's pretty good quarterback I got thrown to you know also and I'm not saying Tom Brady isn't because I think Tom Brady has maybe the most people and no Aaron might I don't know who has the most people they throw in touchdowns to, but that Tom Brady graphic came out and it was just a lot. A lot of people, right? It's a lot of people. So distribution of the rock is definitely something that can upset some people

on the team, especially when their livelihoods depend upon it. But if you're with a top 100 of all-time player like Gronkowski, there's a chance that that big son of a bitch is going to get the rock a lot, especially with his relationship with Tom Brady, which you also have a great relationship with Tom, but just for the good of the team, Gronk is probably going to be featured a little bit more just on any team that Gronk's on. That's just how it goes. And AB, I think, you know, it's a shame that AB and Gronk don't kind of like wreck, like you, cause who is it? Kittle and Debo. Kittle and Debo before every single game, they like headbutt each other.

And basically it's everybody watching is like, hey, it's on these two basically. Hey, you two have to be the team here today. You would think that Gronk and AB, because their relationship with Tom, hey, that's my quarterback, that's my quarterback, would be on the same page and be cool with each other. And that might be why Gronk immediately after the game, when Gk was asked about it normally Gronk just super I'll go football I catch touchdowns you know and just like let everybody think that he's dumb when everybody that's ever met him says that is not the case at all he's just a fun loving guy and he said well

I was running my head into 300 pound dudes you know trying to block for people and trying to make catches for the team. And that was the first time, as soon as I heard it, I'm like, oh, that's not – You knew Gronk's fed up. Yeah. He's been frustrated. He's like, all right, this is – you know,

hopefully this has come to an end now. It seemed like – to me, I took that like Gronk is very, very frustrated in how the situation has been going probably the last three or four weeks. Me as well. And I don't know Gronk. I don't know Gronk. Yeah, me either.

I don't know Gronk at all. But from watching Gronk and seeing Gronk over the time and the way he talks he always used those interviews as like a show i don't want to say like a show but you know it's entertaining when gronk speaks it's not like hey this is gonna be a boring ass interview that was the first time where i really heard him kind of put in some perspective like you think i got time to worry about that shit i'm literally blocking defensive ends down here with my face and trying to make plays. It's interesting, man. It's very interesting.

And then if you go back to the three-week suspension thing that happened where he was allegedly upset, you compound that on top of that. He's looking for a reason maybe. And I'm not saying I've ever been in the position, but I've had friends that maybe wanted to get out of a relationship and they're seeking a reason. They're seeking a reason to maybe start something so then they can get out so maybe the targets and then the injury and the thing what getting back in there is just like a reason for Antonio Brown to get pissed off and finally have his I want to get

the fuck out of here moment there are so many different narratives that could be taking place we will learn about it all though well yeah and it makes sense that Gronk is pissed because A.B. just a week ago against the Panthers had like 15 targets and 11 catches for 115 yards. And Gronk also got hurt earlier in the year, had to go through that process of kind of getting reintegrated into the offense because of the fact that he missed those early weeks, like when the Buccaneers played the Patriots. And also during man in the arena

gronk was one of the two people that were interviewed this week and you could definitely tell like oh he's not a doofus whatsoever like his mindset he actually says like i just thought in the nfl you score touchdowns then you have a great time doing it and that was kind of his whole entire mantra his whole career so you can also tell his relationship with tom is authentic and in the guerrero situation gronk was all the way in on guerrero as well like he worked with him as well so you could kind of see maybe like what you mentioned how they couldn't kind of get along it seems like maybe ab was saying the right things but i don't know if he necessarily believed it and bought into the tom's style and way of doing i don I don't want to 100% say that Gronk, B.A.,

and B.A. in his press conference, I said, the players are all on my side here. He said, the players are all on my side here. Do they have to be because he's their coach and they're on the team? And it's fucking week 18. I can't stress this enough. If you're going into the playoffs, this is not the shit. With one of your best players that you need to go,

it's already hard enough to win games, AJ. It's already hard enough to win games in the NFL, let alone the most important games with the best teams in the league. And maybe because they have Tom Brady, they'll be able to figure it out. But this whole thing being the main focal point, and B.A. having to address it multiple times in his press conference today. And I hope this is it I hope it's done after today he knows BA knows absolutely not BA it ain't yeah he knows it isn't over there's only gonna file more grievances but once again NFL films I think can put an end to this yeah this afternoon if they really wanted to you know

because we well we see these clips and documentaries like 15 years later where they're literally listening to conversations. I'm going to go take a piss. Oh, okay. I'm going to go take a piss too. Oh, you're hilarious. It's like how do they have everything on the sideline? I think they do.

They do. I mean that inside the NFL show that's still on Paramount every week. They handpick for each of those games what they want to show. Those are running the entire game. But you mentioned it. I don't know if it really matters for the Bucs because you have Brady. He's kind of one of those guys where it can be like, okay, well, they're going to figure it out.

But how detrimental do you think something like this would be to one of these younger teams who are like – Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that basically a death sentence, you think, going into the playoffs? So the reason would be is because all the younger guys would look up to A.B. and say, hey, this is how you're allowed to act, not understanding that A.B. is a freak of nature

on the football field. Be who you can afford to be. That is how it goes. That's why everybody who was going to bring in A.B. had to have an established quarterback and had to have an established culture where they won't get influenced

into this is how I'm supposed to act. Now, in Pittsburgh, Juju, right? I mean, he saw it. This is how he watched. and I think Juju has been an upstanding citizen within Pittsburgh and I don't know what Antonio Brown was like whenever for all of his years of Pittsburgh but that type of thing and a lot of people are saying you got to give Tomlin credit because Tomlin was able to somehow juggle this entire thing for so long with

so much success in that relationship between Ben and ab from the reminiscent nostalgia videos we watched earlier with nfl films i love you you're the greatest you're the greatest and then as soon as something might go wrong or be off it feels like it's over that same chip on his shoulder by the way about when he feels disrespected fuck you is the same reason why he probably works so hard and people told him he wasn't going to make it. He come from a small school, six round pick or whatever. He that entire mindset is a gift and a curse, I think. But in the in the gifts department, he's made a hell of a fucking career in the curse department. Potential bridges have been burnt down with people who genuinely care about him.

But he can't see that past the one incident where it might have felt like they didn't. Yeah, you said it perfectly right there. When things are great with AB, they are fucking great. And when they are bad, they are very bad. As somebody who hates people, once you disrespect me, like I don't not, I'm nowhere near the level of athlete of Antonio Brown, success of Antonio Brown, but I am very much a, oh, okay,

fuck you forever type person i am i have it's not it's not a good trait but it's also i think it's not i think that's natural but it's also why i've gotten to where you know so it's like uh it is kind of a fine but ab's ab that you know there's a lot of receivers like that right hey if things are going well this is great like everyone's happy whatever if they're not getting the touches, the targets, the touchdowns they feel like they should, then there's issues, and they can cause issues throughout a team. But I think the problem right now with A.B. and what's going on is just how far he took it. Like, the good is good, but his bad looks pretty bad when he's taking his pads off,

running off the field mid-game. Well, I think it's hard not to just say, because I've had to do this as I've gotten older, is you have to hear people's side of it and just understand like, okay, maybe this person will never be my best friend again, but at least I understand that they didn't have ill intentions towards me whenever they were deciding what they were doing. I think that's a part of evolving and growing and I think that's a big problem a lot of people are having.

It's like, A.B., you're like almost a Hall of Famer at this point on the field. You're an OG at this point. We have to be able to evolve and grow and mature. You would never think that Devontae Adams would do something like this. No, I wouldn't. Or any of the other wide receivers that are up in the same – now Odell, though, right?

Yeah. I mean, now who knows with that whole thing. It's a gift and a curse. Joining us now is a man who might have some inside information for us that will help kind of unravel the entire puzzle that is Antonio Brown in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And we are talking a lot about this because this is massive news because there might be litigation and grievances and suits filed.

And this is not a good look for the NFL as a whole if they were forcing one of the best players in football back to play whenever he was too hurt to play, especially on a Super Bowl champion team. Ladies and gentlemen, the weekly wrap-up with Rap Sheet and friends, us being the friends host, senior NFL insider for NFL Network and NFL.com, Ian Rapoport. What's up? What's going on?

I feel like I just gave you an incredible introduction. If you were to go back and take that word for word, I hit every single thing we could potentially market for you. What I left off, though, is can't spell comedian without. Am I supposed to say it to your voice? You fucking stink. All right, let's get right to it. Let's get right to it, Ian.

Let's get right to it. I didn't see the breaking news tweet that it's A.J. Hawk's birthday. We'll look for that next year. Maybe A.J. will become somebody of importance for a year from now. Ian, this Antonio Brown, Bruce Arians, Tampa Bay Buccaneers situation, B.A. just explained his side of it in his press conference, said all the teams and all the players are on my side. A.B. put out his quote, which we don't think he wrote,

but it's through his words. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What? What do you mean? No, he didn't write it. Well, I mean, listen.

He typed it. I don't know. There's indentations for the next eight it's on the notes i mean there's just oxford commas yeah i mean there's just i noticed the oxford commas yeah yeah what's that is that what i talked about yeah before the end yeah i mean it's just and then you see the screenshots of his text messages it's not really his style but i do believe there's potentially a ghost writer his representation through his words so we're hearing we're hearing antonio brown's side of it i think whether he wrote it or not i'm actually trying to dismiss the people that are like he didn't even wrote that that's not real even if he didn't write that he told somebody his side of the story now ian doesn't it all just come to a conclusion quickly when that company in philadelphia who's

the 33rd owner of the NFL, NFL Films, has all this shit mic'd up and they just release it and then boom, they put it all to bed because right now the NFL Super Bowl champion is being accused of forcing one of the best players in football to play whenever he was too hurt to play and then kicked him off the field. Isn't this something that can be settled very quickly? Maybe. NFL Films doesn't really work like that, though. They work for the NFL, and they release stuff for our entertainment, but there's been times when there's rumors

of a mysterious room at NFL Films that has all the good stuff, you might say, that they will never, ever let out of there. I don't know if this is going to be it. Some hacker, some hacker some 15 year old over in germany just said i didn't know that existed i mean i assume it's in like videotapes and beta but which i don't even know how to play that you know whatever but um no i don't know if nfl film is going to clear this up but bruce aarons actually got to the big part of it so I heard on the sidelines that BA said you're done and then today he said that he didn't tell Antonio Brown you're done and so I had someone dispute to me he said well you said they cut him on the field and

I said yeah BA said you're done which is what he said today he said you're done but does that mean he's cut I'm not really sure and then i also had heard and then antonio brown said in a statement that a coach made the throat slash to him ba was asked about that and he says is this a throat slash where you say you're gone so like there's different interpretations of what happened here and then here's the other thing we talk about the injury right so he missed thursday friday and they didn't think he was going to play Friday. And then Saturday goes out on the walkthrough and looks good, shoots up his ankle, goes out and looks good Sunday, the first half,

and then goes into the locker room, is pissed because he's not getting the ball enough, tears up the locker room, they had to calm him down, gets out there on the bench, sits on the bench and says, I'm not playing. Is that ankle or is that not ankle? Like that's – so like yes, he did have an ankle injury, but I think what the question is is was the reason he was not playing because his ankle, like is it possible Bruce Arians didn't know that his ankle, which had kept him out Thursday and Friday,

but also the same ankle that let him be cleared for the game, was that keeping him from playing? Like, there's so many layers to this. Yeah, Ian, but how do we ever find out what it is? Like, whether it's the A.B. was pissed. And also, you said he trashed the locker room. What exactly happened there? And who told you that?

Who told you that? Yelling in the locker room. That was my understanding. He was very upset about not getting enough targets. How about before the game? How about before the game there's a huddle by the team and he's off on the other side. That thing just hit on the air.

So going into the game there was a problem. Then halftime it got even worse? I didn't know about. I actually haven't seen that, but that doesn't surprise me. So Wednesday he goes to the team and asks them to guarantee a million dollars of his incentives. Because if he, I think he was like five catches away and then like a couple of yards away.

You know, there were these rumors that the team didn't want him to get the incentives. He was going to get it anyway. Literally like one game he was going to get it. He wanted them to guarantee the incentives before he played. And they were like, well, no, we don't, you know, we don't really do that. It's not how incentives work. So, and then the next day he didn't practice because of his ankle. The next day after that, he didn't practice because of his ankle. So the timing is interesting, but he was upset beforehand because he wanted his incentives guaranteed. But he was also pissed during the three weeks

after he came back from the three-week suspension, right? So it was just very obvious, you think, to a lot of people that were around the situation that it was going to end terribly, do you think? Yeah. And so we on this show talk about the process for me doing my job a lot, which I always think is interesting. I don't know if people care, but I care because it's sort of an interesting job that I have. And I found out a week ago that everybody was upset and I didn't know quite what it was, but I was told like Brady's upset. And then the Bucks people

are upset and he's not, you know, the suspension took his attention off his rehab and he probably didn't rehab, you know, in a way that he had wanted. And, and all of that, right. So something was not right. And I could feel the relationship was not in a place that was really good. I just honestly couldn't figure out how it was getting there. I didn't want to jump out there and be like, there's a problem. And then he goes out and has 150 yards and I'm like, so I kind of felt like something was wrong, but I didn't know what. And now knowing what I know now, it all kind of makes sense. Ian, I didn't know about you saying he went in Wednesday

and asked them to guarantee his incentives for a million dollars that he was going to hit pretty soon. I mean, that adds a whole other layer to this whole situation. But what happens now, though? Is he officially cut yet like and why are they waiting yeah because then that by the way that wednesday thing then leads to what happened on thursday and friday i mean then you start i mean it's there's a lot of shit aj there's a lot of shit yeah um so what happens now so he's cut so and he was cut before

but now he's really cut. He's going to go on waivers today. Teams have 24 hours to claim him. We'll know tomorrow at 4 something if somebody claims him. Hard to imagine they will because he has literally said that he's going to have surgery. But the timing is actually really interesting. So let's say that they had cut him on Monday, like three days from now. A playoff team could have claimed him,

but they wouldn't be able to play him during the playoffs. If someone claims him now, they would be able to play him during playoffs. What? That's kind of interesting. Why? Because he's just a player who's been cut. Like the regular season is still going on. If they cut him after the regular season, a team in the playoffs can play him. If they cut him like the regular season is still going on if they cut him after the regular season a team in the playoffs can play him if they cut him during the regular season someone could

claim him tomorrow and play him sunday all right so there's so much to dive into here what he doesn't want to get picked up because he doesn't want to play because if he plays then it goes against everything he's saying right i mean i guess but then it's also sort of like like i don't think this is going to happen, but let's say the Packers claim him and he gets to beat the Bucs. I'm sure he would put off surgery. Let's not think about

game on field stuff. Let's talk off field stuff. If he gets picked up by a team and he plays, that kind of kills everything he's going on, right? Right, but I mean, maybe he says, you know what, I'm tough enough. I can delay my surgery a month.

Because he was going to play... And there's no grounds for the grievance that he just caused and said that he couldn't play, which is why he couldn't go in the second half. But I'm trying to think about this from a money standpoint with the grievance. There's so little money that's at stake. Like, it's one game check, which is like sick i think like 60 it's like almost nothing yeah that's like it let's say he like sues or grievances they call in the nfl like

i don't know what he would grieve for well future earnings maybe that seems far-fetched though yeah it's very and i think it seems far-fetched that anybody's going to pick him up and i know he said hey next season business is going to be booming in the end of his statement that was very well put together oh yeah very well put together kind of address all i thought that was well written hey i could never put together what was put out there ever in my life and i apologize for projecting my inadequacies on antonio brown if he was the one that typed that up but that felt as if just because of what you're saying with legalities and everything that was pieced together by somebody

who's like ah we can't say it that way we can't say it that way we're gonna do that whole thing but the buccaneers the buccaneers cutting him the day that is him the day after that comes out, the Bucs are very confident in their side of this story, right? Yes, they are very confident. But he's confident too, though. That's what's the problem here. When you report on something like this, you try to get both sides. I had the Bucs side Sunday, and then later on Sunday night, I had Antonio Brown's side.

Then I put it all together on Monday morning, and then everybody was upset. And it's like no one is happy with anything because it all sucks. Everyone is sure about their side that they are definitely right, and the other side thinks it's crazy that the other side thinks that they are right. It's crazy. I'm a better person than you are. I'm a better person than you are, and what you just said is wrong. No, you're not. I can't believe the tone in which you said

that disgusting lie. That proves my point even further. I'm a better person than you are. No, I'm a better person than you are, and you just lied. The tone that you just had is disgusting. Don't be fucking side-eyed on me. I'm better than you two. No, I'm better than both you guys. No, you're not. You're a scumbag. I'm not a scumbag.

You're saying that proves that you're a scumbag and I'm a better guy than you. Shut the fuck up, Tony. You don't even know what you're doing. You might be saying the right things. You don't believe him. Don't even get me started on this. Scumbag. Scumbag.

Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag.

Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag.

Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag.

Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag.

Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag.

Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Scumbag. Rap sheet. Scumbag. Well, we can all concur with that, but definitely a better person than you. I don't know about that.

Holy shit, dude. Yep. Yep. That's actually true. So I can't believe politics has worked its way into this grievance. I will say this. I imagine what we just heard there,

I imagine that's what life is like for you guys when the show is off. Is that true? Well, we don't delve into the politics world. That is actually us impersonating politicians. Because that seems to be the case. Because both sides are so entrenched in their side, they're not going to give in a single inch.

Because if you give in a single inch, then you're tolerating it, which means you're allowing it, which means you're not as good of a person. So you can't sit there and say, I'm a fucking better person than you. Let me lock that in there. She can't give in at all. It sounds like that's what's happening between Antonio and Tampa Bay. Let's dive into a couple more. Go ahead.

I'm reading Twitter as you guys are arguing with each other. So today's Thursday. Well, we're better than you, Ian. We're all better. We're a better person than you are. We're all better. Aaron Rodgers practiced today on a Thursday. First time he's practiced on a Thursday in a very long time.

That is a good sign for the Packers. What does that mean, Ian? What does that mean? You think he's trying to get some extra reps? You think he wants to talk to the army? I think his toe is feeling better. And think about how much time we spent on the toe this year. A lot of time.

And I think he thought by the playoffs this would be better because just time heals as long as Miles Garrett doesn't stomp on it or something. And the fact that he's practicing on a Thursday, as they get ready to play probably just a little bit on Sunday and then get a bye, he's going to be healthy by the playoffs. And hopefully he doesn't get stomped on

if he's only in two or three series against Detroit coming up. Keep everyone away from his toes. Who knows? I have no idea what their plan will be going on. But, hey, going back to AB quick, we know there's got to be tons of cell phone videos, videos that the NFL has of the sideline and Mike's.

Can Antonio Brown's people somehow go to the league and try to get some of those videos and the audio? I don't know that the league wouldn't the bucks want it though the nfl wants this by the way the nfl would want this to be clarified right because you're saying there's not a lot of money on it because it's one game check this makes the nfl terrible right uh i i think the bucks could go to the nfl and request it i just don't know i don't know the protocol for saying like like, here's all the footage we have. I would also think it's probably not the NFL, but it's probably the networks, right?

I mean, that's who you would go to. You'd go to, I guess it was on Fox, right? You'd go to the networks and you'd say, like, hey, what? The NFL Films is on the sideline, right? They're the ones that are on the sideline with everything. They're the ones that are on the sideline with everything. They're the ones that get access where nobody else gets access. I'm trying to think, how is it possible that everyone was there and no one saw the throat slash or whatever that was?

Why haven't we seen that? Well, that's what we're all thinking. I think we're all thinking that, like, hey, this feels like... There was one lady who was either in the front row there behind it and she tweeted to me that she has more photos and more videos and she said at one point ab charged ba and they had to be held back it's like i think that we just very good to come out someone has that that's going to come out you would think but also have them said it to me you're the worst dude we're a better person than you are we're a better person than you are, dude. We're a better person than you are.

Let's go into the last week here. There's only a couple games that truly, truly mean something. Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, I think they're both out for the Bengals if the Patriots and the Bills and the Colts win. That would switch the Super Wildcard weekend matchup.

Is there any other teams that are planning on resting and do you see any other shakeup potentially happening? Yeah, so I would say Bengals are probably going to rest. And like, you know, Burrow didn't get COVID, but he's not going to play anyway. So Burrow is probably not going to play. Nixon's not going to play. I have a hard time seeing Jamar Chase playing.

So it makes, yeah, you got to get the gat. It makes sense. Get the gat. You've seen the original LSU version videos of that, right? Yeah, the White House lady? Yeah, it's the good stuff. She was having the time of her life doing that. I don't know who that was, but I think she did a great job.

Anyway, so the Bengals may not play their guys. The Cowboys got a couple big-time guys on the COVID list, and I'm not sure they're playing their guys either like they're saying they are but I definitely have some doubts especially if you're going to have a couple pro bowlers not playing like there's there's a couple games and then the you know the Eagles had a bunch of guys test positive who could be cleared on Saturday like those guys are probably not playing either so there may be several teams that are not exactly playing their starters this weekend that's big gambling, and I think Tone and Connor and Ty

all have questions for you, but I would like to get this addressed now because there's a lot of planning that has to go into this, and we're about a month away. We asked you a few weeks ago, if you do recall, a few weeks ago, we said, is there any other alternate plans for if SoFi Stadium can't be the Super Bowl due to protocols or changing? And now we're learning that my Flora is making its way in and things are getting locked down in places again.

And there's ghost towns happening again where you're not allowed to go out. And it feels like some places are going back in time a year. Some places are allowing Kyrie Irving to come play hell yeah you come into Indiana you can play pal there's other states now it has been announced that there is an alternate option and it's Dallas is that just because Jerry says if we can't have it in fucking my hometown of LA we'll move it into my actual home Jerry world don't worry about it and everybody just says okay you got it why is why was that announced do you think that's a reality and do we need to start looking at airbnb in fort worth irving or dallas for that super bowl week because we got a pretty sick house in la that we might

have to unload i guess is what it sounds like what are the you got uh you got you got space on the couch are we hanging or what just get to the, please. Someone's on the couch. Are we sorry? There is. Ah, shoot. Anyway. There isn't. This is... First of all, I don't sense anything is imminent or coming.

Yes, there are some... Ian, you can sleep on our couch. Okay? Just wait. Before you get into this answer, I don't want any hug or kush. No. Yeah, yeah. I don't want any personal agendas in this answer.

You can sleep on our couch if you need it, please. Yeah, no problem. Any location. You personal agendas in this answer. You can sleep on our couch if you need it, please. Yeah, no problem. Good location. You got one, Ace? I appreciate it. No, this is contingency plans. It is something the NFL should always do, and I imagine always does. Here's why I have a very, very hard time imagining the Super Bowl moves from L.A.

They are going to host playoff games. They might host multiple playoff games. They might host multiple playoff games. They might host an NFC title game. So they're going to go through the playoffs, they're going to host a game, they're going to host another game, and then it's not good enough for the Super Bowl. Like, that's what, like, I guess anything is possible.

And, like, I've learned not to predict anything that happens with COVID. But California has done a good job of living with masks for the last whatever. Like, they haven't shut down. They've just worn masks. Like, maybe some of that will happen. The stadium's also technically outdoors.

I understand the contingency plans are happening. But from what I know now, I would be beyond stunned if it actually moved. That house that we were looking at in Texas is so much bigger than the one that was in L.A. Everything's bigger down there. It's deeper, too. I have some great restaurant recommendations in Texas, too. You were just there for the owners. I feel like the issue...

Best empanada place in the world. Empanada? I like this place. McDonald's? It's called Empamundo. It's in a strip mall. It's a store that's very small and it is absolutely amazing. Okay, so Cochon in Empamundo. It's in a strip mall. It's a store that's very small, and it is absolutely amazing. Okay, so Cochon and Empamundo is the first time you've ever been around actual Mexican food from where you come from? Or is that why the strip mall?

No, no, no. Is that what it is? It's the first time you've ever actually had? I lived in Dallas for three years, and I ate a lot of tacos. Okay, shout out to Coach Sean and Epamondo and also the fact that, listen, why don't you get out and experience the world a little bit, Ian?

Okay, you don't have to just be in that super yuppie world, the tennis players that you guys get out there and live a little bit. Jeez, welcome to the couch, by the way. We'll make sure it's very high society. Go ahead, Todd. Rep, she had a report from Cleveland.com

came out that Baker and Stefanski apparently hate each other's guts. Stefanski has hated him for the whole season, has wanted to expose that Baker might stink at quarterback. Are you hearing any of that kind of stuff? And where does this go from here? I mean, we've heard all season that now Baker's just going to go back. And are they just going to put their swords away?

Or is Baker done in Cleveland potentially? that now Baker's just going to go back and are they just going to put their swords away or is Baker done in Cleveland potentially um I saw the report I would say something is not right and Baker has actually said in a couple different interviews I think that Aaron Andrews was the first I can't remember he said like we need to get some things internally fixed and that was the first time I was like, okay, this is not great. And like, you know,

it's weird because he's playing on a torn labrum and a lot of other injuries. If he just had been out for the season and week two, like we wouldn't be discussing any of this, but instead he's played through an injury has not played well at times. And then you hear about some like internal issues. Here's what I don't. So that is,

I don't know that they hate each other's guts but clearly someone needs to get on the same page with someone else what i don't know is is this going to be standard after the season like look we misunderstood this you misunderstood that we're on the same page let's get together whatever or is this something where both sides emerge and say we cannot physically work together we are absolutely done i have a hard time imagining it's the second, but I have to leave open the possibility that it is. But I would say for the Browns, like any team,

if you are going to move on from Baker Mayfield, you have to replace him with someone better. And who actually is that person? Okay, real quick. They were supposed to, projected, to win one of these this year. They're not even in the playoffs. Baker played in every game. Now, whether or not he was injured.

Hold on. Let me interrupt you. Baker just responded. To you? Not to me. To Mary Kay. He says, oh, I'll read this to you. Hold on.

He says, clickbait. You and many other Cleveland local media continue to be drama-stirring reporters with no sources or facts. Don't put words in my mouth so you can put food on your table i'm not your puppet oh wow baker said you ever get one of these i would say unlike antonio brown he probably wrote that probably come on dude we don't need your fucking jokes okay just tell us the news all? Just tell us the news. It sounds like Baker Mayfield, though, because if you do recall, when he talked about distractions and outside noise, he said it was actually inside as well.

And then we thought, okay, that's Odell Beckham Jr. that he's obviously referring to and the senior putting out the video. We thought that was the case. Then we watched a game against the Steelers where Stefanski trots him out there with a referenced handcuff on his left arm. A harness that can't make him his best player. Ten straight incompletions while Nick Chubb's on the

sideline. And in the NFL, nobody is not trying to put out their best football out there. Nobody's not trying to have the best film. But it was hard not to think this Stefanski guy wants this guy to die. But that is probably what stirs the fodder around Cleveland because they have to live and die with it every day. Baker says this is not true at all.

Him and Stefanski are all good. Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, Rapshie, are there any guys right now you think you know are going to be head coaches in the NFL next year, whether they be coordinators or even Jim Caldwell or Doug Patterson? I would say just a couple I think have a good shot. whether they be coordinators or even Jim Caldwell or Doug Patterson? I would say just a couple I think have a good shot. I'd say Doug Peterson probably has a pretty good shot, won a Super Bowl.

He's also out. So generally we've seen when head coaches, you know, accomplish good candidates, are out a year, like Mike McCarthy, they basically can spend a year talking to teams and like start the process early so those guys generally get hired so i think doug peterson probably does get hired i think todd bowles uh probably gets a job i mean he's he's a good candidate his team is good should have got one last year um so i would say both those guys probably get it um and then as far as the assistants who haven't been there before,

I think Kellen Moore has a pretty good chance of getting a head coaching job. Oh, really? Kellen, diner. There's times this year where everybody thought this guy don't know how to call game, but it's only like his second year doing that. If he gets a head coaching gig, people are going to explode. But remember, head coaching jobs

are normally like elected, right? And they're there normally big pushes for people and it kind of is figured out? And there's third-party agencies that make decisions for people. Yeah, it's kind of like that. It's an entire thing. There's only 32 of them. It's an incredible job. Last question here, Ian. We can't thank you enough for joining us. Go ahead, Diggs. Ian, this weekend presents us

a very small chance for a big opportunity. In the 1% chance that the Jaguars do beat the Indianapolis Colts. Has there been talks between the Raiders and the Chargers to kneel the ball out the entire game? Passaccia ain't doing it. To tie so they both get into the playoffs?

Passaccia ain't doing it. How's your family? I'm just saying it's a big part of it. This is the greatest storyline of the whole week. I mean, I don't root for anyone. Seriously, you want to talk about drama. I would watch three hours of two teams kneeling. I think it would be amazing.

Yeah, and that's why it's hard to take you serious. You know what I mean? That's why it's whenever you say, like, hey, this is what you should eat. I'm like, oh, our taste is nowhere near the same. But it would be electrifying for, like, that first four series. I've got the under parlay with the plus a half for both teams, baby. There we go. You're hitting.

No. So I actually was talking to a high-ranking member of one of these teams about this on Tuesday. And so I presented the scenarios. All right, let's say the Jaguars win. Not a regular source high ranking. Let's say the Jaguars win. Okay?

Would you kneel? Would you just make sure you tie? And the response I got was, how do we know they're going to do it? In other words, they kneel, kneel, kneel the whole time. They get to 30 seconds, and let's say the Raiders throw a bomb and beat you. Oh, I'd be honest.

And you're like... So, it's like the prisoner's dilemma. It's like, you can trust them, but you can't trust them all the way. So I think they both have to play real football. Yeah yeah it's like in a card game and knock knock knock knock knocking the last person oh is that right oh everybody stinks okay let's go ahead and let's go ahead and do that division rivals playoffs is a big deal especially for free agency in the offseason competitive advantage i would enjoy seeing two teams decide to say fuck competitive

advantage uh fuck the NFL, fuck competition. We're both going to extend our season at least another week and kneel this thing out. But Staley with the stats, I don't know if the stats have ever said that works out well for any team. I don't think Passaccia is handing anything over. That guy's trying to get a head coaching gig over there. Is there any chance of him getting that job even if they make the playoffs here against all odds? I don't feel good about that, no. I don't think so. How's your family? Come on.

Great guy. Great guy. Hey, Ian, we appreciate you, dude. You're the best. I guess there was 48,000 people watching right now on a random ass. There's no Thursday Night Football Thursday. It's because it's week 18. Last week of the regular season, we're almost to the... Listen, Connor came in and ruined my day this morning.

Sorry. He said, hey, there's only a few more – there's only six games next weekend. Like, hey – No. Don't think about it like that. This is the good stuff. You got to get ready. Don't let it bring you down.

Quantity overfall. I'm not. But I want to let you know, I'm like in the middle of this thing. It's just like, ah, we're running through the football season. And then this morning, this mustache mullet man came up to me and was like, Hey, let's enjoy these last couple of games. I'm because this is almost over.

We're almost back to like when quarantined world sports stoppage happened and there was no NFL. I'm like, God damn. I didn't even think about that. We're close. And we can't thank you enough for the ride that you've given us this entire season of information.

We appreciate you. Ladies and gentlemen, senior NFL insider for NFL Network and NFL.com, Ian Rappaport. Thank you, buddy. So sorry to interrupt, but I want to let you know that if you're not gambling

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when they shouldn't refund people, giving back hundreds of millions and millions of dollars to their users. FanDuel Sportsbook is the best sportsbook going for a lot of reasons. Most of them, what I just said. We are very thankful for our partnership with FanDuel, obviously. There are so many different ways to win. There's more things to bet on.

Their boosts seem to always hit, which is just fucking themselves over time and time again. We love the hell out of FanDuel Sportsbook, and you will too. If you haven't used it yet use it nah also there's fantasy on there daily fantasy and free to play games where you can win money shout out to vandal shout to you let's get back to the show college football national champion super bowl champion Cup champion, COVID survivor, and birthday boy, AJ. Hi. Happy birthday. AJ, I don't ever want to bully you, okay, because that's not something I do or whatever happened to you. But I need you to get up and go downstairs to the front of your house. Well, first off, I just turned on the cameras.

I have a monitor here. Turn on the cameras. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't do that. Get your ass up. Go outside. Get out of your panic room. Get out of do that, dude. Get your ass up. Go outside. Please. Get out of your panic room.

Get out of the attic. Go. Okay, with all your cameras. Go. Get up. Go down to the front of your house. Please. Don't look at the cameras.

Please. All right. I'll hang up here. I'll come back. No, no, don't. Okay, go down in front. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Get the fuck out.

All right, we'll see you. We'll see you. Appreciate it. Don't look at the cameras either. What's his problem? He hates anything that's cool. That's why. So, AJ is turning 38 today.

38 times that jaw has went around the sun. None of us could have ever expected it. A man who plays football without a helmet for a large portion of his life was actually jamming that Ohio forehead and nose into people with full padding on and shields on so he could bust his face and jaw off of people. He has made it 38 years with incredible brains and we decided we should celebrate for that guy. And there's only one way to do it as Mr. Ohio. Ladies and gentlemen, outside of AJ Hawk's house right now, live reporting from General Bob Carpenter. I believe the entire alumni Ohio State

band is outside. Let's hear them play some. Is AJ out there, Bob? Is AJ out there, Bob? We got them going. AJ's walking down, Pat. They are ready to go. Short notice arriving just for you with the Pat McAfee special. Getting this thing going so you can

thank these guys yourselves. AJ, I mean, this is a palatial estate, Pat. It takes him an hour to get down here, so it may take a minute. But he's on his way, I believe. So we asked General Bob Carpenter less than a day ago. Hey, Bob,

we just learned that it's AJ's birthday coming up when Aaron told us. We just learned that this is happening. There's only one thing to do, and that's have somebody show up at his door and sing to him. And then we kind of, my wife and I were just thinking, I'll brainstorm. No, not just sing. We need the fucking Ohio State band out there because I want to get the O. H-I-O. Bang, bang.

Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, Whatever the song is And General Bob Carpenter Got the alarm I mean he may have got lost in here Fuck this guy dude What's his deal What's this guy Hey nobody's gonna hate this More than him Pat

Yeah we didn't expect that. He may not be on the show anymore. He may not come back. Let's fire it up, folks. Yeah, let's fire it up. Let's fire it up. Thank you for your service. Hey!

Hi! Hi! Hey, let's listen to him. Here we go. We're a place. We're a place. He's done right now. Let's go.

Get on down there. Get on down there with us. Get on down there with us. Get on down there with us. Happy birthday, AJ! AJ, look at the band! The band, dude! Come on! Keep them up!

Keep them up! Keep them up! Keep them up! AJ! Oh! H! Oh! Oh! Hey, let's go, AJ! Oh Here we go Come on, come on! Come on AJ, make sure you're in the shot! Come on AJ! You got one more? One more, we got one more banger in the chamber for the jump.

I got the fight going. How about that son of a bitch sprinting down that hill the first game? Boom! Dang it! He's got it. He's got it.

He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. Run him over. I got it, Bob.

You got it. What a birthday. When do we get to the OHIO thing? What? What? I'm not your dad. You deserve it. Happy birthday. You deserve it, AJ. Thank you, Memorial Band. Thank you. Love that band. Go give them some fives. Go give them.

Bob, no. I'm not your dancing monkey, Bob. You guys are awesome. Hey, real quick. Real quick. Oh! Happy birthday. I was going to O-H it there.

Yeah. You think AJ's coming back? No. That was awesome. AJ's probably not going to be aroundH it there. Yeah. You think AJ's coming back? No. That was awesome. AJ's probably not going to be around for the rest of the show. Man, that was awesome. I think he loved it. Thank you, General Bob.

Thank you, Bob. Thank you, General. Nice little surprise. I like the thought of AJ sitting there at a command center or whatever up in his attic and then just seeing a bunch of fucking trombones show up at the house. What? I need to go get my gun and kill her you could see it too he got a shit-eating grin on his face when he noticed everyone's starting to come up but that was awesome that was awesome that was awesome hey happy birthday aj we appreciate you happy birthday aj big thanks to the alumni band

yeah serious it's a good cameo i mean now we too, it takes 18 minutes for AJ to get from his attic to his front door. Holy shit. Yeah, he's really far away. It made people think I was kidding when I say he lives in a 75,000 square foot estate. What if he just didn't go? What if he did just say, fuck this, I'm going down to the basement? Goes from the attic, goes all the way to the basement, turns his phone off, golfs for, we don't hear from him for four hours.

Certainly possible. We have not been able to get a hold of AJ Hawk. What? Come on, AJ. We just spared no expense. We brought in a general to get a band to perform, the Alumni Ohio State Band, to perform in his front yard. Caught him by surprise.

Not sure he was going to love it looking at it as a projection of happening now that we got to experience it with him i'm excited to hear if he hated or not or if he ever comes back to the show that'll be something that we have to uh you know just wait and see i guess we're going to see how it plays out just like ab in tampa we'll see how aj and the pms show uh kind of unfolds here after that surprise band performance in front yard without him expecting it uh hashtag pms happy AJ. Go ahead and enter in to win one of the $38,000 we're giving away.

Can't thank you enough all for being a part of this beautiful show. I guess it's trend number five already. We can't wait to see where that ends up going because AJ deserves this. Yeah. He'll be back and I'm sure he hated it but he'll say he liked it. He's probably taking a break on his stairs or something. He needed a water break.

He said call back. He is there. He has a special guest with him. I think I know who it is. Axel? No. Who? That was my guest.

The General. The General. The Five Star General. What do you mean? Joining us now, the birthday boy himself. The only man that could get the alumni band to go out in 19 degree weather with less than 24. I know. It's a gentleman, AJ.

And General Bob. And General Bob. And General Bob. What a birthday gift. First things first. Happy birthday, AJ. Happy birthday. Happy general, Bob. In general, Bob. What a birthday gift. First things first. Happy birthday, AJ. Happy birthday, AJ. Happy birthday, AJ.

Happy birthday, AJ. What's that, Bob? Obviously, you said it. You can hear me, right? I had to undo my earphones so Bob can hear you right now. But how did this come together? I'm here to help the whole pan thing. It is amazing.

Hello, Miss Lady. So just the other day, I found out it was your birthday Obviously You know when Aaron said that On the show And I know you're a Capricorn I always did By the way you acted

And the way you went about Doing your stuff I knew you were a Capricorn But we found out it was your birthday So my wife and I were chatting And she said somebody May be singing at his front door That'll be something

Because we have your address now Right Because we had door. That'll be something because we have your address now, right? Because we had to come to your cult event. So we have your address. So showing up at your house was definitely a thought. And then the brain started cooking, maybe on some vitamins because I was in a legal state at the time. Oh, no, the fucking band. And the only reason why I wanted to do it is because I thought there would be a time in the middle of it where I would say O-H and then you would be forced to say I-O. And it turns out that that wasn't the case, but it was still awesome. We reach

out to General Bob Carpenter. I said, Bob, need the band at AJ Hawk's house. He said, give me a week. I'm like, we only got like a day. I get a text back from this dude. 4.40 AM this morning. All systems go. General Bob Carpenter. Yeah, that dude is a fucking

legend. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Bob. Hey, that's just the good folks, Pat, over there at the Ohio State Marching Band. Get it done. Some of them came straight back from California, man. I told them, listen, going to be on the Pat McAfee show. Going to help A.J. Hawk be out there.

It's his birthday. That's how Buckeye Nation rolls, man. Not even a question. Because I knew how much our guy would love this. He is such, he's someone, Pat, that always kind of clamors for the limelight. He's always out in front. And so I knew that this would be perfect

for him. Yeah, I think we're all on the same page there. I think we're all on the same page there. I think we're all super pumped for it. And hey, Bob, while you're there, I think it would only be right because you say football and you're able to reach out to the band. And we just do this. O-H.

I-O. Yeah! O-H. You got it. I'll give you. I-O. I-O. Yeah, you get one I-O.

Yeah! Happy birthday, man! Woo! Let's do this! A.J. Hawk! A.J. Hawk! Thank you. A.J. Haught! A.J. Haught! Thank you. A.J. Haught!

A.J. Haught! A.J. Haught! Hey, you deserve one of these now. Hey, you deserve one of these. Oh, maybe I'll go buy myself one at Walgreens. Whoa. Whoa. You son of a bitch.

Whoa. That was uncalled for. And now what, you texted me and said I could get it there? It's his birthday, so we don't need to say the things we're about to say. I'll act like this was being said tomorrow. Fuck off, dude. You can't get this at a... This guy.

Well, he's got a stop ring. Oh, he's got the Rogan chair. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Well, I want to let you know that for the FanDuel Igloo, the whole furniture thing has been quite a conversation. We have 7,000 chairs out there.

7,000 chairs out there. Which one do you like? Which one do you not like? Each one came with a conversation. We have 7,000 chairs out there. 7,000 chairs out there. Which one do you like? Which one do you not like? Each one came with a description. This is the chair that Rogan enjoys using on his particular show. We didn't know if that's what you wanted to use. Oh, this one has a Arco X swivel-y back thing for you.

I'm like, oh, thank you. Can I sit on it? And does my ass feel good? Well, I mean, for a certain amount of time, thank you. Can I sit on it and does my ass feel good? Well, I mean, for a certain amount of time, you can, but I appreciate you so much. Happy birthday, dude. Hey, thank you. That was a surprise to me. I had no idea. I didn't, I told you, I popped the cameras up for a second. I saw like

50 cars and I'm like, oh, what is this? And then yeah, pretty amazing. They were freezing cold. It is not warm out. Yeah, you went out there too i think did you have shoes on or no shoes on look like you were maybe in shorts or sweats i had pants on but little house slippers it was good it was fine what's the deal with you grabbing the fucking camera you're not supposed to be working in the middle of that i guess bob had to make sure we

had all the song well i couldn't hear you i couldn't that's why i felt bad i couldn't hear you uh whatever you may be saying but no bob wanted me to go out and get in the middle and dance so i was like bob that's kind of your thing. I'll film you. Oh, so like in your birthday, I want to share like what everybody's strengths are, you know, and General Bob making that happen. I'm so incredibly grateful for. Happy birthday.

We'll be having Michael Lombardi join us here in a few moments to break down all the things happening. That was electrifying. Yeah. We should hit up the 5-Hour Energy phone line at some point in this last hour or two. 1-833-4-MACAFEE. Can't wait to hear what folks have to say. Go to 5hourenergy.com. Use promo code

MACAFEE. Get 10% off your order, AJ. Do they still have those new summer flavors? Do they run those in the winter? The thing about the summer flavors is I don't think we ever got that right. We weren't supposed to say summer flavors. That was on me. But it was original and they were incredible. They were available in the flavors. That was on me. But it was original, and they were incredible.

They were available in the summer. And they were delightful. Oh, my God. Yeah, you can get any of those, AJ, especially for your... You know what? We'll send some. We'll get 10% off. So it's not 100% of a gift.

It's 90% of a gift, but you won't know that. So we'll send it to you, pal, to get you from A to B, B being energetic for the next five hours. Let's go to Floyd in Virginia. What's going on, Floyd? What's going on, Pat? Nice to talk to you, man. I haven't got a chance to call you since you came on Mad Dog. But I love it, man.

I love listening to you guys every day. I'm disabled, so I'm able to sit in my truck and listen to the show every day. I think it's awesome, man. Great show. Floyd, Floyd, Floyd, we appreciate that, man. Thank you for listening. And also, I don't know much about blues music or anything like that,

but I think you should take that truck maybe in front of a microphone and just have somebody play some tunes in the back. Your voice is amazing, Floyd. Oh, wow. Nobody's ever told me that. They usually tell me to shut up.

Wow. I get that a lot as well. I get that a lot as well. There's only one problem. You've got a lot of OG listening to the program now from Mad Dog, and the one thing about it is we don't tweet. So if we need to get in touch with the show, we need to get in touch with it a different way.

How do we do it? What do you think should be the move here, Floyd? Because the only reason why we do it on Twitter is because it's so easy to find everybody that enters. It's easily to be randomized because you can just scroll through and then pick. It's literally the only way we have discovered that is easy, efficient, and actually random whenever we do it. Is there any other way? Do you have any ideas or do you just think we should think about that as we progress forward here? I think you could give it a little thought, but I think it would be easier for me to join Twitter as long as I'm on Twitter.

I think that is the case, Floyd. We appreciate you. A lot of people don't have Twitter accounts until they get on there for a contest. Yeah. Because a lot of people have one, and their only tweets are towards us. And other people at the beginning were getting pissed. Like, oh, this is just a fake account. It's like, no, this is somebody that wasn't on Twitter who only gets on Twitter to do our things.

And we appreciate it. I understand it's not the platform for everybody. We love YouTube. Absolutely love being on YouTube because we're able to do whatever the fuck we want over here. Kind of live by our own rules. But the comment section, much different than just being able to it's just a different game different animal but joining us now is a man who is also a different animal a man who has a job in every single department of entertainment at the moment he's a speaker has done a ted talk yeah why he's an

author he has numerous books i think he that are in the uh bestseller the bestseller thing which by the way i'm a big time book club reader so i understand what that means top bestsellers oh yeah it's like billboard 100 he has a uh live show what he has a podcast what he has daily shuffle email newsletter daily coach email uh news uh letter that we absolutely love he has um a podcast obviously and i believe he does stand-up comedy oh wow yeah not only that he used to be general manager for a team a coaching consultant an advisor had been an assistant everything in the state of football ladies and gentlemen maybe the most interesting man in the history of football how's your family michael lombardi appreciate it thank you for having me

my family's great we got an addition of the first girl in the Lombardi family, which is kind of amazing. Our granddaughter, our fifth granddaughter. So everything's good here. We're all blessed. I mean, it's kind of a great opportunity to experience being around a young girl. We've had nothing but girl dogs, but we've had all boys. So it's fun. Well, happy birthday to the fifth granddaughter. Happy birthday, AJ. Yes, happy birthday.

No, no, no, no. AJ had a whole band. And I know that's going to be tough to follow for you saying, but I was saying to your granddaughter, like happy. Oh, yeah. Well, she just turned. She was born December 3rd, right before the Buffalo game. So she was instrumental in helping the Patriots beat the Buffalo in that weather.

Then she went on immediately, she learned about the NFL, she went on an immediate two-game losing streak. How about this girl? This is how she's going to be raised, by the way. You're 1-2, and then thankfully you're able to turn it around. Right now she's 500.

Looking for a win against Miami. Getting together for the playoffs. The Finns might be donezo, dude. The Lombardi granddaughter is going to be dancing all over. Congrats on that. Happy birthday to O.J., by the way. We love that guy. We appreciate you every time you stop on.

Let's start with the Tampa Bay A-B situation because it is the news of the day. And then we'll roll into the other NFL headlines, which we can't wait to get your thoughts because you're around the NFL and still are and have been for so long. A.B. Tampa Bay. That is just something that is, he said, they said. But there's video out there somewhere, right? Like the truth will come out at some point, Lombardi.

Is that not the case, you think? And why are both so strong in their places? Is this all posturing? Is this they're hoping it goes away? Is this for grievance? What do you think behind the scenes is happening between the legality situations well considering that that on sunday the buck said nothing and it took him till thursday to say something that leads you into legalese right it leads you into look here's what we're going to say and this is

what we have to say and they they they basically dotted their eyes and crossed their t's we do know he was on the injury report last week so we do know he didn't practice wednesday thursday and friday and there was questions whether he was going to play in the game i don't know what happened during the game but i do know this his behavior his actions to me are more of someone screaming for help than anything i really do i feel like he's he's he needs some help, whether it's, you know, I don't know with whom, but to me that's really what I saw in his display coming off the field. And you guys have both been a part of the game. If a player tells a coach he can't go, I have never heard a coach say,

just go back in the game. The first response usually is, go see the trainer just go back in the game the first response usually is go see the trainer go talk to the guy and then the trainer comes and tells the coach what's going on so there's obviously a disconnect and I think for for all of us that there's somewhere in the middle the Bucs have gone strong with their campaign today Antonio has done his thing which I think is not getting the best advice possible so I think the one underlying factor in all this is Antonio Brown could use someone to talk to, someone to help him, because I think he's a kid that's crying out for help. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something I think people will be talking about.

Who knows what the future holds for him, but what does the future hold for him when it comes to football? Do you think he plays again somewhere? I think it's going to require sponsorship. The NFL is all about sponsorship, right? How does Mike Glennon get his backup quarterback job when his record has never been very good as a backup quarterback? Well, someone sponsored him, right? Someone walked in the room with credibility and said, Mike Glennon could be our guy. Let's sign Mike Glennon. That's called sponsorship. We used to call it scholarship at the Raiders because when Al gave any player a scholarship, it was five. I mean, I paid Chad Slaughter millions of dollars to be a backup tackle. And, you know, he and I both knew he wasn't a backup tackle. We just laughed about

it. But Al thought he was. Life goes on. But it's going to take someone like Jerry Jones. It's going to take someone like Andy Reid,ones it's going to take someone like like andy reed someone who has sponsorship and the ownership that was tom brady though right sorry to cut you off there was no doubt aj that was tom brady sponsored he had enough political clout because remember i got ridiculed by the worldwide leader saying that there's no way bruce arians was quoted after i reported he was going to sign in tampa the worldwide leader came out and said there's no way he's going to sign. They quoted Bruce Arians, which I'm sure that was true, but Brady sponsored.

Everything in the NFL is coming down to sponsors. Somebody's got to sponsor somebody. And if you don't have sponsorship, you're not getting a job. Look, there's just no chance. And so I think it's going to take someone with severe clout somebody with really uh the ability to to not care if al davis were here and he wanted to sign him he would sign him if jerry jones wants to sign him he'll sign him and he'll deal with the consequences but i think that's the only way you know now i don't want to talk about who would or could potentially do that

but deon is a guy deon sanders but Dion is a guy Dion Sanders coach prime is a guy who has helped a lot of people I think he's viewed as OG big brother I'm gonna go talk if Dion thought he was in a place that was good he could then potentially go to Jerry or somebody and be like hey I worked with him and that is what you're referring to as sponsorship right that is what no doubt yeah like look I'll take care of this guy it's on me if it doesn't work out it's going to come down on me because most personnel guys, they're not going to want to go and say, look, I'll take all my career and put it on the line for Antonio Brown. I mean, past performance predicts future behavior. Right. So why would you do that? And I think that in this case, in this specific case, it would need someone of significant clout, someone who had the juice in the organization and typically that's an owner or someone like andy reed or a bill belichick or sean payton somebody like that

that could put his stamp on him and go forward okay so let's move on to what we learned yesterday and we have no idea what the future holds between ab and tampa ab and his future uh he released a song is there an album coming that might tell us more i I mean, there's a lot on the plate here. And this is not what you want to be thinking about at Week 18 going into the playoffs. This is a massive distraction. Do you think it's bunker mentalities, Tampa? Or do you think you can't deal with this type of thing while other teams are priming up to win a goddamn Super Bowl right now? Right.

I think this is the week maybe they can deal with it because they opened up at 16-point favorites against Carolina and immediately dropped down to eight. So that lends me to believe that with Shaq Barrett not healthy, with Jason Pierre-Paul not healthy, that maybe the Bucs feel like, look, we'll take the three seed where we are and just live with it. live with it and if we lose the carolina who cares we get a home game we'll play we can beat anybody at any time let's be really healthy with who we have to me i think that's more of the conversation you know and then we got to get this distraction because they're not healthy right now i mean they were fortunate enough to pull out that win against the jets but their defense missing barrett missing pierre paul that really hurt them in that game and And Zach Wilson, I thought, played his best game as a New York Jet. Yeah, Zach and Bob, I'm excited to see what they become. They have to be better than the Giants. Warren Sharpe reported on his Twitter account that not at any point of the season

for the last five years have the Giants had an above 500 record. That's via Sharpe Football. There has not been one moment in that building for the last five years where they walked in and said, well, pretty good football team. Not one moment in five years of Sharp Football going through the analytics. That is a bad look.

That's a bad look, Greeny. Well, they need an intervention. They need an intervention. You know, I'm not sure it's the same intervention that Christopher Moltisanti had in the Sopranos, but they need an intervention. I mean not sure it's the same intervention that Christopher Moltisanti had in the Sopranos, but they need an intervention. I mean, when you're this bad, when you're a 27% winning percentage team over the last five years, which is what the Giants are, they're really bad.

And when you're doing that and you're John Mara, if you think it's going to be fire and Gettleman's going to solve the problem, you're wrong. If you think giving Joe Judge another year, that's wrong. You have an institutional problem within your building. And we wrote about this for the Daily Coach. You know, it's what we call the shirt sleeves problem. Whenever a family business gets passed on to third generations, there's always too many family members within the building.

And that doesn't always lend itself to the most creative thinking, the most adaptability to change, and the ability to respond. And I think the Giants are living proof of the shirt sleeves theory. And they must have an intervention. John Mara is the president. He's been presiding over the worst time in Giant football. You'd have to go back to the miracle at the Meadowlands to have football as bad in New York as you are now. I mean, the miracle in the Meadowlands, let's just set the stage here in that game. You guys remember the fumble, right? Joe Pasarczyk fumbled and Herm Edwards picked it up and ran it in. Oh, yeah, I actually remember that.

The Giants were 5-6 at that point in the season. The Eagles were 6-5. They had that game won. Their season was going to bloom. But that play really was the intervention for the Giants to change the course of the history of their franchise, bring in George Young, hire Ray Perkins, then Bill Parcells. I think the Giants need an intervention. I think they think they're going to continue to go along, oh, we're going to hire Kevin Abrams,

or we're going to hire Monty Ostendorff from Tennessee, and that's going to change everything. No, there's institutional issues within that building that have to change because when you're 27% winning percentage, you're bad. Now, in any other profession, you would be in bankruptcy court. In the NFL, you're still making a profit. Yeah, a lot of money. Hey, Mike, first, what do you make of Joe Judge's comments? He kind of went on a long rant after their last loss to talk about how things in the culture are changing, going in the right direction,

and also what exactly does an intervention look like if they have one? Is it just bringing Russell Wilson in? Well, I think what the intervention looks like is bring somebody in from the outside who can give them expertise on what they need to do to change. Give them somebody who doesn't have a lineage to the family, who's not part of this, and say, as Art Modell used to tell me all the time, kid, we need a new set of eyes.

Get a new set of eyes in here to look at it and kind of make some suggestions. I thought Joe really was trying to sell something that he couldn't sell. Look, you know, you were pathetic. Whoever decided to bring in this guy as the backup quarterback made a disastrous decision. We said it when they did it. You know, your whole team is really not very good. I don't know where you're coming from with this rhetoric. It doesn't make any sense.

You're not selling anybody on it. You know, just take your losses. Look, we weren't good enough today. You know, everybody says that this is he's modeling himself after Belichick. Belichick has never made an excuse in his life. We're not good enough. We didn't coach good enough. We didn't play good enough.

We didn't do anything good enough. Period. End of story. good enough. We didn't coach good enough. We didn't play good enough. We didn't do anything good enough. Period. End of story. And I think that Joe, by overselling it, looks bad and looks almost like P.T. Barnum, like he's just trying to create followers when there's nothing to follow. Oh, like a clown show, he looks like. Yeah, I think he did. I mean, I think he made it. I think he made whoever is advising him to give it to that speech. And Joe's an emotional guy. And, you know, he probably wanted to try to you know

hey look he's working his ass off but he can't fix it the problem is if you don't know what the problems are how can you fix it oh you know and and i think that's the problem with the giants they don't even know what the problems are they're gonna fire get them in on monday morning and and they'll open the search up and they'll say they're gonna go out and expand the market interview all but at the end of the day, John Mara runs the team. He's the president of the team. That leads,

Hey, that leads me to this. And we kind of went on a rant yesterday. The whole world did. If it's somebody that we don't care about his opinion, how do we expect them to ever get it right? So if they're going to go hire a new GM, like who says that this Mara family is going to hire the right GM and be

able to turn around the entire, nobody history tells us that they won't. Pivoting away from the Giants, do not expect to talk about the Giants this long, because who gives a fuck, honestly, at this point? No, no, no, not your fault. It was my fault, actually, because as soon as it popped up, I thought of Warren Sharpe in there. But it is something that I think leads us to a great conversation about the opinions of people that are empowering things. I think we should start looking into those people a little bit more. So we find reason and why decisions are being made.

Now, that's not just in sports. I think that's in life. But in yesterday, it kind of got spotlighted around this dude, Pornhub Arkush. This guy is a diehard Chicago Bears fan. None of us knew he existed. Turns out he's been deciding the biggest award in the biggest league on earth for some time. We had no idea how or why yesterday. He came out with preconceived notions about who's going to win the MVP before the season even started. He said, hey, if this guy's jumping off waterfalls out there in Hawaii, he ain't my MVP. If he has problems business-wise behind the scenes with a team,

he ain't my, because nobody's ever done that before, he ain't my MVP. If he comes out and he lies to people like me and others and says he ain't my MVP, and all these things he said publicly, it's like, okay, so you are projecting your feelings towards this entire award that's supposed to be non-biased. I assume that is why you were selected to do this thing.

How is that? I think we learned a lot about the MVP process and a lot of awards yesterday, more so than anything. And Hub's doing what Hub does. He apologized, took a shot at us, I think, and everybody else that attacked him, which was the whole world. But how did that happen? When did that happen, Lambeau? You've been around the NFL for a long time how did we get to the point where these people who stink are the ones deciding our biggest award in our league in our game well I think first of all let me say give me a Jeff Van Gundy quote Jeff

Van Gundy once said why would you take it why would you why would you listen to criticism from somebody you wouldn't take advice seek advice yeah okay so I think let's set that as stage I think it was the greatest thing that ever happened to the NFL yesterday with Hub Arkish because it exposed the true problem with the National Football League in terms of these awards and also in terms of the Hall of Fame selection. Like, I'm writing a book about the Hall of Fame, who belongs in it, who doesn't, and I think it's really an injustice that's going on with these guys that have the votes that really don't understand.

And they keep people out. John Madden once said when it was asked by a lot of his friends who was told to me recently, why did it take you 26 years to get into the Hall of Fame? And he told this friend, he said, well, I have a lot of people that are against me. They have grudges against me. One of the grudges was he had 12 Hall of Famers. He only went to one conference. He only went to one Super Bowl. Even though he was the winningest coach with 100 wins or more in NFL history. Yet it took him 26 years to get into the Hall of Fame.

We're going to put Dick Vermeule in the Hall of Fame this year in front of Mike Holmgren. In front of Mike Shanahan. In front of George Seaford, who all have multiple Super Bowl wins, right, who have been there, have a higher winning percentage. But what we talked about earlier, sponsorship. When you don't have sponsorship, this is what happens. And there's bias in all these ratings. There's bias in all these ratings. There is no way that you could ever say Aaron Rodgers is in the MVP of the league. He's the best player by far, but we're giving people who hold bias a chance to vote. Cornelius Bennett was the two-time defensive player of the year,

and he's not in the Hall of Fame, and Andre Reid on his same team is. Are you sure that's right? Are you sure that's right? There's so much of this. We could go back and forth all over this. Clark Shaughnessy invented the forward pass. He's not in the much of this. We could go back and forth all over this. Clark Shaughnessy invented the forward pass. He's not in the Hall of Fame. Buddy Parker invented the two-minute offense. When Tom Brady gives hand signals, thank Buddy Parker. He can't get in the Hall of Fame.

And he won two championships. He beat the Cleveland Browns twice in 52 and 53. Paul Browns, Cleveland Browns, they were the greatest team ever. And yet he can't even get a sniff. So this is just, Hub Ark is just the tip of the iceberg. It has exposed flaws in the system, major flaws, because there's bias. And unless you have people that are willing to, who know, I mean, how can somebody judge coaches that never coached?

Yeah. Also, though, when you're talking about sponsorship, for head coaching, like, availabilities, don't you think you have to get sponsored to become a head coach? If you've never become – never been a head coach, all of a sudden your name gets floated out there and you're in the interview cycle. Like, a lot of it comes from the media, too. And I feel like it really helps if you have a good relationship with the media and then all of a sudden people just assume you're a good coach no i mean look don martindale's one of the best defensive coaches i've ever been around he's a little bit like john madden bill parcells i think he'd be an unbelievable he has all he checks all the boxes in leadership for me and i've been around him and

i'm not saying this because he's my friend i I mean, I have a lot of friends that I wouldn't recommend, but I would. But but he can't get a sniff. He can't get it because nobody sponsors him. Nobody. Nobody sponsors him. There's got to be. But if you have a certain agent or who sponsors you and you have connections and you can work the back room. You know, I compared this yesterday on my show in 1960. Lyndon Johnson went to the Los Angeles Convention Center expecting to become the nominee for president of the Democratic Party. What he found out was Bobby and Teddy Kennedy were stealing votes from him all through the campaign. Johnson never ran for any primary.

He thought he was going to be delivered the Democratic presidential. He found out. He got backsided. He got biased because he didn't run. That's politics, right? That's's politics politics is in the nfl we don't put the best players in the hall we put the most electable remember this about the nfl it's a select it's an elected position not selected hey real quick if lbs or pounds what's lbj lbj was uh most fascinating human we we could use in spite of vietnam we could use some of his political savvy he i'll tell you what lbj would have controlled

that hall of famer and we would have people would have been moving left and right and i say this lbj would have had aaron rogers as the mbp and lbj would have mike raybould as the best coach of the nfl Okay, let's dive into that. Some of these other awards that get voted upon, but now a lot of money is being bet on. I think that is why what happened with R. Cush is such a big deal.

By the way, Cush should not even be in that name. That should be Pornhub R. Bush. Because Cush is a... That dude. Yeah, right? Because Kush is a, I mean, that dude. Yeah, Crystal Lake scum. He's from Chicago. Crystal Lake.

Yeah, he's from Chicago. He's from Chicago. And by the way, I appreciate the fact that he's just a Bears and Cubs pundit and like a blogger and all that. That's cool. But once you become like a representative of the NFL for the most prestigious award, who do you think should be the one voting for who should be the one voting for a coach of the year you think who should be the one doing all the hall of fame stuff how do you find somebody

without bias because naturally humans and i'm sure you've done a lot of because you love thinking deeply about people not everybody has some sort of bias don't they how would they be able to figure that out you think lambo i i just think to think, to me, you have to remove it. You know, when you make decisions for a living, you have to fight against all your biases. You have to know what they are, and you have to fight against them. You know, for me, I know what my biases tend to be, and I have to guard against it, you know? And so you just kind of strictly work that way and try to manifest yourself to make the best decision and remind yourself of the bias.

Oh, you just don't like that guy. People think I don't like Matt LaFleur, right? I don't think Matt LaFleur is the coach of the year. I think Aaron Rodgers has, you can't be coach of the year and have that special teams as bad as they are. You can't. Coach of the year encompasses everything. It just doesn't encompass calling plays for Aaron Rodgers, right? It doesn't. So, you know, to me, Mike Vrabel, he's lost 80 games to starters this year. He's the number one seed in the AFC with a team that, frankly, if Matt LaFleur went and go coach Tennessee, what do you think that record would be?

I'll tell you another one. I didn't get enough credit. I mean, how about my man Mike Tomlin? We all know we love ben roethlisberger ben roethlisberger is one of the great players he's going in the hall of fame i i think he's fabulous right however we know tone we know that that the get it was it's over he's managing a player at the end of his career right which is something phil jackson didn't want to do right phil jackson stopped coaching the lakers because he didn't want to do, right? Phil Jackson stopped coaching the Lakers

because he didn't want to coach Kobe at the end of his career. Mike Tomlin's coaching Ben at the end of his career, and he's massaging the offense around him, knowing that he can't do it, and he's won eight games. Sean Payton's had four quarterbacks. He's competing for a playoff spot. To me, that's coach of the year. Frank Wright, had he not lost to Oakland,

he would have been at least coach of the year. Yeah, Kevin James would be coach of the year. Frank Wright, had he not lost to Oakland, he would have been at least coach of the year. Yeah, Kevin James would be coach of the year for sure. Go ahead, Ty. Michael, when you look at what's going on in Tampa Bay with the Antonio Brown stuff and LA, the Rams, Stafford's thrown, what, five pick sixes

this year, and he's thrown several interceptions over the last few weeks here. Are the Packers, you think, the favorite to come out of the NFC like are we staring down a potential Packers chief Super Bowl I would say this are the 14 teams that get in it I I have never in my career thought of this is there's not one dominant team in single elimination tournament you don't have to be the best team you just have to be the best team that day. And I think anybody could pull an upset on anyone. I think if you go into Green Bay and the Packers special teams play like they do at times, you could steal a victory from the great Aaron Rodgers, even though he's going to do everything in his power to keep it from you. But if you play

the game like Cleveland does, minus the turnovers and run the ball, you might beat him in that place. So I don't know if there's a clear-cut favorite in this tournament. I think this is the wide-openest tournament I have ever seen. I do favor the Packers because of Rodgers because of his – I mean, look, the ball is almost remarkably how he puts it on – I've never seen anything. I would hate to play darts with Aaron Rodgers. It's a handoff.

I was thinking about this the other day. Beer pong? He's got to be a fucking assassin, I would assume. I mean, so to answer your question, I think if you like long odds, I mean, I wouldn't still be down on the Colts. I think what we learned about the Colts last week is if Carson Wentz doesn't practice,

then don't bet on Carson Wentz. You would bet on Carson Wentz doesn't practice, then don't bet on Carson Wentz. You would bet on Carson Wentz if he practices, though. I would, but I bet on that team because of it. Carson Wentz broke my heart last week. Yeah, he did. I had to re-watch the loss again on Hard Knocks last night. I had to re-watch the loss once again. Hard Knocks in-season has been awesome, Lombo.

It's awesome. No, it's great. I like it much. I watch it. It's much better than out of season. It's not as staged. It's not as phony as it is in the summer. And I agree. I mean, look, you watch that tape of the game and really, he tries to throw an interception that turns

into a touchdown, but he misses T.Y. Hilton for a touchdown. Yeah. And they showed that, by the way. They showed it from three different angles. It's there. I mean, that's all you can do as a touchdown. Yeah, and they showed that, by the way. They showed it from three different angles. It's there. That's all you can do as a coach. The reason he missed the throw is he didn't practice all week.

That's why I know Allen Iverson said, we're talking practice, but we do have to practice. Especially in the NFL with so many key pieces. That's something you hope that Carson misses it in week 17. But when it comes to the super wildcard weekend and the divisional round, the championship and the Super Bowl, Carson Wentz is going to make that throw.

It's all about matchups. It's all about matchups. And there's a lot still on the line. Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, Lombardi, how do you feel about the Bengals and them resting Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, and a few of their other superstars and possibly dropping from the three seed to the four seed and most likely playing New England?

I think it's probably the smartest move they can make. I wouldn't put Joe or Burrow behind a backup offensive line against anyone. You know, I think you can't risk them. Their line is so bad, and Burrow has done a wonderful job of really getting the ball out of his hands so quickly that he could get hit. And we saw it at the end of the Kansas City game. He could get hit at any time and it could cost you your season. I mean, you can't risk that.

You can't risk that. And I know it'd be great to go up there and win. But let Brandon Allen play. Let him take the hits and see what happens. And let's get ready for the fifth seed. Is it New England? Is it going to be somebody else? Let's have a healthy team for the playoffs

as opposed to thinking we're going to win a meaningless game up in Cleveland. I agree wholeheartedly, especially with the lack of depth on this Bengal team and their inability to really protect Burrow consistently. So if the Bengals lose and the Pats, Bills, and Colts win, it'll be Colts, Bills, Pats, Bengals. If anything else happens, it's Colts, Bengals, Pats, Bills for and Colts win. It'll be Colts, Bills, Pats, Bengals. If anything else happens, it's Colts, Bengals, Pats, Bills for a third time in the season. Whatever the case, the AFC is going to be fucking electrifying.

Let's play all football, though. Let's play all football, though. Go ahead, Tom. Lambo, you already gave us a little nugget on Tampa Bay. Even though Bruce said, hey, they're trying for the two-seed this weekend, you disagree. Is there any other nuggets this weekend that you think there may be an advantage on the field as far as teams that are playing guys and not or not trying and gambling you know i i think mike zimmer is going to play like it's the super

bowl i mean if you look at zimmer in preseason he plays it hard you know and i i would be surprised now we know chicago i don't think and these rules are so different i don't think just i thought justin fields has to wait five days. I know he's vaccinated, but I think, I thought he'd have to wait five or two negative tests. I don't know, but he's not going to get practice. And if he doesn't practice against the Mike Zimmer blitzes, I think, I think Minnesota will play hard. I think they'll probably play well.

I know Lamar Jackson's not going to play. So that's, you can forget about that. You know, that's not going to happen, even though they have a 1% chance of making the playoffs. But that would be the other nugget. I don't know how Baltimore is six points favorite than Pittsburgh, but then when you watch Pittsburgh on Monday night, how do you throw the ball 46 times for 130 yards? Mike, I wasn't about to stack that. Hey, 46 attempts, 123 yards.

Big Ben took the tractor another round another round another round the NFL films footage of him sitting down

and the thank you Ben chance happening afterwards was straight out of the WWE it was fucking awesome and I can't wait

to see the doc that comes from it later Ben did say on Sunday night like oh shit we have to play the Ravens on Sunday so I don't know what the motive doc that comes from it later. Ben did say on Sunday night, like, oh, shit, we have to play the Ravens on Sunday.

So I don't know what the motive is. Mike Tomlin will have the boys up. So speaking of motivation here, the Colts just lose to the Raiders at home. What are you doing, by the way, in the middle of a playoff push? They beat the Cardinals with nobody. They lose to the Raiders with everybody in a major time for their team and seeding and everything. They beat the Jags by, what, 50 this weekend, you think?

I think they have to get back on track, right, Jonathan Taylor? I do. If he runs for 278 hey if Jonathan Taylor runs for two 270 yards or something like that 230 yards he has 2,000 yards on the season you know so I don't know if that's going to happen I don't know if they're going to feed him but I think the Colts are going to come out and try to fucking bury the Jaguars after what happened last week. It just feels like that's kind of the mindset going in. You know, last year, I thought the same thing too. And they struggled to win that game last year and they've yet to win in Jacksonville since 2014. That's first week. Last week was last year's first week. Remember Joe Dirt, he intercepted Phil Rivers. This team's a whole different. Yeah. In the last game of the the season in indy i thought it was going to be a complete devastation and i believe

jacksonville covered even though you know they were looking for a new coach and all that so i'm with you i think indy will play really well i think tennessee will play really well too this week because of it kansas city that line i went to work today to do my show at 12 that line was 10 it by the time i left the show it it was up to 11 and a half, 12. So people are betting Kansas City. I worry about Kansas City getting backdoor covered because that's typically what Kansas, if they lay down. But I'm with you. I think Indy's got to play really well.

And Jacksonville, look, last week they had 20-some guys missing, a lot of them on defense. I don't know if they're going to get many of those guys back. Just a quick question here, okay? I don't want to be the bearer of them on defense. I don't know if they're going to get many of those guys back. Just quick question here, okay? I don't want to be the bearer of bad news here, but these teams in which it doesn't matter to them, it is so hard to predict if they're going to be good or not. And you said Zimmer, you've got to read off of Zimmer. You've just got to trust the coach, the culture.

Because in Jacksonville, what is the culture? Clown out. Yeah, their fans are scheduling a clown out for Trent Baalke to get run out of town or whatever. How do you know what motivates people and what doesn't, I guess? And that's kind of the whole game of gambling, it feels like. Yeah, I mean, it's the hardest thing. You know the Colts are going to play their best, but will they lay off?

You know, once they get in the third quarter to have control of the game, they know they've off? Once they get in the third quarter, they have control of the game. They know they've got to play next week. Do they take some of their guys out? And is Jackson Mahomes going to be on the sideline for the Chiefs? That's the other thing you've got to factor in. In the fourth quarter, who's going to work against the clock and just go home with the win? I mean, I think that makes this weekend the hardest weekend to bet in all sports.

Well, that's why we had you on, Lombo. We can't thank you enough. It was great seeing you. Congrats to your Italian family and your granddaughter. I hope she gets above 500 this weekend against the Dolphins. Ladies and gentlemen, the host of everything, the doer of all things, Super Bowl champion, Michael Lombardi. Thank you, Michael.

Bravo! Ty, I appreciate you, dude. Please play some independent music and repel these people into a beautiful Thursday evening. We're back tomorrow for a feel-good Friday that people will talk about for minutes. No, it should be a good one tomorrow. A lot of guests coming on that we haven't heard of.

Not heard of. Haven't talked to. Jeez, Elise, that was a little rude. I didn't mean that. First-time conversations happen tomorrow. Hopefully good times times and i can't thank you all enough it's week 18 of the nfl regular season and although that is heartbreaking we need to enjoy the hell out of this so let's do as such we'll see you manana ty hit that music අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.