The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 607 - Cam Heyward, Daniel Jeremiah, Maxx Crosby, Lovie Smith, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

On today's show, Pat, AJ Hawk, and the boys are joined by a slate of incredible guests as combine week continues. First, joining the progrum in studio, is 4x All-Pro, 5x Pro Bowler, future Hall of Famer, Defensive Tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cam Heyward. Pat and Cam chat about this last season, the Steelers moving forward without Big Ben, his career as a whole, and much more (24:15-51:44). Next, NFL Network analyst, former scout, and friend of the progrum, Daniel Jeremiah joins the show to chat about his top 25 prospects, how the combine has changed, if any Quarterback's are going to shoot up, and what he's hearing on the ground in the Indy (1:14:41-1:35:08). Next, All-Pro, Pro Bowler, Defensive End for the Las Vegas Raiders joins the show to chat about his coming out party in 2021, his road to sobriety, his thoughts on Football Rich, if he's talked to Josh McDaniels yet, his relationship with Derek Carr, and more (1:35:10-1:54:10). Lastly, 2005 Coach of the Year, former Head Coach of the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers and new Head Coach of the Houston Texans, Lovie Smith joins the progrum to chat about his career path, if he ever thought this opportunity would come again, the situation in Houston and if perception is reality, what can be learned from being in the combine in person and what he's looking for this week, if the NFL has changed since he started coaching in the league, and more (1:54:12-2:18:45). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show and listen on Sirius XM Channel 82, Mad Dog Radio. We appreciate the hell out of all you. See you tomorrow, cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for the Pat McAfee Show! Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you. Please be seated. My fellow sports stooges, it is an honor to be here in front of you today talking about the state of sports stoogery. I have it on good authority, and I am in great spirits that although for the last two years

we have fought hard and valiantly, and we've lost a lot of incredible humans, I can say today, here, in this state of the sports stooge address, we be fucking COVID. Thank you. Now, please be seated. Now stand up. What the fuck, please be seated. Now, stand up. What the fuck?

Now, be seated. Well, go on, stand up. Now, please be seated. Stand, sit, Chuck Schumer. Anyways, it is great. Hello, beautiful people. It is Let's Get Wild Wednesday, March 2nd. Obviously, we all watched the President Joe show last night,

the State of the Union. I don't know about any of the other shit he was talking about. Inflation sounds banana lands. I don't know what's going to go on with everything else, but it did seem pretty apparent that what we had celebrated early, too much, I'd say. A couple times. It feels like an accurate statement would be, I'd say. A couple times. It feels like an accurate statement would be,

we'd be fucking COVID, dude. We'd be fucking dead. God! It's a great day to have a great day. Shout out to everybody that's ever said that statement, including Coach JB. The toxic table is here. I saw you two representing, standing up and clapping for that.

Foxy was the only one not standing, which is something we had to judge last night. Who's standing? Who's sitting? What are they happy about? We beat COVID. Why is that person not happy? What is going on here?

Oh, that must be something serious. They're talking way over my head. But I think we all took it last night. We all heard the same message. I think so. I think so. This morning I saw the national shows who seem to just follow whatever you need to happen they will do.

They were all standing in a huddle. Maskless, hugging each other. I saw the politicians last night hugging each other. The whole thing. We did it, dude. We did it. I saw a couple double mask folks last night amongst everybody. I saw one mask person

to the left of that entire thing. Aside from that, when I put that tweet out last night amongst everybody. I saw one mask person to the left of that entire thing. But aside from that, and when I put that tweet out last night, I deleted it because it got very toxic in my comments. I bet. I said, hey, I just saw a bunch of maskless politicians. You tell me. We beat COVID. I don't know. I'm a sports dude.

I don't know what's going on here, but it feels like we beat COVID. I might be wrong. But then 30, 35 minutes later, Joe Biden basically said, hey, it's time to move on. COVID doesn't run our life anymore. And it's like, hey, what a glorious Wednesday. That's great news for everything. Everybody. Nick's still standing

and clapping. Gumpy a little late on a sit-down. Rubbing his hands together. That was some weird shit last night from the people that are making decisions in this country. And I'm not saying any parties in particular. Felt like a large group of people that have no idea what's going on in the real world. But I'm happy they're the ones that are tasked with taking care of us.

But I got that we beat COVID, which is good news for everything. Congrats to everybody at home. You survived. You did it. Hi, there's a lot going on in the sports world, and this show is big. Ty Schmitz here at Boston.

Connor's here. Great announcement, by the way. You're like a town crier, just centuries too late. Yeah, I feel like back in the day, that would have been my calling, so I'm glad I at least got to test it out today. I think you nailed it. Really? I think so.

Not too much of a pause in the beginning. Probably should have had that extend out a little bit more, but hey, what are you going to do? Well, that's the town crier trying to take the moment a little bit more. You know what I mean? That's there, because if you pause, that's what little bit more, but Hey, what are you going to do? Well, that's the town crier trying to take the moment a little bit. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's there. Cause if you pause, that's what more FaceTime.

Yeah. So that could have been, you know, something you thought about trying to steal the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Like you were trying to be bigger than Paul. Hey, listen,

my children, you shall hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere on the 18th of April and 75. Hardly a man is now alive. People are going to do the same thing about COVID. I assume one day, I mean, it's a real thing. One thing one if by land two if by sea and i on the opposite shore will be ready to ride and spread the alarms through every middlesex village and farm i believe that's fifth grade yeah it's unbelievable bring a memory i'm sure i got an a on that one

that tone digs is your half of the hammer. Done! Cowboys, cold open today. Thought it deserved it. We fucking beat COVID. We've been calling for this for a long time. Oh, yeah. Long time. Shams told us last week, and we thought that was the real announcement. Well, Shams, you know, kind of talked about the protocols where Kyrie still can't play, but everybody can go in and he's vaccinated or whatever. Why don't you take your cowboy

hat off? COVID's done. I'm in. Cowboys last ride. The dawning of a new day. Football tone is back. Who the hell is that? Oh my God. I mean, if the cowboy

has seen his last ride, the cowboy has accomplished his main goal. Thank you, cowboy. Holy shit. What is my purpose in life? You were the first COVID Cowboy.

Remember, somebody tried to steal that. I forget who it was, but you were one of the first. I think you were the first COVID Cowboy. And you became a full-on cowboy there for a while. It was not just because Kevin Costner was out in the middle of nowhere doing gangster shit. That definitely helped it. But then once you beat COVID and you came back on the other side

after seeing that show for the first time in the COVID cave, I think, and you started dressing a little bit and you had the cow, it was a natural fit. This guy's the COVID cowboy, ready to ride any horse. Yeah. Through any type of adversity if you had to. Give you the real stats. And guess what?

You got to the end of the trail, pal. You're on that horse. Fucking kick that thing off into retirement. Yeah. And saddle back up into football town. We're happy for you. We're happy for of the trail, pal. You're on that horse. Fucking kick that thing off into retirement. You got to saddle back up into football town. We're happy for you. We're happy for everybody. Congratulations, Tony. Good work.

By the way, a lot of the things he said I did not understand, not because he was mumbling and stuff like that, but because, honestly, I don't know a lot that's going on. The war is still happening. He said last night it's going to get ugly out there. It's going to be bad or whatever, which is kind of, I don't know much about the entire scene, but

I don't think those, you know, there hasn't been many days where I've woke up and I heard like, oh, Putin's stopping. That hasn't been a headline, I don't think. I think we're well past that. Yeah, I think so. So hopefully Ukraine continues the battle and gets everything they need. Seems like they're a little bit outnumbered.

But, hey, you could be outmanned. Hell, yeah. Outgunned. What if I went into a full Hamilton thing? I mean, I'm really cultured I'm showing today. But I'm very ecstatic that we seem to be past the chapter in an era that will be talked about 20, 30 years from now, hopefully. Where maybe we'll have some more answers and we'll be able to tell tales

about how, yeah, the whole world stopped. We had friends and family members that passed away from a virus and a disease that nobody understood or could comprehend. We lost a lot of incredible people, but in doing so, we came together because we all had to basically live in the same exact playing field.

The whole world shut down. Can't do jack squat. Can't do shit. Perspective was put into place quickly for all of us. And here we are, March 2nd, 2022. And it feels like finally the last page of that fucking terrible chapter, which was the world is dominated by COVID chapter.

I think COVID, you know, I mean, Biden did say, hey, we're going to fight this thing, try to kill it. Everybody's saying we're going to deal with it forever. Cool, I hope that happens. I'm not a fucking doctor. But it feels like the COVID running our life chapter has finally ended. Yep.

And life is a book. That's right. Every page is being written with every decision that we make. And I feel like the next chapter is going to be one of America in the world kicking everybody's ass. Hell yeah! Hell yeah! A lot going on in the sports world as well.

Cam Hayward is going to be joining us here in the next few minutes of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Future Hall of Famer, Cam Hayward. Hell yeah. D-tackle? Not nose tackle. Three-tack. So, D-tackle. Yeah. Nose tackle would be? Three or Oh, yeah. D-tackle? Not nose tackle. Three-tack. So, D-tackle.

Yeah. Nose tackle would be. Three or five, yeah. Yeah. I don't know what he wants to be called. Nose tackle normally has the body of Casey Hampton. Sure. Right.

He has a little bit of a spark plug body. I don't know how it is described. I guess it's a defense. Cam Hayward will be in the studio. I don't know what he's in town for. I think he's doing some stuff with the NFL Network with the Combine. I hope he gets into TV. Can't wait to chat with him.

Friend of the show. You played softball with him. He'll be here today. Daniel Jeremiah Move the Sticks will be here in the second hour. Max Crosby of the Las Vegas Raiders will be here. Jorge Masvidal, the baddest motherfucker on earth will be here today. And Lovie Smith will be here for the After Hours live in studio.

Let's have a Wednesday the day we beat COVID. Wow! The day that COVID died and we were singing bye-bye

you son of a bitch! That's what COVID was. A little bit of a remix there. Darius Rucker said we can sing any song we want, just make of a bitch. That's what COVID was. Yeah. A little bit of a remix there. And Darius Rucker said we can sing any song we want. Sure. Just make it our own. Yeah. Well, they're going to do.

That went as smooth as when we rehearsed it out there. Yeah, a lot of rehearsing. This is all choreographed. Yeah. All of it. Took a while. And I assume the cold open that everybody just witnessed for the State of the Sports Stooges, everybody assumed we worked on hours and hours and tirelessly for that.

Yeah, probably. People were sprinting into the room. Yesterday, we were already. Yeah, we were thinking about it. Those sons of bitches. That's like one of the most disrespectful things to say. That's like people who think I read from a fucking teleprompter. There was a show, the FanDuel show that we did on Saturday night.

Obviously, we told you guys before the Super Bowl, it wasn't our show. We were just being hired to host it and to put it on our network. Now, there were some things that happened, and obviously, will never happen again. I'll ask more questions. I think that whole thing happened. But overall, a lot of fun, smashing success. Right. The production company wanted to put a teleprompter in front of me, and I say, listen, I won't let you know.

That ain't happening. They're like, well, we'll put a teleprompter in front of me and i say listen i won't let you know that ain't happening they're like well we will we'll put a teleprompter in front of you have some of your reminders in front of you i was like i don't want there to ever be a photo of me standing with a teleprompter in front everything comes from right here that's what you need to know well how will you it's step and repeat here isn't i mean it is the same thing for two or three hours if my brain can't figure it out let's get get out of here. But that is a real thing. I think the beauty of this show is that who knows what the fuck's going to happen at any given moment.

Just like the sport that we cover. The NFL is wide open. A lot of press conferences happening. A lot of rumors happening. We had Eric Burkhart, who misspelled the word chooses in his statement, but was basically telling the Arizona Cardinals just a week and a half after getting a proposal, that was probably a few hundred million dollars for Kyler Murray, who has two years left on his contract.

He publicly states, like, hey, let's get a deal done. They get a deal done with Kime and Cliff Kingsbury, who are both probably being credited with turning around the Arizona Cardinals because the Arizona Cardinals, not that great a few years ago, now they're winning three more games each season, becoming an 11-win team in a very difficult division, the same division that the Super Bowl champions are in. And although Cliff Kingsbury and Steve Kime are currently getting contracts, Kyler Murray's agent, who's also Cliff Kingsbury's agent, said, excuse me, this dude deserves some of

the respect as well, publicly, kind of put them in a position. So then Steve Kime had to answer that whenever he did his press conference yesterday, kind of stuck on the spot about it. He said, hey, that's business. You know, people do business in different ways. That's how that whole thing goes. Cliff Kingsbury looks so cool, dude. Oh, my God. All the way up.

He looks so cool. All the way buttoned up with a jacket on top of it. Hey, he's a fucking cool looking dude. Good style. He said, ah, it's business. You know, this is the business side of it. We'll kind of a fucking cool looking dude. He said, it's business. This is the business side of it. We'll kind of figure it out as we go. Everybody said they hope Kyler Murray's around for

the long haul with the Cardinals. We shall see how that unfolds as the week goes. A lot of people getting boozed up telling secrets to each other around bars here in Indiana. Ian Rappaport's the light for the party is what Schrag said this morning on Good Morning Football. Ian Rappaport, we do know, walks into every bar he can walk into in Indianapolis,

boots on the ground, told us, and buys 300 shots and drinks for everybody. That's right. But I appreciate the fact that he is abusing his liver, his mind, and his time for the sake of good sources so that whenever he does come on this show, whenever we do put his feet to the fire, he knows a little bit more about a little bit more things. That's good networking out of old Ian Rappaport. We appreciate him getting all boozed up for the people. More news coming out of the combine conversation.

Brian Gutekunst says that there has been zero trade offers for Aaron Rodgers. What does that mean? I don't know. That's very interesting. That seems not true. Well, that seems like Eric Burkhardt, who won public with negotiation and leverage with what he was trying to do. This could be a similar thing here to Aaron, you know, letting Aaron, hey, we haven't got any trade offers actually, by the way. So who knows what teams are actually interested.

We're working on this short-term deal. I feel like we've involved you in a lot more conversations. We get Devante's going to be here. We restructure contracts. The NFC feels like a much better conference to be in than the AFC right now. So, good saying that publicly. Maybe it's a negotiation technique for Aaron to hear that and to see that nobody wants it. But also, maybe it's we're getting zero trade requests that we deem worthy.

Exactly. You've got to always – the devil's in the details in this particular thing. You've got to wonder what that is. But all of these signs are great for Green Bay Packers fans i think ty schmidt yeah absolutely looking at that like it is different when you know last year at this time when every press conference it's like oh jesus are they you know fucking trying to rake the coals here and piss him off more and maybe force him leaving or force someone's hand but i think everything we've heard up to this point like that doesn't make me think that i mean obviously there's a list of teams that he would probably deem like,

and I'm sure they know like, Hey, if this were to come along, that's something I'm interested in, but everything seems good right now. So I, he's going to be a Packer next year. I think.

Thought this would be over by now. Yeah. Yeah. What does it mean? Wow. Franchise. We still got five days or so. Well,

I remember when Rappaport said, Rappaport reported that they're negotiating a deal in case he decides to come back to Green Bay. It's like, oh, so he has not told Green Bay, yeah, we're definitely doing this, but they are negotiating. I've not talked to him. Although the internet said he was coming on Tuesday. Hey, you've got a pretty big decision to make. I, Sports Dude, is not going to come interrupt your life.

No. But hey, if you want to let us know what you're doing, cool. If we end up reacting to what you end up doing, cool. Sure. Whatever the case, just hope you're happy.

But it seems like he's going back to Green Bay. I'm not 100% sure, but it feels like he's going back to Green Bay. Speaking of going back to places, Russell Wilson had an entire quote about, hey, this is where I'm at right now,

and I love it. Yeah. Okay, and Seahawks fans sent that to me immediately upon it happening. But I believe NBC Sports, J.P. Finley, NBC Sports Seattle, you think? I don't know. Probably. No, he's a Washington guy. I think he's just an NBC Sports guy.

Washington State? No, sorry. D.C. Yeah. Because this is Seattle. So you can see how those two Washington's are very close. That's on me. Yeah, nation's capital.

Right. Home of the President Joe show last night. Bingo. You're talking about D.C., NBC Sports, J.P. Finley. Russell Wilson asked by Craig Melvin. Hey, Craig. He digs. He gets in there. Craig Melvin about

coming to Washington. The Washington Commanders. Because they are commanders. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. I will say, Will Compton immediately called them the commies. He did. He did play on that team for a while. Yeah. So that is going to have to be something they battle when his name changes. But if they

win football games, nobody will give a damn. I'm from Richmond, Virginia. Richmond Spiders, by the way, good soccer team. Oh, yeah. I don't know if

anybody knows that. I had a couple conversations with the Richmond Spiders soccer team whenever I was in high school. Really? Great campus,

very beautiful place. Yeah, a little dick you went to. It was too smart, too smart. Good ball team, too. Baseball? B.

Basketball? Yep. Smart school, I think. I think it's a super smart school. Very nice. The buildings are very, very nice. Brainiac. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a super smart school. Very nice. The buildings are very, very nice. Brainiac.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's one of those things. I don't think I was supposed to go there. Whatever the case, I'm from Richmond. I know what you mean. I got people hitting me up every day. All my friends and all that from the East Coast. But Seattle's the place I'm at right now, and I love it.

So a lot of Seahawks fans started tweeting this to me, telling me I was, you know, are you going to address this? Are you going to address this? Are you going to address this? Are you going to address this? I don't want to be the bearer of bad news. Yes. But I didn't hear how he delivered that entire thing. That, if I'm a Seahawks fan, that did not say, hey,

I'm definitely going back home to Seattle. That's him. Hey, all my friends on the East Coast are hitting me up, and I just want to say this is where I'm at right now, and I love it. Okay. What has to be figured out? Is it contract? Is it who gets more control?

Is it his voice being heard? Is it the team? Is it him wanting to be a top five quarterback of all time winning Super Bowls? Doesn't think they're able to do that in Seattle? Is it the East Coast bias? He's not really on national television as much. What is it? Why is there always some mystique?

And if you ask Bruce Arians, Bruce Arians said yesterday, you know, a lot of these fucking guys, they just want their name out there. Maybe that is the case. He said a lot of things yesterday about Tom Brady. It's been fascinating and interesting. And I didn't want it to be a part of this show. When B.A. came on, I didn't want it to be the platform where B.A. buries anybody. But B.A. is just going.

Let it rip. It is what it is. And he's taught, I mean, a lot of the things he said made a lot of headlines yesterday. They said they're leaving a light on for Tom Brady if he ends up coming back. But the Russell Wilson situation, once again, is very fascinating. Because there's a lot of teams that immediately upon receiving Russell Wilson, although Ryan Clark doesn't believe this, there's a lot of teams immediately upon receiving Russell Wilson,

they think they're winning the Super Bowl. And I assume Seahawks fans feel the same way. They're like, hey, we got Russell Wilson. We're in every game. I agree. I concur. I'm sorry that this is happening to you. We are in a current situation here where we don't have a quarterback.

You guys have a quarterback. We would love to have Russell Wilson. Russell and Sierra probably aren't going to agree to come to Indianapolis, but the Giants got a lot of picks. They're a big city. They've always been very impressive at the offense. They've allegedly been looking into potential Russell Wilson. Now, the Chicago Bears obviously got Justin Fields going forward,

but they made a full offer. And Seattle Seahawks listened to that entire offer last offseason. So if you're a Seahawks fan, I hate to break it to you. I believe there's going to be conversations happening behind closed doors to get Russell Wilson potentially out of there. Will Pete Carroll and Schneider let him go? Probably not because you're not going to find anything better than fucking Russell Wilson.

Ryan Clark doesn't believe that, but I'm just saying in general, I think a lot of people feel that way. That was an interesting statement, though. This is where I'm at right now, and I love it. Yeah, this is classic Russell Wilson. I mean, we need to hear from the camp of Russell Wilson. Team three. Team three, excuse me, to see what they actually are trying to wheel here because it

definitely doesn't seem like he's going back to Seattle. No, but last year it didn't either. No, true. And he went back, he played, beat the Colts. Got hurt. Mallet finger. The whole line still kind of stunk. Yeah. Got hurt. Mallet finger. Then they didn't make the playoffs. Tough division and

really not on TV ever. Remember, he got Mallet finger worse than everyone else because he the other guys played through it yeah tasem hill got it tasem hill obviously similar quarterback to russell wilson same type of velocity and accuracy and precision for sure as russell wilson for sure but yeah russell wilson did get surgery on his mallet finger and uh tasem hill did not even so like moving forward you you know like hey if we don't trade this guy at some point like what are the it doesn't seem like he is that keen on signing a long long-term extension with them like like you said that's not a that's not a ringing endorsement of seattle at all no you're

just being negative i'm not because i kind of flipped on russ you know there was a there was a point where yeah i hated his guts because he is a robot and all that kind of stuff but it's it's who he is and he's really really, and he's really, really good, and he's really fun to watch. But it just, I mean, you know. Monday Night Manning is where I changed. Is that where you changed? There was a point where the Yankees were playing really bad,

and one of you guys said something about him playing second base, and I was like, you know what, fuck it, yeah. Like, let's bring Russell Wilson in, and that'd be awesome. So it wasn't him as a person that changed you at all. For me, Monday Night Manning changed my entire view on him because he seemed to be the same exact person. It was after a late game. He was going through a film.

Him and Peyton were talking in the same language. Not that Eli wasn't understanding it, but Eli wasn't talking at the same time. So for me, I was like, oh, Russell Wilson appears to be the guy that he appears to be all the time, which is just the same exact thing that happened with Tebow. Tebow, he's always Tebow, he's always Tebow. Oh, this guy's got to be a fugace.

This guy's got to be a phony. And you immediately, at least I'm the type of person, if I think somebody's the most fake human of all time, it's like, okay, cool, you do your thing, but you're not for me or whatever. I think Russell Wilson has a lot of people thinking that about him because Russell Wilson seems to be a movie character. Seems to be somebody written out of a fairy tale and what a quarterback is supposed to be,

especially when he's mic'd up. Hey, here we go. Clear eyes, full hearts, boys. It's like that's out of a movie. That's not real life. Yeah. And then everybody around him is like, no, this is what the guy's like all day, every day.

It's like, well, I can't fucking hate on that. If he's going to be himself all the time, super positive, incredibly diligent and dialed into what he does on a daily basis has an entire team to make him better he's got a right leg coach and a left leg yeah right arm coach and a left arm coach right hand coach and a left hand coach sure the only coach he's got for the same as the wrist that one doctor works on both of his wrists that's true so i think i got a lot of respect for russell wilson is that because maybe there's a chance long ball long hail mary we're talking full of grace we're talking we'll throw it long long now russell wilson's for the So I think I got a lot of respect for Russell Wilson. Is that because maybe there's a chance? Long ball. Long hail Mary.

We're talking full of grace. We're talking throwing long, long now. Russell Wilson's for the Indianapolis Colt? Maybe. But also, I think this has kind of been how we have talked about Russell Wilson since Monday Night Manning and it has all happened. Well, and I think to your point, like we've talked about time and time again, these guys look at Brady and stuff. Like he is one of those guys who's unbelievable.

Like he knows his own worth. I mean, and if he doesn't think that he's going to be able to win a Super Bowl in Seattle, we know how he is off the field. He's a fucking massive superstar. Like, hey, maybe New York isn't that crazy for Russell Wilson to want to go there. So those are the big news of the morning we just hit there in the first 20 minutes. Steve Kahn, Cliff Kingsbury, guess what? Big time money.

I assume, you know, Schrags is meeting up with whoever Don is. Oh, yeah. Schrags looked like he was still rolling right out of Killboy. Yeah, he did. The makeup lady did a hell of a job today. She crushed. So the makeup yesterday on Schrags was a little bit much. I think we all agreed with that.

Schrags probably agreed with that as well. I think so. A little bit too much. Maybe the lighting was a little bit different than it is normally on Good Morning Football. But, hey, I have been somebody that has gotten makeup done on my face

and they put an entire bucket on and I look bad. So it's not a big deal. It's not Schrag's fault. That's just yesterday. New lighting, new makeup person, new face for Schrag's.

This morning he's back but he's boozed up. He looks like Rappaport on a goddamn TV. Having great interviews though. Oh yeah. Big time. Great interviews,

great networking. We appreciate Schrags. We appreciate everybody. Gunter Kuhn says there's no trade. Russell Wilson says he loves it in Seattle. That's where I'm at right now. I love it. And in studio is one of the most stout-looking dudes I've seen in a long time.

Yeah. D-tackle, three-time first-team All-Pro. Future Hall of Famer out of OH. IO. Cam Hayward. Yeah! Thanks for having me, guys. How are you, man?

I'm good. We're trying to catch you up there. I was trying to catch you up with the situation with Diggs there because you did look confused. You had met Diggs before. You know Diggs. You're friendly with Diggs. Diggs almost quit being a cowboy earlier because he thought we'd be COVID,

so the COVID cowboy put his cap down, almost put his lasso down, and he put a ball cap on. Yeah, it didn't feel right. Yeah, you didn't look nearly as good, by the way. This is kind of like when your dad shaves a mustache or something. You become a whole new person. Let's dive into it. Speaking of dad shaving mustache,

Pittsburgh Steelers are going to look much different this year uh ben roethlisberger great segue by the way thank you i appreciate that uh you come from a great lineage of absolute ballers your little brother is doing his thing right now at the combine i'd assume going into the draft and you're working for nfl network thank you for stopping by here let's let's talk about the pittsburgh steelers though yes because this is one of the most storied franchises and programs in all of sport mike tomlin whenever his name was being talked about for usc he said hey i'm the head coach of the pittsburgh steelers like this is one of the most prominent jobs in all sports i will take no more and basically go to hell pittsburgh steelers organization doesn't have a lot of change that's

not something that happens there's a lot of stability now you're kind of staring down the inevitable it's one of the OGs on the team, what are your thoughts going into next year? And what do you think Tomlin's trying to portray to everybody? Like, hey, we'll figure this whole thing out. Well, first of all, I think Mike T's trying to say, all right, why take care of kids when you can take care of grown men? Yes. And recruit, too.

Could you imagine having the text 17-year-old? I don't care if you're not coming. Like, that is. Okay, I'm going to dock your pay. What else are you going to do? Yeah, exactly, exactly. But about the season, man. Coming off the last season, losing Ben now.

It's going to be interesting. You know, are they going to put all their trust in Mason or Dwayne? Or we got to find somebody else. And what do you think about Dwayne? We didn't know much about Dwayne. He got signed to the Steelers, right? Well, he's a Buckeye, so I gotta like him. I like

him a lot, but it's not for me to decide. Yeah, and TJ told us the same thing, by the way. TJ was like, yeah, we have no idea, but it's not on us. But I feel like anybody that looks at your team because of you and because of TJ and because of everything on the defensive side of the ball, that team's going to win games. That's just what's going to happen regardless. It's almost

here in Indy, we have a great team, but for whatever reason, just couldn't go on a run. In that locker room, you guys got to feel like, hey, we have a ready team to go on a Super Bowl run here, right? Yeah, well, appreciate you, Indy, messing up that last game for us and getting us in the playoffs. Thank you, Colts.

Yeah, there was a lot of things. Everybody knew. Hey, you're welcome, by the way. Thank you. We didn't capitalize on it, but appreciate you guys. But, you know, it's going to be very interesting because we got TJ, you got Minka, we got a lot of seasoned vets on the defensive side of the ball, and then you got a guy like Najee and Deontay Johnson.

You don't want to just start from scratch. You don't want to just go and say, you know, we're going to have a losing season. And that's not what the Pittsburgh Steelers do. Yeah, what was Najee like? He seems awesome. He is awesome. He doesn't know what a Christmas tree in his house is, but he's awesome. Yeah, he told a story the other day.

I forget who he was talking to. I think he was doing NFL Network work. And he said, like, yeah, I come from San Francisco. I went to Alabama. The humidity almost killed me. He said it almost killed me. He said it was three years it took me to get used to Alabama, and then. I went to Alabama. The humidity almost killed me. He said it almost killed me. He said it was three years it took me to get used to Alabama, and then now I go to Pittsburgh.

It's like, it's cold, and then snow comes out of nowhere. But it feels like he's a guy who's ready to get fed. He's ready to go almost. Was there anything in practice early that you were like, oh, this guy's a guy? Well, I was pissed off myself because the first couple times I was trying to tackle him and I missed. And then he shrugged me off.

And I'm like, all right, this is a little different, but calm down. So the next couple times I tried to get some licks in, but he kept avoiding me. And he's able to bounce off of everybody. And he just wants more football. He doesn't shy away from anything. Which is great because nowadays you see a lot of snapbacks, especially with the way the NFL has been at least. Do you think the NFL is changing back to a more powerful game? It's got to.

How come? How come? Just because? Because you get all these spread offenses and these little defensive players. Best thing to do is pound them into the ground with a big old line and a big running back. That's kind of the ripple effect, right? That's why everybody says it's cyclical because whenever the team started

going spread it out, you had all the big bodies because they were ready for like a heavyweight fight and then the little guys were able to just kind of get like you're a massive man but you look doesn't all look like you're incredibly nimble oh yeah and you showcase that you so you're like a good hybrid i think for both molds of the old school football and the new school football but once i started seeing the power teams just be able to plow linebackers that are much smaller than me. They're like 215, 225 now. Their safety is moving down to linebackers.

It's crazy now. Because they have to be able to run. I think Pittsburgh and your defense would love if everybody went back to heavyweight football. Oh, yeah. You know, it slows down the game. The clock keeps going. If our offense stays on the field field i am happy on the sideline

afc north's a problem right now dude yeah joey burr seems to only be gaining uh confidence in the bangles they don't have a practice facility but obviously they have that is wild wild wild cam listen i speak about this all the time you hear a lot of their fans old school fans like stop making fun of our program or organization i'm like i haven't heard one of their players tell me to stop talking about it. Could you imagine not having an indoor facility? Do you remember the hard knocks where they were walking across? Do you remember James Harrison walking across? A highway.

Like, imagine him saying, with the Pittsburgh Steelers, I walked into our little indoor, and then now I've got gotta go across the freaking street? This is ridiculous. It's the NFL and I think you're not just making, you're not pointing this out about the Bengals. You're pointing this out about the NFL as a whole. Like, hey, you gotta get that thing. But that team, despite all that getting real hot. Lamar Jackson, who knows what's gonna happen over there? Cleveland,

legitimately, who knows what's gonna happen out there? Tomlin said, you know, the AFC North's like the kitchen. It's hot in the kitchen. It's always hot in the kitchen. You're now, you've been Tomlin said, you know, the AFC North is like the kitchen. It's hot in the kitchen. It's always hot in the kitchen. You're now, you've been in the game for so long in the AFC North. What are your thoughts on the change? It seems like it's really changing over there. It changes every year.

You know, the crazy thing in our division is, I think there hasn't been a repeat champion in our division. Every year it's somebody new. And so you better bring your stuff because everybody's coming for you what do you got in the off season have you started your workouts yet you never stop i stopped i started right back after i got back from the super bowl so you did stop for a couple weeks yeah just enjoy yourself have a lot of what i had the kids with me i don't know yeah but like chicken nuggets we're talking pizza pizza. Pizza. Just getting after it?

Yeah, after it. No workouts? A little bit here and there. What is the workouts? Now that you're back into it. Are you on a diet, a strict diet? A strict diet. Yes?

Trying to just get back to fish and vegetables. Are you serious right now? I got to get down, bro. Really? I'll balloon up if I'm not careful. Hey, me too. I go from 275 to 225 every offseason I used to, basically. Is that something you have to be very diligent about,

especially now you're getting older? What about the body? Do you have to do any of that type of? I feel better when I do it. I'll say that. You know, if I just continue to eat and eat and eat, you know, I feel terrible. You know, Cam in March compared to Cam in July is way different. No, but you have to be big.

That was always like the offensive linemen who would always get so mad at themselves for being fat. You know, they're like, oh, I'm so fat. I'm like, well, you have to be. Like, you literally, you have to be a big dude. Well, shoot, when I first started, like our average O-line was like 340, 330. Willie Colon, Chris Kimato, Max Starks was like 360.

Then we had backup guys who were like Trey Essex, who was pretty big. Trey Essex with Indy. Yeah, he was with the Colts. I think the small guy was Pouncey, and he was like 315. Do you see that with a lot of, not just the Steelers' offensive line, but with the game getting faster, you're seeing smaller guys. Does that benefit you immensely, I assume? Yeah, I love it.

I love seeing the little centers that are like 290 pushing it, and it's like, okay, you're about to get bulled the entire time. What are the workouts? What do you do? Because you have to remain explosive, but you also have to be able to remain powerful. What do you do? Man, it's time under tension.

What's that mean? Just, you know, doing squats at the bottom, holding it for four seconds and all the way up. Cole Haley, my guy, back home, he kills me every freaking day. You go hard, hard. Yeah. Have to. Have to. If I'm not getting better, I'm getting worse.

Yeah, you're in there battling too. And I would assume the mindset with every single lift every single morning is like, if I don't do this, I'm going to get embarrassed. Because there's a chance you do that in the NFL. That can happen in the NFL, right? Yes. Quickly? Yeah. I hope not quickly.

Not for you, but for other people. Like, whenever you first play with somebody, you're like, oh, this is going to be a long day for this person. Well, I think you've got to learn the position before you can really start to elevate. Because in our position, there's so much technique involved and so many little things that you continue to keep getting better and better. Once you master those things, you become even better. They're talking about like Aaron Donald reading a motion and then like sliding his shade a little bit. Is that just natural football IQ that comes from inside the liner experience?

I think that's just, you know, that's his homework. You know, understanding the formations, understanding where the back aligns, when the tight end's coming in, is he coming to chip him. All these things come into account when you're – And I asked Will Compton this yesterday, and he's a special teamer. And I'm like, hey, Will, why do you think you made it? You're undrafted and somebody else didn't. He was like, well, I started studying like every single play,

and I started – like the amount of football IQ that happens in the NFL, I don't think people understand. Even at like D-tackle, you're in there. How do you see all this? Because you're right. How do you see all this? That has to be something that took time. Did you take to it like a fish to water?

Well, shoot. For me, I didn't play my first two years, really. And so, for me, I had to learn everything going on around me. I had to know every position. And then once I learned that, I was like, okay, I know this side. Let me learn that side. And I started grouping everything together and understanding our formations and personnels. You know, it's understanding like a fake.

You know, if you're going to run a fake, you're going to get all antsy and stuff. We know what's going to happen. No! That's what Troy said. That's what Troy said. That's what Troy said. Troy said that my energy coming on the field, he knew it. Bro, you're the only punter that goes crazy in a stadium. And they're too excited.

And you're too excited. Yeah, yeah. That's my fault. I mean, that was a walk-in game. It was a walk-in. It was. Against you guys. You know how good I would have felt?

Oh, my God. Back in Pittsburgh for the rest of my life. Oh, you guys, yeah, score a touchdown. I can stand up. Bro, I remember one of the last times we played you. I think, oh, man. It was like one of my first times going in. And coach tells me to go in.

I run on the field. I trip right in front of Mike T, faceplant it, and I just look up at Mike T. He's like, you going to get your ass in there or what? What a moment. What a favorable moment. I didn't know you sat for the first couple years. So did it get loud? Did it get loud for you?

Pittsburgh fans are not necessarily necessarily the most patient bunch. Oh, yeah. I was a bust. That's what everybody called you? Yes, I was a full-on bust. Wow, how come? You think you weren't ready for it? Your body wasn't ready or just an opportunity situation?

Bro, I was playing behind a team that just came off of losing the Super Bowl. They had two defensive ends, Brett Kiesel and Aaron Smith. They had a first-rounder behind him, and then they had Casey Hampton in the middle. I had to learn, you know, and I'm fine with that. That had to be tough, though, right? That's tough to hear that, especially because your dad, legend in the city, Pittsburgh, legendary city with the Hayward family.

I think, like, now that I'm thinking back about it, Pittsburgh's not a place that's like, oh, yeah, we'll just wait around for this guy to figure it out and not take into account, like, oh, yeah We'll just wait around for this guy to figure it out and not take into account like the entire situation there But those two years vital to your way you are right now to becoming a whole final depressing That was a lot Lesnar's headsets are up there. So just we'll leave that on the ground for you forever. But those two years are a lot, huh? Yeah a lot. I had to learn a lot about myself at that time.

Mental paralysis, though, from those two years? Yeah. You know, now I look back at, like, rookies, I'm like, you know, you guys come in and bitch about everything, and it's like it's way easier now. Because the rules and everything? Rules, you know, guys complain about practice. Practice isn't even that long now. Hey, listen, you're a D-tackle saying this.

Because normally the D-line room would be the loudest about the practices. We don't do half the stuff we used to. You remember two-a-days? Yes, yes. I was a part of two-a-days. And everybody, I always get lumped in with the younger class though and talk to the old people. Like, oh, you have no idea? Well, I was a punter. I had to peer there.

I had to show up. I had to show my face. I had to be there and do, okay. It's funny because I was right after the lockout. And so nobody knew the rules. They were like, oh, yeah, we're just going to do two a days. And so they were like, yeah, they know they're not supposed to have two a days. But it was the first time.

Remember they were asking for people's cameras. Like, hey, we need your footage from your practice. Do you remember that? After the new CBA? Oh, after this new CBA. No, no. The one you and me went through. You came in right afterwards.

They were asking for people's practice films, allegedly, because people were practicing too much when they were trying to set in the new rules. Oh, wow. I don't remember that. Really? No. No one cared about the rookies back then. No.

Not at all. They saw Sam Bradford get his number. They were like, oh, we're going to take that away now. Yeah, well, Matthew Stafford got drafted 221 picks ahead of me, and he got like $55 million apart signing. I got $37,000. Go ahead, Tom. Cam, there's been a lot of talk about from Tomlin and Colbert this offseason

about getting back to the Steeler way, and I assume you don't want to be 75 yards down the field accidentally falling on Justin Herbert and stuff like that. It was like the run game. It wasn't a punch. Calm it down. I just got done talking to him. I just got done talking to him about it.

To Herbert? Yeah, he's not going to say it because he was the one on the receiving end of the puck. I mean, you took that thing from all the way to... Okay, so I got on the ground end of the puck. I mean, you took that thing from all the way. Okay, so I got on the ground. Okay, I'm running, right? And so, like, I land on him.

And I'm trying to get up. And I stumble again because the guy pushes me in the back. And I go to catch myself. And we talked about it. He was like, I didn't even feel it. And I was like, okay. So he kind of took a shot at you there. Yeah. I was like, okay.

That was him outfitting you there a little bit. You say what you want. Sorry about that, Tom. But the Steelers way, you're not supposed to be downfield that far. Was the run defense, was it because Tyson was out, Toot was out? What was going on? Because in Pittsburgh, we can't. That's just.

Yeah. That gets Stooges like him. All yinzers are all pissed off. Fire him up right now. Yeah, as much as it pisses it'all off, how do you feel? I trust what he's asking. I mean, you were all over the place. So, like, I know, like, you talked about being on the sideline.

Like, offense sure go out there. Like, you were running a lot this year. Yeah, like, it's funny because, like, before the season, I remember having talks about, like, trying to keep my numbers down, trying to get my snaps down. After Tyson and Tua got got hurt that went out the window but you know we got to get back to you know stopping the run that's what we've always thrived in um you know i think we understand that uh if we're going to be a good defense

we have to you know stop the run and then get after the pass uh i look for guys like tyson to come back yeah to it to come back um you knowsmith to be even better, Devin Bush to continue to grow. TJ's just getting for sacks. He's not playing the run at all. TJ, just be TJ. How about that? Two seasons ago, counting this one as last season, we just finished up, Bud Dupree gets hurt, right?

You guys were killing it. It was unbelievable. And this year, Tyson and Tua get hurt. That becomes an entire thing. I assume you guys were just praying. I mean, that was unbelievable. And this year, Tyson and Tua get hurt. That becomes an entire thing. I assume you guys were just praying for some health maybe. Man. That's everybody, by the way. Nobody talks about that.

Health. Health. You got to get healthy at the right time than win anything. Yes, I concur. Is that why you do all this shit that you're doing right now in the offseason? Yeah. You know, if you don't take care of your body in the offseason, obviously freak things can happen.

Like, Tyson was working out with me every single day. And then, you know, week two,'t take care of your body in the offseason, obviously freak things can happen. Like Tyson was working out with me every single day. And then, you know, week two, I think it was like the fourth play, he like messed up his ankle. And he was like, oh, bro, I can't feel it. I'm like, what's going on? And like it was like turn the other way. Yeah, that's not great. That's not great.

You can't really do much about that. It's going to be hard to rehab that particular thing back. But I think that is something that isn't chatted about because they'll label somebody like, oh, he's fragile. That guy's fragile. It's like, well, what if that guy just had like three terribly unlucky situations happen? That can't happen on the field. That just never really gets chatted about or people don't even give a fuck about ever.

Well, like I've had two big injuries in my life. And like one was in the Sugar Bowl of my senior year, and I was like, oh, damn, this is the worst freaking timing. Finished the game. They said it was a bruise. Then a week after, I'm training for the Combine, and they're like, yeah, I had Tommy John surgery. Jesus.

Yeah. That's what ligaments are off, right? That's what Ben just got, right? Yeah. So I can throw a left-handed, but whatever. And then my other one in the Dallas, I think it was 2016, we were playing Dallas. I was going out to make a tackle, and my arm went back like this, and I pulled everything off the bone.

So told me it was a bruise again. Yeah, yeah. Still playing with that injury. I guess you threw these quarters here. Okay, we've got a half left here, Cam. That's a bruise. We'll check that thing out tomorrow. Is there anybody when you get to the league that you get a hold of

and you're like, oh, that's a great-ass fucking man there? And does that happen ever to you nowadays? Nowadays, no. That's good. Yeah, that's the goal, right? That's why you've been around so long, too. But I remember when you first get in the league, it's like you're seeing all these big cats.

And shoot, I was seeing Orlando Pace come back to Ohio State, and you're like, damn, that dude is humongous. You're seeing Michael Orr blindside. You're like, oh, I can't wait to play that dude, but he's a tank. Joe Thomas was another guy. Joe Staley. Those guys were just legendary.

Yeah, when they got their hands on him. Who was the guard from the Ravens that just retired? Oh, Yonder. Yonder was the guy. Everybody says he's like the best. Yonder is the best. How come? Just because he was able to do everything?

Man, able to do everything. Didn't really fight. Didn't really do the extra stuff. It was just like, oh, he's just going to beat your ass every play. Hey, I'm just here to move you. Hey, I'm just here to move you. In your division, too, staring down that. And then he moved from what?

He was guard, then he was tackle, then he was other tackle, then he was other guard. He was just flawless the entire way. You can plug him in anywhere. And now I see he's like 240 pounds. Not even. I think he's like 195 maybe. That dude is tiny right now. I saw like a news report, and it was like all he did was walk.

I was like, bullshit, he's doing something. No, he's cycling. I think he was a big-time cycler. He's cycling? Yeah, I think he's cycling. You a cycler? My ass doesn't like the seat. No, I don't like that doing something. No, he's cycling. I think he was big time. Yeah, he was. He was cycling? Yeah, I think he was cycling. You a cycler? My ass doesn't like the seat. No, I don't like that shit either.

Yeah, I can't. It's uncomfortable. I got the Peloton for my wife, and she was like, oh, you should try it. I tried it once, and they were like, you need to stand up on it. I was like, nah, this ain't for me. I would have to imagine. That would be absolutely amazing. Go ahead, Ty.

Cam, I don't know if you saw. I think it was today. They're either presenting to the competition committee that roughing the passer is going to be reviewable. For a guy like you where you play so violent and so physical, is there anything you can do? Or do you feel like because you are established in the league now, you're not kind of getting some of these ticky-tack bullshit calls

like a lot of these other D linemen are getting? Man, I got one at the end of the season. It would have been my 11th sack. Me and TJ combined on the sack. And he's coming straight at me, full speed. What am I supposed to do? Just let him run me over? And so I go to make the tackle.

It's unnecessary roughness. On a runner. Tyler Huntley was running the ball. But then if you talk back or get upset, there's another 15 on top of it. Oh, I've talked back plenty of times and I've learned my lesson over here. Are you a talker on the field?

Yes. To offensive linemen? Offensive linemen, refs, you name it, I talk. So what is the conversation like? Early with the refs, you try to win them over? Then if you need to, hey, we got to have a problem here? The funny thing is, I play good cop to TJ's bad cop. TJ goes awful.

He's not happy. I love it, though. Yeah, me too. I love that type of thing as well. You just try to keep it balanced, though? Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, offensive linemen, once they get me talking, it's like, it's a wrap from then on. You know, because I'm just going to be in your ear the whole entire time.

Any good verbal jousts with anybody? Ooh. I wouldn't say what I've said. No, no. Anybody that you're... No, you don't have to tell me what was said. Joust, like who did... Is there anybody that had pretty good give and take for a good four quarters?

Hey, let's say four quarter shit talk battle. You know how in shape you have to be, by the way, to talk shit for four quarters? Well, like you get some of these old linemen and they can be kind of corny. Like the one guy was like, I remember you like 10 years ago i'm like and what's that supposed to do like yeah i'm gonna whoop your ass for another do you do you respond immediately too is it like exactly how you just explained it there yes ah so you're just casual talking shit to people oh yeah oh that's amazing you remember i used to hear about like jordan he would like start singing to him and like sing like like you're getting nothing to hear about, like, Jordan. He would, like, start singing to him and, like, sing, like,

you're getting nothing but the best from me and, like, all this crap. I'm like, damn, like, that's some, like, next level shit right there as you're dominating him on the court. So is that your style? No, I don't sing at all. I'm more just like, why are you even on the field? You shouldn't even be on. Oh.

But I've had some guys, you know, they'll say, you know, you were on the practice squad last week. How are you even going to block me this week? Yeah, yeah. And by the way, that mental edge, who knows what's going to happen. It might flip them into a better player. It might make them much, much worse. That's part of the game.

I love it. That's why, like, the mic'd ups when they come out, I feel like that's when you learn the most about people, in the mic'd ups. No. Yes. No, the mic'd ups are always. Pick through it. You've got to pick through it.

Bert's over there right now. That's our PR guy. He's cut down so much of my mic dubs. They're just all over the place. Yeah, but I feel like in parts we'd be able to get that you are a shit talker. You have to kind of pick through the terribleness, I think. Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, were you talking shit to Quentin Nelson when you picked him up

and put him on Jacoby Brissett's knee and basically ruined the cold season? Or is that just one of those things? What is your – we've already talked to him about this. No, I know, but – That's two years ago. I need to find out just to make sure. There's bad blood there, man. Were you guys talking?

There's not bad blood. Yeah, there is. It's kind of there for a bit. We were on a run. My happiness went very much down. But he's going to be known as one of the greatest guards in the history of football. Yeah. You are going to end up in the Hall of Fame from being a draft boss of everybody into the Hall of Fame.

I mean, two Titans battling like that leading up into that week. Is there more to it whenever you've got somebody like that? Mike T did that. Oh, really? Yeah. You know, he's talking to me and Bud throughout the week. And he's like, you know, they got number ones over there. And I'm like, Mike T, we got number ones too.

So, you know, don't just count us out yet. And so we went into that game. We're going to be ready for them this time. And Tomlin talks a lot of shit, right? All the time. That's his motivational. Yes. You know, he always talks about us sports bitching, you know.

But he does the best job of just getting under our skin bitching, you know, but he does the best job of just getting under our skin and just, you know, I remember one time, uh, you know, we talk about guys getting folded back when we talk about they're on skates. Yeah. And then he shows a clip of like everybody who's on skates and then puts them in like, you remember the movie ATL? Yes. He puts the guys in skates.

He shows like a poster of it. And so like we saw that. He's literally posterizing that. Yes, making us feel terrible. And then I've heard there's numerous situations. Like Boswell told me one time when Boswell was either, I don't know if it was the year he was not doing great or he was doing great and he had maybe a miss and then he was back to being good. I don't remember what it was.

Works both times. I guess Tomlin came over him. Hey, Boz, I love you, man, but if Janikowski's available, I'm going to have to talk to him. Like something like that, you know? Oh, yeah. I've heard he's just like the coolest dude to everybody. Like Boz can get it.

Boz gets it a lot. Yeah, well, he's a kicker. Boz has to fight back at some point. He's got to fight fucking Tucker from Baltimore. Oh, Justin. You know, Mike T's to fight back at some point. He's got to fight fucking Tucker from Baltimore. Oh, Justin. You know, Mike T's always talking about Tucker. Oh. He's like, Tucker's 1A, Boz, you're 1B.

Oh, my God. But Boz always backs it up. He's like, yeah, but you got me, though. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. And Boz is unbelievable. Evan McPherson's over there. Tucker's over there.

And Boz, that is the best kicking division in football. And I like to wait until this year. Tom, I'm definitely going to be like, Tucker 1A. Money Mac, Evan McPherson by 1B there. Boz is my one. Don't worry about Boz. Thank you, Boz. I love Boz, by the way.

Super cool guy. How about Presley Harvin? You guys got a new punter in there this past season. He's Goodburger. I call him Goodburger. Welcome. No, he's just Goodburger. Good guy?

Yeah. Love him. Yeah, I love him. I hope he continues to get better and better. He has so much problem. He bombs the fucking ball. Bro, I remember watching his tape at Georgia Tech, and he was killing it. I think he had like a 70-yard punch.

Yes, and then he would throw a 30-yard ball, and then he would tackle somebody, and then he would go hang clean like 365. He looks like a nose tackle. Well, he can kick. I think he's going to have to work on that personally. Why don't you get him in the gym? Well, because I used to look like that. I mean, I used to look like that.

And then I got into shape, and it was like, oh, I should have. Because I didn't used to look like that. I mean, I used to look like that. And then I got into shape and it was like, oh, I should have. Because I didn't want to break or I didn't want to fix what wasn't broken. You know, like eating pizza, drinking beer, having a bad body. Like the ball is still going far. So like I'm not going to change that. You sound like all the old kickers back in the day. Yeah, that's it. I remember. I did

two of those. Hey, I was part of it. People forget that. But yeah, I just think that's going to inevitably happen at some point. But's awesome as are you man thank you so much for stopping by i appreciate that man and what like i feel like i've asked you this before and you know i i apologize if it is that's the other organization growing up in pittsburgh it is the closest to a college it feels like in my eyes the the steelers and because it is the amount of stability i think is what tomlin told us. Like, yeah, the guys come back, all the coaches are still there, the calls are still there.

Do you feel that and recognize that whenever you're in there? I love it. I feel it every time I walk into that building. It is a joy to be there, to see the history that's already been set, and to be a part of that. You want to do your best every single time. And the insers are going to show up for you.

Yeah. I think that's real. Now, granted, they called you a bust, too. I mean, that's pretty wild. They had my expectations. I don't remember that. This fucking guy. You should have heard him. He was probably on there, too. Yeah, he was.

Hit me. There's a bunch of Italians from Plum that were probably on the internet, still are going to town. I'm a big positive. You know what? I thought it was Aaron Smith and Kiesel. I mean, it's great, too, to learn behind. I thought it was positive. and Kiesel. I mean, it's great two to learn behind. I thought it was positive. Yeah, you didn't say that.

That's only what you're saying right now. We appreciate you, man. Really do. Thank you for stopping by. Good luck on NFL Network. We can't wait to watch you. Can't wait to see you go to the Hall of Fame. Can't wait to see what the team is next year.

But they know they've got to study, de-tackle, all pro, ladies and gentlemen. Cam Hayward. Yeah! Appreciate you. Tackle All-Pro, ladies and gentlemen, Cam Hayward. A Super Bowl champion, college football national champion with the Ohio State Ryder Cup champion, COVID survivor, ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hart. AJ, listen, happy you changed your shirt.

Thought you were going to be Steve Jobs there for a while. You're wearing the black long sleeve, the Arnold Classic, get some love, get to the chopper, whatever. Hey, I want to let you know, me and Cam Hayward just did one-on-one out there, and he's the first one to ever just bull me. Okay? And it was not great, AJ. This dude's head, this dude's legacy in Pittsburgh,

and I assume in Ohio State as well, he is awesome. He is absolutely awesome. But he just put his paw on my chest and pushed me into a wall. It was wild. Imagine if he put that forehead right on your chin and tried to push you back. How do you think that would go? Well, that wouldn't be great. I learned I'm a finesse player.

You know, I think I'm a finesse player. I'm better with the screens. You saw what I did to Aiden Hutchinson. That's right. Aiden Hutchinson, I let him just go right around me so we could just run, you know, a little screen check down draw. Kim went straight for the straight arm. Immediate.

I mean, he locked that thing out quickly, too. There was no hand. I didn't even do a whoa, whoa, whoa, none of that. He got his hand on my fake chain and my tank top quicker than I could even get to my first, huh? He was on me and driving me directly into a wall. Earpiece goes flying. Cam Hayward still trying to get to the quarterback.

Somebody blow the fucking whistle. Play is dead. Boom. Dead. Dead. Dead. See ya. Imagine if he actually stabbed you.

You just put his hand out there. Dude, I still think I made him run the hoop there. Yeah, that's true. Quarterback got sent off. I might be on the feet of still. Yeah. It was kind of late off the ball, too. He didn't get it all there.

Yeah. Good kicks step, three step. I think he's a quarterback. There's a wall there, dude. Dude, it was just a shove of his hand there. He is coming out of his little offseason, though. He said he was hanging out with the kids. I was off balance. I should have put a little bit more fight in that,

but I do believe I fall right in the wall. My shoes are untied. Yeah, they do. What do you want me to do? Air Force Ones? If I was in my hakas, but I do believe I fall right in the wall. My shoes are untied. Yeah, they do. What do you want me to do? Air Force Ones. If I was in my hakas, you know, imagine I fall over on his hakas. That'd be bad. Falling from 12 feet.

Yeah, I mean, that'd be difficult, especially with those boots that you've seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cam Edwards is awesome. Combine Week is crazy. A lot of people talking. Gunter Kuhn said there's no trade partners for Aaron Rodgers thus far. It's been silent. What are your thoughts on that?

Do you think that's public negotiating with Aaron Rodgers? Letting Gunter Kuhn, letting Aaron Rodgers know aaron rogers know like hey listen you know we're not getting offers or is that him bird calling to people hey make some offers how do you take this aj hawk is a man who's very close to the situation obviously i mean maybe he's just trying to be honest because why would they have trade offers when aaron hasn't asked to be traded yet so i guess why would the teams might wait to reach out until they see what he's going to do? So I agree with that because that would be by the letter of the law.

But Brandon Bean, general manager of the Buffalo Bills, told us that if he hears that there's a potential player that they're looking for that could be on a move, is not happy or whatever, they'll give a call. Those calls are happening all the time is what what allegedly Brandon... Did he say no official trade offers have been on the table? Was anyone sniffing around? Anything like that, do we know? The way Schefter says it is Green Bay Packers GM

Brian Guntekun says he's not getting trade offers from other GMs on Aaron Rodgers. This is just like when Rappaport talked about the Cliff Kingsbury, Steve Kime Bidwell? Yeah, Bidwell. Yeah. Bidwell ownership meeting.

Like, yeah, no official meeting has been done when he says that. So maybe there's been no official offers. Maybe there's been no interest, though. And if I'm wrong again about this whole thing, I just assume, just like when Tom Brady was a free agent, which he will never be again, by the way. No, five ones, no. No chance.

That's what Bruce Harris basically said. No. Play for us. Bad business. Yeah, but he can come back and fucking play. Sure. We'll leave a lot. He's playing right fucking here.

We'll figure out how to build another team. He wants a name out there. Maybe. I don't know. Like a lot of these guys these days want their fucking names out there. It was just Tom. It wasn't just fucking Tom. I mean, a lot of people had their hands in the pile.

There's a lot of things Bruce said just casually yesterday. Yeah. Da-da-da, you know, da-da-da. And everybody's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The big one, though, is obviously that if Tom did want to come back and play, he would have to play for the Buccaneers. And Bruce Arian's mind, he said five number ones.

You want Tom Brady, no big deal. He was five number ones. That'll be no problem. And for some GMs, by the way, if the more sneeds start coming around, all right, we'll give you 2040 to 2045, our first-round draft picks. I mean, who knows how that's going to open up, but maybe that'll take place. Aaron Rodgers, though, when Tom went to become a free agent,

I thought everybody would want him in the building. You get Tom Brady in the building, you immediately get better. Everybody in the building gets better. The equipment managers get better. The athletic trainers get better. The strength staff gets better. The chef, the chef gets fucking better immediately, right? The chef gets better. The ticketing, the sales, everybody elevates their game because they don't want to be the one that fucks it up, right? Okay. So we're getting a chance to get greatness in here. Somebody that's been there. So if we don't accomplish whatever our goal is for whatever our particular department is, it's strictly probably because of us, not because of what's going on

over here. Coaches get elevated. They're not going to miss any more film. They're not going to be boozing as early as they normally would on off days. I mean, there's going to be everybody's, you know, heightened whenever Tom Brady comes into the building. So I assumed everybody would want that. Now, allegedly, the Colts were offered, and the Colts said, no, we'll take Hill Rivers instead. And obviously, we all know how that ended. Tom Brady won a Super Bowl in Tampa immediately upon going there and heightened

everybody's play and made everybody better. How you doing? Keep it moving. I mean, that is exactly what happened, but not that many people were interested, allegedly. Now we're hearing the same thing about Aaron Rodgers. That's bananas to me. Honestly, that is crazy to me. Is that because maybe they didn't want to make offers and be embarrassed or fooled? Or maybe this is literally Goontae Goonts making a bird call saying, hey, if you guys got offers, we would like to hear them.

Do you think that's happening? What does that mean for what's going on between he and a guy that you're best friends with? Maybe's a little bit of a bird call but if he wants to hear any offers it's probably just because he wants to kind of get an idea of what people are valuing aaron would be like what you would have to give up and i that's why i would understand why would a team go out there okay we'll give you four first rounders and two of these current players like why would you go out there and try to like set that up yet when you don't know if Aaron is going to be playing in Green Bay or if he requests a trade or he's going to retire or he's going to hang out and do Jeopardy?

Who knows? I am par-chakama. But the Chicago Bears did that at Seattle last offseason. They did that at Seattle last offseason. Remember after Team 3 came out and said, we'd like a little better offensive line, a little bit more set, maybe some more Super Bowls. But other than that, we're happy. That's what Team 3 said. But you know, Pat, you know people

and I know people in the league. I know I've spoken with people that work for different teams around the league that have told me, hey, if your boy is leaving Green Bay, tell him he can come here and we'll give him whatever the hell he wants. He can be the OC. He can do whatever he wants. I've had multiple different people that work high up at teams tell me that.

Whether that's joking or not or they're being sarcastic, they have told me that multiple times. Put it on thicker. Put it on a CK. Here we go. Wow. That is huge. Finally getting somewhere.

Okay, here we go. Thank you, AJ. Thank you. I've said that here before. I've said that here before. No, you haven't. No, you haven't. No, you haven't.

No, you haven't. Never said that. This is the first time. And you know, too, you have talked to people as well that have told you, hey, tell Aaron whatever he wants, buddy. No. What? I don't know about that.

I have not had any of those conversations. What are you talking about? WWE? Vince McMahon. Yeah, did he? I didn't even brush the subject with him, but maybe we'll do it tomorrow. You've got to ask Vince. Hey, you want to get any Aaron Rodgers sweeps I gave you?

You and Aaron at Mania? Oh. No. Me and P You and Aaron at Mania? Oh. No. Me and Parcha Karma at Mania. Hell yeah. Two bucket match. Yep. You got on everything.

You'll need more than two. Paint in the cameras. From what I've heard, yeah. There's numerous days, yeah. Man, that was quite a riveting tale there when I learned about that whole thing. That would be sweet, though. Honestly, you're always trying to get content. How about you do the old punch a karma cleanse,

and we just keep cameras rolling for 12 straight days on everything that happens? That's not my type of content. That's why when you say you're always trying to get content, that's not my type of content. Not yet. I mean, let's see. It might drift into that. I mean, I'm not 100% sure.

There is people that do that though. And I'm, hey, thank you for the inspiration every day. Thank you, people. Good morning, beautiful people. I used to do a good morning, beautiful people tweet every single morning. And it was more so to myself than everybody else. But also, people enjoyed it. But then I'm too lazy some mornings to even think of one.

So it's like, this is why I'm not supposed to be this guy. Like, I need to go watch other people who wake up every single day and post seven things that are inspirational and motivating. I'm like, how the fuck? How do you do? How do they have enough energy and inspire everybody else? And also, why don't you have any success? You know?

What have you done? Yeah, what's your resume show to where I should be following this path? Well, you're so fucking motivated. I'm pumped to go do something. Show us. You're selling tickets to a seminar that they're doing that weekend. I get so confused. It's become something where people in my life send me these people

because they know how often I've asked the question, where I'm like, okay, we don't need everybody. Everybody needs to be a motivator. We're sports stooges. Hey, we watched the President Joe show last night, but it's not our, it's not my duty or anybody wants to hear my thoughts on what the fuck happened other than we beat COVID. What were your thoughts on the State of the Union?

We beat COVID. That's all I, couldn't understand much else. Didn't know what was going on, but we did beat COVID, so that's great news. But that's the thing. I don't know how everybody feels like, hey, I'm going to be the most motivating person on earth,

but that is an entire avenue on the internet. Oh, yeah. People get sucked into it, too, big time. The only one delivering is the Liver King. No, no, no.

Gary V. Gary V. Gary V. Steve Weatherford's crushing. Hey, Weatherford also... What did Connor say? Who's the liver king? Liver king.

Liver king's why? Liver king here. Hey, liver king and liver kids have really, they almost got a shout out on SmackDown because I happen to be in a six, seven hour phase of watching his videos. Yeah, liver king almost got a pretty big shout out. Somebody did something.

I was probably going to call it a punch to the liver. It was just going to go into an entire thing. He runs like an illegal organ ring? No, no, he eats them. Oh, he eats hearts and shit. And liver queen. He eats livers. Oh, that guy.

Yeah, yeah, liver king. He's this guy now. At least he's jacked. That's for sure. Well, he's jacked because his testosterone levels are so high because he eats livers. Isn't that right, Bailey? Bailey, isn't that?

Yeah, Bill knows. He eats livers, which jacks up your testosterone levels naturally. Bone marrow. So that is why he looks the way that he looks. Yeah, he does drink bone marrow. That's like every day of his life. It's a lifestyle. What is this guy, Bill?

What's his thing? This is just the guy that lives off the way that we should be living, like simulated hunts. You should go out and kill for your food. Caveman. Yeah. He's caveman, but he has a word for it. What is that? What do you mean simulated hunts, you know, like you should go out and kill for your food. Yeah, it's caveman, but he has a word for it. What is that? What do you mean simulated hunts, Bill? He gets his heart rate up to a certain point that, you know, would replicate people that used to go hunt their food and then he can finally eat.

That's fucking nice of him to do that. Wait, does he kill them by hand with bow and arrow like old school or what? Well, just real quick, you go to those Civil War reenactments and stuff. Give them a thanks because we're not getting to see it. We're getting a chance to watch a fucking caveman operate. Yes. Right? In the modern times, that's what you're saying, Bill? This guy, caveman?

Yeah. He sleeps on plywood beds and everything. Can't have a phone in the room. Liverking, equal sign, caveman. See, but he does fly private. What? Yeah, I've seen that on his IG. I think he flew private

all the way to africa appears to be on some sandwiches as well no he's not the testosterone levels are high from the liver drinking bone marrow i misunderstood i'm sorry yeah you're an idiot dude that's unbelievable that is a slanderous term to the caveman liver guy is kind of like gumpy on the ooze. Put him back up there. Gumpy, why don't you start eating liver, dude? This is you. Let's go. This is like six, seven months.

Liver sandwiches, Paul. Yeah, eating liver sandwiches. Him and Chompa. Imagine. Chompa is unbelievable. What's that? This guy? Caves.

The wild. Oh, wild. He does have a palatial estate that he lives in. Well, I can't blame him i mean if the cave people were able by the way pretty sexist i'm so sorry cave people i will say oh true cave people if the cave did well said cave people first well and then cave woman too i guess yeah so this cave man liver queen exactly cave woman right and then liver kids is cave kids i don't want any ageism in there either.

No, no, no. He's a Texas boy. But if the cave people could live in a house and fly private, they would. Yeah. The king and queen of the cave people were riding the cleanest rocks in town when it was going on back then. I don't want to get too far off track, but here we are. we are you know um at one point the person who thought i'm gonna put these leaves right here on this rock and i'm gonna make a seat was fucking steve jobs think about that at one point in evolution the person who man this hurts you know grab some leaves bundle of them puts it down sits on it everybody's this guy

fucking war lady sorry cave lady this guy's a phrase uh guy is dude this human is the smartest human of all time probably for an entire generation i assume you live off that for an entire generation then wheel person came yes yeah and then wheel person oh my god this is fucking what about fire person this is fire person was they were they were a witch and they were burned at that fire yeah yeah so the seat guy someone also or woman someone also could have came up behind them clubbed them in the head taking their seat then and took all credit for oh so you're saying people taking people's trademark or patents and then just making money off of themselves all this time yeah so you're saying that literally began with cave people? Yeah, there's a good chance that immediately after that guy took leaves down that...

Or girl. Or girl, right. That he was stabbed in the throat with like a spear or something like that. And then they just launched his body off there and said, Hey, look what I just did. Fucking seat. This is really comfortable. Yeah, that's kind of how it worked.

That's why Liver King wants to get his jacks again, so he can steal all the ideas from the other cave people. Exactly. I happily came around to that. Thank you, Liver King. to get his jacks as he can so he can steal all the ideas from the other cave people. Exactly. Genius. Thank you, Liver King. AJ, any questions over there? Man, I got so many. So many questions.

Any follow-ups? This Liver King guy, first off, I'm glad you – I've never heard of him. I will definitely seek him out and see what he's doing. Oh, yeah. Look at the glee in his eye. I know. This guy is so – I like it when I find somebody I haven't found, I haven't seen yet.

Hey, Liver King's awesome. I've seen him walk. He was doing a farmer's walk with like 7,000 pounds. It appeared through his entire yard or whatever. It was incredible. Six hours. I did like a good six-hour run with that guy on a plane, off a plane, through some driving.

How did I not know this human existed? And then I kind of moved on. Is it human livers? I don't believe so. I think they're animals. Cows, cows. It's a big cow. She had a big cow liver.

The thing was pretty large. And then he also would have, oh, yeah. Remember, he had livers, which is all protein. He had meat, which is all protein. He had something else that was all protein. And then he also had a protein shake on the side. Yeah, eggs. That was the one that really...

Yeah, he had liver, he had steak, he had raw egg, he had chicken, and then he also had protein shake on the side. No, that's every single meal. I watch this guy every day. I'm dead serious. That's every single meal. Are they all raw, or does he cook them? No, he cooks them.

There's also bone marrow on his... Oh, my God. This guy. Throwing a spear. Because the caveman, I believe, ate it raw. Bro, come to the combine, Liver King. It's happening right now, dude. This guy get picked up, undrafted free agent.

He can play quarterback for the Colts. He's the Hail Mary quarterback. You know, you need a long ball. You're at your own 30. What was once thought about not being possible. Liver King comes in and hawks a pigskin 7 000 yards yeah that guy never still look at this dude aj i mean he looks like he's in like bodybuilder shape like the shape that bodybuilders get in for seven hours when they're posing yeah but he's athletic too yeah very much so does he do a lot of athletic movements look's thrown 40 inch vertical by the way i think he's actually hunting right here i don't think this is just for

the photo right no there's a chase you should chase deer down and get him tired out and chase him for four days and then finally spears him i saw him pull like 17 45 pound plates across the driveway with teeth this dude's a specimen he He is a specimen. The entire family. Get him to a combine. Let's talk about the combine. AJ at the combine. We're having Daniel Jeremiah join us in about five minutes. So a lot of kill time here until somebody who actually knows what the fuck's going on.

We don't have a clue of who's over there. I learned Cam Hayward's brother's right now Michigan State. Guy's a player. Should've known that, obviously. He's a great player. Is he? He's a guy? Yeah, he was a running back at first, then he went to wide receiver, then he went to tight end, plays a little fullback. Always makes great plays. So he's highly sought after in this

entire thing? I don't know. They have him going between five and seven. Oh, to New England. Picks? Fifth and seventh pick? No, no, no. Round. Okay, thank God. I was about to say, man, I made a fucking ass of myself. If he was was gonna be pick six i said cam i said what do you got going on out here he's doing nfl network and my brother's

out here or whatever he's going to the job i'm like your brother's going that's awesome good he's a hayward so he's good at football it's literally what i said he was like yeah yeah he's pretty good yeah he plays tight and then digs came in and saved me he was like tight end the guy runs a lot whatever and then digs pivoted to a different conversation immediately wanted inside information on what's going on with the steelers which i respect and do appreciate you uh so i never got into it but yeah there's a lot of hey tomorrow superstars right down the road right here and you and i know nothing about them that's why daniel jeremiah's coming when you were in a combine did you hate it did you hate everything about it what was the what was it like for you

uh i was definitely curious and kind of intrigued going into it as what it was going to be and i got there and i definitely appreciated being around all the other guys. I had a roommate. You stay with people. You got to get tight with different people. But then it was cool talking to coaches, seeing them, everything else stupid. Just tons and tons of wasted time. You could have done it all.

We had three and a half days. You could have done it all in 120 minutes. Other than that, great time. Okay. So other than the complete waste of time, great time. I don't need to. You don't have to test me on some, like, leg extension machine to test my quad and knee strength and then wait nine and a half hours and then go finally do drills later that night.

Ah, so you're having to do three a days at this damn thing because everybody wants to... I don't care. I just hate wasted time, and there was a lot of it. Yeah, it's a hurry up and wait two situation, right? Because you've got to wake up and get piss tested at like 6 a.m. too. They have like the most obscure times for guys to wake up and do their piss test for street drugs and for PED drugs

and everything like that. Then they've got to wait three hours. Then you've got meetings. Then you've got to work out. Oh, and by the way, you're 40. Then everybody's going to know for the rest of your life is happening at the end like that. Then they've got to wait three hours. Then you've got meetings. Then you've got to work out. Oh, and by the way, you're 40. Then everybody's going to know for the rest of your life what's happening at the end of that. I mean, it is very fascinating.

That's why you hear a lot of these players and coaches alike are like, this is not the most appeasing thing for football, we don't think, right? Is that not kind of the avenue? No, I mean, I understand why it's there. It should happen. I think, for the most part, good coaches, good GMs and owners, they understand what it is.

Like, hey, we just want you to reaffirm what we have seen on film. Like if they've seen someone they like on film, they want you to show, yeah, you are that guy. Don't come out here and look terrible in person. Sometimes it's scary when guys haven't made a lot of plays in their college career and then they come out and they light it up at the combine and some people take a shot at them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's scary when guys haven't made a lot of plays in their college career, and then they come out and they light it up at the Combine, and some people take a shot at them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Well, how about the Raiders that for a long time, if you were the fastest at the Combine, it didn't matter what your film looked like. I mean, you obviously had to be able to do your position. You had to know what your position entailed, okay? And if you were running a 40, you were obviously in a football sphere that people thought you were good enough. But if you ran it fast at 40, you were going to be a Raider. Like, yeah, it's going to happen.

You're going to the Raiders. Which, hey, Shane Leckler bombed balls. I fucking loved him. But he was the perfect situation for him, too, as a bomber. He was able to hit balls 80 yards. Not a lot of people are able to do that. I don't think I would have been able to do it as much as Shane Leckler did. He is unbelievable.

But he was able to hit it. They had 4-1, 4-2, 4-3 going. I don't think I would have been able to do it as much as Shane Leckler did. He is unbelievable. But he was able to hit it. They had 4-1, 4-2, 4-3 going, who couldn't play their own positions. They could not play their own positions, but they could run. Like Shane Leckler would hit these home run balls, which, by the way, more consistent than anybody else hitting those big balls, hit bigger balls than everybody else. But it was also perfect because the way they brought in players was they were fast. That was a fast track over there with the Raiders.

I mean, that team was very fast. With the analytics coming in, I'm wondering if Shane Leckler, by the way, is the greatest of all time in my mind. So, like, I don't want that to be anything. I'm just saying it's a perfect. It was a perfect. It was a match made in punting heaven almost. There you go.

But with all these analytics coming out and all these, like, super scouty people becoming more prominent in football, I wonder if all this shit will matter more to some teams than it ever has in the past, AJ. It might when they go back and they try to review all their past draft picks and the numbers from those draft picks, and then they try to put into equation algorithms how this guy worked out,

how many years did he last in the league, all that stuff. Yeah, you could sit there and overanalyze things, and I'm sure it's worth putting together and then saying maybe that's one little piece of the puzzle when you're thinking about drafting somebody. The smartest people on earth understand that we're all individuals. We're all unique. We're like snowflakes, right?

Snowflakes, there's no two. Do we know that? Yeah, we do. I don't know that about snowflakes, honestly. It seems to be a crock of shit to me. I mean, it makes sense, but no one has studied every snowflake. Yeah, ever. And you see Whoville in there.

Maybe that's an anomaly of a snowflake. True. Because how big that had to be for the Grinch to be able to do all the shit he was doing in there. But it sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. But with that being said, we're all different. You have no idea. Like stats, every situation, hey, situations are situational. That is so real real especially when it

involves humans so that's why i think stats can definitely help you make decisions and they should like hey this is what people in the past have done that but if it's not 100 to 0 and if it's not like you have no idea what's going to happen because who says that aj hawk isn't going to be a bust you know who says that he's not? A.J., I assume that if it wasn't for, you know, your incredibly hard work ethic, your incredibly hard head, the situation you were in, your film study, everything like that, you didn't make it. But a lot of guys just kind of flutter out.

Every situation, you can't just, like, what worked in the past isn't necessarily going to work. There's a lot of luck involved. The injuries obviously play a huge role. Like, you could, guys get drafted and it might not be the right scheme, worked in the past isn't necessarily involved the injuries obviously play a huge role like you can guys get drafted and it may not be the right scheme and all of a sudden they get going and bam they get hurt they can never get back on track like that yeah a lot of it depends on where you go how it works that's why it's never there's no like exact way to go about it so that's why i think the nfl is so fun because we really don't know that's why i don't envy decision makers joining us now is a man who does all of the research just like he was a decision maker oh yeah man who probably one day

will be oh yeah you know the tv thing over to the old thing it happens and every time this guy's on tv or in a microphone he absolutely crushes it on his twitter bio we've seen amazon thursday night football excited to know what that means because there's a lot of chatter around that entire thing he's obviously works for nfl network chargers radio you can see and feel him on twitter at move the sticks ladies and gentlemen daniel jeremiah what's up dude what's up boys how we doing hey we are great thank you for joining us you give us the best conversation about this type of shit every year. I want to let you know that, so we appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. We appreciate you, man. Hey, thank you, dude.

By the way, where am I right now, Pat? Where am I? It looks like you're in a locker room. Hold on. Oh! Yeah, I wouldn't know what that looks like. That's way too nice for me. I think you've hit a couple punts up here, dude.

Hey, what is that, the NFL Network Suite? Is that kind of how everybody watches the entire combine? Every team has their own suite, and then the networks have their own suite, or you guys are the only ones? No, no, every team has their own suite. It's totally different than what it was when I was scout, and everybody was out there out in the stands and doing all that stuff. And it was like as a young scout,

you were on the run. You had to go get the Subway sandwiches. And now they've got these suites with catered meals. These young guys, dude, they got it so easy. Oh, wait. Hey, Kim, Hayward just got done saying that to the young NFL players, and I assume old coaches say it to young NFL coaches. I mean, it seems to be a much different style, but you're living it up, it looks

like. Dressed well, enjoying the sweet. Probably having some food, maybe cocktails with Rappaport. You want to see what we got here for our bread? Is this NFL Network up here? Rappaport probably drank all the booze. Yeah, for sure. The booze is gone.

Wow! A little coffee machine here. Then we got the snack. That's like a plain snack thing. Oh, dynamos are fucking good, dude. We got some of that.

Nobody's eating the celery. Some type of little handover thing. That's what you got. They're going to bring hot food in, right? Because you guys are going to be there for what the next 47 hours yeah it's long it's very long dude but i i i love i'm like i guess i'm a weirdo dude i love this event man like i i love it i just love getting out here seeing these guys move around you get a chance to watch these guys you see them on tape and you're studying this, these long hours studying tape. And it's like, now you get to actually see what their face looks like. They take their helmet off. You get a chance to see these guys and watch them

work. It's always fun. Okay. So you have a top 50. We took a picture of your top 20. Whenever you think about these guys that you're projecting to do well, there's a lot less quarterbacks than in other classes, right? This is a very, very drought year almost for quarterback needy teams. There happens to be a lot of them. But when you go through this list, is there anybody that can move up from this combine or is this basically locked in and the combine means absolutely nothing? No, I mean, look, you can help yourself. You know, to me, you got to do something exceptional, right? You got to do something pretty incredible to get out there and kind of make a big leap at this point in time in the process.

The tape is always going to be more important than anything else. But you get a guy like Trevon Walker who's at Georgia, and he's going to be 6'5", 270-something pounds. He's going to run the low 4'6". He's got 35-inch arms. He's just got some freaky stuff going on. And then when you watch him on tape, the wayorgia plays they play him in that kind of a tight alignment they play him inside the tackle they don't really loosen him up and free him up to

rush so some of the knocks like wow he only has like six sacks well they don't really they don't really cut him loose and so you get a chance for a guy like that to come out here and show what he can do athletically it's like okay now we loosen this guy up a little bit and we'll see that production that maybe he didn't have there at Georgia. Daniel, how much business do you witness going on? I know all the agents are there, the front office from the teams. I know speaking to different agents, that's where they go. They go to the combine when they want to talk to the teams and get their guys' deals and set things up for the future.

Do you witness a lot of that? Yeah, I mean, you go out to Harry and Izzy's last night and have dinner and you see all the NFL's in there. And you see a mixture of agents and teams. And they're talking about laying the groundwork, I should say, for what's getting ready to take place with free agency. Kind of gauging where the

market is for guys. And you start hearing as you go through the week, you start hearing who some of the hot names are and who's got a lot of juice moving forward. So I think a lot of who's got a lot of juice moving forward. So I think a lot of that stuff, a lot of that groundwork gets laid this week. Okay, so when you're at Harry and Izzy's, which is same kitchen as St. Elmo's, much more modern, updated situation. So Harry and Izzy's is, and I believe the sheriff has potential partial ownership.

Oh, really? I think so, yeah. I'm not hurt for sure. Place is fantastic. There's a lot of great places, and Indianapolis loves hosting it. But just like you're talking about, it feels like so much gets done. How much are the coaches paying attention to what's going on on the field? Because we saw McVay, Shanahan, and Bob Sala say, hey, we're not going. And they're all friends.

And people would say, well, that's the Rams, that's the Niners, and obviously the Jets are deciding not to go. We have four picks in the first 38. Do you think, like, coaches don't really get as much out of this outside of the networking and socializing when it comes to the event? And is this something we should look forward to or think about is going to happen in the future? Well, you know, I think since the world kind of turned to Zoom

and FaceTime, being able to zoom um and face and facetime being able to be in those interviews without actually physically being in there that there's some value for that they can stay they can continue to kind of catch up on the draft process the coaches don't get a chance to start on this stuff till after the season's over so um you know i get it from that standpoint and the coverage you know we we have you can see almost everything we got going on here plus you can watch the video of the workouts as well so i kind of i understand it but i i personally think there's value in just being around these guys like if you guys are going to hire somebody for your company i think the more time you can be around them it's going to help you make the

right hire maybe more importantly help keep you from from making the wrong one i agree i concur so uh daniel i know there was like all this was like all this controversy leading up to the combine, I guess, about them not letting players come in. They're going to create a bubble and all this stuff. Now they let that go. There's no bubble there. So, are guys walking around with teams of 15, 20 people with them? Are they allowed to bring everyone they want?

Anybody in any geese? Anybody get a room in any geese? I know like the faces of all these trainers because you see them at these things every year. I don't know. I got so terrible with names, but they're all here, dude. They're all muscled up. The shirts have gotten smaller. The arms have gotten bigger. And these dudes all be running in the hallways. As you guys know,

when they're trying to get loosened up like day and two days before. So yeah, I think the whole crew's here. Isn't that crazy? Cause I wasn't like that all the time. It wasn't like that for a long time. And then body specialist performance coaches started coming into the world. Body gurus started coming in the world. Private office. Yeah.

Calvin Johnson didn't even bring shoes. Like, he wasn't even going to run here. He didn't even bring football cleats. And then, like, on a whim, whim, we'd interviewed him the night before and going through the interviews, he's like, yeah, I'm not going to run. And I remember Ozzy or some of the guys kind of gave him a hard time about that.

But anyway, he's just on the line. Everybody's running. He's like, let me borrow some cleats. Borrow some cleats and ran like 4-3-4. He might have done it, by the way. He's such a good businessman. That might have been something he actually, I'm going to act like I'm not going to do it.

I'll take somebody else's shoes and then we'll do the entire thing. But that whole thought process of the body gurus being around and taking care of them i think because we know more about the body now that's why that is more uh alluring for people i think it's always been around to do stuff and do like private body specialization but now it's become like if you're a high profile athlete and you're not doing it you're lacking behind do you think that's why we see it seems to be faster every year? Every year it seems like, holy shit.

I don't know if the top speed is becoming faster, but more people are hitting that top speed. Do you think that is why that is the case? And do you think that trend will only continue as well? Well, look, I know you guys went to big-time programs. I was at Appalachian State, but we ate hamburgers and hot dogs every day for food. There was no nutrition program in colleges. This stuff has all trickled all the way down, where these guys are more cognizant of what they're eating,

what they're doing, how they're training. So I think that's probably one of the reasons why you see these guys, that the speed's continuing in depth is what you're saying. It used to be you'd see one corner, two speed's continuing in depth is what you're saying. You know, it used to be you'd see one corner, two corners run low 4.3, mid 4.3. Everybody else was high 4.4s. There's like a big gap. And now it's like, dude, you'll have 15 corners, you know, 4.4 below. Like, it's just, it's crazy how fast these guys are.

Dudes are 2.75 running like 4.45s. It's like, what the f— Wow! He ran 4.37 at his pro day last year. So fast, so fast. The game's only speeding up until it's not, by the way. Just like we were talking with Cam Hayward about the big bodies coming back. Go ahead, Tony.

DJ, I'm going to try to use you to make some money here. Evan Neal is the favorite to go number one overall, and then Kenny Pickett is the favorite to be the first quarterback selected. Do you see those either of those going any other way I still I think that's wide open I wouldn't feel great about the Evan Neal one just because I think there's two there's so many options there for the Jags it's not even I mean for me he's not even the top offensive lineman I have Iquanu ahead of him but you're trying to figure out what the Jags are going to do. And I wouldn't feel great about that one. Kenny Pickett, you know, according, I think

he's the top quarterback entering this part of the process. Most of the teams that I talk to feel like he's the top quarterback, but it's, you know, it takes one team. You just, you need one team to fall in love with you. And that all changes. Do you think there's going to be a lot of moves here? Because I guess Jacksonville is already shopping it. Is there any players that people will want to go up and get? No. This is about the depth. Like this draft is you're selling the depth. So to me, I just – I kind of laugh because you always hear like,

oh, they're willing to talk. Yeah, everyone wants to go in reverse. You've got to find somebody who wants to go forward. Like that's the challenge in this draft. And I don't think they're going to have any success being able to get out of there. People trade up for quarterbacks. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's any quarterbacks this year. Now, if you

get a DN guy, though, like the guy you said out of Jordan Trayvon or Trevon or I'm sure you know his name, he seems like he's going to be a guy. Seems like he is. He's 6'5", 275. He said only had 6'6", or whatever. But if he runs something insane and jumps insane, and then he looked back and finds some clips, you know,

they start finding some clips from the season where they're like, oh, that's our defense. That's against the style of player. You can see how somebody can maybe get excited about a pass rusher, right? Quarterback, pass rusher, that's about it. Yeah, I think you nail it with pass rushers. So teams will trade up for pass rushers. But this year there's a zillion of them. Like you got you've got hutchinson who i think is the best

player in the draft um he's gonna he's gonna test really well out here tibideau is kind of a wild card some people like him others don't you've got walker who i just mentioned there's a kid jermaine johnson at florida state who when talking to guys he's working out yeah he he's like 263 pounds he ran 459 the other day that's what i'm saying so it's like okay i love these players i'm gonna trade up for him but why i got there's another one right behind him like this this we could have eight edge rushers going the first round this year geez law quarterback going on go ahead ty yeah dj because of that quarterback hey do you think are you finding that uh decision makers that are there this week are doing more due diligence on impending free agent quarterbacks who are already available? Is anyone who we don't think is going to take a quarterback going to take one of these guys, or is that probably not going to happen?

when you see quarterbacks get pushed up and, you know, and you look at years that that's happened, it's because you're in a situation as a team where you almost, you know, you've got, you almost got a panic or a pressure on you right now. Nobody feels that because all these veterans, you know, five teams think they're getting the same veteran quarterback. Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

I heard, I heard he was coming on your show to announce that one way or the other. When's that going down? Yeah. Well, I heard that was happening on Tuesday. It did not. We are now on Wednesday. I have no idea. You've got to ask that guy next to you on the other side over there.

He's the one that probably knows more than anybody, but that's an interesting situation. But you're right, I guess, huh? Everybody still thinks they can get a veteran quarterback right now, so this rookie quarterback class that's coming in is a very interesting one to watch. Yeah what's going to happen pat is you're going to see uh you know we get through free agency and somebody's going to be left holding the bag here and then all of a sudden this quarterback in the draft that they kind of liked all of a sudden starts looking a lot better yeah you see him just start skyrocketing on your how do you know did they tell you like hey we like

this guy move him up your thing you're going to look stupid? No, I don't really. Like, the mock draft thing is that's how you have that movement. I don't really care about that. Like, that's just all what I'm hearing. So I would do that for that. But, like, my top 50 list, that's, like, my personal opinion on the players. So I'll defend that.

But people that lose their mind on mock drafts, I kind of laugh. I'm like, dude, it's just what I've heard. I can't unhear what I heard. That's all it is. Yeah, but people do get worked up about mock drafts we'll have a full reaction oh yes i assume look at this because our draft spectacular 3.0 how many years ago this is probably four or five years ago because i used to have to do a lot of them like eight of them now i think i only do like four of them but one of them my son was like he was like 13 and i was like all right buddy here's how i rank the players here's the teams

go get them and uh and i use the majority of his mock draft people go bananas over these things it was a 13 year old that is amazing go ahead connor yeah dan how often does like the combine actually hurt a guy's stock? Why would Hutchinson even go out there and run if you already think and other teams think that he's the top prospect? Yeah, I mean, Ozzie used to always say fast guys run fast. If you're going to test really well, just go do it, right? Just get a chance to go out there and show off a little bit.

But I remember when Quentin Nelson was coming out and he was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing anything. And they're like, oh, you're going to wait for your pro day? No, like nothing. Like I'm not doing it. Why would I? You've seen everything. I don't need to do it.

So I think it just kind of works however you want to do it. I think you leave it up to the kid. But I know one thing, gosh, if I could freaking jump 40 inches and I could run that fast, I'm going to do it every time I get a chance to do it. By the way, Quentin Nelson can dunk. He runs down the field every single play. He probably would have tested very well. I would assume it would have been just one of those even added things.

He's like, no, I ain't doing this. First time I met him, he was at a training facility in Carlsbad. And so I go out there and the guy that runs the facility says, hey, Quentin, this is Daniel Jeremiah. He works at NFL Network for the draft coverage. And he looks at me, shakes my there, and the guy that runs the facility says, hey, Quentin, this is Daniel Jeremiah. He works at NFL Network for the draft coverage. And he looks at me, shakes my hand, and goes, oh, so you're one of those nerds that just sits in his mom's basement and just watches. Yeah, nice to meet you.

Hey, Dan, is it scouting people now? I know you have a scouting background. Is it harder or easier now than it was, say, 15 years ago? I think it's a thousand times easier like the access to the video like i went from when i started like in 03 we were still using beta tapes so it went from beta tapes to eventually cds which was incredible because you wouldn't have to lug around all these tapes and then it went to having like a huge drive where you could have the video on it. To now, it's all on the cloud. It's all on your computer. And I can cut up the video any way I want.

It used to be like, oh, man, I think this guy can play in the nickel. And you'd be in a draft meeting and somebody would say, oh, if you watch him against Southwest Missouri, I think you've got some snaps in there. We'd have to go scramble around and find it. Now I get on the computer, punch in all his nickel snaps, and boom, I can watch him right now. But don't you, isn't every answer given by the guy all choreographed though and staged, but you don't really get to know the

human at all now as opposed to back in the day, right? Don't you think? Yeah, but there's like the crafty questions you can get around it. One year we had a bunch of Michigan guys, and they had a bunch of defensive guys, and we would ask who the leader of the defense was, and they would all say David Harris, David Harris, David Harris, except one guy guy said nah it's me and uh and we're like

huh everybody else on the team says david harris so ozzy ozzy goes well you guys watch extra tape right who organized the meetings he goes oh i organized the meetings and ozzy goes who held the clicker and he goes david harris and we go all right we're good thanks yeah you can catch him there obviously in a situation. But I feel like every answer given by these young guys, they're like media pros. Everybody's so savvy nowadays, it feels like, those young guys. I got a chance to dap up Icky.

I think he's your number two guy, the NC State offensive lineman. And I got a chance to chat with him. It felt like I actually, you know, seems like a good fucking – all these kids seem like great dudes nowadays. Like, I might be wrong. Am I wrong in that or am I – like – No, I think the vast majority of them are. I mean, there's a couple guys probably have a couple questions

they have to answer this week. But for the most part, yeah, it's a bunch of good dudes. Like, I just like to get a chance to – you might not get the perfect answer, but you learn about their personalities. I was talking to a team when darius leonard was coming out and they said uh all right darius like what's it give me an example of a successful rookie year and he goes he like without batting eyes says first of all i'm going to take somebody's job and second of all i'm going to keep that job and third of all

i'm going to go to the pro bowl and he said that was it that's all he said like okay all right good and i like the fact you distinguished between taking his job and then keeping it because that he's not getting it back that is unbelievable so like whenever you hear those types of things you immediately know this guy's a guy and you have you have to get very clever in there right because we all hear from the outside who earn a part of those meetings like this morning coach sirianni uh who's here with us coach sirianni this we've heard about you having people shoot at mini hoops in the past what did you learn about sam howe when he went two of five in your mini hoop shooting game yeah well it's pretty simple you know he

made two and missed three rows not dog he does not have dog mentality jaylen does have dog mentality so we will not be drafting sam howe okay Okay, thank you, Coach. I hope you're having a great offseason. Combine is all fun. Beautiful city. All right, anyways. That type of thing feels like a good idea. People have to get very creative now because everybody's prepared for everything. Is there anything other than putting a buddy in a pretzel there that you've heard that people try to do in there

to get them to open up or compete or be themselves? Yeah, I i uh it's different now i don't think first of all there's rules in terms of what you can ask what you can't ask now so it used to be the wild wild west in those rooms i'm sure you guys aj probably had some of those where coaches wanted to test you um i can remember you know there was a legendary story about a defensive line coach um, once Jared Allen sat down, he basically called him a coward with the way that he played or something. And then Jared Allen leaped across the table to try and fight him.

So those days, I think, are over. I think we've found it. But it used to be pretty different, much different. We want this guy. We thought this was who you were, by the way. Yeah, this was all big. Imagine Jared Allen on top of me. To that guy, too.

I'm out of here or whatever. They're like, yeah, that's exactly what we hoped would happen. That's insane. Because trying to learn about somebody you're going to invest in, you talked about this, is a very difficult thing to do, especially in a very guarded world that we're in. I think the mini hoop,

and there's like rock, paper, scissors, I guess happens. Pete Carraway took his shirt off. Yep. With DK. Trying to open them up, like just trying to get people to be a human for a second, as opposed to a robot is a beautiful thing. We can't thank you enough for joining us. Move the sticks. I appreciate you guys, man. I enjoy it. My, by the way, my, my nephews, I don't know that they've ever seen me on television in the last 10 years but every time i come on mcafee i know i'm gonna get a text message and they're so fired up man so you got fans everywhere dude well we're very lucky we're thankful for people like you coming on the

show please tell your nephews we said what's up you could have gave their names and a shout out but you're a bad uncle obviously ladies and gentlemen bad uncle great scout and great man behind the entire combine in the NFL draft. Ladies and gentlemen, Danny Jeremiah. Ladies and gentlemen, defensive end for the Las Vegas Raiders out of eastern Michigan. Ladies and gentlemen, Max Crosby. Hey, what's up? Yes, sir.

How are you, man? Congrats on the Pro Bowl, dude. Well deserved. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you. Hey, no problem. It's very well deserved. I think as we all have learned about your story,

we did a little research. Not 1,000% sure, but we'd like to get to your anniversary, I believe, of you being completely sober. Let's go, dude. Congrats on that. Appreciate it, man. When you come into the NFL, fourth-round draft pick out of Eastern Michigan, did you kind of get caught up in the game?

What was it you think that kind of led you astray? Was it kind of your thing? And then what was a moment where you decided, hey, I can be an absolute beast in this game if I get focused? Did that happen, and is that where you ended up where you're at now? Yeah, you know, honestly, it started, the first time I started partying. I knew I kind of wasn't like everybody else. I couldn't just have one drink and be cool.

I just kind of hit the ground running. So it was always kind of a crush for me. So I feel like it was something that was holding me back. And it just kept getting progressively worse and worse. So I finally, you know, looked myself in the mirror. And, you know, I always, always knew deep down I could be a great player if I put everything into it. And that was kind of my thing, hold me back.

So, you know, once I committed, you know, myself to football and my family and staying away from the party scene and drinking and all that shit. Sorry, pardon my language. Don't you fucking dare say that my bad i could say whatever the fuck i want but anyway uh yeah you know i just i just um committed myself you know 100 to my craft and and my work and you know it's been paying off so i just you know got to keep going that direction hey i had to do that as well i got arrested for it to happen public intoxication

and mocked by everybody and it was kind of you know, everybody else that I'm hanging around that's in the NFL seems to be like eating healthy and like, you know, fully committed. I'm just kind of like nonchalant this entire thing, drinking, having a good time. What could happen? Not everybody can make that decision. So you and your story being super public is going to inspire a lot of people. So thank you for that and for being transparent while you're in the league, dude. Absolutely. I appreciate it, man. At the end of the day, that's kind of what it came down to.

You know, after I got my year sober, I kind of wanted to just be vocal about it because I know, you know, obviously you were in the NFL locker room. You know, shit is a little bit crazier than what people, you know, know. So same with you, AJ. So, yeah, it's just kind, AJ. So, um, yeah, it's just kind of being able to give back and give a different perspective on things. All right. Let's talk about football. What happened this year that made you kind of explode onto the scene? You know, I think everybody knew about you, obviously this year

though, was your, Hey, how you doing? My name is Max Crosby. I'm a fucking beast. That was what this year was for you. What do you think it was? Was it getting smarter, getting in better shape? What do you think it was this year? Yeah, I getting in better shape? What do you think it was this year? Yeah, I think it was just a combination. You know, after my second year in the league, I was a – That tattoo is sick. That is a sweet tattoo, dude. I appreciate it.

That's sweet. Do you see it? Yeah. That's sick. You know what? Yeah. But anyway. Oh.

Jesus. All right. Sorry about it. know, yeah. Oh, Jesus. All right. Sorry about it. Anyway. Yeah. You know, it kind of, you know,

after my second year, I wasn't, you know, I was far from happy of where I was. You know, I felt like I was doing, doing well and doing some good things, but I knew I wasn't the complete player. I know I can be.

And I just, you know, going to that offseason, I was, I had to get surgery, get my shoulder fixed, my hand fixed. And I just fully committed from meal prep to extra work to being the first in the building, you know, in the Raiders facility from the start of the offseason all the way to the end of the year. So, you know, that's just kind of what it was for me. I feel like nobody outworked me. And that's kind of my new formula. You know, that's what's been working.

And that's what I've, you know, continued to do this offseason as well. So just trying to be the hardest worker in the room and get myself in the best possible shape I can be in so I can just go, you know, longer than everybody else. That's fucking awesome, dude. Shout out to The Rock. So what do you know about your new head coach, Josh McDaniels, coming in there? And also, like, what was Rich Passaccia like?

We've heard so much about this dude, how great of a job he is, like he did. The letters that we saw, the picture of him writing letters to you guys, like what did he mean to your team? And also, like, do you have any – have you had communication with the new head coach, McDaniels, and what do you think it's going to look like? Yeah, you know, I'll start with Rich. You know, Rich, he's one of the the best coaches i've had um hands down you know just from uh when you think about players coaches a lot

of people think of the you know the younger guy who's cool with everybody and you know you're able to talk to and have those cool conversations you know past football but rich was rich was that guy that no matter what was going on he he would always be there, you know, to have those real conversations. And he would always push you like he had. Like, it's hard because Rich is a lot of people hear the good things about Rich. But Rich is a motherfucker. He'll let you know if you're not if you're not up to that standard, he's going to let you know and he'll make it public in front of everybody in front of the team. But he you respect him at the same time. So everybody had that mutual respect for him. So

he could be real honest and be an asshole when he needed to be. But everybody respected him because he knew he everybody knew he was coming from a genuine place. So that dude, I love that dude to death. And obviously, you know, I went to the end of the end of the world to try to, you know, have him back and things like that. But that's the nature of this business. You really have no control, you know, at the end of the day. So I just did my piece. And I felt like, you know, that was what it was.

But, you know, Coach McDaniels, you know, he's been awesome. You know, ever since he got in, he called me right away. All the new staff, they've been, you know, communicating with me and seeing me in the building every morning. And we've had some awesome talks. I'm looking forward to it. I'm obviously going to take the things I learned from Marinelli and Rich and all those guys and keep applying that in my career. Obviously, Coach McDaniels brings a whole other aspect of it.

He's won a lot of games. I'm looking forward to it for sure. It sounds like you don't care about the work. That's all you do. You're just a worker. That's'm looking forward to it for sure. Yeah, and it sounds like you don't care about the work. That's all you do. Like, you're just a worker. So it doesn't give it – because that's always the narrative about the Patriots. Like, oh, it's going to be hard.

It's going to be hard. And I don't know if that's what Josh McDaniels is going to do. He's already had a chance to be a head coach before, went back, dabbled a little bit with the Colts, turned the plane around, actually landed in Sin City now. I'll be excited to see what this iteration of Josh McDaniels will be as a head coach. Speaking of Las Vegas, it looks like, hey, you've got a nice setup over there.

Hey, there's blue skies up there. Are you in Vegas full-time, yeah? Love it over there? Got some palm trees. Wow. It's beautiful. I love it out here. Yeah, do you?

I mean, it is. You would think as somebody who decided to become sober when you were in Vegas, I think. I'm not 100% sure, but that would be a tough decision. But for the Raiders fan base and for those home games and how you guys have been accepted in Las Vegas, it seems like a perfect fit. Absolutely. You know, it's funny because a lot of people ask me that all the time. Like, man, how did you get sober in vegas that doesn't even seem possible um but at the end of the day you know when i was in ypsilanti michigan at eastern i was still finding ways to get fucking vegas can be anywhere yeah exactly for people like me i can

find problems anywhere so you know being sober it doesn't matter where i'm at um obviously there's there's distractions and that's kind of amplified here. But I live in Henderson. I'm, you know, ducked away and in a quiet neighborhood. So it's not like I'm hiding from it. You know, I've got enough time under my belt where, you know, I don't have to really, you know, I'm not stressed about it. But it's beautiful out here. It's actually, it's not exactly what everyone, you know, expects when they hear about Vegas. Yeah, I've had friends that have moved to Vegas.

I'm like, I don't know how you're doing. I don't know how you're doing. It's like, well, I live nowhere near the Strip. It's not just one street. It's an entire area. And I've heard it's gorgeous out there. The weather seems great. And I think it's very affordable, like some of these houses.

If I do recall, guys were buying mega mansions out there, just having a good time. Congrats to you, man. You're going to be a pillar of the Raiders in Vegas. Brand new team for the next 10 years. That has to feel pretty cool too do you do you respect that do you appreciate that with and do you talk to mr davis at all yeah uh you know that's something you know i look at it as the responsibility you know that's why i continue to put in the work i do because no matter you know as far as contracts and as far as success and ups and downs.

I know the work comes first. And I've got a responsibility to the whole fan base. I feel like I'm just getting started of where I can be. I want to be a Hall of Famer. I want to be one of the guys that you look back and you think about Raiders, all-time Raider greats. I want to be one of those guys. So it's a responsibility for me to show up every day

and be the first guy in the building and continue to get better. But, yeah, you know, Mr. Davis, me and him got a good relationship. You know, he's one of those guys that, you know, he bleeds silver and black. He's at every game. He's, you know, he loves Raider Nation. He wants to do what's best for us. So, yeah, he's an interesting guy. You know, he's a different dude, but he's awesome.

Yeah, we saw him with a starter jacket on, with a backpack sitting down in a high-back chair. Oh, yeah. In a, you know, after the one-per-club meeting. He had a silver jacket on, a backpack, and sitting down with his backpack shoved up over his head, looking up at the media, giving answers. It's like, this dude does not give a damn about – this guy is awesome.

And then, what was it, outside? They were trying to ask him questions. I'm going to dinner. He's a little unorthodox, but, you know, that's basically our whole fan base and everybody. We're a little bit different. Yeah, it's a beautiful – it's a beautiful, like, like melting pot the Raiders nation has always been it felt like it always a tough place to play and it feels like you guys win games that nobody expects you to win you're in a obviously a tough

division and whenever we chat about the Raiders it's always like they're gonna win games that nobody expects it to and then something will happen at the end Derek Carr is a large portion of a lot of conversation about the future of the Raiders because there was a deal. There was no deal. There's no long-term deal. Now there's a new head coach. They're working in extension. But every time he plays, he seems to put up big numbers,

and it seems like everybody likes him. What's he like off the field? And how do you guys keep out all the noise about the future of the program with Derek Carr, especially with the success you guys have? But ultimately, there's only one team that wins a Super Bowl every year. Yeah, you know, obviously for some random weird reason, Derek, like it's always a topic of discussion. I see him trending on Twitter and always being talked about. being talked about and you know it's funny because i feel like just being a part of the raider nation and this you know market like people are constantly talking about us and there's constantly drama and crazy shit going on so you know derrick being being the face of it being the

quarterback you know he gets the brunt of it um no matter what so you know i feel like you become numb to it after a while you know in my position my position, I know I'm not the quarterback, but I'm a captain. And, you know, I got responsibility and I'm talked about a lot. So I feel like it's just you kind of get numb to it after a while. You know, people are there's either negativity or positivity. There's either drama and coaching and players doing shit. And it's just constantly stuff going on. You just kind of become numb to it after a while.

So, you know, Derek does a great job. He's an awesome dude. You know, he's just like us. You know, he's a good dude. He's down to earth, and, you know, he's a great teammate at the end of the day. And, you know, people can say whatever they want, but they don't really know how he is every day. And I think he's just a great teammate and a great dude.

That's great to hear from you and from his teammates. I've seen him one night on Thursday Night Football lose his groin. His groin fell off. It looked like his career was over. It looked like his career was over. Then Marcus Mariota came in, threw an absolute dime, and I accidentally said something the next day like, man, it looks like Derek Carr just lost his entire groin.

That's a season-ender at least. Then Mariota's balling. I thought he was done as a Raider. I thought he was done as a Raider. I thought he was done as a Raider. But then he's going to send it. It feels like his story over there with that franchise, it's always up in the air. But that year where he was on an MVP run,

and then it was the Christmas Eve game against us where he got hurt. It was just like, ah, that was – how different is his resume and legacy if that year happens? There's probably a lot less conversation and drama, but that's the NFL, I guess. Go ahead, Tom. Max, we had Taylor LeJuan in studio yesterday, and he kind of like, he was talking kind of shit

about people who try really hard in the Pro Bowl, and you won Pro Bowl defensive MVP. I'm not saying you were trying hard, but you were trying a little harder than other people. Did anyone give you any shit for that, or did you get a sweet prize for getting the MVP? It was in Vegas. Yeah. Yeah's that's funny i know taylor you know taylor likes to talk a lot you know i'm not you know i'm not gonna talk anymore about him but at the end of the day you know i coach marinelli he uh he was texting me the whole

week you know and he's you know marinelli he's a legend he's an old school guy and he was texting me the whole week you know and he's you know marinelli he's a legend he's an old school guy and he was texting me after the first day of practice because he saw a video of me not running to the ball he's like you better get your ass running blah blah you better the standard is the standard blah blah he's like show everybody what the fuck we do and i'm like all right shit so i start practicing a little bit harder during the week and doing my thing and then once i got to the game i was like i'm not just gonna go out here and play patty cake. Like, I'm going to actually work my moves a little bit but not kill anybody at the same time. So there were some guys on the field that were a little sensitive, but it is what it is.

You know, we were in Vegas. I had to go out there and, you know, put a show on for the fans. And you did, by the way. Are you not entertained a couple times when the MVP in their place goes crazy? Somebody was like, chill the fuck out. Is that what they were saying? Hey, third year. There was a couple.

I would assume there was a few people that are not exactly thrilled. What did you win, a truck? No, I got a $20,000 donation to my stand-up for Pits Foundation. So, you know, I'm saving a lot of Pitbull's lives out there, and that's all I can ask for. Okay. I have a, I have a pit sharp egg currently going through a little bit of an

infection. I appreciate what you're doing over there. Go ahead, Ty. Max, we were talking about how much bigger you are in person. And I don't know why I didn't think you would be before I saw you at the super bowl,

but like, then you look at like your combine stuff and your measurables. I think people who maybe don't know that much about you would assume you went to Alabama or Ohio State or something like that like did you grow into your body late how'd you end up at Eastern Michigan yeah so I was kind of you know I was a late bloomer like I was I didn't grow until like my senior year like my junior senior year I grew like inches. So I was a middle linebacker my whole career, and I was like a short, stockier, chubby dude. And then all of a sudden I got way taller, and I was like, obviously I can't play middle linebacker, 6'4", 6'5". So they moved me down to the D line, and I played a little bit of tight end, but Eastern was the only school to offer me.

They offered me right before my senior year, before i ever played it down at dn so that was my only offer and i took it and obviously i got family and everything back in michigan so i felt like it was a perfect fit and at the end of the day i just wanted to play d1 so they gave me that opportunity and you know we we got to go there and change that that culture around so it was it was dope i think robert mathis right said that he loves yeah robert mathis said like he loves your game or whatever. He's a big fan. He runs something called the Gridiron Gang where people come train. He runs like camps basically every single day.

There's pro guys. There's college guys that get in there. Do you work with anybody? Do you watch anybody's film? Who are some people in the pass rush world you think that have influenced you or continue to do so? Yeah, you know, the pass rush community in general is dope. You know, we all talk to each other from, you know, I talked to Vaughn and Aaron Donald and

Chandler Jones are, you know, the good friends of mine. So I just try to, you know, no matter if they're D end or D tackle, I try to, I try to just pick everyone's brain, you know, Chris Jones as well. You know, those are the guys that I want to, you know, talk to because I feel like, you know, Chris Jones as well. You know, those are the guys that I want to, you know, talk to because I feel like, you know, I could be on that level. I've shown a little bit of what I can do as far as the sample size. I haven't done it for years and years and years, but that's where I want to be. I want to be in the Von Miller, the Defensive Player of the Year type conversation. And, you know, having a guy like T.J. Wye, you know, being at Pro Bowl with him all week,

we were just talking the whole time, just talking ball. And that's kind of what it comes down to so yeah you know i i work with a ton of guys from chuck smith to brandon jordan and you know all the the raider strength staff as far as off the season work and stuff like that but yeah i've had conversations with dwight freeney and robert mathis and you know coach marinelli he's one of those guys that literally coached like tons of hall of famers so he's just an easy resource if i want to talk to somebody he's like of those guys that literally coached like tons of hall of famers so he's just an easy resource if i want to talk to somebody he's like all right i got his number here's his number so he makes it a lot easier so i just want to you know continue to keep working and and get in that

conversation for sure that's awesome max do you know if uh mark davis has started construction yet on that raiders themed house that he's building up here if so are you going to attend uh one of the first parties i don't know if the construction has started i know where it's at like i know the location um you know last year i was looking around for uh i was just looking at houses with you know my my new fiancee and um yeah we saw where was. It's like literally on top of this mountain looking over the city. So, yeah, I don't know if it started or not yet, but it's supposed to be just like a mini Allegiant Stadium. That's amazing. I can't wait for you to build your own someday

as you continue to dominate the NFL and life. We appreciate the hell out of you, man. You're inspiring a lot of people and kicking a lot of ass. It's awesome. Yes, sir. Appreciate you guys. Hey, I just want to let you know, I have a pretty good pass set, so like, if we ever get in real life, keep the confidence high whenever I

potentially, you know. You know what I'm talking about? A little bit of a... Yeah. Don't let these mitts get on you. These mitts get on you. Yeah, oh yeah. Yes, exactly. You know what I mean? You got to catch the ball. Is there any guys you played against that? Holy shit.

This is a grown ass man. When they put their hands on you. Tyrone Smith. I played Tyrone Smith this year. That dude is, he literally, his hands are this big. If you put your hands on you,

you're done. There's no, no chance. That's the entire game for the offensive lineman, right? That's, that's the, they're just trying to get the pause on you.

Yeah, absolutely. He's hand battling all day. And when to get the paws on you. Yeah, absolutely. He's hand battling all day. And when he got his hands on you, it was just a little bit more of a feel, like your body compressed a little bit more? What was it? Yeah, it was more like I felt them hit my chest,

and I assumed, okay, I'm going to just keep working through it, and there was no movement in my arms. It was stuck. That's awesome. Keep growing. One day you're going to be that guy doing it to people. Ladies and gentlemen, Max Crosby. Thank you, Ryan. Speaking of being back,

there's a man back in a head coaching role in the NFL. Formerly of the Bears, the University of Illinois. He's been coaching for, I don't know, like 50 years at this point. Signed, beard delivered. New head coach of the Houston Texans, Lovey Smith. How about it, man?

Hey. How's everything? How you doing? Thank you for coming in. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Good to see you. God, that beard looks good.

Yeah. Wow. Clean. If you want to put on a headset, you can. It's up to you. A.J. Hawk will be in the camera. He's in Ohio. I don't know if you know A.J. or not.

Yes, I do. You know A.J.? The Bears, obviously, the rivalry goes a long way. You now, okay, are being tasked with being the head coach of a program that seems to be in quite a turnover. Now, last year you guys were able to win games. This year there's a lot of turnover. How excited are you to be back in that seed, and what do you kind of look at the next couple months here as we get ready for the season? Pat, there's 32 of

these jobs, so very excited about it. You're right. We did some good things last year. Football has been my life forever, and to continue, to be able to continue to do it so many great relationships throughout and to you know come down to Houston a new group group of guys and uh you know I'm a Texas boy too so high school football in Texas and then get a chance to lead your professional football team it's pretty special a lot of work to be done we realize that but the process has started only one super bowl champion every year and the fact that you know you go from chicago and then you go to college and everybody's like wait a second is he gonna stay and then you come back to the nfl

what did you learn anything in your time down there or were you like i need to get back to the nfl while you're done well a part of that too i think every year you coach and you learn something, you know, different athlete, young athlete. There's a lot of other things that go along with coaching college football, just not football, you know, just a period of coaching football all day, as much as you want to grind just on it. That's what the NFL gives you. And to be able to get back in it, you know, I learned an awful lot. You know, it's a different college game. You know, the defensive side of the football, no huddle offenses. You know, don't really care an awful lot about, you know, the quarterback.

Well, not I should say an awful lot about them. It's just that quarterback run oriented offenses, a little bit different. But to get back into the NFL, it's been pretty special. And last year, even though we lost a lot of games, there's a lot of, you know, and for me to move into this role and having a chance to be with the players last year, I feel like I have a step on it staff-wise too, you know, Pat. You know, one of the guys, you know, Pat. You know, one of the guys, you know, being able to get Pep Hamilton. Yeah, I know Pep, yes. You know, George Warhop,

you know, some of the older coaches that I've had a history with, along with the current staff that we have. We're pumped up. Yeah, and it sounds like you should be, and I think everybody that's ever worked with you or played for you is pumped for you to be around. I don't think I've ever heard somebody say, you know, I hate Lovey Smith. That never happens. Why do you think that is the case, and how do you go about building a culture back in Houston? Because not too long ago, it was the Texans and the Colts that were running the AFC South. Yes, it was.

And then they kind of went sideways. How do you think you build that culture, and why do you think everybody says they love Lovey Smith? And then they kind of went sideways. How do you think you build that culture, and why do you think everybody says they love Lovie Smith? Well, I think it's always, to me, it's been about relationships. You know, what have we gotten from sports in general? Just relationships that you form throughout. And people want to be treated a certain way.

You know, I was a player too, and I wanted the coach to teach me, tell me what he wanted me to do in a civil way and i would do it so i the the coaching influences that i had in my life they as how they held themselves that's what i saw and i know the players responded to it you know they want stern teachers i feel like that's what i i am and it has helped me throughout. The relationship, I have relationships with everywhere I go. You know, players, there's former players there, and being in that fraternity is pretty special. Yeah, well, you've been around a long time dominating.

AJ has a question for you. Yeah, I'm interested about your time when you went back to Illinois and you're coaching there and now back in the NFL. Can you coach guys in college the same way you coach in the NFL? Oh, AJ, I think yes, you can. I mean, guys want to be taught, teach them, coach, show me how you want this to be done in a civil way. I think guys wanted that.

You know, from being in the NFL, first I was in college, and then I went to the NFL and what I was told is don't change how you coach this is how guys would like to be coached and I did it then get a chance to come back to college again as I was saying there was a different game then and when I came back to the NFL this time I hadn't changed anything on how I did things teach them show them exactly how you want to be done there are some things that are non-negotiable This time, it hadn't changed anything on how I did things. Teach them. Show them exactly how you want it to be done. There are some things that are non-negotiable.

And as far as how you win football games, that hadn't changed. I was just doing an interview a little while ago, and, guys, someone asked me about Cover 2 defense. It's been around since the beginning of time. It's not going anywhere. So none of that has changed, and it never will will do you think the game's going to change though because it got like real fast and you experienced this in college you said uh not pass oriented quarterback a more run oriented quarterback and everybody was trying to get fast and speed and defenses

were getting smaller bodies in there because they go sideline sideline now in the nfl everybody's like not everybody but there's a lot of, Josh Allen's like six foot six. He's running powers now. And you look at the Ravens, they're running powers. I'm not saying that everybody's doing that, but it feels like the game is going to come full circle, which I think the guys who've been around a long time, it's probably going to favor.

Do you view the game doing the same thing, or am I misreading it? Well, no, I don't think you're misreading it. And that part hasn't changed and it will not but i just look at the two super bowl participant i mean it was kind of the same basic ball i saw them playing at the end uh you know running games are still important uh you still have to be able to pass the football you talk about athletes like josh allen and it you need to match that on the other side of the football you know with the athletes that you put over there.

We've always believed in having 11 athletes on the football field, so I think that matchup is still important. When I say it hasn't changed, of course it's changed some. It's evolved, right? I'm just looking at now, before every offensive snap, there's some type of movement. Mike Morris had some type of movement a while back. That has been a part of a while back that has been

a part of it now that seems like everyone is doing it but eventually you have movement and you get down to some basic ball that's being played okay you came out and said that uh old dougie davis mills is your guy and we got a chance to just see him play and then he came on the show and he just seemed like a carbon copy of what you would hope a super nerd quarterback would be. And he played great football last year. You came out and gave a massive boat of confidence for him, I assume. What did you see behind closed doors in that year where you're not the head coach, now you are the head coach, that made you think like,

hey, we've got a guy here who can win football for us? What I saw, and I did get a chance to see it, Davis at first wasn't a starting quarterback, so he's going against one defense each day. I got a chance to see it. You know, Davis at first wasn't a starting quarterback, so he's going against one defense each day. I got a chance to see him in every situation, his demeanor. He's more of an athlete that people give him credit for. 4'7", 5' guy. It's not like he's a 5'3 type guy.

What are you running? What are you running? A lot slower than that. Like most of us probably in this room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bingo, bingo. But Davis, he's smart. Yeah, he's a Stanford guy.

He's smart. He can make all the throws. And he performed last year. So he came out early. I think if he was in this class, everybody would be talking about Davis Mills. So we have him there, excited about his future. And we mentioned Pep Hamilton earlier.

Of course, you know, Pep, he and Pep were able to work together last year. We have a head start on that. I'm just excited about him taking us. Nick Casario had to answer questions this morning. It's partially probably our fault because we heard about this, but he was on the headset. So I think what we had learned through our research of this man is in New England, he was on the headset in the game in like situations. And like, that was a part of his job. Like, Hey, this is going to be a part of it he moves into general manager he stayed in that world it has become a conversation whenever you and him talk in chit chat and you become the head coach what is the relationship

like because everybody knows that's paramount that the head coach and the gm are together and i assume you guys are going to evolve through the season when bullets are flying but what was it the initial like and what is it like now that you're the head coach and he's the GM? Well, it was good, you know, for me to first get on the same page. Talking about personnel, profile that we're looking for at the defensive position last year. So got a chance to see Nick in a lot of different situations. But Nick did what he thought was required

or that they had agreed upon his role got it he had been a part of kind of the coaching staff uh at other places he's been but uh you know it's a you know it's a different year uh i've never had to jam involved like that on game day don't plan on doing that part we'll all have roles and uh we have a coaching staff i feel like and how all of those situations on game day and of course nick is okay with that you got to be pumped to get back in there man we're all excited to see what you do down there go ahead tosh man coach we've talked a little bit about how a couple coaches aren't at the combine this week and how maybe you know the combine now has changed a little bit how important is it for you and like what will you

be looking for this week? Because like, you know, some of the testing stuff is obviously maybe a little misleading, but like what's more important for you? Is it watching the guys and seeing them in person? Or is it sitting down and talking to them and seeing if, you know, they're the kind of guys you would want to bring in? Well, I think it's all above.

I think first off, there's a lot you can get from a combine of being here. But times have changed. I i mean there's a time you know i've been doing it a few years there's a time when uh you couldn't get you know the video that you get now from you know what the pandemic kind of taught us a little bit you don't have to be just on site for all things you kind of look at this program that we have going on right now so you can do it a different way some staffs aren't here at all some had their entire staff and we have a combination of both we have some of our staff here right now but when you're new staff there's a lot to be done

back home most of our staff back home evaluating video of for free agency of course for the draft and all that. What I get, what I think you can get, though, those meetings are still good. You get a chance to have guys come in and you see them, see the way they walk into the room and how they're – you can get some of that on video. But just that eye-to-eye contact, there's something different about that. My time in college, what I've found, too, is that a lot of these guys I'm seeing now are recruited in college. Some of them didn't come to my school there, and I'm not going to hold that against them. But that has all been good.

Also, the workouts for the combine are pretty important. Okay, so Sirianni over there is shooting into mini hoops, okay? And we were talking to daniel jeremiah whenever people come in how how many minutes is it and how do you try to break through do you just have to feel like it's just like a human like do you ask any questions in there that can give you any piece of information is there any gotchas because we've heard that you're only allowed to ask certain things you only have a certain amount of time they're all prepped for sure for that entire thing how do you break through that well Well, there's a good question.

And through the years, there's a lot of information. All right, we have 20 minutes. And what do you get from that? You know, everybody has a role. You know, one of our head scouts leads the conversation. And, of course, Nick participates. There's time. I talked about on game day how coaches move into more of a prominent role.

And, you know, personnel know personnel wise they're taking a different that's kind of how i look at it some of the things that i like to know from it one thing is that i want to know i ask most of the guys what is your best game if you want me to see exactly who you are instead of our scouts and what i think tell me what game i should see to tell me exactly who you are and And then just listen to their story as much as anything. These are guys that you don't know. Yeah, you try to pick through all the like the rehearse stuff too. That's an interesting thing because that is the most important part. The culture of your locker room will always be so important. Everybody looks

at these stats and analytics. The team is such an important thing. That is an important thing. And just keep in mind too this just initial step it's like the first date that's what it is so you're just getting a little bit of information you're going to get together a little bit later on that's how i see uh what we get from this combine yeah are we worthy of having another date here and we'll find out because now there's multiple pro days for players because like last year i think there was two different ones for mac and then two for the – and they just – I think the whole process has kind of opened up a little bit more.

It has quite a bit. You know, Pat, some first dates you go and you say, hey, that's it. Yeah, that's it. There have been a couple situations where the interview was that bad where you say, no, this isn't going to work. And there's some like, you know, I met my wife on a blind date 43 years ago. We've been together every day since. Sometimes at first date, you say, yeah, this is going to work. And most of the time, you right now, it's not the guys come in and they present themselves well.

The beard. The wife loved the beard. Wife, you led me right into it. Most of the things when you've been married, as long as as i have the wife is involved in quite a few things you know went on vacation once you let it go you say you know what i'm gonna keep this and she said you know i kind of said that but she said you know i like it lovey so it's been with me since hey whenever it now listen i gotta say if just because but when you guys start winning down there in houston that's no it's if just like we're not if it's when yeah yeah when you start winning down there in Houston, that's if. Not if, it's

when. When you start winning down there, that fan base is a passionate fan base. They are. Loud. Those beards will be for sale. I've been on the other side. You're right. It's a Texas team. Football is important, and I have seen it

on the other side when we had it going. We do. We plan on getting those days back, and the fans will come back, and it will be rocking again. It was the loudest place I'd ever played in. I actually am on the record saying that. Those Thursday night games against Houston, it was basically the AFC South was on the line. It was always Thursday night because we never had Thursday night games

because all the conventions that happened here, so there's not enough hotels. We were always in Houston, and it always felt like the entire – and that place was fucking loud. I remember like headache loud love you i remember it was like that type of thing go ahead connor yeah coach i mean when you look at the rams you just won the super bowl you know a lot of the guys they had in there they ended up getting during the season uh do you lean either way on how you build your team whether it be kind of screw the pick side or like the bangles who's basically drafted every pillar that they have? I think you have to keep all options open.

In an ideal world, yeah, you want to bring in the Davis Mills, get them, you know, come in as rookies there in your system entire, but you have to supplement it with free agency. And last year, you know, I don't know, maybe over 30 guys we brought in, and we're going to bring in some more. But I think there are, you know, guys, you just have to know that that's the league and guys move around and there's enough to me. If you do your homework,

there's enough guys for all of us to get exactly who we're looking for. So we're going to do it a combination. We're going to be heavily involved, hopefully in free agency, but the draft is still kind of the, you know, that's where that foundation would be set. I love you. The salary cap is fake now. I don't know if you know that. Doesn't matter. Since the last time you were head coach and you did a thing and then you come back now, it's fake.

Yeah. You have to be able to adjust with whatever's going on at the time. And, you know, free agency right now, like, you know, some of the players we had, you know, last year, we have quite a few unrestricted guys. And I believe in them having an opportunity to earn a certain living. But hopefully, you know, some of those guys are going to come back because it's not just about this one country. I think our system and a lot of things can get guys paid in a lot of different ways. Oh, that's fantastic.

Go ahead, Tom. Coach, you said earlier that you can't run 40 that well anymore. But we saw earlier three-time All-American high school, two-time All-American college. Oh, that's fantastic. Go ahead, Tom. Coach, you said earlier that you can't run 40 that well anymore, but we saw earlier three-time All-American high school, two-time All-American college. When you're out there, we see Vrabel likes to get hands-on. Do you like to get hands-on with the boys every once in a while and let them know you can still go? Well, you know, it's not like I'm eating Twinkies every day.

You know, I try to stay in shape a little bit and um i do have a sports background you know sports are are pretty important but you know we have a lot of guys that respect the position it does it's just kind of fun they keep you young and uh and again can't wait to get started again i don't know if the internet's right but i believe you're 63 years old is that accurate it's pretty good man Man, could you imagine? I loved asking you earlier what your 40 time is. I didn't know if you were going to tell me when you were younger, 40 time. The current one, a lot slower than that.

And then the shit talk comes in, just like every other slow-up in this room. Whenever you're coaching, it's a lot more than just the X's and O's. What is kind of your message to younger players on how they can have success in the nfl i asked will compton this yesterday because you know this combine's awesome i was not invited to the combine i know a lot of guys haven't but like the stats and analytics only tell you so much what through all the years you've been through football what do you tell young guys like hey this is why you're going to make it or why you're not going to make it do you have that answer well yeah because i i think the you know i like uh some of the the stats behind players uh i buy into fast guys that can run speed kills matchup kills all of that but still it comes

down though you know i'm from a i'm a small town guy Just some of the basic things on hard work. Hard work still kind of wins. Most guys aren't the most talented around, but if you just put in the time, you can see the benefits from it. It always comes down to that. Most of it you can't get at the combine, and maybe not on some of the video, but just getting that guy who has a little bit more,

that wants it a little bit more, and those guys normally end up on top still, you know. You said earlier, whenever you're talking about the difference between the college game and the NFL game, you're like, in college, you can't just focus on football. In the NFL, I can just watch film until I don't. You're just a film junkie. Yes, absolutely. Always been like that. You know, you kind of figure out early, you're not going to play football forever. So that part of the game has always been a big deal to me. And nowadays, with modern technology, anything that you want, anyone you want to see is just a click away from. It's at your disposal at any time.

And the college game is different. You know, you don't have a lot of time. But the NFL, you can grind, and the best players do grind. Most of the Hall of Famers, you know, guys that were really good at their position, they grind. Yeah. People don't see all that, though. You know, they forget.

No, they don't. Yeah, and it's, you know, what does it say? What you do in the dark will come to the light. You will be exposed, however. So there's some quote that will go in there. And it's like all these people that have such great success i was like oh well they do this move good or they do this move good it's like do you know how hard and how long they had to work on that particular move to have it's like the overnight success that is probably two decades

in the making for people that are just learning about it and when i when i talk about old school that's what it's about that's not. Eventually, you can only trick people so much, and it comes down to what you really know and how much time you have actually put in. That's a trait. AJ, go ahead, pal. I love you. In your whole time, like when you were at Illinois

and then you come back to the league, was there ever a time when you thought that you may not get another chance to be a head coach in the NFL again? Well, you know, I've been pretty – a chance that that wouldn't happen, yes. And I would have been okay with that. You know, last year I wasn't a head football coach, and I went into a different role. I think I'm just a football junkie at heart, and I love the game. If I had never gotten back in the seat I would have been okay

would have been pretty happy but at the same time I thought that I had more to give still there's unfinished business you know too I mean it's got to be a great feeling to raise up that this got to be a great feeling to do that I I haven't done it. And you're right. And I haven't. So that is a driving force. But, again, if it hadn't happened, fine, but I'm glad to get another opportunity. I heard that when you become a head coach,

it's just a bunch, a lot more coming across the desk than whenever you're a coordinator or a position coach. Yes. You said there's only 32 of these jobs, so when you're offered it, like, obviously, it's an honor and you're going to take it. But did you have to think about what's all going to come with being a head coach in the NFL again or no? No, no.

You were prepared for it, ready for it. No, you know, again, it helps that, you know, 2004 when I first went to Chicago, maybe a little didn't know then, but I kind of knew what the position entailed. And it's one of the – it doesn't get much better than this so no hesitation at all want another opportunity to do it and glad it came um whenever you think about deshaun watson being a member of the texans when you get there it's already already he he wants out i don't know if you were there before the 20 accusations or whatever because people forget that before the 20 accusations, he wanted out of it.

There was a chance he was going to the Jets or the Eagles. It was a massive story. And then all of a sudden, a much more real massive story came into it, and there was no exemption list. So all year, it was kind of like hanging over the Texans organization. Still is, by the way, still at this point. How do you, and we're supposed to get an answer, I april one so it's less than a month from now allegedly about whether it'll be like uh jail time i think potential or if it'll be just move on to a different team how do you how do you guys

last year you weren't the head coach but that seems like something very difficult to balance with everybody in the locker room because there's relationships with Deshaun in the locker room, let alone there's like $30 million off the salary cap. There's expectations. I guess there's more opportunity. But what is the messaging to the team about something that just has been looming over that is very serious, by the way, very, very serious? What is the messaging you think to everybody?

Well, yeah, it can be hard, I guess, if you let it be. But for me, I think most guys in a locker room, there are hole outs. There's a business side of it. There's injuries. So you're a professional. You've got to come to work every day and do your job. And normally situations like this that happen that are there, in time, they'll take care of itself. And that's how I looked at it. And in time, they'll take care of itself. And that's how I looked at it.

In time, it would take care of itself. And hopefully, not hopefully, and that's the case. I think most of the guys are doing that. Life has to go on. Eventually, Deshaun is going to play somewhere, our place or some other place. And if he's not at our place, players at, you know, for the Houston Texans have to go on and play football. So that's what we've done.

That's the NFL in general. Things change from day to day. And I'm going to go back. Time takes care of all things, and it normally works out for the best. Hey, sounds like you're the coolest dude of all time. Especially with that beard coming out with a little Texas in there. So much wisdom. Well, good luck with everything

in Houston. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much for stopping by. We thought that place was on fire last year. Like it seemed like from outside looking in that place was just on fire, but it's the NFL. So that's going to happen. But those games show up and you guys were able to somehow focus amongst it all. Excited to see what you do this year and another year. Yeah, that's the case. You know, it's the difference between perception and reality a lot of times. And that wasn't the case. There are some things going on, but some things I think we can get through. Well, I cannot wait to see the Lovey Smith-led Houston Texans live in studio.

Great man in the middle of the combine. We appreciate you, ladies and gentlemen. Lovey Smith. Thank you. Hey, AJ, have a good one. Thank you to all our guests our guests to all the boys i think that's how we'll end it i don't know if it could get any better we will see you minyana oh uh yeah tomorrow Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.