The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 787 - Monday Night Football Recap, Aaron Rodgers Tuesday Season 3 Week 9, Zak Keefer, In The Trenches With AQ Shipley LIVE From The ThunderDome, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

On today's show, Pat, AQ Shipley, AJ Hawk, and the boys react to last night's Monday Night Football game as the Ravens dominated the Saints, and the Jim Irsay press conference introducing Jeff Saturday as the new Interim Head Coach of the Indianapolis Colts as Pat debuts a new segment deciphering what was said in "What is Jim IrsayING?". Joining the progrum to chat about the state of the Colts, what things are like in the building, what the perception is, if the season can be salvaged, and if Jeff Saturday is potentially the choice as the long term choice as Head Coach of the Colts is the Colts' beat reporter for The Athletic, Zak Keefer (36:46-49:18). Next, joining the progrum like he has every Tuesday in season for the last 3 years is the back-to-back MVP, Super Bowl Champion/MVP, Quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, Aaron Rodgers, to chat about the tough loss against the Lions on Sunday, not losing hope in the season, where the Packers can go from here, a looming reunion with former Head Coach Mike McCarthy on Sunday as the Cowboys come to Lambeau, and much more, before revealing two more books in the Aaron Rodgers Book Club (1:44:40-2:16:22). Lastly, we go In The Trenches with AQ Shipley as he breaks down the best offensive line play from this weekend (2:16:24-2:46:46). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. We appreciate the hell out of all you. See you tomorrow, cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello beautiful people. It is Aaron Rodgers Tuesday, November 8th, 2022 and this sports show shall begin right about now. Football is happening. We will now turn our sights to week 10 of the NFL season after the Baltimore Ravens hand the Saints a loss on Monday Night Football. Andy Dalton becomes a 6-20 record holder of his last 26 primetime games where he starts for a team. Now, last night was for the Saints, and the Saints didn't appear to have much of a chance because what Lamar Jackson was able to do against the New Orleans Saints defense and what the New Orleans Saints offense wasn't able to do against the Baltimore Ravens defense was pretty evident early on in how that game would end up. Final score ended up being 27-13,

late touchdown for the Saints. The score was not as close or as indicative of the game and if you do recall early in the game, it was a third and one in which Roquan Smith, the newest member of the Baltimore Ravens, gets a massive stop on Alvin Kamara. The game would continue. Lamar Jackson going to run it. Nope. Offensive line. Stay behind the line of scrimmage. Shout out to In the Trenches.

A.Q. Shipley. He delivers an absolute dime to likely 80. Now it's 7-0. What is it we're going to do? Hand the ball off. Kenny and Drake walk in. Nobody touches him. 14-zip.

The Baltimore Ravens are up over the New Orleans Saints, which the offense did not seem to be explosive, so we thought the game was over just about then. Lamar Jackson continued to do Lamar Jackson stuff, making freakish, magical, off-script plays in which he's able to avoid being definitely tackled and then shake some people, cook some people, and then smartly get down before getting touched.

Business, baby. Business. $250 million is still on the line. Andy Dalton got roughed up basically all night. Not only Justin Houston and Calais Campbell having a big game, but Andy Dalton was taking a beating. A lot of helmets off, a lot of red beard, a lot of great hair, and him yelling and being pissed off, and a lot of that, which the NFL has seen since Lamar Jackson came into the National Football League.

Just a look back on Cam Jordan. Is he going to be able to get me? Nope. He's going to get a little shiver, shake. R1, R2, circle button, fucking Don. First Don, another third Don. No problem for Lamar Jackson. Andy Dalton would throw a pick to Justin Houston late in the game.

Justin Houston, formerly of the Indianapolis Colts, having a great season with the Baltimore Ravens, as is the big, the handsome. 97 for the Ravens. His name goes by? Amber Buki. I don't think so. He is a big son of a bitch. Great play by him.

Madden balling to Justin Houston. 20 to nothing. Another touchdown for Kenny and Drake. He scores two tugs in the game. Lamar Jackson scores none. We're going to assume because Boston Connor is the two-touchdown parlay betting king, you had Kenny and Drake to score two? Yeah, we did.

Let's go. Did it hit? Yeah, it hit. Did you have it parlayed with anything else or just bet that all by itself? Because of, you know. At Boston Connor, gambling extraordinary. Luckily, because of Sunday, we have a little extra change, so I had Kenny and Drake and Taysom Hill to parlay,

but I also took them both individually just in case it wasn't one way. That's a smile. Hey, that's a smile. Yeah, baby. Lamar Jackson continues to do Lamar Jackson stuff. The Baltimore Ravens get a win. Congrats to them on leading the AFC North. Next up, Austin Connor, the gambling extraordinaire,

in which we, I think, have a local news segment that is debuting about the entirety of how awesome Boston Conner's little gambling weekend was. Sitting next to him, at Ty Schmidt, owner of the Green Bay Packers. It is Aaron Rodgers Tuesday. Aaron Rodgers is coming on. You guys just lost to the Lions. Aaron said after the game, can't lose that game to that team. And they did.

734th-ranked defense coming into the game. They were able to turn over Aaron three times in interceptions. They did not look great. What are you expecting out of old Aaron Rodgers today, Ty Schmidt, who's a diehard Packers fan? To be honest, I don't know because he was a little, you know, pissy a couple weeks ago, rightfully so. You know, we got the piss and vinegar version,

which I think a lot of people were happy about. It's like, okay, he cares. He wants to see it but you mentioned it I mean this is historically maybe one of the worst defenses of all time they score nine points and then also it's like got they don't have any receivers really to begin they're very thin to begin with and then guys just continually get hurt so I understand like the next man up but where do you go when there really is no next man up so I'm very interested to see what he has to say. And, you know, for them, no big deal. But the next three games, you've got the Cowboys, who are very good,

on a short week. Mike McCarthy. Yeah, Mike McCarthy coming home, getting very emotional. He's very juiced up to go back to Green Bay. It's bullshit. You guys trying to make me cry. Watermelon game. And then they have a short week, and they play the Titans on Thursday night,

who, you know, the contrasting styles, not great. And then right after that, you got the Philadelphia Eagles. So, you know, a nice little three-game slate for the Packers. Yikes, dude. So we'll see. I mean, they already had their backs against the wall, but now it is kind of like run the table, you know, area of the season. So we'll see how he's at.

I'm sure he'll be in, you know, high spirits or he won't. And we'll see how it goes. I can't wait for it. That'll be coming in about an hour and 53 minutes right here. Be a friend, tell a friend. That should be an exciting conversation. Zach Kiefer of The Athletic covering the Indianapolis Colts will join us in about 22 minutes to talk about Ursae's press conference last night.

But let's pivot back to the game from last evening. Me and A.J. had the Ravens, minus one and a half, going into New Orleans to take on, you know, a hostile environment on Monday Night Football. That environment never was able to get going because of what the Ravens were able to do. Thought Justin Tucker might get a 70-yarder at the end because in warm-ups he displayed.

Now, in warm-ups in a dome at sea level, right, so there's no altitude. There's zero wind. It's actually a dead air. Not easy to kick. Everybody's like a dome's easy to kick in. It is because you know what the wind is. So there's no, like, second-guessing or wondering if a wind is going to just completely bully you and demolish you and ruin your entire life.

Like if you were to step up to a urinal and somebody was to come next to you with a fucking leaf blower out of nowhere, do you think you'd be able to piss into the urinal? Maybe. You'd probably figure it out. But if you don't know that that's coming and it can kind of get the piss off the urinal, it can kind of piss off a kicker if wind is, you know, out of nowhere. So open air stadium, obviously much more difficult to kick in because of the wind and natural elements.

But whenever you talk about a dome and you talk about distance, this is dead air at sea level. No help at all. No help. No resistance. You know, you see a lot of people kick long balls. Normally in outdoors, that's because there might be a little, even if it's a four mile an hour, like three mile an hour breeze at your back, mentally makes you feel a lot better. Also, it is giving a little bit of a boost you know and you that might kick up to a four mile an hour five mile an hour wind might

might help who knows what the science would say so in dead air bombing one from 70 in warm-ups going week nine game this is pretty late into the season if you talk training camp how many reps he's already had he takes that little skip step the same one he did to hit the 66 yarder against the Detroit Lions which is a move this motherfucker created. Okay. So I understand that people who have kicked balls have taken longer steps into kicking the balls before. Like I had some soccer person was like, if he created this, we're all goalkeepers doing soccer. It's like, we get that there has been run-ups for fucking balls being kicked before. He's the first kicker. And I think it's because of how talented he is,

obviously, how confident he is, and how strong his leg is, who has been able to incorporate the little skip step into longer kicks to make it almost a hybrid kickoff field goal step, and being able to do it in the amount of time that it takes to get from snap to kick. Him being able to time up as soon as the ball moves, because if he moves early, it's penalty. So he moves as soon as the ball is being snapped, he moves early it's penalty so he moves as soon

as the ball is being snapped as opposed to the normal indicator for the kicker to leave is when the holder's left hand goes up so hand goes up first step normally taken that'll keep you under one two five one three and i'm talking about 1.25 seconds 1.3 seconds from snap to kick if you're anything longer than that ball is going to be blocked. You see it every single kick. Basically people are fingertips away from fucking blocking kicks. It's like, Oh, that was close. It's like every time it's close. That's why it's at eight yards. That's why it's at 1.27. That's why it is all practiced. And that's why quarterbacks aren't holders anymore. Quarterbacks aren't holders anymore because they can't work on the snap timing as much as the punter can because of how fast people have got,

how much leverage has gotten better, how techniques have gotten better over the past, and how guys run fucking four threes now normally. So the kick has to be off very quick. He's the first dude that I've seen, and I think ever, I feel like I'm pretty well educated on this particular topic, who's been able to incorporate a skip step while being able to time up and hit just a standard field goal. And this is just another reason why Justin Tucker is who he is. And I assume he would have hit that fucking 70-yarder last night at the end of the game if Harbaugh would have let him instead of them punting it or whatever they ended up doing with like 26 seconds left in the game. Justin Tucker cuts a promo on the plane afterwards about smoking on a Saints pack.

I fucking love this dude. He's really good at what he does. But he did hit a field goal last night off center. Yeah. So it was about this far off center, or this way, I guess, from watching. It was off center. So we've got to monitor the situation. Yes.

Because it wasn't directly over the middle pipe. It wouldn't have been perfectly down the center of arena league pipes or high school pipes or college and NFL pipes. He was a little bit off center. Yeah, something to keep an eye on. I'd be losing it. Is he okay? Is he fucking all right?

I hope we get a report. I hope he has to do a press conference today because of it. I can't wait to hear from him. But let's talk about this Ravens team and get a massive win, not just Justin Tucker. Joining us to do that is a man who hosts in the trenches and the bobbled exchange, an absolute stallion of an offensive lineman, won the Remington Award, which is the best center in the country

whenever he played for the cult that is Penn State, played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens, Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is a Super Bowl champion, and is a coach, former coach in the NFL. Ladies and gentlemen, Alan Quay Shipper. Hey! How we doing?

That Baltimore team, Lamar missed a couple throws. And on the internet, they were talking about, how can you pay a guy that can't complete that ball? $250 million guaranteed. Well, it's because he doesn't just have to fucking do that. If he was only that, I could see how that could be a problem. But he missed a couple throws last

night. Still dominant. The fucking Baltimore Ravens are still dominant. They're an ass-beating team it feels like much like the Titans what do you see from the Ravens that makes you think like oh they could go on a run long term this season and maybe win a Super Bowl do you think that or no I think they're very good I think they got double digit leads in every game this season only team everybody in that city has been calling for Greg Roman's head which blows my mind I think he's done an unbelievable job as offensive coordinator. Big baby face change this year for Greg Roman. I think

a lot of heat on Greg Roman. A lot of heat on Greg Roman. Hollywood Brown two years ago, Dan Patrick's show. They know what we're running. Lamar may be on Dan Patrick's show. It is getting kind of predictable. Hollywood Brown on his Twitter account saying, what's the purpose of having dogs if you ain't going to use them or use them?

Ever. Never, ever, ever, yeah, like something like that. He's gotten buried. This year he's getting kind of topped up. Why is that? Is he doing something different or is it just working better? No, it's just working better. And the thing is, is everybody knows what they're going to do.

They're going to utilize the tight end. Mark Andrews is a stud. Okay, he's out. We go to likely, right? Like they utilize their tight end. They have an unbelievable run game. Their offensive line is awesome. And Lamar is playing at an extremely high level.

He's obviously making some great throws, and he's running the hell out of the ball. So what about the ones he missed? Everybody, I might have dozed off. Sorry about that. Another problem. Yeah, another. No excuse, sir. It's all right.

The one Thursday is going to bring us back. Thursday, Atlanta, Carolina. Jesus Christ Last time they played, it was a great game Agreed, agreed We're going to have to watch anyways And by have to, we get to Because this is our job

But we will, essentially for our job Have to watch said game That is just a part of the job description That we are very lucky to have Very, very, very Very lucky to have. Very, very, very, very lucky to have. But ain't nobody give a fuck about this game. No, no, no.

I mean, outside of it, I like watching the Atlanta team mostly because in the trenches and what we learned about the Atlanta Falcons run game, love watching it. Panthers, good story, I guess, trying to figure out what their future is. But we know everybody there is not going to be there again. Right. Literally, the owner, in just a short amount of time of owning the team, has proven to us, you don't win. We will fucking get you out of here.

Already fired the coach. Steve Wilkes is the interim coach. We hope you get the opportunity. Good luck, Steve. I don't know if that's going to be the case. He's the second richest owner in the NFL and he has proven he will fucking fire everybody. Quarterback, I pay you a bunch of money. I don't care. Get the fuck out of here. Offense coordinator, I pay you a bunch of money. I don't care. Get the fuck out of here. Defense coordinator, I pay you a bunch of money. I don't care. Get the fuck out of here. Offense coordinator, I pay you a bunch of money.

I don't care. Get the fuck out of here. Defense coordinator, pay you a bunch of money. I don't care. He will just move on. So it feels like every time I watch Panthers, it's like this is literally just a group of humans wearing this uniform. This has nothing to do with who the Carolina Panthers are starting immediately after this season ends. So it's kind of hard to buy in.

I think Panthers fans probably feel the same way. I think they're probably like, oh, maybe we can see who's going to be a glimpse because you've still got Burns. You've still got D.J. Moore. You've still got dogs on that team. P.J. Walker has the best throw of the season, that 70-yard bomb. But I think from a national perspective, I think we all are just like, this team is basically, this is a, what are those franchises? It's like scabs almost.

Yeah, it's like that just gets added, brand new. Expansion team. It's like an expansion. You've got like an expansion team going on there. It feels like in the middle of a regular season with the Carolina Panthers. And that's probably not the right way to view it. I'm sure the Carolina Panthers feel like they're going to go in there. But I'm just talking from an interest rate of a game.

I mean, I don't think anybody gives a fuck about this game. Should be good football. Should be great football. Should be happy about it. But it's going to be tough for people to care about. And hopefully it will be a good game, and that's all we'll care about. Last night, it ended quick, but it was Lamar kind of doing his thing and taking off.

So I was kind of dozing in and out. And when I wake up, I would continue to watch it. And then I go on Twitter, see what the world's saying. And the amount of people that were tweeting me saying, can't pay Lamar Jackson $250 million with these misses that he's's making they're up like three scores i think at the time whenever this was being said over the saints on a primetime game in the nfl in week nine and people are saying can't pay lamar jackson what does he is he still that because i know first year people are talking about him not being able to throw right and he's like this guy can't throw and maybe that's just

because they hadn't seen lamar jackson yet and they were expecting lamar jackson not to be able to do what lamar jackson has been able to Lamar Jackson not to be able to do what Lamar Jackson has been able to do because nobody else has been able to do it. So maybe they're just hating early on him, trying to find little things that he wasn't good about or wasn't great at so that they could nitpick on why he wouldn't be successful so that the same dropback quarterbacks could be great forever. So maybe that was happening then.

But as of late, that hasn't been a conversation, right? The motherfucker throws the ball like he is. He's slinging the rock, right? I mean, this is something that he – and he running he's i understand there's other people that can run well patrick mahomes took over the game with his feet but he wouldn't be considered a runner even though he is a great runner uh malik willis might become a guy who's unbelievable running we don't know yet we don't we don't have a clue especially with rabel the way he will run his team just like hardball runs the ravens maybe they'll go all in around malik willis with double tight

end and kind of do the whole thing that they're doing. But Lamar Jackson is historically fucking an anomaly. Fastest career games to 100-plus pass touchdowns and 4,000-plus rush yards. 67 games it took him to do. Randall Cunningham, obviously legend. Also a punting legend, Randall Cunningham. 98 games. Cam Newton, everybody knows and talks about. 103. Vic, who's the standard, right, when it comesall Cunningham. 98 games. Cam Newton, everybody knows and talks about.

103. Vic, who's the standard, right, when it comes to mobile quarterbacks. 103 games. Russell Wilson, still in the top five or six in rushing. Doesn't want to rush anymore because he wants to kind of maybe take less hits and maybe just build up his passing stats so he can be able to mount Rushmore quarterbacks. That's allegedly his goal if you hear people talk from around him.

He's at 129 games. And Steve Young, who was, I guess, OG mobile guy, 161 games. So, I mean, what Lamar Jackson's doing is historic, but there is still people that say he can't throw. Is that an accurate breakdown? I don't fucking – is that just them being haters, basically? Sounds like that's the case. Probably haters, right?

I mean, I think he misses some throws, but Mahomes went, what, 45 or 65 the other day. He missed on 20 throws. Like, nobody says anything about that. 68, I think. 68, throws, but Mahomes went, what, 45 or 65 the other day. He missed on 20 throws. Nobody says anything about that. 68, I think. 68, whatever it was, right? And so you're going to miss throws. The game comes in waves. It comes in different throws that you have to make, and he's fantastic.

I mean, will he miss some throws? Sure, every quarterback misses throws. But what he brings to that team is incredible. He's dynamic on running, passing, and leading that team. Those guys obviously love him. They buy in. Hell, yeah. I love watching him play.

He's fucking awesome to watch. Yes. He's a little shake and then get down and then just cool, casual, get up, fix his pants, kind of walk back in there. Any play, anybody could get it. And I fucking enjoy watching that guy. Yeah, I think the same way Brady has kind of ruined the perception of, like, greatness in quarterbacks like Big Ben and other guys,

the same way, like, Mahomes and Josh Allen have ruined the idea around Lamar Jackson because they can run not in the same way that Lamar can, but they can also move in their mobile, but they can also throw the ball 80 yards down the field. Big deal with Josh Allen, what's going on with his UCL right now. Yeah, huge. I guess that's on the inside of the elbow with Josh Allen. They said they were monitoring it yesterday.

We're supposed to get an update. Chris Mortensen, Morton Report. Hey, shout out, Chris. That'll be Mort. Hey, Mort. OG in the game. Bill's quarterback, Josh Allen, is being evaluated for an elbow injury to his owner collateral ligament and related nerves, per source.

How do you evaluate the nerves, right? Is that something you can do? No MRI can fuck with that. With that hammer thing, the rubber that you tap the nerves, right? Is that something you can... No MRI can fucking... With that hammer thing, the rubber, and then you tap on someone's knee? Oh, like when you hit the knee and you do that? Yeah, exactly. Did that work for you?

I think there's a couple people that I've seen that not work for. I think I'm one of them. I think mine just doesn't fucking... Doesn't register? And there's just no movement. No response. Sorry about it. My knee's like...

I don't think that's good. What's the game? It's been since I was a little kid, though. I think it's been like this the whole time. Yeah, I agree. It's worked out. Yeah, you could say it is good. Allegedly, an ultrasound is what they can get to nerves.

So Josh Allen's getting an ultrasound, probably an MRI on his ligament and for his nerves. Bill's coach, Sean McDermott, said earlier, team hopes to have more info on Tuesday. So hopes to have more info on Tuesday means let's run that again. Yeah, do it again. Let's try to figure this out. And that's either really good news to protect, you know, Josh Allen, like, hey, let's run again and make sure you're 100% okay because we've got a lot of season left and we rely upon you a lot.

Or it's, hey, let's make sure and double check, triple check, and maybe even quadruple check that the MVP favorite right now on our wagon isn't having a potential issue that's going to – The elbow, right? This is – Oh, yeah. Ben Wallace – not that Josh Allen is Ben Roethlisberger, and Josh Allen's a lot younger than a lot of people. But the elbow for throwers is something that does get affected. The Josh Allen news, I hope it's fucking good.

I hope it's okay. I hope we're good. But I don't like to hear about an elbow issue this early into the season. No, and I believe he's only missed four games in his career. It was his rookie year, and it was a UCL issue. And then you also wonder if there was a little bit of damage or whatever, and then on that last play of the game, he uncorks one, throws it as hard and as far as he can, 70 yards.

It's like, well, is the kind of like the straw that broke the Campbell's back if there was an issue with it so hopefully that's not the case because that would suck but I mean anytime yeah anytime you're dealing with elbow stuff like that you just pray he doesn't have to have like Tommy John or something like that so that would be what Tommy John is for I believe so I think a lot of pitchers like if they do I mean obviously it's anything with the elbow but a lot of guys yeah, will tear the UCL or whatever, and then Tommy John, boom, 18 months. And that's Rookie of the Year, right?

Yeah. That was quite. Nope. No, Rookie of the Year is Henry Rowengarten. Oh. What did you think, the rookie? You're thinking of the rookie. Oh, there it is.

Yeah, when he threw the speed limits. Yeah. Yeah, it's a 64. Yeah, 79, and then boop, boop. It's actually 99. Yeah, the guy was throwing gas at him. Yeah, it was. It. Mob prior. Yeah. Yeah. It's a 64. Yeah. 79. And then boop, boop. It's actually 99. Yeah. The guy was throwing gas out of it. Yeah.

It was. B, Jimmy Morris. Think about how fucking, because he was a teacher or something, right? Yeah. Substitute teacher. Mm-hmm. Think about him throwing that one. Oh, that was my good throw.

Oh, yeah. Good grip, good everything. Mm-hmm. And that thing pops up and says 79. And he's like, I don't have it anymore. Shit. I thought I did. And he's throwing BP to his kids, and he's fucking whizz't have it anymore yeah i thought i did and he's throwing bp to his kids

and he's fucking whizzing them right down the middle 95 coach we can't fucking hit this no it's only 70 miles an hour this is what you're gonna be getting goes back in there it was 99 unbelievable anyways yeah rowan garter yeah this one this whole thing you know you got to throw the floater this play looked nasty aq you actually mentioned you're like how about that that everybody assumes that's where it happened let's his arm has you know it's i think this routinely happens where a ball will get knocked out but this one just looks a little bit more violent because of how strong josh's arm is and how clean and pure the contact on his arm is this is like a work i mean that's that was exposed out there too i was watching that game live and i mean it was definitely on that play because the next

two plays you see him and he's flexing his arm he's grabbing and if you had a ucl issue in the past he's probably a bit scared to death you know i mean that's probably something you're not and and the crazy thing is difference in positions every single offensive lineman that wears a brace on their elbow has that same issue, but they're not throwing a fucking ball. Yeah, they don't have to be explosive there. You know, the humerus and the radius come together after the elbow joint. Of course.

And the torn ulnar collateral ligament, I hope it's not a torn one that they're showing us. That would not be good. That is what it looks like. Right. That is what it would look like in there. Damn. Full partial tear there's probably a bunch of those right i'd assume the partial one probably still sustainable but you're gonna have a lot less strength a lot less mobility a lot more pain as you're going through there it just as untrained undoctored eyes i assume you could partially tear that and fully tear that am i wrong aq do you know i don't know

i do know that like said, every offensive lineman has something where it's loose in there. I can imagine that can't be good for throwing the ball. Let's hope he's okay. But you're right. Lamar Jackson is different than Josh Allen. He's different than Patrick Mahomes. The stats say it. The records prove it. And last night we got to watch him do his thing,

which is delightful television, but game's still boring because they just started being so damn dominant. I was thinking last night when I was watching, I think the thought. Why did they pay that guy? I don't know. I think the thought on Lamar Jackson would be different if he was in the NFC because he always has to be compared and go up against Mahomes and Allen

and even Burroughs kind of had his number last year so like if he was in the NFC and I think it'd be a much better matchup or situation when he if he's going up against the Niners or the Eagles or or teams like that then being compared to Mahomes and Allen every single year yeah it could be a free agent so could Sean Payton as you said on uh Monday Night Man you know that guy could be a free agent I could be a free agent at the same time. Enjoyed the Manning cast last night. Thought it went well. Now we move on to Week 10.

You were going to say something, though, I think, to kind of put a bow on this entire conversation? Well, I was going to see how you thought about Lamar, you know, spiking the ball on a delay of game. Oh, yeah. Snap on it. I enjoy that. I like that type of stuff.

You know, I think I've seen people have heated conversations with people. I've been a part of a couple with people, both directions. I think whenever competition level is high, when people are invested in emotional, there's a chance for that to happen. The big difference with the Tom Brady one is that Tom Brady happened to miss a walkthrough the day before. I don't think Lamar missed any. I think Lamar has been pretty well invested in all that. So I think optically that's why the conversation about what Tom did

with the offensive line is vastly different than what Lamar did personally. But what the fuck do we know? We're just sports stooges. What I do know is there was a press conference last night that was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was originally supposed to be at 6.30. Then it was supposed to be at 7.30. Then it got moved to 8-ish.

Then it started about 8.20. Website crashed. Streams were all over the place. Jim Irsay, Chris Ballard introducing interim head coach, which we all expected, Jeff Saturday. Immediately upon Jim Irsay taking a seat at that press conference, there was a buzz around the sports world. And most of it was, what is Jim Ur saying? And I thought, you know, as somebody who knows Jim a little bit better than everybody else, I feel like. Yeah, for sure.

I feel like I've been very, let's see if this thing turns on. Can you hear me? Uh-huh. Can you hear me? Does this sound good? Yep. You know, I think like I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to get to know this man. Whenever I got arrested for a public intoxication for an alleged event, the cops have their story, I have mine. It was

really at that moment that Jim Irsay and I started chit-chatting much more. When I was young, when I was a rookie, Jim Irsay would come down to practice in his golf cart and he would say, what's up to Adam Vinatieri? I'd get a quick, how you doing? And then he would keep it moving and go talk to the people that are much more important to the team than I was. Remember, that was the Peyton Manning, Jeff Saturday, Gary Brackett, Joseph Adai, Ryan Dean, you know, that team that you have heard about, Dallas Clark, the team that was great, great, great for a long time that we talked about and we will talk about here soon. He had other things to talk about.

When I get in trouble, I felt like Jim felt obligated to get to know me a little bit better because of the troubles and the demons that he had battled in the past. So from that point forward, anytime he would come to practice, he would make it a point to come say hello to me, and we would literally have 25, 30-minute conversations on the sideline before he would inevitably talk to the team about whatever the message was that he wanted to send. What I learned through those conversations with this fucking guy

is he is an incredibly deep thinker. This is a fucking hippie who happens to be the owner of the Indianapolis Colts. Whenever he started tweeting, everybody would be like, this guy has fucking lost his mind. He might have. He might have found it at certain different times. But what he's trying to say is a message. The way he says the message is different because he considers himself an artist. He's fucking friends with Mellencamp and McCartney. He has a hundred songs that he's written already. He likes using his words and the way he says things a little bit differently than how everybody

else says it. But guess what? He's a billionaire. He can do whatever whatever the fuck he wants so i understand why everybody thought he was off his rocker yesterday the press conference with the thing he was saying i'm going to try to break down what i think jim er saying was getting through uh so let's run the first quote that certainly made its rounds on the internet we're the fourth winningest franchise in the league since 2000. All right, that means in the upper quartile of winners, we're in the top quartile of that upper quartile. What is Jim Irr saying? That's a great question, boys, and you weren't the only ones asking that question. You start doing some quick math now.

Whenever he said, you know, we have the fourth most winning percentage in the last 22 years in the NFL. How come everybody seems to forget that? They start going, what's the fucking math? How many teams have we got? 32 teams. Well, Jesus, you start doing some math. What's four-quarter of that? Well, it's about eight.

Well, fuck, we're in the top half of that, aren't we? We're in the top half of the top quartile. Are you talking about everything? And Jim Ursa says, that's what I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them it was in the top quartile of the top quartile, and that's what the fuck we are. What Jim Hersey was trying to let you know is, hey, put a little respect on this program and this organization's name.

Although things might have been ugly here over the last few weeks, and this team has not looked good, and we just lost to the Patriots in an embarrassing and abysmal fashion, and we fired our coach in the middle of the season for the first time in 25 years, this ain't how they – we are a fucking winning organization. So much so, we're in the top. Okay, if you're going to do it, we're in the top. Dave, you're going to do it. We're in the top of the top of the top.

So go ahead and get off our dicks. Let's go to the next quote from Jim Irsay last night. I'm glad he doesn't have any NFL experience. I'm glad he hasn't learned the fear that's in this league. Because it's tough for all our coaches. They're afraid. They go to analytics, and it gets difficult. I mean, he doesn't have all that.

He doesn't have that fear, and there was no other candidate. We were fortunate that he was available. And he has tons of experience. He knows this game inside and out. What is Jim Ur saying? Great question, boys. A lot of people on the Internet were asking the same damn question. He's happy he has no experience?

Why would you want somebody that has no experience to be the head coach of the team that's worth billions and billions of dollars i think what he's referring to is conversations that he has probably had with frank and other owners with conversations they've had with their coaches when our coaches make these decisions that are seemingly so fucking stupid in situational awareness jim says well the reason why they're doing is because they're being told that these stats are doing this, and then they have scars from previous decisions that they've made that affect current decisions that are being made,

and then they start weighing in those things, and people aren't making the decisions that they actually have a gut feeling for. Instead, they're opting out to utilize other things as an excuse for the decisions that they're making. We see across the board. People go for it on things. People don't go for it on things. It's because the analytics are playing for both teams.

And Jim Irsay said, Jeff Saturday, he's going to have analytics, but this motherfucker ain't scared to make a decision just yet. Now, after he makes five bad ones and he feels like he's going to get fired like a lot of other coaches have, will he change the way he thinks? Yes. Does Jeff have a lot of experience? He knows the game inside and out? Of course he does.

Motherfucker was the center. We have a center on our show every single week. The center has to know basically everything that the fucking quarterback has to know. Doesn't have to make the throws, thank God, because he nor Jeff could fucking do that. But they have to know every coverage. They have to know every blitz. They have to know everything that's going on. They have to be able to communicate it to the rest of the offensive line and sometimes the fucking quarterback. Who was his quarterback? Peyton Manning. Most cerebral quarterback on earth. Who was his center? Tag team. And of him, Jeff Saturday, literally since the beginning. So I think

what Jim Ursae was saying is, yeah, he might not have coached, but his experience in the game is pretty fucking vast. We've been able to see him do incredible things in this sport. Why wouldn't I want this guy? And there was no other candidate available unless I was going to hire from within, which I wasn't. Have you seen this team? They stink. There was nobody else available. I bring him in. He's an interim coach for us. He knows the shoe. He's in the ring of honor. I trust him. I like him. And maybe he'll be a great head coach in the future. That's what Jim Ur was

saying. Next quote. You want to bet against this guy? Put your money down, people. Love to see it. Love to see it. I know this guy. This guy fucking wins. Now we had to get rid of him. He went to the Green Bay Packers. It wasn't fantastic. Still made the Pro Bowl there. But if you want to

bet against Jeff Saturday, I'm cool with that. You know, because the NFL owners are trying to do the same goddamn thing whenever the CBA was up just 12 years ago. They were trying to bet against Jeff Saturday. And what did Jeff Saturday do? Walked into the negotiation room, put his hand across the table and say, hey, let's put our swords aside. Let's go ahead and get a deal done. Jeff Saturday

allegedly the reason why the last, not the current CBA, the last CBA got done. Let's go ahead and get a deal done. Jeff Saturday, allegedly the reason why the last, not the current CBA, the last CBA got done. He actually cut a promo at a press conference that ended the lockout, that people were going broken, and that we're potentially going to miss games because of Jeff Saturday and those baby blue eyes were allegedly the reason why a deal got done. Jim Mercy has seen Jeff on the field.

He's seen him in the locker room. He's seen him in the fucking boardroom. And it seems like Jeff has always had success. Now that CBA was not fantastic for the players. No, I do not know. There was a lot of things that were wrong in that, but I don't think they would have ever been right. But if it wasn't for Jeff, a deal wouldn't get done. I think that's what Jim was alluding to. Let's go to the next quote. No, the game is not different. We don't build rockets to go to Mars. We're not nuclear scientists. That is none of our jobs here.

to go to Mars. We're not nuclear scientists. That is none of our jobs here. It's very simple jobs that we do here. What is Jim Earth saying? Great question, boys. And I know a lot of people are saying that on the internet. And you know, Jim Earth has a weird fascination with Mars. Whenever he joined us, he actually knew the exact miles from planet Earth to Mars. And he told me that by the time I'm 80, I'm probably going to be able to do a show on Mars. He said, I don't think I'll be able to live that long, brother. I think what he was alluding to here is, this is fucking football, okay? Is Jeff Saturday equipped? Is he ready to do this? It's fucking football. We're not saving the world. We're not trying to send anybody to fucking Mars. We're not building rocket ships. At the end of the day, it's blocking, it's tackling, it's passing, it's setting, it's kicking, it's catching. It's those things. This isn't fucking

rocket science. What are we even talking about? It's football, which's kicking, it's catching, it's those things. This isn't fucking rocket science. What are we even talking about? It's football, which leads to this quote from Jim Irsay. I don't know how to make sausage. I don't know what goes into sausage. But I do know how to build a football team. What? What is Jim Irsay?

Well, to allude to the point that we just made, I think what Jim was saying, like, we're not building rocket ships. I'm not trying to fucking make sausage. This is literally all I've done my entire life is build a goddamn football team. Please have a little bit of appreciation for the resume that I built going back to the quartile conversation that we had at the very beginning of this thing. I don't know. If I was here trying to make you a sausage, Link, and you had doubts,

I would understand it, okay? I would completely understand it. But if we're talking about a fucking football team, and check my record, those are facts. I can do that. Let's go to the next quote from Jim Irsay. There is no problem of perception except some of you guys make a problem of perception,

but you need hits, so you got to do it. I understand. I do the same thing. I was a broadcast journalism major, too. I don't know if you guys ever held a carnival with your editors bringing you in and saying, well, you wrote that stuff. It was all wrong. You're fired. So he was talking about the Rooney

rule I believe with Jeff Saturday being a white man being hired. He also went on to talk about how Tony Dungy was the coach that actually took us to the Super Bowl. First African American head coach going to Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Indianapolis Colts Ring of Honor. The coach immediately after Tony Dungy, the man that I got to play for, incredible

legend who got ran out of town in Detroit in absolute bullshit fashion. Jim Caldwell was our head coach and then Paisano Pagano comes in, then Frank Wright comes in. He said, but if the perception is that I only hired a white guy to hire a white guy, the perception could be that

if you would like to do that, because I'm a broadcast journalist, you've got to get your clicks as well. I do believe that in the offseason, he's going to have to interview a lot of people. And I hope that there are as many candidates that are fantastic to become head coaches. I assume Jeff Saturday is hoping to become a head coach for the Indianapolis Colts whenever those interviews open up at the end of the season, in his interim time, is done. But I don't think Jim Irsay has shown at all a lack of willingness to hire an African-American coach. And I think that is, you know, to Jim Irsay's point, you just got to go back and look at it.

Now, I do believe it's a problem. I'm not saying the NFL doesn't have an issue with it. I think that what Brian Flores was suing for brought a spotlight to a situation that the NFL has. I hope it gets changed. And Jeff Saturday might be a good advocate for the change. NFL has I hope it gets changed and Jeff Saturday might be a good advocate for the change because if Jeff Saturday former player who does not have any NFL coaching experience has not had to go pour coffee for what do you do pour coffee draw cards sleep in the office after a 14-15 year career getting paid millions and millions of dollars and you're pouring coffee for a coach that fucking is

you know coach for 20 years but has done absolutely nothing in the NFL and you're pouring coffee for a coach that fucking has coached for 20 years but has done absolutely nothing in the NFL and you're drawing up cards late night. You're scheming up things but probably aren't even going to get used and you're getting paid like fucking $35,000. That's the proper way to go about becoming a head coach in the NFL. A lot of former players don't want to do that. Why? Because why the fuck would you want to do that if you just lived the life of being an NFL superstar? I understand you've got to love the game and have passion for the game, and being a coach in the NFL is not easy at all. I do believe you have to earn your stripes.

But the way about going and getting head coaches in the NFL is basically an unfeasible thing for any former player to do as a human, mentally, physically. Why would they want to sign up for that unless it was their dream job to become an NFL head coach, so if Jeff has success, without having to do all that bullshit, look for a lot of other players that have potentially fit the same mold of human as Jeff Saturday, incredible leader, obviously great resume, a good communicator, a super positive guy who's not scared to hold people accountable. Look for other players to get those head coaching roles.

And whenever that happens, I think that will obviously up the amount of minority head coaches in the NFL, which is good for everybody because it makes the game a lot better. Let's go to the next quote here from Jim Irsay. You know, certain people just have it. They have it. And you have it. They have it. And you see it when you know it. What is Jim Ertz saying? Well, I kind of fucked this one up.

You know, it's supposed to be you know it when you see it. He said you see it when you know it. So you flip those backwards. I think he did fuck up there. But I guess you could see it when you know it or know it when you see it. That's what he's talking about. And I don't think he's just talking about in the head coaching world, although this is what he was chatting about whenever he saw in Jeff Saturday being a head coach. And you heard Chris Ballard talk about how in 2019,

we tried to hire him as offensive line coach, 2020, and we tried to hire him. And then obviously now we try to hire him. So I think Jim Irsay has been pushing for Jeff Saturday to be a coach for the Indianapolis Colts for some time now. This was obviously his first opportunity in 25 years to hire an interim head coach. He figured Jeff Saturday would be the perfect one for that. And I honestly believe that if you just listen to the message as opposed to the words, I don't think Jim Irsay had as big of a fucking clown show

as everybody who's trying to make it. He's just talking in his own words. And I think he has faith that Jeff's going to be good, but I have no idea how this whole thing goes with the roster that they have Jeff Saturday having no clue about the offense Jeff Saturday knowing basically nobody that's on that team knows the whole building he's never been an NFL head coach I don't think what Jim Irsay said last night was such a catastrophe like everybody else thought but I do think this is going to be quite a struggle Jeff Saturday said

he was drinking from a fire hydrant uh and you know, trying to figure some things out. Joining us now is a beat writer for The Athletic covering the Indianapolis Colts. A man with a big old brain, friend of the program now because he's been on before. Ladies and gentlemen, Zach Kiefer. Yeah, Keith! Zach. Pat, that was amazing. That little segment, how did you do that?

What are you talking about? The way you just ripped through about 15 different sound bites and just rolled. I mean, that was impressive, man. I'm not kidding. Oh, thank you, Keith. Yeah, I'm a professional. I do this six days a week and everything like that. But you're fucking talented at what you do as well.

That's why, as soon as I told the boys, hey, let's get Chief Keefe back on. Let's get Zach Keefer on here to break it down because we don't have boots on the ground in the Colts facility. We don't get a vibe at the Colts facility. I don't really know a lot of the players on the team. What are the thoughts here early? Now, I'm sure you haven't been able to talk to everybody. Jeff Saturday doesn't know any of the players.

He has been around. He has not been around. What is that relationship, and what do you think the vibes are coming from the locker room right now, Zach Kiefer? Well, I think both things can be true, Pat. Like, Jeff Saturday is an amazing dude, right? He was an amazing player. They loved him at the facility.

He's one of the best players this team's ever had, right? Like, he's got an amazing story. He was pumping gas before he found his way with the Colts. But the other side of it is people are stunned. I mean, people inside the building, former coaches, league executives, former scouts, stunned that they made this move. This is unprecedented in the last six decades in the NFL to hire someone, no NFL coaching experience, no college coaching experience. We haven't talked to the players yet, but I would love to hear from the defensive players,fan gilmore deforest buckner guys who were expected to win they're

hiring jeff saturday who doesn't even know the name of his coaching staff as of yesterday yeah he uh who's gonna be calling place well i'm gonna figure that out here yeah got a game in about five days he said he's drinking from a fire hydrant i would like to hear and that that's like a very you know good journalist thought that i wouldn't have my thought would be like all right how do we win some games a great journalist thought is how about you know bump and run gilmore yeah who probably had a couple options and say you know what i want to join this defense how about a lot of the guys that are ogs that see it as soon as matt ryan gets benched right that was the feeling though there was a little bit bit of a uncomfortable conversation in the locker room whenever Matt Ryan was announced as a bench

because they thought they were mailing it in. Do you think that is the belief around a lot of people of the Indianapolis Colts players? Yeah, I don't think they're going to say it, but I think in the back of their minds, that's their thoughts. These guys were not happy that Matt Ryan was benched. Frank Reich's hands were tied, right? I think everybody knows that. This was a decision. The third straight decision that Jim Mercer has made at the top, he forced the trade for Carson Wentz. He benched Matt Ryan and he went and hired Jeff Saturday. I don't think that was a Chris Ballard move. I don't think if you're a GM who's on ice that is spinning a little bit, you go hire an unproven head coach. So the guys were not happy that Matt Ryan was benched. They came here to win the division, to play in the playoffs,

and this is going nowhere. And if you guys watch the game Sunday, you saw the worst offense this team's had in 25 years. Yeah, I've said that. I've said that if Jeff Saturday just figures out a way to have that offense have zero yards in the first quarter, your tweet was, because I was watching the game. I'm like, this is terrible. This is abysmal football.

And then I just, like, happened to open my Twitter app at the same time, and your tweet was the first one that I saw. And it was like, here's in the first quarter, here's what they got. Negative two yards. I'm like, how can you prepare for a week? Have professionals that are getting paid money, let alone the highest paid offensive line and everything else that's going on there, and have negative two yards, three sacks allowed, zero passes completed in 11 plays.

That means defense can't get off the fucking field. Offense literally can't do worse, is doing worse than nothing. Literally worse than nothing is what the offense is doing. So I just assumed if Jeff Saturday does better than that, it'll be a success story. But it sounds like long-term, a lot of other people in our locker room are expecting more. What do you think? You think it's a blow-up situation at the end of the season?

Can't be, right? Too many contracts? They're not saying that. At the end of the season, yes. They're not saying that right now. Chris Ballard was really defiant last night. I'm not waving the white flag. He feels like he's put together a pretty decent roster,

was a little testy with some questions about the offensive line, the receivers. But this is a buzzsaw that Jeff Saturday is walking into. I mean, this is an absolute travesty of an offensive line. They're the worst offense in the league. They've got a quarterback who shouldn't be playing. Tony Dungy was saying today on the Dan Patrick show, like, why isn't Nick Foles playing? And Matt Ryan, like, why isn't he playing? I don't have an answer to that other than Drew Mercer wants to see Sam Ellinger.

So, on its surface, it feels like a tank job, but they're certainly not calling it that. Drew Mercer wants to see Sam Ellinger. Give me that Texas bow. Put him in. I want to see that Texas bow fire the pigskin. Connor has a question for you, Keith. Yeah, Zach, because of everything you're saying,

is it safe to assume that Matt Ryan probably won't be with the Colts next year, or do you think that they'll keep him on the roster or will they kind of cut bait with them and just take the dead cap hit it feels like that's what's going to happen Connor it's going to be significant I believe it's 18 million but they screwed this up like they're going to have to eat it and they were willing to do that with Carson Wentz last year remember to eat that 15 million to move on from him this is a completely different situation but man of all the guys to feel for in this situation I kind of feel for Matt Ryan he was sold a bill of goods and they did not deliver yeah he was getting his ass beat every game now he's making some bad decisions turning the ball over not being able to hold on to it I'm sure that Matt Ryan will own up to a lot of his mistakes and not looking

great but he was also could not have expected at his age, at his time, the reason why he wanted to come to Indianapolis was because of the offensive line. They've been terrible. Speaking of Matt Ryan, AQ has a question for you, Keith. Hey, Zach. Is there any thought process or talks of Matt Ryan calling plays moving forward? I mean, why not? At this point, they're running out of people to fire on the offensive

side of the ball. They fired Marcus Brady. They fired Frank Reich. They traded a running back in Naheem Hines who can do some things. And Scott Milanovic, the QB coach, is the only guy on staff that's called plays at the NFL level. And so this is a bizarre setting. You guys have been in NFL locker rooms. I mean, Jeff Saturday literally flew into indy yesterday and probably had to meet some of the guys on his coaching staff that he's never met before and then he interviewed the ones that might be calling plays in five days in an nfl game this is unprecedented i mean this is just beyond bizarre so i mean scott milanovich parks frazier matt ryan nick foals pat mac pat you want to call some plays on Sunday in Las Vegas? Hey, listen, I'm going to nap on Sunday.

But maybe next week. Give me like two weeks to maybe think on the playbook and stuff like that. I wonder how – what do you think Jeff will have a say in? Do you think Jeff will be in the strategy scheme like Vrabel is and like other coaches that aren't coordinators? Do you think – or what are you expecting out of Jeff? I know he's going to be – he said that, what was his exact quote? He said something about his expectations for himself.

He's not coming in here thinking he's going to be a fucking world beater, basically, day one. He was humble in his thing, which is very Jeff. I love Jeff. I'm a massive fan of Jeff Saturday as a teammate, as a person on TV, as a Colt, everything. I'm a big fan of Jeff, but I'm intrigued hearing him say, I asked Jim, why am I a candidate for this? That was an incredible quote. That was funny.

So Jeff didn't say, like, hey, can I have the job? Jim reached out to him and made it happen. And then he also talked about, like, hey, it's my job to put people in the best position to succeed. He wanted to, like, coach speak or whatever. What does that mean? Do we have any expectations at all of what Jeff will do week in and week out as the head coach? Have you heard anything? They're going to learn this on the fly. And I think you're right, Pat, like Jeff Saturday is awesome. He's everything

that's great about football. And I see him kind of sliding into a CEO type role with this team, if that's even possible right now, coaching. The problem with that is they don't have these spots on the offensive coaching staff filled. Like I would love to get Reggie Wayne's thoughts on this situation and Cato June, you know, guys that were part of that gilded era that were essentially passed over for this head coaching job by Jeff Saturday. But you're right. And just Saturday, I got to say, man, that dude shined last night. Like he was the star of this very interesting train wreck of a press conference. And the thing I liked the best was he said, look, no one thought I was going to last when I showed up as a player,

and no one thinks I'm going to last now. He's got something to him. I totally understand that from Jim Irsay's perspective, from a coaching perspective, not qualified in any way for this job. Yeah, and I thought, like, yesterday I learned live on air, and we just brainstormed about it for two and a half hours live on air. Yep. And one point we landed on,

what if this is Jim Irsay who reminded the world last night in his own way, hey, I have some pretty fucking good teams in my resume. Like, this ain't the Lions. The quartile of the top quartile. You're damn right. I've put a little respect. Now, he said it in his own way, obviously. But he's like, this ain't the bronze. This isn't the line.

Please have a little bit of faith here. It sounded like he was kind of saying that. I wonder if he saw these traits in Jeff every time he talked to him. He's like, he's a good leader. He has a great resume. Seems like he holds people accountable. I wonder if Jim Mercy scouted this and was like, I think you'd be a fucking great head coach. And now he sees this as an opportunity for nine weeks you get uh we get to kind of see is this something you want to do is it something that we want to have you do

like there's so many different ways this could go that's why i thought the press conference was going to be a little bit we didn't hear any of that last night we didn't fucking hear a single thing that's my thing pat like don't you think this started the week prior with tyra glenn's induction right don't you think the conversations or week prior with Tyra Glenn's induction? Like, don't you think the conversations or at least the ball started to roll in Jim Mercer's mind? But here's my problem with what you just said. They punched a lottery ticket at the top of the draft in 1998, 2012. That doesn't happen hardly ever. You got Peyton Manning.

You got Andrew Luck. Whoa, whoa, Ryan Leaf. Those guys are walking through the door. Whoa, whoa, Ryan Leaf had to happen. And now you're seeing how the other half live. And life's a lot easier when you have those spots filled. Yeah, I think that's a very valid point. And Jim, when he's cutting his promo about his success,

he did not add that in there. I did have Peyton Manning, and I did have Andrew Luck. That's a little couple pieces of information you can leave out. I mean, if you're cutting a promo to kind of put people down on how they're judging you. out. I mean, if you're getting a promo to be kind of put people down on how they're judging you, well, maybe they fall into another. I mean,

Jim has some horseshoe luck, right? I mean, the O'Shea family has some luck, but there's a lot of ownership groups that live on a lot of luck and then end up having a football team that's terrible for decades and generations and decades, and I hope that's not what's happening right now here in Indianapolis. Tony, your question for Zach Kiefer.

Zach, you referenced Ballard being a little testy uh last night and you talked about how ursa made the wentz decision and the benching matt ryan decision and this jeff saturday decision does it seem like ballard maybe isn't on board with these decisions behind closed doors and is his job safe because of like are these were all of ursa's decisions is he's either writing on the wall keith yeah that's a really good question i'm glad you brought that up chris ballard's words where we had some really passionate discussions about whether to hire jeff saturday what did that tell me this was a jim ursa move it's got his fingerprints all over it if you're a a GM whose status is slipping

a little bit, this is a really disappointing season. Some of the decisions Chris has made have led to that. Do you go hire an absolutely unproven coach who's never been on the sideline in an NFL game as a coach? I mean, that's just not what you do. That's just not what you do. This is such an out-of-the-box move this is the third straight decision as I mentioned that that Chris Ballard didn't make a monumental decision with this with this franchise and you got to feel like there's a little bit of meddling going on like Jim Irsay is overstepping and doing the things that he said he wouldn't ever do the things his father used to do back in the day and that's troubling for this franchise that's troubling for this franchise and Jim Irsay said very clearly last night that Chris Ballard will be back next year. But two weeks ago, he said Frank Reich was safe. So what does his word mean anymore?

Yeah, sports always seem to have great press conference lives. You know, that day it turned out, you know, some people aren't leaving, ever leaving. They leave two days later. Some people love somebody and they seemingly hate them the next day it's a interesting game we can't thank you enough for following along with all of it we appreciate your work and thank you for joining us zach that was awesome thanks for having me pat ain't no problem i think you took a screenshot we should have smiled ladies and gentlemen zach keifer there yeah uh good conversation there i do enjoy hearing the journalist side you hear that there's a little bit like jim's doing everything his dad did.

Jim also got Peyton and Andrew Luck. Like, it seems like I can tell how the local media feels. Yeah, we got great points. We can tell about your very good points. Yeah. Very solid points. And once again, I am a doofus who's always just like, no, no, no.

Like, Jeff's going to be the fucking next greatest coach of all time. Like, because I know Jeff. I like Jeff. And what if he is? He wasn't in high school. His high school football coaching record, a little bit below 500. That's Georgia, though. What's your face?

Georgia football is really good. Exactly. Well, also, you don't know what the – shout out to the dogs, by the way. Shout out to the dogs. I would never do what I did again to the dogs. I apologize. I was just wondering if you guys played anybody. You hadn't.

You have now. You dominated. Duly noted. Rocky Top's a very, very catchy song, okay? Very catchy. They were very nice to me. When you guys were there, I had it stuck in my head all week long. And their offense is unbelievable.

It's a lot of fun. A lot of good people. There's 41 from me. Duly noted. Duly noted. As far as Colton and Jim, he is different because he was a GM for a while, Unbelievable. It's a lot of fun. A lot of good people. What do you want from me? Duly noted. Duly noted. As far as Colton and Jim, he is different because he was a GM for a while, and he's been around the game, and he played the game and stuff like that.

He's different than other owners, I should say. But there is a sentiment that we talk about a lot kind of sometimes is that when an owner starts making all the decisions, it's not normally the best situation for the organization as a whole. Yeah. Yeah. Because Bill Polian was here. Yeah. Whenever Dungy was coaching.

Uh-huh. And Bill Polian. I mean, that was an interesting building that I kind of came into there with Bill Polian. You were never there with Bill, right? You were the second generation, the second era, I guess, there in Indianapolis. Bill Polian, I think, had every football. He did every football thing. Peyton, I guess, there in Indianapolis. Bill Polian, I think, had every football. He did every football thing.

Peyton, whenever I was there, which I assume was for a large majority of the Peyton era there, I was there towards the tail end of it. If he wanted to change anything football-wise, like scheme-wise, strategy-wise, what the team's doing, he definitely had to go to do that. So, like, I think Bill Polian ran shit. Tony Dungy ran team, strategy, scheme, how we're going about doing what we're doing. And then Peyton was able to change whatever he wanted within the team and what was going on with that.

So I don't know how much Jim Irsay had say in what's going on there. Then you go to the Griggs scenario. Carly Irsay was in the building every single day. Carly Irsay, who I had not seen, I had not seen in the building, and I might have been wrong. I was young. I was there for a few years in the previous generation. I had not seen her. She was in the building, and I might have been wrong. I was young. I was there for a few years in the previous generation. I had not seen her.

She was in the building every day. She was kind of running day-to-day ops, and I think that was happening because of something that was going on with the family. I'm not 100% sure. It was all hearsay. I do not know the actual facts. I'm not going to talk about it. But Carly invested in being a part of the Indianapolis Colts organization.

First year, Grigson was kind of there. So Grigson and Carly were talking basically every single day at practice. I think she was trying to learn as much as she possibly could as fast as possible. I don't know what all decisions she was making. I think food got changed. Some travel got changed. Some hotels got changed. And they got changed back, I think, you know,

because certainly a decision was made. It appeared it made things worse. But I don't know if that was Carly or if that was somebody else that was doing it and it was being told something. So you don't really know who's doing what all the time is what I'm trying to say. I don't really know who is, but Jim, that first era with polling in them, I don't think he was a part of really any of the day-to-day operations. There, I think he comes in overnight. He's like a nocturnal person, which I think a lot of billionaires are, probably because they can be all by themselves and do whatever they want

and don't have to worry about a lot of people. He can go in that building and nobody's in there. He's just fucking. Yeah. I think he's got a smoking pit out back on the side where he smokes his cigs. He's got a vape in there. He's got a gym in there. And he does his stuff.

So I don't know how much he was involved in it. I know Carly and Grigson were talking a lot during the Grigson era. I don't know how much say Carly had or what was the case. But then Jim got back in, I think, towards the end of it there whenever he had to make a decision to move on from both Grigson and then one year later from Chuck. So now this, I assume he was hands-off at the beginning. I assume whenever he hired Chris, like, hey, this is what I need you to do.

This is what I need you to do, Frank. Then he pays Phil Rivers a bunch of money. Then he pays Carson Wentz a bunch of money. Then he pays a bunch of offensive linemen a bunch of money. Then he pays a bunch of pays Phil Rivers a bunch of money. Then he pays Carson Wentz a bunch of money. Then he pays a bunch of offensive linemen a bunch of money. Then he pays a bunch of linebackers a bunch of money. Then he pays a couple other people a bunch of money. And they start doing terribly and not making the playoffs and losing in Clowntown. I think

then, Jim, and I don't want to make excuses for Jim, but if you just start thinking about from his point of view, I think he hadn't put his hands in until it was like, brother, I'm fucking spending all this money. We stink anyways. I think he hadn't put his hands in until it was like, brother, I'm fucking spending all this money. We stink anyways. I might as well. I might as well go ahead and put my input in there. I would

assume he would want to jump back out and worry about his collection and his museum and his band and everything like that. That's why I'm wondering about Chris Ballard. If Jim's making all these decisions for Chris right now, Chris has to see.

You know what I mean? Chris is not a fucking doofus. Chris is not a – Very well respected. He's a very sharp person. He's been around the NFL a long time. And Jim is making passionate and spirited conversations, I think is how he described the conversation between Chris and Jim

after the game and after the whole conversation about hiring Jeff and firing Frank and that whole thing. So I don't know how it goes going forward. Like I don't know if this does become the Jerry Jones, Jim Irsay situation, you know, where owner is very involved with everything, because that is not how Jim has been at all. People think Jim's loud because he's on Twitter or whatever. He's not making.

He wasn't making like, yep, this guy's starting. This guy's fired, this guy's fired, this is the head coach. He hadn't done that in the past. I don't think, not that I know of. He might have done it beforehand. I'm not sure. Well, yeah. And like you mentioned, like when you're that pot committed, you know, he might be like, okay, well, we've tried doing it your way and it's not working.

And I'm not just going to keep sinking money into this because he obviously cares about it very much. He's not like one of these guys who owns a football team and it's kind of just like a status thing this is only business yeah exactly like he he cares about it very much and then to the ballard thing like you could tell like when i heard him say that we had spirited and you know like passionate conversations i don't know if that's what he meant but it was like okay so he definitely did not agree with Ursae on any of these things, but ultimately he lost out. And to Kiefer's point, you know, he knows, like, Jim saying last night, hey, Chris is going to be here next year.

I haven't even got that far. Like, he's not naive. He's not dumb. He realizes, like, well, that doesn't mean shit because if we lose, you know, seven of the next eight games or whatever, like, I am going to be looking for a new job. AQ, you've been a coach and a, and by the way, no longer a coach because of what I talked about earlier,

about the process of becoming a coach that actually has any say, any power or any money or doing any coaching really is a long grind that people have to, that players who are the best in the world would have to do after like a decade and a half long career. You have to go back to being like a 19 year old that's not an easy thing for some people to do aq did it for a year won a super loved it too that's why he's still doing it anyways uh you've been a coach low level coach

you've been an assistant coach you've been a player that's been around a lot you've been on the bottom half of rosters you've been a starter well how do you think the reaction is this whole jeff saturday hiring and what do you think the locker room's thinking because that was a good point like stefan gilmore thought he was coming here to win yeah and now they haven't been playing winning football at all no team has not been fun to watch at all team has stunk for a large portion of the season so that's probably a little disappointing for him as well but these types of decisions as well how do you think everybody's handling it alan quay ship Yeah, I think that's a great point that he brought up. I mean, the locker room, period.

And the offensive side might feel okay about it, right? But the defensive side, they're like, man, what are we doing? And they probably have an allegiance to Gus Bradley, right? They probably feel really good about that. And then they make this move. I also think the bigger picture here is around the league. What are other coaches? There's going to be a lot of coaches that sit there and be like what what like i work my tail off too like what happened here

right there's gonna be a lot of coaches around this league that look at that and they're gonna having a weird feeling about going to indianapolis moving forward you think it's going to be let's say jeff gets the job might be tough for him to get a staff in uh coaching world i don't know it's not to be an MCDC type. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, where it's all former players. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it might have to be.

But at the end of the day, is that the worst thing? I think it's probably great for the league. I love that staff in Detroit. They just beat the Packers, which we'll talk to Aaron about here in about an hour. But they have stunk. They have been very bad. Terrible. I think a lot of coaches were kind of hoping for

yeah exactly so they could say that yeah exactly so and i mentioned earlier if jeff has success here it might help a lot of former players that would opt out of being coaches because they don't want to fucking go through all the bullshit to get to the top of the ladder it might help guys get picked much quicker to be head coaches if he has success now it seems like he's not going to i mean it seems like a tough situation well and how like are the defensive you know team meetings going to go because you mentioned you know gus bradley and gilmore and some of those other guys that came here to have success like if gus bradley thinks that this is completely ridiculous and that you know he probably either should have been the interim head coach or

bubba ventron or any of the other guys that are on staff. How hard is it going to be for them to stand up there, answer questions from the defense that they know are probably very valid questions and probably agree with them, but they still have to kind of defend what Ursae and the coaching staff are doing? Gus Bradley's been around the NFL a long time. Gus Bradley will get up there and say all the right things. Gus Bradley's a football coach, a good football coach. He knows that if he goes on a microphone and puts anything out other than being supportive of the team decision, it'll show bad on him going forward as a coach. Now, privately, conversations that are

happening privately, Jeff's going to have to go up against it. But the thing about Jeff is I think he is respected probably by Gus. Gus was coaching Jacksonville, I think, whenever Jeff was in Indy, and they probably know of each other. Bubba Ventron, former player, stud, stallion, special teams guy, getting head coaching looks already last year, probably get more. I think he'll have respect for Jeff. I think none of them really think it's a good situation,

and none of them think that Jeff's walking into a good spot. Like, after what Jeff said last night, I don't think any of the coaches around there are thinking like, oh, Jeff called Jim and said make me the head coach. I think Jeff was pretty clear saying like, I asked Jim, why am I a candidate? Why am I a candidate here? And Jim laid out a bunch of qualities about Jeff on why he'd be a head coach. So I think they're going to be able to figure it out

just because they've all been in the NFL long enough. Bubba as a player and as a coach. Gus been a coach a lot of times, a lot of different places. Yeah, so they all kind of, I don't want to say they all kind of get it because they're all going to be looking for jobs probably as well. And they don't want anything, just like the players. Like the players could opt out, but if you put shit on tape, that's not going to help you next year.

So it's like it's a very interesting, you know, kind of sociology experiment happening right now, and everybody has to get on the same page in like four or five days. Yeah, and you assume, like you said, Gus Bradley, like he's not going to – he's probably already thinking like, hey, the defense has been pretty solid this year so far. Like, if we keep, you know, playing well on defense, like I am going to either have an opportunity to go be a DC somewhere else.

Maybe I could get the head coaching job here, or I'll get an interview somewhere else. But also, like you said, I hope Jeff Saturday does well, but it just seems like they have no chance. Because calling plays in the NFL, like everyone we've talked to, it's a science. You can't just fall into doing it. like everyone we've talked to like it's a science like you you can't just fall into doing it and yeah they could you know strike lightning in a bottle and have one of these guys all of a sudden you know like the qb coach like he could be an unbelievable play caller but it just seems like you know there's a reason why there's only 32 of these jobs like not everyone can do this it's very difficult to do and it just seems very hard to imagine someone just overnight and especially

now with five days to prepare like all of a sudden some guy coming in and having the the Colts just come out like gangbusters and score a bunch of points on Sunday to your point about there's only 32 jobs Jeff Saturday said my job over the next nine weeks is to prove that I'm either worthy of this job or 31 other ones yeah Jeff is only going to be a head coach he ain't going to be I ain't coming in here to be a coordinator awesome which is what a lot of former players say. So who knows how it pans out. It's certainly content-driven.

I think there will be a lot of tickets sold to the first home game that Jeff Saturday is coaching here in Indianapolis. Big-time promotion, big-time business. And it can't get worse. No. That needs to be said. This team has stunk. They've won a couple games this season.

Not good. Wish we wouldn't have won them, actually. Beat the Chiefs. Beat the Chiefs somehow. At home. In Indy. Stopped Kelsey. Stopped Mahomes. Primetime in Denver. One of the worst games ever

in the history of the game to be aired. Win. Bar none. But you've seen it. It's been bad football. Can they get better? He's now from an attic in Ohio. A Manors College Football National Champion, a Super Bowl Champion, a Ryder Cup Champion,

COVID Survivor, NBA Pundit, Video Game Shit Talker. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Yeah! Woo! What's up, dude?

What's up? What a game last night, huh? Hey, Lamar Jackson is spectacular to watch. Lamar Jackson is fun to watch. Lamar Jackson is fun to watch. I think the ability that he has to not only shake and move and find holes and, you know, figure things out, alongside Baltimore going all in with that style, trading away Hollywood Brown, everybody thought they were crazy. Lamar wasn't happy about it.

But they go back to what their roots are. Likely number 80, who fills in for Mark Andrews, who was out, has a couple touchdowns, a couple big plays. Kenyon Drake, obviously, same exact conversation there without Gus Edwards. This dude's on the field. There is an opportunity for big plays. There's an opportunity for wins.

Him breaking this tackle from Davenport, wiggling, spinning, and then not getting hit by anybody, picking up the first down on third down, shaking Tyron Matthew there, who's a hell of a football player. He's awesome to watch, AJ. What is your takeaway from last night? Yeah, I mean, I feel like the Saints were never – did you ever have any thought that the Saints might pull that one out?

No. I never did. Saints score late, make it 27-13. This is very similar to the Georgia-Tennessee game. Score is not as close as the game actually was. Ravens kind of pinned them this thing early. Hey, it was early, too. It was very early.

You know, I was watching Manningcast. Enjoyed that bounce over to hear how Joe and Troy are doing. Game's over. All right, we go back to the Manningcast then. I think that is a pretty good little tag team partner for these primetime games that have been kind of a snoozer. You have that, you know, a company. Kirk was good on there i watched kirk on there his whole time like kirk was good he was kirk's trying to chime back in ask a lot of questions to them like kirk was gaining some info how about them how about him asking like what peyton's uh strategy

is against cover zero because a lot of teams are doing that go to commercial break come back peyton goes uh fuck you not telling you no thanks you can do your own basically I found that yeah I found that to be hilarious like Peyton literally not telling him is that because his Denver allegiances because it's Colts allegiances he said something about the NFC North why how come I don't know that was awesome but I enjoy earlier in the when it was the week before or whenever at some point I heard Peyton did say something all my favorite check against against uh zero blitz like he said like whether it was a like a or whenever, at some point I heard Peyton did say something, oh, it's my favorite check against Zero Blitz. Like he said, like, whether it was like a back out of the backfield, whatever it was, he said that was his favorite check.

So I thought Peyton might get back to something like that. But then, yeah, when he comes back and just glosses right over it and we move on to another subject, he has a question for Kirk. I was like, all right. And then Kirk kept coming, though. Kirk kept asking questions. Yeah, Kirk didn't get uncomfortable because he didn't, you know, he didn't get, like, embarrassed or whatever because Peyton didn't answer his question,

which is, you know, it's Kirk Cochains now. So, you know, it's a different person up there. I don't care. I enjoy it. I was hoping that he would have a grill on for the Monday Night Manning. That's probably coming back. The whole time. I enjoy this run to Kirk's.

Shefty's wearing a grill next week, I heard. Hey, Shefty didn't look bad, right? Shefty looked good. Shefty's got some big old arms on him heard. Hey, Shefty didn't look bad, right? Shefty looked good. Shefty's got some big old arms on him, man. I bet he could bench 425 probably. Yeah, and, you know, he – you know what they – like AQ. That's right. AQ can do a lot bench because his chest comes out to about right here

and his arms go to about right there. You know what I mean? Big barrel. So that's – Very conducive for a bench press. That's very good. Still got to press it, though. Still got to press it. Yeah, still got to be able to gotta press it yeah still gonna be able to move it everybody how many

times have you been told that oh it must be easier my whole fucking life and i always say still gotta press the hardest parts getting off your chest amen amen uh i would love to continue to chit chat about this but there is other news that we have to dive into especially with you joining us yeah brett farve aj brett what now your former teammate bro i i think we're going to be able to say what now for a while now because this is what i think it happened now it is alleged this is all allegedly but it is alleged that two companies that brett farve was a part of rounded up some money, I believe from the welfare fund of Mississippi, to kind of build a business around concussion cream that was not effective, I guess is what also was being alluded to, and something else in the medical department.

What I think is being alleged in the grander scheme here is you're talking about bad guy, hey, finding out that there's a plug that you can get to. And in 2020, I believe two people pleaded guilty. The head of the welfare fund, and Nick, correct me if I'm wrong, and also the head of the nonprofit whatever in Mississippi. These two people in 2020 pled guilty to fraud, fraudulent schemes. Yep. schemes. So I think what had happened was Brett Favre was introduced to these people who had control over the welfare fund and over the nonprofit part of the Mississippi government

funds. And their conversation was, hey, we have access to, they're saying like 20, $30 million. We have access to this money that's supposed to go to the welfare fund. We can figure out, so donations to schools, business investments, because we can market that we're investing in the fund. So we're trying to grow the fund, but we just so happen to be investing in businesses that are owned by friends of ours, let alone any other money that was potentially going out. There's a lawsuit for $20 million plus against this group. So we're not just talking about small amounts of money here. We're talking about a scheme in which the person that was running the welfare fund in Mississippi had access to the fund and was divvying it apparently to friends and businesses. This is like classic why everybody trusts nobody anymore. This is people in positions to help people

fucking people over blatantly and deliberately, allegedly, obviously, in this whole thing. And Brett is just one of like 38 names that is listed in this entire thing and brett is just one of like 38 names that is listed in this entire thing and it is all bad aj it is all bad i mean it's not good at all and this is what's wrong with the world what's he done on top of everything in time this be quid pro quo that i hear politicians talk about i i have no idea to be honest because it seems like in favors basically well yeah i mean that was i think i think this was a get rich I have no idea, to be honest. Trading favors, basically? Well, yeah. I mean, that was, I think. I think this was a get rich.

I think this wasn't like a campaign. I think this was like, we can get rich off of this type shit. So we're going to make money. I can take this money that's donations, and I can give it to this company. Not donations. It's government. Not donations. No, it's government funded.

So it's allotted money from taxpayers. Taxpayer money, government money,'s allotted money from taxpayers taxpayer money government money an allotted fund for the welfare which everybody says mississippi is like the poorest group i was in jackson mississippi driving around there probably seeing there's there's no reason for the government to be taking 20 million dollars out of that place you know i mean that is not at least 20 million who knows how much more But this is like the problem with the world almost, isn't it? I mean, this is really bad. Really bad. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's man. And there's a lot of people involved, right? You say 30 some people. Is's more fraud. And the way the story lays out is like there was one person that was put in a position of power who probably flexed that position of power, by the way. Whenever they would talk amongst friends, remember this guy runs this, or I think it was a guy,

and I think it was a lady who was the head of the nonprofit. This guy runs this fund for the government. He's a big deal. So whenever he speaks, think about how you guys should be doing it this way, you guys should be doing it this way, just how matter-of-fact that person lived. Just so automatic respect because of who this person is, the position they have. That's kind of how the life they treated. And while doing that, potentially, allegedly, and he pleaded guilty in 2020. So something was going on. Taking money and just giving the worst type of human,

just like doing this. But then once again in public, oh yeah, you're welcome that I'm here. You know, like that type of stuff. And whenever you're treated in conversation, a conversation that's not good it's terrible it's what's wrong with the world and one of the greatest football players of all time is directly tied into it and it is that is not good that's not a fun thing to happen but it is happening and we should talk about it well and that's why like farve almost has no leg to stand on because he keeps saying you know like well i didn't know where this money was coming from but But he very clearly, you know, you find a weak link in something like this. And Favre is pretty much the fucking king of Mississippi. So all these people, you know, treat him like a god.

It's like, oh, OK, I can take this person for everything they're worth. You know, I asked for something. I get it immediately in return. And then someone else goes down for it. He's probably thinking the next person who comes in like, well, they wouldn't think we'd continue to do this scheme so it's just like well fuck it i guess i'll just keep going until someone else takes the fall for it and nothing's gonna happen to me i'm fucking brett farve you know i'm the king of mississippi it's wild hey this is wild i know he's a former teammate of you so are yours so i put you in a terrible spot there but it's very in hasselbeck happened to

hasselbeck too because there's no way you guys knew this. Like, there's no way that Brett Favre's teammates. How long does this go back? How long does it go back is the question. Like, how long has he been involved with these people? Well, that's what I'm saying. That's why I don't think, like, the person that you guys are friends with, I don't think you should feel terrible about it, because I don't think you fucking knew that this was

potentially happening. But it is an interesting situation that's unfolding right in front of our eyes. And it's like, if this is happening with Brett Favre, there's other humans in other worlds that are pretty popular. You're taking advantage of the less fortunate. That's what makes it so egregious, right? Like we saw, there's been former players that I think even had to serve some jail time for insurance stuff, right? They're doing like line of duty or whatever. They're trying to scam the system and get more insurance money.

They go to jail, right? We've had some guys, I think. Yeah, legendary. Legends. I'm not going to say their name because we don't need to bring it up but yeah but in that case i think what you're alluding to is they're taken from insurance companies that are stealing from people so it's like they're taking from rich people they're taking from in this particular case it's coming back and it's coming out that the actual strategy all along has been planned to take from the people that don't have shit that's bad hey that's the worst case scenario worst case scenario right there right oh my god that is that's terrible and it's all for personal gain it's all for like his personal gain you know

it's not like i mean it's to benefit his daughter's fucking volleyball team at southern miss and they were talking about how you know like like the donations he was giving from his foundation were so minuscule in terms of like what money was going to Southern Miss. So it's like you're almost trying to pull the wool over people's eyes and saying like, well, I am doing good. You know, I gave – I donated $500 to, you know, the soup kitchen this weekend. Now, granted, I took $1.5 million from the welfare fund to build a new nice facility for Southern Miss,

but I'm still doing stuff on the side. I donated. You can check it. What do you want me to do? I didn't know. I didn't fucking know. I mean, shit. You know how many concussions I fucking had?

I was trying to get that cream. Remember, I went to the welfare fund. I said, hey, we need more money. So what's the cream part? What, he wanted to invest in some concussion cream, or he wanted money to, he wanted them to invest in this company? I assume it was like the concussion water business that was being sold. What concussion cream is there? There was a scientist, he was in the article for one of these drug companies, invented this cream that you would rub on two arteries on both sides of your neck.

And it would soup up into your brain and the anti-inflammatory stuff in the cream would help protect your brain. That's the thing the guys are wearing. I think that's a pinch thing. I don't think that's a cream thing. It pinches those arteries and it's supposed to create a little barrier in your brain of blood. That actually works.

It sounds like the cream is trying to do. The cream, though, seemingly doesn't do. The cream is a bug. I think that's obvious i mean we're just saying i'm not questioning whether it works or not that cream i think the next thing can do something for sure maybe we don't i mean yeah who knows nobody knows anything about brains last night uh humphrey marlon humphrey down uh his he On his, he was one-on-one outside. He jumps up, breaks up a ball, lands. His head hits the turf so hard right on the camera. Boom.

I'm like, oh, he's got to be out. He gets up immediately. No, whatever. Just puts the helmet back on, goes back out there. If that's somebody else on that team that has no idea, I assume that person's locked up and out for how hard his head. I should have got the clip. I should have texted immediately upon seeing it.

I was kind of dazed in and out. But he makes a spectacular play, Humphrey does. And as he's falling, his head whips off the ground. It's like I've seen 15, 20 dudes get knocked out with similar type shots of that. Not him. He's up and at it. It's like are we ever going to figure out why some guys have, is it skulls craniums like do we think that's the actual thing and can we judge that can we tell that and how do they figure it out i have no fucking idea it's going to be a

new combine you think eventually that's a new combine deal where they they measure the thickness of your skull so they can try to forecast how long you may be able to play before i would have won number one could you imagine if they had thickness of skull in there? This guy would have fucking won number one overall. He won number five. They had no idea. Look to your right. AQ, they're going to have to drill through his skull to try to figure out how quick that

is. Is it the thickness of the skull, or it can't be too much room between the brain and the skull, because you don't want it rattling around. So you think big brain? You think it's a big brain? Well, you could have a small brain, but you'd have to have just as long as your head's small, too. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Small might almost be better, because then there's more fluid in between. The brain inside would have to move further to hit this. Oh, so it's like packing peanuts. Yeah. It's like packing peanuts. Smaller target, too. Best chance of it being hit. Is this it? Yeah, this is it.

This is going to be it. Do they have the side version of it? Boom! I mean, look at how it? Yeah, this is it. This is going to be it. Do they have the side version of it? Boom! I mean, look at how fucking hard he hits this, dude. That's way nastier than Tua's back injury one. Bro, look at this. Look at this. Look at this fucking boom. I wish it would go full speed. Is that only in slow motion?

We only have it in slow-mo? Because that's a head injury. Go to that front one. Go to that front one again. Because even, Pat, you know, especially on field turf, even when it's not even that part of a hit, it hurts bad when you hit the back of your head. Bro, his head hits clean on there, too.

Pops up. And then he hits his own head. Yeah, then he hits it again. It's like. Not dazed at all, either. I mean. Fucking stands right up. Watch how hard his fucking head hits here.

Great play. Everybody's talking about all of them. Oh, I mean, that's like a fucking. Dude, it was. Watching him, like, that motherfucker's got to be knocked the fuck out. It hits clean. His head hits clean. I don't – must have been another.

Olave, too, when he got his concussion, he didn't fall as hard as that, but he was out like a light two weeks ago or three weeks ago. I wonder how the – when they'll start judging and figuring out how or why. Well, and then do those positions or those players wear different types of helmets? Helmets, yeah. So then we have levels to this shit. Because like this dude, you put a cardboard helmet on him. how or why. Do those positions or those players wear different types of helmets? Yeah. So then we have levels to this shit because like this dude,

you put a cardboard helmet on him. Right. He's okay. This guy, you put a little leather helmet. I feel like it's

like a location. There's certain spots like guys get in and bam, they're out cold. This guy, this guy can put a leather helmet on

and he fucking headbutts the microphone. Can't help it. It's like Pavlov's dog. You say helmet, he fucking has the helmet. Unbelievable. Can't help it. It's like Pavlov's dog. You say helmet, he fucking has to help. Unbelievable. Yeah, but to AJ's point

to you about location, like that Marlon Humphrey one was the back of the head just like Tua's was and he popped right up. So it's not even like location. We have no idea. Everything affects everybody differently. Same thing like if you drink a cup of coffee, it affects somebody else much differently. I can't drink coffee past 11am.

I'll be up all night. How about a green tea? Why? Some people will be shaking and piss their pants all day. They'll say, oh, too much caffeine. I do have to piss a lot. I mean, it is... Yeah, it's good. It's quite a thing having to pee a lot of things. I walk into the production meeting ESPN

with one of these, you know? Hopefully your pee doesn't look like that shade. I didn't pee in my car. This is green tea, dude. Whatever. That's what I'm saying. For anyone out there, like, that's not, you don't want that color. This is bullshit hydration.

You do not care about how efficient your body is operating. You're a saboteur to this team. You pee in that car. What, JB? JB had it on Last Chance U, the piss chart. That's in every football building. The piss thing is literally in every single football building, right behind the urinal or right behind the bathroom.

If you're pissing this, figure it out. The NIV. Yeah. AJ should show one of his bottles full of his piss so we know. He does under a desk. Pick it up. Show your piss, dude. Show your piss.

Show your piss. Show your piss. Show your piss. Anyways, I know you do it. We all do. You get awkwardly quiet for a bit, and then all of a sudden you're much happier on the other side, seemingly relieved. I'm actually peeing right now. Yeah, I'm peeing right now, aren't I?

Don't. Aren't I? Yeah. What are you coming after? Are you? You guys are stupid. Stop with these allegations. Friday, he said he puts a catheter.

You're the one that said it. He said he puts a catheter in now so he doesn't even have to. It just kind of just... That has to be so uncomfortable. I love it. I enjoy putting it in and taking it out.

That's the only reason. What's your problem? Thanks, man. What's your problem? What's your problem? Because I heard Johnny Knoxville, he had to have him for like three years.

This guy's the toughest person on the planet. It sounds awful. Dude, Johnny Knoxville is one of one. I got to meet him during that, what was it, WrestleMania? Yeah. During his WrestleMania. Look at, look at, look at, look at, look at, look at, look at.

Michael Cole, one of the greatest calls of all time when Wee Man came out from underneath the ring. Me and Cole were not told really anything about that match. So it was like one of the best matches of all time to have the people that are commentating it have no clue what's coming next. There was a big hand that did the jackass smack in there. There was a mousetrap that was 10 yards long.

There was Wee Man coming out from underneath. He body slammed Sami Zayn. Pawnee is showing up out of nowhere. Pawnee is just cheeks out there. It was literally like the perfect thing to not have a clue what the fuck's coming next. Wee Man slammed. He puts Sami Zayn on his shoulder. Yeah, just one day after.

Oh, no, no. That was at Royal Rumble where Wee Man was put through a Sammy Zane on his shoulder. Just one day after, oh no, that was at Royal Rumble, where Wee Man was put through a table at a Four Seasons. Do you remember that? When Brock Lesnar picked up Wee Man and just threw him through a table? Here it is right here. You're going through there, little man. Why? Bam! See ya, pal. And he walks away, I think. I believe Brock just walks out of there laughing

cutting a promo hugging johnny imagine the people that don't know who either of these people are the biggest white person i've ever seen picked up the smallest white person i've ever seen and slammed them through a fucking table where was that just yeah just at the Four Seasons? Yeah, the Four Seasons. Earlier today. What happened middle of the day? Middle of the day. Biggest white I've ever seen walks in. Smallest white I've ever seen sitting there.

Biggest picks up littlest. Slams through table. Seemingly un-set up. Yeah. And then walked out. Yeah, that happened. Just imagine somebody telling that story no way no way and then they have it all on video yeah that's classic imagine johnny knoxville though

i got to chat with him a couple times during that run awesome guy i said uh i think i asked him you know i don't know how you're still doing it how how injured you are he rattled off all the things that he's hurt i I can't even imagine. His whole body. His whole fucking body, basically. Like Travis Pastrana, basically, isn't he? He's got so much metal and everything in his brain, he's had 700 concussions, too. Well, and the Jackass song is what?

If you're going to be dumb, you've got to be tough. And I know they didn't write that song. That song's been around there. I think Johnny Knoxville's not dumb, but God damn it, I think he is. One tough sumbitch. Of all time. Yeah. Just down with whatever.

The newest one, the newest jackass was still really good. A lot of smooshed dongs in that, but it was still a really good move. Who's? Poopies. Poopies. Yeah, I was going to say, Poopies checks off both those boxes. That wasn't all there when we. Yep.

What an era. All right, let's talk a little bit about the football again. Josh Allen is being evaluated with an elbow injury. It's his owner collateral ligament and related nerves. We found out earlier in the show from Zito, we found out on the internet, that an ultrasound is what you would use to find out the nerve damage. They'd probably get some sort of MRI or scan to find out what the ligament damage is.

Chris Mortensen is reporting that McDermott said they'll have more information today. We'll keep our eyes on that. Ty Schmidt, noted baseball fan, talked about how this is the injury, I believe, that causes Tommy yawn. This has happened to quarterbacks in the past. It has happened, I guess, Josh Allen a few years ago. He had a little bit of damage to this. Ben Roethlisberger a couple years ago had to get Tommy John. Was he the same afterwards?

No. Baseball, people come back better, though, especially if they're younger. Growing harder, yeah. So I don't think long-term this is an issue. But certainly this season, the Bills mafia has to be thinking, oh, we get good, we're not allowed to go to the games because of fucking COVID. Oh, we got a wagon first year back after losing in 13 seconds in the playoffs. Josh Allen's going to be an MVP. Of course, his elbow gets fucking hurt week nine. This is one of those things that it feels like if it happens would be such a bummer to the Bills

and the Bills mafia as a whole. And we don't know if that's the case, but if it's really fucked up, I mean, that's a big problem for your trigger man, the most important man on the team. Well, if it's not real, like if he doesn't have a serious injury in that elbow, like he got lucky with that. It's such solid contact with him right in the worst time of him throwing the ball. So I really hope for obviously Josh Allen and the Bills and everyone and all of us as football fans that he's all right. No matter what, he's going to be dealing with some pain, though.

Even if they say, hey, check it out, he's okay, he's going to play, he's all right. Like it's going to hurt dealing with some pain though even if he's they say hey check out he's okay he's gonna play he's all right like it's gonna hurt but this guy is a monster so think about bill's mafia think about bill's mafia aj aq your thoughts on what the bills are without josh allen there i mean that's a whole different team i trust mcdermott i think they're a good squad but if the worst news of all time comes out that josh camp is that what we're looking at here is that what we're looking at him not playing it was like i think the big thing would be like because we were talking about that's big fucking news oh yeah massive if it's a partial tear like i don't even know if he could probably play with it but i think it's the type of thing where if he's going to be throwing it 40 times a game like there's the possibility that later down in the season it's a complete tear or

if he's playing the whole year on a partial tear. So unfortunate. And then he has to have surgery. It's like, well, then are we talking about him missing next season? So I feel like they're hoping that it's just nerve damage and nothing else. More information. I got a question. What's that? Say he can't throw the football.

There's still a better football team with him under quarterback than the backup. Case Keenum? Yep, whoever it is. Doesn't matter. Case Keenum. Case Keenum? Yep, whoever it is. Doesn't matter. Case Keenum. He's got a good rapport with Diggs. They should just run the ball 60 times a game with Josh Allen. Move him to running back.

No, wait. Move him to wildcat. Yeah, just read option. Can he complete some balls left-handed? Probably. Can he get a tight end drag? Because then if he's running, linebacker comes back. Can he get a ball left-handed over that?

Is that something that they would fucking expect? I think I would. Why not Josh Allen? I mean, they just added Naeem Hines. They got Hines, Singletary, and Dalvin Cook's brother, James Cook. The amount of options. Yeah. How's their Buffalo Bills offensive line?

How's their— Very good. Yeah, they got a great offensive line. They're running the ball well. The quarterback runs are awesome. Could you keep them in there as just a runner? 100%, but they wouldn't do that.

Yeah, you're delaying the surgery then, too. Yeah, not a chance. And it is Case Keenum. I think Matt Barkley's there, too, right? You told me. I thought Barkley was gone.

I think he's the three. Jesus. Pretty sure he's the three. I'm so bummed for Bills Mafia if this is... And we're thinking they delayed the news because it's bad news or we're thinking they delayed the news because it's good three. I'm so bummed for Bills Mafia if this is it. And we're thinking they delayed the news because it's bad news, or we're thinking they delayed the news because it's good news.

Your thoughts? I don't know. Maybe they just want to make sure they check out all the options. The fact that he threw a ball in the game afterwards, right? He threw a laser after this happened, at least one of them. That's what I'm saying. That would give me hope if I'm a Bills fan, for sure. Fourth and 21. This is two plays after. Because if a Bills fan, for sure. Fourth and 21.

That's two plays out. Because if he needs Tommy John, he can uncork this sucker. Yeah, or did that just make it much, much worse? I don't think he needs it. Yeah, that could have, too. Zito just told me that it's being reported that the recovery window, is this for his injury? Just in general, a few weeks or a few months.

So, literally, it could be anything. It just depends how bad it is, I guess. Yeah, I mean, that is partial tear, full tear. And you don't have to manage it in practice, too. That's what sucks. Not as many reps in practice thrown to those guys. Well, and the partial tear can become a full tear. That play, the whole strip, like that happens in football.

Could happen in practice. That could happen in a practice with no pads on, unfortunately. Can't happen. If somebody's that close to josh allen as a partially torn ucl cut sean mcdermott needs to change the way the culture is if it's happening in practice but to your point that type of shit happens in football and you echoed the sentiment aj earlier that's right the clean contact that they got on his forearm and him still being able to i mean that's solid. It wasn't like a braze.

It wasn't just deflecting the ball out of there. That was Palm square on ball directly through hand and that's, I mean that's a lot of torque. And all of that torque right on your elbow too. That's like not even on the shoulder anymore. Just straight elbow. It's like throwing a golf ball. That sucks so bad.

I will say pro for this though If he comes back from Tommy John's He might be throwing this ball 100 yards Yeah you're right I mean that is what happened with Rose and Gordon But if he could fire it Garden Hoser had a fucking hose For a while

The floater though Still sweet Oh yeah In crunch time it worked And think about that The floater, though, still sweet. You know what I mean? Still sweet. Oh, yeah. In crunch time, it worked. And think about that. In that moment, I didn't really know baseball was well at that time. Sure.

The pressure that was on that young kid, for him to execute the floater perfectly. Yeah. Against the most feared hitter in the game. Remarkable. I mean, the guy's grinding sawdust off the bat. Mommy, mommy! You know? And that's who you're playing, giving him that.

That's a true story. Is that a documentary? Yeah. What are we talking about? It's a Sean Payton one. What are you saying? You're saying the guy didn't fucking catch in a home run ball? Yeah, he does.

Dog. This guy is a dog. Was this a docuseries, or was this like a representation of what really happened? It was a reenactment. Jesus Christ. Come on. Wake up. I am so sick of having to explain everything to you,

but like... Know something. This guy right here is the classic want him on your team, hate him on the other team. Without a doubt. This is the biggest... I might hate him if he's on my team.

Him and Jack Parkman are the two greatest haters of all time. You hate to love him. No, with how good he is, you can't hate him on the other team. Without a doubt. This is the biggest. I might hate him if he's on my team. Him and Jack Parkman are the two greatest hitters of all time. You hate to love him. No, with how good he is, you can't hate him because of how much happiness he's bringing. You know what I mean? Jack Parkman. To your point about the mental toughness, people forget, you know, the first floater he throws to him, he hits it about 800 feet foul.

Had to get through the mental adversity of being like, if he turns out just a little bit, that's a home run out of here. And we lose. In my face. No, no, still going. That's confidence, too. Yeah. What Rowan Gardner showed, not only composure and confidence, but everything you potentially need to be an NFL head coach.

Let's fucking hire this guy. Yeah. Let's get Rowan Gardner. Bring him in. One of the gigs, dude. How old is he now? How old is he? Who knows, man. Young enough. He's probably all fucked up because he was living gigs, dude. How old is he now? How old is he? Who knows, man.

Young enough. He's probably all fucked up because he was living in glory days. You know what I mean? Too much giving to him. Actually doing good. He pitched the first pitch the other day for the Cubs. Oh, yeah, baby. Running forward.

He's out like a goldberg. A heater. How about that boat they built? Very impressive looking back on it. Yeah. That they were able to put that boat together and able to get that thing to float. Now, I didn't like that the friends had no time for him to fucking go. Sorry, I'm going to be a professional baseball player.

Come on. What do we even? Sorry, I can't. Just in L.A. playing the Dodgers. Okay, give me a fucking break. Sorry, I can't knots and bolts with you tonight. Okay, I've been here since the beginning. Have I not?

I go handle some stuff. I'll be back when I can. I mean, that was, I was a little disappointed in the whole operation. They should have been happy for their friend and they weren't. I think being a good friend matters. Yeah, they were.

Yeah, it does. They were jealous. Just like if he probably, you know, someone gets a girlfriend or something, then they don't spend time with their buds

and their buds get all jealous and weird. Yeah, but on the other side of it, it's like, hey, Henry, you're maybe going to win the Cy Young. Like, why don't you just

fucking buy us a nice 18-foot yacht and sell it? Well, he wasn't the one in control there, remember? Yeah, true. He was, there was an Young. Like, why don't you just fucking buy us a nice 18-foot yacht? He wasn't the one in control there, remember? Yeah, true. He was a stepdad trying to sell them to the Yankees. I mean, who would have expected here Tuesday, November 8th, 2022? Full Rookie of the Year breakdown. I mean, we're doing a cinema file type show right now.

Yeah, I love it. Angels on the outfield tomorrow. I haven't seen it. I'll watch it tonight. I haven't either. Yeah. I love it. Angels on the outfield tomorrow. Ooh. I haven't seen it. I'll watch it tonight. I haven't either. I haven't seen it. I know they clap or they flap their wings,

but I haven't seen it. Hey, look out Adnan. Okay. We keep doing this type of cinema stuff. Okay. She's getting hot. I love it.

That's right. I'm not. Hey, they don't make movies like that. They don't. They don't. They do not they don't they don't they do not they do not uh i have seen zero movies they were supposed to see you've seen that though fucking right yeah that was gospel there for a couple summers stuff everything about it

i haven't seen in a few few decades but it was uh it was a hell of a show it holds up let's move on big mike okay this is a big thing i wanted to talk to you about big mike mccarthy was in his press conference he was asked about going back It was a hell of a show. Yeah, it holds up. Let's move on. Big Mike, okay, this is a big thing I wanted to talk to you about. Big Mike McCarthy was in his press conference, and he was asked about going back to Green Bay. Listen to the question, and then listen to Big Yenzer. Big Mike, handle this with, we don't have it. Don't have this.

I thought we had, didn't we? You sure? I thought we did. It's in there. It's in there. We certainly have. If not, I pulled up on my phone. It has to be seen

yeah it has to be watched i have the quote i don't have the video oh we have to we have to get it let me um man i could tell the second they started talking to him that he was getting a little choked up do you think this has been a tough you think this has been a tough uh go for him no i mean that's just how like that's how he's awesome that's how he is i told you like when he would tell his stories about growing up in Pittsburgh on Saturday nights, like, he would get emotional during those. Do you – I would like to hear – if we could hear it, let me know. We'll get to it.

We have to get big Mike McCarthy because, you know, smashing watermelon and hustling Jerry Jones and having beers and everything else that Mike McCarthy, Yenzer, is all about. Watching him get a little bit emotional here. Watching him get emotional about him thinking about going back to Green Bay, a place in which there is a street or two named after him, a place that he still has a home.

Listen to the question. Listen to big Mike McCarthy, now the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, going back to the Green Bay Packers, the fan base that he won a Super Bowl with and a community he was living with all the way up until like two years ago. Just the place you coached, it's very much where you lived. Jessica, a special place for her, for your kids.

What about the area do you and as a family, as a unit? This is bullshit. You guys are trying to make me cry. Why don't you ask me a question about 12 personnel or something? How to deflect the feelings there at the end, obviously. Why don't you ask me about 12 personnel? Let's get a little pop here. It did start settling in there as that question was being asked.

I'm sure he's getting a lot of those thoughts whenever he's alone or in the office or talking to his family. This is a big deal, right, for Big Mike to go back. How do you think he'll be received? And how is Mike McCarthy as a human? Is this normal for him? Yeah, this is absolutely normal. This is what makes him awesome. Like, Big Mike is a Pittsburgh tough guy through and through.

Takes pride in that. Like, he is very proud of where he's from and his upbringing, everything about his family, real hard workers and everything. And that's what's cool. You wouldn't expect a guy like that to get emotional that much, but he does. He's not one of those guys that's going to cry all the time, and you're like, okay, here we go. He's crying again.

But when he does, you're like, man, this is cool. It's relatable, especially when it's your head coach. It's awesome. I think players will love this stuff. Do you think that Odell Beckham Jr. would enjoy playing for Big Mike McCarthy because Jerry Jones said on an interview this morning on radio, I do think that star would look great on the side of the helmet of Odell Beckham Jr. You know, basically continuing the public recruiting tour

that the Dallas Cowboys have seemingly been doing for Odell Beckham Jr., who would obviously be a great fit in that Dallas Cowboys offense. Another weapon after losing to Mari Cooper in the offseason would obviously help Dak Prescott, Zeke, Tenney Pollard, and the boys. How do you feel about Big Mike McCarthy coaching somebody like Odell, and how do you feel about the Cowboys going forward for the rest of the season? I mean, I think obviously it's great to see Big Mike, too, laughing and joking with the media and not just being pissed at the questions they're asking because they're losing.

So their success is it's fun to watch. But I think Odell, are you kidding me? I think he would love playing this offense. He'd love playing in Dallas. It seems like a stage big enough for a guy like Odell. And if he goes out there, imagine like the energy and what he would bring to the team. Odell comes back in the first couple games. He's there.

He catches a few touchdowns. That place, it'll be unbelievable. Jerry World, 100,000 people. Those warm-up sessions that first week when he's doing all that shit in Jerry World with everything in the back of that whole thing. Imagine Big Mike watching that for the first time. They better mic him up. Oh, shit.

Got to get some poison for him, huh? Let's fucking figure this one out, Kellen. Let's get that guy the ball over there. I think that Odell Beckham Jr. going to the Cowboys would be awesome. AQ, your thoughts on the Cowboys adding a weapon like Odell Beckham Jr. because the run game has been very good ever since Cooper Cush became the quarterback and Kellen Moore thought, you know what, we need to rely upon the run much more than a quarterback's arm like we did with Dak, the run game has shown up.

You add in another weapon, you sprinkle in Odell Beckham Jr., they're in a good spot for a Pittsburgh guy coaching Dyer. Great spot. I mean, ever since Cooper came in, their run game has flourished. That is the offense this team should have been from the get-go. They continue to run the ball. They get another weapon with Odell. I mean, that team, they've got to be one of the favorites

in the NFC at that point. Yeah. I'm excited to hear how the Cowboys' conversations go this week with the Packers between Mike McCarthy and his team. This is a big game, not only for the Cowboys, but also for the Packers who are on a five-game schneid. We'll be talking to Aaron Rodgers in about 11 minutes. Excited to get his thoughts on Big Mike McCarthy

because a lot has been said publicly about those two. I assume that there will be a great moment between those two on Lambeau Field somewhere, somehow. There will be a lot of photos of it. It will be emotional. It will be amazing. We'll talk to Aaron about that in about 11 minutes. Pivoting back to the Indianapolis Colapolis coach Jeff Saturday has picked his play caller

it is a surprise says Tom Pellicero 30 year old past game specialist slash assistant quarterbacks coach Parks Frazier will serve as the offensive play caller starting this Sunday against the Raiders who Jeff Saturday has tweeted about looking horrible in the past Parks Frazier is 30 years old he's very young. I think I've heard of him before. I do believe he is somebody that is talked very well about around the building. Jeff Saturday interviewed everybody around the building and found out this is the man who seemingly has the best communication,

seemingly has the best feel for the offense. After Marcus Brady, offense coordinator, was fired last week. Frank Reich, head coach, play caller, was fired just yesterday. Now, Parks Frazier's calling plays. A.Q. Shipley, do you know who this man is? And what does it take to be a good play caller? What is the trait that Jeff Saturday was looking for and found in this 30-year-old special assistant

and quarterback's coach, Park Frazier? I don't know. I don't know what he heard from him. I don't know. I don't know. What would you like to hear? from him. I don't know. I don't know. What would you like to hear? That's what I'm saying. What would you like to hear?

Yes, that's the trait. What's the trait? I mean, you've got to have a good feel for the game. You've got to have a good flow. You've got to be balanced. You can't just sit there and put your quarterback in harm's way, dropping back 50, 60 times a game. I mean, Mahomes is able to do it, but he's the anomaly, right?

But you've got to find balance. You've got to make it easy on the offense. You've got to find balance. You've got to make it easy on the offense. You've got to be creative. You've got to do all these things. But, again, the offense is already in play, so how much can you actually change in week nine? And what is he going to do? What?

You don't know just because you don't know? He's got his blue eyes. You've got blue eyes. He's literally come from the same system. He came up in that same system. He can't change anything. So is the flow really going to change? They're going to do RPOs.

They're going to do what they do. Negative two yards last week. Remember, that's what we need Parks Frazier to do. Gain zero yards in the first quarter. If I'm you, shotgun, throw ball out of bounds three straight times, punt ball, get through the first quarter, zero yards. That'll be a two yard head start on what Frank was able to accomplish one week ago against the New England Patriots. AJ, your thoughts on what a play caller should accomplish one week ago against the New England Patriots. AJ, your thoughts on what a play caller should be, what a play caller looks like, and why you think Jeff picked this dude who's 30 years old.

That's a very young, very young offensive coordinator to be for Jeff Saturday who has no experience coaching to hire. This is a bold move by old Jeff Saturday. Yeah, it's super bold. I mean, like play callers. How many times do I say like they have the offensive play caller has the ability to affect the game more than any other coach on the staff, I believe. I think they they can control the game if they're really good at it and have a good feel on what the defense is giving them. And you take what the defense gives you,

like you have a plan and then you go out there and you see how they're defending you. And then you take what they give you. You don't try to pound the ball and do an eight, nine-man front, and you don't try to throw if they're not doing that. So it's just, I don't know. It's such a difficult job. You have to have a great plan. But then in games, think how quick you have to be to not just guess and not just pick plays. Oh, let's do this one.

Here we go. You've got to be pretty smart. Yeah, let's assume this guy's pretty smart. Zito just popped up his resume here up on the screen. Samford, 2015, he started as a coach. Defensive quality control. So he knows the side of the ball. He started on the defensive side.

Middle Tennessee State, defensive quality control. Arkansas State, the Red Wolves. He was a graduate assistant there. Then he comes to the coach. He's assistant to the head coach. So he's been around. He's been around the head coach. He's in graduate assistant there. Then he comes to the coach. He's assistant to the head coach. Oh. So he's been around. He's been around the head coach. He's in the building.

And then in 2020, he moves to offensive quality control. And then in 2021, he becomes the assistant quarterback's coach. This guy was fucking cleaning jockstraps a couple years ago. Yeah. Now he's all the way up there. This guy has been there, done that. He's a grinder, a striver, a man who knows this offense inside and out. Parks Frazier about to call a fucking game this weekend.

Fun fact, Frank Reich married him and his wife. Frank Reich was the master of ceremonies at their wedding. Okay, he was assistant too? Yeah. He's thinking of his call sheet. So maybe he has a few of Frank's call sheets, right? Frank, who was fired just a couple days ago, loves this man. Maybe he'll be able to chat with him, give him a little mentorship.

And maybe Parks has just been sitting there laying in wait as a defensive quality control coach, as an assistant to the head coach, as an assistant quarterback coach. He's been just waiting. He's been beating everybody in Madden. He's putting up 80, 90 points every fucking Madden game. Hasn't told anybody about it. Jeff Saturday says, hey, Parks, why don't you come on in here, pal?

I see your blue eyes. They look just like mine. AJ's and AQ's, a lot of blue eyes around here, kind of freaking me out all of a sudden. But, Parks, come on in here, pal. Why do you think you should potentially be the offense coordinator, and do you think you should be the offense coordinator? Parks said, I started at Sanford on the defense side of the ball. I know what the fucking defense is doing.

I was assistant to that coach, Frank Reich, and I watch this go from good to not good, so I know what not to do. And on the flip side, here's my record in fucking Madden. Boom, 70 points per game. Holy shit. You ever fucking anybody else got that? Jeff, you tell me. And Jeff's like, you got it.

I was thinking about putting Matt Ryan in there at offense coordinator, but actually, Parks, sounds like we're putting Matt Ryan at quarterback. He might be the offense coordinator. We just need you to send in a couple plays to Matt Ryan. Everybody's talking about this guy being like Peyton Manning. Let's give him a little bit more control. That's what Jeff Saturday's cooking up, I think. I think it's going to be a good decision.

Sounds like a good decision. Didn't know that guy existed. I had no idea. Obviously, Samford's a great place to get your start. The Samford coaching tree is a fucking big one. Oh, yeah. Huge. AQ doesn't seem to have a lot of hope for this guy. What's your deal?

You think Jeff Saturday picked the wrong guy? Sack of wine. What is your problem, dude? I just know the way this operates. Nine weeks into the season, you can't change anything. You've got to stick with what is the philosophy of that offense. And so, it doesn't matter what he calls.

It doesn't matter. They're going to continue to call the same exact plays they've been calling for nine weeks, and it's going to continue that way for the next eight. Will the success increase? I don't know. What's this guy's deal? Why don't you just let Matt Ryan call the plays? Why don't you just put Matt Ryan back in the quarterback?

We said that yesterday as well. Maybe bring Frank Reich back to call the plays and not be the head coach. All right, Frank. Welcome to my team now. You want to be offense coordinator like you were in Philadelphia? You don't have to do too much more? Don't have to do too much less? I'll handle Jim Irsay.

He wants to fire you every single week. We can just move on. Frank goes, actually, I'm going to go take a nap for the next eight weeks. Go hang out with my family. It's been miserable being a coach here. New quarterback every single week. What if Frank is normally just super calm and reserved, pastor, preacher guy, has a press conference or a podcast where he just unloads?

I've lost it. I'm broke. Fuck these guys. He's like super religious. With Easter bee? Just like so angry. Get me out of here. Look at broke. Fuck these guys. Yes. He's like super religious. Easter bee. Just like so angry. Get me out of here. This is a brand new quarterback every single year.

I was being told by the owner that we have to win a Super Bowl every single year. We had no roster to do so. I mean, it was a nightmare. It was a complete nightmare. Frank Wright, good guy. Noted good guy. But if you're running the offense and your offense is going like this year after year, like that is a tough thing to keep going.

And I assume Frank will get a job, maybe be an offense coordinator again, and he'll get back into coaching conversations. But Jim firing him, I think Frank probably saw it coming. I think Frank probably saw it coming, knew it coming. And I assume he's a bit relieved to kind of get out of it for a few weeks, if I had to guess. This was in the stars. When John Smith was at stanford when he was ga

at stanford or whatever duck hodges was the quarterback okay i thought guess what today is wow it's duck hodges birthday now registered it's election day registered hodges birthday it's duck hodges day he's now calling plays this This is going to work out just fine. It's a simulation. Hell yeah. Genius. All right, let's take a break. We're going to tie that together. Thank you, Tone.

That's good show hosting. That's why you host Hammer every single day, a gambling podcast that comes out of this office that's debuting a new studio Monday. Hello, baby. Nice. Tone's been doing a remodeling himself. He's been laying brick on his knees. I am right. The brick's been doing a remodeling himself Yep He's been laying brick Hell yeah

On his knees I'm right The brick's been falling though It has Someone forgot to clean the walls Before we laid the brick So It's like putting tin on a window

You know you gotta kinda Wipe off You know when you're putting bricks on a wall Correct Can't have that Can't have that on dust No you can't It's been almost a decade

since I masoned that's right wallpaper anything? brick laid that's been a long time long time you did great can't wait for everybody to see it

the Hammer Don studio is right over yonder it is gonna be awesome ladies and gentlemen joining us now he's a man who has sat in the pocket of this show after the best of times and during the worst of times. Today's conversation will be one that none of us know where it's going to go, but Packers fans will watch in hopes of how they can view the rest of the season with some optimism with the Dallas Cowboys coming to town just a few days from now.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Rodgers. Yeah! What's up, dude? What's up, guys? Hey, thanks for joining us, man. I would have completely understood if you didn't want to because the way the season is going and maybe because of the shit that's being said about you around the world

and maybe you're leaving the convo right now? No, I'm just making sure that I'm all dialed in here. Yeah, okay, we're good. All right. Well, hey, thank you for joining us, man. I know this is probably the last thing you want to do right now is talk about everything that's happening on the field on Sundays. So we appreciate your time.

Let's dive into it. This is unprecedented. Don't put words in my mouth. I love this show. I appreciate your time. Let's dive into it. This is unprecedented. Don't put words in my mouth. I love this show. I appreciate you guys, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak every week to you guys. Okay, I was just saying that people, you could see how you would feel that way. I appreciate the fact that you don't. We're lucky to talk to you.

This is Unprecedented Waters, Uncharted Waters for Aaron Rodgers Tuesday. Last week, you know, you said, hey, we've got to put a stop to it. Now we've got another loss to the Detroit Lions. Another game coming. A lot of season left. Where's your mind frame? Where's your mindset? And how do you think the Packers get this thing turned around, Aaron?

Well, obviously disappointed. It's been a rough stretch for us really since London, losing five in a row. stretch for us really since London, losing five in a row. You know, similar patterns in most of those games, just not four quarters of execution, usually a lot of mental mistakes, critical errors, bad situational football for the most part, or just, you know, maybe good in third down, bad in red zone, or decent in red zone, and not converting third downs, or usually bad in both. So that's kind of been the blueprint for the Ls.

I'm always going to be the eternal optimist and feel like we could figure some things out. Obviously, this last week was not only painful to lose a game, but we lost some key players as well, not just in the game, but maybe for extended time, depending on what the scans look like this week. But just in that game, we lost Rashawn Gary, Eric Stokes, Christian Watson, Roman Adab, Zarin Jones. And still had a chance to

find a way to win. I came in the end and didn't. So, at this point, on many levels, but there's never any concession, never any giving up. Definitely not from me. Definitely not from so many

of the guys that we go to battle with. We just got to find a way to uh get over that hump hey i'm curious about detroit's defense now we i think we talked about it before you guys played them how what they'd shown on film so far this year was not that great and then they obviously come back and they play great against you guys how like did they do anything different i doubt they could change everything but look no disrespect but did they play great i mean mean, they had we had, you know, 40 yards

offense on a move ball up and down the field. I threw an interception off the helmet. I threw an interception about five yards short of Dave. I mean, it wasn't like you know, I didn't play a great game. We still made a lot of mental mistakes, but I don't think they

really stopped us. We had three possessions in the first half and went up and down the field um so you know it's more about us i think than them okay really appreciate what you just said you got a pretty good pop out of me there like all right let's not let's not overreact here okay still we're able to move the ball just because we weren't able to put some things away. Let's talk about the turnovers because you are the actual NFL king of touchdown to interception ratio. In the history of the game, you were the best at it. The amount that you care for the ball because the ball is the program is something that a lot of coaches are trying to teach their quarterbacks

to kind of fall in line with. You throw three picks, one off the helmet. Obviously, it's being dissected by all the quarterback experts on the internet and on TV saying the window that you chose to throw in was the wrong window should have thrown in a different window but they're judging off a standard of quarterbacks that has literally been set by you excited to hear why that potentially happened on the one you said you were short to bakhtiari we never see you do that that is something that aaron rogers never ever does that's why I think it's obviously a huge

conversation and then the one where 31 makes the incredible play you showed visible frustration why do you think they happened what do you think is your thumb do you think it's just sometimes a ball will slip and normally it's either in a spot where it can't be caught like what do you think happened and why do you think you had the game you had there? Well, there's a lot that goes into all those things. What I can control, you know, two of them weren't great throws. You know, there's some other parts to plays. You know, it's not – usually not just on one person. Every now and then it's just on one person.

But there's a lot that goes into each play that could either avoid some of that thing. And sometimes, you know, guys can screw parts of the play up and you can make a great throw and make up for all of it. But, yeah, you know, it wasn't a great throw to Dave and it wasn't a great throw to Bobby either. I've thrown a lot of those balls low around the goal line like that. I don't know that, you know, in that play, there were some other things that could have probably gone on

that could have made it a different type of window. But, look, I've made a throw that I've thrown touchdown passes many times. I don't give a shit what any of these experts on TV have. That's why I heard you going. That's why I heard you going. There's a lot that goes into all these things. And for somebody to play armchair quarterback who doesn't know what the hell play we're running or what's going on,

that's fine. I don't really give a shit, to be honest with you. It's shitty. You know, the ball goes up in the air and gets, you know. We had, you know, a couple of those in the game. Ball's up in the air and our guys run into each other and the ball gets knocked down, you know, shit like that. But it seems like that's the way the ball's been bouncing for us.

It goes straight up in the air instead of, like, running into each other and guys putting them with it. Maybe we catch it, you know, the ball's uh caught by somebody else it's kind of shitty yeah it is kind of shitty and all these things are things that haven't happened though with an aaron rogers led offense in the past you'll have a game where you throw a pick everybody loses their mind as aaron rogers lost it then you bounce back on the other side of that you throw like five touchdowns three incompletions and you just kind of move on so whenever you lose the conversation gets louder and louder about that play you still have a lot of time left in the season the Vikings are winning so the NFC know

it's going to be tough but the NFC still very much a lot of parity so you still have everything in front of you is that the messaging to everybody and are you guys still trying to figure out who your team is at this stage of the game and what you guys are you think well i mean a lot of times identity is kind of formed by this point in the season um you know i think we've just played inconsistent in all three areas offensively we haven't played very good uh for a decent stretch now i thought there were times in the game you know uh where we kind of went with some tempo and had some success but there were times we huddled up and went right down the field as well I mean I thought our offense was one of our better games the way we move the football and you know we threw the ball down the field you know fairly effectively at times I would just still I mean way too many mental mistakes and when you

have mental mistakes and then I'm turning the ball over like that you're just not going to win a game you know we've had mental mistakes and I don't turn over, and we still don't win those games. So, you know, we've just got to pair up me playing a clean game and playing well and us having a real low number of mental mistakes. Because that game honestly shouldn't have been that close. You know, we had opportunities there. You know, we're on the one-yard line and can't get the ball in the end zone.

The other one, we have, you know, a couple plays where we have a chance to get it in. We should be looking at at least 14 points in the first half, and then who knows, second half obviously plays out differently with us having those points. But we beat ourselves, as we have many times this season. Hey, what about this week? You have Dallas coming to town, big Mike McCarthy. I don't know if you saw his presser.

They were starting to ask him about Green Bay, and he got a little emotional. I thought it was awesome to see. And Dan Quinn's defense there in Dallas loves to take the ball. Have you watched much Dallas yet? And have you planned or thought about, hey, when you get to see Coach Mike, what it's going to be like? I'm going to give him a big old hug. I can tell you that much.

I'm excited to give him a big old hug. I can tell you that much. I'm excited to see Mike. Shared some messages the past couple weeks. I know it means a lot to him to come back. I really do hope the reception for him is as warm as it needs to be. You know, he's got a street named after him. Obviously, he won a Super Bowl together, but he meant a lot to the town for 13 years, a big part of our success.

Obviously, being the head boss, he'll be in the Packer Hall of Fame at some point as well. And I think it's important that we honor him the right way. Not just him. I mean, obviously, he deserves a lot of honor and respect coming back, but there's a lot of people on that staff who meant a lot to the area.

A lot of former coaches with us are on that staff, including interim head coach for us, Joe Philbin. There's some former players who are on the staff, including Scotty Tolzien and Rob Davis, other coaches who are with us, Joe Witt Al Harris McCurley Jeff Blasco hope I'm not forgetting anybody there

Carly Lambeau Carly Lambeau it's always nice having people come back a lot of those people coached there a long time Joe was there for many many many years Rob Davis played for lot of those people coached for a long time. Joe was there for many, many, many years. Rob Davis played for a long time. Al Harris played for a long time, was an older player when I was there.

Scotty Tulzine backed me up. Awesome guy, a lot of fun together. But Mike, in general, I think deserves a lot of credit, a lot of respect, and hopefully a great ovation at some point. I don't know what we're doing. I hope there's some sort of, I would expect, I guess, some sort of message on the jumbotron at some point during the game. And Mike's got a big heart.

Hopefully, you know, hopefully lets the emotions flow a little bit. Well, he was close in a press conference that A.J. was talking about. And if you haven't seen it, we'll definitely send it over so you can check it out. He starts, the person asking the question was like, you know, your family's still there, your kids go to school there, you're still a big part of it. And he goes, this is bullshit. That's what McCarthy says.

You guys are going to make me start crying up here. And then he deflects to 12 personnel at the end of it because you could see that he was getting choked up. I wonder if that will be before the game, during the game, after the game. I wonder when it will take place. The anthem. National anthem is going to be tough for him, I bet.'re looking around oh my god him and philbin i'm hoping i'm hoping it'll be similar to when they would uh when they would bring back like soldiers

from abroad with surprise families uh at some of these games and aj would just absolutely lose it because uh aj you know comes off as a prick but he actually is big softy on the inside. He does come off as that. If you were standing near him during one of those moments, you would definitely see some tears coming out of 50. I mean, for a good reason, you know. AJ. This is, you know, so-and-so's wife.

Her husband is deployed, you know, in Afghanistan, blah, blah, blah. And then here he comes running on the field. Yes. To be this wife and kids, that's a good moment. AJ, there was a run there where that was like every stadium I went to. Every stadium we went to, it was like the third quarter, second quarter maybe, third quarter break. And I'd be on the field punting, right, because the quarter break,

I'd get to hit the ball. And then all of a sudden, as soon as you see somebody come out, it's like, oh, I'm about to start getting chills. You get, like, chills. I would, like, be watching it get chills. And the little kids go running up there. I was a part of one. There was, AJ, you're a big softie, huh?

Big softie. Oh, wow. There's a New York Giants game. Specifically, it's like you watch the videos on the internet. You see them reuniting. All of a sudden, I look down on offenses on the field, and this dude's doing an 80-yard sprint to his family and kids. And Nate Weir, the great trainer who I actually officiated his wedding,

he knew. He knows me well. He walked down to me and gave me a towel. I put it over my helmet. I was bawling. I lost my mind. Yeah. It's tough.

They are. It's an amazing experience to see the family come together. I wonder if Mike McCarthy, when it will all start happening. Can't wait to watch. Can't wait to find out. Ty Schmidt has a question for you. Aaron, obviously his life has been certainly something. Aaron, you mentioned all the injuries on offense,

and obviously everyone knows that the NFL is next man up, but how do you remain positive when there seemingly is no next man up? You guys didn't really have the depth at receiver to begin with this year. How do you remain positive when it seems like the sky is falling and it's just like this is just – I don't even know how to act or anything because it's literally almost never been like this in my life when you've been healthy and playing. Well, there's only two options, right, Ty?

One of them is to cash it in mentally and just become an independent contractor almost. And I've seen this during my time. independent contractor almost and I've seen this during my time you know not not really recently but where everybody just kind of comes in and does their work and then goes home that's one option and the other option is to cede to the competitive greatness that lies within you. See it. And what I mean by that is to let that take over and to let that be your North Star and your guide and to say, I care so deeply about this

and I'm so thankful for this opportunity and grateful to still be out there playing that no matter what happens to anybody on the squad including myself i'm going to go out and compete as hard as i can because that's all i know how to do and maybe in that there'll be inspiration for others to raise their level of game but that's all I know how to do. And the opposite, like I said, I've seen it, and I hope I don't see it moving forward. But that's the other option is to just come in, do your work. You can still be professional about it.

But I'm going to keep choosing to come in to prepare as I always do and then go put out my competitive greatness on Sunday and hope that it's good enough to win and inspire people. And that's all I know how to do. Hell yeah. Hey, I heard a little motivational speech in there. Didn't know you had it in you. I didn't know that was one of your things.

I really appreciate and respect that. And you're right. Whenever people are just coming in, cashing a check, doing what they're supposed to do. Hey, this is what my job is. I'm going to a meeting, but not being invested. You have seen that. We've heard stories about that. You saying you're going to continue to be invested, still continue to be, try to be great. I think we saw that in Detroit. You had a couple real moments of like, they had a full, Hey, full zoom in of you doing a full bobblehead motherfucker in the middle of the

field and as soon as i saw it i was like still very invested still very pissed off like that was my first reaction and i apologize if you take it as offense as if you wouldn't be but i think that is something that doesn't get talked about enough is whenever you see somebody lose their mind there's a reason because they fucking care that's a huge deal i think aaron i think that's a big fucking deal i'll try and watch you know what i say uh a little a little better moving forward because i still you know want to be a positive impact on the people that are watching me and if anybody got offended uh by that um then you're choosing to be offended by it. No, you motivated people with that. That's not offended.

I don't know if you heard from somebody like, Aaron Rodgers said a naughty word on television. No. Watching you do that, for me, immediately it was like, all right, still very much invested. After all you've accomplished, after everything that's happened, with the way the season's going, and with the way that you're – at that moment, you were still very much invested, I thought.

And it's like, this is good news for everybody. And and hopefully you think you got in that locker room and on that roster enough to turn it around like with what you've seen maybe from people that we haven't heard about because injuries have happened and like Bakhtiari going forward do you see him playing is he okay that's I don't think I've ever seen anything like what's going on with Bakhtiari do you think you guys have it still from what you've seen in the building? And is that another reason why you want to keep going, you think? Pat, what am I supposed to say to that? That's a hilarious question.

That is a hilarious question. Could you imagine if you did say, no, no, I've been looking around the last couple of years. Imagine if you said that. I've been looking around last couple years imagine if you said that looking around might not have it this year like listen i just reiterate this oh that's awesome i always believe in myself first and i bet on myself first to go out there and to and to the impact the game and to be great. And I still know I have that within me, still the reigning, defending two-time MVP. Hell yeah.

Regardless who's out there with me, guys want to come battle, they know where to find me. Hell yeah. I'll be in the center of that huddle, expecting greatness, trying to inspire the best I can, and laying it on the line. And trying to make big Mike McCarthy's homecoming miserable. Joe Philbin, fly home with an L, pal. Great guy. Love Joe Philbin. I absolutely enjoy him. He was the head coach of the Packers whenever I got the call. Packers Lions in there. He was also with the Colts. I'm a big fan of his, but I'm excited to see what you end up doing with the squad.

Now, speaking of the squad, trade deadline kind of came and went. You didn't add anybody. That's something you expected? There's still a free agent out there in Odell Beckham Jr. Are you still having those types of conversations? Is there still any thought of how we can make team better, or is it just you're showing up, you're going to be the best fucking quarterback you can be,

and let's get through the season? Yeah, I mean, I know there's rules about trade deadline. You can still trade for players after the trade deadline. I'm not exactly sure how it's different than before the trade deadline, if there's a compensation involved or something along those lines. I'm sure Fox or somebody can figure something out. But, I mean, I believe, right? You can still trade for somebody after the deadline.

It's just a different something involved. Either way. We're on it. We're on it. The Google will tell us. Thank you, the Google. Yeah. Maybe I'm totally off on that.

But I felt like it's still possible. But maybe there's some sort of compensation left out or something. Eternal optimism. Yeah, definitely optimistic about it. Listen, yeah, we didn't add anybody, and we still obviously have a young roster. Young guys are playing and going to play even more. We'll see who's healthy this week, really. We'll see if Dave and Elton are healthy,

and we'll see what happens with Aaron Jones and Romeo and Allen. I mean, Allen went out and battled with the shoulder injury that was bothering him. Really proud of him. Obviously, Cobby's looked really good working out on the side, but he got put on IR, so he won't be able to play, I don't think, Sunday. I think he's got one more game to sit out, which sucks for him because I know he'd love to be out there this weekend. But, yeah, we're going to go out and compete.

I thought our defense, you know, did some good things in the game. Had our hands on a lot of footballs, more than usual, if I like. Nice pick by Ja, obviously. We're going to have to take care of the football on Sunday. They're a good defense. Dan is a fantastic coach. A lot of different things schematically. Obviously, they have one of the top players in the league in the front

and also a really good front around Micah, and he plays all over the place and then uh you know a basey receiver hands a db um in uh in digs you know he's a difference maker and throwing the ball he catches it like his brother uh so you gotta be smart about that but they're a solid defense they do a lot of different things they play a lot of different coverages they'll probably have a pressure of the week and a scheme of the week and a coverage of the week and uh we're going to be efficient but you know we're at home we got a home crowd hopefully get some home cooking weather and get that thing down in uh under 40 and

and uh go out go out there and uh try and get a win you got long johns dude we think long johns and try and get a win. You going long johns, dude? What are you thinking, long johns? Under 50, usually you get the long sleeves. Under 30 is the, you know, is the turtleneck. Old school, yeah, the old school. We're trying to get down to there, because I think you're undefeated with that turtleneck on.

Connor has a question for you, Aaron. Yeah, Aaron, were you happy to hear about former player and former Packer, Jeff Saturday, getting the head coaching gig in Indianapolis, and how do you think that'll go? I was very surprised, definitely. Me too. Just it's so rare that somebody who's, you know, I know he was coaching high school, right?

Yeah. But definitely no NFL coaching experience, I don't believe. Is that right? You're right. But that's good. Jim Irsay said it's good. He's not scared. He's not scared to make a decision because he doesn't have any scars from the past, basically, is what he said.

Yeah. I mean, it's different. Usually you just appoint somebody from the staff, right? There's an error. What's your problem? What's your deal here? What's going on? What's your deal here? What's going on?

No, I'm just surprised. It's just rare. But hopefully it works out for them. That's your team, right? So what do you think? It's not about me. It's about the man who's a back-to-back MVP who's been around the NFL for 18 years and his thoughts on Jeff Sager. Yeah, I don't have a strong feeling about this.

I think it's surprising because it's just – has it been done before? I mean, not definitely in recent history. First time since like 1961 or something? Yeah, it's been a little bit. Yeah, it's been a while, yeah. First time Jim Irsay's ever fired a coach midseason, though, as an owner. So I think what has happened is for the first 25 years Jim Irsay was the owner, he was looking at other teams who fired their coach midseason and going,

why are they doing that? They need to make this thing. So he's done, and he's like, I remember everything we've said. Who are our guys? Jeff Saturday in there. Daughter still has the headphones with the microphone with the thing on the sideline. Carly Ursa is on the sideline there.

I'm excited to see what happens here. But if he's good, there's a chance, like, former players don't have to do the coffee getting and the drawing up of cards, you know what I mean? To get to the top, maybe. Thanks for your overwhelmingly eternally optimistic view on

that whole thing. Jesus Christ, dude. You know what I mean? I got an attitude of gratitude, and that's greater than everything, and that's what it's all about. You know what I than everything. And that's what it's all about. You know what I mean, Aaron? That is what it's all about. You control one thing every single day.

That is your attitude. That's a good shirt. It's a plant on there, I think, right? Yeah, there's a plant right there. What is the plant? Are we smoking that plant? I don't think so. I think it's just kind of a bud that's growing, you know,

like talking about growth, and the growth is having an attitude of gratitude. Hell yeah. Optimism when it doesn't seem like that would make any sense to be optimistic. But sometimes when you're in the ceremony of life, you have to go through some serious shit, some serious adversity on the other side. Hopefully this is the bottom of that adversity,

and now things, like in every great ceremony, things start to trend upward. Could you imagine beating the Dallas Cowboys? Let's go. 4-25 on Sunday. Right. And the five-game losing streak. Right.

Then the next week, you beat the Cowboys. The next week, you got. Thursday, you got the Titans. Right. Titans, Mike Vrabel. Right. They get a win on Thursday. Now we're celebrating not only Sunday, not only Thursday.

Right. But we're moving on. Who are we taking on? Maybe the only team that's still undefeated left in the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagles. What? Boom. What?

And by then, that little seed that has been planted in the hand that's on your chest, that song, bitch, would be a bamboo tree. You know, because bamboo, you plant a seed, you wait five years, you water that thing, then all of a sudden, it sprouts through the earth. That's what we're talking about, Aaron. Let's go. It starts on Sunday.

It starts on Sunday. Doesn't it? I like earth. That's what we're talking about, Aaron. Let's go. It starts on Sunday. It starts on Sunday, doesn't it? I like that. That was good. We need to get that clip and then show it to the team tomorrow. Hell, yeah. By the way, they just hired one of my former teammates as a head coach. If you guys would like to do the same thing, me and the Florida head coaches, just let me know.

No big deal. Let's move on. Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we get out of here, we have to do the one thing that makes society better. You know, a lot of this show makes society worse, makes society dumber, makes society, you know, a lot less serious about stuff. Not when you're on just the other 20 hours, which we're live every single week. We're doing a lot of damage to society when it comes to intelligence. So whenever last year something began

that started building literacy rates and building literacy advocacy and building reading as a hobby as opposed to a pastime. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another riveting

episode of Aaron Rodgers Tuesday Book Club 2.0. Obviously, we have The Mastery of Love. Then we had 1984 with George Orwell. That caused zero conversation after being recommended. Then there was The Art of Contemplation,

which is an incredible book that teaches you about deciding things. How to Change Your Mind, which is also a documentary on Netflix if you don't want to read the book. Then there was Healing by David Elliott. God damn, he's a good breather. And then last week, it was The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John M. Allegro. This week, the Aaron Rodgers Book Club Book of the Week is... I got two this week.

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! For the people, and one more for you. Okay, maybe for AJ. So the first one, which is for the club, is by a friend of mine, author, Rob Bell, and it's

a book called Love Wins. Oh, love that. And the tag is a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person that ever lived. And Rob is a fascinating writer. Love his writing style. He's published a number of books. Very interesting guy. He used to lead a megachurch

in Michigan and then moved out to the West Coast. And a fascinating human, super bright genius guy. And the second book is my popular demand from you is a coloring book called kiana reeve now we got a little depth in the book and it says colorful fantasies with a mysterious hero illustrations by maurizio campadelli can you take me to maurizio's drawing of shane falco can we get right to that one of uh

you know him with a surfboard give me two here's a great one with him on a horse Oh is that Flightline? He's probably came in Flightline Jesus Christ There's one of him on the bus There's a John Wick one Yes Dude this is the type of book club

There's him with all these little dogs I'm taking him back The dog walker type of book club. There's him with all these little dogs too. I'm taking them back. The dog walker. Yeah. It says he definitely isn't a dog, but he'd be happy to take yours for a walk. Good guy. And ready to join you on a

glamorous stroll. He could kill you though, so you just gotta take it for what it is. Is there one with him, Gene Hackman? How about a Shane Falco? is there a Shane Falco one? Suck on that, Matt. I don't see a Falco. So Maurizio. I see one playing a guitar, playing hockey.

Oh. Hockey. Heidi Dulles. Keanu Gretzky. Yeah, but I don't see any of him on a motorcycle, surfboard, John Wick. What? Drinking wine. What?

Stoking a fire here. Look at this. I mean, who can see? Oh, stoking the fire here look at this I mean who can see stoking the fire this is really interesting him shaving

him being a painter come on oh this is Bob Lawson Keanu Reeves Bob Lawson what would you do with that color scheme

what the hell is this book it sounds like Maurizio doesn't know about Shane Falco which kind of disappoints me but I am excited that we got a coloring book.

Here's a great one right here. Here's him sitting lotus, maybe meditating. He doesn't have these on. Is he really doing it? He doesn't have these on. Because I could put the prayer beads on him. I think I could. You know what I mean?

You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyways. There's a lot of good ones they're really oh here we go oh we know yes what color you color in that uh belt he has on right there you tell me huh you know triple black yeah charcoal that's right. We appreciate you, Aaron. Hope you have an... You alright, AJ? Triple black.

This is from 47 Ronin, I think. Yes! Classic. What's the blood of that story? Why is the blood from me when hunting? Oh, he killed everybody. Oh, bad guy. So many people. Slicing heads off. Only people that deserved it. Of course.

Of course. Thank you, Keanu, for doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Keanu. All right, Aaron. Thank you for joining us, man. Good luck in this big homecoming game for Mike McCarthy. Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, 425 Eastern,

the daylight time, I think. Oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah. EDT. Because of the thing that happened. Interesting. You guys change your clock over there? Yeah.

Everybody does, right? Yeah, but you got to wind the Zenith watch, you know what I mean? Ooh. Hell, yeah. Of course. All right. Appreciate you, ladies and gentlemen. Aaron Rodgers.

Yay! Welcome back to the program. Connor, incredible job there. I guess the ratings came in for game day for Georgia. Is that right? A lot of people watch that show, AJ. Yeah, I would imagine so. 2.987 million, I guess, in the final hour.

Heard me call Lee Bryce a son of a bitch. So I would like to apologize to the obvious humans that I offended there, but also what a fucking cool thing to be a part of on Saturday mornings. Just traveling around college town to college town. A lot of people watching. Institution. I mean, it is. I'm very lucky to be a part of it, but they just put the ratings out. They live by that shit over there, don't they?

I mean, that's kind of the TV world thing. I don't care. A lot of places. I'm such a... I don't care. I don't care. I appreciate the people watch. I'm thankful that people watch.

I'm a big, if you build it, people will come. The right people will come. Hopefully, your people will come. So, that's why we don't market this show. I mean, the only time I know how many people are actually watching this is if zito drops in my ear and is like uh there's 73 000 people watching you saying this dumb shit right now i'm like jesus that's like uh that is a big moment for me but in the tv world i think they care about it a lot i think that is potentially detrimental to some creative but i understand why they have to do it

for the business side of it all, personally. That's how you charge more for ads, for commercials. Yeah, but I'm talking like some people are scared to take risks, I think, because, hey, this has worked, this has worked. We've made a lot of money off this. Ratings have told us that we've done this forever, forever, forever. I think the reason why I appreciate the game day folks is because they take

some shots. I mean, they take some shots still at this stage of the game. 30 Emmys in or whatever, they're still taking shots with that many people watching. I appreciate the game day, folks. Thanks for letting me be a part of it. And thank you to everybody that watches. I'm having a blast. I'm doing a lot of studying.

I'm doing a lot of studying. But I'm having a blast. A lot of my studying revolves around, you know, knowing football a little bit better. This season with the Wrights deal with NFL Films, we've got a chance to look at secondary coverages with Darius Butler and learn things at a high level when it comes to the defense side of the ball. Chuck Pagano's come in here and broke down basically every team that's played on Thursday night thus far, and we still have another eight weeks

in which we'll be able to learn about every single team, what they like, what they don't like, and what they like to do. And then obviously we have A.J. Hawk talking to you, makes us smarter. But I get a chance to learn about the trenches every single Tuesday. And the reason why I wanted to do this was so that I could get smarter. I think in turn we've all had an incredible opportunity to kind of learn a little bit about the big fat dudes that are up in the front, that are causing the magic for everything behind them. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for another episode of In the Trenches with A.Q. Shipley.

A.Q. Howdy, baby, A.Q. Let's go. Let's go. We are starting with the Buffalo Bills, a team that seemed great. Absolutely. We don't know if it's going to be great moving forward. Because?

We're about to find out. Josh Allen gets a little injury this week. But they still have an incredible run game. And a big part of their run game, they don't use it as much this year, but they still have it in the arsenal. We're going to watch this here. So they're in a Cub defense. It's a form of a Bear defense.

Typically a Bear is with three linebackers in here. Cub, you only have one linebacker in there, which is C.J. Mosley right there. What's going to happen here, you're going to see it. They're going to motion him pre-snap, right before the snap. Mosley has to go with him. And so this is a one-by-three formation. Only tight end over here. All the other three receivers over there.

Leaves only one support player. We got three guys over here, basically, for four, center included. He's going to be the extra puller here. Mitch Morse is going to do a phenomenal job just getting a wind sprint in, boys. He's just getting a wind sprint in because he has nobody to block. So we get the down block. We get the down. Oh, check this out.

We get Roger Saffold. 400 pounds probably. Rolling around on Sauce Gardner. What? It's an easy kick out. We got no support. Jordan White has the other safety. He's all the way out of the picture over here.

Mitch Morse is going to get a wind spring. He wants to get a little extra conditioning in this week. Josh Allen. Runs through a big gaping hole. Let's watch that thing from the beginning, huh? Hell yeah. Wow. Easy touchdown.

So we see. They're scrambling pre-snap too, AQ. They're already all out of sorts. They have no idea what's going on. I think the big thing, when you get the one by three, it screws defenses up. One by three meaning get the tight end over here. He's going to come in, and you get the three receivers over there. Do we set it to the passing strength? Do we set it to the tight end? They're trying to get all that figured out. Then you send the short motion before the snap.

Mosley's gone. And we get the two pullers out for one support player. Like I said, Mitch Morris gets a little extra conditioning in, in the middle of the game, which is awesome. But we get the huge hole. As soon as they move him, they know, right, that they're in a great spot. They got great numbers. And they're completely fucked. Like right now, Josh Allen's just trying not to get too excited while moving that guy to the other side. And he knows that there's probably going to be a home run shot immediately from jump,

you think? I think so. I think they felt really good about it. Once they saw the safety, because they started in a two-high set, safety rolls down to the three-receiver side. They know you got one safety back here, and then you got Sauce Gardner. That's it. They have numbers everywhere into the boundary.

Did he have to motion knocks him once the safety rolled down, or is that just part of the play before it even starts? So once he rolled down to safety, he brought him in because he changed the play. You see him pre-snap kind of doing this, changing the whole thing to bring him in as the block. Also, right before the snap, that D end comes inside the tight end, which allows the angle. See him out there?

That's a harder block on the tight end. Right there, he just made the block for the tight end. A rookie mistake. Rookie mistake. But this was a big part of their arsenal in years past, but they've calmed down with Josh. Hey, he goes that way because he had eyes on the running back? I think so.

Once he saw him go over there. And that guy is a rookie, right? That's Jermaine Johnson. Mm-hmm. Age, do you normally set the strength to the tight end? Yeah, it depends. I mean, there's like close calls where you're always setting to the tight end. And sometimes, I mean, in college, they set it to the field sometimes,

the boundary. It depends. God, man. Easy. I mean, that's stealing, right? Yeah, it seems like. I mean, in college, they set it to the field sometimes, the boundary. It depends. Passing strength. Easy. I mean, that's stealing, right? Yeah, it seems like. I mean.

You've got your corner out there. AQ, don't you guys want to do that? Offensively, you want to make their corners tackle, right? And right here, you have an offensive lineman blocking the corner, so that's a pretty good matchup you like. Absolutely. When I was playing, when I was coaching, this was a play that I wanted in every week.

To the nub tight end, the one by three. Tight end, three receivers the other side. They have to make a decision nine times out of ten. The corner is the only support player. So if you can get this play where you get the two pullers out in space, it's an awesome play. Now, you get screwed a little bit if they go too high or they bring the safety down to that side.

What about that hole, huh? What do we have there? What do we got there? Well, Al Michaels said it best, didn't he? Yeah, he did. That sure looks like a big gaping hole. Two guys running through that hole. Jeez.

Ready? 6'6", 250 on 190-pound safety. You like that in the open field? One-on-one. That's the person who's supposed to tackle him there, right, in that particular setup. Unbelievable. No, Cincinnati, five tugs for this guy.

Sheesh. Hey, what a day for the Bengals. You don't know what Bengals team is going to show up week to week, right? And so here we are. We've got a team that showed up in a big way this week. Hopefully this is the team we see moving forward. Their run game finally got it figured out. He's been averaging,

I think, two, three yards a carry, whatever it is. He ran all over these guys. They got a great front. Ian Nittis here, Derek Brown here. You got Bernsie on the outside. It's a great front. We're going to get a counter tray, garden tackle pulling from this side. Awesome. But the key is the deuce block here between two new additions, right? Bengals went out and fixed their offensive line, right? Yep. Two new additions. Alex Kappa from the Bucs. Lyle Collins from the Cowboys. Ian Nittis, one of the strongest players I ever played against.

Great. Very stout in the defensive line. Check this out. We get the deuce block. They're going to take him back four yards right into the linebacker. Get a great deuce block. Guard's going to kick out. Tackle the second puller on 49. Watch boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom oh nice finish

you get joe mixing out in space that's exactly what you want that's vintage joe mixing right there right yeah this is very early hey early. Hey, look at the tackle. Look at the tackle. Just wait for it. Boom. Boom. Boom. That's good athleticism.

He's big boy. Tackle is big, dude. Good shoulder. Not getting a penalty either. Going helmet to helmet. Perfect leverage. Give Joe Mixon an ass, and what happens? Boom.

Boom. Boom. Man. In previous seasons when that tackle's coming around, is that where guys would just take them out at the legs yeah and you can still do that right we talked about that like the dns can take them or oh you're talking about the linebacker yeah the linebacker linebacker yeah same thing right like that's a big play you still have to be as long as it's in the box i'm pretty sure he can still go low yeah i'm pretty sure he can still go low do you think this is the type of thing where, you know,

they spring him for five touchdowns, he has a massive day? Can that galvanize, like, their pass blocking as well, or does it really not matter? How about their offensive line? Yeah. I mean, they look like dogs here, don't they? Yes. Up front, they look like dogs, and this is against a stout front.

Yeah, I mean, any little bit of confidence can give you so much momentum moving forward. And this group, all they've been told all year is, oh, we spent all this money, we've done this, we did this, and we haven't been great, right? Now you get a game where you've been great, and it's against a good group. So that gives you so much confidence, run, pass, no matter what you're doing. But this is awesome.

I hope this is the Bengals team we see moving forward. Joe Burrow said if we run like that, nobody's going to be able to stop us. That game was over early, AJ. This game was over quick. Yeah, I mean, Baker Mayfield got put into that game late, didn't he? They scored three tuds. Baker scored three tuds? Yeah, they ended up scoring 21 points.

I didn't know that. I did not turn that game back on. 21? That had to be in the fourth quarter? Yeah, I was late. Will that D-line have a long came back on. 21. That had to be in the fourth quarter. I believe they were going to beat 42-0. Yeah, it was late. Will that D-line have a long week of film and practice, and should we expect them to play well against the Falcons? Great question,

because that is a run game. Or did the Cincinnati Bengals expose? They might have exposed, but you also might see some quit from this team. I don't know what's going to go on. It's a team, again, like we talked about earlier. It's a team that might be playing for the future. And then who knows what's going to happen.

But this is a stout group. They should show up. Who knows? Hey, we like this team, huh? We love the Seahawks. Love them. Love the Seahawks. We've always said that.

Oh, yeah. Before the season, remember? Yeah, we said this team's going to go on the run. They traded the franchise quarterback. They're going to be a lot better than anybody thinks that's what we were saying that whole time we do we did we have yeah we didn't say anything no we had no idea this team was gonna be this team but you've been watching the film you've loved this team from the very beginning i've been a big fan of this run team and here we are this guy is a dude dog yeah absolute dude so here we go that college choice but yeah we got what seattle loves to do they love to go in this kind of three tight end step but check

this out we're gonna let this thing roll a little bit and get the motion going there we go so check this out wide split here what's he gonna do here who's he looking at oh the end yep we're gonna get a little bluff and release him this is a classic power play you got your mic sitting in Oh, the mic. You're going to get a double team working back to the will. He can really work this thing forever. And look at that. I love what they do. I love what they do. They get the bluff there. Look at that hole.

Oh! What do we got there, boys? Big gaming hole. AJ, I didn't hear you. Oh, I said it. It cut me off, though. You never said it. AJ, how come you're never in a meeting with us?

Yeah, you're just sleeping at the second level. How come you're just sleeping? I'm watching the game. I'm watching the whiteout. Look at the whiteout. No wonder you didn't know what you had at Ohio State. He's taking notes. He's taking notes back there.

Sure. I don't think so. No, he's probably taking a PR. Hey, but a big point that we've got to talk about, right? We're seeing it. San Fran, Seattle, everybody from that Shanahan scheme does such a fantastic job of getting guys in motion, snapping it on the run so they get a full head of steam for their blocks. Obviously, he helped set it up, but normally you would have this guy in the backfield stationary or in a strong set stationary, and you don't get all this momentum

going on your block. He gets a full head of steam. Now we can roll. And look at how close they are. They're like hip to hip. That's very dangerous, I think. Like a lot of people wouldn't do this because they wouldn't be confident in the steps because if you trip right there and fumble, you look like a fucking asshole. 100%. You got him coming behind.

You got the guard underneath. That's wild. And he's going to work between it and then get the handoff. Look at that. A lot of timing goes into that this is unbelievable think about think about how close the guard yeah the tight end and gino smith are within a yard of each other basically yeah geez it's incredible right look at this shit that's like perfectly timed there all of that yeah a lot of time you yeah hey on that with the guard do you

think they tell the guard hey you go as fast you can as you can, Geno will get out of your way? Is that on Geno strictly to split those guys and get out of their way? That's all on Geno. This guard's got to do what he's got to do because he's got to be the puller. He's a half a step late. Zayvon Collins blows this fucking thing up for minus one, minus two. So, this is all on Geno. It's all timing.

It's all ball handling. Center quarterback exchange before practice. Everything. Why aren't more teams doing this? Because it seems like all the good running teams use motion to set up blocks, and then all the other teams are using motion just as window dressing or to have movement for receivers to get into space. Why isn't every team doing this?

I think exactly what we just talked about. You have to practice it a ton. And if you're the Kansas City Chiefs that throws it 60 times a game, how many times do you actually work and run plays during the week, right? This is boring. This is boring. Yeah. This is boring to work.

This is a boring practice because it's repetitions, right? Everything is just – you have to get the reps in. This is shooting the free throw. This is doing the boring shit at a very high level because if it's not you're fucked this is remember the titans that is yeah we're gonna warner three plays we're gonna work this every single time it's a real thing though and it's amazing that they haven't had any stumbles because we've all seen it where the quarterback will trip you look like an amateur yeah and most of the time it ends with a turnover i'm incredibly impressed by the confidence the timing and gino's first year really being the guy.

It's fascinating to me how they're working it. Just to piggyback off what you said as well, like I've been a part of teams, right, like to throw the ball. The practice schedule literally works like this. If there's 50 plays in a practice, you might get eight runs in a practice. These guys, San Fran, Atlanta, 50 plays in a practice, you might have eight passes. You might have eight passes.

They're working 42 runs, so it's constantly doing it. They're working individual. They're calling the center over to get ball handling with the quarterback and the running back and maybe even the pulling the guard and getting the tight end over there and kind of working all this stuff. And that just, everybody in the building

knows the identity when that stuff's going on. You know the identity. Well, and that's why these teams are so much tougher than a lot of teams, too. Practice, they're just banging. Yeah, exactly. AJ, you feel like that type of sentiment is real? The stat you just said, 50 plays, eight of them being runs on a pass team,

I think the average fan would be like, oh, they probably practiced it a bunch of times. They practiced it a bunch of times. Sounds like you don't have enough time in the day to do that aj you don't especially now coaches you know how nervous they are anxious because they don't have as much time with their dudes as well so they want to make sure they get all their passes in but also off this action i think i texted aq about this they ran a similar action they ran like a throwback pass in this game too like there's a lot that comes off oh yeah and then gino threw like a shot over the middle for like 15 it wasn't for like a like 50 yards no it was for like a 15 yard chunk play yeah yeah yeah which is great fucking play yeah hey i'll pick up 15 yards every single time we

don't need to just do it for a home run shot i i like pete carroll's coaching his ass off you think on that whole crew up there i love what they're doing i love what they're doing and he had so much confidence letting russ out the building and kind of making the move that he did with Gene. Shane Waldron. Awesome. Waldo. Yeah. Everybody says you don't know how to coach football.

You don't know football. You won't be able to win. All right. Okay. That's a piece. He was a genius for Masters. Yeah, he was Connor's offensive coordinator in high school. Yep.

He was the offensive coordinator for the private school I went to in 2011. Let's go. The year before I got there. Let's go. They went five and three. Connor, so that means Jeff Saturday, right? Look. Exactly.

That guy didn't do great in high school football. Neither did Jeff Saturday. Look what old Waldo's doing in the NFL. Yeah. Just like what Jeff's going to do with no experience, getting dropped in week 10 of the NFL season, not knowing what the offense is or any of the players. What?

I love it. Are we going to end trenches? Here we are. Let's get back to it. We got the Miami Dolphins who are on an absolute roll. The run game is awesome. Tua, when he's in the game, undefeated. They are awesome.

Texted AJ about this. I have not seen a ton of this play. It doesn't come from a lot of teams. It comes, again, from the Shanahan world. You got to have clear fullback, which if we let this thing roll, we'll motion it. There we go. We motion the fullback into the backfield. Typically when you run anything, they're going to motion the tight end across now too. Let's watch this real quick.

He's giving it away, right? I mean, that is pretty obvious tell he's going. Yeah, but that's okay. It doesn't matter because it's pre-snap. It's pre-snap. So we're going to roll. We'll get him over. So now what's going to happen is typically a lot of teams will run this, the inside zone this way and send the wide back to cut off the backside end. Very rare to see wide going back and also sending the fullback through. Fullback has 45 right here. Now we're going to work an out block here. We get a double team combo up to 57, a double team combo up to 53. We get the wide back.

Nine is in a fucking predicament. Why is he in a predicament? First of all, he's a rookie. So how much of this window dressing eye candy shit are you seeing? Your eyes are everywhere. The game is still not slowing down completely yet for him. But if he comes out the backside and escapes and it's a play action, nine has him. So when he goes back across, he has to kind of slow play it because it could be a play action pass, puts himself in a predicament.

Oh, shit, creates a big gaping hole. For who? Who is that? That's Jeff Wilson. Just got traded from the 49ers and literally walked in the building and knew all the terminology and the entire playbook because this is his former offensive coordinator, now his new head coach. But this is a guy moving forward.

You've got Moster and him as the two backs who come from the previous system, who know it better than anybody. They know how to run this scheme. That's exactly why they went out and made a move like this. He knows exactly where the cut's going to be, knows everything gets pushed frontside, knows the big gaping hole's going to be on the backside. All we've got to do is just read it out and cut it move like this. He knows exactly where the cut's going to be, knows everything gets pushed frontside, knows the big gaping hole's going to be on the backside. All we got to do is just read it out and cut it back.

There it is. Holy shit. Boom. Into a stack box. They have no problem with running it. No problem. Oh! Oh!

They know every, with their fullback, with the wideback, with all the shit they're doing. You get Tua kind of rolling out like that. Maybe he keeps it. Everybody's eyes are everywhere in this thing, and all these guys got to do is just get moving. All we got to do is just get moving and cover people up, and we create a wall.

Hell, yeah. Because he's got to get him. He's got to get the pass or him. Exactly. So there's no chance. No chance. It's unbelievable. Jeff Wilson's got speed.

It's unbelievable. Four days. Speaking of unbelievable. Jeff Wilson's got speed. It's unbelievable. Four days. Speaking of unbelievable. Yeah. Hey, we're going to motion to deuce. Again, we talk about this every week. Why do we call it deuce? Two tight ends. One there, one there. Pretty balanced formation. I got real excited talking about this before the show, didn't I, Pat? Yeah, you did. All jacked off. I love it. I'm going to go out and throw another award out there. I like all jacked off. I love it. I'm going to go out and throw another award out there. I like jacked off. Yeah. I like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to throw this out there. This is the best combo block that I've seen all year long. And it starts with Brewer, the left guard here.

Connor, you want to come up here real quick? Yeah, you know what? You want to. Can we talk a little bit? Let's do it. All right. So you get this little slip block on the backside. We're going to get a slip block here. Look, we got numbers everywhere. We get a double team there to there, double team single there to there, double team slip block there to there. The key on this backside, this is a super hard block for the left tackle. He has to get underneath here on a zone play to cut this thing off. We call this a can opener and it is so critical for this block to help the left tackle. He has to open him up. That's why we call it a can opener. He has to punch with this left arm through this shoulder to open his shoulders to get up. So what it's

going to look like is here, Connor, you're the three tech. You're squeezing me. As I'm working up, I have to be super specific with getting my hand to a certain point so I can press through and open that up. Can't open his ass. Can't open and get up. So that the tackle can get, there it is, here it is. Boom. Can't open and he gets underneath. There it is. See what I did? Swipe one more time. You just got can't open. There it is. What are we going on? First out. Set. Boom. Boom.

Boom. There it is. Can't open. That's a pancake. That's a pancake. That's what we want to see. That's the mentality we want to see. Big bump.

Now you can't help him. I'm a nice guy. Wow. Good guy. That was nice. That was nice.. Wow. Good guy. That was nice. That was nice. Good play. Good boy.

Very nice. See you next play. Can't open. Into a pancake. I love it. I love it. We're not going to get a pancake here, but what we are going to get is an unbelievable cut on the second level. I call it a sneak attack.

He makes it look like he's going to go high. Boom. Cuts his legs out, and the hole is going to come right here. Left tackle does a phenomenal job getting underneath and butt blocking. We caught it just playing basketball. We box him out. And Derrick Henry is going to hit right there. Look at the cut block at the second line.

Let's watch that one more time. Look at the cut block. First of all, watch the can opener. Shoulders are going to open. Boom. Boom. See the shoulder open? Now tagging can get underneath.

Boom. Boom. Oh. Wow. That's illegal, isn't it? That's got to tag and get underneath. Boom. Boom. Oh, wow. That's illegal, isn't it? That's got to be illegal. Oh. Oh. Oh.

You're saying it's too good? Is that what you're saying, AJ? Feels like it. I mean, you got to cut the second level. He's almost like a high-low situation. That's got to be illegal. He'll take that out of the game. Oh, that's a classic middle linebacker talking.

Classic defensive player. Here we go. Shut up, AJ. He's engaged. Look at the block there. No, it's good. Great block. Great block. Classic defensive player. Here we go. Shut up, AJ. Look at the block there. Great block. Great block. It's unbelievable.

And then look. There's the big. Gay big hole. I love it. And then you get 6'4", 250. Yeah, geez. One-on-one with a safety doing an unbelievable move, kicking his legs out.

I almost just fell trying to do that. He's unbelievable. You're a little different than anybody that's out there playing right now. You're in a fight club, I know. You can break every single person's leg. Just look at this. Look at that. Keep your balance.

Keep it moving. Still striding. Is that unbelievable? Still striding. It is. It's remarkable. And let me just also say this, too. Kansas City Chiefs go into this game.

Malik Willis is the starting quarterback. You're Andy Reid. You're Steve Spagnuolo. You know damn well what is happening 95% of this game. It is run. How do we stop it? We put all these guys, seven in the box with eight coming down, nine over the top. Still can't fucking stop it.

That is how good and well-oiled of a machine this group is up front right now i believe the chiefs have also not covered a spread at home it's a stat it's a really good stat it's a really good stat it's a really good stat just right now in the middle in the trenches i love it talking about plus 14 packing the ball. Plus 14. I love it. I agree. The Vrabel, hell of a coach, huh? Awesome. I mean, those guys love to play for him. Look at that can opener.

Ben Jones in the middle. I thought that was so good. I mean, the can opener into the cut block. I mean, AJ, how good is that? Butt block by the tight end, too. Butt block in that tight end as well. Is there a reason? Are both their tight ends off the ball here?

Let's see. If you run it it back they're both at two points but it looks like they're both slightly off okay so let me also point this out we're on the road one of the loudest stadiums in the in the league correct see his hand right there that's literally because he can't hear the fucking snap count that is exactly how they're taught. Hey, put your hand there. When you feel movement, you go. Damn. So think about that for a second. That's part of playing in another team's environment. Well, that's also because they're at the home of the

Jews. But yes, to answer your question, AJ, yes, that's that deuce-off formation that we're seeing from everybody. And the whole reason for that is you have all of the capabilities to send him in motion, send him in motion, send him in motion, bring him back on the snap, send him in motion, kick out, bring him behind. You get all the scissor stuff, all the cross. Hey, can he go anywhere? Any hole that opens, he can go anywhere.

That's the whole point of the zone. We get the stretch on the front side. We get the cut on the back side. They typically tell these guys, get five steps in the ground and make your decision. You can either hit it there, there, there, anywhere best. Was that a silent count, or are they actually doing a cadence? So most of the times, they're going to go cadence under center. They'll go silent in the gun.

So unless I see a head bob there from the center let's see this that's gonna be yeah oh it is a head bob yeah it's so silent so it's a silent count yep so you see the head bob boom ball comes up but he can't see it yeah so now he's just literally just touching his leg definitely definitely a run play guy's hands on it right because you didn't have to be pass play you still want to get off the ball immediately, I guess? Yeah. That's just telling him when the ball's being snapped because he can't see the head bump. Man. Seems like they're a pretty well-coached team

down there. Yeah, pretty good shit. Let's go to a couple big bumps. Here we go. Bumps, bumps, bumps. Bumps, bumps, bumps. Bumps, bumps, bumps. Bumps, bumps, bumps. Big, big, big, big, Love it.

Christian Derrisson. I can't believe it took us. AJ, are you disappointed in us? I feel like that is something we would have hit a long time ago. I'm a bit surprised and disappointed, but you know what? Better late than never, right? You're right. Hey, eternal optimist.

You know what? The attitude of gratitude is greater than anything. That's right. Yes. And the seed has been planted for the bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, Bump, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. All right. We love it. All right. Here we go.

Christian Derrissaw. Former first-round pick here. This guy's on here every week. He's on here every week. This guy loves to finish. We love it. AJ, you notice anything here? Big split, right?

Does that tell you anything? Fucking big old split. Yeah, big old split. What does it tell us? I don't know. It could tell you anything. Could be a trap. Could be anything. So as a tell us? I don't know. It could tell you anything. It could be a trap. It could be anything.

So as a defensive player, really can't get anything out of this. But we get the one step. We get the underneath. And then we get the wide receiver screen like we see all the time. Oh, no. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, no.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, no. Oh, jeez. That's a bad feeling midair, isn't it? I don't know. I've never been there.

I'm very happy that I haven't, though. He's got somebody else blocking him, too, AJ. This dude had no shot. No, no. Good luck. Oh, man. Oh, and then look what he does aj oh gee helps him up oh he helps him on guy it's good football is that almost more disrespectful whenever somebody you're saying what i did the corner was disrespectful is it almost more disrespectful i feel like it's almost

a little more demoralizing when it's like hey man, man, there we go. Let's help you up after I just fucking ejected you. I think if it wasn't a two-yard loss, he probably wouldn't have helped him up. Yeah, you're probably right. True. You're right. Hey, good play. Good play. We lost yards.

Good play. Good play. Hey, first of all, I've got to give a little shout-out to you. This week on College Game Day, doing a play with a very similar formation. Oh, you're talking about the classic crack toss here. I'm talking about the classic crack toss. Oh, with a little bunch formation at the top. Point guy cracking down.

There it is. Point guy cracking down. Down. Check it out. We get the pull around. We get the classic crack toss. Wow. Two guys out for it, just like you said.

On College Game Day. On College Game Day. 2.987 million people see me say that. Allegedly, says the ratings thing. Check out Lyle Collins' Get Out in Space. Let's let this thing just fucking go. Watch it. Boom!

Boom! Keep it going! Boom! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! He's coming off getting blocked by the wide out And all of a sudden Lyle Collins Yeah you go from wide out to Lyle Collins That's a little bit of a

Oh no Oh no And I'm done Lyle's like excuse me Grab legs here Doesn't even break stride he's looking for another block Gotta love it Hey the offensive line for Cincinnati showed up, you're saying,

for the first time this season or the last couple weeks they've been showing up? They've been up and down. They've been up and down. They've been up and down. Cleveland, they did not. The whole group didn't show up. But, man, they showed up in a big way. Hopefully that's the team we see moving forward.

Hell, yeah. And hopefully we get to continue to see greatness from your brain every single Tuesday on In the Trenches with A.Q. Shipley. Hell, yeah. Thank you, A.Q. Shipley. Thank you, A.Q. Thank you to everybody that watched today. We appreciate the hell out of it. Thank you to Aaron for joining us, Ian Rappaport. No, Zach Kiefer joined us. Ian Rappaport joined us yesterday. Seen a

text from Ian Rappaport, obviously. He enjoys watching and hearing all the shit that happens on this show. I think a lot of people watch this show. I appreciate you guys doing it. And the day you decide not to anymore, I very much understand. I very much understand.

I appreciate the ride. I appreciate you joining us. AJ, incredible show out of you today. Way to go, AJ. Great job, AQ. I enjoy watching AQ break stuff down. It's cool. Yeah, AQ, good energy, bud.

In the trenches is great, too. Well done, AQ. Sweet shirt, too. I like that shirt. Yeah, it's like a scallop bottom. It's a little longer. You look good. What's that all about? You making yourself look taller? I'm horrible when it

comes to laundry, so the shirts that I've worn the last five weeks still aren't washed. Got it. So I had to move on to the long sleeve. Same exact shirts as I wear on the short sleeve. I have similar issues. Laundry stinks. I wear the things I wear. I have similar issues. Laundry stinks. I wear the things I wear.

Laundry does stink. But you look good. Your laundry looks good. Thank you. Talks to have a great work today, honestly. Hammer, is in 15 minutes. I assume it's going to be great. 13 minutes. 13 minutes. It's going to be fantastic.

Everybody in back, great work. AQ, why don't we send the people off with a little positivity, a little eternal optimism. Let's go, Al. Why don't we go ahead and go to Baby Duke? Come on, Al. Let's go, AQ. All three of them right there.

Oh, there's three of them. Oh, wow. Bonus ball. He said no way you can do this all three. AQ, you put one of these Baby Dukes into that hoop right over there. We'll give 10 people $500 to retweet this tweet and in a reply say something nice to somebody and put their cash tag in there from Cash App so we can pay them. You've done an incredible job today on In the Trenches.

You've added to the conversation in a fantastic way. The trip from Arizona to Indianapolis this week was not a wasted one. Will you go out of here a winner for 10 people? Will you walk out of here as a hero going into the holiday season? I hope so. Here we go. Whippeal Hall of Famer.

Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League Hall of Fame. Here we go. Two-sport star. Super Bowl champion. Oh, he looks good. Oh! Oh! Oh! Wow! Wow!

Wow! Wet. Wow! It's a hell of a way to end Aaron Rodgers Tuesday here from the FanDuel Thunderdam. We appreciate you. We'll see you manana. Say something nice to somebody. Goodbye.