The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 831 - Sean Payton To The Arizona Cardinals?! Michael Lombardi, Buffalo Bills TE Dawson Knox, Chuck Pagano, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

On today’s show, Pat, Darius Butler, Chuck Pagano, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about the growing sense that Sean Payton might be taking the Arizona Cardinals job after some of his glowing comments about Kyler Murray over the years have come to light, what the best Head Coach position available is, and they look ahead to this weekend’s playoff games. Joining the progrum to chat about the playoffs, Head Coach and GM openings, and what he would do with the #1 pick if he were in the Bears position is 2x Super Bowl Champion, former GM of the Cleveland Browns, Special Assistant to the Patriots, host of the Lombardi Line and GM Shuffle Podcast, and NY Times best seller, Michael Lombardi (1:51:44-2:05:58). Next, TE for the Buffalo Bills, Dawson Knox joins the show to chat about the Bills mentality going into the playoffs, how crazy the whole Damar Hamlin situation has been and what it’s done for the team, a potential donation to a charity of his choice if he scores a 50+ yard touchdown, his relationship with Josh Allen, and more (2:06:34-2:28:18). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. See you tomorrow, cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello beautiful people. It is Thursday, January 12th, 2023. The playoffs are 48 hours away and this show starts right now. Football! It's about to kick off its most important games of the year. The National Championship was obviously the big one for college football and that thing ended in a thrilling 65-7 dub for the Georgia Bulldogs. But now the men's league, the adults, kick off this Saturday in a chase of the Lombardi, something we haven't seen before. Feels like it's a top-heavy race. There's only about four teams that we all think could go,

but who knows who could get hot in the dance. All you got to do is make it to the dance floor, and you might end up taking that motherfucker over. There's a chance that the Cincinnati Bengals of last year could become one of these teams of this year, and we'll be following along every single snap. We can't thank you enough for joining us on this particular afternoon. You all are the greatest people on earth.

We're up to something. There's something big coming tomorrow, we do believe. Although we've been thinking about this for a couple years. Yeah. Really put it together a lot of time, right? Oh, yeah. We've been planning on this. Oh, yeah.

Long time. Months. This really came together over a long portion of time. Yep. Didn't just pop up basically overnight. No. And as soon as the opportunity showed up, we were like, damn, that's a dream come true. We got to do that.

So we got something coming tomorrow. We can't thank you all enough for being a part of this whole ride allowing us to do it all the talks the tip was here at boston connor at ty schmidt tomorrow's big day huge day jacked up for it like shoot big day for our show's history oh yeah people have no idea there's some things that are done you know for everybody else this one i think big for us also big for our audience yeah and it's a team effort that we've gotten here we can't thank everybody enough excited for tomorrow to roll out there yeah it's gonna be a fun day and we've been planning this you know how many hours were we sitting around that think tank over there thousand well yeah thousand two thousand three thousand yeah what how long does it take to

master something ten thousand hours we've been planning this video release tomorrow. 10,000 hours. Wait till you see it. Yeah, it's going to be a good one. Genius. Didn't start yesterday. No. No, no, no, no.

You can't for something of this magnitude. No. Last night, even more specifically. What? We didn't do that at all. No. This thing has been in preparation, in the oven, cooking for years. That's right.

Basically since I've known you. The problem is we never thought this day would come. Always talked about it. Didn't know that it was going to ever happen. Because, you know, who knows who's making decisions and whatever and everything like that. Right. Then it shows up. It's like, boys, all systems go.

You haven't slept much. A lot just happened. But this is a massive moment. It needs to be treated as such. Tomorrow's an awesome day. At Tone Diggs, one half of the hammer. A lot just happened. But this is a massive moment. It needs to be treated as such. Tomorrow's an awesome day. At Tone Diggs, one half of the hammer. Done! Cowboys.

I do believe Gump and you are going to benefit from what's coming tomorrow too, Tone. I can't wait. I'm very excited to see what it is. Oh, you know what it is. It's just like a very classic way of just not wanting to be the one that gives away what it is before it actually gives it away. Smart move by the man wearing the cowboy hat who beat COVID multiple times. And is one of the best gamblers to ever gamble on anything. Host of Everything DB, the Man of Man podcast, NFL matchups.

Hanging out with us on this glorious Thursday like he has all season. Darius J. Butler. Yeah, D-Butch. What's up, D-Butch? What's happening? Same game parlay holiday. You're on the Pat McAfee Show team. That's me. That's Foxy. That's AJ. That's Dirty. What's up, Dee Butch? What's happening? Same game parlay holiday. You're on the Pat McAfee Show team. That's me.

That's Foxy. That's AJ. That's Dirty. That's you. Let's go ahead and hit one, huh? Putting together some good shit, too. Yeah, Dee Butch has a couple great ideas. I'm glad you guys are rolling with everything that he's recommended.

Dee Butch, every idea that Dee Butch has about football is a great idea. Is that right? Yeah. Because it is more in the think tank. I didn't think that was a consensus by everybody. I had two wins this year, all right? Hey, I love two. That's 200% more than I do.

How many did we have? We had three? Two. I think we had two wins as well. We had McCaffrey. And we had one earlier. There was another one. Tony had one early on.

We do boost. I mean, he does the same game parlays, too. Yeah, we had three wins. We had three wins. We had three wins. We need four wins this weekend to have a proper same-game parlay holiday. I think we got it. I think so. Plus, privately, you've had an unbelievable year. I've been running.

I've been running. Yeah, I've been running. Yeah. All those things are like last-second bets, though. That's hard to promote. You can't really do that. No. And the basketball that I've been getting from you, how did we hit last night?

Not good at all, actually. Well, Jokic remissed triple-double by one assist. Dude, he had eight assists in the middle of the third quarter. I saw it. He had 16 points, like 12 rebounds, and eight assists in the third quarter, and they were up 30 or something. I was worried they were going to bench him. Exactly.

That's where we kind of got in trouble is he barely played any of the fourth quarter, and then Jan is 40 points. Boy, he scored seven. So we were a little off on that one. He's due for a stinker. Season low. He had a stinker the last game, too, so he's kind of in a little bit of a. It's all right.

I've watched you do your gambling this year. I went nowhere near as many units last night as I did two nights ago. Perfect. So we'll probably be back tonight if I had to guess. If reading you is going to be consistent with how you're going to continue to be, I think tonight you're going to hit. Yeah, there's a lot of good games tonight, too. We've got Luka against LeBron in the Lakers.

Oh. LeBron's going to want to show up. Oh, yeah, and then the Nets against the Celtics. Kyrie, revenge game, no Kevin Durant. Is it in Boston? In Brooklyn. Oh, I was wishing it was Nets against the Celtics. Kyrie, revenge game. No Kevin Durant. Is it in Boston? In Brooklyn. Oh, I was wishing it was in Boston so Kyrie could get that full song and dance. Yeah, he's had one before.

He's played there before. We beat the shit out of him, but he's played there. John Moran had a dunk last night that I really found quite alarming. He abused the man. He did. Yawke Myrtle. He absolutely abused him. Yawke Myrtle. Not his first poster with that guy, man. He did. He absolutely abused them. He's not his first poster with that guy, too.

That guy, whenever they play the Grizzlies for some reason. Centers are not in a good spot whenever John Morant's on the floor, especially if he's in one of those moods, which appears he is all the time. Because he uses you as a trampoline almost. Because he's up already high enough where you can't touch him. If you touch him, it's a foul. And then he uses you a little bit more to, like, almost hit another level. And last night he actually just feathered it in.

Like, didn't even dunk it. He just threw it from about 12 feet down in there. How tall is he, 6'2"? 6'2", yeah, I think so, yeah. 6'2", 6'3". He fucking floats. Explosive. Kind of like a – Derrick Rose was – Derrick Rose, Russ, and Ja.

Yeah, young Russ. The most explosive point guards I've ever seen. How about what Ladd McConkie would do to you if you guys were to line up in 101 right now? You got to see that up close and personal. Good player. Really good player. Joining us now.

Should have been intro'd a lot earlier, but I knew we were going to have an NBA discussion, so this is not that guy's bag. But he would have been able to add to it, I assume, because this guy's been watching athletes and coaching athletes for 40 years. Wow. He was our coach all season. We're thankful for it every single Thursday. We got smarter. We got better. Former head

coach of the Indianapolis Colts, formerly of the Ravens, the Browns, the Miami Hurricanes, the Boise Broncos, Wyoming, probably Chicago Bears. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen, Chuck McGowan. Wyoming, probably Chicago Bears. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen, Chuck McGowan.

Yeah, Coach! Coach, I don't know if you got to see the national championship game or not. It was 6-5, 7-9-0. Did you see what Ladd McConkie would have done to Darius J. Butler? Were you thinking about that whenever you're watching that guy get wide open on multiple plays? He wouldn't have busted like that. Thank you. He wouldn't have been running scott free down and just drop him and pick up a guy in the flat oh you're talking about d but appreciate you yeah

i'm just talking about one-on-one he gives a lot of great information on a lot of stuff the way he unwinding stuff for us back in the day unbelievable yeah yeah yeah because everything's happening so quick huge football break yeah one step you're fucked that's what we learned and when everything db literally you accidentally just running at 20 miles an hour if you just half a step this way. Well, this guy runs a fourth. You're done. It's over. You're out.

That's a touchdown. You're dead. You're exposed. You're on the Internet as a guy that can't play football. Try to be on the point of a three-man bunch, and then the ball snapped, and all that stuff's going on. And he's just sitting there, calm as can be, making all the calls, and now you've got motion to it from outside in, cross motion, and you've got to figure all that stuff.

You've got to go from one coverage to the next. All the guys around him, like Vontae, very, very appreciative of a guy like, you know, hey, because those guys, they don't ever talk. They just rely on the nickel. They rely on the safeties. Tell them what we are. What we're doing, where you're looking, how you're doing. Yeah, and the big brain.

You've got that, dude. You've got cat coverage. He's performing. Yeah, you've got that cat. Yeah. Hey, and Vontae had a cat. He had that cat. You lock him down.

Lock him down. And then when Vontae found out he could no longer keep the cat in the cage, it's a young man game now. I'm done. Legend. Hey, Coach B. Anytime Vontae's name gets brought up, I know we're going to lead right back to one thing. Take another guy.

And that's how it ended. He's just like, all right, I'm going to retire. I can't keep up with this. Did you see what that guy did to me in the second quarter? I ain't never seen something like that. That guy. I'm out of here. I love V keep up with this. Did you see what that guy did to me in the second quarter? I ain't never seen something like that. That guy, I'm out of here. I love Vontae. Vontae, hell of a player.

And I think Buffalo fans are even over it. At the moment, obviously not thrilled about it, but they have to have a personality and be like, this dude legitimately was like, nope, I can't do this anymore. Write a check to Buffalo. Get me the fuck out of here. I should have been done last year. How many write a check?

Not many. I mean, that's Vontae. Vontae came to the realization that I was wrong. I shouldn't have played this year. You guys don't deserve it. You guys paid me a lot of money. I'm very thankful for it.

I gave up. It was preseason, too, right? No, no, no. It was regular season. No, no, no. That was regular season. Best part about it is, hey, Tay, you good? Because that's the first thing.

You want to check and make sure you're good mentally. Are you good, Tay? Yeah, Andy, but it's time. It's time. I don't know if that was the time, because, but, hey, all right. I support you. Who knows what he thought would have happened in that second. He thought he was giving up

four touchdowns. Oh, yes. That second half. 500 yards. He was sitting in his locker room. I'm gonna stop him. I'm gonna... I can't stop that guy. They got me on an island, too. Oh, four touchdowns. Nope. Nope.

No way. No way. It could have been a discussion, too a discussion too like hey can we play a little stuff like roll to me let me play cover two and give me a safety over the top and they said no we're sticking with the game plan that's when he said okay well you said it all right i thought that's what you're gonna say i didn't know vante what are you doing i'm out of here yeah yeah can't play cover two? I tried to ask you for a little bit of help. I need it. Anyways, Vontae doesn't deserve all this because Vontae was a hell of a fucking football player.

Great teammate, too. Him getting out of Miami, I think, was an incredible move for him and his football career. Obviously, everybody saw that on hard knocks. He came to Indianapolis, was fucking awesome. I cannot say good enough things about Vontae Davis. So I think we all were very surprised by the retirement at halftime because that is very much out of Vontae Davis' character. Like, works his ass off, does the whole thing.

So then whenever he comes out on the other side of it, it's just like, I was hurting the team. That's like such self-awareness there that you would never expect from anybody, especially a fucking corner. And he has not even thought about coming back to football. Nope. Living. I saw him take a picture of a draft two weeks ago down in Africa in a safari.

That's awesome. Is he a thespian like his brother? Well, he's not an actor. He is. His brother is an incredible actor. I saw him cry on TV. He's in a lot of stuff coming out. He's living a great life, though, right now.

Follow him on Instagram. Vernon? No, Vontae. We're talking about Vernon. I'm with you. We want to a great life though right now. Follow him on Instagram. Vernon? No, Vontae. We're talking about Vernon. I'm with you. We want to give love to the whole family. Did you see Vernon? Oh boy. He cried on command. Boom. On TV. That's awesome. On SportsCenter too. He was sitting at a desk just like this and then

they're like, so act. That's what they said. Act. And he started fucking bawling his eyes out. Real tears? Yeah. Oh yeah. That's what they said. Act. And he started fucking bawling his eyes out. Real tears? Oh, yeah. That's not easy. Boom.

I've had to do that. Really? Come on. Cook up some fake tears? You're an actor? I mean, we're getting your ass kicked. Chuck, you can't tell us that. No, I have to.

Fake tears are helpful. Don't you K-fave. Don't you. Don't give up K-fave right now. No. All right, let's move along. Speaking of coaching, Sean Payton has been requested by the Cardinals, Broncos, Texans for the head coaching position.

Obviously, there's five spots open. Three of the teams have requested him. The Indianapolis Colts not being one of them. Okay, keep your biases out of it, Pat. Just talk about the fucking subject here. Okay, we will. Sean Payton is obviously hot to trot. He's the bell of the ball in this particular head coaching cycle.

Ian Rappaport's been talking about it every single day. He's on that Fox NFL Sunday show, and he's talking on there about what he'd be looking for, what type of team he's looking for. But also, like this team, great use of leverage for Sean Payton. He retires out of nowhere. We had no clue why. Then we found out maybe he was going to go to Miami with Tom Brady and they were going to own the team. That ends up not working out because there was a collusion and other cases brought against him. Brian Flores was in the middle of

it all because he didn't want to get on the yacht to even have the conversation for it all to take place, allegedly. So Sean Peyton's out of the game for a year. And all anybody keeps talking about is Sean Peyton coming back, coming back, coming back, coming back. So biggest Fugue's retirement of all time. I think even whenever other people thought about retiring, they thought about a week or two actually retiring. Seems like Sean Payton was never going to retire. Just kind of needed a reset. Good for him.

He's earned it. The Saints will still be able to get a trade out of this, so they're able to collect on Sean Payton's contract. It's wild because of a player, for instance. Yeah. If I wanted to go back and go play somewhere, I think the team would give me, I don't want to say fits, but I think Jim Mercer would not make it like. Right, simple.

Jim Mercer would be like, what are we doing? You're going to go kick? Sweet, you're kicking for us then. You want to go punt for somebody? Sweet, you're punting for us. It's just assumed that the Saints are just going to let Sean Payton just go wherever. Yeah. That's an interesting

thing to me, D-Butt. They want at least a first-round pick, right? Yeah, tell the Broncos they want a first, yes. They don't have one, right? Yeah, the Saints don't have a first-round. So, yeah, exactly why they want it. But have the Saints ever thought about, no? Do you think that's ever happened? I'll ask you, Chuck, I guess, because is this something that happens

often in the coaching world? And can the Saints just say no? Like, the Colts could just say no to me to wanting to go play some hours. The Saints could do that. That has not even been brought up in discussion, which I think good on the Saints for doing that and good for Sean Payne. Could that happen? And it hasn't even really been broached. They hold all the cars. How long do they have them?

2024. As long as he's under contract. So if he's got, what, two more years left on his contract? So they don't have to say, yeah. So assistant coaches, it's up to every coach. Like if D. Butts is coaching our secondary and he's got a chance to go to another team and be a defensive coordinator, he can come in to me, sign it to your contract, because you want security for your family.

So it's a double-edged sword. He comes in. What is it? I can say no. So this is what say no. They can block him. Yeah. This is what McVay just did to his assistant coaches, right? He said, hey, you can go take interview jobs wherever you want to go because I don't know what I'm going to do in my future. And that's good on him. That's the right thing to do. And when I took over, I was with

people that said, again, you can't, you know, we're not going to let you out of your contract. Coach, I got a chance to go be a defensive coordinator. I'm a position coach here, defensive coordinator. My money goes from here to here. It's life-changing stuff. An opportunity to coordinate, you do well, then you're in the conversation for a head coaching job. So if they don't want to do it, they don't do it. And some teams are just right down the line with it. We're not doing it. This is the contract. You're not allowed to do shit. That's it. And then, if you don't sign, right end of the year, and then they bring you another contract and want you to sign it,

and then you decide, because I got blocked the year before, I'm not going to sign, then you think, oh, you don't want to be here? Yeah. Yeah, oh, you're spoiled. No, no, you don't like it here? You don't want to sign this? We're giving you an extension.

Oh, that's leverage. That's all negotiation by the team to do that to you? Because the guy's betting on himself. Who's dealing with it? The coach? GM? Building? Both.

I think you come in as an ownership, a GM and a head coach decide how we're going to handle this down the road. It's one of those questions like all these guys got to be asking that are interviewing for these jobs. Not only the 53 man, the 46, we talked about all that stuff, but how are we going to handle assistant coaches? How are we going to handle guys that have opportunities to move on? Yeah, and whenever you say we talked about all that stuff, anytime you want to reiterate it again, all good. Because whenever you're speaking about it, it's coming from a completely different angle. What he was chatting about is whenever you get a head coach and a new head coach and a new GM, who gets the power to decide like number 46 to 53 on the active roster?

Like, who gets to decide who is up, who is down at the end of the day for special teams and stuff? Is that the GM that's making that decision every single time? Do the coaches have some say? Those are just little things that don't get discussed probably during the hiring process. And they don't show up until when? Until it's too late. Until they show up.

Until they show up. And then you've got a bunch of drama there. What were you going to say, Tone? Because the Saints just being like, yeah, we'll just give them up for a winner. It's crazy because, like, every team wants Sean Payton, and I think if every team had an opening, they would want Sean Payton. Oh, yeah. Like, if the Patriots, Bill Belichick was to retire,

I think Robert Kraft would be like, I would like to interview Sean Payton. 100%. Kansas City Chiefs, if Andy Reid was to retire, they think Robert Kraft would be like, I would like to interview Sean Payton. 100%. Kansas City Chiefs, if Andy Reid was to retire, they would say, we would like to interview Sean Payton. All these great teams that if they were to have an opening would want Sean Payton. The Saints have Sean Payton's rights, and it's just automatically assumed like, yep,

he's good to go wherever the hell he wants to do. Is that the new cheat code? Is that the new game? They've got to have a – I think I've heard they have a pretty good – have had a pretty good relationship with Sean Payton. Well, he brought them a lot on. Yeah, you know, obviously he was there for a long time, won a Super Bowl there. So maybe that was a part of even the retirement conversation.

Like, at some point, you know, I'm probably going to be back. And it's like, all right, we'll let by – look, this is what we're going to ask for. And it's not like they're letting him go for nothing. They'll be getting, you know, we'll let by. Look, this is what we're going to ask for. And it's not like they're letting him go for nothing. They'll be getting a high pick, hopefully in return. And at the same time, you don't want a guy coaching for you that don't want to coach for you anymore. Regardless of what that reason is, he wants to move on. So you get something back for him.

I think, obviously, they're going to give that up. That's kind of like players, too. I think that's more of a modern look at it. Like, do you want a player on your team that doesn't want to be there? Yeah. Because that can affect everything. I saw it with Deshaun in Houston. OBJ in Cleveland.

And that's why those teams are interesting, just because the Cardinals, like, it's easy. I saw OBJ on that plane. Oh, yeah. Badge-heavy flight attendant early in appearance. For sure. Which we all have experienced, especially over the most recent time, because fresh out of COVID, you got to remember flight attendants were like saving the world.

Now everybody's breathing in the same air in the same cylinder, but obviously it's getting filtered out. COVID is not going to be there, but they were given a lot more power because the mask mandates that happened, separation, how many people were allowed to be where they were. So it's almost like flight attendants became flight marshals. Yeah. Like every single one of them. Yeah. Like I think that kind of started happening.

Yeah, one guy thought he got it through putting in contacts on the airplane that one time. They did, actually. Yeah, we don't know what's true, what's not true at this point, honestly. I think 10 years from now we still won't know, but hopefully we'll have a little bit more information. But I think a flight attendant really had a beef with OBJ, it seems like, early in that video. Then you get towards a little bit later in that video if you're able to stick around, which I assume not a lot of people were able to do unless you're Bailey McComas, who did watch the entire thing, which is fantastic.

Billy Tubes is writing the Internet, so he's got to know everything on the Internet. He did get into it with another passenger, and he did talk some heavy shit to the passenger. This is already after an entire dramatic scene had taken place. I don't think it affects anybody thinking about OBJ coming to their team at all. No, especially next year. Yeah, I don't think so. I think it'll be kind of passed. But flight attendants, we understand you have a tough job.

Please. Please. We understand. Let's work together here. What did you get the job for did you get the job to be you know like a yellow coat at an event like security or did you get the job because you enjoyed flying and enjoyed hospitality that's a hospitality business there and that is not all obviously there's a lot of great flight attendants out there but i would say that the

more and more you travel now i haven't been on one of those planes in a long time but last time i was i had to move my mask from tip of my nose that's right to the the bridge of my nose while i was dead asleep flight attendant two fingers shove on my shoulder bang, bang. Wake up. What's going on? You know? Can you please move? Mask. Proper. Thank you. Yeah.

Put it up. Good. Thank you. Are you serious? What just happened? That could have been, like, I obviously. You held. It appeared as if OBJ was maybe potentially partaking in some of the similar things that I was partaking. I react differently than he does.

I am not shit-talking anybody. I'm trying to get away from everybody whenever that happens. But it was at that moment where I was like, I could see how this could be a massive ordeal. see how this could be a massive this could be a massive ordeal if you some walking talking asshole which exists in our world dead asleep doesn't like masks has mask on you wake up move up here for proper masking i could see how a person that was asleep could potentially act like an asshole right in hell in that moment and in that moment the flight attendant's in charge right because position and where we were so it was that moment that And in that moment, the flight attendant's in charge, right, because of the position and where we were. So it was that moment that really, for me,

made me start viewing things differently about how this is a tough time for everybody, but we're kind of past that time. It feels like now they're taking down stopping all flights because you can't track it. But I think you could see how OBJ and a badge-heavy flight attendant could get into it if you're a human that has traveled over the last year or so publicly. Yeah, absolutely. And to your point, this does absolutely nothing for teams that want to

sign him next year he is still going to be right at the top of a lot of people's list now did he need to call the person a fatso and say hey you know enjoy that cheese board you fatso no he probably not but again you know he did he did And now he's got to live with the consequences. Everybody gets pissed. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where everyone has to be removed for one pass. Everybody is. Oh, it's a nightmare. You know, that pisses everybody off.

But to your point, I think it was a bad, bad, heavy flight attendant. The officers didn't even really want to. Yeah, they came back and they said, we don't see a problem here. There's nothing wrong. We should take off. Flight attendant, he's taking his pants off. You remember Tokyo? Oh, yes.

That was fantastic. We were flying from where to where? We were flying from Tokyo to what's the military island we have in Japan? South. Okinawa. Okinawa. That's the entire island? I believe so.

So fascinating thing, we learned this. So that island does not exist on Russia's map of Japan. And then we have our map of Japan. There's a Russian military island at the top of Japan that I don't think we show on our map either. Kind of a fascinating little geopolitical game going on over there. Because at Okinawa, that's our... I mean, there's locals there that we got to see and meet

and we had a blast with, I will say. They don't necessarily love all the Americans, though, from what I've been told because of a lot of things. They seem to enjoy us. I mean, we were welcome. Were we not? I feel like we were taken care of over there. Is that where you got to drive that tank

or that fire truck around and all that stuff on that one base? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. No, it was awesome. We had a blast. They loved you.

How about the locals, though? Locals loved us, too. Unbelievable. Were you with us at the- I had to stay in one night because I got a little- Right, baby. Under the weather. Yeah, that's called hungover.

I couldn't hang. Yeah, you were- It was after that German shepherd chased us down. That was crazy. We got that dog bite the arm thing. Hell yeah. Oh, yeah. But you remember when we were about ready to take off?

Yeah. And I think Costanzo and I, we were all chatting, and the stewardess came back. Because we're not speaking their language. They're not speaking ours. It was just like grandparents used to do, button it up. But then she... so she did that because i think i think we had a pretty big pop we're i don't know if chuck was with us the night before that chuck was with us a couple nights so i don't know what he's gonna say and what he's

meaning tell people chuck certainly had a couple wags with us i will say and there was some times where i guess he couldn't hang or felt i think he thought he wasn't supposed to probably be out with us every single night, so he wasn't, which is respectful. But we were on that plane, and, yeah, Chuck was with us this night. I mean, let's not get crazy. I was very sober here. Obviously, the rest of the guys were very drunk. Obviously, that is kind of what's going on in that particular photo.

But, yeah, we were laughing. We were having a good time. And nobody speaks your language over there if you speak English. They don't even attempt to. It's not even – and our language is nothing like their language. No. So it is impossible to figure out. And on a plane, you can't really just Google words to kind of explain things,

especially while you're taking off. So I think there was good laugh happening. I believe there was good laugh happening. And she, from her seat, gives the sign, right, the quiet sign. And we go, okay, you got it. Yep, thank you. So then we sit back, and I think Chuck started saying something. It was about the fish box that we got on that last flight before.

The food was literally just a plastic box and just different dead fish on it. We brought it into the plane. Nice. Everybody had one on the plane. Think about how bad that thing had to smell. Oh, my God. It was terrible. So I think Chuck brought that up like,

I wonder if we're going to get the fish pox again. And then Costanzo said something, another ha-ha. She gets up. Like very demonstrative. And we go, oh, oh. And then she sits down and then she stares at us. While she's seat by us, she's in front of Chuck and Alfonso. Stares at us all the time.

We take off. Was it a takeoff deal, right? Was that when we also landing deal? Remember? We took back off. Yeah. Do you remember that? No.

So going into Okinawa, this happened. I don't remember a lot of that trip, but yeah. This actually, I mean, we fucking were landing. Yeah yeah and none of our language is up there except for the numbers the altitude numbers so you see like 30,000 25,000 20,000 we're going in for landing obviously you can feel it and you can see where it is but every other word is Japanese letter so you don't know what any of the other information is and so we we see that the numbers are just going down. And it goes like 10,000, 5,000, 3,000, 1,500, 500. And then fucking we took right back off because the fucking wind was so thing. And I've never been more interested in what was going on in my life.

Because we can't even ask anybody's question. Nobody's talking. So everybody's dead quiet. It's like you're in a very scary situation. We learned a lot about life over there. But nonetheless, you were talking about the flight attendant being badge heavy. We were talking about OBJ potentially being on

any team, and before that, the conversation was if you want out, you can get out, it seems like, at this point in life, right? Anything. We saw that with Harden and in Houston. That's in the NBA, obviously. But in the NFL, you can be who you can afford to be. If you're a guy, I think you can get out. What about Gronk?

Did the Patriots do that? Gronk retired, but then, yeah, as soon as he wanted to come back and wanted to go to the Bucs, the Patriots were like, all right, fine. I think it was like a fifth and a sixth, yeah. Simple. You can get out, I guess, these days. It never used to be like that. And I think social media probably why, you think?

Because back in the day, you could control the messaging on who wanted out and who didn't now every fan and every person hears who is not happy with everything back in the day you just yeah remember there was a time where you could murder somebody in illinois and then just hop in a on a horse or whatever i guess yeah maybe the car drive to indiana nobody even knew the Nobody even knew that anybody died. That's what his face was doing. Bundy. Bundy, literally just 20 miles down the road. Nobody had a clue that this dude was the most wanted man in town.

Nope, out of here. See ya. Going to Florida. Those jurisdictions don't talk. Then they had him in jail. He jumps out of the courthouse. Leaves, goes to another town. Nobody even had a clue this guy just escaped from a courthouse.

That's what it used to be back in the day. That's what it used to be. They'd upgrade all their computers and systems. Now nobody has a clue. Now everybody knows everything about everybody. So if somebody's not happy, they're gone. Has anybody asked Sean if he would go back to the Saints? And is it because of his friend who's now the head coach probably?

Yeah, Dennis Allen, right, first year? Yeah, I can't see that happening. Him going back and doing that to Dennis. They were together for a long, long time, spent a lot of time together. So there's no way that happened. So that's why the conversation. Because Vic Fangio is tied with Sean Payton, right? Right.

So is he going to Denver? He's going to be. No. That's why if they want a first-round pick, too, Denver doesn't make any sense. And even the Arizona. He's also, the money, look, they're talking $15, $20 million a year for Sean. Mm-hmm. Jeez.

That's a lot of cheese. So what? I'm thinking about, hey. What are you saying about Sean? No, I know about you. It sounds like it just cracked in here. Yeah, yeah. We just saw your calculation.

Oh, shit. Get back in. Build a new house and boys. Okay, yeah. Lumber costs right now, shit. Build a new house and boys. Okay. Lumber costs right now. That's why a lot of people say that. No, but so back there, no. Because he's not going to just fire, you know, Dennis Allen.

So no to New Orleans. Denver, the guy has a lot of, the ownership has a lot of money. But Vic Fangio is a little. So if they offer him a big nut. With Fangio? Would Fangio go back? No, so then he'll get another one. Yeah, that's why it feels like those other two. And the Broncos don't have a first to trade. Texans

have a lot of steam on the internet because they have two first-round picks the next two years and they're saying Sean can kind of build it however he wants. Fourth-largest city in America. Yeah. Die-hard fans. How are you going to go to an organization like that? That's last. He went to New Orleans, right? That is last. It should be last. That's last. He went to New Orleans, right? Wasn't the Saints going to the Saints? That is last. It should be last.

That's horrible. He wants complete control. They did what they've done. They did what they've done the last two years, Coach Dave. Why did Coach Dave get fired? As Nick. Casario? Never had a chance.

Never had a shot. And then to do Lovey like that, regardless? I mean, that thing is a dumpster fire. They did get worse this year. They stumped for sure. They got worse this year. And we got peps down there, you know, Timmy Bourbon that you remember on our staff here. Burbs down there?

Burbs down there coaching tight ends. You hate it for all of them. Think about all those families that affects and how many people are picking up and moving now. That's crazy. I guarantee you everybody's. And there's only 32 of them. So there's a young first-timer out there that's going to – can't get his name on the damn contract fast enough. But you're saying the coaching community looks at what has happened

and he was thinking, what the fuck are these guys doing? Is that same thing in here and in, do you think, with Jeff Sardihar? No. You don't think so? No. Because there's the interim title? It's not like a real thing? They're going to go through the process. We'll see what happens in the end.

No, but I'm saying, do you think coaches? Because Sirianni, what, after they beat the Colts? Yeah. He stood on the bleachers. Oh, shit. That's what fucking Frank Ryan said. Dog! That's what he said. Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey, hey! What's that? It was his boy that was personal yeah i agree

hired him in there but i think it's not even talking about talk about because remember joe thomas was speaking for the coaching community bill cower was speaking for the coaching community everybody was talking for the coaching community about this guy that he just gets a head coach job this guy just gets a high school he didn't do anything. This guy's done nothing in the coaching world. I think they all understand Jim's relationship with Jeff and how much Jim loves Jeff and how that all transpired. Now we're at right now. So they're going to go through the process.

We'll see what happens. But you think Houston's going to be a tough? You think Houston's going to be a tough? Yeah, I don't think it's in the same conversation. Just because Jim did what he did, it ain't even close to me. That's crazy to hear that.

We would have never thought of that, right? I would have never thought of that with the coaching community watching. Did you hear what he said? Do you see what they just did to Lovey down there? Lovey's probably beloved, I would assume, in the coaching community. Because he did what he's supposed to do at the end of that game. Try to win. He signed up for 17 games, and we're going to try to play and win every single game. And not one time has a conversation ever been, hey, look, we need to throw this. We need to,

you know, overthrow this two-point conversation. You know, we don't want to go to overtime, but overthrow this guy that's wide open end zone because we want the number one overall pick. D-Butt, that's what we always say whenever people say, oh, that team's tanking. It's like, players and coaches aren't. Yeah, you can't do it with coaches and players. And obviously, especially on a professional level, players will be able to sniff it out too. Like, oh, and you see it too. But it always happens, I would say, above the coaching level.

You know, they start putting, you know, just young guys in there, seeing what they got with the future. How does that work? Do they tell you, hey, you got to play this guy this game, this guy's not getting this many reps? How would that work? That can happen. Really?

It's in that, what, week 13, 14? Yeah, so as soon as you're like – These are not experiences you're in. I'm just talking about in general. Yeah, so if you're mathematically out and it doesn't look like you're getting ready to make a little run, make the postseason, then they start thinking about the future. GM, owner, who's talking to the coach, you think?

I think it's everybody. Just to sit down. I think it's everybody. Hey, we need to get a look you think? I think it's everybody. Just to sit down. I think it's everybody. I think it's those powers that be, the decision makers, ownership. Colts. What happened with the Colts this year was Sam Ellinger. It's like they put it in because they wanted to see what they had with him, right? Even with Sean Payton,

the Texans, they did do that entire thing with Lovey and Coley, but that's why Sean Payton wants a relationship with the owner, first and foremost, more so than what the situation is with the current team. That was kind of what he said, or that's what was reported that he wanted. So if we're starting to think this through here, he's going to Arizona. That kind of makes the most sense. They'll trade next year's first.

Arizona's where he's headed, but they're trading DeHop. He's not going to want to trade DeHop right now. DeHop probably changes his mind if Sean Payton's going to be here. Sure. Sean canHop, right? No. DeHop probably changes his mind if Sean Payton's going to be here. Sure. Because Sean can be selective, right? Well, here's a video. Before we dive into that, here's a video from Sean Payton speaking about Kyler Murray. I think it's a tweet.

Do we have it? Yeah, it's from the combine that Kyler was in. It's a tweet, Zito, if you can go ahead and search that up. Sean Payton was sitting in the booth with, I think, Money? I think so. It might have been Matt Money-Smith, our guy who wakes up every single morning and surfs. Yeah, that's right.

I haven't been able to lately, but God bless you. With the weather over there. Yeah, everybody over there with the weather. He's everywhere. Venice, I think. Didn't he say Venice? Yeah, but he'll hit swells all over the coast. He's just looking for gnar.

Yeah, exactly. He's just looking for gnar. Yeah, exactly. He's just trying to shred some out there. Sean Payton was talking about Kyler Murray, and he was pretty much just going through what he saw in him, his upside or his downside was, and it led everybody to believe this guy is a fan of Kyler Murray. Now, do you think enough has happened in the NFL with Kyler Murray for Sean Payton to change his mind?

Here's the video from the combine of Sean Payton sitting with Rich Eisen in Move the Sticks. Sorry about it, DJ and Rich. Whenever Kyler Murray's name came up in conversation during the combine coverage here in Indianapolis, Indiana, where hopefully the combine will remain forever. So the evaluation that everybody's talking about right right now and we're going to maybe see him out there tomorrow or not is kyler murray and we always we've been going through the history of the evaluation of the quarterback position in terms of height obviously you've got a goat that you've been uh you've been hooked up with since 2006 and drew breeze what are your thoughts

on kyler murray's height and his ability to make the next leap here? Good work, Rich. I think having seen four games now, just an early exposure in the winter meetings, you don't feel that being a deficiency when you watch his play. Man, he's explosive. He's one of those players that, as Madden used to say, he was never it.

It's so hard to rush him because he can flush to the right, make a play to the left. You do feel a poise that he plays with. I don't think he's going to throw. He'll probably wait until his pro day. But his hand was 9.5�2. That was significant. If it was in the 8s, that would have been a little concerning. 9 kind of is a threshold for us. And look at his height.

I think he's worth 5'10 change. His film is too good. Ultimately, his film, when I say it's too good, and I like him. Okay, so there at the very end, I like him. Film. His hand size, his size, his demeanor, everything about him. Sounds like Sean Payton's a fan of him. Do you think there's anything that he has watched maybe over the last couple years here with him in Arizona

that has made him not like him or maybe some things have made him like him more? Like him getting a little fiery, maybe fucking Sean Payton, who's known, right, to be a little bit of a fiery guy maybe he appreciates that type of thing well and that's what i said yesterday and i was kind of joking in terms of like you know kyler being able to kind of have a say in who they're going to hire i think he does need a heart because for whatever you want to say about cliff like he is just kind of like the happy-go-lucky like i think kyler needs someone to fucking get in his face and kind of push back and shit like that and sean payton obviously has the the accolades and everything behind it the resume to be able to exactly so it's not just coming from you know again no disrespect to cliff but it's not coming to

from some guy who went five and six at texas tech and then you know never won with the cardinals coming from a guy who coached one of the best quarterbacks of all time and won a super bowl and you know has an unbelievable career behind him yeah Yeah, I think Kyler would respect his resume, which is a massive ordeal. We talk about this whenever coaches come from New England and they go coach somewhere else and they try to be the Patriots. It's like your resume is not Bill Belichick's resume. Bill Belichick's able to do this because of what his resume is. People will buy in because, oh, I can win.

Kyler could see that. Kyler would see that, right? And maybe with what Deion said just yesterday, two days ago on the show, Coach Prime said, these kids want to be coached. These kids want to be told. Now, Kyler Murray, it seems like everybody's opinion is that he does not want to be coached. He does not want to be told anything. But if it's coming from a fucking successful guy, maybe he does.

Maybe that's the thing that Kyler Murray needs. To your point, Ty. And players know. And Cliff, you know, he's got opportunity. Obviously, he earned it. To a lot of players, especially in the league, it's like, okay, this guy almost got fired up, right? You didn't have this great college resume.

You get to the league. Okay, now what? And if you're not producing, that shit gets dry real quick. But you're coming in with Sean Payton with his resume, especially with his resume with a quarterback, like what Drew Brees did numbers-wise, efficiency-wise. It was incredible. A lot of people saw this Cliff and Kyler kind of being like a marriage made in heaven as far as Kyler's skill set and Cliff's offense.

But it's not really NFL offense, if you ask me. I think Kyler Murray can run any type of NFL offense. Like his film, like what Sean Payne was talking about, when you turn on the film with Kyler Murray and the plays that he makes, like his best plays, you can put him next to Patrick Mahomes, Herbert, John Allen, any of these guys with his arms and his legs. So he's got that. I think Sean Payne can put an offense in an organization around Kyler for sure.

That'd be the best thing for him, honestly. You got it, John? Cardinals is what? Also the one place where Sean Payne can put an offense and an organization around Kyler for sure. That'd be the best thing for him, honestly. Cardinals is what? Also the one place where Sean Payton can pick his GM? Well, not only pick his own GM, but it sounds like Bidwell, the owner, is like, we need something. Correct. You know, we need something here. And if you keep D-Hop on that team,

if D-Hop wants to stay because Sean Payton comes, and Kyler's able to buy into everything, which it sounds like he would be able to, especially with being able to make the plays that he can see. Sean Payton can just show him Drew Brees plays and then just show him, you're more athletic than this guy, right? Way more athletic. You got a better arm than this guy, right?

Think about what we're going to be able to do. I'm going to need you fucking buy in though. Sean Payton's a coach. Naturally, he's a coach. What do you think Sean Payton's thinking of Kyler Murray in the Arizona Cardinals situation as a former coach and maybe somebody that could understand where Sean Payton's coming from? No, absolutely. I mean, he likes him, and that hasn't changed.

Because as coaches, we feel like we can get the best guy out of anybody. Oh, that guy's not doing it. Regardless of that, I've got a process. I've got a formula. Because if I'm Kyler and I have input, they're listening to me, hey, go get that dude. Because it's instant credibility. It brings stability to that organization.

That's what they need right now. They need a face of the franchise right now that can bring a ton of credibility back. All the stuff that they've been through, everything that happened this year down there. And he's done great with Drew Brees. He'll do the same with Kyla Murray. It's instant credibility. It's not hard to get guys to buy in. Like when Doug Peterson, Doug Peterson walked into Jacksonville.

Yeah. He said warm weather. Yep. Quarterback. I mean, he saw that house. Cliff was in it. Cliff was in it. Feet up.

Ferragamos. Ferragamos. Ferragamo. No socks. Glass for days. Camelback Mountain. Done good, Cliff. Third overall pick. Like, he can do so much with that where he's even setting up for, you know, next year.

Like, what if he decides, you know what, we're at three, but we already have a quarterback. We can probably move back to six, get next year's first. What about their facilities and shit? There's the house. His house is much nicer than the facility, right? Well, if you're Sean. We've seen the facility. The house is gorgeous.

I mean, there's Camelback Mountain in the back there, obviously. Every TV is on. The fireplace in the middle of the foyer. I mean, this is an incredible home. Yes. Might be up for sale soon. Probably. Cliff.

Would like to talk. Yeah. Would like to talk about this house right right here pal cool but a guy like sean can go in and say address all that facility wise because it's a little bit of an arms race you can overpay free agency to get guys phoenix is a sell though absolutely yep absolutely but he can also go to bidwell say hey we need this this and this every head coach gets that like when i got the job here, we walked through that facility. The first time we met in the weight room, we were walking the facility.

I saw that hot tub that was like a square or the cold tub, whatever that thing was. It was the size of this cell phone. And I said, so how many players can we get in this thing at one time and how many want to actually get in there with somebody else? So we got a new hot tub. So they're up for that. So that is part of coaches. Absolutely. You go in, the weight room needs to, get in there with somebody else. So we got a new hot tub. So they're up for that. So that is part of coaches.

Absolutely. We need the weight room. Massive upgrade when you came, by the way. You should be proud of that. Boy, Chuck. It was bad when Peyton and them were playing. When that era I was in there, those facilities were. Crazy.

That's where you just got. But you got players. That's why they raised tax and you had all those you had all those dogs and you were just better than everybody else so that that didn't matter had an indoor facility so i guess we are you know that's good news no bubble but with the exactly but with the wind in indiana it's windy every day here yeah you kind of have would not be able to do anything if you didn't have a bubble or an indoor practice facility, so they had that. But, like, our locker room was, I mean, I was at West Virginia.

My first couple years at West Virginia, we hadn't won an FCS or a BCS and hadn't done really anything in prominence in a while in the football world. So it was old school, too, like very old school. And then my last year, they had all the upgrades in from everything that Pat White and Steve Slayton won for the building, very old school and then my last year they had all the upgrades in from everything that pat white and steve slayton won for the building and it was like really nice and awesome and then you get the colts and it's like oh i just went back to like the when i was like a freshman at west virginia with the way the building is set up and you don't have to have as many because it's not as big as

college so i was very confused about oh this is the nfl you know we're eating over here and d the chef was fantastic he made us incredible. I mean, the food was fantastic. But when you talk about a locker room and facilities and everything like that, I did not expect it to be what it was. That all changed, you know. Not all of it, obviously, because they had to do some construction and stuff. You should take some more pride in that, I think.

That's a big deal. You made the building better. You made the building a lot better. I didn't know that was the coaches. I assumed that was somebody else. Well, that's Jim's generosity, too, saying, hey, what do we need? Okay? He wants to support us.

Did you hear about that little golf course that's around the building when it came in? Go ahead and ask the back story about that. I was there for that. That was a wild scene. That was an awesome situation. Everyone was ready. Who was it? Pete Dye? Yeah, Pete Dye, situation. Who was it? Pete Dye?

Yeah, Pete Dye. Jim Ursa had Pete Dye. Rest in peace. Well, certainly rest in peace. Pete Dye died. He did. He did. Great golf course.

I almost killed him. Literally almost hit him in the head with a ball on his course that he designed outside the Indianapolis Colts facility. Was that when they had the Pro-Am? There was an Island. They brought him over to play? Yeah, they brought him. You and Vinny played, right? Yeah, me, Vinny, Ryan Kelly. His course that he designed outside the Indianapolis Colts facility. Was that when they had the Pro-Am? There was an Island. They brought him over to play? Yeah, they brought him. You and Vinny played, right? Yeah, me, Vinny, Ryan Kelly.

I think Luck was out there as well. And there's like an actual five-hole par three out there. A couple different greens. The greens obviously are holes for multiple different tee boxes. Immaculate. Pete Dye designed it. This is outside the Colts facility. It's awesome.

It is unbelievable's awesome it is unbelievable how nice it is we're gorgeous prepped and maintained every single day trolling the boys and our grass field not so much but that thing christine well so to echo your point right there so when that was all getting done it was a big deal i think it was for first tee is what jim mercy uh inevitably came out and said it was to help more people be able to golf because he was going to give away time on the course and everything like that. But there was a lot of facilities in the Colts facility that were not like, hey, that $4 million, however many million dollars you spent out there, that would have been sweet to potentially put into here. And I wonder if that message just wasn't getting to Jim.

Like if people were just telling him all is good and they were winning, so we don't need to touch anything. message just wasn't getting to Jim. Like if people were just telling him all is good and they were winning, so like we don't need to touch anything. But the immediacy of the, of the flip, it felt like with the new regime, it felt like there was a lot of new shit in there, like almost every single month. So I think you should take pride in that, that golf course though. I don't think you saw any players on that course until that program happened. There was a, I never saw one ball hit, not a one. Yeah. There was a conversation in a locker room that was like, uh, I won't say the names are in a combo. It was a lot.

It was like 15 of the guys on the team that people, if they were to speak, would listen to. They go, we don't play golf on that fucking multimillion-dollar golf course. Okay? We're here to work, and these facilities, we'll get them better too or something like that. It's like, all right, nobody's golfing out there. New assistants would come in and say, hey, i said yeah go ahead go tee off and get caught on that course

see what happens well now the building's nice people should feel comfortable doing it i think they've changed it all over there yeah well they're nice it is over there now it's got nicer every year i feel like even where they do camp. Beautiful. To your point, like when I'm out, Frank comes in. So you go see Frank's new office. So it doesn't look anything. Brand new. Hot tub, steam, sauna. Oh.

Jeff Saturday. They redo the kitchen, the indoor. Everything. Everything. The training room is fucking two stories. It's nice. The training room is fucking two stories. It's nice. The Colts are fucking doing it. That's why Jim's got to be even more mad.

I'm the brother. I didn't have to spend a dollar. I built a golf course because I had too much money to spend on a building, and nobody wanted any upgrades. Then all of a sudden we start upgrading. We don't win at all. We've got a two-story training room. They tell me it's the nicest in the world.

I don't know. I haven't seen everybody else's. It is nice. We can't win a game. Think about Jim, how mad he has to be. I'm paying everybody at every position. Can't fucking win. Now there's a conversation happening that Derek Carr is going to be traded from the

Las Vegas Raiders. So whenever you think about a quarterback being traded that has a massive cash tag next to him in this particular case i believe it's like 40 no 34 34 million cap hit 40 some here it is if a team were to trade for derrick carr here's what it would owe him on his current deal in 2023 32.9 million dollar base salary plus 100 000 workout bonus is a $33 million cap hit. 2024, $41.9 million, $100,000 workout bonus, $42 million cap hit. 2025, $41.2 million base salary, plus $100,000 workout bonus, $41.3 million cap hit.

That's a lot of fucking money. And whenever you think about a veteran quarterback who hasn't had success at the team that he is currently at and he's worth a lot of money and he's already in a contract, you think to yourself, there's no way anybody's going to want to pick up that contract. They're going to want to renegotiate another one, maybe make it a prove-it deal. But recent history has told us that that is not necessarily the case. Indianapolis Colts have spent $700 million on quarterbacks they have not worked out the last three years. Phil Rivers, he has a pretty good year. He retires. Carson Wentz, he forgot how to play football most of the time. Had some great

plays, but he was a fucking nightmare most days to watch from a cardiac situation because he would give the ball to the other team just as much as he would score. He was fascinating. He's gone after one year. And then you bring in Matt Ryan, and obviously he's an astronaut. He's a Navy SEAL. He's a man who won it out of Atlanta. He was an MVP type player just a few years back, half a decade back, whatever the case. He was not the answer for the Indianapolis Colts. So you think about these massive cash tags next to an old quarterback who has not necessarily played their best football or had success. And you think to yourself, there's no way anybody would trade for it.

We're here to tell you that it has happened. Oh, yeah. Connor fought pretty hard this morning to remind me of that case. Tooth and nail. Because I thought to myself, there's no way anybody is going to trade for that contract by February 15th. There's an entire draft cycle that has to come through. There's a free agency cycle that has to come through. There's no way any team is going to pick up that contract February 15th, which is the

date in which we all assume the Raiders are going to make a decision, because if they cut him from the team, they only owe him like five million dollars or something next year. That seems like the logical move, but today they're saying that they're going to try to trade him. Obviously, that would be the first step, and I assume nobody's going to pick him up. Connor, you reminded me, first step and I assume nobody's going to pick them up. Connor, you reminded me, there's bad decisions made all the time. Every single offseason there's bad decisions made and we all thought, you know, absolutely not. This is not a good deal for whoever wants to pick it up and if you were to ask this room if someone should trade for him, obviously no. But when you look at maybe a Jared Goff type contract, I feel like that's what you can compare it to.

Like, hey, can we get Derek Carr, and can he do what Jared Goff did for the Lions? And I think some teams, Panthers, who have the nine overall pick, maybe that might be too late to get a quarterback if they don't want to trade up. Maybe they do it. Saints, who don't have a first-round pick, maybe they want to. Tom Brady leaves Tampa Bay. Are the Bucs just going to go with Blaine Gabbert or Kyle Trask? Or maybe they also think, hey, Derek Carr could probably come in here. A lot of weapons. A lot of weapons.

He can probably come in here and do a job good enough where we're still competitive, could go to the playoffs. I just have zero faith in all 32 teams doing the right thing. Obviously there's probably only four or five teams that are going to be looking into Derek Carr. And I just assume, based on previous situations in the NFL with the ones you listed,

with some of the other pretty bad quarterbacks that are good contracts. You talk about Baker, Darnold, Goff, Carson, Matt Ryan, Tannehill. He's a Tannehill contract guy. If you're looking at it from that type of tier, it's like $33 million is a lot, and that would be a one-year deal basically because I think the dead cap is $2 million after next year. So $33 million for a guy who's a vet who maybe you have a young team, and this is the Panther situation kind of where he can come in for a year and it's basically another prove-it deal.

$220 million cap space next year probably is what they're estimating. $33 million for a quarterback isn't that terrible. I just am under the impression that, yeah, a team will spend a third-round pick, fourth-round pick to get Derek Carr and just eat that salary for a year. I think it's a good assumption. Now, that's coming up quick, though. Oh, yeah. February 15th is coming up very, very quick.

And all those teams have a lot of decisions to make. Yeah, because they don't even have a head coach in Carolina. Exactly. That's crazy. Steve Wilks, I assume, would try to get that job or should get that job because the entire team bought in around him. What do you think about that, Chuck? I think you did great, don't you?

I thought he did a great job. Yeah, certainly deserving of that opportunity. How's that process go? You think that because what does Lombardi will join us in about an hour and 10 minutes. Michael Lombardi, you had to hire a coach before. You know what they say,

you get elected. Yeah. Isn't that a thing? You get elected, not. Elected, not selected. Selected, yeah, or something like that. It's almost like a popularity vote

on who becomes the head coach of some teams at some programs, not everywhere, obviously. Steve Wilkes would have to be pretty high up on the popularity vote down there in Carolina as well, probably with the fans and the locker room. Yeah, if ownership listens to players, those guys march in and they start beating the drum for them.

Hey, this is our guy, this is our guy, this is our guy. They can do it. What about fans? That doesn't matter. Tepper found bankruptcy. He don't care. The court of public opinion, they hear it all. Those guys hear it all.

But the ones that are, you know, believing what they believe in, they'll block that out and go with who they think is the best, you know, guy for the job. I mean, look at how the Raiders were with Rich a year ago. They were all wanting Rich, right? Oh, yeah. They wanted the playoffs with Rich. Yeah.

He was one. Hey, Masaccio was really – He was awesome. I completely forgot about that. Yeah. He took They won the playoffs with Rich. Yeah. Everybody was one. Hey, but Satya was really – He was awesome. I completely forgot about that. Yeah. He took them to the playoffs. And Will Compton tells us he wrote handwritten letters to every single player after the season.

Yeah, and then his daughter, I think, released a video of him doing that. Yeah. I think that's what he was doing. His daughter released a video, and he was not happy about it. Even my daughter. Yeah. The way he talks to everything. So Mark Davis had different thoughts.

But if you look at the play, Miami, they're going to the playoffs, right? They're going to Buffalo. They're starting Skyler Thompson. Yeah. Tua, you don't know what's going to happen to Tua if he's ever going to play again. Teddy Bridgewater, they don't need a quarterback. You don't think they'd look at – somebody's going to do it, to Connor's point. Oh, and McDaniel, Derek Carr, perfect for us. Yeah for us yeah hey all you got to do is just get to a spot

right throw it yeah car can do that car can sling it a bit yeah get the ball in you know the hands of decision making though i guess right isn't that kind of a question every once in a while yeah i mean you can throw the fuck out of the box yes decision but if it's just scheme right all placement yeah all placement is big tour tourua, the thing about Tua, he's great timing and very good intermediate accuracy. Derek Carr, definitely a lot of room to improve there, but to Connor's point,

it's such a quarterback needy league and a quarterback driven league at the same time. Dolphins. Alright, let's look around. February 15th is when we assume this has to happen because of the $5 million thing with the Raiders. They're probably going to cut him by then. Connor, you're in as a yes, he will get traded.

Yeah, I'm in the yes camp. Connor, yes. Not Dolphins, though. You gave quite a good, like if this was like a trial, you laid out a great argument. Good examples, good comps. We think much differently about Carr. Yeah, it's just... Good examples, good comps. We think much differently... The whole thing. ...about Carr. Yeah, salary cap.

It was a fucking fantastic... It's actually very elegant. It was very elegant, actually. It was unbelievable. Yeah, but again, I would not touch... And by the way, he did that to me earlier this morning whenever I said, nobody's fucking trading for Derek Carr right now

with that much money. Conor... Patty. And then that whole thing just happened. You laid it out even better the second time. You got me. Somebody's traded. I'm going to vote.

We have too much faith in, you know, these organizations making good decisions. Like, there is. We wouldn't touch Derek Carr. We don't know if it's a good decision until it happens, right? Every decision could be a good decision. We have no idea. But we wouldn't touch Derek Carr with a 10-foot pole. I think that is our.

Would you rather have him or Mac? I'd rather have no idea. But we wouldn't touch Derek Carr with a 10-foot pole. I think that is our... Would you rather have him or Mac? I'd rather have Jimmy G. That wasn't the question. And that's who the Dolphins are going to get, by the way. McDaniel, reunion, Jimmy G. Perfect. Offense. Tom Brady going to the Raiders.

Boom. Josh McDaniels, reunion. Bang. Derek Carr to the Bucs. That's simple. Reunion with... I like it. ...the warm weather... Byron Lefkowitz. Boom. Bang. Derek Carr to the Bucs. That's simple. Reunion with the warm weather.

Byron Lefkowitz. Boom. Bang. They love each other. Powell. Tom Bowles. Byron may get a job, though. By who?

What position? Head coach? Yeah. He's on short list. Really? Yeah. Good for Byron. Former player.

Let's go. For sure. That offense was explosive this year, too. You're talking about Gerard Mayo. It makes sense. Listen, if people were getting jobs because they hung out with Sean McVay for a half a day, I'd assume offense coordinators who are working with Tom Brady are going to potentially get an opportunity to get a shot out there. How about those guys, too?

Zach Taylor and Kevin O'Connell. It's like the guys who hung out with Sean McVay for a day, actually. Cliff Kingsbury was also in that realm. Yeah. So he has been fired, but he did get an extension. He's paid for the next five years or whatever, living well. But Kevin O'Connell is – nobody talks about Kevin O'Connell. No.

This is his first year. Yeah. This is his fucking first year. Same team. And they just – he won 13 games. He only won 13 games. Yeah. Why talk about it?

They're going to get better. He won four games. Yeah. A lot of close games. And that may be the thing that can hurt, like, even the Versace last year or Steve Wilkes this year. Yeah. Because a lot of these owners, you see kind of the blueprint with McVay.

Like, you want to get, like, one of these, like, Ben Johnson, great name going around. You want to get one of these savvy offensive guys, get him with a quarterback. Because that way, if you get a head coach that's an offensive guy, that guy's going to be with that quarterback, you know, for however long you want him to, ownership. If you go the other way around, let's say you go defensive or special teams at the top, you get a nice offensive coordinator, he has a couple good years, he's out of there. Like Ben Johnson already, everybody wants him to be a head coach.

One year he had with Jared Goff in that offense. So that may hurt, like, the special teams, the defensive guys, but Steve Wilkes having that team buy in like he did after trading away C-Mac, trading away Robbie Anderson and still fighting, playing meaningful games in December and January, that was a great, I think, great coaching job. Your point, D-Butts, do people pause now because of what happened in Denver with Hackett?

Because that doesn't guarantee it wasn't called. Some people might. I mean, you're trying to find a needle in a haystack sometimes to me with that. I think if you watched it, it was rust, man. Between the ears, it was rust. I'm just saying like ownership, going back and saying, okay, we were on this offensive quarterback whisperer because of Sean McBain, and then everybody's looking for the next Sean, next Sean, next Sean.

I don't know. Well, Kevin O'Connell might be, to be honest. Yeah. And Zach Taylor seemingly has it with Joe Burrow. But there's a lot of fails in that. Absolutely. What that brings, though, to kind of just add on to everything you just laid out perfectly there, Brandon Staley said,

we're going to play an exciting brand of football. Yes. So if you're an owner and you're hiring, too, Brandon Staley said we're going to play an exciting brand of football. So if you're an owner and you're hiring to, and to your point about them getting hired away and getting taken away, Ben Johnson, I mean, I didn't even know this guy existed until MCDC mentioned his name this year when he was talking about is he going to give up play-calling duties. I really liked whatever he said. Exactly.

He said Ben wants it too. It's going to be a fight. We kind of learned about this guy. He has an incredible year. A lot of fourth and one creative design calls and got the team obviously rolling towards the end there and he's going to be gone so now they got to find another one of those and that's like the owners like i want exciting brand of football i want to be able to keep that because that's good business i don't know if it's necessarily going to win you a Super Bowl, though, because I think, like, Niners right now, the Niners are a fucking old-school football team. Yeah, complete team.

Shanahan's completely different than McVay, but he's still kind of in that younger coach generation. Yeah, offensive. Same trick. When he won with Brady, obviously offensive. What Kansas City and Andy Reid has been doing with Mahomes, offensive guy. So, I mean, Belichick.

Eagles right now. Yeah, seriously. So, I mean, obviously you've got to get good fucking players. McDermott's a defense. Yeah, McDermott. McDermott. But to your point, same deal. Like, there's a good chance.

Ken Dorsey. Ken Dorsey. Yeah, Dable just got a head coaching job. Ken Dorsey's probably going to – he might be gone in the next one to two years. Now you have Josh Allen, his third coordinator, and three years as an MVP caliber quarterback. Connor Campbell just mentioned something. Yeah, that's what the Colts need.

They need Ken Dorsey today. The guy that's fucking freaking out when something doesn't work. Can't be doing that in front of the team, obviously, but I like that type of passion. Love it. Need that in the building. Very nice building. Could get nicer.

Whatever moves you want to make with the Indianapolis Colts practice facilities to all the coaches out there. Chuck brought in a couple of tubs, changed some things. Frank Wright came in and built on a trend. We'll pay the taxes on that. No big deal. Yeah, exactly. If I have to.

Doug. Come on. What? Delivery. What do you mean? Yes. If I have to. Doug. Come on. What? Delivery. What do you mean? Yes. We are excited to help out so our team be good. Absolutely.

If they're good, take my fucking taxes. I don't mind at all. But if they're bad, that's when I start to have a gripe with the team. Remember, there's a volleyball tournament happening. AFC Championship weekend. Jacked up. By the way, that's official. I'm not even going to watch the game. Atlanta will be the home of the neutral, AFC Championship weekend. Jacked up. By the way, that's official. I'm not even going to watch the game.

Atlanta will be the home of the neutral site AFC Championship game if it is to be played between the Bills and the Chiefs. And I think Bengals fans are getting real pissed off that we're even chatting about it because they're like, they're just acting like this is the thing. We're not acting like that. This is just news that is happening because of everything that took place. The Atlanta Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which is built for the year 2070, maybe.

Looks like a fucking alien spaceship. At the top of it, there's a little sphincter that opens up. That's right. Gorgeous. Gorgeous stadium. Phenomenal stadium. Can't say it enough how nice it is. Will host the neutral site AFC Championship game.

Good spot. A lot of easy flights to Atlanta. For sure. Being a hub for Delta? Yeah. And American? I was going to say, I think it's the busiest airport in America. It's Delta hub for sure.

But it probably hubs a bunch of other things. Flights to Atlanta are easy. That's why they host so many things. It's very easy to get to because of how big their airport is. They do it right there. The city's ready, hotel-wise, for basically everything. And it's a beautiful stadium. So they will host the AFC Championship if it is to be that way,

even though we are not saying that is going to be the case. No. Bengals could easily make it. We love the Bengals. Oh, yeah. Bengals are the chiefs kryptonite. It's the world's largest airline hub in America. Boom.

World's largest airline hub. Sorry, world's largest airline hub and is considered the first mega hub in America. Okay. That is a big fucking airport. Mega hub. Yeah. Mega. All right, let's get to a break.

Take a couple trains in there. We got a mega convo coming up on the other side. Hell yeah. I thought you were going to say call me. Hey, Jay. If anyone's calling me here, it's you. I'm not calling me. Why is he calling me?

Boston calling me? Are you kidding me? Well, there was that clip of him saying, I love China. Because I've been to China and walked a great wall. Sorry, I'm cultured. I've been to the Forbidden City. You want to talk about heritage? Yeah.

Don't talk to me about China heritage. McGee was awesome. Oh, my God. That ring? That's a Marvel. That was sweet. Yeah. It's a Marvel ring.

He's awesome. The Infinity Gauntlet. His daughter got one. Him and Marty asking us directly our thoughts on rednecks as a whole. Yeah. It's kind of funny. What do you guys think about rednecks as a whole? You know, people like me.

Marty's trying to feel out what are we doing? Am I in enemy territory? Yeah. Absolutely not. Are they making fun of me? Marty, we fucking love you, dude. I've never met a person like that. Who's a college football national champion, a Super Bowl champion, a Ryder Cup champion, a COVID survivor, ladies and gentlemen, father of 10, AJ Hall. AJ, how you doing, pal? Oh, I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? Well, fantastic. Now that I

can say this to you. Congratulations on being a part of a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Show. Yeah! I saw that. That's a great clip. Great little, short little clip. I was not sure what to expect when I first clicked on that, but credit to them for finding it. Yeah, shout out.

The unintentional. Can you repeat exactly what you said? Well, it was unintentional. I love how they think. They think it's unintentional. Did you say exactly? Huh? Can you repeat exactly what you said? Well, it was unintentional, so. Yeah. I love how they think. They think it's unintentional. What do you mean? What?

Well, you didn't mean anything. Like, you weren't trying to. I concur. Thank you. Yes, that's not what you sounded like you were saying. They're going to dump semen all over your faces. You didn't say that. Hey, whoa.

What? Is everything okay? How long have you been on the show? Is this 30 seconds in? 30 seconds. You asked me about it. You asked me. Do you want an answer or not?

Great to see you, AJ. We're living a very dumb life. Obviously, we'll continue to do as such. Chuck has been here today. He's been a great, great person for us to ask all these coaching hire conversations. There's something that just came out on the internet here as of the last, I don't know, 10 minutes is when I saw it, I guess, because we just took a break. I could see it. I think it's from today. Sean Payton's talking to Colin Cahill on The Herd on Fox, and he's talking about what he would want to do if he was Kyler Murray's coach.

He gives an incredibly detailed answer about doing research on him, studying film. If you look back at this game against Dallas, he was doing this. Or against the Patriots, they ran a two-gap, he said, where they kept him in the pocket. He wasn't able to be able to do whatever. He broke down everything he said. They keep asking him to be a top-gun pilot and fly that mission underneath a bridge, up over a thing, go all the way down and then flip it upside down and go this is what sean payton's telling colin coward i think what we need

to be doing is just have him fly over kansas just have him flying over iowa let's make it a lot easier for this guy let's make his life not have to be every single play kyler murray has to save the team let's make it a lot so it sounded like Sean Payton was passionately speaking about Kyler and for Kyler. So now it is obviously at a scorching red hot point. Sean Payton's going to the Cardinals. Sounds like he's already the coach of the Cardinals, AJ. And I don't know when that video's from, if that's from today or from previously. But Sean Payton is on record now numerous times talking about how fucking awesome Kyler Murray is.

I guess he said it in week three, but he said that week three, he said the combine he put him over. Sean Payton, the coach of the fucking Cardinals all of a sudden, AJ? I mean, it seems to be without even interviewing yet, right? I would imagine Bidwell, the owner, has to love hearing these comments. But I would think, too, Sean Payton, like I've been around him a decent amount. The guy, obviously, offensive genius. I'm sure he sees Kyler's, like, physical attributes and everything he can do in his arm. He can slang, and he has a quick release.

And he just envisions, like, a thousand different plays. Hey, this is what I can do with this guy. And he just gets excited. So maybe he is. Congrats, Sean. Hopefully you love it out there. Well, and congrats to Kyler. I mean, Phoenix is a beautiful place.

If this is already signed, sealed, delivered, which it seemingly – Sean, though, he comes from the Bill Parcells tree, so Sean does not mess around. He is disciplined. You're doing everything right. You're running full speed in practice. He's good about that. Darius, what did you say in the first hour about that whole situation

with the whole what Kyler probably wants or needs or doesn't in the whole thing? I think a couple people said that's what he needs. He needs somewhat of a hard ass. But more than that is he can – you've got to coach on a professional level with intellect and intelligence, and that's what he's coming with and it's respect that he's a championship level. His numbers, all these record-breaking numbers.

So, to AJ's point, he definitely got 1,000 plays already drawn up on a napkin when you see Kyle and what he can do physically. And, Chuck, you said something along the lines of, like, Sean Payton and most coaches think, like, I can get him. You know, like they weren't he can do physically. Chuck, you said something along the lines of Sean Payton and most coaches think like, I can get him. They weren't able to do it. Let me get my hands on him. I got it. This is kind of the new thing about players that get traded midseason.

Like, oh, they're a problem in that organization, but they come into our culture. We're good. Chuck, you basically said that there's coaches that think like that immediately. Like, well, he if I was coaching him I obviously wouldn't allow him to do this we would have set him up to do this which would have made him believe me a little bit more than this like that is everybody that is the coaching ranks that's the ego I think that's kind of the the mantra almost of a coach I think maybe not to the point to where like you're saying

you know negative stuff about okay cliff and the old staff and what they did okay these are the things they did with them that were really good and then these things where we're talking about the the top gun mission and you know whatever it's not that's what we're not going to that that doesn't fit this kid but it's more i can get out of this kid i can build a relationship with him okay i can build trust with this guy i can hold him account i'm going to teach him to your point i'm not going to mF this kid and go in there loud. I'm a teacher. Okay. You've seen what I've done. My resume speaks for itself. So I can get the best out of Kyla Murray. And I've got a, I've got a bunch of tape that I can look at and say,

this ain't working for him, but this is, and what we've done in the past will work. And I can get, I can get out of this kid. The Sean Payton clip from The Herd is. Yeah. That sounds unbelievable. It's deep. It's like I watch film. If you go back and watch, like, has he been playing a little? It looks like that place is maybe.

I know. I'm tired. You know what I mean? Is this actually quite calculated and cerebral? Yeah. Well, you could probably. I mean, if you have any kind of forethought to what week 10 or so, it's probably like, okay, there's a good chance Kingsbury's getting fired. He just signed an extension, too.

And there was a report, remember, back in the day, or however many weeks ago, that the Raiders weren't able to fire McDaniels because they didn't have enough money to do so. Bidwell's got cash, right? Doesn't he, AJ? He flies his plane all over the place. He's the second generation, right? His dad is the one who bought the team, correct? I think so. I don't know.

What did they make their money from? Real estate, is it? I don't know. How much money have they got? Tone on it. Here we go, Tony. I love looking up fucking net worths. It's got to be two to three at least.

Who knows how accurate they are. I feel like with NFL owners, they're more accurate, probably because it's more on the record. Yeah. His grandfather was the one who bought the team in 1933 when they were the Chicago Cardinals. Third generation. Wow. That's pretty sweet. Arizona's

a great situation, too. He could probably go in and either pick his GM or also be the GM if he really wanted to do that. ZD said early reports of $1.4 billion. He doesn't have as much cake as a lot of other people. No. Whatever the team's worth, though, counts in his net worth usually.

Yeah, but I'm talking about for using money here, you know, to like build. How much disposable cash do you have? How rich are you outside of the team? That's the question. Those facilities, I brought it up earlier to Chuck, and we kind of ended up talking about something completely different. But those facilities from watching hard knocks? Not great.

I mean, come on. You know what I mean? Yeah, it should be better. To get Sean, he can go in and ask, right? But does he have the cash to do it? Sounds like he does, right? Well, I don't know if that was – Z just pulled it up on here. I don't know if it was real, but it said something along the lines of him being – yeah, 10 porous owners.

I remember where he got – he was – That's literally the first article. Okay, so this goes right to what we're speaking of here. Who's the poorest NFL owner? That's where they got their money. They're in the mafia? Fucking Capone. Yeah, I remember when we first talked about Bidwell.

There was a lot of, hey, you guys looking to where the Bidwells got their funds or no? What's going on? As a businessman, he had a blue shirt Charlie. He was icing people. The grandfather. You don't get a nickname like fucking blue shirt Charlie and not know fucking where the bodies are, okay? Something had to happen?

Oh, you got to call blue shirt Charlie. He'll get you into a conversation. Sean just pulled his name out. Sean Payton? Yeah. All right, maybe I don't care. No. Sean ain't tripping.

his name out sean payton yeah all right maybe i don't go there no um the um the conversation about the free cash is a worthy one because the broncos are available yeah and they have the richest owner so article right there about bidwell poorest nfl owners we know who the richest is also looking for a coach and there's no cap for how much you can pay they got it you can pay a head coach what's that they just paid just gave collie that money early you just paid a coach in a gym 10 months and then let him go they are are they trying to trade d hop because of the money or you think it's uh that's probably d hop just stirring it up because he wants more money because the market has went nuts since he's uh signed his deal so he doesn't want to be a – I'm sure he still sees himself as a top five guy, so he doesn't want to – he's probably – who knows where.

That's not part of that conversation. Kind of it is, but Christian Kirk was worth every cent that he made this year. If you win, everybody that you're paying is worth everything that you paid them. All the guys. Jerry Jones said, and obviously – What's going on? What's going on over there or something also. But Jerry Jones said, everything that's ever been worth it, people have told me I overpaid for. Or something like that.

I forget exactly how he laid it out. But, like, at the time of when you pay for something, you have no idea. You have no clue if this is going to be good or not. And that could be anything. So, if you win, like Christian Kirk has been not only incredibly productive for them, but they're winning too, and they're in the playoffs. So it's cool. Whatever happens, happens.

Once you start losing, though, that's when every decision comes into question, and that's kind of the NFL as a whole, I guess, AJ. Yeah, it is. I wonder, though, the fact they gave the GM and the head coach an extension this offseason, and now they're both gone. Does that make them less likely to be able to go out there and hire and try to throw $18 million a year at Sean Payton? Is that real? Raiders

couldn't fire Josh McDaniels because they don't have enough money, you think? You've worked in a Raiders organization, right? Yeah, I mean, they got the Gruden thing still. You know, whatever they paid him, and supposedly gave, you know, Joss 70. And that organization, Mr. Davis, when I was there, Mr. Davis, you know, was still alive. They weren't an organization that had a lot of cash.

That was turning profit. And the Gruden thing is still up in the air, right, because they fired him with cause. I was going to say, I think they got out of it because they fired him for cause. Yeah, and now there's the lawsuit. He could coming back. And they're paying that other staff, and he'd have to pay another staff, and all these guys at Arizona. Jeez.

But if they get Sean, you know, maybe he fixes DeHop too. DeHop made me get a guy like that, keep that guy around. They don't have the money to fire him, said Plaschke, who called the Raiders cash poor. He'll be the coach this year and next year. McDaniels signed a four-year contract with the Raiders this offseason. As most head coaching contracts do, McDaniels' deal includes a buyout, which would have to be activated

in order to fire him. While the precise cost of the buyout is not clear, Plaschke indicates it's far too steep for the Raiders to afford. That was being reported by Plaschke. We know Plaschke. Bill Plaschke We know Plasky. Bill Plasky. Around the horn legend.

I think that's where he said it, too, was on Around the Horn. Probably. I don't think he actually reported it in a paper. I think it was just a comment on Around the Horn. Did he get points? I would assume so. Fucking Reale. I do not know him at all.

I do not know Tony Reale. I do not know Tony Reali. I've never met him. I don't think we've had any interactions. I'd like to let him know. I appreciate his contributions to sports media. Hell yeah. Thank you, Pozzone. He's been doing that show a long time.

Long time. 20 years, isn't it? Like forever. No drama, right? Just fucking dust. No drama. This show is going to show up every single day. I'm going to fucking mute Woody Page's ass whenever I want to.

So hard. Is Woody still on there? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? He picks on Woody. Hey, Woody needs to say better answers. That's right.

Don't you think? That's on Woody. He's a Denver Post guy. He's a Denver guy. Colorado guy. Do you watch Around the Horn or any of the other media stuff? Tony does. What's wrong, Tony? What's going on? Why is your face like that of the other media stuff? Tony does. What's wrong,

Tony? What's going on? Why is your face like that and why did Nick say Tony does that? There's something brewing right now. There's something going on. Pittsburgh boys. It's not for these airwaves. Oh! We got a beef. You square off

mid-stage. How about Nick from the back row, actually? Tony. Tony watches the show. I noticed the way he was acting here the past couple minutes. It's quite suspicious. What's up, Tone? What's up, Tone?

Did you lose on Around the Horn? What happened? I did. I did. You lost on Around the Horn? What happened, Tone? Kyle, was y'all beating our ass in FaceTime? Dude, was it Woody Page?

He punked you? What happened? Well, no, no. We love Woody, okay? We've always loved Woody. I love Around the Horn, too. I don't know what next I'm going to make. That sounds like a baby voice.

This dude wasn't even able to cook up a legit excuse. This guy has the ability to cook one of those up quicker than any human on earth. Maybe tied with you, Connor, whenever it comes to something. He had a bad excuse. Something's real there. Something is up. We'll move on for the sake of the COVID cowboy and his uncomfortableness. But did you fight Tony or Ollie?

Yeah, what happened? No, no, no. I've never even met the guy. Never even met the guy. Something happen on Twitter? No, no. I'd never have one interaction with the guy. What would he page send me?

What the hell is going on? I'm an awful defenseman. Is everything okay, Tony? I can see you rattled like this. Yeah. Thank you, Darius. We're all kind of flustered by this. What's going on here? It's fine. Thank you, coacharius. We're all kind of flustered by this. What's going on here?

It's fine. Thank you, coach. No, you're saying that like, hey, move on. You're trying to coach me. It's 2023. I'm a new person. I'm not doing it anymore. Here we go.

Okay, we're getting somewhere. Doing what and why? Yep. That's not real. Who is that? Oh, yes. That's not Woody. Who is that?

That's Woody, baby. No. That's amazing. Just a midlife. I got to start watching the show again. It's a midlife crisis. Is that when he started? No, that's not a risk.

Who is that person? Can you zoom in? Stop, stop. What the hell is going on? Woody Page looks good, bro. I like it, Woody. Woody looks sweet. Bro. What? AJ, have. Woody looks sweet. Bro.

What? AJ, have you ever seen what we look like on a screen every single day? I don't want to judge Woody Page. Woody Page is living. But you're, oh, yes. It sounded like a rocket was taking off over there, over the photo of Woody Page. I appreciated that reaction. But they've been doing that show a long time.

Long time. Now I can't get off it. I want to know what the hell is going on. Tone, just come on. Spit it out. Tony on Tony crying. We're 12 days into 2023. Yeah, I can't.

I mean, I made a promise to myself. Except on Thursdays. What happened? Nick knows, obviously. I honestly don't. It's just when his name came up, he made some kind of weird face, and he looked around, and I was like, that doesn't seem right. Oh, obviously. I honestly don't. It's just when his name came up, he made some kind of weird face, and he looked around, and I was like, that doesn't seem right. Oh, so Nick, big brother, eyes in the sky.

I looked right at you because I thought we were on the same page. About what? Same page about what, Tony? Let's move on. This is unbelievable. I'm sure this won't be the last time we speak about it, so you need to start cooking up at least an excuse to get you out of this. It has just become a thing now.

This is going to... What? Again? What is happening? This is going to be tough to let go of. Something I need to know. Is this like on the plane when Tone was in and out of consciousness for three straight hours? Remember, he's dead asleep, his head falling, and he'd wake up and give you an answer?

TCU sucks, bro. Besides Ty's seat, it was the second worst seat on the play by far. Tone had to sit on a bench, obviously, like this, sideways. So tired. He had his hands in front of him, and his head was just sitting like this. He had nothing on the side of him. And we'd be having a conversation and he would yeah that that's yeah he said that and then 35 minutes would pass and then he would answer a

question for 20 minutes ago it's like tony i don't think you know you've been asleep for the last like 30 minutes now did something happen during that whole con they did it with you and tony real what happened to you and tony r? What is happening with you and Tony Rioli? Just say it, Diggs. It's like he's all sweaty and uncomfortable. What's happening? I've never been. Sweaty or uncomfortable? I mean, no. Neither.

Remember when he said he never had wet socks on? And then maybe the next day he stepped in a puddle. That was a mistake. My socks have never been wet before. How could you say that? Look at this guy. Hey, Lozano.

Hey, Tony! Tony! I wanted to be Tony growing up. Yeah, but something happened along the way is what we're trying to figure out. Come on. I wanted to be Tony growing up. Envious? Tony looks good.

He does. That's a good program. It is. Look at that. There's the mute button right there. What do you page? You get to Chuck. You see that? Yep. Boom. Does Tony do anything else? I could see him hosting shows on networks and stuff. Yeah, dude. He's Stat Boy on PTI as well. Still? No, I don't think so. What? That's where I started.

I saw him there. He was doing it. Dodgeball games, all that stuff. If there's a show, I would think he'd be in the running to be the host. I think that's why I'm so impressed because he is a guy who could certainly do whatever. He's very talented, and he's just stayed committed to around the horn. I respect that so much. I respect it so much. Yeah, but why doesn't Diggs?

This is what we need to know. So confusing. Why doesn't Diggs what? Respect? Respect it so much because we all do. How good that guy looks. Tell him, what's the deal? Is he too handsome? No. I respect

handsome. I respect his handsomeness. I respect Tony Reale as a paisan. What don't you respect? Something happened? He muted somebody? He said something about somebody? He had a take against Ben Roethlisberger? Something happened against Roethlisberger? Reale's got a good spot because he doesn't have to give takes because, you know, he's just judging.

Was this a recent transgression? Past two or three years, maybe? Could have been around that time. What is – Was it – Was it – Did he put a mask on? Was someone on there?

Did Israel Gutierrez hurt you, Tony? I'm getting closer now. Oh, man. This is certainly something about the Vax. Yes. Oh. That's exactly what I mean. We should have known.

We should have known. Okay. Okay, got it. All right, say no more. That's why this is 2023. I'm not doing it anymore. He's pushing Pfizer on everybody. Something like that.

Okay. Yeah, because Tony was showing up in, like, political comment sections. I'm a Moderna guy, and I hear reality on Around the Horn, I assume. Oh, my God. I'm so happy we got there. And good for you saying you're not doing it anymore. Yeah. We apologize.

We apologize for even, you know, forcing you to get back. You are. I had to. I don't know what that means. Uh-oh. even, you know, forcing you to get back. You are. I had to. I don't know what that means. Uh-oh. Oh, here it is. Boom.

So February 12th is when you turned on him, huh? I don't think that would be the. All right. Let's move on. Tony, you're a special human being. Thank you. And Tony Reale, you are too. Love you, Tony.

Both of them. What a moment. I'm not doing it anymore. Can't help himself. Every screenshot he gets from some friend that doesn't work here, of him, his name being talked about in a comment section of some Politico article. He's like, I fucking can't do that anymore. I don't want that.

That's not what I want to be. I just want to be a doofus on stage saying maybe voice stuff. Not doing it in 2023. Here we are 12 days in, Tony Reale. Boom. Tons are shaking. Sick of being called a right-wing wacko. Can't do it. I can't do it. I'm not doing it. I forgot. That gimmick stayed in 2022.

The gimmick's done. The gimmick's done. But he did. He couldn't. He was starting to visibly get upset. Veins in his neck bulging when Nick gave us the two to three year timeline oh yeah well Nick is also

the one that pointed this out yeah he knew I looked right at him I thought he Nick is that friend who is ordering you know Pizza Hut 10 a.m.

sure what do you think? you guys don't want it? you know what I mean? and one half? he's bringing the donuts had a great that's hockey talk

last night. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Wow. Linda Cohen, unfortunately, joined the likes of Barry Melrose, stood us up. She had something to do. What happened?

She had something to do. She had something to do. She'll be back on another time. Absolutely. Is she pooping? Just when I, I don't, we don't know. I don't think for the entirety of the entire,. She probably had to say, she's awesome. I'm a big Linda Cohen fan.

Oh, yeah. I would like that to be known. That's why I was excited she was coming on. But instead, you guys had... Mike Kelly from the NHL Network. Big analytics guy. He said a couple good things about the Pens, so I like him. He said you guys stink.

Yeah, well, we're 33-4-4, so I don't really care what anybody says. AJ, you paying attention to the Chicago team? The owner. No, I'm taking it. No, Chicago, no question. My brother-in-law. But Vegas and Stoner, man, they're looking good. Toughest barn in the league. Okay, well.

That's what I'm talking about, baby. That's what I'm talking about. Are you a puppet? Have some original thoughts. Are you a parrot? Ty got to him on the plane. I did. Primetime hockey tonight.

ESPN, Red Wings are playing the Maple Leafs. Why? It's going to be a great one. Why did ESPN do this? Good luck. No wonder it's not. All right, let's get back into some NFL. Are you still watching the hockey?

No, not yet. I thought Panther stink. I thought you said Florida Panthers. Playoff time. Is F1 still going on? No, but Drive and Survive season five. Oh, yeah, the golf one. Yeah, we stink. Playoff time. Is F1 still going on? No, but Drive and Survive season five. Oh, yeah, the golf one. Yeah, the golf one.

Full swing. Full swing's coming. The Formula One, February 24th, the premier. But that golf one, full swing does look awesome. Hold on. This is seasonal. Yeah, so it'll be this past season. Yeah, I didn't know that.

Season five. That's really what made it take off in the States, at least, once Liberty Media bought F1. And then they started the they started they got that old stooge out right d but the old stooge was like was was not willing to put it on netflix or do anything like that and the new people came in boom the thing is gigantic that's how d but became a fan no actually i call it race on espn first like the pre-race coverage honestly when you start you know getting a little background on the guys, watch the race. And I'm like, oh, shit, this shit is kind of dope.

And I remember people talking about it a lot on Twitter, didn't really dive into it. Then I went back, and that was good. I got in late because I was able to kind of binge the first three, four seasons. And it kind of caught you right up to this season. So now, hopefully, I might be in that month. Oh! I tried to walk across the camera a couple times. I might be in there. Oh! What?

Oculus. I went to a couple races. The Oculus NFL game? Mm-hmm. Who's calling plays? Darius Butler. Status Pro. Just didn't tell us about it.

Formula One, Drive to Survive, Season 5, Episode 3. Who's in there? Darius Butler. Look at your cameos. Come on, D-Butt. Miami and Austin. Whenever at your cameos. Some on D-butt. Miami and Austin. Whenever they cover those races. Their golf one's coming out 15th.

That one's going to dominate. Is that this month or next month? Next month. Oh, so that's the day we find out about Derek Carr. Yeah, actually, it's the Tuesday or Wednesday after the season. Same day. That's going to be awesome. Oh, yeah.

Can't wait. What a year to start. That's what old buddy said, actually. Ian Poulter, yeah. And then they had Brooks Koepka shooting hoops at his house. Oh, yeah. Can't wait. What a year to start. That's what old buddy said, actually. Ian Poulter, yeah. And then they had Brooks Koepka shooting hoops at his house. Yeah, Brooksie. So they also follow in Liv?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Dustin Johnson. This was before the Liv stuff started. Yep. Yeah. They started filming before any of the Liv stuff. We're going to see the whole process. Yeah.

Yeah. Dustin Johnson. No way. Yeah. They got so lucky. We got so lucky. Yeah, we did. That was intentional.

This is what a lot of sportsmen do. That was a game plan for the live guys. Shout out to them. I was just told maybe, by the way. I would believe that. No, it was for sure. Everything's a work. Don't get worked.

But if it's a shoot, you should treat it like a work. And that's for shoot you should treat it like a work and that's for shoot brother we're getting an update that we get early access to this thing really okay okay look at us now we're talking huh come on all right here we go we'll see it good we'll certainly watch it we'll definitely yeah that's what we do. You know, AJ? You did that with Avatar, right? I seen the first two hours, ten minutes of that there. I missed the last hour, but I will see it at some point. I can tell you it right now if you want.

I think it's been long enough. It's grossed over $2 billion. You could probably just give away the entire movie. Start from the beginning, please. Okay, so at the beginning of the movie, they go right into after the first one. And they fast forward about 15 years where Jake Suley and... Whoa, whoa, whoa. No spoilers.

No spoilers. Jeez. But Jake Suley... I wonder if you just took like 30 minutes there. Could have done it. Who was the dude that Jim Carrey played? Andy Kaufman. Andy Kaufman, if he had this particular platform, I think, amongst other things, would have him actually do that for 45 minutes straight.

Just out of nowhere, make everybody else just sit there and do it. Do you know anything about him, Kaufman? Yeah, I've heard people talking about him and seen different things. Yeah, he would get on stage and just read a book for like 45 minutes. 45 minutes? Four hours. Yeah. Dude read a fucking book for four yeah just

like this guy you know like bizarre like weird bizarre stuff at all times so like obviously people describe him as brilliant and an insane lunatic idiot whatever however you want to view it fine line yeah but he used to um he you know how static would come up on TVs? He would actually put that into a show, stop it so people would have to get up and hit the thing. And then he would have to sit down and then he would play it again. So it felt like the, yeah, like he would do that type of shit. What was his character he dressed up as? As a different person and never claimed it was him. Yeah, the super mean guy, Italian fella.

No offense. Older guy, yeah. Of course. No offense. Back when they hated all of us. We're wearing No offense. Older guy, yeah. Of course. No offense. Back when they hated all of us. We didn't. Yeah, coming after his own. Yeah. That's what's

wrong with everybody. The enemy's always within, Coach. Enemy's always within your own camp. You've taught me that. Yeah. Yeah. You don't win them, you lose them. It's always in your own camp. Alright, let's get into the playoffs because we got you here. Hell yeah. What are the messaging you think going on for the teams right now?

If you were sitting at a spot like with Brock Purdy as your quarterback, who is on a team that has been absolutely dominant, and he's Mr. Irrelevant, there's no way anybody could have expected him to be able to perform the way he has been able to perform, and the Niners to be in the position that they're in which a lot of people call them fucking these guys gonna win the Super Bowl oh yeah can Mr. Irrelevant rookie court he's not going to be the offensive rookie of the year we had discussion earlier about that because didn't play enough

I guess is what people are going to say if this fucking guy doesn't blink in the playoffs what are we saying about Brock Purdy you think like think, like five years from now? He's a dude, right? Absolutely. I mean, he doesn't have to do anything but what he's been doing. You've got the best defense in the playoffs, best defense in the league. You've got Kittle. What? McCaffrey.

What? Ayoub. What? Debo. What? Just facilitate. That's all he's been doing. Just hand it off.

Great run scheme. Kyle's going to scheme up everybody. Just run the offense. And don't try to do anything outside the norm. You don't got to be a hero. Just get the ball to these playmakers. Let our defense run this damn thing. Yeah. Think he throws the 200?

Great question. Or maybe putting a parlay together right thing. Yeah. Think he throws for 200? Great question. Or maybe putting a parlay together. He doesn't have to. Boom. That's the worry. Sorry, D-Butt. Yeah. They had Jimmy throw the ball six times in a fucking championship game.

You know what I mean? Like, playoffs, we're just trying to win. You were at the game, Pat, right? When these guys last played in December? What did he throw for in that game? A lot. Kittle. Over 200. And Christian. They get so much yard after the catch, though. His guys are so good.

He's had over 200 yards every single time he's played, I think, except for last week. Last one, 31. And 178. But I just worry that Shanahan in the playoffs, he's not, I think, except for last week. Last one, 31. He had 178. 13 blowouts. But I just worry that Shanahan in the playoffs, he's not going to be scared to just fucking, hey,

if we can run this rock, let's just. Yeah, let's just run it. Because it's playoffs. We don't give a fuck how this looks, what we do. We are just trying to win this game and move on. Here's what he's done in his regular season career. 178, 284, 234, 217, 185, 210, and then 66, obviously, is what he started with. He's thrown for 1,374 yards, 67% completion, 13 tuds, four interceptions, 107. This fucker's unbelievable.

Oh, yeah. Very, very good. What if they win the Super Bowl? They're saying he's not going to win Offensive Rookie of the Year because that's a regular season award. Yeah. Darius, what were you saying about that? He just hasn't played enough, right?

Yeah, I said if he played half the season, it would be a runaway because it is a quarterback dream. Or maybe shit if he was drafted higher. If he was a top ten pick, top five pick, he would probably be a favorite. But Kenneth Walker had a great year in Seattle. Garrett Wilson had a great year in New York. Micah's pushing for him, right? Olave.

Micah's pushing for Garrett, I think. Yeah, he is. Olave, especially when you think about the quarterback situation in New York, and then you think about that media market. I think Wilson will win it. But with Purdy's done. That's a good point you just bring up there. If Purdy's number five overall pick

and he was just waiting for his time and then he put him in and then he does what he does, offensive rookie of the year. Yeah, probably right. Because the hype would have been, this guy's going to be able to do this. This is the future of the program. This is the franchise. But instead of seventh round pick, Mr. Elvin, we didn't know he existed.

So what are you going to do when you win a Super Bowl with this guy? What are you doing with Trey Lance? So that's yesterday. Who was talking? Was it Rapp yesterday? Who was it? Lombardi, I think. No.

Somebody said – oh, David Lombardi. Sorry. Lombo, Michael Lombardi will join us here in about 20 minutes. David Lombardi at Lombardi himself of San Fran said they view their quarterback position like most people view the running back position like stable almost like need and it worked out for him this year he said in his opinion brock purdy would not have been the brock purdy that we have seen as of late whenever trey lance goes out and jimmy g comes into play he said that he thinks that obviously brock purdy needed the needed the Jimmy G era there in his rookie season to watch how he operated in the offense that got him to where he was.

We don't know how legit that is. We did not have eyes on the situation. I'm just going to say Purdy would have been good whenever the fuck you put him in because that's what Purdy has seemingly done. But I think it did give him more time to learn the offense, see how it all goes. He and Jimmy G are a little bit more similar in playing styles,

and he can do his thing. But nonetheless, that fucking guy unbelievable how do you take the reins away from him if this is what he was able to accomplish when the team didn't even know he existed the offense was not shaped around him at all he's only going to learn more and more concepts be able to check he's going to understand things more I don't know how you take it away from him AJ I don't know how you do it well I would imagine that the Niners front office is thinking that a little bit, but they're like, hey, you know what? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. That is a great problem to have.

If we're thinking, hey, we won the Super Bowl, this kid. Can you imagine Brock Purdy at the Super Bowl celebration? That dude, I think, will light that place up. His roommates. Yeah, it would be a Stravolski at the Grey Cup type situation. Seventh-round pick, Mr. Irrelevant. I was picked 222. I think I got like 52,000 signing bonus.

That was back in 2009. Not bad. Bought an Escalade. Money didn't come for a couple months. Almost had to – Escalade almost got repoed. That was the whole situation, obviously. And I wasn't supposed to have money. Still not.

And we learned that lesson very quickly. But that Escalade was sweet. Nick, wasn't it that's great it was awesome to this day i wish maybe the best part black 24s oh yeah it was the greatest nice peanut butter inside oh pristine i mean we're talking easy to drive to the newer escalades they just fucking have so many but it's a spaceship i don't have time i don't have time to do all that it just had a couple of different things had everything you needed we did see that escalate in the uh santa monica the new one that was murdered out that was maybe the fucking sweetest looking car ever so i had the old school version

of that pretty much i drove it like it was a fucking Civic, too. That thing was back and forth to Pittsburgh every week. We're driving it to death. What a time. Anyways, Brock Purdy signing bonus can't be a lot. His contract's not going to be a lot. They know that. Trey Lance, obviously he was a high draft pick. They can continue to have him.

I mean, it's a good situation for them. But if I'm Brock Purdy, I think obviously he was Mr. Irrelevant. He's always going to have the chip on his shoulder and everything like that. He's only going Brock Purdy, I think obviously he was Mr. Irrelevant. He's always going to have the chip on his shoulder and everything like that. He's only going to get better, I think. He obviously is from Iowa? No, he's not from Iowa, but he went to Iowa State. Oh, why didn't he go to Iowa? Because we didn't fucking want

him and he couldn't beat Iowa. So why would we take a guy who can't beat Iowa? So you and Saban were both wrong? No, I wasn't wrong. He's not from the state. We didn't need him. I'm trying to think of who we had at the time. We might have had Nate Stanley. The offense is very prolific. Yeah, AJ, good call on that Iowa Hawkeyes offense.

Part of you wouldn't have been able to. Well, back then, Iowa, you know, was going to the Rose Bowl. So, this ain't the Iowa of this last year, you know. I mean, we had C.J. Beathard, who also used to be a 49ers quarterback. So, again, we can, you know, give him all the flowers we want. I mean, shit, he's got Kittle. He's got fucking IU. He's got Christian McCaffrey.

He's got Eliza Mitchell. Yeah, all the guys Chubby mentioned. I do like him, though. I do. He's not, you know, if he was from Iowa and chose Iowa State over Iowa, then I'd be like, yeah, this guy's a shit heel. He sucks. But that's not the case.

He's from Arizona. Exactly. So there you go. But also, with, like, the limited amount of in-game reps, and even if they don't win the Super Bowl this year, how do you start Trey Lance over him next year? I don't know. There's people that have really got Trey Lance's back on the internet, though,

because they always say that I bash Trey Lance. I don't bash Trey Lance. I just don't know if Trey Lance is Trey Lance. We have no idea what Trey Lance is going to be, I think. We're in an experimental phase with him. He had made some great plays. There were some plays that were obviously not pretty that are on prime time.

He can do things that not a lot of humans can do. I think he's a dog. I think I'm a big fan of his. But it seems like when other quarterbacks are playing, they're having a lot more success for that team. And Brock Purdy just got there, too. We don't know what he could potentially be. You have no idea what he could potentially be.

Now, is he shorter than Trey Lance? Of course. Is he a little bit undersized? But he's proven that that's not a problem. How many games until they've got a book on you? Like Brock Purdy, how many games until the defense, you know, obviously all offseason you can prepare for quarterbacks that you're going to play and nobody could have prepared for Brock Purdy in the NFL.

That's what, two, three weeks, four weeks? Yeah, you got it. They got it now. Yeah. And he's still having success? Yeah. A lot of it. I mean, look, you've got a good coach, obviously,

and then with great players. We talk about all the skill positions, but AQ Ships have been showing what they've been doing in the trenches as well. And that's where games are lost, on both sides of the ball. So, you got a defense that's getting off the ball, getting you more possessions so you're not stressed about that, not giving up a bunch of big plays. Great run game.

Elijah Mitchell been in there as well. Been that downhill guy. And then players that not only are good players, but they can be anywhere. You know, you can line up C-Mac anywhere. You can line Deebo up anywhere. The fullback, Juice, you can line Juice up anywhere. So he's in a great, great situation right now. He's got the best tackle in football protecting him. Who's best friends with the best rusher in the NFL.

That's what we learned yesterday, right? Yeah. Trenton Boser just chopping it up postgame. What were they playing? Did they just sit cards or did they just sit? He said they were just talking ball. Talking ball, chopping it up. Imagine taking tape off.

Trade secrets. Man, you got four sacks today? Yeah. That's a fucking big game. How about you? You had ten pancakes. Man, we're pretty fucking good. And somebody walks by, hey, what's up, man?

How about that fucking guy? Kittle. What a moment. Those two are just the best in the game. Yeah. Do they one-on-ones, do you think? Would you have those two one-on-one with each other in training camp? Hell yeah.

How often? Camp, yeah. Absolutely. Training camp, absolutely. Need it, right? Yep. Got to. That's the time where you callous your hands, you harden the knuckles.

It's the only time you have an have an opportunity and what does that mean that means you you feel like you have to get past the identity of of your football team and chuck how tough was it when the new cba rules and you can't like you used to be able to like day one of when i came into the league day one of camp full pads two practices each one two and a half three hours long like banging the whole time. Then they changed that. You can't wear pads as much. How did that change it for you? No, it's huge.

I mean, you've got a ramp-up period. It was like you get a day off in this new thing. It was like, okay, we do, okay, nothing, just a team meeting and whatever. And then you go out and you're in shorts and you can do a little bit, maybe do a condo test, conditioning test. Then the next day it was maybe helmets. And then you had pads, and then you had to give them a day off. So it's just like right when you want to start ramping it up.

Couldn't have to build up a little football body. Hammering them, come down, and it goes, tomorrow's a day off. You realize that, right? You're like, what the hell? I mean, think about trying to develop young players, trying to develop a quarterback in these times. Because the offseason is nothing. The offseason is, I mean, nothing.

Who's going to be able to adjust to it the best, you think? Old school guys, young school guys? This is like a young school thing, but will young school teams ever be able to beat old school teams? They know who they are, like the Shanahans. I mean, he's got a system. They draft to that system. They know exactly what they're going to be offense and defense. They have their identity.

They know exactly what they want in a player, the character of a player. They've got that. It's all in place, so they just plug and play guys. And the coaches that can be most efficient with their time. Like Chuck was talking about, you've got them in such small amounts of time, so if you're just coming in there and you're wasting time with shit, most efficient with their time. Like Chuck was talking about, you got them in such small amounts of time. So if you're just coming in there and you're wasting time with shit, like if you're getting good walkthroughs, you're getting good meetings,

getting good efficient practices, those are going to be the teams that – and that's the players too who are in these different meeting rooms, who are your captains, who is kind of driving that culture. AJ, do you think you would have felt too soft if you were in the modern-day training camp? Did you need the – I feel like some guys say they hate it. Training camp was hated by everybody, and I'm only saying that because I was all right. Am I in training camp? I was all right.

No, no, but the hitting, the pounding on each other. The big dudes, the big fucks were always seemingly like, tomorrow we're doing full pads. And that's how they live their whole lives pretty much. It's not out of the ordinary. But I was okay, you know, so I got a chance to kind of chat with everybody a lot of guys felt like they needed it right like it wasn't that something that people thought they needed was the banging a little bit to get into football shape or no yeah i think guys need it up to a

point and then there's always like all right here we go i think we're ready like that's how how most guys feel but it definitely changed like it's your It's like, how do you handle it mentally as well? Like I know in high school, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at school, like I was in a deep depression knowing, Hey, I'm going to be in full pads for three hours going both ways, just killing each other. And then Thursday everyone was, it was pretty like a, Hey, in a light, I could bounce around and actually be a student because we were only wearing shoulder pads that day, still banging, but just, we didn't wear pants on Thursday.

And the pants are certainly uncomfortable.'s all life yeah and you know if you're wearing pants then that means we're going to the ground too yeah and that means you're gonna have to get back up every single fucking time and the ground is obviously unforgiving you said you like training camp because getting away getting away yeah you're kind of getting away kind of building that you know team camaraderie whatever and then um whatever you do whatever your off-season regimen is, it's not playing football. So however great a shape you come in at, you start, you know,

after the first couple days, like Chuck Link, you're going to be sore in different areas you weren't sore in. And you just get kind of back used to that routine. And then you kind of find out, obviously you spend a lot of time around your different guys, different teammates, so you find out more about those guys, more about the coaches. And then you go, and it's so, I feel like we were in training camp for like two three weeks towards the end of the career and like aj said i felt like it was a full month first getting in in real two days um you don't get that now so you need guys who are actually

going home with the ipad who are actually coming into the next day asking questions about the installs and stuff like that and you don't have have a lot of that these days anymore, I'm thinking. And I think that's why we're getting, I would say, in my opinion, a lower quality of football overall. Okay. Whoa. So that came up in conversation a couple years ago whenever they limited how much practice could happen.

But then points were going because rules were changing, so things were going good. So it almost made that conversation null and void. Bringing it back up right now I think is a great discussion piece. I didn't even think about that. Do you think that is potentially why there's a lot of bad football this year being played? More specifically, a lot of primetime games, which is not normally the case? Yeah, absolutely.

If you're not working on your craft, if you're not spending time doing it, and you're not practicing, 10 OTAs, the phase one, phase two is nothing. You get to phase C, that's your 10 OTAs. And then you have a mini camp and you're not pounding, you're not doing it. It's all shorts. You don't even get to go against each other those three weeks in phase two. So the amount of time that you have these players to try to develop, especially young players, if you're trying to build through the draft, shoot these new coaches. If they don't win and they don't win now,

shoot, there's a whole new set of coaches in there before they have a chance to even develop these young guys, and they don't get their hands on them. It's a different world. Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, and also, though, when you look at some of the teams, especially at the top, there are a lot of very healthy teams. The Chiefs haven't really lost anyone pivotal. The Eagles, I believe they had

no one on their injury report for damn near the entire year until Jordan Davis got hurt. Niners, very healthy. The Bills lost Vaughn Miller and Mike Hyde very early. Mike is coming back. Vaughn unfortunately isn't. And the Niners, I forget who Lombardi said, but they lost one guy. Cornerback. Yeah, corner.

Week five. Mosley, Mayweather. Those were season-ending injured. He was having a very, very good year. They lost another secondary member recently. Yeah, but they are losing guys, but although the quality of football, yeah, it feels like it is working kind of across the board. I don't think I read this one. Stadiums are committing to grass to abide by FIFA bids in 2026.

NFL stadiums are? Yes. So we're going to grass? No, they're going to test the turf, right? I believe there were 11 stadiums, and I don't know how many they get into specifics on how many did. Jordan Roderick. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right.

I apologize, Jordan. Eleven NFL stadiums were awarded FIFA bids to pitch a successful bid. That stadium must present a plan for its service to meet FIFA's incredibly rigorous multi-step safety testing or switch totally to grass. Multiple turf stadiums for NFL have since committed to grass for FIFA. Okay, they can't be that committed to it. Remember, we saw the United States team go play in that one mud pit. That's not FIFA.

Will they keep them there? Will they keep the grass? If NFL Stadium puts in grass for FIFA, it'll stay there, right? They're not going to go back to turf? I think what we're saying, World Cup, FIFA is the body that oversees everybody. This is obviously just for the World Cup, I would assume. So this is just for their biggest tournament. FIFA oversees, I think, like everything.

That's why the power was so big. So FIFA's testing, I don't think, has always been considered fantastic. But you've got to remember those, where was it just in? Qatar. Qatar. Yeah. Those stadiums and those fields and the hotels were literally just built for the World Cup. Right.

So you ask all the players and coaches, how were the facilities, how were the fields? They're like, pristine. Incredible. Unbelievable. It was the greatest of all time. And I would assume that's because FIFA, although they said how much you're paying us, definitely you'll get it. They also said, like, these are our grass standards because you're running a lot. It's a lot of running, obviously.

And also the ball's rolling on that grass. So you can't have a bunch of divots. You can't have it be a fucked up grass because then the ball's bouncing all over the place. Contacts missed. Then you've got a poor quality of sport. So the pitch is actually vital to the quality of the game that is being played because you need to have predictability with where the ball is going to be because most of the time you're not fucking looking at the ball

whenever you're trying to hit it 30, 45 yards sometimes. So that is why the field matters. The NFL is testing this. Does that mean this is what we're getting to? There was one guy who was super mad that all these NFL stadiums were switching to grass because of FIFA. What? Yeah.

And I think this is why you didn't see it. Because Bakhtiari quote tweeted that tweet. And we sent that one in. Bakhtiari was not happy. He was pissed that they were switching to grass even though he was a big grass component. It's confusing to me. If this doesn't bother you as a player or a fan of football,

congrats. You've been successfully brainwashed. I think Boxer brings up a good point. It took this international governing body to get the NFL to put grass in. When the players and everybody else has been asking for it for a long time. What are you upset about Buck saying that?

Who cares how it eventually gets done? It got done. Yeah, but are we sure that it's not? It's 11 stadiums, not 32. And are they going to stick with grass? 28, whatever how many there are. If their turf holds up, then they can keep their turf, though, if it passes the test. I would not be surprised if we talked about this yesterday.

I would not be surprised if the NFL offers up some of these players, soccer cleats that have grass already on them. On the bottom, yeah. Makes it a lot heavier, not as easy to run, but you're always on a good pitch. That's right. Joints are much better. Whenever it's drilled to your cleats. What do you call that?

Super cleats. Super cleats. Sob tips. Get your sob tips on. I think it's – And that might just – Sob tips. Yeah.

That might inevitably lead to the evolution of turf into super grass. We'll see. What we're saying is good luck, FIFA, getting this to happen. Yeah. I think with the improper amount of cash, I assume these things will get passed. For sure. Well, because like SoFi is one of them, right? And they just built that stadium.

Like, what, are they just going to flip it and just use grass forever? I can't imagine that happening. Well, then how do you go about it? They would have to put it up on a risen stage, and so there's some give. Yeah, exactly. How do they get the proper amount of give versus, like, I don't know. That's an interesting thing. A lot of stadiums here, though.

A full list of NFL stadiums in there. Grass type. Oh, this is the whole. Yeah, a lot of field turf. This isn't all grass. Arizona Cardinals. Bermuda grass. Super grass? Just put that in there. Grass type. Oh, this is the whole. Yeah, a lot of field turf. This isn't all grass. Arizona Cardinals. Bermuda grass. Super grass?

Just put that in there. I know the Carolina Panthers just got in trouble for theirs. You said a turf Titan 50. That's the super grass. Buffalo. Who's got that slip turf? Nobody anymore. Detroit had it.

Detroit had the slip turf. Of course. It is out. That's why they couldn't host the. Texans got that. That hell ass Matrix turf. You know, that stuff was in place of the worst pitch in all of sport. Huge scenes everywhere.

People just blowing ACLs at Houston. Wes Walker, that was the one. A kicker also got it. Remember a guy who's asked AJ, like, how slippery Lambeau is? Opponents always go up. We always did that, slip in. We had to bring the, you know, the. Deep studs.

Deep studs. What is it? Turf and grass there, right? That's all master grass. Yeah, it is. It's a form of super grass. It has, it's nice grass. And then it has like woven in turf that you can't see.

It all looks like grass. That is super grass. To make it look more full. Heated. They have the grow lights that roll over it all winter and everything. Everybody's slipping around except the home team. Green Bay never did, and we were always all over the place. You see, this year

it happened. Let's get to a break. I never wore screw-ins. Yeah, it's because you guys were screwing. Some guys, my bad. I was screwing everybody else. Speed TDs, Chuck, you're right. Hey, we beat them up there.

Opening kickoff return to the house. Ooh, Jordan Todd. What year was that? 16. That was 16. Okay. The year you were crying in the tunnel. Were you on the team?

I was not there. You guys had that former Illinois head coach. Ron Zook. Ron Zook, yeah. They ran a pool shoot, took me out. Tom McMahon was not happy. We were up 14 at the time. That's all I really remember from the night.

Tom McMahon, fuck that guy. I'm like, what are you going to do? Are you going to fight this guy, dude? I believe that's how the Bones got fired after the season. I didn't even really feel it. He's like, we fucking, wait till you see it. Wait till you see it. It's bullshit.

I'm like, all right, Tom. He's like, it's all right, man. Don't worry about it. Need to talk to this man strictly because his brain is so large. He's a host on V-CIN. He's obviously an author with Daily Coach and the Gridiron Genius. He is the GM ShufflePod host and a Lombardi line host, and he was once a TED Talker.

Ladies and gentlemen, a man who's been a general manager, a consultant, an advisor, a coach, everything you could possibly be in the NFL, Paisano Michael Lombardi. Guys, great job the other night. I enjoyed it. I don't know how Chuck feels about this. Chuck worked both ways.

From a coaching standpoint or from an observation, a football standpoint, for me, I was never very good at watching the game from the field. For me, I was never very good at watching the game from the field. Like my eyes were never trained from that all 22 on the field. I could see the game from above. And, you know, they put you guys in a hard spot because unless you're really trained to see it that way and you can maneuver around, it's hard. It was a hard thing to do. Well, we appreciate you watching and also texting us.

We alluded to an Italian man who knows a lot sending us information. People thought maybe it was a hard thing to do well we appreciate you watching and also texting us we alluded to an italian man who knows a lot sending us information people thought it maybe it was chuck what's that lumbo i'll help you any way i can i love it no it was fucking fantastic because that middle eight was something i had not thought of at all because of how big of a blowout it was but you sent me a text you're like georgia needs to slow down right here georg needs to slow down. They can make this a 38-7 game by the time the TCU touches the Rocknecks. And like, that's that football, you know, IQ stuff that you have talked about, that why we have you come on the show every single time. We love having you. We're thankful you texted us and you're the fucking man. Let's dive into some situations that are happening right now. Derek Carr is allegedly going to be up for a trade here. If he is cut before February 15th,

the Raiders only owe him $5 million and they only have $5 million in dead cap. Right now, it's like $40 million in contracts, let alone what the next year is. Do you think he gets traded by February 15th? Do you think this league is so quarterback needy that Derek Carr and his big contract will be traded before February 15th, seemingly the deadline for this whole thing? I think there's a good chance because the Raiders probably won't be. I think the transaction will be more about keeping the contract intact to the next team and then redoing the contract. You know, so I think that's something that i think could happen i truly believe that that you know it's uh it's going to be one of those situations where they're going to have to work together because the raiders know at the end of the day they're

not going to get a lot out of this trade maybe a mid-round pick or something like that but uh and then car needs to go somewhere where at least he's guaranteed say he hits the street right and everybody thinks there's gold out there on the street, but perhaps he doesn't make as much as he's due to make in this contract. So he's better off kind of keeping this contract intact and then working around it and then pick his new team. What would that new team be? What do you think he's looking for, Lambeau? Where would be a good fit? I would think knowing the situation as he's been through so many coordinators in his career in Las Vegas and before Oakland, I would think knowing the situation as he's been through so many coordinators in his career in Las Vegas and before Oakland, I would think he'd want to go with somebody who he's familiar

with, somebody who he knows the terminology, somebody who's coached him from before. And I don't know if we can determine that yet because the landscape of the league hasn't really been determined. We've got five openings. We're going to have more probably. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen in Los Angeles with the Rams, but for me, you know, everybody keeps asking, is Sean McVay coming back? Is he coming back? I mean, to me, if I were at the Rams, I would want, Sean, are you willing to do three years? Because it's going to take that long to get here. So we're going to have probably more openings. And once we have more openings, that'll change the infrastructure of a lot of these teams and the coordinators.

And I think Carr's going to want to go to a team that he's familiar with the coach, who's called plays with him, he knows him, and he's comfortable with them. And so there's a less of a transition. So you don't think February 15th is the deadline then because they'll be able to trade the contract regardless? They'll be able to trade the contract. I mean, they don't have to do anything until March the 3rd when that guarantee kicks in. Now, I think at some point they'll say to themselves, they're making phone calls now. Dave Ziegler, the general manager of the Raiders, is making phone calls. And if he's getting a lot of, hey, we're not interested in that deal, then eventually he's just going to have to say, okay, nobody wants this.

Tell the agent, nobody wants the contract. We'll cut you. You're on your own. Okay, so let's chat about another situation. You say Sean McVay. What about Sean Payton? All signs seem to be pointing for Sean Payton to go to Phoenix, Arizona and be the Arizona Cardinals head coach with Kyler, who he has spoken glowingly about in the past on numerous occasions. I assume he spoke good things about Russell Wilson as well,

and that's an opening that could potentially take place for Sean Payton. Where do you see him going? What do you think about Sean Payton's current leverage? And how long do you think we wait this whole thing out? I think he's got all the leverage in the world, right? But I do think in Arizona, if you study the Bidwell family, Michael Bidwell, his father, Bill Bidwell, this is not typically something they do. They've never turned over the organization to a coach

and just said, you run it. Yeah, Buddy Ryan was in there, and he brought Joe Woolley with him, and Bruce Arians came in, but Ryan was in there, and he brought Joe Woolley with him, and Bruce Arians came in, but there was already Steve Kime was there. This is not their modus operandi. I get the sense from listening to people, Adrian Wilson beat a GM. They want to hire a GM first. And if they hire Adrian Wilson, I think Vance Joseph has a really good chance to get this job.

If you watch the last game of the year, they played hard on defense. They didn't play great, but they were playing hard. They got the 49ers to punt in the second quarter i think the players respect vance i could see that going a long way and i'm not sure they're ready to go down give one coach all the authority and let him run the organization tree so what do you think denver i think certainly denver's in play but remember we go back to what we about. Somebody's got to make the Saints happy in this deal. And you've got to have to have first-round picks to make them happy. You don't just give away a great coach for a sixth-round pick. Yeah, they don't have it, right?

So Denver's not in play. That's right. That's why I think Denver will go down this road. I think what Penner said, the owner of the Broncos, and Harbaugh interviewed there, I think that could be where it could end up. I think Harbaugh would be the ideal fit based on the description that he gave at his press conference a little while ago. Okay, Chuck has a question for you, Paisano.

Hey, Mike. How you doing? Two of my favorite years in football, man, was out in Oakland. And you took great care of me me and I'll always be appreciative of that and to your point when you first started looking at the game from up top you remember I was up top you know watching the game for Robbo from the press box and no doubt about it you can see the whole field you can see the whole game from down on the sideline really really hard not even close I don't know how coaches do it I really don't like You ask me after practice what happened, I really don't have an answer. Well, I see some things, but I got to go watch the tape.

It's hard. But, God, Don, Chuck, you did a great job. He kept the safety in the middle of the field. I loved it. Thank you, Chuck. Hey, Lambeau, so you're Chicago, you're on the clock, right? There's a lot of talk about, hey, they should probably think about trading Justin Fields and take Bryce Young from Alabama.

What's your thoughts on that? Well, I think you've got a really great Bryce Young. He's 185 pounds, maybe 190. I think he's a great college player. But I missed the memo that Doug Flutie's back in vogue in the NFL. I didn't realize little guys are back. I love Bryce Young. I think he's great. Could he be a great pro? Yeah. I'm worried about durability with these guys. We're at almost 70

quarterbacks changed over in the NFL. I think you're going to ask that. And teams that use a grading system, like New England, like Houston, like some of these other teams, it's hard to grade a guy undersized that high to pick them first overall. I think if I were Ryan Poles, I would continue down the Justin Fields train because I think you've got to build the six-pack offense around him. You've got to help your offensive and defensive lines get better. And you've got a rookie contract. And the kid is electric. Now, he doesn't throw the ball very well,

but I think in the six-pack offense you've got a chance. I don't know if I would cash him in for that. I think I'm better off getting a better player that I know what I'm going to get in terms of helping my offensive and defensive lines. He's like 5'11", too. I've been very confused by it, especially after having eyes on C.J. Stroud

at that Peach Bowl. It's like, that's a dude, right? It appears to be. It's a big question mark on, will anybody be a good NFL quarterback? It is a very difficult position. There are so many things you have to be able to wait. So who knows if number one pick, number the last pick is going to be a guy.

But you look at the body of CJ, it's like that's a guy. I want to ask you this question. You were at the game. Everybody says Stetson Bennett's too small. You were on that field. Everybody says Stetson Bennett's too small. But everybody says Bryce Young's going to be the first pick. And I think Stetson Bennett's bigger than Bryce Young. A lot of purdy in Stetson Bennett's too small, but everybody says Bryce Young's going to be the first pick. And I think Stetson Bennett's bigger than Bryce Young.

A lot of Purdy in Stetson, huh? A lot of Purdy in Stetson, and I think they're saying he's too small because have you seen that fucking Georgia offensive line, Lambeau? Lambeau, he's standing around Giants. I mean, he's standing around Giants down there with Kirby. Go ahead, AJ. Lambeau,

I was wanting to ask you about Stetson. So we were there, we got to see that guy play like he is he's special his team responds to him as well and he could sling the ball where do you think he ends up getting drafted and like couldn't this be one of those stories where all of a sudden the guy gets thrown in there and we know he's a gamer he wins games like where i guess from now until draft what do you think is going to happen with him and his 25 matter i i think he's going to move up the ladder right no i don, I don't, because I think, look, you know, none of us have long lifespans in the NFL, right?

You know, there's no longevity in the NFL. Everybody's getting fired after two years anyway. So I think this, I think he's improved more than any player I've seen in college football. You know, and his arm's gotten stronger. I think what we see with Stetson Bennett is simply the marriage, right? You've got to have, like with Brock Purdy, it's the perfect marriage. I sell this story in my new book, Football Done Right. When Bill Tobin was the general manager of the Bears, the morning of the draft in 1979, he kissed his wife and said, if Joe Montana's there, we're going to draft him in the third round. And she said, that's all we

want to do. And so he went to work that day. He drafts Willie McClendon. I don't know why he did that. And it made his family. But Joe went to San Francisco. That was the perfect system. Joe's a great player. He could play anywhere. But that system highlighted Joe's talents, just like Brock Purdy highlights his talents in Kyle's system.

I think a lot of this problem as a quarterback is you're not marrying the system to the player. And I think for Stetson Bennett, that's going to be the conversation. I think he'll be a great backup quarterback in the league because he's smart, he's tough, he'd prepare like a starter, and eventually he could become one. Well, he's a backup quarterback in college. Remember, they tried to cut him. He's a walk-on. He's been there, done that.

He'd have that Heineke kind of mindset, it feels like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, man, I'm just here to ball. I'm having a good time. I'm going to go Zen, too, by the way. Let's just go ahead and do this. Loves ball. His teammates enjoy the hell out of him.

He can spin it, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, he can spin that thing, which is great for practice. And if he gets in a situation where he can do his thing, I would love to watch it. Darius has a question for you, Lambeau. Lambeau, two questions. So the first one, I'm not personally familiar with the six-back term,

so I want to learn a little more about that. And then number two, what do you think is the best available job right now of the five open head coaching positions? Well, the six-back term is a term I used about the quarterback who's involved in the run game. So there's five skilled players on the field all the time, and the quarterback is the sixth. And when you put him in the run game like Buffalo does,

that becomes a whole different run game, right? So they run counter left and they run Josh Allen back to the right. And Chuck, it's a hard thing to defend. It's a hard thing to prepare for. It's the academy offense, if you will. And some teams like Buffalo, like Philadelphia, they highlight it really well. And like Philly last week,

when you don't have to account for the six back in the run game, it's a different run game. So now you can prepare for it because he was hurt. You know, I think the best job out there is Denver. And I'll tell you why. Because I think Denver's owner gets it. I think he's going to build something bigger. I think he understands he needs a CEO. I think the Carolina team's really talented. We saw them come back with Steve Wilks. I think they need a quarterback, but I think they're on the cusp. They're 7-10. Their offensive line played well. I think that's a job that could be really good, but they need a quarterback. But they have a lot of young talent. But the overall organizational structure to me, as of right now, I think Denver,

even though they don't have draft picks, they've got to deal with Russell, I think that owner could be special. Feels like you respect the hell out of the way they go about doing their business? Sounds like. And you're like, they'll figure it out. They'll figure out the NFL. These people do good business. They'll figure it out. Yeah, I love that press conference.

I thought he was the first owner I ever talked about what he needs. Most of these owners can't describe what they want with their head coach. They don't know what the job is and what it isn't. He made that very clear. Ty has a question for you. Yeah, Lambeau, speaking of Brock Purdy, we were talking before you got on. Even if the Niners don't win the Super Bowl, or say they do win the Super Bowl, what do you think happens next year with Trey Lance and Brock

Purdy? I mean, I think that's a fair question. I don't know. I think Brock Purdy has a pretty good read on that team, and I think the team likes him. And look, we're going in this playoff weekend. So Kyle Shanahan's played in five playoff games. He's won three, lost two. In those playoff games, so we don't start killing Brock Purdy, in those playoff games that he won, he didn't throw the ball more than 19 times in either of those games. He's smart, and he understands playoff football is different than regular season.

So I think we're going to see that run game featured more than Brock Purdy. And in the offense that he's running, it's so perfect for Purdy. It's really not a hard throw. He runs it so it's easy. Why is San Francisco so good? Because they play base, and Chuck will talk about this. They're in base, and they can get to any formation they want to get to, any personnel group.

If they're at 11, they can get to 12. If they're at 12, they can get to 11. It's hard for defense to match them, and their speed is too good. and Purdy can execute it. Paisan, last one quick here. Tom Brady going to play like Tom Brady? Has Tampa Bay got a shot here to make a run? I don't know. I think Tom Brady will play good. I worry about their defense. They got to be healthy on defense. I think the best thing that happened to Dallas was getting beat in Washington. Now they're the underdog. Now they're the chased one. They're no longer the hunted. They're the hunter.

That's a good spot to be, especially when you're Mike McCarthy and you eat adversity for lunch like your quarterback, Dak Prescott. We can't thank you enough, ladies and gentlemen. Author, talker, legend, Michael Lombardi. Yeah! All right, joining us now, big shout-out to Pison. Love whatever he's on. He's so good.

I like the genuine. Hey, there was some genuine kinship going on. I had to see him. He took great care of me. He was awesome to Paisan. Love whatever he's on. He's so good. I like the genuine. Hey, there was some genuine kinship going on. He took great care of me. He was awesome to be out there. Every time he comes on the show, he's great. Obviously, he has publicly made some mistakes in the football world that people will hold over his head forever, and that's going to happen when you're out here

and when you hold that position. He's incredible at just talking about his experience. He's viewing it from a vastly different point of view than us. Yeah. An actual GM who's good at speaking, you know, and he was with Bill for a while. Yes. There's a lot of, it's incredible. We're very lucky that he stops.

Big thank you to Michael Lombardi. Joining us now, another big thank you is in store. This dude has a Tud in four straight games. What? He's getting hot, and obviously he's incredibly handsome. Tight end. Best friend of Josh Allen, we've been told. And it shows up whenever it has to.

Welcome to the playoffs, to the Buffalo Bills. Welcome to the playoffs, the entire Bills mafia. And welcome to the show, Dawson Knox. Hey, Dawson. Hey, everybody. Appreciate y'all having me. Hey, sorry we made you wait there a couple minutes. We were ending up that call with Michael Lombardi talking about the playoffs.

Let's dive right into it. How's the vibe? Here we are. We're back. Let's go. It's playoff football, Dawson. What's it like? Especially good vibes.

Getting DeMar back home, having him in Buffalo just with some of his family, back somewhere where he's comfortable has been awesome. He FaceTimed down. He actually broke us down after the win on FaceTime. Oh, that's awesome. So vibes are good in the building. It's playoff time. What was it, team on three, team on me?

Or did he give a speech there a little bit? I think it was exactly team on me, team on three. I think that was actually the exact breakdown. Well, you painted the picture well. It felt like I was in there. I had my hand up and everything. It was exciting. Everybody was a Buffalo Bill last week.

It felt like as you were fighting through that, what was it like? I assume that was a roller coaster of emotion all week. Did you guys know stuff before we did, or were you getting information at the same time as us? It felt like there was moments there where we thought he was dead, obviously. And then it was like we weren't hearing much. Is that good? Is that bad? Were you guys experiencing the same thing?

And how did you balance it? So we would have team meetings where they would give us the news before they broke it to the public. But I'm pretty sure they tweeted it almost simultaneously with us getting the information in the team meeting. So we were left in the dark a little bit. But, I mean, they told us as much as they could. They did a good job keeping us updated,

telling us as soon as we heard anything official. But we would have whole team meetings, and then they'd make their public release or whatever. That's tough. That's a tough thing. Great. Hey. Yeah.

Obviously, how is he? He's back in Buffalo. Yes. Goal. What a joy of energy that has to be, of course. Buffalo. That's a goal. What a joy of energy that has to be, of course. Yeah, AJ, go ahead. Dawson, what was it like in that room the first time you guys got to see him on camera? I guess Coach said he flexed to you guys the first thing he did when he popped up. Can you describe what that room was like?

Oh, it was electric. I think Josh used the word spiritual. I think it really was spiritual, just was electric. I think Josh used the word spiritual. I think it really was spiritual, just that energy. And it really felt like almost the whole country was coming together over DeMar and over the team praying for him and his safety and his health. So to be able to see him with his eyes open, you know, flexing with us and, you know, just saying a couple words i mean everyone stood up started clapping started yelling um it was i mean everyone i feel like had chills all at the same

time it was really cool yeah the whole world as soon as we found out about it we were pumped uh about it and i feel like your team is one and anybody we talk to from that building talks about the chemistry the camaraderie how tight you are playing cards the weather you know obviously gets pretty bad and there's not exactly a bunch of stuff to do in Buffalo all the time so you guys hang out together a lot when you go through something like this it can only bring you tighter did you could you guys even guess that your team could get tighter and obviously is this something that has made you guys a better team you think having to go through something this traumatic together? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we already knew that we were a really close team. It's really cool having guys from other teams come in talking about how this place is special. It's not a cliche. It really does feel like a family. You know, a lot of people say that. But having outsiders' perspectives come in and say it's pretty incredible, just the chemistry of this team.

And that was like at the beginning of the season. And we've had some crazy things going on this year. I mean, the shooting in Buffalo before the season even started. A couple insane snowstorms. And obviously the thing with DeMar. It really did feel like the team was about as close as it could get. And then after what happened with DeMar and even now, I feel like somehow we found an extra step to take. So it really does feel like a brotherhood.

And it's pretty cool knowing that you got guys out on the field that are going to go to war for each other. You know, we're, like you said, hanging out outside the building. I wish you could see outside right now. It's miserable. I mean, it's like raining and 35 degrees and we haven't seen the sun in two months, but, um, but it's something that kind of, that'll bring you together too. Cause it forces you to hang out with each other. So, I mean, we're, you know, we're having poker nights, um, seeing movies, you name it. Um, it's a pretty awesome team to be a part of.

That's the type of thing you can't measure. Obviously, it's what makes the great teams great. We're excited to watch you guys try to climb this mountain for the first time together. And everybody we've chatted with on your team, we love, including that guy that's on a jugs machine behind you. Will you tell him, Gabe? Will you tell him? Where's he at?

I think he's on the jugs machine behind you, I think. You want me to bring him over here? No, just tell him, like, 85-yard touchdown or longer, we're still donating 85 grand. So you remember 85 yard touchdown does that go for anybody sure i don't know if my top speed can get me to 85 yards what do you want what do you want what do you what distance 35 uh that's a long-ass touchdown. Let's go 50. We'll go 50 for 50. Okay, perfect. We'll do that.

Is that fair? Yeah. All right. I mean, you could have got this at 35, though. Yeah, that was a bold strategy. I think you could have got it at 35. He wanted an extra 15. I know, but I felt like that was kind of a cop-out.

I wanted it to be a stretch for myself. I want a challenge. I respect it. I want it to be. Are you diving at the end of that thing you think regard absolutely right i mean i'll throw up like a five zero for you okay all right just something to think about something to think about we will do that let's talk about this playoff push how do you feel the difference between this year's team last year's team is at this stage of the season and now that you have the experience that

you guys have had how much are you relying upon that or is that not even talked about or thought about at this moment um yeah i mean i think every team is different from year to year obviously pieces get moved around you got different guys on the roster um one of my favorite things about this team is having von miller um not just as the player but as the leader. I mean, he's got up at a couple team meetings we have, and he's just had some incredible messages. Obviously, he's been there and done that in terms of winning Super Bowls. Sorry, say that again?

Sounded like something just got sliced right in half in the back there. It was probably one of those lawnmowers outside. Okay, I hope they're okay. Vaughn's got a farm. But, yeah, no, just having Vaughn's leadership telling us, you know, how to kind of get things toned up for this week. We've worked all year to get to this point, and this is what really matters. And now it's kind of time as a team to start peaking.

You know, in this league, you hear it's all about timing. It's all about what you do when the playoffs start. So we've hit all the ups and downs, and now it's kind of time to start toning it up, getting it locked in. I always wondered how you guys all took Von Miller being Von Miller because he's come on this show every single week just out of nowhere. How about that, Dawson? We're just fucking sitting here, and all of a sudden Von Miller becomes a weekly guest.

It's like, what? This is amazing. That surprised me. It's amazing, though. Every single time he comes on, we hear him speak. We're like, Jesus, this guy should be president of something. Who knows? Whatever it is.

Yeah. Loves football. He's incredible. And he's been following Brandon Bean around the building, kind of learning the ins and outs of why he hires who he hires. And, I mean, he's even interacted with all the janitor staff, the cafeteria staff. I mean, he's – it's insane just to see how his brain works.

And he's – I think he's got the goal of being a GM one day. So it's been really cool just kind of hearing him talk about what he's learned from shadowing Bean for a little bit. Well, and also the way he talks about your locker room is fantastic. I'm happy to hear that as like a marriage made in heaven. He said six more years he's playing. Oh, yeah. They caught him washed last year, and then he came in, wrecked the game.

He said, I got another five years. Connor has a question for you, Dawson. Yeah, Dawson, obviously during the DeMar situation, nothing really was more important than that. But as that kind of progressed, the conversation about the neutral site AFC championship game was had. Did you guys play any mind to that? And obviously you're taking it one game at a time, but now that's in Atlanta,

have you guys, you know, started to think about that possibility and how well Bill's mafia travels as well? Yeah, honestly, we didn't even know until I forgot who it was. It's on, on Twitter right before practice. So I'm sure guys are finding out on their phone like right now. But I mean, that's, that's just one of those things you can't worry about until it gets here.

It's the age-old cliche of, you know, we're focused on today, focused on this week. This game's the biggest because it's the next one. So we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves thinking about neutral site, thinking about who we might be playing, whether it's going to be home or away. It's hard to think that way and still be locked in on what we're doing now. But, I mean, the fact that it will be in Atlanta in a dome is kind of cool. Just knowing it wouldn't be at Arrowhead or it wouldn't be, you know, wherever it

potentially could be. But I think we're just trying to lock in on this week. Yeah, it's not easy to make it to that point. Obviously, a lot of things have to take place, but if the NFL sees an AFC championship game in a neutral site, and they see it become a big festival,

you know how this goes, Dawson. This will be the new, you know, there's three Super Bowls now. It's going to be the new normal. If it generates more revenue, it's somehow going to become the new normal. If it generates more revenue, it's somehow going to become the new normal. We'll see it change next year. Roger Goodell standing in a – you remember we used to have one Super Bowl.

You remember that? That was fun. Yeah, now there's five. Yeah, now we got – look at this. I think we can even stretch this to divisional round. I think we could potentially. I mean, they'll try to get us to play 26 games. Tony, your question for Dawson.

Dawson, obviously, after everything that happened last week and then the return touchdown happens to start the game. What was the stadium like for that? And then, didn't see. Did any Bildos make it onto the field after that return touchdown? I didn't see anything on the internet.

I had my eyes peeled. I didn't see anything. Oh, good. They got COVID on them. They got COVID on them. They got COVID on them. I know. It's COVID. So there's no way that they could have, you know, really respected the players' safety and health if they would have done that.

So, yeah, no build-os this weekend. Yeah, I know. Getting COVID everywhere. So they respected our health and they didn't throw the build-os. But the atmosphere after that first touchdown was really cool. I knew I wanted to do something for DeMar, throw up the heart because that's his thing. I turn around and the guy that runs on the field with the camera, he's already out there halfway through the

end zone. I guess it just perfectly tied up, threw up the heart for him. so it was a pretty cool moment one of my favorite touchdowns spiritual you said i think that game as we were watching it it was like oh this is big this is bigger two kickoff returns to the house two of those crazy yeah first play of the game too i mean guys were there were tears flowing and guys hugging each other. It was like storybook stuff. You know, I mean, it's like a Remember the Titans moment or some Disney football movie that was scripted. And you guys are realizing that in the moment, right?

You're realizing that in the moment. Yeah. Yeah, okay, good. Yeah, because no one expected that to happen. Because I think they said it had been three years and three months since the last Bills kick return for a touchdown. Of course. So, I mean, what are the odds of that?

Of course. Why does that always seem – that's of course. You know what I mean? Right. And I think Josh threw three touchdowns. I think our defense had three interceptions. I mean, it was insane. After that first kickoff return.

We're in a movie right now. Yeah. Right. It was insane. After that first kickoff return. We're in a movie right now. It really did feel like that. It turned out to be a little more of a dogfight than we wanted it to be. After that kick return test out, we're like, we're killing these dudes. 59 minutes still. It took us

a little longer than we wanted it to. Thankfully, we got the job done. Go ahead, AJ. Dawson, are you guys aware, I guess, of how far and wide your whole situation with DeMar has affected? Not only in America, I feel like worldwide everyone is kind of rooting and kind of come together over this whole situation. Can you guys feel the magnitude of it, being so close to it? Yeah. I guess we really didn't notice that until we realized he's home and he's good to go.

And then, I mean, you see stuff on his social media. He's got like over a million followers. And I think there's been, I mean, millions and millions of dollars donated to a GoFundMe. Like 13, 13, 14. 13 million? Well, I think if you add in the fanatics, they sold his jersey and all the proceeds were going into that. So I think it's going to be like 15 million probably at the end of the whole thing. That's insane.

I mean, last time we checked, it was like seven or eight. But, I mean, that doesn't surprise me. First of all, just Bill's Mafia rallying behind him. But then the whole world, just to see that scope of everything has been kind of jaw-dropping just because we're here so close to it. I guess we didn't realize that it really reached all the way throughout the sports world, but also just the world in general. It's been insane. Well, the team's response on the field, right, is what everybody –

that's whenever we all kind of understood the severity of it but people that aren't football fans and don't follow the nfl they saw the response of the team and to them football they see in a movie you know like you see how much those guys love each other it was real though it was like on it was almost on display so now you guys i don't want to say are like worldwide fan favorites but because of the empathy and the way you guys showcased how good of a, how close of a team you are. I think a lot of people who weren't necessarily football fans were like, we like this team.

And my first thought was like, wait till you hear about the fucking coin toss from a year ago. Yeah. Wait, you love them now. Just wait until you hear, wait until you hear what happened a year ago or whatever. It's like a lot of times building up to this moment, man'm excited to watch you guys go yeah no question we're super excited about it too and it really does feel like it's just been one thing after another but um just the opportunity

to kind of show the world the love we have for each other and it's not just a game you know a lot of people just turn on the game on sunday and think we go into work once or twice a week and don't really spend all that time together but for them to see us huddled around them i'm gonna get a lot of people praying for them was a really really cool thing last question here from utah yeah dawson obviously familiar opponent this weekend and the dolphins are kind of limping into the playoffs and you guys you just mentioned it with all the demar stuff it's kind of like you have this groundswell of momentum behind you. Is there any change in preparation going into this week when you've already played this team twice, kind of know what to expect?

Or is it the type of deal where, hey, if we go out there and play our best game, we're going to be just fine and we're going to win? Yeah. You know, we always talk about how it's about us. Obviously, we're watching film. You know, we're not doing anything different this week than we did all regular season. We've had the same meetings, same walkthrough, same practice layout. Some of the guys, including myself, were hoping for a walkthrough practice yesterday, but they kept the routine the same. So it's been a very, very similar routine just to get us locked into that mindset

of this is just another game. There's nothing extra about it that we need to do. We just need to go out there and be ourselves. Are you a little bit more yoked up this year? That shirt seems to be like you look like kind of a rock right now with that shirt, your shoulders. Oh, yeah? Yeah, your shoulders.

Yeah, that shoulder. Unless you've got you got a fucked up collarbone that's incredible oh no it's it's my ac joints i've done both these things that might be it oh yeah that is what that is some good definition sorry i just pointed out like a deformity there it looks good yeah yeah no geez it's just my It's just my delts and my traps. What is the weight this year, and has it been consistent all year? You know, I'm right at like 255. Where were you last year? Probably about 250.

On purpose? Is this on purpose? Honestly, no. I've been eating whatever I want, and I've kind of done that my whole career. How old are you? But 26. Oh, it's starting to happen. I know how to eat healthy.

It's starting to happen. No, this is happening. This is the rest of your life, pal. This is the rest of your life, dude. Welcome. Yeah, so this might be my sign to start reeling it back in. I eat Chipotle more than I eat five guys so we'll see you know i've gone to the keto method i don't know if that's necessarily smart for like i've heard that's not a great thing to do well i started

doing what you do i mean you look good you look good so whatever you're doing thank you dawson that means a lot um but i used to just eat everything, you know? I used to eat everything. And my body was just good, and the ball would go far. And I think it was about 25, 26 years old. Boy, it started getting bad. That's not going to happen to you. It's not going to happen to me because you're much more athletic than me

and everything like that. But I had to adjust when I was housing everything that I wanted to eat. It's a shame. It's a game changer. I might have to watch out this off season because the off season you know obviously not working out nearly as much so i appreciate you telling me that so now my you know antenna is kind of up for seeing some growth so we'll yeah smart keep an eye on it just keep an eye i came back to training camp 260 you know what i mean that's a little big that's a little big that's a little big the That's a little big. That's a little big.

The neck was way out yonder, you know, and everybody just. Oh, yeah. As long as you got the beard to cover it up, I mean. Just keep an eye on it. Keep an eye on it. Hey, good luck the rest of the way. We can't thank you enough for joining us. You've been awesome to watch, pal.

You're on the streak right now. You're playing your best football. It sounds like the right time to be doing it. We appreciate you. Yeah, I really appreciate you guys. 50 yards, right? 50. I'm throwing it up for you.

What if it's – what if it is – Kick a build-out, too, if you see it. Yeah. You should. Yeah, definitely don't put your hands on it. No. Because it's got COVID. Yeah. Don't want to get sick.

Bingo. Boom. And that gets you out of it. A couple other things on there, too. What if it is exactly 50? We're counting that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Not 49, though. 49 yards, we're not counting that. right yeah not not 49 it's got to be but not exactly 50 i mean it's gotta be no anything yeah yeah 50 and no push though like 50 does count yes doesn't it doesn't have to be like a half yard on the other side but it's not but it's not like an escalator where 60 is 60, is it? Yeah. I think that's right. It is. If your 255-pound ass scores a 60-yard fucking touchdown, we will certainly donate $60,000 to a charity of your choice. 255?

That would be amazing. Your big ass is riding around for 60. That would be amazing. Let's go. We're going to have to do some accelerations or something. Here we go. I think they've got a band over there. You know, they've got to do some parachute work.

I need to go do my lead runs. Yeah, my parachute runs. We've got to work on them. If you hit one, too, it doesn't stop. It's for the rest of the year. All right. I love that. I appreciate you guys.

That means a lot. No problem. That's me looking after your weight. That's my motivation. I'm going to get in Josh's ear, too. He'll listen to me appreciate you guys. That means a lot. No problem. That's me looking after your motivation. I'm going to get in Josh's ear, too. He'll listen to me. Hell yeah. How is he? He's been awesome this year, huh? Fantastic. He's been fantastic. Yeah, he's I mean, he's like a kid, you know, trapped in a MVP candidate's body. He's just, you know, the most fun person to hang around.

I don't think there's a single guy on our team that wouldn't just absolutely lay it all on the line for him. He's just that type of guy. He's awesome. We saw him at Topgolf. He had a golf ball out of the fucking net thing. Yeah. With a walk-off. Like, did it, hit it, and then did a full, as it's flying, and it exits the thing, it's like, oh, this guy's like the greatest athlete of all time as well as being a dog.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you get him playing any sport, it's really frustrating because you expect him to have like a weakness somewhere, but you're still looking for it. Think about how fun that has to be for him. That's why he has fun all the time. Yeah. I know.

The world's his playground. He just goes and does what he wants and he's good at everything. So, I mean, he does have like like, a big golf simulator in his house, so he's playing Pebble Beach every morning. This guy. Does it freeze up every third shot? We've got a problem. I need to hit him up.

I'm in the process of looking to get one for myself. I need to work on my game. Don't get the one we got. Don't get the one we got. We will send you the information now. They don't need to be buried publicly like this. But the one we have, it freezes every fourth shot. This was a big life goal here to get one of these.

And I'll tell you what. I'm sure it's amazing to have one in there, but it's not going to do it if it freezes every third shot. Yeah, you've got to become a computer expert to run this thing because it's on like a 1995 computer too. You've got to control, delete this thing. It's a whole. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to send me that this thing. You got to – it's a whole – yeah. Yeah, you got to send me that info because I'm in the process of looking for one. I don't need that.

None of us do. All right. Appreciate you, man. Good luck the rest of the way. Awesome, Knox. Appreciate you. Yeah. Cool, dude. Yeah.

Training the same game. All streamily. Gabe Davis was in the back there getting a little extra work. Love that. Remember I watched Hard Knocks one time, and it was punishment. You got to go catch 40 balls on the jugs. And everybody was like, oh, no. I'm like, all right.

This team fucking sucks. This team is absolutely terrible. That getting extra work and the camaraderie can't be stated enough. Their team obviously has come together around this moment, but their locker room seemingly loves each other. That's a massive ordeal that you can't measure. That's huge. And then he spoke about it.

I feel like Vaughn spoke about it. I know those two for sure, but, like, when you're in a city when there's not much else to do, that helps too, especially this time of year. Time gets longer. You're in the building. Like, guys, I think they're done now, right? Yeah. Guys are obviously, you know, getting their work in.

Sometimes we would get together as a group and just watch maybe 15, 20 plays. Just, you know, without coaches, that goes a long, long way. How about you, Chuck? How do you try to bottle that and keep it going into next year? If you have a team that loves you, you can notice, right? I assume you know if a team likes each other or not. You just go in the cafeteria. You walk down there at breakfast.

You go at lunch. See energy. Go in the locker. You walk down there at breakfast. You go at lunch. Go in the locker room. It's easy to see. You can smell it. You can taste it. You can see it. And you bring back all your veteran guys. They've got that core.

They're going to bring those guys back. As long as you've got Josh Allen on one side and you've got a Dawson Knox and you've got those guys on defense. How about Vaughn Miller just coming in being. Hey, Vaughn Miller is everything that we think, it appears, AJ. Seems, yeah, like even more. Like, yeah, the impact he is having on that team even now being injured,

it's pretty crazy to think of. Hey, Dawson, what's the difference between the team this year and last year? You know, Vaughn Miller being around, and obviously he was signed to big money, but like just everything about him, that's the type of culture everybody was looking for talking to the janitor talking to the gm like that's a great teammate but that's a good culture and that's what everybody's looking at the qb starts with having josh he said he's what he's like a little kid trapped in an mvp's body hell yeah like the fact that he said everybody loves him everyone would do anything for the quarterback when that is the centerpiece of your team, it just trickles down from there.

It's awesome. And because of that, how easy is it for Josh to rework his contract or do an extension so that they have more money to play around with? Because right now the conversation is like, oh, they're below the cap line for next year and they have all these guys they want to re-sign. But that's not taking into the account that he'll figure it out. They love each other.

I'm sure guys who have longer contracts, even Vaughn, will be able to work around it, maybe make it salary bonus or whatever so they can bring back guys like Poyer and Tremaine Edmonds has been the other one being tossed around. So, yeah, that's huge. All right, boys, it's been a hell of a fucking Thursday, hasn't it? Yeah. Hell yeah.

Dawson Knox was incredible. Lambeau was fantastic. AJ, give me one storyline we're going to be talking about on Tuesday after this first Super Wild Card weekend wraps up. Is Lamar Jackson going to play? No. No, but we're talking about that now. After AJ.

What do you mean? Well, if he does play. I'm asking if he's going to play because there may be a storyline if he plays. Okay, so the storyline right now is that he's not going to play. Okay, now we'll take that one off the board. We'll take that storyline off the board. But that would be a storyline we'd plays. Okay, so the storyline right now is that he's not going to play? Okay, I'll take that one off the board. We'll take that storyline off the board. But that would be a storyline we'd be talking about. Last break I saw Tyler Huntley is on track to play this weekend.

Yeah, they've been kind of like tweeting that kind of as a – although news breakers have been like, for the 38th day, Lamar has not practiced, just days before a playoff game. And then it's like, this guy trending towards this. That's him telling us he's not going to play. That situation is going to unfold. Interestingly, that might be a storyline on Tuesday, actually. Because what are we going to do with Lamar and his contract?

Way to go. That was a great answer. How about you, Connor? I was thinking if the Chargers lose to the Jags and Mike Williams doesn't play, how about Brandon Staley kind of being a little bit of a hot seat because he played all their guys and one of them got hurt. And is Sean Payton still in L.A. or not? Bingo.

Is Justin Herbert a really good young quarterback in a warm other city? Holy hell, are you traveling to the future? I don't know. You tell me. Ty Schmidt's storyline on Tuesday. On the flip side, if the Cowboys get beat, does Big Mike still have a job? Jerry might be

fucking fed up with him. I know he said, hey, we're not going down that road. I don't even want to fucking think about that. But if they get beat by a very middling Buccaneers team, Sean Payton. Not good. Sean Payton from Texas. Will Sean Payton be a Cowboy? Maybe. Time to dig storyline on Tuesday. Three interceptions. Is it time for Tom Not good. Sean Payton from Texas. Will Sean Payton be a cowboy?

Maybe. Tony Diggs storyline on Tuesday. Three interceptions. It's time for Tom to hang him up again. Oh. Tony. Tony with a headline. Tony with a headline.

Hell yeah. Chuck Pagano, what do you think we're talking about potentially on Tuesday? Danny Dimes and Brian Dayball going into Minnesota and beating the Vikings. Oh. Still no goatee back there. Wink Martindale sending the house at Kirk Cousins in another wet low. Wow. Okay, Kirk. D-Buck, what do you think we're talking Tuesday?

We've been very, we've been disrespecting Joe Burrow. Why isn't he the favorite to go and win the Super Bowl? Wow. Could certainly happen. They win by like 21, 24. I think the storyline on Tuesday is going to be them boys hit that same game parlay holiday. That's right. Everything we're thinking about every game is going to come true.

We've got four of them this weekend. Now, the same game parlay holiday isn't just for us. No, no. We would like you to ride alongside all four of our parlays because we're going to hit and it's going to be a real holiday and we're going to end up giving away a massive amount of the money that we hit for because we're going to be so goddamn excited about hitting four in

one weekend. We were only able to hit three all season. That's how good we feel about these games. There's some same game parlay holiday that you can celebrate as well. Ain't that right, Connor? Yeah, that's right. Here's how it works, Pat. If you bet $20, you get $10 back in free bets. We're just going. If you bet $50, you get $25 back in free bets.

If you bet $100, you get $50 back in free bets. And if you bet $200, you get $100 back. And it doesn't count. If you bet $199.99, you'll only get back $50. So you've got to go all the way up to that $200 marker. Okay, if you bet $99.99, you're only going to get that $25 back. It's not back, it's free bets, but it's basically back. You know what I mean?

It's titled free bets, but it's back. Yes, and make sure you opt in. You have to opt in. This isn't just automatic. Yeah, it's at the top. If you go to the NFL tab, it'll be one of those top promos right there. Just click opt in. It's simple.

And that's because it's the same game holiday. That was good, boys. I felt real good with that, too. Conductor. You looked like Bruce Brown opposing it right there. Oh, no. Yeah, basically. Mike, you killed it.

He did. He did. Bruce killed it. Bro, he was the MVP. Remember 360? How about the slow 360 he did in the middle of all of it? Like, just feel it. That was only the part that was being recorded. He didn't even know that was being recorded.

There's more. Oh, yeah. We got more of him in there absolutely crushing it. He got a couple people to join in, too. He was really, you know, he was an igniter of that dance floor. If I'm Posner and the sax player, I'm thanking Brucey Brown's service on Saturday night.

Great work there, Bruce. Thank you, Lee. Can't forget about Lee. What's that? Corso. Playing Baker Street on the sax. It was not Lee Corso on the sax. He could, though. I will say to the saxophone. It was not Lee Corso on the saxophone. He could, though. Yeah. I will say to the sax guy, let's not showcase one note for three and a half minutes.

No. You know what I mean? That's pretty loud. It sounded like a siren was going off almost. Impressive. I get what we're doing. Wait, did he build it up? Did he build it up and say, hey, watch this?

Kind of. He takes the clock out. We talked about this on Monday, so I don't want to have to do it again. Wait, did he build it up? Did he build it up and say, hey, watch this? Kind of. He takes the clock out. We talked about this on Monday, so I don't want to have to do it again. Posner did or the- No, the Sasha guy did. This guy pulls out his clock like this, and he goes, start, right? And then he goes, and he hits a note or whatever, and then he just carries it for like two minutes.

Certainly impressive. Yeah. Certainly amazingly impressive. Posner had to tell people, too, like, shut the fuck up and just listen because people were getting pissed. That was a different song. He did it a couple times. He did the get low one, too. Get low, get low.

In the middle of that long note, did you yell, I just played the hits, Mike? Screaming Ibiza. Connor said, just play Ibiza, dude, like 10 times. 10 times. He had hands in. He was designated driver, too, so he's a, dude, like 10 times. 10 times. He had hands in. He was designated a driver, too, so he's a little bit different state of mind than all of us, I guess. He had hands in, like, pocket, whatever.

And he had his big hat on, and we're standing upstairs. And he's viewing Posner from here, and I'm, like, sitting over here on the banister viewing. And he starts another song that none of us know. And I look over, and Connor's fucking hands go out of his thing this fucking guy dude screaming echoing echoing off the building that we were in just play a visa and then he would just walk out he was so offended come back for the start of the new song same exact spot play another song that either he didn't write or he didn't we didn't know exactly both hands up fucking hat off one point this guy play because we were waiting to leave to leave for abiza we were waiting to leave posner knew that though worth it he made his way to the very

very end and he didn't even sit in the song right yeah he did no he did what do you mean what do you do he's a one of the verses he's saying granted might be this one, but he can't play it. One of the verses he sang, he started the lyrics late to what the music was. So it sounded like shit. It sounded like shit. He was playing love songs, too. I mean, what are we doing? They were great.

It was great. He did one time in the Super Bowl. He should. No, Rihanna is. Get jacked. I am. That was a great, honestly,. Should. No, Rihanna is. Get jacked. I am. That was a great, honestly, that's a great, Rihanna is the best. Yeah, very positive.

She has a baby, too. She's got fresh pipes. Globes killing it. What was that? You're talking about the game three-peat for Georgia? You guys saw him firsthand. Oh, that's already come out. For sure.

Carson Beck, quarterback, he's 6'4". He's 6'4". They're plus 300. Yeah, they are the favorites 300 to win the Nats. You guys bet plus 300? Plus 300, that's it. That's it. Plus 2,000, plus 1,500, things like that.

What's that? It's so tough for them. It's so impressive and so tough at the same time. People just expect them to win the national championship three times in a row. So every regular season game, people are like, this doesn't matter. What do you mean? We've got to win the national championship three times in a row. So every regular season game, people are like, this doesn't matter. What do you mean? We've got to win by 100. To the Internet's point, Kirby Smart had them thinking that nobody thought they were going to win games this past year.

And to help Kirby out, all we did was just never talk about him. Game day, never talked about him. That was like one of my biggest. That's the thing. You just assume, hey, of course, they're going to roll. We'll talk about him when they get in the college football playoff. Georgia's college football playoff conversation. They'll get theirs or whatever.

Basically, people are saying. But I'm like looking at this slate of games and I'm like, are we talking about Georgia? They're like, no, we're not talking about Georgia. I'm like, the reigning champs, they're our champions, right? They are currently the face of our entire – That would hurt. What just happened?

No, I feel like I sneezed. I sneezed. What's going on? He's thinking about Tony. I sneezed and I held it in because, you know, we're on air. I held it right out through the rib cage. Tony, just mute the mic, yeah, and sneeze the other way. I mean, you can hold these mute buttons in.

I mean, you still have the other buttons. Pat, I didn't hear anything. Yeah, of course not. Oh. That'll hurt. You all right? Damn it. I'm pissed. You crack a rib holding it in a sneeze?

Yeah, I know. Well, I saw real pain. I saw some real pain coming from Turner. It wasn't just his face. His whole body crumbled at one point. Right out through the ribcage. Anyways, we never talked about Georgia. So Kirby was able to run with that.

Like, nobody's talking about us. Nobody cares about us. We're able to do that. I don't know how talked about Georgia. So Kirby was able to run with that. Like, nobody's talking about us. Nobody cares about us. We're able to do that. I don't know how he's going to be able to do that this upcoming year. If anybody can do it, it's Kirby. You enjoyed that pregame speech? And having all that time. Oh, my God.

Chuck loves Kirby. We're talking about Kirby. I'm with you guys. I would have done whatever. Oh, yeah. Right up the wall, fireballs coming over the top. I'm following him. You love Kirby Smart?

Yeah. Me too. And all that time he had with Nick to learn. Because it's all about now complacency and this, that, and hey, we eat off the floor. I guarantee you, they partied or whatever, but the next team meeting, that next day or whenever they had it, it was frown back on bullshit.

You're going to start reading and thinking this, this, and this, and he's already set the tone. A.J. McCarron said on college Game Day that the meeting the day after the day after Saban came in and said, this team here hasn't done a damn thing. All right? Team last year won. This team ain't worth a fuck. All right?

So I don't want to hear nothing about what happened. And I was sitting next to Saban. I just started, like, laughing while this video was on. And Saban didn't even budge. It was just like, yeah, that team hadn't done shit. You know, a lot of seniors are gone. A lot of guys in the NFL are gone. What is this team going to be?

I'm like, yeah, but can we take a week? You know, like, just a couple days? For a little bit? Let's do this all. Chuck, do you guys ever enjoy wins? Anything. 24-hour rule. Yeah, but it's not even that, right?

It's like 12. Is it just a relief? Is it a relief to win? The only real time, because there's only one champion, right? College, there's one. There's one team that's going to be happy. No, the ServPro first responders. Yeah, Rose Bowl.

What's that? The Bulls. The Mayo Bowl. The Mayo Bowl. The Bump Bowl. If you're good with that, most programs are probably good with that. You want to end on a good no, but you can enjoy it for a little bit. Get away, recharge, reset.

But then, that job's 365. There is no days off, especially with NIL portal recruiting. You cannot. They can't breathe. You cannot take a breath. They're hosting recruits at basketball games right now, I bet, in Georgia.

That's what most every other team's doing. Like assistant coaches have to just – there's visits coming all the time. The thought of those football coaches at that basketball game, you know, now these guys, they run a quick, you know, this is a fun – acting like they know what the fuck's going on, just selling at all times. Fun brand of basketball they play here. These dudes haven't even got out of the office in six months. They have no idea. They're just selling their asses off.

What did you just say? I like Bama next year. Oh. Go ahead and say it first. I have to see it and save his face. Who's the QB? David Pollock. Pollock said the truth, by the way.

Yeah, that's real. It is. It is. And Pollock is like the greatest Georgia Bulldog of all time. So I enjoyed the internet just being like right in Saban's face. But it was like Pollock, I think, was just like three times all american there and no lies he was like what are we even talking about yeah nothing i said was yes but saban's face though was like all right all right he's pissed about it first thing he said his team i just had to sit up a fucking game day

with fucking david pollock and say right to my face y do y'all believe that? They run it. You know why? All right. Because they won, too. All right. We don't win. Okay? All right. All right. You know how pissed those players are at Alabama when he did that to them? Thanks, Pollock.

Because they know they're getting a face full of nick anyway. What the fuck? They're in their morning workouts right now, those 6 a.m.s, where you just go in and get killed for an hour and a half. Yeah, what's that? Just for the next three months, every morning, 6 a.m. What are we doing? Right in the spring ball. Right in the spring ball. Oh, you're just getting killed, yeah, for an hour and a half. Yeah, what's that? Just for the next three months, every morning, 6 a.m. What are we doing? Right in the spring bowl.

Right in the spring bowl. Oh, you're just getting killed, yeah, for an hour and a half. And then go to class and be attentive and have full energy, ask questions. Sit in the front. Sit in the front. It's like, well, you had me up at 4 a.m. I was out until 3. What do you want?

I can run on an hour of sleep here. Makes sense when you've got the fucking Iowa Hawkeyes nipping at your heels. You need to make sure. Is that Bama? Yeah, goddamn right, Bama, Georgia, you name it. What did they score, seven? 21. All year.

No, it was two pick sixes. Goddamn right. Chuck, watch your terrible football. Defense hunts, baby. Phil Parker, you know Chuck. Hey, good field position defense can win you a couple of games. Not all of them. Lambo was saying, hey, why are you snapping the ball?

Thank God he had the under. That's why he was telling Jordan to slow that shit down. Slow down! What are they doing? Hey, Pat, will you? That's Kirby. What is he doing? He's a poor field. What a team. In that speech, too, Kirby mentions the 365 days. They really are in meetings right now. I like Saban a lot though, especially after hanging out with him for two and a half hours on game day. I liked him. He's a good dude.

Both have new quarterbacks next year. Who's next in line at Bama? What's that? Milrow. Yeah. Dude's unbelievable. Someone really good. He's so fast. He threw like three picks. Oh yeah, he dropped out of Ohio State, huh? Who's that? He's so fast. Very athletic. He's so fast. Where's Rayola going?

He threw like three picks. Oh, yeah, he dropped out of Ohio State, huh? Who's that? Yeah, Rayola, the big quarterback, the son of either Dominic or Donovan. Where did he commit to? Did he commit to Nebraska because his uncle's coaching there? Do we know? I don't know.

I don't know who you're talking about. He's like the top quarterback in this class, I guess. Rayola was the quarterback center for the Lions. Why doesn't Quinn Ewers just go right over to Bama? Yes, or Ohio State. Yeah. And everybody in Texas is going to be like, why are you running Quinn Ewers?

It's like Arch Manning's coming to town. Okay, the Mannings didn't come to town to get – you see Drake May come in and play? Yeah. He's the perfect recruit. You see that? You think the Manning operation is like, yeah, we want Arch to go ahead and take a year behind these people.

Arch hates it. Arch has been in a red shirt since he was 12 years old with the Mannings. Rayola was at the National Championship. For Georgia? Mm-hmm. So they got an Elite 11 guy there already in Carson Beck. This guy's going to go. And then there's also three other five stars that are wanting to play quarterback for

Georgia currently. He's got the mitt. I like this guy. No laces. No laces either. Look at that. How come he decommitted? You didn't return his phone call? What's the deal? Ryan Day didn't like him? He never called me. I don't know what the reason was. How come you're not out there recruiting for the boys?

Why don't you ever help something? I have actually. I've been to some recruiting events with them. Really? Why doesn't West Virginia do any of that? Follow-up? Neil Brown, he's busy working his fingers to the bone, obviously. That's right. He's been texting and tweeting. We're going to be back in there, okay? No big deal. Get a chance to pick one. What's that?

Oh, yeah. Him and Graham Harrell are playing bumper cars right now. Graham Harrell actually left. Wisconsin, I think. Purdue. Fuck. Bummer. I was going to say it with Fickle. That would be electric. I left. Wisconsin, I think. Purdue. Fuck. Bummer. I was going to say it was fickle. That would be electric. I know.

That's why I thought that's where he went. That was pretty good bringing Drew Brees and them in to help with the bowl, huh? Yeah. Yeah, they really played well. What did he do, you think? What did Drew do? He actually just went to hand out the – What was that final? It was like 37 and nothing.

Drew tried to talk to him. The boys wouldn't listen. He did. One for me, two for you, three for Purdue, four for Boilermakers. $5 free bet. That's what he did. They said six to Lightning. Let's make sure we repeat that again next year and go find something.

All right, Chuck. Jeff Saturday did all right. Drew Brees did just fine. The boys didn't listen. It was execution. You know what you guys always say? Execution, execution. It just wasn't – it was good.

We had a good plan. Execution just wasn't – Like McKay said back in the day, I'm all for it. Yeah, all right. Chuck, we need to give away some money, don't we? Here you go, Chuck. Here we go, Chuck. AJ, how do you feel about what Chuck's going to do right now?

I feel great about it. What's he going to do? I want to see him hit some putts too, though, because? Here you go, Chuck. Here we go, Chuck. AJ, how do you feel about what Chuck's going to do right now? I feel great about it. What's he going to do? I want to see him hit some putts, too, though, because I like seeing Chuck's moves right there on the green. He's a pigskin thrower. I don't even think we're going to get that far. Yeah, we won't get that far. I agree, because his throws in hour one were so dialed in.

Dialed. You would say he's going to make this first try, and then when we do that, we're giving away $500 to 10 people? Let's do it. You think he's going to make his first try, and then when we do that, we're giving away $500 to 10 people. Let's do it. You think he's going to make his first one? Absolutely, off the glass. No doubt about it. 10 people, $500.

Got it. Oh, what did it go off the glass? It's going after it, though. He hit the backboard. A dollar, then. A dollar, then. Shot put on. Yahtzee.

Oh! He's always close. Welcome back to the Pat McAfee Show here on this Thursday, January 12th. Chuck Pagano, former coach of the Colts and the Bears and the Mighty Hurricanes. Take a step back. All right, Chuck. Take a step back. Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Pagano can bury this football into the basketball.

Yeah. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! $500. All you got to do, all you have to do is retweet this tweet. You could be one of 10 people who win $500. In reply to this tweet, say something nice to somebody and put your cash tag in there so we can pay you officially on Cash App.

Great throw, Chuck. First try. Attaboy. Great show today. Can't thank you enough, Chuck, for stopping by all season. You've been fantastic. Darius Butler, safe travels to wherever you're headed. Next, you are the man. A.J. Hawk, great work today. To all the boys,

fantastico. Fantastico. Lombo. Dawson knocks in. We do hope that Diggs gets it together by tomorrow with his around the horn problem. Hammer died in about 15 minutes.

We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this every single day. You are the best people on earth. Have an incredible afternoon. We got something big coming tomorrow. Goodbye.