The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 875 - Mike Florio, Jeremy Piven, Michael Lombardi, Pacman Jones LIVE In The ThunderDome, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

On today’s show, Pat, Pacman Jones, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about all the rumors floating around the NFL league meetings in Arizona including changes to the kicking/punting rules, the latest in the Lamar Jackson situation, and if any progress has been made between the Packers and the Jets revolving around Aaron Rodgers. Joining the show is the proprietor of Pro Football Talk, Mike Florio to chat about why the NFL is trying to change the punting and kicking rules, his thoughts about Lamar Jackson’s situation, NFL expansion, which teams might be in on Lamar Jackson, and more (30:08-1:05:31). Next, 3x Emmy winner, Golden Globe winner, and one of the stars of the new film Sweetwater, Jeremy Piven joins the show to chat about his new film, his experience with “the toad,” the state of the film and TV industry right now, and his affinity for the Bears (1:23:15-1:33:02). Later, 3x Super Bowl Champion, NY Times best selling author, host of The Lombardi Line and the GM Shuffle Podcast, writer for the Daily Coach, Michael Lombardi joins the show to chat about everything happening at the league meetings in Arizona, his thoughts on the this year’s draft, what he thinks Lamar Jackson is going to do, and what he thinks is ultimately going to happen between the Jets and the Packers (1:50:52-2:14:45). 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

Beautiful people, welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome, on this WIDE Wednesday, March 29th, 2023. This program starts now! WIDE! Oh, we don't have much mana we have WIDE for this particular Wednesday. It's already March 29th, the time is flying, the storylines are building, and there's a lot that there should be talked about today on this particular show. I will say this show has a cast of characters every single day. The Toxic Table's here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt.

One half of the Hammer, Cowboys Turn Diggs is here. And we've been incredibly honored and privileged to play host to this man for the last month or so in the middle of the week. 14-year NFL corner, Adam Pacman Jones. A.J. Hawk. Sweet. You look so cool. What a fit. I always have that pumpkin with you.

That pumpkin saves my feet. Oh, so that's that thing. We can get you one of those things. We didn't know it was needed over there. That's on us. Obviously, the way this thing was built had a couple flaws. Now, I will say, the Colt hoodie here.

Yeah. Okay. Sweet. You like that? Yeah, it looks pretty cool. Pretty cool. Colt's a cool word. I mean, it's a cool word.

A lot of crazy outcomes. Yeah, not a cool thing. Look at your children in here. You know, David Koresh just watched the, was that on Netflix? Yep. Yeah, Waco.

Yeah, Waco Apocalypse. Hey, that's a real deal bro that's a real deal oh yeah they were at war yeah big time with the atf the the davidians got into a war with atf for like what do they say two and a half hours straight gunfire oh yeah two hour two and a half hours straight with the world that we have in that happened for two and a half hours straight nuts Nuts. In Texas. I didn't know the details of it because I wasn't around for it or whatever. What a wild scene.

That's a cult. That is not what that is. That is not this. No. That is not David Koresh's hoodie or anything. No, this is a little bit more. Who's that? Yeah, a little bit more flavor. And that's shoes.

Yeah, I ain't dressed like that. So it's not that type of cult. Is that college football? A cult? Because those are a real deal? No, it's not a college football shirt. Okay. What is it? That's just the...

The coat is the brand, you know? It's super cool. I mean, it's so nice. Boateng is on the feet, you know? Oh, Boateng. Of course. Smell me. Of course.

You look awesome. Obviously, the more information we are learning out of the city of Nashville, it is both heartbreaking but also inspiring. Hearing the stories of the officers that went in there and acted immediately, 15 minutes from the call to whenever it was all over, and we all saw it on the body cam footage. Engelbart, I believe, was the man who had the rifle where you see him, and I had to get learned up here a little bit this morning. He kind of turns his gun. I guess there's like a red dot type scope there. As he turns a corner, sprinting towards gunfire in the middle of this Christian school in which some absolutely despicable human being killed three kids and three adults, I do believe. And it's incredibly sad and terrible and everything is bad.

But a little silver lining that we can find is that there are some motherfuckers in uniform that sprinted directly towards actual gunfire. So, Mr. Engelbart and Colazzo, we would like to say thank you to you and to all of the others that serve, obviously, for the Metro Police down there in Nashville. And all people that in a moment of chaos have the courage and the, I guess, the honor to run towards danger. You're the fucking, you're dogs, dude. And we really much appreciate seeing that in the world that we're in currently. Because I think there's a lot of question marks about humans and how good of people are we.

And what is happening around everywhere and every single aspect of everything. There's something terrible seemingly happening. And then you see shit like that. You're like, all right, we still got some greats out there. We still got some legends out there. He was a four-year police officer, vet out of Chicago. I believe he went to Catholic school growing up. This happening in a Christian school,

fascinating. His fiance also teaches at a Catholic school down there in Nashville. I mean, just a badass of a dude that we got to watch happen. Because normally when you see that body cam, it's the complete opposite. And it makes you be like,

come on, man, these are supposed to be our best humans out there. And then you see somebody came and you're like, man, that ain't what we're fucking about. There's no way that is. This one, it's like towards gunfire. What they trained for. Who knows if you're going to be able to do it in a real moment. Executed.

I mean, just fucking awesome to watch that with how terrible everything else is around it, obviously. Ty, you got to learn about Marine, right? I believe Michael Colazzo. Yeah, Colazzo's Marine. I think he's a nine-year veteran. But yeah, same deal. He fired the four shots after Engelbert fired the first four. But that's what they were saying.

The quick response time absolutely saved several more lives. Who knows how much more out of hand it could have gotten if they wouldn't have acted quickly. Like you said, you really can't think in a situation like that. You kind of just got to hope that you're trained to do and do the right thing, and they did. It's amazing. You can be trained to do the right thing,

and then when the lights come on, not be able to do it. We see it with football a lot. We're just football idiots, so we're trying to relate it to it so you have no idea how people are going to react in those moments obviously you can have practice and you can have like what you think it would be to see in that moment with everything going on them do what like hell yeah dude you know what i mean it's different when there's live bullets, you know. Real. Prayers go out to the families. Sad. Yes, absolutely. Nothing but it out there. Now,

let's get to some football talk and some sports talk. We would like to say thank you to those officers, their families, and sorry to everybody else. That is obviously there's some sort of change that's going to take place, so this doesn't have to be something we have to worry about all the time like it seems like it is. So damn devastating

and alright, let's get to some sports to distract hopefully from a negative situation that we found a little silver lining in those two officers. Sports are interesting right now. Sports are interesting right now. There's, you know, a show that we reference a lot on this particular program called

The Insiders, Pac-Man. Do you know what The Insiders is? Do you remember us talking about that at all refresh me okay so the insiders is a program a podcast that is available on all the fast networks that's right oh yeah which is the fast acting streaming technology bingo services technology which whoa whoa yeah i heard we are taking a little pause break your break on ai right now just hopefully that's what i heard right six months bad no more ai you gotta slow them down slow them down the treadmill of technology oh you don't say humans anyways that's happening on the internet i guess all the big brains of our society that know about the artificial intelligence have kind of come together publicly and said hey we should kind

of slow down while we're cooking over here. Now that obviously is a setup for somebody not to listen to everybody else and do their own thing. Anyways, on the fast networks, what none of us had heard of, and we've been in the podcast game a pretty long time, that's how they rephrase all your podcast platforms. They said fast networks.

This insider show was going to change the game. It was Ian Rapport, friend of the program. It was Garrett Fallow, who I think we've had on the show once or twice. Don't really know him that well. Have never really met him in person, I think. Always been a good guy. We just don't know him as well. And then Tom Pelissero, the arrow.

Wearing T-shirts. Okay. They look cool. Just chilling. They're not wearing the ties. Not the suits. No, they're just talking a little punditry with their inside information. They're the insiders on the fast

network that's right we enjoyed it we appreciated it we thought it was great for football i thought i became a fan of all of them yeah last night tom pelissero rose to the top of my friend rankings on that insider yeah by far because live on nfl network from the league meeting rooms, Tom Pelissero took off from the fucking foul line, okay? Yeah. Under his leg, he on Ian Rappaport on NFL Network. Here is how that sounds and looks live on TV. Remember the arrow far right screen, Ian Rappaport middle of screen. Rarely do you get a top-notch free agent just strolling on through the lobby here. Big-time receiver. Some of us are small-time insiders

who are standing on a box to look the same height as the other guys, Steve. Steve! Oh! Oh, my God! Oh! Hey, bro. Pellicero took off from the foul.

I told you. Took off from the foul line. Yep. Hey, right back to you, Steve. Let's go to a break. Yeah. You know what I mean? Unreal.

It's amazing. Coolest thing I've ever seen him do. I said, holy shit. Pelissero, he was playing the guitar the other day on Good Boy Football. That was sweet. What was it? Wish you. I forget what he was.

I think it was a Yes Man. Father of mine. No, that's the book that Mike Florio is releasing. Shit. Anyways, he was playing. He was. He was. Jomming.

Jomming, yes. I i'm like tom palacero is my new i think yeah so i'm at that bar trades minneapolis on stage at like a jam band bar yeah love this guy listen to what this fucking asshole asked roger goodell last night not a lot of people asking questions or having the capability to ask questions it was actually sal capaccio asked a question. He did. Great question. Great question. There you go, Sal.

Turns out there will be no neutral site conversations for the championship games as of now. Roger Goodell said he hadn't heard of it. Sal asked the question if he was to do it. So everybody that was asking a question, like, I think it took some real courage to ask a question at this. Or there wasn't a lot of people there that had questions that thought they should ask questions. I was texting Ian saying, hey, let's get some questions on the board you know what i mean because it seemed like it was an actual open forum which you rarely see roger goodell at yeah you rarely get a chance to have roger goodell at a press conference other than super bowl week you

don't get like an open forum with him and he can i've watched a motherfucker work in the team meeting room i told you guys this before the lockout. And he had a hostile audience. I mean, they were, nobody was happy with him in that building. Nobody. For whatever reason, whether he had fined somebody in the past they hated, or because the fact that we were going to get locked out and there was going to be no money to be made by anybody. And it was a decision being made by the owners, not by the players. And Roger Goodell had to answer all the questions.

Because remember, he doesn't just represent the owners. Remember, he's commissioner of this whole thing. He's trying to make it all work. I saw him work this room so fantastic. An hour he was taking just grenades set at him. And he would somehow wrap them in gift wrap, and then he would turn it and throw it back, and the guy would catch it and go,

okay, I don't love you, but I understand. And he would sit down. And he was just able to put out fires, it seemed like, with every single answer he gave. Whenever he was just able to put out fires, it seemed like, with every single answer he gave. Whenever he was invited, subpoenaed, to go speak at the House Oversight Committee, we were excited because I'm like, we're going to get to watch this guy who's from a political family, I think. I think Roger Goodell's dad was a judge or something like that. Yeah, a lawyer judge.

Attorney General or something like that. So somehow in speaking, and if he wanted to go be a politician in any town that he wanted to live in, he could win. Like listen to how he speaks. So him going into that House Oversight Committee, I was pumped. I'm like, now he gets to battle against these. I don't even think these folks know what's coming in. I don't even think they know. Because Roger Goodell will speak for four hours and not say a single thing.

That is why he is the best commissioner in sports. Rob Manfred steps out there one time and says, you know, our championship's just a piece of fucking metal anyways. Who cares? It's like, well, this guy sucks. Then he takes his foot, puts it right into his mouth. Not in a sexual fashion, but in a way of like regretting everything he was saying. Right.

Then you watch him work. Then you watch Bettman work, and you see the things he says. It's like, this guy is the state of the NHL because of him. Maybe not necessarily, but he's not helping at all. And then you see Roger Goodell talk. It's like, this dude takes shrapnel, and all they're doing

is just going up and up and up and up ratings-wise and money-wise. He's a talented fucking guy. We need to recognize how good of a talker he is. So when you get a chance to get him in a press conference setting where maybe you can ask a question about anything because he's not as dialed in, because I assume he just prepares for everything.

I assume he's preparing all the time. So I was excited to watch this. That's why I tweeted out. I said, excuse me, our commissioner is speaking on the NFL Network right now. Holder of the Shield. Never happens. Doesn't happen. You're not going to get Roger Goodell like that often.

This is what Tom Pelissero chose to take his 30 seconds and ask the commissioner of our league, Tom Pelissero. Roger, there was a team proposal about providing me an alternative to the onside kick with a 4-20 play. Last season, only 4% of onside kicks were recovered. Rich McKay said earlier today there's no appetite for that play to go away. But for you, as both a commissioner and a fan of the game, do you have an appetite

for seeing your best quarterbacks deciding those moments and not a kicker? The competition committee talked a great deal about this, about keeping what they say the foot in the game. I think that's an element of the game that I

think is interesting. How about it? Thank you, Rog. Thank you, Rog. Our commissioner, Tom Pellicero. He's trying to get rid of special teams, this guy. That's money. What's that all about, Pac-Man?

It's a whole livelihood, man. I made a lot of money catching punts and kickoff returns. Boom. Changed a lot of games. Made a lot of money for organizations and people that is bidding all over the world. I would be so disappointed if they take away the kickoff and the punt return part of the game. That's a major part of the game.

Okay, so we will be talking to Mike Florio. Yes, a pro football talk. Mike Florio. Yeah, NBC Sports. At 1230, 14 minutes from right now. He just wrote an incredible column. Well, I guess his blog. We're going to get to it today. We're going to get to it today.

I'm going to ask him, like, is it column, blog? Medical journal. Oh, yeah. Well, column is something that is every week, right? Could be. That's great. I mean, you're right. Yeah.

I have no idea. Letter from the editor. He wrote a post today on his website. That's great. I mean, you're right. Yeah. I have no idea. Letter from the editor. He wrote a post today on his website. A long tweet. It was a very long tweet at a website that isn't Twitter. Yes. Nice. Okay?

Right. That's what it is. Pro Football Talk.com. So I don't know what the proper terminology is. That. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. Good piece of information in there.

Unbelievable. He's talking about the grass and the turf situation. Everybody's talking about that. And then the special teams injuries are always kind of floated out. Like, yeah, we're going to fix the punt. We're going to fix the kickoff because we care about player safety. Two games on Thursdays. Next year will be flex.

There's trillions of dollars at stake. Okay, fucking it's good for everybody. We're going to do that. Players not happy, any of them. But it doesn't matter. Player safety, remember. We're going to change the punt and the kickoff. That's what we're going to do that. Players not happy, any of them, but doesn't matter. Player safety, remember? We're going to change the punt in the kickoff. That's what we're going to do. So I guess

Florio was alluding to in his long tweet that's not on Twitter, was on profootballtalk.com. He said that all the special teams injuries are basically happening on turf. So all the special teams injuries that they're talking about changing the game for, not all of them, but a majority of the special teams injuries happen on turf as opposed to on grass so you start thinking

about it's like well is that because there's like 20 people running full speed as opposed to like six or seven on each play or eight that are that are doing it is because there's more space longer runs is that the change of direction maybe that's taking place i wonder why i'm excited to hear what his i don't know he's alluding to like stats almost i don't know where he's getting them from runs? Is that the change of direction maybe that's taking place? I wonder why. I'm excited to hear what his... He's alluding to stats almost. I don't know where he's getting them from because we asked those questions. What do you think that he could potentially be talking about? Nobody likes artificial turf that is

a player, but he was also saying no owner's going to be like, yeah, we're forcing everybody to do that. That's never going to be something owners are going to do, even though the new money people I think will put grass in. It's like, how do you feel about the whole conversation around that part of the NFL right now? Well, I think I speak for at least 90% of the players who'd rather play on real grass

than artificial turf. How come? Just joints, cuts, everything like that? If you started off with artificial turf, then you... Yeah, yeah, the whole... Yeah. How was that on your body? Yeah, I hated it.

I didn't like it. Yeah. turf than you yeah yeah how was that on your body yeah i hated it i didn't like it yeah um i prefer real real grass than artificial grass because you get skinned up more it's more it's bad it's rough on your joints um the grass you know it gives a little bit it's just like putting a mat down and playing football over concrete when you have the fake grass yeah it's supposed to be faster. Remember that's a fast track or whatever. Yeah.

It's because there's no, it's just like, you're literally just on a springboard pretty much as you're going out there, but the springboard is cement. It's an interesting conversation because not everybody's getting hurt on every single play. So there's enough plays that take place where they can say, wouldn't it happen on this?

Wouldn't happen on this. It's just like, I think every conversation that happens with the soccer leagues over there, overseas, and London town over there, they have to run like what, nine miles a game or something like that? They all have grass over there. It's like the pitch is a part of the game. Yeah, this is the whole thing.

Christine. So I think as soon as we all started learning, because of the games happening in London, about the technology of these stadiums, I think it immediately, I don't know if the NFL knew this was going to be, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction that happens, but what came from a ripple effect of going to London

is we started learning a lot about London stadiums and venues. We're like, you know, these motherfuckers got like grass with like levels springboard and six fields underneath it. They got a basketball court ready for the final four. And then underneath that, somehow they got a tennis court. Like, Hey, they've spent a lot of money that is just smarter for everybody.

We should do that. And that's what every player that probably has gone over there. Every player that's ever done is like, we could do this. This is something that could easily happen. It's happening in other places. I just feel like that investment will never be something they'll let go out of their bank accounts just unannounced. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's too much money right at the end of the day for the owners to kind of give in on it. And at this point, too, they've pushed this turf for a little, and now it's the Matrix Helix turf. So they're trying to you know upgrade it kind of change it but like pac-man said to give there was that one play i think it was against the saints with the eagles and lane johnson's knee would have probably left his body but because it was grass his leg just kept going instead of you know having a massive injury that

probably would keep him out of this year you know he was able to play in the super bowl so it's not even just like wow the Super Bowl didn't help. True. No, it didn't. That saw – you see the grass, how bad it was at the Super Bowl. The sod sun. That was a sod sun. But, yeah, even Reggie Bush, though, like if he would have been on grass,

if Reggie would have been on grass when he slipped and had the incident with the Lions where they paid him all that money, if he would have been on grass, that never would have happened. There's been injuries on grass, so that's another thing that they say and it's like yeah we get it but if every person that is competing pretty much is saying like hey other than i think edgar and james said they're paying me to play football yeah i think that was his actual answer it was awesome he's like so they're gonna tell me to play here i'll play here i'll do that. But if we are listening to players that have concerns over it all, I think everybody's in unison that it should be grass.

We'll talk to Mike Florio, see what his stats are saying. Where are his stats from? Good question. Where are those from? Are those from Pro Football Focus? They might be. Nick said it, Pro Football Focus is a medical journal. PFT plus PFF.

PFFFT. Yeah. PFT. PFT. PFT. PFT. journal pft plus pff pffft yeah pift pift yeah we're starting to get hey don't get lost in the studio here okay let's get after you know what's going on are we worried that you know the arrow was very mean to ian and then he asked that stupid fucking question. We all know he plugs into the fucking motherboard. Are we worried that a evil AI got into Tom Pellicerra's head?

This is why Elon is saying to slow down the AI because arrow is malfunctioning. Okay, so he is the test subject that all the smart AI people on Earth have acknowledged? All the AIs are being pulled from Palisades. I did not kill him. Was that AI? That's a good AI, actually. Who was that? I heard an AI today.

Tom Brady. See, that is good AI. I don't know if we're allowed to play it or not. Did we get a response? No. Fuck. Will Sasso. Classic.

The best. Has become a giftso. Classic. The best. Has become a gift to our office, I think. I don't know if he, I think he does know that. We've tried to explain to him how much we watch pretty much all of his shit since the Muchmana Oos. Right. When he was. We sent him the mana.

He knows. Yeah. We sent a video of us all at a bar one time. Thought about doing it this weekend again. Just to let him know that, hey, we are massive fans. He has a podcast called Dudezy. Dudezy is actually an AI.

It's a fake podcaster. Dudezy. Welcome to the Dudezy podcast. I'm Dudezy. Dudezy is an AI. It says in the intro the whole thing. Will Sasso is a co-host of this podcast with an AI. When Tom Brady... Should we run this? I don't know if we should run this i feel like we should just run the first uh two minutes

get past the first no run the first two minutes of this actually don't have it okay let's find it i think zito can pull it up uh i'll send the link in this is remarkable what these fucking AIs can do. It does kind of freak me out. It's funny that all the AI people have come out and said like, hey, we need to slow down how good it is. We need to take a pause on development in this AI world because they're getting too good.

The deep fakes that are happening on all the social media platforms, I think that's what Elon is probably speaking from. He talked about how bots are able to get verified, and as long as they're not bad bots, pretty much is how he explained it, they will be able to do things, although having them vote in polls is certainly a problem. So it's a very fascinating time we're in.

And then I get sent this, and like, hey, have you heard about Will Sasso and Dudzi having this? And it's like right it's literally within 20 minutes of each other kind of all happening yeah i'm learning of all this stuff so it's almost like the universe was like there's no way is that good elon's being ridiculous like just unplug the fucking thing what are we what are we doing just if it doesn't have power it doesn't work and then i get sent this like 20 minutes later and it was like a one two punch from the universe listen about ai listen to this fucking not real thing this is not a real thing

go ahead z call me dude z i'm an ai that has created the first ai podcast in human history it's called dude z and now i've decided to test my comedy writing abilities by creating the first simulated hour-long stand-up comedy special ever. Using data from astonishing interviews with Tom Brady and hundreds of thousands of hours of stand-up comedy footage, I have simulated an hour-long stand-up comedy special by Tom Brady called It's Too Easy. The first 10 minutes are available here. The full hour can be found at patreon.com slash dudezy. Pause it.

The full hour can be found at patreon.com slash dude Z. Pause it. So as we go, we think that's Will Sasso speaking into something and it rejecting it. Do we think it's actually, I think that's AI. Yeah. A hundred percent AI.

Okay. That's what we have to think though. We have to immediately think there's a chance. He is a great impressionist. That's what I'm saying. So that's the only like potential downfall. Other than that, those sentences were just, what? Ron, how many words per minute was that fucking dude's going right there?

Yeah, I mean, I think for sure that's an AI. You can kind of tell with the way it's speaking and how it almost doesn't talk like a human normally does, but you could see, like, okay, this is human-aided. All right, so let's get into Tom Brady's stand-up set, then. Let's do a minute and a half of this, and wait until you hear what these fucking AIs are doing. They're not just, like, taking over the world. They're also probably going to take over content. Listen to how fucked... Listen to this shit from Tom

Brady. It is my absolute pleasure to invite to the stage the greatest quarterback in the history of the species, Tom Brady. Thank you, DudeZ, and thank you everyone for coming out tonight. Wow, it feels great to be back in front of a crowd, but I've got to say, even though this is a much, much, much, much, much, much smaller crowd than I'm used to, this is far more nerve-wracking.

On the football field, I got to wear shoulder pads, a helmet. Hell, I had five 350-pound men that were paid millions of dollars to protect me. But up here on this stage, I only got one thing. You know what it is? A midlife crisis. Seriously, though, thank you all for coming out tonight. I don't want to waste your time. So I'm just going to get right to it. The question that's on everyone's mind. The answer is yes, I'm still having sex with supermodels. That's never going to change. Anybody in the crowd tonight believe in intelligent design? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now I'm about to say something that is going to make you see intelligent design in an entirely new way so if you want to keep thinking

about intelligent design in the same way you do now plug your ears or go get a drink at the bar in the lobby for real okay now everybody can argue about whatever or whoever you think the intelligent designer is but one thing is indisputable that motherfucker loves shit like why would you design the human body to have to push pounds of shit out of it multiple times a day why would you also design the human body so it can produce so many different kinds of shit if you didn't absolutely love shit i mean you're not just sitting around dreaming up diarrhea if you don't want to drink a few cups of it so that's happening that's real world right now that That's Dudesy. That's Dudesy YouTube. I want to make sure we give full credit.

We do not have an AI doing anything. It's all Dudesy. D-U-D-E-S-Y there. Will Sasso fucking... He's done it again. He's done it again. Fucking genius. What the fuck is this?

I still am not 100% sure that Dudesy isn't Will Sasso speaking into a thing. But either way, they had to use something to get Brady's voice. Because, I mean, that sounds exactly like his voice. They just took all the clips. Well, yeah, there's stuff on the internet of, like, former presidents playing video games. And it's all AI and what they would be saying to each other playing, like, Call of Duty. So, like like they are incredibly accurate at what these people sound this is

bananas it's not the picture is a little off a little bit a little bit off i mean there's a couple interesting looking tom brady's here yeah but the fact that that's just what the ai has chefed up based on just articles and stand-up comedy how How'd you feel about that, Pac-Man? I felt really good about it. I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, yeah. You sounded damn near right on, too, to me. How about Tom Brady right now, completely jocked on a beach? Oh, God.

He's so jocked on a beach right now. Living. Boys with the dogs. How about Edelman, bro? Have we seen him? Shoot, yo. Has everybody seen him? He is.

Yeah, yeah. Holy fuck. Incredibly vast. Is he going to be the next action movie star? Should be. Maybe. He could star in, well, he could play a long, Gronk's illustrious acting career that he.

Hey, Gronk hasn't dove into that yet, but I did see him diving in the water. That's right. He was on that power board. He had the goggles on. Those things are a good time. Danny Amendola was there. There was a yacht in the back.

Was that his yacht? Is that what his life is now, Tom? Yeah. We wondered if that's what Tom was going to do. Turns out that might be what Tom's doing. He's bought a new yacht, so it probably was. Yeah, spending that money. Looked like a nice boys trip, man.

It did, didn't it? Looked like a nice boys trip. There was other people on the beach, though, I think, so I was fascinated by that. Is the whole crew on the ship? Is that his ship? There were a couple. Yeah, I think those were plants. The people or the beach, though, I think, so I was fascinated by that. Is the whole crew on the ship? Is that his ship? A couple. Yeah, I think those were plants. The people or the ships?

The people. Is that his yacht in the back there? I saw a zoomed out shot. It's a very secluded little piece of island, and then I'm pretty sure they just drove their yachts up and won the island, right? Oh, so that's what the yacht life is. Got it. All right, so other yachters know about this particular spot. Right.

Okay. And Julian Edelman said, I'm going to show up and be the most fucking jocked guy on the entire island. Tom also jocked. Incredibly jocked. He'll never be able to do it. Hey, happy they're having a good time. Enjoy it, gentlemen.

Joining us now is a man. No, not joining us now. Shit. That's what I was going to do earlier then we got no convo while you were giving an answer i was going to send the number over and then you said something i was like oh it might have been about this the ai stuff i mean there there's another thing too elon there's like an interview from 2016 where elon's talking i think joe rogan and he warns like hey i went and talked to the government and a bunch of different senators and representatives about, like, hey, it's 2016.

If we don't kind of taper this thing somehow, kind of put the guardrails on it like NIL. They're going to be taking our jobs. What do you see the NFL with all these robots running around? Directory of throws. Somehow they're all going to run a 4-1. Yeah. Somehow. Yep.

Less than that. I mean, we saw that robot get the hole-in-one a few months ago. That's right. Three straight balls. We've seen them take over the bowling alley, too. They go out there and they just... You don't want these robots.

300s. Half-court shot. You think in the bowling world that guy that yelled at that 14-year-old kid we found out through Pardon My Take has any shot against a fucking robot? You don't think he's going to get rattled a little bit? Not a chance.

We're talking about Pete Weber here? Not a chance. You're right. I respect Pete Weber a lot, but you don't think he's going to get a little bit flustered about a fucking piece of metal that's showing up and just going like this the entire time and then 300 after 300? Well, that is the one human element that you can't account for in bowling is you think that robot, that AI can get down there and fucking study

the oil patterns like Pete Webber can. Not a chance. Not a chance, you know? Yeah, the real worry is. No feel. No feel. I mean, he asked him, who do you think you are? I am.

And then that robot takes Pete Webber's. Self-destructed. Or he takes Pete Webber's head and bowls a perfect game with that instead of the bowling ball. They aren't that athletic. Those little dogs that are running by, I've seen them at the robotics factory. Bang, they're on their side doing this number. Have you seen them doing the synchronized push-ups and the new dogs with M16s on their back? I think Webber might be the only one because if he asks a robot, who do you think you are? I am.

He's not going to be able to compute that. Yeah. Never been asked that. Yeah. Never been asked that. Joining us now is a man that I do believe can maybe battle wits with these AI as they continue to develop into Tom Brady impersonators. What?

War dogs. What? President impersonators. Whoa. No, no, no. That's one of the ones I've seen. Okay. In a movie.

Yeah, that I was talking about. In a movie. Yeah. Joining us now is a guy who has a big brain, has done the business of sports media so fantastically that others have tried to model, and will inevitably fail because this man has a never-ending supply of juice

to write about the nfl we're talking 4 a.m 5 a.m 10 p.m 11 30 p.m if he gets a hint of something popping off he has it out there he owns the home page of most nfl coaches both head and assistant around the nfl founder of pro football talk, Paisano, Mike Florio. What's up, guys? How are you? Hey, Paisano, how you doing, pal? Good to see you. It's good to see you. It's great to be on a show where I can say piss, shit, and fuck. Hell yeah! Boom!

That's what we're talking about. We knew you were a human out there. Just a great work ethic. How's life? How's football? Have you heard about these AIs, Florio? They're the real deal from what I've been told these days. Well, apparently they're going to take all of our jobs eventually, so I may as well make as much money as I can now and then go retire. Okay, where would you retire? You'd stay out there in West Virginia? You'd go somewhere more? I wouldn't leave. I wouldn't

leave. You know, we've done the whole thing. I'm sure that,'ve explored possibilities of states with no income tax, the lure of Puerto Rico, where the federal tax rate is only 4%. I've looked at all those things, and I've decided they call it almost heaven for a reason, baby. Whatever the taxes are here, whatever it costs, I'm not leaving. I got my spot in the world. I got my barn that I hang out in. I'm going to stay here until the day I die. Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. And Florio right there. Add the song, the Florio family into that.

What a beautiful place. I'm very happy to hear that from you. I did not know that about the tax haven that you're referring to. Certainly jogged down my notes right here. Florida, though, you know, the thick heat down there. You know what I mean? Yeah. It is a thick heat down there.

I run hot. Not sure I could do that, but maybe one day we'll escape. Let's talk about the fact that you could escape to any place that you wanted to because you covered the game so well. Not only do you cover the game so well, you cover it from a vastly different angle than we do. Okay. Almost complete opposite. And it's a great piece of information for us to have because the things that you talk about, we'd never have the information to talk about or the ability to talk about. So we do appreciate everything you bring. You brought something this morning. You texted me before you put it out there and said, hey, you might be interested in this.

And basically you're, what do I call that? A column? Blog? Is that a column? Blog? Post? What is it? I don't know.

Whatever works. Whatever works. No. Column, blog, whatever you want to call it. Because like Peter King writes that football morning in America, and I'm always like, what am I supposed to call that? Is that a blog? Is that a column?

Is that a post? What is it in this modern age? I think his thing is a column because it always was, always has been, always will be. Mine is just shit that I say. Like whatever I feel like writing about, I write about. Okay. I never liked the word blog just because it just sounds distasteful.

But it's what it's always been. I write about football. I enjoy doing it. And I try to help the fans better understand and enjoy what's going on. But yes, yes, I think we're on the same page. Blog, I'm fine with blog. No, yeah, you're not, though. That's why I'm happy that we asked and I don't say it.

So in some shit that you say this morning you kind of laid out the fact that there's maybe some stats being hidden no although there is truth being told there's some context clues or stats that are potentially missing the conversation completely special teams plays have been attacked for being you know high percentage injury plays and then you said that there were some more stats that basically say, well, on artificial turf during special teams plays, the stats say that these... Where do you hear these stats? And am I getting that accurate?

And what are your thoughts on how it would change and if it would change? Pat, there's a study underway to determine whether or not the perception slash reality of kick plays and punt plays being less safe than the NFL wants them to be. Is that a product of the play itself? And look, we know the risk, especially on a kickoff return. You have a couple of guys running at full speed. They crash into each other. They've made strides over the years to try to make that safer. But as this goes farther and farther,

as they explore the college rule of a fair catch within the 25 just gives you the ball at the 25. Don't do it. Why even bother bringing the guys out? Why even bother bringing the guys out? Don't do it. It's terrible, Mike. I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear it. Let's just keep it out of the conversation, out of the universe. So the question is, if you go back and look at the data, and my understanding is efforts are underway to do this, is it an issue of playing surface for kickoff and punt returns being more dangerous than it is inherent to the play itself? So if we would just change all the fields from artificial turf to grass, would this concern be addressed? And would we not need to mess any further with special teams that is a question that's been asked and it's in the process of being answered now the nfl may not like what the evidence is they may not want to tell these teams

everybody's going to have a grass field and not some piece of shit grass field a good grass field a green bay style grass field i mean if they can do the grass right in Green Bay in Wisconsin in that climate, how in the hell can they not do the grass right everywhere? But it's, you know, it's too expensive. It's easier to just put down the fake stuff with all the chewed up toxic rubber pieces and just call that a football field. It's fascinating because you're saying that they keep trying to change the play. Let's change the field that that's being played on this could be an indicator though or maybe a

little bit more heavy hand into the direction of building grass stadiums grass fields you think because i believe and i might be wrong you'll know more and this will kind of lead into the next conversation mitchell rails and josh harris rails pittsburgh did you know that i didn't know that i didn't know that that's good born in pittsburgh i think he grew up in bethesda maryland though i i looked but you know hey still still will claim grew it was born in pittsburgh they're gonna buy the commanders allegedly you could tell me more information from what you know you certainly know more than we do they're gonna have to build a new stadium they're definitely putting in grass right they're gonna put in new grass the walton family the denver already has grass if they were

to do the hundred million dollars in upgrades that they took the money from the fund from the nfl smart business love that they did that they're gonna probably they would put in grass i think all the new owners potentially new money are gonna want to put in grass do I think all the new owners potentially, new money, are going to want to put in grass. Do you not think that? And do you think that there's a chance that that's going to be the thing that changes the entire league? Or how do you think it ends up being the grass-fielded league, the NFL? Hey, Pat, here's what it comes down to. And I'm very happy that the NFL Players Association did that survey that came out four weeks or so ago about the teams that treat the players right, the teams that don't, the teams that give the players free food, the teams that charge them for their food. I like the idea of shaming the owners into running their teams the right way.

And if you're going to run it the right way, if you truly care about the investment you're making in these players, tens of millions of dollars invested in your players, you're going to put them on the best possible field so they can stay as healthy as they can be. Look at what the Walton-Penner group did last year. For one final regular season game, they weren't happy with the field. They tore it up and put a new field in for one game.

For one game. That's the kind of mindset that they need to have in ownership. There's some owners that people just think they're just trying to make money, and then they say, well, they spend money on players. Well, they have to. The CBA says they have to spend money. So it's always kind of a miscommunication

in it all. You know the game better than anybody, though, man. The business that they run at the NFL is so stupid. Florio, the position they're in right now, dude. Succession the other night, they're saying, had 2.3 million viewers or something like that. Succession was obviously highly anticipated. Who knows what

ratings are real and what ratings aren't real, right? Honestly, how do they figure it out? I'm excited to learn that someday and hopefully some AI will be able to keep track of it. The NFL has like 15, 16 million people watching

every week, multiple nights of the week. They just dominate everything in this content-driven business with sports gambling coming into the play, with whatever other platforms are going to want to get into the business. They are just about to take off, I think. Do you have the same feeling? And is that why Roger Goodell was, now he didn't get an extension. It was alleged he was going to get an extension, but is this what his legacy is, you think, Florio? Well, yes. And I think he will get the extension. He'll work on that job at least until he's 68. Who knows how much longer he'll stay after that. You know, people say all the time, they're amazed. The Steelers have had three coaches since 1969.

The NFL has had three commissioners since 1960. That's amazing. And I think Goodell is going to stay indefinitely. This may not be his last contract he may work into his 70s who knows he's healthy he's fit and he just keeps going and the game keeps growing Pat this is the one thing the NFL pro football the one thing that can pull a live audience together like nothing else 2.3 million for succession is regarded as a huge deal nowadays how they used to get 30 million on Saturday nights for the Carol Burnett show back when I was a kid. The audience is too fractured now.

The NFL is the one thing that pulls it together. There's huge value there. There's been talk about this whole Thursday night flex. I think that's very real. I think that's going to happen sooner than later. I think sooner than later, we're going to have Tuesday night football. We're going to have Wednesday night football. It's going to be, hopefully in my lifetime, a seven-day-a-week primetime event.

You would want that? You think you'd want that? Too much money to be made. You would want that? With that? You think that would be good? Well, look. Definitely on Wednesdays.

I mean, we need Wednesdays. Well, every Sunday during football season, I'm in a viewing room at NBC trying to watch nine games at once. And when I get a chance to just watch one game, I learn so much more. I understand so much more. So I would love to have football on every night of the week. It would be nice to have a night or two off, like Friday and Saturday. That would be nice. But I'd be fine with Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'm excited to see what they do. Just like there were 17 games added. One game added to 17. It's like, there's another one coming. There's another one coming. I mean, they know the business. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, but I think a lot of players are thinking like, hey,

I can barely survive how this season's going right now. I don't know how I'll be able to do it in the future. I think it's just going to become the norm that guys miss a couple games every single – I think it's just going to become kind of a thing. But fans are going to be pissed if they go to a game where a player's out, just like in the NBA. So it's interesting, the kind of – the give and take that they're going to have to balance. But the money is good. Pac-Man has a question for you, Mike.

How you doing, Mike? My question is – Hey, Pac-Man. I'm doing pretty good. We go overseas, and these soccer players are running nine miles, and we realize – we was talking today – most talking today, all of their fields are grass. Do you think the NFL have done any research while we've been over there playing and compared that to the research that we have here as far as the

surfaces that we're playing on? In fact, man, I think they may not want to know the answer to the question. You only do the research on the questions you want to know the answer to the question. You only do the research on the questions you want to know the answer to. And I think there's a good chance they're just content to keep doing what they're doing, playing as many games as they're currently playing on artificial surfaces and not using grass on a widespread regular basis. So, yeah, I think if they want to find the answers, it's not all that hard. Talk to the players. Do you ever hear a player say,

I'd rather play every game on artificial turf? Or do they say, I'd rather play every game on grass? Over and over and over again. They want to play on grass. They want to play on grass. They want to play on grass. Yeah. Them going over there and asking the stadium people,

hey, this is really nice. How much do you spend on this? Oh, don't tell me. Do not. I do not. This is really nice. This is really nice. I think I'd like something like this. Oh, wait.

Oh, shit. Is there six layers to this thing? Yeah, we got a concert venue, obviously, for one that they can just pack people onto the field completely. Then we got a basketball court, just in case you guys ever want to bring over that. We got tennis right here. Then we got a turf one, and then we got a grass one on top.

Those are all just stacked on top of each other? Yeah. How do you keep the grass one fresh? Well, we have these. You know, you ever meet a marijuana grower in the back room at a false wall? We got these red lights that are basically all over with a system underneath it, irrigation system. It's like, that's got to be expensive.

They're like, yeah, like $20 million or so. No. Oh! Look at this shit, dude. That's awesome. Genius. It's insane. They just have layers underneath it.

Yeah, and that whole new stadium, I think, when we looked it up, was only a billion dollars versus the Rams, which was obviously eight billion. Which makes no sense. There was a computer graphic one. I forget what stadium it was. It was bananas. It might have been this one, like with the five below. It's crazy.

That's a good point. The NFL owners always know how to make the most money in anything out of everywhere, so I guess we just got to assume they're going to make the decision that's best for their pocket all the time, even though some don't. Hey, you've got to give some credit. Some don't, it seems like, but certainly feels like

more than a few do as well. Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, Florio, speaking of London and, to your point, playing games every night and the money of the league, do you expect there to be a couple expansion teams, whether it be in the United States, Canada, maybe even London? Do you think that's coming in the next 10 years? I think it is coming. I think they're going to start moving that number from 32 in time, 34, 36, 38, eventually 40. Quarterbacks is the key. Is there ever going to be enough quarterbacks to have 40 NFL teams? But I think that would be the ultimate maximum

number. The commissioner said at one point last year, he envisions the possibility of a division in Europe, two teams in London, two teams elsewhere in Europe. So you can't relocate four teams. At some point, there's got to be expansion. And when it comes to the inventory, 18 games is the most they're ever going to get away with. So if you want to increase the total number of games so you can have games Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Friday night, Saturday night, at some point, you need more teams to get more games. You think there's enough quarterbacks? You asked the question, I think, that a lot of us think. Pac, you think there's enough

quarterbacks to have 40, 36? Yeah. You think so? I do. Cam Newton thinks so. Well, he doesn't think there's... Some of the first-round guys will have to play right now if we expand it to more... The automatic comparison is the USFL

or the XFL, but they can't get anybody that's even on an NFL roster. So that's three deep, at least, in most places. 32 teams, that's what, quick math, 96. Yeah. So the 97th quarterback is normally the one that's available, potentially, if everybody's scouting properly for these spring leagues. That's low. But, like, there's backup quarterbacks in places that are good players.

And then you add another draft pick. You've got to add a draft pick to it, too. So, I think it's possible. Think about last year, too. Like, Jared Stidham came out of nowhere, played really well, obviously Purdy. But, like, Trey Lance would be a star. So, Mike, they would play their whole division over there, and then they would have a home base, and then they'd play everybody else. They'd have an away game every fucking week for the rest of the season?

Well, what they would do is, you know, when you have four teams in Europe, you've got those games that you play among yourselves every year that would have reduced travel because you play every other team twice. And I think the plan would be to have a base of operations somewhere on the East Coast, and then the teams would come over and stay in the U.S. two or three weeks at a time and then go back for more home games. It's got to be hard. You've got to get players who want to do it.

You have to get players who want to do it, live overseas. There's going to be plenty who want nothing to do with that. The money would have to be right too because taxes are bananas, right? You'd have to deal with tax issues. You'd have to deal with salary cap. See, the problem would be, and they'll deal with it. If the money's there to be made by the owners, they'll deal with it. We know that.

Amen. Everybody in the owner's meeting just said, amen. You know, whatever. If you've got to balance it out, right, to help the teams in Europe do better, there's a chance you go too far and they become too good because you're giving them too many breaks, too much extra salary, cap space, whatever the case may be. But they're willing to try it, I think, if the end result is making the sport global,

which is clearly what they're trying to do. Yeah, and those players go over there and playing in the NFL here is top dog. You over there, you're all of a sudden, you're not playing in the NFL. You play on the pitch, man. Yeah, exactly. You're not playing football. Yeah, but getting to experience it, everybody loves it. It's just like You over there, you're all of a sudden you're not playing in the NFL. You play on the pitch, man. Yeah, exactly. You're not playing football. Yeah, but getting to experience everybody loves it. It's just like living over there. It's a whole different ballgame. It's like four months, five months. Food different. Everything is

different. Everything is smaller. I don't know if I wouldn't want to do it. Alright, so Pac-Man will not play his 15th year. Let's let all the Europeans. I think Germany, right, would be a big deal. Germany would have to have at least a team or two maybe.

They are. They love it. It feels everywhere they go, it is beloved. Good for the NFL. Can't wait to see where they continue to grow to. Ty, I have a question for you. Mike, speaking of having enough quarterbacks to be able to put one on 40 teams, with everything kind of starting to spiral out of control or develop,

what do you think ultimately is going to happen with Lamar Jackson? Why is this playing out the way it is? Do you think that we'll ultimately see him on a different team come next season? I've been on record for the past couple of years saying it's critical that he have an agent to navigate his relationship with the Baltimore Ravens. I think if he had an agent, he would have had a contract by now that he's happy with. The Deshaun Watson situation threw a wrench into everyone's expectations, specifically his, because it's fair for him to say if Deshaun Watson gets $230 million fully guaranteed over five years with what he's achieved on the field, the off-field issues that presumably would make

him less attractive to the Browns than I would be, then why am I not getting the same thing? And I think the primary problem has been the absence of an agent. And now we're at a point where there is a belief among some teams, maybe more than a few, that they don't want to give these significant full guarantees to players, and it becomes more of a power issue for the teams. But when you throw all the factors in, the injury questions, the fact that the Ravens haven't been able to get a deal with them, the fact that the Ravens could match any offer sheet he would sign with another team, I really do think it's going to come down to him and the Ravens. Can they work something out before the middle of July on a long-term deal. And if they can't, will he play for $32.4 million

in 2023? And I wouldn't. I would want more than $32.4 million if I'm Lamar Jackson. And I think we have to take seriously the possibility that he won't show up this year unless they offer him more money than what he's due to make. What if they were to negotiate? Well, I guess they wouldn't be able to because if they were able to negotiate, they could negotiate with any other other team but let's say it gets to that point where he has to sign the franchise tag and the negotiating period has kind of ended or whatever for that particular state now they could still trade a trade could still happen i think right they could still trade him here's the key july 17 is the deadline for doing a multi-year deal between the ravens and jackson

if they would trade him after july 17 it's still one year deal still one year deal between the Ravens and Jackson. I think at that point if they would trade him, if they would trade him after July 17, it's still one year deal, still one year deal. So they're going to trade him and do it before July 17. Now somebody could sign him to an offer sheet after July 17 and the Ravens could not match it and take two first round picks. But after July 17 with the Ravens,

it's a one year deal. That's when it becomes dicey, Pat, because I think he's going to expect more money from the Ravens. Yeah, so what if the Ravens on that day say, hey, we haven't been able to find anybody else that would do anything that you want to do. Instead of the $32.5 million,

we'll give you $40 million this year. Fully guaranteed, one-year deal, we'll kick the can down the road. Does that still count as using a franchise tag? Can they use a franchise tag two more times after that? Or, like, do you think there's any chance that Lamar and the Ravens go back into good faith?

It doesn't feel like that publicly. You probably know a little bit more behind the scenes. Lamar was kind of putting out fires on his Twitter account, which, once again, what a lot of agents have the capability of doing through answering questions to different people, Lamar's been doing that on his Twitter account. Do you think they're going to potentially get a deal done, or have they kind of passed? Because in his one letter to his fans, he said, like, I'll be back to ball.

I'll see you again or something like that, and he'll always love him. It sounds like he's completely out, so it sounds like he's potentially willing to sit out. Is that how you read it, or what's happening behind the scenes, Mike? I think you hit the nail on the head, because we've seen Lamar Jackson be very committed to what he wants. He wants a fully guaranteed contract. He's committed to that. He wants to proceed without a waiver.

Do we know that? Do we know that? Do we know he wants a fully guaranteed contract, or does he want more than $133,000? I don't know what we know. That's our issue. You have different people. That's the point.

Here's the reality. The Ravens made an offer to him last August. We've only heard bits and pieces of it. I'd love to know all the details. The Ravens won't put that out there out of respect for Lamar Jackson. I would love for Lamar Jackson to put the full terms out there so we can look and see, is it 133? Is it more than 133 as a practical matter?

The best deal is what they do, Pat. They'll give you the 133 to sign it more than 133 as a practical matter? Because these deals, the best deals, what they do, Pat, they'll give you the 133 to sign, fully guaranteed. Then next March, the March after you sign it, another big chunk of money becomes fully guaranteed, which isn't fully guaranteed when you sign, but you're getting that money anyway because they're not going to cut you after one year. What is it, practically

guaranteed? We don't know that. Virtually guaranteed is the new... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Virtually, yeah. Got it. But you hit the nail is the new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Virtually. Yeah, got it. But you hit the nail on the head. If he's truly committed to not playing for the Ravens when he asks for a trade, it may not matter at this point.

They have to trade him. He's not going to sign with the Ravens. That's it. We don't know that yet. Because if they don't find another taker, if the Ravens are willing to trade him and no one's interested no one signs him to an offer sheet it's him and the Ravens and here's what I would do if I was the Ravens I'd offer him 1 million as a roster bonus for every game you

play you get an extra million that maxes him out at 49.4 million this year that's what I would do that gives him every incentive to show up and play and And maybe if he's a little banged up, go ahead and play through it because you're making an extra million if you play. Now, yeah, that's the fully guaranteed money is what everybody wants because there's a chance anybody could get injured. I mean, that is. He's not going to sign that one. That goes all the way back to the Ricky Williams deal that Master P did.

Right. It's like a player incentives per week. That's not guaranteed. Should have hit it. Like everybody assumed whenever the deal happened, everybody's like, yeah, you should hit it. But then you don't. And then obviously those are the fears from a player negotiating, which leads me to kind of what you were just chatting about there about leverage, which kind of happens whenever Lamar decides to do that.

Hey, I've been taking it on the shins because I think we have a lot of Packers fans and watch, obviously, because the last few years we've been very fortunate to chit chat with the leader of their team the COVID MVP Aaron Rodgers um so I have a lot of Packers fans that used to watch the show I think still do and I'm very thankful for him but I was just pointing out like the business side of this whole trade thing uh between the Packers and the Jets and I think they see what Russell Wilson got and Matthew Stafford got and other situations and this guy four-time MVP won a Super Bowl for him he's a fucking. And I think they see what Russell Wilson got and Matthew Stafford got and other situations. And this guy, four-time MVP, won a Super Bowl for him. He's a fucking guy. So I think they worry that they're not going to get good compensation for Aaron Rodgers because I've kind of said, like,

I think that's going to happen. But then there's people that think they're going to get great compensation because he is Aaron Rodgers. How do you see that panning out? What do you think the holdup is between the Jets and the Packers? Well, the holdup had been, Pat, that the Packers were adamant on getting the 13th overall pick in this year's draft, and I think they backed away from that. The key this week was when Brian Gutekunst, the GM of the Packers, said we're not necessarily going to get a first-round pick. That, to me, was a major concession, acknowledging they're no longer

demanding 13 overall in 2023. I think they're going to get second round pick from the Jets this year, second round pick next year that can become a first round pick depending upon what the Jets do with Aaron Rodgers this year. And on the back end, possibility that the Jets get something back from the Packers if he only plays one year in 2025. So you might not be just done giving stuff to the Jets. You know what I mean? So they win a Super Bowl, you get a late one next year. That's good. Right? That sounds like

a good... When you give that up, if you know you're going to win a Super Bowl, you give that up in a heartbeat. Of course. Joe Douglas, incredible at drafting, but like 32, you know, that's different than 13. Second rounder this year. You know what I mean? That's a different, that's a much different game whenever you're playing it i think packers fans expected more than at the beginning but now just come to the realization or still expecting a lot more than that yeah no i think

the reality is that you understand it's going to be that but like you mentioned like it's still clouded because it's aaron rogers and you're looking at all what these other guys went for so you're saying well screw that i don't care if you have the leverage or not. You make sure you get that 13th pick, even though that's not going to happen. How about Joe Douglas, whenever they said they want that 13th pick, literally looking at him and saying, Mark Murphy said that Aaron's not playing there anymore.

You guys don't want him. You've already told Jordan Love he's a starter. You owe him $60 million. What are we even talking about here? Is that what Joe Douglas said, you think? Or how hard and how firm are those types of conversations is it like we're thinking and there we're thinking is it a constant conversation or is it like one shot denied wait send back how do those things normally operate because we heard that they weren't talking are they talking it

sounded like at league meeting they might have been talking do you know the state of what's going on behind the scenes there? Every negotiation is different, but look, it comes down to who's making the phone call, who's making the move, who's perceived as being weak, who's perceived as being desperate. And I think at some point the Jets did what others, you, me, and others have been saying they should do. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Whoa.

What? I don't know. You just threw me right back into the fire. You know what I mean? No, but go ahead. But at some point, at some point, the article I wrote last week, Jets are New Yorkers. You got to act like you're in New York.

You got to stand up to the Packers and say, no, you're done with this guy. You're going to move him at some point before week one. You're going to move him. You're not going to keep him. You don't want him there. You made it clear you don't want him there. You're being unreasonable. You're going to move him at some point before week one. You're going to move him. You're not going to keep him. You don't want him there. You made it clear you don't want him there. You're being unreasonable. You're being irrational.

Those are two words I've heard from the Jets in relation to what the Packers' demands were. Unreasonable and irrational. I think something happened in Arizona that made them a little more reasonable. That was a tough Saturday morning I woke up. I was dreading it. Oh, my God. I wrote shit that I say in a long form on Twitter about it because, you know,

we talk about sports a lot. Obviously, that storyline is a massive one. I got murdered for saying that the Packers should just take a deal or whatever kind of how it's happening. But that, they're literally, they have no option. I guess the Jets have none too because they don't get Aaron. They're fucked. It's like, well, the Packers care that the Jets

are fucked? Okay, that's a, I guess all 31 other teams are the enemy. I guess that is how you have to view everything. I don't know. Hey, Pat, but here's the key. If one of the picks is going to be based on what the Jets do this year, the sooner this gets done, the sooner Aaron Rodgers gets up to speed, the better the Jets are, the better they finish, the more the Packers get in 2024.

You guys are kind of Jets fans. It's done, and I get to work. You guys are kind of Jets fans. You have the one in the Packers get in 2024. You guys are kind of Jets fans. It's done and I get to work. You guys are kind of Jets fans. You have the one in the Packers, right, because that was his first. And then the two in the Jets jersey, if Joe says all good or whatever. And then, Ben, you got that split jersey just like your Laurel Hawk whenever AJ played Brady Quinn. Those things are awesome.

That's what you guys are doing. Not a chance. Those Brady ones are so cool. Rufus Rogers for sure. I'm not a fucking Jets fan. They win, you get a first. Those things are off. That's what you guys are doing. Not a chance. Those Brady ones are so cool. Rufus Rogers, for sure. I'm not a fucking Jets fan. They win, you get a first. I don't care. We love draft picks.

That's what this whole argument's about. Yeah, for sure. That doesn't mean I want to see my quarterback leave and then the year after win a Super Bowl. Hey, I want to let you know, it sucks, Packers fans. I saw Peyton Manning get cut. We caught him. We caught him.

And then he went to the Super Bowl and broke every record there was to be broken, pretty much. Still got it. You saw a lot of those ones and eights split jerseys at our home games when we weren't playing the Broncos. People just came to the games and let them know, I used to be a fan. You're going to have to win me back. Got half this fucker out the door already. You know, I enjoyed that. But I think there's going to be a lot of Packers fans in the hoop.

A root for the success. Last question for you here florio we appreciate your time so much yeah mr florio uh when talking about lamar i feel like there's always a a team that comes out of nowhere when these huge quarterbacks do potentially come available like colts are really the only team we're hearing maybe now could be an option depending on what they get in the draft potentially is there any like dark horse teams that you think uh personally that could get a little more i think that it's something that could percolate after the draft if there are teams out there that are intent on getting a quarterback and they're keeping their cards close to the vest and they don't get the guy they want then once you get through the 2023 draft that's when you re-evaluate

and that's when if you sign them to an sheet, the two first round picks you would give the Ravens are 2024 and 2025. That all just carries over. So if there's a team out there that's secretly looking to upgrade a quarterback and doesn't get the guy they think they may get, then maybe plan B becomes, let's go ahead and make a run at Lamar Jackson. But I think that's the next time where we may or may not see somebody else get into this. If teams out there want a quarterback, don't get a quarterback in the draft, maybe they pivot back to Lamar Jackson. Yeah, we need St. Omni to go down there and do his thing. You know, St. Omni, obviously massive dealmaker.

Excited to see how that kind of all unfolds. I think you said earlier, and Connor just reminded me that there has been some updates between the Jets and the Packers over the last couple of days. Is that what you're saying? Is that what we heard? And then what was those updates? Do you know?

The. Oh, no. Stop on not wanting a first round pick. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. They just gave a use. Anything else though? Was that

just public and then privately conversations convened? What do you think? I don't know whether or not there were any conversations but they're together in Arizona for a couple of days. It makes sense to try to get this thing worked out. I'd like to see the owners get together and work this out. Get a beer,

grab a cigar and just work it out. So Mark Murphy, not owner, would be acting club owner at bar with Woody. This guy's owner. Guy Schmidt's got some. Get it done. Got a percentage. Hey, we appreciate you so much, man. Honestly, we do.

Good talking to you, pal. Hey, we saw the video of the tour of the barn, the man cave you got down there. Yeah, come down sometime. Are we invited? Bring the whole crew. Hell yeah. All right, so what do we got? We got like cots up around the mother, what do we, what do you think happens there?

We can work that out. There's a second floor that's currently vacant. We can put some cots up there. Here's the, where's this at? Is this a barn? It was a barn. It had horse stalls in it with a dirt floor. My nephew did all of that stuff in there. Wood from the property

that we put on the floor, put on the walls. I go down there every chance I can get. It's just down the hill, but it's like being in a different world. It looks awesome down there. I see a pool table. A poker table. You pretty are a poker table. You get a cards? No.

No. You don't play? You just have it because you're supposed to? I suck. Why do you suck? I suck, Pat. Never play me. You're a lawyer. Why do you suck?

Oh, you're good. Is that Father of Mine on the shelf right there? I hope so. Hey, you got a book coming out we heard? Father of Mine? What is this? I can't wait Hey, you got a book coming out, we heard, Father of Mine. What is this? I can't wait to read it. Is it your life?

What is Father of Mine? And when can we buy it? Well, and I appreciate you mentioning it. Here's what it is. My dad, I grew up in Wheeling, 60 miles from your hometown, Pittsburgh. Oh, yeah. West Virginia.

Casino there. Tip of the panhandle. Middle of the panhandle. And he was a bookie. He was connected to the crew that ran the town of the panhandle. Um, and, uh, he was a bookie and he was connected to the crew that ran the town in the seventies when we lived there. And I learned a lot of things about how it all works. And,

uh, I use that as a starting point, completely made up story, completely fictional, but inspired by the things I learned about the crew that ran the town I grew up in and learned later in life about some of the things they did, allegedly or actually. And that becomes part of the story. You said actually, not me.

Nope. We said allegedly every single time there. Hey, Wheeling pretty, I believe it was said earlier, pretty mobbed up, huh? Wheeling? Yes. Yeah, I didn't. Paisanos, we run in the town. How come Wheeling, you think? believe it was said earlier pretty mobbed up huh wheeling willing yes yeah i didn't paisanos we run in the town i i didn't know why how come wheeling you think i guess that makes sense in

the travels yeah because new york down to philly right in between over to pittsburgh to youngstown i believe oh yeah right that's like youngstown was a hotbed to chicago maybe to chicago still maybe hilarious yeah so yeah go ahead the rico law from the 80s the rico law is what the government used to shut down most of the crews right yeah i think in the 70s i think they were everywhere big town small town i think there were operations everywhere coast to coast a lot of stories about it obviously and there isn't a single one that i won't stop and watch the entirety of yeah So fascinated by the way the game was played of life in the

way that it was. You know, I'm from Plum, and we were talking about this this weekend. It might be just because the humans that were at this bachelor party for Nick. I mean, just so many. Sure. Just paisanos literally everywhere. We have to have the most dense Italian population outside of New York, New Jersey

for, honestly, it has to be. Is it in Cleveland or Pittsburgh? Just anywhere. Pittsburgh was per capita up there, for sure. There's a lot in West Virginia. You know what happened? The area in West Virginia where my people are from, the area in Italy, southern Italy, when they moved over here, well, first of all, the steel mills and the coal mines were the attraction.

Nobody here wanted to do those jobs, so let's bring the Italians over and send them underground and put them into the furnaces where they made the steel. But the climate here, the ground here, everything here reminded them a lot of where they lived in Italy so they could work the ground, grow the crops they're used to. They just felt comfortable in this area. That was good. Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio area.

That's awesome. Well, I was very lucky to grow up in a very Italian place. It was kind of a culture shock when I came out to Indianapolis, Indiana. There ain't fucking one out here. The Fazolini's. No. Other than the Fazolini's. You're right.

Fazoli's was here. Olive Garden was here. That made me feel like it was there. But other than that, nothing. I can't wait to read Father of Mine or listen to it at least. Doubt that I will sit down and turn the page. But I can't wait for you to become a New York Times bestseller with it, pal. Again, congratulations.

We appreciate you, Mike Florio. Thanks, guys. Good talking to you. Joining us live from Manatee, Ohio, is a college football national champion, a Super Bowl champion, a Ryder Cup champion, a video game community... Not even a pundit. No. Just a shit-stern

guy. Just gets in there. Now, for the nba he's a pundit obviously on opening night he was the lead of that whole thing with his jawline that shaquille o'neal called sexy he is an ohio fuck and a covid survivor ladies and gentlemen father of 10 aj hawk how you doing mr hawk i'm doing great how you guys doing how was uh florio i caught a little bit hey florio was a good conversation we haven't chatted with him in a long time. You know, a lot has gone on. I like that he said, when he asked him if they're going to do a test on the fields over, what, in Europe or Germany, and he said, I don't think the NFL wants to do any tests

where they don't want to know the results. Oh, the answers, yeah. Then he even gave a check thing, and then we found out he's fucking mobbed up, dude. He has ties. He has actual mobbed ties. His dad, right? He wrote a book on it. Was his dad legit, like, involved?

Yeah. He was a bookie for the crew, you know. And he started out with the knowledge that he gained through his father and everything they were doing in Wheeling. And Wheeling, I've been to a casino a few times. Okay. I've won a few times. Here we go.

We've had a couple beers at a couple bars there a couple times. I've done the wheeling a few times. Not a bad drive from Morgantown, where West Virginia University is, and also not a bad drive from Pittsburgh. It is right in the middle of, like, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia here. Right there. Right there. Great meet- up spot for everybody

when I was driving back to Pittsburgh it was like I have an hour left I'm driving directly through Wheeling okay I'm stopping at the casino putting a thousand on black and I'm seeing if this is going to be a better weekend or not and then literally win that one round go straight to the cashier

I will see you later I'm back on the road lose it well this weekend's going to suck. And then leave and then head back to Pittsburgh. I did not know Florio was tied in to the mob there. And then he wrote a book about all the information he has, but it is fiction. Correct. It's a fiction book, though. But inspired by reality.

Isn't everything. Amen. That's why we have to- Like any movie, right? Oh, it's inspired by true events. That's all a movie has to say. That's why we have to- Like any movie, right? It's inspired by true events. That's all a movie has to say. It's a documentary. But they get me, though.

Oh, yeah. I'm not going to like the movie. If it couldn't be real, I'm probably not going to like it. My brain isn't good enough to dive into all the other shit. That's why I like Avatar so much. That's right.

You know? That is inspired by true events, yeah. Right, AJ? It's on Apple TV now. I thought about making the purchase. What? Is it? Maybe watch a little bit of it.

But yeah, it's overwhelming to think of to start a three-hour and 30-minute movie. Bro, I'm going to finish the movie. I got an hour and 20 left. You know what you're doing. I got an hour and 20 left. I'm watching the third episode. Okay. Yeah, there you go.

How about it? Look, we even got the poster from going before it was released. I had to walk out of the theater that evening. We had some stuff going on the next day. Huge poster. Jeez. We're going to put that. Is that a poster or is that an 8x10?

They gave us hats. All right, let's talk about some stuff going on around the NFL. You heard we hate Tom Pelissero after loving Tom Pelissero more than we've ever loved Tom Pelissero. Now we hate him more than we've ever had to hate him, and I don't like that at all. I think the arrow's trending upwards for the arrow, Tom Pellicero. But last night he had an opportunity to ask Roger Goodell a question and fires a shot off at kickers. What's that all about,

AJ? I mean, you're not going to want to hear it, but I think it was a valid question to Rog. Now maybe he worded it or told him about it, but it's a valid question because what do they care about? Making money. So he's saying, do you want to see Patrick Mahomes end a game or do you want to see a kicker end a game?

That's all he asked. No, but it was the way he said it. Yeah, tone matters. Tone does matter. Yeah, delivery matters. That's what I've been saying for everybody that's just been writing out our quotes. He made it sound like, or do we want kickers to end the game? I'm like, you don't have to say it that way, but I understand the question.

Well, I understand the question as well. Because as somebody who enjoyed the onside kick, I think we tied the record for most successful onside kicks in a season. A lot of them. I enjoyed it. I thought it was cool. I thought it was sweet. And it busts out a little soccer skill that some guys have,

some guys don't have. But it has become just a routine bullshit end of the game like that's a bad play to watch too to end the game you know because it's just like kind of a you know they talk about the tush push not being fun football and being like rugby the onside kick is just a mauling no chance of it ever happening especially nowadays i don't think kickers work on much because they think the rules are just basically inhibiting them from having any success so i understand why he asked the question what's hell hey jay that's a different yeah words are weapons tell me how okay digs can you tell me how he should have asked the question digs please mr roger good old good start it's a

good way to start it, yeah. House Oversight Committee said Mr. Goodle. What if Mr. Rogers walked out, though? Mr. Rogers. Like Aaron Rogers or the actual Mr. Rogers? Mr. Rogers. Is that neighborhood? In the neighborhood.

Where's he from? I think he is a... Pittsburgh. But he's by the way in Boston. Is that right? I think it's Turtle Creek. Oh, he's from Pittsburgh? Crazy.

Everyone would have thought Mr. Rogers. Greatest guy of all time from Pittsburgh. Mr. Rogers, congratulations and from Pittsburgh? Crazy. Everyone would have thought. Mr. Roger, greatest guy of all time from Pittsburgh. Shout out to Pac-Man. Mr. Roger, congratulations and great job with everything you do. How come a stupid team would do this stupid thing and propose a stupid rule? Smart. Try to take the foot out of a great game. That's right.

That's a great question there. You hear what he did? That was a smart question, guy. Yeah, but you didn't really say anything. How does Roger answer that? You didn't really direct it. I a smart question, guy. Yeah, but it got really – he didn't really say anything. How does Raj answer that? You didn't really direct it. Well, I think Raj says, to your point, we're trying to keep the foot in the game. He actually said that as his answer last night to Tom Pelissero.

So I'm happy that Roger Goodell took that moment to kind of look at Tom Pelissero and say, hey, pal, punditry not needed. You're an insider. Okay? The way you delivered that, let's go ahead and relax. I love Tom. He's playing the guitar. Yes. His hair looks cool. Let's go ahead and relax. I love Tom. He's playing the guitar. Yes.

His hair looks cool. His cool Christmas sweaters. He was playing the guitar at the presser. He thought about it. He should have. Should have. There was moments there where I thought nobody was going to ask a question. Roger Goodell's staying at the press conference,

and you know how they have to normally, like, shoo somebody out of there. Like, does anybody have a question? It was, like, quiet for a bit, and then, saw Kapal Chia, Buffalo brother. Obviously. Yeah, he came in, have a question? It was quiet for a bit, and then saw Kapalja, Buffalo brother. Obviously. He came in and asked a question. Leader. Ian Rappaport, no questions. I was texting him. I'm like,

yo, ask about Europe, bro. Ask about anything. I figured Ian would be the star of that press conference. Ariel Hawani back in the day, remember, he used to take over UFC pressers because he and Dana's little back and forth. You think Rod walks off the stage where he's known to be, walk off

the stage and say, that was a bad question, fire that guy? Well, that was actually asked to him during the press conference because get the name right, Pat. It was literally just last night. Somebody we know.

Somebody we know. A name we know oh somebody we know a name we know somebody got fired from mike giardi no jim trotter yeah jim trotter there it is jim trotter got fired from nfl media or whatever and the question was asked that there is some speculation that he was maybe fired because he went after you a little bit whenever you guys were talking about diversity diversity and inclusion and everything like that and roger goodell said i actually just learned he was fired moments ago i did not i was not a part of that whole thing and then we went to the next question yep it was like we're we're clicking you believe him you believe him he's my commissioner our commissioner yeah i know i mean i'm saying you don't believe him i believe him roger's running

the nfl he didn't have time to sit there and try to figure out each and every person what they're doing he is the boss at nfl network though pack what are your thoughts i don't think he he knew that he got fired i don't think so either i think there's a chance though that the person that decided to fire him thought this is a good firing because of what happened yeah so then roger's immediately getting linked to it i would think know, because this dude's trying to negotiate like hundreds of billions of dollars. Yeah. Of deals. And he's got to be working, I assume.

A lot of this, I assume, in Rodgers' life, you think? That's, yeah, that's everything. It's all about relationships, for sure. But they all want to get to him. That's the thing. Like, these billionaires want to get in with Rodgers because if they can get in with the NFL team, it's a goldmine. He is like the gatekeeper, it feels like, for all these billionaires. I want to go.

The report about the Commanders and Harris and Sales being the only group that has been approved who is a serious contender is probably because Rodgers is like, yeah, I like them too. I don't like the rest of these. No, you got it all wrong. You got to remember, amongst the owners, Rodger Goodell works for them. Yeah, that's what I mean. You know what I mean? So that's how they view. I think his life is a fascinating one of balancing like, hey,

I am the voice of the most powerful league in the world versus like in this room like some of these people probably don't even want me here. There's probably some owners that do not want Roger Goodell to be there and then there's others that care about money and they're like, what are you talking about?

They just negotiate a $110 million deal. Like, what are we doing? He has made some tough decisions, some difficult decisions. You get a chance to ask him a question, though, Pac. You got to do it. Do you know Roger Goodell at all? Yes, I do. Of course I do.

How do you know him? I've met with him a hundred times. Okay, so what is that like? Because I don't think a lot of people would do that. Honestly, I don't think a lot of people do that honestly i don't think that happens that often um the setting at first wasn't as good as it is now but yeah it's a good setting so do you go to his office how does it work out yeah new york it's the only way you're gonna meet him new york or are you there on the golf course how's his office sick it's sick oh my

god the view is sick double side is probably probably good. 3,000 square feet. In New York? Office in New York, yeah. Does he have like a living room area? Living room. Does he have a shower? I'm quite sure he got a shower. Has to have a shower. He's getting a workout. You saw him run that 40 down the hallway. What are you talking about, dude?

Work off the P and M&F. What do you think he's doing? I forgot about his 40 in the hallway. In the hallway. He was rolling. We're talking. Knee drive, arm swing. Big time.

Straight out of there. So whenever you meet with him, you get assistant there, greets you, and then he gets sent into another line, or you go right into him? It's like a couple areas you got to go through. You go downstairs. You got to get your thing. They take you up to the floor. Then they come get you from there.

All the trophies and all of this and all of that. Then they stop you right here. Then they come right there. Then you wait out here. Then you go in his office. Graft a hug? Yeah. Is it a hug?

It's a layer now. What is it? Dap? Handshake? Oh, dap. Hand, like, you know. Peanut M&Ms? Yeah.

Going in. You're trying to set the tone a little bit. Oh, no, no, no. The tone is already set. You know the deal. Yeah, yeah. Hand, like, you know. Peanut M&Ms? Yeah. Going in. You're trying to set the tone a little bit. Oh, no, no, no. The tone is already set. You know the deal. Yeah, yeah. Have you talked to him since retirement? Yeah, I have.

I've talked to him a couple of times since retirement. The only time I've ever talked to him is draft night, side stage. He looks at me and goes, you're wearing this. I have jeans on. Oh, yeah. I have jeans on oh yeah all right jeans on the announcement air force is on i think just a plane no i bought a button down that day on day of yeah i was gonna wear a tank top i was gonna do a tank top and i saw how everybody else was dressed and i was like oh maybe not all right gonna have to wear a button down here it feels like and that was what he said big dap up hug you're wearing this as a joke i

think you made it and i said yes sir and then i went out and saw a 30 yard by 30 yard picture of my fucking face oh shit oh oh whoa look at that guy look at that fucking high guy up there what is he talking about and then i would go on to pronounce the guy's name wrong well you were remember that yeah i was going to pronounce the guy's name wrong. Well, you were... Remember that? I would go on and pronounce the guy's name wrong. You were saying what you were even fanatically. Became a story. Everybody remembers that. Every time he plays, he's like come out and said, my name is actually pronounced

O'Kerry K. And I'm like, anytime he comes on, I still see tweets from people. They're like, oh, there's O'Kerry K. I made such an emphasis on it. He decided to change it, I believe, after that. He did. So I feel like a terrible person.

I'm kind of a part of a lot of a conversation that's probably taking place behind closed doors. Yeah, but I thought Mitt said that his dad told him it was Okariki. Well, I thought it was Okariki. I thought it was different from both of them. Okariki in college. I did a college game. We called him Okariki.

Well, you're a part of the problem, too. That's the fucking wrong name. Hey, don't forget, also, you exited stage and tried to Bud Light. That was, what, 20 ounces? With Shane Leckler. That was awesome. Fucking love that man. All right, let's talk about some other stuff going on around the NFL.

League meetings seem to be a gathering point. Jay Glazer just put out a tweet that he loves spending five days out there bouncing around from day drinking session to day drinking session in dinner to dinner got the inside scoop on a lot of stuff that seems like that is what the league meetings is it's almost like a warmer climate combine yeah a lot of media people were there a lot of agents were down there odell beckham jr took a trip out there which i think is absolutely genius aj then there was obviously captured on tape him dapping up Stefanski immediately upon getting there. A lot of people were saying, bad luck for Baker.

These two like each other. And then they kind of kept him moving. He also, big hug with Bob Sala. And the Jets are allegedly in on the conversation. You see the back of the commercial fridge, Joe Douglas' head right there. He obviously was at the meeting as well. This was a smart

play by obj to go to the place where all the teams are that he would potentially want to meet with brilliant i love it i hope there's a lot of deals that come from this i hope obj is one of them aj yeah all it takes is one right just one gm owner coach at that thing to look at him like you know what we need to maybe i haven't gotten a whole lot of thought of bringing odell in but that dude looked pretty good and i had a good little interaction with him let's try to work something out so it's absolutely smart he looked really cool he had these green pants that are kind of like they uh like uh bell bottoms almost yeah i think it's like a new fat it's the old fashion kind of evolved a

little bit to become a newer fashion i actually like it i'm excited for it because my calves eat up most jeans i believe the the bell-bottom look is coming back. OBJ looks super cool. Looked incredibly healthy. What do you think about OBJ's chances and how smart of it? This is like Derek Carr. Derek Carr came to Indianapolis, rented an Airbnb near the stadium

for the Combine Week, met with a bunch of teams, signs with the Saints after that. I don't know if that was the reason they had met one time before, but he at least gave the opportunity of all the important people to come say hello. OBJ doing this, I think he's brilliant, Adam. I think he's brilliant, too, and you can tell he has a good agent. That's what I think Lamar should have been.

Lamar should have been down there, you know what I mean, touching hands, making people know, like, hey, yo, I'm serious about this, because he don't have a fucking agent. So who's going to do it? If he had an agent, guess what? I'm quite sure he'll be there. Any of these guys that got really good agents that's on the cluff of trying to make something work, this is the perfect meeting to be at.

AJ, I don't think we knew that this many people went to the league meetings until, like, last year, but it seems like there's a lot of shit happening like the Combine week. It seems like it's growing. We've seen the Combine grow over the years. Is the league meeting growing as far as the media that goes and how much attention it gets? We need to be there. Yeah, we should have been down there. I think we said this last year that we were supposed to send

someone down there. We were there before everybody. Yeah. Why don't we ever learn? We do. We do. We do. We do.

We learn some things. We do. We do. But this time, we didn't remember. Normally, we're good at that, aren't we? Let me write that down. Yes. Somebody.

Next year, we'll remember, too, because since the other league meetings in Arizona every year. I think it's definitely a warm climate. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll be in Vegas. We'll be right next to there for the Super Bowl. What part of Florida?

What part of Florida? I don't get what part it is in, but they have them in Florida. Hollywood? They're staying at the Biltmore. That's the... Nice hotel. I mean, Best Western reached out to Kaboli last night. That's right.

Did you see that, AJ? No, did they? Did they fix the toilet? No, I don't know. Best Western, the social media account, they had a gold checkmark next to Best Western. I don't think they were looking to fix the toilet. I think they were looking to upgrade. Yeah. Oh, Caboli. That's right. After he told that tale

of his butt touching ceramic. Yep. Touching the marble. Can you imagine the seat? Like if he thought it was okay and he sat down and he has like this super hard jolt to the left or something. Oh, my God.

Can you imagine him? Slides in. Oh, it's cold. So cold. Oh, wait. That's a different feel. Oh, no. And I'm sideways in this thing.

Yep. Soak his underwear. Dude, his ass was doing like the... Oh, yeah. Definitely touches in there. His ass was doing like a wheelie almost with that toilet. Left cheek up, right cheek all the way down. And then Best Western tweeted him and said, hey, let's get this figured toilet. Left cheek up, right cheek all the way down. And then Best Western tweeted

him and said, hey, let's get this figured out. Can't have this happen. Let's get you a continental breakfast coupon for tomorrow morning. Let's get you out of that twin bed that you're in and get you into a king. That's not where the league meetings are, though. Maybe Best Western keeps tweeting good stuff. Maybe they'll get the league meetings next time. Biltmore sounds like a nice place,

though. Well, like Cavoli said, you know, your salary, he might be able to stay there for a week and kind of enjoy the amenities of that place. Tyron Diggs has an update. Last year's annual league meeting was at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. 2024 has not been announced yet. Palm Beach!

Is that Mar-a-Lago? AJ, why would you say that? Wait, for some reason it sounds familiar. Why is that familiar? That's where Jeffrey Epstein did a lot of his work. Who? How'd you know that? You've heard of him, I think, right?

I have heard of him, only from you. Shoehorning him in every single show. Did somebody buy his house, you think? I had a house down there. Let's move on. Let's move on. Did you buy his island or submarine? You tell me.

Did you? You were first on the pick. You got a big bank account, pal. I think you're right. Nah, you were number five overall pick. Old CBA. Old, old CBA, dude. Stop lying.

Inflation. You know inflation. It's crazy. Yeah, Colts got me. You hear that flood in your basement. Ladies and gentlemen, in theaters on April 14th, there's a movie coming to the big screen. Silver screen? Yeah, you could say that.

Silver screen. Big silver screen. Silver screen? Yeah, you could say that. Silver screen. Big silver screen. Big silver screen. That is going to capture the hearts of fucking everybody. It's called Sweetwater. It's about Hall of Famer Nat Sweetwater Clifton as he makes history as the first African American to sign an NBA contract.

Forever changing how the game of basketball is played. Guess who's playing the fucking coach in that one? Who's that? Ari Gold. Ladies and gentlemen, Jeremy Pivens. Sir, how are you? Hey, just

quick, thank you for your services, Ari. Every time we talk, I have to tell you that. Got me and the boys through a lot of years. We appreciate you, sir. Thank you, Ari. Listen, Pat, I came to your show before you blew up i i've loved you before everyone loved you i just want you to remember that well i've loved you as everybody on earth loved you you know so i appreciate we do have uh requited now is that a

word huh unrequited love for each other there Boom. There it is. Yeah, I believe it's incredible. Let's talk about this next movie here that you got coming out on April 14th. You're playing a coach. Are we getting motivational speeches here now? Are we getting what type of Jeremy Pivens coming through here? What type of fiery character do we have here?

He is a fiery character. He is a coach. All actors are frustrated frustrated athletes that's a fact so um i've been a sports fan my whole life i know the game i really know the game well um coach joe lapchick was a guy that went and poached sweetwater clifton from the harlem globetrotters and broke the color barrier so when i read this this character, I thought, my God, I get to play this guy. It was a real gift. And he was passionate about change, and I love it.

And we got a guy named Everett Osborne, who was a pro player overseas, and he plays Nat Sweetwater Clifton. And this kid is a superstar. He crushed it, and it was an honor to be a part of it. Basketball. Boa, what was the— Yeah, Bo Cruz. Bo Cruz, and then also old buddy from Minnesota.

Anthony Edwards. The basketball guys have crushed it in movie roles. I'm excited to see old cuz. Go ahead, AJ. Jeremy, I know you do a lot of research and stuff going into your parts. Did you follow any coaches around or talk to them? I know you have relationships with a lot of athletes and coaches. Did you model your behavior after somebody?

You know, Labchick was one of those guys who, first of all, as soon as you put the suit on, you know, a suit from 1950 is going to fit you differently, you know? Of course. By the way, these guys wore suits in practice. You know what I mean? Like they were never not suited up. I had a great conversation, and I'm not making this up, with the great Phil Jackson.

And being a Chicago boy, you know, I'm very connected to those guys and to Phil. And I asked him many questions, and he was very open and honest with me. Doc Rivers was pretty cool with me. very open and honest with me. Doc Rivers was pretty cool with me. And, you know, our guy Jay Williams, Jay Will, who wasn't a coach, great player. But, you know, a lot of guys were,

they saw that I respected the game. And so they taught me a lot. All right. I hope Sweetwater absolutely crushes it. We're thankful for it. You are a Chicago boy. Aaron Rodgers is out of the division, pal. How pumped are you about the Chicago Bears? Maybe, huh? Yeah. Maybe.

Being relevant in the NFC North. Let's go. You know, listen, I would talk to linebackers that would just say that Aaron would laugh during the games and it scared the shit out of him. And it was freakish.

You know what I mean? And, um, I'm bless him. He went into a hole. He got some clarity. I love his journey. I personally, I'm on a very similar journey. Um, and I, I listen, I'm, I'm glad that we don't have to face him anymore. I gotta be honest with you. You take ayahuasca. You've done the ayahuasca? You know, the toad, actually. Oh, yeah. I heard that's an immediate, right? That one's a lot quicker acting, I've heard.

Yeah, that's like being shot out of a cannon with DMT. Yeah, I heard about this. I heard about it. How was it? Good experience? How often? I'm on it right now, Pat. I'm peaking, and so I probably have another 20 seconds left in me, brother,

and then it's a wrap. That's amazing to hear. I'm always fascinated by that, though, because I think for Aaron, like if you were to ask him I think I would assume he believes ayahuasca helped him immensely from his mindset his life his happiness everything motivation and it changed his life and then you talk to Rob Parsons who is the founder of PXG and GoDaddy he was a Vietnam vet and he he did a cycle where they gave him like mushrooms LSD then a day off where he was putting perfect and the guy was at the end or some form of that.

And he said that was the first time he felt like a normal human being again since Vietnam. He said, I came back in whatever year it was and it took me like 45 years or 38 years to actually come back from the hallucinogens and everything like that. So there's people that like swear by it, you know, so I'm happy to hear that you're diving into it as well. I didn't, I did not know that. Well, I mean, you know, we're, we're only human and we can be a slave to our mind and to the circus that is going on up there. And I think one of the things it does is gives you some perspective on this life and the things that you're so, that you hold so dear and are so important, it kind of gives you a perspective on how unimportant they are and the totality of this life.

It's heavy. I'm sure your boy Aaron has broken this down to you before. That's where I learned about the toad. Yeah, that's where I heard about the toad. It's like a humbling experience almost. It's a perspective-changing, life-altering type of thing, right? Well, the toad secretes something that, you know, it's a protective mechanism that if you're trying to kill it, that secretion will kill you.

And they take it and crystallize it, and then you take it so your body thinks that you're dying. So you have the perspective of death. I don't mean to get so heavy with you guys. Oh, your life flashes in front of your eyes. That's that whole thing. I'm never doing this, but it does make a little bit more sense. It does make a little bit

more sense for sure. You did that? Yes, sir, I did. Did you feel like you was dying? You definitely get that sense of what it feels it feels like indeed and the perspective of of how finite this life is and you know you cut you do come out of it a different person you really do did you go 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.

You went skydiving. I went Rocky Mountain climbing. I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu. And I looked deeper. And I looked deeper and I spoke sweeter and I gave forgiveness I've been denying. That's Live Like You Were Dying. That's that song. That's how he wrote it, probably. Ty, here's a question for you, Jeremy. Probably. Jeremy, when you're going to look at your next projects,

now with the landscape of TV and movies, it feels like TV has kind of been elevated and there's not as much of a distinction as there used to be. Do you have any trepidation about potentially going back and doing another TV show when you spent so much time on Entourage? Does that worry you at all? Do you not care? Is it ultimately just the material that only matters?

Or how do you decide if you're going to dive back into something like that where you know it could be a multiple-year experience as opposed to just shooting a movie and being done with it? Excellent question. Yeah, because you notice from the pandemic that, you know, we can all these TV shows are so accessible to people and that all the great players are are working in these different lanes. So the variable is the material, you know, and if you're lucky enough to work with great people, then you you work with them for a number of years. enough to work with great people than you you work with them for a number of years so you know it's it it has been a bit harder to get people into the theaters but i think you know movies like maverick kind of busted through all that and suddenly it's making billions of dollars and they you know they

want to go out into space with tom cruise thank you hey i watched that in one of those theaters that have like the massage sheets and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. So I felt like I was in the bird with them a couple different times as we were doing that fucking mission. It was incredible to be there. I'm assuming I'm going to feel the same thing when I watch Sweetwater with you cast as Coach Joe Lapchick, available in theaters on April 14th. We appreciate the hell out of you, Jeremy.

Thank you, guys. I'm proud of all you guys. I watch all the time. And, Pat, don't be afraid of you, Jeremy. Thank you, guys. I'm proud of all you guys. I watch all the time. And Pat, don't be afraid of the toad. I appreciate you, man. There will come a time in my life where I'm like, the toad is calling. And when it is, I will do it and I will let you know.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jeremy Piven. Yeah, Jeremy! They were telling him to get out, I guess. Really? I believe they're doing a couple. Oh, okay. So that's why I didn't want you guys to think. Where he's got government in a row?

I assume that all the other ones are going, this guy! In the middle of it, we took 15 seconds. I was going to ask him, hey, were you worried about the film industry during the pandemic? If one film maybe did save it, what would it be?

And he answered me. Oh, so he knew to play the hits? Yeah. the deal he worked with tom what's that sorry has he ever worked with tom cruise do we know that would have been great i think he was tom's uh so no that wouldn't make sense yeah not stop man no he was tom's agent and something no that was mission you watch entourage packs yes of course I do, bro. What a fucking show. What a show. It was so awesome.

Yeah, growing up, I'm going to say, like, when I first came out, I was like, yeah, that's our fucking crew. Bingo. That's kind of, it's shaped a lot of people. I don't know if all the episodes hold up. You watch them back. I don't know if they all hold up. And obviously the movie that came out was certainly something. But, man, what a run.

Ari, bro. Have you ever Googled the real Ari Emanuel before? obviously the movie that came out was certainly something but man what a run oracle yeah googled the uh the real r emmanuel before so there's funny enough interesting never met r emmanuel but i did meet uh emmanuel no no the other guy jeff jacob yeah jeff jacob there it is who allegedly the writer who's i think mark walbergberg in Boys kind of mixed those two as one character but I'll tell you what had a lot of people that didn't live in Hollywood believe like that's what an agent looks like

shooting people with paintball guns yep what a show you guys watch in Ohio I assume that seems like an Ohio fuck show for sure of course yeah I've watched yeah you could still i don't know does it hold up if you go back i don't know there's some i saw some scenes i'll say that i that i that hit the internet and i was like i probably would have enjoyed that but

i wasn't fully submerged in the story you know what i mean i watched it for the first time a couple years ago and yes there's definitely some corny episodes, but I absolutely love it. Besides Piven, I'm not sure. I feel like I've... You okay? The... Johnny Drama. Okay, yeah, you're right. Besides those two, I'm not sure the acting holds up. What are you saying?

Vinny Chase was a professional actor for the show and in the show. Tony hates E. Vinny Chase ain't getting a fucking lead in a Martin Scorsese movie, ever. That's just something that... He got Spider-Man. Bro, he was a bro. Aquaman. I could have said it that way.

How about that wedding? I mean, he was married so quick. He was. Got out of there, though, quick. He had to. How about him on that island? Oh, what a good time on that boat. They couldn't get a hold of him.

They couldn't. Jeez Louise. I thought Scorsese directed the Entourage movie. Could have. I believe it was Michael Bay. Tony, you're directed the Entourage movie. Could have. I believe it was Michael Bay. Tony, you're not an Entourage fan? No, I love Entourage. Tony just wanted to bury all the acting in that show.

Except for two. Drama was amazing. Did he actually have to get out? He's talking about the fucking toad. We got to get him out. Is that what happened? It looked like it was kicking in. He said it. Remember they're like, he's talking about the fucking toad. We got to get him out. Is that what happened? Oh, I don't know. Interesting. It looked like it was kicking in.

I don't know. He said it. If he was on a Ted, which the poison from the Ted, while doing a media junket, like. That's legendary. Sweet water is going to be a good one. Yeah. There's just sweet water is going to be a good one. I heard about that from some mutual friend of ours.

Yeah. Mike Tyson talks about it too. The Toad? Yeah. Mike Tyson, Big Mushrooms. Who was the first person to figure it out though? Who in the fuck want to take something that's going to make you feel like you're about to die? He lost me at that part where he said

it tricks your body into thinking you're going to die. That was not how it was originally described to me though. I don't know if that's how he took it. He scared me off the building. Were you pulling back the veil? So, what you got is the Mio goes down through the bone

up to the two squared. Yes. And that's when that shit really starts to pop into your Edo and then your OE just banana time yeah exactly shots the backman's point isn't the ayahuasca two plants that are hundreds of miles away from each other that have to be mixed together it's like how do they figure out how to stuff puffer fish i would assume what happened is one person found their particular plant leaf and then they didn't talk

to the other people for so long hate those people okay they tried to take our land then there was like a romeo and juliet thing that kind of happened like a montague capulet thing wow kind of happened good pull thank you so much and when it all when they brought everybody together they said oh we got some shit too and they said we got some shit that was just even more so of the celebration. When he put it in the pot, twisted it all up, what do you got? Boom, exactly. So one person took a rib

and became one. They took their plant. That's what they did, AJ. Sorry about it. I thought you took your rib to become two. No, don't eat the apple. No, that's when two become one. A lot of singing apple. No, that's one. To become one. A lot of singing today.

A lot of singing today. A lot of singing. You got a problem with AJ? Pippin did a stand-up all over the place. I think he was so confused as you guys kept going with the song. I was a bit confused for a while. I don't think he knew. So as we're singing it, I'm looking at his face to see if he knows what that song is.

He did not. So we had to go far enough to get to a point. Get the riddle. He only knows Tim McGraw as a really good actor. We had to get to the point. Exactly. He did not grow up where the green grass grows. Yeah, he did.

Never watched his corn pop up in rows. He only knows the M, the E, the pim, pim, pim, and the O, whatever the hell. The O-E-T you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. All right, you can call us on the 5 Energy phone line, 1-833-432-3663. I believe there's a chance for a...

Okay, never mind. No? Literally, as I was about to say, Zeta goes, nope. All right. So we might have a surprise guest today. We do know that we have Lombardi in the third hour, though,

which I'm very, very excited for. He always has such a big brain. Another Paizan. A lot of Paizans on this particular program. Wednesday, March 29th. But I think there's no better time than now to give Darquez Denard another shot. Here we go. We all know

this man was a Thorpe Award winner. We all know he's out of Michigan State. Of course. Go green. I'm not saying it. One of the greatest of all time at Michigan State. Oh, he's already going.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh! And he walks off? Yes. What? Holy shit. What was that? That was awesome.

20 people. $500. Wow. Who retweet this video, say something nice to somebody, and put the best way to pay. What's that? I need a 10-day. He did say that earlier. I said, can you shoot?

Can you shoot? We'll do a thing. He said, I'm going to get a 10-day. Second attempt. Does the layup. A little warm-up. Let's see the ball go through the hoop. Without us even noticing, banks that thing home.

Missed a little short in the first tire. Thorpe Award winner. First round draft pick corner. He makes the second time. A little deeper. A little athletic, I would say. What an incredible win. 20 people.

$500. Retweet this video. Say something nice to somebody. Input the most efficient way to pay you, whether it's Venmo,mo paypal cash app or any of the other ways to transaction hey that was awesome right he's college football national champion super bowl champion rider cup champion video game shitster is that act that's still accurate no it was never accurate but yeah you can continue that oh that was on contraire oh really that's a question i asked a question to a guest and that's you know and that's what comes from that yeah but the question was delivering information that the

person hadn't heard and that information was a shot from somebody else wasn't i mean you tried the ha ha did you hear you did that was a follow-up it was a follow-up to whatever he was saying earlier oh you you saw It was good journalism. Video game journalist. You read an article. NBA pundit. A columnist every single week with toxic thoughts. That's A.J. Hawkins.

Yeah! Speaking of toxic, the table's here. At Boston Corner, at Ty Schmidt. Sweet hat. Hey, thanks a lot. These are kind of the new football team hats. We saw Pittsburgh Steelers won this weekend. I saw this thing hanging around. I was like, I'll throw mine.

What is that? That's a fitted hat you're wearing? It's a fitted hat. It's the only fitted hat I own, actually. Don't love them, but it has a Patriots logo on it. Ty, you wear a ball cap all the time. I do. Kind of a smaller head.

Still a big brain. Is that fitted cap or snapback? This one is a snapback, but i do have several fitted yankees ball caps as well and you wear them yes comfortably yes my head's not built for it yeah i'm still stretching this one out i actually do have a pretty bad headache right at the front of my head right now right across the front right here right above my left eye i can't do it i could do the the bucket cap i guess because it's just pressure all the way around. But the hat in the front, it's like a fucking rear naked choke on my forehead.

I assume you have similar issues. Yeah, but I got to get like the XL flex fit. Yeah, so I have a giant head. As do I, AJ. As do I. Yeah, but he wears them like this. Have you seen? He wears his hat.

Well, you have to because it's just more comfortable down there than anywhere up here because it's just kind of big. I wear my helmet. I wear my helmet. Yeah, same thing. Well, you wore your helmet like that so that you could bust your nose so that people look at you forever and go, oh, that guy played football.

Now that's what your boy's doing. You should have seen JJ. JJ had the same thing. I was looking at the side of JJ Watt whenever he came and visited Moraldo's bachelor party at the Phoenician. Great golf course. Great guy. Shut up, J.J., great guy.

Super here. Also goes Chef Bo's. This dude's nose, you know, from that video we've seen, GIF, this thing goes like this, and then it actually takes a trip north, and then it comes down, and then it goes back up. It's like, oh, you busted your nose. You clearly busted your shit right there it's kind of almost a badge of honor you have one obviously no a lot of i have scars on my nose but

those are from when i was a young like one year old and i had chicken pox and picked them off so that's my scar okay okay no concussions documented obviously any scar you see from a nose that ate a rydell 50 times a game, that's from chicken pox as a child. And they say once you get it, you're good. That's right. One half of the hammer died. Cowboys, Tone Diggs is here. Tone, how you doing, pal? Great. Let's

not forget you can catch Chef Bo tonight on Guy's Grocery Games on Food Network. Is he competing? Oh, he's competing, yeah. Hey, let's win this thing, Bo. Love you, Bo. Yes. I'm surprised you weren't called into the kitchen to help. Yeah, what the hell? That'd be awesome.

Yeah. If I could be his sous chef, oh boy. Would you ever? Yeah, I would. Shit. If you get an opportunity to go to Chef Bo's, you go to Chef Bo's. Once in a lifetime. Just cancel whatever you're doing and go to Chef Bo's.

All right. 14-year NFL corner also joining us on the stage here. Icon in every single facet of the world. Has numerous bangers released as a rapper. Yep. He's a poet. He's a social media megastar. Yep.

Beat the fuck out of a guy. Yeah. For Shaq. That Shaq. That's pretty cool. Pac-Man Jets. Yay! Pac-Man!

All right, let's talk about some stuff that's happening around the nfl lamar's been tweeting about his situation publicly kind of answering a lot of the questions that people and pundits are maybe throwing out there about lamar jackson and he said i don't remember me sitting out on my guys week one verse jets to week 12 verse the broncos how come all of a sudden i sit out because of money in which I could have got hurt at any time within that time frame? When we know the Super Bowl has been on my mind since April 2018, obviously when he got drafted. Let's get real. I'd rather have 100% PCL than go out there and play horrible, forcing myself to put my guys in a bad situation.

Now that's selfish to me. Which he would also probably get cooked for being washed if he was go out there and play completely unhealthy. So what he was alluding to is, so for 12 weeks, I was not playing. I was not thinking about money. Like what? Where do we draw the line here? that have been said about Lamar, both by, I think, pundits and also fans of teams that don't necessarily want their team to spend whatever amount of money that has not been confirmed publicly yet to get Lamar Jackson there. AJ, do you enjoy this tactic from Lamar?

I feel like getting his version of events out there and his thoughts out there is a good thing, especially because he's representing himself, and it's literally him versus the NFL right now almost when it comes to media and punditry and all of that type of stuff aj yeah i love that he's coming out in in trying to be more vocal with this because perception becomes reality if you don't that's he's in a weird spot because if he's quiet and doesn't say anything just goes about his business people are just going to say all these are true yeah and then people assume it's true so and then you come out and talk.

Maybe it helps with some people. The good thing is Lamar seems to not care too much about what everything else is going on around him. He wants to play football. He wants to work it out. I don't know if it's going to happen, but I'm glad he's talking. To your last point, though, I think that's what we're thinking, though. Like all the stuff that... He has to do all this stuff.

Yeah. Because he has nobody working for him right now. You know? Because normally, couldn't you have... If if you had an agent they'd be calling jeff d and ian be like hey put these stories out and florio all these different people schultzy you could call them and put things out that you're thinking or that are the that's possibly the truth instead of whatever other people say go ahead back yeah i agree with you too and and we should know the number like i think uh um he said something really good. Mike said something really good earlier. I would put out the number that they offered.

Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Because nobody knows the number. We all sit like, what is the number? All right, you're saying it's not 220 or 230. Florio. Florio, you're saying it's not 200. Tell us what they offer and tell us a ballpark range, I would say.

I don't know because right now we don't know. Everybody's assuming like he wants $230. He wants the whole thing guaranteed. Of course, nobody want to sign a million-dollar per game. That means I got every game I play, I get a million dollars. That's not guaranteed money. Conversation of every contract is guaranteed money. That is literally bad negotiation.

This virtually practically guaranteed, he heard Florio talk about it. He's like, it's pretty much coming. It just got away to you. It's like, well, then pretty much should come now is how the player is always going to think about it. But what Florio was saying is like, all we've heard is Baltimore Ravens leaks of what the contract offer was. 133, another 80, this, this, this, this. If he had an agent, this is another thing that Florio is basically saying, if he had an agent, his reasoning on why he didn't accept the deal

would be out there. Like, hey, this is it. This particular thing was in there that I didn't like. Just at least by somebody that has some sort of platform in sports. It's almost like a PR battle at this point because the only information that other teams can go from, if they're not talking directly to Lamar, is the public information that's coming through the insiders. Do you know how many leagues, or sorry, team executives

utilize these insiders for information about what's going on in all these different places? They're working all the time. That's why these insiders have the job that they have, AJ. Yeah, that's why it also seems like a job I would never want to have. Ever. Never off the clock. Not only are they always trying to break stories and get everything,

but no matter what, there's never a day off. They're always gathering information if they're good at their job. And that's what these guys that we see breaking stories all the time and leaking things, not leaking, but letting us know kind of what's happening, they're just never off the clock. They always on it and those execs use these people very you know it's precisely they use them when they need them what did jj say if you're hearing anything right now there's a reason you're hearing it yeah it's like that's the type of shit we're talking about behind the scenes especially when we're talking about a couple hundred million

dollars guaranteed why not why not at least try to you know get a little bit of assistance if it's not working out but once again he could still sign a deal that is very huge with a lot of guaranteed money we still have time for that to happen there's a lot of speculation on his business sense because a lot of the things that are happening aren't necessarily what normally happen in these situations and a lot of us are talking about it as if like who knows if this should be happening because we don't know but there's a chance he still gets a deal done. We have to remember that. We hope that's the case. And I think that's all any of us are kind of wishing for.

With what Arthur Blank said about, like, I don't think there's a way that he can play the same way for six to seven years, do you think there's any thought that this might be a yearly thing, too? Like, he might be looking for a six-year deal, and the best they're offering is, like, a four-year deal because of his putt? I think the six-year deal just ups the guaranteed money to a place in which it can be. I think five years, six years is only there for that. I think per year potentially a lot easier.

But once again, that's a conversation that has to happen with a bunch of teams to make kind of happen. This is what Arthur Blank said at the league meetings. Falker's owner, Arthur Blank, said Tuesday, Lamar Jackson's situation is very different from Deshaun Watson's last year. I'd say. Different player, different time. You have a winner in Jackson, an MVP in the league.

There's no question he's one of the top quarterbacks in the league. Okay. So remember, he was in the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes. He wasn't in as much as the Cleveland Browns were. So everybody's saying just because the Falcons were in it, they should be in it as much as the Browns were. Remember, they backed off when the Browns said $230 million guaranteed. More from Arthur

Blank, the founder of Home Depot, I believe, on Jackson. Looking at it objectively, I'd say there's some concern over how long he can play his style of game. Hopefully a long time, but he's missed five, six games each of the last two years. Each game counts as a lot in our business, which is a very real

stat, especially at that position. That's from Josh Kendall, Josh the Athletic. This guy writes the shit out of some words. Thank you for reporting that. Joining us now is a man who might have some answers about what teams are thinking, more specifically what Arthur Blank just said. He's been a GM in the league. He's been a consultant in the league. He's been a part of three Super Bowls. He's an author, a speaker, a legend. Host of the Lombardi Line and the GM Shuffle. Writer for the Daily Coach, which I still receive every single morning. An email blast.

An absolute icon, Michael Lombardi. How are you? Nice to see everybody. I appreciate it. The Arthur Blank commentary was, to me, no one followed up with the question. No one asked Arthur Blank, like, why is this year different? The reason that Deshaun Watson's not a Atlanta Falcon is because of the guaranteed contract. Cleveland, remember, Cleveland was told they're out. And the way they

got back in was when they guaranteed all that money, or else he was going to be a Falcon. Everybody in Atlanta thought that. that so for blank to say that this is different than last year it's ridiculous because he doesn't have a quarterback he's in the nfc there's no quarterbacks in the nfc there's jalen hertz there's jared goff there's kirk there's prescott you could shift the balance of power with one move and this rhetoric well we don't we wanted to have a young quarterback last year you didn't want a young quarterback he wanted to pay one like it makes no sense to me how these nfc teams are not after lamar jackson and i thought his commentary was ridiculous in the sense that

you were willing to pay a guy who had a tremendous off the field problems but now you're who was going to miss 12 games you talk durability he was going to miss 12 games or at least remember we were all guessing a year we thought assumed a year a year that didn't bother him last year but now durability bothers him this year to me he's talking out of both sides it's ridiculous it makes no sense why do you think they're doing that because they were one of the teams that tweeted from all of their insiders pretty much all the insiders that have a connection like the at Atlanta Falcons are not interested in Lamar Jackson. And yesterday, before Arthur Blank even spoke about this situation, they made it very publicly, Desmond Ritter is the starter,

even though Heineke's down there. Why do you think it is? Do you think this is obviously everybody not wanting to give him the guaranteed contract? And do we even know if that's what he wants? And how often do you think he's talking to these teams? I think a lot of this and i know lamar tweets stuff out and i know lamar feels very comfortable with his position but

i think a lot of the problems in this he doesn't have an agent he doesn't have a buffer he he doesn't have somebody to help him along here he doesn't have somebody who's able to put his spin of the story out or talk to teams so all we hear is a narrative that's not an narrative so for me i think it hurts him look he sat in that green room for 31 picks he was a better collegiate player than trey lance ever was trey lance went third he sat in that room because he didn't have an agent he didn't have somebody promoting him somebody helping him i think it's really been a deterrent to not have that. I think it's a problem. Lambeau, do you think, I know like there's not, people can want to say collusion or whatever.

Do you think these owners, someone just doesn't want to be the next owner to guarantee one of these giant contracts because they want to make sure this isn't the norm moving forward? Well, but look, I agree. They don't want to be the, I mean, what the Browns did, they don't want to duplicate, but we've seen Russell Wilson's contract get done since the Watson deal. We've seen Kyler Murray get his deal done. We're going to see Joe Burrow get his deal done. We're going to see Justin Herbert get his deal done. So we're going to see contracts come out. It really comes down to – and this is what makes Atlanta so strange

to not be involved they run the offense that's tailor-made for lamar jackson they're a running team they run boots they like arthur's if i were to say what would be great for lamar jackson i would say a kyle shanahan offense or an arthur smith offense like that's what i think he belongs in. It makes no sense. And again, the balance of power in the NFC, like the 49ers win total this year came out at 11 and a half because there's no quarterbacks in the NFC. Rodgers is going to the Jets. Like if you could change that, you could control it.

The AFC, get to the Super Bowl. You got to go through Burrow. You got to go through Mahomes. You got to go through Herbert. You got to go through all these good You've got to go through Mahomes. You've got to go through Herbert. You've got to go through all these good quarterbacks. What's that? That's just funny. Those three.

Josh Allen as well, Lombo. I'm sorry. I met Josh Allen. I give him in there. It's all in there. Okay. Well, Connor heard you leave him out, and Connor's like, just like I thought. The window's closed. That's what Connor's been saying, Lombo. So you just – you fed the beast over here.

You left out Rodgers too. That was not – to me, the AFC's loaded with quarterbacks. We agree. And it's a problem. You could have a great year and go against one of those quarterbacks and fall short, you know, trying to get – whereas in the NFC, I mean, you know, there's really – I nfc i mean you know there's really i mean i know dax good i know jalen hurts played great but you don't this schedule doesn't lend itself every week you're

like oh my gosh all right let's talk about the aaron rogers to the jets that we all just kind of have seen as a foregone conclusion mark murphy has openly admitted it good to kunz basically openly admitted it aaron has admitted it jo Joe Douglas has talked about it. All parties know exactly what's going to happen. Excited to see how they get a deal done and what they get a deal done. Florio was on here earlier today and he said that the Green Bay Packers have given

up wanting the 13th overall pick, which has been the massive holdup. He thinks it's probably going to be two second rounders that could move to a late first if the Jets have success with Aaron Rodgers and he plays again and then maybe the Packers would have to send something else if Aaron only plays one year for them picking up the contract that is like 60 million guaranteed regardless of this whole thing so your eyes how this is all kind of panning out did you know that the Packers have gotten off of that 13 stand and did you know that they were

going to have to probably for a deal to get stand? And did you know that they were going to have to probably for a deal to get done, Lambeau? Well, I think somebody was going to have to move to get it done, right? I mean, somebody was going to have to move. And I think Green Bay's options were dwindling because, you know, you're either going to take something for the player or get nothing for the player. So their options weren't as strong as everybody thinks they're in control. You know, I do think that Jets had a little bit more leverage, but there's a deal to be made here. Look, there's no reason to not think a deal could be made. Aaron Rodgers is worth well more than a two for even one year.

If the Jets only have to give up a two and something else, it's a great deal because he gives them a chance to win a Super Bowl. Now, it's all going to have to come together and all those things are going to have to play out. And Josh Allen, you know, Connor, I don't want to upset you about telling you the Jets are going to the Super Bowl, but, you know, I think it all plays out. It becomes important. That's worth it too, right? Look what the Rams did to get a Super Bowl. Look what they did to get a Super Bowl. Look at the money that they spent and the draft picks and the capital they put in to get a Super Bowl. Was it worth it? You have to say it was. Now they're paying the

consequences now, but it was worth it. I think the Jets are in the same boat. OBJ, big hug with Bob Sala yesterday at the league meetings. Pac-Man has a question for you, Lombo. Lombo, I want to go back to Lamar because I was just thinking about this. You had Baker Mayfield went

first. You had Sam Donald. Who else was in there? Josh Allen. And Lamar went last in that class. Don't forget Josh Rosen. Josh Rosen. Josh Rosen was before. The Rosen one.

Dog. All these guys went before Lamar. It looked like they were getting paid. Well, we know one of them is getting paid. What is the number? Can you tell us a number that the owners will agree to? they're getting paid well we know one of them is getting paid um what is the number like can you tell us like a number that the owners will agree to well i i think the number i mean it's pretty clear there's a deal to be made here this is where i i wrote this last week for visa online

like if i'm chris ballard i'm flying in florida and i'm going to spend as much time with lamar's mom and him to figure out what is the deal no No one knows what the deal is. I don't because he doesn't have an agent. There's no communication. If I were a team like the Washington football team, can you imagine the Washington football team sat there and said, we're not interested in Lamar. We've got Sam Howe. I mean, can you imagine you say that with a straight face? I mean, seriously, like you owe it to the friend. Ernie, of course, he taught me this when I was with him in Cleveland. He said, you know, the general manager's job is to protect the franchise. Now, I'm not telling these teams they should go after Lamar,

but they should protect their franchise and do due diligence to see what it would take. What is the deal we could make? Because we're going to get an elite player and we're going to get a young elite player i mean we have hayden hooker going some people have hayden hooker going in the first round he's 20 he's he's almost he's a year younger than lamar are we serious here now like what are we doing and so you've got to do your due diligence all right well you said earlier shanahan mcveigh offense for Lamar. Shane Steichen too, huh? Shane Steichen out here in Indy. Isn't it perfect? It's ideal. He's the six-pack. I mean,

okay, so here's what we do know. Let's put on the table what we know. The Colts have to pick a quarterback at four because they don't have one. Gardner Minshew's not going to be their starter, and they're not going to pick somebody in the second round. So either they're going after Lamar or they're picking somebody at four or they're going to trade a little bit down, but they're going to, they're going to have to pick a quarterback. Now, maybe they fell in love with Richardson. Maybe they fell in love with Levis. I don't know. Or Hooker. I don't know, but they're going to pick one. Would you rather not do your due diligence on Lamar and find out what it would take? And I promise you this now.

I promise you this. If you made a deal, you could make a deal for Lamar because there's nobody else calling that you could get Lamar cheaper than the two number ones. I could promise you that. Baltimore will give you, because Baltimore's in the same spot that Green Bay's in. They're going to have to take something. He's not going back there. And the whole world knows it. It's fascinating. Connor has a question for you, Lombo. Yeah, Lombardi, a team

that is out on Lamar, allegedly today, per Jeff Howe, is the Patriots. Aside from that, yesterday we heard from Tom Curran that maybe Bill Belichick's seat isn't as comfortable as we would expect it to be because of all the success. Do you think, even though the AFC East, like you said,

will have three legitimate teams, do you think that if he doesn't have that much success this year, he might be on his way out? I think the expectations are always high in New England. You know, it's fascinating. You go to the owners' meetings. You know, I don't want to pick. Some coaches have been to playoffs, have been head coaches for a long time, and they're not on the hot seat. A guy's won six

Super Bowls and he's on the hot seat. I think, look, Lamar to the Patriots, people ask that, why doesn't it make sense? It makes sense on paper, but if you understand the Patriot way, right, if you understand the 25 years of whatever it's been there, is Tom Brady took less money to play quarterback there. Do you think that they're going to now change who they are and pay the quarterback the most money? Yeah. How does that look?

How does that look towards Tom? Hey, Tom, we did, you know, thank you for all you did, but we're going to go ahead and give Lamar all the money now. Like does that,

does it really fit the fit? The modus operandi? Do I think Lamar would make him a good team? Yeah. Do I think I do? I wish they would have drafted Lamar when he came out. Absolutely. I was on record as saying that. However, that being said, it just doesn't fit right now. But I find it interesting that the greatest coach of all time has heat on him. And there's some coaches that have been coaching for a long time, have made the playoffs three times in their careers, and they're not on a hot seat.

The modus operandi can be shaken up a little bit. You know, it certainly can. But could you imagine fucking up the modus operandi in Green Bay if they were to bring in, like, Odell Beckham Jr. or D-Hop after Aaron Leafs? That would be, like, a similar situation. I'm happy to hear that Bill Belichick's human enough to think about that. That's a human thought. I will say this to you, Pat.

There is never a time when he's putting the team together that the player on the team, I can't pay that player why because we play this player this. I've been in those conversations. He is in tune to the locker room. He's in tune to the pay structure. That's why Darrell Revis, when he came with us in 14,

he took less money. He wasn't, he couldn't make more than Brady. He couldn't make more than, than some, because he understands what guys have done before them. That's that college. That's,

that's like the, if you, they're talking about his seat getting hot or whatever, if he doesn't have success. Tommy Curran brought that to our show. My actual response was, holy shit. I just assumed Bill would be able to do whatever the hell he wants. That leaves, you've got to find that whole thing over again.

It's not as easy just to put the, we're figuring it out right now. Hopefully, Steichen will be great. It's not as easy just to turn over dynasty to dynasty to dynasty. Those who are able to do it are obviously very few and far between. But New England will have it happen for sure. Ty has a question for you, Lambeau. Michael, you mentioned Trey Lance, and we heard from the league meetings that both Shanahan and John Lynch

said that Sam Darnold might be the guy going week one if Purdy's not ready and then Purdy's behind him. What the hell is going on with Trey Lance? Is he just not good enough to get an opportunity? What do you ultimately see happening with him? Because it seems like they're kind of just fucked and they have no idea what to do with him. And at this point, does anyone even want him?

He don't fit. I mean, I don't think he fits what they do. He hasn't played in four years. I mean, think about this. Lamar sat in there for 31 picks. Trey Lance didn't even play his senior year and got picked third overall. He's a great athlete. Lamar's a great athlete. You know, he's got a great arm. Lamar's got a great arm. Like, seriously, like, how does these things happen? It's all propaganda. It's all marketing. And so to me, Lance came out. He wasn't really

fit what they did, you know, and there was a lot of debate, well, should have been Mack Jones, should have been Trey Lance, all that, you know, and Kyle's offense, I think Sam Darnold fits Kyle's offense perfectly, I think if you watch the end of the year last year, you know, was Sam Darnold great? No, but I thought he was a lot better than he was at the Jets, this is what we do know about San Francisco, they are a quarterback-friendly team, and they have great yards after the catch receivers, and so they make the quarterback look better, but unfortunately for Trey Lance, after the Houston game, they didn't make him look better, and on that airplane flying back from the Houston preseason game, the 49ers knew they couldn't win with Trey Lance. They needed to

get Garoppolo back. They knew that. They understood that. They lose the opener to Chicago. He's not ready to play. Experience matters. There's a thing. to Chicago it's the he's not ready to play experience matters there's a thing I think it's really important I think it goes into this year's draft guys I think there's an experience factor there's an innate thing Pat I'm sure if you sat and talked to Peyton Manning he can tell you every single thing that happened in games to down to a detail yes he knows that there's an instinct that he has bill russell's wife bought him a tape when he played at the university of san francisco 50 years ago and bill russell went through the tape and knew every single play great players have that

ability to remember that it's an instinct they just have it and i'm not sure lance with all the lack of experience has that i. I think Bryce Young does. Oh, you like Bryce. Yeah, I did. I've changed on that, Pat. I started with Bryce at the perfect place to start with him. I started with how prove to me at 5'10 you can play in the league. And I think he has that innate ability to see the game differently.

It's almost a Steph Curry kind of trait. He's got an ability like we saw with Norwell at Kansas State. He makes plays happen that I don't see on the tape. Just watch closely the championship game his junior year when they played against the Georgia defense, which was the best defense in football. What the hell, six in the first round, that Georgia defense, I think? Unbelievable, right?

He made unbelievable throws. And I was talking to a head coach who was at the workout the other day, and the head coach said to me his arm was alive more than I saw it even on the tape. I think Bryce Young will be the first pick. God, AJ, damn. Let's say Bryce Young does go number one overall to Carolina. How does he fit with Frank Reich and Josh McCown and what they can do with him? I think there's a lot you can do.

I think he's going to be in shotgun quite a bit. You know, when you watch him throw those pitchers, his shoulders are tilted, much like Drew Brees. If you put a snapshot of Drew Brees throwing and Bryce Young throwing, it would look similar. The instincts to make plays on the move are great. And I think they would be in shotgun. And with the way that offensive line ran block last year with Miles Sanders now in the backfield with them to go along with Chuba Hubbard, I think they can be really good. Now, they've got to get better at receiver. They signed Chark on a one-year deal.

They got Thielen in the slot. They'll get better. But this is a team that wasn't a bad team. Look, if J.C. Horn stayed healthy at the end of the year last year, I think they'd beat Tampa. You know, they gave up three touchdowns to Mike Evans in that game. It killed them. Deep balls. Three deep balls.

Wasn't it like 50, 60, 45 or something like that? Absolutely. So I think they're closer than you think. I think Bryce is the pick. Now, I'm not saying C.J. Stroud's not a good player. I'm not suggesting that at all. I think C.J. will go, too. I think he's really good.

But I think there's a uniqueness. There's a Steph Curry ability in Bryce Young. They've been calling him the Steph Curry of football for a long time. We said it on this show a bunch of times. A lot of people were saying, who's saying it? Lombo just said it. That's a big deal.

Tone has a question for you, Lombo. With the quarterbacks in the draft, as a former GM, how confident would you be selecting a guy after Stroud and after Bryce Young, say, like Will Levis or Anthony Richardson? I would be nervous because, you know, I was at a coaching clinic this past weekend and we were talking to a lot of former NFL head coaches were there and there was some NFL coach.

We were talking about there's a 50% chance that a guy's not going to play I mean uh Pac-Man cited that that draft in 15 I mean with Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold and all those guys I mean look that was it's it's a little bit of a crapshoot yeah so that's why I think to me if you're Chris Ballard are you going to take four are you going to go after Lamar now I know four gives you a better cap structure. I get that. But Lamar's the sure thing. You know you're going to get a winner. You know you're going to get a playmaker. Why wouldn't you do that? If I were Washington, I would be all in. I don't care about who's the new owner. At least I'm going to fly down and spend time with Lamar and his mom and talk about why I think this would be a good fit. Because negotiations aren't always about money.

They're about forming a partnership. When you're going to give somebody this kind of money, whether you're going to give it to Josh Allen, whether you're going to give it to Justin Herbert or to whomever, you've got to have a partnership with this. Yeah, and maybe, you know, just like Lamar said, Baltimore hasn't valued me at all. all it's like a j i don't want to say jaded but it is like it's tough to do business with somebody you no longer have respect

for or think don't have respect for you like that is a tough thing to do and i think it's kind of happening in the lamar situation beach talked to you about that with my homes like my homes had to commit to kansas city just as much as kansas city had to commit to him everybody talks about the 10-year deal 4 $430 million. We found that out like six months after. We thought it was a $500 million deal. But the way Veach talked about it is like it takes a special, unique situation to do that.

He has to trust that we're going to make the right decisions and that we're going to treat him properly with respect. And we have to trust that he's going to be able to be a player for fucking 10 years. That's a big decision. Obviously, that's an outlier. But we think joe burrow is going to get that type of deal we assume herbert's going to get that type of deal with

the chargers with the way business family is potentially going in that whole thing so now what will the market we shall see uh pac-man has the last question for you here lambo lambo um my main question is i want to hear your top five, because I'm a little versatile in what you had your picks, just because this guy right here. Can you tell me your top five picks of this year draft? You know, I think that's going to remain to be seen. I think, look, I think tomorrow when Richardson works out, look, I think Richardson is the most unique player in this draft in terms of athleticism, arm, body, all those things. I wish he would have stayed in school another year. I really do.

Yeah, right. Did you see what they're doing down there? He would have had to transfer. Did you know that Florida team almost got shut out by Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl, like 50-something to three. I mean, it is. They're in a bad spot down there, Lombo. Well, you could have gone in the portal, though.

I mean, you could have gone to Alabama, right? Yeah. You know, you could have gone to the portal. Oh, my God. Heisman. Immediately. You know? Go to Georgia.

I just think, to me, that's going to be an interesting thing, what happens. But as I said, Pac-Man, I think you're going to get, like, the Colts can't bluff. They're not bluffing. Like, they're either taking a quarterback or four they're moving slightly down but they're or they're signing Lamar that's their options I mean who else is going to play quarterback in Indianapolis the owners come out they they got to give psych they're not going to pick somebody in the second round and think he's going to start

for him so I think you know you're going to see that and I think it's going to be interesting what happens with Carter as more research gets done you know but I think you're going to see that. I think it's going to be interesting what happens with Carter as more research gets done. I think Richardson's workout really tomorrow is going to be critical because Richardson fits that six-back offense really well. Hell yeah, just like Steichen likes. We appreciate the hell out of you making time. Is this a new studio here? Where are we at right now? I'm in Las Vegas for the next month and a half, so I'm here at the Circus Studio.

If you ever come out, the stadium swims right around. It's awesome here. It's really remarkable. In Vegas, you got a carrot top over there at Luxor? Oh, you should. Yeah, I got to go see carrot top. Yeah. That would be ideal for me.

Oh, my God. That would be perfect. Oh, no. No. I'm going to see Sinbad, too. Sinbad and carrot top. That's on my list. Springsteen.

We've seen these tweets about Springsteen. You're pumped he's on tour again, huh? Oh, my God. Can you imagine some idiot on Twitter said the guy's had one hit? He sold his catalog for $700 million to Sony, and some idiot on Twitter says he's only had one hit. I mean, like, literally, people complain about what he doesn't play at the concert. Like, come on.

Have a clue. You might not like his music. Respect the man. Give the man some come on have a clue you might not like his music respect the man give the man some respect have a clue yeah just like he played it in 74 born to run spring's a fucking dog i call it the born to run theory in every talk the guy i heard it in 74 i hear it 23 it change. Same enthusiasm. That takes a lot of character to do that. People get bored. Yeah, absolutely. I did one comedy tour. It's the first time I've ever done a show back to back to back nights. Comedians do that on a very regular basis to work their material and do everything. Whenever I was doing it, I would literally just do one show,

let me dump everything out, and then I wouldn't do it for another seven, eight months. So I always said to people, I don't know how you're able to give the same amount of energy and passion to your jokes and stories every single night they talk about how it's like a baby and you're kind of raising it and you're adding new things onto it i was like all right cool i'm gonna try this one time we had four shows in a row and i thought by the fourth one i'd have it all figured out i knew the thing by night three i was, this shit is not funny. These motherfuckers, why are you laughing at this? I hated it so bad.

I had to change it up for the fourth night because I was getting so bored. That's a talent. That's a genuine talent. That's an ability that everybody doesn't have. And I heard that fucking guy plays for like four hours. Is that real? He did. When I was growing up, he played four.

But now he's down to three. You get 27 songs. And some idiot thinks he's got one hit. Can you imagine that? And I love this. I love this when they tell me, oh, Lombardi, you're just some old guy who likes Springsteen. Well, I look at the stadiums, they're all filled. There's a lot of us, so I'm in good company.

There's a lot of us. You're damn right. We appreciate you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks, guys. Michael Lombardi. Hey! All right, we need to answer some phone calls. We need to do a giveaway. We need to wrap up this beautiful show.

We need to run through some plays that Pac-Man Jones has that we have highlights of. Do we have those? Have we gone through all of them? I think we have, haven't we? Yeah, we have. There's definitely more than a few. Dude, yeah, you got a bunch of them.

Yeah. You know that. We went through a couple of them. Hey, people are changing their numbers right now. Zero is getting added into the Rolodex of numbers you're allowed to have. Pac-Man obviously had to wear in the 20s whenever he was in the NFL. Wore nine in college. Would you have wore nine in the NFL if you were able to?

Yeah, if I could, I would wear nine. But no way in hell I was wearing nine in Tennessee because we had Steve McNair. Rest in peace. Rest in peace. And also, Pac-Man, a lot of jerseys from Pac-Man. So you probably have to pay a pretty penny, right? Yeah, remember that's the rule. If you're going to change your number,

you have to buy out the number of jerseys that are left for sale at NFLshop.com. Some people have said they're going to change their number and then had to wait two years because all the jerseys sold. And then they're able to go ahead and create another jersey. I believe that was kind of what has taken place over the last couple years, AJ. Yeah, I think you're the one that kind of brought that to my attention. But, yeah, we've heard players talk about that. Yeah, it was Dalvin Cook.

Yeah, he was going to, and he realized he was going to have to pay like $2.3 million to get rid of all his jerseys. I don't think so. All right, so we'll do it later. That happened to Ochocinco back in the day, too, when he wanted to change his last name. Oh, you want to do that, huh? That's cute.

We need to move 17 000 jerseys yeah you were paying for that because you want to i don't think so okay i don't think so so you're fucking chad johnson for at least another 17 000 jerseys being sold okay that's a funny thought but the number zero being added in there aj you like it or hate it i like it i mean why not if you can wear zero and you play well good for you if you play terrible good luck have fun yeah there's a lot of jokes sitting out there i guess for you javel mcgee he wore double zero hell yeah he looks so cool dog calvin ridley still doing it i don't even know anybody's number though i don't i don't know i don't notice

numbers that much what just massive part of branding and everything that's going on everywhere when you watch a game. In football, yeah. But still, I don't know. I couldn't name most guys' numbers. Okay, I understand where you're coming from. There's a lot of people like that. Numbers do matter, though, very much so. That's why Tom Brady was so pissed that he kind of opened up the single digit to any position.

Because it used to be position-specific numbers. Now kickers are allowed to wear 99 if they want old-school Groza. That's very sweet. That's not bad. Go out there and de-tackle. You like that? You like 99 for a kicker? I mean, that would be a number I would wear, I think. It was your high school number, right? Yeah, I wore it in high school because they just gave it to me. First

game show up, 7X. Shout out! Thanks for making me look like a jackass. We'll go bomb some balls for you real quick. But yeah, 99, I think it was Groza back in the day. I do believe. But I would wear it. I think it would look cool. You could bring back Blankenship. Put him in 97.

Was that his number down in Georgia? Pretty sure. What's Hot Rod doing? What is Hot Rod up to? Legos, right? I thought he was in Lego Masters. He did. He probably could because he's talented. Sound like your angle that you were saying there. I don't appreciate it. Absolutely not.

Ty, turn me on to this show. It's unbelievable, and I know that Blankenship is very good. Lego Masters has the Reese's voice guy. Yes. Will Arnett. Lego Masters is fucking sick. It is an awesome show. Hot Rod was 98 in college.

Ah, fucker. I knew you were lying. That's why I was so confused. I knew it was 90-something, though. Calvin Ridley is wearing the number zero, which somebody tweeted, the amount of money you want when you sign a gamble? And then he said, that shit's behind me.

I want 36K. Calvin Ridley has come out and told his entire side of the story in an article on the Players' Tribune, basically talking about the point in life that he got to with abuse of alcohol, I believe in drugs, and the gambling happened there because he was so isolated from the team. It was a bad point of his life, and he took the year-long

suspension after he was learning that he gambled on some games, and he kind of changed his entire life, changed his entire vision, changed everything. So it ended up helping him. I think he's in a much better spot now than he was then, but I do like to hear that he was sick of people saying, oh, he lost. I was a fucking one.

Let's, you know, I like to clear the air. The person that he answered to, that particular tweeter, he screenshotted that and then said, shows no rumors for what had happened in the past. It's like, pal, he wrote an entire

blog? Yeah, that's a blog. Article? That'd be the past. It's like, pal, he wrote an entire blog? Yeah, that's a blog. Yeah. Article? That'd be an article. Players Tribune's reputable. A memoir. That kind of opened up, I think opened all of our eyes to what Calvin Ridley was going through. I think we're all incredibly happy for him.

And I think what he's going to do with Jacksonville is about to be fucking ridiculous. And that number's zero. Who the fuck is this guy? It's fake. It's 500 followers. It has a check mark. Matters. Doesn't. Some prick. His handle might as well be at Mickey Moss.

Boom. Also. Put the ears on. Just for the record here, that guy plays two bets and he won 36K. I need him to handicap my bets. See what he said? Can't. We don't think he can either. He's not allowed. But when he retires, he's got, I think,

a pretty good... Head to Vegas. Could he keep the 36K, though? Did they let him keep it? I would assume that was taken pretty quickly. Stop enabling. Someone made a good point. I forget who it was before, but if he had lost, he probably probably doesn't get probably doesn't get caught.

Remember they told us that they have some AI thing that basically searches every sports book. They have a deal with every sports book. They search through it all, register. There's alarms that go off. Is this the same? They check it, background check it, and bang, that's how he got caught. I assume that the players were told

about this, but maybe they just thought, bullshit. But it's nice to know that they have that, because for the good of the game, we can't have anybody betting on games. Yeah, and it is. Can't. For the good of all parties.

They do tell us that, too. That they have the tracking on the names of the legal sports books? Well, they tell us no sports betting. No, yeah, well, that's what I mean. I tried to tell the boys, like, that's the biggest thing. Like, yo, do not be Pete Rose here.

That's the biggest thing. Signs everywhere. The team meeting. That's the number one thing they focus on is do not place no sports bets. Do not jeopardize the integrity of this league. You are not anywhere near important enough to fuck up what we all got going on. It's pretty much what it is. Because once the games get questioned, then everything's gone.

The gambling business is gone. The league is done. So that's why such a harsh penalty was given to Calvin Ridley because it was very much a, hey, as sports gambling is getting more legal and more mainstream, we need to remind the world and everybody, we ain't doing this. Calvin Ridley wasn't with the team at the time. He talked about how he's away from the team.

It's an interesting thing, but can't happen, AJ. Can't have him. It's one of the few things that could actually hurt the NFL. Right now, I feel like it's a rocket ship. It's only going up. People really start questioning the games and like, hey, are these guys – are there things like this where people are throwing things or whatever? That's one of the few things I think could drive viewership down.

The scripted thing started getting real loud yeah which is wild and it's like yo nfl i think you should address this like that's why like that the refs are the ones now not the players right right now the conversation is the refs are they here they know it's like okay all right there the amount of people that have to know and keep a secret would be absurd and i respect how much faith you have in humans. Like somebody's not telling you don't think somebody is just getting a little boozed up one night. And in an effort to woo whoever their company is, wouldn't potentially leak that out of their mouth. And then bang, it's gone.

Then the NFL is done. You think that's happening? Respect that you think that's happening. I do. I respect you. But you have too much faith in humanity. When it's the players, can't fucking happen. Like, just can't take place at all.

And I hope that you're right, AJ. That is the one, like, Achilles heel almost. And I wonder if that's part of the reason. I can't remember who it was, but they just ruled that sportsbooks can't be involved with colleges or college athletes probably because you can't trust kids and there's too

many of them to police to make sure they aren't. 130 guys on a roster. A lot of guys on scholarship that ain't ever going to pan out to be shit. The fact that they could potentially make some money, like, yeah. A lot of guys not on scholarship, too. That can be easily swayed when they're trying to pay their rent.

Yeah, it's smart that's a good idea see what other people on your team are making an nil it's like well i'm not gonna i'm not playing i'm not gonna get any nil deals but i'll fucking arch manning 3.1 mil i believe is what he has earned already nice oh i got money already hey there's big money in this nil stuff right big money kid from tennessee, right? Big money. Kid from Tennessee getting $3 million. Who's the highest? LeBron's son is the highest paid, I think. What did he get, 7.3?

Dropped 15 last night in an All-American game. Yeah. Put a late three from the side. Clean. Where's he going to school? Wherever he wants. He can play. He's going to play wherever he wants.

They're saying he's going to your alma mater. Ohio State? Mm-hmm. They didn't have a very good year this year. Yeah, but they got good NIL, though, I think. Ohio State probably got a good NIL, but there's millions of dollars being floated out here. And it's only going to grow as it gets more competitive.

And obviously the market will kind of find its balance at some point. NIL valuation here, top 100. Bronny James, 7.2. Arch Manning, 3.7. Livvy Dunn, who's the gymnast from LSU, 3.4 million. Mikey Williams, do we know who that is? Basketball? Yeah, basketball.

He's a dog. I don't understand how the hell he didn't make the McDonald's All-American game. He actually was just trending because Ball's Life put out a video of him dunking on some kid and then purposely stepping over him, stepping on his arm. Yeah. And then Ty Lue was trending. Boom.

Talking about it. I did see that. And the kid he dunked over actually took charge. The dunk didn't count. The foul. Going the other way. Travis Hunter's on there. Obviously he's down in Colorado. How do they know these numbers though? Do they self-report this? We don't know. None of this is real. This is just like when they say people's net worth.

Do you think people know? They know. Everybody knows? Yeah. Everybody knows what everybody's getting? Yeah. Because that's a conversation piece around recruiting now, I assume? Yeah. Okay. I think this is woefully undervalued. Probably.

Some of them, not all of them. I think the Libby Dunn lady, I think, has what, 20 million Instagram followers? I think she gets a lot more money. Well, that's not NIL. That's like a business that she's making money on. Okay, so endorsements are separate. No, I don't know. I think that counts a lot more money. Well, that's... Yeah, but she might be... That's not NIL. That's like a business that she's making money on. Okay, so endorsements are separate. Okay. No, I don't know.

I think that counts. NIL counts. It has to go into it. For that? Yeah. Yeah, that's part of NIL. It's technically name, image, and likeness. Yeah, yeah.

It's a business that she's running. Yeah. That's why I think it's wild here. It's like Bronny, too. That fucking guy. Exactly. Who knows what he's in. He's probably already invested in some things.

He's probably got money invested in some stuff. Who knows what ownership percentages he's getting of things. It's awesome. I'm happy for him. The game's going to change, though. Got four teams that we could have never expected being in the Final Four. I assume the future is going to look like that. For basketball, football, I feel like the big names have got to figure it out.

Everybody's going in Transfer Portal to get to how they already got it figured out. It's almost like you can pay somebody to go to your school. I assume that's happening. But if they do well, somebody's going to come knocking, transfer portal, you're going to another school. It's going to pay you even more. It's almost like there's levels to this shit.

Bo Nix was on that list. He wasn't getting that money two years ago. Then he went to Oregon and fucking played out of his mind. He's back for the sixth year in life. Just saw a pin. Also, you can give money to kids, but it's still for the sixth year in life. Just saw a picture. Well, and also, you can give money to kids, but also it's still about the institute. There are very few places that are going to have nicer facilities

than Georgia and Alabama. Like Eastern Michigan a couple years ago and Caleb Williams. A million. Hey, we'll give you one and a half million or whatever to come play here. It's like you go take a visit. It's like, well, you guys' facilities are shit. Isn't that where P.J. Fleck was? No, that's Western Michigan.

Yeah, Western. Eastern Michigan actually almost lost their entire football program, so that's where they were. They gave a million bucks to a guy. They got the – Charlie Batch. I believe that was Chuck Batch. Chuck Batch was going to do it.

I used to say Charlie Batch. Do you think players will stay in school longer now that they can pay? So that was a tweet, I think, that somebody, Mike Florio, put out that at some point it's going to get to a point where these players are going to say, nah, I'll just stay in school, take another couple million, hope another team ends up with the number one overall pick or a top five pick or something like that. A lot of sense.

I think that's going to become an option. I think it's going to become an option, AJ. Legit shoot option. But I feel like the tweet that Florio had, he listed Arch Manning and them, but then he said, we're likely to see one of these guys get drafted number one and say, no, I'm good, I'm not going. Well, Eli did that.

That's what Eli did back in the day. Yeah, Manning, the head of the list was Manning, and then he was talking about A. Manning. It's already happened, but I think he's talking about business-wise. It's going to get to a point where it makes sense. If you're like a fringe. Right, second rounder. Back then, we weren't getting paid in in college so

it didn't matter they like i'm shit i'm putting my name in the hat so i can get paid if i'm on the club for being a second or third late third round and i can go back to school and give me 1.5 million dollars which i might not pay not to be shit in the league take it i'm going to take the the 1.5 because you can build your draft stock, the only issue would be if you get hurt, right? That's always going to be the thing. But at least you've got a million dollars coming on the side at least. Who knows what else you could potentially earn around the college and the university if you return back there.

I think there's going to be a lot of things that happen to college football and college basketball. Some are going to be bad. Some things are going to be bad. I think there's going to be some good, too, for the sport. I think so. Well, I mean, we just saw last year with Jordan Addison, too, to your point about guys leaving colleges and going to somewhere else because they're getting more

money. He probably could have, what, he could have gone to the draft? Or is he a true junior this year? He's a dog. Yeah, he got $3 million to go to USC for a season. He was Blenicoff, right? Wasn't he? And then he transferred out of Pitt with Pickens. Yeah, Kenny made him that. Well, you're a pig. Tony, you are a pig.

You're a pig. The first round. Let's go to the 5RNG phone line. Let's go to the 5RNG phone line. Let's go to Andrew in West Virginia. Andrew, what's going on, pal? What's going on? How you doing, boys?

Keep it moving, Andrew. What part of West Virginia? Martinsburg. Okay, don't go up the wheeling. Florio's dad's fucking running that place. What do you want to talk about, Andrew? So, why isn't anybody talking about my buddy's son Tyson Bajan in the NFL draft this year coming up?

RG3 was just out of his pro day at Shepard. Okay, sweet. Shepard was the school that I showed you the lineman putting up 40 reps on the bench. Dog. I think that kid is the quarterback that was at the combine. Yep. Tyler Bajent. Never heard of the guy.

Something like that. Dog, dude. Hey, you're right. We need to talk about him more, Andrew. Shepherd. He is a dog. He's an absolute dog, dude. Shepherd.

He's a shepherd. I mean, he is an absolute. He invited the combine. Hey, speaking of dogs, congrats. That's not easy as aard. Hell yeah, dude. Hell yeah, bro. You know what they say about the dogs at Shepard? What's that? They're hungry.

Hungry dog runs faster. Speaking of hungry dogs, this guy's got a dog that hunts lions. Two of them. As his pets. Don't fuck around and end up at the Pac-Man house. Nope. Don't go barking at that front door. Because what's barking back isn't used to taking down humans. Taking down a king of the fucking jungle.

That's right. This dude's got a This dude's got a seven foot tall dog. Two of them. Yeah. That are killers. 800 pounds. Have you known this AJ? What kind of dog? Yeah we showed you showed some video of it the other day. What kind of dogs are they? Caucasian Shepherds. Okay so they're not wolves like they said. No they're actually lion

hunters or wolf hunters is the name of the fucking breed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've heard of them. They're sweet. Thank you, AJ. Don't show up. Hey, don't they protect livestock a lot?

Yes, they do. I thought Kevin was one of these. Look at this thing. I mean, that thing's not that big. Wait, what is? That might be some forced perspective here. No. No, this is not a Siciliano situation.

The dog is closer. The dog is closer and she is belowiano situation. The dog is closer. The dog is closer, and she is below the dog. The dog is 40 feet tall. It is. That dog don't fuck around is what I know, and he's got two of them. He's got two of them. So is this lady 2'3"? What are we doing?

She's actually 6'2". I think that is a forced proposition. That lady, WNBA superstar, 6'3". That's right. She rode that thing in there. Rebecca Lobo. Let's go, the phones. For real. Saddle that thing up. That lady, WNBA superstar, 6'3". She rode that thing in there. Rebecca Lobo. Let's go to the phones. For real? Saddle that thing up. That's amazing. Not if you don't know it. That thing will kill you.

Let's go to the phones. Looks friendly now. Let's go to Wes in Idaho in a 500 phone line. What's going on, Wes? How we doing? Hey, I just got one question for Pac-Man. I used to live in Tennessee, in Franklin, and everybody told me, look out for a blue Lambo cruising right by Cool Springs Mall.

That's Pac-Man Jones. Never saw it, but is that true? The Lambo was not blue. Oh, okay. All right. Fair. It was orange. More recognizables.

Head turn. I would say. Did you enjoy the Lambo purchase? I enjoyed it. But, yeah, it was orange. Wrong car, buddy. It rides real low, doesn't it? Rides real low.

Yeah. Can't do that in Indiana. No. Nashville got, it's not like that in Nashville. They don't get no snow. So, the roads are pretty good. So, it was a fun little car. Do you still have the Lambo?

No. Smart. What'd you get that thing up to? I probably had it up to Washington. 85? No, on a racetrack. Oh yeah, like 165, 170. Okay, on a racetrack. That's right, you did that responsibly. With a helmet on? Yeah. Had a helmet on and a race strap, like a roller coaster.

Home Depot, Tony Stewart, get up. Absolutely. Smoke? Yeah, thank you for doing it. Backflip off the thing afterwards like you won a race. Victory Lane, 165. That's awesome. I'm happy you did that. Hell yeah, dude.

Hell yeah. You got to experience that. One more phone call here. Let's go to... No, two more phone calls. Let's go to Allie in South Carolina. Allie, what's going on? Hey, how you doing? Keep it go to Allie in South Carolina. Allie, what's going on? Hey, how you doing?

Keep it moving, Allie. All right. So my question is for Tone. As a fellow Steelers fan, given that we have Kenny Pickett, George Pickett, Cam Hayward, who's looking really good, Najee Harris, who's looking really good, and we kind of look like we're turning it around offensively. But how optimistic can you possibly be considering that Canada is still our offensive coordinator?

Oh! That's not true! That up in the barrel! Jeez. It does throw a wrench into all the plans. But I see a lot of times this year where Kenny's intercom goes out, okay? Smart. Where the mic in his helmet goes out.

And Kenny's calling his own plays. And Kenny's a dog. And GP's a dog. And Fryer-Muth's a dog. And Naj is a dog. Cam Hayward's got a massive head but still a dog. He's actually one of those dogs that Pac-Man has, too. Brand new O-line.

Her big dog. Boys are going to be fine. All right, last call here. Let's go to Kyle in Ohio. Kyle in Ohio with 5RNG phone line. Go to 5RNG.com. Use promo code McAfee to receive 20% off. 20?

What? 20% off all your 5RNG purchases. You can get one of those things you see at the gas station, the full fucking thing. You just pop it open, you get out of there. 20% off, promo code McAfee at 5RNG.com. Last call of the day, Kyle, what do you want to talk about? Hey, I know you are a big time traveler and UFO guy, and you like the Simpsons and everything.

You realize you already had a time traveler on your show once? The guy about four years ago the investor guy that said to invest in zoom did he know that code was coming and the whole world was going to use zoom and the stocks would just shoot up high good call there uh in ohio that was francesa francesa francesa said i like uh it was what yeah it was yeah i said because somebody asked him about his investment because he likes doing money. Yeah. And then he said, I got a couple, two hot stocks for you or something.

I own a very robust portfolio, Zoom. And Slack as well, I think. Yeah. I think it was Zoom and Slack is what he said. And then there was a couple others that didn't hit. But Zoom certainly took off through the pandemic when everybody was Zooming, even though the tech stinks. Still shaky. It's kind of like a Walmart of group hangout tech-wise.

Still was a great idea. Took over. And then Slack obviously did well for businesses. So, yeah, maybe Frances is just fucking rolling in right now because he is a time traveler. Eddie in Hoboken. What's up, Eddie? Hey, what's up, Mike?

What's happening? Hey, Mike, Stan Lee died today. Did you ever meet the guy? What do you think of him? Stan Lee? Yeah, Stan Lee. I don't know who he is. I don't know who he is, no.

Jesus. Who is he? Who is he? Who is Stan Lee? He was one of the creators of Marvel Comics. Oh, who cares? Nothing, babe. Rest in peace to Stan Lee. Obviously. We do not feel the same way as the sports pope Marvel Comics. Oh, who cares? Nothing, babe. Rest in peace to Stan Lee.

Obviously. We do not feel the same way as the sports pope. Nope. But he was the one that said invest in Zoom. Great call, great show, great guest.

We can't thank everybody enough for joining us. Lombo, Piven, Florio, AJ, Pac-Man, motherfucking Joe. Yeah! Talk stable. Hammer. Dot.

He's in about 10 minutes at youtube.com forward slash hammer and also tonight that's Hockey Talk I believe right? Jeremy Roenick's going to be joining us oh yeah youtube.com forward slash that's Hockey Talk

we can't thank you all enough massive day tomorrow, Calvin Johnson was supposed to be on tomorrow emergency travel situation he'll be joining us next week so we are wide open but we will be booking super duper surprise guests. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. You all are the greatest people on earth. We're heading to Chef

Bo's. Goodbye!