The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 957 - Feel Good Friday With Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus, Darius Butler, Michael Lombardi, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

On today's show, Pat, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about last night's preseason game between the Eagles and the Browns, DTR being a guy, Marcus Mariotta struggling, and what's in store for this weekend in terms of preseason games, which starters are potentially playing, and which games are worth watching. Joining the show to chat about how things are going so far going into year 2 of his regime, Justin Fields' evolution, his culture and why it isn't for everyone, deciding how much guys are going to play in the preseason and much more is the Head Coach of the Chicago Bears, Matt Eberflus (20:29-46:56). Next, 9 year NFL veteran, host of the Man-To-Man podcast and Everything DB, Darius Butler joins the show to chat about Colin Cowherd's list of top 10 QB-WR combos, his thoughts on everything happening around the NFL, what he's excited about this season, and much more (1:07:51-1:57:14). Later, 3x Super Bowl Champion, former GM of the Cleveland Browns, host of the Lombardi Line and GM Shuffle, Michael Lombardi joins the show to chat about his comments about Trey Lance not having the QB trait, his thoughts on Sam Howell and the Commanders, what's ultimately going to happen with Jonathan Taylor, if the Panthers o-line is going to be a problem for Bryce Young, Dalvin Cook's unusual contract, and more (1:57:16-2:35:12). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. Have a great weekend, we'll see you on Monday. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People, welcome to our Humble Abode, the Thunderdome, on this Feel Good Friday, August 18th, 2023. This sports program starts now. Football! It's happening. What a real barn burner last night between the Browns and the Eagles. And we'll have highlights from that particular preseason game. If you did not stay up until 11.15 watching the end of it, there was some magic from Kellen Mond as he evaded a safety that looked fantastic. DTR, the backup

quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, appears to be an absolute DOG! Getting a blindside block penalty early where he's throwing his body around. The players are going to love that. The Browns fans had to appreciate it. Jalen Hurts had a big-time catch, then took that ball and threw it right into the crowd.

He's beloved. Ross Tucker had the night of his life on the microphones. And now we are all eyes ahead on two preseason games tonight, the Browns and the Panthers and then the Bengals and the Falcons. We got football tomorrow. We got football Sunday. Then we're back for overreaction Monday. I cannot wait for everything that's about to

take place over the weekend. We can't thank you enough for joining us. The Talks Table is here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Boys, your two teams yesterday, five fights, first nine plays. Second day of joint practices. Ty, what does that tell you about your boys? Well, they're scrappy.

They're ready for battle. Also, I think it probably means that they got the best of the Patriots on Wednesday, and Coach Belichick probably got back in there and said, hey, that ain't happening tomorrow. What do you think he said? Do you think he said, like, LaFleur, this guy, remember we were letting LaFleur's team be tougher than Arty? Do you think that's what he said?

I would imagine it was something like that. He was also talking about how special it is being able to walk through Lambeau and all the history that's there. So he doesn't want his guys getting showed up in a place that he adores and loves so much because it's so rich with football history. He was not going to let that happen again. So probably should have known yesterday was going to be a little bit chippy and a little bit tougher for the Packers than Wednesday was.

Yeah, Packers and Patriots joint practicing right now. Wednesday, allegedly, the Packers just beat the shit out of the Patriots. And then yesterday, the Patriots beat the hell out of the Packers, allegedly. The ball went one way one day, the other way the other day. But they're also saying Mac Jones had his greatest day as a New England Patriot yesterday. Is that what we're being told right now?

People who have been to every single one of his practices have said that that was the greatest Mac Jones has ever played in a practice other than that was in New England. Just within the own team or in a joint practice so yeah Mack Jones looks better than ever I mean we saw Jair Alexander be a top five corner and Kendrick Boren was toast and Mack Jones was just putting it right on the money so I feel great about the I saw the one play you were referring to he's leaning leaning leaning fakes like he's going out and cuts to the inside. And Jair bought the out

and didn't cover him to the end. And Kendrick Bourne balls right on the money. It's a touchdown. You've seen Jair get mad about it. But also, it's training camp. These things are going to happen. Do you think maybe there's going to be a safety there, a linebacker there? If he throws inside, do I still got him? Do I not got him? And maybe he did get beat, but for the sake of

Patriots conversation, you guys look like you're a football team. Yeah, I look great. And safety would have been there, but Mack was looking left. So he kind of moved him with his eyes. Yeah, but like Orlovsky said, maybe he looked too much. Too much left. Too much. One half of the Hammer.

Don. Cowboys' Tone Diggs is here. And, you know, Hammer Don is our gambling show that comes out of the Thunderdome every single day from two very, very, very good sports gamblers. Yes. Both Tone Diggs, Bubba Gumpino, Bruce Brown's a part of there. And Mitt, I think he's been chirping in a lot more than maybe in the past. He's gotten a lot more comfortable on there.

Now, nobody has said Mitt is a great gambler that people will be listening to. But the Hammerdown Cowboys, Tone Diggs and Gumpy are certainly people that you should listen to whenever they're giving their picks. Not necessarily ride with every single thing they say but take their thoughts and do it yesterday we handed a winner to tone dicks who has started a little bit ice cold in this preseason literally everybody else in the studio was like they're giving us the browns plus three and a half right now they're giving us the browns plus three and a half in town heard me say it heard you say it heard you say it heard AJ say it and as he heard all these things come out of our mouth last night he goes oh give me

the Eagles now you lose again what the fuck we tried to give you a winner yesterday we're not in your world okay we're not full-time sports gamblers like you are and I understand you're studying the books and looking around trying to find the angle and the edge and preseason football is not easy to gamble on you know we told you Browns plus three and looking around and trying to find the angle and the edge, and preseason football is not easy to gamble on. We told you Browns plus three and a half. It was almost like it was literally on a football god's platter. They said, hey, Pat, you want to make your first official bet of the season? Here it is.

Three and a half moved to four. And it was almost eight to three. When I predicted potentially eight to four for the end of that game, it was an ugly, boring game. I watched all the way until the end. It ended up being a tie, 18-18. Maybe the first time ever. I have no idea if that's a score, a gomme, or whatever the hell it is.

And I don't know if preseason games count. But that was one that was handed to you, Power. Are you going to maybe just stop betting preseason as a whole because of what happened and what has happened to you? Or are you still trying to find the laces on the ball right now? I can't stop doing it. That's for sure. So I'm going to keep doing it.

Sounds like a problem. That's fine. You're allowed to have that. I don't think it's good. As your employer, I would like to say, I hope you get it figured out. I hope it's on this year. Oh, that being said, still need you to do a gambling show every single day. I thought the Eagles, since they're playing their twos,

would be better than the Browns playing their threes because the Eagles, you would think, would have a deeper roster because they went to the NFC Championship versus the Browns who are the Browns. But you know, DTR came out and did his thing. Mariota fucking stunk. It's almost time to start thinking

has Mariota just lost the it? Sure. There's a certain pizzazz. Right. You know, a certain riz, as the kids call it, of like a quarterback. You have to have it. DTR has it, it appears.

Now, I'm not saying DTR is going to go on to be a great NFL quarterback, and I know Marcus Mariota did a lot of things for the Tennessee Titans, and when he went to the Raiders, he had a couple things. In Atlanta, it didn't work out, but now he's here with the Eagles, which we thought that system might be a good system for Marcus Mariota because he can still move. Seems like it's pretty quick decision-making. And you're a vet.

You've seen a lot of defenses, especially in preseason games. You should be able to do your thing. He's missing throws. He's got no pizzazz. Marcus Mariota might be on his way out of the NFL as a whole. And Ross Tucker, who had maybe his finest performance. Yeah, I can remember that pretzel. Calling that soft pretzel, soccer talk.

I mean, you name it. He was. There was even a WrestleMania promo with Gunther on the sideline with Grayson Waller. And also some guy from NXT was doing a little bit too much talking. Okay, don't know why that. Grayson Waller, great talker. Let's have him do that.

Gunther, incredibly intimidating force. Let's have him do that. Gunther, incredibly intimidating force. Let's have him do it. This other guy kind of pretty long promo. I don't know if he's from Philly or not. Nonetheless, thought it was a brilliant idea to have the WWE guys promoting WrestleMania in the middle of that preseason game. Loved it. Actually sent a text and go, brilliant.

Hey, this is a good move here. This is smart because I saw it. I loved it. I enjoyed it. Russ Tucker did his thing, but he said that they were telling him, hey, you know, there's maybe a quarterback competition for the backup quarterback. And Russ Tucker said with Marcus Mariota on the roster, that didn't make much sense to me whenever

they said it. And then as you start watching, Marcus just miss and miss and second guess sack in this whole thing the guy lost it oh yeah did quarterback kill that guy do you think the whole world watching him go through like not only getting benched right before his baby's born i think on his birthday yeah and then disappearing from the facility whenever there was kind of a tumultuous story did that he has he lost all of his confidence you think that's what it looked like last night, and you were betting on that,

and I couldn't have expected it, but he looked fucking bad. So bad. And I don't like – I think he's a good dude. Yeah. He's lost it. I mean, it's gone, especially because there is one coach in this league who knows how to bring a dog out of you, and that is Coach Sirianni. And if he can't do it you got you got

got absolutely no hope left and it's uh you know he had a good career not so much a good career for the number two overall pick but you know a good career i guess but yeah i better hope jalen hurt stays healthy yeah well i mean what was the guy's number ten or mckee there he is he's balling he looked like carson wentz a little bit in Philadelphia Eagles jersey, the way he was throwing his body around at the end of the year or at the end of the game there. And obviously, we're the only humans that watch this entire game, I think. It was a long one. It was a terrible fucking game, but it was a game,

so we're going to go ahead and watch that whole thing. They were talking to Brandon Graham on the sideline. Brandon Graham, by the way, I did not know this. He is Philadelphia's defensive Jason Kelsey. Jason Kelsey, beloved on the offensive line side. Brandon Graham's been here longer I think than everybody. The stats that they were listing

off about him being like, hey, this is the guy of Philadelphia. I did not know that. Beloved by all of Philadelphia. Absolute dog on the football field. He was chit-chatting about the Jalen Carter situation. And he said, you know, there's a lot of things that happened and were said. Brendan Graham saying this too, I believe Ross and the other guy.

He's talking about how there's a lot of things that have happened in Jalen Carter's life and during the combine, a lot of things being said about him. He said, but this particular locker room in this particular culture is the place for guys like that. He said, I don't even thinkaylen knows how strong he is he said i don't think jaylen even has a clue of how great he is going to be which obviously a guy's been in the nfl a long time saying that is something you have to take very seriously but he also wasn't talking around his greatness he was like saying it's an honor almost to be here it's our job to make this guy be as great as he possibly can be which is maybe the greatest defensive player in the nfl that's kind of how they're

referring to jaylen carter then you look at old cuz that got drafted nolan yeah nolan smith who got drafted a little bit later he's flying sir around they're becoming the bulldogs in philadelphia but also i think they embrace that culture that you come here, you buy into our culture, not only because it's fun, we win, we compete, this is the place for you. Sirianni needs a lot more credit for that type of thing about being able to, you know, keep

everybody going in the same direction. And when you got a lot of dogs, not just Georgia Bulldogs, but dogs as a whole, if you can get everybody aligned what a weapon and i feel like that is what sirianni does and that's kind of what brandon graham was chatting about last night for like five minutes on the sideline he was a first round pick in 2010 for them so he's been there for a long long time and then yeah nolan smith was flying

around last night and then jaylen car, remember the draft? Everyone was like, who's the most talented player in the draft? Jalen Carter, Jalen Carter, Jalen Carter. And then the arrest happened or charge or whatever. All good now. Arrest? Yeah. Yeah, I got a mugshot. Been there. There was a charge that happened in a parking lot to me.

And then the arrest happened immediately afterwards while they put me in the back of a van that was way too small for me as i was handcuffed like this pretty intoxicated trying to get my hands to the front because i was like i don't know how many more times it's gonna happen in my life let me see if i can at least do this and end up sitting on my hands obviously i'm not flexible at all but my ass kind of caught that thing so then you're arrested he had mugshot was arrested placed in there in the middle of the combine yes so and then didn't have a good pro day workout but everyone still said he's the most talented and then the sirianni's like yeah hey you played with this guy yeah what's he like well

obviously he's uh fast strong dynamic yeah but what about as a teammate you know what what is he like as a teammate will he quit when we give give him money? And everybody's like, no, no, you just got to get him in here. Sirian is like, cool. I hope he shows up 35 pounds every week at his pro day. I assume the Eagles had their eyes on Jalen Carter from fucking day one trying to get him in the program. We're hoping he falls to 10.

We're hoping he falls even further. Remember, who's his agent? Drew. Drew came on and said, yeah. You think that I don't know if my client is going to get drafted? You think that I want to send my client around so he has to relive the worst night of his life with these teams that aren't even going to have a chance to draft him?

We're like, you know that? You think this is my first draft? That's what Drew Rosenhaus said. And now Drew's sitting back listening to the praise that's being heaped upon Jalen Carter, understanding that this is why I'm Drew Rosenhaus. But for the Eagles, a team that make it to the Super Bowl, they seemingly had a piece that's maybe like Defensive Player of the Year candidate.

That is a great play by everything they got cooking in Philly. Well, you said it yesterday, and I think some people just look at how good he is and assume, but that was a massive part of it. It's like you have an established culture, they are good, and then you've got a bunch of guys who played with him, who were teammates with him, who he knows and is comfortable with. So if there is any concern of some off-the-field stuff, it's like, no, we've got guys that are going to watch his back

and make sure and kind of let him know, no, this is the way we do things here. So it is kind of a perfect situation. I don't know if you could say that if he would have went two or three where he's going into a new room and the expectations are massive and he doesn't have anyone that that he knows and to kind of like you know guide him through this this early part here where it's very important that you have people who kind of know what the expectations yeah pac-man talked about how it didn't matter where he went he was going to be a player. I don't think I was talking about on the field. No, right.

We're talking about off the field. Now, who knows if he goes to any other locker room. I assume he ends up in any place that's good. He would have been able to buy in. But if you're picking high in the draft, normally not good. So if he ends up at a place where maybe he gets distracted and doesn't have any people that he's known since high school, like a lot of the people he has in Philadelphia. Is it the same outcome?

We shall see. But I do know if you're a rookie and they don't even got you dressed for a game in the preseason, all right, this guy. We got a guy. They got a guy. Pretty damn good. This guy is a guy. Congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles seemingly getting much better at a position that was a strength for them last year,

and now they even up it even more. I enjoy watching and listening to a lot of things being said during these preseason games, but boy, these games fucking stink. They're terrible. Boy, are they bad. Yeah, they're not fun at all to watch. I mean, there are a few little things, like watching Marcus Mariota was kind of fun just because you knew so much about him.

And it was like, hey, maybe Mark will put it together with the Eagles. He didn't. But DTR is just unbelievable to watch. He genuinely feels like if Deshaun Watson gets hurt or if something were to happen and they weren't going to play well, why wouldn't you go to this guy, DTR, because he just makes magic happen. There was a hell of a throw. Old cuz, one of them had –

Watkins, 80? Yeah, he had like 100 and some yards last night. Hell of a night. DTR has a lot of trust in him, a hell of a throw old cuz one of them had uh walkins 80 yeah had like 100 and some yards last night hell of a night dtr has a lot of trust in him a lot of faith in him there's one throw where walkins was acting as if it was back shoulder yeah which i think he was expecting dbc's has eyes on not the ball but on like something else can track ball. And then there's a completion that happens immediately afterwards. It's like, well, in actual NFL, that ball's picked. Yeah, for sure. So like, I think what everybody talent evaluation is watching is like, does this dude look like

he belongs in the NFL? DTR looks like he belongs in the NFL. Yes. And if he's going to keep throwing his fucking body around afterwards, now nobody is going to recommend that to a quarterback ever. But what that showcases to the rest of the team, the evaluators, like, look at him, he's up on top of the screen. Boom! That's one hit.

Oh, you want a little bit more? That's my guy. Ah! Ah! That's a quarterback, dude. He gets called for a blindside block, and I don't know how many times a ref has ever thrown a flag for a quarterback wanting to get a little extra. Oh, they cut it off right there. They cut it off.

Fools. They cut it off. What are we doing? That's part of the video. They cut it off again. God damn. Cut it off twice. Jeez Louise.

Come on, local broadcast. Anyways, he throwing his body around with the way he's performing. Obviously, that's a clean block. That was not the penalty. The penalty was when he comes around and says, oh, you think you're still going to make the play? Right there. That is where the blindside block was called.

And obviously the video cuts off immediately at that point. But I enjoy that this DTR character has built. What a shot, by the way. That's your quarterback. Good pop. So, you know, I don't want to immediately say this, but if you see a guy that enjoys that much physicality, he's that athletic, you want to have on your team.

Find a spot for him. Just go ahead and slide him right to slot. Not that that's an easy thing to do, but it's like, hey, you think you can run a little bubble a couple times here? You think maybe you can throw another one? How about that? Can we add a little, what do you think about one of these? Maybe a crack.

You like hitting people. So maybe they start finding a position for him to get on the field. If I'm a Browns fan, I understand that we paid a guy $230 million. He's going to get every opportunity to play quarterback. It does not matter how DTR does at quarterback. It does not matter how the Browns do or how Deshaun Watson does. Deshaun Watson is going to be standing in shotgun for that Browns team regardless of how it goes.

So if you see what you got out of this DTR guy, let's figure out a little spot to put him on the field, just like Malik Cunningham up there for the Patriots. That's what these preseason games are all about. But as you're seeking those moments and those players that you think might have a little bit of an opportunity to make it in the NFL, bad football. All over. It's everywhere.

Bad football. It's gross. It is disgusting. It's disgusting. There's one game this weekend I think we're both starting to play in at least a quarter. Okay, and that Chiefs are playing a quarter and a half. Chiefs are playing a quarter and a half, but Bills and Steelers, I believe, are both playing past a quarter as well. So not joint practicing. No. So that's what we're kind of learning correct yeah if the teams are going to

joint practice and this is why we got to keep an eye on this none of their players are going to play in the game already had the reps that we needed from the game against their ones against their team in practice on film documented so we don't need the preseason game. We'll use the game as a showcase for some other people who we might need to make our roster. So the Steelers and Bills not playing each other? Okay. So they're going to want to see what it is. Get after it.

Patriots-Packers, they're practicing together. I assume we're not going to see a lot of anybody play. Yeah, they said there's a chance Love might play, but there's a good chance that he doesn't, and then he'll just play against Seattle because they're not practicing with Seattle next week. And that's kind of what we've got to try to predict whenever we're gambling on these things.

It's like, all right, start putting ourselves in the coach's mentality here. Do they want to risk it with this guy? Do they need to see some stuff with this guy? Like that last game, who knows? I think that's going to be handled so differently by a lot of different teams. How has our team looked thus far? We need our guys. how has our team looked thus far we need our guys how has our team looked thus far let's fucking bench everybody yeah and we got to pick those things apart and take advantage of the books whenever we got a chance to do that it used to be easier because it was always like hey the third game

that's the dress rehearsal guys are probably going to go to half maybe play one drive after the half fourth game no one's fucking playing um but now like it, I don't think there's any rhyme or reason. It's definitely by coach. Like, Sean Payton said he's playing his guys pretty much all preseason long. I know Tomlin does too. And then there's guys like Chargers. They never play anybody. McVay never plays anybody.

Bengals, Zach Taylor never plays anybody. So, like, now it's not like general, like, hey, third game, we're playing everybody. Now it's more of coach-by-coach situation. Oh, situations are situations. They are. You know, we just, I don't want to pivot away from deciding who's playing in games, who's not playing in games.

Article just came out about Andy Reid's training camps being fucking hard. Yeah, he plays good. Sean Payton's training camp fucking hard. Yeah. Robert Sala's training camp fucking, it feels like there is a return to like uh you know oh yeah i feel like football is getting its toughness back not not that it ever was gone but there did feel like there was a few years there's a turn much longer than we thought where it was like data analytics we don't want to hit we don't want to do this we're not having our guys play we'll wait to the

season now it feels like there's a little bit more of an old school mentality being implemented back in the nfl and in college where it's like, Hey, this is football. So I don't know what all that shit was going on with the analytics and the data, but we need our guys to hit. And it feels like all the teams that are winning are. Yeah. And after it.

And that's good news. I think for the state of football and for the type of football that we're going to be watching week one through week eight, while we got guys ready ready to go as opposed to potentially trying to feel it out and figure it out on the go joining us now is a head coach in the nfl for a second year okay oh yeah last year he goes up to beautiful chicago illinois tries to implement his culture. It didn't work out perfectly through the season, but there was some blips of greatness that will be implemented upon. Some trades were made

and is this going to be the year that a team that is in the third largest city in America breaks through back to prominence under this man's leadership? Ladies and gentlemen, the head coach of the Chicago Bears. Coach Eberflus.

Yay! Coach, how you doing? How we doing, fellas? You doing good? Yeah, you're in Indianapolis. You look great. Loving the city. Great to have you back in here, pal. We can feel your presence. We can feel your aura. You loving it here? Yeah, it's good to be back.

We had, obviously, joint practices the last couple days, and those were really good. I always look for the one-on-one matchups, and it was really good to evaluate those, and certainly for our veterans and our young guys too. Okay, so we're just on the tail end of the conversation there. I don't know how much you heard, but it feels like there's a much old school mentality about football. Again, there was a couple of years there where it was leaving. I don't know if you've got a sense of that because you're probably in your own world, but it felt like there was a lot more data analytics. We're doing a lot of walkthroughs. We're not really hitting. We're going to give a little bit of a break, new CBA,

everything's getting soft. And then now it feels like, hey, it feels like coaches are allowed to be tough again. And we talked to Shaq Leonard whenever you were the defensive coordinator. He said, if you're going to come to the Colts, you're going to have to fucking work pretty much. Like, you got to come in. We work here. Coach Iberflues has us flying to the ball working.

Whenever you became a head coach now and you're running the camp, was there any hesitancies of like how you treat training camp, how you treat your players, or is it one speed all the time for you and you just got to find the guys that fit it? Yeah, it's a combination of that.

I would say that, you know, we have standards of how we operate and how we go about our business in terms of practice. And we standardize, you know, the, the, the effort in which guys play, the intensity in which they play, and those are all measured, you know, so we can clearly show the guys on tape exactly what we're looking for in practice and in the games. You know, so I'll give you an example. So for a defensive player, we want to make sure that they're running to the football. And if there's a change of speed when you run to the football, that's considered a loaf in our system. Also, if you're an offensive lineman,

we want you to cover down the field. And in practice, those guys are covering down the field 15 yards after every single play. So we're working the conditioning level of our players during practice, but also teaching them how to finish and how to be physical in what we standardize for each individual player. So it's clear cut for each guy. So that's one of the things that we've done over the course of the years to really get that style that we want to see on game day. Well, we're lucky to see your defense here in Indianapolis.

And everything that was coming out of it was like, hey, we are a spitting image of our defensive coordinator. This is the expectation. This is how we play. And you created all pros all over that defense. So whenever you get the head coaching job, and what you just said there, you would think would be just very normal. Like, yeah, we run to the ball.

We don't slow down. We do that. But that kind of changed, right? Was there a moment where you get up to Chicago and you start thinking to yourself, like, okay, we're going to have to change. We're going to have to find our people. You know, like, was there a moment of that last year? And do you feel you've gotten to the point where it's like your locker room has a lot

more of your flavor in it as opposed to the transition phase that is always going to be difficult with a head coaching change? Yeah, I think what you're always doing, the transition phase, even when we first got to Indianapolis and then when we first got to Chicago, there's always that transition phase where you get guys that buy in right away to that type of style, and it's natural for them to do that. They've been that way all along. But those guys, it takes some time. You have to show them why. And really, the reason why we do that, it's about winning. It's about taking care of the football, taking the ball away,

and playing with great effort. And that's the buy-in to it. And Ryan Poles and I, as we selected these players, the last two draft classes, which is 21 guys, and then obviously the huge class that we had in free agency this year, it's really about selecting the guys that love football and want to play that style. And you can see it on tape. So their margin for getting to where we need them to get to is not that far. And we're never going to take a guy who doesn't love football

and show it on tape. Feels like it's becoming more prominent now again finally where it's like hey does this guy love ball or not yeah he does cool we want him in our building there for a bit it was like we can teach him to love football for a while like analytics and stats were kind of becoming much more prevalent than like who the human is and i think any of us that have ever been in the nfl it's like you need people in that locker room that are all going in the same direction. You get a couple of those guys going the other way, it ruins everything almost quickly. That's why they say this guy's locker room cancer because it spreads. Let's talk about who your leader is. Justin Fields feels like a guy, right? I mean, this feels like a guy. He's eating fish now, which I'm a big fan fan of love that he's getting some fish

oils in there not that i'm a dietician or anything but like he was one of the big time upsides last year whenever i would watch for the dumb eye he'd be wide open sprinting down the field somehow faster than everybody they say you gotta work on his arm what have you seen from justin fields this year that gives you hope that maybe we don't have the first pick in the draft like we did this past season and how do you feel about the team as a whole following Justin Fields as his leadership yeah first and foremost you know Justin is that he loves football and he's the hardest worker he's the first guy in he's the last guy to leave and that's what you want from your quarterback you know know, and he's tough.

You know, and how does a quarterback exhibit toughness? Well, he'll stand in the pocket, you know, and he'll move around. We all saw the dynamic runs that he has. But, you know, he's got those special qualities, the it factor that you're looking for in a quarterback. And we're certainly excited about his progress, too. in a quarterback, and we're certainly excited about his progress, too. You know, he's worked his tail off here in the offseason, you know, working on his mechanics, the delivery, the progressions, everything,

his footwork, his platform. You know, from A to Z, he's worked on that, and he's progressing, you know, right on track for us, and we're excited to see where he goes. Had a good week of practice here, and we're excited about where it's going here leading up to the first game. Hey, got him a big time weapon too, this past off season. Their relationship seems to be beautiful. I've seen them do interviews together and it's like they're brothers as if it's like the chemistry was immediate. Are you seeing the same thing with DJ's addition to the team? Yeah, no doubt. You can see that in the chemistry really with DJ's addition to the team yeah no doubt you can see that in the chemistry really with uh with all the skill you know we do have a good set of tight ends

now you know we got a good receiving core and uh you know a good set of backs that can catch the ball out of the backfield so we got a good compliment you know to Justin uh and putting a skill around him and our scouting staff has done a great job with that. And we're excited to see where that goes. And the chemistry with him and DJ is certainly was, was the immediate and you can feel that you could see that in the practices here in Indiana. So it's, it's continuing to develop and we're like where it's going. Coach and the boys have some questions and we can't thank you enough for

taking time out of your day here to chat with us. Big fan from afar of the way you operate because of how all the players talk about you you know what i mean like i think that is the biggest thing for anybody like how's this guy's teammates talk about him and if he's a coach how's this guy's players talk about him that's how i judge everybody everybody that has ever talked about you that played for you loves you so you need to know that but also you talked earlier about how you have to instill how these guys need to practice, how they need to go about doing what they do. And on those two touchdowns that Justin Fields threw,

obviously the internet's going to do what the internet does. Oh, way to go, Justin Fields. You threw a screen and a little check down to the out where it was touchdowns. Look at these offensive linemen, though. Everybody seems to just blow by the highlights of this thing. You have offensive linemen 40 yards down the field blocking. I would assume that's because of what your practice habits are, but you've got to be very inspired by what you're seeing

from the big dudes up front on all of these plays, Coach. Yes, you know, and we really highlight that. You know, that's our style right there, and you can see that. Like right here in the screen pass, you can see right there that Braxton Jones, number seven, he gets a block. Number 11, Mooney had a great block there. A lot of the linemen down the field, Tevis Gibson right there, or I'm sorry, Jenkins, had a great job, a great block. So there's a lot of great blocks in that moment right there. And that's our style. And the guys do a great job with that, you know, and really, you know, to go back with the, with the comments you talked about that, you know, with the players that I coach is that, you know, I think so highly of those guys and I always thank them for, for the effort that they put in because our style is not for everybody and the guys that can get it done and do it the right way they become all pros because of the effort and the attention to detail

that they put in and as they work as professional athletes and those guys that buy into the system man they take off and but it's not easy and those guys have that that inside toughness uh that it takes and i commend all those guys you know all the guys that it takes. And I commend all those guys, you know, all the guys that I've coached in the past. And I thank them, you know, because it's not easy. And it's a hard standard to uphold. And, man, I'm proud of those guys for what they were able to accomplish. Yeah, well, hey, we're proud of you too, Bob. Because it's not an easy thing to be a hard-nosed coach in these days, you know,

because you've got a lot of people that will very easily say, nah, I'm not doing this. To hell with this guy, I'm going elsewhere. You're saying those who buy in will be champions pretty much. Sweet. Do you feel like you've got that with this team now? And also, my wife and I, because of how close Chicago is, like we take trips up there,

and I think I've learned a lot more about Chicago. Hey, that's a blue-collar city. Like, you know, you go to New York, a lot of of suits and I'm not saying there isn't suits in Chicago but it's a lot more of a blue collar big city that hard-nosed style I think will be beloved there what are your thoughts on thinking about the city matching with the team and do you feel like it's a perfect fit we just need to get the results now yeah Yeah, I really, that's so true that this is a city that loves the Bears and loves football. And they're an educated bunch, too. Now, these fans know football.

They know what it looks like. And they appreciate the right kind of style, you know. So they appreciate the hustle, the effort, you know, the ability to run the ball. You know, obviously, we ran the ball very well last year. And that's always been the Chicago Bear way, you know, and then implementing the toughness that it takes to play, you know, in the elements and being able to do that. So, you know, we fell in love with the city and really, for me, it's a perfect fit, you know. So, you know, I had an opportunity maybe to, you know, to look at some other places. And, man, this was the place for me. It was such a natural fit for, for me and the style that we want to, you know, bring

here to Chicago. I can't wait to watch your team continue to grow and mature under your leadership. I heard Anthony Richardson just went 20 for 20, 20 touchdowns against you guys though. That's what I heard coach. That's why I don't know if you were yelling at people, but I heard. I don't know about that. I know. I was reading mixed reports. You know, the Colts social media team told me we won.

Yeah. And then I read a bunch of other people that are maybe a little independent and non-biased. They're like, hey, Chicago Bears team looks real good right now. So I know it's all a development, but we are very happy to see you back in the city. And thank you for doing the joint practices with our boys, man, because I think that's a big sacrifice, isn't it? I think like giving up a week alone to practice with another team, that's not like the easiest decision to make. Right. Is it for a head coach?

Well, I think it's you can get a lot from it. You know, you're learning a lot. So for me, you know, to take your your your show on the road, I think is very important that you understand how to do that, you know, and, you know, our logistics team did a great job from, you know, getting ourselves all set up here. And then really about our players' mindset, you know, to be able to go on the road and perform. You know, we talk about that all the time. Hey, you're performing at home, you're performing on the road. It's all the same. It's about your routine and the preparation that you put in. And I think it's important for us. And I love the fact that we

played and we practiced at night and we're playing at night because that gives us an opportunity to work on our night games. You know, we have two Thursday games this year. We have a Monday night game. You know, we got, you know, we got a Sunday night game. So it's important for us to be able to work through that once we get to 48-hour prep. So I think it's really good for us, and I thought the guys handled it really well. Four primetime games, Coach, in your second year. Oh.

Well, you know, I think we ought to do this. We've got to give a shout-out to Zito Perez, your producer. Oh, let's go. There he is right there. You see, he came in here rocking this dick cutoff sweater thing. Hasn't showered in a few days. Just getting after it. You know, he's obviously the reason you're on the show, so we're very thankful.

But he's been holding it down for the Bears literally since day one. Oh, yeah. I think that's, to your point, all of Chicago, like, is yearning for the Bears to be back. And I appreciate it. We are. Okay. That's every year, though. I want to let you know that is every year.

And if you were to take the Bears back to true prominence, God, that city of Chicago would be obnoxiously loud. It would be awesome. It would be great. And Zito would be sweating all over every microphone, screaming about the Bears to bear down. Appreciate that. Connor has some questions for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, you just kind of explained how with some players, you want them to go through that game day routine,

like the night game coming up. You want them to experience that, especially with the prime times. But how do you decide who and how long some of these guys are going to play? Because a lot of times with the joint practices we saw last night, no real starters played. But, I mean, the first game you had, you know, Justin and the O-line and DJ and a lot of your guys out there, how do you go through that process and does it depend on practice?

Like if someone sucks in practice, are you going to say like, hey, we're going to need to see you play and strap up on Saturday because we need to see more reps out of you? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's really individualized. You know, certainly with your quarterback, you're never going to put him out there with anybody but the first line. I mean, you know, so that's always the case that you want to do that. You want to put the skill set around him. So, you know, most coaches would pair that together. But pretty much after that, it's going to be individualized with the player. You know, what's his experience?

You know, has he played a lot of football? You know, those types of things. And you do look at the rookies. You know, we want to get rookies a lot of play time as much as we can in the preseason. If they're going to be playing for you in your rotation or be a starter. And you certainly look at that too. And, you know, we're never afraid to play the rookies. Obviously, we had the most rookie snaps in the league by 1,000 last year.

So, and that's going to pay dividends for us this year. But, yeah, it's always individualized for that. Season's over and your PR guy or something comes up and say, a couple things we did this year. Okay, yeah, we had the most rookie snaps by 1,000. Pretty cool. And you're like, it felt like that. Yeah, I knew it was high.

I didn't know it was that much. Yeah, and that's good news, though, right? That's great news, right? Kind of getting in the deep end, baptized almost, and then now the experiences are just priceless almost, I think, going into this next year. Yeah, I just think that, you know, really, and you know this, you being in pro football, that you see the biggest jump from year one to year two.

You know, that first year is certainly hard for the rookie times. There's a lot of learning experience that you go through as a rookie. And then once you get your feet, you know, settled, I think that the biggest jump was always in that second year for most players. How about you? Yeah, I think it's true for everybody. There's no teacher-like experience. When you have experience in a job, just think about your first year doing your show

or your first year making a big jump in a change that you're doing. first year, you know, making a big jump in a change that you're doing, you know, being a defensive coordinator for the first year, you know, back when I was at Missouri, you know, or when I was, when I even jumped to the pros, there's always a, I think there's a big jump in that second year just because of the experience factor. They say whenever you get that head coaching role, it's like drinking out of a fire hose. Did you experience that at all? I know you're a veteran coach by the time you got the head coaching job, but like, was it everything that it's kind of cracked up to be about all the administrative bullshit almost that comes into your world immediately become a head coach.

Did you welcome it? Hate it. And his second year, a lot easier for you on that part. Yeah. You know, I welcomed it. You know,

I have a lot of mentors that I talked to before, you know, and during the process of, of getting interviews for head coaching jobs and then finally getting the head coaching job. So I before, you know, and during the process of getting interviews for head coaching jobs and finally getting the head coaching job. So I was, you know, I was ready for a lot of it. But you do spend a lot of time, a lot of time not on football. And that's just part of the job. And you got to really do a good job of segmenting that. And you got to keep the main thing, the main thing, which is football. And you got to make sure that you really do a good job organizing your time.

But it's all part of the job. Hey, but you got to be where your feet are too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, you really do. You got to make sure you're not, you know, that's always been the thing. And I've stayed long stints at places, you know, seven years at the Cowboys, eight years at Missouri, you know, four years at Indianapolis.

So I'm a big believer in being where your feet are and really helping the people and serving the people that you're working with and just trying to make them the best you can be. Yeah, and if you take care of the little things, the big things will take care of themselves. You know what I mean? That's a good one. That's a good one.

How many you got? Are you obviously your football coach? So you have all of these. Because cliches are cliche for a reason. Like a lot of media people, when a coach gives like a cliche answer, like back to the cliches, it's like, well, the reason why they're cliches is because they're true. Do you have a motto for the team?

Do you rely on any words whenever like you're speaking to the squad? What is your style whenever you're addressing a room full of professional athletes? Yeah, it's always about your behavior and your work patterns to me. You can say a lot of things, and those are important because I think you need to say it first. You need to see it first in your eye, your vision of where you're going to go. Then I think you've got to say it to yourself. But the most important part is the doing of it, you know, the execution piece and actually the doing of it.

So, you know, what we have is all we have is on the practice field. And those guys know that our work patterns are the most important things. How you prepare and how you play in practice is how you're going to play in the games. And we just keep it that simple. Coach, you got anybody showing up late to meetings or anything like that? Treatment? What's that again? You got any guys showing up late to meetings or treatment or anything like that in your building? No, I mean, not very often, you know, because I don't play with that. So it's uh we are you know we just have a fine schedule and the guys know that if if they're late they're gonna get a fine and uh and i tell them hey if i'm late to something i'm gonna find myself so it's everybody's held to the same standard i think

like the winning teams somehow all those little things that potentially happen in other places don't happen you know and if you see some of those things happening it's almost like an indicator like oh we're not we are not all in here you know what i mean and it's like once that starts happening it's hard to stop too i appreciate your answer there i don't play with that shit i i because that's smart like that's like professional football you don't have to be here you get to be here show up on time and respect everybody it's like that's like professional football. You don't have to be here. You get to be here. Show up on time and respect everybody. It's like, that's not happening everywhere though, coach. You know that. There's some real toxic shit going on in 2023 in the NFL,

in professional football that I, I get told stories and I'm just like, what is happening in the NFL? These people don't think they can get cut. I don't think, coach. Well, I just think it's, you know, it's, I think it's, it's easier that way because everybody's held to the same standard there's no there's no gray it's just the way it is and and i think people appreciate that you know because you know when you look at the football team there's

there's you know most teams are 90 of the guys are doing it the right way and and uh you know they're on time and they're working hard and they're, you know, they love the profession. And then there's, you know, if you let the other, you know, four or five guys, you know, muck up the whole other group, you know, that's not right. You know, so to me, it's like, you know, everybody's going to be held at the same standard. And it makes it easier for the coaches, makes it easier for the players. And now they can just focus on their job. They're not worried about the other issues. You know, let the head coach handle that and then just work from there.

Yeah, let me go ahead and take money out of this guy's pocket, all right? And you guys don't. You guys keep all your money. Let's keep going. Coach, this is my first time really hearing you speak for a long period of time and obviously the first time we've gotten to chat. I'm incredibly impressed. I'm excited to see what your team does,

especially with the opportunity that is kind of sitting on the horizon go ahead ty schmidt owner of the green bay packers ty schmidt yeah coach obviously at this point in the preseason you can't do you know like you can't be worrying about other teams in the division you got so much stuff going on you know with the bears and and you weren't there for the bulk of his career, but is there like a message or a feeling in and around the team now that Aaron Rodgers isn't a part of the Packers anymore? Like, hey, the division's wide open, and not just Aaron. You know, Dalvin Cook isn't with the Vikings anymore.

Like, it really does seem for the first time in a long time that the NFC North kind of is up for grabs. Yeah, you know, to me that's like the, you know, kind of the outside, that's kind of the outside noise that's going on, and certainly we're aware of that. It's out there for everybody to see, and we certainly respect Aaron Rodgers

the better that he is, but we are really focused on ourselves as we always do, as you have to do as a football team. You know, we love our acquisitions. We love all those things that we are building here. And it's all about for us is just about, hey,

focusing on what we're doing and how we're doing it. You know, we're second year in our systems. So I think that's pretty cool. We can start building upon that. We've got a new skill set, you know, a new front seven, a new skill set on offense that we're going to be able to enhance those guys' skills and put those guys in position to make plays. That's really where our main focus is. We certainly heard that he's no longer in the NFC North.

Yeah, we have heard that. Yeah, that's good news. We are happy he's out of here, but that ain't for us to worry about. Every year we're trying to win a Super Bowl. I'm excited to see what the Bears do. I'm very pumped up after chit-chatting with you, Ibraflus. We're going to see probably a shirtless Zito throughout the season, a lot more than we have in the past. Speaking of new acquisitions, Tone Diggs has the last question for you here. Yeah, Coach, you talked about the new acquisitions

and the new skill set in the front seven. You brought in two stud middle linebackers, and then recently, right before camp, you brought in Yannick Ngakwe for, for i think on a one-year 10 million deal 10 million dollar deal to to get after the after the quarterback were those places that you just you thought in your scheme and your defense that would fit best and and and then unique it's just where you like just like oh there's this incredible pass rusher still out on the market dog yeah yeah so you know if you look back at the history of our defense you know it goes back to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers you know with coach Dungy and then obviously Lovey Smith

here and then you know Rod Marinelli is one of my mentors and you know we had it in Dallas and then you know bringing it over here to Chicago again and you know the the positions that you're talking about you know that the linebackers obviously are a big part of that you know know, the history of that, the Hall of Famers that have played those positions. And we're certainly excited about, you know, Edmonds and, you know, and Edwards for sure. Inside, they're both instinctual players, long players. And, you know, getting Nengakwe on the outside, Yannick, you know, it's important to obviously have that edge rush. But we're also excited about the inside pieces, the de-tackles that we have, the ones we just signed.

Like I said before, the back end is all young guys. Those are the guys that I was talking about earlier. They've played. We got Eddie Jackson, of course, but the rest of those guys are young, and we're certainly excited about those guys going forward. Well, good luck to everybody. I believe the internet has told us, and it's probably through a report from you that Justin Fields will not be

playing against the Indianapolis Colts this weekend. Is that because the joint practices probably don't have to see a lot of the guys you've already got a lot of looks at that whole thing? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. You really get like, you know, two, almost two preseason games, you know, with the practices that you get. And we're good with where he is right now. And, again, we'll evaluate if he's going to play in that last game.

But, you know, we do like to get him some more reps, you know, here going forward as we go. Did you guys win your first preseason game? Yes. Yep. Well, we didn't. We Yep. Well, we didn't. We didn't. Yeah, we didn't, Coach.

I didn't know. Maybe you guys just want to let us get one. Yeah. Because we're going to be there, right? It'll be fun. It'll be fun. We didn't get a lot of those last year. None, really.

None. We didn't get a lot of good moments last year. Nope. During the season. So if you want to throw us a bone, you know, old home of yours, do what you got to do. Can't wait to watch your team. And thank you so much for the time. This if you want to throw us a bone, you know, old home of yours, do what you got to do. Can't wait to watch your team. And thank you so much for the time.

This has been a true joy. Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys. I appreciate it. Hey, good luck out there. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Matt Iberflug. Yeah, Coach! I really like that guy. Yeah, he's the man.

Forgot all those guys they signed, too. Yeah, he's a good one. I had no idea what to expect. We never really even, no offense, even though, no, I think Chicago fans won't take offense. I think they get it. I think they get it. I think they get it.

Like last year, you guys were competing for the first pick of the draft for the entire year. A fan of Ibraflues have heard a lot of great things, but it's not like, hey, let's reach out to the Bears and see if we can get anybody on. They have enough to figure out. I don't know if they need to deal with our particular program asking for anybody. So that's legit the first time I've heard him talk that much. I love that guy. I'm a big fan of that guy. And I like the fact that he's like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of, if you buy in, you'll be good. It's not for everybody.

Anytime you hear somebody say it's not for everybody that means he is seeing people that it's not for is like yeah well i don't know if that guy's saying he likes me as a coach you know because i talked about how his players all basically say we love this guy and in his head he probably goes well not everybody you know there's some guys that are certainly not big eberflees fans and the reason why just like jordan said they never won nothing yeah so those guys aren't used to the standards the accountability and what we expect out of them so maybe it doesn't work for them but if you buy in which another year of getting to find those people and get that team to kind of do

that i think you should be very pumped zeke i think you should be very excited about chicago bears not that i'm saying you wouldn't be but there's a lot of hype around the bears and after talking to that guy for what what, 30 minutes right there, I understand why. It feels good. I've been trying to tell you guys since day one, guys. Come on. What's day one?

What's day one? Two years ago. Oh, then you guys got the number one overall pick, worst team in the NFL. But we also beat Belichick in Gillette. Yeah, but the Colts beat the Chiefs last year. So, like, you know what I mean? What's that, pal?

At home, though. Okay, yeah. True. Yeah, I mean, the Patriots didn't make the playoffs last year. Chiefs won the Super Bowl. So, yeah, I do. We fucked them up that bad. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And I think that is, like, a true statement about the NFL, maybe not every other sport or league. The year we were 2-14 or whatever, there was nine one-score games that we lost. So, if you win seven of those, more of those, I mean, we're a nine and seven football team. We're in the playoffs. Probably. Without Peyton Manning, with

Curtis Painter, Kerry Collins, Dan Orlovsky, a quarterback. If that ball just happens to bounce into one of our corners' hands, we're in there. We win that game seven more times instead we're number one ever i'll pick we get andrew luck which pretty good little worked out give and take but that year was miserable it's like no matter how bad your team is if you go back at the end of

the year and look back at the scores and at a couple plays it's like oh we could have won like five six seven more games if it would have won our way. And that's football, baby. So I assume Coach Iberflus did that with the boys. And they were like, look, we had number one overall pick. We're the worst team in the NFL. We earned this for sure. But also, if this thing goes this way on this game, bang, there's a win.

There's a win. A lot of hope, a lot of optimism going into year two. Another year in the systems. Everybody's bought in. Good for Chicago. Good for Chicago. It kind of goes to what we were talking about right before where it's like the tough kind of coaches

being back in the NFL. It sounds like he's one of those as well. If his standards, some guys aren't going to like it and probably with places like Belichick and Peyton Reed, like guys aren't going to like those just naturally because of how hard they are. Like it's better to have more of those because eventually the entire.

This is the standard. The entire thing is going to turn back. Sorry about it. Standard is the standard. Sorry about it. Yeah, we're trying to win here. Yeah. We're not just trying to have a good time.

Although McVay, he was able to win a Super Bowl as being a pretty player-friendly coach. You know, and everybody says Bruce Ari being a pretty player-friendly coach. True. You know, and everybody says Bruce Arians was a player-friendly coach. It's like Bruce Arians is, he will motherfucker. He gets you. He will absolutely motherfucker. Not as much as maybe Belichick did with Tom Brady, but like all the coaches that say like, hey, this is what we're doing, seem to be the people that win at every level.

But there's always going to be somebody that can kind of change the game. Pete Carroll is one of them who just had a good time. He is slicing and dicing this year, too. I don't know what effect he has on the offense going in, and I don't know what film they watch of him, but if he's

the reason why they're the number one offense, because they just mimic plays that he makes and put them into their offense i am pumped about it that dude's 72 years old and that was a little bit of a duck that wasn't impressive how about on the roll throwback on a dime how about this one cross body back to the end zone touchdown let me run a wind sprint here because maybe i didn't throw 10 touchdowns. Then he jumps back in the saddle. Boom. Got it. Touchdown. How about this one? Boom. Touchdown. How about this one?

Boom. Touchdown. That's what I'm talking about. Now, somehow that ball was thrown to the left side of the field, made its way all the way back to the right side of the field. That's Pete Carroll football, baby. Yeah, slider. And we would like to let Pete Carroll know, you're one of the most impressive homo sapiens

that we have. Love them. At 72, with those heavy-ass fucking Air Maxes, and those incredibly sweet chinas, with four packs of gum in his mouth, being able to move, groove, pump fake, and still throw, nothing short of impressive. Good for you, Pete.

Keep going, Pete. You're an inspiration, Pete. It was 95 degrees. They were under heat advisory that day. Bro, listen, I'm watching it. As I start watching the beginning of that video, I'm like, oh, yeah, Pete can throw. Yeah, we know that. He throws a ball.

Then as he's rolling out, throwing a ball back across his body, I'm like, that is hilarious. And when did this start? Pete's like, you know what? I'm playing quarterback against the Skelly here. I'm going to do it'm gonna do it like pete are you sure we got like five quarterbacks on the roster right now no they don't know what i got you know what i mean i know what they're gonna need to see and it's like as i'm watching like it'd be really cool to be a head coach and just be able to be like yeah i'm playing backyard football against fucking siano seahawks defense today and i'm gonna fucking slice and dice them and that's exactly what he did we need more Pete Carroll's okay who are super positive I think player friendly coaches a lot of yeah yeah

and he has had success but it's not as easy as that because there has to be a good balance of accountability and positivity usually guys just kind of that are super player coaches normally mean anybody can get away with anything usually lose your culture lose games when they matter normally like when a big thing pops up, a loose culture is normally going to kind of rear its head in there, and then all of a sudden you're out of there. So it's not easy to be Pete Carroll.

It's not easy to be a little bit of a hard-ass coach. But it's not easy to win either. And I think... I don't want to be a victim of the moment. Sure. What, Ty? We'll see. I think Gabriel Flores't want to be a victim of the moment. Sure. What, Ty? We'll see.

I think the Hebrew Phillies are going to win. I think they're going to be much better, but it kind of goes back to the point you were making, too. Like a Super Bowl, that's obviously there's only one of those every single year. But I think Chicago Bears fans, I understand the hype and the hope after listening to that guy speak for 30 minutes. It's like, everything he does and sounds like is what winning programs do.

Now, will they be able to do that? It's a much different story. Well, and it makes sense because they went 3-14 last year, so they're going to have to get better, obviously. But also, I don't know if that's true. Yeah. Jacksonville got the number one pick two years in a row. True.

Yeah. I think Houston's been up in the top two a few times in a row. So you can get worse somehow. Teams have gotten worse from being the worst in the past in the NFL in recent history, but I don't think it's going to happen with that guy. Well, and it's not the same thing as like Patricia and guys like that, but it goes to the point too where it's like if they don't do well, it's going to be a lot tougher to get guys to buy into that kind of like,

hey, we're working. This is hard. This isn't easy. This isn't for everybody. You can't necessarily do that if you're getting the first pick in the draft two years in a row. Here we go. Coach Eberflus doing his thing.

He's been voting for the Heisman at one point. Now he had zero first place votes, so he was never going to actually win the Heisman. But in the conversation, he was nominated sixth overall. They take the top five to New York. This guy got fucked. Yep, he did. He's a college football national champion.

A Super Bowl champion. A Ryder Cup winner, but not a champion. But currently the champion of Ohio alongside Kirk Herbstreet. A man who beat COVID numerous times. Couldn't even guess how numerous times. Wow. Couldn't even guess how many times. Now that we're going back, because we were live throughout all of COVID,

but only show that never missed a day. Actually, we added shows. Mm-hmm. Whenever. Yep. We were the only things live, I think, in the entire world for like five to six days. That's a wild thing.

Who knows how many times this guy had COVID. You know why? Because he's such an Ohio fuck. He showed up on a microphone every single day. There were some days where he didn't talk for three hours. Yeah. It was like, oh, he probably had COVID then. So this guy might have beat COVID 15 times.

We're not 100% sure. He might have all of the antibodies inside of him. Maybe they should start taking his blood to maybe cure the COVID going forward. He's a father of 10, an absolute icon, A.J. Hawk. Yay, A.J. A.J., how many times do you think you beat COVID during that run?

Because we weren't around you, which we weren't around anybody, because social distancing obviously rules is rules. You got to do what you got to do. But do you think maybe your blood is the thing that could beat covid forever and maybe eliminate it and eradicate it from our entire existence i mean i doubt it i i had it uh at least twice documented that i knew of so i doubt i have anything special there now that's one more time than he has ever openly admitted before so we know that that number is certainly four to five times that actual number that's right but over there in ohio and in florida they didn't believe

in covid for a lot of it. They kind of figured out. This guy did a world tour. Remember, six vacations during COVID. Hey, what? Hey, Laura. We went to the farm. We had to see an old pal at the farm. You know, COVID didn't exist out there. They live on their own. It's okay. So one farm out in Kansas.

Hey, Laura, what's going on? Florida, they don't got anything, right? No. Alright, everybody in the car. They don't have planes anymore. We're going to Florida for four or five weeks. We're coming back. D.C. for his birthday. Yep, absolutely. January 6th, we're going to head over to Washington, D.C.

Went up to Martha's Vineyard with Obama. Boom, had to do it. Yep. Then went over to... Pool party with Gates. Gates, he did do a pool party there. Those sound like fun. Those do sound like fun.

You'll have to let me know how those are. We're not the ones that are world travelers. I actually normally just stay home is kind of my whole thing. So we were all living vicariously through you. And now we get a chance to just talk to a guy who has defied all human science. So, AJ. It's an honor. It is an honor.

I like your intro. I like your intro today. They come back and you just said hi and then pause. It was good. I liked it. That was my favorite. I was so excited. I like your intro today. They come back and you just said hi and then pause. It was good. I like that. That was my favorite. I was so excited. You know what I mean?

I was pretty pumped up because real deal, we are just 20 days away from NFL football. And we'll dive into this game from last night. And DTR has already won over his entire locker room, coaches and fans, I would assume, with how he played in that first preseason game. And then last night, he's throwing his face literally in a fan and getting called for illegal physical altercations. A quarterback in the NFL is getting a flag thrown on them for being too tough, too strong, too physical.

I love watching that. Now, with that being said, these preseason games have been tough to watch. Brutal. AJ, tough to watch. Now, I don't want to be the bearer of negativity. I hate doing that. I watched the whole fucking game. I did it. Me, personally. I watched the whole thing.

Every down. Every single down. I watched that game last night. And I thought to myself, I get to do this. This is fun. NFL football is happening. But I'll tell you, the conversation happening inside my brain about 30 to 50 times was like, God damn, this is fucking terrible football. We got some real bad football.

But then I automatically have to see the silver lining in there. Like the playbook out of Philadelphia as they were in Philadelphia last night. I'm like, you know what, though? This means football is real close. And then there's little glimpses of like great football. And it's like, oh, it's on the horizon. Then you see Marcus Mariota play and you go, oh oh this guy's dead aj aj what i don't i think he lost his mocks i think he lost his moxie i honestly i think he potentially lost his confidence i don't like that at all yeah as a position where confidence is

99 of what you're doing i mean can you imagine i've said it on here before if you're a quarterback and you lose even a little bit of confidence, how do you do anything? There's so much you have to process at an instant that, yeah, I feel for him right now. Hopefully he gets a chance in the third game to maybe go out there and figure some things out. An unshakable confidence is something that all great athletes have.

Now, I would assume that extends into other businesses as well, for executives and actors, musicians, whatever. Anything that is a scalable, climbable profession, normally those who have the most confidence are going to end up at the top. Now, there are people that have no self-awareness and are very confident and fucking stink. And those people have no idea that they stink. And you've got to respect that as well. But confidence, just unflappable is something that is needed because there's going to be failure and you're going to need to be able to get past

that get over that i think that's what um i think that's the ender for more careers than anything else when people kind of start doubting themselves for the first time in their entire life and it's like whoa i can't be doing this if there's any doubt at all because the person I'm going against, they're not doubting shit. And normally your confidence comes from how hard you work, but there's a lot of people who work their asses off and then for whatever reason can't find that confidence again whenever you're out there. It's crippling, AJ.

It truly is whenever that happens. I mean, it can be. Look at like you hear golfers talk about like an old 45-year-old golfer. Like they say, he has a lot of scars. A lot of scars build up in his brain of missed putts when it truly matters. Things like that. Lucas Glover literally just said that. Yeah, he did.

Yeah, you're right. He said it's like now his putting is a whole new situation. It's a whole new thing, a whole new muscle memory. The old thing wasn't even like putting anymore, so it's erased from his brain. Imagine if they outlawed that putter and he had to go back to his old guy the demons that might creep back in well he's going lefty then let's turn the other eye let's get the other arm yeah but it's you do see it almost and for quarterbacks i think what you see is like uh they don't trust so they're like guiding it almost and he overthrew like six guys like actually those like yeah those like those overthrows

those are what scare me for sure because those are always picks usually and you're like man i don't i don't know usually it just doesn't when someone's feeling it they're usually not overthrowing dudes they might be a little jacked up early in the game and he might overthrow somebody and then dial it back in though yeah but just not even thinking though right like that's what like dtr dtr looked like he had ultimate confidence he just he hits his back foot boom He lets that thing ride into tight windows, too. He's not scared at all. I think that's a good way to judge how people are doing, by the way,

and how people are going to be. What's this guy's confidence? I want to know that. I watched that Steph Curry documentary called Underrated or whatever, and the coach for Davidson went to one of his high school games. He was this undersized guy. Now, they were telling this story. His dad was in the fucking NBA.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So they were telling this. He's 6'2". Is he ever going to – okay, so this guy's taller than most humans. His dad was in the NBA. And they're telling a story like nobody had faith in this guy. It's like I get that.

And from hearing the story, I guess people weren't as excited to recruit him as maybe a 6'7 guy or a 6'8 guy. But what the Davidson coach, this older man who I think Steph is still very, very tight with, was like, this dude went like one of 30 one night. But that ball got in his hands. He was putting it right up. There was no like, hey, I am missing, I'm missing. So his thing that he saw most impressive about Steph Curry,

it was his takeaway, it was like, yeah, this dude's confidence was just unshakable. Unmasked. Like he missed five, six straight shots. And it was like, the next time he got the ball, it was this one's going in. And it's like that type of mentality tells a lot more of the story, I think, whenever it comes to athleticism,

than most people chat about. And for Marcus Mariota last night, I don't want to... I don't have the best eyes on Earth. I don't think I have the best read on Earth. But when I was watching, I'm like, this guy has lost his confidence. This guy...

Because he was in the pocket, too. Veteran quarterback has seen a lot of these defenses preseason. That's why these veteran quarterbacks that are playing against people that haven that don't haven't played in the nfl before know what's coming pretty basic know exactly where you're going case keenum lighten it up i mean just absolutely derrick carr lighten it up matt barkley matt barkley like these people are lighting up because at least they know what the other that's quite an advantage to have all of a sudden you're like aaron rogers tom Tom Brady, Peyton Manning

because you're able to figure out what's going on defense, which is their greatest gift. And it just didn't seem like that was something that he had last night. So then you start – like, did quarterback really know this guy? And is that why – is that why people don't want to do – or are publicly coming out and saying they don't want to do quarterback because they're like, you see what happened to Marcus Mariano? Yeah.

This guy. Well, I would imagine Marcus wished that he had some documented footage from maybe early in his career when it was going a little bit better, not the one season where he gets cut as he's having a baby and he's doing rehab away from the team and there's all kind of weird stuff happening. But that might be the thing that actually got him. And this is a completely different situation,

but when the Manti Teo untold came out after that whole situation off the field, he just second-guessed himself on the field, and he could never be actually the player that he was. And with Mariota, I think there could be a chance that after Vegas, he was like, okay, I am ready. This is my time. I can

be a starter in this league. And then you go back and look at some of those Atlanta losses. They were about to be the Saints, and then he fumbled the ball on a snap and they lost. There were multiple times. And they got to relive it. Yeah, you have to relive it, and then all of a sudden you're going to a place where there's no pressure. There's zero pressure for

Mariota. It's not like, hey, we're going to need you at some point. If Jalen Hurts has a broken leg, they're probably still going to wheel him out there because of how good he is. So there's no pressure for Mariota to perform at all. And even the sacks, whatever. Him doing the double pump fakes that we're seeing from Stroud and Richardson and Trey Lance.

He's played in the league for damn near 10 years. That's not the stuff that you would expect from a guy like that. And that's why even going into last night, it was like, yeah, we love the Browns, if mariotta's playing like he should probably tear apart the you know seconds and thirds of cleveland and him not doing it like he might have just completely lost it after his time in atlanta hey marcus you're you're a great football player you did great things with a football in your hand we appreciate the hell out of you. You need to know that. Love you, Marcus. You do need to know that. I was sad to watch, though.

It was. Because I am a fan of Oos. Yeah. I am. He seems like a great guy, doesn't he? He seems like a really good dude. Remember in Oregon, like when we got introduced to him. Oh, yeah.

It was. Heisman. Yeah. But you almost got Heisman. Remember? Yeah. Almost. Very close.

You were right there. I got nominated for the Hall of Fame, pal. zero yes votes but i was nominated you know what i mean it's all recounts forever i think manti almost won the eisman he was like second or third yes hell of a player hell of a football player what a story have you seen him now i've actually i don't say me and manti tay our friends yeah but we dm once a month i'd say that's sweet yeah since you know us watching that documentary yeah and just being like this guy got fucked dude yeah so i sent him a message i was like i don't really do the dms much on any of the platforms i actually try to stay out out of them because of the things that get sent to me are either, like, really rude or, like, hey, I need this or, hey, I need that.

So, like, I try to save myself from that. So I apologize to anybody I have not responded to in there. I don't look. I try to stay out of it. It's, like, to keep my life better. But after that Manti Teo documentary, I felt obligated to be like, hey, I won't let you know. Me and my friends have made some jokes at your expense what happened to you is bullshit absolute bullshit we love them too

and we are so sorry yeah that we did not know the whole story and then like he obviously responded like very kindly i'm like you did not ever respond to me i'm'm very thankful. And now I'll send a, you know. Send some mana. I'm in Hawaii. I'm in Hawaii with the wife or whatever. I'll get a, hey, Oos, you know, a whole thing. I'm like, are me and Manti Teo friends right now? Yeah.

He is. Yeah. Properly. Jocked. Yeah. He is fucking yoked right now. Yeah. I want to, hey, Oos, why don't you make a...

Let's end this football life. Let's end this football life in a proper fashion. One more season. Come back here. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's going to break down a list that hit the internet yesterday.

Obviously, lists that hit the internet are always going to be enjoyable and fun, especially in the sports media world. Colin Cowherd put his top 10 wide receiver quarterback combos in the sports media world colin card put his uh top 10 wide receiver quarterback combos in the nfl out last night we put it in the group text obviously and boy oh boy there was one guy in there that was not happy with calling card he also happened to wear the number 20 whenever he was picked six and everybody in doing his thing. And we are 20 days away. So to celebrate the countdown and being pissed off,

ladies and gentlemen, your favorite golfer, Darius Bullard. Yeah! What's good, fella? I'm never pissed off, man. Life is good. It's feel good Friday. I'm in a great mood. Great list.

Great list by Colin there. He dropped last night. Okay, let's put it up there and just dive into it. Now, this is classic sports media. This feels like we are fans of Colin Cowherd, even though there are people that absolutely despise Colin Cowherd. There's also people that love Colin Cowherd, and he's been doing this a long time.

He broke the A-Rod news, too, so that was big. Shout out to Hard Knocks and the NFL Films people and the people that are attacking me for saying what the fuck about that situation. Who have no idea about anything. But nonetheless, we are fans of Colin Cowherd. Has been doing it for a long time. Doing it good for a long time. But this list is like straight out of the sports media, stir the pot, piss off the marks playbook.

So as we go through this, Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, number one. Okay, hey, you could definitely easily say that. Trevor Lawrence, Calvin Ridley, haven't even played football together yet in the NFL, but Colin Coward's like, this isn't about now. This is end of the year, what people are going to be saying. Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, now that's won

multiple Super Bowls and multiple championships. They are going to break every record together that there has been and will be. Aaron and Garrett haven't played yet. Derek Carr and Chris Alave at number five. This is when people really started going, Colin, what are we doing? Darius, when you look at this list, Josh Allen, not in the top five.

Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown that broke a bunch of Philadelphia records last year, not even in the top ten. What are your thoughts, and how excited are you for the NFL season, knowing that these duos are going to be out there killing defensive backs all season long, D-Butt? First of all, we can start there. Everybody on this list, I expect to be dominant. I expect to be great next year. And I see, okay, it's Colin forecasting, right?

But, I mean, any list, you know, quarterback, where I receive a quarterback tight end, whatever. If Travis Kelsey is on the list with Patrick Mahomes, they got to be one. They got to be one. I think you can look around the league and even the guys in the league will say that as well. But you got him. You got Jefferson. What he's been doing with Justin Jefferson, what he's been doing. Kirk Cousins has been crazy this first three years. You got Tyreek Hill. He was on he was on track for 2K. If Tua can stay healthy, I think all those guys should be up there in the top three, four.

Chase Burrow right there as well. And all these guys who haven't even, you know, competed or had that connection in real game speed yet, put them on the list. Just not up top. Got a little fired up yesterday. You know, just a little bit fired up. Me and my guy Foxy, you saw the list.

Oh, yeah. All this bullshit. Once again, a big fired up yesterday. You know, just a little bit fired up. Me and my guy Foxy, you saw the list. Oh, yeah. He thought it was bullshit. Once again, a big fan of Colin. But, yeah, like you said, this is classic media. But, you know, fantastic talent on this list. But I think Kelsey Mahomes obviously at the top. You know, I'm kind of a homer. So, but I know Tua's not, you know, he's not on the field every week.

So, I won't put Tua. Oh, whoa. He's doing jujitsu. Yeah, he is. Josh Allen, Diggs even. I mean, since Diggs has come over with Josh Allen, what they've been able to do together, they should be higher. But, I mean, I can't wait.

I can't wait for this football season to start. I'm not as anxious as you guys because I can't watch a minute of preseason football, so I don't know how you guys do it. Live, I haven't watched one live snap of preseason football. I watched 60 minutes last night of preseason football. so I don't know how you guys do it. Live, I haven't watched one live snap of preseason football. I watched 60 minutes last night of preseason football. Tough. That's tough. You're right. Buddy, there was a lot of motivational speeches I was giving to myself while I was watching.

This is football, though. It is football. Sure, it is. We're 21 days away from actual football. And then as the clock kept ticking, I'm like, God damn, is this the slowest preseason game of all time? And Ross Tucker was doing his thing on a microphone. He was. So that kind of got me through it all. And then you losing your mind

in the group text also helped me as well. So you need to know that. But do you think the way that list went together was Tone thinks that there's a chance he did not see that list until he went live. Producer put that together. He went live. He sees it. Now it's time for him to go. I don't think that's the case.

Do you think there was a list presented to him? And then he was like, let's go ahead and move them down to six. And let's move Trevor Lawrence and Calvin Ridley. It's all calling. You think he said, no, this is the top 10. That's how you think this happened? I think so. I mean, like I said, look, they're good guys.

After the Haskins news, after the Haskins thing, I assume that those lists are just put out there. Did he say, though, did he say this is how it's going to end up? Did he, like, say, hey, guys, don't get on me. This is how I'm saying at the end of the season, these will be the top two. I don't know what he said today. I think he covered it a little bit on his show.

We did not have the sound on. We caught the tail end of it or whatever. I'm saying that just to, like, say this is what Colin was thinking, you know, to kind of baby face it a little bit. But that was the best, you know. I mean, it's been some shit. This is the time of the season, you know. It's close. You start just putting some shit out there.

You start putting some. My guy, RC. Love RC. Love Ryan Clark. Gives a lot of good You start putting some. My guy RC. Love RC. Love Ryan Clark. Gives a lot of good takes in my opinion. Love the pivot. But that shit he said earlier this week, I think that kind of got the shit going. We're thirsty. When he said George

Pig is much more talented than Justin Jefferson, I mean... So you just said that you think that Colin Cowherd saw what Ryan Clark did, and he was like, oh, yeah, it is that time again. Yeah, let's do this. I completely just, we're in that time of year, man,

where, you know, you're putting out lists. And once again, I think this is a good list, but you got to move some things around. You got to say some shit that's going to have some conversation around it. You know, that's a part of the business. I get it. But, I mean, so it's not, this Colin This Kyle Hurley, this isn't ridiculous. This is not the worst thing anybody's put out.

Especially, you know. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Go ahead, Connor. Especially recently, but at 11 he had Jimmy G and Henry Ruggs. He thinks that they're going to have a hell of a year. AJ, what do you got for me, bud? Aside from those... Where'd you see that?

I always thought about that. Others receiving votes. Yeah, there's like a top 12, 13. Terry McLaurin was on it, but Aside from those Where did you see that? Others receiving votes. There was a top 12, 13. Terry McLaurin was on it, but unfortunately the quarterback he picked with him was also still Dwayne Haskins. By the way, Sam Howell has been announced as a starter for the Washington Commanders, formerly known as a name

that is... Not everybody. Stop it, Carter. Not everybody. Stop it, Carter. Stop it, Carter. I thought that NAGA was make Native Americans great again. Remember we were talking about this? I don't think that's what it is. That was more of a suggestion.

They haven't workshopped it yet. Anyway, Sam Howe is starting for that team. That was once called a word that there's a petition to get back, but boy, not everybody's thrilled about it from what we have been told. Anyways, go ahead, AJ. Are you surprised at anyone that you don't see on that list? Maybe seeing who we put up there, I'm surprised Justin Fields, DJ Moore, isn't up there with what they've done the preseason early.

What do you think they're going to do, D-Butt? How are the Bears going to be? I think the Bears take a step. I know a lot of people were expecting them to win the division. Are they going to throw the ball down the field, D-Butt, how the Bears are going to be? I mean, I do. I think the Bears take a step. I know a lot of people are expecting them to win the division. Are they going to throw the ball down the field, D-Butt? I know that's a problem everyone's saying right now. They have to. They're going to throw it down the field more. I think Justin Fields

is more than capable of throwing the ball down the field. Will he be in the MVP conversation or anything like that? No. I think we're a couple years from now, even with that team around him. I know you have Fluse on here, but I mean, they're building. You know him? You know Floose?

I don't know him. I met him once, maybe twice, but all his players love him. His standard, you know, for defense and how they play defense, and I'm sure that'll go throughout the entire team now that he's the head coach. Everyone has spoke highly of that, all the coaches that have coached with him, but I don't know him personally like that. But uh great coach i think they'll take the right steps but i still think that bears rostering that team's a couple years away but i definitely think they're going in the right direction i love justin fields i think that connection will be great i think uh

jalen hurts and aj brown they weren't on this list right i think they should have been on the list i mean anytime they were one-on-one last season, I mean, Jalen Hurts took full advantage of those situations down the field. For some reason, even the conversation around Jalen Hurts, I feel like people, you know, a lot of, some people put him up there and some people don't. Some people say, hey man, he's propped up by the roster around him or the good receivers, great defense, great offensive line. I mean, that's what the front office is supposed to do. They're supposed to build around a young quarterback. But this dude has gotten better, you know, week in, week out. Every year he's gotten better. And on this very show, in the old studio actually,

remember I picked him to go to the Super Bowl last year. Yeah, but was that like a classic UConn Husky? Nope, nope. I'll say 10 teams. Was that a Dan Orlovsky? I said two. No Dan wagon. I said two. No Dan wagon. I said two.

And my Chargers let me down. Patrick Mahomes, he's inevitable at this point. But Chargers, Justin Herbert let me down. But I had the Chargers and the Eagles in the Super Bowl last year. Well, we appreciate it. We're hoping for a lot more of this. Yeah. I bet you.

Okay. What have you done for us lately, bro? That season's gone. New Year's. Yeah, you're not even watching preseason. We're all so far ahead of you. Because we're watching these preseason games. You know who's going to be starting in the XFL in two years?

No, I do. I watched them in fourth quarter, like six, seven different games this past weekend. Wait till you see what I do tomorrow. I'm watching the CFL Grey Cup right in front of my eyes. Third, fourth quarter in like seven or eight of those games. Over and over. There's some terrible football players on some of these teams, D, but terrible.

And I don't want to take – we've already taken enough. Kellen Mond escaping to safety numerous times and picking up the first down. How you doing? Hey! Keep it moving. That was fourth quarter. That was late in that game.

That really brought quite a spurt to me, though, while I was watching him. Like, oh, there's some football being played here. Huge. And I don't want to – we buried him already, and we like him as a person. And you didn't see this because you don't watch – you don't prepare for your – you don't watch – Mariota? Yeah, you don't watch what you need.

It's not good. Mariota? Yeah. Hey. Man. It's like a. Mariota? Yeah. Hey. It's like a bummer to watch because we've seen him for a long time and had a lot of high hopes. He is – it was bad last night. He was not good last night, but he'll get better.

Sure. He'll get better. Eagles get better. To your point about Jalen, though, he's beloved over there. I mean, he is Philadelphia has taken him quickly as this is our guy good representative and since day one all he wants to do is compete in love football and I think that kind of radiates through and he's got hands give me that and then he says where are we we're at home whose ball is this their ball

yeah you know what you're right fuck them see Throws it into the crowd. That was Brown's ball. That was Brown's ball. Turn. See ya. How you doing? A lady, I think, ended up with it. I don't know if she caught it or not. He's beloved. But him and A.J. Brown, I think they broke a yardage record for the Philadelphia Eagles last night, if I was listening to the commentators, right?

And then him and Devontae Smith broke, like, a catch record last year. So he broke two different Eagles records, I think, last year alone. And you're right. You never hear him. You hear Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Lamar Jackson's back. Joe Burrow's able to do his thing. Justin Herbert. Josh Allen is doing his thing.

Is Kenny Pickett going to be able to? Yeah. Brock Purdy? Is Brock Purdy? He's going to be healthy by? Yeah. Don't smirk. You never hear like, hey, another year of Jalen. Yeah. Look out. You don't hear that. You're right, D-Butt. That's Brock Purdy. He's going to be healthy by. Yeah, don't smirk. You never hear like, hey, another year, Jalen. Yeah, look out.

You know, you don't hear that. You're right, D, but that's that's probably our fault, too. Oh, no, I think you guys you guys hit it when he when he makes the plays. But I mean, he was he was too good. If he didn't miss those two games last year, I think he wins that MVP. You know, I think he lost one game in a regular season as a starter last year. And if you go back to his college career, obviously everybody remembers when he got benched for Tua. You know, Tua was a great young player that happened sometime. He stayed on the team, was a great locker room guy,

went on to Oklahoma, developed tremendously under Lincoln Riley as a passer, was in the Heisman. I think he finished maybe a couple spots higher than A.J. did. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! finish maybe a couple spots higher than aj did oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh fucking grab the shovel bury that man oh that's that's that's crazy that's crazy impressive finish the top six. Really top five because Reggie took it from Reggie,

but give Reggie his Heisman back. But Bennett Heisman, finalist at Oklahoma, he was a very, very good passer coming out. And I think everybody knows, everyone that spoke on him, everybody that's around him talks about his work ethic, his leadership. So those are like the young guys you bet on. Those are the things, the intangibles you bet on to get in the locker room and get better.

And I think he's done nothing but do that. But for some reason, it's like expect people are looking at like, oh, yeah, that's one year. Don't problem up there just yet. But I think he's got a long road ahead of him. I think that's why the Eagles jumped up there and made him, you know, the highest paid player in the league for, you know, a few weeks until I think Lamar got paid and then Herbert got paid.

Great answer there. It's a shame, though, because A.J. wasn't listening to any of it because he has a button that goes right into my right ear like Zito does and the boys do. And he actually said, when did Jalen get drafted? That's what I thought, after the whole Heisman thing. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's what he said.

Wow, we get it, A.J. Five overall. We know. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's what he did. Wow, we get it, AJ. Five overall. We know. Old, old CB. If I had a ventriloquist, I guess, is what you would call it. My mouth didn't move. Did my mouth move? Yeah, you said, when do you get drafted?

I saw it like American Talent. So pissed. Running back. I saw you doing the ear thing. I thought you were mad at Zeke, honestly. But he was a whole bit you were setting up. No. No.

Not a bit. AJ. This is setting up. No, not a bit. This is a real deal. That's what he said, though. He said, oh, he might have got more Heisman votes. Okay, cool. Does that matter? He gets $55 million as a number. He got $325.

He got $324. Hey, shout out to Nicole Lynn, too. She got shouted out by Quentin Williams the other day. She's, hey. Getting it done. Another dog. Hey, you watch Hard Knocks. What are your thoughts?

Like, obviously, we as a program are excited about the Jets. What are you guys excited about the Jets? Well, we, like, fucking know, you know, a lot of the everything that's going on over there. We're lucky to be in that particular case. lot of the everything that's going on over there we're lucky to be in that particular case but that team adding dalvin cook and you know pac-man asked i think last week to either schaefter or rapaport about dalvin cook having a potential uh roger goodell meeting yeah at some point and then i think aj told me aj did a little research michael lombardi kind of alluded to the way the contract is set up, that

there might be something coming down the pipeline. We haven't heard anything about that in Rapp and Orrshipper. They didn't hear anything about that. We'll ask Lombardi about that in a little bit, but let's assume Dalvin's in for the full season, and Brees Hall is back as well, with Garrett and Uzama

and Lazard and Cobb, and obviously Aaron. What do you think about the Jets hype? And have you watched Hard Knocks? And what is your overall takeaway from the team behind closed doors? Man, so I was one of those weirdos that actually liked training camp as a player, even back in college. Like, pro, I liked it.

So Hard Knocks, one of those things, like, especially if it's good. And I feel like this season has been good. That's when I start really missing kind of been in the locker room been in those meeting rooms doing those things like having those interactions i think they've done a great job so far the jets and that team man they look great on paper but just to see how and obviously we've known this and been around the league as long as we have we know people who's been around a rod but for a lot more people to see how interact teammates coaches former coaches know, whoever it may be. Like, that type of shit resonates throughout the building. You can't really, it's not really something tangible that you can put a value on.

But they obviously got the talent. Obviously, the O-line situation got to be sorted out and figured out. It is interesting to see, for me at least, more of Robert Sala. You know, it's always, you know. What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts? You know, I got to see a few more episodes. I got to see a few more episodes.

The thing about being a head, I think, obviously, you know, X's and O's wise, defense wise, he's a great coach. That's that stamp. But, you know, it's different. When you're a head coach, especially when you have a quarterback of that stature, like an older quarterback quarterback a quarterback who has the legacy that aaron rogers had you need a certain um i don't know i don't know how to say it really i don't know how to say it really i just got to see a little bit more coach solid but i am a fan of hard knocks i am a fan of the jets i do expect

him to make a deep run this year do you you like the fact that it was Jib? Yeah, you like the fact that it was Jib? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that means. What are you waiting to see, D-Bud? I need a couple more episodes of Hard Knocks, buddy. I'm not sure how he's doing. He just got to be the same guy

every day. You don't have to be a hard ass. You don't have to cuss everybody out. You just got to leave the same guy, you know, every day. And you don't have to be a hard-ass. You don't have to cuss everybody out. You know, you obviously got to – you just got to leave the room full of men. And I don't know how to explain, you know, what exactly it is or how to do it. You saw him read that speech? He said the crow and the eagle one, you saw him read the speech? Is that what happened?

That was it. That was it. You know, we always got the coaches with the stories and the speeches. That's cool, the quotes. I just got to see more of the guy. But I like him. That was it. You know, we always got the coaches with the stories and the speeches. That's cool, the quotes. I just got to see more of the guy. But I like him. I like him. I love the roster.

Obviously, they went out and took the – I think this is going to be great also for Zach Wilson. I think Zach Wilson being able to sit behind A-Rod, I think he'll be – now you kind of can be in the cut a little bit and not really be up under that limelight. But learn. Just all that – you hear the game and he's getting from a rod just learning and getting better and then when a rod goes off in the sunset a year or two from now he can hopefully take over and be that guy that people

thought he was when he got drafted number two but obviously they got a great defense you got great weapons you just gotta just gotta fix it up front um you know in front of uh in front of eight i agree with what you're saying about zach wilson too. I think, like, you know, I think Jameis Winston's team described the Saints. Now, granted, the other play said Tom Brady, Bruce Arians, Clyde Christensen in the quarterback room. When Jameis signed to the Saints, he said he's going to, like, quarterback college. Harvard.

He's going to quarterback Harvard, which I respect because Sean Payton, Drew Brees there, but also on the flip side, there's also some championships. So that didn't end up kind of working out there. But Zach Wilson getting to watch Aaron watch film, interact with his teammates, what he can say to the coach, what you can't say to the coach, let alone the decisions you're making on the field. Just, hey, here's how you be a professional quarterback. That should help him. Now, if he's just going to throw it to the defense whenever he gets on the field every

single time i don't know if he can change that in back go ahead the difference there for me at least uh so with james and drew obviously you know it's like going to quarterback harvard but i feel like those were two just very different quarterback body types throwing styles like offense they can fit i feel like uh wilson was drafted literally to be like aaron rogers that's who everybody compared him to like you know the off-platform throws the cross body shit so to actually see the guy that you probably wanted to be your whole life and actually be in the meeting room and that's different i feel like that's different and n Nathaniel Hackett, you know, being the relationship that they have with Aaron Rodgers, Nathaniel Hackett, he's a character that I didn't expect.

He's been a bright spot of our – Fuck you, dude. Love that. Love that. I enjoy – Love it. I love when coordinators chirp the play. Oh, yeah.

That means, like, okay, every other player on the field is like, oh, wants to win just as bad as us. Sweet. Wants to, is in this as much as us. And speaking of coaches, Robert Sala and his brother will beat the fuck out of you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Be careful.

I know. No smoke. No smoke, Bob. No, you don't. It's too late now. A couple more episodes, he says. I need to see this full season of Hard Knocks before I properly judge there. couple more episodes he says i need to see this full season of hard knocks before i properly judge there and were you saying that because you say you're a defense guy you know

defense when your head coach you're addressing the whole team whenever he said like i'm just gonna keep it real defense is real good offense was mediocre last year was that something that made you think like this guy maybe not full like why i think that's real and i think that's real i think it's important for coaches to keep it real and everybody anybody with eyes you know can see that uh shit they probably said the same thing in denver you know they had a great defense the offense didn't didn't hold up and sometimes that's the flip side sometimes you can't stop a nose be no defense and the quarter and the offense is putting up you know 28 31 points a game so i don't i don't mind

him you know just keeping it real. But when I'm watching hard knocks, I always – and I know when they edit and it's not really the players reacting to what the coach is saying at the time. But I kind of put myself in that seat. And I'm listening to a head coach speak as a rookie, as a four-year guy, as an eight-year guy. And, you know, it's like, okay, okay. All right. But it's training camp.

You know, and this training camp is where it's built. You know, like you said, hey, show's built on stone. You got to build this shit on stone because there's going to be some storms. You're going to have a two-game losing streak, maybe a three-game winning streak. But that coach kind of, that leader has to be the same guy in those different situations. He read his speech. You saw it. Yeah, that's what. I want to let you know, had those different situations. He read his speech. You saw it. Yeah. I want to let you know, had numerous text messages with other people as well.

This guy's reading his speech right now. This is the opening team meeting speech. Players? Yes. Former players. Yeah. I don't think a lot of casuals didn't notice. They just talked about the speech.

They didn't notice that part. I don't think the media is noticing that, but I think anybody that's ever been in that room is sitting there watching him look down and going, come on. The fuck? Come on. How about two birds? If you read some shit, it better be fire.

Good word play in there. Yeah, there's gonna have to be some real... That was my first takeaway, and that was the first, what, scene almost? Yes. First scene, yeah. And I'm like, oh was it because that was my first takeaway and that was the first what scene almost yes first scene yeah and i'm like oh no because that's aaron probably because i'm just assuming what aaron's thinking as well in every conversation that's kind of taking place about that whole situation it's like you look and look oh because i don't know if sala knows this or

anybody else knows this as soon as you get out of that team meeting and maybe everybody's kind of mingling at night together, there's going to be one asshole on the team that is going to be able to just speak publicly. You see him read that fucking Eagle Crow thing? Yeah, you guys saw that, right? That would probably be you. Yeah.

Big, good story. Hey, good story. Tough to remember. Good story. You know, that whole. And that's like, we all noticed it too, yeah. I love that you're not. But you know, hey, when you're not in the locker room though,

what the fuck do we know? I thought the same thing the first time I saw Sirianni talk in front of the media. Like, okay, this guy's not going to fucking laugh. When I saw John Gannon with the fucking, we'll see what that turns out to be. But, you know. But I know. We already know that. What was that? What'd he do?

He's in a bad spot. He's in a bad spot. It's not going well right now. Nope. It's going to be a rough start over there. NFL's hard. What do we know? NFL's difficult.

It's tough. It is tough. Connor, speaking of tough, Connor has a question for you about South Florida a little bit. Yeah, D-Bud, I mean, as a Patriots fan, I appreciate you saying you fucking hate Robert Sala's guts because that is what you just said. We all heard it. Definitely not.

Right now, going on in the AFC East Miami, Wilkins is having a hold-in. He's not doing anything. Obviously, you know, Tua's taking the media through the rounds of a play. And then, you know, one of your good friends, I believe, Xavier Howard, is making sex tapes and doing stuff like that, allegedly. And is Bentley batted? Yeah, Bentley batted for recording. Armstead.

Yeah, in intercourse, yes. Teron Armstead got hurt, apparently, but he tweeted that he's okay. He's a Finn, so he's a tough son of a bitch. What's going on down there, though? Are the Dolphins looking at a little bit of a come down after last year? Do you think they'll be able to hang with the Jets and the Bills and the Patriots? And why are we only hearing about bad stuff?

Yeah, I know. That's the thing. That's tough. You don't want this type of shit, especially leading up to a season. We got the Jalen Ramsey injury as well. So it's a lot of storms down here. But hey, we're going to be battle tested going into the year. Look, if Tua

stays healthy, Tua stays upright, I think we'll be able to figure out the rest. Big fans here with that defense. Wherever we have on there lining up to play, we're going to play good ball. I'm not worried about it, but I don't like all the other... Now, Armstead, that injury, to see how that plays out, how long he'll be out, that's obviously big.

Everyone was excited about Jalen Ramsey coming over and him pairing up with X Howard. That would have been one of the best cornerback duos in the league, for sure. But we still got a lot of talent, a lot of studs on that team. Tyree Hill, obviously. Jalen Waddell. Ron Holland on defense.

Phillips. We got dogs up and down that roster. Going to be a tough, obviously, Jalen Waddell, Ron Holland on defense, Phillips. We got dogs up and down that roster. Going to be a tough, tough, obviously, tough division to get through, but I'm still excited. I still like our chance. I'm not worried about it. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Miami Dolphins as a whole, and they added old cuz on the defense, right? Yeah, Vic Fangio.

Yeah, Vic, yep. I don't think Vic has been in a place that has been bad on defense for like the last decade or two. So probably going to help and add in his mind there. Another year with McDaniel, getting to understand, being a head coach a little bit more, get the Wilkins deal done hopefully. Armstead said he's back. Tyreek Hill, you know, he's still probably going to try to go for 2K.

He's still unguardable. It's like all these storylines seem to be negative. Mike White, too. Mike White. Which helps. Back up. Mike fucking White. Back up.

That helps a lot. Yeah, Mike fucking White. That helps. That helps if Tua does get, you know, knocked out for a game or three, you know, for Mike White to step in there and play ball. I think that was a big signing, big, big quiet signing for us this offseason. But, no, Conor, I'm not worried. Things could be worse.

We could be the fucking Patriots right now. Oh! What is that supposed to mean? Oh! What is that supposed to mean? We don't have players recording sex tapes. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Allegedly. The video would suggest that it's more than alleged. Like the island. You saw the bat in the Batley video. You didn't see the sex video. No, I didn't see the sex video. No, I didn't see the sex video. I think you read the caption of the X. Bat and Bentley.

That makes a move like, hey, we didn't make a sex tape. You didn't pay me for it. We don't know what this could have been. This could be anything. She's trying to get her phone out of there. Yeah, maybe she left her glasses. He's at training camp.

He said just bust out the windows. She put her blinkers on to match his car in? Well, she doesn't want her car to get hit. That's insane. Really draw attention to yourself. I'm a bad criminal. I think she actually had music playing, too. Yep.

You know, like... Yeah, bumping. What's that lady, Miranda Lambert? Will Carey. Before he cheats. Yeah. Yeah, that's what she was playing, I heard. You know what the next song was, right?

What's that? We the people. And Kid Rock starts coming on, and then I think a lot more people came over and started busting the shit out of that Bentley. See, that's like when you just shoehorn something into it. He kind of did. I'm sorry. We're listening to Cowboy this morning.

It's been on my mind since we sat down. I understand that, but like this particular situation, not the you never you should have put you should have kept that one country music someone doing some rowdy stuff bashing the car in kid rock i mean they kind of it falls in line there was just a post kid rock drinking bud light yeah obviously making its way around the internet after he took the ak-47 to a to a bud light after the whole scene. So, I mean, kid rock is always going to be a person that is going to be chatted about,

but in this particular case, I don't think you need to make a drop in, but I appreciate that. That is on your mind going into a good weekend. Always is. Yeah. I appreciate that. Tone is a question for you about another South Florida story.

Yeah, I do. D but how long do you think it's going to take before Odell gets tired of Lamar underthrowing him on every deep ball? Here we go. What do we have? We got some training camp highlights. We got a stat sheet.

Oh, I forgot. You didn't see him. Yeah, it was 2-14-14 for 19. No stats. Welcome back. This guy's golfing. Sorry, I don't even know. Just the eye test.

Some people. Just the eye test. Everybody underthrows a receiver. Every running back fumbles. Every O-lineman loses a rep. This shit happens. This training camp, I'm not worried about that. I honestly think

Lamar Jackson is going to have an MVP caliber season. The Ravens, they are my AFC pick to come out of AFC. Now, obviously, it's too easy to pick a chief, but they are my pick to come out of AFC. Now, obviously, it's too easy to pick the Chiefs, but they are my pick to come out of AFC. They signed Jadavia Clowney, which I don't think is like a huge, huge signing, but I think he kind of seems – he looks like a Raven.

That's a Raven defensive pass rusher when you think of one. So Clowney coming off the edge. We got some other young guys. Obviously, Marlon Humphrey got hurt. He got surgery on his foot. He's a big piece that they'll need to get back soon. But having Odell there, I think he'll be healthy. Having Zay Flowers.

I don't know if you guys remember the House of Comps. D-Butt's House of Comps doing a draft. I was really high on that. South Florida kid, keeping that South Florida kid. He's silky smooth, D-Butt. I don't know if you've seen his routes. They show his routes. That dude is unbelievable.

Oh, were they preseason? Oh, now we can talk about preseason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those matter, huh? Preseason is like, it's kind of like the QB wins. Like how we use QB wins and stat when it works for you and when it doesn't,

it doesn't matter. So that's kind of the same thing with preseason, all right? So it's back to the same flowers as these preseason routes. Hey, those are, those receivers that are built like that, like those are the same motherfuckers. The guard. You can't get your hands on them. They get so low.

They get in and out of breaks quick. He's strong. He's fast. He's still got a good catch radius because he's going to create that separation. So I'm excited to see him in his offense. Where's he from? Where's Zay from? Where's Zay from?

He's a Fort Lauderdale guy. He's a Broward County guy. So him and him and Lamar Jackson are pretty much from the same area. And he trains with a lot of the same, same guy that Odell trains with, actually, Goldfeet down here. So shout out to TA. He's a dog. Rashad Bateman, we'll see what we got with him.

Mark Andrews, Isaiah Lockley, great tight end room. And now they won't be out there in fucking 21 personnel on third and eight. Like, you can't do that in the NFL. And I'm not going to shit on Greg Roman. You know, they got to the playoffs. He got a unanimous MVP under Grant Roman in that offense. But I think it was time for him to evolve and be kind of what the NFL is. Like, open it up, spread it out, let him throw the ball around.

And when it's time to run, take it and run. Yeah, you got the best guy to do it in the entire league. Absolutely. Ever. Ever? Ever. I personally think Lamar Jackson, I love Michael Vick. Michael Vick, I think, was faster. Probably a more explosive athlete, but as

far as shiftiness, agility, and then still having the open field speed to take it 67, 60, 70 yards for a touchdown, I think Lamar Jackson is the most elusive quarterback ever. Okay. Hey, put that on the old ticker there. I think you could certainly put that on there. Go ahead, AJ.

Speaking of another South Florida guy, what do you think Dalvin Cook's role will be like with the New York Jets, with Brees Hall coming back? How many carries do you think a game? Man, no more than 15, which is good. will be like with the New York Jets, with Brees Hall coming back? How many carries do you think a game? Man, no more than 15, which is good. Because Brees Hall, I mean, that's their guy. I think that's the guy that they're going to, you know,

once he's fully healthy, that's the guy that they're going to be the bell cow. And then Dalvin Cook is going to get in there, get in where he fit in, I think. But, you know, that's the best thing to have as a running back committee, you know, keeping your guys fresh. And that's the best thing to have as a running back committee. You know, keeping your guys fresh. And that's the worst thing for a defense. You know, Brees Hall, let's say he's been in there for eight, nine, ten run plays, and then you got Dalvin coming in. They both can catch the ball out of the backfield. So it's not like a key when, you know, 33's in the game or 20's in the game.

Hey, it's more of a pass or run situation. They both can do that. They both can pass protect. So, I mean, that's just great. And that goes back to A-Rod and what he's been, even making that money available to go out and get better. I know there's been rumors and talking about getting, you know, Bacatari from Bacatari.

We'll see if that actually happens. I heard Chef kind of shut that down. And Guttekutz literally said today, yeah, to lead this whole thing off, we're not trading David. He said full name. Just to lead this whole thing off, we're not trading David. He said full name. Just to get this out of the way, we are not trading David. Oh, that's done. Yeah, so that's over.

And I do believe, I don't know what sources told AJ, but like our sources, our minds, the Bakhtiari tag on the ass. Kiss my cheeks, pal. Oh. yep oh just one friend do another just one friend do another go ahead go ahead kiss my ass kiss my ass look how much fun this is yeah so it wasn't eat my ass it was kiss my ass we figured yeah well no that's not what everybody's saying everybody was saying that he put him on his ass because he was like i need you to come protect my ass i need you on my behind. That's what people thought. But I think what people need to really think is that it was just like

an actual kiss my ass. Bitch. Maybe. I don't know if he added that. I wasn't sure if he added it or not, but I could see it. Yeah, there's a chance as he was putting it on there he thought to himself, ha ha! see it. Yeah, there's a chance as he was putting it on there, he thought to himself, ha-ha, bitch. Yeah, maybe.

Garrett Wilson, man. Garrett Wilson's so good. Hey, he's phenomenal, isn't he? Oh, yeah. What's that mean, Tucker Carter? He knows who owns that ass. He knows. Woody Johnson in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Oh, that's what he means? Okay. Yeah. No, his football kind of true. His football rights are with the Jets. The universe owns Aaron Rodgers. Oh, you're right. You know what I mean?

What are we even talking about? What was that about? Woody Johnson vaccine on air and wow. What a shot. He's the one that went over there. He knows the history. Could you imagine their conversation if that ever gets brought up? Now, we see Woody on hard knocks,

and I don't know if he's just walking up there with confidence and having a full conversation about anything. You know, he seems to be pretty – Yeah. Yeah. Staying a little bit far back. Arms reach. Yeah.

That's good. A lot of money. A lot of money, Bob. What do you think? That's going to play good, and hopefully he does well because I appreciate his social media in there. But I don't think Bakhtiari's going over there, you know. But good run game helps the offensive line immediately, right?

Good run game, smart quarterback. Obviously a quarterback who knows protections inside and out, can get him in some good situations. I mean, but you still – you got to have talent. The one thing about the O-line group is you can't do it by yourself. It's got to be a unit. So, big ticket. Beckton got to get healthy.

I think he's got to be a starter on that team somewhere. They got the talent there. They just got to put it all together, man. That O-line, that shit is tough, man. You need each other. You need depth. But you got to keep A-Rod upright, man. No matter who you got back there, quarterback,

if you can't sit back there and go through your progressions. Yeah, you need an offensive line to win, too. that's just how it goes it doesn't show up till it shows up and when it shows up you're gonna lose because the other team has it and you do not and it's the most important part of football though it's not glitzy and glamoury in the conversation during the entire offseason but all of a sudden you start watching things you're like uh no all of a sudden all the money we spent everywhere else does not matter why does it not matter well we can't get the fucking football anywhere. Why? Because our offensive line stinks.

That's what everybody's saying. They're saying same old Jets with the O-line, O-L. You know, I thought that was pretty clever on the newspapers over there. But I don't know if we need to just automatically rule them out. There's a chance that any group can come together and do their thing and hopefully hack it and Aaron will scheme it. But it is definitely a worry. Good luck to Dalvin Cook. Last question here for you from Tash Mead.

Deebutt speaking of Dan Bakhtiari and the um the Packers you obviously knocked it out of the park when you said hey listen I'm watching tape of Sam Darnold and this guy fucking sucks he just doesn't have what it takes now granted he is now having a career resurgence as maybe the you know the best thrower of the football as maybe the you know the best thrower of the football ever in the history of the 49ers but when you look at jordan love uh everything so far do you think uh he's going to be good for the packers and that you know fans should be okay with what they're going to see or would you kind of put him in that category of sam darnold and potentially trending towards like hey this guy's going to play for five teams in the next seven years. Oh, no, I definitely would not put him in the Darnold category at this point.

In fairness, you know, Sam Darnold wasn't put in a great situation. He wasn't putting a bunch of great talent around him, didn't have a great old line. I think Jordan Love is in a much better situation with talent on the outside talent in the backfield and some talent up front as well and then matt laflora we're it's a big year for him you know because he's he's got all these great records and all these things you know during the season during a regular season with uh rogers as your quarterback but now you got a young guy that you kind of have to bring along but um jordan love is talented he had some time to sit and learn so he wasn't just thrown in that fire but if i'm a packers fan

i'm definitely optimistic especially if i look around my division and i know okay justin fields is still in a place where he and that offense still have to prove themselves kurt cousins i think it's another contract year for him so who knows how long he's going to be there uh jared golf best you know i i think easily the best quarterback in that division so you're looking now obviously in a position where you can be uh kind of getting to that lead at some point in the next couple years so uh now kirk look kirk is great i think kirk is underrated but i think jared golf honestly is even more underrated i think jared golf is probably probably the third best quarterback in the

NFC right now. Fuck off. I'll put Jalen Harris over him. He might be second. Matt Stafford is a quarterback. Stafford just missed them their whole year.

What about Dak? What about Gino Smith? Brock Purdy, Gino Smith. Gino's up there right there with him. I would just miss them their whole year. What about Dak? What about Geno Smith? Brock Purdy, Geno Smith. I would take Geno Smith. So Geno, okay, Geno's up there, right there with him. But I would put Goff up there, either two or three. Geno's up there. And then you got, I think, Dak and Kurt. Hey, I'll tell you what. A couple of those outs that I saw Jared Goff throw.

Oh, yeah. It's like, hey, why don't you run that 10 times down the field? Let's do that every fucking play. Where he's throwing that, that's undefended. You can't do shit about it. That's one of those you just, you know, you look at coach, coach looks at you, you go back to the huddle. Like, that's one of those plays.

But, I mean, he wasn't the one pick for a reason. And keeping Ben Johnson in that building was huge for Jared Goff and huge for that organization. He was probably one of the hottest names in the league after that year. He had a lot of talent out there that people don't, you know, they just don't get hype. It's Detroit and everybody expects them to stink, but I think

MCDC got something cooking over there and Jared Goff, a lot of expectations, a lot of expectations for the Lions coming into this year. We'll see if they can live up to it. But I like Goff a lot and what he put on film last year. Yeah, those expectations aren't a burden either. No, those are wind beneath my wings, man.

That's right. That's right. That gets me pumped up. Yeah. And you actually earned those. You think I feel bad about that? No way, says MCDC. I love to think about that with Goff because once you start really laying it out, it's like, hold on a minute. What if the Lions go on a run this year? Golf's going to be in the MVP

conversation. Yeah, definitely. And they were top five in points per game last year and they had the least amount of turnovers amongst any offense last year. So if they can just do that or even get a little bit better and the defense definitely got better towards the second half of the season, I understand the hype. Does it scare me? Absolutely not because it doesn't matter. We stink every year, so if we stink again, who cares? But I don't think we do. I think we're going to be really good this season.

Hey, and once again, I've said this before. The NFL thinks the Lions are going to be good. They got them opening night. Favorites to win the division. They got the favorites to win. That's the sports books. But the NFL put them in opening night. Like, hey, we would like the Lions to take on the Chiefs.

That could have been any of the 17 games. And do you guys remember the last time Mahomes and Goff played each other on a primetime game? Oh, yeah. So that's what they're hoping for. We were there. Yes, we were. It was insane. It was absolutely insane there in Los Angeles.

I love how they drafted, too, man. It was real throwback. It was real,back. It was real fuck your premium positions. Look, we're going with the best guy on our board. We got Gibbs, running back, yep, take him. Yep, give me Campbell, off-ball backer.

Yep, take him. Give me Branch. Like all these guys who at certain positions, you know, people value certain positions at those spots in the draft, but they said we're going out and we're getting our guys. I love their staff. So, we'll see if it works. I'm definitely rooting for him.

And kind of like a hard knocks, we got a good view. We got at Dan Campbell who he is as a coach. You know, he's him every day. Like, that's who he is. So, did you like him episode two in hard knocks, episode one? I did like him. I did like him. I like him. I like like him. I liked him.

I liked his staff. I like how the team – and once again, you imagine yourself sitting in that seat. Now, at first, as a player, you might be like, ah. All right, you know he's a former player. You know he's a coach. And then as you get used to him, you see it and it goes. I think they're building it and they built it the right way. A lot of people wrote off Goff, man, me included.

I was ready for him to be like a bridge quarterback for the Lions, to draft another quarterback, you know, number one or two, a couple years later. But for him to go back there, bounce back, and I heard y'all talking about Mariota and that confidence thing. Like, that confidence shit is obviously you got. That shit is real, man. Because you can't fake it.

You know, you can put in all the work. You can do everything you want. But as a player, if your confidence is shot, and that happened to me my second year in New england like as for the first time in my life 23 years old and i'm like once that confidence is shot and you're out there like playing to not fuck up like you're dead you're dead in the water so i can't imagine that even at that quarterback position so for jerry golf to bounce back after being the number one pick and then written going to a sewer bowl as a number one pick and then being shipped to Detroit.

You know, we were in the league. That's where careers used to go to die. And Cleveland. Go to Detroit and Cleveland. It was pretty much over with. So big shout out to the golf, man. We'll see how they handle it. Hell yeah.

Good luck to the Lions. Excited to watch them opening night on September 7th, which will be the first day that we are live on ESPN as well. Just 20 days away. And D-Butt will be back first day that we are live on ESPN as well. Just 20 days away. And D-Butt will be back throughout the entire season. Darius will actually be joining us on Mondays and Tuesdays, full-time in Thunderdome. Hell yeah.

Let's go. Hell yeah. Let's go. Hey, pumped to have you back, D-Butt. Excited about that. And I know you've been golfing literally all day, every day, with a new old white and a new golf course with your entire family. I've been working on my tan.

Okay, let's talk about that. You guys still? No, let's talk about that. You guys still? I won't got pep in my ear. Well, that's what I'm saying. Were your ears burning the other day? Because I talked about how it's been good sun for the whites to get some good tan.

They're talking about the global boiling or whatever it is. It's happening. Instead of global warming, it's like there is a little silver lining for the whites. It's like you walk outside, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes, you're getting a good coat. We're all tanned up.

You know what I mean? Life is good. And then Pac-Man and Dirty were like, we fucking hate that stuff. We don't want to get any darker at all. They were like, winter, wait till winter comes. When winter comes, there's no sun. Ooh, we're- Light, bright season. We are flexing out here. What? What did you call it, D They're like, winter. Wait till winter comes. When winter comes, there's no sun. Ooh. Light bright season.

We are flexing out here. What? What did you call it, Gary? Light bright. He's glowing. Fucking soft. Well, that's soft. Soft as baby shit.

I'm out there in the sun, man. Hey, listen. Listen. This melanin right here, man. Look, first of all, this is special order. You can't just find this shit anywhere. Y'all know it's a hole in the ozone layer. I'll probably be the last.

There'll probably be 27 of us left by the time y'all motherfuckers die off. I golf. I swim. I'm out there, baby. I got my summer glow on right now. I think Pac-Man actually said, Pac-Man said, nobody wants to be as dark as Darius. I've seen one lady

as dark as Darius. That was unbelievable to hear. I've seen one lady as dark as Darius. That was unbelievable to hear. I'm from South Florida too. So I walk around I'm dark. I'm usually one of the darkest people in the room. But I see a lot of black motherfuckers around here. Nothing wrong with that.

We love it. And we've been in style since the late 90s. The ladies love black motherfuckers. Let you know that right now. That's neither here nor there. I got my summer glow on, but I will be playing some fall golf this year for the first time out there in Indy.

Probably out there in Jersey too. I'm excited for that. Hey, the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice. That's what I've always heard. Also, good news for this season. We got actual lights this year, D-Buck. I saw that. I saw that. I saw that.

It's big time. Yeah. So we got some top ones. We got, yeah. I'm going to have to put that little motherfucker up in front of my seat. That was an awesome conversation after the first couple weeks. D-Bud, you're killing it. No motherfuckers can see you.

Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody can see you. You know those pictures on the internet that are just like teeth and eyes? Yeah. That's what we got going on. Yep.

We got to figure this shit out. We got to figure this out. So we did. Hey, let's have a big round of applause. That is a tough part now about this coat. You know, you're taking pictures. You're outside. You got to be where the sun is.

You can't be backlit when you're just black. But much more benefits than there are bad things. So I'll take it, baby. That's all right. I'm going to try to get as much sun as possible for this next week or so before it goes into hibernation here in Indiana for six months. I'm going to try to catch you this fall season. I'm going to try to catch you.

You start off Alabama, so that's a hell of a place to start. Are you going to be with us there? Damn right. All right, we'll see. I won't miss that, son. Let's go. No, no, you got to be. The simulcast, I mean, I cannot wait.

We're going to be in Alabama. Now, like- Quentin Ewers, right? Yeah, yeah, we'll see. I won't miss that, son. Let's go. No, no, you got to be. The simulcast, I mean, I cannot wait. We're going to be in Alabama. When it was, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but like whenever we did the Ohio State-Georgia, that's neutral field. Now, granted, in Georgia, but not like Athens. At home. You know what I mean?

And then the national championship was raining in SoFi in Los Angeles. Yeah, that was not. This is going to be the first time we're gonna be like in uh in a college like the pre-games shit that happens i'm very pumped to get down there and then obviously friday we'll be live somewhere on campus and then uh we we looked at the schedule a little bit more we assume game day is gonna be there not we i don't have the power to say that i didn't figure out no come on it gotta be there has to kirk had the same assumption say that. I couldn't figure out another one. Kirk had the same assumption. Texas Bama? Come on. It's got to be there. It has to. Kirk had the same assumption, too.

Yeah, but they haven't made the announcement yet, so I don't think it's official. No. But that should be a hell of a weekend. We're on Friday there, then game day, then that multi-simulcast plus primetime ABC there. First NFL Sunday. Plus first NFL Sunday, then Monday, overreaction Monday, then Jets-Bills. Let's go. That run. That's a hell of a start. You forgot about Friday night too. What's that, pal?

You said you forgot about Friday night too. Friday night, Jim Ursa has Chris Angel dangling from Lucas Oil Stadium, breaking a world record. This generation's Houdini. You're right. I completely forgot about that. What a run. Yeah, September 7th, we're live on ESPN. Then Chiefs-Lions. Then Friday, we got our show live in Alabama somewhere on campus, Tuscaloosa.

Then Friday night, Chris Angel's breaking a world record at Lucasville Stadium. Then Saturday, game day probably there. Prime time first. I mean, that slate is going to be incredible. Then first day is Sunday NFL football. Prime time. Oh, it's how many days? 20 days.

Let's go. Come on. Let's go. Can't wait. I got 20 days to get my tan on. I definitely will. Can't wait for it. Good luck, baby.

I've been trying for years, bro. I got a tanning bed trying to get to it. This is the year. It just turned me red. I was this tan right here. I was this for about two weeks. I had actually stripes going down my cheeks for like three months because I got third-degree burns from the fucking tanning bed on my ass cheeks.

You know what I mean? It's not easy out here. But I did not. How was that Tampa sun when you were down there in Tampa? A real reddening. Yeah, a real reddening. Yeah, that was certainly that. I was surprised to hear, though.

Like, I thought I was just living in a bubble where Pac was like, I'm trying to get no sun. And Dirt was like, I'm trying to get no sun. I can't wait for the winter. I can't wait for the winter. I'm like, God damn. I didn't know that we are viewing the sun completely opposite ways this entire time.

You know what I mean? And then D-Buck comes in there. He's fucking soft. He's beige. He's soft. All right, D-Buck. We we appreciate you great chatting with you we will see you this season a lot and we're thankful for that ladies and gentlemen Dennis Butler

yeah Deebo joining us live we assume from his house on the Jersey shore fresh out of a dentist appointment which we hope everything is okay, and that suckle of his. Ladies and gentlemen, a general manager, a man who's an author, a newsletter.

What? A TED speaker. What? A negotiator. What? Everything. Yep. Michael Lombardi.

Yeah! Hey, how's the math? What did Dennis say? Dennis say, hey, tell me how you're feeling. Like, what was it like? I have a phobia of the dentist, but we got through it.

We're good. You know what you can do now? You can listen to mute. You can listen to, like, podcasts while you're getting your teeth done. So that was pretty good, you know? You just stick that in your ear, and it's good.

Yeah, that's better than, like, the... Yeah, you don't have to listen to that yeah that's good the dentist world is an interesting one because they to go to school to become a dentist they have to do like actual doctor school yeah like you have to learn everything and then they have to learn like the trade almost of dentistry and all that they get people who are at their absolute most pissed to go to a doctor. Like, going to a doctor, going to get bad news. But normally, you go to a doctor,

they're going to tell you what's wrong. With the mouth, I have no idea why this is happening. It's annoying. And then they got to finger people's mouths with power tools. It is not a desirable place to be, the dentist's office. So I would not want to be a dentist. But shout out to them, the dentist's office. So I would not want to be a dentist. But shout out to them.

Shout out. I haven't been in years, but when I go back, I'll remind myself of everything I just said. Because I certainly hate going there. We're thankful that you're joining us here on this Friday. Let's dive right in. This has kind of become one of these things where we say, Hey, Lomba, you know you broke news like two days ago whenever you said insert whatever thing is. This week,

the big thing was whenever you said when Trey Lance's mom picked him up from the crib, he did not have that quarterback instinct. Then in that same clip, you went on to say behind closed doors in your eyes, the decision has already been made about Trey Lance. Now it's kind of figuring

out what's next. We asked Schefter if he heard your quote and what his thoughts were, and he said Trey Lance very much still has the opportunity to be QB2 for the San Francisco 49ers. What are your thoughts on the quarterback room? And do you think Trey Lance, even though maybe when he was picked up in your eyes, he didn't have it, can you get it, especially when you're already in the NFL? I mean, if you've read my books or listen to anything I said there's certain players that have what I call the crib thing you know you can't explain to anybody why Michael Jordan did

what he did on the court or what Barry Sanders did or what Peyton Manning saw I mean it's just an innate instinctive thing that's why when you're a scout, you have a category on every player to fill out called instincts. Does he have instincts for the position? Which allows you to say, okay, you don't have to. He just kind of knows how to play the game. Like, for example, defensive back, corner. Everybody thinks corner is an athletic position.

It is. Requires speed. But what it really is, it's a balance and instinctive position. You've got to have a feel for when the ball's in the air. You've got to be able to jump when the ball's in the air, when you're in balance. So what I said about Trey Lance was he just doesn't possess instinctively how to play the position. Now, a lot of people were critical of what I said. That's my evaluation. Everybody that gets evaluated gets evaluated for instincts. Some quarterbacks are just born with it. I can't explain why Brady does it. I can't, but it happens. Look, I'll stand by what I said about Lance. I've watched the tape.

I've seen him play. It doesn't come. Bill Walsh used to want to be able to say all the time, the quarterback's arm must be tied to his feet. There's got to be symmetry to his play. That's why he always talked about boxers. You know, punch, move, punch, move. That's quarterbacking. And you got to have that. That's why quarterbacks are, that's why there's so many blown picks. That's why Joe Montana went in the third round. So I just think to me, does he still have a chance to be number two? I think it's highly unlikely. I don't think, I think that's over with.

I think what Kyle said, I think somebody asked him about that instinctive thing. Kyle never addressed it. He went on to say, well, that's, you're subjected to that in the national media. Look, that's what it is. One thing I not is going to say what what people want to hear i'm going to say what i see okay well i appreciate you doing that and then in the follow-up of the quote you said when that decision's been made behind closed doors i don't think you said exactly

like that decision has been made but you're basically saying if i'm in that room this decision has already been made and we are trying to figure out how to transition out of that. Do you think that is what they're actually talking about behind closed doors or are you putting yourself there? Go ahead. They can't get away from them, Pat. They have, first of all, they're not going to be able to trade them. In spite of his popularity on Twitter, within the National Football League, we all watch tape, right? Everybody watches the tape and he's got, I think he's got almost $10 million over the next two years guaranteed. Good for him. That's great. I'm happy for him. But no one's going to take on those guarantees. So they're going to have to do the best of the situation with what they have. I mean, that's the reality. No matter what the

spin is out there. And look, there's been great spin. Nobody's had better practices than Trey Lance until the games start. Nobody's had better days. I mean, I read all the quotes online every single day. This guy's electric. I mean, we've got 10,000 Dick Vitals out there telling me, oh, everybody's great, great, great. Then you put the tape on it, it doesn't match. Like somebody's got to speak the truth around here.

Like not everybody's great. No, no, no, no. Well, cause your truth might be different than somebody else's truth. And I think a lot of people, myself included are like, man,

when we look back on that trade, Paisa, big one to go up to three, when you have Jimmy on there, when you've been to the NFC championship, when you've been like in a Superbowl winning mode, pretty much at this point, when you go back to the tradeC Championship, when you've been in a Super Bowl winning mode, pretty much at this point, when you go back to the trade and make it Trey Lance,

and then it never does, that's going to be judged for a long time. Lynch doesn't care though, right? Because Lynch got a guy, Mr. Irrelevant, the last pick of the draft, and that's all they're worried about? It really, it doesn't matter where you pick him, it matters how you play.

And we've all made mistakes in the draft. But here's where you really become problematic is when you won't admit a mistake, when you keep trying to lie to yourself. I mean, I've lived in organizations that have done that. I mean, that's one of the things that, you know, you've got to be able to move on. Look, Trey Lance isn't a bad kid. There's nothing there that's creating problems. It's just, can he play to a level that can win for the 49ers?

And Brock Purdy can, and he can't. So they have an answer. Now, we've got to give Purdy more time to see what he does and how he continues to play because I truly believe it takes 20 games for you to really understand what the quarterback is and what he isn't. 20 games, so that's a full season in a month. And when you see that, now all of a sudden, it's a little bit like rookies in baseball, right?

When a rookie comes up in baseball, you know, pitchers don't really know him. So they throw all these pitches, and once they get a read on, oh, he can't handle the slider away, or he can't handle the fastball in, that's what they start throwing. Same thing with quarterbacks, okay? Baker Mayfield had a great season, but then once people condensed the pocket and pushed inside, not so great, right?

Now it becomes problems. And so I think you have to give it some time before you declare the guy, you know, Dick Vitale great. So that's like you're saying the tape's out on this guy, pretty much. That's like when people start saying it.'s like, tapes out, we figure, this is this guy, this is who we know, this is how we strategize against him. And then great players, once they know what they're at, then they adjust, they play their game better, right?

I mean, Kyler Murray, if you keep Kyler Murray in the pocket, he struggles, right? If you try to do something, if you let him run around, he's tremendous. So there's a game. Now, it's hard to do. It's always hard to execute once you get the read. But great players find a way to solve the issue. Yeah, so what you just said about Kyler might be true,

but Kyler's confidence is at a whole new – Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Kyler's confidence – and I only new oh yeah you know what i mean kyler's confidence right and i only know that from one still shot of him wearing a sports bra with a catapult on it he wore that into public knowing that there would be cameras he is very confident in himself right now that's good news he might have changed the game he might have pivoted away from what his weaknesses are and turned him into an asset who knows what's going to happen over there in arizona

and i would like catapult to create a different option. I would like a different option because every college team I see wearing these, every NFL team I see wearing these, they have a great product here. Great product. It's like there has to be a different option because we're not judging it. I mean, I wear a tank top every day. And if I was jocked enough that I had big pets, maybe I do throw a sports bra on every once in a while.

You know what I mean? Maybe I do toss it on. But the Internet is not forgiving. You know, the Internet kind of does their thing. And Kyler's confident. We know that. But that's a good point there when you bring up about Baker and some others. It's like we can see a little spurt because people don't know him yet.

The book's not out on who this person is. Can he continue to go? You think Brock Purdy's got it? I think he does, right? I think, you know, one thing you like about Brock Purdy, a lot of career starts in college. That's why you see Dorian Thompson, you know, when he played so much at UCLA and he played effectively again last night

and he's playing well this summer for the Browns. I think that has a lot to do with it. Sean Clifford in his first work last week against Cincinnati, was really effective because he's got some game experience. And so that experience manifests itself forward, and I think it's helpful. And that's what helped Purdy. And I think Purdy's got enough skill players around him. What's Purdy? He's very accurate. His arm and his feet are tied together. He can play the game in rhythm. And he's got skilled players, whether it's Samuel, McCaffrey, Kittle, you know, Ayuk.

He's got people he can get the ball to and make plays. And he's a dog. You know, mentally, he's a dog. I think we all can see that whenever he celebrates how he competes, how he acts behind there. He's got all the makings. I hope he continues to go. What a story that'll be. Go ahead, AJ.

Bombo, I was listening to you on your podcast last night talk about Dalvin Cook and his contract situation that he signed in New York. You said it's a bit unique. Can you explain exactly what you meant by that? Yeah, well, I mean, Dalvin Cook's contract is for $7 million. Now, there's two sections of the contract. He's got a minimum salary contract in paragraph five, and then he's got a lot of money, I think over $4 million in roster bonuses. But the roster bonus language is somewhat strange in the sense that if he's on the 53, if he's on PUP, if he's on IR, if he's on any list, other, you know, NFI. He still gets the money. Then he's got another million and change that if he has to be on the 53-man roster. So that tells me that the Jets wanted protection against something that may happen down the road.

And I don't know what that something is. And I said this on the podcast. I don't know if there's something that he's got to deal with with the league office. But the wording of that contract and the way it was written and the way it comes out. Now, he's got $1.6 million of incentives that he can earn it to go to $8.6 million, but the Jets have to win the Super Bowl for him to get that $1.6 million. So, you know, it's a high level of achievement incentive. But both the agent, Cook, and the club organized, did this contract in a way to where the Jets are fully protected

if by happenstance something happens where Cook is suspended, he's not going to get his money. Interesting, you know, because there is, like Pac-Man asked that question. That was a question that Pac-Man asked to one of the insiders like two weeks ago. I think it was like two weeks ago. And it came out of nowhere. I don't know what Pac-Man's going to ask. You know, there isn't that whole, we don't script any of that stuff.

When he asked it, I was like, man, I don't think anybody's even having that conversation at all. And I don't remember if it was Rapp or Schefter. They basically just dismissed that. We haven't heard anything at all. And then AJ texted me last night, hey, did you hear what Lambeau said about Delvin Cook's contract? And then listen to it a little bit, and it's like, is there? I wonder, and how would it, there can't be, right?

Because we would all know about it at this point, right? Wouldn't somebody know? Well, sometimes we don't know. The league office could be invested. They asked Salah what he thought about it, and he just was kind of very noncommittal. But there's a reason. You don't put that language in a contract.

Right. When you have game per game bonuses, they usually are written like he has a million dollars of those. If he's on the 53, he gets his roster bonus, 17 divided by whatever the number is. But when you put language in, even if he's on IR or PUP or, you know, and you leave out the one area where he could be on, all of a sudden you say, well, wait a minute, is something going on behind the scenes? I don't know, and I'm not trying to be judgmental here. I'm just reporting what's actually in the contract, you know?

So the Jets did it for a reason, and Cook accepted it for a reason. I didn't do it, you know? I'm not involved in it. I'm just reporting it. Yeah, no, I think it's a good piece of information for us to. I'm not involved in it. I'm just reporting it. I think it's a good piece of information for us to keep our eyes kind of peeled for. Because if it was to come early in the season, when Brees is back early,

it would be like, what's going to happen? We obviously hope nothing happens at all, but it's been a couple times now where it's kind of popped up out of the blue where I'm like, is there something we're all missing? We have no idea. We'll keep our ear ear to the ground the boys have some questions for you paise on if that's okay connor go ahead you bet long boy you just said it kind of takes you know 20 games to really know a quarterback so i'm not expecting you to have you know the hard answer

here on this but do you know anything about sam howell like Sam Howell, he just got announced as the Washington team's quarterback. And it seems as though Ron Rivera is kind of buying in on him, right? Because if he doesn't have a great season, is it safe to say like Josh Harris, not Ron Rivera is and his guy didn't hire him, he might be, you know, hitting the road. And is Sam Howell a guy that will be the quarterback in Washington for the, you know, foreseeable future? You know, when Sam Howell was a young player at North Carolina, he looked like he had a chance to be a high-level draft pick. And then his career at North Carolina didn't really keep that trajectory going. And I know a lot of teams that brought him in when he came out in the draft really liked him.

They liked his intelligence, his arm, and all those things. He didn't go until the fifth round, which meant, like Dor Thompson. I mean, sometimes guys slip. And so I think that's the reason. But I think he's got enough skill. Now, when you watch the Washington football team in the first game of the preseason, they are running the Mahomes version of the West Coast offense. So that's going to put a lot of pressure on Howell to really make a lot of plays and execute. And their offensive line is going to have to do really well. But Washington has a lot of – they've got good receiving core. Their running backs, I think, are good.

They're not great. But remember, this is a team that beat Philadelphia at home last year and turned the ball over and spotted them a touchdown. And Howell can't play any worse than the quarterbacking play Washington got last year in terms of the turnover. If he can protect the ball and complete the pass that's easily competable, that's the hard thing, right? Sometimes we make the game harder than it really is.

You've got an Allen out there for seven yards and you throw it in the dirt. That makes the game harder for you. So I think Howe, I have a lot of faith in faith in how I think Washington's a better team than they're getting credit for. I really do, especially defensively. They were very good in the red zone last year. They're very good on third down. So I think they're a lot better than they are now. It's all got to come together. Right. And I'm not sure it will, but it all has to come together. You talked about, and I almost interrupted you there. I apologize. You're talking about just making the throws that you have to make. Like, let's not be crazy.

Did you see Anthony Richardson on the internet today? Yeah, I saw that, yeah. Running to his right, just a drill, jump ball, throw. I think it's like a 50-yard ball in the midair with no leverage or, I mean, that's all arm, you know, just quick 50, probably 55 yards right into somebody's fucking bucket. Perfect spiral, by the way. That thing's spinning, didn't overgrip it or whatever.

And I saw our equipment managers, real deal. I mean, real deal athletes out there. They do their thing. And they'll hammer 40 to 50 beers every night if you need to. But they will, there's another play I saw live at training camp where he rolled to his left and then he had the same, like, 55-yard ball right into Alec Pierce into a bucket for a touchdown. Now, against Buffalo, I think his arm strength potentially gets him

in a little bit of trouble. Also, a little miscommunication with the wide receiver potentially. Throws like a dumb pick or whatever. What should my realistic expectations be of Anthony Richardson? Because everything I see, I'm like, we got a guy here. And then they talk about how he is as a human, humble, hardworking, competitive, wants to be great. Like that whole thing, the way he's viewing it behind closed doors with the Jonathan Taylor situation brewing and Shane Steichen. They're saying he's perfect fucking teammate.

Like everything that's coming out about him. And he's 6'4", 250. You can't teach that. he's 6'4 250 you can't teach that he runs 4'4 like everything I'm hearing is like very very exciting what have you seen what do you think well I think he went to the right coach right so I think when you break down the the Indianapolis Colts offense and I wrote about this for VEASAN online and I write about it in in my new book the single wing offense that, you know, we all play Pop Warner football. Glenn Pop Warner was a coach. And back in the early 1900s, he was the head football coach at the Carlisle Indian School.

And he's the one who invented the single wing. He invented it. Now, back then when he invented it, there was really no quarterback. There were two running backs in the backfield. And that single wing became the T formation, and then it became one quarterback in the backfield. And the Eagles have taken that concept and have expanded it to the current day to where we have what I call a six-back attack. And I think if you study the six-back attack, it really benefits Richardson's strength.

Like, for example, last year, a lot of people would tell you, well, Jalen Hurts ran for more yards in 23 than he did in 22. That's not true. Actually, his average per attempt, his average per carry went down. The threat of him running became really a problem, and his ability to connect on throws down the field became even more of a problem for the offenses and the speed of the game and I think Richardson in this six-back offense it's going to take some time but I think it fits his skill set perfectly it's got to now a little like Josh Allen it's going to have some growing pains I think Josh Allen was below 60 percent as a rookie in

completion he's bad through 10 touchdowns 12ceptions. So it's going to take some time for him to grow, right? But I do think the system and the player are the perfect marriage, which ultimately makes everybody happy. That's the utopia. That's what you want to get to in terms of finding out. It took Buffalo a little while to figure out what the system was perfectly for Allen, where I think Indianapolis has an advantage. They know what it is.

Yeah, utopia. Everybody's happy except for our running back. And I've talked about this ad nauseum, obviously, and it's one of the bigger stories in the NFL because this guy was up for potentially the MVP two years ago. Now, last season, obviously, much different, and the team ended up with the fourth overall pick, and the culture behind closed doors was seemingly terrible,

just absolutely terrible but like colts fans i think are excited to move on here you know so like either get on the train or get the hell out of town almost is how some colts fans feel i'm just reporting how this is actually being viewed boots on the ground here in indianapolis versus the national people national fans like jonathan taylor I remember in Wisconsin, and two years ago he was a guy. It's like, our situation is one where a culture is trying to be built, and our best player is now, for the second week in a row, out of the building. Now, it's personal reasons this

week, and we hope everything's okay. Last week was out-of-state rehab on an ankle and all this. How do you see this ending? You know, I asked Schefter about it, and Schefter said, you get us in a room for about 30 minutes, we can handle this. Bygones be bygones, shake up the Etch-A-Sketch. Let's add a little bit more money. Let's kind of get to another season and we move on. What do you think about it all? And how do you think it ends? Well, I think when the owner came out and said what he said, I think you kind of have a sense

that he's pretty firm in his position. And I think you've got to understand who you're negotiating with when you are negotiating. And I do think, you know, the kids change from April of this year where he said he signed his name to the paper to this stance. And it really doesn't anybody any good. Like nobody wants somebody else's problems, right? Nobody wants somebody else's guy who's creating a problem. You could say, well, if he goes to another team, he won't create a problem. Well, unless you pay him what he wants, he will. So you're a little bit worried about that.

But I agree. I think if they could get everybody in the same room and try to solve the issue, but the issue is not going to go away. No one's paying $17 million a year to a running back. It's just not going to happen. We saw Cook take $7 million of hard dollars, but a lot of it is tied to these rosters, right? We saw Zeke take about $3 million. So the market is shrinking, and it's not the right time. And unfortunately, I think he's got to play well, too, right? He's injured. He didn't play well last year, and I think he's got to play well.

So it behooves him to kind of turn the corner here as it behooves the Colts. So Zeke's real contract three. I thought six. What's that? Zeke's real contract is three is what you're saying, not six. I think there's a lot of incentives in Zeke's contract that can get him to six, but I don't think it is firm. There's two contracts.

There's the one we hear from the agents when it's released, and then there's the one that gets filed with the league office, and those are always dramatically different. They're always different. And I think Zeke has a chance to get three, I think three and a half up there, and then he has more incentives based on ever. Now, he practiced the – what's today? Today's Friday?

I think he practiced yesterday for the Patriots in their group work against the Green Bay Packers. So there's a chance to see him. Whether he plays this week or not, I don't know. But those practices, the Green Bay New England practices, were fairly extensive. I mean, they were on the field for a long time. Yeah, well, these joint practices I think people love. Bill obviously does a lot of them.

And if he's doing it, it probably makes sense for others to do it as well. Go ahead, AJ. Lombard, what are you hearing out of Green Bay? Are you hearing anything new on Jordan Love? We know their defense should be much improved. They have weapons on offense. How do you think they're going to be this year, especially obviously it hinges on the quarterback play?

Well, I think a lot of it hinges there. And I think the work that he's going to get against New England this week in practice really is going to help him because he needs that work, right? You know, what I think young quarterbacks have to be able to do is not make the easy hard, like I said earlier, and that's what he has to do. I thought his game against Cincinnati was good. I haven't watched his practices against New England. I can't wait to watch the game tape to see what that looks like, but if he can get them to where he's getting the ball, like Brock Purdy, I'm getting the ball to Aaron Jones, I'm getting the ball to Dillon,

I'm getting the ball to Watson, I'm getting the ball to Dobbs, then I think they have a chance because I do think their defense, especially with Alexander there, I think their defense is going to be really good. I think they have a chance. Van Ness, they drafted in the first round. They get Rashard Gary coming back healthy. They can pressure the quarterback. the first round you know they get richard gary coming back healthy they can pressure the quarterback um whenever the floor talks to belichick about what the practices are going to look like

and you said that jordan love like needs this type of thing you think the floor is like mr belichick is there any way you could potentially do some of that ghost fuckery yeah that you do yeah in some of these drills so we can see if Jordan Love can pick up a disguise or something like that? Is that something that would be agreed to? And would Bill Belichick do that? Oh, they definitely would. I think there's no question. You know, I think that's why you have them. You want to be able to see, you want to simulate game situation so where the player has to play fast, right? What's the hardest thing? You guys play the sport, right? The hardest thing is the Saturday game is way slower than the Sunday game. And the Sunday preseason is way slower than the regular season. So you've got to figure out how do I simulate the regular season speed as quickly

as I can. And these joint practices can really help do that. I think it's important. And I think, you know, look, New England is going to run their stuff, which is multiple, which is a lot of different looks, odd floater, even, you know, blitzes, corner blitzes, zone dogs, man, all these things that happen. And it requires the quarterback to have to make a lot of quick decisions. And the only way you get better at it is by doing it all the time. Yeah. And if Bill Belichick's like, yeah, yes,

we are going to run our defense, coach LaFleur. Yeah, the Sam Darnold I'm seeing ghosts thing, yeah, we'll be doing that. Yeah, you're welcome. And then Jordan had a great day Wednesday, right? Wednesday, allegedly the Packers won. Now, how do we know? We don't.

Everybody has a bias that is tweeting things out, even the journalists do who are covering the teams locally and then we heard thursday was mac jones best day that he's had as a patriot pretty much there's a chance whenever you think about the mac jones side of it where this offense with bill o'brien like it does click right and it does come together yeah and that could have potentially happened on thursday or what do you make of mac jones allegedly having the best day he's ever had as a New England Patriot on a practice field well I haven't seen it so I'm like you I don't know

ever you know what to believe I know a lot of times when I was in the league and I would read the clips of our practices and it never jive with the tape so I tend not to always believe that you know so but I do know this I think that they they're with Trent Brown back at left tackle. I think that's really a big help. Right. You know, they've had a lot of injuries in this offensive line. And, you know, with Cole Strange getting hurt earlier in camp. So they've kind of had this makeshift line. They're starting two rookies, two fourth round rookies in this offensive line. And so they moved Reef inside the guard. So I think to me, when you say they had a better day the next day, I think that's a positive sign because a lot of Mac Jones' success

is going to come from, can they protect? The Douglas receiver, I think, is really good, number 81. I think he's got a chance to be special. He's got that quickness in the slot that you want, and he can separate, and that'll be really helpful. Kendrick Bourne seems like he's back to where he was. But I think ultimately, you know, a lot of the success that Mack has to have is decision-making and getting the ball out, and that line's got to come through for him. Yeah, protection's a big type of conversation happening all around the NFL right now.

Go ahead, Ty. Yeah, Lambeau, everyone's talking about the Jets and how, you know, they can't really protect and how that could be an Achilles heel. But then they have joint practices with Carolina, and we saw in the Carolina in the preseason game, like a big knock on Bryce Young going into the draft in the season was, hey, is this guy going to be able to hold up all year with how small he is?

And then a lot of people were saying, well, his anticipation and feel in the pocket and being able to move around, he should be okay. But then he just got his ass beat for basically two series in that game. And I don't know if that was more the Jets' defensive line being really good or is that something where they might actually really be concerned with their offensive line and whether or not Bryce Young's going to be able to hold up for the remainder of the year. You know, it's funny, Ty.

I got a text from a good friend of mine. We both worked at the Raiders at one time. And he's like, are you watching this Carolina game with the Jets? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, good thing Al's not the owner of the Carolina Panthers because Frank Wright would be in a lot of trouble tonight. Okay. Preseason already fired.

Yeah. Well, I'm just telling you, you know, you could say that, but if you lived in that world with him and he came into the room and is all whites or all blacks and he watched his quarterback, who he just gave a ton of money to, get the living crap beat out of him and you kept watching it go on and on and on. And on and on and on. Your ass was going to get in a lot of trouble.

Like you were going to get called on the, and that wasn't going to be pretty. If you think people on Twitter can get angry at you, you haven't seen Al Davis. There's just no chance. There's no chance. You would get dressed down like nothing you've ever seen. I was really disappointed in Carolina. Their offensive line was good last year in terms of run blocking. They played their starters.

The Jets had their second team line. They couldn't block Solomon Thomas. They couldn't block anybody. I mean, that Carolina better get serious or else the quarterback, he was getting hit on every play, you know, even on his completion. So I think they got to do something about that. And I think, look, Frank Wright is 0-4-1 as a starter as the opening games. If you're Frank Wright, you got to have a come-to-Jesus conversation with yourself and say, like, maybe I'm not having a tough camp here to get my team ready for the opener. 0-4-1 to start the season as a head coach isn't good. Last I checked.

Yeah, zero in that first column is normally going to be judged poorly upon you. But we actually chatted about this a little bit earlier in the show, and we're not going to dive into it now again but like feels like tougher camps are becoming a very yeah standard thing these days where it was almost disappearing for a bit wasn't it it felt like tough camps was kind of becoming a thing of the past doesn't take place anymore and then now all the winning teams are like no no we only know one way pretty much. It's like it's almost an old school feel happening around the NFL again. It has to because, look, the AFC, if Cincinnati starts five and four like they have the last two years, can they overcome that? I mean, there's so many teams competing for the seven playoff spots in the AFC.

You know, with the, you know, Indianapolis and Houston, you could say because they're starting rookies won't be there. But everybody else could make an argument, whether you believe it or not. We'll be there. We'll fucking be there. Okay, we will. So if you start five and four, is that going to be good enough? You know, I think you've got to play well. Look, good teams play well in September.

They play well in December. The Bengals have been a little bit of a – they've crescendoed to the moment at the end of the year where they played the best. I don't know if they can start 5-4 this year and still do it. Yeah, the AFC is packed. The NFC, though, there was a conversation that got started in the last hour that Tone Diggs wants to ask you about. Coach?

Yeah, Lambeau, we were having a conversation, and Darius Butler said that he thinks Jared Goff is probably the second-best quarterback in the NFL. Third is the first one, we were having a conversation, and Darius Butler said that he thinks Jared Goff is probably the second-best quarterback. Third is the first one, and then he did say second. Second or third in the NFC. How do you feel about that? How do you rank the quarterbacks in the NFC? Look, Goff took a team to the Super Bowl when he was protected.

Everything about Goff is play, action, pass, and protection. You know, I just did my top offensive lines in football, top tackles, guards, and centers. And Detroit has three of the top of the five positions. They've got three guys, either blue or red chip. Here we go. Oh, yeah. And this Gibbs kid is going to be really –

he's going to be the Camaro for their offense. He's going to be everything. And what golf did so well last year was after the Dallas game where they had five turnovers, is going to be really, he's going to be the Camaro for their offense. He's going to be everything. And what Goff did so well last year was after the Dallas game where they had five turnovers, they only turned the ball over three times the rest of the year or two times. I mean, he protected it. So when he's protected, he's really good. He's accurate.

It's when he has to speed up that he hasn't been good. Again, this is the strong weak points, right? But when you play to his strengths like Detroit did, he's really going to be effective. I don't know if you could argue with that. I really don't. I mean, he played really well last year. He really did.

And can it continue? I think it remains to be seen. But he played well enough last year to win games, and he did. Hell yeah, Goff. Let's go. So, Lambeau, are you buying the hype that the Lions have right now? You know, I'm not all in on that. I think you've got to get good on defense before you get great.

I worry about their defense. Can they hold up, especially at corner? I think Mosley's still on PUP. I think Green Bay's going to be better than most people think. I mean, look, Minnesota, they were really good. And, of course, you know, we've got the Chicago Bears, and we'll see what they do. Oh, yeah.

Hey, we talked to Ibra Flues in the first round. I heard. I had listened to the interview. I heard it, yeah. I bought a Super Bowl ticket immediately after that interview. Right out of the window, I cashed that bad boy in. I said, look, I'm all in. I'm sold.

I mean, I felt like I was here in the – I was doing a lot of amens. I was doing amen, amen, amen. I was in church yeah maybe that's what we call it the lombardi church whenever you stop by yeah we appreciate you so much having any time my guys have a great weekend you'll watch the games you'll watch all these games yeah that's what you're doing all week i'm gonna watch them on my computer i'm watching the eagles right now. This Cleveland team now, don't minimize.

Cleveland's going to be good too. Cleveland's going to be good. They need to figure out that kicker position, bro. Seriously. That's the problem, right? You know, same thing with Jake Moody, the best kicker in college football last year. Last week he missed two kicks. You know, we all talk about, oh, kickers aren't important until you miss a kick right and then you realize that teams need it especially when most of the

NFL games are decided by seven points or less you better make that kick Robbie Gold still in the market Macy Crosby still in the market I assume some of these teams that are trying to make a run know like we aren't going to let that be the thing that breaks all of our hearts at the end of the season. It's almost like forecasting. For Cade York, though, obviously incredibly talented leg. Hey, and I think golfers, people that just golf will know this. If you're on the tee box and you're just hitting like a fade, okay,

or like a slice even, you can at least start to play it and you almost know it's coming. He missed those kicks last night just like he did in the first game, one ball, right? The next one left. Right. So like, this is the first one misses it to the right. Barely. I mean, this is NFL football. You're going to be able to miss close and some of those will stay in there. And then he does it again and he goes the opposite direction.

It's like he did that in the first game as well. And my first thought was like the thoughts that are going through his head right now before he's kicking, like he's going to have to get those out of there because I think he can be talented, but Cleveland is not a place to miss hit balls because that wind will eat them both up. You know,

you gotta get, you gotta hit clean. We had max when Matt Stover was, it was, this goes so far back, he was a plan B free agent for us from the Giants, and he did not kick well initially in Cleveland. And Belichick hung with him, and in week three of the season,

he made two great kicks against the Bengals, and his career just took off. Sometimes it just takes one make, but when you're that erratic, when you're playing Army kicking, right, left, right, left, it ain't going to work. You've got to figure it out. You felt good about that one? You felt good about that? That's a good one.

I never heard that, right, left, right, left. Army kicking. You've seen it. The guy, he goes right, he goes left. I mean, you know, I mean, I never, in my whole career, I never watched a kick. I just waited for the reaction of the fans to see if they made it or not. Well, that's what they say kickers are supposed to do too

and D linemen and everything like that. But it's hard not to get a peek if you don't hit that thing clean. Football God's going to bless me, and that kid's got to be like, ah, you know, I hope he gets better. But I think in his eyes, if he had one miss, it'd be a lot easier mentally whenever he goes in there. When you're Army missing, that's a problem. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen.

We're not the Army. We can't land on the beaches. We've got to hit that thing down. I mean, look, when you watch Tucker, the son of a gun, I mean, he doesn't – I mean, you can't even – like if you shrunk the goal post to like two feet in either direction, he would still make them. Yeah, well, he hits a clean ball. So it's end

over end so like there's guys that can just hit a inning so like right here is probably like the sweet spot that entire thing right there now if you hit it in there you're gonna get the ball to travel far but if you hit it like perfectly the ball will have a perfect rotation end over end that is easier to control that'll cut through. As soon as you start getting a little X on it, just a little bit off kilter, more surface area, wind grabs, wind effects. So like in Cleveland, in the AFC North, for instance, Boswell hits a very clean up and down ball. Justin Tucker hits a very clean up and down ball.

So that's going to cut through. That ball is right end over end. I mean, that fucker is clean. That's a clean ball. Cer is unbelievable that's a clean ball kade york doesn't hit a clean ball right now so no i've never seen somebody be able to adjust from hitting a little bit of an x ball to a clean ball he has a lot of leg talent hopefully he'll be able to do it but i don't know if you think he needs to go to a kicking coach i mean do you think it's a i think it's his plant foot like i don't know enough about kicking i just i know the results

but to me it seems like it's got to be something with his mechanics i think it's his plant foot. Like, I don't know enough about kicking. I know the results. But to me, it seems like it's got to be something with his mechanics. I think it's a swing thing. Like, his swing, probably good in, like, a warm climate, like maybe like a dome where it's a little bit more forgiving. But in that AFC North, I think he's going to run into a lot of, like, potential maybe. He'll figure it out. He'll figure it out.

Hey, good luck out there, Kate. Yeah. Good luck, Dave. They're going to need you, though. Stay there waiting. He'll figure it out. Hey, good luck out there, Cade. Yeah. Good luck, Dave. They're going to need you, though. I can tell you this. Cleveland lost too many close games last year. This is a make-or-break season for Cleveland. They can't be waiting for Cade York.

They can't walk off the field and say, well, our kicker beat us. You can't do that. You got to be able to make those kicks. It's called the NFL. Yeah, and Cade doesn't want that either because he'll be out of a damn job. Anyways, never out of a job. That's you. You've got ten of them.

Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombo. Thanks, guys. Michael Lombo. Yeah, that was disheartening to watch with that guy. Before his first kick. So, on my feed was Joe Thomas. You guys had Ross Tucker, correct? Yeah, we had a Ross Tucker show.

I guess I was on the local Cleveland feed, I guess, so it was Joe Thomas. I don't know who the play-by-play person was, but yeah, Joe was openly nervous for Cade's kicks early on. So he made some kicks early. He actually reposted on his Instagram story a post. That's real? He really did that at halftime? Yeah. I don't know,

bro. Did someone do it? I mean, is someone controlling that for him, or do you think he really did that? There's potentially a member of the Dog Pound who wants him out of Cleveland who could have screenshotted and made a fake post from him at halftime to kind of build the narrative, I guess. But from all accounts that I looked at, it was like something he reposted, and then obviously it ends in catastrophic fashion, even though it's just a preseason game.

But, like, so much leg talent hits the ball so far. But, buddy, I've been there when you don't know if it's going left or if it's right. And I'm nowhere near the level of kicker he was or whatever. But that in here is where it starts getting brutal. Yeah, I would say that as a kicker, it's like golf. It's got to be so mental right now, not as much mechanical. It all like golf. It's got to be so mental right now, not as much mechanical. It all affects everything. But that whole hitting it clean just out of nowhere from going to a kicking camp,

I don't think that happens. Like Matt Prater. That's not going to help you in the moment when you get – it's like hitting the driving range. You can strike the ball in the range. You get that first tee. It's a different story. Yeah, so like Matt Prater, for instance, he hits an X-ball.

Legendary X-ball hitter. He does not hit the ball clean. He hits an X-ball. That's his swingter he does not hit the ball clean he hits an x-ball that's his swing and towards the tail end of his career on like his third team after he's already broken the nfl record a couple times with such a strong leg his ball now like kind of has like a little a little fade on it it starts to the left and then comes back to the right and he didn't do that early in his career and then it just sure and i said uh why why do you why do you think you hit that ball?

He said, I have no idea. It just showed up like that. So now I just play it. It's like, all right, sweet. That's a smart way to look at it. But Cade can't do that. Cade can't play a little bit of a fade. Clearly.

Or there's some guys that hit draws. Their ball shape is like a draw. There's some guys that hit straight. We were just talking about it. It's like Vinny hit a little bit of a draw in there. You know, so like we, I assume Vinny knew that that was coming. I kind of knew it was coming. That's kind of the ball that he hit.

Cade's all over the place. That's not, I'm pulling for you though, buddy. I'm pulling for you, buddy. But like Cleveland's not the right place to have that type of thing. Like Lambeau said too, they got a lot of pieces in place. They do not want that to be an issue.

Yeah, but Cleveland should have known that when they drafted him, too. And you've got Robbie Golden, Mason Crosby out there, guys that have hit a bunch of kicks. So Robbie hits that ball. He's kicked in all the elements, too. Yeah, so that's why he's good in Chicago. Now, even though I think he hit a couple 50-orders last year, which 50-orders in games are considered long,

but in practice, like, everybody in the NFL is hitting from 60-some. You know, like, 56-yarder for Jake Elliott last night was just a walk in the park. Guys have massive legs in the NFL. It's normally something that you are judged upon, have to have a strong leg, and then we'll figure out if you're accurate or not because it's a long season, got to be able to get it up.

You're probably going to go through some muscle stuff so we like like strong legs in the nfl robbie gold has never really been known as like the long ball hitter but here he is in whatever year 18 hitting 50 some yarders last year and he hits that ball end over end perfectly he would almost be the right answer for the cleveland thing crosby doesn't hit the he doesn't hit like the – he hits a little lower. Yeah, but that ball pops off of Mason's foot. Like he – it looks like – it looks like a 48-yarder. It looks like a chip shot, like how he swings. Yeah, and also here's another thing for how strong a guy's leg is.

Like Cade York, for instance, his first field goal last night. If it gets to that net quick, that's how – you know, you can tell how strong a guy's leg is with how fast the ball gets to that net quick that's how you know you can tell how strong a guy's leg is with how fast the ball gets to the net like not everybody's going to get offered an opportunity to hit a 55 yard or a 60 yard or throughout their career but you can tell if a guy's leg is live with how fast it's getting to that net right there like kade york's ball is getting there quick like that ball is flying it's just like gotta gonna got to – going to have to tighten up. His ball is taking, like, a sharp turn.

That's the scary thing. Like, fade and slice to where it's like it's going, and then it just, you know, will curve and takes it right offline. And I don't envy it at all. I had similar problems, you know, and it is not a fun thing. What a terrible position. What a terrible position to play. I mean, as in, as in nerve-wracking.

I just think of my kids doing it and my buddy. Mike Nugent's kicker forever. I was nervous for every kick Nugent ever made. Yeah, no way. Yeah. No way. It doesn't sound fun. I don't even know.

Yeah, there'll be a highlight that'll show for me for field goal kicking time from back in the day. It'll pop up. And I'm nervous for me. What was going through my head there, I wonder. Who knows what I was saying to myself while I was lining up for that. Not the greatest of times before that

balls kick, but hey, fuck it was normally the end thought. Let's go ahead and try to kick the hell out of this thing. It didn't always go where it went and they made me a punter. Cade York probably, if they were to transition him into a punter, not saying they will, he's a great kicker, probably going to go on and have a great career somewhere.

But I would assume if he started punting, probably pretty good. Good at that too. Probably, because he's going to have a real strong leg to be the old punter. Speaking of, I pulled my groin, my quad, and my hamstring the other day. When you were punting? Yeah, I was murdering some bulls, though. I felt pretty

good about it and then they're all gone all of those things yeah i think my groin's the worst groin is the worst right now groin is what are you gonna do you gonna do anything for it just rest got a cold toe this morning didn't cramp did you didn't drown either didn't my wife said like you didn't even think to like call me after you died i was like whoa babe you should put a harness on get a safety harness that'll pull you up and out if you pass out or something. You get stuck in here. Like strap myself into a little bit of a, what's it called? A carabiner.

Carabiner. Put a carabiner in right here that comes off the roof of the Thunderdome. And it can lift me up. And I can hit an emergency button. Like I fell and I can't get up button like those old folks say. Yep. Life alerts. You just give a snorkel out there.

Yep. As far as doing an eject, put an airbag in the bottom of it. Boom. Shoot you right out. Yep. That'll be good. And it's good ideas. And there's a roof right above you and it breaks your neck and you die.

No. Whoa. Whoa. Put it out in the open. Put it out in the open a little bit. Yeah, but if we pull it out in the open, then all of a sudden we put it out in the open a little bit yeah but if we pull out in the open then all of a sudden we got to deal with the elements a little bit more we need to be under a roof at least you can knock it over though you can use your body weights to

knock it over oh so it's like a rocket so i start rock as i'm drowning i'm rocking back and forth and then as i get out front boom boom it'll be like fireworks on fireworks fall yeah exactly i'll be sure you don't hit a tree. Well, out there, we're good. We got no trees out there. A couple crows, though. Definitely no crows. And if you remember what Coach Bob Sala wrote down.

That's right. How about D-Butt seeing that? How about D-Butt? Like, I haven't even chatted to D-Butt about it. That is every play. Yeah, it's weird. Weird things you notice. It's not a big deal, but it is.

Sounds like a huge deal. Nah, it's really not a huge deal. Because we're just like shit talking. It's just something. It's just one little, it's just something, yeah. It's just like, hey, so the Eagle story was too tough? Like that is, that would probably be what I would have said if I was, depending upon what year I'm in that locker room, who am I?

Am I good yet? Or am I still the guy that doesn't know what I'm doing? Do I know it? Like, nobody new to the locker room is coming in. This guy's reading the fucking. But if I've been around, you know, four or five years, I'm pretty well established. Things are going okay.

Boy, one of the first things that would come out of my mouth is, hey, that Eagle story is so goddamn good, got to write it down. Two coached out loud when I said that. I didn't want to mess it up or something. Whatever he would say, I'm like, oh, you didn't? Yeah, of course not. We didn't notice. We didn't notice.

He didn't read word for word, but he definitely glanced down multiple times just to kind of see where he was at and make sure he was sticking with it. He needed it. How rude is that of us that that is our – So rude. Yeah, so rude. Every one of our immediate thoughts that we're not the only ones. That are that's what i'm saying we jaded is that we are it seems like there's no reason to address the team and try to pump them up from what you guys talk about

sometimes no no that's not true that's not true there's pump up speeches pump up speeches are definitely very very very tough to get the point across to the whole squad how you're feeling that day like bill belichick just going up there and saying hey just do your fucking job and everything else will take care of itself that seems like the only way to do it well he wouldn't do that it was usually brady who allegedly gave the pump up speeches which would probably hit home a little bit more the whole you know chuck actually had um chuck had a team meeting, I think his first year, and the video he chose as the story to run, it hit home with me. It was something about, like, just choosing to be good.

I like that. Basically just choose to be great. Like, whenever you're waking up in the morning, like, choose to be great. Like, basically, like, flip a switch. I'd never seen the video before or heard it laid out the way it was. And it was like, ah, I'll actually think about that. You know what I mean? Like I will actually – that will change my mindset a little bit. I've never heard somebody just frame it like, hey, it's pretty easy here.

Like just choose to be great here. And I was like, this is a good video. With that being said, though, I have seen so many misses. I've seen so many misses up there but like the movies say that the coach's bump up speech is great and then when you're in there you know you flub a word oh it's over the whole room just whoa or if it's not natural or if it's a coach feels like hey i gotta get the boys going i got something good for him today like if it if it's organic and it just hits them in the moment and they're speaking from the heart, that's great.

Everyone's going to be juiced. But, yeah, if it's too planned, I think especially NFL athletes, professional athletes, we always say it's a very, very tough room to speak to. Yes. But it just has to feel super real and authentic, and it has to be quick too. It cannot be very long. I was going to reference what you just said, like tough room.

An NFL locker room is a tough room so in hard knocks when they have somebody go in there and talk and they do well like the guy at detroit the comedian in detroit yeah he went up there he did well it's like i got mad respect for that guy because it is that is a tough room this mentalist that went into the the jets thing oh oh's. O's, who's Shefty booked the whole thing. They call them O's for some reason. That's because it makes everybody go, O's. He's getting O faces all over the place. O's is dropping O faces all over the place, but he goes in there and does well. There were some people, like when I first got into this world of speaking into microphones,

they were like, did you go to school for this, or how do you have the confidence for this? It's like, nah, I was pretty good in the NFL locker room. If you're good in the NFL locker room, I think you go to school for this or how do you have the confidence for this it's like nah i was pretty good in nfl locker room if you're good in nfl locker room i think you're going to be pretty good anywhere i think that's a pretty good rule and i think we display that anytime we see a coach read something we're like that whole room just fucking he's gone right there it is tough to speak to that many adults who are probably miserable at the time and are very confident, successful individuals themselves listening to you. Got to prove yourself. And I think

Sala has the room. I think everybody respects him. Darius Butler's first thing he said though. Need a couple more episodes. We'll see. They'll be you at five episodes? Is that correct? Yeah, five. And we love Hugh Jack, but Hard Knocks, I saw him do an interview.

He said, I know I can win in this city. And I was like, yep, this guy's never going to win in this city just because of what I just heard him say. Now, the whole team heard him just say that as well. It's like no coach ever says aye. That's pretty successful. Normally it's a pretty big we thing. Also, you are completely defeated right now.

Yeah, terrible. That whole thing and players like this guy. That's a shame, though, too, because I was with Hugh. He was the coordinator when I was in Cincinnati for my one year. Hugh would always come bouncing in the morning, always had a ton of juice. It would be 5.30. He got along with the dudes, and he held everybody super accountable.

You couldn't mess around with Hugh. Don't ever come in late to a meeting the offense and they're walking through like it has to be perfect and then you just it's tough to be a head coach it's tough to be a head coach for the browns too obviously we loved you when he came on the show he's awesome everything i've every interaction we've had with him we love but i mean that was pretty quick into hard knocks we knew that team was dead nice own boost i guess he's coaching again. He's got that tequila. I think he's coaching. I think he's the head coach at Grambling.

Yeah, one of those schools, right? Head coach at Grambling. Eddie George still coaching down there in HVCU as well? Tennessee State? Is he Tennessee State? Yeah, he's at Grambling State. He is jacked. Eddie looks like he did when he played. Bigger, probably, right?

Yeah, he's a freak. Did you ever tackle him? No. No, he was done, I believe, before I got in. That's one of those guys where I think probably not great. How? How do you tackle him is the question. He's so big. He's so tall. So strong. Yeah, just unbelievable. Him talking to Derrick Henry, probably the... I didn't know Eddie George was as big as he is. do you tackle him is the question he's so big he's so tall so strong yeah he just yeah unbelievable him talking to derrick henry probably the i didn't know eddie george was as big as he is

so whenever that story came out that eddie george talked to derrick henry and was like hey this is the way you got to run and then derrick henry obviously goes into king henry mode or whatever i'm like oh a running back talking to a running back and then you like meet eddie george you're like oh this is the original Derrick Henry. Yeah. This guy. Huge son of a bitch. This guy was Derrick Henry pretty much back in the day,

just a little different style of football there. Listed at 6'3", 240. It's a pretty big boy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's probably 260 right now. Just stropped. Yeah, stropped.

Absolutely stropped. Properly stropped. Those players don't listen to him. He's just a bunch of outrunters. Yeah, stropped. Absolutely stropped. Properly stropped. Those players don't listen to him. He's like, yo, that's just a bunch of... He should have put the pads on for one day of practice. Can you imagine that? Yeah, he went to Fork Union. Ohio State got him out of Fork Union.

Oh, okay. I wonder where's he from originally there? Philly? Yeah, he's a Philly guy. We had a couple military guys, academy guys that ended up at West Virginia. Normally a little bit more mature. Maybe there was a grades thing that started this entire thing. Maybe whatever the case was.

Hey, that's a good story that Eddie George went on to become Eddie George out of the military academy there. That's good. Let's talk about that more. It might have been. I don't know if his college freshman year was like a prep prep year where he went to fork union or a senior year in high school he went to i'm not sure how it worked oh they were like hey we got a guy here who's he's a man bigger stronger faster than everybody i mean can you imagine

seeing that guy play high school football he probably was a similar size speaking of big time night for high school football right huge good luck to Huge. Good luck to all the boys out there. Go get them. Enjoy this. You're going to talk about this forever with your friends. And the season goes too fast. The high school season is over like end of October. It starts too early.

It starts too early, I think. It probably does. You're right. Yeah. I think just as somebody who does not have a kid that's in it, has not been that close to it, has only followed for the last two years of high school football, I think it's wild

how early it starts. Because I guess you've got to do training camp before school starts, is what they're saying. And they've got schedules for basketball tryouts. Everything starts right after. You've got to get to the other sports. Well, thanks for the appetizer, high school football. Good luck out there.

Oh, yeah. Connor, what are you giving this cousin? What am I giving? Yeah. Oh, man. You'll give a speech to the viewers to have a good weekend. Sure. ISO shot.

Sure. That one up there is going to come in slowly while you're giving a pump-up speech. Sure. To send us into a great weekend. Sure. I want actual. Oh, yeah. Gumption. pump-up speech. Sure. To send us into a great weekend. Sure. I want actual... Oh, yeah, gumption. Absolutely.

You've got to be serious. My left ear blew out, so I'm ready to do it. Like it hurts or... No, no, no, like the ear bud. It blew out. Oh, it doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. Because that's how juiced you were.

Exactly. You were sending juice back this way. Through it, yes. So that's what we need to feel. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. You're going to have to move Jabba. Bonus ball. Yeah. No, no, absolutely. You're going to have to move Jabba. Oh, no. Bonus ball.

Oh. Fucking defense, by the way. I want to speech so bad. Don't you? Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? It's going to be great. It's going to be great.

We kind of need it. Yeah, need it. Yeah. There it is. Okay. Do I start when it's out And then start zooming in? Is there a mic behind you?

Work the floor, you got a handheld? Yeah, let's honestly Explore the space, Con Yeah, I think honestly With the whole He won't be able to hear you But we don't have to hear anybody else But you right now Ladies and gentlemen but we don't have to hear anybody else but you right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can't thank you enough, okay, for joining us all week and allowing us to do this for a living. We absolutely love our jobs, and the fact that we get to do this is truly stupid and remarkable at the exact same time. But we need to realize that on this particular Feel Good Friday, we got a lot of football coming up. We got two games tonight. We got a bunch this weekend. We got games on Sunday. And then we're back for Overreaction Monday, breaking it all down as we get closer and closer to the actual NFL kickoff.

We had a full offseason with sports we certainly don't care about, but that all comes to an end very soon in our friend our guy boston connor has a message for you as we thrust into the greatest weekend of all time you're the greatest humans on earth and connor wants to hammer that home good evening good afternoon good morning from wherever you're watching. Ladies, gentlemen, everybody of all ages, Bill on his knees over there. You know, a lot of times on Friday, sometimes you might think like, oh man, it's been such a long week. It hasn't been a long week, has it?

It's been a great week. It has. Sure, sometimes great weeks can be long weeks, but you know what great weeks lead to? What's that? Great weekends. Exactly. Wow.

We all have a tremendous opportunity not only to get better as a human over this weekend, whether it be gambling or drinking or partying or dancing or fucking. You can do a ton of things on the weekend. Really, it's up to you. I personally like to take a time to reflect on what this great week has brought us all. There's been some great news this week. I think we can all attest to that. There's been some bad news this week.

But you know what we're going to think about tonight when we go to bed? What's that? All the good news. Yeah. Because that's what matters at the end of the day. Now, we have an opportunity to really be who we want to be yeah this weekend don't we hell yeah not only is there football what the sun's gonna be out what it's getting cold what and that's why you need to you know have some fun outdoors with

your friends your family whether it be your children whether it be me with homeless people bums outside yeah i'll hang out with them bill will be me with homeless people, bums outside, I'll hang out with them. Bill will hang out with the people that he'll capture, and everyone back there will have just a fantastic time. I know AJ has massive plans. I don't know if he told you guys this. No, he never does. He is actually hosting a party this weekend, kind of like a welcome home for Kevin Spacey.

He has been looking forward to it. Really? Okay. He has been looking forward to it since the verdict. So, you know, this weekend, it's going to be not just a weekend. It's going to be a special. Okay. I'm talking a Tom Segura special, not a machine special. I'm talking Tom Segura.

Okay. Shots. So let's finish out this work day Yeah Hell yeah Let's say goodbye And hello to the ones we love Yep

Yep Every day And let's have Let's have a hell of a weekend boys Hands in Yes Team on three One two three

Team Alright Love that Didn't I don't think you knew Where you were going A lot of that Nope We didn't know where you were going A lot of that But I feel good And Tom was the only one that clapped I don't think you knew where you were going with a lot of that.

We didn't know where you were going with a lot of that, but I feel good. And Tom was the only one that clapped. I didn't think that was right. We all – Yeah. Well done, Tom. Let's give this man a hug. Yeah. Let's give this man a hug.

First going to be pissed. First going to be so pissed. There was no reason to take a shot at the machine in there. No, no. It wasn't a shot. It was just I'm a Tom Zagura guy. Okay. Well, hey, listen.

You can be both. Respect to what you just did there. Thank you for really putting perspective on our minds, too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Say hello and say that you love your loved ones. That was amazing. And goodbye.

We love all of you for allowing us to do this. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We'll see you on Monday. Goodbye.