The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 987 - Trenches Wednesday With The General Bob Carpenter's Top 5, JJ Watt, Harrison Smith, Scott Hanson, AQ Shipley and Darius Butler LIVE In The ThunderDome, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

On today’s show, Pat, AQ Shipley, Darius Butler, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about everything happening around the NFL including JC Jackson being traded to the Patriots from the Chargers for 6th and 7th round pick swaps, the NFL’s new gambling policy, and much more as we get ready for week 5 to begin. Joining the progrum to give his weekly top 5 in College Football is the 18th pick of the 2006 NFL Draft, Ohio State legend, the man who saved college football, The General, Bob Carpenter (34:38-56:07). Next, future Hall of Fame, 3x DPOY, Walter Payton Man of the Year, 7x All-Pro, 5x Pro Bowler, and now Houston Texans Ring of Honor Member, JJ Watt joins the show to chat about his weekend getting inducted, and who he thought performed the best on the defensive line in week 4 (1:03:24-1:41:59). Later, 6x Pro Bowler, 2x All-Pro, Safety for the Minnesota Vikings, Harrison Smith joins the progrum to chat about his massive performance in Carolina, the Vikings season thus far, and much more (1:53:13-2:14:45). Later, the host of NFL RedZone, Scott Hanson joins the show to chat about not going to the bathroom for 7 hours on Sunday's, if he'll ever work another job again, if he's ever gotten into hot water for anything he's said, showing punts on RedZone, his favorite splits, and more (2:16:22-2:37:02). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. Or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. See you tomorrow, cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello beautiful people. Welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome. On this Trenches Wednesday, October 4th, 2023, this program starts right now. Football! It's happening tomorrow, but today the conversation is going to be glorious. We are packed to the gills with guests. We have General Bob Carpenter joining us in about 29 minutes to give us his updated top five in college football. Can't wait to hear his little gimmicks that he's going to bust out. We got J.J. White. carpenter joining us in about 29 minutes to give us his updated top five in college football can't wait to hear his little gimmicks that he's gonna bust down we got jj the newest member of the houston texans ring of honor will be joining us about his thoughts not only on his celebration down in houston this past weekend as they beat the dog out of the pittsburgh steelers but

also his thoughts about the nfl as a whole this has been a conversation i've been looking forward to every single week. Seems like he does his due diligence. He knows what he's talking about. And he's J.J. What? Then we'll have Harrison Smith coming off a historic day for the Minnesota Vikings, where he had, listen to this, 14 tackles, three sacks, two tackles for loss,

and a game-winning forced fumble for the Minnesota Vikings. A man who's been an all-pro 12-year NFL vet out of Notre Dame. Nobody ever talks about him as a great. He is. Can't wait to chat with him. I believe his nickname is the Hitman. Oh, yeah. Not Brett.

No, no, no. Okay. That's the best there is. Best there was. And the best there ever will be. Brett Hart, not really my guy. I was more of a Shawn Michaels guy growing up, but did have respect for what Brett Hart did in his entire thing. This is the hitman Harrison Smith, who's a dog for the

Minnesota Vikings at safety. One of the greatest disguisers, allegedly, in the history of the NFL, which is why he's been so damn good. And then Scott Hanson, seven hours of commercial free football host on Red Zone every single Sunday, will join us at 2.30. I got questions about his bladder. I also got questions about the narratives that he builds throughout the Sundays. You know, I've been watching a lot more of the Red Zone channel as I've gotten older and as the games have gotten more electrifying and stacked on top of each other. The NFL will say, all right, we're going to have two games at four o'clock. We'll have 45 of them at one o'clock. Hard to keep track of them all. Scott Hanson's the guy that we're spending our Sundays with. I want to know about the pressure of him building the

narrative of each team throughout the day and how he's able to keep track of it. And also, congrats. Being the face of something that has really innovated and changed the game. I think every other sport is looking for their version of the red zone. Will they be able to do it? I think the NHL is doing it next week for the launch

of the NHL here on ESPN. Cannot wait for that. We also have a big man, well, former big man in the studio today who will break down the best offensive line play from around the NFL. Ladies and gentlemen, 12-year NFL vet, Super Bowl champion player coach, A.Q. Shipley. Let's go, baby. Good to see you, A.Q. Like that we got you back in that corner.

One half of the hammer. Cowboys 10 Diggs is here. The toxic table is here at Boston Corner and at ty schmidt connor tell me about the shirt today uh cat kong i believe is what the descriptor is it's kind of like what king kong was doing in new york kind of climbing the empire state building you know causing havoc and this is exactly what that is the picture except it's a cat pat not a not a giant gorilla like the movie if you remember so it's cat kong cat Kong. That's on your chest. Does that make you feel a little bit more powerful,

a little bit more raw today on this particular Trenches Wednesday? Yeah, a little bit more feisty, a little bit nine lives. I'm not just going to get pancaked once and go down and die. I got nine of these things, so you got to do it multiple times just like a cat. I love that. The Patriots made a move today. We'll chit-chat about that, as did the Broncos, as did a couple other teams.

There's a lot of stuff happening on this Trenches Wednesday, including our guy here for the final day this week, host of NFL matchups on ESPN, the Ocho, ESPN News, ESPN 6, ESPN 5, and ESPN+. The Man to Man podcast, Everything DB. Ladies and gentlemen, Darius J. Butler is here looking very cool. Saw him doing pull-ups in the Hawk House earlier today. Really? He can still do those? Not still.

Yeah. He is the picture of Hank. You weigh 165. Okay, 185 pounds. That's debatable. Maybe after breakfast. Those are easiest. Are you a little bit worried about not being as jocked as you were last season, though?

No. Yeah, because you got into golf and Butler birdies. That's right. You try to keep that fluid swing. You stop working out. Now you get back in here, you start seeing all the guys moving weights. You know, Connor's in that gym every single morning doing push-ups, moving weight around.

AQ's doing his thing, trying to lose all the weight. He's lifting. He's running around the Thunderdome. I see Mitt in there getting yo. I see everybody getting yo. Yeah, we're trying to be a fit crew here. You know what I mean? It's a beautiful time. We're trying to survive. I think that's all we're trying to do this football season because we're still very early in it. I will say it's the first

time since we got into the Thunderdome where the police have reached out to me and said, hey, there's a weird man running laps around your building. This is not something that's been normal since you've moved into the neighborhood. Is everything okay? That man was A.Q. Shipley. A.Q., I appreciate you kind of saying hello

to the entire community this morning while you're running laps i appreciate you bent over in front of our door after doing that through the glass so we could all see that you've kind of wore yourself out we're appreciative that you're here let's start diving into some stuff that maybe you can chat about that not everybody else can i think whenever jason kelsey started chit-chatting about the hate that the kush push the brotherly shove the hey right cheek left cheek bunch dudes, let's move a yard, came into the conversation. Jason Kelsey said, how come there's never a conversation

about the talent that it takes to actually do this? You have said that you don't even think if there was pushers, they'd be able to make it happen. This past weekend, numerous teams tried the tush push, and it failed. We've seen it on consecutive. This is fourth and one, fourth quarter. The Chargers are going to charge her. This is with a guy who has a broken left middle finger,

a hyper-extended fingernail, all that stuff. They didn't do this last week. They don't pick it up. Patriots, I believe, didn't pick it. The Giants didn't pick it up. How come this isn't something that is just an automatic situation? And why are the Eagles so much better than everybody else as a person who has been at the bottom of a couple of these shoves, A.Q. Shipley?

Low man wins. That's what it comes down to, and that's what not a lot of people are talking about. This thing takes talent. We have seen it. Three teams this week tried it. They all failed. The reason is they didn't get any movement. We are in a business of moving bodies,

and if you can't move bodies at the point of attack, that's what happens. You get failed things. So we have to give a lot of credit to this Eagles team that gets underneath people, keeps the legs churning, and moves. And also— So you're saying, hey, old-ass Peter King. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe instead of just saying, shut up, Peter King. Yeah. Is that what you're saying? I didn't say that. No, that's exactly what I'm saying. That's what A.Q. Shipley is saying because Peter wrote a scathing article numerous times about how bad he hates it and how terrible it is for the game and how dangerous it is and how boring it is and everything like that.

And obviously every football guy was like, that's football. That is kind of how this whole thing has been. But Peter King has been around football for a long time. And I think Jason Kelsey and the Eagles also took a lot of like, do you know how much we work on? You know how much pain we're in? You know how hard it is to execute this football play? And we just make it look easy.

That seems to be the problem because how easy it looks for them, 92% success rate, although they have had a fail this year, that we don't know how that's going to affect the percentages. It's a real talent. And I'm thankful that we're seeing other people fail almost because it kind of shuts up the people that aren't respecting the big guys. And also, Jalen Hurts is fat ass. That guy is so strong.

That's a massive piece of the puzzle as well. That's what I was just going to say. Listen, like there's quarterbacks that know how to sneak it and there's quarterbacks that don't. We saw it for years in New England. You saw it. I mean, he was so good at quarterback sneaks. And there's a talent to that.

Instead of just standing up there, guys jump over the pile, and boom, you get stuffed, right? But when you're able to kind of find those creases and get below and get underneath and get behind your guys and find those creases, that's a huge piece to the park. So what we're saying is you're watching, like, masters of the craft. Oh, yeah.

So instead of trying to ban it because how good they are, let's look around and see how everybody else is doing and recognize what we got happening. And it might not look pretty, but I'll tell you what, as like football is a tough sport, I love watching it. Me too. I do. I really enjoy it.

Whenever they're in fourth and two or less, it's like. Here it comes. It's time. Do it. It is time for Jalen and Kelsey and Lane and the boys to go see if they can get under. And the other team knows it's coming. Oh, yeah. Stop it.

That's the best part. Stop it. You know it's coming. Go ahead and stop it. It feels like teams have defensive lines. I saw a D tackle going sideways on one of them. They're like double teaming it almost. So now we're adding both sides of the ball are adding elements to this thing.

It's not just as simple as grab a cheek, push a cheek. There's a lot of stuff going on, which I think we're kind of realizing. The Commanders versus the Eagles this week when it happened, Kelsey and whoever the tackle was, their helmets were literally touching before it even snapped. It was awesome. There was so much man-meeting in that play. Oh, yeah.

So much. Oh, yeah. You know what we're talking about. A lot of man-meeting. Yeah, you DBs are staying out of there. Out of that. They have a couple wrinkles off of it, too. I saw them. Oh, yeah. So much. Oh, yeah. Deepo, you know what we're talking about. A lot of man meeting. Yeah, you DBs are staying out of there. Out of that. They have a couple wrinkles off of it, too.

I saw them. Oh, yeah. Hurts run like a little sweep to the left, and I'm sure they'll probably have a pitch off of it, maybe even a pass. So, like you said, it's an art to it. You know what's coming? What's that? The snap through Jalen's legs.

So, Jalen will be right on her knees. Oh, yeah. It'll come snap through Kelsey's legs, through Jalen's legs, to somebody that'll be right on her knees oh yeah it'll come snap through kelsey's legs through jaylen's legs to somebody that'll be going off the side there and that's that's beautiful yeah that is what we appreciate about the game of football and that's football iq so i'm happy that you said hey i would like to chit chat about this another thing we need chit chat about jason kelsey involved you know he has a podcast oh he has a podcast with travis kelsey yes he does called the new heights podcast travis kelsey has a podcast with Travis Kelsey. Really? Yes, he does. Of course. It's called The New Heights Podcast.

Travis Kelsey was a member of this show yesterday. Not here, but certainly a character. Yeah, absolutely. And that thing certainly made its way around the internet. And we had no idea that was coming. And boy, got a good pop out of me. That was a solid joke. Great.

It was. It was a great joke. Top tier. Now, obviously, there's people on the internet that did not appreciate the way Aaron cracked a joke at Travis's expense because of a vaccine especially with Aaron sure working for Johnson and Johnson currently at the New York Jets so which by the way in the moment as he says that we all realize all those things are going to happen immediately after which is why we laugh even harder which makes it an even better joke but Travis Kelsey was asked by his brother,

what was the conversation like with Aaron on the sideline? Because Aaron wouldn't tell us what it was. He said, hey, we'd just rather leave it. We don't have the conversation. Okay, never mind. We do not have the video. Anyways, Travis Kelsey said, I was just telling him, like, how bummed I was that he wasn't playing.

Like, I don't like whenever the greats are out. Like, we're all hurting with you. We all wished that you were playing. And I'm like, damn, Travis Kelsey baby-facing real hard right now. Don't know why Aaron didn't want to say that, but I hope that Aaron and Travis still friends going forward after the Mr. Fizer situation happened yesterday, Ty Schmidt. Yeah, I don't know if they are.

I don't know. I mean, I think, you know, Travis, obviously, he gets it. I mean, he understands that was a joke. Everyone kind of involved, I think, got a good chuckle out of it. But I don't think we can discount the fact that, hey, listen, you know, before the whole Travis and Taylor Swift thing happened, Rod was at MetLife three nights in a row for Taylor Swift concerts. She was kind of the apple of his eye.

And then, boom, here comes this guy with the mustache, you know, sneaking in and kind of taking his glory. And then, I mean, it's almost like rubbing salt in the wound, too, when he's saying, like, man, I wish you were out here playing. I really wish you were out here playing. So you think Aaron, because there's a lot of people on the internet saying that Aaron is mad at Travis Kelsey. Because, obviously, my home's my auto, that State State Farm, which Aaron was state love for a long time.

You know what I mean? And then obviously, Aaron's the guy who had a 500-page report on why he's not getting vaccinated that we happen to be a part of. And then he became the face of the non-vaxxers program. Oh, yeah. And the anti-vaxxers, and I don't know if it's every vax, but the COVID vax we'll talk about. Sure.

He was getting, the president came out, I think, and said some stuff about it. So Aaron will always have that trenches mentality about the vaccination. And he is going to continue to look into the stats and analytics to justify himself. That is just human nature for Aaron. So whenever he sees Travis also do that, he couldn't wait to get it. I still think Aaron loves Travis. I think he has great appreciation for him. I think that he just appreciated the fact that he can call somebody Mr. Fizer

and then keep it moving because they were laughing on the sidelines. Yeah, I don't think there was any malice with the Mr. Fizer joke, but I think maybe there was a point on the sidelines on Sunday night where he was like, oh, you son of a bitch. Just get out of my face. Kind of felt like that when we asked Aaron yesterday. Absolutely. Oh, geez. So maybe Aaron asked a little bit more. Aaron said we'd probably keep that to ourselves.

I don't know, because Aaron's like a weird dude when it comes to that type of stuff, where he's like, I'm not going to be the one that's going to say what we talked about or whatever, but I don't know why he wouldn't say it. Travis was just telling me. Yeah, exactly. He just said he wanted me to play. Tell me how bummed I was about it. Nice. Whatever, we found ourselves right in the middle of another situation,

which seems to be the case with this particular program. The stats just came out. The ratings just came out for our show. We appreciate you all for watching. Oh, yeah. This show could have been an abysmal failure. We had no idea what was going to happen whenever we came over here to ESPN. I know our people were not happy that we necessarily were coming to ESPN.

They were calling me a sellout. I was getting terrible things said about me, to me, know our people were not happy that we necessarily were coming to ESPN. They were calling me a sellout. I was getting terrible things said about me to me from our people. Okay, these people were telling me terrible things. These people that are our fans were just, I mean, the messages I was getting from people about how much I let them down

and how big of a fraud I am and how big of a sellout I am and everything. All these things were terrible. And I knew in my heart of hearts that we weren't going to change whenever we go to ESPN. Maybe we won't say the F word, okay? That's just because we're going to be good business partners with these people who are about to give us a platform that is massive. That's how you do business together, by the way.

They're giving us creative freedom. Okay, we will respect that, and we will try not to ruin everything for you guys. We won't say the F word. Everything else needs to be fair game, though. They go, cool, let's move along. We did not know what the ESPN people were going to think of us because although we weren't going to change, we thought our people who said they were never going to watch,

never going to listen, hate me forever, I'm the worst type of human, they wasted their time supporting me and our show over the last three years. Okay, all right. We thought there was a chance they would come back. But since we weren't changing, we thought there was We thought there was a chance they would come back. But since we weren't changing, we thought there was also going to be a chance that the ESPN audience, boy, we thought they were going to hate us.

Now, there's still a long way to go, but it does feel as if what we are doing is potentially working a little bit, and we are incredibly grateful for all parties. And I'd like to say to the boys, everybody included, JJ, Aaron, Coach Saban, D-Butt, AQ, everybody in here, thank you boys. It feels like we're doing it.

Absolutely. It really does feel like we're doing it. It really does feel like we're doing it. It's bananas to think about. It is cool to see all those numbers. Who knows? What's real? What is real? I've had to sit in a couple Zoom calls and a couple things as these

numbers are out there and we've always been the show always that has said that's not real yeah that's not real that feels fake oh you're telling me that one in every four humans in the entire planet are listening to your guys's stuff like people the way people cook numbers and everything like that just have been bullshit since the beginning. Always have been. Now, where we come from, strictly YouTube, which we are still live on, and that is our big shout out to our YouTube community. Love YouTube. Shout out to our YouTube community.

There's a scoreboard on there. You know, like, hey, here's how many people are currently watching. Now, I guess there have been people in the past that have cooked those somehow, but water will always find its level. I guess there have been people in the past that have cooked those somehow, but water will always find its level. So if it's not necessarily have a scoreboard on with how many people are watching, we've always wondered what's real, what isn't real. From what we've been told, this all feels real.

What does it mean? We don't know, but everybody seems to be pumped about it, so we're pumped about it. And we thank everybody, honestly. Now we move on and we assume that all these numbers will crash to zero at some point. And when it does, we will sail off into the night and say, it's been a fun run. But I hope what we're doing right now potentially opens some doors for other shows of the future to get a real chance in sports media. Because there was a time where we were battling against, you know, these sports media shows, these program shows. We had no rights to anything.

We had no access to anything. We had no access to anything. We were getting people banned from coming on our show. People did not take us serious. We would try to get a guest who would be a friend of our show. Their agent, their publicist, their whoever team would say, don't go on that show, it's stupid. Now that we're kind of in a level playing ground, it feels like we are...

Got some knockout power. Yeah, but we're not the only ones ones there's a lot more people that are more talented than us i hope that what we have done not only opens the eyes of decision makers who are like hey you can potentially do something that isn't like curing cancer sports coverage and you can have fun with sports and i think potentially we might be a little bit of a gateway to what a future looks like and i am incredibly proud of that, honored about that, appreciative of that. And we would just move on.

And if you hate us, don't say anything. I got enough people telling me they hate me every single day of my life. But we appreciate the hell out of all of you, and we'll continue to do our thing. With that being said, shout out to The Rock. Yeah. Love you, Rock. Thank you, dude.

Shout out to Dwayne Johnson and Aaron Rodgers. Love you, Ross. Thank you, dude. Shout out to Dwayne Johnson and Aaron Rodgers. That Colorado show, I guess, is one of the largest in, like, I don't want to say, like, history for new shows, because, like, back in the day there was only, like, four channels. Sure, true. So, like, it's hard to judge and all that stuff.

In the new era. In the new era. The new book. The way you can phrase these numbers in analytics and stats or anything. But that Colorado show, I guess, is going to be one that is deemed historic. And I would like to say, shout to Moana. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Shout to Terramana. What? Shout out to Prime. What? And those glasses. What? And Aaron Rodgers. What?

Off the painkillers. Yep. Fresh off his thing. Say, yeah, I'm playing next week. It's been a fun first month. Let's continue to grow. And I'm proud of all of you. Honestly, we are a bunch of slappies that should not be doing what we're doing. We're very

appreciative of Jimmy Pitaro, Bob Iger, and the powers that be, Burt Magnus at ESPN for affording us this opportunity. But let's just keep enjoying the hell out of this. And the day we don't, we'll stop. We promise you that. Now, we'll be at Texas State Fair on Friday. Come join us.

That'd be nuts. Hell yeah. I thought we had some guests lined up. Apparently, those have not been confirmed. Might have zero guests in Texas. Okay. But if we're at the State Fair, we'll find some. We've got two million guests. Should be a blast.

All right, let's move into some sports talk, shall we? This weekend, the Buffalo Beals are taking on the Jacksonville Jaguars over there in London town. Two weeks back-to-back where we have 930 football games. This past weekend, Atlanta and Jacksonville. Stunk. Jacksonville jumped off the roof. That was sweet.

Toy Story was cool, whatever was working. The clips were awesome. This week, with the Buffalo Beals being a wagon and the Jacksonville Jaguars maybe finding something last week, we should be able to enjoy our first Sunday football game this upcoming Sunday. Now, with that being said, the governor of New York. What's that? I said, listen up.

I understand that Bill's Mafia likes to booze and 930 a.m. is a tough starting time. Yeah. But we want to let you know. We're directing the state liquor authority to extend the deadline for special permits so sports bars and restaurants can start serving you booze as early as 8 a.m. This is a beautiful thing. This is a government looking out for its people. This is very rare in the modern era. But the fact that the governor, who I assume has a lot of other stuff going on.

I'm not 100% sure, but it just feels like in that world, always having stuff going on. To do a baby face pop like, you know what, you guys want booze while the team's playing overseas? You got it. I love this, Connor. And I can't wait to get the videos of the 8.30 a.m. Bills Mafia doing what the Bills Mafia has always done, which is

show up, show out, and have a great time watching the boys. Yeah, I'm really hoping that they don't decide to take the tables out of all these restaurants and sports bars, because if they do, we're going to miss on some fantastic moments. You mentioned it, Bills Mafia. This is just a massive hat tip to them. I don't know if any other state has ever done this,

but this is just a massive show of respect to Bills Mafia. We get it. You're one of the best fan bases. Governor Hochul? You tell me, buddy. Miss Kathy. That's my president now. I'll tell you that much. I want Miss

Kathy in the Oval Office tomorrow. And if she's not, so be it. It's going to be bullshit. Election season's coming up. Not a bad idea there by... Hokel? Hokel. Kathleen Hockel? Hockel. Hockel.

Kathleen Hockel. Hockel. Hockel. Hockel. 57th governor of New York making it happen. This is not normal, though, for politicians to be humans. No. This feels like a human move.

We appreciate Governor Hockel doing this tone, dude. No, I was... When I saw this come across, I was like, oh, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I didn't know it wasn't normal because when I remember the one time I remember definitely was when TJ Oshie, what, scored eight shootout goals, Team USA versus Russia, and that was like 8 in the morning, and that was awesome. I didn't know that teams didn't do this every time they went to London,

but if they don't, they sure should. Well, the thing about Buffalo is I think they have last call at like 4 a.m. too. Buffalo is one of those, yeah. Yeah, they have bars that open super late too. Yeah, Buffalo is a, hey, come on and have a good time town. I've been up there two times, and those nights really turn into mornings quick, and it's just kind of normal. Like, you know how there's some people that don't go out until like 11 or midnight or whatever,

and they say nothing good happens after midnight? Like in Buffalo, nothing good happens after like 3 a.m. because the bars are open until like 4. Notorious beer-pounding town. And I love that the governor had a good read on it. Good politics right now. A lot going on in politics right now. This is good politics.

I'm with Conor. I vote for her, too. Boom. Shout out, Ms. Conor. Write her in. Hey, Ms. Cathy, maybe a run at the presidency. I love it. I enjoy it.

Let's talk about some news that happened this morning. So let's start with the New England Patriots. Bummer. The New England Patriots. Why is that a bummer? It's fine. It's fine. You're a Patriots fan.

I am a Patriots fan. Eager to watch the Patriots the rest of the season. Oh, man, I am not. But I'm excited to watch football for the rest of the season. Oh, man, I am not. But I'm excited to watch football for the rest of the season. Yeah, Celtics start when? Celtics start in about three weeks. See you in the finals.

That's what I'm already looking at Tatum to save me right now. Yeah, so Patriots fans obviously down on what their team is going to be, especially after what happened this past weekend against Cowboys where they got boat raced by a Cowboys team that was going to come out with a vengeance because of what happened the week before where they got embarrassed and everybody questioned if they were going to be good. I don't think we're all out on the Patriots just yet, but it feels like Patriots fans are out on the Patriots. But a sign of the dynasty still being real, the Patriots let a guy go, he goes and gets paid somewhere else, isn't worth a damn, and then is able to come back on the cheap. That just happened with J.C. to the new england patriots from the los angeles chargers after being a healthy scratch

last week not really doing much throughout his entire tenure and the chargers are paying a bulk of his salary this year so bill belichick gets a great player back in his building that earned a contract elsewhere and doesn't have to pay him this is belichick playing chess that doesn't make you excited a little bit that maybe the dynasty is back? No, I'm glad that Bill still has it. I think a lot of people, especially now, are claiming that Belichick has lost it. He's not the same guy that he was before and this actually proves the opposite of that.

This is to a T. You mentioned dynasty Belichick. This is what he did over and over again. Now, when you look at it from a football perspective, though, you're getting a corner who is he's not fourth string, right? He's fifth string if he's being healthy scratch, and we're down our top four corners. So, absolutely, I'm pumped about the name J.C. Jackson coming back.

But if he's not who he was before after he tore his knee two years ago or last year, then there's still a chance that he takes a step back. I just don't understand the thought of hope when it comes to this football season for New England Patriots fans. I truly don't. I've talked to people who think... Seriously, I've talked to people who think that we're going to beat the Saints this weekend. It's like, who cares? We played...

I think you can call the Cowboys a Super Bowl caliber defense. We played one. We saw what happened. You know that you can't compete with those types of teams. It's only week four. Michael Lombardi had this to say about the J.C. Jackson trade. Chargers are paying the bulk of the remaining $12 million this year and no

guarantees left in the future. Qualifies for the get them out of the building type of trade that I wrote about in Football Done Right. This is what Bill Belichick has done since the beginning. J.C. Jackson, for whatever reason, did not work at the Chargers. I think he had a warrant out for his arrest too what was that like last week yeah he missed a uh a point or a court case trial kind of check-in for probation in massachusetts in massachusetts so maybe it's bill belichick being dog the bounty hunter saying all right i'll get

him back in town so you guys can arrest him but let's assume that the court stuff is kind of all settled no we know bill doesn't operate like that yeah never, never. That is not how Bill Belichick. He'll say, actually, let's go hide you in Connecticut. We'll do practices down there. But what are they getting in J.C. Jackson back? And is he done? Is he done? I wouldn't say he's done, you know, because we saw how good he was in New England.

That's why he got, you know, all that money he got to go out to L.A. But it doesn't always work out when you go and switch. You go to a completely different system and scheme. We saw all the players, the big names that they signed in L.A. just didn't work out for whatever reason. And we kind of talked about it yesterday, why the Patriot way doesn't work a lot of different places. And that's because, you know, these guys aren't head coach in GM.

And this is Bill with his GM hat on getting, you know, a low risk, you know, high reward potentially if he does get back in that system. Because nobody knows him better than Bill. You know, nobody. He was getting the guy getting five, six, seven picks a year. That doesn't just disappear. So I think hopefully we get him back in his form. Let's stay in the AFC West.

Another defensive guy that was signed to come in and hopefully battle against Patrick Mahomes is what the AFC West is trying to do because that is the Chiefs division, obviously. Randy Gregory, out of the Denver Broncos, he has been released. He has signed a $70 million contract out of the Dallas Cowboys to join the Broncos

less than two years ago. Allegedly, he was the one that asked for his release because of the lack of playing time and did not feel like it was a good fit. And Sean Payton said, you know what? You got it. We're going to focus on the young guys anyways. Randy Gregory now back on the market. Is this guy a player?

I guess he wasn't playing that much for Denver. Do we know if he has anything left, and where do you think he ends up at, AQ? So I know he's had some issues injury-wise, but when I was coaching and he had a monster year, which got him paid in Denver, watching him on film, he was so good. So it's there. And I don't know if this is going to happen, but I bet he ends up back in Dallas.

So this is J.C. Jackson ending up back in the New England Patriots after getting a bag elsewhere. Randy Gregory potentially ending up back in Dallas after getting a bag elsewhere. This is not a bad play. Hey, listen, you pay, okay? Yeah, he stinks. All right, come right back. Let's do it again and then earn another deal somewhere else,

potentially business-wise. Randy Gregory will end up pocketing roughly $27.5 million from the Broncos for 10 games of service! Million dollars of pressure! Which equals, yeah, obviously did the math Ferrari there before he could even finish the tweet. But yeah, this is wild to me. And it's all happening on this

particular Wednesday morning. The AFC West is making moves, and I don't think it's something that Patrick Mahomes is certainly upset about, but all their home teams are excited about, I would assume. Yeah, and that one's interesting interesting because I remember when he did sign the deal with the Broncos, I believe earlier in the day maybe or the day before, it was reported that he had signed

a deal with the Cowboys and they had a deal done and then he changed his mind and was going to go to the Broncos. He was definitely somebody that the Cowboys want. I wonder how Jerry's going to feel about it. Bygones be bygones. You did what you had to do. We do what we had to do.

You didn't do anything that you do here, dip, dare, what you do. So you can come on back. Speaking of the AFC West, let's go ahead and complete the rest of the division outside of the Chiefs. Chandler Jones is now out of the Las Vegas Raiders. And all these guys were brought in, okay, to try to stop Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. And for one reason or another, it's just not working out.

The Chargers are the only one that aren't a brand. I mean, I guess Staley kind of knew over there. You think about Sean Payton, new regime. You think about the Raiders, new regime. I guess you think about the Chargers, newer regime. And these three guys don't fit, don't work. Why is that the case, Darius? Obviously three completely different situations,

but we always talk about it breaking that season down into like quarter points. And once these teams get to this point, they say, all right, I'm going to make some decisions either for the Broncos. Hopefully that doesn't mean they're tanking or anything like that. But they said he wasn't getting the play time out there anyway. And didn't they kind of move on from Von Miller? I know he got hurt.

Chubb. Yeah, they were thinking like, hey, go with the younger guys. So this is, I guess, their pattern of behavior. Why don't they just put pads on on Wednesdays? Because that changed. That's going to do it. That's what Mike Tomlin said they were going to do for the Pittsburgh Steelers offense that has been the worst in the history of the NFL almost

at this standpoint. AQ, you were going to finish up something there? Yeah, scheme matters. We talk about this all the time. When you take a guy like Randy Gregory, who's an up-the-field, single-gap guy in a Seattle-style defense that he was playing in down in Dallas, and then you put him in a 3-4 style, now he's stand-up, he's got more responsibility, he has to two-gap, he has to drop into coverage at times. Now it's a completely different animal, and people don't realize that enough. They think we can just plug and play these guys.

Oh, we'll take this D.N. who's had his hand in his dirt the whole time, we'll put him stand-up, now he has to do both things. It's a whole different animal. It doesn't work that way. Yeah, well, Randy Gregory will find this is what I assume will happen. Some team that's going to go on a run to a Super Bowl, and it sucks for these fan bases. Sucks for the Broncos. Sucks for the Chargers. Of course. And the Raiders, I believe Chandler Jones is out. He was FaceTime

with A.B. this morning. They were both taking a dump. I believe it was a dump FaceTime for both. Did you see that? I did not see that. Sounds like a good conversation. Anytime the FaceTime is going straight up and the guys are shirtless, I'm just going from personal experience.

You dumping? Yeah, we're both dumping. Chandler, though, out of jail because he got... Who knows what happens there? But I assume Randy Gregory's going to go have a great season somewhere. Yep. And the Broncos fans are going to be like, and then I assume JC Jackson is going to go back to New England,

get the court thing handled. He'll have four or five picks this year. It just always seems to happen that way. Makes no sense to me. I don't fully comprehend it, but it just feels like that's how these things normally work out. Yeah, and for Randy Gregory especially. I understand he might go back to Dallas, and for Randy Gregory especially, I understand

he might go back to Dallas and he might go to certain places. Why wouldn't you just go to the Chiefs? If it didn't work with the Broncos, why wouldn't you just say, okay, I tried to play against this guy. He's too good. No one's going to beat him. I'm just going to go join him, jump on the defense side. Why not ring chase right now? Dallas would

be a place to potentially ring chase if you had belief in the entire team. Last thing before we dive in. What's that? Is he 30? Yes. Okay, yeah. 30 years old? He has some tread left in the tire.

Hell yeah. Sure. Good hang time, too. The hair looks incredible. Great hair. Last thing before we dive into the General Bob Carpenter top five. Jason Light was on a podcast with Peter Schrager called In Season, and he complimented the hell out of Baker Mayfield and chit-chatted about how baker

mayfield has become the tampa bay buccaneers quarterback and don't look now tampa's the team and the nfc south and jason light said he pretty much knew all along and now as it turns out baker he's a very very smart person um i knew he was smart you know we did our due diligence on him coming out we weren't looking for a quarterback that year but um um knew that he was smart. You know, we did our due diligence on him coming out. We weren't looking for a quarterback that year, but knew that he was smart. I didn't realize just how incredibly smart he is. And he was targeting us, I mean, maybe more than we were targeting him. A little flirtation, if you will. He saw this as an awesome opportunity for him.

You know, and we told him from the beginning that this is going to be a, you're going to be in a competition here because we really like Kyle Trask. As you know Baker, he didn't flinch. He accepted that and he just ran with it. It was a good competition but we saw a lot out of Kyle

that we love to see too. He did a hell of a job for us. But he is such a even as I go around, people go, what's Baker like? Is he a good guy? It's like I don't know where this started that he wasn't a good guy. A parking lot, I think. I mean, I think you could point to a few things that maybe people got the wrong impression of him.

But he's a freaking awesome dude. He is a dude. And the players saw it right away. I mean, whether he's taken the linemen to the Bahamas, you know, on our break during camp before the first, you know, after final cuts. That's awesome. To go golf. Or he's spotted around town at dive bars with a different group,

a position group. That's awesome. Mike Evans, you know, with Godwin, with these guys. spotted around town at dive bars with a different group of position group that's awesome mike evans you know um with a godwin with these guys he he really knows he's not dude it's not fake he really knows how to how to be a dude with the team and and they love it i love it i love hearing this shout out to shrags and shout out to jason light for joining them on that podcast but like sean mcveigh said baker very very smart oh yeah now you got j Baker, very, very smart. Oh, yeah. Now you got Jason Light saying, very, very smart. We never heard that for the whole entire time he was at the Cleveland Browns.

And whatever happened at the Cleveland Browns, we still don't know what happened at Cleveland Browns because he leads the Browns to win a playoff game for the first time in an eternity against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then all of a sudden they want him out of the building. Now we're seeing in Carolina, he was beloved, wasn't playing, but he was head-butting teammates. Now in Los Angeles Rams, McVay's like,

this dude's really smart. However McVay says it, and he's able to operate. He gets down there to Tampa, he's like, I'm willing to compete, I'm willing to do this. Taking the boys to the Bahamas. What are you hearing out of Tampa Bay about Baker Mayfield? Feels like they all love him, and to be honest, how could you not with what we just heard there from Jason?

They do love him. I mean, I got the text from hainsey like whatever a couple days center for the tempe buccaneers yeah that he was going to the bahamas so that's a true story 100 he definitely took him they had a great time played some golf and but here's where he wins it right it's it's the third and sixes and he scrambles for a first down and doesn't slide he takes the hit on the shoulder gets back up his. His shoulder's banged up. You see him on the sideline getting the stuff. But that is huge. Like when you see your quarterback lay it out there and dive for first and things like that, it's awesome.

Yeah, I love Baker Mayfield kind of having a resurgence because I've been a fan of his since Oklahoma. I think we all enjoyed his mocks. We're all very confused about what happened in Cleveland. Then he gets down to Carolina. There's like five different quarterbacks down there. He goes to LA. First week does well. Now he's got Tampa in the driver's seat

of the NFC South. I don't think any of us could have expected that. Congrats to Baker. Playing good football, too. All that other stuff is good and attitude and locker room guy, but if you're playing good football, everybody is going to rock with you. Players, front office, fans, and that's what he's doing out there in Tampa.

He's got his guys rolling right now. You can get away with a lot whenever you're playing great football. But if you're also being a great dude while playing great football, now we've got a chance for real magic. Congrats to everybody in Tampa seemingly getting it right. Joining us now is a guy who gets it right every week. Yep, every week. We have been incredibly pumped about this segment since,

what's the word, the super sophisticated from birth? Conception? Yeah, from conception. As soon as this thing was seed egg. Right, yes. As soon as it was even thought of, we said, need it. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the General Bob Carpenter's Top 5 College Football Program.

General, how you doing on this beautiful Wednesday? I can't wait to hear if there's been any movement in your Top 5 and what you got cooking. Let's get started. Oh, Coach, I love it. It's beautiful out here. We got a little shake-up in the Top 5. Whoa! What?

A couple gimmicks at the end you're going to like. And we're going to start off quickly here with number five. And this is where that shakeup begins. And this isn't due to the fact that Florida State slid out. It's really more the fact that LSU was their best win, and it's looking rougher and rougher. And so we're going to go out west. I thought this would happen. I think the most complete team out on the west coast is going to be the Oregon Ducks.

Oh, wow. What they're able to do. Yeah, Coach, they've got Dan Lanning out there. He's a defensive guy. They've got Bo Nix, who's leading the charge in his 17th year of college football. They're rushing for over 200 yards. And they're one of the few teams that I've seen that is able to play in a multitude of ways. They can beat you running.

They can play with defense. They can air it out. They got everything. Okay, let's talk about them doing what they did to Colorado. And Dan Lanning wanting that pregame speech out, kind of calling his shot in manhandling people. I thought maybe we were going to see Wazoo there. You know, the Pac-12 has an absolute wagon uh of a of a slate of teams over there oregon you think is going to be the one that's going to be able to survive through it all i like washington

i love michael pennix jr they can score the football in a big way the problem that i have with them is they don't play great defense that's their main issue is the fact that they can score but can they get in a running game with you? Can they play defense? Can they stop anyone? They're, to me, just a better version of USC at this moment. Okay, let's call you back. Yeah, Washington seemingly like the Miami Dolphins. Oh, yeah, very much. Penix right now is unconscious.

He's able to put a ball everywhere. Don't look now, though. Those Wazoo birds got the teams flying around out there. I know that the Wazoo birds got the teams flying around out there. I know that the Wazoo fans aren't necessarily the biggest fans of mine. Sure. Because they attacked my guys.

Yep. Who were very good to them for about 20 years. Long time. But through learning why they were so upset about Lee Corso's joke about them, they think their football program is going to be gone after this year. I had no idea that that was an actual fear. That is what they are actually, I think they are very, very worried because Oregon State

and Washington State are the only ones that haven't had a home since, I blame my naivety, is that a word? Yeah, naivete. Naivete, whatever it is. I didn't even think about that being the case. Like, hey, you've got a great football team, your fan base obviously very passionate, I've been seeing that in there. They seem to believe

that there's a chance their football program is going to be like they're not going to exist anymore. Now, is that Lee Corso's fault for making a joke? Is that Game Day who's put the Wazoo flag up there for 20 years fault? Or is that potentially A.D. President Commissioner's fault? Nonetheless, not the fans' fault. So I would like to let

the Washington State fans that I've heard you what you have said i'm sticking up for my guys we'll do that to the day i'm in an actual coffin i thought you guys sounded like ingrates the way you're attacking lee but the only reason they were doing that is because they legitimately think that there's a chance that they don't have a program anymore so i would like to propose this hey oregon state wazoo let's get to the big 12. There has to be some conference that would like these two teams to join them. I didn't even think about thinking about them not existing

anymore, but that's where their fans are right now. That never even crossed my mind, so I would like to apologize for potentially feeding to the narrative that you guys aren't going to exist, but that is not how I view it at all. You've got a good football team, great fan base. 2023, somebody is going to bring you in.

I just didn't appreciate you attacking 88-year-old man, Kirk Herbstreit, and game day that has put your team over forever. So I apologize for that to the Wazoo fans. I viewed it the same way as you because they do have great football teams right now, and they do have great fans. They sell out almost every home game. I heard that about Kyle and Stanford because those are teams that don't have great fan bases right now, don't have great football teams right now,

and those are schools that pride themselves on academics over football for sure. I thought they might, but I never thought that about the state. Me neither. Never even crossed my mind. Where I'm like, wow. I'm just talking to people that were talking shit to my friends, people that I'm very lucky to be a part of and everything like that. And I'm like, these people don't even have any appreciation for what game day has done for this flag.

And ESPN has helped that whenever Wazoo and the flag wasn't there. So then now I'm reading through like the messages that are coming. Very, I mean, they're talking. I appreciate it. I appreciate what they're saying to me. I like a good banter and everything. A lot of rude comments are coming. Very rude. I mean, they're talking. I appreciate it. I appreciate what they're saying to me. I like a good banter and everything. A lot of rude comments. A lot of rude. They're saying I'm rude. I mean, I'm sticking up for my guys. Always going to do

that. But they're at a real point of fearing for that. And it's like, I go back to what I said literally at the beginning of the season. It's like, this is the greatest Pac-12 that it's been in a long time. The fact that their commissioner could not get a deal done, it's in a long time. The fact that their commissioner could not get a deal done, it's ineptitude almost.

I don't know if we're necessarily the people you should be mad at. You should maybe be looking at the suits that are handling the deals. But just know this, Wazoo fans, I would never appreciate you attacking the game day people for everything the game day has done for you. But I will certainly become a person that will campaign for your school and your team to join the Big 12 so that you can come into West Virginia's conference and have just like the Big Beef at Oregon State as well. It feels like football is on a rise.

Great football is on a rise. There has to be a deal done somewhere. And just know that I didn't, my naivety, I apologize for not even thinking that that is something going through their minds, but it is, and I'm the asshole that's helping kill their program. It's like, I want more football. I don't want less football. Football is

good for the world, so I do apologize for that. Well, and you know, I can understand the passion. You gotta respect that. You want your football team to be good, but there's an old saying, what goes around comes around. So if you want to act like an asshat and tweet things at people and be mean, guess what? That's not going to help your karma. You need to go out there,

appreciate the football team, appreciate the people who are talking about college football, not just game day, I mean across the board in general. And the more grateful you are, typically good things kind of come back to you because you appreciate it. They're scared to death though. I did not know that. I had no idea that that was even a real thing.

And I'm on game day, I guess no idea that that was even a real thing. And I'm on game day. I guess I should know that. But I don't. I just, as a person who I like to say this a lot, but it's real. I've negotiated hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts. Whenever you have something

that people are spending money on, I just assumed they'll find a home. Like this will, with how good their team is and their fan, this will happen. They don't look at it that way. And I don't think you should. I think you need to look at your president and your athletic director and say, hey, what do we, how have we not got a deal done for the future almost? And then they blame ESPN for not getting a deal done. It's like, that ain't how this goes.

That's literally what these humans are supposed to do. So, once again, to the wazoo, folks. Call it ignorance, and you can't plead ignorance in court or anything like that. I didn't even think about that. But they love their football, and their teams are currently the last two standing in a conference that is having its best year right now. Let's get back to the General, shall we? The General is here.

I think Oregon, I agree with what they did to Colorado. It was impressive. I like that they called their shot. They also have a very mature team. I think their defense is going to be able to do their thing, but it is a gauntlet over there in the Pac-12. If they're able to survive, I can't wait to see what they're able to do in the college football playoff.

Go ahead, General. Great to have you back. Well, thank you, thank you. And Oregon on a bye next week, but then after that, Pat, you'll get to start to see some of those great matchups. They got Washington in two weeks. So we'll find out who I think is the king of the Pac-12. And by the way, on Washington State, I think they're the third best team right now. And they have a chance to move up as they continue to win.

General, general, general. Yeah. You follow college football all day, every day. You have a talk show in Columbus, Ohio, which is if you look at the ratings for all those college football shows, like Columbus is like 70% of Columbus is watching college game day because of how much they love college football. I'm an idiot for not even thinking about Washington State fans,

thinking their program is just going to get kind of disappeared because they haven't been able to sign a deal yet. Did we all know this? I don't think I knew this. I don't know if it was going to get kind of disappeared because they haven't been able to sign a deal yet did we all know this i don't think i knew this i don't know if it was going to disappear but they're looking at maybe pat like think about you've been playing division 1a football fbs for a long time in the pac-12 all of a sudden you're looking maybe join the mountain west or is it that important do you have a place to fit because if you don't have anywhere to go and there's no one feeding your program like you eventually start to die and you know you've kind of felt that your west virginia was trying to find a home they slid

into big 12 so it was all well and good but we've seen some of these programs that are kind of worried and they're sitting there thinking what do i do and i can understand why their fans there's a little bit of trepidation there yeah me too honestly i didn't even think about that i just assumed it'll get figured out but apparently they don't believe that's the case. And I guess if it hasn't thus far, we need to figure – get them to the Big 12. Why not add them two more teams to the Big 12, especially with how good they are right now? Or the Big 10. Like they're already grabbing these teams, and you've got like Rutgers out there.

It's like, hey, guess what? Washington State would beat Rutgers by 75 points. Or I guess so too. Yeah, exactly. It's like it just – that part makes no sense. You would imagine that one of these conferences would be able to find a couple slots. But Brock Huard sent me a

tweet. Ryan Leaf sent me a text. Johnny Hecker hit me up. All these people that I know have sent me and been like, yo, this is why people are feeling this way towards you. And I'm like, I apologize. Ryan Leaf's really concerned. You've got to think, man. Ryan Leaf was a great college player. your school where you went to Pat no longer having football after

having such a proud tradition so I understand the anxiety but I didn't even think that that was even feasible in 2023 with how hot football is as a whole college football is and how good their team is but I guess that's the reality of the situation. So I will always stick up for my people, always. Sorry about it. Okay, sue me. Don't actually. Speaking of, Brett has got to. Oh, yeah.

He's going to have to. It's going to get loud. Anyways, nonetheless, let's get to number four, General Bob Carpenter. I appreciate the hell out of you. All right, they've slid down a little bit. I still think they're really good, but when you give up 200 yards rushing for the first time since 2018 the georgia bulldogs have got to slide down my right whoa whoa whoa i get it still undefeated they're still really good

carson beck their quarterback i think is starting to come of age but brock bowers had to basically bail them out against auburn you were waiting for them to pull away the whole time and they really didn't not to say they can't climb up but right now I'm trying to figure out in the SEC who's really good because I know a lot of these teams struggle in the non-conference. And Pat, we just took for granted for so long that the SEC is always the best conference. I think the Pac-12 is better this year, and I think the top end of the Big Ten is better as well. So Georgia, they're going to have to start stacking some wins against quality opponents. Desmond Howard said on Saturday, he said, I think there's like three teams that I would take out of the Pac-12

over any team in the SEC right now. And I said to him, well, Georgia's still Georgia. And as it came out of my mouth, I was like, are they though? I just assumed that they are. I think that's kind of what we all just assumed, to your point, because this, what, decade and a half? Since the college football playoff has started and become a thing it's like hey clemson had their run but this is an sec show

this is an sec thing and now it feels like with the nil okay and everybody talks about the nil is only going to help the the good teams and the rich get richer with this whole thing feels like it is becoming a much more diverse parody of college football and i think we're going to see more of that now that this matters in the end scheme of getting to a national championship but they are oh and five against the spread so that also puts a sour uh taste in people's mouths that they have not performed how they people would think they would yeah when you put georgia at four there i saw a face of a man who's lost a lot of money betting on the bulldogs who's numbericks. Who's number three, General?

All right, number three, we're going with the Michigan Wolverines. They're standing pat. They've been playing good football. Jim Harbaugh's been back. J.J. McCarthy's looked pretty good. They're running games, still rolling up over 200, 250 yards each week.

The defense is playing well. I liken them a lot to Oregon, where I think they're an ultra-complete team right now with what they've been able to do. And they're a hungry squad because they've gotten into the CFP, but they haven't performed the way they want. So you can taste that they're trying to go hunt that national championship. Yes.

Quietly here, this Michigan team. Yeah, they're good. Quietly, you know, and I say quietly for as quiet as you can possibly be. The conversation was Harbaugh suspended because he had a cheeseburger. Of course. Right? How stupid is the NCAA? Can't do that.

How is this a thing? And it was like, well, it was a self-imposed penalty. It's like, well, the NCAA should have said, don't worry about it. Yeah. Just give us like 25 bucks, and then we will move on. In this NIL world, they run the rock. Yeah. They stop the run.

Boy, D, take care of business. They're old school. Feels like they got chips on their shoulders because nobody's talking about it. It's like, this might be the year that Michigan does it again, and now will they be able to make the big run? I guess that's the only question mark we have about the Michigan team general.

And you know that Jim Harbaugh is going to celebrate by drinking a giant glass of milk. I mean, that dude, if there's anybody that drinks a gallon of milk a day, it is definitely Jim Harbaugh. I would dump my pants. Oh, my God. He's drinking whole milk, too.'s anybody that drinks a gallon of milk a day, it is definitely Jim Harbaugh. I would dump my pants. Oh, my God. He's drinking whole milk, too. I love that.

He plays no games. Love that guy. I thought we talked about that last week, dude. You dump in the shower, not in your pants. That's the director. Hey, I almost dumped on game day when I was puking. I had those khaki pants on. It was almost attic and basement in that Duke Divinity building.

What a time that would have been. I had nightmares flashing through my brain. Congratulations to the Michigan team, though, being all the way back. Who do you got at two? Big Bob. Number two, I think the team that's been the most explosive all year. You'll find these old BCS metrics when they'll

try to still show the computer rankings of where they'd have teams ranked. And Texas is sitting right up there at the top. But the guy that I'm really impressed with they're running back Jonathan Brooks man against Kansas he was rolling up yards over 200 on the ground they've really played some good football they have a win over Bama they beat a ranked Texas squad they've done some good things and then this week we will find out everything we need to know about the Big 12 as you see Red River coming to town.

Yeah, and Dylan Gabriel and Oklahoma are all the way back. What they were last year, obviously, people wondered, is Oklahoma going to be able to do this? Is Venables going to be able to do this? This year, this weekend, it's the first time since 2009, I think, where both of them have been all the way back. I'm excited to see it. Now, if you look at Quinn Ewer's stats and the breakdown,

they're talking about him being an NFL guy. Nobody's really chatted about Quinn Ewers being the third guy being drafted. Caleb Williams, Drake May, who's number three? Michael Penix Jr. potentially because of his accuracy and everybody's seen what's happened with Tua. And offense will be very efficient with him. Bo Nix, who's doing his thing in Oregon, could potentially do it. Shador Sanders, his dad's Deion.

Mentor Tom Brady. I know that doesn't mean much for a casual fan, but general managers, whenever they know that it's a generational player, legacy player, knows what it takes, and the people that are going to be talking to him in his ear have the right stuff to chat about. Nobody's talking about Quinn Ewers potentially being the NFL guy. I guess a lot of people that have dove deep into the stats are like,

Quinn this year, you start looking at it, you see a guy that probably could play on Sunday, and also a guy who's matured, it feels like, can lead a program to the top. Congrats to Sark and the boys down there in Texas. Yeah, and one of the big storylines before we did the field pass game at Alabama was like, hey, Quinn Ewers, he's got the most to make financially from this game or lose. It's like, hey, if they get pounded by Alabama,

he's probably going to have to come back to school next year and run it back. But if they win and look good doing so, which they did, it's like we're going to start talking about this guy being a top ten pick in the NFL draft. Hey, how about Sark? How about Sark going to win in Texas? They said it was going to be impossible down there

because there's numerous people in charge. It's tough with the amount of money and counselor. I don't know if it's counselor, chancellor. Yeah. They have a committee. Border regions. Border regions. There it is. There's like a bunch of people who have their say. And if you don't do well, they're like, bye-bye. Out.

And if you look at the record of Texas for like the last decade and a half, like not that good. And it's like, well, maybe that's because it's impossible to win there. Sark's been able to figure it out. Quinn comes back, does his thing. Tight end got hurt last week, though. Sanders, I believe, is his name? Yeah, he's day-to-day.

He got hurt, which is not good. He's their number one receiver. But you talk about A.D. Mitchell and Xavier Worthy, they got all the pieces. And on defense, they got size. So that's a team that can hunt for sure. Who's the number one team, General? Who is it?

Oh, they got some dogs up front for sure, Texas. But the number one team coming off a bye, taking on the Maryland Terrapins this weekend, is the Ohio State Buckeyes. Kyle McCord locked in, feeling good. Marvin Harrison coming back. The running game's starting to be impressive. And they're going to be tested by a Maryland team that has the best pass offense with Tulea Tungavailoa, Tua's younger brother. He's been slinging it for.350 about every game. So the secondary for Ohio

State will be tested. It'll be a nice opportunity for them this week at noon to see what they can get done in the horseshoe. I was talking at Reece Davis because he lost his voice, and Reece Davis responded a couple different times. I think if you look at that Maryland schedule, who they've played, this is a big test for them versus the teams that they've played and had success against, which is, hey, that's not their problem. They're not the ones putting the schedule together. But this is going to be a massive are we or are we not for Maryland. And for Ohio State, we go back to that Notre Dame game, okay,

and I don't want to be the bearer of negativity, but if O'Cuz catches that pick, Kyle McCord can't do it. Ryan Day can't do it. You know what I mean? Like it's amazing how these narratives kind of change. It's real. Because I'm all in on Kyle McCord. I love the moxie.

I loved him walking down the field whenever he had to do it. I liked Ryan Day getting pissed. I like him kind of following up with it again yesterday in his press conference. But I'm at one pick, whole different story. College football is beautiful, General. It is. And you'd rather be lucky than good sometimes in college football. You need some bounces.

You look at all the teams we're talking about. Georgia's gotten some bounces so far. Texas has got a couple breaks here and there. You have to have those to win a national championship, and that's all part part of it i got a couple gimmicks here for you pat one that you're gonna love i was down on my guy lane got beat up by alabama but the visor king returns look at my man right there the night king rising up old miss getting it done if you look at what they're able to do over lsu, 55-49. Jackson throwing darts, slinging it all over the place

right when you're ready to bury him. He just rises right up out of the ashes. Jackson dart throwing darts. I respect that. He was leading them in rushing and throwing. Yeah, he was. Hell of a football player. Great moxie too. You see the video of him celebrating afterwards. He's got his ass. Love what they got cooking. Who else? What other gimmicks we got there, General?

Alright, Coach. We've got the Crocodile Hunter. If you go look at the history of Florida versus Kentucky, Kentucky has been washed in this. But my guy, Mark Stoops, I know they're not crocodiles and they're alligators, but it's been

all the way back to 51. That's 1951 since Kentucky won three in this. Florida had won 31 straight since 87 to 17. And Mark Stoops has won four of the last six in three in a row. Kentucky might be coming to football school, Coach. Yeah, I think so. And Stoops from Youngstown, Ohio.

Ohio guy. I believe Paisano is well in there. Might be a little bit of a day walker with his name. I got a chance to chat with him at game day. Love his style. Love the toughness that he prides himself in his football team. Last one here. Coach?

Absolutely. Listen, they got Kentucky and Georgia this week, so that's going to be a nice one for everybody to ultimately see. And my last one, Pat, sometimes I got to tip a cap to a guy who just goes out there and plays injured. My Andy Bernard boot and rally player of the week, that's got to be yours truly, Mr. Pat McAfee. Growing up on the side, he's almost crapping his pants.

He's doing everything he can to stay out on the desk. Kudos to you, good sir. Hey, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was not, it was, that was certainly a memorable Saturday. Yeah. You know, I will say,

swallowing puke, scared that I'm going to poop myself. And I will say, I'm making the declaration. I'm never eating apples again. Smart. All right. That's what it is. I think it's just all apples. Good move.

The fruit's got me. I don't know what it was. A little bit of a bacteria probably in something. If it was a 10-week-old apple. Ah, dude. That 3.30 a.m. wake-up call in my room was code red. Code red. Almost all over the place.

And then I thought I was clear, and I only packed a certain amount of clothes. Only had khakis. What a nightmare. I appreciate the tip of the cap from you. You're the man. Ladies and gentlemen, the General Bob Carpenter. General! I absolutely love that.

So fun, everyone. And I don't know if everybody is starting to use that. I think people are still like the AP poll or something. I think they're still using that. Come on, fools. We need to get the General's poll as the poll. You know what I mean? People need to start referring, you know, the General had Texas to do.

That's a big jump, especially going into Red River rivalry for the general. This Texas team's legit, though. I haven't been to college football playoff. I said that this past weekend. Real deal. They are built to go on a run. They are, and it was awesome. He brought up the old BCS poll.

The old BCS poll has Miami as number one right now. That would be hilarious. Georgia's 17, I believe. I like Miami at one. I still got a couple question marks about old Quinn Ewers out in Texas. Okay. Well, we're going to find out. Yeah, we are.

We're going to find out this weekend. Venables, he shows he does a lot. His defense does a lot. So I'm excited to see how Quinn handles it. Join us now. Speaking of dump truck, this guy's head is that. He's the all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers, a Super Bowl champion, a college football national champion,

a man who's the current president of Ohio, father of 10. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hall. Hey, A.J. A.J., how you doing on this glorious Wednesday, pal? Doing great. You look good in those golf pants, man. Those things look pretty comfortable. Yeah, they are.

You know, these are like. Are those capris? No, they're full length. Yeah, just, you know, the calves. You know, these are like... Are those capris? No, they're full length. Yeah, just, you know, the calves. You know what I'm saying? People don't understand, but those who do, do. It's not easy to wear the joggers, but they told me I wear this, I'll get better at golf.

I hope so, because I am absolute crop. Let's talk about some people that aren't crop. Have you heard about the moves made this morning? J.C. Jackson has been traded from the Chargers over to the New England Patriots. Back where he was a dominant corner, he leaves L.A. Bill Belichick gets one of his guys back. What are your thoughts on that move this morning, A.J.?

Well, when I heard that the Chargers are picking up the majority of his contract, right? Like, what does he have, $12 million left? Yeah, so this is Bill Belichick's move. Like, hey, the Giants, you're paying for Joe Judge to coach because you fired? Sweet. He'll be our offense coordinator. Hey, Lions, you're paying for Matt Patricia? Okay, sweet.

He'll be our assistant offense coordinator. Hey, Chargers, you're paying for J.C. Jackson? Sweet. We'll bring him right back in there. This is how Bill has kind of operated. It does make sense, but why doesn't everybody do it? Why doesn't everybody do this? Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, the Patriots have that, whatever that lure they have, whatever it is where people can go back and, yeah, they may have gone off, got paid by somebody else. Hey, yeah, you'll be back eventually, and you're going to play some of your best football when you come back to us as well. That's what they seem to have, some kind of crazy ability that other teams just don't have.

Who are some of the guys that have done this in the past that have left, got the bag, and came back to New England? Jamie Collins. Jamie Collins. You've been there a few times. Kyle Van Nooy. He got a bag, and then he left and then came back after the Flores-Miami debacle.

Trey Flowers. Trey Flowers. He's another guy. Yeah, Patrick Chung, of course. He had two. I think he had two or three stints. The Jamie Collins situation is my favorite one, though. Not only because I saw Jamie Collins jump over a long snapper

while we were doing an extra point. It was one of the most scared I've ever been in my entire life watching him fly through the air. But allegedly, he wanted a new deal whenever he was at New England, and he walks into the team meeting and goes, we getting paid here or not? Next day. That's funny.

You're getting traded to Cleveland. Cleveland does pay him. Doesn't pan out. He ends up back in New England. Would love to be there where Bill goes, well, well, well. We are getting paid. Not from me, though. I told you that from the very beginning.

Somehow, Bill's always able to thread the needle on this. Another player that went and got paid somewhere else, potentially going back home. Randy Gregory in the AFC West continues to make moves. The Denver Broncos, they release him straight up. Allegedly, he asked for his release yesterday, and Sean Payton said, sweet, we're working on younger guys anyways. We don't want to spend the money on you. He is now hitting the

open market, this guy. Four weeks into the season, Randy Gregory can basically pick wherever he wants to go, made $27 million, played 10 games, had 27 pressures, million dollars per pressure. Hell of a business move. Now he's on the road again. Where do you think he ends up, and what are your thoughts on this move for the Denver Broncos and for Randy Gregory? I mean, Randy Gregory, is he healthy right now? Like, where is he at health-wise?

I think so, yeah. JC Jackson, healthy scratch last week. Healthy, ready to go. He's been playing 50% of the snaps, so I assume he's healthy. I looked it up earlier. Man, with Gregory, though, I would sign him him wherever anyone needs any kind of outside presence any kind of rusher you would you would think they'd be looking at him big time and i mean i think he's going to get some cash too like he should get paid decently well i think uh what i'll be excited to

see what offsets what like yeah that number that he has to stay below yeah the next team could potentially try to do a bill belichick thing here where you, yeah. Where, you know, because he was released. It's not a trade. It was a release. He had to go to a good team, right? You'd assume he's going somewhere that's one of the handful of teams that can go chase a ring. Yeah, that's what I would be doing if I'm Randy Gregory,

but I'm not Randy Gregory, very clearly. He's just rushing the passer. Like AQ said earlier, you don't want to be in a situation like, you know, Mathis was when Chuck first came over. Now you go from a four down and rushing off the edge to sometimes you got to drop in coverage you see watt do it tj watt do it out there in pittsburgh sometimes like nah put me on left or right side let me get out there quarterback so robert mathis actually figured it out a little bit dwight freeney though did not dwight freeney was like nah it's too late it was awesome dwight freeney's like what are we doing

hand down you don't want Dwight standing up. He puts his hand to the ground. Like, he has an iconic three-point stance on the edge that you see Dwight. Like, you don't want him standing up dropping. Yeah, and Chuck and he, I would love to know the conversation whenever he told him, like, say this is what we're thinking. Whenever this guy, whenever you're on strong side, you're going to have to drop back and you're going to have to cover the flat.

You're going to have to do your thing. And Freeney, no. I spin move, power, quarterback. Yeah. And Robert Mathis is like, whatever you need from me, obviously I'll do. And Franny was like, I'll try it. And then a couple OTAs happened. He's standing out there.

Who am I? And then he would only play third downs. He was making $17 million. And he would only go out there for third downs. The rest of the plays, he would just be standing on the sideline with us, clapping like, this guy Hall of Fame status, all right, not in Hall of Fame yet.

Hey, Mike Chappell, okay? Mike Chappell is the guy that is in there pitching for players for the Colts, has been for a long time. Get your shit together. That's ridiculous. The fact that Freeney's not in the Hall of Fame, figure it out.

Reggie Wayne, figure it out. There's a long list of guys from that great generation of Colts that haven't been in there and all eyes are on you chap okay and I like chap now you don't know what he's talking about when it comes to punting and stuff like that but I like him Franey needs to be in the hall of fame not only because of what he did on the field but also as a teammate that particular year I think it showcased what type of human he is because he could have been very very salty about not doing exactly what he did for his entire career, which is I'm going to line up. Robert Mazz is going to be over there, and we're going to terrorize the quarterback.

Instead, he was only on the field, I think, like 12 times a game, 13 times a game. And Ursae wasn't going to let Chuck cut him, you know, like, no. Brother, this is a cult here. And then he would go on to have an incredible career in L.A., in Atlanta, and continue to do his thing. Arizona. Arizona, he would still do his thing. So sometimes those defensive schematic changes work out, and sometimes they do not. And Randy Gregory seemingly in Denver did not work out.

Absolutely not. But at 30 years old, that's a ton of tread left on the tire. Hopefully he goes to a contender. We see him late in the season in the playoffs making plays. Joining us now is a man who's going to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. A man who is now in the Houston Texans Ring of Honor. Ladies and gentlemen, J.J.

Hey, congrats to your Burnley team getting the first Premier League win yesterday. Thank you. Who'd we play? Pat, I'm fired up. I'm fired up today. How come? A lot of reasons, but you just hit me on one. Freeney, Hall of Fame. Reggie Wayne, Hall of Fame.

Andre Johnson, Hall of Fame. Shane Leckler, Hall of Fame. Easy as that. Put those four in. Bingo. I don't even know what we're voting for. We just voted. All in favor of those four going in, say aye.

Aye. Easy. You're welcome. Also fired up your ratings. I mean, it was fucking tough James! You son of a bitch, James! You win one game in the Premier League against London Town

Of all people Take him out of the Ring of Honor! Yep, no Hall of Fame Take him out of the Ring of Honor now, Houston! Update it I'm sorry Wow Anyways, the ratings through the roof yeah

hello yes yeah well now you're trying to yeah too late now you're trying to you know what i mean jake we have to before we go any further please we have to update the marquee this is just how this goes there it is jj hope you're happy hope you're pumped up hey those ratings are awesome let me drop an fcc fine in here thank you j JJ. Honestly though. We appreciate the hell your massive pieces Yeah, I mean I was disgusting. Let's not make a habit out of what you just did right there No, it was we do appreciate mostly I'm fired up because I'm in I'm in New York City and I had to go lift in a gym and a guy took My rack. I was pretty pissed about what you did do you start adding weight on there and say oh is

that right okay you want to well i i had three options i could uh one do nothing and move on i could two politely say excuse me that was my rack and three i could absolutely lose my mind and just go pure alpha gorilla on him uh and i'm getting soft i've realized i'm getting soft i retired i went option one i just, people are looking at me. People know I'm here. I'm going to just move on and go to a different one. I do not like my decision. I do not like it at all.

No, this is good. Good. This is good. I feel bad. I feel bad and just I don't feel good. So the guy that took your rack knew who you were, you think, or no? Well, he had just walked in. So I don't think he knew I was doing two things at once,

which you can say that's good or bad, whatever. But he walked straight into this machine and started using it. And I was like, I was just looking out of the side of my eye like, is anybody going to say that I'm a machine? And nobody came to my defense. So I was like, all right, let's move on. What machine? Legs?

No, we were near the end. We were near the end. We were doing some pull-downs. We were doing some pull-downs. Just getting the back, hitting the back, the lats. And now that you mention it, you do look small, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. He changed.

He looks smaller. Is that a medium shirt? Oh, my God. Because we saw that jacket. Oh, it's a small. Hey, it looks good. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. Love everything about it.

That jacket they gave you, the red one, congratulations, buddy. Hell, yeah. What was that like? Was it emotional for you? Honestly, you get back into Houston. You are the conversation of the entire city of Houston again, and you obviously wanted to play for the Cardinals. I've done a lot of things post your

Texans career getting back in there being the bell of the ball was it overwhelming was it awesome how would you describe the weekend back in Houston? It was incredible it was incredible to have my entire family there to have my son there you know to be able to spend it with everybody Saturday night we had a private dinner the Texans did it first class the entire way. I mean, they brought everybody in. They set up a private dinner for just my family and I on Saturday night. They brought all the legends back in to be there for it. Every single thing was done first class the whole way. And it really, really was special. That's my first time being back in that stadium in over two years. So it just felt really good to be around Houston Texans fans. And it was very, very special. I appreciate it very much. Well, congratulations.

You've definitely earned it and deserved it. And they asked me to cut a video for it all. And my only thoughts were like, it makes sense that your name is going to be on that stadium forever. Because every time I was in that stadium because of you, it was the most electrifying stadium I'd been in. I know people say Seattle's the loudest stadium. I didn't get a chance to play there. The loudest stadium that I'd ever played in was Houston. And it had seven different names. But every single time we played down there, it was for the division pretty much.

It was prime time. And you seemingly would have a massive game. Only time all year where my eardrums would hurt after the game never got talked about much as how great the home field advantage was for houston and i think it's all because of you so you've earned it you deserve it and i appreciate the fact that you tried to get everybody's hand even though you only had one what a moment that had to be for you that was tough yeah that was tough a lot of legends a lot of great players there and i was trying hard we did rehearsal the day before and i didn't have

ko with me so there was no problem i got out there and they opened up those doors and i was like oh what am i gonna do here oh no and then there's kids at the end imagine if you don't high five the kids at the end oh no no the kids i. The kids, I was like, I got to leave these guys hanging. I'm sorry, bud. Through my head, like, you know NFL halftime. It is 12 minutes on the dot. Like, they will not mess around with that 12 minutes. So the lady had already told me, like, keep your speech to two minutes.

Do not go over two. And I was like, all right, I don't know. What do you think I have in my head? Like, I don't have a clock. So, and then the handshake thing happened, and I was like's gonna take half hour this i'm screwed and it uh it was great but i do want to say you've always been incredible to me throughout my whole career you i always remember the like the top 100 thing when you spoke and had great words to say so i'm very very appreciative all all my career to you and everything that you've done. So thank you, sir. Go to hell. All right, let's move along.

Let's dive in. You've earned it. We're proud of you. We can't wait for the Hall of Fame celebration. What was your speech? Houston, it's an honor to go into the ring of honor. It is hard to speak to 75,000 people. And it's impossible.

You want to say heartfelt stuff and you know that they can't hear you. Then they start chanting and I'm just like, all right, this is, I'm just going to say I love you and let's get the hell out of here. So I go out there for WrestleMania this year in L.A. And I haven't spoken at a stadium in my life, I don't think. And I start talking. I'm like, what's up, Snoop? And then I hear, oh, no.

I got a lot to say. I started talking slower. I'm like, well, that ain't the right answer. This whole thing, I'm happy you battled through it. I'm happy you're in there. It was a great weekend. Let's talk about that game. I thought there was a chance that because it was your mom's birthday,

because happy birthday, Mom-a-Wot. what hi birthday you were going into the ring of honor i thought tj was maybe going to feel the juice of that i thought maybe this was going to work against the houston texans instead that was not the case at all what did you see from the houston texans live on the field that make you say hey this is a different team than what it's been for maybe like the last five to ten years jj i mean they did an incredible job, but it all starts with the quarterback. CJ Stroud is playing unbelievable football right now. I mean, he's literally having one of the best starts in history for a rookie quarterback. I mean, he's not thrown interception yet. He's playing lights out. And the offensive coordinator is doing a great job of keeping

everything simple and keeping the scheme safe to put him in position for success. And you got to remember, he's doing all this with a second slash third string offensive line. He hasn't made any excuses. He hasn't complained. He's just gone out there and balled. So anybody that wants to make excuses on other teams for, you know, oh, well, we got these injuries. We got that injuries. CJ is standing back there doing it with a backup offensive line and doing it well. This is a perfect example of what CJ can do for you right here. This play, TJ wins off the edge. It's a play action.

He wins immediately. He's right up in CJ's face. All CJ does is sidestep out of it, and he uses his legs to get some space, finds an open guy, and fires it downfield. I mean, the composure that he has in that pocket and the way that he's leading these guys, it has to give you incredible excitement if you're a Houston Texans fan. And I mean, between him, D'Amico, Will Anderson, these guys, they got to, I mean, they really have something special brewing. How is Will? We haven't talked about Will one time. I don't think

everything's been about CJ Stroud. How's he doing? How's he appreciated in the building? Will's good. Will's good. I love talking to Will. to will he loves ball i mean when you talk to that guy you can just tell he's dying to learn about the game he wants to get better he wants to improve and also he's a physical freak and when you put those two things together you got a recipe for real success good aj tj what do you think when uh sorry jj wow i mean what is this i call myself a bit now it is is. I think you can get it. No, maybe it will. It might turn into one. It might turn into one, JJ.

But TJ's coach, Mike Tomlin, TJ's coach, Mike Tomlin, said they're going to have more padded practice. They're going to start banging a little bit more in season. Do you think they're excited? And have you ever had a coach kind of publicly let you guys know, hey, this week's practice is going to be pretty fun? I personally was a guy that liked that because I think that you have to find some way, whether it's working harder, whether it's making changes, whatever it is,

you have to do something. And I believe that you have to let people know this is unacceptable. And if that's saying, hey, we're going to have a tough week, and if you don't want it to be this tough fix it figure it out um but the one thing i'll say is mike tomlin has never had a losing season his entire career so if there's one person i trust to like i'm gonna give that guy time to figure it out it's mike tomlin he's pretty damn good coach see what you just said there is what a lot of people in pittsburgh have been saying for a long time this year seems different because he's been standing by Coach Canada.

We're not going to put you in a position because obviously you're literally with TJ just a couple days ago. But there does come a time where some defensive side of the ball players, I'm not saying TJ would, that they see the offense just struggling and struggling and struggling. It's hard not to get just defeated by that, right? Especially if you have a great defense. Yeah, and one thing that I'll say, I mean, obviously I was in that stadium.

I was watching that game. I could feel the momentum. I could feel everything with the game. And this is something that not just with the Steelers, but with a bunch of teams that just gets at me, man. Fourth and one, you go in the shotgun. And, like, I just, oh, my gosh. Now I get it.

We can show the Giants play where they put the offensive lineman back there to push and they still didn't get it. But, man, I would go with that a thousand times, then going out of the shotgun and trying to throw the ball. Like, I'm fourth and one. I was in that stadium, and you just knew at that moment. You were like, oh, I mean, this is over. Like, that was your fourth and one play?

This is crazy. Yeah, Ben Roethlisberger said, I see him jog out there, and I go, oh, they're trying to draw him off sides. Going in shotgun, they're going to try to draw him off sides, and then they see it get snapped, and Ben's like, how is this what we came up with? Especially at that point when Najee, I assume as a defense lineman or even as a secondary, you see the guy in shotgun,

it's like, hey, earmuffs here, obviously. They're not actually going to do this. And then when they do, excitement, I would assume, out of your eyes. Yeah. And, I mean, that was, I would assume, out of your eyes. Yeah. And, I mean, that was one of the best games Najee's played. I mean, he had a very good game. He's one of the only guys out there that had a great game.

And give him the ball or sneak it or something. I mean, not only did you drop back to pass, not only did you take a long time to drop back to pass, you also got your quarterback hurt. Like, it was the culmination of just a bunch of crap together and it was just not good did your mom have the split watt jersey on what was the costume for the watt family no but it was the box was a weird place because i mean i'm obviously a texan i'm being honored by the texans we're all excited for everything with the texans yet we have blood on the steelers and like we are going to see my brother after the game, and we are going to have a conversation.

So, like, a big play would happen on either side, and we knew the cameras might come to us any time, so we're like, I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't want to disrespect Houston because this is very nice. I mean, this whole place, putting my name up there. But also, brother and I worked on that. We're happy.

Let's talk about another guy who tied your brother in one game. Khalil Mack had six sacks in one game out of nowhere. At some point, you would think they'd be able to stop him. He's an OG now. At pass rushing, obviously, he's had a lot of records. What did you see from him this weekend that makes you believe he's still got a lot of juice in the tank? Man, let's go through them all real quick.

One, nice T.E. game. Right up the gut. Khalil Mack, easy right out of the gate. Number two, right around the edge. Push, push, push. Doesn't even have to tackle him. A forced fumble sack is the best because he didn't even have to do anything. He just got the ball out.

Number three, that's just the T.F.L. Nice play. Nice T.F.L. there for Khalil. Number four, doesn't count't count a sack but this one does strip sack i mean strip sacks are the greatest feeling on the planet number four coming up if i can count correctly just run right by him why don't you just run right past him i mean number four i'm this just getting pummeled back there not fair number five i think this is my favorite one but yeah he chips the chipper 65 miles out of the screen,

comes flying back in and gets a sack. Don't worry, we don't need to see the end of it. And then that was just, I don't know. Pressure. Yeah, number six, boom. Just go ahead. Just go ahead. Don't even have to bring him down.

Dude, six sacks in a game. We talk about TJ had six sacks in his first three games, and we were talking to each other like, dude, six sacks in three games. That's a hell of a run. Six sacks in his first three games, and we were talking to each other like, dude, six sacks in three games. That's a hell of a run. Six sacks in one game? I had to check my phone three times and be like, is this correct? What a run. How many have you had in a game?

What's the most you've had? Three, I think, yeah. Oh, half. This guy's sorry. Hey, McNair, take that red jacket back. This guy only got three in one. I just saw Khalil do six. What a joke.

Let alone some other players. If I got four in a game, I'd probably leave the stadium. That is good. I'm the best player in the history of football. I want to talk about, let's stay in the AFC West there, and congrats to Khalil Mack doing his thing. Randy Gregory was just released from the Denver Broncos. He has 27 total pressures for the Broncos.

He earned $27.5 million, played in 10 games. Sean Payton said they're focusing on the future. Whenever something like this happens where they change schemes, and Randy Gregory, what he's able to do in Dallas, he wasn't able to do in Denver, what do you see from him, and how do you think he responds on his next team? Yeah, I mean, I think it's clearly something there where it's just a separation of either ideologies or philosophies or the way he fits, and they're ready to move on.

And now it's a chance for him to go somewhere else and do something. I mean, I know he signed, I believe, a five-year, $70 million deal just last year. So he's still getting pressure. He's still doing things. It's a chance for him to go somewhere else, maybe to a contender and help and get a fresh start. I mean, the guy can rush the passer. I know that. So somebody's going to want him.

Those guys are few and far between in this league. Did they ever tell you, hey, we need you to drop back into zone coverage in your life? Very, very rarely. And I may have done it poorly on purpose a few times in practice so that it doesn't get asked of you again, you know? Oh, you're the guy on punt team, first time. Hey, Pat, just want to let you know,

going to let this guy go right by me because I never want to do this again. Okay, well, thanks for the heads up. I will certainly avoid it, but it's like, can you try a little bit? It's like, do not want to do this all year. You do not want me to do this all year. So we just got to do one bad tape thing here

and then let's move along. Be who you can afford to be. I appreciate the fact that you were a guy that was able to do that. Go ahead,j are there any teams or coaches like head coaches out there you wish you may have played for i say all the time like i'm always intrigued at what it would be like to play for bill belichick and the patriots and like their whole situation they have going is there anything like that you wish you would have got to see yeah i mean i think that's a fascinating one because i'd love to see what that building is like and just what I mean, I've had obviously Patriot way type coaches before and Bill O'Brien coming from that tree.

So that's an interesting one. I've always said it would be very, very interesting to play for Tomlin just because I have a ton of respect for him and all that he's done. And hearing TJ and Derek talk about the way he goes about his business and daily Tomlinisms and things like that, I would have loved that. My first coach, Coach Kubiak. My first two years in the league, Coach Kubiak is one of my favorite coaches I've ever played for. He played in the league. He understood what it took to be great in this league, but he also understood what it meant to be a player and how to handle that juxtaposition. I loved Coach Kubiak. Obviously, he went through some health things throughout his career,

but he won a Super Bowl up there in Denver. Coach Kubiak's a great coach. That happened whenever you were playing us, right? That halftime. No, we were playing the Seahawks. We were 2-0 on the year. We started out 2-0. In the third game, we were winning at halftime against the Seahawks.

And as we were walking into the locker room, Coach Kubiak had a stroke and we walked in the locker room and he wasn't there and some of us hadn't heard about it some of us hadn't and it started to go through the locker room like coach just had a stroke and you're going to halftime and your coach has a stroke you're not coming out like the second half is. It was weird, and then we threw a pick six on the very first drive of the second half, and we lost 14 straight. Well. Oh, geez. Geez.

Kubiak's all right, though, right? Yeah. Kubiak. Yeah, yeah, he's great. He's the greatest, man. He invites me out to his ranch all the time. That is like a salt of the earth. Just great, man.

Hey, you almost – you started with the, yeah, we almost heard it again. Oh, did I? Yeah, a lot of your emotion was really getting into it. Ty has a question for you. Yeah, JJ, speaking of the Seahawks, what do you do if your offensive line is like the Giants on Monday night and you give up 11 sacks and just can't block anybody? Like we've had multiple teams this year giving up 8 sacks nine sacks 10 sacks and then 11 on monday night

like how do you fix that when defensive teams are going into a game against you and it's like okay hey debutt mentioned it earlier in the week like guys are talking like hey this is gonna be a career night like we're going out here just trying to pad the stats right now is that fixable yeah and it's a little bit of a you know cause and effect type thing as well because as you start to give those up that means that you're losing possessions that means that you're not scoring points and when the other team is scoring points now the score is getting out of hand so you have to throw the ball the defense knows you have to throw the ball so it just kind of creates this recipe for even more sacks and then it just gets crazy but i mean i think you know armstead or somebody said it uh those are the games you dream about as a defensive lineman you see a team give up 11 sacks i mean watch this pocket right here this pocket just absolutely breaks down i mean

it's like a wet paper bag right here. And, like, it's free. Like, you got a guy up in your face. He's one second into the rush. You got another guy went in swimming on the B gap. Where do you want him to go here, and what do you want him to do? Now, they weren't all on the offensive line. I mean, there's plenty of different things happening here. But you got four guys in your face immediately.

That is just brutal. And it all starts, I mean, you have to be able to run the ball you have to be able to keep the game in a situation where it's not so predictable that you're going to just drop back and pass but as a pass rusher man oh man you just tee off and have some fun yeah and last week you said something that was awesome you said uh there's some times where we're hoping that the offense turns ball over so I can get back out there and do my thing. I think that's that dog mentality that people talk about. Feels like Seattle's got a lot of those guys.

Pete Carroll's one of those guys. We talk about coaches that you would like to play for and experience. He's one of those guys that I see, and I'm like, man, that guy's energy is infectious. In this past week, I've been saying, I think the gum had him. Don't you think the gum had a little bit better showing against his mouth than it has in the past? We need to watch that, JJ. Smacking it.

Smacking it. Yeah. But it was fighting back. It was fighting back this time. Normally, he's winning. That one, it was a little bit. How was it fighting back? How?

Just watch. Just watch the. Thanks for asking, AJ. Thanks for asking. I didn't want to. I didn't. What does that look like? Are you kidding? What does it look like? Can you demonstrate, please?

Okay, so normally, you know, normally Pete Carroll, big, quick. This time, at the peak when it was closing, the gum was holding onto his teeth a little bit longer. It felt like he kind of lost his fastball a little bit with his teeth. But on the sideline, he still had it. I mean, his energy seems amazing. What flavor are you going with? If you're chomping gum on the sideline, what flavor are you going with? So there was a run there where I want Big Red, you know,

where I like the cinnamon taste, but now I'm mint. Wow. Yeah, I'm a mint guy now, though. I just need the mint so it's like I have a little fresh flavor. How about you? Big League 2. Yeah. Smack the bag, yeah.

Man, I'm convinced nobody eats Big Red for fun. That just, I don't know. Big Red just hits. If you smoke cigs, you chew Big Red to try to cover up the ciggy smell. Amen, brother. That's what it's for. Damn right. I thought it was on a commercial for that.

Big Red is like one of those red balls. The fireballs. You talking about the shot? No, that's kidding. Fireballs like that, too. That, too. That kind of had its run, too. That fireball thing had its run, too.

Oh, yeah. Everybody looks like this shit. It pops up every once in a while. You get fireballed, yeah. JJ, you better watch yourself around us. We'll be just pumping these little ones towards you. Yeah. And you know how people get iced? You know, like, oh, we got

iced. We try to make that into a, oh, you got fired. Fired. We make people just chug these fireballs, and boy, after about the third one, you start seeing the sweats. Oh, yeah. And the uncomfortable. I mean, it is. There's antifreeze in it. That's why. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Is that allegedly here? No, that is real antifreeze in it. That's why. Oh, yeah.

Is that allegedly here? No, that is real. I think that's real. It's part of one of the ingredients. Wait, wait, wait. I'm pretty sure they cut it with antifreeze. I feel like we could have a defamation thing here. Oh, God! We don't need to spotlight it, J.J.

We've already been in a couple of those. Okay, we just Googled fact check on the spot. No antifreeze in it. Oh, God. I've never read that. They used to. They used to. They used to.

When I was in college. Yes. Oh, so it was like... Them sons of bitches. That's like what happened with Four Loko. Four Loko was, I mean, that was the OG. Like, you want to get messed up, you pop a Four Loko. I thought about running a Nucky Thompson operation with Four Loko whenever they banned it.

You know what I mean? I don't know if you know who Nucky Thompson is. No, I thought that was. So whenever, he was a guy back in the day during the Prohibition era who was selling alcohol to people. He was the guy. So whenever they banned that Four Loko, in Pittsburgh, there were still like four to five liquor stores that had the OG Four Loko. So Nick was a whole new human on his Four Loko. I've never seen Nick, uh, Miraldo operate the way he was operating on Four Loko. Four Loko was a super Nick. I would just come back for a weekend. Nick Miraldo would be on top of the bar having a time of his life. I'm like, who the hell is this guy? They're like, that's Four Loko Nick. And I'm like, I love Four Loko Nick. And then obviously he was hungover for three, four days because the amount of alcohol and caffeine and everything in that.

But next weekend, lo and behold, Four Loko Nick is back. So they start banning Four Loko. And I'm like, I'm never going to see my friend how I've seen him in his best light. So we thought about buying all of the Four Loko in Pennsylvania, having an underground store. Turns out we could have went to jail for a long time. We looked into it. We decided not to do it. But yeah, Four Loko

and I guess Fireball had a different start. Fireball removed the chemical from its recipe in a tooth... Propylene glycol. That's right. It's generally recognized as safe when used in food at levels, not to exceed current good manufacturing practice, but nonetheless,

fireball has removed that from its recipe. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Fireball. Thank you. What are we doing, man?

We're trying to have a good time. Yeah. Humans have been trying to do this since the beginning. You have no idea. How do you think people started like, people started smoking the back of toads? Remember that? Oh, yeah. Bingo.

There's a thing now that people do. You smoke the back of toads and DMT goes through the roof. It's like, think about the experiments people have been doing for a long time trying to get messed up. De-ice some planes. There's people on this show that I've heard like to experiment a lot. I heard that was a big thing around here. That's just AJ drinking his piss in semen.

No, I don't think he's talking about that. Oh, easy. I don't think you weren't talking about that. We just opened up another door that I got to hear about.

Well, that was so you didn't waste any of his stuff. AJ believed everything that went into his body deserved to stay in his body. So that's why he played so well and became the all-time

leading tackler for the Packers. You're talking about Ayahuasca? Is that what you're talking about? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I was... Yeah. You guys... You ayahuasca? Is that what you're talking about? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I was, yeah. You guys. You going to the jungle anytime soon?

I'm talking pharma. Wow. I mean, I'm retired now. I can do a lot more. Big pharma show. Could you imagine J.J. Watt was an ayahuasca enthusiast? Oh, a shaman? Imagine your big-ass lane in one of those teepees down there. Yeah.

Just bleh! All over. That would be awesome. Hey, J.J., you ever go down in the jungle and do that? Please invite me. over. That would be awesome. Hey, JJ, you ever go down in the jungle and do that? Please invite me. I would like to be there. Tone has a question for you, JJ. Yeah, it'd be like The Rock in the rundown. But, JJ. Great movie.

Great movie. One of the best he has. Stifler's in that one, right? Oh, yeah. Great movie. I want to talk about the Titans' defense and going against Joe Burrow. How does the defense react when they know that the opposing quarterback is hobbled and most likely will not be on the move during the game? Yeah, there's definitely more things that you can do when you don't have to worry about keeping the guy in the

pocket as much as you normally do. As a pass rusher, sometimes coaches will tell you, you know, hey, we got to keep this guy in the pocket because he's very mobile. So you have to keep your rushes limited. When a guy can't move as well, you can definitely open it up. Whether it's a spin move underneath or whether it's taking a little bit higher up the field, you have a little bit more liberty to do things. But man, I mean, it's tough right now to watch that and to see that offense and knowing what they're capable of and seeing them the last couple of years and to watch them now. It's really tough and you want them to to be able to get it get it going i mean they have so much talent especially at the skill positions then they bring in a guy like orlando brown jr and he's supposed to protect that edge and sometimes it

happens and sometimes it doesn't this is just a great job here by the Titans defense. I mean, just straight around the edge, strip sack, and they're just assaulting the pocket. And, I mean, that's just a clean, easy sack right around the edge there. They're just dominant. 27-3 at that time. You know what I mean? It's gotten ugly. There's a lot of stats that are not good for Joey Burrow right now.

If you were Joey Burrow's coach, and we think Joey Burrow's not going to let them bench him or whatever, but there's been a lot more conversation about resting Joey Burrow for later, but then if they lose too many games, they're going to be out of it anyways. How do you balance that, you think, with Joey, a guy like him? Yeah, I mean, we're at a point in the season right now, a lot of coaching staffs will look at the season in quarters, which was a lot easier to do with 16 games. We're football players, not mathematicians. 17 divided by four is pretty tough. But first quarter of the season is done now. So if you're sitting there at one and three, you got to figure it out quickly. And that's the tough position. Do you sit him down and make sure he's 100%

healthy? Or do you say, hey, we are better with Joe Burrow at 70% than we are with his backup at 100%, which I think is what a lot of coaches and teams say. At that position, it's sometimes harder to do than other positions because of how instrumental it is and how movement helps a lot. I mean, the ability to move, especially when your offensive line isn't playing at their top level, is so important. Yeah, that's what AQ basically just said to me via my ear. It don't matter who's playing quarterback.

Bengals' offensive line is terrible, pretty much, is what he just mentioned there. And that's a reality, too, that I think hasn't really been chatted about because the convo has been around the calf and he can't move. It's like if somebody could run a 4-2, I don't think it's really going to matter at this stage. This has been three years in a row now where that has been a talking point. Last year, they were able to figure it out like week six, week seven-ish.

This year seems to be the same old problem. How come teams can't get offensive lines right, JJ? What do you think? I've seen people say, well, they passed on Panay Sewell and they drafted Jamar Chase. Now they can throw the ball, but they can't protect him. Well, they brought in orlando brown jr this offseason you know big a big acquisition to try and protect that side and it's just it's it's just not working out right now and they're getting they're getting sacked and they're getting

pressure and they can't you know though we know what it looks like hey you know going into a game if the o-line stinks right like you guys are watching film like hey we got some out here this right you know that? You certainly know when opportunities await, yes. And what is it? Is that a communication, their technique, how they go about doing things, or is there just, hey, this guy's a fish, right? This is the guy that we are going to be going through. What is it mostly usually?

It is. There's certainly, if there's a guy that's a fish, you know that. But then there's also scheme. Like if a team is going to only block with five and they're not going to protect they're not going to chip with the running back they're not going to keep a tight end in um that's what you really thrive on just as much i'd rather have a one-on-one against a great guy than a chipper or a edge or like a tight end helping with a fish and i think you can speak to that like there's some offensive lines. I remember when I was playing the Bills one time and I talked to some of the guys after the game

and they said, our coach told us all week we're not going to do anything special to try and block him. We're just going to go out there and we're going to be good enough. And then I had 15 quarterback hits that game and he was like, I think we should have tried something special. If you want to stop somebody great,

you have to put two or three guys on them, but the problem is if the rest of your line can't handle their one-on-ones, you can't afford to spend that much capital and then not have guys out and around. I mean, AQ, what can they do better? Why don't you guys block better? There's so many things.

We've talked about this so many times, but when you get JJ, when you get Aaron, they're the only two guys that in the history of my playing career where we actually, like, called the protection 99. Like, it was like, hey, this is 99 protection. Who gives a shit where everybody else is? Find him. If he's walking around, we're sliding that way. Back, you got to hold up if they bring a linebacker.

And at the time, like, it was L.A. and they had a pretty good linebacker who rushed a pass for a lot, and that's what they would do. They would put him opposite Aaron. Robert Quinn? No, it was – Leonard Floyd? No, it was an off-the-ball backer beside the point.

But they would always set him opposite. That's kind of a pretty big part of the story. I know. We would slide there, but then you would – Paint the picture for me a little bit more. I'm trying to think who it was. It wasn't Bobby Wagner, right? Littleton?

Was it Corey Littleton? Gardick? Singleton? Corey Littleton, I think, is who it was. But he was a bigger backer that you would put on the back. Gardick with four sacks, AJ. Four sacks. He's killing it.

Gardick's a dog. Gardick's a dog. Anyways, Gardick, I'm sorry. So we don't know who the guy is. It was Corey Littleton. That's who it was. But they would put him opposite, and they would blitz him, so the line would slide this way,

and then you'd match up a 250-pound backer on a back and make him have to block. That's the issue, right? Like when you slide to here, now the back has to hold up, and we saw some clips of backs getting blown up this past weekend. Hey, that Madison block? Yeah. Oh, my God.

That, dude. That's what you don't want to have happen. I don't think we have the clip, but I am very thankful for Madison, and so is Kirk Cousins and the two old people that work on Kirk Cousins every single week because he actually took a human bullet for Kirk Cousins with his face and his upper body and got absolutely crushed. But it's not as easy as you say, block this guy, because everybody else's job is going to get heightened.

That's exactly right. And then the beauty of that for us is if i know like like he said i there's teams at mike 99 so if the team is going to mike point me and slide the line to me now we just schedule all of our games to play against that so we know where the center is going so now we come and pick the center yep and we wrap right around that's that's the type of stuff that starts to happen. So it's not just as easy as block that guy. Let's double that guy. There's some other stuff going on.

Got it. Noted. Go ahead, AJ. Let's say you're playing a quarterback like Lamar Jackson, a guy that can break the pocket and really kill you. How do you have to coordinate your rush all game? You can't just have two guys flying around the edge. You have to always make sure someone is wrapping around to secure the container or whatever.

How difficult is that to do for four straight quarters? Yeah, it sucks. It sucks, man. It's so hard, and he's so good at it, and he's so fast and quick. You really do have to try and condense that pocket. Like I said earlier, a lot of coaches will almost force their guys to bull rush to keep them in that pocket, which we don't love. And then you also run a lot of games. You'll run twists and stunts so that you have somebody looping out to the outside

so that if he does escape, then you've got somebody going for him. But, man, it's so tough. When he can do this, especially up the B-gap, which is one of the toughest to stop because you've got to have a guy taking the A-g gap and pushing up the middle and you have to have the edges. The only advantage to somebody like that, and I've been fortunate enough on it once, maybe twice with Lamar, is that they move so much that sometimes you can get lucky and he'll like spin out of the pocket right into you for a sack if you're too high up the field. And I got one of those and it was beautiful. Yeah. And Lamar feels like they are right i mean if last

week is any indication of anything and i know dtr threw a ball backwards and they threw i mean there's a lot without deshaun playing over there in cleveland but if you watch how baltimore played there offensively that was the best game they've had in a long time and cleveland's defense has been at the top of the thing i think there's a lot of optimism in baltimore right now a lot of optimism in buffalo as well go ahead connor Connor. Yeah, JJ, it's supposed that Von Miller might come back. He said on his show that it's about 90% chance that he'll be back and he'll be

playing in London. What's it like for a defense, especially Buffalo, who just lost their number one corner in Trey White, to get a Von Miller back? Does that just make everybody's life in Buffalo a thousand times easier because he's going to be the one rushing the passer? Yes. A lockdown corner or a dominant pass rusher can make your defense so much easier. A lockdown corner can take away one side of the field or they can take away one receiver

and absolutely make the rest of the defense's job easier. A dominant pass rusher can do very similar things. Now you're forcing either protections to go your way to open everybody else up, or you're forcing that quarterback to get the ball out of his hands extremely quickly, which makes everybody's job easier. So a guy like Vaughn, who's done it at such a high level for a long time and won multiple Super Bowls, it's really, really big for that defense, and it'll be fun to see him play around. He was defensive MVP conversation the first 10 weeks last year, and then they lose him and look like a different defense.

Now they're playing great, and he's getting added to the mix. Good for Buffalo. Good for Brandon Bean. Darius has the last question for you here, JJ. Speaking of optimism, your former teammate, D'Amico Ryan's head coach, we get a little peek of some post-game speeches to the team and stuff like that. His team figured out with some backups on the O-line how to slow down a great pass rush.

But what is it about D'Amico that he's got those guys rolling? I know obviously they hit on C.J. Stroup, hit on Will. What? But, you know, Nick inherited a mess over there in Houston. So what is it with D'Amico that has those boys rolling? Yeah, I got to sit in on meetings this week with D'Amico. Obviously, I've known him since I came into the league as a rookie, and he was my captain, and I got to learn and watch him. But sitting in his meetings was fascinating because he's A, brilliant. He's an extremely smart football mind and has unbelievable IQ. But more importantly, it's his communication skills. He has an ability to get that message across to the players and to share his knowledge in a way that they understand. Some coaches have all the knowledge in the world, but they can't

relate it to their players and get them to comprehend it. D'Amico has the ability to do both, and it's really, really fun to watch when you sit in that meeting room and he has such a young team, but he's getting them to understand this 20 years of football knowledge that he has, and he's feeding it to these young guys and they're eating it up and they're getting better every single day. Hey, you're on CBS this weekend. I am. Let's go.

I like that. You're in New York. I will try not to drop an F bomb there. I don't think it's the same rules over there. Could you imagine in your suit just the first time? I'll tell you what, this team boomers head might explode. I couldn't even fathom it.

Here's a good story for you, real quick, real quick before I go. So my first CBS job, first week of the season, I'm going in the day before, and I'm just going through, and they're saying everything, and they said, hey, Boomer has his radio show every week. You should call in as JJ from Wisconsin and just mess with him. So I'm like, all right, cool, whatever. So they hand me a cell phone. I call in, and I'm wisconsin and just mess with him so i'm like all right cool whatever so they hand me a cell phone i call in and i'm on boomers showing him hey boom

what's going on and this is jj from wisconsin and he goes and i'm like messing around with him and i said something like oh yeah i can't believe all this shit you guys gotta do every day and he goes whoa like whoa he's i didn't know it was live on ESPN. So he came back to the studio the next day and he was like, hey, man, you can't do that. He was mad at me and I was like, oh. I'll tell you what, I've never met Boomer, but he heard of what we did one time and his first reaction was,

I work hard, I deserve that. I'm like, all right, my work ethic is always going to try to be at boomer's level. Please tell him we said hello and tell that whole crew we appreciate what they've done for football and good luck this weekend. Hey, let's keep winning to Burnley, huh? Yeah, let's go. Up the Clarets. We got Chelsea on Saturday. Huge match.

Up the Currants? No, they stink, Bill. Up the Clarets. Oh, never mind. Clarets. Claret? Claret. Claret and blue.

Claret and blue. Claret jug? What's a Claret? Steal one from those Chelsea lads, JJ. Steal one. Clarets. Clarets? Clarets. Clarets. Clarets and blue. Clarets and blue. Clarets jug? What's a clarets? Steal one from those Chelsea lads, JJ. Steal one. Steal one. Yes. Three points.

We could use a nice three. Yeah. So, if you guys are going to go back down, you don't win? Is that how it works, right? That's the word. If we finish in the bottom three, yes, the bottom three teams go down. The top three teams in the league below come up. Yeah, but you guys aren't going to be in the bottom three, right?

No. Well, hold on now, JJ. You don't know shit about shit. Ladies and gentlemen, JJ Watt. Thank you, buddy. All right, what did we cover with him? We covered drinking de-icing stuff. He swore.

Dropped an F-bomb. What else? We buried his team, Burnley, there at the end. Thank you for doing that. Of course. I watched them. Once you guys get eyes on them too, maybe you'll come on over. They won. First Premier League win yesterday. Against Luton Town. Yeah, Luton Town. They've been relegated

eight different times. What are we talking about here? Let's talk about some stuff going on around the football world. Some stats are coming out about the brand new Lions. Not only is Dan Campbell awesome, and Pene's... How old's Pene? 22, third year in the league.

This dude's been dominating adults since he's 19 years old, and obviously Dan Campbell and them are helping shape him. Because your college years, whenever you're 18 to 22, you're kind of developing. Penne is pretty much developed in Detroit under Dan Campbell's leadership and has set the tone for him.

Let's talk about the defensive side of the ball, though. Stats have come out here. And if I'm reading this accurately, I would like to. Through four games, the Detroit Lions, the brand new Lions, run defense has only given up 243 yards, which is the least in the entire NFL. It marks the fewest rushing yards allowed by Detroit since at least 1945. And we just assume that they lost track of the stats from before then. That's why they said at least they're dominant. Both sides of the line that is winning football. As much as football has changed,

football has changed, football has remained the same. If you win the trenches on this Trenches Wednesday, you're going to win it all. Is Detroit poised to make an actual run? I mean, that stat is alarming. You would assume the Cleveland Browns, who have been so dominant on the defensive side of the ball,

and you would assume some of these other teams that have been great on the defensive side of the ball would own this. Instead, it's not only Ben Johnson and the offense in Detroit that's doing it. The defense is dominating. How do you feel about them, AJ? And this feels like a stat that means a lot as opposed to some stats that mean absolutely nothing. Yeah, when you are dominating both lines, the offense and defensive line, when you listen to a lot of coaches, a lot of college coaches, like, well, I build my team through my line,

interior line, D-line, O-line line and then we kind of build out from there because we have those two situations under control like we're never going to be terrible i don't think you can be a terrible team if your o line and d line is playing above average you'll still be okay and win some football games so this is a this is for people like foxy and lions fans that have been struggling for a couple years and and hoping and and wishing for greatness, this is a great stat for them, I think. Like, hey, no matter what happens, if golf has an off day, if something happens or someone else has an off day, we have a few drops, a few turnovers, we have a good enough defense

that we can try to win some games we probably would never have won in the past. It's also great for, like, the team matching the city. Yes. As a human being, as a fan of the Detroit Lions, I actually feel tougher when I watch this team and this offensive line just pound the rock down the field. And then the other team's trying to do the same thing, and they can't because our defensive line is so good.

I actually feel tougher as a human because of it. They represent the city of Detroit beautifully. Oh, yeah. They're doing incredible here early. Are they going to be able to sustain this AQ? I think so. I think I looked at it this morning. They're fifth in time of possession on offense,

which helps these stats on defense. It's working hand-in-hand. We're playing team football now, and that's what they were not doing last year. They're running the heck out of the ball on offense, and they're stopping the run on defense. Keys to victory from every coordinator on Wednesday when they give their presentations.

Run the ball, stop the run, and they're doing that. Always been football. Yep. Even still in 2023, defense is, hey, let's stop the run first, make them one-dimensional. And then when they do get in passing situations, Hutchinson is up at the top of the league with pressures. Kaminsky on the interior line, he is an absolute

dog. Shout out to that coaching staff, man. Caught some heat a couple years ago. A.G., right? A.G. Yes, sir. Kelvin Shepard, our former teammate. They were trying to get out of town last year, weren't they? What's that?

Yeah. They were trying to get A.G. out of town, weren't they? They were horrendous, though. The first eight weeks, is that how long it was last year? Yeah, one and six. Or seven weeks, I guess. Yep. They were so bad.

They fire a secondary coach. Yeah. So the corner, I don't know what this secondary coach is doing. They were on pace to be the worst defense in the history of the NFL. And if I'm that secondary coach that got fired, I'm trying to tell people that I'm not that person. But literally the removal of one person just completely spurred them to become this dominating force that they are.

So I guess you've got to lose one to gain something everywhere else. But that one needs to not tell anybody that he was the one. Because I don't know what he was doing in there. I don't know what message he was sending. I'm thinking the Steelers might have to do the same thing here if I'm reading the room right. Just saying. They've been drafting well, too. Drafting well, bringing guys in

that fit their culture. I've seen Brian Branch has been awesome. Sutton has been playing well. Ragnow is the center. Ragnow is the center. Ragnow is the center. Jason Kelsey. Ragnow is awesome as well. Watch that dude play. He's every first-round pick.

I think he played with a broken neck or something. Yeah, he did two years ago. Which, once again, makes Detroit even tougher. Yeah, exactly. This has been Trenches Wednesday on ESPN. We'll continue on YouTube and ESPN+. The hitman, Harrison Smith, will join us in about 10 minutes or so. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life.

Goodbye. Yes, that thing's now 10 seconds off. Oh. Of that thing there. We got a new clock. It should get good, but we're trying to figure out how to... Yeah, earlier we said negative, not positive, and it was really supposed to be positive, not negative. Well, I think

we're potentially speaking different terms with negative and positive. I think we were potentially. It seems like it might. Yeah, it might be. Yeah, it's not. There's a, there's, because we got a five second delay because JJ and Darius. Right. And Coach Pagano.

Of course. And everybody does their thing. So Dick Good's got to do his thing. Yeah. But yeah, trying to set the clock accurately is certainly not something that has happened thus far with our youth. No. Speaking of the clock and technology, make sure everyone turn off your phones and your

Apple Watches because if you hear the national emergency system, you will turn into a zombie. Oh, no. So. No, we don't have that. We're not saying people at home need to do this. What if you didn't get the. Because I think they're actually, I think they're, like, I think this test is rather important.

Now, why is this happening? Well. There's certainly some. We've got to be prepared, right? We've got to be prepared. Is that why is this happening? Well, there's certainly some... We've got to be prepared, right? We've got to be prepared. Is that why? For what? It's been a long...

That's what I'm asking you a question. What are they preparing us for? And conspiracy fodder is certainly heating up, but for us on microphones, I guess if we run it and ours happens to go through microphone, then there's a government fine that comes alongside. Yeah, and you don't want to miss.

So we're not saying that you watchers should turn off your phones, but we have been given a strong piece of advice that we should not be the ones who have our phones on through the microphone because then you've got to deal with the government and a fine that potentially comes through for a fake something because obviously the show's recorded and put on the internet right so it'll run again not just right now what's happening so we will be turning off our phones in a matter of moments but i am interested on why this is happening right now and i think we all are but it's just for our safety. Yeah. Once again, reiterate again,

if you don't want to have the virus activated inside of your body, turn off your phone. There's a chance that that is true. And you gotta be aware that sometimes that's what they're doing, but alien invasion. Duh. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Today there will be a nationwide emergency alert test on cell phones,

wireless devices, radios, and TVs. Okay? At 2.20 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It's about to happen. Hopefully it works, Byler. Hopefully the test works. I hope. But I do appreciate the fact that somebody had to make a decision and be like, we should see, right? Gotta make sure.

Because they haven't done this with cell phones in a long time. Yeah, it's been a while. Is FEMA? So does this apply to Apple Watches as well? Yes, it does. What about any computers? What about computers hooked up to iMessage or whatever? Yeah, so I got this iPad here. We got two computers here.

We got a cell phone. I'm on FaceTime here, so mine's going to go off probably, won't it? Ooh, that's a good question. Interesting. Going to have to hang up on you at about 2.15. Don't want to be eating that. That would make sense. And then Harrison's going to be on. We should probably tell the Vikings. He's going to be to hang up on you at about 2.15. Don't want to be eating that. That would make sense. And then Harrison's going to be on.

We should probably tell the Vikings. He's going to be on a phone calling. So we'll get him out. Oh, this will be awesome. We'll get him out at 2.19 because he has a hard out at 2.20. So we won't worry about the Vikings. You, potentially, are our only problem. Way to go.

I can mute it if we have an issue. I don't think that's possible. I think the muting thing is not real. I don't think you can mute it. I can mute my microphone. I can mute my mic. There it is. There we go. But is it going through your computer, not your microphone? It shouldn't go through your computer's

microphone. Even if Harrison's on his FaceTime, whenever you have an alarm, you don't hear the alarm on the other side. The email was hilarious though. Like, hey, you guys. Can't have it. Because we wouldn't hear the alarm on the other side. The email was hilarious, though. Like, hey, you guys. Can't have it. Because we wouldn't have known if we weren't with ESPN.

All of our phones would have went off at the same time. We would have probably started dancing. We're safe! Yep. Too sweet. And then we would just put the show up on YouTube. All right, we'll see who watches this later. And then it'll be like two, three weeks later, it'll be like, you now have a $175,000 fine from the government.

For what? What did we do? Well, you guys had government warnings and sirens on a show that is now radiating through the entire internet. It's like, what do you want us to do? We're live, whatever happens. We don't care. Pay us or shut up.

It's like. To make sure, do you want us to just turn off the mics from back here so it's completely silent at 2.20? I think we'll just turn off our phones. It looks like we're good with it. Let's not worry too much, guys. Let's not overthink it. Just turn them off. Take a little time.

That email told me we should worry. A lot of devices out there. We've got Apple Watches on people's phones. Where's Mitt? Mitt's locked up. He lot of devices out there. Yeah, because, I mean, we got Apple Watches on people's... Where's Mitt? Mitt's locked up. He's in a hole. He probably broke his devices recently. Tell him it's a test. It's not real. Mitt is on 1-833-432-360.

We're not going to answer any phones. We're packed, actually. We got Harrison and Scott Smith. Don't call. We got Scott Hanson and Harrison Smith. We are not. But Mitt's in the phone lab back there. And yesterday, we're having a pretty real conversation. I forget what it was. There was not a laugh point.

No, some of them was on, I think. It was Rogers. And he's just popping, screaming. Was that him? Yes, had to be. I don't know if there was a bird squawking in here. And I'm like, what the fuck is that? And then two minutes later, we're like, what is Mitt?

What happened? We don't know. I still don't know. We don't know if Mitt's watching another show. I think typically he has the show up on his laptop, and then he's got another little device, and he's always watching Tom and Jerry in there. All right, let's get to a break.

We'll be back on the other side. Big shout out. I really enjoyed J.J. Watt on this show. Yeah, me too, aside from the F-bomb. He's great. He's a shot. I really enjoyed J.J. Watt on this show. Yeah, me too. Aside from the F-bomb. He's great. He's a human. I actually appreciated the F-bomb.

Can't. It's not making it happen. Can't have it. Can't win with it. Bunch. I got my one up. One. You got one.

I got two. Gump's got seven. Yep. Chuck's got one. Do you want to make a scoreboard for that? No, two. I only got two. This guy swears like a ship pair.

He does. Hell yeah. It's unbelievable. Joining us now live from the great state of Minnesota is a 12-year NFL vet out of Notre Dame, a place that we were able to visit a couple weeks ago. What a beautiful campus. Beautiful. What a beautiful campus.

They didn't like Connor, but I loved everything about it. This past weekend, he had 14 tackles. What? Three sacks. What? Two tackles for loss. What? And a forced fumble against the Panthers in a game-winning attempt.

Ladies and gentlemen, the hitman, Harrison Smith. Yeah! What's up, dude? How's it going? Hey, pretty good game, huh? Were you just seeing the field well? You were seeing the field well, or what happened there? I mean, a couple of them, I was a free runner,

so I just got to make the play. And it was good, though. It was a good team effort. We needed to win. You know, we were 0-3, so kind of clawing back right now. Okay, so how are the vibes over there? Because last year, and you guys know this stat, but you're the first Vikings player we've had on the show this particular year. We've been fans of the Vikings for a long time. You guys have been going through it this year, so we haven't been able to chat with everybody over there. Last year, 11-0, one-score games. This year, you're 0-3 going in this past weekend because of one-score games.

Did it feel like the football gods were working against you guys because of everything that they gave you last year? What is the difference, you think, between this year and last year for you guys? I mean, yeah, sometimes it feels like that. But, you know, I'd say the main difference is just the turnover differential. You know, not making enough on defense, not holding on to it as well as we should in those early games, special teams, offense.

So we're working to correct that. How do you feel? How's the body feel four weeks into this? Obviously, you just had your... I mean, is that the best game you've ever had? That feels like a historic game right there. It's a big stat game. As a safety, sometimes your best It's a big stat game.

As a safety, sometimes your best games are low-stat games. You cover well, you do your assignment. But from a stat standpoint, yeah, that one was pretty big, I guess. Flying home, you know, the PR guy probably hands you a sheet. Hey, did you know this is the shit you did today? Is that what happened after the game, or when did you realize it? Yeah, that was in the locker room um i was like yeah that was a lot that was a lot more than i realized because in the moment you're just you're just kind of doing you're doing your thing making tackles whatever trying to get us in the right calls um it was fun those games are fun

um we'll kind of when you get a lot of action hey three sacks you just propelled yourself into like top 10 in the league in sacks. Let's make sure we keep that up. T.J. White. Khalil Mack got six. Now Harrison's wrong. Hey, Harrison's on tail there. Miles Garrett needs to watch.

He's got a safety in Minnesota doing his thing. Go ahead, A.J. Harrison, you got to see Bryce Young up close and personal many times. What do you think of him? Do you think he has a bright future in this league? Yeah, he made some plays that were, I was like i was like okay you know this guy's got some juice he can he can uh move around extend some plays and um he's got a he's got a good arm on him and you know it's it's hard to come in as a rookie but he's uh he's he'll be just fine hey there's some stat it's like a 30 20 stat that we

saw this morning it's either like 30 sacks, 20 picks, 20 picks, 30 stats. You enter this club. The only other people that have that are all Hall of Famers. 12 years into this, nobody ever talks about the hitman. Nobody. The only conversation that ever comes up about you is like, hey, the way this guy disguises stuff, it is remarkable. He's able to hide, he appear.

You don't know if he's going into cover too. You don't know if he's doing this. That. You don't know if he's doing this. That's kind of only been the chatter outside of that. But as these stats continue to stack up and the years continue to stack up, you're putting together a Hall of Fame career and nobody knows about it really outside of Minnesota. Hate that? Love that?

Realize that? And how do we change it? That's something I honestly really don't worry about that um the disguise thing is probably your fault from when when rogers was on the show um so i'm gonna blame you for that one but yeah i mean i just try to i just try to stack up good plays and good games and when i'm done whatever it looks like it looks like people like watching it that's cool they don't i still enjoy doing it so well you're good okay you're really good at the football you're really really good 12 years in

the nfl you feel old man sometimes i try to fight it um like i'll start to i'll start to catch myself being like oh back in the you know back in the, this is what it was like. So I try to avoid that as much as possible. I try to like not, I try to never think about like my body not feeling young again or anything like that. Just don't even, don't even consider it. Just keep going. Whatever, whatever I need to do to get ready for the next game, get it done, get ready to go.

What are we doing? Anything weird? You know, AJ drank his piss. Are you doing anything weird now that you're getting a little bit older? I haven't drank my piss yet. Smart. I do some weird stretching stuff now for sure. Kind of like – I saw some stuff like Ichiro used to do.

Oh, yeah. And so some like kind of open your body up on almost like a maybe start doing this too. There's probably a lot of people watching. If you would like to show us we'd love to love to come. I don't have the machine with me right now. But um, it's basically like a pulley system. You attach your your arms and your ankles and just kind of stretch yourself out and Mr. Gray work on your flexibility.

It actually looks like that. I built a machine at my place in Tennessee and here in Minnesota, and everyone that sees them are like, what are you doing? Hey, whatever keeps you going, man. Obviously, you're playing your best ball, and the boys have some questions for you. We'll definitely dive into that. What's Flores been like over there? What has it been like this year under the new system? Obviously not the hottest start,

but what have you learned from his style of offense that has made you better, and how do you think it's going to translate for the rest of the season? He's obviously very aggressive, and he's kind of been that way his whole career. We're doing, doing some different things here and there. And, um, but the thing about Flo is like, he's very, um, it's very straightforward. He's very determined. Uh, you kind of know where you stand, you know what he wants out of you. Uh, and that makes it,

that makes it pretty, I don't want to say easy, but it makes it like very black and white as far as, um, expects out of us and and within that uh the pressure stuff is fun uh the way we're we're trying to do things is is is some of it's new to me uh you know as long as i've been around and it's it's fun to learn new stuff yeah i assume that's like refreshing i assume like as you because you're old hey you're old as shit, dude. No, I know. You got these pulley systems you're putting in. Don't say it.

Sex rooms that you have. I mean, you're getting old. You know what I mean? But having something like having to learn, I feel like that is probably refreshing for you. Is that kind of what you felt this offseason with him coming in? Yeah, definitely. The first couple OTAs, I missed the first couple when I was watching it.

I was watching the defense. I was like, man, I need to learn this stuff because I don't exactly know what we're doing. And just like having to kind of press yourself that way, get out of your comfort zone a little bit. It does. It kind of sparks you a little bit, makes you feel a little youthful. So I think it's a good thing. Hell yeah. Darius has a question for you you've been around for a long time we just mentioned play for a few different coordinators with very different styles so like if it's a younger player on either side of the ball watching like how have you been product like what goes into that preparation for you to be productive in so many different uh systems that's a good question um so taking it way back to college i actually played uh some like sam linebacker in a 4-3 in college so i think that helped me that helped me uh just understanding

like how to fit up runs and how the box how the front the front and the linebackers work and how the safeties fit into that and then getting to the league like my first couple years it was more like cover two cover four system um and then with zim it was a little more aggressive more matchy coverage and then um ed donatel more like the vic fangio um kind of shell defense and now with flow so i've had i've had some experiences, but I'd say the main thing is like figuring out your main role in every kind of every play. Like what is, what's the thing you need to take care of first and where do you go from there? And I think working that way allows you to kind of take care of your job and then, and then expand from there. no matter what's asked from you like

i the thing i love about safety is you can get involved in every level of the defense it's not always just coverage um i don't like i always hated being described as like a box safety uh even though i i i'm down there a lot and i i like being down there but i also like being back and blitzing and doing it all because it just kind of all goes together. And then that's when you can make the disguises work for you and make it a little tougher with the quarterback. Hey, your hair looks sick, though. You took the hat off in the middle of that thing.

Good flow right now. You feel good about where your hair game's at? Yeah, it was a little longer. So I'm trying to grow it back um but it's it's in a decent spot right now yeah it looks good looks are you playing great football hey maybe keep this length forever aq has a question for you yeah harrison with the college game infiltrating the nfl a lot more every year with all the shifts all the motions all the eye candy how do you let all that stuff not affect your eyes with your reads moving forward yeah that's it's it's hard um the game's changed so much since i

got into the league like like you said with all the motions and like like there was we played miami last year and tyreek ran like the jet motion and then he ran a post and was like on top of us so fast I was like that's not even like a play that exists um so there's so there's like these all these new things that are that are constantly coming about just because guys are like I don't know if it's guys are getting like more freaky fast and athletic um and then coaches are like realizing what you can really do with this stuff to make it hard on defenses. So kind of like I said, with the playing in different, in different defenses, like it always starts with like, what,

what do I need to take care of here? And sometimes it feels weird to not be affected by those motions and stuff. motions and stuff we muted them and we muted you right now because we've been told that we'll get like a multiple hundred thousand dollar fine if that thing makes its way through our microphones happy to hear your phones working you'll be safe if like an alien invasion happens anything like that is it still is it still going off? I think it's good now.

We survived! Wow! Not a zombie. What's the deal? It's still 2.20. Is that clock on? Is it 2.18 where you are? Or 1.18? 1.18 for me. Two minutes early. This government, I'll tell you what.

What time is this 2 o'clock meeting? Better early than late. What is the hell? Thanks a lot, Biden. Better early. What's your problem? It's on the government. Hey, look, it's on them.

We're trying to prepare. You're screwing us up. I mean, what is your problem? Sorry about that. You were in the middle of a great answer, and obviously the government said we're going to have to make sure everybody's prepared for when they shut it down. They shut it down.

You shut it down, Just like you've been doing all season. Is this your best season thus far? You feel like you're about to have your best season thus far going in? I don't know. Just keep playing. I don't know.

Those first three weeks had to suck. I mean, those had to be absolutely heart-wrenching, like terrible, especially in your 12th year with what you guys were able to do last year. So whenever you have this Carolina game, I assume it's a very motivating thing for the entire building. Is that an accurate depiction? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's accurate.

You can kind of feel that. And every year is like the rosters are so different and the makeup of the of the team is so different that you don't know you know if guys are used to winning or not used to winning so um being able to put a plan together and execute it uh and actually see it follow through i think is good for us good good for the young guys good for the old guys like myself to um just kind of get a little a little boost of confidence. A lot of football left. AJ has a question for you.

Are you still flying planes? I know last time we spoke, you're a pretty experienced pilot. Yeah, I haven't flown in a couple years. I flew for maybe six, seven years pretty frequently. I got a plane and everything.

I had a Bonanza. I was flying around. Did some pretty cool stuff. But now I got into golf, as you guys know, seeing you guys out in Tahoe. Golf takes up most of my time now. We're happier on the ground, not in a Bonanza.

Well, sometimes. Sometimes. I figure there's just not enough time Right now to To be as safe as I'd like Oh look how cool you are What is happening Is that

Yeah that was That was a I got to fly in Jeez And like get down In like the little gunner The gunner seat When we were landing

It was pretty It was pretty sweet Fagan Fagan Fighters Museum In Minnesota Hot spot Hey shout out to Fagan yeah did you shoot anybody was it loaded it wasn't but i got and they had the gun rooster fires put your head out of the out of the top of the plane it was pretty sick oh did you have hitman on your little suit onesie thing oh

onesie thing oh no that wasn't i wasn't around yet when that come um paul allen um the guy that does our games was he was calling me that for a while maybe after my rookie year i think i got kicked out of a game and he gave me that or that that nickname he's awesome he's very good yeah he is very talented yeah we got the chance to watch seahawks-Vikings preseason game in the NFL Network. It was on NFL Network, and home team was Seattle. They had Seattle's call on it, and then NFL Network was like, technical difficulties, sorry, we're going to go over to Minnesota's coverage, and it was a Paul Allen showcase. He is a legend on a microphone over there.

He's good. He does horse races, too. Oh! Whoa! Yeah, he would love it. I know you have to leave soon. Ty has a question for you, though, about this past week. Yeah, Harrison, just curious.

After being teammates with him for so long, did you find yourself at any point on Sunday being like, man, every chance I get, I just want to hit the piss out of Phelan. Just try to knock his block off every opportunity I get. I just want to hit the piss out of Phelan. Just try to knock his block off every opportunity I get. No, not really. It is kind of weird when you get close with some

guys. I've never hit Phelan, I guess. Even though you practice against him all the time. Actually, there was one play that we kind of got tangled up. His feet got tangled up. So I felt kind of guilty about it. But, you know, it's just part of the game.

Do you chat? Do you talk shit? Not normally. If it arises, I'll participate. You know, I'm not going to not participate. But I don't like to give anybody extra motivation unless if that's what they want to do

that day, that's what we're doing. Yeah, you're a guy that shit talks, what I just heard. Darius has a very important question for you. Yeah, very important. We kind of talked about it briefly when you were on the Man to Man pod. Kind of your experience been a white DB in those DB rooms coming up. Great Minnesota safety.

I think he had 81 picks. I forget his name right now. He had John Lynch. Paul Kraus. Paul Kraus. There we go. Are you the greatest white DB ever? Oh.

No, I can't stake that claim. Mostly because I wear Paul Kraus' number with the Vikings. He had 81 picks. I don't think that will ever get broken. Nah. That's a picks. I don't think that will ever get broken. That record. I'm just glad he let me wear his number. Was it retired?

You got John Lynch. It's not retired. Racist. I'm very happy he let me wear it. John Lynch. Is there any other ones? Seahorn was a dog.

Dick LeBeau. Oh, Dick LeBeau. Dick LeBeau is a good one. And I don't think a lot of people know that one, like the younger guys nowadays. He had a ton of picks. Yeah, but in like 1915, though. Yeah, they were barely even throwing a football. Yeah, it's more impressive.

That's the debate of like, do you do, could he play in this era? Like, you got to just stick to the era they played in. And he was balling. Yeah. I'm on your side here, but I'm just saying,

back in the day, a lot of white DBs. Yeah. And then it just kind of, kind of. A lot of wing tees. Hey, we're proud of you. We're proud of you.

You know that. Everybody's proud of you out there. And I assume, I mean, you're 12 years in. We're proud of you. You know that. Everybody's proud of you out there. And I assume, I mean, you're 12 years in now. Those first couple years, there was a milk check on old hitman on a regular basis. You've got to prove yourself. And I think you've done that clearly more than enough.

You have to leave because you have practice. Weird, right? You guys have late practice. This is late practice? Well, we're an hour behind you guys, I guess. So it's 2 o'clock practice and it's not... I don't know. I don't know.

There was a time, too, where we had two white safeties with Andrew Sandejo and myself. Sandejo flew. We were always like, why don't people just vomit on us? They certainly were thinking about it They were certainly

Thinking about it Did he beat me At Zbikowski Yeah Tommy I caught him For a year I was Like my redshirt year

I watched him play a lot And he was He was the most fun To watch at punt returner Really He was fearless Back there He was good

Yeah I think he's a Firefighter in Chicago now He's an undefeated boxer he sold out madison square garden in college that was when he had to do a full is he allowed to make the money off of the boxing fight in madison square garden imagine that now with the nil on it that'd be cool now somebody's got a big deal yeah i mean i don't know if anybody's got the cut of Tommy Zbikowski's joke, though. You know what I mean? You're going to have to come from a certain place to be a professional boxer and a safety good enough to play

at Notre Dame. Last question. Last question. Notre Dame was awesome. Was there any other schools you were potentially thinking about going to? And once you got on the campus, were you just like, yeah, this is it. That was the most campus-y campus I've ever been on. That's a good description.

It is. It really is. Yeah, you nailed it. Okay, thank you. I'm happy I'm not the only one. I assume others have done that. But everybody there wants the football team to win. It felt like some places, maybe the academia isn't on,

especially at a place like Notre Dame. It felt like that whole campus was like a football campus. You felt that, experienced that? It was beautiful there. Was that the place you were going to go regardless? It wasn't at first, actually. I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee. Grew up right by the university.

So I really wanted to go there as a young kid. Just kind of as it unfolded, I just thought that was the best place for me to go there as a young young kid um just kind of as it unfolded i just thought that was the best place for me to go um but i looked i looked a few other places like sec schools um stanford my grades were like marginal to get in there um they wanted me to take a couple more ap classes and like it was too much but if But if I was going somewhere in the SEC, it had to be Tennessee. Notre Dame just seemed like the right spot. Yeah, they're back, buddy.

What a win. They are back. In my opinion, this is the realest team I've seen since probably since you were playing, AJ. Oh, then when AJ split Jersey. Back with Brady and then, yeah.

Yeah, the split Jersey days. Yeah, those were good days. Those were good days. Jersey's still alive and well. Had it on the other day. Having incredible practice. Congrats on the, I think you've got to be NFC Player of the Week, right?

I would assume so. I don't think so. I don't think so. Witherspoon from Seattle popped off. He popped off. So defensive player of the week. 14 tackles. I have to respect that.

What, you did? Yeah. 14 tackles. He had two sacks and a pick six. 14 tackles, three sacks, two tackles for loss, and a force. A game winner, I think. Yeah, it was a game winner. I mean, I like your humility, but this is just the story of the hitman. Nobody cares.

Let's not give him reward, and you just keep chugging along. We appreciate you, brother. Keep crushing it over there. I appreciate you, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Hey, no problem. Ladies and gentlemen, Harrison Smith. Yeah, Harrison!

Yeah, we have a good relationship with the Vikings. Yeah, they're awesome. And we just haven't been able to have anybody on because, you know, heartbreaker. Heartbreaker, right. Heartbreaker. It was like, damn, Vikings are in a bad spot. The football gods can turn quickly. Oh, yeah.

And it seems like they have done that against, even against the Panthers, it started to feel that way. Oh, yeah. At the beginning of that game, it was like, damn, dude, dude these football gods said we gave you enough last year you don't need it this year and it's been pretty evident yeah first score of the game justin jefferson scores calls back for a penalty then kirk cousins was pick six that's how the game's 99 yard pick six yeah and then there were some other deflections that popped off it's like damn they are getting the wrong end of every bounce are we good we? We're good to turn our phones back on? I think so. Yeah, I assume so.

But they got the Chiefs this week. Yeah, so they'll be okay. Bruce is saying no. If you turn them on, the alarm will go off right away. Oh, shit. I just hit the button. I hit the button. Mute, mute.

Yeah, mute. What is this for? Is this for alien invasion? Yes. I have no idea. Alien invasion. Nuclear war. I mean, the phone goes off for amber alerts every day, I feel like. Aren't they? Yes. I have no idea. Alien invasion. Nuclear war. I mean, the phone goes off for Amber Alerts every day, I feel like.

Aren't they? Don't they have this pretty dialed in? Ohio's wild. Ohio is a wild place. Yeah. What the hell? It's different. That's not government sanctioned.

She is missing Ohio. Yeah. Who's running the Amber Alerts then? Probably Wexy, right? State. Local police. Not FEMA? Yeah.

Yeah, state. Your guy. All right. Let's turn the phone on. I won't be alerted. Oh, wait. I got mine right now. Bruce is wrong?

Is that what you said? No, I hated it. Mine's been on for a while. It hasn't gone off. But Gumpy's did, which is alarming because he's Canadian. Oh, boy. They're coming for you. Actually alarming.

Well, and he gets an alien text anyways. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who might be an alien as well. Because what he's able to accomplish every single weekend makes no sense. The human body is supposed to relieve itself of urine at least once every four to five hours, let alone seven hours of commercial-free football. A man we all spend our Sundays with if we're not live at the game. Ladies and gentlemen, host of NFL Red Zone, Scott A. It's A.

Scott A. Guys, what's going on? Good to be with y'all. Did you cite a medical source for every four to five hours? Yeah. Yeah, I did. Absolutely. Not alleged either.

That's actuality. I talked to a doctor, just like Aaron Rodgers. Me and Dr. Joe Rogan chit-chatted about it. That is an impressive feat. Like Michael Cole, for instance, me and Dr. Joe Rogan chit-chatted about it. That is an impressive feat. Like Michael Cole, for instance, of the WWE. They'll have a WrestleMania that used to last eight hours, and he would prepare for it, like the way he would drink, his intake. I assume that's something you have to legitimately do,

and I hate that this is the first question, but we're all wondering it every single week how you do it. This is a full preparation. You kind of got it down now? And has there been a time where Code Red has popped off and you need a cup underneath the table? Okay, let's handle them one at a time. Yes, and by the way, I lean into this. I've studied sports broadcasting my whole life.

I went to Syracuse University, graduated with honors, have tried to hone my craft. I'm not, yes, I know. I realize that's academic patting myself on the back. But I am known as the man with the most bladder integrity in all of sports TV. Maybe me and Mel Kiper, who obviously refuses to go during the entire NFL draft. Well, easy there, Scott. I think I have you beat there, okay? I think I can probably hold my piss much longer than you can,

but I digress. Continue. Top shelf right there. Well done. A lot of those, yeah. Yeah, no, I dehydrate myself on Sunday mornings. The chefs at the network make me the same exact breakfast every single Sunday.

I eat it at the same time, try and be complete creature of habit on Sunday game day. And the reality is I could take a bathroom break if I wanted to or needed to, but here's the deal. And Pat, you know, this, all you guys know this, that we have our, our earpiece in our ear, our IFB, as it is called, and mine is wireless. So if I had to say, hey guys, I got to step away, I got to go to the bathroom for a minute, they would turn my microphone off and I'd walk down the hallway, go to the men's room, do my thing, but I could still hear the games in my ear. And I am convinced if I step away once and break my streak that I will hear Jim Nance or someone

say in my ear, that is the greatest touchdown in the history of the NFL. And I'll be damned if I'm missing, if I'm missing any NFL action on Sunday. So you have never taken the liberty to go take a piss ever. This is a, I have, I have actually, Pat, Pat, I was playing hurt. Hurt. It was about eight years ago. This is season 15 for us on NFL Red Zone. Jeez. It was about eight years ago. It was late December, and I went skiing.

I'm talking to you from Southern California here, and you can drive and go skiing in Southern California and parts of it in December. So I went skiing with my buddies, took a bad fall, and injured my ribs. And I broke my routine. That was like on a Wednesday. I broke my routine on Sunday, had a little too much fluid. And when I said, guys, you're not going to believe this, to my control room, I said, I got to go to the bathroom.

I heard everyone in the control room go, oh, like that. And I went, did my thing and I made it, I tweeted it. I was like, hey gang, to my followers, I just took my first bathroom break in seven years or whatever it had been at that time. I got a tweet from, from Twitter X. I got a tweet from Twitter saying, congratulations, your tweet was one of the most viewed tweets in the United States of America on, on this day, because everyone was one of the most viewed tweets in the United States of America on this day because everyone was fascinated by the fact that I actually went and took a leak. Your bladder moves the needle, pal.

That is certainly something that you need to be proud of. Not everybody can say that. Go ahead, AJ. Scott, what do you do the second that you sign off and you're done with your super long day? Are you like Dwayne The Rock Johnson? You have a whole cheat meal situation and you drink all all you want like how does that how does the night look on Sunday 100% I uh well first of all I pop my earpiece and because there's been stimulation into my left ear for seven straight hours with all the play-by-play guys I literally have to balance myself my equilibrium is off after seven straight hours of being on the air. That

always catches me by surprise somehow. But believe it or not, I do not run to the men's room right after the show. In fact, my bladder is so trained that I don't go to the restroom until about half time of Sunday night football. And I'm on my own free time at that. I could go if I wanted to or needed to, but I just don't. But yeah, cheat meal, I allow myself to eat whatever I want, drink whatever I want, dessert, everything else. And then I'm such a junkie, I watch every snap of Sunday night football, and then I put on the NFL Network and ESPN highlight shows,

and I kind of go through a mental checklist of, yet we showed that, yet we showed checklist of yet we showed that yet we showed that yet we had that we told that story and and our our free throw percentage is is pretty high if i can mix a sports metaphor uh yeah i'd say you're 15 years at this and whenever it moves to youtube tv youtube tv and google says need to keep that though that's obviously a massive piece of the cello a thing for me you just talked about the story there do you feel pressure as the guy who's shaping a lot of narratives through the day for a lot of NFL fans? Like legitimately, because I think there's sometimes where like we're keeping up with games and you are recalling what has happened earlier in that particular game to remind people, but then

narratives are getting start built through you in your brain. Is that something you have to be cognizant of? And has anybody ever said to you like, hey, Scott, pipe down. Yeah, come on. Has any team said that? Yes, actually. I am cognizant of it because all of my colleagues at NFL Media, if they're not working on NFL Sunday

and they're either hosting or producing or working on shows all throughout the rest of the week, they're all watching Red Zone on Sunday. So I'm the prism through which my colleagues watch it. And then a ton of my friends in sportscasting at ESPN tell me, if I'm not working on NFL Sunday, I'm watching NFL Red Zone. And these are the folks that are doing all of the different NFL talk shows throughout the week or any general sports talk show that's going to be doing it. So I'm very aware that when we show something,

or if I say something outside of just disseminating facts, that it will shape a narrative. There was one time a player got cut. I'm not going to name the player, if you will allow me to not do that. We're going to start guessing when you tell the story. You can guess. You can guess. The player got cut on his forehead. And we all know, certainly in the wrestling world, that's how you can deliver a lot of blood by nicking your forehead.

So a guy's helmet must have come down, maybe hit the bridge of his nose, and he was bleeding all through the front of his face. I went on NFLfl red zone right after showing a uh a highlight of another game where a guy a running back went for like 25 yards and this team was running for like 150 yards against their opponent in the first half and i said well joe smith's forehead is is gashed the way that such and such a defenseensed. Oh! Yeah, that was edgy. That was edgy. Edgy?

I was about to say, that's good. That had to feel pretty good coming out. Don't you think? Yeah! Okay, well, the player's agent did not think it was bad. Oh, fuck him. He called the executive producer at NFL Media, and I got a notice in the studio, almost in real time,

that was like, what did you say? Did you say something? I was like, the guy was bleeding. He was fine. He wasn't knocked out. It was going to be something you know, anyone who's played football had something like that before and yeah, you would have thought I said, oh, this guy's dying on the field or something. So I have to watch. I do have to watch it and that was probably

one of my biggest pipe down moments. Did you figure the player out? It's J.J., it seems like. It seems like it's J.J. Watt. No, that's a great, great guess. It was not. Yeah, Brian Cushing? Owen Schmidt?

Owen Schmidt, Boston. He was a star player, star safety in the league. Oh, hit man, Harrison Smith. Yeah. No, but close. I said I wasn't going to do it because I feel bad because the agent apparently went off to my executive producer and said his family was watching NFL Red Zone at that time.

And you said this. If they were as tight, they'd be at the game. The guy's a suit. Let's not worry about said suit. That's a great line. You should have felt. I think you should have got a raise for it. Yeah.

Like that is, especially in real time. Great. Tying that together. I think that's the most impressive thing about you is we like being live, you know, and we were considered a podcast because one of our versions of our show is a podcast, but podcast pre-recorded, I think gets edited. A lot of stuff, a lot of people's podcast gets edited and then they put it out we like live action you know because i think that's where you can really see

the brains operate some people aren't meant for it but some people i think you in the middle of it being able to balance everything so the fact that you came up with a blood joke yeah with a gas joke with a running joke like that is i think your agent should have called and said hey we're looking at a raise here for this type of thing. Let the suits battle against each other, that piece of trash, and then your suit do his thing. Now, Red Zone has been incredibly successful. Connor has a question for you.

Yeah, Scotty, how do you feel about the other sports doing it? I know the NHL is doing a frozen frenzy version of Red Zone. Do you take that as like a badge of honor? Like, wow, I've done this so well that they're going to use this format in other sports and have you reached out to any of the possible uh other co-hosts i know i believe it's uh john butchagross for the nhl yes yeah buchi i love his work we occasionally cross paths like at a super bowl or a draft or something like that uh i you know i wish them all the best in doing that. The issue there is I've seen most of the imitators and whatnot. The way the NFL runs, it's perfect for a red zone type channel for a few different reasons. One, it's the most followed sport in the United States. But two, all the games kick off at

the same time, right? All within a matter of seconds of each other three the nature of football lends itself to oh okay a team's on their own 30 yard line that's not a pressure point we don't need to go there right away oh a team is on the opponent's 18 yard line in the red zone yes something dynamic is going to happen one way or another a score or a stop uh for the the 40 second play, I can get you to a game, and I can sneak in, assuming the quarterback is going to use the full 40 seconds before the next play, I can sneak in one or two other looks at another game or two other games before we got to go back to Miami to see Tua take the next snap. So all of those things are unique to the NFL and allow it to be really conducive for

a Red Zone style show. But I'll tell you this, we have been imitated and or parodied by a number of different shows. Saturday Night Live did the Rosé Zone one time where they had the best of all the real housewives show like you don't want to see them talking before lunch and whatever you want to get to right when they throw the wine in their face and pull their hair and whatnot so they called it the rosé zone and i someone texted me that when it was on saturday night live and i'm like well you know you've arrived when oh buddy people are imitating you. Yeah, we've been there. Yeah, we've been there as well.

Not for a good thing. It was the complete opposite side of that. But to your point about all of the games starting at the same time, that witching hour is fun. That's when wins become losses, and losses become wins. I mean, it's a beautiful thing that you're cooking up there. And also, I seen a punt this past weekend. Hey, great punt. I saw it, Scott.

It was beautiful. I almost said McAfee's going to love this. Would you mind if I did that on a show at some point? Don't feel obligated. But whenever I saw it, I'm like, well, here we go. House call against a punter. And I'm like, you're going to have to hate Scott. That's what you're going to have to do it because you only show punters.

But you showed a perfect pin deep. and I'm like, you're going to have to hate Scott. That's what, you're going to have to do it because you only show punters kind of get, but you showed a perfect pin deep. And at that point of the game though, it was in the witching hour, it was a big time play. So I appreciate you guys showing respect to it, but it does feel like I'm involved in every game when I'm watching with you. So we very much appreciate it, but more punts. You know what I mean?

Good pins out there. I don't know if you knew this or not, but I was a former member of of the punt operation i was a walk-on scrub at syracuse university i was yeah pat i was a long snapper a walk-on long snapper i see your ball tricks there you got good ball tricks there yeah i see you moving that thing out there scott i have too much nervous energy when i'm on the show i'm like i gotta do something so what if you just pissed your pants right now oh that'd be sweet the guy guy makes it seven hours every sunday can't do 20 minutes on i address one thing your guy aaron rogers okay i i did i saw his last appearance excuse me two appearances ago when he he told

you how much he loves nfl red zone and watching and whatnot. And Aaron and I have known each other since he entered into the league. We're not bosom buddies or anything. But Aaron's conspiracy theories about how I hold my bladder or how he says I stay young looking, you know what I'm recalling? Yeah, drinking. Yeah. Where he comes up with these ideas. Wow, it's that guy.

That guy next. It's that guy next. it's that guy. It's that guy next. It's that guy. We can't trust him. Oh, geez. This guy tricks his puss. Wow. He's got tricks. He's got props.

Trigger pain right now. Garrett, how's it taste? Wow. It's awesome. What is that? What is that from this morning? I'm going to take apple juice. No, no, no.

That was dehydrated. That was the last that was the last piece on a sunday oh you need to get the championship color yeah all right that's awesome anything for a bit scott you're awesome uh tone has a question for you guys by the way can i say one last thing because i i i feel remiss that i wouldn't say this i appreciate you guys having me on because i know that for most of you i'm I'm entering into a Siciliano household as Andrew Siciliano and the DirecTV Red Zone did unbelievable work for a decade and a half and whatnot.

Siciliano, we don't know if he likes us either. No. We don't know if he's a big fan. Well, we... That was NFL Network's fault. We thought NFL Network set him up for failure a couple times. They had him on the far side of the camera. You know what I mean?

He needs to be closest to the camera every single time. We were trying to stick up for him. We don't know if he took it that way or not. No, he didn't. So we're very thankful that you're here. You need to know that. Tone has a question for you, though. Yeah, Scott, I don't think it's the case this week.

I think there's six 1 p.m. games and then four 4 p.m. games this week. But the last two weeks, I think there's been ten 1 p.m. games and then four 4 p.m. games this week. But the last two weeks, I think there's been ten 1 p.m. games and then three 4 p.m. games. Do you like when it's like that, when all the games are at one? Or have you written to the NFL and say, hey, can we get the six at 1 p.m. and the four 4 p.m. games? Yeah, well, you guys are broadcasters, so you probably get it. But speaking to your entire audience right now, people do not understand. Even a savvy NFL fan does not understand the way that the NFL stacks their early and late window. The last two weeks, we've had nine in the early window and three in the late window. And when it goes from nine, hyperspace, hyperspeed, to three, which feels like air brakes,

everyone complains and fills up my timeline as if I made the NFL schedule. So just to clarify, the reason that the NFL does that is they want to deliver a massive audience to one of those games, one of their broadcast partners, Fox and CBS, that are involved in the early window. They had New England and Dallas, right? Two of the biggest brand names there are. They wanted to make sure there were not many other competing games going on at the same time. So that's why they do it. You guys are awesome. So that's why they do that. My favorite split is an 8-4 split. If I've got 12 games, I want 8 in the early window to fill up an

octobox. I want 4 in the late window, which usually has pretty solid action. That seems like a fun red zone day. Yeah, I agree. Hey, Scott, I've appreciated the hell out of spending Sundays with you. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your glorious Wednesday.

When do you start? Are you just preparing all week for Sunday? Is that what you're doing? Yeah, I've got my research going on right now. I've got to get home. By the way, when that emergency alert went off, I'm driving around in Brentwood, California, and everyone's brake lights went on simultaneously on the road. It was like everyone freaked out.

People didn't know it was coming. Hey, that's OJ, right? Whatever. OJ, that's what OJ is. Yeah, it is. Scott, watch it it was coming. Hey, that's OJ, right? Yeah. Scott, watch it! Scotty! Head on a swivel out there, especially if all the breaks are here.

OJ doesn't want to go back there because he doesn't want to see the killer, is what he said. Well, I respect that. If he would have gone in, what it would look like different. Anyway, Scott, you're the only human that can do your job. I think that is very apparent, and we appreciate your service to the NFL and we can't wait to see it continue. What do you got another 20 years doing this? Is this the job forever for you? It can be my final stop, Pat, but as you well know, and you're still relatively young

broadcasting career, things can change in a heartbeat based on a lot of variables, but no, I love it. I hope I've been as good to the NFL as they've been to me, and this can be my final stop. You're a massive part of it, bud. Not a lot of people get to become a big piece of the NFL. You know what I mean? Biggest league on earth, and you're just a part of it. You are a piece of the league, and we're thankful that you joined us.

Have an incredible Wednesday. We'll see you on Sunday, pal. Awesome. I'll see you on Sunday, pal. Awesome. I'll see you on Saturday. You're doing an amazing job. I absolutely love it. Scott. On College Game Day.

Hey, this last Saturday, I saw you. You talked about me fighting through some pain there. Buddy. How are you doing? How are you doing? I'm good now. Literally, as soon as I got it out, it was this. I think I had some bacteria from an apple that I had the night before.

And it was like. But as soon as it got out, I felt it. But, like, I think I had some bacteria from an apple that I had the night before. And it was like, it was, but as soon as it got out, I felt it. But like, I think about you. Imagine one Sunday, you just walk in there and you happen to eat something that wasn't right. And it's like seven hours of, oh shit, football. That's pretty much what I did for college game day. You know what I mean? I hope if, if it ever happens to me, I hope I can power through the way you did, Matt, because it was something. also available and every monday i didn't know this i just learned this at 4 p.m eastern nfl red zone overtime streams on nfl plus with scott hansen reliving all the red zone action from

sunday that's probably the highlights are you a part of producing that or is that somebody else brand new show red zone ot exclusively on nfl plus and it's basically taking seven hours and condensing it down into seven minutes. So, check it out on NFL Plus. Hey, you know whenever you hit that seven out, you know if it's going to be a good day or not, huh? Oh, yeah. Well, I think it's always going to be a good day because sometimes you look at the schedule of

games, and I've got my tablet down here with the games, so you look at the schedule of games and you're like, that's a dog meat game. That's enough. And those end up turning out to be the boffo insane everyone's talking about it on Monday game. So when you get six, seven, eight of them going at the same time,

something's going to deliver in the witching hour. It always does. Is that an iPhone? Or is that an iPad or a tablet? It is an iPad tablet, yeah. That would be a third budget. I paid with this for my own personal money. a tablet uh it is an ipad tablet yeah i paid with this my own personal money are you trying to get me we've had such a great interview yeah i know i am you did it by the product pays placement you're the best ladies and gentlemen scott hansen thank you buddy good ball tricks boys. I feel like we're all really getting after it.

I wish I had that. Aaron has that. Oh, yeah. The front to back? Yeah. I can do the side one, but not the front. Yeah, the front one is because it's like a balance. Yeah, it's just like the top of the hand.

Oh, there it is. Oh. Yeah, it's like your fingers. You roll it like the back of your fingers. There it is. Does Scott Hansen have a ball there at red zone? Looks like he was pretty comfortable with that. Yeah, he was.

He's got something there to mess with, right? Well, he's got that piss cup. We saw him. He should just take his phone in the bathroom, take a leak, and just keep the phone on his face and keep the show going. You want another one? That'd be cool. Set it!

Hit! Oh, it's in. Oh, that one looks great too. A little high on the outside, Derek. Don't worry about it, Joss. Bury it. Set it. Ooh.

Come on, ball. Set it. Flat ball from the Masters. Oh. Set it. From AQ. Got it. Yeah. Oh, my God. flat ball from the masters oh oh set up from aq got it yeah got oh my god give me a break over it it's a witching hour has to be man sick of it i'm absolutely sick of it what are their ratings red zone has to have massive ratings i would imagine huge and also it was i mean there's not a lot of stuff that just goes alongside,

like, hey, we're going to sell this, and then also you're getting this. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that thing is its own content piece that they can probably forever kind of dangle there. It's got to be massive. Yeah, it's not split anymore. Like, him bringing up Siciliano, Siciliano, it's like, yeah. Yeah, he buried them. Yeah, he did.

And now there's only one. So anyone that was split, they're all on Hanson's side now. Good play, and I like the fact they're pushing NFL Plus. Yeah. For sure. That's a good sign-up reason. Hey, Rappaport, we miss you, bud. Well.

But also, you did this. You did this, too. How's it going? Crushing. I don't know. Have you seen any? It's up 15% year over year, so yeah, it's doing well. I'd say. I'd say it's doing great.

We appreciate Rapaport's ability and talent, but I think it was a bad decision to sign up for a daily show alongside the exact time he comes on this show. Which he does frequently, or did. Pretty selfish and narcissistic of us to say that, but also Rap.

Come on. Come on. Come on. Last time. Come on. If you rap. The NFL has put a statement out about how they have handled the Taylor Swift situation. NFL statement to People Magazine on all the Travis Kelsey,

Taylor Swift coverage. We frequently change our bios and profile imagery based on what's happening in and around our games as well as culturally. The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey news has been a pop culture moment we've leaned into in real time. As it's an intersection of sport and entertainment, and we've seen an incredible amount of positivity around the sport. The vast majority of our content has remained focused on the game.

Our players and variety of other initiatives, including our Toy Story Fun Day football altcast, the international games, and more. If you do remember, the NFL had Taylor Swift as a headline. Had a great time with you. A lot of NFL fans. Not all. Not all.

But a loud bunch of football fans were sick of seeing Taylor Swift, but we would like to let Swifties know, happy you're in. Happy you're here. Travis even chatted about it on the New Heights podcast, where he was talking to his brother about, yeah, you know,

love that it's happening. Appreciative, be a part of it. People at the game, good. But I assume he's seeing the mentions too of people just attacking him for this whole thing. It's like, I'm not choosing.

What do you want me to do? Here's Travis Kelsey with his brother on the New Heights podcast talking about all of it. Is the NFL overdoing it? What is your honest opinion? I think everybody's just overwhelmed.

Take away your feelings for Taylor. What is your honest opinion on how the NFL is treating celebrities at games? I think it's fun when they show who all is at the game. I think it brings a little bit more to the atmosphere. It brings a little bit more to what you're watching. But at the same time, I think...

They're overdoing it. They're overdoing it a little bit, for sure, especially my situation. I think they're just trying to have fun with it. A lot of the people watching, go ahead. Let me say it. I just think the NFL is not used to celebrities coming to the games.

Like basketball has to figure it out. They're all courtside. They're sitting there. They show them once or twice. But they get back to the game. NFL is like, look at all these A-list celebrities in the game. Keep showing them. Show them.

Show them. Dude, listen. You show them once. Let them know they're there. Maybe after a touchdown, you get a little clip. But you can't be overboard with it. People are there to watch the game. Keep showing them. Show them. Show them. Dude, listen. You show them once. Let them know that they're maybe after a touchdown. You get a little clip, but you can't be overboard with it. People are there to watch the game, right? Yeah.

They're not there to get thrown on TV. I'll tell you what, though. It is because you never know. You get caught just throwing a big old cheeseburger in, and you look like an idiot. You know what I mean? There's certain things that you just don't want to be on TV at all time. Well, it was a lot. You know what I mean? Like, there's certain things that you just don't want to be on TV at all time, you know? Well, it was a lot.

I think Jason also being protective of his brother. Like, hey, you guys are almost making people hate my brother because of this entire thing. And that's not the case. And I think they're both, you know, they're two Ohio fucks who are football guys. And I like that Jason's like, you want to know my thoughts on this, Travis, so I can speak almost for us here? Like, they're making you look like a bad guy almost to football people, and that's not the case. And Travis is not the one in control of this. You know, that ain't

the way it is. But the NFL, and you think about TV producers, okay? And I call them, I'm not going to say. Well, you might as well. But like TV monkeys, pretty much. These people see ratings. I was told that this has ratings. So they're like, you know what?

Let's do all of this. And then let's just bury it. Instead of thinking like, oh, maybe the reason why it spiked is because it's a nice little taste. Instead, they're like, this does well. Let's throw this every single time. And then it kills it. Then it just completely buries it. That's how TV producers, not all of them, obviously,

but that's how TV monkeys have operated since the beginning of time. So whenever they see the reaction of Taylor and the Swifties and the demos up, TV producers are like, well, yeah, we're going to do it better than everybody else. Even if we're five, six days late on this entire thing, we're going to ha, ha, ha, ha. And it's like a beautiful thing could happen here. You know what i mean like taylor and trav now i believe are a very good yes yes simpatico great couple i believe it is it is a solid matchup if you just know travis at all about how travis you know into fashion cultured loves this entire stuff doesn't mind the spotlight and also not selfish enough to think that he needs to be the star remember he hangs around Patrick a lot so whenever you're dating like the

biggest icon on earth who seems to be wanting the same exact stuff it's like hey these two might actually oh yeah and if the NFL was to play this right I don't think you would necessarily just turn off all football people no but we've already got to the point where football people are sick of hearing it and us even talking right now, people are going to be pissed. People are going to be pissed to watch this. But I think it's a good thing, ultimately, in the end for the NFL. But anytime you have these robots that have only

operated in one way, oh, the number goes up and to the right when we do this right here. And then we're out of here and then... What's going on? We're getting a little... Is Wolverine up there? That's how these people work. It's sad because

I think they're going to be a great thing. Legitimately. But there's not a lot of people that feel that way here just three weeks into this potential public relationship. Well, guess what? People are going to have to get used to it. And they're going to be even more pissed when these two get married and Travis doesn't have Kelsey on the back of his jersey anymore. And he's Travis Swift out there.

Whoa. Okay. Let that one settle in. What? Sweet name. I like that name. Why are you muted? What the hell is going on over there?

I don't know. You have your own mute button? He's self-muted because he's sick and tired of it. No, no. Tony. All I know is I like being on the same side of greatness. You have your own mute button? He's self-mute because he's sick and tired of it. No, no. Tony. All I know is I like being on the same side of greatness. You know who's great? Jason Kelsey.

And? Jason Kelsey. And? His beard. And? I don't know what you guys are looking for. Travis Kelsey. And?

And? Taylor Swift. Boom. Oh, yeah. They're all great, but I'm talking around this subject. Jason Kelsey had the greatest words on the subject. I would assume, and we don't know how that podcast goes, and it does feel like that has become a scheduled time for two brothers to talk to each other,

which is a cool thing in the middle of a very busy time. And who knows how much Jason and Travis have talked about it. But, like, Jason, the older brother, just being like, I got to get this. You guys are ruining a good thing here for my brother, potentially, for a lot of people. I love it. I enjoy it. And I hope it continues to grow, but also, ball. Yeah, exactly.

Let's do some ball. That moment, though, where she was, look at all. You know what I mean? They're in love. Fucking deal with it, people. Sorry. Sorry. Two successful people. Found each other. Welcome to football. Chival with it, people. Sorry. Sorry! Two successful people found each other. Welcome to football. Chivalry's not dead.

You know that strong guy with the mustache? Oh, yeah. Go ahead and let one of those paparazzis pop off one time. Welcome to football. They can show as much as they want on the TV broadcast. That didn't bother me. It was Sunday night football roundup

show. Football night in America. Football night in America. That covered it every three minutes. And they're not, like I said, the exact pop icons to be covering it. Anyways, we hope they fall in love more. We hope they get married. We hope they're everything they want to be. Absolutely.

Maybe just show them once a quarter. But I do appreciate Travis and Jason having a little self-awareness and being like, you guys to be. Absolutely. Maybe just show him once a quarter. But I do appreciate Travis and Jason having a little self-awareness and being like, you guys kind of ruined us. Yeah. It's not Travis' fault. It's not their fault.

They're just trying to live their lives. Yeah, and Travis doesn't want to be negative about it either because, you know, he appreciates the fact that the Swifties and everything's going in there. So I assume it's a tough position

for him to come out and be like, can we not show the most famous person on earth all the time? I did appreciate him saying, sometimes you're eating food and you don't know that you're... I'm here to watch a game.

I'm into football. And then all of a sudden, well, let's see what the fuck this person's doing. Caught me eating wings at the... Much smaller level of life, obviously. But yeah, that was an uncomfortable situation. Right. I paid six figures for this fucking suite. I can't even eat wings in public life. You guys are just going to

zoom in on my face, getting sloppy in here. I just want to enjoy a game. I was in the background of a sweet photo, though. That was a great photo. Stone Cold Steve Austin, both arms up. As he's scoring a touchdown. That was awesome. I enjoy it. Live games are awesome, which means you need to go.

Right now, SeatGeek. You go to SeatGeek.com or download the SeatGeek app. You can get 15% off all football tickets. All you got to do is punch in PAT15, and you will receive it automatically for all football tickets, college football, NFL football, you name it. Go and live and experience a live football game. It's a beautiful thing.

But not only are you getting 15% off all football tickets, they also have tickets for every single event that is ticketed. They're the greatest ticket-buying platform on planet Earth and the moon. We appreciate the hell out of SeatGeek. Been here since day one, this company right here. Hell yeah. Different colors. Different colors.

I mean, that's how long they've been there. Change their logo. Yeah. World stoppage of events. Not selling tickets to anybody. Nothing. We thought SeatGeek was going to die. Yeah, for sure.

Damn, this is a good relationship. SeatGeek has helped us with travel before for vlogs. SeatGeek has helped us with everything throughout our entire existence post-NFL. They were the first people to say, yep, we're going with you to ESPN, and they're the greatest ticket-buying platform. We are very appreciative of them. Go experience a live game.

It's a blast. Going to these games every single Sunday with the Colts. Now, we paid a lot, so that is in the back of my mind every time I'm there. Sure. As you're walking in. Wild. Hell, yeah. Mo's about to're walking in. Wyatt. Hell yeah.

I'm about to score a touchdown. Who's that fucking guy? That's actually me and you. They made that guy in a lab, and that's what they came up with. Okay. Yeah, they combined us. That guy's Dirty's friend. Dirty, what's that guy's name?

What's that guy's name, Dirty? That's my boy, Derek. Derek. Oh, Derek. Derek's a good guy. He had good vibes. He had good energy. The guy in the baby blue there in the one next to us,

he had a couple adult drinks, was saying a lot of stuff. Yeah. He's got a sweet haircut. I liked his energy, though. Bill McComas is right over Fuller's head there. And then I just knew this dude was scoring because Mo Ali Cox is a dog. Yeah. That's what he does.

Great to see him get back in the end zone. And at that point, we're tying this thing up. Colts about to win this game. It was an exciting time. Good brain of football. But only reason I can have that high with the boys and with the wife and with everybody is because we went and got tickets. You should do the same.

Don't just watch from the sidelines. No. Get in the game. Go in. Buckets. That looked good. They all do. Every one of them. That one, that's the game. Go in. Buckets. That looked good. They all do. Every one of them.

That one. That's the one. Nice. Yeah. That's the. Boom. That was Steph Curry. Yeah.

Coming out of the hand. That one felt really good. You know what I mean? It's now time to do something that we get to do that nobody else really gets to experience. Oh, I got to turn this on because. Oh, because the. Oh, yeah. The alert.

You got to do that one too. See who else had an alert today? Who's that? Russia. What? They had their national alert test today as well. Mother Russia. What's that all about? Is that what this is for? Here we go. What is that old bot? It's starting.

Look out. What is it? You know. The beginning of the end, baby. What? The Great Reckoning. You want to dance? Come on. What memes are? You know. The beginning of the end, baby. What? The great reckoning. You want to dance? Come on. What memes are you reading on the internet telling you that? These aren't memes.

These aren't memes. This is just stuff circling in the water, and they have been for quite some time. We'll see what happens over the next three weeks. That's right. Three weeks? Three weeks. Yeah. Week seven of the NFL season.

Exactly. By then, there's going to be pretenders and contenders. We're going to have a much clearer picture of the playoffs. Who potentially goes on to win a Super Bowl? What team's going to remain healthy? Is that what you're talking about? No, I'm talking about kind of the rationing. You know, those type of things. Nothing to do

with sports, my friend. Keep your head on a swivel. Amen. Eyes open. If you know any Volkovs or any Malkins and any names that end in an N or O or I, be careful of those people. Who knows what side they're on. Sounds racist.

I don't even know if it is. It's about Russian people, so it's not. Okay, because at this exact time, you're allowed to be. Bingo. In three weeks from now, everyone's going to be saying it. I'm just telling you that's what they're saying on the line. You ask me what memes I'm reading and what I'm reading and hearing about.

You just heard it right there. All right. Well, I'm going to keep my blinders on and act like that didn't happen. I hope. But I'll tell you what. Them telling me we're going to give an alarm to everybody's phone just out of nowhere. It was like, that's alarming. As somebody that doesn't pay attention to everything, this doesn't happen every year.

This doesn't happen every year. Who decides to do that? I know FEMA does it. Secretary of Defense. Is it? I don't know. For my narrative, yeah. Can we get Governor Hochul?

Yeah. Please. The lady from New York who said, you know what, if you want to booze during the Bills game, we'll open the bars at 8 a.m. Can we get her on the horn to figure out why this alarm just came out of nowhere on a Wednesday, October 4th when this is not an annual thing?

No. You know, because the TV one, they do the weather testing just in case. Like, that's very regular. This one just popping up with all the shit that's seemingly happening

around the world and universe. It's hard not, even as a doofus that I am, that doesn't pay attention to all that stuff, it's hard not to be like,ofus that i am that doesn't pay attention on stuff it's hard not to be like yep what's going on over here yeah well great news though they give us an alarm let's say something happens they send an alarm to our phone now what what do you want us to do well we're

alarmed yeah with your pastors has instructions with it if you make this much much money you go to this silo if you don't make any money you're left out in the cold to die. So the internet's telling us that Russia was testing their nuke alarms. Yeah, even better. And guess what? We gotta sit tight here. I mean, T-minus three hours we're gonna find out what the chat comms are doing. I know

it's something. They're not just doing nothing. You know what country borders Russia? What's that? China. It's true. So be careful. If this goes in, we're safe. Okay. Please make it. Good.

Yeah, good. Need this one. I've never had a bigger jumper in my life. And Bill's right in front of you. That doesn't help. You're basically on the front lines of the war. Bill, you're in the shot. Bill's hiding behind the thing.

Bill's always in the shot. Bill's in the trenches. Hey, Bill had a big win today. We won't dive into it, but just know Bill won in the court of law today. in the shot. Bill's in the trenches. Hey, Bill had a big win today. Yeah. We won't dive into it, but just know Bill won in the court of law today. Oh, he did? Yeah, he did. That made Bill. Hell yeah, Bill.

It's a long time coming. That judicial system certainly takes its time. Boy. That person in the stocks? Like, put him in the stocks in Town Square and we'd go throw rocks at him? I wish we could. That'd be cool. I don't think that's the case.

Yeah, something happened to Bill like two years ago. Did we get video confirmation? Justice has been served. That's right. Good for Bill. This is a big deal. Yeah, we need this. Yeah, let's not talk about it.

I don't know why you did this to yourself. I didn't do this for me, Foxy. It's a big safety shot. I did this for us. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Not for me. Oh, no. See? Yeah, you. Thank you. Yeah. Not for me. Oh, no. See? Yeah, you get another one. Yeah. Board up your door. Yeah. Hell yeah.

Yeah. We're okay. We're good. We're good. No, no, no. That's not how it works. That is not how it works. Hey, didn't see the first one.

We didn't see the first one. Hey, it's Wednesday, so there's no football. Go home, watch the movie Red Dawn. Okay, we're going to be living in that. It's a good movie. Very soon. Mark Schleyer started it. I'm going home and I'm watching film like Scott Hansen.

That's for sure. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, on how to stab chat comms and, you know, break down people. I'm going to keep that all out of my life. I hope so. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep that all out of my life. And I'm going to let you read the memes.

Yep. And everybody else keep me informed. And I don't know what that siren sounds like on my phone, to be honest, because we turn it off. True. But when I hear it, I'm putting a helmet on. Bingo. And I'm running towards it.

There you go. Just want to let everybody know that. Face front. We're in Indiana, so we're in a great spot. We're doing really well. I'll probably hang tight. Yeah. When they get here, though,

I'm fucking staring them right in the face. Yeah, heading to the Indiana border. Bingo. That is alarming. I mean, as somebody that doesn't pay attention to much in that world. Maybe it's that asteroid that's going to hit Earth. In 159 years? Come on.

Well, they got to test it now. Fosso didn't seem that worked out, but I said, hey, just turn the phones off. Yeah, Fosso works. Fosso would know. Fosso doesn't know shit about this. I already kind of broke him down, tried to find out what he does know, if he does know. Oh, you're the alpha in the knowledge of this situation.

I was just trying to gauge, you know, who knows what here. Fosso is senior vice president for ESPN who's been tasked with dealing with repercussions of whatever we do here in Indiana in Connecticut at ESPN. He is a tough guy. In this case, he's a mushroom. What's that? Yeah, they kept him in the dark,

and they fed him shit on this national alarm situation. Bingo. Thank you, Tony. Let's move. But they fed you all the information. I'm just saying, I know where to look. I know what rocks to pick up, and I'm glad Tony just said that

because now we've got a new nickname for Foss, old mushroom Mike. Mark Caboli's reporting out of Pittsburgh. Najee Harris not happy with media blaming coaches. It has nothing to do with the coaches. It's the players. We have to play better. We just can't keep looking at the coaches

or whatever you guys keep putting out there. It's just stupid what you all are doing. Players play. Coaches coach. All right, Najee, you had one good game. Let's... I like it, Naj. Let's keep moving. You know what I mean?

Well, I like Naj, too. He was on our show. He had a good personality, but also he was a part of the... Him and Jonathan Taylor, after terrible years, were like Josh Jacobs, us. It's like, alright, a little self-awareness, first of all, about where you're at. And I appreciate Naj doing his thing,

and he has to stick up for his coaches and everything like that. But like, Naj, I don't know if you're watching film on the rest of the NFL. Your guys' offense is an embarrassment. Okay, it is a stale embarrassment. I appreciate you got your blinders on for this entire thing,

but also you have no idea how fucked you guys are by your own coordinator. What's wrong, AQ? I just love your take. That was an impressive take right there. It's real. As I'm reading it, I'm like, Naj, I can't. Because Naj and Jonathan Taylor this offseason late, whenever all the money's already been

spent, start acting like they're Josh Jacobs. It's like, you're not. Neither of you were last year, so let's just get good at football again before we start talking about it all. In Pittsburgh, the offense has been a joke for years now. It's like, I don't know. But I appreciate him taking a little ownership on it. I do, too. I like that

it's because it's not just coaches. It's definitely every single person. Jonathan Taylor's back, by the way. Yeah, he is. Practicing today for the Colts. I wonder how that's going. Hopefully he's back to two years ago. Cooper Cup, also back.

I mean, that Rams team. You add Cooper Cup, maybe, you know, Nakua isn't as. They got a good culture over there. Yeah. Like a bunch of young guys trying to prove himself, and then a lot of old vets that have, like, have the chips on their shoulder about being kind of shooed off and everything like that.

And you said Stafford still got it. Ball. Ball. But that was beautiful. That was a thing of beauty, watching Matthew Stafford throw the ball a couple different times. It's just, like, perfect spiral, and then it's in a place, and then the shots that are coming immediately after a catch,

it's like, if that ball is a half a foot off, like not even yard or anything like that that we're talking about with some of these younger quarterbacks, it's like if that ball is six inches off, that guy's getting killed. That's a pick going the other way. And Stafford just lets that thing. I mean, it is.

It is filthy what Matthew Stafford does with a football. Effortless. It's effortless when he throws, too. I know how frustrating it is from playing against a guy like – he makes it look easy when he makes those tough throws, too. And he's tough as a son of a – They had no chance in overtime. Right when they won that coin toss game was over.

Yeah, and we've heard about Matthew Stafford operating the two-minute drill and just kind of walking right down there and doing it. Let's remember that I made that shot, so we're good. Yeah, yeah. There's the second one. Thank you. I'm talking about it. Just remember what one it was.

That's right. You know. Yeah, it was any ball left. That wasn't the... Do you want this thing again? You want the universe? No, it's up to you. Hey, hey, look.

You're the one with the ball in your hand. I'm just reporting facts. This is the universe. This isn't me. This is Matthew McConaughey. Okay. Letting the moon operate through. Triceps.

For the good of the universe, Paul. Go home. We're dead. All right. Sweet. Good run. See you guys tomorrow. Hopefully we're still around.

That is Red Dawn. The movie where USA gets invaded. It's a bit dated. It is. No, there's a new one. There's a new one. Charlie Sheen's like 12. They remade it. There's a new one. Charlie Sheen's like 12. There's a new one with Hemsworth.

Look at Swayze. Oh, how's the new one? Is it any good? Yeah, it's really good. No, it stinks. I doubt it. Let's get out of here. Hopefully it's not a reality every time soon.

I'll stay out of that world, and if you know me, don't give me any information. Okay. Good to know. It's football season, so just let's keep it locked in on football. Okay. Yeah, if they could not evade until March. How's my fantasy? Yeah, exactly.

Tell everybody to relax until after the release of the Super Bowl. How's my fantasy team? Fantasy team is good. We are actually fourth in points, which is awesome. We are one in three because Joe Burrow's biggest week has been eight. Fourth in points. Thank you. I like the way stats are always on our side.

Well, we had a Joe Burrow situation, and that's going to happen sometimes. No, keep in mind that Connor spit in Graham Ganneau's face last year in our fantasy draft, so there was no chance of this team getting on. Graham Ganneau still got it, by the way. He hit from, what, 56 the other night? Yeah, and I made the playoffs in that league, Foxy, so pipe down back there. Graham Ganneau, 36 years old, 37 years old, just murdering 57-yarders. And then Matt Prater last week hit a 62-yarder, laces straight at him.

That's like a 75-yard kick. Well, it's that out too. Is that Arizona? That's like a 69-yard kick. Still a bomb. Still the record. Laces straight at him. It's like that's bananas.

What these dudes are doing to footballers right now with their legs, some of the OGs and some of these young guys, I don't want to say humbling because I would be acting like I could still do it. I can't. But what they're doing, they're destroying footballs right now. I don't know what's in the water. I don't know what these fuckers are doing. But I love watching it.

And maybe we need to pay attention to it a little bit more as a football fandom. AJ, thank you so much for today. You're the man. Boys, great work. To everybody that watches this show, thank you. Obviously, a lot of the numbers got released today. We don't know what any of them mean. But we do feel like we're very

lucky to be a part of the sports media on the day-to-day in the fashion that we are, and we'll continue to do our thing until, I guess, we're not able to. Yeah, bingo. Unfortunately. Alright. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice, like everything's going to be okay. Everything's fine. It might change their life. Goodbye!