The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Ant Goes Superman, Nabers Vs. Harrison, and J.J. McCarthy Trade Ups With Todd McShay. Plus, Actor Ben Mendelsohn Joins!

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Russillo starts the show by breaking down Anthony Edwards's dunk and remembering a time when dunks meant more (0:43). Then he’s joined by Todd McShay to discuss his newest mock draft, explain why another Vikings move is coming, and compare Marvin Harrison Jr. to Malik Nabers (15:55). Next, Russillo is joined by actor Ben Mendelsohn to learn more about the acting process, how he gets into character, and his most famous roles (46:10). Plus, another edition of The Alliance (71:02) and Life Advice with Ceruti and Kyle (75:28)! Is it weird to pee in a jug in your office? Check us out on Youtube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Todd McShay and Ben Mendelsohn Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I love today's podcast. We're going to talk about Anthony Edwards, the Dunk and everything after. We've got Todd McShay on J.J. McCarthy being the target of the Vikings and another surprising evaluation. One of my favorite actors in the world, Ben Mendelsohn, is going to talk to us about his new show, the process of acting, and his roles from The Place Beyond the Pines and Mississippi Grind. He was awesome. We've got Life Advice and The Alliance,

part three, your NBA fan duel pick. I had a plan about the open today. I was gonna talk about quarterbacks, but I think I'm gonna do that Thursday as I go over the draft history. And we got McShaded later today anyway, so we'll touch on some of that. But I wanna talk about Anthony Edwards.

I didn't think I'd do an open on a dunk, and it's not entirely just about a dunk. But what we saw last night was one of those moments where he dunked it on John Collins against Utah Jazz, where it wasn't just basketball world kind of stops and checks in on each other. It's just a sports world. And I don't think that happens very often anymore. So we've all seen the dunk. I don't know that you want more. So we've all seen the dunk. I don't know that you want a 20 minute monologue on game play by play recap. But in the play by play, it actually says five foot dunk. I was looking for it and I

went wait, I don't think I see that very often. He takes two steps into the paint, off a pass, after a turnover. Collins is in the restricted area. He goes up to contest it. By the way, we'll talk about John Collins here in a second, because there's no contest shaming done on this podcast. And the contact into Collins pushes Ant just a little bit higher than maybe he's capable of as just a normal human, which we also saw in the block against the Pacers where there's just a little

bit of momentum off of someone else that makes it go up even higher. It's like the Tom Chambers dunk that we had in the video game where it's like, man, there's contact. And then he just went up another level. He didn't even think it was like available. Like this elevator goes where. So it's an Anwan finish. Everyone loses their mind. The home fans do for Utah, all of his teammates. Everyone's looking around.

They're looking at John Collins just underneath the rim, sitting there rubbing himself. And I couldn't stop watching all of the angles. I saw it live and I go, oh my God. I yell, second solo God, I yell. Second solo, out loud yell, watching basketball. Collins left the game with a possible concussion, so we'll see where that goes.

But it was just one of those moments. We were like, I guess this is why we all watch, or what we're all hoping for. A quick aside for the it's not a dunk crowd because he didn't technically flush it into the rim and throws it because of the angle of how high up he was and how aggressive he actually finishes. The little lights are not twinkling. Thank you for your observation. Thank you for your observation. Moving on, I like my generation for a couple reasons. I'm probably biased.

I guess I could sit here and say I hate my generation. And there's some other stuff that maybe we're not as good at. But what I like about my generation, if you're around my age, is that we grew up for the first 20 years or so of our lives without the technology that defines younger generations. We know this has all been covered before, but when you think about growing up and being in college

without the internet, without phones, without all of the advanced information just at our fingertips, it's like going abroad in a different universe for like 20 years and then coming back and being like, hey, and when you think back on it, you're explaining to young people, how did you even go anywhere without GPS or a phone? Like, I don't know, you know? Like, hey, you wanna go visit that guy this weekend?

Road trip? How are we gonna get there? Oh, yeah, I don't know. We can't, I guess we can't go running late. Hey, should we let someone know that we're? Nope. We can't. No one's ever been able to do it.

Maybe one day. No, we figured it out. Now. I don't know if people shorted the Atlas market, but we figured it out. But one of the other things that happened then and has changed now in sports is that we've become desensitized to these moments in sports that'll live forever because we can just go back and watch it all over again. When I installed TiVo at my apartment the first time, I was like, I can die now.

I'm good. I've experienced peak humanity. I can rewind dunks because as a kid a dunk was so incredibly special If you were lucky enough to go to a game and you'd see the turnover kind of developing and then you'd see the guy break Out in front of everybody else. You're like, oh my god, I'm gonna see it. It's it's gonna happen. I'm gonna see a dunk in person And then it was over and you couldn't go back and watch it over. The luckiest hope you had, or I'd say the only chance you had was the NBA releasing

those official dunk VHS tapes that I would watch over and over and over again. Larry Bird, Small Town Highlights, are you kidding? Sign me up. Just wearing those tapes out. That was the best that you could do. Once you can do, it's like eating. If you can get your favorite meal every single day, then you're just going to get sick of it after a little while. With these plays now, as spectacular as they are, as so many players capable of doing the most absurd shit as the evolution of the athlete continues

Despite what some guys in the 90s would tell you You can be desensitized to it yet The point of last night and the reason I've been talking about is it was it was like being a kid all over again Where guys are texting me they're checking checking in. Dudes were checking in with each other, being like, did you see this angle? Did you see this clip afterwards? Just like wanting to make sure we were all on the same page and like caught up on the latest Ant content. I love this basketball team. I really do like Minnesota. And yes, Ant has most to do with it. There's some guys that aren't my favorite players. Timberwolves fans want to keep asking me about the Go Bear trade and to quote

Nick Saban, quit asking me. I'm never going to like it. But this team, because of Ant's personality and his ability, he's just undeniable. The joy that this team will have in these moments rallying around their young superstar is a real thing. They have a real personality. And I watch Minnesota games, not because I like the team, not because they're always battling. They had the one seed for the longest time, they're still only half game out with a cat injury

and go bare not playing the last couple of games. I watch them because it's important to watch them because you're trying to figure out like, okay, how do you actually feel about their chances of coming out of the West? So when I see Ant last night after the game, he had one clip where he's watching his own dunk clip and the video got out there on social media and I was like I

don't know he uses the N-word can I retweet this? I was caught I was like I don't I mean it's him I'm just gonna retweet the video and I was like I don't even know what to do anymore I don't know what the rules are with that one so I was gonna stay away with, stay away from that. Then when he was signing autographs, some kid was like, can I have your Jersey? He's like, no, I gotta give it to Collins. Most players would be like, all right,

that's a dick thing to say. For whatever reason with the end, I was like, I'm okay with it. And to follow up on the Collins part of it, don't dog Collins for getting dunked on. All right. Appreciate the effort to contest. We do not contest shame on this podcast.

We appreciate those that still will try to defend when the odds are against them. Like that meme from game of Thrones with John and the sword looking at everybody at least he's trying right. So we don't do that with Collins as ugly as it was and I know in basketball culture you're just better just getting away from the entire place you're not gonna have to live in infamy like this but we don't do that on this podcast. So as I watch this team that I get so excited about,

as I tune in the way I did with Vince Carter, where I'll be like, well, look, I should watch Minnesota because they're a good team, but I'm also gonna watch Minnesota all the time because I just wanna see what might possibly happen. That's the level that Ant is on. There are other incredible in-game dunkers. Jalen Green had one last week

that was into the Aaron Gordon tip-in thing from two weeks ago, Nuts. All right. We don't need to start arguing about which dunk was, but the fact that I'm tuning in, I think like a lot of you are, we're going, I'm going to watch Minnesota because I just want to see maybe what happens, what's possible. It's just like with Vince Carter. I didn't care about whether or not the Raptors won those games. Vince Carter, I think is the best in game dunker I've ever seen consistently.

The stuff that he would do. I don't know I don't want to sit here and say it'll never be matched because now I sound like 90s guy But ants making me feel that way again 25 years later in a way. I just didn't think I'd ever have this feeling again So when you look at Minnesota the offense post cat, it's actually the same. It's a hundred and fourteen point six It was 18th in the NBA before cat went down. It's 16th now, so marginal improvement. Again, since Portland, they're four and two. And when I start to think about what's Kat gonna be like

if he comes back, big guy, knee surgery, rest of the regular season, he's out. So it's a massive assumption to be like, okay, he'll be fine and ready to go in the playoffs. And then you start thinking about the way they're built offensively. And then you watch and you're like, could he actually do this? Is he so good?

Is he at such a level right now that he could carry this team through a couple rounds in the Western conference playoffs? Cause normally I'd be like, man, you need that second guy. You need that second guy to create initiate the offense on its own when everybody else loads up against your guy. But then there's moments of last night's game where it looked like Utah had him. guy to create, initiate the offense on its own when everybody else loads up against your guy. But then there's moments in last night's game where it looked like Utah had them. I know Utah's not any good and they've gotten worse here after the All-Star break and trade

deadline. But Utah had a moment where they loaded up with three players against him on the left side in the first half. He shook the first guy with a crossover and then kind of like Euro stepped his way through and there was just a layup. It was three people ready for him. And guess what? They weren't ready in the second half.

They built a wall on a drive against him. Two huge defensive players for Utah standing them straight up, stopped him. He looked like he was stuck. He steps through and then finds an angle and finishes with a layup. And I start to think, is this that next level? Marty fish friend of the podcast, huge Timberwolves fan. He was like, all right, where's Ant in the top 10? I go, for top 10 players, I think there needs to be

a little bit of playoff success on your resume. So if you run through it, you're like, all right, I don't have the Ant in my top five. And statistically, SGA is just off the chart. So it's really hard to argue that Ant's better than him. It's more fun to watch. Okay. That's not, I don't think much of an argument. But SGA also has a million dudes around him that make all of these shots. And even if the shooting is better, when I think about Minnesota's offense, even

without Kat, it's like, all right, I diminished Conley. Alexander Walker has been a really nice improved player, but he's probably not getting you buckets on his own. You know, you think about the rest of the roster and Kyle Anderson maybe doubling up on Ant, and Kyle Anderson's running all of your offense, you're probably not going to want to pass it to go bear a ton, and then you've got whatever it is that Jaden McDaniel's trying to discover in his own game.

But even though I worry about all those things, I'm like, I don't know if I can write it off because of how special Ant has been. And here's the other thing is that after Kat's injury in these games, watching them all, Ant's still playing basketball. I've mentioned Cam Thomas a few times and you've probably already heard me say it.

He's an incredibly talented guy, shop maker, he's gonna play in the league a long, long time. But if you're playing like Cam Thomas is and you're one of his teammates, you're like this sucks sometimes, okay? That is basketball 101. At some point you're like dude, this kinda sucks, especially when McHale Bridges is the better

basketball player. Ant would have every right to play like a basketball pig right now. Just go, whatever. I'm just going to get a million shots up. I know he had, what, 29 shots in the comeback against the Clippers. They were down 20, and then they come back and win by 18

in that one. I think he took 35 shots in the Pacers game. So there's been some nights where he's lit it up, but the efficiency in the shooting is still there. And there's still moments where it's like, is he going to force this a little bit too much? And of course that's going to happen with somebody who's as good as he is offensively,

but he's still making a lot of good basketball plays and good basketball reads. Hell, on the dunk that I'm talking about now for 10 plus minutes, the turnover starts with aunt. Getting the loose ball and making the pass that sets up the pass back to him. He could have just barreled through somebody or everybody if he wanted to, and it would have been totally justified, but he's still playing basketball for the

most part, I think the right way, despite the diminished talent around him would go bear in towns, both being out last night. All I know is this, you see that dunk live as it happens and you're an older guy sitting downstairs by himself and you start screaming thinking about who to call. It feels good to feel that again. From upsets to buzzer beaters, nothing compares to college basketball and FanDuel in March. You know where you were for all of these. I remember, look, the Leighton or Yukon one, that one was devastating to us. I think it was at the Buckland Mall. Tia Sidney, college, remember it? I was like, God, never mind.

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I think the answer is yes to both of those things. They're going up against Duke and they're getting an 11 and a half. So there you go. So download the FanDuel Sportsbook app if you don't already have one by going to fanduel.com slash Ryan, R-Y-E-N. Make every moment more with FanDuel,

America's number one sportsbook. Must be 21 and older and President-Select states. Gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit theringer.com forward slash RG. Refund issued is non-retrawable withdrawal bonus bets expire seven days after a seat max refund $5 unless otherwise specified restrictions apply C terms at sportsbook.fandual.com We are just about a month away from the NFL Draft first day will be in April 25. Todd McShay joins us again as he's been joining us throughout the college football

pro football season and kind of leading up to the draft as well. All right. I know you have an updated mock. I don't want to run through the 10 because we've done it a few times already, but you do have a significant change in your mock. Uh, and it has to do with the fourth quarterback. So just share with us what you have and I'll just throw this in there too. Is this just what you're projecting or is this based on Intel? You know, it's based off of years of experience, I guess, for starters. Secondly,

Minnesota doesn't make the trade that it made with Houston and trying to get more first round draft capital. If they didn't, not only if they're, you know, everyone's like, well, they're going to, now they have the capital to try to move up. You don't make that deal. If, if you don't, if you haven't had significant conversations with teams that are somewhere, let's say in the top five, the way I look at it, Chicago is picking at one. We all know that they're going to take Caleb Williams there. Washington at two, I believe it's going to be Jayden Daniels coming out of LSU, New England at three, very likely to take a quarterback.

Some people think they could trade out of that spot. I don't personally think they will at this point from what I'm hearing. I think they stay at number three and take Drake May is the most likely candidate, even though I think he needs to sit a year. Then you get into that four and five spot with Arizona and the chargers. Right. And the reason I identify those two is because it's head of a head of number six with the giants. Right. And I know that the giants with Daniel Jones, they have a quarterback that they've invested in, but is he the long term answer? I've never thought he is. And so while, while you'd like to hope that he

bounces back, but history tells you the turnovers and the injuries. If you're picking at six, you hope you're never picking that high again. So to me, you had to have had conversations that basically like, what do you need? In order to move out of that spot down to 11 with Arizona at four and the chargers at five. And so I'm not saying a deal is done, but it's pretty damn close is my guess. And it won't shock me before the draft, if we see Minnesota packaging those two picks and an additional pick maybe this year,

and likely like a second or third round pick next year, maybe a second round pick next year to go and move up to number four or to number five with the Chargers. Right, so in the deal with Vikings and the Texans, basically the Vikings get the 23rd and they get a seventh and then Texans get back a good second rounder, which is 42 overall, a six rounder, and then the second round pick in 25.

So they wouldn't have- That's a hell of a lot of draft capital, man. You don't do that unless you feel strongly you can move in the top five and the other part of the equation, right? Right? Like, you know, in basketball, like you're, you're only making that deal and giving away a lot this year and next year. If a you feel like you you've locked in a spot at either number four or number five to go up and get the guy you want and be. want and B if that no matter who the quarterback is available, it's the number four quarterback. You love him. And so you have to assume that they really believe in JJ McCarthy, right? Coming out.

That's what I would push back on. Like, okay. Cause I saw your tweets when it happened, when the deal happens, it's like, Oh wait, like this seems to be very specific, but it's, it's part part one and do they already know that part two is there and people have theorized that part two is moving up. So that says in your mock, in this scenario, they have to get to four, right? Right. Why are you doing- Or potentially five if you had conversations with Arizona and they've insinuated strongly, hey, we're going to stay home and take a receiver. So we're, you know, we don't want to move back that far, but we're not going to take a player that you want it for. Okay.

I have a follow up on that. But I'm going to wait. It seems like a lot for JJ McCarthy is my point. I agree. And I like JJ. You and I have talked about it going back to September. I think JJ McCarthy has a chance to be a better pro. I think he understands processing. I think he sees things quickly. I think he he's advanced for only 20, 28 starts advanced in terms of what he's been asked to do with the line of scrimmage,

what he's been asked to handle in that offense. I think in terms of throwing off schedule, he does it a lot better than people think. I think there's a little bit of inconsistency there. I think there's some question marks too. I mean, I don't think, I know based off of studying tape and just seeing the big picture. But then also when I, this is the time of year, I start to have conversation with guys in the league and, and to a T everyone says the same thing. Like yeah, Jaden Daniels had the best receiving core to throw to of this group and had weapons

all around him. But when you talk about like what was asked of McCarthy, you think about back to that Penn State game, they were on the ball the entire second half. When you have a defense like that and you have an offensive line like that, he wasn't asked to carry the team a lot like, you know, like Drake May was at North Carolina and ups and downs. There's like Caleb Williams was, you know, with the defense giving up, you know, 40, 50 points a game. So there's a lot of questions with JJ McCarthy, but just from an evaluation standpoint, you see that growth potential with him. And just from an evaluation standpoint, you see that growth potential with him. And if you're Minnesota and you look at what you're able to do in the development of quarterbacks,

I think that they feel strongly that they can develop a guy like JJ, but there's also a history too with, you know, go to Drake May as well. So listen, maybe the conversations they had were at number two with Washington or number three with new England. And maybe they think they can get up and get Drake may. Okay. Or, or Jayden Daniels for that matter. Maybe they think that they can get up there and get that.

But I, I just, you're probably talking about packaging those first round picks plus a first round or next year to go up into the top two or three versus maybe four or five would probably be like a second round or next year. I've got to be like certain I've got to be certain if I'm dipping into the savings account of draft picks. I agree. But you know look you know these guys you've worked with them some of them are your friends and I would say it's the same thing I said it recently like no one's running a football team thinking they're bad at drafting no one's ever been like you you know what? I'm just not good at this.

So if their evaluation is that JJ is the second best quarterback or the third best quarterback, then they're talking themselves into the price. I just think you get into so much trouble when I think even the best evaluator would have to admit like, Hey, this position has been this hard. Even if I think I haven't figured out, there's a really good chance I'm going to be wrong. All of our guys are going to be wrong. And now I'm paying this massive tax on going after something that

isn't even the sure thing. Like you want to trade three first for Caleb Williams in a couple seconds. I'd be like, all right, I totally get it. Like I wouldn't even move out of it because that's the other thing about how mock drafts influence this process. I'll never forget like a GM with a team in basketball, we were going over the draft order and rumors

and all this stuff and he was like, if there were no mock drafts, these drafts would play out entirely different. And I was like, wait, what? I'm like, come on. He was like, no, absolutely. Granted, the guy that's supposed to go number one is gonna go number one,

but if you're gonna go to your owner and then he's seeing in the mocks that the guy's listed at 20 or 22 and I take him seventh, because I'm like, I actually just like this guy better and I think the mocks are wrong and I'm zagging on everyone. And when you're wrong with that, then everybody wants you fired. Now there's times where I'll watch a draft,

whether it's basketball or football, and it's like the guy who's projected to go 15th and he goes ninth. And people are like, oh my God. Right. Like, wait, like, was it, is it really that much of a reach by five or six spots? But we're so conditioned to think that there's this just consensus order of all these players. So look, that's, that's my thought on JJ and how much it costs.

Your point though, that you made about Minnesota in theory, like calling in Arizona, which happens, all right? I don't know if there's a relationship there with those specific teams, but I'm not even asking about that. I think the problem from the outside world of like, oh, I could be a GM or I could do all those different things is that you better have the relationships

to call in the favors when you need them. So you would agree that clearly there are teams that are gonna be cool and they don't really feel like it's giving up any kind of competitive advantage it's like hey look if you get the five you're going to be fine because this is probably what we're doing it for what I can't tell you I'm not ever so sure but like we're not going to mess up your plan where if you don't have that relationship the other GM may relish the moment they get to just fuck with the other team you know it's amazing it's all on the you? It's all on the table, go ahead.

It's amazing to me, when I talk to scouts and when I talk to general managers and it's for two different reasons, but what I always ask, you know, dating back to when I started in this business, I always ask like to you, what's the most important part of what you do? And you would think it's like the tape study.

You've got to understand each position. You got to understand what our team is looking for. And that's one of the criteria for what's most important in your job. But like across the board, if it's not the number one listed thing for a person, it's number two, relationships. When you get to be a general manager, you know, we've like, you know, money ball or, you know, we've kind of glorified this like, all right,

this guy is a super scout. Like he can evaluate talent better. I got news for you. Yeah, there are guys that can evaluate talent better, but when you start to rise up and you get to a position of college, scouting director, you know, person, a pro personnel director, um, scouting director of the whole organ. You get there for a reason. You can evaluate and there are some guys that are a little bit better than others, but like the kind of the cream rises to the top. But when you start to get up to like general manager, it's about understanding organization building and having relationships in the league

because those relationships lead to moments like this lead to other Intel lead to being able to make trades, whether it's draft or player related. So like, you know, it'll be interesting to see what those relationships are like when, when we find out what Minnesota does and what deal they're And I get the other news too for everyone is go back after every draft, talking about like the Colts this past year, right? And their draft process. When did they decide which quarterback was going to be a top there board, the guy that they wanted? Well, it was at the combine and the combine solidified it when they interviewed him and met with him and saw,

but like it's not the on the field stuff. It's by that, by that point, when you're on the field, you're on the field, you're on the field and you're on the field and the combine solidified it when they interviewed him and, and, and met with him and saw, but like, it's not the on the field stuff. It's by that, by that point, when you're in the quarterback market and you're talking drafting in the top 10, I'd say 80% of the time, you know, by let's say, you know, late February, early March, who the guy is that you want. You really do. And then maybe it's two guys. And then you go to the individual workouts and all that. So my point to that is the Vikings know, Hey, Caleb's one, we're not getting them, but we've got Jayden two, JJ, three, Drake, may four, or maybe they have Drake, may two,

Jayden three, whatever that order is. They've basically made up their mind at this point, okay? And if there's kind of a tiebreaker, yeah, maybe the rest of the process, the interviews, bringing them into your facility, going out and have private workouts, maybe that can be a tiebreaker. But my point is, you have to have the evaluation first,

and then you have to have the conversations. If you're gonna make a move that Minnesota has made already to bring in that 23rd pick and say, Hey, we're ready to go up and get our guy moving forward. And it's, it's, it's, you know, it, to me, it's so much of like the general manager, Quessy working with, with Kevin O'Connell and knowing what Kevin wants. So there's, there's gotta be a lot of communication within the organization as well. And Kevin's done a great job developing and improving quarterbacks that he's worked with. So there are things that they're looking for specifically that will fit what Kevin is looking for in a quarterback.

Okay. That was really good. Cause I think you could add to the timeline. Okay. They knew they were going to move on from cousins. They bring in Darrell on the one year stop gap, which means that whoever they draft is going to play this year, even though everybody preaches patience, especially if it's somebody who's less experienced and say Caleb starts or even Jayden starts who has, well, I think North of 50. 55 starts for Jayden right behind him is Caleb, but then you get like the sub 30 starts and you and I, you saw me tweet a,

Bucky Brooks had a great article, right? Right. NFL.com, former player, front office, great resume. The history, like the last 20 or so years of drafting quarterbacks, and the two major factors, the takeaways for me, were experience from college prospects. And the crazy part is 40% is kind of the hit rate of quarterbacks in terms of first round draft picks

and getting a second contract and all that. Which, you know, the fact that we're less than 50% at this point with all the money and time that is invested in evaluating quarterbacks is scary. The second part is, it's not just the experience coming out of college, because that hit rate dips significantly below 30 starts and even more below 20 starts, okay? But it's also the guys that come into a situation with fewer than 30 starts and even more below 20 starts. Okay. But it's also the guys that come into a situation

with fewer than 30 starts and are forced to start right away. Very few of them go on to have success like, you know, somewhere in that, like that 20% range. So if you're playing this as a percentages game and you're going to draft a Drake May, who's got 26 starts or JJ McCarthy with 28 starts. I'm not saying you absolutely can't start them right away, but history tells you, you're better served in terms of long-term success of redshirting him or at least playing him in a limited role as a rookie and allowing him to sit and learn and understand like Patrick Mahomes did in Kansas City. I want to ask philosophically about some things, you know, over the years,

or I remember when there was some rule changes, I used to think like, okay, I love shut down corners. Like sign me up. Terrence Newman, mocks being like a lock hall of famer just on the radio, barely watched him in college. Certain, certain that this guy was a stud. He's taking away your number one, living on an island. Yeah. It changes our whole defensive scheme.

Looks like the left side of the field shut down for the next decade based on this four sentence summary. That's why I always- I love it. That's like 2007 scouting, right? Yeah. Who was the D tackle from Kentucky? That's why like I always. That's like 2007 scouting, right? Yeah, who was the D Tackle from Kentucky that was like, this is going back, I think like 15 years. What the hell was his name?

All right, I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonna look at it because we were doing it. But like it was one of those deals where, all right, I gotta find this on the fly. IT's just freaking out at me right now. I love it. There was... There was...

There's a like, Lidarius... No, no. Here's the point, is that people started talking about this guy, and at this point, like I was post Boston, but then at ESPN, thanks to Todd, by the way. And I was listening to everybody talk about him. And it was kind of one of those early epiphanies

of how it all works. All right, Dwayne Robertson. Dwayne, 2003. So I was actually still in Boston, all right? And he was the fourth overall pick and he played for the Jets for like five years. And look, he started a bunch of games. Let's just say he was not, he was not Warren Sapp.

All right. And I would listen to guys, I think it was probably because you were doing talk radio and a lot of Colin stuff. And it was just, hey, you know, we got to get this Robertson guy in here. You know, this guy's going to like, he's going to take away the interior,

free it up for the linebackers. And like everybody's just talking in circles about how fucking amazing this guy is. All of a sudden now he's like a top five pick and you're going, this is an absurd. It was an epiphany for me. Cause I was like, not one person that has convinced themselves that this guy's the next thing has watched him

play at Kentucky. There's no way, especially in Massachusetts where they're not going gonna watch any college football, they're not gonna watch the SEC. That's a very short list of dudes from our upbringings that'd be like, I love SEC football. They're like, no, you don't. You like four teams, you don't care about the rest of them.

So whenever I think about, again, trends and the excitement of all these different things, now I've gone too long with that whole diatribe, but there was a time when it was like, you need one of these corners to hold up. And then it was like, do you? And now I think you're back to it. I think there are times where you look at the safeties

and you go these dynamic tight ends. I need somebody who can at least turn. They don't have to run a four, four or four or five, but they need to be big enough to tackle. They're big enough to be at least matched somewhat physically, but then quick enough with their hips to be able to cover some of these things. Like where is that safety? And now we're seeing, I think philosophically, like a lot of the offensive line stuff where

it's like, where are the guys because we're doing too many things that are different between Saturday and Sunday. So I always just like talking to somebody like you about this, where the trends, the things people are looking for and what's happening in the NFL. Well, I think a couple things stand out. First of all, getting back to that like safety corner thing. It's called like the big nickel is kind of in vogue right now because and

you're a nickel by the way, like whenever anybody brings this up, you mean your base defense, like the 3443 debates that we used three debates that we used to have 20 years ago and how stupid it was, it's like, hey, nickel's your base, okay? Nickel's your base. Nickel is your base. It's like 70% of the time, opposing offenses are in three receiver sets, so you match it with your nickel.

You bring in an extra corner. But what a lot of teams have done is like three safety looks. And ultimately it's all kind of the same. You still have outside corners. You still have two safeties that can, you know, you can, you can invert them. You can, you know, all those different things. But the big nickel is kind of that hybrid guy, right? Kyle Hamilton is almost a different breed.

Like God only makes a few of those and, you know, in a generation, right? Where you're six, four wingspan of like a seven foot basketball player can, he ran a four, six, but he on the field runs in the four, fours. It looks like can turn and run, can do all those things. More prevalent though, is the guy who's like six foot, 200, 205. And here's what you're looking for, right? You need a guy who's going to play that nickel spot in today's game because you can be matched up against a 510 wide receiver who's super quick and can get in and out of breaks and all that or you can be matched up against a

6263 Bulked up wide receiver who's technically a tight end like an F tight end to move tight end And so you need a guy who fits this, like no matter what his height and weight and wingspan, what those measurables are, you don't have to be a four, three guy to play that position, although you'd love to have it, but you have to be ultra quick and you have to be physical. You got to be able to tackle. And why do I say that? Because you're now playing closer to the line of scrimmage, right? So you got to be involved in the run game. When they run your side,

you've got to be able to tackle. And so you're, you're an extension of the box, right? But you're not in the box. So even if you're six foot, two Oh five, you got to be able to like get off of blocks quick enough, use your hands and like love to tackle. And so you go through the guys that everyone's looking for. And also you got to, you got to do this again, don't have to be four, three or even four fours. You can be a four or five guy and be a really good big nickel,

but you got to have the quickness and anticipation to cover the two way go. And what does that mean? It means as a receiver on the outside, when you're matching up a perimeter receiver as a cornerback, you can take away one side by utilizing the sideline. So you can prevent him from going one way or the other. As a slot corner, a big nickel, the receivers always have a two way go. They can go outside or inside, right?

And so you got to be quick enough to adjust and you got to have the instincts to kind of read that route. And so guys in the league that have had a lot of success, McDuffie, Brian Branch is a rookie last year, Kyler Gordon, Teron Johnson, like the list goes on and on. Teams in the league are really looking for that. And I think why teams are so excited about this draft, you got Cooper Dejean from Iowa who could play that spot, a safety corner hybrid. Mike Sanresville, who's a wide receiver switched over to safety cornerback for Michigan. Andrew Phillips from Kentucky, Jarvis Brownlee from Louisville, Max Melton, Bo Melton's younger brother coming out of Rutgers. Chris Abrams Drain, the cornerback from Missouri. Tyke Smith from Georgia, who's played that, whether you call it

a star or a big nickel, whatever it is in the college scheme, that's the role you're going to play in the NFL. So that's exciting to NFL teams this year, cause you're always looking for that guy. Last year didn't have a great big nickel or slot corner class. This year's group does. The other thing is the offensive line and we can get into a big debate, but like there was a drought in offensive linemen coming out of college for a while. Let's call it seven, eight years because so many teams, so many teams in college were going to that spread. And it was with the RPOs, right?

Also kind of bringing in a lot of elements of the air raid if they weren't running an air raid offense, a lot of finesse, a lot of past protection, a lot of getting out on the RPOs and doing stuff down the field. So you had to be able to run, position wall off, but we weren't developing grinders and like gap power scheme offensive linemen. Well, Lincoln Riley comes in, right? And there's a reason that probably more coaches in the off season go visit Lincoln Riley when he was in Oklahoma and now at USC, because what he did was take that air raid, that spread system and make it much more run focused than it had been in

college because everyone was catching on tempo and spread tempo and spread. Well, they got the beat on that defensively. We knew what would happen. And so now how do we mix those elements in and still be a physical football team? What Lincoln does with that, that GT pull, the guard tackle pull, you watch them so many times, you got these two, 310, 325 pound backside guard tackle combinations, snap of the ball, right? Pulling to the right side, pulling to the left side and like a, you know, a cavalcade and an escort for you to as a run block as a runner. So we've seen now teams and so many coaches during the off season going and study what they're doing because it's been so successful.

Now teams are getting back to offensive lineman who are 300 plus pounds physical can pull a little bit, but that's now translating. We're seeing one of the best offensive line classes I've seen in maybe the best offensive line class coming out from the college ranks to the NFL. We've seen it over a decade. Yeah. There's projected maybe six guys that could go in the first round is just the tackle position alone.

All right. Final, final thought here. You sent me a text this week and I was like, okay, we knew the breakout video before it was even happening But then you sent me your mock. So I guess I'll just tee it up this way Where are you with Marvin Harrison jr. Versmalik neighbors? I've I Finally like so here the process is during the season I go through and I watch tape on schools because it's either you know, five guys for Ohio State's offense

schools, because it's like, you know, five guys from Ohio State's offense, right up an initial report. Then you get to this time of year. And then I go through positions because now I want to get them in the neighborhood, but then I want to lock it down. You know, it's kind of like air traffic control in the beginning, right? We're sending 50 flights out from all over the country. We all know they're going to land in Boston Logan Airport, right? In the beginning of the process, you get dots all over the screen

from every different point in the country. As you get closer to the draft, now you're starting to get them in formation. If you ever lived near an airport or just watched as you're driving the highway, going to an airport, you can at night, you can see the lights like lined up. Boom, boom, boom.

I kind of, that's how I visualize like ranking these guys. Get to March and April, I've got to land all these planes, which one's the first, which one's the second, which one's the third. So this time of season, you know, long short, I go in and I study the receiver group and I go one after another, after another, and start to change my grades and rankings because I'm now watching them all apples to apples. And I just did a deep dive with like, you know, with all the top guys from, from, uh, Marvin Harrison jr to Malik neighbors all the way, you know, Romo Dunze from, from Washington, uh, Brian Thomas, Xavier,

worthy, AD Mitchell. The nice part this year is there's a lot of guys who are payers on the same team. But as I went through that and I really studied it and I tried to take like all preconceived notions out of it and I really studied it. And this is the conclusion I came to. Marvin Harrison Jr. is a big bad bitch of a receiver. He's going to out physical you and he like my biggest takeaway is he is one of if not the most NFL ready receivers that I've ever evaluated. Like plug him in tomorrow.

He's going to be a number one. He's going to be a great player. His savvy, his angles, his leverage, how he uses his hands, his feet sets up defender. Like he is so NFL ready, it's scary. But can he be that like top three, top five receiver in the NFL? The answer is, I don't know that he's ever gonna be that. Like the most explosive receiver, like the Tyree Kill,

the guy that like you are scared to death of. I think he's always gonna be a great receiver, perennial pro bowler. And he's going to be from day one. But Malik neighbors, to me at the wide receiver position coming out of, out of LSU at just like 600, 200 pounds has a chance to be a Tyree kill type of difference maker. And ever the knock on him is he's got to bulk up. He's got to get stronger. He's only been a slot, right? Think back to Justin Jefferson. Ah, he's a slot receiver.

Can they ever be a great outside guy? I think he's going to make a similar transition, maybe a lot of slot early on, but he can be both right. And neighbors, his ability to accelerate and change direction at like, the fastest clip you can imagine for a receiver is rare. And he's the rare dude that's an absolute dog. When do you get a speedster who's at 90, who's at 100, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards,

who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards, who's at 100 yards. And he's the rare dude that's an absolute dog. When do you get a speed, sir? Who's a dog after the catch, fighting for yards, blocking them. You just don't like their track stars. They're like, you know,

they're the, give me the bowl, get out of bounds. Right. He's not. So I looked at all those things and said, you know what? There's more risk in neighbors. He's got to get bigger and stronger. Is he going to be able to hold it physically? Is he going to go through some bumps early in the road? Yeah, maybe. But what if he can develop into what I think he can be? He's got a chance to be like, you know, the next Tyree that kind

of guy. Their games aren't like identical. I'm just saying in terms of what you're scared of the explosiveness. So I'm going with neighbors ahead of, of Marvin Harrison Jr. And I'm shocked to say it because I didn't like this whole process is like M H J and everybody else. Right. But I would take a chance on neighbors. Cause I think he has, he can make a difference for your offense that no other receiver in this class

can. Wow. I did not expect that. I know I'd be having fun with with Kiper on this one right now. I'm gonna have to shoot him a shoot him a text that he won't respond to him and Kim Kiper his wife will have to respond and say just ask Mel will you ask him if we can get him. Oh I will. All right. Yeah let's I think it was March 19th so let's get him on early April. We'll have some fun. All right, that sounds great.

Good stuff today, Todd, appreciate it. All right, brother, I'll talk to you soon. Today's armchair quarterback is brought to you by State Farm. Whether you're amongst a roaring stadium crowd or reclining your sofa, there's something to be said about being a diehard sports fan. Diehard sports fan, let's talk about it. All right, it's an escape from reality. You don't have to get into science fiction.

That's positive. Although there is some great science fiction out there. You feel like everything's on the line. So when the moments are awesome, you're like, that's why I do it. That's why I lift all these weights. This was actually worth it. I think about the college programs. Think about Marilyn and my buddy Scott VanPelt, that at least he had that one run, right? He had that one run and that's never been devalued by multiple runs. So is it better to just win once? I mean, that seems kind of stupid, but you're really going to appreciate that one that much more.

Feeling like everything matters in that moment more than anything else. That could also be probably unhealthy, as I remember, not feeling right after a week 12 loss until the start of week 13. Maybe that's what's baked into all of that anxiety anticipation. You're sitting there going, I'm going to be miserable for probably six days if this doesn't go my way. Seeing somebody else in a Michael Bishop jersey going, I believed in him too. There's a camaraderie there that happens amongst the diehards that's beyond anyone else showing up going, I only watch the playoffs. Just like a fellow fan who backs your team or that go-to friend when you can use a little help, State Farm is there to help you feel supported and to answer insurance questions about your car, your home, and other things that matter

to you, whether it's on the phone, online, or on the award-winning State Farm mobile app. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. I'm going to give a little backstory here. I had a little time off. I was in the hotel room. I was like, I want to watch something new, something I haven't seen. I want to try something out. I always give Apple a chance, right?

And I see this show called The New Look and I'm like, Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, fashion. I'm like, do I have it in me? I'm like, wait, Ben Mendelson's in it. And he's on the very short list of people that I'll be like, I'll give it a shot because of him. And I love the show, it's great. And Ben joins us now.

Thanks for doing this. How are you? Hey Tom, I'm great. And thank you very much. I'm glad you gave us a go because I'm very proud of this show. It's, I'm great. And thank you very much. I'm glad you gave us a go because I'm very proud of this show. It's incredible. You know, I think in a weird way, the way it's almost pitched a bit,

you're, the audience would be like, am I really gonna be able to get it? But it's about World War II, it's about Nazi occupation, it's about the business of fashion. And I know that Todd Kessler, somebody you have a great relationship with going back to your work on Bloodline.

How did it come about where you end up playing Christian Dior in Signed for World? And I think it's a terrific show. So, I mean, he's at my place in LA and he's making pizza from scratch. And he tells me, oh, I read this, I read Dior's autobiography. And I said, oh yeah, you know,

because he's steered me under some good old biographies, Andre Agassi, Oh, yeah, you know, because he's given me under some good autobiographies, you know, Andre Agassi, and he says, Yeah, he says he has this thing where he has his personal self and his public self. And he hates himself because, you know, his public self isn't his personal self. And I went, when are we doing it? And, you know, and that was like, seven years ago, I think now. And because, you know, I think that's, that's a really super, I mean, I think everyone gets that, but I think if you work in, you know, if you work in a public space,

then you especially feel that. But I think everyone kind of feels that, you need to go to a party and think about why didn't I say that thing to him or this or that, or why can't I just be more, so go to a party and think about, why didn't I say that thing to him or this or that, or why can't I just be more of a fella? So that was the in. And really because Todd and I had a really good relationship, and I think Danny Rayburn, who is the character I play in Bloodline,

which is a Netflix show, and we did that in 2014 or thereabouts. It's probably, if you boil it all down, I think he's probably the singularly most important kind of character I ever played in terms of, you know, things kind of disseminating and blowing up and whatnot. I think he's probably the, you know,

him and the guy I did in a film called Animal Kingdom, which is obviously then turned into a show, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Now, when you're trying to figure out, like there's all these characters that we all love that you've played and some can be intense. Some are guys are just down and out,

but with Dior, there's this regalness to him. But yet you really, you know, this is where I'm complimenting you. And I've read enough of your interviews where you talk about the act of actually acting, but there's a subtlety to him that's tortured. It's like you can't really overdo it. And I know you talked a bit about figuring that line out,

but where was it for you when you kind of discovered who he needed to be for the show to work? It really is something that you just try and find in the space. I mean, I think if I'd had my time all over again, I think I'd have tried to rehearse a lot more before we did anything. But given that that's not how we work and that's not how Todd and I work either, we just sort of find out as we're going. But really, it's just trying to have the,

it's trying to have a sense of where he's coming from and to just, it's really the scripts and that kind of guide you. But I think you want to treat, look, I treat the audience as the single most important thing, and the only reason to actually do anything. If you've got that in mind, everything else becomes easier because if you imagine that your audience has got the same kind of tastes or better that you have, then you don't rip them off. And if, you know, I know I would want to, to enter into, to get a sense of the person, but not be allowed too far in, you know what I mean? Like to still have a lot of room to guess. And you can't,

you don't want to overdo that stuff. And also you just kind of kind of feel it on the day. You know, you can sort of feel sometimes if you're a bit, and I'm making a hand motion for those of you that can't see it, but you don't want to sort of, you don't want to rip people off and you don't want to, well, that sounds alarming. That's a doorbell. Well, that sounds alarming. That's a doorbell.

You want to, you know, you just want to, it's sort of like fishing in baseball. You know what I mean? You don't want to walk. You don't want to walk the batter. You don't want to walk that batter. You want to strike them out. Or if they're going to connect, you want to make sure that, oh, they really, you know, boy, they hit a home run off that I really saw, you know, so you want to just try and keep it in that, in that zone where you're pitching and, and, and the better doesn't know what's coming, you know, there's a, that's a new analogy, by the way, that's copyright me right here right now. We're generally a sports podcast, so everybody's going to be able to pick up on that. Um, I, I guess I'm trying to be delicate about asking this. So maybe I'll just ask.

Pardon my curse curse. Please. But there, there you have it. Look, I'm an Australian guy. I'm, you know, a rugby league fanatic, which is the lesser form of rugby, if you're wondering. So please feel free. I'm an Australian male. You can picture that me however you like. Why are you so great at playing losers? I think it's because I have a great love for...

Well, it comes from having a great love of the foible of human condition. It's probably a mode, because what tends to happen in castings is you get a sort of a mode of things. And listen, Christian Dior's not a loser. Like he's a massive winner, right? But he's very, very, and also it's my take on, it sort of probably comes from the Australian way of looking at things. Australians have a great love and an affection for human foible.

Traditionally, in American culture, and I'm being very, very, very black and white here as it were. You like good guys and bad guys. There's good guys and bad guys, you know? There's good guys, there's bad guys, and you like moral strength, you like, you know, it's a very, very different culture to, you know, the criminal, you know, cops and robbers BS of Australia.

But, you know, I think because I've seen enough scuzziness in my life that, I used to play sweet boys that used to wonder how to get the girls. People would ask me, why you just play sweet guys that love the girl? It tends to be that, but I really like the question. I think it's because it's where people are really interesting. Do you know what I mean? It's like where people are really at their most interesting.

I was listening. This is a big leap and I don't want to get it confused. I was listening to this book by a woman called Anne Rule, who's a true crime writer. She wrote a book called The Stranger Beside Me. Now she knew Ted Bundy, way before Ted Bundy was Ted Bundy. And she was already, she was already a true crime writer. She was already the author of that fantastic book,

really interesting. And it's really interesting to watch someone that writes true crime wrestle with the person and the actual, and who he actually is. So I just think it's a very um that's an incredibly extreme example and he's a he's a long dead scumbag and well dead but it's very interesting to hear from someone that knew him as a person with this potential, as a person that looked like this, looked like that. But that's who that guy actually is. In some of my favorite roles of you, there's these, and we can just say, oh, this guy's down and out. He doesn't have any money and this is how we're going to do him with

wardrobe. But whether it's killing me softly or it's like, killing them softly, you're, you're stealing dogs. You're like, okay, that's a very specific thing. Um, in Mississippi grind, which I, I love so much the first scene with you about to go into the casino, but he's listening to a book on tape on how to read poker tells I'm like, that's the biggest loose. Cause I was the 20 year old going to Vegas on the flight with my blackjack card.

It's like, just leave your money and turn around, you know? Like this is like these. How awesome, right? Right, because what it does, it's like the efficiency of storytelling. It's your ability. It's the character, but it's also, you know, credit to the writers and everything of,

of mapping it out in a way where it's like, okay, I know, but tell me why specifically this guy is in this position and that it's up to you to kind of take it and run with it. And I just think there's these great moments that you have in all these movies. And my favorite one, look, The Place Beyond the Pines is one of my all time favorite movies.

It's hard for anything to surpass it. The more I watch it, the more I appreciate it. After the first bank robbery, where you and Ryan Gosling or listen to Bruce Springsteen, you're having a couple of beers, you're firing cigarettes and Gosling just starts dancing with the dog and then you get up and dance. What I loved was that that's what those guys

would have done instead of the cliche post bank robbery that we see in movies. No, those guys would have just danced with each other with their shirts off with a dog. Yeah. And listen, this is a real credit to Derek Sanfranc because when that's originally written right, the character that I play is a sort of a,

you know, tear tattoo spider on his face, like, you know, neo-Nazi ex-prisoner. And Ryan and I got there and on the first day, we were ad-libbing a lot. And it was like we were being the two toughest guys on the face of the earth together. And it sucked, right? So this is his genius.

He came around and he said, look, I'm not particularly a fan of the way I've written this. I understand Schenectady and Place Beyond the Pines, which is what Schenectady translates as, is something that it's a love letter because that's him and his wife. So Derek's work is very close to him but anyway he says why don't we forget all this? Why don't we just have it that he's a guy with that same past and he sees Ryan driving around, you see them, they drive, he sees him and he's like oh I like this guy, I might wanna be friends, maybe you wanna be more than friends with him.

Would you be okay with that? And I'm like, hell yeah, let's do it like that. And so then we did it for a day or two, and we were still cracking the mold. And I said something or other one day, one day we were ad-libbing, and I think Ryan said, I'm gonna stab you. And I said, no, no you won won't. No, you won't.

And he just started laughing. And then we cracked open like an egg. And we just had, it remains one of the happiest time shooting ever because it really was like that. We were just having a ball and that doesn't happen often. That really doesn't happen often. But that's Derek Sanfranc. Did Gosling ad lib with the dog? Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, but that's Derek Sanbrown. Did Gosling ad-lib with the dog?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, totally. Look, Ryan's fantastic. Ryan is, you know, like Ryan's up for, Ryan's really up for anything. And you know, I think like Ryan is one of the greatest romantic leads of our time. But you know, the great thing about Ryan is he's got, he's got

the most immense range. And he's also the greatest romantic sort of leader of modern times. I mean, it's a tough, you know, like that's a good hand at poker. That's a tough hand to beat. Did you know how great Pines was while you were shooting it?

No, no, no, no, I had no idea. No, and you never have any idea, and you always think they're gonna fail. You know, I always do. I'm an eternal sort of anxious pessimist about them, you know? Yeah, and it's like, it's just spectacular because I could sense it away.

It's like, okay, it's these two different films within a film. Like, I could just imagine as someone writing it, and then the first. It's like, okay, it's these two different films within a film. Like I could just imagine as someone writing it and then the first read would be like, I don't know, man, like two different movies and the same thing. Like, you know how the town works. It would just be, wait, you did this formatically, like completely different.

You shouldn't do it this way. Nobody's gonna wanna do it this way. It doesn't work. And it's like, no, that's why it's, I mean, it's beautiful. That's why it does work. It's kind of like the second side of Abbey Road. You know what I mean?

It's like when you mesh these things in together that don't quite work, you know, that aren't necessarily the same thing. Same thing with My Private Idaho, which is one of my favorite films from way back in the day. It's essentially two stories. It's a story about a couple of hustling kind of rent boys. And then it's, you know, Henry IV, is it?

Or the fifth, Henry IV, I think, whatever,, Henry the fourth, is it, or the fifth, Henry the fourth, I think, whatever, whichever of the Shakespeare's it is, tuck them in together and you get this weird sort of film, which is more than it's parts, you know? So I know you had moved a lot when you were younger and it took me watching Pines and then Mississippi again. It feels like Jerry and Robin just want a friend. Oh yeah. Was that something that spoke to kind of your upbringing?

I think very much. I think one of the things about if you move early in life, I always talk to a guy, like a guy that's done spectacularly well in life, straight, you know, and grew up in a long time in Australia. But we talked about that. I said, when you move a lot when you're young, you really lose something. You lose that solid foundation stuff, but you really gain something else.

If you can sort of survive it and endure it, you gain, you really gain something else. But yeah, that sort of solitude, the tendency towards solitudeness and all that, that's been, you know, that's been, that's been a lot of my life, yeah. When you're starting out, you know, and I think this is tougher for males to be like, hey, I'm interested in some of the arts.

And I know the story, you were with your teenage buds and you just say, hey, there's this ad and they're looking for actors and fuck it, I think is your quote, like let's do it. And nobody else shows up except for you. Did you understand in that moment, like the courage you were shown, maybe you think that's just a shit thing,

but I think looking back, it's something you have to give yourself credit for, for the bravery of something like that. Yeah, I do. And I did feel like I had more, more, you know, I had more kind of like ticker, you know, heart Australian ticker is Australian for heart. I was showing more ticker than them. But really, and I didn't understand this until I listened to some podcasts, they've talked about Taylor Swift songs. And they said, Look, the first big song of hers is about,

you know, have arranging to go out to the mall with all the mates and then none of them, you know, say or say no, then she goes to the mall and they're all there. And I was like, and they said in this podcast, yeah, everyone has one of those moments. And I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, I had that moment. I know that moment, you know. So, yeah, it was, but you know,

it was a really defining moment. And the other thing is, it was, but you know, it was a really defining moment. And the other thing is, it was my best buddy from the school. Here's what happened. I went to a school in the outer suburbs. It was very rough and tough, kind of, you know, petty criminal kind of area, whatnot. Then I came to boarding school in Pennsylvania. And then I got the boot from there, which was very fortunate. Why? Why did you get kicked out? boarding school in Pennsylvania. And then I got the boot from there, which was very fortunate.

Why, why did you get kicked out? I was, listen, I was very unsuited to that spot. And then I destroyed some of my roommates property and then I tried to sort of make out like it was someone else. I was a dick, right? And they were quite rightly went, listen, listen, dick, you need to go, you're required to withdraw.

We're not expelling you, but we are requiring you to withdraw. And so then that was that. And then I had a choice. It was like, okay, you can stay in boarding school somewhere in America and come back to Australia every holidays or whatnot. You can go to boarding school in Australia. I went, yeah, I think, hold on, it's like, do you want to be a millionaire? I was like, picked up the phone. I went, I think I'll call a friend.

So I called up my grandma and I said, can I come say it? She said, yeah, you can, but la la. The buddy from my school in Australia is the guy who told me about the ad in the paper. And I wasn't doing any drama back then and whatnot. So it's just these weird little chances and stuff.

But it's a scary job acting. It's a scary, I don't know. I mean, I'm just filling in the rest of that story. It's maybe it seems a little nonclass, but whatever. Perfect segue because I think those, right. Those of us from the outside that are obsessed with whether it's your work personally or the work of your industry,

maybe obsessed with a strong work, but like we know when we see greatness and then we have our issues like, oh, that doesn't feel like it works. So it can feel like probably a dumb question from the outside of like, how do you do your job? When it's like, hey, in fact, this is my job. Like I figured it out, okay?

This is my job, I've been able to figure it out. But somebody was asking you specifically about your process and I think a journal came up and you said, quote, it's all bullshit, it's all absolute bullshit. Yeah, I do, I believe that. About the process of actually acting. Can you understand how from, for those of us on the outside of it, it's like, is it really that true? the process of actually acting. Can you understand how from, for those of us on the outside of it,

it's like, is it really that true? It can't be true. That's how we see it. I'll give you a shorthand explanation. When I was growing up, I was an absolute De Niro fanatic, right? He was the whole world for me. You know, I'm a taxi driver,

I watch it again and again, blah, blah, blah. But that was, and then we're talking about the 80s. And in the 80s, the method acting, right? Method acting, you guys know what it is. If you don't Google it, was everything, right? So, so part of interviews became talking about, well, what did you do to prepare and how did you prepare? And all there'd be all this press on, oh, you know, De Niro did this and he did that to prepare yada yada this yada yada that. And it just became something that was de rigueur. You had to sort of talk about your preparation, this and that.

And I'd work with people and they'd talk about their preparation and talk about this. And then they'd do the scene that would be like, okay, so you did all this preparation and that sucks. Like what you, like it's got nothing to do with what we're doing, first of all, and secondly, it sucks. And so what it is, this is what it is to me. To me, method really is about theater, right? Number one.

Number two, it's about the writing styles changing. It's about Chekhov appearing in Russia, and then all of a sudden having these very deep, different types of things to perform and going Oh shit, how do we do this? And someone coming up with an approach That really did revolutionize acting but It's it got calcified

It just became one of these things where people had to jerk off and pretend they'd done this and done that and that became like See how good I am because i've done all this stuff and the, the, the, the, the. And I did one masterclass with the guy. I've done next to no schooling. But he, one of the things he said, and this guy was a Georgian actor, Georgia, Russian Georgia, where Stalin came from. And he said, if I go in a restaurant, I don't care.

I don't want to know how the cook cooked it. Who gives a shit? You know, all I want is a good meal. So I don't care what your approach is. I don't care what this, I don't care that, I don't want to know how to cook. Who gives a shit? All I want is a good meal. So I don't care what your approach is. I don't care what this, I don't care that, I don't care that. And then there's one final bit and this is where the name goes, drop. I did a film with Anthony Hopkins and I asked him, I said, look, I've got to ask you this because I'll kill myself. I regret it for the rest of my life. I don't like what do you do? How do you do it? And he basically said, more or less,

you know, he doesn't know what he's gonna do before he turns up. And I'm like, what? What, what do you mean? He said, well, I don't. I mean, I know the script, I know this, but in terms of what I'm actually gonna do, I don't really know until I get there.

And I'm like, but how? But what, but, and he said that. He said exactly what he said before. He said, because, you know, I know until I get there. I'm like, but how, but what, but he said that he said exactly what you said before. He said, because, you know, I, I know what I'm doing. And slowly I just, I stopped watching what I was doing to try and, you know, to try and get away from, you know, figuring out head angles and all that sort of BS. Because I just feel like and I just started going, well, I do kind of know what I'm doing.

And I rolled with that more and more. And what I would do is read the script once. And then I would turn up on set, take the words and go, oh, yeah, that's what we're doing. I have a good memory for words and lyrics and stuff like that. And that's generally what I would do. Now, that's had plenty of times where it's gone and fallen very flat and been very, very unjoyous for, you know, whoever I happen to be working with. But that's currently still more or less what I've done. Was the dark night, to use another sports analogy here,

when you realized like, oh, okay, I can play with these guys? Oh, mate, the Dark Knight, that was totally it. Big shout out to Hildy Godelope, the agent, because I was doing, I was doing, you mentioned it before, killing them softly, right? And I've gotten this thing going,

you put yourself on tape for, you know, I'd never gotten, I had never gotten anything ever from putting myself on tape. So I was like, oh, here, whatever. And she went, Ben, put yourself on tape. Anyway, we put myself on tape, blah, blah, blah. And I got the gig and I was like, no way, no way. It was like going to the playoffs.

It was like, oh my God, I'm in the biggest film that's being shot on earth right now. Right now. Then it was Anne Hathaway, because Anne Hathaway had seen me, I guess, in maybe in Animal Kingdom or something like that. So she was really kind to me and stuff. I was very, I was pretty fun. I was intimidated. I was quite intimidated. You know, like here we are doing this mess, you know, I didn't really know what I was doing. And so,

you know, because you never know what you're doing. That's the thing about acting. You sort of know what you're doing, but you also don't. And anyway, that was that. I'll leave you with this. After first seeing Mississippi Grind and just loving the dynamic between you and Ryan Reynolds, the scene where you're just so excited that he's back at the bar because he thought he was gone. Because you got to kind of get out of there and things aren't working out for you. Yeah. Yeah.

And the whole backstory of the Woodford whiskey, when you're playing at that first poker table, I have a friend where for probably a year and a half, maybe two years if we were at a bar, we would just yell, a Woodford, two Woodfords. And we'd look at the other guy, no one ever got the joke. We got the joke. I don't think any bartender ever thought it was funny. I'd say half the time they didn't have Woodford

and then they'd be like, well, you must be whiskey drinkers. We'd be like, I don't even really bartender ever thought it was funny. I'd say half the time they didn't have Woodford and then they'd be like, well, you must be whiskey drinkers. They'd be like, I don't even really want Woodford. I just want to yell a Woodford and then look at my friend and scream two Woodfords. We yelled that line for way too long. And as a former bartender, at least I felt a little guilty is that I was like,

boy, this would be really annoying the other way around if nobody gets the joke, if you haven't seen the movie. But the delivery of that line with the excitement of, oh, I'm gonna drink Woodford, my new friend, because he likes Woodford, but no, make it two Woodfords. It just, it'll never go away from me. And it even gets recycled every now and then as a joke. So thank you for that moment,

for me that my friends have been able to share. Well, thank you very much. I'd make mine a Woodfords, you know, like I love that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Continued success as always. I'll be watching all of it. I can't wait to see how the new look closes out on Apple and congrats on everything and thanks for the time. I really appreciate it, mate. It's lovely talking with you. The Alliance rolls on our pick for tonight. Denver at Minnesota. The line as of taping is Denver minus seven and a half. The total is 213 and a half.

But the go bear status plays into a lot of what we want to do here. And he's missed the last few games ribs. And there's still some uncertainty by the time we're taping this so we don't know. And it changes I think a lot of the game plan stuff the last time they played they've only played once this year is November 1 so you can kind of like throw that away. We did win last week so you're bearing the lead. Yeah, my bad. Get the W. Let's go. We heard the haters were silent. Now people just take this so far.

Like when we screwed up the first one, it's like, you know, really guys, maybe you shouldn't be doing these. Well, week two, the oh and four week two. Not agreeable. We deserve criticism. Be honest. But we also deserve praise. Yep.

You're up. Are you up? Are you up? Oh, you're up. Thank you. Woodford too. Okay. Who wants to go first? Who went first last time? Let's keep the vibes going. I think it was me. Might've been me. Go. I'll go. I'm going to take Jamal Murray. Two plus made threes.

He's done it in eight of the last 11 games. I think in these games against good teams, he like kind of tries harder sometimes just like watching I could be wrong there But I just like watching games I feel like he really gets up for games especially against aunt somebody like aunt so I think he makes two threes He averages over almost two and a half threes a game made so I feel like this is pretty decent one Kyle well the value difference between the yolkage getting eight assists or nine assists is so massive I don't think I could leave the money on the table. So we're taking Jokic eight and a half assists. Okay. That's what saved us last week is that Saruti used

the eight and not the eight and a half qualifier. I am aware. Yeah. I am aware. Cause we're not talking about the bonus here, are we? We aren't. We aren't Kyle. Thank you for keeping us on topic. So I wouldn't want to bet this minus seven and a half.

You know, Denver's had a day off since the Sunday loss. They are 11 and two since the all-star break. Their two losses are an overtime loss to Phoenix. Then Kyrie's absurd make against Jokic, a left-handed skyhook essentially. It's like a floater skyhook hybrid. So those are their only two losses that just put into perspective how well this team has been playing here. And I was digging through the second unit stuff and I started thinking like, wait, is the second unit doing better because they're playing less?

Is that actually the mystery in some of the Jokic on off stuff? But I don't know what's going to happen with how they're going to defend Gobert or excuse me, how they're going to defend Jokic without Gobert. So I wonder if there's no Gobert and we're going defend go bare or excuse me how they're gonna defend your kids without go bare. So I wonder if there's no go bare and we're gonna go on this line with no go bare as of now if they double a little bit more. So that leads the KCP over eight and a half points over party here again. Not entirely worried about it, but KCP is still playing like 31, 32 minutes a game here in March, but he's not averaging many points.

He's like at his lowest point total of any month this season. There's another month that's almost identical, but I think he's 8.7 in March. So he might just be due to pop out because he's still shooting 40% from three, just not taking many shots. So if it were no go bear, more doubling, it would mean more Jokic assist, more opportunities for KCP. And I think Denver coming off a kind of loss like that with a little extra time, Minnesota will be back to back, even though they'll be home and not be in Utah. If I had to bet, I'd probably still lay the points

because I like the really good teams off of you should be pissed off loss. And I thought that was one of J pitchers worst games, which is a combination of all the different things Dallas did and Yoke is just in play well. Like for him it was, it was shocking in certain moments. You're like, I guess he's just going to finally have a bad game here. So what does that mean? That means we're going to go money line instead of the minus seven and a half. And what's the payout there? Let's just go money lines. So Nuggets money line, Jamal Murray, two plus threes,

Yoke itch over eight and a half assistsrees Yokich over eight and a half assists KCP over eight half points that pays plus five seventeen So well, that's our best payout so far Okay, so there it is Will it be up on fan duel or we just kind of saying? Hey out there promo code it up We have to get it in quickly. But yes, be up. Okay well hopefully it'll be up. The alliance rolls on. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine.

And best of all kids I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Our email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Life Advice is brought to you by Block Advisors, by H&R Block, small business owners, Let's Talk Taxes. Did you know you can save it up to 30% when you file with Block Advisors instead of a typical accountant? Block Advisors by H&R Block provides affordable tax expertise

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Pricing may vary. See blockadvisors.com. For slash guarantees for full details. Okay. Let's get to some emails. Kyle, Steve, how are you? Good. You feeling okay? Now that the Johnnies are officially out, you okay? You didn't really do much tweeting. I was worried about you. Yeah. No, I liked your tweet. I saw it later. It was too late to then follow up on. UConn quality loss. Not enough. Not NIT bound. NIT. Not cool right now. Dying breathe. NIT games. Yeah. Okay. That was covering college hoops. Am I a bad roommate for never being home?

26 years old, 63, 185, NBA comp is a Nets version of Brooke Lopez, baby hooks, galore, slightly awkward. This past summer I moved in with one of my friends from college, let's call him Carl. I live in a northeastern city and grew up here as well. My parents have an apartment here. I lived with them for three years after graduating from college to save on rent and stack some cheddar.

Oh, not talking about dairy products. While I love my parents and enjoy the amenities of living within laundry, mom's pancakes, I decided it was time to move out last summer, both to have a greater independence and because I was having to smuggle in women to my parents' apartment like they were contraband. Thus, I decided to move in with Carl this past summer.

I really like Carl. I think of myself as a pretty easygoing, I think of myself as pretty easygoing But there have been a few issues for one I am allergic to cats Carl's a big cat person Wanted to adopt one this year when I told him prior to moving in that a cat would not be feasible to have in The apartment he asked if I was sure I was still allergic and if I was why couldn't I just take a claritin every day

Fair Dude, are you sure you're an alcoholic? You can't have one beer. Like, come on, dude, when's the last time you even tried? He's made several comments doubting the legitimacy of my allergy, including saying that it sounded like a quote, "'Only child problem.' I'm an only child."

Do only children lie about their allergies? Has anyone done a study on this? I don't know. Okay. I brushed these comments off, but they rub me the wrong way into this day. I'm unsure if Carl believes I'm truly allergic or he may think that my allergy can be overcome by exposure therapy. Carl is not a scientist. Let's find out if this thing's real. That'll clear that up. Yeah. Meat mittens.

All right. The primary issue we've had though is that since the lease has started, I've probably only slept in the apartment 50% of the time. This is not because I didn't enjoy spending time with Carl. I do, but I'm studying to go to a medical school and often stay in my parents' apartment during the week of a test because it's a better environment to study in. My parents are also older and I like checking in on them. Really good, all of that makes sense to me.

So what confuses me is that Carl seems to take this as a slight, he makes passive aggressive comments like, well, I guess I'll see you next month when I leave for school for the day. He asked me if I wanted to start a season of a new show one night to which I said, can't tonight have to study, but you have my word. I'll start it later this week. He responded by saying, quote, no offense, but your word means

nothing to me at this point. End quote. What a fucking psychopath. The allergy lie was strike one and sleeping out other places to strike too. You're a thin ice buddy. Hey, do you want to start the new look? No, not tonight. Maybe Thursday.

Your word means nothing to me. You know, that's some, I just like your word means nothing. You're like, no, we need to combine our forces and invade Austria. Your word means nothing. You're like, no, we need to combine our forces and invade Austria. Your word means nothing. I'll be on the ridge. All right. He's also made some comments along the lines of, even when you're here, you're just in your room studying.

On the one hand, I can see where Carl was coming from. He moved in assuming I'd be living here the majority of the time as any normal person would and may have chosen to live alone or with someone else if he had known I would not be around. This guy wasn't going to choose to live alone, by the way. He probably envisioned us hanging out a lot, watching shows and growing down. He doesn't know many people in the city where we are and living with me is preventing him

from getting a cat. So, I can understand why this would be frustrating. However, isn't this the dream scenario for any roommate? He basically gets to live in a spacious apartment by himself while paying half the price. I also told him prior to moving in, I'd be studying a lot and probably be my parents 20, 30% of the time, although it's been more like 50.

I just feel like the passive aggressiveness is unwarranted. Please let me know if I am the asshole here, love the pod. Don't live with a med student. Right, I was thinking, when he said like, am I being a bad roommate? Definitely not, but I think roommates in different ages of their life expect different things from you, right? He's a grad student, so you're above the 20, you know, the 22 year old threshold. I think 22 and below, you know, dudes would be ganging up on you and being like, this guy sucks. He's never around. Why are you even taking up a valuable spot in this house? Like we're supposed to be, you know,

there's an unspoken kind of word, you know, unspoken truth that it's like, if we don't have anything to do, we're making something to do. Like that's what, like who's around? We, like we, we gotta get the gang together. But I think as you move out of that, you are the ideal roommate.

So if you guys were like 22, I could see how people would say you're like being a downer, but this is a part of being an adult. So no, I think this guy's just got his timelines messed up. And you actually are doing him a favor and he's just not seeing it. Yeah, first off, I think you have done literally nothing wrong. Literally nothing wrong. I think this guy red flag right away is he's aggressive cat guy. I have a cat. If it wasn't for my wife, I probably wouldn't have a cat. I'm not angry about cats.

I'm not anti-cat, but I'm not aggressively trying to acquire a cat, especially at that stage of my life. So I think that's a red flag, number one. And there's nothing you should feel bad about for this guy. He's just bummed out that he can't get a cat. And also, you're a lottery roommate guy. This guy struck the, you're not even really there that much. So if he wanted to get a solo apartment, he basically has that 50% of the time now

So what does that really change at all? You're right. He's paying less money and it just sounds like he's bummed because he doesn't have like a wingman to go out with that's really what this sounds like and Unfortunately, like you know you maybe you you were pretty straightforward at the start about you not being there and maybe it's been a little bit more than 20 30 percent but at the end of the day Like this is your life. You maybe it's been a little bit more than 20, 30%, but at the end of the day, like, this is your life. You're trying to be a med student. Like you shouldn't be worried about this guy.

So he needs to make some new friends. He needs to figure it out too. Like he can't just hold his hand throughout the rest of his social life. So I think you've done nothing wrong. And if anything, like I would be looking to see like what the future is with this guy cause he's kind of pissing me off.

His communication style is bad too. It's sort of like, you remember in the office when was it Dwight was wearing the Stanford stuff, or the Cornell stuff. And, and he's like, take that off now. I'm joking, but he's not joking. I think that's how this guy's talking to you. Like, like he said, like your word means nothing. It probably comes off weird out of text. But that's probably how he talks to him too. And like a way of

saying like, I'm upset, but I'm not that upset because we're joking about it. Like, it sounds like that's the type of communication style this guy's got. And he's got some issues with, was he really saying, I think you're lying about the cat thing, or is he just upset about it and trying to make a weird joke and let you know he's upset at the same time? So I think this guy's got a pretty shitty

communication style. Sorry I annoyed you with my friendship. Right. Right. This guy sucks. Yeah. Your med student. You know, it's really hard.

I remember there was a guy that was in the social circle and then UVM has what's considered pretty good med school. And he decided he was just going to stay there and And we didn't like, he wasn't a core guy. So then I remember like a year later, because I was still around, was like after senior week, the previous year, I was out. Now I was like, what are you doing here? It's like, do you visiting or something? He's like, no, dude, I just finished first year med school.

I'm like, wait a minute, You've been here the entire year. Again, we didn't have cell phones back then. So, you know, thought you would at least see about 25 cent wing night or something, right? Nothing. Nothing. I'm like, wait, so you've been here and an entire extra year, like we like each other. We get along. He's like, yeah, I don't. He's like, I just sort of made a commitment to myself that like once I was in med school. Thursday, you know, 50 cent drafts into Thursday nights into Irish happy hour at the chair, like it was over. It wasn't going to happen anymore.

And I wasn't, I certainly wasn't upset. It just, it was like a mind blowing experience for me to go, you were here for a year and we didn't see you once and dudes didn't know. And he's like, yes, this was on purpose. He's like, it's really, really hard. So the problem for Carl here, although this sounds like an episode, he probably doesn't have a lot of friends. Obviously, you said he moved to New City. He probably doesn't have a lot of friends. Obviously, you said he moved to a new city. So you were going to be all of these things for him. And now that you're not, but you know, a guy getting mad at another guy for not watching a show with him. Like, what the fuck, dude. And then folding it into like, it's just part of the larger issue, dude.

That's not good. You're never going to win these arguments. Yeah. That's why I think Kyle's communication thing, while I think is an interesting observation, I think this guy just, he's serious. Like I think he actually genuinely has ticked off about not having like a wingman around and you know, sorry, dude, people have lives to live. Like you're your own man. Right. The age part of this is important too, because 26 year olds are created very differently.

They just are. I at 26 would have been like, sweet, we're getting an apartment and we're gonna put like, there's gonna be a tub out back and we can do this. And you know. Do you know how many FIFA drafts we're gonna do? It's gonna be sick. Yeah. Like the stuff that I'd be prioritizing're gonna do? It's gonna be sick. Yeah.

Like the stuff that I'd be prioritizing, be like, okay, this is a possibility here. You know, like if we tie a rope to this, so you're not that 26 year old, he is. And even though the birth certificate says that you're supposed to be aligned here, you're just in completely different places. And the TV show, like the other ones don't even bother me.

I'm more bothered by the TV show thing. Like seriously, dude? Like think how this guy, this isn't even about the only child thing, which I think is relevant in some cases. This is somebody that has no independence. So the idea that I would ever be like, can't believe my roommate Tyler won't start this show with me. Like I wanna start watching. Is that gonna rewatch Lost with me?

Right, yeah, like I don't know dude, just turn the show on and watch it. I'll catch up on season two, yeah. Yeah, get a girlfriend, watch a show with her. All right, different email here, disgusting. To some, perhaps, IP in my office. Hey fellas, my NBA comp is a slow, speedy, Claxton, slowy Claxton.

I'm self-employed and recently rented an office. After six years of working from home, my kids are five and six, I had to get out. Everything about this office move is a huge upgrade in my life. That must have been brutal, man. Good for you. Except for the bathroom situation, it's not nearly as nice. It's shared.

It's further away. It comes with the risk of a stop and chat. I'm a frequent pee-er every hour. Wow, this guy pees a ton. You got a gallon jug on your desk just drinking water every day. What is that about? Yeah. All right. Recently, and look, as you get older, but that's a lot. That's a lot.

Recently I noticed there's a guy on my floor that I met on day one that I only see in the parking lot, never the hall or bathroom. I've decided that he has to be peeing in his office. And so it began. It started with an empty Gatorade bottle one time. Then I brought a wide mouth, half gallon water jug, a dedicated pee vessel, and I'm living the office, pee or dream. It escalated fast. Before I thought through emptying this thing out, if I ever get caught,

I think I'll say I'm doing this on doctor's orders. Wow, what a cover. That's great. What are you gonna say to that? Yeah, I'll be like, oh, you know, my doctor, I don't really wanna get into that. I'm sorry, are you a doctor? I can't talk about it. Yeah, that's a no follow up thing.

Yeah, right. I'm sure that will remove everyone's judgment. Big Cat talks about how he frequently pees and sinks. I've heard about it. That's fucking nuts. Like, man, what's that crazy as you think? Expand. Well, in college, we had one toilet, five dudes in the house. Um, and it

was, somebody just clogged it once. It was, and we all took turns like over a week trying to get it out. We couldn't, it was disgusting. We called the red, the, the landlords, they're like, we've got the best plumber in the North country. We got him. He's tied up for about two weeks and it was like a month and dudes didn't know what to do. We were like pop. It's the best plumber though. You had to wait. We were doing like pop-ins at our buddy's house and then just running to the bathroom, you know, take dumps. Dudes were peeing in the kitchen sink in the bathroom tub. It was crazy.

We never spent more time at the library than during that like month and a half. We had like duct tape the toilet shut because like people, people would like forget and open it and then you couldn't like be in the first floor of the house. It was, it was was crazy and we just, that was our, we embraced the chaos and there were dudes pissing in the kitchen sink and there were dudes pissing in the bathtub and it was just, it was a crazy time. So I think I got a little desensitized to it now.

I definitely would think twice before peeing in a place that's not a toilet or outside a bush somewhere. But I just, you can get there, it's not that hard. That's reasonable. You run the water after? Yeah, lots of water. Yeah, but then there's like, people,

there's like cleaning supplies, toothbrushes are around, like what are we doing? Like there's gonna be splashage. Like I just can't get down with it. Hey, I didn't wanna be there. I didn't wanna be there. No, I get, your situation's different. I'll give can't, I just can't get down with it. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be there. I think I threatened the- No, I get your situation is different.

I'll give you credit. Your situation is different because you had, you just didn't have any other choice, but like for guys that are just like, I'm actively, I have a choice. There's a urinal here or there's a toilet, but I'm going to pee in the sink. That's insane.

Yeah. All right. You can see both sides. Our guy continues to- I love a good outside pee by the way. We'll take the dogs outside, you know, it's like nighttime, you know, it's midnight or so. And I was like, you know what? I got to pee. I'll just go outside. I like that's great. It's not like I'm an exclusive toilet pee or urinal pee-er, but like I just know the same thing. Sorry, we've gone on a tangent. I just don't get it. So final question is, how disgusting am I? I peed in a bottle 100 feet from a bathroom eight times on Friday. A hundred feet? That's not, that's not a hundred feet.

That's not enough feet, man. What's the cutoff? Kyle, how many feet would it have to be for you? I mean, it'd have to be like two or three different hallway turns. Like it'd have to be like, uh, it'd have to be like two or three different hallway turns. Like it'd have to be like a couple direction changes, maybe a staircase. I mean, this is a hundred feet. I mean, you could probably pee a percentage of that.

You probably get like, you know, 10% of that is the length that you could pee. That's crazy. Oh, you're actually, we're talking streams here. I'm just saying, if you wanna look at it a different way. Yeah, me'm just saying if you wanna look at it a different way. Yeah, me either, but if you wanna look at it a different way. That is a different way. That is a different way to look at it.

I just wouldn't want jugs of piss in my office. No. No. Like what are you gonna do if somebody sees it and you haven't emptied them out? Cause it's not gonna be fun to empty them out. And then like, what if you have just a bad day where there's like, you're busy and then they start piling up, you're going Howard Hughes style

here and then somebody actually stops by? Or what if there's a janitor security thing where they're like, Oh, we have to check the fire alarms in here and you don't clean out your office that day. And it smells and then all of a sudden you've got to explain to a building manager that you're storing piss on doctor's orders. Right. The routine gets broken. The routine's great until something, you know, it's, it's obviously our guy really likes doing it.

Okay. So he feels like he's got a cheat code. Like, yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's gaming the system. The crazy thing too is one You're not you can get your steps in dude like that get you if you have to pee that much go You guys about healthy for you. We should and to the disposal of the pee

Ruins the whole thing like it's maybe one thing if you just peed in and then you never had to think about it again But you have you have to dispose of the pee at some. And then it's like this cycle of just keeping dumping out pee in a sink or a urinal somewhere. Like that's not, that ruins it. That sucks. Why would you ever want to keep doing that again? What's going on in your head when you're cleaning that? Are you silent?

Or do you need like a backpack full of piss gatorade bottles and you're just emptying it into a toilet at work? Like that's not a good look. That's not fun. Look, there are some people that think this is amazing what this guy's pulled off. Okay. This is a very divided group, I think on urination practices, but he doesn't care about the emptying. You care about the emptying. He is every agreement that he's made with himself. He feels like he's still up.

He's like one of those CEOs, he's saving 20 minutes a day. I mean, what do you do with that time? But you're not. Is it a net positive though? Is it a net positive you have to empty them all out? Do you think Sam Hinkie pisses in bottles? You know, if you think about it, remember when he did the interview, it was like I have five blazers all size 38.

So that way I cut down on decision fatigue. The decision is made for me. It sounded so smart and you were like, I don't know, throwing a fucking gray one, how about that? As if his day would be disrupted. It would be like, ah, flu or gray. I'm wasting so much decision wattage right now. Fuck, I'll be inefficient.

You know, like this guy could be the hinky of urination. Yeah, I could see him with just a catheter on, just not having to worry about it. Just walks around. Whatever. Let's let it go, man. Just the only thing I would offer up is think about the day where it all goes wrong. Yeah. Men on average spend about 855.8 days of their lives in the bathroom or two years, 125 days.

Not this man. No, exactly. Hinky's like, what's wrong with you guys? This is a no brainer. I can't believe you're still arguing about this. Yeah. All right, all right. Let's do one more. Want one more? Here we go. Sure. I can't believe you're still arguing about this. Yeah. All right. All right.

Let's do one more. One more. Here we go. Sure. I like this one. Simple. Six, three, two, 20, Max Bench. Max Bench is 315, NBA comp,

Marcus Smart, limited skill, but gritty enough to make an impact. Here's the situation. My girlfriend of over a year has one guy friend with whom I think she may be a little too close She and this guy let's call him Steve. Let's all call him Steve We're friends for a few years before I enter the picture. Here's a little bit about Steve He's one of those guys who has a lot of female friends

I can confirm that he is into women, but he embodies many of the characteristics Excuse me embodies many of the characteristics of the gay best friend. He knows how to make women laugh. He knows their lingo I'd need more details on alright, but I got it. Alright after seeing Steve and my girlfriend interact I was a bit dismayed about their obvious Flirtatiousness they constantly joke with one another a little pats in the arm or commonplace. So I asked her about him She tried to minimize the situation by telling me that nothing romantic has or ever will happen between them, but nothing about the way they interact has changed since our conversation.

Should I be worried about the relationship? Thank you for the help. Okay. Two quick questions. One, you're a big guy, 6'3", 2", 23", 15". Do you have general meathead tendencies? Are you overprotective? Do you find threats when threats are not there?

Do you look forward to threats? Do then squash said threat, all right? Cause some guys can have that in them where it's like, fuck this guy, fuck that. There's not enough dudes in a day for you to hit your fuck that guy quota, all right? Just a question. I want you to do an internal that guy quota. All right? Just a question. I want you to do an internal scouting report

on yourself on that one. However, the real answer lies in what does Steve look like? Is he unattractive? Because if he is, he likes your girlfriend. Is your girlfriend attractive and he's not? Then this is the best he can do the armpats and all the stuff. He's probably already asked her out. She's probably told

him no. And he has found some kind of compromise within himself that I care about this person so much that I need to have them in my life. And even if that's with this jack guy over here dating her and leaving with him, Like this is the best I can do. I know who this guy is. I've met him plenty of times. He's gonna mess up one day. I cannot fucking stand him. All right.

So I am aligned with you emailer on this one. Ryan's fucking you, guy. Right, right. Now, if Steve is really good looking, then what's wrong? Like what's going on? Why are you like, use your power somewhere else. She picked me motherfucker.

So use the power somewhere else. Because the problem is, and anything that I've had that's gone sideways, it wasn't even really what I was doing. It was more about what I wasn't doing. And there was always some fucking Steve in the mix, right? There was always the guy that was the shoulder to cry on to provide the emotional support that I either didn't want to offer or was incapable of

offering. Cause I didn't understand anytime something got wrong. It was like, wait, what? And he's like, well, he was just there for me. And I'm like, no, no, no. He knew what he was doing the whole fucking time and you fell for it. So I don't know if that's gonna happen to you.

I'm not trying to make you more nervous. I would say that if he is unattractive, it's more of a his problem. If he is attractive, just make sure you return your texts. Text back within a reasonable amount of time. Take a look at that calendar, it makes you not miss anything. Yeah, right. On your emotional side.

Yeah, offer up a compliment, unprompted for no fucking reason. Maybe buy some flowers. They seem to like that. Start the day, hey, thinking about you. Do it right now, guys. You listening to a pod? Text your girl, text your wife.

Hey, thinking about you, for no fucking reason whatsoever. Now, some of you are in relationships where they're gonna be like, what's wrong? Sorry about your deal currently. But for the rest of you, a real quick thinking about you. It's awesome. It works wonders. So just is somebody that can give you a few decades of a resume where he never did that. a few decades of a resume where he never did that. That's where Steve's are their most powerful.

Yeah, I think the one thing you can't do, that's great. The one thing you can't do is bring it up again, even in a non-confrontational way. Like if she's gonna smell it all over you, women can do that. They can smell when you're weird about something. So like to bring it up again and be can smell when you're weird about something. To bring it up again and be like, so you're still hanging out with Steve or whatever. You don't want to turn a friend thing, which is totally normal to have friends of the opposite

sex, especially through work or whatever. Maybe it's not people's favorite and there's plenty of people that don't, but it's not crazy. You don't want to turn friends into star-crossed lovers where they're sneaking around texting because she might not be the type of person who's like, she sounds like she's not. Be like, well, Todd doesn't like me talking to you, so have a great life. She doesn't sound like she's that kind of person. If you bring it up, even a milder version of it, it's going to be like you don't want to have them have little secret time now because she doesn't want it to piss you off. I would say don't keep harping on she doesn't want it to piss you off like so I would say

Don't don't like keep harping on it. Even if it is bothering you look for the signs you know, you're not gonna be able to help yourself from looking for the signs but like I think I think like the Ag like the aggravated way to go about this is not it's not the way to get any results that you want Definitely. Yeah, it's a great point. Don't be don't be angry guy. I would yeah Feel feel comfortable. Is there a reason to think that your relationship is not on the rocks, but like, is there something wrong? Sounds like it's good.

Well, you didn't bring up anything, right? Exactly. If it's fine and you think it's good, like don't make it bad. Just keep doing your thing. I think Ryan, your advice about the, maybe up in the text game makes a ton of sense, but don't. Maybe it doesn't have to do any of that.

You know, like I turned it, I actually started turning it into something else, but I've just. No, but don't. Help out everybody. Don't make this into an issue if it's not an issue. Like I know like it sucks in your head cause you think something might be going on,

but like if you're comfortable and you know, you feel like you're in this stable relationship and you trust her, let it be. I've definitely known my fair share of guys who are in this Steve space, like they just always have a lot of friends that are girls. It's kind of like, are they, do they like girls? Are they not like girls?

And it's always like kind of been this thing. And I don't know, those guys are always gonna exist, but you know, if you trust your girl, I just don't make this a problem. Don't make this a problem for yourself because it's not worth it. Well said. Well said.

Okay. That's life advice. Thanks to Kyle and Steve on that one. And before we let you go, life advice has been brought to you courtesy of Block Advisors by H&R Block. Block Advisors by H&R Block provides affordable tax expertise

that finds every credit and deduction your business deserves 100% accuracy guaranteed schedule an appointment today at block advisors comm four slash small biz see block advisors comm four slash Guarantees for full details. Alright, thanks to the group here and war gone We'll be back on Thursday the Ryan Russo theinger, Spotify, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. the must be twenty one older present select states and it was offering online sports wagering in kansas under agreement kansas dark as you know llc gambling problem call one hundred gambler visit and all dot com four slash r g in colorado iowa michigan new jersey north carolina ohio pennsylvania Gambler or visit fan duel.com forward slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio,

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