The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Burrow’s “It” Factor, Chiefs Too Stubborn, and Stafford’s Validation, With Mark Schlereth

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on NFL conference championship weekend as well as a false-alarm Tom Brady retirement (0:26). Then he is joined by three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth of Fox Sports to discuss what went wrong in the Chiefs’ loss to the Bengals, Joe Burrow’s will to win, stories from Mark’s Super Bowl runs, how the Rams and Bengals match up, and more (14:26). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (46:30). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mark Schlereth Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're going to recap both conference championship games. Another amazing week of NFL football. We're going to do it with Mark Schlereth. And I'm going to ask a pretty simple question. Did Burrow kind of do a Stafford in Cincinnati? But Stafford couldn't do it in Detroit. It's not anti-Stafford. Don't worry about it.

And life advice. I want to start today's podcast before we get to the football part of it, which we will. I have an announcement to make. At Sunday, 10.08 a.m. Pacific time, I'd like to announce that yesterday I pulled off a successful 135 incline save. Saw the guy behind me. Just wasn't going to get that last rep. Me and another guy ran over and grabbed the bar off of him. And both lifter and spotter are safe.

So incline can get a little weird for guys that haven't done a lot. And it's hard. It's just hard. So, am I a hero? I'd like to think anybody would have, you know, right time, right place, right time, anybody else would have done the same thing. So, I want to start with that. what happened to me this weekend, but I kind of feel like I fell in love with football all over again. I'll have to admit over the peak is football doomed future radio that we had going on, I don't know, four or five years ago or something. I remember one guy in particular saying that he felt complicit in his viewing. It was such a nasty, nasty version. Does football have a future? And I would constantly say, I don't know if you've been to the South, have you been to Texas?

I've never said that a hundred times, but I just, it was never true. Like, sorry, sorry, Cambridge isn't super locked into the SEC. But this was another example, not only last weekend, which may have been one of the best post-season weekends that we've ever seen.

I mean, these two games were unbelievable on top of everything that was at stake for the stories, you know, the legacy of whatever is real or what isn't, but I don't know what it was like. I had just had a moment during the Cincinnati game against Kansas city and having Cincinnati come back and win that game. I'm just going, this is, this has happened. Like this is so much fun. I'm having so much fun wondering if Cincinnati is going to go ahead and pull this game off. It's almost like, I imagine, you know, those of you that are married, right? You're kind of like, the kids are in the back, wife's riding shotgun, maybe we're at a stoplight or something. You've been together,

you've known each other a decade plus, and you've had your ups and downs, and it's tough, man. Relationships are tough. I get it. And you see the sun just hits her right, and it's a profile, and you kind of look at her, and you fall in love all over again, right? You guys know what i'm talking about uh that's what it was like for football this week i love the conference championship weekend the most um because there's just so much at stake and there is something weird it's almost final four-ish where yeah you want your team to win an entire national championship but there just feels like something about winning your region and then getting to the final four and then you say hey you know we made it to the final four even though you could be staring down a disappointing loss or maybe even a bigger loss in the national championship game.

But I've always felt like the Super Bowl has a little bit more to that beyond making the World Series, beyond the Stanley Cup final or even the NBA finals. But something about, hey, we're in the Super Bowl and now the buildup in these entire two weeks. So let's kind of go over just a bunch of observations in the entire weekend and kind of what I want to hammer on. Because Cincinnati, remember the bad month thing that we talked about and that was certainly the case of the Rams in November what the hell is going on what happened to Stafford and Stafford is I would say a tier one does this guy suckers the awesome QB and it's hard to pull that off for an entire decade but Stafford has somehow done that so we'll get back to him a little bit later

but the Rams had that really bad month in November. You want to talk bad month? Think about Cincinnati. Now you're AFC representative in the Superbowl. You realize they went 10 and seven, right? Like it's kind of easy to forget. You're like, wait, this team went 10 and seven. Yes, they did. You want to do from October 31st to December 12th they lost 4 of 6 games to the bye week in there in back to back weeks they lost to the Jets which was kind of a weird fluky thing

they got hit with a bad call but they still lost to the Jets and then they lost to Cleveland 41-16 and you're watching that going yeah I really like this team because I think this podcast is very I don't know pro Beng Bengals, Bengals friendly. There were moments when they were the AFC one seed early on. I'm like, hey, have you

watched this team at all? But they weren't awesome. It was really the Burrow chase thing with a couple other things. The receiving game in general is really the depth. Uzama, tight end, we'll get to him a little bit. Higgins, there was obviously some depth there as well, mixing running back and all these things.

So we liked some of the skill guys, but we didn't like the offensive line. We didn't like the defense. We didn't like any of these things. So it's hard to talk yourself into being like, you know what, that's the team. But maybe that was the whole point. As we talked about last week, toughness, fighting,

keep fighting, keep fighting. Cincinnati was the epitome of that this season and in this game yesterday. Maybe when you get your ass kicked all season long and when you go 10 and seven, when you're down 21-3 at Arrowhead, maybe you are built for this. And maybe that's exactly what Joe Burrow is, whether we saw it in college or we've seen it in his two years.

Everything was hard for Cincinnati in that first half. They had four possessions. And then you think, hey, is this actually good because they scored on two of the four possessions? The P. Ryan catch and run into the end zone, that'll be a kind of local play depending on what happens to the Super Bowl. Either way, Bengals fans will remember that P. Ryan touchdown changing things to make it 21-10 probably as much as any single play from that game. Maybe it's McPherson's kicks throughout

the playoff and that guy's been just ice the entire time. But that play, because when you're down 21-3 and you're Cincinnati with that defense and the lack of protection that you have for Burrow, who is great as he is, it's clear that they had prioritized shutting down Chase, keeping a second guy with him, not letting him get single coverage as much, although we saw it in those end zone plays

where he ended up with a touchdown. And I'm not going to kind of do the Sorensen where's his help inside-outside thing because I'm not even sure that I'm right I don't bore everybody to death but um that that kind of was just one of those parts of the entire year where I'm going all right so what do we know about guys getting sacked 50 plus times they don't make it to the Super Bowl Burrow now who was sacked 51 times the regular season is the first quarterback to lead the league in sacks taken and actually make it to a Super Bowl. So we know this. Cincinnati is incredibly tough because of all the adversity they faced all season long because they actually lost a ton of games. I don't think they were better than

Kansas City or Buffalo throughout, but I also didn't think they were like the sixth best team in the AFC this entire time, despite the record. And maybe that's what we're all looking for here. When you look at the borough impact of this, and I was trying to think of an NBA comp, because trust me, when Kansas City was up 21-3, I had a Mahomes, Steph Curry comp ready to go. That was going to be the open. You know, hey, we worried about Mahomes. You know, here we go. It's kind of like people that are sending me Steph Curry's field goal percentage below Russell Westbrook's. I'm like, yeah, okay, it is. Now what? Now what do you want me to do with this information?

Do you want me to tell you one guy's a better shooter than the other? Because I'm just never going to worry about Steph. And honestly, I'm not going to worry about Mahomes, even though he was bad in the second half. But going back into next year, Kansas City's going to win double-digit games. They're going to be in play for the AFC. But in this game in particular, Mahomes was pretty bad in the second half. After they had scored three straight touchdowns and converted, I think, every third down on those first few possessions.

If they kick a field goal at the end of the first half, maybe we're talking about Kansas City in this matchup. I'm not sure. You never know how one score is going to relate to the next one. The pick to Bell, where he threw it a double coverage late, that turned this game, and then Cincinnati goes and kicks the field goal. That interception ended up in Bell's hands. He didn't even realize it was in his hands as it was happening, but it was an incredible tip ball back to the other corner. Bell hangs on to it, and then Cincinnati's headed to the Super Bowl. But back to the burrow part of this,

we're always looking for the quarterback to change things. I guess we could argue that we've actually had a little bit more burrow than we think, but then I could probably argue against every one of those scenarios. Mahomes in his second season as a starter, remember he had that red shirt year essentially behind Alex Smith, he ended up in a Super Bowl, much like Burrow, who again was the first pick, not Mahomes' 10th pick, but Burrow's doing it with a franchise that does not have the history of Kansas City. It actually has one of the worst recent histories or maybe all-time histories when we're talking about NFL franchise. Not the single worst, but they're in that group

of, yeah, this is not a program I usually expect to be doing big things. Kansas City was already a much better team. We saw that when Alex Smith was there. So that's not really the same thing. Goff made it in his third year as a starter, but if we take away the Jeff Fisher year, so if you go in real years with Sean McVay, Goff made it, but he's not Burrow. And as we saw, the Rams moved on from him. I think we also have an example in Josh Allen, but this is his fourth year in. He very well could have been in the Super Bowl this year. He's going to be in one, I would imagine. I love that team for the most part, but he's not there and Burrow is. So I don't really know that there's like an NBA comp that's perfect to say, okay, what's the number one overall pick that comes in?

And now all of a sudden you're playing for a championship here this soon. I mean, even LeBron couldn't do that kind of stuff. But what we really have, oh, by the way, I saw that one tweet that Taylor Rooks had that I thought was kind of interesting as we try to figure out like, how did we, you know, is Burrow it? Really what it feels like is do you have a certain look and do you win games? Can you imagine if Baker Mayfield wore an iced out Nike symbol and then was like, hey, I make too much money for these to be fake?

We'd kill him. But at the same time, if Baker did it while he was on his way to the Super Bowl, then we would probably like it because that's all we're really doing here. So the it factor feels real with Burrow, but a lot of it is do you win? Do you have a certain look? Taylor Rooks had this tweet. She said, quote, Joe Burrow told me if he went into an NBA game, he could get at least 12 to 15 points with a straight face. And I knew he was going to be great because that is just

irrational confidence. That's an awesome story. And maybe it's true. Maybe it's part of it. I also think if you asked half the NFL quarterbacks, they'd probably say the same thing. And if you asked a hundred corners, 95 of them would say they would. If the standard is, do you think you would get points in an NBA game today and you'd be a good quarterback, then my dad should be playing week one in 2022 somewhere. But what we do know as we look at the Rams coming back against San Francisco, which felt like they still were the better team and it was going to turn out to be another classic Jimmy G win, we were like, wait, this guy's in the Super Bowl again? And to think how I felt about Stafford, who was just not supported enough. He just wasn't supported enough in Detroit.

That's it. Look at it. I'm not telling you Stafford's always been a top five quarterback, but the way the swings, the variance of what we've thought about Stafford publicly, where I've always liked him, and I haven't liked Jimmy G and Garoppolo looks like he's a possession away from actually getting back to another time like I can't believe this is happening again uh you could argue the Rams pissed away seven to fourteen points in there the first pick in the end zone actually was a little on Stafford it was behind the receiver

gets tipped you know you come away with zero points you missed the field goal on top of that everything else there's just a bunch of stuff in there. Tartt drops the pick, which, you know, look, that was like eight or nine minutes left in the game. So there's still a lot of football to play. So I don't know that it was completely sealed that way with the way that's kind of been talked about after the fact with San Francisco dropping that interception. But here's kind of like a good way to tie it all together.

Stafford just didn't have defensive support. They couldn't run the football. Special teams was terrible. Sandoz broken all this stuff down from the athletic in the past. Basically, Detroit's other units, other than offense, were always almost bottom third

in the league for Stafford's entire tenure in Detroit. And he couldn't do it on his own. Most guys can't. Very few can. Stafford couldn't. He didn't have any success. And if you liked do it on his own. Most guys can't. Very few can. Stafford couldn't. He didn't have any success. And if you liked him and you argued him up, you could have a week where you looked right. And if you hated him and you said, this guy sucks, he's overrated, you can't

get it. There would be plenty of weeks where bad stuff would happen too. Like we mentioned with November, where you'd feel right about it too. That's the whole quarterback game. But what Burrow did is kind of what Stafford couldn't do. Think about it. Burrow's defense with Cincinnati is not good. They're 19th overall in DVOA. Their weighted defense is even worse than that. They gave up the seventh most yards this season. And they don't really run the football all that well.

They're seventh worst in yards per carry. So Burrow kind of did in this season a carry the team in a way the top five guys do, which is not a knock on Stafford that I'm not saying he's not a top five guy, but basically Burrow did with his team the kind of stuff Stafford couldn't and now finally is in a Super Bowl with a team that has a lot more around him. So we saw it work for Stafford, him moving on and going somewhere else. And of course, the news this weekend that Brady was going to retire. I just want to touch on it real quick.

It is a little weird that the story comes out and it seems like Brady either is refuting it or just didn't want somebody else to report it. And all I can say, I think the biggest thing is my buddies are texting me about the whole thing. We've had Darlington on this podcast. Darlington's timeline with Brady is pretty much impeccable um he was the guy out there and get up saying hey i think brady leaves new england i think before anybody else so he has an in and

darlington's even shared this with us he has an in with the brady crew um so somebody clearly told him brady was retiring and then i think they kind of do a Schefter stamp of approval. Like, hey, it's even more real if Schefter says he's part of it. Maybe Schefter does some digging as well. I don't know all the moving parts of all of that stuff. But I know people think that guys in the media make this stuff up. They don't. Somebody had to have told him this.

And his track record is really good. But Brady saying, hey, I haven't made a decision yet. It's kind of funny because now I think people are rooting for Brady to come back and play because they want the media guys to be wrong about this. So I'm not guaranteeing you a Brady retirement. I'm just telling you for Darlington to feel comfortable enough to start the process of this becoming the biggest story, besides the games, the biggest news story of the season, somebody told him.

Somebody told him that's very close, that he trusts, that's probably given him great Brady information before in the past that he's also been right about. So, we'll see what happens. Great to catch up with a guy I got to know back in the ESPN days I think he's terrific he's with Fox now and he's happy and he's doing games all the time and he's won a few Super Bowls

as well so Marshall Adams joins us what's up dude dude it is good to see you Ryan man always a pleasure to be on with you and always been a big fan. So I appreciate you. I don't know that people, they think you're serious, but you are so dry and one of the funniest dudes I ever got a chance to work with.

So it's always good to catch up. And you worked with Trey Wingo. So that's a huge compliment on the humor thing. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So what changed? What changed in your eyes at Arrowhead?

How did that go from like domination and offseason questions to now offseason questions for the team that's supposed to be a lot better? Yeah. How about I mean, how about it comes down to I think this whole playoffs has been more about more games are lost than one. And you go back to Buffalo at the last 13 seconds, the mismanagement of the last 13 seconds of that game to right before halftime. First and foremost, you call a timeout, and then you challenge. Then you challenge that first down, whether or not it was.

You didn't have a timeout there at the end of that half to actually line you know, line up and kick a field goal and the mismanagement of the last couple of seconds of that first half by the Kansas city chiefs, you know, for Patrick Mahomes, it's like, Hey man, you throw it in the end zone. It's either an incompletion or a touchdown. And we're going to, you know, we're going to kick a field goal and just to throw that swing pass off the jet sweep to Tyree pill.

It just doesn't make any sense, any sense whatsoever why you would do that. And it's almost as though they never really came back. I'd love to give, you know, the Cincinnati Bengals all the credit in the world. And I think they tightened up their coverage a little bit. They had some, you know, rush three drop eight scenarios that, uh, you know, Patrick Mahomes just couldn't find an open receiver, actually took a sack down there, you know, toward the goal line. So, yeah, but most of it to me was more about the inefficiency of Kansas City and just the essential choke job of the Kansas City Chiefs.

That to me was more than anything. You're averaging six yards a carry rushing the football, and you decide you're just not going to run it? I mean, isn't that the football hubris that cost them the Super Bowl the year before, it seemed like, with a depleted offensive line? So that just seems to be the way they – I almost feel like Kansas City says, we're going to win games the way we want to win games.

Not the way you allow us to win games, but the way we want to win games. And I think the last two seasons ended in a situation where you weren't allowed to win the game the way you wanted to win the game. And it cost you the game. Yeah, it's pretty crazy because it looked like, hey, all right, they've got the underneath stuff. It's there all day. You know, they even talked to the broadcasters. I thought they did a good job on this part. It was like, you know, they, they've got the underneath stuff. It's there all day. They even talked to the broadcasters. I thought they did a good job on this part. It was like they're putting Hill in these crossers.

Like, okay, you're never going to let him get over the top. Fine, we're going to put him in these crossers. Now you have to keep up with him. And it felt like, oh, Cincinnati, this is the game plan because everybody hated what they were doing, right? I mean, that game was over. It felt 20 minutes in. So is it that simple?

Because even on the sweep at the end of the half i mean the pass it wasn't like a toss sweep or something even zach taylor and the staff after the fact and said we actually kind of planned for something like this so we had an extra defender over there and you know eli apples kind of credited with it but basically that just whole area was shut off is it as simple like did you just see oh there's a minor adjustment here they're going to take this part of it away and then k Kansas City just decides it's whatever. We're never deviating from this. That's basically what you're saying.

Yeah. And I thought it was interesting because Tony Romo did a good job earlier that game talking about, you know, here's where Patrick Mahomes has, you know, has really matured. You know, his getting through progressions and seeing a high-low combination route in the middle of the football field and not liking either, and then dumping it off to the back with the back's ability to catch the ball and get seven, eight yards. I mean, I thought they were dominating that football game on first down. They were always in second down and five minus, second down and four, second down and three. Jerick McKinnon is averaging six yards a carry. Hilaria is averaging six yards a carry,

five, five a carry, or whatever it was. And yet you're always in a second down and manageable situation. And you have to understand when you play offense and you're always in second down and four minus like everything is open to you like like it still allows you the ability to either throw it on second down and still have running the football as an option on third down and so what ends up happening to you is you make you make the defense have to play the entirety of the field and the entirety of your playbook. And there is nothing better than that feeling of winning on first down. You know, people always talk about, hey, you, you know, third down being the most important down. I've always felt like first down is the most important down.

If we can get good yardage on first down, it keeps everything in our playbook open to us as an offense. And I thought that was the whole first half. I mean, they dominated that game on first down and then they blow it at the end of the first half. They come back with a chance. You know, you've got that double up chance. You blow at the end of the first half and then you come out and you run what six plays and you have to punt. And, you know, and from that point forward, they just seemed out of sync. But I saw a lot of plays where

you've got something early in the progression where you could hit a shallow cross. And, you know, if they tackle it right away, it's still a four- or five-yard gain, and you're on schedule. If they don't tackle it, if you break a tackle, it's another first down. And Patrick Mahomes is like, no, I don't want to take it now. Now I want to push the ball down the field. Now I want to get something explosive.

Now I want to push the ball down the field. Now I want to get something explosive. Now I want to make a big play. And that just felt like the way the whole second half went for the Kansas City Chiefs. Trent Tilbury has this saying about quarterbacks, he calls like a guy a dude. And it's not a book. There's no dictionary

definition of it. It's just we kind of all know it when we see it. And for anybody that watched Burrow in college that last year, you're like, this guy's like a superhero. Then we see it throughout, especially considering how much he gets knocked around. What's that like? Because I know

not only Elway, you had Rippon in the Super Bowl, but what's it like when you're on a team where you go, we got a guy with a cape on here on the sideline. Yeah. I always team where you go, we got a guy with a cape on here on the sideline. Yeah. It's like, I always said, you know, when you walk, when, when Elway walked in the huddle, regardless of what the situation was, you're just like, you know, it's almost like we got them right where we want them. And there was never a sense of, of panic or dread or fear. It was always like, all right, let's go to work.

And there was always that confidence that a dude like that brings. You know, I was like Joe Burrow is all balls, man. He just is like walks in there. And how many times did the Kansas City defense have him dead to rights, have him sacked, and somehow he wiggles out of it, scrambles around, either takes it for a first down with his feet or throws a ball for a first down. I mean, they had him dead to rights three or four times where he said, like, to me,

he saved that game. And we can talk about the defense, but Joe Burrow saved that, that game by avoiding a sack somehow miraculously and scrambling around and creating first downs and giving his offense another opportunity in that second half to where I just thought Kansas City, I mean, they let that opportunity as bad as the offense was the defense in critical situations couldn't make plays on Burrow. And I mean, it must've been three or four times where he single handedly kind of saved the game by avoiding a sack, scrambling around, and making a play. And that is, I mean, when you have that guy behind your offensive line, that guy that you have that kind of faith in, he, that to me is, that to me is what Joe Burrow has brought to this Cincinnati Bengals team that frankly, like, you know, have I been a believer? No.

Won two games and they won four games and then, you know, up and down season where they won a bunch, but they lost some games and you're looking at them going, Hey man, really nice story, unbelievable weapons. But do they have kind of the staying power to compete with the big boys? Well, they knocked off the number one seed. They knocked off the number two seed.

Joe Burrow's over 50 sacks on the season, and he's yet going to represent the AFC, and today Bengals will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. It's a crazy story. Is this the first time the offensive line would buy the quarterback a watch? At the end of the year? Yeah, right. Yeah, it should be, right?

And by the way, I mean, you want to talk about cleaning things up. Now, I know they gave up some pressures. I know they gave up some hits, and I know he avoided a couple sacks. But after what happened in Tennessee, I mean, that was a debacle. You know, in 1991, you mentioned ripping earlier. Well, I had this 30 year reunion, a Super Bowl 26 couple of last week. And it was Joe Gibbs. It was Charlie Cashley. It was about 20 of us on the Zoom call.

And it was awesome just kind of reminiscing about that season and listening to Joe Gibbs talk about the game, the weekend's game, and about Joe Burrow getting sacked nine times. In 1991 through 19 games, 19 games, we gave up a total of nine sacks. And, you know, Rippon couldn't run. I mean, Rippon couldn't run to save his life. Rippon is, he's going to be in one place stationary. Nine sacks in 19 games. They gave up nine sacks in an AFC divisional playoff game and still somehow found a way to win. I just can't, I can't fathom that. I can't fathom having that lack of protection and I'll have to tip my cap to Cincinnati because they actually cleaned it up pretty well against a Chiefs squad

that's pretty formidable when it comes to rushing the quarterback. Not that they were great, but they were much improved from one week to the next. Yeah. No, it felt like in a couple of those plays, you kind of break in the huddle and you see a guy be like, just please give me, I need this much time and i'll get it out like it doesn't have to be perfect but just just help me get the ball out here and i think

joe over the course of the season because he's so tough and he's going to hang on to it a little bit longer so some of those numbers i i love that stat though by the way that's a perfect segue into kind of before i get to some of the ram stuff and staffer which we'll close with maybe a little matchup thing when you were going into your first Superbowl against Buffalo, right? That's 91. Yeah. Cause I think it plays well for somebody like you that ends up,

you know, winning a couple later on with Denver. Where was your head at game plan wise? Like, did anything surprise you? Did Buffalo come out and you go, Oh, wait a minute.

We didn't expect this. I mean, you ended up putting them on them. It was a slow start to that game, but was there anything you remember specifically like game plan matchup that you go, oh, this is not what I expected? No, I think that what we, you know, prepared for is exactly what we got. And, you know, from a coaching standpoint, and it's all about players,

you know, you got to have great players and the players have to perform, but coaches have to put them in a position to win. I always think to myself when it comes to game planning, don't put a player in a position to fail and then act surprised when that player fails. The best coaches that I talk to on a week-to-week basis, Ryan, player fails. Like the best coaches that I talked to on a week to week basis, Ryan are really, um, Hey man, I want to attack whatever it is I want to attack. Right. I want, I see this weakness. I see this weakness in there, you know, over defense or they're under defense. We want to attack the bubble, whatever it is like this corner is not very good. This safety, you know, bites on play action, whatever it is. But I think the best coaches understand the things that they

want to attack. But first and foremost, they have to mitigate their own weakness. And so they will never attack something if it means exposing a weakness. And the best coaches understand that. And they say, Hey, listen, I know I'd like to attack that, but we can't hold up at the right tackle position. So I'm not going to do that. And those to me, you know, are the, are the best coaches. And so every Superbowl that I played in, um, there was nothing that was surprising. I mean, I can go through game plan after game plan after game plan with you. For instance, you know, Super Bowl 32, Mike Shanahan put on film of how the Green Bay Packers in a certain formation played on offense.

And so anytime you got into a slot formation, so we played a lot of base fronts, you know, 21 personnel, two backs, one tight end so anytime you got into let's call it strong right so strong right would be tailback fullback on the strong side and then a tight end on that side strong right slot x and z on the opposite side so anytime you got into that formation or a variation of that slot formation, the weak side linebacker, the will in this case, would basically remove himself from the box. And then Leroy Butler, their safety, would slowly creep in

and he would actually exchange responsibilities. I think it was Williams was the weak side linebacker. So Williams would basically get outside of where he was supposed to be, and he would get in depth, and he would actually kind of become the safety. And the safety, once he read run, would replace him as the will linebacker. And Mike Shanahan put on film before the game, and we watched one play after the next play after the next play of everybody chasing the

will linebacker on the backside, the offensive line, the guard and the tackle and combination. And here comes Leroy Butler making one tackle after the next tackle, after the next tackle in the backfield. And so we said, Hey man, anytime we get in this formation, forget the weak side linebacker. I think his name was Brian Williams. Forget Williams and take your scoop block, which is tackle guard to that backside linebacker and turn it into, convert it into make a Leroy Butler, the will linebacker. And the very first play, man, we get into it. We get into slot. Here they go.

You can see the weak side linebacker kick out and like two by two outside tackle two yards deeper, two yards further outside. And you're like, Oh, here he comes. Here comes the, here comes the safety. When we exchanged the scoop, man, hit the safety, right in the mouth. Boom. Jarrell Davis, 15 yards. And we're like, we are going to eat these guys alive. We are going to crush them in the running game and i tell you what that's all i mean literally it's all we did you know i mean

obviously there's some variations here and there but that's basically all we did we got that formation and let them kill themselves they never adjusted and every every game that i ever played in obviously the players have to execute. But you put a game plan together, and there is such confidence. When you have a game plan together like that, and you walk out and you're like, oh, these dumbasses, here they go again. Can you not see? We were just going to eat your lunch.

And every coaching staff I had put game plans together like that that created victories. I started by telling you about that reunion. You know, Joe Gibbs, we went back to these training camp practices, and then we didn't game plan until we got to the Super Bowl site in Minnesota on Wednesday. And we are just killing each other. Full padded practices just destroying each other. And John Madden comes to our Thursday practice. And like we are, like we're at fights at practice. Like we're at Brian Mitchell, his dog cussing as our scout team running back.

He's running into our defense and just crushing dudes, you know. And there, I mean, it's fisticuffs. It's crazy, like how we're mean, it's fisticuffs. It's crazy. Like how we're, how we're battling each other on a Thursday practice. And Joe Gibbs is standing back. John Madden is watching practice and he's got the rest of the crew there. And he turns to his crew and says, the Buffalo Bills don't have a chance in this game. Just by watching us practice. He's like, they don't have a chance. And, you know watching us practice he's like they don't have a chance

and you know sure enough we just absolutely crushed them i mean they they the score became it was 30 at one point i think it was 34 37 24 was the final score but late in the game was 37 to 10 or something i mean we just absolutely dismantled them i think it's the only superbowl team in history with a top five defense top top five special teams, and a top five offense. Probably one of the greatest Super Bowl teams in the history of the Super Bowl. Yeah, because you're a seven-point favorite.

That's a lot. I mean, we look at this matchup, Rams- Bengals, it's three and a half, it's four. So, you know, I mean, we can talk about scenarios here, but you were supposed to win that game. The first Green Bay one with Denver, you were dogs. I remember I was in college. I'll never forget where I was for that game.

I bought into the defensive line outweighs the Denver offensive line, the Gilbert Brown stuff. I was a total sucker bat. And then very early on, I was like, I've made a huge mistake. People loved what Green Bay's front was against what was thought, oh, these are smaller, they're more athletic, and all this kind of stuff. So you guys kind of, you knew in film or you knew out in the field against Green Bay, which, you know, historically is looked back on

as an upset, but just your tone, you can be confident, but did you guys know? Like, were the defensive line guys complaining about it because you just wore them out? Yeah, I think there was a couple different things that happened. In 1996, we went to Green Bay and got run out of the building. And we were the number one seed. And it was like a 42-7 just ass-whipping that we took up there.

But we went up there. Terrell Davis was out. We had already locked up the number one seed overall in the AFC. So Zimmerman didn't play i i played but i was just coming off the week before a knee surgery um so gary zimmerman our starting tackle didn't play um elway didn't play bill musgrave started for us uh terrell davis didn't play we probably had four or five guys on the defensive side of the ball. And like, we just, we just sat pretty much everybody. And, and they, they throttled us in that game.

Well, you know, we walked into that Super Bowl going, you guys, like, you guys didn't really play us. Don't think that that game is indicative of who we were. So I think there was that part of it. There was also something they did that, that was almost pregame that we felt a sign of disrespect. They had a rotational defensive lineman that they chose not to dress. He was kind of a special teams rotational guy that they chose pregame not to dress and you know you have to understand when you play in a cold weather city by the time you get to the end of the season you're not in shape anymore the d-line ain't in shape the o-line ain't in shape like you get you get your winter layer of fat on right and now all of a sudden you

go to a warm weather place it's a it's a problem man it's a problem playing in that so we were in san diego for that super bowl you know and it's the kickoff man it was warm um you know the sun hadn't gone down yet they probably kicked it off at four o'clock in the afternoon it was still warm and to us it was a sign of disrespect like you guys are you are you're buying into the hype that you guys are that big and like we'll run against the russian army i i don't care who you are like like that that whole size thing is mythology to me because it's it's all about technique it's all about leverage i don't care how big you are if i create leverage on you i'm gonna move you um and even if you're 40 pounds heavier than me, that doesn't matter. If I play with better

leverage than you and leverage is a technique thing, like leverage isn't like, I always, I always laugh at coaches that were like, Hey man, you got to stay lower. Like, you know, two guys that are both six foot three or six foot four are going to come off the ball. And one guy's going to be a foot lower than the other guy. That's not how leverage works. You're going to come off and you're going to hit helmets. You know what I mean? You're going to hit at about the same level. It's leverage is created through technique, through feet, ankles, knees, hips being aligned. And then ultimately through being able to sink your hips and then strike a dude on an upward plane and lift him through the ceiling. Like that to me, it's through the top of the stadium.

So now as we hit this way one dude is doing this and the other guy is and now all of a sudden you're lower and that's all a technique thing that's all something that can be taught that can be learned um that has to be worked on on a day-to-day basis and so that being 40 pounds heavier doesn't i don't it doesn't mean anything to me. It's like 40 times. We get all enamored by 40 times. 40 times means you can run fast. Hey, how many times did he bench 225? All that means is you're good at benching if you do it a lot.

Well, I mean, there's still some value. Yeah, well, I mean, you have some strength, but I tell you what, go look at the top 10 bench presses at the combine. None of those guys are worth a crap. You know, go look at the top 10 40 times at the combine. There's maybe one or two guys that were worth their salt. It's about being a football player. And so the whole size thing to us was like, you know, we run it against everybody. We'll run it against them like we have everybody else. That's a good segue, though, into what is a dominant defensive line here for the Rams. Maybe it's not talked about because of the depth, but I still think

you throw in Vaughn Miller on top of everything else you're doing, and A'sha Robinson I don't think gets a lot of love, and then it all focuses around Donald because you have to keep two with him the entire time. How is Cincinnati going to deal with this? Yeah, they're a problem, man. They really are.

And you always have to have a plan. You talk about, speaking of size, Aaron Donald is 6'2", and I bet you he doesn't weigh 280 right now, which for a normal person walking the streets is a really big man in the NFL. Like when you see him, when you're calling a game and you're down there pregame Aaron Donald is tiny, like tiny compared to the rest of the guys in the trenches. It's like shockingly small. Like you're like, that's Aaron freaking Donald.

But dude, the guy is like have you been tuna fishing like the tuna is like you you finally reel a tune up it's like a 30 pound tuna and you're going going and going and you get it up and it sees you its eyes are looking at you through the water and just goes right back down like it's so it's just one solid muscle that's aaron donald he's just a muscle from head to toe. And his ability to play with leverage, speed, and quickness is unmatched. And then you put Leonard Floyd on one side. You put Vaughn Miller on the other side.

You talked about A'shaun Robinson on the inside. What's the other kid's name? Gaines. Yeah, Gaines. Gaines, right. He's a good player. Yeah, I just like that's an issue man and you can't double team each guy every time so then it comes down to me is how do you game plan stuff right how do you go about making sure that we like we talked about earlier in this

podcast mitigating disaster and so then it comes down to how many bubble screens, how many quick, like how many bubble screens, how many swing passes, how many times do we get fallout on a three-step drop? It's out right now. How many times can we drop on a five-step drop and five-step drops with no hitches? So like a lot of five-step drops,

you hit that fifth step and you read that first one, and then boom, you hitch up, and then you get to the second one, and boom, that's not open. You hitch up and you get to your check down, right? Like there are some five-step drops that have zero hitches. It's five-step and just release, five-step and go. Like, so how many times can we do that so I can be aggressive in an offensive lineman and attack that line of scrimmage and mitigate the potential of pass rush.

So even if we throw it 30 times, can I get down the number of real pass protection reps? Can I get that down to 12 or 15? And then I have to try to survive those 12 or 15. That's how you have to approach the LA Rams because if you think you're going to drop back 35 times and 20, 25 of those times are real pass protection reps, you're going to get beat. I mean, you'll get crushed. So it's a mixture of running the ball, run action, play action with the bootkeep stuff, play action where it's six or seven man protections, where you're trying to get double teams. You're trying to get a double

team, four hands on Aaron Donald. You're trying to get four hands on Vaughn Miller. You're chipping on one side to Leonard Floyd, and then you're getting a late release out. Those are the things you have to think about when it comes to protection, especially against a team like the Rams, because if you think you're just going to roll out there and go, hey, we just got to hold up on this one, you'll lose. I remember back in the day, Van Pelt and I and all this stuff,

we'd just be going through all the quarterbacks. And I, you know, was always a Stafford defender. There were some tough years in there as a defender. I don't necessarily feel like I'm justified in all of it now because the guy's playing in the Super Bowl. I just always thought he was pretty good. But you were always a little more critical, but your criticism was specific. You weren't just like, oh, he lost this week. The guy sucks. Oh, he won. Did you feel – remind me here because I'm going back a bit. I think it was that you realized how good he was.

You just felt like when things got tough, he just kind of got loose, a little too loose with his approach. Right. Is that fair? And how do you feel about it now? Yeah. Well, i've always i've always thought that he was an elite level quarterback that ultimately and i think part of

the criticism is and i've talked to him about it being being loose mechanically being loose when he didn't need to be loose you know like not having not relying on footwork or not relying on mechanics just relying on arm talent and relying on footwork or not relying on mechanics, just relying on arm talent and relying on the ability. And so that was always, that was always part of his deal. And, you know, and he and I have talked about that, you know, one-on-one just about how I had to, you know, like he said, man, I wanted to clean things up. I looked at it and said, man, I'm much more efficient.

You know, I'm much more efficient when I use proper mechanics. And especially being a shotgun quarterback, this is what happens to a lot of the kids that come out of college now. You're always in shotgun. And so your feet don't necessarily tie with the throws that you're making. And this is one of the big adjustments that college quarterbacks have coming into the National Football League because every route and every route combination is tied to your footwork. So if you're talking about West coast offense, your feet basically throw the ball for you.

So when you hurt, when you hit a certain point in your drop, that's where that first, you know, reading your progression is got to be triggered. And when you're lazy with that stuff, especially in shotgun, because everybody's kind of lazy with it because you just take the ball and you're just waiting and it's almost becoming a sight thrower. And I tell you, one of the guys who's kind of quote unquote considered the godfather of mechanics in shotgun is Matt Ryan. And he'll tell you, he'll tell all his receivers, you better come out of this break on time because I will be on time with football.

I will be on time with my footwork. And if you're not, then that's on you as a receiver. That's not on me. And so I think that was one of the issues with Matthew Stafford. And I think the other issue was I've always felt like, I mean, I go back to my first game I ever called him, Matthew Stafford in 2017, where I called it, like he's an elite quarterback that plays on a team that I don't think is elite.

And so I think one of the things that happens to you, even though you have – like you've had good wide receivers, right? You have invested in that position. But the bottom line is when you don't have the rest of your team, you can't run the ball. You can't take pressure off the quarterback that way. You're not playing great defense. What ends up happening to you is there comes a time in every game where you have to throw it into a team meeting. You're just like, Hey man, if I don't make a play here, then we're going to lose. So now you're taking on unwarranted risks with the football. You just take risks with the football that you probably shouldn't, but that's what you have to do to win

when you play in Detroit. And I think there are bad habits that develop over time because you always just rely on arm talent. You always rely on hero ball instead of letting you know letting the offense and letting the scheme win for you so like i i talked to aaron rogers a year ago about this it was really interesting leaving kind of the mike mccarthy west coast offense and then going into the matt lafleur west coast offense and his deal was you know mike mccarthy's all about what's your best match attack your best match first down second down, second down, third down. Whereas Matt LaFleur was more, hey, let's scheme, take care of first and second down for us.

Go where the ball tells you to go. Go where the read tells you to go. Third down, you go after your best matchup. Third down, go ahead. Figure out where the weakness is of defense and attack it. But let me take some of that mental pressure off your plate on first and second down. So you don't have to do it the entirety of the game. And I think that's really where Matthew Stafford is matured is that, Hey, let's Sean McVay worry about first down and second down, let the run game, take some of that stuff

over for you. And then all you have to do is make a play in the critical moments. Second down and long, second down seven plus, third downs. You make a play in critical moments, but let us take some of that mental pressure off the plate of playing quarterback. Let us give you some easy things to do so that you don't have to be under duress mentally the entirety of the game. don't have to be under duress mentally the entirety of the game it's been a lot of fun checking you out this season man and uh i'm happy for you you know being part of the fox team and all that stuff before we let you go by the way just uh let's give a shout out to the stinking good chili you didn't ask but i i like you a lot so just make sure we get a plug in there plus i'm i'm playing i'm wearing the shirt well, it reminded me a little bit.

Right. I appreciate that. Stinkinggood.com if you want to find out more. And it's been a blast, man. My years at ESPN with you and the rest of the crew at Van Felt were phenomenal. But love doing games. Love the excitement of every week, like taking all the stuff that I prepped, throwing it in the trash trash and starting over again and trying to get a sense of what a team is, what they do well, love talking

to coaches, love, just love that kind of grind. Uh, it's a lot like playing without beating the snot out of yourself. So, uh, it's, it's been, it's been a fun transition. Well, I hope to run into you again soon. I miss you, bud. Talk again. I miss you too, man. Thanks, Ryan. Take care, buddy. 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 could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Before we get to life advice, we get to get Nigerian workout updates here because I got so amped through.

I felt like some high volume frolic room attendance tweets from from nephew Kyle. There also was was it yesterday morning? I was heading to the gym myself and I go, wait, Kyle just said, I think the tweet was, has your back ever hurt so bad that you just have to laugh? And I go, it sounds like somebody maybe did some movement. So what happened? You start working out? No, it's supposed to be today.

Today is supposed to be the first day. He said 12 o'clock. He's just going to leave work for an hour or 45 minutes. And he's like, are you sure? And he said, yeah, my back is absolutely jacked up today. So I mean, I'm still going to go. This is the part where you're going to laugh. I got a new computer game. It's called Mounted Blade 2 Banner Lords. My God, it's like, it's unbelievable. And I'm in the, god it's like it's unbelievable and i i'm in the uh my computer is out in the living room on the uh the rolly chair that my girlfriend got when she had her um remote work job that was like a job ago and the chair just awful and i spent i mean over the last 72 hours probably it says

you could see on steam it says like 22 hours i spent on it. And so, I mean, I think it was one of those like four-hour sessions. And I just woke up like two mornings ago. And like I'm concerned. I'm like feeling around to see if anything's like... I think there's some sort of disk problem. But Austin's going to leave his work for 45 minutes today.

So if we can get this done in time, I should be there at noon. Alright, a lot to address. What's the name of that game again? It's called Mountain Blade 2 Banner Lords Early Access. I mean, it's basically a beta, but when it comes out full-fledged, it's going to be incredible. Banner Lords is an incredible addition to the title.

I was sort of on the fence. I love video games or movies that have just all these. Frank Zappa used to do that with albums where he would go, this is the title or maybe it's this. I did it once in a paper when I was in high school

because I just got done with the Frank Zappa book and the teacher was like, this is fucking stupid. Don't title your papers and don't give two titles. The subheading, right? Yeah, she had no idea

what kind of creative genius she was working with. She just, she was, she was tempering all this. Uh, all right. So that means with a messed up back from banner Lords, are you going to be ready for this? How are you going to deal? Dude? I don't have a choice anymore. I can't, I can't keep this going soon. He's just going to be like, all right, well, you're not going to come. The guy's going to leave his job for me for 45 minutes, which I didn't ask him to do. And I actually feel better if it wasn't.

So this is happening. This is happening in a couple hours. If I get out there in time. Yeah, I should. It's nine. It's nine o'clock. I should be done by 12. We should be good to go by 12 easily.

Otherwise, something's went horribly wrong and I've fallen and can't get up. I don't know. You owe this guy, man. Yeah. Because leaving work. I mean, obviously, I don't know what his responsibilities are. I had a lot of people asking me on your behalf, Kyle, whether or not Frolic Room has covers during the afternoon. I don't know.

Maybe you could address the audience on that. There's never a cover. But it sounds like he's just leaving in the afternoon. It sounds like it's not super popping then. So he's dedicated to you, dude. No, he is. I mean, he seems kind of excited to leave. So, I mean, maybe he's done it before.

He's like, it's not a big problem. Did did he tell you what the like what the plan was? Was it back day? Because that would be probably a terrible one. Is it arm day, leg day? Like where are you starting? I saw him on Saturday and I forget what we talked about. I had a few brews, but that's where we shored up our plan for Monday. I forget what we talked about. And in regards to that, some guy came in that he had kicked out earlier on one of those scooters and jumped off of it and had it roll through the bar. And that's the only thing I really remember is he chased the guy for two blocks. But that's the only thing I remember about really talking to him other than we are going to do this today. We got to go to this bar. I mean,

this is ridiculous. A guy came in on a scooter and he had to be thrown out? No, he was thrown out before I got there. And then he was like, I think he was like maybe a street guy or something. I think he spends his days walking the streets. And he just was like, he was coming in full tilt on the scooter. And he jumped off of it and threw it into the bar like full tilt. And so it just like crashed.

And I mean, Austin, big guy, bigger bigger than me out the door and blink of an eye and he was down the street um unbelievable unbelievable turn of events but that's what i may have to have honestly i'm worried about your first workout because i'm afraid this guy's gonna go heavy like he's gonna really i feel like he was like i felt like he was kind of reassuring i don't remember his exact words i would say them if i knew them but he was kind of reassuring if he tries to go really heavy with you the first day after all of this in activity, then it's not the way that you need three to four weeks of movement,

lightweights, just getting, getting the routine down to band form. Yeah. I feel like that's what he said. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said. Something like that.

Definitely didn't say bands, but yeah. Wednesday we come in cows. Like we stretch for 45 minutes. Yeah. I would love that complete fix my I love it I love this Rudy was like awesome

I'm in yeah I wasn't tell me not I'm not in for lifting I'm not in for like the heavy you know back and arms set but like let me know if we got some bands some court you know I'm more into cardio these days that's all I care about I gotta get the heart rate up okay all right real quick real quick before we move on to life advice, though, Ryan, we need to follow up on whether or not your dad actually believes he can get buckets.

Is that a thing? I think now at his age, he has conceded that he could not get a couple buckets in an NBA game. But this was something that he believed in for a really long time, a lot longer than he should have. We'd be watching games. So let's go back, I don't know, maybe when he's 40. So it went on longer.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit at what age he thought he could still get a couple buckets. And I'd be like, Dad, you can't. You can't. Like, yes, he's tall. He's a really good shooter. He played in college a little bit. But I'm like, you can't possibly think that you could go into again. He'd be like, you don't think you can.

And I was like, no, I don't think I can. I was like, if one of these guys decides I'm not getting a shot off, I'm not getting a shot off. Now, are you telling me random guy that played in college again is not me, a guy who played in college in the normal flow of a basketball game in the nba you know a january tilt with the wizards although you know the wizards at one point were good i don't know who to pick you know rockets give me give me the rockets that if you gave me four or five if you told me i could take five to eight shots and not me again someone

who played in college and never had a snip sure Sure, maybe that guy gets a couple of buckets. But the real thing is, is if someone decided in the NBA that you're not getting a shot off, you're not getting a shot. I don't know. Most of you probably have not had access to see when I watch some of those intense close out stuff that they do at practices, you know, when they're warming up on the court or something, it's not like NBA teams are opening up practices to everybody. But if you see some of the defensive drills that they do, and it's like two guys come out to close out on you and you're

towards the sideline, outside the three-point line, it's horrifying. It's fucking horrifying. It's like a reminder of like, oh my God, what this would be. But no, my father and I would argue about it. And yes, he was at an age at the time where I would be like, you're out of your mind. And his whole thing was, if you let me go out there for 30 minutes and you actually let me take some shots, he's like, I'm going to make a couple from the corner. And I'd be like, all right, whatever. Yeah, but what's your plus minus, dude?

Come on. His plus minus would have been terrible. Right. That's the thing, though. When people say this, because I actually don't think it's ridiculous. Like in the flow of a game, you play 30 minutes,

you might get like an open shot or two because the team thinks you're so bad that they just don't defend you, right? But you're right. If they concentrate on you, there or two because the team thinks you're so bad they just don't defend you right but you're right if they concentrate on you there's absolutely no way if you're playing man defense but the only way you're going to get a bucket in the NBA like as a regular person is if it's never going to be going to the hoop it's just a wide open jumper because you're not going to take somebody off the dribble you're not going to back somebody down even like even how tall is your dad was it six five six six yeah i mean and look when he was even when he was in his prime like it's just hard no i he he is he has this shot in the corner and

again he's a his forms a hundred times better than mine would ever be he's he was like nasty but this is a ridiculous topic and we need to just you know his whole thing was i am deadly from the corner which he is i've never seen anything like need to just, you know, his whole thing was I am deadly from the corner, which he is. I've never seen anything like it. It was a non, you know, like real person. But you're still right. Like you're still going to somebody's going to close out on you and you're going to block your shit and you're not like dribbling through anybody. Give me a break.

So I don't know. Whatever. Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere where it's a Joe Burrow thing. My dad's basically 76 year old Joe Burrow. Here's the thing, too, though. All right. Say you're in an NBA game, right? And like, you know, say this was like 10 years ago or whatever, when you were like really

peak Ryan basketball form. Yeah. So we got to go like 15 years. Even if even if you feel confident or whatever and you play 30 minutes, how nervous are you going to be shooting? Even if you get a wide open corner three. Are you hitting rim? I think a lot of guys underestimate. Yeah, sure, you can go to the wide.

You can hit a decent percentage and you're not a decent shooter. But in an actual NBA game, in an arena, when there are fans, I think a lot of guys are airballing even if they're good shooters. It's just a different game. I think random guy in this imaginary scenario,

your ass would be so tight that you'd be throwing it over the shot clock or five feet short. You're going Russell Westbrook when he pulls up and it hits the top left corner of the backboard. That would be every regular person. Westbrook has been destroyed in every single corner. I'm almost doing a self-Westbrook ban.

I try to do hardened bans on myself and I just can't do it. I just can't. I'll be like a self-wespered band. Like, I try to do Harden bands on myself, and I just can't do it. Like, I just can't. I'll be like, hey, don't tweet anything about Harden for a month or something, and then I'll watch a game, and I go, are you fucking kidding me? And then I send out the video. And then I'll be like, hey, don't do that for another month. I violate my own terms all the time. All right, moving on.

Moving on from this. All right, let on. Moving on from this. Let's do life advice. Let's talk about a best friend's hot sister. Rugby player, D1 school, just won a championship. You do the research, NBD. Off the top rope. He wants to be called Chris. He said all the names are fake. He's 6'200", 315, 405, 385. Good numbers. So one of my best friends, let's call him Xander. The other thing I've noticed is guys are really taking some creative license now with the names.

When you guys are changing the names ahead of time, you're really getting out there. Because my favorite fake name ever was Pemberton Huddlestein, who's a real guy from Vermont who played lacrosse. I mean, it's good thing.

Yeah. It's good thing. He's not 25 now. Imagine being named Pemberton and trying to be 25. And hey, what'd you do? Vermont lacrosse, white guy named Pemberton.

Fucking everybody hates you. Luckily he's older. I was thinking about the, I was thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch. Like imagine if he wasn't an actor, like that dude gets made fun of all your name's benedict cumberbatch like come on dude i still kind of make fun of him a little bit and he is you know uh all right so back to this what'd you have kyle it sounded like you had something chime in there i cut you off uh no i'm just i'm glad that i'm glad that people are are doing the thing i mean it does take a little bit

of joy from you to be able to come up with a name on the spot. We all kind of get a chuckle out of it. Not much more than a chuckle. But you get to read the things through fluidly without having to do that translation in your head. So, shout out to you guys for getting a better email read by changing the names yourself.

Alright, so Rugby Guy Chris, here we go. One of my best friends, let's call him Xander, met our freshman year during preseason freshman camp. Xander and I are part of a group, a friend group on the go. One of my best friends, let's call him Xander, met our freshman year during preseason freshman camp. Xander and I are part of a group, a friend group on the team. We were all extremely close, same age. We've all been to Xander's house and stayed there for weekends together multiple times. Being that it was our senior season, almost all of our friends and family traveled to our games this year to catch the last moments of our careers. This included Xander's sister, Stacy.

Stacy is three years my elder and is very independent, sharp, and charismatic, not to mention very pretty. Well, she would come hang out with us at bars after wins. Rugby guys just tanking beers. Love it. Which there were a lot of wins. We got it. Undefeated NBD.

Some are saying we could beat the Jags. This guy's funny, too. We started to hang out more. Xander would continually ditch his sister,, too. We started to hang out more. Xander would continually ditch his sister, Stacey, and we would hang out. We started to grow some chemistry. She gets my socials. I guess that's what Instagram does, right?

Snapchat, yeah. Yeah, okay. She gets my socials. We briefly chat maybe one or two times a week. I talked to Xander about hanging out with Stacey, and he said, quote, I'll fucking kill you if you hook up with my sister. i'm bigger than him so i could take him good which is right so no worries i fucking love how guys minds how our minds work he's like all right i may sleep with your sister but i could definitely kick your ass so i'm doing the math on this all right um she also just told me which i didn't know about that previously Xander said she wasn't allowed to be around me because she mentioned I was hot.

Whoa, forbidden love right there. All right. She asked me, yesterday she asked me, quote, when are you going to come stay here again for a weekend? Eyeball emoji. And told me how she wished we hung out more the last time she was here, including going back to my apartment to talk more. She also added nothing scandalous would have happened. She told me to keep our conversations top secret! No, I wouldn't do it just for the hookup.

And she told me she doesn't want that either. Also, I genuinely like her and would enjoy hanging out with her. I like her. She works in education. We have similar interests and could see something happening. Question is, do I just tell them about it even though she told me to keep it a secret or do I just do it anyway and risk getting shanked at practice? Disclaimer, we've only hung out bars,

breweries like five times. Never in a date scenario so we're still very far from being serious. Also, shout out nephew Kyle. Drop your Venmo and I'll throw some Mac Miller on the juke for you. Shout out to Rudy, Forza Roma brother, long time fan of the show, SVP and Rosillo with my oldest brother. Always loved you since I was a kid. All right.

That is pretty crazy. Van Pelt and I started in 2009. So we get like guys in single digits that we're checking out the show, chiming in now. So, you know, I guess there's some staying power. All right. This is not news. It's not a, I've done this. Here's what I would say.

All right. First of all, because she's the older sister, she's going to do whatever the fuck she wants. So she doesn't care what her younger brother thinks at all. Never, not never. All right. So she is going to do, she's going to tell you everything she wants to tell you to get you. If she's into you, she's going to tell you everything she wants to tell you to get you if she's into you. She's going to tell you everything she needs to tell you to convince you to do it.

She's not going to care. It's just the way it is. It's the sibling hierarchy. And I think it's even more so. It's the older sister is like, I don't care if I want to hook up with my younger brother's buddy. I'm going to do it. I'm the older sister. Now, some of us that have sisters sisters we have this weird phase of like or maybe forever phase of like no one can ever hook up with my sister no one can ever do this like this is this is ridiculous um and i i kind of understand that as an older brother i know that i felt that way in the past um but then i remember one of my friends was like you know this whole

older sister you know older brother things like if we all followed these rules, then, like, none of us would be here. Okay? And it's a good point. So I would ask you this. It sounds like you like her. All right? So if you're ever going to do this, there has to be, I think, at least he's told you not to do it. You don't want to listen to him.

She's going to tell you to do it because she's not going to listen to the brother. to listen to him. She's going to tell you to do it because she's not going to listen to the brother. But the only way it ever works where everybody can kind of get over it is if that it is in a kind of respectful manner, you know, and I know that sounds a little old-fashioned, a little cheesy, but if you're saying you like her and you're listing all these qualities that she has, so it sounds like you're interested more than just the hookup, although maybe she's going to be using you, who knows. If it's a sincere thing where you say to the brother, like, hey, I actually like your sister. I want to spend time with her.

Okay. So you can be as mad as you want to be, but this is happening. All right. Because we actually like to talk and we kind of want to meet up and see how it goes. Now, the other problem with that is then it's like, what if you ended up after a few months, you don't like her and then you feel like, oh, wait, like I have to stay with her now to protect the friendship because I said that I had the best intentions. And now we actually feel like we don't click whatsoever. This stuff happens. But if he's, you know, your friend, if he's a total hothead and he's totally unforgiving and you really care about the friendship, then you kind of have your answer.

If you're telling me the friendship is forever ruined, which isn't really true, forever is a really long time, but if it feels like it's never going to be the same, then continue to be friends with your friend and don't do this. But you already know you're going to do it. She already knows you're going to do it. He seems to be the most in the dark about the whole thing, but I wouldn't lie to him. I wouldn't sneak around. I wouldn't do all these these things if you go into it saying we are going to spend time because we like each other then have the sister maybe work the brother from a different angle that's probably the only way you can pull it off that's what i was going to say because then you run the risk of if they're like hey i know what you said punch me in the face if you have to but i'm like

i mean i like your sister and then turns out she might not even like you that much she just might think you're her stupid younger brother's stupid hot friend. Like, I don't know. That would be kind of a dumb reason to do that. So I would say, I would say continue to sneak around. I mean, I'm not even really sneaking around. I would just say continue to see what's going on before you decide to be like, make this statement.

Because if you guys aren't going to end up together, none of this is worth it from the confrontation of a friend thing. And then if it is worth it, maybe you guys have to slap box in the parking lot one time. And like you said, it'll probably be fine afterwards. Like, but, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't come, come straight out with this because then she might even be turned off by that. Like, listen, I told you not to say anything. We don't even know where this is going.

And you're basically, you know, professing your love, um, about me to him, which I wasn't even ready for. So yeah, I wouldn't like be chomping at the bit to throw all this out in the open. I would at least see if you guys are even like a good match other than like a fun hang at a bar. Brewery.

Brewery, sorry. True. Both were right. Everything you guys said is right. My question would be, especially from a guy with two younger sisters, this really has never happened to me in that way, but wouldn't you want your sister... And now maybe this guy thinks that his friend is just fucking around and he just wants to hook up with her to put the notch on his belt

and say, oh, I hooked up with your sister and hold this over you. Maybe that's him and maybe he's a douche. It doesn't sound like it from his email. No, it's a good point, though, because maybe the guy's leaving out of the email, like, I've slept with 1,200 girls. Yeah, but if you're a friend... I'm a dude. She doesn't sound like it from his email. No, it's a good point, though, because maybe the guy's leaving out of the email. Like, I've slept with twelve hundred girls. Yeah. You know, but, you know, if you're a friend, a psychopath, wouldn't you want like a friend

that you like that you generally think is a good dude to date your sister? Like, you know, I'm sure you've she's brought home guys. You're like, fuck, this guy sucks. And, you know, whatever. But you didn't know him. You weren't friends. You couldn't just say no and say and threaten to kick his ass. So I don't know.

That's where maybe this guy's just like nobody could date my sister but i think it's kind of dumb because if he's a good guy and he has good intentions i think you kind of want him to date his sister the thing that i was a little concerned about is it sounds like what kyle kind of brought this up it sounds like she's kind of interested in just hooking up with her you know her brother's younger friend who might be hot and probably you know plays rugby this is unclear at best best. Yeah, it's unclear at best. That's kind of the vibe I got. And if that's the case, then I don't think you owe your friend.

I mean, listen, you should go in with good intentions. But if she wants to hook up with you and hang out with you, I'd keep it a secret and go for it. Depends on how hot she is. If she's that hot, then he's going to do it. Because that's just what happens. That's it. If he was like, maybe i could do a little better then he's not gonna he's not gonna care um clearly he likes her enough and you know i mean

that's pretty much every time he's like oh don't hook up with this person or oh you know you shouldn't hook up your roommates guys will add those rules change immediately based on the scale just like well i'll probably never never have the opportunity for this level again. So I'm throwing out every fucking rule that I said that I was going to subscribe to. Can I just say as an older brother, having a lesbian younger sister, I mean, I just sleep well at night and I never have

to worry. I never have to worry about one of my shithead friends, you know, ever doing something wrong or you know, I just, it's never those paths will never cross so love you you have like a really hot cousin right Rudy that everybody used to ask about

pass oh fuck went back you alright oh god I'm in so much pain guys Oh, fuck. My back. Wait. You all right? Oh, God. I'm in so much pain, guys. Kyle, was that just a double sneeze back spasm? Coughing and sneezing, those are like one of my two most done actions.

And it's just been an absolute splintering pain. If sneezing and coughing, you're not going to be able to work out today. This is not going to work. Guys, I cannot. Guys, I gotta go. What do you mean? The pain that was just in your eyes after you sneezed. If I'm leaning forward, it doesn't hurt. Unless you're going to shoot some painkillers, which I would not recommend. Although I'm sure

your friend, it sounds like he might come around. We're trying to save his friends. I don't know. He was just like, yeah, come to this place. We'll do our workout or whatever. I don't know. He was just like yeah come to this place you know do our workout or whatever i don't know he was just like you know interesting character but don't tell me anything that happens until the podcast on wednesday kyle don't text anything to the thread okay i don't want to know anything and i cannot wait until 48 hours from now i was gonna be in the hospital for two days and we won't know about it yeah i know you just you just almost

fell off of your chair in severe stabbing pain, sneezing and coughing, and you're going to go work out for the first time in how many years? I don't know. I mean, whenever the mass, like I said, it was probably a year plus, maybe a year. When my back first hurt, I walked five miles, went to a park and hung from a bar for a little while, but that didn't really stretch me out like I was hoping it would. So it took so took a long walk okay let's get to the next one 510 165 not particularly strong guy more into biking and climbing hey have you guys seen the alpinist this one's long so bear with me uh this actually one isn't that long comparison some of you guys like hey we got to do guys thanks for your book submission.

But all right, some background. First year analyst at a boutique strategy consulting firm in the Northeast. All right, I like where this one's going. It's my first job out of college. I don't really want to screw it up, but I think my manager is messing with me. I'm wondering if this is the norm for new hires or just a him thing. My project manager hasn't done anything particularly bad or malicious towards me. He's just really weird. I know he's messing with me for context. This guy is brilliant. Whenever he's giving me feedback, he's usually pretty fair and honest. It's just that he does these weird little things that I know for a fact are to mess with me. For starters, almost every day he approaches me and we talk a bit about what I'm working on. I give him a progress update, but he always asks me if I've seen a random scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Each day without fail, he'll say something like,

a random scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Each day, without fail, he'll say something like, quote, by the way, have you seen that scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm? Where, dot, dot, dot. Every day, it's a different scene. And every day, I tell him I haven't because I don't watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. I've tried calling him out on this. But whenever I do, he just says, oh, I forgot. And I don't want to be a troublemaker. And honestly, it's not a big deal. It's just really weird. Another thing he does is he refers to me as Analyst Kyle. He knows my real name. By the way, that's not the guy's name. It's not even close. He knows my real name and will address me by my real name in emails. But whenever we're around our client, he tells me An Analyst Kyle, or he'll call me Analyst Kyle. I've asked him why he does it.

And he told me it's that he wants to surprise the client at the end of the project as a parting gift. The client knows my name is not Kyle, so I'm unsure why he keeps doing this. He also, for whatever reason, pretends to not know Excel. He will look at my laptop screen while I'm on Excel. He'll ask me what the program I'm using is. The first few times I just laughed it off, but he keeps asking me. I know he's bullshitting me because he's seen me. He has sent me.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I know he's bullshitting me because he has sent me Excel documents before, and I've seen him use Excel on multiple occasions. Finally, and this is the most annoying thing he will without fail every dot single dot friday dot approach me around when i get my lunch and ask me if it's pizza pie friday he does this because my first ever friday on the project i had a slice of pizza for lunch yeah he for whatever reason

on the project, I had a slice of pizza for lunch. He, for whatever reason, assumed that I Andy over here. Tuna. Big tuna. What's up, Tunes? For whatever reason, he assumed that I eat pizza every lunch on every

Friday. I've not eaten pizza for lunch since. I know that this shouldn't annoy me as much as it has, but last week I deliberately avoided him before lunch on Friday so he couldn't ask me. I got an email from him at 1.30 asking if it was pizza pie Friday. He tried to avoid him and he still sent up a follow-up email. Is this normal? No. I've been doing consulting for about three months now and I'm beginning to question my sanity this is amazing hey is pizza pie friday all right i don't know so the curb thing is weird the pizza thing is really weird the kyle thing is just stupid

and then the excel thing doesn't make a ton of sense so we put this all together without judging i mean you could have somebody who's you know really really good at some things and then socially they're not so so maybe that's what you're talking i'm sure you could ask another co-worker and be like hey what's the deal with this guy like is this part of the deal um and i will tell you firsthand, and Cerruti's going to know exactly who I'm talking about. We worked with somebody who wasn't this, but this person would come into a room,

would make a joke. It was literally never funny. And in the beginning, he you kind of fake laugh. And then after a while, tables would start to turn a little bit. Let's just say. And it turned into, I'm going to fucking have you come in here, make your bad joke

where you're always making fun of somebody and we're all going to stare at you and let you know it wasn't funny. Again. And then you're going to leave the room and awkward. It was impossible to be as awkward as this person was on entering a room every single time they entered the room. They'd come in.

We'd all know what was going to happen. He's going to come in. He's going to make fun of somebody, the shirt, something, this or that or whatever. And then he's going to stare awkwardly and we're going to stare back at him. And then it's all going to be over. And those three minutes are gone. And we had to deal with it all the time. And I think eventually, I don't know if the guy ever figured it out because it, it just, it just went on and on and on. And that was like the only way to deal with it. Uh, you got to ask some of the coworkers

because this isn't, it's clear, like none of it's fixable you know he doesn't realize like however he's getting off on these little things and it's his company you're telling me so oh he's a project manager i guess so it's not his company you just have to ask the other people just find another fucking job because this stuff will add up you will even though all of it's collectively harmless or individually harmless at this point it's only been three months the fact that you're writing the email and everything like you're probably going to get so annoyed with this you're going to have to move on because this is really just dumb shit yeah uh i think i think a i mean i worked shout out to jim cunningham jim cunningham he thinks

i've seen every episode of like the 30 years of the simpsons and he would just constantly be like oh remember that one in the simpsons where uh tom Hanks came on or something I was like I mean I would lie all the time because I have seen a lot of them but I like after a while I was just like because if I say no he's gonna give me the whole episode so I you know I that's that's not so crazy to me um and then yeah the the weird the big tuna pizza pie thing that's kind of strange I think maybe the guy doesn't want to have to do any excel sheets so I think maybe he's just priming you to never have to make any spreadsheets possibly. And also, I think maybe after you're there for a while, you'll have enough equity or I don't know, whatever the word would be to be able to be able to call him out on some of the stuff without feeling like, yeah i'm gonna get axed here i think you might be able to just be like hey man like i don't know there might be a way to start razzing him back or i think you just can't do that as like a three-month rookie but maybe maybe if you stick with it a little while and learn how to deal with all this weird shit wait razzing him so what do

you do you tell him like hey did you see that you see the new episode of emily in paris yeah pick a show below can you help me use word? Just go right back at him. Yeah, or you could just be like, dude, I know you know. No, I'm just saying pick a show. I mean, there's nothing wrong with Kirby either. Just pick a show you know he's not watching and then just, you know, I guess like that one time when fucking

Parker wasn't going to listen to Captain Glenn or whatever. You know, whatever. I just Glenn would make a bad captain. Captain Lee? No, I think it was Parker with Glenn. It was sailing out. Oh, Glenn. Yeah, yeah.

That's a different captain. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't get into that one. But I just think the longer you're there, the better you'll feel about either calling him out or calling him out in a jokey way that you know isn't going to be offensive

or, you know, just doing something back to him if that'll help you sleep at night but yeah I don't think it's a huge deal I think you can rationalize most of this stuff and if you stay long enough you might be able to fire back a little bit in a way that you feel good about I don't know

we sure he's not fucking with him like we're sure about that he probably is in some of it and he's probably weird I don't think he is I think it's one of those guys that socially is in some of it and he's probably weird i don't think he is i think it's one of those guys that socially is like sort of just doesn't get it and it's kind of detached a little bit and they think that this is their way of being social thinking they're making jokes and doing whatever it's just not it's just you know it's not here's the problem depending on who you are like some people can roll with it some people can go it doesn't sound like our emailer here

is going to be like long term by itself hey is it pizza pie go, it doesn't sound like our email here is going to be long-term by itself. Hey, is it Pizza Pie Friday? That doesn't seem like it means anything. It's totally harmless. Try it for a year. Try it for a year being asked, is it Pizza Pie Friday? Every Friday. You're going to end up hating the job because of something as dumb as that. So go ahead, Sruti. No, know you know when you like meet somebody and then you latch on to like the one or two things that you know and every time you

see them you bring that up but usually that's over like if I don't see something for a month it's like oh I know you're like a Steelers fan oh yeah Steelers Big Ben retired you

just bring shit you bring the same shit up this guy does that but every single day I mean you're right at some point that guy can't be your boss long term because you're gonna

lose your mind you're gonna blow up at him your productivity is gonna go down because you're just gonna be so annoyed by how stupid and the amount of conversations that are pointless with this guy. And to your other point, Ryan, I've always said this. It's so important. And I could tell so much about a person based on how

they are just able to come into a room with a bunch of people and just not be awkward. And they're in different studios. We'd have people come in the studio, different PAs, different people from TV, different whatever. And you kind of be able to tell within the first 30 seconds or the first couple words out of their mouth, like what their first question is

or what their in is and whether or not they just have it or not, whether or not they're just like a good hang or not, whether or not they're just like a dude or not. And it sounds like this guy's just not a dude. If he's not fucking with you, it just sounds like he's probably has some, you know, I don't know if it's social anxiety or just

have a ton of friends or whatever, but he's just, he's probably just not a great hang and he's trying really hard to connect with you, but it's never going to work. And you got to figure out with other, whether it's other coworkers or if you could transfer different managers because your productivity in the long term is going to suffer because of it. Wow. I think it's totally fine.

I'm surprised at you guys. No, you ride this out, Kyle benefits. Totally. Parking. Totally. I just be like, hey, what's up with fucking pizza pie guy? Like, what's your name or something like that? I think it would be fine.

Honestly, I mean, how often is he really like in your business? I mean, what do you have to meet with him about what you have to do? And then you do it. And I don't know. And they might even like you might even be the nicest one out of everyone else to him and that might help you in the long run just by sheer tolerance of him because there's so many people that maybe don't possess that quality. Who knows?

I think it's fine. Why would you handle the 17th time you were asked if it was Pizza Pie Friday? I'll let you know after lunch. I'd come up with weird things to say back, I guess. I don't know. I think it'd be fine. I've had managers that are like, don't you know after lunch. I don't know. I'd come up with weird things to say back, I guess. I don't know.

I think it'd be fine. I've had managers that are like, don't get me at all and whatever. So I don't know. Unless this guy is like continuously promoting you or like is giving you things. Who knows what's going to happen, right? I don't.

What the fuck? It's just not worth it. It's just not worth it. I don't know. So Rudy, classical millennial, take a three months. Where's my promotion? No, I'm just saying,

unless there's... He's going to make me miserable. So if I'm not getting anything out of it at my job, then I don't want to be a part of it. I mean, you're three months in, dude. You can get another job. It's not like you've invested a ton

in this particular career. I know my worth. Yeah, I'm shocked. I'm shocked. I think this guy is like the guy that wrote the email. He's smart. And there's just going to be these little things. I think there's a lot of people listening that would find it maddening. You told me you don't know how to use Excel. You've sent me Excel attachments and emails and you keep telling me you don't know how to use it. Like that's, that's crazy. Some people would roll with it. Some people are better at being employees. Oh my God.

Kyle just sneezed again. It looked like he had a heart attack. All right, let's wrap up the podcast here because I don't know if he's going to make it. He still has work to do today too. Really quickly, really quickly though. The question would be like,

I've always thought about this. If you, if there was like a real life situation where you were in the office and your boss was a Michael Scott type, you'd be missed. That would be so fucking miserable the question would be, like, I've always thought about this. If there was, like, a real-life situation where you were in the office and your boss was a Michael Scott type, that would be so fucking miserable. It would be terrible. Like, it's funny in the show, and Jim's great and all that, but that's what this is. Like, you would be miserable.

But he didn't say the guy's bad at his job. Like, Michael was really bad at his job, and, like, stuff wasn't getting done. It was a miracle the branch wasn't closed, especially with all the other branches. So, you know, I think that's just, if there was a Michael Scott, like, he wouldn't make it, right? I don't closed, especially with all the other branches. So, you know, I think that's just, if there was a Michael Scott, like he wouldn't make it, right? I don't know, guys. The branch did numbers.

Yeah, but do numbers. He wasn't like doing, like he wasn't rolling out the initiatives. He wasn't doing any of the stuff. I don't know. On movie Monday? He never had plans. The budget for parties was off the chart. How does it increase

productivity because they have to work even harder for all the time come on after that he's gone unbelievable you know what i always thought was the genius of the michael scott character is that he was all the things you just said bad hang would never want to hang out with them you know the jokes aren't good social cues all the awkwardness but they would have moments where they'd have somebody else be worse and michael would almost be cool around them where michael would be aware in that moment like this guy sucks and it was almost like michael's cool tier wasn't at the bottom there were steps below him and they would share that with you every now and then and that was talking the office let stop talking. Let's end the podcast.

Let's let Kyle try to get two hours of, of movement in them. And so that we can find out in 48 hours how the back workout went or just any workout. It's probably not going to be back. I would hope not today. All right. Thanks to Kyle.

Steve, please subscribe ringer Spotify, run your soul podcast. Talk to you Wednesday. Thank you.