The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Chiefs Not Missing Tyreek Hill, Jalen Hurts Fixing His Flaws, Plus the Ravens’ Analytics Debate With Trent Dilfer

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Chiefs' dominant win over the Buccaneers, the Bills' three-point win over the Ravens, Jaguars-Eagles, the Panthers' QB problem resurfacing, and more (0:46). Then Ryen talks with Super Bowl champion Trent Dilfer about the what it's like when a QB and a play caller are in sync the way Patrick Mahomes was with the Chiefs coaches vs. the Buccaneers, Ravens HC Jim Harbaugh's decision to forgo the field goal attempt on fourth down in their loss to the Bills, whether the Eagles are the best team in the NFL, the three most important qualities in a QB, rookie QBs Bailey Zappe and Kenny Pickett, and more (13:08). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (47:51). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Trent Dilfer Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast pat mahomes without tyree kill looks a lot like patrick mahomes with tyree kill we'll talk about that the ravens decision the bills win sort of a philly power rankings soft open don't really do it and one quarterback who's just not working out and trent dilfer on all those topics uh including some discussion about analytics and also what he thought of some of the younger quarterbacks we get a lot of stuff from trent it's always really good and life advice including one i think we all at the end gave zero advice on maybe and think the email is fake but just it entertaining enough. We didn't know what to do with it. So there you go. I want to start recapping a little of week four just by asking a question again that we asked a lot before the season

to get started. And that was, what would the Chiefs look like without Tyreek Hill? Well, the early returns are really good. Last night, you know, there are certain games, and I don't know that it meant as much for Tampa at home as it did for Kansas City to go on the road and you know the final score you can play with that weeks removed you're like oh that was kind of a competitive game and yeah maybe if Tampa doesn't start by immediately giving to choose an early touchdown and next thing you know you look up it's 21 nothing um maybe that game could have gone in a different way Tampa threw it a million times that was a record for

Brady past attempts in a row in a game over his entire career, which is saying something because the guy's been playing for a long time. But when you look at the Chiefs offense, you can look at the Mahomes part of this. He's number one in QBR, although QBR can always be a difficult dance because you'll be like, man, the guy I like is high in QBR.

And you're like, oh, the guy I don't like is also really high in QBR. But when you start adding up all the things, he's tied for the most touchdowns, only two picks. He's only been sacked five times for the quarterbacks that have actually played the majority of the games. Five is pretty much on the lower end. I think the only one lower than that is four. There's some guys that don't play as much that obviously are lower. He's number one in quarterback expected points added.

Six different players have a touchdown. And when you watch it, the real simple part of this is when you watch it, it doesn't look any different. Maybe the part where you're going to take a couple shots with Hill once a quarter. Maybe the part where the underneath throws are there. That was kind of the weird thing for Mahomes at the beginning

of last year. What was going on? How come he's not taking what he's being given? Why is he forcing it to Hill? There was even some thoughts that maybe they would move on from Hill to force him to adjust to the way he was going to be defended. I think it's pretty simple. They didn't want to pay Hill what Hill was going to get paid,

and he got that money with Miami. So he also was turning the football over a lot more than he normally would at the beginning half of last season, and some of them were very fluky. There are some guys that just can't help themselves. They're turning the ball over all the time and they are later called backups. Um, but from a homes, you know, even though there's a few, like we expect so much of some of these guys that are very top of the game, but it was very weird that there seems to be, there seems to be this collection of, of just doubters for who Kansas City could be, whether it was James Jones on with us, picking him to be last,

Bart Scott writing him off as many times as he possibly could. The offense, statistically, is the same offense with Hill after a month. The difference is this front office also deserves a ton of credit, revamping this entire defensive unit. They brought back less than 50% of the players that played snaps from last year. There's younger guys all over the place. Different isn't always better, but they've been on a really bad trend. And the things that they've needed to fix, it's pretty remarkable how good of a job this

team does with it. They needed to fix the old line after the Tampa Super Bowl. That was a mess. They fixed it. They needed to fix the defense after a pattern of three of the last four years just not being acceptable and Mahomes being good enough to carry it. Any team that had this kind of bad defense and early returns a month in, again, some of these teams are going to get hurt.

They're going to be bad on defense again because they just don't have the bodies and enough depth. But for Kansas City, I think the whole thing has been really, really impressive. And all the AFC West talk, do you really want to pick a different team other than them now? A month into this, I mean, I guess you could still hang on to the Chargers part of it. I, too, love the Chargers talent.

Stop me if you've heard that one before. They're 2-2. Maybe it's not that big of a deal, but the Chargers have already had games two weeks ago where it felt like all their best players were missing from the game. I feel like the Chargers, if you go back 20 years, they've probably had the most games missed of their best players. That's just, don't know if it's true or not, just saying it out loud. But if you're looking at the other teams, Vegas finally getting a win in Denver, Vegas getting that win against Denver,

you really want to start thinking that Kansas City wouldn't finish ahead of those teams? That seems impossible right now in a sport that can be really different month to month. Denver has two wins. It was funny because as that game got kicked off, the announcer was like, well, the offense isn't what you'd want, but

they're winning games. Well, they beat Houston, who may be one of the three worst teams in the league, and they beat winning games. Well, they beat Houston, who may be one of the three worst teams in the league, and they beat San Francisco by scoring 11 points. So, no, Denver's got serious problems, and Vegas was able to beat them yesterday. So the AFC West, it's Kansas City's division.

It's their division again. I don't know. Maybe there's something else with them homes thing, too, because there was a local columnist, and I don't know enough about every city's local columnists and who, who are the people that was basically like, he's a good quarterback, but dot, dot, dot. It was all these other things. And all I could think of is if it's, you know, again, I don't know the answer to this, but there's certain columnists that I grew up with that if they were to do the ultimate zag on the local guy, I'd be like, oh, you know, he's just doing what a columnist does. You know, that's what people used to do before they were on television. They would just go, all right, nobody said shit about me for like eight months and I'm a columnist. I'm just going to have to stoke the fire with something.

Mahomes, okay, you know, I guess, like, can his brother be that annoying that we're going to start pretending that Patrick is an awesome quarterback? That would seem to be a reach. And on top of everything else, his contract, he could have made more. Look at the guaranteed money that's flown around for quarterbacks that aren't nearly as good as him. I still can't believe the Kyler Murray guaranteed number. I can't believe that number. It was the second

most ever until a more recent deal was done. So with Mahomes, and I don't expect that the team is going to use a contract that he signed long-term as leverage against him later on. That's usually not how it works with quarterbacks. I don't think they're going to use it as leverage to keep his salary number down. But I mean, this guy does everything. He does everything you could possibly want. And I was just surprised that people were willing to kind of move number down. But, I mean, this guy does everything. He does everything you could possibly want. And I was just surprised that people were willing to kind of move on. Not all, but enough people that are real that have platforms that were willing to move on from somebody because Tyreek Hill wasn't around.

Keeping it moving here. So does that mean that Kansas City is now closer to Buffalo than we thought after a month? Buffalo was in danger of going 2-2 here. Difference being that when they lost to Miami, it felt real fluky because it was something that we hadn't seen since, what, three times since 1939. A team had run that few plays and still won a football game. So there was all sorts of outliers in that Miami game.

But credit to Miami's defense, it was on the field for 41 minutes and still found a way to keep Buffalo out of the end zone so if Buffalo had been two and two the classic reaction to that would have been everybody's pre-season darlings everybody's darlings the first two weeks because they smashed the Rams they smashed Tennessee that was 41 to 7 I'm watching them lose to Baltimore going wait isn't everybody supposed to score in Baltimore and that wasn't really the case so it felt like Baltimore's defense had turned itself around. Lamar, who was

Offensive Player of the Month for the AFC, who has been terrific. Then it comes down to Harbaugh not wanting to go for the game-winning field goal because he wanted seven. Lamar gets picked off in the end zone. Two great plays, one by the edge to keep Lamar a little more contained in this game. I thought Buffalo did a better job than I've

seen other teams do it. Then then getting some of that secondary back for Buffalo and Poyer with another pick back there. Just a couple nice plays. Poyer reading that one to the corner and then Buffalo moves it down for the game-winning field goal and plays the clock the right way. But it's still, you know, one lost record. I don't get too worked up about it when I was

doing power rankings of radio. If we do it now, you know, would I still have Buffalo won? Yeah, probably. But I'd have Kansas City a lot closer to them. Would I have Kansas City over Philly? Yeah, I think that I would. I mean, Philly's defense

and what they've done to some of these teams and them destroying Minnesota, who, by the way, is 3-1, which could be really easy to forget because you're like, oh, that's right, Cousins, somebody likes them. Remember when they played Philly, it was a mess. They couldn't defend. The receivers are wide open the entire game. You're like, oh, that's right, Cousins, nobody likes them. Remember when they played Philly, it was a mess.

They couldn't defend. The receivers are wide open the entire game. You're like, yeah, look at the standings. Look where they're at right now. But as we know, the primetime game, when you suck in the primetime game, that lasts, it lingers a lot longer. So it feels like Philly would be third if I'm kind of doing power rankings here on the fly.

I'd have Buffalo. I'd have KC. I know most people would have Philly won because they're undefeated. That's not how it works here. The defense is terrific. It's the number three defense in opposing yards per play. It was number three behind San Francisco and Buffalo in that stat. Also number three behind San Francisco and Buffalo in the DVOA stuff,

some of the adjusted stuff. And that Jags win, as much as I point to Philly's schedule, as I will all season, is a reminder of, let's not get too carried away as if they're the prohibitive. Like when somebody says Philly's the best team in the NFL, we'll ask Dill for this. I'm a little hesitant to go that far with it, probably because I just don't think of Hurts as the same as some of the other top quarterbacks, which is totally fair,

but they're going to be favored in every single game. Well, based on who they are right now, the models show that they'd be favored every single game remaining. But they're down 14-0 to a Jacksonville team that it felt like all of us had kind of had this coming out party for, this moment of, hey, Jacksonville's good. Go watch Jacksonville. And after being down a couple touchdowns, it was all Philly. So I'd have him third.

I don't know what you do with the Rams. A little bit of a hangover there. And even though Tampa gave up a million points, I still think Tampa's defense is going to be good. They have been the previous three games other than Kansas City. Last night was a mess and I'm not going to doubt Tom Brady.

The other thing with Tampa too is with not the defense. Julio Jones, Chris Godwin, and Evans have played together for 27 plays in four games. So you'd expect that to change. Of course, Brait went down. It was pretty clear he was banged up. They're tight end out of the game.

He did come back in. Last thing here. I watched another full Arizona game. I don't know why I keep doing this, but I did. And, you know, they win. They pull it out. It was 10-10 for much of the game.

Baker, this isn't working. This isn't working. Like, I'm starting to get Sam Darnold updates on this high ankle sprain where he's going to be cleared, but not... He's going to be technically cleared to play, but he's not going to play because the ankle injury is still a problem for him. And it gets back to what we talked about before the season started,

and that is who are the first-round quarterbacks that change teams and how often is that successful? Over a 10-year span of first-round draft picks at the quarterback position, we found 25. Five were no doubt franchise-changing players. Five were total flameouts. And then there were 15 quarterbacks that got legitimate starts for multiple seasons and then ended up somewhere else, and almost none of them worked out. Tannehill's like the only success story. Jameis Winston, I was open to it because he had gotten hurt when he went to New Orleans. I'm still not sure that that's even accurate.

Baker has been a disaster with Carolina. The offensive game that they gave you yesterday, based on some stats, you could argue that that's the single worst offensive output of any team in any game so far this NFL season. So Baker is actually following along with what has happened historically. Big time player gets drafted high. Team takes him, moves on. The next team's like, hey, that guy went really high. We kind of liked him.

That team's stupid. Look what they did with their coaching staff. We'll fix him. Or, you know, there's another version of it's like, hey, it's worth a flyer. We don't really have that many options. We just did it with Darnold, which is the exact same model. We might be getting rid of our coach. It sucks too for the coaches that are going to get fired. They shouldn't be allowed to wear those camo hats on the sideline. If you're going to win that camo hat or wear that, you've got to win is the point. When you lose, it feels like the loss is more

than just a regular loss. It feels like an extra loss because then you've got to walk over with this weird camo promotional hat, which looks good on Brady, doesn't look as good on Matt Rule. That's science. But yeah, the Baker thing not working out and actually kind of following along with everything that we had talked about in the past.

Trent Dilfer here with us on a Monday, as he always is. Okay, I started by talking about Mahomes, no Tyreek Hill. I think people were really worried about it. I guess there's just a certain level of quarterbacks where I guess I'm never going to worry about anything. And I think Mahomes has proven that the first month in. I think that's fair. There are just certain guys, it doesn't matter what they have, it doesn't matter if they drop balls, if you can protect them.

Now, I will say that if you can't protect them, now they're going to play too frenetic, and they're eventually going to lose trust, and they're going to turn the ball over and not be as efficient. But who their skill position guys are, I think as long as you have a triangle, and this is something I don't think we ever talked about this on this show before.

If you go back and study, which I have, all these great play callers, all these great offenses, where there's greatest show on turf, Holmgren's Green Bay Packers, Walsh's Niners, Brady's Patriots. I would put the modern day Chiefs in there i think the bills are doing a good job with it now um and there's way more but you start studying these and you you kind of see this triangle and the triangle is obviously the top of it's the quarterback uh there has to

be a guy that eats up the middle of the field that could be a running back if you're the old school ball control like slam down people's throat and up the middle of the field. That could be a running back. If you're the old school ball control, like slam down people's throat and control the middle of the field like that. I think it's more of the modern day tight end, right? The tight end that kind of controls the space and the guy that controls the perimeter. If you have that,

you have, you know, a weapon on the outside that can control the perimeter, a person in the inside can control the middle and the quarterback running the show. There's a lot of cool stuff if you're a creative play caller that you can do to make that triangle work. You can add a Johnny,

just meaning an average player. A Jag, just another guy. You can add a Jag with a perimeter guy and a middle of field dominator and he's still dangerous because he's an NFL player. So that's a supplemental player. What the Chiefs have done, which I really like,

and they have Andy making these plays, I'm sure Patrick has some say in that too, is they're giving you all this window dressing. They're giving all this eye candy on every play before they just get to a basic triangle play. And they're going to identify the matchup on the perimeter they like, whether it's Juju, whether it's somebody else. They're going to use Kelsey as the primary point.

And Mahomes is going to use a Jag, just another guy, to kind of open one of those two guys up. And that's what you see over and over and over. And it's a really effective way of running offense. I also like they can beach a lot of ways. They can play multiple tight ends like we played a few weeks ago. They have two good backs.

They really like this new back. Is it Pacheco? Is that his name? They showcased last night. So let's not ever forget, running football is a really powerful thing in the league. People like to talk about it because it's not sexy, but their ability to increase their volume of carries

and still do this triangle type offense is a big deal. And that's why they're going to be in the conversation until the end. Okay. What's it like? Because I like watching, you know, we saw some stuff with the enemy a couple of weeks ago. Might have been just two weeks ago. And it was just as simple as like a disagreement on how much time they had left or whatever. And then Andy and Mahomes were kind of going over the play chart.

Maybe I'm making it out to be more than it actually is. Maybe it's something that's really simple. But what are those moments like in a game when it's right? When it's you and it's the play caller and you're going over stuff and you're like, all right, the ball's moving. The plays that you kind of have in your head, like what is that like when it's awesome?

When the quarterback and the play caller are just totally aligned and you're having the kind of night those guys were having last night? Well, I'm not going to be self-deprecating here. I'm going to be truthful. I had very few of those moments. Okay, so now I have been in college

and I will remember and I had one of the great college coaches of all time in Jeff Tedford. I was his first round quarterback. I had moments of this with Kavanaugh in Baltimore when I first took over. Moments of this with Holmgren in Seattle before I got hurt. And honestly, I didn't play very well in San Francisco, but I had a great guy, Frank Signetti, who I had some moments like this.

And it is euphoric. It is when you're synergistic with your play caller and how they're attacking and, and how is articulated was I'm thinking of a play. And the next thing I hear in my ear, I get that play. Like now, you know, Drew Brees and Peyton were the two best I'd ever seen that. You could just see Drew nodding like, yes, okay, that's what I was thinking too. That synergy is amazing. It takes a ton of work. I mean, it takes so much lonely work behind the scenes to get to that point. Now, I've talked to some of these guys since I've retired that have had these relationships with their play callers.

And they talk about the work. They talk about all the mental gymnastics you go through during the week to get to that point. Usually the play callers, and Chris Collinsworth made a great point last night that it was just kind of a drive-by, but it was the best comment I made all night. He talked about how Andy always teaches them the why. He was talking about Wednesday's red zone days and the install days. And he says, you know, Andy gives them the why.

I think he was giving it. He was talking to Juju Smith and Juju Smith Schuster was explaining to Chris what makes Andy so different. I've heard that as a common theme that the greatest play callers, the guys that have that relationship with their quarterbacks are Y guys. They don't just say, hey, do this because we worked all weekend on finding this play. They're going to give you, I was watching this piece of film. I saw him in this front.

I went back and I studied this front matches, this coverage, this hash, this personnel grouping. Man, we can get into this personnel grouping shift here get them in this front they're weak in the weak side flat we can run this and you're going to have this opportunity to you know work kelsey on the stutter route the jerk route inside if they jump that you're gonna have juju right behind it this can be an easy one two something goes haywire i'm wrong you got a safety net piece of cheese backside take the hitch now the quarterback goes ding ding ding ding ding i got it that makes perfect sense thanks for working so hard on that uh play caller comes in midweek like man i was just studying their third and short stuff uh watch their left defensive end when he changes from that you know four eye

to a five it means this that means that backer does this and where you immediately just get to check this, get to your verticals out of your bunch set. And you're going to have this tight end running on this back with this back turn. Oh my gosh, great. You just found me a explosive out of third and two. Uh, so that Y piece of it, I think is the most important piece that most analysts are going to talk about. It's that's what gets you to the point to run these incredible things on Sunday night football, Monday night football, Sunday afternoon, whatever it is. And you're like, how did they know that?

Well, that goes back to their first meeting on Monday when they're just starting to put in the game plan that Tuesday afternoon, which is the day off and the quarterbacks in the film room, just grinding out tape and the coordinator runs and all excited, like, oh my gosh, I just found this. We, Hey, look at this for me, make sure we're on the same page and let's move forward with this this week. Um, it's euphoric when you get to that point. And that's why you'll see like when everybody kind of knows where they go. All right. I mean, it's, this can sound stupid because I'm just somebody observing it,

but you're at home and you're like, oh, they got their guy. They got their playmaker on a linebacker. Yeah. All right. And it's like, okay, but the whole point of the excitement is,

yeah, I can't believe we finally got them in this alignment because it's just that hard. Like you might not get it the entire afternoon because they did a good job of protecting themselves, but then there'll just be this moment where like i can't believe you allowed yourself to get into this kind of coverage and then it happens and it's actually pretty rare though like you're waiting for it you're waiting for i imagine those are those moments too where where you may think you have that option and you don't want to use it until later anyway

well let me let me pivot because i do think the audience would enjoy this. There's two ways of doing it. And then I'll get back to saving something. Remind me to get back to if you're going to save it. There is the coordinator driven matchup offense

or coach driven. Let's call it coach driven because it takes an army of coaches to get to this point. My opinion, it's the best way of doing it because you can do it with multiple quarterbacks. So if your guy gets hurt, you're not beholden to the quarterback. You spend relentless amounts of hours watching tape, going back, identifying the defensive rules. And really, that's the key to offensive coaching is knowing the defensive rules, what their rules are.

Because defensive guys, their alignment assignment rules and effort. That's defensive football. So you find out their rules. You spend tons of time watching tape. You learn how to teach. You give the why. And then you give the quarterbacks all the answers to the test before the game comes up. And you trust him that he studied hard,

he knows the answers, and boom, there you go. The second way is the way Peyton did it for years. And that is very little offensive game planning in terms of formations, personnel, grouping, shift, motions. And you give the keys of the card or the quarterback, and you say, hey, just get us to the best play. Whatever the defense does, you're going to react to the defensive structure and get us into the best play. It's a great way of doing it, too.

It's way simpler, right? You're just putting the burden. You're basically telling your quarterback, you're a co-offensive coordinator, and you're going to do it on game day. It's an unbelievable way when you have a Peyton Manning, when you have one of these outliers that is so smart, that can handle so much information. And then you practice that way in practice. Like basically you don't have scripts. So I'll show you a script. This is a gang script,

but it's very similar to a practice script where you're just going over, okay, play one, play two, play three, play four, this formation, this defense, this personnel grouping, this shift, this movement, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that structure with Peyton, you're just saying, okay, we're going to get three by one defense, play four different coverages, Peyton for 12 plays, get us to the best play in three by one. We're going to get to two by two. We're going to get into a deuce set, a two tight end look, two by two. We're going to get into a deuce set, a two tight end look two by two. We're going to get into a deuce slot two by, you know, one by three, two tight

ends. Defense has two or three different ways they react. Peyton, you get us the best plays. Everybody listen and we'll go carve them up. It's a great way to do it. What about if your quarterback gets hurt? All of a sudden you're expecting your backup that has no reps to go do that. So most teams are morphing more into the coach-centric offense using their time, their ability to create a plan, and then the quarterback's job is to go execute the plan. That's how it happens. Now, getting to your question about holding something,

waiting for something, I don't think you wait for something. If it presents itself, if you get Kelsey mashup on the stiff run stopping mic on a sale route with no outside help, you take it no matter what the down and distances. However, you do run purpose plates that get in that same matchup, run the ball or throw a little perimeter screen to double check your work. Because no matter how smart you are in a plan, you want to double check your preparation. So a lot of these runs you're seeing are purpose runs, in formations that Andy's on the side or somebody's on the side or I'm on the side going, okay, I got the look I want when I need it. Right? So you run purpose plays to create the

look for the explosive play that's highlighted in pink usually or red on your call sheet. So it's, so it stands out like, don't forget me. Don't forget me. I'll show you. I mean, I do it all the time. Like, don't forget me. So those are in pink? That means I don't want my eyes to miss that because if I vetted it on another play and I know I got the look I want, I can come back to that at any time and that's an explosive. So

Mahomes has a couple plays. This will be the last thing on this. That was really good, so thanks for sharing that and explaining it to us. But whether it's the little pop-up that he throws, he's just decided to do things. This isn't new now, but he's decided to kind of play the position in a different way.

And I imagine teammates are in awe of it. What's the most in awe you have been of a teammate? I mean, Ray, well, two things. I'll give my favorite story. Walter Jones, left tackle, Hall of Fame left tackle for the Seahawks. We played Bruce Smith in Seattle. It was kind of a, it was a Seattle day,

so it's not hot, but it wasn't cool yet. This is fall. Probably, you know, it wasn't cold, but I don't care if it's freezing. You're still going to sweat, right? We had those. I think they still have the same blue. They've added a different green, but, or more of the green, but that blue is kind of a mid Royal blue.

It's not a dark blue. So when you sweat, you would get these giant sweat stains, right? It would go to like a Navy blue and most guys by warmups Royal blue would become Navy blue. I mean, we're athletes. We're big. We sweat. We're gross. We're gnarly, right? Walter's 300, I don't know, 35 pounds, six, five, uh, bouncing bear. One of the greatest athletes I've ever seen in my life. He blocks Bruce Smith the entire day.

We kill him. We go in the locker room after my locker's kind of nearby and he goes to take off his pads. He needs people to help you take off your pads because you're locked into those suckers all the straps so he's got his arms up like this and they're taking on this and i'm like bro you didn't sweat he had zero sweat on his pads on his undershirt, and he had just blocked Bruce Smith the whole day. Zero sweat out. Zero pit stains.

Zero. And I'm sitting there. I was the backup. I'm sweating. I'm overweight. I'm sweating like I got the meat sweats on the sidelines just from helping homerun call plays. I'm navy blue. Bro is royal blue, not a sweat stain on his jersey.

I'm like, you didn't sweat. And he just kind of looks at me goes well it wasn't that hard it's always a micro you're a freak you're a freak he's the greatest i mean ray again i'll give ray ray i was in awe every day of how big he was and how sudden he was and you've've heard me explain sudden. Other guys have tried to hijack this word, but sudden is twitchy and fast. Okay, so there's twitchy, there's cheetah fast, then there's sudden. Sudden is both. And very few guys have suddenness. Very few big guys have suddenness. Ray had suddenness. He was twitchy like a slot, fast like a 6'5 receiver, and at 245 pounds.

He would do things in practice. Games, you're really not in awe. You're so into the game itself. But in practice, he would do these things athletically that you were just like, Holy crap. Like I could see a five, 10 and a half, 173 pound kid doing that, but a six, two and a half, 245 pound monster doing that. Like he would drop into zones and you'd try to layer the ball over him. And he would just, it was like him and Erlacher would get 11 feet in the air to take something out of the middle of the field. He would be running at an outside zone because you're trying and we'd make it away from it. So you like show outside zone. So he's sprinting and he'd kind of naked back the other way.

And usually it takes an inside backer three or four steps to kind of go, oh, stop, stop, stop, go back the other way. He just put his foot in the ground and he's chasing the guy running the naked and he's covering like, what, how did he do that? that like i don't know how to explain so those would be the things the two that stand out i'm sure i saw other things okay let's uh let's get back well actually let's go to the ravens decision on fourth down there our harbaugh is is always going to play it that way it was the right analytic play on that part of it um but you know you go up three against a buffalo team that you've been beaten most of the day.

What do you think of that decision to fourth down? I get frustrated, Ryan, with this analytics thing. You know, my answer in life usually is both. Both sides are usually a little right and a little wrong. You know, we've talked politics before. I kind of that way in life. I think both is usually answered. We get these extremists and different issues, and that's usually wrong when you're

extreme on one side or the other. I think football is very similar. Analytics are based in evidence. They're science-based. There's a lot of good to what analytics has done to football. I think they're used in a positive way at a lot of different levels. But to treat them as the gospel is wrong. When you go too far on one direction, it's wrong. The same way if a guy, some hillbilly coach goes, I ain't using those analytics, man. I've been coaching ball for 45 years.

I'm just going with my gut. Well, your gut's going to be wrong if you go with that, too. There's a balance. You need to get both into your life. And that's what I think football, unfortunately, you get these guys. John and John I admire as much as anybody, but they go based on what the analytics say, and they've been proven to be wrong.

That was a bad decision, right? You go up three in those conditions when you've been leading the game. Um, I, I just, I couldn't believe it. In fact, I text somebody, I said, was Tucker hurt? I'd missed a little bit of the first half. I said, was something wrong? Do they have no kickers on their rosters? The long snapper hurt? Like I immediately thought it was so egregious. I originally thought, well, well they must long snapper broke his arm kicker's got a groin you know they can't kick an extra point even um i just can't for the life of me understand how that's a good decision i want to talk philly uh you know i i know that's for you is that too much for you on a simple

go for it or kick a field goal? I didn't have a problem with it because I think the problem with the analytics debates become we can't pick and choose. We have to either be all in... No, you don't. No, you don't. They would argue that you can't date

analytics. You have to be married to it. So that if you want it to play out over the course of the season the way you want it to play out, you have to make the decision based on what the chart's telling you all the time um and again i'm not saying that i agree with that necessarily all the time uh i don't think you'd expect lamar at this stage because i think lamar's been so fucking good the first month of the season that you weren't expecting him to throw a pick in the end zone on that one uh i thought buffalo did a really good job of containing him a little bit too. It was hard to move.

It was hard to contain him when it was hard to move. You know what I mean? Bad conditions are really the only thing I can see slowing down Lamar, and those are pretty bad conditions. I mean, the ball, it was hard to control the ball off your hand. It was hard to redirect on the field. You know, and that's part of football. That's part of late season football

is you got to account for the bad conditions. The dating, marrying thing, eh, I would go to war with a lot of guys on that one that you can't, you can date them. You can, they can be your first honey. Like they can be your fave. You know what I mean? Yeah, look, my thing with some of the analytics

is like, are you looking at a summary of results based on who everyone is or who you are? That's fair. And is football a momentum game or isn't it? Okay, so... Well, some people believe there's just no such thing as momentum, which I don't agree with.

But those people are wrong. They haven't played it. They haven't been in it. They haven't seen a left guard who's getting his ass kicked all day long and he's sulking in the huddle and he's chasing demons away. And literally you're a therapist in the stands together, three rows apart. And he's worried about, is the girlfriend going to meet the wife? And that's literally what he's talking about in the huddle. So all you analytics geeks that think momentum isn't in the game, you haven't been in the fire.

You haven't been in the fire and know that that is a realistic part of football guys. Sometimes it's going well. And you have Johnny, who's a, you're six wide receiver on your roster, who got pulled up to be the fifth off the practice squad. Now, because of two injuries, he's your third. All he's ever done is, is cover kicks.

Right. And he's your ex on one of these fourth and one plays that the analytics analytics tell you to go for it. You're like, that dude doesn't know how to line up. He was on the sideline in training camp when we were running this play. He was on kickoff coverage. He was on scout kickoff return, actually, when we installed this play. So how's this play going to work?

Analytics guy. Like that guy doesn't know how to line up. And if I do throw him the ball, I don't know. This depth's going to be right. This timing's going to work analytics guy like that guy doesn't know how to line up and if i do throw him the ball i don't know he's this depth's gonna be right this timing's gonna be right and then if he's gonna catch it does that play into your analytics no that's momentum conversely you get a guy that's playing out over his skis all of a sudden you get a tight end who's really a blocking tight end 41 for tampa last night makes the back shoulder catch that gives no receiver this guy catches a couple ball and he's rolling all of a sudden he's a legend in his own mind it's like that

seven handicapper that's two under par after six holes you're like well this guy's gonna fall apart no he's not because he thinks he's a plus three right now and he's hitting everything in the middle of the face and he's made everything over 14 feet. Why is he going to start missing now? Today, that dude is a plus two. In this round that we're playing, he's a plus two, and that's how he's playing. So I'm going to compete against him as if he's a plus two, not a seven. All that is not accounted for in analytics.

That's why you date him. You don't marry him because momentum is absolutely a massive part of football. I have to ask about Philly. Well, I just don't want to, I don't want to go any further because there are some things I agree with you on. And there's, there's just some that I don't, but I, but I'm doing it from the stance of like, if I'm somebody that's all analytics, I'm only going like, well, you can't just pick and choose. But we've already covered it.

We've already covered it. Okay. Is Philly the best team in the NFL? No, they're playing the best. There's a big difference. They're leading the league in turnover margin. They have seven fourth down conversions. There's a couple other stats I saw this morning

that are helping them. They're playing the highest level of winning football. I always do this. And I haven't been wrong very often. My time at ESPN, this is the one that helped me the most. Who's going to be there at the end? The team that's winning right now without dominating the turnover margin.

That's not playing great on third down. That's not, it doesn't have seven fourth down conversions. That is banged up a little bit. Philly's healthy. They're playing their best football. They're leading in turnover margin. They're converting the ball at a high level. The red zone efficiency is, oh,

they have the most explosives in all football. And by the way, you start taking away explosives and all of a sudden now you got to march the ball more. So now it's easier said than done. Some argue and i'd accept this argument that well why can't they keep doing that they can if they're the best team in football they'll keep doing that but what i see on paper is the best version of themselves right now is it sustainable and i would say i think they're going to be, I think they're going to be there. I think they're going to be in the conversation.

I really like Philly. I'm not knocking Philly, but you're playing your best football. What happens when you don't play your best football? What happens when you're nicked up a little bit? Because everybody's going to go through that in the NFL. Now, that's why I always say, okay, let's start looking ahead

of who's going to be there at the end. Let's start looking at these teams that actually aren't playing their best and are still winning. Like if the Rams win tonight, they've played terrible on offense. They've had all kinds of issues, but they're winning. Like, okay, they're going to fix this at some point. Now they're going to be really dangerous. I think Tampa will be dangerous. I mean, I thought Chris Collins did a great job

pointing out how Tom hasn't had really any continuity offensively this season. And it was 2-2, but they put 31 up last night and it come from behind. Yeah, I'm with you. Like, I left that game going, okay, this is what I feel about Kansas City and for Tampa, who I think is good, I'm just unchanged on it.

I just, that's, yeah, I just went, all right. I think they're 10 and six this year instead of 12 and four, whatever they were. Maybe they're 11 and five. But guess where they're going to be playing their best football. I mean, this guy is married to playing his best football after Thanksgiving. Like, that's all he thinks about. Tom Brady. He's going to get the rest of them to think about it so they're going to be there

at the end they're going to clean some stuff up so I never look at this first start of the season who's dominant well I'm like okay they're really good I really like that they only have very few negative things to say about them but they're playing their best football now do you want to play your best football now

or do you want to play your best football late you want to play your best football late what's more want to play your best football late? You want to play your best football late. What's more impressive about them? Who Hurts has become or just the defense? Hurts. Hurts is interesting, man. We had him in Elite 11. We've known him forever.

Very close to his college career. I was bullish on Jalen, but not to this level. I'd be lying to say that I thought he could make these types of improvements this quickly. I was bullish saying he will be accurate, not deadly accurate. He will be dynamic, but not the most dynamic he had some he had one particular mechanical flaw that is kind of a death sentence that he needed to fix and usually it's three to five years to fix it and he fixed it like it's gone it's not showing up what was it the left leg lockout like the left knee just snapping and his body tilting over it i I remember the lead 11 just talking to him like,

Jalen, you're amazing. I love you. Please don't take this bad. But if you don't fix this, you have no chance. Right. And he didn't fix it for a while at Alabama. It got a little bit better. Got a little bit better at Oklahoma.

It's Quincy Avery has fixed this dude. Like Quincy Avery should be talked about in every conversation with Jalen Hurts as MVP. I'll admit, look, I watched all the Jalen stuff. I thought it was never an arm strength thing, ever. It was never...

Guys, sick athlete. Sometimes you're like, oh, because he's consistent enough as a thrower. I thought he was the one read-and-go guy, and I thought it got really frustrating at Alabama, more so than Oklahoma. Quincy would talk him up. Again, I love quincy but i always have a slight reservation when it's the guy's kid me too because all of you are have been you know perhaps i think it's great that you're so positive about all the clients but there are times where i'm like ah and quincy was talking him up talking him up i knew he

knew that i was kind of indifferent on the whole thing and you're right like quincy deserves a ton of credit for it because i didn't think jalen i didn't think jalen would be this and i'll even admit like against minnesota i'm like holy shit but then is it just because everybody's wide open because i still have some of these little doubts planted but but if this is who he is you know then i have to look at philly entirely differently, even though I would not put them atop every other team in the league just because they're undefeated. Do you have three to five more minutes for me to give

it's kind of a bigger global thing on quarterbacks? Yeah, sure. Of course. I do this show in Chicago on Mondays and I break down all fields tape and I was getting frustrated because it felt like I was getting taken down like the knee jerk reaction first take track. And I finally said, okay, this is how we're going to talk about this every week.

I said, there's really three buckets for quarterbacks. Okay. There's your drop back passer, whatever we call traditional pro style quarterback bucket. There's your playmaking bucket. And then the bucket that doesn't get talked enough about is the stuff bucket. So you have stuff, pro-style quarterback, playmaker. You can put every quarterback in the world and say, okay, these are three buckets that you have to have some ability to do

if you're going to play at a high level. So with Justin, I'll get back to Jalen, but with Justin, we're always talking about, listen, he's got the playmaking bucket. He's got the stuff bucket. I can tell you about the stuff. Those buckets are full. The empty bucket is the dropback pass bucket. You need to consistently invest and put a little more water in that bucket every single week. If that ever gets to three quarters full, he's going to be one of the premier players in the league because the stuff bucket is full and the playmaking bucket is full.

Those are flowing over. Jalen is really interesting because his stuff bucket of all the guys we've dealt with in 13 years is him, Tua, Fields, Lawrence. Those are the most full stuff buckets. They have all the right stuff. Everything you could ever want, if people want better work for stuff, it's intangibles.

So Jalen Hurts will work as hard or harder than anybody in football. He will take things out of his life that distract him from being the best he can be. So he'll say no to all the cravings of the world, right? All the things that could distract him. He'll say no to that. He'll do all the lonely work. He's one of the most dynamic leaders you'll ever see in your life. He's selfless. Everybody in the organization wants to play harder for him. He gets the better out. So the stuff buckets amazing. The playmaking buckets never gone away okay even when it's thrown to the fire early really all you saw was the playmaking stuff right so that bucket's pretty darn full what's making him elite right now is that you study him and orlowski does a really

good job every week you know i i get on twitter and watch orlowski's breakdowns i think kurt warner does a great job on his breakdowns. Like I'm studying these guys as they're studying his quarterback stuff, his dropback quarterback bucket, man, that bucket's getting full on a consistent level. Like he's getting two, three deep in progressions. He's moving on stuff based on looks on the field. He's handling protections at the line of scrimmage. Like he's running the show from a drop back passer bucket. What else is there? There's only three buckets and two of them are overflowing.

And now that one that everybody thought was going to be really empty is Brent is getting to the top. I don't know if this thing's slowing down with him. That help. Yeah, that was really good. There's only three buckets. Before we let you go,

are you a Kenny Pickett or Bailey Zappi guy? I'm a both. I was super bullish on Zappi in the pre-draft stuff. And he's real close, right? He's Western Kentucky. I'm right down the street.

And we studied a ton of Western Kentucky offense this offseason so we uh we saw every snap he played i was really bullish on him pickett i really liked um pickett's got some stuff to him now pickett's got some stuff he showed a little bit in that press conference after the game i have well he showed it when he got blasted on that one and he immediately started going to the defensive lineman. He was like, letting him know how good of a time he was having, which I thought was kind of funny.

He's got some stuff. And then I, what wasn't talked enough about Kenny pick it pre-draft. I liked him. I thought Kenny, I actually liked how the draft went. I did think he was the only first round quarterback. And I thought he was a late first rounder.

So I actually thought he went kind of where he should have gone. His deep ball is really gnarly. Now everybody gave the kid that's at USC now all the credit, but Pickett ripped some dimes at Pitt last year on the deep ball. Some gradual level stuff now like early high leading a lot like some really good deep ball stuff. I like Pickett. I like them both. I both i like all these i listen i know you think i'm too bullish on these young guys but there's a lot of young guys i really like i just think

they need to be developed right i always revert back to i don't think the nfl does a very good job of developing them so let's see how they get to look we agree on that we've talked about it like you get drafted third fourth round you don't get any fucking snaps and then it's like okay we're just going to replace you with the next third and fourth rounder hoping we actually hit it and got really lucky uh what do you think the gap is between bailey and mac jones not level of football and i think it matters i think it's going to take bailey some time to get used to the level of football. Mac Jones played in the NFL when he was in college.

There is something to that. There is something to... There should. Yeah. I mean, you're right. Listen, I suffered it. You see a lot of Carson Wentz. We've seen it happen with Carson Wentz. Peyton Manning went into the NFL ready for the NFL because four years in the SEC.

Like the SEC practice, it is truly, and guys, I'm not an SEC jock sniffer. I'm from the West Coast. I was a Pac-12 guy growing up, Pac-10 guy growing up. Now living it, it's different. It's semi-pro football. It's not college football. It's semi-pro football. They're a better coach.

There's more resources. There's better players. The schemes now are better. Like they're just better. You play NFL football in the SEC, and that's why these guys are overwhelmed. I think it gives them a huge advantage coming in opposed to a small school guy.

That's Tread Dilfer. Every other Monday here on the Ryan Russo Podcast. We'll do some college maybe next time, too. I would love that. Let's do that. All right, man. Thank you. All right. See you, brother. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari

355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

Today's Life Advice is presented by Modelo. Modelo knows it takes fight to be a full-time fan. There will always be good days and bad ones, but when you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Modelo celebrates those who treat being a fan like it's their full-time job. That's why it's the official beer sponsor of the college football your life. Modelo celebrates those who treat being a fan like it's their full-time job.

That's why it's the official beer sponsor of the college football playoff. Modelo, brewed for full-time fans, brewed for those with a fighting spirit. Visit ordermodelo.com to shop, delivery, or pick up options for Modelo near you. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois. Life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. A lot of follow-ups to the Botantic guy.

I guess he mixed up IE and EG. So guys are fucking hammering him. That's the risk you run when you start correcting people. Yeah. But the problem is, I wasn't sure that I even wanted to address it because then he'll

probably come back with something and like guys got really nasty about it we're not gonna read all those emails but i think they were just so annoyed with this guy who we all agreed that was a massive overcorrection and don't like keep math riddles from your girlfriend you're gonna marry this person like oh sorry sorry somebody needs to work on their division um so nobody seemed to like that email or anyway and then the ie uh eg confusion somebody said it's fifth grade latin which again wouldn't that be kind of like do you mean somebody who's taken latin like you guys know Latin in my public school. I don't know. Yeah, right.

Do you guys know the difference? I don't know that I know the difference. Latin, I've been trying to get rid of it for years. Go ahead. What? No, I don't. Do you know the difference? I don't know that I know the difference.

So they both meant example. Well, here we go. Now we're reading it. Here we go um now we're reading it here we go for example yeah i'm reading this too yeah eg and then ie stands for he's giving us all the latin breakdown in other words yeah i could see that i knew there was a difference. I didn't know. So there you go. Fuck everybody. You know, just guys are super mad. So we'll keep it moving.

Let's get back to our wheelhouse here. So the Latin. Do you have buddies that took Latin in high school, by the way? I took it in junior high. The story, the guy of the story that I told about who was between colleges, he was a big Latin guy in high school, took Latin. I was like, what are you ever going to use that? He's like, it's just cool to tell people you speak Latin. I'm like, honestly, it is kind of true. It is kind of cool if you speak Latin. That was his major? No, he was just like, everyone took, I took Spanish, you know, hey spanish is the

next language everybody's going to speak it's going to be useful some people took french some people took italian german he's like now i'm going to zag there was like one latin class and he took latin and tried to convince everybody that he was going to be cool because he took latin and maybe he is definitely a conversation about it's a different language i don't know why people i don't know it doesn't make a ton of sense to me well the reason you would take it when i took it when i was younger is that it was the foundation for all the romance languages that you were going to take who you're going to decide to take later oh so you're going to learn all the other languages by learning latin first yeah that's actually that's actually the idea

clearly not you know none of it stuck with me so how many languages do you speak Ryan uh no I wouldn't say I can speak another language at all yeah except Latin partially Latin no I took years of French years of it

and so when I was over there if I needed to say something we've already covered this I can I can get a sentence out that I need to, unless I'm ripped off by a tax guard. Wait, I thought you took German, too. Because remember your story about going to the German, you met Jans, right? Jens. Jens, not Jans. Jens, on your German field trip.

You didn't speak German? I picked up a few things. Guten Tag? Steck und say spear. He was training to be a javelin thrower. I wonder if he were out, you know, trying to think how old he would be now. Jens, I forgot about that.

We could check in on Jens, see if he's steck and say spearing all over the place. He's probably a little old. His prime, what are your prime years for throwing a javelin? You guys ever throw it? No, but I had a buddy that was a javelin guy. Didn't really go anywhere, but

seems kind of cool. Was he just into the scene or was he good at it? Like, did he just like having a bag of javelins and then I'm sure he put a headband on the whole deal, right? I think he had just watched like Troy with Brad Pitt and was just like, this is my thing. This is my

calling. I'm going to start throwing shit. Okay, but was he on the actual high school team? Yeah, no, he threw... I mean, listen, it wasn't a good team. It was, you know, Southington High School Central Connecticut. He's just coming in seven every time. Not killing it, but it was probably an awesome feeling to throw a javelin.

You know? Yeah had we had some pretty shitty ones and we used to chuck them around i don't you know i think you kind of have to know what you're doing because there's this whole curl of the wrist thing whatever i don't know let's let's uh let's stop talking more track and field later yeah yeah we'll do that in our track and field pod coming out this Christmas. Okay, guys. 21 years old, 5'9", about 160. Former member of the skinny fat gang, but have worked into the lean muscular category, improving slowly but surely.

These stats are important to the story that follows. I've been working out, playing sports in my local YMCA since first grade, but only began weightlifting about four days a week there in the last two years. Today, I was hitting legs and was three sets into leg extension when I got a call from my childhood friend's mom, which is rare and not normally a good sign. All right, so childhood's friend mom calls him. I took the call immediately and was relieved to know that it was just her asking me to house and dog sit for her next weekend. I said I'd be glad to, and we agreed to discuss details later. The call lasted 1 minute

and 34 seconds. 1-34. At this moment, I was approached by an older man, maybe in his mid-70s, who stated in a raised voice, quit checking your email and get off the machine. Email. It's the best. I remain calm because there are a lot of old men at this gym that don't have

a ton of awareness and normally have a very twisted sense of gym etiquette i remain calm and told him that i have just two sets left and he could work in with me if he liked he simply walked away and i spent oh and i went about my workout about a minute and a half later during the rest of my set, I had just gotten done after this first encounter. A second man, maybe 55, started yelling at me extremely aggressively to get off the machine. It was

at this point, I got defensive and told him to cool it back away so I could finish my last set. This only made him more furious as he proceeded to tower over me. I'm still sitting in the machine. So think like leg extension. I think that's what we're talking about here. Somebody's

just in your business. I can't get up because he's blocking the side you enter and exit the machine. He gets less than an inch from my face and continues to yell. I pushed my hand against his chest and told him to back off, but he weighed about 250 pounds or more. I knew I stood no chance if things got physical.

So I only tried this once. His reaction to my attempt to push him away was to get closer and say, what are you going to do, fucking punk? Huh? What are you going to do about it, buddy? I simply sat there staring at him blankly and figured I'd just hold my ground and remain calm. If he hits me, he hits me. Thankfully, a

40-year-old man who witnessed the whole altercation comes over to defuse the situation, just tells me in an apologetic tone to just leave the machine so they'll settle down. I happily oblige and walk toward the free weights as the two men keep chirping at me with

fucking idiot and punk, etc. the two men keep chirping at me with fucking idiot and punk etc i.e um a YMCA employee comes over to ask for my explanation of the situation I knew it was the Y I was gonna say

this has to be a YMCA yeah no he already mentioned it was a Y no this has YMCA. Yeah, no, he already mentioned it was a Y. My bad. No, this has YMCA written all over it. I happily... There wasn't much to be done since he hadn't in fact struck me. He then

proceeded to say that we ask our patrons to keep their phone used to a minimum. And I said, alright. And walked off. So wait. The YMCA person took the old people's side and said, we ask that you stay off your phone. Well, that's their base, right? Old people is the YMCA's base, really. Yeah, right.

Like, we can't screw up. Very good call, Kyle. Like, we need their votes. About five minutes later, I noticed both men had left the gym completely. I began asking bystanders around the gym if they had seen what had happened and not a single person thought I was in the wrong. I asked one group of younger guys about how long they thought I had been at the machine before I was approached. And they agreed it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. Am I the asshole in this situation?

What should I have done differently? If I were bigger than I am, I definitely would have pushed the guy away and stood up. But that wasn't an option. And what is the gym etiquette ruling on such a situation? Love to hear y'all's thoughts, especially Ryan's. If I'm on the wrong, please rip into me. Thanks. Love the pod.

By the way, he did do a screenshot of the phone call so that we could see how long he was on the phone because a lot of people have been known to just go, oh, man, it was only. And I think he's right. He said Apple rounds up. So it says two minutes. It says two minutes on this one. I think the first thing is just understanding that every man that lifts weights, there's some group, they meet once they turn 70 and they just say, hey, fuck the world, Tupac style. and that's just it. None of us know until you're a man that turns 70 that still works out. And then they just go, hey, here's your towel, but never use it. Just balls out whenever you can.

Do weird shit around the blow dryers. And every machine is yours no matter what. Every machine is yours. You can stay on it as long as you want if anybody even starts on another one you have the right to tell them they're wrong even though they definitely are so that's what you kind of have to remember through all this the 50 year old guy i don't know maybe he has a relative who's 70 that's told him about this secret thing that happens uh once older guys are still at the gym. It sounds like you weren't in the wrong. All I can go by is that maybe they caught it. They caught you taking the phone call and they just didn't like it. The phone at the gym is kind of a shitty thing. But again,

I've done it a couple of times where I took the call and ran off somewhere else and sat down where I thought it was at least okay for me to like sometimes you have to take the call other people will just keep working out and that can be weird but I guess at the same time if they're still using the equipment that's better than not using the equipment and going to take the phone call so it sounds like this guy caught you in a way that he thought was much worse and it sounds like this guy's already mad about a ton of shit already so you just gave him an excuse to get mad about something and that like made his fucking day uh if you thought he was gonna mop you i don't really blame you like it kind of sucks when another guy's confronting you and you're like i think this guy would kill me you know like we all want to pretend

we're capable of protecting ourselves but you know sometimes you're like yeah i don't know i don't i don't know if this one's gonna go my way although just a hard face slap i would have rooted for it just be like if he's like putting his face an inch away from your face and being this much of a bully and he's 50 like what a fucking dick this human being is especially if your story all checks out which i tend to because you included the screen grab of the phone call, but an open hand slap would have just been, it would have freaked him out. He might not have fought you. He might have been like,

oh my God, because just bullies aren't used to actually having people hit them back. But again, maybe you're better off not getting beat up at a YMCA because then you wouldn't be able to take care of this lady's dog in a week. I love ornery old man stories i love that it was in a ymca too i mean i don't love that that this specifically happened to you i just

something about ornery old guys i just think we we need them just to spice things up i mean but as soon as you go like the checks quit checking your emails bud is like oh oh i love it but uh that aside i think this guy's a really thoughtful guy the guy the emailer he like he took us through the things and he willing to admit that he's wrong and he even like checked with a couple people afterwards when he could have just let it go you know i i like our emailer a lot i will say maybe those guys like i've been i've been in a situation before like i don't know used to do stuff at been in a situation before, like, I don't know, used to do stuff at a laundromat before, just like things where there's communal things.

And I've been like, look at this fucking asshole. And it's like, I'm wrong. Like, I'll think this whole thing for like five minutes and then I'll be like wrong about whatever's going on. And I make this whole story in my head about how this guy's got no regard, you know, no consideration for others. And it's just like, oh, wait a second. I'm glad I never act on any of these things because, you know, you're wrong.

It's like a coin flip whether you're right about what's going on with a complete stranger or not. So this is a guy who just acts on those things. So I think I could see why he maybe wanted to use that machine for two minutes before you took the call and now it's been four minutes and he doesn't feel like you're using

it properly and he doesn't know the situation or anything. I think, I mean, I have the thoughts of this ornery old man often. I don't ever act on them really, but you know, I think it's just we could I could see how he got there and it's just, you're definitely not wrong.

Sure, you could have done something better, but I don't know. Just, you gotta world has to watch out for ornery old guys. I'm kind of with Kyle on this one because the first thing that came to my mind was, you know, like the Brady press conference that just happened where people were asking all these questions.

He's just like, man, I'm 45 years old. Like I just got a lot of shit going on. Like old dudes, like you just don't, like some of those guys are just kind of miserable. And like the gym is their one thing that they have. They're probably alone. Maybe they're not without their wife and kids. It's their Zen time.

And not that you like really majorly inconvenience him, but it does seem like things can easily get blown out of proportion. My other thought was, is this like a steroid, like roid raid situation from like a 50 year old guy? Like that seems a little aggro to like get in somebody's face for, you know, 90 seconds of extra phone activity.

But the final thing would be, is there, I wonder, like, obviously there's two guys that came up to him, two guys, two separate guys. Do they know each other? It didn't seem like they knew each other. They're different age groups. Maybe they chat in the background. Who knows? Is this, is this like a reoccurring thing? Have you done something else before that, that like triggered these two guys to really go at you this one time? Otherwise, I mean, who knows? Like maybe it was just a bad day. Both guys were pissed off and they're just in

their own feelings and their lives are miserable. It is what it is. But it just seems very odd that one 90-second phone call would trigger two separate guys to go at you, including one guy getting in your face. Maybe I'm wrong, but just maybe you're that guy at the gym that maybe is looking at his phone a little bit too much, and people at the gym have taken notice. Well, he also said, I left it out, he said he likes to work out in peacock wings.

Okay. Just kidding. No, my guess is that the 50 and the 70-year-old guy know each other, and the 70-year-old guy just immediately like, Kyle, you made a great point. Like, how often do we all do something where we pretend we know every angle of it? And you're like, I can't believe this person is doing this. And then you're like, actually, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're doing.

And you're like, man, I would have felt like an idiot if I called him. Thank God I kept that to myself. Right. Like, I had this thing where everybody was cutting everybody. And I was kind of like, what the fuck is going on at this place? And I was like trying to take stock of like what the fuck is going on at this place and i was like trying to take take stock of like what was happening and then as i got to the counter i was like what the fuck is the deal with this she's like oh there's a separate membership and this is how it works and you're like they're basically it's kind of like clear but for something else and you don't know it if you haven't done it

before so you would think wait i'm just getting worked by all these other people and no, no, you are supposed to get work because they have paid for a different thing than you did. And like, you're just wrong. And again, it was, it was a while ago and I was like, oh, all right. Yeah. Okay. This makes all the sense of the world. So you're right. I mean, I think Cerruti gets a good point, but it's my guess is that these two guys are just old dudes at a YMCA that act like it's their fucking place, that they own the place. And you got on the phone and the guy was already pre-mad about a bunch of other things in his own life. And there's been other people that have been on the phone too long in the gym. And this dude was like next young guy, next whippersnapper that gets on his cellular device.

I'm going to let him have the what for for checking his fucking hotmail sheriff of the yca right and so that's what happened this guy was already mad about 10 versions of you already and then the 50 year old guy's like fucking right this guy sucks email checker and i think you know shit happens man shit happens i i one time went to a new gym where i grabbed the wrong dumbbell sizes and just started flat benching them and at that point i kind of knew what i was doing a little bit but i i just was i was so thrown off by the new gym and the way they worked out everything and some guy was like what are you doing i'm like uh what he's like you have wrong dumbbells and then it was kind of like you know you gotta know what

you're doing if you're gonna be in here and i was like okay fucking guy yeah like okay joe weeder like you know i should have just said uh muscle confusion ever heard of it okay i don't know take advice from smalls yeah i mean granted i did fuck up but it was like it didn't need to be escalated to like yeah but that sucks like let people fuck up on their own okay like we don't need everyone correcting it this goes back to the email from last week just leave people alone they want to be wrong let them be wrong right i just don't yeah if he was trying to help maybe nah but it was it was definitely a trying to make and i was like i already felt stupid enough i grabbed

like a 45 and 50 it wasn't like i had a 10 and an 80 it was like what the fuck's going on it was like you know just you know if you're gonna be here you're like what we have a certain standard that we what what what do i why don't you write a list down and i'll grab it before i leave here today but of course your part of it is like, you feel stupid because then you get called out for it. And again, it wasn't like it was, I don't know, my first day I would have been like, all right. But I was like, why did I do that? Shit. I don't know. Sometimes people do dumb shit. Okay. Um, new roommate is a former pro athlete. Um, new roommate is a former pro athlete.

25, 5, 10, 180. I find myself in a bit of unique predicament. My roommate recently got his big break, which means he'll be away on set shooting for several months. So his current roommate, um, does not be working on a movie, I guess, TV show in lieu of his departure and acquaintance of ours has filled a spot in the apartment. Two bedroom, two bath. Nice. Two bath is huge. Yeah, but I'm just super confused. I love that Kyle immediately

was on kind of the layout. It's a great call. So this guy has a roommate who's an actor. And so then an acquaintance of the emailer and the actor said, hey, I know someone who can sublet the room. This new roommate is a former athlete.

Everyone listening to the show would know. At first, I was confused as to why he would want to live in my apartment. As am I. All right, we're going to leave it we're going to leave it a little more vague. Did he drop the name? No, no, he doesn't

he doesn't ever put it in here. Okay. He's in his 40ies and I live in a semi-decent apartment building with average rent where most people in the building are subsidized. It's not a place anyone would expect this man to be living considering it's not up for debate. He has made over tens of millions of dollars in his career. It is important to note he did go through a divorce, but something just doesn't add up. He doesn't have a car. He's always asking to use mine. He

pays rent late. Damn. But I know he has money. He buys new expensive shit all the time. The overall vibe of the living situation is off. It's just fucking weird, man. That's the only way I can describe it. Luckily, he's only here every month or so because he has a job that forces him to travel. So he does have a flow of income. While living with him when he

is around, I've come to fucking hate it. He's messy, arrogant, just horrible vibes all around. Don't get me started. Um, fuck. This is, this is just a little too revealing. Uh, don't get me started on his other stuff, uh, or all of his ideas. There's endless ideas for podcasts. Now I know all this is probably a product of being a former athlete. I'm well aware. I'm also well aware. I could just tell my friend, Hey man, the guy's not working out. out he's gonna go find someone to fill in a spot it could be over like that but it'd be hard to find someone to pay 400 more than the room is actually supposed to pay and uh where's the fun in that oh so he's upcharging this guy right that's what he's saying the premium is the extra 400 bucks yeah yeah i guess so i'm

writing in because i'm wondering if you guys have any advice on how to subtly fuck with this guy small pranks if you may good old psychological warfare not necessarily pranks but i want to fuck with this guy get his head putting glue in his shampoo would be too obvious i need ideas that can't be obvious enough that i did it, but still a slight hint in the air that something may be off. I'll give you an example. I had a friend who would move people's things around the house. If your phone was on the table, he'd move it to the counter when you weren't around and so on and so on. It happens enough that drives you crazy and you end up thinking you're crazy. Ideas of that nature are greatly appreciated.

We're going to get into some hijinks? Yeah. Well said, Kyle. What kind of... I haven't had a roommate since I was 21, so I don't... Are we sure it's a good idea to fuck with this guy? I don't think it is.

I definitely don't think it is. I don't know if I want to partake in this. You don't want the possibility of getting your ass beat in your own house. By a former professional athlete who, you know, has clearly some shady stuff going on. Yeah, he never puts the email.

He never puts the name in there. Which is... He had a couple things in there that make me think I could narrow it down. The way he described him, I'm guessing I could be totally wrong, but like former baseball player. Why? Do you think former baseball players? See, now this is going in a direction that we don't know. So maybe a couple hot foots, some gum on the old cap, Kyle. Like, man, somebody keeps putting gum

on my cap. Oh, man. I'm going to have to move out. Let's see. I don't know. I think it sounds a lot like somebody who's always kind of gotten their way. Like, I'll tell you, even with working with some of the guys that weren't even the best pro athletes, but were pro athletes, every now and then there was this kind of little reminder of like, I expect somebody to take care of this for me. Do you think that's fair, Cerruti?

Yeah. And I can even like the person, but I'd be like, oh, these are these little moments, these little reminders where you're expecting just more people around to fucking help you because that's the way it's been your whole life and you know i don't know at some point for me i would be like i don't want to have to rely on people um i don't know it sounds like none of us want to actually tell this guy to start doing pranks with these guys if you could tolerate bad smells start cooking fish leaving stuff in the sink when you know he's going to be around for a couple of days. Maybe,

I mean, maybe it's just to the point where it's like, all right, this guy's just sucks. It's like, it would suck for you. But if you don't want to just be like, tell the one guy,

be like, Hey, also, isn't this guy to movie shoot? How long does it take to shoot a movie? Is this like top gun we're talking about here? Is this going to take 10 years? This avatar,

or are we, is this guy going to be home in two months? Avatar is a lot of CGI. So I would imagine that's over quicker. Maybe. I mean, I think the last one took a while. I don't know. All I mean is, like, you could, if you could tolerate being, like, living in filth for a little bit,

maybe he could just be like, you want to make him think you suck, but not intentionally. It's just like, this guy can't help himself. He's a fucking slob. He stinks. Reverse suck? Yeah, reverse suck but i don't i wouldn't yeah i wouldn't like do stuff to his toothbrush and uh you know his shampoo and like you know i'd say have parties but it sounds like this guy be fired up life of the party yeah yeah just start inviting people over all the time and they'd be like hey you know we're gonna we got to get your crew over here again.

So I don't think that, I think that would backfire. I don't know. I guess I'm just kind of of the mindset that like, you just want your roommate to move out. I would tell the acquaintance who set this thing up, say, hey, just make up a huge lie. Say something like you're dating somebody who isn't healthy or something. I don't know.

Seriously, just go to the acquaintance and go, you've got to get this person the fuck out of here, not me. But you're also like, how bad is it, man? Because you said he's almost never around. When somebody has to leave for a little while or maybe even move out, as a guy who can't cover a whole place by himself, you probably feel like, oh shit. So then that that's got solved and it sounds like you're making four hundred dollars a month extra which you know sounds like you could probably use so like how

bad is this really think about it like is this gonna run its course soon and it's like you could just fucking deal with it is the other thing that's what i would do probably probably extra four hundred dollars a month? It's also just a fascinating situation because his one roommate is potentially this up-and-coming actor, and the guy that they just mutually potentially know to fill in is some ex-athlete who

has made tens of millions. Where is this? Who is this guy? Exactly. It's just so strange to me. And they're all in a subsidized building or something like that. It gets weirder and weirder. I feel like you're, like, is it possible you're being pranked? Like, that's not.

Are we being pranked? None of this makes any sense. Yeah, right. No, it did. It did. Did dawn on me that this is a fake email. But it was so unique that I figured, hell, we'll give it a chance. But we're not really

even answering it because i just i'm not gonna sit here and be like oh you're gonna piss in your shampoo bro no get out of there in six weeks like it just you know he's probably not gonna know one of the trendy ones that i like i've seen this i think on tiktok it's like people will just change all the photos in people's houses to other things and see how long it takes them to actually notice it but at some point he's gonna like you i don't think you want to like do something that he's going to notice. Right. Cause then like you could, then you're going to start shitting.

You're going to create more problems for yourself. Like you brought up the fish thing, Kyle to that, but that fucks you over too. You don't want to ruin your own existence. So I don't know. Like at some point if you're, if you're changed out and putting shaving cream in his toothpaste,

like he's going to know it was you and he's going to be pissed off. That's going to create more problems for you. So I just, you're making your, your existence even more miserable. start smoking cigarettes at the house see what happens that's what yeah there you go see what happens join a band start practicing in the living room yeah right like what is it be like it's 12 piece percussion that's it it's all interpretive percussion i mean there'll be no guitars just all percussion all the time

and I smoke yeah that's it gone all right not sure that was one of the best ones we've ever done but I don't know I don't know what to do with that one I mean all of us could sit here and come up with a million things to do that would suck for the other guy but

I don't know I think there just comes an age you just be like why don't you just fucking talk to somebody and be like, get this guy out of here. Right. Yeah. Making a fucking home alone trap just to get this guy out of here. I know.

I know. So sorry if that was disappointing. Today's life advice was presented by Modelo. The fighting spirit means never giving up. And that's why Modelo is brewed for full-time fans. The ones willing to travel the games and who thrive under pressure. Modelo Especial is a crisp Pilsner-style lager

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Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois. Thank you for Modelo near you. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports Chicago, Illinois. Thank you for submitting questions this week. We're back on Wednesday. Thanks to Sruti. Thanks to Kyle. Find us on the podcast or on Spotify. Thank you.