The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Dodgers Finally Pull It Off! Plus, Steelers Stories With Willie Colon, and NFL Trade Deadline With Kevin Clark

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Dodgers finally winning a World Series (2:00), before talking with The Ringer’s Kevin Clark about sports commissioners and the NFL trade deadline (13:00). Then Ryen is joined by Super Bowl champion Willie Colon to discuss the top AFC teams and share some great stories about Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, Ben Roethlisberger, the iconic Steelers defense of the 2000s, and the intense Steelers-Ravens rivalry (48:00). Finally, Ryen answers a listener-submitted Life Advice question (1:24:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

what's up everyone world series champs la dodgers feels good as an la guy to be able to say that out loud the city's just on fire and all we need are for the kings to step up and the chargers big plan today big show excited. Excited about it. A lot of football. But first, State Farm. Today's episode of the Ryan Rosillo Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm

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Choose insurance that always brings its A game. That's right, the A game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Also, here will be Kevin Clark from The Ringer. Talk a little trade deadline NFL stuff in almost halfway through the season. Sounds crazy to even say out loud. And my man, Willie Colon, former Steeler,

former Jet with Barstool, but also did a bunch of shows with me at ESPN. I love that freaking guy, and it's been too long since I've talked to him. So we're going to do that. We'll get a little story time out of him as well. Life advice at the back end. And we start with the World Series. Okay. So let's start with a positive. I really don't care who wins these games. So emotionally, I'm pretty detached from it. I think you can trust me on that one. I wouldn't openly root against the Dodgers. The only thing that I was doing where I felt like

with Mookie, I couldn't tell if I wanted Mookie to have an incredible postseason run and he hits the not the clinching home run in game six, but to make it, it's such a different game late when you're pitching with a one run lead versus a two run lead, just defensive alignment, things you can do the way you attack the hitters. So his home run to make it 3-1, you know, you're like, okay. And you just, I mean, Tampa was just done at that point. But I couldn't tell if I was rooting for Mookie to be incredible because of all the stuff. It's still this Red Sox story. Part of the Mookie thing is still all over the place.

Like guys I trust, they're like, look, he didn't want to resign. They offered him money. They didn't want to resign. And other guys I trust are like, no, that's kind of not really what happened. And so I still am not a hundred percent sure what happened. I just can't imagine that a team like the Red Sox would act like the Montreal Expos and, um, you know, for what they got back, you can say, oh, he's going to be a free agent, but I think he had to be tougher on that deal. So anyway, enough of the Mookie stuff. But what I was saying is that I couldn't tell if I was rooting for him

because I wanted the Red Sox ownership to look bad, or if I wanted him to not do as well, because people that just a week ago realized that Mookie Betts is really good. And shout out to Magic Johnson for having Mookie Betts pass Mike Trout in his power rankings for baseball. That's the kind of reaction I want, and I would like to see him on first take soon. The other positive is for Clayton Kershaw. Whenever you are one of the greats of your era, and Kershaw is certainly that, definitely in the regular season. My arguments for Kershaw over the years have been in the very beginning when he had a bad ERA. I'm like, you know what, that he's still actually been a little bit better than it shows. And then it was

indefensible. I mean, it was just awful. Um, they didn't do anything in the post-season last year. We know how 2018 ended. Um, I mean, he's had, he's had some brutal moments when he's brought in, uh, for relief last year. And you're like, man, I guess, I's had some brutal moments when he's brought in for relief last year. And you're like, man, I guess there's just something different about him where it doesn't show up. And by the way, the emotion and the output, the production, all this is going to matter a little bit later as we get to Tampa's big decision. But I'm just glad for Kershaw. I mean, I even felt that way about Bonds. I felt like I wanted Bonds to get a ring when he was just this dominant guy.

And I don't know that anybody like Bonds outside of San Francisco has a pretty low approval rating, but I don't care that much about that stuff in the moment and far removed from it. I'm not in some vendetta to go, oh, I'm so glad Bonds never got a ring. You know, he's a bad guy. I want the greats to get a ring at some point in really all sports. I really do because I feel like we've done such a bad job on how we talk about some of the greats, because a lot of it has to do with circumstance than it does specific players. Although I do think there's specific players that not in baseball, maybe quarterbacks in football and basketball players where I go, I'm just not sure that guy being the number one guy will ever win something. But then we get to Tampa's decision to take out Blake Snell.

number one guy will ever win something. But then we get to Tampa's decision to take out Blake Snell. And for those that may have forgotten, Blake Snell pitched a gem for five and a third. He had nine Ks. He's striking out the side all over the place, two hits allowed, 73 pitches. And on that 73rd pitch with one out in the sixth, Kevin Cash went to go get him, and Snell is losing his mind. Now, the numbers have told you that that's when you're supposed to pull Snell because during the regular season, opposing batters hit 140 against Snell in their first appearance, so first time through, right? That number goes up to 307 the second time through, and then 304 the third plate appearance, okay?

So there are numbers, and trust me, I've always been a big third-time-through guy coming up in the minor leagues and watching some of these pitchers that just completely fell apart once hitters figured them out. And some of those guys never got out of AA. And again, Snell getting pulled in a million different pitchers, this is not new. We've seen the game of baseball, especially in the playoffs, change dramatically right in front of our eyes in a very short amount of time,

whether it's openers, a million pitching changes. Like, have you been watching baseball? And it was great. It was great to watch postseason. The postseason stories that we've had the last seven or eight years are incredible stories.

Like, there's these little reminders where I go, man, high tension postseason baseball. It's about as good as anything out there. And unfortunately, we had these great things and, you know, it still doesn't play as well

as maybe we would in the conversation. But some of the ratings were good for this and some weren't. But when you're watching Snell deal and everybody on social media is screaming, hey, the computer's managing the game, analytics suck. And I'm not all anti-analytics. I just don't understand how you can be pro every single analytic. I mean, the people that are super into numbers, how many times have you looked up something, bought into a number, and then a few years later with more information or looking at information differently gone, hey, you know what, that number that we did before, I don't really like that anymore. You know, that's why I'm always like, hey, have an open

mind about some of this stuff or try to imagine the arguments against you. And the argument against this is like, what the hell are you watching? What are you watching? Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, look, based on the numbers I just gave you, should you have taken Snell out after you've gotten through the lineup the first time? Well, of course not. But it's 73 pitches. And I understand Snell's not exactly some guy here like Nolan Ryan who's going to give you a complete game every time. And I know that those days are done. But what happens to feel, or is that what the numbers people love, is that it takes the emotion out of every single decision. single decision. Whenever I hear a coach in football say, hey, fourth down tells you to do this. Okay, but what does it say about your team? What does it say about your offensive lineman? What does it say about their defensive lineman? What does it say about game, time, and situation? And again, spare me win probability. When teams go for two and they're like, oh, well, it works 51%. Does it work 51% of the time for your team? Do you have a quarterback that chokes? And again,

if you don't believe in clutch, because this is the thing that drives me nuts about some of the basketball stuff. It's like, Hey, if this guy shoots it from here, this is how efficient he is. This is how he does here. This is where we should do this. This is the lineup we should set up here. Here's the plus minus. Look at all these different metrics.

Yeah. What about game six down 10? What does it say then? Because a coach who spent 30 years of his life in basketball, you think he has a read on who he can trust and who he can't. And numbers don't tell you any of that stuff. Coach who spent 30 years of his life in basketball, you think he has a read on who he can trust and who he can't? And numbers don't tell you any of that stuff. And to say none of it means anything is as foolish as buying into every single printout.

I'm thinking, well, excuse me, let me rephrase that. Never buying into the emotion of the moment is as dumb as dismissing every number that's basically gotten all of us to look at sports in a smarter way. People should have been taking more threes. People should have been throwing more in football. In baseball, I guess it doesn't matter if you can't hit the other way anymore, which is crazy to me with two strikes, a guy who weighs 170 is swinging for the fences down a run with a guy in second. I don't get it, but I guess that's what you're supposed to do. So to be all in to the point where it's game six, your team is up and Snell gives up a hit, his second hit of the game. You're like, let's go pull them.

It doesn't make any sense. I've watched some of these postseason games where it's warning track shot after warning. I think it was one of the Braves games where again, the Dodgers were down 3-1 in that series. So their comeback in this run against a really well-built Tampa team, this is an incredible World Series win, right?

I have no segment in me that goes, hey, let's find a way to downgrade this. I don't have it. I don't want to do that. But there were just warning track shots and I'm going, so the numbers say that these guys are better in a distance game, but are you watching the fact that everybody's teeing off at each other? And those pitchers weren't pulled in that moment. I saw another game where a guy had a low pitch count and he gave up two hits. And even the broadcasters were like, yep, must be time to go get him. And you're like,

these guys are hitting pop-ups that fell for hits. Does that matter? Does that matter at all? And that's the part of this where you get back to what the manager is in baseball now. You may not want to hear it. And yes, you can go find an interview saying that this isn't right, but it's true. Because I've talked to enough people that have played, that I've worked with at ESPN, is the manager is there only to execute the game plan of the people in the front office. And front offices are more programmed than others. But if you look, real simple to this mystery, major league baseball managers don't make anything anymore.

Yes, there are exceptions, but there's more than a handful of these guys not making a million dollars a year. Now you could say, hey, a million. That's nuts. I have friends that played baseball that became analysts that turned down managerial jobs because they're like, yeah, I'm actually I'd be taking a pay cut and I'd have way more stress and I'm probably fired in a couple of years. Now people miss the game and they'll go back and do it. Then they know they can go back into the booth. the game and they'll go back and do it. Then they know they can go back into the booth. But I, I'm telling you, like, this is to the point where we are removing any feel, any observation for a baseball lifer to go, you know what? Snell's dealing. Look at all these swing and misses.

It's not just that it's two hits. The number of swing and misses where guys weren't even close on pitches. Hey, let's, let's give our guy another chance here. Let's see if he can get through the sixth inning because we got to win this. And I'm not even doing this as a play the results guy because I hated it in the moment. I tweeted out that I hated it in the moment. So this isn't, hey, it didn't work. I didn't care if it worked. It felt like there was no feel.

And back to some of the other stuff where we talk about, you know, can you sense something as a manager? Is going with your gut really wrong all of the time? I think numbers people would tell you yes. Numbers people also don't believe in clutch. We've seen numerous papers on it. We've read all this stuff, and they make really, really good arguments because a lot of times we think a guy is clutch, like Kobe Bryant, for example. I mean, his shooting percentage is atrocious on some of those moments,

but he sticks his jaw out, he pulls his shirt to the side, and everybody's like, man, that guy's just, he just gets it done. Another level, dude. And you're like, does he? Or does he just take the shot all the time? But if you don't believe in clutch, does that mean you don't believe in choke? Have you ever talked, have you ever looked at a guy who has to take a free throw late? Some of the guys don't feel it.

Some guys do. I mean, I know this sounds stupid because I hate doing softball guy. But have you ever stood over a putt that just felt wrong because it mattered? And I'm talking some stupid scramble you're in or something like that where you're like, this doesn't feel like it did a few holes ago. To think that the professionals are all incapable of feeling like that just doesn't make any sense. And I think a guy like Snell in that moment, despite what the history tells you,

to not give him at least a little bit more of a chance in the sixth inning to say, let's go relievers again. And I know what got them there. Okay. I don't want to look at this as if, hey, man, analytics, huge L last night, because that's the way it felt. But, I mean, is there ever going to be a win for just observation again? Joining us now from the ringer,

one of our favorite guys, Kevin Clark. Kevin, how are you? I'm good. I'm just checking out Rob Manfred YouTube videos. The guy's electric. Okay.

I think there's a good defense of him. I know you're speechless. I saw I saw it was the earpiece thing yeah yeah right that was the defense yeah have you had that before where the earpiece is going haywire and you start inexplicably speaking like you're at half speed on a podcast one of my least professional

moments at ESPN or perhaps in history for me. You know, I wasn't getting a ton of love early on in the SVP program. It was sort of like,

who's this guy again? And then Scott was off a lot, so I'd be sitting in the Mike and Mike old ESPN 2 studio where they do NFL Live. It's a huge,

huge room. And I would have the solo hour. We'd be on ESPN2. So that's where I think some of the entry-level, entry-point stuff that Colin and I have talked about

career-wise over the years, his career and mine, where all of a sudden it's the SVP show and I'm in this massive room by myself doing an hour solo. And it didn't look good. It felt enormous. And it just was we'd have

two hours in a studio a radio studio then we'd have one hour in in this massive room you know the room i'm talking about right remember the old mike and mike deal right remember it was like this huge huge room with all the backdrop yeah and we kept having this problem where the people that were doing the nfl programming kept forgetting that i was doing the radio show and they would run audio tracks but they would play it throughout the entire studio and they would do it all the time while i was on the air and so you'd be like you know the thing about ivers uh and it'd be like you know it was it would be you know more going you're gonna make sure you know it would it would be like, you know, it would be, you know, more going.

You got to make sure, you know, it would be these massive voiceovers, sound effects, tackling noises and all of this stuff. And it sucked because I was already, I already had people going like, who's this guy? And it says SVP show and he's just sitting there pontificating. Solo radio is tough enough and it was always infrequent. I would not be solo for like two months and then I'd be solo for a week and then I wouldn't be solo again. I wasn't great at it early

on and on top of that, I was like, can we stop doing these NFL track airs while I'm doing the show live radio because it sounds bad and it sucks for me. TV's like, yeah, yeah, whatever, dude. And they did it again. And we went to commercial and I was like,

for the love of God, you know, like God. And I just, I just was like, I was off the air. And then I went to sit back down, deep breath, gut it out. And I turned to the staff. I didn't yell at anybody's staff. I just went like, down, deep breath, gut it out. And I turned to the staff. I didn't yell at anybody's staff. I just went like, Hey, sorry, I lost it. And then my producer at the time, and I really didn't love what she said. She's like, we were just more embarrassed for you than upset.

And I was like, Oh, thank you very much for producing me up so well. And having my back. She's like, yeah, it was more just embarrassing what you did than it was that we were upset because you weren't going at us. You just looked like foolish. I was like, Oh, okay. more just embarrassing what you did than it was that we were upset because you weren't going at us. You just looked like foolish. I was like, oh, okay. Thank you. I feel way better now.

So there you go. That's my story. I would say, I don't know. I wasn't there. I can't make a judgment on that. I would say that I'm more embarrassed for Rob Manford than upset. Okay. But where were you with your, I don't, you you know this is adam silver's run is incredible

i know also goodell goodell's become the jason garrett of this scenario where he he didn't do anything particularly well but his stock is rising because everyone around him is just failing yeah but see like silver when silver took over and it was the clippers controversy people were like oh my gosh you know this this quickly on the job he has to make this huge decision to go actually this is a super easy decision and when he makes it everybody's going to love him for doing it like sterling's out nobody's taking the sterling side of this thing you know so it's this isn't difficult this is easy like hey if i get rid of this guy no one likes what's going to happen everybody's going to praise you but i remember thinking eventually it's going to turn like the commissioner position

is like the principle of like eventually your approval rating is in the teens it just happens because that's the job silver's maintained a really high one and manfred this past year has i think you're right is he lower than than Goodell? I don't know. I know commissionership, it's like president where everyone is like, oh, this president was great. And then you look into it and it was like, at one point, he had a 5% approval rating and like 11 CEOs were plotting to get him

fired. Like, I mean, it's just there. You can't outlast the, I guess there's an inevitable dip in popularity for everybody. It's a tough job. Tough job? Yeah. It's tough to be liked.

It's tough to be liked. It's an easy job if you're if your entire shtick is going to be I'm just going to take bullets from the owners. Like you know exactly what your position is on everything. But I think that it's tough to be universally loved in that spot. Ownership positions can be sometimes a little hairy. who your position is on everything. But I think that it's tough to be universally loved in that spot. Yeah. Ownership positions can be sometimes a little hairy.

Yeah. Right. I mean, all the owners are fighting with each other and then it's your fault when it isn't working out, which never makes any sense. Like the owners don't get nearly enough blame for when things kind of go wrong.

And I guess that's worth 50 million a year, which seems an absurd price. Like how the owners allowed Goodell to tie in his salary to these TV bonus structure things. Can you imagine those guys after a few brewskis, just a couple of them down in Arizona going, we're paying this fucking guy how much? So I once asked an owner about that. Did you really? About how much the commissioner makes sure yeah

i love it and and their point was it's kind of like a big money quarterback who maybe they're i don't know i'm not talking about my homes here right i'm talking about kind of the second tier of it where i don't know could you've gotten him for less? Could you have gotten somebody else? Sure. But they're making so much money and things are going so well that they don't want to pay to find out. Right?

They don't want to go and say, we're going to get this guy for $20 million instead of $44 million. And then it turns out there was some weird supernatural thing that Goodell had where he had a natural ability to make money. That was the owner's... It's like, why risk it? We're all making so much money. This guy wants

$20 million more. And there was only one year he made $44 million, by the way. And so that was his defense. My bad. There was his defense where they was basically just like, yeah, I mean, we probably could have negotiated it down in a free market, but everyone's doing fine. Why pay to find out? And it's funny because it's the exact opposite with players. Most players. Yeah, you're right.

Yes. Where they will try everything they can to take away their leverage. But my thing would have been if I were an owner and be like, you realize every team in pro sports is doing better in their TV money, including baseball with the regional network stuff and every

conference except for Larry Scott and the Pac-12, which I will get to soon on this podcast. You know, and he makes more than everybody else in college football as a commissioner of a

conference and he's doing worse than everybody else. So I don't know if the NFL owners are involved with that one too there are i'm kidding but it whenever somebody goes well look at revenue increases and you're like what was it going to be like with me in charge what was it gonna be hey do you hello tv programs would you like nfl on your tv you would okay let me know how much you want to pay well hey i'm gonna say no and i would like more oh thank you for offering more and then you go back to the ownership because he's a terrible goodell's a terrible public speaker i i don't think it's fair when players get into trouble

that it's always somehow goodell's fault we get madder at goodell than we do the player which is weird um but goodell's in a position where whether it's the ownership stuff that he can't ever share because he's there to be the shield and also when you're in charge of punishing the players like just from um and i know this happened in the cba but like it just makes more sense for him to not have to like there's a weird way he could hide how much power he has in punishing people but instead he wanted to punish people because remember like around 2007 2008 players are getting in trouble all the time and it was this nfl hey all right we're really going to hammer these guys now so i don't know how we got off onto this tangent it's likely my fault but that's where i'm at that's my i brought up manford yeah i know but here we are 10 minutes later i feel like i feel

like we have more to get to i'm ready for it okay trade deadline go uh It's Carlos Dunlap putting real estate listings for his Cincinnati home and suggesting that he's desperate to sell it right now. Is that one of the best trade deadline bits you've seen? I like that it's for sale by owner and that you have to show them how much money you have. Furnished or unfurnished was the best part of that ad. A lot of people will tell you when you're trying to sell a furnished home furnishings do not add a ton of value to the list price i have pushed back on that with realtors a few times but um you know realtors will tell you you know don't don't think that you're just going to get some crazy number extra like don't start adding up your receipts from ikea going hey again my stuff isn't ikea but you know you're putting a lot of faith into carlos dunlap's taste in that spot if Like don't start adding up your receipts from Ikea going, Hey, again, my stuff is an Ikea,

but you know, you're putting a lot of faith into Carlos Dunlap's taste in that spot. If you're buying furnished, I once asked, I've had one interaction with Carlos Dunlap ever. And it was after the Oklahoma Florida national championship game. And I was in college and I, Carlos Dunlap was just there.

And so I was asking him, he had gotten in Bradford's face and said something after a big hit, big hit. I said, what'd you say to Sam Bradford? And he said, I looked in his eyes and I said, my name is Carlos Dunlap and I'm from South Carolina. And I thought that was, that's like old medieval stuff, right? That's what you say in battle in like 1410, right? Yeah. Yeah.'s what you say in battle in like 1410. Right? Yeah. Yeah. What do you say?

Could you go to Carlos Dunlap and be like, okay, here's the deal. I've looked at the place. Can we keep the samurai swords? Yeah. This love seat's great. The beanbags aren't really my style.

What do we say? What do you say we take 50 grand off the list? That's what you should do. Should we try to do as like a ringer bit by Dunlap's place? You have to talk

to somebody else. Yeah. Talk to the expensive people about this? Yeah. I think, what's the slow news date budget? It is slightly under whatever car i mean

it's cincinnati let's say that it's i would do this i would say put a pitch document you know what i hear a lot when i'm out in la be like hey you know what just type up a one sheet on that just write it down yeah just write up yeah hit us up with a pitch doc on that i'd love to see it yeah i'd love to see how that works um write down your ideas i hear that's just write that down just start sending out to people. Okay. What does that mean? Where are you when player decides to go nuclear and says he wants out?

Do you? Because I think there are some people that always take the player's side. There's some people that always look at it as like employer-employee and the employee should always shut up. That's definitely not the case, at least with, I would say, the climate of things today. The employee is more empowered than ever before. And I think it can be good. And it also can be seen as like, okay, enough out of you. So where are you at?

Well, so Carlos Dunlap was demoted to third string. I understand it, especially in NFL contracts where the player has almost no leverage once they're locked in and the team can cut you at any time. The guaranteed money structure is kind of wild. And even for a veteran like Carlos Darlap, there's just not a lot of control there. So I understand.

I wouldn't necessarily do it, but I don't besmirch any veteran trying to get out of a bad situation for doing it. And by the way, they told him not to come to practice today. It's probably going to work out. He probably would have been traded without this whole bit. But the way, they told him not to come to practice today. It's probably going to work out. He probably would have been traded without this whole bit. But I don't the way NFL contracts work, I cannot

hold it against anybody for trying extreme measures. And it's not like, I mean, I don't want to necessarily bring this into it because obviously there's a lot more at play here. But you look at Antonio Brown, who obviously essentially masterminded his way out of Pittsburgh by chucking a ball up at Roethlisberger. Then he gets into Oakland and he tries to fight Mike Mayock and all this

stuff. Like that's an example of somebody who just completely lost perspective and, you know, just try to derail the franchise, whatever. Um, with someone like Dunlap, it's like,

I don't know, this is almost, it's almost a little bit funny what he's doing. He's not, he's not trying to wreck the franchise here. No, he just wants out. And he'd like to, you know, if he can sell his place furnished,

that saves him a ton on moving expenses. And you get to do it all over again. So it makes sense. But that furnished, trying to sell your place furnished is not as easy as people. People are just like, hey, I have nice stuff.

I'll just tack on 50 grand. Like, no. Let me hit you with a little theory here. Maybe he just doesn't want to move out. Maybe he doesn't even want to leave the Bengals. He just wants to sell his apartment furnished, and this whole thing is for that. This is a guerrilla advertisement for his place.

That would be great. I'm hot right now. I'm trending locally. Not nationally, but I'm trending locally. And I want to see. Real estate is my favorite. My favorite rumors ever have always been connected to real estate. And there's none better than Peyton Manning buying a

place in West Hartford, which didn't happen when people were telling me he was coming in. Remember when Bill Cower and John Gruden were just home shopping in every college town for 10 years? That was a good one. Every time it was an open job. Look,

Brady, those are tea leaves. He listed the place in, in, it's a Brookline, right? And he, we were like,

okay, what does that mean? Like, oh, he's just downsizing. Like people that thought he was still staying. Cause the whole time I'm like, does he really want to learn a new system?

Does he really want to learn a new system? And then it's like, okay, but every single sign is pointing to he leaving. And if leaves we'll be like why did we think he was ever going to stay when you list the house unless he just was like hey square footage right now is the time to strike then he bought in connecticut by the way yeah right you know but he actually just moved in tampa again he was in jeter's place and then he moved near somebody else i know down there so it's big news helicopters going nonters going nonstop.

So maybe they got to Jeter's place and they're like, this isn't real kid friendly. Right. I feel like this interview... Childproof cabinets. Is this the worst 15 minutes we've ever done? This is an amazing 15 minutes. Okay. All right.

All right. Just have to check in. Can you give us some real news information stuff though? Like take it wherever you need to go because I feel like I've delayed this too long. So Rich McKay said as soon as he took over the job in atlanta that he's not going to trade trade veterans for picks and i think that's the biggest question right now because i think everyone looks in atlanta i don't know what they're going to do because i think one of the lessons of this dallas disaster is that they thought they were way closer

than they actually were and they decided to to run it back and hire a quote unquote adult in the room and try to make a run at the Super Bowl, whatever. And it turns out they didn't have the roster talent and they probably should have done a little bit of a soft rebuild. And Atlanta, their cap situation is such that they can't go out taking all these dead money hits. So I understand why they wouldn't do that. But Julio Jones is probably there's probably no circumstance where he's available.

Matt Ryan, same deal. And I think that that was the big X factor if a superstar was going to get traded at the deadline is one of these teams trying to reverse course in the middle of the season. I don't necessarily see that. AJ Green, I don't even know what's going on with the situation right now. You know, Mike Brown adores AJ

Green. I don't know what the future looks like there or how valuable he'd be. I think in Gakwe level, obviously he goes from Minnesota to Baltimore. I think that's more of the level you're going to see unless Cincinnati wants to do a Geno Adkins type thing, which I wouldn't be shocked about just because, again, there's some

unpleasantness there. But he would be a really good player for a team to add. Do you think there's anything on the Pats, but he would be a really good player for a team to add. Do you think there's anything on the Pats, whether it would be... I did a big thing on Monday about it, and I hope it was processed correctly, which sometimes is challenging

in that any conversation that starts with Belichick's not good at this is stupid, but the drafting has been bad, but when I think about them this year, if they won the next two games and get to 4-4, I don't know that I'd be blown away, but I think it them this year, like if they won the next two games and get to 4-4, I don't know that I'd be blown away, but I think it's one of the worst rosters in the NFL,

and more of that probably has to do with a combination of his drafting in the last eight years and the COVID opt-outs. But whether it's Gilmore who wants more money, a lot of people locally think that New England team kind of quit in that San Francisco game, and there's some issues there. You look at some of the snap count stuff. I don't know if there would be a market for Cam. I don't know if Thune, who's looking to get paid.

I don't know if I could see them getting really excited about trading somebody for like two second rounders that he'll then likely, you know, miss on one of them pretty big. I swear to God, there's a report that Stefan Gilmore put his house on the market this morning. No way. Yeah, I swear to God. That is real. Kyle, can you look it up and forward that to us to see if the listing see what Zillow's history is with that?

So I just saw it on radio.com it was a report today. Okay, so with the Patriots I don't know where they go from here because everything is wrong right now. For Cam Newton, mechanics Twitter, quarterback mechanics Twitter can't even understand

what's wrong with him right now. He's not throwing to the right side of the field. I don't know if you saw that. Well, there's a hand, there's a video in the Denver game. Is it the Denver game where he hits his hand and he's looking at his hand? But I'll admit there is a segment out there that no matter what Cam does, he's always at his hand but yes i'll admit there is a segment out there that no matter what cam does

he's always hurt right it's a little like steph curry in the playoffs there's a right side problem he's had going back a little bit probably related to his foot injury is the prevailing theory but guys can't get open the defenses do not respect the passing game at all you see that with how they they they the looks they give just no respect whatsoever. You can't hit chunk plays, all that stuff. Nobody can get open. As you said on Monday,

I just think there's a ton of issues here. I don't know how it gets fixed. I think Gilmore would be if, if they want to do the soft rebuild route, that's a good way to get value. If they don't think they don't think he's necessary right now. I think with, with the Patriots,

you know, they are last year for sure. They were the oldest defense in the NFL because Bill Belichick likes eight, nine, $10 million guys who can do their job, so to speak, plug a hole, whatever those guys would in theory be valuable in trades.

Now, a handful of those guys opted out, which obviously changed the entire tone of the season. But I think that there's, I don't know how this gets better right now in New England. Cam Newton could play better. And I'm not, I would not be surprised if they ended up an eight or nine win team. But this is not a playoff team.

And I think that kind of no one plays long game quite like Bill Belichick. So I would not be surprised if he tries to get some value here. So that means you listen Monday. I appreciate you listening. I also threw out that other theory, though, and this is giving bill way too much credit but that if we have a covid cap that instead of 210 million which i think would be a safe estimation for next year and it's at 175 we're gonna see some cuts um they're gonna be restructuring you know it's not like all of a sudden the league's gonna be flooded with 20 pro bowlers and free agency but um I highly doubt that Bill was like,

okay, we're going to this. He's like, my models for COVID go a lot longer than everybody else. And I will look at all of, because they are one of the four teams with the most cap space. And I think the other are the Jags and the Jets, which is basically every year.

Yeah, no, I think Bill sees this as a different season. And I would also say that, again, I don't want to sit here and blame everything on COVID for any team. We saw how the Titans rebounded from it, but the best strength the Patriots have in every situation is Bill Belichick. Every situation. And the game

planning and all that stuff. And you don't get that in a season where there's practice interruptions and the flow is different. And so I think that this team would not have been very good in any normal season just from the roster standpoint and from from just the mistake standpoint but i think that there are advantages they normally have that they're not getting you know i from that game on sunday i thought i was interested chris simms had an amazing breakdown of this where he basically said that what kyle shanahan was doing is ignoring belichick's bluffs

to get everybody else so belichick likes to show that they're playing the wrong heavy box, all that stuff, and then drop out of it. And every other coach gets really scared and skittish and says, we're not going to run on that. And Shanahan just ignored that and just kept running and blew the guys away and blew the guys off the ball. And I really liked that.

And there's, there's a meme going around right now or whatever in NFL, especially analytic circles that Kyle Shanahan is to offense, Will Belichick is to defense. And right now, I think we saw the talent disparity in a season where I think San Francisco's had a lot of bad breaks, but I think that we saw San Francisco able to play bully ball against the Patriots, which makes me think this is just not a normal season for anybody in New England. San Francisco, I would say, has the worst luck of any team in the NFL against the Patriots, which makes me think this is just not a normal season for anybody in New England.

San Francisco, I would say, has the worst luck of any team in the NFL when you go the first month. The first month, when you look at their injury report, and I always try to stay on top of like active, inactive, because there's just things there's a lot of times

we can look at a result and go, oh, what happened there? Because the quarterback and receiver are healthy or their best defensive player is healthy. And you're like, dude, they're actually missing like all of their interior linemen.

They're missing both their safeties. And it can go, by the way, that meme circle sounds like a cool circle to be in. All right. Last thought here. I don't think I'm in that circle. I just know about the circle. I like to post stuff that's super old.

So people don't get that it's being old, but I don't know how to, I don't have to, I'm just not great with the apps. I have one. I might post it later today. And when you see it, you'll,

you'll know because it's late and it doesn't make any sense and it'll be for all of us here on the podcast all of the people listening it'll be for you my favorite meme that you've ever put up is when we were in Atlantic City together for that podcast and you went to the boardwalk and kept posting photos of the celebrity cafe

in Atlantic City which was this rundown boardwalk spot from like 1974 and you just, you had, you had bits on bits on bits. I did. And that was also when we were walking out and I had a monologue planned and we were having dinner.

It was you, me and Robert, uh, maze for those wondering. And I was like, Hey, I have this like 10 minute monologue I'm going to do. And you know,

it'd be kind of fun. I'm excited about it. And it'll be cool. And we walk into the Borgata Sportsbook in AC and I see the setup where half of it's just an open business having no idea what the hell's going on. And then the other half is people that want to see me. And then let's actually let's make it half open. I don't know what the pie chart is, but somewhere there's a five to six percent of people that were gonna watch the show but weren't into any of us right and as soon as i walked in i read

the room i give myself that i go hey that whole monologue we're not doing that i go i'm this isn't happening and then guys were eating watching the jets game going what the hell what's going on this guy's standing up and talking and then that one guy kept yelling at us about the Packers. What about the Packers do the Packers? And then the highlight of my career was the old woman with a cigarette going. And she, she put a rascal in reverse as I was talking and it beeped. And then she just shot right back out to play cards.

I mean, it's straight out of a fucking movie scene and she just nailed her disinterest. Just down and out in Atlanticlantic city but you know it was week two of the nfl season so it was it was just like we had we were all fresh and excited and fresh and excited i went to the boardwalk and then the guy was i was like i'm gonna walk around a little bit he goes don't walk in more than two blocks i went come on like see my arms be fine he's like don't don't walk he goes call me back directly if you need to I was like oh come on everybody relax here okay um let's do this the next few minutes

yeah fantasy front office coaching staff I'm I'm very delicate because there's a podcast that came out about a year and a half ago that invented drafting anything, so I don't want to upset anyone. If you could have any GM, head coach, OC, D coordinator, you can go first. And maybe we'll even throw in ownership. Okay. So I'll go with GM first. So GM first.

And there's a lot of candidates here because there's a lot of good team building jobs. I think Eric DaCosta is one of them. But I can't give him 100% full credit just because Ozzie Newsom was there pretty recently and is still in the building. Brett Veach obviously did an amazing job. Veach may get it just for the Holmes thing and the vision and all the stuff

that you've written about it. I had a hard time not picking Veach. If I could buy stock in anybody right now who's been hired in the last year, probably Andrew Barry in Cleveland. I think that's a rocket ship at some point. I'm going to pick a guy who I know is responsible for the team,

who doesn't make mistakes, who put together a nasty team this year. It's Kevin Colbert. Yeah, I knew it. Who I think doesn't get enough respect for the job he does in Pittsburgh. And a lot of that is because I don't think he gives a ton of

interviews. I talked to him a couple months ago and he you know, when I ask him, and here's the difference with GMs. There are, I would say 15 GMs in the NFL. And I love when they do this. I say, hey, what was your thought process on

subtracting so-and-so in the second round? And they'll give you full, I'm ready to be in a Michael Lewis book type explanation. Or, hey, we did a study on this, whatever. And that's what I love. Thank God for those GMs. But what I'd say is that Kevin Colbert is the exact opposite of that.

He'd say, well, even when I asked him, I've asked him now three times, explain why you hit on wide receivers so often. Now it's Chase Claypool and all that stuff, Deontay Johnson. And he's just like, well, you know, even when I asked him, I've asked him three times, explain why you hit on wide receivers so often. Now, Chase Claypool and all that stuff, Deontay Johnson. And he's just like, well, you know, they play with a good quarterback and we look for certain things. We look for return. So he doesn't want to tell you. And I just don't.

He's just so chill about it all. You know, like he's not pounding on his chest or whatever. And so I don't think he gets enough credit. If you look at the way he's put together that not only the offense but the front seven is just awesome and like tj watt and bud dupree and and the line camera hayward hayward i mean even to it you know to it was great yes like his second to last year notre dame he was unbelievable and then he came back and then i was told he was hurt and they had like a weird group there that was talented but didn't do well um uh he was my pick cobert is yeah he he 20 years with the team we exactly like you said there's no there's

no misunderstanding you know sometimes we give guys too much credit and other guys get no credit because of titles and not really understanding who's doing what um sometimes ownership is the biggest problem i love that he started as a blesto scout in 1984 back in the day when you get the blesto list and you weren't supposed to he'd be like oh my god i can't believe i have this i get that in the early 2000s i thought it was a big deal um and then when i started being like i don't know if this is that big of a deal though because it was all the measurement stuff before anybody could get their hands on it colbert's my pick as well so uh i don't think that's wrong head coach

right now i'm gonna go to go Kyle Shanahan. For all the reasons that I described a little earlier with the game plan and all that stuff and the fact that he's been able to overcome bad luck, I think that his ability to create easy plays for his quarterback is... And obviously, Andy Reid is right there. He's their 1A and 1B in this conversation. But right now, if I had to choose anybody going forward,

it'd be Kyle Shanahan. Because, you know, listen, if there were things you could do in the NBA that automatically increase the player's three-point percentage when you do it on the field, when you do it on the court or some motion thing, every NBA team would do it. And one of the things about Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay and that style of offense is their motion stuff and the things they do to create easy yardage has not been easily replicated or even widely replicated. Teams are not trying to do it nearly as much

as they should. And I love the offense. Obviously, there's something special there. I think that a test of a team is how the coach responds when things aren't going right. And again, that was some of the worst injury luck. I couldn't believe when they were playing in the New Meadowlands Stadium those two weeks.

And every other play, they lost a guy for five weeks. Every other play. And Shanahan's ability to overcome that, there are so many coaches, and I know this sounds fake, but there are so many coaches who would have just given up on the season. I mean, Mike McCarthy's given up on the season, for God's sake.

I mean, this is... He had so much earned credit from the Super Bowl year that he did not necessarily have to have an amazing season and he did anyway. I love Kyle Shanahan. I'm going to stay along that with McVay

because when they're, when they're right on offense, it's so much fun to watch and I don't think golf is anything crazy special. And I also think he's himself you know you can say he's doing a gruden impersonation but that was at such a young age that whatever version of himself that he is now this is who he is yeah and he's got a personality

if you ever met him i'm sure you have where you go okay i could see like despite the age guys are just like yeah it's cool sean it's coach McVay like there's never I think he has confidence without ego which is kind of hard to do where I think Shanahan although I like Shanahan's personality I could see other people being like what's going on with this guy um so I would go McVay and this is also including that we can't use Bill does it mean we can't use Belichick why can't we well then i go bill because i go bill okay especially with colbert as the gm because then you're like all right this is good like hey now we got wide receivers yeah we were like hey that thing with receivers i'm really good at it

so we're not going to just take a guy if 30 years ago kevin colbert had started in the Patriots front office and was just like the Nick Casario of, of new England. They would be 15 and one this year. Wow. Okay. Let's go quicker here. Finish up. Oh,

see, it seems irrelevant with the two guys we picked. Yeah, no. So that was my, obviously you can't pick an offensive coordinator. Otherwise head coaches, office coordinator.

Otherwise I would have, I think Arthur Smith, just because of the miracles he's worked in Tennessee with Ryan Tannehill, play action stuff. Again, it's just really easy. And I would say, by the way, there's a narrative out there that Adam Gase destroyed Ryan Tannehill or whatever. Ryan Tannehill was with Joe Philbin before that,

who, by the way, Joe Philbin, I looked into this the other day, is in Dallas, unbelievably. Can't believe they're... It's a good question to ask about Dallas. Did they get rid of Dave Campo too soon? You don't see that theory out there a lot. It's not like Gase single-handedly sabotaged Tannehill's career.

Tannehill was just an above-average passer that in Tennessee he just flourished. And so the play-action stuff, the creativity stuff, using... I'm getting a little wary of the situations they're using Derrick Henry in. And I think Derrick Henry can be a very valuable back week in and week out.

But I think generally, the most important thing is what you do with your quarterback, what you do with your receivers. And I'm an Arthur Smith. Okay. I'm going to go Greg Roman just because he's adapted so many different times. And I love that he's an OC that says,

hey, this is exactly what we're going to do because this is what you're good at, done and done. All right, my defensive coordinator, Todd Bowles. I always loved his personality with the Jets. It was the Jets. I know it went south, but this is two years in a row now where he has guys flying around

and they were put in an impossible situation, so I don't think any of that stuff matters from last year. And I love what he's doing with Tampa, so I'm going Bowles. I'm going off the board here. Okay. Rams defensive coordinator, Brandon Staley, because you're giving me a look right now.

So I don't, I, yeah, it's off the board. So I love the philosophy here. Love it. Um, Seth Galena had an amazing piece this week about the fact that,

you know, we talk about offenses having their collegiate revolution and that's going to happen at defense. And Brandon Staley is actually on the front line of it. And I thought it was just a fascinating breakdown. I recommend it. I'll probably tweet it out later today. But the point he made was essentially that NFL teams try way too hard

to stop the run, and they can stop the run easily without trying to stop the run, if that makes sense. Teams can't run that effectively on an NFL defense, even if you're playing to stop the pass. So what Staley's doing is he's playing a lot of two safety looks. He's just worried about defending the pass, and yet the team can obviously still stop the run because of Aaron Donald and a bunch of generational guys up front.

And so I think that philosophy-wise, Staley's where it needs to be. Warren Buffett has this famous thing. I think it's Warren Buffett. If it's not, I'll just say it's Warren Buffett. It could be Jimmy Buffett. Well, it's like those Mark Twain quotes where he just... Everything that was witty and said in the 1800s was just attributed to Mark Twain. But Buffett basically said, when you're looking at a business, if it wouldn't be invented now, it's not a good business.

Like newspapers. You would not invent a newspaper right now. It would go out of business very quickly. So why do we still have newspapers, right? If you're investing in a business. And when I look at defense, there's so much old world stuff going on with defenses still because of the way NFL coaches, especially head coaches, view the sport and how stopping the run is all this important stuff and et cetera, et cetera.

I think that you need to have a forward-looking defensive coordinator, and I think eventually Brandon Staley's that. I think we all kind of rolled our eyes when McVay made the move to hire Brandon Staley and get rid of Wade Phillips. I thought that was, you know, oh, he's remaking the staff in his own image or whatever. But for me, when I look at these sort of breakdowns

and the way they're playing, I really like the future of Brandon Staley. It's Kevin Clark, the Ringer, the Ringer NFL show that he hosts Nora. It's awesome. They did a big quarterback trade rumor stuff and Steelers as Super Bowl contenders. The Cardinals are their big win

and we have them on all the time. So we'll check in again soon. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, buddy. He's a Super Bowl champ. He's a guy I've done some shows with I'm fired up I should have done this sooner it's Willie Colon also with Barstool Sports as well what's up man

this is like I said it's been too long off the top this is awesome man I appreciate it when I got to texting you last night I had to do a double take I was like oh he's coming from the mountains

he has arrived yeah well let's have some fun with this. Let's start positive because your Steelers look for real, man. And you spent a bunch of years there. And I would ask you, what's the thing that you see with them that maybe just the rest of us watching games on Sunday don't see? What's so special about them to you?

Well, I think, you know, listen, I think if you've always been a fan of the Steelers and you've always supported how they play their brand of football, I think they're just playing I think they're just doing them. I don't think they're trying to be anything or live up to anything other than the Steeler brand. I think they're playing physical. I think Big Ben, a lot of people like to talk

about the chip on his shoulder with him being ridiculed for being overweight and being 38 years old. I really don't think he cares about that. I think mentally he's in a good place. And I think a lot of times, and I can talk from my own experience, mentally when you're in a good place as far as the house, the family life, the locker room, you as an individual, where you're at not being injured, you put all that together and you feel like you're just playing your best

brand of football and you're not thinking about it consciously. That's a good place to be at. And I think that's what Ben's at. When you have the young kid, Chase Claypool, he looks as dominant as he, I mean, the sky's the limit for that kid. So I think the Steelers are just in a good place. I think they're just playing. They're just doing them.

And then, you know, it's working for them. I mean, last week against the Tennessee Titans, a lot of people were anticipating a dog fight and it wasn't that in the first half, but the second half, they kind of got away from their game plan and then they was able to rally and then they was able to squeak out of there. But Steelers going forward, man, if they could just focus on just doing what they need to do, play physical,

run the ball, lean on Ben when they have to, but let that defense kind of lead the way, which has normally always been the Steeler way. They're going to be fine, and we may see them in the Super Bowl. Tomlin took over in your second year. Yeah. So you had Cowers last year, and then Mike steps in. He's still there.

And I'll admit, I'm calling myself out here, there have been moments with him where I wasn't sure because the Steelers are this great organization and I wasn't sure because I was like, is he just have all of the cadence down? Does he have all the phrasing down? And there were some bad losses in the playoffs there for a little while where you're like, hey, you keep losing to teams you shouldn't lose to. But then when you put the whole resume together, and I did this again recently, I go, it's actually now not as bad as I thought it was so give me your favorite Tomlin thing to understand him um from the inside because I'm wondering like what was your first impression of him because he's a young guy and everybody seems to like like him but you know it's still you guys are pro athletes and you guys will

kind of reserve judgment until you figure it out right you know it was weird because my team was my like you said Bill Kyle was my first coach and when when I got BC, when I got to BC, he was, had just won a Superbowl. That was Jerome Bettis' last game. And then the year after that, we went eight and eight. But I started actually, which is weird about this week, my first game starting was my rookie year against Baltimore. And then the next game was against Cincinnati. We ended up finishing that year 8-8. But prior to that, that kind of gap between Kyler and Tomlin, I was pretty much a bubble guy, meaning I was penciled as the right tackle,

but I had to shape and frame as a guy as a guard or a center. And I think BC, for the most part, and even though my offensive line coach for my rookie year was Russ Grimm, they still were still trying to figure me out where I was going to really kind of, what did I look like? When Mike Tomlin got in, he was like, listen, man, you know, I went to William & Mary, you went to Hofstra, I know everything about you. I'm going to give you a shot. I'm only going to give you one shot. Right.

And it was just like that. It was just like, I'm going to give you one shot. You deserve it. You work your tail off and we'll see what happens. And it went down just like that. I was competing with Max Starks at the time who had, was already the starting right tackle and had won a Super Bowl. Jerome's last game in Detroit against Seattle.

And so he was the guy who was kind of the darling of the office line because he was young. He was doing the chunky soup commercials. People knew him. He had a sandwich named after him. He was kind of like that young breed of office line that Steelers were really kind of making way for. And Mike Tomlin didn't really bite into that narrative. He was like, I want dogs. I want guys who are just going to come in, compete and get it done and fight

and give me everything they got. And he gave me a shot and I was able to kind of win the competition battle. But one thing I liked about Mike Tomlin going forward, man, he just knew how to deliver. He knew what to say at the most, he knew what to say, how to say it, and say it at the right time, and he never blinked. And I think he was also a coach who, by all accounts, when you looked at him, because he was a young coach when he got to the Steelers, really kind of gravitated to guys who were physical. And I know it's kind of cliche, well, Steelers are a physical outfit, but he really, he kind of was like, listen, for us to be who we want to be, we're going to have to be a physical outfit. And he necessarily didn't have to implement that because he kind of was like, listen, for us to be who we want to be, we're going to have to be a physical outfit. And he necessarily didn't have to implement that because he had, he kind of adopted the, you know, the Super Bowl team. But it's one thing to adopt it and there's another thing to manage it, making sure that's consistent along the way. He was able to do that just by the way we practice, how he handled meetings, how he handled individuals. He made it, he made it known, like not everybody's going to be treated the same, but everybody will be treated

fairly. And I think a lot of people took to that. And I just always appreciated how he operated, how he ran the team because he was about it, man. He was about it, and he made us realize, like, you are the show. And that comes with a standard, and that comes with a responsibility, and we're going to live up to it. He made sure we did.

Is that why you fought all the time, then? Because you had to prove yourself, or was that just you and the Bronx inside of you? That was a little bit of both, man. I was going against guys who I had watched on Saturday, who played for Georgia, USC, and all these other big schools. And Hofstra struggled with even having 2,000 people in the stands. You know what I mean? Everybody in the stands was pretty much related to everybody on the team.

And so for me, I just had this thing inside stands was pretty much related to everybody on the team. And so for me, I just had this thing inside me that, one, I wasn't going home. Because I understand, Ryan, like before I got drafted, man, I was bouncing. I was bouncing for three or four nightclubs. Seriously, I was bouncing in Bridgeview and Long Beach, Long Island. I was at Minnesota's. I was over in Garden City. So I was in the capital.

I was at Minnesota's. I was over in the Garden City. So I was in the capital. I was already doing, I was having backyard scraps with normal citizens of New York. You know, I was already a part of that life. So it was in me, it was nothing for me to put hands on folks. I didn't think about it as like, oh, I'm going to get locked up and get in trouble. If I had a problem with you, I just, I felt like, well, the only way I know how, the way I've been making my money, these little $200 I get from the end of the night, was putting hands on folks. So I just adopted that mentality and took it to Pittsburgh with me. And they liked it.

But a big part of it was because I was very insecure about who I was as a ball player and about where I came from. When you step on the field, man, and I'm looking at Joey Porter to Hines Field to Troy Palomar or Ben Roethlisberger to Casey Hampton, on and on, these heavyweights. I'm like, what is Willie Colon doing here? I was just bouncing, making $200, and I was kind of okay with it. You know what I mean? I was decent. Now I'm a part of this Super Bowl-winning outfit. I'm this scrappy kid from the Bronx. I'm still wearing Timbs and a Yankee fitted. And by the way, I don't know if anybody, they hate the Yankees at Pittsburgh. They prefer the Pirates. And here I am. I had this big

chain with a big dog head on it. You know, just New York. I'm looking like I'm straight out the Bronx. And they were confused. They was confused who the hell I was. I didn't even have dreads at the time. I had an even Steven. I had a low boy and I had a little part up the middle like Stephon Marbury. So I

was... Straight in the middle. Stephon. Yeah middle like Stephon Marbury. So I was a – Straight in the middle. Stephon. A little bit. I had a – yeah, I was still doing it. So I was still in my New York thing, man. And when I got there, I just felt like I needed to prove my worth every time I had an opportunity.

And I had to let them know because of the defense I played with. You got to understand, that defense, they were all goons, man. They were all about it. They walked it. They talked it. The reason I was able to, you know, a lot of people's like, you know, a lot of people know me from my antics and my playing days, but if you do know me about my

nightlife, I got a lot, I adopted a lot of that because of the Pittsburgh defense. You know, my rookie year, I didn't win a Super Bowl, but I was partying like I did win a Super Bowl. I was in the club with Joey Porter, Casey Hampton, these guys who were taking off their shirts, champagne everywhere, and just women galore. And I had done nothing. I didn't even own a car.

I didn't get my license. So I got to Pittsburgh. Bill Cowher actually made me get a license because he called me one time to what I was doing. Shout out to my homie, Trey Essex. He would rent me a car and I would pay him for the rental, and I would drive around Pittsburgh. So one time on the south side, I got pulled

over or something, and then the officer was like, whose car is this? I was like, oh, it's my buddy's. He's like, why are you driving it? Oh, I'm just trying to take it. I said something ridiculous, like, I'm taking it to get filled up. And he was just like, all right. Well, he was just confused about the whole situation.

Well, it got word back to BC. He said, Willie, you don't have a license? And I was just like, you know, not really. I was like, I'm from New York. Not really. It's yes or no. By the way, what did the cop do? Did he know you played for the Steelers and he let you go?

Is that what it sounds like? He kind of, yeah. I had my buddy in the car who had a license he made me switch he was just like let your buddy drive and go home willie let's make sure this never happens again and i was like yeah sure totally fine but anyway end up getting back to bc um and bc was like yo where's your license and i was just like can you back up a minute how does that meeting start does somebody in the staff be like hey bill wants to talk to you and you have no idea what's happening? I think it happened.

We have broke the team meeting and I walked by his office and he was just like, hey, come here for a second. Let me talk to you. You don't have a license. And I was just like, yeah, not really. He was just like, why are you driving? He was like, you know, you can't be driving without a license. Like, what's going on here? And I remember saying to him, I was like, coach, I'm from the Bronx, New York. We don't really drive. Like we have trains and we have

buses and we have cabs. That's how I've been getting around. And at the time, you know, coming to college, I was, you know, I was, I was courting a couple of females who had cars. So that's, I was also getting around as well. Um, and so on top of that, man, you know, he was just like, you got to get a license and you need to get a license now. And so he forced me to get my first license. So I was totally fine, you know, the situation I had working out. But I grew up, I grew up, I grew up in an organization who treated me like family and I was allowed to grow up. You also got to understand this too, Ryan.

Half of my guys in my unit were in their late 20s to early 30s. I was the young guy in the locker room. So when I was talking about leaving margarita mommies on the south side or partying or doing whatever I was doing my first year, these guys didn't want to hear that conversation. What they wanted to hear was the game plan. And all they was talking about was their wives and going home to do homework after the practice. So there really was a disconnect. There was a maturity that needed to take place if he was going to be a part of that team. And we all had our fun and stuff, but they were grown, grown men

who were living and playing football at a high level. And I had to adapt to that fast. So it forced me to grow up. It forced me to mature. And it forced me to put my priorities first. And I was playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and winning. There's so many follow-ups in here. Because, you know, Darren Woodsonson who was terrific at espn and you know a little bit and he was always laughing he's like oh you get a willie today he goes every time i turn on that

film they're like there's willie there's willie fighting be like away from the play be like back that up be like look at him look at him over there and were you i i hesitate to ask a guy with with you know where you grew up and your size and your switch that you have if you were ever scared but were you were you was there ever a situation you were more scared bouncing than you were going up against a guy on an nfl field yeah man so one time this is real talk we were i was i was in uh in, it was a summer night. Because what happened was my head coach at Cardinal Hayes High School, my football team, was the head of security at this nightclub that I worked at. I worked at, it was called Bridgeview.

And so you know about the let out. The club lets out. Everybody, you want the parking lot to clear so everybody can go home. So anyway, the parking lot, we was trying to push everybody to the cars and get everybody to go home. And me and my good, one of my best friends like my brother his name is pit it was like my head of security was like hey you guys go around this corner and make sure everybody's getting to the cars and get them out of here don't you don't want anybody standing around boom no problem we had our

headsets on we turned the corner and no can we curse on here no no yeah yeah okay no bullshit you bro we turn the corner and it's like two cars headlights pointing at each other and it's a five on five brawl these little italian kids and they're having at it like they're good they're i mean it's a full-out melee so we were running so we got our security shirts on we had to wear khakis at the time so we're running we get to the we get to the fight and we're like hey hey let's break this up. Da-da-da-da-da. This can't happen. You go to your car, you go to your car. We're trying to police the whole thing.

And it's just me and him against two groups who we have no idea about. We don't know these kids from Adam. And one of these kids hauled off and sucker punched my boy. Just cracked him. As you guys were just trying to break it up and get off the property. We were trying to break it up. We want the kids to just get home and enough. We didn't want the cops to kind of make this a situation.

So one of these guys ended up hauling off and smacking my boy. My homeboy is a legit fighter. Not like MMA, but he's been known for putting people to sleep. So he got out of control fast. He throws his kid against the fence. I go to grab the kid, another kid. This dude absolutely whips out like a Swiss blade. I haven't seen a Swiss blade in a minute.

Kind of like the old school, like the quack-quack. What is it, the Jets here? This is amazing. It seemed like something like that. So the kid pulled out a knife, and I'm looking at him like, what are you going to do with that? And he gets to try to rush me. Anyway, we get in a tussle, if you will.

We pull in and push in on each other. We get to throwing him off. So I got like two dudes on. We're just scrapping. We're just old fashioned scrap. And I look over and my boy is absolutely trying to punk this dude's ribs out of his body. He had him on all fours and he's just trying to kick the life out of him. And so this thing is going

on for like five minutes. I can hear in my headset Willie and Pitt, what's going on? And then so I end up taking my earpiece out and throwing it on the floor because I'm in a fight at this point. Like I'm in full rage. I'm in full battle mode. Meaning is to say that goes on for like five minutes. The cops end up coming around the corner and they start flashing their lights and they, you know, they, they, they show up. They're like, Hey, everybody on the floor, all this other stuff. So they see we have a security shirt,

a shirt on. So they get us up. And I grabbed my boy. I was like, man, let's just go back. We grabbed our walkie-talkies. And as we're walking down the block, man, I can remember one of the cops, you know, asking for identification. And one of the kids out there got mouthy with him.

And, bro, I don't know if you've ever seen this. You've probably seen it on cop shows. But you know that baton right here? You know that thing that kind of jacks? Yeah, yeah. This cop, as I turned, I kind of turned around. Whatever they call it. I turned around, and this cop hit this kid in the back of the knee so damn hard. If the kid has an ACL right now, I'll be surprised.

He whipped a whooping on these kids and got their ass straight. And I just remember just walking down the block. And then the reason I kind of felt scared, because it was just me and my boy against literally 10 right like the two groups they turned on you guys right they kind of just uh went full attack mode on us but it was just us and a couple kids man i thought i was gonna get stabbed and i realized the walkie-talkie that i had you know that i just broke for throwing it on the floor now it's coming out of my pocket you know i mean so it was just a whole situation but those little things that happened. But that's what I was accustomed to.

That was just my lifestyle before Pittsburgh. So when people talk about me fighting and everything, that was just like, it was just such a second nature to just go. Do you have an NFL fight that you love or one you don't like or a guy that you still can't stand where there would probably be, I'm not going to say the words, and guys get older and they mellow out a little bit. Or maybe there's a guy that hates you still.

Oh, I'm probably – there are probably some dudes that probably definitely hate me, man. I think I – you know, my whole thing, like, it's frowned upon fighting in the game itself, right? Because obviously you get penalties and all that other stuff. But for me, it was just – it was me kind of holding the line. Because I think a lot of times when you have, listen, Ben Robsberger is worth $100 million, right? Valley is as tough and as big as he is. He's still the most valuable piece on that Pittsburgh Steelers team.

And he was one of the most valuable pieces for me when I was on that team. So I had to make sure that you can play the game, you can get after him, but you wasn't going to be giving no cheap shots. You wasn't going to be doing anything to try to take him out the game and he can't do it right because he's got to protect himself and all that stuff so it was guys it was kind of the code within our office line room like one nobody touches ben and you damn sure ain't gonna be dirty about it and so that's when the kind of the the rough you know the tussling became um a thing especially when we play a team like Baltimore, right?

Because those games against Baltimore, man, Valet, what made it special were the guys in the jerseys and the names on the back of them. But really, bro, it was the mindset, if you didn't take your shot, somebody was going to take it. You know what I mean? Like, if you had a knockout shot, bro, you had to take it. Because if somebody saw an opportunity to drop you,

they were going to do it. And it just was, that was just the nature of the rivalry those games man i mean it's it wasn't that long ago but it feels like forever ago it does just the way the game is played like ryan clark keeps retweeting some of these hits he retweeted that hint in mcgahee and it was funny because somebody was like does anybody remember this hit and clark was like the only reason i remember is that there's film of it and i mean he knocked himself i mean, Clark is a little guy and he would absolutely lay dudes out. You know, like I'm just saying like you guys were unbelievable when those games. You know what's wild about it?

Like, so Helody Nata was probably, I say this, he was probably the hardest person I ever had to block pound for pound. Right. Because for me, we came out roughly around the same time. He was just as big as I was. He was just as big as I was. He was just as physical as I was. He was just as nasty. He had everything. Fair to say, even a better body than yours, Willie.

You know what? I don't know who said that, but you know what? We won't talk about the critics. So I would say this, man, but when you're going against somebody who pound for pound can match you, what do you do?

Seriously, what do you do? The only thing is just to fight. And so a lot of our films, me and him just pulling and tugging and him trying to knock my head off and me trying to get after him because we matched each other. It was just what it was. But I tell a lot of people, man, what's interesting about our rivalry and what I try to tell a lot of people is when you talk about,

you hear a lot of coaches say, well, set the tone. There's a tone setter. It's usually, you know, it's easy. You can easily point it out, James Harrison. You can easily point it out, Troy Palomaro. You can easily point it out, Lamar Willie or anybody else, Ryan Clark. The guy that would set the shit off was Hines Ward. Hines Ward was a, bro, I've never seen somebody

who just absolutely irritated the hell out of one particular team so much. They hated Hines' ass so much that it was like his first knockout block or the first thing he did, it was on. It was just like gasoline to a fire. And I remember one time it was in Baltimore, man. I think Hines is running a play. I think Hines is running a play. I think Hines is running around, rather.

And it breaks left. And Hines is actually running down the field. And he comes back down here. And I remember I'm coming around, and I could see Bart Scott. And all I've seen, I've seen Bart, I think it was Bart Terrell, but they hit the floor like a grenade was going

off. And then you see Hines go right over their head. And Bart popped in think it was Bart Terrell, but they hit the floor like a grenade was going off. And then you see Hines go right over their head. And Bart popped up like, you dirty motherfucker. I'm going to get you. I swear I'm going to get you. And Hines just comes up with this big old grin like, oh, like it was crazy because you really had to have your head on a swivel.

And I can remember in the game, everybody told you had to have these kind of senses. You had to have these spidey senses about you. Because if you kind of standing around at the end of a play, you don't get clipped. So if you wasn remember in the game, everybody told you, you had to have these kind of senses. You had to have these spidey senses about you. Because if you were kind of standing around at the end of a play, you don't get clipped. So if you wasn't in the action, you had to be looking around because guys were going to take their shots. And that was just kind of like that mentality.

And Hines always started it off. And we loved it for him. You could easily say, well, badass James Harrison. No. It's tone setter, the fire starter was always hans war that's one of those things too where i mean it there's you know because sometimes this culture not sometimes there's a lot of times i'll hear oh it's a culture you know this is our identity and so much of in sports is bullshit it's like you know who doesn't like hey your team sucks

that's your identity you know like when when a team's four and twelve going we need to establish who we are like we already know he are like okay. Like, okay, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Put up fucking posters? Put up more posters? Like, it's stupid. But then sometimes it's real. And when it was you guys and the Ravens, it was so real.

And it must have been weird because you know there was probably like one dude that's like, oh, man. Like three days to go, four or two days to go. Like, I don't want to go out there. You were scared? Come on. Brian, bro,'t want to go out there. You were scared. Come on, bro. I'm going to keep. You're telling me. I mean, it just seems impossible.

But like, I wasn't scared. I wasn't scared. But your manhood was going to be challenged. Yeah. And I don't know how you was raised, but you never want to get dumped in front of your daddy on your mama. Right.

Like, you don't mind getting beat up in front of your friends, but you don't want to get beat up in front of your parents, right? Because then that makes them feel like they failed. My whole family watched this game. And it was a bloodlust game. It was one of those games, like I said, I've been talking about. If you didn't take your shot, somebody was going to take it. And leading up to that week, man, I would have anxiety.

It was hard for me to sleep leading up to game day because I knew it wasn't no pussyfooting around. This wasn't like, you know, this team, there wasn't anything we were going to do that they didn't know and vice versa. Like, we just knew each other. We were intertwined with each other. And so going into that game, man, you just knew you had to bring your AA game and plus rally up your daddy's DNA to fight these son of bitches because it was going to be that type of intensity. It was going to be that type of physicality.

And it was ups and downs. You know, they'll get ahead. We'll get ahead. Defense do this. We'll do that. But the guy you're going against really had hell. He had hell in his eyes. He had evil intent.

So you had to muster up somewhat another level of just saying listen man i ain't getting got today and i'm not gonna be the guy i'm not getting got if it takes for us to put our foot in the middle of the ring and bang it out that's the type of day we're gonna have but that was expected and so you also got to understand the year we won the super bowl we played them three times we played them three times to get to tampa to beat the cardinals so it was really on and popping and we were both kind of neck and neck throughout the whole season, which made it, it just, it further intensified that kind of that, that level of anxiety, like, man, you know, I got to go today.

This is what it is. Ben, I think having a guy like Ben was important too, because whatever he was, and there's, there's a lot of stuff out there. He was tough. He's tough as hell. He's still tough as hell. But I think I know you a little bit.

I can't imagine you got along with him, but I imagine that never got in the way of, you know, the job. Like I, you know, there's, there's guys that you're dudes,

but I, I can imagine, especially back then early on that he wasn't exactly like a guy you were hanging out with. of the job. There's guys that are your dudes, but I can imagine, especially back then early on, that he wasn't exactly like a guy you were hanging out with. He wasn't, man. In fact, I'll tell you another quick story. My rookie year,

at the time I got drafted in the fourth round, there was Aaron Rodgers' center. His name was Marvin Phillips. He was Aaron Rodgers' center at Cal. We were both two guys, undersized guys for the most part, particularly for our position, but we were both scrappy, loved the game.

They drafted us. Ben had just won a Super Bowl. The team was on fire. Confidence is high. He'd only been in the league a year, right? Not even. I got drafted and then – Yeah, right.

Sat for a little bit, right. Yeah, but I'm talking – this I'm talking about is like OTA spring training. This is what I'm talking about little bit. Right. Yeah. But I'm talking about, it's like OTA spring training. This is what I'm talking about right now. Right. So I get drafted, landed in Pittsburgh. Me and Marvin together, rookies, you know, when you get drafted with your guys, you usually hang out together. So we get on the field, and it's quarterback versus center exchange.

Not versus, but it's quarterback center exchange. And so a lot of quarterbacks are taking snaps, getting ready for the day. Ben gets out there. He takes a snap underneath Marvin Phillips. And I think Marv pretty much shot it short and kind of jammed Ben's finger. And Ben's just like, God damn it.

This is my finger. He kind of has this whole display. And so Russ Grimm, our offensive line coach at the time, is standing there. And he's, first of all, he's a Super Bowl winner quarterback. And so Russ Grimm, our offensive line coach at the time, is standing there. And he's, first of all, he's a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Yeah, Russ Grimm. What are you doing, kid? Like, you know, keep your hands off the Cadillac type situation.

So, and I can remember Marv that day feeling like bad, feeling low, feeling like, man, you know, I just messed up this guy's finger. I'm new to the job. I don't want to be considered a liability. He has all these things going through his head. And I felt bad. And I felt like Ben shouldn't have done that. He should have just kind of ate it only off the principle that as a rookie,

and he's probably nervous taking the snaps with Ben Roethlisberger, right? That's what I just felt like should have happened. Anyway, so fast forward, Ben used to, like, we would have kind of, we would kind of have like, you know, walkthrough. And during walkthrough, the offense would switch over. I mean, the starting O would kind of put on, like, a shell or be, like, the show for the second string. And Ben used to mess with me and do all this other stuff. So I was always kind of a little bit annoyed with him.

And then I was new to him. I didn't know him. I was just perturbed by him. And then there would be times where he was just kind of just be this annoying to me. And I was just like, man, this guy, I don't, I'm not feeling him. Just, just whatever. And then as our time, as time grew, man, I realized we, we were kind of the same. All we wanted to, all we wanted to do was win.

And sometimes I think I kind of enthusiasm, not even enthusiasm, sometimes we just realized that, you know, when you want to win so bad, man, you don't really care about other people's feelings. You just want to do how you want to do and how you want to operate. And to be honest, me and Ben are extremely close. We've grown to be extremely close. me and Ben are extremely close. We've grown to be extremely close. And I think what I've learned more about him, man, when you close the door and you sit down with him one-on-one

when nobody's around, he's the best human being in the world. The best. Absolutely a bro's, a guy's guy. A bro's bro. He's the type of guy you do want to sit down and have a beer with and talk. And I think a lot of times, I think because of what he's went through in Pittsburgh,

and whether it's his fault or not, I'm not here to judge, I think he has shelled up. But I don't think that's like him no more. I think he's open. I think it took him a while to get there. But we talk every now and then. I text him after the game. I was like, man, you had me in a pretzel all last afternoon because of this damn Titan game. You know, congratulations on it.

He's like, yeah, man, it was a good one. But I love him now, man, because I've seen his growth. I've seen his maturation period. I've seen him go from the low to the highs. And I've seen him become a better leader. I've seen him acknowledge his own faults. I've just seen him grow as a person. So I love him, man.

But he's one of those guys, like, you can't help but go to battle with because if you've played with him and you've seen him play in action, you know he'll sell his soul to the devil to win one game on Sunday. You know, he's just that competitive. He's probably, honestly, the most competitive person I've ever been around or played with. And I just, you know, I'm not trying to say I blow the guy, but he's legit, man.

I love him. I call him my brother, and I respect who he is right now at the age of 38. So when you look at the Steelers, the last thought here as coming off this, I liked them better than Tennessee. I look at them being up 27-7 as more of an indicator of where they're at. Tennessee fans would argue, and I did all of this on Monday's pod. I'd be like, oh, no, we came back. We got into this.

And then it's like, wait a minute. Is Kansas City the only thing in their way is pittsburgh better than kansas city with my homes i'm not going to pick anybody against that team probably for like the next 10 years because that's what i think of my homes and this this i felt like left baltimore out of the conversation so how do you handicap the top of the afc right now you know buffalo fans are asking about themselves too for the last couple weeks. That was great. I still like Kansas City, but I felt like Baltimore...

Baltimore, and I used this analogy before, we expect they're going to win. The Lamar thing isn't as exciting because it's not new, even though it's just as exciting. I mean, he's still doing stuff every week where I'm like, I can't believe he got that playoff. I can't believe he did this.

He's impossible to tackle. But how do you see those top teams in the AFC? Do you think there's a lot of separation? Do you think anyone can beat Kansas City? The thing about Kansas City, man, you just never – you feel like they just keep getting better, which is crazy because they win out of such a dominant fashion. You just feel like they just keep getting better

and they keep doing the necessary things to win. Listen, I think Pittsburgh obviously is number one to me in kind of the hierarchy. Huh? You think they're the number one AFC team? I do. I do. I think the way they came out against Tennessee

and the standard in which they play in, and I also realize that they're – I think a lot of times you have to find a quarterback that's going to find a way, and that's what Ben has always been able to do. He's been able to find a way, and that's what Ben has always been able to do. He's been able to find a way, and I think he's that guy. Right along with Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson, those guys, they just find a way to win, and they can put the cape on.

Now, I've obviously been through three picks that game and struggled a little bit, but coming up was just botched picks. I think one of them was just him trying to force the ball in. The last throw I don't even think was that bad. Yeah, it was just – It was the right play, and then it gets tipped. So, for me, it's obviously steelers chiefs um i don't know how you can say it man like but i i you gotta you gotta respect both you gotta

respect buffalo you kind of gotta you know what i mean like even though they haven't i just wish their defense was better because last year you were like hey that defense is awesome and now you're like what happened i was all over their defense. I thought their defense was extremely underrated. And now you're kind of like, well, was it? You know what I mean? Like, you don't know what to say about it. So, in Baltimore, you got to respect, I think, Lamar Jackson. What scares me about Lamar Jackson is I feel like people are starting to see his ceiling.

You know what I mean? And I'm just like, that's what makes me nervous. I don't feel like he his ceiling. You know what I mean? That's what makes me nervous. I don't feel like he's evolved. You know he's capable of some dynamic things. He can get it done. But I feel like I'm starting to see his ceiling, and I think it's too early to see that.

And I'm talking more about his arm and his ability to win games with his arm alone. You know he can run the ball. You know he can make magic plays. But if he had to sit in a pocket and win a game with his arm, I don't think he can do it right now. Hopefully one day he can run the ball. You know he can make magic plays. But if he had to sit in the pocket and win a game with his arm, I don't think he'd do it right now. Hopefully one day he can. And I guess my 15, man, I don't really know who my 15 would be. You don't have to have one.

That's fine. You don't have to have one. Oh, okay. I don't really see anybody right now. No, that's cool. That's how it feels. Hey, man, let's do this again soon. I mean, I didn't know. I'm here for you, man.

You know, I'm a fan know i'm i'm a fan man i'm a fan of you and i i appreciate the opportunity you allowed me to have when i was on your show well come on man i mean within within minutes uh for those that don't know willie you know you kind of looking around what's this guy's deal seems like dick second show willie comes in with like gift bags he's handing out sunglasses to people he's asking to play salsa music during the breaks and i was like all right we had a thing that's did you put that picture in your man cave that's a man cave for you and uh once once i got to like day two with willie man i was like that's that's my guy and

i still have i still have your banana boat shirt oh that's right yeah with the guys from barstool that's yeah i was throwing i was throwing out a bunch of stuff man and it popped out it was just like oh you were throwing stuff out yeah i think like every man like for some reason i can i can throw i gotta throw anything away but t-shirts i struggle with i struggle you can't throw that one away that's limited edition it's still at least i didn't yeah i know it's one of a kind i can't imagine it fits you hey let's shout out your spot by the way too because you're doing something i always wanted to do when i was a bartender you got you went from bouncer to super bowl champ to uh talk show host and barstool breakfast to now owner yeah so i have a place

in the bronx it's a beer garden actually it's called bricks and hops it's on 65 brooklyn boulevard um in my old neighborhood in in the south bronx in mount haven you have a back patio food you have over 40 domestic beers man and you walk in there you see my jerseys you see a lot of people who are proud to eat at willie's if you will that's awesome man doing it doing it back home next time we'll talk jets so i you know i thought we were going to talk jets but the steelers stuff was too good and once i'm going to start talking Ravens. I'll make sure I have a bottle of tequila for that one. Sounds good. That's at WillieCologne66.

And we'll do that again soon. Thanks, bud. Thanks, brother. Be good, baby. Before we get to live advice, we're crushing it with the same game parlays. We've picked them all right so far this season. We have been doing. This isn't like we're doing seven of these.

But since Kyle won last week, we're going to ride this hot hand. Although I'm a little worried based on his research that maybe we'll explain a little bit later in a further episode. So here we go.

New favorite bet concept this season. I've been playing the same game parlays on FanDuel Sportsbook. Very simple. All you have to do is combine multiple bets from one game into a single parlay. This way the payouts

are even bigger when you win. Simple concept. So three bets baked into one, bigger payouts. All you have to do is combine multiple bets from one game into a single parlay. This way, the payouts are even bigger when you win. Simple concept. So three bets baked into one, bigger payouts. All right. And FanDuel will refund the first same game parlay you lose on any NFL game each week up to $10. That means you can bet a different parlay risk-free. I'm going to repeat that again very slowly. If you're doing nothing and you want to sign up, do this. You can put $10 down on a same-game parlay, and if you lose, you don't lose the $10. You can do it free every single week up to $10. All right? So what's the lose there? All right?

So Kyle has one. Extensive research. Sunday Night Football. Falcons at Panthers. He's going Atlanta plus 2.5 under the 49 points total for the game and Atlanta first half money line plus 140. That's going to pay out plus 434. All right.

So with your first NFL single game parlay of the week, you'll get up to 10 bucks back if you don't win. So now there is one catch. FanDuel is the only sportsbook app that has the same game parlays. So if you don't already have a FanDuel account, just use the promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N, R-Y-E-N. That's FanDuel.com. Click on the sportsbook tab, and you will find the same-game parlay right there, right in front of you. Promo code Ryan.

Must be 21. End present, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee. Refund issued as non-withdrawable site credit that expires in seven days. Max refund $10. Terms apply. Gambling problem call 1-800-522-4700. Colorado 1-800-BETS-OFF. In Iowa 1-800-9-WITH-IT. Indiana 1-800-GAMBLER. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Red Line 1-800-889-9789. Tennessee or visit www.1-800-GAMBLER, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Red Line, 1-800-889-9789, Tennessee, or visit www.1800gambler.net in West Virginia. 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. Life advice, rr at gmail.com. Again, that's life advice, rr at gmail.com. Okay, we're going to do one here because we went long with Willie Colon and it was worth it. So, okay, here we go. 25 years old, born and raised in Indy.

I went to a big 10 school, was a basketball manager. He said he didn't want to use his name, but he gave me way too much more information and where this goes, I don't want to give out too much. Worked hard in school and then ended up with a job with a baseball team, a pro baseball team, which is, it went from internship to full-time job. Jesus, this is amazing. And then he said he met this amazing girl.

So, all right, basically graduates from a good big 10 school, works for one of the teams there, ends up with a pro baseball team, has a full-time job, doesn't have to live in the city of the baseball team. So he moved out to Scottsdale,

AKA Hotsdale, Arizona. A lot of people love the Scottsdale stuff from last week because it's all true. It's just unbelievable. It's a very, very attractive city but I'm just telling you if somebody's taking pictures in front of a waterfall inside

of a master bedroom with a dragon skeleton it's probably not her house. Alright, here we go. During COVID, moved in with the girl, started living together, moved to Arizona. Girlfriend is a nurse so she decided to quit her job and come with me. There were a couple of times early on in the relationship where it seemed like she had signs

of being mentally weak or having low self-esteem. She said that she needed to seek therapy. Okay. No problem there. Obviously stuff happens. She also mentioned that her last boyfriend was emotionally abusive and cheated on her multiple times. And that's where some of the low self-esteem comes from. For example, she went to Starbucks and they got her order wrong. And she just walked away with a messed up drink without correcting the Starbucks barista to give her the correct drink. And she ordered and paid for it. All right. So two things that I want to stop you at there. We all, and maybe not all of us have done that, but the messed up drink thing. I remember years ago, you know, when somebody would come over and say, Hey, how's your meal?

And I think we all just instinctively say, Oh yeah, it's great. When it isn't a couple of years ago, I decided to start telling people and be like, no, this isn't any good. It's not going to affect your tip. You're still going to get 20%. You know, as a former service industry person, I always try to tip well, unless you're complete disaster. I mean, you really have to screw up for me to not want to tip you at 20% or higher. Um, but I started just doing it and I go, Hey, you know what? This is kind of disappointing. And it wasn't like I wanted to send it back. I wasn't trying to get anything off the bill, but I got sick of actually lying to someone who would say, hey, how's your food?

Because we all just say, great. So that's not too bad. I think that's something that a lot of us do. We just go, hey, you know what? Let's avoid conflict. Why am I going to tell the person? But man, if they make your stuff wrong, like that's an actual easier habit to to break the thing that I I hate about this email and it has nothing to do with the guy or the girl it's the ex I don't understand why some of you guys do this and I've dated girls

that have gone through this with ex-boyfriends the guys that you do this thing you're so fucking insecure as a guy that you dump all over the girl you're with to almost beat her down mentally so that then she thinks you're this amazing catch and she never wants to leave you. So you're so afraid of losing the girl that you're with. You tell a beautiful girl that she's ugly. You'll say nobody else will ever want to date you if it weren't for me. I mean, it's unbelievable. Some of the girls in the current, you know, look, I'm not married and I'm, I'm in my forties. So I've been around and I don't want to sound like a scumbag. I'm just saying, you know, you go through your arcs

of spending time with different people throughout your life, and it wasn't like I was off the market at 30 years old. It was just, I can't believe the number of people that I've met that would say, oh, yeah, you know, my former whatever. He would just go, you look ugly today. And it was just this pattern. So for those of you, some of you are listening right now, and you guys do it, stop fucking doing you're look ugly today. And it was just this, this pattern. So those of you, some of you are listening right now and you guys do it.

Stop fucking doing that. So I'm cool. Like it's just so screwed up. Even Kyle knows that's not cool, but it happens way more often than, than you think. And, you know,

maybe some of you guys that have been married and have been dating for a really long time. You're like, Oh, it doesn't, it does. And it's, it's,

it's all based in the man's insecurity that he feels like he has to make his partner feel worse about herself. And that's, that's the most disappointing thing. Like, I think one of the things, you know, if I were to delve into, do you ever see when a, when a guy wins an award for, you know, a Grammy or, you know, best screenplay or, you know, golden globes, Oscars, all this kind of stuff, you know, the guy will like look over and point to his wife and say hey i could have never done it without her um i'm not sure that that's always true you know like i always kind of joke and think what if you were single and accomplished something you'd be like i'd like to thank no one i did this on my own um that's that's the right thing to do it's a nice thing to do you thank your mom you thank your

wife you know every that plays really well but you know what it is is maybe that writer i would sense the writer or the artist and musician or whatever they could have done it by themselves because they're the ones that had the talent and they could have married a bunch of different people just like women can marry a bunch of different men and the point is though is that even if all that stuff's bullshit and superficial it's that when you actually decide to spend a lot of time with somebody else part of that i don't want to say contract because it seems impersonal, but part of that understanding of getting into that relationship is that you're always going to be there when the other person needs you to be there and that you're going to prop them up.

And you maybe you're going to tell them things are going to be great when you may think, I'm not sure if this is going to work out, but my role in this is to make sure that you know I'm here and be supportive as much as I possibly can. I'm not saying being supportive every single time for every idea that your spouse or girlfriend has every time that you're together. But to be the opposite of that, to be like, oh, you're a loser. Oh, you're not pretty. Oh, no one else is going to like you. Oh, you're never going to like why?

Why even date anybody? Because if that's what you're doing to people, you're just fucking them up. And it ends up, you know, instead of paying it forward, it's inherited by the next person as this guy is talking about this. So I do think some of you guys out there suck. Okay. So this has led to anxiety and people pleasing for her has got to the point where she has panic attacks. I guess his parents flew out to Scottsdale and she was really worried. She wanted to be perfect.

So she was having panic attacks. Okay. As I mentioned before, she said she needs to go to go to therapists deal with the things she's going through we're approaching a year relationship and she's still not set up therapy when all the signs point towards uh going to therapy with the most beneficial it's also very irritating when she spends her free time watching the office episodes for the hundredth time well that i can kind of understand uh and runs from doing productive activities or keeping her word on things she says she will do but never actually gets done um this lie ties into the people pleasing.

Okay. So his question is, what should I do in this situation? Do I try my hardest to convince her to find a therapist or I just let it go and ignore it? Am I nitpicking her? I really do think this type of people pleasing, suppressing feelings and growing inner anxiety of her is affecting our

relationship and putting a burden on her mental health. Um, this is getting, trying to get heavier. All right. I could, uh, and I just mean like my own limitations.

I just, you know, how much do you really want to listen to me? Did you hear what was with Willie Colon earlier? I could be wrong, but if we were to get married and have kids, I think she would go, then go further and teach our kids to suppress their thoughts. I don't know. I don't know if that's true or not.

Again, not a parent. I can understand like, hey, I don't want my kid to be raised this way. So if she does this, does that mean that, you know, the next person is going to do this? I don't think that's entirely fair. I don't think she's going to go around saying like, Hey, make sure you repress any one of your feelings and thoughts, because that's what I do as your mother. Um, I think that's projecting a little bit too much to me. It seems like if she just put her mind to a hard work, she can grow out of her people pleasing, depressing feelings habits. But at the same time,

it looks like she does not want to put in the work and would rather suffer. Um, look, the therapy part of this is really tough because like you're telling her to go, she clearly doesn't want to go. If she wanted to go, she would have gone already. So that's a simple answer. I don't know how hard you can push her on this unless you do kind of the thing we've talked about before. Approach this in a very serious sit-down style in a way that you've never done before instead of just letting it. Maybe you've already done that. So really, is this about, do you like her and you're coming up with things that you think you're worried about, or are you getting to the point where

you don't like her and you can't do this? Because we've had a bunch of different people chime in. And like, if you're just going to sit there and not really confront it, suggest it, let her do her thing. You know, there's a balance of how comfortable are you telling somebody, Hey, that you need to change your life or I'm out the door. But I mean, that's kind of what happens. That kind of what happens, but I can't figure out, you have to ask yourself two things. Are you telling somebody, Hey, that you need to change your life or I'm out the door. But I mean, that's kind of what happens. That kind of what happens, but I can't figure out. You have to ask yourself two things. Are you worried about your relationship because of kids that don't exist yet? I think that's a little bit too much.

Or are you worried right now? Like, Hey, I'm, I'm growing tired of this current, like judge the relationship based on what it is right now. Not about what all the different things that could potentially be down the road. If you're cool with her and you're in love with her and you think all these things are great, um, and this is just a part of it, then you got to figure out a way to make it work because it's going to suck. Um, you know, you're always remind yourself too, if you care about this person a lot, what it's going to be like if you're not with them. Now, if you don't think you care about

this person all that much, and it's driving you crazy every day in the moment, forget about the kid part of it. Um, you know, this is, this is a tough one. It's, it's, uh, it's really tough to go ahead and tell somebody else, Hey, you need to change your life for us. Um, because I'll tell you the track record of that when you're telling the other person is, is, is not, you know, most people aren't like, yes, you're right. I am bad at this and I want to change starting tomorrow. I'll get up early and let's, let's get it done. I mean, most people just don't work that way. So, um, that's a tough one. And I don't know if I helped at all. So lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Please rate, review, and subscribe

to the Ryan Russo Podcast and the Ringer Podcast Network. And we'll talk to you on Friday. Thank you.