The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Draymond At It Again and Buying Mavs Hype? Plus Ryan Fitzpatrick on the Josh Allen Criticism and Smart Guy Questions.

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

Ryen is back with some Hump Day Hoops. Luka lit it up again against the Lakers last night, and the Mavs may have found another reliable option off the bench. Has the Warriors' championship window closed following another loss and Draymond ejection? (00:35) Former Harvard great and current 'Thursday Night Football' on Amazon analyst Ryan Fitzpatrick stops by and discusses Tommy DeVito’s cool story, Josh Allen’s career progress, and going from player to analyst. (28:53) Plus, Life Advice! One guy is frightened by what happened at a work holiday party and is concerned his job status is up in the air. (57:31) The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Ryan Fitzpatrick Producers: Cliff Augustin, Steve Ceruti, and Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's pod we got ryan fitzpatrick we're talking football what he sees in new guys and um it's gonna be a lot of fun tales from the couch nba we've got dallas's win west picture including phoenix's win against Golden State, some other things that I wanted to hit on, and life advice. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable.

Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious cr you on a Wednesday morning. I want to start with Dallas's win in Dallas against the Lakers and the resurgence of Dante Exum let's go back to that draft big Exum guy how could I not be tall athletic and dribble he'll figure out the shooting which you know it's always funny when a guy can't shoot you're like I, I'll figure it out. Like, or he won't. Exum was the fifth pick in the Wiggins draft. Believe it or not, Jabari Parker and Wiggins.

I know you guys aren't going to believe this. I was working the draft that night, and there was actually a real Jabari Parker-Wiggins debate. Embiid was the best player, but you were so worried about his health, you weren't quite sure what to make. And then Aaron Gordon went forth. And Utah, go back and read that stuff. It's like, man, did Utah actually maybe get the guy in Dante Exum? So he played 82 games his rookie year, and he was 19 years old. He was so good in some of the draft stuff leading up to it. I mean, people loved him. And he checked

a lot of Rosillo boxes back then. He missed his second season with a significant injury. He played 66 games. And then you kind of go through his NBA career, 14 games, 42 games, 35 games. I mean, on and on and on. Six games with Cleveland in 2021. you probably forgot he was in the league as long as he was um and he because he came in it so young and he just was wasn't a factor it was just kind of one of those deals every now and then be like oh that's right Dante Exum he was actually part of the Jared Allen uh more known as the James Harden trade that involved Houston the Pacers Brooklyn and Cleveland uh then when he was on Houston, he was waived. He played two years overseas. And the biggest thing with Exum was as athletic as he is and

the handle and maybe how he profiles defensively, he just can't shoot. So it was a real issue. And he was so nasty. I'm not talking like Sean Livingston's knee injury was so awful that it really derailed what the peak version of Sean Livingston was going to be. And it speaks to just how nasty he was and how smart he was and how good he was at reading defenses that he just, he figured out a role for a really long time and was a big part of some of those earlier Warriors teams. earlier Warriors teams. But with Exum, again, it's more recent that knee injury than Livingston was. You're like, okay, what is he going to be if he can't shoot? Well, in the couple of years where he was playing in yearly competition, 63 games, he actually shot it really well. 52% from the floor, 42% from three in comparison with his NBA career numbers, 42% overall from the floor, 42% from three in comparison with his NBA career numbers, 42% overall from the floor, 31% from three. So signs a two-year deal worth about six plus million total from Dallas before this season. And so far, 20 games into his NBA run this year,

he's at 53 from the floor, 41% from three, which kind of matches your own numbers. Now, look, I don't think he's still going to shoot this way, but he shot this way. He shot better than that last night. He was incredible. He always could handle. It's kind of a nice, especially with Kyrie out last couple of games, it's kind of a nice match with Luka where you need another ball handler that can get kind of their own once the defense loads up on Luka, and Luka's going to find you. I mean, he was incredible again last night.

We'll get to his numbers quickly, but it just worked, especially when you're going to make every single shot. I would argue I still don't necessarily love the way the shot looks, but they just all went in. He was 7-9 from three, 26 points. You know, you got it going early,

and you're like, is he going to carry this over to the second half? And he did because there were some plays there with Exum. There was also an incredible drive that he had against Anthony Davis where he got a good angle and was able to finish at the cup. And there were some Grant Williams threes in there as well. So Dallas did a really good job against this Lakers defense. It's been really good this season, but they had no Jared Vanderbilt,

which I think was a big issue with the closing group there with a perimeter defender. So great stuff from Exum. I don't know that the shooting is going to hold up like this, but at least there's something in two years in the 63 games in EuroLeague competition that's a stark contrast compared to what he was as an NBA player when he never shot it well consistently.

So you think if you look maybe just as the game was playing out, the three-point storyline is the difference in the game, but the Lakers actually shot it really well. Dallas was 49% from three and the Lakers shot 52% from three. I think the issue is there is that it's six less makes on 14 less attempts. So the Dodgers perimeter stuff, we know what it is. A cool 30, 33, 17 and six last night.

Um, and it looked like in the closing group, the preference for the Lakers was to have, uh, Torian Prince on Donchage and it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for almost everybody that's trying to guard him. He is the best ISO guy. I don't care what the numbers are

as far as like, hey, the ball's in your hand. Get us a really good look. He's on that. To me, he's at the top of the list. I'm not saying it gets you through to an NBA championship, but it's just absurd. There's some passing stuff that I want to get to here, but with Prince, even though he has the length to theoretically match what Doncic is, I think I'd rather have stoutness

than length against Luka because Luka's just going to get wherever he wants. Then if you double him, as we know, he's going to find the pass. Then you have Grant Williams in the corner making everything last night and then Exum and then Hardaway has his moments that are really big, lively on the lobs that you have to worry about a little bit. So it was a really nice win from Dallas in this game. Now the passing part of it, you know how I feel about like the high single usage guys. And I've broken down the history of that in the past. I'll probably bring it back again where if you look at the highest usage seasons in NBA history

and then look at what those teams do in the playoffs, it's almost never a success. It's not impossible, but it's almost never successful for that high usage guy for that season. You're like, okay, what's going to happen? Where's the playoff success? I mean, it was pretty alarming

how bad the history shows that. Not to say that you can't have a season like Giannis getting everything done against Phoenix. So it always comes back to kind of the Luca Dallas question. I thought they passed the ball really well last night, and it's just so tempting because their overall pass numbers per game are incredibly low. They pass 257 times per game, which is 29th in the NBA, ahead of only, you guessed it, the Clippers, who, by the way, per game, which is 29th in the NBA, ahead of only, you guessed it, the Clippers, who, by the way, I owe a deep dive on. They're playing really well. The Harden adjustment with Westbrook playing less and using this group. If they have more size eventually,

it's something to pay attention to. It's just the health bet with them, which is probably the worst health bet in the NBA. I owe a deeper dive on them, but for whatever reason, I can't watch their games until the next morning because my Lakers feed is working but my Clippers one hasn't been since I've come back so I didn't get a chance to watch the fourth quarter or at least the closing stuff from the Clippers last night this morning because I was prepping for this so back to the passing thing so look we know the Clippers don't pass we know Dallas doesn't pass and for Dallas, I mean, it's just, what are you supposed to do? I love making the defense work. Passing makes the offense easier. We all know this. And yet with Doncic, he can go at a slow

pace. He can have the ball maybe longer than everybody else in the league per possession. And he's going to probe. He's going to get a good angle. He's going to break the paint. He's going to make somebody else come over and help. And hopefully you have a big that can hold up defensively against Anthony Davis. And Lively is not that yet. It's not fair to ask him to do that as a rookie. But Davis is, you know, it's not the scoring. I know people make these second half scoring jokes about Anthony Davis, but even if he's having the bad second half scoring stuff, the stuff he's been doing the last couple weeks where he is making it so hard on you

to operate around the rim, whether it's you scoring or him cleaning up the defensive glass, certain nights it's alarming how bad it is for the opposition in dealing with Anthony Davis. I thought I saw it in the Phoenix game. New Orleans was a blowout. I saw it again with the Pacers. I saw it last night. He's getting deep. He's getting wherever he wants. Even if you think you have something clear at the rim, he's going to. I'm so excited about how well he's played and how physical and how much his presence has meant. Maybe hold off on the second half scoring jokes because I think there's just so much more that he's doing out there. Against Lively, it's just certain times last night, you start thinking about the playoffs. You're going like, okay, if they played each other in the playoffs, how would this play out? It's like, do they really have enough

to handle a guy like Anthony Davis? I don't think a lot of teams do, to be honest with you. That's why I think all the contenders should be trying to find some big that they could close with if they don't have one right now. That's why people like Minnesota. That's why, despite being the best three-point shooting team in the NBA right now with Oklahoma City and having all these options that they can throw at you and all these multiple guys that can dribble, that can shoot, that can pass, all these guys with the ball in their hands that can do multiple things with the way the Thunder built their team. And then, of course, Jokic, which doesn't need to be added to.

But you get the point. You start kind of watching these teams play each other, and you're going, all right, well, how would they deal with that in a seven-game series? And that's where ultimately I'll get to Dallas and ask that question. But to finish off the passing thing, I thought the passing was better from Dallas last night, but it was about probably everybody making the shot off the pass. Then

all the passes look brilliant because their total passing number last night was 262. That's basically only five more than where they're at. I sound pain talking about it, right? Because it's like, well, what do you want me to do? Take the ball away from Luca? Well, no, I don't want you to do that, but I guess I want more passing, but then I'm saying that I want two entirely different things. Dallas' offense right now is third in the NBA. Defense is 23rd. Not great. If you look back at the Western Conference Finals,

Mavs, because I just don't think last year's team is worth looking at. That's why when we were doing the preseason stuff, I was like, I just feel like the NBA world is way too low on Luka, and we've seen him respond. And Dallas is a three-seed today. That Western Conference Finals Mavs run team was middle of the pack offensively. They were much better defensively that year than they are this year, but I don't really care about last season when things got really weird.

Look at the Dallas schedule. They were 8-2. I had said here on the pod it felt a little Schedule-y that they're beating a lot of bad teams. Then they went to 11-8, and then I felt like I was kind of right, but they've won four straight. Their strength of schedule, though, is one of the weakest in the league, 27th, so far based on the stuff I looked at today, some of the strength of schedule stuff.

As I point out numerous times, we're talking about with the NFL, you can get some different variations on that, or college football is even more brutal with the strength of schedule ranking. But ESPN right now had Dallas at 27th. But Kyrie's missed six games. He missed last night. Hardaway's missed three and Maxi Cleaver's missed 18. So they're the three seed. And I think the question is, are they a real West contender? I'm not ready for it. I'm not ready. Like the simple question, the exercise is this. If the Mavs won the West, would that be a surprise? Today, the answer is still yes for me.

And that's kind of where I'm at. When you look at the West, it's just, it's just, it's so loaded that, you know, there's going to be weeks and stretches of the regular season where you're going, oh, wait, look at the seating here. I'm telling you, Minnesota, you guys are getting really chesty about 17 and five, and it's been awesome. It's tied for the best record in the NBA with Boston, but just hold off if not everybody's like, yep, they're winning the West, and there's nothing else to it because you've got Oklahoma City there, Dallas, Denver that's had their own issues with the Murray injury, and then he missed another game,

then Jokic gets ejected last night, Sacramento, who I still think is going to have a really good record. I'm not sure how deep I would expect them to go, depending on who their first round matchup is. You've got the Lakers part of it, and the Clippers who have won five straight now. Phoenix, eighth, who I'm going to get to here in a second. Houston's ninth. You expect them to fall off a little bit. And the Pelicans, if they ever figure their stuff out. And then you've got Golden State Warriors. So let's go to Phoenix. 13-10, don't really care. I could give you some numbers, don't really care.

Since Kevin Durant joined Phoenix last season, so if you add up all the games since that trade, when he was actually a member of the Phoenix Suns, you go through the regular season of last year, the playoffs of last year, and the game so far this season, the 23 games so far, year and the game so far this season, the 23 games so far, the projected, the expected starting five for Phoenix has played a total of 15 times in 59 games. And that's 15 from last year and the

playoffs because it's been zero this year. We thought we were getting Durant, Beal and Booker. And then Durant was out last night with the ankle injury. So if you look at missed games, Durant's actually been the best so far. He's only missed four. Booker's missed nine. Beal's missed 19, but he was back last night. The debut could be coming either tonight or Friday. But as long as they have Booker, they have a chance. I love him. We already know it. You don't have to go into a full breakdown on it. 10-4 with them, 3-6 without them. The stats, like I mentioned, they're 11th in offense. Defensively, they're 17th. I don't even know why I wrote them down because it doesn't really mean

anything, but that's another team that you add to this entire mix here where then I'll start asking, like, okay, I know everybody likes the idea that Nurkic gets super worked up for the Jokic matchups. How's that playing out? Are they just going to be able to outscore him is dallas's offense so good can it be so good for four games in a seven game series that they can move on beyond a team to be favored against them i think i think that part of it's a little bit fair but i don't like to write off any teams i don't i just know how different the regular season is i know the lulls of it i know the stretches that we'll have where it looks like something's a little bit different.

And as great as Minnesota has been, even, you know, look at some of the other stuff, you're just going like, man, we might get a team out. We might just get some new blood here, even just in the Western Conference Finals. But it's going to be hard to write off Denver with the way Jokic has kind of dominated the league here. All right, so on the other side of this,

let's talk about the Golden State Warriors because I don't want to say it. So I'm not going to, but I'm going to flirt with the idea that the championship window is closed. Now, maybe some of you are like, hey, no shit, dude. They're not any good. They're 10 and 13. They were five and one. Remember that? When they were 5-1 and we're like, man, can Curry win another MVP and look at what all the stuff that they're doing? I don't think they were a 5-1 team. I don't think Curry was going to be able to sustain the offensive output that he was having, and we'll see at the close of last night's game

why it's going to be really hard for him to be as efficient as he normally is. But it's just bad. Here's a number for you. Last year when they got into the playoffs, despite the weird road record and the road defensive stuff, where they were just atrocious defensively on the road, one of the things that they always banked on for the Warriors is that their starting five was a net plus 22 last year. That's a massive number. You want to talk about a massive swing?

It's minus 10.2 going into last night's game. The starting five, that resume, the trust, and I know people can look at Kerr and say, man, he's being really, really stubborn with all this, and Klay's not good, and Wiggins isn't good. I'll get to the Draymond part of this here in a bit. I don't know that the young guys are dramatically better, but they were last night. You could see that Kerr finally started the second half. He was like, all right, I'm not doing this. Wiggins, Klay, I'm not doing it. He didn't close with Wiggins or Klay either.

It was Pajemski. He kept Chris Paul in, whose shooting numbers since the disaster started this have turned around a bit. Look, I think Chris Paul's fine for what he needs to be for them, and yet Klay was so bad, and he's on the bench watching the end of this game. So let's get to the Draymond part. He gets ejected now a third time this season. He'll be suspended. As an aside, Punishment Twitter, not my favorite content, because if you're not the most punitive voice out there, then you're doing it wrong. I see some of the projections for what should happen with Draymond, because he straight up punched Nurkic in the face. I don't want to hear about it. The open hand, closed hand,

okay, fine. It was open. He knew exactly what he was doing. These guys are world-class athletes. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. In that moment, he wanted to hit Nurkic in the face. After the game, Draymond said, I'm not, what was the quote? I'm not one for apologizing. Yeah, we're aware, dude. We're aware. But then he did say he wanted to apologize to Yusuf. He said he was trying to sell the foul, and that's why he spun around the way he did.

Total bullshit. Don't believe him. I don't think any of us should. Now, having said all those things, it doesn't mean that I think the guy should be suspended 20 games. But punishment Twitter is a harsh world. It was the same time with the john morant deal because you just if you're throwing around a number like i thought 25 games was excessive for him i think it was one of the few people saying that and i had people

like how could you i'm like i don't know like 20 what do you want 50 games for this guy like i don't even think it should have been 25 but again there may be more information that i am not privy to that the nba is and that's why they went in the direction that they went. So to finish up the Draymond part of it, look, it's selfish. It's always been selfish. It was selfish in 16. In all these altercations, he's actually never right. There's a few times every now and then in the league you'll see something happen, and you're like, okay, I can kind of see what happened there.

This guy doesn't really do this. I remember when I interviewed him in Toronto during All-Star weekend I asked him about 16. we're sitting there and I was just like is there any party that kind of wonders like can I do all this without doing this and he just like looked at me and kind of like laughed and I got his point it's like he is wired this way and him being wired this way is what made him all this money and made him an NBA player and we've covered covered this before. I mean, he even brought it up. I think he even quoted the 75 million of that contract that he'd had at the time. So this sounds weird, but I actually respect that. I respect that part of it. But it's now crossed over in the last couple of years into territory that's entirely about

what he wants to do in that moment and not what his team needs him to do because they're two and six now in games where Draymond has been suspended or ejected. Um, and this is somebody who's just never really shown any remorse for it whatsoever. After he punched pool last year for apparently pool calling him a expensive $30 million backpack for Steph Curry. Uh, you know, he was out on TNT's desk promoting his mini documentary from Japan. I mean, the whole thing was a joke. The tone was ridiculous. The editing of the documentary. Now, granted, if you're getting access to him, you're going to make every star of the documentary his own hero, but it was like when he was exiled from the team. You're like, motherfucker, he punched his teammate. We all saw it. So, you know, that's the part that I think is most alarming. And, you know, after the last ejection, I thought Kerr really had Draymond's back in a way that was, it made me think he was worried about him.

Even Nurkic said the brother needs some help or something. But it's not what the Warriors need right now because the other guys aren't playing well. They bring in Pajemski. They went with Kaminga. They played with Moody some more. There's a lot of Sharich possessions. I would argue way too many for a good basketball team or a team that's supposed to be good, but Wiggins has been terrible. 41% from the floor, 28% from three. His PER is seven. When you're a single digits PER, start getting the foreign language apps. He was 15 last year and he was kind of disappointing. Clay, who wasn't just one to eight from three, but fumbled the ball out of bounds, he just looked defeated. He has, for the month, if you go by months,

and granted we have some incomplete months here this early in the NBA season, 40% from three, 35%, now 28% from three in December. He was just bad last night. His PER has gone from 15 last year to 10. If you looked at Klay Thompson's stat line, even with a diminished line of last year, if you looked at this year's line in the metrics with last year, you'd be like, who's that guy? That's a completely different guy. So both guys aren't getting it done. And Draymond is dealing with his own bullshit half the season.

And it leads to Steph Curry taking a ton of brutal shots. Steph could shoot even more. If he had a different mentality, he could shoot even more, but he's basically not going to take more than 20 shots per game with this team. In the fourth quarter, he knew. He's like, I don't have Klay. I don't have Wiggins. Pajemski has his moments and he's a rookie, so it's kind of fun, but there's also going to be some moments where you're like, what are you doing? Moody's been just way steadier this year, which I think is a good sign. Kaminga still feels real hit or miss, which may just be who he is at this point. Some of the Chris Paul-Sharich stuff where I'm like, the ball is ending up with Sharich's hands way too many times for this team. Curry goes one at eight from the fourth quarter. And if you watch those shot attempts,

you could see him, when I talk about quarterbacks and interceptions, elevating his risk, right? Where you're like, man, Steph knows and he has to figure out a way for this team to score. And he didn't make any of those shots. Eight shots for him in a quarter coming in the fourth quarter substitution pattern is a lot of shots for him, but he knew he needed it. And they still almost came back with some sloppy stuff from Phoenix there towards the end. So can you write them off? Can you say right now, mid-December, that's it. Golden State is done. I know that stuff sells. It doesn't feel as egregious to say that now as saying it against the Alabama Crimson Tide,

which so many people did after the South Florida disaster where they still won the game. But you get my point. I don't know how it all fixes itself, where they're at least like a six or a seven seed, and we're like, oh man, I kind of like their matchup in the first round. But I'm not going to do it. As tempting as it is, and I know so many of you have done it, and you might be right, you'll be on the right side, the early side,

whatever you want to say. I get the reluctance from some of the basketball people on this because we've seen this team do so many great things. So look, I'm kind of lying to myself here a little bit because it just does look bad now for a long enough stretch. But let's see how another month or so plays out before I'm ready to do it. another month or so plays out before I'm ready to do it. Two quick things. The Zion is overweight. Blitzkrieg in Vegas. I'm going to tell you folks something. This was unpopular when I said it, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago. But this should be a reminder to you, the people that you get mad at that are on TV, that are are on radio that are on podcasts um they don't watch nearly as much as you think they do now that's not hey i'm giving myself a

fucking medal because i watch and i've learned plenty of times that talk about how much i watch or taking notes like nobody wants to hear about it so i try not to even you know whatever i have notes in front of me but i'm not gonna i don't know how else to do the job right but i remember one time when skip bayless had said he's arguing about chris paul he was like i've watched every game he's played in his career college and the pros and it was just an absurd absurd statement and it wasn't true um and that was him saying that because i don't know he's trying to win the argument the whole thing so i had said in a podcast years and years ago um it wasn't even specific about him i was like just don't get that mad because it's really hard like not having kids I don't know how some of these other guys do it.

You know, soccer practice would have gotten the way last night. I wouldn't have figured out the second half rotation for the Warriors. You know, I don't, I envy the guys that can do this and have a life and have all these different things going on. But the reason I bring up the Zion example is that if I say something where I'm like, Oh, I'm worried about this team. I'm worried about this player. I really like this player. I really like what this team has done. I'll have had to have seen it like four or five times before I'm ready to even share it in a podcast. I would never, I would never not watch a team for like a month, watch them once and then tell you what that team is or isn't for 10 minutes in a segment. I wouldn't, like that to me is like the antithesis of how, like I would feel so uncomfortable doing

the job just being like, I haven't watched that team for a month. You want a hard seven minutes on them? I got you. All right. So part of it was everybody being in Vegas. Part of it was seeing it live and how bad Zion was against the Lakers because the Minnesota game, he was incredible. He was assertive. He was decisive. He was a little bit more aggressive. Maybe he got tired of being called fat for a week straight by everybody.

But when I had said it after the Utah game previously, I had said, because I had already seen these things multiple times, knowing full well as I tweeted out after that Pelicans-Lakers in-season tournament game that the guy was going to get 30 again soon. That's the scary thing about him. That's why I think it's so frustrating because he can do that and still be this out of shape. But what I thought was really telling

and what you should always remind yourself of is that it also proved that a lot of people that talk NBA hadn't watched him at all this fucking season. That's kind of what happened there. So everybody was on it at the same time where they also, I think, collectively told on themselves that, yeah, I'm watching him. told on themselves that, yeah, I'm watching him. Now, maybe the out is we all saw it in person. Maybe. But seeing him against LA look that bad was not surprising to me because I'd already put him on my worry list, I think a week and a half before that because of the stuff. I think maybe it was just a week with the Utah back-to-back stuff where I went, what is going on here? After I'd already seen it multiple times during the season. I think even after I did the Utah, post-Utah thing, he went at like 11 to 12

from the floor. So I know the dangerous game of wondering where it's going full. When I'm worried about a player, it doesn't mean I think they're going to score zero points in every game for the rest of the season. But I thought that was a little thing that you should remind yourself of when somebody's getting on your favorite team and your favorite player. It doesn't mean you're always right, but I know you've watched them more. Cash in on balling out this NBA season with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. season with FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 Moneyline bet. That's $150 if your team wins. Okay, so let's look at a couple straight Moneyline bets for you here. Now, if you want to play a favorite, there's plenty of them out there for you. Let's go with two dogs.

Let's go Memphis plus seven, or you can just go Memphis straight up for the odds on that one because it's plus 235. This Spurs-Lakers line is terrible. Granted, it's coming off the back-to-back for the Lakers, an intense TNT game, but San Antonio's only getting a point and a half at home. So the money line reward in that one isn't even all that great. Although if you're going to bet it, bet the Spurs plus the one and a half. Yes, I realize that doesn't make any sense,

but because it doesn't make any sense, that's why you're going to go ahead and bet it. See if there's a better Moneyline one here, just for the people that want to get involved. How about Pelicans? Minus 310 against the Wizards, where they're favored by 8. If you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, there's no better time to join. The app is easy

to use, and there's a wide range of ways to bet, including quick bets, live same-game parlays, the Parlay Hub, and more. So visit FanDuel.com slash Ryan, R-Y-E-N, and turn dimes into dollars this season. FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA.

First online real money wager only. $5 pregame money line wager required. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued with non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. I want to talk a little Chargers Raiders at some point, but we're going to start with that win by the Titans and a loss by Miami. I don't know. I mean, have you ever been a part of anything like that?

I've been a part of some crazy ones, but it was amazing. Tennessee. It's like, okay, a disciplined, bravel team. They've got the punt return gaff and then they fumble it. It's like 14 points they just give to Miami and that game is over. Wow. I had a couple of my kids went to bed and I had

to explain to them what happened this morning. It was really cool though. Bill Levis, the growth that he's showing to be in that situation. The whole analytics of going for two when you're down 14. And then unfortunately, Tua at the end, not being able to bring him back. You know, there was a lot of interesting things. And then Tyreek too, like we all know how valuable he is,

but that game really showed how valuable he is to this Miami offense. So there's a lot of different things that came out of it. But yeah, I mean, it makes these last few weeks really interesting with Miami. We saw, you know, Jacksonville struggle. We saw Kansas City struggle. So these next four weeks

are going to be awesome for the AFC playoff race. How long does it take you for a young quarterback like Levis for you to be like, OK, this is their guy for the next seven, eight years? Well, I you what we had him we had him the second week so after he threw all those touchdowns and you know that that can be a one-off it was a great game

great performance but um when we had him on thursday night i'll tell you what numbers wise wasn't anywhere near what he did the week before. But you want to talk about toughness, mental toughness and physical toughness, staying in there in the pocket and making big time throws. I was really impressed. They ended up that game. They lost to Pittsburgh, but I was really impressed by his poise, playing on the road in a tough environment. So I talked to him a little bit after the game.

And I really, really like just kind of his mental makeup i think that's such a huge part of being a successful quarterback in the nfl i'm in a constant quest to figure out who's good and who isn't and who has the numbers and you know it's it's a bit like a pitcher sometimes where there will be a younger quarterback that'll put up some numbers until the league kind of figures him out. And one of the things I always kind of default to is like, all right, third and seven, maybe even in the second half of the game, where if your guy doesn't get separation against man coverage on the first look, like, can you figure out a rest? Obviously, it's very easy for those of us on the outside to say, can he go through his progressions?

But the reason I set that up is I'd like to get something, a better understanding of things you talk about in the room, things you saw with staffs where you're like, oh wait, this is more than just a guy with a big arm that's hitting on some deep balls. And it's not even specific to Levis, but the things that kind of like the light goes off for you when you see a young quarterback play. Yeah. I think some of it is getting put in those got to have it situations. And a great game from this last weekend was the Rams and the Ravens where, you know, Stafford had to have it and he's done it his whole career,

but they go ahead and get it. And then the markets put in that situation and he has to have it and he goes down and gets it. And they've got to get the two point conversion to go up by three three and he makes an amazing play on the sprint out to throw it to Zay Flowers in the back of the end zone and then again Stafford has to have it he drives them down they take a field goal and go to overtime so those situations and that's why I pointed to you know the two-a situation at the end of the game last night where that's a gotta have it situation he had a similar one against Kansas City in Germany

where they have to have it just came up a little bit short so as you continue to look at the development of some of these young guys and that's why I pointed to Will Levis last night as well such an impressive drive they had to go down there twice and score that's when I really start to get a good feel for these quarterbacks is Is the moment too big for them? Do they play their best when their team needs them the most? So those are the moments I really like to look at it. And Jordan Love last night, same thing, you know, drives him down, scores a touchdown.

He's really starting to develop. But then, of course, Tommy Cutlets does his deal. So it's been fun to watch, man. And I tell you, this last weekend of football was it might have been the best week of the weekend of the year there's some great games yeah last night was nuts and i'll admit with uh tommy devito with the giants where you're going like look i get it lives at home and his agent shows up like an extra on some not even a sopranos episode like a ripoff of the sopropranos. And you're trying to

figure out, and then look, I'll admit, I'll be like, I think he's got like a 14 QBR and he's barely throwing the ball at all today. But then to your point in that moment, gets the ball down the field. Like, is this the veto thing real? It's a fun story. So what I try to tell these young guys, and, you know, we had Bailey Zappi on set when they beat the Steelers. Enjoy the moment. I mean, you know, as a quarterback, especially as a late brown pick or a guy that wasn't drafted, you know, you're, oh, well, we're moving on to the next one.

No, I mean, what I learned as my career went on, it's so hard to play quarterback in the NFL that when you do have success, let's, let's don't move on to the next one. Let's celebrate it. Let's enjoy it. Let's enjoy the moment. And that's what I love about DeVito right now is he is leaning in and he is enjoying this moment, uh, for everything that it's worth. Cause who knows how long it's going to last, but three weeks in a row, it's still going baby.. All right. Let's talk Purdy. Before I ask about him specifically, who do you like better, San Francisco or Dallas? I mean, overall as a team, San Francisco.

I don't see them losing anytime soon. Okay. Now, Purdy, I'll admit, too, is a big-time college fan. You're like, oh, yeah, that guy. And then when you see how late he goes in the draft and you watch him throw the football, it makes sense. You can just compare it to Levis. It doesn't mean one's going to be a better quarterback than the other, but there's certain quarterbacks that have some real pop where the physical parts jump out to you. And I think with Purdy at first, you're like, I don't even think he's as physically as gifted as even Garoppolo was, but it's clear in Shanahan system.

Like you have to be a certain way. And then I'd look at the yards after the catch thing. And there was just a lot of arguments to kind of poke holes in the idea of whether or not this was real. And I think we're late enough in the season with Purdy. It's like, well, whatever it is,

whether it's the weapons, the old line or the system, he seems to be the first perfect match for what Shanahan wants since he's been with the Niners. Yeah, it's real. The decision-making, I mean, he's put enough out there now, even in the playoffs last year. I mean, he's done enough to show us that this is not a flash in the pan. He is here to stay. And I have a unique perspective. He's from my hometown. His high school football coach was my brother's high school football coach. So even just hearing the stories from him in high school and how special he was and, you know, what an unbelievable football player he was back then,

his ability to process, his accuracy with the football. When you look at Brock and you look at Tua, yeah, they're running after the catch. They've got great athletes. They've got a great system. But the thing that both of them do well is they anticipate and they throw with accuracy. And you're not going to get all those yards if you're not putting the ball right where it needs to be in stride and those receivers are trusting you. against Brock, they haven't watched him play. You know, I mean, just, yes, you could throw a screen and Debo can go for 50. I get that. But watch the kid play. Watch him put the ball down the field. Every statistical category.

He's up there in the top three. He's an absolute machine. And to do it over and over and over consistently like he has, it's been unbelievable to sit back and watch this kid. Going, I think, into last week, 48.5% of his yards were yards after the catch. You're like, okay, well, the NFL average, I think, is 47, and Mahomes in his MVP year was at 54.

So there's a lot of great quarterbacks that still live with the yard after the catch. Yeah, I would just say, too, like these air yards, like how far is he throwing it down the field? Like, watch the kid. He throws the ball down the field. I mean, we've got a lot of quarterbacks i would i haven't looked at the stats so i hope i'm right but it's like his his air yards have to be a lot higher than homes this year you know

um he puts the ball down the field um so it's impressive to watch uh and the other thing with him though is even when it's not there and he's athletic enough to get outside the pocket or to make the right decision all the time and scramble. Um, but that's, it's just, that's what, that's what blows me away as a guy that chased after it for so long to try to figure out how to consistently make the right decisions is he is 95% of the time he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. Do you think we should have four different categories for interceptions? I want to, I want to make this happen where it's the late in the game,

down two scores, kind of the, you had to have a point. Like, I feel like all of Brady's interceptions were, he absolutely had to have it, or there was a linebacker that he didn't expect to turn back around on the route where it was the linebackers's fault for actually catching the interception and then you could just

have the 50 50 balls and then you could have ones where it's like do you not realize you were in too deep and the safety was on the other side of the throw those are the ones that were like that should count as that should be like two interceptions and the first one should be like a half an interception i don't know if we can do this I don't know if anyone can be fair and unbiased enough to just go back through it, but I'm more convinced than ever. Just all interceptions are not created equal when I used to obsess about the number as if it told me anything. Yeah, I love that. I've lived on that line forever. All interceptions have their own unique story. But I think part of it is the quarterback not caring either. And you can always tell,

like if you, you know, if you've got the hail Mary at the end of the half and you elect for the, the quick throw, or, you know, it just drifts out of bounds to where it was close. But there's a lot of guys that are thinking about their numbers.

So at the end of the season, when you look and they've got that, you know, 26 to 12 split instead of 26 to 15, it looks a lot better. But that's what I love about Josh Allen. I mean, yes. Has he thrown interception? Sure.

Let's go down and break them all down. Like that doesn't affect his mental makeup. It doesn't affect how he's attacking. It doesn't affect what he does in future. So there are certain guys that, you know, obviously they, it matters, it matters to throw an interception or not, but it shouldn't linger and carry on. Um, and that's, that's been one of the things Dak story this year, you know, from last year and all the interceptions that happened to this year, when I was looking, we're preparing for

his game. I'm looking back through 10 interceptions in the second quarter last year. And I'm just trying to like figure out why, why the second quarter, it made no sense. It wasn't two minute drives. It just so happened that it happened to be the second quarter. But he's been great this year. And obviously when you're winning in games and blowing people out,

you know, there's a lot of that game where you're not going to be at risk to throw interceptions versus when you're losing by a bunch. So yeah, Alan's had an interesting year because, you know, he got a little turnover happy, maybe even, you know, deep into the opponent's territory last year to some red zone throws. Like those are the ones where you're like, look, if I have an extra down or two, uh, there's been a couple of throws with Alan where it's like first or second down deep in his own territory where I'm like, I just don't know that you needed that shot. I don't know that you needed that throw. So we get it. He throws interceptions. It might be who he is.

But then you look at that throw that he had against the Chiefs where he barely stays in bounds. Maybe if it's a pick, then we were like, what are you thinking? How can you do this? But for somebody that clearly you like Buffalo and played the position, there has to be a part of you that finds it maddening the way he has talked about as if he's this massive disappointment now the last two years yeah and i don't i don't know that that bothers him at all to be honest i think that's why he's such a great fit for buffalo and why he's such a great fit for that locker room um that's what i always say like well don't cheer for the good ones then if you're going to be the guy that's complaining you know when bad things happen and when he's trying to make a play look a couple of them this year has been third and 16 and he's

thrown 45 yard passes to digs and they it means a punt like you know but the the one the one that he had fallen out of bounds one of the best plays that's been made all year where he throws to latavius murray and but it's like you're not allowed to cheer that one. Nope. If you're going to be complaining about the other ones, I don't want to hear it. But that's, you know, Buffalo is really interesting right now. So many of those teams sitting at seven and six. They're playing Dallas this week. Do they have to win out? Probably not.

But 10 wins, somebody's not getting in with 10 wins this year in the AFC. So if you're thinking you want to definitely be in, then they've got to be able to win out. How do you think they match up against Dallas? Well, Dallas is a different team at home in a way, you know? So the fact that it's in Buffalo,

I think is a big advantage. You know, when we watched that Seattle game versus Dallas, they're vulnerable on defense. I mean, they're making big plays and coming up with big plays, but you know when we watch that seattle game versus dallas they're vulnerable on defense i mean they're making big plays and coming up with big plays but um you know i think buffalo is really um put a lot of emphasis on the run game i think that's going to be a big deal but we're also in turning up we're no longer low positive with josh i mean he's in playoff mode

right now he's going to get after it he's's not going to hook slide. He knows how important all these games are. So I think it's going to be a great matchup for the Bills. Obviously, Dallas is playing some of the best football of anybody in the league right now. But the fact that it's in Buffalo, I think really helps. Mahomes clearly made a lot of headlines. I felt like he's done so many great things, carried himself in such an awesome way. Like he is the epitome of what you want for the face of your franchise as a quarterback. That him blaming the rest after Tony clearly being offside. So my opinion, like I felt like he deserves at least a pass for people to be kind of outraged.

And then even today, he's since kind of apologized for the massive outburst. What's that moment like? what's that moment like what's that moment like when you just things just don't feel you you want to vent and in this case for you guys you know back when you're playing uh the venting could become public yeah i i that that frustration wasn't just from that moment there's been some building frustration with them and the way that they've played and you know some of the issues that they've had this year. So that was, it just kind of boiled over in that moment. Look, Patrick Mahomes, he's a great guy. Obviously, he's a great quarterback, but he's a great human being. You know, he came out, admitted he was a

little bit wrong in his reaction. And even, you know, when he's talking with Josh Allen, there's been some stuff there about like, oh, I can't believe he took this moment away from Josh. Look, Patrick and Josh are great friends. So that was almost just, yes, they're great competitors, but that was just a friend moment, you know, where it didn't take anything away from, from Josh's feelings at that point. But I liked the fact that he came back, he retracted it a little bit and said, look, you know, I know I've got a lot of eyeballs looking at me and I can't act that way. And I think he he deserves some grace. He deserves a pass because of the way he's carried himself throughout his career. You know, I see no issues with him saying, look, I was wrong.

My fault. And just moving on. Yeah, I'm glad you said that about their friendship, because that's what I thought when I saw it. And look, I mean, I'm a huge like Mahomes has gotten assigned to TV at my place now since this whole run has started. So I'm not a Chiefs fan. I'm not upset if they lose games. I just love watching this guy play just the way he plays his position

in a way that I don't think I've ever seen before. And you're right. When I saw him say that to Allen, I go, that's actually two guys that know each other where he's just kind of venting to somebody as like, that would be the weirdest thing ever if they had zero relationship. And he said it to him. And I think that's kind of the way it was consumed. Right. Right. But they're, they're best of friends. Like, um, you know, so there's, there's a relationship outside of football with those guys. So that's why,

you know, I think that got a little overblown as well. Brady said something recently that I felt like I noticed, but nobody's going to listen to me say it. The terms buddy pass, probably a bunch of other terms out there. We saw Jefferson just get absolutely just forked into his rib cage on a throw this weekend. And when Brady basically was like, there's just too many throws now we're not thinking about the safety of the pass catcher meaning that it's on the quarterback and where he's putting the ball now look I've talked to Steve Young about this going back years and Steve Young was like dude those guys get destroyed on those routes to the point where we would just stay away

from that part of the field and now you can actually live in this part of the field. So it's a completely different game, all these different things. I felt like Brady was onto something, but it could be in the moment of feeling like I'm paying more attention to it because I do feel like there's a lot of throws where they're just not on target and you're putting your receiver in a really, really tough spot to stay healthy. Yeah. I mean, he benefited from those rules greatly as well, you know? So I think part of it is some of these offenses, you know,

the, the Shanahan, the McVay, all that influence you're attacking inside of the numbers. And a lot of it is these timing throws with guys coming out of their breaks. But it's just, I don't know.

That's it's not more than in, in your opinion, you're seeing it more. It's just, I don't know. That's it's not more than in, in your opinion, I don't, um, I think those rules were put in place for a reason. And trust me, if you're laying your guy out, if I'm playing for the bucks and I'm laying Mike Evans out into a safety, um, he's going to let me know about it and say he didn't appreciate that one. You know, so it's not, it's not something that guys are now throwing it over the middle because they're not afraid to get hit. Those hits are still being had as you saw with Justin Jefferson,

but it's definitely changed from 20 years ago, but Tom, Tom benefited from that little change too. Yeah. The other part of me made me think, like this is the first time in 20 years you've sat down and watched all these games. Well, and that's, that's actually what I was going to say, you know, his point of like, Oh, I'm seeing a lot of bad football. Um, is, you know, I, I was just thinking about, okay, well, he probably has seen maybe Thursday night, Sunday night, Monday night throughout his career. He's usually playing those night games, you know, but he hasn't sat down to watch some of the lower tier teams on Sundays much of the time.

So he's maybe getting a taste of what everybody has seen. But then you go to this weekend. And again, I'll just how many great games were there this weekend where it was just everything was down to the wire and, you know, the comebacks and it was really good football. So, you know, I think and it was really good football so you know i think the nfl is in a good place i think there's been a lot of injuries at quarterback key injuries at quarterback this year but it's also shown you know a guy like uh brian dable and what he's done you know with the quarterback situation he's had to be able to win the games that they've had um you know some of these coaches are rising to the top

in terms of getting over the fact they've lost their guy. Jake Browning, what a great story. Other than the thumb cramp during the game, I don't know if you saw that. Do you see that? Yeah, yeah. That's how you know you've been a backup for a while when you're getting so many throws

and that your thumb starts cramping during the game and you have to go get an IV. But there's been some good coaching jobs this year. Some of these young quarterbacks, Stefanski, same thing, not a young quarterback with Flacco, but winning the games they've won pretty complete team. And now Flacco is playing well for them. I can just see Jake Browning. If he ever does a book, you're going to be worried about his book signing. It gets you locked in up to you uh what surprised you about being on the media side but you guys have like you're not just in a studio that's the part i think it's cool i think it's one

of the on the amazon broadcast for for you and chris and the gang and everybody that it's it's the former player deal but it feels far more intimate it all seems like personalities get along, which should always be a bit of a challenge. But what's been surprising about being on this side yet still so close to it for you? I love the fact that last year, we had Tony Gonzalez, we had Carissa, who are two vets in the industry. And they just said, okay, they brought me in they brought wit in they brought sherman who are all fresh off the field and i love every week just watching the camaraderie you know we're standing out there on the field before the game and just the relationships that we have maybe it's coaching staffs maybe it's players but still like so close and intimate to

the nfl locker rooms with the relationships that we carved out throughout our career. That part's been really fun. You know, the interesting part is just talking in 15 second clips or 10 second clips. Maybe sometimes you get a 25 second point, but it's like, you know, whatever you say, they're going to take the small snippet and whatever's going to make it interesting and put it out there.

Um, so, so learning how to navigate, um, that part of it a little bit has been interesting, but we, we have a lot of fun. We all still love watching the game and love being around it.

And so hopefully that comes across to our viewers as well. No, it definitely does. And what I do like about it is that, you know, I think there's, there's so many shows that want to emulate, uh,

TNT in the basketball broadcast. But the reason why the TNT basketball broadcast works is because they give them the freedom to make it work for these, these other shows where there's, they're so quick and granted this is streaming. So you have even more room. Uh, there's probably some nights where it's cold enough.

You're like, well, how many more segments do we have? I know that the TNT thing seems to be the standard, seems to be the goal for everyone, but there's a looseness and comfort and just room that I think is so much better for a group that's new together. I watch some of these other broadcasts of stuff

and it's like you throw these people together and then you're counting down in their ear just as they started talking. And that's not comfortable for anybody, especially when you're just starting out on TV. Yeah. And one of the things we found last year, you know, our producer Spoon Daffry

does a great job of kind of letting our personality show and not taking things too serious. We love football, but we can also have fun. And what we found last year, I'll say we have a two and a half minute segment instead of saying, okay,

Fitz, you have 15 seconds, Sherm, 15 seconds to just allow us to have a free flowing conversation about football. Maybe it is, Hey, Andrew Whitworth, give me 20 seconds on why you think Dallas is going to beat Philadelphia.

And then from there, just to have a free-flowing conversation based off of what Big Whit said. That part has been really fun because I think it gets a lot of good stuff out of all of us. We all have our strong opinions. opinions. Um, so to be able to, to dive into some of those things and to have the versatility to do that with the different people on the desk, because of how much we watch and enjoy the game. I think that's been a great part of it. Before we let you go, uh, we have this thing called five questions. I don't do it all the time, but I want to do it with you. And it doesn't always lead up to five questions. I only have three written down, so it'll be quick for you. Econ major, right? Yeah. So let's get into it. Uh, first question is where do you see the 10 year treasury note going in 24? Uh, I don't know. Um, this feels a lot like when my son asked me

calculus BC questions and he says, dad, how do you do this? Um, you know, I'm a little out of it right now. So what I would do true Harvard, man, I would just lean on some of my friends. So let me, let me get a text out there and I'll, uh, I'll talk to you in a couple of minutes after the show. No problem. No problem. Okay. Next one. Uh, do you believe that the U S dollar will eventually lose its place in the reserve currency i mean these are hard-hitting questions right here no i don't ever the cycle of the cycle of societies never never never yes in my lifetime we've never had a breakout on cnbc so this could be our first usually gets picked up by somebody else. All right. Last one. Pre-revolutionary war right around there. I don't know how many guys are actually

paying, but the common tax rate in America was one to 1.5%. Now I can see how people could look back and say, how did we get so far away from that? But do you think that was the leading cause of just infrastructure being at a low level lack of public transit so that therefore we should be able to look at today's rates and understand because back then just not exactly the same setup in towns, villages. You know, the big dig, as you know, wow, what a great infrastructure project that was. How come you don't have five of these questions? I want two more of these.

These are fun. Are they? I don't know. As I was writing. No, I don't know that they are hard hitting questions. I'm going to have to go back and do a bunch of research now. Thank you, Ryan. No, it's a great point, because if you're at're at one, 1.5%, there's no big dig.

I mean, there may be a hole. Well, the big dig was much later down the road, but yeah, you're right. It's just something to think about next April. Ryan, thanks again. We got the Chargers at Raiders, TNF, Amazon. It's a lot of fun watching Ryan and everybody

else. I appreciate the time. Thank you so much. It's a lot of fun watching Ryan and everybody else. I appreciate the time. All right. Thank you so much. This next segment is brought to you by Google Pixel, the only phone engineered by Google and the official fan phone of the NBA and WNBA. With all-star features, Pixel 8 Pro has all the fun tools fans can actually rally around,

like Audio Magic Eraser. It lets you cut out the background noise so that you can capture the sound of every swish, dish, and yana slam of the in-season tournament loud and clear. The Google Pixel is built different. So are the Orlando Magic, at least so far. All right, we take a look at where they're at in the standings, and they are the two seed today in the East on the game and a half behind Boston, right in the mix there with Milwaukee and Philadelphia. If you take a look at the schedule, let's gear up for it. Back-to-back

against Boston, at Boston, by the way. Then you've got Miami, Milwaukee, Indiana, and then the first break will be the day after Christmas against the Wizards. So this is a tough five-game stretch with four of them on the road. Three and two, could it possibly happen? The team is deep, despite even having some injury issues with Markel Fultz missing 18 games. They found a way with Cole Anthony, I think, being steadier. Jalen Suggs improving quite a bit. And even though you don't see a ton of raw stats from Anthony Black, I just really enjoy watching him play.

And that's with, so far, Fultz and Wendell Carter Jr. missing 18 games each. Paolo Bancaro is 21 years old. He turned 21 in November. Do you know what his shooting splits are? I don't think you do. 29.8%. Let's just call it 30 from three last year, 39% from three this year. He's taking about the same shots as he did last year, but I love watching him play. So maybe we'll find out if the Magic truly are built different going through this stretch and into 2024. For fans who want an experience that's truly built different, you got to get the new Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro. Learn more about the official fan phone of the NBA at googlestore.com forward slash Pixel NBA.

Audio Magic Eraser requires Google Photos app may not work on all audio elements 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 could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. The email address here is lifeadvicerr at gmailmail.com we shorted you a bit on monday we had some technical issues so we're gonna hook you up today what is up to kyle and what is up to steve who's got a little what do we call that taupe salmon the shirt i thought you're gonna i thought you're gonna comment on uh on my skin tone currently because you guys are gonna laugh

at me and i probably should i probably shouldn't even admit this out loud but so i'm going to mexico leaving for mexico tomorrow um one of my best friends to get married plato carmen gonna be great all the boys are excited um are you about to tell me you've got self tanner um i don't have self so so my wife something close in that of the same ilk. Wow. So my wife bought this. It's basically like this drop thing that you put into lotion and, you know, gives you a little bit of color because it's the middle of winter. It's not the middle winter, but it's we're getting into winter here in the northeast. Your boy is looking a little bit pale and I don't want to take the shirt off and embarrass anybody.

So I put a little bit on and I'm not I don't know. You're glowing, buddy. You're glowing. It's not quite snooki vibes but it's definitely it's definitely different those connecticut skies just weren't getting it done how you need i didn't i didn't mean to overdo it but maybe i overdid it kind of here i don't know i can't tell it just looks like maybe you have a filter on the zoom but um i probably kept this to myself but i'm gonna no i love it i thought it was the shirt and like everything was just reflecting

back off the screen but But yeah, you were. You guys ever been tanning? I did it once before I went to Jamaica. I have not because it's because it's I would I always wanted to, but it's like bad for you. I never want me. My sister always yell at me. Wanted to.

Well, you know, you get like a you need like if you go to the beach, you got to get like a base tan layer else. You just burn when you go there. If you go in the middle of winter. So I'm like, all right, I'll go and get it. But they're they always yell at me and say, you know, it's not good for you. So I've never been. Is that true? You need a base layer. I just thought when you go there if you go in the middle of winter so i'm like all right i'll go and get it but they're they always yell at me and say you know it's not good for you so i've never been is that true you need a base layer i just thought that's what people said i didn't know that was actually like there's stuff to back it up yeah i don't know if that's true

i'm sure some like it could be fine right i think what you could do is ease yourself into the day you know go like look if you're going to the equator straight from vermont like we were it was it was like you better do something now you probably could have gone like 70 50 30 just wean yourself off the sbf and warm up to it to avoid the torching of the first day um but it didn't work i i went to the tanning because everybody else was doing i was like i guess i guess they were like dude you, you better do it. You're going to be down there for weeks. So I was like, all right.

And then I did it once. I didn't even think it did anything. And then I burned. Yeah, you got to go for multiple sessions, I think. I mean, here's the deal. People look better tanned. It is what it is. And I'm not, you know.

Not geishas. Well, okay. Sorry to the geishas out there. But they might look better tanned. We don't know. I've never seen a tanned geisha's well okay sorry to the geisha's out there but they might look better we don't know i've never seen a tan geisha so we don't know wow really just stepping up for big tanning beds over here nice job are they as popular anymore i just always felt like whenever you met the tanning bed guy in town you're like it was the most automatic thing ever you're like up tanning bed who's that guy do and then you just be like does is he the guy that owns the tanning bed salon i'd be like yeah he owns tank i went to one uh right before my wedding my wife was like she

didn't know the area it was at beckypsy so she was like you got to bring me and i mean you're right it was it was that guy and he was like ridiculously like he was like orange and i'm like this isn't i don't think this is the tanning bed guy you want that's gonna be like you know it's gonna be great and she didn't even i feel like more people are doing that shower thing now which just i mean my wife's smell is like i don't like the smell i had to like sit outside in the little room with her but not in the shower and i was like this is fucking crazy and then she just got oranger and oranger and then it like it kind of tapered off before she got in that white dress but i was like this is exactly what i was afraid of but it worked out she looked great but that guy was just like he was basically like sebastian maniscalco

if you guys know who he is uh the comedian and uh but just orange and he was it was it was it was a very unique type of dude i was like this is the tanning guy yeah i was thinking like was he like in the you know the italian tuxedo sort of tank top deal with like maybe a fake Cuban links chain on or something. A lot of chest hair. That's what I picture. I think it's medium shirt, like almost no hair. Super, super jacked. But the shirt was probably a size too small, which he pulled it off.

But I just I couldn't believe we were in there doing this. I'm like, this is you're going to look crazy. You're going to look crazy. Look at this man. Look at this man look at this man and he was talking about the whole time like if you don't do this correct you gotta put like some sort of agent uh like lubricant agent on before and he's like if you don't do this you're gonna it's gonna be fucked up every every turn of the thing was like if you don't do exactly what i tell you it's gonna be fucked up and i'm like why are we doing this maybe but he's also

you know selling you the lotions and everything i think owning the tanning salon is just the entry level. That's like the first level to owning the strip club. So, you know, wind suits or whatever. So Rudy shows up in Mexico to be like, what's going on with him? Like he was fired up for the Walker premiere. Seriously. All right, let's go. Hey, what's up?

Shout out to Chalamet. How good did he look at the NBA? He looks so good. Although the hair, I don't love the he's got this thing where they and like i don't know if it's like i know what he's doing i'm so good looking i can just do this he's gonna he's doing like some of the i don't know tom hardy's dabbled in it dicaprio's dabbled in it where these guys are just so good looking that they are like i want to i want to try to look unattractive. Just getting bored out there. They're just testing everyone to be like, how

beat could I look? And people are still going to say I'm hot. I'm about to start smelling too. You're going to have to deal with that too. Not showered. Smell, I don't know. That's different. I don't know if I believe that part of it. Okay, let's see here. Should we start? Okay, this one's...

I think it's real 34 5 foot 10 and a half the fact that we got the half does this mean this guy's an attention to detail guy or no that's a 510 statement isn't it that's a 510 kind of statement yeah but why just because then if he just said 510 we'd say maybe he's 599 whatever just hit 300 the bench a few weeks ago crossfit pull-ups should be called chin over bars all right we're in agreement there anyway a really good friend of mine tragically passed away about nine months ago it sucked i loaned him a thousand dollars about a year before to help him with moving and transitioning to a new job it's not a huge deal i kind of forgot

about it until it randomly popped in my head yesterday i'm pretty successful for my age made over 500k each of the last two years selling residential real estate we have an all-time real estate photo included with this it's kind of like his business card um it's giving off big short vibes a little bit that's my bread and honey um let's see i'm so he's successful so i don't need it by any means but it's still a thousand freaking bucks you know should i ask his brother who's a year older was in the same fraternity as both of us in college but i don't really talk to anymore his parents who i'd met a bunch of times in college or just let it go completely or is bringing this up to either of them an absolute dick move and should i just write this one off yeah write it off i mean the guys that's crazy it's crazy especially 500k a year guy and

maybe that maybe that's why you're rich because a thousand bucks is still a thousand bucks but i wouldn't do it if you had to loan this guy a thousand bucks to move i doubt like there's so much in assets that it's gonna be like oh yeah we'll just break this dude off a thousand dollars like there's it's probably a financial mess in addition to everything right like and now they're proud to try to figure out who needs to get paid what and all this stuff and and then you know getting todd is thousand dollars for something that he says happened a year ago it's just not it. I'll treat this as real because this segment isn't fun if we're thinking people are lying to us, but I would just let

this go. I think it's real. I do think it's real because it's so specific and we're getting kind of the business card look at the tag part, the bio here, but go ahead. What's the number though that you would ask? Because I agree, $1,000 if you're making half a million a year is kind of a dick move.

It's not kind of. It's totally a dick move. The kid died. You're going to go to his parents and be like, hey, I mean, a grand. And you try not to be loose about all this, but it's all ratios. And if you're telling us you're making $500,000, come up with some other imaginary thing in your head where you save yourself a thousand bucks by not doing something all right you know right next the next time you want to go buy three pairs of fancy jeans maybe two pairs you go hold off because they're

all just going to stack up in the closet you're going to go back and wear the same pairs of jeans while all the other ones watch and boredom the entire time so like if you can figure out some like sometimes i'll try to do that where if i feel like i'm down on something i'll go all right i'm gonna not do this for a month or whatever um you know if i feel like i needed like even my mental no no solo dinners for a month maybe just get back on track hey look i'll admit sometimes when you're ordering up the food you're like all right get out there start start cooking up some chicken. All right. So there's nothing else to add to this, right? Cerruti, do you still have more? You just can't.

Imagine going to the parents. And by the way, the other part of all of this, is they're not even going to know about the thousand bucks. Right. You're just another guy coming out of the woodwork for money. Right. Yeah. I think we got it. Okay. Charge it i think we got it okay we say it all the

time yep well said kyle well said did you have more surity i don't think we know no right no all right how about this one overdid it at the christmas office party 185 centimeters 85 kilograms from the netherlands just joined a new company on the first november and last friday in the 8th of december we had an office christmas party the official location of the party was a restaurant where it's a good atmosphere but nothing too crazy we left the restaurant where the office party was about midnight some of the people including me we continue to a different bar where it got a little crazy people dancing at tables shots joints a couple jays um some of the hr ladies yeah um some of the hr ladies were president uh present not president also i came back home at 6

a.m whoa bro that is a deep one no shoes no socks absolutely blasted, throw up all over my pants. Last thing I remember is leaving the bar at some time, skipping, and I'm walking alone through the streets of a city that I just moved to barefoot. The whole weekend had like an anxiety attack. Basically, all right, this is, said the whole weekend he had an anxiety attack over the whole situation i know that i shouldn't have gotten myself that drunk no one says hey i'm psyched i did that so don't worry that was awesome i was the man last night really really loose lubed up around 12 o'clock just jokes were flying you should do that more often i was funny like right up until two um yeah no one's like hey I need to do that more uh anyway I know I was dreading coming in today I'm writing so that he sent this to us Monday morning um

I'm so he basically reached out to us to kind of talk through it we were I'm sorry we didn't read this earlier we didn't we didn't see it uh so he's writing this before I leave for work. Um, before I, what? Oh, he's leaving work when he wrote this. Uh,

I got one comment from a guy that I remember we were on the table dancing together on the table dancing together. And he said, quote, Hey man, it got crazy on Friday. Huh? That could mean anything all right not so bad i just if you're dancing on the table with some other person chances are they were

pretty fucked up too so you might not have anything to be ashamed of at least in that circle that's what you always have to remember you have to remember like i wasn't the only one you were at the secondary spot too which is good too this wasn't you know key key point kyle secondary spot not origin location for the office party right the people who might not get it probably didn't even go to that spot you know so that's that's at least weeding out some people who might look at you crazy blackout crew only yeah just the rough and tumbles you know the grays the grays i god that was funny surgery all right so i i just love picturing this kid going the co-workers like hey man get crazy on friday huh um and then our guy goes i just said yeah it was and kept it moving yeah that's good don't let too much info to exchange currency on this one let's just yeah got it all

right basically i'm asking how to proceed i don't remember the last three hours of the party i know there was mingling with some of the girls but don't remember any details and honestly i'm too scared to ask someone i'm still pretty new and don't have anyone close to me to ask what the fuck happened the last part of the night as i said there were ladies of hr so that is what i'm most scared of i'm technically still on my probation period which ends after the second month which would be december all right so you got a lot of things baked in the old anxiety deal with this one um you're new to the city. You were barefoot.

You had throw up. You made it home. And now you're trying to imagine and you're letting your mind just convince you of all of these things you probably didn't even do. So to Cerruti's point, understand if that crew went, they all went there. They all probably would. This isn't like you just were at eight o'clock and people were honoring a retiring vice president and you're in the back just seven whiskeys in acting like a fucking

lunatic and nobody else is at your level clearly there's a couple people there at your level if the guy who said hey i got crazy on friday feels like maybe a solid asset maybe when you you when you have the confidence and now yeah now we're Wednesday so you're probably okay now with it yeah go hey dude can you can you recap any of that and you may not like any of the answers but knowing is going to feel a lot better than the uncertainty of having no idea now you're going to get over it um you also have something here that I think is really really important it makes me feel better. You were in the Netherlands, dude. Unless, wait, he's from the Netherlands.

Yeah, see, that's what I don't understand. Is he, because he gave us all the, you know, the metric system stuff. But it sounds like he probably moved here. All right, wait a minute. If the location were in the States and he's from the Netherlands. That's even better. You're even more in the clear. Yeah.

Because you're just like, yeah, dude, he's from the Netherlands. It's a cultural better you're even more in the clear because you're just like yeah dude he's from the cultural thing yeah yeah you guys are prudes yeah totally like there's you might be a legend now granted if you were from like wisconsin actually wisconsin probably gets a bit of a pass but you know if you're from danbury connecticut and you did this then people might be like what what's up with this guy um netherlands is a big get out of jail free card any of any of the nordic areas i think i just um you're allowed to be weird if you're european in the states yeah there's like a you're afforded like 10 weirdness and if people think it's okay i'd say even more but yeah you're right i think it's higher too kyle i there's just an accepting thing of when i've ever been out or i have a couple friends that are they're european

no big deal and nice you just kind of know you just kind of know that there's a there's a other layer and everybody's always been accepting of it nobody's ever like hey what's that guy's fucking deal like oh he's from rhode island i hate that guy what's that guy's deal oh he's from finland man he's fun love this so love those skinny cigarettes yes cool yeah it's cool smoking looks good on him too i don't even like cigarette smoke but when he smokes i kind of like it so you're gonna be okay um the hr part of it you don't want to end up in HR. I don't think that it was because there's HR ladies there. So you're okay with that one. And who knows when the guy's asking you like, man, it got crazy on Friday, huh?

He could be going through the exact same thing that you're going through. And he thought you might potentially be an asset, right? You might got a straight up co-pilot for the rest of your time there if you play this right yeah maybe he's recommending you like keep this guy around so i just know that we had you know in life's travels we had uh we had one guy in our crew who was auto the one that would do something stupid would get the drunkest i mean it was actually get to the point was kind of sad but you know he loved because he always knew he was the most banged up he would love being like and you were you were pretty shit face too and you were like it's just negging you down to his level yeah and you'd be like okay like yeah all right and it wasn't it wasn't that you weren't

or were it was that he just he needed a comrade at that time to make him feel better about wherever his head was at. But look, you sent this on Monday. I'm sure you feel much better on Wednesday. And if you don't get renewed, I don't know what to tell you. If you do, people laugh about it. people laugh about it, but for any of you that have the first time Christmas party coming up right now for the younger people, you do not want to do this at your first one. You don't. But second staging area is very important to this story. So I think you're a little bit more in the clear than you realize. Steve?

Isn't that why there used to be an ESPN Christmas party, right? And this was even before I worked there. But basically, the word on the street was that it got so weird so many times that they're like, hey, we can't keep doing this anymore. And they just stopped doing it, which is probably the smart move. Kind of an HR nightmare by just by design, any Christmas party with more than 10 people at it. But anybody who was there like 15 years or more or whatever would be like, dude, that was those nights were weird man and they would always talk about how incredible it was but also how surreal it was that they were allowed to do this so yeah so i i i agree the other thing i'll say is i there's few feelings in the world like i like when you're like around

sleeping like for example like when you're drunk and you have the spins like obviously that's the worst when you're just like laying in bed thinking about shit that you've done and how like nervous you are the anxiety of that you just can't sleep man that's like a top five worst so i understand where you're coming from but i also think in this case like ignorance is probably bliss i don't know that you want somebody to walk you through detail by detail of what happened that night because i think that might make you feel worse. And as time's going to go, as you said, Ron, it's already Wednesday. You're not fired. So chances are you're going to survive this one. So I wouldn't go poking around asking people for specific details because it might bum you out even more. I think that you're in a good spot right now. You're not. You still have a job. The guy seems still to be friendly with you.

And you probably don't know the embarrassing details that might make you feel worse. Yeah. If you don't have a Google meeting on your calendar, maybe you just kind of Dumbledore pull this one out of the head and put it in the bucket, you know, just just try to move on, because I think holiday parties are like I've escaped a few holiday parties. I just, you know, look in the mirror and I'm like, I got to get out of here. And I've done that. And we have we don't even have a holiday party anymore, but you know, I've, I've done

that before it gets away. Cause it's like, you know, free drinks, especially holiday party drinks, they go down easier. You feel like they just do. It's like drinking, like, why does ginger ale taste better on a plane? It just does. And everybody knows it. So it's like, I think people are, you, you get a little bit of grace with the holiday party thing.

So I think, I think everyone's seen somebody who did that and so i think if you're if it's just if everyone's accepted it and you move on like yeah don't don't go poking around don't bring it up like it's fine just do better next year if you make it hope you do yeah it depends on the work environment there um but if you haven't been called in but what were you gonna be you didn't actually do it at the christmas party and if it were that late there's a really good chance there's a couple people that were banged up and i don't know that somebody can go then report you to hr and be like he was drunk well what were you doing at two in the morning right what the fuck what i'm not what i'm not a little bit allowed to be drunk like what kind of company is this i uh by the way i missed out on

the espn christmas parties so i never all of them i never made it to one so the first year i worked there was oh six but i was you know a really kind of sparse filling guy so i wasn't going to get the invite to that i don't i forget because i was still in boston the first three years i worked at espn so i think that's pretty much it and then maybe the when i'd finally moved to hartford, I think it was done. I think it was either done or there was one. And I, I probably,

I don't know, but I, yeah, they were, they were considered pretty legendary, but, um, different era,

different times. Okay. Let's do one more for everybody here. Would you have driven to, from Boston to the Christmasmas party if you got the invite when you were like newer no no because then i would have had to get like a hotel and figure out we're doing anyway right yeah yeah but it was expensive for me i mean i was i was covering my own hotel the first year plus i was filling in so you know do the math on that so if i was

making 100 bucks an hour fill in so we only got paid if i did a three-hour show i made 300 bucks and then i'd spend 120 of it on a hotel room yeah i know that i know the math sounds like there's comedians going on the road being like this is the worst life no i mean not down for taking this trip to iowa like i remember i submitted expenses for the first couple fill-in shifts and they were like what are you doing i went i stated they told me to get a hotel when i filled in because the show ends at 1 a.m and they were like you're local i'm like not real local it's two hours away And the guy just kind of looked at me and shrugged. And that's boys and girls. What happens when you have no fucking leverage?

I just love those shrugs over the years. Be like, hey, this is kind of fucked. And the guy in charge just kind of looks at you and goes, I can't say it, but I guess you can. You cannot work here. But the reason why it especially sucked is the guy was like yeah get a hotel we'll book it through travel and he was like no just put it on your own you'll be fine he's like then submit the expenses i was like okay cool no problem so i was like all right well i'll make 300 bucks tonight and i was like nope you made 168. after taxes

168. After taxes, dude. Whatever. Worked out. I want to do one more here. Here we go. Quick intramural basketball question. Gym stats, 6'2", 220, 345 bench, 445 squat, 215

military press. I hope you're doing it on a slightly inclined bench, man. Okay. And he's going to ask about posting up women yeah big and really strong like that's really strong zach randolph player comp spartan dog for life short life advice question i play in a three-on-three men's intramural basketball league recently we faced a team with two women on it. Every time one of the women tried to guard me, I would immediately drop into the post and play bully ball against her. This was very

italicized, very effective. You think? The women were relatively skilled, but not particularly tall, so it was a blatant mismatch. Was I in the wrong here? The men on the other team were vocally displeased with my approach. However, this is a men's league, so I cannot imagine I was the first person to do this. If you think this is unsportsmanlike does your opinion change in a playoff game it's a great question it is a good one it is a good one anyone want to start i mean i could just say like going back to i don't know i guess like high school and college like sometimes a girl from the basketball team would show up or like a girl who used to play, but couldn't make it on the basketball team or something. Like I changed my game. I instantly get a little uncomfortable.

And that's probably a me thing. That's just, it's just the truth. Like we had a girl on our football team and she like killed everyone in practice. Cause I, she was actually pretty, she was pretty strong and fast, but like, you know, we'd get out of the drill and they'd be like, man, I don't know what to do. Like it was a, it was just a strange, she was a strong and fast but like you know we'd get out of the drill and they'd be like man i don't know what to do like it was uh it was just a strange she was a dn she was you know she was good in practice but we were all just a little uncomfortable we're like what the fuck i mean i know what we're supposed to do but it's easier said than done so i don't know congrats to this guy for like getting over that mental hump that i could i could never really do dude this guy is a beast i remember playing playing pick up hoops at ESPN.

A lot of ESPN stories today. And there was this girl. She was small and cute. And she was good. Like she could play. But dudes were like afraid to do. And I think there was like, all right, she was kind of cute. So nobody really wanted to go at her super hard.

And they were like really happy when she would do something nice. And everybody was really congratulatory. Was was it libby because was it the duke player i forget her i forget her name because she was nasty like that might have been before your time because i don't think it was her she was no she was awesome i forget what she you know she worked in hr or whatever i don't know something something but she was pretty good it's not it's not who i'm talking about no no she i don't i don't and i don't know that Something. But she was pretty good. It's not who I'm talking about. No, no. And I don't know that she played anywhere big, but she was a solid player. So it pissed me off

that guys would just give her a pass. I'm like, no, she's legitimately good. We should be playing against her. Don't just let her have the... Don't just open the lane up for her. So I think you kind of have to judge it. Are you bullying this person? Because then don't do that. But if they're actually

not terrible then you know and they're playing a competitive game i think it's okay but i wouldn't it does feel if you're if you're repeatedly taking advantage of of someone because they're so much smaller than you i mean we wouldn't probably say the same about if it was like some scrawny dude but i i kind of don't i don't love it unless like she's getting buckets and she's actually good and you need to do this. Yeah, look, if this is just a straight up pickup game, I think you're a loser because it's like, OK, cool. I mean, you're you're too strong. And it's 62 to 20.

Like you're a lot. If you're good, like you played your whole life, like you're going to be a lot to handle for a grown ass man. All right. So if you were going to do it against a woman in a pickup game, I would I would probably say something and be like, are you fucking serious? I'm just picturing his teammates be like, what the fuck, dude? Every time he does it and he just he keeps taking it to the post. And it's also like how many times to like in a pickup game, you're probably not going to get that many post touches anyway. The way everybody plays now. He's like clapping at somebody like Michael Scott.

Hands up in the air. Guys over, you know, reposting. They're switching to get on her so he can post her up. I don't even know how many years it's been where I've seen somebody get a repost opportunity to pick up basketball game.

Like post, kick it out, then get it right back every reposition. I don't even think that happens outside anymore. All right. So that's my first answer. That's my first part of the answer.

But I'm assuming if you're in an intramural league you're in college and they're keeping score and their standings and you're telling me it's playoffs and are you also telling me it's not co-ed and that you're in the men's side of it and that this men's team just happens to have two women on it and again they're keeping score uh i'd have to see it to see how bad it was like if you were just destroying her i think you probably still could have scored without doing that so i'm going to say that i don't i don't love the hypothetical of that part of it but there's also another side like i remember when we play at uvm

there was a couple girls that played on the women's team and obviously they were a good player. They're D one basketball players, but you know, there's always going to be a physical gap despite my favorite thread of all time that I read once a year from, I believe it was, I don't think she's a female sports writer.

I think she's just a writer. And she basically argued that misogyny ruined the chances for women to be in the NFL for like a hundred years ago. 100 years ago, there was a football league, and they had the time to develop and everything. They'd all be in the NFL. It's one of my favorite threads. Maybe I'll repost it. It gets into some stuff.

It was like Babe Ruth struck out like three times. You're like, okay, mystery solved. So the point is, I remember when we'd play, they would freeze us out. If you were on their team, you would have to have the ball off of a defensive rebound or have one of the guys pass it to you because they would just decide, hey, we're using this as our opportunity to do our own thing. And they would fuck with us. So that wasn't everybody's favorite pickup game

all the time you're just like why is this happening so if if this men's team added two women and this is a playoff game i think there's a level of this that could get absurd but you're trying to like what are you supposed to lose? You're supposed to take worse shots? And is this other team expecting you to just take it easy on them in a playoff? Was this by design for them? So the other thing, too, that I think is always kind of, like, refreshing is that they're athletes. They would probably be upset if you didn't take it seriously. But again, I think there's a line there physically

that i would accept and then beyond that line i would go this is excessive and pointless um i wish i knew the comments that the other dudes because i can't tell what if it's clear that it was just dudes on the the girls team or if it was dudes on his own team like jesus christ kevin take it easy like like what feels like it is kevin it was a good call thanks and it just feel right but i i just i don't i want to know who was saying the things was everyone like like oh my god here he's doing it again or is it like uh or is it just the dudes on the other team like hey why don't you pick on someone your own size dude yeah you said the man wilt numbers and it's clearly unfair like you're not going to tell your buddies about that be like hey man do

you see my triple double and the time like the you know the semi-final it's like yeah yeah yeah kevin we saw it like you want to say a little bit a little bit daryl armstrong would um the men on the other team okay the other team displeased yeah so okay but what i need more information but i feel like i'm siding with the emailer yeah i i did from the jump. I was like, hey, good job getting over that mental barrier and just going for it. Now, did you take it in the post like eight times up and under, shoulders into the sternum, creating space?

Were you doing that kind of stuff? The leg sweep? Were there any elbows? Because you can still work down there without yeah turnaround jumper yeah being the worst um i mean look dudes don't like when you do that stuff to them i mean they get they get really really upset when i would play with younger guys and be like all right seal just sealing all day but go man take it easy you know so you know that's a dude. So I don't know. I don't want to be all in and support,

but I think reasonable people can agree as we listen to us talk this out. Yeah, the playoff game thing got me. The playoff game, I'm like, okay, what were you supposed to do stuff that you're worse at? Right, and then it's like, okay, so it's still a regular, it's still the same league, it's just not playoffs, so we should care less? I don't know. I don't think that's how, that's not how winners think. So, yeah, I think in the absence of any real tape or footage,

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Okay. I think our work is done here. Thanks to Cliff. Thanks to Steve. Thanks to Kyle. We'll Steve. Thanks to Kyle. We'll be back on Friday. We've got two pretty good things

I'm excited about on Friday. Brian Russillo podcast, Ringer, Spotify. We'll be right back. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com forward slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut, 1-800-9 with it in Indiana, 1-800-522-4700, or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 1-877-770-7777.