The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Good Teams, Bad Results in Week 15, Jon Vilma on the Saints Frustrating Brady, Plus a 'Call of Duty' Observation

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on a week of strange NFL results as the playoffs approach, and takes a look at the contenders (0:36). Then Ryen talks with Super Bowl champion Jonathan Vilma about the Saints getting another regular-season win over Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, Bills-Panthers and the Bills’ offensive line struggles, the rolling Colts, the first-place Chiefs, how analytics affect fourth-down decision-making in today’s NFL, and more (11:14). Then Ryen talks about how he dipped his toe back into the ‘Call of Duty’ pond and did not like the temperature (41:30), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (49:47). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Jonathan Vilma Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Press Box is here to catch you up on the latest media stories. Hosted by Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker, these guys have the insight on the biggest stories you care about. Check out The Press Box on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Week 15, that was fun. Trying to make sense of what was perhaps a misleading week of results. We'll talk with Jonathan Vilma about the Saints and Tom Brady and Cam Jordan. And, of course, life advice.

I'm just going to be frank with you at the top. I'm not sure where this opens going. May go for a while. A lot of notes, a lot of stuff, a lot of thoughts. Because you get through week 15, and I'm just just like imagine the recency bias with this one imagine being at the old water cooler you know checking out your cubicle grabbing a printout if you don't have your own printer which sucks and then you're you run into dave over in accounting and dave's like man i don't know about your packers like what are you talking about my packers my packers are good

yeah backup for baltimore like you guys almost lost that game so let's go through it and i'm I don't know about your Packers. They're like, what are you talking about? My Packers. My Packers are good. Yeah. Backup for Baltimore. You guys almost lost that game. So let's go through it. And I'm going to focus more on the NFC part of this because basically if you go through all of the top teams, all the teams that represent the top of the NFC, I can do the same thing with the AFC too. And maybe I'll do a little sampling. And you go, if you just go recency bias on this stuff, you can make awesome arguments against all of these teams. But eventually you have to kind of like, I don't know, think one's

good. Let's start with Green Bay. They're the one seed as of today. They win that game against Baltimore where they were up 31-17 and they almost lost in a two-point conversion. By the way, I like Baltimore going with a two-point conversion there. My rule on the two-point conversion is this. If you're the team that's like a lot worse, just try to win it right there. If you're

at home and you're really good, I don't have a problem with you tying up the game. So the Harbaugh criticism the next day, you know, look, if you don't like the play, fine. But, you know, sometimes you run a play and the other team has a great call against it. If you're telling me half the field shut down and Huntley can't run around,

all right, I'll allow that a little bit. But there's way too much, I like the decision, I don't like the call, which gives you kind of an out if you're a pro two-point conversion. My rule is simple. Again, if you're a bad team against a really good team and you have an out if you're a pro two-point conversion. My rule is simple. Again, if you're a bad team against a really good team and you have a chance to win it with a two-point conversion, just go ahead and do it.

So I like the decision. But Green Bay, let's go over their resume real quick. They had a week one disaster against New Orleans, which we now know is a fake result. They lost to Kansas City with Jordan Love, and they lost in the last second field goal a few weeks ago to Minnesota. That's it. Those are the three losses. They still don't have Jair Alexander at corner.

Zendaria Smith's out. One of their other defensive linemen didn't play in that game. And Bakhtiari is practicing and coming back. So they are positioned really well, despite blowing a lead to a Baltimore team that had their backup QB, and they were like a 9-10 point dog. Let's talk about Tampa. They're 10-4.

Their losses are against the Rams, which was early on. It felt like a monumental win for Rams team that had their own problems. We'll get to them. They've now lost to New Orleans twice again this season. And then they had that Washington game where we did see the single greatest drive of the 2021 season. Washington ran 19 plays, 80 yards, 10-26 for a touchdown to win that one. I know that Arian said that he was more concerned other than the shutout last night that he lost seven starters. I don't think he was saying that necessarily as an excuse because this is the whole point of the NFL. This is where we're at right now. Hey, what happened to that team? Well, a couple things could have happened. The schedule could have gotten easier and they could be healthier than everyone else.

And conversely, the schedule could get tougher and they're missing a bunch of dudes. So missing Godwin, missing Evans, missing Fournette. I mean, that game was so bad from Tampa, whether it was Brady's fumble on third down, Gronk with a drop that looked like it was in his hands. Vaughn had a drop. Vaughn fell down on a route. There was a bad snap there late, and then Brady throws the pick to Gardner Johnson.

I mean, this was an across. If you hated Brady, this is the most fun you've had in 15 years last night. So if you look at the Bucs' schedule the rest of the way, they got Carolina twice and then the Jets. They might end up 13-4. If they're healthy, none of this will really matter.

It's just weird that they're facing New Orleans and they can't seem to beat them unless, of course, it's in the playoffs. That's what I think Brady was all heated about. If you look at their offense, they are number one offensively by a wide margin. I don't know how the new numbers will shake out once it's sorted past the games this week. And their defense is anywhere from 7th to 10th. They're still a good football team.

They were gross last night. Dallas, nobody likes them. The offense is better, and it wasn't against the Giants, but the defense is oddly really good in some metrics, and then other stuff like opponents yards against isn't as great. But I think we'd all agree that Dan Quinn and this defense, the stuff they've done across the board, has been a big improvement. I just think people want to see super Dak, and we haven't seen super Dak,

so people are down on him and kind of ignoring the fact that this defense has played really well, I think, throughout the season, which no one really expected, and that's with Parsons, who might be defensive player of the year. But look, no one seems to like him. They've won three straight. They're going to be in the playoffs. Arizona, 7-0.

All right. Remember that? That was a good time. They had the Green Bay loss. I thought that game could have gone either way. I've said I think actually Arizona should have won it. They didn't. That's fine.

Then they beat San Francisco without all of their skilled guys on offense. And they got smashed by Carolina. So that was weird. And then they win at Seattle-Chicago. Who cares, respectfully? They lose the Rams game. The Rams felt like they were hyped up for that one. I think Kyler, as we saw at the end of the Green Bay game,

this guy, when he gets hurt, it lingers. He may be short, and Russell Wilson is short. Baseball, baseball, we know that. Russell Wilson is thick. Kyler Murray is not. He is not. And when he gets hurt, we know that. Russell Wilson is thick. Kyler Murray is not. He is not. And when he gets hurt, it lingers. And last week against the Rams, the way he was moving around,

I'm like, all right, here we go again. He's hurt. They were two completely different teams last year. Healthy Kyler in the shoulder, injured shoulder the rest of the way. Kyler, I thought at one point yesterday against Detroit when he was on the bench despondent. I don't know if it was his own frustration of not having DeAndre Hopkins out there because if you look at Kyler Murray's numbers without Hopkins and with his QB rating drops 30 points without Hopkins. That makes sense because I still think Hopkins is already really the best receiver in the league. missing a couple other guys. Look, again, theme here, people are missing people,

but this is now a stretch where, especially when you lose to Detroit, who doesn't win a ton of games if you're new year, it starts leading into cliffs, losing it again. I saw Mike Sandoz's piece today where they included the Texas Tech and Texas A&M starts to compare it with the NFL starts. I love

Sandoz. Texas Tech doesn't play anybody in the non-conference. That's why they would always start 3-0. So I don't know that that correlation is the most fair way of doing this. I think Cliff is better than other people do. And then when it came down to the field goal decisions yesterday, I

got a text on the third field goal decision. I'm not going to say who it was. The phone was at the other end of the couch so I could focus on the games and not look at my phone. And right as the text was going off, I knew exactly who it was. I knew it was exactly about Cliff Kingsbury. Let's look at the fourth down decisions here again. Kingsbury and Kyler, they go for it on fourth down the first time. They don't get it. The second time down 17-0, they kick a field goal, and Aqib Tlaib's like, well, wait a minute. Why did you do it then? And now why are you kicking

field goal here? Wait, so you have to do it every time you can't look at the situation and go, yeah, maybe we want a field goal. Cause I don't know, we're down 17, nothing and a field goal here. It makes some sense. Or I don't know, you're shut out at half and you want to just have three points on the board to come back to the sideline and feel like you've got something out of it. Or maybe you don't like the distance on that one. And then the one on the third one down 24, three, I have no explanation for it. So now we think Kingsbury, it feels like there are more people out there saying he's a bad coach and not a good coach, despite the fact that I thought he was brought in to develop

Kyler Murray. And at one point before Murray was even hurt this season, he was a strong, strong candidate for MVP in a franchise that doesn't really win a ton of games. They're winning games with him. So maybe I am wrong. I'd like to think there's more that goes into it than just the fourth down stuff. But apparently that seems to be the focus of it. And we had Kevin Clark on who did a kind of meh about Kingsbury, the coach.

And I said, well, what is it? If you think he's bad, tell me specifically what it is. And he got into some of the route tree concepts. Again, not disagreeing with Kevin. I understand he knows the NFL better than I do, but I feel like we've now shifted into good coach, bad coach based solely on did you go four on fourth or did you kick a field goal? And if you kick it in a field goal and you don't kick it every time you suck at this again, open for debate. I'm not convinced I'm right. I'm just not sure I'm buying all of the arguments. I'm not convinced I'm right. I'm just not sure I'm buying all of the arguments. So now that we've talked about Arizona, let's talk about the Rams.

That win against Arizona, huge. But they had their month. They were 0 for November. All right? Stafford and McVay had a three-game stretch where it was worse than anything we saw from Goff and McVay. So if you were saying you liked the Rams today, it felt a lot better than ever saying that you liked them in November. I picked them to get to the Super Bowl against Kansas City. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know.

It still feels like it's going to be Green Bay or Tampa. And I still feel that way on a Monday after what we just saw this past week. And, you know, maybe this is just Arizona's month. Maybe that's what it is. But when Murray couldn't get out of that second sack rolling around to his left, I'm like, I don't know. Healthy Kyler. I don't think that that necessarily happens. Maybe it's their bad month

or maybe they've been exposed or maybe it's just they're missing DeAndre Hopkins. But that's what's going to happen to a lot of these teams. It's not that they're different. It's that they don't have the same guys. AFC, we could do the exact same thing.

Kansas City's the number one seed today. New England winning in a shootout at least once in a playoff game. I don't love that. I could use maybe Saturday night's game against the Colts and say that that shows that Mac Jones can't win a shootout. I just think the Pats sucked in that game for a million different reasons.

They made a bunch of mistakes. The Colts were better. I don't feel like they gave it to Indy by any stretch of the imagination, but I just thought it was one of those games where everything was kind of awful, almost like a mini Tampa. By the way, Bill Tom rankings. Are we finding out a year and a half, almost two years later, that it was all Bill? Still not enough data

waiting to make a decision. Colts are sitting there at the five seat. They feel hot today. But it's funny, the Carson Wentz stuff. People are like, oh, there he goes again. Wentz kind of sucked Saturday night, but you know what he hasn't done? He hasn't turned the football over. He had the fourth lowest interception percentage. This is the best takeaway

team in the NFL. The best plus minus on turnover differential. This is a headline. Wentz does not turn the football over a lot. This team does not turn the football over a lot. He is on the lower end of interception ratio. I think there's only three guys ahead of him. I think it's Cousins, Rodgers, and maybe Russell Wilson, but yeah, he was fourth going into that game

before that pick. And then you've got Baltimore, who everybody's off. Tannehill without his guys, nobody likes. The Bill's own line, everybody's upset with. And then you've got Baltimore, who everybody's off. Tannehill without his guys, nobody likes. The Bill's O-line, everybody's upset with. And then you've got Miami putting together a nice little run. And Tua having, if you want to start

shaping the numbers a certain way, you could say Tua is playing like as well as anybody, except he's not throwing the football that deep. And by the way, the win streak is against these quarterbacks from Miami.

Tyrod Taylor, Lamar Jackson, Joe Flacco, Cam Newton, Mike Lennon, and Zach Wilson. So not exactly a bunch of guys who are going to get fitted for a jacket in Canton. So as I run through all of that with the recency of just sitting here on a Monday trying to get through what we just saw this past weekend, in college football, we do a great job. It's maddening. It's actually infuriating at times. I'm trying to point out that nobody's good. And I would say after week 15, it's never been easier in the NFL. But at some point, you have to like someone.

Let's visit with our guy, Jonathan Vilma, Fox Sports. He had Bill's Panthers this weekend. We'll get to that as we kind of address some of the top teams like I did in the open here. So let's start with Tampa. What is it? What is it with the Saints? Now, again, Evans is out. Godwin's out.

Fournette ends up leading the game. So he's limited weapons-wise. But it's still zero points for Brady, who's now 0-4, I guess, against the Saints, except for the playoff win. So regular season these last couple years here. What are the Saints doing with him? Well, it's always about the players, right? Any good coach always talks about, I got the guys. I about the players right any good coach always talks about i got the guys i got the

players and the biggest thing is the saints frankly match up really well with the bucks offense you have a lockdown corner marshawn latimore he gets mike evans every time locks him down then you have safeties that can cover gronk they get him lock him down then you have safeties that can cover Gronk. They get him, lock him down. Then you have nickel players that can now cover your slot receiver and goblin or whoever wants to run across the field because we know what Brady likes to do. He goes, he checks, he sees if he can get something over the intermediate quickly. If not, he's throwing to a check down or to one of these underneath routes. So when you have guys that can run with the underneath route, run with your Mike Evans, that's your big play guy, could lock down your Leonard Fournette in the check down.

It makes it a long day for him. And, you know, it's frankly just as simple as that, right? You can't do anything that's going to confuse Brady. He's seen it all. So it's about your players and executing making a really basic defense communicate well that's what they do let's talk about garner johnson who uh we know can instigate with the best of them uh for those that don't remember i think it was a guy in the bears not that long ago that like lost his mind and just started swinging at him uh so no reason right now he's just standing there like, what's going on? Well, my guess would be there's some reasons

because of what happens over the course of the game. So Gardner Johnson does the pose, crosses his arms, wants to get in front of Brady, so Brady has to see it. Brady doesn't love that stuff, especially if you're at his tier. And then, of course, he throws a pick, and 22 does a great job of jumping that route. So it was a really nice play. And then when Bradyady yells at the sideline people were trying to figure out like what it was and i'm like i know what this is because we already said yeah brady's pissy to

begin with but when it starts going bad and it was as bad as i had seen it for brady in a long long time um he's he's not gonna go quiet now some people may not like it because he's getting shut out i think their other side of it would be like, we'll see you motherfuckers in the playoffs if you even make it. Yeah, so I have confirmation that he yelled, go fuck yourself to the sideline. I have confirmation from the Saints that that is exactly what he said verbatim.

So you're 100% right. He was pissy, pissy hot. What is, you know, in a win, Gardner Johnson, you know, you love that stuff. But what is that like having somebody like that as a teammate who just doesn't care? Because it was a little early, as even the broadcast said to me, maybe tugging on Brady's cape. doesn't care because it was a little early as even the broadcast said to me maybe tugging on Brady's cape so I I fortunately did not play with someone like Gardner Johnson and I say fortunately because I was never a fan of two things I was never a fan of stifling someone's emotions but I was also never a fan of someone who rides the wave of a game, right?

So it's a big game and all of a sudden I'm all hype and I'm up and I'm up for it. And it's Brady. I want this matchup. But what about the games when it's not Brady? What about the games when it's not Sunday night football, right? You know, how are you going to step up? How are you going to play? And we've seen the Saints defense kind of step down to the opponent's level. And I'm talking defensively, right?

There are teams where I called the Atlanta game after the Saints beat Tampa Bay. And you're like, all right, this should be a dominating performance for the Saints defense. And they lost the game, right? Gave up a ton of points. So for a guy like him, look, on the outside, I'm here for all the pettiness. I love all that petty stuff. It's fun. It makes the game entertaining.

It makes it exciting. But if I were a player, I would have to talk with them because I need you to be steady. I need you to be the same. This game, next game, playoff game, a bum team, it doesn't matter. You just can't get up and get hype for the you know brady's of the world i love cameron jordan another huge game you played with him for three seasons in new orleans and and i know that the simple thing is hey this guy doesn't get enough credit but i'm telling like for the contemporaries i think chandler jones at some point got more hype than

even cameron jordan did. Give me some more insight on what makes him so special because he is, I think, almost comically overlooked when we talk about edge guys making plays. Yeah. So Cameron Jordan, the main reason he gets overlooked is because he naturally wants to play the run first. And in this day and age, you know, defensive ends, it's all about the sacks. But Cam Jordan, when he came, I was there, he was drafted in 2011. And I'll never forget, all he wanted to do was jack up an offensive tackle, sling him to the ground and make a tackle.

He just loved tackles for loss, stuffing the run. That was his thing. He really got off on doing that. And, you know, obviously from there, he evolved into being a good pass rusher. He's naturally been like relentless and he's this guy, you know, great story about him just to show how athletic he is and how relentless he is. We were doing off season. He comes back after his rookie year. We were doing off season running and conditioning. And he's like, man, I want to be in the best shape possible. And, you know, you hear that from rookies, you know, they get excited, but you never think, all right, they're really going to get after it.

And you got to kind of teach them how to get after it. We started doing these sprints and we were doing sprints around the field. He literally was beating everyone. And when I say everyone, not just defensive line, not just linebackers, he was beating the wide receivers, he was beating running backs, he was beating literally everyone. And I was like, holy shit, Cam, are you good? He's like, yeah, man, I got to go.

I got to go. I'm ready to go, man. I want to be the best. And from then on, I was like, okay, we've got got a good one, right? I wish I could have played with them more, but you know, just watching him play, if there's ever a throwback defensive end in the league right now, it'd be him. Yeah. I'm looking up the numbers. He gets over a hundred career sacks last night, but you're right. Tackle for loss. He's 132 for his career. He passed Strahan. He's tied for 14th with Michael Bennett here. I mean, God, look, I'm looking at some of these tackle for

loss numbers for JJ Watt to do what he did in not the longest prime stretch. And JJ was still really good this year before he got hurt with all of it. But Suggs is 25 ahead of J.J. Watts. Suggs has 202 tackles for loss. J.J. Watts second at 177. Suggs, man, that's a crazy number. Yeah, he was freakish, man. I remember watching Suggs, just that whole defense. Like, they had – you talk about some dogs on that defense, man.

And you could argue for a stretch of, like, two or three seasons, he was the best player on that defense, man. And you could argue for a stretch of like two or three seasons, he was the best player on that defense. And that includes Reed, Ray Lewis. They had Juli Nata, right? They had Nata at the nose. It includes some really, really good players. And you can

argue he was the best of them for a couple seasons. All right, let's do a little bit on your game because as i mentioned at the top like you sit here and look through all these top teams and i don't like when people say like well this is a flaw for this team like every team has some part of their game that is not buttoned up it just it just isn't what it is and for the bills who i think even despite some concerning weeks i'd be like all right we're all right and i want to get to your colts thoughts from weeks ago because then the Colts put it on the Bills.

You're like, all right. So they get the win against the Panthers. Cam Newton looks like he's kind of done. But is there enough from this Bills-O line that can be fixed? Or is this something you think is just like a fatal flaw, bad matchup against certain teams after you get to see him up close on a Sunday? Unfortunately, I'd have to say the latter,

a bad matchup against certain teams. And really, those certain teams are playoff teams. And the reason they're a bad matchup is they don't get enough push, like initial push at the line of scrimmage. You have these offensive lines where if you think back to kind of like the Steelers when they had Jerome Bettis, right? Jerome Bettis, yeah, he was a beast in his own right, but he still wasn't getting touched until three yards, four yards past the line of scrimmage. You think back those Cowboys days, right? With Emmitt Smith, same thing. Even, you can go back about four or five years when the Cowboys had a really, really good O-line. I think that was Zeke Elliott's first year, first or second year in the league. And he wasn't getting touched three, four yards

past the line of scrimmage. So I was looking and trying to figure out, you know, what's wrong, quote unquote, what's wrong with this offensive line. And that was really it. They have athleticism. Mitch Morse, I think, is a really good center, very athletic. But they are struggling at the tackle position specifically. And you can to be frank, I don't like calling guys out because he's a rookie. He'll get better. But Spencer Brown for them, he's offensive tackle. He's played on the right side and the left side. He frankly struggles right now. And you've seen the Bucs really hone in on him.

The Panthers were trying to do it yesterday. And that's going to be an issue against the good teams because fortunately the Panthers offense couldn't keep pace. The kicker was out. So I should mention that, which made the game really, really interesting. But when you go against the Bucs, the Colts, who can keep pace with you offensively, you're going to need that push up front from the offensive line to get those three, four, six-yard carries. Okay, what was it about the Colts then? Because they get the win against New England, which if you're watching it end-to it end to end you're like this is kind of a weird game you know you get to block punt so when New England's making a run back I'm like you know it's not like they're getting dominated even though the score would tell you they were getting dominated down 20 to nothing but that

their matchup with Buffalo you know again what they did against New England you had kind of given us a shout like you know a couple weeks ago like hey you know pay attention to the Colts pay attention to the Colts um what is it about what you saw and where they're at now? They are now detailing their work. When I talked about the Colts as a team to watch, right before that Bills game, I said that they were running the ball very well. They were protecting the football very well. They were taking the ball away at a nice clip. And defensively, they weren't giving up too many big plays. And that recipe is good for home games. It's good for away games. It's good for down the stretch. That is just good football, right? And the Patriots, so they won,

they won what, like seven out of eight or eight out of nine, whatever it is. It's the same brand of football, the way they beat Buffalo. They got a couple of takeaways. They ran the football 47 times, only passed three times. Like that, that's just what you do. It's not that hard. So when I say they're detailing their work now, there comes a point and I'll never forget this. When I played, there comes a point in the season where you know who you are. You have your identity. And the only time I felt like I didn't have my identity were teams or seasons that we didn't make the playoffs.

So, you know, we're 4-12 with the Jets, my second year in the league. We couldn't figure out left from right. We had like 18 different quarterbacks play that year. It was just a disaster. But when we go to the playoffs the next year, we knew exactly who we were. Same thing with the Saints. So what's happening right now is the Colts, the players,

they know who they are. They have their identity. And they're like, bro, this is what we do. All right, we're going to run the football. That's what we're going to do. We're going to take the ball away. That's what we're going to do, period. End of story. And it's been working for us.

So you'd like the Pats against the Bills again? Ooh, good question. I do like the Pats against the Bills again. I like the Pats against the Bills for what we just talked about. Their front seven is man for man better than the Buffalo's offensive line. Devin Singletary, I don't think he can consistently make the eighth man miss. Right. So you need that that running back that the good the really, really good running backs. They make everyone miss Adrian Peterson in his prime. The good running backs, Jonathan Taylor. And I would love to put him in the Adrian Pearson category if he continues down this path. Derek Henry, who's actually up in the Adrian Pearson category, they look for that eighth man, the one that you couldn't block, the safety or corner, whoever it is, and they make a miss. Either run him over or juke him. And Devin Singletary doesn't do that consistently. So if he can't do it consistently, you're going to rely on Josh Allen to run the football. I've yet to see a Super Bowl contending

team that just has a quarterback running all day long. And don't tell me about Lamar Jackson, because he still hasn't really scratched anywhere near a real Super Bowl team with Lamar Jackson. So I know people will say, oh, what does he do? No. You need a real running game. And they have a real running game, by the way, with the Ravens. Yeah, when their guys were healthy, there was some paper there. When they're not on their ninth

running back. Yeah, exactly. All those guys are gone. I almost feel then, based on all this, you're still going to give me some pushback to this. Because the Chiefs are sitting there at the one seed. It certainly feels different than Chiefs are sitting there at the one seed. It certainly feels different than other years when they've been the one seed. But, I don't know, are you still kind of like not that into them because of their lack of physical football? I'm not that into them, just from what you said.

I'm not that into them, man. And you know what's beautiful about the NFL? It's always evolving. So week to week, they can get more physical. I guess, right? I don't know if they found their identity yet. They've been the strangest team besides Cleveland in the AFC all season long. Just cannot figure them out.

Don't know what it is and what's going on over there. But when I look at, okay, the Colts beat up on the Patriots. Yeah, that's one game. Can they do it a second time in the playoffs? Maybe, maybe not. I look and say the Bills, same thing. Then you have Tennessee, that they were stomping on Pittsburgh, somehow lose it late. I didn't really see the game, but I'm just frankly surprised you don't see Tennessee give up leads. I didn't really see the game, but, you know, I'm just frankly surprised you don't see Tennessee give up leads. I think Brable's done a great job with them as well. So, you know, every year I look and say what travels well deep into the playoffs.

It's always going to be really good defense, running the football, taking the ball away and protecting it. And the Chiefs on their Super Bowl run last year, Super Bowl run the year before. Well, I'll go first when they actually won the Super Bowl. Their defense played really well and they could run the football. Last year, their defense was terrible and it showed and that's why they lost. So if we can say that they want to ride the shoulder of Mahomes, sure. But is that going to win you a Super Bowl?

Not so much. I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready to – you had me up until the very end where I still think Mahomes is capable of carrying. He's done it before. So then to suggest that he can't do it again. All right. Well, think about the first part of the season.

Do you really want to see that Mahomes, the first part of the season, who's trying to carry a team and throw more interceptions in five games than he did all of last year? I don't want to see that. All all interceptions not created equal, though. There are guys that make throws where I go, what are you looking at? OK, with Mahomes, I felt like he got so frustrated about how bad the defense was early on that he just started raising his level of acceptable risk. And then there's like another three or four that were just stupid. i didn't think all of a sudden mahomes couldn't figure things out i thought he started playing oh whoa i i didn't say he couldn't figure it out i said if you want him to put it all on his right arm i saw what it looks like when a

great quarterback tries to put it all on his right arm the first part of the season. That's what I'm saying. And that does not travel in the playoffs. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, and I know you'll say, well, whatever, it's the Texans, but they scored like 50 straight against them after getting down in the playoffs a couple years ago. So I think he's the only guy. Maybe Rodgers.

I was going to say, you can't leave him out. Yeah, Rodgers and Mahomes might be the only ones that I would feel comfortable saying, okay, you know, you need, you need to figure out a way. And granted Minnesota, the Minnesota game, which I referenced in the open, where they lost in the field goal, you know, that was a game where Rodgers eventually had to start pushing it a little bit more, but that that's not what Mahomes did. Again, look, it's the Texans. Nobody's going to believe the Texans, even in the playoffs or even a worthy adversary. So, all right. None of this is all that surprising. Let me pivot to something else then because this is something else that I feel.

I feel like NFL coaches now are basically judged on their fourth down decisions. So if you're doing stuff and it works on fourth down, you're like, this guy's awesome. And then when it doesn't work or if you kick a field goal, you're like, this guy sucks. I'm so glad you brought this up. I believe, I would like to believe in my years of talking about football

that perhaps there's a little bit more to whether or not a coach is good or not. The week, the preparation, the game planning, having a game plan, the adjustments. And one thing we always had, Chris Long was on the show all the time and I know you're going to agree, i would be like what are adjustments take me through a story tell me a story about a halftime adjustment he's like seriously when you're on the d line you

don't even know what we're doing he goes it's mostly back end stuff he goes so if i'm being completely honest like to say oh we did this and we studied here or we went after this guy way more agap. He goes, well, most of it's always on the back end anyway, to be honest with you. So what do you think? Give me an example of like when you see something happening. This is a good coach. This is a bad coach. And take this for as long as you want to, to kind of because I could tell you're already keyed up a little bit based on just the fourth down decision stuff.

Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, I got to start with the fourth downs and then i'll talk about the adjustments but fourth downs let's let's first talk about this whole analytics thing quote unquote that is you know in part ruining the game of football in part helping the game of football. Because here's why. When you have people that have never played the game and they want to start giving you analytics, and I'm not shitting on anyone that hasn't played the game. What I'm getting to is, it's going to make sense. Don't worry. I'm not, trust me, I'm not shitting on them. What I'm saying is when you haven't played the game, you you got to be in the fire to understand sometimes your analytics can and should be overridden. die on a sword with this analytics stuff when you can see the game and be like, all right,

I hear your analytics. But this particular scenario, it's different. And it's no different than surgeons. It's more of an art. It's not a science every time. They can and do. The book says one thing, and then they can and do other things to complete the surgery, right? That's what happens once they get inside. So the analytics keeps telling these coaches, go four on fourth, go four on fourth, go four on fourth. And they're not taking into account the totality of the game, which is working my last nerve. Because when you have a defense that is stinking and you're trying to tell me that you're going to go for it on the 45 yard line, where if you don't get it, all they need is a first down to kick a field goal or worse, they're going to get a touchdown because you gave him a short field. Stop with your analytics. You have to look at what happened in the game.

Your defense sucks. So if your defense sucks, stop going for it. You have to look at what happened in the game. Your defense sucks. So if your defense sucks, stop going for it. Actually punt the football and then give your defense a chance because statistically, and I don't understand why they don't bring up these analytics, it is exponentially more times harder to score a touchdown from inside your 10 backed up than it is from the plus 45. Just look at the percentages of all the drives that start in the backed up and the 10 and then the 45. And you see how many times people score. So I just don't understand why they bring this analytics into these silos. And it's only for this fourth down. It makes sense. You got to do it. You got to do it. You got to do it. No, you don't have to do it. Look what's going on in the game. And then you realize if you should or

shouldn't do it. So that's what the analytics stuff. And I bring it up on fourth down because you also have these coaches that say, I don't care. I want to go for it on fourth down. Screw your analytics. I can respect that. I can respect that more than you just saying I'm going to down the sword with this analytics as opposed to saying, look, this is how I feel about this game. I want to push the issue the whole time. And because I want to push the issue, I was going for on fourth down. Boom. Done. That's the head coach's decision. That's what he wants to do. Let him do it and stop trying to rip him for it, for being aggressive or vice versa, being conservative and punting it every time or whatever situation it is. So that was my long-winded rant on these damn analytics. But now to go to your point about adjustments. So I'll give you a great example of adjustments in a game.

We had Dallas. It wasn't a Thanksgiving game, but we had Dallas in Dallas. And this was with defense coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who there was Dez Bryant in his prime, Tony Romo lighting it up. And we had a corner by the name of Patrick Robinson, who was really good, extremely athletic. He's the big guy, right? He was pretty big for a corner, wasn't he? He was.

He was about 6'1", 210, super athletic. right? He was pretty big for a corner, wasn't he? He was. He was about 6'1", 2'10", super athletic. So Spagnuolo felt that he had enough confidence to lock Patrick Robinson up one-on-one against Dez Bryant. And this was basically the thesis of our game plan for that week. And we were going to roll coverage away. We were going to blitz from the other side. We were going to get pressure, et cetera, et cetera. But it was all predicated on Patrick Robinson being able to hold up against Dez Bryant when I'm not. So sounds good. All right. It's all pretty.

We got these blitzes. They can't block it, blah, blah, blah. We get into the game. What I guess Spagnuolo didn't account for is that Tony Romo had seen this defense before and so Tony Romo he looks and I'll never forget he kind of did a double take then he looks over at Dez Bryant and he gives Dez Bryant like the like one of these like just go and sure enough Seth Hutt snaps the football Dez Bryant does a little move, goes over top for a touchdown. That was the first one.

Second time around, Tony Romo sees it. He looks. Can't believe we're in that same defense again. Gives Dez Bryant the signal. Over the top touchdown. So now what's the adjustment? All right, guys, we are out of that defense. We're now going to go cover two, and we're going to help Patrick Robinson. Well, coach, what about this blitz from the other side? We're not doing that anymore. Coach, what about this pressure from the back? We're not doing that anymore. We're going cover two and we're going to help out Patrick Robinson and you linebackers D line. You got to hold up in the run game.

That's what an adjustment is in the middle of a game where you say, well, Dez Bryant has two touchdowns early in the game. Third quarter, he doesn't have any more catches. You're like, well, what happened? Well, we smartened up and we gave up 14 points. And then we now are helping our boy out because he can't cover him. And not in a bad way, just couldn't do it that day. It wasn't his day. And then we now have to, you know, make up in the run game somehow or something like that. So, you know, that's where adjustments come in.

Chris Long was right, though. D-line is like, look, get after the quarterback. Stay in your gap. Get after the quarterback. Okay, but what makes a good coach versus a bad coach? Not willing to adjust. Yeah, but like what's more important? The in-game stuff or...

In-game. So in-game trumps like, hey, do we want to fight for this guy like a Dan Campbell, Mike Tomlin certainly in that group, preparation throughout the week, efficiency and all that kind of stuff. All of that's great, but it doesn't mean shit to you if you can't figure it out in-game. Is that what you're telling me? Correct. mean shit to you if you can't figure it out in game is that what you're telling me correct so you the coaches and this is what i always love about the nfl and it's always been different than college it's a working relationship between the players and the coaches and as soon as either the coach forgets that or the players forget that, you have this disconnect.

And what happens is now the players start doing what they want or the players are not buying into what the coach is saying. Either way, someone's getting fired, players or the coach. So when the good coaches, they understand this working relationship where, yeah, you have your fundamentals. This is what you want. This is how you want your defense offense run special teams. But I respect the veterans for the good players. And I'll listen to what they have to say about what they want to have or see installed during the week. I may not put all of it in,

but I'll definitely listen because I respect that they watch film too, and they're going up against the opponent. Now, that being said, you have the coaches where when you gain that respect, you now have to motivate during the week. It's an emotional game. So it's, yeah, you have your X's and O's, you have your game plan, but you have to get guys to believe in it. You got to get them motivated, get them ready for Sunday.

Now, fast forward to Sunday. If you are not willing to if you're not willing to listen to what your players are saying they're seeing on the field and adjust where you can, coach, then you know what I'm seeing. I'm not just, you know, just spitting out crazy shit. I'm seeing what's going on. And so if I'm saying, hey, coach, we should try this or do this. I'm not saying you got to take my opinion every time, but you do have to take it into account, because if you keep running that crap defense that's getting us beat, we're pissed off. You're pissed off. Everyone's pissed off. And this is just a bad working environment now. And I think the best coaches always adjust within a game when necessary. Always. Okay.

That was good. All right. Last thought here. Speaking of coaches, Cristobal to the U, how do you feel about it? Are you guys going to put a video of this? Do you see my happy dance?

We can. If you want going to put a video of this? Do you see, you see my happy dance? We can, if you want this to be the breakout. No, seriously, crystal ball. I think is going to do. I shouldn't say.

I think I know crystal ball is going to do a great job. The reason I'm excited is because of where he's been and his resume. I was with Chris the ball, my freshman year at UM when Butch Davis was there and Butch Davis assembled one of the greatest teams, if not the greatest teams of all time. And Chris the ball was a GA at the time. And so he one always had a work ethic to always want to learn. And so he, one, always had a work ethic, two, always wanted to learn. And so he was learning under who I believe was a really good coach in Butch Davis. From there, he went on to, you know, fast forward a few years, he goes on to be the head coach at FIU and takes them to their first bowl game ever, wins their first bowl game. That tells me you take a program that had nothing, he goes in there, makes it into something relevant.

Actually had players get drafted, T.Y. Hilton. These guys were from FIU, had good players. Then the most impressive thing about Cristobal was that he went over and learned under Saban at Alabama before going to Oregon. And when I say it's impressive, I had talks with him afterwards and he literally was a sponge over there and took everything he could from not just game plan X's and O's, but how to practice, how to motivate the players, who to look for in recruiting, why you're recruiting a certain D lineman, what makes

this linebacker better than the other four-star linebacker, right? These are the little things that he took from Saban, took it over to Oregon, had success in Oregon, won two Pac-12 titles, and then now he's coming back here. So, you know, aside from him being a Miami guy through and through, you know, I believe he does have the pedigree and he really learned under some really good coaches who I have a lot of respect for and is going to implement that moving forward. Good stuff, man. Appreciate it. Enjoy the week. Merry Christmas, too. We'll talk to you soon. Merry Christmas, bro. Happy New Year. Take it easy, guys. Okay, after we finished the open on just

kind of dumping on all these NFL teams, I shared with the group that I was at a friend's house and fired up Call of Duty. And I forgot to mute everybody. And that is the worst slice of humanity I think we have in 2021.

I don't know what's worse than that. Like, I forgot. I knew it was bad. You know, like sometimes, and I'll admit this, I think I'm a realist when it comes to things. And I think sometimes being a realist and saying it, um, can, can not go over well. Cause we kind of want hugs verbally, but like when I see a bullying campaign and I go, I hope this works. Cause it sucks. It sucks to be a young kid and have people make fun of you. You know, it sucks to be an older brother and have somebody make fun of your sister

or your brother. It's got to be even worse to be a parent and know that your kid isn't cool and he's coming home and he's being made fun of. Like that can really fuck a kid up. And I hate it. It really, you know, it bums me out even just thinking about it. I don't know if that's ever going to go away. I don't know if it's ever going to stop.

And if we want to start a bullying campaign, we cut off all of the cod communication immediately like i get called a gay slur because i had the wrong gun um which again was the least surprising thing ever i i guy had a baby in his lap i think while he was playing and the baby cried the whole time and i'm sitting there like this fucking guy can't put this controller down while a baby in his lap, I think, while he was playing, and the baby cried the whole time. And I'm sitting there like, this fucking guy can't put this controller down while a baby is crying. And then just dudes teeing off on each other left and right, which is what happens. It's essentially being at recess when you're a little kid and all the horrible things that you said to each other. I don't know that that ever will go away, but it was just a little reminder of how bad things can actually be and how terrible communication is. And it's also a little reminder too, as like social media, because it's somewhat

silent. It feels like not as bad. Whereas all it is, is just a typed out version of what was going on verbally, where again, it didn't ruin my day for me. Cause again, I don't care. I'd like to think i'm pretty immune to a lot of the stuff but it just made me think like oh shit there's like 10 year old kids on this and this is and it's just something as you get older you start to think about the world a little differently and my god was that just i knew it existed i had i knew what it was like before when i was on it but then to hear it again and be reminded at an older age i was like wow this is uh this is bad so then to hear it again and be reminded at an older age, I was like, wow, this is bad.

So anyway, I don't know where this is going. Were you playing multiplayer? What were you playing? Warzone? Yeah, multiplayer. Strangers. I'm not like I had a headset and a fucking map out in front of me. Well, there's like the 8v8 one where you're in a lobby beforehand and everybody can talk to each other, which is incredibly toxic.

And then there's the Warzone one where you can either play solo or you can play with like up to four people. There's different maps. I mean, either way, they're toxic. The multiplayer I've always found is incredibly more toxic because those pregame lobbies where everyone can just say whatever they want. I mean, it's just like, well, if you don't mute them, if you don't mute them, you can still talk. And of course, I didn't hit the mute button the first couple of times. And I just was like, I mean, when the baby started crying, I'm like, how the hell can somebody not put their baby down? But then I go, you know, if I were 25 and had a baby, I'd probably be super into Call of Duty to make the most of your time.

Did not at the same time. I don't think so. I don't know. Who knows? I'm not very good. If you've got a baby on his lap and he's holding a controller. Maybe he is that good. Maybe he's just toying with kids.

It's like a Tiger Woods dad thing where he's just toying with kids it's like a tiger woods dad thing where he's just like dropping stuff in his backswing and this guy's like call of duty's too easy i need a crying baby on my lap did you so you went over to your friend's house did you sleep over no i wasn't allowed to no did you guys beat the game beat the game all night and beat the game that's what we say we're gonna stay up all night we're gonna beat this game we're gonna take turns yeah we called that we called diana racini and we're like hey do you like my friend albert breer and hung up yeah whenever i play any of these games i'm just immediately start a party by myself so that i don't have to mute anyone individually because you said there's kids on there sometimes the kids are the worst man

sometimes the kids are the absolute oh yeah no doubt no doubt no doubt but like imagine if you're just like a sweet kind of isolated like certain parents have different places i remember i offered up some video games to a guy whose kid was like eight or nine and the guy was like what kind of video games are they and i was like well you know you know, it wasn't Call of Duty, but it was something, a gun. He goes, nope. He goes, I'm trying to extend Disney and rainbows and Santa as long as I possibly can because the world

is nasty. Which, again, you can make an argument against, like, okay, now you've got like a 13-year-old kid that still believes in Santa. Like, I don't think no offense to the Santa believers that are still listening to the podcast, but you know, I don't know that I would want that if I had a son who's arguing, he's coming home going,

Dad, what the hell? Basketball practice today. Dave said, Dave's just getting a ton of shout outs today. But you're right, Kyle. You're right that the younger dudes can be just as vicious. And honestly,

if you're an older guy yelling at an 11 year old that's far worse than an 11 year old yelling at me so but the voice is the pitch of the voice that really fucking drives me yeah so i literally just never plays anybody if you're calling me a pussy and you're two years from your balls dropping it's really i'm like i'm steaming so i just need to make sure i never talk to anybody that's basically what i do yeah i think when you're a little kid though like you're on this thing there's like no consequences like sure i'm just gonna let it fly i'm gonna use every swear word that i know and there's like some freedom to that and it's obviously not great but it is what it is like i had a buddy who's a

full-grown adult who got banned from xbox live for two days for dming somebody uh after what do you what do you dm what do you say just call them what do you bitch. And in his defense, the kids suck. I think it was in FIFA. And that's what you bring up, the Call of Duty community. A lot of these communities are actually terrible. So Rudy, I stand with my friend. Because that kid sucked.

He was probably using PSG and all he was doing was holding the sprint button down the right side and doing whatever all the bullshit that people do. But, I mean, the problem I think with Call of Duty, though, is they've created a game that actually sucks

because it doesn't make any sense and it pisses me off and it pisses everybody off. But it's super addicting, right? You can't stop. It's always like, one more game. I'm going to play one more game. I'm going to play one more game. I'll be sitting there playing games, FIFA, of duty and i'll just you know i'll have the headset on or i'll be talking to my friends or whatever and i'm just like pissed off because like something stupid happens and my wife mad at me like why are you it's actively making you mad

like why do you keep playing this game and i i didn't have a great answer for i was like i don't know i'm just kind of addicted to it so i think that's part of the problem is like these games piss us off and they put us in a bad mood to begin with and then there's the kid factor where like you know there's a 10 year old who's got more freedom than he's ever had in his life he's gonna fire up a couple of you know things i wish i could repeat word for word what the kids said to me about having the wrong weapon but i just i can't because then it'll you know some alternative ryan said this on on the thing because the delivery of it like for me to just be on the couch and i was like whoa um not that it was surprising yeah i'm imagining you probably said something funny

back that the kid didn't get that's probably what i'm guessing but i didn't say anything i don't have a headset i'm not talking to anybody oh you don't oh literally it's just blaring through your tv that's amazing that's great that's great basically what i do now to avoid all that i have i've got four guys most of the games we play there's a team of great that's great basically what i do now to avoid all that i have i've got four guys most of the games we play there's a team of four that you can get so there's a game we play when there's four of us and then if there's not four of us or there's not enough i got my one game that i play solo that's basically what i do i don't even put myself in a situation where i gotta be a part of a team of three random people it's just not worth it anymore for me

i'll just play my solo game, and then when I see we've got enough people for a squad, that's when I'll fire up the regular game. That's just the way I found out. I get it. I respect that. Exactly. The game is just different. I'll just play a totally different game. I won't even

be tempted to maybe try to win this game with three random people. Well said. Let's talk in Call of Duty. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, the email, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Okay, this is a good one, Kyle. It was from a while ago, but I found it again because I just think this is important.

All right, guys, 25, 510, 185, a 345-pound squat, though. All right. Finance professional in a large Midwest city. 5'10", 185, a 345-pound squat, though. All right. Finance professional in a large Midwest city. I came here to ask about something I'm surprised hasn't been asked about yet. As a 25-year-old bachelor looking to meet my future wife, what is an acceptable way to design your bedroom? I can't imagine girls love the Michael Jordan wings portrait above my bed,

but I love sports, so I don't know how else to decorate. Ryan, how do I progress from my frat bedroom to an acceptable adult bedroom? Thanks. Also, shout out to Saruti because Kyle gets all the shout outs, and I don't want him getting a big head. Don't worry about that. Oh, that's great. That's great. I think Kyle's always a pretty grounded guy, no matter all the love. His approval rating is the highest

of anyone on the podcast. Great question. Great question. Went through this and had some phases. Arguably, you could see with my decor now i still haven't figured it out um it's a weird deal man like you get that cindy crawford poster back when i was in college and it's like man that's the sickest cindy crawford poster i've ever seen and then you think you're a bit of an adult right and then you get like the the workers on the construction site eating lunch on a on a steel beam you're like oh that's really cool or that one where that's the wave on that place in europe where the wave is like crashing that thing like

i'll grab that or like maybe it's one of those french wine ads that you put up you know it's like pino i've had all these yeah and you're like 23 and you're like, I'm so fucking old and cool and mature. I saw this TJ Maxx deal. I bought a Miles Davis kind of blue poster. And then I framed it myself with a frame, I think, from Ames that wasn't glass and it was plastic. And I'm pretty sure the frame, the poster was too big for the frame so it sort of bent it and then when I hung it, it

definitely bent the frame because it was a piece of shit. No offense, some of the Ames products back in the day were terrific but I hung that and thought I was killing it. Killing it. I'm like, look at me. I took down my Charles Barkley shit and now I have... Sophistic sophisticated as hell yeah i have

i have a jazz like i'm way into jazz which it already speaks to my maturity and now i'm advertising how much i like jazz where i think even when i bought that i had a loft with a mattress on the loft because i was hurting for square footage and i needed some storage underneath that loft so i also did plants when i brought this up before plants with the lights in the pot, and then you'd throw those dimmers and then the light would shot it through the plants. Like four or five of us all did that at the same time, around 24 or 25 years old, all of our plants died immediately, left them there rotting plants with the, with the little spotlights in there. So it's not easy. It's not easy.

I mean, so Rudy, you're still kind of rocking the FIFA posters and you're almost 30, right? So what's going on there? You're married, so it doesn't matter. It worked out all right for me. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's just a bunch of shit that I have

and I feel like it's cool. That's an office though, right? Yeah, I mean, it's like, I guess, you know, it's a bedroom, smaller bedroom, but it's, yeah, you know, I don't know. I got some shit and I can't really hang it up anywhere else

that's like acceptable. So I put it in here because this is like my area but i actually got a reality check pretty early on this um i was dating someone in college and does that mean i used to i don't know secretive uh i used to hang up like a bunch of jerseys i had like with pins and tacks on the wall i probably had like five or so i remember one with champ bailey i had a vince Young Titans jersey. Like it was some cool shit. And she was just like, why, why are you pinning jerseys?

Like, why are you hanging jerseys up on your wall? And it was the first like realization that this wasn't cool. And it really kind of fucked me up. So I didn't put stuff on my wall for like a long time. And I was like very self-conscious of what I should put up and what I shouldn't because this girl called me out about it. So I don't know.

I guess like it comes full circle. And now my room looks like I'm in a 12-year-old's bedroom. But I don't know. It actually kind of shocked my system. I was like, wait, am I not cool by hanging this stuff up in college? That's pretty harsh for in college. I think she's wrong on that one. I mean, in college, we used to have to deal with those sticky hangers. And you would like it was almost like how many helmet stickers you could have, like Buckeyes for good plays. And it would be how many game hats you had. I mean, again, you'd have to be a certain age. So I'm probably speaking a foreign language to you guys right now. But it'd be the game hats and you would hang them from all the different hangers.

And like if you had a full Buckeye helmet of them, it was like, man, that guy's got 72 different hats. That's fucking awesome. Buckeye helmet of him. It was like, man, that guy's got 72 different hats. That's fucking awesome. You know, cause I certainly had my, I still have a caps hat that I, I think I have to have fixed. Although do I really want to wear that hat from 1994 around and have no affiliation with the capitals, but it was a great hat. So I do, I do still hold onto it a little bit. All right. So we haven't really answered any questions yet. I would do this. It's pretty simple. Depending on what your budget is, just grab catalogs. Grab catalogs and look at how they

have stuff out there. Restoration hardware is probably too high-end. I do think that there are some things with the catalogs that are like, oh, wait, this thing of wispy sticks that looks like nothing. It's a four-foot wide thing and I'm supposed to just put this in the entryway.

I would talk to either someone at a crate and barrel, you know, or if you want to go on the lower end CB two, or I would just grab catalogs and kind of look around and see what adults do, you know? And then, and then you can even go in and, and tell the person,

um, at say crate barrel, because again, restoration is on the higher end. You may just say, hey, look, this is my deal. These are my goals. And this is what I would like to do. You might even meet somebody out of the whole deal. Who knows? With those squat numbers, she may love you.

Like this guy's into our end of fucking heavy squat. So that's really the best I could do. But you're right. Your headspace is in the right place here because you've got to probably start taking down the Spud McKenzie posters of him surfing, which, again, is a super dated reference, which I think I had that when I wasn't even in junior high. So I might want to ask you guys to edit that out, but it's too late. We'll leave it in. Or like a shelf of all the different IPAs that you drank over the last couple of years. That's a good one. I went to a buddy's house for like an after hours.

It wasn't really even like a sanctioned after hours. It was years ago. It was, hey, we're going to head back to my place. I'm like, done. We're in. And then I rolled in and I was like 10 years older than all the guys. And they had every empty handle they'd ever gone through on the top of the cam cabinets and the first thing i said was i was like oh man so you guys really drank huh they said that it shook them so bad they threw them all out that weekend sometimes you need that though like you did them a favor man like good for you

i need ryan to come and shake us up i'm looking like kyle's got actually a decent setup here you looks like you have some sophisticated pieces on the wall um this is my office so yeah i get to have this stuff my my the bedroom does not look anything like that she convinced me to put some uh peel and stick wallpaper which actually wasn't the worst wallpaper it really sucked to put up but we can just when it's time to go we just rip it down throw it in the garbage so that's fine um but i agree with what ryan said is that like that's how i look at it fucking wispy sticks it's like okay so there's the 400 wispy sticks that i'm supposed to have or the 5999 version of it at tj maxx that sucks and it's made out of fucking styrofoam or something like i don't i don't get any of it um and so

luckily i just basically have to say yes or no now i'm at that point where i'm like i don't care or that's not coming in our house um other than that i don't i don't really have any thoughts because what i would want to do is put up you know sports stuff and movie stuff that's what i would want to do but i contain it to the room that only i belong in now yeah like i have a really fancy good to bad and the ugly movie poster frame and i got it i had it it was on the way down to the room that only I belong in now. Yeah, like I have a really fancy Good to Bad and the Ugly movie poster frame. Where does that go? I had it. It was on the way down to the man cave in Connecticut. Yeah. To be totally honest

I don't even think I know where it is right now. Because I was like, I probably don't want, at this stage of my life, I don't think I want the Good to Bad and the Ugly poster even though it's probably one of my top five favorite movies of all time. Because if I had like a certain area for that, I've got a few signed jer jerseys but they're signed jerseys from friends name drop and i was like oh that'd be really cool then i went through a thing where i was like i

should just get a bunch of signed jerseys from guys that i really liked that i worked with it became friendly with and that'd be kind of a cool thing and i'm like yeah but you know what i don't know that i want to hang a bunch of jerseys at this stage of my life unless i had a room specifically for it and i don't not with the not with the new setup you sure it's not the room you're in right now are you sure this isn't the room no i don't think i could use all the jerseys i don't think like i have i have some nicer art you know upstairs just something that i saw that jumped out another thing i would think about doing because it could be a new hobby for you too but i don't know all the camera specifics on how, what kind of exposure you would need.

And maybe that's probably not even the right word. You megapixels. There's a certain number of megapixels that you have to have in the camera to be able to have a certain size beyond just like, you know, eight by 10. Like if you wanted it, you got to get a nicer camera.

There could be certain things where you just take pictures of it. And then that's a real conversation starter. Cause people start coming over and you're like, Oh my God, where'd you get this TJ Maxx? You're like, actually, no, that reminds me of a this, TJ Maxx? You're like, actually, no. That reminds me of a time I was in Switzerland last summer and I was in Lucerne and I took that picture from my boat that I rented. So, God damn it.

There you go. I mean, you know, you start throwing around that kind of shit in your mid-20s. You may have to save for two engagement rings. You know what I'm saying? All right. Let's get one more in here. That went forever. You know what I'm saying?

All right. Let's get one more in here. That went forever. I love my little camera spiel that was totally wrong the entire time, but I think I saved it at the last minute. I think it's megapixels. All right. Oh, okay.

Good one. Sort of. A 6162 and a good day. I like that. 17519. I want to start. Not a god. Oh, this is right. All right. I want to start. Not a god. Oh, this is.

I want to start with this. I'm not a god. All right. Not super good looking, but depending on the day, can be a decent basketball player. All right. Great. I'm a student at a pretty solid ACC school. All right. This is a big one.

I want to get some advice on rushing a fraternity. And by the way, I can tell based on where the school is located that the fraternity deal down there is a huge deal. I'm a sophomore. I've never been a big fan of fraternities in general. So wait, he's a sophomore. So he's finishing up fall sophomore. So this would be spring sophomore. But this past semester, I kind of like the idea of being a fraternity.

Many of my current buddies with whom I'm very close have girlfriends. We were slowly growing apart. It stinks, but it's reality. I want to join a frat, but I'm afraid of the stigma that I have to pay for my of being in fraternity. Many of my current buddies with whom I'm very close have girlfriends. We were slowly growing apart. It stinks, but it's reality. I want to join a frat, but I'm afraid of the stigma that I have to pay for my friends or get into parties. I'm not as close to my friends as I was a year ago.

Here's another issue. I'm about to be a second semester sophomore. So, all right, you already understand the flags that that one always throws off. So this is my last chance, but weirdly a guy as old as me would be rushing for a frat. I think it's pretty dumb to be someone's freshman,

to be some freshmen's little sidekick for semester semester just so I can get in a fraternity. So again, this is for people who don't understand it. This is basically the last time you would ever rush a fraternity. If you rush a fraternity as a junior in your fall semester, like guys would be like, dude, I remember when I rushed and I'll take you guys through the whole time. When I did it, there was some Swiss guy who was like 21, who was just starting college at 21 years old. I think he was in the military or something and then wanted to ski. So he went to Vermont and he was actually a really nice guy and people liked him. And then the house was like, nah, fuck him. He's 21. He's not going to listen to anybody. and people liked him.

And then the house was like, nah, fuck him. He's 21. He's not going to listen to anybody. So yeah, it is weird if you're a sophomore in your spring semester and then some freshman who just brothered up

as a fall guy is going to be telling you what to do. You know, especially down south where they take it way more seriously. But again, I don't know what the house is like. Every house is different and even the same fraternities.

And some people don't realize it's like a certain fraternity somewhere else, completely different in another part of the country. But again, all right, we'll keep going here. So my spring semester looks interesting as I'm also the president founder of a sports management club. I'm constantly looking for internships in the sports world. All right.

I don't know if he's asking for a sports internship here. All right. Here's the deal. All right. So yeah, I was in fraternity when I went to Vermont. They did not take it very seriously up there at all. And it's pretty weird too,

because the transition from when I showed up in 1993, it was still a big deal to get into a house. So the house that I, there was only one that I wanted to be in. And this is how funny this is, because I was probably a little bit nicer back then, but before a full stretch of college. But I remember being like, well, this is the one that I want to rush.

And then some older guys are like, just so you know, these guys hate these guys and these guys hate you. So, and I was like, oh man, that'd be terrible to be on campus and completely rule out a potential group of guys just because of what house you're in. I said that out loud, me at 18. Um, I got over that rather quickly. So when I rushed, I think it was 120 something guys that rushed that fall so it was it was pretty competitive am i giving myself a pat on the back for getting a

bid because i was so cool maybe i maybe i just did um very quickly within two years nobody rushed anymore like nobody really cared nationals were always on our case for having lower numbers which just meant dues because they wanted our national dues. And as an aside, the reason I never really care about it anymore, and the house has been gone for 20 years, because the national people completely fucked us over really badly. It's actually kind of a shitty story. But as we were going through it, and we were freshmen, and then we became juniors, which means we're elected to all the different positions. And then nationals were like, hey, you guys owe all of these bad dues.

And it was, I think, over like $10,000. And we're like, well, we didn't know. We've been paying whatever we're supposed to pay. And they're like, yeah, but the guys before you, you're just behind. It's getting penalized. So you guys are like $10,000 to $11,000, I think was what the number was. You guys are that far behind in national dues. So we're like, all right, well, how do we handle this? Now the house was a huge asset, the physical house itself.

I think most of the mortgages paid off. The property was right on campus, prime, prime location worth, you know, whatever it's worth today would be millions of dollars. So they were like, look, what we're going to do. And they used to fly in. So all of a sudden they started flying in all these national guys. And what we didn't realize because we're 20 years old and in charge of this, which is preposterous to even think about at the time, is these guys are like circling like sharks because of the asset that the house is, right? So they're mad our numbers are low. We weren't super fraternity-ish, if you understand what I'm saying. We weren't into it. We weren't going to national stuff. We weren't sending representatives. We didn't care about any of that stuff because Vermont was as laid back as you could imagine. And 85% of the guys are so stoned and skipping class that you can guess that it was like, hey, we have a meeting with old people. Let's go do this. Be like, no way. Let's play 94 instead.

So what they decided to do is they kept showing up. And the weird thing is, too, is there was this one older guy that was like really old. And he would show up and then want us to throw parties and he would get destroyed. And like we would have to like put him to bed was really weird. Like I'm talking really old. And he also said something to us once. He was like, I know every brother's name in the entire country. And I was like, I'm 20, you know, a couple of beers.

I'm like, wait, what? Like, you know, every guy's name who's a brother, every active guy in this massive, you know, everyone's name. And he's like, wait, what? Like, you know, every guy's name, who's a brother, every active guy in this massive community, you know, everyone's name. And he's like, yeah, like, well, what's that guy's name? He's like, well, I haven't met him yet. You know, and I was just like, this is ridiculous. So the whole thing was a setup because they had a plan. And this is really nasty.

What they did is they were like, hey, here's the deal. You owe us back dues. We'd love to get more involved with leadership there's an alum here who you know was a brother at this chapter he lives in the area and we would just like to have him be named to oversee you know as like a counselor or you know advisory board thing or whatever and then own the house right right right and so they hand us we hand us this paperwork you gotta understand he's handing us paperwork and it's there were like three or four of us at

that point we're kind of running the show and we're all 20 and we're like what you know what is this and then i remember the president was just like look who cares like they're waiving the fees let's just get more beer yeah let's just you know the older guys again the older guys before us fucked us because they didn't pay the national stuff and then um they they were like we don't know what to do with it i mean granted in hindsight we should have had a lawyer take a look at what this paperwork all meant and instead they just lied and we're like no it's just this advisory thing and he can help and all this stuff and basically what it did is it gave them final authority on what would happen with the house because they didn't have anything that

said that they were in charge of the house we owned it as the chapter and this basically gave them final say so guess what happened we signed the paperwork and then they took the fucking house and sold it like i don't know two years later granted, the guys after us trashed the place beyond. Like, we were dumb and would trash it and then fix it. These guys trashed it and left for Christmas break. So the alum came by to check it out. Like, one dickhead smashed all the plaster from his bedroom into the bathroom so that he wouldn't have to go into the hallway to use the bathroom.

He just made his own door by smashing a huge hole, like a door frame size hole in the wall. And when you're 18, 20 or whatever, guys are like, oh, that's hilarious. Look what Murph did. You know who doesn't think it's hilarious? Adults. So they shut the house down. They said, all right, come back. And again, I

had graduated, but I was still living in the town, so I kind of knew everything that was happening. And that's what they did. They just took our house. They lied to us, had 20 had 20 year old kids fill out paperwork so that probably has nothing to do with your current dilemma um just thinking about that i don't think i had anything to do it had nothing to do with it journey though it was a journey it was a journey so um i would tell you the pay for your friends thing and getting into parties, that's kind of bullshit. If you get along with the guys and you want to feel connected to them, I would say go ahead and do it.

I think the sophomore spring thing is a little weird. The pay for your friends and getting into parties, it's a lot cooler than fucking standing outside of the parties and never getting in. We were not super aggro about it. When I went down to the South and met some guys, I was like, holy shit, you guys are so intense and so serious about all this stuff. If you think it's going to improve your social thing, then I would say go for it.

But each house is kind of different. Some guys, they start doing secret handshakes and shit and that kind of stuff. Some guys, you know, start doing secret handshakes and shit and like, you know, that kind of stuff. It never was really for me. I mean, I remember I even had an older guy from another house that knew I was in the same one, ran into him at some bar in Boston. And he was like telling us because we were we were younger brothers to get him a beer. And we're like, you can fucking eat one on that idea. Like, we're not like, what?

So I don't know i mean you know this being scared of pledging some places it's horrifying and some places it's a joke and you don't go through anything so so i don't know how much it's going to impact all that stuff but if you feel like you're going to be on the outside socially and you can get over the sophomore thing um if you even get a bid dude uh i don't know that that's that's sort of a it will it can be a little weird if all of your buddies are in one thing and then you're not but i also noticed you said a lot of your friends had girlfriends and you weren't as tight with them so are you shifting to a different friend group altogether no it's not that big of a deal one way or another i honestly i was more motivated to do it

because all those guys, they had bartending gigs and it was kind of the athlete house and I was an awesome poser even though I didn't play any sports. So there you go. I would just say, we've been over this. I've had to make all new friends sophomore year before. I had to do it. It wasn't a choice. You can do that. I'm happy that I didn't actually end up pulling the trigger on multiple things as far as fraternities go. Again, I didn't go to a huge school where anybody would know any of the names of any of the fraternities, sororities that were there.

So it wasn't like it ran the whole thing. but yeah, they, they probably did throw 80% of the parties. There was still 20% of the parties we could find out if you're worried about not being able to get in places or, or whatever. But I guess all I'm saying is it's not the end of the world. And the one thing I did notice was the desperation of like the guys who would go to the rush events or whatever. Cause that's when I would shine. I would be like the first, what is that? Like two weeks of the C of the semester when all that stuff goes down and it's like, Oh, everyone's invited to the parties and Hey Ben, you're coming, right? You're coming. And it would, I would just see like the desperation on the other guys who were kind of there with me. But, um, I just kind of felt like I was never going to do it anyway,

but it's like, these are the parties. I don't, I gotta take a look at this house. I don't think they'll let me in, in a couple of weeks. So, um, like I just, I noticed never going to do it anyway, but it's like, these are the parties. I don't, I got to take a look at this house. I don't think they'll let me in, in a couple of weeks. So, um, like I just, I noticed as a guy who was there, like enjoying it. And then the other guys who were there, like really fucking hoping they made it. I just was like, I mean, how do you try out for this team? Do you just try to be, are you being yourself? I don't think so. So all I'm saying is, is, um, don't, don't put your your don't put your ability to just make new friends um like count on yourself because also it's good it's good practice for life when you move to the next town and you got to make friends and there's no fucking club that you can join that's like a fraternity

you know really yeah like some of these big schools in the south i totally get why you would do it you know vermont you didn't really need to and towards the end of my run there you definitely didn't need to. It's amazing how quickly, like within four years, it went from a super important thing to something that was kind of an afterthought, but it look,

I'd be lying if I didn't say it. It didn't open different doors socially and all that kind of stuff. And if you felt like you were part of something, but I also could understand the people that weren't in it were like, you guys are fucking losers. So, you know, I kind of get,

and that's having an older perspective. I don't regret doing it or anything like that um i guess i just told that story to tell that story because it's incredible bullshit like to this day because the the that the lums thing like people i don't even know will email me every now and then asking for money always and then like you know hey would you do this and i just i want nothing to do with it because i'm like you guys stole our fucking house like you think i'm gonna be wearing a hoodie telling people like donate money? Give me a break.

So anyway, back to you, Suri. No, I mean, I'm like you, Kyle, to a small liberal arts school in the Northeast. Shout out Quinnipiac. And it was kind of weird to be in frats. There were a couple. I mean, most of the people like nobody like cheap guys. Everybody didn't like them. And those guys and they just you know, so it wasn't it wasn't a positive vibe on the

campus. Plus, I always kind of thought that like frats are sort of like a period, a pyramid scheme for friendship. I just never really understood them properly. Right. Whoa. Whoa. Wow.

And then I but but but and then you protest ever on campus. I did not. I did not. But I never had like, you know, issues like, you know, finding friends in college or whatever. I understand that people do. So like I cannot give someone advice on that because I can understand it could be hard. And if you want to just, hey, these are my brothers and it's easy and we hang out and they give me beer and my life is simple. My social life is simple.

I get that. And it's totally different game. And we started traveling to different things, LSU, Wisconsin, different college campuses, Ryan, for, you know, different you know different shows at espn like it did open my eyes like why this could be cool and i will say i was just recently on the west coast driving through berkeley and cal and they had like all these sick frat houses and it just for the first time in my life i was like oh that actually kind of would be cool i mean they're old this is what money looks yeah i'm like this like if you are and he said he went to a big ACC school. So maybe that is a cool scene.

And there's like a bunch of houses and everybody's kind of like, you know, not that they're rivals, but you're part of this like group of people. I get why that would be appealing. It wouldn't be for me. But I would say if you feel like you're going to have a hard time finding friends and it's your sophomore year, you know, I'd say go for it. Your social life is going to be easier. Intramurals too, I guess.

But maybe the guys, I mean, I don't know. Maybe he's not a great athlete. That's how I is going to be easier. Intramurals. Intramurals too, I guess. But maybe the guys, I mean, I don't know. Maybe he's not a great athlete. That's how I met all my friends is football intramurals. I can't even fathom what a fraternity at Cal would be like. I don't know if that would be the best thing because you'd want to do that at Cal or if it would be the worst thing. You know what our fraternity used to have in the 70s were little sisters. So they would actually like, obviously, they wouldn't go through the same pledging thing. That was not around when I was around. But I was wait what was like we look back at old composites which

again was always the funniest thing like early 80s late 70s composites the guys all looked like they were 45 years old and you're like are people gonna look at us and then think we looked 100 in them i'm like yeah i think it's just science but uh i don't know i i the south thing every time i went to any of those games down south and saw the way they handle i was like this is nuts and so when you see a fraternity at the other end of um brian denny stadium and it's like they've got a band it's packed huge fence up around it because you know they're trying to make sure not everybody's getting in i look at that and go like is that it looks really cool and at 18 and 19 it'd be hard to tell you, be like, Oh, I'm going to walk by that and hate it. You know,

it looks like what an unbelievable deal this is. Um, especially for like a game day Saturday deal, especially when you go down that hole. I think it's, um, that whole main drag in front of Brian Denny and all the different houses are doing those different things. I've done that walk probably 10 times times and you just kind of look past it going all right and then i think it's the the older guy looking at the younger guys realizing they're probably having the best four years of their life but um you know we even had it back at a campus when no one really even cared about it every now and then it'd be like oh you guys are the worst you're just like all right

whatever i got it i i dated a girl at a syracuse sorority and i was there for for some sort of event, and I was like, I feel like I'm in a church right now. I don't know. It was some sort of old. Everything was old, and I don't know. It felt like I didn't feel comfortable in their house. It was just a bunch of pictures, and it was old carpet. Yeah, for the longest time. I just felt like I was in church.

We weren't allowed in. If we went to a sorority house during the day, we were told, I mean, this is the mid-90s, and you weren't supposed to leave the lobby. You couldn't leave. Now, again, after a while, you start realizing, like, wait, what? I'm not going upstairs. Okay. Right. There was no wink-wink.

Right. There were never any parties there or anything formal or anything like that. All right. This has gone on way too long. Good luck, buddy.

All right. Thank you to Kyle and Steve. Hope it works out. Yeah. Hope it works out, dude. Thank you as always. We have something

different planned for Wednesday. An author for a book that has nothing to do with sports. And I can't wait to do that. So we get some other stuff as well. Enjoy the holidays. We'll ramp it up again.

Ryan Russell Podcast, Springer Spotify. Thanks. Thank you.