The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Is There One Good Argument for Paying Running Backs? Dianna Russini Stops By, Plus Tennis and Heckling With Mardy Fish

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Russillo weighs in on the conversation about devalued NFL running backs (0:34) before talking with ESPN's Dianna Russini about DeAndre Hopkins's trade to the Titans, what to make of the AFC East, Dalvin Cook's next team, which QBs are in a make-or-break year this season, and more (17:04). Next, Ryen is joined by renowned former tennis pro Mardy Fish to discuss last weekend's American Century Championship, Steph Curry's hole-in-one and Mardy's heckler that may have cost him the win, Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, and MMA training (46:20). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:27:38). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Dianna Russini and Mardy Fish Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

let's talk about the running backs uh most of the arguments from running backs are not great arguments about the running backs so sorry to the running backs dinah racini on that some afc east stuff and one quarterback down south that'll probably be taking over soon. And Marty Fish, what happened on 18 Tahoe? That, a little. Al Caraz, also, he's into MMA as well, with Life Advice. A long one for you.

Enjoy. 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 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 crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Well, the running backs are not happy. So let's talk about running backs in the NFL. If you know one thing about me, you know that I don't like BS arguments. I'd swear, but it's very early into the podcast. I just don't like arguments where I look at it and go, you know what? A lot of the stuff you're saying just isn't applicable to your current position as a running back in the NFL. There's two things working against running backs,

to your current position as a running back in the NFL. There's two things working against running backs, reality and evolution. The pass is more valuable. It took the NFL way too long to figure this out. I remember the two things quote. Remember that one? I don't know if that was a Parcells one or not, but it got repeated all the time. It was like only three things can happen on a pass and two of them are bad, incompletion and interception.

I never understood it because it was like, so it's a 50% success ratio on runs? You could argue three things can happen on a run and two of them are bad if you throw a fumble in there, right? I never understood. Look, identity, punch them in the mouth, let them feel you, all that kind of stuff, right? But the first play in an NFL game

where the defense, it's their first snap. They're never going to have more energy and they're never going to be more excited. And then you decide to run it right up the middle. It's like, cool, now it's second and nine. The league always should have been passing more. You should have been putting athletes out in space

and the reward of what a pass attempt could be far outweighs what a rushing attempt could be, despite the understanding of knowing that there should be balance. But that was a quote that a lot of people hung on to it for a long time. I don't remember if it was necessarily a Parcells one. Parcells used to have the record is you are what your record says you are. I don't know. What if my first eight games were against way tougher opponents than yours and we're both four and four? I don't buy that one either. I remember there was another rushing stat that never made any sense to me. And they used to actually put this into research packets and they'd put graphics up on television, whether it was

ESPN, CBS, Fox. And it was like, oh, when this team runs it 22 or more times, they win 78% of their games. And then you start thinking to be like, wait, is it because they're running or are they running because they're already winning the game? And then we realize, yeah, that's kind of a dumb stat, so let's get rid of that one. We have grown up for decades thinking that you had to run the football late in the season to win a Super Bowl. It's just not true anymore.

It's nice. Balance is nice. Keeping the defense honest, but it's not a priority. And the running backs are feeling that pain. When I look at the passing evolution of it working its way up from high school, college, and then to the NFL, which is more fun, and I think just better off your better overall reward math that we've talked about here in a football game, it's a lot like the NBA. I mean, the correlation is very similar to the NBA. They should have been shooting more threes. And I'll admit, there's league pass nights where I'm like, this sucks.

And I want to watch this tonight. It's just a three-point shooting contest. But it's the best way if there's a talent gap to try to hang in a game, even if I missed some of the stuff that I grew up with, you know, do I really miss post play? Maybe a little. And I realized that Jokic and Embiid are two of the best players in the league, but Jokic is in his own category of like what he's capable of doing. And Embiid, I still think if your playoff success is based on dumping into a big, who's going to have double and triple teams swarming all over himself,

and then the ball is going to have to get kicked out to somebody else. Like, I don't know that you really want to run your team or your offense through the post. Although I've been willing to maybe zag on post positioning, but I have not come to any kind of conclusion on any of this. This is the evolution of sports. I mean,

you know, do you remember like we used to have power forwards where he was the other guy on a block? NBA offenses had a center on one block and a power forward on the other block. Can you imagine running two different guys in the post in a game today? You just wouldn't do it. I mean, should it make you sad? I don't think it should. Power forwards that can't shoot in today's NBA, you know what they're called?

Backup centers. They're not going to let you be out there playing the four if you can't shoot. You just don't. Because it's like, look, we need more spacing. We need more shooters because the reward is there. Another thing about the declining importance of fullbacks. Another thing about the declining importance of fullbacks. Although I'd argue that some of the worst content is preceded by,

if Kyrie did this, dot, dot, dot, and also keep that same energy followed by awful point. But where is the same energy for the fullbacks? Do you know which fullback led the NFL in carries last season? Do you know which fullback led the NFL in carries last season? Derek Watt with nine. That tied for 180th for all football players that carried the football. There were only 26 fullbacks under contract, according to some of the salary data that's out there now. You want to know why?

Because NFL teams are like, look, it's kind of cool having one of these guys, but we give him maybe a carry, a game, and if he's a great blocker, there's something in there. But a lot of times, the defense doesn't have to worry about that guy running out into the flat maybe once. How many fullback wheel routes have you watched recently? So the NFL went away from it, the same way the NFL went away from the massive neck roll middle linebacker who couldn't turn and run with anybody. The same way we just don't see those traditional nose tackles line up over the center for 60 snaps on defense. The game got different. So the other stat running back argument that I've heard in the past that is supposed to give us sympathy for the position is that the running backs have the shortest careers of any of the positions in the

NFL. And yes, that's true. Looking at multiple references, you're going to come up with a career expectancy of just over two and a half years for running backs. It is the worst on average for any of those positions. Do you want to know what the average length of a wide receiver's career is using the same references? 2.8 years. Nobody says shit about the receivers. Okay, this is about turnover. This is about massive rosters and replenishing it every year with seven rounds of draft picks on top of all the other supplemental picks that you get. The reason I've never understood the two and a half year lifespan for the running back, and I remember doing this back in the day on the radio show where I got research involved. I said, we need to dig into this and look at this because that doesn't make

any sense to me. I think the running backs that we are aware of play a lot longer than two and a half years. And we went through it and it's one of the most misleading things or apply it this way. It's misleading for everybody because you're including in all of the draft picks that never even get a chance. Those drag the overall numbers down. If you want to look at just the top 10 running backs, I just randomly picked two years. I could do it for any of the seasons. If you looked at the top 10 running backs from 2010, the leaders in rushing yards, the average career length for those top 10 running backs was 9.7 years. Then I picked another year because I've already done this. 2015, top 10 running backs, their average career length was 10 and a half years. Now, I understand what

you're saying because you're you and you're doing you stuff. But Ryan, you just picked the top 10 running backs. That's kind of the point. The ones that are good play a much longer time than is advertised. You can't be in the league 10 years going, you know, we only play for like two and a half years. No, that's not true. It's sort of true, but it's very misleading. How come the receivers never say, hey, we only play 2.8 years because they're the ones that are still getting paid. Now, if you look at those running back numbers for even the top guys, right, their numbers fall off a cliff. But guess what? So do all the other positions in the NFL, who at the end of their career is like, this guy's still awesome, but we're going to get rid of him.

This guy's still awesome. And yes, there are exceptions to some players that are terrific, decide they want to walk away from a very violent game. But the reason that two and a half years for a career number exists isn't because it's just unfair. It's because of the massive amount of turnover that happens at that position and really every other position. There's just one that needs to be last. I looked at the draft. Let's talk about turnover again. I could have done this for a ton of different draft classes where I could compare the this for a ton of different draft classes where I could compare the quarterbacks to running backs, but I did two classes to make two different points. In 2009, there were 11 quarterbacks drafted. The average length of the career for

those quarterbacks was 3.45 years. There were 23 running backs drafted in that same class. The average of their careers, 4.39 years. Wait, that's weird. Yeah, it's kind of weird that that year's running back class had a longer career. Now, to show my work here, it was tough. It was tough figuring out, do I count that year if he's on IR? Yes, because for every Brett Bomar, there was a Frank Summers, right? When I was like, wait, the practice squad doesn't count.

IR does. Maybe he was on, but doesn't have any stats. For the most part, I think it worked itself out. I wanted to look at another draft class that challenged the premise of this, all right? I wanted to find a quarterback class that actually had a much longer lifespan in the NFL than the running backs did. I found it in 2011. There were 12 quarterbacks drafted. They had an average career length of 6.58 years. There were 29 running backs drafted that year for an average career length of 4.86 years. Actually, both of those classes ended up having careers that were like two years longer than the average for the position for everybody that's in the league. for the position for everybody that's in the league. But the point is, it's not that that quarterback class won the longevity contest. The point is, there were 29 running backs drafted. Almost every team could argue they took a running back that year.

That wouldn't happen with quarterbacks, despite the fact that usually you're still carrying two. Some of the teams will carry three. If you look at it, I remember Danny Cannell used to always talk about this when he was trying to hang on in the NFL, and he'd be like, can I just be your third string guy? And then Shanahan took him over, and he's like, look how rarely the third guy ever plays. And a lot of the second guy snaps are a lot lower than you'd ever imagine.

So roster-wise, you'd still probably have a few more running backs. But if you're taking between 20 and 30 running backs every year in the NFL draft, like they do, the turnover is just going to happen. Now, is the turnover fair? No, not necessarily. I've said this about quarterbacks for a really long time. I feel like the NFL eats their own quarterbacks. They draft a guy in the fourth round. There's a starter in place. The fourth round guy never gets any reps. We have no idea if he could ever really do it or not. There's a pretty good chance if they've seen him taking reps in practice, he's been around the team facility for two years,

and they decide to draft another quarterback in the fourth round to get rid of him, they at least think they know one guy can't do it. The next guy, they don't know if he can do it, but they don't know that he can't, so he just gets replaced, and then it kind of ruins quarterback depth when you start looking at the depth charts

when the season gets started. You're like, who's that guy? We actually said that about Mike White once. Maybe a guy. But it's the same thing for running backs, but just at a bigger scale. When you're taking this many, there's somebody that was drafted in the fifth round, doesn't get that many snaps, probably playing special teams, not really making that much of an impact. And they're like, you know what? He's 23, he's 24. We don't really think he's that special. We could never imagine giving him 10, 15 carries. We don't really think he's much of a threat in the passing game.

So you know what? We'll just draft another one. It's not unfair. It's just the reality of the way business is done. I hate that Saquon Barkley was hit with the franchise tag. Not so much specifically to Barkley, because if you've heard me before, I hate the franchise tag. People have argued, oh, wait, it doesn't actually get used that much. It's not that big of a deal. And if you've heard this before, I apologize. But for the new listeners, it's not that when it's used, it's that it exists.

It suppresses true free agency for some of the players. And for Barkley, he doesn't want the tag. And I get it. But if part of your argument is, I want the tag because I hear this running back argument all the time. And I mentioned it before. Hey, they take a ton of punishment. I've got to get my money while I can get it now. If your argument is, I'm probably going to be hurt, so I need to be paid more, that's not a good argument. If I show up to the job site and say, I need to get paid more hourly because I'm going to miss a lot of days to make up for the time lost, that's not going to work. That's not a real negotiation.

And it gets thrown around like it's a good point all the time. Hey, these guys get hurt all the time. Take care of them. Not if you're running a business. Now, I don't blame, again, Barkley for being upset about it. I don't like that the tag exists. And sure, he'd probably make more guaranteed money if he were a true free agent. But Dalvin Cook's going to be 28 next month. Where's the interest for that guy? Apparently he wants like 10 million a year, but those deals are done.

They're done. Ezekiel Elliott's deal was terrible. It was terrible when it happened. They ended up paying him 50 million or so for four years. It wasn't worth it. Saw a lot of NFL players get involved in the conversation. Maurice Jones Drew said, if you don't have Mahomes, you need a top running back to win a Super Bowl.

Let's discuss that. The last five Super Bowl winners, their leading rusher on the season, non-Mahomes. Sonny Michel, Rams, Ronald Jones, Tampa Bay, Sonny Michelle again with the Pats, LeGarrette Blount, Philly, LeGarrette Blount, New England. Not a great point. Derrick Henry got really upset about it. And Derrick Henry's probably the second guy since Adrian Peterson where I've said that feels like one of the only dudes where the offense is about him more so than it is the quarterback.

What Peterson did with the Vikings in a couple of those years, those teams weren't that good. I don't know if that'll ever happen again at that position. Henry's probably the closest thing we've had to it. Spare me the, yeah, my running back's really good too for like a year or two. I'm talking about carrying the offense for multiple seasons. I understand why he's upset. It's personal to him.

He's a running back. But get rid of the position just because Saquon Barkley is not going to make Ezekiel Elliott money. Des Bryant tweeted about how kicker's annual salary is higher than running back's annual salaries. Now, I don't know if I'll ever be at a point in my life where I feel one way about something and then go, I feel a little different after this Des Bryant meme tweet. But it's a bad point because it completely eliminates the reality of how many more running backs are in the league versus how many kickers are in each roster.

The league isn't paying productive players. The league has realized, and this has been going on for years, you just don't really want to make this investment in that position because the position, what they do is not as important as what the quarterback does. But it feels like a different topic altogether, I think because we just know who those guys are.

I think we can name them. We don't care about all the old line guys that get replaced because they don't have stats, right? Running backs are still cool, right? You're still buying their jerseys. You're still excited when your team drafts one of them. You're keeping track of all this stuff. But I think that's the only reason

why it feels like there's this running back problem because it's still a far more identifiable player than all the other anonymous positions on an NFL roster. I get why the Giants tagged him. I get why Barkley hates it. But not only would I tag him if I were the Giants, I would have never taken him

second overall. And I think he's a stud. We got her while she was on vacation, sort of. Diana Rossini of ESPN. We're going to talk some NFL, just throw some topics around. But before we get started on that,

I just wanted to show her the orange juice I was having this morning in her honor. I know that she's stuck with the traditional OJ in the morning thing and she was shamed for it publicly, privately. And I know no one cares about this except for her and I, but I just think a nice fresh OJ, if it's done right, it's still pretty terrific in the morning and people just kind of pivoting away from it. It's kind of shocking to me and I'm worried about the industry, kind of like running backs. Yeah.

I've always been really concerned about the OJ market. I, there's a day I wake up where I don't think like, man, what, what's Sunk is going to do. But I think that the advice you gave me years ago has really helped improve my overall health, which was to get off the sugary kind, right? Like the crap that, That was the issue. I was drinking it a lot to start my day. Now, man, I'm happy if I just get a glass of water in me. So I need to lean back into the orange juice.

So thanks for the reminder. All right. Sounds good. That's a lesson for the kids out there. Okay. DeAndre Hopkins, the numbers, I don't know if we have all of it. I know some of the bonuses could take the two years, 26 million to like 32 million. Once you saw that number,

at least I was like, oh, that's why the Pats didn't get him because he was not going to be free. The Pats are always in on these like big name guys where it's like it's a depressed market. And with Brady not being there, but good for Hopkins you know I still think he's terrific and Tennessee needs him even though I love the kid from Arkansas still that they drafted so uh help us further understand this decision for DeAndre. Do the Tennessee Titans get better with the addition of DeAndre Hopkins? Anybody joining a team can make the Tennessee Titans better at this point because I think their roster just is, it's, it's a tough one this year. I think the Tennessee Titans have historically over the last few seasons

shown that they have their identity. They know what they are. They show up. They're, They're not easy to ever play. They're always that team whenever you talk to their opponents. They dread playing the Titans. But I think in terms of how Hopkins goes from making a team that's just okay, I think he makes them

to now okay plus. You know, and it was a need. Receiver was certainly a need. You know, Tannahill doesn't have a lot of weapons you know traylon burks is developing he's getting better but he's still really young and and really learning the the craft of being a professional football player um but just to go let's just take one step back before the actual decision was made. I think your instinct on the Patriots not wanting to pay that money, it was completely dead on because that's the truth.

The visits he took, if you think about it, was over a month ago. Yeah, a month and a half ago. It was early June when he went to New England and he went to Tennessee. And when I spoke to people in both those buildings after the visits, it's like everyone thought he was going there, like to their individual teams. It was like, oh, yeah, he's coming here. This was a great visit. You know, Tim Kelly is the offensive coordinator in Tennessee now.

They were together. He and DeAndre had like a great thing, a relationship. Obviously, Vrabel and Hopkins were together in Houston. And, you know, it's hard to get Vrabel excited about any player with the exception of like Jeffrey Simmons. So you can never really get a feel for him whenever you talk with him about how badly he thought they needed Hopkins. with him about how badly he thought they needed Hopkins, but talking to other people in that building during the visit, they all just felt like this was going to be, they were going to get this guy because of Vrabel. I feel like he's going to sell it, even though Vrabel will tell you he doesn't sell. You have to in this situation when you need a player like that.

Then on the New England side, that one I thought was going to have a little bit more drama because of the obvious situation and relationship between O'Brien and DeAndre and what we saw happened in Houston. God bless these guys if they're able to just put that past them. I don't have that ability to forgive that easy, but they

do. I feel very comfortable sharing that I spoke to people involved in this both of them and and it's like everyone has moved on um and i really felt like new england specifically bill o'brien they were really excited about getting a player like deandre hopkins but they when it came down to it that was going to, that was going to be ownership and Bill Belichick's decision on whether or not they wanted to pay that much money, which it's quite apparent he was looking to make Odell Beckham Jr. type of money.

That was very clear. We've been reporting that as well, and that is very much the truth. So where does that leave the AFC East then? so where does that leave the AFC East then I think it's I can't figure out the top I almost feel like I can figure out the bottom better start there then do you look at New England and just go

I look at New England as a team that has got to do a lot of clean up I do think the addition of bill o'brien was without a doubt their best we'll call it get um of the off season because of his comfort with not just the patriot way but um i just think his ability uh to work with quarterbacks uh anytime i've talked to anyone when he was in hou. You know, there was always something that was interesting because I think from afar and even from the fan perspective, looking at some of the success they had, and obviously not a lot of the

success that they had in Houston, I remember being conflicted with how I viewed him as a coach. But I always just leave it to the guys in the locker room and what they share with you. And I always got the sense that the guys really respected him and thought he was a really smart guy. And even talking to guys on the coaching staff, O'Brien, I remember being in Houston. And I'm not, look, I know guys aren't going to just go out there

and just crush coaches to reporters. But you get to know these, I was covering that league a lot or the division a lot because it was earlier in my NFL career. And when you're not that good at ESPN, you got to cover the Texans and the Titans. Those were like my teams. And so I was with them. And I kind of was looking for more on O'Brien.

Like, man, is this this guy does he stink is he not good and that was never the case it was always like man no he's good we like you know he's smart he knows what he's doing on offense so uh look taking all that I think um you know him in New England now I think they're gonna get a better version of Mac Jones. But, you know, from looking back from Mac's rookie year and hearing Belichick say like, yeah, this guy's great. Remember all the compliments we all were like, is what's going on with Belichick to, you know, the guy can, you know, the guy can play quarterback now is how he views them. So it's changed so much. But yeah, I look at New England as the team that probably

has to prove the most because I don't, at this point in July, early August here, I have no idea what the New England Patriots are going to look like. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, whether it's the Bills, you're like, okay, I know what that is. And then even with Tua and the question there is in Miami, the roster from a talent standpoint, and then you have Rogers with Jets, and I love that Jets defense towards the end of the year. I was like, these guys are stacked. By the way, is Rogers nicer to you now? No.

I don't think that's ever going to be a thing. But that's okay. I have covered many players and coaches in my career who do not like me. And I don't know if he doesn't like me. He just didn't like me calling him,

which, you know, that's fair. I get it. I don't like people calling me. Can we, can we just go back? What's that like?

You just, you just call, call him. You're like, Hey, what's going on? So you've known me a really long time. And I,

I like to think, you know, my personality has helped a lot of my reporting, or at least some of the traits of my personality, which the ruthlessness, that like relentlessness, that kind of don't take no attitude, which is, I think a strength at times, but it's definitely a weakness as well, which applies to a lot of things outside of work that don't work well because of that attitude. But I had Aaron's phone number. And do you remember when you originally went on Pat McAfee about a year and a half, no, a year and a half before this whole situation? And he said, he was talking about insiders not knowing anything. And I had reported that he wanted a contract of $50 million.

And he went on McAfee and said, nobody knows anything. That's not true. So I was like, you know, let me reach out. Let me just shoot him a text and say, hey, I want to give you an avenue to make sure my information is correct. Because I'm getting it from someone very close to you who I, you obviously know, and you don't know he's telling me. So let's, why don't we have a conversation and we'll discuss what you want, what you want me to put out there. No answer. So fast forward a year later and the jet situation's coming to light, and so I reach out.

Hey, a lot of stuff going on right now. Just wanted to give you an avenue if you want to talk. He never wrote me back, which that's fine. I have a million messages unanswered from players. But you know, just to interrupt real quick, you will always send that text. You will always ask to just be like, maybe right.

Like it's the job. Why wouldn't you? And I would want it if I was an athlete, because think about how many times in our own careers you think to yourself, why didn't, why didn't that media writer just reach out to me? Or why didn't someone just ask me? Um,

and I've seen Aaron out out and about you know it's not like he doesn't he doesn't not know me right like i've we've talked we've had conversations i've seen him at charity events i've seen him in tahoe um and i've covered the green bay packers for years uh so it's not like a it wouldn't have been a weird text some random girl you know he's like a legit journalist from espn and i obviously prefaced it this is who i am but so just fast forward to this year you know we're trying to find out what is he doing is the deal done and i'm sitting on set with schaefter and and you know adam's the best at what he does, but he can be really annoying sometimes because he, he obsesses over stuff. And so, so he's like, you know, I don't know, you know, I think this thing's not good.

It's not done yet, but you know, it's out there that it's done. This is when Trey Wingo, I think had tweeted about it. And I said, why don't we stop calling the jets and the agent and people close to Aaron? And why don't we just call Aaron? Adam looked at me. He's like, what do you mean? Just call Aaron. I said, pick up your phone and call them. He's like, you know what? You know what we're seeing? You're right. You're right. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it right now. It was like commercial break.

And I think the adrenaline of the day for agency just fueled and gave him the, it was almost like he had a few cocktails in him. That's what it was like. And, you know, he had that, like, uh, the buzz bravery. And so he calls and then I was like, all right, I'm going to call now. So then I called and Adam and he's like, just like his mouth just drops and he's trying to show me his phone while I'm on TV, by the way. But I see, I looked down and it was like, lose my number to Adam. And I was like, oh my gosh, like that's amazing. You know? And in the moment it was really freaking funny, but I was standing up for Aaron. I was like, oh, he's just being playful. He's like, oh no, he's mad. He's mad. I'm like, oh, he's just being playful. He's like, oh, no, he's mad. He's mad. I'm like, no, I think he's just having fun with it.

And then obviously we saw later when Aaron went on Pat McAfee to talk about it. You know, and he couldn't remember my name, which, you know, that happens. My name's weird. Yeah, no, I still struggle with it. So I guess that means but i'd like to talk about aaron in new york if you want to go there a little because i've been around them since okay so let's yeah let's go like what are we like do you think they're winning the division i do i do actually and and the defense that you pointed out is actually the reason i don't think it's because uh aaron rogers is he's gonna

completely change every single weakness of this team but you know because i i'm i continue to have major issues with their offensive line i don't know what's what the answer is going to be i don't know how they're going to figure this out uh obviously we know it's going to be competitive but with injuries and um just aaron rogers at this point in his career and at his age, needing protection is going to be prevalent. And I'm not sure if the Jets really have that. Now, that being said, let's just talk about what I've seen and what I've heard and the conversations I've had in New York for the past three months. Ryan, this guy was not in the building for more than 10 minutes before I had guys in the building telling me,

like, everything is different. Everything. Which at first made me go, well, how bad was it? Like, that these guys needed that much of a change. And I realized being respectful of the regime that's there, being respectful of Douglas and Sala and all his guys, they were trying something there. They've been trying to build on something,

but they were missing a piece. And that piece is that veteran voice and that veteran guy that you hear all these teams and coaches talk about when you have them, it's game changing for your team, organization and now they have them so you now have an aaron rogers in meetings calling guys at calling coaches out you have them on the field i'm watching him explain things to receivers explain how he likes certain protections with the o-line they started preparing by the way the offensive line room from what i was told already started hat you know they way, the offensive line room, from what I was told, already started.

You know, they had all the clips of Aaron's favorite type of protection that he was looking for. This is before anything was even close to getting done. So the Jets had been all in the entire time, which, if you recall, there's a lot of reporting about optimism. The Jets feel really good about this because it wasn't them just sharing that with me. They were operating that way. They were operating like Aaron Rodgers was coming to New York. So the work has been had. They've been putting it in since the start of when they first found out that this could be a real thing. And then obviously it is what it is now. So the question is, so what is this offense, right?

I just had this conversation with someone in New York. Because I am curious, like, what does this look like? And his response was great. He's like, it's the greatest hits album. Like, it's not that complicated. It's what Aaron wants to do. It's everything that he's comfortable with. We are going to tailor and make sure everything fits with that.

So stuff that we saw in Green Bay work, where he had success, He's comfortable with, we are going to tailor and make sure everything fits with that. So stuff that we saw in green Bay work, they, where he had success. And obviously with the addition of some of these running backs that I think are going to be better in New York than they were in green Bay. That's where I think he can have success. And there's, I don't want to say give them credit.

Cause you'd be stupid not to allow Aaron Rogers to do what he wants or what he's comfortable with. But we've seen this league. There's some dummies out there. So I think they're doing a good job of allowing him to lead the way. Let's talk a lot of Northeast here hits early on. We didn't do this by design despite our upbringing, but the Saquon Barkley part of this. I spent a good deal in the open talking about the running back position,

not being surprised, not being surprised by his disappointment. But I just don't know if that deal's out there anymore for running back the way they were rarely. But, you know, the Ezekiel one's the one you point to, and I just don't know if that exists anymore. Here's my thought on it. When I was scrolling through Twitter on the beach yesterday, just getting the reaction after we put out all the Saquon stuff and the Josh Jacobs. And, and, and look, I, I see the running backs all coming together, sharing their thoughts and opinions. Why is everyone acting surprised?

This has been, this is something that has been happening for, for 10 years. This isn't that shocking. I think the Dallas Cowboys, I've obviously been the most recent example of giving a long-term deal, giving a lot of money to Ezekiel Elliott. Tony Pollard comes in. He proves he's more efficient. He's able to get the deal. And now you see him playing on the tag.

And the Dallas Cowboys will then now go out and find another young, productive back. This is one thing I've learned covering this league now all these years. Teams are constantly looking for younger and cheaper. We know this, we see it where there's proof of that. You know, we saw it with the chargers. It's everywhere. They're no one, no one's looked, everyone's looking to get the most that they possibly can at the running backs in those early years. And then, and then they're moving on and it's

unfair, but I do think it's just the reality of the position. Then there's so many of them coming out of college. You know that. That's another thing. There's a plethora of players at that position at this point, which I have two boys. They're not playing running back. No, no.

They look like receivers. What do you think ends up happening here though like is barkley going to try to go levion bell on this good question so um during the negotiations i was speaking to his side which there there were a lot of voices that were involved on his side because he was getting advised from another agency while I think eventually hiring them during this process. So I know I feel pretty comfortable at this point saying that it is definitely on the table for him to sit out against Dallas. Do I think he's made the decision fully yet? No. Now the New York giants,

they see it differently. The New York giants believe that say one is going to show up for a player that's looking to get money. Is he, why would he sacrifice $600,000 a week? If he doesn't show up, that makes no sense. If you're trying

to make money um and we've seen what happened but levi on bell just came out and said he made the mistake of of doing what he did which was leaving the steelers and going to new york um so i think i've been around saigon a lot he is such a competitor and he cares. And he cares about his image. And by the way, that's not a knock. I think it's a compliment to him because it's about, he encompasses it all. It's not just about what he can do on the field. He wants to be the face of the franchise.

And it's important to him. So I do think in the end, I think he shows up. But I think between now and then, it's important to him. So I do think in the end, I think he shows up, but I think between now and then, it's going to sway. Anything to add on Dalvin Cook? A team that's looking to sign him is getting a guy that's going to join the roster and immediately become probably top five, top seven best player on the roster at this point, right? I think when you look at the running back market,

there's not a lot of the players there that are available now that have talent of this caliber. I was debating on television a few days ago about what's the biggest story, Dalvin Cook or DeAndre Hopkins. And in my opinion, I thought the team that was getting Dalvin Cook was the team that immediately gets better. Immediately,

everyone gets better. Everyone improves. The offense completely and all facets of it. You know, where he winds up, I do think we're going to know soon. I think the next week or so. Um,

but we'll, we'll see from a money standpoint, but you, you know, he's got Miami, Matt Miami on his mind. So we'll see if that works out. Okay.

But when we finish up here and we can kind of take in a bunch of different directions here, but when I look at the depth charts and I'll kind of go like, all right, let's, let's separate the quarterbacks into tiers. And it's more, not so much on who they are as a player, but who looks like they're going to be replacing their starter. And how short the leash is for some of the players that are at least penciled in at number one of the depth chart of that position. is there it doesn't feel like it's a long list um some years some years it's longer than others going into this year it doesn't seem super long it also depends on how many recent guys went in like the top 10 at the position but there are a couple names that jump out to you diana as far as

like okay this is like this is it this is like make or break like probably will never be another opportunity for this player to be a starter again if it doesn't happen this year i think this is unfair but this is the reality. To me, my biggest concern... My number one quarterback that has... Let's just call it the pressure cooker on him is Jordy Lowe,

which I think is actually... It's a little unfair because it's only going to be his first year. But I don't think Green Bay is going to have a lot of patience they obviously gave him a contract that's very team friendly um i think this is it i think it's like hey we have an idea what you are we're giving you this we're going to give you this chance so go out there and let's see what you can do so he he for me sits sits at number one on top of a list of quarterbacks

that need to perform this year. Otherwise, I'm not too sure if they're ever going to be starters again. I'm always kind of fascinated by Davis Mills because it's like, hey, you know who's pretty good? It's that guy. And you're like, okay, but that's only because your expectations were zero. If he were a first-round draft pick, you'd be like, they need to make a change.

Because when you put it all together, and granted, not a very good roster in Houston, I get all this stuff, but it's just not. We already know when you spend a draft pick like they do on CJ, it's over for him. But he got talked about as somebody that was a real solution

only because he was so far over the expectations based on the lack of hype for him coming in and having the starting job? The CJ Stroud, we'll call it hype, before the draft, in my opinion, was less than it is now. It's almost like he got drafted, he's on a team and he's playing,

and I'm hearing more about him in terms of his ability, his understanding. I spoke to someone there. You would think he'd been playing for two seasons already, which you always hear these little whispers at

camps, at OTAs. These guys aren't really in full speed yet. I get it, but the person I was talking to was pointing to just the comprehension of what they're trying to accomplish, what they're trying to do there. Some guys just pick it up real quick. Some guys take a little time. Some guys have a different type of learning. And he just completely speaks the lingo and the language from, it seems like from week one, he was already very comfortable. You know, and draft night, I was with the Titans actually. And I had heard all week long that they were trading up to get him,

that CJ Stroud was going to be the guy. And I remember, you know, no one ever, no one ever gave that to me on the record and confirmed it with me. But I did talk to some people in Tennessee about Stroud after that, after the draft of like, you know, if he was going to be your guy, why do you guys like him so much? And I think there was a lot of his athleticism. They were pointing to his accuracy. All the great things that you've heard already about him. But yeah, I think I think he's going to be a quarterback that may need,

may need a beat or two, but I'm looking forward to him taking over there in Houston and seeing if he can do something like what we saw Deshaun Watson be able to do in, you know, in terms of a player. So yeah, Davis Mills, I think the idea was nice.

I think he was, he, he had some moments, but yeah, I think this is CJ Strong's job. Any other names to add to it? You know, I'm going to throw Tua in there

and I know that's probably a controversial one and Dolphins fans are brutal right now. So sorry, guys. Look, Miami fans are pretty chill generally. So sorry, guys. Look, I think... Miami fans are pretty chill generally, though, but yeah. Really?

That's been your... They're very mean to me. I don't really want to go down the Twitter hole of like... Stay away from it. Keep going. Keep going. No, look, I think it's it's funny though because like i say you were building this segment out it's fine you can go ahead and do it you can do it

on tv as you're getting ready for week one and all that kind of stuff but i i like the hey who's on that list what's incredible about this list is that there's this there's a bunch of names on it for completely different reasons like jordan love being like a make or break situation when he hasn't played other than one start for three years. That doesn't seem fair. You'd be right. Davis Mills, who comes in, his first year statistically he was better. Last year, it just wasn't as good.

But when you spend the pick the way they spent the pick, we already seen that story before. Baker, at this point, it has to be a bunch of other things going. There's always going to be a market for Baker, though, in my opinion. No, I think this is it. I think this is it. No, no, I'm sorry. As a starter, correct. Baker's going to have a job, though.

He's not going to be acting. He should, but he's not going to be doing movies in a year. I think Baker Mayfield will continue to play football and be a backup. It'd be great. We mentioned Mac Jones, right? I just don't know if you can make a 90 minute State Farm movie. See, I think he just hasn't been given the avenue. No one's been like, hey, let's yeah, like, let's try you on, you know, whatever.

I don't even I don't watch. Well, look, I just remember when Dwight Howard was going to move to L.A. so he could be in movies. You're like, what are you going to play? What what character? So but if we go back to like the Tua thing is its own reason but clearly we're all going to be watching Tua with this this kind of nervous anxiety it's hard different you're right different from the Jordan Love part of it I mean we can even throw Mac Jones in there even though

I feel like we probably did too much past that I wanted to but I like like the tool one because it's the reality of, wait, is this going to be good? The crazy thing is that roster is so good that I don't think he needs to be in the MVP conversation. It seems like at one point he might have been earlier in the year before he got hurt. But there's

completely different reasons, I guess, as I'm restating it for the same concern. But you point out a great roster, right? So that's kind of my reasoning as to like you're right like the reasoning of is this it for him is really because of his health right which is always hard to get into because we don't know what would we don't know how this is going to work and you know i think we all can agree it's probably the one thing in football we all can agree on is like we nobody wants to see him get hurt like i i'm hoping the jiu-jitsu and the training and the doctor and all the things that he's been doing to try to avoid this um and even you know just i think talking to people miami even

during ota's just to overall i think is important his vibe his confidence in himself uh his leadership his growth because he's still growing at the position as good as he's been, obviously. Just really getting control over that offense. Those are some of the things that the players are sharing with me, which that's a good thing going into a new year. Enjoy the rest of the summer. Looks like you got, what, like four days? Yeah. Yeah, I got what, like four days? Yeah.

And I got about four days and then that's it. And then I look forward to Memorial Day weekend. It's like the next time I come up for air. Always enjoy your visits. Thanks, Diane.

No shower. Happy hour. Let's go. I'm excited about this guest. We have talked about doing this, I don't know, for a couple of years. It's my fault. But he's a busy guy. Tennis pro. I will ask him about the golf pro thing, but it's Marty Fish who's been in the news. And I'm happy to finally get to do this face-to-face, man.

How are you? Likewise, dude. I know you moved to the LA area. I guess we'll call it Manhattan Beach area. Everybody knows. What, years? Five, six years ago, probably at this point. And yeah, we still haven't connected. we still haven't connected. You can't take all the credit for the blame. I will take some of it, but it's good to be on, dude. It really is. Yeah. It's been five years. I kind of joked that I feel like I moved here twice. And when I moved here because of COVID, it felt like it was this reset. And I was like, oh, that's right. I live in Los Angeles because we didn't do anything because we had extra time with it out in LA. And I've been here five years. And in the beginning, I was like, yeah, I'll come meet you there. And yeah, I'll go do that. And no problem. Let's go meet and do that

because I want to learn about the area. And then once you start settling in and I realized nobody comes and visits me. And I was like, oh, that's just what it is. So there's no more perfect Los Angeles story than us keeping in contact and never once seeing each other because it's me. And I was like, oh, that's just what it is. So there's no more perfect Los Angeles story than us keeping in contact and never once seeing each other because it's just what happens out here unless you live literally next door to the person that you're talking to. Yeah. You got to live in the little pocket. Like if you were in Brentwood or like Bel Air or Westwood, I'd see you all the time. But if you were in Venice or even Santa Monica, I probably would never see you. And it's only two miles away. Yeah, but it's just, it's just too far. And a little other tidbit that I'll share with the audience. And this is just how bad I am at the personal relationship

stuff at times where Marty and I first got connected. I know you were in the Academy of Prim Sripipat. So Prim, who's my neighbor, was like, oh, yeah, Marty's my guy or whatever. And then I started coming out to L.A. before I'd moved here for work. That was going on for years. Like, McShay and I would just stay in Manhattan Beach. And then you hit me up and you were like, hey, you can stay with me if you want. And I was like, what's wrong with this guy? Like, he's inviting me to stay at his house.

And I was like, well, do you have a family? And he's like, yeah. I go, yeah, I don't think you're going to want me staying with you at your house. And then I was like, I kind of have my routine in the beach anyway. And you're like, all right, fine, no problem. And if you don't know me, it could be like so off-putting. You're like, I've just invited this guy to my home and it's probably a pretty sick setup. And I was like, nah, I'm cool with the hotel.

Don't worry about it. And then I was like, looking back, I'm like, you know, you probably could have just done a better job at that with him and other people in general. So that's another flaw I have. Oh, good. I have a, I got one of those rooms with like five TVs and stuff.

We could have been watching. Well, we could have just been watching sports all day, but whatever. Yeah. We'll get it. We'll get it going with the Timberwolves. Get dialed in again here. We'll figure it out.

We'll get you down to the beach. Okay. So I have to ask. Okay. Cause we know that the golf part, you know, everybody knows the tennis part, but the people paying attention to your golf run is really incredible. The Tahoe experience seems like the ultimate, and you're kind of the favorite. You're on 18, you're going up against Steph Curry, you've got the lead going to the last hole, the scoring's a little different, and somebody yells in your backswing and take us take us through that moment the t-box well um yeah american century is uh the american century championships

is one of the uh one of the best weeks of the year obviously you know if you love golf which i do um i've played my whole life never taken a lesson or anything like that i just i've played my entire life so um i kind of know uh i've played junior events junior tournaments stuff like that but um once i once i you mentioned saddlebrook academy and um you know once i went there like 15 years old i sort of had to stop playing a lot of a lot of at least like high level golf you know junior golf stuff like that um to stop doing that but but yeah i just i've grown up playing my whole life so if you love it um and you get invited one time i begged to get invited in 2014 um that was nine years ago so i played it nine years in a row gotten the invite kissed everyone's ass as much

as i could to get that, to get the invite back. Um, those people who make those decisions are now some of my closest friends and close friends. Um, Jonathan Thomas, who runs American centuries, phenomenal dude. And, um, and his wife and they're just, they're good, they're good people. So they come out all the time and he comes out to LA and everything. So it's, it's, it's sort of turned into like kind of a family type tournament. Um, and, and so, you know, it's the one that you look forward to the week you look forward to for a lot of reasons, not just the golf, right? Like I've been able to make and create some really, really cool friendships, um, with guys that I would never cross paths with that never would have,

right? Like you mentioned Steph Curry and how he won the tournament a couple of days ago. And, and I never would have crossed paths with Steph. I mean, I, you know, he may be, may be in the golf world at some stage, but certainly not because I played tennis and he played basketball, you know, like I just never would have, never would have met him, got to play with him 2015 or 16 one round. And, and it's kind of how it is out there everybody's really um everybody's really humble for the most part there's probably if there's 90 guys it's probably or 90 players there's probably 88 of them that are really really nice and approachable and all that and then probably two that um that I won't name

that, uh, uh, that aren't, you know, and so it's a really humbling, really cool event, right. To be a part of a lot of players want a lot of athletes, uh, uh, present and, um, retired want to be a part of it. Right. So it's a, it's a true like honor to get invited. Okay. So, so that being said, I won the tournament in 2020 and shot a 63 on the Saturday and, um, and played, you know, played really well that that tournament hadn't really put it together, um, uh, quite enough to, to, um, you know, to, to be, to be in contention, uh uh on sunday out in the afternoon and on the back nine kind of thing i'd always kind of finished in the top five but never really put myself in that true position to to kind of win it again or whatever so um so we get yeah we get uh we get to the 18th

hole and i'm up three points and you mentioned the scoring system's a little funky with the Stableford system. And Steph had made three, you get a point for a par, you get zero points for a bogey, you get minus two for a double bogey. So you don't want to go backwards. And then you get three for a birdie, six for an eagle, eight for a hole in one. And I mentioned eight for a hole in one because Steph got a hole in one on Saturday. And so he had three during the three rounds, he had three Eagles in a hole in one. And if you add all those points up on four holes,

it's 26 points. It's like, just to give you a quick example, I got 18 points on 18 holes on the first day. I played really well for me. The second day, I shot 67, had six birdies and a bogey, really clean round. I got 28 points for that. That was 18 holes. He had 26 points for four holes. So he's got 50 more holes to go to gain as many points as I can. So I felt like I did a pretty good job just to keep up with him

because it was really just the two of us in the end there. So we get to 18 and there's a guy, I'm just about to pull the club back. And this is before that somebody, you know, this guy yelled in kind of in my backswing and he yells out, and I know we can cuss on this, but I won't say it to the exact, exactly what he said. But, hey, Fish, F you, you suck. Like, when no one is talking, you know, and it's like one of those things where it's like, and there's thousands of people there. And, like, I'm just about to tell you, and I back off and Steph, to his credit, and, like, his team, he's got an awesome, he's an awesome dude.

And he's got, and the people around him are also really great guys um his father was out there because his brother seth and dell were there um all of their kind of team that they have chris stone who you may know in basketball worlds and um and and his his bodyguard yusuf who's an awesome dude um and and a great you know just he's always with's an awesome dude and a great, you know, just he's always with Steph and everything. And he, like, so this guy says this, like, hey, Fish, F you, you suck. You know, right, you know, like right next to my wife and kids and like just out of nowhere.

It's just weird, right? Especially for golf. Like, I know it's not like, you know, you're not at the open here, but it's still the golf crowd. Totally. I've had people say stuff like that when i'm playing tennis and i'm just in kind of the arena and i don't really you know whatever i'll deal with that another time or just let it go it's just that that stuff doesn't really bother me that much just about to say callback the guy says it and steph's like whoa dude like what what are you doing you know kind of thing and my buddy who's caddying for me who's like you loves a gold's jam down in uh down in

venice um type guy um uh was pretty pissed right so he's what he's got his eyeballs on this guy um and probably gonna say something after i hit so i i reset i go back and i'm like okay let's just i just need a ball in the fairway i'm up three points i need steph needs to eagle uh for me just just to have any chance of of beating me as long as i uh if he doesn't eagle as long as i don't make a bogey i win um. Um, and, and we're on a par five, so it's the shortage par five. So it was, you know, I was going to make par most likely. Um, so I take the club back and, and right at the top of my backswing, it wasn't like in the downswing, it was right at the top. He sort of yells, I don't know what he yelled, some sort of bird sound or

something. It was really, he got me good. He really did. Like he got me to where it was like that perfect time. And you know, golf is like in, in almost any other sport, tennis included and you have to be quiet in tennis as well. It's, it's not as technical. Golf is so technical, right? Like everything has to be on point and on plane. If you're, you know, trying to, if you're swinging, I swing at 120, 218 to 122 mile an hour club speed on my driver so like it's pretty high and so if you're off by a little bit you know things could go things could go bad and there's lots of people out there as well and like i don't

want to hit anyone and like i'm not a professional golfer so that's also in the back of my mind too and so i take this club back he gets me i'm also in the back of my mind too. And so I take this club back, he gets me, um, right in the back swing. Quite frankly, I was happy to, to get it airborne. Um, and like forward to be honest, cause it really, um, like kind of, you know, it was like just the perfect time again. And, and so anyway, so I didn't, I didn't really, so he did that. My buddy goes after him. Yusuf,h's guy goes after him steph dell is on the other side of the like it was actually kind of cool to see like the

camaraderie of like everyone's like that's not cool man like we don't want to win like that we don't want to play like that and you could tell that steph like it actually bothered him um to where when we got down to uh down to the green and he had gotten on to, on into and had an Eagle putt, I walked by him and I said, dude, make the putt. Like just, you know, I hope you make it like, just make it. Cause I, I felt, I felt like he may be, cause he, again, he is such a good dude that I thought maybe he felt really bad that like that happened. And, thought maybe he felt really bad that like that happened and um i know that he did but that being said i was able to then hit my you know i was behind a tree and like i had to kind of go under and hit like to get to the layup to then get it on the green and that was fine and i did that it

was as if i just missed the green or missed the drive into the trees and had to lay up and normal par five and so i told him that like on the green i was like dude make the putt you know like i hope you make it kind of thing hoping that he didn't make it but like i hope you like you know like that's uh like don't worry about it kind of kind of thing in a way so um so yeah man it was just weird it was just kind of weird because it was it was god he got me at a perfect time, you know, that, that I just didn't know was coming, especially after the F you fish, you suck right before that. And I have it on video and I can send it to you. It's pretty clear that he says it. Um, and, uh, anyways, they, they got in his face and stuff like that. I don't know what they did. But again, the damage was kind of done at that point.

And I couldn't go for the green in two. So I couldn't. I had to kind of, you know, I could have made Eagle as well. Or I could have made Birdie as well. But like, you know, Parr was something that I was okay with in that situation. Because I knew that he had to make Eagle, which is hard to um to to beat me and he did okay so real quick it was the same guy that said the two things same guy yeah same guy so did they was there any part of this that we don't know yet like when they found him what happened what he said i don't know

well he said he bet on steph to win and so he wanted him to win oh Oh my God. It was like, you know, and you start thinking about it and you're like, it's surprising that stuff doesn't happen more often with all the betting nowadays in sport, right? Like you can actually have a pretty solid impact on, especially in like golf or tennis or, you know, those sort of quiet sports or, or, you know, sports where you have to, you know, be quiet during play, stuff like that. Um, uh, I don't know how you would do it in other sports, but like certainly in golf, right? Like you can really, you know, pay some heckler or something like happy Gilmore and go out there and,

and I'll shoot her. I'll see you at the red lobster after kind of thing. And you can, you know, like you could, if you're surprised it doesn't happen more often, to be honest. The guy probably had a lot of money on Steph and he wanted him to win. Wow.

Okay, so this is, this is, I don't want to spend more time necessarily on that event of it, but, you know,

as I was paying attention to your career after tennis, it was like, hey, Marty keeps winning all of these tournaments. I've heard about

the legend at Bel Air and winning the member championship. Because I think, I don't know if I have this right, because I was like, how long have you been a member there? Or no, I said, how many championships have you won? You were like five. And I was like, well, how many years have you been a member there? And you were like five.

Is that right? Well, no, now it's been longer. I haven't played it in a while, but there was a time there where, um, you can't play it if you've been, if you haven't been a member for 12 months. So the first year that I was a member, I wasn't allowed to play it. Um, and then I won it like, I think it was four times, um, in a row and then I haven't played it in a little while, but, um, yeah, so I've won that one a few times. Okay. All right. So I think this is perfect because here you are at the top of your game in tennis and you know what that takes. And you know, you know, the tennis, I don't know how the tennis world works, but like, it was funny because I was talking to Sharif Abdul Rahim and, you know, he's president of the G League.

And I was like, I don't care who you are, any level of playing pickup basketball. league and I was like I don't care who you are any level of playing pickup basketball if there's somebody who's pretty good you'd be like hey you know you're pretty good you get any looks and then he's always got a million reasons why he's not in the pros it's never hey I'm not good enough it's it's all of these things happen to me I imagine tennis has the same stuff but golf is like another level of like the guy that you play with who's really good and I think it has to be like the higher end clubs and you're like oh this guy scores really well granted you're playing your same course the whole time it becomes easier easier and all that kind of stuff. So I guess what I'm doing here is I'm asking like, what is the separation like for somebody

like you, who's this good. And yet the pros who, you know, it's always a joke. So you have no idea how big that gap is. What is that gap like for your game and your perspective knowing what it was like to be a pro athlete in a different sport yeah it's it's um it's big um first of all uh uh if if i had played golf instead of tennis maybe maybe we're talking about something a little different i i excelled in both of them when i was younger as a junior um but my dad is a huge tennis fan and taught tennis his entire, has taught tennis his entire adult life. He has got a great job at a club down in Vero Beach, Florida called the Windsor Club. And he's been there for over 30 years. So he was going to the US Open as a fan before I was born at the Tennis US Open. So he had pushed me towards tennis, I was born at the tennis us open. So he had pushed me towards tennis, um, uh, you know, kind of 12, 13, 14, 15 years old to then see, you know, how good I could get. Obviously it worked

out fine, but, um, there's always a little bit of me that, that sort of feels like if I would have gone down the golf route, maybe I would have been able to figure that out. Who knows? Um, that being said uh i'll give you an example i got a sponsor's exemption last year in the 3m open in minneapolis or in blaine minnesota which is just outside minneapolis before i was um uh just after tahoe last year for the first time and to be the first you know guy to play an at ATP tour and PGA tour event was a, was a cool experience, obviously. And, um, you know, I practiced really hard for that and, you know, I, I got the exemption maybe two months out. And so I, you know, started grinding for two months. Um,

I finished like, you know, I think there were a hundred and let's just say 150 players and I probably finished 145th, you know, like there were a couple of withdrawals, which I count, um, as me beating them. And then, uh, and then, um, there were maybe, I don't know, three or four guys that like are pros that, you know, that, that I'd be, but again, that's just one time, um, one week of, of, of one, you know, kind of calendar year for those guys that play. So they're way better.

I'm a plus three handicap. They're plus six, seven, eight, nine handicaps. Like they're not like they would have to, I would have to get three shots aside if we were playing like for our lives. So they're way better. Sometimes I feel like they get a little triggered too. When fans will kind of say like Steph Curry, he made a hole in one and a bunch of Eagles.

He could probably play on the PGA tour. And these, you know, the pros are like, no, not even clean. They get pretty aggressive with it. It's like, guys, we realize you guys are way better than us. Way better. And so we love golf. Like we want to be as good as you, but there is no way in our worlds that we think that we're even remotely close to as good as a professional golfer. That being said, you can play a good round here or there. I've gone out and played lots of rounds of golf, just individual rounds of golf with some guys, you know, a bunch of guys that play on tour. And it's not like I either get crushed or even lose to them every time there's times. Um, and that's

why golf is, is so unique in that way too, where it's not always the best player wins every tournament in tennis. Like the best player wins a lot. Um, it's hard to beat somebody that's better than you in tennis, in golf. It's like in every, you know, there's a lot of luck involved. It's hard to beat somebody that's better than you in tennis. In golf, it's like there's a lot of luck involved. There's a lot of, obviously, a ton of skill and all that. But where you leave yourself on the greens and what bounce you got off the fringe and off the tree or whatever and in the water. And so there's a lot of variables as well in golf that are different than any other sport that can kind of make it interesting for a day. But if we play two days or five days or 10 days in a row,

those guys are, they're so good. Even the LPGA players, there's, there's so much better than us as well. I mean, they're so, so good.

So let me ask it in the context of like game. And I can only use like the one frame of reference of like the two years where I was playing all the time. I was never that good. Um, but you know, as a bogey golfer, it was probably the best I was.

And I played with somebody who shot like an 80 generally, you know, like a plus plus eight or whatever I'd go. Okay, wait, every time they screw up, they're always like saving themselves. Like they're always putting themselves back in a position.

And like, you know, again, I'm not a super golf guy, but I was playing enough at that time that I go, hey, when you screw up, it's always a stroke disaster trying to figure out how to get back in the play. Then the guy shooting 80 versus the scratch guy, I think that would be, okay, I'm giving myself a chance, but the guy who's a scratch golfer, every single shot to the green is like thinking

about birdie. He's thinking about a birdie putt. So he's giving himself multiple birdie opportunities. He may not get them every single time, but that's evening out of scorecard at the end of the day. What I'm trying to understand is somebody like you, who's probably a scratch golfer, and I understand that there's a gap. Where is that in your game to somebody who's a pro? What is that thing that you see that they consistently do to lead to why their scores are just always going to be better than yours? Those guys never make two mistakes in a row.

It's very, very rare. Every golfer on the planet, Tiger Woods on down, makes mistakes. They know where to miss certain shots. They know where their miss is on every shot as well. And I mean that by, you know i'm a lefty so i play a cut a right to left type ball flight and i know that with a six iron through wedge i can't actually miss it to the right like my miss is

always to the left and so i will compensate for that and make sure that if i do miss this shot and miss it meaning like just flush it hit it perfect you know right exactly where you where you're aiming which is you know pretty rare um that i know that it's either gonna that's probably gonna go in this specific spot and if i hit it well it's gonna go you know where i want it to Um, those guys never make two mistakes in a row. So they do clean up, uh, they clean up their game. Uh, they clean up the, the, their bad shots incredibly well. Also the, like what we're watching on TV, they're only showing good shots. So like, you know, for the most part, at least in the first couple of rounds. Right. So like, there are a lot of they're human right so like they do make a lot of mistakes as well and they do make bogeys they

very rarely make double bogeys they very rarely compound their mistakes and then the one thing honestly that that blows my mind with those guys and how good they are is is how good they are with their long irons like three iron four iron five iron six iron type shots they're hard to hit especially off like a tight fairway where there's not a ton of grass there um out of the thick rough where there's you know where it's impossible to sort of advance it they figure out ways to do it they hit their four irons as as straight and on on accuracy wise as i do my nine iron and wedge and that that that to me is what truly separates apart from being a a little bit better in driving the ball a little bit better in chipping a lot better than me in putting their their accuracy with the, the, the courses nowadays that they have, um, the length

of them, they're so long. So they have so many driver four or five, six irons into greens and they're, that they're birdying. They're so deadly with those, with those, uh, shots. So that that's truly what I'm, I'm happy to get it around the green with four or five iron. They're, they're going at pins with those, with those clubs. And that's what I'm doing with wedges. And they're doing it with like five iron. So it's, it's absolutely incredible.

I want to transition to Wimbledon this weekend. I watched Alcarez beat Djokovic. It's been really cool kind of seeing people go back and talk about Carlos and like, you know, guys that used to hit with them being like, Oh my God, I don't know the sport. Well, I'm a casual, but to see him feel like at least for an afternoon that there wasn't really much, there wasn't many holes in his game,

whether it was the big serve, whether it was whatever return with changing up, faking out Djokovic a few times and then covering every square inch of that core. People, I think it's cool for tennis because there's a lot of people that don't normally pay attention to me. Like, wait, did we just see something that's that special? What did it look like to you?

He is that special. He is a, if we wondered what Nadal would look like as a righty, we're seeing it. If we wondered what Rafa would look like a little bit faster with maybe a little bit with the ability to flatten out his forehand and like totally end points when he wants to um alcaraz like jokovic is the best mover on the tennis court that we've ever seen alcaraz may be better. He may be faster.

He's definitely faster. He may be a better mover than Novak. Novak, when you played him, he shrunk the court so much that he made you go for shots that you thought you had to because he's covering everything and you can't last with him out there for hours and hours and hours playing long point after long point, because a, he's not going to miss very often. And B he's going to make you and bait you to go for things that you, you shouldn't go for. So Alcaraz definitely has that feel in you in, you know, in his game. And then what Djokovic doesn't do a ton of is just finish points from the baseline whenever he wants, right?

Like he's very solid and steady, doesn't hit a ton of winners and flatten out the ball a ton. He's just really, really solid and steady from both from both wings. With Alcaraz, he he can finish points off both sides um he has a monster forehand uh uh one of the things that nadal that did does incredibly well is his mental toughness and just the way he just never ever quits and it's funny to say that like of course he never quits you know but it's really easy to quit to like give up a point or give up a game or something like that because you're not feeling well you're pissed or you're tired or you're exhausted you know like it's really easy to do that kind of stuff um and all never did it alcaraz has that too

um he has a really solid backhand he can come forward he's got got touch and feel, you know, and then and then he has that mental toughness that you're just like is almost frightening that he just doesn't want to lose, refuses to lose, refuses to give in. You know, that could be, you know, they played in the final of the French. He has a issue with cramping and he's had that a few times now. And that, that is one thing that, you know, it's one thing to have all this talent and all that stuff and to have the discipline, dedication, professionalism that he has. And, you know, watching someone like Nadal up close, having someone like Juan Carlos Ferrero, who if you remember 2003, you probably don't remember, but 2003 won the.s or uh i'm sorry he won the

french open and finished year number one in the world or was number one in the world so he's got a coach behind him that's been there done that as well um and and it's scary to have to have all those skills and then to have those guys um as mentors that uh that got it as well and that understood it. And, and we're, we're really, really, um, we're really, really incredible on all facets. Um, the one thing that can stop him is injuries is his body is your body sort of breaking down. And, um, and that, that the cramping situation in, at the French was a little eyeopening eye opening, you know, where you're like, oh, well, you know, you're because you're looking at his game at a whole and you're like, what's going to stop this guy from winning 25 majors? Because he doesn't have Federer and Djokovic to deal with. For the most part, he won't have them in the bulk of his career.

So, like, what's going to stop this guy from winning 30? for the most part, he won't have them in the bulk of his career. So like, what's going to stop this guy from winning 30, you know, well, his body, his injury injuries, cramping issues, things like that. Hopefully he doesn't have that and, and he'll continue to have success, but he could have very easily lost the first set six, one against Djokovic in, in Wimbledon and could have gone, Oh, well, here's another one. You know, I'm going to lose this one now too I'm going to lose two finals in a row

your mind can just play so many tricks on you when you're out there by yourself you got to remember as one of the major sports where you leave the locker room you're literally all by yourself trying to figure out problem solve and try to beat the person across the net and he seems to be, um, he seems to be that, that sort of chosen one, uh, that's next. And it's

just incredible that it's a bummer that he's not from the States. Um, would it obviously help a ton in terms of viewership and tennis? I know that, you know, in the 90s and the mid 90s, we had we had five, six, seven Americans in the top 10. You know, it wasn't it wasn't as global a sport back then as it is now. Now it's incredibly European dominated sport. We do have two Americans in the top 10 now, but they're at the back end of the top 10 still the top 10 but as as far as winning majors they haven't they haven't done that yet or even you know or made a final or something like that francis tiafoe and tommy paul made the semis of a couple of a major championship but not um you know i haven't played a final and hadn't you know still two matches away you know so um so that is

that is one thing that they can stop him is, is his, is his body and how his body holds up, but man, he's scary and has a ton of weapons, has all the right, uh, people behind him, all the right mentorship, all that stuff. So he'll, um, it'll be interesting to watch him for years to come and see how far he can go because he's at two now. He's won the US Open in Wimbledon. There's no stopping him on clay, and there's certainly no stopping him on a slow hardcore down in Australia. I have two things that I want to finish with.

Like everybody, I really enjoyed Agassi's book, and I liked the part of anybody that's ever played any tennis that you're like, wait, I'm just talking to myself the whole time. And if you're a little competitive, you'll be like, okay, no matter what happens, like I have to win this point. And if you lose that point, then it's like a whole nother level of pressure that you're putting on yourself. And it helped me understand tennis players a little bit better because it's like, he's

right. All you're doing is you're just stuck with your own thoughts the whole time and you're successful and competitive enough to make it to the level of becoming a professional but it's just never anything i really thought about and how used to all the other athletes they they have interaction and even a golf uh even in golf uh a golfer has a caddy at least i think that part is very easily overlooked without thinking about what it'd be like to be discussing your match with yourself and yourself only for like four hours for some of these majors yeah if you had a microphone on your mind uh during during a match it'd be pretty incredible we need musk or someone to invest in

invent something like that where they can where the commentary of not you outwardly you know we watch like jordan spieth and he's hilarious uh outward to himself and and his caddy and stuff and you know what's funny too about golf is you actually can talk quite a bit to your competitors. You know, I mean, you know, so much downtime and, you know, and you, you know, you're sort of playing against yourself and you're playing against the course and then you're playing, you know, and then at the end, you're trying to figure out

who you want to beat or who you need to beat. But for the most part, you're playing against yourself in the course. And so you can have conversations with your, your opponents, quote unquote, the entire time, because it's not like a true sort of non-contact gladiator-ish sport that tennis is, right? Where like you leave the locker room and you're all by yourself. So if somebody had, if somebody can invent something where they could listen to our minds, what they're thinking, what we're thinking. We'd be all over the place.

We'd be incredibly negative to ourselves. But there are some people who are, who would be unbelievably positive. And that's someone like, you know, someone like Nadal, someone like Alcaraz, someone like, you know, there's not many, Roger obviously was probably really you know, there's not many, Roger obviously was probably really, um, easy on himself. I was incredibly hard on myself. I would try and deflect blame and, you know, try and figure out ways to, to not have it be on me all the time. You know, Oh, my coach told me that I should just hit to that guy's backhand and I hit it to his backhand and he didn't miss it. So it's on my coach instead. It's not on me. You know, like you can, in your mind, kind of try and trick yourself to have it not all on you all the time because it is. And so yeah, it'd be pretty incredible to hear

some of the stuff that not outwardly, but internally we're saying to each and to ourselves. So this is a good way to finish then, because for the audience that probably doesn't know this, unless you're super locked into Marty fish content, you've been training in mixed martial arts specifically. I think Muay Thai is your favorite discipline. Actually, Jiu Jitsu is my favorite. I do train Muay Thai,

but, but Jiu Jitsu by far is my favorite. It's a, um, yeah, I'll let you finish your question, but it is a hell of a skill to learn and know and the technique and discipline. I just, I'm infatuated by it.

Okay. All right. Because I think the reason I reached out is that somebody was talking shit on Twitter and then Marty fish comes in off the top rope. He was like, I'll go. And I was like, wait, where's this coming from? And then I sent you a text. You're like, dude, I train with a trainer at my house. I have a ring at my house. And then I think you had said Muay Thai. And then I didn't realize that you were just rounding out your entire arsenal of skills with the Brazilian jujitsu as well. So we're kind of in another Brazilian jujitsu phase now where everybody who takes like three lessons is calling other dudes. I didn't realize how real you were. So, you know, respect to you. But as you see the Musk-Zuck face off here, I guess I'm just asking you like there's another layer to you.

You're like, I want to start doing all this stuff. Are you doing tournaments in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as well? I do. Yeah. So I compete in J in jujitsu. I haven't competed yet in like the kickboxing or Muay Thai. Cause that's, there's a lot of striking involved in that. And I'm not, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to get hit in the face that hard. Is your wife, is your wife ready for you to get hit that hard? wants to do it herself. Um, but, but I'm not, yeah, like jujitsu, they, you know, it's, it's, there's no striking in it. I mean, I guess there are some versions of it, but, um, it's, you know, it's non-striking grappling, it's submission grappling. It's, uh, it's, it's one of those

things where, you know, I want to learn a language or I want to get in shape or I want to go to the gym more or something. Like I've, I've been a huge fan of mixed martial arts and specifically UFC for, for years. And it's one of those things where I just have wanted to start it. And like, I encourage everyone that, that wants to do something like, you know,

have, have wanted to, again, it could be learning Spanish, you know, and like, we're just big, dumb Americans. And all we do is speak English all the time. Like, I've also wanted to learn a language. I've traveled my whole life and, you know, in other countries, and all I do is speak English. And man, it'd be kind of cool to, but never really

gone over the hump and gone, all right, I'm going to do this. And I've wanted to, I've wanted to get to a point, I'm just a scrawny tennis player, you know, and, I've wanted to get to a point, I'm just a scrawny tennis player, you know? And so I've wanted to get to a point in my life where, where I found something that, I don't play a lot of tennis anymore, that I found something that I can train in that I've done basketball. I've done like, you know, to try and figure out how can I stay in shape, ball. I've done like, you know, to try and figure out how can I stay in shape, still do something fun or whatever, man, why don't I try MMA? Why don't I try, you know, learning how to punch, you know, or whatever, and, and, and, you know, do some boxing or whatever. So I, so I called, I got so lucky, um, call the guy named Matt Banshee. He's, he's, uh, uh, he's got a company out here in LA called personal fight fit.

Um, and I just got so lucky with him. He's such a good guy. He knows my background and like what I'm trying to accomplish. And then we've turned it into something that, yeah, I compete in jujitsu tournaments down, uh, here in South Southernifornia um i i want to eventually do uh a hand-picked um amateur fight like a mixed martial arts fight you close the gate and you're in an octagon and like kill or be killed like i want to do that one time now i want to hand pick that and i want it to be like somebody who's soft someone like zuckerberg right someone like someone that trains but it's not like an incredible athlete would do it for charity i i would love to fight mark zuckerberg in an octagon for charity all out like

jujitsu like the full thing i want to do do it. I've tried Wiz Khalifa. Wiz Khalifa trains out here in LA. I don't think he runs his Twitter or his Instagram. Otherwise, I've called him out before. He does the Muay Thai stuff. We can do it. Or it's eight ounce gloves. We can even wear headgear if you want. Like whatever.

But I want to do it. I want to do that. I will do Jiu-Jitsu and Jiu jujitsu competitions for the rest of my life. It is a skill that is, I've found a passion for it that gives me the most self-confidence in myself, not about fighting, just like a true self-confidence in walking into a room by yourself with your shoulders back because you know you can handle that situation or you know you can handle any situation. Nothing in my life, when I was a good tennis player at one point, has given me the self-confidence that mixed martial arts has. So I would highly suggest to anyone that wants to learn a skill or wants to, wants to find new ways to work out or exercise or whatever to, to learn or, or to start one skill, whether it's boxing, whether it's Muay Thai, whether it's jujitsu, whether it's Krav Maga, which is a defense, self-defense sort of technique that you can learn, um, all the above I train, but I love, I absolutely love, um, I've got a boxing coach and then, uh, um, and then a,

a Muay Thai and jujitsu guy that, that, um, I just, I'm, I'm, I'm in love with it. I love the, I'm obsessed with learning and getting better. Um, I'm a blue belt right now, which is one belt from white belt, which is where you start. So like, I haven't, you know, I've been doing it for four years now. I think I'm pretty close to my purple belt, but, um, it'll come when it comes. And it's one of those things, if you know, um, jujitsu and you know, that, you know, that world that, uh, you never know when your belt's going to come, but, um, but it is fun to get it when you do it. So I'm, I'm a blue belt now. I will continue to do that for as long as I can physically. I'm absolutely infatuated and in love with it.

So, lesson out there for the listeners, if you bet on Steph Curry at Tahoe next year and it's 18 and you decide to say something to Marty Fish's backswing, look out. That's all. It's just a warning. Well, I could have, yeah. If there weren't thousands

of people there, he would have been submitted and it would have taken me 10 seconds let's get you back on when uh my second favorite player in the nba laces them up for the timberwolves all right sounds good man we're timberwolves man we need some help we got we don't have any first round picks for like 25 years but um but we're gonna win with the bigs. Yeah, and you got Ant, who, again, is my second favorite player, unfortunately, behind the guy that you lost to. But at least you lost to Steph. We're going to start nine bigs every game and see how that goes.

You're the man, Marty. Thanks. Thank you, Ryan. 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. Okay, it's Life Advice on Tuesday. Lifeadvice.rr at gmail.com to send them in. If you've been waiting on sending one in,

I would send it in now because we're probably going to do maybe one if not two standalones to cover up some of the August stuff. So usually even with some time off from the pod, we do a pretty good job but try not to go dark for too long. So that's where Life Advice comes in because it's timeless. We do have a follow-up. usually even with some time off from the pod, uh, we do a pretty good job, but try not to go dark for too long. So,

uh, that's where life advice comes in. Cause it's, it's timeless. Uh, we do have a followup. We will every now and then do a followup. Uh,

this one, uh, is from Chris Mullen, 40 years old. Wait, what? Six, two,

200. That doesn't seem like it makes any sense. Player cop is a very poor man's right-handed Chris Mullen. Oh, this is what it is. In the follow-up for the future father potentially naming his son after Grant Williams, I have a relatively unique insight into this. Born in 1983, my father, a huge Syracuse basketball fan,

was well aware of Chris Mullen playing at St. John's. But my parents chose my name because it was meaningful to my father, his confirmation name. Obviously, the Chris Mullen had a Hall of Fame career and achieved mainstream notoriety for being on the dream team. As a child, it was cool to play NBA Jam with someone with your exact name and to be able to wear an NBA and USA basketball jersey with my name on the back. As I've gotten older, sharing the same name as a basketball legend comes up rather infrequently. And when it does, it's a nice conversation starter or an icebreaker that allows me to connect with another basketball junkie. To the initial emailer, the combination

of Williams being such a common last name and the fact that your son will be born when NBA Grant Williams is already in the middle of his career, not destined for the Hall of Fame, means being named Grant Williams is not going to affect your son at all. Much in the way I would have not had the same experience had my parents named me Ricky Green in 1983. No disrespect to the guy who was probably better than Grant Williams, just a comparison of mid-career, mid-tier NBA player with a common American last name. Well done on that execution. The naming decision is really only going to affect you. so you need to own that and be upfront about your reasons.

So I agree completely with Saru's take. You should have the right to veto names, but if Grant is a treasured and meaningful name for your wife's family, the Mav Shop does have a baby collection. Love the pod. Chris Mullen. Good email. His experience is that my oh you know my dad loved chris mullen it's like this guy's

this the dad's experience would be the absolute opposite of that so i mean i don't know wait time out i don't think his dad loved chris mullen if he was a huge syracuse fan oh that's right i thought he said john st john's okay great i got no he said the name chris was made to fold him right yeah yeah it wasn't because of yeah right right okay so keep going just want to clear that part of it up no you're right I mean I doubt he hated Chris Mullen right maybe there's some sort of like biggie stuff there right but like

Chris Mullen wasn't like like you couldn't say the same things about why you would be out on Chris Mullen as why you'd be out at Grant Williams I guess was my point so like the dad would have a a different relationship with the name than just you know than this but um well look the reason i kind of push back a little bit and it is well written it makes some really good points except for the main

point is that grant williams is annoying and chris mullen isn't right so the emailer the emailer shares our grant williams issues and he's like I don't want my kid to be named after that guy, whereas you're named after Chris Mullen, my second favorite athlete of all time. And I mean, he's just a legend. He's a legend. I mean, you're talking about when he was waiting to go on with Van Pelt and I, and his phone rang in the commercial break, and it was Jay-Z in the ringtone, and it was cool. It just worked. It was Jay-Z and the ringtone. And it was cool. You know, it was like it just worked. It was cool. And then some of the other stuff that he would say off the air, you're like, Jesus, there goes Chris Mullen.

There goes motherfucking Chris Mullen. And it was just, you know, it was almost awkward. There was a time where there were guys shooting hoops outside and Chris Mullen was like, hey, give me the ball. And he just, without any warm-up suit, mic'd up in the back, wind just drains it and keeps walking into the studio. One attempt. Guys quit the game. So the major,

although all these points are really good, they were fun for you and you were cool with it and now it's kind of, you know, not as mainstream and as not unique as the name Grant Williams would be. The guy emailing us in about Grant Williams is watching Grant Williams play out the rest of his career now,

and he doesn't want his son to have the same name. So I think they're two entirely different experiences. They are. No, that makes sense. It's one thing. It's like Michael B. Jordan's dad. Why would you name your son Michael Jordan? That's insane. Your son is never going to be able to accept his own name. He has to add his middle initial or he's always going to be compared to MJ. It's just a weird look. Or like Michael Bolton from Office Space. Those names, Grant Williams isn't on that level, right? Grant Williams is not on

Chris Mullins level. He's not on any of those other guys I just named. So it is different. There's a good chance in like five to seven years, like no one's going to remember Grant Williams.

No one's going to associate your kid with Grant Williams, the basketball player. Except you. Except you. Except you. And that's my point is that if it's always going to be in your head

and you're never going to be able to get over it, then that's your answer. And that's why I said you have to have a veto. But he is right. Chances are, when this kid's 10, no one's going to be comparing him to Grant Williams, the basketball player.

Do you know Michael J. Fox? His real name is Michael A. Fox, but they were afraid of how that was going to play out. Michael A. Fox, like a sentence afraid of how that was going to play out. Michael A. Fox, like a sentence? Yeah, I read that in Highlights. Interesting. Great magazine. Goofus and Gallant, really out of its time.

Okay, let's get to some emails here. I'm writing in as one of your female listeners. Get relationship advice for me and my boyfriend who FYI is a big fan of the show and likely be listening. So yeah, this

has happened. This feels like the most forward version of this where one person is expecting the other person in the relationship to hear this part of it so that we're brokering some kind of deal here. fuck it's almost august i'm up for it yeah is there a chance like you know canadians will spell defense differently defense with the c defense yeah um there's a few other words in there is advice spelt differently

like advise yeah i don't know i think uh i i'm convinced a lot of people don't know whether it's woman or women uh in their tweets and stuff like that so i don't know maybe i could be off or maybe maybe that's just like a european thing people uh people struggling with uh single or in plural apparently yeah for real i guess if you say it fast it could be women what woman like i don't i don't know but i mean i i always had a firm grasp on that but uh halfway through your sentence you were fucking me up so bad i didn't even know what you were doing and i was like whoa so i i think people are just messing that one up i think so too but i mean if somebody was like nah dude ireland it's women everything's women in ireland i don't know i could i i believe it

kyle's saying he has a firm grasp he's got a firm grasp on the women women situation as long as you don't say female females i'm not the one who i'm not the one who's rowing that boat so okay all right so we go. My boyfriend and I have been planning to move in together for the past six months. It's now about two months before we were supposed to move in together. He told me he didn't want to move in together anymore. For context, we've been dating for two years, no issues, and been traveling a lot together this summer. When I questioned what his reasoning was for the sudden change of mind, he stated there were small issues in the relationship that made him reluctant. I sat down and listened as we addressed all of these small issues,

which let's be honest, were not real issues. Well, I wasn't there, but we'll take your word for it. I waited about a month before I brought up the topic again to allow for a cooling off period. When I brought it up again about moving in together, his reasoning changed to, quote, it doesn't feel right in his gut. What are my options here? Should I continue to press for the real reason he doesn't want to move in together?

Big picture, is this a red flag and should I be worried? I'll need to figure out my living situation soon. See, that's not great. Any advice on how to convince him that moving in together doesn't mean that he needs to propose to me anytime soon. Could it be that you don't know how to spell advice? Probably not. That's probably not what it is. And again, there could be some foreign thing that I'm missing out here on the entire deal. All right. Not a great start though, because you're probably like, hey, dickhead, that's not why I emailed in. And you're right. It sounds like he doesn't want to move in with you. I know that sucks

because you feel like you're building towards it, but I will tell you that some guys get tremendous cold feet. It's not even a guy thing. It's the other person in the relationship where it's way easier to plan for something that's not happening until it's like actual moving day.

Moving sucks to begin with, but it's another thing to move and then have your life completely altered. And for some people that love their independence, hint, the idea of somebody else moving in, even when it's not about you, just the disruption of their day-to-day is horrifying. When I was very close to moving in with somebody, I would have moments at night, I was like, I'm really doing this, huh? I'm really doing this.

Like all of the real normal stuff I'm about to embark. We're going to be planning it all out, planning a wedding, doing a guest list. Like I'll have a kid at 38, I guess. Like, I guess I'm, I'm really doing these things. And for whatever reason, like I didn't look forward to it as much as most people do, which I know is shitty. Probably, I guess. I don't know. Whatever. The point is, is that it's totally unfair of him to have this kind of control over your direction. So you've already tried to talk to him about it. You said none of those issues were significant enough.

And welcome to things not working out in relationships. But people are very rarely going to say, hey, emphatically, I don't want to live with you because I just don't want to do it. I may not even have any other reasons other than that being the most important one. It's hard to say. And if he's slow...

Go ahead, Cerruti. I'm just saying, it's just hard to say. If that's really what he's feeling, it's hard to say to anybody. Right. Like, hey, I don't want to date you anymore. I am no longer attracted and i can't stop checking out everyone else and i'm young so it's been fun no hard

feelings right that's what like 50 of them are about from the guy's side like i'm just i want to keep sleeping with people sorry can't do this no hard feelings. No one does that. No one's that direct. It doesn't really work out that way. But I feel for you on this one because if you've been planning this out for this long and there haven't been any major issues, that's what sucks. The relationship may be terrific. It may be terrific except the anxiety that's hanging over him where it's like, okay, now this shit is real. And it sounds like he's tried to put this off twice, which means he just doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want to do it. Now you really, the important part of all of this is you asking yourself the tough questions going, what are you willing to allow to happen here?

Do you care about him enough that you think you can get through this? Okay. But what about the end game of eventually actually moving into, uh, moving in together? Like you've been talking about, he's just going to go through this all over again in six months, in a year. Do you want to put yourself through that? This clearly seemed to be somebody that you thought you were going to marry. I'd imagine if he was telling you to move in, he was saying the same things. If he's not really feeling that, then you're just wasting somebody else's time. That's actually far more evil than being direct and kind of harsh because you have this other person whose entire life that are planning is wrapped around what you're able to deal with. And if you're not being honest. So again, to the emailer,

I feel really bad for you in this spot because it sucks. You're all in. You don't have any anxiety about it. You keep bringing it up. He's bailed on the idea twice. You don't think any of these things. So yes, it's a massive red flag. If this is somebody that you thought you were going to grow old with and build a life together, right? That's a massive red flag if this is somebody that you thought you were going to grow old with and build a life together, right? That's a massive red flag because that's the most important part of this whole thing. Sure, you could probably stay in it. It's probably get along. All the other stuff is really cool, but it's a lot like a career.

If all the hours that you're putting in aren't really going towards something bigger and better down the road, like there's a job and there's a career. something bigger and better down the road. Like there's a job and there's a career. And if your relationship is just a job and your goal is it for it to be a career, you're going to make sure the other person feels the same way. And it doesn't sound like they do. And we didn't get any age here. So I don't know if that, if that factors into it. 60. So yeah. I have a lot of thoughts and I'm going to, I i'm gonna try to keep them brief and also this is unique because the the other the guy who we're talking about here is also a listener so you know if you if it was just uh if it was just you i you know i might be like ah this

guy's a loser not really wait you're gonna be nice to a guy you don't know no no no no but i appreciate uh both of you listening uh i think i think probably losing the thing is like two years right two years is i don't know like if is this the longest relationship this guy's ever been in like he might be a total uncharted waters like you might be like you might have had this like timeline in your head where it's like all right two years uh in it's like now is about the time when we have to pull this trigger if this is like if this dude's an uncharted waters i mean i was kind of similar for me a couple years ago uh with my now wife it was just like i don't know when that's correct i'm a big judge judy guy half of those uh cases are messy non-married people trying to figure out

who gets what and this one kicked me out and i'm not paying her this rent it's fucking it's a disaster it's a disaster we all know somebody who's gotten a messy judge judy type situation because you moved in with somebody that you shouldn't have. That's one thing. And I'd say the other thing is we did this recently on life advice. It is easier to kick the can down the road when we're talking 10 months out. You just sign your lease and you're like, oh, you know, it'd be nice if we could, you

know, this time next year, it'd be nice if we could, you know, maybe move in together. It's much easier to say that when, you know you've got 10 months left uh on the lease so i i'm not i'm not saying you're wrong i'm just saying it's a it's a big step and like and as in my earlier point if this guy if this is the longest relationship he's ever been in and it's just like i guess this is the thing i do i was scared i'd never lived with a a woman before i live with like buddies that's been been fucking terrible. It's been great. It's been, it's a lot of ups and downs in that, on that road trip. So it's like, uh, it was, it was definitely a big, it was a big thing. And I did have cold feet and I went through with it and I ended up marrying her. That's a whole nother thing. But it's like that when I first was like,

all right, I'm going to, I'm going to stop this phase of like living with roommates. And, and if a relationship breaks down i could just go home and do whatever the fuck i want to do while i figure it out uh if your relationship breaks up you one of you guys are you're out on the street or or living with a friend or or the worst version of that is you guys are in the same apartment while you live different lives and uh that's that's ugly too so it's just like you lose a lot of as the guy who's hesitant here you lose a lot of your options of like if this thing goes south like it gets way uglier before i could even get back to you know normal so i understand all the things he's thinking about

uh and to what ryan said it's hard to just be like to say that like hey if this doesn't work out i'm really fucked like that's not a that's not a conversation anybody's ready to have in a relationship really so and the other thing i'd add and i'll get to you sir rudy but i actually want to ask sir rudy a question and then have you guys bounce this around because you're actually living with wives but uh if he's playing the countdown out where and i don't know if this is going to happen but sniffing it out a bit but like is he waiting for your living situation to be so imminent then he's going to tell you like hey now i can't like you don't need that right like i really hope what he's doing is like oh shit she's all right so she needs to figure out a new lease you know in the next few weeks so i tell her now, not based on my feelings, not based on her

feelings, but based on her lease arrangement. And there's only so much sympathy I can have for the other person where I go, look, I get it. I get the anxiety leading up to the whole thing. But the part about being in a relationship like that is learning to be a little bit more selfless and going wait well i don't want to put how would you feel how would you feel if your lease is up in 60 days and somebody even dating for two years is like hey i'm still in the fence a little bit like all right well am i getting a storage unit like what do you know like do i do i sell my tempur-pedic on craigslist because we're just gonna have the like what do we now i'd hang on to the mattress actually

craigslist is a disaster anyway. I get a new lease, right? What the fuck does that mean? All right. So, Rudy, your level of anxiety moving in with Maddie was what? A two out of 100? It was not high. Moving in was I've actually had cold feet a few times during the relationship.

Moving in was not one of them. Whoa. Well, one of them was honestly having kids like One of them, she kind of had to... We had a tough conversation about like, all right, let's have... When we want to have a kid, right? And I was just like... I talked about it on the pod. I didn't know if I was ready. None of my friends really had kids and I just didn't really know. And I definitely had cold feet. And I'm super happy that she basically was like, no, we should do this. I'm in my mid-30s now. It all made sense. I was just in my own head about it.

So sometimes I think in these situations, like you kind of have to have these difficult conversations. And sometimes, I mean, she didn't give me an ultimatum. Like she wasn't like, hey, like I'm going to divorce you if you don't have a kid with me in a year. But like, I do think like at some point, like, and I knew I wanted, we knew we wanted kids. It was just a matter of when. You don't really know if your boyfriend

even wants to move in with you. I'm like a little bit worried about like, yeah, about what's the long-term play of this relationship. So I think for your own good, you owe this to yourself. Ultimatums sometimes are good. You say, hey, I'm into this relationship. If you're not in it with me to the point where we want to move in and take the next step, then I have to start looking out for me and doing things for my own mental health and my own self-worth or whatever you want to do. And I think that's totally fair on your part. And sometimes that just kind of

knocks the guy in the head. He's like, okay, yeah, you're right. I should do this. I should take this next step. And it might not work out. But at the end of the day, I think moving in is a good thing for relationships. You should move in with someone that you like before you get married. That's a serious step that everyone I think should take because it really actually figures out whether you like the person or not. You can date somebody and not live with them and everything's great. And as soon as you live with them... We've done... How many buddies have you moved in with where you're like, holy shit, I'm friends with this guy, but I cannot be his roommate? Sometimes that's obviously the

same with your wife, your future fiance or whatever. So it's an important step. And two years is not that unreasonable. So I think at the end of the day, like a good ultimatum probably is your best bet here. Like, Hey, either, either kind of like, we need a plan for moving in or like, I'm going to start having to think about the long-term viability of this relationship. I don't like it. I think you should just get a lease and, and, uh, it's, it's Mac Jones prove a year. I think, I don't know. He's playing on the salary. He's playing on the franchise. Yeah. I think it would be the power move of power moves. You just go sign your own lease don't even say anything i mean i know look finances are a part of all of these decisions so i don't want to minimize that part of it but just

you know sucks but then again it's like oh wait i got what i wanted because i signed a lease you know somewhere else and then didn't include him in the conversation. I don't know. People are weird, though. People can be motivated by really fucked up things. Yeah. I think guys are dumb. Guys are dumb. And sometimes they need to push, right? They need to push. And I needed it several times. I'm very happy that I got the push. And I'm very happy in my relationship because of it. But at the time, I was in my own head freaking out about stuff. And I'm sure this guy might be too. I'd love to, obviously, I don't want to do a couples therapy version of life advice, but I'd love for him, if he wants

to email in, let us know what the situation is. Maybe we can hit this from both angles. Just talk to us. Don't talk to each other. That'll be great. Yeah, just talk through the pod. We'll be the go-between. Yeah. Or the mediator. Yeah. The men are dumb thing. Just a little pushback on that i was looking for

the math test winners the latest mit thing it's just you know just be careful about generalization all right yeah okay uh let's do another one of these that'd be great if he emails in right i hope he does i'd love to know what like the little things that they talked through were all right maybe maybe we would maybe we wouldn't you know i don't i don't know i'd be fine either way i'll tell you that i'd be fine if i never heard from this guy and it'd be a nice surprise if i did. I love that Judge Judy was almost the main reason Kyle didn't get married. It's like, look at all these hassles. Well, I mean, maybe it was actually the main reason I did

because she's like, you people, these are gifts. You can't ask for this back. I don't care if you borrowed it. You were in a relationship. If you were married, we wouldn't be in this boat. And she always says, don't get married and move. Don't move in if you're not planning on getting married because you end up fucking around like this longer enough.

You know, the waters get murky and she can't be necessarily divided in half. OK, this one is titled Sister Ordered Lingerie on my Amazon account. OK, this guy's going to be pretty young. What's up, guys? Six foot one eighty five. Just bench my body weight for the first time. Big ups. Good for you, dude. I'll get right to it. My younger sister,

23. Must have forgotten that we share an Amazon account with my parents and she ordered some lingerie on it and just got delivered to her place. Picks included. Not of her. Of the lingerie item. This is a purple little number here with a bow

mid-chest. Of the lingerie item. This is a purple little number here with a bow. Mid chest. Honestly, this is like a PG-13 deal here. Maybe it was on basics. It was on basics. This is, yeah. I mean, it's. You wouldn't tell the person to leave if they had it on, but it's, this isn't.

You know, this isn't fucking crazy here i almost said something else but i'm not gonna say it's just too aggressive it's too aggressive okay um she's got a boyfriend that no one in the family really likes so it's a little weird to think of what it's being used for so you're able to crack the code that she's going to wear it? How should I approach this? Should I mention it to her or just let it happen? Has this ever happened to you at all? Look, man, as a brother

that has two sisters, there's just shit I'm never going to talk to him about, ever. And I will die before it ever comes up as a topic. Just never going to come up. Honestly, if the list of things, I'd be like, no, I'd rather die. That would be on the list. You can't say anything to her. We don't need to spend a lot of time on this.

Everybody's sister, man. everybody's daughter at some point they're all going to want to look nice for somebody and it sucks that apparently this isn't somebody that you like but like let me get does it mean that you're suggesting if the family did like the boyfriend they'd be like yeah awesome congrats congrats on the future oh you know what i just realized i don't know if i should share this or not do it i'm not gonna yeah i'm not twice now twice now you've been you've said no no the one was a line that was too aggressive this is this is an overshare um and it's not sketchy on my part at all like it's it's sketchy for other people that are involved uh but i'm just gonna leave that one alone i i do we even need to spend time on this your sister wants to look sexy for her

boyfriend you know they probably make out dude i i don't i don't think you would take the big bro angle here i think you could just be like hey angle here. I think you could just be like, hey, just so you know, like you may have forgotten, like this is, I don't know what you would even order on Amazon. That would be a giveaway. Like if the next thing is a pregnancy test, maybe just go to the Rite Aid. Don't do that one.

Like I wouldn't do that, but I would just say like, hey, just see, I like, I don't know if you remember that our parents are on this, just looking out for you. You could say that. You don't have to be like, it's actually really disrespectful that you would do that on mom and dad's account that we all have to look at but you could just be like i just a little reminder you know we all share this if you if you if it bothers you i

wouldn't bother me um and i wouldn't be surfing through recently ordered things to see who's doing what but if you just wanted to give like a friendly reminder like you know just for our parents you know uh like like like you're not offended and you just shouldn't have to be like i shouldn't have to think about what you guys are doing with that yeah you know what though kyle you brought up a good point that makes me think that the actual premise of the entire email is just hey he wants to give his sister a heads up on the parents part he didn't write it that way though he didn't write it that way yeah but if we just want to at least open the possibility The possibility that there's a chance that that's what his main concern is here. I don't think that that's a bad thing. Be like, hey, just a heads up.

But we're still you ordered that off the shared account and whatever and leave it at that. If that's the only motivation for it. But you're right. Like, I'm just trying to, you know, exhaust all avenues here and try to cover as as much as you can because it's basically you can go to a bunch of different ways with this one um but i don't know sir you got anything else no yeah there's just that there's definitely worse stuff you could order on a shared amazon account i mean this isn't the end of the world she's 23 if she was like younger it might be more of an issue but you know she's a she could make her own decisions it's just like yeah you just kind of aired all that out for your entire family

to see i would definitely give her a heads up on like maybe next time you buy something a little more aggressive, maybe don't use the shared account. Maybe get your own Amazon account. What's the worst thing you could order on a shared Amazon account? Like what's the thing that the other people would be like, whoa, like rope and zip ties or something? Is that like the avenue

you would have to go? Like I don't even know what's available on Amazon. That would be like eyebrow raising. You know, a 200 box of cond yeah yeah there's some toy categories i mean everything's racing through my head but since i haven't used the line yet i'm not i'm just not going to i had one i had one beat up damn it it's not gonna you're withholding i don't know i don't know i don't know why like there's this next level of aggressiveness of content that i i don't know why there's this next level of aggressiveness of content that I don't know. I kind of want to not reach it. But if you're trying to police her, I don't know.

Again, what are you going to say to her? She's allowed to live her own life. I've stumbled. I have two younger sisters. I've stumbled upon things. Yeah, we're good, dude. Yeah, right. We're good. I didn't want to hear about it.

But nothing even that bad. But stuff that I'm like, yeah, we're not going to have a conversation about this. So that's cool. I've appreciated my little sister. It's like the equivalent of high school. Like, hey, I found a bunch of beer bottles that you and your dumb ass friends left when our parents left. It's just sort of like, hey,

just watching your back. It's not like, you shouldn't be drinking in the backyard. That's way easier. That's way easier. That's way easier because you've never had to buy lingerie for yourself i guess i'm just saying like it's just it's not about like whether you should or shouldn't be doing it it's like do you really want mom and dad to see this shit that's all yeah man okay it is nice it is nice. It is nice. Can't show the picture here. It's not too crazy. A little purple number.

Nice. Tastes. I mean, dudes, dudes in the 90s used to be like, dude, she wears a thong. Like, oh, no way. Yeah. We evolved just like running backs. All right. Thanks to Steve. Thanks to Kyle.

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