The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Joe Thomas on the Contender Browns, Carson Wentz, and Jets Conspiracies. Plus, NFL Awards.

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Russillo gives out his NFL Awards for Week 13 (2:00) before talking with Cleveland Browns legend Joe Thomas about the Browns’ statement win over the Titans, Packers-Eagles, Carson Wentz getting benched for Jalen Hurts, the Giants' surprising win over the Seahawks, Jets-Raiders, the Jets firing defensive coordinator Gregg Williams after Sunday’s loss, Joe’s Super Bowl contenders, and more (19:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (59:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the driver's flow podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm getting great car and home insurance from state farm the surprising great rate that's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro the real the real deal. Kind of like a Joe Thomas, six-time all-pro. That's the important one, Kyle. Ten-time Pro Bowler. A lot of people make the Pro Bowler. Not every single year of their career, though, like Joe Thomas did, except for one, I think. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs.

Like a GM putting together their very own roster, you need a team that supports you. And State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agency, award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more with a great price and even greater service. State Farm goes from strength to strength. Choose insurance that always brings its A game when you want the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Okay, what is good? We are ready to go.

Joe Thomas is going to join us, NFL Network. We're going to talk about a bunch of different headlines and kind of the Browns at the top, nine and three Browns. What's up now? A little life advice at the end. One that I think is so funny. I'm so proud of Kyle for picking this one out. But we will, as we start every week. Well, not always.

We don't always start it this way, but we have it every week. And that's NFL Awards. Are you ready? Let's go. The first award for this week. Oh, don't worry. We'll get to Bill and Tom legacy updates. All right, here we go. The Denver airport conspiracy theory award goes to, of course, the New York jets. People love conspiracy theories and the jets blowing that game with zero coverage against the Raiders. We're going to get to a bunch of the stats on that.

How rare that call actually was. Greg Williams has since been fired. Since you woke up this morning, how's your Greg Williams doing? Well, he's out as D coordinator of the Jets, but it does speak to how much everyone loves a conspiracy theory. So the reason I bring up the Denver airport is anybody that's ever been to Denver, I wouldn't say the new international airport there. I think it's 25 years now. I've made the joke that it's actually located in Nebraska. Then you have to drive into downtown Denver for Nebraska. That's how far away it is. So that's brought up a bunch of different theories.

Let's examine some of the conspiracy theories. Kyle, are you a conspiracy theory guy? I like a good one. Yeah, I knew it. I knew you loved it. Have you seen conspiracy theory with Mel Gibson? No. I think you'd like that.

Is that a mistake? No. Yeah. I mean, in 97. So I don't expect you to be on top of it you know it's 23 years ago yeah sure um how old are you again uh just let me guess ah shit damn i was gonna say 28 all right okay um yeah check it out yeah yeah all right so here you go let's go over some of the uh airport conspiracy theories the airport was built by the new world order with ties to Nazis. So I'm not up on my New World Order stuff. I don't know where those ties overlap. Another one is that the Freemasons, which are linked to the Illuminati, helped build this because one of the main reasons, I'm taking this from the text now,

is conspiracy theory has so much staying power is because the airport was much more expensive than originally projected. So how was the airport was the airport completed conspiracy theorists point to the illuminati money which some believe was used to finish denver's construction in exchange for a secret society using the property all right just to back up one no way a major construction project went over budget that never happens all right the other part did the illuminati was there was their lease up somewhere else was the hq i don't know do they get evicted why would they be like look the the thing we really a lot of the freemasons that we hang out with we're looking for a new hangout and we'd love it to be just near an airport. Pack 12 bought our building.

Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Can we get to it? Illuminati has been linked to the Pack 12 with all their empty office space. I guess, and that's not a shot at the layoffs, just to cover that so everybody understands.

It's me making fun of Larry Scott. I just don't, I don't understand because I guess originally like some of the construction wasn't done the right way. So they just built over it. And they're like, no, they built over that so they could have secret layers. There are also theories that some said the tunnels, underground tunnels and bunkers possibly built by lizard people or aliens that will serve as a safe place for the world's elite during the apocalypse. So shout out to the aliens for building the tunnels for the one percent um also denver

post reported that other theories say the tunnels lead directly to norad because they said let's have tunnels that are really far away from norad and apparently they said it would have taken decades to do the tunnels the right way although this this part is true, that big Bronco that they have up there with the red eyes, it's a sculpture. The sculptor of that sculpture was killed by a piece of that sculpture falling on him. So that's not a conspiracy. Yeah, yeah.

So look, I mean, there's all sorts of imagery. There's all sorts of stuff at the airport. We're like, hey, what's that? What's going on there? What's the symbolism there? There's weird artwork. There's also different things that they say that all the landing strips are designed a certain way. I don't know. I just know people love it.

People love it. And people love the idea that Greg Williams got the word from somebody that said, lose this game now, lose it on the last play. So we get Trevor Lawrence. I mean, I was kidding when I said they could go down as one of the greatest plays in Jets history if it ends up getting them Trevor Lawrence and Trevor Lawrence turns out to be what a lot of us think he's going to be, but I don't believe it. I just don't. And I'll admit as much as I'm entertained by it, I don't almost believe none of these. I don't, especially when it comes to sports, like, Oh,

that's they're doing this because of ratings of there's so much money involved. And as I ask anyone on any conspiracy theory in sports, I'll say, what would sports be like then if things weren't rigged? In this case, I think it's Greg Williams. I think that's all you need to know is that it was just Greg Williams. Because why were you trying the other 59 minutes? Why did you score and throw the football to go up 28-24 if you wanted to lose this game? Why did you, on the Waller completion that set up the Hail Mary, and it wasn't really a Hail Mary, but you understand the play that we're talking about, the Ruggs touchdown. Why did you send four on the Waller play,

and then the Raiders come up, spike the football, and then on the Aguilar incompletion down the middle where Aguilar got deep and behind the safeties, there still were multiple players. It wasn't one-on-one with Aguilar on some post. And then they've rushed seven with an eighth, I guess, that's spying Derek Carr. The answer to this is not conspiracy. They figured it out in the last 50 seconds. I just don't buy that stuff. Maybe we'll find out

one day and maybe I'll be wrong. But I think your simple answer here is Greg Williams. So let's run over some numbers from ESPN Stats and Info. There are 251 pass plays since 2006. That's how far back they go on these trackings, where you had to hit all three criteria. Final 15 seconds between a four and eight point lead, so you need the touchdown, 40 plus yards to go. The Jets are the only team to send six or more rushers in that scenario on now 252 times that this has come up. The only team that's ever done six or more rushers, they sent seven. Since 2000, offenses, this is from Mike Sando, were 7-148 when trailing by four to eight points in the final 20 seconds with 30 to 50 yards to go for a touchdown. Two of those seven victories have happened this year, and now that's three with

Detroit over Atlanta, the Todd Gurley thing where he went in for the touchdown accidentally, and then the Hail Murray from Kyler Murray. So that was a.048 winning percentage in those scenarios. So look, they sent seven, but it wasn't like the seven guys on that rush weren't trying to get to Carr. They actually moved him off of his spot a little bit. Well, I've watched that play over and over and over again. Am I seeing anything where they would lie down? But why were they trying on all the other plays for 59 minutes if you were trying to lose that game? I think these guys wanted a win.

I think every one of those players, as bad as this season is and as pointless as a win may be, and a win could cost you Trevor Lawrence, the guys suiting up every Sunday want to win a football game and stop getting laughed at and feeling like shit on Monday. So I love how people love lies. That's really what it comes down to. And speaking of loving lies, I'm working on a much bigger segment later on that topic. The Paul George Bad Quote Award.

I just can't help myself with Paul George, lady. He had another awesome one recently. This is going to go to Boomer Esiason. Now, what is the Paul George Bad Quote Award? It's just a quote that you go, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. It doesn't really mean anything right now. And this isn't an anti-Boomer Esiason thing.

And even he said, as I say, this is going to turn into a bunch of different things. But he said this on a show where he said, quote, all I know is that yesterday, Bill Cowher was showing me and Nate Burleson. They all work on the CBS morning show, the pregame stuff. We've seen it all, right? He was showing me and Nate film of him coaching on the sideline. We were mic'd up and we looked at each other and said, hmm, what does this mean? Esiason said, is he sending a message? I've worked

with him for 14 years and I've never seen that. I can't believe we're back at the, is Bill Cowher going to coach again? We only did that for about 10 years. I believe he's been done for like 15. I'm good. And as I say about a lot of coaches, if you really, really love coaching and you want to do it, why haven't you done it in 15 years? People want to cower all the time back in the day. They wanted that guy forever. And he just wasn't interested. And if somebody ends up not being super interested in that, I'm going to go ahead and pass. I'm not going to pay you five, $6 million a year because you're thinking, hey, it'd be huge. I should just cash in one more time. I wouldn't want to do that.

Now, I don't know if that's... This could be a Gruden thing. So I'm not 100% sure what's going on. I'm always a little scared when i'm not scared scared is the wrong word here but remember how gruden would basically every time there was a chance to flirt with another franchise he would do it you want to know why he would do it because he would get a raise from espn i have to imagine gruden set a record for number of raises while still under contract at espn that anyone that i've ever worked with i mean it was ought you to hear and be like wait what happened he'd be like oh they got worried he was going to leave again. They gave him another raise.

I don't know what the real number is. It was always rumored, and it worked out for Gruden. Good for Gruden. But that was the first thing I thought of. It was like, is Esiason, is Cowher's CBS contract up? And that's why this is happening. Again, not an anti-Esiason thing. Now, why is this the Paul George bad quote award?

Because Paul George, who recently lied about how he was using the offense with Doc Rivers, because I don't think he understood, and then was like, yeah, man, they got me coming up with pin downs and Ray Allen and all that stuff. And then, of course, he was like, of course, I can do that. We've already played that quote for you last week. But just to recap Paul George on his career aspirations, he did say last week, quote, this is where my heart is. I want to retire a Clipper. When he re-signed with Oklahoma City, he said, quote, I'm here to stay. We can bring this thing home. And then before he requested a trade to the Lakers while he was still with the Pacers,

he said, quote, my goal is to win one here. I never want to leave Indy. Paul George could get lunch with Cam Newton and then demand a trade to the Patriots by the end of the week. This may be my favorite one. This is the Mayan Florio Award for the end of the world. This may be my favorite one. This is the Mayan Florio Award for the end of the world, and that's going to go to Mike Florio.

The reason I call it the Mayan Florio Award is Mayan calendar has predicted the end of the world a few different times here, and Florio tweeted out before the Ravens midweek game, he said, per source, this is his quote,

this is his tweet, per source, there are new fears of Ravens players refusing game. He said, per source, this is his quote. This is his tweet. Per source, there are new fears of Ravens players refusing to play tomorrow night, which technically would be a wildcat strike. It could create major issue between the NFL and NFLPA. If it happens, potentially, it could jeopardize the balance of the season. I checked my sources this morning before I would address this. And as far as I could tell, they played a ton of games on Sunday. So I'm not... From what I remember, I think there was a full slate.

Tweets like this drive me absolutely fucking crazy. Okay. Now let's do a little background on the end of the world stuff. I looked it up, Wikipedia. There were 167 end of the world predictions according to Wikipedia.ipedia and i gotta tell you a business really picked up in the 90s i went through them all uh the 90s just loved him okay in in 1999 alone we had five or excuse me nine full-blown on the record this is the end of the world i think people are really playing into that 2000s. We're all marks for that stuff. The end of the world can't be Tuesday. No, it has to be right as the calendar goes from 1999 to 2000. Y2K, shout out to all the Y2K preppers, including my dad, who bought about 100 boxes of peanut butter crackers. He was super worried about Y2K. There's still maybe some crackers in that pantry from 20 years ago. there's still maybe some crackers in that pantry from 20 years ago. Y2K, look, it happened and then it kind of didn't.

There was also one guy named Harold Camping. Christian radio fans may remember that name. Maybe you just remember that name because he went 0 for 20 on end of the world predictions. So he'd be like, hey, look, May 11th, it's going down. This whole thing is over.oning is coming and then it nothing would happen as you know because we're still live now doing a podcast the end of the world didn't happen and then they'd be like what happened harold did he go oh here in may 24th now he would literally just change the date after he was wrong all the time. Harold Camping was like the Mike Carey on end of world calls. And then at the end of Camping's career, where it was pretty much people were like, I don't know about this guy anymore. He's not very good at this. He's like, you know, my bad. My bad on all those predictions that didn't work out. I should not have done that. That in itself was a sin. So maybe he came full circle if you wanted the religious angle on all that. So yes, it annoys me when you're tweeting

out stuff that says could jeopardize the balance of the season or or they're going to play or that. I know this is hard. I know it's inconvenient for everyone. I know all of us have been inconvenienced in some way, some much more than others.

I know less, so I don't complain. And players are going to complain because players complain. It's their job. They're cooler than us. They get to do a lot cooler stuff, and they're special. They've been special their whole lives. So you can have a real – it's not even a diva attitude, but you can lose perspective a little bit about how challenging times are going to be. The NBA season worries the hell out of me.

I think there are going to be some real challenging moments where you get off a plane, you think you're playing a team, and then guess what? They're not cleared because they have a couple of COVID pop-ups. But I think those kinds of tweets, that kind of stuff, that says potentially it could jeopardize the balance of the season when everybody's going, is it? Is it really?

Or are they just going to keep playing? So, yeah, there you go. Congrats on the award. Okay. I can't believe I'm still doing this. I can't believe you guys are still taking, we get a lot of requests for, hey man, I can't believe what's going to happen with Tom and Bill. Okay. So I think at first glance, you'd be like, look, Bill has to be one. Tom has to be two. Tom didn't play. Bill six and six, they smashed the Chargers. The Chargers gave us one of the worst special teams performances

that we've seen in a game in NFL history, by the way. Pats have figured out who they are. Although defensively, their stats aren't even close to what you would think. Ground control, great defense, all that. Despite the blowout against the Chargers, it's not statistically a great defense. And Cam, the team was 1- for six for its first six downs, 0 for 5 to start the game.

But it didn't matter. Their special teams were terrific. And with this Cam, Damian Harris thing and the offensive line coming together, this is who they are. They're going to run it right at you. I don't know how they're going to beat any team that can really throw, but they're 6-6 and they've turned this thing around. So that means Bill's first.

Wrong. Two things. Why, if Bill's so great, did it take this long to figure this out? Right? If you're one, if you're the real power broker in this Tom-Bill dynamic, shouldn't you have figured this out before? Just can't rule it out, right? And Tom had his house broken into.

So dealing with that alone, we're going to talk off the field problems. Tom's house was broken into in mass, not in Tampa. So that concerns me. I would have thought if there was one guy in Massachusetts whose house was off limits, breaking it, that's like breaking

into Larry Bird's condo. Like he can't do that. So I'm going to have Tom one, Bill two. Kyle, I noticed you had some energy there when we started talking about the break-in. Anything to add to that? I think it's sad that some people when Tom

decided to leave the Patriots, they didn't turn completely on him, but he kind of was sour grapes. It's okay to just like him. I don't like the Patriots fan that's like, we don't fucking need him. I don't know. It's just annoying. Yeah, he's not there to just be graceful about it.

That's all. I think that's such a small number, man. I think it's a really small number. I think you might be right, but they're loud enough. I don't even think they're all that loud did you see one brady jersey burning because usually the guys are doing that or just doing it for the retweets yeah you're right i didn't see any of those yeah so i don't i never saw that i mean honestly i think that might be a felony in massachusetts so that's that could be a reason

why guys don't do it although breaking into his place life sentence i don't know they didn't intend they were just big fans right walberg and mcfarland did it so yeah it was a movie though that wasn't a documentary fair enough yeah i'm gonna have to research this a little bit more joe thomas is going to join us here shortly. Joe Thomas joins us, NFL Network, and of course, a long, distinguished career with the Cleveland Browns, 10-time Pro Bowler. So let's start with the Browns. They're 9-3. This is the question you must deal with just as soon as you walk out the door. How good is this team?

There's another part of this that I think is really positive, but yeah, we're playing with these expectations now now when you watch them throughout this point of the season it's a great record who are they well I'm much happier to be in this situation than the situation I'm usually in which is how bad is this team and so it's a lot of fun for me to be able to answer this question and I really am I'm a believer in the Browns because they've got an opportunistic defense that finds a way even though they don't have a ton of talent in the back end, they find a way to be able to get turnovers, especially at important moments in the game. We saw that again this weekend. They've got a front that's pretty good at stopping the run.

Obviously, we know Miles Garrett. He's a great pass rusher, and he can get to the quarterback against anybody. So even though their defense isn't highly ranked, I think they still match up well on defense. Offensively, they've got the best running attack in the NFL. Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, everybody knows about those two guys. Baker Mayfield is progressing and getting better as the season goes on. He's eliminating the turnovers that plagued him earlier on in the season.

He's starting to understand how he needs to play within that offense to win the game, playing well outside the pocket, throwing the ball on the run. Don't make turnovers. If something's not there in third down, throw it away, live to see another down. So I really like this team. I think they match up well against pretty much anybody down the stretch,

and I think that is what playoff football is all about. It's all about matchups, and I think the Browns have a great chance to match up well against anybody. Every week is an evaluation of like baker's future and i feel like there have been weeks where you go hey he's not getting that second contract he is getting that second time because that's really what separates it and then you know we see even philadelphia like there's no brainer that carson wants to be the next guy now we've seen how much he's struggled there baker's not struggled like that because the once part of it's been brutal

but do you do you feel like at this point like they do have their guy i know that sounds crazy at nine and three but I feel like again we've done this every week with Baker yeah that's the discussion that we've had with Baker it seems like almost for two years now because he had that great rookie season he sets the touchdown passing record as a rookie and I think at that point everybody said well if we see the trend line he's on he's clearly going to be the franchise guy and they're going to lock him up as soon as they can then he had the little uh hiccup in year two didn't play very well and then he's been up and down in year three he's on a great string right now i think the last five or six games he's played very well in my opinion i know people have jumped on him from missing a few throws here and there but overall his biggest issue has been turnover worthy plays

and he's really reduced those he's made the plays he needs to, and he's trending in the right direction. And so I think I'm not ready right now to say, absolutely, he is the franchise guy. Pay him $30 million a year right now. But if he can continue the consistent play that he's been having in the last few weeks, that's what we want out of a franchise quarterback. You want consistent play. You want them to consistently put you in a position to win.

And that's what Baker's done. So if he's able to do that the rest of the season, I think it's pretty safe to say that he's your franchise guy. Let's go back to Garrett because there'll be moments in a game where you're like, oh, okay. You know, and look, it's not like this should be breaking news. He's the number one pick. But some of the stats, the pressure stats, the deflected pass,

like you just go, okay, number one rank, number one rank, number one rank. Where is he right now as far as edge guys in the NFL, in your opinion? Well, I think he's the number one edge guy. That's no question in my mind. I mean, I played against him when he was a rookie, just fresh off the boat, his first time in the NFL and he was whipping my butt in practice. So I have an enormous amount of respect for him. Give me your first impression, Miles Garrett story, when you lined up against each other. So my first impression was my 11th season, his rookie season, I was coming off of off-season knee surgery. So I didn't even really practice all that much in training camp. So I was kind of getting eased into it, but my very first practice going against him and we're running

a screen, which on a screen for a tackle, you're trying to get beat, but you're trying to get beat slow. And so you don't want the guy to just run free to the quarterback. Obviously, it totally blows up the screen, but you still want to kind of let him run around the edge. And so for me, I knew if I kind of took it about 90, 95 percent, I could get in his way long enough where he felt like he was winning and then I could let him buy me. But as soon as I took my set, he was already like a step past me. And it didn't exactly work out the way I had planned because he ran right into the quarterback. And of course, everybody that's watching from the sideline, all the media is there, like most training camps. And they're watching the first overall pick versus the old savvy vet.

And he blows right past me. And they don't know it's a screen. So it looks even worse. It looks like he just ran right by me and sacked the quarterback without me touching him but it was definitely sort of my wake-up moment that wow this guy is pretty good because a lot of times you see high draft picks we've seen a ton of them in Cleveland and they just don't pan out they just right away when they hit the field they just don't have what it takes and you can see pretty quickly, but Miles was on the other side of it. You saw him right off the bat and you knew he was going to be the guy and he was going to have what it takes to be a great player in this league. And so going back to your question,

best edge rusher in the NFL, no question. The only question in my mind is who's a better overall defensive lineman, him or Aaron Donald. So you actually think it's a conversation? Cause I think people would be listening to this being like, wait a minute, Aaron Donald might be the greatest player at his position

of all time. I've been the guy for the last couple of years saying Aaron Donald's the best player in the NFL right now. I don't think he's better than Miles right now, but I think that's the conversation that we could be having. And I think right now, because the Browns have been bad, when you're on a bad team and you're a pass rusher, you don't get that many bites at the apple to rush the quarterback. So you don't have an opportunity to make those big plays that everybody notices aaron donald's been on a really good team he's been dominant for a long time and so miles is a little bit behind him but i think he's starting to make those big plays and the browns are good enough right now that people are starting to notice wow this guy's unblockable like there's

nobody in the nfl that's been able to handle him um so it'll be fun to kind of see how that back and forth progresses in my opinion do you think the college part of it is that you can kind of get away with one move like if you're 6'6 270 decent quickness like you could just you can make make it work every saturday for three years just with one move no doubt and that's a problem evaluating college pass rushers. And I'll use Chase Young as an example. I think he's going to be a very good pro player. But when I watched him in college, everybody was kissing his ass about this is the greatest guy that's ever gone into the draft. And I said, well, let's pump the brakes, everybody, because he's only beating guys because he's faster than and bigger than them. He's just running around them. And when you're really good at one thing in college,

there's nobody that can stop you. And Chase Young showed us in college that he was bigger and faster than everybody. And so he's just going to run around people. And that doesn't always translate to the NFL because all of a sudden, the guys that you were seeing on Saturdays consistently, maybe during the fall, you had one guy who was an All-American. Now you're playing everybody that was an All-American, and you're playing guys that are actually physically sort of on your level, maybe not the same level as Miles Garrett or Aaron Donald, but you're playing guys that are pretty big and pretty fast.

And so you're not just going to be able to win with one move anymore, and so you have to develop the other parts of your game. I think for Chase Young to become the dominant pass rusher that we expect him to be, he's got to be able to develop those other moves. You've got to be able to develop those counter moves because just about every tackle you're going to face is going to be able to take away what you do best. It's going to be a matter of can you win with your second and third move.

That's where the guys like Aaron Donald, that's where the guys like Miles Garrett, they excel and they put themselves head and shoulders above everyone else. A lot of people were watching that Eagles game. It was in the second window, as I mentioned before, kind of on the Baker topic. Wentz, even if you weren't that into Wentz, I can't imagine anybody thought it would be this bad.

And I don't know if he was benched because they wanted to give Jalen a shot. At that point, I mean, the weird thing is they almost got back into that game. What do you see with Wentz? What would you do with this quarterback situation if you're the Eagles the rest of the year? You know, my heart goes out to Carson Wentz a little bit because he looks like a shattered brain.

Like when he's out there mentally, you can see that he can make all the throws. We've seen it in the past. You can see that he can make all the throws. We've seen it in the past. You can see that he wants to throw the football in certain situations, but he's just afraid. Like he's afraid to let it rip. And when you're a quarterback, the most important thing that you have attribute-wise is your decision-making ability. Your ability to stand back there and quickly process what the defense

is doing to you and throw the football where it needs to go. And Carson Wentz right now, he's afraid of his own shadow when he's back there, because first of all, his offensive line has had all sorts of injuries. So he's been getting hit a lot this season, but even the times that he has been protected, he's afraid to throw the football because he's afraid to make the wrong decision. He's afraid to throw an interception to the other team. And when you have that as a quarterback, it sort of leads you to a paralysis and you can't play quarterback with any sort of hesitation in your mind at all. And right now he's playing quarterback with tons of hesitation. And I think it was the right move

to go to Jalen Hurts because nobody expected this. Like you mentioned, the guy was an MVP the year that they won the Super Bowl before he got hurt. And we saw everything that you could possibly love in a quarterback. And all of a sudden, now he looks like a guy that doesn't even deserve to be a backup. And it's really a big question mark, but I think it just leads to what's going on in his headspace. And then he just doesn't have that confidence anymore. You played with a lot of quarterbacks over your career. What is that like? Is there a good example, a good story, maybe a good and bad example of like, hey, the team rallied around this next guy, or it was just dreadful being at the facility every week,

knowing that our guy was about to get benched. I mean, you dealt with this quite a bit. So I imagine there's some examples. Yeah, we've gone back and forth with quarterbacks several times in my career. But I would say one that really sticks out in my mind is we had Derek Anderson, who had been a Pro Bowl quarterback for us. And we had first-round pick Brady Quinn. I think both those guys had the ability to maybe be long-term starting quarterbacks in the NFL.

But we benched Derek, we went with Brady. Then we benched Brady, and we went with Derek. And when you do that seesaw back and forth with quarterbacks, you destroy their confidence. And then you never give them an opportunity to build any sort of cohesion with the receiving core. And those guys need time together. They need confidence. They need trust in each other. That's built through practice and game time on Sundays. And when you're constantly going back and forth between different quarterbacks, you never build that trust and that understanding of timing and where each other expects them to be in the offense. And then outside of just receivers and quarterbacks,

you erode the confidence of everybody on the team in the head coach's decision-making. And well, why did you go with this guy in the first place if you're only going to bench him? And then why did you bench him and go to the other guy if you're going to just go right back to the first guy? And so it really leads to sort of an erosion in confidence, I think, throughout the entire team if you do that back and forth. But I think at this point with Doug Peterson, the call was right to go with Jalen Hurts. You needed a spark. You could see that Carson Wentz's confidence was destroyed and you needed to give Carson an opportunity to really go to the bullpen and sit for several games and sort of maybe reevaluate things and get an opportunity to go and get back out there eventually somewhere down

the road, whether it's with the Eagles or somebody else, and have a little bit more of that playing with nothing to lose mentality versus playing a tight, afraid to make a mistake mentality. And right now, Jalen Hurts has that nothing to lose mentality, right? He's kind of playing on house money. He's coming in for Carson. Expectations are not really high. And he's able to come in and let it rip and kind of give that team that spark. Seahawks lose to the Giants, which, you know, again, we can talk about travel way.

But, you know, there's a big push for Russell Wilson to be the MVP. It was almost becoming like a thing. I don't want to call it propaganda because it's not that. But it happens in pro sports leagues all the time where the media going out of camp will start talking somebody up. And you're like, okay, now this guy is on the radar. We're supposed to pay attention to him. And for a while, it looked like it was going to make sense. Now, three straight games, he's had some turnover issues, and he just looked lost.

And we knew Seattle's defense was bad, and that wasn't the case this past weekend. But what are you seeing right now with the Seattle team that maybe we thought had chances of getting out of the NFC? Well, it's interesting because Russell Wilson, like you said, it was like a thing making Russell Wilson the MVP for the first time in his career. Because everyone loves Russell Wilson. He's playing great football. And at the beginning of the season, what he was doing was almost impossible to understand because he literally was just putting the entire team on his back. He had the worst defense in the NFL and somehow he was willing his team to win every single week. And he was doing it nearly flawlessly, like hardly throwing any interceptions. The ball was never touching the ground. And you wondered how long he was going to be able to keep that up. And I think part of it has been, they're not running the football as

effectively as they were earlier on in the season. But there's just a little bit of a reversion to the mean right now with Russell. And I think when you ask one single player to do as much as they had in Seattle with Russell, eventually there's going to be a few mistakes that are going to happen. And he's going to kind of revert to what you expect out of that player, which is still greatness. But at the same time, you put so much on them and you put so much pressure on them to make the impossible play,

making that impossible play just can't happen every single Sunday. And so now that we're a little bit surprised, it's not happening. I think they need to take some of the pressure off him and just put it back on some of the other guys maybe run the football a little bit more maybe give him some more easy completions and it's a little bit of the Carson Wentz where Carson felt like he had to make every single play himself with all the injuries around him and it led to him maybe losing a little bit of confidence in what he could do I'm not saying Russell has lost his confidence but maybe they just need to take a little bit off his plate

and maybe give him some more easier completions, maybe run the football a little bit more, and give him an opportunity within the flow of a normal offense to make some of those wild plays instead of expecting to make those wild plays every week. I love him as a player. His whole story, I used to argue in the beginning of his career when there was some comparison stuff, we would try who's the who's the next one out of this

young group and andrew luck was still in that group and i'm like you're gonna be kidding me andrew luck's doing what russell wilson's doing now but andrew luck was doing that as a rookie where russell was allowed to kind of evolve into somebody where the game plan was on him he was asked to do very little in the beginning of his career it It was perfect work. They won a ton of games. They won a Super Bowl. But I'm always hesitant to be remotely critical of him. But how tough would it be to play O-line for him? Because I think there's so many times, yes, he can keep plays alive. His instincts are incredible. He's got movement in the pocket.

He's got movement out of the pocket. He makes throws. I just don't think other guys even would attempt not to say that he's the best quarterback. But it's going to be brutal trying to figure out what the hell you're supposed to do once the play breaks down for him. And that's why I think his sack total has always been high. And it isn't just because the old line has had some down years. It's because it's just, again, I'm kind of leading you in this direction, but it's going

to be kind of frustrating to try to keep engaged the entire time, not even knowing what angle you're supposed to play at. Yeah. the entire time, not even knowing what angle you're supposed to play at. Yeah, I think for an offensive lineman, it's important to keep an optimistic view on your role as an offensive lineman for Russell Wilson. You've got a big smile on your face here. You've got to have a smile and understand, yeah, I'm probably going to get blamed for a lot more sacks than I should, and the fans are going to be the ones that are saying, ah, the offensive line, that left tackle, he sucks. He's given up, you know, five sacks this year when you're used to

maybe giving up just one or two, but you got to understand that with the way that Russell Wilson extends plays, there's going to be a lot of good. That's going to come from it. He's going to throw a lot of, there is more touchdown passes, right? And so you've got to kind of keep it all in perspective and understand, yeah, you know what? I might get a lot more blame than I should or that I'm used to. But Russell's going to make so many amazing plays that I'd rather have this than the quarterback that stands back there like a statue. Yeah, he throws the ball and I don't get a lot of sacks, but we lose a lot of games and he only completes 50 percent of the balls. And once it's third and six, I know it's no chance for us to pick it up. So with Russell, you kind of got to have a little bit maybe of a schoolyard mentality.

Like, you know what? He might run around. I don't know where he's going to be. I can play as hard as I can. I got to laugh about it a little bit sometimes because I can't cry when I'm out there and my guy's hitting the quarterback. But just play until you see the ball and you hear the crowd roaring one way or the other and get back to the huddle and maybe laugh about it on Monday morning as a group. And I think that's part of the reason why offensive linemen

were kind of sick and twisted people. But we have this like mushroom society, this club on Monday mornings that we're able to sit in those meeting rooms and complain about the running back not in the hall or complain about the quarterback not throwing the ball on time. But we can do that in our little safe space and that when we walk out of that, we realize that, you know what, it's okay. We don't ever get the credit. We just get all the blame. But we kind of enjoy that because we are sick and twisted in our heads.

Do you think offensive linemen should start pushing towards like a wide receiver or a corner where you go on the sideline and just lay into a teammate for missing a block like a running back? Do you think O-linemen should get together and then start doing that more on Sundays I feel like O-Lyman need a union to be able to get together to be able to like control the uh the fans perspective on what we do and and we could do it with ways like that but I will say that you know you see the the Tom Brady's going to the sideline and just chewing out a receiver if they're not in the right spot O-Lyman do that but they do that in more subtle ways.

And here's what I used to do, and here's what you'll see in the NFL. Like, if a quarterback gets sacked and he's laying there and an O-lineman goes right over and picks him up, usually it's the offensive lineman's fault and he feels bad about it. But if the offensive lineman's there and the quarterback gets sacked and the O-lineman walks back to the huddle and doesn't help him up, you know that that's his way of yelling at him. And in his head, he knows you deserve that one.

That's exactly what you get for hanging out on the football and not being where you were supposed to. So if you ever see that in the Sunday on the field, you know that that's the offensive lineman's way of getting back at the quarterback for screwing up. I'm going to start looking for that a little bit more. Diamond's way of getting back at the quarterback for screwing up. I'm going to start looking for that a little bit more.

I asked Joe Thomas to put together the team that it wouldn't be a surprise to win a Super Bowl. So he's going to do that for us at the end here. But 2020 is the year of cancellations. And as the holidays arrive, we'll be saying farewell to one more tradition. Work holiday parties. But as it turns out, most of us never really like those parties anyway. Do I have to dress up? What kind of sweater? I just started dating this girl, do I have to dress up kind of sweater? Just started dating this girl.

Now I have to go to a holiday party. It's going to be weird. And people are going to ask if we're ever kids. I'm like, actually, I'm still DMing people. And with work parties canceled, we can get something we actually want for the holidays. More time with our real friends or as we call it, Miller time. Holiday parties can definitely be awkward because you're basically jumping into if it's a date or a marriage you know something serious like that

you're jumping into their world and then you kind of see their work world and for some people they already know it but other people it's like this one time a year thing where you're like oh you're dave i heard a lot about you um and for me, whenever I would get asked to go, which was rare, and then we stopped having him at ESPN, but it would just be like, oh, you work in sports? You just go like, you know, you just get peppermint questions. You turn and be like, hey, this guy, this guy over here. Hey, ask him who the Jets are going to draft.

He's Trevor Lawrence. Can I have another Miller light? Take away the forced fun of work holiday parties, and what you have left is Miller time with the people who you actually want to have a beer with. To give work holiday parties a proper send-off, Miller Lite is teaming up with visual artist Alex Prager for a full exhibit called Farewell Work Holiday Parties. Why? Nothing says farewell to an old tradition like seeing it in a museum.

To celebrate all that extra Miller time with your real friends this season, whether it's virtual or not, get great tasting, less filling Miller Lite delivered by going to MillerLite.com and find the delivery options near you. Tis Miller time, and if you're in LA, check out Farewell Work Parties, the exhibit at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this season,

November 21st to January 7th. Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. This is something I touched on in the open. I have my own thoughts. I'm not going to tell you until maybe I'm done here what you have to say. But did the Jets lose that game on purpose? No.

So, first of all, the whole coaching staff in New York know they're going to get fired. And actually, Greg Williams, I think, already got fired today. So they know they're getting fired. So there's no reason that they want to give the people that are about to fire them a gift of going 0-16 and getting the number one overall pick and being able to pick Trevor Lawrence and then the next coaching staff have success. So the coaching staff is not trying to lose. And they definitely don't want to have 0-16 on their coaching record, which the coaches that I've been around that have that, that's a stink that's hard to get rid of. It's hard to get jobs after being that bad, unfortunately.

Maybe it is your fault. Maybe it isn't your fault. But that sticks with you. So they don't want to lose. And they're not doing that on purpose. What I will say is if you go back and watch Greg Williams, that's exactly who he is. He's aggressive.

He doesn't do what the conventional wisdom is. 2015, I'm with the Browns, and we were playing the St. Louis Rams at the time. Greg Williams is the defensive coordinator. It's the end of the half. We're running a Hail Mary from midfield, and it was the first time I've ever seen they've blitzed the house. They blitzed both corners against us.

They crushed our quarterback. They prevented us from throwing the football and even getting an opportunity to throw Hail Mary, which is probably a higher percentage odds of success than most people realize. So Greg Williams throughout his career, even when he was in Cleveland and everywhere he's gone, really has been the guy that says, I would rather blitz you and try to hit the quarterback and not allow you to throw the Hail Mary than to sit back in the prevent defense like most fans would expect and most coordinators would do because you're going to get less flack if it doesn't work when you're in a prevent defense than if you blitz. And so if you didn't like a defensive coordinator who's going

to be aggressive and who's going to buck conventional wisdom and who's going to blitz a Hail Mary, then you shouldn't have hired Greg Williams. So if Adam Gaze wants to fire somebody for blitzing at the end of a game in a Hail Mary situation and losing the game, he should fire himself because that's who Greg Williams has always been. And for the fans that are beside themselves, the Jets blitz, they're probably the same fans that are going to bitch and moan when the team plays prevent defense and the offense moves their way down the field and gets an easy opportunity to score at the end of a game. And so for fans, it's fun for us because we can be Monday morning quarterbacks and we can have it both ways and whatever the defense does and it doesn't work, we can say they should have done the opposite. But in the end,

this is exactly who Greg Williams is. And I wasn't surprised that he did that. Usually it works. It didn't work this time. And that's just what you have to handle when you're a coordinator. The oddity of this team, it's not the only team to do it. So you don't want to, they said, but when it's a Greg Williams personality, it's an Adam Gase personality. You're setting yourself up for failure when they're basically like, look to Gase, you're the head coach, but we're hiring Greg Williams. We are hiring him separate of you. And knowing the way Greg Williams is where he's almost laughed about not having to answer to anyone. You go, why, why would you want this dynamic? Especially when you know, it's probably going to be a tough season.

Why would you add another dynamic to this? That's probably going to be challenging for everybody. And as players, this is probably part of it. It's like, look, we just want to go out there and play. Like, I don't want to hear about Greg Williams laughing about the idea that he's not beholden to anything Gase says. So I don't even know why you'd want to put a franchise even in that kind of challenging spot anyway. Well, I think that's a question for the people that are doing the hiring in that situation. When I was in Cleveland, we had every iteration imaginable about setting up the structure of an organization. We had a president hiring a general manager who hires a head coach. We had a president who would hire a general manager head coach separately. We had a head coach who was

acting as the owner who got to hire the general manager. And so unless you get everybody on the same page, it's going to be drama from the start. And that's what it's been in New York, because if you don't get a head coach that's able to hire his coaches and be on the same page with the GM, when you have inevitable situations that come up and losing that comes up with every team in the NFL, it's just going to be this endless stream of drama. And so you can't be surprised when you have drama and losing if you don't get everybody in that organization on the same page. And when you don't hire them together, you know that you're going to get that. And so I don't know why front offices continue to do this because it just handicaps your team and your head coach decision when you do hire these

guys independently, especially a guy like Greg Williams, who I've worked with, who's a little bit tough to get along with sometimes. I mean, you kind of can see the writing on the wall even before you hire these guys. I couldn't believe this when I looked it up and I sent it to you ahead of time. You've played for Romeo Cornell, Mangini, Pat Shermer, Chudzinski, Mike Pettin, Hugh Jackson. You want to rank them from your favorite to least favorite? No, I'm just kidding. Well, unless you want to, I don't know. Some guys are real vindictive. I don't know if that would be really exciting. Zero playoff performances by any of them. You know what's crazy?

You went 10-6 your rookie year, and you never had a winning record after that. And to just say, 10-6, the best it's ever going to be. But you never had an in-season coaching change, did you? When I looked that up, I was like, is that even right? How did that happen? How did no one ever lose their job with the Browns the whole time you were there? Well, they didn't lose it in season by the letter of the law.

But we had times where we would fire the general manager in the season and we bring in a new GM or a new president. And they decided that the best course for the team was just to let the coach basically be a lame duck coach for the rest of the season. Because I think generally speaking, people that are on the inside in the NFL, they understand if you fire a coach in the middle of the season, it really doesn't do anything except it kind of lets the inmates run the asylum. At that point, it's like having a substitute teacher, right? You pull in an interim coach and you've seen in Atlanta, you've seen already this last weekend in Detroit, usually you get a little spark, a little pop. You get a couple games. The team plays pretty well.

There's a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm with the new coach, the interim coach. But then the new coach, he's got no legs to stand on because everybody in that locker room knows that he's not going to be the coach next year, and there's really nothing to play for. They're not going to the playoffs. And so you just don't get a whole lot out of your team down the stretch. There's nothing for them to play for. The head coach has no ability to enforce discipline, has no ability to enforce his offense or his defense

because everybody knows it's going to be different at the end of the season. And the closer to the end of the season, the less effort you're going to get with your substitute teacher and so I think that was a big reason why we never had in-season coaching changes and you know you hear some people say well they want to get a head start on finding the next head coach I mean you don't think your owner's going and flying all over the country doing interviews and finding the next head coach after he's already fired his GM and his president yeah the head coach might still be there but that doesn't mean that they're not already looking for the next head coach.

And so I think that is kind of a hollow argument. As a leader for that team, and that's certainly what you were, do you have moments where you have to go to the head coach and go, hey, look, and especially considering it didn't work very often, were you asked by your teammates to address the coach about stuff that they were pissed off about?

Yeah, as a captain, as a leader. How did you handle that? I mean, I was happy to do that because, one, it showed leadership to the coach, so they understood that everybody on the roster respected you as sort of the conduit between the players and the coach. But it also was a way for you to gain respect in the locker room so that the players knew, hey, this guy's got my back.

It went both ways. And I thought it was a really good situation to be in, especially as an older player, to kind of get the respect not only from the coaching staff in the front office, but also from the players. And so it's a lot of responsibility, but it was something that I think most guys enjoy. Yeah, it makes it a little bit tough, but I think it sort of hardens you as a player, as a leader, to be able to go to your boss and maybe tell him something that he doesn't like.

I think that makes you a better person. It makes you a better man. It makes you a better leader in the end. And he might say, you know, screw off, but at least you feel like as a player, you and other players had an opportunity to, you know, voice your opinions. But see you for the younger listeners here, and I think most people remember this. It's not like it was that long ago. It's only been a couple of years

you're out of the league. You were a beloved player. You were beloved locally because you were this guy going through all these losing seasons you you basically play every game every snap your entire career up until the end you make all these pro bowls all pro i mean the resume is insane which coach was ever going to tell you like to fuck off well uh when it when when my request was, coach, I'd like to practice less because my guys are tired, usually the response was, fuck off, we're going to do what we want to do because I'm the one that's going to get fired if we don't play well on Sunday.

So that was typically what the response was from the coaching staff. But I think as long as you did it in a diplomatic way, coaches were receptive and they wanted to hear what the players had to say. And I think as a coach, you want to know what the pulse of the locker room is. You want to know what your players are feeling. And I think you've got to have a player or two in that locker room who's able to give you the honest truth. And as a leader, one of the most important things is being able to give an unbiased and unfiltered opinion of what is going on on the practice field in the meeting room in the locker room and what the players are feeling and vice

versa with the coaches like if the coaches feel the players are fucking up in practice and screwing around in meetings and not given what type of extra effort they want to see like it's up to them to come to me as a leader because they know that a lot of times I'm going to be able to get through to the players better than they will standing up there and bemoaning the state of the practice in front of the team during a meeting because most players are going to kind of tune out a head coach that does that anyway. So I do think it goes both ways and I think it's an important role for any team to have somebody in that leadership position in a locker room that's playing to be able to you know kind of be that conduit i asked you as we finish up here to look at kind of that surprise list i always

like doing this with different guys where you go okay this these teams could win the super bowl and we wouldn't go well how the hell did that happen so i don't know if you have a list up i can run through the top ones in the playoff standings. I just never know if it's more than four or five teams. The AFC feels, I mean, when you start looking at like Baltimore, granted, they're six and five, which is kind of surprising again, but they're the ninth seed. All right, so Pittsburgh, Kansas City,

is there anyone after that that you'd go? Because I still think Cleveland at nine and three, if they won the Super Bowl, we'd go, huh, that's weird. We'd be surprised. But I think part of that is not necessarily how they've played or how they've looked this season. It's just the recent history, right?

Like Cleveland, we've been so bad for so long, and last year we were really bad. So the fact that we're 9-3 right now is a surprise. And if you won the Super Bowl, being that we've never won one before, people are like, wow, that was a surprise. But I think when you drill down and you look at the AFC field, any one of those teams, I mean, I would even say Buffalo. I'd throw Buffalo out there.

I'd throw Tennessee out there. I'd throw Indy out there. When you look at the history of the NFL playoffs, especially this year because it's so unique, I feel like there's more variables that go into the playoff run this season than ever before, which to me opens up the field to even more teams that you're not used to seeing out there, especially with New England being doggy doo-doo. Without New England, it really opens things up so much more because you know in past years, somebody who might be a pretty good team is going to run into New England and they're going to knock them out.

They're going to be the truth serum of some crappy team, but I don't know if there is a truth serum right now in the AFC, especially with Kansas City relying so much on that high-powered offense and already have a loss to Las Vegas. I could see Kansas City in a bad matchup losing to any one of those teams that I mentioned in the playoffs. Okay, all right. So wider field there in the AFC. I think the other part of it is the one seed

having to buy the seventh seed. It's going to be tough. When the Colts are sitting there at eight and four now with four games to go, it's just, I mean, maybe Vegas can catch it. But now I'm looking at Vegas entirely. The last two weeks, I go, all right, right wait am i supposed to think these guys suck now whereas the nfc okay let's do it this way list the number of teams where you stop after okay this would be a surprise

i imagine you're not going to put the five and seven giants in that first group although they are the force there is there's no nfc east teams spoiler alert it has a chance to win the Super Bowl list. No, I went through this list and I had almost 13 teams that I said, you know what? They could win the Super Bowl. And maybe our perspective on this is a little bit different. Maybe you're the hater fan that said, I'm not the hater fan. I'm just saying, surprise. I'm a guy that's making a case. I'm a guy that said, I can make a case for about 13 teams. And when you look at the NFC, it's smaller than the AFC, clearly. But I got Green Bay, New Orleans.

I think we'd probably agree on that. I think Tampa Bay has not looked good recently, and you can easily poo-poo them. But then you remember, oh, wait, they got a ton of weapons. They got Tom Brady. They've had a defense that has been really good at times. And so they could easily get hot in the playoffs and make a run and win

the Super Bowl. The Rams, I mean, they played better on Sunday. They had this Jared Goff interception streak going on, but clear that up. All of a sudden you're saying, yeah, they're a legitimate contender. And you know, Seattle has had a lot of question marks recently, but if you go back five games, people were saying, hey, they may be the NFC representative in the Super Bowl. Russell Wilson, when you have a great quarterback, a generational talent quarterback like that, all of a sudden you can easily make a case for you in your head that if guys kind of raise their game a little bit around them,

that's the type of player that can get hot in the playoffs and go on a five-game streak and win the Super Bowl. Tell me where I'm wrong. Tell me which one of those NFC teams you don't like. No, I'm with you on the Bucs. I think the Bucs are almost dumped on a little too much because their games

have been the marquee matchups, and in those games, they've been atrocious. They've saved their absolute... These are some of the worst games we've seen in... They've saved their best for prime time. Or the worst. Yeah, it's like Andy Dalton if he were a franchise. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

The Rams, though, they should feel good about knowing the Niners can't really be in the playoffs. And if that's the case, then, you know, look, I can't believe they lost to them twice. And I thought they looked really good against Arizona. Although I think the last couple of weeks, Arizona, I don't know if people figuring them out. Kyler wasn't healthy two weeks ago against New England. You could see the short yardage situations. They were a little hesitant to use them the way they'd used them earlier in the year. So there's been a resetting, it feels like, of the NFC.

And even the Vikings with the horrible start and getting to 500, even though they still lose to Jacksonville, like that's a talented football team. They just are. And with that extra seed, it's something to bring up. Yeah, I think it's not the NBA. It's not a best of seven series. Like you get hot, you've got a great quarterback. You can easily make a run through the playoffs and win the Superbowl. And I think that's why the NFL is so popular. I mean, that's why it's so much fun

because we're making a case for almost half the league that they legitimately you could make a case in your brain especially if you're a fan of that fan base of that team yeah that they could be in the super bowl they could win it hey joe that was awesome i really appreciate your time yeah and uh if i can repay the favor you let me know all right awesome thanks for having me on ryan life advice just moments away but by now you've probably heard about FanDuel Sportsbook, world-class sports betting app. It's amazing. Get it, put it on your phone, sitting around, especially holidays, kind of hanging out. Maybe you're somewhere you're not normally used to being like, hey, sorry, I'm on my phone betting games. Leave me alone.

Well, there's a reason why FanDuel is America's number one sportsbook. FanDuel makes it easy to find and place your bets. They've got great odds on all different betting markets, unique fun bet types, like same game parlay. And I'm telling you, like if you're with somebody and you're trying to kill some time, it's actually kind of like going to the movies,

except you can do it from home. You can do it from your phone because now you're invested. All right. So fun bet types, like we said, same game parlay and exclusive, always on promotions

to let you get more action out of every game day. If you win, they even get you your winnings safely in as little as 24 hours. Each week, FanDuel Sportsbook is giving new users NFL odds boosts on the most relevant matchups of the week. This week, new users can get plus 1,500. That's 15 to 1 odds on either the New England Patriots or the Los Angeles Rams.

Just place a bet up to $5 to win $75, okay? I got to tell you, right now, the way the Pats are playing and they're going to be... No, they're figuring some stuff out here. They absolutely are figuring some stuff out and their comfort level with McVay

in golf, although you got to imagine McVay's been looking forward to this game ever since the Super Bowl because people just felt like he was super predictable in that game. And that once the Pats are like, I'm on there. Look, of all the nine Super Bowls, the Pats Super Bowls that I've gone to, I haven't gone to the games, but because of work, you know, going to Super Bowl week, that's basically the number one thing for guys in my industry is that, you know, Super Bowl week, it's almost like a media convention thing. Arrogance is the wrong word,

but like, hey, what do you think of the game? Talking to different Pats people. I'm not talking like front office, but just people around it. And it was the most dismissive of any Super Bowl opponent. New England, I couldn't believe. I was like, wow. Usually these guys will come up with something.

And it was like, no. It's like, this is not going to be that hard. It's not going to be that hard. I was like, wow. And look, there's still a score there that makes it was like, no, it's like, this is not going to be that hard. It's not going to be that hard. I was like, wow. And look, there's still a score there that makes it look like it's a close game. So Rams fans certainly already annoyed because they're thinking, hey,

that thing was actually close. They swallowed you up in that one. So 15 to one odds on New England promo. I say go for it. All right. If you've never tried FanDuel Sportsbook, what are you waiting for? Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app to get started.

Be sure to sign up with the promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N, so they know I sent you. That's FanDuel Sportsbook promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. Must be 21 or older. Present in New Jersey, PA, Illinois, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee. Must wager on designated boost market. Deposit required.

Max bonus $75. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-522-4700. In Colorado, 1-800-BETS. Off in Iowa, 1-800-9 with Indiana. 1-800-GAMBLER. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois.

Tennessee, Red Line. 1-800-889-9789. Tennessee or visit www.1800gambler.net. West Virginia. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. We've got a couple here, one very different, so I'm excited about it. This one is a little bit more standard, but it's a bit of a bummer. So we'll try to get through this one. All right, here we go.

Not going to give my name. All right, done. No problem. We haven't really been reading them anyway. I'm 35, not a 10, maybe a seven. High five-figure salary. I could make more if I was willing to move, but I live in the South. cost of living dirt cheap. High five figures here is better than six figures in a city. I would agree. I've looked at the real estate. I've been married for three years, dated five years of prior marriage. That's eight years together. When we started dating, I was going through a divorce. I didn't cheat on my ex-wife and my current wife, but we did start dating before my divorce was finalized. My wife at the time and I were separated after my divorce we finally uh eventually moved in together after a

few years got engaged for over a year and married so we never rushed anything all right you didn't and by the way like i like how you're kind of pointing that out at the beginning because i just think with divorces i'm amazed sometimes how over both parties can be in a divorce where you know i've seen people live together which i think is you know look economically if you have to pull it off especially stuff going on right now, I would rather sleep in a CVS bag than live with a woman I was divorcing. Terrifying.

Yeah, I just would be like, I'll be outside. I'll come by and grab some compression shorts from time to time. But I think sometimes when people can read this stuff that will say like oh well wait you know are you planting the seed for how you kind of turn now you dude you were divorced you were getting divorced you started talking to somebody you mentioned you didn't cheat on your wife we're gonna take you for your word so all right fine

all right so he says about a year ago his wife became more distant we stopped having the fun together that we both had we settled into our routines that didn't involve each other as much which i think is unfortunately part of marriage. So I don't think that that's super unique, but I get it. Okay. Monday before Thanksgiving, I was home early and sent her a text message. Her Apple Watch was on the floor and vibrated when I sent the message. Without knowing why, I picked up the watch and looked at her messages.

What did I find? No surprise. Messages between her and another man. I read them over. It did not appear there were any sexual relations between them. I confronted her. She admitted that she'd been texting and seen this other man on a couple of occasions. She said they kissed, but nothing more.

The communication lasted about a week and a half. Phone records in an unannounced search. So you went in. So he looked at the phone records in an unannounced search through my wife's Facebook message or confirmed this. We separated for a few days. We both cleared our heads and decided what to do next. After talking, we decided to go to therapy and try to make

things work. She said she'd been texting him and met up with him. She said they kissed, but nothing more. When people cheat, I feel like kissed is like code word for, yeah, we didn't just kiss. I'm not trying to pull me out

here, but that's been my experience with that like oh we just kissed really okay um unfortunately a week later the same scenario happened all right so that's a week later all right i sent her a text message her apple watch vibrated and sure enough i was looking at the watch again this time i found out she'd had an eight-month affair with her boss who was also doing some side work on her house in the basement. Oh no. Oh man.

I didn't suspect the boss initially which is why I didn't read their messages the first time. When I confronted her with this she again admitted the truth. She told me I'd become a different person since we married. She didn't think I loved her anymore.

The reality is that I battled clinical depression and after a medication change I essentially was a zombie for 11 months. I still love my wife very much but this affair has broken me she's come clean about everything but obviously my trust is shattered the problem i keep running into is that i'm still in love with her and want to forgive her and try to make it work i've never understood why someone would stay

with somebody after they cheated on them but now that i'm in this situation i'm looking at it differently yeah she fucked up major but i also wasn't there for her like i should have been i checked out for other reasons um which i feel is why this went on so long without me noticing. We were the happiest couple before the past year. I feel like we can get back to that place or maybe in a stronger one. My question is, does my wife just suck or do I need to try to work on things? Thanks for your advice. Okay.

This is obviously very complicated and it's also you. It's you and this is a repetitive thing, but I know that there's nothing easier than all of us, every guy listening to this right now, and I'm sure some of the women that listen to the podcast, because she's in the wrong, screw her, bounce, okay? But none of these people that are giving you this advice or me reading this are emotionally attached to the way you're emotionally attached to the one person, all right? So that goes without saying, that's not super insightful.

So any decision here, it can't be about like what you're supposed to do or what the rules are supposed to be. I personally couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And the fact that there's a guy that she's worked for. So like she had a chance to be truthful about the boss the first time she got busted. So that means she didn't go like, hey, here's the bigger picture thing. She was like, maybe I can get away with this other thing.

I don't believe her about the kiss thing because she didn't tell you the truth about the boss the whole time and honestly like the fact that this piece of shit guy would be in my house working my fucking basement while he's also hooking up with my wife like and again i'm not trying to sound like you know mel gibson ransom here but i have a real hard time processing these things okay a girl i dated one time i i don't even know if it's true or not but there was like a maintenance guy that worked in our neighborhood and I think they might've hung out and somebody was like,

oh, you should have him come by and fix something again. I was like, nah, I don't think so. And they're like, why? I'm like, I don't know. I think that something happened there. They're like, yeah, but who are you mad at? Like her or the maintenance guy?

I was like, yeah, I don't know what to tell you. I was like, I'm just out. He's not doing any maintenance here anymore. I know that. And they're like, do you even know if it happened or not? I was like, no, absolutely not. But I'm just going to imagine that it did. And that guy's not coming by to here anymore i know that they're like do you even know if it happened or not i was like no absolutely not but i'm just gonna imagine that it did and

that guy's not coming by to fix my fucking water heater all right yeah so so all right i'm not paying somebody to fix my water heater that may have been with somebody that i cared about don't you understand that what's wrong with you so yes i know that sounds psychotic so i'm probably not always the best person to ask when it comes to this stuff because I would have a real hard time with this. So the boss thing with her, again, he's in your house, man. So that's the part that I have a hard time with. But you went through something real tough here. I can imagine going through what you went through and then seeing how you can see if you're really close enough with somebody who actually changes up their medication and you can see some you're really close enough with somebody who actually changes up their medication and you can see some of the stuff, you can kind of detach a little

bit. You can become a bit of a muted version of yourself. And if that's why she started exploring other things, I think it's cool that you're allowing for yourself to be blamed a little bit here instead of all of us as men trying to be tough guys about it and just blame everybody else. But she had an eight-month affair. I think you're giving her too much credit for being honest because she wasn't honest about the boss the first time around. She tried to get away with that until she got busted again. So I think you should stop giving her the benefit of the doubt as much. And if you're what, three months

into a medication change and then she'd had an eight month affair, what did she do? Give you three months of being a little different before she started exploring other things? That's not great. I'm not saying like, hey, after 12 months of being different, you're allowed to cheat on your spouse. But three months, that's too soon. So it's really going to come down to nothing i say or anyone else says people are going to give you all sorts of advice there's going to be a lot of people that say hey bounce but if you're going to be more miserable not being with this person and clearly you need to work on some things you know that's that sucks because i think that a lot of times all of us male female have come down to

that conclusion where you just you go i'm so scared of how sad i'm going to be without this person even though being with this person is not going to be the same because it's never going to be the same you're never going to trust her the way you did before and i kind of i don't know if commend is the right thing you don't even have any kids um but again sometimes staying together because of the kids is actually the worst thing for the kids, but everybody's situation is a little different here. But I'm not saying there are holes here. I just think that as much as I think it's kind of cool that you're also blaming yourself for part of this, you're blaming yourself probably a little

bit more than you should considering it sounds like it was a couple months of you changing the medication and she decided to start hanging out with the guy that was in your house fixing stuff so um and like everything once you move on i know it seems impossible but there'll just be magically a day where you don't care anymore man it happens it's life you never think you're gonna get to that day and then the day happens you're like wow i don't care anymore this is crazy and then maybe you care for like another year and you're like oh remember that day i thought i didn't care and then after that year you actually won't care and then normally they usually will call you back and be like hey thinking about you that's why swingers is one of my favorite movies ever because they absolutely nailed it yeah hey just just thinking about you

it's the holidays yeah were you thinking about me when i was writing a check to your boss for fixing our vents okay last one this is um we're noticing more and more fake ones but we're the it team is sifting through these vigorously so okay uh this is great this one just made me laugh because it was all right here we go all right our man i'm gonna use his name because it's too good taylor chimes in he goes in life self-awareness is key i consider myself a pretty self-aware person i know uh what parts of my personality to highlight which ones lay low that said the simple fact is i am super into dave matthews band i have been since i was 15 and I love them more today at 30 than I ever have. I've seen them 17 times. And to be honest, as far as DMV fans go, that's actually not that many.

Here's my problem. I'm self-aware enough to know that being a DMV guy isn't the number one way to make friends. I've yet to meet the person who just loves taking a conversation in the direction of an extended two-step jam from 1997 or about that time Carter threw sticks into the crowd mid-Rapunzel. But sometimes trying to not paint myself as a DMV guy starts to make me feel like I'm suppressing something I'm super into. I just want to share what I love. I want to talk about them. I want to introduce people to them. I want to bring them up. There are a lot more important things that make up who I am that I talk about regularly, but this is just a fun aspect of me I never bring up. Surely you try to avoid being painted

as overly Celtics guy or tool guy, right? Yet you really love talking about them, I'm sure. How can I talk about them and not become DMV guy? Thanks, Taylor. This sentence, I was cracking up when I read it. This is the third time I've read this and I keep laughing I think it's this sentence but sometimes trying to not

paint myself as Dave Matthews band guy starts to make me feel like I'm suppressing something I'm super into I just want to share what I love I want to talk about them I want to introduce people to them I want to bring them up I don't know what happened Taylor I'm with you

how come Dave Matthews became like the joke band to bring up? This guy's fucking rock. My Dave Matthews band history is incredible. And I'm going to share this with you, Taylor, because we're just going to talk about. And everybody else wants to turn off the pod. Now, go ahead. I was a high school graduate, Martha's Vineyard. That's 93 heading into UVM.

Although I wasn't sure if I was going to go to UVM or St. Mike's. I did both deposit guy. Not privilege. Actually, it was expensive and screwed me out of some of my summer earnings. But I wasn't sure I want to go to school. Back then, early 90s, Martha's Vineyard, there was a party literally every single night. There was always some beach or some house or somebody's parents were gone and you're ready to just go. And music was a big part of those summers. I just was really starting to

explore the space musically. And I heard this bootleg cassette tape of this guy singing and the violin and the acoustic guitar and the whole deal and the horns. And I'm like, what is this? And the guy's like, Oh, this is Dave. I'm from Virginia. You know? And I was like, Oh my God, this is, what is this? It's like, this is incredible. And I was working at a music store at the time on Martha's Vineyard, right? So I was like, look, man, you got to, I go, is there any way I can dub one of these? I was like, I'll give you a discount on CDs. Come into the CD store tomorrow. And we're planning it out.

We're high-fiving it. You know, it's all love. And then, of course, you know, like a lot of meetings that are organized over a few course lights, people don't show up for those meetings. So the next day, I was like, God, it was a Dave Matthews band, huh? So I start researching it while I'm working at the music store

because back then there was no internet. And I found this record company, I think it was Bama Rags, it was. And they remember two things where you would try to see the cool little hidden scene in the CD cover. That was going to come out later that year. And I got in touch with this guy, Chris.

And I was like, this is unbelievable. Like, what is this stuff? And the guy's taking me through the whole thing. It was this whole Charlottesville deal. And this company, Bama Rags, started sending the CDs to me for the CD shop that I worked at. And I remember the boss who ran the place was like, how many of these did you order? I was like five. He's like, you're, he was like,

give him, you know, he wasn't like a mean boss. He just was looking at me, eye rolling me like, you're an idiot. It's like, I can't believe you'd order. Nobody knows who this guy is, whatever. I was like, all right, fine, whatever. And then I'd gone to school. You had to like find a way to order the recently CD online. It was really hard, but then they started really blowing up my freshman year i guess being in vermont like it's a classic you know fish widespread was a big deal i saw widespread at a church on campus but the music was so different it was just so different it was it was artsy folksy jazzy so they became kind of this punch line like or is a punch line or is it oar i don't Kyle. You're going to help me out on that one.

I'll Google it because I got no idea. Yeah, there you go. Locked in. I don't know what happened because I saw him again recently with my man, big man, Eric Chenoweth, who brought me to that show in San Francisco for the Super Bowl when he cut, I think, 15,000 people in line, and no one said anything to him because he's 7'1 plus maybe. And I just walked behind him.

And they were incredible again. It's just different. So I think it just became people got so into them that the people that just like Taylor who got so into them, then you became kind of a laughingstock. Like you became the joke. And the jokes on the other people, Taylor, that don't appreciate the music. I mean, there are plenty of bands that people like and don't like, but there became this attachment that if you were khaki shorts. Birks.

Yeah, Birkett socks. I don't know because I'm going to like there's different looks now, but the big thing for our crew was like the rowing shirt. I think I had one. I didn't go to Chote. I didn't row. I don't even like rowing for like a minute now to warm up. Game hat, cocks, shout out.

You know, it's just that was you became this very, very identical, especially when you're going to college and you kind of like try to reinvent yourself a little bit. And it's like, okay, wait a minute. Everybody's wearing the exact same thing. Like, God damn it. Patagonia vests are sold out pete has one and i don't pete has three patagonia vests so maybe that's it maybe it's that because the dave matthews thing whether it was back to me and prep school kids and new england college kids and then it carrying on now for this is almost three decades now this that the person got made for fun of more than the band. So to share one more Dave story with you,

let's go to 94 fall. I don't know if I'm under the table and dreaming. I think it had just come out. Yeah. September 94. Of course I knew that immediately. So September 94. So that fall they were doing their big tour again. And I I knew that immediately. September 94. That fall, they were doing

their big tour again. I'd had this background. I kept ordering the CD special order because during the summer, I would go back. That meant 94 summer, I would go back. It's Martha's Vineyard. I'd play the CD relentlessly in the music show. Every time somebody asked me what is this, I would hit the tracks

for it and they would buy it. We couldn't keep it. We were selling so many of these. I kept a special order all the time from uh again i think it was chris bamarax shout out and so that we went to club soda in montreal and it was all uvm kids and then st lawrence kids and montreal's unbelievable it's even better when you're 18 or 19 and you don't care and the the venue was called Club Soda. And maybe 200 of us are in there. Everybody's pregame. And you would have probably got some dumpy hotel right in town and then walk to the venue, maybe taking a cab.

I don't know. And because it was still a little warmer, I was wearing sandals. But I wasn't a Birkenstock guy because that was for losers, right? I think it was Tevas. I had to have been. And I don't even know now if they're pronounced Teva or Teva, but we call them Tevas. And clearly, we would all be drinking. And I made my way all the way up to the front. And you're in front, whatever.

I actually even remember the girl that I was kind of like dancing with. And I mean, this is me, peak 19, like whatever. And for whatever reason i think it's because i'd been drinking and it was also just having that much fun because it was just an electric crowd 200 small place matt dave matthews even said during the concert he's like hey we're gonna be moving to montreal and everyone's like yeah no one was from canada in the crowd and my right foot started getting really cold. And I was like, what the hell is going on?

I looked down and it's covered in blood. It's totally covered in blood. And it's because I'd worn sandals to a fucking concert and people were drinking. The St. Lawrence kids are out of control. They made UVM kids look like frauds. But St. Lawrence kids were smashing glasses, pint glasses on the dance floor. No one really was doing anything because it wasn't like a normal venue. It was a very small spot that sold tickets and people went.

So I cut my foot, not bad, but bad enough that it kept bleeding on glass. And then I put my foot up on the front of the stage to look at it. And I was like, ooh, it was all covered in blood. And Dave Matthews in the middle of a guitar solo looks down and is like hey are you all right are you all right I was like no I was like I don't know what's going on and then he just said hey come up on stage so I get up on stage because he wants to make sure my foot's going to be okay and I turn around and see all my goon buddies in the back and now they can't figure out why I'm on stage with Dave Matthews in the middle of a long extended jam extended Taylor

and I look back at them and I start doing an'm on stage with Dave Matthews in the middle of a long extended jam, extended Taylor. And I look back at them and I start doing an old Doyle rules thing, hands up in the air. And then I'm thinking, man, this is great. It's the end of the show. I'll be hanging out with these guys backstage, probably become close friends, maybe take a year off, travel with these guys. Who knows? Maybe get a Jeep. And they brought me in the back and there was like a dishwasher who hosed off my foot and then taped it up with a first aid kit band-aid and then because i had to leave the kitchen i felt bad for that guy i had to leave the kitchen i had to go back around the back so then i lost my spot in

the front watching the show and then that was it and then ironically a few days later we went to go see them uh down at lansdowne street in boston behind fenway park i forget the name of the place i don't know if it was bills i don't think it was bills it was bigger venue than that and uh i was walking down the street because we were at some girl's apartment in Kenmore square. And I wanted to go for a walk. And as I was walking through town, I, uh, I ran into Dave Matthews and I was like, Hey man, what's up? And I was like, I'm Ryan. I was like, I cut my foot. And he, as I said, I cut my foot. He interrupted me and said, your foot. I was like, yeah, that's me. He's like, I was like, yeah, we're UVM guys.

We came down. He's like, all right, Ryan, enjoy the show. I was like, all right, thanks, Dave. See you around. See you around, buddy. Hey, when I get pretty famous, we should catch up. So that's my Dave Matthews story. So don't apologize for it, man.

But I like your self-awareness. I think your whole thing is fine because you don't want to do it all the time. I don't tell that story all the time. I think I've told it twice. Did I tell that story before on this podcast, Kyle? Never before heard. I've definitely told it. I think I told it on the air radio once.

I'm not sure. Probably not that long. I've said these advice need to be a little bit quicker, but that one's strictly for Taylor. So there you go. I didn't give you really any advice. I just told you a story, but the point is I enjoyed telling you cause you appreciated it. So you're just going to find the right people,

but don't be overbearing about it. People don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about it. Not everybody gets it, but don't apologize for it. It's not like you're into Oasis or something. Talk to you Wednesday. Outro Music