The Ryen Russillo Podcast - "Mr. James Seven" vs. Legacy, the Bucks are in Trouble, and Head Coach Steve Nash. Plus: Many Questions With Kyle Brandt.

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Rockets closing out Game 7 against the Thunder, the Brooklyn Nets hiring Steve Nash as their head coach, and the Bucks' trouble down 0-2 in their Round 2 series against the Heat (1:39). He's then joined by Kyle Brandt to discuss his recent episode of '10 Questions' with Kirk Cousins; the 12-year saga that led to booking Aaron Rodgers on the premier episode; his career transitions, including playing football at Princeton, 'The Real World: Chicago,' 'Days of Our Lives,' and producing 'The Jim Rome Show' and 'Good Morning Football'; how nine years of working as a producer prepared him for his career on air; working out; and more (21:09). Finally, Russillo answers a few listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:15:22). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Drive sober or get pulled over. Today's plan, life advice at the back end. Kyle Brandt from Good Morning Football. He has had an incredible, incredible run on doing all sorts of different things. So I could talk to that guy forever. And his new podcast, 10 Questions with Kyle Brandt, is out on Spotify now. So check that one out as well. Aaron Rogers was first guest. He had the Kirk Cousins one where it came off. His Cousins was an anti

masker. So I'll ask him about all that stuff. He's real world soap operas. I'm excited. But we start with this week's open. This week's open is going to be about honesty because I'm always as honest as I can be with you guys. And we all know, unless you're new here in this podcast, I was rooting for Chris Paul and I was rooting against the Houston Rockets. And I think I've been pretty clear on that. So I don't want anyone to ever get confused. I wanted Chris Paul to win game seven. I wanted the Thunder to eliminate the Rockets because I want to be right. I want to be right about my perceived greatness of Chris Paul. And I want to be right about James Harden being a guy that I don't really trust in a big spot. Now, I guess the second part still is kind of true about

Mr. James Seven, but I don't really get to do a victory lap on it because we all suffer from results blindness, and the result is the Rockets beat the Thunder in seven games. Now, before I dig deeper into this game, let's be real upfront about everything here. The Rockets are the better basketball team. When Bill and I were doing our third best team in the West debate, I went into it thinking I could find somebody other than Houston. And I know that we really like the Thunder and the close games numbers, and they are really good. And I think Paul speaks to that a little bit, but it's not like you're playing great teams every time in those close games. And you could see bad teams just wilt against the Thunder when they just had better decision makers.

However, this wasn't about late game. Houston was better against better teams all season long, even though I was like, how good are they if they were the sixth seed when the season was delayed? Yet there was always this fear, the hot goalie analogy, like, man, if they really get it going. But they didn't really need to get it going. You want to know why? Because their defense won this series. Defense,

defense, defense. Think about this. If you watched all seven games, every time the Thunder had a half-court possession, it was kind of like, oh, they got a basket. All right, they got a basket. Sorry if that sounded weird in the car. I apologize to everyone driving to the person that picked this podcast. For Houston, it was different. It was part of the system. It was two with Harden, pass, okay, wide open, three. I trust Covington. I trust Daniel House.

I don't know what it is about Daniel House, 26% from three in his first year with Phoenix, over 40 at times. I know he's only one for three, I think, in game seven, but I just trust him. I know P.J. Tucker's a fighter. I know he's not afraid of anybody. I think Eric Gordon's a guy that's not afraid. I think Houston, despite their leader, and I don't know if it's afraid. We'll get into that a little bit later. I don't know that it's afraid for James Harden, but I know who isn't. I know Westbrook isn't. He had some really nice offensive moments where I think you could even see with him in the closing moments of this game. It was really backed up a few minutes. I'm not talking about the last few, but there was some second half

Westbrook moments where he was like, all right, James, if you're not going to do this, like I'm going to go and I'm going to start attacking. And Westbrook made some really nice offensive plays. He had some drives there where it was like, look, I'm on another level right now, athletically than you guys. I'm going to remind you here. So credit to Westbrook. I'm on another level right now athletically than you guys. I'm going to remind you here. So credit to Westbrook. So the irony is that I'm praising Houston's toughness and their defense when their leader wasn't really that guy until that last play defensively

on the Lou Dort play, which we'll get to. But if you're the Thunder and Harden is this bad, and you get Lou Dort to now join, think about this meme. I saw this meme, so it doesn't make it's 100% official. I didn't get it off of Betches, but it is, there are three players, 21 or younger, to score 25 or more points in a game seven in the playoffs. Kobe, LeBron, and Ludor. Ludor went nuts for you, okay? Paul still had a triple-double. Harden was missing in action, and you still lost.

And you lost because Houston's defense has been solid this entire time. Now, when they went small, we thought, well, how are they going to match up against bigger teams? Thunder tried to go big last night, and it didn't work again. Rebounding differential, minus two for Houston. So Houston's rebounding has been an issue throughout this entire time. One of the worst rebounding teams when you look at it since they've gone small, but their defense hasn't really suffered. And now they finished their first round with the best defensive efficiency of

any of the teams in the playoffs. Now, yes, you could say they went up against the Thunder. What is that going to mean when they go up some bigger players, better players with the Lakers? Who knows? We'll get to that when we need to get to it. But I just can't help but kind of remind myself of why after game six, I didn't get real chesty about how great Chris Paul was and not trusting Harden again at game six, because I knew this would happen. Because guess what? The rules are now game six doesn't exist. 48 hours ago, Chris Paul was built for this. He was clutch. 48 hours later, he gets stripped on a late play, deflection pass, kind of ruins the possession,

and then misses that little floater in front of P.J. Tucker, and now he doesn't get to be clutch anymore. Again, they're not my rules, but those are the rules. And Harden, who was terrible, again, Mr. James Seven, I think by my count has six absolute flame-out duds where we thought tired, injured, concussion on all the other ones. You know how when we talk about players and we say, wow, the game's just real slow for him, everything slows down. He just sees the angles. Okay, yep, believe that. I believe that with some of the great minds. But it's almost weird with

Harden where he's just slow. Everything's going slow. And he's like, why are you trying so hard on this closeout? Like normally I just dribble in the regular season and then I take these shots and then I just make a bunch of them. Like, and I get more free throws because I get better calls. Like why, what the hell is going on? Why is this guy trying so hard? It just, that's what I see. It may be unfair. You may not like it. I don't really care because once again, it's true. Now the blindness, the results blindness, we all suffer from, he makes a great defensive play on Lou door to block that three point shot at the end when the whole thing

was a mess. I mean that last minute, it felt like, you know, as Chris Paul said, after game six, a shot at hard and Hey, some guys are just built for this. That's a big thing. Now we're just built different. This guy's built for this. He a problem. You're going to see a lot of that stuff, a lot of that content flying your way soon, but it didn't look like anybody was built for that in the last minute. I mean, everything, the whole thing was a mess. And then you have the ref part of it, which wasn't nearly as bad as the earlier game. My God, Milwaukee, Miami. I don't know how much time I'm going to spend on that.

But Harden makes an incredible play. And now I know that there's another part before the timeout with the Gildress Alexander inbound where it looked like he could have thrown it over to Steven Adams on a lob. That's a really, really dangerous play. And the problem is Donovan probably shouldn't even have Gildress Alexander inbounding if he's not going to be out there because Shea was scared. He was not comfortable in that moment. He was bad in game six.

He was really uncomfortable in game seven. I know he hit that corner three in the left corner late, but it was almost like he was one on one. There was no one out. There was no other basketball decision to be made at that point. So he hit that shot. Yes, he's really young. Yes, I've had moments where I have to revisit how much I talk about his ceiling. I'm going to give him a pass on being young

because I don't really like to say, hey, this guy looks afraid. But if Harden, who's been around 10 years, continues to have these games, and that's where, again, not anti-math. I love some of these efficiency ratings. I love a lot of this stuff. But math doesn't have a symbol for fear. Math doesn't have any way of telling you, you know who's a little tighter? You know who makes some bad decisions? You know who doesn't look great? And a lot of these times you can even out great players have bad plays. Bad players, well, not bad players.

We understand. Like somebody hits a shot that you're kind of surprised by. But when it keeps happening time and time again, and you're like something just looks a little off with this guy, I don't care about what somebody's offensive efficiency is. When Daryl Morey last year argues that Morey, excuse me, Morey said about Harden, be considered the best offensive player ever. I mean, like, yeah, high usage system puts up massive, massive numbers, incredibly, incredibly talented, but that's not what I'm going to get

out of the number, number one guy of all time. If you're going to, if you're going to argue that kind of thing, like you can't have those kinds of games, but again, none of it matters because he makes the block on Dort. Mark Jones screams, I don't ever want to hear about his defense again. You're like, really? Yes, his post defense is really, really good. The other stuff, it's better than just horrible. But my God, but that's the whole point because we don't care. We only care about who won and who lost. And Houston deserved to actually win this series because the entire time I'm like, this is such a struggle for the Thunder. Here's a quick exercise. Jamal Murray, the Jamal Murray outbreak or breakout series against Utah. Do you know how many scored in game seven? 17.7 to 21 shooting only got the free throw line two times. Not a

great game. More kind of like the Jamal Murray we're used to seeing. When I saw people saying, man, we've been sleeping on Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray's been sleeping on Jamal Murray. What he did was insane. If this is who he's going to be, look out. Great. Awesome. Sign me up.

But you're never going to remember they didn't have a very good game seven. Jimmy Garoppolo, let's do a football one. Do you know what his stats were in the NFC title game to get to the Super Bowl, which he may have won if it weren't for Patrick Mahomes? Jimmy Garoppolo in a modern NFL game was six of eight for 77 yards. But it's like, man, he just, you know, he knows what to do. They don't ask him to do too much, you know, build off that defense. Boom, boom, boom.

Six of eight, eight pass attempts. I'm surprised he gets 77 yards in a playoff game to get to the super bowl but you're never going to remember that and that's the whole point is no one's going to remember anything from this series because guess what if if harden doesn't block that shot again i don't know that that shot's going in from door if paul hits his runner if pj tucker doesn't hit his shot if this ends up being the thunder eliminating Houston, it is. Morey could be gone. D'Antoni could be gone. I don't know what the roster is going to look like. All these things that people would have said about Harden, which by the way, I feel are still accurate, but you're just not allowed to say them as much because they won the game.

All of that stuff would have happened. Release the drafts. All the drafts that you people have ready to just crush Harden. I wasn't going to do that because I've been doing on the podcast. I don't need to do that. But that's probably why these sports guys drive themselves so crazy, whether they're coaches, front office people, not even the players, because one little play may have completely changed the direction of who these Rockets are. But guess what? If the Rockets were to beat the Lakers, then it becomes something's different about this Houston team. Yep, Harden figured it out. And who knows?

I mean, Harden's probably going to get 40 in one of these games. He is that good. But we'll see because none of this will matter, right? This first round win will be nothing if they get smoked by the Lakers and Harden, say, an elimination spot has another bad game. They're not my rules, but they are the rules. I have a couple more quick things here. I do have one concern, though.

I'm afraid of going to New Zealand because when I did that little rant on Steven Adams, and by the way, I did that rant on Steven Adams about playing soft because I thought he played soft, and I thought he played really, really tough in game six. And I don't think he's necessarily a soft player. it was more of like hey if we are all of the agreement that you're this tough guy like where the hell is it and that man New Zealand loves the content because New Zealand took that thing and ran with it I had all sorts of people texting me articles and then

it made the news where it was like basketball analysis or whatever. I don't know what they called me. Um, it's not a so-called expert, but, uh, it was, you know, calls out Steven Adams and vicious ran or whatever. So New Zealand, which is probably top three places I'd like to go in the world. Uh, although I don't know that a ton of us from LA County are invited to New Zealand anytime soon. I definitely want to go, but now I'm afraid of going because, I mean, the Adams clan itself, those numbers I can't compete with, let alone the size. So if anybody can kind of patch that up for me down there and understand that it was my disappointment in his play, not that I actually think.

This sounds like a straight up bitch apology um and maybe it is but i just definitely want to check out that coast uh steve nash to the nets surprising now i'd always heard there's like two rumors that have never gone away i mean i think they finally did with doc rivers because he's got a pretty good setup out here in la but that he eventually go back to orlando and take that whole thing over again and i don't hear that one that much anymore and that steve nash would go to the suns that was something a couple years ago that was going around now i don't hear that one that much anymore. And that Steve Nash would go to the Suns. That was something a couple years ago that was going around. Now, I don't know if Sarver didn't want to pay him. What would probably make more sense is that Nash wouldn't want to actually work with Sarver.

I can't imagine wanting to. So now he goes to Brooklyn and he coaches what we think is a ready-made team. And can we just kind of back up and revisit something that I just think is so important to remember? And can we just kind of back up and revisit something that I just think is so important to remember when Durant and Kyrie signed with, um, sign with the nets. It was the nets culture. It was, they liked the stuff Atkinson ran. They liked all the different pieces around. That is all bullshit.

When a team actually says like, Hey, we got these free agents because they loved our culture. What you're really doing is kind of complimenting yourself. Here's what happened. Kyrie didn't want to stay in Boston. Kevin Durant wanted to leave Golden State. The Knicks suck, and they didn't want to play for Dolan, so they decided to go to Brooklyn. That's it. That's all there was to it. That's it. Those two dudes teamed up. Let's go do our own thing. Boom. Done. Didn't have anything to do with Spencer Dinwiddie. Didn't have anything to do with Atkinson's after-timeout sets. Didn't have anything to do with culture. No, it was like, Hey, Brooklyn's cool. Let's go do that. Done. And if you go back and look at reports when they had that players only meeting where they were

mad about Atkinson and not relating to it. Meanwhile, Kyrie barely played for him. Durant never plays for him. And there was this thing about like, we don't really like the rotations. Well, you know what that was about? It was Jared Allen who should have been playing over DeAndre Jordan becomes the starter because Atkinson made the right call, but DeAndre is the dude and he was a vet and they were psyched. He was there. And of course, as soon as Jacques Vaughn took over, guess who replaced Jared Allen? DeAndre. So I just, obviously Durant and guys had to sign off on the Nash part of it. And if they're signed off on it, then good to go. It's cool.

And for those to criticize, hey, Nash hasn't had experience. There's a lot of guys that hadn't had experience. Derek Fisher was the seventh highest paid NBA head coach in the league right after he retired. Never coached before. Did an awful job. Made more than 23 other head coaches. Mark Jackson, no experience. Doc Rivers, no experience.

Ty Lue was an assistant with cleveland um and he's going to be a head coach here again i think pretty soon and there's some stuff shaking out with ty lue we'll see we'll see how much more we can share a little bit later on but there's a lot of coaches that haven't had experience that end up being head coaches and i just think it's different i mean jason kidd i to remember, was he, when he got the first gig, I don't remember off the top of my head, but there's guys that have gotten opportunities

because a lot of this, like dudes are just doing different stuff. Baseball managers, younger players, cheaper, let's do that. The NBA guys aren't cheaper, especially when they've made so much money in this last era of playing. You really got to talk these guys into it.

So Nash, I have no idea if it's going to work. I have no problem with the hire and I'm sure Durant signed off on it. I don't know what the Kyrie thing is because if you're a GM, it's a really delicate thing because you want to include your stars in the conversations and these kinds of decisions. But you have to remember if you consult everyone about a decision and then they offer up their opinion and then you make a different decision, then they feel even more disrespected when you never asked them for their opinion in the first place. So you have to be really careful with it. You got to ask Durant, you got to ask Kyrie, but you can't ask everyone and you can't ask everyone about every single little thing.

And that's why you'll have teams make decisions. And then the star will be like, I wasn't consulted on this. It's like, well, sometimes like I've already kind of made up my mind and I consult you and then we talk it out. And after consulting you, I still do whatever the hell I want. You're probably more offended than if I just went ahead and did it in the first place. So that's always something to remember. Milwaukee, Miami. I'm going to have more on this Sunday. But Giannis, as I have said, he is following that incredibly predictable timeline of the

league stars. New is fun. It is exciting. It is hope. There is no ceiling. What can this guy be? And you taste a little playoff failure. And if they get bounced by the Miami Heat and it looks bad because in game one, Butler diced them up because they didn't send as much help defense. He worked Middleton a bunch of different times. You can see in game two and also the free throw part of it for Milwaukee was a mess in the first game. And then in the second game, they sent more help. Butler was not much of an option offensively.

They lit it up from three. So we've seen kind of two different versions here of what Miami can do on offense. Milwaukee is in major, major trouble. I did go back and look though at Milwaukee's offensive efficiency ratings versus playoffs regular season last three years, just to take a look at it, but it's pretty identical um just off the top of my head because i guess i don't have it written down if you look at milwaukee last three years the regular season the numbers per 100 possessions actually kind of match up even when it feels like they are struggling to find ways to get going offensively they missed a million free throws game one um and miami was plus 30 and threes in game two and if yana sort of loses look richard jefferson

already tweeted out he's more of a pip and needs a jordan it's it's going to do the very you know lebron lebron lebron lebron oh wait a minute what happened to this guy oh okay he won he's cool kobe okay he won but it was shack oh my god what's going on with this guy he can't wait he can't beat the suns like what happened in that series oh my god oh you got paucus all right closer ultimate closer paul pierce loser loser loser you know kevin garnett loser loser loser oh man those guys just know how to win um who else who else uh harden's going through it paul's gonna go through it for the rest of his life now because i don't know that might have been well there wasn't like they were gonna win a title anytime with oklahoma city and even if they'd won that first round and

then again back to the rules they get smashed by the lakers and it was like oh what happened in that first series oh that's right chris paul beat the rockets what happened oh yeah terry maury ended up doing what after that year um it happens to every single new next best star except for the very few i mean it's happened to Westbrook. It was happening to Durant. And now for the first time you win a couple MVPs, you have this great regular season. And if they end up losing to this Heat team in the second round and it's like ugly, prepare yourself. As I've been saying now for a long time, he is next. He is in the queue to start being trashed and people going, wait, how good is this guy really? Hell, I just put Kawhi ahead of him on a podcast two days ago.

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And now with a Spotify exclusive, it's the 10 Questions podcast, which is in the news. It's Kyle Brandt, incredibly talented guy. So thanks, so thanks man i really appreciate this i'm looking forward to it the best part about your podcast is it made some news you got a little breakout news when kirk cousins came out like is it basically it feels like it was aggregated a bit to turn him into an anti-masker i had no idea he's your favorite player in the nfl though so how did that feel when you just sort of blow up for a day he is my favorite player in the nfl because that how did that feel when you just sort of blow up for a day? He is my favorite player in the NFL because I think I'll tell you what, it sounds so strange. Like, why wouldn't you like, you know, my homes or Julio or somebody? I just, Kirk Cousins is so unbelievably authentic. Like he doesn't give a shit that, uh, if what he says is cool or the

car he drives is cool. I Ryan, I think there's 32 starting quarterbacks and I would put about 22 to 23 of them as posers. Like they just want to be cool and they want to be liked, which means there's like 10 that are authentic. And Kirk Cousins is one of them. Like, and I think to a fault, I think is what happens the other day with all the math stuff, I just think, here's the deal. That thing blew up really fast and out of nowhere. So the backstory is, I talked to Kirk over a month ago. It's in the evening, it's summer, he's not gone to camp yet, really casual. It's the kind of thing where his kids are running in in the middle of it, my kids are running in. I've known him for a while, we're both from the Chicago suburbs. It it got really comfortable. Yeah. You ever guess where there's just like, this is

my friend. I'm just sitting here talking. It's not an interview. It was the dream. You want that. And we're talking to all this random stuff about, you know, Marvel movies, how he hates them and how he still loves Creed and just that's all great. And then we start to get into COVID. You know, we get into that. And I just had to throw away a random question. I was like, you know, how's your mask game, man? Everybody's got these different masks. What do you got? And incidentally, scale of one to 10, where do you land?

You know, one, I don't give a shit about masks. That stuff's all bullshit. Or 10, oh my God, I wear a mask in my house. I wear a mask in my shower. It was almost like a kind of just a flippant get to know you question. Where are you with masks? And then the whole thing changed because he said I'm a point zero zero zero zero one i was like what really well that's low

yeah that's low and what followed is a really circuitous kind of tough to follow roller coaster of an answer in which he says um i don't want to upset anybody else, but I'm not afraid. And if I die, I die, but I wear masks for other people. But if I get this disease, like do what it wants to me. And it was, it was really meandering. And I think he's tried to clear it up a little bit, but the internet's take was just, if I die, I die. And the worst thing you want to do on the internet is like make like an Ivan Drago comparison. Cause then they're going to meme you and give you and all that so this thing really ran yeah the anti-mask thing when you're not a great quarterback like if Mahomes had said it it might have it might have gone differently but for Cousins it was just oh and he sucks in the prime time I'm

not the biggest Cousins guy I'm going gonna come clean with you here but that was more because i was a colt mccoy guy yeah so i think that there was some tension there in dc from from sources over the years that that colt you know colt was the guy that i think maybe some of the team liked a little bit more but it's that's always the fascinating part about this is that you know once that thing makes it through the rounds, no one's heard the podcast. You hope people go to find it because of this. But 90% of the people are only looking. I mean, I don't think people even read a full headline anymore. Forget reading the story. They don't even read the full headline.

So did you feel like you had to do anything? Like, do you have to do a follow up with them now because of this? I reached out to him. I reached out to him when the thing blew up. And here's how I knew it was big, Ryan. Because someone texts me who I work with and it's like, hey, man, that Kirk Cousins thing is like on the U.S. trending list thing. And I said, no way, really? And I looked.

Were you wondering which part or did you know it was the mask thing? Because I started to see the quotes come out and they weren't pretty. But this really timestamps this to this year and to COVID and all that. I go and I look and it's number one in the United States. It says Kirk Cousins, which is great. But he's above Carole Baskin and The Mandalorian. He was looking down on the Tiger King meat grinder lady and the Star Wars franchise. I said, holy shit, this thing's really gotten big.

So I text him and I go, hey, dude, listen, the last thing I wanted you to come on my show and have your words twist. And I'm kind of cringing. I think you're getting really click baited right now. Do you want to talk? You know, you want to close the loop and expand or something. And his response, this is what I would describe it as, Ryan, unapologetic, not walking anything back. And when he talked to the media, he did a session on Zoom with the Vikings typical media. It's not like he said, I'm so sorry. He just said, I should have chose words differently, but he's like, I'm not afraid of this disease. So he is not walking it back. And this is why this is interesting. In this flurry of all the shit that came out from this,

interesting in this flurry of all the shit that came out from this, I was pulled into some really unusual sports radio and social media wormholes in which if anybody thinks that Kirk Cousins was unilaterally shredded for this take, it's very naive. There's a lot of people out there who said my opinion of Kirk Cousins just skyrocketed. Finally, somebody said it. This is my new favorite quarterback. And I'm not just talking about a couple of idiots with egg avatars on Twitter. I mean, legions of people who are like, damn right, Kirk Cousins. That's my quarterback right there, which blew my mind.

But it's not just media members on Twitter bashing it. Yeah, no, look, I mean, it's real. It's out there. I've told the story i was i was on a hike i wouldn't call myself a hiker but i was on a hike i was trying to get outdoors and it was a couple they had to be 70 although he was enormous and he looked like he had to have been in law enforcement maybe even swat who knows i didn't get the full details and i you know as you're on these hiking paths and get a little close so they were all i threw my mask up and the guy looked at me he's like what are you doing that for and i'm like what he goes i'm not big brother and i want to be like you're an asshole like i was

trying to be nice to you because you're older i was throwing them out like it's not you're mad at me for actually being considerate you're so anti this that you're mad that somebody actually was thinking of you and being nice so you're right i mean we all know this everybody listening to this already knows no matter where you're at because he thought you were calling him like an old fart or something like maybe you wouldn't have done that for a younger person because he was old you did which is nice by the way um i just was doing it you know i'm i am of the mindset that i i'm doing the thing that we're supposed it's a very easy thing to do. It's very easy to

wear a mask. It's not that big of a deal. And that's it. Even if you're on the fence about some things, like my thing in the beginning was always just having an open mind. I'd be like, why are you so convinced you know everything? Think about how in six months, the understanding of things have changed. And some of the things you may have believed in March aren't necessarily true now. And it doesn't mean I was like, hey, this whole thing's a fraud. I didn't do that. I'm like, look, if the easiest thing is just put a mask on i don't feel like i'm giving up my constitutional rights here but look i don't even know i don't even know if i want to do the mass debate with you because i have a better question okay are you ready yeah are you afraid that you're

coming out a little too hot with the guest list rogers matthew paul rudd and then cousins 10 questions of kyle brand. Subscribe on Spotify. I don't think you're going to be able to keep that pace up. Am I afraid? I'm worried. I'm fucking terrified. With the guests. I'm terrified.

Are you kidding me? No, I'm totally screwed. It's already tapered off after Rogers. That was it. It's like, all right. I remember, all right, I put it this way. Years ago, I went and saw, I went to the B-52's concert they were playing like in my town I lived in Orange County at the time I went to Mission Viejo and they come to the beach and they play a concert they came with the first song Love Shack and I'm like you

guys gotta play an hour set what the hell are you gonna do after Love Shack like I like Rock Lobster I guess as much as the next guy but you you can't come out with Love Shack. I came out with Love Shack and with the Rodgers. And not only Rodgers, like Rodgers with scotch and two hours and talking about reflecting on his life and who he hates in the media. It was such a ringer, to use a bad phrase. But yeah, I don't know who I'm getting. It's very tough, dude.

You tell me you've been doing this thing a long time it's one of it's my least favorite part of the job is to have the pressure of always having great guests the whole time it's i know now some some things work out a little bit different so let me yeah let's back up to rogers because he can be is prickly fair yes he doesn't like a lot of people for He doesn't suffer fools. I would say that. Yeah, he doesn't. So how did you develop that relationship with him? That booking, the first episode of this big podcast with Spotify and Ringer that I've tried to put so much energy and time into, that booking goes back about 12 years. I feel like I spent 12

years preparing for that. I mean that. I used to be the producer for Jim Rome on radio and for ESPN and then CBS. This goes back to 2007. And I met Aaron Rodgers in the green room when I was a producer, you know, asking him, you know, if he needs water or coffee or whatever. And he was always very nice and cool. And, you know, we kind of like the same stuff. So about every two years that he would come on Rome, would see him and shake his hand and bs and then um once I started good morning football on NFL network in 2016 he occasionally would like like tweets that we sent out or like tweets this is how this works you know you tweet out a rant you see like some athlete liked it cool oh my god he follows me and so Ryan I'm not kidding. I booked that by,

I needed a first guest. It had to be big. It had to make a splash. I sent Aaron Rodgers direct message. And I said this whole thing about, this is what the show is. And it's kind of a game show and you'll like it. And it would really mean so much to me, you know, if you'd be my number one overall pick and I press send. And I'm like, this is what life's all about. You got to put your balls out there. And then within about five minutes minutes I got the three dots and he comes back and it just says yes I'm in and I was like holy shit yes and I started preparing for it and it was so cool but I mean I booked it wasn't NFL it wasn't Spotify or ringer I just I took a shot after 12 years and he said yes that's a great feeling i mean that's rogers by the

way who did he not like in the media for those that didn't listen names not named but um and i tried i named names i i know he didn't like cowherd because he used to come on with scott and i yeah and then once he won scott's like and scott had that wisconsin andy north connection. So I didn't expect that Aaron Rodgers gave a shit about me. But I thought he would keep that going with Van Pelt because Van Pelt's like one of the made men in this thing. So I was surprised. Everybody likes Scott in my experience. I've never met him either, but I like him.

Listen, you got to pay real close attention when you get on the media thing because Rodgers is, this is a guy, put it this way. Aaron Rodgers in his entire career has thrown almost 7,000 passes. He's thrown two pick sixes out of almost 7,000 passes, which means he knows when not to throw that pass. He's very selective. And that translates to how he speaks too. Like he knows I might want to throw that. No, that's going to be a bad quote. He's great in choosing his words. So you got to really pay attention. And when I said, I just said, dude, I know you have a lot of takes on media. You always have. Sometimes you subtweet people. I said, what's the worst kind of sports

media? And he goes like, it was kind of a home. How much time do you have deep side that he took? And he went on a long rant, which is really entertaining to watch about. He hates debate shows. He hates debate shows. He hates four people in a box screaming at one another at things they don't really believe. I mean, it wasn't really subtle. And so I said, I'm like, OK, let me pay devil's advocate here. Those shows, Stephen A. Smith, Skip, et cetera, they're really successful. They have big audiences.

The people like a lot of money. So you might hate them, but they have scoreboard. And then he's like, look, if you want to sell out all your integrity for clickbait nonsense like that that says a lot about you i mean it was really harsh takes i've never understood though why those guys care like if i'm aaron rogers and i i know like one of the rules i always had was uh i go i can't believe like when whatever level of of of notoriety like say you or i have yeah like i would look at people that are far more famous than us that you'd go like why would jim rome care right or like scott

van pelt's calling the british open i'd be like why do you care and then when i read that first game change book and then michelle obama used to call the news outlets when she was pissed about a segment about obama i was like you know what then then I guess the rules, like whatever it is, when somebody's saying something about you, it's about you. I've had front office people for years called to complain to me about other guys saying stuff on shows. And I'd say about like one guy, I'd be like, do you think that guy watches any games? That guy doesn't watch any games. He hasn't watched a game in his life, but that's the routine and that's what he's doing. So why do you care? And the thing is, it's so easy to say that to the person

when it's not you. So when Rodgers, who I'd go, you've got a Super Bowl, you've made all this money, you're one of the greatest to ever play, why would you care about who's on around the horn today? But if somebody says something about you, then it becomes personal. It doesn't matter what your achievements are.

Well, what type of guy are you, Ryan? Are you someone on social media who, if someone takes a shot at you or insults you or whatnot do you do twitter beef do you reply to critics rarely ever yeah but you have you almost always not very often i mean when i went through everything that happened earlier this summer after a podcast with bill and i was seeing some of the headlines that were being written about me by other like blue check people i mean i got called a Trump supporting felon in, in one article and I read it and went, do I do something about this? But I just knew like, okay, what am I, you know, what am I going to do? I mean, you're gonna fight all these people that are, that are actually getting this all

wrong. So I, uh, I just, I, you know, I, the only time I really get upset is if somebody says, Hey, well you said this about this. You're like, no, no. Actually, you have it totally wrong. That's not what I did. You can insult me. People have said horrible things to me. It's all part of it.

I'm sure it's happened to you too. It's not that big of a deal. We're not unique for having that happen to you. I find it to be a waste of time for the most part. So I don't really engage. Because then if I know if I really go at somebody, especially in the business, then it just becomes content for something else and no one's really going to pay attention.

And there's probably some backstory that I have where the reason I'm doing this is for 10 different reasons, not just this one, but no one will know. Then, I don't know. It seems like it's there, check it out. But to lose your mind over it all the time seems like an incredible waste of time. So I'm not that engaged with it.

To lose your mind publicly, too. I think really one of the most. I don't see you ever do it. And I refuse to do it. I won't because I honestly think one of the most pathetic, embarrassing things we have in media right now is back and forth Twitter beef between two people having a shin kicking contest. It's just I've seen people who I really respect do it.

us. It's just, I've seen people who I really respect do it. And I just cringe because it's like a lunchroom fight and it's back and forth and back and forth. And it's just, you're doing it for this mob. And I think there's a way to handle things. And I've had things when I've said something, I have gotten a phone call from someone who says, I got your number through this. I saw what you said this morning and I don't appreciate it. And I want an apology or whatever. I want to settle it. And I thought that was so, in a way, so classy, like such old fashioned, like a gentleman's way to do it rather than bitch slap each other back and forth on Twitter. I just, I would never, ever do that. I hate it. Yeah. That's great that somebody would text you. I've had them, you know, look, you do talk shows long enough. So you're going to say something that somebody doesn't like. And normally that's, that's the way it was great. You get somebody to call you and go, Hey,

I don't like that you did this. I remember I said this one thing about an SEC coach and I got a text from him. I, he got my number somehow from somebody else. And we talked about it for 10 minutes and I'm just at my house in Connecticut and we talked it it all out and i was like oh okay cool like i get what you were doing i still don't necessarily agree with it but now we're a little bit on the same page so you and houston nut that buried the hatchet yeah houston nut was very he's like why do you think we rely on the three running back system so much uh i was like how come you don't give it to reggie fishmore yeah let's uh felix jones let's talk about you more okay um on your your twitter bio you know it says my resume is more interesting to you and i know i

feel like you've done no right it says it's weirder than yours not more interesting i think it's more interesting okay i can't i just hope people understand uh maybe that are learning about you for the first time. You're with Good Morning Football now. Like you mentioned, you're a Rome's guy. You were on the Chicago Real World. You played football at Princeton. You also were on a soap opera where you played a trained assassin who then lost his leg and became a NASCAR driver.

Facts. Those are all facts. Yeah. Yeah. Only only character in TV history to become a U.S. Marine assassin and then lose a leg by a landmine. Have a scene with Paul McCartney's ex-wife, who is a real life amputee, and then become a NASCAR driver. That all happened on NBC. Do you guys do read throughs on soaps? You mean like table reads?

You don't do that, right? The cast of The Office sits down and has a tearful final read no no no listen and the soap world like read-throughs is like five seconds before the camera writes and you're still trying to memorize your line you would appreciate this ryan this is a funny detail about soap operas i was in days of lies for three and a half years i played philip which is considered the soap of soaps i think so i mean it's the one that just for the matt leblanc was on and friends it's the one i watched in the 80s it's bow and hope and all that the funniest thing was all you i was 24 at the time all you cared about was that about once or twice a week you'd have to do a shirtless scene

now sometime that was a love scene but then sometimes it'd just be like, you know, Rex and Phillip are helping build a house and they're getting a little hot. So take off the shirt. And all you would care about is how jacked you look on those days. So not only would I like do as much as I can to like not have any sodium or water for like 48 hours beforehand. The best part was that we're on set and rex and i are about to have our scene and they're like all right one minute 30 seconds places final look lighting and i'm telling you into the countdown we have dumbbells on set and are pumping and pumping and getting like doing hammer curls and overhead and they'll be like three two one and you like set them down at the

last second you're like listen rex i really want to talk to you about something and you're just flexing like a maniac and then if you have to do it again you pick the dumbbells up it's so funny because i look back on these scenes and we're like so obviously swollen there's all this lactic acid in this blood and we can barely get the words out but you would relate man god that sounds like why did you quit no it's so funny all right i feel like i feel like i have too many questions for you can we just back it up a little bit though because you go to princeton you're running back you you you have these moments where you're kind of like fighting against it and it's funny because as i was first learning about you like all right good looking guys at princeton hey i'm going to be an la actor and i'm thinking oh

actually everybody hates this fucking guy behind his back. Like your friends are pretending they're your friends. But this guy, usually who hits this profile, everybody's secretly rooting against you. They're like, I can't. Oh, he thinks he's good just because he's because he what he thinks he's that hot. He's not that hot. He's just going to move out to LA. But your self-awareness through your entire journey is remarkable that you as you're going

through all of these different things, you have this self-awareness that I think very few people have, which I imagine led to incredibly genuine friendships where you didn't have people. Cause I think the typecast version of you is somebody that a lot of people pretend they're your friend or rooting against, where in this case, it seems that you just were so aware of like, yeah, I get it, but this is still what I want to do and why people liked you so much. Thank you for saying that. It's insightful. I hope there was a point in my life when I was 18, when I started to become aware of that type casting. Like I was through high school, dude, I was the football guy. I had the leather jacket. I drove a Jeep Wrangler. I listened to Pearl Jam. I looked like Emilio Estevez in Breakfast Club. That was just me. Did you have to fight the other kid from the other town? Were you the guy? Yeah,

no, that would have been me. All of that. Like the hot girlfriend, you know, fight the other kid from the other town were you the guy yeah no that would have been me all of that like the hot girlfriend you know the the garter belt on the rear sounds terrible all that stuff and at one point and senior year ended i was like i'm a wait you had a garter belt on the rearview mirror yeah what did your mother say she once she didn't approve she wanted to be the uh the graduation hat tass But no, the garter belt was the real trophy. So basically, you get into the douchebag land there if you're just like the jock. And I remember I just at that point, I was having an identity crisis. I'm like, this is so lame that I'm just football guy. which I was on, my friends and I started a rock band and we played covers and we played the high school talent show. And I came out for the high school talent shows, our only gig. And I had a shirt made at the local like t-shirt store. And it just said jock on the front of it. And that was my cool, like rebel statement. Like, this is how you see me, but I'm up here. I'm an artist now.

And I'm branching out. And I, I, it was such a cool moment for me, probably a little toolish looking back. But at the time I was like, this is rock and roll right here. I'm saying F you to the man. Yeah. I like that. There's a Jeff Perlman piece on Kyle and the athletic. That's terrific. If you want to read it, just really good. Uh, give me your favorite real world story that you tell your buddies that you don't tell just lame interviews. Okay. That's a lot. Graduated early June of 2001. And three weeks later, I was in the house in my hometown by coincidence of Chicago. And real world was a huge deal for me when I was in college, really big, all the, you know, Ruthie jumping into the pool naked and Steven and Irene and the Lyme disease. We watched all

that stuff. So to be on the show, the real world house was my chocolate factory. I, it was surreal that I was going there. And I remember the, I remember it was like in the first month we got home and I was still adapting and I was kind of a wide eyed kid. And there's a lot of different people for different lifestyles in there. And I go into the bathroom and I hear a lot of voices and there's a really large shower in the room and had two shower heads. And I turned my corner, turned the corner to look in the bathroom and there are six people in the shower, four guys, two girls, all completely naked. I'm not even sure, I think there were a lot of different orientations

going on there, but it was full make out, full, full nudity. There's erections and breasts and tattoos and piercings right in front of me. And I was so like, I had seen some stuff at that point. I've been through college, you know, I wasn't like a choir boy, but I was so shocked that I didn't know what to say. And they're like, Kyle, come on in here. And a little bit of me wanted to come in just a tiny bit, but 95% didn't. And so I went to the confessional booth and I just started pouring my heart out, but man, what did I just see? And this is crazy. And Anissa, I don't know what she's doing down there. I don't know where that tape is, but that, that was a and you had that you were the girlfriend guy classic that was the whole deal classic i had the college girlfriend off the show who what do you know he

shows up to the real world house and there's some really cute flirty girls in the house and they really have sparks fly what's gonna happen now I was one of the unbelievably predictable real-world tropes. Girlfriend off the show guy. It was tough. Did you like being on it? Because I know I've read you saying you regret it, your mother cringe and all this kind of stuff, but more removed from it now that, you know,

honestly, it's just kind of this amazing thing on the resume. It's not like, oh, that's real. Because there's other people from the real world. You're like, you're still doing appearances in Omaha. like you were real world sanford's like i'm not going to go to a puck signing um do you do you appreciate it in a different way than maybe you look down upon it right after it was done well my oldest kid is six now and i'm already starting to imagine him at 22 doing that and how much i would just like try to just punch him and drag him out of there. Like, what are you doing, you idiot?

And my parents were really not a fan of it. Do I did I enjoy doing it? The stupid catchphrase for the show is what happens. People stop being light and stop being polite and start getting real. That really does happen. Ryan, it's a four month experience for the first month. You just binge drinking and just partying and they want you drunk all the time too. Correct. Do they, I mean, the sense I get on all of these shows is they actually want people drunk as much

as possible. Yeah. But they don't do it like back then. They didn't do it like the bachelor where they just put out no food and all booze for like 110 pound women. We got ourselves, but like after a month of partying and all that, and like, I'm like, all right, I think I'm good now. I think I'm ready to go. That was fun. And they're like, no, no, no, you have three months to go. This is the start getting real portion of it.

And then it got really stressful. I lost a bunch of weight. I was like depressed. 9-11 happened right in the middle of it. And I had family in lower Manhattan. So like, it was unbelievably taxing on me. It was fun for a month and then tough for three months i i too was a was a big fan back then um never sent in the demo tape though although a bunch of guys in my fraternity did their demo tapes and this is how stupid they were they put it all on the same tape

like a greatest hits no so if they didn't like the first guy they weren't gonna watch the next six ah and they were so i mean you know how stupid you have to be and then like one guy was like i still haven't heard back i go i think that's what happens when they don't want you like i don't i don't think they they owe you like an hr letter and then some guys like hey did we put those on the same tape and they're like wait a minute what and that other half of us were like you idiots put all of your demos on the same one so then one guy was convinced he's like well they never even saw mine yeah like yeah that's the reason you're not on the show yeah seth you were in the seven hole after jeff and mitch like they didn't wait to get to your tape

dude but back then it was hard to do video stuff like you couldn't you couldn't put together tapes that was hard no i mean you're paying people to, you know, I had a resume tape that I had to like have somebody be like, can you take this off a beta and put it on VHS for me? I still have my beta demo tape, which is all fake standups from like 1999, which we were going to play on Van Pelt Sports Center, but I don't know what happened. The thing I always wanted MTV to do to do though is to go back to its la route so the second season you remember this you remember the old guy that was like in the rock industry although he was an ancient guy to me i think i researched him and he was still

only like 30 something on the show but he just decided i've had it like he just stopped showing up to the house and i was like that's why they never put an old person in the mix because he just was like i'm over this i forget what his name was funny you mentioned i remember my memory of that guy was him seeming like unfathomably old like he was probably 30 and it felt like he was michael caine i'm like what is that old grandpa doing on the show it's seriously like i don't know the way he looked but you're right back then he was, why did they have a hundred year old guy? Okay. So you get the days, you did the day's gig and you stop. And those moments, this is something else I like. Now, granted, you'd already had some success. You've graduated from Princeton. You've been an actor. You've been paid actor for three plus years and you're sitting and you're waiting and

you're waiting. And I can tell, like my thing was obviously much different because I was simply only bartending before I ever got any opportunity, but I'd be sitting at home being like how come people don't understand how talented i am how come people don't understand that i can help how come people are not giving these opportunities and you start going like do you actually think somebody's magically just going to knock on your fucking door like do you just think that this thing is going to happen it doesn't work that way so how did you go from actor to rome I bottomed out, man. I rock bottom. My, my deal was I, I bought, I was a three and a half years on NBC on the soap opera. It's blessed, charmed life. I bought a house when I was 24, this cool house in the Valley with the jacuzzi and a deck at 24 years old. And

I used to have parties and people would come over, they bring friends of friends and the friends who didn't know me. And they're like, what time do your parents get home? And I was to have parties and people would come over. They bring friends of friends and the friends who didn't know me. They're like, what time do your parents get home? And I was like, this is my house. Like that. What? You're 24 and you have this house. And I bring that up because I had this really cool life on the soap, but I was like, no,

I'm leaving days of our lives. I'm leaving days of our lives. Like every other white dude leaves days of our lives because they're going to become Matt Damon and they're positive that they're going to do it. And they're going to become this massive movie star. And I left and I had, I don't know, some money in my account. And then a year later, I don't think I'd gotten a single job and I had no money left and I, it was getting really bad. I ran out of money. Could you pay cash for the house or did you have still a note on it? I had a note on it, but I remember I put zero down.

And I think zero down in my mortgage was like- Back then, so this is pre-crisis then. So they were handing out the most absurd mortgage packages ever. I was a kid. I never owned anything. I had very little credit history. Zero down. And I think my monthly payment was like $3,200 a month

for a three-bedroom house in California with like a huge lot. It was awesome. The funny thing is my house that I bought just by coincidence, it used to be lived in, uh, by the guy who played E on entourage, Kevin Connolly used to own the house and he lived in it with Nikki Cox when they were a couple. And there was like a whole history of that house. So I was like, I've made it. This is like my shitty Valley playboy mansion. I'm going to be here forever. Sure enough, a couple of years later, out of money, totally. I'm, you know, I call my parents, should I move home to Chicago? What the hell should I do? And one morning, uh, I woke up, I used to sleep in my robe. I'd stay up all night. I would wake up at a noon and start watching ESPN.

I get my BlackBerry and I have an email on my BlackBerry curve. And it's from this weird email address that has the word Rome embedded into it. What is this? And it's Rome, like in Rome's cadence, and Rome speaks like, Kyle, good morning. I have some thoughts I'd like to bounce off you. And I was like, why is it me getting an email from Jim Rome? I had a blog at the time where I would just write bullshit takes and insights and stuff about dumb stuff I was doing in the Valley. And a friend of a friend who Jim was interviewing showed it to him. He's like, you should have this guy, Kyle. He's an old football player.

So Rome emails me one morning. He's like, why don't you come down to orange County and we'll meet. Was that Ross Tucker, by the way, Ross Tucker. Yeah. Yeah. I know Ross. I did some stuff with him. I've been on his podcast. Really big fan. Oh yeah. He's one of my lifelong friends. Ross was one of my offensive linemen at Princeton. He's done really well in media and knew Jim. And so Jim contacts Ross. You want to join the staff? And Ross goes, I don't want to move to California, but there's this guy out there I used to play with.

His background's really weird, but I think you would like him. He's kind of up to your speed. So I drive down to Irvine. I put a suit on. I've got all my thoughts on whoever was big at the time. Ocho Cinco. I remember the Bears had just drafted Cedric Benson, and I had all these takes on Cedric Benson. And I brought him, and I rode him, and I was like, Rome's going to love my burns and my takes and everything. And I get in his office.

Were you a big Rome fan, by the way? I watched a lot of Rome is Burning. A lot. Because I used to watch the afternoon block religiously, around the horn and I watched a lot of Rome is Burning, a lot, because I used to watch the afternoon block religiously around the horn and PTI and Jim Rome is Burning, a lot. So I knew his style and I started listening to the radio show and all the callers and all that. So, I mean, Ryan, I'm telling you,

the Bears drafted Cedric Benson. And I remember I spent like three hours writing the Cedric Benson take. And I'm like, this is going to be the one that's really going to get me to where I want to go. And I gave it to him. And I do think he liked it.

Like it worked. And I was, I basically had another meeting and then he hired me and I was working in the jungle and commuting 50 miles a day from Burbank to Irvine. And I worked for Jim for nine years and had a, got married and had a baby and bought another house. It was, it was a great thing. So you never lost the original house? Uh, no, I, I didn't lose the house. I ended up, my girlfriend moved in with me and then we sold it. And then I moved down to Orange County and bought another place. Um, it's still there in Burbank on parish place.

It's great spot. How weird was it to go from center of attention, probably your whole life to, okay, you're behind the scenes and you're now with a guy like Rome where this is his deal? It's a great question. It's the best thing I've ever done because I told you earlier, a couple of years prior to this, I'm doing pushups on the set of Days of Our Lives to do my love scene with Belle or Daphne or whatever her name was, collecting a check and driving home in my cool car at 24 to whoever I was dating at the time. The ego was big. Things were going well. Fast forward now,

I'm a few years older. I'm single. I'm commuting in my shitty Jeep 50 miles a day so I can come in and help roam and suggest ideas of what we should say about Serge Ibaka's blocks last night or whatever the hell we were talking about. And I'm printing emails that listeners submit. They call the, we had the text line at the time and you could text the show and I would print them out and hand them to a radio host to read and then go sit in my chair in my khakis.

So it wasn't cool. It wasn't glamorous, but it was a huge ego check. I learned behind the scenes of media. I did a ton of writing. It had nothing to do with how big my pecs were or what I looked like, nothing. And I did it for nine years. And so not only was it helpful, man, I'm very proud of it because it was totally substance related. How does that change what you've now been doing for a few years where you're on air again, where you're on air in a different way,

you're not acting or anything, but to produce for somebody like Jim and then understand not just what you have to do as a host, but understand segments, understand how a show works, the pre-show process of it, which I'm really big on, especially when I was doing radio all the time. How much do you think that's changed? Because there's another version of the story where you get a gig where like guys get weird gigs now.

I mean, the rules are gone, but I think that sets an incredible foundation for you to be as good as you are on the air because you weren't asked to do that stuff with Jim. Yeah, I think so too. And I learned a lot about, I know something, you know, about, cause it comes out in this interview. It's like, I just really believe, I really believe in doing as much research as you can. And I think if you're listening to this right now, and you probably consume a lot of sports interviews, you can tell the ones where they mailed it in and were handed a few questions from a producer and just went for it. And you can tell the ones where they said, I'm going to spend some time on this, and I'm going to look deep into this person's history and some things that they've said.

So I do that crazy, especially now with the long form with the podcast, right? I don't know about you, but the most satisfying feeling I ever have when I interview someone, especially someone who does a lot of interviews is when you ask a question and they'll be like, oh my God, where did you get that from? Or, oh, I haven't thought about that in so long because not 50 other people on this direct TV junket that they're doing, ask them the same question. And that takes a lot of time, but I think it's important. Yeah. One of my favorite interviews ever is, is Will Ferrell when they were doing the, uh, figure skating movie and blades of glory, blades of glory. And, um, John Hader was also doing the, It doesn't make any sense. This doesn't make any

sense. So I barely had been at ESPN. I'd only been there a couple of years. And Hader and Will Farrell walking around on a Saturday. So that's how I got them. And they go, hey, you're not going to believe this, but they're doing their Blades of Glory car wash deal. And they're going to do radio. And we put in for it. And their handler said, yes, they have that time. So it're going to do radio and we put in for it and their handler said yes they have that time so it's going to be you and feral and hater tomorrow so i go you know what nail this nail but nail this in a way that no one else will do this and i go i'm going to mock the whole thing great i'm going to mock the whole thing i'm not going to be the 20th person today just like you said on those junkets where i asked the same stuff like hey you know can you actually skate so i sit down and feral's to my right and haters to my left and haters people were like hey by the way you know can you actually skate so i sit down and farrell's to my right and haters to my

left and haters people were like hey by the way you know he's he has these beliefs so you know nothing nothing pg-13 okay you know it was like very like hey he's very really i was like okay but like give me a break like relax i mean we're at espn so i turned to will ferrell and i said um i did a lot of research on this movie. And he's kind of like looking at you going like, oh, I got, you know, I'd heard that you had had passed on the last King of Scotland in that role that Forrest Whitaker won the awards for. And now that you've seen that he's won these awards, do you have regrets? And his face, you know, that that moment where you're like yes holy shit it worked

and his face like he gave me this look like awesome yes awesome and he goes well uh yes he's like i read it he goes i actually didn't read it he goes i i saw the title i went scotland the weather food is terrible he's like and then i saw the movie and i was like oh i would have nailed that like so yes and it was the best and then haters over here like he was trying to keep up with will and i mean look it's will ferrell so it wasn't going to happen so i guess i just gave you a long story there did you go roadrunner matt completely like you had license to do that like you didn't have a producer i didn't tell anybody directives um back then i probably didn't listen to too many producers to be honest yeah I get that sense about you

well do you how how do you work like how does good morning football work free the question we get all the time is you guys are on the NFL network you're on the NFL like don't they always tell you don't say this don't say don't you always talk about the cowboys don't speak net we don't get that stuff at all like they get it's the most misunderstood thing about the business on all the platforms the number of people that think we're all people didn't i was there 14 years nobody said hey make sure you do more on this i know we have like there's that people think that but i there's a nascar push once and it didn't it wasn't like there was a there was a nascar push where i studied nascar for like

24 straight hours in a hotel room did a daytona show and they were like there was a there was a nascar push where i studied nascar for like 24 straight hours in a hotel room did a daytona show and they were like this is gonna be a big part of the company and literally i never had to do anything more on it um it's tough i know you had something you wanted to ask me you ever gone to princeton what oh one yeah i was i graduated princeton oh one i lived in plainsboro in oh two oh you did Did you ever make it into Princeton and go to Hoagie Haven? I went out twice. And one night, I sat at that weird place that serves pancakes late at night. It was like a bar.

Yeah, but it was lit up. And I sat, and I had a beer. And the bartender kind of looked at me, and I was just looking around. Oh, that's pretty cool. I was pretty young. So I was kind of like, what's going on in this town? Because I was like, I'm going to live here so I can live near a college town, but I was so broke. I couldn't afford Princeton. And the bartender handed me a second course light and he goes, yeah, he goes,

this is it, man. He's like, it's a pretty slow town. Like he was looking at me trying to, like he was trying to figure out what I, and then he was, he sized me up perfectly. Like, and it is a very, despite it being a college town, it's not any, it's not a very, I'm sure the house party and a lot of kinds of stuff but the town itself is very old-fashioned and very laid back yeah the undergraduates don't do a lot of hanging out in the town like if you ever like the whole townie term there was was alive and well i don't i have like five or six memories in four years of ever going into the town but i know the pancake place well and it is a little i mean it is a little eccentric the whole town is um you were mentioning though about something that we were talking about Rome and I was about

to leave and how to get to Good Morning Football. And my last thing that I did when I was working with Rome was I started up a podcast. I'm just like, I have to make something for myself. Like I'm going crazy here. So I asked him and he let me use his studio, which is on this amazing technology. And this was 2016. And I started a podcast. That's kind of similar to what I do now, except it was called 20 questions with Kyle Brand was much longer. And so you've, you've been somehow you've made your life easier is what you're trying to tell me. I remember I had on Jamel Hill. Cause I knew Jamel a little bit from working with her. Cause she would come on Jamel was burning. And I wanted to talk to her a lot

about the ESPN campus and culture because I had never been there and to this day have never been there you still never been there i've never been in for it they haven't brought you in for an interview you have espn written all over you by the way like i could yeah i can tell by how much they're inviting me yeah uh i i don't know i would see you as somebody they would love i say i mean that like high energy great on tv like all the stuff that i just would they'd be like hey, hey, are you mad? I'd be like, what? They'd be like, you look so pissed off. Yeah, people didn't like me on TV there. That's fine.

Not a big deal. But you- Oh, I did. So Jamel was on, though. I'm fascinated by the ESPN life and the campus and everything. And I was like, Jamel, let's get into this. I heard there's a gym there. Who's the person at ESPN who is just in the best shape?

Never mind the ex-players who just stepped off the field. I'm talking about the on-air person who's in the best shape? Nevermind the ex players are just stepped off. I'm talking about the, the honor person who's in the best shape. And we started talking about skip and I was like, oh yeah, I heard skip is shredded. And she's like, oh yeah,

skip works out here and he doesn't eat fried foods and everything. And she goes, you know, the other guy who's got it together. And I go, I don't know who she goes, Ryan Rosillo, like is really strong.

And I go, oh shit. I didn't, I didn't know this about him. This Rosillo, like is really strong. And I go, Oh shit. I didn't, I didn't know this about him. This wasn't a thing on my radar. So then I did my Googling and I did my searching and I know that you're big into it. And now I've followed you since then up to, and including the rewatchables vision quest podcast, where you talked about pull down, but he was pissed about that in the last six months, I've had a complete renaissance in terms of training and lifting. And I was soft and I'm 41 and I hated myself. And I said, screw it. I'm going to take money. I'm going to pay for a trainer, a real trainer.

I have now, I live in a world of kettlebells and Turkish get-ups and Bulgarian split squats and double rack, single leg squats. And like, it's changed my life completely. I'm into the kind of thing that you do with the racks and the kettlebells. So what are we talking about here? You've been six months at it now? It's probably, well, you know, because it was before quarantine. This probably goes back to last fall.

So I would think it's probably more like nine or 10 months. So you're all shredded up again is what you're trying to tell me. Was this a long way to get back into you telling me that you're shredded? I'm getting pretty shredded, Ryan, but I think I speak your language. We talked before we went on the air about it. You have a squat rack around your house or something like that. Like I'm looking for a squat rack. I'm that guy. I'm not CrossFit guy. I'm not vegan guy, but I'm getting, I'm finding my groove back. I'm like a Kevin Spacey and an American beauty beauty like i'm doing the push-ups in the garage it feels fucking good i like it to get the hot rod out front um this is the second

tips this is the second pace is everything okay and it's harder now with phones but once i decided enough of this shit like 60 seconds in between sets at most 90 seconds it's changed everything it the intensity is better. The workout is quicker. I mean, if I'm going to go heavier, except my problem is I'm hurt all the time. If I'm going to go heavy, heavy like I was, I would wait a little bit longer. And there's all sorts of studies that say, you know, the difference between time off and not having time off is negligible.

Actually, it shows it increases. I just make sure the pace is solid and i never thought i would like to be a workout at home guy like i like to go to the gym i like to get out of the house i like my routine i like going into the office at espn early and then as soon as the day was over go to the gym eat and then watch games all night i did that for like 10 straight years when i was doing the afternoon show but now if i don't start my day with kicking my ass and putting myself through some massive exertion in my garage where the heat starts going up a little bit and I'm dripping sweat and I'm listening to Enema by Tool and I have my own mask on just because I'm, you know, it gets weird in there. It gets a little Bain-ish.

There was almost a post of a Zion Rosillo side-by-side thing, but I didn't want it. There's kids. The kids have internet, so I didn't want to do that. side thing but i didn't want there's kids the kids have internet so i didn't want to do that but i think pace switching things up is one thing but pace has been everything for me so there you go there's you're saying that one of the pitfalls in the face of that is let's say you do a set of squats or whatever it is lunges that you're doing it's great set you put the weights down and then you go over and you're on your phone and twitter this and text this next thing you know it's been two and a half minutes and you're like oh my next set yeah like i'll write in my notebook fuck you bad pace at the end and so then i look back and see how i did

i'll go oh you know what you bad pace yesterday do you do you honestly or did you just pull that as an example or do you honestly listen to Enema by Tool while you work out? I have been listening to Tool pretty much nonstop now. My favorite band of all time. Oh, they are. So I have a massive fan. You know, Eric Chenoweth, the massive seven foot guy who played for Kansas? He's friends with Danny the drummer.

So I've been really, really lucky. This was like an all-timer. But Chicago Combine weekend for the nba when we used to have those tool happened to be playing so i stayed in at night and we hung out with with danny and justin the bass player chancellor yeah yeah and we drank danny's tequila that he's made before we went out and then because of traffic we then went back and hung out with them the rest of the night and they were talking this is last fall on the pharanocleum tour yeah so no no no this is before the new album had come out okay so this is last may and then we did do in the fall we did

staple center which was one of the coolest things because tool is is your musicians favorite musicians right is that is that fair to say yep so you're back there like eddie van halen didn't because Tool is your musician's favorite musicians, right? Totally. Is that fair to say? Yep. So you're back there. Eddie Van Halen almost didn't get let into this back room, but Eddie Van Halen made sure that he was at Staples Center to see Tool. The guys from 311 were there to see Tool.

So backstage, it was a million musicians all waiting to hang out with these guys. My favorite part of the Tool thing, the first time around, again, they were so incredibly nice to me because of eric it was an experience of a lifetime i absolutely love the music i just think they're different you obviously would agree but i was like hey is maynard gonna like stop by the lead singer and everybody looked at me like i was they're like dude what and i go is are we gonna you know like i'm yeah like where's maynard are we they're like no they're like dude we're not gonna see maynard like he's gonna really yeah so that doesn't surprise me no but i don't mean it like as a bad i think it's just more of his mindset of like i'm gonna go out there and lead this performance for a couple hours so i'm not like here to hang out or anything like there's

more pressure on the lead singer than it is anybody else and so we were backstage and then eric who again is the size of fucking rhode island um we're standing and the security guys who are awesome they're like hey look you got to go stage left and i was like okay and they're like nobody like you can't manner there can't be anybody standing here when manner gets out there like because once it's on it's on yeah and and that's the thing and like I respected I didn't look at it as as anything other than just this is how it works but it was just kind of funny because I didn't know and everybody else clearly knew the deal and I'm like is Maynard stopping by like you know we have tequila and they're like dude no Maynard ain't coming dude like it doesn't work that way the they've been my favorite band since that album came out in 96

back to the soap opera one day when i was on days you go over to the commissary and you get lunch and everything and you hang out and um you when you would go to the commissary there'd be a lot of the guests who are going to be on the tonight show that night or we're going to be on ellen and they're just hanging out and i remember i was in like kind of this strange wardrobe from the show and my clothes looked kind of weird and i look look over at this table, and there's these four guys. Didn't think much of them, but there's this one guy who's bald, and he's looking at me, and he's kind of like evil eyeing me and like kind of making fun of me. I could tell they were laughing, and at the time, I looked at him, and I was like, what? Like I actually said it straight out like, are you looking at something?

They're like, no, no, no, and they kind of laughed again, and i like kind of wanted to fight him i was really pissed off so i go and sit down and i'm having lunch with this nbc publicist and i go who the fuck are those guys and she goes oh that's this band a perfect circle they're going on the tonight show tonight and i almost pissed my pants i was like that's maynard isn't it that's fucking maynard she goes who's maynard i go that bald guy who I was just evil line who writes songs about asshole, insecure actors. Literally those are his lyrics. I was just the guy in the song enema because of how insecure I was. And I felt so bad. I looked over and they were gone. You ruined your chance. Yeah. That's so funny though, because the whole song enema is basically

about Los Angeles and saying that it needs to be flushed. And then when he starts singing, learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim. Yeah, this is great. OK, I'm going to let you go. But I have in honor of your 10 questions, because I think there are ideas that are stolen and there are ideas that are definitely not stolen. And this is not stolen. I do it because of Craig Kilbourne.

He used to do five questions at the end. So we've got five. Kilbourne was a huge inspiration for the show concept that I have. I loved five questions. I mean that. Oh, I love five questions. Did you hear the first one I did with him? I don't know if you heard the first part.

No. I'm also of the belief that none of us listen to anybody else's podcast. So good luck with everything. That's not true. I listen a lot, actually. Okay, ready? Here we go.

All right, it's time for five questions. When you were first hired to host the Red Zone channel, how excited were you? You're calling me Scott Hanson, and I am not Scott Hanson. I don't refer to things as an octobox, but if I was, I'd be very excited. We're going out of Cincinnati, Bengals cam, Joe Mixon with a touchdown.

That's bad prep on my part. Not me. Not me. The rest rest of these questions are going to make a ton of sense okay good um well this one might is it true you've never gone to the bathroom during red zone you don't have to be the host don't do it i'm here to serve the people i am scott hansen you cannot ever catch me in a urinal but you can find me on cameo all right i'm gonna i'm gonna pivot here okay what do you got now the toughest just give me your best pain in the ass guest to book for rome the guy you were like ah this because i if there's a different way to answer that where somebody could just be flat out no and difficult but then there's there's other guys that

are just we used to have one guy in particular that we used to joke book him at ESPN when I was doing like weekend shows. We'd be like, hey, book so-and-so so we can all bet on how he cancels. Because he would always say yes. And then apparently he was the only writer ever that had a writing assignment due and he would inevitably cancel all the time.

So we started actually booking him just to see how often he would cancel. And it happened 90% of the time. So we started actually booking him just to see how often he would cancel. And it happened 90% of the time. It always does. My answer is a really good guy, actually. You know who we had a notoriously bad experience with booking? It was Jalen Rose.

Jalen had to come down from LA to Orange County. I believe he needed car service. He showed up to be a guest and he opened his laptop as he sat down to be a guest. And he started asking, can I have some paper? I want to write things. We're like, Jalen, you're doing a 15 minute conversation with Rome. What is this? Very high maintenance, very strange booking, but he was such a good guy and such a good guy in the air. I just never forget him begging.

I need some paper right now. We're coming back from commercial. The fuck do you need paper for Jalen? Just sit down and talk about the Lakers man needed some paper man i don't know why i'll tell you okay um give me a percent chance that you'll be back on a soap considering now that you're getting ripped up again did you make this up in real time um i i would say it's it's five percent which is significantly higher than the percentage chance that I will be on the real world challenge, which is still at about 2%, because that is a young man's game. And I don't care how many times I can swing the kettlebell between my legs with Solo. I'm not going on there to have some 25-year-old on HGH punk me on one of those challenges.

Not going to be me. Okay. This is back to your peak. I'm going to talk unhappy peak kyle because i feel like i'm getting happy peak kyle now yeah you know right it's like but one of my friends has this great saying about all of us he goes rarely have any of us ever been the first option at a bar and he goes i know i've only been at best third or fourth. He's like, Rosillo, you're never number one option. He's like, you probably have been two every now and then.

What is it like to be in L.A. at 24 soap star and be a number one option when you are out on the town? You flatter me, dude. It's listen, being the number one option in L.A., it's like going to an NBA Hall of Fame ceremony. Like there's a lot of a lot of players in the room. I will say this, being 24 and single in LA, this is another podcast, Ryan, but we can talk about going to Playboy Mansion parties and having it live up to all the expectations and being in the grotto and doing everything that you thought happened at the mansion. It's unbelievable.

I had a spot I used to go to called Mexicali in Studio City that served these things called margatinis. It was like a margarita martini mix. And you'd go and have two of them. And you and your date would just be blissed. And it was a really fun time to be alive. It was great. I don't know if I was the first option, but I ran the option well.

Tommy Frazier. That was great. Perfect way to end this man. Um, make sure again, you check it out. Um, I always feel like I get these wrong at the last second because I know your handles at Kyle Brandt. So we'll do that part. That's at Kyle Brandt. You're going to see him on good morning football. And of course, check out the 10 question podcast with Kyle Brandt on Spotify. It's an exclusive subscriber that one. And, um, let's do thist on Spotify. It's an exclusive subscriber to that one. And let's do this again, man.

This was awesome. I really appreciate it. I would love to do it. I love you, man. This is a great type, my type of podcast. I'll do it anytime. Sometime we got to get a lift in, man. We'll do some Hungarian leg presses or whatever they're called.

I'm in. We're a membership of one over here right now. We're talking to the health people and see what kind of codes we can get going here. I'm in, man. Before we get to life advice, a free Madden code. 8-D-T-H-A-P-N-N-G-P-F-D. Free game at Madden NFL 21. EA Sports.

It's in the game. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriol Sports. It's in the game. 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.

Let's bang out a couple life advices here. Okay, Jeff checks in. Really enjoy the podcast. Keep up the great work. Hey, Jeff, thanks for being so thoughtful. 28-year-old single guy living in Chicago. Dating scene has been tough during COVID.

As you can imagine, dating apps are really the only option to meet people right now. So I'm messaging girls and we'll exchange a few messages on the app. I'll get their number and we'll plan a time to meet up for a first date, which is usually a few drinks, pretty normal stuff. Seems pretty normal so far. When's it going to get weird? to the date and i usually say something the effect of hey i like texting you but i'd rather get to know you in person i'll exchange a few flirty texts with them but genuinely want to get to know them face to face a lot of girls seem to be thrown off by this and it comes off as blunt and strange to them maybe it just comes up comes to the territory of talking to girls in their early to mid-20s dude you're 28 so you know it's not like you're like you know i could relax here bill murray um i also don't want to do the thing where you're

texting a girl for weeks that you've never met. And then when you finally decide to meet up, there's no chemistry and you've exhausted all your conversation topics. My question is, am I weird for telling them this? And is there a right amount of texting to do before a first date with someone you've never met? This is easy. Stop being so weird about this. If the girls want to keep texting you just keep texting them ask them questions about themselves have them provide most of the content save some of your stories i mean what do you got like four stories ever is that it you don't have new observations current events anything like that i mean don't keep it political because you never

know where that's going to go here's this is really easy jeff if there are girls that are interested in you and want to keep like they saw your picture on an app and want to keep texting you the whole time and you don't text hey i'd like to not text as much right now can't wait to see you this is this is the easiest that done it's next email yeah i mean don't text that yes it's weird people get like text is very i'll call sometimes to be like i don't want this to get lost in text i remember i was texting somebody once i was like hold on i'll be right back and then i came back to the phone it was like you're rude like what i'm rude because of what because i said hold on i'll be right back just like oh your tone like tone it was a text what are you talking about that was it i was like whatever yeah don't don't ever text anyone as you're pursuing a relationship or on a date or whatever.

Don't go, hey, I'd like to text less, but I am still very interested. Till next Friday. No, just write it out, dude. This isn't hard. All right, next one. Corey in Omaha. You can use my name. Good thing, because I just did.

Stats, 26. MBA from Nebraska, 6'3", 200. Financial situation stable. Tattoos none. Bench 300. Wow, Corey. Don't tell anybody 300 unless it's 315. Okay.

My question is about the best way to handle big life changes and other paradigm to approach change or the paradigm to approach change. All right, here we go. Every time there's a bigger word there, Kyle, we just go, okay, what are we dealing with here? Backstory. Originally from California, went to Nebraska, earned a scholarship. There you go. And an opportunity to work in the athletic department marketing uh graduated

took a job in a restaurant sales was pretty successful uh in line to be promoted until covid struck and restaurants suddenly had a significant reduced demand for point of sale systems hear you on that i took some time in unemployment to figure it out what i want to do next during that period i met a girl early june okay early june so we're i don't know early june is what boom boom three months okay i'm starting a new job september 21st i'm a little nervous about foundation repair sales i know it's sexy okay and as of last night the girl ended things so this guy sent the email the day after the girl dumped him boy i hope that's not what this site becomes uh life advice rr at gmail.com we had an incident my fault i blacked out and said some mean things oh okay wait a minute i thought

we'd move past it until she teary-eyed told me she had a gut feeling we weren't meant to be all right well if she said hey we're not meant to be and sure he knew that after three months then maybe you know whatever but this is on you i mean obviously you screwed up um i've never quite understood i'm trying to understand anybody in a blackout and what their tendencies are i mean that would just be a massive waste of time gladwell wrote about it as most recent book i thought it was actually pretty interesting but i i don't know i mean i've never i've never quite um understood the guys that are just mean about it with girls. I've dated a couple of girls that would say, oh, the guy I used to date, and it wasn't even drinking. They would just be like,

oh, they used to tell me I was fat or no one would ever like me. And I'd be like, what are you talking about? And some guys just have this very odd pattern of, I don't know if it's just straight insecurity or what, but they try to like demean the female emotionally so that they're afraid to leave them or something. Like I've just seen it play out. And then you're like, God, that sucks. Now, I would say some of my flaws are if it's late at night, I'm more inclined to throw on the Wu-Tang double CD

or some Allman Brothers and ignore whoever is over. And that doesn't seem to go over real well either. Girls don't seem to like that. So I would say that the mean well either girls don't seem to like that so uh i would say that um the mean thing i don't know i i know one like something happened really uh recently with with somebody i got to know and she told the story about how this guy would like got really belligerent and mean in front of like the entire family and it ruined it forever because the whole family was like if that's what's going on deep down in that guy's head, then who knows what his deal is going to be like if you end up marrying him.

So I don't know. I'm not trying to judge you here, Corey. I know that sucks. Maybe it was just a mistake. Maybe there's something else going on with you, whatever. But here's the rest of it. So to sum it up, far from home, no family, no close friends, support structure, starting a new job, half blindsided by a breakup and relatively isolated from the few friends i do have on the account of quarantine i don't know if i should treat everything like business usual just show up to work and go back to swiping or should i really sink my teeth into some of these feelings um i would just make sure like there's a difference between an incident and a pattern and i you know i the last thing i would ever do is be insensitive about being you know a jerk to a female.

But just figure out where that's coming from. Like, was it just a random thing? Were you fighting about something specific? Or is this something you do where you say mean things to people? Do you think drunken words are always sober thoughts? Or do you think sometimes you can just be a belligerent asshole? And it was like, wow, that was weird. I think both are true

i really do i mean there's definitely times you go oh you know that's that's what's really going on in the guy's head and that's it but then i've also look they're especially like what like now like when guys like get drunk and pull their pants down do you think that when they're sober they just want to have their pants down or do you think it's like wow that's something that happened when he was drunk i don't know this feels a little this feels a little personal kyle oh man i you know i was hoping you weren't gonna do that i just i was i thought it was valuable no commentary the bathroom so you know whatever um i don't yeah i don't i don't think that that's the case like yeah do you deep sound like deep down wish you were an exhibitionist and that's why guys like

take off their clothes if they're if they're hammered yeah probably not no no but i think like guys that are mean drunks that are like angry and want to fight everybody you know especially younger yeah that that there's like some weird testosterone you know out of the house for the first time stuff i think that stuff's kind of weird and but i mean look here's what i would i would suggest do you think every every male or female in the history of male-female relations has meant every text they've sent to somebody else late at night? No. Like, no way. So we'll close on that thought.

So there you go. Okay, we got one more here. This is from, I don't know if he says we can use his name or not. Okay. I know, Kyle, you're not married with children. Obviously, Ryan isn't as well relevant. How do you politely tell people to mind their business about your personal life and get them to stop asking about it? My girlfriend and I are in our late 20s working in the advertising industry. We've been together just over five years.

Value travel, financial and professional growth above traditional couple norms like marriage and kids. We do want to get married and we do want kids, but not anytime soon. I cannot stress enough that this is shared belief. Neither of us value a big expensive wedding or children in our 20s or traveling over the country in the world. So they don't value that over traveling the country in the world right now. Most people don't believe me when I say this because they think my girlfriend just says that and that every girl wants to get married and have children. I'm the youngest of five boys. I already had six nieces and nephews that are on the way. We constantly receive the same questions of pressure from friends and family to get married, and they all

have kids and others in our family and friend group are beginning to do so. We are fully aware that we have made the conscious decision to wait until later in life to do these major life events. We are well aware of the fact that our kids will be significantly younger than our friends and siblings. Are we selfish people? should i tell people to bleep off okay um yeah you should you just should dude you're in your 20s and people are hassling you again every family some family puts no pressure on you so little pressure you don't think your own family's interested in you so that's not a deal and then some people put so much pressure on that you kind of like whatever kids things feels a bit like um i'm trying to think of like a good analogy here it's not going to be

perfect though but uh you know like when somebody buys something and they're like you should get one too you know i don't know if it's if it's a i don't want to start talking boat finances power washer show but yeah yeah you know kids are like power washers uh no but i don't know why i'm stalling here i usually pride myself i've been pretty good about this stuff but you know whether it could be like a golf membership or like you should join the golf course or you should do this or hey you know you should check out people are people are really excited to be like oh you good you like that band i recommended that band oh you like that band okay Oh, you like that band. Okay, cool. Like you like that band, people that have kids, not all of them, but there is, there's a sense here too, because the sibling part of it, there's this deal where it's like, well, we're having kids.

You better have kids. And sometimes I almost think it's because they're jealous of your freedom. But sometimes it's people just want big, big families. You do your late twenties. If she's totally on the same page with you, you just do your own thing. If it's been a real problem and it's bothering you, I would do almost a reverse intervention on everybody and go, hey, guess what? She's happy. I'm happy. These are our priorities right now. Yes, we'll be older and have younger kids, but it's not like you're 40 and she's 35. I'm totally on your side on this one. I would be very stern and direct about it

to your family members so that they don't have to bring it up. And be like, look, I'm not gonna be a psychopath about this, but I'm gonna tell you straight up. She's cool with it. I'm cool with it. These are our priorities.

We're doing really great in life. And we were setting up to be able to have kids in a few years from now. And that is the plan. And by asking me about it is a massive waste of everyone's time. So again, just let it go because the answer

isn't going to be any different. And you being annoying about telling me to have a kid is not going to make me go get my wife pregnant right now. Like it's just annoying. So stop doing it. All right.

So that's the best. I don't know. Maybe you've already done that with them, but I would not. Some people are very deferential in the sense of like, okay, this thing's bothering me and I'm just going to kind of let it go. Like, oh, hey, this again, this again.

Maybe they don't know that it bothers you that much. So tell them, let them know it bothers you that much. And it may seem dramatic and maybe they'll call you dramatic, but whatever, if they stop, then you win. Okay, let's read an ad. Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash.

People could get hurt or killed, but that still doesn't stop everyone. There's no reason. There's plenty of ways to get around, guys. You could get arrested. You could incur huge legal expenses, and you could possibly even lose your job. We all know the consequences of driving drunk,

but there's one thing for sure. You're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Drive sober or get pulled over. Okay, please subscribe, rate, and review to the Ryanso podcast on spotify i uh love today's podcast and so bill and i sunday or monday i think we're still figuring that one out check it on sunday and then next week chris long making his return awesome thank you so much for listening as always i really appreciate everyone you seriously thank you Thank you. you