The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NFL Championship Round Film Breakdowns With Ted Nguyen, the Forgotten Character in the Steroid Saga, Plus 'The Line' Director Doug Shultz

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on MLB players bearing the blame for the steroids era by being left out of the Baseball Hall of Fame (0:47), before briefly hitting on whether or not Ben Simmons's trade value has diminished from August 2021 and the 76ers quest for a favorable trade (10:01). Next, Ryen talks with the Athletic’s Ted Nguyen about his film breakdown of the upcoming conference championship round of the NFL playoffs (20:07). Then Ryen talks with filmmaker Doug Shultz about his Apple TV+ docuseries ‘The Line’ (41:57), before answering some listener submitted Life-Advice questions (1:26:34). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Ted Nguyen and Doug Shultz Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast a lot going on i've got an opening about who was complicit in the hall of fame results we had for baseball this week the ben simmons market is he really as much of a declining asset as everyone says he is? Ted Wynn, who will join us to do a film preview of both conference championship games and something that I've been talking about quite a bit, The Line, four-part documentary on the Seals from 2017. Doug Schultz, producer, director, creator of this amazing content, is going to talk about this awesome story, which I can't wait to share with you, and life advice. I want to open today's podcast. I want to talk a little

bit about the Hall of Fame. I want to talk about steroids, and maybe the first week I've ever seen Twitter be in favor of voter suppression because everybody's so mad at the writers for not letting Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod in. Let me just start with this overall statement. I want all these guys in. I'm totally fine with it, but I want to open it up to a further discussion so that we understand the full scope of this story. And I want to start with a quote. This is from Donald Fehr in June of 2002, talking about potential testing of baseball players. He's the head of the union at this time on why he opposed testing. And Donald Fehr said this, quote, this discussion can be summarized in a single word, privacy. Remember that because we're going to get back to it. Now, when it comes to the players, Clemens, you know, in 1986,

that first half of that season was one of those times as a little kid, you're like, okay, I can't believe this is the best thing ever. I want to try to emulate his windup and all this kind of stuff. Even though I'd been into sports for a couple of years, that was like my first new peak as a Red Sox fan. And we know how great Clemens was. And then he went to Toronto and he was even better. And then he ended up with the Yankees,

which I absolutely hated. And then he was 42 years old and had a 1A ERA. So I kind of knew at that point, like, this seems weird. And then the bond spike, which if you read anything about it, we know what happened. And A-Rod was found guilty of it.

And, but I'm okay with it. I don't like it. I'm not endorsing it, but know what happened. And A-Rod was found guilty of it. But I'm okay with it. I don't like it. I'm not endorsing it, but I'm okay with it if they ever end up being in the Hall of Fame. And it's pretty clear the first time through the writers are going to beat up on these guys if they ever let them in. And that's what upsets so many people. Let's go back and look at that timeline preceding that quote from Donald Fehr in 2002. In 1998, Rick Helling is a pitcher. He was pretty good. He was pretty high up with the Players Association and tells Fair,

hey, we've got a huge problem. That's going back to some research that I did with Verducci articles from almost two decades ago. In 2000, there were estimates that 30-40% of the players were actually using some sort of performance-enhancing drug. The real focus was on a lot of the top

stars. Then Kim Caminiti did a piece with Raducci in 2002, where he's like, look, I used, it changed me as a player. And it's a big, big issue. Canseco then ratted everybody out because he actually felt like he was being blackballed. And it wasn't that he struck out a million times. He felt like he was being blackballed. So he's going to take it back out on everybody else. And then we had the Mitchell report in 2007, which named a bunch of players.

And I remember working with somebody who said, Hey, this is the single biggest day in the history of baseball. I'm like, yeah, is it though? And you know what? Removed from it. It definitely isn't. So we dealt with this all the time. I did. I started ESPN in 2006. I did hours upon hours of steroid conversation. I mean, if you were doing any kind of local radio, national radio, if you were doing any of it, you were talking steroids all the time. And it was the Bonds chase, and we were still cutting live and home runs because we felt like it was important.

But we now realize that even though we kind of love numbers, we love new numbers, we certainly don't seem to care about old numbers. And I don't know if that's baseball's own fault. I guess it is in a way. I remember being a kid and wondering, hey, Dale Murphy's got 37 at the all-star break, dad. What does he project to? Now, if I have a son one day and he doesn't care about the second half projections of a home run total for a baseball season, we're going to find a way to get through that. All right. But yeah, it's desensitized us to the importance of all these things and steroids are to blame. But when we talk about blame, we do a really good job

finding ways, as I've said many times of finding ways to like hey who's to blame well the player is the one that took it yeah but can we blame anyone else because it felt like the majority of the blame this week was on the owners and then the voters all right um there's there's another thing that i've mentioned in the past where yeah the nfl handled concussions about as poorly as you could possibly handle them. But then when you would come on a radio show and be like, in the NFL, they used to put out VHS tapes of the biggest hits. You're like, yeah, I get it. I get it.

They're complicit. They're complicit for a million different ways, and they profited off of it as well. Noted. We get it. The owners profited off of the home run chase, but so did the players. People want to blame the writers and be like oh you guys were complicit too i'd love to know like if in 2022 if an nba writer were to accuse of an nba star of using some sort of ped how that would go over because i'm going to tell you right now that writer wouldn't be very popular if somehow we've

retroactively said that it was all in the writers to expose all of this stuff because i think when things are happening when bad things are happening it's almost a gradual awareness of it. The other analogy I would use is this. If your kid came home shit-faced at 16, would you put him in rehab the next day? No. But you'd start paying a little bit more attention. What's his behavior?

What's going on? Is he out all the time? Is he groggy in the morning? You know what I mean? Like you would start to go, wait, do we have an issue? And that's clearly what happened with baseball. At first, guys are jacked.

They look like superheroes. Everybody's hitting home runs. They're breaking records. And then you start to hear over the course of a few years, no, no, no, we actually have a major steroid problem. And for everybody that thinks the writers and all these people profited off of it, yeah, sure. There's probably a few national baseball writers that did pretty good with a raising interest in baseball during that time. But I doubt the beat writer for the twins is a house in Malibu because of it. All right. When it comes to the owners, the owners wanted testing. The owners wanted testing. And that's why I get back to Donald Feer in that quote. If you know anything about the history of the Major League Baseball player union versus the owners, and you should, because it's important if you care about any of this stuff, you will understand there's one fundamental principle.

I'll put it this way. If ownership said, hey, your per diem is $100 and we're going to go $20 and we're going to go $30 and we're going to go $50, you know, $20 for breakfast, $30 for lunch, $50 for dinner, the Players Association's first thing would be, if we're going to land on $100,

we want the lunch, breakfast, and dinner to be broken up differently. It's just the way it is. It goes all the way back to Marvin Miller and Marvin Miller who hired Donald Fehr in 1977. So Fehr's head of the Players Association from 83 to 2009. And as he argued privacy as the main concern, he was going to oppose ownership for suggesting that there should be any kind of testing when even some of his own players were saying we needed testing. If you were a clean player, do you know how much it sucked for

you at this point? And yet your union head is saying, well, you know, the owners want it, so we don't want to give it to them. All right. Then prior to the 2003 spring training, they said, we're going to do a sample testing. And this is where all those tests became public later on because they were supposedly supposed to be destroyed. They said, if we were over a 5% positive rate for PEDs in the spring training of 2003, then we will instill some sort of testing and penalty program. All right. And by the way, the White Sox players, there's 16 of them that that spring training were going to refuse taking the test. All right. They were going to refuse taking it because they felt like it was some sort of violation and a move by the union giving into ownership which is something they fundamentally

never wanted to do so the tests obviously come back over five percent positive so that means now we have to have some sort of steroid policy listen to the first agreed upon testing policy with penalties after those positive tests in 2003. And by the way, the proposals from the union were even more lenient than this. This was the first testing and penalty program in baseball. The first positive test, treatment. The second positive test, 15 days. A third positive test, 25-day suspension. A fourth positive test, a 50-day suspension. You could, in theory, be popped four times and be like, hey, when's July start? I'm ready to tear it up in the second half. And then on the fifth one, you would get a year. That was the first agreed upon testing policy

with penalties. Now, they moved it after a couple of years. But that's the point, is that we found a way this past week to be so mad at the owners who, yes, profited off of this, to be mad at the writers who, I I guess were supposed to expose people publicly and work more on this than the other things. That's fine. I'll allow some of it. But we talk about who's complicit. Everyone is complicit in this. But there's been a massive shift away from one, the guys who took the fucking stuff, which again, I'm telling you, I know they took it and I still would want them in the Hall of Fame. But then beyond that, almost no association of what the Players Union did and Donald Feer, who was ahead of this, who fundamentally never wanted to give in. And if by not giving in, he actually allowed this stuff to happen.

I've heard a lot of different proposals about what it will mean if A-Rod, Bonds, Clemens, the rest of these guys ever get in. Because there's some guys that are hinted at and some guys that we know deal like A-Rod we know exactly what happened right um I think they'll get in the hall of fame like I said I'm fine with them getting into the hall of fame but here's what I don't need I don't need instructions on how to feel about baseball history all right I don't need instructions on this I don't need my fucking handheld walking around Cooperstown going well how do you feel you know should this plaque have little thing on it? Should it be in a separate wing over here? I don't need any of those things. I mean, to me, that doesn't make any sense. But whenever I look at this topic, whenever I hear people talk about it and get mad at the owners, fine, get mad at the writers. Okay. Rarely seem to ever get mad

at the players. Never forget Donald Feer and the union's role in all of this. Because of their fundamental opposition to anything being proposed by the owners, because they didn't want testing to happen, they actually allowed this era to continue. Okay, double opens today for the podcast. I want to do a little on the James Harden, Ben Simmons thing, and I want to start with a real clear question. What do you believe Ben Simmons' value was in August? What do you believe it is now going up to the February 10th deadline? And what do you think Ben Simmons' trade value would be, say, this summer,

as maybe you have more certainty on the draft picks? I don't think it's changed much. I'm in a minority opinion on that one, and I think most people would look at it and be like, oh, well, you should have gotten rid of him in August. Okay, here's what I know was available and has been available. The CJ McCollum thing, I think, is very clear. It was available.

Philadelphia turned it down. Sacramento's been thrown around different pieces. But when you hear like, oh, but no Fox Halliburton, you know, Barnes and Heald would make Philadelphia better than having zero people play in the Ben Simmons transaction. But I can also understand Daryl saying, I think I can still do better than having zero people play in the Ben Simmons transaction. But I can also understand Daryl saying, I think I can still do better than that. And then the Pacers stuff is always a little weird

because I feel like there have been players that have been rumored to be available for the Pacers now for a long time. It's apparently cranked up a bit. More recently, as much as I like Sabonis, I think he's somebody that kind of plays in the same area of the court at times as Embiid, even though he can face and drive a little. He likes to trail stuff. He likes to be around the hoop, mid post, maybe a

little bit deeper on catches and all that kind of stuff. I'm just not sure how that fit is with Embiid because I still just want spacing around Embiid, who, by the way, is like putting up a serious MVP case. That guy has been insane now for a few weeks. So I believe the value has been consistent and that Daryl's not getting what he wants. The public seems to be arguing that he's this massively declining asset. And even though I know I don't know everything, clearly, I would ask you, what do you think the great offer was in August or the very beginning of the season? And then why do you think those offers have gone away?

Because here's what we know about the league. Daryl Morey said publicly, we need to add somebody that greatly increases our chances of winning a championship. That's Lillard, it's Beal, it's Jalen Brown. It could be other people. When you ask people around the league, who is he targeting? Those are the guys.

Now, the ownership apparently, according to reports, they have Morey's back. They're totally on the same page, which is the only thing they're going to say publicly because really what Maury was doing is, one, I think he's telling the truth, but he's also giving everybody a warning that maybe he's holding back from their assets before the February

10th deadline, thinking that Maury's going to give in. That was a very public advertising of their position saying, hey, look, we may not do this. So if you don't, none of you guys want to step up, we'll take this into the summer, and I have ownership's backing on all of this. It could be a play.

Well, look, it is a play, but it also could be the truth too, right? This is why I don't think the value has changed all that much because between the deals that we all sort of hear the rumblings about and where we're at now, I just never really buy that. You don't know what could be available in the summer. You don't know who the next guy is who's going to get mad. You don't know who the next GM is that's going to get fired. Maybe there's an ownership struggle.

Maybe Lillard goes, all right, this year sucked, and I don't like this, and I don't want to play for this coach, and the front office has no direction, and you guys haven't added enough. And so I went from annoyed to now forceful. Maybe Boston goes, hey, a full season, early bounce from the playoffs. Maybe we need to make a change instead of making a change before February 10th. Maybe the Washington deal with Beal, who I always felt was comfortable there because he just wanted a longer extension. But then there was a report saying that he's warning the front office that they need to add.

extension, but then there was a report saying that he's warning the front office that they need to add. What I'm telling you is there's going to be somebody whose current position changes between now and this summer, and maybe it's before the deadline. All right. That's a possibility, too. Things change very fast. That's not debatable in this league. It happens all the time.

And I think that's what Daryl is banking on. I don't like what I'm being offered. Yes, it feels like I'm wasting an Embiid season, which is a very strong argument that it's like, look, just get them out of there and add some sort of pieces. But to suggest that Simmons value is a declining asset that is perpetually headed downwards, I don't think is fair. And I don't think it's a great understanding of how the league works, because all of a sudden now when somebody else has an untenable situation with their guy, they may go, all right, well, I guess now we can at least get Simmons because we are forced because all of a sudden now when somebody else has an untenable situation with their guy, they may go, all right, well, I guess now we can at least get Simmons because we are forced to trade a guy that before we were not forced to trade.

So I'm just glad too that The Athletic wrote about the Harden-Simmons thing that almost happened a year ago because it was really close. And as they reported, and I had said a year ago on the podcast, that Simmons apparently was already asking about houses in the Houston area. And I was told that Harden asked the Sixers about wearing number 13, which is not available because of Will Chamberlain. So I don't expect a ton of people to agree with this, but I don't know. I feel like whenever I map it out this way, I just convince myself again. I don't think that there was the A minus B plus asset available in August that is now completely off the table six months later.

And if it doesn't happen in February 10th, I think it's very reasonable to think there will be multiple scenarios that present themselves from other franchises that either want to make changes or are forced to make changes where now Simmons comes back into play. So waiting isn't popular. Waiting can seem like a waste. I know people don't like Daryl. They give him a hard time, which is fine. I just don't agree with the declining asset timeline that I see repeated all the time. So Rudy, you got anything on that?

that I see repeated all the time. So Rudy, you got anything on that? I would just say, do we know that even when one of those guys, if it's a Lillard, if it's a Beal, if it's somebody bigger, are the Sixers going to be at the top of that list of assets? I mean, Simmons clearly doesn't move the needle for a lot of these franchises.

A lot of these franchises don't seem like they want to help them out either. They know how suppressed his value is. They're like, well, we're not going to help you out, bail you out of this situation. That's a disaster. So my only worry would be like, yeah, you could wait for that to happen. You're also going to, like you said, continuously waste a good Embiid season and a future Embiid season.

But are they even at the top of the list? What assets do they have versus other teams around the league that would put them at the top of the list for the next superstar that wants out? It would only be that it would have to be like a forced hand deal where the guy's like, Hey, I want out, but I also only want to go here.

You know, where Harden was able to do that. Cause he, he had less time left where Lillard, you know, has still has years left. And again, it was always kind of the,

the unknown thing with, with Simmons. You're like, wait, you want out and you, you're four year extensions kicking Simmons. You're like, wait, you want out and your four-year extension is kicking in? So, by the way, I should have done this earlier. I should have mentioned Atlanta because there's always Atlanta rumblings.

But the funniest thing was when I had heard, hey, not only does Philadelphia want a superstar back. They want, well, I think you'd have to throw in Dibble and Simmons to get her. It was like, oh, by the way, would you take on Tobias Harris' salary as well? He's like, okay, all right. I mean, so I don't know if there's, but see, here's the point on Atlanta. Does Atlanta get to a point in another? Well, I mean, mean look the deadline is very close for like two weeks away from it does the deadline i don't know if atlanta is going to have the answers to all that but could atlanta say hey look at all this depth we had and we've

developed and we felt great about it yet now we have to like make a change this summer push the chips in yeah yeah who are the five really disappointed franchises that go okay we need to make some kind of change and so i don't i just i'm only presenting it this way i don't think it's an unreasonable thing to suggest there's more options that maybe present better value that happened this summer even but if again if you're telling me hey fuck that get get him beat some help this guy's insane what he's doing right now and the east may be open because of the uncertainty of all these different things. Although I still am sort of deferring to Milwaukee when Milwaukee's right. And I don't know what the Brooke Lopez thing is going to be. Supposedly he could come back for the playoffs.

I'm not sure. I still think Milwaukee could win it without him. Maybe they add another guy. Maybe there's some kind of buyout. So we know the finished product is not always the case with the top contending teams. So the MB thing is hard for me to argue against. It's a very,

it's a very strong position. I just don't think that if we were grading Ben Simmons, if he had a stock price on him, the stock was low in August. I don't think it's dramatically lower with no chance of ever going higher again. I just don't. And that's not so much because of who he is. It's because the urgency of scenarios that have not presented themselves yet. Would you do Mo Bamba, Suggs and T. Ross for him?

No, you don't want to trade Suggs. I love Suggs. I was never, I've never wavered off my Suggs support. I would trade Mo Bamba, but I don't know why they would want to center her. I've said multiple times.

I, I, in a vacuum, I would take a shot on Simmons. I just wouldn't trade it for him. I'd want him in the building. I'd want to see if I could, especially with the Magic, they did it with Markel Fultz.

Maybe they could do it with Simmons, but I'm not getting anything of significant value to get him when nobody else around the league is willing to do that either. I think you'd have to give something up for him, dude. Would they do Markel Fultz for Ben Simmons? Give him back and send him back to Philly?

Hey, we fixed him. Here you go. You think it's going to be a moment. Will they do Mark Belfost for Ben Simmons? Give him back and send him back to Philly? Hey, we fixed him. Here you go. You're welcome. Go to the repair shop. Sugg still isn't shooting it all that well from outside, but the shooting numbers have gone up, and he's starting to put up some numbers here, which, you know, the overall stuff,

15-5-5, and then the overall shooting numbers. I love his aggressiveness. I was watching him again. I watched him twice in the last week. Just, you know, not full end-5-5 and then the overall shooting number. I love his aggressiveness. I was watching him again. I watched him twice in the last week. Just not full end-to-end games. I'm a little concerned about the offensive limitations at times, but the thing that I loved

about him against Zag is still translate to the NBA. You just hope it's not as a third guard, as a role guy. Basketball IQ, athleticism, defensive awareness. The guy has everything athleticism, defensive awareness. The guy has everything. The shooting will come. I think he has to figure out how to finish at the rim too.

He'll get there. I'm not worried about it. Not worried at all. That dunk he threw out that night was absurd. I mean, the thing is that we got Franz Wagner now,

so he can like, he's kind of in the shadow of Franz, so. There you go. So Rudy, official statement. Not worried. Magic 30 seconds.

There you go. I'm fired up. It's Ted Wynn who joins us now from The Athletic. His breakdowns for the NFL are incredible. Just a really good job of discussing that next level stuff. Thanks for doing this, man. Happy to

finally connect. No problem. Thanks for having me on and excited to get talking about these playoff games. Let's dig into it. San Francisco's on a roll here against the Rams. I believe it's six straight. They beat them twice this year. Week 10 was a blowout. LA changes some things up. Looks like they're going to win that game, and then they end up with a big comeback. What is it about San Francisco against LA that's worked out for the Niners so much the last six matchups? Well, it's just their style of offense really fits well with what the Rams want to do on defense.

Defensively, last season, they had Brandon Staley as their defensive coordinator. And his philosophy is to play with two deep safeties and play with a light box and try to force things outside. And, you know, they don't mind having teams run on them. But when you play a team like the Niners who are patient and can run the ball, it's just not a great matchup. And actually last season was when the Debo Samuel at running back experiment kind of started against the Rams because Shanahan saw that if he was going to go into 11 personnel, they would get these really light boxes. And they started using Debo as a running back

and using the running back as a fullback. And that really started paying dividends for them. And last season, when you look at the box score, he didn't get a ton of carries, but he got a bunch of those tap passes where the quarterback just kind of flips the ball in front of you, which is basically a handoff. And that's where this Debo Samia running back thing got started. And then in week 10 this season, they went back to it

and they had a lot of success with it. And then Elijah Mitchell got hurt the next game. And then they just kept Debo running back and it's been really successful for them. And, you know, it's just the fact that they can run the ball so patiently against the Rams that that really gives them a lot of trouble just because their philosophy is we'll give up some run as long as we can defend the explosive passes. But the Niners don't pass the ball deep. That's not what they do. They love running the ball.

It's just a bad matchup for the Rams. So as you point out, the Week 10 to Week 18, they did change it. They played more single high. We know that the Rams play a lot of zone. So based on the film breakdowns of at least just this season what do you think the move is here i mean it was just stacking the box with it with the rams against the niners making garoppolo go over the top in an area where he just normally even though he had some deep numbers that are actually decent too so

it's garoppolo is always you know what let me back up here before i ask you to change give me your just opening statement on who Jimmy Garoppolo is as a quarterback and what you think about him. I think Garoppolo has gotten better. This season, he's improved as a quarterback. He's throwing with better anticipation. He has more command of that Niners offense. I think he's a good quarterback, but he's definitely helped out by the system.

He's helped out by having a guy like george kiddo who's at the top of his position a guy like debo samuel is at the top of his position and they both create a lot of yards after the catch uh but the thing is with jimmy i think the his propensity for the turnover especially in really bad time times negates uh how you know the good things he brings to the offense. And thankfully, the Niners have a really good defense that can erase some of those mistakes. But to me, Jimmy Garoppolo is just a better than average quarterback. And a turnover thing just really scares me.

And I think that's one of the reasons why the Niners are moving on from him next year, if everything goes as planned. But, you know, it's just hard for me to see Jimmy succeeding in another system. Yeah, I mean, that was always kind of the thing. Like when they grabbed Trey, then I'm like, all right, so this means that they want to move on from Garoppolo. The O-line, D-line stuff, the win rate here. We know the Rams have the best one, and they know that Garoppolo primarily throws, I think it's 12 of his 14 interceptions were against zone,

which is what they're going to do. So I guess back to the question I sort of interrupted myself from, now that we've packaged the two different versions of playing against the Niners, where clearly Week 18 was more successful despite the comeback, what do you think the game plan is going to be for the Rams defensively then? I think it'll be similar to Week 18. They're not going to go into the Niner game playing the same style of defense

they did before, which is playing with those two deep safeties and light boxes. I think the Week 18 approach was the correct approach. They put an extra guy in the box. They played more single-high defenses. They played some six-man defensive lines, which is a tactic that the Patriots use against them in the Super Bowl, which helped stop their run game, too. So they were really stacking the box against the run and just daring Jimmy

Garoppolo to beat them. And to his credit, he did. He had 316 yards, but he also had two interceptions in that game, and he was sacked three times. So he had some negative plays, too. I think the best thing is to bet if Jimmy Garoppolo can beat you again. And Jimmy's hurt in the playoffs, too. He has a shoulder injury. He has a finger injury. You know, he never threw with a ton of zip. But it just looks like, you know, he's really struggling to put some mustard on the ball.

So I think if you you force them to beat you you play a little more zone forcing the throw into tight windows that's the formula and if he does he does but i just don't think that you can go into his game and just dare the niners to beat you on the ground because they have so many times in the past uh stafford if we break it down to how he does against man versus zone, and again, the Niners are more of a zone-heavy team, correct? Yes, they're a zone-heavy team, but they also play a lot of man-match defenses, which is kind of in between zone and man.

It's one of their better type of defenses that they've played a lot against the Packers. It's kind of in between, but I think that's the formula that you want to use against Stafford to play a lot of too high and play those man-match type of defenses. Stafford's number one against man. I think some of the numbers would indicate, as you point out, he's number nine against zone.

But the Blitz thing is remarkable. Stafford has basically been the best quarterback in the NFL in the last three years against the blitz. So it sounds very simple. Play zone, don't blitz. But you have to balance it. You can't be that predictable, as you're kind of alluding to with some of the man-match stuff that San Francisco does. We also know what the corners. San Francisco felt like a weakness. I love what this team is doing. I kind of feel like their defensive attitude is reminiscent of a team that only made the Super Bowl a couple years ago,

but at the cornerback position, it's clearly not the same level of talent. So how do you balance all of that stuff knowing, hey, here's what the numbers tell us to do, but we can't exactly come out and play the same stuff the entire time? Yeah, I think with the Niners, it sounds kind kind of cliche but their four-man pass rush is what's going to be key in this game you know watching that week 18 game i thought there was going to be some huge adjustment from um from the nico ryan's in the second half of that game where they really stifled the rams but when you watch that game game, that four-man pass rush just took over in that second half.

I think one thing that the Rams do struggle with is they struggle with interior pressure if you have two good guys on inside and some power rushers, and that's exactly what the Niners have. They have a bunch of guys that can rotate inside, Eric Armstead, and they have power rushers on outside like Nick Bosa. So that gives the Rams a lot of trouble.

And as far as the blitzing, D'Amico Ryan's doesn't blitz a lot, but he likes to blitz in pressure situations. And, you know, he blitzes so little that whenever he does blitz, it kind of catches offenses by surprise and they're just not ready for it. And that's what happened in the last offensive snap the Packers had in that,

that divisional game when Rodgers threw into double coverage. Ryan's brought both safeties on a pressure, and they bracketed Adams. And against Stafford, I think that we'll see some blitzes like that in high leverage situations. And in those situations, Stafford likes to go to Cup a majority of the time. You know, Shield digs its data, but Cup has the most production against the Blitz from any receivers in the last 15 years. So that's Stafford's safety blanket.

So I think what the Niners will do is they'll take a similar approach. If they do Blitz Stafford, they're going to bracket Cup and make them go to another option against the Blitz. Let's take a look at the AFC title game here. Cincinnati was basically flawless offensively. I mean, the numbers are off the charts. Jamar Chase. I mean, look, Burrow was, I mean, what, over 400 plus yards.

Chase is over. I mean, it was one of those historic kind of offensive games. What happened? How did that get so bad for Kansas City on defense? I think one thing that they can't do in this game that they did in that Week 17 matchup was play so much press coverage against Chase. I think what they wanted to do was they wanted to disrupt the timing of the offense and let their defensive line work and beat that offensive line for the Bengals.

But they pressed Chase so much and the way their coverages were structured, it just made it really easy for the Bengals offense to get a one-on-one with Chase. And obviously, Chase just ate up those cornerbacks and safeties in one-on-one with Chase. And obviously Chase just ate up those cornerbacks and safeties in one-on-one coverage. So I think in this second matchup, they have to play a little more off coverage. And Spagnuolo is, you know, he can be a little stubborn with adjusting at times.

So, you know, it'll be interesting to see if he changes his approach this time and backs off of Chase and make them pass, throw hitches and now screens and that kind of thing and just rally up and tackle him. They have to take a little more patient approach with Chase just because they don't have the guys to match up with them. Burrow is incredible for a bunch of different reasons, but that he could get his ass kicked the way he did against Tennessee

and also just the way he could get his ass kicked all season long and then still put up these kinds of numbers yards per attempt. He's on absolute fire again here as we get later into the year. How much of that is based on your film study? Because we know the sack rate, the sack allowed rate is the second worst in the NFL for Cincinnati, but Kansas city's actual sack rate from the defensive perspective is the second worst. So throw in whatever you want on how you see the matchup. But let me first start with burrow in the sacks, because I still feel like there were maybe three against Tennessee.

Cause we had a lot to pick from where you're like, he's going to get rid of that ball a little bit quicker. How much do you think is on him and how much is on the offensive line? I would say if you look at the majority of sacks, especially in the playoffs, it's probably a little bit more on the offensive line just because guys are getting beat so quickly, especially on the interior in that game. Jeffrey Simmons just dominated in that game. And it's hard for a quarterback to consistently beat interior pressure when it's getting through that quickly.

But like you said, there are times when Burrow does hold on to the ball. But I think that's part of his game. You can't take that away from him. You can't just have him throw quickly all the time without trying to create a big play just because he's so good out of structure. I think that's going to continue to be part of his game. But in that Week 17 matchup, he made some really nice escapes against the Chiefs pass rush

where they had free rushers coming in, and he was able to escape and find an open receiver. So I think he's going to continue to do that. And for them to keep scoring and keep pace with that Kansas City offense, they're going to need him to create and try to make some big plays out of structure. So he'll take some sacks, but I think for the Bengals, they hope that they'll have more good than bad because that's the only way that they're going to keep pace with that offense.

And you also talked about some of the formations you break down at Athletic where it's like the three-by-, where Kansas city just looked like they were making pre-snap mistakes. And then even, you know, obviously after the fact and coverage and chase is really special, but you did a great job and just kind of showing like, look, look how bad their pre-snap alignment is three by one. You've got three receivers to the left. And then you're allowing with the slot to have two, two single coverage options with Chase being on the outside. It's like, okay, so you're already starting with Chase in single coverage with no safety help because you have five to three on the left side. I'd have to imagine that the Kansas City prep for this one is showing, you know, I'm not saying it's happening every snap, but that almost can't happen against Chase at any point.

Like, I know it's always going to happen. You put somebody in motion, there's a lack of communication, you don't know who you're passing it off to, but you're showing some really good still shots of the pre-snap, and you go, okay, this is already a major problem, and it was that entire day. Yeah, it's just when you have a great receiver and you have a quarterback like Burrow,

you can't make it so easy for them to just reduce the game into a game of one-on-one against Chase. So, yeah, like you said, in those three-by-one formations, they would single Chase by himself. And the safety over Chase, instead of playing over top of Chase, he would play man-on-man on a running back and come down, and it would just be a one-on-one with Chase on the cornerback and in two by two the way their coverage is structured all the bangles had to do was run their slot in a vertical and the safeties would get taken up and chase would have a one-on-one on the outside so um they're gonna have to adjust they can't let the bangles have those one-on-ones so easily and obviously chase just ate up those one-on-ones and had a career day.

All right, Kansas City on offense. This ended up being the best offense in the NFL again this year. But if you do go back and look at the separation of other years with Kansas City, I think the difference was that there was a bigger gap with previous Kansas City offenses to the next best offense, where this year they're still the best, but the gap wasn't significant. I remember kind of looking at it at one point and we're like,

all right, this is why we feel like, hey, they're still the best, but we're comparing them to their own peak as opposed to the rest of the league this year where scoring actually dipped again because we had people back in the stands. So the coverage that looks like it works best against Kansas City based on your breakdown is the cover two, right? Too high safety with this. And we understand that everybody's keeping things back.

And I think there's maybe sometimes, would you admit sometimes there's confusion with like, wait, is it cover two or is it four shell? You know what I mean? Like there seems to be at times where it's like, we think it's this, but it's actually this, correct? Yeah, I think it's more so, you know, it's not just too deep zone it's uh too deep

safety so you can have a bunch of different coverages with two deep safeties you can play cover four out of two deep safeties uh you can play cover two uh but i think just the general principle is if you keep your guys back and deep um and rally up tackle, then you can at least slow down the Chiefs or at least make them impatient to where Mahomes might throw you a prayer ball into your deep coverage. And that kind of worked in the beginning of the season. I think Mahomes got a little frustrated at times, and he tried to throw into these deep coverages.

But then I think the Chiefs' offense has gotten a lot better towards the end of the season because the Chiefs were, Mahomes was willing to take those short passes. He was able to hit the last step of his drop, throw short, let his receivers create, and just was a lot more patient. And then when the defense came up, then he was able to punish them deep. And the Bengals, I think as far as their secondary, they just don't have the guys to match up with the Chiefs when they play man-to-man, and that's what they want to do.

They want to play man-to-man. That's what they've done all season. But against the Chiefs, I just don't see them being able to do that, and they got killed in man-to-man in that Week 17 matchup. And when they played too deep, their stats were a little bit better because they were able to rally up and tackle. So I just think that's their best bet. Obviously, they're not going to do it the entire game.

But I just think playing more too deep coverages and just hoping that you could rally up and make tackles or Mahomes might get impatient is your best bet. But there's just not a ton of good options against the way Mahomes is playing right now. With all the work that you do, I kind of wanted to ask you a couple of other questions.

Is there a quarterback that once you really dug into the film, your perception of them completely changed? I was thinking about this question. It's pretty difficult, but I think when you look at a quarterback like Garoppolo, you know, I know we already talked about him, but there's just so many different opinions and different takes on him. you just look at the numbers and I think a lot of the analytics guys like Jimmy Garoppolo when you just look at numbers but when you really watch him and you know you watch some of the throws he makes some of the some of his best throws are just tight window throws into the middle of the field where it would be a hospital ball you know five years ago without these targeting rules um but yeah when you watch him it just doesn't seem like a formula that's reputable in a different system.

So I know we talked about Jimmy Garoppolo, but I think that's the guy just because there's so many different opinions on him. But when you really dig into the film, you just see a lot of problems. And, you know, that's the reason why they drafted Trey Lance. Jeff Garcia is still a fan. Yeah. Give me, give me a coach. That's the most stubborn.

Most stubborn. Well, when I saw this question, I thought you're, were you talking about the guys that are in the playoffs right now? Or are you just talking about like overall in the league? Honestly, whatever you think the better answer is.

I kind of was leaning towards overall because I mean, we only have four, we only have four teams left, but just somebody who you go, all right, these guys do not want to change what answer is. I kind of was leaning towards overall because, I mean, we only have four teams left. But just somebody who you go, all right, these guys do not want to change what they do. I mean, Spaggs would probably be in the conversation if he might win it. But, you know, it can be, yeah, give me a coordinator,

give me a head coach or just something. I mean, it doesn't even necessarily mean that it's wrong. I think Rex was somebody that was always incredibly stubborn, especially with that Jets run, where I just remember how funny that was. It's like, wait, so you just blitz all the time and now you're going to win football games? They're the first team ever that was like,

we're just going to blitz all the time. But it was an attitude thing with them a little bit more. Yeah, is there somebody that jumps out? Is there somebody who you think is just not that malleable as a coordinator or head coach? Yeah, well, just look at the playoff guys. I think Andy Reid is pretty stubborn as far as the way he does things. But to his credit, he finds a way to come through at the end.

But when you talk to guys around the league, and I did some digging when the Chiefs are struggling, and there were some people that were just like, Andy Reid will not run the ball no matter what. He's not going to start running the ball with more frequency, even though he's seeing these two deep defenses. He's just going to do what he does, and he's going to keep passing. But their adjustment was to eventually take some shorter passes, but they were still passing at a very high rate. So I think Andy Reid is is very stubborn i don't think

that's a bad thing per se but you know i mean his he's gonna do what he does and that's uh who he has been since uh the philadelphia days okay uh give me somebody who is the quickest to adapt um i think shanahan is really quick to adapt but he doesn't completely revamp his system. It's not like he's going to go to a four-wide system. But I think what he does really well is he anticipates how defenses are going to counter what he does. And he just tinkers with the system a little bit here, a little bit there.

And he's able to stay a step ahead of defensive coordinators and what defenses want to do against him. All right, so let's leave on this then. The conference championships, it feels like with your breakdowns of all the scenarios you run by, it feels like you like the favorites, correct? Yeah, I just think with the Rams, it's really tough to beat a good team seven times in a row. We might have said that five, like at five, it's tough to good team seven times in a row. We might have said that five, like at five,

it's tough to beat them six times in a row. Yeah, and I think that the Rams had them. They had the right formula to beat the Niners, and Garoppolo just went off in that second half, and I just don't know if that's going to happen again in this matchup, especially with Garoppolo Herc. And I think with the Chiefs, when you watch that Bengals game, they had their opportunity to win.

I think they let off the gas in the second half a little bit. And an important aspect of that game is their left tackle didn't play. Orlando Brown got hurt in the warm-ups, and Joe Thune, their guard, had to go to left tackle, and that was pretty impactful. They had some really bad pressures from that side in the second half. So I think the Chiefs will win this game. I think they might win by more than a touchdown just with the way they're playing.

Hey, thanks a lot. You can check out Ted's breakdowns on The Athletic along with a guy who's joined us a few times, Shokapati, as well. They're really helpful. They're a lot of fun and you kind of just present options like, hey, here's their tendencies. Here's maybe some of the things that we'll do and I enjoy the work you put into it. So thanks again.

Appreciate you having me on. You've heard me talk about the line four-part documentary on a Navy SEAL charged with war crimes. It's on Apple, on the streaming device, and I'm serious. It's one of my favorite things that I've watched

in the last couple of years. I'm surprised it's not more popular, so let's make it more popular. Director, producer of this fantastic, fantastic documentary, Doug Schultz joins us. So let's start, let's timeline this out and give some backstory and kind of where we're at with it.

Eddie Gallagher is the head of SEAL Team 7. This is a platoon that's going over to Missoula to basically liberate it from ISIS. We have footage of all of this stuff. It's incredible, Doc. And clean up maybe anything that I have because I think he wasn't actually the head of SEAL Team 7 platoon. There was somebody above him. But tell us the backstory of these guys going over there.

Sure. Eddie is the chief of Alpha Platoon, which is one of the platoons in SEAL Team 7. And they deployed to Mosul in late February of 2017. And he had already had, I think, eight deployments, seven or eight deployments, several combat deployments. And so the guys going in to Alpha Platoon were very excited. Eddie had an incredible reputation. They knew he was really aggressive. And, you know, if you're a Navy SEAL, you've been training your entire time for a big event.

And at that time, Mosul was the place to go. And at that time, Mosul was the place to go. You know, it was ISIS's last stand. And the mission was to go and help support the Iraqi ERD, which is basically Iraq Special Forces, in clearing Mosul out of, in clearing ISIS out of Mosul. And so that's what they deployed over there to do. And Eddie is, you know, he's on camera through this. He was a kid, maybe had some issues in high school, but he's a tough guy. He's not the biggest guy, but clearly the other younger SEAL team members were in awe of him.

He was one of their trainers, I believe, at Bud's. So there was a very clear understanding of who Eddie was at that time, and they were fired up to serve for him, correct? They really were. I mean, all of them say that. it up to serve for him, correct? They really were. I mean, all of them say that. And, you know, he, he came in, he may not be the biggest guy height wise, but he definitely was physically very imposing. I mean, he's incredibly fit. They all talk about how he was a fast runner. And those are the kinds of things that when you're a young SEAL going through buds, if you have this as your instructor, you know, you idolize this guy. So to land up in a platoon and deploy to Mosul with him as the chief, they couldn't have been more excited about it.

Right. They're like, this is the A assignment. We're the A team. We were the best platoon. Now we got Eddie, so let's go over there. They get there, and a bunch of stuff goes down. So let's start with kind of the first warning signs of maybe some resistance and some of the younger SEAL members not necessarily loving the way things are playing out.

Sure. I mean, first to understand, before they deploy, you go through what's called a workup. And that can be anywhere from six to 18 months of the team working together, training, practicing all the skills they're going to need on deployment. months of the team working together, training, you know, practicing all the skills they're going to need on deployment. So they'd already spent a good chunk of time together and had a very successful run at it. They, you know, were constantly at the top in terms of rankings. And so when they get to Mosul, almost immediately, it seems like something changed. And the guys talk about how Eddie was saying things like, you know, someone's going to get killed, this is going to be an awesome deployment. just things that felt a little bit off and that was sort of the

first thing that they um that they described you know feeling like something is a little bit off uh they described as a complete 180 when they landed on the ground and the actual deployment in the beginning and we see this footage of the guys being bored out of their minds and going this is bullshit the whole setup's fucked up um because it was a triple a assignment where it felt a little bit like well then a little bit it's very clear what happened that washington dc decides the way we're going to sell this is where aid assist and i forget what the third but it's we're not going to be on the front lines the iraqis are going to sell this is we're aid assist. And I forget what the third, but it's, we're not going to be on the front lines. The Iraqis are going to lead this. Then the Iraqis are looking at these

Navy SEALs being like, you guys are, I mean, the quote is you guys are pussies for not right up at the front lines with us. And so there's this massive confusion and frustration very early on, correct? Yeah, that's right. And initially it was actually a double A mission, which meant advise and assist, but they weren't allowed to accompany. And then it changed to the point where they could accompany the Iraqi troops up to a certain point, but they had to stay behind the forward line of troops. And then that's when they started, on occasion, turning off these things called blue force trackers, which allow our people to monitor where all of our guys are. They would turn them off so that they could cross the front line and

get closer to the action. And some of the guys were not against doing this. These guys were hard chargers. They wanted to get in there. They wanted to engage. And they felt frustrated that that wasn't happening. So when Eddie proposed that they do this or told them they were doing this, a lot of the guys were like, hell yeah, let's go. And then somebody gets shot. Yeah, so within a couple of months of getting there, the guys were, they say that Eddie was making them go to the same location repeatedly. So, you know,

they would go to a location and ISIS would find them and start shooting at them. And then Eddie would instruct them to go to the same spot the next day, even though the spot was burnt. And some of the guys felt like this was bad tactics, was putting them in danger. And they claimed that he was using them as bait, essentially, um, sending them out there to draw fire so they could see where ISIS was and then, uh, attack. Um, and you know, this is one of the things where, you know, Eddie doesn't, he doesn't consider using them as bait, but he says, this is a tactic. You know, you, it's like the old tactic where you put up a helmet on a stick and draw fire so you can see where the enemy is um the guys are saying that basically

they were a human version of that on when whenever they went to these locations so the turning off the trackers which as you said it was wasn't a complete mutiny against eddie gallagher leading this platoon um but then somebody ends up getting shot so in the footage we see a soldier who shot and then we hear a story from as the seal members members start to kind of turn on Eddie Gallagher being like hey he was screaming the guy that shot saying you weren't past this line all right so when you go back to get medical treatment make sure you tell them we weren't past this line which kind of starts to plant the seed of it feels like it's a rogue deal with Eddie Gallagher whether that's fair or not that's how it's at least portrayed. Yeah. You know, these guys are all, you know, he's their chief, so they've got to do what he says. But in that, on that occasion, you know,

their EOD guy, explosive ordinance guy got shot. They got him down off the roof. It's pretty harrowing footage to see, you know, they, I think they injected him with I can't remember what they, what they shot him up with, he he survived he's fine um and that's at the end of the day eddie's takeaway is you know he's fine he lives that war is going to happen people are going to get shot okay but people started to turn against him at that time because this is one of their guys there was another incident around the same time where one of the iraq interpreters got blown up um in a similar

situation but he wasn't you know the terps were part of the team essentially because they worked with them but i think in eddie's mind they were you know or and even in the team's mind you know he wasn't an american sailor he wasn't one of the seals so when one of their own gets shot and they think that it's because of negligence on Eddie's part, that's when people start to think maybe this is not a great situation. Okay. And then there's also other serious allegations. They're accusing him of using, I don't know what the drug was or what you can explain it. And that he was staying on the gun as a platoon leader.

Like it's a little weird for you to stay on the sniper post that long and then there's guys saying yeah i straight up saw him taking shots at at civilians um which is breaking the rules of engagement yeah there's a lot of a lot of talk about just strange behavior uh take popping pills um taking a lot of tramadol which is pa painkiller, uppers, downers. And then it's not usual for a chief to be on a sniper rifle. And that's where Eddie wanted to be, according to these guys, and he would be on the rifle all day. And not only that, but he would be shooting a lot more than they would.

You know, when you're a sniper, you aren't shooting all day. You don't use a lot of ammo because you're basically waiting hiding and waiting for your shot but a lot of these guys on the team were they described a situation where eddie is up there just shooting shooting all and they're not seeing anyone so they don't even know what he's shooting at um and so i also have to say that timeline in timeline, the guys got into the country in February, late February. This is 2017? Spring of 2017, yeah. And May 3rd, approximately May 3rd, is the day that the Iraqi forces brought that Iraqi detainee to them.

And three of the SEALs say that they saw Eddie stab this detainee under the guise of providing medical care. That was one of the first things that happened. Oh, okay. So that had happened before some of the sniper stuff. Okay. Yeah. And it's important to understand that because in the series,

because this alleged stabbing incident is the only incident where there's actual video footage from that day, it became the center of the trial. And because there were witnesses and there was some video. And so in the series, we kind of build to that. But actually, that was one of the first things that happened. And so they're you know these guys describe how eddie would you know brag about all these kills that he had inflating his kill count telling stories about getting into knife fights and things like that and they all kind of brushed it off as like you know these are all aggressive macho guys we all tell stories whatever and then this incident happens and they're all then that's when they all kind of went oh i wonder if maybe these other stories

he's been telling are actually true. So that's the kind of atmosphere these guys were living under from that point forward. All right. So the ISIS prisoner incident, which is what the entire series essentially is about, happened prior to some of these other allegations. So I have my time. So let's now focus then on this prisoner, because this is kind of the break. And now we understand where the story is going. So the Iraqi soldiers you mentioned have an Isis prisoner that survives this bombing and everybody's like hey they're bringing this guy back here um yeah and you edit this brilliantly because you have seal members being like oh man here we go like and it's basically a junior high kid who's

completely emaciated he's he's already almost toast anyway um but he's alive and you can see with some of the seal members their whole mood changes of like oh like it's still isis but this is not the poster right this is not what i expected um and at that point we actually have footage uh you have footage we get to see it of the seal team standing around him this kid's just on the ground the uh you know everywhere and then you can see eddie be like i've got him i'm gonna take him i'm gonna handle this and the video we at least see like there's something wrong with his leg and eddie grabs his leg and the kid makes this noise and it's very clear this is not like where the medical attention is a priority but

then we're left to kind of go okay what actually happened so it pick fill in wherever i make a mistake but we get back to san diego and now the seal team is you know downtime the deployment's over this isis prisoner is dead and now they start talking about what potentially may or may not have happened. Correct? Yeah. Well, they start talking about it a lot earlier than that. But yes, the Iraqi forces, for some reason, which we still don't really understand, they brought this prisoner, this Iraqi ISIS fighter that they found after this airstrike to the SEAL team.

And as you said, Eddie said he was going to provide medical care for this guy. Eddie was a medic, but this isn't something that he regularly did. There were other medics on the platoon who generally handled this. And so the kid came in with gunshot wound to the leg. He also may or may not have had blast lung, which is a condition if you've been in an airstrike. And he seemed weak, but yes, he was alive. And as you said, all the guys, you know,

they're operating from a distance behind the front line or they're looking through sniper rifles. They're never up close to ISIS fighters. And so they were excited to see one of these bad grizzly guys up close. And then as Dylan describes in the series, they get there and this kid is scrawny. It looks like he's in middle school. I believe

he was about 17 and was not what they were expecting. And I think they all kind of felt a little bit, um, weirded out by that. But then what they described happens afterward is, uh, yeah,

that Eddie stabbed the kid at least once. Um, and in the neck and in the side, um, and most of the guys didn't see what happened and so when they come back down they see this guy is dead there's medical detritus everywhere there have been a bunch of procedures done on him whether they were necessary or not um and then later in the evening everybody kind of is talking and and describing describing what they saw. And, uh,

and then according to one of the guys had even admitted that he had looked this fighter in the eye and stabbed him. So it's a little murky what happened and who admitted to what that day. But at the end of the day, there are three guys who say that they were witnesses to the stabbing. So this happens, then they come home. So, you know, I jumped ahead there. They're back in San Diego, which is where almost all these guys were because of, you know, operations down there.

And they start talking about it, being like, hey, you know, what the fuck happened over there? And then it's in the community, it starts making the rounds. There also exists a picture of Eddie Gallagher standing over the dead ISIS prisoner, essentially

holding his head up with the entire SEAL team behind him. And then he actually did his re-enlistment over the dead body, correct? Yeah, that's right. Guys were like, hey, do you want to re-enlist? He's like, yeah, absolutely. I want to give my life to this job. And here's another five

years, I believe. And it's clear the younger guys, the other guys on the SElist? He's like, absolutely. I want to give my life to this job. And you know, here's another five years, I believe. Um, and it's clear the younger guys, the other guys on the SEAL team are all like, what happened over in Mosul with the prisoner is fucked. There's a bunch of stuff that's fucked, but this is fucked. And it becomes,

this leads to the investigation, right? Like very quickly, NCIS and people are on this, although it's a military investigation, which makes it a little bit different, but we have footage. You provide footage for all of this. So

then what happens? So I also just have to say that after that stabbing was when these guys, a couple of guys, say that they witnessed Eddie shooting civilians because that's really what motivated them to want to come forward. They all

understood that what happened with this Iraqi detainee was a war crime, most likely, in their minds. But it was the shooting of civilians that really upset them the most. And there are two main incidents that end up in the trial. One, an old man that Dylan DeLay reported seeing Eddie shoot and one was a little girl that Josh Brens claims that he saw Eddie shoot saw her get shot

while Eddie was on the gun and then later someone else confirmed that Eddie had shot her. So those are the two big charges other than the stabbing of this ISIS prisoner. So anyway, yes, on the way home before they even get home, they have a decompression stop in Germany on the way back.

And they're already, we've got all their text messages between each other. And they're already talking about what they're going to do. Because the environment on that deployment by the end of that summer was so toxic that even Eddie wanted to get out of there. He actually left a little bit

early for family reasons. But the guys were already talking about what they were going to do, how they were going to report this. And immediately within a week of getting home, the word was already circulating around the SEAL community in San Diego that something was up. Okay, so they're back. Higher-ups.

We can get a bunch of different timelines here. Who was told what? You can clearly tell there's some covering your own ass stuff here. Younger guys are like, look, we did try to report this. Nobody wanted to listen to us. There was real conflict with who was in charge of the platoon because the guy that was in charge of the platoon was actually trained by

Eddie. Eddie is back. He's being questioned by NCIS. And you really paid attention. Yeah, well, you know, and then he's being questioned by NCIS. And you really paid attention. Yeah. Well, you know, and then he's being, Eddie's being questioned by NCIS, NCIS. And I could tell like just how dismissive where they're like, hey, are you, do you know why you're here? And he's like, for murder? Like, they're like, yeah. But he's in his mindset, which I do actually understand.

He's like, he's thinking ISIS is the enemy. I killed a guy from ISIS. Yeah. Okay, fine. Like fucking investigate me, whatever. But at that moment, they raid the house. And then that leads to take us through the timeline of raiding the house finding evidence finding the picture of eddie over the dead prisoner and then bragging about getting him with his knife which then

becomes another part of this to them him actually being charged and arrested yeah so they they raid eddie's house they raid his uh his cage cage at the high bay in Coronado. And essentially, aside from other things they find, they find the knife and they find pictures on his cell phone that he had sent to one of his buddies that have him holding the dead ISIS fighter's head and a knife. And he wrote something like,

good story behind this one, got him with my hunting knife and then sent it to another buddy and said, you know, got my good story or cool story with this, I got my knife skills on. And so essentially, NCIS took that as an admission of guilt. But it took them another couple of months before they built up the case. And then he was arrested on September 11th of 2018 and put into the brig at Miramar. And this is where the story takes another level because this, I thought, was an absolute lesson in storytelling in getting your part of this out there.

His wife, Andrea, who had done some online consulting, brand stuff, marketing, and she says, I've never been on TV before. She crushes it. She was made to be on television. Definitely. I mean, there's no one on the team. I mean, no one that, uh, you know, saw that and, and did not think that, you know, if

you're in trouble, you want someone like Andrea on your side because, you know, it's really just a case study and how to fight for the person you love for sure right and i remember at that time doug of like you know the wherever my world is on a day-to-day basis of like consuming news and i don't watch a lot of the news i honestly think it's a huge waste of time but i i remember being like oh wait this awesome seal and these stupid millennial seals didn't like them. And if you're a certain age, you may go, oh, this is bullshit. And that's what was being

now after being far more educated, which is my problem with almost every public story. It's like I wonder what's really going on. But the way this was being sold, it was Fox News. It was then Trump gets involved, Sean Gallagher, his brother, who had some really great political instincts with his background, is that it was being framed as simple as a bunch of younger SEALs that were millennials didn't like their leader for being mean. And now this guy's in jail and free Eddie, free America.

And it was an absolute lesson in the power of storytelling. I agree. It was just a master class in branding. They were able to brand Eddie as a hero and brand the rest of the platoon as pussies or cowards, which was repeated often on Fox News. Then they used their political connections as well. And so between Andrea and Sean, you know, Eddie really had an incredible team on the outside. And on top of that, the Navy's policy is not to comment on anything. And the accusers from the

platoon were under a gag order. So there was no counter narrative to what the Gallaghers were putting out. Um, and you know, because of the political environment and Fox news, you know, they, Fox news just picked it up and ran with it. And the Gallaghers ended up with a direct line to the president basically. Right. They were like, go on Fox and friends. Cause you know, the president and the president starts tweeting about it. And the president starts calling Richard Spencer, the Navy secretary and Spencer comes off in this, he comes off really well. And that in itself, I mean, Spencer,

a little bit later on, we'll get to it, but I mean, he ends up losing his job over the deal. But the access to him, and what were your impressions when you sat down with him? Because I thought he was incredibly impressive in this setting. Yeah. I mean, Richard Spencer is an incredibly articulate and thoughtful guy. And he had a, he was very illuminating just to talk to him in terms of why this is important, you know, why and why did he, it was not easy to get anyone from the Navy to comment on this, because I think they all wanted this to just go away. And clearly,

it's not going away. So to have the opportunity to talk to Richard Spencer and get his thoughts on it, you know, he, he is angry about it. He, he believes in the Navy believes in the mission of the military. And he thinks that this is a huge stain on the military, but also threatens America's moral authority in the world on the battleground. You know, if you if the if the president is allowed to intervene on a whim, which was pretty unprecedented the way that this played out, then it just undermines the authority of the military. And he had a lot of things to say about why that's dangerous. So Team Gallagher essentially has the president on their side. The president's telling the Naval Secretary that he's doing it wrong.

And Richard Spencer's telling the president at the time, like, I don't think you quite understand what it is. We're investigating it. He's now being held. We have very serious evidence against him. And yet all the public narration of the story is that Gallagher is just being completely screwed over. His defense team is incredible.

We can get to that. I think we should throw in the Brian Ferguson element of him representing other SEALs. And then maybe most importantly, how screwed up this got. Because I want to pause before we get to the Corey Scott element, who is another member on the SEAL team that will play a very important part in this story. But however you can summarize the amazing legal part of this, but then also how poorly it was handled on the prosecution side and what that led to prior to the trial happening. Yeah, well, at the beginning, the Gallaghers did not have great lawyers. And then strangely,

the former police commissioner of New York, Bernie Kerik, got involved. And he spoke with Mark McKeezy, who's one of Trump's lawyers, who became involved. And another guy named Tim Parlatore, who I think made his name representing members of the mafia. And so this was kind of an oddball, but powerhouse collection of attorneys. And they just went on full offensive, basically. And on the Navy side, there's the head prosecutor's name is Chris Chaplack. A major mistake that the Navy made among several was that they embedded a tracking device into an email because there were leaks of evidence that were showing up in the news. And they wanted to know where these leaks were coming from and how were they getting

from the NCIS to the defense or to the newspaper. So they embedded this little tracking device in an email that went to the defense or to the newspaper. So they embedded this little tracking device in an email that went to the lawyers. I think it went to Mukasey, Parletori. It also went to the Navy Times. They were trying to figure out how the Navy Times was getting these files. And of course it was discovered and blew up and the Gallagher team accused the Navy of spying the Gallagher team accused the Navy of spying on them. And as a result of that, the Navy had to let Gallagher out. And Chris Chaplak, the head prosecutor, the most experienced prosecutor, was removed from the case about two weeks before the trial to start. So it was going to be hard to recover from that, for sure.

it was going to be hard to recover from that for sure. The defense is incredibly, Mukasey's impressive, Palatore's very impressive. And then you have this figure, this figure in the shadows, Brian Ferguson, who's basically going to all the SEAL members, kind of scaring them, right? Into them letting him represent them uh everybody in the documentary comes off as like completely confused as to who ferguson really is and what the motives are but is it fair to say that ferguson essentially was trying to get as many of the seal team members like on his side of it so that they could work essentially for the defense so even if there were seal team members that were anti eddie gallagher that he would be able to manipulate

them manipulate their stories or have access to maybe some angle that they could play uh to benefit gallagher is because that's kind of how it's led to believe right yeah i mean i can't tell you what his motivation is because i think that's just one of the central mysteries that nobody really understands. But, you know, Brian Ferguson is a, I believe in the Air Force Reserves. And, but essentially as a civilian attorney who represents these guys pro bono for free, just came in, in May of 2018, I believe believe as soon as these guys started giving uh uh interviews to ncis and started calling them all up and yeah as you said scaring them to death saying that you're going to be culpable for murder there are other things that happen on this deployment and you know i'm sure a lot of these guys have things that happen on deployment they didn't want

coming to light um and basically saying they're all going to get go to jail eddie's going to get off get a movie deal and a book deal and you're going to be in prison for the rest of your life and so it worked with a lot of them and i think he ended up representing about 14 of the seals from the from the platoon including some witnesses to the stabbing i'm going to give the audience a chance here to break because this is the all-time spoiler alert there's probably like really two spoiler alerts that we could possibly have here um i hope you like what we've done to this point i would suggest watching it if you have access to apple and watching this documentary but then we're going to pick it up here as we finish. Okay. So we know that

the prosecution, despite it being switched out two weeks before the trial starts and then being completely undermanned against the defense team's talents, we have the picture and text of Eddie over the dead ISIS soldier's body, texting his friends, got this one with my knife, essentially, because he says two different things, as you said. You have multiple members of that SEAL team serving under Eddie, accusing him of shooting civilians, shooting an old man, shooting a girl, all these things. But in their cross-examination of Palatori, he's basically tearing them apart. He's just doing a great job. And even though you have this testimony, they still feel like there's some gray area, like how is this going to go?

And that's where the Corey Scott part of this still doesn't make sense to guys that served with him, that sat in that courtroom. Corey Scott, who's actually there, was there when the ISIS prisoner was killed. He tells Eddie Gallagher, don't worry, I got you, but he's testifying against him. So nobody quite understands what the hell is going on. And then what happens to Corey Scott? Well, on the stand, Corey's asked,

he's asked what he saw on the day of the stabbing. And he again repeats that he saw that he stabbed this prisoner. But then he adds a new piece of information, which is that he himself covered up the isis fighters breeding tube and suffocated him to death so all of a sudden there's a new uh element in the death of this prisoner and it sort of takes the heat off of eddie you wouldn't think that it would because you know he still said that eddie stabbed the prisoner but it just threw everyone for such a loop Phil said that Eddie stabbed the prisoner, but it just threw everyone for such a loop that after that, the prosecution was afraid to call other witnesses that were represented by Brian Ferguson, as Corey Scott was. Including Ivan Villanueva, who was another witness to the stabbing.

He was never called to the stand because they were, after that Corey Scott debacle, they were afraid of what Ivan might say that would even further throw off the case. Right, and Dylan and Josh, who are camera-facing in this doc, who are very anti-Eddie, who were part of the charge behind this, they say, like, Corey was on our side in the beginning. And then I think we find out later on that Corey just had guilt about Eddie having a family and potentially going to jail for the rest of his life.

And since he had immunity through the Brian Ferguson deal, which Ferguson pulled off, that then he knew that he could basically say he asphyxiated the prisoner, which then doesn't put the murder on Eddie, but is Corey admitting to it, but Corey's going to have immunity and get off. And so, I mean, look, the documentary basically tells us this, but it's not in some. This is exactly what happened.

But line by line, that's basically what happened, right? Yeah. I mean, you can see it. You see it in the series in the initial interview that NCIS did with Corey Scott. He's very convicted. You know, he describes Eddie as, you know, someone who just wants to kill anything that moves. And he really he was sort of the ringleader in pushing forward for this investigation.

And then suddenly when he's on the stand, he has a very flat affect. They go through the questions and, you know, parliamentary presents this as a spontaneous admission on the stand. But I think if you listen, it's very clearly rehearsed.

And what kind of coordination between the defense and between Brian Ferguson happened and where is the line of legality there that's sort of the unanswered question so Eddie is not guilty

the SEAL team guys that came after him are left in disbelief. One of the guys, I think Josh, talks about talking with Corey. And as I said, Corey just felt guilty about Eddie going to jail. And then you're dealing with what I think so many of us that have a hard time. Some people have been listening to this and be like, hey, rules of engagement are rules of engagement. War crimes are war crimes. Geneva Convention, all these different things. Or maybe, you know, again, I've never served.

I don't understand it. But I think I can at least allow myself to go, yeah, but when you're over there and you see this shit happening, you start to kind of play a little loose with whatever the morals are supposed to be. And that's, I think, what continues to be a struggle for everybody that was involved with this. And then in the last 20 minutes of the series, you have Eddie Gallagher a couple of years removed.

And are you interviewing him at this point? Yeah, that was about when was that? Spring of last year, 2021. And what does Eddie tell you about what happened? His story kind of changed a bit. He basically said that their intention was to kill this prisoner by doing medical experiments on him, so using him as kind of a human guinea pig.

And he says that other members of the platoon participated in this, that he would let one guy do a chest tube and let someone else do another one because they wanted practice and that they were just going to practice on this guy until he died. There was no... They weren't trying to save his life. You ask him. You say, quote,

was your intention to kill the guy? And he says, yeah, pretty much. Yes, that's right. And, you know, I believed that that itself is a violation of the third Geneva convention, which lays out rules for treatment of prisoners. And,

but I, and I have to say, I think in, in Eddie's mind, he didn't see this as a prisoner. I think in his mind, this was still a combatant, you know and

that's that's where from his perspective as you said you can imagine uh the way he views this this guy was just shooting at us from within a building and now he's here but that's the way war works that's why we have the geneva conventions and that's why there have to be these lines and accountability yeah because i completely understand eddie's mindset i i could you i can yes i mean in one sense i can i can put myself in that mindset i understand sort of the desire to just go out there and kill them all. But, you know, that's not how we operate. And as a country, that can't be how we operate. And I also say, you know, from the beginning, I think we all thought that this was going to be

a story of like the fog of war or too many deployments, you know, cloud your judgment, or you can't tell who's good and bad and the line gets blurry. But according to all of the guys who reported up, the line was never blurry for them. And they knew that this was wrong. They knew when, you know, in the case of the alleged civilian shootings, it wasn't like things were happening so fast

that there wasn't time to decide if this was a civilian or a combatant. These are snipers, they're just up in a hide, you've got all the time in the world. So this wasn't that kind of a situation. And what we were expecting to be maybe a PTSD kind of story turned out to not be the case. Eddie does not seem to think that he was affected by PTSD. And he also, I don't think, has any regrets about the death of this prisoner. He seems, I mean, I think he wants to be proud of it, basically. And there are a contingent of people who follow him who feel the same way

so i think that is one of the things that the story really exposed this divide and between these two schools of thought in this country about how how we should fight war and how we should fight with an enemy like isis that does not abide by the rules of warfare yeah i mean that's that's really what it was because you're right i mean when you watch eddie throughout this entire thing obviously it's a little bit of a pivot from him denying it for three episodes to the last 20 minutes going yeah whatever he's like pretty much was going to kill him um and there's no remorse there's there's none whatsoever and i i can't pretend to know what that feeling is like like when you're actually facing it and when you're out there.

But I would wonder, like, Gio's an incredible character in this story who's not a SEAL. He's a Marine, but he's like a tech, correct? And he's with the SEAL team, which causes its own, you know, kind of hornet's nest of egos. Because every time Gio, Gio is so good on camera. I don't know if he had a writer. I mean, some of his lines were delivered perfectly. And then the whole time I'm watching him, I'm like, would I like him or would I not be able to stand this guy? I can't figure it out.

And then he even mentioned the time where he and Eddie get into it. And then Eddie's like, I had to kick his ass out back. And then Gio tells a story. He goes, I took the correction. And so I'm like, wait, did Eddie beat up Gio? And I don't know who to believe in that one. But Gio, who didn't even like Eddie, who may have gotten into a fight with him, goes to visit him while he's in prison, essentially, and says, this is bullshit.

We are at war. What's happening? He was wrong. And then still is kind of saying that some of the stuff didn't happen. I mean, the Gio part of this, I thought, was a really interesting. So add to that whatever you can, because he's about as much fun to watch in this as anyone. Yeah, no, I mean, I agree. Geo is a really entertaining storyteller for sure.

And it's not exactly clear where that turn happened, but he was. Yeah. As you said, he's a Marine. He came from signals intelligence. So his job was targeting um information basically and he was really tight with these guys they were all good friends even when they came back from deployment they were hanging out together having birthday parties together and then at some point according to geo he did not he says that he had not heard

about these civilian shootings um didn't know anything about a stabbing accusation everyone else in the platoon says it's impossible that he wouldn't have known that because they all lived in a tiny space and they were all talking about it all the time but be it as it may he all of a sudden geo felt like these guys were conspiring um against eddie and he went to visit him and then went repeatedly and then became friends and actually tried to help him out with his defense. He also testified that when he, he, he was the first one to take a photo with the body of this ISIS fighter. And he testified that when he lifted up this fighter, there was a bandage on his neck that no one has cops putting there,

but clearly it was in a place where these other guys say that eddie had stabbed him and he says that the bandage flopped off and that there was no hole so he was testifying to support eddie the other guys say it's impossible for that bandage to come off like that because it's basically like mousetrap glue um you know it's a to put on a wet wound um but anyway that's just one of the ways that geo has tried to help eddie out and um and as for the fallout between geo and the rest of the guys you know i'm not exactly sure what happened there but at some point geo had to change part um and landed on on the side of Eddie. Where are we now with the story?

Because I was going to ask, I was actually going to ask, does anyone look at the end of this that was totally in defense of Eddie and go, wait, he just admitted all this? But I already know what the answer is. None of the people that were on Team Eddie are going to change their minds. They were going to change their minds before,

and the people that were against him are never going to see it, anything other than a violation of warrant crime. So for me to say now that they saw episode four, did anyone reach out to you and change? I already know the answer. None of these guys are going to change their mind. Where's the story now then? I think that's it. You know that now a little time has passed since the trial. And so some of these guys have gotten out of the service. They've moved across the country or to different parts of the country

because, you know, they took so much heat for coming forward. They were, even after the trial, you know, the Gallagher's continued to post their faces online, on social media, and basically just encouraged other members of the steel community who were on pro gallagher to uh go after them and so they they definitely um went through a period of feeling like what was the point of all of this you know putting our our careers and families in jeopardy to come forward if nothing was going to happen. But now I think they seem to still be glad they did it.

Now they're no longer under a gag order. So they had this opportunity to tell their side of the story, which I think is the first time that their narrative is really being heard. And they all seem to feel like it's very important for young SEALs to hear their side of the story because, you know, they believe in the Navy, they believe in the mission of the SEAL teams, and they just don't want young SEALs to be idolizing someone like Eddie Gallagher, who doesn't want to play by the rules or the rules of warfare. And so they think it's important that what they did was important for

themselves and for the future of the SEAL teams. Yeah. I mean, that's some of the stuff that I think civilians, we don't understand where Richard Spencer now no longer the Naval Secretary, him talking about, you know, the way a SEAL should see themselves, the way somebody in special forces should see themselves and what the standard is. And it can sound a little hokey maybe to us on the outside, but we, most of us have never made that kind of commitment. We don't even care how you feel about it.

Like it's a serious commitment. It's, uh, it's a different way of life. It's a different kind of, um, standard that you hold yourself to, which I think in a way can be very admirable. And people take that very seriously. And I think that was kind of Spencer's point about this entire story, which I think came through perfectly every time he was on camera. Yeah, I agree.

And, you know, he also talks a little bit about the, actually, no, it's not Spencer, it's Paul Soldra, just about the chilling effect on future whistleblowers, you know, when there's misconduct on other deployments or, you know, it continues to happen. Back in the fall, there was, I think, a military journalist who exposed a drone strike on civilians in Syria. You know, if people are afraid to come forward

because they see what happened to these guys and that there was no end result, there was no, in their eyes, no justice brought, then why is another younger SEAL gonna, or soldier, um, gonna step forward and call out wrongdoing when they see it? If, you know, they're, if they're risking going through the same thing, these guys went through for, for no, no net positive in the end. So I think that's one of the big effects of the story in general, um, is just seals are going to be looking at this, uh, like what's going to happen to me if I step forward and call out my chief or call out my, you know,

my teammate for something that I think is wrong. It's something people are going to have to grapple with. Yeah. And as those guys are dressed throughout, like you don't do this, especially in the SEAL team, you don't actually do this, which is why they had a hard time with it, but they felt like they had to. And yet we're kind of left, you know, I don't think it's a matter of what happened. It's just a matter of how you

define what happened that's that's really what we're left with yeah you're right they still don't do this they don't report things they don't report on their own and uh they also don't go on tv and talk about what they do so this whole project was just a really unusual and exciting experience as a filmmaker and i think as a viewer to to be able to see this footage go on deployment with these guys and then experience what it means to form these bonds and then have them come apart in a situation like this. No, it's unbelievable because the story stands alone on its own. The story, even without the twist, I was entertained. And then you have SEALs you about the stuff, and then we have so much footage from it. So

the edits, the outlining of it, the interviews, the instincts of the questions, this is really, really big-time stuff, Doug. So thanks for sharing this project with all of us. Thanks so much. Really appreciate that. The line on Apple.

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We had a lot of follow-up to the basketball player who lied. Oh, my God. Kyle's got the John Lennon shades going today. Are you wearing a leather jacket? No, it's a flannel. Okay. No, there's no problem. It's a good look Kyle actually. I kind of like it.

Thank you. Okay. All right. We had a lot of follow-up. Definitely lean okay all right uh we had a lot of follow-up a lot of follow-up it definitely leaned towards the you have to tell you have to tell the sister um people were even more aggressive about their advice than our advice on that one um one thing i have noticed that we get every now and then is when somebody tells us, oh, the point you missed. You're like, yeah.

Most of the time, I think we get it covered. And there's a lot of times, too, it'll be like the point you missed. It's like, actually, we did say that. We did say that. Wait, what is the suggestion that we missed? Don't give it any light. Don't give it any light. No, no, no, no. I'm not even going to. Because it was a point you missed that Kyle, I think,

forwarded me out of annoyance. Because we definitely made the point we definitely made the point and it's kind of like the book stuff like hey what was that book you you mean the one i mentioned on the pot you just hit rewind button on that one yeah that was the book we that was the book we met yeah instead of getting into my dm so i could then just listen back, guy. I got timestamps in there. Or just follow Rosillo Book Club on Twitter. Totally follow Rosillo Book Club on Twitter. Rosillo Book Club on Twitter,

which I have nothing to do with. Those guys put in the work. People were asking, by the way, if you've seen, I had a couple people in my DMs, whether or not you've seen the memes account, the Rosillo memes account. I'm like, yeah, I've seen it on Twitter. I had a guy, because there's an Instagram account too. I don't know if you've seen, I had a couple people in my DMS. Why don't you see in the memes account? There's still a memes account. I'm like, yeah, you've seen it on Twitter.

I had a guy cause there's a, there's an Instagram account too. I don't know if you've seen that one, but yes, you have seen the, the Rosilla memes, Twitter account. Wow.

The Rosilla has exploded. Thanks to everyone. Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a mess. No, I read,

I retweeted it because of, um, the, the Saruti thing, liking feminine 170-pound guys. We just found out about a new guy. Also the Nancy Kerrigan Kyle one. Yeah, the Nancy Kerrigan.

Great job by you. Right, right. The Rosillo meme account was funny. It's a slow build. There's not a ton, but I like it. It's very grassroots. I like that about this podcast. We don't go out seeking

could we just the people talk there you go all right next stop tank tops let's go okay all right here we go this guy is admitting that he does lie so we're going to train we're not going to read everybody's follow-ups we appreciate all the follow-ups is always the interest and most of you guys nailed it some of you guys are like really aggressive about it like you go right back and walk in the house and tell your sister this guy's a liar i think there's some more delicate way to handle that okay here we go 58 195 getting a little chubby i'll work on it latest episode made me think of my younger days and now i need advice on how to handle the lie i molded as a young kid first let me say i might have fudged things but

i'm not out stealing some guy's name okay the main heart of the story is there are people in my life who legit believe I was an All-State football player in high school because, well, I've offhanded said I'm an All-State athlete and they know I played football. Well, yeah. So they think you're an All-State football player because you fucking told them that you were. It's like a rumor flying around. Yeah. Telling people this. Yeah. Honestly, I didn't love the start of this email because he's like, well, it's not like I stole somebody's name, but here's kind of where we're at.

A lot of people think I'm all state football player. And they may have thought that because I have mentioned that I was an all state athlete and I played football. Like, oh, well, I think we solved the case. I was pretty good at football at a small school, but was really, if not ever the best player in the field. if not ever the best player in the field. The truth is I was only ever all district and my all state honors was to get this middle school track. Yeah, it isn't even a real thing, but we went down to a statewide tournament

and ran a relay and got the medal. So it said all state. So I said, fuck it, good enough for me. All right. relay and got the metal so it said all state so i said fuck it good enough for me all right i too have uh an all whatever uh relay track metal when i was 13 the last time i mentioned it as i was 13 so that you wrote this in the email is also concerning too that hey the actually the only thing i was all state in was a was a relay when we were junior high. Middle school, right.

I have in the last couple years stopped outright saying I was an all-state athlete. That's good. When people ask about football, I often give a story about some certain player, just list some stats. It doesn't come up often. Really, who cares? My problem is every few months, somebody new comes along. One or two people will be like, oh, yeah, so-and-so was,

I'm leaving out the name here, was Allstate in high school. And now I'm like, yeah, well, you know, small school, no biggie, and just move it along. The nice part is if I'm out playing flag football, doing pickup hoops, you know, I hold my own and at least give the illusion of somebody who could have been a previous athlete.

But do I go back and tell these people, hey, I was lying? Do I just keep brushing it off and eventually stop being brought up as I get older? All right. Well, look, you wrote the email, you're calling yourself out, so you deserve credit for that. I would not actually be like, hey, everybody, I need to tell you something. I'm not an all-state football player. I would downplay it every time, kind of like you're saying here. I would downplay it every time, kind of like you're saying here. I don't think this is that hard.

You need to phase it out in your own way. And as people get older, I really doubt they're going to be introducing you as a former All-State football player. Yeah, I think this is a nice... You got it out there. You told people anonymously. Maybe that's a nice it's you got it you got it out there you told people anonymously maybe that's a that's a nice way to outlet that and just keep it going until you know never ever bring it up and always downplay it and yeah it's simple and you you can just feel gross by yourself and nobody will know except for us three yeah and you haven't gotten caught up in a massive lie

like the last weeks or last episodes email or did. So, I mean, it's not worthy of like a Facebook post or an Instagram post being like, hey, guys, actually, I'm not I'm not an all state athlete. Just, you know, people are going to stop talking about it. You stop talking about it. Just don't bring it up. Yeah. Don't bring it up. Like, that's your punishment. You have to actually start saying, you know what?

I wasn't really that good. Yeah. Nobody's going to walk into a room and be like, hey, that's that off. That's that former all state athlete. Like, no one. No one cares. No one's going to talk about that. Yeah. I mean, you guys what, I wasn't really that good. Yeah, nobody's going to walk into a room and be like, hey, that's that former All-State athlete. No one cares. No one's going to talk about that. Yeah, I mean, you guys must be pretty young, right? I mean, did we go back? For him to just recently stop talking about it,

I mean, you got to be fresh out of college, if not still in it, right? Yeah, these guys have to be pretty young. Yeah, you're right, Cerruti. Trust us on this one. As you get older, you're like, hey, us on this one as you get older no one cares is all state coming tonight uh you know the only check tape the only thing did you make high school uh all-star team saruti for football no i actually broke my ankle my senior year um you were pretty

good though weren't you i was like a quick slot receiver type guy. But I was, yeah, I don't know. I wasn't going to make Allstate by any means. Okay. No, I thought I just remember a couple of people because you were from the area around Bristol. Like, he's a pretty good athlete. I would add this as a potential other scenario. Is there any chance the other people all know that he's lying and their punishment on him is never addressing it but making sure they always bring it up to introduce it then to see how he reacts that'd

be great i do think that that's that is a possibility that he needs to think about keep your eyes open dude see if there's any chuckles it wasn't like he played at bama or something like hey meet our buddy so wait he was an all-state athlete that didn't actually play in college probably is what he's is what his story is right yeah but that's that's totally plausible Hey, meet our buddy. So wait, he was an all-state athlete that didn't actually play in college? Probably is what his story is, right? Yeah, but that's totally plausible. I mean, if you're a small... Concentrated academics, yeah. Well, on top of that, what division are we talking in some of these states?

They can be all-state at a bad division and still not even play... Section C or something, yeah. Yeah, right. So, okay. Here's one. Becoming Russillo. C or something. Yeah. Right. Right. So, okay. Um, here's one becoming Rosillo 62 to 70. Just get a Y membership. I may be becoming Ryan Rosillo. I used to love going out in college and a couple of years after that,

I'm in the rare situation where I'm still in my college town, did it and still have most of my core group of friends here as well. On top of that, become good friends with two dudes that I've worked with that also like to tie one on not bad for post-college social life right yeah man here's the thing since covid uh i found i have detested the bars lately i've opted for setting up multiple tvs in my living room and watching games all day instead of hanging out with my buddies i'll straight up lie to them saying I'm busy when in reality I have nothing going on. This is starting to get close to home.

If you told me I turned into this three years ago, I would have freaked out. However, I haven't regretted not socializing. I do a morning news radio show and call high school football and basketball games and just dead by the end of the week.

So you're doing morning news every day. No wonder you don't want to go out. It's so hard. It's so hard. I did it for three months where I got up and did morning radio. I was like, man, I'd love to maybe never have to do this again. It is tough. It is a

lifestyle and it's a commitment and it sucks. Also, my fiance is the shy type whose college friends moved away so we don't have a couple social circle. My question is this. Should this be a red flag? Should I put the urge aside of watching games on a free Friday or Saturday because it's ultimately more important that I have fun with my friends instead of seeing if my Alabama, Texas A&M basketball bet hits? I'm also thinking of getting out of radio. We get a

lot here. Would I have the desire to socialize if i'm not getting up at four in the morning five days per week all right so rudy i love your advice on how to make friends it's a couple the kyle workout partner situation dark dark horse top media personality story of 2022 okay all right uh look part of it is you're getting up every day because like i said i did it and then when i would try to go out on a Friday, it was like fumes. All you want to do is go back to bed. I would say that if you're in your 20s here,

which it sounds like you are, and you still have the option. I mean, some people just get over it at a very young age. Some people just go, you know what? I don't want to go out. I want to go to bed early. I want to feel good in the morning. And that's not really anyone's... I mean, honestly, it's the better thing to do. I mean,

who are we kidding? But it sounds like your friends like you and you like your friends. So just be very wary of the full hermit mode. All right. Because once you start going down that road and you're never returning the calls, and then you're always the guy that never wants to hang out, those calls are going to stop. gonna stop so i think you know friendships are a lot like anything else you have to invest a little bit of time in them and i would i will tell you i just straight up regret not being more forceful about friendships with guys that i'm still very close with and keep in contact with but hey do you want to do this do you want to do this you want to do this i turned it all down forever i turned it all down because i was like no games on nope got to work and i had a

justification because they're like dude the guy watches a million fucking games this is what he does is how he does the job probably shouldn't have done it this way whatever but the calls stop happening so um you're asking about getting out of radio on top of everything else i don't that's that's a separate fucking email altogether i don't know your job i don't know your goals i don't know how much money you're making it sounds like you have the support of your fiance when you have one of these morning things when i did mornings for like three months i was like i might as well just get married i guess because if i'm gonna do this for multiple years i might as well get married and i want to have somebody else here to make sure i

wake up on the random day that i might not like i'll just miss miss the alarm like you know mike and mike for 20 years having to make sure the alarm never goes wrong like sruti how long did you work on that show a year and uh did you go out on fridays i tried but i was definitely you know because i would what i would do is i would break up the sleep into two parts which i've actually now read is like maybe what you should do i don't know we've digressed i did that and i i mean it's every day was miserable. So I would sleep. I would sleep because I like to watch games. And so I sleep. I go to bed at like, you know, 11 or midnight and I'd wake up at like three, three thirty,

you know, shower, get in for like four fifteen. And then I'd come home at like one p.m. And I take a nap from like one thirty to five, wake up for dinner. Sometimes it would be in six and then, you know, games to be on again. So but the problem is like I never had any like free time. I never had a life. All I was then, you know, games to be on again. But the problem is like I never had any like free time. I never had a life. All I was doing was watching games,

sleeping and working on life and life. So that was a year I was absolutely miserable. I was also vitamin D deficient because I never saw the sun because it was the most, you know, winters here in Connecticut. Serious, serious Twilight vibes.

Yeah, that's actually kind of when I got that nickname, which was a bummer. So I really was. So I would say it definitely has to do with the schedule. Like I didn't want to go out and it was it sucked because I was in my early mid 20s. And, you know, like we had the good West Hartford crew going and I just I just kind of grants was absolutely peak grants. Yeah, but you know, it was a good career opportunity. So we did it. It's fine. But I did it for a year and I was definitely happy not because of the show or anything, but

just because the lifestyle to be out of that. The other part of this guy's email that's interesting is the fiance wife aspect. So I'm kind of like a no new friends guy. I've got a core group from high school, some guys from college. And I'm not like that. I'm like mean or like dismissive of new people and new guys that I meet. But I'm just not going to go out of my way to be friends with them. And my wife is a big time extrovert. Like she's the center of attention in every room which is great and so you kind of need that to to

make more friends or to go out and she'll tell me like stop being a hermit stop like get off the couch stop watching premier league soccer all day like let's go out um so she's kind of motivated me to be more active so you kind of need that so i kind of hate to say it but you've got like a double-edged thing where it's kind of it's kind of killing you both ways here with not only like the lifestyle but the fiance also kind of being an introvert yeah you got to force yourself to do it because i'm bad with it like last night's a perfect example i was like there's only two games you've been locked in however many of the last few nights i already wrote out everything and then i was like man ad looks pretty good next thing you know it's seven o'clock and i was like well i gotta watch at least

the first half and see if Minnesota and Golden State. I was like, oh, I need a tight one. Two of my favorite teams to watch. I was like, well, I'll write out another open. Next thing you know, I'm watching Ray Donovan. It's 1030. I'm going to bed. It's a good thing you don't play computer games. Last night was going to be

a night where I was going to like, you know what? Let's leave the house. Let's go do something. Called no one and ended up watching the only two games that were on. And of course Friday, I don't want to miss the games because Friday's like, I don't know. Friday NBA games always feel like the most important games

to watch. Let's try to sneak in one more here. Do we answer anything there? I think we did. I don't think so, but Kyle kind of brought up a quick point. You should play Call of Duty or FIFA or something and get on with your friends because that's how i hang out with most of my friends a lot without actually going out i'm gonna guess most of my guys aren't in the online community probably not all right um i think this one's pretty simple we'll just do it because this guy seems super motivated i just want to bring up the idea of what this guy did.

Feel free to use names, places, etc. None of the other four listen to the podcast. Dude, are you sure? 5'11", 158, 22, swimmer's body, and naturally tan. Check attached photo. So this guy decided to include a picture of him in a Speedo in his shower. We do not want this long term. It's just a statement.

No, it's a position here from the podcast from this day forth. I appreciate you giving us the full scope of the story here, but it actually, as I read the email, has nothing to do. So I was like, all right, we got a guy, Selfie Speedo, in his shower. He's in great shape. He's in great shape. He is tan. He's not lying. 5'11", 158.

But that's why we do the stats. It leaves a little to the imagination. Wow, I wonder what 5'9", 230 looks like. You know, you don't have to show us. I would tell you 5'11", 158 isn't the classic swimmer's body. I feel like a guy that opens with swimmer's body and tan, though, is the guy that's going to send you a picture in the email every time. That picture's going to a lot of people.

Yeah. It has nothing to do with what he's asking. Nothing. We better get to it. All right. Simple question. What is y'all's take on itemizing down to the dollar on group vacations? I'm with four other college friends.

UNC. He said do it. Look, this guy does not care. He wants everyone to know every name. He wants people to know about this. Maybe that's the whole point. We're being used for an itemization dispute on a vacation. They had a week-long vacation in Hawaii.

We've been there. Oh, wait, they're there now. Maybe that's where the picture is. I don't know. What's the date on this email? Maybe it does time. All right, this is a very recent one. We've been here two days and gotten an argument over itemizing each item on the grocery list.

E.g., I should separately pay for the ice cream since I'm the only one eating it. So they're saying you pay for your ice cream. We all just graduated college to believe that we should itemize a trip, make over a hundred K a couple of years older. The two other guys and me may closer to 60, 65 K a year. I imagine obviously, and we believe itemizing causes more conflict,

uh, than simply everyone paying equal share. Even if we don't use everything equally. Another example, fruit is my favorite food. So I bought, well, you're a swimmer, dude. Obviously you love your fruit. Fruit is my favorite food. Bought three cartons of blueberries, three cartons of strawberries, along with some bananas. The two guys who want to itemize want to charge me fully for the fruit instead of contributing literally three to $4. Well, raspberries, well, you didn't buy any raspberries, though. They can be expensive every now and then, like $5 for an organic little bin of these guys. To me, it's not about

the money at all. It's a principle. I put a lot of my salary investments, congrats on your portfolio, but I still have money for this trip, and it's ridiculous. They want to take time to charge me more because I eat more of certain things, drink more, etc. Hawaii is dope, by the way. The picture has nothing to do with it.

We're talking about fruit fucking charges. I am not a big everybody go through, but if that's what somebody would want to do, I would be like, all right, we're going to do it. Well, here's what happens. The guys who want to itemize win. They win. Because normally, I'm like,

I just don't want to argue with you over these things. And if that means that I'm only paying for my stuff, then I'm only paying for my stuff. So losing the argument isn't really a loss. It's not that big of a deal. Um, people we've talked about this forever. This is not new. There's usually always one person that's going to try to take advantage of the, let's just all chip in. Um, we had a golf trip once, and then we found out after the fact that one of the guys that got in on the golf trip didn't have any money after the fact so it was time to settle up he's like hey things are a little tough do you mind if i kind of like hit you hit you with two installments

and it was like you know what would have been great is access to that information before we booked a fucking airbnb and paid for everything and all the food and all the booze for like four days like we all thought we were going to square up at the end when we cleaned up the food and all the booze for like four days. Like we all thought we were going to square up at the end when we cleaned up the place. And you're telling us you're doing an Affirm deal with us? You put a boys trip on layaway? Come on. Yeah.

And you're like, hey, things have been a little tough. You know what? Normally when things are tough, the guy tells his buddies ahead of time that he can't make the trip. But we're only talking about fruit here. So what I think you've done is you found a way to send us a picture of you

with your clothes off. And it worked. Because there's no way, like I agree with you, I would say who gives a shit. Just buy your own fruit then. Who cares? Like move on, you're in Hawaii.

Yeah, that stuff, I mean, you've heard about my sliced cheese debacles and there was other stuff that came back to me in the pot stand price chopper or the IGA or whatever. But like when it when it was clear that some stuff was going to be like, well, I don't I don't drink milk. I'm doing a I'm doing a coffee, no milk thing. And it's like, all right, I guess we won't get milk for all of us. And I'll have to fucking sneak back here later or I'll I'll have two carts. And like, that's, that's what it comes down to. It's like, I'll, I'll go buy the sliced cheese later, or I'll do it. I'll do it in my little carry on bag. That's just for me. And then, you know, that's just what it is when,

when, when everything comes together and it's like, you just don't want any problem items in that thing. Like most of us were cool, but there's two guys that have a problem with the particular style of cheese. So guess what? We did that cheese separately. We didn't go without, you don't have to go without your strawberries.

Just don't put it on that conveyor belt with everybody else's stuff. If you're not, if you don't want to have to be nickel and dimed and have to read receipts and get highlighters out, you just might need to wait. In the titling this can you title kyle's dairy rant because you're right though like all the difference you know i

but but the thing about it though is there is always one person that whether it's like he's the he's he's the youngest of four and he had three older sisters so even if he's telling you like oh yeah cool whatever like his life has only been just fucking taking whatever he wants all right you know or maybe there's not that every only child is like this but i've noticed at least with girlfriends that are only children there's always a little bit of like wait you know like i don't know if that's the if that's the And again, we could use a hundred different examples here, but as the group expands, Sapiens, as the group expands, there's always going to be one person trying to take advantage of it. So maybe these guys had a bad experience before and that's why they want to itemize everything. But if somebody were to say, it's almost like a dinner. I'm not

a huge family style guy. I don't want to be going around like I want my dinner. I don't want to share it with anybody. It's my dinner. You have your dinner. I don't want yours be going around. I want my dinner. I don't want to share it with anybody. It's my dinner. You have your dinner. I don't want yours. If you want to give me a bite or whatever, fine. But I don't want shit all over the plate. I don't want you asking for a bite of this. We don't have that kind of relationship.

But if somebody said, hey, we're getting this house together, but everybody be in charge of your own groceries, I'd be like, all right, fine. I don't care. I'll just buy my own groceries. But if I see you in my blueberries, now we're going to have an issue. Thanks to Kyle and Steve, Life Advice participants.

That guy's going to have a great week in Hawaii, I can tell you right now. I think that's it. I think that covers it. And then we're going to have a Super Bowl matchup on Monday. We'll be all over fired up. A lot more football to come as well. Some hoops. So please subscribe and thanks for

the podcast. Outro Music