The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NFL Offseason Story Line Draft With Albert Breer. Plus, Suns Chemistry and Other NBA Tales From the Couch.

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Russillo shares his NBA Tales From the Couch, including the Suns' win over the Kings, anticipating Kevin Durant's return, Celtics-Bucks, Magic-Raptors, and Warriors-Clippers (0:31). Then Ryen is joined by SI's Albert Breer to run through the top 10 NFL offseason storylines, including Lamar Jackson's next contract, Aaron Rodgers's next team, which elite WRs will be traded, the Bears' no. 1 overall draft pick, Sean Payton in Denver, and more (20:57). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:04:54). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Albert Breer Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast we have the top 10 nfl off season storylines with albert and we're going to draft him because why not tails from the couch phoenix milwaukee toronto orlando not much on the last couple of games. And then life advice with a couple helpful follow-ups, useful. This episode is brought to you by UberEats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with UberEats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day? Again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping? Total yes.

Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Tales from the couch, Wednesday. We start in Phoenix. They beat Sacramento.

So if you look at Phoenix, they're 11-4 in their last 15. Milwaukee has the best record in their last 15. We'll get to them in their win last night. Philadelphia's second best, 12-3.

So Milwaukee 13-2, Philly 12-3, 11-4 for Phoenix, and that's despite having all these things kind of moving all over the place. Devin Booker was back for his third game,

and boy, was he back. It doesn't even look like he missed any time if you watch just last night's game. He was incredible. 32 points in 29 minutes, zero three-point attempts throughout. Chris Paul, season high, 19 assists. He can't shoot in February. Don't know what's going on there. 32% at 16% from three, but he had two really good shooting months from deep previous to this which i thought was a good sign despite the kind of up and down of the entire thing uh booker was great paul was great i thought you know movements another thing i'm always kind of looking forward so i thought he was great on that part of it probably stopped

trying to use that word a ton um and then deAndre Ayton, let's get a new adjective in here. Terrific. And also very decisive with the basketball last night. So if you look at Ayton's numbers, you can go, hey, look what he did in January. Look at that bump. I also think that's opportunity with other players being out at times. If I want to go totally rose-colored glasses here with the Suns,

I could say during that time he knew he needed to take on more. So that will make him even more impactful down the road. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I think with Aiton, as I've said, probably too many times now, I like him. There was a chance I was going to love him. I don't think that chance still exists. I think there's just an approach thing with him that you'd like to see a little bit more consistently, but the numbers are always really, really good. So then that leads us to kind of the other rotational pieces here. Akogi last night was terrific. Its passing was really good. He shot it well the last two months. We know that he's a terrific defensive player. The closing minutes

are probably not worth making a ton out of because if you look at this with the other moving pieces, you know, you've got Torrey Craig, big minutes, Ish Wainwright out there, but they've added G.J. Warren and then Terrence ross in the buyout market so the point of all of this is that when durant comes back this is going to be a huge fucking problem it just is we can play the health game you got me you can play the health game with a lot of teams you want to say that because of the rant and the chris paul part that their health game is a worse bet than others, I would agree with you. But if this group is healthy, I don't know what you're supposed to do with them. And here's

why. One of my favorite things about Durant is that he is a star who can adapt. Playing basketball is about adapting to other people that are on your team and going, well, if this guy needs this, then maybe I need to do this a little bit more. And if this guy needs help, maybe I need to start thinking about this. Okay. That part is left out too much in the accounting world. I'm not going to go on that rant again. I need to stop myself from going on that rant. Durant, like, what do you need? You need me to ISO bucket? No problem. You need me to help defend at the rim? No problem. Do you need me to space while you run something on the other side and then I'm your kickout option and not Josh Okogie in the corner? No problem. And the great thing is, is that Devin Booker's like that because he's had to play

multiple roles for Phoenix. He was the two guard, then he was the point guard forever, and then Chris Paul gets there. He's like, I'll go right back to two guard. He and Chris Paul have worked together. Chris Paul would be happy not taking a shot for like three quarters, by the way. So you don't have to worry about that part of it. And then Aiton. Now, nobody's going to run their offense to the rolling big all the time, but you still have to respect it. Because Aiton with momentum on the roll, which you even saw a few times last night, like that's something you still have to honor. He doesn't catch it every time. Looks like sometimes they don't, but it's not like it's some disastrous big. He's got great touch. And when he actually is like, I'm going,

he's way better than when he just thinks about, should I go or not? So you're talking about four players there where their basketball DNA is, I'll get you what you need if you need me to, but I will also work with you. And I don't know that we have enough of that at the highest level of basketball. I could run through a bunch of different teams. Even the Luka and Kyrie thing, which we'll get to Kyrie here in a second from two nights ago. He looked incredible. But is the overlap compatible or is the overlap your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn?

And we saw with Tatum and Brown for a while there in Boston, and they kind of just figured it out. With this group in Phoenix, you have players that I believe already kind of get what they need to do and also what they need to sacrifice, which is one of the most challenging parts about building a basketball team. And for me to assume that it's all going to happen before they've even played, you can think it's dumb. I don't because I've watched

all of these players for their entire careers. And that's the best part of this. So when you think about the closing group, it's Durant, Booker, Aiton, Paul. Do they want to put a shooter out there? And Ross, is it Kogi? Keep the shooting up. So now you have a defensive three and D hybrid guy. Do they want to put TJ Warren out there to get buckets? When TJ Warren, his last full two seasons, which again was a while ago, he shot over 40% from three and he can put it on the ground and go as well.

So then when you think about what you're attacking defensively, you can sit there and say you're switching into Chris Paul. There's no team in the playoffs that's just going to run their offense where all they're doing is switching to Chris Paul the whole time. And to be a defensive liability, you have to be a liability on the ball, which is what we focus on too much. But you also, the worst liability is the off-the-ball liability, the guy who just doesn't fucking care. Like, oh, you're going to worst liability is the off the ball liability. The

guy who just doesn't fucking care. Like, oh, you're going to cut. I'm going to lose you. I'm not going to pay attention. Find a way. We're all taught this at a very early age. Find a way to pay attention to all three things at the same time. Okay. And there's guys that don't have any interest. So even if Chris Paul physically isn't going to hold up and switches, which is going to happen at some point, I mean, it's been happening, I'd say, the last couple of years where people are looking to attack him. You're not going to get so far out of your own offense that you're going to then just to go ahead and attack this one thing.

And Paul is still competitive enough. He's always going to be that competitive. He's going to care about all the off-ball stuff. And then if Kikogi's in the closing group, then you could probably get away with putting Paul on somebody you're not even worried about on a perimeter offensively at all. So if this team is healthy, I'm telling you, good luck. All right. A couple other things here.

Sacramento, I don't really have a ton on it. You know, this is an offense that was number one in January. They've dipped now halfway through the month to 15th, kind of a small sample. The defense is still not great, and it's going to sound a little anti. I don't know what anybody would have done. This isn't even a knock on Sacramento's defense. Can they do a little bit too much of the dribble handoff with the Fox, a bonus thing?

Keegan ended up getting benched last night a little bit, but I don't want to turn this into some negative thing about Sacramento because it isn't. It's just that I don't think too many teams were going to beat Phoenix last night with the way they had their three guys rolling with that. Also, looking at the standings real quick, Phoenix, one game behind, number three Sacramento there, and three and a half games behind a Memphis team that's three and seven in their last ten. Memphis, by the way, real quick, last 15th, 21st on offense,

seventh on defense, so they're still playing some defense, not writing them off at all. And we'll go back to the East. Milwaukee beats Boston last night in overtime. Milwaukee is probably my biggest benefit of the doubt team, after I just gave you all this praise for Phoenix. They've won 11 straight, longest win streak since

2019 when they won 18 straight. Giannis in February, just a casual 37-13-7. 56 from the floor. He's actually averaging more assists per game than Drew Holiday right now. Milwaukee's still missing Portis where that return from his injury seems delayed. And, of course, they're getting Jay Crowder back who looks super happy just to be on the bench in Milwaukee. So, okay. I know what we're going to do here.

We're like, dude, they beat Boston without Tatum, Brown, Smart, Horford. Yeah, they did. They did. Overtime at home. That's what it took. I don't know if it's a Doc Rivers rule. In effect, Doc Rivers rule for those that are new here, that he would always say, I'd rather everybody play

because when the main guys don't play, then my team's not going to try as hard. I don't think that was it. I thought Boston had a pretty good game plan for what they wanted to do. For Giannis, He actually didn't shoot it all that well. He was missing all his free throws. And then at the end, guess what? He did everything he needed to do because he's fucking awesome. They would get him on some deep catches against Brogdon.

It looked like Brogdon was the primary defensive assignment there. I'd have to go back and look at it all, which I'm not going to. He got Hauser a couple times and I would say you felt like Celtics were holding up enough despite I don't think anybody really cares anymore about giving up deep catch position anymore. I mean,

unless you're absolutely sealed the rim that even Giannis who could just turn baseline, like he got Hauser on one of them. You're like, I actually felt bad for Hauser at that point. Eventually they did put Grant on Giannis, which was late, but I'm assuming they kept Grant off of Giannis until they felt like they had to

because I think they were just trying to avoid whatever was going to happen on the Drew-Giannis screen, which is a good chunk of what they were doing in the fourth quarter. But yeah, I just don't think teams defensively care about like, oh, are we giving up a post position we don't like? Are we at a massive disadvantage post play? Because nobody fucking throws it down there consistently enough anymore. I just don't like? Are we at a massive disadvantage post play? Because nobody fucking throws it down there consistently

enough anymore. I just don't think coaches even care if they feel like, yeah, all right, cool. They've got a mismatch in a post. Cool. Sit there. We're going to double you as soon as you put it on the ground. You're not shooting a three. On the other side for Boston, Derek White, great again. Eastern Conference Player of the Week. He has been phenomenal

for them and kind of looks a lot more like the guy that they moved some assets for with San Antonio because I think it was a little up and down last season. It looked like he was always looking to attack Ingles late when they could. They'd get the switch on to Ingles. That was what was happening multiple times. But there was a lesson in last night's game. The lesson was the reason we freak out about all these great players, the guys that can get their own shot, get separation, get a look when everything shuts down. I call them my shot clock scores where, hey, here's the ball. The set's already been broken up. We're not running anything. You might not even get

a screen. There's six seconds left. Can you get anything that resembles a good look? Those teams win in the playoffs for the most part. Those are the players that we all obsess over. And the reason why they all get away with everything, whether you like some of them or don't like others, that's why we care because they're so important. What you had with Boston last night was Sam Hauser on a dribble drive where he got just, he got angled off. It wasn't even close. He had to throw it back out. Derek White, who I really like, but then he tried to get Drew Holliday and that wasn't happening. Drew Holliday, the way he stands up straight and defends and then reaches, gets the steal, gets the dunk,

that was pretty much the game. And then they had a little Grant Williams hot sauce action off to the left side, which he went up against Giannis, and that didn't work either. So just a little bit of a reminder of why we care about the guys that can score and do it on their own. Because when you see a team trying to close against a really good team like Milwaukee,

and here's Boston fighting the entire night. Like, Hauser hits the three at the end of regulation. Shout out to Stan Van Gundy for pointing that out, knowing the scouting report on Coach Budd. Going, he doesn't like to foul. He's one of the few teams that doesn't like to do anymore. They're probably not going to foul. Why you're not fouling anymore, I don't get.

Now, sure, could you get unlucky and get called for the three free throws if the offensive player's really good at anticipating your foul and flails, then you get the call? Yeah, but there was a moment there where Middleton could have gotten housed. It was a crazy shot that Houser even hit. So, you know, maybe I'm playing the results more, but I just thought we were at a point. Again, Van Gundy pointing that out was terrific.

Terrific scouting. Good job on the broadcast there. Drew, just so good defensively. There you go. Toronto, they've won 5-6. The wins, though, Houston, Memphis, San Antonio, Detroit, Orlando. They beat Orlando last night. I keep wondering if they or Atlanta can make some kind of push.

Atlanta's the 8th seed now at 29-29. Toronto's the 9th seed a game and a half back behind them, 28-31. Let's talk Jakob Pertl. Three games with Toronto. The first two 6.6 points and then last night he goes 39 with 6 blocks.

30 and 9 with 6 blocks. He was 15-17 in 37 minutes. I kept wondering when nurse was going to take him out of the game and nurse was like nope i'm winning this which speaks to some of the as we had mentioned uh earlier on a podcast where it was like yeah you know nurse can can can push his guys a bit i don't know if it's like prime chicago t where it felt like, hey, what are you, 38? Now I'm 26, but I'm playing for Coach Thibodeau. I'm like, oh, okay, good luck with that. So I've always liked Purtle.

I always have. I was like, man, again, none of us give a shit about centers anymore. But what I loved about him is that it wasn't just the six blocks. It was defensively where he was positionally. And that's why I think Nurse stayed with him because you're expecting Franz Wagner to go off at some point in the fourth quarter. Franz had a bad game. Not a big deal.

But he had a tough fourth quarter because he just it was like, even if I get a screen and I know when you're sitting there watching, you can be like, OK, I get the screen and then I kind of decide what I want to do and observe everything. And then you could be like, all right, this sucks because if I wait, I don't have anywhere to go. So now I'm just going to go. And then it can look like it's completely out of control, but you can totally understand why the player's doing it

because he's like, well, the other stuff hasn't worked. So now I'm just getting the ball and now I'm going. And with the length of Toronto, when it's right, it's really tough to deal with. And you have Purtle who's sliding over to help and shut off the driving lane. And then he's blocking everything. And then when they're sending out pressure, Orlando was, because Suggs is just a menace out there defensively. He had a really nice night last night.

I guess I could do a minute or two with Suggs. Maybe not. I'm not sure. They were pressuring on the ball. So then Purtle's coming up as that safety, that release valve catch. And then he's making passes so Nurse was like I'm just riding with this dude and he was terrific and I think gives Toronto I don't think straight up gives him a different look makes it tough to rebound the

guys from Orlando after the game were even saying like man that dude's out there like Suggs is a tough fucking dude and he was like Purtle you can't jump over him you're not gonna move him so nice night for him and a nice acquisition for toronto which maybe you know i'm not quite there yet but it's make me think okay could they could they make some kind of push could they get up to like a six seed or something like that i don't know a lot of work to do still don't always love the half court offense um sugs i guess i'll do a little bit of her on this I think defensively it's already really special we're all going to wonder about the shooting he's a good athlete and he's tough and he's strong but there's times where it looks like he's a little I don't know it just looks

sometimes like he's small around the rim like where Fultz will have moments he had a dunk last night man Fultz had a dunk in traffic that was like all time or stuff um but then Fultz can sometimes get caught at the rim a little bit too so like there's not like this crazy springy bouts but I would say Suggs isn't really that guy he's not he did so many awesome things against Aga and we knew that his background was a football player quarterback and all that kind of stuff. But I like his competitiveness. I like how he's in the closing group. They were missing Cole Anthony last night. But Orlando, whatever.

They are now 1-10 on the second night of a back-to-back. And by the way, OG and Inouye, he's missed nine straight, which is kind of why when I heard so many teams offering two firsts, I'm not sure if I truly believe they were unprotected, but that Toronto was looking for a third. That's where I'm like, hey, I like him. I'm not sure if I truly believe they were unprotected, but that Toronto was looking for a third. That's where I'm like, hey, I like them. I don't like them that much. And it could be why they thought

they had a higher bid on it. I don't know. It also could mean some of the stuff that I got isn't true. So who knows? Okay. Last game here because I didn't really lock into Portland's loss at home against Wizards, but congrats to the Wiz. Real quick here, the Clippers pulled away from Golden State

in the end of the third. That was kind of the game. The new guys, Bones, Plumlee, and Eric Gordon played 55 minutes. This is a lot of guys. I think that's kind of the concept of what the Clippers are going with here. They added a little bit of money, moving some people out.

But when you look at the availability of everybody they have, you're like, I guess you're just going to throw a ton of dudes and a ton of dudes that can put the ball on the floor and score and spot up and shoot. I don't know what that'll mean for the rest of the rotation stuff. Batum was at eight minutes last night. So need to double check on what that was or start tracking some of that stuff.

It looks like in February is under 20 minutes per game anyway. on what that was or start tracking some of that stuff. It looks like in February, he's under 20 minutes per game anyway. But these were the top two three-point shooting teams in the league in the last 15. Golden State at 42%, Clippers at 40%. Clay played in his first back-to-back, I think, in close to four years last night. But they just don't defend anybody.

I mean, Golden State's got the third-worst road record in the NBA. They've got the third-worst defense on the road in the NBA. And those other two teams are tanking, right? So I don't, you know, I guess I'm just going to look at Golden State the entire time and go, let me know when they have Curry back. And if they have Curry back, we're going to give them a chance. We're going to give them a chance to do something. But they've just sucked on defense

for such a weird stretch on the road. And again, that road record has vastly improved from where it was at the beginning of the season. One concerning thing here with the Clippers, 9-6 in their last 15. They're 4th in offense, but 22nd on defense in the last 15. But one thing that was

always interesting about the Clippers is despite the in-and-out part of the Paul George Kawhi experience, which seems to be settled now, we're in a good stretch of it. Their defensive numbers by month, this is again per 100, they were fifth, they were ninth in November, they were seventh in December, January, they were 21st. So they're getting the guys back, but they're actually statistically becoming worse defensively which could be I don't know just something that's happening or it could be perhaps an alarming trend if you're thinking about wait don't we have the two wing guys back and there could be more to this than I'm not even aware of um but you know the Clippers are it actually last night's matchup of those two teams is a really good kind of

like question of like, how much faith can I have? How much faith can I have a Clippers team that on paper still looks really competitive. Um, looks like it's a concern, but it's, it's been a bad bet in the past versus golden state.

It seems to figure this stuff out, and yet we're in February, and they're not figuring it out. But if Curry's not there, what do we make of any of it? There you go. Tesla MacCouch. This episode is brought to you by Crown Royal, the award-winning whiskey. Crown Royal is, of course, a Canadian whiskey. You probably saw the Super Bowl commercial, right?

Crown Royal took the time to thank Canada for all the great stuff they've given us. Dave Grohl, just out there, riffing peanut butter and jelly. I got one of those going today pretty soon. I had no idea. None. Zero. So we got hockey, basketball, lacrosse, and football. Still not sure about the football thing.

I think basketball is more the person. You know what? Let's not get into specifics about this whole thing because they also invented life jackets, paint rollers, movie theaters, and instant replay. Can you imagine if our friends from the North, if it didn't work out? What if they kept instant replay to themselves? I actually probably wouldn't mind. I would hate to not be able to see some of the bigger plays. Rewinding stuff, is that the origin? Is the Canadian Instant Replay the grandfather of TiVo, which is then also the father of DVR? How's your TiVo stock doing?

When you think about it, I use Instant Replay all the time. All the time. I'm watching just movies going, what happened there? Also known as rewind, but I feel like the origins are to the north. Bottom line, when you add up all that sports and entertainment Canada has given us, it's pretty much a majority of what we cover here at The Ringer. Thanks, Canada. Crown Royal. Live generously and life will treat you royally. Please drink responsibly.

Albert Breer, NFL writer, Sports Illustrated, hanging out with us. Okay, here is the concept. Instead of just asking you about all the offseason news, we are going to draft topics. You're going to have the first pick because I'm just a gracious host.

And so the goal here is we're going to go through the top 10 NFL offseason storylines. You'll pick five. I'll pick five. We'll see how it goes. We'll see what's left over. Are we going snake draft then? Or are we going back and forth? With two people, it

should not be a snake draft. I'm okay. Maybe I want you to take the first pick. Then we'll just kick the ideas around here for a few minutes too as well. We're not just going to rip off 10 picks and be like, all right, see you later. So here you go. Here you go.

You got the first pick. I had two that were at the top that were really close. I'm going to go with Lamar Jackson's situation as being the first pick in our draft here. situation as being the first pick in our draft here. I just think a quarterback that young potentially being available is, I think it's, I think it's very, it's obviously very, very rare. And he's such a unique player, you know, and you just look at all the water under the bridge.

And I think this thing was very cordial last year. I don't know that it's in as good a spot as it was at this time last year. And they're going to have to bridge that divide between the Ravens' willingness to give him a traditional top-of-the-market quarterback contract and then Lamar's desire to have a Deshaun Watson type of contract. And I think what's interesting about it, Ryan, is I don't think this is about the money. I know that sounds ridiculous. But I do think this is a guy who thinks a little differently. And I think you have to put yourself in his shoes to understand why this is based on principle.

To me, if you're Lamar and you look at this, you're like, all right, so I've just taken an unprecedented amount of pounding on my body for a quarterback over a five-year period on a rookie contract. And now you're asking me for injury protection three, four, five years from now. So I think that's where the principle comes into it for lamar you know is like if i'm going to be all in on you you got to be all in on me and um it's going to be interesting to see in the first real tell i think is going to be um you know they're right around the combine in a couple weeks when the ravens have to make a decision on whether or not to put the exclusive or non-exclusive tag on him they put the exclusive tag on him which is about 14 million dollars more expensive that tells you that they're they're all in on lamar They put the exclusive tag on him, which is about $14 million more expensive. That tells you

that they're all in on Lamar and they're all in on keeping Lamar. If they put the non-exclusive tag on him, that means they're very open to dealing him and they're putting him out there in the market where somebody could come and get him for two first-round picks. Okay, so there's a lot there.

We know they can just franchise him. Do you think he holds out if he's franchised? Yeah, I think it's definitely possible. I think at this point he's got enough money in the bank where he's got the leverage to do that. My guess would be he wouldn't show up to offseason stuff.

to do that. My guess would be he wouldn't show up to offseason stuff. I just... Like, Ryan, I think you're either willing to go where he wants to go or you're trading him. I think over the next couple weeks before they make a decision on the franchise tag

and which... They're going to tag him. It's just which tag they put on him. I think it's up to the Ravens to figure out and ascertain like, okay, like, what are, how far are we willing to go and is it close to where he wants to be? And, you know, like,

if they decide, like, this is just untenable. We're not going to be able to get something done. Well, then the best time to trade him is now, is when, you know, there are the most teams out there that have quarterback needs and there are teams out there that are wanting to take a big swing on a quarterback. So I think it's really up to the Ravens over the next couple of weeks

to try to figure out if they can bridge that gap between what they have been offering, which is a top-of-the-market traditional quarterback contract, and the idea of a fully guaranteed contract. And obviously, because it sort of is yes or no question, they're going to have to be creative to get there. Yeah. I think the other part of it too, and we touched on this with Sandro last week, is that when you don't have an agent, you can say, oh, it's not that valuable. It's totally overrated. I don't need it. If I'm at the top of my market, we just look at the other comps.

I don't need to pay somebody 3%, 4% of this. But if you want out and you want to sniff around at what somebody else would pay you, it's really hard to do that without an agent. It's damn near impossible. So if I'm another team, he's missed 10 of the last 22 games that Baltimore's had. I think there's also a penalty for guys that are good guys. I feel like Lamar's always been a good guy. He's probably, personality-wise, he's been one of my favorites.

You have to be willing to go full dickhead to get your way here. This is where it's unfortunate is that if you're the good guy who still is kind of team first, you can be penalized. And I wouldn't even say it's a bad, like in this situation, I don't blame him if he holds out. I don't blame him for asking

for every single last dollar. I'm not sure that I would necessarily even blame Baltimore for saying no to some of the rumored guaranteed numbers that he's floating back. Like the Deshaun contract, people can ask for it, but we're still not there. Although I still think probably in five years, people will look at guaranteed contracts from quarterbacks and just go,

who cares? Like, why are we doing this? You know, I think like the thing with the Deshaun contract, people have to remember too, like Deshaun and Kirk Cousins are the two guys that have been able to get fully guaranteed contracts, right? those two guys have in common they had multiple teams bidding on them and that's really it that's it you know like like normally quarterbacks don't get to a place where there are multiple teams bidding on them now they got there for different reasons but like there

were multiple teams in the mix for Deshaun Watson and the Browns did that deal to make themselves more attractive to him. So he would say, that's where I want to go. And, you know, it's the same sort of thing with Kirk Cousins. He got on the open market. There were multiple teams bidding on him. And so like, I think that's sort of where it is with Lamar. And like you said, it's harder for him to ascertain his value because he doesn't have somebody working the back channels. What's the market for him? it's baltimore it goes okay we're moving on from him

um well so i think in that case they would put the non-exclusive franchise tag on him which means somebody could go get now the ravens would maintain the matching rights, but somebody could come and get him for two first round picks. So my guess would be, it would be in the neighborhood of, I would say like a four year fully guaranteed deal. And Deshaun got five, Cousins got three. I sort of look at like the Dak Prescott deal, right? Like the four years, 160 million, add inflation to that, right? Like, so you'd probably be talking about in the neighborhood of what Kyler got. The fifth year might be tough because, again, his playing style and how the last two years ended. But again, like this is a guy who's the MVP of the league.

This is a guy who, if he stays healthy, can get you into the club in the AFC, like the club that the Bengals and the Bills and the Chiefs and the Chargers and the Jaguars now probably are in. He can get you into that club, which is why the Browns did what they did. So it's not out of the question that bidding could go to a fifth year. My guess would be So, like, it's not out of the question that bidding could go to a fifth year. But my guess would be, you know, a four-year deal at the top of the market fully guaranteed if, again, there are multiple teams bidding on him. All right. We knew we'd spend more time on that one because that's easily the first pick. Yeah.

If it's not that pick, then it's Rodgers. But Rodgers at 39. So, I'll take him for my second biggest offseason storyline here. There's a million observations we can make. His personality and how that's kind of evolved more and more. My biggest issue with him has been you act like you have it so bad in Green Bay and you really don't. And now this year is finally the bad year. He wasn't good. I would still bet on him being a really good quarterback.

I don't know what happened here all of a sudden. But if I'm looking at the remaining numbers on the contract and I'm trading for him, he's not nearly as valuable to me. I think maybe even just last year. The Packers didn't see this coming. They felt like they were a game away from the Super Bowl last year. So I can totally understand running it back and all that stuff. But you're not getting a quarterback who's 39 with some big numbers,

which is fine because if you haven't had a quarterback in a while, you'd gladly overpay for somebody. And I don't even know that it's an overpay based on just one bad year. The problem is, who am I getting as a personality? Am I getting somebody that's all the way bought in? It's a bit like even with Durant. He had four years left on his contract, and plenty of teams would want to trade for him.

But you're like, OK, but if this guy just asked out of Brooklyn as the extension is about to kick in with four years left, if I trade for him, am I getting what am I getting? Am I getting all four years or is he going to tell me in a year he wants to go somewhere else? It's not the same thing, but I feel like that's definitely a concern because it has to be. It can't just be, hey, we need a quarterback. We're the Jets. Aaron Rodgers has been awesome let's do it I think it has to be something where it's a little bit more stable because then you're worried about him and his I'm not commitment I'm not like I think he's I think he loves football I think he loves all that kind of stuff it's just the day-to-day of it's becoming more and more dramatic yeah and. And I think you're, you're, to me, it's like, I think you're like, if you're going to do it,

you're buying into like the Favre Brady idea, which was that those guys wound up like a revitalized them to a degree. And I think that those guys, like those guys gave a little bit more of themselves and their new places. Cause a, they knew they had to, and B, they had a lot of people to prove wrong. Right. Like, so like Favre, guys like those guys gave a little bit more of themselves in their new places because a they knew they had to and b they had a lot of people to prove wrong right like so like far after that winding road he took to get to minnesota that first year in minnesota he killed it he was great

in 2009 you know brady same thing he gets to tampa is all in in tampa and i'm going to show everybody that i still got it he wins a super bowl in his first year. So I think you're betting on Rodgers being motivated by everything that goes into being traded. And I think it's possible that we do get, at least for a year, a very motivated Rodgers. I think the problem is you look at it, and I remember people were shocked by how few teams were on Brady.

Like, whoa, I can't believe that there's only two or three teams, and two at the end, that are in on Tom Brady. Well, that's because of the number of conditions on it, right? So you need to have a roster that's ready to win now. You've got to have cap space so you can come and bring in people. You've got to have a coach he likes. All of these different things continue to narrow the field for him. That's why I think the upside here

is I don't think you have to give up that much in draft picks to get him. You may not even have to include a one in the package to get him. That's because of the contract and that's because of a narrower field. If you're a team that's close, you might look at it and say,

let's do what Tampa did. And let's create a two-year window for ourselves. And that's where I see the Jets as being the team that's most likely to do it because the owner has a history of getting all excited about these things, right? And the team has a layer of guys who are on rookie contracts that are really good players that'll allow them to spend money elsewhere. You know what I'm talking about? The Garrett Wilsons, the Olivera Tuckers.

I mean, Quinton Williams is going to be on a big money deal, but you can manage that. Sauce Gardner. You know, they've got a lot of good players. Brees Hall. I've got good players who are on rookie contracts. So, you know, you look at that, you say, okay, like, they've got this layer of talent that's cheap. You've got an owner who's motivated to go

and do it. And then if he comes in, it's New York, can he bring people with him? And I think you put, like, A and B and C together and you see where that could actually come together in a hurry, where Aaron Rogers could be set up in a nice way to win for a couple years

with the Jets okay so those I think were the first two obvious picks that was pretty much like two top quarterbacks coming off the draft so what do you think's the third biggest storyline okay so I wanted to go away from the quarterbacks here for a minute because the rest of my list is pretty much quarterbacks um so uh I think this is an interesting one for fans of all teams which big time wide receiver gets dealt and i don't know who it's going to be but i look at the names from last year you had three of them you had aj brown you had tyree kill you had davante adams i would say at this time last year we had an idea that maybe one of the 2019 draft receivers was going to be traded.

We didn't know which one, but that was A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, and Debo Samuel, because all those guys were going into contract negotiations. One of them gets dealt. And I don't think anybody really thought Devontae Adams or Tyreek Hill were getting traded. So who is the big-time receiver out there that's going to be traded we just saw a team get to the super bowl you know with with uh with with one of those guys with the eagles getting there with a.j brown and a.j brown was a monster in the game and so like i think that there's going to be somebody they're going to be teams out there looking to duplicate that maybe some teams that

have quarterbacks on rookie contracts the way the Eagles have Jalen Hurts on a rookie contract and so you start to look around if contract negotiations fail between the Bengals and T Higgins does T Higgins ask out because the Bengals are going to have to pay Joe Burrow this offseason and Jamar Chase next offseason so that'd be one Jerry Judy if the Broncos can't work out an extension they're not going to pick up their fifth his fifth year option would that be some would that be someone you would look at so i think you have to be creative and trying to figure out who because we don't know that right now but i think the idea of teams going out and giving up a first round pick plus maybe more picks plus a contract to go and get a receiver now isn't just like a crazy idea. It's actually kind of becoming the norm.

So that's what I'm interested to see, if there's going to be one of those situations that materializes. Yeah, and when I was looking at it too, because McShay's got his latest mock-out here, there have been some amazing wide receiver classes. This is not one of them. Quentin Johnson, TCU, he has going 12th. uh there have been some amazing wide receiver classes this is not one of them quentin johnson tcu he has going 12th and if i keep scrolling here i'm looking for it um jordan addison out of sc he

is going 23rd zay flowers bc so he's got three first rounders uh at the position but it's just it's just not the depth that we've had in the past and by the way jacoby myers i believe is a top free agent so i had this i had this on my board and jacoby's good but he's just not the depth that we've had in the past. And by the way, Jacoby Myers, I believe, is a top free agent. So I had this. I had this on my board. And Jacoby's good, but he's not what you're thinking of when you're trying to sign a one. I had this on my board.

I think it's a bit of a reach. Okay, so that opens. I have two left here that I think are really good, which means it sucks you can still end up getting one of them. You know, I'm going to go ahead and just take the obvious one derrick carr on the board i have pivoted a few times with derrick carr where it was like okay like all quarterbacks who knows and then there was a big push where i was like is he really kind of that guy and then looking at the last few years with the Raiders and realizing how bad the support was around him and there's certain ways you can frame it where you could argue like

over a three or four year period defense special teams he was the least supported quarterback of any of these guys I know the knock on him is that maybe he doesn't stay in enough and take the hit I don't watch them enough to to truly make a judgment on that So I'm going to say, I don't know. But if you're a team that's looking for somebody, when you think about his personality, how he gets along with people, I just think he's a guy in a locker room that actually is easy to deal with. And he's pretty talented and he's not going to take you to the top five elite thing, which is fine. When I look at Carolina, they're the favorite right now in Vegas. I know he visited with the Saints. They're close to being the second favorite. It seems like the odds makers are placing those two teams as the best chance of

bringing him in. I feel like if you, you know, your quarterback decision is based on a lot, like it's like relationships. How, who have I been dating in the past. Yeah. Derek Carr is somebody you can invite over, have dinner with the family, maybe a weekend at the Cape Place, and you don't have to worry about it. And so that's where I think his value is. And I'd like to see him with a team that has a little bit better structure

around him on those other two units. I think like the right comp for him, and I've used this a few times, is like he's like the Alex Smith in Kansas City. You know what I mean? He's at the Alex Smith stage of his career. And this is what the Raiders were thinking when they signed him to that contract was, if you like him, he can be your quarterback for now and he can buy you time to find the next one.

So that's what Alex Smith did in Kansas City. If you look back and you look, when Andy Reid got to Kansas City, that year's draft, the next one, right? So that's what Alex Smith did in Kansas City. If you look back and you look, when Andy Reid got to Kansas City, that year's draft, the 2013 draft, they had the number one pick. And I remember when he got that job, it's like, okay, which quarterback's he going to take? The quarterbacks in that year's draft,

E.J. Manuel, Geno Smith, Matt Barkley. And so basically what Alex Smith did for the Chiefs was he made it so they didn't have to reach and so they could buy time until they found one that they really were head over heels for and in the meantime it allowed them to sort of build their roster up around alex smith and win with alex smith and then eventually you know they they turn around and they trade um up to get patrick mahomes and what sort of situation is patrick mahomes now walking into a great situation And then eventually, you know, they turn around and they trade up to get Patrick Mahomes. And what sort of situation is Patrick Mahomes now walking into? A great situation, right? Like where that roster's already built up and he's got a veteran quarterback that he can learn under for a year.

So I think that would be the model if you're going and getting Derek Carr. And I think it's like what the Vikings are doing right now, what Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo-Menson are doing right now in Minnesota with Kirk Cousins. So that was what the Raiders wanted Derek Carr to be for them. I just think the fit wasn't great. You know, the cultural fit there wasn't great. But I think if you look at Derek Carr the way you're looking at him, then you can certainly get to the point where you say he can be what Alex Smith was for Andy Reid in Kansas City. Any quick follow-up? Just read on, like, if you don't have any, I don't expect you to know everything, but, you know, do the odds makers have that right with Carolina and New Orleans? Yeah, I think that, well, the Saints are going to double back. Only two teams talked to the Raiders over the last few weeks about Carr. The Saints had trade parameters in place.

So they basically agreed to the structure of a trade and Carr goes there and he would have needed to agree to a new contract and take a pay cut and waive his no-trade clause. Obviously, that didn't happen. But I do expect that the Saints are going to double back. There's the relationship there that Dennis Allen's maintained with Carr.

For people who don't know DA was Carver's first NFL coach in Oakland. Then I would say the other two NFC South teams, Carolina and Tampa, will be involved. The other team that actually called the Raiders was the Jets.

I just don't know that the Jets are going to do anything until there is a resolution to the Rodgers situation. So that's the only reason I wouldn't put them in the mix. But if they were to swing and miss on Rodgers or word were to get to them on Rodgers that you're not getting him, then I could see them being involved in the car sweepstakes too. Okay. All right. You got the fifth pick.

So you're going to like this one. How much does Bryce Young weigh? And it sounds funny, but I do think that... I've talked to guys I really respect, like guys who've been doing this for 20 years, scouting players, who say if Bryce Young was 6'4 and 225 pounds and the same kid, same package, same skill set, all that all that right then there'd be no question he'd be the number one overall pick in

the draft like it wouldn't be close so like I think that this is going to I mean I think the you know like his height his weight we're going to make a huge deal out of it in Indianapolis and I think you know what you could wind up seeing, which is always funny, is he comes in to Indianapolis at like 203 pounds and he doesn't work out or do anything. And then he works out at his pro day and doesn't weigh in, right?

So like, I just think that this is going to be a huge storyline. And I think it's valid too. Like, you know, you look at the history of this and, you know, like Drew You look at the history of this. Drew Brees is the one outlier, but quarterbacks who are 6'1 or under and don't run at least

a 4'5, 4'8, I'm not sure he's that type of athlete. He's a good athlete, but I'm not sure he's that type of athlete. There's almost no track record of them succeeding long-term as starters in the NFL. I'd actually, you follow college as close as anyone. I'd love to hear what you think about Bryce Young. Cause I have,

you know, like NFL people love him and he's like, I, Bill O'Brien was over the moon about having him loved him as a player could do anything he wanted, wanted with him because of how great a head he had for the game, instincts, vision, accuracy, all of that. But there are going to be teams that have prototypes that are going to look at him, and they're just not going to have the stomach to draft him. I don't know if the Texans are that team or if the Colts are that team, but there are definitely going to be teams out there that are going to look at him and say, you know what, we just can't take him that high because of his size. I love him. He scares me. I've talked about this, so I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it,

but I feel like because we've gone a little smaller to position, it feels like the acceptable floor of what size you can be has been pushed down, and I think these guys are starting to get hurt a lot even with the rule changes yeah so um you know it's like oh well look at Breeze and look at Russell Wilson and look and look oh we can we can keep doing we can take Tua we can you know we can take some of these other guys uh and Bryce is smaller all those dudes I mean he's just small he's thin you know the the waist the if you were going to do the Hugh Freeze, let me see your calves, you know, I think he's going to go to the combine and probably be just chugging weight gainer from the end of the regular season until now, get bloated. I don't know. I don't know if he has to take his shirt off.

He'll weigh in higher. Everybody will be like, okay, problem solved. But it's like, is that really his body? You know, is that really what his body is? Or did the kid go on a massive, like, because he knows how much money is on the line. Having said all that, plenty of teams screw it up thinking they have the right guy and the perfect size. I'd still take him. I'd still take him going, I'll screw it up because he doesn't hold up physically as opposed to not knowing if he can play the position because his understanding of the position is so far advanced

compared to other quarterbacks and that mental thing that seems just so unquantifiable. I'll bet on him. You're going to tell me because Will Levis because of his size? You're seriously going to tell me you're going to take him? Now, I could end up being completely wrong, but based on everything I've seen up until this point, I'm going to bet on the guy who I just think is that much better at the position even if I'm scared to death. I don't know if he's going to hold up and I would I'd stay away from it I look I like Stroud better than Levis as well so I would do it but I you know I I know I'd rather make a mistake thinking the kid is a great player as opposed to some of these dudes who just get

drafted in the first round because they have a nice year and the stats don't even mean anything anymore because everybody's throwing the football all over the place so yeah yeah i'm with you yeah you know and it's it's interesting because i think like the success of josh allen and patrick mahomes who are both like knocked coming out for being really really raw and needing a lot of work has sort of, I think, opened teams back up to, yeah, Will Levis looks like a quarterback. He's built like a quarterback. He's got a hose for an arm. We can make it work.

You know, same thing with Anthony Richardson. Teams are going to look at him and say, well, we have a chance to get that club I talked about, right? Like, we have a chance to get in that club. I think specifically teams in the AFC, I think have started to look at this and say, you know, for the next decade, it's not just having to get by one of them.

You might have to get by three of them to get to the Super Bowl. When you look at like Burrow and Mahomes and Allen and Lawrence and Herbert, like you might have to go through three of these guys every year to get to the Superbowl. And so I think that's where it's sort of because the size becomes like a,

an issue for teams. Cause it's like, I can build around a kid, but can that kid be good enough to elevate where he's able to beat three of those guys in a row? I have a storyline that's connected to that. I don't know if I want to take it here value wise though. So I'm not going to,

I'm going to, I'm going to see if I can pick it up later. Cause I don't think you're going to take it again right now. All right. A little quicker here. The second half. Um, I think the Hertz extension is a massive topic. Yep. Uh, considering the history of them, you know, the way it works and correct me here, you know, when you're the rookie deal contract, you've got the four years, you can do the fifth year option, which is a couple other guys that we could talk about here. But usually if you think you have the guy after the third year you do the extension but it still doesn't have the fifth year because he wasn't a first round right

right right yeah but in hertz example like i've seen times before it's like wait you've given me extension but a lot of times like even going back to russell wilson they do the extension but you still had the fourth year for that that cap hit that number then it kicks in the next year so you can manage it I don't know how Philadelphia I don't know how they can do that to Hertz and I'm not even saying I know so you tell me how do you give Wentz the extension after the third year, despite what we all thought of Wentz at the time? So maybe we're playing the results a bit post-Philly. I think you have to do the same thing with Hertz here. You do.

And I think the difference is you feel more comfortable betting on the person, if that makes sense, Ryan. I think some of the signs were there with Wentz that that could go the wrong way when they paid him. I think some of those signs, the injuries, like how does he get along with his teammates? What's his place in the locker room? Can I jump in there too? Because it was like when he's on the MVP track of that year and it sucks, he gets hurt again. Wentz was a worse health bet than Hurts is. Right.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And so there's that part because I don't want to get too much because I don't remember one of us when Wentz got that extension going, Hey, I think everybody thinks this guy's a dick actually, you know, like it wasn't happening and that can be winning. And, but there were enough rumblings where it felt like, God, Indy couldn't get him out of there quick enough. So you're like, what's, what's his deal.

And, and by the way, Hertz is the antithesis of that that's what i'm saying and like that's what i'm saying like that's where you're betting on the person you know what i mean like you're betting on this kid's gonna handle this you know what i mean like this money's not gonna make this kid goofy you know what i mean like money is gonna money it's gonna be nice for him to get paid but he's it not going to change who he is fundamentally. Like, I was talking to a veteran evaluator about this the other day, and I said, what lesson can teams learn

from Jalen Hurts, right, and his success? And the fact that he's gotten better in areas where typically quarterbacks don't improve. Like, typically quarterbacks don't improve their accuracy a lot. Typically quarterbacks don't learn

to throw with anticipation. Jalen Hurts did those things in the NFL, you know? And he said, don't learn to throw with anticipation. Jalen Hurts did those things in the NFL, you know? And he said, don't ever discount a kid who's got elite work ethic, elite makeup. And that's what you're betting on. I think if you're filling with Jalen Hurts is you're betting on this kid is like completely 100% made up of the right stuff. And so we're going to put our money in something that's safe because we know no matter what, like this kid's standing in the locker room, his work ethic, the person he is,

the person he like projects to be for our franchise, as a leader, all the rest of it, like he checks every one of those boxes. And so, you know, I think that that's where you kind of come to a comfort level with it if you're Philly. The question is what they do and how they structure this. And because they're such a forward-thinking organization, do they seek out a Mahomes structure with it? Are they comfortable going that long-term with them? Do they do something shorter-term with more guarantees? i think there's going to be

some creativity to that one but i do think that they'll ultimately wind up getting it done and that the absence of a fifth year option makes it so like they almost have to you're right you're right i mean because the fifth year option for the first round picks like that's the lamar stuff hey rookie number rookie number rookie and then it's like 23 million it's the same thing with two right now i don't know if two is going to be one of your picks here, so I don't want to... No. Okay. We could just do Tua quick.

That fifth-year option, and Jeremy Fowler from ESPN had that report saying there are NFL execs that would pick up the option but wouldn't go beyond that because of the concussions, the injury history. And then I would say, to be fair, still some kind of doubt about if he's that guy when you're talking about $100 million plus guaranteed.

But his fifth-year option decision is coming up as well at $23 million. Well, he didn't. I mean, it's not like he just started getting hurt either. Like, there's a lot of concerns beyond the concussions. You know what I mean? Like, this goes back to college. So, I mean, that's an obvious concern if you're going to guarantee him a bunch of money. Okay, so we kind of slid that one in there.

All right, two more picks each. Okay, so I'll go with the dynamic between Sean Payton and Russell Wilson. Had it on my board. Great value, fourth round pick. So I just know, having been around Sean, that he's going to draw very thick lines in that building. And I'm sure you saw the video of him in the walk-off of the press conference, right?

Where the look on his face almost was, to me, louder than what he said. You know what I mean? Where he looked back with that kind of peering, like, I'm not real familiar with that when they were asking about russell's personal coaches um so here's the deal like i the way i look at it like russell got everything he wanted in seattle for all of those years right like if you look at like what russell

wanted it was he thought like if he could play in a more traditional passing offense this is the let russ cook thing that he could be tom brady or peyton manning right and so the denver broncos so the broncos gave him that he thought he should be afforded people in the building the way tom brady has people in the building in tampa right they gave him that and it blew up in his face and i think like you listen to what sean peyton said about the personal coaches and then about building an offense not that works for Russell but an offense that works for his skill set

right because I think what we've learned like over the last year is Pete Carroll was right about a bunch of stuff like the way that the Seahawks like used Russell Wilson moving the pocket using him in the running game was probably the correct way to use it this can work if Russell Wilson can come to grips with the Wilson moving the pocket, using him in the running game was probably the correct way to use it.

This can work if Russell Wilson can come to grips with the fact that all that stuff that he wanted, like for all those years in Seattle produced a really terrible result. And so that's, what's going to be fascinating about it to me is like, you already see Sean Payton drawing these lines in the sand is Russell Wilson willing to going back to something more like the way he had it in Seattle for all those years? Or is it that important for him to have that set up that he waited so long

to have in Denver? Nothing to add to that. Okay, my fourth pick, it's off your Bryce Young stuff a little bit, but I think it's its own separate storyline, and that's the Chicago Bears with the first pick and just all the nonsense that's going to happen because they have to, by rule, tell us that they're interested in everything,

every possibility, which is then going to turn into, if they don't take a quarterback, they should have just said that and they should have had Fields back the entire time because it's still too early to bail on Fields. I don't think it's trending in the right direction, but again, I've been wrong about some of these guys that all of a sudden third year, they develop into something, but he does not have

the weapons. They do not have the structure around him. So they're doing him a massive disservice, even though we all enjoyed watching all the fields runs and stuff. It was awesome. It didn't really mean anything to me because it's like, okay, who are you going to be as a quarterback? But then again, to be fair to fields, like it's one of the worst situations any starting quarterback could be in. So to say, you know who he is or isn't, I don't, I don't know how anybody could come to that conclusion, good or bad. The problem is, is if you're an evaluator and you watch Bryce Young and this is is how it works, you don't want to start second-guessing yourself. This is what their job is.

And so deep down, you could be setting yourself up and be like, man, we think this quarterback, maybe it's Stroud, who knows? Maybe they're Levis people. And they go, we think this guy's actually better than our guy. And now we're going to not do that because we still again they haven't been fared fields they still have them only two years in money wise um you spent these resources on him i just think there's a a big just potpourri bad use of word here but just a a combination of all

these different factors which could lead to nothing trading out or taking a non-quarterback and it's all fields, but it's going to be a ton of bullshit until we get to the draft. Do you want me to dovetail this into my last pick? Because I think it kind of matches up perfect. Okay.

So my last pick is going to be, and I don't know, people are talking about this now, but I think they will be, the 2023 quarterback class versus the 2024 quarterback class. I've had enough NFL people tell me that they believe that Drake May and Caleb Williams will be the first and second picks in this year's draft.

The first and second quarterbacks taken in this year's draft. To feel like there are going to be teams, I know there are at least a couple already that are studying both classes simultaneously. If you're the Bears, couldn't you look at this and say, we really like Fields' makeup. We think Justin Fields' makeup is a lot like Jalen Hurts. So the room for improvement there could be massive because it was with Hurts, right? And we can get a bounty for the number one pick. So would we be better off giving it one more year with Justin Fields, right? Going and getting that bounty of picks for the number one pick, right?

Putting a better team around Justin Fields, seeing how it goes with Fields, and then if it doesn't work, well, then next year, we're going to be in the Drake May-Caleb Williams sweepstakes. Does that make sense? It makes sense. It's a massive risk

because the reality is, are you going to be bad enough again another year and then land there? But if it feels tanks, aren't you going to be bad? I don't know. Enough stuff happens, especially with Caleb.

It's going to turn into some NBA-type shit the last three weeks of the season for Caleb Williams next year. I do think that this is going to be a storyline for a lot of teams. I think this year's quarterback class is flawed. It's better than last year, no question about it. I think there are four guys that are going to go in the first round. Those are the four that I think we've named all of them here. Young,

Stroud, Levis, and Richardson. I just think there's enough of a flaw with each of those guys where there are going to be teams. And the other part of it, Ryan, is you have to have job security to do it, right? You have to feel good that you're going to make it to 2024. But I do think that there are going to be teams that are going to look at this and say, you know what, let's take the best position player out there and we will move around, load up on draft picks for next year. And, you know, those two guys are going to be available. And by the way, it might be more than just those two guys. Like, I mean, I don't know what like Quinn Ewers is going to be

at this time next year. I don't know what JJ McCarthy is going to be at this time next year. I don't know what J.J. McCarthy is going to be at this time next year. There's a lot of potential with next year's group, and I do think in the case of Caleb Williams and Drake May, two guys that I think are pretty good bets to wind up in the top five

in 2024. Yeah, I love the Matt Barkley story. He was going to be a top 10 pick. He was going to be a top 10 pick. He comes back another year, fourth rounder. And you're like, you wonder why this position, everybody screws it up all the time. Imagine having a basketball player where you go, again, it's totally different, I get it,

but just the concept of, hey, he'll be like the fourth or fifth basketball player taken in this draft. And then the equivalent of, no, we're going to take like 200 people in front of this guy now, actually. Anyway, okay, last one. Some good stuff here on the board. Saquon's free agent market, but a lot of good running backs at the top there. So I don't know what that number would be.

Obviously some options there for the Giants, the same options they may have to use with Daniel Jones. We already talked to the receivers. I think we did a good job. Rams rebuild I have on my board still. I'm going to go with the Niners quarterback situation. That's a good one. I actually didn't have that, and that's an oversight by me.

I missed that one. That's a really good one. Great value for the last pick. I love so much about this roster. What happened in the MC title game sucks. I still was picking Hurts at home against Brock Purdy, so it's not like the result of

all of that. Oh, you did? Okay. Well, look, they were on fire. So the whole thing is really weird. We had Dilferon after the Trey Lance injury, and he made a point. It was depressing, but it was a pretty good point. He's like, I don't know. There's no comp for this, for this player then now all of a sudden becoming a really good quarterback

when you go this long without playing this entire time. The Purdy injury is going to go deep into this. And the fact that the Brady part of it, like you can speak to that better than I can. I wonder what they would do or Shanahan, who just has this incredible run with all these, these quarterbacks, I would say lesser than,

you know, does they've already said Garoppolo is not coming back. I, I just feel like there's another move here, and I have no idea what it is. Yeah, and I'd agree with that because I think it's just so risky. You know, you don't know the way the elbow is going to respond with Brock Purdy. And they really like him as a player. Like, I think if all things are equal, like, you know, and he's healthy,

you know, they get to OTAs in May, and Brock Purdy's taking the first snap, no question. Can you rely on him being the same player the first year coming off of major elbow surgery? With Trey Lance, are you willing to... Because I can remember people in San Francisco last summer saying to me, we think Jimmy's a better quarterback right now. We think Trey's going to be a better quarterback by the end of the year. And they never got to see all of that play out, you know?

So, you know, I just, I look at it and I like when you've got that roster and they are so loaded, you know what I mean? Like, and it's, it's Debo, it's Ayuk, it's, it's, it's Trent Williams, Trent Williams, it's McCaffrey, it's Bosa, it's Fred Warner. You look how loaded they are and it's like, can you in good conscience attach that roster to that quarterback situation with all the unknown? And I know that that's a question that Lynch and Shanahan are going to be grappling with. No, by the way, like last year, I can tell you for a fact, like during that six week, like quote unquote retirement that Brady was in, like the Niners were leaving the light on for him. Like the Niners were, I know Miami got the attention there, but the Niners had, you know, discussed and left the light on for Brady. And

I think that the same thing would have existed this year if Brady had decided he was going to come back and be a free agent. So, you know, if you've already thought about that, like, and if you already considered like, okay, like, well, what would it look like with Tom Brady out here? And do we need to do this just out of fairness to the rest of our roster and where we are from a roster standpoint? Then do you need to go and investigate something else?

If I were them, I would at least investigate all the other veteran options. I just, I don't know. They've got the draft capital, cap space, all that different stuff to make the sort of big swing that it might take to get one of those guys. That is Albert Brewer Sports Illustrated, one of the best DVD collections in backdrop history on Zoom.

I'm sure you're rifling through those. I'm glad you're still hanging on to them, though. I love that because then, you know, 20 years from now, you'll be like, I still have these. That was my answer to Jeff Darlington's Nintendo. Like, I thought the Nintendo was a really cool thing, so I thought a DVD collection might look nice. So we got...

It does. I love it. Great fixtures. Got swingers up there, Dazed and Confused, The Town, Friday Night Lights, Blow. Lots of good ones. I need to get Outside Providence for that.

Somebody likes the party. That's an Outside Providence underrated movie. Underrated area in New England. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. All right. Thanks, Ryan.

Today's Life Advice is presented by State Farm. Navigating the real world is never easy. Working, paying bills, buying a home, all the big stuff. There's no instruction manual for any of it, so figuring it out on your own can be stressful. With State Farm, you can scratch insurance off that list of stressful stuff. So when you ask yourself, what if I get into an accident or what if I need to renovate my home? State Farm is there for you. Real world problem. Car service, day 17. No loaner. It's alright. I don't go a ton of places. I feel like if I can pay it forward, somebody else who needs a loaner better than me. Granted, I wanted a loaner,

but I didn't get one. And then I got a call being like, your car's ready to pick up. I was like, awesome, man. Probably go out for a little cruise today. I go to pick it up and the guy's like, what are you doing here? We're not done with it. I was like, man, it just gets worse. And they said, yeah, it's not ready.

I said, well, you don't have any loaners, do you? They're like, nah, we don't. But then I sat back and said, how mad do you want to get? I got mad for about 30 seconds. Not like outwardly losing it, but just I was disappointed. Kind of like when your parents are like, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. I don't think the guys at the dealership care that much if you're not related to them.

You say, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. But you know what? We got through it. We got through it quickly. 30 minutes later, you would have never known that it happened. Very proud. You can file a claim on the State Farm mobile app, or if you

prefer to talk to a real person, including your agent, call anytime. It's what they do. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Call or go to statefarm.com for a quote today. Don't think we'll spend much more time on that car story, so let's get to life advice. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 to Life Advice. You want details? Fine.

I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life Advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. We had a lot of follow-ups to

Saruti's suggestion of telling the scores table kids that they were virgins. Love it. Couple days of follow-ups too. I hope we only praise because it's the right thing to do. It's the perfect insult. I'm just saying. Sorry.

Damn it, dude. It's funny too because like you tweeted out the pod and like people were just responding to it with me on it just saying virgin and i was like i'm just thinking of like what if people didn't listen to pod like why are they just calling sruti a virgin and i'm like liking all these tweets it's just like this must be strange for someone to not not in the loop here's one protect steve at all costs just following up to just like, this must be strange for someone not in the loop. Here's one. Protect Steve at all costs. Just following up to say this advice for an adult to call a 17-year-old

kid a virgin at a youth basketball game is the single greatest thing I've ever heard and should be the new universal standard of excellence for all employees returning from paternity leave. Made me lose my shit laughing. Thank you. Love the show. I can't take the credit because it is my

buddy actually did this in real life he would just come like he went to a different school he'd come to you know i went to quinnipiac and he would just call all my roommates virgins and they would get so irrationally pissed about it that i'm like there he's on to something it's like the most basic insult for dudes that just like obviously it stupid, but they take it very personally. It's like a Todd Packer. It's kind of, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can't say the Todd Packer one, but I laugh every time I see it in the show. All right.

We had another, we had so many follow-ups on this, Rudy. You absolutely struck a nerve here, but there's a lot of people who love the advice, We had so many follow-ups on this, Rudy. You absolutely struck a nerve here. But there's a lot of people who love the advice. But there's a few others that were like, I think ultimately Kyle and Ryan were probably smarter to suggest that if you, again, you're a school adult kid. Teen pregnancy epidemic.

Yeah, whatever. I don't know. What if the guy's like, actually I have a four and a two-year-old behind me? You have to retire from coaching. Yes. You just put your clipboard down

and just wave your hand in the air and go to the exits. All right. This is our guy checking in. I coach high school football and face similar situations, but it's been opposing players on the field talking trash

to our coaching staff. I found two paths that tend to work best. One, typically I try to point it out to an official and try to get a flag or possible ejection, anything to help my team and hurt theirs. Them being on the scores table is a key point too, as you're supposed to be neutral. I've worked shot clock at high school games and gotten yelled at for cheering for my school. Probably could have gotten a tech out of that. I get where you're coming from. If you're the coach, fine. Just as an aside, this rush to have NBA players get technicals on other players by looking at the ref as soon as the guy does anything with the basketball is so fucking annoying to me. If I were a player and I did something that wasn't even marginally

a technical and then three dudes from the other team were going to team up team up it's like you know the fuck um but this i see is a little different number two is a little harsher i already read this one uh number two option or you can talk shit back but as you mentioned it has to be the perfect comeback for example this past season when a kid was talking trash to an assistant he responded quote i don't talk to children You'll see me with your mother after the game. Needless to say, the kids shut up. Again, I think that kind of goes... No. I don't like that. You don't like that? That's a little too harsh for your sorority. That was my

first thought yesterday, or the other day when we did this, and I was just like, the first thing I would think is something about moms, but it's like, I think that's in the gray area. Don't bring the mom into it. Yeah. What's the name? What about dads? Ron Burgundy line, right? Or no, it was Dorothy Mantooth in the gray don't bring the mom into it yeah this is like what's that's the like what about dad ron burgundy line right or no it was dorothy mantooth right don't bring the moms into this i i insulting him and calling him a virgin is one thing don't don't say you're gonna like hook up with his mom so you think you think telling a high school kid he's a virgin yeah but it's like in the same group as bringing the mom into it

i think bringing the mom to do it is just like a whole other level that you just don't need to stoop down to. Different tier. Call someone a virgin is funny. Saying like, hey, I'm going to hook up with your mom later. I don't know. There's a line there I don't like. I'd love for you to drop your high schooler insult power rankings

just because I think we all need to be on the same page at some point. Yeah, no, we need to do tiers. Do a trade value call on it. Yeah, I just think Virgin is simple enough where it's not that harmful, but it is harmful. Leave the moms out of it. I almost want to test it out this week.

Do it at the gym? Although I'll tell you, look, last time... What's that? What's that? 225 Virgin? You shouldn't say to somebody doing 225, first of uh although when i've been to salt lake in the past there were some aggressive youths walking around i wouldn't put it a lot of virgins i wouldn't put it in seattle a lot of virgins i think i think you're assuming i think you're assuming i guess okay we'll Maybe we can test it out this week. See how it goes. Come back.

Three guys have black eyes. Two do. Kyle won. Kyle won his fight. Okay. This is from the guy who yelled at the big guy at the gym for filming him, by the way, which we should add in. He hit us back up.

We had a lot of follow-ups to that one as well. I'm just going to tell you the rules of followup. If you send it to Kyle and your followup is something we word for word brought up as a possibility, just save everybody the time. Thanks. So you get a couple of emails to Kyle and Kyle sent him to be like, what do we do?

And like a couple of them be like, did you think about maybe talking to the owner of the gym like holy shit man went 12 minutes we went way too long on this one yeah never never even thought of that the owner of the gym anyway uh the guy who sent in the original email has checked in and he didn't even know that he wanted to follow up follow up from the gym guy probably. Probably not worth reading on air, but wanted to update. Are you kidding? There's like a hundred people waiting for this update. Thanks again for the advice. It was all very helpful and it all worked out. Talk to the gym owner this morning. He understood the situation. It turns out the gym owner down the street is a friend of his. So he said he'd be happy to give me my money back if I went to the other gym. I said work out of trade.

Perfect. Wow. There you go. Well, I lost out on the cheap gym. I think that's about as good of an end of the situation as I could have hoped for. Enjoy Salt Lake. Okay. Is the other guy getting reinstated?

I wonder if the other guy's coming back to take because now it's not a problem. Really? Hey, can you send us another follow up? Let us know if the Jack guy who's filming other dudes is reinstated no i'm just wondering that gym owner he gets his income back you know you're going to a different gym this is the whole thing that i set up yesterday sir so yeah there you go that's what i like that's what i like okay let's do a couple of these um friend sent me a bill for his racist super bowl party hmm okay 511. 5'11", 190. Yeah.

What's that? What? I know. I was confused too. All right. 5'9", 190, skinny fat, working on it. Need a ruling.

Friend invited me to a Super Bowl party at his place. He asked for me to drink water bottles for some reason. So I picked up a $6.24 pack

of Poland Springs on the way to the party. Excellent choice. It is a good choice. Yeah. I got to the party about an hour before the game starts

and engaged in normal conversation about hilarious prop bets and pretty standard Super Bowl party chatter with some other people that I knew at the party. However, all caps, there were a couple dudes there that I didn't know that I'd never hung out before. I'll spare you the specifics on some of the disgusting comments that were spewed

during the time that I was at the party. Before the end of the first quarter, there were at least 10 blatantly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise widely crude and offensive comments uttered between these two dudes. Not a good time. Now, I'm not a prude about off-color humor. I like

Chappelle. I like Louis C.K. Some of the things said in my group chat of core friends are downright vile, but there's a difference between being funny and just being hateful. This crossed that line several times. The final straw for me was towards the end of the first quarter. One of the guys who apparently doesn't even like football starts going off

about how NFL players are idiots who don't work hard. All right. A lot of stereotypes here. It's all bullshit. Got it. Even if I wanted to ignore this and keep it moving, the guy proceeded to make comments after every play saying, oh, he caught a pass. That's $30,000. So stupid.

All right. So they were, yeah, these guys suck. I mean, for a bunch of different reasons without more specific evidence being shared here. At that point, I couldn't even enjoy the game. So I told my friend I had nothing or I had something to do for work and I left. So the guy left the party early. I ate two small slices of pizza, two wings and

one mozzarella stick. I had zero drinks. Keep in mind, I did bring his water bottles that he asked for. He sends me a Venmo request for $30 to cover the food. For what it's worth, I paid the $30, but I feel like this is a ridiculous request. Would love a ruling from you guys. Sucks the party sucks. Suck those guys were assholes. A million

different reasons. You absolutely should have paid the $30. All right, we need to like have a just like a catch-all. Think of it this way. Think of bottle service, these parties. The dinner one, I thought was a little weird because it was so infrequent. And we had a bunch of dinner arguments on that specific dinner party that was happening there. But for most of these, I'm going to say you should pay. You want to know why? Because the guy who organizes the party has to come up with, all right, we've got this many people,

I'm ordering this much stuff, and I'm fronting all of it. And I think there's a weird human reaction to the order of this, I don't know, transaction, I guess you'd say. If you threw in 30 bucks ahead of time, like you were going to an amusement park,

you would just pay, and then whatever happens, happens ahead of time, right? Like you were going to an amusement park, you would just pay. And then whatever happens, happens. Good time, bad time, middle time, right? You leave the park going, that was worth it. That wasn't worth it. Hey, that was okay. I'll never do that again. But now that we're in this kind of backed up deal where we're getting invoiced and we're

invoicing everybody, then people are having the experience. Then they're thinking about the experience. And then they get the bill and they're like, hmm. Right. Okay. For everybody that's questioning, like, was this worth it? Was it worth it to the organizer to go? Maybe I have to just pad in a little bit here in case we have a couple people that didn't

enjoy it as much. And then on the Monday Venmo request, decide that they don't want to pay it. Again, it sucks that these people were at the party. I noticed that you were very specific in saying you didn't just eat two cheese slices, that you took two smaller ones. All right, you already paid, but try to think about it from the host's perspective. They can't have people going, you know what, after the fact, I wanted to leave early. You know what I mean? Hey, do you want to have a Super Bowl party? Okay, there's going to be 10 of us. Okay, I'll front all the booths and all of the food.

Is everybody good for throwing in a little bit? Yeah, no problem. Half time rolls around, babysitter's sick, have to head home. Hey, on Monday, do you mind if we only pay half the Venmo requests? It's just not how it works. But I think the Venmo billing, the way this has all worked now, is that people are starting to feel like the transaction because of the timeline of it is allowing them this leeway of whether or not they should have to pay. Specific to this one, I get it.

It was a shitty time and that part sucks. And thanks for bringing the water. But that's not really fair to the host. If everybody just started doing this, then nobody's going to want to have anybody over. Right. This is why I bring poppers, by the way. I went to a Super Bowl party, brought the poppers. Huge hit.

I didn't spend that much money on them. I brought a sixer and poppers, and that's it. And everybody was happy. Nobody, I don't know what was passed around money-wise or whatever, but this is why you bring the poppers. And the other thing I would say is, you did leave, and you kind of take responsibility for leaving like you could have stayed it really doesn't matter how much you know how much you ate like you took an inventory

i hope you're not planning on texting that dude back with your inventory of what you ate like that's not that's i wouldn't do that well yeah you kind of just you kind of just take responsibility for leaving and whatever it is like i i was going to say a story i just i'm not even gonna but uh can you basically i i can't i don't know how much basically i was at a wedding one time it's like my buddy brought me to a wedding so it wasn't like i wasn't invited it was like in pine plains new york it was like in a field it was like i don't know if redneck wedding's the term somebody might get upset with that but it was like we're sitting on hay bales and shit and the bride was kind of small it was at the after the ceremony and stuff so everyone's just like in

this tent in this field and the bride was dropping n-bombs left and right and i was the only white dude there and i was definitely the dude from poughkeepsie they're all from like pine plains and stuff so they didn't clearly didn't see any anything wrong with it and you know i i said a few words to her i don't think they were nice. And I was drinking along with everybody else. And I just remember getting like, we're running through a field because I think we had to go now. But I'm just saying, you take responsibility for deciding to have the bad time and whatever comes after that. Our night was ruined. It was my fault.

Like I'm saying, it didn't quite mesh with what I was trying to say. But I was at a party where somebody was being a complete asshole and it bothered me too. So I think you just, once you decide it, it bothers you so much to take action, you kind of have to live with your actions is what I mean. So if that's $30 for two pieces of pizza and a matchstick, that's what it costs.

I'm confused about the story in general. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously an incredibly shitty situation. But, you know, it is what it is. When you go to the party, just you going, that's $30. I don't care. I don't care what you eat. That's it.

As you said, there's no itinerary. There's no, like, itemized receipt of what I ate and what I didn't drink. You don't do that either. And the other thing that kind of sucks, too, is, like, I'm going to come to the party, but I'm not going to eat any food, so don't charge me. That person sucks, too. If you go to the party, it's a $30 fee. You pay the fee, to the party but i'm not gonna eat any food so don't charge me that person sucks too if you go to the party it's 30 about 30 fee you pay the fee whether the party was awesome or not because then i remember there was a time where a friend of mine she had like her it was a bachelorette party she was going to and then like last they booked this house

and it was like you know two dozen girls or something like that and all of a sudden like 10 people dropped out and the price changes on everybody and they can't get out of the thing like you're just screwing other people's stuff up. So if you're the person at the party who's like, oh, I only had a couple of slices of pizza. I don't want to pay for this.

And then the person's like, well, do I have to reallocate the funds? Do I have to now charge 40 bucks per person? Like the Venmo receipts get all weird. No, if you show up, you pay the 30 bucks and you leave.

And it's nice that you obviously want to be a good person and leave. But that's just life, man. Sometimes like situations, sometimes you got to take the L and sometimes it's in your wallet. So unfortunately, good call on you for leaving, but $30 is unfortunately the cost of you being a good guy. Right.

And this is really specific, so I get it. But there's a pattern of emails that we keep getting from the person wondering, hey, should I really have to pay for all of this stuff? And it's like the answer is almost always going to be yes. Like you sit down and do other things right did your friend got a bottle okay and there's eight of you okay you're all dudes all right you didn't drink as much you left early fucking no one cares yeah yeah nobody likes that guy either okay speaking of talk a little intramural hoops here Nobody likes that guy either. Okay. Speaking of, talk a little intramural hoops here. Six foot, 190, bench 315, squat 385. Had my first child two months ago,

and those numbers are pre-fatherhood, so take them for what they're worth. That's all right. It's only two months ago, dude. Who knows? Strength fluctuates just based on the day and the moon position. Need your guys' help withuates just based on the day in the moon position uh need your guys help with what to say to the guy in my intramural hoops team who won't

stop shooting for context i'm 25 years old me and a buddy of mine same age could ask to join an intramural team by a guy that we play pickup with at our school we both play juco basketball all right so these guys are good uh and are now grad students and two of the oldest guys in the gym. So they're 25. They're playing an intramural with undergrads and they played Juco ball. So figure out where this is going. It's safe to say we're two of the top five players on campus. Not a brag.

He gives us a school. We'll leave that out. Yeah, look, if you play Juco and now you're 25, a little man strength on you, you're probably really good players in comparison to the rest of the guys that are intramural players. Although, look, some schools, I wouldn't say this one is, I'm not assuming, but I kind of am. There's certain schools, it's like, oh, I played intramural Clemson. I'm imagining that's insane. This is not Clemson. I don't know why I picked it. I just did. So anyway, our team is guard heavy and so the guy who recruited us picked up one of his

buddies to be our tall guy. The first game of the season, the new guy, who isn't part of the usual pickup crowd and doesn't know us, was 0-7 from the floor before I could even think about getting a shot at him. He shoots the ball the moment it touches his hands. I wish I were exaggerating. Finally, I discreetly told our sixth man to sub

in for him on the next dead ball. The guy finished three at 20 from the field and might have found a way to have a negative plus minus in a game that we ended up winning by 40. He was probably one of the best players at his high school team, but he's the worst player on an intramural team, and he seems to have no idea. So you're saying he played decent high school basketball, even if it were small. So it's not like he's just, he has no, got it. Sometimes guys like this are just the worst,

like no concept of you're just going to shoot every time. It sounds like he's, he was the tall guy that got to play basketball, maybe at a smaller school, but wasn't really good. And that's why like, all right, he played hoops, but we,

cause I, I went to a, like the Mar high school was terrible at basketball. We had a bunch of dudes that played basketball. And they all thought they were kind of hot shit. But you're like, guys, our basketball team sucks. You guys aren't that good. So, like, I kind of understand where this guy's coming from.

But unfortunately, it's a fatal flaw. Yeah, unfortunately, not a basketball powerhouse. Football, pretty good at football. You guys are a good football team. Who's the best player who played for Southington? Really put you on the spot here. Middle Connecticut. There was a dude, I forget, Ryan Glasper.

He played at BC. I think he was in the Giants training camp for a little while. He was like a safety. He was a really good player. I think he was just before I got there. Maybe I was in middle school when he was in high school. There you go. You did it.

Shout out to Ryan Glasper. Good stuff. Okay, so he's the worst player on our intramural team and seems to have no idea. If this continues, he's going to cost us some games. So how do I tell him to stop shooting? I don't want to be the guy that takes intramurals too seriously, but I think everyone else on the team agrees with me.

While we're not trying to go too hard or anything, none of us are there to just have fun. We'd like to win the games. All right. You are going to take it too seriously. And that is okay. That's what intramural basketball is for on the college campus. It's for a bunch of us who weren't good enough to do anything in a game that anyone ever fucking cared about to take it way too fucking seriously and want to win basketball games.

I am pro you taking it too seriously. I want you to be obsessive about it. Like me who skipped class to write out plays and make sure the rest of the team and our football team was like ready to go. I'm going to tell a small story here. Football intramurals did pretty well on a few to back back seasons. Thought I was a decent little quarterback. Then a couple of years later, fast forward to some guys that actually played college football in small, small schools were like high school heroes. They had an actual travel flag football team and they were like,

we need a quarterback. I was like, no problem no problem this was entirely new level i wasn't even close to being good enough to be with these guys but i was their fucking quarterback for two games we won both games no big deal i thought i was fine and then i show up to the third game and guess who's playing tight end and nobody said shit to me me they had their buddy from high school who was like all state. Granted, it was Vermont. I know you can dump on it. But if you're the best quarterback in high school football for an entire state, as ridiculous as it is Vermont, you're still probably pretty good. You're better than me.

You want to know how much anybody cared about me? Zero. They didn't give a fuck. They wanted to make sure they had a better chance. They saw me and went after two games. This isn't going to work. He's not going to know. No one said a a fucking word i thought we were fine because we won and then i come back and i see another dude warming up with everybody and i'm like what's going on they're like you're playing tight end that was it was the end of the fucking conversation this is

the alex smith the pat mahomes thing like you're and you're the alex smith in this scenario unfortunately game manager thought you're doing okay replaced replaced by the guy. I thought I was fine. I was like, we're 2-0, we're fine, this isn't a big fucking deal, and then I show up. And of course, I was like, none of you had the balls to fucking say anything to me. And it was like, we're saying it to you now. Playing tight ends.

What about it? What do you want to do? Have a lunch? And I think that was the right move is the point. Fuck this guy's feelings. I'm serious. This guy's going to fuck up your whole season. He took 20 shots.

Everybody else on the team knows it. So just do it. You play Juco ball. If you're really this good, which my sense is you are pretty good, just tell them. You're 25. You might as well be 100. If you're 25 and you're on my intramural team, I may want to tell you, hey, go fuck off and join the senior league. I may say that to you because I'm a college shithead, but I don't think this is about feelings in this kind of stuff. Actually, I think it's great that we are really concerned with other people's feelings and a lot of stuff.

In this case, this is not one of those categories. Just go to rally it up, man. Mutiny style. Go to the rest of the dudes. Be like, hey, you picked us. You clearly wanted to win games. I'm telling you right now, me and my buddy aren't going to play with this guy. We're not going to do it.

So either somebody get in his ear and have him come off the bench or tell him straight up, stop taking this many shots. What do you want to do? Sit and watch him take all these shots the rest of the year? No. So this is, you know, there's a lot of delicate ones where you're like, oh, you got to worry about this. You're never going to fucking see this guy again. You guys are in grad school.

Like you don't even have to interact with him all that much. So unless you want to play awful basketball with this dude for the rest of the season and be quiet because you're worried about his feelings, you're trying to be nice about it, then go ahead. But that's your own fault. 100% agree. I don't really have anything else to say. Yeah, I would say the same thing.

I think I am a supporter of calling people out when they're doing obviously dumb shit that they get away with in life. It could be on the pickup hoops court. It be like cutting somebody off in in the in the grocery line if you don't call people out for their shit they're just gonna be oblivious and keep being an idiot for like the remainder of their years so when you call them out and tell them hey you gotta like stop being an idiot stop taking 20 shots being terrible and being oblivious to this hopefully that wakes them up for the other things that they're doing in their life that are stupid so i am very pro always calling people out for when they're doing dumb stuff. I'd say too, there's some basketball players you play with that are oblivious. They kind of don't

even know that they're doing it. So there could be a thing that's actually solved in this one. You can be nice about it at first, be like, hey man, we're going to start passing the ball a little bit more or whatever. You could also do the freeze out, which happens. I remember at UVM, we played pickup and it was two of the women's teams players decided to play. And we were trying to pick teams, and they were like, we will only play with each other. And we're like, okay. And then they froze the rest of the three of us out,

and they just basically used it as a practice. And we were like, this isn't awesome. But guess what? I wasn't on their intramural team. Had I been, we would have been like, hey, we're going to have to start past the ball a little bit more more here uh yeah i don't think there's much to add kyle you little uh you soften a bit after that last attempt no no i uh it's fine i got a story for you fuck it i got a story for you right now uh so freshman year first time well i just you know

i'm not the biggest basketball guy, but freshman year in college, everyone's trying to figure out who they're going to be. I find my guys. I already kind of have the group, and now it's time to get cold out. It's time to go play basketball. And the first time I play with them, I was like, I knew I'm not that good at basketball,

but I was like, yeah, I can play. Yeah, let's go. I mean, I'm one of the taller dudes there. I have the greatest game. I have like the greatest three games in my life. Everything's going in. I've got a weird shot, but it was all going in dude. Every, we went like three days and they were like, all right, so we're going to do this. And for the rest, like, I think I, I made it like two more weeks with them when like every, everything was brick, brick, brick. And they, you know, I, I think the last, the last two times that i went i was just completely frozen out and then i just i saw where it was going and i just sort of

was like hey you know guys i think i like hurt my ankle or something like maybe if you just want to get somebody to come in for me and uh that was me i was out of the i was out of the basketball group but uh that that first that first day really everyone's like man this guy kyle's fucking awesome did you play for high school i was like nah i didn't even play for high school dude you get some and then and then it was just brick after brick like you know embarrassing even like kind of layups sort of uh bank shots that should have gone in like that those weren't hitting and it was like the biggest fall from grace i've really ever had in my life so um there you go there's a story hey if that's the biggest fall for grace you've ever had that's good it felt pretty gross inside though yeah it felt pretty bad inside after the

no it's not a good feeling everyone nobody knows who you are it's like the first couple months of college you know what i mean so i'm like wow i am this guy and then and then you're not so yeah i mean look the team dynamic part of it is like towards the end of my espn run i was on that men's league team and when i was on the bench for the close of a game at one point i was like all right i'm not but it's not my team it's not my place to say I'm not saying shit and it was their team and I was like that's okay and at that point it was even debatable I personally was like this is a real wake-up call and a shitty shitty feeling um so whatever but the football one like that was their team I deserved it I wasn't as good as the other guy.

I didn't like it. I also had gotten fucking killed in the second game. We were beating these guys. Shoe was a derogatory term for Vermonters because they have this accent that's this odd combination of, like, New England and Quebec. It's fucking, it's the weirdest accent. Like, oh, you're going to go up there?

You know? And so we were killing these guys and some guys straight up chuck cecil speared me and flagged as i dropped back blindside and i went down so hard i thought somebody ripped if my right arm had been 10 feet away from me i would have believed it and then a fight broke out but that's not why i got the answer it just wasn't good enough but nobody cared about my feelings. It wasn't my team. And I ran around and caught touch with him and passed him the rest of the season.

So we're good to go. No big deal. Yeah, NBD, just fucking playmaker. All right. I think that's it. I think we got it. All right. We'll talk to you on friday thanks to kyle thanks to saruti ryan russell podcast for your spotify Outro Music