The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NFL Teams That Actually Like Their Coach With Sheil Kapadia. Plus, Ariel Helwani on Tyson-Paul and UFC 309.

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Russillo is joined by Sheil Kapadia to break down the Eagles’ 'TNF' victory over the Commanders and to determine which NFL fan bases actually like their head coach (1:02). Then, Ariel Helwani comes on to preview the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul fight, share the story lines, and discuss Jon Jones's return to the octagon (37:29). Finally, the Alliance tries to get one right (69:49), and Kyle and Ceruti join for Life Advice (75:24). How do I handle my girlfriend’s sister being overly flirty toward me? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Sheil Kapadia and Ariel Helwani Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, we're talking football, Sheil Kapadia, last night's Eagles win, where the Eagles are on the Super Bowl line of teams, a little history in the Baltimore Pittsburgh matchup, but this is fun. So he came up with it. Coach approval ratings. Can we come up with a definitive list of the NFL coaches where their fan base is like, yes, we love our guy. Listen to being a little bit longer than I thought.

Fight weekend, huge fights. John Jones back in the Octagon against Deepay in New York, but also Mike Tyson against Jake Ball. Didn't think I'd ever say that. Ariel Hawani, who was my colleague and now is still, I guess, a contemporary. He's going to join us because he's in the building for the fight tonight with Tyson and Paul and he'll be at the UFC. So quick run through that.

We've got life advice and the Alliance, which has not gone well for me. Miller Lite, the light beer brewed for people who love the taste of beer and for me. the best part of beer is the beer. Your game time tastes like Miller time. Learn more at MillerLite.ca. Must be legal drinking age. Shil Kapati, a perfect time to have him on the pod. You can check him out on the NFL. Ring our NFL show. It's out a couple of times a week. So let's do this. Let's talk about last night's game because at times, you know, like, where's this going? I think it diminished Jaden Daniels changes things quite a bit for the commander as we've now seen for a couple of weeks, but on the other side with Jalen hurts, I did her moments.

I'm like, what, what is happening? Is 22 a fluke and she'll, I'll present it this way. Cam Newton fans get so pissed off. When I bring up his MVP year is an entirely fluke season for who he was as a quarterback. I don't really understand the argument that says that now that was in line with everything else because it just isn't.

So there you go. Um, and as I watch hurts last year, I think he was hurt. Like he was, he was, we, we know that he was hurt. He was diminished physically. And then this year, even though I've started to like buy into the Eagles here again, I spent a great deal of last night's game when they're going, you know, down 10, six before the touchdown or whatever, he had a third down throw to the left where like hit the dirt.

Whether you out of bounds, it hit the dirt. And I thought, is there any scenario here where the Hertz 22 season is his outlier season? Now granted, his numbers are more in line with 22 than just the massive spike that Cam had going back to 2015. But as an Eagles fan, somebody watches it as close as anyone, what theories do you sort of dance with in your head, maybe without a conclusion about who Hertz is right now? Yeah, I think he's one of the harder guys to evaluate because there's no quarterback in the NFL with a better situation.

I mean, look at their wide receivers, look at Saquon Barkley, look at the top five offensive line. And I think there is a chance, you mentioned it. I think he's a high floor player because his accuracy downfield is really good. He's going to be a threat in the run game for the most part in terms of turnovers. Hasn't necessarily been the case this year, but he's usually a good decision maker.

So you add all those things together. It's almost like Russell Wilson with the Seahawks, you know, that that's kind of the comp and Russell Wilson had a lot more high efficiency seasons, but that's kind of the comp and Russell Wilson had a lot more high efficiency seasons But that's kind of the floor of the type of quarterback you have now the accuracy Thursday night. I thought was a bit of an outlier I think he's been really accurate this year I think his biggest issue as a quarterback is is this term turned down, you know So it's not about the throws that he does make it's about the throws He doesn't make so when you watch the Eagles film every week,

there are throws available to him, particularly in the middle of the field where he does not throw the football. This has been, even that season you're talking about, every season he will not hold the trigger on throws that are open in the middle of the field. And think of every great offense in the NFL right now. Like that's the area of the field you want to expose.

So that's my biggest issue with Jalen Hurts. It shows up every single week. I know every quarterback has throws that they don't make, but his are more, I would say, than the average quarterback. So that to me is kind of the biggest weakness and the area that if that gets fixed at some point, maybe the ceiling's higher,

but we have a pretty big sample right now that he doesn't make those throws. Are the Eagles on the Super Bowl line? So if we, we just, just did a, I don't want to do a full blown tear thing here. Tears are just getting worn out. Um, I look, I love it here too. Who am I kidding? If we agree on Kansas city, we agree on Buffalo. And I think that just the quick premise would be if this team won the

Superbowl at the end of the year, we wouldn't be going on like, how did that happen? Right? So Casey, Buffalo, Baltimore, Detroit, the NFC at Slim Pickens, man. You start going through there and you're like, all right, do I, do I take Atlanta seriously? Like, uh, I don't know. I, it's Philly has to be on that, right? Philly has to be on this short list. Am I missing anybody?

Do you disagree with any of these? Where are you with the Eagles? Yeah, I think they should be because of what you just mentioned, the state of the NFC. If they were in the AFC, I might be going, all right, their record's good, but I don't see them beating the Chiefs or the Ravens. Now they play the Ravens in a couple of weeks,

so we'll see how they measure up. But in the NFC, I think the Lions are the favorite. And then you have the Eagles, the 49ers, I would still put in there. I think their ceiling is still that high. And I still like the Packers. I know it hasn't happened yet, but you know, we haven't gotten to Thanksgiving yet. This could be a team that goes on a big run. And by the time we get to January, we're saying, no, this team can absolutely get to the Super Bowl. So I think those are probably the teams I would look at in the NFC. And really it might come down to home field.

If Detroit comes to Philadelphia, Eagles are probably going to be favored in that game. If the Eagles go to Detroit, the Lions are going to be favored in that game. Same thing with the other teams I just mentioned. So that's kind of how I see it broken down. I love the Niners getting in there. I love it. Cause I am a just defiant Niners supporter. Um, even though I had the Packers win in the NFC and I think you're right about

the Packers, like the Packers have this weird storyline where it's covered up by Minnesota's success early on, you know, they lose love for a couple of games with that actually doesn't matter, but love keeps throwing the ball away. And yet you look at the record and granted the seating thing with the divisions is going to play out weird because the division is so tough with Detroit in front of them, but you can't get the three teams that you like in the NFC without mentioning the Packers. I just, I think the Minnesota thing has changed.

It is, it has changed dramatically here in three weeks where it was a fun, exciting story. It's like, look, they're proving everybody wrong. And at this point, you're kind of like, all right, well, you know, maybe they end up closer to 500 than just running away with this division, which they weren't going to anyway, because we knew how good Detroit would be. Um, I want to spend a little bit of time on Baltimore Pittsburgh before we get to this bigger coaches approval rating exercise that Saruti, um, has been big on.

And I like that. So we're going to do it with shield because I think you're gonna be great at it. But looking at Lamar's record against Pittsburgh, if you're going through the previews this week and you keep thinking like one in three, how is it possible? This guy's been in the league and if you go through it, it's nuts. Like in 19, it's one game. Um, in 20, he loses. He won in 19.

That's the last time he's beaten him in 21. He plays him just once in 22. He doesn't play him at all. And 23 just plays him once because he's sitting in the season, but the last time he's beaten him. In 21, he plays him just once. In 22, he doesn't play him at all. In 23, he just plays him once because he's sitting at the end of the season. But there's a COVID test in 20. He was hurt in 21, hurt in 22, and then last year they didn't want to play him in the game. So that's kind of crazy that Lamar has been in the league doing all the

stuff that he's been doing and he has a one in three record against the Steelers. You can get to one of the games where it's just a million drops and all this stuff. Do you think, I mean, it's very simple to just give you the answerers, you can get to one of the games or just a million drops and all this stuff. Do you think, I mean, it's very simple to just give you the answer of, we know what this rivalry has been over the years, they bring it, it's a division game, all of these things, it's just different, even though the talent gap would feel

to favor Baltimore in a lot of these years, especially at the quarterback position, but do you think there is something here, like something that's actually preventing Baltimore from getting done against this team knowing that, you know, granted Lamar has been there for like less than half of the game since he's been in. Yeah, it's been wild. The underdogs in this, when Harbaugh faces Tomlin, I don't know if you've seen those

stats. It's crazy whenever one team's an underdog of like three points or more, that team has covered like 80% of the time or something. So I think it's a tribute to kind of the two coaches and a rivalry game and two organizations that are familiar with each other. I don't put much into the Lamar, like, you know, the Steelers give him trouble type thing, because this is a different version of the Ravens offense than we've ever seen. Like in the past, there's always been, well, if you take X away, you know, you can really

slow them down. Or if you do this, they can play any way you want. You want, stuff the box and have Lamar operate from the pocket. He's doing that better than he's ever done before. He can throw to the middle of the field better than he's ever done before. And then if you go, if you back off and say, all right, let's not let them hurt us in the passing game, Derek Henry is killing you. They can really, they have answers for every problem that defenses have presented to them so far this season. Now, maybe it doesn't stay that way the rest of the season. And I know listeners are probably like, but they got to do it in the playoffs. I agree. They got to do it in the playoffs, but we can only go off what we've seen so far right now. They're the most complete

offense in the NFL. They're the most efficient offense in the NFL. They're one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. So I think it's a good test. Steelers defense is legit, no doubt about it. But until I see someone like really stop that Ravens offense, I'm not going to say this version of that Ravens offense. I'm not willing to say that just cause he's facing the Steelers, they're going to have a lot of issues. I think the history that actually plays better for Baltimore,

where you go, Lamar doesn't play in a lot of these for all the reasons that we've just stated. We know the record, we know the history, and this is how good we've been the first half of the season. Let's not fuck around. Now granted, it is Pittsburgh's defense. Would you take Pittsburgh's defense over any defense in the NFL? I still am. The Vikings aren't as talented, but they've still been the best defense all season long.

So I think I probably still lean towards that Vikings defense. Maybe they get exposed at some point here, but they faced a bunch of tough teams. They faced the Niners, they faced the Texans, and they came out of that where you're going, wow. And when they face a bad offense, like the Jaguars last year,

those teams can't even pick up a first down. So I'm probably still Vikings, number one, Steelers are in there. Denver has really played well defensively. Eagles, we just talked about, their defense over the last six weeks is among the best in the NFL. So that's, unless I'm forgetting somebody,

I think that's kind of the top tier. You know, we got to get more tier talk in, like you said. Well, if you go just opponents yards per play, cause I think it's sifts through a lot of the nonsense. Philadelphia is number one. Um, you know, the jets, we could even mention actually Tennessee has a really good number there too. Um, Houston is really good at opposing yards for play.

Um, you're right about that. And then you start going into just the straight yards for game. I don't know, Tennessee's, uh, their passing defense is better than everybody else in the NFL, which I would expect, but sometimes that can be really misleading because the opponent just doesn't care. Like I remember one year the Raiders were terrible and then I think they were tweeting out how it was still like the best pass defense in the league. It's like, cause everybody has a lead and nobody cares.

So it doesn't really matter. So I like, cause even scoring can be married a little bit to who you are on the other side of the ball. And the Chargers have the number one scoring defense right now by like a field goal over Pittsburgh. I guess I'm more impressed with Denver. And I can't match it with the personnel with some of these other teams that we've talked about,

right? But knowing offensively, it's going to probably be a grind for your defense and for your defense to continue to show up like that. I think that marriage, you know, this time of year can become really straining on a defense. There are defenses in the past that I've liked. And then when they know their offense has no chance, they start leaking numbers.

And then people be like, what happened to the defense? It's like, because I think they share a locker room with their offense and they just know like, this is, this is so hard to ask us to carry you every single week. And, you know, look, whatever, I think some of the Bo Nick stuff is a little mixed. I'm probably not as high on them as some other people are. Knowing that that's the marriage, there are weeks where I'm like, Denver did it again. They did it again on defense, even when they lose.

So, you know, I don't think a GM would go through their 11 guys and say, I'd rather have those 11 than some of the other teams they've talked about. I just, I think there's an argument you made, the Broncos have been the most impressive to be consistently this good defensively. I would agree with that. And what I like about them is they know they don't have just the 11 guys who can line up and play with this era of NFL defense where everyone's like, play your safeties deep, don't allow explosive plays.

They blitz at a higher rate than any team in the NFL. So they're like, let's make something happen. We can't just line up and play. We have to be creative. We have to be aggressive. It might not work every week. It might not work against the best quarterbacks, although they did a great job last week against Patrick Mahomes.

But yeah, I would say they're one of the most over-performing defenses in the NFL. They've got a lockdown corner in Patrick Sertan. Other than that, like you're really getting a lot from that group that doesn't have a lot of high profile players. I also think Zach Allen needs more love. Yeah, he's been great. No doubt. Every time I'm watching Broncos games, number 99 for them to move the way he does at that size. And you know, I don't know if it's the accessories or what, but I mean, there's so many guys

that we'll talk about and Zach Allen is never going to be brought up and I'm not just saying it because he's a Boston college guy. All right. Let's get to the exercise. The exercise is this. Who likes their coach in the NFL? My friends that every now and then check in with me, they all want to fire their coach. They'll be like, hey, don't you think we should fire our coach? And my answer is almost always no. It happens in college as I was leaving Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge after another loss to Alabama. Guys coming up to me, they probably should fire Brian Kelly. I'm like, yeah, I don't think so. I think he's a really good coach. He's won everywhere he's gone. And it's super disappointing to lose to Alabama, especially post-Saben. But

on and it's super disappointing to lose to Alabama, especially post Saban. But yeah, I don't, I think it's a simple thing. And I think it's a very, I mean, I get it. I totally get it. Monday play calling. Can't believe, you know, when somebody will be like, I just don't like our play calling. I'm like, what specifically don't you like

about their play calling, Doug? Like, what is it? So the idea was like, how short is the list going to be of the 32 NFL fan bases that are actually gonna to say we could say today that fan base likes their coach. I think the yes list is longer than we thought the beginning of this. Do you want to go through the no's first and see where we're at? Okay. Jets, Chicago, New Orleans.

I mean the Chicago things, just do that every other year. Is Jacksonville a no at this point? It kind of has to be, right? Oh yeah, no doubt. Dallas is a no. Carolina, you can't really put them there first year in, right?

That's not fair. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. All right, good, good. You can't just go bad team, must not like their coach one year in. And by the way, I'm happy for Bryce Young right now. I couldn't be happier for that guy. Yeah.

I think Philadelphia is on the no list. There is this funny thing happening in Philadelphia right now, where listeners to the Ringers Philly Special are like, half the listeners are like, Sirianni's turned it around. You're not giving him enough credit. And then the other half, and I don't know if I have those percentages right, are with me where it's like, Sirianni's turned it around. You're not giving him enough credit. And then the other half, and I don't know if I have those percentages right, are with me where it's

like, this is the most talented offense in the NFL. The front office hired the defensive coordinator, Vic Fangio. I don't know how much credit I can give him, but I don't know if you've looked at pro football reference for this exercise. Do you know where Nick Sirianni is in the all time coaches winning percentage right now? Well, I didn't look it, but I mean, it's gotta be really good because it's not like they've been bad. And even last year's disappointing as it was,

what are they, 10 and one? So is he number one? He is eighth all time in winning percentage. Oh, eighth all time winning percentage. I thought you meant active. You know, you gotta go down to get to George Halus and Don Shula from Nick Sirianni. So listen, they've been eight and two

each of the last three seasons under him. I think the fan base is split right now. I would say more feel like no, they're not winning because of him than he's adding something to the table. We know he's not in the yes category All right All right

So any other hard nose right now because I have a bunch of maybes too But I think I'm just too soft when it comes to wanting to fire every coach or maybe a hard nose I'm looking at here. Oh Raiders probably right? I mean Antonio Pierce I can't imagine there's a bunch of Raiders fans going, this guy's given us what we thought we were going to get from him this season. Uh, when you look at their football team, is that too harsh? I just don't know what the expectations were with the quarterback situation.

It was almost like they took a gap year, you know, where the Giants gap year, they paid Daniel Jones a ton of money. The Raiders went with the gap year quarterback like, yeah we're just gonna try this and it's gonna be really inexpensive So, I don't I also yeah look selfishly I love Antonio so much I probably didn't want to put him down here, but we can do it. We can do it What about the Colts I Think the shines coming off a little bit. I'm on Yeah, I'm on some group chats where

I've been like, are you guys going to, you know, you're not putting Stike and into the hall of fame first, first year now anymore, I guess. There, it's hard to know who's pulling the strings. You know, was he pulling the strings with this weird quarterback situation? But at the same time, I think the expectations were higher that you thought you were getting someone who's going to develop a young quarterback. And that hasn't happened at all. I don't think they're a no yet. I think they're probably in the middle. They're not a yes either.

They're not a yes. Miami's not a yes anymore. Agreed. Miami's not yet Miami. Although, I mean, if you do look at it, when two of plays, their numbers are, have still been offensively very good. So I don't know, maybe is that a personnel thing? Maybe you should have done something to back up quarterback to have stayed afloat.

But yes, the shine has come off for Miami and Mike McDaniel. Well, not beating good teams is an overall problem too. So I don't think it's, I mean, this is a very human thing where it's new, it's exciting. All the things about your personality are all positives. And then when you get fired, those same personality traits are like, no, he's a little goofy.

But yes, because everybody gets fired. When he's out in Miami, when it's over in Miami, I can already tell you what every one of those pieces will be. I could write them before they happen, years. And I hope it gets to stay down there forever because I like it. But this is just not what the job is. And it's going to be the most predictable thing ever, the columns that are written when there's a new head coach in Miami. New England's, it's too early, but nobody's pumped about it. Is that fair? Like I was looking at it. They're better than they were last year at this time with Bill Belichick.

And I know the quarterback is different. A lot of the other pieces are the same. You look at the Drake-Mace situation, did they hand, like you could make the case if I were Gerard Mayo's agent. All right, let's do that. If I'm his agent, I'm making the case they handled this perfectly. They didn't throw them into the fire. They brought them along slowly. Now Drake may looks good. Uh, so they handled the quarterback situation. Well, look at the rest of the roster.

It's not very good. They're outperforming what they were last year. Give my guy a break. Uh, I would say the defense, even with the lack of personnel, because this has been one of the most boring talent rosters in the league now for a while. Um, you would say, well, how come the, how come the defense fell apart? Yeah. Judon's not here, you know? So even last year,

the defense with bill and with Steve, that ended up being a pretty good defense last season. But, um, even last year, the defense with Bill and with Steve, that ended up being a pretty good defense last season. But nobody thought they were gonna be good. Nobody thought they were gonna be good this year. And again, the carryover of the roster decimation is inherited. All right, so let's, maybe we'll flirt with the maybes and yeses here.

All right, give me the definitive yeses that you have and I'll see, I imagine we'd probably have a lot of the same ones here. All right, I've got eight and this is, they like their coach, not they should like their coach. Right? Because there is a difference. Okay, eight, you have less than I do.

All right, good stuff. I've got Andy Reid, Dan Campbell, Jim Harbaugh, Matt LaFleur, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVeigh, Kevin O'Connell, and D'Amico Ryan. Those are the eight fan bases where I think if you pulled them, I would feel very confident that it would be like over 75% of the fan bases of the fan base would say, yes, we like our coach. No issues with any of those. Okay. Now we want to get real difficult and oh, a week three, like, okay, fine.

If you're waiting for a hundred percent approval, that's why baseball managers are screwed. Because if you're really locked into baseball and you watch all ones, you know, whatever 150 of the 162, you're going to see constant mistakes. There's going to be bullpen mistakes. There's going to be pinch hitting mistakes. And so if the goal is to not have any of those mistakes, and I would say, then just get in, have a different hobby, like have, have a different thing that you're going to be interested because there's just going to be multiple opportunities for you to be disappointed by those.

But I think those eight are solid. I have no issues with those. So this makes it better. I'm going to throw four more at you. Okay. You kind of, you kind of got in front of it here by saying they do not should like their coach because the should like their coach is a longer list than the eight. Um, why would anybody be upset in Seattle?

I think this just sort of, uh, on the fence probably right now. Why would anybody be upset in Seattle? I think that's just sort of on the fence probably right now. With McDonald? Yeah, I like McDonald a lot, but I think if you're looking at it and you were a Seahawks fan, like I thought the Seahawks had a chance to be a playoff team this season, and you thought, all right,

he's gonna bring this Ravens defense and it's gonna be awesome. And I think part of it is talent and injuries they've had, but they're, they've been mediocre in every respect of the team, offense, defense, pass offense, whatever you want to look at, they're mediocre at it. And so I like McDonald. I think he's going to be really good. I think if you kind of pulled their fan base, they'd be like, this has been fine. This hasn't been like the most fun year we've ever had. I think he's good. And I don't, I don't think their expectations should have been that high.

And, you know, we can all play the injury game with a bunch of different people here, but I mean, they, they've had some weeks going in with a D line where I was just like, I don't, I don't know what kind of chance they have on a Sunday afternoon. All right. Um, Washington kind of follows along with the same thing here. I mean, look, they love Dan Quinn on the broadcast last night, but people do really like Dan Quinn. We could also throw that in there.

It's way beyond expectations. They've marriage this, the marriage between Kingsbury and Daniels and all this stuff has worked with the rookie quarterback the way that it rarely ever works, although we have recent history with CJ Stroud's incredible rookie year. The defense for Washington, I trust it week to week. I know it's a lot of points against Pittsburgh. That game got kind of weird with the field position stuff in it on both sides. But there's names that I didn't know, household names types on that defense that have been around a little while where I feel like it's a group that. You know, it's, it can be a strength for them on a Sunday.

So maybe it's too soon to put them in the clear, like you're good. We were all behind you, but I don't think anybody should be upset about Dan Quinn. This year. I think you're right. I think they belong in the first group of fan bases that like their coach. I do think they like, I think the commander's fans like Dan Quinn, especially because they were getting clowned for how the whole Ben Johnson thing happened last off season. And so they were very defensive about that. And now they got a head coach who has them competing for a playoff spot

with a rookie quarterback. So yeah, I think they belong in that first group. You're right. Okay. All right. So I got Washington. I couldn't get Seattle. That's fine. That's fine. I have two more. No John Harbaugh from you. John Harbaugh for me is there's this group of guys who have been around with their teams. And so it's kind of what you were saying earlier, as each year passes, you're going, I haven't won a Super Bowl since year. I think John Harbaugh is one of the best coaches in the NFL, one of the best coaches in the last 20 years.

They are on my should list. I mean, been there for 17 years, has won over 60% of his games, has tried new things with Todd Munkin. That wasn't like a guy he just hired because he knew him. Mike McDonald, that was a great defensive coordinator hire. He's been able to cultivate a coaching staff, uh, and they're competitive pretty much every single year. They had like a three year stretch where they were okay, but now they're just competing

for super bowls and I know they haven't gotten over the hump, but yeah, I think Harbaugh is one of the best coaches in the league, but I had him in the should. I don't know that Ravens fans, I think there's probably a segment of Ravens fans just like another team. I'm sure we're going to talk about in a second that are like this guy gets all this praise nationally, but we watch him every week and he hasn't done X, Y, and Z. So it's like, you know, grass is greener type thing probably for some Ravens fans with Harbaugh.

He's just been there too long. You're right. Yeah. And you know, it's a bit like the Bill's Josh Allen thing where, you know, you geared up last year and then you run into the Chiefs and then you can turn it into something else. So the last one actually is a perfect segue

because it's the exact same thing, being there too long, Mike Tomlin. But the Steelers haven't won a playoff game since 2016. The funny thing is I used to think he was a little overrated because I just have to hear about it all the time. And then I thought like he was giving us the Tomlin quotes and Tomlin fashion because it sounded really cool and it always worked really well.

So I thought it was a bit of an acting deal there with him. And I thought they had some bad home playoff losses, but it might only be like two. So I might've been unfair. And yet now I've become a way bigger fan of his because then I realized after the fact, all the bullshit that he was dealing with stays the course, the team is still always competitive and a couple of these years recently, I'm like, I don't think that team is any good and yet they're still competitive and he does something incredibly unpopular with the Russell Wilson thing and it probably raises their floor a little bit.

And clearly the deep shot thing has changed their offense here. So he does something. So I like Tomlin more, like I'm completely against the Tomlin currents. I was down on him when everyone loved him. And now I like him more when he's never been questioned more. So again I don't even know what I'm doing over here. Yeah, that stat and it gets brought up all the time with Tomlin that he hasn't won a playoff game since 2016. I'm just like dude look at the Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Duck Hodges. Now

there was a year or two there with with Ben Rathlsberger and then washed Ben Rathlsberger, but it's like the most misleading stat in the NFL. You take a league average coach with those quarterbacks, they're not sniffing the playoffs and you're complaining about not having playoff. They wouldn't be anywhere near 500 with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph. That's the year, like his hall of fame plaque. Forget the Superbowl. This guy went over 500 with duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph. Enough said he doesn't need to do anything else in his career. So I think Tomlin's awesome. I

mean, I know it gets overplayed, but 18 years without a losing record. Think of all the stuff that can go wrong in a season injuries, turnover, lock schedule strength. And then what he's doing this season, uh, I think he's one of the best coaches in the NFL. We agree, but we can't put them on the happy fan base. No, they're fan based. Yeah. They're fan based. I think Steelers fans, if I'm wrong, I'm sorry.

I don't know. I've heard a lot of complaints over the years that like, oh my, and he gets all the, again, it's like hardball. He gets all this love from the national people, but this guy hasn't done X, Y, and Z. I'm sorry, that guy is doing more with less most years. What about Denver? Got him on the should list. Listen, here's the thing. Sean Payton's like the most arrogant, most smug coach the NFL maybe has seen in my lifetime. He thinks he's God's gift to football. That's true. It's also true that he's one of the best coaches

of like the last 25 years. I'm sorry, he is. I mean, you look at what he did in New Orleans and now they're five and five. They're over under for wins. I think this year was five and a half rookie quarterback. I know they're doing it a lot with their defense, but he did hire the defensive coordinator.

So yes, I think Broncos fans, I don't know if they like Sean Payton personally, they're probably like this guy's this guy's freaking annoying, but also he's a very good coach. Zach Taylor. I don't think Bengals fans are in on Zach Taylor anymore. Can we say that it's it's Zach Taylor's last like what he did last season? Yeah. I like Zach Taylor. He's in the middle for me. Yeah, he's in the middle for me.

Yeah, right. But this isn't I'm not a Cincinnati fan. So right. This is not this is not about me. Um, I got two more shoulds here. Yeah, well, I noticed you didn't say Shanahan, but I've talked to enough Niners fans who they think he's the worst fucking coach in the world. So I can't, I can't talk about Shanahan with people. I cannot talk to them about it. And I just go, all right, fine.

Like there are people that I respect that think he is the smartest guy ever. And there's other people I respect that are just like, he sucks. And I think the he sucks party's a little too harsh about it. I might have skipped him. I had him in the first tier. I don't know if I said him or not,

but he's the best offensive coach in the league. I mean, like, I don't know. He's gotten to the Superbowl twice with two different quarterbacks. They're in the mix every year. They've hired defensive coordinators, not this last group, but it's hard when your guys keep getting post for head coaching jobs. But three straight.

Yeah. He had good ones there. I mean, come on, if Kyle Shanahan were available after this season, or if they were willing to trade Kyle Shanahan, it would be a crazy bidding war to get that guy as your head coach. I actually think there's some fair criticism about some of his in game, the stuff we can see in game management,

why is he kicking a field goal there? That stuff which I like to rip coaches about, don't get me wrong, that's kind of the one area where he's not great, but you give him any like offensive personnel in the NFL and they're gonna be at least competent and they're probably gonna be good. I mean, he's just been an innovator. So yeah, Shanahan's in the first group for me.

Okay, but do you think that that's his approval rating? Cause that's not what I'd get. I actually don't know. I feel like you're shoulding him. I think you're taking a should and putting him in the, I would be thrilled to put them in the yes. That's not the experience that I've had in talking to, it's not like I have a thousand Niners fans, my brother.

So I'm guilty of one of my least favorite things that I've seen, the polling of one phenomenon. You know, it's like, it's like, well, this is what I think is going on. You talk to one fucking person. But the Shanahan stuff, maybe it's, you know, it's like, well, this is what I think is going on. Like you talk to one fucking person. But the Shanahan stuff, maybe it's, you know, it can be a bit like Shanahan's considered this genius for all the things you just laid out.

And then when it's, I can't believe you went for the field goal. I can't believe that people are just like looking at field goal decisions to just try to shit on a guy's entire ability to coach a football team. That's my whole brand, all right? Settle down. Yeah, right, sorry. It's like the timeouts in basketball

because we don't know, most people don't know exactly, like, okay, what's happening here or whatever. It's like, did it work? Oh, well, they should have called a timeout because it's something we feel comfortable criticizing. We used to see it right in front of each other. Just because a guy decides from 48 out to go for, you know, fourth and five and it doesn't work and the go, I don't know, man.

I mean, I guess maybe I've just seen the ESPN go green graphic too much on the television. Uh, all right. So you have it at 10 then you have it at 10. No, I had Shanahan among my eight. Let me count here. Let me four or five, six. Yeah, I have them in there. Yeah, that's right. I didn't, I had them in my maybe. That's why. Okay. I have a couple other shoulds that you haven't mentioned here. I've got Sean McDermott in the should. I don't know if they do or not. They don't. So I didn't bring it up as a yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they've won 65% of their games with him. Uh, this will be their sixth straight season of double digit wins. And you can say,

yeah, but they've got Josh Allen. Go look at that defense and that personnel. They haven't had a bad defense with Sean McDermott. And this was a reset year. They get rid of all these veterans and guess what? Their defense is like top 10 top 12, uh, in the NFL by all. They're missing five, like really good players on defense at one point last year. And then you're right, this was the, hopefully Josh can help us get through a financial reset year and they're doing it again. I agree with you, but we both know that's not the case in Buffalo. Okay. That's one. And then this, I don't know if this is controversial or not, but

I got Kevin Stefanski on the should list. The team the team sucks. And you can say, I don't know what his role was with the, you know, I'm sure everyone now everyone's going to be like, well, I didn't want to Sean Watson. This guy wanted to Sean Watson, not me. That stuff's going to happen. I love that stuff as well. At the same time, I think he is a very good offensive coach. Uh, I think he's really good at the in game management stuff that I like to rip, uh, good offensive coach. I think he's really good at the in-game management stuff that I like to rip coaches for. I think he's pretty buttoned up there. I think he did a good job

hiring a good defensive coordinator in Jim Schwartz. He's another guy that I think if they fire Kevin Stefanski after this season, I think he gets a head coaching job right away going into next year. So I think he's a really good coach. You can check out Sheil and the crew on the Philly special and of course, the Ringer NFL show everywhere where you get podcasts and his work on ringer.com.

This was fun. This is actually more fun than I thought it'd be. Great idea, Saruti. Sometimes in basketball, 30 points could be worth more than 30 points. And now you can get a 30% profit boost on 30 plus point scores with Fandools 30 on 30. That's right. The Ringer is teaming up with America's number one sportsbook to give you a 30% profit boost when you pick a player to score more than 30 points during Friday's NBA Cup action. We thought this would be a lot of fun. That's why the Ringer reached out to Fandools and booked during Friday's NBA Cup action. We thought this would be a lot of fun.

That's why the Ringer reached out to FanDuel and hooked this up for all of us. So now, this Friday night, a big game for them means a bigger payout for you. Just looking at the Friday slate, let's take a look at it. So did a bunch of research for the gang on this one. Obviously, Giannis being on a tear, 7 of 11 games, 30 points, nice little 59 spot. Problem is, he's not playing tonight. So we don't have that for

you. Then I was thinking Lamello on the other side. He's had 7 of 11 games with 30 or more points. But guess who Milwaukee is playing tomorrow? They're playing Charlotte. I looked at Jokic. Jokic, by the way, you realize on the season, he's averaging 30, 14 and 12 on shooting splits at 56% overall and 56% from three. He's had four 30 point games,

also a 28, 27, 29. He's questionable though tonight at New Orleans. So if he's not questionable, I really like it. And considering where that line is right now, it is looking like they expect him to be able to play here. So let's go with Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell has the Bulls at home tonight. And just a few days ago on Monday against the Chicago team,

where I don't really like their defensive guard matchups now against Mitchell, Mitchell scored 36. So that, my friends, is the lean. So whether you want to ride with my picks or make your own, just look for 30 on 30 in the Fandool Sportsbook app or head to fandool.com slash Ryan for your chance to score a bigger payout this Friday. Don't miss your chance to find out

how much 30 points can be worth with Fandools 30 on 30. Must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, often required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com gambling problem call 100 gambler visit rg-help.com. We've got some fights the next couple nights. So very excited to talk to Ariel Hauwani, who I can't believe you're doing this day of, man.

So a massive, massive thank you. We were trying to figure it out and I was like, well, we could see. So I know you're busy. So thank you so much for doing this. Well, first of all, I would never say no to the great Ryan Rusilo. In fact, this is my Ryan Rusilo podcast last show debut,

which I feel a certain way about. Of course, we were colleagues at the Ringer for three years, never got the call. Now, all it took was for me to leave to get the call. Now, this actually makes me feel better because Bill's had me on the show since leaving, you have me on. So I never want to, business is business. We can all be friends and support each other.

So I didn't want to get shunned. But the first thing that actually came to mind when I left want to, you know, you know, business is business. We can all be friends and support each other. And so I didn't want to get shunned, but you know, the first thing that actually came to mind when I left was like, all right, well, there goes my dreams of ever being on the Ryan Russo show because now he's definitely not going to have me on. And so here we are on the morning of the biggest night of my, no one cares about me, but my career, getting a chance to talk to the legend himself.

This is huge. Okay. The reason I didn't have you on is that I, and I didn't realize I never had you on, I thought we had you on once. No, listen, it's okay. This is, this is huge. Is that there can be some Bill stuff where it's like, all right, Bill guys and Ryan guys, and then there's some overlap.

And then because Anik and I have known each other for 20 years, Anik was kind of my guy and since Bill wasn't using Anik, then it was like, okay. So that's, I really had probably, and it wasn't even like Bill and I argued about it, but there's definitely like a bucket of Bill guy and Ryan guys. And I felt like you were a Bill guy cause I had Anik and that's it. I've always liked your stuff. Well, first of all, I love this. We're breaking K-Fabe as they say in the business, we're breaking the fourth wall.

Uh, Anik is incredible. Uh, no apology needed there. He is outstanding at what he does. And I know you guys go way back and, you know, the Boston guys have to stick together, blah, blah, blah. But I'm happy to be everyone's guy. I want to be everywhere as well. So please don't... And Bill and I don't really align on any sports topics and teams as well. So I can't necessarily call myself a Bill Guy per se. In fact, sometimes I think he just has me on the show when my teams are doing really poorly against his just to stick it to me. Like he had me on last time after the Celtics killed the Knicks on opening night.

And I was like, oh, this is why you call me back. But nevertheless, happy to be here, happy to talk to you. And I'm honestly a huge admirer and fan of everything you've done your whole career. And I love the way that you do it your own way. You walk the walk, you talk the talk, you stick it to the man. You're not a corporate shill. I love it.

That was very nice of you to say. So thanks. Thanks for doing it. So let's, let's get, I guess we start, you know, I almost felt like it was more important to start with John Jones and USC, but you're there. I mean, you were the guy for this Tyson, Jake Paul fight and Tyson slaps him and you're in the middle of this whole thing. So let me start with, and I just go wherever you need to go with that experience of the

entire thing. Like you and depending on a certain age, I had the Tyson cover of Sports Illustrated. He's only 18, following the career. It wasn't like I was such a huge fan of him, but he, everyone was just, Tyson was such a big, big deal. And we have this fight tonight where, I'll get into how I feel about it and the outcome.

And part of me is like, I wish this wasn't happening, but at the same time, it's like, well, if something is happening that I'm going to be really interested in, why would I be upset that it's happening? So that's, that's kind of where I'm at with it, where I think there's a full circle Jake Paul thing where you're like, Oh, this guy's going to do this. And now that he's in combat world and he's stepping into the ring every single time we can get through the list of all those things. Like I have so much respect for anybody who actually gets into a ring against somebody else and does it for real.

So that part of it, we can talk about his opponents and all that stuff, but like he's actually doing that. And so if it's a spectacle, but it's a spectacle that people are interested in, then who's really to blame for this even happening tonight? So that's kind of my full circle timeline of reckoning with yeah, I'm gonna be watching it. I don't know if it's gonna be any good, but I'm definitely interested in that's kind of my full circle timeline of reckoning with, yeah, I'm going to be watching it. I don't know if it's going to be any good, but I'm definitely interested in that's kind of what matters and why any of this stuff is on TV.

Okay. So, so many thoughts and feelings and emotions. First of all, if I may, I'm a kid who grew up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and all I ever wanted to be was powered Co-Sell. I used to go to my grandparents' house, they had one of those dodgy pay-per-view boxes, and I would watch these shows, and I would watch these fights, and I would watch the weigh-ins, and I would go later in life when I was a teenager

to a pool hall on Dakarri, if anyone's from Montreal will know that place, called Jilly's, and I would watch the fights with my friends, and I would tell them this guy said this about that guy and that's all I wanted to do. And so for me in these moments to be up there next to Mike freaking Tyson, I'm born in 1982. I was playing punch out with my brothers. I remember the commercial coming on saying if you call 1-800 Tyson's back, you can get the t-shirt, the hat and the program for his fight against Peter McNeely.

And now I'm there standing next to him, 58 or not, this is surreal stuff. And I'm just so grateful and appreciative that I'm getting this opportunity. That's step number one. Step number two, and I don't know if this is being talked about enough, this is on Netflix. This is Netflix's first live presentation of combat sports. They did the WWE deal that's starting in January, but this is the biggest streaming platform in the world. I'm a huge nerd when it comes to sports media.

I listen to all the shows and podcasts and read all the stuff. I feel like this is being overshadowed by the return of Mike and Jake Paul, but this is Netflix getting into live combat sports. In case you don't know, 280 million plus subscribers, one platform. It's not being broadcast on any other platform around the world. It's just Netflix, Brazil, India, Japan, Canada, US, Netflix, no pay-per-view, no added cost. It's just going to be there for you. A sign of the times, who knows? We'll see. For now, it's just a one-off, but that's a huge deal in its own right. And then we get to the fight. I will admit when Nikkisa Baderian, who's the co founder of Most

Valuable Promotions with with Jake Paul told me back in March, this is the next fight, I was like, really? Mike Tyson, like, you guys went down this, this path of, you know, influencer, then Nate Robinson, then MMA fighters. And then it seemed, if you recall, he went down like the boring, just traditional boxing path. He fought a guy named Ryan Borland, knocked him out, fought a guy named Andre August. Like just the type of guys that you would fight if you have nine or so fights on your

record. And people were rejecting that. They were like, no, no, no, we want spectacle out of Jake. We get enough of that in other places. We want spectacle. So now they go here, total left turn, no, we want spectacle out of Jake. We get enough of that in other places. We want spectacle. So now they go here, total left turn, and it's Mike freaking Tyson at 58. And I thought the first thing that comes to mind is like,

he's 58, this is not safe, it's not healthy. What kind of state is he in? All these things and more. And they go with it because Netflix and everyone involved wants the biggest spectacle possible. And that's what this is. Then we find out once they announced the fight on July 20th, it was supposed to take place initially on July 20th. And sorry for going long here, but I'm just trying to give you the timeline.

We find out on May 31st that Mike is pulling out of the fight because he suffered an ulcer on a plane. And so then you're like, okay, for sure this is dead, right? This is not happening. They reschedule it for November 15th tonight. And so you have some funny feelings. But I can tell you this, and I'm not paid by the promotion. I do not get paid by promoters. I will never get paid by promoters for the rest of my career. I'm paid by the network here. The experience that I've had on Wednesday and Thursday of this week is unlike anything that I've ever felt before. Wednesday was the press conference. Mike was giving me, and I hosted it, Mike was giving me one to two word answers. Initially I thought he was mad at me,

but then I saw that he was doing that for everyone. He's switched on, he's different, he's wired differently. And then we see what happened yesterday. And hand on my heart, the look in his eyes, the look on his face after that slap, when I was standing next to him like this, like I'm holding a piece of meat trying to feed a lion and terrified for my life, which I was because he was being surrounded by four massive bodyguards who were holding each other's

hands because they didn't want him to break free and attack Jake Paul. I have never seen that look. Forget about fighters on a human being's face. If I would have said the wrong thing, I have no doubt that I would have been slapped. Fifty-eight or not, people could say whatever they want, and it's all very valid. That demon, that beast never leaves that guy. He is different, and he said it

perfectly in the countdown show on Netflix. Jake Paul is a manufactured killer. The media made Jake Paul into a killer, made him believe that he's a killer. I am a natural born killer, and that gives me chills when I say that. He's different and you can't extinguish that, and we've seen that reemerge.

What that means tonight, what that translates into, what this fight looks like, I have no idea, I can't wait to see. But I know that this man is coming prepared and look at the shape that he's in. Who mean, who would have thought 58 that Mike Tyson looks like that. Jake steps on Tyson's toes before the slap. You were in the middle of it. How real was all of that?

I knew you were going to ask me that. And I have too much respect for you to believe that you believe this, that you believe that this is scripted, that you believe. Because come on, Mike Tyson doesn't do scripted. Yeah, I know he showed up on WWE Raw in the late 90s. He was a special guest referee at WrestleMania 15. I watched it. I loved it. He doesn't know how to pull punches. He doesn't know how to do scripted. That was a thousand percent real. No one look, if they would have said, okay, um, you know, I'm going to go in your face and you're going to shove me and all that. Did you see that slap? You can't script like that. That was insane. It turned his neck. You know, but Jake also, you know, look, if we're going full scope,

Jake is crazy enough to be like, just do it. If it were to happen. Yes. I mean, afterwards he said he hits, I don't know if we're allowed to say some of these words like the B word. Say whatever you need to say. Oh yeah, he hits like a bitch and all this. I'm like, you know, you're talking about Mike Tyson. I don't care if he's 65 or 58, like this is Mike Tyson.

I would be terrified. The stepping on the foot wasn't like, hey, now hit me. Like I'm gonna touch you and now you touch me. Jake does that thing where he like walks up on someone. He does that in his face-offs. And I guess he stepped on his foot and that set him off. But again, I was talking to his son, Amir Tyson, afterwards. He's working some of the broadcast stuff as well.

And he's in his mid-30s. This is the first time that he gets to see Mike, his dad, in this type of light, because when Mike was in his prime, he wasn't born. And he was pacing back and forth. He was almost to a degree frazzled because he's like, people don't understand. They keep talking about his age. They keep talking about him being way past his prime, all this stuff.

He doesn't play. He doesn't play fighting. He doesn't do YouTube boxing. He only knows one speed. And you get in his face, you pick a fight in him. He's getting paid. No doubt about it. He is going to go one speed. Now again, does that mean 30 seconds of hell tonight?

Maybe. Does that mean he gets caught trying to rush in? Maybe. But there was, in my opinion, my humble opinion, there was nothing scripted. There was nothing planned about that. That was the beast being unleashed. I like that you brought up the Jake Paul timeline, you know, cause if we look at the fight cards over this run, where it is a little

bit more spectacle, it's the MMA guys. I thought that Mayweather, you kind of knew that Mayweather would probably want it to be an event and like carry it a bit, you know, uh, there are perhaps a couple exchanges there where boxing people would be like, okay, maybe Jake's got a little bit more. Cause that was also the other part of his journey through this is like, this is a total joke. This is another stunt. And then you would listen to like boxing, people like, there's actually some talent in there. And yet when he tried to go down the more serious

path, then nobody cared about it. So I love the reminders of that you are in this world. What do people think of him for the people that are educated and this has been a life in boxing? What do they think of where he's at right now as a boxer? So he's extremely polarizing for many reasons. Number one, people say like he's a grifter, he's a cloud chaser. He picks fights against people that he knows he can beat. He fights past their prime MMA fighters because he knows that he can beat them. He picks on the Mike Tyson's of the world at 58 and says, oh, if I beat him, I'm now the baddest man on the planet. No, it doesn't work like that, right? Mike's the baddest

man on the planet in 1989, not quite in 2024. So he riles people up with these words. That being said, he's a tremendous heel. And what I mean by heel is the old pro wrestling term. He's a tremendous bad guy. He doesn't mind getting this heat on him and playing the bad guy. And he's been very smart and calculated. His decision to essentially pick a fight with the world of mixed martial arts for about two years,

to pick a fight with Ben Askren, to pick a fight with Tyron Woodley twice, Anderson Silva, Nate Diaz. And of course the grand Pumba himself, Dana White, was brilliant because MMA fans and the MMA media ended up covering him more seriously than the boxing media because it was Jake Paul versus the UFC. And oh, by the way, his partner and the co-founder of his promotion, Most Valuable Promotions, is the former CFO of the UFC, Nikkisa Bidarian.

So it's all very sort of personal between them. And I thought that that was smart. But that storyline kind of came to an end. And so the question then was, all right, now that that's done and he beat all these guys, where does he go from here? And so like I said, he kept saying he wanted to win a legit boxing title. And so he was having those fights and people kind of said, that's not what we want out of you. There's enough of that on ESPN Top Rank or Dazon or PBC on Amazon. We get that. Just give us the circus fights.

And so this opportunity presents itself. And oh, by the way, he now says after this one, he wants to fight Canelo Alvarez, potentially on Cinco de Mayo weekend, which is historically when Canelo fights. And I have no doubt that that is something that is going to be seriously considered by Canelo. A boatload of money, a relatively easier fight, and all this spectacle and all this pomp and

circumstance. And so I do think at this juncture, the traditional smart boxing people in the sport, you know, like the Teddy Atlas's of the world. They respect Jake Paul. As you said, anyone who steps in the ring deserves our respect and I respect Jake Paul for that. It's not easy to fight. Go to your local gym, put on gloves and spar another human being. It is very tough. Now add the lights, add the cameras, add the millions of people. It is not easy. And so you earn our respect, at least mine, when you do that. It's the sort of like Twitter, internet, half fans who say, ah, this kid is a bum. Ah, he scripts his fights.

Ah, he's just a YouTuber. Ah, he's on steroids. All this stuff. They try to throw out these things because to them, none of this really makes sense. This shouldn't really be happening. He shouldn't be getting this type of attention. But the story is extremely unique. He doesn't need the fights to be getting this type of attention. But the story is extremely unique. He doesn't need the fights to be rich. He doesn't need to wake up and pound the pavement because

he's already a multi-multi-millionaire. He's just going out there and found this lane in boxing that was able to kind of reinvent his life and rejuvenate him. And he's found tremendous success. And the thing that doesn't get talked about enough, if I may, is that I think a lot of people, and I've heard this in the buildup to this fight, there's a lot of people worried that this is a referendum on the state of boxing. They use this same old storyline that the sanctity of boxing is being ruined and how dare they ruin boxing and look at how in the gutter boxing is.

And this is just another sign that the UFC is better than boxing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of these people are watching top rank on Friday night in Norfolk. They're not watching Dazon boxing tomorrow night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Boxing let me tell you is actually in an incredible place right now. It's as healthy as it's been in the last 20 years. There's superstars like Tyson Fury and Alexander Usyk and Terrence Crawford and Inouye. It's doing just fine.

This is not a referendum on the state of boxing or any sort of indictment on the state of boxing. And if you are truly concerned about this ruining boxing or being some sort of sign that boxing is dead, do me a favor, watch the rest of the card. This is not a celebrity boxing card. The co-main event is Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano, which is the rematch of the greatest women's fight

of all time. These are two legit fighters. The rest ofmain event is Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano, which is the rematch of the greatest women's fight of all time. These are two legit fighters. The rest of the card is all legit fighters. So they are actually doing the thing that boxing has never done, which is, oh, come for the circus, Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson, but please watch these other great fighters because they deserve the same type of attention

and spotlight as well. Who do you think wins? Well, you know, Ryan, I consider myself a very sort of esteemed member of the press. I graduated from the School of Public Communications, Newhouse at Syracuse University. And I was always told that if you are working a broadcast, you cannot make a prediction. The great John Anick would not make a prediction if he was calling a fight, if you asked him about 309. So I must abstain. and I'm sure that, you know,

Mike is a big fan of the pod, probably listening to this as he's about to make his, you know, last run before the fight. And if he hears that I potentially am picking him to lose via decision, and then I'm in the ring after he knocks out Jake Paul, and I ask him a question, what's gonna happen to me? Then my blood is on your hands

and I don't want that for you. So I must say that the fans, the public, the general public are gonna be the winners tonight. I guess I would feel better about Tyson if the workout teasers were longer. You know, like guys will send me Tyson like throwing a combination and they're like, Jake's dead. I was like, okay, but what about the other two minutes and 55 seconds of the round with that time off?

Sorry to interrupt, but what's noting? Two minute rounds, this fight. Two minute rounds. Oh, is it? Two minute rounds? Okay. All right. So it's eight two minute rounds, 14 ounce gloves. So those two minutes go fast, but yes, you're 100% right. You know what's so fun about this? There's very few fights, at least around my career, that kind of break through to the mainstream. Let's be honest, you're not having me on to talk about

some regular fight. And so it's great for me. I have a bunch of soccer dads that I'm friends with, dads at my kid's school. They never wanna talk to me about anything, but they keep asking me, are you working this? Who's going to win this and that? And that's cool because that means it breaks through and it's really, really fun. And what I'm seeing is, you know, I'm 42, the guys who grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, they're like, please tell me that

he's going to knock out this spoiled brat, this annoying kid with the stupid haircut and all this stuff. And then my kids who are 12 and 10, they think legit, they think that Jake Paul is boxing. They think Jake Paul is Muhammad Ali. So they're like, oh, of course Jake Paul is going to kill this guy. So you have this generational clash of 40, 50 year olds who are like, one last ride, Mike, come on, do it for all of us who are playing punch out. And then the kids are like, oh, he's going to smoke the old man. And that's made this build at least for me, very fun. Speaking of gloves, great transition at the UFC 309.

Uh, they're going to go with the old school gloves, which John Jones was worried about, uh, you know, I was watching every one of his, his finishes last night, right. And I was thinking about like how he would attack Jones and And for anybody that's loved the UFC, and you've probably heard this a million times, like Jones will be my favorite fighter, I went to go see him live. You know, it was the kind of thing where I was like, I want to make sure I at least get in the building to see him fight

once. I don't remember. I don't know what fight it might've been to share it, but it was just one of those fights where I was like, he's up, he's winning. And yet he still wants to fight. Like he could, he could avoid any contact in the fifth round, but he still wants to fight. And then he starts bringing out the entire toolbox of every single

thing that he can do. And that's what blows my mind about him. And now we know he's, he's jumped up and wait, you know, he's, he's got this belt since Nganu and I'm helping the audience along here. I'm not telling you certainly anything you don't know, but just kind of the timeline of like how we got to here with this fight at MSG when it felt like the buildup of this fight is like, nobody wants to be disrespectful with Stipe. We're all excited that John is fighting here again,

but there's all these other like layers and topics of whether or not this should have been the fight and then what it means if John wins this one. So I haven't really asked a question there. I guess give me just a blanket expectations of what you see for two older heavyweights that have had significant time off. Yeah.

I mean, it's almost a shame that both of these events are happening on the same weekend because I feel like both of them deserve all of our attention and we have to split the conversation. This is a huge deal. Arguably, by the way, the most significant heavyweight title fight to happen at Madison Square Garden since March 8, 1971, when Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier, that's no hyperbole. There's only been two MMA heavyweight title fights at MSG and just a smattering of a couple here and there in boxing. But this is a pretty big deal when you consider that John Jones is arguably the greatest of all time. And so he moves up to heavyweight after a three-year layoff in March of 2023 and he smokes surreal

gone. And so he then becomes the champion because Francis Ngannou vacated the title when he left the UFC and signed with PFL. And so the belt is somewhat disputed because he didn't beat the lineal champ, who's Francis, but it's John Jones and everyone's like, all right, we've wanted to see him up at heavyweight for quite some time. This is great. Instead of calling out an active heavyweight though, he calls out Stipe Miocic, who's the most successful and decorated heavyweight champion in UFC history, but had not fought in two years at that point and was knocked out in

his last fight by Francis Ngannou, who John didn't want to fight. And so that fight was Miocic Jones was supposed to happen last November. Unfortunately, two weeks before the fight, John Jones messes up his shoulder, has to have surgery, then has elbow surgery. And the UFC, instead of booking Stipe against someone else or stripping him of the belt, just books it for the following year, same weekend, back at MSG. The problem is, that's one more year that Stipe hasn't fought. And so now it's been three and a half years since his last fight.

John hasn't defended the title since beating Surreal Gun. And there's a young man from England named Tom Aspinall, who is the People's Champ. He became the interim champion last November when John didn't fight. He has defended the interim title back in July in Manchester, and that's very rare. Usually when the champion is back healthy

and there's an interim champ, there's a unification bout to get rid of the interim title. John and the UFC wanted to stick with the Stipe fight. So this has annoyed some people. That being said, Stipe is being disrespected in the buildup to this fight. Stipe is one of the best fighters of all time. And yes, he's in his forties and yes, he hasn't fought. Yes, he's a full-time firefighter now.

He's still very, very good. Am I picking the upset? No, but I do think this fight is going to be a lot closer and competitive than people think. John's getting older as well. And at some point the rubber is going to meet the road with John. I do think he's done a great job of staying out of trouble, but he's put a lot of miles on his body as well and done a lot of things to his body. And so let's see how this all plays out. I will say John looks to be in tremendous shape, way better than he did in

23 when he fought surreal gun He he's slimmed down a little bit as a heavyweight. He just weighed in this morning But I don't think that steep is going to be a cakewalk The the big controversy is John is saying he will not fight Aspen all if he wins Dana is saying he must fight Aspen All and so we're in for some drama if everything goes according to the UFC's plan on Saturday Did John not want to fight Francis? and all. And so we're in for some drama if everything goes according to the UFC's plan on Saturday. Did John not want to fight Francis? 100%. I mean, that's not me like opining. That's John's words. That's Francis' words. And that's the UFC words. Now you have to finish the sentence to be fully

accurate. He didn't want to fight Francis for the money that they were offering him to fight Francis. So do I believe that John Jones is afraid of Francis Ngannou? No. I mean, I don't think anyone in the UFC, especially in the upper echelon, is afraid. But John Jones felt like there should have been a certain price tag attached that fight. And guess what? I believe him. He's underpaid. Connor's underpaid. Every single fighter in the UFC is underpaid, especially the top dogs. And so with the money they were offering, he said, no, I'm not going to do this. It's not worth it. It's not worth my legacy. And this is essentially what he's saying'm not going to do this. It's not worth it. It's not worth my legacy. And this is essentially what he's saying about the Aspenall fight.

He's younger than me. He's dangerous. At this juncture, I'm this close to retiring undefeated. Why should I risk it all against a young hungry lion like Tom Aspenall? And so there's some calculation going on there. And he's riling people up with his words, but I do believe he has to be smart about things. And so if they're going to

ask him to take a risk, he wants to be paid accordingly. And I have no problem with that. I think he's entitled to ask for that. Yeah. He really shit on Aspen all this week though. I mean, it was, it was like dismissive. It's good shit. It's good shit. This is heel shit. This is what we've always wanted out of John. We don't want like, Oh, preach your son, John. Like he's saying some nonsensical things, but guess what? You know what he's doing? He may be doing it on purpose or not. He has turned Tom Aspinall into the biggest baby face in the business right now. This is Cody Rhodes, Circa 2024. This is Daniel Bryan, Circa 2017. Yesterday, they asked Dana White of the Presser, if he wins, is he fighting Tom? And he goes, yeah, he'll fight Tom. The place erupts. This is Tom Aspinall, who's not like the

biggest name in the sport, but because everyone feels like the man is holding him back, they've now turned him into a baby face, which if this is all calculated, brilliance, like it's amazing. I love this stuff. I don't know if it is, but this is the unintentional byproduct of his chatter this week. John's an interesting one because, you know, if you go with everything that he's gone through off the field to say outside of the ring, I guess it'd be more accurate.

If somebody was like, I hate that guy, I'd be like, I totally get it. I totally get it. What I try to do, especially when it comes to combat, I separate the two things. And I appreciate his skill. I appreciate his approach. We had him in ESPN for the day. We spent a lot of time together in the morning and he, he was awesome. Right.

But he was also smart enough to know that he was at Bristol's headquarters and he was going to turn it on. And then I ran into him somewhere else and it was a totally different John. And I've seen different, different parts of it because he's, he's brought it all on himself. different parts of it because he's brought it all on himself. So I think at times when you're public, you have to show remorse and you have to soften a bit. And then as you're gearing up for fight week, it's like, well, I'm about to go fight Steve Bay, for Christ's sake. So I'm not going to be nice this week. You're around it. You're certainly a lot closer than almost anybody. What's he like? What is John like? What's the best way to describe him?

Best way for me to describe John Jones is that he's a chameleon. He's one of the most fascinating people that I've ever come across because he plays different roles. He doesn't usually show you his true self. And so you nailed it. When you were with him in Bristol, he was giving you the Bristol version of John, as opposed to some people who are just giving you their same self regardless. I have always equated him to our version of Lawrence Taylor, Daryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, a guy with superhuman talent who can't get out of his own way,

who probably in the end should have actually been as crazy as it sounds better than he was. But because of all the transgressions, because of all the stuff that he did to himself, he actually I think limited his ceiling, which is insane because he was that darn good and arguably the greatest of all time.

So it's a very interesting conversation and I'm conflicted at times because he is so talented. People ask me, like, who's the greatest of all time? And I'll say, like, well, there's two lists. Everything Goes list and there's the Never Popped for a PED list. John can't be on that second list because he has popped for PEDs. And that's a cloud over his career. Now he'll say it was a pinch of salt in an Olympic sized pool, all this stuff. It is what it is.

Who the hell knows? But he's done some other stuff that has landed him in a lot of trouble and it has been ugly at times. The talent is undeniable. He's an incredible fighter. But I'll tell you one story. 2015, he gets into the hit and run accident. I don't know if you remember he hits another car.

He was in New Mexico, right? Yeah, pregnant woman. He leaves the scene. He gets out of his car and runs away. That was in March. He didn out of his car and runs away. That was in March. He didn't speak to anyone until November. I was lucky enough to speak to him.

So I flew to Albuquerque and we were gonna do this walk and talk in the park and he was gonna open up about it. The road to getting to Albuquerque was the worst experience of my career. It's happening, it's not happening. It's on, it's off, it's on, it's on. The morning of the interview, I get a call from his PR person saying, we need all the questions.

I don't write questions. I'm certainly not going to walk around with a sheet of questions. What are you asking me for? Like, you know what I'm here to talk about. It's up to you guys to answer whichever way you want. Oh, we don't know if we could do it then, da da da. Nightmare. Do the interview.

Interview is done. It's not live, obviously. We're about to post it two days later. His team calls me saying, you can't post the interview. Interview is done. It's not live, obviously. We're about to post it two days later. His team calls me saying, you can't post the interview. We don't want the interview out there. He's going to fly to New York. We're going to do it again. We fly to New York, do it again. We just did a whole hour. Like it was, it was fine. It is what it is. No, don't do it. If you do it, you're never going to talk to John again, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They were harassing me. Never experienced this before. I had to

shut off my phone for 24 hours. I can't do that. I'm addicted to this thing because they were bothering me so much. I said, I don't care if this guy never talks to me again. It's going out. We agreed. That's it.

And in the end it went out and people were like, oh, that's a good version of John. He's never gonna do this. He's never gonna do that. And they were like, oh, thanks Ariel. We appreciate it. I was like, yeah, thanks for making my life hell for the past week.

Of course he's done many things after that, but that's what I'm talking about. Like there's this part of him where he wants so much for everyone to like him. And so he says this, and then he really wants to do this. And then he thinks that the people won't like him because of this. And there's this conflict in these back and forth stuff.

And so he's never quite figured out how to be himself. So that's why I say this version, I think is much more accurate than one we've seen this week where he's like, yeah, screw that guy. I'm the man and he can't tie my shoelaces. That to me is more accurate than the preacher son version that we saw of him back in the early days when he first made his UFC debut. I watched the gunfight this morning and it was like hilarious because obviously, you know the outcome, but you're looking at his body, you know, and the jump up to heavyweight and you're going, oh my God. And then it doesn't, and it doesn't matter. Like it just, he is so skilled and he's fucking mean too. Like I know

everybody's mean in MMA. You know what I mean? Like there has to be some level throughout your life to how life shifts us all out of like, no, this guy's actually like a real tough guy and there's a meanness to him that is not saying like, because he's meaner than steep a like, that's why I'm picking him. It just that that gunfights is so funny to me because he's so out of shape. He rolls in there and it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So if he's in better shape now, you know, he actually looks great. He looks great.

Oh, um, I can't wait. You know, the time off and everything. He looks great. Yeah. Oh. I can't wait. Enjoy tonight, by the way. Thank you. A really cool way to start this visit with us, a full circle moment. I can't wait, like just because I will be entertained by whatever it is.

And since I already have Netflix, it's even easier. It's even easier for me to pull it off. Oh man. So thanks, man. Yeah, it's a huge honor for me to be on here with you. Congrats on all your success. And yeah, I can't wait either. I hope that it's a great night.

I hope everyone's healthy and there's no incident and it's a great night for boxing. And I just can't believe that Netflix is in the live, combat sports business. That's a huge deal. And like I said, I don't think it's getting talked about enough. So thank you so much.

All the best to my friends at the Ringer and I'm happy we're still friends. One happy family. We could still be buds. This is a virtual hug. Enjoy the combat this weekend. Thank you. Okay. We did not ignore the Alliance issues for any reason other than we

wanted to save it when we revisited the pick. Uh, the Alliance issues for any reason other than we wanted to save it when we revisited the pick. The Alliance lost again last week. I was the only loser. It is without question the worst stretch I've ever had. And then Fandu was like, hey, can you pick a 30 point score in the NBA on Friday night on top everything else? And I was like, awesome.

So anyway, the other issue is that I'm losing immediately as the slate starts and then the rest of the guys are winning. So that's back to back weeks, the exact same thing has happened. I took us out of the running and then you guys all won your picks back to back Saturdays. It's back to back, yeah, where you were the, I think the noon Eastern window and done.

And then it's two out of three weeks where you were the only I think the noon Eastern window and done. And then it's two out of three weeks where you were the only one wrong too. So it's been a rough go for Rusilla. So two out of three weeks that I did it. Okay, all right. All right, I have a pick here. I wanted to go headliner game, Tennessee and Georgia. I don't know what to do with Nico.

And then like initial thoughts are Georgia off that loss, even though that offense now for like a week, or excuse me, a month straight, isn't exactly anything you want to be excited about laying 10 and a half, or nine and a half, I think this morning. But with the Nico thing and then moving it around, I don't know what to do.

So I'm gonna go a little off menu here. Let's go Cincinnati at Iowa State. The line right now is plus seven and a half. You go through Cincinnati season, even the loss is pretty close. Feels kind of like a big number for a big 12 game. So I've tried to refuse the juice. The guys want to give me all the juice

because they feel bad. It was more fun when I was at least winning. It was, we'd lose the Alliance, but I'd feel like I'd beat you guys, and now I'm getting my brains beat in. So here we go, yeah. Whatever it is. Good luck.

Whatever. All right, sorry guys, I apologize to you. We're gonna use the juice though, 10 and a half, 10 and a half, two scores. All right, let's see. I mean, look. Secretary of juice. Well, it doesn't help us if you don't use the juice though, 10 and a half, 10 and a half, two scores. All right, let's see. I mean, look. Secretary of juice. Well, it doesn't help us if you don't,

if you refuse the juice. Yeah, right. I wanna refuse the juice, cause I mean, just pick a fucking winner juice. Take it on your own. Give me a break. That's fine. But let us have the juice. I opened up the page,

when I opened up fanjulesportsbook.com, it was just, I just kept scrolling. I was like, what do you like? Oh, one you like, like you don't even like anything. I mean, usually there's weeks where I'm like, Ooh, I like that. I like this, this feels good. Okay. I got screwed on that, whatever this, I just opened it up and was like, Oh, like it was off.

All right. Moving on, moving on. Yeah. I'll go. I'm going to take Texas minus six and a half on the all just went by touchdown. I know there's a lot of people that are on Arkansas and they're like, Oh, I'm going to go to the Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas, Texas, Like it was awful. All right, moving on, moving on. Yeah. I'll go. I'm gonna take Texas minus six and a half on the all.

Just went by a touchdown. I know there's a lot of people that are on Arkansas, a little bit nervous, but this is kind of like a, I don't know, I feel like this is a good spot for Texas. It's like everyone's kind of doubting them. You know, hey, are they actually this, you know, the second best team in the country? I saw some people questioning

whether or not they'd even make the playoff. I believe in- Danny Cannell. I believe in, wasn't gonna name names, but there you go. There's others though, not just Danny. I think there's just nothing more predictable than the end of the year where you just start looking at some of the teams that are ranked. You're like, Hey, does this team actually maybe suck? And it's like, what did you just watch for two and a half months? Like, do you think they suck? You don't think they suck. So I'm going to take them to win by a touch. So really like some, I like LSU Moneyline at Florida. It wasn't

hard to Google this game and find a couple websites that say they like LSU over Florida. And I think that's good enough for me. Google. Love that. Nice. I'm going back to the well. Penn state minus 24 and a half Purdue. Not a great football team. They've played three other top 10 teams, Notre Dame 66 to seven, Oregon, 35, nothing Ohio state 45, nothing. So 24 and a half seems pretty well within range there. The James Frank special. Love that. Yeah.

They take it out on Purdue. All right. Uh, that gets us to plus 42 boys. This is the week. Got to be one. Yeah. If we win this one 482 boys. This is the week. Got to be one. Yeah. If we win this one, we're probably up for the year. It's gonna take a few more.

Let's put a million dollars on this one. Take it to victory laps, yeah. Yeah, no, not quite. All right, enjoy. We'll see. I know what I'm gonna be doing. You're like, why? I'm gonna have people over all my friends

and be like, why is Iowa State Cincinnati on a main screen? Like, don't worry about it. It's just always gonna stay well-rounded, well-versed. Okay, while we're here, we'll finish up with couch money research, research leading the way at four and six. Couch, a steady two, seven and one, and fading the public has been a disaster, one and nine.

All right. Okay. The biggest public money bet as of this morning, Cincinnati plus one and a half. So we're going to go chargers minus the one and a half. This line swung the other way from the open where the charger actually the dog here. I am this never done this before. The pro pick is Pittsburgh plus three at home against Baltimore. I like Baltimore,

so I'm going to head to head with the smart people on this one. Give me Baltimore minus three. And a lot of it has to do with all the Lamar stuff that I've talked to Sheil about. So just think if there's a week that it's going to happen. But yeah, so we'll go head to head. So there will not be a three and a weekend. Right. Oh, no. Check out all of the odds on sportsbook.fandle.com. 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 can 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, the email address, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com.

It's turning into quite the community. Half the emails now and I sift through them. I'm like, this feels more like a Friday feedback. You guys aren't getting it. I don like, this feels more like a Friday feedback. Don't really know what to do with these. You guys aren't getting it. No, but that's actually not my reaction. Originally, probably back in the day, I'd be like, guys, go to these better, but it's fine.

We just tag them and we send them over to the Friday feedback deal, but there's just a lot of good stuff in there. I'll tell you right now, really impressed. Good emails. You're walking around a little lonely on a Friday. Maybe one of your emails is one of the good ones. I got a good story really quickly. So I got my hair cut yesterday.

We noticed. Dude, I think your jawline looks better. I mean, you look, did you get it today? It looks like you got professional gel job in there. Is that just you instinctually fiber? I got it done yesterday. It's a little powder action. A little powder.

I love the hair powder, by the way. I'm into done yesterday. It's a little powder action. A little powder. I love the hair powder, by the way. I'm into that now. It's, it's a game changer. But so I get into the chair and I've been going to this Barbara for a long time. He's in West Hartford. What's up? Shout out James. And he goes, Hey, uh, you got any pretzel buns left?

And I was like, I, but I know he doesn't listen to the pod. He knows, he knows that kind of like vaguely what I do, but I was like, wait, did somebody tell you to say that? And he was like, yeah vaguely what I do, but I was like, wait, did somebody tell you to say that? And he was like, yeah, the guy in the chair before me was like, hey, did you still cut Sarutti's hair? And I didn't even know who this guy was. And he was like, yeah, he's actually coming in right after you.

And by the way, he said, do you wanna stay? He's gonna be here in like five minutes. The guy was like, no, I'm good. And he just left. But I guess the guy told him to ask my barber whether or not any pretzel buns left. So I did not, I ate them all. Not wasteful. What's hard for famous.

I actually was going to start this by asking you where we're at right now with pretzel bun inventory. Out. We're done. I ate them all. Kid doesn't fuck around. Nice job. Yeah. Had a couple of sandwiches, but a couple extra sandwiches. Did need to eat five pretzel buns in a matter of a week,

but I did it. You guys are never getting pretzel buns in your house ever again. By the way, the haircut in particular, which European soccer player did we model this look after? I don't know. It's like, it's actually a little bit of like a flat top situation, I feel like.

It's a little too puffy because I had it really long and now it just wants to go straight up. So it's a little aggressive, I feel like right now. We're also getting family pictures tomorrow. So that was kind of in the mix. Great timing, great timing. This could be a great one. God, so Rudy can do anything.

All right, let's get to some emails here. Maybe one sort of forum-y-ish feedback thing. I thought you guys were gonna say something about my new 50 cent poster, but nothing? Oh, your screen's cut off. Hold on, Let me see. Oh, that is the, uh, the 2004, uh, famous picture, uh, voter die. Where'd you get that?

Just a little bit. That is great cleaning. They're making, they're kicking us out of offices and they're just taking inventory and this one wasn't going to make it. So I was like, I could fit that in my trunk and, and now it's in my home. All right, we can move on. I just, I thought you guys would have said something. No, gonna make it. So I was like, I could fit that in my trunk and now it's in my home. All right, we can move on. I just, I thought you guys would have said something. No, I like it.

I regret not saying anything. All right, if it makes you feel better. Do we do something on deodorant? Cause we've got a lot of people that are really smart chiming in about the deodorant saying, do we help everybody out with this one? Sounds like you want to. I could take it or leave it, but.

Sounds like you want to. Take it or leave it? Maybe we just leave it for Friday Feedback. How about we do that? We'll just leave it for Friday Feedback, but we will do a little bit of just a Feedback thing here because it's quick, five nine-ish, 160 bench, 225 times three. I've turned into runner guy,

but don't want to be the runner guy who talks about being runner guy. Player comp is the most average floor general point guard imaginable with the motor of a thunder guard on a switch with James Harden. No life advice beyond Kyle shout out dice and sending me headfirst back into a throwing dice craze with my friends. I realize it just takes one guy who carries dice. The rest will come naturally. Yeah. Twist my arm, why don't you?

Yeah, there's a link to something else here I'm not gonna get into. All right, yeah, there's just so much feedback here. So let's sift through it here. All right, paternity leave question for Sarutti. This is Sarutti related one here. And yeah, you didn't get a lot of Sarutti hate after your position on deodorants. Don't worry about it. That's good. I was surprised. Okay. All right. No,

actually, most of it was all fairly reasonable. There was one guy that I think was trying to suggest that once you're known as the natural guy, everybody adapts. And I was like, this guy lies to himself regularly. Huh? I don't care after a while. That's not true. Yeah. I may even read that one later on cause it was fascinating. Anyway, what's up Life Advice Gang?

Huge fan, 37 years old, six one, two, 25, avid Jim Goer, but nothing impressive enough to not get shamed by Ryan. I don't shame. I don't think. I put in the work, you know, better than, you know, it's, you know, weighs more than zero pounds. One, my life advice question is specifically for surety, but I think the

hypothetical conversation with Ryan and Kyle will be helpful as well. I own a small business that provides a great income and lifestyle that allows me to not have to work in the business, uh, in the business, except when I want to, I have a great team that runs day to day. I still work a normal 40 plus hours a week on the business. My wife and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in February. We are, of course, ecstatic.

I've heard Saruti talk about the generous paternity leave offered by Spotify and how he approached his leave. He mentioned, as I have heard from many other dads, that the first few months can be tough on dads because the baby needs the mom so much more. It's just science, right? My wife works in healthcare and is planning on taking four months of continuous leave after birth. Being that my business offers me so much more flexibility than most, I of course want to be present for my wife and new baby in the beginning, but I'm curious

if I should really think about taking more time away from the business and work from home in the months after my wife gets back to work. Our current plan is to have the child go to full-time daycare when my wife goes back to work. Being that Sarudy and his wife recently navigated this, I'm curious to know how you would approach this or how you might handle your own leave differently if you were to have a second child. All right.

So this guy owns his own small business, that's what he said? Yeah. Okay, so that definitely changes it. I will say the first one,'s a you have a lot of downtime, you have a lot more downtime than you think you would have. The problem is you can't do anything for long periods of time. Like you have to kind of go hour by hour,

really. So there would be times that I would be like sitting there and be like, man, I could like do something right now or I could be on my phone or I'm like looking up stuff. But then, you know, 45 minutes later, you're in like the middle of a diaper situation or your wife wants to take a nap so like you can still do things I would say if you have any flexibility and this is what I did when I when I was off because it was like in the middle of the World Cup and I really still wanted to do the World Cup podcast with that I do on the in the gambling feed so I still want and

beauty of that too by the way was because the games were so late, because it was in, where was it, Qatar, right? So like the time zone was, I wake up at like three in the morning, there'd be games on, so I'd just be watching stuff. It was awesome. I do feel like, it was great. It was actually pretty awesome.

I mean, if you're gonna be up, you might as well watch the world. Yeah, all right, all right, that's a good point. I would say if you, because it's your own business, if you can do both and if you can sneak in times to find ways to do work and maybe assist the other employees that you have, like it's gonna be really hard at the start,

you're gonna be scared shitless, like the first week, two weeks, three, even a month, like you just are constantly terrified that you're gonna like ruin your kid, even though it's likely that you're not going to. So that's scary, but I would say the months after that, you're gonna have more flexibility. You're gonna have the downtime to do specific work stuff,

but you might have to do it on a weirder schedule, right? You might have to be working later nights, or maybe wake it up early in the morning. So I'll say just from personal experience, I was kind of bored. We got six months and I took three, and at the end of three, I was like, I need to get back. I'm just,, there's,

what am I doing here? And our daughter went to daycare, I think around the four month marks. So there was like a little bit of a weird gap there. Once you went to daycare, it was like totally easy. So you'll kind of have to navigate that, but because it's your own business, I would say if you could try to do both, I mean, you're not going to be working 40 hours a week, but you can probably do some tasks and still feel like you're in the mix and also, cause a lot of it's just supporting your wife, right?

Cause the baby doesn't really need you early. It depends on if she's breastfeeding or not. That's a, that's a whole different thing. Um, it's mostly just like letting your wife nap, making your wife dinner, like putting the baby down, giving your wife a break. So a lot of that stuff takes up some time, but I think you're going to be bored. So I would say try to do both if you can. That's some good, that's some like real shit good advice,

where it's just like, dude, I know you're thinking, do I need to do all these things? Like take all these precautions, you're like, just, it's gonna be a lot, it'll be a little easier time-wise than you think, so cool. Maybe you can deputize. Not a lot of laughs in there, but yeah. Well, mix it up.

You can maybe deputize someone at work, like, listen, I'm gonna be doing 80% of my stuff because I'm going to pick my spots at home, but you know, maybe if you want to look for a little more responsibility in this company, you know, we could test you out. It's so different because he owns the business. So it sounds like he has enough self-awareness that he just wanted to be like, Hey, because I own the business, like see you losers later. Um, but I think what Saruti said, it doesn't mean because you're on paternity

leave, you'll never be able to do anything. You probably drive yourself crazy. If you were just like, Hey, full shutdown mode and maybe there's a window. You have to do that right after when you bring your child home for the first time, where you just like, I need a break and I can't have like something lingering mentally that I have to deal with. Um, but because it's your own business, I don't, I don't know if he's worried about like how,

how people are going to feel about it. I mean, it sounds like the thing's pretty self-sustained. Yeah. He's already making mailbox money for the most part. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of times the paternity leave, like if you're on air, I just don't know that they're going to be like, cool,

here's four months. So I don't really have any frame of reference for this. You know, I'm like, Hey, sorry. I think you'd be surprised by that. I think there are people that are just like, I'm taking my time and honestly, I respect it. It isn't awkward. It's, I mean, we talked about this the last time we talked about it. It's awkward because, you know, it's great that you get this time and we get this time, but also you still kind of feel bad about taking it and I would just like you talk to all like the old head guys and they're like oh yeah well I had my kid and three days

later I was back to work and 60 hours a week. Still football on Thanksgiving and it's like you know it is what it is. Cool I don't know like does that mean we should just like be miserable forever I don't know like I have these hours I have these days I want to use them but you also don't want to take advantage of the system so it's it's a weird delicate balance, but you're the guy, you're the owner. So I would, you know, if you're still like really invested and feel like you need to be there,

then I think you'll have opportunities to be there. But I also would say on the other hand, if you can't take the time, it's really cool. Like you're never gonna have that, I mean, if you have a couple kids, you have it a couple of times in your life, or you and your wife and your baby could spend a ton of time together like that. It doesn't matter. Right. You can do the office thing. Oh, I thought you were going to do the Meredith thing. Damn.

I thought I knew it better than this. What? The reason I had, that's why I had my second kid. Yes. Was it the third kid, she says? Yeah. No, but I mean, that's a really good point, right? You're only going to do it so many different times, but because you're in charge, because it's your business, you can probably get away with whatever you want to. And the nice thing will be is that if you show up and be like, you know what, I'm just gonna go in today, even though I'm within this window, you can do that too. So I just think it makes it entirely different,

where I do think that there are certain jobs that people would have For paternity leave like look, I mean, this is a horrible comp But like if I said if I had a kid and then was like, I'll see you guys in four months Just like really Like okay, cool. Let's see what your numbers are the first pod back after not releasing one for four months It just have to bank so much life advice. It'll be terrible. Yeah, it just, it wouldn't happen.

All right. Uh, my girlfriend's sister keeps flirting with me. All right. Kyle can probably help with this one. Uh, six five two Oh three handsome. All right. Player comp. Franz Wagner.

I'm not going to overwhelm you with speed, but I score in a lot of ways. Yeah, it sounds like this email. Anyway, I have a peculiar problem. My girlfriend who I've been dating for a couple of months has a sister who's very nice to me. She's constantly complimenting my features and playfully touching me in a way that doesn't necessarily cross any boundaries in each individual instance, but is incredibly consistent, but it is more than just that. I was talking to my girlfriend and she mentioned that her sister is always interrupting when we were doing stuff together. She said that the sister only really bothers her when I am over at the house. The final straw and this is no joke was me and the sister were together my girlfriend was showering and she

asked if I wanted to quote stretch her out before bed. Oh, well, apparently, it ain't even adult film here. Yeah, I know. Right. Or it just a lame hallmark. One apparently she has a, I got caught up watching that vineyard one, the hallmark vineyard deal. There's like a series.

That's not how that boat would look. It was shot. I think it was shot in Victoria. Apparently she has a stretching routine that is usually solo, but she apparently wanted my help that day. I declined, of course. So there was a stretching routine. She wouldn't just walk up to him and be like, Hey, you want to stretch me out? That would be a little forward.

Um, I declined, of course, but it was at a point that I, it was at that point that I started to recall everything that had been happening. It's always tough to prove someone has a crush on you, but you guys have to trust me when I say that the signs are clearly there, we trust you, man. Uh, and my girlfriend even gives, uh, seems a little bit more of a It's always tough to prove someone has a crush on you, but you guys have to trust me when I say that the signs are clearly there. We trust you, man. Yeah. And my girlfriend even gives,

seems a little bit bothered by her sister's behavior at times. Unfortunately, there seems to be no good way to address this problem. If I bring it up to the sister, she will naturally say that I'm a paranoid freak and will tarnish the relationship forever. If I bring it up to my girlfriend,

then I might be jeopardizing her relationship with her sister on the basis of a hunch. But if I just let this continue, I'm afraid it will get out of hand at some point and the fallout will be immeasurably worse than if I had addressed it before. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Yeah, tough spot. Tough spot. I mean, good spot.

Better than- There's some news out there that are like, wait a second. Nice to be liked. That's true. Yeah. What's her handle? Nice to be liked. I think I would just live in this sitcom sort of situation, like, you know, like rom-com movie situation until it, you know, she says it at the wrong time in front of the

sister or something like that. And I'd be like, Whoa, what's going on with you? But like, but like trying to like, you know, tell the sister about a past moment that happening that happened. And maybe like, if you're trying to, sorry, if you're trying to tell your girlfriend about something your sister said to you and it wasn't there, maybe she's wondering if you're paraphrasing or you're sowing division. So I think I would just live in this weird spot until there became like a clear moment to address it. Or maybe the sister will just take care of it for you and just do something kind of gross in front of your girlfriend. And then it's like, great,

I don't have to say anything, you saw that, right? I think I would just live in that weird sort of scenario. Be careful when you guys are drinking. I don't know. Yeah. Look, it'd be nice to know if this is something she has a history of. Like was this happening in high school,

boyfriend thief, you asked around, yeah. Right, right. And I mean, this is a thing, right? And sometimes it's the best friend where the best friend just ends up being like really flirty with the girlfriend or boyfriend. Some of it gets back to like a subconscious thing that you're doing or sometimes you're consciously doing it because people are competitive. Maybe the sisters are competitive and all that

kind of different stuff. And like, yeah, I understand being delicate of like, if you go to the sister away from your girlfriend and be like, Hey, you need to chill out. And then she is like, you're Hey, ego, you know, she just turns it back around on you says you're an egomaniac and says maybe something to the sister. That's like a minus 500 bet right there. That's, you can bank on that. And then it's just gonna turn into some kind of conversation that is even close to like what's actually happening,

because she's going to be defending her, she'll be like proactively defending herself now that you've addressed it. So she's not gonna tell an accurate version of the story. You may have just created a wildcard. Right. People aren't going to do that. You're like, you know what?

He's totally right. And to be fair, I've been a little aggressive and I asked if you want to, she's not going to do any of those things. So, um, then it can become a weird layer that gets thrown onto it where it's not even accurate and that you're defending yourself against something that didn't

really happen right with your girlfriend. Now, if you say to the girlfriend, um, you know, you're going to understand that dynamic. I would ask, I would kind of go failure to soft launch on this one where you go, Hey, what's up with your sister? It's really effective or something. What is that? Yeah. Just, just do it that way.

Like at the right time, you know, not at the beginning of a dinner or something, or it's like your big night out, but like some moment where you can go, Hey, what's up with her? Like she's awesome, but what's up with her? And then you've kind of just opened the door and then maybe she goes down that road or she's like, I noticed that. Yeah. What's happening again? Yeah. Like, Oh, right. If she's like, Oh, no.

Have you seen fear? So here's, here's what I would try to make it out to be as if she's kind of, even though you initiated the topic, she controls the conversation. Now granted, if she shuts you down immediately and just like what are you talking about? Like it's gonna be a little awkward. But I, I do think there's a way to do this where you're not just dropping a grenade into the relationship like you're just gonna look if you were smooth enough to pull this off and you said you were handsome and You know the sister sitting on you all the time Then she's probably not looking for reasons why to break up with you or anything

But I think I think there's a very delicate way to do it Where you can intro it in and then if she takes over the conversation, it's not like, it's like you didn't even really do it. And then you're going to get more answers and then she's going to have more awareness to it. And if your goal is to actually just be with this, this, your girlfriend long-term, like you're into her and you can see a future and all that kind of

stuff, then, you know, just tread lightly with it. If you don't really care, then who gives a shit about any of it? It's just gonna be a fun story you're gonna tell and you'd probably hook up with a sister in five years. That's one thing you could do. Yeah, I was just gonna say like if you're- That's one thing you could do. If you're, if you're just girlfriend or boyfriend right now,

it's kind of like what's the harm? I think, does it become easier, I guess, or harder if you're getting engaged and then you're married and then she's doing this? Probably harder, right? But then you actually probably have more levers to be like, hey, what the hell is going on? Because you and your wife then would probably

have a lot more trouble understanding. Harder, but you're right. There's real stakes here. Yeah. You know, or then even then I would say, maybe you do pull her aside, but like you've navigated two years engaged in the whole deal and like it's never been brought up

and it continues to happen. Like that's kind of crazy to wait that long to get to that point to then maybe say to the sister first. But I think you bring it up with the girlfriend because if you say something to the sister with your girlfriend not being in the picture, the sister is going to craft a version of the story where she's never gonna take any responsibility,

any blame for the things that you're this concerned you can email us about in the first place. Right, you also have a good story too. Like if you do do the soft thing where you're like, hey, what's up with your sister? And she asks you specifically what, the stretching story is weird. Like that's a check for you in the wind column

because that's not normal. Hey, yeah, I just kind of got these weird vibes. She asked me to stretch her when I was doing it when I was getting in the shower, like it was weird. That's the tough one though. That's the sniff test. Yeah, yeah, no, I know. Cause if you bring it up and then she goes exactly like terse, she doesn't,

you know, you're kind of hoping that she kind of goes off and talks and takes up all of the conversation instead of her immediately, like in one word going, tell me, you know, two words. Yeah. Must suck dude. Be so hot. Uh, yeah. Good luck. Let us know. Let us know how that goes. All right. We promise we'll have some deodorant stuff for you in Friday Feedback because we had some really smart people chime in. And honestly, I think it backs up a lot of stuff that we've said. It's okay.

We're going to do a Friday Feedback either next week or the week after too. Yeah. So. Maybe let's just, here's the teaser. You don't have to throw away all your deodorant today. All right. How about that? How about that? I mean, that's, that must make you feel good going into the weekend. You get that CVS coupon. You're like, all right, today's the day. Wipe it all out. I'm the guy with the key.

There you go. Yeah. No, get laundry stuff instead. All right. Thanks to war gone. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Saruti, the Ryan Russo podcast on YouTube and also please subscribe on bring her spot. Must be 21 and older.

Present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.