The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Rob Mullens on the CFB Playoff Selection, Plus Five NFL Thoughts | Dual Threat With Ryen Russillo (Ep. 15)

Episode Date: December 3, 2018

Russillo calls Rob Mullens, athletic director of the University of Oregon and chairman of the CFP selection committee, to discuss the committee's decision on giving Oklahoma the highly coveted fourth seed over Georgia and Ohio State. Then Russillo pivots to five NFL observations, which cover the Titans, Patriots, Mike McCarthy, the NFL playoffs, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, we have an awesome show for you. Today we're going to talk with Rob Mullins again, the playoff committee chairman. So I can ask more specific questions about what went on with these four teams, how close was Georgia, how close is Ohio State if at all and we're really going to try to you know lock this stuff in so Rob's been great excited for the time we're going to have with him and then my kind of long form college football chaos and why we all worry about this stuff but what we should really emphasize and then five thoughts from the NFL season including something that's happened with the Pats this year as I've had moments where

I want to be the guy that says, you know what? I just think they're done. I think this whole thing's been incredible, and now it's done. Because there is a bit of a, you know, you get a little badge of honor if you feel like you're the first guy. Like, you can't pick against him every year. Like, you can't cover the short that long by being 10 years ago. Like, oh, I think this thing's over, and you've just constantly been wrong the whole time. But I've had moments of going, you know what?

Because of something that's happened with them this season that hasn't happened in 15 years, or I keep saying 15, it's 13 years. 2005 is the last time this happened that the Patriots have gone through right now. So we'll do that all a bit later. And don't forget, get out your element charts for this week's Chris Fowler trivia question. But before we do all that, what dances my head during the holidays? Visions of wide receivers cutting up the scene linebackers lowering the boom and quarterbacks completing the hail mary with the yahoo sports mobile app i can watch it all and more live on my phone in fact i can watch live local and primetime nfl games whenever and wherever i want no strings attached the yahoo

sports mobile app is the gift that keeps on giving NFL football during the holidays and all season long. So download the Yahoo Sports mobile app and make sure your vision stays on football. Also want to remind everybody out there in the podcast world that the Jesselnik and Rosenthal Vanity Project is back because comedian Anthony Jesselnik and best friend and NFL analyst Greg Rosenthal once had an NFL podcast called the Rosenthal and Jesselnik and best friend and NFL analyst Greg Rosenthal once had an NFL podcast called The Rosenthal and Jeselnik Vanity Project. That show ended, but hope remained that they would one day return.

Great news, they're now back. Now part of Comedy Central's podcast network, Anthony and Greg will discuss sports, current events, and everything in between. The Rosenthal and Jeselnik Vanity Project is dead. Long live the Jeselnik and Jesselnik Vanity Project is dead. Long live the Jesselnik and Rosenthal Vanity Project. Catch new episodes every Tuesday night whenever you can listen to your podcast. You know what would be good for that podcast?

I'm going to just keep this in the mid-roll. Pre-roll, whatever it is. How about a quote? Give me one of their takes. A quotable, yeah. Yeah. Something. Jesselnik says, right?

Maybe I'll try to find something. Yeah. Rosent something. Jesselnik says, right? Maybe I'll try to find something. Rosenthal disputes Jesselnik's approach. I get some drops next time. Yeah. We owe it to the listeners. Yeah, we can help those guys out a little bit. Coming up, the AD of the Oregon Ducks, and more importantly, at least for this weekend,

the committee chair for the Playoff Selection Committee, Rob Mullins. Let's just get right to it then. How close was Georgia to that fourth spot, even with the loss to Bama? That fourth spot, there was great debate, and it was intense at times. You get in that room, and the beauty of it is you've got 13 experts who care passionately about it, who've done their homework, who've watched the game, and there we are in the early morning hours of Sunday. You know, we gathered late Saturday night at the Sunday and, you know, there was, there

were some strong feelings about Georgia, some strong feelings about Ohio state and of course, Oklahoma. So, uh, each of those three teams had some pretty strong representation in the room. So, uh, we went round and round and it was close. Um, you know, that's when, when it was determined that the three the three teams, no one of them was unequivocally better, there was a long debate when you're looking at the protocol of who should come out of that group to get the number four spot. Were there actual members of the 13-person committee voting with their vote for the fourth team, a vote for Georgia, a vote for Ohio State?

Well, I don't see all the votes, but what I can do is read the center of the room in the conversation, and there were absolutely members of that committee who were making arguments as we debated the merits of the resume for Georgia and for Ohio State and, of course, for Oklahoma. So, yes, I'm confident there were votes there, although I don't see the vote. Okay, but with the argument for Georgia, because I think what happens is, and this is where I've defended the committee, and it's not even specific to you or Jeff or to Kirby, it's just over the years I go, you know, when they come out and say the four best teams, it sounds good because maybe there's the least holes to poke in that. but then, you know, I've always felt like the losses eventually have to matter. So even if I feel like Georgia's better than Notre Dame, better than Oklahoma, and they're a really good team, like what's the point if you can just get in after losing a second time? So were there people in the room going with that kind of default?

Hey, if we're doing the four best, if that's our mission statement as a committee, then you just have to put Georgia in. Is that a pro-Georgia argument that was happening in the room? Yes, but it was the same. I mean, because our charge is to get the four best, period. And again, this is an art, not a science, but there were arguments for all three teams that were the best. And, you know, not to get too wonky on the protocol for you, but when the commissioners created this, you know, they said, if the role is to get the four best, but to be one of the four best, you have to be unequivocally the four best, which is a high bar. Ohio State, and Oklahoma, then you go to a set of protocol that says these four things and no priority and not weighted become a part of the debate.

Conference championships, strength of schedule, results against common opponents, and then head-to-head if any exist. So sure, there was somebody saying, I think Georgia's one of the four best. There was also somebody saying, I think Ohio State is one of the four best. So that's the beauty of having so many diverse opinions and thoughts, to be able to hash that out. Was there any concern about, okay, well, if we put Georgia in at four, we're looking at a rematch that we just watched in the SEC title game. How does that conversation – so that's not a concern?

That is not a part of it. League affiliations are not a part of it. There was no conversation in that debate not a concern. That is not a part of it. League affiliations are not a part of it. There was no conversation in that debate for number four about any sort of matchups, no matter what it would be. No, there were none whatsoever. Because we're obsessed with that from the outside, aren't we? Yeah. You know, it kind of happens with the basketball tournament, too.

You end up with matchups of a coach against his former team or, you know, maybe some, you know, two coaches who don't get along or two programs who have history. And the conspiracy theories come out. But, no, our job, and we really try to stay disciplined on our process, stick to the protocol. And, you know, it gets hammered in every week that we meet, the importance of the integrity of the task. And whether there's a rematch or not is irrelevant. And what conference you're in is irrelevant. It's just about getting the four best teams. Okay, then another thing that I would point out that I've seen as a criticism of the rankings is that,

okay, wait a minute. If Oklahoma's in because they've won this conference championship, they have won less loss than Georgia, then did the committee contradict themselves by putting Georgia ahead of Ohio State? How do you feel about that criticism? Well, I mean, listen, you know, these things are very difficult, first of all. And again, I think it goes back to it's more of an art and a science. And not every single thing applies in every single situation. You know, you could even argue that it can be inherently inconsistent.

You know, again, the job, at the end of the day, the job is to rank them based on who's best. So, again, those three teams ended up in a pool. And, you know, when we're looking at the criteria, felt that Oklahoma deserved to be number four. So then you're also looking at Georgia and Ohio State. And the committee felt, based on that same criteria, that Georgia was better than Ohio State. Even though you're still looking at the same criteria, and Ohio State does have a conference championship.

Was there any talk about what you would have done with Bama had they lost a close game to Georgia there? No, we had so much work to do. And, you know, we're up until the wee hours. It never comes up? It never would have come up. Come on. So you're saying like last week?

It really doesn't. No, it doesn't. Not one guy? That's annoying? Not in the committee room. I don't know if somebody on a sidebar did it, but no, because we have a tough enough time with the task at hand.

It's a hard job. It's something we all take very seriously. There's no sense wasting energy and time on hypothetical. How locked in was Notre Dame at number three? Was there any debate there with them three or four? Yeah, we did have that conversation. It was on the board for conversation about them at three, four, comparing to the others. And so we took a dive on it.

But in the end, felt that at 12-0, with the wins against the ranked opponents, the year that they've had, the balance, how they've been since Ian Book took over as quarterback, felt that they did deserve and earned the number three ranking. After, you know, the committee comes out with their final rankings, I never have a hard time with any coach saying something, even if it's not even true in campaigning. Because you kind of have to do it, right? And it can be true with his perception. It never, ever bothers me.

But I did think Ohio State, after the fact, one of the coaches saying, you know, I'll never understand all these different things. But I think one of the complaints coming from Big Ten fans, Big Ten staffs, is that, well, should we just go back to eight conference games? Should we have more FCS opponents? Because there's such an inconsistency and a lot of this turns into anti-SEC stuff where they feel like their schedules just are going to end up being easier with less conference games, with no regulation here. Is there any hope because of the committee comparing different conferences of trying to get this thing a little bit more consistently comparable as far as what each school's challenge is when they schedule? One, I think each year is unique, Ryan. It just is. You don't know how this is all going to play out. One thing we do when you look at the numbers, we've had 20 teams since the playoff started, and I think 17 of them have been conference champions.

So that's 85%. That's a pretty high percentage. But each year is unique because it doesn't only depend on what you do. It depends on what everybody else does. So to try to throw one thing over it is really difficult. And scheduling is a hard conversation anyway, whether it's non-conference or conference. It's just something that's done locally. It's a decision by a league, and it's non-conference or conference. It's just something that's done locally. It's a decision by a league, and it's also a decision by each institution on how they're going to do it. Again, I think it's going to be difficult to get one scheduling model across the entire

college athletics landscape because it's, to use the quote-unquote, decentralized, in that each conference and school makes their own decisions. Well, let's kind of look closer then at how you handle that as an AD at Oregon. Do you have, when you start scheduling out and you start talking about the future, do different coaches react differently or emphasize different things in how they want you to schedule out? No doubt. Absolutely. Can you give me an example of that?

I'll give you an example. Chip Kelly and Mario Cristobal are absolutely, hey, I want to play the best because we're going to challenge ourselves. We're going to find out about ourselves. And the reality is if you want to compete for a national championship and be in the semifinals, you better have a darn good football team anyway. And, you know, we've had some others who'd say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, let's not do that. Let's, you know, let's find us some wins because our league is tough enough. So, you know, we try to strike a bounce. The other thing that you have to be mindful of, you know, put my Oregon AD hat on here,

is you've got to give something for fans, too. You know, what we've been able to do with, you know, regional matchups with, say, you know, Tennessee, or we've done Michigan State, we've had Nebraska, we've got Ohio State coming up, we're getting ready to play Auburn and Dallas, we've signed up to play Georgia and Atlanta. You know, those

get your fan base excited. They give a unique experience to your student-athletes to go play in some pro stadiums and some pretty cool atmospheres, so it helps in recruiting. You know, it's more than just about the playoff. Yeah, I think that was really, that was such a good answer. I kind of got thrown off on how I wanted to follow up on it, but I think you hit the whole thing. What would you say then to UCF who goes, Hey, we haven't, we haven't lost a game in two years here. What are we supposed to do? Well, I'd say to you at CF, hey, congratulations.

12-0, conference champions again. They overcame some tough circumstances with the loss of a great quarterback, but their team rallied, stepped up. They've got a great opportunity to go to Phoenix and play in one of the best bowl games in the country against an SEC school and LSU. But again, we took a dive on UCF because they are an undefeated conference champion. And when you stack their full resume up to Michigan,

just saying like it happened in the room, you know, when you look at Michigan and they have two road losses at number three, Notre Dame at a number six, Ohio state wins at ranked Northwestern and against Penn state. And you stack that resume, even though it has two losses, up against the resume and the strength of the schedule of the UCF, the committee felt strongly that Michigan's overall body of work was worthy of being number seven. So the biggest argument in the room then, if I'm reading this right, or I might've been leaving something out, was really Georgia potentially in that fourth spot, because it seems the rest of this all aligned pretty quickly, and then the rest of it was sort

of irrelevant to the bigger picture. Is that fair? That is fair. The bulk of the debate, it was intense, was around the sequencing of Georgia, Oklahoma, and Ohio State. And each combination was reviewed. It was debated. It was vetted.

We went until 1.30, 1.45 in the morning on Sunday, decided that, you know, we got to a point where we probably needed to take a break. So it wasn't decided. You hadn't decided

when you went to bed. It was not decided at that point. You know, we had done a vote and the sequence, what was it was, but we did not lock it in. We agreed that we were not done, that we wanted to come back the next morning and do it again. We met for breakfast, 7.15, 7.30. We're back in the room at 8 a.m. and going back at it knowing that we had to be done by 11 a.m. So we started back up Sunday morning and went through the same debate again about those three teams.

So if Oklahoma had lost to Texas and we'd see a Georgia-Alabama rematch in the first round of the playoff? You know, that's a possibility, that's for sure. I don't know. There would have been some more debate, and it's hard to say that the vote would have gone that way because if you remove one team from a three-team debate, you know, it could change the whole vote. Right. Okay. My final thought, are you better at disputes with family members now because you've been the, not only a member of the committee, but another committee chair that you can just ask your

kids or whoever just to write down their complaints and then organize them. And then you'll look it over. That's awesome. I didn't see the unintended benefit of doing this, but I can say this. I've not won an argument against my wife, Jane, forever. So maybe I have a chance now. You should tell Jane, you should go, I just need you to rank the priority of your issues with me. And then it's like, look, we were on the road. That was a vacation. It was a little more challenging. You've got to work with me a little bit on that.

I think this is great. Rob Mullen's conflict resolution on top of everything else. Well, there you go. I worked for a great leader one time where a staff member went in and said, Hey, I've got these 10 things to do. Can you help me prioritize these? And the leader looked across the table and said, they're all a priority. If you're not the person that can get them back, do I need to look for somebody else? I think that's what happened in this case. Well, get some sleep, get some rest. I know it doesn't really stop for you because you have a

university to run, but good luck with the Ducks in the basketball season. And hopefully I'll run into you. All right, Rob? Thanks. All right. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, my man. Love your work.

Okay. Thanks to Rob. I'm going to follow up with all that stuff on what I thought of the four teams. Give you a little 20-minute rant here. But before we do that, why don't you sit down? And nothing be better than you sitting down in just a nice piece of Burrow furniture. Okay? Because Dual Threat is brought to you by Burrow.

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Really want to thank Rob Mullins for coming on, not just today after all the chaos, but to do that twice during the season in a very short amount of time. That's great. Now I want to talk a little bit about it because I really, look, I should never be surprised.

We should never be surprised when we hear opinions that we don't agree with, okay? I mean, that's the whole point of this stuff. There's a lot of us, like 300 million plus, right? Not all that many subscribers to the podcast. We're getting there. Um, we should never, you know, see stuff and go, I can't believe people think this way. I mean, that's,

that's what we're doing here. There's always an amazement, right? Where you'll have even in your small group of friends and then, you know, guys like, yep, yep, yep. And then one of your friends is like, ah, I don't know And then one of your friends is like, ah, I don't know. I don't know if I see it that way. I don't really get South Beach. I actually don't think it's fun, you know? And like, look, I could get into an anti-South Beach thing if you wanted to, but for 48 hours, if you're a younger guy and your priorities are such, you're going to find a way to have fun. Okay. So the same thing happens with this college football thing, but it is very much this angst. And I've done this rant before, but like we go through life expecting to be screwed.

We do. And that's why the college football fan is the most sensitive and the most willing to believe any conspiracy theory and to think that this whole thing is evil. I think things are like 5% corrupt. Well, I shouldn't say that. I think in the span of sports, all the moving pieces, the motivation for things happening the way they happen, and I'm not even talking about

refs and fixed games and that kind of stuff or kid shaving points or adult shaving points. The only time I can ever really remember like a dawning on me was the SEC title game

where Cam Newton was suspended for it, but then no one knew he was suspended and then he was reinstated. And then they played South Carolina when he and his father and everybody's being investigated because people thought that, you know, Auburn had paid him. And there was a lot of weird stuff out there. I'm like, it's up to you. You can kind of go wherever you want to go with that one. But Cam Newton was, I remember I was working at ESPN and he was reinstated and we're like, when was he suspended for the SEC title game?

Okay, or when you had Ohio State players that were suspended and it was like five of them, but they kept them available for the Sugar Bowl. And you're like, okay, well, you know, you guys are kind of, so I do think, look, I'm not naive. I don't think it's 0%, but what I think is different is that I think maybe there's 5% stuff at play where there's some shady stuff as the motivating factor for a decision being made. And when it comes to this committee stuff with four teams, it feels like the public thinks that

it's 50% corrupt and that there's all these moving pieces at play. And I think, look, you can believe Rob Mullins or you cannot. You can listen to me or look, you can listen. You can disagree all you want. Thanks for listening. But I don't believe things are as messed up as they are when it comes to this kind of stuff. I think it is more simple. Hey, this is the four teams we think. All right. If there's 13 guys, okay. Seven think it's Georgia. Three think it's, you know, Ohio State. Three think it's, well, excuse me. It would have been seven think it's Oklahoma. Three think it's Georgia. three think it's, you know, Ohio State, three think it's, well, excuse me, it would have been seven think it's Oklahoma, three think it's Georgia, three think it's Ohio State.

Okay, boom, there you go. There's our fourth team. And now we think we have our four best, even though there's disagreement in the room. I do believe that. And I think going through the process twice, even though it wasn't when it mattered, I kind of know how it works. I at least know what the conversations are because we had the committee chair overseeing our conversations the two times that I did the mock thing, but you're driving around right now. Right. And you just saw

that you signed up for some, like, look, I'm not going to call them out, but I signed up for a movie that I needed to buy. And guess who all of a sudden has a 10 mint, $10 a month subscription to something that I don't even want this guy. Okay. So there's so many of these things that are happening in life, whether it's the hotels that charge me for parking all the time when I don't even bring a car to the place or you and your bank fees. And you're like, what the hell is this? Or all these different things that happen now, whenever you actually break down a bill and you're like, what the hell is the difference between buying something and then a handling fee? How do I get a handling and a processing fee? Okay. Every part, like you think there's

people at work that are out to get you. Okay. And maybe there are, maybe you do suck at your job, but you're convinced that all these things are stacked up. Okay. Falling down is a terrific movie with Michael Douglas, because it truly does speak to the spirit being broken and finally cracking through and going, I can't take this anymore. And it's not just because of traffic, but you know what I'm talking about. And I'm not, I actually think I'm more positive than people give me credit for, but I can certainly understand the negative thinking and all of this. You stir it all up. The stuff that you go through at work in your day, trying to avoid the man getting over on you every single day, because you notice the man doing things to you, but you get more upset when you don't notice it right away and you're like this guy's been doing this the

whole time or this is how this guy works his commission or how can the guy so should i do this and then you have this dilemma and you're like if everybody else is doing this then maybe i should do it too that's also known jail but i don't think that's really happening in college football and i think that's how many fan bases you just get so worked up. You're like, Oh, I know they hit our conference or, Oh,

there's a guy that used to, you know, Beamer's kid or, Oh, you know, that Oklahoma state ad, his son's on this staff or all this one time, you know,

herb streets, kids are, they're going to be playing at Clemson. And now, Oh man, you know, he's going to, you know,

that I lean sec with my heavy SEC upbringing, Martha's Vineyard, Vermont, and Connecticut. I think, man, this is crazy. I think the conference, its peak was incredible and it was undeniable. The depth is not there, but it's still by default kind of the best. And I don't blame Urban Meyer for giving us what I would not call a hard sell after they beat Northwestern in the Big Ten title game. And I wasn't, I wasn't looking forward to that as much as the game itself. I was like,

what's he going to say? I mean, he forgot, he didn't say we won the legends, okay? But he was a little out of it. We know the health issues that have at least been talked about. And some people thought that he was going to announce that he was stepping away from the program. And the AD disputed that and said that it's not happening. The conversation hasn't even happened yet. So that's another thing. I can't help you. That's all I got right there on that. But Urban did like a real passive, like, yeah, you know, best conference. And, you know, we beat a good Michigan team. We went on the road to Michigan. So he really wanted credit for the Michigan State thing. But my point is, I don't care what you say. Go for it. That's the job. You know, that is the job.

Sell your team to that committee. Like, what are you not? Well, you know, I'm not 100% sure. Purdue did smoke us. So, you know, that loss is a lot worse than Georgia's loss to LSU. Both on the road, but I think LSU would probably

be favored over Purdue. So, yeah, I mean, you know, we'll probably be fifth or sixth. That's probably what we deserve. All right, no one's ever going to do that, okay? No one's ever going to do that. So, I'll never feel bad. I'll never criticize guys for saying anything to position their program, unless it's absolutely absurd.

Then you had the Ohio State coach after the fact say, I'll never understand why Gandhi, or excuse me, why the Rocky III wasn't nominated. I'll never understand, like, he had, oh, why the Rocky three wasn't nominated. I'll never understand. Like he had, oh, why planes or airlines overbook and I'll never understand like how you would. And you're like, oh, you know what else? Like don't lose to Purdue by 29. That's, that's, do you need help with that? Well, I can't help with the movie thing or the airline thing. Maybe I can, but I can definitely help with the Ohio state one. And that's just don't lose to Purdue by 29. So to then hear me argue against the Georgia thing, I think does make me the best. All right. I think that's just don't lose to Purdue by 29. So to then hear me argue against the Georgia thing,

I think does make me the best. All right? I think that's what makes me one of the more honest guys that you can listen to and that even though, yes, I've slanted SEC, I didn't want to see Georgia in there as the fourth team. And this is where we get into semantics and we kind of act a bit like children arguing it's like yeah but you said

last tuesday that i could definitely go to billy's house i don't even know if people are naming their kid billy anymore or at least not calling him by that probably a lot of williams i'm gonna guess there's more wills than billy's billy sounds like it's gonna be trouble will not so much maybe in college you dabble in billy right a little bit i have I have a Favalo up there, but I'm not going to. Kyle checking in. I like those shoes, Kyle. Thanks, man. That's good.

Whenever a fan base will say, well, no, they said it was the four best. Try to think of this from the committee's perspective when they launch this thing. No matter what they said was their priority, we would spend weeks and every year dissecting it slash destroying. They can't win. They couldn't win. There exists no statement bland enough to not find someone to dispute what they're actually trying to do. And I have really smart friends that I like a lot that know college football better than me that I think are being far too difficult about this stuff. I've had friends, I don't even need a name specific ones

because multiple guys that are better at college football than I am said, well, you know, they did say four best, so what's the point? A loss eventually has to matter, folks. I think Georgia's probably better than Notre Dame. I think Oklahoma's better than Notre Dame. I have no problem with Notre Dame being in there. But you can't just go, well, I think Georgia will be better even though they've lost twice.

I'll just put them in. Like, you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. And I thought Rhys Davis did a really good job on the selection show, not calling out Herbstreet, but challenging him when they all kind of did a meh about Notre Dame collectively. It was pretty clear that no one on the show was like, you know what I think is sneaky good is Notre Dame.

Like, people are not respecting Notre Dame out of those four teams the most. Okay, I think we can all agree with that. And I've been not as sneaky good as Notre Dame. People are not respecting Notre Dame out of those four teams the most. I think we can all agree with that. And I've been not as supportive of them, but I want them in. They should be in, 12-0, whatever, and this impossible schedule at the beginning of the year, and it'd be far more manageable, and they did it. That's hard to do. But as Herbstreet was saying, and he was arguing that he thought the committee would put Georgia in with that second loss, and I didn't think they would do that. I thought it would be Oklahoma on Saturday night.

And it becomes overthinking the whole thing. And Reese is like, yeah, okay, fine. But he goes, you said, and he said this to Herbstreet, he goes, you have Notre Dame in, even though it seems clear you don't think Notre Dame is one of the four best. So that's my point of all this, that there will be certain years you could have an undefeated Alabama, right? An undefeated Alabama, undefeated Clemson. And then you could have, I don't know. I mean, I don't think you'd ever have five undefeated conference champs, but that let's say, look, it's not impossible. If it did happen, the criteria for that year, the things they would emphasize as important

would change that year because the dynamics are different. So you can't go into a year saying, well, what's the most important, or you can't have Big Ten fans or really any conference saying, you know, that's just not clear enough from the committee. You know, is it? Yeah, I think everybody should play nine conference games. It'd be great if everybody stepped up and played at least one good power five. But you can't always guarantee that because you schedule these things so many years out that you may be thinking like a BYU in Wisconsin or like an Alabama in Louisville. You're like, we didn't know Louisville was going to be absolutely just terrible and fire their coach this year.

We went ahead and scheduled this stuff. Like that's not a lock either, but it would be nice if everybody was on the same playing field. But to sit there and say, well, in 2015, you guys did this. And now in 2018, it's not consistent. That's the whole point.

It's never going to be consistent. And if you don't believe me, you can listen to Rob Mullins who just who just said yes it can be deemed as inconsistent because we're not always going to be consistent with the same things we're applying whether it's a debate about three teams for one spot three teams for two spots four teams for three spots or five teams for the four spots every year it's a moving target and because they said the four best and i'm sure they said four best because it sounded really good, that somehow people are holding that against them when it's like, man, I remember

in 2010, Alabama, I believe, is the most talented team of this entire Alabama run. And they had three losses. They lost to South Carolina, and it was like the first bad Saban loss after 2007, where they lost to South Carolina by two touchdowns. I think game day was there. That was Lattimore and Garcia, I believe. And then they lost to LSU. And then they were up big on Cam Newton's Auburn team. And Cam continues an incredible season in 2010. All these late, I mean, Cam was so nasty that year at Auburn, all those late game heroics. They come back after Alabama

blows a lead that I never thought that they would blow. Ingram fumbles and you're just like, I can't believe Alabama is going to blow this game. It felt a little like Red Sox Yankees-ish in 04 with what was going on in that Iron Bowl. And that Bama team had three losses. So what if it was close?

Like what if there were three teams that were locks and then all the other teams were, you had two conferences that were bad, there was no other independents that were even in the conversation. Would you just go, man, Bama's really good. Let's put them in with that third loss. Like, of course you wouldn't do that.

And if you don't believe me about them being the most talented, Nick Saban and AJ McCarron both told me to my face, you know what, that's probably one of the most talented teams I've ever had. Now, granted, he's had eight teams since then, but McCarron's like, dude, we were, that was the best team we had of that group that at least I was on campus. And they ended up having three losses. So yeah, I think Georgia might be better, but I don't know what we're doing here. If we're going

to say, hey, you just lost the SEC title game. You lost your two biggest games. You got smoked at LSU. Let's just go ahead and put you in there. The whole presence of how the committee, I really should say it this way, the way they present themselves, don't get caught up in all of this stuff. Don't get caught up in all the, oh, there's a guy that's from here and all these. We've proven time and time again, we're really bad with language. When Sam Hinckley is unapologetic about what he's doing, he gets destroyed for it. Or he would have been better off saying, we will be future competitive. You know what I mean? That's why you read these press releases and you're like, why is this guy saying this? This is total bullshit. And it's because we seem to, as a society, consume it better, even when we

know it's bullshit, if it sounds nicer, if it's a friendlier, softer landing. And that's what for best is. It's not, hey, this year, what if the committee said each year the criteria will be different because we have no idea predicting which teams or how many teams will be in the debate? We would kill them if they did that. It'd be far more honest. But if we did it, we wouldn't be able to handle it the same way Hinckley got smoked. Or I remember taking a class at UVM where there was this deer population that was cranked, like the deer population, they were screwing over farmers. All sorts of things were happening in the state of Vermont. So they just basically encouraged people to start killing deer. Well, guess what they didn't call it? Kill as many deer as you

want initiative. They called it the deer harvesting because it sounds better than kill as many deer as you can like i am very sympathetic when you dig into things and you go well wait a minute okay i know what they said but what is the real challenge here now i'm not even and i i hesitate a little bit to bring up politics but i remember reading this book about the start of isis um hey kyle look up isis book 2015 and there was a chapter about arming syrians to try to take down this rebellion that they were dealing with in their own borders and you know there's some of you are way more well-read on this than I am. So forgive me for giving the absolute layman's breakdown of this whole thing.

And Obama was pretty much like, you know, I said I didn't want to arm these people. That was one of the things I ran on. And I don't want to go back on my word. I don't really want to arm them. And now, of course, after the fact, the way it's played out, people are like, if he had armed him and trained people, then this whole thing would have never taken off. They would have been able to stop it in its tracks. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I'm not informed enough to make a real great opinion on that one that I know exactly how these cell groups would have been taken out. But when you read the chapter,

you go, you know what? If you're pro Obama, if you're anti Obama, I think a reasonable person would go, yeah, he was kind of screwed either way there. It's like he didn't really know how to present it. He's like, you know, I got these two options. They're both pretty bad. And I'm both, you know, depending on how it goes, I could lose either way. So I'm just going to do the one where I actually don't arm people that are potentially going to be enemies literally later on. State of Terror? Is that the one?

No. I see inside the Army of Terror. No. Black Flags. Black Flag. Black Flag's incredible. Joby Warwick, it looks like the name. Joby Warwick.

That was one of the best books of whatever year that was. 2015, was it? Was it three years ago? Yeah, that's what it looks like. You don't know. 2016, September. 2016. Wow.

I really did. That was only two years ago? I like how you guessed, though. So, yeah, there we go. We got some deer harvest, Vermont. We got Syrian cells, little politics, the committee thing. And that's it. That's all I have on the committee.

I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I'm not going to talk about fan bases because I think I'm – I don't think there's anything else to say there. But I think it is up to each and every fan to kind of go, am I really getting screwed? And I don't blame you for feeling that way, but you're probably not. I do think it's as simple as,

Hey, we just kind of think Oklahoma eventually won loss. And even if George is a little bit better, they have a second loss. And we just didn't really like the big 10 all that much. And Ohio state kind of played like crap for about a month. That's all I think it was. I'll switch it up to five things of the NFL at this point of the year,

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Experience superior performance wear today at TaskPerformance.com. That's T-A-S-C Performance.com. You got five things for the NFL after week 13. God, this sport flies. It's so weird as you get older how fast things go. Your days are twice as long as mine, Kyle. You realize that? I know know it's just science i'm not quite sure how to uh how to explain it to you but once you get like over 35 the football season goes way faster i feel like the off season is the same

i feel like it's just long now i'll learn when i'm older right yeah i mean you you think it's long now but uh wait and boy you, you know, you start having kids. That's what they say. The days are long, but the years are short. That's what I hear. Five different thoughts. My first one is I always think Tennessee's going to stink. I know that doesn't sound very nice.

I know they're 6-6. Every time I watch, they could be 10-2 right now, and I'd go, eh, I don't know, man. I'm not really feeling them. That's how I feel about them all the time, and I'd go, I don't know, man. I'm not really feeling them. That's how I feel about them all the time, and I know it doesn't seem fair, and they had a comeback win against the Jets, but every single time I watch them, of course, they smoke New England. We're going to get to the Pats here.

That Pats segment may take way too long. But yeah, Tennessee is 6-6. They're outside of the playoffs because Baltimore's defense. How about those guys right now? Nice win against Atlanta. I looked it all up. I looked at defensive efficiency. Let's see.

Are they good on defense? Nope. They're 22nd, 25th against the pass, 11th against the run. Are they good on offense? Nope. They're 23rd overall because they're 23rd in passing and 23rd in running the football. Those are all your DVOAs. You can look up yardage.

They're bottom five on offense. I mean, I was really pushing it. I'm going, all right, well, wait a minute. Where are they in special teams? Third phase. Like I was trying to find. Because whenever anybody says, like, all three phases of the game, it really isn't an equal phase.

It just isn't. Like when you have possessions on offense, and I guess you wouldn't say by definition you have a possession, but when you are on the defensive side, there's just a lot more plays. You know, special teams are just, I don't know. I didn't know there was this that complicated. But I don't know that anybody's selling me a 33% pie chart philosophy on how a team is built anyway. So maybe I should be fair. I also started looking up giveaway takeaways because usually there's a pretty good indicator on that kind of stuff.

Like if you're a bad team and you have a really good giveaway takeaway ratio, then you may have a misleading. Like there's always these teams be like, you know what? They just, they just know how to win. Like now they've had an unbelievably unprecedented run of recovering fumbles that has been proven out year and year that it's just not repeatable.

Let me see here. I'm going to look it up again because I got to make sure this didn't, this didn't change too much. Okay. It has. All right. So going into the week, Cleveland was tied with Chicago. I think that's all you needed to know about Cleveland this year. Like, man, Cleveland's playing a little different.

They got a little swagger to them. Well, they sucked yesterday, and they were tied with Chicago at a plus 14 differential, best in the NFL. And I thought maybe Tennessee, that's where they're good. No, they're not. They're 21st. They're minus four. So they're not even good in that.

And every time I watch Mariota, a guy I absolutely loved watching at Oregon, I think it's pretty clear this many seasons in, I don't want to do the hot take thing here, but I think in two years, he'll only be a starter because of, like when I watch him,

I'm starting to think this, that he'll be a backup or he'll, now, he'll be signed to be a starter for somebody else who's desperate because he was a top pick

and he started enough games for Tennessee. That's how I'm starting to feel about it. And there are little moments, you know, I feel like a third of this league is quarterbacks.

You can really do the week to week thing where if you loved Cam Newton, you had a really good run. And then if you hated Cam Newton, you're like, Hey, what's up now? You know, same thing with Andrew Luck. If you hated Andrew Luck, you had a rough month because it looked like the dude was back, you know, notvp but doing the nice thing where we just mention your name even though no one's ever going to vote for you just to make you feel better like hey we're i see you over there indy i like you i see you over there ike and jonesy i see a ruth chris forget that girl's name kel never mind I don't think I mean I don't think Mariota is even in that group I don't think Mariota is in the week-to-week oh hey wow he had three great weeks and he's awesome

and then the detractors get their bad two weeks and then they can be right I mean even Matt Ryan's kind of in that and I'm a big Matt Ryan fan Flacco's not even allowed to be in the uncertain group anymore because he's been bad for a bunch of years and Lamar keeps winning games and we'll see how that goes you know who's kind of back in a way is Deshaun Watson who everyone absolutely loved at the end of last year and then everybody was off him because we were so in love with Patrick Mahomes so I have real I don't know every Every time I watch Tennessee, I go, why am I supposed to like this team? And of course, they absolutely housed the Patriots.

So number two is, speaking of the Patriots, a bit of a long form thing here. This is more a take I've been afraid to make. If they had lost to the Vikings, I would have done the, you know what, when are we going to admit that Brady just doesn't look as good as he normally does?

He's consistently worse in more categories than I've seen in years. And I'll go over those numbers here in a second. But I think even more telling about the Patriots is if you look at their

three losses this year, 31-20 at Jacksonville, that game wasn't even that close. Jacksonville was incredible. Bortles, by the way, touched by God apparently that day. Bortles service for everybody. The Detroit loss, 26-10, they got smoked. And they got smoked at Tennessee 34-10.

I mean, that's three games that they weren't in. So what did the Rye guy do last night? After a back-to-back below deck in Dirty John? While I watched Pittsburgh and San Diego. And then I big into that Dirty John show on Bravo because I read the long form. That's a real story. It's incredible. And I just really liked that whole story.

And as I read it, I was like, this will end up being a TV show. And it is a miniseries. Check it out. Eric Bana. You can't go wrong with Connie Britton. My book. So then I started thinking, okay, when's the last time that's happened in a New England season where they've lost three games by 10 or more points? So then I started going through their seasons. Last year, they lost

to Kansas City week one by 15. They lost to Carolina by three. And they lost at Miami. They've always had these weird at Miami losses when you didn't think they would lose to them. And they lost there by a touchdown. So that didn't really happen. All right. So 2016, wait a minute. They lost 16-0 to the Bills. Well, that's when Jacoby Brissett was in after Garoppolo had been hurt and Brady was suspended. They lost by only a touchdown to Seattle. And that was it. 2015, they lost at Denver 30-24.

That was when Paxton Lynch was going to be awesome game. Or no, that was Brock Osweiler. Excuse me. That was a Brock Osweiler game. Double-check that. Pretty sure I got that one me. That was a Brock Osweiler game. Double-check that. Pretty sure I got that one right. They lost to Philly by a touchdown.

They lost to the Jets in overtime. But this is that weird year in 2015 that actually kind of bothered me because I felt like they sat a bunch of guys, and you can look back on this because I've gotten arguments about people in this past. They lost Week 16 and Week 17 to the Jets and the Dolphins, and they sat a bunch of guys in both games. And that's when they lost to the Jets in overtime, and they actually elected to kick when they won the toss, but they ended up going in the wrong

direction, I believe. And then Brady got beat up pretty good in that Miami game, but he had thrown the lowest number of passes ever in a first half in his career. So they not only were sitting other people that were rested, it wasn't that just Brady and Gronk had played in the game. It was pretty clear that, I don't know, I couldn't believe that they were okay with jeopardizing their ability to play at home in the playoffs. They ended up having to go to Denver, and they lost the playoffs to them by only two points. But that was kind of a weird game where it looked like Denver was a much better team. So I went through, I kept going. I'm

like, give me the year where they had three double digit losses, at least this early in the season. And even week 17 of 2015, you can't even really count because they were kind of mailing it in. Week 14, they lost to the Dolphins by 13. Then that was the week they lost to Kansas City. That was week one, I believe, or it was early. Then they lost to Kansas City pretty early, and that was the 41-14. The Pats are dead deal. Then they went on to win the Super Bowl. They also lost to Buffalo that year by eight,

but Garoppolo played quite a bit in that game. 2013. So then I just started looking. Instead of being like, hey, we're still, maybe not everybody listening to the podcast wants to hear about every loss for the Patriots and however many years you need to go back. The last time they had three losses by more than one score was 2008. But that's my least favorite season ever for the anti-Brady people out there. That's the Matt Castle 11-5 season.

Okay? So in 2009, they did go 10-6, but only one loss was more than seven points, and that was 38-17 at New Orleans, and then they lost to the Ravens in the playoffs. So they lost a bunch of games. They were in every single one of them except for one out of 16.

So if I can only find – so I had to go all the way back. This is my point to the Patriots on why I've started to go, maybe I should just be the guy that goes, hey, you know what? They're not as good this year. Stop expecting it to just magically fix itself like it does every other year. It's not going to happen. And they're not... They haven't had three losses this bad

as they've had this season since 2005. And you know what I think is happening? Is this defense that I think should have better talent with the Brady discount that they get all the time and the fact that they don't overpay for people. It's starting to feel like a pretty good defense at the right time. And that's why this game is so hard to figure out because of injuries. You can be a completely different team week 16 than week eight and the way teams evolve and it's rare to think a Belichick team would ever get worse as the season goes along but it is worth pointing out as I've had different games where I watch Brady and I go I just

think this actually might start to look bad now his QB rating if you go through it and that's not the greatest ever. It's the lowest it's been in four years. His QBR is the lowest it's been in six years. His touchdown ratio is the lowest that it's been since 2013. His interception ratio is the highest that it's been since 2013. His yards per attempt are pretty good. Lowest of the last three or four years, so that's not really saying much. The completion percentage is the lowest it's been in three years,

but there's not that much variance. But the thing is, is I'm looking at that 2018 line, and I keep going through it, and I go, all right, I feel like there's some throws that's not – I just never expect him to make a bad throw ever, and I think every interception is always everybody else's fault. It's never Tom's fault. And he's on pace right now interception-wise.

He's already matched what he did last year in 16 games. The difference is he was getting – I thought he was getting his ass kicked more last year. He was taking more hits. And he's done a better job of not being hit, even though, you know, a couple games this year he did get smoked. But it's just something to think about.

Wait a minute, it's been 15, or it should be 13 years since the Patriots have lost three games this badly in the same season. That's nuts. And I went through every one of their losses. Okay, coming up, I'll get to the rest of the NFL thoughts. And don't forget Chris Fowler trivia and a little Belvedere story because Belvedere is hooking us up.

I want to thank them for the custom bottle. And because it's dual threat, that means that we gave a bottle to Kyle as well. Kyle, I know you're excited over there. I'm ready. Looks like a piece of artwork. People are going to come over to your house and be like, I didn't know you were into art. And you go, nope,. I'm ready. Looks like a piece of artwork. People are going to come over to your house and be like, I didn't know you were into art. And you go, nope, but I'm into Belvedere.

Produced in one of the world's longest running distilleries. And I'm going to try to do a Belvedere story every week, true or not. But here we go. Belvedere vodka is the world's finest all natural vodka. Part of a 600 year old Polish vodka making tradition. Belvedere is made with non GMO Polish Polish rye, pure water, and no additives. Recognized for quality, Belvedere was named the ISC World Vodka Producer of the Year in 2015, 2016, and 2017. I remember one night bartending in Burlington, Vermont, and I think it was me,

myself, and Irene was being filmed in stretches. Yeah, Jim Carrey, Renee Zellweger. Double check that. Pretty sure it was Renee. I think it was Z dogger. And she came into the bar and our owner was like really awkward around her. And she ordered, she didn't order a Belvedere, which is disappointing. And she ordered a,

uh, maybe a Chablis or something like that. Not sure. Save. And, and he just handed it to her. It was kind of like, hey, you were in Jerry Maguire. I guess your wine is going to be free here.

I guess. But then Jim Carrey was in town and he may have had some Belvedere. And the girl I was dating at the time, she loved Belvedere. And she ironically ended up at Jim Carrey's condo. Right.

So I was like, this is weird. And Jim Carrey had like some security guy with him who was enormous. I think he slapped a buddy of mine at one point too, because they were there filming for like weeks on end. So he had this sick condo. And my girlfriend argued that her friend was, to meet him and it was like hey look if jim carrey invites you back to his condo you go i'm like okay i think i think i got you here i'm pretty understanding guy maybe too understanding and then i had heard that jim

carrey just dove on the couch while they were sitting on the couch and he just pretended to swim across him that That was it. That's all it was, harmless. That's the only part of the story your man Rosillo got. And I would tell you, when the time is right, and a celebrity is going to invite you back to their condo, potentially swim on you, that you should do a Belvedere.

Because Belvedere tastes really good. Always enjoy a delicious cocktail with Belvedere vodka today and remember to always drink responsibly. I'm not even mad about Jim Carrey, about the whole thing. I hope everybody understands that. I think if you're hanging out with Jim Carrey, it's understood that he's going to perform.

And that was it. And then his security guy gave my girlfriend and her friend, I think it was her roommate at the time, I think a ride back to their house. That was it. No A-Rod gift basket?

No gift basket. You know what would have been nice? Autograph? Bottle of Belvedere. Signed by Jim Carrey or Renee Zellweger. The man himself. Okay.

Couple more football thoughts here. I want to get to. Mike McCarthy out. So what do we do here? Troy Aikman, and during the broadcast, this seems to be about the old football guard going,

you know what? This isn't right. You don't do this to a Mike McCarthy with his resume with the season still going on. And here's Troy Aikman's tweet, which is kind of a follow-up to his thought. He said,

Two losing seasons in 12 years, one of those last year without Rodgers for nine games, took the Packers to the playoffs in nine of the last 11 seasons, four NFC Championship games, one Super Bowl title. And the argument was that, you know, McCarthy deserved better than this. If you're just going to do the, hey, won a Super Bowl, got to the playoffs, all of these different things, if you're going to do that,

I don't think that's the right argument to be made. You're not wrong. Nothing you said is wrong. But in Green Bay, a diehard Packer fan or all of us that just love the NFL and are aware of what's going on, that thing felt like it was rapidly approaching its expiration date. It just did.

They're 4-7-1 this year. They lose at home to Arizona. And I think, double-check this research, they'd said during the broadcast that it's the last time the Cardinals organization, and I think they were in Chicago at the time had beaten the Packers in Lambeau was

1949 how does that stuff like how is that even possible like imagine hey well you know we've been rebuilding Japan hey did you see the cards one at Green Bay at that Benny Goodman. His show's getting a little raunchy, huh? Yeah.

I can't even think of how many people aren't going to get that reference. I'm Googling it right now. You're Googling it? All right. We can talk about it after. Okay, so did you not Google? Wait a minute. I thought you were on it for the Cardinals. I am. I'm Googling so did you not Google? Wait a minute. I thought you were on it for the Cardinals.

I am. I'm Googling 1949 Lambeau. It's a lot. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on? I'm one man. We should have Google races on the podcast. So 7-9, right.

He's hurt. 4-7-1. Lose to the Cards. But this thing just fell off. It fell off for a while. And part of it's on the front office. If you're an anti-Aaron Rodgers guy, you'll point to a misthrow in the end zone yesterday. You'll stack the close game record in your favor, which again is entirely misleading.

But that's okay. Not everybody's like me and will go through every single one of those comeback game opportunities and realize how many times it wasn't aaron rogers fault and i'm not even telling you like as we had with cowherd and simmons we were doing that thing we're going to try to do a longer one of those coming up here at some point depends on dude schedules couple alphas you know how it is um i'm not saying i just i'm not i'm not saying, I just, I'm not in that,

I'm not in that group that's going off. You can't do that to McCarthy. If there's an understood thing that this is really wrong. And he wakes up on a Monday and he even said like, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do. That's going to be a really weird thing. Like your entire football life. Okay. Monday,

look at the tape, get back to work, try to figure it out. Obviously nobody's gonna be happy walking around the facility when you lose to Arizona, but get back to work, try to figure it out. Obviously nobody's gonna be happy walking around the facility when you lose to Arizona, but it felt like something needed to change. And if you're supposed to do some ceremonious thing and leave the guy through the rest of the year when you don't want to be around him and I'm not in that building. And that's, that's kind of

one of those things where I defer to the beat guys that have heard people that are around it all the time. I don't like when people get fired. I don't like doing the job and saying this guy should be fired. I rarely will say it. I've said it a few times. I go, I just think it's over there. And that prop guy should, it just feels weird. Like he should lose his job. That guy should lose his job. But that's part of my job is to eventually you get to say those things. I don't think you can be a dude that does this too and say, oh, I never want anyone to ever fire. Like that's not the world we're living in, but you can't just drop a coach's resume and say, well, what are we doing here? When I think everybody around felt like Aaron Rodgers needs something a little bit different.

And maybe it is on him. Maybe he is as difficult as everybody says he is. And I trust some people that do say it, but just because you're difficult, something was working here for a while and now it's not. And that Super Bowl is in 2010. Last two things. Remember before the season started, we started talking about AFC, NFC, and you're going, my gosh, I think the big storyline here is how much better, how much more depth there is in the NFC than there is the AOC. Here are your top teams in the NFC.

Rams, Saints, both Super Bowl contenders. If either won it, wouldn't be surprised at all. Both terrific teams. And I know New Orleans just lost to the Cowboys. Let's give it a few more weeks of that kind of play before we start writing them off. Chicago's still in that three-seed spot. I know it's not Trubisky. They lost to the Giants any given Sunday, whatever, but you get the point. Dallas, Seattle, Washington, those are the bottom three in the NFC that's because teams like Carolina Minnesota Philadelphia Green Bay all of Atlanta's injuries that's five teams that are outside of the NFC that we all could have made an argument for being pretty good or at least

competitive or like 10 win teams and the Ac it's kansas city new england houston houston everybody seems to be sleeping on them the defense does seem to be keeping pace now um the defense has always been pretty solid but the offense that we saw yesterday from sean watts like this is a couple games in a row where they've looked really explosive. Pittsburgh, Chargers, Baltimore. Baltimore's defense is one of the best in the NFL. Those are your six. As of right now on paper, the top six in the AFC feel a lot deeper and tougher to navigate through than the NFC,

and that's only three-quarters of the season in. I'm not that this part of the season. Just think of what this conversation was September 1st and now what it is the beginning of December. And it's entirely different. And that's why the sport is at times impossible. And finally, some of the best minds out there are really putting together some anti-Mike Tomlin stuff now. And Warren Sharpe has done a great job on Twitter, breaking down what continues to be one of Pittsburgh's biggest issues is how they use their defensive matchups.

Keenan Allen keyed up on linebackers all night last night, and it just didn't seem like the Steelers ever adjust. The Patriots humiliate them when the Steelers play with this really basic, predictable coverage. And you can just see Brady. You can tell with Brady games if you watch him his entire career, like I have, you're like, oh, this is over. Like the Baltimore game where they're down 14-0 and then 28-14, and then Baltimore kept playing off coverage, and he took the underneath throws, and you go, he's just going to dice you up the whole time now. It's over. And he gets that way against Pittsburgh with this coverage that, for whatever reason, and I'm not here telling you i know all the ins and outs of this but when you see guys consistently open on big downs against bad matchups and i think there's a lot of people starting to turn on like

the tomlin approach that it's always everybody else's fault unless you're doing sort of the catch-all like gonna play better i gotta coach better and all that stuff like whenever coaches like oh you could i'll play it i'll coach like you going to play better, going to coach better, and all that stuff. Like, whenever a coach is like, oh, I'll play, I'll coach. Like, you guys never really think you could get out-coached. It would be great if somebody was like, God, I'm not good at this. Like, I'm okay at, like, you know, getting guys to run. And, you know, I like to go deep a lot. That's fun.

We'll blitz with anybody. But, like, once the game starts and the clock and the down thing it's like you know there's like and then challenges i get this flag stuck in my pocket all game like i just lose track of shit man it's not going on like I'll see something and go, well, now what? Like, I'm supposed to consume that and then come up with a counter? Come on, man. And I'm not even doing Tomlin here right now. I hope you understand. Because, you know, whenever you, like, if I, I've had some moments where I'm like, okay, I don't think he's that good.

And then I dig into the resume. I dig into the playoff losses. And I go, you know, there's not as many. There's a few playoff losses where they've been favoring you. But it's not as many as I thought it was. I went through it before I looked at it. Boom. Coming up, we have Chris Fowler trivia.

This week's Chris Fowler trivia question is what does sodium chloride? Make sure you subscribe, rate, and review to Dual Threat. We could have a cool announcement coming here shortly, but please keep listening. Everybody's been very happy and I couldn't do it without you

guys. So if you see me out in the wild, I'll be sure to get your velvet ear. Outro Music