The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Suns Still Good, Best Roster in the NBA, Damien Woody on the Patriots' QB Drama, Plus Worst Take

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Russillo shares his Tales From the Couch after watching Suns-Warriors and Mavericks-Pelicans, before examining arguments for which NBA team has the best roster (0:32). Next, Ryen is joined by two-time Super Bowl champion Damien Woody to discuss the Patriots’ loss to the Bears on Monday night. Woody recalls the locker-room buzz during the QB change from Drew Bledsoe to Tom Brady in 2001, the Giants' and Jets' impressive records through seven weeks, the struggle to identify NFC contenders, and more (12:18). Next Ryen, Ceruti, and Kyle hand out their Worst Take (36:05), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (46:19). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Damien Woody Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast the nba rosters who has the best one through nine there's a reason we'll examine damian woody talk a ball with him including brady replacing bledsoe which is somewhat topical some good stories from that stuff and worse worst takes all over the place. People thinking about banning the segment, thinking about bringing it back. And life advice. Before we talk some football with Woody and life advice, tales from the couch.

Night eight for the NBA. Big win for Phoenix. I felt like I was the only one. I know I'm not the only one. This is not a victory laugh, but I guess I just was surprised how many people thought people were just going to be off of Phoenix. I get it. That Mavs loss, I still don't

understand it. I don't know what the fuck happened. They were 64-18 last year. Even if they're depressed and bummed out and take a step back and maybe have one injury, they're still winning 50 plus games. There's just no way. Booker has been incredible. And this is somebody that first, second team, all NBA kind of stuff. MVP votes, real stuff. Another step up coming off of the finals appearance too, where people started talking him up. Where Booker's probably going to have to be at another level

more consistently. I think Aiton's looked more aggressive. Some of the numbers aren't as good. Some are better, but he just looks more aggressive, which is really the biggest knock on him the entire time. Some of the finishing stuff I've seen from Aiton, I'm like, ooh, where did that come from? He's not always going to be perfect,

but it's going to be a little bit better. Damian Lee, the game winner against Dallas in that comeback, I wanted them to bring in a guard, somebody that could run the offense other than campaign and make Chris Paul's life easier. That's not Damian Lee, but at least it's another guard in the mix because their rotation for guards last year. I mean, that's the craziest thing about this Phoenix team is they have this great record last year and you're like, where are the rest of the guards? And then two years ago, they're like, wait, they've only got one big guy after charge goes down? That's the best that you could do? It's an oddly weird managed roster of a team that does pretty well. The rest of the roster, Jacques Landel, are you kidding

me, Spurs? Did you give up on this guy a little bit too soon? That's a really nice win for Phoenix against Golden State who's now given up 70-plus points in the first half in three straight games, first time in team history. This game was actually close. Phoenix put it on them in the third quarter, which is what the Golden State plan is usually.

And then there was a really interesting... Granted, Phoenix could be 4-0. I don't want to assume too much after eight missed two free throws in overtime against Portland, but I just think they're going to be a good basketball team again. And I don't think that's a crazy thing to say. I thought it was crazier that people were just completely off. Maybe they were only off for them. This is where we can make mistakes

being like, hey, everybody's saying this. Everybody believes this. Everybody's saying... That happens a lot, but then it could be like, wait, we actually agree. Like, hey, I think Phoenix is going to win 50. I'm never taking them seriously as a contender again. If you told me that, I'd be like, okay, I can't really tell you that you're wrong.

There was a dust-up, a little dust-up in this game between Klay Thompson and Devin Booker. It was the left side in front of the bench for Golden State, I believe. Klay blocked Booker's

shot as he was kind of bringing it up and Clay got him and they were John and I figured they were John because it's just hey you're really good I'm really good I've been in the league a long time like we're in that we're in that class of superstars so we're cool with each other and then it kept

going and then TNT went to commercial right in the middle of it and I was like man you know what I love is a Scientology ad right during any potential fight in the NBA and granted we can sit there and say they're never going to fight

that's fine too but you can't you can't go now it's the best tease ever because I'm not going anywhere right but that one whenever there's an altercation I've said this there should be just an intern that you hire doesn't cost a there's an altercation, I've said this, there should, there should be just an intern that you hire. It doesn't cost a ton of money, altercation awareness guy. And all he's doing is looking for the altercations of cameras feeds that we're not seeing. And then we get to see them because we all like to watch it the entire time. And then Clay gets

ejected. Like the jawing doesn't stop. So I thought, wow, is there something else there? There isn't, there isn't. Clay went nuts. Phoenix blows him out. Clay points over to the Phoenix bench, essentially indicating I've got four rings. I got more than the entire roster combined, which feels a little mean, but they asked Devin Booker about it. Chris Haynes asked him to say, what was that about? And he goes, man, I quote, I love Clay Thompson. I kind of left it at that. So I didn't know if there was something that I was missing there. The earlier game, New Orleans, no Zion, no Brandon Ingram, no Herb Jones.

And they beat Dallas. They were doing some different things there with Dallas defensively where you could see some screw-ups that New Orleans may have had. Again, the rotation's all different when you're missing those three guys. There was kind of a small, big debate there on Valanciunas and what New Orleans wanted to do because they took him out to be more active, be a little bit more switchable, but then they were getting crushed on the boards.

Dallas didn't make them pay every time, but there was a lot of possessions there late in the tight game. They were like, hey, get a rebound. It was kind of this decision that you had. Costas Van Gundy was talking about it as the game closed out. They were doubling Luka. They were trying to force the ball out of his hands. Then sometimes they were playing him straight up

because they didn't want him to go. You have a Luka dilemma every time you're facing him and you're not really quite sure what to do with that. But the reason I bring this up, because I look at New Orleans getting a win against a good Dallas team, and I want to go back to something that I'd heard on TNT in the

opening week. They were talking about the Clippers. A lot of people were on the Clippers, right? I'm a little surprised. Now, it's a big assumption about Kawhi, right? He's already missed two games, by the way. But that's part of the plan. 21 minutes per game. Maintenance, the whole deal.

So it's not like he's missing games because he's hurt again. That's just part of the plan. And honestly, it's kind of part of the plan with all the top guys. I'm monitoring that again. It should be a bigger deal. When we look at the top 25 scorers from last season, realize they've all missed like 25%. Not all, but on average

missed almost 20, 21 games each. On average. Not every guy. But as I see the Clippers' support coming in, which again feels a little surprising, there's an argument that all the guys on TNT made that they all agreed with. And here's

the premise. Here's the point. The biggest take-home from this open this week. They said the Clippers are the most talented one through nine in the NBA. And I thought, is it? And here's the thing. It isn't. It isn't.

Kawhi, Paul George. I'll give you a healthy Kawhi, Paul George. Zoo, Reggie Jackson. Norm Powell. It's a good five. The John Wall signing. I like it. I like what it costs. I like what he may have left. I like John Wall. People are acting like this is a huge

deal. And it isn't. I would do it. I like that they did it. People are overrating it. I think. Marcus Morris, whatever. Luke Kennard, Batum, or Covington. You got Terrence Mann in the mix there, too, if you wanted to extend it out.

That next four, so let's compare. Hey, Rye, what is better then? Curry, Clay, Draymond, Poole, Wiggins, Looney, Jermichael Green, Wiseman, Dante DiVincenzo didn't even have to use Moody or Kaminga Phoenix, Devin Booker, Chris Paul, Austin Bridges, Cam Johnson, because of no J. Crowder

good campaign, Damian Lee, Jacques Landel Torrey Craig do I like that better than the Clippers? I like Golden State better than the Clippers do I like that better than the Clippers? I like Golden State better than the Clippers. Do I like Phoenix better than the Clippers? What about Boston? Now, this is one of those things where it becomes a little bit like college football conferences

where you go, what if the top two are way better and can win a national title? Doesn't that mean that conference is a little bit better? It's kind of like what the Big Ten is dealing with. I think that's a big part of it. Hey, how many contenders do you have? Okay, does one entire side of your conference stink? Oh, it does?

That should matter. Is it who your top two are through the nine or is it that you can name nine guys that seem like they're all pretty good? Boston, maybe the best top two now. Tatum, Jalen Brown, Smart, Brogdon, Horford,

Derek White, Grant Williams. All right, so I'm at seven. I'd be at eight with Rob Williams. Number nine is Vonlay or Sam Houser. I kind of like Houser. So now you're like, okay, so how much do I take away if I like the top if I don't like eight or nine? What about Milwaukee?

Giannis, Drew Holiday, Middleton. Let's not turn this into just naming good teams, by the way. I'll stop here soon enough. Brooke Lopez, Javon Carter, then Portis, then George Hill, and then it's like, okay, Wes Matthews and Jordan Nuwara, who has a good field goal percentage.

Kind of like them. Here's a sneaky one for you. Does New Orleans actually have the most talented one through nine in the NBA? Zion, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, Jonas Valanciunas, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, who did you see him last night? He's fourth in minutes. Larry Nance, who I forget is on the Pelicans every other week.

Jose Alvarado. Devontae Graham. I didn't even use Dyson Daniels. Kyra Lewis. Jackson Hayes is back. I mean, shit. Now, I shouldn't be allowed to just name a guy who's young, who I assume is talented, like Daniels, like Lewis.

You know, I think Jackson turned the corner a little bit. Super frustrating when he was younger. But because an older player we already know isn't good, he shouldn't just automatically have less value than a younger player that we don't have an answer on yet. But that New Orleans group, I don't know if anybody else can go as deep as them. I've got Memphis.

Cerruti brought that up. He goes, hey, don't forget about Memphis. Never forget about Memphis. I can't stop making that Memphis joke, which I got to stop doing. I don't even think it's funny anymore. Ja, Desmond Bain. Aldama's third in minutes.

None of us are quite sure what's going on there yet, but he's rebounding. He's defending. He's shooting it well. So, you know, he's shooting it okay, I guess, from three. Steven Adams, Conchar, Dylan Brooks, Tyus Jones, who I've always loved, Brandon Clark. Then you're like, okay, do I give you credit for David Roddy?

Too soon. Do I give you credit for Jake LaRavia? Too soon. And then I got to throw Jaron Jackson in the mix as well. Here's my point. The next guy that says the Clippers are the deepest one through nine, not only is it challengeable, it's likely wrong. The NBA season is underway, and it's the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's

number one sportsbook, because right now, new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000, plus FanDuel is the only sportsbook that's giving all customers three months of NBA League Pass when they make a $5 bet on the NBA. All right, here's my bet for tonight. Miami travels to Portland, and they're favored by two and a half.

Give me the Trailblazers, plus two and a half at home. FanDuel has all of your favorite bets from the money line to point spreads to player props. You can even combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with the same game parlay. Plus, with live betting, you'll get updated odds on games that have already started, and the FanDuel Sportsbook app is safe, it's secure, and super easy to use. So download FanDuel today and use the promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N, to get your

no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. Make every moment more this season with FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. Must be 21 and older and present in select states. First online real money wager only. Refund issue this now withdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Every other week

we are lucky to have ESPN's Damian Woody hanging out with us. Many years in the league and I want to get to uh 2001 because watching Monday Night Football it's one thing for the Pats defense to give up all those points against the Bears team that's been pretty bad so far Woody but let's kind of go to the quarterback part of it uh were you surprised how that all played out and that I mean I'm not surprised Bill told the reporter that Mac was going to play in the second half he's just going to do that to mess with everybody.

But what did you think of the quarterback shuffling and everything leading up and then during the game? Yeah, I was surprised by the quarterback shuffle because considering, number one, even some of the past own players were surprised that that situation played itself out. And then number two, I mean, Mac Jones was out a couple weeks. You would think that, okay, let's get this guy. I think he had, what, three series or whatever it was before he got yanked for Zappy. And, man, that just didn't make much sense to me.

And then all of a sudden, oh, we're going to go to, you know, we're going to put Mack in in the second half. That never happened. So it's just like, what's going on in New England? What's really the deal with the quarterback situation? Yeah, I'm not sure who's better of the two. Okay. I thought Mack was maybe a little overhyped last season, but I still wouldn't expect him to continue to make this many mistakes because if there was one thing he kind of liked about him is that he wasn't going to make those mistakes, although I think it's pretty clear from some of the play calling going

into last year. I don't know if you agree or disagree. I feel like I can always tell about how a staff feels about the quarterback with the way what they ask him to do. I don't know they were asking Mack to do a ton last season. Going into this year, it was just way worse, but then he comes back. I'm with you. Even if you don't like Mack, were asking Mac to do a ton last season. Going into this year, it was just way worse. But then he comes back. I'm with you.

Even if you don't like Mac, you prefer Zappy. I can't believe they yanked him that fast. Why have him start if he's on that short of a leash? That really surprised me. Yeah, I mean, that was the most surprising thing of the whole situation. And for me, everyone talked about Zappy and all this energy and all those type of things. Well, I think the opponents that he played against were Cleveland and Detroit.

So I'm just like, can we? Green Bay. Okay. I'm just like, can we pump the brakes a little bit? Because none of those teams have done anything this year. And so, yeah, man, it's just strange. It's a strange world outside of Tom Brady in New England. It's just like the Patriots are dealing with what the rest of the league

is dealing with as far as trying to figure things out of the quarterback position. Okay, let's go back then because this is one of my favorite stories in sports. It was before I was working in the media, right before I was in the media. Okay, let's go back then because this is one of my favorite stories in sports. It was before I was working in the media, right before I was in the media. 2001, your third year in the league. You're playing a line for the Pats. And Brady was on the roster.

Shout out to John Freeze, by the way. That's right. That's your dude. John Freeze. Next year, we know the hit on Bledsoe. The team goes, I think, 5-3 with Brady. And the whole time, Bledsoe thinks he's getting his job back after losing 10 pounds and losing a ton of blood in that hit from O'Lewis.

And then it's like, no, actually, we're rolling with Brady. What was it like, the lead-up to that decision? You know, it's funny, man, because the locker room dynamic was so different. You know, it was like two totally different teams in the locker room. You had younger guys like myself who were just like, OK, you know, I'm enjoying the winning. You know, it wasn't always pretty on offense. We were predominantly running the football, but we were winning football games. But then you had the guys like Brewski and Willie McGinnis

and all those guys who were like Parcells guys and was there with Drew almost at the beginning. So there was like a loyalty to Drew. And so the buildup, it was just funny So there was like a loyalty, you know, to Drew. And so like the buildup, it was just funny because it was like, okay, Drew Bless was a hundred million dollar guy. You know, remember he signed that big contract with New England, but at the same time, we're winning football games with Brady. No one's saying Brady is putting up crazy numbers,

but at the end of the day, we were, we were winning games. So I always thought in the back of my mind, man, how is this thing going to play out? Because this is going to be a real interesting decision when Drew gets healthy. I assume, Bill, certainly now, but back then, would he ask

a Brewski? Would he ask? He ain't going to ask anybody, right? Yeah. No, I don't know. I don't recall Bill asking anyone. Now, I might be wrong. You know, that might be something you have to ask Bruce about. But I don't see Bill asking anyone about, you know, personal decisions like that.

So when it finally came down, when Drew was healthy and Bill was like, no, we're going to roll with Tom. Man, it was like, boy, I hope a brawl doesn't happen. How mad was Bledsoe? Look, man, most players will say you can't lose your job to injury. He signed a $100 million deal. He took a hellacious hit from Mo Lewis. Bledsoe was like, at some point, I'm going to get my job back.

And then for that not to happen, all you got to do is go back to the tape in the locker room when Bledsoe said, I look forward to getting my job back. I'll never forget the quote. I have it here. I look forward to the chance to compete for my job. And I remember it then. Right. For my job. Right.

Right, right. So that tells you everything you need to know about how Drew felt about the whole situation at that point in time. Were any of you split? Did any of you go, man, come on. Like, all right, we're moving the ball a little bit. Because it was a weird thing about when brady and you guys went you started running the ball out of nowhere and it was like you weren't running the ball well with bledsoe everything was kind of like gelling and i thought at the time i'm like is this happening because of brady or is brady just

like having the best timing ever i just i'd imagine there's probably a few guys in private moments granted it's 20 years later where you were like, we should stick with Drew, but nobody would ever want to admit that. Yeah, man. It literally there were whispers. I can tell you that. There were whispers like, we sure

we're going to be able to get to where we want to go with this guy quarterback? When we got a $100 million guy at the quarterback position. And so there was whispers of that in the locker room. No question, but no one let it, no one let it boil to the, you know, to the forefront of, of, of messing up the locker room chemistry. Yeah.

And Drew deserves as mad as he was, deserves some credit for that. And I think Tom's such a likable teammate. Absolutely. It was a big part of it. I'll just never forget that moment when they went into Orleans and Tom's smacking the shit out of Drew's shoulder pad saying, we did it, we did it.

And Bledsoe has the perfect look where he's like, yeah, this is sweet. How could you help but not feel a little bit like, yeah, dude, awesome. I'm psyched this all worked out. Okay, all right. I just love talking about that stuff back in the day. Okay, let's talk about two other teams you're very close to,

one you played for, one you're around all the time, Giants-Jets. At the end of the year, what are these stories going to be like for two surprise teams? I just think that for both of these teams, it's accelerating the, the rebuild, right?

Like no one expected, no one out here expected what the, what the Jets and Giants are doing right now. And for a variety of reasons, number one, the Giants were just trying to new regime, clear the books of bad salary cap stuff, you know,

questions about Saquon question about Daniel Jones and Brian Dayball and Mike Martindale's come in and really turned that whole thing around. I mean, I always say coaching matters more so in the National Football League than any other sport. The Giants are a prime example of that. And then, obviously, with the Jets, they're such a young team. Their whole core, like all their good players, basically,

are like 24 and younger. And so when you're dependent on that and those guys have found a way to kind of accelerate the learning curve and they're five and two, I mean, it's great for New York football. I can tell you that because as a guy who lives in the area, it's been, it's been awful watching New York football for the past, whatever it's been, five, six years. This is maybe a good transition into that. I was looking at Tennessee again, and last year I looked at them as a one seed

and said, okay, they're the one seed, but if you stack them up historically against other one seeds, this is a pretty weak team. Whatever, they lose to Cincinnati. Who knows? Could have gone either way. And then I look up and I see Tennessee again. I think there's a three seed behind what we think maybe are the two best teams, three with Philly and Kansas City and Buffalo. Was there a team? And maybe you just think Tennessee's terrific,

so maybe we can get to that a little bit later. But was there a team when you were playing? And granted, you were in different divisions. So where you're like watching them on film, you're like, these guys aren't that good. You're looking at the roster, like these guys aren't that good. And then after three hours, you're like, damn it, like they beat us. Like, was there a team for you that you always felt like, no matter what, they won more football games

than you would ever have expected? Man, that's a good question. It's hard for me. Like in New England, we expect to beat everyone. So it's hard to look at that and say that. I would say... Was there somebody with Detroit? Although you probably had a little less confidence.

You're like, man, I can't believe we lost. Oh, my God. Like, that was awful, man. But I would say Minnesota, man, was a team you look at and be like, they're okay. But then you play them like, damn, these dudes are pretty damn physical. They get after you really well. So I know during my Detroit days, it was like Minnesota. I always looked at them and they were just better than what you saw on film.

Is that what Tennessee is? What do you think of the Titans? Extremely well coached. The thing about the Titans, you know what you're going to get. They know, like the thing about the Titans, you know what you're going to get. They're getting off the bus. They're going to run the football and they're going to play really good defense.

That's what you're going to get. Like their passing game, very suspect. But you know, they're going to turn around and hand the ball off to Derrick Henry, you know, a thousand times a game. And somehow, some way, when you look back at the end of a three-hour game, you're like, damn, they won the game. In a passing league, they're like a throwback type of team,

but they're really well coached. Mike Vrabel is a damn good coach. And at the end of the year, the Tennessee Titans will be sitting there probably no less than a third seed. Yeah, look, it's hard for me to push back on any of that, too. And this is a worse version of Tannehill than some of the other big stat seasons that we've seen.

And clearly, they've invested in the position a little bit. Would you make a good coach? No, because I just don't have the patience for it like the minute somebody screws up i'm cussing somebody out and i just don't have the patience for it bro like they ask if someone asked me man you gotta you gotta be in the office for like 20 hours hell no no hell no now i'm not doing that Has anybody ever asked you to coach? Yes, I've had offers by college coaches. Would I be interested in coaching?

I'm just like, no. Like, I value my freedom too much. Like, why am I going to sit? Like, coaches, they waste your time more than anybody out here. Like, we could literally get done everything that we need to do in probably like six hours, but they stretch it like 10, 12 hours plus. And it's just like, why? It's just like the dumbest thing. And actually, that's why a lot of guys end up retiring,

because coaches waste their time. I'm dying because I don't know that I've ever heard a player be so direct about something I've heard every ex-player say. Because I remember I was talking with somebody on the front office side about the new practice rules. And they were like, it's ridiculous. We can't figure out, our O-line doesn't have enough reps. We need to build up the body thing. I thought Harbaugh, John, made a really good point a couple years ago. He's like, this lack of contact actually could lead to more injuries.

Everybody dumped on him. I'm like, wait a minute. He's absolutely right. If you're a trained fighter, you don't want to go into a fight never being hit by anybody. Go ahead. Rod Marinelli, my coach in Detroit. We didn't have a lot of success with Rod.

But one thing Rod used to tell us all the time made a lot of sense. One, he said, you only get better at football by playing football. That's number one. And he said, two, training can't with pads is a necessary evil because you got to harden your body. He's like, if you don't harden your body, you're going to get hurt. And I think that's what leads to a lot of these injuries that we see a lot of these with a lot of these players, because guys, they're not hitting anymore. They don't hit in training camp. They damn sure don't hit during the season. That's where you're getting all these injuries, in my opinion.

No, it's I, I, I no it's i i believe in that i believe in that but you would want your body to feel the the physical toll of being hit before you would go and actually do it for real i mean maybe some of the outside guys are like look i don't need to do all that kind of stuff but then as your point like look there were still injuries when guys were in pads but like to the point of the the cons this is something the players and the coaches are never going to see eye to eye on. So at every CBA, because the owners are like, well, if we can keep money and give up practice time, we don't give a shit. OK, congrats, guys. We get another we get another percentage off the top line. But you guys can show up to practice four hours less.

Cool. Right, exactly. At the end of the day, the billionaires, they're winning. They're winning in this whole thing. So then you go to the player and you go, hey, if they didn't break the rules all the time, we wouldn't have to do this because then there's the hour allotment of whatever the hours are supposed to be and i don't know what it

is now but you know i'm talking to some of the guys maybe more from your era it's like sure if they we would we would practice the number of hours they want us to practice if they didn't make us stay that much longer they break whatever the rules are they don't follow so now we have to go so extreme the other way to try to get it to any kind of reasonable number. Again, I'm not around practices, so I don't know what that is, but I love this idea of the players constantly being frustrated by the coach. Do the coaches do what you think? And this is your perspective because that's just what everybody hears that a coach is supposed to do. You're supposed to sleep on the couch. You're supposed to stay up till 4 a.m. And it's like all this different shit. And it's like, well, we're going to make the players do some of this

too. Now, obviously you're not in a facility like that unless you're a quarterback. But anyway, your thoughts. Yeah, I think a lot of it is the fact that coaches are scared to death of players having free time. That's what it really is. You want to know why they stretch the schedule out the way they do? Because they're scared of players having free time and possibly getting in trouble out there. That's why they stretch out. That's why you have multiple meetings

during the day where you're talking about the same shit. Like we literally repeat the same shit multiple times during the day, practice, come back, meet some more, like just doing a lot of repetitive type stuff because they're wasting your time. And it's by design. And as you get older as a player, you recognize that and you're just like, man, I can't take this anymore. And you end up retiring and moving on.

It's like the early morning shoot around in the NBA. You're like, wait, I got to get up and come to shoot around and then come back? Right. But we all know what that's about. Okay. Give me the second best team. Well, I don't even know if you'd have an answer for it right now.

So this isn't one of those Damian Woody breakout videos. I'm not going to green you like on Get Up where I want you to say something really stupid. I won't do that to you. But do you have hope for any of the teams outside of Philly like you know what when it's all said and done this team's going to be you know 11 and 6 this team will be 12 and 5 like they're going to be fine because that second group in the NFC is a mess I think Dallas is going to be there. I think when it's all said and done, I think that game, I believe Philly goes to Dallas on Christmas Day is going to be a big game. It's going to be a big game.

I think Dallas is, to me, they're the second best team in the NFC right now. No kidding. Yeah, I just think that, listen, Dak, first game back, you missed basically a month plus with the thumb thing. No one, like, even though they played the Lions and the Lions stink, like, you can't expect these guys to just come back in the game and just rip it up. That's just not how it is.

There's the acclimation period, but I think Dallas got a lot of things going for itself. Their defense is one of the best in the league. They got weapons on offense. Once the quarterback gets kind of humming again, Dallas is going to be right there with Philly. I promise you that. Do you endorse my Micah Parsons for MVP argument?

He'll never win it because he plays defense. But what player, maybe outside of Josh Allen. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. If Allen kind of do what he keeps putting up these numbers, he's going to win it. It's not going to be the wrong call by any means, but go ahead. Right. He's just, I mean, he's playing like an alien right

now, but like Michael Parsons is playing his position maybe better than anyone else is playing their position. Maybe outside of Josh Allen. Josh Allen is just unreal right now, but Michael Parsons he's just terrorizing people. I've been on record saying that.

I feel like he's the modern-day version of Lawrence Taylor. He's approaching that level with the different things he can do and how teams have to game plan for him. He's that good. Who is the toughest edge guy for you? Man, I played against Demarcus Lawrence. That dude was good. Long, twitchy as hell,

could bend all the way to the ground, strong like Demarcus Lawrence is Demarcus Ware, excuse me. Yeah, I was going to say, man, Demarcus Lawrence is still in the league. He's not dead. Yeah.

Demarcus Ware, I mean. Yes, DeMarcus Ware, I mean. Yes, DeMarcus Ware, yes. And that's it. I played him when he was with the Cowboys. Dude was a problem. A problem out there. That was a good answer. That was a good answer. I mean, not that DeMarcus Lawrence

isn't really good. He's no slouch either. No, no, but I was like, wow, okay. Who's your favorite old lineman right now in the NFL? Well, before you got hurt, it was actually a Jets office lineman, Lodgeburg Tucker, man. That dude played three different positions this year and did it at a high level. Like, people don't understand how ridiculous that is

to play left tackle, right tackle, and guard all in the same year and do it well. Like, you just don't see that. He was my favorite guy to watch. Now, for you, when you're looking for your favorite guy, what's the first thing? Most of us don't understand it, right? We can see an edge guy beat somebody off the snap.

We can see a receiver make sick throws. We can see the arm or a guy's throwing it to the sideline in between the safety and the corner. There's all sorts of stuff. What are you looking for? I mean, for me, I just look at, I like technicians. I like guys. Everyone has natural ability, but I look at guys who just technically sound guys who got really good feet,

good hands, guys who know how to finish blocks, like pancaking, embarrassing people. Those are the guys I like watching like Zach Martin, guard from the Cowboys. Love watching him. Quentin Nelson, love watching him, the guard from the Indianapolis Colts. Trent Williams, another really good lineman, left tackle for the San Francisco 49ers. So I like watching those guys.

Yeah. No, I mean, that makes sense. It's a good list because there are guys that are mad as soon as the snap like and they keep that anger up did you what did you do to get yourself in that mode because i also think that you were so strong and you were so athletic and you were so gifted i mean you were an incredibly gifted nfl player on top of everything else and correct me at any point if you think i'm i'm off base with any of this, but I don't remember you having to like work yourself up and it's some mad

dog fury the entire time. Like you could get mad, but you weren't going to do like my guy, Willie Cologne, who was just pissed off at the world as soon as he stepped foot on the field. And I love the fucking guy, but he wanted to fight you the whole time. What is that like to get yourself ready for that?

Yeah, listen, for me, it was like controlled aggression. I wasn't going to go out there and do anything stupid and get a penalty. That could cost the team. But when I step between the white lines, man, I'm flipping the switch on. At the end of the day, I look at it as my opponent is doing something to try to take food off my plate. And so that I can't stand for. Plus, I wanted to embarrass you. I wanted to put on tape that I wanted to embarrass you.

So when my opponent the next week watches the film and is like, damn, this dude is just cockroaching motherfuckers out there. Then they know what time it is when we when we play it and that's what i tried to do i think that's a good place to end on uh thank you as always man i'll talk to you in a couple weeks be good all right man appreciate you as always this week's edition of Worst Take. This one feels a little more personal. Again, our podium

placement right now. Arenas at one. We've got to figure out something to challenge that. And then we've got Bart Scott. And then we did. We put Perks.

We did. Lakers backcourt back on there. By the way, did you see going into the weekend, I believe, who the two top five in steals were in the NBA?

Pat Bev and Russell Westbrook. So does that mean, actually? I have seen some people selling us on the idea that Russell Westbrook's a big part of the Lakers' defensive numbers this year. I'm going to hold off on voting on that. What's more likely? That Pat Bev and Russ will actually be one of the best defensive backcourts in the league

or that Daniel Jones is going to beat Josh Allen without an offensive line? I would argue the Daniel Jones one, not a terrible take right now. Yeah, good job by us moving him off the podium. Honestly, I think Westbrook and Pat Bev have a better chance of being the best defensive back court than Daniel Jones does of being Josh Allen. I mean, who knows? Westbrook's not going to be on the team all season, it seems like. Who knows?

Well, look, then it's not a fair bet. Then it's a me point. Yeah, because you just be like, well, now it's invalid. The Perk would just say, hey, we'll never know. By the way, I got a suggestion. I got a suggestion on Instagram from this guy, Brad. Oh, yeah. That guy's awesome.

He thinks... Big Brad guy. He said he thinks after a certain number of weeks, if someone is at number one on the podium, they should be able to be in the Hall of Fame and they should be out of the podium. I actually don't hate that idea. I like it, Brad. That's why I said I liked it so much.

Wait, how many weeks are we going to have to do this for? Forever. Soccer takes? I want Cerruti to have a soccer one in here. I want you to open us up to the world of the worst takes of soccer. All right, we've got the podium. Somebody did suggest recently

that Christian Pulisic shouldn't start for the U.S. in the World Cup. That was a hot one. I didn't think that would be. I didn't think our audience would like that one though. I saw one. I may do this one at some point. I'm going to go back and find it. But it was somebody suggesting that the Olympics are stupid because we shouldn't be rooting for our own countries. Oh, man.

And I was like, what? Yeah, because it was basically like yeah, it was a nationalism thing. It had tones of like other stuff but it but it was like yeah but guess what it's not really that is it and then there was something about like the globalization because of the internet and everything i'm like so what the fuck am i supposed to do now just start rooting for fucking korea like yeah be like go korea bad go Korea badminton. You know? Like, I want you to beat the U.S.

because of this guy's tweet. Great point. Because then it becomes like, who would ever... Like, the whole reason some of these small-town stories with, like, local high school athletes... Like, why do you take pride in that? Because they are somebody that's from your community and then if that person is good enough in high school to go on to play somewhere in college the place isn't a

factory then you have some kind of attachment because you feel like that person represents your community and you root for them because you are a little bit more invested in that and you can just keep expanding it out further and further and further so instead of making it some terrible thing which it can be pointed to historically it's actually like a very basic instinct of hey that guy's from my town like i hope he does well so anyway maybe i'll find that one there was also another one that i don't know it's so fucking bad that i'm not sure I can even do it but we'll see all right rant over well do you have a take

oh yeah I have a take for the Hall of Fame though what are we thinking 10 weeks yeah Brad the rule Brad how long is the worst take season I just want to get it on the record you don't like the segment huh don't love it don't love it it's a lot of work for me I'm scrambling around it's a lot of work Wednesday mornings I'm scrambling around it's a lot of work for me. I'm scrambling around. It's a lot of work. Wednesday mornings, I'm scrambling around.

It's a lot of work when we feed Kyle a worst take before the show starts. Yeah, I mean, I'm not used to it at that point. It's something we forget. It's something that we forget. I see them and then I just kind of... Yeah, there's a lot of scrambling. By Thursday, I'm like, oh, I'm looking out for the next worst take. And then by Tuesday night, I was like, oh, I'm supposed to have one tomorrow.

Okay. All right. I'll go first. I'll go first. I'll go right after the big guy, Bill Simmons. His Lillard take, he said that he lacked burst, and he was hinting towards Lillard being washed. I didn't really ever understand it because I just feel like the new generation of players, especially when they already missed so much time, and it was a significant injury,

that I would want to watch somebody first come back from injury and see how they look. And right now, Lillard is on fire. The Trailblazers are on fire. They're not going to be the best team in the West. But if Lillard has a real serious all-NBA season, a third-team all-NBA, I don't know that that's

that surprising. So there's a lot of people. I don't think it's podium worthy, but Bill's getting a ton of shit for it because Portland fans are very, very aggressive at times. So I don't think it's podium worthy. It's been brought up. I'm bringing it up almost to represent the people that wanted to be mentioned.

It's you know, I don't know. I just think he and I disagree sometimes on like writing people off. And sometimes he's right and sometimes I'm wrong. That's right. He's a big cross-off guy. Yeah, he's a cross-off guy.

Yeah. Go ahead, Kyle. You were there for it. You lived it. No, I just mean I have a similar one for... Here we go. Every once in a while I'll see something and as it's going, I'm like, wow, should I mark this down?

I don't know. I remember thinking that with Lillard and I was like, well, we'll see. And now here we are seeing. Mine is a similar one. I'm actually going to let Steve say what he said about Laurie Markkinen. I mean, I remember it was probably the most animated I've seen. This is the most animated I've seen Cerruti in the past

week, two, probably in the past month if we're going to make it all encompassing. So I'm going to let you say what you said unless you want me to dig it up. I feel like if I could dig it up, I feel like you'll do yourself a kindness if you could say it right now. No, I think most people, listen, this is very popular. I get a lot of tweets and messages on this one that, you know,

Laurie Markins had a great start to the season. And I was mad before the season that he was on Bleacher Reports. Like he was number four on there. Like who's got that candidate list? Yeah. Like I just listen. He's he's been playing really well. I'm happy for him.

I'm like, I'm not mad about this at all. Like I don't dislike. I've actually thought Laurie Markins is a decent player. I my whole thing is like he I know who Laurie Laurie Markin is a decent player. My whole thing is I know who Laurie Markin is. He's going to have a little uptick this year, but that doesn't mean he's next or he's some future budding all-star. He's on what I think

is going to be a bad team. I had a couple guys just wait this take out when they're like 10, 15, 20 games under.500 when this green patch goes away and you can just chalk it up to good stats, bad team guys that's what i'm gonna do i'm not taking the l on this one so good take it's it's a pen you were mad you were mad but it wasn't so much because marketing was on it it was because he was on it and franz was

off of it and it was not only that he was on it franz wasn't on it and he should be and marketing was four he was number four that's just to me i i don't know like marketing's been an okay player the last like couple years he was decent for the calves last year he's not a bad player he had almost 20 a game for chicago i think his second season but clearly like people are okay moving on from him and he's just been around when you're on your third team it's kind of tough to be the who's got next argument for it but he's been awesome so far some of these bad teams have been pretty good i just think i'm like the who's next thing or the breakout guy, that guy has to be evolving into maybe an all-NBA guy,

certainly an all-star at some point. Laurie's not going to be that. Maybe he'll prove me wrong this year. Maybe he'll continue averaging 25 a game. You ever heard of Geno Smith? We're going to have a marketing comment. I'm not taking the L on this yet. Not yet.

That's fine. That's fine. It'll be weird. You can have the who's next year when the Orlando Magic front line is Paolo Franz and Wen Manyama. Exactly. Love that. There you go. Mine is a little off the radar,

but I feel like this needed to be brought up. And Halloween is on Monday. We're not going to do a worst take until then. Dan Orlovsky, I like him. Good dude. We used to have him on a bunch of shows at ESPN. Always super cool to me. He has some of the worst food takes, though, that you'll ever see. He has like

he's the kind of guy that doesn't season his food and that's kind of who he is. He had a tweet. Two tweets actually. First one. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are the most overrated candy ever and they're the most over given at

Halloween that's just incorrect that's a bad take definitely not over given definitely they're over there they're easily a top three candy on Halloween I go Kit Kat Twix Reese's

those would be my three if you're gonna say something is overrated I actually think Reese's pieces are terrible but Reese's peanut butter cups that's like, you put that in ice creams on their own

on top of cakes. It's a tier one candy. So, again, just a terrible take on it. God tier. Yes. Wait, so we can do, we don't have to do this with sports because this will be way easier for me if I don't have to look up sports takes every week. Every once in a while. I feel like we should, you know, step outside the box. It is a holiday. I don't know.

Are we just giving you a pass or am i just gonna run this thing off the rails with what i hit you with next week i actually think kyle being like a wild card every week could give some spice to the segment i like that all right and approved great i don't care how long we do the segment for now great i got some age of empire shit for you next week great quick follow-up to new civilizations wait oh boy here we go two new civilizations in Age of Empires I'll get you something next week I'm so lost now we should end the segment but it sounds like he still has something left

all I wanted to say was his second tweet was that he ranked dark chocolate as the best Halloween candy like that's serious kids everywhere love the antioxidants of dark chocolate what are we doing right now I got dark chocolate. What are we doing right now? What are we doing? It's great with the red wine. Like, no, this is straight.

I got dark chocolate. Cool, man. Yeah. Buss. All right. Like you did. That's Worst Take. 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 is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com what up Kyle what up Sir Rudy what's good sober October over The email is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. What up, Kyle? What up, Saruti? What's good? Sober October over.

Good run. Yeah. Declaration right to Twitter. What went into that? Well, I was telling you off, Mike, I did finish The Sopranos, and I didn't know what else I was going to do. So that was a little depressing. I was like, fuck, I don't know. else i was gonna do um so that was that was a little

depressing i was like i don't know should i start boardwalk empire i guess uh and then i got the other text like where are you at dude what the hell's going on and i was like 21 days you know like if i was working if i was like like a work week that's almost a full month right i did some sort of math mental gymnastics in my head to be like, oh, that's almost... That's a lot. Five days, four weeks, round up, four weeks, 28 days, 31 days, one month. Good job. Basically, yeah. So I just... I was like, you know, at the end, it's not like this was

court-mandated anyway. It's like I didn't enjoy it anymore. And I don't know. It was like a great... It was a great homecoming. And I'm just... I'm glad that I was allowed a drink by that Monday Night Football game. It all worked out in the end. Was Monday Night Football your first time jumping

back in? Definitely not. I was primed by then. Sorry, Cerruti. Go ahead. 20 days is better than no days, dude. That's a lot better than no days. You make it the whole time. It's okay. It's the halftime. I was thinking when you tweeted that out, this could be maybe the third quarter and then fours up,

fourth quarter. A lot of people thought that as well. The rest of the month, we're going to be good. A lot of people thought that as well. There's no rule that says I can't try it next year. Maybe I'll just build some breaks into it next year. I don't know. I saw a couple people

throwing out Bender November, though. We just got to avoid that. Oh, yeah. That's not in the cards. Bender November. I don't know. I saw a couple people throwing out Bender November, though. We just got to avoid that. Oh, yeah. That's not in the cards. Bender November. I like that. In Denver. And then, that's right. We'll be in Denver for it as well. No, that's

good. I've heard it called Oxober. Oxober? I don't like that. Yeah. Nope. That's a reach. I still like rocked over more,

but you did not. Although Monday night you were sending out some tweets where it was like aggressive, but Hey, the pastor getting their asses kicked by the bears. Yeah. Not good. Yeah.

Bill was in bad spirits. I was just, I wasn't feeling good. It was like, we changed into the actual living room instead of the back house. And it was like dark in there and eerie. I was all wrong. The fives were wrong. Fives are off.

Fives are totally off. We have a lot of follow-ups. I swear to God, I think we could just do an episode. I don't want to do a fourth episode every week. There's a version of events where there's a fourth episode just called the community and you're reading the follow-ups and you're just doing a ton of this stuff um I have no idea if it would do well or not but I wanted to let you know that Kyle and I appreciate these because

there's a lot of thought that goes into them at first I was like I don't want to do follow-up stuff and everybody's theories and then you know one of the things that when you talk for a living, when it's like, hey, really great job on this. Here's one thing you may not have thought about. Or I can't believe you didn't think about this thing. And sometimes it's accurate. A lot of times you're just like, all right, whatever. But this one I thought was good. I went back and forth on whether or not this was worth an email, but couldn't help sharing some potentially helpful advice for the emailer looking for his wife to make more money. To me, it's very ironic that he perceives a psychology degree as worthless

when, in my opinion, it opens the doors to a potentially perfect side gig part-time job. People did not like the emailer calling that worthless. Although, there's a few HR people coming for Kyle's head as well. I knew that was going to happen. Some were in jest. As Kyle knows, as Kyle knows, the very pro-Kyle emailing group here.

Companies like Talkspace, BetterHelp, or any of the myriad of copycats are starving for therapists. And based on my experience research, they're willing to offer $60 to $100 per session, which is an hour of work. Not only that, many have no problem with being remote, doing virtual calls, at least as recently as spring of this year. The downside is for the part-time work, many would like to have 20 hours a week to be considered part-time.

I'd also imagine you'd get pressure to do more, but I don't think you'd be obligated. I've heard of people going back and forth between the different services just getting the max dollar per hour 20 hours night might not be ideal out of the gate but i think it could be finagled a bit and should be flexible enough to work with a busy schedule thanks for reading but that something i did not know and i could still just be like yeah i don't know well i think i addressed this, though, last time, is that I'm pretty sure he was referring to her having an undergrad in that. I think in order to actually be a practicing psychologist, you need grad school.

You need more school. So I don't know if that's in the cards for her. I think that's why he was saying it was worthless because you need to go to school for six to eight years, not four years. So that's what I'm assuming. That I don't know either. Now we're going to get a million emails on that and we'll see.

So it's back to being worthless? No. I feel like there's some part of me that's pushing back a little bit on this. I mean, it can only be a master's? I think so. I know one of my good pretty sure. I know. I mean, one of my good friends does.

She does telehealth, and she definitely had to go to more than four years of school. All right. Well, fuck. Look, I'm Pauly Cy English, and here we are fucking two years in on life advice. So, okay. Here's one that is serious. Hey, guys. 6'3", 215, 25 years old.

Haven't lifted weights three, four years, but recently got an LA Fitness membership to begin to try to do that again. Enjoy playing pickup basketball. My friends often compare me to a quicker Luka. Why aren't you in the league then? So the perfect basketball player. They don't. Literally the only flaw

in Luka's game. And I've got that. No one ever compares themselves. A fitter, more athletic, hotter Luka. Yeah ever better yeah like I'm a shorter Covington nobody ever does that that's all of us should be doing way more shit like that I'm I'm a bit I'm a bit more aggressive David Nuwaba all right

he says that it's mostly due so do I jumped we jumped on this guy too early he said it's mostly due to I jumped we jumped on this guy too early he said it's mostly due to his ability to work the refs in our men's league and a killer step back visited LA recently with my girlfriend and made a point of going to the frolic room much smaller than

anticipated but great spot shout out Kyle oh good to know Kyle knows but I cannot I already said it in this episode his approval approval rating every time these emails come through. It's unbelievable. So here's the question. I went to a state school, graduated in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. All right, so we got a young dude here.

Due to the uncertainty of the future and work opportunity, I moved back to my hometown. He gives it. I think it's kind of important. Do we just go for it? Yeah, he gave it. Yeah, it's not like he's like, I think I saw a murder, right? That's not what this email is. Okay, so we move back to Austin, Texas, and

I was working a job in the finance industry. Things have been great, it appears. I'm in a long-term relationship, have a steady paycheck. I'm near family. My job is fine. I'm not passionate about it, but I often feel bored and wanting more purpose in my life, being that I'm still young and have more flexibility than I will in a few years. Should I

one, focus on focus all my attention to finding a career path that both pays the bills and fulfills me. Two, focus on accumulating hobbies and passions outside of work that I can look forward to thus and just work for the means of getting paid. Three, just realize the grass isn't always

greener and should I suck it up? Come to the realization that life gets more boring and monotonous post-college. I would be interested to hear Kyle's take, being that he is near my age and transitioned from a life of petty crime to a lucrative position at the ringer. Yeah, that felt a little nasty.

Before we go to Kyle, I would say, hey, welcome to life, bro. Oh, yeah? I mean, that to me is kind of the big secret, is your younger ambitions amazing, dreams, hopes. And for some, you know, those are realized. And for others, you're like, oh, wait, huh? And then somebody's a couple years older, and they go, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, this is it, man. Yeah. Okay, enough of a really old guy's perspective who has a really weird path on all this kind of shit, which does not relate to most. So he wants to hear from you, Kyle. Take it. I guess, I mean, what is this, the Oregon Trail? Does one of these lead to dysentery or something? I don't know why you can't do like, do all like a little bit of all of them. I mean, he's, he likes where he is. I mean, he's,

he's not saying like, I haven't heard too many people saying they want to get the hell out of Austin. Right. I mean, you're kind of lucky if that's your hometown. I don't know why you can't. Yeah. But when it's your hometown, sometimes you just, you know, it's different. But no, I think what he's asking you, Kyle, is those years post- college and then beginning into kind of like the the

beginning of the protozoa of an adult. Okay. You know, like, what that realization of like, oh, okay oh okay like can you help him understand that a little bit better all right i guess like he said he's he's happy happy with the girlfriend right he's not gonna he's not one of those guys who are like wondering if he should just try to get out there again right so that's kind of covered right um i'm yeah i don't know i mean

just spend the next year or two doing whatever don't do anything you don't want to do you know basically and then and then that's over and then that's going to be over soon so i i don't know if there's a big insight just um it's just kind it'll just kind of magically start to get smaller and smaller that that free time that you have so um i don't know just just enjoy all of it until there's like only a little bit left every week and then enjoy that too i'm not sure exactly what he wants for me yeah i don't know you want to take a swing at this because i think maybe no these are just always kind of confusing because i feel like it's the same answer why don't like

try to find some stuff on the side that you like to do and you know that ends up becoming a thing that's great and if not you still have a good gig your life's probably still going to be okay but you know at some point in your life you're gonna like i don't have a ton of like now like when i was younger like my early time at espn like i had a ton of free time i was like i was watching a million games i still try to watch as much as i can now but i was definitely watching way more back then you don't have a lot going on and then i didn't understand like why the people who were older like didn't watch games like kids with kids be like it's not that big of a deal just put into bed and watch the nba that night and i'm gonna have a kid yet and then you just kind of like understand that you have less and less time as you get older and you know it takes you time to figure that out so

i would say just like value that now try to do as much as you can don't you have to like leave your job or anything like that but just you know if you if you feel like you have more to give or like are there's other stuff out there for you to do in life, try to do it in this time. And then, you know, there's really no harm there for you. And just know that, you know, your priorities in your life are going to change as you get older and you're not going to have that time. And then that, at that point, it's like really hard to sort of figure it out, changes and different things in your life. So now's the time to do it if you want to go for it. Yeah. Maybe take some trips. I didn't take trips. I wasn't a big trip guy.

And now I wish I took more trips. There's still time, Kyle. No, I'm just saying. It was like, you know, the years before I was doing Bill's podcast and stuff like that, it wasn't a huge deal if I went missing for a week. I mean, a sanction missing, obviously.

But I just meant it wasn't as big a deal. It wasn't like, oh, dude, really? You're leaving now? It's like, yeah, whatever, man. You got vacation days, right? So if that's where you are right now, then maybe use your vacation days. People don't seem to notice if you don't use them. People are like, oh, that guy doesn't use his days.

This guy is having this epiphany that almost all of us have at some point where you go, oh, this isn't going to be fun all the time. Or wait, how long am I going to work here? Is this my routine? I'm going to roll through the security gates of this place every day.

Am I going to be here a couple of years and then do something else? Am I going to be here like 20 years longer? Yeah, once you start looking at that 401k. That sucks. Right. So this is not unique. And I think the cool thing about being young is that you think you're going to have this really unique path, right? You're going to be, oh, all these things are going to happen. And then it's like, all right.

But then, as he says, as far as the grass is always greener, you could say, okay, you know what? Like, I don't want to work at home or I don't want to live here. I want to get out. I want to experience the world. I want to take on life. And some of those people, it works for them, right? I'm going to get a van. I'm going to do this.

Oh, I've been to Europe. I've been to all these different places. I don't want to do van. I'm going to do this. Oh, I've been to Europe. I've been to all these different places. I don't want to do that. I'm working part-time here or whatever. And then that person might be in their mid-30s going, all right, how do I jump back into the market here? What's my skill set? Not to say you haven't developed some amazing skills and maybe your perspective on life is more cultured and you're amazing and you'd be an asset anywhere so i'm not really i'm not shitting on any paths here i'm just saying there's there's a lot of choose your own adventures you can do at the stage of your life and you can really romanticize about this adventurous life that doesn't work for most fucking people that actually like want to have a family and then later on and you're going like oh

and then you're thinking about the other guy like as soon as he got out of college like hunkered down and immediately you know locked in and then you look at that guy and you're thinking like oh the dividends are like paying off for him because he immediately kind of knew what he wanted to do even though most every one of you are going to change your jobs numerous fucking times because that's just what happens now but this this idea that there's this magical path where your life experience is the most fulfilled that's sitting out there and you're not sure like should i just drop everything go do that i think that's that's a human instinct um i don't know if it's more of a male thing than a female thing but it's you know the go west young man thing like that is a very common thought

i still fucking have it sometimes man and i'm not young right i'll still have it like what if i just fucking did this this and this and this ah fuck it you know and i then you kind of sit back down especially you get some dependence you're like what the fuck was i just thinking about like that's not realistic uh very few people can kind of just go and be like, all right, I'm just going to do all these different things and not have to worry about that bill come and do a little bit later on. So I would always encourage everyone, go ahead, try it. Like, go do it for a year or two. Maybe you need to get it out of your system. Maybe you have to see what it really feels like. It's why I always joke about Zillow being so popular

because you start searching other towns going like, what would it be like if I lived there? It's like, well, you know what would happen when you live there? Like you might not have as many job opportunities. The fucking electric bill is going to be the same. And now you're worried about real estate prices in a completely different place.

So I think that's kind of the big, I don't know if the big joke, the big joke feels so negative. But to me, that's like life's big reveal for so many people that you're just, you're younger and you're thinking all these things are going to be different. And then you're like, no, it's just kind of the same. And I'm not saying it to be depressing. I'm saying it for anyone to understand, like your experience when you first have the big reveal you're like holy shit and you're like that's why i started the whole thing by saying like hey welcome welcome to the way the world works man do you think it would be good to have this like what i would

ask him what is what does he want to do in like five where does he want to be in five ten years like if he's like if he wants if he feels like you know if he feels like he's going to be behind though you know and that's going to bum him out in five to 10 years and all of his other buddies have like worked and kind of like done the shitty job, but like are at a higher pay scale and like, you know, have more vacation time and they're like more disposable income and you're going to be bummed about that.

Then, you know, maybe just got to suck it up and get to that point in your mid to early twenties. If you don't care about that and you want to just find out who you are, then don't worry about that right now. I would say, just try to find what you want to do. But I think, you know,

because when I was younger, I don't think I had an exact plan of like, hey, I want to be here in five or 10 years. I want to have a family, all this stuff. But I did know that my career meant something to me and I wanted to build my career and I was at ESPN and I wanted to do a good job there, even though my hours and my life kind of sucked. I knew that it would hopefully be some bigger payoff. If you care about that, all right, hours and my life kind of suck. Like I knew that it would hopefully be some bigger payoff. If you if you care about that. All right. Suck it up and do your shit.

If you don't and you're like, I don't like what I'm doing, which it sounds like you don't and you feel like there's something else out there for you, then I would I would I mean, I know it's easy for me to say sitting here in my basement, but like I would go explore that. Like, what's the worst that could happen? You get knocked back two years in life like you're still young. By the way, I'm totally with you. I'm big time.

Go for it. Give it a shot and see what happens. But I'm focusing more on the other part, the realization of like, oh, maybe this isn't the greatest time right now. I'm all about going ahead and doing that. As I mentioned, the other guy who's new right after college, exactly what he wanted to do, that's not for everyone. And I'm not telling everyone that they should go ahead and do that. And comparing yourself to your friends when you're younger is a complete waste of fucking time a lot of those guys are full of shit yeah a lot of the people that are having a great time then in like 10 years they're the ones that are behind and they're bumped out because you have a better

life situation but there's also a version of events too we're like okay you you sit it out for a couple years maybe you gain some experience in a way that applies to something later on for you. And you catch right back up and surpass them. Again, keeping score of the ALE standings amongst your buddies at this stage of your life is a massive fucking waste of time because there is no 20 games behind. You're all an eighth of a game behind.

It doesn't really matter. So I just wanted to email that understand like this is not and i think he probably knows this seemed like a relatively smart guy that this is not this is not new like again i'll never forget what scared the shit out of me when i was in college i'm a freshman i'm pledging fraternity and then all these alums showed up and like you think seniors in your fraternity are cool wait until the alums show up you know like these guys are the coolest fucking guys ever right because you're just so impressionable you're young you've been an adult out of the house for like the first it's like two weeks into your adult life you know i've been 18 a month you know so i'm like oh my

god this guy's fucking awesome wall street and so a guy was completely like blacked out and he's like whoa what's your deal and i'm like um well ryan and for martha senior and he's like don't ever graduate and i was like what of course i did a pretty good job of following through on his prophecy but it was like i don't do anything fucking life sucks i look forward to this every year i look i live in hoboken i call call all day the yoga instructor at the gym won't talk to me i used to be fucking cool you know and i was like that was like heavy shit for a guy that bummed out he was like 23 fucking guys 23 it's like slow march to death and you know for me it was a little different because all i knew was i was like okay well i

don't want to do this i don't want to do that i was like what do you want to do i was like i only want to do the things that nobody else like i don't want to do i have a long list of things i don't want to do so uh this is this is a weird time right after college a weird time and it really sucks too for a lot of the guys that graduated throughout the pandemic thing too because you get denied like a couple more years of that experience which sucks um all right a reminder today's life advice is presented by snickers sometimes you're out of sorts and make a mistake that could have been avoided if you just had a snickers okay here. Here we go. Gym Confrontation. 6-3, 189.

Thursday afternoon, 5p. That's 5pm. Peak gym hours. Sure is. I'm finishing a workout when I hear music coming from a source other than the gym speakers. I look up and see a guy warming up with a portable JBL blasting. He's in an

HBST. I give him a few minutes to see if he'll turn it off. Maybe it's only for the warm-up. It wasn't. Worse. It's the ad version of Pandora. Pandora. I was going to say Spotify, but whatever.

It is the ad version of Pandora in the email. Commercials are playing for the whole gym to hear. As I'm sizing him up, he then brings it over the lat pull down. After one set, leaves it blasting as he walks 60 feet to the other side of the gym to do another exercise. This is my final straw. I'm not big, but I have a few inches in length on him as I pegged him to be a pre-jack Kumail Nanjiani. I have to say something. Yeah, I'd say something to the pre-Jack guy. Post-Jack guy. I got pre-Jack.

Well. He got Marvel-Jacked. You don't mess around with Marvel-Jacked. I'd mess around with Marvel-Jacked. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to sound like a tough guy. Yeah, I don't know, man. Those guys like, ooh like 60 days later

you know whatever what about Chris Pratt when you mess with Marvel Chris Pratt cause he you know I don't know you're talking about community he was just like pretty doughy guy and now he looks pretty good the biggest mistakes anybody's making here all of us are and people make it with me it's just because you're jacked it doesn't mean like

it doesn't really mean anything that you're tough or that you're a good athlete. Yeah. Yeah. But like all of a sudden completely out of shape, which I don't know if Chris Pratt is getting fights or not. I don't know who,

who was or wasn't most guys aren't most. No one is. I'm just not going to be afraid of an actor. How about that? Fair. Fair. Keanu Reeves after John I'm not tough I'm not tough there's just I'm not

gonna just because you're on a men's health and fitness tweet it doesn't do anything for me yeah I'd be I'd be more afraid of an out-of-shape actor than it would be an in-shape actor yeah okay all right back to the email I walk over and say is that yours pointing to the speaker did you forget your headphones I walk over and say, is that yours? Pointing to the speaker.

Did you forget your headphones today? All being a sarcastic tone, he says, yeah, I don't like using headphones. Wow. Oh, no, he said sarcastically, did you forget your headphones today? We read that right the first time around. And he says, yeah, I don't like using headphones. I ask him nicely to turn it down, and he does. As I pass him, I say thanks, and he gives me a smirk. Who's to

think it's okay to do this? What do I do if he does it again? Smash the speaker. No, you can't do that. Although I would take your side if I was a neutral gym attendee, although I wouldn't be neutral. This guy sucks. Not a good time, not a good hang. It's incredibly narcissistic behavior

in a gym, but some people do this. It still blows my mind that somebody could be like, well, I'm here and this is how I'm going to do this one. So there's no judgment on this one. You were right. You handled it probably as well as you possibly could. I mean, for somebody to do this, and it gets back to the theory of many, which somebody sent me that a philosopher actually, again, I didn't coin this. I didn't think that, hey, apply it to everybody. But if everybody did this, it'd be the worst

gym ever. It'd be the worst gym ever. But that one person has decided, it's okay if I do this. No one else can do it, but it's okay if I do it. And then everybody's supposed to adapt to me. Real only child behavior. Don't really like that at all.

You could have been meaner about it, and I would have taken your side but if it happens again you know you might just have to get a trainer like a trainer any gym and almost every gym has people working at it there should be somebody there that goes to him this shouldn't be a member on member thing yeah there should be somebody that's a trainer that sees this and usually the trainers are jack and some of them actually are tough and you go hey you know like hey dude like this sucks doesn't work doesn't work for anyone not part of the plan didn't open this place with this idea this was not part of our concept bring your own outside jbl with ads

yeah hbs t-shirt and ads is just incredible uh i don't understand the amount of times that this actually happens why is this not just a rule why don't jim's just put in the rule that this is this is not probably is a rule it probably you know it's probably in the fine print if it was like a you know you could say all right it's a rookie mistake like you let the guy you just you know you say hey dude can you like turn it down maybe he didn't realize maybe he's just completely oblivious that's fine this i don't. This doesn't sound like that scenario. This guy just sounds like he's a huge tool. Hey, can you clarify

what you think the HBS t-shirt means? Harvard Business School. Is that what it is? That's what I thought it was. What if it was Tuck? What if it was Tuck? Does he get a pass? No. Definitely not. Definitely not.

Definitely not. That actually reminds me. When I was at the ESPN gym one time, we used to get swag for different schools. Somehow Stanford Steve hooked us up with like, we got Harvard football swag. Wait, somehow Stanford Steve hooked you up? You mean like when the schools used to send the stuff to me and van

but steve gave me a harvard short steve would intercept it like han solo this argument i don't whatever the point of the story is that i got a pair of harvard shorts so i'm at the espn gym wearing them and this and this guy comes up to me and he was like hey man like nice shorts like did like did you go there and whatever i'm like no no i just got these for free and ever it ended up being this guy trevor scales super nice guy who played football at harvard so i was like the ultimate speaking of jacked that guy was jacked he was i was the ultimate poser in the gym wearing harvard shorts with a guy who played at harvard who wasn't wearing any harvard football gear so probably one of the bigger loser moments of my life yeah he played at harvard he was he was pretty jacked um yeah he could have been a much more he could have been a tool to me

and he was actually really nice he's so nice that i have a hard time believing that trevor would have ever been mean i think he was just psyched to like have some common ground yeah he was like oh man she's got like nah nah man not not a harvard not a harvard guy sorry i have stuff from everywhere and you're right. I've got my Wyoming gear on today because I'm going to the gym right after this. And whenever... Oh, Wyoming was putting together a little run in basketball.

And I have some other older... Shout out to the Wyoming equipment room. And the guy was like, Hey, you guys are making a run this year. And I was like, What? I love that. You actually secretly love that, too. I'm like, huh?

What? I used to be pretty locked into the football team, but I think they unfollowed me. So I was like, oh. They did have a great helmet back in the day. They still do. That Matt Brown, that helmet was sick. Yeah. They had a good white one too, right, Suri?

White one was great. I think that's the one we had at the, I forget which one we had at the desk, but I just remember the Josh Allen. That was the white one. Hey, you know what? Maybe that guy at the gym needed a Snickers. Rookie mistake?

Maybe you just need a Snickers. Snickers, official chocolate bar sponsor of the NFL. Check out Snickers.com slash Rookie Mistake. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Suri. Loaded podcast today. Hope you had a lot of fun.. Check out Stickers.com slash Rookie Mistake. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Cerruti. Loaded podcast today. Hope you had a lot of fun. Please subscribe to the podcast, Ringer, and Spotify. Thank you.