The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Super Bowl Picks With Kevin Clark, the Nets and Sixers Arguments for a Harden-Simmons Trade, Plus Stories From Vegas

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on how both the Sixers and Nets could talk themselves into a Ben Simmons–James Harden trade, as well as the Cavaliers adding Caris LeVert (0:28). Then Ryen is joined by The Ringer’s Kevin Clark to make Super Bowl picks, tell stories from Radio Row, discuss QBs to watch in the offseason, and more (13:13). Finally, Ryen talks about his trip to Las Vegas to attend both the NFL Pro Bowl and NHL All-Star Game, before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (47:59). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Kevin Clark Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast we'll get to our super bowl picks with kevin clark a little on the nba trade deadline an observation about vegas because i was just there for 25 hours and i went to the nhl all-star game and the nfl pro bowl nobody loves non-competitive star-studded events like this guy. And life advice. I want to start by talking about the NBA trade deadline. It's three days away. We're going to do the picks on the Super Bowl. We're going to go deep with Kevin Clark.

So we have a lot of football there and it's mostly football. The rest, I think we're going to get Van Pelt at some point this week as well. All right. The biggest rumor and really the rumor that's gone on forever now. We'll revisit it. We've talked about it before. And that's the Simmons for Harden scenario. We know that a year ago, they were almost traded for each other. And then it didn't happen. Harden ended up going to the Nets. He wanted to go to the

Nets. I think at one point, they all thought, as we've mentioned numerous times, they all thought that it was going to be the Philadelphia and Houston deal. But Harden went to a team that was probably better suited, we thought, with a healthy Durant and a 100% attendance Kyrie Irving. I could see Harden going, yeah, I want to do that. And probably, you know, I don't know, I would imagine Harden probably a little bit more of a New York City-based guy than maybe even Philadelphia, but it's not like Philadelphia is in the middle of nowhere. So now we're left with trying to decipher what any of this stuff means and what it means for either team. So I want to get to that.

But the first part of this is the most recent report that said that Sean Marks, the Nets GM, said he didn't want to have a discussion about it. And that would make sense as messed up as this Nets thing is. And we'll get to kind of where they're at in standings and what's really going on here because they've lost eight in a row. But if the Nets want to just hold out and give this one more shot and see what happens with whatever Kyrie's availability is, depending on if there's a different set of restrictions for the Nets and their home games and Kyrie not being vaccinated. So I think there's some basketball stuff

and some money stuff with this. If this were to even happen, this feels like a different conversation than where we were at a year ago. Harden, here's his contract situation. He didn't take the extension. He has a player option for the summer at $47.4 million. So what he could do was opt in

and then take a four-year extension on top of that for $223 million. So he'd be looking at a new deal at $270 million. He'd be turning 33 in August. And that would mean that Harden, at his age 37-year- year old season would be making just under $62 million a year. Now that sounds like a scary number. If you're a long time listener, don't worry. The cap goes up. The cap will be based on the new TV rights. The TV rights prior to the last

time the cap went up, they were at 9930 million collectively. Between Turner and ESPN on the last deal, they paid $24 billion. And people laughed about that deal. And that deal turned out to be a bargain, more than a bargain, really, if you think about what the projections are for the next TV deal. Because the TV deal, the numbers that are out there, it's just $75 billion. I mean, you can go out and kind of project any number you want. Here's what we know. It's going to go up, and it's going to billion. I mean, you can go out and kind of project any number you want. Here's what we know. It's going to go up and it's going to go up significantly. And if just the TV number doubles in this case, we're talking about another massive bump. I mean, granted, that last bump was absurd

when you're going from 930 million to 24 billion. But you could ask yourself the question if you were the Sixers, do I actually want James Harden at 62 million at 37 years old? I mean, the quickest answer on that part of it is probably no. It's the worst shooting season of his career right now. We've seen him kind of just bail on two teams the last two times around. Maybe it's that he's still hurt because they haven't played all that well lately. But I think the NBA operates with this understanding on some of these back-end deals. Yeah, we'll just trade him for somebody else. And you can sit there and say it's impossible. All of these guys end up getting traded. The number of times that we've said

the player can't be traded because of how bad the contract is at the back end of the years, those guys always end up getting traded at some point. I think that's especially what a Daryl Morey would do. He'd go, all right, you know what I have is I have a zero asset right now, zero return on this one asset that I have.

And if I add Harden, who maybe has a two-year window of being still an elite player, and that's really up to you what you think of Harden, the player that we've seen right now, because it hasn't felt real elite-y this season,

but I could understand a team saying, all right, everybody's there. He knows exactly what the role is. We're going to let him do his thing. He's going to play off of Embiid. It's going to be perfect, even though defensively he's a mess. Maybe we can cover it up

with all the other defensive players we have. And now we have a real shot at this because we feel like the top of the East is weakened because Milwaukee hasn't quite rolled through people like we thought. Brooklyn's had their issues. Atlanta's felt like even though they've been playing better, they're not

taking a step forward off of where they were last year, right? We're talking all of this out and you're going, hey, with Embiid and Harden, it's better than this disaster we have right now, despite the fact the Sixers are playing well. And now we have maybe a two to three-ish year window of really competing and getting out of the East. That would be the Philadelphia side of it. Now, on the Brooklyn side of it, you could say, well, we got to make sure Durant's cool with all this, right?

We still don't know what to do with Kyrie. But if we had Simmons and we have Kyrie back and Joe Harris not being there is a big problem, but now there's no pressure on Simmons, the basketball player. I am not a Ben Simmons fan. I think to use mental health, even though I'm sure this hasn't been a great time for him, to use mental health as what felt like a last resort on getting your way and getting out of having to play. And then the article from Mona Shelburne where I just felt like, okay, so this is just, hey, and B did this, but I didn't do this. I don't know.

I'm surprised that that was the kind of information, like good for her for getting the information. I'm surprised the team around the Ben Simmons side of the argument would want that information out there as if that was going to get any of us that are paying attention or have any like 1% NBA intelligence would go, hey, great point. That is a great point that you didn't get mad at him in 2019 when they lost to the Raptors and Embiid struggled to shoot the way Simmons felt like people, specifically Embiid, had turned in him after the Atlanta series. I don't love Ben Simmons, the basketball player, when I know that you're just not,

you're not comfortable out there in the biggest moments. Maybe that does go away a little bit, but it scares the hell out of me. In Brooklyn, he doesn't have to worry about any of that stuff. Play defense, play center, and you're going to be diving into the hoop on some of the help that comes towards us if we have shooting around you where your life is going to be so much easier. That's going to happen. From a basketball standpoint, he's younger. You don't feel like, even though he bailed on the team this year, he bailed specifically to

his situation where Harden just looks like a disinterested player for very long stretches. I don't know how you do that throughout an entire regular season. Expect to just pick it right back up in the playoffs. When when it comes to the actual negotiation part of it, who says what? I know what Daryl's going to say. He's going to say, hey, we're giving you the better player. He's younger. He's cheaper. We have to do the hardened extension. He hasn't played all that well. It hasn't really worked out. He's coming off the injury. You're actually trying to diminish the value that you want, right? Then, of course, the other part of it, you'd say,

why do you want him then, right? Here's where the conversation should stop. Brooklyn should say this. Our guy still plays. Your guy doesn't, all right? Our guy plays. He's here. Yours isn't.

Yours isn't going to play this season, and he's never going to play for you again. So you have to give us a little bit more. And I would think that that would kind of, whatever the contractual obligations end up being down the road, whatever those are, and they are significant for anyone acquiring Harden, I don't know that there's a great counter to that. Like, your guy's not playing.

Well, I'm sure you're going to try to come up with something if you're Daryl Morey, but it doesn't really work. Now the Nets. They've lost eight straight. They're the seventh seed. I've seen a lot of this like, hey, look how close they are to being in the play-in game. You know what?

They're also four and a half games out of the number one seed. The top of the East is all jacked up right now. Everybody's right there. When I look at the Brooklyn part of it, because there are some victory laps because people, you know, they don't like when these kinds of teams are put together,

even though I think everybody was picking them coming out of the East, considering how close they got last year with just Durant in play towards the end. Them only being four and a half out of the first and knowing Durant is coming back if Durant is back and healthy it looked like he was on his way to an MVP type season not to guarantee it

because Embiid and Jokic are at another level right now for them uh I'm not going to just write off the nets because I'm like all right yeah it sucks and Joe Harris and you don't like the bench and they're a little short Kyrie and Hart okay yeah but is Durant coming back okay well he is. Fine. So I don't want to hear about him being a 7C right now because it's not going to matter. It's not going to matter.

The weirdest thing would be a Nets-Raptors series at some point because of Toronto's rules for Kyrie. Like, imagine if that's the first round. It could happen. I mean, there could be a Raptors-Nets series at some point. So then you go, how's that going to play out with no Kyrie? And as I've said before, we know what's going to happen. I mean, there could be a Raptors-Nets series at some point. So then you go, how's that going to play out with no Kyrie? And as I've said before, we know what's going to happen if nothing changes, where Kyrie's not playing in home games for the Nets. I still don't think we've really factored in how weird it's going to be. What if they end up with home court? What if

they're in a seven-game series for the team in the second round of the Eastern Conference Finals and Kyrie's not playing? I think this whole conversation is going to get cranked up again. So I don't know if that deal is going to happen for this week. I could totally see the Nets saying, hey, let's just keep this group together as messed up as it's been. It hasn't gone according to plan. Everybody would do this if they had the chance to do it by putting these guys together. Let's just see what happens because we're not really afraid of anyone in the East, and we know we're getting Durant back. And if we want to revisit it, we know that deal will probably still be there for us this summer,

unless they have some kind of other intel that Simmons could be heading somewhere else before Thursday's deadline. But based on all the information we've heard privately and publicly, that's not really been the case. One last thing on the trade deadline. Akaris LeVert goes to the Cavs. If you've been watching the Cavs, I watch them a lot because I just like them so much. I've loved what Darius Garland has become, and I think Colin Sexton being hurt

has actually allowed Darius Garland to grow into this role. But more and more, the last, and I know Garland's dealing with a back injury a little bit, but there's been just too much put on Garland to kind of carry them as a perimeter score. And that's, that's been an issue. Um, even though I like all of the pieces, that's been an issue. So you're like, all right. And it's kind of that balance that I always talk about it. The difference of, I'd love to have a few guys that have the ability to create on their own at the end of a shot clock, but yet they're not looking to create on their own in every single

possession. The Toronto Raptors that want to title a perfect example of that. They had like five or six guys that if they needed to, could find a way to more than one dribble, do something with the ball and make a play offensively. Obviously Kawhi, Siakam, because so much attention was on Kawhi as well, but obviously Siakam's a talented player. Lowry, Van Vliet, Norman Powell, Danny Green. I'm not saying Danny Green's going to ISO you and go through his legs the whole time, but there were a lot of players, even Ibaka, a lot of players that were very comfortable with their ball in their hands

to make some kind of offensive decision. And that's hard to defend. But what's challenging is knowing how all of those pieces fit together. And Karis LeVert has never been one of those pieces. Yes, he is extremely talented. He had 42, I think, against the Bulls the other night in that loss. And that was actually a close game down the stretch.

But he will, at some point, decide it is him versus everybody. And that's what scares. I like talented players. I don't like guys that think they're the only talented player. And Levert shoots it at like 31% from three, I think in like four of his six seasons. He's been a net negative on defense three or four of his last six years. He scored 20 a game the last couple months. I mean, he can score, but his usage rate borders around like 30, which would be top 10 for any player in the NBA if you go by some of those usage seasons. He's dipped a little bit

below that, but now he's cranked it up the last couple months because all the other guys at the Pacers have been hurt. So I'm scared. I'm scared that Levert, if Levert plays exactly how he's played for his entire career, it's going to screw up the Cavs. If he defers somewhat, then, you know,

then we might have something because you'd have a really talented player who can get to the bucket. I mean, the guy can score. We know that. But it can't just all be about him because I almost feel like he's better suited for the six-man role.

Comes in, hey, the offense runs for you. You make all these different decisions. When you're doing it every single drive down towards the end of a close game because you just think it's on you all the time, that's not great. And I think it becomes really easy to defend. It's why we have so many high-usage players

not doing well from regular season numbers. Once they get into the playoffs, those teams usually don't do all that well. And I have studied that this weekend and have a massive usage rate monologue for you, which we probably won't open the podcast with because I don't know that everybody's going to love it. And for those wondering, as I was going through LaVert's stuff this morning, what his basketball reference nickname is that no one's ever called him, Karis LaVert, a.k.a. Baby Durant. Kevin Clark, the ringer. What do you have this week, by the way?

Just let's get the promotional part of it right out of the way, because I've seen the Slow News Days promotion. You're a big-time promotion guy. I admire that. I like to get it out there, get the word out, get the buzz. So we have a bunch of ring-around NFL shows

with a lot of active NFL players. It'll be really cool. And then Slow News Day is Russell Wilson, Sean Payton, Justin Herbert, Joe Montana, Travis Kelsey, Darius Rucker. I always thought a Joe Montana, Joe Montana podcast would crush. What would the topic be? Just their names, different experiences they've had? Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe financial advice. I don't know. Any of that stuff. I have some slow news day questions for you in preparation for this big week for the product because it's great. It's one of the best things, I think, on the internet. But I've been Rams.

As soon as the games are over last weekend, we're doing our Super Bowl fix right now. Yeah, okay. Everything tells me Rams. The defensive line tells me Rams. Sure. And I think I'm just going to go, you know, because I'm still like, hey, Cincinnati, unbelievable run.

Not many teams can be down 21-3 at Arrowhead and come back and beat them. They're a 10-7 football team. Sure. And now I'm going to pick them to win the Super Bowl? I am. I am because everything tells me Rams. It's not based on hey, here's an advantage here. Here's what I like about this. It's just a

vibe pick. The pick is going against everything that it's telling me based on the matchup, D-line, O-line and that kind of stuff. I'm picking Cincinnati just because I don't want to pick the Rams so it's not I would not back me on this where are you Cincinnati Cincinnati to win this game so I was a lean

on the Rams last week we did a couple podcasts I just said I think the Rams have so much talent as I started to do research I realized I was going to regret not picking Joe Burrow right and like you kind of have these feelings I was pissed at myself for weeks after the last Superbowl for not seeing that coming.

Oh, there's a depleted offensive line and the bucks are fast as hell. Like where the hell was I on that one? And the more I read about the last couple of weeks, I've never met anybody like Joe Burrow. Okay. At the quarterback position, the mentality he has,

we did not spend a ton of time together, but in August, when I talked to him, I was like, this is a different guy. And it's interesting to me, I read Ed Ogeron and Bruce Feldman's book over the weekend, and I saw even more evidence of that. There's a story in there where Ogeron is like, oh yeah, Joe Burrow got in this practice fight. It was like the craziest thing I've ever seen. And then Feldman gets Burrow's side of it. And the story is that there had been a practice fight earlier in the practice and Burrow couldn't get in. Like he was like trying to, trying to weasel his way into the fight. Couldn't get in there. So he just started another fight that he could be in with Patrick Queen. And it's like, what, what other quarterback is doing that? It's a totally different thing.

And I don't like how comfortable he is getting hit. We live in a post-Andrew Luck world, but he's tough as hell. And he wants to get hit. And he's fine with it. And two weeks ago, we saw that. But the adjustments that they made last week were interesting to me. And that's why we talk about the defensive line with the Rams. Okay, we know that the offensive line for the Bengals is completely mismatched.

They know that too. And they knew that against Kansas City last week. He got the ball out really quickly. His superpower is vision, throwing into tight windows, understanding his weaknesses, using his legs when he has to, playing some of the best situational football of any quarterback in the league right now, knowing how to get a first down when he needs it. And I think that when I saw the adjustments that the offense made

last week against Kansas City, leaving aside how good the defensive adjustments were, I just think that they're going to be able to handle it. I heard a thing a couple weeks ago, NFL Films doing this really cool podcast with old interviews, and Steve Sable asked Andy Reid, if you could go into a facility and have a spy, and he could find out anything about the other team, what would you do? What would you task them with and reed was like i know this is going to sound silly but i would find out who's got the biggest heart right like and i just thought about that like it's andy reed one of the best coaches ever saying that and i kind of feel like this game is going to be close and it's going to come down to joe burrow and all the anecdotes you know brian callahan the

rossi told me they want burrow and peyton manning mode zach taylor had the story in peter king's column today that in overtime joe burrow was just coming to the sideline and saying, here's the play I want to run. And he was perfect every single time. This game's going to be close. It's going to come down to Joe Burrow. And the quarterbacks are so similar. They both run a ton of empty.

They're both awesome against man. Don't put one safety against them. But it's going to come down to Joe Burrow late. And I'm in on Joe Burrow. Okay, that was a massive, sell on on burrow the lsu stories i'd always heard about burrow i like i go wait what i remember they played miami as you do um which was previous to the national championship run i guess there's something that happened on the field like everybody's barking i mean it's miami it's lsu teams that like to talk and burrow just

like came up into the pile and put an L in one of the Miami Hurricanes players' face and was like, take this L. And people didn't really know. At that point, they were like, how is this guy going to react? And by the way, he was good. He was tough. He was okay that first year. And then he has one of the greatest seasons we've ever seen at the position.

So maybe we're getting a little too caught up in all of it because the defensive numbers would never have you pick Cincinnati the Rams are one of what the three best defenses in the NFL this year by some metrics the best um Stafford finally away from Detroit and not having any support has real support so for me this is he gets he's allowed to be validated by those that doubted him, but we're still two bad picks away from all of those people feeling like they were always right about him the whole time. The D-line situation with Vaughn,

with all of these other guys beyond Donald, that entire group now, and I know Vaughn Miller is technically a linebacker, but the way they position these guys around and all the stuff that they do, there's not really a lot of football reasons to pick a 10-7 regular season team against the Rams, but you're doing it for the big Burroughs. Go ahead.

Okay, no, no. These are two four-seeds. This is the first time since the playoffs expanded in 1990 that none of the top three seeds in the NFL made it. So it's not like the Rams are some juggernaut. Listen, their defense is really good, and they play really good zone defense. I think the fourth most in the league, something like that,

and that has been Joe Burrow's kryptonite. So there are football reasons where there's a matchup problem here. Seth Glean had a really good piece about this a couple of days ago, where he basically said that the advantage that the Bengals have is that they're going to get the ball out quickly like they did against Kansas City. And the Rams leave the middle of the field kind of open.

They have five linemen a lot. Their linebackers are not amazing. So I think that's one kind of checkmark. But I agree with you. The Rams defense is really, really good. They're going to bring the pressure. My thought is that the Bengals are not dumb enough to sit there and say, we're going to sit here in the pocket and let Joe Burrow get hit 11 times, 12 times. There's a reason that Joe Burrow led the NFL in 50-yard receptions this year with Jamar Chase.

I think he was pretty historically good at that. I don't think that's their game plan this week. And so I think that there's ways Joe Burrow can diagnose quickly, process quickly, and kind of neutralize that defense. Yeah, there's a long play number that they had this year with Chase that was one of the greats that we've ever seen. So I don't know specifically, but I know vaguely kind of what you were talking about there. Do you think the Tennessee game then helped them? Do you think the Tennessee game helped them prepare for this game?

Even though it was a beating that it was it was i think mentally it helped them with kansas city i also think this is who the cincinnati team is like throughout different stretches of the year i've loved them because i did feel like there was a lot of fighting them but then as i've mentioned before on my pot it's tough to buy into the team that loses to the jets and browns back-to-back weeks granted the jets game was screwed up at the end they get their asses kicked by the browns. And you're like, all right, I still love this team's heart. Like, what's going on here? But I wonder how much of that Tennessee front beating them up

prepares them at least a little bit game plan wise and some of the stuff they may want to get into early against LA. Yeah. So, by the way, the Browns game, Joe Burrow talked about that Browns game this morning at his first Super Bowl press conference. He basically said, that was the moment that we knew we just couldn't turn the ball

over like that. They didn't become, they became more aggressive as the season went along after week 14. I think they were passing on our way down to 60%.

I think, by the way, that cratered, obviously, last week and Zach Taylor went back to running the ball a lot more. I think counterintuitively because that line is

so good on Los Angeles that I think that they're probably going to pass a little bit more and be a little more aggressive because you're not just going to waste downs like you did against Kansas City. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully,

Brian Callahan and Zach Taylor are smart enough for that. But I agree. I mean, the Tennessee thing was an inflection point because the Las Vegas game was kind of a mess for them. I think going into Tennessee and winning and the scheme that they saw, I completely agree. And I also think that part of it, getting comfortable in close games is a real, it's a trait that you pick up.

And going on the road and winning is a trait that you pick up. Sean Payton was on Slow News Day last year, and he picked the Bucs to win the Super Bowl last year. I said, why? And he basically just said, when a team goes on the road and wins, that builds pick up. Sean Payton was on Slow News Day last year and he picked the Bucs to win the Super Bowl last year. I said, why? And he basically just said, when a team goes on the road and wins, that builds on itself. And I think that's

a really interesting thing. And I think that that's, there's a feeling you get. And again, there's tons of scheme stuff. There's tons of matchup stuff here. But I think that the Bengals learned different lessons

in all of their wins because I think Joe Burrow is undefeated when he's an underdog with more than three points this season. And they're able to learn lessons from their losses. And I think it's a really interesting

vibe in that way. Team building. I was going through Sandoz's piece this morning. We have a ton of evidence that spending in free agency is stupid. I don't know that that can be disputed it doesn't mean it never works and cincinnati which is kind of an interesting one because you look at

it and you go okay hendrickson has been incredible at the edge uh ogun jobe the d tackle who's out but i mean you know he got he got hurt in the playoff game um riley tackle he got hurt and you're like wait so yeah um some of the guys got hurt some of the guys absolutely produced i think arizona is another example i remember talking with somebody about it it's like okay but if you look at arizona they went all in they bring in jj waddy played really well he had an injury history and guess what he got hurt and that was it um you know hopkins he was already there aj green i think. Green, I think, was pretty clear. He just wasn't the same guy that you'd expect. They went in on some of the other veterans.

It's like, okay, well, when you go all in, what does that really mean? Well, Cincinnati even lost a few of these guys, but I think overall, you're still sitting there saying this approach worked. For the Rams, there have been things they've done. I'm like, what are you doing? We're paying Gurley earlier than they had to

at a position you don't want to pay. The Brandon Cooks transaction. I was like, that didn't make any sense. So then you start packaging them all together going, wait, does the Jalen Ramsey thing make all the sense? Well, it does. It makes sense to move multiple picks to go get maybe the best guy at his position.

The staffer one makes sense. How much impact do you think like this influences any kind of team building? Because I kind of hate the year-to-year shift that we think we're all supposed to do it the way the two teams have done it that are playing in the Super Bowl. I was negging some of the Rams guys I know at the Alabama-Georgia game saying, you guys can't draft anybody on the field right now. You're done.

Maybe you can find an eighth grader, but you're good. Maybe you can get Bryce Young in a trade in seven years. The free agency thing is fascinating to me. greater, but you're good. Maybe you can get Bryce Young in a trade in seven years. The free agency thing is fascinating to me because I did not like letting William Jackson and Carl Lawson walk. I was wrong about that. Duke Tobin, who's their personnel guy, along with

Mike Brown, the owner, they've got six scouts. We've got more NFL podcasters than they have scouts. It's amazing what they were able to do. Hendrickson, one of the best freight and signings in the years. Mike Hilton, probably the best slot corner. Breer had that in his

column. They thought that and they were right. Awuzie, you just look at the last play of the half there against Kansas City. It wasn't just the play Eli Apple made. It was also jamming to Marcus Robinson on the other side. This is probably going to be hard to replicate in the sense that not everybody's going to hit every single year on free agency.

I think with the rising cap, and this is a weird year because the cap hasn't risen as much as it has normally, but we're going to get that spike, especially with new TV deals in a couple of years. I think with free agency, teams have gotten more comfortable with that. The Rams understand. I've used this analogy before, but Nick Saban used to say that the reason he left the NFL was because he couldn't control his own destiny. He felt if he worked hard and he did all the things he did at college, he could still end up not getting the right draft pick, not getting the right free agent.

This guy got franchise tagged, whatever. There's just so many uncontrollables. What the Rams have done is that they have removed the doubt. They're not going to say, let's take some guy with 29, or let's take a guy with 58. Let's go get Von Miller for one year. It's going to be an overpay. The Broncos had to take some of his contract, and so they did overpay just for the value of what Von Miller was for half a season. But I think that both these teams built in a way that made sense for them. Jesse Bates had a quote this morning, actually, where basically said, like, the key here is bringing in once in a lifetime type players. And I think he was referring to Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase and then surrounding them with the right guys in the locker room.

That was their plan. The Bengals were never going to go all in. I mean, you look at their draft history so many times it is literally just pick once one through seven or one through three and then two, two fourth round picks or whatever. But they're not going to sit around. They're not going to go full Belichick and trade down a bunch. And they're not going to go full Rams and trade the first round pick for anything. They're very conservative franchise.

And so what I would say is that there's no real team building lessons from this. I think a lot of times teams look at the Final Four and run kind of reports on what scouting departments need to see, what colleges they come from, height, weight, speed, all that stuff. I don't think there's a lot to learn

from these two teams because they were in dramatically different situations. The Rams, by the way, were doing some of this stuff because they needed to get fans. They couldn't do a 10 year rebuild because nobody in LA would like this team if that happened. So that's part of the all in thing too. Cincinnati was not doing that. So completely different situations. I don't think either of these teams are saying anything more broad about how football works. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm glad you brought up Hilton too because I saw something this morning.

He graded out as the second best corner, I think, on something. Was that it? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. That would show. Well, I don't know. I think casual Sunday observers would go. No, when I read it, I was surprised.

I was surprised. And then you look at the Eli Apple part of it. That's the thing. It's within their own success with some of the free agents. read it i was surprised i was surprised and then you look at the eli apple part of it like that's that's the thing is within their own success with some of the free agents maybe it's casting big net but i think it was like over 145 million in guaranteed salaries from cincinnati which is not you don't need to be a cincinnati fan to realize that is not exactly the way they operate that's not their history financially um and that's that's just true too the front office part of it like people that know as you do,

will go, no, no, you don't understand. It's still an NFL franchise that operates as if we're still in the 1980s. And that's why I rarely have any sympathy for ownership when they talk about their day-to-day or their losses. Because as you pointed out with their new TV deal, as I pointed it out at the top with the new NBA TV deal that's going to happen, I think 2024, 2025. I don't want to hear about your operating losses because the asset itself appreciates. And you don't have to share any of that appreciation other than the old tax man. But we'll leave that conversation for a different day. All right. You're doing Slow News Day.

You gave us the rundown. Are you going in person or are you doing it over Zoom? No, we're doing it in person. You're in LA? Yeah. I'm in downtown LA. And here's one thing I didn't know about downtown LA. The people with the loudest cars in the world just drive around these streets at like 3 in the morning.

I had to go to Target yesterday and go to the baby section and buy a white noise machine just to get to sleep. What's going on in downtown LA? They don't have adult noisemakers? They did not. I asked. They were like, you got to go to the baby section, brother. What about earplugs? What about the soft ones? I went to the white. I mean, I don't...

Earplugs, then that interferes with your alarm, I would think, right? Nah, I don't think so. The baby white noise machine worked. What kind of noises was it making? Like a fan, like a loud fan. Like a loud fan. It was good.

White noise is back. It's good. Are you Radio Row all week? Part of it, yeah. You're not coming down, are you? No. You hate Radio Row. Yeah, I'm not going. The best thing you've ever said about Radio Row, and it's something i actually think about a lot with everything is there's only one thing worse than getting

hounded for interview requests at radio row and it's not getting hounded for radio requests yeah i think that's a really wise thing about about media that one day we're going to be 68 and wandering around and albuquerque espn albuquerque is not going to ask us for 10 minutes it's i don't know man it depresses me and by the way i want everybody to know i'm not saying i don't want to go because everybody's going to want to talk to me um i'm not that much of an egomaniac i don't think at least on that topic i just there's something about it that depresses me when i see older older local market deals and I go, I can promise you right now that will never be me. And I know that's what everybody said when they were younger,

but I can't. I can't do it. Radio Row fucks me up. I think you're good. I don't think you're going to have to go back to local radio if that's what your fear is. You never know. You never know.

You never know. There's no guarantees. i'd probably open up a coffee shop somewhere do like spoken word host it but you know what let me not i haven't thought this out okay i don't know i haven't thought we're not with the real estate prices here no no we have to keep costs down so maybe albuquerque something like that you know i haven't really thought this out so let's not let's say so how many days are you going to radio row probably three wednesday for the pod and then thursday friday yeah it's good i like i like the i have not seen a lot of people in football and so i like going down there and just seeing who's down there and talking to them it's good i think it is

a good yeah it's a good networking deal it is yes yes because players are around It is. Yes. Yes. Cause players are around and it's like, there's some players you get offered where it's like, I don't really want to talk to them for a pie, but like, I'd like to see them and just talk to them for two minutes, like that, that kind of stuff. And then like sometimes there's a one time,

one time Michael buffer came over to us and they were just like, can you do had just have Michael buffer on? And I was like, no, I don't want want like what am i going to talk about with michael buffer and so then i just had him just do a bunch of slow news day promos and i have no idea where they are he'd said he did voiceover stuff for you for free yes yes yes and i have no idea he was like it's slow news day with kevin clark let's get ready for slow news day let's get ready for the ringer.com's get ready for TheRinger.com.

He did that for me because he was just standing at our radio table. I have no idea who filmed it. Somebody on our social team. It was three years ago. That's valuable stuff right there. I know. Buddy, I was thinking about it last week. That's buffer IP.

He doesn't do that for less than a million dollars for somebody. No, I can't believe he did it for you. I have two stories. James Earll jones came on the dan patrick show this is over 10 years ago and they were trying to get him to say like dan is really great at interviews and he's also funny and he's clever and they were trying to figure out some mechanism without being like hey will you say hey it's james earl jones of the dan patrick show and they're trying to get him to like do little voiceover things and then basically he was like yeah i usually get like a million bucks for that so no and he said no he was the cnn guy for like two decades this is cnn that's right yeah and darth vader which people obviously probably a lot of people knew that's that's probably his headliner dj who kid we used to have trump on

all the time before he became president and so he had trump saying you're listening to the hoollywood shuffle and now i was like i was like do you still i asked who kid i was like do you have like any hesitation on playing that and he was i mean if you know who kid at all he's like no fuck no it's like i just it's like i have the president promoing my my radio show of course i'm gonna play the sounder i was like okay okay so again let's not make it political because buffer it's not even political that's a huge win for you kevin on top of that okay so now that we've covered that what is your russell wilson plan

he's the worst interview in the business. Yeah, I talked to him last summer and you can get him on some stuff. He's, by the way, a huge Yellowstone sicko. Loves it. Loves it. You could get him probably on the pod with UNCR. Pass. I haven't thought about the game plan.

You know, I live in New York does he maybe need does he want restaurant recommendations for if he forces a trade to the Giants I don't know I'm joking but like I don't know I don't know what he wants to talk about and what he's comfortable talking about the thing about Russell is that

he will talk about whatever he wants to talk about in a way that I think is disarming and I'm not gonna like he's really good at this he's really talk about whatever he wants to talk about in a way that I think is disarming. And I'm not going to, um, like I, he, he's really good at this.

He's really good at this. And like he, I asked him last summer, like what, what are you excited about for the season? And he just did like 10 minutes on just like how much he loves Gerald Everett. I'm like, I,

okay. Like now that that's great, but I just didn't expect... He's very good at filling time. How's that? Yeah, I would agree that he's good at filling time because he'll go. I just would love to know what your plan is.

I just want to know. I like him. I'm pro-Russell Wilson. You think he's a good interviewer? You. You think he's a good interview? You don't think he's a good interview. You just booked him this week. No. I interviewed him for the first time. You came on

and I showed you how fat I was when I interviewed him in 2013. Something like that. What Russell is good at is saying things without explicitly saying it. Right. So like he was renegotiating his contract in 2014.

He was starting to renegotiate his contract. And the thing he said to me was he wants to own a team like he wants to own a professional franchise. And that's his way of saying, like, I want to do a contract that is worth gobs of money. At that point, he won the Super Bowl and they were behind. He made less money than the team's long snapper that year. And so that was his way of saying basically like, let's do this in contract negotiations. So I think that's the way he approaches it. And so you kind of just have to know it's not Aaron Rodgers. It's not Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow is as honest a quarterback as I've

come across. Patrick Mahomes in the same boat. He's not going to be. Joe Burrow is as honest a quarterback as I've come across. Patrick Mahomes is in the same boat. He's not going to be that, so just find a different avenue. Who passed on you this week? Who wouldn't come on? Yeah, who was the one you were like, oh, this would be amazing, and then passed? I've actually asked for Mac Jones

and I have not gotten a yes or no to that. I saw him yesterday. I was at the Pro Bowl. He got in there. I didn't even know he was on the team. I think Mac Jones a yes or no to that. I saw him yesterday. I was at the Pro Bowl. He got in there. I didn't even know he was on the team. I think Mac Jones is a lean no. I think.

That name was floated to me last week, and I think it's a lean no. Who has passed? Josh Allen canceled on me over the summer. So he's a kind of pie in the sky at some point, get him back on. Who passed? I don't think we reached out to anybody and got a hard no. Oh, Phil Simms, but only because he's not going to be out here. So if you don't know, Phil Simms had one of the best Sloan Newsday performances in history two years ago. He just came on, lit me

up, lit everybody up. I made fun of our producer, Jason Gallagher, and we've been trying to get him on for two years since, and he hasn't said yes. And we tried again this week, and I think that he's not going to do anything this week. So that's that. Yeah, it's a busy week.

It's a busy week, and he doesn't have to worry about the NBA trade deadline like you do. Am I really that worried? Are you worried that they're going to sell high on Bomba? No. I mean, listen, Cerruti texted me the other day and he was talking about Lopez. And I'm just like,

I've become so unattached to every single player in this rebuild. I just look at every player with their probability to become a superstar. That's the only attached to every single player in this rebuild. I just look at, I look at, uh, I look at every player, uh, with their probability to become a superstar. That's the only way we're going to get out of this with the magic. It's the only way we're going to get out of this is one of these guys becomes a legitimate top 10 guy. And Mo bomb is not going to be that. So I literally just don't, I don't care. Like this is care. We're not assembling a team

in any coherent way. We're just trying to maximize a way out of this. Are we going to keep tanking? It's ludicrous how long we've been in this rudderless situation. And I just wanted to end and that ends with one of these guys

hitting on the lottery. Superstar lottery. Sort of superstar lottery. Let's bring you in here. Let's do some rapid fire magic stuff. I suggested when I did my 100-player update in or out last week, which it may have been the quickest review of 100 players done in the history of media. Can I share one reaction, though?

I think there was some Spurs blogger that was like rossillo went through and did his inner out for all big three and he only could name one spur and then he did space bar which you know is fucking business when somebody does a tweet and it's like here's a couple sentences but here's a space bar and then here's the next sentence you're like uh-oh buckle up and And he goes, lazy reporting. Lazy reporting. Because I think the Spurs are a lock. A lock for the 30th team out of the

30 NBA teams on League Pass rankings. Whenever I go through and I'm deciding what's going to be on which TV, now we had suggested the Magic were very near that. Not now. No, I agree with you.

Okay, so give me your league pass rankings, though, below the Magic. What's disgusting to you to even propose that this team could be at the same level of interest on league pass rankings? 30? I would say Indiana. Not super exciting, especially without LaVert. The Spurs are obviously in there. I mean, Portland minus Dame is just not fun whatsoever.

I'd throw Houston in there. I mean, I guess Jalen Green, Sangoon's kind of exciting, but I mean, I'm biased here. I'd rather watch the Magic. So there's probably like four or five teams maybe that are below them. I think that's fair. That's fair. You got France. You don't like France? All right. Look, Pacers

great call Detroit, but no, I like watching Cade. I'm just trying to suggest and it's not just about bad teams because I don't Houston's right now the third worst record in the league. I still have moments where I like to watch some of the Houston's. I actually like a lot of the role players.

Sacramento could potentially be in the mix because it's so predictable, but you still Halliburton's fun. You're just like, hey, am I going to watch Fox at the end of the games here? Oklahoma City, especially without Shea playing, but then Giddy is so much fun. Pelicans, no Zion.

I kind of know what I'm getting there. I don't know that there's an argument against the Spurs. I would love, because if you wanted me to go Spurs head up with every one of those other teams, I'm going to tell you I want to watch Giddy. I'm going to tell you I want to watch Jalen Green. Portland is a good pick. You know what's sneaky and terrible to watch?

Sneaky, terrible to watch is the Knicks. Terrible to watch. Awful. Absolutely terrible. No fun. Randall's a mess. I mean, Obi's kind of fun every once in a while. Not a fun team to watch. Would you do

Ben Simmons for Franz right now? No. No. I've said this. It's what we talked about, Ryan, last year with the Westbrook thing. It doesn't actually matter if it improves your team. You just don't want to have to deal with it right now.

Like our team is not in the evolutionary stage where this makes any sense. We just derail everything else. I did propose this though. Uh, Kev, I forget. Was it last pod or the pod before that? The Sixers should loan Ben Simmons to the Magic because they have this kind of

like reclamation project with like kind of disastrous Sixers players. Like we've sort of transformed Markel Fultz into like a reasonably decent point guard. I mean, he's hurt now, but maybe he should spend some time in Orlando. I don't know what we'd get out of it. Like, I don't want I don't think I want him long term, but like we get an asset down the line for just loaning him and rehabilitating him and sending him back out into the NBA world. Are you proposing we just become like the Borussia

Dortmund of the NBA? And we just develop these young guys and then just send them to Philly when they're ready? It would be more exciting than the last 10 years of Magic Basketball. I'll say that. I guess. I guess. But no. I don't want Ben Simmons on this team.

No. Franz is better than Ben Simmons. He is. Okay, what if I said Cole, Jalen, and the rights to a Liam Ford that they may not even have anymore for Ben Simmons? No. I'm still on the Jalen bandwagon. What about Okiki and Wendell Carter?

No. First off, love both those guys. For Ben Simmons? Yeah, I would take that. You would do that one, Kevin? I would do Okiki, yes. No way. Wait, you're still saying no?

It's like a free Ben Simmons. Making a lot of money. I actually like Wendell Carter Jr.'s contract. I have high hopes for Okiki. I would take Simmons forell Carter Jr.'s contract. I have high hopes for a Kiki. I would take Simmons for free. I don't know if I'd give that much up for him. This is something, Ryan, that you probably see all the time. And because we're diluted Magic fans,

you probably see it in us. We overrate all of our young players. That's just every fan base. Every fan base says, oh, you haven't seen it. Because we haven't seen them fail yet, right? And I feel that feel I love Okiki because he's exceeded our expectations because he played so well

when he came back last year because of the story, you know, basically redshirted in the NBA, right? Went to Lakeland for a couple of years. I love the Carter acquisition. Loved it.

But both of those guys are not like wide, wide level difference makers. Like that's they're not It's not going to improve our franchise's fortunes. We have both those guys, and we're not a very good team. So I would take...

I've now flipped on this, and now I'm pro-Ben Simmons, right? Just because of Cerruti's stance on this. No, but okay. It's one thing if Ben Simmons goes to Brooklyn, and he's playing next to Kyrie and KD. I like that fit.

If he goes to Orlando, he's Orlando's best player. And that's a disaster. That's not going to be a good situation. He's the better player of those three that are getting traded in that scenario. I don't know, man. We're done.

We're done. We can't keep going because I had a few others, but you won't do a Ben Simmons deal centered around Okiki. I like Wendell. And Wendell. All right. Final moment here with Kevin.

Any early offseason reads, draft stuff, anything that surprised you in the intel gathering that I put you on the spot here a little bit. I'm just curious if hey, look out for kind of this. Cause I know we're going to do a bigger quarterback podcast.

I probably right after the Superbowl. Cause I want to just kind of recap. What do we have in draft value? What do we have with the free agency stuff? This was supposed to be this phase of a lot of quarterback movement. We're not going to get the total numbers of what the possibilities are, but what do you think? How do you assess kind of what we could be

looking going into free agency? I think that you're talking about the draft or free agency or just offseason in general. Just throw it out there. Whatever you feel. The question you're basically, you're just saying,

your question you're asking is quarterbacks question mark? That's it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Malik Willis helped himself last week. I think a lot of teams, he has the capability for

teams to fall in love with him. I think it's, this is a cliche answer, but the dominoes all start with the superstars, right? If Aaron Rodgers decides he's not coming back. I mean, I think the problem with the stance last year with the Packers was how ambiguous it was, which was they're going to reassess his situation.

That was the promise. They're going to reassess his situation. That was the promise. They're going to reassess the situation after the season. Well, the Packers can reassess the situation and say, oh, cool. We reassessed it. You're back on the team, right? Like that, that you could just do that. So if Aaron wants to play hardball again, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know.

So it starts there. If Russell wants to, wants to make a change, we'll see how it goes. And by the way, no star quarterback yet has forced his way out. So we have no idea if it's even possible. I think someone like Garoppolo, I really do think he can help the team. I really do think he can help the team. And if that's a team like Pittsburgh that's ready to win now, that could be good. I think it was funny.

We had Shazier on the pod a couple weeks ago. And I said, what is the path forward here for the Steelers? And he said, well, there's what they should do, and there's what the Steelers will do. And what the Steelers will do, like the Steelers way is what he was saying, is just promote from within, be conservative. What they should do is understand that they have the capability to compete next year

and make a trade for a quarterback. So I'd be intrigued in that way. I just think that there's, this time last year, we were not talking about Wilson, Rodgers, any of these guys becoming available. And so I think there's probably going to be some surprises. I also think that, like you said, a couple of weeks ago when we were on this pod,

the quarterbacks are going to start shooting up the draft boards. And scouts didn't love these quarterbacks, but once the coaches get involved, all of a sudden you've got three guys in the top half of the draft, top half of the first round. So that will be something fascinating to watch, and then the dominoes from free agency flow from there. Or free agencies first, but once, if there's a team like

the Giants of Five who say, we love this, we love this guy, we love Sam Howell, we love Malik Willis, we love Kenny Pickett, doesn't matter. That then informs guy. We love Sam Howell. We love Malik Willis. We love Kenny Pickett. Doesn't matter. That then informs whether or not they're going to go and try to trade three first-round picks for quarterback. You're the best. Enjoy the week, Kevin.

Appreciate it. See you, buddy. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine.

And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Before we get to life advice, I might want to do a little Vegas recap. I might want to do a little Vegas recap. The boy was invited to go to the NHL All-Star Game and the Pro Bowl, back-to-back days. Vegas, the hub of entertainment. We know that.

And I don't think I'll ever, ever go to the Pro Bowl. I'll never go to the Pro Bowl again. Is this the first Pro Bowl you've watched in a decade? I don't know how long it's been since I've watched it. I, I never, I mean, I used to bet on it when I was in my early twenties,

you know, cause you were just like, all right, give me a C plus three and a half. You know? I remember I bet a sweater. My other buddy, we were so broke.

We were like, let's bet the game. And then he's like, I love that sweater. And I was like, my mom gave me that sweater for Christmas. Jay crew. That's like a nice wool hand net. And I was like, my mom gave me that sweater for Christmas. J.Crew, that's like a nice wool hand net.

And he was like, 50 bucks. So he was going to give me 50 if I won. And I was going to give him the sweater my mother had just given me for Christmas. Because it was Pro Bowl, right? We're only like a month plus removed. I lost. She asked about that sweater for a couple of years. She said, what happened to that really nice J.Crew wool? I was like, ah, yeah. And my buddy loved it. He's like, that sweater for a couple of years. She said, what happened to that really nice J. Crew wolf?

I was like, ah, God. And my buddy loved it. He's like, that sweater's awesome. And he just wore it with pride for a couple of years. It was my roommate wearing the sweater my mother gave me because I didn't have enough money to bet on the game. So seeing it live, it's even worse. And I, by the way, thanks to everybody that invited me.

I don't know if I'm supposed to say. It was basically like, hey, do you want to go to this thing and i said yeah no problem so i drove to vegas i've done it a couple times i drove saturday morning got there nhl all-star game it's three on three it's cut up by the division so it was like it was a it was a final four and then they played each other being a goalie in an nhl all-Star game when it's three on three is the worst. That must suck. But I didn't love it because you watch it. There's another conversation you get.

We've been so obsessed with tweaking all of these things that there was a big part of me on Saturday. It was like, can't the East just play the West? Can't we just have an All-Star game? Because that's such a big deal. And now I think that's where we're going to start seeing people happen or see happening. And then it's going to happen and people are going to go, you know what?

I kind of just like this East versus West thing. Fucking crazy concept. We just have the best players for one conference play the others and the teammates sometimes are together. And that's instead of the drafts and all this tweaking that we've done in these leagues now like crazy. So there was that. I was lame as hell on Saturday night.

There was just a moment and there was a table that was reserved and I was like, what time's the table? And they're like, we're at excess at 1.30. And I looked at the Uber lot behind me and we're at the blackjack table and I looked at my watch and I went, I'm out. And I just left.

And I went back to the room, got a good night's sleep. And I was getting texts being like, is something wrong? I'm like, no, nothing's been more right. Like I just, I'd had two drinks. I was going to have to power through another two hours before we got to our table. I know the deal. Been through the wars. I don't want to have to prime myself

just to get ready for this and then go and probably get there at two. I got a podcast. I got to entertain the country on Monday morning. Let me get this straight. You drove from LA to Vegas

to basically just watch the pro pole and the nhl all-star game which was three on three played a little bit of blackjack and then drove home yeah yeah and it took me and it took me six plus hours to get home i'd heard about the la the vegas to la commute traffic on Sunday. I'd never hit it before. It's absurd. Like right as you get through Barstow past Palmdale, it doesn't start breaking up again until you get kind of closer to where I live. And you're just sitting there.

I mean, it was, you know, Vegas clearly is popular. Like I like it, right? I'm definitely getting over it. I don't like when people say, oh, it's because of Vegas. And you're like, no like it, right? I'm definitely getting over it. I don't like when people say, oh, it's because of Vegas. And you're like, no, no, it's because of you. You got older and your priorities are a little different. And you were just like, all right, I'm over it a little bit. Oh, by the way, don't leave out the Machine Gun Kelly performed at halftime.

Or the intermission, I should say, because it's not really halftime in hockey. Machine Gun Kelly, who we called Machine Greg Kelly, because it kind of was like if Cousin Greg were a rock star, I kind of feel like that's what he would have done. Like, oh, we play originals as well as some covers.

And then I actually saw Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox out a little bit later. We did not talk. We did not hang out. So that was about it. Go ahead, Cerruti. I'm sorry. They weren't part of the crew, I was going to say. I can't imagine Machine Gun Kelly

and Megan Fox being a great hang. If that was part of the crew, I'd be like, I understand why you probably dipped out on that. No, it was not that low. Kyle, if Machine Gun Kelly walks into the Frolic room, do you say something to him? I don't even... I think I would... After the initial look, I don't think I would

even let him know I saw him. Wow. It's got like, this is my territory. No, it's just... I don't know. I think he would maybe play a song he's featured on at the Jukebox or something and just kind of look around. Be like, do these guys notice?

He was a rapper, right? Yeah, I think he's like a rapper rock star thing. Here's what I would say. Here's my full machine gun Kelly take. I respect the fuck out of what he's done because he's just been in the mix

now and it keeps growing. I don't know, and granted, I'm older. I think he's a jackass now. He is a jackass. And that's what a pivot. He was in Catfish maybe a decade ago. He was like the celebrity guest. He used to show up to the draft stuff with the Cavs.

He's just he's done whatever he can do to remain famous. And he remains famous. You know, and he's doing an nhl all-star weekend so i kind of give him credit even though i don't know that i've ever met one person ever who was like oh did you hear the new machine gun kelly fucking don't think i've ever been asked just hammers flamethrower yeah right he oh he upped the game on this one. I've never heard anyone ever say it. I couldn't. Actually, I know he does a song with Halsey, right?

I know he did a song with Waka Waka just because I like Waka Waka. But I couldn't tell you his popular songs. I couldn't. No idea. No, and it's not a diss. It's just an observation. Listen, I do feel like, though, he's one of those guys where

both he and Megan Fox were like, you they're you're right their their fame was kind of dwindling and they're like hey should we just date and like be weird and like give each other weird engagement rings and then get married and then everybody can start talking about us yeah sure and then everybody starts talking about them and now they're back in the limelight so it actually works here we are for them yeah we just he's tall as hell too real tall so not a hooper though i don't think he was a hooper. Well, whatever. It's working.

I just don't know exactly what it is. So I just wanted to make sure I gave him respect for that one. When's the last time you've been to Vegas, Kyle? WWE SummerSlam. Worked it for Spotify. Five days in Vegas with no friends. It was hell. All business.

All business, Kyle. No, I mean, you know, i'm sneaking off as soon as i'm like are you guys sure we're done are you sure we're done because all i gotta do is is put my thing into this uh video poker and i can smoke cigarettes and get free drinks at this bar until tomorrow so you know are you sure we're done they'd be like yeah we should be done be like okay so i take it easy for like an hour and then i'd be like all right they're not calling me they don't need me anymore um but five days it's it felt like i had done something i was being punished or something after day three i was like i can't believe i have to be here for two more days yeah that happens to a lot of people when you're in vegas uh for a long amount of time but this was i don't know i don't know that i would do again what i just did this

weekend but i had a bigger observation the reason ve Vegas works is because it really is, in this weird way, freedom for a lot of people from whatever their day-to-day is. I feel like, in general, we're kind of still repressed. I think there's a lot of stuff that people wish they could do. And I'm not talking about like illegal weird shit. I'm just talking about like the guy that dances really well that's in your group right the guy that dances like crazy and he goes a little wild most of you listening i know i would be be like oh fucking this guy again fucking dance all night like be super into it and by the way women like it so maybe there's a little jealousy and that kind of deal be like oh i get it you know he's fired up for weddings yeah you know it's time to shine yeah and buddy i had that one buddy anytime there's a piano around he would stop and sit down and play it and you'd just be like okay you can play piano and he was doing it hoping to get attention and then you know he would hope but like sometimes you just be like hey dude we're at the mall and we don't want to stand and watch you play piano

hoping that a girl's gonna see you guitar guy at the party yeah yeah guitar guy at the party um so i think the people that say screw it i actually am just going to to not be repressed with the day-to-day of like i don't want to do that like i'm not going to have that much personality that vegas kind of allows you now whether it's the way you dress the way you party the gambling part of it like it allows you to feel like you're not going to do this. If you don't really believe me, think about two different things. Why is it that 90% of the people that are on a jumbotron act like a raging idiot? Okay. Because all of a sudden now you're getting this attention and you don't really know what to do. And so then you start making faces or you start dancing around like an idiot. Like

I'll see guys that look like accountants lose their shit just because they're on a Jumbotron for five seconds. That's actually kind of weird, isn't it? Now, I'm not getting on anybody's case, but like all of a sudden now that you have this attention, you're like this thing, this thing that kind of keeps you in check. Like, oh, I can't do this or I can't do that. Or, you know, I don't want to be this attention seeker. But deep down, you may actually want it.

Deep down, I think maybe all of us want it want it i mean why do you think everybody has a podcast now because deep down it's like wait now i actually can be on the air like holy shit i actually always want to do this but i wasn't quite sure how and it was really hard now i can do it and that's why everybody has one and karaoke is the other example so i'll let you get in here but karaoke is basically like this is maybe something i kind of wanted to do, but I never really had the guts to do it. But in this setting, it's kind of accepted. Even if I'm not that great, I'll get the stage for five minutes. And I think that's what Vegas is in a different way. It's a different definition of releasing whatever inhibitions that you have about yourself that

most of us keep ourselves in check with but maybe deep down it's like you know i kind of wish i could do some of that stuff and i also think it's why people resent the success of the people that do do it like machine gun kelly there you go boom brought it all the way around i wore hawaiian shirts for four out of my five days in vegas that was my crazy thing i had two tommy bahamas two, um, two Levi's and I just, and they were good. They were great. I liked how I pulled them off. I wore them with open chests kind of thing. Like we're talking, you know, I was testing it out, but the rebuttons undone. Yeah, I was testing them out. Um, it was kind of cold in there. So sometimes I wore the white t-shirt under, but mostly not. Um, I just,

I love the, I love the Hawaiian shirt guy that I was when I was in Vegas. So I see exactly what you mean, bud. Well, your point, Ryan, I think, isn't that why everybody's on TikTok and Instagram now doing like dances and all their weird shit? It's like now that's just another form of being on a jumbotron. It's just like, here, look at me. I have attention. I can play guitar. I can dance. Well, I don't know.

None of that stuff really is appealing to me, but that seems like it's appealing to most people. It's a fabulous point. Right. Like maybe we are on the cusp of just realizing that all the inhibitions, all the self-repression, all of these things where you're just like, well, I'd like to do this,

but I can't, I can't go and do that. Like, what do people think? And that's why I think, you know, certain people that pick different careers, like I know specifically when I first started talking about trying to do this

20 years ago. And again, that was more like I wanted to host a late night talk show or something like that, but I'm not, I'm not that person. Um, they, everybody would be like, that's a terrible idea. Oh, that's hard. Don't do it. You shouldn't do this. And then you realize, well, wait, I'm getting bad advice because they don't want somebody else to try to do something that they never had the balls to try. That's why a lot of the advice for anybody that's trying to do something like be on air, writer, actor, musician, all try that's why a lot of the advice for anybody that's trying to do something like be on air writer actor musician all that kind of stuff

most of the advice that you're going to get is pretty bad but a lot of it is basically going to be motivated by that person's own repressive nature about whatever it is because it's maybe at some point they had to think so i think it's just a collection of realizing that most people i know there's gonna be some people who i don't want to net. Congrats. You're, you're, you're the person that doesn't want any of that. Uh, I think that, that put it this way. We are realizing now, both with what you just said, Saruti and some of the other things I was touching on. And when you spend just 24 hours in Vegas, you're realizing that we hold ourselves back from some of the expressive things that we would like to do because we just

are afraid of how people are going to think about us and then when people get to vegas they're like fuck it i don't care like i'm gonna dress like this i'm gonna act like this and then you know sit in traffic for six hours on my way back to barstow well your vegas trip i don't think is what most people's vegas trip is going to like yours. It's a little more subdued. I did. I subdued myself. I just was like, I don't,

uh, once I knew I had to drive back tomorrow anyway. So I was like, nah, I'll, I'll do that in other cities though. Like if there's guys that are going to go all night and I'm a part of the group, whether I want to be there or not,

I'll usually stay there if I'm in like, you know, if I'm in Poughkeepsie or LA or whatever, but when I'm in another city and I'm not feeling it, I will absolutely do that thing. I'll just, I'll fall off the face of the, fall off the face of the earth. I will.

Yeah. When I'm in a different city. But I feel like, I feel like I have to do it if I'm like, you know, home and it's like, all right, I can take the Uber at three in the morning. I mean, I hate it, but whatever.

But if I'm in a different city, I'm like, no, no, no, I can do whatever I want here. I don't have to, I don't have to worry about disappointing you. This is my vacation too, pal. Well said. International Kyle. I liked both of your

contributions to that one, guys. I appreciate it. Alright, life advice. Lifeadvicerr at Gmail. 63200. My wife and I sold our house in November and we've been living with my parents along with our two kids. Since then, while we search our new home, which we finally settled on a few weeks ago, the new house needs some work done before

we move in. And I work a Monday, Friday job, so I spend most of my nights and weekends there getting things in order with wallpaper removal, sanding, spackling, other various touch-ups, painting, et cetera, before we move in. It's nothing too difficult, but it needs to be done. My dad helps me out on the weekends. Here's the problem. My father-in-law wants to help and he sucks at doing anything around the house. I like my father-in-law. He's a great guy. We get along well. I just don't trust him with doing anything right, doing anything right when it comes to any type of handiwork. He takes shortcuts. He skips steps. He's a terrible painter. He's retired, so he's constantly looking for things to do and spends multiple days a week in the new house screwing things up while he thinks he's helping. I constantly have to fix

mistakes each night when I'm there after work. I feel like a magical elf sweeping through the house overnight and he has no idea what he's doing and it actually sucks. How can I get him to back off without being a dick? My wife knows he's not handy, but I haven't told her that I have to redo all of his work and I don't want to hurt his feelings. Tough one, but I've got a solution for you. You know how when you're on a team and the coach would yell at a player that he knew could take the yelling, the verbal abuse, but he's really doing it to yell at somebody else that he doesn't think can take it? What I would do is I would hire some kind of handyman, a professional and have him show up while you're getting ready to say,

Hey, look, we want to hire you for the night to kind of help us make sure we're headed in the right direction. And if you just do it for a night, it's not going to ruin your budget here and have them walk through and look at some of the stuff that the father-in-law is screwing up and be like who's who's cutting your edges here 10

year old like oh my god this is the worst spackling have you guys ever not you ever sunk a screw before and maybe have them yell at some of your work too right and be like wait what what's what kind of install is this i doubt you're doing trim work or installing windows or anything like that or hanging doors, but I would hire somebody or somebody that you know in the business to come and scold everyone's work and tell you how terrible you all are at it. Get the contract to be in on it ahead of time.

Again, it's not going to be a GC. It's going to have to be like just Bob the carpenter. Pay him. Tell him the deal ahead of time let him just rip you guys while your father-in-law is there and have him point specifically to a couple things that he did but it can't just be everything he did everybody kind of has to be held accountable and then you just you know he leaves you put your hand on your shoulders or hand on your hips and shoulders don't make any sense and just be like man we gotta tighten it up around here and that might get the message through to him or at the very least be a great explanation for why old father-in-law is getting phased out of stage three of the

remodel it could make him like be like you know what man i'm gonna do better i'm gonna do better i got i got this great guy on youtube i've been watching uh dan dan home improvement dan and i'm i'm ready i'm ready i'm gonna show up 7 a.m just leave the key under the mat i'll get started three hours before you show up i mean we're gonna fix this buddy but you do run that risk yeah it just doesn't sound like he is capable of being good at any of this stuff though you know what i mean like he clearly he said he cuts corners and all this i just don't know that him being scolded on that is going to help it might uh maybe standing i think i think you got to tell your wife i think just be like hey this is kind of becoming a nuisance maybe she can kind of like you know soften the blow a little bit for you but i don't think just because he gets yelled

at by a contractor that he's magically be get you know we're going to become better at cocking yeah but now you have it doesn't mean he's going to be better saruti now you have a reason to ask him to get on his yeah or you could just say hey look by the way being bad is one thing if he's actually and it was a great pickup by you saruti because you know what it's like growing up with your dad if you're cutting corners then it's not that you Saruti, because you know what it's like growing up with your dad. If you're cutting corners, then it's not that you're bad at it, you're also an asshole. I'm going to live here.

You're just like, yeah, we put one screw on the light switch. I'm just like, wait. I doubt that's what he did, but I'm just trying to think of an example of like, ah, one will do it. One screw will do it. You're like, no. I doubt you's what he did, but I'm just trying to think of an example of like, one will do it. One screw will do it. You're like, no.

I doubt you're doing studs for walls on 16-inch centers or something like that, but I'm listening to this going, you have to figure out a way to get him off the site. Again, it's your remodel, so I should stop talking this way. You got to figure out, like to me this isn't about him getting better it's about having a reason to ask him to never come back is there and it's not your task though like i was trying to think if there's another task around the house like can he organize like if you guys are putting in wood floors can you just like organize them by size like that's hard to fuck up like give him stuff that's hard to fuck up you know what i mean and

then that way yeah like not not stuff that you could actually see like how poor of a job he did in the house, just like organizational stuff that might make your life easier. And he's not actually doing any of the installation. You know, what you should do is you should get, tell the wife, tell the,

tell her the truth. Okay. Um, and then say you need to coordinate something with your dad where you're on fixture shopping. Like you go to, you go to coordinate something with your dad where you're on fixture shopping. Like you go to the light store. You have great taste. Like I need you to come to Home Depot and check out a lamp.

Yeah. Your talents are wasted on this menial work. We need you and my wife to just division on some of the different, pick out a couple sconces for us because you have a great eye for it and then she needs to coordinate this all with you because i actually am sensitive to the father-in-law's feelings thinking he's helping think about this he thinks he's helping his daughter and you know in a way his again it's not son but you get the point you know and then he's connecting with your dad and he's retired he's bored out of his fucking mind like i think you it's great that you care enough about him i would have a hard fucking time with this because eventually i'd be like hey dave

we gotta talk you know it'd be like a meeting out back watching a framer get fired you know this isn't for you like this is not your calling we're gonna find we're gonna put you on dump runs you'll be on dump runs and then if you fuck that up i don't know what to tell you i don't know what to tell you so i i think there's two things there you could try my first thing which would at least maybe plant the seed that he sucks at it and would make him understand why he's not but i think coordinating something with the wife they're like you have to we have to figure out and by the way the wife is going to agree with you because it's her house too yeah Yeah. And she's not going to want to have her house messed.

I've not met many women that are like cool with certain things being like, oh, there's no floorboards. Yeah. Because telling your wife doesn't automatically hurt her dad's feelings because she wouldn't tell him like it sounded like the way he wrote it. He was like, well, I'm not going to tell her because I don't want to hurt his feelings. Like she'll keep that secret. Are you kidding me?

She's not gonna be like, hey, everybody thinks you suck at this. She's going to figure out a i don't want to hurt his feelings like she'll keep that secret are you kidding me she's not gonna be like hey everybody thinks you suck at this she's gonna figure out a nice way to do this so yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't hold this in from the wife it sounds like all right we got another one here um oh he said don't read this okay well he said don't read the beginning part i appreciate you guys say that mid-30s good job recently divorced dad two kids uh eight five i won't get into the details of the divorce that would be the whole email but let's just say it wasn't my choice it was pretty nasty multi-year process that finally just concluded sorry about that no cheating or anything going on that i'm aware of all right so it's pretty nasty without the cheating like yeah fucking she made a fantasy trade with her uncle we vetoed it i'm just kidding sorry i'm making light of this i shouldn't do that

while all the divorce issues are being figured out i never once even thought about dating and it's still not something i feel like i have to do now that it's all over i'm over my ex completely that's not the issue just not trying to rush back anything anyway i was recently scrolling through one of my feeds and saw the name of a former coworker from a previous job on a whim. I reached out to check in and see what she was doing. It had been roughly 10 years since we talked. She said she was good, seemed happy to hear from me. We went back and forth a couple of times. She mentioned wanting to possibly make a career change. And I told her I could look and see if my company had any openings in the field she said she was interested in. I then told her we should get together and catch up if she was interested,

which she agreed to to seem excited about, offering her phone number so we could text and set something up. I mentioned I had two kids as we were having the what's new with you part of the conversation, but did not mention the divorce. Just didn't feel like something to blurt out in the DM. She appears to be single, no kids, but you can only tell so much from the photos. I understand the risk that she's only interested in hanging out

of the prospects of a job recommendation. Well, that's kind of how you set this up yep right which you blatantly i mean this is the all-time move you do this and then next thing you know you're on a date and you're like what the fuck um ask any female friends and this happens literally all the time but from the male perspective on this you you know, you're in a very, we'll get to your situation here in a little bit. All right. He says in the email, he's like, this is honestly fine with me if it turns out to just be the case.

However, let's assume it's more of a date type scenario. All right. But you're, I have no idea if she's thinking this. I know probably there's some segment of the audience that's like, this guy totally set this thing up as a potential job thing. And now she doesn't even realize she's rolling into a date. Yes. Odds are more on that. that but we don't we also don't know that maybe this guy's the man and she always was sort of interested and was fired up so we can't

really rule out any of that stuff even if we don't love the origin story uh if it turns out where she's like no actually i've been married and uh you know what what the fuck all right we don't know um it's been 15 years since i've been on a first date any advice on do's and don'ts after a long layoff i know talking about my divorce for an hour uh is a pretty big don't appreciate the help love the show yeah kyle kyle hasn't even been divorced and he knows that one all right so let's let's give everybody the benefit of the doubt here, right? Let's get past why they're going to meet up, because hopefully he realizes if it's the case that she's with somebody or whatever, that he can come through on the potential opportunity.

But we don't know what her deal on this is. This is like anything else. I mean, when you're out there fighting the wars in the mix, your skills are honed with with whatever you do and if you haven't done this in 15 years you're probably going to suck at it um i don't know maybe you have an unbelievable steady personality maybe you are as you say completely over everything you've gone through but i mean the very simple act of like, remember the Costanza Seinfeld where he was prepping? He's like, I have this story to tell and I have this story to tell.

It's actually not a terrible idea. Like have a couple of stories, but make sure you don't start right out with them. So, you know, I don't know where you're at right now or what your level of comfort with yourself is. Like if you just had to go out to a happy hour and figure out like how to meet somebody, I would really hate that scenario. Cause you're not going to, you're not going to sharpen those skills again until you go. It's almost like working out like the first day, if you haven't done it forever. And the first time you go back, it's going to suck. Yeah. You got to get back, get all the suck part out of it. And then after a couple of months, you're like,

all right, now I'm figuring things out. I feel better. I'm strong immediately again. Now everything's good. Like it can come back if it were ever there. Somebody marriage it, right? So I would go into this with, like, zero expectations. I would treat it not like a date. I would treat it like, let her lead this dance, okay? And it doesn't mean that it feels like oh i'm not telling her i'm interested none of that should be a priority you know this shouldn't be some weird thing maybe it's a magical

moment we end up at a diner at 4 a.m and you're telling each other about your lives you're like oh you were always the one okay that's in fucking tv shows man this one you should be going into is nothing more than just getting out of the house, meeting a former coworker, telling her about the opportunity and let her give you the signs of whether or not she's interested. And if you get some of those, great. And if you don't, you can't really blame her either for the premise of why she's meeting up with you in the first place. So that's it. Don't think about it. Don't get in your head. Don't act out. What if, what if, what if you should be treating it as like, Hey, this is somebody I want to spend some time with have let's catch up. And then we're good. Kyle. Yeah. I initially was going to say, I would have been like, Hey, just so you know, this isn't a job interview. Like this is a,

this is a date. Cause I've had, I've had some weird lines being crossed, but then I realized what he said at the beginning of the, of the thing where, of the, the email where he's like, I'm, I'm fine to not do this. I'm not desperate. And it's like,

yeah, he's not, I'm not, I wasn't in love with this girl. She wasn't the one who got away. She wasn't this or that. It's just, you know,

the way that it, the way that it was all worded, I guess she may, she maybe thinks that she's going to, I mean, I don't know why you'd have to go out to dinner to learn about a job or whatever like i mean this is doesn't need to be a whole thing but i like i initially i thought it would be like hey just so you know like we're not i'm not here to go on a job interview but yeah who cares at this point you're right you said you're fine either way it's not like

you've had this weird history that you know was will they won't they right so yeah i think your advice is the best initially i would say something else you were going to say just at the jump, just go, hey, just so you know, this is a date. No, but like maybe in a way, like, like I wanted to go to dinner with you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want you to be sitting here like up with your posture up straight and like, you know, trying to give me your references for the past year. Like, that's weird to me. You know, I don't know. I just, I had like a couple of years ago, somebody from high school, not high school, but Poughkeepsie reached out and they're like, Hey, you're still in Poughkeepsie, right? No, you know, I'm in Los Angeles. What are you doing? Oh yeah, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. Oh yeah. I was thinking

about moving out there maybe. And it's like, Oh, you just asked me if I'm still in Poughkeepsie. And then you're like, yeah, I was thinking about moving to Los Angeles. And then a couple of texts later, it's like, can you help me? So it's like, I just felt like, I don't know. I was like, you know, I'm not, I can't do anything for you. And even if I could, I probably wouldn't. You wouldn't be on my list of things. So I just, I just, I know that feeling. And I just didn't want him to feel that on the date or on the non-date that he's, you

know, hoping is the date. That's all. I just thought it'd be good to clear up some things. to feel that on the date or on the non-date that he's you know hoping is the date that's all i just thought it'd be good to clear up some things because why do you need to go to dinner to talk about what the possible job opportunity is like like a he's not hiring her and b what could he really say i don't know i just whatever that was my same thing kyle was so so so he reached out to her which i think is kind of interesting in that you're trying to connect with her. So I think she probably knows that though, right?

Like, okay, you reached out, you were reconnecting. She was obviously open to it. But if the first in and her only interest, like I think you have to go on this date and if her only interest is talking about the job, then you kind of know where you're at here. But if not, then you can take a couple risks on the date, like Ryan said. I don't know, feel it out, have a couple stories ready to go.

Because I don't think Kyle, I think it's kind of in that weird area where i don't think he can i don't think he knows that it's a date or a job interview um and i don't think you could directly ask her because that kind of makes it weird too if you're wrong then you don't go right then you just don't go that's what i mean whether the state okay but you guys i still think there's value in going though just to like get out there and talk to somebody that's a girl that's not your wife. You know what I mean? It doesn't even have to be crazy flirtatious where you take a risk left and right. Just to put yourself out there and be in a social setting again with a female is a good idea, I think.

That's what bars are for. There's a point that we haven't touched on yet that's really important and maybe the core of this whole thing. He told her he had two kids. He never mentioned anything about the divorce. So her first, I would say, most people's reaction would be like, oh, this guy's married and he has a family. You know?

So I think of the job, think of the jobs that you wanted or different opportunities you have. The number of pointless meetings that I've gone on, just in LA alone, just because there was an opportunity or I thought there was. And I show up, I go to the meeting and then I realized within five fucking minutes,

I'm like, this isn't what this is. This is a total bait and switch. Some asshole used my name to show off that he knew me to get this other guy meeting with me when he, I thought I was the other way around. I was getting the cool side of the meeting where it was a new opportunity. And now this person wants somebody from me. And now I drive back to fucking manhattan beach is gonna take me an hour and a half all right like hey jeff great hang and you know they weren't even trying to sleep with me so i would say that this is something you have to keep thinking about like i'm not the i'm not blaming the emailer for anything in this but if we put ourselves in the other person's headspace here, wouldn't you go to anything for like an opportunity that you thought was better for your

career? And she may think her assumption is likely that the guy is married and has a family. If you mention the two kids and never said anything about the divorce, even though I understand why he wasn't like, Hey, got two kids, but I'm divorced. So, you know, I think you got to, you got to play it with zero expectations and let her, if she's interested in you beyond the job thing, you're probably going to pick up on a few things. All right. Or there's going to be some kind of follow-up that veers away from that. Like I remember again, weird story, not going to make it too specific. I get a company email from somebody who is asking me about this project that they want me to work on.

I meet with the person and I know within five fucking minutes, this project doesn't even exist. It's not even a real thing. The person just wanted to meet me, which was super weird that it happened at work. I go in thinking like, oh, this is kind of interesting. Then immediately, I'm like, this doesn't make any... I'm like oh i know i know what this is you know boom and she can't say no to

that's that's a good point too like if she's really interested in like getting this job situation what is she supposed to be like hey could you like you know put a good word for me introduce me to your boss but i'm not gonna go hang out with you you know she has she has pretty much no choice other than to hang out with you and well she could have right yeah but then then she probably knows it's not nothing's going to come out of it um so it's you're right i guess i just don't know how this works the guy's not a hiring manager i mean what what insight would he have other than other than being like are you maybe he's got some do you know no i mean yeah but why can't he be like listen i'll put you i'll put you uh you put me as your reference i I'll say all the nice things in the world. I really, you know,

whatever. But, you know, what? I want to go on a fucking date. I don't know. I don't understand what the problem is. Like, what? Like, who cares? Because if she's like, I'm not interested in that. It's like, okay, sure. I'll let you know what the guys tell me or the guys tell me down there. Is it the end of the world if they just have a good time and it's not

a date? Like, he said he's not desperate. Yeah, but then what's just sitting there across from there on the table and you know you like the way she did her makeup she's wearing a nice dress and it's like oh fuck i wish maybe i cleared some of this up before now i'm sitting here and she's really interested in telling me about you know all of her certifications that she got at her last job and i think she looks really pretty and also i don't have anything to fucking give her here because i can't actually do anything all i do is work at the company and ask the guy who can ask the guy if there's any jobs and that's it i got nothing else for this like i don't know whatever i'm done with this i would have just been like listen just so you know like i'll do

everything i can i was hoping we could go like you know catch up and have a good like i there's i just there's nothing i can really do outside of what I'm already going to do for you. I don't know. I think that's a little too forward. But who cares? He hasn't seen her in 10 years and he probably won't see her again if this job thing doesn't work out.

I don't know. I can't believe where Kyle's at on this one because at one point between the forwardness and the lack of desperation, I just feel like, hey, go up to the table, sit down, double finger point, go ahead. I am feeling you big time and i get a ton of ass so i don't even need to be here oh man so do you want to party

because i'm ready to fucking party i don't care that it's wednesday let's let's get this food to go uh all right i think we definitely won't be a second date so there you go but I just thought getting it out in front would make it so that you're not doing anything inappropriate if you know whatever who cares because then what's the downside if you don't show up if you don't show up and you still do the thing to help

her out what's the downside there she's not uncomfortable eventually I don't know so Kyle you've never slow played anything that is it telling us um not not when there was like something i could do to help you out no not when there was like something that i had that you wanted from me no definitely not absolutely not because i would feel weird inside all right all right straight shooter thank you to kyle and steve thank you to vegas thanks for the hospitality and we will uh we got a few things cooking this week so uh and then the

trade deadline on top of everything else so uh it's gonna be a good week fired up talk to you wednesday Thank you. you