The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Super Bowl Team Draft, Adam Amin on the Bulls, Plus Ben Solak on Whether Twitter Is Smarter Than NFL Coaches

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Super Bowl Team Draft, Adam Amin on the Bulls, Plus Ben Solak on Whether Twitter Is Smarter Than NFL Coaches Ryen opens by drafting teams that can win the Super Bowl with Kyle and Ceruti (0:30). Then, he chats with the play-by-play voice of the Bulls, Adam Amin, about how Chicago’s offseason moves have panned out, what realistic expectations should be after the team's hot start, and what’s going on with Scottie Pippen right now (12:14). Next, The Ringer’s Ben Solak stops by to talk about what’s wrong with Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers, Odell to the Rams, and why so many people on Twitter think they’re smarter than coaches and front offices (49:30). And finally, he closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:23:33). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Adam Amin and Ben Solak Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's pod we have adam amin voice the chicago bulls also the nfl on fox ben sola you've got here at the ringer really good on the nfl he's got a piece on shanahan let's talk about coaches maybe even a little russell wilson a lot of stuff, Bills. And we have our Super Bowl draft with the three guys on the show and Life Advice. A lot of good stuff on today's podcast. Adam Amin will join us soon. We're going to talk a lot of Bulls. We'll do a little NFL and take it easy on Adam because he said, hey, of all the games I've been to, the Ravens are the team that's impressed me the most. And then we have the game last night.

So we taped this before that happened. But you know what? We have bad games. That would just happen to be in front of everybody. And the anti Lamar stuff, the pivot after that one, where he's pretty much the MVP up until that game. I think he's proven some things this year. Even if I have little doubts about some of the stuff that comes back to the playoffs, it's just kind of funny how. But I do think that that happens to some other guys, too.

I really do. I don't know that it's always specific to Lamar. So we're going to talk with him and then we're going to have Ben Solak on first time on the podcast. Really impressive NFL guy, writes for us, does a couple of podcasts.

He has this big piece out on Shanahan. We'll ask him about Odell and the Rams. So a lot of different things there. It looked like you want to jump in, because we're going to do kind of a fun Friday draft here. Shout out to Ian Carmel for inventing drafting on podcasting in 2018.

So without him, we wouldn't be able to come up with ideas like this. So Suri, you seem to have something on your mind. What's going on? No, I was just going to talk about the MVP thing. Like, all right. So yeah, Lamar has a terrible game last night. But couldn't you argue that every person in the MVP race, at least at the top, I mean, Stafford had an absolute stinker last week.

Kyler's missed some time. So all those guys kind of have a blemish on their resume. So I actually don't think it hurts him that much. It probably just makes him more right where the pack is at the top. Yeah, it just sucks it wasn't a one o'clock on Sunday. I mean, that's the rule. Primetime quarterbacking is a legacy swing of like four to

five wins or four to five losses. So with the Dolphins quarterback situation and then to pull off that kind of game, nice win for them. But that's just this league. I mean, this,

this league will have moments where you go, that doesn't make any sense. We just had an entire Sunday of it. So it would only make sense. It would carry over into Thursday as well. Kyle's got the video cam. What are we going to XFL shirt out of you today? What's going on?

Yeah. You know, sometimes I like to be different and I wear black a lot. So it just goes the perfect marriage. Okay right a free shirt you purchased no i think actually i'm actually just no way there's no way you sent away for that and paid for it i'm embarrassed to say that i did you know what it was it was uh i think your buddy bruce feldman came on wearing an xfl shirt and i was like what that's great like i've also i'm not gonna act like i haven't been on the danburyashers website trying to get

a decently priced jersey, but I'm just not going to pay $200 for a Trashers jersey. It bothered me that I saw Drake Ward because I had the idea before I saw Drake, but whatever. Drissy? I wouldn't want the Galante one. I definitely wanted the

Nigerian Nightmare. It sounds like somebody wants a Christmas present. They're making hints around the dinner table. wouldn't want the galante one i definitely wanted the nigerian nightmare but um who gives well it sounds like somebody wants a christmas present they're making hints around the dinner table all right kyle out of the gates we haven't got to life advice yet all right here's the exercise uh we are going to draft super bowl teams we're going to go what five teams each so we're going to do three rounds is that or is that So we're going to do three rounds? Is that what we're doing here? No, three people, five rounds.

Great math. Good math, Ursulo. Here's the order. Kyle, because he's the spirit of the entire podcast. Cerruti's going to go second. I'll go last. I don't think my initial thing, I wasn't doing this because I wanted a snake draft, so it wasn't like I was actually tricking you guys.

Do you have to go snake draft? Because I remember everybody used to get so mad at Van Pelt and I when we would draft stuff all the time. Believe it or not, we did. But we were just going back and forth. They were like, hey, you have to snake draft this. We're like, I don't think we have to snake draft it when it's two people. But this one feels like maybe we have to. But then I'll go first if you think the third position is the best position here.

So you guys tell me. I would go snake draft. Okay. All right. That would be my vote. Maybe we just do snake draft for the first two rounds and then go straight forward the next the rest of the way because I don't think you need to snake draft the whole way. I don't know.

All right. I'm going to have trouble with that, buddy. Hey, I'm the one that screwed up how many rounds you're doing. Like, hey, we're doing 10 rounds. All right. So here's what we're going to do. Kyle's going to go first. We'll snake draft it.

And is everybody cool with that? Yeah. All right, so here's the – this is just off the cuff. You get a point making the playoffs. You get a point for each playoff win. You get five points for the Super Bowl. I'm not going to do some scale thing. Point, point, point, point until it's five points

if you win the whole damn thing. All right? So the other thing, the other reason I'm doing this is because when I was looking at the standings again today, like if you went through some of the standings, just how surprising it would be. And I just kind of like looking at it even though it's pointless. It's a Cincinnati point that I had. Then all of a sudden you're like, wait, Tennessee's

the one seed in the AFC. Do you realize Pittsburgh is in the playoffs as of today? And so is Kyle's New England Patriots. The Chiefs actually have the same records the pats right now i'd love that one like do you actually think the chiefs are going to end up in this because i hope they do and then everybody's gonna go wait are we buying back into them when they still might be just as flawed and then on the other side of the nfc the top tier i'd say

those first five i wouldn't go six the first five teams like man all of those teams are good so i think we have a lot of depth of real contenders. I don't know that we've had depth this way, even though the sport itself just kind of allows itself to have depth. But that's the point. It feels like a lot of good teams to pick from here. So let's go. Kyle, you've got the first pick.

I think you gave me the first pick because you knew I was going to pick the Bucs, and you probably wasn't your number one or two choice. So I'm going to go ahead with the Bucs. All right. Top of the day. I mean, that just falls right into my lap. I feel like I'm taking the Rams. It's a no-brainer, right?

Super team. Let's go. Rams. Okay. All right. I like that. I picked the Rams to make the Super Bowl, but I just love this Arizona team so much.

So, Kyler-wise, I could probably go... I might have taken the Rams ahead of Arizona anyway, just because I'm worried about the Kyler so much. So Kyler-wise, I could probably go... I might have taken the Rams ahead of Arizona anyway just because I'm worried about the Kyler injury stuff. But I'm going to go Kyler because I'm snaking here. And then I will... Give me your four-seed Buffalo Bills. Damn, that's going to be my next pick. Was it?

It was, actually. Because, I mean, what did we go? Four, three straight NFC to start? Give me the Packers. I should probably take an AFC team because it's more wide open. But give me Aaron Rodgers. Okay. Well, then the Cowboys seems pretty easy.

All right. A lot of passion behind that pick. And then because it's a snake, that means I go twice. Because now I'm last. That's how it works. Snake in it, man. Christ yes okay give me it sounds like sir rudy loves that because now i've been played into his hands the whole time you have actually i mean it's crazy um i just i just don't believe in the titans i'm sorry like brian tannehill i mean they're may under with the one seed and i know people are going to say,

oh, what's he done the playoffs? I actually I think the Ravens have a more likely chance to win the Super Bowl than the Titans do, even though what we saw last night. So give me Lamar. Give me the Ravens.

Yeah, that Baltimore defense. I think of all the teams that we have in contention here. Well, depending on if you still include Kansas City, which I think you have to, you know, I mean, it's just it's a sport in two weeks. You could be sitting here going, look at this team now.

But Baltimore's defense is so bad. That Chargers game just doesn't make any sense. All right. Let's go. Two for you. Two for me. All right. All the NFC teams are gone, right? That we want. Yes. Yeah.

Tampa Rams, Arizona. Unless you're going to go to Saints, but I don't know. Good defense. I'm going to hold off on that one. You guys can take that

one later. All right. Give me. I'll take the Chargers. And Raiders are playoff team. I can't take the Steelers. Can I? You know what?

Screw it. I'm going to get a little wild here. Give me Kansas City. I knew it. Yeah. I can't quit him, man. Here's the thing. You get to this point in the draft and you're talking what?

Browns, Chargers, Steelers, Raiders, Pats, Bengals. The Chiefs have the best chance to win up on those teams. They just do. They might not even make the playoffs, but I'd still give them a better chance to win the Super Bowl than some of these teams. It leaves me in a tough spot because I kind of wanted them. I have only AFC teams left. Give me the Browns just because maybe this O'Dill magic thing happens and then they start running the ball. I know Chubb's kind of maybe out this week,

but they were an early, they were like a preseason Super Bowl pick for a lot of people. So maybe I'll get them. I feel like there's some value there. It feels like a truncated pick in fantasy. You'd be like, oh, smart. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Kyle, they're right there for you. Am I going twice again? Yeah. So you better pick them. So my throwaway Pats pick is just first up. And then... Alright, this is your last pick. It's the Raiders.

I'm going both AFC. AFC heavy. Raiders, okay. AFC heavy. You have three out of five. It's heavy. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's only about five teams in the NFC anyway, so there's going to be more AFC teams by a mile. Well, they have 16, but yeah.

Let's see. Russell Wilson? Push? I'm deciding between... Split these decks too? Nobody pick a... Okay, I don't believe in the Steelers. I'm not going to pick them.

I'm deciding between the Bengals and the Colts. Give me the Bengals. Just in case it gets hot. And I like them. I want to root for them. So give me the Bengals, even though it. Give me the Bengals. Just in case it gets hot. And I like them. I want to root for them. So give me the Bengals, even though it hasn't been a great two weeks. Yeah, you know what?

I wanted to do that. It's a very good pick. Cerruti finished strong. He's one of those great sixth round guys. I love my list. Right. I do. I like your list too.

I thought I was going to get them last. This is between Colts and Steelers for you, right? There's nobody else. Unless you're going to go Rogue NFC. I'm thinking Rogue NFC because I just can't fathom. But this is the kind of thing, like, if we don't pick Pittsburgh and then they end up being the AFC title game, that I may just do this to avoid the shitstorm of not.

I just can't fathom them pushing the ball down the field in real playoff games and beating some of these other teams. My rationale would be one game scenario. Who do you trust more, Burrow or Roethlisberger? And I would trust Burrow to make a run. I just, that's how, that's the logic. I don't even think that's, do I do, do I do an NFC East team here in case Dallas falls apart?

Do you get weird and you go, hey, Cam's back? Panthers? Yes. No, I'm not getting that weird. Shout out to Cam, though. I'm happy for him. Me too. All right. Give me.

This is stupid. I'm going to do this instead of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's still there. Seahawks fans are going to be pumped. Yep. But if they're honest with themselves, they'll get it. Alright, give me Seattle.

Wow, okay. So stupid. That was just dumb. We're actually dumb. We're dumb because, well, I like my Bengals pick, but you get one point if the Steelers just make the playoffs. There's a good chance they make the playoffs. You actually probably should have gone Steelers there. But that's all right.

Yeah, but I didn't mind. I just didn't. So, all right. We resisted it. And let us know how you feel. Check out the ring or social media accounts. Sound off. We want to recap real quick?

Yeah, yeah. No problem. Ryan, who do you have? Arizona, Buffalo, the Chargers, Kansas City, and Seattle. Kyle? We got the Bucs, defending champions, Cowboys, Patriots, Raiders, and who was my third team,

guys? Titans? Titans. Titans, yeah. Who could forget the Titans? And I have, I feel like I dominated Rams, Packers, Ravens, Browns, Bengals. Really good list. So it already feels like the one seed now again. He's just good at this. I'm good at drafts.

What can I say? Built different. Yeah. Stocks. Tough. Okay. Let's talk sports with other people.

I'm excited to talk to our friend Adam Amin again. The voice of the Chicago Bulls and also NFL and Pox. So before the season started, you know what I'm going to even bring up, Adam, is that

Simmons and I thought of doing, we've workshopped this idea where we are presented with league pass home announcing options and then you have to decide who you're taking. And then we realized that's going to hurt some feelings. So we don't want to do that. But on the positive, because everybody knows him about positivity, you would be winning a lot of face-offs, you and Stacey King. It is a go-to when I look and be like, okay, what do I got here? I got, okay, I got this, I got Chicago.

I'm going, I'm going with the mean. I'm a big Jim Peterson fan with Minnesota. He's a go-to. Obviously, I'm biased towards Mike Gorman, but you and Stacey King are fantastic. That's why we have you on. I'm sensing kind of a year two sophomore

on campus deal where I'm like, you know what? I got this all figured out. My comfort level is very high. I definitely wouldn't go as far as to say I've got it all figured out, but it's on that track of feelings where you're like, it's almost dangerous. It's almost dangerous where you're like, don't get too comfortable. Don't get too... We're not high on our own supply. I promise you that. But it's fun.

It's fun. And when you get positive feedback, everything is in our favor right now. The team's good. The team's fun. The team's exciting. My analyst is exceptionally excitable and very easy to imitate and very popular in this city. It's a top three market and they're playing, they're winning games. So naturally we're going to get a little bit of, of positive feedback, positive reinforcement, which is great. But I, I I'm, it's almost like, dude, don't, don't it's you're 10 games in your 11 games into the season. There's a long way to go. Who knows what's going to happen? Like I'm trying to keep that. You're constantly trying to fight that a little bit and it's not

it's it's an ego thing it is i'm not gonna pretend it's not we have we all have some sense of an ego to do this job and you just have to balance that because it's fun and it's it's easy to get swept into right now because of how this team's playing and how fun it is all right i'm gonna get to the team i promise but you're right like i can hear it i can hear it in the second seat where i go oh all right yes and that's what i always tell people like my opinion the brilliance of joe buck is that he's probably over it 10 years ago and and yet when like anybody that tells me like oh jo, Joe Buck isn't any good. I'm like, just shut up. Just shut up. Yeah. Stop.

Stop. Because there's a comfort level with him where he'll almost show off that I actually am so comfortable. I may not even really care here for five minutes, but I'm still going to be in control of all the moving pieces and it's never going to feel awkward at any time. So I like what you and Stacey are doing because you're having a blast. He's fun. He doesn't have to talk all the time either. You know, I always thought TV play by play,

like you could tell the comfort level when, you know, again, I did play by play for one year and I did baseball. I didn't let it breathe. I was going to, I was going to fucking hammer you with every single fact I possibly could. There was no breath,

no chance of you relaxing. I was going to give you an encyclopedia's worth of fucking coverage in between batters and i think there's there's just a there's just an element of what you're doing play by play on television it's like hey we all are watching we don't need every transaction to be documented yeah it's it's not every touch it's why is this touch important it part of it too is the Kevin Harlan of it all. You know, like one thing I love about Kevin and obviously he's got a lot of radio background to him,

but it translates on TV, on basketball really well because there's a pace to certain plays. There's a rhythm and a cadence to certain plays. And Kevin being a radio guy at his core, still does radio obviously for Monday Night Football, there's that cadence that he likes to punch, and it's perfect for the NBA, for the way the highlights work,

for the way ball movement is, for the way passes go. That sequence against Dallas the other night for the Bulls, when it's Caruso diving into the passing lane, Ball gets it from Vucevic and throws just a dot to Levine. It's just the cadence of it. It's all building up to something. There's always a crescendo to it.

And I think you can emphasize that in the NBA. I get what you're saying too, because for young announcers, I think the biggest thing is on baseball, especially they're like, I have to fill this fucking time. I have to fill this fucking time. I hate this.

It's silent. I don't like this. I don't like this at all. And you think you're doing something wrong. And the reason Buck is so good is because he lets the director be a star. And the reason I love my job in particular right now is because you'll hear me say good or hits or whatever on big three pointers a lot less now because the crowd carries it. You can carry... I always describe it to younger announcers as like a relay race.

You've got the baton. Your call is the first leg of that race. And you're sprinting to get to the moment where he hits the shot or has the dunk. But the crowd is right behind you getting ready to take the baton. And as soon as the call hits, you're handing the baton off to the crowd

and they carry that noise. And that's what makes this season, when they're playing exciting ball, all that stuff, makes it fun. That's why Stacey's having a good time and why I can back out a little bit too and let him just emote a little bit more and enjoy it because the crowd's there

and he's only going to sound more excited and it's only going to make the broadcast sound better when the crowd's good. Yeah, it's a great city. We all know that. The fans are incredible all the time and he's only going to sound more excited, and it's only going to make the broadcast sound better when the crowd's good. Yeah, it's a great city. We all know that. The fans are incredible all the time, and it's just such a different deal because I don't know what the time frame was. Did the Bulls have the worst record in the NBA over a five-year stretch?

It was like a five-year stretch, yeah. Yeah, when I saw that again, I went, okay. So now let's go to offseason, into the beginning of this. I wasn't sure. I didn't know. Last year closed badly, but the Levine part of it had a lot to do with that.

I go, you know, there's really six, seven pretty good teams in the East. Who are they going to jump out of this group? The DeRozan part of it, I didn't really know who they were bidding against.

I'm not sure that I still love that number because I'm just going to tell you I don't. But, but, eight and three, best record in the East. The DeRozan part of it has been phenomenal.

Honestly, the best basketball he's probably ever played. So we'll see what happens. But I think that he's embraced it. I love the way they split DeRozan and Levine. I think you're seeing Billy Donovan stuff where you're like, oh, that's why this guy was such a good coach and everybody liked him. And I just think that there's also probably a trust part of this too, Adam, for Levine where it's like, hey, you know what?

I don't actually have to pull up from three, six possessions in a row here because I think everybody else on the team stinks. The depth part of it concerning, certainly the Vooch part of him defensively, maybe in a playoff series, all those things. But right now, it is a fun team and it's been one of the best teams in the league. Yeah, I think when they've been at their best, it's because of what they've done at the defensive end. Everything you've said about DeRozan, Levine,

the trust factor on offense, it's all there, for sure. And I think defensively is where this team can be really, really good. And this is where they're going to have to be really good. I think when you play in the playoffs against teams, like let's say you run into a Philadelphia and you saw the problems that Embiid gave to the

Bulls last week in two losses, they just don't have a guy like that that can dominate on the interior and a lot of teams don't they're obviously around the league but defensively on the perimeter it's Caruso and Ball they did a really good job against Doncic this week you know they you did a decent enough job on James Harden in the game in the game and the win against Brooklyn so Caruso but that was that was like a perfect example of the lack of depth. Like if Patrick Williams, I'm not saying anybody's stopping, but you got six boards, you're Michael Green, and you guys were on it during the broadcast just being like,

hey, this is asking a lot of a guy that was actually out of rotation with Boston last year. Yeah, like here's Durant at 6'11 or 7 feet and Javante Green's 6'4. Here, go guard this guy. Like you're asking a lot because of the Williams injury. I think on the perimeter, they're fine and on the interior, they have to be better. One thing Vucevic has done,

he at least impacts passes that are coming into the paint. He does have length and he does have reach, so that's still playing a little bit of a factor, but it's not a shot blocker like you're going to see in Boston or with Embiid or with a Rudy Gobert. You're not going to have that with Vujicic. He's not there to affect that shot in that capacity.

And neither is Tony Bradley right now. You'd love to have an elite backup, elite I use in quotes, but you'd love to have a more serviceable backup big right now. I'd love to have a Daniel Tice or even a Daniel Gafford, two guys that have played for this team in the past that are now playing pretty well. At least Gafford's playing really well with Washington when he was healthy. So I get this sense that's still a concern. I agree with you on that. DeRozan, Levine, Ball, the trust factor between these three is very high. And I think the only other concern I have right now is what they're going to do off the bench. Kobe White's going to have to play a big role. It's already building up to him having to play a bigger role than maybe we were expecting out of the gate off the bench offensively. Yeah, Javante, by the way.

Thank you for that as a classic play-by-play move. I mess up my greens sometimes. I just do. Let's do rapid fire now that you've had him for a couple weeks here, a month, whatever. Lonzo, what you thought, what you see? I didn't realize, you know, I knew the guy averaged like a steal and a half a game or whatever for his career.

I didn't realize how much he impacted the defensive end. And I think the sell for him to come to Chicago was you are the point guard. This is your offense to initiate. Will you handle the ball at all times? No. Are you going to have the ball in your hands at the biggest possible moment? Probably not, but it's going to be your offense to initiate more often than not when you were on the floor and it's going to be your decision making process. And I think the combination of those two things have impacted this team in the

two most efficient areas that they had. It was on ball defense last year because of the pick and roll coverage and how they played it. They needed somebody that could disrupt good pick and roll teams. Dallas is good pick pick-and-roll team. Both Brunson and Donchich run it well. And outside of a couple of lobs that got in early, they defended the pick-and-roll really, really well. So I give them a lot of credit for that, and I think Ball's a big reason for that.

And his vision up the floor in a league where the take foul is a talking point and teams are kind of getting tired of it because you don't get fast breaks off of it. Well, how do you counteract that? You have to be ahead of the take foul. And Lonzo's IQ is seemingly clearly, I think, is very high in basketball. I think he really just sees everything is not two or three steps ahead, but he's typically a step ahead of most things that are happening. And he sees Zach Levine streaking down on the slant against Dallas the other night.

He knows that he needs to start this break. It was three or four possessions against Dallas where it's not even a dribble. It's maybe a dribble, and it's a half-court-length pass from his quarter of the floor to the other quarter of the floor, and they're getting easy transition out of it.

So all of those things combined, along with the shooting that continues to get better, he's shooting 41%, 42% from three. All of those things have been above what my expectation was. Even believing and seeing that he was a good player, I didn't know he was this good of a player

in all these categories. Yeah, great smarts, great instincts, excellent help defender, like defends in the team concept. And one of my favorite things about ball handlers is, are you okay playing off the ball? I thought Lowry and Van Vliet

were perfect with that when they were together in Toronto. There was not an ego thing there. And Lonzo's actually okay with that, which you need to be with somebody who's going to be ball dominant like Levine. And you can't take the ball out of DeRozan's hands and then not get the benefit of the drives

and some of his mid-bridge stuff. All right, speaking of DeRozan, he's never shot the ball like this. I don't know if we're going to expect him to be around here. But as I put it on Wednesday's podcast, even if he regresses, which he will, Levine's not going to shoot it this bad. So, you know, it should counterbalance that.

But give me your DeRozan take. At 32 now, still doing this. Yeah, still doing this at a very high level. Like, the other thing is, too, like, I don't want to make him seem like he is Durant in the mid-range. We talked about this the other night during the Brooklyn game. We showed the top three mid-range field goal guys. It's Brandon Ingram, Durant, and DeRozan among all the

qualifiers. Obviously, he is a master at that place, but Durant's like 60% from the floor in the mid-range and DeRozan's like 40%. Some of it is still volume. He's going to get a lot of shots, especially like you talked about with the rotations,

the way they're working it. Donovan's got Levine and DeRozan kind of staggering for a better part of the second and third quarter, and then they'll lock in for the last four minutes. DeRozan comes out the floor from the eight-minute mark to the six-minute mark in the fourth quarter. So they do a lot of staggering. So DeRozan, some of this is volume.

I understand that. But the efficiency at which he scores, he still operates around the paint a lot of staggering. DeRozan, some of this is volume. I understand that. But the efficiency at which he scores, he still operates around the paint a lot better than people would give him credit for. He's not elevating all the time, but good alley-oop dunk the other night against Dallas. He's had a couple of baseline dunks where you don't think he's got the runway

to get the elevation that he's getting at 32, and he's still getting it. So he operates around the rim in a really good fashion. It's why he's getting to the free throw line. All the stuff that you think of when you think DeMar DeRozan, two-thirds of his points from two-point range, a quarter of his points from the free throw line, he'll do enough for you on the defensive end

and at least be able to command the ball and command spacing on the floor when he's on the offensive by himself as the main scorer. All those things that you think of with him, they're all on display, and they're all on display at a higher volume and at a decently efficient rate. Not anything, like you said, Ryan,

that's probably going to be sustainable for a longer period of time. No, and as I get older, too, I always feel a little stupid. I'm like, hey, he's still doing it at this age. I mean, the guy's 32 years old, right? That's the meme where it's like announcers talking about the 32-year-old quarterback.

What a miracle that he's played this long in the league at 32 years of age. Like Iguodala has looked really good for Golden State. And then I'll have, you know, they they rest him and they'll have like a dunk. It's like, oh, my God. And you're like, he's not 70. He's a professional basketball player. He's six, seven. Like when Marcus Johnson still dunks on Twitter, like once a year and he's like 67, 60.

I'm like, yes, that is exceptional. We should be praising that more. Like I wish for, you know, I hope for something like that. This guy's 30. He's got two years younger than me. I'm not that washed yet. Right. I hope not.

No, but I need to call myself out on that. Because as I said it, I'm like, why are you saying this? And then what a miracle. Right. And it's just all of us collectively need to do a better job. But basketball announcers, I swear to God, you think Iwadala had like prosthetic legs the way people talk about him after a dunk. And you just go like, oh, my God, look at this guy.

And I'll admit, he actually looks pretty fresh compared to how he looked for Miami at the end there last year. Sure. We are like, I can't believe this guy's on the floor during a playoff game. So whatever. But there's a much different look of being fresh 10 games in verse 70 games in so anyway back to the bulls um caruso you knew everybody was going to love him the guy didn't want to leave los angeles we knew that there's always been kind of this weird story that like

palinka had his guys and if you weren't one of his guys, then he just wasn't going to look at you the same, which seems crazy because he was a really important part of their, their guard rotation for what they needed defensively. But whatever it's worked out perfectly for you and this team. And they went all in on it. And he's again, he's better than people realize because you've got to see it to believe it.

I think, you know, certain guys with exposure, I think of this think, you know, certain guys with exposure, I think of this a lot in baseball, certain guys with an expanded amount of exposure get exposed and they don't, by sheer volume, they can't do the things that they did at a smaller sample size. And Caruso was the opposite of that.

And you love to see stories like that for guys that get the opportunity. And not to say that he didn't have opportunity like that for guys that get the opportunity. And not to say that he didn't have opportunity. He started game six of the finals. This guy started a clinching game for an NBA championship. It's not as if he was an undervalued member of that team. He was a valued member of what they were doing in Los Angeles. You heard all the LeBron stuff. I've always referenced the New York Times article where essentially Caruso was referred to as the LeBron of playing with LeBron, where he just understands his role so well and plays in it at max effort at all times.

And that's what he's done so far. The roles that he's in is to play defense, disrupt screens, fight over screens, be on a main ball handler or main scorer for periods of time during games, and to at least be enough of a threat offensively, whether it's through passing or through scoring, which, hey, he's made some big three-pointers. He's done good things in the paint.

He's got a float game that's okay. And he finishes pretty well. We've seen some tough reverses through contact. So he finishes a lot better than I thought, than I really ever gave him credit for, because I just didn't think of him as that type of player. I thought of him as that pure role player that LeBron appreciated so much.

But all those things, he just fits in really well and plays at max effort. And now you hear all the stories that are kind of adding to the lore of all this where you're like, wow, the Lakers only, whatever Redick did the other day with him, wow, he only offered two years, $15 million to this guy when he was going to get $41 million

in the mid-level exception. And yet he was willing to take a hometown discount hometown, so to speak, discount with the Lakers. All of this just adds to the lore of it. And I think role wise, he's a max effort role guy and he does it at a really, really high level. If he needed to start, I think you could start them for, you know, chunks of games and get off to a hot defensive start, but all these roles that you want him to play in, it's max effort and high efficiency in all those roles. All right, so let's get to it. Expectation-wise, where does this team, where do you think they are as you've kind of navigated

through not the entire East, but you've played some of the better teams? I don't know why. Maybe this is just my own personal nature, but I'm still skeptical not of the team but just of what the hierarchy status is of this team that's what I'm still trying to figure out because we haven't gotten the full look obviously we know we're only you know the first month of the season essentially so it's still early to me but when you've gotten through this part of your schedule you've played I think, this stretch on the West coast is going to be golden state, both LA teams,

Portland, Denver, and then you got the Knicks back at home. So that ends a 13 game stretch where you play 12 teams from the playoffs last year. And the one team that wasn't in was golden state, which has the best record in the league. So this is where the real test is going to come.

Their schedule gets way easier, like December to March, they're going to be home for essentially the entire month of February. So it's going to come. Their schedule gets way easier, like December to March. They're going to be home for essentially the entire month of February. So it's going to get easier, but to get off to a hot start like this, at least gives a little bit of pause to the rest of the conference to say, okay, we can't take this team lightly.

I think the hot start you saw with Philly, I'm not saying Joel Embiid skipped the Portland game to play against the bulls, but it felt like Joel Embiid skipped the Portland game to play against the bulls on a back-to-back. So I think everybody's antenna is up, at the very least. Mine is. I know everybody in this town, obviously, is buzzing.

But around the league, I think the antenna is up. Nobody's going to take the team lightly. So I don't know what you're going to get effort-wise from some of these other West Coast elites. Yeah. from some of these other West Coast elites. Yeah. Give me the best sense of...

I'm kind of asking for a story here, so I'm fishing a little bit. Sure. Give me a being around the team, the second year, because it's always surprising when you'll ask somebody who's with the team all the time and traveling, and you're like, all right,

who do you get along with? Who don't you get along with? They seem to have a lot of fun together already in a very short amount of time which doesn't happen like they play at times like they've been playing together and building towards this over three years and really what the front office deserves is like no we're just going all in and we're going to see if this works and these are players that we like and we're not going to go to and i'm criticizing myself for the derosen part of the contract of it so i just

need to move on from it but give me give me a sense of the experience of being around these guys and getting to know them once the game started yeah and and it's and admittedly like i'm not all around them all the time i'm not on weekend road trips because of nfl and things like that and we didn't travel last year so really is my first taste of being around some of these guys and and as everybody's pointed out it's a lot of everybody's pointed out, it's a lot of new faces. So it's a lot of new chemistry. Vucevic, White, Levine are the only, and Williams are the only guys really remaining

from that previous regime from the end of last year to now. So it's, the chemistry's there. I think the one thing that I like is how DeRozan and Levine, we're sitting in Boston, They have that huge fourth quarter. And DeRozan's the star of that game, 30-some-odd, 37, whatever it was that night. And he's hitting big shots down the stretch. And this is while Levine's dealing with the thumb or whatever.

And this goes back to what you said about Levine trusting the guys around him. Levine comes over to DeRozan, is huddled in his chest. After the game, there'suddled in his chest. There's like after the game, there's no ego in that sense. I think there's a just, I'm projecting my own stuff here. Like I admit it, right? All I can do because I'm not talking

to these guys intimately about how they feel about one another. But I think getting the sense from being around them a little bit, there's enough ego around this team

that seemingly is in balance. I think basketball ego is a real thing. You need to have as much as possible without teetering over the edge. Because as soon as you get to that peak point, you're confident in your own abilities, but you're humble enough to be able to trust the guys around you and they feel the exact same way.

And that's a lightning in a bottle balance to find in any job, in any industry. You're trying to find that with the people that you work with. And it seems like the level of ego on this team is in really good harmony and really good balance right now. I think they uplift each other. I think the Vucevic, Levine, when Vucevic was struggling, hits big shots in the fourth quarter. It's Levine, the first guy over there,

you know, dapping him up, hand on his back, giving him the hug. And you see that throughout the year. You see the chemistry that they have just walking into the hotel. And there's a little bit of that right now. And that goes with a winning team. When they're winning, it's easy to keep that.

When everybody's happy, it's easy to keep that. And it's tough to maintain, but the teams that maintain it are always the ones that have a lot of success. You have Tampa, Washington, NFL, and Fox, as you mentioned, your weekend gig. Give me the best thing that you've seen from the season, whether it's

a team, whether it's a performance player, something that you walked into the booth on Sunday and you left going, all right, my mind has now changed. Lamar, last week. It was last week. It was walking in and seeing why the Greg Roman offense is really good why it can be really really good their efficiency on first and second down has been rough at times this year but when they get into second and five even third and four instead of

third and eight third and nine there's I don't know if there's an offense that's that's more dangerous right now I don't know if there's one that provides more problems for a defense, whether it's Andrews downfield and Brown on the perimeter, what they've been able to do making up stuff in the run game. Devontae Freeman's had really good games in this stretch since he's been the lead back. The offensive line's played well, even through some injury issues on the right side.

And yet, Lamar Jackson, there he is. Every time they get into a rough situation, he has the ability, whether it's through his arm, through his running, through his reads, through manipulating a defense over the course of two or three drives, setting things up for later in conjunction with what Greg Roman's doing and the trust that Harbaugh has in him. I think this is a dangerous team. I know their losses were impressive.

The Cincinnati loss in the second half was really bad. They were bad on defense, and they still have some struggles. But offensively, that's one of the best things I've seen. Best individual chunks of a game or a team or whatever. The Baltimore offense last week has me convinced. All right, final thought before we say goodbye to you here. What's it like for you in chicago now second year on the gig have you noticed it have you noticed more people noticing you a little bit

uh mostly in the context of being in the arena and more than anything else but like the guy at pot bellies knows me that's cool you know toss a toss an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie at me once in a while be like hey man good call the other night. Love that. It's funny. I don't know how you felt. You were like, what, Boston for seven years or whatever it was. I don't know if you felt it at any point while you're walking around. I don't really feel it when I'm just walking around. But when you're in the context of the building, post-game, pre-game, people are like, Hey man, saw you on the football game the other day, or they want to talk goals or whatever it is yes you can definitely sense that feel that a little bit more but not like other than the free cookie which i'm i'm really really happy with again i cannot emphasize how happy i am for free

cookie uh i i don't really like i don't think that's a thing yet and i don't need it to be but if it does we'll deal with it when it comes i didn't have the connection to boston that you would probably have to chicago i just i I did, I did, you know, I lived there for seven years. Everybody thinks of me as like this Boston guy, but you know, if you've actually been from Martha's Vineyard, it's not, it's not.

By the way, I feel weird that I know that about you because you, I don't know if I've ever told you this. You, you're a very interesting character in my life just because like what you guys do. So I listen, you know,

I listen to podcasts, just going to sleep because it's easy for me to fall asleep and i'll listen to the same one you know once i get a lot of that i get a lot i listen to you when i fall asleep that town the town podcast where you're throwing 100 the whole time the whole time like that's that's like an easy thing for me to just be like this is nice comfort food i'm gonna fall asleep so you play an interesting role in my life and And obviously we've, you know, we worked at the same place, even though we're not really connected necessarily, but like we knew of one another and respected each other. And like, you've just always been an interesting character in my life. I, uh, I feel like Chicago is a big neighborhood, you know, it's, it has more of a neighborhood

feel where in New York city city is is defined by the neighborhoods inside of the city and you know i'm not look i get it there's different sections and if you're yeah yeah i mean it's like any other big city but it always felt a little bit more um neighborhood to me maybe i have that wrong um but when i never had anything like look i was an analyst i was lucky to even be on the studio show giving my takes on whether or not al jefferson was going to be a hall of famer so my name is al jefferson and i get buckets al jefferson hey i love big al i love big al didn't you know there'd be big nights and we'd come back to the studio i'd be like he's pretty good but whatever and um i i just i think when you were part of i think one

of the coolest things you can have in this job, and I've talked about this with other people in that, like if I were a great basketball or college coach, or I should put it this way, if I were a great basketball or football coach, I think I'd rather be a college coach because I would love to be a part of community for that long to feel like, now, granted,

these guys are all getting fired every three years, but if you were good enough to say, I am connected to this place, the way Saban is with, with Bama, the way Kay was with Duke or Roy, or, you know,

a Dabo who's a younger guy with Clemson. Like I am part of this. And when you're the voice of a franchise in a city where the franchise means this much, I just think there's a connection beyond anything that anybody there's other people are going to get recognized and all this stuff but they are spending you know 80 nights a year with you yeah two and a half hours and you are part of this thing that they care about so much and i think that's like the coolest thing i don't know what

your long-term goals are i'm sure you're going to want to go national to do all the big stuff and if you can end up doing world series down there, you know what I mean? Like I get it, but there's something to be said of here I am. I'm home and I'm doing this at this age and I'm going to be identified by narrating history of a franchise. That's one of the most important in the history of the game.

So it's, it's, it's a perfect storm type of thing though, too. Like this is, I do feel that everything you said is a hundred percent accurate and it's because it's a, you're one of us type of thing i think that's how i think that's what it is in chicago i don't know what it's like in boston or new york or la or whatever but like it's a you're

one of us you're clearly a fan of this team which i i'd be lying if i said i wasn't i mean everybody who grew up in the 90s in this place was a fan and I have been for my entire life. And it was easy to call games during the 16, 17, 18, 19, whatever playoffs and do national games because we didn't really run into the Bulls. I can talk about it. It wasn't a great stretch of Bulls. We had the one year with Jimmy Butler and Rondo, the 2-0 lead on Boston, and then they got eliminated after he got hurt. There hasn't been a lot of that stuff between Rose and the end of the Butler era. So that's when I first started calling NBA games. I didn't really feel that connectivity.

And I got to learn on the job. I got to learn the league. I got to learn what this league is, what the rhythms are, what the cadences are, who the big players are, what this connection is, all that stuff. And then I got to walk into a local job with a knowledge base with a team that was starting to come around. And again, no fans last year. The team had some rough moments and I got to get warmed up with Stacey and our crew and no fans and kind of get the mechanics down when people were still kind of unsure about what the team was going to be. So they're not going to tune in on the pass around the country necessarily. And they may not even tune in here in Chicago. And then this year happens and they get off to the start and

the place is electric and all that. And I feel it. And people have come up to me and said, that's cool that you're a hometown guy. It's cool. Hey, I'm from Addison too. Oh, you grew up where I was born in Elmhurst. Like there's all these little, you know, suburban connections and city connections and restaurants and all that. And I'm one of them because I've always been one of them. And I think that's, I think that's the main connective key for all that. Are you guys going to have Pippin third man in the booth anytime soon? soon yeah i think uh i actually wanted to dedicate uh the second quarter to really hashing this out man it's it's tough to and we had the graphic last night the street came to an end derosen and labine had gone seven straight with 20 plus each and that had tied mj and scotty for the longest streak in bulls history and it came to an end the other night because the rose had like 15 or whatever so like we brought it up and all i wanted to say was like, whatever's going on

between those two guys off the court, pretty cool company to be in because nobody was like, it sucks. It sucks. It really is not fun for me to watch this take place because you want to have

the Pollyannish view of it and think these guys were the team and the duo and the tandem and this was Batman and Robin and there was no ego and everybody played their role and everybody stepped up when they needed to and on the floor yeah a lot of the times that was the case and now you're kind of 25 years later after the the lore is kind of worn off a little bit and and you're trying to keep that alive for another generation it's it's

kind of sad to see it diminish the way it's it's diminishing in a sense right now yeah i have a very unpopular pip and take and no one agrees with me because I think his story has been built up so that I think he's incredibly overrated now. Um, so whenever he goes off on these tangents, I get that he's frustrated. I get that MJ wasn't the greatest guy.

It wasn't the greatest hang all the time. And that was grading. Um, the documentary would have annoyed me too, if I were on that team, because it felt like, Hey, we're just going to let Jordan sit here and tell everybody how much everybody sucks except for him for 10 hours.

But it was entertaining and it was really well done and I enjoyed it. But you have to go into it knowing that. The idea, though, in that doc where they go back and revisit Pippen standing among the league at that time as if after Jordan left that Pippen was considered one of the best players. Pippen was never considered that. We never, ever once sat around and talked about Scottie Pippen as the single best player in the NBA. And he rounded into a much better player later on. But I'm telling you right now, if it weren't for Jordan and Pippen were on Portland by himself,

he'd be Clyde Drexler with better defense. I'm serious. Again, he's more well-rounded than Clyde is and all this different stuff, and Clyde's a terrific player, but this Pippen storyline of this incredibly disrespected guy, he had total flame-outs in some of those playoff games

on top of everything else. So, nice player, great resume with a great team, maybe the greatest ever, but peak years, it's not there. The numbers aren't there. And if anything, he's benefited from history being retold in a way that I think has looked brighter on him than the reality of who he was end to end of his entire career. I think there's a little bit of the... You can hate that. You can hate that, by the way. No, no, no. That's fine. I thought that was a very nuanced... There was a lot of nuance

there, and it's a much more reason take that I think people might give you credit for. I really believe that. I don't think people are going to like it. I don't think they will either. I think they're going to hate it because they want to think the same thing that I wish I could think, which is these guys were the duo, right? I understand the

frustration for Scottie because it is a... I get that too. Right. I understand that. I understand it. I understand the frustration for Scottie because it is a... I get that too. Right. I understand that. I understand it. I understand the frustrations. I'm not going to sit here and tell you he is a top 50 or isn't a top 50 because I think there's more context that's probably out of my head for that right now

that I can calculate properly. I just can tell you that it feels bad. It feels bad because you want this to be better than it is. And there is something to be said about, hey, the struggles against the Knicks, he sat out, the crew coach play, all that stuff is going to pop up. And I think his frustration was,

why is this the first thing that pops up? Why do people ask me more about the Knicks game than they do, or that Knicks game, than they do about me dunking on Ewing? Why is that the narrative that sticks around? Which I would contend that that is the narrative that I hear more often than not. Because that's the memories that I have of him dunking

on the Knicks in a playoff game in Chicago. Like, still playing tough defense. I remember some bad back games. But the bad back games aren't going to stick out the way the flu game is going to. Plus, you have to, I think Bomani said this the other day too, you have to play when you have a bad back like you don't have a bad back. You have to play when you have the flu like you don't have the flu.

And it's a fair point. I think there's a lot more nuance to this than people are going to seek out. And I think your take was a lot more nuanced than other people's are going to be. So there's a lot of layers to this. And I still feel like there's a lot more to figure other people's are going to be. So there's a lot of layers to this and I still feel like there's a lot more to figure out in terms of how we feel about Scottie going forward. Yeah and my Clyde comp is more about how Clyde sort of disappeared. He was off the radar because the teams weren't good enough. So if Pippen were the one of some team during the 90s and didn't have any help around him we wouldn't be doing any of this stuff

if you put up the same numbers and the same set of of skills what i don't think he gets is that history looks upon him much fonder than he seems to realize but i also understand where he's coming from because all he's thinking about is the one guy that gets all the love that's the greatest to have ever done it and that's the slight and since it's happened to him for 30 years and if we were pippin a lot of us would be like jesus but i also don't think like um adam stanko who worked at espn with us who now does a terrific podcast and is just really good on hoops he was working in production and he tweeted out and i retweeted he goes just so people understand he's like we did a pre-production meeting when pippin was in town to do some nba stuff and he was telling us in the pre-production he was better than Jordan.

Confidence is amazing, but there also comes a time where you're like, yeah, but you weren't. To me, this isn't a Mozart Salieri thing. This isn't like nobody remembers Salieri as a great composer, which he was. It's not that.

Scottie Pippen was a great player in his own right, and we viewed him as such. And yeah, the overrated, underrated, like now, in hindsight, absolutely a conversation you could have. I'm saying we accepted him as one of the best players because you might contend

that he's the best teammate in NBA history. You could make a case that he is the best teammate in NBA history. You could make a case that he is the best teammate in NBA history. And for 99% of us, that would be enough. That would absolutely be enough. You're going to tell me that I'm going to go down and be talked about next to arguably the greatest player that's ever done this particular thing. And I'm going to be spoken about next to him in 25% of the conversations that come up about Michael Jordan, you're going to say my name's also going to come up in a positive fashion. For 99% of us, that would be beyond

enough. That'd be more than enough. And for the 1% that is Hall of Fame caliber, that does have the mentality of being a long-term successful NBA player, a long-term athlete, and one of the top 50 players, all that stuff, you're just nuts enough to not think that's enough for you because that's maybe what made you great in the first place. So I think there is a lot to still figure out with how we're going to view this going forward, I really believe. But I don't think people look at Pippen in Chicago and are like, oh yeah, he was just another guy. Nobody's ever said that here. I'm not saying that either. No I really believe. But I don't think people look at Pippen in Chicago and are like, oh yeah, he was just another guy.

Nobody's ever said that here. I'm not saying that either. I'm just telling you that it would be... No, no, no, I don't think you were. I was just exploring it. It would be remembered very differently, and I know that the rings rules. But I'm just surprised to hear you say

he might have been the greatest teammate ever over Alex Caruso. If we're bringing this full circle. Some people would be shocked to say that they think MJ, that I would say that MJ might be the greatest player when Alex Caruso is playing right down the street right now. I mean, if you look at Twitter, the,

the, the transitive property tweets that I are, are the ones that I enjoy the most about Caruso, where it's just Caruso greater than insert great player here. My favorites. Let's keep that going. That's Adam. Voice of the Bulls,

NFL on Fox. And thanks again for checking in this season. All right? You got it, brother. Ben Solak joins us. He's a writer for Ringer, covers the NFL.

You can catch him on the Ringer NFL pod and also co-host the Ringer gambling show on Wednesday with Warren Sharp. All right, Ben, you got a piece up on Coach Shanahan in San Francisco.

He in himself, like, it's just, it's a fascinating thing. Cause if you could talk to hardcore football people that are totally into it, they're going to tell you he's the smartest guy in the entire league. And now when you look at his record, he's 32 and 40. They're not good again. And there's other people that are convinced he's terrible and he's completely overrated. And I thought you did a great job of dissecting this. So let's, let's start with this. Your background is, and how you put together kind of your thoughts your thoughts on what you're seeing throughout a season. Yeah. So I came up, it's funny, doing draft stuff. And so to me, the hook for this is looking at the way that San Francisco has drafted and particularly the way they've developed.

Because it's very easy for us to say a front office in an NFL franchise drafts, and then a coaching staff plays. And there's no bridge there. You just got to get good players in the building and then play them. And really, there's a big missing third piece in that equation, which is between draft and play, you got to develop guys. Nobody walks in the league and is just good. Sometimes guys take the league by storm, but there are always gaps. There's always rookie lumps to take. like guys take the league by storm, but there are always gaps. There's always rookie lumps to take.

And good teams, smart teams, young teams, rebuilding teams, all these different categories, will put a rookie out there, let him make mistakes so that later he's good. You watch Ravens Dolphins on Thursday night. Rookie safety Javon Holland is flying all over the field, had the game of his life for the Dolphins. They've been playing him since week one and they've been putting Jason McCourty over him on the depth chart, but they've been getting him reps and he's made mistakes. He's busted in coverage. Last few weeks, he's looked real good. And all of a sudden, he's knocked McCourty out of that starting job and he's their starting deep safety. You got to let your rookies grow.

San Francisco doesn't want to do that. San Francisco with Kyle Shanahan gets a rookie. They get an early drafted player and they start to put him in the program, in the facility, in the building. And they see how they prepare and they see how they play. Something rubbed Shanahan the wrong way. They got a fifth round corner, Diamador Lenore.

Looked great in the preseason. Made one mistake against the Eagles. Big busted coverage, big touchdown. He's been a healthy scratch the last two weeks. They're starting Josh Norman and Drake Kirkpatrick over this guy. He can actually cover. Drake Kirkpatrick's like 35, man. He can't do it.

He's getting run over by James Conner the whole game. You need to get your young players, Brandon Ayoub, Dante Pettis, Joe Williams, Trey Sermon. You got to get these guys on the field and let them grow. Let them make mistakes and develop. That way your franchise will stay healthy long term.

And that's why when you say there are guys you'll talk to who say, Shannon's the smartest dude in the room. He is. And that's the problem. It's hard to be the smartest dude in the room and deal with being wrong occasionally. Deal with guys being slower than you occasionally. Shanahan wants to get it all right and win right now. He believes he can. And when Brandon Ayuk runs the wrong route in practice one day and Shanahan goes, I'm not dealing with this anymore. Put Mohamed Sanu in. He knows my system. He's not going to make mistakes. I can get this whole thing done by myself. So he's just isolated himself a little bit. He's made it all about him. He's got a lot of control in the front office and he's decided this is the way it's going to go.

And accordingly, they're making sacrifices with their young players. They're going to have to pay that piper eventually. Okay, this is really good. We're off to a great start because, you know, if I were to say, because I have a buddy who played quarterback, he played in college, nothing that exciting,

and he thinks Shanahan's terrible. And I'm like, no, he's not. Because I'll say, are you kidding me? Like, look what he did with Kirk Cousins, okay? Look what he did with Matt Ryan. You know, in 2018, he had to play Nick Mullen, CJ Beathard, and Garoppolo, I think, only had three starts that year when they went four and 12.

Uh, they get to a super bowl with Garoppolo who I don't think is any good, by the way, that's my personal preference. Um, and then last year, when you look at the record and somebody comes up and be like, look at all of their inactives last year, they, that team was like historically devastated. And so there'll be good. And I like the talent and whatever. And then we see this version of it again. historically devastated and so they'll be good and i like the talent and whatever and then we see this version of it again like they whatever that final score was against arizona is completely

misleading they got smoked by an arizona team that was missing all of its key its key offensive players like that can't happen at home and i don't think they want a game at home on top of everything else so i read your piece in the iuk example was terrific because we've seen Iuke kind of tearing it up a little bit like this guy's a presence out in the field and you're going oh wait they traded did they trade up for him I know they traded up for yeah they traded up for him played him a lot in his first season benched him this year for Trent Shurfield

he had like a hamstring and then they got injuries in front of him so they had to put him back on the field it looks great yeah right so you know I'm watching him going wait this guy was the problem so what you're telling me is my argument is still valid, but that at this point, Shanahan's getting away in the way of Shanahan, the game caller. men who are running this ship into the ground. Kyle Shanahan, head coach and Kyle Shanahan, the personnel exec. Because we got to remember he's wearing different hats in the building.

And every head coach does to a certain degree. And that's the important thing to talk about. Bill Belichick runs the personnel office in New England. And everybody in the entire world thinks that they can do that. Every head coach is like, yeah, I can do it. No, you can't. If Bill Belichick's doing it, he is the exception

that proves the rule. See Bill O'Brien, Houston Texans, 2019 to 2020. We can't do it like this. But Shanahan took that job in part because he knew the GM was going to be a guy that he would sign off on. And he knew that John Lynch was a kind of first time personnel exec. And that gave him a lot of power in that room. And so there are two separate guys here. You could even argue three separate guys in terms of Shanahan, the Sunday play caller,

the designer on the chalkboard, which we know is top shelf. Shanahan, the personnel executive, who looked at the draft board in 2017 and said, Joe Williams isn't on here. I want Joe Williams. Let's trade up for Joe Williams. They trade up in the fourth round

for a running back out of Utah who had less than a year of starting. He never saw a regular season snap for them. That's Shanahan, the personnel executive, getting greedy, just wanting a fast player, good player, not being risk averse,

not thinking about the future. And then there's Shanahan, the player developer, right? I like to call him the coach Monday to Saturday because I love Shanahan on Sunday. I want him on my sideline. Monday to Saturday,

they have a problem in San Francisco with how they get prepared, how their guys get out on the field, how these young guys are developing. So there are different hats that Shanahan wears. And when we talk about him, we have to talk about him in those different categories. Great

Sunday coach. Outside of that, they've got problems right now. Okay. I'm really glad you brought up Bill O'Brien. If I said to somebody who's like, hey, man, Shanahan's 32 and 40. He's not a good coach. And then I'd be like, okay, if that's what you're focusing on, hey, you are what you are, the end result. And that's not really what you're saying here you're talking about the full picture and that's why the piece was really good check it out on ringer.com again another reminder

Bill O'Brien was enemy number one on social media in his six full seasons because he was fired at oh and four in the last season in his six full seasons he had a winning record in five of the six uh he had that disaster thing for 12 year uh in 17 but i i'll admit like i i can once i see the mob going a certain way like sometimes the mob is right right um but bill o'brien every fourth down like when they were when they were the prime time game it was it was just armageddon that he was the dumbest human being allowed on the sideline and i was like you know what's funny is like they're actually still competitive most of the time now the personal relationships we were one of the first people to tell you like hey look he doesn't get along with hopkins hopkins wants out of there

the deshaun thing isn't all that great on top of everything else but like i always thought that bill prime was a pretty good coach personnel part of it he was disaster especially towards the end so this is a bigger thing that Cerruti and I talk about all the time, is that is it possible that people are right when they all decide to pile on like, oh, look at this guy's fourth down decision. This guy's an idiot.

I think Kingsbury, because of how he got into the league where he's going to be the OC at USC, now all of a sudden he's a head coach after a bad record at Texas Tech, that there's real resistance to admit that maybe this guy's done a better job than people want to realize. I think Kingsbury is somebody that people still feel like, hey, he's just not that good. I just can't understand on Sundays when everybody's piling on and you come from a film background where you're studying this stuff.

Is it that we're just all in on it, trying to get the jokes off? Or is it that the people that run these 32 franchises are still very bad at it? That seems impossible to me. And I'll even add this to it too. No matter what industry you're in, you sign with a big time agency and you think every agent's going to be incredible. And then you're like, all right, some are really good and some are not impressive. If you're at a place like ESPN and you go, this is the biggest thing in the world. This is amazing. And then there's some people in charge. You're like, I can't believe this person is in charge. And there's other people. It is across the board. Every industry, if you were in a football facility, you might be like, I can't believe this guy is a head coach. I'm open to that.

But there are certain Sundays, Ben, where I feel like, wait, can it be possible that everybody with a Twitter account is better at the football stuff than the people that are actually doing it on the television? Because that seems to be a stretch. Right. There's always a danger in assuming rational actors in anything. But in that, I cover the league, definitely in the league, right?

I brought up the Shanahan and the Niners picked Joe Williams in the fourth round. He wasn't on their board, right? They just went and did it. Rational actors, unfortunately, are not a safe bet in the NFL. Owners, head coaches, general managers are not always making decisions to maximize wins, as we might think they are.

And that's probably true of all sports franchises, right? So firstly, we got to know sometimes guys are doing stuff and there's just different reasons behind the scenes that we don't get. The other thing that we have to remember as fans and as Twitter voices and whatever is we have a availability bias. We know about fourth down decisions, about going for it on fourth downs. We've seen the analytics. We've seen it in a public space in the last few years.

And now what is it we hone in on when we talk about good coaches? We talk about good fourth down decisions because that's what we know. That's what we can see. We've got vision on that from our seats. What we don't have vision on is Mike Tomlin dealing with Antonio Brown in the Steelers locker room for years upon years before we really came to understand how much Antonio was struggling with his personal life and how difficult his relationship was with Ben Roethlisberger, so on and so forth. There's so much stuff that happens

that defines good coaching, defines good team management that just isn't available to us that exists outside of the Sunday, three and a half hours where we making good decisions on the field. So yeah, we want like cliffs, a really good example. We want cliff to have been a guy who, who won games and deserved his head coaching job and calls a great offense.

And in reality, he kind of just calls his stuff and lets Kyler do his work out there and, and, and solve problems for him. And that feels cheap. It feels like a bunch of guys could do that. Cliff doesn't deserve it. But the reality is that when Kyler goes down and Colt McCoy gets put in

there and you see this Cardinals offense still work against the Niners, you see this running game, really diverse, really explosive, really effective. You realize Cliff does a lot of good stuff on the chalkboard for this team. It's just letting Kyler cook is honestly better than a lot of that. on the chalkboard for this team it's just letting Kyler Cook is honestly better

than a lot of that because he's just so talented you know so assuming rational actors is always tricky but we gotta remember from our seats there's a lot of stuff

we don't see and that's why to me like for Shanahan I don't think his seat should be hot I think he should get the opportunity to see it through with Trey Lance

to get at least the next season to develop him bring him along it's just as we sit here we don't have a lot of faith in his ability to develop players because what we've seen, they struggle to do that there. Yeah, really well said. And I've shared this plenty of times. It's the first time that we've talked, but my first job being a play-by-play guy in

baseball in 2002, I was around the team every single day. My desk was in the stadium and I got really, really close with ron johnson who's the manager at the time and i'm calling games and i had my own opinion on certain guys like why'd you use him why'd you do this why are you hitting this guy there every time i'd ask him ben i'd say 95 of the time he'd make he'd just give me like a quick sentence he'd be like oh we did this because of this and i'd be like oh, oh, you know, and I'm telling, and it, I'm glad it happened in the beginning because it impacted the way I see things. And you're absolutely right. Like we can tell, hey, fourth down, we're all watching it. What are you doing? How come you're not passing more on first down?

Because now everybody thinks even if you're not built for it, you're supposed to pass on first down because that's what the numbers tell you on the reward. I do think that it's kind of funny that it took so long for football to kind of figure some of these things out that now seem to be commonplace, which I think, again, strengthens the people that are like, hey, everybody doing this on Sunday is stupid. But you're right to remind the obvious things. It's like basketball timeouts. People get so mad about you calling or not calling a timeout because it's a function that's very easy to observe. You'd be like, hey, they lost. They ran a bad play. How come they didn't call a timeout?

Firing off the tweet. Now I feel like I'm involved. I'm part of this. I'm making real grown up observations when over the course of a three hour football game. You're right. There's just so much that we don't know. And I guess I resist the idea that all these people are as stupid as maybe they're made out to be during a game. Yeah. And timeouts are executable. I can turn over to a ref and I can put my hands like this and make a tee. I can call a timeout. I have that capability.

If I'm watching a basketball game, I don't know Jack about Jack. I don't know if we got to go under screens or we got to pin guys or you know what I mean? Like that's not executable to me as a fan. I don't know what to look for and how to change things. I don't have that level of knowledge. And so, right, we're yelling at coaches for not taking timeouts when in reality, they're probably making a lot more minute decisions that matter in the margins and stuff that's difficult for us to identify. All of this

to say, it's easy for us to identify symptoms in San Francisco. It's clear something's going wrong. Shane Hansen's record is below 500. They've got all these aging veterans out there. That's clearly a problem. Identifying cause, we can infer. We can do some magnifying

glass Nancy Drew nonsense. We can't say for certainty. And that's why the burden falls on ownership. And it falls on general manager and head coach to get together and make a decision which way to go. Because they're going to be the ones who can actually get elbow deep in this and figure out what's going on. Okay. That was really well done.

I think we hit on something that we've always been. So Rudy and I talk about it constantly all the time. Wait, is everybody this much smarter than all the coaches? Or is this kind of the way we're just handling our Sundays from now until forever? Odell to the Rams. I think people were, depending on which timeline you agreed with there, where he could be potentially going. The New Orleans thing never made a ton of sense considering the quarterback situation that they're dealing with.

But it makes a lot of sense. First, he's in L.A., which I think is important to Odell. You're with McVay, who I think we all agree is pretty special. And Stafford's an even better version of himself on top of a top, I don't know, depending on what you want to look at defensively, we could be talking about a top three defense here. So how does he impact an offense that, to point, it's actually still been really good? Yeah, so it's it's why not? You know what I mean? That's kind of been the Rams approach for a little bit here

in terms of it's a star player. We have all these draws like you brought up. We have LA, we have this beautiful new stadium, we have McVay and Stafford, people want to be here. Even if we can't really maximize them, at least they're not somewhere else. At least you don't got to see him in a Green Bay uniform down the road. That why not philosophy, I think, has some merit to it. But when you do look at how this receiving core is built

out, this was one of the concerns preseason when they brought in Stafford. It hasn't really been the case in the season because that passing game has been so good. But one of the concerns was that they don't really have a ball winner on the outside. If you look at some of the players with whom Stafford was successful during his time with the Lions, beyond just Calvin

Johnson, Marvin Jones, Kenny Galladay, those guys were back shoulder players. They were ball winners outside the numbers. Robert Woods, Cooper Cupp, Van Jefferson, even Deshaun Jackson, not there anymore. They don't really play that way. These are separators. These are intermediate between the numbers players. Odell isn't the same athlete he was after the catch. We can all see that. They don't really play that way. Right. These are these are separators. These are intermediate between the numbers players. Odell isn't the same athlete he was after the catch.

We can all see that he isn't the same mover that he used to be. But the body control, the catch outside of frame, right, the ability to elevate and high point and get that ball in a contested situation

that remains. That's always been one of his best traits. So I think you have the ability now to give Stafford a guy on the outside he can trust, which is a nice thing for him to have, given the way he's played. So I don't think Odell's going to be a high volume guy.

I don't think he's going to cut into Robert Woods because they need Woods as a blocker. He's not going to cut into Cupps. He's been doing really well. But he does bring them a skill set that they don't have, which is a nice thing to add to receiver room in the middle of the year. It doesn't solve the big problem, which is Austin Corbett getting his lunch eaten by Jeffrey Simmons for four quarters. They got to figure out their interior protection

and play action and whatnot, but still adding Odell midseason, never bad news. What do you think of the Rams philosophy? Because it's very simple to go, hey, they just trade all their picks. This is ridiculous. When you're trading picks for Jalen Ramsey, it makes sense. I didn't like giving up a first for

Brandon Cooks because it feels like every time somebody gets Cooks in the building, you go, I see the numbers. I'm not sure you're really that guy. I mean, he's always, people can call him a one. He's not, whatever the argument is now, it's not even relevant to what the argument was when he was shifting through all these teams, like the Pats, the Rams, the Saints.

They moved, I think Cooks, they got a second and they kind of moved something around. I think they got a fourth back and moved out a second. Yeah, they didn't have to pay a lot of his money. I think Houston took a lot of it on. Because they did a massive deal for Cooks. The Gurley contract is still the one that was indefensible at the time and proved it out.

Even if he had been good, it didn't make any sense because they moved it. So they move a couple picks for Vaughn Miller. I think it'll be second and third. And now you bring in Odell with no picks. Is there something to be said of us giving the Rams more of the benefit of the doubt? Being like, when we're a good team and we're drafting late in the first round anyway, the hit rate on those picks, 50-year options, that stuff, look it up.

It's been declining now for years. And the compensatory picks that they're going to get with some of these other things, is there a little bit more depth to their reasoning than just, hey, the Rams hate picks? Yeah, I think there is. It's actually something I touched on adjacently in the Shanahan piece, where you're talking about a healthy franchise, head coach handling game

day, general managers handling roster. You want those guys to exist in some degree of tension. They should be pulling the team in different directions. Head coach wants to win now. He wants veterans. He wants reliability. General manager wants to win a year from now, two years from now. He wants cap flexibility. He wants youth. And that balance is how you build out a successful team. However, there are times where you take that seesaw and you just say, screw it, and you just send it one direction. And that's when you have a winning window, right? Think about

the Eagles in the mid 2010s, right? They had a young quarterback in Carson Wentz they thought was a Super Bowl caliber player, so they spent money, brought in free agents, moved all money into future years, made it as talented

of a team as possible, won a Super Bowl. Now, they're still suffering for that, but that's the first Super Bowl in franchise history. And for the Rams, we've seen now

with all of these trades with these lack of first-round picks with these big contracts, we have Aaron Donald in his prime and Jalen Ramsey in his prime. We are not screwing around.

What's the point of building later for when these guys are older and not as good? We're going to build for now. And if we can win a Super Bowl in this two, three-year window, who cares what our cap looks like in 2025? It's just not as important to us as the potential for winning this championship.

So this is an appropriate skewing of the scales, throwing off balance of healthy team building where they say, we have a window now where we're likely to continue to be a top tier NFC team for as long as we have McVay and Donald and Ramsey. And we're going to get as many swings at that plate as we can. And so when you bring in a Vaughn trade or an Odell signing, to me, it's a continuation bet in poker, right? It's like we've already pushed chips in. If we stop pushing chips in now, we just show weakness. We're just going to keep pushing

and keep pushing and keep pushing. And eventually, we're just going to out-money, out-muscle everybody else at this table. And they have the resources right now to do that. So why wouldn't you? You have another piece that came out today, speaking of Howard, for Miami after a terrific first half performance.

Kind of running through some of the stuff that you've seen on film. And the Matt Ryan one speaks to me because I kind of felt like Ryan went from, I don't know. I mean, the rest of the roster is a mess. I don't think they've ever really protected him all that well. They invested with weapons, which is great. But if you can't hold up, that's going to be a problem. But Ryan's having a sneaky kind of good year again, and I wonder what it means for his trade market

if there's a team that goes, you know what, let's just throw a pick because we haven't been able to solve it with the last five guys, which I think is what happens with teams where they go, it's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we've been doing. I'm really curious to see, because I don't know how committed they are to Ryan.

Obviously, they had a fulcrum position in the draft they had the ability to not get their choice of quarterback but still it was a really deep class they were there at four you know I mean they had plenty of time to move up to three as well and ensure they got quarterback they elected not to so now I think you did want to see what this offense would look like with Ryan in place and first couple weeks, growing through some pains. Offensive line's not good. Figuring out what works for us on offense. Alright, it wasn't pretty. Recently,

he's like top five in EPA. Top five in completion percentage over expectation. Play action rate is up. Depth of target is up. This is what it was supposed to look like. It's very similar to the bump Tannehill got when he got in this offense in Tennessee a few years ago. Can you rebuild this roster fast enough that you've still It's very similar to the bump Tannehill got when he got in this offense in Tennessee a few years ago. Can you rebuild this roster fast enough that you've still got prime, good enough quality Ryan play to make a run?

That's the big question to me that I'm not sold on. It's not that this Falcons roster was bad. It's not that this cap was bad. They were horrendous. I mean, if you read between the lines of DNPs, their defensive coordinators' quotes, they just have no talent on defense. He was asked this week, what percentage of your playbook have you given the team? And he was like, 25, 30.

We don't have those guys. He's the biggest pressure coach in the league on the defensive side of the ball. And he stopped sending pressure because their's coverage back end. You can't handle it, right? So if this were like a standard reload, right, where they have like a lot of cap flexibility and they had some good young players,

I'd say maybe you can keep Ryan in the building, you know, get Calvin Ridley back. Your offense will be good enough and then you can reload on defense and go. I'm not sure it is. I think the cap is so unhealthy and the roster is so gutted that to me it's a longer time frame, which does

to me start to invite that question of the Matt Ryan trade. A team would have to know for sure they're ready though. That's a lot of money and not a lot of prime years left. So you have two years after a Ryan trade to win. Otherwise, you got to start thinking for the future. That was such a good question of D&P. That's

smart. Whoever asked him that. I think it was actually the team site people, which usually are not asking those questions. But they were like, hey, how much? And Dean is a very frank guy. He was like, yeah, 30%. We don't have it all to them yet.

No, I'm thinking other NFL people, because you can't really say that to a basketball coach. What percentage of playbook do you guys use these guys right now? They're like, hey, we can't switch say that to a basketball coach. What percentage of the playbook you guys use these guys right now? Be like, hey, we can't switch on threes yet. You mentioned something like kind of back to what we're going with though.

It plays into what we're doing here. Kevin Clark's Bud Light Lime Sean McVay joke tweet is still one of my favorites of all time because all these guys are getting interviews with whatever connection it is to McVay and then he was like, did you have a Bud Light line with McVeigh? And it was like, all right, here's the diagram of how we're doing this. But it's really the Shanahan tree, right? It's McVeigh. Is it fair to say that despite everybody kind of being pissed off about people

just being connected to him, getting these opportunities, that it's been an overwhelming success for the most part for investing in coaching staffs that way? So I think there's both sides of this coin I'm okay with. This is a question I struggle to land on. This offense is really good. This style of offense is really good at elevating poor parts of your roster, poor players. And that is a huge deal. If you think about West Coast style offense that like proliferated in the 2000s, right? Like Manning and Breeze and Rivers.

If your quarterback wasn't a real smart cookie, you had no chance, dead in the water. Didn't matter who your line was, didn't matter who your receivers were. And that's why you saw like a lot of pocket passers drafted in the 2000s, right? Like your Matt Barclays of the world, your liners of the world, and just nothing, right?

Brady Quinn. Like they just didn't have it at the NFL level. This offense can take your fourth round Kirk Cousins, your second round Jimmy Garoppolo, your first round Boston Jared Goff, who has never won a game

without Sean McVay as his head coach, and elevate them to legitimate, like deep playoff run levels. That's bananas. So that in and of itself is worth the buy. If I can get a guy in the building who can run that offense, that

makes me building out my team as a personnel exec so much easier. Just takes the stress off my quarterback position. The other side of that coin is exactly what McVay and Shanahan ran into this past offseason where both went out and got massive quarterback upgrades. That margin for error is nice.

But all of a sudden, when the infrastructure you put around that weaker quarterback starts to drain away, your assistant coaches are getting hired away, as is the case with McVay and with Shanahan. Your receiver room, which you've been able to cheese around a little bit because you don't need a classic X, classic Z style. Well, all of a sudden,

you wish you had classic X and classic Z. You kind of need that talent to help this quarterback. Then you have to go out and get an improvement. So it's nice in that it raises the floor to a median,

but there is a ceiling that it hits. The only team that's really able to break it is LaFleur and Green Bay. And that's because of 12 because they run that style of offense. But Rogers walks up to that line

as complete and total command of it. No, Sean McVay talking to Jared Goff before the play clock runs down 15 seconds. Super Bowl nonsense. Rogers walking up and running that John like that. That is all him. And they're RPO heavy because of it. So that's the only team that's really been able to take that median and bring it all the way up. And I think you've seen Shanahan and McVay start to chase LaFleur in that way. They're like, we need to get

our top quarterbacks in here. We need to get a guy who can elevate as well. It's nice for Kevin Stefanski and Cleveland solving Baker, but now they might have to pay Baker. It's, oh no, I don't know if I want to be in this spot for much longer. What do you think of Baker from what you see?

I think you pay his fifth-year option and you feel okay with that. You give him an opportunity to play a season hopefully healthy because there's no doubt that the shoulder has affected his play this year. So pay his fifth-year option, let him play on it. That's fine. If I get in 2022 what I got in the 2021 season

in terms of how he played when he was healthy, I don't extend him. I'm willing to make him an offer, but it's going to come around Kirk Cousins' first deal with the Vikings. And that's probably where I'm going to max out like 34 mil per year, fully guaranteed. It was fully, right? Kirk was three years, deal stemmed to Stern. And I'm okay with that if I'm getting you below market price, talking about Baker. I don't think I can. And that's kind of why I'm giving you that offer is because I don't think you'll take it.

And I think you're going to want to go and try to get more money elsewhere. But right now, we got to be very clear about what Cleveland is. Cleveland lives in 13 personnel. They live with three tight ends on the field, right? This team is so intensely dedicated to the running game that they run a different offense than any other team in the league. It's McVay-inspired, but it is heavier personnel, more pullers, bigger offensive line,

more run game-oriented than any other McVay offense. And that's because of who they're protecting. That's because they need the play-action fakes. They need the screens. Their screen game, Stephen Ruiz wrote a piece about this for the us on the ringer was great baker gets more like epa on a screen play than like the next 10 quarterbacks in the league combined in terms of how well that game works for them it's absurd they're protecting him and this office is built to do that and so when it comes time to like put three receivers on the field and like actually get downfield

that doesn't that doesn't work for them they They don't have that right now. That's a huge aspect of their offense that's missing. To me, Bakers is too much of a limiting factor, given how he's currently playing. Two other things here quickly as we finish up. The Buffalo game, just like Baltimore against Miami, I'd leave that one going, all right, whatever. Much like Buffalo and Jacksonville

going, all right, I'm not sure. But if we look at the defensive numbers for Buffalo, we know, depending on what you. But if we look at the defensive numbers for Buffalo, we know depending on what you buy into or what your preference is, that there's certain numbers that I can tell you that are actually still far ahead of the rest of the league. Some of the weighted stuff offensively is a little scary, kind of where they're trending. The rushing attack, there's some traditional numbers.

You're like, oh, maybe it's not all that bad. And then there's some other metrics that are like, no, it actually still is that bad. Is there any cause of concern now of maybe people figuring out, in a way, I don't know if it's Mahomes-like, where clearly the league's like, hey, this is what we're doing to you, Kansas City, and you're going to have to adjust to us.

And Kansas City's offensive numbers are still probably a little bit better than people realize, but it's very clear that it's been an uncomfort level with how they haven't really adapted fully to what they're facing? Does it feel like there's maybe another version of that that's going on against Buffalo that maybe isn't getting as much attention?

Yeah, it is similar. The nut graph is this. Defenses line up against Kansas City and Buffalo and say, we're not going to let you throw it deep because that's terrifying. We have seen your quarterback. We've seen what he can do.

We've seen your receivers. We don't like this. We're not going to let you do it. We're going to put as many bodies back there as we can condense that space. Run it on us. Run it on us all the way down the field. Score touchdowns on us by running the football. And both the Chiefs and the Bills go, oh, we didn't plan for this.

For the Chiefs, that's structural, right? They added some offensive linemen in Orlando Brown and Joe Tooney, Trey Smith. These guys are good run blockers. They drafted a first-round running back, Clyde Edwards-Alaire, but they just live with these four open formations, right? Four receivers detached from the formation. They don't have a tight end.

They don't have an H-back. They don't have a fullback. There's only so much you can run with five down linemen out of shotgun, right? And so teams say, all right, if you're just going to try to inside zone us to death, we're going to survive. And I'm just going to jump in. So people understand when you say they don't have a tight end, they don't have the traditional lineup. Kelsey, he's out. He's out in the formations.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Great. So Kelsey is detached. The Bills have a similar problem. Dawson Knox is their tight end. He's been out for the last few weeks when they don't have him. It's like Tommy Sweeney, who teams don't really worry about

in the passing game. And then it's Stephon Diggs and Cole Beasley and Emmanuel Sanders. They're all detached from the formation. And those guys have worse running backs. Zach Moss and Devin Singletary. They're still trying to figure out who's a guy they can trust there. So they try to run the football. And you've seen them in critical games run it a lot with Josh Allen

because all those critical games, they really want to win. When they go up against the Jags, they're not trying to run Josh Allen. They're not trying to let him take those hits. Both teams don't have an answer right now when defenses dare them to run the football. Kansas City, I think you're going to be able to round things out. I think that

they're going to be able to step back up. I have a lot of trust in that coaching staff. I have a lot of trust in Mahomes. Buffalo, the offensive line injuries really hurt against the Jags, but I have a little bit less trust just because Josh Allen hasn't shown us that when his job is to just get out of the offense's way and let other people do the work for him, he

can. He doesn't like playing like that. Josh likes to make big plays. Against that Jags team, they had opportunities to win that game. Even going to that final play, that third and one, where they're running a read option, they had to to win that game. Even going to that final play, that third and one, where they're running a read option, they had to give luck, and Allen keeps it because Allen wants the ball.

And then he ends up getting tackled and fumbled, and that decides the game. And so Allen does need to mature a little bit and learn how to step out of the offense's way at times. Okay, Seattle, three and five. Wilson's back. Looking at their remaining strength of schedule, basically everybody's going to put him in the middle of the pack

so it's not at one end of the extremes here. Defensively, I don't know. Everybody can talk about Wilson. First of all, it's the division. I still don't even know that San Francisco's an easy out, and then you look at the rest of it. I don't know if they're going to get the push here that maybe they think they're going to get,

or at least Russell Wilson's Twitter feed would suggest. Yeah, well, I don't think anybody will ever get the energy that Russell Wilson's Twitter feed suggests at any Yeah, well, I don't think anybody will ever get the energy that Russell Wilson's Twitter feed suggests at any time. They're 3-5. They've got Green Bay and Arizona in back-to-back weeks. So this is very realistically 3-7, at which point you've got to be perfect down the stretch to end

10-7 to maybe get an angle at the 6th or the 7th seed. We've got to remember that in the NFC, you're going to get, I think, two teams out of the South. We know that Tampa Bay is probably going to win that division the NFC, you're going to get, I think, two teams out of the South. We know that Tampa Bay is probably going to win that division, but New Orleans, Carolina, both of those teams are not trying to go away. This is not going to be

an easy push to get the seventh spot in the NFC. It's going to be tight. They've got to be able to be at least one of Green Bay and Arizona, preferably Arizona, which is to me a tough ask because they still have Arizona twice on the schedule. I'm not sure even with Russ back, there's enough there. And my biggest concern, we'll see this come Sunday night or Sunday afternoon.

I think they're playing at four. Is that after the success, you know, success kind of a relative term that Pete Carroll had on offense running the ball with that Geno Smith offense because they ran it decently well and they stayed in some games tight. I'm worried Pete's going to learn the wrong lesson from that. Get Russell back out there and continue to feed Alex Collins

and Chris Carson. And we know that that just spells such a thin margin for victory for the Seahawks. So I'd love to see it. Ross has always won at least 10 games a season in his career, right? Like he does deserve the benefit of the doubt,

but it's murderer's row, their first two games. If they don't survive this, I don't see how they survive it throughout the season. All right, final thing. Because you host the gambling show on Wednesdays, do you have a side you really like on Sunday this week? I generally just fade the Eagles on a weekly basis.

As an Eagles fan, I kind of know what that team is and what that team isn't. Right now, the total for that game, Broncos-Eagles opened at 44. It's up to like 45 and a half. But you can get the Broncos team total around like 24 points. Smart quarterbacks beat this Eagles defense.

Teddy's a smart quarterback. This Eagles defense will give you underneath completion so the cows come home. That's how Teddy wants to play anyway. I think Teddy's going to have easy completions, ton of yardage. I think Broncos are going to score more in 24. So I like Broncos minus three.

But if you're going more specific on it, over 24 total points, over 45 in the game, those feel right to me. All right, Ben Solak. Check him out, man. That was great. We'll talk to you again soon. Sweet specific on it, over 24 total points, over 45 in the game, those feel right to me. All right, Ben Solek. Check him out, man. That was great. We'll talk to you again soon. Sweet.

Appreciate it, Ryan. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid.

So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. All right. We had a lot of great feedback. I think we had more emails this week in the Life Advice than in any week of the history of the podcast. don't even think it's close kyle the numbers this numbers this week um just look we're just talking emails you know i don't know what it means as far as

uh the podcast just a lot of guys got a lot of people just going hey what's up what's up so let's um i want to do a couple live follow-ups or maybe at least one because now i had college buddies calling me after they heard wednesdays because they were like that's right one of the guys in our group was telling people he was a fighter pilot in training but they were like yeah but they let him take the the fighter pilot stuff out or the jets is probably what they're called all right um our boy checked in not to follow up with the original email about the guy named bigfoot that was lying all the time but he said hey i also had a guy in my friend group who's a compulsive liar throughout high school and

college his biggest lie was saying he had a girlfriend from maine a lot of people have done this one canadian girlfriend whatever uh we live in iowa and we had never met her for weeks he's hyping up her coming to iowa to meet him And when that weekend comes, we never see her. He says it's because when she arrived, they went to Applebee's and broke it off. Fancy like Applebee's on a date night. That was not a great fancy Applebee's date night, apparently. So this girl comes in from Maine.

They hit it up Iowa. First thing they do is they go to Applebee's, which I don't think is a terrible idea. They just decided over the riblets in that moment. It's over. The friend group says, we've been considering all talking

to him about his compulsive lying for a while. After this instance, we decided to pull the trigger and do so. It went horribly. None of us have talked to him in trigger and do so. It went horribly. And none of us have talked to him in five years. Wow. And probably never will. That's what you're afraid of, right? So I guess my two cents is don't talk to Bigfoot about compulsive lying.

I think the other part of it could be why would you want to talk to somebody? Why would you want to be such close friends with somebody? I think we all have our flaws. We all bring our strengths and weaknesses to our friend groups. I think we all have our flaws. You know, we all bring our strengths and weaknesses to our friend groups. You try not to be somebody who's just an overburdened weakness. You know, you can't be this rusty link.

You know, WD-40 doesn't fix all of our problems. Go ahead. You kind of need a guy in the friend group, though, to all rally around. Like, I think that's a necessity in any group of guys. So I think you're actually, it's a blessing that this person is in your front group if you have him somebody who's either a compulsive as long as it's not impacting you and he's not like you know you know stealing money from you or screwing I don't know trying to like hit on your wife or whatever as long as it is like stupid shit like that it doesn't matter it's fun it's entertaining it makes the front it makes the

group chat better I I'm all for this. Kyle? I don't know. I'm still leaning towards don't like it, but I guess Lemonade, that whole thing, I guess there's humor to be had. Yeah, I agree. I can't say that I wouldn't have been like, dude, are you kidding? But I see it is what you're

afraid of is the guy hasn't talked to him for five years. Like the whole group has just lost a jester. So, I don't know. Yeah, so Rudy put it in a very nice way where you said there's a guy that you're rallying around. I think the friend group needs somebody they know is always and last forever. Yes. I think that's what you were really saying.

I mean, it sucks if it's you. But I think every group is solidified by knowing at least there's one person that's always doing worse than the rest of us all the time it's a tough spot yeah no it's true yeah nobody in mind and i know it's easy for me to mind right now oh no wait kyle you think you're you think you're the guy doing no i'm thinking of mine and oh just put the smile on my face you know because i'm a sick fuck you know yeah i am doing better than him hope he doesn't listen to the pot that'd be amazing just a great scene in a in a show or something like that where the guy who's always in last is like upset about something and then

the other guy's like going no but you don't understand pete your role is like you always are doing worse and you like it makes us all feel better. And that's your value. Like you can't be doing better than anyone else. This is your role. This is your place in life. So accept it and know that we benefit from it. Our support friend, our emotional support friend.

Yeah. He just doesn't. Yeah. Maybe a coming of age thing. Go ahead. All right. I don't think we have anything else to say on that one. I just love that they broke up at Applebee's, the fake girlfriend from Maine. All right. I don't think we have anything else to say on that one. I just love that they broke up at Applebee's with a fake girlfriend from Maine.

All right. Let me know. Some guy gave his cell phone number. That's probably... We're not going to do that one, I would think. He wants you to call him? I don't know. I don't know what was going on there.

Maybe table that one out for a little bit. Okay. All right. Here's a pretty in-depth one. It's a little long, but this guy's going to need some help here. To stick with the format 510190 and can build...

My build can best be described as default because I am the most perfectly average guy that's ever existed. I am pretty much the result of someone creating their own player in a video game, except they didn't actually change any attributes. Okay. Use your help. Before the last year, I used to invest a small, consistent amount of my paycheck into my portfolio every week. I would only buy ETS, blue chip stocks, and maybe a few tech stocks I believed in. I always paid my credit cards in full every month, and I only borrowed money from my family

once I moved away for a home for a new job and needed a big deposit. All right, all this makes sense as I've gotten older, my spending habits have coincided with increased pay, but I've always been responsible and never worried about money. Boy, has that changed. Like a lot of people, my investing picked up significantly after the market went down last year. I turned 13,000 into 42,000 in five months and I was on top of the world. I was researching like crazy, making big moves and getting everything right. When the tech stocks plunged last September, I was ready for it. I knew they would still go up in time, but after a few days, it was too boring to watch my stock sit there and drop knowing I could make so much more. I was too confident and greedy. I lost my sense of responsibility. My idea of a lot of money had changed and I was adding a ton to my account every week,

just continuing to buy options worth thousands and buy heavy before earnings. But all of a sudden, every move I made was wrong. I had gone from Ubaldo Jimenez of 2010 to Ubaldo Jimenez of 2011 even faster than he did. Great reference. Sometimes my moves would hit big, but that would only inspire my confidence and lead me to more big moves that lost the end. Fast forward to now, and it's incredible how many wrong moves I've made over the past year. Me buying a call or a lot of stock is like my dad picking up a hot hitting outfield

for his fantasy team. He's going to get injured or fall off the face of the earth next day. Trying to get back to what I made slowly went from me breaking even to me being, all right. So he said, I was trying to slowly get from where he was to get back to even.

That's another mental thing that a lot of us do. We think if you lose, let's say in this case, you've lost $40,000. You think that $40,000 is somehow still owed to you. And it isn't like, you're just being like, all right, well, I'll just get back to even as if we could just all do it. What you'd essentially be doing is doubling your money in the first position. If we could all do it a lot easier, we would, but we can't because we don't know these things. Uh, before I read the next paragraph, I'm just going to point out like, yeah, when things tanked last 2020 with all the COVID

fears and the numbers got really weird. I mean, go back and look at some of the charts there. You didn't do well because you're smart. You didn't do well because you were investing. You did well because you took on risk at a time when people weren't taking on risk and they were afraid. We didn't know what was going to happen with the economy. We didn't know what was going to happen with the country. And really what it led to was that everything was really on sale. I'm not going to defend billionaires on the podcast, but when I think Forbes is as guilty of this as anyone, but there's all these media outlets that will tag all these guys like, you know, Musk and Bezos and all these different guys being like, hey, since coronavirus,

these billionaires have increased their net worth by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. But then I'll go and look and go, you know what? You're also using a starting point of when the stock market was almost half of what it was today, depending on whatever, however you want to track it. So I'm not saying you should feel bad for these guys. That's not what I'm doing. But depending on the timing of these things, there was a way to get in if you were willing to get in while everything was going down. And that's what you did. So your research and your calls and all this shit and the tech stocks, techs have just been on fire here for a long time. And so when it dips down again, really what you're doing is you're okay investing when other people aren't. I don't think it has anything to do with like congrats on all the

research and all the studying and all this stuff. You just timed it right. It's back to my old real estate analogy pre-bubble when it's like, were you a better real estate agent in 2006 than you were prior to that or years after? No. It's just everybody was buying houses left and right because everybody was being approved, so it raised the prices. I think you need to accept some things here. I feel bad for you, but you need to accept some things here that maybe this is more about the juice of it. Because you also said something else. You got bored, like ETFs and blue chip and holding it forever. You get bored from it. I used to do that too. I used to anticipate and get excited when the

market opened. I'd look at the pre-market. I'd be checking fucking after hours all the time. I mean, I was on it because I liked the juice of being involved and seeing things and not having anything and anything, even if I were losing, was way more boring than just staying at a stable number and stuff that was a lot safer. So I resonate with that.

I totally, I'm sure a lot of people get that too. The waking up and going, all right, I made a trade yesterday. Like what's going to happen today? Or is the news out and all this different stuff and it's just it's the same as gambling and it's the same as is that and you're just going to kind of learn that all right maybe i'm wired this way that i need this action i need this juice when in fact that's not necessarily the best way boring investing is the better way to invest i think we all understand that unless you get lucky and you got lucky like a lot of people got lucky because you invested

when the pandemic was wiping out a ton of value across the board and all sorts of stocks that shouldn't have gone down like they did. But that's why you made the money in the first place, not because you're so fucking brilliant. All right. So try to get back to where I went for breaking even to me being on tilt, similar to Mark Wahlberg and the gambler. I've now maxed out three credit cards. I have only $800 in the bank, $140 in my portfolio, despite investing about $30,000. I stopped investing months ago and I've been scrounging together enough for the mortgage bills and minimum credit card payments each month, but that's about it. Losing the money sucks, but I know others have lost a lot more and I'm fine living paycheck to paycheck and earning it back

eventually. All right. But maxing out the credit cards and then paying the minimum payment is a financial death sentence. So you're going to have to figure out a solution to that one if you're going to turn this thing around at all, because your credit's going to suck and it's going to get worse and worse and worse. All right. So not to bum you out, but you need to figure that one out somehow, some way. Rent a truck and do dump runs for people or something on the weekends. I'm serious.

You've got to figure out a way to not be living in minimum payment hell with credit cards. All right, here's the real problem as he brings it up. The real problem is time is against me. I have a wonderful girlfriend who is a few years older than me and we've been together for years, have a house together, and she has been waiting for me to ask her to marry her.

She thinks my stocks are doing great still and assumes I'm planning an elaborate proposal. Oh, great. I was planning to ask her a month ago, but I couldn't. I bought the expensive ring she wanted when I was doing well, but it's been in the safe at the pawn shop for two months because I needed the loan to keep up with payments. She flat out asked me why I haven't proposed yet, And I just give her different reasons to ask her not to ask me. And I say, I will assume that for several weeks of this, she's now wondering if we should just get pregnant first at this point. I know her biological clock is ticking and I feel horrible about it. I just can't keep making her wait for me, but I have to fix what I've done if I can get

the ring back. And I think about a wedding, let alone a child. I can't bring myself to ask family or friends for money at this point. Talking to someone about gambling seems pretty obvious from the outside, but I know what I've done. I know how I got here. I've learned from this and it really doesn't solve my problem right now. My girlfriend actually has a good amount of money invested, which is crazy to me to think about because her credit and spending habits are terrible. But here I am broke and she has 70 grand in her portfolio. I'm sure most people would say, just tell her. I get close to coming out with a bit of time. I know it's the right thing to do.

I'd give her the opportunity to move on. If she wanted to or leave, we could figure this out together or grow from it. But if that happened, I don't see us growing in a good way. I think it would ruin our relationship. She would lose trust in me and look at me differently. I'll be like the guy who wrote in months ago whose wife doesn't let him make financial decisions.

She'll tell me I'll jeopardize us having a healthy child. don't know what that means or even a second one all because i was greedy and bored at work in 2020 she will hold it over me and bring it up whenever she wants just like she does with every other single mistake or bad thing i've said which is somehow neatly cataloged cataloged in her head and used in her convenience only this one would be truly damaging and i wouldn't come back from it. I could keep delaying things as I slowly save up and get back on track, but it'll take a while. I don't know what your timetable here is, man,

because this isn't going to get figured out here in the next calendar year. So if you think you're going to just keep putting off somebody who's asking you why you haven't proposed yet while her engagement ring is at a pawn shop, again, unless you're knocking over a bank, I don't know what your plan is. I could do the right thing, man up and tell her, but then my balls will be in a jar on

shelf for the rest of the time. If she doesn't, just leave me instead. I keep trying to act like everything is fine, but all I can think about is affecting my attitude, my relationships, my happiness, my work, and most importantly, her. I've always been a smart, responsible person, like I said, and I know how this happened, but I learned my lesson too late. I just can't figure out what do you guys think I should do? All right. and I know how this happened but I learned my lesson too late I just can't figure out what do you guys think I should do first of all the anxiety of what you're going through here is going to be

fucking brutal because you have this secret you know that you screwed up and that part's cool that you're aware of it all right so there's a really easy way of saying like hey if you just tell her then at least that part the hiding the lying the anxiety that stuff

it's going to go away and it's going to be a relief doesn't solve anything but at least solves that part of it and as you said it's affecting relationships and all these different things because you're hiding this thing you i would really i know it sounds obvious here but you got it you got to tell somebody something not just email in a podcast you like talk to somebody a family member that you really trust and maybe run it by that family member or a close close friend you've always appreciated their perspective and you actually do trust their advice and they know you really well but you said a few things in here about the relationship that seem like red flags like for you to say well if i tell her now my balls are going to be in a jar forever

hey man when you get married to somebody and you're going to have a family with them and you you apparently want to do all these things like yeah if you do really fucked up stuff and lie about it then then yes, the other person is going to be mad at you. Like, you know, figure it out. Now, if you're telling me you're going to sign up for like the worst marriage, how were you going to, how are you going to fix this? Where you never have to tell her without her getting so like, did you think you have another couple of years while she's asking you why you have proposed? You don't have that kind of time. So I don't know how you're going to fix this financially to get back to whatever your even is

with no money, with credit cards that are maxed out. You said you have a home together. So I don't know if that means you already bought a home and now you guys are just figuring out a way to kind of float the payments here. But I don't know how you're solving this problem in a very short amount of time. I just don't think that that's realistic. So if you're going to keep dragging out thinking that you're working your way back to some acceptable point, you're going to keep this away from everybody. I just don't think time is even close to being on your side for that kind of transaction to happen here.

She's talking about, hey, let's have a kid. So you're going to have to tell her. And by the way, it's actually going to make things better. It is. By telling her it's going to make things better because you finally shared with her this lie that you've been hiding from her. And now she's going to understand why you haven't got the ring. I mean, hell, you want to tell her like, hey, look, I bought the ring. It's at a pawn shop in a fucked up way that might actually make her feel better.

As crazy as that sounds. But it knows like, wait, this guy actually committed, bought the ring. It is sitting at, you know, Ralph's. crazy as that sounds but it knows like wait this guy actually committed bought the ring it is sitting at you know ralph's ralph's gold buying bitcoin slash pawn emporium um but if she leaves you i don't it's weird i don't know how much I think you care. That's the crazy part. That was my observation. He was almost at the end of that email talking about, oh, I know she's going to do this. I know she's going to do that. Almost like you're like, all right, yeah, yeah. You weren't that invested in it. It was an odd way, I think, to end the

email. Because I'm with you. The easy way is to just tell her, be honest. It's going to get that weight off your chest. But also, talked about her having some money invested. I'm not saying she has to help you financially, but maybe she will. And if she doesn't want to, that's cool too. And if you guys don't end up together and this is a deal breaker for her, then you have to accept that. But hiding it from her helps literally no one and it hurts your emotional well-being. All right, Kyle, how quick would you hit her up for that 70 grand piece of that? So you could tell her or no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Kind of kidding, but not really.

I guess what I've got a couple of things I wanted to ask for the credit cards. Do you think that like getting a credit card consolidation loan is a good idea? Because I just got approved today. You got approved for a consolidation? I pulled the trigger. Yeah. Tell me I didn't fuck up. This is my life.

Okay. I don't know. I don't remember how that stuff works. It's a lower APR, right? Way lower. For how long, though? Should I know that? No, I'm kidding.

I think it's like three years. But I'm going to get it done. How much credit card debt do you have? I don't want to say. Okay. That's not... You don't have to tell me. It's not astronomical. But it's not great. So that's one thing. So maybe't want to say. Okay. That's not... You don't have to tell us. It's not astronomical,

but it's not great. That's one thing. Maybe you could do that. Get it all under one roof, right? That's one thing. Maybe grandma's ring's floating around somewhere. Maybe your ring stays and lives in the pawn shop. Maybe... What? I don't know how old you are. Are you going to steal your grandmother's ring?

No, no, no. Come on. Listen. I'm just saying, is she around? If she's not, I don't know't know he said the biological clock's ticking maybe he's in his mid 30s maybe maybe it's a you know maybe she's been gone a little while we're talking about grandma here maybe it's like and if you don't ask for money you could just be like hey ma you know i really love this girl and um i was just do you have grandma's ring and then get it cleaned up or something i don't know i guess what i'm just saying is there's a couple different ways that you can chip away at stuff, right? I mean, one being your credit card.

So you're saying stunt ring? Yes. Yeah. But maybe don't tell her ring. Maybe. I mean, the diamond market was, you know, they were more readily available back in the day. Right now, it's all if you watch Blood Diamond, you see they're all controlled and in like

Dutch banks or something. So, you know, maybe maybe it was a nice ring back back in the day you just need to get it cleaned up um so i'm just saying there's a couple things you could do and then once you are married then surprise we have debt i don't know that's that's it doesn't feel good no no no but i'm just saying like you know it probably would you could still tell her but then like you could still maybe come up with the ring in the back pocket and be like, also, would you marry me? Could you ask her to marry you? Could you ask the pawns like shop guys? Hey, could I get this for like 48 hours proposed?

Tell her the deal. And then, you know, I have to give it back to them for the time being. That's the worst idea anyone's ever suggested. That was bad. I'm just saying you have a ring. It's nice. It's there. She could see it.

And then, you know, if she really wants to say yes, you could say yes. So, Rudy, whatever your overall rating was, if you were an 87, you just dipped to like an 81. This doesn't even make any sense. Do you understand how women work? How are you married? Hey, here's the engagement ring I bought you. But now I have to go put it back in the pawn shop. But at least you know i'm serious

you don't either way either way you're telling her this there is a ring she knows there is a ring right either way so you're at least presenting it to her and proposing to her with that way and to kyle's thing you're hiding the debt from her you're telling her that you have debt and now you want to marry this problem this is our our problem. Right now. Take it off. I got to give it back to Rob. He's going to call the cops in 24 hours. You could, if you wanted to put together a real grownup proposal on a piece of paper and go, Hey, look, intro paragraph. This is what I did. I feel horrible.

I can't lie to you anymore. Here are all the numbers. I want to marry you. Your rings at a pawn shop. It's going to work out, but it's going to take some time. My question to the email, you could present it to her in some one sheet or whatever and say, hey, read this and pour a glass of New Zealand salve and just, you know, get ready to get destroyed over the kitchen Island. Once she's finished reading the letter, it's not going to go well. Um, but it's a grownup approach to it, you know, so it's all mapped out. They can see it. She's going to, she's going to read the paper and probably throw, I don't look, I don't know her. What I can't tell is how bad you want to be with her. You seem to be like, and she wants to leave and kind of do it over whatever. Maybe that's what you need. Maybe you do need her to leave you. Um, but if she really cares about you and she really wants to leave and kind of do it over whatever maybe that's what you need maybe you do need her to leave you um but if she really cares about you and she really wants to marry you i think she might start proposing like all right let's figure this out let's let's figure out a way to do this

because we are in a partnership or we will be in a partnership here but you can't you can't keep carrying this around one because it's fucked up to do that to her if you're telling her that you're going to propose to her that you're going to start a family and you're hiding the secret and the other part of it is that you clearly you need to tell somebody not us that you know that knows you knows your personality that you've been you know friends with family that kind of thing because carrying this around as you pointed out which i thought was great it's it's messing your it's messing up your day-to-day. And when your day-to-day is messed up like this, it becomes like survival. Wake up, go to bed, and then, all right, now we got to do it again tomorrow. And until you disrupt that pattern, none of this is going to feel good, whether or

not she stays with you or leaves. I agree. There's a guy in the same position, kind of. Did I make a mistake with this upstart loan, guys? I can't go back. The promissory note's signed. Oh, wait. We're talking about you again? Yes. Kyle, yeah. I don't know. I don't know what the numbers are for that, but it sounds like you were trying to make

some grown-up moves, so I don't know. I could look it over for you if that helps. Or maybe we could get a... We should get a younger financial planner on again or something. But then that leads to a bunch of guys just hitting me up so they can get shine. And I don't really want to do that. I'd have to know who the person is. I'm sure my LinkedIn will be

buzzing after this with somebody who works in Wisconsin who's got a shop and wants to just talk to me about it. So please do that. Thank you. What I know doesn't work is those credit repair things. Those are a fucking joke. You know, this whole like, oh, we're going to write all these places letters. And then you go, nothing's happening.

And they're like, we're going to write twice as many letters now on your behalf. And you're like, nothing happens until time or either the bill is paid off or time passes. That's what happens. The pitch for it's incredible. They'll just be like, oh, yeah, credit report. If they don't respond within 30 to 60 days and the law says

that has to come off and it's this, this, and this. And you're just like, oh my God, this is amazing. Like, this is really going to work. And it's like, no, it's not going to work. Not going to work.

Seven to 10 years. Seven to 10 years until the shit's off your report. But that's not as bad as, actually, that's worse because it can be more damaging even if everything's paid off. You know what? I'm sick of talking about this. This has gone on way too long. Me too.

Great weekend, everybody. I'm done. I'm done. We went way too long on this one. Thanks to Steve. Thanks to Kyle. Enjoy the football. We got Doug Peterson. Super Bowl winning head coach, Doug Peterson. A lot of stuff I can't wait to talk to him about on Monday. you