The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Brady Era in Tampa, Return of the Big Ten, and NFL Awards With Bruce Feldman and Jeff Darlington

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on Steelers-Titans and whether it was a statement game for either team (2:00), before handing out his Week 7 NFL awards and updating his Brady-Belichick power rankings (8:00). Then Ryen talks with Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports and The Athletic about the return of the Big Ten and the week in college football (24:00). Next, Russillo talks with ESPN’s Jeff Darlington about Tom Brady and the Buccaneers adding Antonio Brown to the roster, and Tua Tagovailoa starting at QB for the Miami Dolphins (55:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:17:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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With a great price and even greater service. State Farm goes from strength to strength. Choose insurance that always brings its A game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Okay, here's the plan. I've got something on Pittsburgh and something bigger on Cam Newton and the Patriots struggles. We'll get to awards, but Bruce Feldman's going to stop by for like 30 minutes, the Big Ten back in action.

So we'll recap all the biggest teams from this weekend that feels a little more full on a college football Saturday, which is a great feeling for all of us. And then Jeff Darlington, who covers the Florida teams, he went out to Vegas to cover Brady and the Bucs. We're going to ask about that and the Antonio Brown signing, but also the decision to go with Tua down in Miami with the Dolphins. Then we'll do a little life advice at the end. So that's the plan. Before we get to the NFL awards, I want to touch quickly on really the biggest game of the day. That's Pittsburgh and Tennessee. Now, coming into this game, looking at some of the matchup stuff, I think Pittsburgh is the better football team.

And a lot of this, as we'll get to the end of it, depends on who you're rooting for or who you may have picked or who you believe is the better team. I'm sure some of you still think Tennessee is better than Pittsburgh. That's fine, too. Tennessee playing, what, three games in 13 days? That's a really good excuse. But I look more at Pittsburgh getting up 27, seven. I felt like control controlled the football game throughout held Derek Henry, um, made him look like a

different guy. And despite the fact we'll get to some of Ben's numbers here, Ben not having to be great this year. Um, they're minus three in turnovers Pittsburgh on the day. And that leads to the comeback. So if you're pro Tennessee, and again, I'm calling myself out here because I'm pro Pittsburgh and I'm thinking, hey, 27, seven, I think is what really matters. And I'm sure if you're pro Tennessee, you go look at the schedule, look at the situation and they still came back. And if they'd missed the field goal, what I don't like happening is when you have the missed field goal and all these different things and like only the bad things for Tennessee count and where the bad things for Pittsburgh, where I feel like that last pick was sort of just an unlucky pick because I thought it was the right decision that

Roethlisberger was making when it was going into the end zone. It looked like they were going to go up two scores. So looking at it right now, because the question becomes who is Pittsburgh, whether the one seed in the AFC is a stance today, but I don't care who Pittsburgh is. Look, they could be 16 and 0, and I'm probably still picking the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs because that's how much I love Mahomes and the entire deal. They're 6 and 1, and I'm probably still picking the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs because that's how much I love Mahomes in the entire deal. They're 6-1, and I can't fathom picking another team. And when you start to look at the AFC versus the NFC, Long the other day texted me. He's like, who do you like in the NFC?

And I think a few hours went by, and I joked because I sort of ignored the text because I didn't have an answer. And then I said, I'm still thinking because even though I want to pick Seattle, their defense is atrocious. But they're 5-1, the close. Amazing game, by the way, against Arizona where they could have won it. Then Arizona kicks the field goal in overtime. Green Bay, it felt weird to pick them after the first loss against Tampa and the recency bias, but Green Bay is still in this. I mean, Philadelphia 2-4 is the fourth seed in the NFC. We'll write them off. Tampa feels really good. Still likes Seattle. Then there's your one seed, the Chicago Bears. Everybody's like, wait, the Bears are the one seed? So when you go back to the AFC and you look through the depth

through Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Tennessee, Baltimore is the five seed in Cleveland with a really nice win against Cincinnati and Baker who started off over five was flawless the rest of the game. And they lose Odo Beckham Jr. with the ACL tear. And it's some weird numbers, by the way, where basically with Odell off the field, Baker's just much better. It's much better. It doesn't make a ton of sense because you think even with some of the Odell problems over the years, you would think that it's just harder that you have to defend him. So that has to be, that's an all 22 question. That's what it feels like. But let's go back to Pittsburgh and Tennessee. Now how it matches up after Pittsburgh's win. Yards per game, Pittsburgh's 21st on offense, Tennessee's 5th.

Passing yards per game, Pittsburgh's 23rd, Tennessee's 16th, middle of the pack. Rushing attack, Pittsburgh's 11th, Tennessee's 5th, as you'd imagine. With this, as far as their scoring, though, they're both top six in scoring. But really, the difference here is defense. Pittsburgh is the number one defensive team in the NFL when we look at yards. The DVOA stuff hasn't been calculated until the weekend's entirely done.

Tennessee is 25th. Some of these defensive numbers, because of, you know, Vrabel and the toughness and all these things, sometimes you can lose track. Now, Titans fans know this, but I think nationally, sometimes it gets overlooked

how much Tennessee has struggled on defense. And one of those numbers that we're going to get to, you're going to be like, what? As far as scoring defense, this is another number that surprises you a little bit. We're Pittsburgh seventh and Tennessee 17th. So Tennessee has been able to hang on more in games because like we said yesterday, the plus three in the turnover differential against Pittsburgh they're number one in turnover differential Pittsburgh's middle of the pack some teams are able to carry that through most of the time it's just luck so that's one of those numbers you're like wait how are they still winning all these games that turnover battle stuff is real because it's just there's there's no math that backs up that more

teams I mean unless you have a disaster quarterback or one of the great decision makers a quarterback and I wouldn't put Tannehill in either of those categories. Tannehill was really, really good. But that turnover thing finds a way of evening out. I think the scariest number here is that when you look down at third down offense, Pittsburgh on offense is third, third. Tennessee's 11th. But here's the scary number. On defense, Tennessee is the worst defense in the league on third down conversions. They're giving up 61% conversion rate. Pittsburgh's not great on third downs, but you just trust their defense better. And we trust that front. And with Devin Bush out with the ACL from last week, we'll see what happens. Basically, every team is going to lose one really good edge guy. It's just a matter of how

many other really good front line and edge guys do you have? And Pittsburgh has depth there. So I'm not telling you Pittsburgh is a real, I don't want to dismiss them and say they're not a threat to Kansas City. I mean, it's the NFL. Everybody's kind of a threat, right? But I still like Kansas City better. I just don't like Tennessee more than Pittsburgh. And it's not just that game because that Tennessee defense has kind of flown under the radar of how many problems it's had. And I look at Pittsburgh being in control for almost 40 minutes of the game, despite the fact, again, that Ben is like 23 in yards, 23 in QBR, and his touchdown split is really good and he hasn't gotten sacked a lot. Maybe he starts to play a little bit better as Pittsburgh players are saying afterwards, like, look, Deont really good, and he hasn't gotten sacked a lot. Maybe he starts to play a little bit better, as Pittsburgh players are saying afterwards.

Like, look, Deontay Johnson, and then he's got Claypool, and he's new, and Juju's adjusting some of this stuff, and Connor you really like. But this team is about defense in a way they haven't been in a while. And maybe Ben actually gets a little bit better, or maybe this is who he is as an older quarterback. But that would be the difference there, because this league is so ridiculous when it comes to some of the passing numbers. Even with some of these really great defenses, you can get torched just like we've seen in college all the time. So again, it really comes down to who you believe in. If you like Tennessee, you're thinking, hey, they had a missed field goal, 19 seconds left. They would have tied this thing up and who knows? I just like Pittsburgh better than Tennessee. That's all I'm telling you.

All right, let's get to this week's awards. The Mike Florio Taking a Stand Award goes to the Tampa Bay Bucs and the NFL regarding the Antonio Brown signings. We know now that Brown is with the Bucs. But there was an unbelievable statement. And look, this is just the way you have to play it when you're these corporations, because there's a civil suit pending still against Brown. I believe that's supposed to be something that goes to trial in December. The lawsuit was filed in September of last year. Remember when he was bound to the Patriots and the NFL said, quote, we are monitoring developments.

Now, the reason I bring up Florio is because in April 2019, he tweeted out, if Tyreek Hill is allowed to play again, I'm not sure I can keep covering the league. Well, Tyreek was still allowed to play and Florio found a way to continue to keep covering the league. And Tampa had said, Antonio Brown will not be on this team. And then he was on this team. I'm never mad at any team for telling us something that's a lie when it comes to transactions. I'm just not. Okay. It's not their job to tell us the truth on every single rumor and could a guy be signed or not signed,

but Arians took it to another level by basically saying Tom had nothing to do with this quote. Tom had nothing to do with this. Just like I said, this is something that Jason light and I have been talking about for some time. That's Jim. Literally no one believes that. And I just don't think any of us believe that was going to stop covering the NFL. I'm always conflicted when it comes to what do we do with personal off the field stuff with guys? Because there comes a time where you're like, okay, wait, off the field stuff with guys, because there comes a time where you're like, okay, wait, this is just too many times, but I'm also not in the camp of when people screw up, even in, in some really bad ways that I think they should never, ever be allowed to play again. So I'm not defending Antonio Brown. I'm not defending Tyree kill. I had a lot of problems

with the agent Peterson thing, but I do think that people can be punished or people can lose game checks and people can lose opportunities. And then if a team wants to give him a chance, that's fine. But to say that he will not be on the team and then he is, and then say it had nothing to do with Brady when Brady wanted to basically do a summer camp with him, none of this makes any sense. The Win Probability Useless Observation Award goes to this awesome piece of analysis that I hear every single Sunday with a young quarterback on an NFL team.

They'll say, quote, the color guy will say, quote, you know, they made him a captain. All right. When they talk about a young quarterback's leadership, I went through it. Um, and I'll get to the wind probability stuff in a second, because it's a complete waste of everybody's time. Just like saying that a guy who's an NFL captain is actually some sort of awesome designation. is actually some sort of awesome designation. 26 teams name captains for the season. Okay? 26 teams.

The other six have weekly captains, or I think in the Chiefs case, they do a playoff captain thing, which is kind of weird. So that means six teams don't have designated captains for the entire season. Okay, so 26 do. You know how many of those teams have a quarterback named as a captain?

26. All right? Everyone who's a quarterback named as a captain? 26. All right? Everyone who's a quarterback is a captain. That's pretty obvious, and it has been for a long time. I mean, Dwayne Haskins is the captain of the Washington football team. Daniel Jones, same thing with the Giants. Sam Darnold, Joe Burrow. There's guys that have lost jobs that are still captain.

I think Tyrod Taylor is still the Chargers captain. So there you go. And the reason I bring that up is because I find win probability to be one of the most boring things that's brought up and it's brought up every time a team blows a lead. All right, here's some win probabilities for you. Seattle had a 90% win probability of 27-17. So what are you telling me? I have a better chance to win when I'm up later in the game? This is fascinating stuff. Run the numbers. Cincinnati had an 81% win probability. The Jets at one point against the Bills had a 76 win probability. They had four yards in the second

half. The Giants, the Thursday nighter, had an 85% win probability. The Atlanta Falcons are taking win probability losses to a whole nother level because they've had three where I think it's over 90 something percent that they've all lost. They had a 96% win probability when they scored a touchdown that they shouldn't have with Gurley. And then when you look at baseball's world series in game four between Tampa and the Dodgers, the win probability went up and down like the Rockies. So I just don't understand why anybody brings it up because it's basically, oh, so when I'm down, that means I'm more likely to lose. This is insane. Does anybody else know about this? Is there a way we could profit off of this?

And I've had people go like, and again, before you get super worked up, probability guy, well, someone doesn't understand probabilities. No, I do. I just don't understand

why anybody thinks it's remotely interesting just like I don't think it means anything when a quarterback is a captain of an NFL team. Okay, our final award is the Kobe Wade Award

for best nickname that no one knew about. And that's Dion Waiter's nickname. I don't know if you knew that. I love to bring it up all the time. It's one of the greatest, terrible nicknames of all time, the Kobe Wade Award. And that's going to go to Michael Thomas of the Saints because his handle is Can't Guard Mike.

And apparently his teammates are calling him Can't Stand Mike. Now, I got somebody down in New Orleans to give me a heads up on this. I double checked with somebody as well, and this is nasty. Okay. Now Thomas has been suspended, sort of hurt since week one. He hasn't played. He's an incredible receiver. There's no denying that whatsoever. Um, but there's more to this other than just the altercation with a teammate that most of you have never heard of. Apparently when Sean Payton was talking to him about something and correcting him on a route, he lit into Payton pretty bad.

It sounded a little bit more personal than a disagreement. I'm not going to share it all because, again, that's for real NFL reporters, but I'm just telling you, I think him being called Can't Stand Mike is one of the funniest things ever. And look, there's almost 100 guys that come through an NFL locker room over the course of the season. I'm sure some of his teammates actually do like him, but I think Thomas has carried himself in a way that none of this is too surprising and he's great. Okay. He's incredible. And I don't know if he's out because of this. I don't know if it's always because of the hamstring or the ankle stuff, because he has had this injury, but again, he still hasn't played. And he was named offensive player of the year last year,

led the league with 149 catches, 1700 plus receiving yards, nine touchdowns. But when I've noticed some of the stuff that he does, like there's a difference between being prideful and confident, and then also just being a jerk to everybody else, which I think he also has that gear in him. So that's why some of his teammates are calling him can't stand Mike. Okay. I know you're waiting for it. Everybody asks, and this is obviously huge surprise. SportsCenter hasn't used this yet, but the legacy updated rankings for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, Tom one little suspense here, bill number two, and it's never been wider. As far as that gap is concerned.

This is scary stuff right now. Okay, look, Tom continues to deal. You know I'm always kind of doing this just to be sarcastic about the entire thing. But it is kind of funny. It's starting to happen where you go, well, what's going on here? What's going on? Let's back up because there's a lesson in all of this. Because when you watch the Patriots right now and see Cam Newton,

I don't think that was a benching out of, hey, you're terrible. I'm benching you at halftime. I think it was a respect to the vet going, Hey, it's just not working out there right now. Um, and look, the cam thing is, is almost political in a sense of like, I'm a cam guy. I'm not a cam guy. Look, I think 2015 was a total fluke and he had an incredible year. He won MVP played in a super bowl and he's never been that guy. And if you love cam, you just say he's hurt all the time. I saw a couple of tweets where people were saying he hasn't been the same since COVID. Okay, maybe. I think he actually had some sneaky bad games this year where I don't think the offense really trusted him. But again, I don't know that Cam trusts that offense around him because if we talked about the lack of weapons for the Patriots

when Brady was there, we have to do the same thing with Cam. And that's the bigger issue. So even though I don't love Cam and I thought he was bad against Denver, I thought there was some weird stuff against Vegas. I also think when he went nuts and threw it on Seattle, Seattle's the worst pass defense in the NFL. So, you know, Cam's kind of slowly turning back into the guy that it looks like the rest of the league wanted to get rid of, but I don't know if that's right either. Like, I don't know what the Cam answer is yet. Can he turn this around? Because in the first couple of weeks, it's how could all of these teams

pass on Cam Newton? Owners should be furious too. Oh, wait, does that mean that owners should be happy now they don't have him? It's a bit like the Cliff Kingsbury thing where you say, does this mean that everybody that ripped the hiring is wrong

because they've won some games and they beat Seattle? Because let's face it, a lot of people didn't like the Cliff hiring because he's wicked hot. And, you know, when I look at what Cliff has done, he was brought in to run the offense. And Kyler Murray looks like he's going to be a stud. But I don't know that we have the answer on that. The same way we don't have an answer on Cam Newton.

But here's what we do have an answer on. Bill Belichick has been terrible putting together this roster. And Tom Brady covered up for all of this. I'm going to go through these draft picks again because it's worth remembering. Because you also have to ask yourself, if you're doing local Boston radio, how many rosters would you rather have? Maybe I should put it this way. How many rosters would you say no to in the NFL

instead of having this Patriots roster right now? I mean, the Jets, I guess. I mean, skill guys. I can't think of, are there three teams that have worse personnel when it comes to the skill guys than the New England Patriots? So it's not all on Cam, even though I haven't always been a Cam guy. Okay, if we look at the draft really quickly here. Okay, so this class is still too young. Duggar's coming along.

He's their second round pick. It came out of Lenore Ryan, where it was like, ah, classic Patriots. He's like a sub, and they had a ton of opt-outs. The second rounder hasn't played yet. Asiasi, the tight end, was inactive. You know, on way new, the lineman from Michigan has actually been really good. Okay, cool. So they hit an alignment in the sixth round.

All right. The kill Harry's not good. He's not going to be good. Jajuan Williams, uh, one of it, we all thought was going to be really good. His snaps have been in massive decline. Damian Harris, the third round running back. Okay. Maybe he's going to be the starter, but that leads to another problem later on. Um, I mean, he still only played five games.

Kajus hasn't played, uh, fourth. I mean, Stidham is a fourth round in there. I mean, look, I'm looking through this stuff and it's not like I don't hold the fifth, sixth and seventh round picks against guys. And if he can grab alignment out of there, great, but there's not really much in 19, 2018, they take Isaiah wind to be the left tackle of the future. Granted he's heard a ton. I think he's only played in 14 games, but then they moved him to guard a couple of weeks ago and then they had to move him back to tackle. Sony Michelle just hasn't been the guy. And I did like him at Georgia and it hasn't happened. And that means like, wait, Damian Harris has already surpassed him. Um, Juwan Bentley, maybe out of the fifth round that he's played in 25 games. Is that a win?

The 2017 draft? I mean, Dietrich Weiss out of the fourth round, uh, Cyrus Jones was their first pick in 2016. And all he did was drop punts. I think Thune is a nice pick guard Brissette. They deserve a little credit for, but what I'm not doing is naming all the other guys that there's nothing here from. And Belichick has had this run now of a lot of years where his first, second, third rounders didn't do anything or were out of the league. Like guys that were with them and then couldn't make a practice squad two years later. Dominique Easley is his first round pick

in 2014. He was hurt at Florida all the time and he just took them. I think his urban virus said he was good. Jamie Collins. Here's the deal. If you go all the way back through his drafts, you ask yourself this, you go, who was the last stud that they drafted? Some of you will say Jamie Collins, you'd be wrong. All right. There's a reason they got rid of him because they were kind of like, you know, I'm not sure about this guy. Logan Ryan in the third round is a nice pick. But again, there's wide receiver misses in this one too. Aaron Dobson, second round bust. Boys, people at TCU couldn't believe he got drafted in the fourth round. Chandler Jones in 2012

is the last stud that Belichick has drafted. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's eight drafts without a stud. Do you want to say Malcolm Brown,

defensive tackle out of Texas? He's on another. You know what I mean? Like, this is not... Like, some of these guys are on other teams within three years because he's whiffing so bad. So whenever you do the anti Belichick thing, you have to you have to immediately check yourself and go, wait, am I really criticizing a guy that's put together a 20 year run in a sport unlike anything we've ever seen? Because you immediately lose the argument. That is the Trump card that tops anything else. Okay. So if you're doing talk radio, you can't say, Oh, well, this Belichick, he's actually slowly been overrated, which is

why I've made fun of these bill Tom legacy rankings the entire time. But somebody taught me a great lesson. Um, a couple of years ago, I was praising Elway. This is like three years ago. So I don't want to make it sound like it was three weeks ago. I was praising Elway because I was arguing with somebody about it. I go, look, you're anti ElElway, but if you're tough on Elway, then what do you say about the other guys that are going six and 10 all the time? He gets two Super Bowls. He wins one. They put together that defense. His relationship is the reason they were able to bring in Peyton Manning because he just deferred to Peyton and he deserves credit for it. But what I didn't understand and what another guy with a different team that wasn't on Denver had said to me, he goes, Peyton covers up for all of it. Peyton covers up for all of the

mistakes and having one of those guys. And that's why there's really only like four, maybe five at most players at quarterback that can cover up for all of your mistakes. And it's just harder for us to differentiate it because you're like, wait, well, this guy threw for 30 touchdowns. This guy has 5,000 yards. Maybe he's just as good as all these guys in front of him. But whatever Peyton Manning was doing, he was covering for an Elway who actually became terrible with the draft, was terrible at evaluating the position that he was in charge of. And honestly, Elway doesn't put a lot of work into it. He just doesn't. And now we're seeing what happens post Manning. The way Russell Wilson covers up for a terrible defense in Seattle. We're seeing that right now because they still have a chance, probably as

good a chance as anybody in the NFC. Um, the way breeze probably carried the saints for years when their defense was atrocious. Now he's not a great example, but let's be fair here. He was that guy for a while. I think Rogers is the same way in green Bay, but Brady may have been the epitome of that for new England for a lot of years. They're winning Super Bowls two years ago. Despite Belichick, if you were a GM with this run of bad draft picks over almost a decade, you'd be fired. Nobody else would keep their job. And I'll ask it one more time. How many other rosters, let's just make it simple, would you want instead of New England's roster right now? 20, 25? I'd rather have Alabama's skill position players than anyone on the Patriots. I mean, that's a no-brainer,

even with Waddell's injury, I'll take him. And when you look at this roster, the one thing I'd looked at, and this is giving Belichick too much credit, I started looking at cap space for next year because the cap right now is about 200 million in the NFL. It jumps up 10 million every single year. So let's say it's 210 in a normal year and teams projecting that out. That's how they're spending. But with a COVID cap for 2021, people saying it could be 175 million. The Colts, the Pats, the Jags, the Jets all have substantial cap space. New England's from like 65 to maybe 80 million in cap space. And I was thinking about these things. I'm like, is Bill whiffing on this year? And again, I never thought he was tanking.

He's not tanking. But is he looking at this year as I don't want to do a lot of things? Could he move some of these higher price guys? Could Cam Newton be on the move? Because there's going to come a point when New England's like, what's the point of going eight and eight? Let's see if you can go and grab one of these other quarterbacks. I don't think they're there yet.

They aren't, not with this division. But are they thinking all of these other teams are going to have to cut really good players because some of these teams are, their projected spending is so much that teams with cap space with a COVID cap are going to be picking up players that normally would never be there in free agency. I'm just going to project that it's going to go a lot longer than other people think. I'll not spend any money this year. We'll figure it out because I've always figured it out because he has always figured it out. And that's why it always feels silly criticizing Belichick this much because he always does seem to figure it out. But that's a bad football team right now. And Cam Newton is kind of regressing back to what we expect to see from Cam. This is really bad, but it's not all on Cam because Brady could bail Bill out with these roster decisions. Cam, like most other quarterbacks, could never. I just want to talk college football this week with Bruce Feldman from Fox Sports and The Athletic. So that's what we're going to do. We're running through it. It was great to have the Big Ten back. Just things are feeling normal and now we're pretty close to getting the Pac-12 as well. Let's start with Ohio State. They beat down in Nebraska. I think Fields, there's moments with him where you go, okay, this is why he is who he is. You had to see him again live,

at least for me. It's not like I didn't think he was good, but it was just a nice reminder. His release, his mechanics, his getting the ball out, that offense, everything they do. I don't know what the running attack is going to look like post-JK Dobbins because the numbers weren't great. But look, it was the first week, and they looked exactly like we'd expect them to and anybody voting them all the way at the top. I just don't have a problem with it because I think they're that special.

I'm with you. I think he is a legit threat to Trevor Lawrence as a Heisman candidate. I think he is a legit threat to Trevor Lawrence as a Heisman candidate. I think he is a special player. I think he is by far the most complete quarterback that Ohio State has had in a long, long time because he's accurate. The ball comes out of his hand really well. He's in the best shape of his life. He's lost 15 pounds, and he's dangerous at the run game.

He's probably their best weapon right now in the run game he's probably their best their best weapon right now in the run game which may not be a great thing because i don't think ryan day wants to run him that much certainly not like that was a big part of the broadcast by the way like clad had mentioned that where they were like hey how much you're gonna they were like no no we're not doing that so i think that's a really good point that you emphasize there yeah i mean it's a key thing because you know what is that vorp is a term, but I think the drop off between Justin Fields and the guy behind him is a significant one. And I think if you, you know, like you can say this certainly about Clemson too, and you can say it about a few schools, but when you have a special quarterback, I mean,

look at it. Like I think Ohio state has a really good offensive line. I think they have a bunch of really good receivers. Like they've recruited really well. I mean, they have a bunch of really good receivers. They've recruited really well. They have a deep group. The running back side, they're going to miss J.K. Dobbins. The guys they have, it's not like they wouldn't go to some other schools and be really good running backs, but I don't think they're what J.K. Dobbins was. The other thing that I want to see as the season goes on is this is the first time in a long time, and when I say long time, it's probably five, six years, but where Ohio State has not had a scare-the-crap-out-of-you defensive alignment that the opposing offensive coordinator has to worry about. Whether it was one of the BOSAs in that stretch for a while, or certainly last year,

Chase Young was even more of a weapon than those guys were. And now, I'm not saying they don't have good players up there because they have athletes and everything, but they don't have that guy right now. And they do have to replace, uh, you know, a bunch of really good players in the secondary and they're adjusting to a new scheme. So, um, you know, I still think they're clear head and shoulders above everybody else in the big 10, but they, you know, they, they're no lock lock like I think Clemson is to come marching through the ACC. I don't think it's that big of a gap between them and everybody else.

Let's stay in the Big Ten for a bunch of these because Michigan takes care of Minnesota. Joe Milton's a quarterback, and the Gattis hiring for the offense last year was when we thought it was supposed to look different. I don't know what all the different, you know, play percentages were, but it, it didn't look like this is, this looks like the first time, probably since Harbaugh has been there. It's like, wait, are they actually dynamic on offense? Can they do more things? And Milton isn't perfect, but it's the first week he's huge. He's got the arm. He can get out and run a little bit too,

which I think we saw more later on in that game. But Michigan offensively, at least for a week, looks like there's more to it than we've seen in a long time, or at least what we thought we were going to see last year with this new offense. Yeah, Joe Milton is hands down the most talented quarterback Jim Harbaugh has had at Michigan. It's not even close, right? I mean, all the things, I mean, he is huge. He's got a cannon for an arm. I know Gattis pretty well, and he has raved about him for a long time about his potential and even in this off season. And so when, when Dylan McCaffrey leaves, it wasn't close from what I understand in the competition. That's how much

better and how further along that Joe Milton has got. Now, run game-wise, I think they're pretty dangerous because they have a stable of running backs. Going in last year, there was a lot of uncertainty there. They had a lot of unproven guys. Now, what's going to be interesting is, I think Nico Collins, if they still had Nico Collins, he was their big play guy. He's a bigger physical receiver. I think they are a definite playoff contender, and I think they are a serious threat to Ohio State. They have a lot of speed guys they like. They're younger players. They're not as big as Nico Collins. I don't know if, at the

end of the day with, if they have enough firepower on offense to topple Ohio state, but you know what else they have? They got some real dudes on the defensive line. Now, Quiddy pay was my number one freaks guy in the entire country this year. And he was dominant against, uh,

against Minnesota this week. And Quiddy pay, by the way, is a guy from, as you'll love this, the football hotbed of Rhode Island. But he is a freak of all freaks now. And they got him, Hutchinson on the other side. They got a really deep group up front. I think they are better than Ohio State is on the D-line.

And even when they had Rashawn Gary, I don't think you could say that. I think you may be able to make that case now. We've got to see. It's only been one game. But they're really interesting because I think for some folks, and look, I work with a lot of people on the Big Ten side who are like, hey, Penn State's the second best team in the Big Ten. And after this weekend, and certainly Penn State lost Journey Brown, which was their best running back and probably the best running back in the conference. But I don't know how you don't look at Michigan. Again, it was only one game. Maybe I need to pump the brakes on it somewhat.

But they look like they have a lot of talent, and talent gives you a chance. like they have a lot of talent and talent gives you a chance. Yeah. You know, we don't know. I mean, Minnesota is always a little weird to try to figure out who, who they are. Um,

but you know, whatever, I'm just going to leave the Minnesota stuff alone after that. Cause let's go Penn state, Indiana. Tom Allen's done a really good job in Indiana and they, they look like there's just moments with them. And this has happened a little bit over the last couple of years.

They had eight wins last year where they beat Penn State. And look, Penn State was the better team throughout all of it. A bunch of mistakes, missed field goals, the touchdown they shouldn't have scored. And then Pennix Jr., the quarterback for Indiana, I think late in the game only had completed nine passes. So as Penn State looks like they're going to win it, you're going, all right, well, look, this was kind of a fun game,

but the right team won. And then you have this incredible play there so i'm wondering what you make of that game because it probably feels more like hey indiana's a tough out than we know about who penn state is because if there's one thing that's consistent in the odd times that we're all living in it feels like covid when a good team plays bad, that was COVID's fault, but it's never that COVID helped the bad team play well. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like anybody that has expectations when they don't play well, it's like, wow, you know, everything going on. They're like, okay, but what about the team that just beat you? Like they're going through the same stuff. Um, but yet, you

know, I'm not going to write Penn state off here because I actually think is I'm sure you'll agree that Indiana is a tougher out than maybe people outside the Big Ten understand. Absolutely. So I'm going to give you a little story. A couple of years ago, my TV crew, we had Indiana at Ohio State and it's at Ohio State. And so Friday afternoon for the team, for our coaches meeting and production, we go over to the team hotel and we get there and they're doing their walkthrough in the parking lot. And you're looking at them and you're like, man, they look like they don't have any offensive tackles, just a bunch of like offensive guard bodies, you know,

like kind of like no length and whatever. And I'm like, and Ohio state really aces the eyeball test and Indiana doesn't. Right. And, um, Indiana didn't look like they were the better team, but they gave Ohio state fits that day because they play so hard for Tom Allen. So here's Tom Allen. He's a former like high school wrestling champ. That guy, that kind of guy is always probably the last guy you want to deal with in any circumstance. And they, that team plays like it was coached by an old high school wrestling champ. Like they just play harder than everybody on the other sideline and they don't give up. And so now, and Pennix Jr. was a big recruit for them

and he was the backup at the time. And they were talking, even though Peyton Ramsey, who's now the quarterback at Northwestern, he's a good player. This kid's more talented. And you saw some make him, he makes plays. And that was a dimension. I don't know if they really had before. So they play hard enough and now they have a trigger man who makes the plays. And that was a dimension I don't know if they really had before. So they play hard enough, and now they have a trigger man who makes the plays. And again, I do think when you looked at

Penn State, they really have one established weapon, and that's the tight end Pat Friermuth. After that, the receivers didn't get much going. I know Jahan Dotson had one play on a coverage bus, but the run game was limited. And so I don't think the margin for error for Penn State particularly was great, but just credit to Indiana. I mean, I think we were so used to, for a long time, the established order of the top three in the Big Ten, top four in the Big Ten, even being Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Michigan State, some combination of that. And then there was like the dregs below that. You know, Indiana, to me, has definitely cracked that. Now, certainly Michigan State has issues, but,

you know, maybe Indiana is a top three team on that side. I mean, because they have a good quarterback and they play really hard and they, you know, their defense was impressive. So, you know, it was a fun game to watch. It was just a little bit, we'll see if it's fluky or not. I don't think it is. I think Indiana has a chance to be a top 25 team this year. Yeah, when you have Wisconsin on the other side and you go, okay, well, who are we really looking at here?

Wisconsin and their quarterback who tested positive for COVID. I don't have a ton on that right now, but this could be a reorganizing because Michigan State looks lost. But I'm not going to write Penn State off here. I'm just not going to do it. Especially, you know what's the thing that sucks nationally here?

Is Shaka Toney is the headline for this game if Penn State hangs on because he was single-handedly dismantling Indiana's offense there in the end. They couldn't do anything with him. He was so impressive, an edge guy, pass rusher that I know you know a lot about, but that would have been more of a household name on a Sunday or Monday. But instead, it's an incredible play by the quarterback for Indiana and a great win for the Hoosiers.

All right, I want to move on to the Big 12, because as it stands now, you have Oklahoma State with their win against Iowa State, and it's a defense. Are we actually looking at Oklahoma State as a team in the Big 12 where we go, they have a defense that other teams have to worry about as they come into the AP 6 now after a 4-0 start? Yeah, I think they're definitely solid on defense. Last year, at the end of the year, we did the Bedlam game and they were talking about like, we're going to be really good next year. Now it's relative because when was the last time you saw a lights out defense

in the big 12? Right. So I think they have a lot of guys who played a lot of football. They have a linebacker from Canada, a bond among Amiga, among Amiga, but that's from France and a right who, whoamiga, who goes sideline to sideline. Grady Williams' brother, Rodarius, is a very good player who's played a ton of football. I don't think he's

quite the player his brother was at LSU, but he's a good cornerback. And I think you have guys who spend a lot of time in the system. Now, ultimately, if they're going to be taken seriously as a real top 10 team, they need Spencer Sanders, their quarterback, who just got back. He started his first game since the ankle injury. And he had some moments because he gives them something in the run game in addition to the passing game.

Obviously, they have Chuba and Tylan Wallace, so they have firepower. I think I still have a hard time thinking that this team is going to run the table in the big 12 and, and get a spot to the playoff. I just, you know, they have to show a lot more right now because again,

the team they just beat was also a team that really got thumped at home by a Sunbelt school early in the year. So I don't know. I, I think Oklahoma state's good. I don't know if there are any more than I don't need. I'm not sure at this point if they're a real top 10 team either.

Notre Dame's fourth, technically part of the ACC, so ACC fans can be like, yes, we're deeper at the top now. And that Louisville game actually told me more about Louisville where I go, you know, they lost, but I actually think they've got this attitude about them. And there's some guys running around

that I actually like on this team, despite the fact that they're, what, one and four in the conference. But they beat a Florida State team that looked like they were going in the right direction, and they beat up on that. So I don't know. Maybe all these teams think. But there's just moments where I'll notice kind of an edge to a team where I felt like Florida State, with their game against Notre Dame,

I was like, wait, maybe they're not terrible. And they weren't, because they were really good against North Carolina you know, they get smashed. So it's all sort of cyclical with all these teams, but it leaves us back towards Notre Dame is definitely victim of the Ohio state theory. Ohio state gets trashed and back-to-back title games over 10 years ago. Everybody thinks Ohio state stinks when in fact, they're actually really good. Notre Dame gets extra criticism because it's Notre Dame. I've said this numerous times is the best amount of talent they've put in the NFL since Lou Holtz was there.

And maybe they're not one of the five best teams. Maybe they're not. I know no one will want them in the playoffs, even though no one seems to say that about Oklahoma when they get smashed in the playoff, as opposed to Notre Dame going through it. But are they in that tier one? Are they deserving of their ranking

when we start to look at the other big schools coming back? They almost have to be by default i mean because i don't know who you stick in there who at this point has shown you much right i mean i like right now it feels a little bit like oklahoma state not for the same reasons but i you know i think they're good and they're gonna beat you know i think they've won almost 30 games against unranked opponents now. So they don't make a lot of mistakes. Here's the issues that I still need to see from them if we're going to think, not just that they can challenge Clemson, but they're going to get Clemson in a couple of weeks at home. But is A, do they have enough firepower and offense to hit big plays? I mean, they didn't show – the Louisville game you said was a good example

where it's like – I know Louisville has speed, and I think they're really well coached. They're right now still kind of limited in the transition, but that was a tight game. So does – and Notre Dame did hit some bigger plays in the passing game against Pitt, but I still think we need to see, see more of that to feel like, okay, if you're going to not just get to a playoff, but you're going to do damage in it, you really have to be dangerous

on offense. I mean, if you're going to try to hang with Clemson and Alabama, I mean, LSU, LSU overtook them last year because they had a lethal offense. Now, they had players on both sides of the ball, but you get in a shootout, Joe Burrow is going to win that shootout every time. I don't know if anybody looks at Ian Book and this offense and go, yeah, they're going to put up 45 on Ohio State or Clemson. The other thing that I think we need to see is Notre Dame has pretty good speed on defense. We need to see that they have somebody who can scare the other team's quarterback

and get pressure. Right now, they don't seem to have that. They had that last year, especially with Julian Okwara. I don't know if they have that guy right now. And to me, that is an issue because if you don't have somebody who can force some mistakes for the other offense, that's not a great combination.

So to me, they're good. Are they very good? Nah, we'll find out. I just don't see them being a team right now from what we've seen from them that feels like they can win a playoff game. They may be able to get there, but I don't think they can win one. Yeah, that's probably the best way to put it, which isn't something you should have to apologize for. It's just nobody's going to want to see him in there.

But then when you start thinking who's behind him, if you want to put Georgia ahead of them because they lose a game in the second half at Bama, who may be the best team in the country, OK, because sometimes we do penalize teams too much for a loss that they were probably supposed to have. Cincinnati's actually been really good, but that still seems like a leap. Do you do it with A&M? Let me ask you a question on Cincinnati. It's a Midwest team, really good speed on defense.

If Cincinnati was in the Big Ten West, do you think they would win it? It's really funny you said that because that's where I'm going with this, because I watched the army game and then you look at what they did to an SMU offense. That's lighting everybody. And then they score 13 points against Cincinnati with this, this Luke fickle led team. I'd have to watch Wisconsin more. The reason I was even going to say this, and I'm not delaying an answer, but when I look at Wisconsin, they have one game, maybe, maybe one game because Michigan has tricked us before. They've got Nebraska, Wisconsin's got Illinois. They smashed them. Nebraska, Purdue, Michigan, Northwestern, Minnesota, Indiana is their second toughest game

at Iowa at the end of the year. And if Mertz comes back, again, the quarterback you were talking about, like Wisconsin seems like a safe bet to throw in here because of the side that they're on. So it really comes down to who do you like better, Cincinnati or Wisconsin? I just don't know enough about Wisconsin yet, but Cincinnati, when you watch them, you're like, this team is good. And it's a perfect example, you're right, of like conference labeling, because if they weren't a big boy conference, we'd be talking about them entirely different. And I'm telling you, if you watch Cincinnati play for a game, not you, but those listening right now, there him entirely different and i'm telling you if you watch cincinnati play for a game not you but those listening right now there's been and i'm usually dismissive of the non-power fives all the time for good reason and the times i've watched them

i'm like this team is really good yeah they have a lot of speed on defense they are well coached i mean luke fickle brought a lot of guys who really are like-minded marcus freeman a defense coordinator there was a former really good linebacker for the Buckeyes. He's a guy who I think basically can almost name his offer. He's that rising star coordinator now. The thing that just, and we'll see how this develops, but if Graham Mertz gets the confirmatory PCR test, meaning he would have to sit out 21 days, remember Graham Mertz was the number two quarterback while Jack Cohen is recovering from a foot injury. So now all of a sudden you're talking about Wisconsin

may need to be down to Chase Wolfe, who's their number three quarterback. And it's not like Jonathan Taylor's still there, right? Now, so that was the one thing I watched the other night. And remember, Louisville was down, I think their two best linebackers by halftime. So, sorry, Illinois was down, their two best linebackers by halftime so sorry Illinois was down their two best linebackers by halftime uh so you're looking at them going that

wasn't the same run game that we've seen if it's if it's Wisconsin playing their third string quarterback or having to play their third string quarterback and they don't have the same kind of run game I don't know I mean I I still think they're good, but we got to see, you know, like that's going to change a lot of expectations there, I think. Yeah, I think it's a great point. And when you look at what Cincinnati did at SMU, you know, who has Bichelle, who was with Texas before, and he's been putting up big numbers.

But Desmond, the quarterback for Cincinnati, I mean, he ran it for what? 180 yards. Yeah. Desmond Ritter is a really good dual threat quarterback. I mean, he's, he's a strong kid. He has speed and they have, again, there's a little bit of feels like Louisville, you know, kind of, and I remember, you know, it wasn't that long ago, Louisville wasn't at the big table, you know, conference wise, but where you have a lot of athletes that maybe were a little underrated in the recruiting process. And I feel like they've done the development piece. And that's how, again, I'm not saying Cincinnati is better than Notre Dame. I'm not saying Cincinnati is better than, you know, whatever, but I think they are very, very good. There's nothing fluky about them.

Yeah, that's fair. All right. So Waddle goes down, Jalen Waddle for Bama. And at first you're like, okay, is he, is he just upset? And first you're like okay is he is he just upset and then you're like ah man he's out for the year um i don't know if i'd put him in the peter warwick category but i'd say in the last few years he is up there with just just every time he has the ball in his hands you're like man all right you know stop what you're doing jaylen wallace got the ball but davante smith who is like criminally overlooked outside of the SEC because Judy was there Ruggs was there Wada was flash here Devontae Smith is one of the steadiest dudes I've ever seen in college like he is that good he's just not as flashy as the other guys and Mechie's really good

too who's had some huge plays and Mac Jones is gone from oh hey you know what they still scored some points after Tua went down to putting up crazy numbers and is, I think, a real prospect now. So I think the weird thing is, as you come to the conclusion, as much as we love Waddle, is that I have a hard time believing Bam is going to stop scoring points, especially when you look at the running backs and the offensive line. Yeah, and I think you hit on a really underrated aspect of this. This offensive line is better than it was maybe in the last two years, and that helps.

Mac Jones is very accurate. And, you know, Mechie has come on. I mean, he was a kid from Canada who flashed a little bit last year but really, really has broken out this year. Now he's got to be the number two threat because, as you said, Smith, he was so overshadowed by those guys because he wasn't as fast as them he he seems to play bigger than he is because he's not very big no he doesn't look big he almost looks like you know he reminds me of his duvernay at texas

a little bit but duvernay was strong like this guy i don't think is physically like duvernay bench press is like 450 or something crazy, and he also runs a crazy number. Yeah. He's legit track fast. Right. It was weird. Cause I, you know, I don't know if Texas fans will agree or disagree. Maybe you'll disagree.

But when I watched him at Texas, like I just loved him. Cause I'm like up third down, you can go to Duvernay. Like he's going to, you can trust him, but I didn't know. I don't feel like I knew his track speed showed up as well in the football field. And then I've seen a couple of places in the NFL. I'm like, wait a minute, he looks faster now. But Devante, you're right. It's not size.

It's not the speed. But you know, like if it's 50, there's no 50-50 with him. Like it's his ball. There's a little bit, again, I don't, this is an unfair comparison because I don't think he's this guy because DeAndre Hopkins is bigger. But like, I remember there was a line I once heard from, from, uh, Cam Cameron, the old, uh, LSU offensive coordinator. And this is like, I was down in San Diego and he spent a day just helping Johnny Manziel and Mike Evans in the draft process.

And he said, he goes, let me show you something. He had me come over. He was like, this is NFL open. And basically it was like, he was standing on me and I could smell his toothpaste. You know, it was like, and most college receivers and most college quarterbacks are not comfortable in that situation. Whereas Devante Smith, every time there's somebody draped on him, he's getting the ball. And he doesn't, like I said, he does not look like Mike Evans. He's just, he plays so much bigger and I think he is a real security blanket for them. So look, we'll see. Is Slade Bolden going to be the number three guy? I know he's a different kind of receiver. He's not as dynamic as Waddle. But look, those guys are at Alabama for a reason. It's not like, you know, it's, um, it, they have, they have guys upon guys. So as you

said, Najee Harris, the running game is good. The only thing with them is the, the defense is still a big work in progress. So is Georgia the only team that could take, could take advantage of them being not quite as explosive as they were going into this weekend. We'll see. I mean, I don't think they've obviously already, you know, crushed A&M. LSU is a long way away from being able to keep up at that point, I think. And then I just don't know, you know, who knows what you get from Auburn. They're like wildly unpredictable. So I just, I guess I'm with you with this.

I just think Alabama's gap between them and everybody else is still so much bigger in the SEC right this year at least. Yeah, maybe it comes down to it shows up in a Georgia rematch or something like that happens. But I do want to touch on LSU quickly because Coach O already said that T.J. Finley, who stepped in for hurt Miles Brennan, that it's still Brennan's team. And Brennan at this point, look,

it's not, I'm not telling you Brennan's awesome, but it's not his fault. I mean, we all know how bad that defense is. And there's still some weird defensive numbers in the route of South Carolina that didn't look pretty, uh,

all that good. But what do you think of, of, Oh, saying that about Finley this soon? Is he just, is he just saying it to try to put it to bed or is that what he absolutely believes?

No, I think people go ahead. I think he believes it because it's one game, and it was South Carolina. Now, let's say if Miles Brennan with this abdominal injury is not able to go basically the next two games, which is Auburn, then they have a bye week, and then they have Alabama at home.

If it came to that, and TJ Finley won those two games, or certainly wins. I mean, Auburn's not a great team right now. But if he went into Auburn and beat them, and then even if they don't beat Alabama but they're competitive, then it's a different situation. But right now it's like, yeah, they lit up South Carolina with a little bit of a scaled-back offense approach.

But I think the things that jumped out at me was, you know, first of all, he's a huge dude with a big arm. He moves pretty well, but everything I've heard from the guys on the staff is just like, nothing really seems to rattle him. He's very poised and the players feel off, feed off that. And I do think they needed some kind of change a little bit, because if you look at that game, the three, the three most impactful players LSU had were Finley playing in his first game, true freshman, BJ Ogillary, who had three sacks, true freshman, and Elias Ricks, who was the top quarterback recruit in the country last year, had a pick six, didn't give up a pass play. So I think they need something because they're in a little bit of a rebuild mode with everybody else except for Terrace Marshall seemingly going on to the NFL.

So I think this is like, okay, we needed something good to happen. But ultimately, I think they know Miles Brennan's presence around the team. I just don't think they want to flip the page on that. By the way, and if you do say, let's say hypothetically, they beat Auburn this week and he's one of the big reasons why. Then all of a sudden, if people feel like TJ Finley is the future of the program and the present, then you probably lose Max Johnson, who's another freshman quarterback, who's Brad Johnson's son, who they like a lot and think he's a really good player. And then you may even lose Miles Brennan. So you could potentially be down to like one scholarship quarterback

if you anoint T.J. Finley too soon, especially if, you know, again, it's South Carolina, it's Auburn. It's not like it's two games in a, you know, at a very fluky time. So I don't, I think it's probably wise to just say, hey, we're going to ride, ride this out and see. And when miles gets back, you know, who knows? I don't think you play both, but I mean, all bets are off at this point, I think. Yeah. LSU. And they brought it up during the broadcast where, um, it was basically like, well, Hey, could they get back into this thing? And it was like,

what if they run the table? And you're like, well, of course, if they run the table and win the SEC title with two losses, that team's going to be in the playoff, especially this year, I would think. That defense, Ryan, and you alluded to this. It's so bad, right? Yeah, I mean, they were... It's still so bad that it's stupid to even say it,

but I'm just saying, go ahead. They're giving up big plays. Even that game felt, at least until the third quarter, felt a lot like their Ole Miss game last year where John Rice Plumlee was gashing them and it was like track meet. It was like, okay, LSU has a three-touchdown head start, but all of a sudden here comes Ole Miss hitting Rich Rod's offense hitting big plays. And South Carolina was hitting like the tight end was getting 40-yard pass plays and

they have a running back who's a big running back, but he's getting downfield. It's just like, it's not like South Carolina has a very good offense. They were giving up some big plays there. Now, they definitely were better than they were the first three games, but that's nuts. Well, I shouldn't say. Vandy, they were fine.

But the games they lost, Mississippi State and certainly Missouri, who are not very good teams either, those were the defense got exploited and just had bad communication and busts. And they still look like they had some busts. So who knows? They're better, but they got to get way better if they're going to think of even think of running the table or running even near the table, meaning maybe they only lose one of those games. I like that there was brought up in the broadcast, but I want to make it clear to anyone listening. I'm not going, hey, they got this thing figured out.

Honestly, the Missouri loss is way worse than the Mississippi State one because the Missouri one is like, are you guys seriously just going to get gashed by Missouri? And it was like, I'm always, whenever I watch football or I'll talk to somebody that played it, I go, I'm actually surprised over the course of 80 plays, there aren't more busted, just wide open guys because of the lack of communication. And then you're like, oh, and that's what I thought.

Like, that's what the Missouri game was. It's the game that I go, oh yeah, this is when it happens all the time. And I know how talented they are. Like they probably still have six or seven guys are going to play in the NFL and that defense right now. But to start penciling in wins against any of these ranked SEC teams. Ryan, not only guys who will play in the NFL. I mean, and again, some of these guys are freshmen,

but Derrick Singley Jr. is going to probably be a top five overall pick at one of the cornerbacks. Elias Ricks, I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up leaving at LSU three years from now as a first-round pick. Jabril Cox, a linebacker who transferred from North Dakota State, he might be a first round pick. And then who knows, like BJ O'Jallary, who leads the SEC in sacks, he's a true freshman. I wouldn't be surprised if three years from now, he's a first round pick. So it's not like they don't have players. It's just almost all of them are young or inexperienced to the system,

and it's a new system. I don't want to spend more time on it because I've already given LSU too much time here. We all know that I can be accused of very nasty things from other fan bases. So that'll do it. And speaking of LSU, though, Bruce Feldman, check out his book, Flip the Script, Lessons Learned on a Road to the Championship on that LSU team from last year. And if you want to follow him about all the other stuff

that's far more important right now, that's at BruceFeldmanB from the athletic and Fox sports. Thanks, man. Thanks, Brian. Always a pleasure. Jeff Darlington from ESPN does a great job covering the NFL.

They're doing it a long time. He was out in Vegas for a very different Vegas trip. And that was with Tampa in town and Brady puts it on him again. And this is not a bad Raiders team by any stretch. Anybody who's watching this year, I think depending on the week, they can hang with a lot of good teams. But Brady is starting to hit this stride now where it looks different. So let's start with the biggest thing that you take away covering this game,

leading up to it, and then leaving with another really impressive performance from a guy who's 43. Right. I mean, Ryan, like, after the Packers game, it felt like they had turned this corner because they were like, they led the league in penalties going into the Packers game and then didn't have a single penalty in that game. And going into it, I was thinking, man, if this keeps up,

this is going to be the thing that pisses Tom off the most. It's like, you probably took it for granted in New England that Belichick sort of handled that stuff, like the penalties and all that stuff. Like, he kept his guys in line, and Tom could just do his job. So if that continued, I saw that as a real source of contention. Then they go into the Packers game and don't have a single penalty and just ball out.

And then they continued it against the Raiders, honestly. I just think that he's clicking. He used nine different receivers in the game against the Raiders and really only targeted Mike Evans twice. So he's finding his groove, and so is this Bucs team, which it felt a little disjointed at the beginning, but it didn't take him that long. Yeah, I still can't believe,

because it reminds me of the Manning thing when he went to Denver where Elway was like, whatever you want to run. And I was surprised that anybody with Bruce's attacking style would say to Tom, hey, you're going to have to run some of our stuff. And we were worried about how he'd be protected. I mean, has much changed, though? I mean, this is really like another level of understanding with the running and offense,

which I think is always a little tough for us. But has much changed where he's incorporating more of his stuff? Or is he just that much? Because he's such a prep guy. I can't imagine how annoyed he was about the lead up to everything the first couple of weeks. Right. And I think that his relationship with Bruce has been interesting, too,

because I personally expected it to be much more like hands on and just Bruce and Tom joined at the hip. And that hasn't been the case. It's been a lot of Tom and Byron Leftwich, the offensive coordinator, who have really kind of been partnering up. And then Bruce has taken much more of a macro role where he's and and that's probably, by the way, it's probably the way it should be. You know, if you bring in Tom Brady, you probably should be able to just say, we checked that quarterback box. We don't have to worry about that. We can go worry about the rest of the team. To me, it's a little bit surprising but probably also smart. That being said, the last two weeks, and it's going to be a good cause of

defense for Tom, it has looked very New England-centric. Short passes, ball distribution, no penalties, you know, let the defense do their job and put up points when you need to. And that's exactly what they've done and done it to a masterful way. And to your point about Peyton, remember the first few weeks of him in Denver, they tried to do it the other way. And to your point about Peyton, remember the first few weeks of him in Denver, they tried to do it the other way. And then all of a sudden they're like, you know what, screw it,

get in the pistol and let's run it that way. And that to a little bit of a different degree feels like what's happening in Tampa where it's like, you know what, Tom, just go do your thing, do the short passes,

occasionally throw a deep one and we'll probably win some games. It just, I don't know, man. Sometimes this stuff shouldn't be that hard i just i can't fathom going no no we want to make you do stuff you haven't done and you're not right with totally but i mean honestly that that was probably happening more in new england which is the weirdest part like i think they were getting a little bit tired of not seeing him take some risks downfield like and he's looking at like who am i going to throw it to but there was a little bit tired of not seeing him take some risks downfield. Like, and he's looking at like, who am I going to throw it to? But there was a little bit,

that was a little bit of a source of contention, not nothing crazy, but like there was, well, it was contentious. It was, I mean, apparently bill wanted to move on after 17 and the garage for sure.

But I'm talking about actual style of play, what was happening on the field. And that too was actually something that was turning into a frustration, though. Okay, so now I don't believe Arians at all when he says Tom has not... Like, give me the timeline of events here. And I'm okay with Arians lying about interest in Antonio Brown. That's their job.

They don't have to tell us the truth, as I said earlier in the podcast. But give me the timeline of no way he's on this team to, okay, he's on the team, which is fine, to Tom had nothing's on the team, which is fine, to Tom had nothing to do with this, which is insane. I don't know why he added that. Why did he do that?

That's weird to me. And it was unsolicited, too. During the press conference yesterday after the game, he was asked about it, and he said what you need to say, which is what I had heard going into it. That, look, our three main wide receivers, they don't have a ton of depth of wide receiver. They're stacked in that first three,

but then they don't have much after that. And those three guys have been banged up every single week. You know, like even Mike Evans, they're all, I think Peter King in his column today, talking to Arians, he asked all three guys what their percentage of health was. And like, it was like 80%, 85%, 80%.

Like I get the idea of adding players, even though it's incredible what Tom Brady is doing with guys at 80%. It's just, I don't know why he added the thing about Tom. It's almost feels like Bruce doesn't want people to think that Tom has any say in personnel, which like in this case and in the case of Gronk, like, yeah, he did.

And that's just the reality. Well, it would make sense. Like, why would you say to Tom, hey, like, imagine if Tom had some weird falling out with Antonio Brown. Apparently he didn't. I mean, it was always weird, too, back before New England when it's like, hey, he's going to live with me. It was like a weird stepbrothers thing they were doing on social media.

And then what if Tom were like, oh, actually, I hate that guy and I don't want him here. Well, sorry, sorry. Like they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't do that. Now, that's not the case because Tom cares about one thing.

He cares about winning. And that's it. And he doesn't care about the rest of the stuff in Antonio Brown. Like he's a lot like Belichick that way. And you could tell last year

with Belichick, like he didn't want to get rid of Brown. And that's why he was mad at Dana Jacobson when she was interviewing him. He wasn't mad at get rid of Brown. So true. And that's why he was mad at Dana Jacobson when she was interviewing him. He wasn't mad at her personally, but he had a little extra with it.

That's Bill letting you know that he's upset because Kraft made a decision. And so, I don't know. I don't know what's going to work out. What's their expectation for this? Or if you have something else to add, go with that person.

No, no, no. Well, two things. I do find it fascinating because you're exactly right. People kind of look at this like, the aesthetics of this aren't great why add a guy why throw a guy into the mix when you don't have to to your point when is tom really ever cared we expect tom brady because he's so polished in so many ways to have like this sort of pr sense when it comes to things like this he doesn't care when it comes to football like this. He doesn't care when it comes to football. He just wants to win.

And like, you can argue either way. Yeah, it makes him great or it's kind of annoying, but it's just reality and he doesn't care. But to your point, how's this going to work? From a football standpoint, it is really fascinating because Mike Evans is getting double teamed every single play. And Scotty Miller said after the game yesterday, like, yeah, that's the reason I'm getting open is because Mike Evans is getting all this coverage. So what happens? Teams aren't

respecting Scotty Miller. They're not respecting Chris Godwin. They're saying we're going to take Mike Evans out of it. You have to respect Antonio Brown. I don't care how you feel about him off the field. He's going to come in and be really effective out of the gates, guarantee it. And if that happens, all of a sudden now you have who I consider to be a top five receiver regardless of statistical production not getting double teamed. That's crazy.

Yeah, because the one great thing about getting to watch Brady like I did over the years in New England is that again, this is 20 years of watching him. Once he didn't trust a guy, he would either not throw it to him. It had to be Chad Ochocinco. He didn't trust him, didn't think he ran the routes.

He was like, all right, I'm done with you. Ben Watson was somebody he used to actually throw it lower to on end zone throws because he thought maybe if he threw it up high, he would tip and it would be a pick. So he would throw low to Watson. There were other guys he trusted were throws where they were completely covered up, like that route that Gronk would run where it was a

linebacker trailing it, and he actually got picked off. It happened in the Baltimore game that was crazy when they were down 14-0 in 28-14, and then he got picked on this throw a few times where if it's a linebacker with his head turned, the quarterback thinks, oh, the linebacker will never make this play, but the linebacker read Gronk and then picked it off twice, but that's the kind of

throw where Brady would go back to it. Cause he just trusted Gronk in that spot. And like, I joke now that the greatest thing that happened to kill Harry is Brady moving on because Harry would never get another throw. And cam has to kind of keep him in the offense a little bit, but Nikhil is the kind of guy that Brady would say, Nope,

that's it. I don't trust you. You're never getting a ball again. Right. Um, with Brown and you're, you're so right about the PR part of it. Brady is ruthless. I don't trust you. You're never getting a ball again. Right. With Brown. And you're so right about the PR part of it. Brady is ruthless.

He doesn't care. Like, he's so different than the polished hug everybody. Like, he doesn't care about any of this stuff. Like, let's go win more games. Because Brown, at his worst, is like the best number two. Yeah, he's not. And he's not like the thing to me was kind of like, wow, this won't go over great locally because, you know,

Tampa's not going to be able to wrap their arms around the seam. And I'm thinking to myself, like, that's not what Brady's there for. He's not there to like create another community for himself. He's there to win another Super Bowl and prove that he can change a culture.

That's it. And we both know how it works too. The first touchdown Brown catches, every fan goes, hey, cool. Because that's the way it works. the first touchdown brown catches every fan goes hey cool because that's that's that's the way inanimate objects it's not real it's hey my team is better now so ryan check this stat out that that um paul hembo he's a producer on get up he's like yeah yeah he's my guy i love him yeah you know him okay uh he's great um he sends this to me this morning tom brady targeting wide receivers i'm not like a big stat guy or anything, but this is wild.

In 2007, so at 30 years old and obviously what we would consider to be Brady's peak probably, 70% completion percentage, 9.1 yards per attempt, and 122.6 pass rating. 2020, this year, 43 years old, 72%, 2% higher completion percentage, 9.5, 9.4 yards per attempt, 0.3 higher and 123 pass rating, almost identical, but all incrementally higher. That is insane. 13 years later that Tom Brady with a new team is doing that and is then going to add Antonio Brown into that group. That is twisted. Yeah, the craziest thing about it too is if you really look at the beginning of Brady's career, didn't throw a good long deep ball. They didn't trust him too.

They didn't want him to. Everything was underneath. It was very limited. That first Super Bowl run, I bring it up all the time. I think it's three passing touchdowns throughout that entire playoff game log. And to think then he could be 20 years older and you go he's way better at all this stuff i mean he was he was he was a game manager of epic proportions i mean it just

ryan we were just talking about before we started how i can't handle a red eye anymore i'm 38 years old like i mean not not to like lament on the tom brady h thing but it really like when you do digest it from like a human standpoint like my i got this shit in here that's bothering me i got this bothering me i don't do anything i don't do anything and this guy's out there at 43 years old doing that like when you put yourself in that situation it makes it even crazier yeah the pliability man i'm starting to really wonder if he's going to figure it out with that, but drinking some water, maybe mix in a, mix in a gulp of water. Yeah, no, a little water break for you, but he definitely did an incredible job over the years of never taking that nasty hit. I'm not saying he hasn't got cleaned up a few times.

Cause I mean, you just are, but he, very, very early on, decided, okay, I'm going to protect myself. So when I have no hope, I will just go down. That's the way the best guys last, right? Like, think about Russell. Like, it's a totally different kind of quarterback. But Russell, he's the best. Like, he took a hit last night a little bit,

but he's still the best at, like, avoiding that stuff and sliding. And you feel like because of that these guys do last longer yeah like i worry about kyler murray because he's small but he's actually a little thicker he's got that baseball thickness to him yeah and he has it's kind of my d'anthony thomas in college thing when he played at oregon i never saw him at oregon ever get hit like he i'm sure he did you know i'm being a little dramatic about it but there was never a clean angle that he didn't at the last minute make you not believe. As opposed to RG3. RG3, who just dived headfirst into concrete.

It was like, dude, learn how to slide. Get a baseball coach to teach you how to do this. He couldn't. Remember when he got hit on that out-of-bounds play against the Eagles and put him out? All he had to do was step to the right, and he decided to stay in. So when I look at kyler he is really good at that last second thing where you're just not going to get a clean

shot of it and it's completely different than brady but brady would do it in the pocket um right i want to ask about what's going on in your backyard there in miami are you down in miami still right yes yeah okay so the two a decision, the biggest lie in sports is the high draft pick quarterback is going to get time to learn the system and all that stuff. It's the single biggest lie in sports. And Fitzpatrick, I know everybody loves him, but we know that he's kind of this weird thing where the longer this goes, the more it's almost like a pitcher the third time through at the start.

Exactly. And I think it's cool like a pitcher the third time through the start. Exactly. And I think it's cool that everybody kind of rallies to him emotionally that he was upset. But what went into this? Because Miami's not bad. The offense,

there was one number I was looking at the other day where the start to this season is one of the best offenses they've had in over a decade. So it tells me either they see things with fits that are beyond the numbers

or they're seeing things with Tua getting reps where they go, okay, this is why this guy was going to be probably the number one pick if he doesn't have his hip broken. I think it's both from the standpoint that, number one, we haven't seen Tua practice at all. Like nobody has, right? Because of COVID. Nobody's even seen him play in the preseason. We don't know. So in that sense, like who can you trust other than the coach who's making the decision? The second part is it's such like a dolphin's mentality. I say this because I feel

like I can, I feel like I know this fan base well enough to be like, we won two games and you're going to take the quarterback out. It's like, shut up. Like you've been losing for like two decades and now you win two games and you're all of a sudden settled on the QB. Like it's not about that. You just put it, well, they're not bad, right? They're not bad, but that's not what they're trying to be. And there is a feeling, a sense that the culture is changing. You kind of do know what's the best case scenario with Fitz at quarterback. And by the way, it's like considered blasphemy to say anything that's considered negative toward Fitz. I love the guy. But best case scenario, you maybe squeak into the playoffs potentially as a wild card behind

the bills. And then you probably get, you know, even if you sneak in a wild card, you probably get bounced into divisional round. Like, what are we really talking about here? From Flores' perspective, what I respect about this guy is when he all along was like, when people were asking about Joe Burrow and Herbert and they're playing well, he didn't give a damn. Flores doesn't care.

He's like, I'm going to put him in when I think he's ready to go in. And I think that that also extends to the other side of it. Just because they're winning two games, he's going to put them in when he thinks Tua is ready to go in. And clearly there's something there that makes him think this is the time. I never understand this idea that you're going to be better at the position never playing in that first year. And it doesn't happen at all. And people keep bringing it up as if it's like a real thing.

And then they'll point like, if somebody does another Aaron Rodgers thing, you're like, yeah, yeah, no, that was perfect. They just sit around for four years. Mahomes, you get one every every several years mahomes would have balled out if he got put in at week eight of his rookie year it wasn't because he got to practice under alex smith that he became the mvp yeah i'm sure there's some positives from it too but there's no when you see a guy who potentially could be the greatest to ever play it there's a chance i completely agree that he was going to be pretty good as soon as he started

playing right and with two the other thing that happens too this is kind of funny like we forget the sport and it happened when alex smith came back in for washington where he gets hit and everybody's like freaking out and you go okay look what he went through was awful everybody loves this story i mean it's so scary what he went through but he's cleared and he wants to play. He's making the decision to go out there. So guess what's going to happen? He's going to get hit really hard at some point, and everybody needs to chill out.

And with Tua, these guys are playing football, and they're going to get smashed sometimes. And it's just weird how we get almost not – it's just irrational in the way we talk about guys that have had bad injuries, as if we just think, well, this is the guy who wants to go out there and play football again, so why are you worried about it on his behalf? We're going to exactly write about Tua. We're going to go through the same exercise next year with Dak. It's like it was a compound fracture, not a torn tendon, and we're still going to be freaked out every time he takes a hit.

And it's like these guys move on. Their bodies heal. They're not like us. They're young. If he can come back you know what i mean like dac's gonna come back and guess what dac's gonna do he's gonna get paid he's gonna put up a ton of yards exactly yeah but to your point about tua tua has been cleared medically the one thing i was talking to some dolphins people like they were telling me when we were talking about the decision and one of the guys like just just you know though this wasn't like he's finally healthy enough he's been healthy he is fine we've been completely comfortable with the idea of putting him in a game for months now it's more

about just is he ready to play has he digested enough that he can go out there and not just fall on his face and and they feel like it sounds like to me like this is the time give me one last thing here give me your impression of flora's now with him for two well not even two full seasons but two years on the job um something that the rest of us need to understand because so far i think it's like a a seems tough when you look at the record but considering what he was handed and what people were saying about this team early on, this is really impressive. It is. And it's funny because what I heard when he got hired is that he is not Belichick. Like he's a different kind of breed. He's, he's not the Belichickian family tree, but honestly, like the more he's at it, the more I think he's like Belichick, like

he's just, he doesn't care. He's pretty disciplined about like his levels and keeping it kind of straight, creating culture and that fine balance between being a disciplinarian and a player's coach where you get the respect of the players, but not by just kissing their ass all the time. And I think that that's gonna go a long way down here. And it's funny because it wasn't a flashy hire at all.

But when they hired him, it was not that they wanted like an offensive guru or defensive guru. They wanted a leader. They wanted someone to oversee their organization. And honestly, I think that eventually we're going to see that become a trend in the NFL as opposed to just going and getting,

you know, the next Sean McVay. He is at Jeff Darlington covering the NFL for ESPN. Thanks as always, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate it. Not that long ago, going out with friends could get a little too complicated. You used to worry about where you'd go, what you'd look like, and who you'd invite. I didn't worry about that all that much.

These days, it actually feels more like it should. You can just be yourself with your friends. Maybe that's the way it always should be. And as the original light beer, Miller Lite has always believed in this. That's what Miller Time is all about. Just yesterday, my friend came by to watch a little football, and he got a text from his wife. And she said, is it Miller Time over there? And he said, it is. And he texted after that. Oops. So, you know, maybe that's something

you want to talk about with a significant other, but, uh, that's my friends seem to have a really good time. Whether it's Miller Lite, whether you're toasting in person or you're cheersing from afar, Miller Lite has always been about bringing you and your friends together for Miller time. Although, you know, it's recommended that you keep your social circle small. Having a Miller Lite, it just feels like fall. It feels like football. It even feels like baseball a little bit. I don't know what it is about the can.

I don't know what it is about the social circles. You know what? That's good right now because you don't have to share your Miller Lights with other people. You keep those social circles small and you're good to go. So there you go. You take a sip and it's like, hey, this feels like Indiana early kickoff. Although Indiana was a little later because prime time right there. So there you go.

Shout out Hoosiers. Miller Light, great taste with only 96 calories, 3.2 carbs. However, you and your friends are enjoying Miller time. You can have the original Lite beer delivered by going to MillerLite.com. So you realize that. You can have it delivered. Go to MillerLite.com. If you're going to order some beer, do it this way, forward slash RR.

So again, MillerLite.com, forward slash RR. Find the delivery options near you. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. 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. If you want to hit up Life Advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail. All right, Ryan and Kyle,

hope you guys are doing well. Here we go. Let me start with the basics. Name's Eric. He said, you can use my name because there's nothing in that that people who know me don't already know. in that the people who know me don't already know. He says I'm 36, wife, young son, nice house, fulfilling job. I consider myself, my family of three to be upper middle class. He works out of Oregon. He's part of the COVID contact tracing program. Okay. So he says he's knee deep in stress, five years in the army and deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. So you can say I already had a fair bit of experience with stress. In fact, I was shot through the leg on Easter Sunday in 2011. Whoa, this is intense. So hey, man, shout out to you for all that stuff. So stress is maybe an accelerator, but not the main problem. The problem is my weight. I'm 6'4 and weigh about

350. I've not always been heavy. In fact, growing up, I was very skinny. As a freshman in college, riding the bench on a D3 soccer team, I weighed about 180 pounds. During my 20s in the Army, my fighting weight was anywhere from 230 to 250, depending on how much PT I was doing and how much boozing. I was doing a lot of boozing and continued to do so after I was medically retired from the Army, enough where my wife gave me an ultimatum about two and a half years ago. I've been sober ever since. That's awesome. I assume that not ingesting that many empty calories naturally slimmed me down, but I continued adding weight. I got really motivated in the beginning of 2019 and lost about 40 pounds, bought them out at 302. I worked with a personal trainer, was doing

intermittent fasting, but fell out of my routine about a year ago. Obviously due to the pandemic, I haven't gone to the gym or played in my normal Sunday morning basketball game since March of last year. I've lost, okay, since last year, excuse me, stop, since March, stop. Since last year, I've lost all my progress and added even additional weight. For months now, my motivation has been in the tank, but I can feel it rising again. Obviously, going to the gym is out. However, because of my socioeconomic status, I have some money in the budget to buy some home gym equipment and I'm not going to lift to improve the stats in the back of my baseball card, but rather to lose weight and tone up. I've had my eyes on ellipticals. That's one of my go-to cardio exercises due to the

low impact it has on my leg. But I could use some advice on the other pieces to prioritize. Obviously a bench and plates come first to mind, but I'd rather get some stuff that is versatile and will allow me to get the most bang for my buck. Also, I'd appreciate any tips on keeping motivation up because I don't want to keep starting and stopping. And I am tired of being the fat guy when I spent much of my life being fit or skinny guy. Thank you in advance. Thanks for the podcast. All right, man. Look, that's some really heavy, deep stuff. And you went through a couple of things there, obviously being shot in Afghanistan and then having your wife being like, look, enough of the drinking. So let's, I see a lot of positives in here. I

really do. And I'm not saying that because I want you to feel better about yourself because obviously writing the email and being like, Hey, I'm three 50 plus this sucks. I don't want to do this anymore. Um, the fact that you even said that is, is really like to go, Hey, this sucks. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not, you know, the people that are doing like, Oh, okay. First step is admitting or whatever, all that stuff. Okay, fine.

But who cares? You wrote an email, you're upset about how you feel and you don't want to feel that any way anymore. So that means you're going to change because it's already proven twice. You can do it. You've already dropped 40 pounds, so you can do it again and you can drop even more. I have no question about that. And the fact that your wife, you know, some people will send in some of the stuff that I just don't feel qualified to like, Hey, we got one from a guy saying like, my girlfriend drinks too much. What should I do? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know that I should answer this. Um, because I'm just a dude with a podcast, but since you decided the habit part of this is really where you're going to want to start

is if you do anything over the course of a month, at least my experience, then it starts to become your habit. So on a much lesser important thing, when I wanted to write, I was like, look, I got to give myself a month where if I sit down and I'm not saying I'm writing 30 days in a row, but if I start from day one and over the course of the next 30 days, write every other day or look at a script or look at something that I'm working on 20 out of those 30 days, when I don't do it after those 30 days are up, then it feels like something's missing. And it's the exact same thing with working out. So you have to decide a start date and promise yourself, which I actually believe that you're going to be able to do because of the military background. And because of the big things that you've been able to do in the past that you're just going to have to say to yourself,

like, okay, November 1st or whatever your start date is, I am going to, over the course of the next 30 days, work out 15 times. Okay. 15 times out of the next 30, I'm going to sweat. And it doesn't matter what it is like people that want to give, like when I was younger and there was somebody super heavy at the gym and maybe doing it wrong, you know, cause I'm younger and I'm a prick. I could be like, Oh, look at this guy. You know, you get older and you're like, look at that guy. Like he's in here trying like that guy's, that guy's decided to make a decision. You know, obviously I'm being redundant there, but this person has made a decision that enough is enough. And it sounds like you're right on the cusp of that. So this is awesome. Um, this is awesome that you're going,

all right, I want to do this anymore. So with the leg thing, the elliptical is a big deal. Uh, my leg injury was far less serious when I had a crack in it. Uh, so I did the elliptical too. I was not shot in Afghanistan, obviously, or I would have told that story already. So that is going to be part of it. Cause when you're this big getting a sweat, like it's going to suck. It's going to suck in the beginning, but you have to tell yourself at the end of 30 days, you've gotten a sweat like 15 times. And again, there could be a trainer listening to this and all this is stupid. This is the wrong way to do it. You have to get yourself to the point where when you're not doing something active and you're not sweating, it bothers you. Um, I'm in a hotel today. There's

literally no good workout equipment. And I knew I was like, you know what? I'm going to feel way better if I just move some stuff around. There was barely anything to do. I just put something together in between sets. I would hit the Peloton and not even turn it on. And I would go hard for a minute to two minutes. And that would be my rest in between moving some dumbbells around. And 50 minutes later I was sweating and I just felt better because now I've reset. And that's something that's really important to me. It's important for the mental break of, okay, I want to put myself through it and it's going to suck for you. But sometimes I like when it sucks. I like to almost punish myself in a way where I'm like, okay, I want this to be hard. I want to quit. I want to give up. I want to see if I'm going to stop. I went on a hike the other day. I was,

I was like dripping sweat. It was way, I went up the wrong trail. I went up like the one that's, that's harder. Um, and I had was stressed for time and it was a huge mistake. And I wanted to quit like two or three times cause my legs were killing me. And I was like, I'm just, I'm just not going to, because I want to like punish myself into, because the punishment of not getting this done, you know, a couple of days from now, I'm going to think, you know, you really, you didn't accomplish something that you set out to do. So let's, let's do this. Check in, in a month, promise that you'll start, you know, pick a date that matters. And you said you wanted to talk about the equipment. There's hard, it's really hard to find anything out there by the rubber bands, buy the resistant bands and look up some of that stuff. And just some of that band work, like stretching it in front of your chest, you know, and doing four sets of 20 with a lighter band.

Or some of the squat stuff that's going to be really hard at your size, you know, but just body squat, weight, planking, leg lifts, all that kind of stuff. You can do all of that in a room. You don't even need any of the equipment. It's just you have to decide enough is enough. And considering you've made some pretty big decisions already, I don't have any doubt that you can figure this out again. Because if you want to be that guy that's not 350, you can. But some people, I'll leave you with this. Like when I was younger and I screwed up my credit, cause I just didn't know any better. You know, you get the credit cards and you go to

school. It's like, Hey, you get a $500 credit card from Amex and an awesome travel voucher. Okay. The travel voucher I never used. Cause I didn't have any money to go anywhere. And I immediately put 500 bucks on it. And then guess what? Amex didn't send the bill to my dorm room. It wasn't like one of those fraternity scams where you're like, Hey, John Cocktoast and has a mastercard, but I, you know, stupid 18. I'm like, well, if they didn't send me the bill to my dorm room. It wasn't like one of those fraternity scams where you're like, Hey, John Cocktoast and has a mastercard. But I, you know, stupid 18, I'm like, well, if they didn't send me the bill and they're like, well, guess what? The bill exists. And now you're late on this for a year straight. And then once the credit was destroyed, um, I kind of didn't care. Like I cared even less about bad credit decisions afterwards. This is far more serious, but like

I have a buddy that, you know, has a pretty clear drinking problem, but once it was out in the open that he was just, you know, a guy that had serious, serious issues with drinking, it got way worse because he was kind of like, all right, well now that everybody knows I'm a drunk, like now I really don't care. You know, now it's just out in the open. It wasn't like anybody was going to learn something new about him. It wasn't like he was like, oh, I've been hiding this the whole time. He's like, okay, so now that everybody knows it's a disaster, I'm going to make it even worse. And I think that can happen with us when things start going bad. We care so little about fixing it because now it's going to be like, well, whatever, I'm already 300 pounds.

Who gives a shit? Now I'll be three 50. Um, but you sent the email, you already know what to do. You've lost the weight not that long ago. And there's no doubt that you can do this again, but don't let equipment, don't let, you know, you have to decide, Hey, this is going to be the most important thing over the next 30 days. And you, if you want to find the time you can, if you come back a month later and say, I didn't find the time, then I guess you didn't really want it that bad. Okay. We'll do another quick one here. He says, please don't use the name. All right. 32 year old, single male enjoys doing yoga a few times a week. Something I picked up a couple years ago, more flexible. I live in Scottsdale.

And if you're familiar with Scottsdale, you can probably imagine the sort of talent that is walking into these yoga classes. I am familiar with Scottsdale. As the only guys, one of the only guys in each class can be a bit intimidating and weird, but I've never treated this place like a bar or a nightclub. Actually, in Scottsdale, I probably like a nightclub. I don't use this to talk to women the last thing i want to do is bother someone and be that creepy guy hitting on your yoga classmates my social cues the girls are awkward enough and even though i have good intentions i'm just wanting to meet somebody um it would it would feel even more awkward doing

it in a setting like this especially in a place that a lot of people take very seriously from a spiritual and meditative perspective and use it as escape from their daily BS. All right. Okay. This guy's, he's out there in a good way about what the vibe is in the yoga class. Uh, I've been taking one of the classes with this really cool instructor throughout the past several months. We talk a little bit before and after the class, but nothing more serious than how our favorite sports teams are doing the typical, Hey, good to see you. How's your day? Okay. I just don't feel too, I was, I was aware of how the normal dated but i'm just now i'm being mean um i also don't feel too comfortable taking a steph curry shot from the logo and asking her out in front of the other students okay well first things don't ask her out in front of the

other students if you're going to ask her out don't ever do it you could find the time to not ask her that way okay but then also don't wait in the parking lot for her to walk out by herself because then you know then next thing you know, we're talking Bravo special. All right. Okay. I can deal with being shut down. It wouldn't be the first time or last time, but my main concern is making awkward with her and messing up the vibe if I did ask her out. And she felt like I was overstepping my boundaries and breaking some sort of teacher-student code if she was just flat out not interested.

What's your take on over-the-top inappropriate to ask an instructor how to watch a game get a drink or something like that i think everybody's always like man who cares just go ahead and do it ask her out because everybody does that because we're not the ones that have to ask her out so i don't want to do that to you because i over the course of my life have not been um you know some of my buddies i've shared this guys with you before but they're like why can't you just ask out that actress i'm like with a super famous actress who's like 15 years younger than me um i because i'm not gonna like are you kidding me so i don't want to just say hey just ask her out now first thing you need to do is make sure that she doesn't have a boyfriend because if she's a hot yoga instructor

in scottsdale you know i mean this is like one one of Simmons great lines about the movie, the replacements where it was, who was it? It was the head of the, she was like the cheerleader captain. She was a bartender, but she was also the daughter of the owner of the football team. And she just happened to be single. you know, finding, uh, finding guys to date. So, um, the thing I've learned about Scottsdale, and this is why Instagram exists. It's also for everybody to share their tips on wellness, but you can also kind of find out, although some girls really hide it because, you know, they want to make sure they keep getting followers, but you can find out like if somebody's with somebody or not. So make sure you get that one out of the way, because if she's an attractive yoga instructor, Scottsdale, there's a chance there's a guy that's interested. The other thing that I've noticed too about Scottsdale pictures, I mean, this isn't specific to Scottsdale, but you'll see some, like one of my friends wanted to ask out this girl. She's in her twenties. Um,

and she's, she's gorgeous and she's in Scottsdale and the pictures, the house that she's in where these pictures are taken, it doesn't exactly look like a townhouse or a condo. Okay. And I'm not dumping on any, uh, this is not a Okay. And I'm not dumping on any, this is not a gender thing. I'm just saying at 25, I probably couldn't afford a 6,000 square foot mansion with like an indoor outdoor pool set up, um, in Scottsdale. So there's a really good chance. Like a lot of these, a lot of these people take a pictures. They're taking a picture at somebody's house. Who's paying for it. Um, who's probably, it's probably a dude. Okay. So let's, let's get that one out of the way. Now there's a way to do this. I'm a little worried when you said your,

your social cues. So you may not even be picking up on stuff. You may have already been shut down and you don't know it, or you may already been invited and you don't know it. So I think what you need to do is you need to do like the soft, the soft invite where if you're talking about your sports teams or anything like that, um, don't ask her out in front of everybody else. Okay. Cause that's just, that's just awkward. But I think maybe you can't pick up on this, but most of us, I'd like to think like you can kind of tell, you know, Hey, this person might be cool with me asking for their phone number. Okay. This person might not be cool with me asking for the phone number. You have to find some kind of soft intro into, would you want to meet up or do something or talk without it sounding like a date? Um,

and it's tough for me to kind of give you a device on that without knowing the full details here, but something like, well, if you ask her where you live, then you sound like a creep too. I don't know if you, if you own a house, be like, Hey, do you have a real estate agent in town? Boom. Okay. Well, what does that mean? All right. Well, you know, I'm looking at potentially moving. Okay. If you're friendly, maybe she tells you, Hey, I live over here. It's great. Or, Hey, I'm also looking for something like that. Okay, cool. You know, could you introduce me? You know, look, realtors, you don't worry about it. You're not dating the realtor. Um, there's something like that. I mean, you could do something super generic

about like, Hey, what's your favorite team? Would you want to watch a game together? But then it's sort of a date, but you need to figure out some way to ask her about something she's interested in that she's actually going to want to engage in. And from there, you should be able to pick it up and hint that perhaps like, Oh, Hey, don't say, Hey, I'd love to see your house sometime because of potential real estate deal. But like, Oh, you know, maybe the three of us could meet up with your agent or, Hey, you know, if your agent doesn't make it, that wouldn't be bad either. Hey, it's now you're a funny guy and all that kind of stuff. What you, you know, if you were older, creepy jerk, Scottsdale guy, you could say, Hey, do you want to look at a place? I'm thinking

about opening up my own studio and do you want to run it? And then knowing that you can't afford to run the studio and that she's not going to run it anyway. Um, that's what older jerks do. So you could try that too, but I would say don't do that one. Cause I don't afford to run the studio and that she's not going to run it. Anyway, that's what older jerks do. So you could try that too. But I would say don't do that one because I don't want to be giving out jerk advice. All right. Hit us up at lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Have a great week, everybody.

Be back. I think Van Pelt's going to join us this week. So excited about that and a couple other things. I don't know if we'll do Weird Wednesday or not, but I do have a good guest lineup coming the rest of the week. Please subscribe, rate, and review to the Ryan Russell podcast, Spotify, and the Ringer Network. Thanks. Outro Music