The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Five Worst NFL QB Situations, Plus Jets Love, Steelers QB, Dak’s Contract, and More With Dianna Russini

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Russillo starts by naming what he thinks are the five worst quarterback situations in the NFL based on talent, contracts, and more (0:31). Then, he chats with The Athletic's Dianna Russini about why she's optimistic about the Jets, if Justin Fields will be the Steelers' starting QB over Russell Wilson, Dak's contract, and more NFL training camp news and notes (17:28). Finally, the guys close it out with listener-submitted life advice, including living with an ex and being the odd friend out (44:27). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Dianna Russini Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of the podcast, I'm going to take a look at the worst quarterback situations in the NFL. So just maybe four locks and some other debates and ones I won't debate. Diana Rossini with some news and notes on her training camp travels, including love for the Jets, the digs, Stroud connection, who's going to be the starter in Pittsburgh and more, and life advice. This episode is brought to you by Mitsubishi. What does the ambition look like to you? These days, it would be easy to mistake it for suits, awards, money, fame,

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Or discover something else to get into. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.ca slash prime to get more out of whatever you're into. You know, it's the off season, even during the season. I love talking about the quarterback. So I was getting ready for the quarterback tiers from Sando, which should be out soon, I imagine.

And I started looking at it and I go, okay, wait, which teams have the worst quarterback situations currently? I thought I could get to five. I'm not sure if I have five and I have my own little rules. You can have your rules. You can do your worst quarterback situations. but I feel like, and this may be just the hope of spring training and baseball and this version of it, a different part of the calendar for the NFL where there feels like there's a lot

of depth at the position again, um, but hope will be replaced by a lack of depth, probably halfway and certainly by the end of the season. But if we look at the worst ones, this isn't in any particular order. The Giants are in it and they should be in everybody's. Daniel Jones played six games last season. We know he's heard. He was actually the third highest quarterback on the Giants in quarterback rating, uh, behind Tyrod Taylor and Tommy DeVito.

I do wonder if we'll have moments years from now. I'd be like, remember that Tommy DeVito thing? That was interesting. Lived at home, chicken cutlets. Or maybe he goes on and plays a long time, I don't know. So we're looking at five years of Daniel Jones, where he's thrown 20 plus touchdowns once in a season. That was his rookie year.

His four year, $160 million deal that was announced. It's really more like a two year deal for like 80 million, 80, 81 million. So they could take on some dead money. We're going to actually talk a little dead money with Diana Rossini a little bit later, so look out, you know, don't go anywhere. Um, it's just really important looking at some of these quarterback contracts as they come through and not just the old rule used to be how much guaranteed, how much in the first three years, but then there were these dead money numbers that you're always really afraid

of. And now with the way the cap has gone, there's a lot of these dead, dead cash numbers that you can kind of swallow more. So you just have more flexibility to be able to do this. So even if you still like him, Daniel Jones, because of the rushing and you're making injury excuses and now they have better receivers and the whole deal, how many quarterbacks start their story with and then in the sixth season is when it clicked.

It doesn't happen. Maybe you'll find an exception, maybe you'll find a couple exceptions, but if that's your, if that's your game plan of hope, and I'm not even talking about the giants because I think they knew what they were doing and they were going to give it another year because they paid them the money as opposed to maybe moving up or taking the next quarterback that was available in this draft.

And maybe they didn't grade the guys in this year's draft enough or where they were picking to think, okay, after the top three, we're really not that interested. And that's entirely fine. But there's no list where you look at the worst quarterback situations that doesn't have the Giants on it. Cleveland, another one. So speaking of money, Deshaun Watson, five years, 230 million when he came over and it was a full 230 million guarantee unprecedented, but it was also

an unprecedented type of transaction. He's played 12 games for Cleveland, 12 games actually in three years after the suspension, the, where he wasn't playing with Houston and then the carryover. Remember he just wasn't playing with them. And then the suspension that carried over to his first season with Cleveland. Uh, yeah, obviously he's been hurt as well. Season ending shoulder surgery. But if you look at the PFF grades the last two years,

he's ranked 53rd out of qualifying quarterbacks for their grading system. Now, maybe you just want to be super dismissive of that, but I think there's also just the reality of go through any of the numbers. I am shocked that at his age he is not even close to the same guy that he was in Houston. Somebody that I thought was like an MVP close to the same guy that he was in Houston. Somebody that I thought was like an MVP caliber quarterback carrying a Houston team that at times didn't feel like had a ton of talent around him. He was just making it happen every single week. And that's how good I thought he was.

I mean, I had him in the top five certain years, or at least when you were having a conversation about the top five quarterbacks, I'd mentioned Deshaun Watson as well, certainly wasn't number one or anything like that. But that's the kind of guy that I thought we would see again as a player. And it just hasn't happened at all. I'm, we can get to the shoulder stuff and there were times last year, we were like, need something just looks wrong with him again. But the scary thing on the money is the base salary now jumps to 46 million this

year and the next two years. And remember, the way they structured the first year was a really low first year number because of the fines from what they knew would be a suspension from the league. So his six games that he played losing all the money on the suspensions, he lost like 600,000 bucks or something like that. So that's why this contract is so backloaded. And that's why it's so scary the rest of the way with Houston, his QBR was between 62 and 70 and 84 is rookie year, not a full season.

He's in the forties, average about 41 QBR the first two years with Cleveland. So it's the money and the fear that this could be one of the all time disastrous contracts in the history of the NFL. Let's talk Vegas. It's just not exciting. And they avoid the rookie rule that I have or the second year guy, even though I know Aiden technically is. O'Connell grades out as the 29th best quarterback last season.

Minshew was 33rd. The money for O'Connell is basically free four years, four and a half million. Minshew brought in in March for two years, 25 million. Minshew did go seven and six with the Colts last year. Yay. Um, I know that there's some talk if you really get into the weeds with what Vegas wants to do, bringing in Bowers, having mayor already there, Luke Getzi hunking over from the Bears, that the Bears ran, depends on what you

want to look at there at the 12 personnel at the second tight end. They, they were top 10 in it, like eighth or 10th, something like that. So maybe there's some structure there, but we'll see one of these two quarterbacks be just good enough to keep it interesting. It feels like O'Connell has a little bit more juice to him, but that also could just be the unknown of not really knowing who he is, because I probably would have said the same thing

about Jacksonville Minshew when he was in jean shorts and a mustache in 2019. Now, some of you will wanna do this. Can an argument be made for Bryce Young? Sure. I'm not going to do it. I mean, I guess I could. If he has another bad season, no one thinks the Panthers are going to be good. You could argue considering the resources they put into this and trading for them,

taking them number one overall, the pick ending up with the Bears that like, realistically, they may have to go one more season with them. And now you feel like you're in this holding pattern. You know, one of the Parcells lines about when you draft a quarterback that high and you screw it up, it sets the team back 10 years. Uh, I don't know that I ever believed in it. It's definitely not true now, but it could set you back three years. If Bryce isn't really the guy now, the offensive line has been invested in.

The receivers were not great options. It was a talentless team. So you, you feel for Bryce in that spot. It was not easy for a number one guy to come in with that situation, but I'm just not going to do it. Uh, for the same reason why I wouldn't put new England in this. I wouldn't put Denver here. I wouldn't put Minnesota in there because that's three rookies.

I'm sure some of you could be interested in, and perhaps some will love us, but nine games in, I'm not going to do that to them either. Kyler Murray is an interesting one. So it's been since 2021, I'd say the last time we felt good about it. And in that season, he balled and a little bit like the Deshawn Houston years. That's what I felt like we saw with Kyler that one year in Arizona, where it's like, you know, if you're in the game, this guy's capable of some really special stuff, um, 23 was post ACL.

Okay. So 11 games in 22, eight games last year, the money on the contract, it runs four more years, probably three, that was a big money deal for a very short amount of results from a franchise. It probably surprised you to even do it. And we've been reminded at times that if it's a cheaper, maybe cheaper ownership isn't the right way to go about it, but whatever. I mean, it's Arizona.

So I don't think anybody's going to get upset and suggest that I'm wrong based on history here. Um, but the cash out to a player like Kyler might make them way more patient than say another organization would be if they don't feel like he's the guy. Um, but this is kind of his make or break year. The problem is if it doesn't happen this year, you still have some massive, massive numbers on his contract moving forward.

So I don't know if Arizona is actually even in it. So let's not do that. Let me offer up something different. Pittsburgh, I'm excited about the Steelers. I'm not sure why. I guess I just can't wait to see what's going to happen. I get why Pittsburgh did what they did. Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, essentially both free.

And after a year, like let's go back one year for the summer of Kenny Pickett propaganda, and then the realization of this just is not the guy, despite all the glowing stuff that you read all summer long about his prospects. They figured let's try two different things, but let's try it at the exact same time. And with Wilson, remember Russell Wilson when Denver went on a little bit of a stretch last year and then TV shows were having segments basically called Should We Apologize to Russell Wilson?

Um, I would say instead you should thank the defense of the Broncos and you should thank the flu for Mahomes disastrous performance against Denver last year. So during his time in Denver, he was sacked 100 times, the most in the NFL over those two years. But with Wilson, you can't just say, oh, well they didn't protect him, he didn't have time to throw it because he actually has a lot of time to throw because he holds on the ball for so long. And even the great version of Russell Wilson, the one flaw perhaps in his game was that by keeping plays alive, the price that you paid for that was that it was going to be impossible to hold onto your blocks long enough to avoid some of

those sacks that were on him a lot. And I don't know that quarterback see it that way. I remember back when he was still in Seattle and he was kind of hinting at his own frustrations and he'd brought up the sack stuff and you go, man, all those sacks are not on the old line. And look, I love this stuff on third and seven where he's going one way, rolling the other way, Fran Tarkin and type shit, where all of a sudden he's finding a way to just get a little, just seven, 10 yard pass to some guy, like the baseball player in him, moving the sticks.

And it's like, that's something that he can do that very few players can do in the league. The problem is we're just not seeing enough of it and he's still taking all of those sacks. On the Justin Fields side of it, who, by the way, did you know Fields came in ninth in MVP in 2022 when Chicago went, well, he went three and 12 for Chicago. It means one guy gave him a vote. I was surprised when I saw that this morning, but I thought it went with Fields from a mess to maybe, which isn't a ringing endorsement, but that's how I felt about it.

Like, okay, maybe. But here's the thing, and here's the part of it that gets really interesting, at least for the dramatic part of it. And I'll tell you, Mike Tomlin, maybe the most impressive thing I've done other than giving you the best floor as a head coach in the NFL. He, I remember I wasn't quite sure. I was like, is he a little, are we, are we falling in love with the speech pattern or are we falling in love with his personality a little bit?

Cause there was a little window there where I thought they were losing the teams in the playoffs and maybe they shouldn't have. Maybe it was just cause it was a new England thing. It's like, look, they're just not as good as new England. So by the way, I'm, I'm off of all of these things because once I started seeing not only the Ben part of it, the Antonio Brown part of it, and then all the stuff that he was dealing with in this team was still showing up and repeating every single week and now over the years becoming friendly enough with some guys that have played for him, like Tomlin's his managing of people in this world and to do with this long.

I really don't have any questions about Mike Tomlin anymore. So maybe with Wilson and fields and how weird it could potentially get, maybe Tomlin's the perfect guy for it because he's already dealt with way bigger distractions and he's just not going to let it run through like in Pittsburgh. They're not going to let that be the thing. But what you have is two quarterbacks with different roadmaps to kind of the same destination. Because the easiest way to dismantle

what I'm about to say is what are you talking about? Wilson and Fields are not in the same place. Fields hasn't ever proved himself. Wilson has a Super Bowl. He has all of these accomplishments and he's the older guy trying to hang on. But that's, think about it this way. You have two guys that are likely blaming where they were, right?

Wilson, no question. Fields, not a terrible point by him. And whoever's on the sideline, there is no way they're going to think the guy playing is better than them. And usually that's a huge problem. But I think fields would win the locker room over Wilson for obvious reasons. Um, and I think there was probably just enough there from fields during the last year in Chicago. And I'm not saying it was as great as, I would say Chicago based themes that we saw

on social media where I felt like people really, like there was this massive group, this fields constituency that no matter what happened, like he was never the problem. I'm not one of those guys. But maybe it has more to do with how Wilson looked, where yeah, okay, he can hit on a couple of deep balls, doesn't get the ball out quick enough. Like how he has to learn from the Denver part of it of like, you can't be stubborn

anymore, like you don't have that kind of juice in the league anymore. So is there any moment where Tomlin looks at it as like, ah, it's close enough, but Fields is younger. Let's just go with him and maybe he wins the locker room that way as well. I just can't wait. I can't wait for that storyline to play out. The NFL futures are out and now's the time to get in on the action early this season, because right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins.

Okay. So let's take a look at stuff. There's everything on here. It gets better every year. All right. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to look at all win totals and look at the bad teams and if you look at last year, Carolina had two wins, worst team in the league, three teams that had four wins, one team had five wins.

So if you look at it that way and you say, okay, well, who's, who's projected to be bad knowing that in the NFL turnover here, turnover there, you're probably still going to get your five, six wins. So Minnesota over four and a half wins is minus three 55, Tennessee over four and a half wins minus three 20. So I was looking at anything between minus 300 minus 400. So it's not so much the payout. It's just that, and by the way, you can parlay that if you would like as well. Um, if you look at the best regular season records here on this,

Kansas city's plus 700 San Francisco's plus 900. Maybe I just think the NFC is easier and San Francisco is a really good bet on that. If you look at strength of schedule, they're anywhere from 12 to middle of the pack. Uh, I like the jets over on nine and a half. Uh, Derek Henry, 15 plus rushing touchdowns is plus 500. That seems a little high, but I was wondering if maybe Lamar good teammate, new guy on the team would just start handing it off to him a little bit more, or maybe just one completely benefits from the threat of the other.

Here's what I did like. Caleb Williams, five or more rushing touchdowns this season, plus 250. There are a million things you can find on this. Marvin Harrison plus 150 to have the most receiving yards for a rookie, or maybe you like a different receiver and a bigger payout. There's no better place to get ready for football season than on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL. So don't miss your chance to score $150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Just visit fanduel.com slash Ryan, R-Y-E-N.

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Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash y amex. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. Joining us as we get ready for more preseason football from the athletic and her new podcast, Scoop City with Chase Daniel twice a week, it is Diana Rossini. Good morning. Good morning, Ryan. Why didn't you give me a warning that hosting a podcast is going to be really

hard? You gave me no tips. Like you just left me out here alone trying to figure this space out. It's hard. Well, post-radio, I just don't think it's as hard. So I was probably the wrong person to talk to. Yeah. Going from TV to this, it's just a different piece.

But here's the thing, a podcast is a TV show. That's what I'm learning. Like, everyone just thinks it's, you step in front of the microphone and you just start talking football. There's so much that goes into it, which is why you have to have a really good staff around you, which I know you've you've had one for a while here, which is why you've had so much success. It's everyone else. It's not you.

Yep. It's everybody else. Never take credit for any of it. Look, you're also reporting though. You're still, that's why we call it Scoop City. That's why I want to have you on because there's a lot of different stuff that I want to talk about. You're at Jet's camp now. I'll leave it open and on this one because I think there's obvious stuff that we could all understand, but just Jet's camp vibe, how they feel, Roger's healthy. What's it like there?

It's so good. It is so good, Ryan. I know you could probably play back any of the reports that we were doing this time last year because remember, Aaron just absolutely lit it up in camp. And he's essentially doing the same thing here. I would say the only difference that I'm seeing this year, and this is even just through talking to people here down on the ground, is they've had some bad days, but stuff's getting corrected quicker. Offensive lines, some bad snaps, there were a few practices that were having some issues,

next day, fixed, cleaned up. So in terms of the big picture of the New York Jets this season compared to last, I will say there already seems to be less noise. They know they're good. The offense looks really sharp The defense always looks pretty solid But the fact that it doesn't feel so out of control the way it did last year It just remember last year Salah's like saying the word Super Bowl and press conferences. It was insane Everyone is everyone's been humbled. That's what it feels like. They're just toning it down and just keeping it on the field. Okay, you're right.

I mean, even as you mentioned Salah, I go, wait, I haven't even thought about him. Like I'm serious. I mean, maybe that's just me not being locked into jet stuff every single day. No, no, maybe it's purpose though. Ever think of that? After what he went through last year,

I think that there were a lot of conversations had with him in this off season of we need to change things up. Now look, just recently to remind you, you may have heard that he came out to the media and said, Aaron Rodgers is probably, my instinct is that he's probably not gonna be playing in any of these preseason games and Rodgers gets up to the podium and then he says,

oh, that's news to me. So it's never good when the quarterback is finding out he's not going to be playing the preseason games by the media. So they probably need to keep communicating better. Um, but in terms of the relationship overall, I haven't heard of any, any significant major issues between them. I know you spent some time with the Texans and Stroud was one of the biggest stories this season last year.

What did you learn about him with your time there and the team? Because I just was seeing your tweets and you talk about it. You seem as all-in on him as anyone. I am all-in because I got to see it up close. I didn't get to see him in person that much last year. So to watch him in practice and and I was told afterwards that that was his best day. So I definitely saw the best version of CJ. I did go back the next day too. And look, he still looks good. It's the stuff he's doing in the huddle, how he's getting them in and out. The penalties aren't looking that messy and sloppy like they were a few weeks ago. They've cleaned up some of that from what the guys were telling me there.

I had a great conversation with Steph on Dix. That was my highlight of hanging out with the Texans because Steph is pretty quiet right now. He's just laser focused. So it was good to talk to him about what he's seeing from CJ. This is a guy obviously who just played with Josh Allen. So we weren't playing the comparison game. We didn't get into that, but we were talking about how much CJ is the guy. And I asked him specifically, you know, what is it? You know, like, what is he doing

that makes you so confident? And he's like, he just knows he's the guy. And he's like, I've played with quarterbacks that believe they are, but it doesn't always translate on the field. He's like, he knows it, he carries himself that way, and then he goes and does it on the field. And to have that much leadership and confidence, it's such an early stage of his career.

He's like, this has been such an incredible moment for me in my career. And we talked a little bit about the last eight years for him and what it's been like in Minnesota and Buffalo. And he's like, this for me right now, I've learned a lot from the past. This is the right spot for me here. And look, I talked to D'Amico too, his head coach about the concerns about digs. He comes with problems. He does.

We saw it in Minnesota, we saw it in Buffalo. And D'Amico was on Scoop City on Friday morning and he was straight up, that ain't happening here. Like just said it, like nope it won't happen here. Like he's got a grip on digs and they've already been pretty blown away by him. Okay because you were with Houston you're also spending time at Pittsburgh. Let's stay with the the IUK thing first. So the reports over the weekend were Cleveland and Wigeland both had things in place that apparently San Francisco liked, but it seems like IUC didn't like the contract options and now Pittsburgh is

back in this. But if you read the latest on Pittsburgh and what San Francisco wants back is they still want a receiver. It's not going to be Pickens, cause then it doesn't make any sense. And the Pittsburgh receiver depth really isn't that good, which is the reason why they're in the IUK market in the first place. So I think when you look at IUK, you know, part of me always wonders if I'm going to pay this guy this much, why doesn't San Francisco want to pay this

guy this much? And it could be just the roster jam of all the talent the Niners have and having to manage out the years moving forward. They can't just write him a blank check. Um, but this is, this is dragging out as he holds in, which is a lot nicer, I guess, than holding out. Yeah, it's, it's the new way of getting business done. And, and it really works the advantage of the player and the agents here who are

obviously advising their clients to do this. Uh, but big picture, let's just talk about you, back in May is when the 49ers made him an offer of $26 million a year. And there were some conversations had between his camp and the San Francisco 49ers of, we may have to take this. He wants to be here, but the market is loaded right now for the receivers. He should be making more money. He thinks he deserves to be making in that 30 million plus range. So he asks for the trade and the Cleveland Browns, the New England Patriots, the Pittsburgh Steelers are teams that have been in touch with San Francisco from even before the draft, when there were some thought that they were going to move Ayuk. New England is now out. They were, from what I was told, giving the best contract to Ayuk in terms of

per year, he was in that lower third, $32 million a year type of situation. Um, and it was moving in a really good direction and Ayuk doesn't want to play there. He does not want to play New England. So the Patriots pulled out. Um, now you have average annual salary thing. Like I know that always ends up being the number, but was it more about New So the Patriots pulled out. Now you have- So the average annual salary thing,

I know that always ends up being the number, but was it more about New England or was it the fine print of the structure of the contract? Because sometimes the average annual salary stuff, go ahead. I was told he just didn't really have much interest in playing with New England because of their quarterback situation

that it's not fully ironed out yet. Now look, you can also say that in Pittsburgh, right? But he has a really strong relationship with Mike Tomlin, which is why I think the Steelers have been in this one from the start, the lead dog, despite the fact that New England was going to give him a bigger contract than, let's say, the Pittsburgh Steelers right now. So look, there is still... This could change by the time this podcast drops, but there's still a world where he stays in San Francisco too. I don't believe they're going to move off that number because if they weren't going

to do it yesterday, they're not going to do it today in terms of changing that. They would have done it already to get him on the field. Kyle wants IU flying. He doesn't want to see him standing on the sideline and just sitting in the meeting rooms. So now this is really to come down. Can the compensation from Pittsburgh be enough for San Francisco to make the deal? And all signs show that Ayuk would want to play in Pittsburgh. And I was told in terms of the money, he's fine with what the contract is being offered

to him. So we'll see if the teams can sort this out. But again, he may get cold feet and go, you know what? I want to stay with San Francisco. They're a team built to win right now. Okay. Let's stay with the quarterback situation then in Pittsburgh, because who do you think ends up winning out starting chop?

This is my favorite story in football right now. Only because you have it. I believe there's just it's such dramatic, but I find it all the different storylines headed into this quarterback competition, which it is a quarterback competition just because Mike Townland calls it the pole position, which is such a funny term to use. Like, yeah, Russ is a veteran. Of course he's going to get first team snaps. He's got the most experience. Justin still has to grow. He still has to learn this offense. And we know Russell Wilson has been dealing with this calf situation and from what I was told,

Justin Fields has an opportunity to become the starter. Like there is a world where we live in where week one he is named starter because you just look at it from my Thomas perspective. It feels as out here balling, but he wants to stick with Russ just because he's the veteran guy. That's the worst thing he could possibly do as a coach, knowing that everyone is seeing what Justin's doing on the field. You have to play the hot hand. You have to play the guy that's earned it.

So, look, Pittsburgh has not made a decision about it. They want to give Russell an opportunity to go out there to see what he can bring to this offense and see if he can actually beat out Justin. So it's still early to name him the starter, but Justin Fields has made a really strong case that he could be the starter. I would also think in the locker room, Fields is going to be somebody that guys connect with more than Russell Wilson. Yeah, that's a, it's a really good point. Um,

I don't like using the Denver situation as the example or the model of what and who Russell Wilson is. Do I think that there were parts of his personality that definitely rubbed that organization the wrong way? Clearly rubbed Sean Payton the wrong way. But Sean Payton and Russell Wilson was always a bad mix, in my opinion. I never thought that was going to work because there's an ego that's almost similar. So, has Russell been able to learn from maybe some of the feedback that I know Denver gave

him from his time there to see if he can maybe go back to leaning into the things he does well as a leader. And so far talking to Pittsburgh, he still has a little bit of that Russell Wilson flair to him in a good way and in a bad way. So I'm curious to see how much he'll grow into that or maybe even adjust to fit with the Steelers. Okay. So I was looking at some of the stuff with Dak because we know that this last contract extension where there seemed to be all this speculation and controversy prior to it. And it was like they offered him a ton of money. They didn't want to offer him.

He didn't want the extra year and it worked out in his favor. He had a great statistical season this year. I think Dak is going to always be a quarterback that I can't quite figure out. And then I realized, no, you did figure it out. That's the whole point is that he's really good, but he's also not really special. Even if statistically there's some stuff in there that tells you that he's special. So now when you're faced with paying a quarterback, that's not really special more than anyone has ever made.

You know, you can get into the average annual salary stuff and the percentage of the cap, and I don't believe there's a hard and fast rule that if your quarterback is making north of this percentage of the cap, that means that you can't win a Superbowl because we have examples of it being in the way, we have examples of it actually working. The Mahomes deal, when it happened, I was actually shocked at the total numbers, because I was like, he could have done even better if he wanted to. And now his average annual salary ranks 11th amongst quarterbacks.

And a lot of that is just kind of the timeline of who's done the newest deal, as you know. So with that, and even any quarterback that you're paying this much, is you're not just paying for him, you're paying for the insurance of the unknown, of not having anyone in position. It's still a massive number, but other times, I don't know that I have that much sympathy for him, you're paying for the insurance of the unknown, of not having anyone in position. It's still a massive number, but other times I don't know that I have that much sympathy for it, especially when you can get creative with this stuff. We can add void years like the Eagles did, I should say, and they did it with Hertz, Miami did it with two a little bit.

And if the projected cap is supposed to go north of 300 million in 2027, the $60 million number just doesn't sting the same way it would in 2025. I remember the first time I said on the air, we'll call it, because I think it was on my podcast that, no, you know what? I think it was Cowherd. I said that Dax could be the first $60 million quarterback. And I remember seeing the headlines the next day and it was like, everyone was so surprised by it. I call some people and I'm like, did I mishear you? Did I miss that story out?

And it's like, no, of course he is. And then when you actually lay it out the way you just did, it makes so much sense with the salary cap number going up and what he's done and what the market is at this point. It makes sense. What interests me more than DAC at this point is the next. It's the Brock Purdy. It's then the CJ Stroud. Like what's that number going to be? You know he's got to be thinking about that already. If Dak is going to be at

60 and he continues to have success, you know, and Brock Purdy, if he's able to take the Niners back to the playoffs, how does his agent not walk in there and say, yeah we're starting a few million above Dak Prescott? How could you not? You may not believe if you're listening to this that he's worth that much, but that's what the market's going to dictate and maybe Brock is going to be that good. Look, for now, the Cowboys, we had Stephen Jones on just about a week ago.

He was very optimistic this is going to get done. You know, and I check in with both sides pretty much every other day just to see if there's any movement. And everyone just says the same thing, which is, it's, we're having good conversations. We're having good conversations. And when you sign a quarterback, we had Tom Tolesco on recently, and by the way, this doesn't mean like plugging Scape City so much. We just have been really fortunate that we had great guests share a little bit into what

goes into these deals. And you know, Telesco did the Justin Herbert deal. And he said, sometimes what people don't realize is when you're signing a quarterback, there are so many people involved. There are so many red lines and T's cross eyes that there's just a lot that goes into it, which is why the Jordan love deal took a little bit to it took a little bit It was like alright, you know, you want these guys what's taking so long It doesn't move as fast as we wanted to and the way we think it works because everything we all do in our daily lives

We're able to get done so quickly. So I'm not making an excuse for Jerry Jones But I can tell you they're not panicked about getting it done Yeah. I just, I think whenever we see the headline of what some of these numbers are, we should just always pay attention to how quickly the cap continues to increase. And you're not, you can't just look at 60 million against, well, I mean, we're using DAC as the examples of 60 million against, well, I mean, we're using DAC as the example of 60 million, but just, I mean, not that long ago, north of 40 million felt like it was crazy. It's like, okay, but that's when you were dealing with like, what, a $217 million cap.

And if in 2027, the projection is over 300 million, like it's the same as the NBA's deals that keep coming out. You're like, some of these guys are going to be like 50, 60 million a year. And you're like, yeah, with the new TV deal, that's just what's going to happen. And there still seems to be a sticker shock that doesn't have a great relation to what the actual cap number is doing. A few years ago. So it was probably was when Kirk Cousins signed with the Minnesota Vikings.

I was on NFL live on ESPN and I'm up there thinking I know everything and I'm like, Kirk Cousins stinks, Minnesota overpaid, whatever my take was at the time. I looked down at my phone and I have four missed calls from Bill Parcells. I'm like, what? I thought something was wrong, so commercial break I call him. I'm like, Coach, you all right? He said, who are you to say that Kirk Cousins doesn't deserve to be paid that kind of money? I said, wait, you don't think I'm allowed to have an opinion?

He said, it's not about whether or not he deserved it. That's what the market is. That's what Minnesota has to pay. Don't ever go out there and talk about a quarterback or another position player's money because it's not up to anyone. It's not up to them. This is just what the market is. So I always try to keep that in mind

when we talk about these others. I get his point and it speaks to the insurance part of it, right, of the unknown. But like every time a deal gets done, I'm never allowed to think that seems like a lot. And I think that's, that seems to be, I would imagine the frustration if you're on the ownership side, who nobody's rooting for them, but maybe if you're just on the GM side of it, where you look at Tua's deal and go, okay, like he's all right.

You know, there's, there's a high ceiling version of him that's terrific. There's I think a floor to him that is below some of the other people, numbers wise, where he's at. And then you look at the deal and you go, okay, so he ends up at 53 million plus a year. Like there's, there's, it just doesn't seem to exist that a team could say, we really like our God, we want to resign him, but he's not those other guys. So can we do a number here that still allows us some balance with the rest of the roster? And it just seems like, no, you just,

and I'm not even saying like, I wish the guys made less. It just seems like that part of the negotiation is non-existent for that position. Yeah. And I could see where that is frustrating, but I also talked to a lot of people in the league that don't have quarterbacks and you should hear them. They are the most depressed people I've ever met. So you know what, overpay a little bit for that insurance, as you call it. And you're probably better off living in a space of overpaying for at least a guy that can function in the position versus a world where you can't do anything because your quarterback stinks.

Okay. So quickly, was there any reaction to some of the new deals that you thought was specific? Because there's an argument to be made with the Jordan Love deal where you go, you just paid him more than anybody else ever. And he played like a great half of the season. Now part of it was too, because he was sitting around for a longer amount of time than somebody else who would normally get this kind of contract. And I'll admit that at some point last season watching Jordan Love play where I thought the light just went off. All right.

Wait, this guy might be awesome as opposed to just having a huge question mark next to him prior to this. So, and if Green Bay's willing to do it, right? On top of everything else, that's how great they feel about their own guy. But I didn't know if there was maybe an anecdote here or there that you'd got from somebody else after one of these deals,

or we're just gonna be repeating everything we just said because of the rules of this deal? No, it's a good question because I was asking it about Jordan's deal. Because to me, I was surprised that I was almost going back to the conversation we were having of, man, he's going to make top of the market for just, like you pointed to, a half a season. Let's just call it the full year to give them the credit. Yeah, we'll call it the full year. Let's just call it the full year. And again, going back to what Telesco said,

all these people involved, because they know this is the franchise guy, this is the face of your team, blah, blah, blah, everything that goes with that. And really? That's it? Check mark? There was a time a few years ago when I'd heard that they didn't think that Jordan was going to pan out. So we went from some thought in the building that he wasn't the guy to now, oh my gosh, let's pay him and he's the highest paid quarterback right now. So yeah, when I did speak to some people about that, I do believe it just comes down to what the building and the people that are coaching him believe in.

And Matt LaFleur is considered to be obviously a really good coach. And I think a lot of that deal has to do with Matt LaFleur and the offense that he's been able to give or at least how Jordan's able to have success in his offense that has helped him. And they believe he still has so much more in him, obviously, right? If they're giving him a deal like that. And the average annual number two is kind of baked into the headline of the four year 220. And then you get 48 hours of the contract and you realize, okay, there are some out years here where the dead money, especially again, with the increasing cap, like some of these dead cap numbers,

or these dead money numbers, I should say, you know, 30 million used to be like, Oh, you can't, you can't even operate like close, close up shop. And now you can absorb it. Like we've set records with some of the dead money. Not like all the time, but it's just a much easier pill to swallow, especially if you're going to move off as somebody. Okay. Speaking of moving on. And the last thing that we'll, we'll do here is I know you're going to run

all of this Eagle stuff with Sirianni and these features, and I know there was a big piece on ESPN about the relationship between Hertz and Sirianni. It is incredible how quickly this went from beloved guy's guy in the locker room to a disappointing second half of the season to now it feels like, like his days are numbered.

I mean, this seems dramatic. It feels it right now to you because it's just being reported. So three weeks ago, I put out the first piece that there was a disconnect between Sirianni and Jaylen. And I sat on that for four months. Everyone in Philly knows, everybody knows. It was the worst kept secret that Jalen and Nick

were struggling connecting all year long, even when it was good. And I think that's the important part of this. Not when things are bad, all relationships turn into, you know, become issues when there's conflict. But to hear that the relationship wasn't great when they were having success, that every wind felt like a grind, that to me is a problem.

Now look, things have changed. They have worked on this. The addition of Kellen Moore is more, apologize for the pun, than just him coming in to run this offense. It was to separate Nick from having full control over the offense. And this is Howie Roseman. This is Howie Roseman making the calls here. Nick, you're going to be the manager of this team. Tell him more, full control of the offense.

And let's see if we can get more out of Jelan and do things that you want to do that you're comfortable doing in this offense. Because obviously Sirianni and Hertz weren't on the same page all year long with what they wanted this offense to be. So I know it feels like, oh boy, trouble waters. They know that they had this already. So I can tell you just the feedback coming out of Philly on all the stuff that's been coming out over the last few weeks,

they're not really stressed about it at all. In fact, I spoke with Saquon Barkley a few weeks ago about what it's been like in Philly. And he's like, Jalen is just really focused on football. And if you could understand where he's coming from, you're good for life with him. It's just making sure you can get on that same page. And I think that's what Nick Sirianni,

it may just have taken a little bit to do it. And I'm told things are good. We'll see. Okay. Always good to spend time with you. Enjoy the rest of Jets camp today. Again, Scoop City twice a week from the athletic Diana Rossini and Chase Daniel.

All right, so let's do it again this season. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. And now it's time for all the unexpected, a new segment presented by State Farm. There's a lot that can be said about facing the unexpected in life, especially when dealing with important stuff like your home or vehicles. But only one thing to say when you need help to protect them. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

And a State Farm agent will be there to help you find the coverage that's right for you. So far, obviously really locked in on water polo. When I was in Spain, they love water polo over there, and I always try to figure out how bad would the average person be at this sport. But obviously, basketball is the one thing I'm really paying attention to. I'd say the biggest surprise isn't anything that's happened as far as like who I think is good and who isn't. We can get to some of the American roster stuff here in a second, but I

thought the South Sudan and the way that they played, not just in the first game, but the second game, even though that game got away from them, the fight that they played with, the heart that they showed, you know, a group put together with very limited resources and what a team like that can mean to a country even without finishing with a medal. Um, kind of speaks to the other part of this Olympic spirit. And I'm not trying to sound like the old guy getting all emotional about this stuff, but I think that's kind of the joy in the Olympics is that. I think you probably for the most part, you should still be rooting for the country you're from, but you will find these little stories along the way that they'll develop and you'll have this awareness that goes from zero to just beyond zero.

But that itself is the improvement and these stories that we learn about and the seeds that can be planted for generations moving forward. And I really felt that with South Sudan and the way they were appreciated and celebrated by the fan base and by that country, as far as the American side of the things, we knew the talent gap and how traumatic it was, went through all the Canada stuff and thinking like how many guys on Canada would actually even make team USA, but that they can mix and match the way they've been able to where in the beginning it kind of felt controversial. Like, yeah, sure.

I don't understand Tatum getting a DNP, but it might be just his off ball stuff right now. And the fact that he's in a massive shooting slump and that Booker is just more accustomed to playing a little bit more off the ball than Tatum is. And look, you can find some minutes where you're like, this is ridiculous that, that Tatum wasn't used for stretches. And I'm, you know, I'm not even disagreeing with it necessarily, but I think there's some stuff to find because of all the options that this roster has

that clearly no other country can even match. Today's All the Unexpected was presented by State Farm. Life is full of unexpected things, and State Farm offers the right kind of coverage options to help you face it all confidently. Call or stop by to see your local State Farm agent, or check out statefarm.com or the award-winning State Farm app to get a quote.

You want details? Buy. 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. Today's Life Advice is brought to you by the Peacock original, Mr. Throwback. The new mockumentary series follows a down on his luck member, Billio Dealer, who looks for redemption by reuniting with his sixth grade teammate, NBA legend, Steph Curry. All episodes of Mr. Throwback are streaming now only on Peacock.

Life Advice, the email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. We do have a couple of update things here. I mentioned the Tom Engel story. We were talking about the vasectomy guy and just not like, they have a 10 year runway of not liking each other at this CrossFit gym. So I think based on the email that was very specific, but I do think, is the example I use coworker Tom Engle at ESPN, that you can have something go like off and then it becomes something

that it shouldn't even become. Well, Tom reached out to me last night and said, I've never liked you. I like that. No, just kidding. He sent a text and we were laughing about it. We actually talked on the phone for like five minutes last night. It was just pretty funny, but it definitely was more of a creation

for me than it was him. Like he was like, really? Yeah. It was the very early beginning. And of course he's just like, Oh, wow, that's hilarious. However, the more important part of it is when I said that he was a high school pitching legend, uh, somebody looked him up and I had known this, but I'd forgotten the exact reason he was considered legend status as a high school pitcher.

He pitched six straight no hitters. Oh, wow. Is that good? Yeah. Triple A ball? What is that? No, it's in high school. Triple A, dude.

I mean, you know. Oh, well, we had in high school, I got football. Arlington was trip collect. There's class A, B, C, and then there's school. I triple A dude. I mean, you know, Oh, well we had in high school, like our football Arlington was trip collect. There's class ABC and then there's double a triple a playing with the big boys. That's right. Each state kind of does it different. I remember, I think mass is like a bunch of A's and then Connecticut was like L double L. I think, I don't know, it could have all changed. Yeah. It was a double L still. Yeah. So, um, there you go. But yeah, he was, uh, he was really good, but yeah, it was kind of funny to catch up on that. Okay. Um,

we did have a request that the podcast has become all books. I love that people like the books as much as they do. I would have to move back to Connecticut. I think if I just did a book podcast, saying there's a ceiling on that. So. Unless I were that thought I was capable of doing the best book podcast in the country or one of the three. I don't know that I'm I'm confident about a lot of things, but I don't

know about that. And then you're just reading even more. That's what I was going to say. You're opening yourself up to a new audience who isn't just like, hey, the sports guy really got to handle this thing. It's like, this is, this is your president. Come on. So your argument with physics is that so I don't. Well, if you type reddit page, if that was your full-time job, like, well, how many books do you think you can crank out a week? Cause that like, you know, are we just doing one a week? Well, there's certain books I couldn't read in a week, obviously.

Like Napoleon took a while and then I kept pushing back because I was getting caught up in like some writing stuff. And so I kept telling Alison, I go, we're going to have to push back this Napoleon thing and she was like, okay. And she's great obviously. And then Andrew Roberts was really accommodating, but he, I don't think he lived in the States. So we were trying to line that whole thing up. And then so finally, what I will do to myself very often when I need to complete something,

I just tell someone, okay, this is it. And like, I'll have this for you at this date. And when I say it, I immediately regret it, but at least I know I'm giving myself some kind of deadline and even if it's like a week past that or whatever. So with the book part of it, when Napoleon, that one ended up really biting me in the ass. I read, I think the last 200 pages over the course of like 18 hours. I just, not, not 18 hours straight of reading, but I woke up the next day,

I was like, you have 200 pages to get this done by the time you have to tape with him tomorrow. And I wasn't psyched with myself that day because that was tough. It was tough to get through the whole thing. Bill righted it, fuck it, we'll do it live. We'll do it live. Like a lot of the books I think,

like you could have read, Conquistador in a week. I don't know. Are we really going to do this and hash it all out the map? I think we would. Yeah. I think we've already done enough. I think we've already done enough. All right.

Let's get to a couple of emails here. I live with my ex-girlfriend. Sweet. So, 22, six foot and a half, 144 pounds, insert bald eagle screech for using your measurement system, which fun fact that famous screech is typically actually a hawk screech because bald eagles don't sound like that in real life.

They're more wimpy. New stuff for us, thank you. 17 year old Janice, if he was eight inches shorter and could inexplicably get hot from three. That's enough. Janice and a lot of like customized comps here lately. I still love the Nash Janice comp. God that was funny. Working on my building, working on building my gym stats back up to non embarrassing levels without disconnecting any limbs from my body after a quad injury but I play AFL and basketball for my university. Oh, okay.

So that's Australian football, I imagine? Yeah, so I'm reasonably fit. By the way, I feel like Ryan would really appreciate AFL, especially off-peak when there's no sport in American summers. That's the thing, boys. That's the author time, guy. We already covered this in reading books. Yeah, just tough for your guy to go,

let me jump into an entirely different sport during this six week stretch of not having to be too locked in. Anyway, I'm reaching out because I'm currently living with my ex-girlfriend whom I dated just over a year and my best friend in a three bedroom house right next to the city. The place is awesome compared to the rest of the market,

really good value. We're currently in a historic cost of living crisis and practically have an unregulated housing market that's driven prices up like crazy. Originally, he said, he tried to say, originally she moved in with two of her workmates whilst we were dating, and their lease ended, I moved in, and then so did my friend a short while later,

jumped forward a few months later, we've broken up, and are now trying to work out the just being friends thing. A little more context, since I've moved in, the place has been upgraded a ton. There was no functional living room, no TV, dining table, no decor. We're also all bartenders and during the weekdays, either work, other jobs or to uni, there's often little overlap in which we're all home at the same time. The relationship was also pretty clearly not working for either of us, but since being broken up, we both admitted to still having feelings for each other. However,

she's been pretty clear she doesn't see a future of us being together in that capacity. If I'm being honest, I probably only remembering the good parts anyway. I really love this house. And I really don't want to roll the dice on trying to find a new roommate if she moves because she's objectively a good roommate. And I'd want to find a way to be friends. I also don't want to move out myself after just moving in and putting so much into the place, especially as I'm in my last few semesters.

She also has a ridiculously cute dog who loves me way more than her, which is quite funny. Any ideas that appreciate it? Look, normally this is a non-starter for me, just my personal opinion, because there's always going to be one personal relationship that probably would like it to work out, which is going to lead to that post, yeah, it'll be fine phase where everybody's lying to themselves. But it sounds like you really like this house. You're giving us a lot of reasons why you want to stay. So it sounds like the, the, the core answer, yes or no,

do you want to stay in this house? You're saying yes. I don't know if it's just the natural, like, hey, I spent time with this person intimately and now they're around, so maybe I do kind of miss it. I do think a lot of the science gets rewired when male and female are sharing the same living arrangement where you can be somebody who are just friends and then there becomes this just the laws of attraction change. I've seen it

too many times. Like I remember being asked to live with somebody, I think maybe the only time I've ever lived with a girl and I dated her friend and I thought she didn't like me. We knew each other from college, but it was a very like, the dynamic of it didn't even cross my mind. It just didn't, and I was young and an idiot. But I normally would warn against this, but another thing I think is working in your favor is that you're all bartenders. So if you are, then your social circle is kind of, I don't want to say that it's

fucked up, it's just like stuff happens when you bartend, right? So it's kind of tough for like the bartender to date the other bartender at the same bar. That's probably just as challenging as it is to maybe even live with somebody else. So if you are actually this mature at this age, still in school, and you think you could pull it off, I wouldn't tell you to pull the plug the way I would say to other people because I just think you're reasoning the way you've laid it out. But you just have to be ready or to be aware of that late night where it goes down and then alters the dynamic all over again. So I don't know what you guys think. Go ahead.

I have to keep reminding myself. I had a different college experience and a lot of people like we were effectively like a bit of a gang, you know, with this Latino fraternity thing. And then it just felt kind of like the origins of the gang before the Latino fraternity thing. And then just like we kind of became an offshoot gang after. College right, school of hard knocks. But I guess my point is like this would be a non-starter. Like I have friends at St. Lawrence that want to chapter up. Well if they're gonna be checking the swipe times of when kids go back to their dorms,

I would say they're gonna have a tough time there. But I think like for me this would have been a non-starter because I'd be like oh this is gonna ruin going to ruin the vibes. Like, this is totally going to ruin the vibes. I wouldn't even consider it, blow the whole thing up, find it, but that's just how important that was to me. And I think I just have to remind myself, people have different sort of college experiences and this guy's more about having this nice house that he feels connected to or whatever.

And me, it would have been like, where's the gang at? But so it sounds like he wants to just kind of Jerry and Elaine this, right? Like he doesn't, I even thought this was going to be, how do we get her out? I was like, oh, you got you and your other guy. You can maybe vote her off the Island somehow, make it uncomfortable. But he actually wants everything to stay the same. He's just wondering if he's wrong for thinking this way. I say, do what you want. Be happy. Sounds like you actually don't have a real problem here.

You're just like, you know, should I be doing this? Even though, yeah, should I, should this be a bigger? Even though it's a bigger problem, right? There's a lot of interesting strings to pull on this. The first one I thought of was, you know, when I, when I graduated from college and then like started working and then really started working at ESPN, I lived at home for a couple of years. I think when I started working on SP and Rassilla Ryan, I was probably still living with my parents, which is hilarious. Uh,

come a long way. What's up. But it actually wasn't that big of a deal because most of the time when I was living with my parents, I was working like overnight. So it didn't really matter that I lived home. If it was like a normal nine to five and I was coming home and I was like eating dinner with my parents, but I barely saw them. And that's what it feels like for you with the bartender thing and you guys doing all this different stuff. Yeah, you live together.

It might be a little weird and not ideal, but because you have an abnormal lifestyle, it's kind of not that big of a deal. Like it doesn't really matter if you're all coming home to dinner at the same time and you're hanging out in the living room at the same time and you're spending all of this time together with an ex. Yeah, that might tug on some heart strings to be a little bit awkward, but I think because of the situation, it's kind of fine and unique. The other thing was you brought up that she has been adamant that she does not want to rekindle or doesn't see anything long term, which kind of leaves us to think that you do or are interested in doing that.

So my only thing to you would be if this is like if any part of this is like you leave the door open to get back with her and you have your hopes up, that's probably not a great idea. And maybe you should figure something out. But if that's if you don't care and it's not gonna break your heart if she brings some guy home one night and you're not gonna get super bummed out about that, then I kind of think there's no victim here.

I think you're all just kind of taking advantage of a good housing situation. Yeah, maybe you coach Boone this and just do some bonding activities to try to draw some friendship lines, like as the three of you. I mean, you just foster an actual friendship activity bonding activities to try to draw some friendship lines, like as the three of you. You just foster an actual friendship activity instead of whatever you guys do.

You want to watch this on the couch or something. Maybe you go bowling with a bunch of people and you try to build that friendship lane a little bit where it's more clear for everyone. It feels natural than every experience you guys have had have been like dating and living together in this new weird area, but you just try to make it feel more normal by doing friend stuff. And then you can maybe really Jerry and Elaine this.

I'd ask like, are there gonna be times, like one, do you want like the random, you know, you both get home from a ship, it's 2 a.m. and you're kind of feeling a certain way and you hook up, like is that gonna- Look at each other quietly in the kitchen. Are you gonna get bummed out if that doesn't happen? Are you? What are your expectations?

I guess for the situation if you don't care about her like not not as a friend level But just as like a dating her level then I I don't think it's an issue But I also realized that's kind of like hard to say like oh, yeah I don't really care about her because there's gonna be a time when you're likely gonna look at her in that way and be like Man, I'm kind of bummed out that we're not together right now. Also, as a dude with money, moving sucks. It's one of the worst things I can think of right now. If I became evicted or something happened and they're like, hey, they're knocking this building down, you're going to have to move. I'd be really fucking depressed for a while. It really sucks to move all your stuff as

a dude who doesn't really have money to move stuff. It sucks. So I can see why you'd want to put that off. I think maybe you should. Well, we can only go with the information we have in the email. I mean, we can always speculate because sometimes the answers get kind of boring, but I mean, he's really hammering a lot of non-relationship points here. He's talking about upgrades, you know, unless he just doesn't want to share with us the stuff that's kind of embarrassing. Put up some floating shelves I'm really proud of. Yeah, exactly. Good, all the sinks working properly.

So I just think that- High pressure valves. This is, something's probably going to happen that's not great. He says he has a few, it's his last few semesters. So we're looking at what, a year and a half window here of, of this living situation, but I think the bartending thing gives me hope, not because you're going to avoid this landmine that's going to happen at some point. It's just a matter of preparing yourself emotionally for the whole thing.

But the way that I look at the bartending part of it is that you should be desensitized to certain things. Um, if you're in that industry. Now, it also depends on like which kind of place you're bartending at. But I'll never forget one of the gigs I had. One of the owners was. Was his outlook on life was absurd. OK, he makes me look normal.

And there was like a younger guy that just got a girlfriend and he yelled at him. He actually like pulled the guy aside. He was a big scolder, the owner, he liked to scold. And he pulled him aside. He was like, what are you doing? Like, why would you do this? And the guy was like a young dude, good looking guy. And the girl was gorgeous. And I was like, what's the, what's the expl- like, why do you need more of an

explanation? But he, since he was a young guy and he was new and he just promoted a bartender, like he pulled me aside and goes, why is he leaning into me like this? Like, what did I do wrong? I was like, what did he exactly say? He was like, he told me that in this industry, you have to be all in and that you can't be like having a relationship because you're just going to get in it. You're going to cheat on her and there's going to be all these opportunities and you're going

to be a fucking mess. This whole thing. I'm like, dude, you're bartending here like two nights. No girlfriend during football season. Jesus Christ. I go, I'll handle it because I'm a little mustache policy. Huge Yankees fan too, by the way. But it was this, the kid was totally right,

but because he was so young, he wondered if he was completely wrong. And he was so confused, and he was asking like, did I, am I supposed to stay single while I work here? Like, I don't understand. I go, dude, don't worry about anything that he said. He's a crazy person when it comes to this, so don't worry about it. You're not going to miss out on any bonuses, dude. It's not that kind of place. Yeah, right.

This wasn't some startup. You're coming in at seven, cutting some fucking limes and then moving the mats at 2.30 and counting your cash. And then you'll do it one other night. Because back then too, those places that I would work, I'm rarely anybody. I'd be like the only person that would have four shifts a week because it was my job and I was still there. So, okay.

Um, good luck with all that. So, um, let's see here, uh, being left out. All right. This guy, we have a guy who's in. Now we got a guy who's out. What's up guys. First time, a long time here. Five 10, one 65 just turned 40 completed my first marathon this past April.

So I think I like to stay in pretty good shape. Won't impress anyone with my height or my weight room numbers. Yeah. I mean, five 10 is not crazy impressive, but now I understand these weight. Yeah. We have the same exact build. So just be easy. Come on, dude.

He sounds like a better athlete. Do you think you're, there's only three guys on this call. Come on. That was a huge oversight. Reason for this email is I find myself at somewhat of a crossroads in regards to my friend group and it's really weighing on me mentally. Here's the situation. Tried all summer to organize a boys golf outing, three, four days golf booze, maybe hit up

a casino. You know the drill, always a good time. I keep getting responses like, can't make it that weekend or sorry man, busy. Well, the end of summer rolls around to come to find out what I would consider my core group of buddies. Four of them are in fact taking a quick golf vacation, two courses, one night, and I was just not included. Yeah, dude, that sucks.

Obviously to protect my feelings. They were keeping it quiet for me, but one of them recently let it swim, but I'm not going to lie. Hit me like a ton of bricks. Uh, I've been all up in my emotions questioning if I am that guy. Yeah, man, this is not a fun spot out of emotion. I left our text thread. Uh-oh.

So far crickets. Jeez. We got, this is just a bad sign marathon. Speaking of, right. I always play in local two-man golf tournaments. One of my buddies on this trip, but now I'm thinking of telling them to find someone else. I don't really want to, as I enjoy playing in them, but I'm really hurting with this one.

I get the fact that floor makes the perfect golf number and there's undoubtedly going to be someone left on the cutting room floor, but I'm really hurting with this one. I get the fact that floor makes the perfect golf number and there's undoubtedly going to be someone left on the cutting room floor, but what makes it sting and makes it hard to move past my repeated attempts to try and get something together and being told no, when all the while they knew they had something in the works. A simple, hey man, we're going to do our own thing, just didn't work out. Having you go along would have at least felt a little better than this. I agree. It would have felt a lot better than what you're feeling now Unfortunately, that's just not how people operate. Nobody goes. Hey, dude, just want to let you know We just got done deposits in flights booked. We're all doing a golf trip. You're not in just wanted to man up

I just wanted to get this out get out in front of it. All right, okay stuff. Yeah, nobody does it Wish they did but they don't Yeah, nobody does it. Wish they did, but they don't. So should I just completely cut bait from the pack or brush it aside as one of those things to make it even more complicated? The buddy I mentioned playing it's two mans.

We were also on the same coaching staff together for high school football. Appreciate it, fellas. Okay, look, you're hurting right now. It stings, it stings, it stings. Again, it happened to me once, there was a vote on our sophomore year housing to getting the off-campus apartment or off-campus house because there was like six or seven guys

and there was a pretty small group of us and they had a vote. Just one too many. And I think, I don't know if it was like six or seven votes, it might've been seven votes. And there were like two votes that were more powerful than the five. And then because there was two anti-Risillo votes,

the neutrals just went along for the ride. And no one told me anything about it. Now they had a default, it's like, well, you have that other group and this, you could do other, and it was just, there was one guy in particular who just hated my guts and was like, I'm not living with him. I don't even know why he had such sway with it, but he did. There you go. It happens and it sucks. It really sucked to find out that way, even though, again, I did have other options that it wasn't going to completely derail my thing.

There was another golf course that I could play in metaphorically here with this. So I get it. But this is the part is really tough in the self scouting exercise that you have to kind of ask yourself, what puts me here? Right? What put me potentially in this situation where now I could have these guys not respond like as a guy that wanted to plan. Like I have one friend in the friend group now who's a big planner and I'll just be like, dude, I have no idea. You're asking me all it's not that I'm not interested. It's not that I don't want to.

I just don't know. And this person is a big time planner. I can't really plan that way. All right. So maybe, maybe in your attempts to do this, it's not so much because of you, it's just because of the way it works around this age and going, how many guys can you actually get together and map all this stuff out? But you're getting really dramatic about it, which could circle back and you may not like hearing this. Like, could this be part of the problem?

Could you have this personality trait where like, you want to just, these are core guys, you're pissed. You have a right to be pissed. You have a right to be disappointed. You're asking yourself if you're that guy, if there's five people, somebody's going to be ranked fifth. It sounds like you're ranked fifth on this one. You don't like hearing that.

Right. But is there anything that you've been doing to put yourself in this position to be left out? And your reaction to leave the text thread is kind of aggressive. But the fact that none of them have reached out, there's not one of the four guys that could have gone, Hey, dude, like, I know it kind of sucks or whatever. But like, let's let's not turn this into something else. Because I'll tell you what, I've got a list of emails of dudes are looking for friends.

You may not want to start this all over again because of the golf truck, a golf trip. Um, and then saying there's somebody I played in these two man tournaments and now I don't want to even invite him. And now I want, you might want to relax as much as you're hurting right now. And I'm not saying you're wrong to be hurting. You might want to relax on the retribution angle on all of this because that's gonna make

you make them feel even more justified. And now we're talking about like, forever stuff. Yeah, yeah, like ultimate surrender. Yeah, this is an ultimate charger to the game scenario. I mean, this isn't like, this isn't a bachelor party. This isn't, they're going to some sort of music festival and cut you out.

There's four people at a tee time at most golf courses, right? That's kind of how it goes. You get your four. Could be more normal, right? Right. This is, this is fun. This is you losing a credit card roulette and refusing to pay. Like this, we had this with our,

Oh, I know, at least you had the dinner at that point. I know, yeah. So here's a better one. Well, we had this with our, at least you had the dinner at that point. So here's a better one. We had five dudes in this house. It was clearly like a three person house and they just sort of like shaved off a couple corners of this house and made it five rooms in college. And we didn't know how we were going to do it. So we did it, you know, I think we put one through five and a hat.

You pick whatever number is, that's your room choice. The one guy who got five all of a sudden was like, this isn't fair anymore, this isn't how it works. And so you can't like, when someone has to be last, you can't be the guy that says like, well, we can't play this game this way because I lost. So, and we kind of looked at him a little different from that. I mean, obviously he's in the house, we signed the lease, but it was just like, God, like we kind of all agreed

on some sort of guidelines here and you're fine as long as you're not the one who's out. So I think you just have to learn how to be the one who's out and just try to remember that this is, there's only so many spots. So I think, you know, I think just try to keep that in mind and you're also stop everything you're doing right now. Stop all the retributions and poking and even mentioning it. Just stop. Because if you're sitting on the fence here and you're not going to fully commit to leaving this

and you sound like you couldn't be more on the fence. You're like, I'm sitting on the fence, I'm throwing some shit at these guys, but I think I might want to go back over there. You need to just climb down right now and stop. Because they're all galvanized anyway and you're just making it worse. So I would stop this right now and just charge the game yeah I feel like our four C minus C friends better than no friends probably probably and that sucks but like right that's the realest shit you ever said but seriously Saruti that's a new peak for you. What are four C minus friends better than no friends?

Yeah. And that's the kind of the path you're heading. Kinda. You just dudes just listen, I've been, you know, listened to, we obviously get a lot of emails from guys, as you said, Ryan, who are looking for friends post college and, you know, listening to Derek Thompson's playing English pod a lot. Just, there's like this epidemic of loneliness just throughout the world, especially in the United States.

Like if you've got a couple that are at least like in a text thread together, like they're probably worth holding on to. I'm not saying like have the lowest standards in the world, but I think you're going to be really bummed out when you have no one to text or no one to really because because I would say like, you know, what's your what? Do you do you normally hang out with these guys? Like, I don't know that he gave too much background into it, but like are you- Enough to expect to be on this trip, yeah.

Well yeah, but I don't know, maybe you're just misreading the level of friendship there is. You're right, I mean he could be, he could be ranked seventh out of five. Yeah, that's true. And we have no idea, like there's, I mean I'm not trying to bum the guy out any further, but I think your point's the best point of the whole thing.

Like there's some guys that I'm not super close with. It's not always happening for me, but I'll go, you know what though? One of those guys is always available randomly. So what am I going to do? And actually, I'm not at a point now in my life where I'm mad at any friend for anything. I just don't really care. And I'm not close enough, you know, geographically anymore to where my pockets of friends are. But I think you're right.

Like you may just have to reevaluate what the relationship is and lower your expectations with it. And you know, maybe if you go, hey, I freaked out. I want back in the text thread my bad it can become a way that you actually benefit from it but there's also an underlying thing here and I don't I don't mean to bum out the email or even more like I am worried that what if you actually just are that guy it's a lie by admission it's not not a bold face betrayal. I think it's just you just got to change your perspective a little bit.

Yeah, I love this. So we don't need to add any more of that because Saruti nailed it with the C-. Okay, once again, today's life advice was brought to you by the Peacock Original. Mr. Throwback, stream every episode of the new basketball comedy series, Mr. Throwback, now only on Peacock. Thanks to Wargon. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Saruti, the Ron Russo podcast, and Google on YouTube, and please subscribe on Ringer Spotlight. the the the the

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