The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Watson Hope, Stroud MVP Talk, 49ers Scary Again, and Trevor Lawrence Questions With Willie Colon

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Russillo opens by recapping Week 10 of the NFL season and giving his biggest winners and losers (1:07). Then, he breaks down his top 12 in CFB (16:11). He is then joined by SNY’s Willie Colon to discuss Antonio Pierce, Josh Dobbs, 49ers defense, and Aaron Rodgers’s return (19:46). Finally, the guys close it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (49:55). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Willie Colon Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's show we've got a run through the headlines best win worst loss numbers you need to know in a new award for nfl week 10 i'll do my college football top 12 and we've got willie cologne talking antonio pierce as theiders' long-term head coach. That Niners pass rush and a bunch of other fun things, including the Aaron Rodgers return date. We've got life advice, and we want to remind you that it's live show week. We're in Vegas this Wednesday at Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club

before the big F1 race. So if you're going to be there, we still have some space available, but you might want to do it quick. Get your tickets at JimmyKimmelsComedyClub.com. Doors open at 8. Show starts at 9. Come hang out with me, Kyle, Saruti, Todd McShay, and more. That is coming up on Wednesday.

And a reminder, no show Wednesday morning. We will release the live show as an episode probably Thursday morning. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable.

Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. NFL week 10. We've got headlines, numbers, best, worst, loss,

and basically it was the field goal walk-off week. Let's start with San Francisco. and basically it was the field goal walk-off week. Let's start with San Francisco. Nice win in Jacksonville. You could say that after everything they've gone through. 34-3 the final score, and Debo is back. San Francisco's numbers with Debo in the offense, 35.5 points per game.

Without him, 17 points per game. You could see immediately him not even getting a touch, but being on the field, being in motion and scaring the defense, opening other things up for McCaffrey. This could be a bit like what Cincinnati had going back a couple of weeks ago with their nice win at San Francisco. So a little connection there where you're looking at a team and going, hey, we're good. Enough of this. We need this one bad. They had the bye week.

So it wasn't the normal shorter week of going West Coast to East Coast. And they basically reminded all of us of what they're capable of when they're healthy and ready to go. And that's why despite Purdy struggles, I don't think we thought, okay, at the very least, you don't expect five picks in three games. A couple of those just being straight up bad decisions, bad throws or bad decisions. That was the thing. Again, it's not like he's going to be clean the entire year, never thrown an interception, but it was happening in a bulk setting there, despite him not being somebody, especially in this offense, looking to take the top off of it. So why are the interceptions spiking up? It's just probably a bad stretch for him.

And they have Debo back, which just opens up all sorts of other things because the defense is worried about Devo Samuel. This game was 10 zip, and then Jacksonville's next five possessions were a fumble, field goal, interception, fumble, interception, and that made it 34-3. So we mentioned the Purdy pick part of it. A game like this is really just why it's hard to quit a team like this with this much talent. Jacksonville can now go in the doubt bin for a week. It's their worst home loss since losing to the Rams in 2019.

Jacksonville coming in had some nice defensive numbers, but a lot of it's been their plus minus. I'm not going to get really worried about them, even though we had talked about it. Basically, every one of these contenders has some kind of loss that looks really bad, and then everybody moves on from it and then gets

excited about it again. But the Trevor Lawrence stuff, I think, is at least fair to go, what is he? Is he actually going to be somebody who can carry a franchise through the downtimes? And I'm just talking about week to week like the best quarterbacks figure out a way with not a great defense, a turnover here and there to get you back into the game somehow. And he was not able to do that in a pass rush for San Francisco. I'd say personnel wise has been disappointing for the most part this year, five sacks in this one, and they wreaked havoc all game long leading to some of those mistakes. So not necessarily looking at Jacksonville entirely different because we could do this every single week some of these teams that we think are supposed to be good Detroit they beat

the Chargers in a shootout in Los Angeles 41 38 they're the two seed in the NFC today and much like the contenders we've talked about like they had their what the fuck loss that was 38 6 to the Ravens but Kansas City's got theirs against Denver Phill Philly's got theirs against the Jets, which was really about the turnover situation. So just keep reminding ourselves throughout this journey of an NFL season that even the best teams, the teams that we really like and talk about the most,

they're probably going to have one or two moments where you're like, what is wrong with them? And that is the NFL. But Detroit, nothing wrong with them. We're not going to worry about the defense right now because their offense is rolling. Sixth in points, third in yards per play, and they had 101 rushing yards before contact against this Chargers defense,

which is what it's supposed to be. And that's a season high of yards before contact. They were also fourth to five on fourth down. So the reason I bring that up is because the biggest play of the game was maybe a fourth down conversion that led to the game-winning field goal for Detroit. At 38-38, Chargers have fought all the way back into this thing. They have a fourth and two at the Chargers' 26-yard line with 147 left. Dan Campbell, who we learned was a captain with the Dallas Cowboys

as a backup from Tony Romo, don't see that a lot, decides he's going to throw it. Laporta, who's been incredible for the Lions, makes the catch. They convert it. They run the clock down to be able to walk off and kick the game-winning field goal. At the 26-yard line, you're talking about a 43-yard field goal. And I'll admit as I'm watching the game going, this is one of those deals where you get a little too cute. And of course, what do we always remind everybody? If you're going to screw up and be the same, it's way better than screwing up and being different. And this is that spot where a coach goes, well, if I go for and for the two and I don't get it and the Chargers get the ball back because they were going to probably score, which is another reason why I wanted to run the clock because their defense couldn't do anything with the way Herbert and that group had gotten things going.

You're leaving yourself open for much more criticism by going for it on fourth down as opposed to just missing a kick from 40 plus yards out. missing a kick from 40 plus yards out. But this was something that Campbell has thought a lot about because if you go back to last year, week three, Detroit was up 24-21 against Minnesota with 1-14 left. It was a fourth and four, and they decided to kick the field goal. They missed the field goal. Cousins goes like 50, 60 yards and three plays for the game-winning touchdown. And then Campbell was irate about it, about his own decision. This was his quote from last year, week three, quote, I hate it. I just hate the decision. I wish I would have put it back in the hands offensively and so be it. I just wish I would have done that. Well, he had the opportunity. It wasn't

apples to apples because the score was a little different there, but that's what he's going to do. And it also probably speaks a little bit to how not scared he was of that Chargers defense to be going ahead and doing it. All right, best win. There's a few options, but I'm going to go with Cleveland, 33-31 at Baltimore. The biggest reason why is because Cleveland needed something like this offensively and because it's Baltimore, one of the best teams in the NFL. And it was one of those games where you're looking at the score and you're like, all right, well, I don't have to lock into that one. It's 17-3. It's 24-9. It's 31-17. And then all of a sudden, Cleveland gets a touchdown.

It's 31-24, whatever. Not a big deal. But then there's a pick six. They missed the extra point. You're like, how is this the game at 31-30? Well, it's a game because Watson got things going finally for a long stretch in the second half. And it was ugly in the beginning. Second play of the game, he throws a pick six. And I'm like, this guy is so bad right now. I can't believe he's this bad. And I know I say it every single week with him. He was 6-20 in the first half, but he went 14-14 in the second half, mixed in some runs that were huge. I think Patrick Queen was trying to decapitate him at one point there on that sideline play. Apparently, the injury stuff from this game is that Watson has an ankle injury. You could see numerous times him rotating his right shoulder, trying to get it back to where he would feel good about it.

But that 14 of 14 means something. It means something because it has been so bad. It's this sliver of hope for Browns fans of going, maybe, just maybe, this will work as opposed to what so far has looked like the worst financial decision in NFL history. has looked like the worst financial decision in NFL history. This is a Baltimore defense that was allowing the second fewest yards per game in the NFL behind number one, Cleveland. 262 is the average going in, so it's bumped up a bit because Cleveland was able to – it wasn't just the turnovers in this thing from Baltimore, which, again, not a huge deal.

They had the bad game. Lamar's not going to be perfect every single week, but 373 total yards against this defense is doing something. So, the lesson in this one at least is just anything, even if it's not real, anything to at least make yourself feel better that he could turn this around because it's been so bad. All right. Worst loss, is it Cincinnati because we felt like they got things rolling again? I don't think losing to Houston at home, walk-off field goal, is bad. Houston's 5-4, and we'll get to Stroud here in a bit, but they were down 27-17, and that was the first of two interceptions for Burrow. Let me talk about quarterbacks here a bit. The reason I admire what Burrow does is he's wired

to know, okay, we're down two scores. I need to press the issue here a little bit. There are too many quarterbacks, which is amazing even at the NFL level that you'll see this, where they're down two scores and they're playing like they're down one score. And if there's a quarterback that I doubt, like I'm not sure about this guy, I don't really like him, I don't think he's the long-term guy,

he's probably going to get replaced within two years. And that's the way I watch it, right? I'll just watch and be like, is this guy really one of those guys? And right or wrong with whoever you're watching long-term. But specific to that moment, if I doubt you as a quarterback and you're acting and you're taking the three and five-yard chunks and you're down two scores and the clock is an issue, then that confirms to me that I'm right about you because you're confirming that

you're not even that into yourself. And Burrow is wired in such a way that he's going to play to score in game situation. Now, the first pick, you start looking at the clock, you're like, all right, how many more possessions are you going to get? Kind of that seven, eight minute range, you're thinking probably two, but they got the ball back under 13 minutes in the fourth quarter and he throws his first pick. So I admire that he's going to press the issue. He's going to play the position the way it needs to be played based on what the game circumstances are, but that pick was on a first down. It wasn't a three and out, they get a punt. Then he throws another pick at the Houston 14 and then that one was on first down.

So that's the fair criticism on Burrow there. It's not just, hey, the guy threw two picks late. It's that you threw them, despite pressing the issue, knowing you needed to do scores, you threw them on first downs. But Houston let you right back into it. They throw a pick, which was just a bad throw by Stroud. Didn't see the coverage underneath. Didn't see the linebacker.

Actually, no, that was a defensive back, Britt. They score a touchdown. They actually go three and out. Cincinnati's got a game-tying field goal, but yet Houston, and this is my favorite part of Stroud, favorite thing for the entire season, is that

he's not going to be somebody who's going to second-guess himself. He had to make some throws to move it 56 yards, and they have a game-winning field goal. So I really don't see that as a bad loss, but I just wanted to go over that again because Stroud, I don't know if he can win MVP. I don't know if Houston could have a quarterback. What if they don't even make the playoffs? Are the voters actually going to vote for him? Is he actually the most valuable considering what he's done and not a going to vote for him? Is he actually the most valuable considering what he's done and not a ton of weapons for him there? The offensive line is probably better than Carolina's offensive line. And I don't think Bryce Young is in any MVP conversations. But the fact

that any of this is happening and it's not met with an eye roll is just a credit to what he's done as they pull another one off with a last drive there. All right. Worst loss then, because I'm not going to say that it's Cincinnati-Houston. I'm just not. Does anyone even care about New England anymore? I don't even think they do. That one was the early game. They're now 2-8, and I mentioned this last week,

where if you look at how the spreads, the spreads are almost set with this idea that maybe New England is going to get back into it or turn things around, that they can't be this bad. They should have probably won that game outright. Mack had an awful, awful pick again. I know that sounds familiar, but they're 2-8 against the spread. Let's finish with a number you should know in an award. Here's a number for you. This is Mike Sando, Pick 6 column, The Athletic. We love

them. We love having them on. Pittsburgh is now 6-3. They beat Green Bay. Not a great day for Jordan Love. Pittsburgh has been outgained in every game this season. They're the only team with a winning record this late in the season while being outgained in every game in NFL history. And I swear when I watch the Steelers, I'm like, they're home again. Like, do they start with eight straight at home? No, that's not true. But they've played six of nine at home. We keep waiting for the dam to break,

but they keep winning. Awards. I was trying to figure out something that made it seem like Arizona was trying to do two things at once, but I didn't really like the award titles that I was trying to figure out something that made it seem like Arizona was trying to do two things at once, but I didn't really like the award titles that I was coming up with here because Kyler Murray is back out there. They get the win against Atlanta. He had some really impressive moments. I're an Arizona fan, it's like, yay, we got Kyler Murray back. We have a better chance to win the games. Yeah, we just won. But then are we also costing ourselves a chance at Caleb Williams, who I'm still totally on board with despite USC struggles because that place is a mess right now. I don't care what the final score was against Oregon.

But if Jonathan Gannon is interviewing for the head coaching gig, and he's done a really good job, at least this team's fighting and responding in spots we didn't expect, part of him selling himself to this organization is that he can fix Kyler Murray. So is Kyler Murray playing because they're like, look, we're not moving him because Gannon said he could fix him and because we owe him all this cash. We don't want to pay him cash to play quarterback somewhere else. but they also could be doing it to raise his trade value, which would be weird if it worked because it's like,

cool, he's worth more in a trade. And now we can't really pick one of the other quarterbacks. I think the simplest thing to do whenever you're thinking these things is go, Hey, guess what? They actually don't want to tank. Most of these NFL teams,

if not all of them don't want to tank. And maybe by week 12 or 13, we'll see some weird stuff. But whenever we're like, oh my God, well, the Bears winning actually didn't mean anything because they have Carolina's pick. But you get my point here. Those of us on the outside are way too accepting of NFL teams purposely losing when in reality,

I think Arizona's probably like, we get Kyler back. Let's see what he looks like. We got Gannon here. It's going to be awesome. And that's the long-term plan. And we're not going to try to tailor the end of the season and having Kyler sit while he's healthy, which does nothing for his trade value, or they just want to keep him because Gannon said he could fix him. So instead I'm going to call it the confession award. And that goes to Danny Connell who played pro football, but the topic is actually about college football, but I just couldn't help myself. I had to get it in there. College Football Top 12 a little bit later. Connell said, quote,

you really have to credit the SEC for the way they cover up their cheating and just kept it all in-house for 30 years. None of this publicly slinging accusations helped them build the conference into the dominant force they are today. All right, College Football Top 12. If you hate it, don't worry. I probably hate it too.

Number one, Georgia. Strength of schedule, an issue. It's definitely been harder, a little harder. Hard is the wrong word, but you get the point. With Mizzou, Ole Miss, and then Tennessee still ranked in the AP poll at 21 despite getting trounced by Mizzou, who's really good. Mizzou's a good football team. We'll have them in the top 12 this week.

It's not a gauntlet, but it's a little bit better than people expect. And if they played Bama in the SEC, well, when they played Bama in the SEC title game, I'll be picking Georgia. Number two, Michigan. Can J.J. McCarthy have a Heisman moment by not doing anything? That's basically what happened in this one. It was 24-15. It's not really what the game was. I know it would be one score game.

Technically, if you wanted to say they should have kicked the extra point and worried about two a little bit later, you guys can have that debate. This is another example of Penn State just not being close to Ohio State and Michigan. I don't give a shit what the score is. Penn State fired their offensive coordinator. There were rumors that the offense just opened up.

Now, why am I spending this much time on Michigan or Penn State on the Michigan side? The fact that Michigan ran at 32 straight times tells you how not afraid they were of you the entire time. And when we start digging into resume stuff, although a 13-0 Big Ten team is not going to have to worry about the resume conversation that Florida State, the winner of the Pac-12, the Texas-Alabama mess that could be on the horizon, because there are some things that are potentially happening there. Here's an example. I think that

Washington beating Oregon and Utah is more impressive than Ohio State beating Notre Dame and Penn State. So as I point that out to you, that's why I have Florida State three. The defense is okay. The offense is pretty good yards per play. The strength of schedule isn't great, but the strength of schedule isn't great for Georgia and Michigan in front of them. So that puts Florida State three, Ohio State four. I've got Washington five. Now, I would probably pick Oregon against Ohio State. I would not pick Washington against Ohio State, but I can't do anything with a head-to-head. The head-to-head has to mean something at this point. I thought about screwing around with it,

going, just put Oregon ahead of them. You know that they're better than them. They lost at Washington, but they're better, on and on and on. I know you don't want to hear that, Huskies fans, but it's just not the way we do things, especially when you go back to that old TCU-Baylor thing. So if that puts Oregon at 6, Texas is 7. This is back-to-back fourth quarters. It's a little weird. Outscored

16-3 against Kansas State. Overtime win. Acceptable because I think Kansas State is good. Outscored 20-3 to TCU. TCU actually never get the ball back in the situation, though, to go ahead and win that game. That went a little less acceptable. TCU isn't really that good. Remember in the beginning of the year when Colorado beat TCU and it was billed as beat the defending national champ runner-up? That was interesting. All right, number eight, Bama. I think Bama's better than Texas, but I think Texas' win against Bama is the single best thing on anyone's resume in all of college football, including Washington,

winning that game against Oregon because it was at home and that game was at Bama. Number nine, Oregon State moving up two spots in the AP from 12 to 10. I have Oregon State ahead of Louisville. I have Mizzou ahead of Louisville. I'm just really impressed with what Missouri has been able to do this season. And if you look at what they had going yesterday, I don't know if they're calling Cody Schrader, Bo Jackson here,

with the receiving and the running. He actually looks like a guy who your kid would watch on YouTube that you would hate, but he was incredible. 5'9", 214, thick. Number 11, Oregon State, and we'll put Louisville there at 12. Week 10 in the books, other than Monday Night Football, I had a good time to catch up with Willie Colon, who was up late watching his Jets.

I watched basketball, so I'm not your go-to guy on that game um it's weird because you you kind of still get your hopes up every week and i'm curious all right i love that i love that you have that kind of passion i'm just i feel bad for you at the same time it's not even about being you know having my hopes up there's like a legit um i guess feeling in my stomach that they're going to turn it around. I just feel like with this defense the Jets have that they're going to figure it out time after time. And then, you know, game time comes. I'm looking at the TV. I'm watching it with Bart Scott, Connor Rogers, who covers the Jets alongside me. And we're all

passionate about the possibilities of what the Jets can do. And they do nothing. They do nothing to kind of make me feel like I want to come back to work the next week and actually support this team. So, yeah, I don't know if it's my hopes up, just me and just being having this blind faith that this team will one day arrive. So I don't know. It's awkward.

Well, I know. I know it is. I just, I don't really have a lot to add to it other than, you know, I just, the offense is going to be bad. We know the defense is going to be really good. So if you get a turnover here and there, you might be in a game that you otherwise wouldn't be in. But then you have this Rodgers news, which still,

just because he said he's coming back in mid-December, post this Achilles thing, I don't, I mean, this would be one of the most absurd things ever if this actually happens and he's able to hold up physically after this kind of injury. And like I said, I tore my Achilles. Like, I know the process. I'm not speaking from somebody who, science or loves health. I tore my Achilles. It's a hard injury to come back from. I was a guy who literally was at the training table, sitting on a stool with a my foot, grabbing, grabbing marbles with my toes,

trying to keep my, my NFL career alive. It's not, it's not easy. That's why it is. It's awesome for the simple fact that he's able to move. And, uh, you know, there's that one clip of him dropping back and kind of just playing catch. Um, but there, you know, I'm glad like this Sunday, he didn't do it in front of the cameras because I honestly felt like it was becoming a distraction for a guy who, by all accounts, does his rehab in California and then flies back for the game only to show that he's coming along well. And I'm just like, what is it for? Are you doing this for us?

We don't need it. I think we all know Aaron Rodgers can throw a football. That's not important to us. I think if you're a Jets fan, what's important to you is that he doesn't rush through this thing and hurt himself along the way in the process. Yeah, I don't really know what to make of it because I think I've always said this. We can be... When it comes to injuries, right?

When it comes to the pain that a football player goes through the course of a game, the course of a season, I think we're two things at once. We are not understanding of the physical toll of like, hey, how come this team looks like this? And you're like, well, they look like this because it sucks to play this game sometimes. I mean, it's fun and it's awesome, but it's not, it's also hard, okay? It's so much harder than all the other stuff. I mean, and granted,

you could throw hockey in there a little bit, but, and then other times, I think we're way too impressed with stuff. You know, like a guy's bleeding and it'd be like, oh my God, you know, a guy's bleeding and it'd be like oh my god you know and he's going back in and be like of course he's going back in he's just bleeding like it's not i know it looks bad but it's it's not that big of a deal and then when rogers the first time we saw the footage of him throwing before a game i'm like his leg wasn't amputated like this isn't

planting this isn't a seven step. This is just a guy who's one of the best who's ever thrown. He's just throwing a football. I'm pretty sure that post and Achilles, you could do something like this. It's funny how we underestimate what it is that you guys do. At the same time, completely overreact to something that I'm like, I don't know that that was that big of a deal. Oh,

it, it, it, listen, when he, the first time I remember, cause you know, I covered the jets,

as you mentioned, uh, or as a wide pre and post, and he walked into the locker room and I can remember like the people around us, our cast was like, Oh my God, like you see him walking. And I'm like, oh my God, like you see him walking. And I'm like, yeah, I expect him to walk. Like, you know, it wasn't like he fell off

a building. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it was like, did you see Aaron Rodgers walk into the locker room? And I'm just like, yeah. And what's wild about the situation, too, is a guy who's been injured and dealt with IR. Like you don't have to go out there, meaning like once you're in the locker room, you can easily throw in your sweat, slap down a hot dog and have a coke and just cheer on the boys until the game is over. He's willingly like he's doing this himself. So this is all him in his mind saying today I'm going to walk into the stadium. I'm going to throw my clothes. I'm going to be out there for the cameras. I'm going to walk into the stadium. I'm going to throw on my clothes. I'm going to be out there for the cameras. I'm going to play a little catch, and I'm going to walk back.

By the way, I know people who are actually at the game. Prior to him playing catch, he was limping up and down the sideline. And so I'm just like, what is it all for? Like, you're limping to play catch to tell us you're going to be ready, but you're still limping? And now that you're not limping, and you're not playing catch, it's just like another circus headline that the

Jets just don't need. And it's nothing against Aaron Rodgers. Is it too much for me at times? Yes, 100%. I can admit that. But it's still like, it's like, it is what it is. So, I don't know. On the other side of that game, I look, I didn't expect to spend this much time on on Raiders Jets. And we're not really because, again, I was I was watching my favorite player on League Pass, Anthony Edwards, take out the Warriors. But I get that tech for another stare down, which is absolutely atrocious.

The NBA has to be shaming themselves by the way so oh wow dude we're crossing we're crossing over into that um i love antonio pierce i am biased i i cannot be unbiased he's as real as a dude as it gets but has this stature in a way that backs it up. You know, there's some dudes, you know, putting a swagger shirt on and hoping it actually like tricks everybody.

And to me, he's, he's the real deal. And I hope this works. And maybe him not being McDaniels is the early bump. It's not a very good team. So I don't know that they're going to go on this run. I don't know how well you would know Antonio granted,

you know, the New York deal, both playing different franchises. I know he's older than you, too, but I want this to work out. Your thoughts on him right now? I think your last statement is pretty much how I feel about it. I want it to work out because I think this is the first time not being a fan of the Raiders, but I guess actually paying attention to the Raiders that he feels like he matches the identity of the organization and the community as a whole. Antonio Pierce, only a nine-year career, started with Washington and kind of landed over with the Giants. And obviously he had a good run with the Giants

winning the Super Bowl. I think he had a good run with the Giants when the Superbowl. I think what I like about him is that he, he keeps it, I guess it's, listen, it's cliche to say he keeps it 100, but I think he's garnered the respect of, you know, Josh Jacobs and Devontae Adams and those guys. And sometimes, you know, when you're a guy who played in the league and now you're a coach, it's, I think the one crutch you do have is to say, hey, man, I've been in your shoes. But there's another aspect of it. If you start with respect, you get with respect. You know what I'm saying? I think he respects those guys. I think he respects their resumes. And I don't get a sense that he's... Obviously, this is me looking from the outside in. I think you get a sense that he understands that this team wasn't very good and didn't have a lot of hope.

Now they have hope. And once you have hope and you have a belief that you can get something done, it goes a long way. And listen, they have Aiden O'Connor at quarterback. He's out of Purdue. He's not a world beater. But the kid is out there scrappy. The whole team's scrappy, decent.

Are they going into the playoffs? No. Are they going to win the division? Obviously not. But they just look better on film and that goes a long way. I want to broaden this out though because when you look at Dan Campbell coming in, it was like, okay, this is hilarious, but this is really a meathead and Detroit's trying something different. It's weird because I feel like there's a large segment of the football community that just writes this guy off immediately. Dan Campbell you're talking about.

Yeah, Dan Campbell, right. But it's working. And then I remember going way back to when Dion was still on CBS. He was going, I want the Atlanta Falcons head coaching gig. And me, I think I just was starting in media, and I'm like, what is he talking about? Like, cause my thing was always, if you want to coach, then you should be a coach for somewhere else. And to Dion's credit, this thing that he always wanted, he worked it into a power five job. And I, I wonder how like a locker room reacts to, first of all, the buy-in as a former player is real. Like I've, I've talked to enough of you

guys that when you know, that guy actually laced them up in that is real. Like I've, I've talked to enough of you guys that when you know that guy actually laced them up in that whole deal, like that's a great starting point because when things go South, the guy who you think is a nerd has never played, then you're all going to turn on him because you guys are all kind of meatheads too, but it's, it's a real thing.

Right. But the non-corporate right guy, the, the non-CEO, the, the guy that wishes you could go out there and tackle guys with you whether that's a Campbell whether it's a could you see a shift a pivot from ownership going like hey and granted it's only two games with Pierce against not exactly great opponents here

but would a locker room buy into that more so than what is normally like the more traditional buttoned up guy that has that gig. Yeah. Listen, it's funny you said that because I played with two offensive line coaches who never suited up. And I can remember saying to myself, how are you going to tell me about three-point stance if you ain't never been one, right? How are you going to tell me about picking up an inside linebacker when you've never even stared down a barrel of one, right? And so there is a lot of validity to that because my first offensive line coach, when I got to the league, was Russ Grimm, one of the original Hawks. And I can remember one of the

things I loved about Rex was his ability just to get it without saying it, right? And I mean, whether the offensive line was just worn out from a hard practice or it was things that were going on film that you couldn't explain, but he just understood. So he had a solution to it, whether it was for a person or a particular play, or he just understood things. He understood the non-verbals and he also know how to talk office line

language. So you really were on the same court with him. A lot of times when you have a guy who, to your point, never suited up, he's only going by what the book says. Right. Like you can't you can't talk about boxing if you've never been in a fight. I don't care how much you love the sport and how much you admire whoever. But if you've never been in a ring and knew what it took to even get in the mindset to put yourself in that position, you'll never get it. to even get in the mindset to put yourself in that position, you'll never get it.

So what I think what Antonio Pierce has done a great job of, just being relatable and being honest. Because he didn't have to talk to this team about getting better and wanting to win. When you see Devontae Adams smiling more, it seems like Sunday against the Jets, man, he looked awesome. And he didn't get nearly enough targets as he should have had in that game. But overall, he's smiling. They have an identity in the run game.

They've done a lot of things defensively, especially led by Max Crosby, where you say, okay, well, this can be some things. So I think right now, man, Antonio Pierce, I just like the way he looks on the sideline. I like how he fits this team. You tell they respect him and love him. What happens from here on, I don't know. But they're in a good spot right now.

But they beat two bad teams, right? The Giants aren't good. The Jets obviously aren't good. They should be good, but they aren't good. And he's found the way to win. Yeah, this isn't going to be about whether or not they beat the Dolphins. It'll just be about, you know, is this somebody who can have this job and is the mold breaking a little bit? And for a guy like Antonio, I'd love to see that happen. And I'd like to see more guys get that

opportunity because you know what? The cookie cutter guys too you know so if Campbell had failed in Detroit it's like oh you know you brought in this rock eater what's wrong with you it's like okay well I mean how do the Chargers feel about Brandon Staley right now so it's it's all all of these guys fail but when it becomes a different approach it's a much bigger failure despite having the same the same feel and I wish I think a lot of people looked having the same feel to the whole thing. I think a lot of people looked at the whole Jeff Saturday situation like, oh, this is why you never turn it over to a player. Jeff Saturday was put in a dog hole.

He didn't really have a shot from the door. Not that Antonio Pierce doesn't, but there's a sense of morale and understanding you feel like the Raiders have and that locker room has with him. That's kind of cheerful. Let's talk C.J. Stroud. He is one of the biggest headlines of the entire season. Rookie quarterbacks aren't supposed to look this good under the game-winning drive for the field goal against Cincinnati,

a team we thought had figured some things out. Anything specific jump out to you from him that is just different from other rookie quarterbacks? I had Geno Smith when he was with the Jets his rookie year. And I can remember vividly one of the goals, if you will, as an offensive lineman when you're dealing with a young quarterback is to make sure he get him comfortable fast. Right. Make sure that when he's back there, he's not seeing ghosts, that he's getting the ball out of his hands and that he's doing what he's being told to do. He's doing what he's being told to do. Watching C.J. Stroud, man, he's light years of really – he's light years of what do you expect a quarterback to look like.

I mean, his poise – I mean, go back to this Sunday's game. I mean, he turned the ball over 100%. But it's the fact that, like, they trusted him again to get back in the pocket, deliver the ball 20 yards down the field, a strike after strike after strike. And there wasn't any like, all right, you've done too much or we may have let you go on too far. Let's bring you back. It's not that at all. Like the kid's a ball player. And the fact that he's made this game look simplistic in his first year, that's what jumps off the tape for me. Like the kid is he's good. He's poised. He's confident. His mechanics are right on par and they're bald.

For Christ's sakes, I forgot Robert Woods was on the Texans yesterday. I was like, oh, I forgot that he was even on the squad. But with the run game, the Singletary, you talk about Noah, you know, Noah Brown. There's a swagger to this outfit that I think I haven't ever seen. Like in Valid, they did have Deshaun Watson at one point. They look pretty damn good. there's a swagger to this outfit that I think I haven't ever seen. In Valid, they did have Deshaun Watson at one point. They looked pretty damn good. But to look this good for as bad as they looked last year with a new head coach,

I mean, and he's saying all the right things too. When you hear him in the presser, he says all the right things. He's passionate. And he just looks cool throwing the football. He does. He looks great. And. I think for me, what stands out the most is his poise. He doesn't seem panicked or worried. He's just getting the job done. He's doing it well. Richard Sherman, who's part of the Amazon show, talked about

Trevor Lawrence in the past. I think what he's saying here is fair because Jacksonville could smoke by San Francisco Francisco I mentioned the open Niners were healthy off the bye had lost three in a row like they were as up for that one as probably any game this season maybe other than Dallas and then Jacksonville who has this good record but you look at some of the stats you're like wait how good are they really and offensively there's some numbers in the air like wait that's way worse but I still look at Trevor Lawrence as like somebody who gives you a chance and And essentially, his tweet was this. When I make an assessment that Lawrence hasn't been the generational talent he was billed to be coming out of Clemson, Jags fans are up in

arms. The tape doesn't lie. The team has won because the defense has gotten turnovers. At this point, Lawrence has more turnovers and touchdowns on and on. So basically, it wasn't like he was like, hey, this guy sucks. He's going to suck forever. It's just he's not been as good as I think. What do you think of Lawrence? I think he's spot on. So basically, it wasn't like he was like, hey, this guy sucks. He's going to suck forever. It's just he's not been as good as I think. What do you think of Lawrence? I think he's spot on. But you also got to understand, Trevor Lawrence kind of made this bet. Remember in the preseason, he's like, you know,

I plan to throw 5,000 yards, right? I'm going to be amazing this year. And he has been average. You talk about having only, you know, he has 10 takeaways. He has 10 turnovers, but nine passing touchdowns. And the bottom line, they can't protect him. The offensive line isn't very good. But the Jags on defense, they walked into that game with 18 takeaways.

So it's weird because they do have the Cowboys. You talk about the Christian Kirk. You talk about Evan Ingram. They have Etienne. They can run the ball for the most part. But when you're a starting quarterback in this league, especially when you're him, you're supposed to mask the deficiencies on offense. He has yet to do that. And so when you talk about who's the best quarterback in that division, to me, it's C.J.

Stroup and he's the rookie. And so it's not even close. And I think I think Sherman is spot on because you can say what you want about this offense. But being 6'5 and being able to have the mobility like he does, he has to be money, and he's not money. You know, you go back to the Steeler game, you know, he wasn't great in that game either. You know, the Steelers were just really bad. I mean, the Steelers, I mean, they're a scrappy group, and they win ugly, and they play big-time defense.

But you thought there was a lot of expectation for the Jags to come in that building and flat-out blow them out, like the Niners did week one against the Steelers. That didn't happen at all. So yeah, Trevor, there's a lot on his shoulders that he's just not producing at a high level, or at least the standard that we expect him to play at. He's definitely not that guy. He's not him. He doesn't get a Hemi award, if you will. Who would you rather have, Dobbs or Lawrence? Right now? I'm going to be honest. I love Dobbs, man. I love you talking about the last two games with the Vikings,

throwing for 400 yards, rushing for 100 yards in both games. He's running it. He's throwing it. And I like the fact that he kind of has his air about him where he won a sweepstakes. He won a prize to be the quarterback on a pro team like because when you don't know people's names um you're just flat out balling and you just have this you know this moxie about like hey man i just i'm gonna do the job and whatever happens happens i support the kid man you know you know he was on five teams in 12 months

i felt bad when he got released from uh you released from the Browns because I didn't think DTR outplayed him. I didn't think it was just a glaring... I didn't see why he wasn't warranted to be in the number two behind Watson. It's interesting. I thought he balled hard enough to remain the guy at

Arizona. They were 1-7. They weren't very good, but he kept them in a lot of games with just pure talent and will. I just feel bad because I don't know what he needs to do to find a home. What's going to be a home for Josh Dobbs? I don't know because right now, every

time you put on a tape, you're like, okay, the kid got something. We like what we see. But then you look up and he's on another team. Go back to the Tennessee game. Like he was on the Titans in a playoff game and didn't know anything from anything and pretty much tried his best.

So the kid has marbles, man. And I just hope this situation in Minnesota works out for him. The craziest part about it is that they're putting the game in his hands offensively. Like this isn't somebody getting a couple wins and you're like, Oh, they won 1713 and we're going to pretend the quarterback was good for a week,

which is one of my least favorite things about the way we talk about the NFL. Like, Oh yeah, he went 13 to 26, one 81, no turnovers. Defense was awesome.

We're going to give this fucking guy credit. We're going to give, we're going to give number 13 credit, you know? And you know, it's just, it's extending the lie, right?

Whenever, and I'm not even talking about one guy specifically. there are so many quarterbacks every year where everybody knows that he isn't the guy but then we just extend the lie because of all these other circumstances and maybe that's part of the trevor lawrence story uh a bit this season even though i'd still think like okay i don't know that i'm i'm ready to write him off but if you're telling me he's he's average that's not what you expected with lawrence was back to the original point. With Dobbs, one of those things you always look for is how often is the team throwing on first down in those neutral

situations, right? Not at the end of the game when it's a nightmare. It's just, okay, scores within this parameter. Washington probably does it more than anybody with Sam Howell, and they definitely did this past week, throwing on first down and BNME's just like, look, we're going to try to do the Kansas City stuff that we did with

a different version at quarterback. But it's kind of the way to play the game now. You can't just be giving up first down opportunities every single time. Adjust second and third to what happened on first. And yet with Dobbs and Minnesota's defenses, there's some credit here for turning things around. But they're not

screwing around with it. It's impressive they're winning. It's impressive he was on five teams since week 15 of last year, but they're letting him actually play the position, which in this circumstance normally would not, they would be hand-holding the whole time. And that's not what the Vikings are doing. Yeah, 100%. Considering that he's still learning his way around the building, right?

Like usually, and you got to give Minnesota credit because when Kirk Cousins went down, Yeah, 100%. Considering that he's still learning his way around the building. And you got to give Minnesota credit because when Kirk Cousins went down, they didn't throw their hands up. They were just like, all right, it's done. They didn't do that. They actually said, you know what, we're going to throw one more stone at it and see if we can crack this thing. And they bring in Dobbs. And a lot of people, when they said, okay, well, we'll see what happens.

But to your point, the defense was playing better. Danell Hunter, which leads the league in sacks, is balling. You talk about Kirk Cousins going down with the Achilles, you bring in Josh Dobbs, he comes off the plane, and he's just running and gunning. And I think there's something to be said for that. I think a lot of times, and I think I was the same way as a ball player, like less thinking is more.

Sometimes you just get the athlete and the talent just come to the table and ball out for you instead of putting too much in his head, and I think you see it right now. But he's also a smart kid. He's building rockets and shit. He's a smart kid. Dude loves rockets. Once you find that stuff out, you just know, all right,

this guy can understand cover too. He's got it. Deshaun Watson, a glimmer of hope. I need, I needed to see that. I need it. Cause I was, I've been hard on Watson, man. I've been hard on him because I don't want, I don't want to say, I feel like I'm about to say something's going to be really, really bad.

So this is what I'm trying to say. For somebody who got the bag, right, after everything he went through in the offseason, to land in Cleveland, invalid when he got to, he only played six games, wasn't great, but had a full offseason where they pretty much can customize the offense for him. And then, you know, beginning of the season, I thought he was spotty. He didn't look great to me. He didn't feel like I was watching the Deshaun Watson coming out of Houston. Nowhere near close. And then he plays last week against the Cardinals.

I'm like, okay. There you go. I see a little razzle-dazzle. There you go. And then on top of that, I was really frustrated with him tapping out of games, especially when the team was clearing him, right? The team was like, hey, he's clear to go. He's like, no, the arm's not feeling better.

Why? You got to understand. I play with Ben Roethlisberger, bro. You know what I mean? Like I watched Ben get slammed. I seen Ben play through things that I know most men wouldn't play through in their careers. And so there's an expectation of being an AFC North quarterback because of the defenses that you play against within the division.

It's a hard division to play in because of the physicality each team prides themselves on. So when I'm watching the show and watching, man, I'm like, dude, you got to go because you do have a you have a top ranked defense. You have arguably one of the best defenses in the league right now. And one side of the ball needs help and you can be the difference. And matter of fact, for a guy who just got to the city, this is how you win the city over. Win scrappy, show everybody in the city you're tough, you're built for it, and just get the job done. And the first half against Baltimore, he wasn't great. But the second half, I felt like finally he gets it, right? Finally, he was like he willed himself to carry that team and make some plays down that stretch that really helped him out.

Now, at the end of the day, does he still have to be better 100 percent? But the fact that, you know, I finally felt like I looked at the show. There was a second half of that Baltimore game. But Deshaun Watson, that I fell in love with from Houston, finally showed up. He was gritty, made plays with his feet. Obviously, the arm is still there. I just felt like I just needed to see more. He gave me more yesterday.

So it was good to see, but at the end of the day, man, he just has to be consistent. Obviously, the Arizona game was a tune-up game to get ready for Baltimore. He still didn't look good in the first half. Second half, he came out. Obviously, he was a little gimpy with the leg, had a little injury or whatever, but it was good to see him will himself the victory, will that team the victory and get it done. I love the relationship him and David Njoku had yesterday, Sunday. That was awesome too. Finally, he has a security blanket,

so that was good to see. Yeah, that's what I felt like in the beginning. At least we saw something that resembled the guy that we saw in Houston. And every time I'm shocked at how bad he is and I share that, there's this group of people that seem to think that this is who he's always been. And I'm just like, I watched enough of those Houston games without much around him. It's been two different guys. I don't care. I'm with you.

And that's the thing. He had less in Houston than was a dog. He gets to Cleveland, and you have Njoku, a good offensive line. Cooper's all right. Ford, Kareem Hunt, Amari Cooper. You have guys. Now we expect you to be that guy. And you're talking about your shoulder hurts.

Nobody got time for that shit. You got to go win some football games. Once it's apple-picking time, it's time to go run the ball and win some football games. I like that, apple picking time. I don't know if the Niners are the answer because I think the weird thing with the Niners is that you looked at the talent at the beginning of the year. That's certainly what I did. And look at all these options. They bring in Hargrave from Philly. I like that they're adding a strength to the strength. The Bosa stuff wasn't really clicking. They get five sacks against Jacksonville. Yesterday, Chase Young is on the

team. I don't know. It might be two questions here. Give me the front that you'd be most afraid of having a game plan for. And then obviously where do the Niners fit in amongst that? Oh, wow. For me, it would probably be, and I don't want to be too on brand or cliche, it would probably be the Niners front, right? That's kind of what I was wondering.

Now, Chase Young, whatever you think of him, he was really good this year with Washington despite a kind of, hey, is this guy, he's supposed to be one of these guys, but he's not really showing it. And I think this is probably the best stretch he'd had football-wise of his career with Washington before the trade. Well, I think, one, he wants to get paid. Two, I also think it's a situation where he's finally, you know, being with the Niners, where there's, and not that there was so much pressure in Washington because he played along a couple other first-rounders, but I mean, between Bosa, Hargraves, Armstead, him, I mean, like, now he's a part of kind of this Mon squad where, like, it's hard how you game plan. Like, a lot of guys double Bosa, but now you got Chase one-on-one that time.

And sometimes even when they go max rotation, you got Hargraves getting off, too. So I think the fact that it's not about him, it's just about him just being the best he can on each down and just beating the guy in front of him plays into his strength. I mean, he's an ox, man. He's a big dude. So at the end of the day, for him to play the way he played against Jacksonville, I'm not surprised because on top of that, Jacksonville can't protect anybody.

So it's pretty much him beating up on a bunch of JV guys. But he showed up, and he needed to have that game. And they needed to look dominant. Because you know San Francisco, they're not a heavy blitz team. They try to get home with what they have, what they're for. Sometimes they drop eight and they let the boys get home. And so at times it's weird because I thought the last three games where they needed to make a change was become more blitz happy and take more chances and they kind of didn't and you show them get exposed when you go you play against minnesota and you don't get a sack you and bose is healthy it's like well damn like what the hell's going on

where where are these guys who are known to be world beaters and so the fact that they got chase young and they looked as good as they did um they gave trevor lawrence a shitload of fits it was they're in they're moving in the right direction. And Brock Purdy was money. Everybody was money. Everything was as advertised. So it was good. But I think one thing about this, not in the defense, man, if they continue to stay healthy

and play together, they're going to be dangerous in the playoffs. Yeah, I would agree. I think right firmly back into the conversation after a really disappointing stretch of three games. Willie Colon, SNY jets, pre post and Fox sports as well. We'll catch up again soon. Thanks.

Thanks brother. I appreciate you. They say money can't buy happiness. Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby. You want details? Bye.

I drive a Ferrari three5 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. What's up, Kyle? What is up, Steve? It is LifeAdvice. The email address, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. And if you want to do any kind of mailbag type question or whatever, because we have another one coming out, probably around Thanksgiving, fridayfeedbackrr

at gmail.com. You can ask us questions literally about anything. We call it Friday Feedback because it was going to be on Fridays, but we're just pivoting. We're branding it to just mailbag. And maybe I'll just make the email that. No, it's going to be Friday. So next Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, we'll have a Friday Feedback for you. We're still doing these both Fridays.

We're about once a month. Happy accidents that they're on Fridays. That's cool. We have a lot of feedback from the vending machine thing. I need to post that picture. I'll post it on Twitter at Ryan A. Russillo on X. I'll post that so you guys can see it because people were very interested in it.

We've had a lot of... I got to give you guys and girls credit here because every now and then there's certain topics where everybody's a hero in their own story and you know what um i need to i need to respect the audience more on this one because well there's just been other topics where you know everyone will chime in certainly when the parent stuff anytime that comes up we've got authors and everyone jumping down our throats but anything we say so this was really cool because

there was a lot of positive stuff. There was very little, oh, I could definitely do that or whatever. Because when you see the picture, it's clearly very daunting or people trying to rig the system. So a competitive eater chimed in, love the show, 27, 6'2", 215, bench 305, squat 335, deadlift 425. Former college football player, b-ball comp, his late career spurs, Rudy Gay. Oh, he's a former college football player. All right, that makes way more sense. I was like, what?

He's throwing some hybrid at us. I have always been a massive all-caps eater and have been fighting that in my mid to late 20s with a heavy dose of basketball. I have four competition eating titles in my life all before I was 22. Nothing like the Nathan's hot dog eating contest, but a couple of legitimate competitors. One such as two pizza eating contest, 43 slices and four cinnamon rolls. Personal record. I'm always surprised those guys aren't fucking slobs.

They actually always look pretty together. I'm shocked that you don't see the lard ass in Stand By Me. They never look like those guys. They look pretty put together. I think there's some ab stuff they do. I think they do some hardcore core things that strengthen everything um i'm not super interested so we don't need to follow up a ton as you know i have one i don't have a title but i do i did compete in the nathan's hot dog at suffolk downs for the eddie annelman hot dog safari

early 2000s um and i don't even like hot dogs all that much. I didn't know that about you. You were like, as you know. That's fucking cool. I think I got credit for seven. I think it was really six. Did you do the dip thing in the water? No, that's why I only got seven, dude.

That's terrible. The radio station basically was like, you have to do this. I was like, I really don't want to do radio station basically was like, you have to do this. And I was like, I really don't want to do this. And they're like, you have to do it. I was going to say, it's pretty off-brand, but, you know. And, you know, when I said I didn't really like hot dogs, they were like, what are you? That's perfect.

Fucking Russian, you know, communist. Although I imagine Russians probably do like hot dogs. So I just was like, I don't really eat them. You know, not that I don't have any meals that aren't unhealthy. Like I'll eat stuff that, you know, I'm not, I'm not over here with a scale counting the macros or whatever. I remember when a guy at the gym was like, Hey, are you able to like, you count your macros? Like, what are your, I was like, not really, dude, not really. I'll smash a pizza by myself once a by myself once a week so i don't say anyway i was sick for like two or three days afterwards though but just absolutely sick and then i had to give ed cookie jarvis a ride to the airport who was

a competitive eater and was uh was a big guy what would your food of choice be if it's not hot dogs then like what would you want to competitively eat if you had to do it again uh uh i don't know i don't even know i don't know that there's any wings yeah not now no way when i was younger i used to love them but i mean a long time ago but like me ordering two dozen and getting delivered to my house that that hasn't happened in i don't know how long so we had this debate with like my friends and some of their wives and girlfriends about like whether or not the average person could just eat 50 chicken nuggets in one sitting and i'm like i think you guys are underestimating how hard that would be like now 50 is nothing like ah that's a lot that's a long sitting or what'd you say? One hour? One sitting. Like, yeah, like you just, you know,

just eat until you can't eat anymore. But you know, you can't feel like... So like, if we start with the Germany game and end with that terrible Jets game, you know, you're going to put down 50... No, no, no, no, no, no. It has to be like... Dude, that's 12 hours. Of course you can do 15 nuggets in 12 hours. Yeah, it has to be like one sitting. Yeah. Yeah, if you're not moving,

you're like, how long are we talking here? Right. Alright, let me get back to the email because I've derailed it. He did a pie-eating competition. First to finish, it wasn't close. Smashed everybody. My crowning jewel, a wing-eating competition in which I ate 38 wings in seven and a half minutes. $3 wings, not the little ones. I realized I wasn't the next Joey Chestnut because I watched Joey Chestnut.

So I hung up the bib and I still have great advice for eating as much food as the vending machine challenge calls for. P.S. Completely agree. Some people are driving around thinking that's easy, but that's a ridiculous amount of junk food to eat in a day. I'm telling you, that's why I need to tweet out the picture. But I'm giving the audience a ton of credit, like incredibly impressed that there was very little no problem, dude. Because then you have to think of the person that listens to it and goes, let me just email to these guys really quick that don't know me that I would have no problem doing this. So it just lives there. Right? Because that's- Humility is just impressive.

Right. There's always part of understanding any feedback to like, okay, but you were driving around and thought, hold up, can you pick up the kids? No, I've got to email these people that don't know me and will never meet me that I could do the thing that I actually just heard them talking about and didn't see the picture of. All right. Uh, I digress. So one drink a minimum of an entire gallon of water the day before I would do too. You're going to want to be full for most of the day before. Hey, back to you guys talking about being full. I like it. Two, considering the timing of when you need to eat, you should have an enormous lunch

the day before with lots of starches. Three, late night before, eat as much salad as you possibly can avoid. Wait, we need a little calm there. Eat as much salad as you possibly can. Avoid dairy if possible, but I always needed some ranch to help

get that much lettuce down so maybe if you can handle a vinaigrette you go that way in case i didn't make this clear the salad you eat the night before is the most important part keeping your stomach stretched out the leafy greens help you clear out in the morning i'm talking two large entree salads from a restaurant five the next day drink minimum water and obviously avoid eating until you reach work to do the challenge. Order of operations here. Got to get a mixture of all of it. Don't try to muscle down one section at a time. I would take the first eating session seriously to try to get down over a third of the stuff immediately. Take breaks, eat in sections of the day, have goals set for times of the day. You can do this and go get that money. Again, $1,700 on

the line. Sorry for the long email and shitty that money. Again, $1,700 on the line. Sorry for the long email and shitty punctuation. It was great, except for the one comma on the dairy part that I'd read through before. So I actually feel better just reading that. I'm motivated. I'm inspired. I hope that guy's a coach. Nothing to add?

Not what I thought. No, kind of what I thought. I mean, definitely kind of what i said so uh it's good to hear thanks guy all right moving on mixing a salad was the advice nice yeah the the night before uh we also had this i guess a couple weeks ago i well i know i did because i tweeted it out i basically was like how can you just still be a James Harden fan? I get it if you were into the Rockets as an eight, nine-year-old and into your teens. And by the way, I can even understand liking him past that age because he was your guy. He was awesome.

And I always give the Rockets a lot of credit for this, that in an NBA landscape where it seemed just stupid to even challenge the Warriors, they were the one team that was really trying to give it a shot. And granted, you know, there was a different phase there with the Clippers earlier on and the Spurs and the Zaza injury and all that stuff. But you get my point here. But then as you got older, I would think like, hey, I don't really want to back this guy anymore. The early returns on the Clippers stuff,

like I'm not even doing that much content on it other than the one time I did it because I'm it because I can't imagine it'll be this bad. But writing in because in addition to the normal hardened bashing, Ryan does, it feels like there's been a frequent question of how can anyone stand this guy. I've come to you as a 24-year-old Seattle native, became a full-fledged hardened guy during his first year in Houston and infeasibly stuck by him at every stop since. I've spent almost half my life watching, enjoying, and defending James Harden. So how can I still defend him? I can't. The guy has broken me. At this point, I'm honestly hoping he just retires so we can speed up the process of him becoming underrated if that ever happens. Anyway, and by the way, the guy's back to being to being a rockets fan he wanted to let us update that how

about the rockets man fun team fun team right now six straight i don't think there's a ton of advice there i don't really want to spend a lot of like we can't have hard and infiltrate life advice as well so i think you just change the subject right because you probably spent so much time when it was when they were scoring points and winning and stuff like that. And so you can't really just be like, yeah, you're right. He's bad. You don't want to lose that. So I think you just change the subject or steer it away before it can even get there. If your spidey senses start tingling, you're just like, hey You're not going to win the argument. So if you can just kind of, you know, swerve around it at any point, and then he'll be retired one day and you could finally rest. Yeah, but this is where I think

we need to encourage more people to open up about themselves being wrong. It's okay. Like, I'm not going to judge you. You got wrapped up in the heart and excitement. I understand it. And now you're having regrets. That's totally normal and totally fine.

We should celebrate and encourage more people to do that. Because the other thing you could just do is be like a loser on Twitter and just kind of like continue to defend him to this day, which I have no idea why those people would exist. So I applaud this guy. I'm proud of him. I have no issue. Like, think how impressionable we all are in so many different, you know, categories when you're younger. But, you know, if that was your dude when you were a kid and then you became an adult and there's still this romantic thing about him, I'm not, I'm not going to tell anybody they're wrong. No, I understand. I understand all

of that. Okay. I have, I have my guys from back in the day as a little kid. I mean, none of them requested this many trades in this short of a time, but it's just, there's nothing wrong with anybody going, hey, that was my dude and I defended him and all that kind of stuff. I think it's just now the, hey, I'm never going to pivot off of this. You can still have loved him in the past. I think it's just when you tell everybody else that doesn't like him that they're wrong in 2023.

You're just like, hey, look. I think that's it. I don't think we need to add it. No, I'll just say really quickly, thank God. I love this because, again, I'll just say, thank God Twitter didn't exist during the magic, what was it, the 09 finals year. It did exist, but it was in its early onset stages because i probably said a lot of reckless shit about dwight howard being

better than lebron james and i was incredibly wrong but you know what you get wrapped up in the fandom of it right and you know i i'm no longer i've seen the light i'm no longer a dwight guy um so it is what it is i'm just i'm happy that people are able to change their minds and and be accepted that they were wrong whenever i I have a position, like I could have gone a lot deeper on some of the college football stuff that I saw from this past weekend. But that is almost entire. Like when when any everybody like will say like, oh, you know, like straw man or whatever, because I think some people like learn the term straw man a few years ago. And they're like, oh, cool. I'm just going to say straw man all the time. I am promising you that

I will have seen it either from people I used to work with, work with now, you know, uh, just it's, there's some stuff about college football coverage where if it's like the home base college football coverage and you know, it's, it's different now. It's not traditional like it used to be. It's not everybody's from the local paper. It's not that everybody's from the national outlet or all that stuff. There's so many localized versions of coverage specific to college football that at times I'll be like, well, this is a media member that thinks this, like this is somebody who actually thinks this about the team.

And then you realize like okay this person's so into that one thing that they don't have like a a greater landscape to kind of like compare or to like think the rest of the world because they're only thinking about their lane we got to get to dudes dating here all right here we go sorry match with the girl on bumble that i hooked up with last year, but she doesn't recognize me. Okay. For better or for worse. Yeah, I'm the former number one overall pick in my hometown 2007 rec league basketball draft and went on to score a menacing two points per game,

and everyone else drafted after me basically rec league gods, so player comp would be Darko Milicic. I think something jumps out here. So does that mean he was in high school and now he's in Bumble now in his 30s? Which I am not judging. I just, is Bumble on the younger side of things? Or is that him? I always thought it was, I thought it was like, just, it's all a step above Tinder, right?

I thought that's what, like, you know, for maturity wiseinder right i thought that's what yeah like you know for maturity wise or whatever so that's that's what i thought so i think as long as you're above you know that one you're it's like it's considered better okay all right this guy's like cool you guys e-harmony or anything yeah yeah you guys are shitting on me we haven't even get to the subject um no i just i actually am a proponent of this good for you man as the title says i recently matched with a female on a dating app the caveat is i hooked up with this woman about a year and a half ago after a chance encounter at a rockies game go denver i texted her a few days later and reminded her i kicked her ass in that

bar game where you swing a ring on a string i love, I love that game. Fuck yeah, dude. Nice. And try to land it. That's a ring-string game. Cool. That's a hard game, dude. That was a bar right there when you swing a ring on a string

and asked her for a date, whether it be her inability to handle the feet or my lackluster skills in the bedroom, she ghosted me. I know where this guy was. Fast forward to today, I've been chatting with her on said dating app, and she clearly has not realized I'm the guy from that sweet, sweet summer night.

It should be pointed out we're both pretty inebriated, so I don't fault her for not recognizing me. She's not ugly, and I felt our personalities click pretty well in person, so I'd like to pursue things again. I haven't brought up that we've actually met before. I'm not sure how to tackle this situation. Should I just meet it head on and tell her before things go further on the app? Should I try to set up a date and mention in person? Or should I go the route of 50 first dates and pretend like it never happened? P.S. It's definitely Kyle breathing on the podcast. All right.

It is me. So shout out to the producers. Thanks for not taking that stuff out. For the story alone, I love him not saying anything anything that's just kind of what I know he probably should but I like the idea of meeting up and seeing because this story will be hilarious and who knows it could be your origin story imagine wedding toasts with this one now maybe there's downside she's like I hooked up so much that year that I just couldn't keep track, which maybe we'll leave out of the wedding toast part.

But I don't think you bring it up. I think for your own entertainment and the entertainment of your core group of friends, you're a legend for this. You're a legend if you go out on a date and then everyone's going to be like, what happened? Did she know? And, you know, if it goes south, you can be like the funniest thing is that we already hooked up a year and a half ago. Or if it goes great, the problem is she may be like, you're a weirdo. But then isn't she just as weird for not remembering? Like what's worse, you remembering and not telling her or her never remembering? So dumb shit happens.

But I'm kind of rooting for the entertainment angle of this option. So I say do it and don't say anything until either it goes south or it goes north, which you don't hear very often. which you don't hear very often and you it becomes like a really funny story because maybe at that point she likes the new you and she's changed or it's just a completely different experience for her than five times in i mean she may not like it at all but she may love it who knows we're all different i feel like you run the risk though of like, if it goes well, I think, I think the answer is don't say anything. If you want to have like a second chance here,

which you clearly seem like you do, but if things are going well, I don't think you have, I don't think you tell her either until like, maybe you're like engaged because maybe there was something that like really was a red flag with her. And then like, if you have a couple of good dates and you split in,

Hey, like remember back in so-and-so that we did this and we hooked up or whatever. And she's like, Oh yeah, you're that guy. And then she breaks it off again. So I would kind of keep it to yourself until you know that you're in a real safe place. So this is not quantifiable, but like to what Ryan said is like, you know, is it weirder to be the guy that remembers or like, is it, is it weirder to be the person that doesn't remember? Uh, I think you, you could be made to feel weirder to be the

guy that remembers. Like, I think Chris Rock has a good joke. He's like, dudes just love to not know. Like I remember in high school, it used to be like, like almost like, especially in history class. Cause that was one of the things that I actually could like retain and did well on and stuff like that. And like, I would just somehow would just come up with my friends and I talk about something in class and they'd be like, I don't know that shit. Like, like they're almost like proud.

So I know it's like a little different, but it's just, it's kind of unquantifiable, but it's something you just kind of know that like the people who, who forgot and like, Oh, you remember that shit. It's like,

sometimes they're just like, Oh, I'm cooler than you. I got so much going on. I don't even have room for that in my brain. But what I would say for this specifically, I wouldn't overthink it, but maybe you haven't met up in person yet, right? He's remembering when he's saying like we clicked in person,

he's remembering that shit from a while ago, like a nerd, because she totally doesn't remember. But I think what you could do is when you finally set up the thing, you look at her eyes, and if she does it like a little like, you know, pictures could be just way different. Like, you know, we've all been there where we saw a picture and saw a person and we're like, wow, I can't believe that's the same subject here. But I think that if you look at her and she does a little like, you know, head cock or

is like, is this? You know, then you can act like it's happening to you for the first time too and be like, oh my god, ring game girl? But if not, then maybe you can just bail on that. Like, if you just, you get the actual, once she lays eyes on you, if there's any sort of change in her face, you see the gears turning at all, then maybe you can just bail on that. Like if you just, you get the actual, once she lays eyes on you, if she, if there's any sort of change in her face, you see the gears turning at all, then maybe you can be like, then you can act like, oh my God, are you actually the same person?

But if, but if, you know, read that and if you, and if you, you know, read it, then make the handoff. But if not, you know, just act like it never happened. Yeah. That's a little devious though. Cause then you could be setting yourself up from like you hook up so much that you don't quite remember everything. Um, I like, as a cool guy, as an though, because then you could be setting yourself up from like you hook up so much that you don't quite remember everything. I like you're the cool guy.

As an aside, I love that Kyle was the history guy in his crew in high school. So this is right. This is completely dependent upon her. Now, as we played this out and talked about it, I've also thought, what if this happened to me? And what if I didn't remember the girl and then we met up again for a date and then we hung out a few times and then she tells me like after the third time we already hooked up a year and a half ago by the way then I'd be like what a lunatic so um it really depends on her personality but I think there's a just a great chance for an all-time story here, and

I would protect that. Protect stories. Protect stuff that you'll remember 10 years later with your buddies so you can go, I can't believe you did that. And the fact that you might be 30 doing this is even more, I know, to some immature, unimpressive. I think it's hilarious. So, that's

my vote. What if you did this? What if you did the, like, you try to maybe take her to the same spot and play the ring game again and see if anything kind of clicks? Is there maybe a way to do that? Here's the other thing that I was just thinking about, which could be really depressing. What if you guys go out, you hook up and then she goes to you again? Are you going to be ready for that? Like kind of, you know, pretty, pretty bummer of an ego situation there.

Well, I would say three months post ghosting, just say, hey, just a heads up, I'm the guy from a year and a half ago. And then just leave it at that. Okay, let's do... What's up? Yeah, what's up now? Let's do a neighbor deal here. Do I

owe my dick of a neighbor money? Hey guys, no stats, but I listened to a ton of Huberman and Atiyah have big plans for one day. Anything to anybody there? I too have big plans. Okay. No.

I need a ruling. Do I owe my neighbor money? Backstory. My neighbor, let's call him dick, is a total dick. There's not enough time to go into all the details, but examples of his dickish behavior include yelling at neighbors leaving his yard as a disaster his dogs barking in the middle of the night starting projects like building a stone walkway and never finishing leaving dirt and rocks where they lie he called the cops on my 40th at 9 45 we were just about to shut it down before 10 out of respect to the neighborhood he took a few of our old fence

panels from our fence installer and simply propped them up in his backyard for privacy. But the worst thing this piece of shit has done is move his gutter spout to come out the corner of his yard toward my house. At the time, we were replacing our window wells and the additional water coming off his roof poured into the basement. Before I get a picture of his gutter, he had removed it. Uh, the confrontation was not pretty and he played the victim pretending as though I was a bully and why he didn't feel comfortable in our neighborhood. All right. So this guy just checks every suck box. Yeah. Fast forward a couple of weeks ago, we're getting a new roof installed.

So that's doing a lot of home improvement, uh, and had a tree. Oh wait, after a tree had fallen through our house during a storm. All right. So that wasn't just a, Hey, let's upgrade the shingles here. Um, that sucks. It was a frightening ordeal for the family to say the least. And we've been displaced for months as a result. One day I got a text from a neighbor with a screenshot of a Facebook post from Dick asking if anybody else in the neighborhood recently had flat tires. Apparently he had four caused from roofing nails. He then proceeded to ask two of our neighbors if they thought he should call the roofing company to demand new tires from them. Why does he need like to get a... He wants support? Yeah. Like state of the neighborhood. Like, hey, everyone, just what do you guys think?

Although people in neighborhoods, when I used to live in that condo association in West Hartford, there was a couple of neighbors, but you know, there's like this whole Facebook Facebook thing community about like different stuff that goes on. I was like, boy, if there's one certainty in life, it's that I'm not signing up for that. Apparently, so he goes around. By the way, the tires have been successfully patched, mind you, which matters for the next part.

After that post, a friendly neighbor came to me with the story of his son and my son both eight years old running around the neighborhood roofing nails and he asked them what they were doing and they said playing and he told them to go put the nails in the trash can and then went about his day it came out in questioning that my son had been playing in dick's driveway that day and perhaps may have set the nails up behind his car tires as a prank. They did indeed do this. They said this to the aforementioned father as well. So my question is easy. Do I owe Dick the 90 bucks he complained about to the neighbor for the patch tires, knowing his end goal is to try to get brand new tires from the roofing company? Or do I chalk this up to his own bad

karma coming back to him? Generally, I live my life with morals and try to do what is right whenever I can. But the thought of handing $90 over to Dick is really killing me. What's the ruling from the guys? Right. What do you got, Kyle? Deny, right? Because he's saying, did I get this? Can I catch this ending that he said, like, his kid and, like, his kid's friend was the culprit?

Yeah. I mean, you think you're going to start. This is like a call in the cops on a nine-year-old guy. I think you wouldn't be shocked. You wouldn't be shocked. And then he's got that in your file whenever he's thinking about doing the next thing. They'll be like,

and the kid set up nails behind my tires. Yeah, clearly the kids did this, it sounds like. So I don't think that's the hang-up. I think the hang-up is that he knows that his kids did this, but this guy's resume sucks and not reasonable so he's gonna treat you badly now that if he knows this information so fucking lock this shit down like fort knox dude do not let this get out because even if like he's not gonna see it as like oh you did the right thing and came to me he's gonna be like not only do you suck your kids suck you're you know you're

raising a bunch of you know four new tires no No, he's, he's going to, anything that happens, right. Anything that goes on is transmission is going to be loose. He's going to need a full wheel alignment. He is going to use this as an invite. So normally I would agree with the emailer, like do the right thing, go to him and say, I think my kids may have been responsible, but this guy flooded your basement. didn't care, stole stuff from the fence installer to then do his own makeshift thing. This guy is so excited about the prospect of being a massive headache for you for your admission of this. And again, like I said, nine out of 10, 99 out of 100 times, you do the right thing and you go to him, but nope, I'm on your side. I'm on your side on

this one because you'd just be inviting a whole new tier of problems that would be beyond what you're actually responsible for yeah somebody who actually does have a shitty neighbor i think i told some stories in the pod before how's that going i love your shitty neighbor stories i love him um honestly i haven't really he's right over here he hasn't really talked to me and we haven't talked in a while so it's been pretty quiet on that front but you know i i want to have a good relationship with my neighbor if i and because here's the thing like there's been different grievances that have come up that have mostly been him overreacting but yeah like i'll admit some of them have been our fault and i'd be much more likely to own up to them and try to you know help fix the situation if

he wasn't such a dick all the time if you thought something good would come out of it yeah so so like i mean you know you're worried about the karma situation i don't everything that you've said like i don't i don't think you have to worry i don't believe in karma but i don't think you have to worry about karma here man like you're good like it's a kid he screwed up this the fact that this guy if if this guy's tires pop and he didn't really know why you saw it the fact that he was going around your neighbor trying to like incriminate you and trying to get something out of the company like that just again it's just shitty behavior that to me that's that's more bad karma than you not telling you know

the only the only I'd be concerned about is like you know you don't you kind of don't want your son to just get away with this so like you know there's got to be some sort of discipline there and like how does he he needs to know that like it's not okay to do this but the neighbor is an asshole so we're gonna kind of let this one slide I don't really know how to handle that but as far as your neighbor no dude you're you're fine because i'm in there

he's an unreasonable dude yeah no i think it would be a whole new series of problems uh if you did this if you feel that bad about it maybe you'd throw 90 bucks in his yard you know put it under his time make sure there's no ring camera coins. Yeah. Right. Just bury a jar of $90 worth of coins. And then, you know, it's not like he's going to be going on the Facebook community being like, Hey,

I found 90 bucks. So, uh, but yeah, don't be filmed. Cause then it'll be like, wait, 90 bucks.

What, what mystery have we, you know, whatever. Uh, okay. That'll be a, uh, that'll be another life advice edition there you go again Friday feedback it's fridayfeedbackrr at gmail.com

for the post Thanksgiving episode thanks to Kyle thanks to Steve thanks to Stefan Ryan Rosillo podcast ringer Spotify I'm not a system player I am a system system. We'll be right back. Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org forward slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9 with it in Indiana. 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas.

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