The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Week 13 Recap With Chris Long | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

Russillo is joined by two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long to discuss NFL Week 13. They talk Ravens-49ers, Patriots-Texans, Tom Brady stories, Eagles-Dolphins, Bills-Cowboys, Steelers-Browns, a history lesson, nude beaches, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

all right let's do it week 13 the ringer podcast ryan rossillo with chris long every monday and we have a new number one seed in the afc an obituary for the pats a little love for the bills maybe even the titans andy delton out. Just get that out of the way now. That's probably cover Cincinnati finally getting a win. We also have history lesson based on parenting. Mike Tomlin making, is Pittsburgh making Tomlin great again? We're going to do some of the coaching stuff here, media relationships with players. So we'll be checking in with Chris here very shortly.

But first, I want to remind you, as always, our presenting sponsor is State Farm. Today's episode of the Ryan Russillo Show is brought to you by State Farm. If you're fumbling with insurance, State Farm agents are here to help because with over 19,000 agents, they're local to you and available to help. Whether you connect in person, by phone, or through the State Farm mobile app, agents are here to help. So go with the one that has coverage and agents you can count on state farm talk to an agent today hey google call chris long calling chris long mobile oh hey ryan how are you thanks for answering oh yeah there was a chance i wasn't going to really really you running uh you had a big weekend and that's normal let's just let's just start there before we do

that we're gonna talk chalk media big weekend normally it's nfl headlines how much of your content this week is going to be about uva beating virginia. I mean, we're going to have a healthy dose of us women winning the Commonwealth Cup this week. I care so much about this game. I don't even want to talk about my media company. I know I negotiated these pre-rolls into this contract, but I really don't give a shit today. I woke up this morning. The first thing I thought about was us taking back the Commonwealth Cup. It had been 15 years. 15 of them since what was your record against virginia tech

i was on four oh and you know i didn't know that as a non-quarter yeah as a non-quarterback it doesn't hit you as hard but it's certainly for a couple years and you can hear my voice i was all weekend screaming yelling and and uh acting like i was 23 again uh you know 2003 is the last time we beat him can you guess who the quarterback was for us in 03 um oh not a lot to choose from he's still in the nfl he's still in the nf match up He's still in the NFL. He's still in the NFL. Matt Schaub.

Matt Schaub, baby. Matt Money Schaub. Yeah. They won the four years before that. And in 03, I was looking it up. These are the things that was going on. Iraq War. Schwarzenegger elected in California.

Look at the year. You're going Ravel on us. Yeah. Who beat... Who won the Super Bowl that year? 03? Yeah. The Patriots. Nah. yeah who who beat uh who won the super bowl that year oh three yeah the patriots nah well i mean technically it was uh it was uh it was oakland beating tampa bay which felt like a lifetime ago you have the o2 yeah o2 season o3 super bowl san antonio beats the uh nets the nets had the old shitty logo um and we're actually in the finals. Funny side, Kentucky Derby.

Go back and look at some scores. Have you gone back and looked at any of the scores of those playoff games back in the day? Like 79, 68? I mean, just rough. Was Keith Van Horn on those teams? Keith may have been a transaction at at that point let me let me double check that was that was when jason kidd got there and they still had richard jefferson um that was when they did the

kid marbury thing and yeah it ended up being like uh i mean he completely changed the franchise let's see nets he was van horn was out of there that's when he was on the Sixers at 27. Ah, who could forget? But I mean, the moral of the story is in 03, I was like field party mode. Like I was like high school football party mode. Yeah, Foxfield. I, you know, Get Low was the anthem. We played that at the 03 state championship football party. But we, you know, like the game the game dude when you're a uva fan

until this year and sorry to bore listeners who don't care about uva but everybody has an alma mater or most i don't want to pigeonhole your listeners as all being college educated but i mean your your football program your athletic program has kind of a rep and ours to this point has been like we always mess it up in big moments. We won the national championship this year in basketball. A year after we lose the 16 seed, we get the monkey off our back with tech. Uh, we trailed like three times in the second half and Bronco Mendenhall has done a great job. That's the perfect type of game that we knew we were going to lose at Virginia for the last 15 years. And we didn't. Uh, and, and I told Bryce Perkins before the game I saw him in the locker room I said if you win this you're you're

you're you're a god here and he's probably he probably usurps Anthony Poindexter as the as the most popular football player in UVA football history did you talk to the team did you address the team fuck no have you ever done that? Uh, some years back, but these were teams that, that were more specializing in what I did well at the time, which was losing. So it was more like my speech continually was like, never give up. Uh, and now I don't really know what to tell a college program to beat tech. Cause I never did it. So I'm not qualified to talk to these kids. I was just super proud of the program. I'm super proud of, you know, Bronco Mendenhall,

who's a BYU guy for a long time. Talk about a cultural change of scenery. He's got to recruit in the South, essentially, in the Mid-Atlantic, and you don't have all those guys who have been on missions that are 27, 28 years old. Like, this is, he goes from 2-10, 6-7, 8-5 to conference champions on the coastal side. Now we get to go see that team, Clemson.

Yeah, right. And Clemson, despite all the adversity and doubt that Dabo has been talking about where no one picked him to do anything this year, they found a way to get to 12-0 through that gauntlet. So we shall see what happens. And look, Clemson may be the best team in the country right now. They are destroying teams. Yeah, look, as much as I like LSU and think that the teams that they beat,

their wins are better than everybody else, and somehow going into Bama and beating two of theirs collectively met with a shrug by the country, I would never tell anybody that says, hey, I think Clemson's the best. I think Ohio State's the best. I've been consistent about this. I would never tell anybody, hey, I think you're wrong by saying Clemson's the best i just think that the coaching you know there's a level of building up the disrespect but what dabbo and i like dabbo but his stuff this week like vegas

had him at 11 and a half for over under and wins no one picked anybody other than them everybody expects him to be in the playoff but you know what who knew don't overlook bryce is bryce perkins is he kind of like mel gibson the patriot where he feels like he's just on his own no bryce perkins though is like is like a football buddy lee bro i thought he was dead at least 16 times this year and any virginia fan will tell you this guy is like made of concrete i don't say that about football players, but go watch some of the contortions he's been in getting hit and folded. And the O-line kind of had to come together late in the year. But like this dude, I thought he was dead at least five, 10 times.

And he's like Buddy Lee in the commercials, bro. So, I mean, Clemson opened up at like 21 and a half point favorites. I think there were rumblings. It was going to be like 27 and a half. And people think that's disrespectful. I still think we're going there intending on winning, but they've been covering like 30 point lines. The last, here's the thing about Clemson. And to your point,

I think people, you know, the schedule would be one thing if they never did anything in the playoff, but all they do is win in the playoff. So the schedule is kind of irrelevant when they get on. I mean, they've lost in the playoff too,

though. Like, I mean, when they win in the playoff too, though. Like, I mean, when they win the final, it doesn't count. They've beaten Bama. Twice. They've made runs. They've got the coach.

And their defense got better, right? Like, their defense lost three guys in the first 17 picks last year. I don't think it's talent-wise. There's no way it's talent-wise as good as it was last year, I would think. Well, statistically, they've played better i mean by a by a reasonably large margin and um and and i think everybody forgot what the quarterback he like just came on the scene so he starts slow and everybody's like oh this guy sucks it is funny though that's exactly what

happened to him and with all the running backs that i love in the country, like Etienne and what he's been doing is nuts. He might be better than everybody. And you're right. Trevor Lawrence has been right before when it's like, what's wrong with this? What's wrong with this guy? They're destroying football teams. But we'll see what happens against UVA.

I love the BYU shout out. Yeah, BYU. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the BYU shout out. And speaking of that state, I mean, where are you on Utah being the fourth team? I mean, who do you want to see in the fourth spot? I want to see it. I just don't know.

First of all, despite what Oregon did against ASU, I wouldn't just write them off as a W for Utah. Utah is tough. I don't know if they have a pass rusher that's elite to mess with some of those other teams that they have to face in the playoffs. I think, obviously, Moss is great, and their quarterback is a really tough guy, but I just don't think he's as good as the other quarterbacks when we're talking about Ohio State, Clemson, and LSU.

I like the coach, man. His personality just seems like he seems like a real guy in a in a in a in a business where a lot of those guys are phonies am i wrong you you watch more college football than me no and i've met him and i've talked to him plenty of times he's really really impressive and he feels like the real deal and the other thing that we've always thrown around is we did just thunderdome of all the college football coaches, which is one of your favorite topics, fighting. Yeah, I love that. And a lot of guys pick Whittingham over everybody. Yeah, I mean, listen, he, those BYU guys,

and he played at BYU, are psychos. I mean, like, they might not drink or any of that other stuff, but, like, they love contact. They love contact. Some of the craziest dudes I played with were about that life on the football field. And actually, if you look up Whittingham, the dude is glowed up. He looked older in college than he does now. If you go back and look at his BYU pictures, he looked like a 40

year old man. I think every guy that went to college in the 70s went to college like you were 40 when you were a freshman because whenever i would look at those old pictures like when we have my fraternity we would dig through the archives and look at old composites we'd be like how are these guys in college like they all look like different dads like that guy's 38 he has a car dealership and somebody just made him house steward like he probably didn't even go to school here it doesn't make any sense so there was something that happened in the 70s that just different with the genes i want to i want to i want to posit a theory that even in the 2000s if you went to school i mean period i i would say you and i definitely look i don't know about you i

haven't seen your college pictures but i definitely have glowed up since college i think unless you unless you go broke after school like you're're, you're going to look better than you did in college for the first, you know, South of 35, generally dudes are going to look better than they did in college because the styles are outdated. I look back at some of these, these styles, the haircuts, I wasn't sure what my look was, you know, every dude has to find his look. You know, you weren't sure at all. You weren't sure at all. You wanted to go full sleeves. You wanted to be extra in Sons of Anarchy, but you couldn't pull it off yet.

Well, I didn't have the time or the money. I know that I had a rich dad, but he wasn't going to give me money to get a tattoo sleeve. So if I want a tattoo sleeve or any of that stuff, and if I want the nice clothes, that wasn't something that he was going to be ponying up on. So it took me years, even after I got my, my first and second contract, I didn't know what my look was. And I seen some pictures of you back in the day. I'm not sure you knew what your look was either. very preppy. I wasn't afraid to throw on a nice pair of slacks and dress shoes, some Aldos that would break after six months, you know, I'll be like, Oh, I got to get the Brown and maybe I'll get some white ones for parties. And that's why your thirties are better than your twenties. And I'm, I'm, I'm not joke. I'm not, I'm not walking into a joke where you're like, bro, I'm 40 something. I think you are. I feel like twice you've taken a little swipes at me here,

but that's all right. No, I'm just saying that we both look like... You don't mean to, but you have. No, I think our 30s are better than our 20s. And your 40s, which is... That's not a swipe. That's a compliment. Right. Sounds good. Look, BYU, this is great for BYU guys.

Speaking of older guys, because when I watched their basketball team the other day, they looked like a men's league team that I would lie about being on. I'm like, no, I'm not in that league yet. What are you talking about? I got asked to play in a men's league the other day, and they'm like, no, I'm not in that league yet. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I got asked to play in the men's league the other day, and they were like, yeah, it's 50 and over. I'm like, what the, what? Like, relax.

God. You know, I know the quick twitch isn't there, but, you know, you know what the great thing about basketball is, as you get older, is if you have a move where you're changing direction really quickly, they actually don't work because other old guys don't react quick enough to anticipate your move. No, they play off. No, but they're still in position because they never move to your first move.

You see what I'm saying? So if you go to shake somebody with an inside-out dribble right but then switch it back left between your legs, the guy never went right on the first move, so he still left. So it looks like he locked you up when in fact he never did anything so that's just a little scouting tip for the kids out there this seems completely true but completely unverifiable and unrelatable to me because i cannot fucking play basketball anymore i'm not sure i ever could i don't know if i can

dribble with my left hand were you all state in high school you were all state in high school weren't you as a basketball player not in basketball we? You were all-state in high school, weren't you, as a basketball player? Not in basketball. We won the league, but I was a six-man. We were good. You were a six-man as a senior? Yeah, bro. We had recruited players, bro. And I took two years off from basketball and then came back. I was doing a lot.

I played four sports. I was shuffling around. Okay. Did you play lacrosse? Well, it's not an excuse. Yeah, I was pretty decent lacrosse i'd imagine you were probably pretty good i was pretty pretty good at baseball i was pretty good at lacrosse um and then i got muscle bound did kyle throw 98 kyle threw 96 what is wrong with this family no it's not really what's wrong listen if you take kyle out of our family um me and my brother howie are two pretty regular guys i'm just taller than howie and and

worked my ass off like kyle is he i i'm pretty sure kyle was born in like a a lightning bolt fireball like Terminator. When Terminator was crouched over on the concrete and he just emerged, I think that's how Kyle was born. So Kyle was, what, 300 pounds, lefty through 96, and then just ended up in Oregon. Could hit the ball 500 feet. First off, he gets drafted by the White Sox in like the 30-something round

and I remember giving him shit about that and then I found out how many rounds there were. It's actually pretty good. And then, and then goes to Juco to say,

well, he goes to Florida State to play baseball. He's like, eh, I don't know. Goes to a Juco in California to play football.

He's like, eh, I don't know. I think I'll go to Oregon. Spends one year at Oregon. First round pick. Guys like that, man. Are we going to have JUCO in California to play football. He's like, I don't know. I think I'll go to Oregon. Spends one year at Oregon. First-round pick. Guys like that, man. Are we going to have him call in?

We should just have him call in. We should do this next week or something. I did have him on. I had him on the pod the other day for about two hours. This is an actual chalk plug. Go check out Greenlight. Kyle was awesome. I was really nervous because you're like, if you have your little brother on,

you're just not sure what they're going to say. Am I going to have to be like, hey, bro, that's not really going to play like this, that, and third. He was good. But more of the story with Virginia is I get to return to Charlotte, the scene of the crime, where I went to watch the Continental Tire Bowl in 03 and snuck into the Uptown Cabaret, which is a gentleman's club at 18 years old. And ran into one of my teachers. My high school teachers. Who's that worse for? The teacher or the student?

Probably the teacher. Because the teacher cannot say a word. What's the teacher going to do? Right. Because actually it is worse for the teacher. And you're 18 and you're 6'4", 6'5". I'm just happy to be in the bar. Yeah. In the strip club. Well,

I think this time through it'll be less intense. Yeah, no, it'll be a lot less intense. And, uh, and I probably won't be back to, uh, uptown cabaret. This is the longest it's ever taken us to get to the point, but I don't mind this stuff right now because I have a similar story, which is I'm raising the stakes on you. It wasn't me at a bar underage with a teacher. There are several nude beaches on Martha's Vineyard where I grew up, right? And, you know, the weird thing about it is you kind of like show up to your spot and you, you know, you go to the spot that's not nude unless you want to go to the spot that's nude. And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm old for my lifetime deciding to ever be like, Hey, I want to do the nude side, but you don't know that until you start kind of getting in the

mix a little bit. And there's this really nice stretch around these cliffs. It honestly, I think it's one of the most picturesque things you could ever see in the United States. But as you swing by it, you're headed towards like new territory. And one of my best friends from high school was his parents just hand in hand, fullblown no front front to back and it's an awkward hello you know i've slept over the house 20 times i'm in the mix and you're like hey mr and mrs and you're just like how's it going i'm leaving their names i'm doing that to to protect the innocent okay was it cold that day was it was it cold that day uh you know what i'm just gonna go ahead and um how can i feel like if you do a nude beach you got to go somewhere that

that it's uh it's not scorching hot so you have a baked in excuse for some for some dudes you know so you could yeah well it's it's unseasonably cool up here let me just i'm just gonna put it this way it was really um very outdoors couple they're a very outdoorsy couple all right very natural a lot of uh a lot of hair i think i think hey see we left it there and we know there's kids listening so you know i know, I don't know this, this PG 13 pod. I don't know. I don't know about you sometimes. You can edit me out.

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You can do too much sour mix. It's great if you can go fresh lime or just a little lighter on the sour, maybe a little splash of OJ, maybe even a little soda water on the top. I've even been in a place where they put a little egg white floater, which sounds disgusting, but really brings the margarita together.

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You don't have to spell my name. It's available in limited states. And remember, please enjoy responsibly. So I think we got to start with Baltimore. Would you agree? Yeah. After I say that, an egg white Baltimore. Would you agree? Yeah. After I say that an egg white floater sounds not appealing to me, but. Yeah.

Okay. I look, if somebody describes me that way, I'd say, no, I don't want the egg white floater. And then everybody looks at you and goes, you got to do it. And you're like, all right. And then you go, Hey, I'm glad I did protein. Yeah. Hey, Google, how many grams of protein in an egg there you go boom extra google for you i think it's like eight six oh you don't remember

remember the read all the all all the all the shriveled up old palm beach alcoholics can get a little protein with their margaritas. Just calling out an entire region. Are you good to go today? I'm good to go, bro. All right, here we go. Week 13, Baltimore is the one seed in the AFC. They beat a really good San Francisco team 2017. They're number one now in strength of schedule.

They won at Seattle. They beat up on New England. There's a bunch of different versions of that New England game where you can say this. Now, man, no, that wasn't a mistake. Like Baltimore beat them. We can talk about like one play, but New England benefited from mistakes that Baltimore made. So that's not some fluky win there. They destroy a really good Houston team that beat New England last night, made it look easy. We'll get to that. And then they beat San Francisco in tough conditions. And think about this. This team is the first team ever in a 16 game season on pace to average over 200 yards a game on the ground.

Lamar now has four 100-yard rushing games in the season, which is a record. And you go into that last drive, they've been shut out the entire second half, and Lamar makes some things happen. Tucker, 49-yard field goal, they win it. They are the best team in the AFC. And I wish, in a weird way for Baltimore fans, like you almost wish you could play in the playoffs right now before anybody because I always worry about like something with a ton of momentum

and looking dominant, like how real is it? How sustainable is it? But right now, I don't know if I'd pick anybody to beat Baltimore. I agree with you, and I'm not trying to be overly reactive I just see what I see and and you mentioned worrying about intensity or execution tapering off the one thing they have going for them and I think they do get home field which is which signals a seismic shift in the power balance in the AFC to me I mean last night's game New England will get to them in a bit losing on the road and then Baltimore winning a huge game at home I think they get home field in the AFC to me. I mean, last night's game, New England will get to them in a bit,

losing on the road, and then Baltimore winning a huge game at home. I think they get home field. I also think that weather thing is big because they looked good enough in the weather, and that's what we were worried about. You know, with the way they run their offense, you're worried about Lamar maybe throwing the ball. He missed some throws, sure,

but Jimmy G missed a lot of throws. Both of them were off, and part of it, I think, is them, and sometimes the rain is just pouring down. The weather was torrential. I mean, the rain was torrential. And you worry about some of the option stuff. You worry about the ball security. Hey, listen, it was a great play that Lamar lost the ball on. It really had nothing to do with the weather. And another thing with that team is, when you talk about teams that stretch teams side to side, we know the power element, but when you talk about how they had success against New England and, you know, that's getting sideline to sideline.

A lot of what they do is predicated on that balance of speed and power. And the rain did not cancel their speed. They did not look slow or like they were inhibited by the weather. You know, a lot of times, you know, you put on your seven studs, which are cleats, with, you know, more studs or, you know, your seven studs, which are cleats with more studs or metal spikes. They're not metal. You're not allowed to have Ken Griffey Jr. cleats because that could get dangerous. You're supposed to be able to dig in more. That was a seven stud day, and they did not look like a team that was wearing seven studs. That's the most points

San Francisco has given up in a half. What was big for me was Baltimore took that punch right off the bat. When Debo Samuel went up and got that ball and Marcus Peters looked lost, you were like, oh shit, this is that get punched in the mouth moment at home. And then they have a great half and they set themselves up beautifully to eventually engineer that six, seven minute drive to win the game. I couldn't believe on fourth and two, was it when they, you know, maybe it's a weather thing and they're in between, but they let Jimmy throw on that. They did it again, uh, later on on a fourth and inches, they threw it. And then everybody was mad that they did that. But the Debo play was, was him just deciding, I'm going to go get this ball instead of you. And it was really impressive. Can I ask you something? And I know this isn't you in

the room, the all 22s. And you know, I know I've I've more than admitted I would probably need to watch the all 22s and have somebody hold my hand to tell me exactly because you know I I don't ever want to make that mistake like oh this is that guy this is that guy but it looked like well it did because I was watching specifically for it is how was that defensive line going to play the the read option stuff like what were they going to do? And Armstead, who, you know, we remember from college, he's a high pick. He's right off the bus. Like, that guy must be amazing. And I don't know if that was what the design was,

is to play Ingram on the handoff, because they had no outside edge on a bunch of those plays where they always went to Ingram on the handoff and Lamar would bust it around the right side. And that's not necessarily why they won. And then I think they got Thomas on the same thing later in the game. And then there was a play where they actually kept a linebacker down. So can you help me and those listening understand like conceptually what was the plan there? Or is that just being tricked by the handoff when you're going for Ingram and he

doesn't have the ball like three or four times? Well, a lot of times, and I'd have to look at what play you're looking at. I mean, on Mondays, I haven't watched the all 22 either for a lot of these games. I watch, I watch on Sunday. It's hard enough to keep up with the ball when you're watching the Ravens. But when you prepare for the option, there's usually a dive and a key player. Of course, there's a ton of different elements that get added when you add extra blockers and extra bodies into that equation like the Ravens do. But a lot of teams, when you see an edge player chase a dive, teams say, okay, that guy's stupid.

He's supposed to contain the quarterback, which is not really a term you use in football. I hate when people say you're supposed to contain the run or contain is for pass. A lot of times you're either going to have a dive player or a feather player or a guy who's trying to do both. And like a feather technique would be you keep your shoulders square. You're reading the quarterback's hands in the mesh and you're supposed to stay on the outside shoulder

of the quarterback and then help on the dive late. So if you're a feather player, you're supposed to help on the outside shoulder of the dive. And if you're the dive player, you go sell out for the dive and the second level player comes around and plays Lamar. The problem is they create so many more wrinkles and it's not your simple read option, which was hard enough to defend. Like when we played the Niners and Cap back in the day, option, which was hard enough to defend. Like when we played the Niners and Cap back in the day, it was a simple read option that took the league by storm anyways. And it's hard enough to get players and coaches to buy into one system and just do it. I mean, I've even had stupid ideas such as, okay, the defensive end is going to run and blow up the mesh. So you're going to hit the quarterback and the running back

at the same time. These are NFL coaches saying this. And I think like that's the dumbest concept I've heard because the timing never worked out. We were never to the mesh on time. So there's a ton of different variables and different ways you can play it. But this just adds a different painful level of prep and execution and practice, then you can't focus on the pass game as much. You can't focus on other things you're doing as much because you're spending like an hour and a half, two hours a day doing option stuff.

And a lot of times the coaches don't even have the right concepts and players chase the wrong things. Your coaches prepping you don't have the right concepts to prep for. Well, a lot of times coaches prepping, they're just at this point trying to throw some shit on the wall that might stick. And I've, you know, like I said, I've been told to attack the mesh before, which is unrealistic because even if you're flying off the ball, if this makes sense to you, you're not going to get to the mesh on time and you end up just hitting the quarterback. I've heard people saying you hit the quarterback

as he carries out his fake and that's going to dissuade them from running just hitting the quarterback. I've heard people saying, you hit the quarterback as he carries out his fake and that's going to dissuade them from running this in the future. I don't think that necessarily works either. Lamar's not afraid to get hit. And I don't think you want to go down that road that you're going to hit the quarterback every time he carries out a fake

because that could get ugly. You could be the dive player. You could be the feather player. A ton of variables. And the thing about the option is one guy screws up and if there's three, four guys that have to make a read the chances of one screwing up are actually relatively high and at that point you've got a shunk play the mesh thing you just said makes all the sense

because it sounds really good right like if you're on tv you're like hey attack the mesh but it makes so much sense you going hey most of these decisions are made in probably, what, a half a second? Yes. So you have to beat your guy and be there at the mesh within this half a second time to try to tackle two people that are probably two of the best athletes on the field. So here's the hardest thing. And even if you have something simple to do, a lot of times what you might do in like a basic read option situation is you look at where the back is. If the back is to you, that cues in your brain as an edge defender that the option might be coming. Does that make sense? So you're seeing the back to you. You're, you're, you're, you're cued up that

you're probably not getting front side run at a shotgun because there's really nothing they run with the back to you. So you should be in like a close mode. If you're the, if you're the dive player, tighten your alignment, focus on the running back and close. Don't overrun him, which is hard because if you take too sharp an angle and he cuts it back, and some of these special backs do, you're in a lot of trouble. And don't get greedy.

Don't try to make the play on the dive and then run out like a hero and try to make the play on the quarterback. This is a time you have to be a robot. And the coaches also have to put you in positions to be robotic and be correct in being robotic. And there's not one way to do it. And that's why you see so many different teams with variable outcomes against option teams. As we said, the resume, the strength, the schedule, that win. And I don't look at that

going, hey, now I have to second guess or look at San Francisco differently either. I just think that especially after the Green Bay win and what that defense did like they did a good job and I would say though like I'm always worried whether it's the Kaepernick Packers game where that it becomes this thing where you're like what the hell are you ever going to do with this guy and then it runs its course McVay you know it felt like okay I guess this guy's just going to put up 45 points every single week and the defenses are helpless and now it feels like we're seeing a bit of a correction and I don't know if it's McVay or if it's just his offensive line with the Rams and I'll look at Lamar on some of the throws and I don't want to make it too much about yesterday but I've noticed like I think his

the catch radius you have to have on some of his throws is is bigger like you're gonna have to go down and get some stuff you're gonna have to go up and get some stuff and I don't know that it's always by design where you're throwing it up high so it's like right now looking at the Ravens I go is this exactly are they going to be this crisp? Are they going to look this good? But the fact that the way New England is going, that it looks like they're not going to have to go up to Foxborough to get to the Super Bowl or get through the AFC is a huge difference,

especially when you look at what New England was last night. Well, I think to your point, people, you know, the cap thing ran its course because of a number of factors. I mean, it didn't run its course within the year, though. I mean, like even that playoff run, nobody figured it out. It wasn't like they ever really got shut down. I think you look at that year in 2012, because I was looking back through Pat's losses today, and I think they gave up.

Remember when they lost to the Niners at home? What are you talking about? With cap. With the Patriots back in 2012. In 2012. Remember when they lost to the Niners at home? To the Niners at home with Cap. With the Patriots back in 2012. It was a rainy, kind of snowy game. I thought we were talking playoffs still. No, I think the Niners scored like 41. So this was a team that, you know, and I'm making that point because I don't think anybody's going to figure out Greg Roman and Lamar within the year. And that's pretty amazing to consider because you think about Cap and the element of surprise. Some of these quarterbacks like RG3 or Cap in that little era that were kind of taking the league by storm, there was no warning. We've got all the warnings, and we've had time as defenses to adjust,

but these coaches, and you mentioned these old-school coaches that Lamar has made look kind of silly at times, like between Romeo and Bill and a number of other guys, they haven't been able to catch up, and I don't think they will because of what we talked about. This is a power offense. This is different than Collins' read option stuff. This is a power offense where we're running QB power, we're running optionsB power, running

options off the power. We're getting multiple new bodies in the play that you have to account for, and I don't think they catch up by Super Bowl Sunday. The problem with the Niners, though, to me, is the Richard Sherman thing. You got to take a look at that. They're going to see the Saints and then Seattle. I would venture to guess that they might not have Sherm. He said he's going to play if he can for this weekend, and that's a big deal. This is a team that you look at like New England and how they zero up. San Francisco doesn't do that as much, but Sherman is just as important as Gilmore to their success. That's a big domino. I've talked about the rush needing fractions of time to make their plays. They get a lot of sacks and long downs. Sherman is a big catalyst for that, and I worry about that.

Okay, so let's talk New England because Houston made it look easy. This will be a little bit, I don't know if it will be because I think people pay more attention to NFL because it's easier to consume. It's 32 teams. All the games are right there in front of you as opposed to 100 plus teams in college football where scores can kind of get lost but this was not a 28 22 victory by houston at all and i think people will remember that and my love for deshaun watson grows they did an awesome job on the broadcast last night i thought nbc and showing him and how he was reading like hey here's the safety coming down to double hopkins that means you're going to be free here get some guys trying to be covered by linebackers one-on-one that's almost always a disaster.

New England's made a living off of that with their running backs against opposing teams. But that game was impressive. It was dominant. It wasn't 28-22. And if you want to go Houston, you can go Houston. But obviously, I want to get to Brady in this offense that looks worse every week for New England.

Yeah, I think this game is more about the Patriots' struggles than Houston being this legitimate. I do think Houston's a tough team, but you look at the Pats, and this is a team, you know, every Monday after they lose, people line up to, you know, play Russian roulette, really, with that take that they're done. I'm not saying they're done. They can still beat people, and they could still win the whole thing. I mean, but they got to figure a lot out. And as it is right now, this team is different. And I'll get to this in a minute. I took a whole list of things that are just uncharacteristic that were insane, like borderline insane when you talk about the Patriots, that these mistakes are happening. But they've only lost 13 games in December in

the Brady era. And they've lost two by 17 plus points, and those were in 02 and 06, and this felt like one of those games. Now, they had that late burst, but I felt like we were going there, and when you look at their losses in December, this is one of their worst late losses. The Patriots have a stinker or two every year. They had some last year. They had the Tampa loss a year or two ago. They had last year was Detroit, Jacksonville. These were early in the year games. And then this is a little late to be looking like this.

And the offense last week, although it was a win against the Cowboys, and we're trying to figure out a little bit more, what's the barometer for beating the Cowboys? What does that even mean? The last time the Patriots beat a team in the playoffs that they lost to in the regular season, what year do you think that was? Just take a guess.

Lost the regular season, beat them in the playoffs. Beat them in the playoffs. Is it? I don't know. Go ahead. It's 2006, the Jets and so when I I think the stat was that there were like five and six against teams that they saw in the playoffs that they lost to in the regular season because everybody's thing is that they figure these guys out they figure them out well these losses are later and later and they're not like last year they lost like Miami and Pittsburgh

late but like nobody ever thinks Pittsburgh is going to beat New England. They have their number and they always play bad in Miami down there. These are teams that are playoff teams that are losing to that they will see again. They're going to see Baltimore again. They probably might see Houston again. And it just doesn't bode well when you think about that, that all the games that they won against teams they lost to in the regular season previously happened before 06 in that five and six record so there are there's a lot of reasons to be worried about the Patriots all right I'm gonna I'm gonna double down on your uh your numbers here all right there was a first and ten to Lacoste that he missed and he just Brady missed it and other times we've been able to say okay the offensive line has been great the next gen stats are telling you that he had more time last night with his offensive line than he's had in any game this season and collinsworth had a great quote he goes routine players aren't routine anymore and this is a dumb analogy but like you ever have a buddy who would go out hard but then would be the first guy working out the next day and you wouldn't even notice like he just was one of those

guys wired that way. 6 a.m. Run wanted out of my gallon of spring water from the gas station. Right. And you just be like, OK, this guy's a machine. Let me know if that guy's still trying to pull that off at 40 because he's not. He's not probably not. He's either sleeping in or he's like, maybe I'll just do some light cardio,

you know, maybe just some movement stuff. But it's not worth it. There's no point in it. Well, he stops drinking. Right. Or that. So when I look at Brady's numbers, he's 26th in yards per attempt. That's his worst since 2002.

He's 17th in QBR. You can say, all right, well, QBR slants towards running quarterback. All right, he's still 17th. He's 21st in a traditional QB rating. Okay, whatever. He's 29th in completion percentage. Tom Brady is 29th in the NFL in completion percentage, and he actually hasn't been sacked a ton.

And again, sacks can be a little misleading, but he's 21st there, and we talk about all the time that he had last night. This is a team that is punting as much as anyone in the NFL. And when the defense is special and you and I have been, I don't want to say tepid, but we have pushed back on will this Patriots team end up being one of the greatest defensive teams of all time? Because I think there are times where we're really negative towards the past. And then we can also have such reverence for the past where we're really negative towards the past and then we can

also have such reverence for the past where we think nothing can even touch it you know we can be misguided on both extremes for how disrespectful we can be of previous generations when it comes to sports but the Patriots it wasn't just their offense is that they actually had their secondary getting beaten away we hadn't seen all season they had allowed four passing touchdowns three last night Houston felt like it really could do whatever it wanted to and yeah like here we go again I don't want to write them off we're all scared to but Brady had games last year where statistically you could start saying hey there's a bit of a regression here then he goes into Kansas City and does what he did and they didn't need a ton against the Rams but these numbers collectively for Brady are terrible

and it's we know what the weapons thing is we know how mad he got in to kill Harry and there's one thing that Brady cannot stand if he can't trust you in the route if he doesn't trust you to hang on to the football he will absolutely move on from you he will be like I don't want to throw to this guy like Chad Johnson couldn't figure out the route trees and and all of a sudden I mean Chad Johnson was on the New England Patriots for a Super Bowl and we forgot he was even on the team. Think how improbable that sentence sounds. But that's what Brady does.

And yes, it's all connected, but we can't deny how bad it looked last night. And it just feels ridiculous to go, yeah, yeah, they'll get Baltimore in the rematch. No, no doubt. No doubt. And when I talk about another quarterback in Philly, like Carson, and you're making excuses. Well, the difference is that this feels like all the chips on the table year for Tom. Whereas a quarterback with years left on his deal and who probably would outlast a nuclear meltdown in the building where everybody has to get fired, there's a different dynamic here and the clock is ticking and I'm not going to put everything on Brady I mean you see the routes these guys are running um you know you see him on the sidelines saying like hurry up man like you know and I got no problem with him being direct and coaching those guys up I think we get on Brady a lot on the sideline I thought that was just fine

last night he was complimentary of all the guys last night. In a loss, sure, he sounded tired. By the way, he had 3.4 seconds to throw last night. That's almost a second up. That's almost a second up from his season average at 2.7. I think what's missing for the defense is the complimentary football aspect. And I suspected this the whole year. I mean, like, listen, it's easy to be great on defense when the offense has given you a lot. And against bad teams, that offense can still give you a lot. You look back at games like the Dolphins game where the Dolphins are in disarray and the Pats are just scoring at will.

And they have AB and they don't have AB anymore. They're playing better teams. You know, you got to give some credit to Houston. Deshaun was great from throwing like two consecutive touchdown passes to the trick play, which evidently they drew up on a notebook paper. I don't know if you heard this, but Watson, Johnson, and Hopkins, you know, drew it up during the bye week and gave it to O'Brien. You know, the team in Houston has a lot of intangibles. I still worry about them protecting Deshaun. But like last night, he was 16-22 for 217, three touchdowns against pressure.

The first two games they played him, and this is next-gen again, New England pressured him 35% of the time. Last night it was 21%. That's a big difference. I mean, that really is. And Deshaun did well against the pressure. You can't get behind. That's not like the Patriots will win zero games if they're down more than a score against a good team. It's just that's not how they're built,

and Tom knows that. The defense has to know that, and there weren't any open shots. Their biggest play last night was on a first and 30, if you remember the play, to Julian, and of course, they double Julian. They take him away. Romeo takes away James White. He doubles him or puts a corner on him. And then there's, this game summed up the Patriots last night to me was the first and 30 play that James White had just held McKinney on a, on a double a mug. And Tom like awkwardly rolls out to the left and just burns it. And you're like, God, it's first and 30. They had to work so hard for their, their biggest shot of the night. You have four bath missing extra points after Bill takes a penalty. You've got Landon Roberts getting beat on an angle route for a hold,

which leads to a Deshaun touchdown the next play, I think it was. You've got, you know, you're getting beat by guys that you got in the Clowney trade for, like, multiple sacks. Ted Karras is out. Sanu's drop on fourth and inches. You've got Tom blowing drop on fourth and inches. You've got Tom blowing up on the side run. You've got Simon missing a sack.

And then 70, who I forget his name, number 70 on the pads. He's like holding his hands up, asking for a hold. And he's five yards away from Deshaun. And that missed sack leads to the longest touchdown drive of the night, basically. Bill is freaking out right now because these are things that are avoidable.

I mean, the personnel is not great, but they're making mistakes you can control. Winovich being behind the quarterback. Talked about that on the broadcast. The Roby pick. I mean, all this stuff is avoidable, man, and it's just uncharacteristic of the Pats. Yeah, the Roby pick was definitely on the route,

and I think that was him getting upset with the kill Harry but then there's other throws where you go and you just said it perfectly everything is so hard you're like man like dude are they down a guy and we can talk about the flu and the separate planes which I'm sure Pat's apologists are going to counter with everything but this team also morphed into kind of a power running team at times last year towards the end of the year don't have not doing that they don't have that the sony michelle numbers i was looking at something where it was you know what percentage of yards after contact or his elusiveness rating and he's like at the bottom of the league like only frank gore shout out to frank gore is behind

him yeah like it's frank magore's frank magore frank gore is the least the irish frank gore frank magore lesser known i knew i known. I knew I loved him. I knew I loved him. He's like my favorite. I don't even know where that came from. All right, before we finish this, go ahead. Do you have one more thought?

Well, yeah, on the Pats, I just think it's funny. You know, you've got Jerry Jones getting mad as hell after they lose to them in a tight ball game. You've got the Eagles. Eagles fans are rioting

after a loss in a one-score game at home. And then you've got, you've got last night, uh, you've got the linebackers from, from the Texans dressing up like they're, you know, bad boys or some SWAT team dudes. And I'm like, holy shit. I've never, I'd never do that shit on a, on a, on a totally different note. I'm like, you better play well when you do that. There's something right now where the pats don't scare people like the way they used to. You've got guys showing up in costumes before a game. You've got Jerry Jones

freaking out after a loss. You've got Eagles fans riding. A close Pats loss or the prospect of facing the Pats right now does not carry the same weight it used to. And I'm not saying they're out of it. I'm just saying right now they have a ton of work to do. And I know they've won on the road before, like the Kansas City game last year. But if you played in New England, you know how important home field advantage is. They're going to lose home field advantage. They're going to have to go on the road with one of the worst offenses they've had and win ball games. And if they win the Super Bowl this year, it's going to be like put a statue of Bill Belichick in downtown Boston. Like a massive. Well, I think that's probably going to be like, put a statue of Bill Belichick in downtown Boston. Like a massive.

Well, I think that's probably going to happen already. They put a Steve Belichick, like a smaller one. Who gets more airtime? Salah for the Niners, the D coordinator there, or Steve? I feel like something's happened now in some of the broadcasts where it's like, hey, if you wouldn't mind getting Stevie. Give me some Salah. Camera two.

If you could, you know know just it'd be real cool maybe second quarter get a shot of stevie there with a pencil steve's flow looks good though by the way i'm a big steve fan i'm a big c fan great do you have a do you have your best brady blow up sideline story from your year there nah if brady was gonna blow up he'd never do it at the defense or anything. He never talked to you guys? I mean, he would talk to us, but he wasn't going to come over and like... We were also pretty good that year on defense,

and obviously they're very good this year. But it was more like... Listen, if you saw Tom Madge, you just kind of... You backed away. You gave it some space. No kidding. Could anyone talk to him?

Dude, Tom is like one of the most regular, good, down-to-earth teammates in the world. The difference between Tom jumping somebody on the sideline and another quarterback is like, I really believe that Tom has dealt with 20 years of discomfort and conflict, you know, because that's what it takes to win.

And it's never going to be comfortable. There's going to be a lot of direct confrontation. Tom's dealt with 20 years of that, so he knows how to get over it. And like in the locker room, I'm sure he's talking these guys up. He's's gonna go right back out to battle with him next week he's just he's a good teammate okay rapid fire brady stuff because we're gonna pick up the pace here a little bit did he ever text you hey buddy he wrote me a nice note when i retired and i thought that was really cool cell phone uh dm which also confirmed that he really uses his Instagram. Okay. Uh, number two, did he ever invite you over to his house? No, but I also never left Foxborough. I'd like to think that's why maybe he knew that.

I don't think I was getting an invite. Did Jules ever lie to you about not doing anything? And then you showed up to work the next day and he and Brady were like that was so much fun last night nah I mean like I didn't do much there so the thing is you know Jules and me we would or Danny or Ninko even like I'd hang out with Ninko the most because he lived right there in Foxborough but like Danny and Jules were like the cool skater kids that lived in like Provo and Boston and you you really couldn't like, yeah, I just, I'm not going to see them. They might be my boys, but I'm just not going to see them outside of work because they live almost an hour away and, and they couldn't take the coolness hit.

I mean, where do you do an Ollie in Foxborough? Yeah. Or Marlboro, you know? Yeah. Acton, Boxborough. Like, what are you going to do there? Uh, what about, all all right final one if you ran into gronk right now would he remember you yeah i mean gronk would remember me i don't want

to i don't want to seem so self-important but but uh i also i also think gronk is an extremely lucid human being he's more lucid than he lets on to be he would remember me lucid is a great call there okay let's do another read we've got planes we've got my browns rant i want to talk a little than he lets on to be. He would remember me. Lucid is a great call there. Okay, let's do another read. We've got planes. We've got my Browns rant. I want to talk a little Tomlin history lesson, so I'm just trying to keep myself in check here

because we have so many things that we need to get to that I haven't done yet. All right, we know what's coming up. I've enjoyed this pod. Do the read, but I've enjoyed this pod. I love this pod so far. I just feel like there's stuff. Like the game within the game, Chris, should be what did Ryan say he was going to do? What did he tease that he didn't do? And then that's a prize.

The way we planned this pod out would make a lot of people very upset. Right, because we spent some time on this. We were changing things up, and I think that just means how much of a groove we're in that we're like, no, that's just, we're not, that's not making the pod today. One of these days, behind the scenes. Yeah, besides. How about this? I know you got a special little lady, Chris, because if you're looking for some sparkle under the tree,

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True. Wow. Look at this. There's all sorts of promo codes going on right now. Do you want to go with your plane ride? Sure. I would love to. Well, I wouldn't love to go with my plane rides because one of them involves a team that evidently I'm a homer.

Nothing like protecting a team that didn't think you were good enough to keep the same role you had last year and forcing you into retirement. You're not talking about the Patriots, I don't think, right now, are you? No, because that's what I do. I protectots i don't think right now are you no because that because that's that's what i do i protect teams that didn't think i was all that good i mean i the eagles are the worst plane ride um it's not even debatable there's no point i mean no there's there's absolutely no point uh the team is taking turns right now. I mean, the defense took a turn. They let one dude basically beat them single-handedly. Fitzpatrick's continued to play well against Jim Schwartz defenses.

There's a white running back on the field. I mean, there's a white running back on the field. Not named Christian McCaffrey. I mean, that's – Toby Gerhardt? No, it's another guy. I don't even – no disrespect to the man. Well, this doesn't sound really respectful.

Well, I'm just saying that I think it was their leading rusher unless there was somebody else. But it was a bad, bad game game i tuned in for the fourth quarter oh patrick laird is his name okay that was a it was a great save from from my right hand reed uh by the way reed did a really important thing the other night i'm a record player guy not to give you a long aside in plane rides but that's kind of what we do i'm finally a record player guy, not to give you a long aside in plane rides, but that's kind of what we do. I'm finally a record player guy. I'm finally a vinyl guy, right? I never had one in my life. And it makes a big difference, okay? I thought all these people were fucking posers. I am vinyl guy now. But Reed did his most important work yet when he drove back to the

office at 10 at night because I didn't know that my record player was not broken the record had just stopped uh and he fixed it you didn't know you didn't know that when the record is over it just is it's no i know that but i know that but it's a new piece of it's a new piece of machinery there's there's some i got some sweet speakers hooked up that are that are like on the other side of the room, which is a cool thing. And I, I'm kind of allergic to technology. So I just froze. Like,

let's say there was, you didn't know that just when the record is over, it just, it starts. No, I know that. I know that. Did you know it prior though?

I knew it prior, but I w I was, I had, uh, I had ingested some cannabis and I was, I was enjoying, I think it was the War on Drugs, maybe Deeper Understanding. It's a great, great record, as they call it. They're not albums anymore. They're records.

And it just stopped. And I'm like, motherfucker. This technology shit. And I actually called Reed to come to the office to tell me what's wrong with my record player and he's like did you uh did you realize that the record is over so you have a pledge you have an you have an adult pledge that when you are listening to music with with with thc in the system there's somebody on call that is your it guy that's either expensive or humiliating i don't know which one that is no reed is is is

handsomely paid he also does a lot of good research um he's kind of my jack of all trades he he he sets up he he does some production on green light on the pod. But most importantly, he was responsible for implementing some of the new technologies. And I'm like, come on, Reed. The record player's not working. It's 10 o'clock at night. All I want to do is listen to the rest of this record. Just turned off. And so he shows up.

Yeah, he showed up. And in the nicest way possible, he was like, dude, you're a moron. That sounds like the worst plane ride, but it's a drive back for him instead of a plane no yeah so so eagles are worst plane ride uh reed with the great pull on the uh the layered patrick lair 10 carries five yards so who was the leading rusher don't tell me that'd be albert wilson with uh with two carries for 31 yards but as we uh laird also had a touchdown though um but it was a terrible day right wilson's a receiver by the way so it was a terrible day it was just a bad day for the birds and at this point you can call them a bad team because bad teams don't have any strengths.

And I don't know what the team's strength is right now. I mean, do you have a guess at what the Eagles' strength is? I felt like their corners had actually figured some things out for the previous few weeks while they didn't have any offensive players. And then they were the first team, I think, to blow a two-touchdown lead to a team five games below.500. I think, to blow a two-touchdown lead to a team five games below.500. Like, every team in that situation that the Eagles were in when they were up 28-14 was 45-0 in the last 45 games. And I don't –

45, huh? Yeah. So that doesn't happen a lot, what happened to them. And we know how bad the Dolphins are. And if Mike Tomlin's not your coach of the year, I actually think Flores should get consideration. I don't know what that means. Maybe it's just a shout-out to absolutely team like that's incredible that that this team

is fighting i think fitzpatrick might be one of those guys that everyone loves in a locker room and those are those of us on the outside even if you like him but we always expect him to be benched again like the fitzpatrick correction always happens but i think i i'm guessing but it feels like guys love him because of the way his team seemed to guys absolutely love that guy i mean he's one of the most likable dudes i've played against in the nfl and teammates say the same and yeah b flow i mean this is a guy that was there in 17 uh and saw the philly special right so then then he runs that trick play of his own yesterday, which, by the way, was the first coolest play. It was amazing to me that the Texans' trick play

was only the second coolest scoring play from a play design standpoint. And all he's done is had the team playing really hard and being competent, and they're going up and playing the Jets this week. They're six-point underdogs. I kind of like them. All right, I'm going to go best plane ride then first

since we both did worse, and that has to be Buffalo, who deserves a little love here after a Thanksgiving game where everybody is watching. And in my moments earlier this year, and Josh Allen was bad last year. We can do the rookie thing,

but there's certain guys that within a year, Patrick Mahomes, not that Josh Allen's going to be Patrick Mahomes, but I'm workshopping this thing of we all are impatient in sports with coaches and quarterbacks. But should we be impatient when we have so many coaches win right away? We have freshman quarterbacks winning national titles. And we have guys, and again, Mahomes first year winning an MVP. Lamar second year could be winning an MVP.

And then you can do the Josh Allen. He wasn't good last year because he was a rookie and he played at Wyoming and it was a different system. But I had moments the first month or so of this season where I go, you know what? I don't want to hear about the Josh Allen thing. I don't think it's going to work. I am now open to the idea. I'm completely wrong about that.

His stats are not off, but they are better. And he played great in that game in a bills team that sits there at nine and three now where you're like okay wins jets giants cincinnati lost the patriots close loss they beat tennessee which actually looks like a good win shout out to the titans and their dominant performance against the colts um well you know maybe i shouldn't they were they were dominant towards the end they closed that one in dominating fashion then another one against the dolphins lose the eagles get destroyed at their place so at that point i'm okay, I'm off this Buffalo thing.

They beat Washington. They lose to the Browns. They beat the Dolphins again. Then they beat the Broncos bad with their quarterback issues. But to go into Dallas, where Dallas is desperate, and be the better team for 60 minutes, that makes me look at the Bills just a little bit differently. And I think that ride home, you're back in your own bed, Thanksgiving night, you're Josh Allen.

You can go out Friday and Saturday night in downtown Buffalo, which I would love a steady cam on that for an entire weekend. And I just, that's the best ride. You can drink all the bourbon and Coors Light

that your little heart desires because that's what I think he does. And I would say that we have to be careful not overvaluing a win against the Cowboys in any venue at this point because they have been so lackluster outside the division. That doesn't mean I don't think they're going to win the division. I mean, they still have to beat the Eagles. I think the way it looks right now, even they could beat the Eagles. But yeah, I would say with Buffalo, I'm coming around on them. I had actually given up on them at one

point this year because of their run defense as much as anything, and then Josh being unproven. But I'll tell you what, they're a well-coached football team. McDermott's done a great job. And this is going to be the big litmus test here. I mean, you want a chance to prove that you're legit, and all the Buffalo fans desperately want that chance. I'm not going to make a Cowboys win against a team that's coming off a short week after getting physically probably pushed around up in Foxborough and Jerry scolding them like little children.

I'm not going to make that win the marquee win, but I'll really believe in the Bills. Yeah, it's a win. In comparison to everything else, that's totally fair, but I guess it's almost like a movie, and you were like, what are your expectations for this movie? I thought it was going to suck. Hey, you know what? It's a pretty good movie,

and it may not even be that good, but it's all based on what you thought going in, and the Bills are my movie that I'm like, ah, this isn't going to be that good, i'm kind of expecting dallas in that spot at home with everything that's going on coming off that new england loss and alan was really good he was really good and his stats aren't going to scream at you but if you compare him this year to last year there is a very obvious improvement and i think even an improvement for the first at least based on the competition from games where i'd watch watch at the beginning of the year being like,

you know what, I'm really afraid that we're going to be talking about Josh Allen. Is he a good backup in year three or four? Yeah. I'm not doing that right now. His athletic ceiling is just so high, dude. And I guess you make a good point. Like, the Browns are like the Joker to me. You know, high expectations.

Sit down with my popcorn. i know you were really your expectations were really high you're triggered on the on the browns uh we're gonna get i'm not sure oh i was not a big browns guy i didn't have him in the playoffs i've made other mistakes but i was not i was not all in on the cleveland thing the hype well you would think with the visceral reaction that we're i'm gonna give give you your giant Browns brand. But I guess what movie would the Bills be then? One that you didn't expect to be so good, and hey, this thing, two and a half hours in,

I think I'm going to stick around for the end. Did I ever tell you the story about the professional? I was talking about this the other day. It may have been in a pitch. A little Hollywood dog for you. Oh, shit. When the professional i was talking about this the other day it may have been in a pitch a little hollywood dog for you but oh shit when the professional came out when you pitch when you pitch something how does that go real quick well the only official pitch that i've been out on was five years ago and another guy talked the whole time and he couldn't read the room and it was so painful and we went oh for 14 and um he he just talked uninterrupted for like 40 plus minutes so i think he went twice

as long as you're supposed to go and then we went to an all we went to um i think it was oprah's network and i told my agents i was like yeah i don't really know that this is a good fit for the show and it was look the show was my concept no one thought i could write it and at that point i probably couldn't and so we had somebody else write it but I really think at the time the agency and this is all being the book that I'm writing but the agency was was basically like let's keep this clown happy and let him pretend he's going to be a tv guy and you know we'll keep we'll keep his sports contract and so um I've told I think vague versions of the story before so I don't know that I want to do it all right now but

basically it was it was really tough for me because it was my baby. And then it morphed into some other things that I just agreed to creatively. And then I just didn't think... Like, when you're going to be in a pitch, you have to read the room a little bit. And when we pitched to Oprah specifically,

we get yelled at at the end of it. When we pitched to Oprah, that's amazing. It wasn't Oprah specifically. She did not decide, like, who's this Rosillo guy? Oh, yeah, let's hear what he has to say. When we pitched to her network, the executives kind of beat up on us a little bit. And then I did something you're not supposed to do, apparently, where I was like, okay, so this is a no. Like, we can get out of here.

Because the 405 is about to get busy. You don't know? That's the oldest rule. That's the first rule of pitches, bro. Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that spielberg should have checked with me um so uh the professionals to oprah what are you doing actually i'm surprised you're still being able to pitch things are you it wasn't oprah herself

she was oprah would not have you did it to oprah's people oprah doesn't do it like oprah does the show herself and then then Oprah hires people to do like, I think there's what mundane tasks that you think Oprah actually does. Pitches. She's certainly not going to hear your pitch. No, no doubt. No doubt at all. But like, I didn't realize how bad we were doing until the process was over. And I never talked. I barely talked in the entire thing. And there was a very disconnect we were not on the same page we were 11 guys doing our own thing we were freelancing on the back i hate when that happens so yeah uh it wasn't rude it was we got yelled at we kind of

got yelled at we were like look it's just a story um but that's all right you know what five years later matured from that point maybe i should stop telling the story. But the professional with, who was it? It's the guy with the circle glasses. Yeah, Leon, right? And Natalie Portman's in that as well. I got to double check this. It's not Leon? Yeah, it is.

But I forget his first name. I want to give him. Well, Leon the Professional, but that's played by Jean Reno. Jean Reno. Yeah, Leon. Isn't that Gene Reno? Is that Gene Reno or Jean Reno?

Janet Reno, not related. Gary Oldman is incredible in that. One of Oldman's... That was my first, I love Gary Oldman. But the thing is is when they and again this is for the kids out there when they used to run these trailers on television they would sometimes be really misleading about what the movie was going to be to just try to sell you on it okay and the professional i think i did this on a rewatchables pod so i apologize

how repetitive this is going to be but the professional came out it was all right well it hasn't come out yet we did one on the wolf of wall street so they build the professional is twice as fast as speed and you're like oh this is going to be this crazy sniper action movie i'm in and the first 30 minutes i was like this movie sucks like what's this art house wannabe you know just this is stupid and then the movie ends and it's arguably it's certainly in my top 10 it's arguably one of my five favorite movies ever and i don't know if the bills are going to be one of my favorite teams but the bills right now are laying on the professional director's cut there you go we got there you know i always get the professional mixed up and this is going to come across very disrespectfully

to somebody who's a film buff and somebody who's pitched to Oprah. Careful. Careful. But I always get the professional with Gene Reno mixed up with the Jackal because of the sunglasses, and you said it. I mean, you think it's a sniper movie. You remember in the Jackal when, was it Philip Seymour Hoffman got his entire arm blown off? Spoiler alert, dude.

I mean, that was brutal. You know, I don't know if I've seen The Jackal. You think he was okay? No, apparently not. You think they gave him some Tommy John and called it a day? That's a 23. That's a 23 on Rotten Tomatoes, by the way. And another great.

It was Jack Black. Jack Black got his arm blown off. Oh, all right. I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. No. So the jackal willis bruce willis made him run in like a zigzag or something is the way i remember it and then just shot him with this enormous gun the type of gun you see in the back of like a toyota helix in the middle east like he just was wielding one of these guns it was like a 50 cal right

just blew his arm off go ahead i know how you connected to the jackal though because you're right bruce willis it must have been something where they're like hey you know what's huge right now is these round sniper sunglasses so bruce bruce we're gonna throw these on you okay we need to stop talking about this because we still have a couple things on the to-do list are you ready yeah i'm, I'm ready. Okay, let's talk DraftKings, and then we're going to do history lesson, the Browns, and then I don't even know

how much we'll get to now. Let me ask you, though, is there anything better than watching football, especially these last few days? Of course there is. Watching football with the DraftKings lineup on the line,

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Minimum of $5. Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details. Can we do a history lesson right now? A little parenting history lesson? Absolutely. Sandra Bullock also had those glasses in Demolition Man. Is that what you've been working on the last minute while I did that read?

Yeah, I had to confirm. Shout out to my childhood crush who I met at the Espy's and completely froze up when I met her. She would have liked you too. Didn't she marry Jesse James? You got a Jesse James thing going on. I do. Hopefully not from a standpoint of being morally sound. Oh,

all right. I didn't know we were doing a judgment. I didn't like how, I didn't like how he treated her, but anyways, you know, look out. We just had Christo Doyle on who produced Monster Garage,

and Jesse got mad at my buddy Christo and tweeted out his cell phone number. Oh, shit. I really have. I don't. I'm not trying to get into internet beefs with, like, tattoo slash motorcycle personalities. This is not really. Well, the big thing is guns now. So that sounds even better.

We may. I may do the teaser for this to subscribe to. This is going to be where Chris Long calls out Jesse James for his treatment. And then it's just the rest of the football. No, man, let's, let's just, let's just, I know that I, here's what I don't want to see. You know, every week I leave this pod and I see they put on the ringer website, some, um, you know,

a Pat's take from either one of us with the loud, uh, trumpet noise in the background. You know, that, that noise. Yeah. Yeah.

They do that every week. What I, what I hate to see is the trumpet noise over my Jesse James. I would annoy the shit out of me. Well, we'll, we'll well we'll consider it i know you get mad but like we have to do the thing that would get people to want to click on it so you got to give them a little i know i just kind of hope nobody listens to the pod bro it's

kind of something i do i enjoy it but then at the end of the day i'm like man hopefully nobody's listening to this shit well i will disagree with you there i would like people to listen to the pod um that's that's very nice of you to say i enjoy doing it but you don't care about the numbers i do care about the numbers number three in sports behind bill and the pmt guys so talk to him yeah after four weeks fresh start okay before we get to parenting history lesson here, speaking of tagging stuff, I actually saw a thing, not to make this podcast morbid,

I don't know, I read a bunch of stuff about the Terrell Pryor thing. I'm not willing to take a side on this yet. I don't know. It sounds pretty bad all the way around. But one place tagged because of Michigan-Ohio State this weekend, Terrell Pryor, who went 3-0 against Michigan, stabbed. And you're like,

No. Dude. Dude. Ravel're like, no, dude. Dude. Ravel? No. No. That's his second mention, though. That's too, too many. Alright. So I'm in the middle of Titan. I like Ravel. I like Ravel. I do, too.

It's tweets are... He knows it. They're bad. There's a few guys that we both don't mind on a personal level who tweet really poorly. Yeah, right. That's fine. All right, we're going to stop talking about him because this is nothing.

He only grows stronger. I'm not in the middle of Titan. I should rephrase that. I'm slow rolling this one. I got off track. I read a Bitcoin book. I'm reading that book about Uber right now, super pumped,

which is off to an incredible start. But let's talk about a young John D. Rockefeller, um, in his parenting, as we know about, um, big bill Rockefeller, devil bill, sketchy bad guy, bad guy, all the way around as we've learned more. Um, well, John and his siblings, they grew up near this lake and they were told to never um to never ice skate on the i might get this wrong skuskahana river the susquehanna matters because i don't think anybody else is reading this book okay but they should be we could do a book club like how many pages you read the other day four there is a guy that follows us that's called Rosillo Book Club. He has like a thousand followers. All he does is reply to our pods and says like, Rosillo did not mention a book this week.

That's all the guy. His profile picture is you on like a kayak. Do you know the picture? Or a seadoo? I didn't look close. I don't know if there's any seadoo footage of me out there is there you're like small spooning somebody on a seadoo or a kayak of course no no jacket and a cutoff that's the banana boat recreation picture that we did with uh with pft and big cat

oh okay that's their picture yeah we have that on a t-shirt too i think there's only seven available okay so back to the back to the parenting lesson because this actually isn't just a history lesson so we're on the susquehanna river um john and his brother were banned from ever ice skating on it but they're the lure here's great great writing by chernow here the lure of a moonlit night overwhelmed the better judgment of John and his brother William. They were gliding along the river when they heard the desperate cries of a young boy who had fallen through the ice. Pushing a pole to the flailing boy, John and William fished him from the water and saved his life. When they returned home, Mother Eliza

hailed their courage, then promptly got down to business. Quote quote we thought we should be left off without punishment but mother gave us a good tanning nevertheless so they were beaten with a a switch a wooden a wooden branch after they saved a boy from drowning so my question is you think in 2009 like with two young boys yourself if they were to save a life from a drowning boy would you then beat them uh i don't think that's okay uh i'm not into hitting children at all but you would think that back in the day if you were rich as fuck you would have other things besides like kindling and sticks to beat your kids with they weren't rich yet oh this was they were they were still poor. Usually adults. Yeah, don't compete. Big John was letting them down. By the way, the Susquehanna, yeah, whatever his name was, he wasn't a good guy.

I skipped that part in the book. Susquehanna River, that's a big-ass river. I cross over that in Maryland often, and some of our listeners in that godforsaken state will know. They'll be familiar with that river. But I think it's incredibly ballsy to go out on anything frozen.

I'm just, I'm not into that. You're not into ice fishing at all. Just, it's, you watch Grumpy Old Man and you have anxiety.

No, you're not laughing. There's probably, there's probably, I don't watch Grumpy Old Man. I put, you know, you haven't seen the first one?

I saw it, but I was like a kid, bro. That movie's like 20 years old now. It's older than that. Yeah. You were watching. All I'm saying is you fall under the ice.

That's gotta be one of the worst ways to go. Like you're ice fishing. Yeah. You go down to grab a pike, a nice hefty pike. And you slip and you fall under and, and all of a sudden you look up and it's just ice everywhere it's got to be the worst way to go i can't even imagine hit us up if you've been trapped under ice yeah hit us up bro all right do you want to get back to football are we good there

i'd love to but yeah i think it's dead wrong in summation to hit any child let alone a child who just saved another child and then if you're i guess they weren't rich yet but if you have means they weren't up with the sticks yeah well john john used to when he knew he was going to get beat with the switch he would cut little indentations into the into the stick so that it wouldn't hurt as much and it would perhaps break. And then he was a real, yeah. I mean, John D. was like on it early. He was, he had some ingenuity.

Yeah, it was different times. He was the original, yeah. It was just, you know, the sensibilities are a little different. So hopefully everybody's able to play along with that one. Okay. The Browns. Two things you love, sensibilities are a little different so hopefully everybody's able to play along with that one okay the browns

two things you love history and the cleveland browns okay i am not i am not one you know me well that i'm not one of those guys that like goes oh i can't wait to rip this guy or i want this i hate this guy like for the most part like my biggest thing is if you're gonna talk you better be good okay and when And when your guy and Garrett escalated the interaction, depending on what you believe on who started and all this stuff, when your guy's ultimately the guy that screwed up the most, and then your own head coach is going to wear the shirt that says Pittsburgh started it and all of these different shirts, and you're going to talk and it's going to be duck Hodges out there and you lose this game. Like, I don't want to hear from anybody until you've,

you've done anything worth are mentioning your success. Like I'm sick of talking about your failures. I'm sick of talking about your talent. You know, at the end of this game too, from just a football thing, I think Baker is spooked out there. That offensive line,

like they had a spot there where they get it back. One 45 to go Baker incomplete, almost picked by Minka, big Baker incomplete underneath. He got crushed. It was a roughing the passer, so there's a personal foul there. So it's first and 10 at their own 35. He throws it underneath for five yards,

and then Baker's pick, just an awful throw that closes this game out. As soon as he feels it, he's bailing. I don't know what the numbers are on it. Somebody smarter than me can go research that stuff, but he is playing like a quarterback that doesn't trust his offensive line. I'm not necessarily even blaming him for that, but I think collectively this group. Now, if they'd won this game and went on a little run, we would all play the results and we'd say, the coach put on the shirt and they knew he bought into them and they believe in him and it was this whole thing. I don't want to be guilty of playing the results here. All I'm

telling you is that in that spot, I don't care that it's a division game. I don't want to be guilty of playing the results here. All I'm telling you is that in that spot, I don't care that it's a division game. I don't care about the rivalry. You talked all of this junk leading up to it. You embraced all the nonsense, and you couldn't beat Duck Hodges. Is there a team you hate more than the Browns in professional sports? I don't hate the Browns, really.

This is a very recent thing. I wasn't one of those guys ripping baker and ripping the browns all season when they weren't playing well it was just like oh here we go like all this hype so i don't think uh the browns are even close to being one of the teams that i dislike there's more college football teams because of their fan bases that i just can't get over you just don't want to talk about the browns anymore which i think is completely reasonable i think at this point we have, we've had the Browns takes, we've had more takes per win. The take to win ratio on the Browns this year

is ridiculous. It's historic. You've never talked so much about a team that just hasn't done much this year. And I have guys on the Browns that I know and I root for, and I don't have any, and I have guys on the Browns that I know and I root for and I don't have any like I've been a Baker fan so I I still think he's the guy I I think the guy you mentioned is not the guy the head coach and I think that's the issue and until you get rid of that that culture that that that kind of has disregarded attention to detail and embraced chaos and building with pieces from the outside rather than building from the ground up with the foundation and neglected things like the offensive line. I don't think they get it right. So yeah, the t-shirt's ridiculous. Listen, if you're going to wear a t-shirt or dress up like Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in Bad Boys, you go win and nobody's talking about you.

But you lose, especially in a game like that. How much would it cost? How much would the ringer have to pay you to go do an on-location feature on the Browns? And that involves tailgating and going to a game. Yeah, you're framing this wrong. You're acting like I hate Cleveland, I hate the fans, I hate the whole thing.

No, no, no. I hate unwarranted attention. Okay, Boomer. No, I'm serious, man. I'm joking. I'm joking. I felt Scott and I, for years, would actually do segments where you're like, do you feel worse for any fan base?

Can you feel worse for any city besides cleveland prior to lebron getting that title against the golden state warriors and i am not like for them to have their team taken away by an awful owner and then have to watch it become the ravens and luckily they're able to hang on to all their own stuff which doesn't make any sense because like the seattle record shouldn't be the oklahoma city thunder records like all that stuff stupid every gnats number that comes out that somehow relates back to the 80s Expos. You're like, who cares? This is dumb.

Those teams were different. I remember those teams. Right. I loved Bernie Kosar and those 80s Browns teams. That was one of the first teams. I used to sit there and root for them and then be bummed out about this Elway guy. So this is not anything historic. This isn't about any of that stuff. This is solely about this yearway guy. So this is not anything historic. This isn't about any of that stuff.

This is solely about this year and they carry themselves like a team that's done something and they've done nothing. And that's my point in the moment. Isn't it worse to be a team with a middling, a perpetually middling presence

that can't get over the hump and does more type seven nine six and ten gives you false hope i mean this is the first time the browns fans really got hope in a while so i don't feel that bad for him i feel bad for him in a sense i feel bad for like like i feel worse for the lions fans like a lions game doesn't look fun to go to like a browns game even when they're oh and 16 looks fucking lit. Like this is the first time they've been actually let down recently. And I do feel for them there,

but there are fan bases who actually, and this is a hot take. I'd rather be a Browns fan than I would like, I don't know, a team that's had a little bit more success. Yeah. I mean, I mean the Jags,

if you're a Jags fan you had you had you know that that afc championship uh run in i think it was 98 one of those years that denver won you've got you know the jaylen ramsey and we had the afc title game yeah the afc title game in the 97 uh yeah 97 beat denver remember? I don't know if you remember. Yeah, you beat Denver? Jacksonville beat Denver. Like, Denver was going to win the Super Bowl, and New England ended up in the Super Bowl against them.

Oh, okay, okay, okay. So they never ended up in the Super Bowl. But what I'm saying is they've had a couple deep runs. They're actually culturally – I don't think they're the right example, but the point I'm making would be that I actually think being a Browns fan at this point is one of those things that you've, it's like being a Knicks fan. I don't know what's worse, being a team that gives you false hope every year or a team that you can just turn it off and wake me up when they're

better. And the problem is Browns fans got woke turn it off and wake me up when they're better. And the problem is Browns fans got woke up this offseason and they got woke up for nothing. Fair. All right. Can we do the coach thing here as we finish? Oh, yeah. Because that leaves us with Mike Tomlin and a Pittsburgh team that as of today is in the playoffs in the AFC. And I think Tomlin, and I spent a lot of time on this with Tomlin last night. So whatever you want to ask me, I should have it here. But Tomlin was somebody who had two Super Bowl appearances with a win by 38 years old. So we're talking about a guy who got hired, what, 34 years old? His first four years, he's in two Super Bowls with a win. He has this way about him.

He has this way of talking that felt young, that felt real, that felt player. And then a Pittsburgh team that's always known for its defense, and at least with Tomlin you thought of defense, they're actually not that great defensively for long stretches. And Roethlisberger's basically carrying them offensively. I thought there were times where they were the far more talented team in the playoffs, and Tomlin had, in a six-year stretch, three playoff losses where they were the favorites.

They were favored at Denver in 2011 by eight points, which was unheard of to be on the road favored by a touchdown in the playoffs. But that was the Tebow Broncos team that was 500. Pittsburgh had a great record, and then they lost on that Demaryius Thomas touchdown. Boom. On the first play of overtime. I think it was the first play. They lost in 2014 to the Ravens.

They were a favorite. They lost at Denver as a dog in 16. They lost at New England as just under a touchdown dog against New England where they got crushed, where it looked like they were helpless against them. And that was the time where I thought, does Tomlin do any adjustments in the games? But he actually has, as I studied it more and more and asked people. He's tried different approaches, and Brady just seems to eat them up

no matter what. And then they had the home loss in 2017 to that Jags team that you were just mentioning a second ago, where they were a touchdown favorite and they lost to Jacksonville. So in the span of six years, he had three playoff losses where he was a favorite. And then I try to compare that to some other things.

It was hard to, if anybody else can dig that up, that felt like a lot in a six year stretch. He's eight and seven overall in the playoffs. You're like, okay, is that great? Well,

you know what? This is somebody in 12 years in now. He's made the playoffs eight out of 12 seasons. So he's had these little lulls. He's had these bad home playoff losses or favorite playoff losses where I thought, like, why does he keep having that? I thought last year was kind of a disastrous year where you're like, how come this team is totally out of control? And now the irony is that what was a knock on Tomlin last year because of all the different personalities, and I've told everybody this that will listen, I didn't like any of them. So don't make this a

black-white thing. I've never liked Ben. Le'Veon did his own thing where his own teammates were upset about it. And Antonio Brown is a complete freaking wild card. But since Antonio Brown can't stop showing us who he really is, nowlin gets credit which I think he deserves for keeping it more in check last year than we ever could have imagined so what I'm basically saying and I've given you the entire resume here so I'm sorry that I went forever but I'm looking at him as a potential coach of the year where I'll admit I've kind of been like I don't know like is this guy really great is he as bad as people are making out to be but the fact that this team with all of their problems especially injuries on offense and they figured it

out here defensive they're a really good defensive team they're like top five and dvoa going into the week this guy could be coach of the year yeah i think they're three and they're like 18 in total um and i think the point you make is I think people are talking about them now or talking about Mike the way they should be which is that he should be in the conversation for coach of the year which

what's that worth? I mean he won't win it probably but he should be up there and listen at this point last year

they had the same amount of wins and you're talking about a team that you know no to it they lose AB they lose Bell you've got the team that you know no to it they lose ab they lose bell you've got the helmet thing you know you you've got jujus had some inconsistencies he still is winning games and it's really not about who you're beating you have to win the games are in front of you as you

said and uh the steelers rarely get a couple things wrong and that's coaches centers and quarterbacks and they they didn't get this one right. Linebackers. I put linebackers in there, too. Linebackers. And under Tomlin in this front office, they haven't gotten receivers wrong. I mean, they have drafted receivers really well. Guys you never heard of.

Guys that you're just like, where's this production coming from? And this is the thing. When he was young, as you mentioned, it's funny. You look back, and when he was 34, I was like, I mean, when he started out, I was like 20 years old or so, I think. I wasn't thinking of things from a standpoint of, man, this guy's young. I mean, man, can you imagine, you know, being a black head coach, which is hard enough, uh, to be young and get that job at 34 and one of the most

storied franchises in the history of the game in Pittsburgh. Um, and everybody talking about you inherited a team and that's, that's all it is. Even when you win one, people are like, yeah, it's not really him. Now it's come full circle and he's working with nothing and he's exceeding every expectation. So I think it's great. I don't know what they'll do. I think that the Titans are a much scarier team right now, but the Titans still have Houston twice. I think New Orleans, maybe I could be wrong, where the Steelers now have the Cardinals,

the Bills, the Jets, and the Ravens left. And they'll be vying for that sixth spot. I think their schedule is way more favorable. I don't think they're as good as Tennessee at all the way they're playing right now offensively. But they'll probably sneak in. And this could be his best coaching job yet. So let me expand on that because, you know, as I've said, I've had moments where I go, is it just, hey, he puts the sunglasses on, he says these really emphatic, direct,

hey, this is what we do, this is how we're going to do it, and does everybody just sort of buy into it and be like, oh my God, this guy's an amazing head coach. And then I started looking at other guys that are thought to be good head coaches because for Tomlin, unfortunately, he doesn't have the thing where it's like, okay, he's a defensive wizard because Dick LeBeau was there forever. Nobody goes, okay okay offensively like this guy's calling the shots where andy reed you know you always think despite the issues with the clock

management and everything that wait a minute you know andy reed is thought of as this unbelievable play caller and adapting an offense around a quarterback pete carroll's thought of his guy who gets his defense playing specifically in the secondary and you know at eight and seven for a playoff career with Tomlin, that's a really good number. That's not a bad number. The favorite losses, I don't know how many others. 6-54.

6-54 winning percentage as you've been in the league. That's second to Bill. That's a crazy number. No losing seasons. Andy Reid's 12-14. 2-5 with the Chiefs in the playoffs. Sean Payton's 8-6. But Sean Payton's another one of those guys. Offensive genius G Pete Carroll,

10 and eight. And that was a guy who got fired twice. He got one year with the jets. So Tomlin's playoff record is right there with those other guys, but I don't think he has the thing that makes people go, Oh, well, this is what he does specifically X and O wise.

And I'm not even saying that that's fair, but that's the conversation around him. What it seems to be more chris is what is the value in comparison to x and o's and scheming versus the value of what what seems to be like a guy that dudes just play so hard for that love him yeah well you've been funny you mentioned because there's another afc north coach um who's who doesn't really have a specialty in jaw and hardball. So it is a rarity. I mean, most coaches have a thing, right? And yeah, listen, the scheme is necessary.

The scheme is the most important thing in football. You can even overcome coaches that are like wet blankets if you have a dynamic scheme. But as far as, and you asked me earlier, do you play for certain guys? I don't know that you ever play harder for certain guys. I mean, I could mention situations where I played harder for a coach because I'm always trying to play 100%. It's the old thing, how do you play 110%? If you're not doing 100% every week, and we all know that there's some weeks that you get up a little bit more for and there's some coaches you you buy in a little bit more for i think it's more of a buy-in thing

uh you know i've had different coaches that you know you asked me about this it's things like doug peterson who i'm a big fan of as a head coach uh do i think that they could be doing things differently offensively certainly and he's an offensive minded coach, a specialty. So certain things don't fall on the shoulders of Mike grow as much as they fall on the shoulders of Doug. But Doug had, when I got to Philly, what I put my finger on right away was that Doug was this player's coach, a guy that you would, you would buy in for, and you would play hard for.

Um, but a guy that had some rules that I was like, ah, these are dumb rules. Like dress code type, you know, tuck your shirt in at practice. Like, I think that helps you win zero, but because I like Doug so much, you know, even me who like disregards a lot of rules would try to, and I don't know that I ever tucked my shirt in at practice. I tried to cut a shorter shirt, which is not very... Badass. What's the word? Flattering for a guy who doesn't have that defensive back profile in the midsection. I think it'd be like, you know, little rules in the building.

Different coaches have their idiosyncrasies. Jeff Fisher was like, his big thing was we don't make the rookies sing. The rookies don't sing. You don't haze the rookies. We're going to need them. And although I loved hearing rookies sing, I was like, well sing. You don't haze the rookies. We're going to need them. And although I loved hearing rookies sing, I was like, well, you're my coach and I love Jeff Fisher. So I'm listening. No questions asked. No cutoff t-shirts in the lunchroom. That should be a given. I think you might violate that once or twice if you played for Jeff Fisher. Yeah, dude,

like, but these are rules that you just buy in for. And, you know, with Bill, it was like, dude. Like, but these are rules that you just buy in for. And, uh, you know, with Bill, it was like, Bill's not necessarily that player's coach, but he was relaxed in every way that you wouldn't think you would be like, there was no dress code stuff on the practice field. You wear whatever color socks you want, whatever color undershirt, like the stuff that other coaches would, would freak out about. He wasn't, but he would care about the football stuff. And the reason you would play for Bill was because he had the football stuff down and he wielded this guarantee that you're going to be in the shit at the end of the year.

So every coach has a different selling point. And whether it's a player's coach or somebody who's really schematically sound, I think that's the conversation is, do you buy in to what these coaches are selling? And that could be like playing out a scheme. Like when you go to New England, you might play out a scheme. You might not like, you know, I think one of the biggest misnomers in New England is that he's going to get the most

out of you. He's going to get the most out of you for the team and put you in situations that are advantageous to the team. And that takes sacrifice. And you're willing to do that for, for a bill. You know, Mike, I don't know what it is. Like, I never played there. I know some guys there, but I never asked him. I know that he's somebody who is loved in that building. But it's obvious guys buy in. And it's not, like you said, you don't need to be an offensive juggernaut. You can hire the right coaches.

You don't need to be a defensive juggernaut. But if you create a culture that's consistent, you have continuity, and this is the way we do things, and I'm unwavering and players like you then they'll stick to that and that's what he's had for 12 years hey good week man this is our longest pod yet is it yeah so we still have a couple things we didn't get to we're gonna do that media conversation one day i promise yeah all right you can follow him at joel91 i'm at ryan abercillo and you can follow all the stuff on chalk at yeah i think it's chalk uh what's the twitter handle is it chalk media is a hard sell oh it's at chalk network i got my shit together i know the handles all the social

handles i know what the name of my podcast is. It's Green Light. You can check us out on YouTube or Apple Music, Spotify, all that stuff. Like I said, like, you know, some of the pods I do, I'm like, I don't know about you. If you ever listened back to your pods, I hate myself. I listened to the first few that we were doing and right out of the gates, I got really arrogant about how good we were in the beginning. And then the arrogance led to us slipping a little bit. Week three, I thought we had a bad week yeah but tell the people what the problem was we didn't facetime um we had a couple technical problems and then once once we locked it in we're yeah we're just getting buckets yeah it just, we are greased track right now, but most times I hate listening to myself and y'all,

some of y'all do too. Cause you always tell me in the mentions, um, I would, I would, I would say I don't like listening to my own pods. I really enjoyed having my brother in Saturday morning and doing this. Well,

actually we did it before Thanksgiving, this, this Thanksgiving special pod. And we had one of our former teammates in, Kyle. So go check that out. Check out Greenlight, all that stuff. And thanks for listening. All right, good stuff.

You check us out on The Ringer. Be out Wednesday and Friday at River Salo Podcast. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you. you