The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Week 15 Recap with Chris Long | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

Russillo is joined by two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long to discuss NFL Week 15. They talk Bears-Packers, Philly-Dallas, and much more. Along with the finding out the favorites of the NFC, they also talk about some middle-aged fashion choices along with their love of movie and video game rentals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, two more weeks to go. The Ryan Russell Show podcast Monday recap with Chris Long. Chris is in his palatial studios in Virginia, I believe. Yeah, shout out to Virginia Arts. Shout out, shout out. Absolutely, a lot of shout outs this week's show. I am in Boston. I am being threatened to be thrown out of the room because I was supposed to check out.

But that's all right. Cleaning lady just came by. Slitter of 20. We both looked at each other and winked. And either I have a new girlfriend or I'm going to be good on this late checkout. So I think we're good either way. All right. Let's get to it. Do you check out downstairs?

Do you actually go settle up or do you just ghost the front desk? You know what? Over the years, I've learned that actually ghosting is stupid, but I don't know what it was for years. I think it was a guilty conscience or perhaps funds always being an issue.

The younger days of like, oh no, maybe I'm not going to be able to cover this or the card's gonna get declined or whatever. I mean, you know, those those 20s are rough, rough years. So I always just leave figuring, you know, look, eventually they'll get me if something's wrong. And it was almost never wrong. And then I started checking the hotel bill and seeing things that I'd be overcharged for all the time. So I was like, wait a minute, I just go down, face them, look them right in the eye, get the bill, have them correct the errors and good. So I usually don't ghost. I could do it today though,

because they were basically saying they're going to charge me for another night in the next 15 minutes. And this pod is not going to be 15 minutes long. So we'll see. Yeah. It's not a sunk cost. No, no. If I have to pay for another night, I think, I think things are going well enough that we'll be fine. Okay. So we have the Bills-Steelers game, which may headline this podcast. The NFC top seeds. What's going on with Houston? There's a lot of really good stuff. I want to try to get to as much of it as we possibly can.

I sat, we already talked about this on Wednesday's pod we're going to bring with you, reviewing Boston the entire weekend and me heading out of here. But today's episode of the Ryan Russillo Show with Chris Long is brought to you by State Farm. If you're fumbling with insurance, State Farm agents are here to help because of over 19,000 agents are 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.

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Your next purchase, 20% off at Kendra Scott by mentioning this. And we want to get Chris. Yeah, I know you've been really busy with Chalk Media lately. So what's going on with those guys and what do you have coming up this week? Nothing. We had a stray hand on the fishbowl this last week. We've got a couple of green light have coming up this week nothing we had a stray hand on on the fishbowl this last week we've got a couple green light uh pods uh coming up this week we've got action bronson on saturday which is my favorite interview of the year we had a kick-ass interview uh over

the summer and also we're doing some bad america stuff with your boy uh stanford steve too giving out hopefully winners most weeks although although this weekend was rough. This weekend was really rough. Bloodbath for everybody involved on the picks or just in general life? Just in general. A lot of times you make your picks on YouTube

or on your pod and you don't bet them all. This weekend I lost my picks that people saw. So my pride is hurt. And, uh, I lost a lot of money. Yeah. That's always tough. It's always tough when everybody sees it. Like when Scott and I had the back and forth and he was just really, he was, um, I'm pretty competitive, but he got weird about it. Like if anybody was beating him, he'd just be like, it was a fluke. And he got, I'll admit, like he got really annoying with it. So I would, um, I would sit on Saturdays and

be like, you know, I don't, but I wasn't putting any time into it, which again, it doesn't mean anything, but I, wait, so were you going to let Scott win? Like, kind of like you let a kid like, no, no, not at all. I didn't know in the basketball game, he beat me for the six seasons. So he was four and two against me, but he was. Oh, good. He was very like, that's his thing. And so he wanted everyone to know that it was his thing. And he would get really weird about it,

you know, and that segment was always one of those things where it was like, just stop talking. I want to talk gambling on my segment. And you were just like. Well, imagine being Stanford Stephen being an actually awesome handicapper and losing to the new kid on the block,

the dark horse here, your boy. Most of the year here, I've been taking him behind the woodshed, so to speak. Oh, no. Ouch. His whole... Yeah, but I contend he's... He's unbelievable. I don't contend. I mean, I contended coming in that he was going to kick my ass, but

I will admit that I still maintain he's a better handicapper than me. I've just been on a heater for my entire career as a gambler. That's good. So you can check out all of that stuff on shock media. So headlines, there's a lot of different stuff that we can get to. We have a ton of great plane rides. I do want to mention the urban Meyer stuff a little, uh, the one seeds in the NFC, the one and two seeds, a little Green Bay in there. I know the Aaron Rodgers stuff is coming around too.

Pat's, eh, whatever. We'll get to that maybe on some of the plane ride discussion. But the Bills go into Pittsburgh and they beat a Pittsburgh defense that, by the way, like statistically over the years, that's been an offensive team, not so much defense, despite the fact that like if you're something identifiable in the 70s, we have a hard time updating that and going, you know what? They're actually more about throwing the ball down the field, at least nationally. Certainly not Steelers fans because they understood that.

But whether it's Hayward or Watt, Dupree, who I wonder if I watch them all the time, if I'd like them as much as I do. And then Bush coming along. And that front is really impressive. Defensively, if you look at some of the weighting metrics, they're right there with San Francisco the last few weeks and Buffalo, we knew they weren't going to light them up. It came down to the last possession, Jared Allen, touchdown to Croft, right when Collinsworth was like, yeah, they're probably going to dial it back here and play it safe. And they throw it in the end zone. Hodges with a couple of picks there at the end. But I think that Bill's thing feels like the headliner, Chris, because they just feel more real. And we

understand with their defensive talent to all the guys that they have. And I'm not sitting here saying like Allen is fixed and it's good to go, but they may be a tougher out than they were, say, two years ago when they scored three points with Tyrod Taylor against the Jags in the playoffs. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack with this one. We were joking about it. This is probably the most blue collar matchup in all of football, like the folks in Buffalo, the folks in Pittsburgh, uh, that's, that's rowdy. That's commitment. I mean, the, the bills got back at 2 AM. You saw the footage of, uh, all the people camped out at the, at the airport. Like they just won the super bowl. I mean, this was a big win for them, uh, because it took them up in the blue collar power rankings and

they, they, they knew it in Buffalo. They could feel it. This is like the anti, you know, uh, Niners at Levi's stadium and Seahawks. That would be the white-collar juxtaposition to this matchup. I think probably Titans-Jags is probably one of the most blue-collar matchups, and then this one is the Mecca. So it was huge, and it was one of those things. We'll see how little a team can score and win. But that was a big big win and I think it's as much about I listen they're probably not a Super Bowl team right I mean would you agree yeah they aren't I mean they're not I mean that's

okay to just say at this point I mean if they I'd love to be wrong I mean it'd be an amazing story but they're not a team that's going to win a Super Bowl probably. But what they are is a team that's won 10 wins now. In 1999, they mentioned on the broadcast for the last year, they won 10 games. And that was the year, of course, that it all ended. It went up in flames for them with the Music City Miracle. And I'm hard-pressed to think of another play that kind of catapulted a drought that was that painful for a fan base, a team that took 17 years to get back to the playoffs. And as you said, it's totally different than Tyrod Taylor. When McDermott and Bean came in, McDermott was like,

okay, I can win with a lot of Rex's players. And they went to the playoffs, and they just couldn't do it. He was willing to do whatever he had to do. Now he's got more of his own roster. And you start to wonder, this year is not as much about maybe winning a Super Bowl, although they'd all like to do that. Are they the heir to the throne in the AFC East? I don't know.

I tend to like them a little bit better than the Jets at this point, although I like the GM and the quarterback just as much and probably more in New York. But yeah, they're built for their window is going to, I think exceed the time that Tom has left. Wait a minute. You like the Jets front office combo better for an office head coach combo better than the bills or the other way around? No, no, no. I like, I like the head coach in Buffalo better. I mean, I like the head coach in Buffalo better than the coach in, in, in, in New York in gaze, but But I'm a big Joe Douglas fan. I think Joe Douglas didn't get enough credit in Philly.

I think Howie got a lot of the credit because he was the man in front. But Joe, behind the curtains, did a lot of great stuff. And I'm partial. He's part of the reason I ended up there. And if you had to pick a quarterback, you'd probably take the guy in New York, not Josh, wouldn't you? Yeah, the Josh Allen thing, that's the whole Dallas thing. We'll get to their nice win against the Rams, finally beating a good team.

But Allen has that week against him on Thanksgiving, so everybody's watching. And it's that whole primetime game theory where the perception of you can change dramatically one way or the other. It's equal to five or six bad games or five or six great games if you're really good or really bad. The primetime boost. Yeah, it just is. five or six bad games or five or six great games if you're really good or really bad time boost yeah it just is i mean it's like it's like dating a bottle service girl in vegas if you're an athlete you know like all of a sudden you know she's got some instagram followers and it's like oh cool who's this fifth string wide receiver be like whoa he's dating he's dating casey that was that's the vegas bottle vegas bottle girl uh yeah the the metaphor it kind of works. Right, it's the signal boost.

Right. I don't want to shit on Allen. I like Josh Allen, but his accuracy issues are quite evident. And, I mean, they really needed a big player, too, to make that happen last night against Duck Hodges, who nothing against him. He's buried in depth for a reason. And, ironically, the reason he was pushed to the front line is because Tom will say he doesn't kill us. He's a, he's buried in depth for a reason. Uh, and ironically, the reason he was, he was pushed to the front of the line is because Tomlin said he doesn't

kill us. I even killed him last night. Yeah. That was, um, you know, when you look at the bigger picture Tomlin thing and they put up how many consecutive wins or how many consecutive seasons he's had without a losing season, you're like, okay, this guy's like 13, 14 seasons now. Like this is ridiculous. So, you know, maybe I need to check some of the times where I'm like, well, how come this guy's losing these playoffs? We've already been over all that stuff and he's in the conversation with coach of the year. I don't mind the pick. Certainly not the last pick from Hodges because I'd rather see that when you're trying to tie a game up at the very end and take some chances in these quarterbacks to throw in the middle of the field for 10 yards

and you go, what are you doing? This game's almost over you got to make a throw so the second to last one was tough i thought nbc did a great job on that graphic by showing like hodges on his attempts like everything's underneath and that's where yeah you can kind of get by for a little while with pittsburgh's defense but maybe not against the bills defense because coming in and i know i want to get back to alan here but coming in bills are third and yards allowed second second in points allowed. But Collinsworth, I thought, was really smart in pointing out the Allen inaccuracy stuff. And even though he's at the bottom of QBR, he's kind of in that bottom numbers.

And QBR gets boosted by guys that can run, and Allen can certainly do that. But the most important thing is that dude hangs on to the football longer than any single person after the snap. So he's at the bottom of the list going into last night's game so so that's that's why we have hesitation so he's taking a long time to process things and then when the ball is getting there it's not it's not on target but with one thing he's doing which allows them to kind of play this complementary football that we talk about um you know being so important to teams is he's not turning the ball

over a ton i mean he's not turning the ball over a ton. I mean, he's not just throwing the ball to other people. I think it was an eight-game stretch where he threw one pick. So as a team, if you're a player on that team, you feel like you have an opportunity to win every ball game. Your ceiling might not feel as high because of the quarterback, but the way they play complementary football, McDermott's stamp has been we don't give up big plays.

If I'm a player on that team, I feel pretty good about my chances and in every game I'm going to play. And you went toe-to-toe with the Ravens. You've gone toe-to-toe

with the Pats. And that's why this matchup here coming up soon makes such a big difference for them. It's going to be, it's not just going to signal, you know,

the way the playoff tree is laid out. It's going to signal where this division is going in the future. That's why when you look at Brady and the clock ticking up there, and we've got whatever we want to talk about there. I think this

Buffalo core is better. It's better on defense than what they have in New York. Certainly you've got Phillips, Edmonds, White, Oliver. Those guys average about 25 years old. The oldest one there is Phillips. So they got a good defensive core. They got a quarterback who, if you're a coach, you feel like, we can develop this kid. He's a blank canvas. And there's certainly a lot of blank canvas there. So listen, I think they're the heir apparent

in that division at this point. And that was a big win for them. It really was. So, yeah, and to shout out Pittsburgh's defense, you mentioned them being up there with San Francisco. I think there's an argument to be made that they should be mentioned with San Francisco and possibly because of the lack of complementary football

they're getting from their offense, no production, no receivers at this point, everything's underneath. And then you add the turnovers to boot. They're still playing really solid defense. And I mentioned last night, listen, Gilmore to me is the defensive player of the year, followed by Fitzpatrick. But if you're talking about a guy in the front seven, it's TJ Watt. I'm really surprised by how good he is.

I don't know if it was just the, there can't be two brothers that are that good. You know, something like that. I don't know what I was thinking, but this guy is all over the field. He can do enough at the second level and drop him back in zone and make him plays and coverage,

chasing people down. He can rush, he can stop the run. He's the most complete guy in that conversation and the guy whose defense is playing the best. Yeah, and Minka definitely deserves to be mentioned too because I was just naming all those guys in the front, but he's been incredible. And the trades like that where it's like, okay, yeah, we're tanking. We want draft capital. We want to do all these things. You know what I want? Because the turnaround in an NFL team rebuilding, I mean, really after a year or two, everybody gets impatient anyway. I'd want guys that are really good. And I'd want to pay guys that are really good.

You know, a lot of these teams, it happens in baseball all the time, not to get too distracted, but you have like two years of control and this isn't necessarily a Kluber trade breakdown, but I just don't understand teams are like, oh, we're afraid to pay this guy. And we're like, well, if he's a one,

you're going to spend a long time looking for a number one. And now look at the Pittsburgh draft pick. It isn't going to be as high as Miami thought. I just think that people overthink this draft capital stuff sometimes where it's like, you know what I'd like. I think they do too, because, because you would take Minka Fitzpatrick first overall, if you didn't need a quarterback knowing what you know now about him. So good luck finding, you know, I think a lot of times front office and coaches, their egos get in the way and

they think they can not only develop any player and that comes into play with quarterbacks a lot, and we talk about it with Josh Allen, but also, you know, I can find the right guy. Well, it's like sitting down in Vegas at the craps table. You just don't know. So I think, you know, a known commodity is always better. So we've got that situation with the Bills. And again, you know, Bills fans take a lot of heat,

but I think everybody actually has kind of a soft spot for them just because everyone knows how much that team means to that city. And, you know, to see them be successful and to hold back and say, hey, I don't think they're going to the Super Bowl because Josh Allen, I think is very realistic. But I always think there's a part of all of us that really like the NFL. They're like, you know what, good for Bills fans. There's probably no better place to play right

now, right? I mean, like, where would you rather play right now? I guess, you know, the teams that are hot, Baltimore is probably pretty awesome, but Buffalo is like a college town, man. Like you get back at 2 a.m. and there's hundreds of people on the tarmac and it's fucking freezing and they just love you. They love Josh Allen for all his imperfections because they're competitive. They're hard-nosed a blue collar and by the way playing up in in orchard park is about as fun as any place uh in the country and like you talk about san francisco well they're in this new corporate uh castle over there in silicon valley it's not like playing with the stick i think buffalo is like one of the last remaining true football communities.

You know, you talk about Green Bay too, but they're used to it. So this is a first time in 17 years or the first time since 1999, rather, that they've won 10 games. It's got to be fun to be a Bill. Yeah, it was first time in 17 to get back to the playoffs, but it does feel a little different this time around. Okay, so I think I want to transition then into Philly, Dallas, actually starting Dallas and kind of this NFC East thing and trying to figure out like which of these teams you like better because Dallas, there's nothing funnier than this. I mean, they smash the Rams. They were up 37-3, I believe. 37-7, excuse me, was the number and then ended up being 44-21.

44-21. Domination. Domination defensively. Sean Lee with a big pick. But it's just kind of funny. The way this thing starts and what the narrative I hate that word. I can't believe I used it. What the discussion would have been around. I know I just did it. You come out and everybody's hyped

and you're jumping around in the huddle and it's like let's do this, man. Good team. Let's finally beat a winning team. A team with a winning record. And then you kick it out of bounds. Kai Forbath and you're like oh so funny dude so funny it was the most dallas thing you have everybody over to this expensive dinner party it's tense everybody's sitting there like oh man i hope this dinner party always goes bad whether there's like thanksgiving or a family meal and then like the first thing is just an awful story out of the gate or somebody does something awkward as fuck and you're like this is gonna go terrible there's no way that this big thing that so much is riding on could possibly

go well i mean they did the first thing wrong yeah right i mean it's it's like the fiance who doesn't know the family that well sits down it's like all right around the table let's just get some thoughts on immigration before we get to the apps. And let's just get right into this stuff that's going to ruin this dinner. Yeah. And that's kind of how it went. And then it was like, it was like dream world. If you're a Cowboys fan, hold on, hold on real quick though,

because on top of that, then the broadcast is like, Hey, by the way, the coin toss, something happened that never happens they kicked it and because they didn't technically say defer they're gonna kick it at the start of the second half you're going oh my god like Garrett has to be the in the inner voice and Jason Garrett's head at the beginning when he found out like we're actually gonna kick it off twice in this game because our guy didn't say defer and then the NFL stepped in and said we heard the audio we're not that's not what's gonna happen but there's this moment where everybody's watching that game after the kick and everything going, this team that has wins against the Giants,

the Redskins, the Dolphins, the Eagles, the Giants, the Lions, and the, excuse me, before that game, the Rams, you're like this team six and seven, they're the worst. And then they put up a huge number. So it was just one of those funny moments where you're going, we already know what Monday's going to be like at the start of all these national shows it was unbelievable and like garrett for all the the the things he's done wrong is like i could lose my job over today if he's not already a dead man walking and and it the the straw that could break the camel's back would be something i had nothing to do with you tell your players to go out there and say defer and whenever i had to go out there as a captain i was always

very nervous uh to fuck it up and that is exactly why did you ever it's more complicated no it's more complicated i usually would let the other guy talk is it really that complicated no it's not it's not that complicated it isn't that complicated but but. But there's a lot riding on, you know, if you're at a restaurant, you misspeak and you want the sweet potato fries, you know, and you fuck your side up, you can send it back. There's also like the entire country watching you at midfield. And if you misspeak, there's no going back. So like, well, evidently there was. You know, the saving grace is that he found it within himself to utter the word defer at the end of that conversation. But by that point, the official had tuned it out.

You know, he had heard what he heard and he was on to making his presentation. So Dak waited too long to say the word defer. But the irony of it is the NFL got it right for once, but didn't get it right quick enough because I don't even think the coaches at halftime had time to alter their game plan for the second half. I mean, that's a big domino right there. And I think Aikman mentioned that out of the break. Yeah, they got it right, but it certainly took a while. Yeah, right. So the game itself, because now really what this comes down to is who do you like better, Dallas or Philly? And they're going to play each other this week.

And it kind of leads to a theme of a few things in today's podcast and trying to figure out like we're going to be a week 16 before we think we even know about some of these teams. And that's where we're at with Dallas and Philly as they face each other. And then, of course, Dallas would have Washington after that. And Philadelphia's final game will be at the giants. And I just want to say, I don't have a bad habit. I'm just fighting a cold. So if you hear me sniffling a lot, um, sounds good. So it's not like I found the booger sugar post, football um that's fine i don't think you like this podcast that much no yeah i'm like i'm doing bumps to get up for the ringer um no i uh i basically um when i look at dallas and i look at Philly right now, they're both riding highs.

I think we know what the roster looks like in Dallas. There is a difference. There's a difference in the talent level. Most people would say at this point that Dallas is a better team, but Philly playing at home. I don't know. Is that game a 1 p.m. or have we looked? Let's see here. No, that's the 425. That's the later Fox game. So a little bit of high drama.

You know, I think that atmosphere could bode really well for Philly. The best fans in football and they will be raring to go. But looking at Philly yesterday, and I've said this, I think what they do with Carson the rest of the year is more important to the longevity of this program, so to speak, and this front office and the team and this window than it is for them to make the playoffs. I don't know if they win Sunday. Certainly on paper, Dallas looks like the better team.

I think how Carson finishes is the most important thing. And I know that's, players on a team don't want to hear that. Listen, this team seems to have more of a ceiling than Dallas. That's just a fact. I don't know, because I thought the defense had figured some things out, getting the secondary back, and then they've had these awful performances against teams. And then Carson, who I think I know why people had him as like a top five guy. And you know what, look, he did almost had an MVP season and it's the throws like he had at the back right corner

of the end zone where it's a laser that never seems to get more than like 10 feet off the ground and just rifles through like a bunch of different people. And then it's a catch in the back of the end zone. And when you start looking at- Yeah, that throw yesterday. That throw yesterday was insane. And those are the throws where I think a lot of the guys that are like real draft, scouty, real analysis, all 22 guys see throws from Carson all the time that go, whoa. But I don't know if that blinds them to the times where, well, what's going on in the other three quarters? Because Wentz in the fourth quarter overtime in the last two games 28 completions on 34 attempts so he's 82 percent 286 yards 8.4 yards per attempt four touchdowns no picks a 141 rating so he's

unbelievable to close these games and you know I know you get called an apologist all the time but you can't get past the fact that the receivers are decimated Greg Ward's out there who was a quarterback in Houston a few years ago. They're pricking up other practice squad guys. And we do like Greg Ward. Of all that ragtag crew, I think he's got the highest upside, including some of those draft picks they have. I mean, this was, you look at, I had my stack guy run this, and I didn't know how to ask him this, Ry, but I was like, all right, so I heard a stat that none of these receivers that he's trotting out there in week 15 have more than like 20 snaps or something. There was some statistic like that. I said, run that back for the last decade and tell me if that's unprecedented. It's

absolutely unprecedented. This is the least experience a receiving core has been in this decade, this late in the season. And I doubt it's close. And yeah, Carson, I mean, 3,500 yards, 25 touchdowns, seven picks. I think he went from if you thought he was overrated to now he's done the underrated swing thing. I think it's that fast. Some people are going to kill me, but you all hate him. You all hate him and think he's a bottom five quarterback in the league. There's no way, dude. This guy is throwing to nobody, and I'm not going to spend all day on it, but he's not the problem there. Listen, that was a big win for them.

It really was because what that gives them is just one day to beat Dallas at home. If there's any pressure on a team, I think it's more on Dallas than it is on Philly because they're the team, in my opinion, with the higher ceiling, more talent, and a coach that's more on the hot seat. So it's going to be interesting to see how each team plays from a standpoint of being tight. I mean, Dallas, everything went right for them. It was just that banner day that we talked about. You had, you know, Jerry smiling, Jason smiling. You had Dak's moment shrugging off Fowler and throwing it to Tavon. Tavon, like with the,

did you see the cool pylon camera shot? Yeah, of him doing his deal? No, Tavon, like, the sun was just beaming into that beautiful stadium. And he, like, temporarily eclipsed it.

And it was like Dak's, you know, signature moment. It's just everything. Yeah, the O-line played great. Listen, they had 200-yard rushers. And that's what the Rams did to them in the playoffs just a year ago. So the O-line looked good. Dak got hit once, I think.

It's insane. I mean, they were like a different team. So a lot of momentum for them. But I don't know that I think they feel more pressure than the Eagles coming in this weekend. So let me just catch you again there, though. Are you telling me Dallas is the higher ceiling? I thought you said Philadelphia.

Are you just saying Philly? No, Dallas has the higher ceiling. Okay, all right. No, that's what I've been saying the whole time. Okay, because that Eagles defense... Dallas, would you disagree? No, no, no. I feel better about the best version of Dallas

than I do about the best version of Philadelphia because like I thought with the schedule, Philly was going to go on this kind of run here. And thank God for Miles Sanders, by the way. Huge day for him, both running and catching the football. But this defense. Oh, he's explosive. Oh my God.

The defense, whether it's, you know, I thought they were figuring some things out, but we realize, okay, against New England, stopping them doesn't really mean much where they are offensively. They held the Seahawks to only 17. And then the dolphins game was the disastrous second half. They beat the giants and the giants hadn't beaten anybody in forever. I'm with you, even though Philly is going to be at home at that one, but I still kind of have this,

like, I'm not going to be shocked if Philadelphia wins this football game, but they made Haskins look a hell of a lot better than anybody else has made Haskins look this year. And that is concerning because, you know, Dak's not going to be afraid to go in and, you know, and look, I don't know what Haskins is going to be. It's not even a first full season with him. You know what I do want to do though? I think this is kind of interesting in connecting the two before we get to plane rides is the urban Meyer factor, you know, him being at the game, is that him having interest in coaching the Redskins versus the Cowboys? I've heard he wants the Cowboys gig that that's the

only gig you would come back for that. You know, he looks at it as the Yankees or the Celtics, or I don't know how many hockey, I know you're a big hockey guy. It'd be like the Habs for you. So, uh, I don't, you know, what I think is really dumb is when anybody says, oh, well, you know, he had Haskins, so that would make... I don't think Haskins, I don't think any player. It's even dumber to say, oh, he coached Ezekiel Elliott. Imagine saying, you know what, I don't want to coach. I don't want to coach in the NFL. I don't want to coach for Jerry Jones.

But, you know, Zeke and I hung out for a couple of years in Columbus, so I'm in. No. Columbus, so I'm in. No, it's going to be good for a running back who's probably in the middle of his prime, which is a five-year window. Yeah, no, that's not happening. And I thought it'd be interesting to think, what if he's up there in that box for leverage? But when we were talking, you were saying, why would he need leverage in Dallas? Why would he? Why would he? I mean, Jerry Jones paid Ezekiel Elliott at a time when nobody was doing it and Zeke and his agents knew that they could pull whatever they wanted and credit to them. So I'm not even criticizing him for it. They knew we have the one owner that will actually still pay a running back. I mean, it'd be like somebody retiring with a bunch of money in the

bank and saying, all right, let's get Blockbuster on the phone and start up a franchise. He's buying running backs at a time when nobody else was doing it. And, you know, I mean, look, Urban's going to cost what he's going to cost. And we can sit there and say that he showed up in Washington because of leverage. It's still Urban Meyer. That's the leverage. It's not flirting with Snyder. And despite all the criticism that Jerry takes, I still think he's somebody, it's kind of like, wait a minute, Jerry Jones versus Dan Snyder. Like who would you rather date Scott Disick or OJ? You know, I'd still rather coach for Jerry Jones. Yeah. Was that too harsh? No, it's, it, that's a very clean analogy. And, uh, it's Scott Disick.

We'll find out. Cause, cause I ain't going with the other guy. Um, yeah, I, I think, uh, I, other guy. Um, yeah, I, I think, uh, I, I think Kim and Dallas, that'd be a great hire for him. Uh, I, he, he seems to be a big stage guy, right? So this, this is perfect. And, and I don't see a strong personality, even he's smart enough to realize the shit show he'd be walking into in Washington. The most interesting part of that dynamic is going to be who's willing to either over, you know, who's willing to think they can actually change those guys. You know, it's like a person that, you know, in a relationship that you think you can just change and you can work it out and you can alter their way of thinking, that's what it would take to go into Washington and think with Snyder and Allen that things are going to change and they're

going to be different for me. I don't think his ego is, although he's probably got a big ego, I don't think it's big enough and I don't think he's dumb enough to walk into Washington and think that that would be smooth sailing. I think actually what he knows that in Dallas, although Jerry's meddling, he's a lot less meddling than he used to be. He's still in front of the microphones. He's still in front of the cameras, but he's not going to be as meddling behind the scenes. And I think Jerry's smart enough to realize that if he has a guy like Urban Meyer, you get out of the way. I don't know that the people in Washington are like that. Yeah. And by the way, I would bet money. I would bet a substantial amount of money that despite the connection to Haskins,

that Urban prefers Dak, the quarterback, over Dwayne Haskins at this point. So there you go. Yeah, school pride only goes so deep. Let's get to our plane rides as well. The Google Assistant is ready to help you get more done with just your voice in the car, at home, and everywhere you take your phone.

When you're driving and want to listen to your favorite Ringer podcast, hands-free, just say, hey, Google, play the latest episode, the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast. Sure. Playing the latest episode of Book of Basketball 2.0. Book of Basketball pod. This is a bookend pod to the Dirk Nowitzki Pyramid pod we did. Mark Stein is here. We're going to talk about game 7 2006 spurs dallas hey google pause podcast see there you go a little help hands-free just say hey google to get started so let's do a little plane ride this is uh speaking of another this is a movie that was available at blockbuster by the way the blockbuster business plan if you thought about it

like all your local video stores be like hey do you, do you guys have Action Jackson? No, it's out. Oh, okay. Hey, do you guys have Action? No, it's out again. And then Blockbuster was like, hey, the really popular movies, let's buy like 20 or 30 copies of them so we always have them in. Let's do that instead. And Pushing Tin was a big one. I don't know if you remember the movie. Yeah, but the cult movies you're

always going to run into trouble with because it's really hard to pin down what the market is for some of these cult classics. classics true but then you just throw them in the use bin and there you go you get a vhs just add a new collection a lot of great plane ride options best and worst there's a lot of best ones and it's hard to argue i used to rent real quick i used to rent video games did you ever do that or were you too old? That's not an old joke, but you are slightly older than me. And I was on like the fringe of the generation that went into Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. If you remember that, I don't know if that was a national chain.

I do remember Hollywood Video. I used to go in there and like rent like Sonic the Hedgehog. And what sucks more than having to return a video game? You're just getting to the last level on a Monday? I did rent video games, Chris. And I'll tell you this, a scam that my buddies pulled that I would tell you even in my brokest days, I objected to. Although I guess I was complicit after the fact because I did play the game, but they would rent the new Madden and then somebody would have a copy of the old one and they would put the old copy in the return and keep the new one just dirty because can you imagine that guy that gummy right so imagine like Madden 97 comes out and you're so fired up and you open the thing

because the guy at Blockbuster doesn't check and then you throw in 96 and you're like wait a minute like why is why is Terry Glenn still awesome? Yeah. I was going to say, what would, what would be the one thing from 96 to 97 that would just ruin your gaming experience? Well, you know, it would be, imagine like the first year Vic is available and you're getting the one the year before Vic got to the league and you're going, wait a minute, I got Chris Chandler. Let me check the depth chart here and sub, sub him out. Dude, what a minute, I got Chris Chandler. Let me check the depth chart here and sub him out. Dude, what a swing. It's such a beating, such a beating. And I had friends that did it. But you know what I did is I did the, I don't know if we're supposed to give

shout outs. I don't care, whatever. Gamefly, I did that, where it was the subscription thing. So you rented it. It's kind of like Netflix for video games, but it was always a bummer. Like you would get real adventurous with what you would rent. And if you get an RPG where you're like six hours in, there was this one my friend had where all you did was seriously ride a horse to different stuff. And it took forever to ever, this isn't,

um, red dead redemption or any of that stuff. It just was, uh, it was this awful horse riding. It was horseback riding. Yeah. I mean,

red dead redemption. My brother plays games like that. Kyle plays games where he runs around with a backpack and just picks up lost items for like hours, hours. Here's an apple. That's like fallout where fallout you're like, okay,

I have 17 paperclips. Will I need all of these to make room? What do I do with these paperclips? Yeah. Yeah. I have some cabbage. Yeah. Here's some cabbage. I don't have room for cabbage and all of my paperclips. I'll leave a few paperclips behind. And then it's seven hours before you interact with another character. Those games. I, I don't, I haven't played video games now in a while because, uh, I'm a writer now. So shout out to, uh,. Yeah, what are those games about though, Rye?

What psychologically draws you to an RPG game? Because I think it's got to be a certain type of personality. I loved Final Fantasy, peak Final Fantasy, but it wasn't always great. It was kind of like a hit or miss year. So that would have been a mean one to put the old one in on the old return to Blockbuster. But I used to kind of dim the lights and get real into that Japanese stuff. And then i'd start researching that and be like what i like

that sounded really yeah that actually could have been something different no you know i'm like look do i is this guy a fire guy or is this guy an ice or do i mix a little fire and ice against this guy how much how much magic how many hit points can i take here? Oh, I'm using the wrong sword. Oh, I could get a real power boost by going against this guy. I got super, super into it. Metal Gear Solid was awesome when it was awesome. One of the first great kind of shooter but role player game was Syphon Filter. That was unbelievable. Syon filter right and then whenever the first grand theft the the first like new one that was new and it was early 2000s like the very turn of the century that was one of those deals where you're like i can't believe a video game can even be this amazing

and i want to know what and what made it tolerable because for me i would play those rpg games and you get to like some conflict and they'd be like, press X to punch him here. And I'm like, no, I want to just like react and punch him like Street Fighter style. Like, no, you have to pre-plan everything. So I couldn't, you know, I couldn't focus on it long enough. But GTA, you could do it all day long. What was different about GTA to you?

Because I didn't get the RPG stuff. Yeah, you would have hated Final Fantasy then because everything was like turn-based and that was a very, I don't know if that's a Japanese thing or not. It just felt very Japanese. I felt like I was in a foreign country when I'd play that game. I just was so into it. And that's one way to travel. Yeah. Right. I mean, you just sit there and my buddy erased our memory card though. And that sucked. And then what happened when he raced, like Final Fantasy kept track of how many hours you were playing. So, you know, it's like you start getting up there like 120 hours.

You're like, my God, that's 60 days in a row, two hours each, but it'd be much longer than two hour sessions. And I don't know that I've, I don't know if I told this before, but my friend erased our memory card and I was like, dude, are you serious? So I didn't finish the I told this before, but my friend erased our memory card. And I was like, dude, are you serious? So I didn't finish the game. 10 was awesome too. And then we borrowed a memory card from this guy that owned a bar.

And every character- And sold memory cards? No, he had played the game himself. He was older and he was super into it. And my roommate was like, hey, I got so-and-so's memory card and he finished the game, but we can take his card and then load our guy up and save it differently and go back. So, cause he knew I was pissed. I was pretty pissed at him. And I was like, yeah, no problem. And we loaded it up and you change the names of the characters. So you could make the character Ryan or whatever. And he decided to do all pornographic names and it was the weirdest

thing ever so like every time it would stop to a village it'd be like hello big bleep greetings you should try our cafe so i just realized duke nukem looks kind of like my dad he does but see that's your that's your speed you just hit a button and you're in you know wouldn't like the RPGs. Yeah, no, no, no. I want the Doom, Crash Bandicoot, all those kind of linear kind of... That was what separated them from an RPG was you just kind of walked in a straight line and beat up anybody in your path. Those were my kind of games. Did you play RPGs

with friends or did you play them alone? No, alone. Come on. And I think I have a theory here that when things started to get more communal, you withdrew from the RPG scene. You know what? You're right. I didn't even realize that. I had a couple years of Call of Duty where I was getting into playing with everybody else when I was good. And then I learned about there's a slight delay processing it if you have a bigger TV. So I was playing on a 60-inch TV. And my stats, I was getting murdered. And some guy comes by. He's like, what are you doing? He's like, you can't be playing on this. There's a delay. Look at that replay. See, that guy saw you and you didn't even see him yet. And I went, all right, I'm out. And then you'd rage quit. I don't know. I wasn't like, despite what

you would probably, rage quitting would be a good guess with me, but I don't know. I would just like, hey, look, I'm not going to buy a 24 inch monitor and sit with a headset in a dark room by myself. Like we're getting to 40 now. So maybe it's time to shut it down. I did love San Andreas though. Somebody needs to call my brother. Yeah. Because that's what he's doing. There's still time. So you wanted to do plane rides. Yeah, let's do plane rides. So we have a lot of options here. Who are you going with? I mean, like for rides home, I mean, you've got, I definitely like Philly. We talked about Philly because it's a train ride from Washington, and there's nothing better than a train ride back from a win.

But I'll do Jacksonville just because, like Minshew said, and I don't think he meant to be disrespectful. I think he meant to be self-deprecating. He said that it's going to be like on a Snapple cap. Who beat the Raiders in the last game of the Coliseum. By the way, who beat the Miami Hurricanes in the last game at the Orange Bowl? Virginia. 48-0.

The Rock did the coin toss. Not as big as I thought he was. Wow. Look out, Rock. Say again? Look out, Rock. Do you think you could beat up the Rock? Yeah, well now he's really big. I saw him again in circa 2016, and he was fucking enormous. Do you think you could take The Rock?

I don't know if he just wasn't in the gym as much at that point. I don't think you're answering the question here. If you had to fight The Rock, how do you feel it would go? The Rock? Not really. I don't want to do the celebrity call-out thing, but I feel like I'd have a better shot against the rock than, than most. Listen, dude. Yeah. I mean, I'm the rock size. I'm just

not as muscular. I feel, I feel okay about it. I don't, I, I feel a lot better than I do against fighting like in Ghanu. Yeah. So, I mean, I know what you're trying to say here, but for you to say you think you'd have a better chance against the rock than most guys I would hope that goes without saying yeah I mean like my thing is nowadays it's kind of like last week I didn't want to you know we talked about Sandra Bullock I didn't I didn't want to do a direct call out of Jesse James the way he treated her I wasn't a fan of it but I didn't want to become some like mini viral thing I don't want to fight the rock I like the rock I met Rock. The Rock actually spent some time in Orange County, Virginia. That's nice.

Which is 30 minutes from me. All right. I know what you don't want to do. You don't want us to take all of this football stuff and then put it in the release ringer video that's a minute and a half of you going like, yeah, I think I think. And then it's like, yeah, I would definitely fight the Rock. Here's why I would fight the Rock.

And you're like, ha ha. And then the Rock gets added. And then people are like, what does he have a problem with the Rock about? I don't have any problem. The Ringer just pumped out the most controversial 30 seconds. I'm going to go with the Jags. The Jags winning that last game in

Oakland, and as bad as they've been, man, they needed it. They came into that game like a touchdown dog against a team that had given up a minus 83 point differential the past couple of weeks. That's, that's bad. And the only thing worse was,

was the Raiders. And unfortunately that's how you close out the black hole, the Coliseum, you know, that, that the way they finished that game. And by the way, Jacksonville hadn't won on the West coast in 15 years.

Yeah. 2005, the last time they went on the Western time zone. I don't think the players really give a shit about that, but it had to be a big relief that they got that win. That doesn't mean things aren't going to be completely blown up in Jacksonville necessarily, but you're looking at the Raiders and the way they finished.

I was just so disappointed from the league scheduling the Jags, that bitter rivalry, Jags-Raiders, for the last game of the Coliseum. I mean, like, how awful is that? It is. It is. I got a great text, though, from an NFL guy that was like, look, this thing at the end is a disaster.

People throwing stuff, people getting arrested, running out of the field, people booing like crazy, and Derek Carr trying to, like, shake it out, hug it out with people. And it was like, no, Derek Carr doesn't get it. How'd that go? It totally backfired. And the text I got was like, Howie Long wouldn't come out of the locker room after embarrassing loss like that to like hug it out, bitch, with a bunch of the guys. Because the black hole,

you got to understand, like it was about the loss. It was a horrible, horrible way to lose. Has the black hole been gentrified? Yeah. I don't see a ton of condo owners there. So I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know what to do with the black hole. Cause sometimes like you sit there and be like, all right, you put on shoulder pads and face paint, but like, what am I supposed to be actually physically like scared of you? Cause I'm not like, I, you probably have to pick up kids at soccer practice tomorrow, you know? And then I hear it's very, I hear it's very, I fear, I hear it's loud in the black hole, like, like blunts everywhere. Just like by, it smells good in the black hole.

So if they're condo owners, they're definitely playing, they're playing the part, but condo owners love to love to roll up too. So I don't, you know. Yeah. By the way, I have two condos, so I'm not even, I'm not even a, you know, a guy that has, but you're not a drug guy. Yeah. But I don't, I have two condos, so I'm not even a guy that has- But you're not a drug guy. Yeah, but I have shared walls in both my properties. So I can't sit here and try to tell you that there's anything wrong with owning a condo. I just want to make sure people that are

part of an HOA- Yeah, I don't want any condo owners to get offended. Right, right. Condo owners, underrated. No, I'm giving respect to the black hole. I'm just saying that I think Carr misplayed that. hole. I'm just saying that I think car misplayed that. And it was funny. Cause the text I got was like about your dad and be like, imagine Howie coming out after an embarrassing loss to close down Oakland. You're like, Hey everybody, you know, and that's like what card didn't get because car is an incredibly nice guy. But at that point, like Oakland doesn't want a nice guy. And I thought Gruden's comments were

incredible. They were real. They were emotional, but yeah, this Oakland team, just over a month ago, were going, hey, let's give this team some credit. Like, look at them. It's been a disaster ever since. And finally, Minshew gets a win after his resetting of his career despite the excitement at the beginning of this thing. Yeah, in Jacksonville, I thought Nick Foles or Minshew was the problem. Evidently, it's neither because even though they won that game,

that's a team in the Raiders that have had a ton of of points scored on them and you're looking at you know six points through most of the game um yeah i mean totally totally terrible ending the game from you know the missed kicks the delay games drops you know uh could have probably had about 40 seconds on the clock if not for that whole slide debacle excuse me again i'm battling a cold um yeah hail mary i mean like the raiders broke up their own hail mary i mean down to the last play uh the the deon uh jordan uh roughing was awful and And you're like, damn, dude, the irony here is this feels like a very Raiders meltdown for the fans that have been dealing with all this bullshit

the past 20, 30 years of the team constantly being on the move and LA and then back and consistently threatening to leave. You've been talking about San Antonio. You've talked about LA. You've been talking about San Antonio. You've talked about LA. You've talked about Duluth for a second.

I mean, Duluth put a bid in for this team. It's been like everywhere. And Mark Davis, although I do think he wanted to make it work and didn't have the funds for it, ultimately they traded some of the best home field advantage and most authentic, iconic game day experiences for Vegas where you're basically conceding home field advantage. Like they, half of what's going on there is predicated on them giving home field advantage up and saying to fans, like from other

teams, like come to Vegas, come watch this game. And it's going to be so corporate, so sterile. It sucks. Ironically, the only saving grace for grace for real Raiders fans that want to stick it out is that this team actually, for the first time in a while, has shown signs of life. And that wasn't indicative of how they've been this year so far. I mean, they have exceeded expectations. And I think we got a little bit like over-corrective. We talk about a lot.

People think they suck. And then people thought they were a really good team you know there's the truth lies somewhere in between and that last two minutes wasn't indicative of the future of this ball club but it's going to be a hard sell to keep a lot of those fans who put up with so much on the bandwagon yeah no well well said i mean it sucks because it was a thing that felt like a real thing and it's going to be sterilized there's no way you can just replicate that and say hey you know what and will enough people want to travel you know i don't know can you can you sit there but you got you got guys rye you got guys who obviously give a shit i think jacobs maybe i misheard that he's playing with a broken shoulder like no he's messed up he's a recovering addict he's the i mean he ties the franchise record for

a hundred yard games for a tight end uh there's some good good dudes on this team that that are trying to do the right things they're playing their ass off for for oakland at the end of the game and and uh the irony is uh you know the the state couldn't get together davis couldn't quite get together i think davis owned the domain name for Las Vegas Raiders since like 98 because his dad always talked about it. So the irony is I think it meant a lot to the players. You could see it. But everybody else is – I think if the players had their way,

they'd be in Oakland for the rest of their careers. Maybe some guys really want to play in Vegas. I don't know. What do you think about Vegas and being a professional athlete? Oh, I think athletes are going to love it. And I also think it's like totally overdone that you guys are just going to be wild. Guys are going to be, if you're going to be wild and you're not going to care about things, you're going to do it in any of the 32 cities. I just think that's the way people are. Like if you're not going to care, if distractions are going to get in the way of you performing, you're going to let that happen to you no matter where you go. So the idea that Vegas, like a lot of people just live in the suburbs, man, and send their kids to

school. You know, they're not- Henderson's really nice. Yeah. They're not crushing it. It's Sapphire five nights a week. You're like, all right, well, you know, I was going to- No, it's like after your third night in Vegas, what are you doing? Imagine living there. Exactly. No, I had to be there for like, the last few trips I've gone, they've all been work related. And it was weird, man. I mean, it was just weird to be like, all right, you know, I'm going to bed. I'm getting up early. I'm doing all this stuff. And it was just like the complete opposite of everything that's going around you. And I think, you know, people just move out to this. I've had friends that live there and they go, dude,

then again, there's other people that live there. And they're like, the whole reason I moved here is because I want this juice all the time. It just, I obviously couldn't do it every single night out. And I'm sure some guys are fired up with the concept of it, but most people, I would say most people, like you just said, you probably go, all right, now I'm desensitized to it all. And you know, I'm going to go home. I'm going to, you know, but you're living in a desert among a bunch of transient people now in Henderson or like surrounding areas, you're like, okay, this is kind of sweet. It kind of feels like an offshoot of the greater Phoenix area, but the strip, I couldn't imagine liking living near the strip. So like for me, if you're a player, the biggest thing that's a come up for you, if you're a Raider player and there's a lot of young guys,

is a lot of them are on their first contracts. It's a lot cheaper. My brother was living in Alameda because he works for the Raiders. And he was like, they packed like five dudes in this little house that wasn't that nice. And he was paying like through the roof rent. And he's got his own place in Henderson. And it's beautiful. And he's paying like an eighth of what he was paying in Alameda. So I think that would be the big thing for guys. But I don't think culturally anybody's going to, if you love football and you have a chance to be on an Oakland Raiders team, that's turned in the corner. We talked about it with Buffalo. That's a unique experience. And those guys, I feel like, unfortunately are going to get robbed

of it. And they'll be the ones who are most upset, like not front office, you know, obviously the fans and, and, and not, not California because they didn't pony up. So the rest of the plane rides, the possibilities, I think Houston's in there. Houston is one of those real peak and valley teams where after they beat New England, that's Bill O'Brien, who sucks as a head coach, according to Twitter, and he was 19-6 in his last 25 games. The defense loses guys to health injury stuff all the time, including J.J.

He's won games with average to really below average quarterbacks in the past, and now he has one of the best ones, I think, in the league, despite Deshaun certainly not loving the way he played in that Titans win. I think you could argue the Titans played better, but Deshaun's got the two picks in the red zone. A couple big plays there late. So Houston's in the conversation with it. By the way, Carlos Hyde, who looked like he was just done 10th and rushing over a thousand yards for a Houston team that never feels like they're consistently you're

worried about. I mean, I know Lamar Miller a little bit, but I don't think you've ever looked at their rushing attack and been like, all right, I'm really worried about this, but he's been good for them. A little nugget though, that I'd heard about O'Brien, because it does seem like social media thinks he's a moron. And I don't know that that's the case. I thought what he did at Penn State was incredible. He's found a way to continue to win some games. They've done a better job protecting Deshaun when it looked like he was never going to make it through the season. And now I wonder at times if that's still more on him or it's the old line. But this is something that I had heard in that

guys like DeAndre Hopkins, who he and Michael Thomas are probably in the argument for best receiver in the NFL now, post Julio, the Odell nonsense, and then AB losing his mind every hour. But I don't know that Hopkins, from what I'm hearing, Hopkins and Deshaun may not be

on the same page with Bill O'Brien. So I'd be curious to pay attention to this team. I don't know if their peak and valley is because of the game planning, but I don't know if it's because you still don't know who they are. We don't know what their identity is or if there's some kind of disconnect with Deshaun and maybe more specifically Hopkins and O'Brien, like Hopkins wasn't named a captain. And I don't know, is O'Brien able to just con everybody here? And he's actually this bad coach and one of the best players in the league doesn't respect him. But there's something going on with that team where they can beat New England. Although, again, this is New England, who I actually felt worse about after their win against Cincinnati yesterday.

It's a Houston team that lost to Indy. They won the rematch. But the Baltimore game, OK, you get smoked by them. But just a week ago, Drew Locke absolutely tore you up. So I have no idea what to expect out of this Houston team that's probably still going to the playoffs. And I don't know if it has anything to do with word of a disconnect between Hopkins and O'Brien.

I think with the Texans, sometimes it's okay to throw your hands up and say, I have no idea. Yeah, that's what I'm at. And I just don't. I don't know. I don't know. The thing I know about them is I love the quarterback

and they have the best wide receiving core. One of the best wide receiving cores, if not the best in the league. I love DeAndre Hopkins. You know, the accessory pieces that they've surrounded him with have been really good. You saw yesterday when they're doubling him for most of the game until the fourth quarter. It's kind of like pick your poison.

And they have a lot of likable guys, dude, from Watson to Hopkins to Kenny Stills, who I absolutely love. And I think the thing that's going to hurt them down the stretch is going to be pass rush and their, or lack of pass rush and their inability to remain consistent, their peaks and valleys, as you mentioned. So I just don't know what's wrong with them or what's right with them. Yep. Nothing else to add to that. Mention the Pats. Probably won the division though yesterday. Probably won the division. I still maintain that the Titans are in the conversation for third best team in

the AFC. Some people are going to laugh when you hear that, but they're a good football team. And I still think if they slide in, they're going to give people problems. Houston's got at Tampa and then they got another game of the Titans. So I guess we will, we will find out. Cause I feel like the teams are close, but I've had moments where I really, really liked Houston. And then I'm like, okay, maybe you should chill out a little bit on that. Okay.

So that was the longest ever best plan ride. So let's just get this over with. I'm going to go to bills just because everybody's waiting for them when they got back there. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Worst? Golly, worst. Why don't you go first?

Probably Cleveland. Can we talk about Cleveland? We can. Their plane ride's so bad. Like, their plane ride's so bad that the only podcast that dedicates 35 minutes to talking about plane rides almost forgot about their plane ride.

Because we had so many good ones. It's irrelevant. And my co-host here, I should call you the host, and I'm like the guest, but the host of this podcast, Ryan Russillo, probably doesn't even want to talk about their plane ride. Not really. I mean, you know, I don't know what else to say. They're just so sick of like the people, honestly, like this is a little anti-Odell thing where you just go, oh, right. Cause the rest of us can't figure this out. Like you're, you're just difficult, man. You're really talented and you're really difficult and you're younger and you're going

to do this thing. Cause look, I've, I'm not Odell, but I know what it's like to be like, oh, I think I'm this, I think I'm that, and then eventually it's like, yeah, man, if every stop it's the same thing, then maybe it's you. You know, maybe it's not everybody else. Wow.

Yeah, right? Did we just have a Ryan Rosillo moment where you bonded over discontent and just, I don't really figure that out. I mean, are you, no, I'd already figured that out, but what I don't let it do is then justify. Are you figured that out but what i don't let it do

is then justify are you odell no i don't let it justify me not sticking up for myself though because i'll have moments i don't need more alone time i just don't want to hear i don't want to hear honestly he can say whatever he wants i don't care about that i care about the people that sit there and consistently like there's a lot of people going into hiding that we're trying to call out everybody else for not supporting Antonio Brown. Like, oh, Ben Roethlisberger's bad too. And it's like, no, no, no, man, this guy, AB sucks. Okay. Like this guy sucks. Cause you can't trust him. He's incredibly, he might be the best receiver on the planet. He's not playing right now, but like, we don't need any more evidence that AB is not exactly a guy you can trust to have in the locker room. Odell's not necessarily that.

I agree that AB is a death wish. And I'm not saying that Odell is. I'm just saying that people that stick up for the selfish me first, dumping on your quarterback while you're on that team, back to the Eli stuff, and saying he basically can't get it done. And then people are like, he's just speaking the truth. And it's like, well, no, there's people are like, he's just speaking the truth. And it's like, well, no, there's sort of limitations to how real you can get.

And then he's in Cleveland and the same thing's happening all over again. And he's not even producing that much. So I just think there's a pocket of people. I've heard a lot of good things about Odell. And the times I've been around him, I really liked him. But I also think that Odell plays hard on the field. And so did AB. But the situations to me are very different, not that you're comparing them. Both block, both are tough.

I'll give you that. Say it again. No, you're right about that. They're both tough, and both guys block. They are competitors, but I just think that there's this selfishness thing that's praised as just keeping it real when you go, well, you could also maybe do a better job of not being pissed off all the time. Well, there's a difference between Odell being sloppy with his get me out of here, which is very prevalent in the NFL. I mean, on bad teams, guys are looking at the door a lot. I've been on a lot of them.

He's more visible. He's been a little more sloppy with some of the stuff he's said or things that have been picked up. But also he's not like on Twitter, you know, engaged in a perpetual dumpster fire, like producing dumpster fire content and like being completely unhinged. And I think at some point, yeah, we don't need to talk about AB. But I look at Odell as somebody who if he's in the right situation, because he's never been in the right situation as far as a team standpoint goes, if he ends up in New England next year or somewhere like that, you talk about the

Routree and Chad Johnson and Ocho Cinco, sorry, and how it's not easy to make it work in New England. If he's in a place like that, and I don't know that New England is that landing spot anymore and we can get to that in a bit, but I think you get the best out of him.

I think there's plenty of places that if he ends up, you know, if he ended up in like a San Francisco, he would enrich that, that locker room because I I've heard that he's a worker and I see it on the field. He can be productive. The other stuff, listen, I think he's part of a circus in Cleveland and and he and in new york it's always a circus i'm not i'm not uh i'm not i'm not condoning certain things but um i put him in a different category than some some guys who are completely unhinged uh no i'm not saying odell is ab so i'll

say it one more time odell is not ab odell is not no no i just think that there are but you know this this thing goes there are predictable media types that no matter what the player does, they always have the players back. And sometimes it's just laughable where you go, oh, okay, so we're just doing this. I think I disagree with you a little bit that the circus is because of New York and the circus is because of Cleveland. I think Odell has some of that stuff. And if he goes to New England, yes, he's going to be really good because I actually think he's a brilliant receiver. I mean, he just is. I think he wants to win. I do think that about him.

I think he's competitive and wants to win. And I think that being in Cleveland can bring out not your best. So that's the worst one. We'll just do that. Okay, my friends over at DraftKings, these guys get it. They've launched an online sports book created by a sports fan for sports fans. And here's real good news. If you live in Indiana, it's now available for you in your state. And trust me, DraftKings is hard at

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Must be 21 or older. Indiana only. Restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com slash sportsbook for details. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-9 with it. Let's do Packers and the NFC seedings

and then we'll do Boston a review. How's that sound? You got it. So right now, the Packers What about the Packers, dude? That was the guy at Atlantic City heckling me the Packers. What about the Packers, dude? That was the guy at Atlantic City heckling me the whole time. Hey, you guys going to talk about the Packers and what?

The Packers, dude. The Packers, bro. Super Bowl. I've learned that there's a few teams we don't talk about I've learned. Well, that's the Packers. We're getting all of them right now. That was the longest plane ride recap of all time. The one seeds, the Seahawks. They have the tiebreaker or the Packers on best winning percentage in common games. They're both 11 and three. Those are your one and two seeds. The Packers beat the Bears and the Bears are, I don't know. I almost made an analogy that probably wouldn't be great in 2019. So I'll try to do a different one. The bears are... I'm just trying to think of the best bears analogy.

The bears are you looking at a scratch ticket and not understanding that there's a difference between a mango and a pineapple, and you have three pineapples, and it's like a $5,000 ticket, and you're so excited. And then you're like, no, wait a minute. It's just printed poorly. That was actually a mango, and you only have two pineapples, and it's like a $5,000 ticket, and you're so excited, and then you're like, no, wait a minute, it's just printed poorly. That was actually a mango, and you only have two pineapples. I used to play scratch a lot. I could see that. Just putting that out there. Okay, so there's no follow-up.

Okay, Packers, go. I just never trust them, right? Their two big losses came against teams that had dominant D-lines. They'll see that again. They can't stop the run. I think that Aaron, although most of us want to put him in the top five, has not had top five production. I think it's just as simple as they're not a great team

that has a great record. They've won a lot of close games. The same thing we criticize the Seahawks for, I don't hear it as much with the Packers. And the top two teams in the NFC right now, the Seahawks, because of that San Francisco loss and their barn burner win over Carolina on the East Coast, I don't feel like they like the two best teams in the NFC don't, I mean, would you disagree? No,

I like San Francisco and new Orleans better than both. And I like flip them. I mean, I don't, I don't trust. I, I trust the Seahawks more though, because the Seahawks are undefeated.

Um, the Seahawks are undefeated at home in the playoffs. I think the last, last, what was it? 10-0, is that what you had? I don't know, but they're like 10-0 their last 10 at home in the playoffs. So if they have home field advantage, their deficiencies, which have showed up up front, they're getting hit and sacked at a really high rate. They're not getting hits and sacks. They're in the bottom five, conversely, there. I think they can overcome those deficiencies

by that home field advantage. I don't think people are quaking in their boots to go up to Lambeau anymore. I mean, Washington wasn't. Other teams have played them tough up there. And yeah, my thing with the Packers has been all year long is I think they've got a great quarterback on a team that's just decent. And it's okay that they've exceeded expectations. That doesn't mean they're going to be able to make a run.

Third down defense is bad. Like 20th in the league. You know, and they tend to slow down in the second half you know they average like 3.4 points per possession on drives that begin in the first quarter and that's like the third best and then other drives yield only like uh 1.9 that's middle of the pack yeah their defense you know depending on what you want to look at their ninth and points but they actually allow a ton of yards or 23 and yards you'd'd rather give up the yards and the points. It's obvious offense. They're kind of really middle of the pack scoring and even the bottom third in yardage. Greeny had a piece on get up. And I know that Hembo,

their stat guy, like they're all kind of teaming up because there's a bunch of stats you can just look at with Aaron Rodgers. You go, you know what? This guy has not been spectacular despite what we all think of him. And last year, there were real numbers you could dig into where you go, okay, what's up with these throws? Why is this bad? And yet, when you look at some of the stuff he's doing this year, the O-line holds up. I still don't think the defense is that great.

I thought that the get-up segment tried to make it out to be that the defense was really good because they spent a lot of money in free agency. Stop. Yeah, come on. That part was like what us guys do on the air is we have one point that we want to make, and instead of using like two good numbers, we'll use two good ones and maybe five questionable ones. But it just feels like we beat

you over the head with seven opinions. Yeah, it feels right. Right. It just feels right. But like as soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, you guys, you guys crossed over to how many things can we add to this graphic? But these are some real numbers. Like the old line apparently holds up better than anybody else, gives him more time, keeps him cleaner than any other O-line in the NFL going into last week. That he is 31st in tight window throws, despite the fact that the team actually has like number one in separation rate to the next-gen stats in the NFL.

So there's a lot of stuff. And then I look at Rodgers going, okay. That's funny to me, Ry, because I would have said just my untrained eye or trained eye, depending on how you want to look at it, because I would have said just my untrained eye or trained eye, depending on how you want to look at it, is I would have said, well, they don't have, I mean, they have some pieces skill-wise,

but they've needed a lot of unheralded guys to produce. I wouldn't have thought they had much separation. No, I would agree with you based on watching it. And those two California games were so bad. But Rodgers, okay, so we could do this. We can make a case for him being average. QBR is kind of all over the place now because the guys at the top are really good, but they're also pretty good running the football too, whether it's Dak,

obviously Lamar and Watson. Sean, Russ, Tom Brady ran for like 19 yards a week ago. Just smoking dudes. And that would have been on the front cover of the Super Bowl if they had won that. Oh, Brady, it would be weird because they ended up losing that game, remember too,

with that run. It's the most animated I've ever seen Bill. Yeah, he was so excited. He was so excited and still it didn't work out. But you know what Roger's touchdown interception split is the last two years? What? 49 touchdowns, four picks.

That doesn't seem average to me. No, dude. And no one's saying he's average. I'm saying you have a great quarterback who hasn't had great production and the team just isn't as good as people think it is. And so I also think there's something to be said for this is the first year in a new system.

Like there will be improvement, but we don't have all day, right? Because he's older. No, he just turned 36. And maybe he shouldn't be just penciled in to the top five the way we have in the past and that the yards per attempt has gone down a little bit. But I don't think Aaron Jones has 15 touchdowns.

It was another thing they did in their get up segment. It was a really good segment. It was well done by Greeny. But I go, OK, 15 total rushing touchdowns. Does that mean there's some great rushing team that's complimenting him? No, that's not the case. So it's not a great defense. It's not a great rushing team. But there are some numbers there that that's complimenting him. No, that's not the case. So it's not a great defense. It's not a great rushing team.

But there are some numbers there that make Rodgers look pedestrian. But I'm going to tell you right now, I'd rather have Rodgers. Like, who would you rather have in a playoff game? Would you rather have Rodgers or Lamar right now? With the teams and the systems they're in, it's impossible. Now we're comparing teams because we're both going to say Ravens because of the whole package. But if you had to just, well, maybe Lamar's the coordinator if Greg Roman's my coordinator and I have Lamar

in a playoff game I'm taking Lamar and Greg Roman now if it's Rodgers and the team he's on yeah I it's not enough for me even though he's a he's you know a legend and and certainly a better thrower than Lamar as far as being able to make all the throws. The context matters here and to the point with QBR, right? Because it does factor in rushing abilities. I'd rather have Lamar and Roman. Okay, that's not the way I should do it. I was doing it.

How about this? If you had to draft 53 guys and put them on a roster and start tomorrow for like to win one game, would you take Lamar? Yeah, no, I'm still taking Aaron Rodgers, especially if he's younger. Well, now we're just changing the game. We just, we're doing a bad job. I know, but the game sucks. All right.

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That's ADT.com forward slash game day. Hey, Rye. Yes. I do want to make sure something, because we do have a lot of friends in Appleton and Madison and Wisconsin. I'm not being dismissive of the Packers. I'm just saying that when you run into the big boys in the NFC, it's going to be hard. I'm not like, you know, we spend 30 minutes here trying to figure out ways

that we can make the Eagles sound good. That's not what we're doing, but we're talking about them in a different, in a different vein with what they're working with in that division, et cetera. Or, you know, uh,

you know, we're talking about green Bay as, as a Superbowl contender right now. I, I just think they fall a little bit short. It's nothing personal, but it is funny to note that when, when a rot throws up all of the back of the end zone,

um, that wasn't an accident but when carson did it was a huge accident he didn't mean to oh look at that look at that not comparing the two players but i i don't hate the packers i certainly don't i love aaron rogers i just don't think they have what it takes uh to make that push so i mentioned this last week but i'll do it with you because you're making fun of solo activities, the stuff you like to do. I was dragging a little bit this morning. I don't know if it was just another night in a hotel. Didn't do anything. Went to Eataly,

big Eataly fan. You just hop from different stations to stations and start crushing different Italian food. Came back here, um, watch the rest of the game, but yeah, I got a little into Sturgill this morning at the gym, so that was good. He woke me up a little. I'll admit to a bigger fan of A Sailor's Guide to Earth than Sound of Fury. And then, you know who got me going this morning a little bit too, Chris?

I don't know what kind of approval rating. I'm assuming high, but a little Tyler Childers. Yeah, I like Tyler, but you know what my biggest pet peeve is? Is when people are like, oh, if you know what my biggest pet peeve is, is when people are like, oh, if you like Sturgill, you really should check out Tyler. And I'm like, no, okay. Yeah. They tour together, but the music is totally different. And also I already have been to a Tyler concert. So you're not some fucking country hipster. I know exactly who you're talking about.

All Yorn is an unbelievable song. I was, I was, uh, really on that today. And so, um, I don't think they're even close. I think that Tyler's much more... Well, I'm not saying... I'm not like... Listen, there's no secret I love Sturge and Stapled in. I might have respect for Isbell and Tyler, but just because they're loosely under the same genre doesn't mean it's the same music. And that's what annoys me is like, just because Tyler is open for Sturgill doesn't mean... I think they would tell this their music is not similar rage against the machine and wu-tang tour together so there you go yeah so hey if you like rage you should definitely check out wu-tang that's what it sounds like to me when people try to spotify genius everybody that's loosely

under the same genre as sturgill i I feel like I struck a nerve just now. I didn't even mean to do that. I didn't mean to do that at all. I got a lot of music pet peeves. I sat next to once the Celtics. I knew when I sat down, I was by myself that I was going to get made fun of, especially since we've talked about it,

but I was courtside there for a while. And then your boy Cannon came by. I almost said hello to him to say that I was friends with you, but I didn't know if he had Jules tickets or if they were his tickets. I'm kidding. I almost said hello to him to say that I was friends with you, but I didn't know if he had Jules tickets or if they were his tickets. I'm kidding. I know they were his tickets. You got to get him to sit down on the bull and then you can run past him. But he is a big man. So next time you see him, stick a long arm in there, right in the chest, see if he leans on it and then just dip right by him. I'm definitely going to do that. I'm definitely going to try that next time. So we went to a couple of different spots. I hadn't been out in Southie in forever

and that didn't last very long. So I went home and then there's a new spot called Marielle. It's kind of the spot in Boston right now. So shout out to those guys. Thanks for having us. And- Major comeback for you sitting alone and then ending up at the spot. Yes. Yes. It was a big, it was quite a 48 hour swing to be at a table. And so basically it comes out of this, like there was a crew apparently running through the streets of Boston that are like older guys that have a ton of money. One may or may not be rocking a fedora. And the guy, every guy was like giving me the scouting breakdown on these dudes that they're just out all the time and they have like merch and

stuff and i don't i don't really know like if you're if you're 40 or you're 50 and you run into a ton of money and maybe you didn't go out is that the time to do it or is new money slash new social scene older guy the worst thing in the world yeah yeah i think uh i think you got to pick your spots when you're north of 40 listen when i was in charlotte last week me as a 34 year old man who i think is has aged decently well um got got told i was old to be in the bar by who um by a dude and And I was like, all right, well, you're at my table. We paid for the bottles here.

You got to go over there. So when your paycheck gets a little older, you can sit with us. But I do think for older guys, you have to pick your spots. It's all about the establishment. There's some really nice transitional bar lounges that you can make hay at as a dude north of 40. But you don't want to be at the club.

That's my only thing. Just steer clear of the club. Also, the fedora thing, it reeks of new money. It reeks of bad business plans. Now, I've worn a couple hats that were questionable in my time. I've worn hats. I've done the hat thing, but when you're 40 something and you're at a bar with a bunch of people younger than you leave the fedora at home. So you're saying that I shouldn't even be in this place

at my age. There's, there's a little bit of the celebrity and you're going to be like, I'm a celebrity. Yeah. You're a celebrity, man. You know, especially, uh, especially in Boston, uh, you know, people consume your content. So when you're in a place like this, I do think that you get a little bit more leeway. Also you've, you can dress down, like you don't dress like you're in your forties a lot, you know, like, like, and that's not a bad thing. Like you found a way to pull in some 30 something year old influences from a fashion standpoint. You know, you got the joggers showing some ankle that's in right now um you wear jordan still which i'm not really into that i i could do

without that to be honest with me doing it or just in general i'm just not any when you're north of 40 maybe you know the jordans they have to go back on the shelf maybe some new balances for me or something i don't know um sockanese is that how you say that brand sockany i get a 5k tomorrow you know yeah i just just i'm not saying listen i'm gonna get i know i'm gonna get crushed on this but no but i like the honesty after your 40th birthday just take a little self-inventory and say am i still jordan's guy i think it's a really fair point i do i. I think it's a fair point. Although it really makes me, because I know what tier of hat you've allowed yourself to go to, but I know what tier of hat you want to go to that you won't let yourself go to. And I'm thinking the next time you come

to Manhattan beach, I may just not, I'm going to not say anything you'll know, but I may go out in a fedora the entire night. And we can't, the rule is you can't say I'm doing it to mess with you and then i think it looks sweet it just can't be a dick tracy fedora bro like you want to be day drinking in manhattan beach with like a tweed hat i don't even know what to classify these hats as but like we all know the shapes that are not okay i love i know you're tight with one of the works workaholics guys but when We really don't know each other. We just do your mom jokes online all day. Anders, right? I love-

Yeah. They have an episode where Blake, I think Blake and Adam both have fedoras on, and they're like, what are you doing? There's only like, each crew can only have one fedora guy. It's just totally against the rules. It was such a great joke. I mean, no, but it's true. You can't have double fedora. You can do you you're this is totally against the rules it was such a great joke um i mean no but it's true you can't have double fedora you can't have two guys no you can't have two guys i never wanted to be uh the oldest guy and i i've now become the oldest guy but i also don't i don't really know what to do i'm kind of kind of stuck in this in between thing

so because i was checking out this other oldest guy, which in Boston, if you're old and you're out, it's like a city that doesn't allow that, you know? Cause younger guys, oh, younger guys will tell you like, you're old. What are you doing? And that's once I started traveling everywhere, I was like, oh, maybe being over 30 isn't a death sentence in other cities. Like, this is amazing. Like, wow, I'm in Denver and you can talk to people. But I will say if you're older and you're in a place like that as chances are is because you're stimulating that economy and to those younger guys i would just say just be happy we're here yeah just be happy somebody

can swipe a card and not have anxiety as they hand the card over because i've had that happen to me too yeah like look at me look at me swiping this card right this is a mature bankroll yeah right like we get it you just got out of college and you're shooting your wad on this night out at Look at me swiping this card. Right. This is a mature bankroll. Yeah, right. We get it. You just got out of college and you're shooting your wad on this night out at this trendy lounge. But, you know, maybe this group of five 44-year-old dudes all just got divorced. They had merch. They need to be out. I just think ditch the fedora and dress it down a little bit.

I do think this though, but I'm not divorced, is that if I did get divorced at like 40 and married at like 20, I think that might be the most reckless male species on the planet. Because that guy, especially if he was not the reason why, like if she left him or something, I think a good two-year run of screw your rules is almost acceptable. Oh, yeah. But I don't know. If you were not the cause of the

disintegration of your marriage, yeah, have at it. You wear a fedora. I don't care. Okay. All right. Well, good. I'm glad that we got to all that stuff. Yeah. Make sure you check out Chalk Media, Chris Long, at Joel91. I'm at Ryan A. Russillo. Today's episode of I'm glad that we got to all that stuff. Yeah. Make sure you check out Chalk Media. Chris Long at Joel91. I'm at Ryan A. Russillo. 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 of over 19,000 agents are 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. All right. We're going to have a couple more regular season weeks. It's unbelievable.

Two more weeks to go. I will talk to you soon, Chris. Thank you.