The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Week 2 Recap With Chris Long | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

Russillo is joined by two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long to discuss NFL Week 2, including another questionably officiated Saints-Rams matchup, a couple of major injuries to Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, Jaguars-Texans, Broncos-Bears, Packers-Vikings, loud-mouth refs, UVA’s win over Florida State, incredible nicknames, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

week two the ryan rossillo podcast every monday with chris long and i am live i'm in chris's hood i'm in atlantic city this is your spot right oh yeah it's one of my uh it's one of my hideaways city by the sea that's right so i'm going to have to get some recommendations from you a little bit later. But I am here at the Borgata, pretty excited because I'm here with Belvedere in a partnership with our good friends at Belvedere Vodka. Join us tonight for a live Ryan Rosillo Show podcast in Atlantic City. Monday Night Football at the new Moneyline Bar and Book at the Borgata. Tonight, that's 7 Eastern.

So, you know, look, by the time you listen to this, you've probably already made plans or you're on your way. Was down earlier checking out the tables. Only four hours of sleep for this guy. And we're going to be enjoying cocktails made with Belvedere Vodka, the first super premium all-natural vodka,

watching Browns, Jets, and talking football. Yeah, so I didn't play. I got in really late. A little West Coast swing out here. Couldn't fall asleep. Was just too excited. Look at the clock. It's 4 something AM and I'm just sitting there and I'm watching a movie on my laptop. Not a weird one.

All the President's Men. And woke up. It was just ready to go. So we're going to get a little boardwalk in after this. Maybe a little spa deal. That would be the gym. And then just talk some sports talk football with sports fans well i'm dealing with the brain fog too here i mean long weekend that's right i acted like i was 23 this weekend those were the reports so we'll get to your uva win against

florida state you were there in attendance I have a bunch of fun stuff. We got to get through all of this, but I think the two biggest breaking news pieces are let's talk Ram Saints, specifically Saints with Breeze now out six weeks and news just before we started taping this. Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers, out for the entire season with that elbow injury where he missed some time yesterday. So you want to start Ram Saints? You want to start Breeze? Sure. What's the latest we have on Breeze? Breeze, it looks like six weeks. I think it's the gamekeeper's thumb, which is the hot term being thrown around on Twitter right now by all the twitter.com MDs. But yeah, there are many of them, including myself a little bit. When Sam Darnold got mono, I was like, I had mono, by the way.

Here's what you can expect. And with Breeze, I mean, I've had two pretty serious thumb surgeries. They weren't gamekeepers thumb injuries. But I have actually a fused right hand, so I can't flatten my hand. I drop keys, all sorts of stuff on a regular basis. I can barely open my door. Thumb injuries suck, man. And, you know, I can't imagine being a quarterback basis. I can barely open my door. Um, thumb injuries suck, man. And, you know, I can't imagine being a quarterback. So this is going to change things.

Right. So, you know, with New Orleans going to Teddy Bridgewater, at least they have somebody in there that they're going to trust a little bit more than when I did my backup quarterback thing, the 20 guys had never even started a game. And I don't really put a lot into what I saw from Ram Saints I just don't like the Rams were home you have Breeze leave you have the Cam Jordan fumble that was a terrible call I don't understand why refs still are not just letting it play out I don't know if it's a safety thing and between Breeze and that play like I don't leave this going okay now I understand the NFC far better because the Rams won this game. I mean, good for the Rams, good for Goff, Gurley getting some action there, but this isn't a telling thing because this version of the Saints isn't going to be who I expect them to be if Breeze can come back

and be healthy the rest of the way. Well, I think it changes the entire landscape of the NFC, but having said that, I agree with you. There's nothing you can take from this matchup because when teams change quarterbacks, things change. I mean, the year we won the Super Bowl with Nick Foles, you look at him his first couple games, and I'm not comparing Nick to Teddy. I mean, I like Teddy, but he's not Nick. I think when you look at the first couple games, you look back in Philly. I mean, we played the Raiders. We played the Falcons in that first-round game. Teams need time to adjust. We didn't look great.

And then week three and four in that system, kind of like your preseason, you're shaking the rust off. Things can change. But I don't see it happening. You look at their next eight weeks. They got three playoff teams from last year in the Hawks, the Cowboys, and the Bears. And they got three division games in the Bucs, the Falcons, and the Bucs again.

And those defenses look relatively stout. So the big deal about the Saints is if you're a player and you think your team in the NFC can make a run, I don't care what you say, you're always looking over your shoulder at the Saints and you're looking to see if they get home field advantage. Because if they get home field advantage, it is one of the three toughest places to play. And you can make a case that it is the toughest place to play in the playoffs, although I'm partial to the link. I think that them over the next eight weeks,

and then the six weeks that presumably he'd be back or so, not getting home field advantage is a big deal in the NFC. It changes the entire landscape. And the team that might benefit the most is coincidentally the team that they lost to yesterday in the Rams. So interesting game. The call was totally bogus. I mean, it would have changed the complexity of the game. I don't know that the Saints win that game, but these refs need to swallow the whistle, man. the complexity of the game. I don't know that the Saints win that game, but these refs need to swallow the whistle, man. I mean, we saw this with the Jaguars against the Pats in the AFC

Championship a couple years ago. Miles Jack forces a fumble. It'd be 27-10 if they swallowed the whistle, and it ends up being a 24-20 New England win, and I think that completely changes what happens in that game so we're going to see more and more big plays like this that we're leaving on the table and wondering what might have been if these refs don't get together with that what's the maddest you've ever gotten a ref uh one guy told me like to shut the fuck up and I was like it to you? Oh, yeah. And I was like, I can't punch you in the face. I've been ejected a couple times. I've been called on some really bad

roughing the passer calls before, but I think when a ref turns around, he's like, shut the fuck up. Okay, what did you say, though? He didn't just do that in the pocket. I don't remember. You know how many low points I had in the Edward Jones dome? Me being sunned by a ref and talked to like a child with no recourse was not high on the list.

Okay, so those guys will do that, though. Like, I've noticed that some of the refs will just get to a point where they're going to talk right back to you like i always think it's kind of weird like the the man thing of i'm supposed to just let you undress me for three hours and call me everything in the book and like i'm like i'm not doing my job unless i absolutely take it like some of the stuff that happens to nba refs and they're just supposed to turn the other cheek the entire time so i think like everybody has a breaking point, but I do feel like in the NFL, it's easier to hide it. It'd be really weird if an NBA ref did that to an NBA player.

I mean, there would be all sorts of OTLs on that. But I think hearing that is funny, but I'm not entirely shocked. I think the NFL guys, after a while, some of them probably have that rep or scattering report that they're just going to come back at you, which I'm sure you guys don't love. Well, they probably watch baseball baseball and they're probably like, these fucking guys, these umpires.

I mean, they got some stones, man. They'll go out there and talk about each other's families for like 38 seconds. And they're like, I'm ejecting you, but I'm going to take you down through there. I mean, we're going to get into it. and then I'm going to send your ass out. So I know that the NFL refs are probably looking at the umpires in baseball like, these guys aren't even in good shape. And I got a way better chance of kicking somebody's ass than some of these baseball umpires. But they take a page from their book.

It could get interesting. Okay, so all right. We've established that. You did say something else there, though, because I was in New Orleans for that Rams regular season game last year, and it was incredible. I haven't been to a ton of NFL stadiums,

certainly not as many as I've been to college games. I just like the college thing a little bit better, the atmosphere, but that Saints thing, not surprisingly, in New Orleans is unbelievable, and you've been to some other places. All right, so you put – I do want to say this, Rob.

I mean, you look at them the last 10 years, they're 53-41 on the road, the Saints, including playoffs, 67-28 at home. And like we talked about, the entire landscape is going to change. You'll see what Kamara is about because for the first time, he's going to feel what it's like when people are playing up and loading the box and daring Teddy to beat them. That chasm between the number one and number two wide receiver gets larger or more glaring.

Ingram's loss gets more glaring. I think Taysom Hill, if anybody, is a benefactor here, but you're going to see a totally different team, and they got the coach that can pull it off, but I don't know that they're going to be able to, only because even if they sneak in, they got to go on the road. Cooper Cup was huge. I talked to Les Snead this summer. I still stay in touch with people that cut me, but Les is my guy. He said Cup, getting him back is going to make a big, big difference. And it did yesterday. Can I follow up then on,

and that's a great stat on the home road because I remember when breeze got really annoyed because, you know, stop asking about the roadside, but it's like, well, the evidence is pretty overwhelming that you guys are completely different team away from the dome. But all right., so what else besides if you put New Orleans, it sounds like you want to put it number one toughest place to play. It sounds like you want to put the link in there just because you love Philadelphia so much. So what's the other one?

I'll put, well, to me, I'm going to leave the link out of it because, you know, I can't do this thing where my favorite place to play. The toughest place to go win a football game, and I had to do it like clockwork every week 17 for eight years, is in Seattle. It's deafening. I mean, there's legends that they pipe in noise. And the fans, they're kind of friendly, but they're just rabid. And the noise, the engineering of that stadium is brilliant.

It's a beautiful place um the superdome less beautiful uh but equally just and they play that um you know that little john song or what what is it uh you know every time they sing it they score it stand up and get crunk and you're like i am so fucking tired of this song and and it and it's like part of the lore it's like going up to green Bay. The first time I played there, I talked to the vets. Like,

what's it like? It's like, it's a weird place. It's in the middle of a neighborhood, but you're going to hear them do that. Don't go pack. Go. They're going to do that 14 times.

And they've got like high school cheerleaders. It's really weird. And, uh, you know, it's just a weird place. I mean, yeah, they don't even have like real cheerleaders. They have like weird. It's just a weird place. They don't even have real cheerleaders. They employ kids to go out. It's just fucking weird. It's a great atmosphere, but I would say New Orleans is second to Seattle as far as a place that's tough to win.

Yesterday, though, really telling. First time in 13 years they haven't scored an offensive touchdown. It's going to be interesting. Not only is it going to be interesting to see if they can spell Drew Brees, but it's going to be interesting to see how he responds coming back. With thumb injuries, like I said, I have a little experience with this. The smaller the injury, the more complicated the ligaments, the muscles, the more exact your rehab has to be.

It's not a foregone conclusion that when he gets back with the timing, he's one of the best anticipatory throwers in the history of the game. It's going to be really hard for him to just pick up where he left off. I want to talk Ben. My friends have said this about me they go ryan no one is better at complimenting people you don't like and i was like that's right i am i'm i'm i'm stern but i'm fair and ben roethlisberger is one of those dudes like i was on that pretty early where i go what's up with this guy and the injuries? Like, why is, why is he saying he almost died all the time?

How did he say he had a self-diagnosed fever of like 105? And I know there's another version of this Roethlisberger thing that we can get back. And I, I'm not comfortable doing the, he might run hot, right? His temperature might run hot, but you know, the quotes, the weird selling out, like coaches in a radio interview. And yet then the Ben thing always became like this thing where you had to, you had to like take size. You had to take Antonio Brown side.

You had to take Le'Veon, Le'Veon Bell side. You had to take Roethlisberger side. I thought once the offensive line turned on Le'Veon Bell, like that was kind of all I needed to know. Cause those dudes don't ever do that kind of stuff. And I will say that I, I don't like Ben,

but I appreciate him. And the fact that he's out for the season and how he's kept this offense. Now, I don't know if he's going to keep this offense going together this year, but part of it is the front office and how great they are identifying wide receivers, but part of it is also a little bit like Breeze, so I'll be curious to see what Michael Thomas looks without him, but Breeze,

it's also on Roethlisberger and how good he is that every single dude that seems to get a lot of snaps puts up big numbers, and then good he is that every single dude that seems to get a lot of snaps puts up big numbers. And then as soon as that receiver leaves there, you know, it's, it's, he's just not the same guy. Like Mike Wallace is like one of the all timers for that. Not that he went to a great situation, Miami, and I don't blame him for taking the cash.

So Roethlisberger now being out for the season, we knew there was an elbow injury. This news happens right before it goes down. And like I said, like, I don't, I i don't love the guy but there's no denying yes he's not brady he's not rogers but he's always kind of flirted and when you look at the production of it like i felt like he's kept this thing together i mean whenever anyone would want to take sides in the bell brown rothlisberger thing i'm like at least ben showed up to a silly thing right but i'd be like at least ben showed up to work thing. How simple are we that we can't say both sides are fucked up on a couple levels? No, that's impossible now.

You know, so I think the big question is, what do the Steelers look like for the next five to ten years? We know what they look like the last five to ten years. And that team coming out and losing in New England the way they did, it's just that poke. It's that reminder that you guys have a ceiling, even with Ben, because if you want to make a run, it goes through Foxborough the way the Patriots look right now. So, you know, before Ben's injury, you're wondering what the ceiling of this team is,

even if they get their house in order. After the injury, you could be looking at a totally different landscape in this organization for a long time. Having said that, though, Ben did come off one of his best statistical years in a long time last year. So if he can get healthy, I'm not ready to say it's over, but when you're aging in the NFL and you're getting older, you know, I just talked to my dad about this.

We were talking about getting older in the NFL my last year. And by the way, I still feel great. But when you get old in the NFL, you don't know when it's going to be. Is it going to be, what injury is it going to be? What week of the year? The bottom can fall out at any time. So when you have these older quarterbacks who take hits and move around like Ben does and does rely on his mobility, when's that going to be? And

mentally, the aspect of, it's been a long couple years. So you're talking about like after this year is what you're saying. You're talking about the bigger picture stuff. I'm saying, yeah. I don't want to call them irrelevant this year because I respect anybody in the NFL. You've got a chance to beat people any week. And I don't want to disrespect the backup quarterback. You never know who the next Tom Brady is, right? That's what everybody says when their starter goes down. They're like, well, Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady.

I'm not going there. I'm just saying I respect anybody's ability to make a play. I will say, though, that they're not a team that I see as relevant in December and January. Yeah, look, I think you're being too fair. I think you're being too nice about this right now. I am being very nice about it. But beyond that, that's the real conversation. What's it look like next year and the five years down the road? All right. Yeah, that makes sense because it is one of those things where Mason Rudolph comes in. And let's face it, like Mason was a guy that people were really split on when he was coming out of his system in Oklahoma State.

It's like, man, that's kind of one of those one side of the field deals. Like how many bubbles can you keep throwing? You know, and I always try to remind myself like what Gundy told me. He goes, you know, every time you think we throw that bubble that doesn't work you don't understand like we're making the defense stretch side to side he goes and then the more they're thinking about it the more they're thinking about it that's when we take our shots down the field i was like okay mike i will defer to you because you are coaching the system and i'm sitting here watching he's a man he's a man he's 50 that's right no because i i talked about it off which makes me feel really fucking old because

when i first saw that video i was like 10 okay, he's 40, and now he's 50. By the way, though, when you watched Mason play yesterday, I will say this. The guys rallied around him, supported him, and you can tell a lot about how people celebrate with guys in the NFL. You can tell a lot about the dynamic, And he did look like he excited the guys. So I'm not going to disrespect the Steelers. But I will speculate on what the future looks like. Okay, that's fine.

That's fine. All right. So what is it like, though? Because you've played with maybe the greatest ever in Brady, a guy that has a chance to be really good in Wentz. I know how much you guys love Foles. You guys love Foles. And it's funny because your love for Foles

then turned into some fake Wentz-Foles locker room thing. We have to do a deep dive on that controversy in another podcast. Yeah, for sure. I mean, go check out my shrine. Anybody listening, go check out my shrine, which was a direct, I'm paying homage. Episode two, I'm much better with my silent H's.

I'm paying homage to Major League and Joe Boo. And it's like kind of a joke. It's trying to keep the locker room loose. But next thing you know, I got people saying Chris Long hates Carson. I love Carson. Carson is so fun to watch and play with. When all the stuff came out about Carson, which I think is really easy to do in the media, where you're like, and I find two out of maybe 70 dudes that roll through this locker room that want to dump on Carson Wentz.

That's really easy to do. That's super easy to do. And I handpick one quote. And I handpick one quote out of a 10-minute, so you're painting this picture, which is bullshit. Yeah, we'll do a deeper dive on that because I want to get back to this thought in that there also have been years. And by the way, I put together every quarterback that ever started a game that you played in I'm going to see how many you can get and it's not Chris Long trivia week because I think you'll actually do pretty well with this but I wrote them all down and it's only guys that started

not through a pass so we'll let you off the hook because that's not exactly fair but what is the vibe like whether it's pre-season and you may not have a guy and again this isn't disrespecting guys you played with but I've got to imagine going week to week with somebody like Brady or somebody like Wentz or maybe Bradford early on. Not that he's in that group versus, you know, shit, this is a backup and the vibe is just different. Like human nature would tell me in the locker room, maybe even if that backup doesn't really play great in that first game, that it completely changes the mood with a team.

And you guys, it's going to be tough to be like the same group that comes out week one thinking you have a chance. Well, there's a few ways it can go down. I mean, you can have an incredible roster with a subpar quarterback, and you always feel like, hey, we can get over the hump. Our roster is so good. What we had in Philly was unique because we know nick is good and we had this unbelievable roster i mean unbelievable we were so good in 17 it was

anyways i and then you can have uh a really bad roster and a quarterback who can help you but has nothing around him like we had sam in 2012 when we went to cleveland and he tore his acl in preseason that was the year that was the rams window and jeff had built quietly a very good roster especially on defense and and that can be crippling because this was after waiting and waiting and waiting this was our. This was the window. And most teams in the NFL, they have small windows. Team like New England, that window's 20 years long. So it depends on the situation you're in. And then there's a team that's bad and they have a bad quarterback to start the year off. And I've been on those teams. But I will say this, every team in the preseason drinks the Kool-Aid. You can't help it.

How else can you justify bashing your brains in four hours a day in the heat, spending 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in the building without thinking you got a shot? Now, usually by week two or week three, you know what your ceiling is. But we're really good in the NFL at at tricking ourselves and then on top of that uh

You play for Your pride as well. So it's not like if you have a bad quarterback you're gonna pack it in It can be depressing And it can suck but you got a lot to play for as an individual and that's not being selfish But the mantra in the nfl at least in my opinion on being a opinion, on being on a lot of bad teams is control what you can control. So, you know, the one thing you can't have though is disruptive guys in a locker room when your quarterback isn't the best player. And there are some situations like that that we all know occur on a regular basis, because then it's going to be hard to keep it together. If you've got a good locker room,

occur on a regular basis because then it's going to be hard to keep it together. If you've got a good locker room, you can overcome it. Your first year was 2008. I want to see how many of these you're going to get. How many starting quarterbacks that you've played with can you name? Mark Bolger? Yep. Obviously, Sam Bradford.

Are we going to... If we just do the Rams, we'll be here. We might need to do a Friday pod too. There was Austin Davis, Kellen Clemens, who I love both of those guys. I think at one point we started Keith Null.

Or did he just throw a pass? He didn't start. No, he started. wait a minute let me let me let me double check my keith null stuff here because i was looking him up this morning but yeah i have like brock berlin had three pass attempts in a game so i'm not i'm not counting him that would be unfair we had we had the unfair we had nick foals obviously we had the Purdue guy Kyle Bowler that's right Bowler how many out of the Rams have I gotten you're missing I can't one of these you're missing is going to be a issue when he finds out that it's taking you this long well I've also I drank about 25 units of alcohol on Saturday night so all right so yeah Keith Knoll started 4-0-9.

So you got Bulger, you got Bowler, you got Knoll, you got Bradford. You're missing a couple more Rams. Early or late? One early, one in the Bulger year. Okay. Going to have a hard time there. I blacked that out. Do you want me to just give it to you?

No, I don't because I want to get the one that i want to get the one that uh i want there's another one that's your boy he came we were out together and he was convinced that we'd all hung out and i was like we know we definitely didn't um and he's closer to my age now which is accurate back then when we first met. Famous wife. Well, oh, okay. Yeah, obviously, A.J. Feely. I just, I've, and A.J. Feely, A.J. Feely is one,

A.J. Feely is one of the most classic. You're going to have to edit this down so it looks like I got him quicker. The problem with A.J. Feely is I think of him as like an eagle. So, and I've been more friends with him lately. This is the problem. You play in St. Louis long enough.

Oh, let's not forget Case Keenum. That's right, Case Keenum. Case Keenum, who's a total stud and a gentleman. And thank you for being a part of my most impactful play of my career. By the way, I didn't expect you, knowing you, to be like, Case Keenum, dipshit. That's not the way you roll. If somebody's a dipshit, I just might not say it.

This is an opportunity for me to say that Sam Bradford is a fucking man. If you don't like Sam Bradford on a personal level, you want to get into football, you question his toughness or his commitment or any of this stuff kiss my ass unfollow me i felt so bad i lose a bunch of followers

the guy the guy the guy was like a tackling dummy for years in st louis it was criminal how they surrounded him and And the problem is when you make a lot of money, everybody is eager to hate you. He was an awesome, awesome teammate and a good friend. And I'll tell you what, he got off the mat so many times in his career with injuries and in bad situations. And there's things he could have done better, but I want to shout him out. Okay, my buddy Reed just showed me. Trent Green. Trent Green that first year.

By the way, I had met Bradford and I had done this segment on the air about how much money he made. And when we first met at one of your charity deals and he actually was really nice and he said, hey, yeah, I actually listened to you. It was actually, you know, you and Scott all the time. And I went, oh man, I'm like, I'm like, did you ever catch me kind of breaking

down how much money you've made and not played? He's like, yeah. He's like, I just, you know, he's like, I just changed the channel. No big deal. He's listen, that guy's a strong-willed individual, man. Um, and then in, in, uh, new England, we had Jacoby Brissett, obviously. Uh, and there was one, one guy who's like a Hall of Famer. Yep. Garoppolo and then Brady. And then obviously Garoppolo. Yeah.

And then in Philly, it's obviously Foles and Wentz. Yeah. You only missed one. You only missed one. Trent Green. Sean Hill. He a Terp. Sean Hill, who's one of my favorites.

Clearly not your favorite. If he's one of your favorites, you just... You know what, though? I think you passed. I'm not worried about you health-wise. I'm just telling you, when you play amidst the carnage that was that era, you black stuff out. I forgot I was really fucking good for a while.

Like, I like forgot it. Sometimes I wake up and I'm like, oh, you were a pretty good football player. I was really good for a while. But the problem is you did it. It was like a tree falling in the forest. And like, not just people not remembering, but like you black it out because it was so stressful.

It was bad. We almost went 0-16 one year. We were a fake field goal in Detroit away from going 0-16. 1-14, 2-14. I think I won 39 games in eight years with the Rams. That's an incredible stat. I want to talk about the touchdown at some point. But before we do that, let's get to Jacksonville.

Let's get to some other NFL stuff. Let's get to your UVA week against Florida State. Before we do that, let me ask you, is there anything better? That's right. Is there anything better than watching football? Of course there is. It's watching football with the DraftKings lineup on the line. $5 million in prizes with your first deposit when you sign up with my code. That's Russillo, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O. Draft your lineup and feel the sweat like never before. Every run, throw, catch, mean more with the DraftKings lineup on the line.

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See DraftKings.com for details. Do you want to do the Jags thing? Do you want to start with Minshew? Yeah, by the way, you're good at those. Thank you. That's intimidating. That's what the salespeople... No, that's what the people say,

that I'm considered one of the best in the world. So thank you. Also good at radio in general, but... Yeah, Jaguars. I mean, by the way, I think they're a strong candidate. We can get to the best flight, worst flight later. Strong candidate for worst, worst flight. I got to tell you, this Gardner Minshew guy,

like everybody else in the country, I am just super excited he's alive. I mean, he's what the NFL needs. His suit was, if you want to call that a suit, it's tremendous. Imagine going on the road to play a playoff team in your first start and just having the stones to throw that on with the stash. I stalked the guy's Instagram. I just want to

know what he's about. Did you DM him? I didn't DM him. I didn't even follow him, but he's a good wholesome guy. I think he's just got a lot of swag. He had him right there with a chance to win it. Love the two-point conversion call to win it. If you can steal a game on the road against a division opponent with that momentum he had and with your backup quarterback, you got to do it. The thing I hate is taking it out of his hands.

I mean, Fournette's like – So do that. Break down the two-point thing for us, because I know you're big on this. Oh, the two-point thing. I'm really scientific. So I will say this. The only reason I didn't like that was Fournette was like 14 carries for 27 yards or so

on the ground on inside runs yesterday. So I just— And that's the problem. We're going back and forth on this two-point conversion thing. It's kind of the hot thing to do now. We're seeing a lot of games decided by two-point conversions. You saw yesterday the wild turn of events in Chicago. I think that coaches on the analytical end are looking at it and saying,

since 2015 when PATs were moved back, it's been a trend. And you have to look hard at the fact that per 10 touchdowns, two-point conversions are yielding 10 points and extra points are yielding nine and a half points. So it's a marginal difference. But if you're like a numbers guy, this is what people want to do. But the problem with this is not all teams are created equal. So that's my problem in general with analytics. Analytics without context, it's troublesome. The Eagles go on a six conversion stretch where they go five for six, and the Lions and Broncos go oh for nine at one point. So if you're looking at a sheet and you're

on the Lions and the Broncos, it's not working out for you. If you're Doug Peterson and you're offensively kind of a mastermind or you had Frank Wright and Flip, you know, that Super Bowl year, you're going to be inclined to go for it because you've got the personnel and you call the right plays. But analytics ignores some of that. And you see it with, like, the Lions and Broncos the right plays. But analytics ignores some of that, and you see it with the Lions and Broncos, for instance. So last year, you look at week seven, Vrabel opted to go for two, down one against the Chargers,

and he failed. I like the call. Lynn, who saw it, and I don't know if this crept into his head, turned around and did it to Kansas City and converted late in the season, if you remember that. So not all two-point conversions are created equal, but we'll see more and more of these deciding games. That's always been my argument about this, you know, because everyone, the analytics side loves the two-point conversions because of the simple math in it, which I

completely understand, right? But then when it doesn't work, it's like, oh, why did you go ahead and do that? Because I would think lining up, even though the numbers that you just gave me on Fournette running up the middle aren't very good you're like well wait a minute what's wrong with spreading it out and trying to get a couple yards of Fournette and I actually think the ball crossed the plane with the way his body was lined up and the way his arms are positioned but there was no review that was ever going to show you that that was going to happen so I thought I thought like it was one of those things you see that a lot where like that ball has to be in but I don't actually see it physically. I can't see it with my eyes if it's across the plane.

I'm just going on body positioning and where his arms would be and assuming where the ball would be through an x-ray thing. So having said that, and it's the same thing with a fourth down. Everybody loves going for a fourth down. Don't just give me these mass-produced stats that are just an accumulation of thousands of scenarios. That's why I hate win probability. Next gen? Are you next gen, bro? Some of thousands of scenarios that's why like next gen are you

next gen bro some of the next gen stuff's great but like completion likelihood means nothing to me you know and actually like when i look at some of those those commercials where the throw is unbelievable and like russell wilson gets all the credit on the throw receivers don't get enough credit for how they run under these balls it's it's one of the things that we miss as fans and viewers all the time where we'll see like a receiver in stride but like a lot of times the ball's kind of up and the guy's going underneath it himself to go ahead and run it so great for the like will like willie may's shit and then exactly the back shoulder the back shoulder stuff is important i mean when it comes to analytics i'm out of my element donnie i mean

i i know what I know. Yeah, that's amazing. So, but I want to finish this thought though, because everyone just wants to say, well, hey, fourth down in this. Okay. But what's going on? Like, what's the two point conversion? Okay.

Do I have a really good running back? But do they have really, really fast guys in their goal line package that kind of nullifies my ability to get around the edge and I don't like my center you know or I'm worried about the exchange I mean granted the exchange thing the pros is something you can't worry about but in college I mean it happens all the time like they ask these kids to go ahead and take a snap from from under center and like a weird spot and it looks like the kids never done it before so the fourth down is even more of a pet peeve like when I think back to Frank Reich and that Colts game last year against the Texans, that one's completely different, but they're fourth and four, they're on their own

side of the field. And it's like, Hey, if you don't get this fourth and four, you lose the game. Now, maybe right. Who said I'll do a 10 out of 10 times. We played a win. It sounds good. And maybe there's a, there's an emotional payoff that is there later for a locker room that I couldn't understand unless I was in that locker room. And I'm sure other locker rooms wouldn't give a shit, but a lot of these decisions are in the game in the, Hey, how, what has worked?

What hasn't worked? What's the personnel matchup? Do we like our guy against their guy? And so to sit there and just say, Hey, here are the numbers. Here's what you're supposed to do on fourth down. Here's how often you're supposed to do two point conversion.

I just don't think it's specific enough. And it's too general. And that's what makes a good coach, a good coach. I mean, like anybody who's just like looking at coach a good coach. I mean, like anybody who's just like looking at the sheet. Exactly. Okay. But if you can look at the sheet, it's relevant. Let's just not get carried away. What happened on the drive? I mean,

and you mentioned Frank, by the way, he's my early pick for coach of the year. Who's not high on the coach right now. Two weeks. This feel good story. Yeah. Two weeks in. Hey, Frank Wright and Doug Peterson. Do you remember the South Park episode? It's a feel-good story. Yeah, two weeks in. Hey, Frank Wright and Doug Peterson, do you remember the South Park episode? There's like a gif, you should look it up. It's Stan's dad on South Park, and he's just got his balls in a wheelbarrow. They're just massive.

And that's what I think of when I think of those two coaches. And they're the guys that just do it. They go for it on fourth down. You saw it with Doug last night. You mentioned Frank. They rubbed off on each down. You saw it with Doug last night. You mentioned Frank. They rubbed off on each other with this stuff. But not all coaches are that bold, and some of them really need to be coddled with the play sheet. And the play sheet and the probability is not always going to tell you the truth.

And that's what we're talking about is a context, adding the context to the analytics. Let's stay with the Jags though, and talk a little bit about that sideline stuff that was going on with Marone and Ramsey. And just to set the table on the Ramsey thing, we know how good he is. You know, he came up to ESPN before the draft and that's usually like when you can

start to see like, and he's, he just rolled in was like, Hey, I'm the best player. I'm the number one pick. And like, look,

I don't blame a guy for doing that, especially corners that we've come to accept it, right? But when you do the long-form interview where you call everybody out, which is what he did, you're going to get a different level of attention. And when you get that different level of attention and then things aren't really working out for you, it can become a really combustible situation. And I think that's what we're seeing with Ramsey.

And like some of the Ramsey stuff, I like. And then other times, when they had beaten New England in the regular season, and he was talking about how he was the dude that was locking up Gronk the whole time. And then I went back and looked at every single play. I was like, dude, you barely looked at him for five plays. Your safety was on him way more than you were. Part of it with any great corner or skill guy is there's an element save for deandre hopkins who just shows up doesn't say shit and balls out one of

my favorite players this guy you love that dude so much he's your favorite receiver in the league right is he your number one he's my favorite i don't know if he's the best he's my favorite um and then and then you know you look at Ramsey I mean he is legitimately uh a total he's just a stud man and and and part of the gamesmanship for him is the talking and then going back and forth I mean he's given us some legendary post-game pressers um which you could do an entire segment on but I think at the end of the day, it's a combustible situation because there is a lot of question marks right now. And this is a team that two years ago was, like we said, a bad call away from being in the Super Bowl. And I know Pat's fans will be mad at me for saying that, but that's

a reality. I think that game's different. Jalen is the best player on the team. And if he gets into it with a coach, with Marone, that's a problem. And I think you asked me earlier, like, what's it like when you get into it on the sideline? It's like two players can get in a fist fight and go back to work. Now, certain guys have different codes about like fighting and like, I don't fight my teammates and we're not good after we fight, but I've been in fights and then we're good, scuffles or whatever. I've seen plenty of pretty ugly fights where guys were good. It might always be in the back of your head going forward, but players are in the trenches together. Coaches and players, when they have a blow-up like that, especially if they don't have a long history,

like you look at Tom and McDaniels, I think that's different because they know each other so well. And there's an equity in their importance in the organization. You know, with Marone, and Ramsey will no doubt be there longer than him unless Ramsey forces a way out, which he's given indication he wants to go elsewhere. But if he wants to, he'll outlast Marone. But Marone, in general, he can cut players. Coaches can cut players and can dispose of players at will. So players are

not going to get over sideline altercations with coaches the same way a player and a player can get into it and get over it. I've seen a few of them. And Sage Rosenfeld is a great— Do you have one that you remember? I remember, you know, two teammates in St. Louis getting into it. And, you know, a quarterback was getting into a receiver, and one of the D linemen came over and just grabbed him up. And it was an ugly scene, but's good i mean everybody's good like after the game it's talked out those guys play together they celebrate together they're back to

work together um it's just different and you saw sage we this tweet and sage is a great follow right i interrupted you twice when you were talking about sage but i just want to make sure we got that through because rosenfels did that really good tweet on it. So go ahead. He did. And what did you think when you saw the video? I thought it was teammates that were sick of Jalen. That's what I saw. But you may have changed my mind. I just looked at the other two guys. I think there are two defensive backs.

I think they had 20s on. And they were watching Jalen. Like, Jalen had said something, and then he sat down next to those guys. Now, maybe those guys are just exhausted. I think in general, players protect each other from coaches. So, you know, Marone could have said something really out of pocket to Jalen. Totally.

Maybe, yeah. And in that situation, players might go over and say, Coach, we need to take a walk. And Jalen could have said something out of pocket and warranted to Marone. that situation, players might go over and say, coach, we need to take a walk. And Jalen could have said something out of pocket and warranted to Marone. By the way, defense is playing its ass off in that game. And Jalen's the best player on the team. So part of that might be protecting Jalen from an uglier situation because there's a camera on everybody, especially if you're the best player on the team. If I had to be a fly on the wall anywhere on Sunday, I would have liked to have heard what was said because somebody said

something out of pocket to somebody. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. But I don't know if Jalen was calming down after he realized or if he was sitting there calming himself down because he was so mad at Marone. The problem is for Jalen in this spot, because he's been the vocal one since day one, the court of public opinions is already against him. And the other thing that happens is when you talk all that shit and you're good, no problem. But these are the rules. And then you come back the next year, even if it's on the quarterback, right? Even if it's on Bortles. But that defense has not been the defense that we thought they were going to be coming out of two years ago.

Two years ago, we're like, this thing is loaded. Look at the personnel. Look at how well they've scouted and drafted, and they're ready to go. And then that wasn't the game. I don't know. Denver's always had this kind of thing where I look at their personnel at the beginning of the year, and then statistically, it looks like they're falling off. And I go, is it the defense isn't as good, or is it the defense going, we got no shot? If we score 14 points, that's sweet. And I don't know if that's what Jacksonville fell into, but for Jalen, the rules are the rules.

And when you're going to ask for all that attention and your team isn't delivering, then everybody's just going to turn on you. Fair or not. As long as you're the best, as long as you're the best player on the field, and this is all speculative. So the thing I don't like to do is say,

this is what happened. Like Marone could have said something. And this is the thing, some coaches, and I don't know Marone, but some coaches, they'll say whatever to you. And a great coach will communicate. A great coach is not going to make it personal because for most players, it's a one way conversation. And what happens is coaches, and of course I'm pro player, right?

But coaches will come at you so sideways and say things that they would never say outside the building where they don't have some leverage over you. And sometimes coaches will forget that they're talking to the most important guy in the building. And if you say something that crosses the line, there's certain things and all players know where that line is. But I don't know what happened there. So until we know, I don't know. I just know that they had a really, a really bad plane ride home. And when your best player and your coach are coaches at odds, it's going to be hard. Do you, is this where I ask you for a Bill story? You don't want to tell

me like, let me, let me know. Did Bill ever say sideways stuff to you guys? I think Bill knows. There's an understanding. Bill knows. Bill's going to cuss anybody out. But getting cussed out, there's a couple things that I won't allow as a player. If a coach calls me soft, we're going to have a problem, right? And I've seen players get called that word.

There's certain things that other guys, they don't take kindly to. You know, like every player has a button. And the problem is the coaches sometimes feel like you can just talk to players. The best coaches I've dealt with are great communicators. And even coaches that I'm really tight with still, we had some bad falling out, but, or we had some bad fights. And they could be position coaches, I'm not going to name names. But at the end of the day, the way you get over that is that you

have a long relationship. If you're in a building for years and you and that coach have that familiarity and he didn't say something too over the line, that's when you got a shot. But most players are in and out. So there's no like, I'm giving this coach the benefit of doubt. That was a mistake. We have time to mend this. I've been lucky. I was in St. Louis for eight years. If I ever had, you know, got into it with a coach, we handled it like men. And I also was one of the highest paid guys on the team. So I felt like I had the autonomy to do that. When you feel bad is when these young guys get talked to however, you know, however a coach wants to talk to them because they know they're disposable. And what's a player going to do? He's going to cuss the coach out back, get, you know,

get personal with the coach. Like he just got, I've seen coaches say things like, you know, get personal with the coach. Like he just got, I've seen coaches say things like, you know, your mother should have never had you like what? And you expect this, you expect it in, in, in very colorful language. You expect the 23 year old kid, like who could whoop the coach's ass, no doubt about it to sit there and sit on his hands because he could get cut. He could get cut for just cussing the coach back out. So there's like a manhood thing. And this is not the Jacksonville thing because I have no idea what happened. But just in general, I mean, there's this weird dynamic where there's a power dynamic. And I know like sometimes like players, you're like, of course, you're pro player

on every issue. I'm pretty measured. But when it comes to talking to people, however you want to talk to them, coaches are usually violators of that. Yeah. It does always seem to be, I'll hear stories and it always feels like it's the position guys that lose their minds more often than the head coach. Position guys. Yeah. You're right. Position guys. Cause I don't know, you know, think there's always kind of like a fake tough guy thing in there. I mean, unless the guy absolutely played, like he was that monster. Who's the dude who was the tight ends coach that took over as the head coach of the Dolphins for a while? And I thought he was going to suit back up. Oh, he was a badass.

Yeah, right. He legitimately— I got to look him up. Do you not remember his name? Because I was going to go ahead and— He had him rolling for a second. Damn tight ends coach. Everybody loved playing for him.

You know, Phillip Daniels was one of my D-line coaches in Philly. Guy's like a power lifter at like 45 years old. He played 15 years in a league. 300 pounds of muscle. So, I mean, you're never going to concede that somebody's going to kick your ass, but it's nice when a coach, you know, you can at least respect their physical ability.

Yeah, Dan Campbell. Dan Campbell. Yeah, stud. We Dan Campbell. I'm not... Dan Campbell. Yeah, stud. We got to get that guy. I'm not going to have some 5'7 guy talking sideways to me. That never plays. Right.

I think those are sort of the rules of life. Can I share a Bill story with you that's over 10 years old and you can tell me whether or not this one's true? I'm 99% sure it's true. Somebody in the room told me years later because i was always fascinated by bill like i think you know why why wouldn't i be right right why wouldn't you be fascinated by a guy that's been able to do this for 20 years so that and you know with this brady

thing i i do believe you could argue it's going to be the most improbable run in the history of modern sports by any one athlete to to do this in this league this long coming where he came from the history of modern sports by any one athlete to do this in this league, this long coming where he came from. But the Pats, it was towards the end of the year. They'd beaten an NFC team that had a good record. And, you know, everybody goes in the locker room and Bill huddles everybody up. And he's already trying to just temper everything.

And he goes, all right. He goes, all the reporters are out there. It's a nice win. We can have a bag of handjobs for you. That team wouldn't go 500 in the AFC. Just remember that. This is true. I mean, I guarantee you that's true.

I never heard the story. But he's got a great, like, he has a great dry sense of humor. He's one of the most underrated, like, funny people. like he has a great dry sense of humor. He's one of the most underrated, like funny people. Um, and, and if you were in the meeting room,

like he just has a funny way of like bringing a little levity to humbling the shit out of you. Right. Not to, not to send this podcast in a direction where, you know, I, I get worried every now and then when a buddy will text me,

okay, yeah, I'll be listening. You know, he goes, you know, every now and then we, we pretend we don't hear the swears when the kids are in the car.

So I don't want to start referencing bag of HJs left and right. But I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard. Well, I'm actually. Like it locked everybody back in. Okay. I want to do the NFC North and then I have another game for you. And then we'll do UVA night. Excuse me.

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You do. You do. We'll get you hooked up with an account. You've been kind of mr nfc north guy the first couple weeks and this has surprised me the passion that you've had about this division and every day we talk you're like yeah you you can't get enough of the nfc north so go ahead the floor is yours well i mean it's the first game that i saw as a fan was when i saw my brother play um so i i got the you know i got my feet wet as a fan in the NFC North

with the good people of Chicago who were so accommodating. That doesn't sound genuine. They really were. They're awesome. It's a really cool city. I looked out my window. I thought I was in the Caribbean. That water was just aqua.

It was beautiful. One of my favorite stadiums too, Soldier Field. So fun to play at and the columns are awesome. The defenses are even better though in the NFC North. I think it's by a wide margin. All four teams are tough on that side of the ball. Offensively, not so much everywhere right now. But, you know, the big matchup yesterday that I watched the most was Packers-Vikings. Did you watch that one? I did watch a good chunk of it because Aaron came out, Aaron Rodgers for those wondering, Aaron came out on fire and you just start thinking like,

because there were some numbers you could dig in there on some of those throws. You're like, this guy's accuracy slipping a little bit. Like, what's going on? Is he the selfish one? You know,

is McCarthy actually better? You know, is Aaron a guy? Like, remember all the kind of, this is like the most, I would say the strongest, most anti-Aaron Rodgers stuff that had been out there

really at any point in his career. And then I watched the beginning of that Vikings game and I'm like, why did I ever think that maybe this guy was slipping? Even though there were some numbers that told you he was. Yeah, he's a robot. I mean, like just a scary robot. He looked awesome. You know, they come out first drive. They get Devontae Adams going. They score in two and a half minutes. Then Vikings come back, miss a field goal. Second drive, Adams again. And then Allison on a touchdown.

and he does the City Boys dance, which is another dance that I cannot do. Shout out to Lil Duvall, a buddy of mine. Tremendous content coming from him every week on Instagram. The second drive, Kirk, who was under siege all day, sack fumble. Third drive for Green Bay makes it 21-0 on the second play of the second quarter. So most teams, and of course I am high on the Vikings,

so this isn't me trying to walk that back or defend it, but are down 21-0 in the first quarter, it's over. And that's a tough place to play. But when you look at it all in all besides that really bad penalty by digs and taking his helmet off uh and costing them an extra point and the controversial opi that was reviewed on the touchdown by cook they lose by five that that's a four point play with cook and that's a that's a one point play with digs and that's a one-point play with Diggs. And so Cousins tried to do everything to lose that game.

I mean, he could have used – where was Bruce Arians? Burn it in the red zone. It's first down. Throw it to our guys. Yeah, it's a big division game. 12 is wide open. Yeah. So he could have used bruce arians uh but the big story to me

is you look at this division it's really a question of do you like the best roster top to bottom or do you like the best quarterback and to me it's hard to argue against aaron rogers but i will say the best team to me is still the minnesota v And my favorite offseason was probably Green Bay's offseason. I love Z'Darrius Smith. And I like, as they're going to call them, the Smith brothers, like Justin Smith and Alden Smith in San Francisco, who are so dominant. They're not going to be quite that dominant, but these guys, to the tune of $112 million over the next four years, are going to wreak havoc. And the DBs played great. Last time Green Bay had a top-10 defense, what happened?

Super Bowl. As far as I know. Unless that's bad intel. But yeah, I mean, the ceiling is really high for both these teams. But they're in different situations, right? Like I did last year, look at the roster for the Vikings and go, this team is really good. I know the offensive line,

you know, concerns, but Dalvin is exactly who we thought he would be, the depth of receiver, their playmakers on defense, their secondary, and I don't even like Kirk Cousins that much. I know it's impossible

to compliment the Redskins on anything, but part of me admired that they go, you know what? We just don't think this guy's that guy. So we don't want to give you a hundred million bucks with 80 of it guaranteed. We just don't think you are. Now the backup plan hasn't exactly worked out for the Redskins. We'll see what happens here with Haskins. Yeah, right. Like they're unfortunately like, I'm not allowed to compliment them on that, but I thought it was interesting instead of like, yeah, I know what everybody's supposed to do. Just give everybody 25, 30 million a year, but we're not going to go do it and then instead cousins gets 84 million

guaranteed and i watch and go you know this is the guy that the redskins are like no we don't want to do this and the thing is he doesn't have to be great for the vikings you wouldn't think he would have to be great the the problem is he's been bad he's been bad and like they didn't even ask him to play really in week one he threw 10 passes but i saw a bad quarterback in week two and they still almost had a chance. The problem is the protection's not great. We worry about the tackles. I mean, even with the arrival of some new coaches that we talked about changing the dynamic of the run game and taking pressure off the offensive line and moving the pocket, the tackles are still sort of an issue. And, you know, beyond that, he's not, Kirk, I don't think Kirk is,

I think Kirk catches a lot of heat again because of him making so much money. I think you can win with Kirk, but Kirk has to stop trying to be a playmaker all the time, right? I mean, just don't force stuff. You're on the best roster in the division, in my opinion. And I think that there's a dynamic there of, you know, he's just got to trust that if he does the simple things, they're going to be in it late. And not to mention, we left Minnesota out of the conversation in tough places to play. That's not an easy place to play in the playoffs either. So they're a team that if they get home field is going to be tough

it's going to be interesting in that division it sure is still like you still like the vikings in that division because it's starting to feel like wait wait a minute like if and you're right i went back and looked at the 2010 packers they were actually number two and score uh points scored against i'm sure there's some other analytics you can tell me maybe they weren't but good research points scored against. I'm sure there's some other analytics somebody could tell me maybe there weren't, but good research. Chris Long is research. I am literate. I do have literacy programs

I've run for charity, and I can also read myself. Congrats. And you're pretty good while I'm doing all that, that you can do the research. You're good at this shit. I mean, I knew before, but... I want to help you out a little bit on that, because I remember all the years they didn't have a good defense

and it felt like Rodgers was carrying them every single time. But I look at the Vikings, I look at Cousins and be like, why do you still like the Vikings so much? I look at the Bears. It's very clear that that coaching staff doesn't trust Trubisky at all.

Incredible win in Denver when it looked like there was no chance they were going to win that game. Detroit's an 8-8 team that's either going to win two they weren't supposed to and get to 10 wins or lose two they should have won and be seven and um seven and

nine so you know like Detroit I already have them nailed like that's well I also I don't want to I don't want to I think I maintain that Detroit should be two and oh right now and they got a tough stretch ahead I want to shout out Matty p that defense he's built a nice little defense but i agree wait a minute you're just if you're doing the if thing though and yes against arizona that was ridiculous but like there's a lot of chargers fans from los angeles that are thinking they should have left detroit with a win yesterday no doubt about it it can go either way but but the uh the ease with which they could have won that that game week one is gonna is gonna haunt them but you know we didn't get to game week one is going to haunt them. But, you know, we didn't get to this week one, the Bears-Packers game.

Everybody's talking about the Bears, and my whole reaction was like, why are we talking about the Bears? Let's talk about possibly the most gifted quarterback, you know, in the league being healthy, seeming happy, and LeFleur energizing the offense, getting the run game going and and all they've done on defense it's impressive so I what I didn't want to do is jump on the Packers bandwagon I'm still not going to do it you know as a media member now I don't want to walk back my first week you know pick which is that the Vikings are the class of the NFC North until I'm until I'm shown otherwise I mean you know the Bears had a great year last year, but Aaron Rodgers has been

the king for a long time. And the Vikings have the best roster top to bottom in the division. So the Bears game was wild. I was really happy. Kyle played really well. And just a bizarre ending. Just trying to recount that ending is insane. They line up for two to win the game. This is Denver. Flacco gets hot late. Line up for two to win the game. Delay a game. Move back.

All right, we're going to kick a point after a touchdown. They miss it. The Bears think they win. And Buster Skrine is the guy who's having the biggest sigh of relief this Monday out of anybody in America. He's offsides on the extra point. So then the Broncos move back in and go for two, and then the rest is history.

Did you see that last drive? Yeah, rollercoaster of emotions. The roughing the passer calls. And to get a second on the clock on the road where hey by the way what's the ruling on that because this came up it came up in the new orleans houston thing should you as a defensive player not touch the offensive player hoping you have another second or two runoff uh you know i didn't look just gonna call them down i didn't get a great angle i didn't get a great angle. I didn't get a great angle. And I didn't spend enough time looking at it

because most of the tweets I saw were either people that wanted the Bears to lose or the other way around. But I think what you can't see is that Nagy's trying to call that timeout. So, you know, there was some talk about did they get the timeout timing-wise on time. Matt's trying to call the timeout as well. But the funniest thing to me about that is this kicker, man, he's trying to call the timeout as well. But the funniest thing to me about that is this kicker, man, he's got to be the most popular guy in Chicago after everything last year. And by the way, they hit their first field goal since the double doink last season,

which of course I was on the field for. And then I was in the suite watching Kyle and the most sarcastic loudest cheer erupted through Soldier Field. It was amazing. In fact, this is screwed up by me, but I taught my son Waylon to say double doink to Kyle and he has no idea what it means. Oh, that's awful. He's been a good sport about it. Yeah, well.

Okay, so do we agree? Because we'll do this. We'll get to the UVA stuff and then I have the nickname game for you. Best plane ride has to be Chicago leaving Denver after that one. Well, you shouldn't really drink. We talk about drinking on planes. You shouldn't really drink after you've been playing at altitude

for that long. Altitude will get you. I also thought San Francisco had a good playing rod too yeah Garoppolo who had that pick that I did tweet about where he threw it into five defensive players from their own 15 I'm like what the hell is that

and then they ended up that run game for San Francisco was really good and it just makes it easier for everybody and they put it on a Cincinnati team that you know kind of go to the season like, I wonder what they're going to be. I actually really liked Kyler in his second game. I know they lost, but it looked like it was going to be a blowout. They stayed competitive.

He did some really good things. I don't know if he made the check on fourth and one against zero, but he had a slant on the inside and was totally calm with it, so that was kind of cool. I think whatever Kyler is, he's not going to be a guy who's emotional. Like if he doesn't work out, it's not because his emotions are all over the place. The guy's really, really laid back. Uh, that Saints plane ride back from LA had to be brutal just because you feel like, but yeah. But you also know your

team's really good and you have a coach that, that can navigate these waters or we'll see. But I will say on Kyler, if you're on the Lamar train and a lot of people are all over the Lamar train and possibly rightfully so, although I'd love to see them play like a contention type team, you got to say that the Cardinals aren't as bad as maybe you thought they were. I mean, they're in that game.

And if you knew one thing about Detroit, it was that their defense was going to be very good. And Kyler from first half of the Detroit game to the second half of the Detroit game, huge leaps in productivity and efficiency. So I think Kyler, I'm going to timidly say he's for real. That's about as timid as it gets. And that's probably the most timid Lamar thing after, you know, these two weeks where it's incredible. And then he did it running. He had the big throws early. And it just, I don't know.

We'll see. But it's been a Lamar show here for two weeks. Yeah, I know you like to not overreact. And you'll love this. But, like, look at last year week two. Eagles. Mahomes. By the way, you know, way, I'm an Eagles fan.

All these fans are hitting me up like, is it bad? Is it bad? I'm like, do you remember what happened week two last year? We got our ass kicked by the Bucs. They were shooting that cannon off 10 seconds into the game. That stupid ass cannon. And Deshaun Jackson had like three deep balls to beat us. And then week two, do you remember who beat the Patriots?

Was it Detroit? Detroit beat them week three. Jaguars beat them week two. Remember the Patriots were done? That's right. No, Bortles was insane. Go back and watch Bortles on third down. Actually, don't.

But he was 7-8, I think, on third down. He was accurate as hell. He was unbelievable. Then they lose to Detroit. I mean, that was my thing on New England going into the playoffs to be like, this is the first time in like 13 years with Brady that they've lost this many games by double digits in the same season.

Like something's off here. Something's off. Right. Something's off. Then they go win the Superbowl again. And it was pandemonium. It was pandemonium in Jacksonville. People were hammered in the pool,

taking leaks, probably in the pool. You know they got that pool up there. You thought Blake Bortles was going to have them in the Super Bowl. They were for real. So things change over the course of the season. I don't want to overreact. I probably already have. Did you overreact on Saturday night when UVA held on and beat Florida State? Did you overreact on Saturday night when UVA held on and beat Florida State? My man, there's no such thing as an overreaction. You haven't been 3-0 since 05 or whatever it is. There's just an energy in the stadium that's different. It kind of goes back to the days we were there, not to talk about us, but we had a lot of pros and we were good.

It just felt good, man. Bryce Perkins, big shout-out to Bryce Perkins. He is a tough dude, and he takes a lot of pros, and we were good. It just felt good, man. Bryce Perkins, big shout-out to Bryce Perkins. He is a tough dude, and he takes a lot of shots on the field and was Joe Reed, Bryce, big games from those guys. Florida State, they're a great program, and I know you have some thoughts about rushing the field, but we did rush the field. I didn't care. I know they have some thoughts about rushing the field, but we did rush the field. I didn't care. I know they're not ranked.

I also got pretty oiled up. And me and my old roommate, John Phillips, who is a hulking tight end, a decade-long blocking tight end in the NFL from Bath County, Virginia, we rolled up to our old apartment. We said, hey, let's see who lives there now, which is always a bad idea. Wait, what time was it? 12.30, but the town was buzzing. So we thought if there was any time to knock on the door, this would be a good time.

We were drinking at Dirty Nelly's, and our wives were there, and we were like, we're going to go to our old apartment, which we called it the Meat Mansion. Because there were 10 football players, just a bunch of meatheads. They're like, this is a bad idea, guys. I think we're going to get an Uber and let you sit this one out. And JP's like, well, we're headed over there. So, so we roll up and there's a, like a second year engineering student guy getting out of his car and JP who shouldn't have been the first guy on the beach is, is negotiating with him, trying to convince him that we used to

live there. And the guy's positioning himself between the house and JP. And I try to kind of be the diplomatic one. I go, hey, listen, let me explain. We used to live here. JP has a bit of an accent, language barrier here. Let me just ask you this. Is the downstairs room still blue? Um, let me just ask you this. Is the, is the downstairs room still blue? You know, cause I painted my room blue in 08 and, uh, and the guy's like, nope, nope, it's not. And I'm like, fuck, we're not getting in here. And, uh, and then JP's like, well, I know you go up the stairs and there's three bedrooms on the right. And he's like, that, that's correct. And we're like, uh, well, we used to play football here. And the guy's like, not interested in football. We're like, okay, we used to play football here and the guy's like, not interested in football. We're like, okay, we're going to go back to the bar. So that struck out, but it was a wonderful night at UVA

and I apologize to that gentleman if he's a Ringer fan for us trying to drink a beer in the house with him. That's what you wanted to do. You wanted to relive it. You wanted to feel the old atoms around you, smell the old smells. you wanted to have a beer in your old apartment

and this guy didn't recognize maybe one of the most famous uva grads ever and then maybe he was intimidated by your teammate and he just was like an intimidating guy it was like but it was never on the radar like the whole negotiation you're like, this is not happening. He's not letting two strangers into his house to have a beer. And I respect it. I really do. Yeah. When you said it was like a trip down memory lane, I'm like listening to like Lloyd Banks and the Carter 2 at 3 a.m.

I'm like, yeah, take me back. It's a good time. Yeah, there was a small business that a buddy and I wanted to do were, and it wasn't based on the movie old school, but we wanted to have a fantasy camp on some campus that was big enough where you could kind of get away with it. And you just rolled like 20 dudes in and it was a massive house and you had room assignments, maybe even a room lottery. You gave him a fake syllabus of all the classes you're going to skip. And then you would sign him up or you'd get him bracelets for maybe not 18 over because that's weird. But you would get them.

So basically the whole idea was like find a campus, build out this house, and then you just sell it as some sort of bachelor trip or a guy's weekend thing where you're like, you know, Madison would be good for it because Madison feels like you're going back in time anyway. Madison is big enough that it's not going to be like you couldn't do it at Dartmouth. They'd have you out of there in like six months and nobody would want to go to Dartmouth anyway, even though it's a lovely little town and there's a couple little spots. It would have to be mainstream. Like even Seville would be too small for it. But I always thought this would work. I mean, we did it. We did it once.

We wanted to go back to 292 Winnook in Burlington. And the guys were like, yeah, go ahead. Like, fine. Have a beer on our couch. Like, is this awesome? And then we felt so pathetic because they let us do it. So that might've been the gift. The gift might've been that he didn't let you do it because it was weird when we were

allowed to do it. And the guys were like, yeah, it would have, it would have been weird. And for all the times that I live in the town, I grew up in and went to college. And so I'll walk around and, you know, like your student will be like, hey, man, come have a beer with us. Or somebody on Twitter is like, hey, come by, stop by Wirtland Square, like where I used to live or this, that, and the third. Like, how did you used to live at the Fred? Like, and I'm like, I would never want to do that. Like, that just sounds terrible.

But in the moment, it sounded great. But the irony is that when I wanted to do it, this cat was not a fan of or the ringer I guess well we you know what we're growing here we're growing here okay all right final thing you've got this are you ready for this yeah all right I'm always gonna have a little fun with you you mentioned it so this is really funny that you brought it up that when I was looking up all your quarterbacks that you were called White Thunder. So you knew you were called White Thunder. Yeah, we started it, man. Actually, it started with Fred Robbins of New York Giants fam, who was like a big brother to me.

And we loved watching Major League, that scene where I guess it was Wesley Snipes and the white dude who was more of of a five-hole hitter or whatever they call it in baseball. Five-tool? Whatever he was. He's the guy that hits after your power guy that strikes out a lot. Oh, five-hole. I thought you said five-tool. Yeah, okay. No, he was the number five hitter and he was that type of guy. I forget the character's name, but they, they did a movie, right? They did like a fake movie where they were like, uh, and, and they had this line where it was like, Hey, white lightning, Hey, black hammer. And, uh, me and Fred used to say it to each other. And then when, when, when Rob got there and we were like balling out and we were opposite each other, like people,

people started giving us nicknames and we didn't like any of them. So we were like, let's be White Lightning and Black Thunder. And then it occurred to me that I was a lot slower than Rob. So it had to be White Thunder and I was more of a power rusher and Rob was the fast guy. So as much as I wanted to be White Lightning

like the moonshine, it didn't work out. Yeah, that sounds like you wanted to be Lightning the whole time, but I totally get it. Okay, so I went back and looked up some of your friends, and then we can play this. And this all started with my all-time favorite is that pro football reference and basketball reference websites I live on looking up stuff.

When I looked up Deion Waiters and saw that he had four nicknames, and I'd never heard of any of them. That's the most Deion Waiters thing ever. Okay? The first one was Downhill Deion. Okay. Another nickname for Deion Waiters thing ever. Okay. The first one was Downhill Deion. Okay. Another nickname for Deion Waiters was Google Me. By the way, shout out to Deion Waiters.

He's my Instagram buddy. He follows me. I follow him. Sounds good. The other nickname was Headache, but the all-time best nickname for any professional basketball player is Kobe Wade.

I've never heard him called that other than when i've referenced it a few times over the years yes one of the nicknames listed for deon waders is kobe wade oh yeah terrible okay but not his fault necessarily so no he didn't do that unless he wanted to okay sam bradford has a nickname listed oh it's sleeves oh sammy sleeves yeah okay all right there's so there is a real we would call sammy sammy sleeves okay what about william hayes i call him big play hayes he called himself big play Hayes the the website that should be what is the website says Seabreeze oh he does call himself Seabreeze uh he also calls him he says people in high point call him Seabreeze okay um do you know Danny Amendola has a playoff or excuse me a nickname it's called I just gave it away, but according to the website,

Danny Amendola's nickname is Playoff Danny. Don't know that one. When Danny and I were together, we didn't play in a lot of playoff games. That kind of blew my mind. Playoff Danny? I just call him Dola. Yeah, they don't like those nicknames on this website.

Jules has a bunch of nicknames he calls himself like squirrel but i used to be yeah go i think it's like squirrel writer incredible is one of them squirrels one the other one says the other one says hot dicaprio what yeah i don't know. Oh, I hope he doesn't hear that. That's going to go straight to his head. That implies that he's hotter than DiCaprio. You have to ask the female listeners of The Ringer.

Also, your celebrity net worth came up. Do you want to know how much money you have in the bank now? At least a couple hundred million. I'm actually buying an NFL team soon. We should do that with guests. Our famous guests. We should ask them what their celebrity net worth is on the internet. Yours is at six million.

Oh, where? Fuck, where did it go? No, that seems low to me. Did you guys scam me that seems yeah i don't know unless you signed some other dude oh wait a minute like my routing number my celebrity net worth just tripled in a month according to that website that's what is it it went from one to three million i've seen it for me at 60 000 how about i killed myself for 11 years and you talk on the radio really well,

mind you, and your net worth is half mine. Yeah, but I'm older. I got like a decade on you. Yeah, you're right. I don't think that six number,

6 million number for you is very accurate. Uh, what else you got going on? Cause I think we're going to end it here and say goodbye. Uh, nothing really. Um, just kind of watching a lot of football.

I was, you know, I, I was bummed about, I was bummed about the Eagles game. I was up very late watching those guys. Golly, a lot of injuries last night. I want to send a prayer to my brother, Timmy Jernigan. He's one of my favorite players. Hopefully, he'll be back soon, having fun out there on the field. And a big shout-out to Carson Wentz, man. He was tough last night. You know, two, three of his best targets down, and he has them in position to win it. So any Carson slander is not happening today.

All right, good stuff. We'll be back again next week for Chris Long, Ryan Russillo. Make sure you subscribe to the Ryan Russillo podcast, and you can follow chris's stuff at joel one spelt out so joel one nine and also uh what's it's joel nine one bro you don't read my tweets i muted you a couple months ago once you got political oh god i'm just kidding i'm kidding i just did that. Yeah, Joel91. That would make more sense for the position than 19.

So unless you want to have a burner account. It's Joel91. I apologize. I call myself the $6 million man. I'm going to get that updated right now. That'll do it for us. I'll be back on Wednesday. I think we're going to release the live podcast from Atlantic City tonight. That'll be on Wednesday.

And then I promise, I promise you Friday, uh, it's going to be a lot of college football. We just haven't really gotten to it yet. And I know Chris wants to talk some college balls. We keep this thing going. So do not worry for the college football fans out there. Cause I'm going to start pivoting towards some of that as,

uh, as we gear up after three weeks in. All right. Have a great week. Thank you. you