The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Week 8 Recap With Chris Long | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Russillo is joined by two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long to discuss NFL Week 8, including the biggest headlines, best/worst plane rides, Cleveland’s coaching problem, QB regression, the Chiefs-...Packers nail-biter, players-only meetings, a WWII history lesson, time travel, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I feel like every podcast that does the NFL has to talk about the fact that it's whatever week just finished up. Although we've got Pittsburgh and Miami tonight, so look out for Monday Night Football. But week eight, Chris Long, every Monday, the Ryan Russillo podcast, part of the Ringer Network. And today's episode, love those people from State Farm, did the big State Farm barbecue at Bill's house last night. 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.
Starting point is 00:00:38 They're local to you and available to help. Whether you connect in person by phone or through the State Farm mobile app, agents are here to help. So go with the one that has coverage and agents you can count on. State Farm, talk to an agent today. Talk to one. Yeah. Even if you don't think you need it right now, just, hey, man, what's new with you, State Farm agent?
Starting point is 00:01:01 A lot of agents being talked to today, right? Trade deadline coming up tomorrow. Look at that segue. I know. You're getting so good i know getting so segue into a segment we're not prepared for no i don't leonard leonard williams did just get uh dealt right before we we uh got on the phone and he's headed to new york by the way can i ask you a question about that because leonard williams who i think is good you know he's the high pick out of USC, was really good at USC. I don't watch a ton of Jets games, but he's definitely a guy you notice. He's different. He's probably like one of those best big body guys looking wise. So maybe that
Starting point is 00:01:33 tricks me into him. But then it's like, if everybody is asking you about Leonard Williams, shouldn't that tell you that maybe you shouldn't want to trade him, especially when he's young, it's not even on his second contract. But if the counter is that they're in the building, don't think he's that good, or they don't want to pay him, then it's like, well, you shouldn't have paid Le'Veon Bell all of that money anyway, even though I know you had to use your cap space. I just don't understand, but I never want to assume I know more than the team that's actually making the decision.
Starting point is 00:01:58 No, I don't either, and I think Joe Douglas is good at what he does. I think that they're being intentional with whatever they're doing. I was scratching my head when I think that they're being intentional with whatever they're doing. I mean, I was scratching my head when I heard that they might deal Robbie Anderson. That's been kind of Darnold's best option. But of course, they don't want to pay him. So it's never a conversation that's as simple as, hey, this guy's not good enough. Leonard Williams is a good football player. I haven't watched him a lot this year, admittedly a big like jets um sunday not must watch right yeah yeah no no disrespect but um i think what it is with leonard is that he's a tweener
Starting point is 00:02:32 um you know he's not an edge rusher he's not a prototypical three technique he's a guy that can do a lot of different things and he's also played on a bad team for his entire career. So the misconceptions about players that are high picks and play on bad teams, they can follow guys. Okay, yeah. And the other one I just want to give every fantasy guy out there a heads up. Kenyon Drake, look out. Alert. He's on my team.
Starting point is 00:03:00 He's on my team. Yeah. No, he sucks at fantasy. And for the last couple years, every fantasy draft rankings had him as a first-round pick. And he was a nice, multi-dimensional offensive player at Alabama. You can blame it all on Miami if you want to. But there's certain guys that fantasy falls in love with, and then it completely skews who they actually are as a real NFL player. I remember having a huge argument with Van Pelt one year about the top five running backs
Starting point is 00:03:29 in the NFL and he was like Eddie Lacy's fifth I'm like Eddie Lacy's not and never will be the fifth best running back in the league but he was going fifth as far as running backs in fantasy so everybody was a huge Eddie Lacy fan for a little while oh yeah i mean i remember eddie lacy i remember the eddie lacy heyday um but i i think uh what i'm hoping is that drake being moved moves the line north of uh 14 tonight and that uh dolphins minus 14 hopefully turns into 15 and that's looking like a snack wait a a minute. I'm going to go ahead and guess that they're not favored by 15 points. No, I'm sorry, plus 15. If it moves to plus 15, which probably not a good start
Starting point is 00:04:14 when I can't get that right, but I kind of like the Dolphins tonight. All right, good. Good stuff. Eddie Lacy, by the way, people are going to come at me and be like, 1,200 yards, 11 touchdowns, his rookie season. And he backed it up with another 1,000-yard season. But I just, sorry. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 00:04:31 Where is he now? I'm not being sarcastic. He hasn't played since 2017. Yeah, so, I mean, he's out of the league. Running backs. Short shelf life. Really hard to tackle, though, that guy up in Green Bay. Very cold, very large man
Starting point is 00:04:45 okay so here's the plan we have headlines best and worst plane rides we've got five questions we get a history lesson we're gonna do normandy i haven't finished the book yet but it's just gonna be kind of a first half recap of what went down on the beach that day uh you know look i'm far from an expert i'm halfway through a book on it so we'll just is it stolen valor for you to talk about this because i haven't finished a book yet well i mean you haven't finished the book you weren't technically there i definitely wasn't there no uh i do know how the story ends so i feel like even though we're only gonna i just i'm gonna share some tidbits and it's up to it's up to the world that listens to this podcast to decide what they want to do with those.
Starting point is 00:05:27 So backup QBs, Aaron Rogers, his performance. We have all these things, maybe even a little time travel in there. I'm excited about all of them, but let's just go ahead and start as we do each week with your biggest headline. Maybe a little time travel. I love that casual time travel reference. Just throw it in. We will get to that in the spirit of Bill and Ted.
Starting point is 00:05:45 My headline this week, obviously in the spirit of being a homer, I want to gloat the Eagles looked really good yesterday. I think it is about the Eagles doing some things right, but I also think it's about the Bills being pretenders as well. The Bills have been living off of this Patriots close game, and I think that's going to end up looking funny in the light for a few reasons. But I also think that the fact that the Patriots generally
Starting point is 00:06:11 don't play the Bills well, and Tom hasn't played the Bills well over a span of years, overrated that close loss. And when you're hanging your hat on a close loss in the NFL midway through the year, that's not real good. So more of the same for the Eagles. Jim Schwartz's defense playing well against bad quarterbacks. Final six possessions. Josh Allen, three of 13 for nine yards. That's really bad. Scrambles hurt him a little bit, especially in the red zone. You know, on that Cole Beasley touchdown, the rush lanes weren't great. I think
Starting point is 00:06:40 Josh Sweat ran up the field. Allen runs up the middle, pulls the defender off Beasley. He's able to drop that little dump into him to the end zone. Fletch and BG stepped up, though. I think that was the biggest thing defensively for them, holding them at 13 points, was right off the bat. First third down, Fletch gets a strip sack. First of the year, he's playing hurt. He's not a guy who it's taken time to come off that surgery he's coming back from. BG
Starting point is 00:07:05 forced a fumble and recovered at same play. Nate Gary played well. But I got to gloat about Carson, right? That's been the topic of discussion this week. He played well, 17 to 24, 11 straight game with a passing touchdown. A lot of people were kind of hitting the panic button on him because he didn't play well in Dallas. 104 rating last night in bad weather against that defense that everybody thought was really good. But the whole key was 218 yards rushing. Most since Doug's been there, they figured out that Miles Sanders
Starting point is 00:07:37 is their most explosive offensive player in the absence of Deshaun Jackson. And they stuck to the run game. First and second down, they're real formulaic with it. We'll see what happens. Trade deadline coming up. They still need a D tackle. I think Williams would have been a nice target for them. They still need a corner. They could look at a Robbie Anderson, but they're not out of it, right? Not as big a win as people might think, but a good day. Yeah, not out of it at all. And if you look at last year, starting three and four,
Starting point is 00:08:06 finishing up at six and three, that's what everybody's going to be looking at. But I thought it was really disappointing for Buffalo because Buffalo is going to go into the half with a lead. Josh Allen fumbles on third and two, gives them the 20-yard field, and then all of a sudden you've been dominant defensively against an Eagles team that is still Carson Wentz,
Starting point is 00:08:22 and then you're down at the half. And as I'm watching, I'm like, ah, here we go. But as you mentioned Sanders, and then there was that huge third and 10 conversion that Carson got on his own, where I'm watching that going for everybody that wants Carson to change the way he plays. He's going to have to have like seven ACLs blown out before he does. I just don't think he's going to be any different. I don't think his mindset's ever going to be any different than that.
Starting point is 00:08:41 So I think he's always going to be susceptible to injury. But when you look at Buffalo defensively, it's a really good defense. They were super impressive, but they're not great against the run. They haven't been great against the run most of the season. And seeing Sanders bust out and then the other guy getting it going.
Starting point is 00:08:55 So I actually think even though we can sit there and go, Bills, are they really that great as a record? I don't think anybody's arguing that. But it's a good win up there against that defense, especially with what they did in the second half, because they blew that game open when it was a struggle. So, and, and, and the biggest thing for the Eagles has been balanced. They haven't committed to the run game until now, seemingly.
Starting point is 00:09:14 Um, and like I said, if you look at their most explosive plays of 30 plus yards, Miles Sanders has the vast majority of them. If you're looking at a guy not named to Sean Jackson. So glad they figured out that he's real good you saw earlier in the year he had fumble problems they still stuck with him that's that's the upside they seen on this kid until yesterday it was a lot of getting him isolated on on backers in the past game they gave him the ball more like I said they first and second down they ran a lot of really intentional run plays to set the tone three nothing they're
Starting point is 00:09:44 up early, right? Yeah. I mean, that's a big deal for them because the deficits have been bad. So this is what happens when you give Carson an in-phase game and a run game. It looks pretty good. I'm going to go Pats defense, but it's more really about the Browns is my headline in Freddy Kitchens because this keeps happening.
Starting point is 00:10:01 All right, we know that Pats defense right now is averaging, they're they're allowing an average of 234 yards a game that's actually behind san francisco who i always surprises everybody as the new england guy that i always get blamed for being but i don't really care about the outcome of the pats games i like when you won when you're on the team i wasn't even mad when they lost because you get another super bowl there's other guys that i've liked on the team in the past i'm not doing this whole again, but part of me actually loves the fact that Brady keeps doing this, so that's kind of an interesting thing.
Starting point is 00:10:28 But when I watch San Francisco's personnel and New England's personnel, I prefer San Diego's. Or excuse me, San Diego's would be really difficult to see now because they don't play there anymore. That would be a tough one. That wasn't even a Chargers-San Diego slip. That was a Niners one. Weird. All right, but the Pats defense allowing 7.5 points per game,
Starting point is 00:10:44 but it was weird because Chubb got it going. I mean, Chubb, the fumbles were huge and monumental and the Browns had another bad turnover day, but Chubb was nine plus yards per carry in the first half. He ended up overall had a great game, but they were completely out of it. So the Pats defense historically is ahead of Baltimore by yardage and by points. And a lot of the points that the Pats have been allowing actually haven't been to offenses in the traditional sense. Been a handful of bigger plays and then some other stuff that's happened. But their schedule coming up now after week eight is at Baltimore, which I'm really looking forward to to see how they game plan Lamar Jackson. They're at Philly, Dallas, Houston, and then they're going to get Kansas City week 14 with Mahomes projecting to be back week 10. So this is now going to be – there's no point in this
Starting point is 00:11:31 where we're going to be like, hey, the Pats aren't good. We've all been exposed here. But is it the Baltimore Ravens defense? History, the numbers say yes, but my eyes say absolutely not, and we're going to learn that here very shortly. I've been saying this, and at this point, if you're one of the few people that are saying, Hey, let's pump the brakes on the, like historically, you know, we're putting every, we, we have this, this need to put everything in like exact historical context. You don't know who a team is, who a unit is, who a player is until after Halloween. That's kind of when seasons become the real deal.
Starting point is 00:12:13 And in New England, everything to that point is a preseason. So I think Bill would agree. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that the defense has a long way to go. I'm sure his 300th win last night, just how you drew it up against Cleveland, the team he got his start with. And I'm pretty sure he celebrated that by tearing into his defense for letting Nick Chubb run all over him a little bit, for Baker Mayfield being able to move the ball a little bit. If they're the best defense in the history of football, then we also have to say that Baker Mayfield's pretty damn good.
Starting point is 00:12:40 And Nick Chubb's pretty damn good. And Cleveland's pretty damn good, right? I'm okay with Nick Chubb. We can't do Cleveland's pretty damn good right I'm okay with we can't do we can't do this thing unless we're gonna do that yeah I'm okay with saying Nick Chubb is good Baker I'm not claiming anything what I'm saying is if you're saying that they are better than the Baltimore Ravens defense of folklore at this point from the early 2000s, then you have to acknowledge that Cleveland came in and other than turning the ball over for three straight plays in the first quarter, which is the first time that's happened in seven years,
Starting point is 00:13:14 I would have thought it would have been a lot longer. Evidently, there's a lot of bad football. They did a decent job on the ground, and Baker had his moments in a bad weather game. I took the under in that game, and it was scary. It wasn't a walk in the park. No, but if you're doing this, and I'm just kind of doing the devil's advocate thing here, because I know you're being sarcastic about you have to say the Browns are awesome
Starting point is 00:13:37 if we're saying the Pats are that kind of defense, but the Ravens gave up 39 points to Jacksonville week two that season that we're talking about this Ravens defense. And then they couldn't score. I mean, their own team, this is so unbelievable looking back because when they, when it kicked into October for that Ravens team,
Starting point is 00:13:54 they, they lost three games in October. The Superbowl champ Ravens lost three games. They scored three, six and six points. Right. Total. So that's, no no we're talking 15 points in three weeks lost all three of those games giving up 10 14 9 and then they got they didn't lose a game again so i'll just say this i'll just say this they've played the entire lineup from the 18 draft right and baker had the best game out of any of them against New England
Starting point is 00:14:26 in the worst weather. You know, you could probably... Sounds like you like Baker now. No, no. I don't. I'm just like, here's what we've done this year. The Pats are the best defense ever. Baker's a bust, right? So that doesn't compute yesterday, in my opinion, Baker had some bad moments. He also had some good moments. And, uh, and listen, the player coach relationship here at head coaching quarterback, 749 combined games between Bill and Tom.
Starting point is 00:14:56 Um, and 27 combined games for head coach and quarterback on the other side of it with kitchens and Mayfield. So, you know, the Pats, that's their 21st game.'ve beaten up on first and second year QBs.
Starting point is 00:15:09 There's like, there's no surprise yesterday, but just some of the leaky stuff that happened, which Bill will take care of. And again, it's not Halloween yet. So we really don't know what this team looks like, what it's going to look like after November and beyond. I just think we need to pump the brakes on everything that that's my takeaway is you know add some context to this whole thing pump the brakes on everything because i think bill would tell you that even after his 300 straight win
Starting point is 00:15:35 i mean the offense has been middle of the road they've actually regressed in some places i'm not gonna i'm not gonna bet against the pats in december because of that no no i'm not you know i think you're saying everything that's fair i think most people are actually saying this and yes if you're a pats fan you're going whatever dude numbers are the numbers and you know suck it so okay so so then to that pats fan would i say i don't even want to do that with you i don't even want because i can already see you like you get worked no no no no no no this is you doing the defense mechanism thing because you're a asshole as well.
Starting point is 00:16:08 I'm telling you, I think another team right now is a better defensive unit than New England's. You've heard me say that, right? No, no. Yeah, I heard you say that. You think San Francisco is a better defense than New England? Yes. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:21 I would say this, though. If you do the numbers and numbers thing, and of course this is a straw man thing, but it's not, it's not in the sense that if we say the numbers are the numbers, then you have to acknowledge that, that the goat is not playing well. And I don't like that because he's still the goat. And when it matters in November and December, when they figure out how they're going to play and who they are, I'm not betting against them. And another thing is, if the numbers are the numbers, you go, oh, well, look what Carson did up in Buffalo. Context matters.
Starting point is 00:16:51 And context matters in all this. It's going to matter in what September and October looks like. I don't care if you adjust all the bad quarterbacks they play for how the bad quarterbacks have played against other defenses. It doesn't matter to me. I think the reason that bad quarterbacks become bad quarterbacks have played against other defenses. It doesn't matter to me. I think the reason that bad quarterbacks become bad quarterbacks on steroids against the Patriots is because, no disrespect to the personnel,
Starting point is 00:17:11 the coaching and the scheme is that much better than everything else they're seeing. I want to talk a little Browns here because I rarely ever say, I know there's so much that I don't understand about a game plan. When people say after a game, oh, this guy got outcoached, I'm always like, what specifically did you see that you knew that one guy on the sideline couldn't hang with the other guy? Just because he went forward and fourth and one and he got stuffed? Because if they converted it and then you're going to say this guy actually did outcoach him because a guy blocked the right gap. You know, like all of these things are, I think, harder to actually see
Starting point is 00:17:48 for those of us that didn't play or didn't coach at a high level. But when I watch a Freddy Kitchens game, I see a guy who is confused. And for the results-based thing, well, he's new and he's younger and he didn't have a ton of experience running his own unit. That's like a quarter of the guys that have been hired in the last 13, 14 months. So he's right there with other people and not having experience with this youth movement or this lack of experience movement when everybody was just trying to figure out a way
Starting point is 00:18:18 to get the most out of their quarterback, which actually makes sense. Like when everybody who wants to knock Kingsbury, who's like the big protect the shield NFL guy going, you know, whatever, he sucked at Lubbock. Well, they still scored points down there. And that's what he was brought in to do. So they couldn't tackle anybody to save their lives the entire time he was there at Tech.
Starting point is 00:18:36 But he knew what he was doing with quarterbacks. And when he has Mahomes, when he has Baker, when he has Kyler, and a couple other guys that he's worked with, and they all seem to work out. Manziel didn't work out. But you see my point like that made sense so now when we go freddie kitchens doesn't have experience there's just dumb shit that happens and what happened at the end of that game is dumb and i don't feel uncomfortable saying that about somebody who knows still way more about football than i do but when it's fourth and 11 and you send the punt unit out there and then you
Starting point is 00:19:04 didn't really know what you wanted to do, the game's already over. So I try not to obsess on these moments where like, look, it's already decided, but you put yourself in a situation to have guys like me be like, do you actually not know what you're doing play to play? Do you not have a plan? Are you guys not communicating on the sideline here? So at fourth and 11, he's got his punt unit out there.
Starting point is 00:19:23 He decides, you know what? I do want to go for it. Whatever. What the hell? It doesn't matter, game's over, maybe we just keep this thing alive, get something out of it. So we'll take the false start instead of burning the last timeout, which again, I could even understand like not wanting to burn that timeout. But in the moment at fourth and 11, you hadn't made a decision because it looked like during the game, you thought fourth and 11, let's punt it. Wait a wait a minute fourth and 16 let's go for it now the reason that happened is even worse decision other than not understanding distance it wasn't him having anything ready and then the opi where it was to the left side and i
Starting point is 00:19:55 think it was beckham who got free wide open behind everybody and it was a little rub play you knew it was a rub play when the guy was that wide open they even said it on the broadcast and I'm sitting there being like challenge it challenge it and I'm up at Simmons place because we're taping this thing and I'm like he's going to challenge it he's going to challenge it and everyone in the room's going no come on and then they turn to him and Freddie's clutching the red little flag and I'm like so you're going to challenge this OPI that it's very clear it was and by the way if you haven't paid attention to the first eight weeks of how it's gone in this league, these aren't getting overturned. They're not getting overturned.
Starting point is 00:20:30 Not since week three, I don't think. Yeah, like it's not happening, man. And it's sometimes like that Mike Tice thing I'll never forget, the mad challenge. Like, I want to challenge this. You can't. Well, what can I challenge? You can challenge a spot. Well, I'm challenging it.
Starting point is 00:20:45 Because you pissed off about what was going on during the game. That's like me at the end of a Sunday trying to fire off on the Patriots under. And by the way, your dismay over that punt debacle damn near cost my family, you know, a little chunk of change. Oh, really? So I was pretty upset about that as well. It's going to be grilled cheeses this week? Yeah, I mean, it would have just been like mayonnaise sandwiches. And Waylon doesn't like mayonnaise, just like his dad.
Starting point is 00:21:12 I think there's that. And then I think, yes, he knows more about football than you. He probably knows more about football than me. But all coaches are not created equal in making decisions in real time. It's just like the officials know more than us, but we're sitting there on Twitter and we see slow motion replays. You know, it's like we have a vantage point and we have the time to digest it.
Starting point is 00:21:34 There's a lot going on. And to be a head coach in the National Football League, you need to have situational awareness, which by the way, the guy on the other side of the, on the other sideline has more than anybody in the history of the game. It's like automatic. He's a situational computer. And on the other side, as you mentioned, here's a guy that might know football. He might know offense. He might know scheme. He might be able to develop quarterbacks, but he's struggling situationally. Yeah. And that's it. And it's not even, it doesn't even need to be said, but I'm just following up
Starting point is 00:22:03 on what you said. I know how much more he knows. Actually, I don't even understand how much more he knows about the game than I do. But that's just bad. And your team has more penalties than anybody else. And now it's like he's calling out guys not holding onto the football more, which is fine, but it's kind of tough when the team has a bad look. And look, this Cleveland thing has just been a disaster because of the expectations, the excitement.
Starting point is 00:22:24 I don't care that Baker's in commercials. Guys can do fucking commercials and still play football. Yeah, say fuck. No, seriously, man. It drives me crazy. Like, yeah, he's in a bunch of ads. That means now what? Like, RG3 did a ton of ads, too.
Starting point is 00:22:35 You know why he ended up sucking? Because he couldn't stay healthy. It wasn't because he was pitching six-foot subs. You know what I'm saying? I should say six-inch subs. Was it six-foot subs? Six-foot foot subs six foot subs big in the DC area a lot of guys don't know that uh all right let's move on here because I don't want to spend more time talking about the Browns give me your best we'll go best plane ride worst plane ride yeah uh best plane ride for me would have been Eagles heading back down to Philly. Just such a relief. It's been a long week. And they get to gloat a little bit. And they got to feel good. They're going through a tough stretch right now. Then they got an easier stretch towards the end of the year with a lot of divisional games for all the reasons we listed, they're in it. I would have been sitting there with my buddy Dom from security. I would have been reminiscing about everything that happened
Starting point is 00:23:28 over the course of the day, excited to get back to Philly. And you get back early too. You can go out and party. You can go to Vesper or Buffalo Billiards, play some pool. That's where I would have been. Okay. That's a good one, but it's not the right one. It is the LA Chargers leaving Chicago
Starting point is 00:23:45 because after what happened to them last week where they thought they won the game, it was overturned, I think, correctly, by the way, and then Melvin Gordon fumbles at the one. And by the way, people dogging Melvin Gordon for, hey, we're still dropping the ball at the goal line where he tweeted that out, and then he fumbles. I know it's funny, and I know in a way you're like,
Starting point is 00:24:04 this is really good content, but it's funny and i know like in a way you're like this is really good content but it's very disingenuous and i know i'm a man screaming into the wind here but it just that's not what melvin gordon was tweeting about he was tweeting about guys dropping the ball the deshaun jackson yeah by the way did you ever ask hey deshaun how come you how come you did it a second time no I never I never played with Deshaun but I remember the kid I'll never forget the kid in the Utah game like from five six years ago yeah the Oregon Utah game yeah yes it was it was it was heartbreaking for the kid and like do you think anybody does this stuff on purpose first off I mean it's really dumb
Starting point is 00:24:41 but nobody's trying to do this by the way when you just said i remember being a kid what year you think that game was no i'm saying being a kid like being in college oh being a college kid okay i thought you were trying to reminisce i had money on i probably had money on that game i'm just i'd be shocked if you didn't to be honest at least 20 you know i want you at some point well you know what you won't ever do that but that would be a great sit down with deshaun be like okay you did it once but you did it a second time too okay all right so the melvin gordon tweet that ran is over but those guys after everything to beat chicago um the bears thing by the way have fun with that what did you think of
Starting point is 00:25:21 matt naggy after the fact going we weren't going to get more yardage because we're not throwing and when the team knows you're not throwing you can't run, which I was like, man. I like that strategy if it's a 30-yard field goal, but not when it turns into a 41. In Chicago? Yes, you've
Starting point is 00:25:39 already dealt with what you dealt with last week or last year. I mean, like, the stakes are too high, brother. HB hb dive on madden i'm um again not a d coordinator but it is still possible to line up and block other guys and get a couple more yards like as you as you look back at your career as a dn was there ever a time where you knew it was a run and the other team still got yards yeah i mean it happens routinely for eight years in st louis we were in a perpetual defensive four-minute mode which for people out there who don't know what the four-minute mode is it's when uh you know the opposing offense is up and they're trying to pound the ball uh there were a lot of situations we never got the ball back so yeah so it is possible to
Starting point is 00:26:25 gain yardage even if the defense knows oh yeah i have a phd in that i have a phd that's what i thought too yeah because i'm telling naggy is is walking a real tight rope although at chicago and i'll say this to the youngsters out there if you're thinking about where to move there's no city where attractive women will talk to regular guys as consistently as the city of chicago like new york true new york don't even bother are you are you a regular dude uh yeah i think i'm a regular dude so what are you uh i know we don't like rating because it's we don't't like rating people. What are you on a scale of one to 10, bro? Oh yeah. Looks wise.
Starting point is 00:27:08 I, I've had a, I think my, I think a lot of things about me are, are like great variants, you know? Yeah. I mean, you've had years where you were probably more of a, a low round pick. Yep. Absolutely. Where you weren't sure what was going on up top. Yep.
Starting point is 00:27:27 The hair thing was an issue. Button downs with t-shirts under them. Yep. Yeah. But that's how you did it. That's how you did it in the late 90s, early 2000s. No, this was, I think this was early 2000s. So, and all things, I want to put my cards on the table.
Starting point is 00:27:48 so and and all things i want to put my cards on the table i'm like a i'm a seven bro but like i'm rich and i'm tall that's all there is to it we might need to cut that up for future yeah you're you're rich and you're tall you're better than a seven though because the makeup room at espn absolutely it freaked out no no it wasn, it wasn't covering up for you, but I got a couple. After you left the makeup room, there was a few inquiries of like, who's this Thor guy and what's his story? I'm like, he has a lovely wife. Poor man's Thor. Yeah, poor man's Thor.
Starting point is 00:28:19 What's up with Helmsworth? Like just North Florida cousin. Oh my God. What's up with boot, Helmsworth, like just North Florida cousin. Oh my God. What's up with this guy? I know that I'm not a, and you're a hard, you're a hard critic. Like I've sent you pictures and you'll be like, I don't know. You know? So I, I learned to not feel bad when I know you don't think I'm attractive, but I'm very
Starting point is 00:28:39 good at finding I'm like Bill Belichick of looking at people's Instagrams. Yeah. You'll see a gum line that's off and it's just, it's over if there's a cankle and I'm talking men and women. You're just. Yeah. I mean, like, it's just, I can find, and I, and I look at myself with the same critical eye.
Starting point is 00:28:55 Yeah. You know, Rosillo as a background has, you know, over the years with dating situations been like, Hey, check, check out my new flame. And I'm like, uh, you seen her right ear. Have i'm like uh you seen her right ear have you seen have you seen her right ear look what's that right ear doing yeah yeah i remember one in particular you were like jeans are those boot cut jeans you even said once you were like you could do better than that and i was like what like okay um now again also Now again. Also, I don't want it to seem like personality is the most important thing. Not really.
Starting point is 00:29:29 It's the biggest factor in long. No, I'm just telling you as a married man, my wife is not only beautiful, but she has a great personality. And if she didn't have a great personality, I don't think we'd be married. I'll put it this way. If somebody tells me they think I'm hot, I'm sort of thrown off, but I've also been called repulsive. So that's my deal. That's my life. I try to stay in shape. I try to pay the bills. I try to take care of the little things like having a clean house. So that's what I bring to the table. But I also-
Starting point is 00:29:59 You try to take care of the little things like having the entire restoration hardware fall line up in your house on a regular basis. I've been to many of your houses. They always have the most plush linens and repurposed suitcases that become coffee tables, seashells. The only downside is that I may book a trip to Positano and you're going to be like, Oh, who are you going with? Like just me.
Starting point is 00:30:30 So, okay. All right. Back to the flights. Cause the worst flight ever. Now my flight back from Positano is pretty good. Um, what do you got?
Starting point is 00:30:39 Worst flight? Oh, I have, uh, I have the Panthers man. And, um, just, I never, listen, listen I I talked about this on on my little YouTube channel shameless plug uh with Stanford Steve I was like yeah I'm all over this
Starting point is 00:30:56 is Friday I'm all over the uh the under in this game and then Saturday I did a little digging and I I saw some factors that we can get to in a second that made it less surprising to me how a 50-burger was laid on the Panthers. But if you're the Panthers, you're thinking, hey, we kind of got something here. We're pretty good as a team. This backup quarterback's good. When Cam gets back, we're going to roll. And then you run into a team that is going to be the class of the NFC, and you're going to have to beat anyways if you're going to try to make a run and you realize how far off you are. And then you have to fly all the way home across time zones, you get back really late.
Starting point is 00:31:33 Bad. All bad. The only one I think I could put in that would be the Broncos because you felt like you were right there in control of the game and then Brissette makes two plays that are nuts. I thought the horse collar was a bullshit call, and I'm really tired of this thing where every single tackle on your team's sideline, if it's your player, any incomplete pass, it's 20 guys in khakis screaming for a flag every time. And the officials, if you did this and you ran percentage of late hit flags
Starting point is 00:32:07 on that team's sideline as opposed to the player who maybe the late hit was on on the opposing sideline, there is no doubt I would bet money that it is a higher percentage of flags on that player's own team's sideline. And the Colts' sideline,
Starting point is 00:32:21 I'm not blaming them for doing it. It works, but it's super annoying. And I think that led to a field goal and also Flacco complaining about, you know, and look, this whole Denver thing has been really disappointing, but Flacco bitching about their offensive play call third and five. He's like, look, let's try to get a first down here. You know, let's, let's try to get into the field goal range. Let's figure something out here. And instead we're just so conservative. Now the counter to that could be like, Hey, Flacco play better. And then maybe the offensive play calling will trust you a little
Starting point is 00:32:47 bit more but that's where i'm at on worst flight yeah i i could see that i just think they had um less to lose yeah totally you know what that's a really good point because as you pointed out with carolina you think you're close you think you're there you've got this good defense kyle allen's been playing terrific and can can I do the Kyle Allen thing here real quick? Cause this may be good. Let's do this. Cause I want to do Aaron Rogers here. We'll do Rogers and cheese. Cause the late game last night, Rogers has a few more of those throws where you're just like, here we go. But a nice aside sort of transition in a map more is the backup thing. And is with Baker last year coming into this year, I'm like,
Starting point is 00:33:27 I don't know if he's a star. Like, I need to see more. I almost need a year plus. I'm still sitting here with Garoppolo going, I don't know. I think I know. I know he's been a little better. But the defense in that rushing attack, like, how good does he have to be in that game yesterday?
Starting point is 00:33:40 And you know what? Maybe we already have our Garoppolo answer, and we should stop asking the question. But Kyle Allen, who in his last four games has averaged about 200 yards per game passing after his first game at Arizona, where he went 19 to 26, 261, four touchdowns, no picks. He wasn't throwing any picks, but then he threw three in that game yesterday. And now it's gone from who cares about Cam Newton it's Kyle Allen's job to now Kyle Allen screw this Cam's going to take back over I will never be accused of being a Cam guy I think the long play
Starting point is 00:34:12 I've been right about Cam the MVP year was a fluke year if you want to tell me it's all because of injuries then we're just not going to disagree about Cam the quarterback I was hoping he would ascend into that top five group he thought maybe that would happen after the Super Bowl. It's clearly that's not the neighborhood he's ever going to live in, but he never, I don't think anybody should have just said, oh, Kyle Allen, these four games, problem solved, ready to move on from Cam Newton. I didn't think Cam should have lost his job because of injury to Allen. And I don't know that it means it's automatic. He gets it back because Allen had one bad game. So that's my whole Cam Newton thing because I actually was a little, I guess there's probably people in the media, Chris, that dislike Cam far more than I ever imagined that people thought I did, but I wasn't ready to write him off as a
Starting point is 00:34:55 starter in Carolina. And it seemed like a lot of people were. No chance. I mean, to me, the only way it's even a conversation about what happens the rest of the year is if Cam is not 100% and Kyle Allen went out and just picked apart the Niners' defense, which obviously didn't happen. Listen, the Niners are built from the back down. Their DBs, I know we've talked a lot about the front, their DBs have been like glue. And it has slowed the clock for opposing quarterbacks. If you look at a lot of numbers, you'll see, and I'm not hating on the D-line in San Francisco. I
Starting point is 00:35:33 love watching them. I think Nick Bosa is as polished a base defensive end as I've seen come into the league in a while. Three sacks yesterday, but I mean, you look at his sacks, and again, I've been on the Bosa train like, hey, let's not look at the sacks. Let's look at all the disruption he's created. But one sack yesterday fell down. It's a hustle coverage sack. Then there's a 12, 13 drop target, a 12, 13 yard drop target sack. And then, uh, you know, there's another one where he's running a game, uh, a T E and the ball is pumped. He jumps in the air and hustles for another one where he's running a game, a TE, and the ball is pumped. He jumps in the air and hustles for another one. The coverage is great, and the D-line is good. And, you know, Allen really didn't have a chance yesterday. Another thing about that game was Carolina's defense, and this
Starting point is 00:36:16 is what I found out later in the week after I idiotically was on the under. Luckily, never pulled the trigger. Carolina's defense is really bad against run-first teams. You get that safety in the box that gets susceptible to play action, and Niners do both well. Now I'm a believer in the Niners. Not that I ever thought Carolina was that good. In fact, I was wrong about one thing with Carolina. I thought it would be a disappointing year for them because of Cam's health. I thought Cam would get hurt. It was an inevitability. I wasn't wrong about that. I didn't know that Kyle Allen would hold up for a month plus. And I think Kyle eventually ends up being somebody starting quarterback. But this isn't the time. You want to win a playoff game, put Cam back in. The only thing that I worry about there is how good Christian McCaffrey's been productivity-wise
Starting point is 00:37:02 with the ball under center. And that's the big difference. Cam doesn't take snaps under center. They got to figure out ways to incorporate more of that maybe. I don't know. Might be a little late in the game, but Christian's been really good with the ball snapped under center. And that's something you've noticed with Kyle under center more because of McCaffrey. Well, yeah. I mean, the numbers show it. That's really good. to like compliment you in the middle of the podcast but that's like an amazingly good point to pay attention to well let me make sure it's true i mean i i i found it in my notes too about two weeks ago um i was reading something where the numbers were off the charts good for christian and um a lot of the metrics for his
Starting point is 00:37:41 his success uh were predicated. Well, not predicated on, but they were improved upon in under center situations. And I think with these quarterbacks, you look at Minshew to Danny Dimes to Kyle Allen to Kyler. You have to forecast out a regression. Minshew had a regression. I don't know if people notice because of the mania. And I like Minshew. He's like a mini Russell Wilson. I don't want to say poor man's. It's a slight, but being the poor man's version of possibly the MVP isn't a bad thing. He had a few games where he was hot, and then he got cold. Danny Dimes started off gangbusters.
Starting point is 00:38:20 He's had his moments. Kyler, there's more dimensions to figure out there, he's had his moments kyler there's more dimensions to figure out there um but he'll have his regression at some point and kyle allen i anybody would have had a regression against that defense yesterday good point on minshu too because that is absolutely lost in all of this um that i've continued to watch it and i think the poise long hey, can he be a starter? That's the best part of the answer right now for him. But lighting the league up, like he's a top-ten guy, that's not what he's doing. And that's why I'd still sit there at the end of this year going, okay, what do we have with Minshew?
Starting point is 00:38:56 Do we have somebody who's going to get that second big contract and be the answer for 10 years at Jacksonville? Because I think that's what everybody's always trying to do with these guys. And honestly, that's not what happened. Daniel Jones is crazy in that the start of the game yesterday like up here we go again like this guy's actually been sneaky a disaster and all the turnovers he's had since he's actually stepped in full-time I believe he was leading the league in giveaways at the position yeah and then he kind of came back and fought back a little bit and made some
Starting point is 00:39:22 plays where you go okay you know I'm not I'm not going to call this guy a disaster but the same concerns about him afterwards so you know all this stuff is that's why i have a hard time ever going okay i've seen this guy four games done you know and that was always my garoppolo thing the one loss record was totally totally confusing and i go how are you guys all this sure about this like why am i why do i feel like i'm the stubborn one all the time but i'm the stubborn one because the stubborn one ends up usually being long-term right about these guys more often than not. All right, I got an ad read for you, and then we get some
Starting point is 00:39:52 more stuff coming up, including let's just do a little love for Aaron Rogers. We have worst team to be a fan of history less than a bunch of other things coming up. But first, I want to tell you about ZipRecruiter because Cafe Altura's COO, Dylan Miskiewicz, you've been hearing about this guy. He's absolutely crushing it lately.
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Starting point is 00:41:15 Hold on. Reed's on it. Reed's here. He's on it. Another thing is, I'm glad this isn't a coffee ad. I just want to point out that caffeine is a drug and it's poison. I don't know. I still don't know if I want you to say that right after we just did a thing about a coffee director.
Starting point is 00:41:33 You can cut it if you want. But it's true. Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers. Not on drugs. All natural. All natural. Bro, it is so fun to watch this dude.
Starting point is 00:41:49 And I feel like we've gotten so enamored with everybody else. He looked really focused last night. And I don't know if it's because he's in Patrick Mahomes' house, who everybody respects, including A-Rod, I'm sure. State Farm guys. State Farm guys. I mean, yeah. But I'm sure he gets tired of hearing there's no
Starting point is 00:42:07 one else that can make this throw that's become almost like a meme like there's nobody can anybody else make this throw and obviously there was the throw in the corner in the end zone which for minutes i i wasn't sure he he he threw on purpose different angles showed me he knew exactly where he was throwing the ball so you thought that was a real throw, that corner back right corner? At first I didn't, but then seeing the I don't know if it was an all 22, but seeing where his eyes were
Starting point is 00:42:33 and seeing that route develop, he put it perfectly in the corner of the end zone. And the night started for me as Waylon was still awake watching the game and my wife's in the other room with Luke and I just screamed because he hit that and my wife's in the other room with Luke and I just screamed because he hit that third and nine bomb in the first quarter
Starting point is 00:42:49 and my wife runs in the room and she's like, what's wrong, what's wrong? And Waylon's like, a football man throwed the football very far. That's what he said? A football man throwed the football very far. Hey, real quick, are you going to name
Starting point is 00:43:05 your third son Chase or Dierks? Don't try to talk me into committing to having a third kid on the air. You want to have a third one, don't you? Personally,
Starting point is 00:43:17 I'm on the spot here. Is this like the State Farm hot seat question? It is. Just got real hot. Not at the moment okay love my kids but you know mandazone is not not where i want to go okay i'm just i just think that you know there's still there's still a couple maybe blake for for a kid's name it's definitely not
Starting point is 00:43:39 gonna be blake i i i had suggested bruce at one point my wife looked at me like i'd I had suggested Bruce at one point, and my wife looked at me like I'd – like Bruce is a terrible name. Is it Bruce Hornsby, UVA guy? Well, he's a Virginia guy. Bruce Hornsby shot baskets at my house. Yeah, Bruce Hornsby showed up to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. Nobody went to that thing. The high school in Portsmouth, Virginia was like one of the first pre-draft things.
Starting point is 00:44:04 It's still going on. Bruce just rolled in and started high-fiving Kevin McHale and Bird and everybody. It was funny when I met him, when my dad introduced me to him, I was like, oh, that's the guy from the Tupac song. But there's a lot
Starting point is 00:44:20 more to Bruce Hornsby, and he's super cool. You ever hear him do a cover of China Cat? Arrow Mountain? No. Oh yeah, I got some. I'll get it to you. I'm a big Bruce Hornsby guy. Anyway, I feel like we got a little lost there. Alright, not a third kid.
Starting point is 00:44:36 Bruce Hornsby, shout out. Back to Aaron Rodgers, all natural. But what I learned last night is what was reinforced to me was Reed is a great play caller. Him and Peyton are unbelievable. Sean Peyton, of course. Not great on the fourth down, depending on who you ask.
Starting point is 00:44:53 Analytics crowd was, they wanted to cancel Andy Reid because he didn't go for it on fourth and four with five to go. But by the way, they've been very good in those situations on third down and fourth down all year. You kind of just jump in there though. I think defensively at that point and what Kansas City did, and I have this theory about games, like the better team coming in, we thought it was Green Bay because Mahomes is out and because of Kansas City's injuries. And I always feel like the better team goes up 14-0 because they're like, we're better, we're prepared, we know we're better than these guys.
Starting point is 00:45:23 And then it's like, man, we are better than these guys. And then the other team just inevitably gets back into it. I feel like that's half of the games in the league. But if you go down the line, no Frank Clark. We already know about Mahomes. Chris Jones not being in there against a rushing attack that they had held in check for a
Starting point is 00:45:40 while. Jones was more in the passing game. But when Chris Jones isn't out there, we've said it before, especially like that Colts game, you you're like it's different when he's not there Fuller's missing and they're also missing their left tackle Fisher and then Okafor missed time there so at that point those are significant injuries I know Devante's out of that game too for Green Bay fans are getting mad that they're not getting recognized for their injury yeah but it's not it's not the same it's not the same so I would think in that spot and i'm not i'm just bringing it up because i think it's valid at that point are you even built
Starting point is 00:46:10 through the attrition of an nfl game are you built to stop green bay's four minute offense there and clearly you weren't so there you go no you weren't and and so that's that's where that's what factors into that you can like numbers and analytics are great, and I'm learning them, but there's always a side of it that deserves some context. And, you know, context for me, looking at it, was I looked at all the third and fours or so that, you know, the Chiefs have had this year, and they've done really well. Actually, third and three or less, they've had, you know,
Starting point is 00:46:44 a bunch resulting in touchdowns even. They've averaged about eight yards of play in situations like that. So you could extrapolate that in that situation, they'd probably be successful. And that's the whole thing is Reed is a great play caller, but a lot of these older coaches are not getting on the analytics train in fourth down situations. But A-Rod, again, 7-0 now against Spags. That spans a playoff game, three Giants games, and now Kansas City, 300 yards and three touchdowns, two weeks in a row. That's the first time anybody's done that in Packers franchise history,
Starting point is 00:47:21 but he's done it six times. So, like, this guy's a machine, bro. And I know that people try to twist numbers and say that he's not it six times uh so like this guy's a machine bro and i i know that people try to twist numbers and say that he's not the same players player he was anymore but i took packers money line last night and i felt so good like my heart didn't even elevate like my heart rate was just 58 beats per minute the entire time heart rate though just as an aside i do yeah High 40s. Are you serious? It's high 40s just sitting around?
Starting point is 00:47:49 Yeah, if I'm like really resting. That's impressive. Yeah, dude. A lot of cardio until I started doing podcast shit and now it's probably at 60 or something. But yeah, I mean, the way they've used the running backs this year, it's been huge.
Starting point is 00:48:06 LaFleur and Aaron are figuring it out. You know, Aaron Jones, big night. Everybody knows that. But I think more than anything, what I'm looking at is the Chiefs stepped up. The Chiefs aren't out of it. Reed's a great play caller. Matt Moore off the couch dueling it out with Aaron Rodgers. Great storyline.
Starting point is 00:48:24 But I remember in 16 when I was with the Pats, we went to Pittsburgh, and I think they were starting Landry at quarterback. Landry Jones. And you're thinking, okay, yeah, we're a team that's going to win the Super Bowl, right? We're intending on it, and it ended up being true. That was a dogfight for quite a while.
Starting point is 00:48:42 So I wouldn't look at this and say, hey, the Packers, you know, they could barely squeak by a backup quarterback. I'm looking at this as a quality win, quality win for them. Good stuff. I have nothing else to add on that. We have fun stuff planned, but before we do that, I want to do two things with you here. The Giants had a players-only meeting, and I've never been involved in players-only meeting. I remember being kind of a loser Red Sox fan back in the day, and if they lost like four in a row, I'd be like, why don't they just have a players-only meeting? And it
Starting point is 00:49:13 was always like this thing that you felt like from the outside a team had to do. And I want you to now tell us, because I think I know what your answer is. We haven't talked about it, but you were fired up to talk about the concept execution and your experience with players-only meetings. Well, players-only meetings are not created equally, right? They're only as good as your leadership. And sometimes in the NFL, you have leaders who are trying to kiss ass and it's more about, hey, coach, I'd like to get the team for a little bit. And the coach is like, okay. I'd like to get the team for a little bit. And the coach was like, okay, I like that. You know, I like that C on your chest. Like you're a leader. And then there's guys that they pick the right spots and they know when and when not to have one. And when they get in there, it's a forum.
Starting point is 00:49:57 It's not just me talking at you. It does anybody have anything to say? Why don't we talk about this? You know, it's a few guys usually standing at the front of the auditorium. You know, if I was in Philly, it would have been something like, you know, leaky pipes, all these anonymous sources, like speak up, you got something to say, speak up or don't say anything else again. And if you say anything else again, we're going to find out who it is and you'll be the fuck out of here. Like that's, that's the meeting I would have had. Now people were hammering Malcolm Jenkins at his locker about, Hey, does this team need to have a players only meeting? He's like, I haven't had a players only meeting since I've been here. And people freaked out about that.
Starting point is 00:50:35 They're like, well, if you're a leader, you should have a players only meeting. I hear it works. Do you think he's going to tell you if he had a players only meeting? So it can become a headline like players only meetings are supposed to be players only. That does not include the media. It doesn't include the Philadelphia inquirer. It doesn't include, you know, NBC.
Starting point is 00:50:55 It includes the players. So there are not, they're not all, all created equal players, only meetings. Uh, you know, there's ass kissers and there's guys that really want to make the team better and you got to pick your spot um and i think that that's difficult but
Starting point is 00:51:10 they're not the cure-all listen on a lot of those rams teams i was on players only meeting you could add a hundred of those things not gonna help here's here's what i'm always fascinated by team dynamics and everything because I don't know. I always feel like a loser whenever I do this, but I just know my personality in that if, if I weren't contributing to a team, I would never want to say a fucking thing. Like I just wouldn't.
Starting point is 00:51:37 Um, right. And I've got to imagine that there's dudes in the room who then decide to start speaking up. And I'd imagine even at times being critical of other players. And it's like, if you don't have equity in that room, nobody wants to hear from leadership guy that hasn't made a tackle in six weeks because he's not even playing. And that's the hard thing. That's the hard thing about being
Starting point is 00:51:58 a captain is you not only have to be a good leader and captains, by the way, You not only have to be a good leader, and captains, by the way, are not necessarily your leaders. Captains are often voted on by coaches. Well, the quarterback thing is the dumbest thing ever. Kids on camp five weeks, and he's got a C, because if he doesn't have the C, then it's like, oh, what's going on?
Starting point is 00:52:20 Is this guy Connor Cook, which I brought up now twice, I think in three weeks. You're absolutely right about the captain things defensive guys I believe it offensive guys it's it's stupid to think that some 21 22 year old kid is going to be a leader even if he's a number one pick it's just not going to happen yeah I mean listen I was a captain once in my career in the prime of my career um because back in the day like when I was on teams when we were young they coaches would pick captains and then we'd vote and I got voted a captain and I got hurt a couple of years. And I would say this, I was an even more impactful voice in locker rooms later in my career when I didn't have a C on my chest. I was a new guy someplace.
Starting point is 00:53:00 Sometimes people get tired of hearing the captain's talk. You know, I know Matt Slater is a great leader, right? He's probably not the first guy you'd think of in new England, unless you're a new England fan. And evidently he addressed the team yesterday, the contents of which were teased out, but he's always a guy who's going to have the right thing to say. And as players, when you get voted captain or you thought of as a leader, you always have to take into account what you're doing on the field. And so that makes it even harder. You have to play well.
Starting point is 00:53:30 And sometimes you might play really bad and coaches are like, you need to talk to the team or you need to do this, that, and third. And you're like, I'm not comfortable doing that right now because I'm not pulling my weight. And I've been in situations like that. And I've also been in situations where coaches were trying to nudge me to be a leader and I could see the situation and say, I can't lead from the back. So let's see how the playing situation shakes out. You know, if I, if I'm playing a real role, I can help you, but I can't, if I'm, you know, just Joe vet, that's not my style. you know, just Joe vet. That's not my style. Um, so yeah, there, it's a really multifaceted conversation and it's never as simple as people think on the outside as evidenced by questions like, well, why don't you guys just have a players only meeting? That's like somebody in the stands at a little league game saying throw strikes, you know, it's just, okay, that sounds good. I'll give you a quick story. Um, that sounds good.
Starting point is 00:54:35 I'll give you a quick story that has nothing to do with a players-only thing, but it was a way to try to motivate. 2002, I always back in like, yes, we had the internet, but there was still a lot of things that we were doing in a way that would seem incredibly outdated now. But after- You had a lot of button downs. Tons of button downs. I mean, the Banana Republic, I'd be like, wait a minute, they've got a Banana Republic in a wide check and a small check, both gray with blue accents.
Starting point is 00:55:02 Well, I got to get these. I just got emailed a coupon. Like, I can't just buy. Who would have thought you'd graduate to joggers and cool graphic t-shirts? Yeah, because if we went back to that, although we really got sidetracked there when I called you Gainsworth. Yeah, I think that would be a weird combo nickname. But your nickname should be Gainesville Hemsworth. But.
Starting point is 00:55:23 Because why? but uh uh-huh because i because why because because i always think of like northern florida is like just a this is gonna sound bad but like i always feel like there's just like a like a tooth off of being like a beauty queen yeah so we'll just so you're saying i'm close that's good you're saying there's a chance yeah no i mean it's actually kind of a compliment but you know we'll just we'll just leave it at that. All right. Before we go down that wormhole, and go ahead and just let us know on our Twitter accounts
Starting point is 00:55:51 if you actually like that kind of content. Although your one quote is, I can't wait to cut that up as the teaser for this podcast here about yourself and your self-rating. Yeah. I was also thinking, should irresponsible question of the week be, is Pat Mahomes injured because he's doing too many commercials.
Starting point is 00:56:09 If Baker sucks because of commercials is Patrick Mahomes now have a dislocated kneecap because commercials. It's a good thought. It's just somebody else can steal that from us. If they want to, you can go ahead and go ahead and use that. Well, it might play on the big cable networks.
Starting point is 00:56:21 It might actually, I actually don't think I have anything left to say on it, but I'll share that Trenton story to make it quick. I had to print out all of the stats. I had to send the stats off to the Eastern League office
Starting point is 00:56:32 or fax it in. We'd take the box score, who did what, and every team had to do it, and that's the way it was done, right? You weren't emailing the stuff. You were actually printing it out,
Starting point is 00:56:41 faxing in your summaries of the box score and keeping score with baseball and yes i know how to pony express yeah right and then i'd have to go to both clubhouses which are the locker rooms and hand them out and it was i think the binghamton mets and i walk in and they had lost like three in a row and it was a four game homestand for the trenton thunder so binghamton's on the road they lost three in a row i think somebody got in tossed like you know it was just it was a shitty three games for him to start the thing and i walk in just pleaded out khakis another one of those button downs that i was super proud of and i hand them you know the stuff and you know
Starting point is 00:57:18 here's a guy's probably get still gonna dip in and they're used to some of the teams actually would have beers in the cooler like ready to go in the manager's clubhouse and i walk in my baseball what's that i wish i played baseball yeah they love to dip and then have beers immediately afterwards it's kind of just sounds like my daily daily routine so i i go in with my stack of papers and i hand it to the guy and he just starts going, oh, you again, this motherfucker. And he starts motherfucking me in front of the entire team. And like, guys are looking at me, you know, guys are mid-rud pull down, you know, just hanging out left and right. Some guys are nude. Everybody's just looking at me. And this guy is absolutely dressing me down as I walk in
Starting point is 00:58:01 to hand him the fucking stats. That's it. That that's all i'm doing i haven't even said anything i'm 26 and i'm like what you know and i turn away and i'm like what the fuck was that and it wasn't like i was gonna be a tough guy about it because it was so it would just it threw me off and i'm in a room of you know they're still athletes like i didn't you know i'm like what you you can't counter an argument you don't know what the criticism you have no idea what's happening to you because you know you've done nothing wrong like you're sitting there going i'm a hundred percent this is wrong but you're still young i've only been on the job a couple months you know if it happened to me in my 30s i would have not but i just took it i absolutely took it and it was weird because i just like you said i'm like what does this mean and then I ran into him because you'd still be around the park.
Starting point is 00:58:46 And then I ran into him. He goes, hey, we got our asses kicked the first three games. I'm really sorry I did that to you, but I was just trying to wake these guys up. And I'm like, well, let me know. Like, let me know how that goes, man, because that seemed like a great way to motivate a team of 20-something baseball players to yell at the guy bringing you the stat sheets that calls the game for the other team. Here's what I think you do. I think you just unannounced walking in the bangles locker room
Starting point is 00:59:08 this week just me and see what happens zach taylor just get cussed out by andy dalton dalton wouldn't do it and zach definitely wouldn't yell at me so no i know we got to pick another bottom dweller but i mean that could be like a service. Did the Thunder turn it around? Well, no, I was on. It was the opposing manager. I think it was Binghamton Mets. Oh, did they turn it around? I know that I've told this story before, and I believe the way I told it was I think they got smoked in the fourth game, too. Nothing happened. And then I think a catcher came up to me, and was like, hey, man, that was lame. And that was against baseball etiquette,
Starting point is 00:59:51 and there's a lot of baseball etiquette. You don't do that. You just don't do that. Opposing guy. He's like, get out of our locker room. I'm like, yeah, actually, I'm supposed to bring you these. You guys want them. Remember?
Starting point is 01:00:00 Remember that part where every stadium you go to, there's somebody from the home team that hands you your goal back? Let me summarize this. You guys have three errors. Yeah. All right, hey, guys, here's your stat pack. Didn't get any hits again, but we'll see tomorrow. Can you give me any insight on Michael Bennett's quick run with the Pats?
Starting point is 01:00:22 Yeah. And essentially, people probably forgetting he was even on the team because it was a completely applauded move. You're like, all right, let,
Starting point is 01:00:30 let, oh, come on. Flowers move on for big money. Yeah. And then sign a guy to short money for one year who should be just as productive
Starting point is 01:00:38 and then he was completely phased out. He wasn't playing. Yeah. Well, here's the thing about Michael Bennett. Michael Bennett and I played last year. Been a big fan of his game since he got in the league. Played together for the first time last year. We really, He wasn't playing. We have a lot in common. I rushed next to him. He's a really good inside rusher at this point in his career.
Starting point is 01:01:06 He can still bring it. But what Bill has decided is that he's going to build his teams from the back down. Rush is not important. It's about coverage. Unless you're a really generational rusher or you're a really, really effective rusher, he's not going to move things around to make things work for you. He's going to make the scheme work for him up front. And this isn't any disrespect to the guys up front there, but there's not a lot of guys that scare you winning rushes.
Starting point is 01:01:34 You know, their playmakers are at the second level and beyond. And that includes the backers who play on the ball sometimes. But Mike being more of an inside rusher, not an edge rusher, you know, he's sitting there running games on the ball sometimes, but Mike being more of an inside rusher, not an edge rusher, he's sitting there running games where he's waiting on two rookies or two young guys you've never heard of picking the center, and he's got to loop all the way around. Mike wants to get loose and wear guards out and rush all over the place. That's how he plays. I think at a certain point, you saw it with Chandler Jones. Obviously, to me, still one of the top five, seven rushers in the NFL. That might be a hot take, but if they're willing to part ways with him years back and seeing the way they've established this model, they're not going to do it for Mike.
Starting point is 01:02:21 He ends up in Dallas in a situation where I think they've already made the most impactful trade defensively and, or not trade. They picked up Robert Quinn. Well, they traded for him. What'd they get for him? Do you remember? It wasn't much. No, it wasn't. Um, I thought they stole Robert Quinn. I think in a sense they kind of stole, um, they stole Mike. But now they have, yeah, six-rounder. They have Quinney, who I think is going to be their Amari Cooper on defense this year.
Starting point is 01:02:50 I think you add Mike, that can only help. And then you have DeMarcus on the other side. Now the interesting thing is going to be figuring out how he fits in Marinelli's plans and style of play-wise, because Mike is a freelancer. Okay, but as you had mentioned, as we had talked about,
Starting point is 01:03:03 you played 15 snaps in the Super Bowl, right? When you won that with the Pats? 18. 18. Six pressures, playboy. 18. So that's a great pressure rate there. 33% pressure rate for you nerds.
Starting point is 01:03:13 Your pressure rates have never been fully respected. They've never been bad. No. They've never been bad and they're never respected. And remember one night you were out.
Starting point is 01:03:20 No, they've never been respected. Once our friend took it up another tier, our friendship took it up to another tier. Maybe we were like a tier two, a Matt Damon tier of friendship. I was like, I know you think I'm just saying this. I was like, but when I really do key on you, I was like, you collapse and then never get credit for what happens on the other side.
Starting point is 01:03:39 Like as much as anyone I've ever watched. I can't believe it. I was, I see, my thing is I was less of a big playmaker and more of a guy who was going to affect the game and help other people out. And, you know, I got my stats, but I understand when I was drafted at two, people want this splash player who's going to have 15 sacks a year.
Starting point is 01:03:55 Like, okay. I mean, that's just not me. You know, and yeah, I was always at the top of the league in pressures, which is why I say that you could look at Mike and, you know, everybody's tried to compare my stint in New England with Mike's. And I've gotten tweets about this, like, Hey, you just did your job. I'm like, well, it happened for me where I was not phased out, but my role was changed in the playoffs a little bit more because we were playing these big gap scheme teams and I was playing first and second down in a three technique. Mike was not getting the first and
Starting point is 01:04:29 second down reps. So for most of the year, I felt like I was in a groove, even if I was in a place that I wasn't happy inside. And then I kick outside on third down and they're restrictive on third down, but had it not been for the fact that I was playing inside so much, I probably would have never left. Um, and Mike's thing was he was never even getting those those snaps on first and second down and I think at some point I don't know what happened with him and and the D-line coach there was a what was the phrase used a philosophical difference yeah yeah right right that it was uh which is beautiful um I think after that and for by all accounts it was a really respectful breakup.
Starting point is 01:05:06 You know, it just didn't work for him and it didn't work for Bill. And there you go. And there you go. Like the Josh Gordon thing is, it's obviously something happened. And they go, you know, we're over this. We're not going to do this. And I think that's what was funny about the Antonio Brown thing. And maybe funny is not the right word to use about it.
Starting point is 01:05:21 But when Bill, who always says we'll do what's best for the team, the rumblings were that he actually still felt like it wasn't best for the team to cut Antonio Brown and move on from him. So they'll move on. We can think it's the end of the world, but if we've learned anything through this Patriots 20-year run
Starting point is 01:05:35 is that everybody is replaceable except for maybe number 12. A huge misconception here, Rye, is that every player that the Patriots discard or that don't continue on with the Patriots discard or that don't continue on with the Patriots and free agency or whatever are bad. I mean, we can do that another day, but there are a lot of players that have gone on to play well. And I think Mike will have some production down in Dallas. Okay. So we're going to have some fun here.
Starting point is 01:05:58 The history lesson that we're always, we haven't done it yet on this podcast, but it seems like people really like them. Or maybe that's because you know even less about it than I did before I read a book, and you think I'm smart, but I imagine some scholars on Normandy would be like, you're missing a couple things. So I'm going to go ahead and admit that ahead of time. But before I do that, DraftKings, I'm excited to announce that this episode is brought to you by DraftKings, a longtime supporter of mine here at The Ringer
Starting point is 01:06:25 and everything else we've done. So big shout out to those guys. When you're watching football every run, throw and catch mean more with the DraftKings lineup on the line. It's simple. Just draft your lineup, stay under the salary cap,
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Starting point is 01:06:53 Juju Smith-Schuster? Or maybe somebody from this past weekend? Give me a playmaker that you'd put in your DraftKings lineup. Let's just not say, yeah, let's not focus just Dolphins, Steelers. Give me something next week. I'm going to say Emmanuel Sanders. Emmanuel Sanders. That's right.
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Starting point is 01:07:47 Who wants to talk about World War II, kids? Our demo seems to. The book is Normandy 44. This is a James Holland. That book is thick with two Cs, boy. Yeah. Not low-key. This is high-key thick. It's not too bad. It's not too bad. Yeah. Not low-key. This is a high-key pick.
Starting point is 01:08:05 You know what? It's not too bad. It's not too bad. We're almost done with it. So, Normie, the great thing about this book is that they give you all the tactical maps.
Starting point is 01:08:14 You know, like, here's D-Day, here's Omaha, here's Sword, here's Juno, and all the different landing spots, Gold Beach,
Starting point is 01:08:23 and then how they move the Allied Forces line down from the shore. But there's a couple numbers here that I think are worth bringing up. You're cracking up right now. Why are you laughing so hard? Because you're digging through this thick-ass book trying to find facts. No, because this one thing there's been two pages in particular that absolutely blew me away and there's just moments
Starting point is 01:08:51 where you go back and read this stuff and you go you know i kind of understand why our grandfathers were the way they were and why they generally probably thought less of a lot of people because of what they had to put themselves through for at that time i think it was a very simple thing you go these germans are out of control and they're just invading everybody they think they're going to take over the world and i don't want to turn it into like sensitive discussion and how i'm supposed to talk about this but like every time you read about hitler i mean obviously there's tons of evidence he's one of the worst people ever, but he also sucked at being the commander of this German army. the ground and France is like overwhelmed and they run some bombing missions into the UK but it wasn't as effective as maybe you thought even though you know if you compare the bombing numbers like I'm not going to get too distracted here and then by the way they're also trying to like
Starting point is 01:09:54 take out North Africa and then they're also moving east and like taking over Russia and it's all like at the same time and when you just look at it all playing out you're going this seems like a lot this seems like you're doing a lot here all at the same time tact And when you just look at it all playing out, you're going, this seems like a lot. This seems like you're doing a lot here all at the same time tactically. And how sustainable is that? So at the start of the war, let's go September 39. Here's the number I'm citing here from the book. United States had an army of 189,000 troops. Now I'm sure you can look up a different number somewhere else with different enlistments, depending on what you want to look at here, but this is what's in the book and I've double checked it and it's all kind of in the same ballpark. So 189,000 troops, 1939, 72, 72, 72 fighter planes. Um, what was the army air core in 39? The U S had built 18 total tanks, all types, 18 tanks to the United States military in 1939. That's not a lot of tanks. We got to like, we got to, yeah, we got to have more tanks.
Starting point is 01:10:51 Not a lot of tanks, right? So at that point from 39 to 1943, you had 60,000 tanks and they built 27,000 tanks in 1943 alone. And the enlistment was somewhere around like 11 million people. Yeah. Like, think about that. So that is, you know, 60% were drafted, 30 something percent volunteered. You know, it's like 61, 39, so to add it up to 100%. It just basically was like, hey, okay, we're going over to fight this guy.
Starting point is 01:11:32 And you also have the Pacific area of World War II, but specifically to Normandy. What's that? They call it the theater. The theater? They call it the theater. That's good. The Pacific theater. That's very good.
Starting point is 01:11:44 Yeah. Thanks. Yeah yeah jump in at any point here but there's there's this part of like thinking of how the german army was able to do what they did as quickly as they did where you go oh these guys are really impressive right they're they're very impressive and what an unbelievable like formidable opponent and in fact when you read this book you're're like, these guys were morons. Absolute morons. So when everybody lands in Normandy D-Day,
Starting point is 01:12:11 it sucks because the first transports are bringing guys over in the boats, and you can see it in Private Ryan. It's like as soon as that front flap goes down, guys are just firing off rounds right at you, and then other guys are jumping over to the side of the boat to avoid bullets. And then they're drowning from the equipment.
Starting point is 01:12:27 And then they had these tanks that they thought that they could launch in the water and then drive right up onto the shore. And almost all of them sank because they guessed the tide wrong. And so even though you look at it in the first run, the first wave of troops are just walking into this awful, awful situation. are just walking into this awful, awful situation. Once they actually were able to establish themselves on the beach, they were able to overwhelm that front line of Germans by not just sheer manpower, but the British Navy, there was Canadian regiments that were incredible in this. There's so many different countries in the Allied forces
Starting point is 01:12:58 that collectively planned this out with these different landing points on the beach up there. And once they were able to get in, they were realizing that most of these german troops that were stationed up there were the least trained or the oldest and they were like the least fed so those guys are up there shitting themselves in these bunkers going look at these thousands and thousands of ships out there waiting for us and they'd already dropped a bunch of people um from the air behind those beach lines. So you're just looking at the math
Starting point is 01:13:27 and looking at a map going, there's going to be casualties on these first waves, but once it's actually established, they're going to run them out of all these spots. So the first attack, there's these Panzer tanks all over different bordering areas of France, and they didn't centralize them to one place.
Starting point is 01:13:46 When the first attack happened at Normandy, most of the German decision makers, and meanwhile, there was like a million of them who were never allowed to make decisions because Hitler would just be like, nah, I'm feeling this today. And he was on all sorts of prescribed drugs. So he was completely erratic and didn't listen to anybody. And they had all of these tank divisions that they wouldn't centralize where the attack was so they were just all over the place so it took them days to realize like wait a minute this is the real attack it's actually happening there's this one german commander who was missing because he got shit-faced the night before there's another guy that like was supposedly in charge of this entire group and he was with his mistress and
Starting point is 01:14:24 then they found him at his mistress' place. They're like, hey, it's happening, right? And there's like a D-Day going on. Yeah, like, we're busy right now, dude. And it's like, okay, let me just grab my pants and we'll head out. Oh, shit. Did you just see my dick? He's like, yes, sir.
Starting point is 01:14:39 There's a D-Day going on. You need to get outside right now. There's a bunch of ships, a bunch of planes. Put your dick away. The Americans are about to be kicking our shit in there's also a tank commander on the american side obviously named rambo which is where that all originated and he's mentioned in this book so just a shout out to anybody wondering about first blood part one i have a uh i have a normandy package that i won at an auction for boys and girls club about seven years ago i get to go to
Starting point is 01:15:03 this cool mansion in normandy and bring like eight people and i want it and it's just sitting there i need to go do you want to go yeah done i would i mean okay i couldn't be more into this thing because i've got to bring a date though you got to bring a date though all right well i'll see what uh i'll see what big cat's doing but but the point no because i'm bringing my wife man you can't like you can't just bust up the couple's trip with big cat all right that's fair but look i i know i'm rambling a bit here but i just i if there's one point that i'm trying to emphasize is that this german army was clueless, not prepared. And then while it was happening, it just couldn't adapt. And they had spread themselves so thin. They still think they're also going to invade Russia and take it over at some point. And they just sat and camped out in
Starting point is 01:15:56 the winter. And there's no, it would like, imagine the worst business you've ever worked for where sales guys are just selling products you don't even have. And then the boss who's supposed to keep everybody on the same page is changing his mind and firing and promoting guys at all different levels. So I'm not telling you that Normandy, like you grow up going, this is incredible. But like once these soldiers and the allied forces landed and they saw what they were dealing with, they're like, this is going to suck. It's going to be tough. And we're going and invading. And the military rule was three to one outnumbering them.
Starting point is 01:16:28 If you're going to go ahead and invade them. But once they started taking over these different German posts and realizing that a lot of the, like they would invade this stuff and then they would clear out everybody, take prisoners. Sometimes they wouldn't take prisoners and they'd find wooden bullets. And they're like, well,
Starting point is 01:16:44 those are for training. It's like, no, like the Germans were out of supplies and a big part of, right. And a big part of Normandy and all this invasion working. And then, you know, having to march through France to take this over was that there was so much prep done by the allied forces where they fought a modern war and Germany was not fighting a modern war. They were bombing the hell of supply lines different bridges train tracks left and right they softened them up as much as they possibly could but still knowing that you know pulling
Starting point is 01:17:13 into a harbor and flapping down a boat right into a barrage of bullets in these bunkers like those first waves of guys were like the bravest and yeah i will i will always say that there's one of the few truisms that's not exaggerated in american history is that those guys on that beach were the bravest people to ever you know like some of the bravest people in our military ever i mean i'm sure there's a ton of battles i don't know about but this is the most notable you know day that i wouldn't have it in me i mean i guess part of you is you never know until you're in that situation. You lived in that time period and whatever, but it's amazing that those people
Starting point is 01:17:50 were so convicted. And then additionally, the way you described the German army, it turns out that they sucked in every conceivable way. It wasn't just the ideology. It wasn't just the whole Nazi thing. It was that they just sucked ass at military stuff as well from your giant book. That's what I'm learning. Every few pages, there'll be another story, another anecdote. And this guy was the commander over here by this French village, but he actually was in Paris at a birthday party for his kid. And there was a line of miscommunication. And by the time he showed up, his regiment was completely wiped out. And you go, look, they were going to lose.
Starting point is 01:18:32 They were overwhelmed, the Allied forces. And if you want to just talk about the fight of right and wrong, there's a great motivation to be fighting when you know you're trying to right something here. We have guys completely out of control and one of the worst people in the history of this world. thing here where a guy's completely out of control and one of the worst people in the history of this world but um and it makes sense as you look back if you look back patriotically on like you know and there's some things i'm not so patriotic about but that's one thing that conflict you're like fuck yeah exactly that's a great way to end it because i i think there's always this thing with american arrogance which is accurate but how could you have not been really arrogant coming back from Germany, coming back from the Pacific and feeling like you were on the right side of the argument here and going, and we kicked
Starting point is 01:19:16 their asses and hanging out in the late forties and the economic boom in the fifties where like, it feels like the fifties are like the perfect generation. Um, and I'm not arguing that it is in, you know, but it's just, I get that mindset. So that's a good, that's a good segue into time travel. Actually. That's why I think back to the future went back to 1956. Right. Did they really, I'm more of a Bill and Ted guy. I know that's probably a hot take, but, if you could hop in that in that in that telephone booth um and go anywhere where would you go probably not to germany um to to invade it even though i do always kind of wonder it had to be done but i'm not going to get in the in the telephone booth and jump off one of those thoseges. No, no, not at all.
Starting point is 01:20:06 Into enemy fire. I'm actually, I mean, like there's a big case to be made that, you know, hunter-gatherer days were great. If you read about what that was all about, you work three to five hours a day. You know, there was a, I don't even know if I'm saying this right. I'm really bad with my C's and H's. I don't even know if I'm saying this right. I'm really bad with my C's and H's. The Shamish people, the Shamish people, Native American tribe,
Starting point is 01:20:31 they lived in Santa Barbara, bro. There were hunter-gatherers that lived in Santa Barbara. Can you imagine how great that lifestyle was? You worked three to five days in Santa Barbara. You're sedentary. There's a lot of people. So relative to the social isolation of some tribes, I think they had 21 people per square mile. If you had to be a nomadic or semi-nomadic people, Santa Barbara, St. Louis Obispo, pretty sweet. Central, Southern California.
Starting point is 01:20:59 How are you giving it a three-day work week? Did you research this tribe that much that they were just like, hey, we're not 30-hour guys? No, just in general, they actually had it even better because they had a little bit of a pescatarian diet. They had some shellfish going on. Would have preferred that over a lot of climates. But if you read, I forget the book I read, but in this book, there was this entire chapter about how good hunter-gatherer life was. I mean, it was read, but in this book, there was this entire chapter about how good hunter-gatherer life was. I mean, it was rough, no doubt about it, but depending on where you lived,
Starting point is 01:21:29 it could be pretty sweet. You spent a lot of your time with your family and you worked three to five hours a day hunting and gathering, but there is a case to be made that we don't need to time travel at all. Do you know that there's a lot of good news? I know this is a hot take, but 2019 is not a bad time to be alive. And people are going to skewer me for that. But there's a book called Factfulness, which I don't agree with everything in the book. But Obama and Gates, for the people that are about to jump on me and call me a piece of shit for saying 2019 isn't a bad time to be alive in the scope of modern and world history. Gates said it was one of the best books he's read in a long time. Child mortalities dropped. Life expectancy has gone up since the 50s.
Starting point is 01:22:11 Infant mortalities dropped since 1935. Vaccines, bro. People used to die of Oregon Trail shit on the reg. Polio, smallpox, extreme poverty is down around the world and as weird as it seems to say this we're living in the most peaceful time in human history not to say I'm not scared shitless about a lot of things but there's a lot of good news and initially I thought I might
Starting point is 01:22:38 want to go back to the 70s or the 80s because things seemed pretty fun back then but it's either now or hunter gathering time for me. The hunter-gatherer thing is a great call. The now thing is facts. That's just science. You can go on Twitter and Facebook
Starting point is 01:22:57 and say it's the worst ever. I choose not to wake up every day and find ways to express how horrible I think the world is because I think people that do that every day on social media, I don't, I don't know what the point of it is. I've done it a lot. Right.
Starting point is 01:23:11 And I'm not, there's no one ever picked me all, all first team happy either, but yeah, no, that's for sure. Yeah, that's fine.
Starting point is 01:23:20 You didn't even make like conference, most improved player, honorable mention, all team happy. Um, and I've done my fair share of like, listen, You didn't even make like conference most improved player, honorable mention, all team happy. And I've done my fair share of like, listen, I think why people get so frustrated about now is our capabilities to make it a better world are so high. And we fall short and we leave a lot of potential on the table. But in a lot of areas, there are some good things going on.
Starting point is 01:23:41 Factfulness is a book. You just hit me with your giant book that you could kill a grizzly bear with um it's not that factfulness is it's there's a lot of notes in there too there's maps oh yeah yeah well i i skipped the pictures i don't know about you i'm more of a words guy um let's smile i'm just joking i don't read a lot of books but factfulness was one and it's a pretty good good read and before you guys crush me because I'm bearing good news, Bill Gates said there's some good news. Obama said there's some good news. Have a listen. Have a read.
Starting point is 01:24:14 Is Obama doing the Jeff Fisher, though? It's like a lot of those guys that played in the Super Bowl, I drafted. With the good news thing? I don't know when his review of this book was, and I don't remember when the book came out, but Factfulness is a solid read. It could be an Obama self-motivated thing and be like, hey, we're only a couple years removed from me.
Starting point is 01:24:34 He could be doing that thing. Another time I wouldn't want to go is Oregon Trail time or Frontier time. You said that. You're afraid of all the smallpox stuff. You're right. Viruses and whatnot and the inability to cure. Because I always think Viking times, like I'd like to see how I do.
Starting point is 01:24:52 I like boats. I like the ocean. I'd grow out my hair. They had great boats. Big vest guy. It'd be cool to collect different axes and whatnot. There's some definite downside to the Viking lifestyle that wouldn't play well. So I'm not condoning many
Starting point is 01:25:05 but yeah i mean but then i also realized yeah like i could sprain an ankle and be like we have to kill you now like oh yeah bad choice i should have just picked like la in the 20s i'm four to six weeks man just a high ankle sprain yeah i'm like no you gotta die no you gotta die um i think cold weather factors into this a lot. Like I said, hunter-gatherer would be great. I got to be in that one tribe that lived in Santa Barbara. I can't be in the one that lived in Minnesota. Are you ready to close it out with five questions? Where we don't always ask five questions.
Starting point is 01:25:38 Sometimes we ask one. Yeah. Okay. Toughest left tackle, right tackle. So you can just say any tackle, all eligible to go up against for you. In my experience, the best left tackle in my time in the league was Tyron Smith. He still is very good. He got real good when he started to work on his anchor
Starting point is 01:25:55 and then also combat the bull with, you know, if you long arm him, he's very good if you get your weight out in front of him, knocking your long arm down. Lane Johnson is the best right tackle I've faced. I got to face him a lot in practice. Then there's weird players that I struggle with. At times, I struggle with Balaga, Dotson, 6'9 guy in Tampa, unorthodox. So, yeah, it depends.
Starting point is 01:26:18 There's really good ones, and there's matchups. Okay, that's good. All right, let's do this one. Give me the first shit talk to you on the field where you were like okay that's actually legitimately mean when you were in the nfl well i have really thick skin because my dad's howie long and if i played people in like high school sports i used to get like firestorm chants i was like uh i was like a four star Gatorade state player of the year guy
Starting point is 01:26:47 the local falcon club did an award banquet and they there was a tie for county player of the year I didn't even make it into the tie um you know like there were a lot of people that resented me because of my pops so when I
Starting point is 01:27:04 got in the league, shit talk. It was nothing. I mean, I remember one time Phillip Rivers called me a pretty boy. That's awesome. After I sacked him for the second time. I was like, so maybe I'm not a seven. You hitting on me, Phil? I know you got a lot of kids, but me and Phil are cool.
Starting point is 01:27:22 I saw him. I wish I could say I saw him at the Pro Bowl, but I saw him at the Pro Bowl when I was visiting my brother at the Pro Bowl. Um, just say Pro Bowl. I'm like a five time Pro Bowl alternate. Um, so 18 quarterbacks made it one year,
Starting point is 01:27:38 18 quarterbacks. Yeah. It means nothing anymore. It didn't mean a lot. Now it means nothing. Um, but I saw Phil in Hawaii. He's super cool.
Starting point is 01:27:45 I've played him a bunch since. Great dude. But he did call me a pretty boy once. Okay, so that's not as mean, but I do love that. I like that story better. Okay, give me the first time somebody wanted to borrow money from you after a high draft pick. You were in the grandfathered old contracts too.
Starting point is 01:28:01 Oh, yeah, old CBA. There were a lot of people swirling opportunistic folks. Somebody has asked me like to invest in, like, I've been asked to invest in gold mines in like foreign countries, like stay away from Ghana, stay away from Ghana. There's this, yeah, this Hoffman crew ever reaches out to invest in a gold mine in Ghana. Just go ahead and say no. Hey, can we cancel that meeting with the Hoffman? Yeah. I just got read to cancel the meeting. Um, so I've, I've actually been asked to signing, uh, sign like an NDA. Somebody like sent me over a business idea and I was, uh, he was like, well, you got to sign this NDA before you, before you look at it. And I was like, sure. But I'm, I'm literally taking this email as a courtesy okay and I read the fine print and it was like if I tell a single soul I I owed him like 10 million dollars and I'm like so like pillow talk yeah you're you're yeah I'm like hey bro if I if I tell one
Starting point is 01:28:58 person this person has a shitty idea I owe this guy 10 so what I started doing rye I don't know how you feel about this I keep a tab of favors owed and favors done so a lot of people asking me for favors just realize that it would be real petty if i just kept the favors done but i also keep the favorite ode favors owed and i think that's really fair where am i on the ode i don't think i've written you down because we have enough favors going back and forth that we're friends. Good. I like to hear that. I think we're probably both thinking we've done, the other person has done way more for the other one.
Starting point is 01:29:35 Yeah, I mean, and that's what friendships are for. Okay, last one here. Lowest moment. We're going to end this pod on a real downer. So let's do it. Well, you can look back at this moment and laugh because of what's happened afterwards. But if it didn't happen afterwards,
Starting point is 01:29:56 I'd probably be looking back at it feeling like shit. So in 2014, I played like 100 straight games. I was team captain, rolling, averaging double digits for a couple years there. I think I had like 40 sacks in four years. So I was big shit in a small town. And I got rolled up the first game in my 2014 season. Luckily, I had just signed a contract, so I was okay a year earlier. And I have surgery. That all comes crashing down. I'd never dealt with this before. I go to get my MRI beforehand. It's September. And in St. Louis, I go get my MRI on my ankle. I drive a little bit on my way home, waiting for the results. I pull over to read them on the side of Highway 40 near waiting for the results. I pull over to read them on the side of Highway 40 near Chesterfield. There's cars whizzing by. It's 100 degrees. I'm sweating my ass off. My car breaks down.
Starting point is 01:30:55 My car breaks down on the side of the road, and I'm getting my MRI results read, which essentially read that I'm going to be on IR. I'm crushed, and then my phone dies on the conversation. So I'm stuck in a boot on the side of Highway 40, sweating my ass off in a matte green Range Rover, which is the only redeeming detail of this story is that I was driving a Range Rover. So life is good. And I've got to flag people down in my boot knowing that I'm out for the season. And that was the worst moment for me you know the MRI result being broken down and by the way I run out of gas three times a year probably on average and having no cell phone service what do you do in that situation
Starting point is 01:31:36 just start walking I guess I can't I'm in a boot uh doesn't the range rover have some sort of button on it well eventually i called like on star some shit yeah you can call them through the car can't you yeah but it took me like 30 minutes to figure that out because who would i call to explain to me how to use it like i can't even use a vcr that's why i always keep a couple flare guns in the back. On the side of the road. Hey, flare gun here, futurely washed up athlete, just on IR. I wouldn't pick you up at night. It was daytime. That was the worst part.
Starting point is 01:32:14 It's humiliating. Daytime, I don't know that I'd pick you up either. Phillip Rivers would. Phillip Rivers would be like, pick him up! Put him in the car seat get in the back pretty boy I think it's a good way
Starting point is 01:32:30 to end it here you can check out Chris on all the Chalk stuff so get all that stuff out there so people know where to find you and some of these
Starting point is 01:32:37 great interviews you're doing yeah yeah we're doing you know I'm starting a media company so if you like it go to our Chalk YouTube
Starting point is 01:32:44 channel Chalk Media we've got this fishbowl thing coming out which was ad aaron donald the first week it's an interview show then we had dj premiere who's also ryan's friend my boy primo and then uh this week we have kirsty ennis who was obviously the winner of the pat tillman award somebody who i climbed mount Kilimanjaro with. She is an amputee who was the first female above-the-knee amputee to summit Kilimanjaro and lost her leg serving our country. Good friend of mine, and the season's going to roll out the rest of the year,
Starting point is 01:33:16 so go to Chalk Media, check that out, and look for the podcast coming out soon called Green Light with me, your host, and I will be having Ryan Russillo on the reg. So you have committed. Yeah, no doubt, man. Okay, we'll be back here, the Russillo podcast. Make sure you rate and review and subscribe.
Starting point is 01:33:32 Tell everyone to subscribe. And we're back on Wednesday and Friday. Talk to you next week, Chris. All right, bub. Thank you. you

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