The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Week 9 Recap With Chris Long | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

Russillo is joined by two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long to discuss NFL Week 9, including the Ravens' taking down the Patriots, Gardner Minshew II's regression, the Chargers-Packers blowout, MVP talk, the Raiders' exceeding expectations, another Browns loss, when athletes lose it on internet trolls, Chris Long’s draft day, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

the halfway point get your awards out get those plaques did you ever get any plaques chris growing up i bet you did most improved generally nice i gotta pull up one most pull-ups most pull-? I can only do about seven now. You're like 260, though. Yeah, I was a good pull-up guy. We had spiral staircases growing up in our house, and I used to do this thing where I'd make myself do five pull-ups every time I went up and down it spiral staircase yeah did you live in a lighthouse it was hard growing up in a life house yeah it would be hard growing up in a lighthouse it's uh what about the band life house do you feel like life house they fell off quickly you feel like Lifehouse, they fell off quickly? I feel like Lifehouse, we don't see enough of them anymore.

You don't see a lot of those shirts around. No, you do not. That's what you should start wearing because I know you're on your Joy Division shirt kick. Joy Division, yes. I mean, I had multiple people. I bought a Joy Division shirt at Urban Outfitters and I just needed a white shirt. And all of a sudden i got accused of being a poser because i didn't know who the hell they were and i was just willing to admit that like it's just a shirt bro evidently they influenced a lot of acts yeah the joy division thing is yeah it's a real thing like i saw that christian scott who's like my favorite jazz guy

going right now it's christian scott jazz flex today yeah right and he had a joy division shirt on i was like oh man that's cool maybe i should get a joy division shirt and then i was like no definitely don't get one even though i'm a little more familiar with their work but cannell showed up to work one day in a radiohead t-shirt wore it on tv and we're like no idea who they were yeah we're like you don't like radiohead at all at all and like guys a couple guys were mad about it wanted to fight. Not me. I love Radiohead. Well, you know the running joke,

you know the running joke that, I mean, you could argue I'm a poser because I wouldn't say I'm like a full-on deadhead at all. No, but you get labeled that. I get labeled that because I have a few Grateful Dead shirts and I like the dead.

They have great t-shirts. But I'm not a guy who could tell you like the best rendition of each song based on the location it was recorded and all that you don't have the best lives you don't have like a top five dicks pics volumes or anything like that i just hey listen somebody asked i like dark dark star at bickershaw that's hey don't question me we have a lot to do today uh and today the rossillo podcast with ch Long, part of the Ringer Network, is brought to you by State Farm. If you're fumbling with insurance, State Farm agents are here to help because with over 19,000 agents, they're local to you and available to help. Whether you connect in person, by phone, or through the State Farm mobile app, agents are here to help.

So go with the one that has coverage and agents you can count on. State Farm, talk to an agent today. We are going to start our talk with the Baltimore Ravens. We knew this was going to be kind of the headline-y game because it's the Sunday nighter. It's undefeated New England. This historic pace that they were on defensively. Lamar Jackson, after that win in Seattle, you're like,

okay, wait a minute, we got something here. And New England goes into Baltimore. They're down 17, nothing like that. They calm it. They right the ship. You're thinking, oh, here we go, New England. And then the Edelman fumble. But throughout it all, 37-20, the right team won. Baltimore was better than New England. And we were left here on a Monday with a million different angles on this story. Baltimore was better than New England, and we were left here on a Monday with a million different angles on this story. Yeah, I mean, we could easily get swept up in this thing and overreact, as we hopefully won't. But I will say this, New England's season really starts now, and they would tell you

that. That's the way they talk. And the atmosphere last night was as good as any atmosphere in a game I've watched all year. I mean, it was like big game atmosphere you know and if i'm 13 years old and i don't have a favorite football team you know if i'm 10 years old and i'm watching that game and they turn the lights off and the lights flicker every time they score and you hear and you hear the ghostbusters theme and part of

that's because the nostalgia of being 34 i mean like, like I'm a, I'm a Ravens fan if I'm that kid and I'm a free agent. Like I I'm watching Lamar. I'm watching the physical powerhouse style that Greg Roman's Greg Roman brings to them. And I'm thinking this is my favorite team. Like this team is awesome to watch and they just beat the Pats and they made it look kind of easy. So going into it, I was wrong because i felt like belichick like this is the kind of thing that he's built for right and i know people do this thing where it's like well you know he struggles with dual threat or saban struggles with dual threat like you want to know how many dual threat qbs have lost to saban you know it was deshaun watson manziel and what like beau wallace we count him

and so the same thing seems to happen with New England where they're going back to the Wildcat with Ronnie Brown a decade ago. Like, oh, you know, Bill really struggles with this kind of stuff. No, Baltimore ran the hell out of the football, and Lamar gives you enough in the running game to freak you out. And he made, whether it was the third down throw to Andrews, Boyle on the touchdown, he had another throw to the right side and another third down that was really big.

He made enough plays in the passing game to keep you honest, but this was, as you said, a Greg Roman-designed rushing attack where Ingram doesn't even get mentioned today. He was 15 for 115 on the day, almost eight yards a carry. What I was wrong about, Chris, was that I thought Bill would do this thing where it was contained with four. You know it as well as anybody.

He doesn't want you getting upfield. I want you to explain more of that. But early on, when Baltimore was putting together runs that we haven't seen in consecutive series all season against New England's defense, New England put a lot of guys at the line of scrimmage, were daring Lamar to throw, but yet they still couldn't stop the rushing attack. And once you saw that, at least offense Baltimore against New England's defense, because we'll get to the other side of it later. Once you saw that, I'm like, wow, you know, Belichick, I would think, has this thing game planned out.

And they're not really putting a dent into this rushing attack, even though it looks like he's committing a million people. Where at other times I could see him maybe getting gashed up a little with four up front. But he was committing bodies and it still didn't work. Well, I don't want to say i saw it coming like i i've seen the hey like let's pump the brakes on the best defense of all time talk we both agree on that i mean how did anybody say it really i mean you know we know what the numbers are but can i just jump in real quick here's your quarterbacks although rothlisberger somehow been

completely downgraded week one when they shut them down, which isn't entirely fair, but maybe he was just hurt the whole time. Roethlisberger, Rosen, Luke Falk, Josh Allen, Colt McCoy, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield. And then he got what feels like the first real guy here in two months in Lamar. So there you go.

So I just want to get that. Yeah, a lot of these kids just got their first whiskers. You know, their mustaches are just coming in. You know, they're young guys, man. And listen, I understand all the trends about first and second year quarterbacks against Bill. Lamar's different. The scheme is different. Greg Roman has a proven thing.

He had it in San Francisco with another quarterback who was a dual threat type guy. And by the way, this guy's much better. And that's not a light compliment because I think a lot of cap in his heyday there in San Francisco. Hey, when the cap thing was right, it was like horrifying to the rest of the league. That Green Bay game. Yes, it was scary.

And a lot was made of that defense and whatnot, but he won them playoff games. And Greg Roman has been here. Ingram talked about it in the offseason. By the way, said this last week, Ingram's the best free agent pickup for a team that's a contender. He gives them that ability to exploit a weakness last night. And although the scheme is exotic, and as Mark had mentioned,

gets them in a bunch of looks to do different runs and it's confusing. Um, you have to pound the ball. You have to draft physical players. That's what they do there. Um, and they ran for, I think he ran for one 15 last night. Chubb ran for like one 20 the week before this is a, this is a thing now. I mean, like it's safe to say it's a thing. Now, will they get it corrected? They got the leadership. You saw Hightower getting after guys on the sideline. They got the coaching to make an adjustment. But I think a lot of people assume that when Bill comes back a second time, he'll have it ratcheted down. I don't know. They're two and five under Bill since 2003 in playoff games where they lost in the regular

season to that team. So it's not like it's a foreoff games where they lost in the regular season to that team. So it's not like it's a foregone conclusion that they just make the adjustment and win the second time around. So there's nothing, because you had sent me a text last night about game plan and maybe, but do teams actually punt on a game plan not wanting to show? Would they give up a regular season game knowing there's a good chance they're facing him in the playoffs because that's the pats theory today right pats fan theory absurd dorchester guy that's the rationalization um which i think there's something to the fact

that bill's bill's not going to give you a hundred percent of his best game plan the first time he plays lamar he's always playing chess we have know that. But I do think there are some legitimate personnel issues with that matchup. And I'm not saying that New England isn't one of the best three teams in the league. I've maintained that all season. I mean, they're going to be there at the end. But to say that, to do this historical talk about the defense and 16-0, like that's just not the way things go in the NFL. And they've had games historically where we overreact to them, like a Chiefs loss a few years ago on, I think it was Sunday night in that primetime game, which was much worse. And by the way, Baltimore got pressure when they pressured, but still they can't rush really with

four. So there were a number of warts that showed up for the Pats. Will they fix them? I think they will. Did they give you their A1 game plan? I'm not sure they did. Did they punt? No. They also gave up 11 points on the false start on the field goal

and on Julian's fumble. Yeah, that's always one of the things where, you know, there'll be certain games you're not as locked into. All of us were watching this because it was the primetime game, and you're going, all right, well, you know, this is real. Like, this was the real result, where there's other times I'm like, how the hell is this team down, or how are they losing? Like, oh, they're down 3-0 in the turnover margin, and so, you know, they had that fumble, but they also had the Cyrus Jones fumble, which Pat's fans and then the sideline. We know. Oh my God. I was, I was there. I mean, I hated it for him. I mean, he, he would cough the ball up with regularity and you could just

see he was in the doghouse as soon as that started happening. And I was real happy he got to go home and play in Baltimore and he seems like he's happier there, but that had to be an awkward moment. Really happy to get the win just for Cyrus. Cause, cause I'm watching and being like, Oh, this, this looks familiar. But he was a really good player in college, too, and he just can't seem to figure out a way to be consistent back there. But you just touched on it. Like the personnel, the front for New England, yes, we know what the numbers are. We've just listed all the quarterbacks, but that's why I like San Francisco's personnel better. You may like, I think most people, everybody would say, I'd rather have New England secondary and that maybe it's about the back end instead of the front guys.

But the front guys got work. And the front guys on offense for New England also got work. Newhouse at left tackle is a problem. I always expect Skarnecchia to figure this out. Maybe even an in-game adjustment. It didn't seem to happen. And that's the weird thing about this game is that once New England got that tempo touchdown and they were running the football, which you thought, because Baltimore has some weird numbers where defensively they're ranked really good in yards

allowed, but some of the metrics, like this is not a great Baltimore defense. This is why the Lamar thing is so... No, it's not. No, not at all. I mean, every metric you look at, they're trending a little bit better here, but they haven't been some dominant defense, which sometimes when you're a team, a franchise like Baltimore, and we know that you've probably made your history through defense, although they look, they were an offensive team when they won the Super Bowl with Flacco. That's not what this is. And people can still keep going like, oh, Baltimore's defense rose to the occasion. They absolutely did. But there were moments in it where it looked like New England was settling, but there were also moments where Brady, despite his great mobility inside the pocket, and that's what I'm talking about,

not mobility, but just his step, his footwork inside the pocket, you could see he was struggling with it. He'll get the throw off and he'll still move, but he's like, you can just tell where it's like, damn it, I've got no time. I've got half the side of this line that can't protect me. I'm not sure who's getting open. Maybe we'll get some crossers. Maybe we'll get some of this up-tempo stuff going. But I felt like that whole game was a challenge really in every aspect for New England in a way that you just don't see very often. And that's why I think Baltimore, even if I'm still not 100% convinced of Lamar the passer, which look, there's plenty of numbers that tell you it's limited, but it's okay. He made these big throws. His running attack screws you up because even if he doesn't have a million runs

for 100 yards, the threat of it just messes you up all the time. This was a really complete win by a Baltimore team that's now the number two seed in the AFC, and I feel like after this, despite losing by two touchdowns against Cleveland a couple weeks ago, not having great wins. Which is crazy. Right. I'm sitting there going like how good are they really this is the kind of win for them where I look at them differently

but conversely with New England I'm not going to get caught up into this thing where it's like okay now we're ready to write them off even though one day Chris somebody's going to be right on a Monday writing this team off because it has to happen at some point I think I don't think you write them off um this isn't a big letdown for me for them. I don't think you write them off. This isn't a big letdown for me, for them, because I knew it would be a tough matchup. I didn't know that they'd lose. I have maintained that they're a top three team in the league. I don't know who the best team in the league is, and we get so out ahead of it. If I had an opinion, I think it's New Orleans. I also think that New England is going to have a tough matchup if they play San Francisco

and when they play San Francisco. And I think now we know without a doubt that they're going to have their hands full when they see Baltimore again. And the thing about Baltimore is Baltimore is historically unafraid of New England. That's something that you know, whether you're in New England or you know, and you're watching casually, they've never been afraid. And that's way different than a lot of teams in the AFC that you know they have their number Lamar Ingram they're really humble and all their postgame stuff they didn't take shots at the Pats Baltimore's never afraid they don't need to they don't need to get into that stuff and I love Lamar man like that was the first game that I've really watched him in real time

I've had to like piecemeal it watch tape and and, uh, and pop in and out of games. But the prime time thing, you have no choice. And I get it, man. I get why people are so excited about this guy. And then the cool stuff you see, like he's helping up the O-lineman, O-lineman, you know, on, on a run play or getting pancaked or, or, or tabletop and he's pulling them all up individually. He's saying, let's go, let's get in the end zone. Like this kid's got it. And I like his presence. It's easy to see. Like I said, if I'm 13 and I'm a little kid, why this is exciting for the game.

And I'm becoming a Ravens fan if I'm that kid, because it is, it's electric, the atmosphere they have going on there. But again, you've said it. The MO has been, do they play, you know, when, when when they play better teams is he always going to be consistent this was the first game that he really they put it all together and beat somebody really good and you have to know if they go see kansas city they were in that game and they didn't play perfect so checking off the box on matchups it'll be interesting and they play a niner soon so that's going to be really interesting. Yeah, absolutely, because it'll be interesting to see how this rushing attack,

how it's designed, like where are they going to come up against the Niners front, which throughout, I'm just repeating myself, like it more than New England, but a Niners front that Kenyon Drake, of all people, who is talented, but hadn't really done much in his career, and he went off on him on Thursday. So I don't know what the answers are to that. Lamar, as far as an MVP candidate, we're going to do that coming up a little bit later with the MVP stuff halfway through the season. I don't think the lists are all that different. I think everybody kind of has the same list and I think that means everybody's actually right,

as opposed to times where everybody agrees. Hey, hey, hey, right. Yeah. Before we get off Lamar, we had an interesting convo off air. Like, would you, would you give the Ravens credit for drafting Lamar? Or is it like a mixed bag because they passed up on him? Well, okay. Last night's broadcast was really interesting because it was, it was almost this thing like, and this will happen with broadcasts sometimes where it's like, you want to tell a story on top of calling the game. And I'm, I'm totally for it for it when uh when it feels fitting but it felt like the the torch was being passed to Baltimore and to Lamar you know a few minutes into the game and it looked that bad I mean look New England's down like 17 nothing just like that and the part that I don't

like and this happens with front offices a lot where you'll ask about a transaction and then they find whatever way they can give themselves credit. So Baltimore has now turned into this team that saw something in Lamar that nobody else saw and they're geniuses and we designed all this different stuff. Look, that's great that it is working out. It is great that you designed this rushing attack and have found ways to make Lamar comfortable and to see him progress from year one and how bad it was against the Chargers in that playoff game to like, hey, I'm not taking taking these guys seriously to what we've seen this year and that kind of win last night but if you truly loved lamar and you saw something no one else did you wouldn't have passed on him three fucking times and that's my whole point okay you wouldn't you wouldn't right and so if you're and that's the

and that's the conversation i get this pet peeve as well with you know hey the pats found brady the pats the p, if the Pats knew Brady was going to be Brady or even half a Brady, you'd have took him in at least the third round. No, well, that's what happened. Like Ravens fans are,

you know, they're sort of the professional Ohio State fans. They were feeling it today and most didn't understand what my tweet was. And so in relation to the broadcast

that was specific about the glowing part of them taking Lamar, they had the 16th pick, they traded back to 22, they had the 22nd pick, they traded back to 25, and then they took Hayden Hurst at 25. So you had three chances to take Lamar. Now the Ravens moron is going, hey, man, you just know the board. Keep adding assets. No, no, no, no. That is the biggest reach ever that you knew that nobody else was going to take them.

So if you truly loved him, you take him at 16, right? Isn't that always the thing with the quarterback? Like, Hey, whatever. There's a little high, but we love him. It's quarterback. We take him. You pass them three times and then trade it back in to get him at 32. So you were probably like, Hey, we like them, but we're not sure because you took a tight end seven spots ahead. And that's where I was trying to make a point in the tweet that very few people seem to get and then try to make it into some brady pats fan comp which was it wasn't at all brady you got the bray you got you got the pats fan thing um well listen they're not clean analogies but there were two teams last night that um that could make a case that they've they've been great at picking people and and their quarterbacks were no exception and

hey we took Brady at the tail end of the draft and we knew what we were doing and and and the Ravens traded back twice right it was uh to to snag Lamar I I guess if I if if they knew exactly where he was going to get picked or he wasn't going to get picked, I'd love to see behind the curtain how that went down because that would have taken a lot of confirmation and foresight. So I would tend to agree with you. I think sometimes the credit is overblown

when you pass on a guy that could win you a Super Bowl. You don't wait until 32 to do that. No, and that was my point. And the reason it had nothing to do with Brady is Brady was picked 20 years ago and they weren't spending time on the broadcast saying, you know, the New England Patriots, this Brady guy, they saw it. They saw something nobody else saw. And that's been said forever.

And that's also accurate about New England, which I've said before. Where it's like, if you guys want credit about taking Brady in the sixth round, like how much credit should I give you when you've passed on him so many other times? So that part would be similar, except the reference was specific to the broadcast that night. So rant over. Powerful brain. Powerful brain you have. Well, Ravens fans took it as a diss.

You're like, no, this is not a diss. This is not a diss. But Ravens fans, again, it's took it as a diss. You're like, no, this is not a diss. This is not a diss. But Ravens fans, again, it's... Everything's a diss. I'll probably have New England fans in my mentions for saying they might be the third best team in the league, acting like I'm slandering them to high heaven, even though they have problems up front on both sides of the ball

and haven't played anybody yet until last night. Here's a tip. Don't threaten to murder anybody, all right? And we'll get to that a little bit later. Yeah, there's that one. Yeah. Okay, so let's do plane rides. Do you want to start worst plane ride and then we'll do best?

Because best is actually pretty tough to pull off here. It is. I'm just going to take the low-hanging fruit. And we just talked about New England. I think, although it's a short flight, this is going to be some week in that big auditorium there in Foxborough. No windows in that building. Give us in the room, what's it like, a loss that everybody's talking about?

So every TV show and the guys that are anti-New England, the guys that are anti-Brady, it's already happening. Oh, we're worried about it. We're worried about all this different stuff. I'm not worried about Brady at all. I know you're not. What's that room like though, being a Patriot when you went through it after that kind of loss? It's just, it's straight up. And that's what you, that's what you miss a lot in, um, in pro football is you want your

head coach to get up there and call it how it is and, and do it in front of the entire team. No favorites, don't sugarcoat it. And that's what's done. And it's done in a room full of everybody that's relevant in that building from a football standpoint. So your mistakes are up there on the big screen for everybody to see and they're addressed head on. And that can can be ugly but it's what needs to happen and too many coaches i've said this before split the team up offensive coordinator handles the offense defensive coordinator handles the defense you would think you'd assume that everybody's watching you every snap anyways but to have that point hammered home, it really helps. And that room's big and dark. There's no windows in the building. A lot of coffee, a lot of guys with like big cups of coffee,

a lot of like shuffling in no talking. And then there's like the awkward quiet moment where you're like, okay, when's bill coming in? You know, like when the small talk stops, uh, and then bill comes in and it can go for an hour. Is it true that you guys have to rise? There's no pledge of allegiance. I had heard that, but I didn't think it was true either. Yeah, no, we, we don't have to rise. They actually, um, yeah, they don't do that anymore. Right.

Right. After Pete Carroll, I heard there was no more Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah, no more Pledge of Allegiance. I wanted to clean that up. All right, so do you have a story? I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but do you have a story for something that rings out that was kind of funny

or like this place is a little different? In New England, it was just the fact, it was that like we're just going to meet it head on, which there's no specific story. Bill does have very dry sense of humor. I caught him last night on the broadcast. I'm a lip reader. He said he called somebody a fucking asshole.

Yeah. You know, just his, I said on Twitter, his usage of that phrase is like Rembrandt with a brush. And I had to Google to make sure that Rembrandt was a painter because now there's toothpaste now. That's true. Could he be a sculptor? Sometimes people get it mixed up. Andy Reid the other day said that not all,

or a couple weeks ago after the game, that they barely beat. They beat somebody they weren't supposed to be in a tight ballgame with with and he said uh hey guys listen not all mozart's paintings were perfect so people screw that up a lot rembrandt is a painter i would say bill uses the phrase fucking asshole like like picasso or rembrandt with a with a brush and his dry sense of humor is second to none. Yeah, that was after another, or when all that neutral zone stuff was going on, the neutral zone infractions, because the Patriots actually had a lot there.

So, all right, do you guys, before we move on from this real quick, when you have that kind of loss, though, do you feel like a little kid who's in trouble? Oh, yeah. The team, just a bunch of grown men? Yeah, that a little kid who's in trouble oh yeah the team yeah that's the thing that's the thing about yeah that's the thing about playing the nfl and then you know in the nfl when you don't play well it's the emasculation factor i mean like if you screw up at work and

i'm not comparing a nine to five to football but in most corporate situations you can't be talked to that way. You're really going to be demeaned pretty heavily. And you want that, though, as a player. You want to be demeaned accurately. I don't want to hear I played good when I didn't because then I'll stop trusting you. I don't want to hear I played bad when I didn't and make me the scapegoat, whether it's a unit like a D line or the secondary. I don't want to see a coach do that because then I'll stop trusting you. But if you give it to me down the middle with the criticism, your team might not like it all the time, but they're going to trust you.

I don't like when the outside world tries to dictate how the inside world works, you know, when you're on the outside, and that's basically sports 101 when people like corporate. I wouldn't mind it being a little more demeaning in the corporate workplace. You wouldn't mind that? No, where somebody could just come up to me in a segment, Russillo, are you bitch made? Because that last segment sucked. Because that segment was soft as fuck.

Right. I would respond. If Bill Simmons just grabbed you by what's what's that brand hoodie you wear uh this is the aviator nation one yeah yeah if he grabbed you by your aviator nation zip up beach hoodie and just shook you violently yeah he said in a new england accent and... What would he say? He doesn't really have much of a New England accent. He doesn't.

It skips pockets. And he went to prep school in Connecticut, so he... Oh, shots fired. Yeah, yeah. Brunswick school. What's up? Your school was tougher? There's no... There's never ever been a conversation

where the Brunswick school was ranked in toughness at any point in the history of that place. Do you feel like the Vineyard gets a bad rap for being soft? Terrible rap. I was talking with a bunch of football guys last night. I'm not going to name names, but there was a few football guys out and about Manhattan Beach and got the bat signal late. Said, hey, can you meet us out for a CL? I said, well, it's a school night. I got a lot of prep work to do, but I'll come down and chop it up with you.

And the guys started talking vineyard athletics. A CL? A CL? Yeah, one CL on the DL. What's a CL? Course light. Come on, man. Oh, I would think it would be Corona light in the South Bay. Maybe. That's also a possibility. But yeah, the vineyard thing is always funny because they're like, oh, you're from Martha's Vineyard.

Must be nice. And you just go, okay. But it is a self-sustaining community. It's an island. And there's low, middle, and upper class just like anywhere else. There's 14,000 people that were living there year-round back when I was there. I don't know what the numbers are now. I think it had like a weird peak and it's fallen off.

Yes, it's really expensive to live there. I think they all left. I think they all left like Jamestown. Just bounced? No. But the vineyard jokes, I've been getting the vineyard jokes. I'm not trying to tell you I grew up in East St. Louis. I would never say that.

But what I'm telling you is that every single person that lives on Martha's Vineyard year-round is not loaded. Far from it. There's also some nice places in East St. Louis. I just want to put that out there. Well, I expected that. I'm just going off the Brian Cox stuff. I'm sure it's nice now. That's a 20-year-old reference. There are some nice places. I talked about it on my pod. There's some nice places to eat late night in East St. Louis. I can't win, though. Whatever I pick. I think that what kills you is the, the Nantucket nectar. I get that mixed up with the vineyard Nantucket Martha's vineyard, same place. The bottle looks really soft, soft as fuck. Like wherever it's bottled, the purple lid. Yeah. Wherever, wherever

that, that juice is bottled, which by the way, at one point in my life, I thought was healthy because it was like a nectar and I would down them. There's like 56 grams of sugar in there. And I just thought to myself, wherever they bottle this, the kids are softer than me. And I, you know, I'm a private school kid, but I feel like I have a leg up there. And then also the Vineyard Vines brand, I think really, that hurts us, really took you down a notch. It hurts us even more too, because the guys that started it aren't locals and they use the nantucket whale logo and put it on their shirts and call them vineyard vines appropriating yeah so there's island there's definitely a pocket of vineyarders that are not thrilled that it's a whale um but you know i know this is this is why everybody's here for this podcast but just to

just to recap i'm not tough martha's vineyard is not tough, but we do not all have butlers. Gotcha. There you go. But you do all have little belts with neon palm trees on them. Just in the summer. Just when the kids from Taft come to East Chop to party. All right. Let's see here.

What else do we have? So best plane ride. We didn't even do worst plane ride yet. Did you do it? Worst plane ride? Like you said. All right. Let me just do worst.

Whoever lost in London. Jacksonville? A home game? Yeah, it's just, hey, you know what's so funny to me is that the British people love the Jags. Of all teams, they really, I mean, I know it's intentional and Khan's really been pushing for them to be like the London team, but they love the Jags.

The NFL has pulled off one of the biggest propaganda victories in world history. That's to indoctrinate a population of Jaguars fans that have no idea that their home stadium in one of the most seemingly cultured, beautiful architecture, tea and crumpets, their favorite team plays in a stadium that's full of piss. Tee and Crumpets. Their favorite team plays in a stadium that's full of piss. Piss and like a pissy, murky pool and butt heavy. What are you talking about?

The Florida-Georgia game just happened there. And bad pyrotechnics. Did you hear of Tebow's hype video? Where he's like, you crossed that St. John River. Everybody knows the St. John River when you see it. You do. It's one of the most iconic dropbacks in in really i would say any city skyline history it's like mount rushmore there's mount rushmore ellis island that would be the statue of liberty and then the saint john's river

done top three you don't even need a fourth. Can you, can you believe they did that? Can you, they pulled off that heist. They, these people that, that eat crumpets and drink tea. What's with the crumpets references today? That's all I know about what they do there. That seems like you're assuming a lot about a culture. I also love the place.

I just want to say that, but I've never spent too much time. Yes. We played in London a few times, played, lost the pads by about 40. So I don't remember much of that trip i blacked that out um and then we beat the jags we beat we beat the jags

and that's their turf yeah your boy had two sacks beat the jags who did you sack portals sack the shit out of him you say anything to him i said uh i i ran up to him and i said award-winning listener motherfucker no you did so uh he yeah he told big cat he was like that was the scariest weirdest way that somebody's talked shit to me before that's a good story right there okay so that's a plug that's a plug for uh pmt so sorry to do that ringer no that's all right friends friends all all in this together um the jacksonville deal is funny though because yeah i was reading something about these polls where it was like which fan base like how do you identify as an nfl fan and jacksonville was the runaway winner over there and they're playing and i think in that tottenham deal and people

put some money into that so all right but that was a home game for jacksonville but yeah i guess that's the best plane ride because nobody else could really have the best plane ride because every home team won on Sunday. I'm going to go worst plane ride. It has to be the Jets. You lost to the Dolphins. I mean, you know, what else? And then you've got the Darnold stuff

where now it looks like a disaster. And now it feels like with Gase, you're like, why did they hire this guy again? And Get Up had a really good number where they were looking at like Gase's offenses without Peyton Manning, and they're all in the 20s or worse, which is, you know, like, okay, what was the deal here again? So, you know, look, the Dolphins got their first win here. That has to be the worst playing ride because it's not just losing to the Dolphins.

It's being the Jets. And it's just when you're bad and it's the Jets, it's always a little bit extra because it's New York City. Yeah, that fireman is not going to be happy. I know you want to do this real quick about the Foles Minshew thing because, you know, it's just, it's also predictable all the time. New quarterback plays, plays well. Oh my God, how good is he going to be? Oh, wait, things have fallen off a little bit. We've seen Kyle Allen recover after his disastrous game against San Francisco. I still don't know that he should just have the job instead of cam newton but cam newton's foot thing seems to be delayed more and more but you have foals you've paid

money to minshu where it's been fun but he wasn't great uh again yesterday so what do you make of the decision they have a quarterback well i think you got to go with foals and i know i'm a fan of nick but he's a super bowl mvp uh he's somebody who paid 88 million dollars in his last pass uh he threw a touchdown to the corner of the end zone week one uh right after he as he exploded his clavicle so like give him a chance you paid him all that money minshu gave you life in a tough situation, but most of Minshew's best games came when they ran for 75 yards or more. And lately, that run game has dried up a little bit. Well, yesterday, it had dried up. And in six starts, he's only had one game with a completion percentage over 60. So his first three games, he was really hot.

He's done things off schedule nicely. And I think a lot of times when a guy's exciting and he does things off schedule, we get excited because his good plays are awesome to look at. But they're a team that won a lot of games with him playing complementary football where he didn't have to carry the team. And you said it with these quarterbacks. There's the regression after they get hot for a couple games. People figure them out.

I don't think it's a big decision. I think you just have to do the right thing here and put the guy you're paying $88 million in. See what you got. And then you can rehash it at the end of the year. Okay. I have nothing else to add to that. We're going to do the NFC North in a second. Good division, except for one team

that almost came back against your Eagles in this Bears-Trabisky. This Trabisky thing just plays out in real time. You're like, man, that's not fun. But let me ask you, is anything better than watching football? Maybe no, if you're a Bears fan right now. Of course there is.

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Yeah, Ezekiel Elliott. He's on my fantasy team. Somehow I didn't. I sat two players that scored 25 points because I'm an idiot and I didn't set my lineup. But I'm still only 23 points down with an opportunity to win tonight, and I think Zeke has a big day. Okay, there you go.

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at DraftKings. Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details. How does a Green Bay Chargers game look that bad for a team that we were wondering if they were the best in the NFL? Green Bay comes in after that Chiefs win. Yes, they're on the road.

Yes, the Chiefs had injuries. But it's the reminder of what Aaron Rodgers is. And then at one point, I think deep into the third quarter, the Packers had 50 total yards in offense. They ended up being out gained 442 to 184 to the LA Chargers. New OC for Phillip Rivers. That seemed to pay off. He was throwing the ball all over the place.

But this is one of those games where, again, if it were Sunday night, it would be treated differently. The Packers would be getting the Patriots treatment today. But I'm not going to go, hey, wait a minute, the Packers now stink. But how does this kind of game happen? Well, I think there is a measured hype, at least around Green Bay.

So I would think that had this been the primetime game, you know, we might be less surprised than what we saw last night. I'll tell you why. I've said recently to sell the Pack high, and I'm not saying that because I don't like them. I love watching Aaron Rodgers, but I think the problems they have in stopping the run, some of the wins they've had marred a little bit by calls that have gone their way,

and they've got a tough stretch coming up. They're going to have, I think, the Panthers and the Niners sandwiching their bye week coming up. I think when you ask me, you know, what's a letdown like in the NFL, I don't see this as necessarily a big letdown for them. I don't think they came into L.A., although Phillip Rivers had never beaten the Packers, which is crazy. I think they came in knowing that L.A. was a bit of an unknown this week with the play-calling situation, and Shane did a really good job.

They ran when Packers were in nickel, and they threw when they were in base a little bit more. You weren't sure what it was going to be coming in. You see the improvement. Rivers was on. I don't sure what it was going to be coming in. You see the improvement. Rivers was on. I don't think they underestimated them. I just think they got beat. And obviously, Bosa and Ingram had a field day.

These are all issues that maybe we underestimated for them. I'm not saying they're not in contention to win the division. They're number one in the division. I still like the Vikings for the division. They're number one in the division. I still like the Vikings for the division. But I think this was going to happen to them at some point this year. Now, where they go from here, I don't know. Yeah, they got Aaron Jones, who's been terrific.

Only eight carries, 30 yards. They're down most of the game. He got Devontae Adams back, targets him 11 times. It's just weird to see Rodgers have this kind of struggle. But it's also weird, too, because as you point out, Bosa and Ingram, their combined numbers, the hurries, you know, just getting hits on Rodgers. It's not just about the sacks, as you pointed out for the years that I've talked with you, like that was a real thing. And it was a real thing that happened the entire game. When you're playing the end, can you tell when somebody's adjusting for you or if somebody just

isn't bothering despite you wrecking their game plan yeah there's some there's some games i've been in where you know a lot of games were immediately whether it was myself or you know the our entire group you know you could see that they were gonna seven man and chip out and that was the game plan they were gonna roll the quarterback out throw some boot at you confuse you with some cutback runs, slow you down, screens, quick stuff. But there's some games where you're waiting. You have a sack early in the game and you're thinking, okay, I'm playing with house money. That's what you call it. I'm relaxed now. It's time to either get chipped or go get more buckets. Sometimes you play a team that just sticks to the script and is like, we're good enough up front that we're going to write this ship. And I think

as much as I love Bakhtiari, I worry about Balaga's health. I worry about some of the other guys up front there. And the fact that that's their weakness on that side of the ball, maybe that that might show up a little bit more late in the season. We already see what the weakness is on the other side of the ball up front, and that's the run game. Ingram ran for 80. He hadn't done that in an eternity.

In fact, they hadn't run for more than 40 yards in a single game in like a month. And yesterday, they seemed to have their way. I think this is a little bit of both. I think it's a little bit of a panic thing for Green Bay, and it should be. And it's a little bit of, this is think it's a little bit of a panic thing for Green Bay, and it should be, and it's a little bit of this is when the Chargers start to peak. Curiously, they don't get it going early in the season, and historically recently, they've gotten better in the second half of the

season. They've got a new OC, so they were kind of a mystery, and you never know. They got Kansas City and Oakland coming up. They're four and five, I think, so could turn it around. I don't know. Maybe they'll make me write on my idiotic statement about a month ago that they might be the third best team in the AFC. Yeah, if you go back to last year, 1-2, then 12-4. And they looked real. And then the year before that, 0-4. Yeah, finished 9-7.

When we beat them in 17 in a barn burner, it was like we went and played them. I think they were 0-4 or 1-something, and they gave us all we could handle. That was the team that went and won the Super Bowl, and we knew they were good. And it's curious. They start out of the gate slow.

I think this could be a real preview of seeing them improve. There's always the curiosity factor of what are they going to look like. That's a really tough team to prepare for within a game week. I think more Nathan, if you look at it, to put it concisely, you asked me about a letdown. I don't think the Packers are surprised that they ran into a bit of a problem there. I think that the general public, myself included, was fooled by a three-point line.

And you're like, what is this about? You're like, why is it so close? Vegas knows that in a week like this where the play calling is a big mystery and there's some things that the Packers do that are going to come back to haunt them at some point in the season, that this might be that game. And we saw it. Yeah, and what I don't want to do, too, and you can fall into this trap with the nfl every single week being like is this team good

oh they're good oh no they're not good you guys thought they were good last week and now they're not good and all this different stuff like i look at the packers go they're still probably gonna be really good but they got work they got absolutely work they could not move the football with a guy that we've kind of put back at the top of the quarterback mountain here and rogers and you can argue russell wilson i'd be willing to hear it we'll get to all that stuff and their big win We've kind of put back at the top of the quarterback mountain here in Rogers. And you can argue Russell Wilson. I'd be willing to hear it. We'll get to all that stuff and their big win against Tampa Bay. But it was just such a beating that you go, all right, do you turn the page and go, that was weird?

Because that's the thing. Like when I believe in a team, good or bad, like a big win doesn't make me go, oh, wow, they've righted this thing. Or a weird loss like this doesn't make me go, oh, wow, they've righted this thing, or a weird loss like this doesn't make me just write them off entirely. But if we stay in the NFC North here, I want to talk a little bit about that Minnesota game at Kansas City, because we know it's Matt Moore, and with the Vikings losing in that game,

they are the last playoff team in the NFC. So the NFC teams, ranking-wise right now, seeds would be San Francisco Saints 1-2 with a bye. Packers still your three seed. Cowboys 4, Seattle 5, Minnesota 6. The MVP conversation really should have been Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson. I've heard Christian McCaffrey.

Mahomes would have been in it, certainly. Aaron Rodgers should be mentioned. Kirk Cousins had this run where they beat the Giants, the Eagles, the Lions, and the Redskins and put up big numbers. Now, if you look at the defensive numbers metric-wise for those four teams, their passing defenses were 28th, 16th, 22nd, and 24th. So Cousins comes in on the road against Kansas City, who has some of those injured guys back. Shout out to Chris Jones. And Cousins is in a spot where the team is down in the fourth quarter, and with Minnesota in this year plus, Cousins is 0-9-1, and now he's 0-10-1.

And I locked in on what they were or weren't doing, and this is kind of my Cousins, like, spare me with the MVP stuff, despite putting together a really nice month. You know, they're down 23-10. They're trying to run some kind of offense here where they were establishing a pass on first down, which I know everybody wants, but then Dalvin couldn't get it going. And that's kind of the point. I'm not here to knock Kirk.

There's some numbers here that really aren't good. There's some numbers in Minnesota now for the last few years that when they're outside, they're a bad football team. And for whatever reason, it gets Kansas City team. What's that? They're 0-13-1 in road games where they're outside against 500 plus teams since 2014. That's a mouthful. Wow. That's even worse than I thought it was. Yeah. That's terrible. That's terrible. Like, I don't get that't get that bro okay what is that like though because you guys were an indoor team with st louis like were you i love going on the road i love going i love playing outside when i get colder i i feel like if i can handle it and embrace it

i'm going to create an edge for myself and there are a lot of guys that think like that but i don't know i used to love going outside. Another thing is, another thing is the grass situation. When you play on turf every week, it's a different game on grass. So if a lot of what you do as a player is predicated on speed, speed, speed, and they have some fast guys, uh, when you get on grass, it's a little bit different. Um, and that, and that's a real thing, but that doesn't explain this. And I would look at this game as it's about the Vikings. I mean, Kirk's trend continues. I think that's unfortunate. And no one's surprised that when the run game gets going that they can't get it going through the air as much. I mean, and Diggs was taken out of the game pretty much at one point in the third.

I think he had like a catch for four yards or something. That's not going to do it. Matt Moore, though, the Chiefs, Andy Reid, maybe the best play caller in the NFL. Him and Peyton offensively. They've both worked magic in situations this year where they're down a guy. And they're down a generational guy. For Matt Moore to do what he did off the couch, he was like coaching middle school basketball or some shit.

He comes in and he duels it out with Aaron Rodgers, which by the way, if after this game we're saying, hey, the Packers are still good, then the Chiefs took it to the Packers team and almost beat them. We can't then shit on the Vikings for losing in a tough atmosphere against the best offensive play caller in the league where the Chiefs got an X factor back in Chris Jones. Listen, this is what we know we got to deal with Kirk sometimes.

He's still trying to get over that hump and win a big game and win the fourth quarter stuff. They're not as good on the road, but I still think they're going to be relevant at the end of the year. I still like them to win the division. Okay. Yeah, that's all fair. I just feel like with those numbers, there's a cap that I have on this team. And if they're playing on the road throughout the playoffs, it's going to be a problem. And it's directly related. Kirk with a running attack is what we saw the last month. This is the worst rushing performance I think we've seen from this team since September 29th. So they are connected. And when it doesn't work, and to be fair to the Vikings too, Thielen, non-factor, was going to play and he was out of the game.

Kansas City. So, shout out to Spags and two spot start defensive ends. You know, I think sometimes the bias when you look at Kirk Cousins, you don't recognize that they have been statistically one of the best offenses in the league. And Kansas City did a really good job last night, yesterday. Okay, we're going to get to when Twitter goes horribly wrong, scary wrong. But first, this word from ZipRecruiter, Cafe Altura's COO. You heard about this character? The guy's on fire right now. He owns the game. Dylan Miskovitz. I don't know if he's on Rye or what. He didn't even need to.

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That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Ryan, R-Y-E-N. ZipRecruiter.com slash Ryan. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Cleveland did not do a good job. The camo look for Freddie Kitchens is not what you need. You don't want your head coach that already feels like he's on the hot seat to be a guy that's picking up about 16 to 20 hours a week at Cabela's. You can't have that.

They lose to a Denver team that's starting a quarterback, one of the Allen brothers, another Allen out there who's never played. And Denver looked good. And the Denver defense that you're always reminding us of, it's a real thing. But it got weird after the fact because your boy, Jermaine Whitehead, safety, ex-safety now of the Cleveland Browns, went right to the phone after the loss and there's all sorts of

things in that loss you could point to Odell was mad on the sideline which is already getting old for me Baker missing throws the play calling the fourth down stuffing the defense but Jermaine Whitehead was not having it somebody went at him and he went right on Twitter and he said bitch my hand broke by the way just for the kids that are in the car, this, the earmuffs warning here, because we're going to have to read these tweets. I can't even keep up with baby shark, turn on baby shark. We're going to go. What did this guy say? Because I know that he told somebody who's going to like kill them, which is generally not a good thing to say on the internet or anywhere. No, you don't want to threaten people to kill them.

Unless you're recording a gold album. Yeah, you could do that. If you're in the rap game and you just have extra time in the studio, you could probably threaten a few guys. Just do one. Just a couple threats. Just a couple threats. So what did he say?

This is a good one. Bitch, my hand broke. Just a couple threats. So what did he say? This is just, like, this is a good one. Bitch, my hand broke. Shit the fuck up. Like I said earlier, that shit, or like I said earlier, say that shit 10 feet from me. And then the guy that was going at him said, bitch, I'll say it right to your face. Then run away because you know you won't tackle me bum. That's kind of, that's like a way to be confrontational and then be funny at the end and admit,

admit that you don't want smoke as the kids say. Right. Uh, Dustin Fox, Ohio state guy, media member in Cleveland, known him a couple of years. He basically said,

Jermaine Whitehead's effort level is terrible here. And then Jermaine said come get it in blood bitch made ass little boy i'm out there with a broke hand don't get smoked fuck ass cracker he threw out cracker he threw out cracker a few times i didn't know that that was that was that was drop plus so then his his account got suspended okay twitter suspends his account he goes straight to ig and a guy dm'd him was like you suck lol wait wait wait so he his his twitter got broken he broke his twitter he broke his own guy broke his twitter and then he was like, well, fuck this. I got an Instagram.

Yep. Is he going to go to LinkedIn next? Just go down the line. He's going to talk shit to people on Tinder. You know? What if you went on ZipRecruiter and just put together a profile? You just started talking shit and threatening people on ZipRecruiter. Like, if you don't hire me bitch ass made so i'm sorry

about all the swearing right now like usually we're throwing one to try to make but we're trying to tell a story here we're allowed breaking news right yeah right this is we're we're a news organization so that's a really good point chris so a guy dm'd him which always sucks too because the guy the guy dms and then they screen grab it and then they share it with everybody. But this is just, it's part of the story. So this guy DMs him, you suck, LOL, getting trucked. Can you tackle cuz? You on the practice squad in two months, dot, dot, dot, maybe. Dramatic effect there.

Your man responded. That guy was wrong. That guy was wrong. Yeah, right. Not even. Well, he did say maybe. And then Whitehead came back with him shut your bitch ass up before i kill you little bitch ain't playing either fuck boy don't get hit up tell your

mama i'm not even gonna finish that one don't do that because i can't i don't i don't want parents to just all of a sudden unsubscribe and i'm afraid well you could always i hate to put more work on your table but you could always bleep all the words out. Post that. I think the allowances that we have here at the Ringer, we need to use the full effect when we're allowed to do so. This is the news. He was threatened to kill guys.

He also tweeted out the address of the practice facility, which I actually respect, but now he's not going to be there at the facility because he's been cut. No, you just meet outside the gate, bro. Have you ever wanted to death threat anybody? No, I mean, like, I've definitely, you know, when somebody said certain things online, I've had a quick fantasy of a fair one. But generally speaking, that's a lose-lose proposition. One, you don't want to get beat up by a fan. There's almost always going to be,

not that I'm ever worried about getting beaten up by a fan, because here's the thing. It could, anybody, you could get beat up in any in almost any situation you just never know but the main problem is you can get sued to high heaven you can get sued to high heaven threats like these can end your career uh what i usually try to do is i let my instincts guide me and my instincts are not to be violent. They're to be petty. And I try to get when you're mad, I'm very petty. I'm very petty.

I just, yeah, I'm like petty. I want to flip. If you make me uncomfortable, I want to turn around and make you uncomfortable. Example, you know,

example would be a guy, uh, you know, a Pat's fan. Uh, the, when I was on the team said something about a family member about one of your family members yes and i said hey man that's that's not real cool like i usually might i actually i think

i dm'd him because he kept commenting and i said hey buddy that's not real cool like why would you say that you know like try to be very calm and then he upped the ante and was like you know he's trolling me trying to get me to be angry right he said i'll meet you bitch i'll meet you wherever like and i'm looking at the picture of this guy i'm like i would drag him up and down and up and down a flight of stairs like and he's he's just he's at it i'm on the team playing home and the guys are i'm'm showing the guys the DM and we're looking and we're laughing. And I'm like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to sell it.

Like I'm really going to meet him. And I said, all right, well, let's meet. So he gives me a phone number and he's like, you can call me on this. You can find me like whatever. So I'm like, okay, I got him. I post the phone number online, which is the oldest trick in the book. You get the guy that's talking shit to give me some personal information. I wouldn't give his address out online, but a phone number that's going to annoy him. And he's probably

going to have to shut his, his, his cell phone down. So I put it out online. People start blowing his phone up. Then I get a message from another guy. He's like, hey man, I went to high school with that kid. That's not his number. He's a huge douchebag. Always has been. He goes, he gave you my cell phone number because he's too afraid to give you his. Here's his cell phone number. No way. Yes. So a big assist from the dude's classmate, put that bad boy on the internet. Then I get a bunch of messages from him hey man i think that's really messed up what you did i love really just can't you can't do things like that i didn't mean anything by it right yeah i'm like okay well maybe don't talk trash about my children online and we won't have this problem after after a win too yeah what the hell was the problem you not set

the edge there was no problem the guy's a troll and what happens is if you're a troll and you're tactful enough you can always turn it around on them so i think the answer is not anger it's to be petty that's pretty good uh i like the way you handled that i would have to say that i you know this is a classic this is one of those classic separations there's people listening to this right now going, I should be able to say whatever I want. I'm a fan. Good. And I can put your phone number online. Exactly. Like, you shouldn't be able to say whatever you want. To me, the idea that anyone who'd be like, well, how did you start your own business? Or what was the secret to your success? Well, the first five years of my twenties, I used to just dump on celebrities on social media and

try to get in arguments with them. And then I started my first company. Uh, that usually is not the way a Ted talk starts. I've, I've never noticed that at any of the self-help books. Well, it started by DMing a lot of dudes on Instagram, telling them they suck. And another, another, another one, Rye is, is you go go back it just reminded me if somebody talks bad enough to you go way back through their pictures and through their tweets you you'll usually find that they tweet very inappropriate shit at verified female twitter users that's a very good one too yes and i can i screenshot those and put them out there that is uh that's a very good one too. Yes. And I screenshot those and put them out there. That's a great piece of detective work.

I've also noticed over the years more emojis in your avatar, the worse your content is. Oh, yeah. I have an emoji in my Instagram. I need to get that out of there. That's okay. But I'm just saying the more emojis the worse the worse the content is so i don't know if we have a ruling on this thing can i just ask you this what if baker i have a ruling you can't you can't tell people you're gonna kill him you just can't you can't physically threaten people i went down that road one time on the internet and uh it was in st louis after one of many of

our losses uh and it was a dark moment. I didn't threaten somebody to that degree, but I suggested that we meet like, but I was serious. Yeah. And the guy called the authorities. Cool. But it didn't cross the threshold of bitch. I'm going to kill you. He called the cops on you because you said you were going to meet were you going to meet him i probably in my younger yeah you were going to fight a random guy on social media he really crossed the line ryan i don't want to give people the blueprint for actually getting me to meet them there but there is a part of this he talked bad about what he talked bad about willie nelson ryan oh well god i'm surprised you didn't threaten to kill him

ryan has a buddy that he introduced me to you're gonna love this guy he's awesome i was in visiting ryan to see willie nelson in south bay and we're at this bar and ryan's like this guy's awesome you're gonna love him you're. You're going to love him. That's not what I said. Here he comes. That is 0% true that I said this guy is awesome. And the guy comes up and he goes, you hear Willie Nelson's fucking playing this weekend? That guy's terrible. Have you ever seen him live? He's awful.

I almost spit my drink out. He almost had a bar fight in the quaint little village of Manhattan Beach. It was tough. It was like watching my parents fight growing up i was just sitting there and i'm like oh no but i never i never the preface to that introduction was never this guy's awesome you're gonna love him it was never that but he's a nice guy he came over he said hello he told a terrible story about your dad that didn't make any sense. Oh, I get a lot of those. Then he bought us two daytime warm rumplement shots, and we were like, this is the worst.

We don't even want these. Remember that? That sucked. Yeah. Oh, I remember the first time you'll like this, the first time Danny Amendola visited the Rams, we played each other in the Gator Bowl. So I was like, hey, buddy, you want to come out?

I'll take you out on the town. And he had just signed. Man, we got so drunk on Rumpelmints. I can't even smell them anymore. I have a visceral reaction when I smell peppermint because of that night. Danny passed out in my closet. No place to stay.

We can have him on the show to ask him what else he did that night. Yeah, I'm sure he'd be thrilled. He couldn't hold his rumblements down. Few can. That's the whole point. There's some science to that stuff that's just another level. I was watching the UFC fights on Saturday night with Cal Heard, and we were at a place, and some kid stopped me,

and he was like, a couple of rumblements? And I went, what? No. And he was like, I'm just kidding. I listen to the podcast all the time. There you go. Okay. You want to do some, let's do some shout outs here quick. And then we have a question about employment and then we'll do a five questions at the end. All right. Yeah. Raiders. Do you know what they were in preseason power rankings on ESPN or NFL.com? 30. 26th and 25th. You know what's funny? Looking back on it, I actually was like, that seems higher because I thought it was going to be 30. Everyone was anti-Gruden. Gruden became a joke throughout the entire NFL season, and it was because of his

contract. It was because he'd been out of the game. He'd had a few quotes. It sounded like he was outdated, and because he had to trade Khalil Mack, which I don't think still had as much to do with him not liking Khalil Mack as much as the owners didn't want to put all of that money into escrow, which is something you have to do. You have to write that check with this outdated bonus structure they have in the NFL. So 25th, 26th in power rankings, they've been underdogs in seven of their eight games. They had six weeks without a home game and that win yesterday against Detroit, who is not a good record team, but is a good foot. Like you can't just show up and think you're going to beat Detroit. They're one of those teams. You're

like, you know what? I like them. Like, I think they're good. They just don't have a great record, but for the Raiders to hang on and do this with their O-line problems, but I was skeptical about Mayock because I never know, if you're just this TV guy, does it really mean that you're going to grind and bust it? The draft results have been terrific. Look, still, it's Gruden's call. Gruden's the one that's in charge of this thing. But those guys, a year in, it has worked. And the Raiders and Gruden and all of them deserve a credit, just credit for being what no one, what the mob thought. The mob thought they were the embarrassment of the NFL, and they are far from it in a team that maybe is building towards something,

but at the very least beyond everybody's expectations. Oh, yeah, and they became, they crossed into that stratosphere where you become a meme and it's an easy cheap shot and you know you're going to get retweets and i saw a lot of what would the word be excessively cruel tweets uh and they have surpassed anybody's expectations they've drafted well um jacobs the back is awesome he's awesome right by the way one of the picks from that mac hall and we talked about that trade before. I don't think you can say definitively

who's won it or lost it yet. And that was kind of the biggest running joke in the world was the Raiders are the biggest morons. And that's with the Bears maximizing that trade and getting an 11 out of 10 in the player. They still can't turn it into wins. So I think I'm really excited that you picked the Raiders to shout out because that was a huge win.

Had no idea all those road games in a row. And Mayock was, you know, nobody wants to believe the TV guy can come in and make it work. Mayock is really good at evaluating talent. Do you want to play for the Raiders now that they've turned it around? No. Have you thought about it?

No. Okay. I just haven't. I have little flashes where I'm like, that'd be fun to play. And then I see somebody like riding off on a John Deere. What the hell does that mean? A gator. It's the, it's the, it's the cart. Yeah, no, I understand. Oh, oh, oh, oh, the John Deere. Oh, I thought you meant like retirement

tending to your land. You're talking about injury. No, I see somebody getting carted off or, or then after like, you know, I know how bad a Monday morning in a building is after you lose. Like it is the stress. I haven't felt that stress once since I retired. Not once. Maybe when that guy talks shit about Willie Nelson. Maybe. Okay. So you have the things going at chalk the interviews are incredible we've talked about this before so check it out chalk on social media chris tweeting it all out go follow them as well this is what you're doing now like i'm tweeting like a salesman just hey look at this hey look at this hey yeah have you seen this in case you i see why am i

that's like the biggest that's the biggest like I'm disappointed you didn't like what I just put out more last night. I'll try to get the likes up. I don't know. I don't know what I can do about that. We'll talk to the IT department over here. But the reason I bring that up is this is what you're doing now. This is after the deal. what would be the worst call for you professionally because i had i had something to happen to me recently where i just had this like real it wasn't a new epiphany or anything like that but i just went i'm pretty confident but man i would be terrible at this well i think i'd be so well i do like kids i like volunteering at like the boys and girls club that sort of thing.

When's the last time you did that? A month or two ago. No kidding. Look at you. What a citizen. Yeah, man. But I'm going to follow that up with an admission that I don't like a lot of kids. Like if I have to babysit, if I became a babysitter. That's going to be good for the next time you do it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no, babysitting to me, it's not something I'm interested in since I became a dad of two, I have no patience for other people's kids, like in that capacity, you know, like, I don't want to be chasing your kid. I don't want to be like feeding your kid breakfast,

none of that stuff. I think if I was in childcare, I'd be pretty bad at it. Um, I used to babysit. I also used to be a Mason in high school. I think I was way stronger at, uh, at 18 or 19 with no inflammation in my joints. If I had to go back into manual labor like that, I'd really struggle. Manual labor. It's been a while for me, grew up doing it, never had a problem with it. But yeah, it sucks. Like, especially when you're trying to bring shingles up a 40 foot ladder for roofers. Loading Nantucket Nectars on a truck. Yeah.

Just like, man, these, this half and half is incredible. And look under the cap. There's a fact. What's your say? That's incredible. I had no idea. And this, this guava mango is just unbelievable unbelievable and I'm going to want to take a nap and it's healthy too it's a nectar

yeah it's a nectar it's fresh pressed so I have a friend Kaylee Hartung Baton Rouge she used to be at ESPN, CNN, now GMA and I was looking at some of her videos because you know I'm really pumped for her and I whatever everybody's going to take this the wrong

way but I think she's one of the most comfortable people I've ever seen in television ever, like born to do it. This is whatever. But then I think like, imagine if you had to host GMA, like if somebody tomorrow excited, yeah.

If somebody tomorrow said, Hey, here's a few million. Cause that's what that job, like if you're really an anchor anchor, those people make so much money and that's a big driving force for a lot of people wanting to do it but having to sit around like four or five deep at that desk and just go nuts about like and watch the panda like look at what the watch the video of the dog yeah i'm just gonna say it's got

it's just something to numb your mind i'd be so bad at that and you know like the talent coaches because they put a lot into those shows they They pull you aside and be like, hey, we just need you to soften a little. When we do the Panda videos, you know, give it. Act like you like it. Yeah. What do you have against Pandas? Right.

And when you stand, when we do the jib shot and you're standing there, pretend you don't hate it. And I know I can be like. Oh, the jib. Yeah, the jib is because it's just. I'm learning the jib because I got to do my Thursday night thing. They were like, hey, we're coming be like a jib. Yeah. The jib is because it just, I'm learning the jib. Cause I got to do my Thursday night thing. I, they were like, Hey, we're coming out of the jib. I was like, what the fuck is a jib, sir? Can we stop? They're like, no, five, four, three, two, one.

Look at the jib. Are you serious? They just want you in your natural habitat. Then that's good. I volunteered at a youth center in Vermont, but i was 22 and it didn't go really well i was playing hoops they'd have hoops and i would play and i was like taking it way too serious telling guys calls they were like it calls bullshit and then the guy that ran the place was like we're gonna have to this isn't really working out, a lot of the kids aren't connecting with you. Yeah. I can imagine. I'd be better at it now because, you know, I don't call as many fouls. Let's do MVPs.

Let's do rapid-fire questions. Ready? Okay. The MVP for me is Russell Wilson. I want to put Deshaun Watson in there. What Russ did against Tampa yesterday, Tampa moved the ball at will, which I think long-term is still kind of concerning for Seattle. And then Russ goes, okay, I guess it's going to be one of these games. So I'll just take over his numbers.

When he's targeting Tyler Lockett are insane. He's 59 to 72, 82% completion rate, 767 yards, six touchdowns, no picks a passer rating of 139. The routes, I think Lockett's one of the best route runners in the league. The way they design, that kind of secondary route, where I know I'm getting this wrong in the terminology, but it's almost like a delayed wheel. Oh, I would too. I would too. Yeah, they have two guys on the outside of the right, and they're kind of running something that is going to distract you. The fact that Lockett's trailing those routes,

and Wilson throws this pop-up thing, which i think there is something to be said about baseball players who become quarterbacks there may be some kind of thing that people need to start just going okay now you've played baseball up until you're 15 now you're going to be a quarterback because these baseball guys are making different kinds of throws they have this weird arm angle touch thing we see it from the homes that i think is like, somebody should do a study on it. I'm not going to do it, but there you go. There's your content. I'd love to see Lamar as a middle infielder. I can imagine he'd be very good at baseball. I would think so. Yeah. I can't imagine like nobody in the outfield and the pros can throw anyway right now. I mean, the outfield throwers

in general are not nearly what it was when we were kids, But I have Russ, Deshaun, and Lamar. And you could put Lamar ahead of Deshaun. I feel like Deshaun has been left off a lot of those. But for those, if you give me three guys, it's Russ, Deshaun, and Lamar. I'll just give you one, and I agree with you. It's Russ. It's amazing. I've said it a number of times how much they've done

with turnover uh they're at the receiver position and by the way seattle deserves some credit in evaluating receiver talent you know metcalf no different a lot of people thought he'd just be this physically imposing guy that was a combine guy he's been a damn good football player for them i think that connection is going to be kind of iconic there for a long time to come. And another thing you mentioned, you worried that Seattle got the ball run on them a little bit yesterday. I would be concerned about that as well. But offensively, Carson going for, I think it was 115, means that that offense has no weaknesses anymore. And with Josh Gordon coming in, their receiving crop just got like really solidified. They got a tight end.

They pulled off the practice squad. They caught a bunch of balls. He's just made everybody better. Tampa blitzed him 74% of the time. That's the most any team has blitzed somebody in a single game since 2016. And Russ was like lethal. Five touchdowns in total, three against the blitz.

Again, Carson running the ball like that on Tampa's front, which has looked, you know, really good in games against Saquon, CMC. Anybody they play, they've had a hard time running the football. To add Carson to that, and of course, I'm not as surprised that he's a good player as I am as some of these young guys. Their offense is scary. Five questions. You ready? Yeah. Your first two years of your career, 2008-2009, the Rams went 2-14, 1-15. Were you actually tanking and no one told you? I sometimes wonder that.

I honestly sometimes wonder that. I mean, maybe by drafting me, they're tanking. But I'm pumped. No. They didn't start you. How about that? Number two overall pick and they didn't start you? Yeah.

Well, what they did is they had two really good older players, and I think they thought of everything as being rotational early on. And I wouldn't have started me my first year either. I honestly wouldn't have picked me until probably like 10 or 15 you know I think did you say that in the pre-draft process no I don't sell myself and they you know teams really ask why are you why should you be the number one pick I'm like listen that's y'all's job you know my job is to be the best I can, and I'm going to be the best I can be. I think early on, me and Spags didn't see eye to eye sometimes, and he was trying to send messages to me

because he thought I was a little bit of a space cowboy, which is true. Those were pretty bad teams. It was hard for anybody to perform well in those teams because the way rushing coverage works together, the way, you know, a quarterback in the O-line and the weapons around him plays together. It's a really tough proposition to come in and transform, whether you were myself or, you know, Sam, who had a lot of injuries or picks like Jason Smith, which were totally totally bummers did not work out even yeah i mean like listen it was just it was really tough and now that i'm mentioning it uh maybe we were taking i don't know i don't think you were but it was just it was worth being brought up what's the most memorable question you were asked in the pre-draft process with your team visits?

There's a couple things I remember about that pre-draft process. One, I think I roomed with Cliff Averill at the Combine. I don't remember. I'm pretty sure. Actually, probably not. But I stayed in one of those train cars. Like inside that, you know, what is that? Convention center there?

Some of the rooms are like old trains, like choo-, what is that convention center there? Some of the rooms are like old trains, like choo-choo trains that they made into rooms. So I had terrible nights of sleep, barely slept. You'd be in there at like 6am. You could hear everything out in the hall. You'd be, I don't know why you have to wake somebody up at 6am to interview them. I'll never figure, like, what are you going to learn at 6 a.m. that you're not going to, like, 9 a.m.? But that was a nice preview into how coaches think in the NFL. And I remember sitting in that Kansas City Chiefs draft room, and Herm Edwards sat in the bathroom in the back of the room. So there's, like, a screen to the left. There's all the executives in the room. There's coaches. And Herm is in the bathroom sitting on, I don't think

he was sitting on the toilet. I think he brought a folding chair in there, but I just remember thinking this guy fucking hates me. I'm not, I'm not going to go play for the chiefs. I don't think it was that. I think it was just something in the process where he wasn't as interested in the meeting. Um, I never got a weird question. I know guys got a lot of weird questions at the, at the combine. I just remember when we finished getting three hurricanes, cause I was still a college kid then. Cause I hadn't drank in months. Cause you're trying to be like Mr. Olympia, right?

She got to stand up there in underwear. So I actually had abs for the first time in my life. That's great. Oh yeah. I had abs and then we finished, I got on the plane with my trainer and, and trainer and down like two, three hurricanes to celebrate. Got back to Charlottesville, partied some more. Yeah, that's my combine memory.

Should we just transition this into the draft day memory and tell that story? Because it's my favorite story. Let's just do this. Yeah. Fuck the rest of the questions. Yeah. Go for it. What did you remember

about it what what happened to the the seville eight was it they came up yeah my buddies they um they came up to i actually had like 20 dudes up and by the way they almost lit the hotel they were staying out on fire and it wasn't a nice hotel it was one of those hotels like over the bridge in jersey because everybody was like a college kid. So they were on a budget. So like 20 of my buddies came up and you stay in the city where you stay with your parents in the city. I wasn't, I wasn't staying with, with my buddies. Um, I was staying in a nice hotel. And in fact, like the night before the draft, we went out and started to get really sauced everybody. And at one point my agent was like, you need to go home. This is not what we need. He's like, I end up the group, the party bus. And he one point, my agent was like, you need to go home. This is not what we need. He's like eyeing up the group, the party bus.

And he's like, no. He's like, not the night before the draft. Wait one more night. Get picked up before you party with these guys. And it turned out to be a good move because they almost lit the Econo Lodge on fire, set the fire alarm off. There was like a small carpet fire in the hallway. They also, before the draft, they had like banister seats. Like I'm on the second level of that, that radio city music hall. And they draped a sign over that I didn't know about.

So I'm getting ready for the draft and somebody comes in and they're like, Chris, this is like somebody from the NFL is like, Hey, are your friends sitting in the second row or the second level? And I'm like, yeah, they are. And she's like, well, we're going to have to get them to take down this sign. We've gotten a bunch of complaints and i'm like yeah they are and she's like well we're gonna have to get them to take down this sign we've gotten a bunch of complaints i'm like what does the sign say what did the sign say right i don't even want to say it i don't remember chris long has a long dong i think it was which isn't even creative no No, it just rhymes, sort of. It just rhymes. It had something to do with a dong and my last name. And I'm like, guys. Are you texting them?

This is my one chance. I'm texting them on my Motorola Razr or my BlackBerry. Because it's back. It probably wasn't good service in there. But can you imagine had that happened in the twitter age that's going viral i can't find it right now i'm i'm googling long dong chris long yeah well don't don't just don't google that there's nothing to find i'm trying to i want to get the quote right this is a you know like i said i don't think it ever nothing ever happened they had to get the quote right. This is a, you know, like I said. I don't think it ever, nothing ever happened.

They had to get us, they didn't get ushered out. They were going to be told to leave if they didn't take down their sign, which took a lot of effort. I think it was like a 10-foot sign. Do you think it helped you go number two? I didn't know they had so much, maybe. The Rams are like, we don't know about this guy. And then somebody comes in and they're like, hey, you know what?

We're getting some late intel on this dude. Let's go ahead and pull the trigger. Put in the card. Put in the card for Grisly. So they put up a sign. They almost get kicked out. They have it taken down. And do you stay?

What was the story? You just stayed in like a fancy hotel room? Does the NFL, I assume, pays for that if you're one of the top picks? Yeah, they pay for your hotel room. Another funny thing about the draft weekend was the suits if you look back at a picture of myself glenn dorsey matt ryan jake long and uh darren mcfadden and vernon golston those are the first six players taken our suits were absurd they weren't like nba level they weren't like jordan suit level yeah are you googling them

yeah everything that's coming up is like all your men a lot of room and a lot of room in the waistline definitely would have looked a lot different had i got drafted today i think i've glowed up oh i found it this isn't that bad though it's a three button the top one's a little higher but you didn't go this isn't a Jalen Rose deal here. You're all right. The funny thing is, is you're next to Jake Long in this picture. Yeah. We both had the same haircut.

No, you've got, you've got the bangs. No, he had short hair there. Yeah. I had the, I had the. Jake has a buzz cut and Jake looks like a young Golic. Did he look like a young Golic? Yeah. I'm going to send you this picture.

Like, this is funny looking at this. He looks like, he looks like a Golic. And Vernon Golston's like in the background. I think it says, he's like, I can't believe I'm going to go sixth. Uh, I think he, I think he knew he was going to go. I think he felt pretty good about where he was going. No, I'm just kidding. Um, so then you went back to the Jersey hotel and those guys destroyed it,

correct? Yeah, this was the night before though. So this was good that I didn't go. So I partied with them, you know, after, and the thing about it is when you're a teenager, you need sleep. Not a teenager at that point. I was like 20 something, but when you're a college kid, you need sleep. Like you can't go out drinking and get six hours. That's just not the way it works from a developing body standpoint. That's a good point. Yeah. I didn't go to sleep that night and I got on the plane to go to St. Louis, uh, 6am

flight out, um, had never done that. Like the overnight thing where you don't sleep and you get on the plane, which a lot of adults do. And I still have no idea how they do that. No idea. But I'm up there in Rams Park in Earth City, Missouri, and I'm answering questions. I don't know how I got here and I'm still feeling pretty good, but that's what happens to every kid that gets drafted. Like it's just is what it is. Like you're going to go out and have a good time. They're going to end up in the city that they plan within like...

Well, now things have changed a little bit with the timing of the draft and everything. But back then, you were on a plane first thing in the morning to go wherever you're going to answer questions. And you were probably feeling pretty good. That's a good way to end it then. Get all your chalk stuff in so people can find that. Yeah, if you're so inclined, just check us out on YouTube, Chalk Media. I've got a show called The Fish Bowl. It's more of an interview show.

We had Kirstie Ennis this weekend, winner of the Pat Tillman Award. Total badass. Climbed Killie with me. Above the knee amputee. First female to do it with that classification. And just a great interview. Veterans Day coming up. Check it out. We have George great interview. Veterans Day coming up. Check it out.

We have George R.R. Martin coming up. Game of Thrones. Whoa, good pull. Yeah. Yeah, good pull. We had to Skype in. He's in Santa Fe. Didn't really have time to hit Santa Fe.

But a great interview. We got about an hour in with him, and that'll be up this weekend. Sounds good. All right. That'll do it for our episode on every Monday with Chris Long on the Russolo Podcast, part of the Ringer Network. Please rate, review, and subscribe. And I'll have, obviously, Wednesday and Friday pods.

And, Chris, I'll be back next Monday. Thanks again. Outro Music