The Ryen Russillo Podcast - What We Know Vs. What We Thought About Raiders-Chargers, Flores Out With Jon Vilma, Plus Klay’s Return

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the climax of the roller-coaster matchup between the Raiders and the Chargers, the speculation on head coach Brandon Staley's timeout call in overtime, and the difference between what we thought in real time vs. what we know today (0:32). Then Ryen talks with Super Bowl champion Jonathan Vilma of Fox Sports about the "almost tie" between the Raiders and the Chargers, their differing opinions on the 1-seed Titans, what to make of the Patriots, the Dolphins firing HC Brian Flores, Vilma's choice for DPOY, the upcoming College Football Playoff national title game, and more (14:45). Then Ryen briefly talks about Klay Thompson's return to the Warriors (49:56) before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (55:34). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Jonathan Vilma Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

we start by trying to make sense of what happened between the chargers and the raiders a little bit on tennessee as your one seat in the afc and jonathan vilma on all of that including breaking news this morning brian flores out is the miami hip coach and vilma's pick for the national championship rematch. Bama and Georgia will do a little on Klay's return and a really long life advice that I don't think helps anyone. Let's start with the open after the last regular

season week for the NFL. Trying to figure out what happened last night in Vegas, which is usually not related to football. But in this case, absolutely with the Chargers and Raiders going to overtime and Raiders walking off with a field goal.

Leading up, as we all know, there was a lot of talk about the tie part of this, where there's a scenario where if the Chargers and Raiders tie, they would both be in the playoffs, so why not go ahead and do that? The Colts getting stomped as 16.5-point favorites against Jacksonville, Pittsburgh taking care of their end of things with Roethlisberger beat Baltimore.

So there was like all these things and be like, Hey, do you realize this could happen? And now we're sitting there, you know, throughout the closing moments of earlier Sunday games going, okay, would the chargers and Raiders actually do this? And there are people that believe that they could, or that they should because it makes sense. Hey, well, if we just tie, we're both going to be in it. First of all, let's just go,

let's just get this out of the way. Do you know how fucking impossible that would be? Do you know how hard that would be before kickoff to decide to play for the tie? Now you could sit there and say, maybe if it was a Jeff Fisher, Jack Del Rio matchup where they'd be going, Hey, if this is close towards the end, you know, one of us just want to take a knee. All right. I got your word on that. Cause there's some kind of relationship like maybe, right. Maybe that would happen, but to kick the game off and think you'd be able to have a sequence of series and decisions

hoping to land on a tie would be impossible. You would, like last night, have a better chance of tying by not trying to do it. The Raiders get up late and you're thinking, all right, this isn't going to be an issue. They're up, what are we talking, 29-22. Then Herbert, who's unbelievable starts putting on a show the last few minutes of the fourth quarter they get this thing tied up it's 32

excuse me it's 29 a piece and we're headed to overtime uh both teams exchange field goals charges kick off to the raiders about four and a half minutes left to go in overtime. So Raiders starting to throw in 25. Now they have to move the football here, right? They have to move the football because clearly they're not only maybe possibly trying to still win this game, but they don't want to give the ball back to the Chargers.

And they do move the football. They get a pass to Edwards for 17 yards. Jacobs up the middle for another seven yards. There's a third and eight. The Zay Jones pass. What a throw by Carr, who probably deserves more credit than he's given. And now we're at the two-minute warning, and it's a first and 10 at the Chargers 45. So now, with the timeout situation with the Chargers, which normally in this case,

they'd be calling timeouts, or they wouldn't be brooding. There's no other version of this where you'd be the team without the football going, not only do we not want the ball back, we also want the clock to run out. So that was something for all of us to kind of take a leap of faith on understanding that the strategy for this would be entirely different. So

first and 10, Jacobs stuffed. Second and 11, Jacobs left tackle for seven yards. And in that moment, Jacobs is tackled at 114 left. No timeout is called. It's going to be third and four. We're running into about four or five seconds left on the play clock. And Brandon Staling, the Chargers, call a timeout with 38 seconds left.

Now, on the broadcast, and I'll admit, too, I didn't quite know what was going on because again, these are different circumstances. And to think in that moment, you knew everything that was happening, what the Raiders were thinking, what the Chargers were thinking, what Staley was thinking, what the OC was thinking. For all of us to assume that at home on the couch is probably a big mistake. And it kind of gets back to my big point that I brought up numerous times that in the moment is probably when we're at our worst and we usually need to sleep on things a little bit more

and I know last night I was confused and I said hey I went back and watched the timeout over and over again like clearly they weren't were they trying to stop the clock or was it if they were trying to stop the clock why are you not calling the timeout when Jacobs is tackled it's like well okay we started to learn more a little bit later on, which we will get to. So at that moment, it's third and four. The timeout is called. We're underneath the play clock. What happened when they lined up in third and four? They were lined up in shotgun, so they weren't taking a knee. So let's all be on the same page here because there's still a little gray area with some of this stuff, but for the most part, it got pretty buttoned up once we heard from Staley and Basaccia, the Raiders head coach, and Carr on top of that.

All right. So it's third and four, and they were lined up in shotgun. And Mitchell Schwartz, who was really good on this stuff and to the point where I was kind of just making sure I knew what I was doing, I talked to him last night, former tackle for the Chiefs. And then his observation has been picked up in that Colton Miller, the left tackle for the Raiders, he was saying stance alone like they were going to run a play and they were probably going to hand it off again. Now, Staley calls the timeout and Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth are like, wait a minute.

All right. And they lost it. And I think that was kind of the lighter fluid on everyone's reaction last night. Whereas once Jacobs is tackled, if they don't call the timeout, we're underneath the play clock that the Raiders are just going to go ahead and take a knee. But if they were lined up in shotgun before Staley called the timeout, almost anyone who's really into football will tell you that was not the case. You're not taking a knee there. All right.

Look all that stuff up. If you don't believe me, look at the people that actually played and have covered football much longer than I have. You're not taking a knee in that place. So at that point, Staley's calling the timeout with one simple goal, to stop them on third and four, hoping that if they stop them, then they have a decision on fourth down at a 57-yard field goal, which the conversion rate is under 50%,

where when they ended up kicking the field goal from 47, I think the conversion rate there is like 70-something percent. It's a big, big gap. And I don't know if the Raiders are actually going to go ahead and kick the field goal but remember the reason i was confused on the timeout was like well this doesn't really make any sense because if they'd wanted the ball back they would have called it 114 the charges didn't even want the ball back necessarily they wanted to force the raiders into a decision that either wasn't a field goal or a different third down look right and again you could sit there and say well the charge you're

going to get it back when a punt or whatever it wasn't to get the ball back in a punt and then be like all right let's start spreading out five wide and see if we can push the ball off the field here in a matter of seconds not likely so then on the timeout there was another part where Linville Joseph comes onto the field from Murray the linebacker because they wanted to go bigger personnel so the Raiders apparently see that and then they decide to line up in a different formation and Jacobs which is lost in all of this on third and four puts together a great run for 10 yards and gets into the Chargers 29 they run the clock down to a couple seconds kick a 47 yard field goal and now the Raiders are not playing the Chiefs they're playing Cincinnati so in the moment Staley it was

called like a fireable offense which again i think michaels and collinsworth have some uh blood on their hands for that one watching it all play out it's like what is he doing what is he doing but at that point we don't know anything staley doesn't know anything we don't know if the raiders are actually going to take a knee we don't know that i know david carwin asked by michelle tofoya after said, hey, how did that factor in? And he said, oh, it definitely did. It definitely did. If you really break down the full answer, Carr's answer is basically a throwaway answer. It's him being like, oh, you know, you mentioned that. Okay. Because look, I've done this for a living. I know when guys answer stuff almost to be polite and carrying off the transition from my question into their

answer. Because it's just as Carr said, we'll definitely play it into the, you know, factor it into our decision-making there when the Chargers decided to go ahead and call that timeout in third and fourth, so now we have to run a play. People that thought the Chargers were the dumbest people ever, the people that thought that the Chargers and Staley were so stupid, which I think there's some motivation to hope that they're stupid

because there's so many people that were annoyed with Staley and the analytics and some of the other decisions that they had had earlier in the game are like this fucking guy oh now he's got oh you know genius over here is calling a time out now and the raiders are going to take a knee again we don't know that the raiders are going to take a knee we don't staley doesn't know if the raiders are going to take a knee and even though car said it factored in he then completely contradicts himself in the same quote by saying, well, yeah, but we still wanted to go ahead

and win this football game, which definitely made sense because the Raiders would be motivated to win the football game, again, so they didn't have to play the Chiefs. And yes, I know that Cincinnati exactly, like that wasn't a great matchup, but let's just all be honest with each other here.

Everybody would rather play Cincinnati than the Chiefs in a playoff game, okay? All right, so that part of it. Now, there was also another element where it's like, wait a minute, if you were would rather play Cincinnati than the Chiefs in a playoff game. Okay. All right. So that part of it. Now there was also another element where it's like, wait a minute, if you were all about wanting to play the Chiefs, then why were you running certain plays the way you were running plays? You know, I don't know how believable all that stuff is. Passaccia, the head coach of the Raiders was asked about it and said, Hey, we were talking about it. We were talking about it. Definitely. He didn't say anything in his quotes that I saw from his presser that made it definitive

because there was even a part of me last night that's thinking, okay, let's never underestimate just wanting to win a football game, right? Let's not underestimate the part where it's a bunch of guys in a roster that bought into the interim head coach for an organization that's gone through a ton of stuff this season that maybe they just wanted to go ahead and win this thing. So if you're watching last night, still thinking thinking and i think motivated a little bit by the broadcast reaction of the staley timeout that oh my gosh the chargers just cost themselves a chance at a tie and then to go into the playoffs because their coach is a is you know i don't know fucking young sheldon over

there um that that's not really what it was and And there's always this Occam's razor thing, which again was hilarious. And Brian Windhorst brought up the concept of Occam's razor on Mike and Mike and everybody's like, what the hell are you talking about? But here it is. And it works all the time. The simplest answer is probably the right answer. If you go back and listen to Staley's comments, again, not in the moment, now that we have all of the information, we've seen all the different stuff flying around.

Why would Staley call a timeout? He explained it really simply. At that point, we think they're still trying to run the ball. We didn't like our run defense. I wanted to change our run defense to stop them and then give them a decision to have to make a really

hard field goal. Or then just decide to take the knee because they were under the play clock. And that's really, I think all it comes down to. And in the moment, it was kind of hard to figure that out. And if you figured it out, all the credit to you, but you can't have Staley, you can't criticize Staley for him not knowing what the Raiders were doing when the Raiders were kind of just discussing it all. And the car quote, even though it felt like the smoking gun. And I thought it was when I saw just the clip until I was like, you know, let me go see the whole thing. And then I saw the whole thing and

I go, Hey, look, I think the Raiders to sit there at third and four in their formation based on what Mitchell Schwartz said about the left tackle, about how they changed their formation when they saw the personnel change, that they're probably still going to run a play there. It just felt like after sleeping on it and seeing everything that was going on around it, once we were able to put it all together, it's a mistake. But it was a mistake based on the fact that they didn't stop a running back. If they stuff Jacobs and they run the clock, this game's over, and they're both in the playoffs, and we're never talking about that timeout. So Vegas is in, and Pittsburgh's in. Denied getting to see Herbert in the playoffs.

I did see a little of that going around because it does feel like, all right, we got Roethlisberger throwing wet garbage up and down the field for a playoff game. Is that really what we want to see? But you know what? Good for Roethlisberger.

Just the swan song. I still am convinced he's going to report that his reports of retirement are inaccurate. And then he's going to self-report back to camp at some point. There has to be some sort of great odds boost on that somewhere. So if we were to rank

the playoff teams in the AFC, let's just focus on the AFC because I'm going to get to film on some of the other stuff. And I just feel like there's two teams that are clearly above everybody else in the NFC.

It doesn't mean it's going to work out that way. So the playoff seating for the AFC is Tennessee as the one and the bye. Kansas City two, Buffalo three, Cincy four, Vegas five, New England is six, Pittsburgh is seven.

Colts are out. You may have heard that. I would rank the AFC teams this way. Kansas City one, Buffalo two, Cincy three, Tennessee four, New England five, Vegas six, and Pittsburgh 7. I think that's the right list. Now people are going to be like, are you kidding me? Look at Tennessee.

Look what they had to deal with. No Henry for nine weeks. Accurate. 91 different players. An NFL record in 2021. Accurate. I don't know what's going to happen with Henry. It feels like this has been kind of this bait and switch

where he could come back. I know Vrabel afterwards said he hadn't taken a snap with the starting offense yet. So I'm open to the idea of him still coming back and being a really impactful guy physically, and he's still young enough and all that kind of stuff. I just, despite Tennessee winning 12 and 5 games, I don't think they're better than a bunch of these other teams. guy because physically he's still young enough and all that kind of stuff. Despite Tennessee winning 12-5 games, I don't think they're better than a bunch of these other teams.

I just don't think that they are. And I don't even really think that that's debatable other than probably Tennessee fans that don't want to hear it. Let's look at point differential. In the AFC, Tennessee was sixth in point differential at plus 65. So the one seed is behind five other teams in point differential. That's hard to do. I went through the last 20 years of one seeds out of the AFC and looked at their point differential. The average point differential of the last 20 years for one seeds in the AFC is plus 158.

Just a little over, right? Plus 158. It's almost 100 points better on average than what Tennessee was this season. There's only one team in 20 years that's had a lower point differential as the one seed of the AFC. One team, only one team.

Your Super Bowl champion 2015 Denver Broncos. I know every argument against what I just said. No Henry, no A.J. Brown, Julio, the whole deal. They won 12 games. It's remarkable. If they'd had everybody, maybe they're 15-2.

Shut up, Russillo. Totally get it. And maybe you're right. But I don't think I'm wrong. The regular season is behind us, but we have Jonathan Vilma with us, like we do throughout the entire season. Fox Sports, a bunch I want to get to,

but let's just start with what everybody was hot on last night, and that's Vegas and L.A. overtime. Maybe a tie, the timeout, where now that, as I talked about it in the open, I think I have it kind of figured out. What was your take on everything that happened in that last drive it my take was you you unfortunately don't give Staley the benefit of the doubt because of him uh overusing analytics not just in this game and other games so I can understand why fans started to start to kind of think well what is he

doing why is he calling this time out you know I get why he called the timeout. You want to put your best run defender out there. But the fact is, one, your run defense is terrible anyway, statistically third worst in the league. And two, everyone knows and sees this big guy running onto the field. So if I'm Gus Bradley and Versace on the other side, or excuse me, Greg Olson, OC on the other side, I'm dust bradley and uh bisaccio on the other side or excuse me greg olsen oc on the other side i'm gonna say okay i see this big guy running in he wants to stop the run so i'm gonna call a different type of run play and that's exactly what happened they lined up in shotgun before the timeout they come back under center run a a play, and then naturally what did Jacobs do? Bounce outside. Bounce outside, and he gets the yards.

It was actually a great run by Jacobs, which was kind of lost in all this because it looked like they actually had him. I know there was some debate about Murray out versus Linval Joseph in, but they had done it previously. And I think looking at some of the recaps of the game, the people that were really locked into it, like, hey, Murray actually kind of struggled,

and that's something they were going to do. I think it's just kind of one of those things where of all the different things I thought about last night, Vilma, I'm going, all right, well, did, did like, let's never underestimate wanting to win a football game, which last night's case was, was a very different feeling. It's, it's something we're not really ever used to dealing with um in this scenario both teams tying so i kind of felt like even if staley got it wrong they don't get the tackle they kicked a few all the things that didn't work out for the chargers it just felt like a lot of assumptions of going well what could staley possibly know

like he couldn't know what the raider strategy was because they were trying to move the football because they needed to you know what i mean like there was because they were trying to move the football because they needed to. You know what I mean? Like there's just how could we assume anything other than Staley looking at a setup going, all right, I don't really like this because at that point, him running the clock down, which is not something we're used to seeing it really now looking at it didn't matter. It didn't matter him letting the clock run down. Right.

So it didn't matter letting him run the clock down. But it's also as simple as call a different defense call a different play call right instead of trying to bring your guy in and everyone's going to now see that you bring your guy in look you can run a corner blitz we all knew it was going to be a run, right? We, or a high probability of it being a run, start blitzing guys, right? So we would do, we used to have, you know, this little, it was like, we called it a wildcat blitz. Both corners would just blitz off the edge.

If we knew it was like an obvious, obvious run play, right? Situationally, it's an obvious run play, or, you know, back then teams were running the wildcat a lot, something like that. So I'm looking at the situation and saying, all right, it's an obvious run again, right? The situation is telling me that it's an obvious run. The formation says it's very similar to what they just did on second down. So just call a corner blitz.

And if you trust one of your linebackers or somebody to check out of it, if they see something, then let them check out of it. But, you know, to call the timeout, that's kind of like, you know, high school stuff, to be honest, like, all right, I'm going to bring in this big guy. Well, everybody in the stadium sees you bring in this big guy. And don't you think that Olsen is going to OC for the Raiders is going to adjust and say, all right, last time you did this, this is what happened. So this time I'm going to do this, right? I don't get it.

I don't get it. All right. Okay. So we've spent some time on that in this podcast. You had the Browns game. And, you know, going up to the final week, and really the Browns season was, we know this is a massive disappointment. We know that the roster was talented.

We know that Baker was hurt, but also now you're left with this Baker situation where you're like, okay, well, how much is it him? How much is it injuries? It's probably a little bit of both. Did you get any sense of kind of the limbo that the franchise feels like they're in as they figure out what they're going to do with that position? I mean, I'm sure they could just say, hey, let's give them another shot. They already picked up the option, but I don't know if that's going to go over well. I don't know if that's their approach.

What did you pick up kind of being around a team that clearly did not meet their own expectations? One very, very disappointed team. When I interviewed the coaches, interviewed the players, When I interviewed the coaches, interviewed the players, the answers were, I shouldn't say unusual. They were expected short, you know, curt answers, you know, really direct, very disappointed. So I think that you have a team that saw how good they can be in 2020. They were expecting a lot of success and they didn't have it. And then you start to kind of break down why they didn't have the success and naturally it flows back to the quarterback position. But again, talking to the players and the coaches, they love this guy. They love Mayfield.

They think Mayfield has that, you know, shtick to him little that little kind of dog in him that you love from your quarterback. Like I had Drew Brees and Drew Brees was a bit of an asshole and I loved it. And so they like that. He's one of those types of guys now. And they say everyone said he's a great teammate. Now, that being said, he throws 13 picks right through like 10 picks in the past six weeks of football. It was just ugly, ugly football. His last game, he got sacked nine times. It was bad. The balls were batted down five times. It was just ugly. And I can't tell you to me. You have two schools of thought. One is you assess him when he was healthy and you say we went to the playoffs. We won a playoff game. This is how good we can be. And you say, can he take us to the promise lane? Maybe, maybe not,

right? A little more experience and all that jazz, protect him a little bit more and he's healthy. Maybe he can. You have the other school of thought where you say well if we're looking at our team and we're saying where do we need the most improvement naturally going to look at the quarterback position the run game is there pro bowler and chubb you're both your guards are pro bowlers your defense has one of the best players in miles garage david county played well denzel ward's a pro bowler so you have a lot of these other components and you're saying, well, if we just improve here and I say here at that quarterback spot, we just improve a little bit.

Then we can get past winning just one game in a playoffs. We can win multiple. The thing is who are you going to bring in? Right. Who, who is that guy that you're saying? Oh my God, hands down is better. And we know we're going to go get him? Yeah, that's the part of it.

You don't know. If something presents itself where one of the studs decides he wants to go to Cleveland, but this is going to be a very competitive quarterback market with veterans maybe pushing it a little bit more, whether it's Rodgers, whether it's Wilson, the Watson element of all this stuff. There's just a lot of unknown and even with cleveland's talented roster i'm just not sure if cleveland i don't think rosa wilson's gonna want to go there i don't know if rogers would um and deshaun doesn't seem like a

fit there either um by the way just being around garrett and seeing it live yeah i mean everybody knows how insane this guy is at defensive end but give me anything that happened with you you know prepping for it or watching him like how special you think he is anything surprised you about him you know uh what i was surprised about was how well he can move he on a on a lesser scale and i don't want to take i don't want people to take this out of context he reminds me of lebron james as far as his athleticism, right? So LeBron James is the most athletic player we've ever seen.

You can argue there's some other players that are more skilled than LeBron, but just as a pure athlete, God's gift to basketball, God's gift to athletics, period. Miles Garrett is very, very close to that. And in the football sense where he's like 6'6", 6'7", whatever he is, 270 pounds. He's as fast as any defensive end out there in the game right now. He's as strong as any defensive end in the game right now. He can bend.

And when I mean bend, usually you get those kind of wiry, slimmer defensive ends because they can turn the corner. They're really smooth and he can do that as well. So imagine you're a left tackle and you're going up against a guy that can bull rush you. He can run you right over. He can run right by you. He can run underneath you. And if he gets mad enough, he's frankly unblockable for the day. Right. And if you just look at the progression in his career, every time you're like, OK, this guy has hit his peak. He goes and sets another mark. Right. Breaking the Saks record for Cleveland. His stops are there. His run stops are there. Everything, the most pressures, everything just keeps getting better and better and better every time. So, you know, I'm just in awe, right, sitting back looking as a fan and saying,

I'm witnessing probably one of the best defensive ends for this generation. Yeah, I don't think you're off on that at all. I mean, he has moments where he came down, you know, he's lined up left side facing, right defensive end on the defensive alignment. And that one play where he gets inside of what feels like three people trying to stop him.

Yeah. And he still collapses his side of the pocket. I mean, the pocket never really was able to establish itself because guys are just scurrying all over the place. Before I get to some of the other stuff and maybe where Garrett fits into the defensive player of the year conversation, especially with Watt and the sack record,

which some people would argue he should have it by himself with a sack that was taken away. The Colts, their 16.5-point favorites against Jacksonville, they got smoked. This wasn't some weird, hey, how the hell is this game close? All right, we lost it. From the kick, they were all over the place. They lost to the Raiders, so they lose their last two games of the season after feeling like, hey, you know who's actually decent?

The Colts have turned things around. Have you ever had a situation where you were closing the season with something on the line and you came out that flat? No. And I immediately, when I saw the score, I was watching the score like on a TV timeout, and I'd look over I saw the score, I was watching the score like on a TV timeout and I'd look over and see the score and I immediately thought coaches, leaders are to blame.

It starts at the top because as a coach, you have to first make sure your team is mentally prepared, especially down in this stretch, mentally prepared to play the game. So mentally is X's and O's, et cetera. Then another component of being mentally ready is the emotional part, right? So you have to make sure that they're mentally into it up for this game and understanding the task at hand. So I look directly at the coaches because Sean Payton always did a great job of having us mentally slash emotionally ready to play those types of games.

And you even see it now with the Saints playing quarterback number four. They're going up against the Bucs. They are mentally, emotionally ready to get ready to go. And then the physical part, right, the physicality of a week 18 being physically ready to play that comes on the coaching and then that falls on the leaders as well because at this point there is no scheme there's no play call that jacksonville hasn't seen or you haven't seen as a division opponent against them right so it's like really coach just call what you think is the best call. And then as players, we're going to physically make it work because you can call whatever defense you want. If I don't get off my block as a linebacker, if I don't get off my block as a defensive tackle, it doesn't matter what you call. He's going to run through my gap anyway because I'm not getting off blocks.

So that's what I'm talking about being physically ready. Same thing with the run game. So that's what I'm talking about being physically ready. Same thing with the run game. Right. If you're just all of a sudden letting your guy get inside the block and now Taylor can't get open or can't get loose for 100 some yards. That's just that's not coaching. That's the players. The players need to step up and be accountable for all the other players. So, you know, that's from nothing else. Not knowing what happened during the week, not really seeing the game. All I can tell you is when you have an opportunity to win and get yourself into the playoffs, the coach and the leaders are supposed to make sure that team is physically, emotionally, mentally ready to play, and they were not.

The AFC, it feels like with the NFC and Green Bay and then them getting all their guys back to on top of everything else. So for green Bay to go on this run with Rogers and now it's like, Hey, three of their best players are coming back. Um, I'm,

I'm uncertain about the Rams. I'm uncertain about the Cardinals. You know, there's, there's a lot of uncertainty there, but it feels like there's one clear favorite. And we put Tampa Bay in that top group too, I think,

which is as long as they don't have to play the Saints which is now a certainty now the Saints are in the playoffs on the AFC side of thing Tennessee is statistically one of the worst one seeds we've had ever and when I why why what stats are saying they're the worst point differential offensive ranks quarterback granted without his weapons kind of a different guy. I don't know. I mean, why do you think Tennessee is good? Because I've even said, even though I went through it, I said, to be fair, when you're missing that many guys, and they played with an NFL record 91 different players this year,

we could be looking at a completely different version of this team in two weeks with Henry back on top of everything else. So I have an open mind of all of it, but I would just put, all right, let me do this. Where would you put Tennessee among the AFC teams? Do you think they're the best? I would put them top three. I would put them top three. Think watching Kansas City play. Well, first, just to go back to being,

I know you said statistically one of the worst one seeds we've seen. I look at their brand of football, and that's where I'm going with first. That's why I asked you why. Because their brand of football has never changed for the past two years. Forget just this season. They know they are. We're going to run the football. We're going to rely on our defense. There'll be a lot of close, ugly games.

And we're okay with that. And we'll ask Tannehill to make, I don't know, four nice throws a game, maybe five or six if our defense is struggling a little bit. But that's who we are. So that's where I was just thinking about their brand of football when you said statistically, but going back to where I would rank them, I would say top three right now. And it's only because I see Kansas City, they've gotten hot. I've seen the Bengals, they've gotten hot, right? And during the year, everything's fluid.

Right. And we were talking about this four weeks ago, five weeks ago, we'd be saying the Patriots are one of the hottest teams. The Colts are one of the hottest teams. So right now they've been steady Eddie, Mr. Consistent the whole time. And then you have a couple of teams that are hot. So we'll see what happens in those first couple weeks before tennessee has to play after the bye are you off in new england no i'm not off on new england uh they new england is a team that is still trying to find their way and what i mean by that is it was funny when they were they were really hot defense was playing lights out and remember when they beat buffalo up at buffalo pass the ball i think like three times that game or something like that and all

the headlines would read mac jones wins his fifth straight and i was like mac jones didn't win his fifth straight it was the defense and the special teams like that the run game that's who won the ball game for him but uh i say that to say they had always i should say glossed over the fact that there's a rookie quarterback at the helm for the patriots and it's not that he's bad it's that he's a rookie and you can only ask rookies to do so much at that quarterback position and when you start playing better teams as they're about to get into in the playoffs your rookie quarterback is going to have to now play like a veteran right because if you start going match up for matchup you're going to say well who are they playing i don't even know who

they're playing the first round buffalo right yeah yeah so you go match up for matchup you could say defenses are uh equal or you can even go break it down cornerbacks are equal uh linebackers you may give the edge to patriots d-line you could say it's equal uh run game you give a slight edge to the patriot or i shouldn't say slight edge you give an edge to patriots then you just go down position position but when you go quarterback to quarterback, there's an obvious advantage, Buffalo, right? And so when I look at Buffalo, excuse me, the Patriots, I'm not down on them. I just know that every game that they play, if they beat Buffalo, every game after that, they're going to have a decided disadvantage at the quarterback position. And that's just

really hard to overcome three times, four times. If you win the Superbowl, that's really, really hard to overcome if you're the Patriots. In your own backyard. What do you think of the decision that I think surprised a lot of us here? Brian Flores out as head coach of the Dolphins. Yeah, man, I was, I was really surprised and I wanted to look into it more before,

before we got on. One thing I have been hearing, and I hate going off of kind of third person, but it's been kind of growing consensus, is that there was the relationship between him and Tua and some of the coaches was a little frayed. And, you know, if you're the head coach and you start to lose that trust among your quarterback and some other coaches, I can see why they would make that decision. But at the same time, it's hard for me to say that the relationship was so terrible when they ripped off seven in a row, right? And then you lose seven in a row where you could have easily lost your team, which most teams would have gone the other way. Instead, they fight back and they win seven in a row. And I look at that

and say, well, going back to what I talked about for the Colts, you had a coach that was getting his team physically, emotionally, mentally ready to play. They ripped off seven in a row. And I know that some of those games, they play backup quarterbacks, et cetera, and all that stuff. So I get that and I understand that. But it's the NFL. They don't sit there and request who they want to play a quarterback that week. It's whoever lines up and they go and do what they, handle their business, do what they need to do. So that one, I definitely want to look into more,

but I was definitely surprised at the firing. Yeah, I believe the disconnect with the two a part of it. It has to be the only thing. And if you're going to tell the owner that this guy that you invested in picked fifth overall,

like isn't the guy, which I still think we're, that's open to debate at this point. Yeah, man, you're still out. Yeah, absolutely. And despite the start and then winning all those games, as I'd mentioned previously, I think just last week on the podcast, the opposing quarterback resume that they went up against when they put together those wins,

you're like, all right, I mean, that's, I don't know. That would have to be one of the all-time worst opposing collection of quarterbacks that a team could face. But when you pick a guy fifth, the quarterback wins. The quarterback wins in the beginning, right? In the beginning, it's like, okay, we'll figure out somebody else to make sure that we didn't invest wrong. But I still would wonder if the Watson thing is open.

But there has to have been some massive disconnect where they're like, look, we just can't continue to move forward because it felt like Flores was one of the brighter young coaches in the league. And it's super disappointing. Dude, I went and watched a couple of his practices, interview with him. And like you, I was like, this guy is on the up and up uh really thought he was

gonna break kind of that you know ugly cycle for felicek disciples um and thought he was gonna really turn it around and you know just going on to a for a second i i kind i find it a little strange if the reason is only two of it's strictly to, uh, I find it kind of strange just because your eyes aren't lying to you. My eyes aren't lying to me. Dolphins fans, lies,

eyes aren't lying to them. You don't know if this is your guy to, uh, it, everything that we've seen says he could be the guy. He has some spurts where he's kind of good. Then there's other times where you look and you're like, I don't know.

This was a number five pick. I don't know if we can build around this guy, right? So if I'm Ross, I feel like they're, and again, I don't know if they did or tried or what have you, but I would have loved to have seen at least a, hey, everyone get in the room and hash this thing out

before I have to start making some really tough decisions. Maybe that happened already. Maybe it didn't. I would have liked to have seen if it didn't happen, see that happen, because I would have said

to both of them, if I'm honest, frankly, neither of you two are setting the world on fire right now. Right? You both have potential, but neither of you are like, oh my God fire right now right like you both have potential but neither of you are like oh my god oh so great we just gotta keep you i want to do some end of the

year stuff um that i i know i hit you up on there so part of it was maybe seeing seeing uh garrett up close but i don't. Who would be your defensive player of the year? Ooh, good one. Good one. My defensive player of the year is going to go to Garrett. Garrett plays the run very, very well. I've seen offenses

and again, watching recently, but I've seen offenses try to slide, protect, chip him, bring an extra lineman over there, extra tight end to stay in the block. And he didn't just beat them. He dominated them when that happened. I saw Diggs get beat a lot. He had a lot of interceptions, but I did see him get beat a lot. I saw Aaron Donald, who his biggest issue was going to be himself.

And that's because he's so gifted and so talented. He needs inner motivation all the time. And let me be very clear on what I'm saying. He is one of the most dominant defensive tackles. And he has a drive and a motor and is, frankly, art when you watch it. It's beautiful. But there are also times where if he gets a little tired, there's no one to give him motivation. There's no player on that defense that say, hey, come on, Aaron. Come on, man. Let's go. Let's go. We got you. We need you because it's his show. So, you know, I saw times where there was not as much motivation from him and he's a driven guy, but just not as much motivation as far as playing. There were spurts when I saw that. And, you know, the couple other TJ, why I like him, uh, he's obviously a very good pass rusher. I don't believe he's as dominant as a run deep defender, um, as Garrett is. I think Garrett is a much more dominant as a run defender, just watching on film, watching, watching the guys. But look, if they give it to someone other than Garrett, they give it to one of the three guys I mentioned, you know,

that no one's going to be crying wolf over. It's going to be okay. Okay. Was there a staff that jumped out at you of a game you did this season where you go, I love this staff. Interestingly, the Colts, I love that staff. It was, I called three of their games and the staff was always upbeat uh they had a very clear game plan uh it was you know very direct the message that they were delivering to

the team to the players uh of how they had to win each game i thought was very good uh you know that that's what actually made it even more surprising. As much as I ripped on the Colts and not getting ready for Jacksonville, they have a good coaching staff. They have some really good guys there. You know, just for context, Kevin Mawai is the assistant O-line coach. I played with Kevin. He's a Hall of Famer.

And we're on the sideline talking, and I can see in this guy's eyes, if he can put on pads right now and put on a helmet and get after it, he would. And so I know that that's trickling down to the Nelsons, quitting Nelsons of the world that they have. So that coaching staff, I thought, was really good. I'm just shocked at what happened yesterday. So maybe, Garrett, still your answer. I don't know if it's a different answer here,

though. But if you could, all right, you get 11 guys and it's your first pick on defense, you have to build your defense around this player. Is it Garrett then? No, it's going to be Donald. Yeah, see, I knew with Vilma, you were always going to like switch it up on us. But that's I'm not I'm not going to push back because you just picked Aaron Donald. So that's let. Let's see. Was there a quarterback that you felt a certain way about where you're like, okay, whether you loved him

or you didn't like him, that after you did the pre-production stuff, did the game, was around him for a while that completely flipped you this season? Hmm. That's a good one. Carson Wentz. hmm that's a good one carson wentz i keep going on the colts a lot but i was around carson and i frankly thought he was soft i i thought he was charming soft you know just looking at those last uh few games over in philly and so i was around him and I was like, oh, this soft little motherfucker over here. Let me just ask him some questions and kind of move on.

But asking questions and the best thing was being in front of him, right? We got to be in these meetings in person. So his body language was that of a leader. He reminded me, I go to Drew Brees, Chad Pennington also, they had this demeanor about him, this aura about him that I was like, okay, I can see why guys would gravitate towards him. And then his answers, his answers were direct. They were to the point. He he was very very assertive when not just answering our questions but when referencing some of his players uh offensive line how he wanted to see his offense go so i was like okay i get it i get i can see why frank wright wanted to trade for him and bring him on board uh and then frankly, he didn't have a bad season. He played well.

It's just so funny. These answers just poorly timed Colts accolades, despite the fact that they feel pretty good. They feel pretty good up until like 14 days ago. It's crazy. Last one. And then I want to ask you about college ball here real quickly. Was there anything else though, along the lines of Wentz?

Was there anything else that totally surprised you? What totally surprised me, I'll give you one game that totally surprised me. If I were to bet a million dollars, I would be a million dollars broker. And I know that's not a word, but I was so broke after this game. broker and I know that's not a word but I was so broke after this game I was calling the Eagles at Lions game mid-season and I just called the Eagles excuse me yeah the Eagles at Raiders game the week before that and the Eagles got pummeled the Raiders just gave them the business and I was like oh my goodness this is gonna be a long gave them the business. And I was like, oh my goodness, this is going to be a long season for the Eagles. And so I just watched the last two games already.

I watched the Raiders film and then I'm watching the Lions. And at that time, the Lions lost, obviously, but they had some close games. They, I think, lost on like a 60-yard field goal by the Ravens and Minnesota kicked one to win that game as well. So I go and watch their practice. Practice was great. Spoke with Dan Campbell. He was awesome. Golf was really good as well.

And everything about that team said, we're ready. We're ready to finally get our first victory. They were into it. And so I left that production meeting thinking, all right, this might be the game. They get their first victory. And, you know, Philadelphia, the fans are ripping on them. Media is ripping on them. To Sirianni's credit, he was pretty good.

He handled everything well. And then Jalen Hurts was, he was a little annoyed. You could tell it was a little annoyed. And oh, by the way, they had just lost Miles Sanders as well. So who I think is a really good running back. So I'm like, all right, here it is. We're going to have ourselves a great game. It's going to come down to wire. Detroit's going to find a way to win this one. So we go into the game and, you know, pregame, we're hyping it up we're ready to go and when i tell you philadelphia beat the living shit out of detroit that day i was like oh my god what just happened like they just went down marched down touchdown oh three and out marched down again touchdown

three now next thing we know it's like 30 to nothing at halftime. And I'm like, what did I just witness? I was like, how could I be so far off? What happened from Saturday 5 p.m. to Sunday 1 p.m. where the Lions just completely wet the bed and Eagles just went on a freaking tear after that. So, you know, that that just reminded me that as smart as I think I am and even haven't played some football for a little bit, I still don't know how these games are going to plan out. National title games tonight.

Bama-Georgia is going to be the fifth time teams have met twice in the same season with both meetings being AP top five matchups. The loser of the first game has gone on to win the rematch all four times. I gave out Georgia last week. I feel like an absolute idiot doing it. I kind of want to change my... Excuse me. I feel like I'm choking right now.

I feel like Georgia. Excuse me. Hold on a second. Oh, this is a comedy routine. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, all right. There go i was i was just choking a little bit you know i just kind of felt like georgia there so forgive me forgive me but uh yeah i'm i'm feeling better now i'm not i'm not choking so anything you got to say i'm going with bama because i already know what it feels like to be georgia

there's nothing else you want to add to that why are you so dismissive of georgia I'm going with Bama because I already know what it feels like to be Georgia. There's nothing else you want to add to that. Why are you so dismissive of Georgia? Because this is not about the better matchup of the players and talent and all that other crap. It's do you want it? There's nothing else out there. Listen, you came in, Georgia. Every time I say Georgia, I feel like I'm going to choke again. Every time. So, Georgia,

you came in as the best defense or one of the best defenses of all time. Literally, all time. And you go and get just ran out of the stadium by Alabama. You said you're going to do this in the run game. You're going to do that on your defense. Blah, blah, blah.

All this crap. And you get handled. And you got handled every time the past five times. Are you kidding me? I'm not going to sit here and talk about matchups. Either you want it, Georgia. Excuse me. Either you want it or you don't.

Bama wants it. That's it. Wait, I figured out what this is. This is you and all the canes from 20 years ago about georgia being talked about i can't believe i asked you because straight up look i don't care what the stats are for georgia the secondary isn't even close to as talented as what you guys had there what you had was the most talented defense i i believe we'll ever see that i've ever seen but i think there's some prideful stuff about some of the comparisons that

were thrown around this season. That's what's happened. I actually quite the opposite, Ryan. I swear I was watching this team and every time I watched Georgia, I was like, I, this is a damn good defense.

I would love, can't wait to see them go against them. I promise you. I was like, I love watching greatness. So I was like, this is going to be, this is the time. SEC champs, both of them destined. It was supposed to be a beat

down of Bama and all this other crap and they choked, man. They wet the bed. I don't care what anybody tells me. Don't tell me about scheme. Show up. Period. Show up. All right. Good stuff from Vilma I I kind of you know the Bama part is really hard to get past I don't know why I'm picking Georgia in

the rematch and I feel like I'm gonna be kicking myself later on tonight for doing so I think that they are gonna to come out like, you know, way more emotional and excited and all that stuff. But you mentioned it, the secondary, they've been riding the coattails of the D-line all season long. But as soon as someone had a little time to throw and you have a quarterback and some receivers that know what they're doing, it was like, ooh, wake-up call. They got handled.

So, yeah, I got Bama, bro. And you know what they're doing. It was like, ooh, wake-up call. They got handles. So, yeah, I got Bama, bro. And you know what? To be honest, if Georgia wins this game, which they won't, but if they do, it wouldn't tell me much. Because if they played four times, it'd probably be split 2-2 if they win this game. Hey, man, this has been great this season. I can't tell you how much we appreciate your time

and getting to know you obviously over the years so we're glad we were able to make this work out we'll keep in touch, alright, we'll have you on again soon Sounds good bro, take it easy Later Steve I want to do just a couple minutes on Clay Thompson's return that was a big deal as far as the coverage and all that stuff

and I would say maybe even some people were a little annoyed ironically enough I was at Clay's last game historic, right? as far as the coverage and all that stuff. And I would say maybe even some people were a little annoyed. Ironically enough, I was at Klay's last game. Historic, right? Sruti, are you jealous of that? You know he's my favorite player in the league. So yeah, of course I'm jealous. Big night last night. I don't think I've screamed as loudly in a while

as I did when he threw that dunk down. Yeah, he hit the layup. Then he missed a few shots. He threw that dunk down in traffic. That was nasty. And then somebody asked Steve Kerr after the after the fact like did that surprise you i've said this for a long time i think we are really bad about injuries for a couple different reasons one we think that when a guy is kind of dinged up and then he comes back and plays we're like oh my gosh you see him limping earlier in the second quarter?

Like, yeah, sometimes you get hit, and then it hurts, and you limp for a little bit, and then you get enough blood flow and loosen back up, and you have trainers working on you, and you get back into the game. So sometimes I think the heroic part of it is like, I can't believe this. Look at this guy coming back out there. In some cases, it's definitely true.

I'm not dismissive of all of it, but I don't know that we give the athlete enough credit for their own toughness and ability to recover because most of us i mean i woke up this morning to turn off my alarm and my hip went out of joint and i was like am i not gonna be able to walk today that was turning my alarm off all right and by the way update i'm good i can walk um tough guy nice right but played yeah built different hip pointer couldn't walk across my bedroom and then was ready to go 15 minutes later so the other like hey were you surprised clay could dunk you guys realize that clay didn't that wasn't the first time he's touched a basketball in two years like clay probably especially with how precautionary everybody is he probably could have played a

month ago. But they just weren't going to rush it. The fact that he the only things in basketball that he has to worry about, he has to worry about real basketball game time condition can't be simulated. And then like anybody who's ever played, when you don't play for a long time, little stupid stuff is just off. You're touched around the rim,

little handle, things would be a little loose, takes you a few games, gets tightened back up again, unless you take a ton of time off. but he's been working out the entire time and so when curse like yeah i don't know i saw it in scrimmages like what did people think clay was going to come back he comes back gets blocked by the rim misses the layup you know throws it out of bounds to the right you know so it's just he's been playing he's been working there's these progressions we're talking about some of the best physical therapists in the world at this level working with somebody,

unless it's one franchise that I'm not going to name. But you get the point. So anyway, Clay comes back, and they need him. All right? They need him because all the talk about Golden State's record, they were 18-2 at one point. Depends on what you think the high watermark was. 29-9 going into last

night. They'd lost 3-5, so they win that one. They're at 30 wins. They're the one seed. But if you look at their offense, and this is kind of back to the ordeal of an argument that I was making all the time, which I was surprised there was any pushback to it whatsoever, was that when Wiggins is your second best offensive player, that's not really the profile of a team that won an

NBA championship, but it doesn't matter because Clay's coming back anyway. So even though I liked Phoenix better than Golden State prior to Clay returning, even though Golden State, I think got them two out of three times. So again, it could have been wrong about that.

It was just a simple like, yeah, I don't know without Clay. I don't think this is a title winning team, but it doesn't matter. Clay's back. You know what? And they're getting wise,

but back to, although he's not exactly the difference maker that Clay is. Why do they need him back? Because look, let's look at some numbers here. Defensively, Golden State's still number one overall. Offensively, they're 10th overall. Wait, what? Yeah, I'm telling you.

Their defense is so good right now. They're two points better going into last night's game per 100 possessions than the Phoenix Suns. But if you go from the start of the season in October up to the first week of December, Golden State's offense was actually ranked number three. After that point, right? So from 12-8 on, December 8th on, going into last night, Golden State's offense was 25th. Well, that actually makes a little bit more sense than this team without play

with an improved pool, an improved Gary Payton Jr., Juan Toscano Anderson has been nice after losing his spot in the rotation, Porter Jr., Iguodala, all this different stuff. It didn't really make sense that that was going to be

the third best offense in the NBA. Maybe you believe it. I don't. And the numbers are playing out that way. So my other favorite stat is I was going through everything because basically Golden State's seventh from three-point attempts. They're fourth in percentage of makes. Oklahoma City, this has nothing to do with anything.

I just love the stat. Oklahoma City takes 37 threes a game. They make 31% of them. That's last in the league. That is hilarious because it's like a young team, a bunch of young players that all grew up with everybody having a green light everywhere from matter where you are. And they're just like, yeah,

we're taking almost 40 of these a game, even though we're only making 31%. It doesn't mean anything. I'm thrilled. Clay is back. If you were annoyed by the coverage of all the guys that we fight about and argue in their personalities, some of the guys have just over in general clay is not

one of those guys he is one of the good guys and even though it felt like it was a lot of coverage and a lot of build-up um i'm just happy for a guy that loves basketball so i look at it that way and and get past it because yes i was there when he blew out his knee and i have the amazing distinction of being oh and2 in the building for Golden State Warriors games during their peak, which is, I don't know, impossible. I'm never getting invited back, obviously. You want details? Fine.

I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. We had a lot of follow-up to a lot of things.

I mean, this could be a separate spinoff podcast, just the forum of the life advice. I didn't want to turn it into a mailbag. But every now and then we get... All right, first of all, before we get... I'm not going to read any of the spanking reaction videos because, hey, shocker, a lot of people listen to this podcast

and we disagree about things. There's also some dudes got really weird with it. So, yeah, I'm not... Shock, I'm not going to... Yeah. No, that was actually expected so we're not if you send in a weird follow-up spanking email we're not getting to do it today all right i think we can all accept that a lot of people were really interested in the military

police career potential career the the never realized mp career of one kyle crichton um but a lot of people did say it was going to be an awful gig and that your whole thing about like it would be cool to see the world that none of us all bullshit and that you're going to get absolutely taken by some recruiter yeah yeah so freak my freak my parents out it did a great job doing that Got a lot of love yous and hugs and I think maybe that's what I wanted the whole time. So that's okay. We had a lot of people reacting to jail or war.

This is the best email that we got. I've been to both. Send me back to war over jail. Nice. And he also said that he was shocked that Kyle wanted to be a Blue Falcon MP. Grunt life Kyle. It's the way. That's me. jail nice and he also said that he was shocked that kyle wanted to be a blue falcon mp grunt life kyle it's the way that's me um oh this guy this guy had sent oh this was the guy that fought he he fought like a random ufc guy that was like okay and. And the UFC guy beat him up pretty good.

Or I don't know. He just worked him. So, all right. That guy, that guy's covered a lot of different stuff. He covered jail. He covered war.

He covered fighting UFC guys. So shit, we should have him should book him next. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Next Thursday. So what's going on?

All-star break. Yeah, we'll do him. We'll do him. MLB all-star week. We'll do him MLB All-Star Week. We'll do a How to Fix Baseball 10-parter. You know what one of my favorite reactions to the whole Staley timeout thing

was there was a baseball writer that said if going into this game, there were potential retireable teams to get in, then baseball, everybody would have, the GMs would have just said, hey, let's tie, which is a good joke. It's a good line. And then he goes, that's why baseball's in a lockout would have just said, hey, let's tie, which is a good joke. It's a good line.

And then he goes, that's why baseball's in a lockout. We're like, okay, now I love the first part. Second part is wrong. There's a bunch of other reasons, not just because there would have been a purposeful pretend baseball tie. There's also some revenue stuff going on as well and why we're going to have a lockout.

We also have a lockout because there's no deadline as of right now to get this fixed. All right. This is a good one, I think. I don't know. Hey, question for you. I have a tendency, and by the way, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. That's the email is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Question for you. A tendency to leave the bar or party to go watch sports. I have no problem doing it when it's one of my teams. And most of the time, I just won't go out until my teams are done playing. The bigger problem is I do it for random games.

Case in point, last Thursday, I dipped out to go to a nearby sports bar to go watch the end of the Celts-Knicks, even though I have zero allegiance to either team. Problem is I just graduated and moved to a new city. So definitely very much in post-college, trying to make new friends in a new city phase. My buddies in college were on the same page as me, but it's kind of tough to tell new people that I got to leave to go catch a random NBA game. Obviously, it's even worse for girls. Try telling a girl, yeah, I got to go. Fournier is going off right now, but can I get your number?

Good line. You're funny, dude. You start using that stuff a little bit more. I went to school in Nashville where it's pretty easy to hop to another bar or floor. a school in Nashville where it's pretty easy to hop to another bar or floor. By the way, maybe the easiest of the major cities to be like, do you want to go to a different bar? And then you're inside of it 10 seconds later or catch the end of the game, then be back before too many people notice. It's a lot harder to do this in my new city. And with COVID, it's even harder to bar hop quickly. Basically, I need some advice on coming up with different

excuses to use for why I left. My go-to excuse is, I let that night get away from me and needed to go. So this guy, wait, is he lying about being drunker than he actually is so that he can go watch a Knicks game? Hmm. But I definitely need some better reasons. Obviously, I'd ideally just grow up and ignore the games, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Figured he may have some experience.

Yeah, this was... You could argue I still do this. I left an unbelievable beach party with a bunch of current and retired athletes. It was an awesome setup. And I knew I had to duck out because college football was starting. And it wasn't even like the real Saturday.

It was week zero shit, which I don't even know why I did it. But I was so amped for it. And I didn't tell anyone. I was week zero shit, which I don't even know why I did it, but I was so amped for it. And I didn't tell anyone. I was pretending to have more beers. I kept saying I was good every time people asked me. Our team got knocked out of the competition. I didn't really know who my partner was. I think he was blacked out anyway. And then we grabbed some tacos and I felt awful because these guys invited me to this really cool thing, and I went and left. Then people were like, Doe, did you have a good time?

I'm like, Actually, I don't know that we even remember him being there. It was like, No, no. Then somebody was like, Hey, were you cool? Was everything cool? Then you have to explain it. It was a mistake. I should not have done that. I think it may have even planted a bad seed while I moved out here, but I don't know.

I had to see Miami, Virginia Tech. Had to. Again, it felt like it was Miami, but I'm not sure if it was Virginia Tech. Anyway, that's not the point. Point is this. Stop doing it. All right?

If you actually are, as you said, new city, tougher to make friends, it's a weird thing to do, man. I remember when I first got my Celtics gig and I was at a Christmas party, and I think it was like 2003, and it was all my college buddies. It's an incredible party that all these guys threw in Boston every year. And I stood in the corner by myself and watched a Celtics Trailblazers game.

All right. That's sad. And I felt like, yeah, I felt like I needed to. I felt like I had to do it. Now, my excuse is a lot better than your excuse. Right. I felt like I had to do it. Now, my excuse is a lot better than your excuse. I was working for the Celtics television, not the team, or working for the Celtics radio station at the time. But I mean, we could sit here and say you're Spider-Man, right? I mean, you could come up with some excuses here, but I would tell you it's kind of a bad habit because most people that don't get it are like, what's this fucking guy's deal? He thinks he's better than me.

People don't like it at parties. Girls hate it. I used to leave if there was a game that was close and it was across the street and we were in the couple's booth all hanging out. I'd leave. I mean, I can't believe I didn't get dumped more often. I would leave and go back to my apartment and then meet him back out.

I was like, hey, I had to see those last five minutes. No one likes it. So we could sit here and come up with a bunch of excuses. I would just say you got to you got to kind of pick and choose. And if this is what you're going to do, then don't go out. And then the nights that you do go out, focus on making it about the night and not some game in the corner of your eye. I mean, if you're gambling, then I get it. Then there's no way you're going to not watch the game and all this different stuff. It also could be, because I'll

admit this is me a little bit too, back in the West Hartford days when I was just by myself quite a bit, I would go, all right, is there a game that I can justify watching and then go sit at a restaurant bar or a bar area that serves food and then be like, okay, this is cool. I never cared about eating by myself. I would starve to death if I cared about eating by myself. But I would coordinate it with a game so it felt like I was kind of doing something. So I'll tell you from personal experience, sometimes the game is a shield to your own kind of antisocial behavior. And that's a thing you got to dig a little bit deeper on. But I would tell you it's a bad, bad habit to get into.

I wish I didn't do it, but the job has gone OK. So I guess I could justify it. Kyle. has gone okay. So I guess I could justify it. Kyle? So he's at places that don't have, he's at like bars that don't have TVs and he's leaving to go to a bar that does have TVs.

That's basically what he's saying here. Yeah, which is even worse. But again, I've done that too. I mean, I was at a wedding once, girlfriend, pretty serious. And I left and went to the reception bar before the reception started and watched the final four

and had like 10 Coors Lights with the bartenders. Actually, it doesn't sound bad to me. It sounds bad that you left something, but... I had a fucking blast. It's one of the best weddings I've ever been to. But of course, like typical me, I befriended the bartenders,

didn't dance once, and... Well, would that have changed if there was a game on or not? I don't see you out there on the dance floor either way. No, I was about 100 quarters light shy of that. But I, you know, I had a blast. And then by the time, you know, she came over and was like, do you, you know, the other part of the reception was over there. And at that point, I was like, I kind of want to go out tonight, you know.

So we did a pop in at the reception and then we went out and you know uh the rest is history so yeah i know for a fact that girls definitely don't don't like that and as a guy who uh doesn't talk about sports for a living um i just i can't convince her that i do i i mean the first when i first met her i was like i'm gonna have to see these i'm gonna have to that I do. I, you know, the first, when I first met her, I was like, I'm going to have to see these, I'm going to have to watch these football games. Um, but you know,

now she knows. So, but basically like you, you're going to have to come up with like your teams and that's going to have to be enough for you when you have girl and like when girls around, like, it's gotta be your teams that matter. Like it's gotta be a couple games a week.

It can't be all the games all the time. So I agree with you. A couple things. Um, one, can he just pull out his phone? Like, I i don't know why yeah get the stuff wouldn't that be yeah get youtube tv or whatever sling whatever thing you have and you just kind of watch it on the go if it's a close game then you can keep tabs on it if not then you don't even have to watch it so then you don't really have to like make a move anywhere get into radio maybe sports radio like your fucking secret service and just

just toggle between all the games yeah i feel like what's the deal with that guy he's sketchy as hell um but i remember my freshman year of college i did not i skipped out the on the entire spring weekend to watch the 2007 nfl draft and that was like it was three days and you know at the time i was like oh it was three days. And, you know, at the time I was like, oh, I'm awesome. Like, this is sick. Like, I'm super into this.

And I look back like a few years later and I'm just like, that was the dumbest thing. I missed out on all this fucking cool shit during the day. There's like free drinks, blow up tents everywhere, free t-shirts are being handed out.

I'm sitting there watching like Patrick Willis get drafted by the 49ers. And I was like, that's a, that was a low for me. So I think, you know, pick and choose your spots.

That's probably not it. If you don't have to watch round three while you're out at the bar of an NFL draft or a Knicks game if they're down 20, pick and choose your spots. And I think the other thing, too, is sometimes maybe the excuses are worse. If you're like, hey, I have to go home

because I'm too drunk, and you keep saying that over and over again, people are going to be like, this guy's kind of a disaster. And if you just say, hey, I don't want to watch this game, I don't think anyone's going to judge you as much as the former. Yeah, I actually found that this guy's kind of a disaster. And if you just say, hey, I don't want to watch this game, I don't think anyone's going to judge you as much as the former.

Yeah, I actually found that part of it kind of fascinating, that you're rounding up how drunk you are to get out of something when you're actually not that drunk so you can go watch a game that you admittedly have no rooting interest in. Because your buddies must be like, man, you can never tell when he's drunk. He really holds it together. He knows when to dip, you know? Yeah, he's just bouncing all the time. together. He knows when to dip. Yeah. He just bounces all

the time. So we're not going to give you excuses. We're not going to tell you, hey, do this to keep getting away with it. We're going to tell you to start prioritizing it a little bit better because you're right, Serity. I have, and I can sit there and say, well, wait, there was something going on because it was your career. So all three of us have more of a justification for doing it. But there are so many times where I felt like, oh no, I have to do this or I have to do that. You know, there's a couple of weddings

that I wish I had gone to. And I didn't. Wow, must be nice. So I go, well, again, Kyle, we know your wedding history. You weren't allowed to go to bills. So I understand it's just sort of a...

Is that ageist? Is there a lawsuit there? I think statute of limitations but i think that's ageism isn't it if you say it out loud i don't know i don't know lawyers be some people love to be on your side on this one let me know okay uh we also had another follow-up email where uh the guy chimed in about living together. He said the case for not moving in together before marriage. I was like, here we go.

I just want to share this because this has been brought up before because I brought it up with divorce rates years ago. I remember. I know what this data is, but we're going to share it with everybody else. The most recent pod you guys were talking about, it's a no-brainer to cohabit. While I completely understand the rationale behind cohabitation, there's actually a solid case not to do so as well.

Contrary to what most people believe, research does not show a correlation between cohabitation and reduced divorce rate or between cohabitation and improved quality of marriage. In fact, historical cohabitation was associated with a higher divorce rate. And today, the existence of a higher divorce rate is the subject of debate. Yeah, because I've seen a bunch of, I've had stats thrown at me from both sides on this one, so I kind of, after I see enough data that comes to no real conclusion, kind of like resting, I just go, all right, I'm not quite sure. So now there seems to be both correlation and causation going on here. The correlation is likely the couples that cohabit tend to live less traditional views,

to have less traditional views uh to have less traditional views basically the point is this if you agree to live together before you're married then that's less traditional so therefore you might be because of your less traditional values be more willing to divorce um okay whereas if you will not live together until you are married you are more traditional so therefore you still frown a divorce i mean many of the worst things you could ever fucking do to people in this country uh and this is more of a i don't know if it's a religious thing in certain sectors it is but the idea like no suffer through a horrible marriage for decades because of being judged i mean think about that like that was an accepted thing in some circles it still is yeah like nope hey this person's a psycho yeah yeah i this person's a

psycho not what i signed up for didn't realize this person's terrible you took a vow no i filled out some fucking paperwork and we had a party you know like i was in my early 20s yeah now this person sucks we've both grown. We've grown apart. Nope. Stay together. We don't like each other. There's nothing valuable about their situation.

Well, sorry. Tradition says. So I would think here's all I'm telling you. You never know the person as well as you're going to know them until you live with them. Totally. All right. So I'm not going to debate this with anybody. And I do think that there are ways to twist these a little bit.

Again, your numbers. We appreciate you sharing that with us. That's great. I don't believe any of it. Sorry. But that stat couldn't have showed all the people that didn't get married after they lived together. All the people that were like, no way. That like broke the lease.

they live together. All the people that were like, no way that like broke the lease. And, uh, you know, somebody's got like weird credit because, uh, somebody just left and didn't pay X amount of months or something. It doesn't show all of that. Right. I mean, it just, I don't know. I think there's two ways people move into each other. Just like, there's like two ways, two ways, multiple ways people have kids. There's like the, Oh shit, we've got kids coming. Or it's like, you know, we've got an account set up and there's a thousand oh shit we've got kids coming or it's like you know we've got an account set up and there's a thousand dollars that'll mature for 40 you know what i mean like i think there's just multiple ways people move in together it's like to it's personal preference i mean listen if you don't if you don't want to move in with them they don't like i don't care it's

fine i personally would like to have that sort of lived experience it's like when like i don't understand when parents don't find out like the gender of their baby. Right. I don't, I'm not talking about doing a gender reveal because that's ridiculous, but like, I'd want to know if it's a boy or a girl as early as possible. I don't want to be surprised at birth. If you don't feel that way, that's fine. Like you want to be surprised. That's cool. I just think it's way more logical to be like the sooner I know, the better. And it's the same thing for living with somebody. The sooner I know the deal with you, the better. And then we can kind of figure out where we want to go i just want the emailer also understand too he's clearly very smart and he took some time on this but linking stuff the inertia

effect i've looked at all of the stuff before and i mean his last sentence because i don't want him to think that we didn't read the full email he said finally one may not uh one may decide not to cohabit from a values perspective part of the idea of marriage of taking vows to one another is the commitment which separates it out from any non-marital relationship waiting until after marriage to move in is a value statement that the marital relationship is fundamentally different and that the act of living together is inherently tied up to the commitments entered into during the marriage ceremony if you cohabit before marriage then what tangibly distinguishes the relationship pre and post marriage i don't know that you get half my shit if it doesn't work out.

Big time. I would say that's another part of this, too. Look, I get your lane here. I respect your lane. I completely disagree with it. The one time where it was close and it was like, hey, I wouldn't actually get engaged to you until we've lived together. I was like, well, then guess what? That's not happening.

It's not happening. I don't give a fuck who it is all right pick anyone to pick your favorite ever i'm serious about this the girl of your dreams if she knocked on my door tomorrow and said i want to marry you but we're not living together first i'd be like no way like are you kidding the Seltz Knicks are on. I don't know if this one's any good. This life advice episode on the whole. I feel like we need something to really juice it up here at the end.

Oh, here's a Jim question. That'll do it. Yeah. Just kidding. All right, here we go we go uh finish it out on this one what's up ryan 29 58 170 single guy who moved from the oh moved to the big island of hawaii eight months ago and i moved from the suburbs of chicago about an hour south of chicago i came here to work for the united states postal service which is not a bad gig at all government work so government work plus the hawaiian, very laid back

setting. I'm starting to get really fucking bored and I miss my friends. Pension though. That pension though. I got a cousin who's a postal worker. Great pension. The weather is unreal here. I literally just got off the phone with a friend and the wind chill

feels like negative 10 out back from where i'm from so i definitely do not miss those awful winters chicago winters are tough man very very tough uh i thought i was cold in vermont i remember being out a couple times in montreal in the winter thinking i was cold um there was a new year's eve where i was in chicago where it was so cold i was laughing my eyes froze from the walk to the hotel to the equinox across michigan avenue i was outside for less than 60 seconds and froze open or close was no i just had i had like little ice particles eyelids and i because i didn't have to go that much further i just started dying laughing going this is the worst you go a little bit insane

yeah i was cold once like that walking back from town back to campus when i was in college like up the hill off the lake wind whipping the wrong way i remember kind of being yeah and i remember it's i mean it's stupid but i remember like if i died it's so cold at least i won't be cold anymore like this is so bad but that chicago seriously crossing a street i cannot emphasize honestly if chicago had like a decent, I can't even imagine what the property would be in that city because that city is amazing. Every other thing about it, the people are great. The summers are great. No ocean kind of is a deal breaker for me, but the winters there are that bad.

All right. And the reason I emphasize all of this is because our guy's in a bit of a conundrum. So he doesn't miss that part, but he said, I'm starting to lose it. I was wondering, since you're from the East Coast and now that you live in California,

if you had any advice or should I stay or move back home? Essentially, I'll be moving back home to trade shitty weather to hang out with my friends and family rather than awesome weather and kind of lonely and I have no problem being alone.

I'm just getting bored. Also, side question. I don't know if you already addressed this, but what did you think of that guy from ESPN who was doing impersonations of you or he did an impersonation of you i was wondering if you think he did a good you he was filling in for you one day years back and i never heard if you liked her or not so rudy do you remember that i don't know i do an impersonations uh first first name that comes to mind is randy scott i don't think it's an impersonation of you on your show my to do my impersonation is not hard at all just deep voice and go oh well

i don't know kind of sucks doesn't it yeah it's not it's not hard to do it's not hard to do my uh mine's just not even lifting jokes naturally coming there yeah right like uh yeah you just you would do meat come in there. Yeah, you would do meathead like an extra scoop. Protein shake. Yeah, you would do an extra scoop of meathead if you're talking about me. This gets back. I don't know. I don't remember hearing it unless Adnan wouldn't have

done it. No, no, no. I'm trying to think. The only guy I could think of would be Randy. I don't know. Yeah. Here's how people feel about impressions about themselves. If they like the person doing the impression, they think it's funny. The impression can be really good,

but if it's done by somebody who they don't like, then they're going to say the impression sucks. Like, I did an impression of a guy back in Boston once who's an asshole of a human being. And I did it. And, you know, it got back to me that he was like, he was really pissed that you did it. I was like, I didn't even do anything where I was making fun of the person. I was just kind of doing an impersonation. And it's like, know, it got back to me that he was like, he was really pissed that you did it. And I was like, I didn't even do anything where I was making fun of the person. I was just kind

of doing an impersonation and it's like, well, he hates you anyway. And I was like, oh, all right, well, there you go. That's why I didn't like the impersonation, like pocketed that info. Um, so back to this question here. I can speak from experience, but this is only about me. The loneliness part, you either accept it or it gets worse. I don't know. Unless you're making real changes in your life to say, okay, I love this weather. I don't want to go back to Chicago, but I'm lonely. Can you change the thing around you? We can all say that, but you actually have to go ahead and start making some lifestyle changes. I need to be more proactive in meeting new people and doing

these kinds of things that are a normal part of life. I will tell you that I miss my friends a lot. Uh, I moved from Vermont 20 years ago to the week to start this whole thing. I'm thrilled with how it all went. I feel like I was right all along, but I don't know what happened in the last couple of years. And I don't think it's just being in Los Angeles. I don't think it's just being COVID. Um, cause it's weird. I feel like I moved to Los Angeles like two different times because COVID and everything. And again, for me, it wasn't a huge challenge. So I always want to put that in perspective in that, you know, a lot of people had a lot of worse shit to deal with than I did, but I'm starting to, I don't know, as I get a little

bit older and I start missing my friends and thinking about like, maybe would I get a place back East? Would I split time? Would I do any of that kind of stuff? And I think what I'm really doing is deflecting from the problem. The real problem is I need to do a better job at some of the other stuff instead of always focusing on work all of the time. So I would say for me, it's steering towards getting worse than me just accepting it and being like, Hey, this is who I am. I'm cool being by myself and being okay with it. Um, one other thing that I've noticed, and this is important is that you can start to miss your friends cause you're not making your own memories. Your friends, if they're married and having kids, and in my case, already married and already have had their kids, they're making their memories in a way where they're not thinking about missing all

of their friends. If you're by yourself, you're the one thinking about your friends all the time because you don't have a family, you don't have kids. And I cannot emphasize this enough. When somebody has kids, their day is now a different... Their day isn't even about them. It's about their kids. So their day is definitely not about like, oh, I wonder what Rosillo's doing right now. All right? That's not it. We're trying to get juice boxes open. We're trying to make sure everybody's buckled up in the back. We're trying to get to soccer practice. We're trying to get juice boxes open we're trying to make sure everybody's buckled up in the back we're trying to get to soccer practice we're trying to figure out if you know somebody lying to us about something you know as the kids get a little bit older and all that kind of stuff so if you are so lonely and missing your friends and you're not doing anything about it in hawaii

despite the amazing setting you're not doing anything about it to make it better. Then even though Chicago was cold, you may want to start prioritizing the friendship part of it. Cause it like for a while you can be fine with it, but you start talking a bunch of years and you're still in your same routine and you're bored and you don't have anything to hang out, anybody to hang out with. Like I would be the most fired up about anything is if i were in a city with four of my college roommates being like what's the plan tonight like that would be something where i would get on a plane for right now but again we we randomly would do it from time to time but because i missed that so much and i've had pockets of friends whether it was in boston whether it's denver whether

chicago different spots where it's like a bunch of the guys all kind of stayed together because they want to still remain and have these kind of like friend option things and i never had a problem with it ever i was just like whatever you know i'll see you guys when i see you and i know that i i feel like it it kind of gets a little bit worse as you maybe have your own void. And again, I'm not trying to get super deep here, but if you don't have something that like the other people have around you, then you start prioritizing their friendship more than they're prioritizing their friendship towards you because they just have bigger shit going on, man. And so if you don't find anything to kind of take up your day, other than just your own thoughts and delivering

the mail, you're gonna be fucking bored no matter how great the weather is because you're not doing anything with anyone else and it sounds like you care enough about people maybe you're wired socially a certain way that you want to have other which most people want to be like we are a social creature and i um i don't know i i would the way you're you're explaining yourself in this email i almost think leaning back towards going back home would probably be something that would set you up to be happier as you get a little bit older if you haven't figured out a way to add to what you're doing in Hawaii right now. I would say sit in bars, man. I think that's the best. Just sit in bars that i like i really do wish that there was more stuff and hopefully one day i'll find that thing but

uh i just that's that's how uh i ended up making a lot of friends when i first came here and and a lot of them they were just bar friends and i didn't hang out with them outside but some of them i do and uh some of them i still see to this day. And they're, some of them are the reason that I'm actually going to Frolic Room now. Shout out to Dark Room. Thank you guys. So I just think like, you know, spend like two hours of a happy hour at a bar. And then if you like it, do it, do it another time or check another one out. Like, I don't know, unless you actually hate drinking, it's a great way to spend your time and people are more loosened up. And like, you know, if you're sitting in a coffee shop and there's somebody sitting next to you for 40 minutes, they're probably not going to be like, what's your story, pal? Or say something about something that's going on or a TV. But in a bar, people are just more open to doing that. So, you know, that way you're not desperate, but you know, you're in an environment where people are kind of already opened up to being social. And drinking's fun, unless you think it's not. Hold on.

Hold on, sorry. Is there any part of you, Kyle, that would think that a lot of people wouldn't want to meet their lifetime friends day drinking in a bar? Where they would drink and then they'd be like, we need to start making plans together regularly. I don't see why that's a problem. Yeah, I think you're just so easygoing that it works for you. I think other people would be, and I mean this as a compliment to you,

I think others would be a little more reserved about, you know, buddies for life. Well, to be clear, I said happy hour. I didn't say 1130 a.m. I don't think people have the open mind that Kyle has about going to a bar and having a good time, you know, or meeting other dudes in that way. Most dudes go to the bar to meet girls, right? Kyle is just there to have to just, you know, vibe and have a good time, put some 50 cent

on and enjoy like a Friday afternoon. Like like that's i respect the hell out of that so kyle if you put on 50 cent and you had a couple beers and it's like six o'clock p.m and another guy came up to you was like hey did you put on this 50 cent and you were like yep and the guy would like high five you and you guys started sharing 50 cent stories similar age like oh i remember this oh do you remember that that'd be crazy oh that's awesome hey let's sit down let's have a couple beers like you would exchange phone numbers with that guy and then follow up and be like hey next thursday frolic room no jukebox on me no it would have to be i have to see a couple times you know okay that's it that's it it's a couple times thing yeah i don't know if

i've ever done like a oh yeah do you want to maybe awkwardly do a phone number thing no i don't think i've ever done that day one okay all right i'm just i'm not even judging i'm just trying to understand it because the first scenario for me would be like never because i'm happy having the good time and then just completely walking away i'm fine if i never fucking see you again i'll i'll walk home i believe that i'll i'll like shuffle home down hollywood boulevard and then the sunset being happy about the time i just had and then go back to my life and hop on madden and and whatever like i'm happy with that that's that's four hours well spent and you know now it's dark and uh you know i can watch some some

new episodes of boba fett that's coming out or something and then i'll sleep and then the time has passed and then i get to work and then i get to fill that time some other way tomorrow it's just a great way to spend a day it doesn't have to be making meaningful connections and you spend your time like that three four times and you see a guy there maybe he's your friend maybe not but either way you're you're passing the time and that's what that's what he's probably he was probably passing his time doing nothing when he wrote this email way, you're passing the time. And that's what he's probably, he was probably passing his time doing nothing when he wrote this email. But you still have a core group, Kyle.

You have a core group there, right? Of people that are like go-to guys to go out. This guy does not have that. He is trying to find that. So like when you meet a one-off guy at a bar and like you have a good conversation about whatever and you can go home, it's fine because you have other dudes that you consistently go back to and hang out with. He does not have this.

A lot of my core guys are on the west side and they don't want to come to me and I don't want to come to them because I don't like them. But they're not in Hawaii is the point. They're still in LA. No, I say this because I actually think I have good perspective on this. When we went to

Hawaii, my wife and I, for our honeymoon, we were asking all the people at work, the resorts, the bartenders be like dude is it like sick to live here was the first time we'd ever been and we're like it must be awesome to live here like this is so freaking cool it's beautiful the weather's awesome everyone's so nice and i was we were kind of surprised by the vibe of the people who you know were from wherever and had moved there to you know work for whatever thing they were like yeah it's okay but the problem is meeting friends is hard because a lot of people come in here for a couple of years and then they leave because they get homesick or whatever.

So it's actually kind of hard to make friends in Hawaii because it's such a transient type place. So I just want to make this guy aware, like not only is it, did you move to a new place, but you moved to a new place that probably has as transient of a vibe as any place you could possibly move to. So it's probably harder to make friends in Hawaii

long-term friends than maybe any other place there is in the States. Okay, but I would push back. Yeah, Alaska. But nobody's leaving Alaska though. The people that are in Alaska are probably staying there for a while, right? I mean, they're probably born and bred. There's people that come

and go from Hawaii, working seasonal jobs, doing things. There's not a consistent crew is what I'm saying. Okay. But I would even push back on that a little bit. Sorry, Hawaii people. What's the term? I look at it as a car lease, except for the people that I met before I turned 20. I'd have a hard time believing that maybe at this point in my life, although I guess there's a couple of people that I've become close with a little bit later on, which is pretty rare, but I don't live near any of those people. Just because Hawaii guy has, doesn't have a friend for the next 20 years.

Like I'm not going to feel bad for that guy. I think it gets back to how hilarious it is now that with this, this, there's a lane for how to talk to dudes for dudes, you know, how to pick up guys that you want to be friends with. Like there's something I can offer. Nothing. I have, I have nothing for you. Okay. Cause I'm not, how to pick up guys that you want to be friends with. Like there's something I can offer nothing.

I have nothing for you. Okay. Yeah. Not going to return texts frequently. Yeah. Sketch yourself. Yeah. Right. I am not your person for this,

but there is, there's something there for someone that wants to do this and that's better at it than I am about guys becoming friends with other guys. I still think the Gaia app idea there's potential there. That's trademarked. No, it isn't. I don't really care. All right. I think

we covered a lot. I would say one thing. I would say one thing. Oh, yeah. Please save this spot because you work for USPS and you can move anywhere and you keep that pension, right? You're a federal employee, not a state employee. There's probably a job for you anywhere. If you are thinking about home and it's because family and maybe you're overblowing the winters,

probably not because you're in Chicago. But you could also just fucking move too. Like if you want to move for more than I don't have enough friends to hang out with, like to be honest with yourself. Do you miss more about it? Do you miss knowing where everything is? Do you miss being comfortable about X, Y, and Z? Do you miss being able to stop over your uncle's house or your mom's house or whatever, you

know, once a month or whatever? Does it kill you that you have to take a massive flight back and, you know, everything has to be meticulously planned out? If so, and if that really does bother you, maybe you should move. But if it's just because of raw materials yeah raw materials take longer yeah here's here's why people live from where they're from okay now i love what our guy did here but what he did is is there just aren't as many people as they would like to think that are like hey i'm fine i'm leaving it all in my rear view and i'm going to hawaii and i'm going to deliver the mail and it's going to be

fucking awesome. All right. The reason you did it and it's a little bit more challenging is why so many other people stay at home. And I'm not even talking about Hawaii and talking about Chicago. I'm talking about most of us that grew up in certain areas where there's still so many people that are still connected to it because it's easier to just do that. And there actually are benefits having a family, having kids and having other people around that can help you all and stuff. Like I look at it and go, actually, I can see why you live there because it actually makes a ton of sense. You're getting a ton of help and you're not sitting there feeling like you have no assistance whatsoever and raising kids and all that stuff. So what our guy did is admirable. Most people wouldn't go

ahead and do that. But the reason most people don't go ahead and do it is that now you can go through this phase unless you are putting a flag down to the new place you move and go, I'm starting a new life. I'm meeting a bunch of people. I'm going to be super proactive about this. I'm going to get married. I'm going to start all my family. There are guys that are wired that way that make it such a priority. It's the same thing as like, what kind of career do you want? Do you want to work out? Are you putting the same thoughts and the same amount of time? Are you putting resources into making these decisions that set you up to have friends and have a family so you don't feel like you're by yourself all the time? Some people can do that, right?

But when I look back to different places in the East Coast that I could potentially spend more time in, I'm glad I left. I know what I did most people wouldn't have done, but I also understand now why all those guys stay. as i've gotten older i'm like oh okay actually this makes a little bit more sense and you guys still all do stuff and hang out and you you have your own lives but you're all together in one place where the reason why the guy from the town just go live in the middle of nowhere by himself is that it's that much fucking harder so anyway i think we covered that one from every fucking angle possible this podcast went i can't believe how long this one was today. I woke up with a plan today.

And so anyway. All right. We'll talk to you Wednesday. Thank you, as always, for subscribing to the Ryan Russell podcast. We're on Spotify. Thanks to Kyle and Steve. We'll talk to you Wednesday. you