The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Zion and Paolo Impress, Fun Bad NBA Teams, McCaffrey to the 49ers, Plus Seth Wickersham on the NFL vs. Dan Snyder

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Russillo shares his excitement for the lower-tier NBA teams, as well as Lakers-Clippers and Pelicans-Nets, followed by a Magic Minute from Ceruti (1:34). Then Ryen talks with ESPN’s Seth Wickersham about the investigation of Commanders owner Dan Snyder, the recent owners meeting, and more (21:05). Next Ryen tackles RB Christian McCaffrey being traded to the 49ers (53:15), before Ceruti, Ryen, and Kyle make their favorite bets for NFL Week 7 (57:25), and answer some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:00:13). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Seth Wickersham Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's show we're going to check with steph wickersham all over the reporting on the future of dan snyder as the owner of the washington commanders i'm going to talk about the nba and the bad teams because i like the bad team So the bad team's good. A little Magic Minute as well. A little reaction to the McCaffrey trade, which doesn't make a ton of sense to me. We've got our picks for Friday for FanDuel and LifeAdvice. Most important announcement, though, as we transition into the start of the show. Tuesday, November 15th, we're going to hit the road. We've got a live show in Denver.

Fired up. We're going to be taping the pod in front of a live audience in Denver next month, and you can join us. We'll be live from Ophelia's Electric Soapbox on 20th Street, and you can grab your tickets at Ophelia'sDenver.com. That's Ophelia'sDenver.com. The tickets are going to go on sale as soon as this podcast posts, so if you download ahead of everybody else and you're in the area,

you get your tickets, come hang with us. Special guests. We are going to do life advice live. We're still figuring out all these deals. The door's going to open at six show. Is it eight? So come early,

grab some drinks, grab some food. Again, Ryan or solo podcast live from Denver on Tuesday, November 15th. You can join us. Space is limited. It's a smaller room.

So grab your tickets while they last. ApheliosDenver.com and fire it up to get back out of the road. Great to get to Colorado, also known as Rado. Just kidding.

Three days of hoops, huh? I want to start with something I've been thinking about leading in, and that's the bad teams are fun. I don't know that I've ever had a season where I think I'm just as interested in the bad teams

as I am the good teams. I don't know that I've really ever experienced this before because they're all interesting. The bad teams all have a lot of players that I'm really interested in watching. I watch more Detroit-Orlando night one than I think I watched of any other game. Although, wait a minute. No, that's not true because I watched of any other game. Although, wait a minute.

No, that's not true because I watched the entire Warriors game because I did switch out of some third quarter Orlando Detroit to get caught up on some other things because first full night of schedule, you're going, oh, I want to see how this looks. I want to see how Atlanta looks at the backcourt. I want to see what the substitution patterns are. On

and on and on. But I don't know that I've ever started a season with the bad teams being this interesting, at least to me. If you run through it, okay, you've got Houston, Jalen Green, dunk contest kind of stuff. Jabari out there took 11 threes in the opener. Not afraid. He's like, man, you get the ball in the NBA. This is pretty cool.

Singun. Porter Jr. is a good player. I've been hard on him. He probably deserves it a little bit coming out of college that's why he went so late in the draft when you watched him you're like this guy is insanely talented will he keep it together he's gone from cleveland he signs a very weird contract where it's basically year to year he's a really nice player i hope he figures it all out and puts it together because houston may have gotten him for nothing. And the contract is very team friendly.

I still like Tate. I like Christopher. I have hope for Garuba, Terry Eason out there as well. That's a very interesting team that I don't know if they're even going to win 30 games. Orlando, don't worry. We're going to get a Cerruti Magic Minute a little bit later. OKC, SGA just moves in a way, if you have a chance, if you really, really are nerdy about basketball and you get a chance to see SGA come to your town, the way he moves on the court, you're

like, wait, that worked, that worked, that worked. He is just smooth. It is something about him that is extra in person that's really fun. You got Josh Giddey. You got the Jalens. I'm excited about Jang. Utah, okay, maybe a tougher sell here. Do you think there's anyone? There's always somebody,

right? Do you think there's one person that's like, you know what? Colin Sexton's kind of my dude. Like, that's your favorite player? Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. I was in Cleveland pharmaceuticals for like two years. This guy lit it up. Never get a chance to have enough talent around him. Okay, that's cool. And then

Laurie Markin, according to Bleacher Report, is number four on the Who's Got Next list. So, enjoy. That one's a tougher sell. Can I interest you in any Terry Taylor from the Indiana Pacers? Probably not. But Matherin, off the bench, first game, 17-7, and it is immediately clear Matherin is going to take some souls

throughout his rookie season Detroit, Cade, Ivy Jalen Duren, man holy shit all he does is just beat you up around the rim the entire time, he's a beast and then you got Isaiah Stewart Stu Crew in the corner for the game winning three

and then you have competitive closeouts from Killian Hayes Washington stop me if you've heard this before, I think Porzingis looks pretty good right now, I like the beard And then you have competitive closeouts from Killian Hayes. Washington. Stop me if you've heard this before. I think Porzingis looks pretty good right now. I like the beard. Beal.

Whatever. I know KP missed some shots. The Denny Avdia watch. Still not 100% on his name. Here's something interesting. Johnny Davis, DNP, coach's decision. Okay. We'll get to Orlando a little bit earlier.

I want to talk about the high end now. The Clippers beat the Lakers last night. They've won 33 of their last 40 against the Lakers. I rewound the audio last night. I was like, wait, that's true. Not great shooting from the Lakers to start the season. They're 19 to 85 from three. That's not good. Uh,

Russ, tough one, zero for 11, zero from six from three, some poor decisions, uh, was only a minus six though in the game. So that's a positive.

Uh, Reggie Miller had that game. He had the game the other night too, which led to me tweeting. I don't know how much I want to talk about Westbrook this season. I'm probably not going to help myself. So just a warning, but I've told myself like, Hey, keep it on the radar. Kind of like that story you've told three or four times, you know, you've kind of, you've already told Saruti that story, chill out. You don't need to go through the entire timeline without leaving out any single detail. Cause you're acting like

you're on the stand. It's not that big of a deal. But I probably won't be able to help myself repeating some of the stuff with Westbrook. And it really is, you know, like the other players, the former players. I'm just, I'm astonished that none of you guys can get together with a producer and just put together like five or six clips at the end of a game where he makes bad decisions and see the stuff the rest of the people see. But the former players, I think, are mad at us as non-players are pointing it out all the time. So they're just kind of doing, you can't do that to our pledges.

Only we can do that to our pledges, which I get when, as I tweeted out, if I played and there's some fucking guy like me in a podcast, I'd be like that. Dick. Cool. Big arms.

Well, how old are you? You know? So I wouldn't like anybody that didn't play probably for a while. And then maybe eventually I'd be like, okay, this guy's proven that he puts the time in and understand some concepts. Maybe just maybe he's not terrible about talking about basketball, but there's a very weird, weird divide. I mean, Kendrick Perkins, I think, had Westbrook is like the 23rd or 22nd best player of all time on his top 75. Perk is, though, to his credit, he's off the Russ bandwagon quickly.

That was record time. That's been his dude, and now he's like, all right, I'm going to be on TV every day like I can't. I got to unhitch the old wagon here. All right, so that was about three minutes on it without expecting it. We're seeing something very similar here, and here you go, Lakers fans, this is what's going to happen for you. Other teams leaving bigs in the entire time. Between Looney

and James Wiseman, that was 38 minutes of big minutes the Lakers went up against. Zubach played 35 minutes last night, and he also played on Westbrook. They were like, this is great. That's leading to the Lakers taking all these threes. Darvin Hamm, I like what he's selling.

I'm not sure I'm buying, but he's trying to play that positivity positivity take the shots take the shots but then lebron even after the first game was like yeah we know a bunch of lasers out there and then he said after the second game he's like it's not my job to criticize him every night that's not what a leader would do i am full on a full alert for how weird the lebron thing will get. Now, I don't think there's the trade clause with the new extension that makes it irrelevant. I don't really think he wants to go anywhere. His kids are here. I think they're all having a blast with it all. But he will do things

throughout the season if this goes really bad, where he will separate himself. He will want you to know that like, nah, I'm going to sit over here. I don't know if he'd ask for his own jersey that's a different color from the rest of the team. That would seem excessive, but there will be moments. There will be little quotes. There will be things that will lead, you know, his frustration, but he is always pretty clear of like, no, I want to make some sort of, I want you to notice that I'm not fucking with these guys right now. I want you to notice that I'm not fucking with these guys right now. So buckle up for that one. Because it's basically just an easy team to guard. If you can't shoot and they pack the paint and there's just no shooters anywhere. I never forget how impressed I was with Houston back in 2008 in the Western Conference Finals where they still almost beat the Warriors. Stop me if you've heard this before.

Chris Paul missed a couple games because he got hurt. But they guarded three players with five guys. They just were like, screw it. Never leave. Never come off when it's... Never stay with the screener. Keep five on three. Ignore the other players.

That's why I was looking to see what Ham did with the closing group. It was Davis. It was LeBron. It was Pat Bev. It was Lonnie Walker. And then it was Westbrook back in at 539 for Juan. He did come out the last minute

or so when they needed a bucket there. But like Matt Ryan was signed as maybe the 14th or 15th guy and he's playing minutes because they're so desperate to try to find shooting. Let's finish it up here. Two nights ago, the Pelicans beat the Nets 131 away. Kyrie was terrible. I don't know. I don't know what it means. Kyrie's going to have really good basketball shooting. Let's finish it up here. Two nights ago, the Pelicans beat the Nets 131 away. Kyrie was terrible. I don't know. I don't know what it means. Kyrie's going to have really good basketball games. It's not a

big deal. Ben Simmons, the most expensive role player in the NBA, or the most clicked on role player in NBA history, 4, 5, and 5 fouled out in 23 minutes. Why did he foul out in 23 minutes? Because Zion didn't give a

fuck he went right at Simmons every single time and Simmons there's just nothing he had nothing for him Simmons is a good defensive player not in this matchup Zion 25-9 22 shots only one is outside of the restricted area

look at his shot chart it's stupid I mean I can't only one is outside of the restricted area. Look at his shot chart. It's stupid. I mean, I can't. You're just going to look at it and play it out that way in the game. I mean, Zion was actually really predictable. Turned that right shoulder, wants to finish left every single time.

I actually think he does look a little thick still. Probably going to be thick the rest of his life. Is it bad thick? I don't know. Second jump still is his best second jump I maybe have ever seen from a basketball player. I'm sure there's a guy number 12, 13 on a team, rarely plays, that maybe has a better second jump than him. I don't know that I've ever seen somebody who is like Barkley type stuff. Powerful second jump.

It's nuts. Maybe his conditioning is good, but his body still looks kind of big to me none of it mattered he he put he put simmons in the torch chamber okay so rudy this is the build-up i passed over the magic uh just because i want to give you the floor here where are you it was great because when i tweeted out you're 10 minutes away from the rest of your life people were like holy shit he's about to have a kid like also yeah yeah yeah also accurate he's due to have a kid here soon but not was that an opening night was that intentional or no because some people were like hey because i had a buddy text me he's like i like that priscilla baited some people into thinking that you had the kid and uh i was like i don't know if he did that

on purpose i didn't take it that way initially, but maybe he did. Just next level humor from you. I knew what I was doing. So, but I knew I was, look, I was writing about the magic. I loved it. I, I was texting you. Okay. So just give me, I mean, you put a lot, a lot of emotions into this, man. The Chet regret.

Remember Chet regret summer league after the first night. Well, so I texted you last night and i was like hey do we need like do we need to do the kevin i take the l segment like right now because i think i think i could safely say i'm going to take the l on this and i again magic pants i'm not mad about this i'm pumped i'm happy watching that was absolutely fucking electric i mean 27 nine and five i mean within the first two minutes easy 27 nine and An easy 27, 9, and 5. Well, I was saying this to Bill, too, because we were just shooting the shit, like, you know, when we were taping with him yesterday. None of it also was forced.

None of it. It was all, like, he didn't take a three. He never was like, hey, give me the ball. I'm posting somebody up on the elbow. Like, it's my time to shine. None of it. It was 27 within the offense. And, again, the crazy thing is, is like he can be so much better.

He is even more talented. There was one possession where he lost the ball. Like somebody picked his pocket, goes back down the court, blocks the shot, comes back up the other end and gets a bucket. And it was just like, oh, so this is a dude. Like he is, not only is he not scared, like he's dominant in some ways. And he's actually like angry about this turnover. And, you you know obviously there's some stupid stuff in there with like defensive position the fouling was brutal i mean yeah yeah it's bad he's too upright but look he's a year in or excuse

me he's a day into his nba career couldn't be less worried about it yeah i mean i i just it was it is what it you know it is what it is for now but i'm not worried about it long term i mean some of he had two blocks both of them were incredible the dunk over uh cory joseph was like just absolutely downright disrespectful um so i mean i'm sitting here going holy shit like 12 years after the dwight sort of like you know end of that era like we actually have a dude who i'm sitting here going could he be a top five guy like he has i mean bill's like hey is he already an all nba type player i mean the guy is clearly the he also looks he looks bigger than he did i know a couple people said this i thought he looked bigger in the nba than i ever remember him looking in college and i know

he didn't put on a ton of weight i know this is weird i thought he looked hotter but definitely hotter definitely hotter franz also definitely hotter but the idea that you have these two 610 guys and you know people are going back and obviously pulling the audio from my hit with Definitely hotter. Fran's also definitely hotter. But the idea that you have these two 6'10 guys, and people are going back and obviously pulling the audio from my hit with Bill when we were on doing the draft stuff, and I think I got caught up in the emotions of the situation, and I had said that I had never really entertained Paolo as the first pick. So this is me really genuinely thinking about it

for the first time, having heard he was going to be the pick like a half an hour before that. But I also, when I say, like oh we got stuck with him i was talking about that in relation to them potentially still trying to bait houston into trading them i will i'm not i wasn't unhappy with the pick now i was on the record i am a check guy i still think chet's gonna be fine but i think i think me kev all the people who had chet as the guy in this draft i think we just clearly after one game i think we have to take the L. And I'm okay with it.

Well, we can see what Chet looks like, you know. I don't know that Chet is going to look like this, man. Chet could be fun. I think he will be really fun. My concern was, was Paolo going to be an inefficient scorer? Was he going to be kind of like the mellow, light type? Is he too big to really be a wing and not big enough to be an an inefficient scorer was he going to be like kind of like the mellow light type like is he is he too big to really be a wing and not big enough to be like an actual big none of that mattered none of it mattered so i you know they got the loss i think they probably win that

game with markel folds the problem is like you know franz isn't really ready to be like a primary playmaker yet for a team for an entire game or for an entire stretch of games but this season's all about just letting the two of those guys figure it out. And then they're going to have something incredibly special and unique for, I don't know, however long they play together. Yeah, Suggs also turned into Klay Thompson for a quarter.

Suggs, my guy, don't give up. I know, I know. Nobody should give up on any, I mean, unless the person is an absolute, like, Anthony Bennett disaster where you're going, oh, and there's some bad hints.

There can be good hints or there can be bad hints or whatever. I'm very anti on, like, maybe it's just my own stubbornness of a player that I like. It could also be me playing their own results of what my opinion is of the guy before the draft. But writing off Suggs, writing off Wiseman, who didn't even play last year, to me, it's like, did you see something you like talent-wise Yeah. Okay. Well, like if he hasn't played with Wiseman, why would you just say, Oh, this guy's going to suck even though it's not a great start. And with Suggs,

yeah, there's some stuff that you wish was a little bit better. There was a little buyer's remorse, but like, can we see a guy who busts his ass and cares? Like he works hard. He's super competitive. Can we just see how it looks the second year before we're trying to

chalk this off? Is it like a tax write off? Can I ask you a question? Because I mean, after that, I think everybody was sort of surprised that he was that good. I mean, he was just that ready to play in the NBA. Yeah, Pala. Why? I mean, looking back now, why the hell was this even a debate?

I don't know. He seemed so ready and clean. And this idea that for three months we were debating who the number one pick should be and he was third and i know you and a lot of other smart people had i were confused that paulo wasn't the first pick the obvious first pick but there were a lot of like really smart basketball people who thought shat or jabari should have been the pick as well like what what is i'm just and listen jabari had a good uh premiere as well and i think he's going to be a good player he'll be fine and i think if the magic picked him he wouldari had a good premiere as well, and I think he's going to be a good player. He'll be fine. And I think if the Magic picked him,

he would have been a good player. But it was so clearly obvious to me that Paulo was just on kind of another level this early on that I'm confused as to the evaluation from everybody else. Well, it isn't about the first night. It's about year five, right? It's who you are

year five, and Jabari with his length and his defense and his shooting, because his shooting's going to hold up. It's going to be awesome. Um, you know, that was part of it. I just didn't, I didn't like that. He couldn't dribble even though I felt bad for him at Auburn. And then Chet's a body type guy, you know, just honestly, like for me to go, maybe there's all these things that Chet does that I really, really like, but I never have to worry about Paolo's body. And I always have to worry about Chet's or I have to for the first few years. OK, you know, even if it was a tie, that's still a tiebreaker for me. So I might even as a Paolo guy push back to that.

Like, why was this ever an argument? I mean, we don't we don't know. Like, I mean, it looked awesome that first night. Like, that's what I like about him is that he's unselfish, that he wants to play in the system. He wants to get other guys going. He can do a multiple different things to get in your offense. So the more I kind of watched the more I was like, yeah,

I don't right now, like for right now, I was like, I don't think this is close, but I completely understand that that's not the exercise. You know, it's, it's not,

it's not what you're doing when you're drafting all the time. It's not about who it is right now. So that would be my only pushback. Either way. It's happy times, man. Like I, this season I've never really cared. I've sat up and on record saying, I don't care about the wins and losses this season. I think they probably pushback. Either way, it's happy times, man. This season, I've never really cared.

I've sat up and on record saying I don't care about the wins and losses this season. I think they probably go over. I know all you guys had them as the over. I don't think they push for a play-in spot, really. I think they'll maybe win 30 games if they're stealing, but it doesn't matter. They're going to be a league pass team night in and night out because of those two bigs, and Franz and Paulo, and even Wendell Carter Jr. looks really good, too. There's clearly something awesome here. You know I love Wendell Carter Jr I know I love that too um there's clearly something like kind of incredibly special and weird here I mean

Bill was throwing around like next bird Mikhail and I'm like all right here let's let's what are we doing but uh but the idea that that's even like a thing is just I mean for a magic fan base that has been just absolutely embarrassed for the last decade plus and like our highest moment was beating the Bucks and the Raptors in game one as like a seven and eight seed.

That was like the highest point of the team for the last decade or so. To have this now is pretty freaking awesome, man. I don't know. I'm just trying to stay grounded to be honest with you.

Yeah, I'm going to push back on the Bird McHale stuff, but I don't want to be associated. That's not me. That's not me. I'm just saying. I don't want to be honest with you. Yeah, I'm going to push back on the Bird McHale stuff, but I don't want to be associated. That's not me. That's not me. I'm just saying. I don't want to be associated with that comp,

but we'll leave it in the podcast for just entertainment purposes. Yeah. By the way, Ivy, awesome. And you're right. You mentioned Jalen Dern. That dude is freaking awesome, man. He was awesome.

I was really impressed by that team. Yeah, this might be like an incredible draft because as soon as Matherin got in, I was like, okay, I'm changing the channel. And then I went, geez. I was like, man, I love him too. So yeah, as I said at the open, very fun start. Very fun start

for the league and these bad teams. I'm going to watch them as much as the good ones. Football season is underway, so now is the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook because right now new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's free bets, right? Free bets back if your first bet doesn't win. Just sign up with the promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N.

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First online real money wager. Only refund issued is non-withdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Seth Wickersham, ESPN reporter, author. He and Don Vannata have been working on the owner dynamic in the NFL for a long time. Used to have him in studio back when we were doing the radio show. Tisha Thompson, also a piece of this report that came out this month regarding the future of Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Commanders.

So Snyder bought this team when he was 34. He's had it for 23 years. It's been a complete disaster on and off the field. And now we're left here to try to sift through the information that you guys have done an unbelievable job sourcing here, kind of putting us in those owners' meetings, in these rooms at times with some of this stuff. So I guess let's start.

You know what? Let's kind of start it to be. Let's build up a little of the backstory that maybe the public doesn't know about Snyder as much as they know now. The 2003 Super Bowl bid going up against the Bidwells in Arizona. It was a few years after Snyder had already owned a team, but it seemed to be this being him signing his own death sentence with the rest of the owners being like, what the fuck is up with this guy? with this guy. Yeah, man, it's good to be with you as always. Good to hear your voice. That was an interesting meeting. And so Dan had owned the team for that point for, I think, four years. And he had mostly been known in ownership circles as kind of brash and for acquiring these kind of shiny toys that, you know, these huge free agents and paying them all this money, which frankly, other owners were happy about because it was not only wrecking their salary cap, Washington's, but it was taking a lot of these guys off of

their books and making it easier to compete against him. So Washington's up for the Super Bowl at FedEx Field. At the time, they'd never had an outdoor Super Bowl in a cold market. And he was up against Billy and Michael Bidwell, who were about to open their new stadium in Glendale, Arizona. And it was the 2008 Super Bowl, which of course ended up being the undefeated Patriots against the Giants, one of the best. And he lost and he was never going to win. And they were always going to give it to the new stadium. And he really took it personally and lashed out, not only at the bidwills who, you know, have had their problems in NFL ownership circles, but are well-liked, but kind of made it clear to other owners that they had crossed the wrong guy.

And I think that it really set him off on the wrong foot. I think that like, to contrast it with another brash guy who came to the league, like Jerry Jones. I mean, he clearly rubbed people the wrong way, but what he was doing was trying to figure out new revenue streams and maybe you don't share them all, but that's the direction that he was trying to go. He's trying to involve his team and the NFL eventually followed. Whereas Dan Snyder was almost kind of picking fights with people over wars that he was never going to win anyway and so i think that like that's how things got going and we see where they are today okay now we're talking about a bunch of different

investigations potential incidents alleged acts uh this is why we're wondering wait how much longer can snyder possibly be the owner? We'll get to all of these things, but just to kind of carry through the timeline, the one investigation that started a couple of years ago, Post the Washington Post article about a toxic work environment, the Wilkinson investigation where it appears that Snyder and some element had veto power on information that was being released. Can you help summarize kind of the acts, the allegations and everything that's led to a far more tenuous situation for Snyder's ownership? Yeah, I mean, and he wasn't a popular owner before this. Let's make that clear. But

for a long time, it looked like his biggest issue, at least off the field, and they haven't been great on the field, but at least off the field looked like it was like his stubborn refusal to rename the team. And that changed in 2020 when the Washington Post reported on the field, but at least off the field looked like, you know, it was like his stubborn refusal to rename the team. And that changed in 2020 when the Washington Post reported on the team's, you know, toxic culture. And it, you know, included numerous allegations of chronic sexual harassment, multiple incidents of misconduct, including former cheerleaders making a claim that team executives created videos of them, partially nude, made incredibly disparaging and demeaning remarks for them, asking them for dates and told female employees to flirt with sweet holders. And so Snyder dismissed that report as a hit job. And as an attempt to try to

clear his name, the team hired Beth Wilkinson, who's a veteran Washington, D.C. lawyer, to investigate the claims. But it's been very clear, and Congress has found this, that he was actively interfering with that investigation. What's more is that Snyder's legal team and the league, the NFL, struck what's known as a common interest agreement, which meant that they both had to sign off on any information before it was released. And this effectively gave Dan Snyder veto power over the release of any negative information. Of course, the league ended up taking over the Beth Wilkinson investigation. And what was supposed to be a written report ended up not being a written report at all. It was delivered orally.

And Beth Wilkinson was using note cards to detail what she found. And the results of whatever it is that she found has still not been made public. And so I think that that's where a lot of this stuff begins. The fact that an entire report was commissioned, Nothing was made public. And what Roger Goodell did in response to it was essentially take a bullet for Dan Snyder, fine him $10 million. They both agreed that he would have this unofficial suspension. The language of it is very different, but Roger Goodell has always used the phrase stepping down or stepping away from day-to-day operations. And his wife, Tanya, would run the team day-to-day. And she's in meetings now, too. And she has been.

She's in meetings. But it's like even that has been convoluted. And in our story, it showed for the first time that they don't even agree on that. And that Dan's lawyers believe that he can run the team day-to-day right now if he wanted to. So anyway, there's a lot to unpack. But that Washington Post report and the way that the team and the league handled the Beth Wilkinson investigation, remember Dan Snyder used the Beth Wilkinson investigation, a source told us, as a tip sheet for going after his accusers, putting private investigators on them, figuring out ways to harass them. Congress has detailed that. And the lawyer for the accusers, Lisa Banks, is livid about this because if she feels and if she finds that the

NFL, which denied sharing those names, but if the NFL shared those who cooperated with the investigation under the veil of anonymity, that would be a major problem that that like people cooperated with this investigation granted under the under the the the pretense that that they would be granted anonymity to be able to cooperate freely if that investigation was used as a tip sheet like a high-ranking source told us and allow dan snyder to go after his accusers um and harass them that could lead to legal action on the accuser's part. So anyway, that's a long answer, but this entire Beth Wilkinson investigation of what happened is a mess. And it's the reason why a lot of owners are really looking right now, I think, towards this next investigation commissioned by the league by attorney Mary Joe White as the thing that might give them cause to finally vote him out.

Okay. And I think maybe if people are listening to this and they're not as locked in, because it's been a lot to try to keep track of here for a long time, you're going, okay, all right. Toxic workplace, you know, this, the allegations that contributors to the report were then being followed by private investigators, which, you know, they, everybody's denied, you know, basically your, your entire piece on.com was allegation followed by denial immediately. But the 2009 incident on a private plane with Snyder and another female, that seems to be coming back up as more people learn about what did or didn't happen and then adding to the litany of things other owners can start figuring out.

Because I want to get to the owner versus Snyder dynamic here too. But I think 2009 is very important for people to go, okay, well now there's this part of it too. So tell us the full story on that that we have. Right. too. So tell us the full story on that that we have. Right. So the Washington Post reported that in 2009, Snyder had settled an allegation with a former team employee for $1.6 million. Former team employee accused Snyder of groping her, asking her for sex, and trying to remove her clothes on a plane. Now, Snyder denied this. He said it was meritless. But owners are kind of looking at that incident in this current investigation,

this Mary Jo White investigation, wondering if there's more there and if that might be the type of thing that they can use to finally get rid of him. And there's been some interesting, some interesting battles behind the scenes with that. Brendan Sullivan, who was the woman's lawyer, said that Snyder's lawyers have recently attempted to keep the woman from discussing this alleged incident with anybody,

including perhaps Mary Jo White. And they offered her another settlement to try to keep her from doing that, a substantial sum that was in the seven figures, sources told us. Now, Snyder's lawyers deny that existence of a second offer but the woman has in fact been interviewed by mary joe white who of course is conducting this new inquiry of sire for the nfl that a lot of owners are kind of looking to for whenever it's released to be the thing that they use the instrument that they use to decide what to do with him. Okay.

So now back to the October 13th piece that you've worked on, the real breakout was the back and forth of like, who's, who's to be relieved here. One source saying that Snyder has quote dirt on NFL owners, other allegations that, you know, you were kind of talking earlier about the tip sheet, but that,

you know, Goodell was going to be somebody that was going to be followed and that the same law firm, which again denied all of these allegations. They had represented Alex Rodriguez when he was going at it with Major League Baseball. And there was a story in there about how they were trying to follow Manfred around, which did follow him. According to our sources, people with very intimate knowledge of this did follow him. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm just trying to avoid,

avoid whatever, whatever comes with this. Yeah. Um, so what do you believe about Snyder's tactics here? Do you think he's told more people than we can count, including owners, people close to him in his inner circle about the dirt that he's accumulated over his time on NFL owners. And he has said, according to our story, that the NFL is a mafia and that all the owners hate each other.

That did not go over well with a lot of the owners we spoke to, including one who said that's not true. All the owners hate Dan. Now, Dan Snyder has denied commissioning his... They always do it through a law firm because it protects it under attorney-client privilege, has denied instructing any of his law firms or his lawyers to put private eyes on any owners or league executives. Reed Smith, a law firm that he uses a lot, said that they are unaware of any efforts to put private eyes on any owners or league executives. Reed Smith, a law firm that he uses a lot, said that they are unaware of any efforts to put private eyes on any owners or league executives, including Roger Goodell. But what we reported on was actually not that he did that, but that he's told people that he has. It's a subtle difference, but it's very important because

even his statements where he's releasing that, like, I've never put private eyes on any owners, this reporting is wrong, is not exactly what we reported. We reported that he has bragged about it, including to other owners, that he's put private eyes on people. It's a difference, but I think it's a very important one. And of course, he denies saying that or even thinking it. But at this point, we felt very confident and comfortable with the people that we spoke with and the things that had heard things directly from Dan Snyder about the material that he's collected that he could, quote, blow up the league if he wanted to. Right.

And there was also, quote, a file on Jerry Jones and denied by Snyder's lawyers. Give us. And Jerry is aware of that. Jerry's aware of that. Jerry's aware of that. We reported in our story that he's lost Jerry Jones, and Jerry Jones publicly has kind of danced around confirming that. I think that if it comes to a moment when they realize that they've got to push Dan out,

I think that one of the reasons why Jerry might be kind of like, not just coming out like Jim Irsay did at the league meetings and saying that he thought, you know, there was merit to remove him, is that there's a sense that they might deploy Jerry Jones to try to convince Dan to sell so they don't have to vote him out. But make it clear, Jerry Jones is aware of the things that Dan Snyder has, aware that Dan Snyder has a file on him. He's aware of some of the things that Dan Snyder said. And it did not go over well. And he has told people that he might not be able to protect Dan anymore. And again, he's been a longtime firewall of support because I don't think that

Jerry Jones wants to set a precedent of removing owners. don't think that Jerry Jones, um, you know, wants to set a precedent of removing owners. You know, this is something that these guys take, you know, even though there's a lot of owners that maybe they'd prefer not be in the room. If you were able to take like a blind poll, it doesn't mean you can just remove them. And I think that's why there's a lot of cautiousness, um, about removing Dan and in particular Jerry's role in it. But make clear that Jerry Jones is not a supporter of Dan Snyder anymore in those circles. He just isn't. Okay, you're hitting on something too that is really important here.

two that is really important here because i think whenever you know the the direction with the way we react to stories and then what we want as the result is okay well this guy shouldn't be able to own the team and look i i don't want snyder to own the team i don't care i think i know exactly who he is as a guy without ever knowing him i saw him once at a thing. And it kind of checked every box that I had in my head about him. So owners don't want to set a precedent. You're right. And you can go back to Donald Sterling situation. And you also have to realize that there was a bit of a technicality there where the wife was going to remove him from the trust.

And she played a huge, huge part in getting him to sell that team where and it was also a complete pr win for silver and i think it's clearly what silver wanted to do too he wasn't doing it for the pr but it was kind of funny how that was replayed like oh well you know the biggest decision ever this early on the job and he handled it really well i'm like actually it was the kind of decision that was going to have an absolutely insane approval rating. So I don't think it was a really hard one. And the fact that the family was against Sterling as well. And then you have the Sarver situation, which is maybe more like the Snyder one, but not apples to apples. But Snyder was a rich guy. Sarver was like a poor rich guy. And I think that was going to make it more complicated for

him and that was after originally he was going to step away for a year and then minority partners were just like no this guy isn't coming back whatever and snyder had bought out a lot of his minority partners correct like he even got a loan so if as your piece says the other owners are counting votes have they now crossed what has normally been the default position of, we don't want to do this to anyone else in the room because we don't want the rest of the room to ever do this to us. And all 32 of us need to be like, there's going to be plenty of shit we don't like about each other.

There can be stuff that goes, but we all need to be supportive of the idea that we do not want to set this precedent. Is, is this now getting to the point where they're counting votes and they're past that moral dilemma for them, which is probably the wrong way to term it, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's an interesting thing. So let me set the scene for you for a second. New York, we're in a downtown New York hotel Tuesday afternoon

and Jim Irsay comes in with a few executives behind him into the lobby. And unbeknownst to me, at least, he hadn't been in the meeting. The meeting had been going on for hours. He actually hadn't been there. He was just arriving. And he was at the bottom of a staircase and he decided to kind of stop. And so those of us who were there loitering, these owners' meetings are often very boring, kind of ask him, hey, do you want to stop and talk? And the first question he gets is about where owners sit at the meetings. And do they all sit in the same spot? So he goes into this great detailed answer about where owners sit. And meanwhile, you have to imagine his thought bubble saying like, you dudes better ask me about Dan Snyder because you have no idea what I'm sitting on here, right?

Please don't tell me you're going to waste this time talking to me about seating charts. But finally, the second question he gets is about them. So he stops because he wants this to happen, right? He wants it to happen. I mean, he knew what he was going to say, this bomb. And meanwhile, he's sitting there talking about seating charts. So anyway, he gets asked about Dan Snyder next. And he says that there's merit to consider removing him.

And all of us kind of look at each other like, wait, did he actually say what we thought? We got to make sure that you didn't say no merit. And then he just keeps going for 14 more minutes. So then he goes upstairs and he says he believes that there is 24 owners who would vote him out. Then he goes upstairs to the meeting, and late afternoon, they do what's called the privilege session, which is owners only, no executives from teams, only the top league executives and owners. And Jeff Pasch, the general counsel for the league, says, guys, we have got to no comment on this stuff. Because Ursae had kind of said that when the Mary Jo White investigation is done,

whenever that is, that was going to be the justification for removing Dan. And Roger Goodell came downstairs and told the press, and the one thing that was the real takeaway is that he does not want everyone out there talking about this Mary Jo White investigation

before it comes out, being the thing that they're going to use to get rid of Dan. It not only sets a bad look for them, like they're sort of reverse engineering this investigation to justify whatever it is they need to get rid of him. There's some nervousness about owners that maybe the Mary July investigation doesn't actually come with anything new and that it isn't as powerful as they thought. But that's kind of what's going on. And so while I don't think that they're counting votes per se,

I think that what they're trying to do right now is not make it look like the Mary Jo White investigation, which hasn't even finished yet is already going to be the thing that they use to get rid of it. Do you think they want them out? You think they're going to do it? So you're going to try, I don't know now.

So yes, I think they want him out. How they do that is a whole different thing. And there's been some good explaining by some legal minds on Twitter about parsing the NFL bylaws. How do you actually get rid of an owner?

And it's a very owner-friendly process if the owner decides to contest this. It's a difficult process, and it's way messier than I think that people realize. And you're not only dealing with someone who doesn't want to let go of their team. It's different than the Sarver stuff. He kind of realized that he had no way out of this.

Dan Snyder has made it clear that he won't go down without a fight, and there won't be a sale of that team without multiple casualties. I think that he wants to be able to give it to his kids one day. And whether they vote him out, voting him out is one thing, but how he actually is removed is a whole other thing. And that could be incredibly messy and bloody. Are the other owners more upset about all of the stuff that we've covered or that he blew up his own stadium deal? Definitely the stadium. I mean,

I think there's some who are pissed about the cultural stuff and they just don't like him. They don't want to be around him. They don't want him in their lives in any way, shape or form. You know, even though Tanya Snyder is married to him, they much prefer Tanya. And I think that people think that she has enjoyed representing the team and actually likes being in these discussions.

But he messed up the stadium so bad. And obviously, we don't expect your listeners to feel sorry for owners about how hard building a stadium is, because there's a lot of literature out there that would explain that these things aren't always good for communities, and maybe public money should be going for something else. Because most owners aren't like Stan Kroenke, who can just write a check for however many billion and build this beautiful stadium. But as early as February, last February, Dan Snyder had the three most powerful politicians in Virginia lined up to pass a bill that would create what's called a stadium authority, which would essentially serve as a conduit to funneling public money to building a new stadium in Virginia. And he blew it. He blew it. And that

galls owners that you could have a market like that, where, you know, it used to be one of the greatest fan bases the NFL had. I mean, you watch those old NFL films, America's games from the 80s about those Washington teams. I mean, those RFK stadium was one of the hardest places to play in the NFL. That's just gone. And the fact that he had Virginia, DC was always going to be a little bit of a non-starter, but they were on the hook and Maryland, at least interested. And he managed to blow it all and now has nowhere to turn for a new stadium, galls these owners. And I think that they're aware that he knows that that's his ticket out of this. And at this point, I don't know where he goes because I don't believe, and it's not believed, that Dan Snyder is one of those owners that could just buy the land

and build a $4 or $5 billion stadium by writing a check. And that deal fell apart because of all of the stuff that started with the washington post reporting right a few years ago because no well no it fell apart actually it survived that it's actually one of the kind of unique american things is that dan snyder had actually been under investigation from all these different entities and yet was going to all of these governors and you know they were wooing him to imagine the idea that Congress could be investigating him and all these attorneys generals and the DEA, I mean, his team, not him specifically, and that he could still just go to these governor mansions where the governor is trying to woo him to get dangling

public money to let him build a stadium in their state. I mean, that's one of those things where it's like only in America, right? But it was the outcry from Congress, from the congressional hearings that they held that ended up blowing up that stadium authority. It was the congressional hearings when some of this stuff got out and some of the accusers spoke publicly about what they had experienced there. Then the local officials started getting mail from their constituents saying, like, we don't want a dollar of ours going to anything that has to do with this man. That's really what blew it up. Right. But I'm saying, like, the outcry happened because of Congress responding to all of the stuff that was happening. Right.

of Congress responding to all of the stuff that was happening. Right. So there was previous. Yeah, it was. It wasn't a Washington Post that it was a Washington Post report from a couple of years ago that Congress was reinvestigating it. That's in February. That's what. Right.

No, that's that's. I'm glad you cleared it up that way, though, because that is that is pretty fascinating. Yeah. Report comes out. But it's also, as you point out with Don and Tisha as well, it's like why he hates the post because he feels like they cost him a stadium on top of everything else. It sounds like go ahead and even like think about it just for a second. Like there was a deal that was leaked that he had optioned this land in Virginia with plans to build like a mini like a Washington version of a Patriot place.

Right. Where you have a stadium and all these shops. The stadium was only going to hold 55,000 people that is amazing considering that in Washington at FedEx field even when they had good teams under Dan Snyder they would get 85 90,000 into that stadium the idea that like they were going to build a brand new stadium that only you know could seat 55,000 again with that fan base just shows how toxic he is and how bad things have been deteriorating in that in that market i want to ask about the goodell part of this because i did think it was interesting in the aftermath of all this it feels like jerry jones once again is leading the charge on just trying to figure out what Goodell's compensation should be. The New York Times reported that Goodell made $128 million in the 20 and 21 seasons.

It's some of the pro Goodell literature I read. It's like, hey, TV revenue and look at all this revenue. First of all, any one of us could be commissioner of any of these leagues and the TV revenue would write its own check. So we can pretend that somebody's a genius, but when everybody's making TV money, it's a bit like being a realtor before the housing collapse situation where it's like, is it you or is it the circumstances? Okay.

Like ask your mortgage broker. Be like, Hey, did you get worse at your job recently? No, you didn't. You had a nice couple of years, didn't you?

I also thought it was very pro Goodell to suggest that somehow he was the one that was able to save every game on the nfl schedule while other sports leagues lost games to covid uh that is simply the luck of the calendar there's absolutely nothing to do with someone's vision or brilliance uh it is that you're just lucky it didn't happen in the middle of your season like it did with basketball and hockey so um i kind of feel like i'm team jones on this one where if jones is like hey we could pay roger a lot of money i don't think we should be paying him 65 million dollars a year i don't i don't and if i were an owner like people could say oh who cares like these guys are all making this much money and it's not even that jerry you know i

don't know what his his thoughts are on this but is he really by himself? What led to the back and forth with Kraft? Was Kraft just like, hey, everything's good. Who cares? Let's not rock the boat. I know Goodell's also hinted at maybe that he wouldn't be on for much longer, which is classic what everybody says. And then guess what?

Like 10 years. Bud Selig was supposedly a temporary commissioner. So he started seeing what the checks were. He was like, you know what? This isn't a bad gig so um help us understand that dynamic that apparently led to according to reporting craft swear out jones swearing at craft it's really interesting so that the context of this is that goodell's five-year contract that he signed in 2017, which Jerry Jones almost sued the league to block from happening. He felt like that Roger was way

overpaid and needed to have more of a bonus-based compensation. It was very vague. I kind of liked what I read on the Jones side of it. It's like, whatever it is, that's fine, but this is way too vague and ultimately 65 million a year and who knows remember when roger also said he was going to take one dollar salary during the lockout thing but then it was all bonuses anyway so you remember that and so um it was unbelievable because all of us were like what wow this guy's really this guy really loves football and you're like yeah actually there's there's more to it but go ahead well and so the the jerry ended up backing down in 2017 roger signed a contract which was more

incentive based and bonus based jerry still feel like felt like that it wasn't enough and that it was too vague and that a lot of these markers and the metrics that he wants it based on are not specific enough. And so his contract is coming up. And at the owner's only session, they had a discussion about whether to allow the compensation committee the right to start negotiating a new contract with Roger. And during the discussion, Jerry got animated again, Robert Kraft, who is a friend and he was at, Goodell was at Kraft's wedding over the weekend and a supporter of Roger spoke out in favor of this, this resolution. And Jerry got upset and he said, don't fuck with me on this. And Robert Kraft said, excuse me? Like, did you really say that to me?

Are you really speaking to me that way? And Jerry amended himself to a more PG version where he said, don't mess with me on it. But the resolution ended up passing 31 to 1. Jerry was the only one who voted against it. So I don't know how this is going to shake out. So I don't know how this is going to shake out, but it's very obvious that Jerry feels that the way that Roger Goodell's pay and compensation is set up is too lenient. And the other owners disagree, but I think it's one of those things worth watching going forward, just how far Jerry's willing to go here. Because in 2017, he was willing to go quite a ways before finally backing down. And we'll see whether he's able to do it this time

or willing to. Okay, let's finish on this and just circle it back to the Snyder piece. We're all trying to understand, whether it's you reporting on it, me reading it, talking to you about it, whether you're another owner in the league, whether you're Roger Goodell, whether you're any of these lawyers, you're trying to figure out, is this't ask you, is any of this true?

But it appears this is somebody who's willing to go to any length to keep his team. It's just a matter of, would he actually do it? Does he actually have the ammunition that he apparently, allegedly, has bragged to other people about? is bragged to other people about. Yeah, I think that people ask, is Dan Snyder going to be running the team in a year? What do you think? And the honest answer is, I don't think so,

but I have no idea how this shakes out because he is willing to go to the mat and the removal of an owner is a very owner-friendly process. And Dan Snyder has no shame. That's the difference between him and a lot of these people. We had reported in the story that there's a very senior executive who said Snyder is the most powerful owner in the NFL because no owners, everybody else is afraid of him. In a weird way, Tanya Snyder might be the most powerful owner in the NFL because she might be the only person capable of relegating her own husband.

And is that a solution that'll work for the league? Maybe. Is it a solution that'll work for fans in DC? Probably not. But again, it's not as simple as finding 24 votes. In a weird way, that's only the beginning. Because I think that, like you mentioned Robert Sarver earlier, he had a degree of shame. I don't think that Dan Snyder feels the exact same way. And I think he feels like that he's been targeted

and persecuted. And in a moment where we think that he's weakened, I think he actually feels empowered. And that is going to be incredibly messy going forward. actually feels empowered. And that is going to be incredibly messy going forward. The stuff's awesome, man. Really great job. You always make me feel like you're putting us in a room that no one really has access to. We'll see how it plays out.

I know what commanders, teams, or fans are rooting for. And also a reminder, it's better to be feared. The New England Patriots Dynasty in Pursuit of Greatness, now a New York Times bestseller available where you get your books from Seth. So thanks. Thanks, man. Great to talk to you. Before we get to our picks,

our Friday picks for FanDuel, our FanDuel contest and then LifeAdvice, I just want to follow up on, because I almost talked about it this week and I almost tweeted something out about the McCaffrey market. He was traded last night to San Francisco San Francisco gave up a second a third a fourth in 2023 and a fifth in 2004 the McCaffrey contract numbers are all over the place as they always are with the NFL people not quite getting it right away and even I at first was like wait what's going on because I'd look up what it is, and he still owed some money.

It's not terrible. And the base salary was renegotiated before the season started. And a lot of the signing most has already been paid out. So his cap number for this year is irrelevant. It's $700,000. It's not a big deal. The commitment moving forward for somebody who hasn't stayed healthy in the past is probably the bigger concern. And you want to tie up eight figures into a running back. But it's a little bit lower than some of the averages that I've seen for the numbers that are out there.

So it's not, it's not crazy what you owe him, but it's, it's a really good lesson. Another reminder and how this works. Schefter this week had, it's going to take a first rounder. Peter Schrager, who we're having on Monday said it's going to take multiple first or multiple picks. He said that on Fox. I have no issue with those guys saying either thing, but I almost, as it tweeted it out, was going to go like, there's no fucking way anybody's giving him a first-round pick for Kishore McAvery.

Like, you can't do that. Now, to be fair, you could argue that a second, third, and fourth in the same drafts add it all up in the trade value chart. That's worth more than a first-round pick, depending on where that first-round pick lands. I don it all up in the trade value chart, that's worth more than a first round pick, depending on where that first round pick work or lands. I don't like any of the trade value charts. I think they're fucking stupid and completely irrelevant because they do not adjust for the drafts themselves. So if I'm, say, a basketball example, you're going, oh, hey, I need this many points because the six or seven pick is worth 1,200 value points.

You need to trade me 1,200 worth of picks. Granted, the NFL is different where two seconds might be better than having a pick in the 20s. The NBA doesn't really work that way. You can't move a 14 and 19 to get to five. It just doesn't happen. The NFL, maybe you could do it. But my point is this, the same as the NFL. Imagine having the sixth pick in the NBA draft one year,

the sixth or seventh pick in one year, it's Emmanuel Moutier. And then the other year in the NBA draft one year, six or seven pick, and one year it's Emmanuel Moutier, and then the other year it's Benedict Mathurin. So whatever your chart says, I don't want to fucking hear it because it doesn't mean anything to me. Because one year in the NFL, it's going to be loaded with quarterbacks, and those picks are going to be worth more. I don't care what the points say. So back to the point, second, third, and fourth, teams would probably rather have that than a first that's in the 20s anyway. So it's still kind of a lot, but it never was going to be two first-rounders. It was never going to be one.

I didn't really think it was going to be. Maybe the Rams, who knows? Maybe they did throw a future first. But usually when you're making these trades, you want those picks immediately because you're likely going to lose your job. Although in the NBA, if you have some equity built up, you get to keep it. And some guys deserve to keep it because they've done a really good job. And I ask, yes, I'm talking about Sam Presti. He deserves to continue to trade for picks because he's done a really good job for a

long time in Oklahoma City. But I almost tweeted like, there's no way, there's no way somebody's giving up a first. But then I was like, hey, you're going to sound like a dick. And again, back to the part where I'm being fair to Schefter and Traeger, is if the team is telling them, hey, we want a first, and they're reporters, then they're going to tell us,

hey, the team's asking for a first when the team knows that they're doing this to try to figure out, you know, raise the intensity of the market around a player that they're willing to trade.

So the reporter's not wrong. They're being told this stuff. And what's the reporter supposed to be like? No fucking way is anybody giving you a first. I'm not reporting that. It's not going to work that way. I still wouldn't do these for running

backs. He was unbelievable in the second and third seasons. 3,200 plus yards from the line of scrimmage. He played three games and seven games prior to this year. Six games this year. He's 26. He's looked really good.

It's an expensive luxury to have. It is. It's a lot of assets. It's an expensive luxury. I don't like the deal, but I'm very anti-running back in general, even though when he's right, he's a hell of a player.

Let's do a pick. It is pick time. Our FanDuel contest. How did everybody do last week? I won. Kyle was the only one that won. We're not doing well. No, we're not.

We were hot. We were hot out of the gates. Started off 5-1. We've been 3-9 since. Ryan, you've lost your last four. I'm one in my last three. Kyle, 500 in his last two the overall standings Ryan you're

two and four and Kyle and I are both three and three okay so probably season until further notice no I'm saying hop on board because I'm fucking due because I was getting all those college ones right that weren't included in all of this and so I

first was like oh man this is this is too this is too hot right now uh i actually like my pick this week so some weeks i've hated it but i don't that makes one of us yeah okay so what do you got oh wait wait your honor your honor let's go you go first judge kyle okay um i don't like most of the games this week I don't know that's probably not what anybody wants to hear But I'm gonna go Jacoby again It's Cleveland Plus six and a half

And I'm gonna take the under For 45 and a half Because I just It doesn't seem like it's gonna go so hot this week But Jacoby's been like Making these run games, and I think he'll lose by probably less than a touchdown. That's very funny because I had two bets written down.

One of them, I was going to take the Ravens and the over. So basically, the opposite of Kyle's bet. Do it. I dare you. I'll avoid that one. Well, no, I'm seeing ghosts right now, guys. I thought I had it figured out earlier in the season and I'm like the quarterback in the pocket who just like, even if he has

a clean pocket, he's just seeing ghosts. I don't know. I guess give me Seattle. I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to keep doing it. I'm going to do the total alt spreads. Give me the Seahawks. I'll take the full touchdown, so plus 7.5. That's the alt spread. And I'll take the over 41.5 Give me the Seahawks. I'll take the full touchdown. So plus seven and a half. That's the alt spread. And I'll take the over 41 and a half.

That's Seahawks Chargers. I think both those teams score. I don't think, I mean, I said this last week. I was like, hey, I don't think the Jets are that good. And they blasted the Packers. So when I say a team's not that good, you should probably hammer them. But yeah, Seahawks plus seven and a half and the over 41 and a half. And that game is even money.

All right. I love it because Seahawks is the most public bet. It's the most public side out of all the picks that's what you want to see yeah so give me the chargers minus five eighty seven percent of the bets are on the seahawks here plus five plus five and a half uh hey and do it let's go ahead if if the chargers win that game by a touchdown, we both win. So there you go. Yeah, I'm saying middle it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so there you go.

Those are the picks. Let's do life advice. You want details? Bye. 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. Before we get to life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com to submit your questions. Having a lot of people like, hey, this is actually my girlfriend, so she's going to write the email. What's going on there? You can't just... It's weird.

It's almost like you're letting her use your account to write in the show because you're afraid, like, what? Kyle's going to follow up with your lady? I think that's what's going on. We just have a lot of submissions where it's like,

hey, this is my significant other, and then she'll, like, the font will be different, which is cool. We need to get to some of those, but I think they're just intimidated that Kyle's going to have a direct line next thing you know. But Kyle wouldn't do that. He's engaged. I mark them all as important and urgent when I see that.

So just, in addition to the star, they're bolded. It's a big yellow reply received three days ago. Okay, so we're going to be live in Denver. It'll be the first live show for me since Manhattan Beach at Sharks Cove, which isn't even there anymore,

which I am certainly disappointed by, even though the new Mexican place, Esperanza, the food is terrific. The ambiance is killer. Great spot, great little spot. But I used to love when I would come to visit Manhattan Beach and I would go just watch these guys, shout out to Chef Al, just playing Zeppelin tunes all night. And then when they switched it over, the manager was like, you're literally the only guy that really liked it. And so it wasn't great for business. And I was like, oh, OK, that's fair.

So, yes, we did a live show from there. We've contemplated trying to do the show live from shellbacks for an L.A. show. The thing is, the setup isn't like the most forgiving venue for a live show. It's like a straight shot back. I'd be like doing a show in a hallway. Yeah, but it's just such a legendary spot that you almost feel like we just should do it one time and have 40 people there and know it's going to be small and people won't be able to, you know, whatever. So anyway, the point is this, one of my other favorite cities, everybody knows it's Denver. So I'm excited to get us back out on the road and do a live show here so it's a theater right

yeah so Ophelia's in Denver 5,000 I'll pull that off yeah yeah yeah if we move some seats around maybe we could double it but yeah we're just seeing what's the deal with ticket wise it's 7k in there it's like a cool like little sort of concert venue style thing and I think it's on 20th street you'd know better than I would but it's supposed to be in a pretty cool area uh and yeah tickets on sale now man so go grab them kyle are you allowed to come with us that's crazy yeah of course what are you talking about dude uh the one thing i was gonna ask you is is the air gonna be a problem for me is the uh is the is the elevation gonna be an issue i'm gonna tell, I think it's all a little overrated.

Like overblown? Like the actual impact on your... Okay. Wait, so mile high is a lie? Like the Denver Broncos thing? You're just like going in there? It's not actually a thing? If you're chasing around a cornerback for 70 snaps, yeah, it probably

is a little different than my experience. If you're chasing around a night... Yeah, it's probably a little different than my experience. I had one time around Breckenridge. Yeah, there you go. I'll admit one time in Breckenridge after a three-day bender with about 20 guys. This is a long time ago. I had like that third day. I was like, just remember to breathe. Okay. Just remember to breathe. We're going to get through this. I was like, just remember to breathe. Okay.

Just remember to breathe. We're going to get through this. It was quite a festival. What caused that? A couple got married out of the group. It was funny because they were like, are you sure you want to come? You're not going to ski. I was like, no, I'll be fine.

Like everybody's big skier group. I'm like, no, I'll be fine. I've always wanted to check out that area. I'll be kind of crossing country at that point. Yeah count me in and everybody was so hung over and it was so cold it's like absurdly cold that nobody skied the entire time so and then i think we found out after the fact that there was actually a guy staying in the house in guest quarters while we were there and we didn't figure it out until the last day and dudes were like wait there's been a guy here the whole time so anyway we're not going to be doing the show from there no probably probably lost the security deposit on that place

15 years ago but back to the uh the main point i'm just a yeah i'm just excited to get out there. Press some palms. Me too. Is that it? We don't have anything else, right? I think that's it. I will not, unfortunately, be there. Probably going to have a kid at that point. You guys enjoy yourselves. Kyle's got this on lockdown. There was talks about potentially doing a

video life advice thing where I would be on the big projector screen in the background. I don't know if that's going to happen. happen might be a little bit weird logistically but uh but i will not be present at least i wonder if i get so fired up i just whip out put you on speaker phone and and hope that put it up to the mic hope there's no like ear shattering feedback i don't know we'll see that's fine we got to figure out how we want to do life advice though too because obviously there's gonna be a bunch of people coming in like how do we vet like what questions are good we were kind of kicking around a couple different ideas for like pre

submitting stuff and calling people's names to come i'd say yeah i'm gonna vote no on that i'm gonna vote that we do it the normal way that we do it in front of the audience and then we do q and a's later yeah we could probably do a q and a because i think you'd lose some of the luster of like it's harder to do a life advice when it's like i know it's that guy right there like that's the only guy who's like who looks a little bit like uh whatever he said he looks like it's definitely him so i think you probably how how candid are guys gonna be you know like they're not gonna it's gonna be although it would be really funny if it was just a guy gets up there and he's like you know i've always been called good looking, but lately and everybody's like, no, who called you mom? What? No, dude, you're not hot.

Sit back down. That's it. Solved. Why hasn't she called you back? Look at a mirror, bro. Yeah. All right. Let's get Doug over here in the corner. Yeah. Maybe we stay away. Tickets on sale now. Yeah. I'm probably going to break out. I've been working on a routine with Bargatze. So I got like seven minutes in me oh my god so we're just gonna i'm no i'm gonna try

i'm gonna try to do stand-up for seven minutes you're gonna buy you're gonna run up on first no and then we're gonna have seth wickersham on again i just want it to be a roller coaster of a night yeah alright let's get to life advice this is a different one I think I'm going to do something nice here 32 65 270 dad bod but still get out and hoop a few

days a week still get a chuckle out of outsider Mike's donkey story it's a good story it's a good story. It's an unbelievable story. Outsider Mike, old radio show, SVP and Rosillo, was in Italy with his family, and donkeys were climbing up the hill,

and one of the donkeys fucking had it, just jumped off the hill and killed himself. Poor donkey. Moment of silence. Anyway, I had my first kid. It's been eight months. I've been reading him the typical children's brook uh children's books dr seuss berenstein bears shout out i used to read that while the

main books are fine wait your kids eight months and you're reading berenstein bears i feel like the storylines are a little bit more complicated for an eight month old advanced so while the main books are fine sometimes good often others are pretty tough to read through these kids books these are kids books but should be slightly appealing to parents such as story or rhymes you need adult rhymes in these books as a guy used to think i could be a white rapper back and oh so okay so this guy this guy is into rhymes didn't we all i didn't did you guys any of you guys think you could be a rapper oh totally oh no okay never mind me neither no wait hey this guy's got a real

problem here we're not stopping no there's a real problem yes we are did you have an mc name kyle yeah it was just my initials i didn't think i didn't think it would be good it was just kc Yes, we are. Did you have an MC name, Kyle? Yeah. It was just my initials. I didn't think it would be good. It was just KC. I didn't want to do anything embarrassing. You know I have to ask follow-ups. Well, I don't have to tell you the truth,

so we'll just keep going here. What do you got? Were you in a crew? Did you ever battle rap somebody else? Yeah, on the porch though. Not like you bring your friends. It was just like my friends. I actually was probably one of the worst ones. I liked it because everybody

would insult you and it's really funny. Any chance we can get a couple rhymes from you? No, maybe the show though. Maybe at the show. If it still matters to you? No, maybe the show, though. Maybe at the show. Okay. All right. If it still matters to you in Denver, maybe. Right. You and I are going to have a couple chorus lights. Be our first. We can get a battle. Be great.

Our first ever. Jeez. Maybe we won't. I don't know. A lot of tension. Okay. Anyway, so he's also said he's written poetry for his wife and he decided to write a children's book. I've now written my third book and my sister, who is a talented artist, has started creating the imagery. As I know, this is an extremely tough market to get into.

My expectations are super high, but it will give my sister a chance to use her artistic skills that she doesn't currently use in her job. And there's always a chance it does well. My question is, where do I go from here? I read that about 1% of books get picked up by publishers, and good luck if you've never been published before. Welcome to the hard jobs. I have money aside if needed to self-publish, but then how do I market? Should I attempt to go viral somehow with my 100 followers on social media? I like the self-awareness in him making fun of himself. Doesn't seem likely any tips on publishing or marketing would be helpful. As somebody who's going through the book process myself right now with a book that's been reworked for two years, and I'd like to say, I mean, look,

do you want to know a little bit about it? I don't know a ton about it. I know that the first time I got a response back where an agent said maybe he can go on some popular sports podcast like Bill Simmons and part of my take to promote it. I wasn't fucking pumped with that feedback. I was like, oh, okay. This person's locked in. That wasn't an awesome follow-up phone call for the person that had to hear from me later that day. But I know I have a chance to get it published

because you have a big audience in the podcast. But it also has to be good because I wouldn't want to do it and have it suck. I can't imagine how hard this is. You said you had some money inside. I have no idea how much a self-publishing thing is. But you have to go, okay, did you read kids

books? You think they suck. But not all of them. I'll admit, I've read a couple kids books. You're visiting your buddy's kids. You read them a book because you don't have kids. You're like, oh, I'll read them a book because you don't have kids you're like oh i'll read him a book or whatever and you're kind of like could i just do this tomorrow if i want to write one of these fucking things no lie no lie because obviously we've been buying some kids

books bought one over the weekend it was like called where's the dog and it's like four pages of just like oh this isn't a dog this isn't a dog and the last page is here's the dog and i'm just like i literally said to my wife i could do this yeah like this is not hard so i don't know what the deal is like how you get into big kid book like what's the what's the circle there how you get involved in that but what what did you just call it i don't even know if you know like how you get in the inner circle of like writing kids yeah big children's tobacco yeah like tobacco exactly i don't know how you get into that maybe it's like a maybe it's you know i don't who knows if it's nepotism or you gotta know. Exactly. I don't know how you get into that. Maybe it's like a, maybe it's, you know, I don't know. Who knows if it's nepotism or you got to know somebody or whatever.

I don't know. But like any, I feel like any of us could do it. So that's why I was confused. Where's the dog? Seriously. No, the book, the book was literally called Where's the Dog? It's four pages. And then the cool thing was like you could flip over a little thing and then it'd be

like, oh, there's a cat. It's not a dog. All right. The next one. Oh, it's a mouse. It's not a dog. And the last page is a dog. That's not that hard to figure out.

Look at my tree. Turn the page. He, he, he. And then you're like, this is a lawn. Yeah. Barst. Here's a cat. No, it's fucking crazy.

I read a few of them and I go. The ones with textures. Textures are big. I was going to say that. Yeah. Little belt. Little thing to feel. Little flap to pull up. Little lever to pull. That's a big. I was going to say that. Yeah. Little thing to feel, little flap to pull up,

little lever to pull. That's a big one. I get it, though. Your thing is trying to be different, right? It's sort of like, I put it this way. I was suckered into buying... I don't even know if I want to share this. I don't give a fuck. Back when I had a roommate and we were

butt wipes people. We bought butt wipes in addition to toilet paper and dude wipes came out and what dude wipes are is just but they're butt wipes but they're marketed to dudes so you just have to market this to parents is my thought is like what makes it different than any of the other butt wipes that i was buying before was that it said dude wipes i was like oh what's different about these turns out nothing but um they cost a little bit more and we bought them and they they marketed them in two packs. So then we bought, you know, bought them in two packs

instead of the standard one pack. So I guess I'm just saying like, I think you have to get the message across to like the parents are going to enjoy this too. Like there's certain Disney movies or Pixar movies that parents, like certain franchises are like,

oh, actually, I don't mind. Watch. I don't want to stab my eyes out for a two hour movie because I like this Disney franchise or something. It's just like, I think that should be Watch. I don't want to stab my eyes out for a two-hour movie because I like this Disney franchise or something. It's just like, I think that should be your, you're selling it to the parents.

And maybe there's some like edgy dad podcast that you can go on to try to do that. No, that's a great call. You have to attach yourself to another brand. See if you know anybody. And, you know, if you buy this, my book, you get like, you know, NBA 2K codes, you get a six pack of Bud Light, whatever. Package yourself with something else. The bundle idea seems like it's the way to go.

Two things. So you're saying, Kyle, find the male moist toilet paper version of children's books. Exactly. Okay. And then whenever you say say i don't know if i want to say this my excitement level goes to 11 i let you down okay yeah i'm a bad day now so i don't even need butt wipes so i turn my mic off because i'm like i just i'm so excited about what he might potentially say so here's what i would ask though is this something that you think maybe you can do it maybe it'd be awesome awesome. Um, but I'll like, so Rudy and I just told you anytime I've ever picked one up,

I'm like, could I do this board? And again, if you're actually like a children's book writer, you're going to be super offended and pissed off about it, whatever. But this is what people think about your industry. Like they congrats to you to pulling it off,

but everybody seems to think they can do is I do not think it's the emailer. Me and Steve is the only three people that do it. So that might be a little bit of the wake-up call part of this. Now, are you like really determined? What happens if you self-publish, nobody buys it, which could happen? Like what's that going to do to you financially? I don't know. But is this thing still about like everything that's creative with anything that's going on,

like you'll come back to it, right? You'll come back. I can't shake this feeling. I can't stop thinking about this. Whatever. If you self-publish it, I'll tweet it out. Me too. And Kyle will too. I want to read it first.

Fair. Fair. Send Cerruti a... I wish he gave us a sample of what he's thinking. This feels like a side hustle to me. It is what it is. I don't know if this is a thing that you could... And if it becomes a thing, that's great, but it feels like a side hustle.

Okay. No problem. I'm not going to do that very often. Maybe it was because the guy was 6'7". But if he does actually self-publish this whole thing, I can't help you with any of the other shit. I mean, look, like I said, the first couple swings that I took it, it's something that I've been working

on with the proposal that at one point was like 170 pages long. Again, the proposal wouldn't, in its final form, be even close to being that long. It is very, very hard. All the stuff is very hard. It's just a matter of how easily you are discouraged. And if you aren't,

then you'll do it. Okay, this one's long, but I like it. Stolen bike, six foot in shoes. That's all right. NBA heights are with shoes as well. 190. Have only been lifting for a year, so the stats aren't impressive. You know what's impressive? That you've been lifting for a year, buddy. Last week, my girlfriend got her bike stolen

from outside my apartment. I'm going to try to fly here because it is long, but it is worth it. The bike was locked to a street sign, and when we went outside in the. The bike was locked to a street sign. And when we went outside in the morning, it was gone. The street sign had clearly been removed and then reattached. My girlfriend was understandably pretty upset and sort of freaking out a bit. The bike wasn't especially nice, but she really loved it and felt violated.

She felt violated, thought of someone else riding it. Okay. I told her to stay calm and file a police report. While she did that, i posted on my city stolen bike facebook page to hopefully get some more eyes on the bike at filing police report i also told her to submit a claim to a renter's insurance which she did for about 24 hours things really seemed hopeless people on the stolen bikes groups were telling me to check craigslist facebook marketplace and ebay for her bike so i had those pages up basically all day i

was refreshing them constantly to no avail this This sounds like a fucking fun day. My girlfriend was definitely in a bad sort of way. That is until later. Do we check to see if this was fake? Okay. All right. There you go. Clear.

Cleared it. That is until later the next day when a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of a Facebook message. Someone from the Facebook group had found the bike on the website OfferUp. Just shouting out social media everywhere today. You can only imagine my excitement when I clicked on the link and there it was for sale. $300. The listing was hilarious because all the pictures were clearly taken the night he stole it.

We're assuming this is a mail thief? Wow. Okay. All right. The guy takes the pictures that night and then comes up with an elaborate sob story in the description about how the bike was his baby and how it's quote hard for him to give it up okay

mail confirmed uh then he wants someone else to experience the joy he's had riding the bike i mean it's a fucking bike right like you know selling a summer home like oh there's a thursday i went and got bagels on this bike i'll never forget forget that day. It's fucking, I just want someone else to have that joy when they pick up something. Okay. I'll include screenshots of the listing in this email for you guys to get a chuckle at. It's unbelievable. They're all here. Had to sell my baby, but the time has come because I'm moving on to another bike. It's vintage Schwinn road bicycle rides. Excellent. Also has a carrying rack in the back. It has a Sella Italia seat along with Sake custom road

champion handlebars, Evo pedals. I can't afford two bikes at the moment. He's got a payment plan. That is so good. I just can't be a two-bike guy. Not now. Not until things get better.

God damn it. Okay, so that's the only part of that that I'm going to read. There's more and it is funny. At this point, I thought we had him. I called my girlfriend and told her to contact the officer who she filed the police report.

Follows instructions on what to do. Things quickly went from hopeful to hopeless. However, when she called me back 10 minutes later, saying the officer told her they don't pursue thefts under $2,000 in value. This is a real bummer for our collective morale. What are we going to do now? My girlfriend, who by this point had heard bad from her renter's insurance, it was going to be reimbursed for the bike for a much larger amount that she paid for. It was insistent that we needed to just buy back the bike from the thief. I was of the opinion she'd just buy a

new bike with the money she received from a renter's insurance. She could afford a much nicer bike than she previously had, but she felt a sense of being violated by seeing the bike up for sale online and the thought of someone else riding around and it made her sick. I can understand the emotional part of having your bike stolen.

This is some serious bike attachment. Yeah. Just for the record. Right? Definitely. Okay. So I messaged a friend with a car who was willing to help us out, messaged the thief, and arranged for a meetup.

We met at a gas station on the other side of town from us. The thief insisted on only taking cash. Most thieves only operate cash. Unless they're doing some sort of venmo transfer that's all fucked up or whatever but yeah like this is not surprising this uh so we stopped at atm on the way on the ride over my girlfriend had the idea that we're doing the exchange of the bike i would hand him 200 in 20s folded up so he couldn't tell how much it was and we would quickly stuff the bike into the back of the car and drive away if he counted the money right after we handed

it to him i would claim I forgot the other hundred in my pocket and hand him the other wad of twenties. I was against this idea, but was willing to go through it if that's what my girlfriend wanted to do. Sounds like your girlfriend kind of runs a relationship here. Quick observation. If you couldn't tell by this point

in the story, I was pretty against the meetup entirely. I don't know if it's just because I'm a wuss or because I just started watching Breaking Bad. I know, I know, very late to the party. So the seedy underworld of crime was on my mind, but I just felt that because my girlfriend already had more money than she paid for the bike, she'd just buy a new bike altogether. And if she really wanted her old bike, she'd just pay the thief in full to avoid any confrontation with the criminal. It was her money and her bike though, so I was willing to go through with her plan. After waiting around the parking lot and the gas station uh at the gas station for 30 minutes he finally arrives his motor's transportation is

the bike he's selling to us well he can't be a two bike guy you know so uh it's definitely her bike my girlfriend i get out of the car and act as though this is the first time we're seeing the bike the thief by the way is exactly what you'd imagine a full-time bike thief to look like super sketchy while my girlfriend pretends to examine the bike he was talking to me about how much he loves the bike and how he's sad to let it go and how his girlfriend wanted it his girlfriend wanted it

and I'm just smiling and nodding wanting to get the hell out of there he also apologized for being late says he was just worried because he's been scammed before while selling these things as he's talking to me my girlfriend is hoisting the bike into the back of the car. I can tell we'll take it. Oh, excuse me. Let me edit that.

Sorry, Kyle. I don't want to fuck up the story. Three, two, and one. As he's talking to me, my girlfriend is hoisting the bike into the back of the car. I tell him we'll take it and quickly hand him the cash. He doesn't count it. What? Thief doesn't count the money. He should know. He's a thief. He money? He should know he's a thief.

He offers us free locks that he's presumably stolen from other people. But we quickly say, no, thank you. He also tells me I can keep his number and reach out if I'm ever in the market for another bike because he, quote, finds bikes all the time. Yeah, I'm just in the I'm in the bike game man i'm just constantly running they're everywhere they're just fucking have you noticed they're just everywhere yeah right they're just there's a there's one right there there's a bike i just constantly i can't stop seeing bikes i just say thank you hop in the front seat We peel out of there as fast as we can. I look back as we were driving away. It could see the thief had counted the money.

It was cursing at us. He initially tried to run after us, but we were in the car and he was on foot. He doesn't have a bike, even though they're everywhere. So in the end, we got the bike back. My girlfriend paid $200 for her own bike, but ended up on top financially because the insurance payout was much more than she initially paid for the bike. What I want to know is how each of you would have handled the situation. Every time I've told this story to friends, I get the guy who claims he would have confronted the thief and demanded the bike back, or that we shouldn't have taken the bike for a test drive, or we should have taken it for a test drive and just left with it. But to be honest, I think people underestimate how tough that is when

you're in the moment face-to-face with a super shady character. Others tell me that we should have just paid the guy the full 300 and that shorting him a hundred could have ended way worse for us. So what would each of you have done? Was this a dumb plan? Am I a giant P word? Thanks for reading. Love the pod. Sorry for the long email.

All right. Well, our emailer hits on something that I've, I've explained, uh uh from my one time i shouldn't say one time there's been a couple times but uh what you think you'll do versus what you actually do and what you think you'll do you'll do in these situations versus what you actually do like that's probably one of the widest gaps of anything there's nothing more guy that'd be like bro i would have fucking done this this this again when i lived with carissa in malibu and the stalker was waiting outside of her place when i came back and she was out of town

and i wasn't 100 sure because the guy kept telling me his stories it was slowly falling apart more and more and more i told the story to my friends they're like how did you not them up and i go you don't get it you don't get it because at first i actually like thought oh i don't know everything about carissa we're're pretty close, but I don't know everything. And this guy's just waiting at her house outside. He's probably listening to this right now too, you fucking dick. Because he's now he's

he like posts all sorts of shit. So moving on. Looking back, I wish I had handled a little bit differently, but I don't really know where the reward is. Like, oh, cool. You punched a guy, you know, like what now? What like little bit differently, but I don't really know where the reward is. Like, oh, cool. You punched a guy. You know, like, well, now what? Like, you know, but I don't know. The point of this is that that was like a moment for me where I went, oh, like, this is crazy.

I actually, I don't know. So when I first moved to a new place, there was somebody trying to like break into my house. I couldn't get an angle to see where they were. I could just only hear the noise. And so I called the cops and they came and it was just a drunk guy who was totally lost. I know people can make fun of me on that one, on the irony. Go ahead. The cop kind of looked at me a little bit like you know i answered the door i was like did the guy say anything was he looking for me and the guy didn't

know who i was the cop didn't know who i was not that he's supposed to uh he just kind of sized me up as like this guy's like got some muscles and he's fucking calling us he couldn't handle this on his own like that's that was the vibe I got from the cop about it. And it was kind of like, well, I didn't know, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't fucking know what was going on.

So I wasn't a hundred percent sure. Like if this guy gets to the, however, he's trying to get into the house, like, yeah, now it's going to be different. So my point is I like what the emailer is saying here and that everybody

that's not in the situation doesn't know how they're going to handle it. Now, the only difference could be that you had like those moments where there was no preparation for those moments for me. There was none. It just sort of happened. And I wasn't thinking about it. In this case, you're thinking about it. Now, if you're admitting like, hey, I didn't want to get in a physical confrontation. You know, a lot of people would be like, oh, when you go over there, I'm going to tell this fucking guy.

What if he shows up and he's fucking jacked and dangerous and scary and all sorts of shit? That plan goes out the window real quick. Okay. Now, if you show up and you like your chances, maybe it goes a little bit different. Or maybe you just say, hey, I've got your number and this is my girlfriend's bike and I'm fucking taking it. And if you want to call the cops, go ahead and call the cops on yourself. But if he pulls a knife on you, then is it worth saving

the two or 300 bucks back? Like none of us know how any of these things end. And that's how people that you know, and you'd be like, how did that guy get mixed up into that kind of scenario? You know, I know that I personally

would like to think on the ride over that I was going to intimidate somebody or I was going to get my girlfriend's bike back and I wasn't going to give him a fucking dollar. I'd like to think I'd be able to execute that. I may talk myself into that. And again, like I said,

depending on the circumstances, I could show up to the old swap and go, yeah, I'm not fucking with this guy. Like, this is going weird. So, you know, you could even argue too, like what was the point of all of this to put yourself in danger? The chances are a guy just stealing a bike,

like you're not going to be that afraid of, right? But I also too kind of have a hard time giving him any money because he actually did steal your girlfriend's bike and the guy still made out, made 200 bucks on this whole thing. I have no problem with you shorting him. I'm not.

But again, that could have led to something that's super dangerous too. So there's no right answer for all of this other than you shouldn't beat yourself up about how you feel after the fact at all. I think there was a minor win. It could have been more dangerous. All your friends that want to pretend they're fucking Captain America can pretend there was some bigger win. But if you deep down didn't feel that you weren't comfortable with it, you didn't do anything wrong because I'll end. I'll say it one more time.

You can think you know how you're going to react when something fucked up is happening. The likelihood is you have no idea how you'll actually react because it's such a weird feeling when it's actually happening. Yeah, I think full time bike thief definitely has a box cutter or a knife on him. I mean, he spends his time creeping around the backyards of people and figuring out how to get into closed gated buildings and stuff like that that guy's definitely got something for his own protection and that might turn from a defense weapon you're saying off like thieves bike thieves knives guys full-time full-time bike thief that's what i mean like full-time bike thief definitely he's constantly finding them yeah he's definitely he's got a you know he's figuring out ways to get into people's things.

He's probably got bolt cutters not too far away either. Yeah, I think I think actually this guy made out awesome. It sounds like he was especially for being just like trying to help his girlfriend out, who was like probably thinking like, oh, he's going to defend my honor no matter what. Or or like, you know, it sounds like he was like, hey, listen, this is actually awesome. That bike was kind of shitty. And now you've got $1,000. I don't know what he got. But like the fact that I think it worked out pretty well, actually.

But yeah, I mean, there's just those guys who are kind of like career criminals, especially somebody who's like going to spend a lot of time doing this. And then, you know, that type of stuff doesn't like leave your record. If you want to like get hired at like a big boy job somewhere i don't know if this guy's in any danger if the bike thief's in any danger of doing that but like that's like just kind of a dumb thing that's sort of how i've been looking at like goldman or something i mean anywhere man anywhere that they're like i mean i think even mcdonald's as you do a background check right i know that

that shit wouldn't fly at modell's i can tell you that i just mean like i that's how i've been looking and you're in the bike game over there i was right yeah yeah actually you know we we were kind of done with that by the time i was there they had downsized a lot we're really more into apparel and like uh sporting goods well they're just everywhere lying around yeah hard market the corner that's true um but i've just sort of the way i've looked at life is now it's like that seems like such a dumb thing to go down for and i think that guy's priorities are all wrong so if you're if you're thinking about getting big and tough with a stranger who's you know you're just one of however many bikes he's gonna offload this week i just wouldn't i wouldn't do it anymore so uh i i just think uh you made the right move

you actually did make money she got the bike basically this guy there's a way that you can look at this with that. This guy did you a favor because she got a check for, I don't know. Well, I'm guessing like 800 bucks or something. And you got the bike back. So minus that, she just found 500 bucks or whatever. So or 600 bucks. So I think I think it's all good.

I wouldn't have I wouldn't have had like an itchy trigger finger to like punch this guy for no reason. I was in the GPS game and not the bike game but that's just it's just a it's a bad world to be a part of so i'm glad i'm glad you're not uh i'm glad you're not i told you this before i was just bringing it up again i told you this before i was terrorizing long beach island in my teens uh checking car doors for gps's were all the rage how what was your pitch to sell them just hey these things are everywhere uh i think i was just like i lost the box and i already have one so it's a christmas gift and the guy i think i did sold

two of them and the second guy was just i was like is this guy a cop because he was just like yeah yeah i don't care where you got it from pal yeah whatever you don't have the box you have the booklet either huh i was just like i'm done with this man but i would just i wouldn't i wouldn't i wouldn't fuck with those people because i it takes it takes really it takes strong strong stomach to be in that game and i got out after after two sales so i tried to buy a stereo from a guy that was a line cook at the place i bartended at and then we worked it all out and And, you know, I figured it was probably stolen. But it was an Alpine, you know.

How do you fucking say no to that when you're 19? Do you see the price tag on that thing in Best Buy? No way. So then he wouldn't sell it to me. He's like, I don't know. He's like, you know what? I actually don't know you that well. I was like, we fucking worked together all summer.

I think we went to high school together. Like, and I was like, all right, fine, no problem. And then somebody was like, yeah,

he thought you were buddies with like all the cops. I was like the summer cops, the summer cops, like they're, they're not trying to crack the anyway. Anyway, he wouldn't sell it. He wouldn't sell it to me.

Go ahead. It's Rudy. No, I mean, I don't have much to say. It does feel like this is like insurance fraud blueprint waiting to happen here. Like, is this just like a thing? Like, you could just make an extra couple hundred bucks for a stolen bike?

I get the idea of not wanting to let this guy get away with it, though. You know, like, all right, yeah, so you make a couple hundred bucks. It's great. Like, cool. And you get your bike back. But it's like, cool. So this guy actually gets the win here, too. I get why that doesn't feel good.

You feel grimy making that transaction happen. But it's just cool so this guy actually gets the win here too that just i get why that doesn't feel good is you feel grimy making that transaction happen it's but it's just not that big but that guy feels like i would have done because he realizes he just lost a hundred dollars so that guy feels shitty too i think this is perfect but he's still got a free 200 bucks and yeah i don't i don't know but i would have done this so i have a buddy who's a cop i would have like probably try to rope him into the situation and like not like an off duty situation, but bring him along with me just in case any shit went down. But I think, Ryan, you said at the at the onset, like have a couple of different.

I would have had a couple of different plans going into this. If the guy is six, five to 50, like we've talked about, like a not fuck with guy. All right, I'll give him the 300 bucks and I'll be on my way. If he like is like me

and he's like 5'10 and slender and doesn't look like he can fight anybody, then like maybe it's a little bit different scenario. So I think you got to have a little bit different scenario. So I think you got to have a couple different plans. I think you played it right and Kyle's probably right. The guy, I mean, the Venn diagram of people who steal bikes and people

who have box cutters, it's probably just a circle. So I think you made the right call. Unless you had a cop guy or a tough guy that you could have brought with you, if it's just you and your girl, don't mess around, man. You made the right call.

I feel like this is the longest we've spent on one in a really long time, maybe ever. And I still think there's meat on the bone. So what Saruti just said is right. And basically every single life advice would appear, maybe 98% of them can fall into two different categories. And the first is like, what should I do here in this relationship? It's like, how hot is she? How hot are you? All right. When you answer that, let us know. This is the same thing, except for hotness. It's just toughness. And I would go over thinking I

was going to be like, I'm going to let this guy know how I feel. I like my chances. You know, we all thrown into a pit parking spot. There's a lot of average guys out there. Like, I'll be fine. And then if I show up, I'm like, okay, this guy's right eyeball is moving a little weird. Like, I'm not getting my ass kicked in front of Cumberland Farms over a fucking bike. All right. Like, I know exactly what I would think i was capable of on the ride over and i also know how quickly i would be like audible the red red 47 red 40s like this isn't i'm out i'm out

this guy made yeah this guy's made 300 bucks i'm not that tough actually cool you know deep down you actually know you're actually a little afraid of this fucking guy. Okay. Now that we've summarized all that, something we haven't touched on yet. Should this guy find a new girlfriend? Incredibly attached to a fucking bike. Yeah. Okay. Willing to just throw it in there. Emotionally weird about it.

On the ride over. Hey hey let's scam a thief but it's you're on the hook as the male in the relationship you have to do it i don't know man there's a lot i'm not telling you to dump her after this email i'm just saying that some hard time be careful yeah be careful going out in big cities insurance fraud i mean this is one email that's about a stolen bike but i think it's about something else Be careful going out in big cities. Insurance fraud. I mean, this is one email that's about a stolen bike, but I think it's about something else. Well, the other thing, too, is you said you spent, what,

a whole day on Craigslist looking for this bike, man? You don't have anything better to do? Come on. Yeah, holy shit. I didn't even bring that part up. All right, Just look. A couple things to nibble on. Yeah.

Wait, hold on. How hot are you and how hot is she? And then we'll decide. Yeah. I mean, she's the one thrown in the back of the car, and he's standing in front of the thief. Arms length. That could have gone really bad. you know all right i think we covered it yeah thank you sir thank you to kyle that is life advice we'll see you in denver yeah and we'll

see you monday here on this podcast make sure you you subscribe. Ryan Russell, the podcast writer for Spotify. you