The Ryen Russillo Show - Fixing Drake Maye, Cowboys Win-Now Move, JJ McCarthy Hindsight, Plus Some Early NFL Draft/Trade Rumors w/ Albert Breer
Episode Date: October 1, 2026Ryen opens with some more thoughts on the Vikings trading JJ McCarthy and who is to blame in the situation: the player or the team? Then, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer stops by for a big Week 4 ...preview, fixing Drake Maye, the Cowboys trading for another defender, and some early draft and trade rumors. Finally, Kyle and Ceruti join for some listener-submitted Life Advice, including a co-worker crossing a line and a wedding travel conundrum. DID THE VIKINGS FAIL MCCARTHY OR VICE VERSA? (02:30) ALBERT BREER (14:25) How Good Are the Jaguars? (19:40) Drake Maye Concerns (21:30) Vikings or McCarthy to Blame? (26:05) Rams-Eagles (33:30) Cowboys All In (37:10) Texans 0-3 (42:30) 49ers-Broncos (47:20) Packers-Bucs (53:00) Trade Rumors (59:30) Could Jeremiah Smith Go No. 1? LIFE ADVICE (1:10:30) _ _ _ _ _ GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET, (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). Wagering offered by DK Sportsbook: 21+. Present in most states. (18+ DC/NH/PR/WY). Void in CAN. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino (KS). Pass-thru of per wager tax may apply in IL. Event Trading offered by DraftKings Predictions, CFTC-registered: 18+. Trading involves risk of loss. Market availability varies. General: 1 per new DraftKings customer. Trade $5 get $150 Prediction Dollars (1-year expiry) or bet $5 get $10 in Bonus Bets (7-day expiry and stake removed from payout). Rewards issued in $50 increments every 7 days via click-to-claim for 14 days. Click-to-claims expire 7 days after issuance. Rewards are non-withdrawable. 7 days = 168hrs. Predictions offer void in NY. Terms: dkng.co/offer. Ends 10/18/26 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK. _ _ _ _ _ Reese’s. The Official Candy Partner of Barstool Sports. Go Get Reese’s Wherever You Shop _ _ _ _ _ Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers. One Love. _ _ _ _ _
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Hey, Rassillo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
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On today's show, we do a lot of football.
I'm going to dig a little bit deeper on Kevin O'Connell's answer about developing quarterbacks
and after the J.J. McCarthy trade and looking back at some of the timeline stuff there,
we've got a full NFL week four preview for you.
Well, look, we didn't do every game with Albert Breer, some news and notes.
potential trade deadline stuff.
He's got some really good stuff on Drake May.
He's got some great stuff on Philly,
good stuff on Denver, Jacksonville.
So we cover a lot of teams in there as well as Jeremiah Smith,
potentially going number one overall and life advice.
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I know we spent some time talking about the J.J. McCarthy trade.
and this is probably a lot of time
in a guy that doesn't look like he's going to be very good
but I do think all the dynamics of this story
are still kind of fascinating. So we touched on it
with Nate Tyson Monday and
probably asked Brewer about it a little bit later in the show today.
So there was a press conference that I watched
this week where Kevin O'Connell,
the head coach of the Vikings,
it was a very somber mood for a team
that's got enough to this great start.
But you draft somebody this high
and it doesn't work out. You turn the page,
you trade him for a fifth round draft pick.
You know, it kind of feels like everybody in the building is just like, all right, you know, this sucks.
It sucks when that kind of thing happens to you, especially that position.
And as I was watching the press conference, because the clip has made the rounds, and I want to play the clip for you here, too.
And this is a question, which I think is a good question.
But I also think it's kind of an impossible question for O'Connell to ask, honestly.
So here's the question and answer.
You have the quote that said, organizations failure on quarterbacks before young quarterbacks to organizations.
At the end of the day, you got a guy who was the 10th overall picked,
it only ended up getting 10 starts.
How do you kind of reconcile that?
You know, I would say this, you know,
there was a lot of context to that quote, first and foremost,
and I think, you know, a lot of what, you know,
we put into this and JJ put into it, you know,
there was some of that context was involved in that,
making sure we were doing everything that we could,
you know, under the circumstances.
and that's where to Dawn's question earlier,
you think back on, you know,
tried to do the best we could
and there's always going to be reflection on that.
I think that's important.
But at the same time, you know,
I think sometimes, you know,
sometimes things, you know,
don't work out how you envisioned
or how you planned or how you hoped.
And that doesn't change the intent.
That doesn't change the work that got put into it
by, you know, JJ himself
and what he's meant within, you know,
this building.
since the time we first got them.
You know, so, you know, I believe in the collective work that was put in.
And I believe in, you know, I believe in JJ and the intent in the work that he put in.
And this is just where we are today.
I'm not being critical of the reporter at all because I totally get it, right?
It does feel a bit like a gotcha question on, hey, you said that organizations fail
quarterbacks more often than the quarterback fails the organization. So, you know, what is it?
It's a question that I probably would have asked when I was younger and then thought, like,
I killed it. Like, you know, he said that and this move contradicts that. So is he going to
admit that he failed? Like, I've got him, you know, and I don't, look, it's clearly not a younger
reporter. I'm not being critical of him. I cannot emphasize that enough. But I think in fairness,
to the head coach in this spot,
what is he supposed to say?
Like this is the time where I remind people a lot
where just because a manager
or just because a head coach
or just because a teammate said this about
somebody else involved in the team,
it doesn't mean it's true
because that person is an impossible spot.
I'll even use an example.
When Nate and I,
and it was more me talking about Carly Ursa
being on the sideline and then, you know, what are the notes?
They asked a Colts player in the locker room like, hey, is this an issue?
It kind of became a thing for the week, you know, whatever.
And the player was like, no, we don't care.
We don't even notice it anymore.
So people were sending to me being like, hey, moron, no one cares.
What is that player going to say?
Yeah, it actually sucks.
It's super annoying.
Coaches hate it.
She owns a team.
So, like, okay, you have a quote from a player saying that it's not anything
whatsoever. Maybe it isn't, but he has no choice but to answer it that way. And in this case,
Kevin O'Connell, he can't just say, hey, we got him in the building, we were wrong. Our GM,
who drafted him, who was fired in January, he fucked it up. He shouldn't trade a fourth and a fifth
to move up one spot to grab J.J. McCarthy as the fifth quarterback in that class. You know,
we brought them all in. We actually wanted Drake May. We tried to trade for Herbert. And we knew we were
kind of like unsure about what was going to happen with
Darnold and piecing this whole thing together.
So we had somebody we thought we could coach up, which O'Connell did.
And then we thought we were taking somebody else who,
you know, we kind of talked ourselves into it.
Or maybe he didn't want it.
You know, who knows if there was any division whatsoever amongst all the
decision makers.
But ultimately they took him 10th.
And O'Connell cannot in that spot for the way you kind of have to handle yourself
because this isn't even like applying the sports world dynamic to it.
It's the corporate world.
He can't say,
Yeah, we got him in.
We screwed it up.
Someone else screwed it up.
He sucked, and he was kind of annoying.
You know, he wanted to rehab ahead of schedule, so then it led to a second surgery.
He didn't tell us when he was hurt another time.
He has an alter ego.
You know, a lot of this stuff just kind of wear it on all of us.
And we got it wrong, just like all the other teams who get it wrong with first round quarterbacks.
So it's a question I think, again, I think I would have asked it when I was younger.
and I think if I had had Kevin O'Connell here, I wouldn't go like, hey, you said this, and now what, you know, it's kind of like, what answer are you looking for? You're looking for him to kind of fall on his sword or tell the truth in a way that no coach in that spot is really going to tell the truth. So we know that he wasn't any good. Again, he had the concussion. He had the broken hand. He had the knee surgery. Again, it was the second one because of some swelling. He had an ankle injury. So he didn't get a lot of time. And what will happen whenever there's a first round quarterback, especially
when a fan base is still rooting for it to work out. I don't think Vikings can't fans are going to
care about this anymore, but they start comparing it to some of the early quarterback struggles or some
of the great ones. Like, yes, we know Peyton Manning through 28 interceptions. Every single time,
there's a first round quarterback taken who has a terrible rookie year. That fan base rolls that out.
Like, you know, I mean, it's just, it's like a rivalry trophy in some of these college football
games. We've had this thing, bucket of oats since aught six. That manning season, yeah,
he threw 28 interceptions. Doesn't mean your guy's going to be good. Troy Aikman went 0 and 10 with a 60
passerating, not even a QBR, a 60 passerating. Josh Allen's first two seasons of his career,
his QBR was in the 40s. And for whatever reason, which I'll still never understand is that
Josh Allen became so great, Bill's fans then wanted you to admit that he was great when he wasn't great,
prior to when he was great. Like, just be psyched. He's awesome. It doesn't, just because he's MVP
doesn't mean those first two years weren't a struggle, which he has admitted to publicly many
times that he was like, I got to figure this out. I got to kind of change the way that I'm going
to play. But the full, like, I almost feel like, I don't know if it's a Minnesota thing.
I don't know if it's the, I'm sure locally the calls have been going on for years, especially
with what Darnel did last year with Seattle and then to see what the quarterback play looks like for
the Vikings beginning of this year, you're going, so what was the reasoning on the Darnold decision again?
Because I feel like nationally maybe it's just not happening all that much because I was looking at
it again, because remember, right back in 24, they've won 14 games. They're playing Detroit week 18
for the number one seed in the NFC. They score nine points. And you're like, oh, and then they're
going to play a wild card game at L.A., they score nine points a game. So 18 total points in the two
most important games of the season.
And you're looking at Darnold going, seven years in, this is his fourth team, do we really
want to pay this guy, all this money, like open quarterback market kind of money?
And we just took somebody that we traded up for.
And when you take somebody, it means you probably expect to play them, even if they
missed that entire first season.
And when Darnold had those games, it was almost treated as like, could this be a good thing?
because now you're not going to overpay Donald, who, again, that year, his year with Minnesota is the best year of his career.
He was 10th an MVP voting. He made the all-pro team, not Pro Bowl, because every quarterback makes the Pro Bowl.
He was an all-pro quarterback after that year.
His year, statistically, for that year, was even better than the year that he just had with Seattle.
And you're going, like, yeah, we kind of really don't want to pay him.
And when Donald replaced Gino Smith of all people, like, some people were like, you sure you want to do this?
And it was a three-year, $100 million deal with Seattle.
Only 55 million of it was guaranteed as just a true free agent quarterback.
If you look at his annual per year salary around $33 million,
he's ranked 16th in the NFL for quarterbacks, right?
And from 15 to 16 is where there's the massive drop-off.
Daniel Jones is $44 million a year.
That's 15th highest, I think, for quarterbacks.
And then it goes to Darnold where then you start to see the gaps
and then Aaron Rogers contract this year.
So Darnold, in today's NFL world, just over 30 million is an absolute bargain, which means, hey, we can grab another offensive lineman.
We can get an extra edge guy.
We can, you know, we've got like 20 extra million here to spend because we're not paying our guy 50 to 60 million dollars.
Or you thought you'd get it even cheaper on the JJ McCarthy deal.
Now, I don't know what's going to happen to JJ.
I mentioned the early stuff that every fan base rolls out in defense of their guy that isn't very good.
And I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, which is kind of pointless maybe.
at times because the JJ thing was a strange draft conversation too because you're like this guy's
going to go how high and he doesn't really have to do anything in Michigan but draft guys that I'd
like were like no there's some throws in there man like there's in the athleticism and he wasn't asked
to do that much and if he was asked to do more you would have seen a lot of that stuff and that's
fine like everybody screws us up all the time I don't even get mad at draft guys anymore and I don't
think you should either maybe I mean maybe there's a few times but generally when it comes
this position, as we know, 50% of these first-round quarterbacks end up being busts, however many
years you want to go back. But you could then say in the last few years, it feels like it's not just
the 50% bust rate, it's also the overdrafting. Like, did you watch Cam Ward that year and go, yeah,
he'll be the number one pick? Overall, I mean, it happened because there weren't a lot of quarterbacks
in that class. I think even Bryce Young going ahead of CJ, you're like, wow, all right, I guess. And
Look, Mendoza, because of a lack of quarterback depth at the top of the first round for this past draft,
as great as he just was, winning the Heisman and winning the national championship,
and looking like his personality, although different, is so truly him.
It's this earnest thing that you're like, he's going to go one.
And look, JJ, it wasn't like he went one.
He went 10th, but he was the fifth quarterback chosen.
Out of that group. Nix went sixth. Two spots behind him.
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Getting ready for week four and thrilled
to have Albert Breer from S.I.com,
the Monday morning quarterback podcast as well.
I was listening to this morning,
getting some stuff going here.
So, look, I spent a lot of time,
like most of us did, I think nationally talking about Drake May and the Patriots issues.
But let's start with the good stuff. Let's start with Jacksonville.
Because I thought you made a great point.
Like, of all these teams that we got really excited about wondering where are the Patriots going to be,
what's Chicago going to look like with another year with Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson,
you know, Jacksonville, to put that beating on New England to get the start that they've had this season,
does this make sense to you looking at them going, hey, this might be the class of the AFC?
Yeah, I mean, I think, like, it's like one of those things with Trevor, right, where the expectations were so freaking high.
The time he was, you know, a freshman at Clemson.
And it was this guy's in the Lway luck manning, like category of prospect.
And then it doesn't quite work out that way.
You know, I think people have to revisit.
Like, this is becoming a pretty good player now.
And I've had interesting conversations with Liam Cohen about how they got there.
You know, and last year kind of incorporating him as a runner more into the.
offense and saying
him, hey, you don't need to get to number four on
every play. If it's one, two, and
then you run, that's okay too.
They've just gotten him playing faster.
I also
think, like, there's better
depth than people realize
across the roster. And I think the
Travis Hunter thing is kind of like a great example
of it, where they've got
enough good players at both spots
where they don't need to overdo it with him
at either one of them.
So at receiver, they've got Parker
Washington, Brian Thomas, and Jacoby Myers. And then, you know, at corner, it's, it's Jerry and Jones, it's
Buster Brown. It's Jordan Lewis. So, like, I think it's sort of indicative of, of where they are
as a team right now, you know, where it's, are they overwhelming in any one area? Probably not.
But they've just got like good balance and depth all over the place. And I think they're really
well coached, too, you know. William Cohen's obviously done a really nice job there. And it's even
stuff like letting Travis Atien go, right?
So most teams would be like, okay, like, well, where do we find the next guy?
Like Liam Cohen took it and said, all right, like last year, you know, we were kind of a
finesse running game.
We want to add more power, you know, we want to, you know, be a little bit more physical
in between the tackles and mirror a little bit more of, you know, what he experienced when he
was the Rams and what he built, you know, in Tampa.
And so, you know, now it's Rodriguez and Tute.
and they've changed the running game too.
It's just, again, I think it's just like kind of a well-conceived team.
Now, that doesn't mean they're going to win the Super Bowl,
but I do like the depth and balance of the roster across the board.
By the way, when you look at Snapcount thing, this Travis Hunter thing,
they didn't do themselves any favors, you know,
Gladstone and the introductory thing of what it was, right?
And then it's kind of like, well, he's just going to be a corner.
Right.
And are they kind of relaunching this?
two-way threat thing, but this time deciding to not announce that they're doing it?
Yeah. So my understanding is they had more in for him on offense last week going into the New England
game. And obviously the score got out of hand. So I think they sort of pulled back on that a little bit.
But like the idea has been coming off the injury. We need to make sure that he's right from a
conditioning standpoint.
And they're also taking a big picture look with both positions and saying it's a 17
game season.
And so we're going to need bodies at both positions.
So if we can rotate at both positions, we'll wind up being better in the long run for it.
So there's a number of different masters they're serving here.
But look, like I think part of the plan, you know, if you talk to the defensive coaches there,
Anthony Caminelli is the defensive coordinator, big part of the plan is like, we think
Travis Hunter can be a shutdown corner.
And I think that that was,
I think that was always what this was going to be, you know?
Now, last year they used him in offense more,
but if you go back and you look at the way that they deployed him at Colorado,
he was basically operating as a defensive player during the week,
going to meetings as a defensive player,
practicing as a defensive player,
because you sort of need to,
if you're preparing for,
it's easier to package it on offense,
you know,
where if you're going to use a guy both ways,
like the way you're going to get the most out of them,
probably is to play them more on defense and say, okay,
like we're going to get you ready for this week's opponent,
this week's receivers, this week's scheme.
And then we can kind of on offense,
cheat it and package it a little bit
and create ways to get you the ball.
That's the way it was at Colorado,
where they were like literally,
like Pat Schumer was signaling routes into him, you know?
I think that's the eventual vision for this.
So they needed them more on offense last year.
You know, then Parker Washington emerges.
they trade for Jacoby Myers.
They need them more on defense this year.
And I think the end game here is he's going to be a shutdown corner who moonlights on offense.
Is it a bad three games for Drake May or a bad seven games?
Seven.
I think it's fair to look at that.
I mean, I think it's just so unique because of the schedule last year.
You know, like it's really logical if you think about it.
Like Josh McDaniels had never had a quarterback like this.
And that's not saying he's bad.
better than Brady. He's just different, you know? Like, so I don't think anybody knew what exactly
the offense was going to look like last year. Plus, you had that the schedule was kind of forgiving,
right? So they go through the year. And, you know, how much of the time was either Drake May's
back foot hitting the ground and it's exactly the way that they had envisioned it and he's letting
the ball go or situations where it wasn't like this, he's able to kind of get loose and make
scramble plays. And that works. I mean, I voted for him for MVP.
But eventually, the NFL is going to take that and say, all right, we're going to make you beat us a different way, which I think is what happened in the playoffs.
They played better defensive play calls in the playoffs.
They played better defensive personnel in the playoffs.
And I think at that point, a little bit of a book has had been written on it, which was zone pressure.
You, you know, you protect yourself deep.
So they see a lot of too high safety.
They see a lot of quarter to quarter half, all of those things to prevent the big play from happening.
and then you pin him in the pocket.
And so force him to play quarterback.
And that's something he's working through.
And I think last year in the playoffs, things sort of crumbled around Drake.
And he didn't pull them from the fire.
And at that point, it's just too young to do that.
I think this year it's more some of the problems from last year have carried over.
And he needs to get past those and become a better decision maker.
So I would say that, you know, there is definitely some carryover in the struggle at the
into last year into what's happened at the beginning of this year.
I touch it on in the open, and I know it's been kind of talked about a lot,
but the J.J. McCarthy saga and Minnesota, are we to believe then, you know,
this inspired general manager, like, there's no way he operated alone.
You'd obviously be talking to Kevin O'Connell with his work with quarterbacks
and his background of position of like, hey, he had to have liked him.
Yeah.
Also. So I'm wondering, you know, do you think this is like one person overruling everyone
or just a collective mistake by Minnesota
with trading up for JJ
and then even worse moving on from Darnold?
No, I think everybody was on board
with the idea they needed to draft a quarterback.
And I actually think that's where a lot of the biggest
mistakes are made.
That's how Christian Ponder goes 12th overall.
That's how E.J. Manuel goes in the middle
of the first round, right?
Like, it's when you decide ahead of time,
like that guy's going to be there.
Even when you don't know that the makeup of the classes
is that way, right?
Like so, I mean, for example,
JJ McCarthy was the fifth quarterback taken.
It's kind of an interesting coincidence.
Kevin O'Connell was the fifth quarterback taken in his draft class in 2008,
and he went like 80 picks later than McCarthy, you know?
So they tried like hell to get draked.
They tried and tried and tried to trade up to number three,
and New England wasn't moving.
And I think this is where it bites you a little bit of the, okay,
like we are, we're going to take one.
and they felt like they could develop J.J. McCarthy into a good enough answer at the time and that he had potential.
And they weren't going to force him on, they weren't going to push him out there onto the field.
I think what, and we can get into the details on this, but I think like kind of what's interesting about it is a lot like the Trey Lance situation in San Francisco,
where we all think like, oh yeah, like that's the ideal quarterback situation for this guy to walk into, right?
And in both cases, what happened was they sat as rookies, and then they got the longer leash in their second year.
They struggled.
They got hurt.
And then those teams were too good to go through that again.
In other words, like the guys who needed reps, right?
Like J.J. McCarthy played in a run heavy offense in college that was generally better than the teams that was playing.
Same with Trey Lance, right?
Those guys just needed reps.
they needed time on task.
They needed to see different defensive coverages, different rush plans.
They needed to run different plays.
And they ran out of time with the teams they were with because those teams were too good to give them extra runway to do that.
Yeah.
So it's sort of good.
Like Minnesota's going on this year being like, our defense is so good.
We can't do this again.
Right.
We can't.
How if you're Kevin O'Connell can you look like Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison,
Byron Murphy, you know, Andrew Van Ginkle, Blake Cashman,
how can you look those guys in the face
and not give them a better answer than what they had the year before?
Yeah.
Would there have been any market for McCarthy after he was drafted in 24 and sat out
and they just do the Donald deal instead?
I mean, I think, yeah, and that's an interesting one
because, you know, they put together a competitive offer for Donald,
and they offered Daniel Jones basically the equivalent of what he got in Indianapolis.
And both those guys, and rightfully so, both those guys made the decision,
I want to go to a place where I have a chance to be the long-term starter, right?
And I think for both those guys looking at it, it's like, if I'm here,
I'm just a placeholder for JJ because they spent the 10th pick on him.
And if I have two or three bad games in a row, that could be curtains for me.
where, as in these other places, Seattle for Darnold, Indianapolis for Jones,
I'm going to get real runway to be the starting quarterback.
I got a chance to be the quarterback for the foreseeable future.
So they did try to bring back competition, and then they decided, okay, we're going to put
all of our eggs in this basket.
If that had worked, right?
Like if they bring back Darnold, I think McCarthy is coming back with him, and they
continue to develop McCarthy behind him, and you see where that goes.
And then with Jones, I think it would have been an open-com.
competition.
It's, it's interesting to think about what they could have gone.
Like if Darnold was lights out in the spring and the summer, it's like, okay, like this is
our guy.
I don't know.
I mean, you know, teams always go back on their draft evaluations.
And at that point, he's got three years left on his rookie deal plus the option.
I mean, you're probably looking at more than a fifth, but I don't think you're getting
a first back for him.
Okay.
Rams Eagles.
Yep.
This one.
I kind of can't wait.
There was, let me say like a college game, you know, with USC and Oregon, after what had happened in the beginning of the year, I'm like, all right, I know I'm excited about the game, but I still kind of have no idea what to expect, unless you want to keep going with like USC just under Lincoln Riley not winning these games, which is what happened.
But with this game, I'm looking at Philadelphia in the beginning of the year with Hertz.
And I go, okay, it's not always pretty, but he's responding in those.
tough moments. They're crushing on third down against Washington. You know, Tennessee shouldn't be in
that game, but when you needed him, when you needed hurts to step up and kind of respond to those moments,
it was like, you know, this is, this is like the good part of it where, yeah, there's throws that are
missing and there's stuff that frustrates me, but like, look at what they're doing on third down. Then they go
two and nine. The bears look like the Vikings. I know on national television because you're like,
what? So now, you know, I'm looking at the Eagles rear and I'm going, okay, so the O line, I know
they've had some issues. Okay, so that's, that's part of it, even though they couldn't run the football
last year. I think another part is like all this talented personnel name brand guys on that defensive
front where I'm like, oh, that guy was nasty, that guy was nasty. That guy was nasty. And like,
I had times where I thought about this in the past. I'm like, why is this group not better? Like,
I look at three Nolan Smith from Georgia, and I'm like, what is, does he make any plays anymore? So, like,
I think there's like a lot of name recognition with this group and this talented roster. But
I mean, these are two teams where I probably still feel better about the Rams because I thought they got hosed in Denver.
And I'd go, hey, they're two and one. Let's throw out the San Francisco game. That whole thing is weird.
We know they have some of their early injury stuff. So I probably feel better about the Rams.
But like the outcome of this one is going to really set the tone for like nationally.
There's going to be a massive variance on how we feel about the loser of this game.
Yeah. And I think, I mean, didn't you? I came out of the Rams Broncos.
game thinking the Rams are the better team. Did you?
We said it Monday. Yeah. I mean, I know we're not allowed to and it was probably
annoying to Broncos fans, but I just went, okay, the wrong team won.
Yeah. That's how it felt.
And that was without Pug and Akua. It was without Miles Garrett. So like, it does get you
thinking again of like what that team's going to be. They shouldn't have a chance to win
at the end. Stafford almost brings him back. You know what I mean? Like after all that
happened. So I, you know, Stafford's playing at a high level. I, Devon.
Monti Adams, I don't know how he's producing like this, like at his age.
Like, you know, you think the cliff is coming.
And I think this year 13 for him, which for him to look the way that he looks is crazy.
McDuffie is a huge difference maker for them on the defensive side of the ball.
And again, like, they're going to get some of those pieces back, not this week.
But I feel good about the Rams.
Now, going to Philadelphia, I thought this might be the year they level off a little bit.
And the reason why I so much of, and I think you nailed it when you talked about like the areas where they've traditionally been great.
You know, they've been built forever and ever, as everybody knows, like along the lines of scrimmage.
And with Landon Dickerson being what he was before he got hurt and now they've got some moving pieces inside.
And Jordan Malata and Lane Johnson are still really good, but they're getting older.
And then the defensive side of the ball jail when Carter's nicked up.
And like you said, do they miss Jalen Phillips?
They tried to bring him back.
Nolan Smith, you know, there are big picture questions.
What is he long term?
The things that were overwhelming strengths for the Eagles when they've been at their best,
they aren't there right now.
And I wonder how they're going to dig themselves out of this.
Because I think the main reason they brought Sean Mannion in as the offensive coordinator
was to reestablish the wrong game.
And I think Saquan looked good.
against Chicago. I question the quarterbacks fit in a, in a system that's so based on detail.
I don't know. I think it'll make Jalen Hertz better, but is it really playing to his strengths?
I'm not sure about that. And then, and then defensively, if they have trouble getting after the
pass, or, you know, I think it kind of changes the dynamic for them overall. So I actually would
look at it right now. I think Dallas might be the best team in that division based on what I've
seen over the course of the first three weeks. And again, you sound stupid saying that because
they're one and two. You know what I mean? Like, and everybody wants to go by record early in the
year and everything. But, you know, I do think like watching Philly the other night, there was,
there are some things that looked like a little more than like, yeah, we'll fix this over the next
two or three weeks. Yeah, the Washington game was like, okay, some good, some bad, new offensive
system here, but Hertz's response. Tennessee, you're like, how is this happening? They
should have lost. Yeah, right. But it hurts response. Even if you want to get on his case about some
of the other throws, which I think all of us could probably do a little bit better at a job,
be like, hey, guess what? Some of these series are going to suck. Like even Stafford's going to have
some series there. You're like, oh, this was bad. But man, to see them get just looked like that
both ways. And, you know, generally, if you look at their past rush win rate stuff, it's 20th
in the league right now on the new league calculations. Right. Their number,
winning against the run is actually still really good.
Their run blocking win rate is really good.
Their pass blocking win rate isn't as good.
But that's kind of one of those national games where I think we're on the same page
here we just feel better about the Rams.
But look, you're going into Philadelphia.
It's a pretty big game for them.
I mean, but even like the last thing on that is like, you know, Philly's a different place.
And like, could that game be at home work against them?
Like I think that's where we do that a lot, though.
Yeah, I guess.
Just to be fair a little bit about it, like, it's kind of like when there's a college game,
like Ole Miss, you know, like Ole Miss after the LSU game, like, no shit, it was super emotional.
And guess what?
We all realize that the next week at Florida, if you're paying attention to Lex some of Florida's talent,
that's probably going to be a tough spot.
So I've heard the same thing over and over about Philly.
It's like, hey, what's going to happen in that stadium if it starts looking bad and they're
one for seven on third downs with 10 points or 9 points?
Well, nine would be weird.
I guess three field goals.
But you get the point like, yeah, I know.
But if anything, they're probably, that roster is probably so used to it.
They should be more conditioned.
Syriani does a good job of handling it too.
I think.
Yeah.
I think.
I know.
I think you're right.
But I think there's like a, like, I think there's like an FU to Siriani that like
actually emboldens his team in those situations.
You know what I'm saying?
I do because I think this is where his meathead tendencies.
Yeah.
And I mean that as a compliment.
Yeah.
Like him being, you know, he's got these emotional kind of meathead things that I think players really like, especially in the sport.
Yeah, that probably works way better than if you had, you know, some brainiac out there that was going like, you know, what the hell's going on.
Right. I agree.
Like, so I think that's a really good point there.
Okay, Dallas, they trade for Joey Porter Jr.
Decent package coming back.
Contract issues.
I think it's, you can say it's a desperation move,
but I love that after three weeks, Dallas is going,
we cannot roll the secondary out there anymore.
And they face a Houston team that's even more desperate than them.
Yeah, and it's interesting because I think they, you know,
you bank on it that you're getting the best out of Joey Porter.
Things really kind of reached a boiling point yesterday with Porter and the Steelers.
And so they were actually the aggressor, believe it or not.
The Steelers were over the course of the day yesterday and trying to move them out of there.
and they played a night.
So, you know, there was some urgency on that.
You know, the Cowboys have sort of kind of kept at this.
Like, they first talked to the Steelers back at the beginning of training camp
when they sensed there was a problem there.
They had actually reached out to the Patriots on Christian Gonzalez too.
So they were looking around to try to add at that position,
going all the way back to, like, the end of July, beginning of August.
And I think Jerry and Stevens,
that there's real opportunity here
with the way that the quarterback's playing,
with the receivers that they have.
And, like, I think it's at least interesting
defensively what they're doing now,
where you've got these guys that they brought in via trade.
So, you know, it's Quinn and Williams,
it's Kenny Clark.
It's Rishon, Gary, and now Joey Porter.
But I actually think, like, a lot of, like,
how far they go is going to depend on how the young talent
their develops, the young defensive talent.
So, like, what does Oversham
look like? He's in a contract year.
What does
Donovan Azaraku look like?
Second round pick last year out of BC.
You know, Barham out of
Michigan has, like, he had a great camp,
and he was a factor in that Ravens game.
And so, like, he's a big
one. And then, of course, Caleb Downs on the back end.
Like, I look at their defense, and there's
a lot of proven vets that know what they're doing,
And now I think you've got some young players that could get better over the course of the year.
And so I think the X factor is the fact that they've got a first year coordinator calling it and designing it and all that.
And he got caught in some bad spots against the Ravens.
And I think he really cost the Cowboys against the Ravens.
But I think the gamble here for the Cowboys, the offense is plenty good enough.
They know they're good enough on offense.
That the defense is going to grow over the course of the year.
And acquiring someone like Porter helps him do that.
There's something for everyone when it comes to recess.
What have we talked about with breezes? Tradition, expectation, delivers, and also relationships.
Not everybody works it out, right?
It's been a long time, chocolate and peanut butter been hanging out.
A long time.
Even Belichick and Brady broke up, you know?
And they didn't, what do they have to argue about?
Things were going great.
And yet someone eventually decided that they were going to move on, although I feel like Brady got his revenge,
drop 15 pounds, starts posting selfies all over the place.
Who is in Cabo with him?
That's probably what Belichick was looking at.
Peanut Butter and Chocolate, they've never had those problems.
They've never had to look at the other person's IG because they're together all the time
because they know it works.
It's not simple.
It's just not complicated.
And that's what I think you want out of any relationship with your candy because you
bite into it when you go, hey, this is exactly what I expected.
They're never going to break up with me because why would I ever
I would I not want to see chocolate and peanut butter again.
They're a great hang.
Rees is the official candy partner of Barstrel Sports.
Go get Reeses wherever you shop.
Houston.
Yeah.
Any intel?
Can you share with us beyond, hey, it's disappointing their own three, but we like their defense?
Yeah, the obvious thing to do is to blame the offense for everything.
And the offensive line, I'd be, I'd be.
really concerned with. I think the tackle
situation, look,
it cost them in the opener, you know.
It was, it cost them,
you know, it's cost them every week.
Cost them against the, it cost them against
the Bengals. Trent Brown didn't look very good
at right tackle. They're still wheeling them out there.
You know, Arionte
Erisory is still getting his footing as a second
your left tackle. So, and then
the receiver situation, obviously losing
Higgins, they thought Higgins was going to have a huge year.
So you lose Higgins, you've been without
NICO the last couple of weeks.
so it's easy to blame the offense.
I think the defense has got a little bit of a gut check now too
and that they didn't play well in week one against Buffalo.
And then this last week, I mean, LeQuon Treadwell
caught a 20-yard end cut to beat them.
You know, that essentially is what beat them.
And it's like one of those situations where it's like,
that's the best defense the league.
That shouldn't happen.
All due respect to Treadwell,
there's a nice story and everything.
But like...
I love him in college.
That was a long time ago.
Yeah.
We were a lot younger when he was.
in college.
I think you'd have to probably tell most of them,
you'd have to remind most NFL fans that he still plays football.
And he's making the game winning catch essentially to set up that field goal to beat him.
I think this is like a big like Will Anderson,
Derek's the young leaders on that defense.
Like this is a circle the wagons.
And I'm really interested to see how they come out against a really good Dallas
offense here because I can, so I can remember being in camp.
but I was with some of their offensive coaches
the day before I was at their practice.
And they were kind of talking about how,
they were saying how, like, you know,
like it's been really good
because we've kind of played them to a standstill
over the first couple of weeks of camp.
And it's been back and forth
and with the level of our defense.
And then one of them said to me,
he goes, yeah, but we know it's coming tomorrow.
And it was a big 11 on 11 day.
And the offense had gotten the better of them.
And the implication was the defense is going to come out
to,
show everybody who's boss again, and they did.
And I remember talking to Will Anderson after the practice about that.
And he was like, yeah, he's like, we all knew.
No one had to say anything.
And so I wonder if this is one of those.
You know what I mean?
Like where it's like the Houston defense now comes out to reassert itself
after what happened last week in Indy.
And I think it's on the defense to do a lot of things there.
There's a lot of pressure on them to buy time to the offense to figure it out.
I'm really interested.
I'm almost more interested to see how the defense plays than the offense this week
because I do think this could be like a hair across their ass performance from that group.
That's kind of how I feel.
I just can't imagine they're going to be 0 and 4.
But I mean, look, last week I thought they'd get right against the Colts with the Colts issues,
especially in the secondary, Alec Pierce out, my receiver.
You got a lot of teams of losing records right now.
A lot of good teams are losing, a lot of good teams are losing records.
three worst pass rush win rates right now in the NFL according to ESPN
Pittsburgh is last
Okay
Dallas is 31st
Okay
I mean the Pittsburgh one's kind of shocking
But at the same time other than the Cincinnati game like other teams
Like there's some stuff that you can poke some holes three weeks in three games of data
But 30th is Houston
And that's that's crazy
I never would have thought that
That's nuts wow
How about that?
I mean, I guess with Pittsburgh, you get attributed to, like, they're playing from behind more, right?
So, like, it's a little harder to rush the passer when you're playing from behind a little bit more.
But, yeah, I don't know.
That's crazy.
Personnel-wise, Pittsburgh and Houston, you don't expect to see in there.
Dallas.
Dallas, I mean.
Because it's the interior, you know, it's the interior.
They're counting on Quinn and Williams to sort of wreck stuff.
And they're still figuring out the edge position.
give Quinn and Williams this. He made Lamar look not like prime Lamar by even catching up to him
as a defensive tackle, which was shocking to even like get kind of a handle. Look, I know Lamar was
veering out of bounds or whatever, but like that was something that jumped out because there was a
couple of runs with Lamar where I'm like, all right, you know, I know that this deemphasized. I know
that it would make sense, but like there's a few times with him. You didn't feel like he was getting
away from defenders the same way? Yeah, look, I mean, I put him, Vicks in his own tier and then I put
Lamar there as far as gone.
Just like the ability, yeah, the ability to separate, like just take off.
I would put them in the same thing, even though it still felt like Prime Vic is beyond anything
we've ever seen.
But I really put those two and then I don't.
Yeah, I'd say Vic was like, I feel like Vic was more explosive, whereas like Lamar's smoother,
you know, as a runner.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's the only reason why whenever I notice him not going like, hey, if he decides he wants
to get away from you, he's just going to get away from you.
Right.
And it's still really good.
that third and one keeper after the third and one where Henry got stuffed.
Yeah.
Against them.
All right, let's do Denver, San Francisco here.
I know it's weird.
Plucky Arizona, by the way, if you want to start talking pass rush win rates right now,
Cardinals fourth, according to ESPN.
How about that?
I know, I know.
Well, the secondary was really more of the issue, and we saw that as well.
But watching that Niners game, that was just Bob Ross special with Shanahan and Purdy.
Yeah.
watching just how dialed in it was. And then, you know, you go up early. It happens every single
Sunday. Somebody goes up two scores. And then it's like, okay, they kind of invite the other team back.
Fall asleep. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it happens. Okay. I mean, that's why the league is so much fun
to watch. But it's a very predictable 14-0. You're like, all right, they're not going to have the same
intensity here. I thought what they were doing offensively, though, was like really, really special stuff,
even though Arizona, because they're so plucky, the Cardinals, they get back into that game.
and then we're kind of left here with Denver.
I mean, it feels like Denver, like, hey, at the very least,
can we see something in the first few drives?
Yeah, I know.
I know.
And it's like Denver, it feels like Bo is doing as much off schedule
as he's doing on schedule right now, you know?
And like, it's an interesting dynamic with a new play caller in there.
And I think they're still kind of finding their way there.
You know, Waddle obviously has a huge game against Jacksonville two weeks
ago so that's good um losing i i was so impressed with jonah coleman um and like obviously he didn't play
last week now the reason he was available in the fourth you know how good he was at washington um was
because of his knee and now he's hurt so you raise some questions there um i think Denver is still
i think there's still some some some growth there no jonathan cooper again some like a little bit of
mixing and matching it running back, the receivers figuring it out.
I wouldn't, there are another one where you look at like the depth and balance across the
roster and the depth and balance of the premium positions.
And I really, I really like where they're at.
I would say like going into San Francisco this week, they should, based on what San Francisco's
rolling out there, feel like they should win the game.
Now, the Niners to me have shown like different ways of winning, you know, and that's what's
so impressive.
Like they won with the run game against the game.
the Niners or against the Rams.
Then they come back and Purdy's been so good the last two weeks.
And I think watching Purdy is like one of the biggest questions for all of us
when he got the contract was can he lift everybody up without,
lift everybody up around him when it isn't right.
Well, there's no Ricky Pierce all out there.
Desaun's struggling who they were going to, you know,
who was going to have a big role for them.
You know, he's out now.
You know, Trent Williams gets hurt in game.
You know, Kittles coming back from the Killie.
and he's been lights out, you know, through three weeks.
So I think I think this is like,
this is going to be a really good test to see Brock Purdy
with a little bit less around him,
with a really good defense in front of him,
and a really good defensive coordinator.
It's the matchup itself.
Like, and getting to see Purdy in this environment,
I think it's going to be really interesting.
What do other teams say about mostly?
Knicks.
Good fit for
Sean Payton's offense
and a guy who's got really good sense about him
and is an excellent game manager.
And sometimes that sounds like an insult and it's not.
You know, it's like he just has a good sense
for what the situation calls him to do, right?
Not taking a big loss in certain spots,
knowing when there's time to take chances,
knowing when the time's right to go down
field. He's just got a really good feel to him. Now, the ceiling is the question. And I'm not breaking
any new ground there, but can he make it happen on his own? Can he make it happen, you know,
when he doesn't, when, when, when, and again, like, he makes plays and scramble situations,
but it's sort of similar to Purdy. It's like, can he lift everybody up around? I mean, I think that
that's, that's sort of one of those things where you go back to like where these guys were drafted. You
never lived down when you were drafted.
Like, Purdy was the last pick in the draft.
Bonix was the 12th pick of the draft, you know?
And so I think when you look at that,
I think a lot of people would tell you,
you know, we see these two guys similarly, you know?
And based on whether they're drafted,
they're perceived a little bit differently.
But I think, like, Nick's is one of those guys
where you look at him and it's a really good fit for the team that he's on.
It probably wouldn't work everywhere the way it does in Denver.
Green Bay.
It's got to happen this week.
Baker's going to be out with that thumb three weeks minimum.
Yep.
I was looking at it this morning.
Green Bay's last in yards per carry.
And that's not even the alarm.
Well, that's not great.
13 running backs have had more carries this season than the entire Packers team.
They have 48 rush attempts this season.
Now, hey, they're down week one.
The Vikings thing was one of the weirder games, but also a reminder like,
you could make the argument.
It's impressive.
The Packers were able to score them any points against this Vikings defense.
Because that game felt like,
oh, the Packers are going to beat him.
You know,
Vikings aren't going to have enough quarterback.
Maybe they're a 500 team.
And now, like, I think I like the Vikings as much as anybody.
I don't really mean that,
but I'm just so enamored and so blown away by that performance against Tampa
and just continuing having all these guys in the same page being like,
this is an absolute nightmare.
It must be the worst.
It has to be the worst week if you're an opposing quarterback.
thinking about what Flores is going to do to you there.
But, you know, this Packers team might just be bad.
You know, the O line, it hasn't worked out.
You have, it can't all be on Jordan Love.
And maybe that makes me sound like another one of these guys.
Like Herbert's kind of the AFC Jordan Love,
where it seems like all of us are enamored with the talent.
We talk these guys up all the time.
But they can't run the football.
They don't run the football.
We could talk about it being scores involving the Jets come back,
being down to Atlanta,
which was kind of the wake-up call of like, oh, I guess this is bad.
Yeah.
But they're getting Tampa at least at the right time,
although that Tampa front isn't going to be a blast either.
Right.
Because that's kind of the hidden thing with that crazy Vikings game.
That group was terrific on top of everything else,
making Kyler Murray miserable for a day as well.
Yeah, it's like I think with the Packers,
so the offensive line is all kinds of beat up, you know,
and, you know, you lose your right tackle.
that's a big deal.
He's probably their best player up front.
No Josh Jacobs.
And you've used Marshawn Lloyd,
and he's probably your best runner.
But because of all of his injury history,
you're managing him a certain way.
Like you have Tucker Kraft coming back off the ACL.
So you have like all of these entanglements, right?
Like meanwhile, like the receiver situation,
it's Watson, Reed gets hurt.
You know, Matthew Golden,
you're looking to give him a bigger role.
So it's just there's like a lot going on there.
and then defensively, without Micah Parsons,
Lucas Van Ness has stepped up some,
but I just, I don't know, like,
when you start to put all the pieces together,
what do they do well?
Like, what do they do really well?
And I've made this point about then
as sort of similar to Seattle going into last year,
is like if they could get a bunch of the,
they're really good players to elevate to become great players,
then they would really have something.
I'm talking about guys like Watson, like Reed, like, you know, in the offensive line,
you know, Jordan Morgan becoming their left tackle, coming over from guard,
Devante Wyatt at D tackle, Van Ness is another one, you know, the linebackers, like the,
you know, Edger and Cooper, like, all these guys that have like, you've heard for three, four
years now, they've got great potential.
And last year with Seattle, you remember, like, right, JSN became a great player, Charles
Cross became a great player, Devin Witherspoon became a great player, Byron Murphy,
became a great player.
So you had all these guys elevating from good to great.
It's just,
it's not happening with this group with the Packers, right?
Like the two guys that you can say that they had were great players.
One's Kraft coming off the ACL and the other one's Parsons who's still out.
So I sort of look at it and like you look at the core of their team.
And they're guys that they've started to pay now.
They paid Wyatt, right?
They paid,
they paid Watson.
They paid Reed.
Did they pay a bunch of guys who are good,
players to be at the core of their team and they don't have enough great players. Does that make
sense? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it does. But like, like Evan Williams is another one.
Evan Williams on the back ends a really, really good safety. Is he a game changing great safety? Like,
there's so many names like that, a guys like that. And I just watched them against the,
the way they got bludgeoned against the Falcons. And it was like, I don't know what this team does
really well. Yeah, look, I am just as guilty as anybody else. I'm not even saying that you're doing it,
but I remember going back to like 24 and looking at that receiving group and going like, man,
Reed, Kraft Watson, who, you know, it's year five. And I was like, this guy's going to be a star.
Yeah. Obviously, maybe this is just what they are. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that old line,
though. I mean, you missed your best guy to out of the jump. You know, you invest in Michael Parsons,
who's supposed to be like when parsons is right it's a game-changing player
elevates everybody else around him um i guess i'm just not with some of these teams that
aren't very good i i think going hey it's just jordan love is a mistake you know and if you
want to say hey any of you guys thought he was top 10 you guys are morons he's mid all right okay
fine but i don't i don't think it's entirely fair to put this all on him the way i'll look
at some teams on a sunday going like you've got no chance with this guy you know um
Trade deadline. It's exciting in your sport now. I know. It's exciting time. I know. I know. I saw a T
somewhere with trade deadline right around the corner. It's after, what is it? Week 9. So it's,
it's like early November. I have to look that. I can, I mean, I think it's after week nine. I think
that's right. They moved it back a week. But the sport was very out date. Number of this thing.
Right. The sport was always like, wow, we can't, you know, our route trees. These guys will never
understand it. You're like, I don't know. If he's really good and you need a receiver,
you'll probably be able to figure it out. And I think that the GMs have been more proactive
about this. The coaches have been more open to this idea where we grew up with it and it was like,
oh, no one was traded this year on the trade deadline. Is there any way we can do a little
hot stove NFL stuff, even though it's midseason with the trade deadline? Is there anything
worth paying attention to? Yeah, I mean, I think like, I think we are going to see, I think
you know at least get them phone calls. I think the cowboy situation with the Steelers can kind of
be instructive on that, like in that, like the Cowboys stayed after it, you know, and the Cowboys
were looking for defensive help and they made that call early in camp on Joey Porter and they
were looking around at different corners. Like I said, Gonzalez was part of that. And then, you know,
eventually something springs, you know? So like these are conversations that are ongoing.
Like I, when you start talking about this, I pull up the standings, because that's the first thing I
think of is like, who's going to be bad enough? Who's going to be in a position?
where they're going to be offloading guys, right?
So, I mean, I, like, I would look at, like, you know,
is Tampa in a position where, like, okay, like, you know,
you're without Baker Mayfield for a few weeks now.
You fall out of the race.
Who would be available on their roster?
Would it be like a Zion McCollum was a pretty good corner, you know,
or the Giants still in it, right?
Like, so does Cave on Tibado become available?
The commanders, I think, are, you know,
again, like one of those teams where you look, okay, like, which way are they going?
And what sort of movable pieces would they have?
They do have some older players on their roster, like a Javon Kinla.
I think the one name that everybody had circled was Max Prosby.
And it was like, okay, so all that weird stuff happened in March.
The Ravens failed him on the physical, was scared everyone away.
He says he wants to be a raider.
I trust Max on that, by the way.
I do think he wants to be, he does want to be a raider.
you know um and i would just tell you that's like i like a situation like that like would be the
one where i would look at it like if the raiders were somehow fall out of the race then the phone
would start ringing and maybe somebody blows john spy tech and and clinkubiac away they're three and oh
you know what i mean like so like obviously they're not going to do it so i think that's sort of
at least right now and and you know things can change between now and
November 10th. It's just, it's, it's a little tough to look at the standings now and see the
teams that are going to be actively offloading guys. Like, you know, the jets, if the jets
fall out of it, could like a DeMario Davis or a Mink of Fitzpatrick become available.
I'm just not sure who the big name is where you're like, yeah, that guy's out of there,
you know? I mean, do you have anyone, you want to run by me? I, like, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of
blanking a little bit. I'm looking up and down through the teams. Should the jet
just go all in on C.J. Stroud if the Texans end up 0.15.
That being it's not going to happen.
No, it's not going to happen. I don't think the Texans would do that.
It's an interesting question. Gino is playing really well for them.
I think that they would be more inclined, especially because you have to pay C.J. Stroud
if he comes in and plays well. I think they'd be more inclined to wait until April
to address their need for a young quarterback.
The Saints, if they were to fall out of the race,
Chase Young has been an ass kicker so far.
I don't know if you've watched that closely,
but it looks like he's the Chase Young that we thought
he was going to be when he was coming out in 2019 or 2020.
Well, yeah, that's also kind of the point with Chase Young.
Like, oh, okay, like, this is awesome.
But, man, this took a long time.
So I'd be a little hesitant.
Look, the CJ thing is stupid.
I understand as I'm saying that.
I was trying to think of like what would be a very Jets move.
And they go, we'll give them $60 million a year.
I mean, I'm just thinking.
So the one that I think of here where someone could just blow a team's doors off.
Jeffrey Simmons with the Titans.
Like, the Titans keep sinking out.
I don't think the Titans want any part of trading Jeffrey Simmons right now.
Right?
He's too important.
He's a leader, a captain.
Robert Sala really values interior defensive lineman.
However, what if somebody gets way in over their skis on it?
And the guy's in his 30s now, like, do you start to look at that?
I love him.
Maybe he's late 20s still.
No, he's got to be early 30s now.
I love him.
And there was even a stretch there, I would say maybe three or four years ago.
He's 29.
Oh, is he really?
Yeah, he's just 29.
God.
I remember like four years ago there was a little dip and there was a talk about them,
maybe not wanting to re-sign him and that he could be available.
And I was like, I don't know.
I just, to me, that guy plays angry and is the exact kind of guy you want on defense.
All right.
Final thought.
The Colts would be another one, DeForest Buckner.
If they were to sink, if they were like really to fall off, like, that's somebody
who I think would be really valuable.
And like somebody I think teams would at least call on, you know.
Okay, last thought.
When I look back at the 25 college football season and would look at the mocks before
the season starts, right? When you look at the quarterbacks, you're like, all right, so top 10
picks here, maybe Clubneck number one overall, Nussmeyer in the mix, Drew Aller, you know, these are
like guys, there's probably a couple other names are forgetting. So when you start this year's
college football season and, you know, we had McShay on and you're like, we can have seven guys
going the first round. It's like, yeah, maybe it'll be seven, but it also could be like a completely
different order of names because of how quickly it changes specifically for the draft and that
kind of stuff. Could we see a shift, even though I think we're starting to see teams, as you pointed
out with Jason McCarthy, and I pointed out in the open, like, it's not just that you're missing
on first rounders. You're reaching for first rounders more now, I think, than ever before. And even on
top of that, the number one overall pick. Like, I don't know if Bryce Young goes number one 10 years ago.
Right. I don't know if Cam Ward does 10 years ago. I don't know if Medoza does 10 years ago.
Could there be a scenario that plays out where the team of the number one pick in 27 just says,
give us Jeremiah Smith.
We'll figure out the rest of it.
Not impossible,
but I'd say unlikely
because I think somebody would be desperate
to come up and get one
if there's one worth taking there.
You know?
Like I just,
if somebody offers you three first round picks
to come up and get,
like, whatever,
Drew Mestemaker.
I don't know who it's going to be
at this point.
Well,
it'll probably be Mest Mager.
He's on this podcast.
Yeah.
Like he is,
if it's Miami.
That's right.
you it was you right that I had like the club right like he never started in high school which
I like he didn't have any tape yeah they were talking about him recruiting he they were like
we'll send it some tape they were like there isn't any that's freaking incredible corner because
Brady Quinn put me on him like in the spring he was like this is the guy you want to watch
and he was like people love Brady Quinn people are going to come pretty queen fans on the puck
yeah that's right absolutely and he was like he he was like people are going to compare him to
Tanna Hill because he's an athlete and like there's like this weird story behind
He's like, I'm telling you, he's got a chance to be really good.
So, yeah, Brady's usually on it.
He was definitely ahead of the curve on that one.
I don't know if this is right or not,
but when I watched the Mestemaker stuff this summer
before he even got to Oklahoma State
and it's kind of being backed up at Oklahoma State.
It reminds me of like, I didn't want to say David Klingler
and get anybody bummed out about it,
but it reminds me of those old offenses
where you would be like, what is this?
You just, Andre, where?
Andre Ware, exactly. That's perfect.
Where you just go, I don't know if this is going to translate.
And back then we wouldn't even allow it to translate, right?
Now it's a free-for-all and we just talk ourselves into whatever it can be.
It's just shot after shot after shot of like this dude is firing the ball out.
And then on top of that, like one of the knocks, when I talked to somebody else about it,
was like he's a statue.
Like you cannot have this guy be this immobile.
And you're like, actually, I know it's also code for white guy,
more athletic than you would think, but he moves around more than what people were telling me
before this season started.
Yeah.
Especially if you were playing corner in high school.
Right, right.
So he was, uh, so I think he's like in the mix, you know, and then.
In the mix.
You love that word.
Arch Manning.
Like, I, I think there's a divide between the way the general public talks about him and the way
people in the NFL see him, you know.
Arch.
Yeah, arch, yeah.
Like, I just think he needs to get better at seeing it.
And that might happen.
Like,
but he needs to get better at seeing it and processing faster
and getting the ball out on time more.
He's almost like the reverse of his uncle's.
I think everybody wants him to be like Peyton and Eli plus athleticism.
The reality of it,
I think is he's like,
he's a little more like his grandfather,
you know,
like he's more of a playmaker,
a big athlete playing the position who,
like I remember like someone over the summer says,
like if he plays well,
I think the comp would be Justin Herbert,
like on the,
just kind of like who he is coming out of college.
CJ Carr,
I think will be in the mix.
You know, Dante Moore is obviously the established name.
We all hope he's okay after what happened last weekend.
But I do think like, like, I like your premise, like that Jeremiah, like someone could be sitting there at one and just say, screw up.
Let's take the best player.
I just, if there's a quarterback who's in the neighbor, like who is the level of prospect, Drake May was, you know, a couple of years ago.
I think that's enough where someone picking four or five.
is going to be willing to give you three first round picks to get them.
And so at that point, it's like, okay, do we take Jeremiah Smith,
or do we take the fifth pick in the draft,
and then a first in 28 and a first in 29?
So that's what would prevent it from happening.
I think there's a real chance that Jeremiah is the best player,
considered the best prospect in the draft.
But I think the ability, if you have the first overall pick
and you don't want to take one of the quarterbacks,
the ability to trade out might prevent that from happening.
Albert Breer. You can read him throughout the week on
on S.I.com, the Monday morning quarterback. He has some news
and notes that are just up a couple days ago as well
and check him out with Connor or on the Monday morning quarterback
podcast. Thanks, man. Awesome. Thanks, Ryan.
The football season is heating up and every week feels bigger with
Draft Kings. The Draft King Sports app is now live in all 50 states.
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Before we get the alliance with Kyle and Saruti here, we'll take a look at our
Draft King's notes.
We're always looking at who is betting on what and the amount of money and the total number
of bets.
So most money, most bets are all over this New England matchup against Buffalo.
And the Rams actually have the most amount of money on their side in their matchup at
Philadelphia.
So that one opened at minus one and a half.
It's now minus three and a half for LA.
Buffalo is the second most favorite side on this money-wise,
minus six and a half at home against New England and then Denver
in their matchup against the Niners.
Plus two and a half, that line has stayed the same.
As far as player props right now,
we get Derek Henry the most bet for any time TD score.
And then Patrick Mahomes, the most bet prop two or more touchdowns.
And you can, of course, check all the odds on Drive.
Okay, we're bringing the guys here.
All right, boys.
What's up?
What's up?
Bounceback week.
That's why I've been here all week.
That's what people are saying.
Yeah, I've been, he just nailed it.
That's what a lot of people have been saying.
I was walking around town today, and they were like, bounce back.
And I was like, double B.
You know it, Burke.
Don't get down.
You know, we're okay.
All right.
So who's board is it?
It's probably Kyle still.
He's the only one with a win.
It's your show.
You should just fucking take it out of that.
Look, this is
This has been a bad year plus.
I'm embarrassed.
It's been so bad.
Not a trend, just a blip, you know?
No, this is a trend.
This sucks.
I mean, it's been going on.
I got off to that really hot star.
I was like, I'll win this again.
And I think ever since like the midway point of 24, I mean, this has been, I'm embarrassed.
I may change the name of the show.
All right.
So I do realize why gamblers get so upset with coaches.
though, because I'm like sitting there watching that Demiko Ryan's timeout, fuck up.
So you're not going to call a time out, dude?
It's like, you're not going to call a time out.
And then you had to call the time out.
So, yeah, that's why gamblers never forget.
They never forget anything.
It's like, oh, you mean a third and seven saying the league is rigged too.
Like, ah, I wouldn't never do that.
I see that stuff.
And I just like, you know, do something else.
All right.
How's a joke?
Kyle, what do you go?
I know it was.
I know what you're actually doing, but I just shut it down.
I think I'm caught up in a little bit of the Yankees hype here and just all the New York stuff going on.
So I'm going to take the Giants plus two and a half.
I personally went with James to score two touchdowns last week because that crab legs video just totally gripped me.
I think now he knows he's supposed to play football.
So I'm going to take Giants plus two and a half home versus the Cardinals.
Okay.
The feisty Cardinals.
I can't get upset with any of your reasoning.
So, um, that's why just, I don't know why people, people love James.
He's electric, too.
Yeah, you, you're not buying into the, he's come back around.
He's actually cool down guy.
I have.
I've hookline and sinker.
I, I'm a James guy.
This is funny.
Um, not at the World Cup, but just in general.
Um, I'm going to go Rams minus three.
This was two and a half.
It's moved to three.
I still like it.
This is not, I mean, it's obviously not a must win in week four, but like one and three for the
Rams. Like, this is probably how people
lose their money, but I just think they're a better team in Philadelphia.
I think Philadelphia, Philadelphia got exposed last week and
I think you're going to get him. Pook is back,
motivated Rams team. So,
there you go.
Yeah.
If you want to do
nobody's betting on
New England, you could go that route.
Not one's part of that. Going that way
in my heart.
Did you see the
real? The least public side is the Titans
plus eight and a half. So
or it's actually now plus 10 and a half.
It's tempting.
It's tempting to just do it.
Because I have another pick written down here.
It's college.
It's a college total.
Over 57.5 Florida at Mizzou.
I'm so in my head right now.
You know what?
I'll just stick with the original play.
47 be a lock.
57.5.
The over Florida and Missouri.
All right.
Love that.
All right, there you go. The Alliance marches on.
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Kyle's loving the Lucy Pouches.
He's out of darts, out on the range, maybe in a blind.
you know, if he's walking and not using the car, he's like, man, it's so nice to just have a little tin of Lucy pouches with me.
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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.
Life advice, the email address, life advice, RR at gmail.com.
I'll keep it short.
This guy, I just jumped right into this.
I didn't even say hello to anyone.
We had a couple people chime in with their 10-year reunion stories.
So our guy said, I'll keep it short.
I think this guy is wrong, but I understand where he's coming from.
I have a super tight group of friends from high school.
We all have these same hesitations heading into our 10-year.
We're now approaching 20.
It's such a good decision.
Going was such a good decision.
I'm not sure if my class just goes way harder than others.
Shout out, Matt's 08.
We rented out of bar in San Francisco.
We all got absolutely ripped.
Those five in 10 years are just dangerous.
And then the 20, you're like, what's wrong with you?
Everyone's got so much juice in him, right?
I mean...
The five, you still know everybody.
Five year...
Five year you just got your fucking beer buying certificate, right?
I mean, that happened like a year or two.
two ago at the five year. Right. Right. The five year, you're still going out all the time. It's not even
a reunion. You just haven't seen that guy since Wednesday. Like, exactly. So, um, anyway, the whole
class, my friends and I thought we would spend the whole night talking to each other the next morning,
the post game was just how all of us spent the whole night talking to other people. We had to
see in a while. It was such a fun night. Just go, have an absolute blast. Worst case scenario,
you get ripped with the boys. Also, life is more fun. When we just buy into things, instead of
being huge cynics. Wow. That's some heavy learning right there, but I would, I would tend to
agree with them. All right. Am I getting hazed at work? 24, 5-9, 200 pounds. Gym stats, can't float.
So what does that say about muscle mass? It means you are just a specimen. Dense. Dense. Yeah.
Can't float too, Jack. Sorry. Next exercise. NBA comp, T.J. McConnell, because it's my favorite
player, but realistically as productive as Ben Simmons. Ben's never felt better, guys.
Time, I'll start. Longtime fan, first time writer. I work for a company that provides support
for heart surgeries within my region. Due to that nature, I visit over five different hospitals
where we act as the guests, the staff that are there every day. That means putting their needs
first and yours last. As you can imagine, the social dynamics vary drastically depending on the hospitals.
Some are joking and forgiving while others are waiting for you to pull the sticks out of their asses.
That being said, I'm just under a year into this position.
So the relationships are not fully set.
It is hard to do so when you are at a different place every day.
Here's where the issue happened.
In between classes, the morning coffee got the better of me.
And I dropped to 10 to 15 minute number two at work.
All right.
Here we go.
There's only one bathroom for staff that we were allowed to use.
Given that nature, I take it serious.
No phone, spray some friezeze, leave it better than I found it.
After the deed was done, I was done.
walked out and there was one of the staff techs out there waiting. Let's call him Ben, mid-50s
with unapologetic strong, with unapologetic strong, hard right views. What's the fucking
problem with that? He looks pissed off and makes a comment about gassing out the place and asking
about how much taco bill I had that morning before walking in. I make a small joke back and
went about my day, not thinking twice about it. I know it can be annoying having to wait for the
bathroom, but that's how it is. It's not like I designed the place.
He didn't say he was an architect in the email, so you're right.
The next week comes along.
I'm back at the hospital setting up around 7 a.m.
The first thing I hear Ben saying is,
hey, you know what that guy's nickname is?
It's Taco Bell, and you know why.
Nicknamed guy?
He is in his 50s.
He proceeded to say this to every single person in the room.
This went on all morning.
He even told the patient,
never in my life have I been trained for this social interaction.
tried joking it off or pretending I didn't hear it felt like a little bitch in the moment
and it stuck with me all day I guess I could have tried owning it but the rest of the staff
are middle-aged women um who I'm not close with as a 24 year old dude they took it as oh that's
classic Ben now the whole staff knows he's eccentric but it still bugs me I spent so much time
trying to build a reputation and then he shits on it pun intended the most frustrating thing
was he's saying it wasn't even that bad.
And he said, trust me, I know my potential.
How would you have handled the situation?
Is it a lose, lose?
How do I handle this moving forward?
Because I will have to go back there.
The bathroom where the work?
Yeah, well, both.
I think he's referring to that it's a place of business and he'll be going there often.
That guy sucks, first and foremost.
I feel like there is like an unwritten law.
around dues and not tell, especially in the company of women.
And this isn't like, you know, whatever.
It's not like women can't handle fart and poop jokes.
But it's like, hey, dude, like it's kind of like a thing that like, hey, you saw me
taking shit, it smelled bad.
All right.
If it's a habit, like if this is like, if we're talking months of repeat offenses here,
like maybe this becomes a thing that you bring to light.
But like one time and you're going to just make that.
Because that actually does, like people don't forget that.
That's one of the most memorable things that people are going to remember.
Oh, that's the guy that blew up the bathroom.
This guy's name is Taco Bell.
And you know why?
It's tough to get over that.
So, at first of the foremost, that guy sucks.
I don't know, man.
People are just going to forget about it, though, ultimately, right?
I don't know.
Yeah, the truth is he's way too old to be behaving this way.
I mean, I think even a guy the emailer's age, people would be like, almost worse.
It'd be like, God, this guy's going to be awful forever, you know?
So I think he's doing the work of, like, everyone else becoming on your side.
If he's continuing to do this, you know, I don't know.
I might even go, like, the weird high school.
route. It's like, dude, everyone talks about you behind your back. You think you're doing something
right now? It's like, everyone hates you. Because now he's an enemy. And he's like, it's the only
thing that's going on that he can think of to bring up. I might even just like go psychological warfare
with him. You know, I don't, I don't really know. I mean, because you wanted to go away and he's,
it's not going away. So it's probably not the best advice, but I, this would get under my skin a little
bit. Uh, yeah, I think, I think you guys are just, I don't know what the real debate would be here.
I mean, other than we're telling this guy to like, hey, the jerk store called and they're
out of you, you know, like we give this guy
comebacks here and, you know, whether it's the
understood rule of like, what are you going to do? You're going to tell everybody
this? But I also think it's like, there's also this
this social agreement we have when, you know,
somebody's drafting off you like Daytona after you're done.
Like what? What did you think was going to have?
happen, you know, like, I don't want to do this to you, but like, it's just science, man.
This is, this is what's going on.
So there are guys that take pride in that, too, you know, like, there are guys that, like,
just love blowing up the bathroom.
They don't care.
Whatever.
That guy, you can, we had a couple of those guys at ESPN back in the day.
And like, but what we would do, we wouldn't like talk about that in front of their
face that we just, like, normal people would talk about it behind their back to other people.
Like, you know, like.
It was understood.
Yeah.
It was like, uh-oh.
Yeah, clear out.
Look, it sounds like Ben needs an audience whether or not he's just not had the confidence to sign up for the open mic or what, you know, but he's he hits you at a weak spot.
You know, he's going for the layup material.
You know, he's, he thinks he's he's got a winner here and you're kind of like in and out and this is his domain.
But the chances are if like this is his routine and you use the word eccentric, which is probably the nicest.
way to say he's super fucking annoying and does stuff like this all the time the audience knows
his content and you probably don't have to worry about it all that much i mean unless you want to get
even with him yeah i wonder if you could pull off a little like dwight gym thing where you would be
jim you know what i mean the secret service called i don't know what the equivalent of that would be
for your workplace but there might be you know that might be a thing you know you get get a little one of
those dynamics going on if he's like eccentric like that he might he might be hook line and sinker into
a well thought out
plan there.
Yeah, I don't want to talk about this anymore.
I think we got it.
All right.
This is boring.
I'm sorry.
Let's do a little Airbnb here.
6-1-175 player comp.
Jody Meeks.
He had a little taste.
Score with great range.
What was that, Surrey?
Kentucky?
Yeah, great call.
Great range.
became more of a spot-up shooter when he went up a level until fading out when they figured out he couldn't guard anyone.
Except instead of SEC to NBA, this happened to me from middle school to high school.
Yeah, basically the same.
Names changed.
The three characters that matter are myself, Mike and Jake.
We are core guys to each other.
Jake and I are single, while Mike's wife simply can't take off her teaching job for this year's fifth wedding.
We're going to a wedding in mid-November for a good friend, the type of wedding that brings a few overlapping core groups of 15 to 20 guys together should be a blast.
Important general context is that Jake is a great hang.
We always like having him in bachelor party wedding weekends.
He has never contributed to the planning of any of them.
He's the ultimate along for the ride guy, which is usually fine.
We're from New York.
The wedding is in Florida, and the wedding wing hotel is quite expensive, especially since us and most of the other guys going.
we're making a mini vacation out of it and staying Thursday to Sunday.
So it was casually discussed that the three of us would get into Airbnb, look at an Airbnb,
because that would be a better option.
Around mid-August, I texted both of them to officially get the move on looking for one.
And we found a great three-bedroom within a quarter mile of the hotel,
to which Jake explained that he wouldn't be able to commit to anything until late October,
early November.
Sounds like me.
his reasoning was that his parents have a rental unit in Fort Lauderdale and it was going to be empty the weekend of the wedding and that he even offered us to stay there as well free of charge a very nice gesture on the surface.
I realized the problem lies here. Mike and I knew 100% and we're texting on the side that he's definitely going to want to be in the mix when the weekend actually comes.
There's no way he'll come out with us to watch Thursday night football play golf Friday afternoon, then be Ubering all the way back to Fort Lauderdale.
But we booked a two-bedroom Airbnb anyway, the type in a Florida condo.
complex with a million rules and a lease agreement for three nights that requires all guests
a relationship and IDs to be included.
Now this past week, Jake has rethought his stance and wants to join the Airbnb with us that we
booked over a month ago.
Although the Airbnb says four guests, in my opinion, that applies to couples taking the two
bedrooms, not three dudes going to a wedding with one crashing on the couch.
Should I just man up and send in a special request for a third guest on Jake's behalf or
let him figure this out on his own?
I'd like to present myself to the host as a responsible adult and not be asking
can my friend come too, but maybe I'm overthinking it.
Part of this is principal and part is not wanting to make an awkward request to the host,
but maybe I'm the one overthinking it and she'll just say, yeah, it's fine.
Your thoughts.
I'm not in the multi-unit Airbnb game, so I don't know what to say on this one.
Kyle, I think I probably could guess your answer on this.
I think there's probably a little more bend than you think with Airbnb's,
but man, those booklets and stuff like that, all the bold and underlined and, you know,
some of the extra shit and like some of the stuff they will hand.
camera you on because it's really up to the, you know, the host. It's not like it's across the board.
So like it's hard to say and it's like some of these places there's like, you know, it seems like
there's cameras in the backyard. It's like, are they just watching us play this drinking game
right now? What's going on? So, but I think if you're under the capacity, I think you probably
are fine. I don't think they're like, well, only if you're sharing the same bed. You know,
I think that's probably okay. They're counting, you know, doing a head count on the cameras.
You'll still make it. I understand. I've never felt less comfortable when I'm, you know, on the
road than if I'm in an Airbnb. It does have some amenities that you can't get at a hotel,
but I've never felt like there's more eggshells around me than I'm when I'm with somebody else's
house. So I think, I think, you know, you're not having a party and you're under the head count.
I think that's enough, you know, you can make him feel bad because you knew this was going to happen,
but ultimately I'd let him crash on the couch.
I mean, the problem, so you don't want to have like a bad Airbnb review, right?
Because it kind of like screws you up for the future of this thing. I think honesty is kind of the best
policy, do you just, just, hey, hey, we had an extra friend. We like him to stay. Yeah, you're
going to be in front about this. And if they say no, then there's your excuse to your buddy.
Like, hey, like, we tried to figure it out. They said no. And, you know, you're your shit out
of luck. Like, unfortunately, it's not going to work out. And even I would even offer like, hey,
the Airbnb person, like, you know, if they say no, like maybe be flexible and be like,
hey, you know, toss in an extra whatever per night for this guy and he chips in for that.
And everybody's kind of happy. Everybody gets what they want. But like, that's kind of your
built an excuse, isn't it?
If you can just be honest, if they say no, then, hey, man, it's out of my hands.
Or if you kind of, if you want this dude to feel it'll be like, get ready to learn best
Western, buddy.
Like, I hope you can.
Yeah.
That's the other thing, too.
It's not he's going to be homeless.
Like, he's got, there's probably something he could figure out.
Yeah, it's a big enough place.
It's a big town in Florida.
And I'm not talking about where his parents, Airbnb is as well.
But I think it's probably just a hassle to be going back and forth the entire time.
I think the ultimate question is.
to the emailer and the other guy was it, Mike.
What would you rather do?
Teach him a lesson or hang out with him.
And at this stage and how close you guys are,
it sounds like you'd still rather hang out with him.
So are you punishing him and also kind of punishing yourself
because a guy that other than him just being bad at this stuff.
And look, there's, I was terrible at this stuff back in the day.
Like, hey, you know, you need to kind of like, oh, yeah, dude, no problem.
I'll get to you.
Like we have a golf trip coming up here shortly like we're playing it.
Cedar and the joke, no one will stop doing the joke. It's like, when is this again? And it's
next week. So, like, I thought this was next year. Like, didn't we already do this two years ago?
You know, are we allowed to with COVID? Does anyone have long COVID? Like, there's just the same
stuff over and over again. And luckily, we have somebody who, like, takes great pride in all that goes
into organizing something like this because most of us would still be terrible at it. And I think
our emailers here, like, you guys are young enough that if it were two wives in a spare bedroom
and this guy screws it up and you go, hey, dude, like our wives don't want you there.
Or with no spare bedroom, our wives definitely don't want you there on the couch the entire time.
Like, you got to grow up a little bit.
This is not part of it.
So I think there's probably, I think the Kyle's point, I don't know.
like our email is probably being a little strict on the entire process of like what am I doing
that's bad here you can also just say like listen if there's any fee on the back end I'll hunt you
down for that because it's you're going to be your fault. He should be kicking in anyway. He should be
kicking in because he like they haven't accused him of this but if his motivation were if I delay
it long enough then maybe I get a free place to stay. If that's why he's doing it then I would
just start hitting him with a little bit of the inconvenience tax on this going,
you're splitting it three ways, and that's without a bed.
So, right.
Yeah, there's no discounts.
Yeah, that's probably fair.
I mean, again, though, if you get dinged and get a one star, it really screws up your
future Airbnb, like, prospects then.
I think dudes would rather have the, does it?
I think dudes would rather have the fee at the end.
Like, I think that's what would have happened first.
So there's like, oh, look, this is a rule.
That's going to be a $200 thing.
You know, I think people, the host would rather do that, squeeze a little more out of the orange there than give you a one star, you know.
That's right.
You can negotiate that.
Be like, hey, you just take away the rating and I'll give you whatever.
And that's on your buddy, hopefully.
Yeah.
Five weddings.
That's fucking crazy.
You haven't skipped any of them?
Wow.
Well, when you're young and single, I mean, that's probably.
Yeah, I guess single, but I just never did that.
God, I'm so sick of the Caitlin Clark question.
by the way my buddy
I need to clarify
my buddy not 6-2
6 foot
and I think he was a little on the heavier side
did maybe play like middle school hoops
Are you talking about me right now?
There was just some confusion in the group chat
people being like hey
this guy's not 6-2
like all right my bad seems tall
all right
here we go
510
155, former college cross player. I have a home gym, so no impressive gym stats to report,
but I have taken 1,300 Peloton strength classes, 300 plus run classes, 250 bike classes,
guys getting our movements in. Play lacrosse and hockey growing up. So my pickup basketball
comp would be the kid at the end of the bench on a college basketball team. Since 2020,
I've spent $5.88 at one fast food restaurant. They've gotten roughly $915 worth of free food.
food.
Hmm.
Here's the story.
I got a breakfast sandwich from this restaurant 2020.
After that I downloaded the app and they had promos where I felt like I was getting more free
stuff than I normally would.
Then I took it up a level.
I started leaving compliments or complaints on basically every item I ordered and found that they
would often reload my account with new free food.
I eventually figured out that certain types of feedback seemed to work better than others.
So I started leaning into that.
This is like Adam Sandler with the pudding lids.
continued for years. I've now racked up roughly 200 free items worth more than $900. I've kept a
meticulous spreadsheet tracking every free item and its value. When I get a reward with multiple
options, I will often pick up the most expensive item available because at this point I want to
extract as much free value as possible. The moral dilemma is that I disagree with the company's
corporate views toward a certain group of people, but I can also easily afford to pay for the food.
I'm doing this because I need the savings. In fact, I'm going to eat there anyway. I'm probably
the exact type of person who's just paid for the food. At the same time, I genuinely enjoy beating
their system. I'm a rule follower in basically every other aspect of life. So there's something
about finding this little loophole that I enjoy, that I really enjoy. The food is also delicious.
As I approach $1,000 in free food, I'm contemplating whether I want to continue doing this forever.
So my question is, should I stop once I hit 1,000 of free food and call it even? Do I keep going
indefinitely? At one point, does getting free food from a company whose values I disagree with become
hypocritical. It's good to have a goal, you know. I think it's good to have a something you're
working towards a thousand. I mean, what is the cost here? Like, how much do you think about it?
I know it's kind of funny to ham it up in the email, but it sounds like it might be actually creeping
into his head. What was that other email we had of the guy that was steaming? Remember? It's going to
bother me now. It was very similar. The tuna guy, spicy tuna, just walking around with it. He was stealing food,
that guy? No. No, that was a guy that used to like get, he used to get little wind.
on things.
Oh, yeah.
And he was like,
it's like bothering my friends.
And I'm caught,
you know,
he's,
he's everything's down to like chips per ounce or, you know,
or like,
you know,
pennies per ounce of everything.
And we,
well,
anyway,
the moral story was like,
we were like,
dude,
don't tell anyone that.
I would just,
I would say the same thing here.
Like,
if you want it,
this seems like a victim was crime.
You want to keep doing this.
Like,
all right.
I,
like,
cool.
Um,
just,
you know,
don't let it like,
don't get too much into a rabbit hole.
it's like your entire personality.
It kind of feels like it's leaning that way.
He's making spreadsheets, man.
Well, maybe some people are just like that.
Sometimes you just don't have got enough control of your life
and it's good to control something, you know?
So if that's where you are and that's your outlet,
I think that's harmless.
This is where a kid fixes a lot of problems.
You know, like, oh, I never knew you wanted to have kids.
But like, well, I'd be honest, you, I didn't really want any,
but, God, you know, there's a lot of stuff I don't care about anymore.
It's a huge relief.
Hopefully I do a good job, but
I just would keep this one to yourself.
And by the way, if you don't align
with their corporate values or whatever their values are,
I feel like I can kind of guess what this is.
If you don't like what the company's about,
isn't this the ultimate win for you to be able to do this?
Yeah.
You've figured this thing out.
And you only got six days a week to do it.
Sounds like.
Yeah.
I got to guess, though, like,
how good is the food here if you're just leaving a comment?
And it's like, all right, here's a petite filet.
I don't think that's happened.
How if they not figure it out yet, too?
Like, that's kind of insane.
Also, is it healthy?
There's no way this is healthy.
So do you want to keep eating this food all the time?
There's ways to make it healthy, I think.
Dude, one day you're going to have, you're going to make more money than you are right now.
And this will matter less and less.
But if you're, if you're, you know, in a certain category, I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know,
I don't know. Some guys are just about the action.
Yeah. Some guys never lose it, but other guys will.
Habits are weird, man. Habits can be very, because then when you break a bad habit,
you'll be like, I can't believe that's what I did, you know?
So maybe he'll have that clarity one day, but it doesn't sound like it's coming anytime soon.
And we didn't tell you to stop necessarily either here. So, but yeah, maybe get on the
dating out. Give some of the food away. Then you could like Robin Hood, this whole thing.
Build a family. Maybe find some interests, some other things you're passionate about.
I love to fly fish. Yeah. Look at some rods and some nice entry level stuff from Orvis available now.
That'll do it for the show. Thanks to Tom, Kevin, Kyle, and Surrudi. All of our episodes available on Netflix.
Ryan Rusillo, that's me. This is my show. Barstrel Sports.
