CFB With Kirk Herbstreit, Actor Paul Walter Hauser, The Bears Are A Dumpster Fire, Hot Seat/Cool Throne And Listener FAQ’s
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On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have our good friend Kirk Herbstreet on the show to talk college football playoffs. We also have incredible actor Paul Walter Hauser on the show. Big fan of his. PFT is a big fan of his. We're going to talk everything with him. We have Hotsy Cool Throne. We're going to talk Monday Night Football, unfortunately. We're going to do FAQs, some great FAQs from the listeners today.

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Okay, let's go. A.W.N. Yeah, I admire my taste.

Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. The fun of the NBA season continues with the simplest way to play for a shot to win big. Pick six from DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app. Now use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to play $5, get $50 in Pick 6 credits. Happy holidays from DraftKings Pick 6. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, December 18th.

And I don't even know what to say. I'm sorry that you're going through this. And I'm sorry that really what I'm sorry that we're all going through together is. Wait, are you talking about the Bears? Yeah, I'm talking about the Bears. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry that they keep putting the fucking Bears on national television. Yeah. They've beaten it all out of me. Let me start with this.

I could not have been more wrong with everything I said this summer. I've said it. I've copped to that many times, but let me just do it one more time just so that people hear it again. I could not have been more wrong. I got so excited. I got so hyped that things were going to change. Nothing is going to change with this organization. It will always be this way. They will always be based on

Bad fundamentals and hoping to get lucky from time to time and nothing done the right way. And I'm now officially worried that, like, Cale Williams might be like, I need to be traded because I still have hope for Cale Williams. He has looked bad. He did not look good on Monday night. But everything is broken. The offensive line is so much worse than I expected.

The defense without Iberflues is now, which is a very funny, like, twist, you know, knife twist, that the defense was being held together by Iberflues. Should Matt Iberflues be coach of the year? Maybe. I don't know how they ever won four games.

This was supposed to be year three of a rebuild that was going to do things the right way and change the course of this organization. It is nowhere close to that. It is closer to year one of the rebuild than it is year three. We've gone completely backwards. I don't know...

There's nothing. There's no path forward because the owners are going to be the owners. George McCaskey sitting there staring, thinking in his head like, oh, my mommy's going to be so mad at me when I get home. She's going to say she's so angry that

These owners do not care about winning football games. They do not care about running an organization the correct way. They are a joke. They have all but ruined their golden goose because I think I speak for a lot of the fans where it's like this is just time and time again we get to this point of the season where we're on a nationally televised stage and the team is an embarrassment, an absolute embarrassment.

top to bottom embarrassment. And I don't know how much more I can take it. I don't know how much more a lot of people can take it. Uh, and nothing's going to change because now they're stuck with a spot where they need a coach. Um,

they have a GM who I like personally. I like Ryan Poles personally. I've made that clear. I don't think he's good for the job anymore, not only because the team has gone backwards, but it feels like he has no power, and also he was probably the person who hired Matt Iberflues and kept him around, and that is an egregious, egregious miscalculation, especially the keeping him with Caleb Williams. Ryan Poles should go, and then...

With Ryan Poles gone, Kevin Warren is now in charge and he's a fucking doofus. So I don't really know what to do. We should start fresh. They should fire Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren and start completely fresh. They won't do that. They'll either keep Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren, fire Ryan Poles, keep Kevin Warren, and it's just going to be a mess. And nothing's ever going to change. And I told Max and memes this earlier. I'm officially retiring.

from ever getting to a 10 out of 10 excitement for the Chicago Bears until something changes. What changes? Ownership, probably. Anything could change. We were talking about it. This summer, I was a 10 out of 10 excited.

I will not let myself get a 10 out of 10 excited. That doesn't mean I'm not going to root really hard for them and want them to do well. I'm not going to let myself get 10 out of 10 excited ever again until it's proven on the field that something has changed. So like Max said, what if you hire Vrabel? My response would be, that's good. What about Ben Johnson?

That seems good. You hire Mike Vrabel to coach the defense and Ben Johnson to coach the offense. For the Bears? For the Bears. Oh, that's pretty good. See, I just went to pretty. What if you start 7-0 next year? We'll see. It probably won't last. Lovey's last year, I think we started 7-0 or 8-1. What if you start 5-2 this year? Nope. Pretty good. They almost did start 5-2 this year. Yeah, I know. That was mean. No, I know what he was doing. I know what he was doing. What if you got a new stadium done?

It's perfect. I mean, Kevin Warren's not going to do shit. Guy's a fucking doofus. What if... And Ryan Poles is not... I mean, this roster is so bad. I thought they were so much better. I was blinded. I'm stupid. I'm a moron. I was wrong. Weapons, but no offensive line. Defensive line's bad. Coach sucked. Caleb's a rookie quarterback. He's been up and down. Even the littlest thing of firing Matt Iberflues, which I wanted.

And you had three games in a row where you had fired Shane Waldron. Thomas Brown had went upstairs to be OC. Caleb had looked good in those three games. It was the Packers, the Vikings, and the Lions game. So it was obviously hit or miss. The first half of the Lions game, not great. But he had moments where it looked like ball getting out faster. Everything's kind of looking a little bit better. Then they put...

Thomas Brown on the sideline. I don't know if that matters, but it feels like you had one thing that was going a little bit well, a little bit well, not even good, a little bit well, and you changed it. Okay. What if you hire Ben Johnson, Mike Vrabel, Jameis Winston backup quarterback? Oh, that's nice. If you score in the first half. Oh, wow.

That won't stay. You trade for Kyle Shanahan. We haven't scored in the first half in fucking years. What if the Bears said, we heard a real smart idea out there from our friend Big Cat via Troy Aikman, via Mike Florio, and we traded for Kyle Shanahan. He's now our head coach, and he's bringing Trent Williams.

Whatever. It's fine. We'll see how it happens. This is bad. This is sad. I've never seen you down. No, because I the biggest mistake I made was getting excited when nothing is changed structurally foundationally. Essentially, the the the the foundation of the house has been decaying and rotting for a very, very long time. And it's been going especially fast since George McCaskey took over the team.

And what happened this summer is the rotting house with termites, they got a new paint job. And I was like, holy fuck, this house looks incredible. This is going to be the greatest house ever. I can't wait to live in it. And then I got in it and the floor started falling and I fell through the floor and I was like, this sucks. It's the same as it always was. And you fell into the termite now. Yeah, I'm now... I've been hurt enough where it's just like...

Dude, just realize that unless there's sustained change and sustained progress on the field, if they put together multiple winning seasons in a row under this ownership, then maybe I'll be like, oh, something's different. But even one year of winning in a row or one year of winning under this ownership probably won't last because they'll fuck it up. So you're not even excited with one winning season? No, because they'll fuck it up long term. That's what they do.

It is broken from top to bottom. We got embarrassed. I mean, fucking Doug Kramer again. How do we do that again? Yeah, not being told to report is eligible. You're in the backfield, dude. Yeah, you get put your job. Here's your job.

You stay on the sidelines, and then they tell you occasionally on a goal line, sprint onto the field because you're going to play offensive line here, or you're going to play fullback here. To not go up to the ref and report, that seems ridiculous. Jalen Johnson, who is one of the last guys who cares and is really good on this roster, they forgot to put the C on his chest on Monday Night Football. He's like, oh yeah, that was just an error. An oversight? Yeah.

The only guy who deserves to be captain, you took his captainship away accidentally. They're just, they're an organization. They're a non-serious organization that has no attention to detail. Like it just doesn't run the way an organization should. Listen, I hope they get a good head coach. I will be rooting for them to get a good head coach. I'm just not going to let myself get 10 out of 10 excited until something major changes.

And I'll get six out of 10. You'll say, it's not like I'm changing how I'm rooting. It's just changing how I'm thinking optimistically about the future. I will never let myself get optimistic about the future in a way that I got this past summer. Yeah, the problem with shitty owners is that they're very good at instilling hope in people.

And they do that in a variety of ways. They usually get people that are very excited to step into different jobs, whether that's head coach or in the front office, team president, GM, whatever it is. You get excited about those people in the short term because they seem different. They seem like they know what they're doing. They seem like they have it all put together. But at the end of the day, you feel bad for those people that take those jobs because

Because they realize what you've always known, which is this is an impossible job to succeed at. Yeah. It's impossible. You can go into it with the best plans that you have, but at the end of the day, there's going to be something over your head that's fucking you up the entire time. Until that thing is gone, then those good hires that you make. I still think Ryan Poles was a good hire to make. I think there are a lot of teams that would probably like to have Ryan Poles working for them. I don't know if he'll get a GM gig next if he does leave the Bears, but he'll be back in the front office, work his way back up.

But he was a qualified candidate. He was a good candidate. And guys like those, they will continue to be hired by the Bears at times and then continue to not be able to do their job, not be allowed to do their job. I mean, he also, I mean, he had three-year rebuild and we're nowhere close to a rebuild.

Your offensive line was so bad last night. So bad. So bad. And Caleb's been bad. I'm not going to say, oh, my God, everyone's fault. Well, they are faulting Caleb as an organization. But Caleb, I think he's – I'm worried that this has now gotten in his head because he's getting sacked so many times. He's scared to throw – like that one where Roman Dunzay was open in the middle of the field, that was just Justin Fields, Mitch Trubisky flashbacks. Where it's like this is happening again. Caleb needs to get his groove back.

Here's advanced statistics for you here. Manalytics. Caleb Williams with painted fingernails, four and three. Without painted fingernails, oh and seven. Yeah, he needs to paint his fingernails again. He lost his mojo. It's like when you see the killer whale in captivity and their fin is drooped over. Yeah. It just all sucks. I don't know what else to say. It all sucks.

I'm not going to stop rooting as hard as I root. I'm just going to stop letting my hopes ever get up again. That's the difference. That's where the change is. And a lie. Why? Because, I mean, we'll revisit this in, I don't know, August or whenever they hire a new coach. And then, you know, there's some good reports out of camp. So when I say pretty good, we'll see. Will you be upset if I say we'll see? No, not at all. Okay.

I mean, it will be boring, but I think I have to do that. I have to do that for my own mental health. I have to say, we'll see. We will be revisiting this clip. That's a promise. This is post-loss clarity that he has. Correct. But this has also been like, it's just years and years of this bullshit. And it's like, that game on Monday Night Football was a game I've seen a million times. It's flashbacks to just...

Like, you know, the end of the Trestman era when they were on a Monday Night Football game and they were just ripping everyone. And then I went to this game. I was telling Eddie and those guys were at the game and they asked me if I wanted to go and I was like, no. I've been to that game. I went to Mitch Trubisky, John Fox's last game as a Bears head coach when Mitch Trubisky was a rookie and we got killed by the Vikings. I was at the game in Minnesota. Like, this game happens every year. So, I just...

It's over. Vikings are great. Vikings keep rolling. Vikings are... Kevin O'Connell is just... He's coach of the year, in my opinion. He's... I mean, think about what he's done. He...

Kirk Cousins, fine quarterback. We all think he made Kirk Cousins. They win 11 games that year. Last year, obviously, things fell apart. He kind of tread water with Josh Dobbs. This year, Sam Darnold, who's been thrown to the trash pile a few different times, he's made him playing at elite level. This is why, in a weird way, I know that we talked about the Sam Darnold situation last week. What do you do with Sam Darnold?

I don't think they can make a mistake because they have Kevin O'Connell. Yeah. Like JJ McCarthy would be fine because Kevin O'Connell is the coach. Yeah. But I still think you got to keep Sam. I think you have to keep Sam. How much better could Sam Donald be playing right now? Then, then he already is like how, how much better it's money. But let's just say he keeps playing like that. Yeah. He's worth that money. Right. But the,

the, the argument, the counter argument is JJ McCarthy's getting paid a million dollars a year because he was, he's a rookie. Right. And you could beef up everything else and all the other holes. And,

and that's how you win a Super Bowl. But listen, I just think... I mean, as good as he looked in the preseason, to expect that he would be able to step in and play at the same level Sam's playing at next year. Like, he might be very good. We don't know. But Sam has played to the peak of his ability this year with one or two exceptions. Yeah, it's just a rookie contract deal that you're trying to win on that window. I wouldn't take that chance. I think Kevin O'Connell's just so good that it doesn't matter. And yes, Kevin O'Connell and the Vikings GM were hired in the exact same cycle as Ryan Poles and Metti.

He is a very good coach. Like a week after. Like the Bears made the first move. You're a guy who doesn't know NFL details. Now you do? It's context. I'm just providing context. Memes was just saying that exact stat back here. Can you read it off, Memes? It wasn't a week after. The Bears hired... Yeah, it was both things happened. Bears did the first move. Then the Vikings counter move was...

A better GM and a better head coach. Oh, Cody Bellinger got traded to the Yankees. Breaking Moose. What did he get traded for? Probably nothing because they want to get rid of his cash. I don't see details on there. Do we click it again? Let's see. Full trade. Cash. I was right about that. Go to cash. The New York Yankees right hand reliever. Cody Poteet goes to the Cubs. Yep. Cash. There you go. Poteet. Okay. So cash. Cash.

I have the tweet. Cash. Okay. Go ahead, memes. A timeline. January 25th, 2022. The most animated memes has ever been. I mean, I can't get mad because I, listen, I make fun of other teams. Memes, you deserve this. A timeline. A timeline. January 25th, 2022. Bears hire Ryan Poles. January 26th, 2022. Vikings hire Kwisai Adafi Mensah. Probably fucked that up.

January 27th, 2022, Bears hire Matt Eberflus. January 16th, 2022, Vikings hire Kevin O'Connell. Do you know what's probably going to happen if I had to guess? Is that we're going to do the head coaching interviews for

and they're going to be like, hey, are you comfortable with Ryan Poles? And the person's going to lie and be like, because they want the job. They're going to be like, yeah, that's fine, and then we're going to fire Ryan Poles next year. And then so that way everything's – then the coach has to hire the new GM. And then the new GM comes in.

and has to fire the new coach after like a year. Yeah. Because the new coach isn't his guy. We knew we were careening into a... The timeline is fucked up last year, and we didn't change it, and we're doing it again this year where it's like you can just change everything, the GM and coach, and they won't do it. And again, I like Ryan Poles a lot as a guy. I just think that this has gotten so far away from him, and this roster has gotten so far away from him where I... There's some mistakes that just happen, but there's... I mean, you just...

You can't have ever thought, like in retrospect, this offensive line was ever competitive. Yeah, if you had to put your finger on it, what's the biggest problem? Big Cat is the GM. What if you're the GM? 10 out of 10? Yeah. So you'd be back? No. Oh, if I'm the GM? Yeah. If I'm the GM, I try to woo Virginia McCaskey. Like sleep with her? Yep. Okay. Then we have a child. Okay. Okay.

I don't think she can do that anymore. Okay. So then we adopt a child and yes. Okay. So Virginia McCaskey and I get married. Sorry to my wife and kids. I'm going to have to get divorced for the better of the bears for the city, for the city. So Virginia McCaskey and I, we get married, beautiful marriage, wonderful marriage. And then I say to Virginia, Hey, Jenny, that's what I call her. Hey, Jenny, I'm thinking about adopting.

And she says, okay, we should adopt. And then we adopt Theo Epstein. And he saves the bears. I like that. You like that? Yeah. Or you could adopt, like, seven homeless pit bulls and just lock her in a room with them. Listen, very nice lady. Is she? Sure. She doesn't let people. She's 101. I don't know if she could do anything mean. Yeah, old people didn't do anything bad. Yeah, that's true. Here's the thing. She is a quiet lady.

I don't even know if she talks. She doesn't let people wear Bears jerseys or uniforms or logos or merchandise in her box. I think she might have the worst box in the NFL. It's an all-time fumble of a bag. Like, you fumbled the organization that Papa Bear bought for a bushel of blueberries in a five-cent piece. Yep. And now we're here, so...

Whatever. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm just no more. Six out of ten. Six out of ten is as high as I'll go in the excitement meter. Since I'm being tagged in it, I will respond to a question out there. Oh, great. A friend of the program, Ryan Fitzpatrick, he was on X.com, the everything app. It's all happening on X. I saw that. I saw this. Did you see that? It said, name something worse than being a Bears fan. And his response was...

being friends with a Bears fan and having to listen to them complain about the Bears. I want to say that's not worse than being a Bears fan. Yeah. Also, like, I can confirm that it's not worse. My complaints are why a lot of people listen to the show. The sickos and perverts are loving the complaints right now. Hank is having the best time ever. Hank, can you please remind PFT what happened, that they basically lost to the Bears? They did. I mean, that's... Huh? The commies are good. They're in the playoffs. Wait, what? What?

I mean, you're tall. You love to do this, like, I'm bigger than you. You basically lost to this team. I'm not doing I'm bigger than him. This has nothing to do with the Commanders. This has nothing to do with the Commanders. And no one wants... He went through the whole new ownership phase. Yeah, because guess what? I fucking lived it for 20 years. Yeah, now look at him. He's in the playoffs. No, no. It is true. When you...

I experienced it directly that you have a fucked up owner that no matter what happens, they fuck everything else up. It's true. That's not me being bigger than.

That's me just saying something that's the truth. Max, what was that about you asking Hank to ask me? Well, Hank has been one to say that the commanders basically lost to the Bears. But why didn't you just say that to me? We're talking Bears, though. We're not talking commanders. We're not talking about the commanders. And I've said multiple times over and over and over again on the record, no one wants the Bears to be more successful than me. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I also don't hold any resentment towards Jaden Daniels, Drake May, Bo Nix, Michael Penix, JJ McCarthy, because I really do firmly believe that no matter what the draft order went, it would have ended exactly here. It would have ended exactly here. You could have given us Drake May. You could have given us Jaden Daniels. You could have given us Bo Nix. We would have been doing this exact same conversation because that's what the Bears do. That's what they do.

This is the third time in fucking seven years. It's insane. It's crazy. Six years.

It's crazy. Is it okay if I agree with that, Max, or would that be being bigger than Big Cat? No, you can agree. You can agree. It's Eagles Commanders Week. I'm on Commander's Alert. Okay. Respect. I'm on Commander's Alert. Respect. All right, so the Vikings are great. Also, the good news is for Falcons fans, I feel like the A team was on the Bears-Vikings and no one watched one of the most horrific games ever played.

That game was so bad. I didn't want to watch either game. Both games were awful. But the Vikings and Falcons game was like, there was two block punts. There was penalties everywhere. Kirk Cousins looked so bad. Desmond Ritter almost had a chance to win the game at the end. Yeah, he had a drive where he could have got it done. There was an egregious roughing the passer call. Yep. That was a horrific, horrific game played. So, yeah. Bad Monday Night Football. Mm-hmm.

Bad, bad Monday Night Football. Vikings are really good, though. Vikings are playing for the one seed. But again, watching bad football, it's a deposit into the bank. And you always get rewarded. We did that last Thursday. What did we get? We got Bills-Lions on Sunday. It was a great game. Could have been better. It was a great game. Yeah. I mean, it was never really in doubt. It was a great game, though. It was a great game. It was a fun game. Did you guys agree? I mean, I feel like I've stayed consistent. I didn't like the Vikings uniforms.

I've been consistent. I said it with the Packers. I'll just say it. The fucking... The NFC North and the AFC North... I'll actually say the NFC East as well. I'll throw them in there. Trying to think what other divisions. Maybe the AFC East...

Those divisions shouldn't do weird uniforms. I mean, the Bills are just wearing Patriots jerseys this weekend. Yeah, they're wearing the white helmets, the red jerseys. Be original. Why did that game get flexed into primetime? I don't fucking know. It is? It's 4 o'clock, and then next week we're playing on Saturday. Oh, okay.

I just don't think traditional teams should do any types. Like the purple helmets, if it was the white jerseys and the purple helmets, I'd be fine. Purple helmets are iconic. Yeah, I agree with you. Listen, it was a weird look tuning into it.

It was just bad football last night. It's okay. We can turn the page on bad football. Bad presentation. Everything was just rotten. Kirk Cousins, after the game was over, though, they were talking to him on the sidelines. They were like, how do you feel about this? He's like, oh, it's hard to win this league. Yada, yada, yada. And they said, how do you feel about your play, Kirk? And it looked like he was going to cry. I thought Kirk Cousins was going to cry because he was like, clearly I'm not playing up to my standard. I think they might make a change.

I think so too. It might be Pennix time. Yeah. I mean, why not? Yeah. You're on the outside looking in, and the Bucs have a pretty easy schedule coming up where I think they finish with the Saints and the Panthers, and they play the Cowboys on Sunday night. I think the Bucs – like if the Bucs win out, they obviously win the division. They're up a game. Yeah. So –

Maybe you wait one more week and see if you're two games out, and then you're like, all right, let's try it with Michael Penix. But I agree. Time for the future. There's something wrong with Kirk. I don't know what it is. Maybe he just got old. He's looked bad. He's looked bad. But then we laughed at the Falcons on draft night. It might have been a good move. Yeah, might have been a good move. He's going to be better than Cale Williams. Everyone is. And then Cale Williams, I think, actually will go somewhere else and be awesome.

I still believe in him. I'm never going to stop believing in him. Max, can we get an update on your foot? It was a good update. Went to the foot doctor. I'm in a walking boot. I still can't walk without crutches. But my doctor said eventually, within the next couple weeks, I will be able to just use the walking boot, which is big. Okay. Nice. And no surgery? He said...

You're not an athlete? Very, very minimal chance that I need surgery. Did you tell him that you were an athlete? I would think like less than 1%. I did not tell him I was an athlete. How long until you get out of your boot? I think he could tell. How long until you get out of your boot? I get reevaluated in a month. And did he say you could possibly be out then? Yeah, possibly. Oh, that's huge. Possibly. You need to get out of that boot for Super Bowl.

So then you can re-break it on Bourbon Street. Don't. That was so fucked up. Right before the Eagles Super Bowl. I mean, that was so fucked up that you just said that. Have you given your walking boot a voice? I've not. Does it sound like, hey, Max, put your stinky little toes inside me. Hey, it's-a me, Max. Hey, Max, you're going to get so fat. Oh, Italy is a boot. Yeah.

You got the entire country of Italy on your foot right now. Hey, Max, why don't you get a couple of meatballs? Put some meatballs in your sake. Warm up your toesies with some meatballs and some sauce. Yep, walking boot. Yeah, you got to get out of it before a Super Bowl. What?

Because it will suck to be in New Orleans in a boot. Is that specifically because you think I'm going to break it again? No. I want you to be out of the boot for the Super Bowl. I want to see you walking up those stadium steps bootless. Yeah. Feeling good in the pants. We've got a lot of football. I don't want you to have to cut your pants. Vikings are good. Vikings are very good. It's going to be tough to climb up a greased up light pole with a walking boot on, Max. Yeah. Vikings are really good.

I do have one of my pant legs cut right now. It looks good. Yeah. People are Irish. Max, you want to say anything about Nick Sirianni getting outfitted by the D-line coach?

No, that's just like the culture and that all the coaches feel comfortable enough to go up and have that conversation with Nick Sirianni. Leader of men. The way that he coaches his guys is that you can do that and then you can go back the next day and everything's all right because it's like brothers. It's like when brothers fight, but it's at the end of the day we're brothers and brothers.

common goal of championships. You see that all the time in Lions games. Yep. All the assistant coaches going up to Dan Campbell looking like they're going to strangle him, being like, you better get the fuck away from Dan. Right, because of all the Super Bowls that Dan Campbell and the Lions have won. Oh, okay. By the way, Dan Campbell, I did love his speech. Oh, it was so good. I mean, the Lions...

We have David Montgomery now out for the year, which is crazy. Like, we knew the defensive injuries, and they just added David Montgomery on that. I think he'll be back for the playoffs, though, correct? I don't know. I don't think so. I think he has a torn PCL. That could have been me reading Pro Football Doc. I think they're getting some of their linebackers back, maybe. But it's a bad scene. But Dan Campbell went on a radio show, and he pumped everyone up. I don't know if you can find the clip. But listen, the Lions are...

There have been teams that have gotten this many injuries. The Lions have a significant amount of injuries. I have the stat. I don't want to be... I see the constant tug and pull of Lions fans being like, but our injuries, and everyone's like, well, you're the first team to ever get injured. Give Lions fans a little bit of...

Give them a little leeway because they do have an insane amount of injuries. I'm going to think of them the same way I thought of the Ravens from like two seasons ago. Yeah. Remember that when they got so banged up that even their mascot tore his ACL? Yeah. That was a bad season. And you can remember that Ravens team for being good, very good, but also, yeah, but injuries. Yeah. So the eight Lions that are on IR on the defense rank among the top 40 defenders in the league.

in total EPA. No other team has more than two in the top 40, and 52% of Detroit's defensive starters or direct backups are on IR. That's a lot. Hearing Dan Campbell talk about it, though, it did make me buy back into the Lions. Yeah, of course. He was like, you know what? We got by on eating moldy bread for a long-ass time. Now we're used to filet mignon. Guess what? That moldy bread was good for us. We got through it.

I think he said, we got new guys. We're going to cut them loose. Yeah. So they're going to cut them loose. If we give up 700 yards and win by one, you'll see me smiling ear to ear. Yeah. He's the one you'd want to go to in battle with, with this type of stuff. I have another question for Max. Max, do you think that Jalen Hurts has pretty privilege? I saw that. You see the discourse? Yes. Dominique Foxworth said that Jalen Hurts has pretty privilege. There's also another clip of he's interviewing, I don't know if it's his wife or his daughter or something.

He's interviewing another woman and they're talking about how beautiful Jalen Hurts is. And he's upset by the woman talking about how beautiful Jalen Hurts is. Yeah, it's like hot chicks hate when guys are like, oh my god, you're so hot. I didn't think this was going to get brought up, but I wish I got more information on that follow-up. Because it did make me laugh. Because it made it seem like he just hates Jalen Hurts because...

Someone in his life thinks that he's hot. Got it. The clip you saw was Foxworth interviewing somebody in his family. This could be an egregious count of fake news. It's like David Tepper and his wife going out to dinner with C.J. Stroud. She loves C.J. Stroud, so he's like, I'm going to draft Bryce Young. Kind of. Kind of like that. Or it could have just been a random person that he was interviewing. Did your mic just go out? No. I did that by accident. But yeah, this is it.

Yeah, it's his wife. He's mad that his wife is thirsting for... Can I play the clip? Yeah, yeah, play the clip. This is the pretty purple... Fumble? Or... Whose tits was being pushed? Jalen's only tits that could... Oh, I wish it were me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yes, yes. That's very cool. All right, so when Foxworth brings that up, there's some beef there. Yes, yes, that's what I... That's the information that I gathered, so I didn't take it too seriously. Do you think that Jalen Hurts is pretty?

Yeah, he's handsome as hell. I said pretty. I didn't say handsome. Pretty privilege. Yeah, no, he's handsome, pretty, all the above. I wish he acknowledged his privilege sometimes. We don't all get the same treatment that he gets. That's true. Listen, hot quarterbacks like Josh Allen and Big Ben, they get treated differently. You'd think the media would be nicer to Jake Hayner. He should have pretty privilege. Yeah, memes just AI'd me so much. Memes is on an AI binge right now. You said Jake Hayner just reminded me.

He's on a generational run of AI. He really is. And also, Max, remember like maybe six months after you started on the show, you made the remark that memes is obsessed with me. Memes is obsessed with you. Yeah. You're right. That's a fact. I looked at the light again. All right.

We have the best booth in the biz, guys. We do. We do. We absolutely do. Should we kick it to ourselves? I got to process this Cody Bellinger. I feel like if they did the money for more Kyle Tucker money, then it makes sense. Otherwise, the Cubs are just cheap. So wait, did the money go to the Yankees? No, the Yankees are paying the Cubs. Is that what it was? Yeah, the Yankees traded cash.

I've also seen a couple tweets now that said I would like to buy Cody Petit stock. Oh, okay. Great. Let's go. That could be good for you. Cubs are back. That's all I really need to see. I think the Cubs are going to go with just like hopefully Kyle Tucker hits 45 home runs, Suzuki hits like 30, and we win every game 2-0. It says Cody Bellinger and Cash go to the New York Yankees. Oh, we're paying? So you're paying the Yankees. Oh, shit. Five million. That's what I...

Oh, but we're getting out of $20 million. Correct. You're saving money on the long term. You're only giving five. Yeah, yeah. Good investment. Yeah. That's according to Bob Nightingale. Cheap. Cheap. Fucking cheap. Which is, you know. Yeah, who knows? Okay, let's kick it to ourselves. We got Hot Seat, Cool Throne, and then we got great two interviews coming up. We have Kirk Herbstreet and Paul Walter Hauser.

Okay, hot seat, cool throne, holiday party fails can turn into a great story that ends with a toast over Coors Light. Getting snowed in can turn into the ultimate movie marathon. It doesn't matter if the holidays don't go as planned. When you choose chill and then reach for a Coors Light, when you embrace a chill mindset this holiday, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors Light. Coors Light is mountain cold refreshment, crisp and refreshing as the Rockies chill.

Choose chill this holiday season and then reach for Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door. Visit CoorsLight.com slash take or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. Henry, Coors Light.

Love Coors Light. Holiday season. Yeah. It's holiday parties, ugly sweaters. I've got a Coors Light that's out on my deck, and I use it to monitor the temperature, depending how blue the mountains are. I love that. Last week, the bluest mountain I've ever seen in my life. It was like an Eve's Klein blue. It was perfect. Yeah. So celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. Hank, hot seats, cool throne. My hot seat is...

Chris Hansen in NFL Red Zone. Not Chris Hansen. Scott Hansen. Yeah. Chris Hansen, the... Why don't you take a seat? Yeah, why don't you take a seat over there? Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Sorry, Scott. They called it the PredZone. Mm-hmm. Did he get... Now, Chris Hansen. Scott Hansen got railroaded. No, but Chris... By me and by his company. Let's stay on Chris Hansen for a second. Chris Hansen, I forgot. He got it reversed. He wasn't a pedophile, but he got it reversed on him that...

caught him cheating on his wife and did the you want to take a seat over there? Oh, they caught him. I'm pretty sure that that was I remember the guy from cheaters. Was that Joey Greco that got stabbed on the boat? Yeah, which might have been fake. I believe it's real. I believe it's real. Yeah. So Chris Hansen, I believe was caught having an affair with a colleague 20 years junior by a hidden camera and fired from NBC for it.

He was caught in his own videotape sting. Yeah. That's so funny. Wait, it was his own videotape sting? It was like his show? He forgot the video? The married NBC anchor was secretly filmed on a date with a blonde television reporter who has reportedly been dating for the past four months. Wow. I want to get ahead of something. We had cameras set up in the studio on Sunday because Hank's doing the part of my take documentary. And there was like a camera that was in here while I was working on Boomers. And this was probably like, I don't know, 6 p.m.?

I forgot that the camera was there and that was on, and I farted real loud like nine times. Who cares? Like nine times. Dude, who cares? By the way, Shane is on the sticks right now because Max is getting his... We already heard the update from Max, but Shane doesn't know how to work the volume. That was why the volume just turned on there. Shane? I clicked on the video to try to pull it up and instantly just started playing. Wait, we're going a bunch of different sidetracks, but I want to stay on this real quick. Is...

Is there a reason Pug is not sitting where Shane is? He's working. Pug's working. There's a documentary coming out. Memes, you're not still mad at Pug? No, we're good. Okay. PFT, you know what I'm going to do for 2025? I

And I think this is... I don't give a fuck anymore, okay? Love that. Like, farts. I caught my... Someone was like, you picked your nose on a stream the other day. I was like, dude, I pick my nose every fucking day. I picked my nose also when I was sitting at this desk. And I think after five minutes, I looked at the camera. I was like, the camera probably just caught me picking my nose. Deal with it. Don't care. This is disgusting. But talking about farts, like, do you...

Like when you have smelly farts and you're in the comfort of your own home. I like it. Oh, yeah. You like to just like fishbowl under the covers. It sounds good. We go in real comfort of our own homes. Yeah. Because I enjoy it. I'm like in the smellier. If I'm by myself, the smellier, the better. This one's disgusting. I get excited. This is disgusting, but I do this. I'm wondering if any of you guys do this. Because I agree. You have to smell your own farts. When you're in your car and you got a good one.

And he put on the heated seats to warm up the fart. Yeah. To really cook it extra. You get it simmering a little bit? Yeah. Give it a little extra juice. I've never done that. That's the gross shit. I might start doing that. What I do sometimes is I'll turn the heater off when I fart. That way it doesn't blow the smell away. Yeah, right. So I can just linger in it. This is also fucked up, but I was thinking about this. In New York, if I had farts on the train, I would just let them loose. That is fucked up. And then...

I would be like, because obviously no one's going to, like, accuse random people on the subway, but I would always act like I smelt it, too. I'd be like, oh, who the fuck? Yeah, right. Disgusting. Gross, man. Basically, like, you know, getting the scent off yourself. Because if someone else looks around in disgust, then you're also like, yeah, this is, who the fuck? Yeah. That's the worst behavior ever on a subway, Hank. Yeah. Yeah, it's bad on a subway. You don't fart on a subway. Elevators. Elevators.

But yeah, Hank, you got to smell your own farts. All right, so... Scott Hanson, Red Zone. Obviously, I don't blame Scott Hanson. There was no way this was his decision. But their entire tagline for years, since the beginning of Red Zone...

Get ready for seven hours of commercial-free football. And on Sunday, they ran commercials. They ran commercials. Now, I feel a little bad. I think they ran like 30 seconds. I do feel a little bad because this is one of those blind spots for us where we're a little out of touch because we don't watch Red Zone anymore.

We haven't watched Red Zone in years. We watch every game. We're lucky enough to be able to have every game on. And I wish I had known this to speak for the people on Sunday because this is bullshit. This is you have a duty, and this is not Scott Hansen's fault. This is the people behind whoever sold these commercials. Seven hours of commercial-free football, and you just completely rug pulled them. This is worse than Hak Tua.

Who did nothing wrong. She's still sleeping. She's still sleeping. Is she still not made a statement? She did. Her statement was, hey, y'all, I'm kind of tired. I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow. All right. All right. Bye. Yeah. All right. So this is it is bullshit because the red zone is it's supposed to be a sanctuary away from commercials. Correct. They market it as such.

I don't know if I blame Scott Hanson. I think I might blame Scott Hanson because Jeff D. Lowe showed me a very interesting video the other day. Okay. He was asked to rank his top five red zone sayings, like the Scott Hanson sayings, Scott Hanson isms. He's claiming the witching hour as being his saying that Mike Francesa created that as far as I know. Did you give it to him though?

No, I don't know. On part of my take? I do feel like there was a time when you brought it up to him and then he started using it. That is definitely how I remember it as well. Yes. Like, we...

You brought up the witching hour freeze and then he started saying it. I think he tagged part of my take when he started saying it. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Do you guys have a name for, I'm going to call it like the 3 to 4 p.m. hour that happens when you get just like all the games coming down to the wire and there are like four close finishes at once. Do you have a nickname for that?

Yeah, simply it's not really creative, but I call it the greatest single hour in sports television. It's the witching hour. We call it the golden hour. It's the witching hour. Witching hour or golden hour? Yeah, it's the witching hour. The golden hour is right at sunset. Witching hour is the three to four. We're talking before week one. I promise I will refer to it either as the witching hour or the golden hour at some point this season, just for you guys. I promise I will do that. Thank you.

I remember it that way as well. So we're giving credit to Mike Francesa. Yeah. But he gave credit to us, but now the credit has faded away. So we're blaming Scott Hanson. This is like an Al Capone. We got him for tax evasion. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's like we're not saying that he's in trouble for...

The commercial free, we're just... We're lumping it all. He's getting a Rico case right now. All I'm saying is it never had commercials when Siciliano was around. That's true. That's true. This is bullshit. This is bullshit. I mean, what's next? Yeah, if Red Zone's not going to be commercial free, what is next? To people, I struggle with Red Zone. That's all I'm going to say. I've had this take before. I think it's too much. And I don't like... I like being able to watch...

seeing all the games and the flow of the games. I mean, seven games is a lot to follow. I love Red Zone. I do. It's impossible for us, though. It is impossible for us. We're so far removed from the average fan in terms of watching NFL Sunday that I don't even think we can really comment. Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. No one has seven TVs. Yeah, but with YouTube TV now, you can at least do four. You can do multi-view. Yeah. But they only have sound on. Yeah. Yeah. I have a prediction.

Hank's asking. Oh, yeah. Witching Hour. He's looking for it. He only recently started saying it in the last few years. What were you saying? I have a prediction. Hank asked, what's next? Are they going to start putting commercials in movies? We have product placement now. That's been around. That's been a thing for a while. Yeah. Are they going to have commercials in the court, like a 15-second break? Yeah. That would be insane. What's next? Commercials and podcasts? I could see it. I'm out. I'm out.

Coors Light. Scott Hanson, he got led to the wolves. Imagine if he had... I see it, Shane. Shane is crazy with the computer in front of us. It's too much. He's just going nuts. Imagine if Scott Hanson had walked out

Yeah. That would have been a hero. Yeah. I mean, it would have sucked for him because he would have lost his job and a lot of money and like the best job in the world. But we would have respected him for that 10 minutes and then we would have gone on to the next thing. He would have had conviction. We would have.

I would always love when people like, yeah, you should just walk out. It's like for what? 10 minutes of our respect. Yeah. We would have forgotten about it. The second the bills and lions kicked off the set. Like, no, he would have walked off the set. We would have been like everybody. We would have tweeted about it. Yeah. Show respect to Scott Hanson. And then Greg Rosenthal would have walked on. Yeah. We love Greg. Yeah. Oh yeah. This guy rocks. Yeah. Like red zone. They also could have done it without Scott Hanson and half the people wouldn't even notice. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

And my cool throne is shitty money grab fights involving one of the Paul brothers. Okay. What's going on? Conor McGregor tweeted that the rumors of a bout with Toporio are false. I'm in preliminary agreements with the Mbani family to face Logan Paul in a boxing exhibition in India. I have agreed. I will then seek my return to the octagon. He's like 100 years old. He hasn't fought in forever.

He's just going to do a boxing match for Slogan Paul. It's probably going to suck. How many times are we going to fall for the Paul fight? I'm sick of it. Yeah, I'm sick of it. This might be the last fight. Someone who's actually at the top of their game. You know what? I will boycott this fight. If I do watch it. If it's on for free. It'll be a pirated stream. I'll probably watch. I will pirate the stream. It depends. Don't box yourself in yet. I will not watch it on a legitimate stream. Because they could easily do this fight on a Saturday at like...

in like July and you sit, you're like sitting on the couch. You're like, Oh, I will pay for it. I'm with PFT. Yeah. It's on a streaming platform for free that I already have. I'm not going to go as far as saying I won't. I, I most likely won't. I'm most, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. Well, I'm going to break the law.

This is entrapment. You're forcing me to break the law. You can only push a man so far. That's facts. Okay, PFT, your hot seat. Good job, Hank. Nice job, Hank. Great job, Hank. Thanks. Minus Scott Christening. That's okay. My hot seat is Doug Gottlieb. That's mine, yeah. Doug Gottlieb on the hot seat. Our boy Adam Schefter reported yesterday that Sacramento State was in discussions to hire Mike Vick as their head coach, head football coach.

And along with that report, he also posted that Sacramento State has over $50 million in NIL money at their behest that they can contribute to building the program. And then Doug Gottlieb replied saying, Jesus, Shefty, but it was J-E-E-Z-U-S. That's how you know he's serious. Jesus, Shefty, edit what agents tell you. 0.0% chance Sac State has $50 million in NIL.

Shefty did not take that laying down. No. He said the SAC-12 leading the school's NIL efforts already announced it reached its initial goal of raising $50 million in NIL funds to strengthen the school's case for an invitation to the PAC-12 or Mountain West Conference. And Jesus, Doug, a seven-game losing streak and last place in the Horizon League? Less time on social media, more time in the gym.

I give that round to Shefty. Absolutely. I give that round to Shefty. Now, I did see some fact-checking of Shefty saying that the $50 million for Sacramento State is contingent on them falling through on their roadmap and then being accepted into the Pac-12.

down the line so it's not like sacramento state has 50 million dollars laying around yeah someone's like hey if you get us into the big conference we will we will give you 50 million dollars that's not 50 million dollars right now yeah but doug gottlieb people forget he's hosting his radio show and also doing a bad job coaching college basketball team yeah he's like the travis hunter of media and he's uh yeah i think he's has he won a game in december uh because the famously uh it

beginning of December, Doug Gottlieb posted, it's the most wonderful time of the year. And it was a meme, uh, December, 2024. And it just has like all the days color coded. And it's like,

December 2nd through 6th pretend to work December 9th through 13th don't even pretend anymore like uh nostalgia destroy your body with food and alcohol this is a coach a college basketball coach and he did a meme being like December's the time when we don't even pretend to work I love that now to be fair he's had a gauntlet of a schedule so he's lost to uh Evansville Campbell

Cleveland State. He also has done... Ui Pui. He's also... Ui Pui. He's also... He's doing things like his way. I don't know the exact details, but I just saw it, you know, I just saw it like in glancing through like maybe a week ago. I guess his point guard or one of his best players was not playing his way.

The Gottlieb way. So Gottlieb sat him for the entire game, even though they can't win a game right now. He's like, until he learns how to play my way, he's not going to play. So he's doing like a Bobby Knight thing for Green Bay. I like that. Credit to Doug Gottlieb. Maybe it's just not in the cards. Do you think? Now, again, we love Shafty. He's our guy. That response definitely was because Doug Gottlieb wasn't so far off.

I think, what's the old saying? They get sensitive. The insiders get sensitive. The insiders get sensitive. Me think the lady doth protest too much. Yeah. Let them eat cake. Well, I think they do say that. I think that Shefty is on high alert after the hijinks that was pulled by Mike Malarkey against Ian Rappaport.

We should talk about that again because it's such a dirty move and not hilarious at all that Mike Malarkey did that. Did you guys see John Heyman's meltdown? No. The insiders are having a really bad time right now. They're having a really bad time. John Heyman went on WFAN and the host insinuated that he was getting a cut.

of Scott Boris's deals for reporting on it. And he had a voice crack meltdown. Yeah, that's a no-no. Which is like a funny, again, a funny thing to say. All these guys are just so funny because they really just take so... They just cannot stand anyone poking fun of the idea of...

that they're breaking news two seconds before the team does. So the insinuation here was that John Heyman... And Shams the other day was freaking out about Jimmy Butler. Shams got... He got cooked by Jimmy Butler's agent. Yeah. But then he, like, lashed out too. Yeah. So Heyman is being accused of getting money from Scott Boris? Yeah, in a joking way. So play the end of it. Do you think Scott Boris would ever, like, give any of his money to a reporter? No. Hell no. Play the end of it...

Let's see if Shane can do it. Maybe not that far. All right, right there. No sound. Shane. Shane's getting cooked right now. Shane's getting cooked by the people. There's a lot of jobs in the sports world, especially being in it, like basketball.

The insiders has never seemed appealing in any way, shape, or form at any point. It doesn't even matter when Schefter gets these big contracts. It's like his life is so stressful. Yeah. There's no time when you're not stressed. I don't know how it's enjoyable. Yeah. The only joy that Leroy ever got out of breaking stories was the fact that he was beating the insiders. Yeah. And the insiders who make that their job, getting beaten by a dog. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a crazy life. All right, I'll pull it up because she's weird. I apologize right now. I can't even believe it. Wait, you're playing two things right now. You're playing two things. It just ended the phone call.

Or maybe they're just talking over each other. He's saying go back, go back. I did not expect it to. John. Go back a little. At some point, I think someone could probably drop it if they're a nice person. What I think is, one, it's just like how I introduced you. Everybody in baseball knows who you are. So, one, it's a credit to your work, your following. By the way, I won't be going out with you again. The whole thing has been a disaster. He's crying. That's okay. I can't even believe you said that.

To question my integrity. Are you being serious right now?

I'm being serious, yeah. John. Ask me if I'm getting a cut because I have a relationship with an agent. It's outrageous. I know you're not a journalist. You don't know anything about this. I know you get and you don't, but that's an outrageous comment. You should know that much. It's Friday night at 830, John. You should know that much. And I am not taking this that serious. Goodbye. John, thank you for joining us, John. I can't even believe it. Thank you, John. I can't even believe it.

The end. I can't believe it. They're getting upset when they're talking to another member of media and they're like, you're not even a journalist. Yeah. You wouldn't get it. They're under fire right now. I can't believe it. Yeah. Modes got out at the right time. Memes attacking Rossini. Yeah. He was crying the other day about that. Warranted and correct. Have we found the story? Yeah. No, we did find the story. It was not even close to what he said. I know. What?

This is probable. She said probable. It is very funny that you. I think she said discussions were being had regarding this thing. Yeah, it's likely or probable. She didn't say, like, fact, which is how you reported it.

Like, this is basically a Scooby-Doo meme. It's... You think it's Florio takes off the mask. Or Rossini takes off the mask. It's Florio. It's really like Rossini and Florio take off the mask. It's memes all along. Because you make up more stories than they do. That's probably true.

I think memes, to be fair to memes, he reads a headline or he reads a post and then he just gets the vibe of what that post is. And then he like, he has his own grok, his own AI inside of his head that summarizes it, rewrites it. And then that's the report. Yeah, it's probably true. Yeah. I'm not paying for that shit. Okay. Okay. All right. That's all I got. Okay. Where were we? Oh, hot seat was over. Cool throne.

Cool Throne is combat sports. We got a new combat sport that we have to start paying attention to, guys. It's better than power slap. It's better than arm wrestling. It's the ultimate dick-kicking championship. Two guys just stand across from each other and kick each other in the dicks until one guy gives up.

Oh. And it's another one of these sports like Power Slap that was designed just for the clips, basically, because you will share and you will watch clips of two guys kicking each other in the dick. To me, it might as well just be, yeah, watch this video. Boom. Just taking it. I like this. Should we do it? Should we do it? So to me, this might as well be the ultimate coin flipping championship, because if you go first, you should win every time. Oh, yeah.

I like this. We should do this on stool streams. You want to get involved? Yeah. Ultimate dick kicking. Why not? At some point, this will be like a national event. Yeah. The clips are just too good. It's also funnier. Yeah. Slap. Right. It's much better. They should have a women's division. Yeah. I would prefer it if it was just like they were throwing balls at each other from across the ring.

So there was a level of skill? Sitting on the ground with your legs open in gym shorts, no underwear. Blindfolded. And then rolling a basketball as hard as you can at the other person. Guys really need to get girlfriends these days. I love that. Do you guys see those posts? I like that there's a ref in it. Yeah. What's the ref's job to police the ultimate dick kicking? I don't know if you guys in the algorithm where people would just be like,

you know guys can't you know all these women aren't dating guys anymore it's like society's fucked up it's like maybe we're just because you're spending all day on on your burner account on twitter and not just going to the bar like i feel like there's a whole world out there of people still dating and meeting girls yeah going normal people going to the bar yeah yeah the discussion that's happening online is not real life yeah uh go out have a drink touch glass yeah

All right, buddy. I like that. But there are a lot of people online like, man, I can't find a date. It's like just, I don't know.

Go to the bar. Yeah. Probably can talk to a girl. Yep. My other cool throne is the Boca Raton Bowl. That's tonight, Wednesday. You guys, long time, real ones on part of my take will remember that we sponsored the Boca Raton Bowl back in 2016. Yeah. I think. I'm trying to remember the full name. The Bernie Madoff, wet the beak, Ponzi awareness thing.

Boca Raton Bowl. Presented by, part of my take, presented by Barstool Sports. Yeah. So, Western Kentucky-Memphis was the first matchup of it back in 2016. And who can forget the Royal Rumble, the intern Royal Rumble that we had at halftime with Glennie Balls, Tommy Smokes, Hubs,

Robbie Fox. Jesus. Who else was in that role? Glennie went to the hospital. Yeah, yeah. Glennie went to the hospital. What a great time that was. And then... Boca Raton, what the beak Ponzi scheme awareness poll presented by part of my day presented by Barstool's... That feels like a different life ago. It really does. We had Caleb down there with a trophy who snuck onto the field at the end of it. That was actually electric. Electric. And so he presented... Glennie had to go to the hospital. Yeah. That was almost an actual issue. Yeah. The bowl...

The bowl game did not have a sponsor, so we just said, hey, we're just going to act like we're the sponsor of this bowl game to raise awareness for it. And we sent Caleb down there. He presented the official trophy to Western Kentucky after the game.

Western Kentucky, last I checked, has that trophy in their official trophy case at the school. Yes. They're playing in it again tonight. They're in the Boca Raton Bowl, and they're playing against James Madison. I love it. I want that fucking trophy. What was that kid's name? Mikey Electric or something? Yeah, something like that. Mikey Lightning? I want to let the people, because I know that they listen to the show at Western Kentucky.

The trophy's on the line again. Yeah. I will go down there and steal that trophy back if I have to, if JMU beats Western Kentucky tonight. I love bowl season, even though it's been kind of taken away from us. We'll talk about that with Herbie a little bit more, but I still love bowl season. Yeah. Okay. My hot seat was also going to be...

Doug Gottlieb, but we discussed that in detail. I still can't believe he's coaching. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy. Oh, I'll do a different hot seat. I was thinking about this because we were talking about it on Sunday. We had Jonathan Taylor and then the Bengals player. Is...

Isn't it kind of crazy that Deshaun Jackson, that is his legacy? That everyone's just like Deshaun Jackson every time someone drops the ball? Is there any other situation like that? I guess the Leon Lett, but that happens very rarely. Yeah, if you Leon Lett. No, I got another one. Dan Orlovsky. Dan Orlovsky, yeah. That's it. Yeah, Dan Orlovsky's a bad one.

It's crazy, but it's also with Deshaun Jackson, he was still so good for so long and so fast that it's not the first thing you think of with Deshaun Jackson. When somebody drops the ball, then you do think about him, but that's not his enduring legacy.

But he does own the legacy of that play. Orlovsky's a good one. Leon Lett's funny because he's got two of them. He's got the after the field goal and then also the Doug Beebe. Yeah. Yeah, getting chased down in a meaningless end of a game. Dan Beebe? No, Don Beebe. Don Beebe. I don't know why I said Doug. I'm trying to think what you're saying, the double doink? That happens like once every two years.

Never. Yeah, not really. Yeah, very, very rare. Oh, butt fumble. Oh, yeah. Chris Webber. But it's not as much. Chris Webber's a good one. Chris Webber's a good one because it's not like the double doink and the butt fumble are

are kind of hard to replicate. I'm talking about a play that happens that everyone's like, Deshaun Jackson. Like it's a negative play and everyone says Deshaun Jackson. Orlovsky and Chris Webber are great ones. Kirk Cousins' fourth down play. Check down. On the positive side, in hockey, the Michigan goal.

Which one? If somebody does something, they do the wrap around. Oh yeah, the wrap around. They call that a Michigan. Yeah, that was just part of the NCAA highlight package for that commercial for...

100 years. Anytime you get jumped, I got biz'd. I got biz'd. But took some, gave some more. Gave more. Gave some more. I read the police write-up behind that. So they did the police report. You probably saw some of the videos where the guy was like, this guy, not a lick of fat on him, built like Dwayne the Rock Johnson. There was a written report that came out where these guys were just fucking terrified of biz. Yeah. They're like, this guy was out in the parking lot screaming at all of us like, I'm going to fuck you guys up.

Biz is my hero. He's legitimately my hero. The way they were talking about him after was he was William Wallace. They're like, he was nine feet tall and fireballs out of his ass. It's just amazing. It was just incredible. Well, it's an outstanding, tremendous restaurant, and it's unbelievable. And he goes there fast.

Four to five times a week. Four to five times a week, and the staff is unbelievable. Great organization. It's a great organization at Houston's, and just everything that happened there. I saw a guy. I was like, hey, buddy, you're an unbelievable guy. Someone should do something. And I did something. He's the fucking best. He's a one-on-one guy. Then my cool throne is Ryan Russell and the UVM soccer team because they won the national championship. I don't know if you guys saw this. It was kind of a Cinderella story. They were unranked.

They made an incredible run. I think they survived a two-overtime game in the America East tournament just to get into the regular NCAA tournament. And then they won in overtime last night to win the national championship. And, yeah, they were unranked, and they won it all. So shout out, Russillo. And Jake. Very cool, Jake. And Jake, yeah, and Patrick Sharp.

Yeah, it was an awesome finish. Yeah. Great job, UVM. The Cats. Okay. Taylor Coppenrath. Taylor, yes. Who's that? What was the kid's name? Lamb? Was it Anthony Lamb? Yeah. Is that his name? That was the Jake era. Yeah, that was the Jake era. Anthony Lamb. Coppenrath was from the parking lot. Was it Laranega? No, that was... Fish? That was George Mason. Or George... Mike? I know he was at George Mason. I know that. He didn't go to Vermont? John?

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Story to history. Yeah, we got it all. Was Dierks Bentley that Priscilla was friends with freshman year? Oh, Sorrentino's from the parking lot. Yeah. Oh, geez. No, it was... What's his name? This is great UVM history right now. Goldtender from the Bruins. No. Oh, Tim Thomas? No, but I think he was friends with... Was it Dierks Bentley? He was friends with a country star freshman year. It might have been Dierks. It might have been Dierks.

This is, we're doing some really good stuff. Yeah. Dierks Bentley spent a year at Vermont. There we go. Became Dierks Bentley and Russell number one, number one guy. Russell. Okay. Let's get to our interviews. We got Kirk Herbstreet talking some college football playoff, and then we have an awesome interview with Paul Walter Hauser. Really, really great actor. Really cool interview. It is all brought to you by our friends at Chevy.com.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, friend of the program, recurring guest. It is Kirk Herbstreet getting ready for the college football playoff. He's going to be in South Bend on Friday night. He's going to be in Columbus on Saturday night. We're all pumped. Herbie, first of all, thanks for joining us. And I don't, I hate to have to start in a negative light. I want to talk about these matchups, but I think we have to address the fact that

The college football feels like it's in a little bit of disarray right now. And what I'm talking about is the Bo Pribula transfer portal with Penn State. And I want your thoughts on it because I'm hoping that you have some galaxy brain fix. But for those that aren't aware, transfer portal opened a few days ago. The college football playoff has still yet to be played. We always knew this was a screwed up system.

but Bo Pribula for Penn State, their backup quarterback, who does play in packages, and Penn State is going to be playing for a national championship and playing in the college football playoff in a couple of days, has hit the transfer portal, and this is the first time that it feels like we knew it was a problem, but now it's like this is a team that's going to be playing on Saturday that just lost a guy that is a weapon for them and does add a different dynamic to

How the hell do we fix this? It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've been talking about this for so long, you know, how nutty this is and how –

It's easy to blame the players. I think it's easy to look at it like, how selfish are these guys? But I think if you put yourself in their shoes, I think the calendar and the way it's set up is difficult. I don't know Bo's case because I know Preston Stone and there's some other guys that have entered the portal, but they're staying with their team and into the playoff like at SMU getting ready. I don't know why he felt the need to be able to enter the portal but then leave.

Maybe you guys can help me with that. I don't understand that aspect of his specific story on why he's leaving the team. I guess maybe he felt he had to go visit these schools to be able to really get a good handle on where he wanted to go. I have no idea. I know it's a little bit of a revolving door, especially at that position when it comes to the portal. And some of these guys are trying to kind of be re-recruited like they're high school seniors again to try to

figure out where's the best fit for them. So maybe he felt before someone else takes the spot that he wants, he needs to go visit while his team's playing in these playoff games. He needs to go visit these schools. That's the only thing I can think of, of why he left the team. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's exactly it by the way. Yeah. And it's the calendar. I don't, I don't blame the kids because you do have an advantage if you're in the portal earlier. So you want to go ahead and make that decision. Now,

Now, one way to fix it might be if you could go into the portal and then you could actually join a college football playoff team. So you get like an impact free agent that just transfers out of nowhere with no connection to the school that could play. Here's the one thing I guess I would say, because this whole thing has gone from like when I played, players had zero rights for the majority of college football.

Players have had, you have no rights. You just do what you're told and, you know, it's like you're in the Marines. Yes, sir. May I have another kind of thing? And then we got to 2020 and COVID and everything kind of changed and realignment. And then we've kind of gotten into this world now where players are able to leave whenever they want to leave. We have NIL, obviously, that is a huge part of this.

But if you even follow the NFL model, the players have restrictions. Like you can't be on the Bears and just say, oh, to hell with this season. I'm going to the Lions. Like you have a contract. You have to follow the contract. The NFL has very stringent rules. This is what we do as a team. This is what you're allowed to do. This is what the players can do. So this whole idea of the players in college is doing whatever the hell they want to do.

Is it isn't the right thing? Like, it's not like if like my kids, I had four sons. If my kids at 12 years old said, Dad, I'm taking the car. See, I'm going to a party at 12. I'd be like.

what are you talking about? You can't do that. The world we live in today in college football, it's kind of like, screw you, take the keys. And the coach is kind of like, well, okay, he's going to take the keys. What am I supposed to do? You have zero power. And that, you know, it's cool to be that player and have fun, but it's not cool for you as in the longterm for your growth and where you're trying to go as a human. It might be fun for these, that three and five year window, but,

But as far as like, what is great about this sport is what the hard shit you got to go through. The shit you think is annoying and why do I have to go through it? It molds you and changes you into becoming a better person down the road, whether it's as an employee or as a husband or a father, whatever it is, you got to go through some tough shit. You can't just like, this isn't fun anymore. I'm not playing. I'm out. Like, it just can't be that way. If you want to do that, I feel like coaches who leave,

you know, like they get a new job, they should have to finish the thing out before they go to their new job. Players, you should have to finish this thing out until you go to your new job. Like, I just don't, I think these players at this point, they need to sign contracts. I think we need a CBA. I think we need to form some kind of players union. I think we need to somehow create that. The other thing is,

We're very, it's almost like silo. Greg Sankey is in an SEC silo. You know, the Big Ten's in a silo. We need to somehow create more of a national view of the sport. We're still governing the sport in the 80s, and the sport is in 2024. It's more of a national sport. So we need a national view on how we govern the sport. So we somehow need to get that national view established.

to partner with the players union, create a CBA where you're held accountable. Okay, we're going to agree on NIL. Here are the rules we're going to agree on for NIL. Both sides agree. Here's the deal with portal, transfer portal. Both sides agree. And whatever they ultimately come up with

It's a contract, and we sign, and then we obey the contract on both sides. I think that's where it's gotten. How we get there, I have no idea. But players just kind of coming and going and zero accountability to their team, that's not healthy at all. And it really takes away from what this sport is about, which is the team trying to win games. Yeah.

That's what this is all about. It's a bummer, and I don't blame Bo Perbule at all because the schedule is screwed up where it's still based on enrolling for classes, and that's the real problem is that you have to figure out kids have to do it before the spring semester, so that's why they have to do it right now. You can't be like, maybe it's the transfer portal just happens in the spring or after the...

the spring semester, but then coaches would be upset because they don't have their team set for spring ball, all that stuff. But yeah, for Bo's case, like,

the carousel and the musical chairs of quarterbacks in the NIL, like if he waits until mid January or early January, he's going to be shit out of luck. That's just the reality. Teams want to act right away. And if he waits, all these seats are going to be filled. So he's got to go and be active right now and take care of himself. But yeah, the system just is screwed up. I don't know how they fix it. Uh,

I think it just really stinks. Some stuff is going to change once the schools start to – they get to pay the players directly now. I think that starts, what, next season? So things are going to be – It's supposed to be a big thing in April. I think something's going down in April. Hopefully by next year there's a new –

a new set of circumstances. Hopefully that'll be the case. Yeah. So there'll have to be new rules put in place for that as well. But yeah, what's, what's the problem with just saying, Hey, I'm going to enter the portal. And then you, you finish out the season with your team and then maybe you miss a week of classes.

At whatever that new school is. Well, one of the problem is if you, if you sign with a new team and you get money and then you play with the old team and you get hurt. Now what happens? Cause like if you're, let's say you're Mizzou and you want Bo Pabula and he's like, I'm going to keep playing for Penn state, but I'm signing with you guys. He gets hurt.

Mizzou's not going to want him to play in those games. You know what I mean? Maybe just make the transfer portal happen after the championship game. We don't have NFL free agency before the Super Bowl. But that's where the school schedule screws us up. But then now we're going to pretend like these guys, the reason why they're at that school is for class. Right. It's stupid. The whole thing's stupid. So I wanted to start with that. It's a bummer to talk about. By the way, you mentioned your son or your four sons.

How was the reception when your son committed to Michigan? That caused some waves. Yeah, I've kind of stayed out of that world a little bit. I...

I haven't seen a whole lot of reaction intentionally just because I know 80% of the people are thrilled. 20% are going to be jackasses. So I just decided it's one thing to take shots at me, but if you take shot at my kid and you want to get in a fight, it's not hard for me to want to do that. So I just, I just try to ignore that stuff the best that I can and just kind of stay focused on the positive. What an opportunity for him. Yeah.

You know, this is a kid that grew up a lifelong Ohio State fan of all my kids. Like he's the guy that cried when they lose games. Like he's an Ohio State junkie. Ohio State did not really pursue him to the point of offering him a scholarship. And they were close to they're like, listen, man, this new rule. That's the big thing with this new world that you talked about.

Right now, you can have 85 on scholarship, but 125 are in the program. Well, the new world that you're referring to, this rev share, football is going to be affected. It's going to go down to 105. So you can only have 105 guys on your team. Now, you could put 105 on scholarship, but a lot of these guys are not. They're just kind of in a wait and see approach.

So guys like my son, Chase, who was kind of like that, that last fighting for those last couple spots for a scholarship or potentially a PWO, which would be a preferred walk on. He's kind of in that area where he's fighting most of those guys, big schools like Michigan and Ohio state and Notre Dame, the schools that he was looking at the most, uh,

They're almost, hey, why don't you go to the Mac? We're going to bring in this portal guy who we know a little bit more about. And they're really not into developing young players and investing and hoping that they become a great player.

So Che got a huge opportunity to do this. Jerome Moore and his staff believe that I think they've seen his competitive spirit and his fire and what he did on the field this year to give him this opportunity. And, you know, it's very different for our family because our family behind the scenes is scarlet and gray our whole lives. You know, Big Cat, it'd be like you having a son that he's Wisconsin born and bred, brainwashed and

All of a sudden he goes to Michigan. Yeah. You know, it's it is quite a thrill. Obviously, we're beyond ecstatic for him. I went to senior day for my other son who had a heart situation. He was part of the senior class of the Ohio State players. So it was a it was a family only event this past Sunday.

And I went in there really nervous to wonder how the Ohio State coaches, because none of them texted me, hey, congratulations on Chase. I didn't hear anything from anybody. So I was a little bit, should I go? Should I not go?

And I went because I needed to be there for my other son. It was a very cool event, by the way. Each position coach would, you know, would have his guys come up, say something about each guy. And then that guy had to grab the mic and speak in front of all of his teammates and close to the media and the fans. And it was very emotional to watch some of these guys, Trevion Henderson, Emeka Buka, like they've been through some stuff, you know, not only loss at the Michigan, but just personal stuff. So, yeah.

It was very heartfelt day to be there to watch that. But I talked to Chip Kelly afterwards, talked to Ryan Day afterwards. Nobody said anything. It was like, yeah, it was like, OK, I'll see you next week. Tennessee looking forward to it this week. You know, just it was just kind of like business mode. Yeah. And.

That's good by me. Yeah, that's good. I mean, you're smart to stay out of the fray because I agree. Like, you know, if someone says something about your kids, it's on site. So that's smart to just ignore all of it. But congrats to him. And a compliment. He's got some balls. He's got –

So that's a man that knows what he wants. Yeah. It's cool. No doubt. It's definitely another wrinkle to the rivalry. So let's go to Ohio State because you're going to be calling that game. Ohio State, Tennessee on Saturday night. I'm so excited for this game. And I think we're all kind of thinking the same thing.

This Ohio State team is insanely, insanely talented. One of the teams that you could circle right now and be like, this team has all the dudes that could end up winning the national title. But...

Where are they at mentally after what happened in Columbus against Michigan and the end of their season? And how do they get off the mat? Because it is just a very unique situation to have that type of loss with that much on it and that like the four year build up and then be like, oh, yeah, we're still going to play for a national title. So where do you think they're going to be mentally when it comes to Saturday night?

Well, again, just going back to that senior day, just behind closed doors, just with the players, it was interesting to be there because...

because if you go by the outside world the feeling of Ohio State fans very dejected by by the Michigan game and nobody's seen really Ohio State since that the fight the fight at the end of the game and everyone just kind of left the stadium I think that day I wasn't there but just talking to my son and a lot of friends who went to that game like holy shit what just happened how did this happen again kind of kind of feeling and now you

You know, Michigan's going to play in a bowl game and Ohio State's going to a playoff game. And I think there's the fodder that's out there on social media. Screw Ryan Day. Screw, you know, the worst. I've heard people say everything. I hope they lose the first game and he's fired. I mean, just bizarre set of circumstances for a team that's, as you said, one of the most talented is in the playoff hosting a playoff game and

And you've got that kind of noise by a fraction of your fan base. So I think the reality is what matters most is the players seem to be super engaged. They kept talking about this isn't good. Almost every guy up there that talked said, man, this isn't goodbye. You know, we got four more to go. You know, it was just it was I don't know how many times I heard we have four more games to go.

And I think they truly in their minds are buying into that kind of like March Madness. When you get ready to make a run, you know, you got to win a few weekends. I think their focus is on trying to beat Tennessee and go to the Rose Bowl and take on Oregon and down the line. And I think they believe that kind of like if you go back to the team with CJ Sprout when they lost to Michigan again.

and then they had to play georgia and everybody wondered how would they play against georgia and it was like a different team when they played georgia if you remember they played super aggressively stroud played out of his mind scrambling around making plays really outplayed georgia and to georgia's credit georgia ended up making the plays at the end of the game to win it the vibe of the players reminds me of that at the end of the day though guys

Are they good enough? We can talk all day about Jeremiah Smith and all the receivers and all that, but the offensive line, if you really watch the Michigan game, when they lost the center from Alabama, Seth McLaughlin, when he went down with Achilles, I think that offensive line is a serious question mark going up against Tennessee's strength, which is their defensive front. How

How will that battle go? I think will be a big factor because it was in the Michigan game and they're not obviously getting any of those pieces back on that offensive line. So that to me will be the big thing. And then just the crowd, the energy in that stadium. I've heard Tennessee's going to buy 30,000 tickets. I don't know if that's true, but just the vibe inside that, that stadium, if things are going great, it'd be obvious, be right in their corner, cheering a little crazy, but,

If Will Howard throws a pick, how will the crowd react? If the poor field goal kicker who missed two against Michigan happens to miss a kick, how will the crowd react? If Tennessee gets a sack and a score, a fumble and a score, how will the crowd – like I'm just wondering what the energy – what you would think would be a night game at the shoe, massive opportunity, home field advantage. You would think that would be the case, but if things go sideways –

I'm just wondering how that the environment inside the stadium will go. I agree with you because I think Ohio state they've been trained. They've been practicing with a lot of pissed off energy. They've been very, very angry. Right. So you've got to challenge, you got to channel that somehow. And I think they're channeling their anger obviously into preparing for the football playoff. But if something goes wrong,

all that emotion that you've put in, all that pissed off energy quickly can turn on you. If that's been your reason for getting ready for this and things start to go downhill, then it can snowball on you and you can get down real fast. You mentioned the home field advantage. I heard that it's not actually as much of a home field advantage as you might think that it would be during the playoff because they're not doing like the normal game day operations at these schools.

They're bringing in the national guys. So it's not like the scoreboard guys or the in-stadium audio guys are going to be the normal Ohio State people that run the show. It's going to be like a neutral site type of environment with all the media and all the sound just that happens to be played in the horseshoe. Do you think that has any impact on it? I don't know, man. I...

I guess I'm hearing those same things. I don't know what it's going to... I heard when Tennessee runs out of the field, it'll be like a neutral site feel, like Tennessee will have their own entrance that they would have

that they've chosen with their song and their music and their their energy running onto the field which i think is really really bizarre like when you go to south bend on friday night and indiana comes onto the field you know it's not like the normal just the visiting team boo they kind of run onto the field and then lights go down in the home field it's it's i don't i don't know how they're going to do it i i'm reading the same things you're reading um but that that

That could be an interesting aspect, not just in Columbus, but all these playoff games. This is, again, uncharted waters. We have no idea really how it's going to go until we see it. With Notre Dame on Friday night in Indiana, is Indiana going to have their normal allotment of tickets? Is it just going to be a small little fraction of Hoosiers fans inside there? Are they going to get online and scoop up as many tickets as they can and try to –

You know, may have a big showing because it's such an easy drive to go from Bloomington up to South Bend. I have no idea. But yeah, I'll have a lot more answers on the on the back end of this. But I cannot wait to see home playoff games and how it'll impact, like you say, the game ops, the.

which obviously is a huge advantage for the home team, you know, in normal set set of circumstances. Yeah. I heard no hang on Sloopy. They're not doing, they're not doing that either. That's, that's worth at least four points right there. Yeah. Yeah. Let me, again, I, at the risk of getting in trouble, um,

I think there are schools that do an incredible job with their game ops. You know, like you go into the SEC, I think the home crowd and the people who run those stadiums, they look at themselves as,

Our job is to be a distraction to the enemy and to do everything we can to the line where we can't play music while the quarterbacks, you know, saying the signals and barking out the cadence. But we're going to walk right up to the line with the band. We're going to put microphones into the band, the music. We're going to go right to the line where we're going to maybe get a letter from the SEC commissioner that we can't do that. That's our goal every home game.

And in the Big Ten, I think there's a few stadiums that do that. But I just feel, you guys tell me, I feel like the Big Ten's a little more traditional. Yeah. More of the band has as much to do with the game they experience as the team.

You know, so they're a little bit in a tough spot between like in the SEC, they hire a DJ. Yeah. I mean, you go to a break in the SEC and it's like the party's just beginning for the fans during TV timeouts. I mean, it is bonkers at LSU or Alabama or Georgia or Tennessee. It's insane. During the TV timeout and at Ohio State, it's insane.

you know, okay, let's go to break. We'll be back after this. And then it's ladies and gentlemen, if you can pay attention to the North end, the 1973 fencing team. Yeah. Let's all have a, let's get on our feet and show them some appreciation for the 1973 co big 10 champs. And it's like,

Yeah. No, the easiest way to say it, that's perfectly put because I can actually envision that. The easiest way to say it is we just haven't figured out a way to get a light show up north yet. That's it. Like we don't have the light show. I see the light show at Georgia and Auburn. It's awesome. Yeah. It's insane. The light show always, I'm like, why don't we have a light show? Yeah.

Music, DJ, like feed the energy. Don't take it away. It's so true. All the way. Feed it. Yeah. You should go right up to that line. Those guys are doing a great job if that's how they approach the game. It's like, I'm going to do everything that I can to fuck with the opponent. Even though my job is to sit in a booth with a lanyard on around my neck and like an officially issued team polo. I'm out there making a difference. I like that mentality. Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. I agree. It's like if you go to an NHL game, I'll go to these NHL games. I'm so blown away by the Game Ops and what they do because it's a different – 1997 to now, like your job to keep people off their phone and engaged in what's happening –

That's a challenge, man. It's just a different world that we live in. A lot of people's attention span isn't the same. And it's easy to like get to a TV timeout, take a seat, look on your phone, check out what's going on. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, the game's back on, you know, and they try to take that away by keeping you engaged. And I really when I see it and I see fans engaged during breaks, I just I

I pay homage to that, man, because it's not an easy thing to do in 2024. It's so true. So this weekend with four games, you're a quarterback. You know these quarterbacks. Give me your top four quarterbacks playing this weekend that you trust. Let's start Friday night. I think Riley Leonard, I don't know if I trust him yet. I don't know how many times he's really been challenged. Right. You know.

So I don't know. It's not that I don't trust him. It's just we don't know. Right.

And can Indiana put him in a place where they get him in those third down situations where he's got to make plays with his arm, not just his legs, with his arm? I'm excited to see that. And Rourke, I've been blown away by that kid. Their whole story. I was early kind of like, it's Indiana. It's a cute story. And then I just kind of kept watching them and thought, and I stood next to Rourke in the Ohio State game.

I was like, damn, that's an impressive looking dude. This guy's, I don't know what he's listed. He looks like he's 6'5 to me. Big, impressive guy. And I just think that kid is,

plays with a serious amount of confidence for a guy that's in his first year. I think of all of them, that might be a guy that stands out to me. I don't know how much you've watched Tennessee, but Tennessee with Josh Heupel, we go back to Hendon Hooker or Milton. What do you think of? You think of 50-yard bombs, just taking shots in that offense because that's who they've been.

This year, total opposite Tennessee team. They play to their strengths. Let's play defense. Let's run our all SEC running back, Dylan Sampson. And let's take care of the quarterback. Let's spoon feed him, ease him in, not make him feel like he has to win it.

where our quarterbacks in the past did. So it's been a very different style of approach as a head coach. Is that good enough to win in this environment? I think he'll call his game based on how his defense is playing against Will Howard and Ohio State. If they're forcing Ohio State to punt, he's going to play the way he has most of this year.

very conservative, hand it off, throw when you have to kind of approach. If Ohio State's scoring, then you'll see Nico, who's more than capable. You know his recruiting story. Yeah. Yeah, he's a freak, but he's a freshman, so they've just been very, very careful with him. So I would say Will Howard. I know he's made some mistakes. He's cost his team in some big games. I just think because of the experience –

I think there's a little bit more trust there. But do you trust the offensive line? I don't think you can because of the injuries. The Clemson-Texas game, again, man, it's just been this. I know. You know? I ask that question because when you look at the quarterbacks in this playoff, it's really up and down for a lot of guys. Kevin Jennings at SMU. Yeah.

He's a kid that, again, I don't know how many people listening to this or watching this that watched SMU football this year, but they started with Preston Stone, who's a little bit more traditional. And now they've got a version of a dual threat guy that they spread you out. You got to try to cover everybody. And then this guy's back there running around and has the ability to take off and run, has the ability to keep it alive and throw.

He would be an interesting matchup for the Penn State defense. My big concern for SMU in that game is, like you would think, the line of scrimmage on both sides. Penn State, I thought, pushed Oregon around pretty well in the Big Ten championship game at the line of scrimmage. So how will SMU do it? And I looked this morning at the forecast.

All three games in Columbus, South Bend, and State College, no snow. But you're talking about in the 20s, 20 degrees. Not that it favors – and a lot of people are like, that favors Ohio State and Notre Dame and –

I guess we'll see if it does. A lot of Ohio State's rosters from Georgia, North Carolina, Florida. So I don't know how it necessarily favors these teams in the North. I guess we'll see. It's been a big, big conversation point. You know, when the playoff first started, it's like teams from the North are like, it's about time those teams from the South come up here and deal with the cold weather. Well, now you get your chance, you know, in two of those games. And

We'll see if it becomes a fact or not. But, man, Big Head, that's a great question on who do you trust. Yeah. Because I don't know if – it's just been too inconsistent with most of these guys all year to really know who is that guy you can trust. Yeah, it's Dylan Gabriel and Drew Aller is kind of really where – that's probably where I stop. And it's not saying the other guys aren't good. It's just like I'm talking about third and long, down four with five minutes left.

How about Georgia's situation? I know he's playing. How about that? Yeah. It's crazy. Have they talked publicly since that game about what's going on? I haven't heard anything. I'm more concerned about their punter. Their punter being injured. That's the real aspect. That guy's a stud. He's a beast. Yeah. So...

Wait, with Texas' quarterback situation, though, are you a little bit surprised that Arch didn't get more playing time in the SEC championship game? Because I felt like there was a moment where he had a lever that he could have pulled, and he chose not to pull it. I don't know if that was intentional because he wanted to save him for the playoff, or if he was just like, you know what, yours is my guy. We're going to live and die with Quinn. But do you expect to see more of Arch?

Man, again, go back to that eight overtime Friday night game with Georgia and Georgia Tech and think about what happened to Georgia's defense. I know it's a different set of circumstances, but.

Georgia Tech ran a lot of zone read and power read and gave the quarterback an opportunity to utilize his legs or his arm, depending on how the defense of Georgia reacted. And they had so much success in that game that the next game was going to be against Texas. And I just thought that Sark, much like he did against Texas A&M, he would just have a little package in the red zone or short yardage,

to go to Arch and, as you say, pull that lever. I thought fresh off that Georgia Tech game, he saw something he might be able to attack using Arch's ability to attack the edges, but he didn't do it. And it doesn't mean he's putting Arch away. I just think for whatever reason, only Sark knows, he's one of the great offensive minds in the game, for whatever reason, he stuck with Quinn throughout almost every snap of that game.

And it makes you wonder, you know, in their next matchup against Clemson and down the road, how much arch will be a factor because that dude, I know everybody wants to compare him to his uncles, but he's probably more like his grandfather than he is his uncles as far as, and he's much bigger and stronger. Look at this guy. You know, it's one thing you look at him on TV. I think you go on the pregame and you,

You'd look at these guys in person. Some of these guys just look so different than what your, your perception of them is. And Arch is one of those guys. I mean, his legs are,

I don't know if he lives under a squat rack. That dude is put together. He's not just a tall, slippery boy. He's quick. He is powerful dude who can spin it. You talk about an excitement of where you want to see Texas next year with Arch having an entire offseason to build his game. But he's nothing like Peyton.

He's nothing like Eli. He's really nothing like his grandfather, who was a really athletic guy. He's his own guy. And he's got the size that they all have, but his strength and his athletic ability, who knows what Sark will do in the offseason to build the offense around him. And who knows if Arch will get an opportunity here in these next potential four games that Texas might be playing. I hope we see more of him. He's fun. Manning shouldn't be allowed to be fast.

It's weird seeing him run with a ball. Yeah. It's like, come on, man. You just stay in the pocket. Maybe once every three years do a naked bootleg and then everybody stands up and claps and laughs while you try to run for a first down. That's the Manning way. Right. Not this guy. Wow. This dude.

This dude's going to do... Now, I don't know if they're going to protect him from himself next year, but if he plays the way he wants to play, he's going to be running around people, over people. If you're a safety coming up there to tackle that guy, it's like tackling a tight end. That's basically who's athletic. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think it's a game-to-game approach for Sark and how they use Arch, and if they do. And not to mention...

Imagine a fan base. It reminds me of Tebow in 06 when he was a true freshman and Chris Leak was the quarterback.

But every time there'd be short yardage or red zone, the crowd at the Swamp would go crazy just with the idea that 15 might come jogging onto the field. And he would. And they were like begging Urban to bring him out. And it became almost, it's Chris Leak who's quarterbacking 90% of the game, but it almost became like the fans were just clueless.

completely consumed with Tim Tebow, even though he's just doing short yardage. And that kind of reminds me a little bit of Texas. This is Quinn Ewer's team,

But there's such anticipation and so much excitement about Arch Manning taking over. And I wonder if that impacts Sark inside the locker room on protecting Quinn and protecting kind of that feeding into that energy by not putting Arch out there as much as maybe you might think. Sark's a...

Sark's a whatever-it-takes-to-win kind of guy, but I also think he's mindful of the makeup of his team, and Quinn Ewers is his quarterback. And I know that's impacted Quinn a little bit psychologically, just, hey, I'm the guy, and yet they kind of are rooting for the other guy. So I think it's a little bit tricky on how they manage that at this point in 2024. Yeah, it's tough. So looking at these games...

The spreads are pretty big. They go from what – last I checked, I think it was 7 to 12-point favorites in each game. If you had to pick one upset, because there's going to be one, who would it be? What's the IU-Notre Dame spread? Seven and a half is what I'm looking at right now. I don't know if that's moved. I would say IU. I'd probably say IU would be – what's the Tennessee spread? I believe that's a touchdown. Yeah, I think – I'm not picking either one of those teams, but I –

I mean, you could make a pretty strong case if you're a Tennessee fan or you're going to vote in a bet on Tennessee until you see the Ohio State offensive line more productive against a talented front.

There's no reason to think that both those games, the underdogs should have a shot to be competitive and maybe pull off an upset. Yeah. I do love the drama behind the scenes of the Tennessee fans being like, yeah, that stadium's going to be 30% orange, buddy. You imagine? They get 3,500 fans. What's Ohio Stadium these days? Over 100,000, right? Yeah. You get basically 3%.

of the stadium is going to be in orange. Yeah. You know, there's no, you, you believe they'll, they maybe get 30,000 people in there. No way. It'd be a testament to the fan base. Yeah. I saw another post. I don't know if it was from game day operations at Ohio state, or if it was from somebody else that showed what the color orange looks like underneath their like led lights that they have. And it looks red.

And so now Ohio State is like, yeah, wear your orange. We're going to turn you red. It's been a fun, like, behind-the-scenes battle. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is. And it's a scarlet out, right? So they're going to do the whole stadium if they follow the –

the direction of what the Ohio State's requesting. So it'd be all scarlet and then bright, bright orange. So you're right. You're right. Terrible mix of colors when you put them together. Good on their own, maybe not great together. And Ohio State's wearing those all scarlet unis. I know. They're doing color rush. I don't like that. They're doing color rush. Wear your uniform. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a classic. Wear it. Matter of fact, take all the stickers off the helmet.

Like you start new. It's a new season, right? Yeah. Four games. That's a good idea. More games. Maybe put on the, the, the, the stickers during the game. Yeah, there you go. During the game. All right. So Herbie, this has been awesome. I got one last question. It's a row back question. R H O B A C K.com. Promo code. Take 20% off your first purchase. Q zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, row back.com. Promo code. Take 20% off. Uh,

Last question for you is not about the playoff. It was a big story, obviously, last week. Bill Belichick going to North Carolina.

How do you think this is going to work? Do you think it's going to, I mean, I'm of the belief that there is definitely a market for a coach in college to be almost like Calipari when he figured out the one and done before anyone else and being like, Hey guys, I'm not going to sell you on education. I'm not going to sell you on, you know, we like, this is a community I'm going to sell you on. Come here. I'll teach you how to be a pro.

And the scouts are going to know that if you can handle my system, you're a value in the NFL and I'm going to get guys drafted. I would say part, it's part of that. Just put yourself as an 18 year old recruit and knock on the door and it's Bill Belichick at the door or, or on the phone, honey, Bill coach Belichick's on the phone. I mean, imagine what that would, the power of that. Right. But I'm telling you guys, Bill Belichick is,

He's one of those guys that if he ended up coaching high school football in Annapolis, I would not have been surprised. He's not caught up in all the bullshit, all the noise that we all get caught up in. He is just an old school football coach. And I really think that his dad...

had a major impact on his decisions and what he does. I think there's part of him that's probably always been pulling at him to be on a college campus because of his time at Annapolis with his dad. And before that, in places like North Carolina. And I really think as much as you guys are saying, hey, don't worry about the education. We're going to go build this roster and we're going to go win a championship. I think he's going to think about how I do both.

I really, I know his reputation is NFL and, and building a roster and winning and winning Superbowls. But I think there's part of him that I think is actually going to enjoy getting kids to buy into the demands of academics because of his background. I don't think it's going to be, Hey, you didn't go to class. Screw it. We're getting ready to win this game. I just don't think that's him. I just, I, I think he's going to, the reason it took two weeks, we kept hearing, uh,

Wait, they interviewed him? How do you interview Bill Belichick? It's one of those, if he says, yeah, I'm interested, it's like, you take it. But remember, it went for a while. So I'm sure he sat there and just gathered so much intel. Not only, I need this for NIL, I need this for private plane, whatever it is he needed.

but i think he wanted to learn like the ramifications and the guidelines of like what are we doing here what's this world so when he did step to the podium it was almost like in his mind like okay i can answer any question i've studied this and analyzed this job and what it takes so much

that I know what I'm ready to go and I'm ready to take it. And I think you guys are going to be surprised by what he builds. I don't think it's just going to be about, sure, he's going to try to win the national championship. That's obvious. And if you look at their schedule,

They're in the playoff next year. I mean, there's a very strong chance at North Carolina. I think their one game that makes you scratch their head, your head is Clemson. Other than that, they might be favored in every game they play. So get used to him getting teams to knocking on the door at ACC championship.

And into the playoff. But I do think he's going to do the academic side. That's just me. Maybe I'm wrong just from the time I've spent with him. I think he wants to make that a priority as well, which I applaud him if he can pull it off. Yeah. Herbie, we are a national sports podcast and very rarely do we use our platform and advocate for something up, but I feel like it's an appropriate time. And I want to put your feet to the fire on this because you might not be in charge of it, but I think you, you have a say you were a college football icon and

You can make change if you believe in it enough. The Dr. Pepper tuition challenge is out of hand. The chess passes are ruining America. It might be symbolic of everything that's wrong with America right now, actually, but it's feeding into it. Can we do something about that? Either move the challenge back a little bit or mandate that they have to throw with one arm like a quarterback. It's a football game. It's not a basketball game.

Make your passes with one hand. I want to see a spiral. Can we do something about that? Bro, I love that. You know, I used to do the Eckridge Challenge and –

We would throw it from 25 yards, I think, 20 or 25 yards. And the target was just about the size of a basketball. I mean, it was hard. And you would throw that thing. It was almost like trying to make a shot from half court. I'm with you. You know, everybody, it's almost like pop a shot. They're just firing that thing away. It doesn't take any ability at all. Right. Right.

So I think you're on to something. I think you move it back at least another 10 yards. Yeah. That would take away –

The chess pass. And let me get down on the field next time I'm in a game. I'll get to the bottom of this. I'll find out what's up. Because it is embarrassing. It is. They've ruined it. I don't blame the competitors. It's like the challenge portal. That's the best way to do it. Right. It's easier. Yeah, they figured out the answer. Right. Yeah, so the game has to evolve as the players evolve with it.

I think you can either move it back a little bit or just say, hey, you have to have one hand and it has to go above your shoulders. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. I'll bring that up if I don't know the Dr. Pepper folks, but if I'm in a game and I'm down in the field, I'm going to make that a point to go over there and try to get to the bottom of that. Again, I'll report back on that as well. All it would take is if you boycott, if you boycott a game, maybe just don't even talk for an entire half. Just saying you have the power.

I'm boycotting the game unless you get this shit fixed. That's where we are right now. Thank you for not boycotting the second half of the Niners-Rams game. That must have been tough to not boycott that. That would have been a fair boycott. That was tough. That test sucks. We've had a ridiculous year in a positive standpoint. Our games have been awesome. The ratings are off the charts.

And on paper, that looked like a really, really good game. And it just wasn't. It was just, it was brutal. We got through it. But yeah, I'm looking forward to this Thursday. And then I got to put Soldier Field to finish it all. Yeah. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. All right, Herbie. Thanks so much, man. We really appreciate it. You're the best. And have fun this weekend.

Kirk Herbstreet was brought to you by our great friends at Campbell's. Campbell's Chunky Soup. It's soup season. What a great time of year to enjoy some soup. I've been eating soup just about every day. I think I've had soup every day for the last three weeks. Today I've got some turkey and wild rice coming. Been mixing it up with some meatball, some loaded mac and cheese from Campbell's. Their chunky soup is outstanding. It warms you from the inside out. I love soup. I would drink soup, eat

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Paul Walter Hauser. Paul, thank you for joining us. The wrestling part, I got to admit, I didn't fully understand. You're a wrestler and you are part of Major League Wrestling. How did that start? I want to talk about the acting, but I was raised on the Attitude Era, so I'm not as much into wrestling right now, but I still love wrestling. How did you start with the wrestling?

Sure. Yeah. No, I, uh, I had done a wrestling show for charity that this guy, Sammy Callahan put on him and John Moxley were trying to raise some money for the wildfire relief in Hawaii. This was November of last year. And, uh, it went from me like showing up to sign some autographs or do free selfies or whatever. It turned into, uh,

hey do you want to have a wrestling match and that was secretly always a desire of mine to try it and I had been taking little classes here and there learning from other wrestlers and so I did this 10-minute match with a guy named Matthew Palmer and it went really well and I had a lot of fun and there was sort of an adrenaline spike unlike anything I'd ever felt before and I I played like junior high sports and I've done stand-up comedy in front of

you know, 1500 people, nothing I've ever done felt as good as that. So really, I continued to pursue it and, and kind of doggedly got these other bookings and wrestled other reputable guys. And you learn a lot from them when you're working with them. And, and I'm now telling people that through MLW and a couple other companies, I'm doing like a reverse Dwayne Johnson. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. That sounds like a lot of fun. What's the, what's the biggest pop you've gotten?

Oh, man. The biggest pop I've gotten was probably in my first match when I did the crane kick and the six-inch punch as a finisher. It was very theatrical, and I think people were wondering what my move style was going to be like. And obviously, I'm not doing backflips off stuff or anything, but I'm doing body slams and suplexes, and then I pulled out the...

Cobra Kai style crane kick and people went pretty ape. That was a good pop. You mentioned The Rock. It's very funny because most wrestlers, they wrestle and then they get into music or movies because they're so good at wrestling. You're just like, I was such a good actor, now I want to chase my one true love, wrestling. Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of different loves from an occupational standpoint. My heroes are

Guys like Rob Reiner and Kendrick Lamar and Sting who wrestled famously for WCW during the Attitude Era. And I just want to partake in those worlds whenever it makes sense or whenever I think I can do it. I haven't directed a film yet, but I intend to. I write a lot of movies. I've made some music and now I'm trying this

wrestling thing out and I think a lot of people a lot of haters online who don't like it and think it's like super lame but at the same time I think there's a place for everybody in wrestling there's different types of people the same way in hip hop you have Earl Sweatshirt and you have Action Bronson and you have Drake these are different styles within the form and so I'm just one of those many styles in that form I think I think if you're having fun doing it people will appreciate it they'll see the passion

And I'm just trying to put it over in the mainstream too of like if I could someday get nominated for an Oscar or a Tony Award, but I'm also doing an independent wrestling show in front of 800 people, I think that's kind of awesome. I like the idea of like if it were a verse and I'm just watching somebody do it, if a random character actor like a John C. Reilly or Paul Giamatti –

showed up at a wrestling show and wrestled and they were actually decent, I'd be very entertained by that. And I'd find it fascinating. Yeah. I mean, you could be, you could have your own EGOT, the EGOT plus you get the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar, the Tony, and also heavyweight champion of the world.

Yeah. Or U.S. champ or openweight champion in MLW. We'll see. I'll see how far I can take it. Yeah. So you mentioned the Oscar, and it's interesting you brought that up because we have said on this show, I think we had Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. No, no, it was Matt Damon and Casey Affleck on the show. And I said that if I could put in a bet, a future bet for somebody to win an Oscar for best actor, it would be you.

Because I love you in everything that you're in. You've played a wide variety of characters. Do you feel like that's a possibility? Do you see roles come across your desk and you're like, you know what? I feel like this could be one that's critically acclaimed. Thanks, man. Yeah, somebody sent me that clip the day it came out. A couple people that I didn't know were like diehard PMT fans. They were all hitting me up and sending me that clip. It was...

Very humbly and sweet. I think anyone can win an Oscar, but it's not even about acumen, like they're so great they're going to win an Oscar. It's usually about the marriage of the role with the performer, right? So, you know, there are people who back in the day in 93, 94...

They looked at Brendan Fraser and Jamie Foxx and they were like, oh, the guy from Encino Man? Oh, the guy from In Living Color? And then they won Oscars for The Whale and Ray. So, you know, it's really just about that right marriage of role. I think I've had a couple roles that could have been nominated based on what they were and me showing up and doing the job. But yeah, I'm still looking for that thing where I get to really...

pop in a great movie and have some form of impact, you know? Yeah, I mean, I thought the Richard Jewell movie was incredible. Good movie. Yeah, I mean, that was a movie where I was just like, your ability to, like,

be Richard Jewell and have this complicated guy who's like you feel bad for and you know he's just trying to do the right thing that was that was one of those movies that I always base my movies on if I'm thinking about it the next day when I wake up that means it's a good movie and that was absolutely the case for for that movie oh that's awesome man yeah no I think that's a there's a couple movies I've gotten to do that I just think will stand the test of time

And I think luckily I'm in that Eastwood ether where whether he's alive or in 20 years when he's gone, it'll be the kind of thing where people will revisit that because it was Eastwood. And I think that's the same with Black Klansman. Yeah. It's Spike Lee. It's Adam Driver. It's, you know, it's this big film that did well. And then, and I think I, Tanya too, with being...

Such a time capsule piece for the 1990s and being a Margot Robbie thing where I felt like that and Wolf of Wall Street and Suicide Squad were the things that said this is like someone to pay attention to. This is someone who's crushing it. Yeah. Are you? It's fun. It's fun to be in those movies. I mean, you're never guaranteed that. But like when they come across your proverbial desk, it's like, oh, sick.

I get to work with Craig Gillespie or Spike Lee or Clint Eastwood. Yeah. Are you nervous at all that you're being typecast as secondary characters to the Olympics?

I listen. I'm hoping 20 years from now I put the stash on and I can play the gymnast coach for what's the name of that girl? Bella Caroli, right? Bella Caroli. Carrie Strug. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Carrie Strug. I got to play Carrie Strug's gymnast coach. Gymnast coach in like 20, 30 years, right? Yeah. Yeah. You can do that. I believe you could pull it off. It's so weird, dude. It's so weird that like.

It's so weird that I'm playing Chris Farley in this biopic next year because Farley famously played Sean Eckhart, my character in I, Tanya in the, the monologue sketch with Nancy Kerrigan when she hosted. Yeah, that is crazy. And, and, uh,

They famously Jay Leno famously said when the Richard Jewell thing happened, like this guy kind of looks like the guy that whacked Nancy Kerrigan. Right. It was like a famous late night joke that he referenced these two people together. And then Farley also was on SNL and Richard Jewell ended up being on SNL. Yeah. After the whole debacle. So it's like.

There's just some weird incestuous creative thing going on with these roles. I don't know what it is. So with Chris Farley, that must have been fascinating to play him in a biopic. I can't wait to watch it. I have to assume that you learned a lot about Chris as you're studying for the role. What have you learned about him that maybe you didn't know going into it? Well, you know, even before I got the role, and we haven't shot it yet. We're going to shoot it next year at some point, probably later in the year. But...

I, I, I knew so much about Chris going in cause I was just a fan. So I kind of was reading up on him and ingesting Chris Farley stuff the way you would, if you were preparing for a role. Um, and, and I kind of knew most everything about him. What I found interesting is, you know, he, uh,

He had this, like, very highly intellectual side where him and Tim Meadows used to go to foreign films when they were doing Second City in Chicago. And, you know, Chris had these really deep conversations with his female friends that sometimes he couldn't have with his male friends. And there was just a very intellectual, sensitive side that not everybody got to see.

especially if they were like a newer friend when he had already been very famous. Yeah. I think, you know, in telling that story, we hope to show the duality of him as there's a duality to many of us. Yeah. Are you... Is it...

Not nervous is the right word, but Chris Farley's beloved. And so do you feel pressure doing this movie where you're like, I know that everyone loves Chris Farley, so I have to get to a point where it's like people are like, you did him justice almost in playing him. I think I love Chris so much that I'm incapable of letting Chris... I mean, I'm not incapable of letting his fans down. People...

somebody can order a steak and you give them exactly the filet they ordered and they're still not happy. Right. And they send it back to the kitchen. Some people are impossible, but I love Chris so much that I'm not worried about, um, keeping his memory alive in a, in an authentic and loving way. Yeah. I know I'm going to do that. Um, and that's not cockiness. That's once again, knowing what you're capable of too. And knowing that there are certain things you are just meant to do in some way, you know, like I, I,

I met up with John Farley a couple years ago to talk about this being a possibility, his brother John, and I gave him my phone number, and he goes, why is your number already in my phone? My number was already in John Farley's phone, and we had never met. It said Paul Hauser when he typed in the number. Weird things like that have been happening for a while, and I think some people are just supposed to play certain people. I think Jamie Foxx, God, his parents, there's something in the ether that

knew he was going to play that role. And I think this is one of those things that I was supposed to play. Jeff Bridges, when he got his first role, he has a story about how he told the director, like, I don't think I'm doing a good job. I think this is a mistake. You should fire me. And the director just said, no, I chose you. You're right for the role. You couldn't screw this up if you wanted to. You're the guy.

And I think sometimes you're just the guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. When it comes to playing a role like that, or do you go, do you go like full time into character or do you, you know, when the cameras are on, you flip the switch? Well, I haven't done it yet. I've only started or co-starred in three or four things. I think Jewel, Blackbird, this thing I did with Mark Wahlberg, he and I were, it was like a two hander. We're both in all the scenes. Yeah.

we've only done it like four or five times maybe so i starring in something is way more taxing than i tanya black clansman i tanya black clans when i get to show up i'm doing my finger guns and i walk out but starring in something is is exhausting um in a way that i kind of didn't know until i did it um so i my hope is that i can do my homework

to a degree of precision and aggression that when I'm on set, I can be very calm and not in character. That's my hope is that I do the homework enough to still be emotionally available to the crew and the cast. Because you don't want to alienate people. Even if you are doing a job, it's like I...

it's too important to me to be social with people and to be on the level to alienate them. So when I watched the Jim Carrey documentary about him and Andy Kaufman, I saw that Jim had kind of alienated a lot of people in his process, Jim Carrey, who I adore by the way. But that process of kind of like,

alienating people or pushing them away, I've sort of decided I'm not going to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you're acting in a show like Blackbird and it's probably not the, I don't know, is it a fun role when you're playing a psychopathic serial killer? Like, do you have fun? Because you did, first of all, just say like you did an amazing job.

in that show it was incredible um but i can't imagine that it would be an enjoyable time for you to spend in character as like the scummiest person to ever live it depends on everyone's process but it was not fun for me i can tell you that much i was not in a good place personally when i shot that mentally emotionally was not a good place spiritually not a good place and uh was definitely ingesting a lot of marijuana and alcohol when i wasn't on set and uh

And also we shot in New Orleans. That's a pretty spiritually thick place. You can kind of feel the air a little bit there sometimes. And I would say that the way I played the character, my process was I have to think the thoughts. I can't just say the lines and hope that it seems real. I had to kind of get into the icky of it. And so having to think the thoughts, to have it register in the eyes when you say lines of dialogue was,

you feel very guilty when you rap at the end of the day, you feel gross. Yeah. And you know, I only did it because of the damn character, but it's also a little mentally exhausting and you feel really gross. So yeah, no, that character was hard to play. That wasn't easy and it wasn't fun. What was fun was the fact that the writing was good and I was getting paid decent and I was working with,

brilliant actors like greg kinnear and taryn edgerton so so after a day on set there do is there something that you would do to like cleanse yourself to to wipe that day away yeah and i didn't cleanse myself well like i was saying i would grab a sandwich from turkey and the wolf and i'd get stoned and i'd sip a cocktail but um a lot of self-medicating but i the sort of pg things i part that i was partaking in were um

Me and my buddy Anthony Pettix would go shoot hoops at a local court in somebody's neighborhood in New Orleans or whatever.

We play super Nintendo or watch curb your enthusiasm. Like there were things that kind of like were pressure releases. Yeah. And, uh, and yeah, Larry David was very influential to me being able to laugh at the end of a, a dark, awkward day. Yeah. Yeah. So you, you've done drama, you've done comedy. Is there one that you prefer more than the other at this point in your career? I think I prefer drama because there's just a complexity to it that has more of a variance and a diversity, uh,

Comedy sort of can feel redundant sometimes. And that's also why even your favorite comedians make comedy movies that you don't like, you know, Leo, every time Leo or Denzel do Lee or Denzel,

In a drama, we're all just like, boom, another one. Yeah, right. But like comedy, there are brilliant people who do comedy and we're like, that movie sucked. Why isn't it as good as the one they made eight years ago? Right. And it's like, well, comedy can get very redundant. And after a while, you learn somebody's shtick, whereas like drama, you're living in different worlds and different moods and you can keep them guessing a little bit better. So I think I enjoy watching and doing drama more.

But at the same time, my roots are entirely stand-up and sketch comedy. I grew up on Jim Gaffigan and Monty Python and, you know, Chris Farley and Eddie Murphy and everything. Yeah. Wait, so when did you start doing stand-up? Because that was how you started, right? Yeah, when I was 16, I started writing screenplays and started doing stand-up comedy. Oh, wow. That was like the year it got really aggressive where I was like, I'm going full throttle, full bore.

And, uh, my last few years of high school, I did three plays a year, wrote for the school newspaper, did choir, was in barbershop quartet, was class president one year, was writing scripts and doing standup. So it was like, I was trying to do the John Cena, Dwayne Johnson schedule before I was actually able to do that type of schedule. I was nuts. Um,

And, uh, and yeah, I, I thought standup or screenwriting might be a way to break in. I didn't know how to break into Hollywood. I thought, well, they say you can climb the wall. You can break through the wall. You can pay someone to get you through the wall. What's my way. I'll just try all the things. Um, and, uh, what I would find out is that standup is incredibly hard to break into, even if you're decent. And I think I was, I don't think I was good. I think I was decent. And, uh, I think, uh,

I think I got away from standup because I just didn't want that lifestyle of you're in a depressing atmosphere. You have to wind your wheel up on your back and make these people laugh. And you're constantly having to prove yourself. Whereas I could go into an audition and two minutes into the audition, they're like, you got the job. You're the guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much easier than standup in my opinion. Yeah. Um,

And you get treated exponentially better. So what point in your career were you like, all right, I think I've not broken through, but people are noticing and I feel like they see something in me? I think I was telling somebody, I think like the show Kingdom that I did about the MMA fighters with Frank Grillo and Matt Loria, Jonathan Tucker, Nick Jonas, that show was

was sort of my like associates degree and me breaking in. I, Tanya was like the end of the associates degree where it's like, you're getting your bachelor's now people know your face, but not your name. And then Richard Jewell is like sort of the last year of the bachelor's degree where it's like, Hey, you are, you are, uh, people now are starting to know your name and they're starting to think of you in a different light because you're not just a silly idiot. You can, you can act too.

And I think Blackbird is like the start of trying to gain a master's degree. Yeah. I'm trying to do that right now. The next four years is me trying to get the master's degree. And in my early 40s, hopefully I'm mastering this stuff. And you look at a quarterback that's about the age, early 40s, is like, okay, you've put in your time and now you are...

That's your legacy right now. We know Tom Brady is Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers is Aaron Rodgers. Yeah. I think you will be one of the biggest actors in the world in the next 10 years. From your mouth to my business manager's ears. You should be. You should be. We said, this might have been the same interview, but you should play Andy Reid in the Andy Reid biopic. Mm-hmm.

Oh, yeah. Damon was like, I'm going to hit Hauser up about that. I'm like, he never hit me up. He didn't hit you up? Where's my Andy Reid phone call? No, I am developing a movie with Ben and Matt, though. Something that I'm going to act in and produce and I co-wrote. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Wait, are you a Jets fan? Did I read that right? So here's the story on that. I, two years ago, got an email, two, two and a half years ago, saying the Jets organization would like to invite you to...

to get two to four VIP passes and sit in the owner's suite. Okay. And I was like, not in New York at the time. And I was a lifelong Packer fan was like, I, I,

This is weird. Like, I wonder what propelled them to do that. They're recruiting fans. Yeah. Who knows? And I, I, uh, then I got this movie, this Springsteen movie I'm doing right now in Jersey. And I was like, I wonder if that offer is still on the table. I literally went to my Google emails and was like looking up jets in the search engine of my past emails and

Found the email and emailed my PR people and was like, hey, I know it's two. It's like an enormous Donald voice. Yeah, I know it's two and a half years later, but can I still go to a Jets game for free? Like,

Hell yeah. I'm just saying I'm a Jets fan, you know? So I, I did that and they were like, let us check. They were like, probably weary about it. And then there I was, uh, two days ago. Was it, what day is today? Monday? Yeah. Yesterday. So yesterday I was at the Jets game with my buddy Darren and, uh, we're,

sitting with the owner or co-owner, Chris Johnson, and his wife, Doris, and they could not have been sweeter and nicer and more down to earth and were noshing on lobster rolls and eclairs and watching the game surrounded by

all these wealthy people that I felt very out of place with. So, so, so not a jets fan, but then you got to see your old quarterback. Cause you're a Packers fan, your old quarterback, Aaron Rogers play. It's not going well. It's a, it's rough. Cause all the talents there, but not everything's connecting, you know? And, uh,

And it's tough, too. Not everybody can stay so... You can be talented but not have the sharp or crispness that you once had. And it doesn't mean you're not good. It just means you're a 42-year-old quarterback or a 44-year-old quarterback, right? Yeah. And I think actors are like that, too. To bring it back to acting, it's like some actors, and I won't say their name as to not be rude, but when they get older, they're just not as sharp. And it doesn't mean you don't enjoy them. It just means...

They don't have that Christmas. And then there are some that stand the test of time and are giving psychotically good performances in their eighties and nineties. And that, that class of actors, like a sir, Anthony Hopkins. Yeah. Anthony Hopkins can still be as good as he was in silence of the lambs tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a very rare thing. And I think, you know, Rogers, the best days are probably behind, but,

I loved watching him, and I met him at the ESPYs. We did a comedy skit together, and he could not have been cooler. We had a lot of fun talking to each other. Wait, so that's something interesting you bring up. I never really thought of, like, is there a... Not an expiration date, but is there a career...

arc for an actor where it's like they become washed up and is that something that you actually think about in the back of your head where you're like I have I'm in my prime right now I gotta I gotta work work work because who knows at 60 will I still have it I don't worry about that so much because I also know I'm fiercely competitive and uh and I'm not fully mentally well so I know that when I'm 60 I'll still

be getting weird yeah doing different stuff um doesn't mean i'm better than so and so it just means that's how i'm built i think i may be proven wrong in 30 years you know who knows but um my hope is that when i'm 60 and maybe have a couple more nominations or something under my belt and some people are that's a classy actor that's a real actor that guy like i hope i hope i'm still showing up

and doing shows like I think you should leave with Tim Robinson. Yeah. I hope I'm still showing up at WrestleMania and someone's putting me through a table or I hope, you know, I hope MLW is still having me back. And I, you know, like these are, these are the things I do think about is never take away your self amusement and your, your competitive spirit and your, your sense of play. And I don't think that'll happen to you. You know, what's it like being competitive as an actor?

Dude, people don't even think about the way I think about it. I'm a weirdo. I'm way too insecure and in my head with competitive nature. I don't think guys like Paul Dano and Adam Driver think the way I think. I think they're very content, focused, and they probably don't think about it as much. I very much think about the guys in my bracket. Aaron Paul said to me very early in my career, I did a movie with him that few people saw.

And Aaron Paul gave me advice. He said, you got to beat the town. Who are you the next of? Who are you up against? Who are the guys you see at all your auditions? You got to beat those guys out. And I kept a list of like 30, 40 guys that I was slowly trying to get all the jobs and then eventually lost.

there were like me and four or five other guys in the top bracket and i was like damn okay and now i'm at the point where if these three people pass they come to me so it's like i'm still in my head i'm still like i still have this dogged obsession of i wanna i wanna be the guy that gets the offer before them yeah but you know that also never stops because christian bale says that about dicaprio he has been very vocal about saying like if dicaprio passes i get the offer

And it's like, so maybe that happens forever, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Or do you pay attention to the guys that are coming up behind you too? The, the relatively new guys? Are you like this guy, he's getting a little too close to me. I need to separate myself. Oh, no, no, no. Never that. It's all support. It's all love. It's a, it's just me trying to make me the best, not to anyone else's detriment or put down. It's just,

me trying to show my teeth every time I open my mouth. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I love, I love the guys coming up. Uh, I love Will Poulter, Fred Hechinger, uh, Joseph Quinn. Chalamet is great. Like there, there's a lot of guys coming up that are great, I think. So what's the story of, uh, the rumor that surrounded you, the Quentin Tarantino rumor? Fake news. What happened with that? It's all fake news. It's, uh,

Tarantino and I have never had a meeting. He's never contacted me. Some random blog site said that I was in contention or it was overheard that I had been offered the lead in the movie critic. And it was news to me and me and my manager are freaking out. I remember I was sitting on the toilet on my cell phone. I'm like texting, uh,

And suddenly my phone blows up and I go on Twitter and it was just like, and all these people are talking about it. I was like, what the hell is going on? And, you know, for us, we thought maybe it was true and we just hadn't been given the offer. Maybe somebody internally spilled the beans at a luncheon at the San Vicente bungalows and somebody texted somebody and they put it online. You know, you never know. Yeah. But, but it turned out that,

I guess Bill Maher had Tarantino on his show, the basement show that looks like everybody's a prisoner to Bill. Oh, yeah, the one where he smokes weed in front of Hawk Tua girl and asks her about pepper scent addiction. Everybody looks like a kept woman while he drinks and gets high. But yeah, he...

he and tarantino very briefly talked about me and mar was kind of putting me over saying like he was in richard jewell he was good and tarantino was like yeah he's been in a few things but whatever i think people just thought i was gonna cast him because you know he looks like he could be a movie critic and i was like oh like it totally was like uh like a kidney shot from a boxer i had to i had to take a knee and be like oh that hurt yeah oh i wish i wasn't contention but also like

You know, there's a real world out there where wars are being fought. If I'm not a Tarantino movie, I think it'll be okay. But yeah, I do. I do love the guy. I love his work and, and,

You know, I'd love to be a fly on that wall and do anything in one of his movies. Yeah, and also I think if you're having your name thrown around in baseless rumors for a Quentin Tarantino movie, but they're believable enough where people are like, I could see that happen, that's probably a good thing too, right? Certainly, yeah. It certainly brings a smirk to your face that people can believe that. And, you know...

I've had meetings with big name directors who were thinking about using me for something and for whatever reason, they went another way. And if anything, that is just fodder for encouragement. Like, hey, you never know. You could wake up and I could be doing a recurring guest star on a sitcom or I could be in a Spielberg movie. And that's kind of a fun, exciting way to live your life, you know, to...

to sort of feel the pendulum swinging back and forth. And the key is to just have fun and honor every commitment, treat a scrimmage like the super bowl is what I always tell young actors because you never know who's watching and you want to honor the fact that anyone gives a crap about you and gave you a role because they could cast somebody else. Yeah. So,

We've got some pretty deep connections in Hollywood. Jerry O'Connell is a good friend of ours. Have you ever met Jerry O'Connell? No, but I'm a fan. I love his brief but impactful performance in Can't Hardly Wait. And I've certainly been a fan of his from Stand By Me. And he seems like a nice guy. Yeah. You didn't mention Kangaroo Jack. Or his supermodel wife. I think it'd be a little shallow to just say that he's got a hot wife and

Did the now cult classic Kangaroo Jack, right? I was trying to go for deeper cuts. Yeah, no, no. Supermodel Wife, though, you can say right off the top. I loved his wife when I was 13. Supermodel Wife. He's got Supermodel Wife. You can Google it. It's a fact. I'm happy for him. She's a very nice lady. Is it Rebecca Romaine? Yes. Yeah, you know exactly. Oh, you pervert. You're a pervert. Yeah, you played that cool. Oh, what's her name? Rebecca Romaine? Yeah. Yeah.

It's not like I know how to spell her last name, capital R-O-M-I-J-N. Exactly. That'd be crazy. I would like to see you and Jerry in a movie together. I feel like that would be good. Yeah, you and Jerry. Jerry's a good actor. Or maybe that's the next hit sitcom is he's my stepdad and I'm like, we're trying to help each other out and we're both total messes or something. No, I think it'd be better if he was your dad and then Rebecca Romijn is your stepmom.

And you're always getting in trouble. Stacey's mom has got it going on. There it is. Hey, so you've been in some, you've had some great like part roles in some incredible comedy and sitcom. You were in Reno 911. You were in Always Sunny. Have you ever made anyone break in filming those where you're like, man, this is awesome? Because I always think about that when you're like in those big shows and it's like, yeah, I made all these funny people laugh.

Yeah, that happens on occasion. I'm trying to think when it's happened for me. I don't think it was... I think I remember breaking... I broke Tom Lennon once or twice on Reno, and that was a big feather in the cap. Yeah. And I broke a couple of the Sonny people once or twice, and that was a big feather in the cap because I love those shows so much. They're two of my favorite shows of all time. So for me, that's...

Those moments mean as much as winning an actor trophy. Those are your own trophies that you get to ponder whenever you're having a bad day. Yeah. And it's also, I mean, is it weird having a show like Always Sunny where it's like you watched it probably as a fan and then they call you up and they're like, hey, we want you to be in it. Dude, it was nuts. I was dropping out of college in Oak Park River Forest, this place called Concordia University.

I was basically dropping out, partying my face off, ballooning up in weight and writing a movie script for Key and Peele because they had just, Mad TV had just gotten canceled and my manager at the time repped them. He's like, you know, you want to write a movie for these guys? They're looking for something to do together. And so I'm writing a script for Key and Peele before they have the hit show and I'm dropping out of college and most of my days were spent watching dirty work and Wet Hot American Summer and episodes of It's Always Sunny.

And so a year later to be in the room auditioning for the show was crazy. And then stepping into the bar, I vividly remember I brought my friend to set, which was such a thing. Like I had a weird flex back in the day where I just didn't ask permission for anything. I would just bring one of my buddies to set and he'd be hanging out with me all day without asking anybody. So yeah.

Like my buddy Peter and I, Peter Hens, this really funny dude, he and I walked into the set of It's Always Sunny and walking into that bar and seeing everything. It was like it was it was like the Wizard of Oz or something like we we could not believe we were in the bar of It's Always Sunny. Yeah. Yeah. So that's got to be crazy. Going back to making people break on set. That never happens in a show like Blackbird, right?

um i wouldn't say it never happens i mean there's a famous clip on youtube of somebody i think it might have been phil hartman or somebody had a fart machine in the elevator and a scene in the master the pt anderson film uh-huh that's pretty serious film or at least an intense film and like and like they had a moment where everybody broke and it was like over a fart joke

So like it can happen, but I would say most of the time on Blackbird, 98% of the time we were both locked in, you know, deathly serious about the work. But I will, I will say you have to keep stuff light outside of it. Yeah. And I think there were a day or two, not that he ever truly showed it, but there had to be a day or two where I annoyed the crap out of Taron, like in between takes or in between setups where I'd be like,

doing an accent or a celebrity impression or dancing or being stupid. And for me, it was like therapeutic, but for him at some point, I'm sure it proved distractionary. Yeah. Like I, you, you gotta break up the intensity somehow you gotta stay sane. And for me nowadays, if I'm having a rough, rough day for whatever reason, I just watch a couple of clips from, um, I think you should leave on Netflix and,

And I'm out of it. Or I'll watch a really good wrestling match from MLW or another organization on YouTube. And it makes me feel better. Who was your favorite wrestler growing up? Sting was my number one. Still is. Still is. Still is. Well, he retired, but you know what it is. Everybody's got their Mount Rushmore. He's the top of mind. And I think I just admired the fact that he was second fiddled to Hulk Hogan in that good guy era fight.

But Hogan was like never really selling for other people. He was always saying like, I'm the dude. You can't get one over on me.

And Sting would sell for people. Sting, you could beat the crap out of Sting, but he would still come back. Yeah. And I feel like I saw that more than I saw with Hogan. I admired that. Loved the flair and pizzazz of the guy going from surfer Sting to the crow Sting. And he got all dark and serious and fought the NWO with just a baseball bat and a silent face. Like there was something so cool about that. And he stood the test of time and just recently –

you know, had his final match back in the spring of this year in Greensboro, North Carolina. And I got to be there and Tony Khan allowed me to sit ringside with some dear friends. One of my oldest friends, Ryan Kunitzer, who, you know, I've known the guy 30 something years. Sting was like our guy and we're standing there, you know, nearly emotional as he has his final match. It was amazing. That's incredible. Who else is on your Mount Rushmore?

So there's two types of Rushmores, right? There's the one where you're trying to objectively give the top four from the worldly perspective. And then there's personal Rushmore. Which one do you want? I want personal. Yeah, I want personal. Personal Rushmore is Sting, Bret Hart. I think Rick Flair and Chris Jericho. Oh, okay.

I think those are the four. But Jericho's tough, too. He just sneaks in there past...

He just sneaks in there past a couple other guys like Ricky Steamboat or Randy Savage. Yeah, Randy Savage. He was the best. I miss that guy. Macho man. I think my top ten has a bunch of random guys too. They're not who you'd think. I don't go for the low-hanging fruit of The Undertaker, Andre the Giant, and Shawn Michaels. I like guys who are impactful in different ways. I love Dustin Rhodes, a.k.a. Gold Dust, Rey Mysterio, Mick Foley.

Kurt Angle, not all the people that get put at the top. Yeah, Mankind is probably on my rush for it. I've got a really dumb question for you. But I think about this with actors. I'm a very dumb person. Serve it up, bro. How much time do you put in behind the scenes just literally memorizing your lines? Depends on the role. Depends on the role. There are certain things, like Richard Jewell, I would learn my lines a week, like five to seven days in advance.

And I'd be very overly familiar with them and it could kind of fall out of me a lot easier. And then there's other things. If I'm doing a comedy, there's just less of a stress of learning the lines. It just feels like, I don't know. It's like Bam Margero, the skateboard. Like it's not like he's in shape and skateboards all the time, but like he can still jump on a skateboard and do whatever. Cause he's Bam. Yeah. That's kind of how I feel about comedy. But I think that's actually a really dangerous way to,

It's a dangerous attitudinal stance because you can then sometimes give 85% when you should be given 100%. So it depends. But yeah, my whole thing is I learn one page at a time. So I'll always know the first page of dialogue better than the last. But for me, that's just my process. I learn one page at a time. The biggest audition I ever had page-wise, I think I learned... I think I, Tanya, was 13 pages long.

I memorized, and I think Scream 4, I memorized like 15 pages. Jeez. So when you're rehearsing for Black Klansman, there's some lines of dialogue in that movie you probably would never want to say in any context besides in front of a camera, right? Are you doing, are you rehearsing the full lines? Yeah, if I have to feel the words and...

say them in a way where it you don't feel the timidity in the character because like i've i've met some weird racist ass dudes at dive bars or you know one of those low-key racist guys who's like putting the bait out and seeing if you'll if you'll touch the the pole line yeah see if you're friend or foe yeah the yeah the uber driver who's like talking politics and then it's like

yeah, you know how these people are. Then they're looking at you in the rear view and you're like, I want to freaking die right now. I don't want to be in this guy's car. I've met enough of them that like,

You can't have timidity. It's got to be if you were born with that ideological stance, it has to be as normal as, well, yeah, we always have pork chops on Thursdays. Yeah, right. It just has to be normal. Do you see? Don't say it because you're like, look at me. I'm saying the rap lyrics behind closed doors. You're doing it because you have to make sure it's right. But I would say what's harder is when you improvise with a bad character.

Yeah. There were lines that I said in black bird and black Klansman that I improvised that you feel very guilty about because afterwards you go, well, that wasn't in the script and you still got there. So how'd you get there?

That's tough. That's acting. Yeah, that's acting. Yeah. That's really good acting. It's also acting. Yeah. It's also sometimes good acting. You're like, oh, that is a really good line. Unfortunately, it's devastatingly awful, but that's who you're playing on the day. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's really, really racist, and you came up with it all on your own. Yeah. I had a disgusting moment where I felt so bad.

I'm doing a scene with John David Washington, who's about as likable and sweet of a person as you can get on a movie set. And, uh, and I did something where I stuck my mouth out to look like a ape or a primate with my tongue, uh,

to, to piss him off in the scene. Now, Spike gave me the direction of you're up in his grill, do something that could provoke him, but he won't be provoked. So like, that's what I thought of for that character. But the moment after it was done, I went up to John David. I go, Hey man, I just want to say, and he goes, I know, I know like very much said it. Like I know where you're going with it. And I like, we were on the same page here. Don't don't,

don't take your foot off the pedal just because you're uncomfortable. Yeah. And I really admired his, his grace and professionalism with that. And, and there've been moments like that and other projects. And sometimes you just got to be able to have a conversation preliminarily too. Sometimes I won't do something. Cause I'm like, I don't want to get,

I don't want someone to create a story of me being a bad person because I made a creative choice. So let me run this by them first to make sure they're comfortable. And 90% of the time, the other actor's like, oh, you shouldn't have even told me. You should have just done it. Right. It's like before you step into the wrestling ring. Yeah. That too. I'm always asking wrestlers, you know, like,

These guys at MLW, that's their locker room. I'm a guest in their locker room. I'm new to the roster, and I really respect those guys and gals. It's always about finding out what are we doing and how do we do it the best way that doesn't complicate something or hurt anybody long-term. Paul, this has been awesome, man. We really appreciate you joining us. I got one last question. It's the rowback question. RHOBACK.COM, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts.

Roback.com promo code take I mentioned it at the top but Major League Wrestling there's free pay-per-views or sorry free matches the big streams are on YouTube so the last question I have for you is if wrestling started taking off for you and they're like you have to give up acting would you do it? like really take off

If they gave me that ultimatum and something weird happened where, say, in 2026, I undergo the Chris Pratt-style transformation. Yeah. And MLW's taken off and they got a show on TV and they want to put a belt on me and we're doing the whole thing. If that opportunity presented itself, I would just hold my ground and say, you have to let me do both. Yeah. I don't think I would take the deal because...

At the end of the day, I love acting. It would hurt my feelings. It would hurt my spirit to not get to act in some capacity. And you got to ask my wife. My wife, Amy, is such a patient, grace-driven woman. She knows that when I go three, four, five months without acting, I'm not that fun to be around. I'm like starved for attention.

and I'm like hell bent on making my jokes and suddenly I'm in the kitchen and I'm trying to turn into Anthony Bourdain or Guy Fieri. Like, it's like, it's a very, you know, we're sick people actors. Yeah. So it's like, I think it would hurt the soul and the brain too much if I didn't do it. But I do think that there's a way to do both. And I'm trying to prove that. And the other thing to anyone listening, like know your value. If you're good at what you do,

And somebody saying there's an ultimatum, tell them, give, give them a counter ultimatum that you need to do both. And,

you'll find out that when you stick to your guns and you are who you say you are, you should be able to do both. That's a great sentiment. And it's also what you said about going crazy when you don't act for a while. That's why you're an incredible actor. I mean, we obviously do a stupid podcast, but when we go five days without talking to each other about sports, we're like, what the fuck? Our brain starts going crazy. It nourishes your spirit to do these things you love. And I really believe in not to...

not to be too preaching. My, my dad's literally a retired minister, but I believe that God put us all on earth to do different things, to, to embody something that can benefit other people. You guys do it yourselves. You entertain and educate people on topics they're interested in. And you give people a reprieve from a dark, twisted, difficult world. And, and I think I do the same. And like, you know, it's,

When you feel that inside yourself and you go, man, I feel thirsty for this thing. That's God's way of telling you you're meant to do that. Yeah. We're put on this earth to lose bets. So I would encourage people, follow the breadcrumbs, you know, follow the trail of passion because it's there for a reason. Yeah, I appreciate you telling us that we educate people. We haven't educated a single person. No, we did. Well, you educate them on other people, right?

We did. We educated numerous NFL head coaches on what to do in the fourth quarter of a playoff game if you're losing by two scores and it's fourth down, fourth and eight. Do you kick the field goal or do you give the ball back to Tom Brady to beat you in the NFC Championship game? Listen, you guys were the first people to say the Andy Reid thing. So if that happens, we can go back and be like, these guys educated us. That's true. Yeah. They were prophetic. Yeah. I mean, you would. This was happening. You would absolutely kill an Andy Reid role. Yeah. Yeah.

At the end of the day, I'm looking to work with anybody who's kind, who treats people well and wants to, wants to work hard and tell a good story, whatever that looks like. It could be a sitcom. It could be a, a little indie foreign film. It could be anything. But at the end of the day, you hope to do something that you're proud of, you know, and I never want to be that actor who just takes a bad movie for a lot of money. I have two children who are going to be in private school and,

And life is not cheap. It can be very difficult sometimes. So I'm sure there's going to be that temptation too. But I try to make things that I would want to pay my hard-earned money to go see at the AMC Theater or the Regal Cinema. I think it comes across too. So is there one role, not one that you have –

like the ball in motion for, so taking out like the Chris Farley, any of that stuff, is there something that you've been fascinated with a story or an individual that you've just been really, really interested in who you would like to play or a role that you would really like to play at some point? Good question. Yeah. I'll leave you with this. I have three roles. I really want to inhabit, uh, in the next five years. Um,

I want to, I want to play Teddy Roosevelt. Oh, Oscar. Oscar. There you go. Oscar. And that's another one where I just, I know I can play him. I'm not even worried about it. It just, I just have to convince other people to want to do it. Um,

The other one is a father who knows how to be present and not on his phone all the time. Okay, good role. That's a role I really need to inhabit and get better at because I can be... Yeah, it's a fantasy. This is a genre. And as a father, I mean, I want to inhabit that characteristic. The third role is I want to kick somebody's ass in MLW, and I'm going to be doing that Thursday night at the Moe Rose Ballroom.

in Long Island City. And I hope you check it out in person if you can't make it in person. Kurt Bauer, in all his benevolence, is providing these pay-per-view style cards for free on YouTube. So check it out. I love it. I love it. Well, Paul, thank you so much for your time, man. We're big fans of yours and keep crushing it. I'd also like to invest in the Teddy Roosevelt film when it gets made. Yeah. Manifesting.

I got some money coming through. Travis Hunter for Heisman. Love to you guys, and let's do this again in like a year or two here. Yeah. Love it. Thanks so much, man. Paul Walterhauser was brought to you by our great friends over at Body Armor. I'm drinking my Body Armor right now. Got their water. I drank several Body Armors on Sunday, keeping me hydrated during the NFL streams. Body Armor is also presenting Surviving Barstool.

keeping big cat hydrated throughout all the challenges, uh, surviving barstool. It takes out of you. I remember when I did it, it was just like, try, try to survive, just survive in advance. And you can't do it without staying super hydrated. By the way,

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Yes. Yes. Yes.

Hank, let me get one of the... Let me get an avocado bacon burger. Fries! These smell so good. I'm on a diet, but I don't care. Diet's over. Dunking is probably most likely... No! 99.9% not happening. I'm going to enjoy a burger because it smells so good. This is the perfect burger right here. Yeah. Love Shake Shack. Oh, my God. It's actually outstanding. This is a burger worth braving a tackle for. Head to Shake Shack. Use code BURGERBLITZ and the avocado bacon burger is all yours for free.

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And the avocado bacon burger is all yours for free with a $10 minimum purchase. Some terms apply. What was your favorite blitz of the week? Blitz. Blitz. Blitz. Blitz. Blitz. That Vikings defensive end. I know it's not a blitz. Blitz. That was a pretty good strip sack. Yeah. Blitz. Blitz. The burger blitz. Promo code burger blitz. Get a free Shake Shack burger with $10 minimum purchase. It's so good. It's so good.

Before we do FAQs, well, Hank, you're eating a burger and you're supposed to read FAQs. What? It's so good. It's so good. Do you guys, FAQ for you guys, you know how the daylight savings thing is back in the news? Whether we should or we shouldn't, and we're like, hey, wish we had another hour of sunlight in the winter. Yeah.

I'm an idiot. I didn't realize that if we didn't do daylight savings, or I don't even understand the terminology. If we didn't do daylight savings, it would get dark at like 7, like 15 in the summer. Oh, really? I never realized that we'd have to give that up. The opposite side of it? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't either. And I don't mind either. Yeah, I don't want that. I thought it only fucked with us. No, it was like the sun would rise at like 445 in the summer.

And then set it like 745. That's the opposite of what I want in the summer. Yeah. So just suck it up for the winter. We're already five days away from the shortest day of the year. We're going to be on the other side soon. Yeah, it sucks for the first week when you're like, oh, it shouldn't be dark this early. But then it's like, whatever. Yeah, just get through it. People that bitch about winter are fucking losers. It's cold and it's dark early. Get over it. Move to California if you don't like it. Don't bitch about winter again.

Until like late January, early February. This is not winter yet because it's holiday season. Everyone's happy. There's football on. This does not count as winter yet. That's what always fucks with you is that you think, oh, it's going to get dark so early in the wintertime, but then it starts to get longer in January. Yeah. Yeah, we're almost there. December 21st. Also...

If you change the... If you take away daylight savings time, that takes away like three hours worth of recurring bits on part of my tape. What are you talking about bits?

Just think about that. Think about the podcasters out there. What do you mean, bits? Well, because last year- You mean PSAs, not bits. No, last year we thought that the clocks went back in the fall. Oh. And we fucked that up the entire time. I think you're thinking of PSAs because we've been bought by big time. No, we kept saying that it falls back, but it actually goes forward. Yeah, that was our fuck up. It falls forward in the fall. That was a bad year for us. Yeah.

When we did our final year review with Dave, he's like, hey, it says here you guys screwed up the daylight savings thing. I'm like, fuck, man. No excuses. Next year we'll nail it. Yeah. We have to do 10 minutes in the dungeon for every time we fuck that up.

But seriously, I mean, we're almost there. What is it? Divisional round? January, I think it's January 18th is when we move the clocks back again. So we're almost there. We've almost made it. We pretty much made it. Yeah. Okay, FAQs. Hey, boys. What will President Pug do about Max's injury? I believe Pug needs to address weekly injuries like midweek coaches press conferences. I like that. That would...

We actually need him to do an availability report because I was dealing with a little sickness the last week and a half, a rolling sickness in my house. Yeah, I was questionable a couple times. What is Pug doing about healthcare as president on this podcast? But he needs to give an update of how everyone's feeling just so we can set the stage of like...

Listen, we're football guys. We don't complain. I don't think I... You guys didn't even know that I was dealing with it. I puked seven times on Saturday. Damn. The only reason I would talk about an injury is if it was mandated for me to report it. Yeah. Otherwise, I don't want people to know. Right. But Pug, you should definitely do a mandated injury report. Yeah. On how... You need to like pull all of us separately how we're doing and then...

Like game days, you could just do a tweet. Or Instagram live press conference. But if he's doing it three times a week. We get Pug like a step and repeat that he can stand in front of. Yeah. I think he does it once a week. I would like to see a once a week injury report. But there's game days. There's show days. Then we have to wait for all the test results to come back, and we'll have more information about his injury as the week progresses. Yeah.

I missed the first part. This is just injury reports. Yeah, I think you need to start adding injury reports. Maybe make a graphic and maybe it's every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. It doesn't have to be a press conference, but it just says you can ask all of us how we're doing.

Just so the listeners know what we're dealing with. So it could be physical and emotional. Mental, yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah, people can give you their answer. Yeah, I'll start sending you my sleep stats. Yeah, bears have me depressed. Okay. Yeah. Fat. Fat. Was that for you? No, but it might be in the future. Yeah. Doubtful. Fat. Fat.

You'll be like Tom Brady's shoulder. Remember he was listed like 17 years in a row with a probable shoulder. Someone should stay the same every time. Yeah. Memes. Memes. Italian. Limited participant. Italian non-horny kind.

Hey, PMT gang. My FAQ is how long does it take to write boomers on Sunday for the Monday show? They're always so clever and funny, and I always get a good chuckle out of them. Oh, thank you. That's nice. It depends week to week, honestly, depending on what the schedule is. If we have a Bears game or a Commanders game or a really good game like we had last weekend in the late slate, we just put off writing the boomers as long as we can, and then we just write like hell for about, I don't know, 40 minutes or so.

Yeah. And also Hank writes his Boomer. Memes does his. That has been a very big help. Max does his. That's been a very big help. We've gotten a lot more efficient on our Sunday schedule. Yeah. Because I was thinking about it. Like, it used to be that we wouldn't be done until 1 or 2 in the morning. We're usually done about 1130. Shout out to guys in the booth because they stay until like 3 or 4 in the morning. Time zones. Time zones. But still, like, we... No, yeah, no. The New York, it was... We've gotten very efficient. But yeah, I'm also...

I'm going to miss football season. I'm very excited for playoffs. I think I said this last week, but I'm excited to like sit down and soak in one single game for like, I was thinking about the wildcard round the other day. Like I'm, I'm just so pumped to just like,

one matchup you get to focus on individual games and they do kind of set you up with like the the christmas and then they're going to do the saturday one games so this is the point of the season though where we just have a lot of football that doesn't mean anything so it's like just get me i just want to hit the fast forward to the playoffs because like i want to just let's get this thing on let's get it on who would last the longest in a zombie apocalypse resources aplenty out of the group and who would kill themselves first just to get it over with

Are we saying the dead rise? Everybody that's dead shows up? Can I make a confession? I don't like zombies. I've never been a zombie guy. I don't like zombies. Don't like the shows. Don't like the movies. Just doesn't do it for me. It does nothing for me. I don't know why everybody decided that zombies are a thing. Right. And we're always going to talk about zombies. What about Planet of the Apes, like Plague? You're trying to survive...

Not zombies per se, but like, you know, there's a plague that's taking over the country. You're trying to survive or like what we would do is we would have Dr. Fauci on the program. Yeah, I guess that's zombies. I think I would. I would. I would survive the exact amount of like average time. I would probably be. I would probably put myself in the kill myself first. I feel like PFT could survive like just eating random shit. You live next to the lake, though. Just get to water.

Is that how it works? Yeah, I mean, I think that's what you're supposed to do instantly. Zombies can't swim, right? Just get to water. Whatever the thing is, get to water. I think I would just... I think I'd be okay. I would just... I could deal with making you... You could just eat Fritos for, like, three years. Yeah, I could. I could do that. If a nuke hits, you just go underwater for the five seconds it hits. I always thought that was a tsunami, like, just swim underneath it. Wait, what?

You thought that the way to survive a tsunami was to jump into the water? Well, yeah. You know how, like, when you're in the water and you just go underneath the wave? Yeah, like when you're body surfing? Yeah. Sure. I don't know about... All these idiots running away from the side of the wave. That might not be wrong. That might not be wrong. Yeah, sure.

All right. Nikki wrote, I think she said she's studying and she must have taken out or she wrote like five questions. Who creates the cover graphics for podcast episodes? What is the go-to music for the office to listen to? And do you guys have a sick Christmas tree in the office? The graphics is our guy Triggs. He is the goat. What? Singular.

But isn't it Triggs Draws? Triggs Draws. I think over the years we've just called him Triggs. I've just added an S. Triggs is the man. He is so, so, so, so talented. Also, hit him up if you want side work because he does incredible stuff where he can make...

All kinds of art and cool things. He's a big sports fan. He's a very talented artist, and he also does some sick-ass graphics for college football Saturdays where he shows you exactly what games are on what channel at what time. Yeah, so his Twitter handle is, what is it? TrigDraws. TrigsDraws? No, TrigDraws.

I think it's the S on draws that has me. It's like when Gilly calls it bar stools. Yeah. Trig draws. He's the man. So do hit him up. Yeah, he's got a shop online that is, I mean, yeah, the Tiger Woods stuff. Those prints are awesome. But go-to song in the office. Go-to music in the office. We don't have any. No music. Whatever Brandon Walker paces around the office to at 7 a.m. Yeah. And then what was the last question? Do you guys have a sick Christmas tree in the office?

I, we have one. We have two, two. I think we have two. I wouldn't say that it's sick cause it's not live. No. Live shows are way better. Yeah. We have two. It reminds me. I gotta, I gotta cop a tree. I gotta get my tree. Yeah. It's like one week away. Yeah. So,

Get it? But no, you don't understand. The way I operate with Christmas trees, I get them a little bit late. And then I get my fill in on the back end. Yeah. Daylight savings time is probably when it's time to take the tree down. Yeah. January 10th. That's a little early, I guess. But maybe Super Bowl. Oh, yeah. January 18th. Sorry. The divisional round. Okay. Any more? No.

Okay, let's wrap up the show. Numbers. Memes, you ever gotten this? No. 92. Oh, look at you. This is a new memes. He's just admitting it. Three. I did guess it, though. You didn't get it. Everyone guesses it every week. Everyone can guess it. No, you didn't. I'm guessing eight for my drug addict quarterback. All right. 17. 94, Pug. 21. Okay. Reset. Reset. Good luck, Memes.

Thanks. Good luck to everybody here, too. Thanks, man. Did you get, like, a new medication or something? No. 75. Love you guys.