Coach Jon Gruden In Studio, Week 16 Picks And Preview, Chargers Big Win, The Jets Are In Disarray Again + Fyre Fest Of The Week
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On today's part of my take, we have our co-worker, good friend, Super Bowl winning head coach, John Gruden in studio. We're going to preview week 16 in the NFL with our picks.

And we also have Thursday Night Football and a Fyre Fest you won't want to miss. And it's all brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. It's the most wonderful time of the year for getting in on all the hoops, football, and hockey action at DraftKings Sportsbook. In the season of giving, we're being gifted college football and basketball, pro football and basketball, and pro hockey too. Almost 24-7. So many games every day. So many opportunities to place your first bet. Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the DraftKings Sportsbook app.

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Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers. Get $150 in bonus bets if your bet wins when you bet just $5. Happy holidays from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, December 20th. And PFT...

Nothing sets the tone like a perfect football weekend, like a great Thursday night football game. And holy shit, do we have a great football weekend ahead. But that game was awesome. The Chargers come back, spurned on by the first free kick in, what, 46 years in the NFL? Two pivotal moments. Yeah, the free kick before halftime. Which is awesome. Rarely used free kick. Yep. If there's a penalty and there's zero seconds left on the clock, you can do an untimed down or you can just do a place kick.

And I don't know why more kickers don't take the 15-step run-up and try to boot it 75 yards like it's a kickoff. But it was the first one that's been made. I think the Chargers had the last one before this. In 79? 48 years ago is how long ago it was. So there was that. And then the other pivotal moment. Yeah, the other pivotal moment, Justin Herbert sliding and the personal foul call that pretty much changed the...

Listen, I think the Chargers were running... Their offense and what they were doing in the second half was phenomenal, but that was a pivotal moment in the game that if you're a Broncos fan, you have a right to be upset because that went from...

possible field goal for the chargers to a first and goal they scored they ended up ripping off i think 21 unanswered points in the second half justin herbert that touchdown pass that he threw as he was falling down that's the guy that is the guy when people are like oh justin herbert's only you know social media quarterback i don't even know what the criticism of justin herbert is anymore because it never made sense to me uh

That's the guy. I think now the criticism of Justin Herbert is that people were angry to the phrasing and the narrative that he was a social media quarterback. Then there was backlash to that. And then when he didn't win, people then did the backlash to those people that did the backlash.

left. He's got to win a playoff game. That's where we're at today. But right now, this is big. It's big for two teams tonight. The Chargers increased their odds of making the playoffs. Hank? They will make the playoffs if they can get wins, I believe, by the Colts. Or excuse me, the Colts have to lose this weekend. They have to lose to the Titans. And then they need the Dolphins to lose to the 49ers this weekend. And they'd clinch. And they would clinch this weekend. And it was also big

For our Cincinnati Bengals. Yes, the zombie Bengals. They are not dead. So this was so massive for the Bengals because the Bengals play the Broncos next week. If the Bengals win on Sunday against the Browns, we'll get to that preview. It's pretty simple. But if the Bengals win against the Browns on Sunday, they'll be playing the Broncos next week to potentially get to 8-8.

And then if they win week 18 and the Broncos lose, they would be in over the Broncos. Now, the big part of this, though, is the Bengals need the Chiefs to lose one of the next two games. And they're tough games. They're tough games. But if the Chiefs win their next two games, they will have clinched the one seed because there are two games up right now on the Bills. And the Bills obviously have the head-to-head tiebreaker. So the only way that...

you need you need the Chiefs to play in that game in week 18 not rest starters but the Bengals have a lot more life than they did 12 hours ago it's crazy and then obviously week 18 would be against the Steelers that could be a tough game for him yeah I'm guessing the Steelers would still have something to play for whether it's seating or whatever but yeah and don't get me wrong the

The Bengals don't have any easy wins, regardless of who they play. They've proven that they can lose to anybody in heartbreaking fashion. But this schedule, it's not like the easiest schedule, but it does shake out about as good as you can hope for the Bengals right now. You know what it was? Going into this game, the Bengals needed either the Chargers or the Broncos to lose out. That was the only way they were going to get in. It was very much preferred for it to be the Broncos to lose this game because they play the Broncos.

So they control a piece of their own destiny. We said the 5%, that's a wrong number. Yeah. It's a fat 5%. What is that now? 8%.

12. 12? 12. 12. They have to win out, basically. But if they win this weekend, it's 12. 12. Yeah. Yeah, they have to win out. And again, they need the Chiefs to lose one of these two games. I put it at 19%. I need this because it feels like we haven't... It feels like 1 through 6...

Yeah, 1-6, 1-5 in both NFC and AFC have been set for a month and a half. We need a little drama. We need a little something getting us juiced up for Week 18 so that we have some games that are like, you know, whatever that Sunday night game is going to be Week 18 to get us ready to go. So, yeah, I mean, this was – and, I mean, the Broncos, I think the biggest issue for the Broncos was their defense just –

ran out of gas in the second half. Yeah, the Chargers defense at the start was bad. They were getting gashed. Yeah, just run all over, and then it just flipped. It flipped after the free dick. Yeah, the free dick. The free dick flipped the whole thing. But yeah, the Broncos defense has been elite all year, and then in the second half, Justin Herbert went nuclear, and now it's hard to win in this league, PFT. Week to week, it's hard to win in this league. Holy shit, what did you just pull up?

Memes is trying to tell me something. Half the time he's back here, he's telling me to look things up that just don't make any sense. There's a win-by-win calculator for the playoffs. I was trying to find that for the Bengals. If they win versus the Browns, it's 12%. But if they win versus the Broncos, it could be 65%. Every different website has their own metrics that go into it. They don't match. One will say that the Bengals are at 14%. One will say they're at 13%.

I apologize. The math. The math. They don't control their own destiny, but they basically do. Yeah. They basically do. They basically do. Because, I mean, if they win and then next week is the biggest game ever because it's between the two of them. Ever created. Ever created. And then week 18, anything can happen. Anything can happen. We all say that. Anything can happen. So, and Max, our Chargers. Our Chargers. Alive. Alive.

Need the Steelers to... The Chargers getting the sixth seed and the Steelers getting the three is where you have a real chance. Because I don't think the Chargers... The Chargers...

Listen, I thought they were cooked after that first quarter and a half. They get off the mat. Their defense is still taking a big step back in the last, I don't know, whatever it's been, six weeks. But if they can just get into that dance and have one matchup, I think they could beat the Steelers. I don't know if they could beat the Ravens. The death sentence is the seventh seed, it feels like. But I'll tell you what, the Buffalo Bills, if they get the two-seed,

The last team they want to see is the Cincinnati Bengals. Yeah. That's the only... Like, you don't... Because that's... The Bengals... The crazy thing about the Bengals is they can't stop anyone. But if you get in a shootout with the Bengals, like, anything can happen. Their season has made no sense. This would just continue that trend and make it make even less sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Chargers look good. Chargers fought back well. I'll admit that. They looked like a good team in the second half. A physical team. Yeah, and J.K. Dobbins should be back maybe next week, which that has been the big issue is that their run game has not looked good. I mean, even tonight, if you take out Gus Edwards' 43-yard run,

He was running, I think he ran like 13 times for 20 yards. Yeah. So they still have not been able to. J.K. Dobbins is on track to return from IR next week against the Patriots. Yeah. This is fun. I love football. Do you guys want to do just real quick any game you love in college football? I know we talked about it on Sunday.

Or, sorry, Wednesday. But we do have the college football playoff. I'm so excited for Indiana-Notre Dame. That's the one I'm excited for. So excited for that game. It's JMU versus Notre Dame. Yeah. Can't wait. And I am actually... I mean, like, listen, I'm excited for all the games. I think I'm equally as excited to see Tennessee-Ohio State just because...

I just don't... Like, what is Ohio State right now? I feel like we'll know within the first five minutes, and I'm dying to find out where their head's at. It's also just that that game is guaranteed great takes after no matter what. Correct. Because Ohio State and Tennessee fans, one way or the other, it's going to be a nuclear reaction. They're so mad at each other already, too. It feels like the fans are already playing the game. I also...

I'm starting to fall in love with possibly betting a large amount on Penn State on Saturday because all the talk about Indiana Notre Dame, all the talk about Tennessee, Ohio State, this couldn't be less of a big game at all for Penn State. Everyone loves Penn State. This is where James Franklin shines, though. 11 a.m. or noon Eastern, but...

Like, no one's talking about Penn State SMU. This is basically, this is Penn State bringing in a Mac team. Counterpoint, it is big noon Saturday. Yeah, I'm actually, SMU's, I've loved SMU all year. And a whiteout. They made it a big game by making it a whiteout. And I'm saying a lot of this tongue-in-cheek because the takes, if we want to talk about takes. Yep. Penn State lost that game, the takes. But it'll get drowned. Yeah.

Yeah, it will. I guess. If Ohio State loses, the takes will get drowned. Yes, but Penn State losing to SMU would be take city. Take city USA. What do you got, Max? I thought we were getting a snow game for a second, but it'll be a high of 27 at State College on Saturday. It's going to be cold for the fellas from Dallas. Dallas, the boys from the Atlantic Coast Conference. We played in the cold. Man, we was cold. We was cold.

So who do you got? Saturday. Which game? Just winners. All right, so I honestly think that Notre Dame's probably going to win, but I really want Indiana to win. Yeah. I got Penn State. Yeah. I got Texas. I got Tennessee. I got, I think the same. I got Texas. I have Texas circled as my possibly blowout game. 12-5 upset happens every year. That's true. Hank, you had a tweet.

earlier this week this is a good segment where you Hank had a tweet yeah uh where you said uh the Winston Churchill documentary no that wasn't it are you watching one yeah give it to us real quick 60 seconds super interesting really really interesting guy uh great war documentary on Netflix was he a good guy he yeah yeah he cared about good was he a fat guy

Loved to drink, loved to smoke. Started every day with a drink and a smoke. Yeah. Loved war. Yeah. But for the good guys. Loved a cigar and a side of war. Stood on business. That's right. Be big time. Goddamn right he did. Got kind of cucked. Yeah. Stood on business. USA and...

I saw a stat today. It was like a survey that was done of, I think, European people. And it said, which country do you give the most responsibility to for winning World War II? And number one, I think, was England. Number two was the United States. Number three was, I think, France. That was tied with the USSR, with Russia. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah. No, no, that's good. I like that. No, you said you've been on a heater, and your brain says that one of these teams is going to have an upset this weekend. You just got to figure out which one. So have you figured out which one? Indiana and Clemson are the two horses I'm riding. Okay. I think the weather, it's Big Ten weather. It's tough to go against Penn State and Ohio State. Okay. I think Indiana's got a shot.

And I think Clemson has a real shot. Because Indiana's Big Ten, Notre Dame's not big. What do you like about Clemson? Championship coach, championship DNA. Texas kind of chokers. A lot of hype. Clemson's been... I mean, they've not been good against anyone good. Championship DNA, though. It's... Again...

I don't know a lot about college football, but it's like, do you not agree that there's going to be, they're all big favorites? No, you're right. There's going to be at least one I'm going to bet on too, unless Indiana wins and I might not. Then it's like the upset already happened. Yeah.

We've got to start thinking about it in March Madness terms of the team that got hot to win and get in, and then they had the win and get in game. That's definitely not how we have to start thinking about it. No, no, no. That's a good point. They came out of nowhere and won their conference championship tournament. Won the whole thing. The only way that they were going to be able to get in. Yep. And then they played a team that lost a heartbreaker. Stole a bid from a blue blood in Alabama. Yeah.

Got left off the bubble. But Texas goes down early. The pressure, they might collapse. Yeah, it's true. Okay, we got anything else? Congratulations to the 2024 Lomé Trophy Award winner. It's Tyler Crowe from Boise State. Yeah! That...

Huge, well-deserving award going to Tyler Crowe. I'm happy Boise State got some hardware. Yeah. I mean, some would say... I heard some people online saying Ashton Gentry system running back. Not us. Not us. People are also accusing you of trolling and the low-manatee committee of trolling. No. No. He blocked...

for the best running back in college football. And I don't think they realize the committee. Yeah, the committee is made up of mostly fullbacks, like the best fullbacks of all time on the committee. Right. And then we have Hank and Tom Fornelli, Liam Blutman. You got your Brandon Walkers. You got your Big Cat and PFTs. But it's 90% fullbacks that watch and care. Yeah. He literally blocked for Ash and Jenny having a season we've never seen before. So...

Maybe the best college football season of all time. He deserved it. And he's got a great mullet. Yeah. Fantastic. And we're going to get to watch him in the playoffs. Yeah. Low Man Award winner in the playoffs. I love that. Representation for all you youngsters at home. Yeah. Okay. Let's kick it to ourselves. We've got weekend preview for week 16. Then we have Coach John Gruden in studio. And then Firefest of the Week.

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We're here. We got a few teams still fighting for those playoff spots. We got Saturday football, which was news to Hank. Saturday football.

They're doing Saturday football so that they can get the teams that are playing on Christmas an extra day rest. Correct. Which is very nice of Roger Goodell. Three games in 11 days. Thank you, sir. Is insane. Okay, let's start with it. Saturday football. Texans at Chiefs. Chiefs minus three and a half. Over under 42 and a half. All lines on DraftKings Sportsbook. Is Patrick Mahomes the new Big Ben?

He just bounced back. He's not even on the injury report anymore. Which we kind of predicted. We said that he has the ability to just not be injured. Yeah, I don't know if he's the full new Big Ben because he doesn't milk the injuries. He just...

uh, horrifically injured in the moment. We all say, Oh my God, the season's over. This sucks. No more Patrick Mahomes. And then he just is fully fine. The next play, his tendons, they bend in a weird way and then just snap back into place. Longevity. It's a serious thing. He's, I mean, it's pretty insane that he was full participant in practice. People were thinking the high ankle sprain, uh, either that, or they just have the greatest training staff of all time. They could, which absolutely could be the case. Absolutely could be the case. But, uh,

Chiefs at Texans.

I hate this Texans team. I'm not going to lie. They're tough to watch. Well, they haven't beaten a team that's over 500 yet. Yeah. So they're 0-2. To their credit, they haven't played a lot of teams that are over 500. Yeah. They've only played two. Yeah. But, yeah, they don't seem like the same Texans from last year. Yeah. So even last week in their win, they had less than 200 yards against the Dolphins. Remember I said I was like, I feel like Joe Mixon is boom or bust. Well, I looked back at it. And so Kansas City has the seventh-ranked

rush defense according to DVOA. Joe Mixon rushing. So last week he only had 23 yards, which you'd think that he'd have more yards because the Dolphins have the 20th ranked rush defense. But he had 101 yards the week before against the Jaguars. That's the 21st ranked rush defense. He had 22 yards the week before that. So boom, bust. Against the Titans, 9th ranked DVOA rush defense. DVOA

Then 109 yards, boom again against the Cowboys, 28th-ranked rush defense. And then 46 yards bust against the Lions with the 11th-ranked defense. So anytime he's had to play a top-12 rush defense, and again, the Chiefs are 7th,

He has been bust. And if the Texans can't run the ball, I really don't like this offense. Yeah, it's probably fair to say, though, that he had an injury in the first half last week. Yeah, that's right. That was the anomaly, but the other ones are very, you can very much say, like, oh, he plays a rush defense that's 20th or worse. He's going to have over 100 yards. Oh, he plays one that's 10th or better. He's going to have under 30 yards. Yeah, the Texans defense is making...

I was about to say they're making threats. They're actually pointedly not making threats against Patrick Mahomes. You see what Tim Settle said? Yeah. He said, Mahomes better make a good decision. I ain't making no threats.

I'm making promises. Promises made. That was just him playing or not. Just saying he better make a good decision on whether or not he can play, whether or not he's mobile enough to scramble. Carson Wentz also said that he's preparing as if he were the starter. Please don't. Yeah, Carson, I mean, I get good job saying the right thing to the press, I guess. I would imagine how that went is Andy Reid probably sat Carson Wentz down.

Andy Reid was like, hey, Patrick's actually totally fine. It's not even an injury. He's full participant.

So thank you for spot starting last week or coming into the game, but we're not going to need you to do anything different this week. And he's just like, okay, coach, cool. I'm going to go prepare to be the starter. Yeah, but please don't. Please don't. He's like, no, no, no, no. I don't think you heard me. He's like, no, no, no. I got you. Prepare to be the starter. I would love to see Carson Wentz doing the walk into the stadium, the fashion walk.

what he would wear if he were thinking that he was going to be the starter? Because I actually think it would be more boring than if he were the backup. Yeah. I think he gets more boring the more relevant he gets. I also think that Carson Wentz, like, you should want him to not prepare to be the starter because...

He's the type of guy it feels like if you just like, hey, Carson, you're in. He might not have enough time to realize, like, I'm Carson Wentz. Yeah. So the anxiety leading up to the game, if you told him he wouldn't sleep Friday or I guess in this case, he wouldn't get sleep on Thursday or Friday night. Right. So by the time he rolls up to the stadium, he's all nervous and lack of sleep. And you don't want him all week standing in front of his mirror being like, I am Carson Wentz because that's.

then he'll slowly be like, wait, I am Carson Wentz. Is it crazy to think that if you gave Carson Wentz a different jersey with a different name on the back, if you named him Peter...

Overmire. Alton Seika. Overmire. Peter Overmire. Yeah. If it said Overmire on the back of his uniform, I would actually be like, let's see what this guy can do. Yeah. We haven't seen this guy before. If he scores a touchdown, will he put out a QR code for Madden codes? Yeah, but the Wentz, the Wentz on the back. Yeah, the Wentz. What are you going to say, Max? I think he's going to cook. Carson Wentz isn't playing.

Well, if he were, I think that's actually the safest thing you can say about. I saw I saw Max's face through the glass and he had the face like he was about to eat a bunch of meatballs. He was just kind of like nodding to him. I believe in Carson. I believe in Carson. It was a big miss on our part when we were talking about the Colts recent history of sad old broken down. Yes. We left Carson Wentz off. Yes. Our bad. Big miss. Big miss. I

I guess I like the Chiefs in this game, but I don't know. Three and a half makes me nervous just because the Chiefs play every game to a field goal. Is this the week, though, that's a surprise for us? No, because, listen, the Chiefs have... They play the Texans, who are not bad. I'm not... I know I'm sounding down on the Texans. I just think...

It's weird because the Texans, I had hopes for them this year to be maybe a Super Bowl contender, and they've instead just slotted into the traditional AFC South team that will lose in the playoffs because I just don't think their offense feels broken. So it's not that I don't think that. They're not bad, and they could maybe win this game, but the Chiefs,

They are two games up right now in the Bills. They play the Texans. Then they play the Steelers in Pittsburgh, who might be coming off a loss to the Ravens. If the Chiefs drop one of these next two, they have to play their starters week 18. Yeah. So it's not like I know that they're in the driver's seat, but it's not completely. They got to keep their foot on the pedal. They get the number one seat if they win and the Bills lose or tie.

Or, yeah, they get the number one seed with a Bills loss or tie or a tie and a Bills loss. Yeah. And did we mention DJ Humphries is out? So that's bad. Yeah. That is bad. I think it's going to be an ugly game because I think both...

defensive lines are going to dominate both offensive lines the texans offense has been just so boring this year that it's if this were the third year if cga stroud had two great years to start his career and then this happened in the third year coming off two like disappointing playoff losses then i would put some stock in the like maybe they're saving something yeah they're saving the wrinkles the real stuff for the postseason yeah but year two it's like something something is not the same it just feels a little broken uh okay other saturday games steelers at ravens

Ravens minus six and a half over under is 45 TJ Watt and George Pickens look like, or TJ Watt looks like he's going to play. Yeah. George Pickens looks like he might play. Maybe, maybe, maybe, uh, TJ. I have a theory about TJ Watts injury. Okay. Do you think he was actually injured? I don't know. I think this could be an art of war situation. If you watch the replay of it,

It was like non-contact kind of. He was pass rushing, but he didn't twist it. Nothing looked strange on it. They just started hopping. The game was already lost at that point. They know they have the Ravens next week.

Sun Tzu, Art of War. No, they're playing the Ravens right now. Yeah. No, at the time, they know they have the Ravens next week. Sun Tzu, Art of War. Make your enemy think that you were weak when you were strong. Start throwing out the 1 in 10 without TJ Watt stats. Yeah. Which are ridiculous. Let people start thinking during the week of practice, maybe TJ's not going to be playing this week. I don't hate it. Because I went back and I watched the injury a few times.

I'm thinking maybe because I mean, Mike Tomlin, when he talks, he sounds like he's the art of war. Yeah. Translated back and forth like three times from English to Chinese, English, Chinese, back to English.

Just a theory I have. I think TJ will be fine. I think TJ will be fine. I think George Pickens might play. He's been practicing a little bit. I would love to see him play because we need more George Pickens in our life. Just a reminder, because this is just a don't think, just bet game for me. As an underdog of four points or more versus the Ravens,

The Steelers are 8-0 against the spread in franchise history. And Lamar Jackson is 1-4 straight up and 0-5 against the spread versus Mike Tomlin and the Steelers in his career. And then when these two teams play and the line is three or more points, the underdog is 23-4-3 against the spread in this series in the last 20 years. Again, 23-4-3 against the spread. The underdog is three or more points.

I just don't even... Since 2015, 16-2-1 against the spread. The underdog of three or more points. Yeah. I mean, let's just take the underdog. So 18 times these two teams have played in the last 35, and it's been decided by three points or less. It's crazy. So it's always going to be like that when it's Ravens and Steelers. This is also Lamar Jackson's first time playing...

in front of fans at home against the Steelers. Oh, wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, because he's been injured? Because you would think that they've seen each other a few times at this point. But yeah, he's been injured, had butt stuff, and then COVID. There were no fans. Wait, what happened last year? Let's see. 2023. Lamar's been insane. I know that there's a... Obviously, there's going to be an MVP debate. I think...

The only thing that bothers me, I think both guys, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, their numbers are just insane. And Lamar's numbers, I mean, 34 touchdowns and three interceptions is nuts. It will just come down to, I think Lamar...

might win it just because he plays two standalone games. Yeah. And that's all this award ends up coming down to. Maybe. I don't know. I feel like Josh Allen's been so good in big games, though. Agreed. But it's the amount of big games. Like, I think Josh Allen plays the Bills, the Dalton. Or he plays the Patriots. Sorry, the Patriots. Sorry, the Patriots, the Jets, the Patriots. Yeah. That's...

whereas Lamar Jackson plays the Steelers on Saturday, and then he plays against the Texans on Christmas Day. So it's just all narrative. Good for us, BFG. I think it should be Josh Allen, but I also understand this award becomes narratives. We talk about it with John Gruden, but remember last year? That's not a thing. No. It's more in the NFL they do the narratives. We don't do the narratives. Has either one of them had a Heisman moment?

Josh did last week. Josh did, yeah. The passing, catching, and rushing. Yeah, I'd say the run that he had was a couple weeks ago against that zone defense, 50-yard touchdown run. That was a big one. Lamar, I mean, if he can beat the Steelers –

At home Because I looked it up Last year it was Tyler Huntley Oh he missed that game It was Snoop That's I forgot that he missed The game last year Just because he won the MVP I mean that game got Tyler Huntley into the Pro Bowl That was two years ago I think When he finished the season For Lamar 2023 Yeah You're right Because it was January 1st Yeah 2023 Yeah So Yeah I'm just going to Take the underdog

Also, this was a, uh, I love when athletes give just honest quotes and they don't do like the cliche, uh, cornerback for the Steelers. James Pierre was asked what the key is to, uh, tackling who his cousin is. He's cousins with Lamar Jackson said, what's the key to tackling him? And he said, ain't no key. He's crazy. That guy's crazy. Mm. That's no key. Lamar is crazy. No, he's having an insane, insane statistical season. Uh,

Yes, so right now Josh Allen is minus nine. I want Josh to win. I'm just saying how these things work. Lamar's got two standalone games and Josh has zero. I think the narrative, though, of Lamar winning two years in a row could swing it to Josh. And Josh got dinged last year because his team's record wasn't as very good. Now his team's record is better than Lamar. Although Lamar did beat them head-to-head. We'll see. We'll see. I think if you did a blind resume right now,

Can we do that? Max, can you pull up blind resume for Lamar and Josh? How would I do that? If you just showed us yards passing. Oh. You want me to make a graphic? We can do what? I think Lamar hasn't beaten him. Not rushing touchdowns. Not rushing touchdowns. I think a lot.

You want me to make a Google Doc? I'm just curious. Yeah. We don't do narratives. Yeah. We don't do narratives. But also don't do it if... Just search on Twitter Lamar versus Josh. Someone did it. Yeah. That's actually not true. So if we did blind narratives during college football season, I think we also would have said the guy that has stats at wide receiver and cornerback. That would have been an easy blind resume. We don't do narratives here. No.

Are you guys still getting some residual Ashen Gentry heat? A little bit. I have a couple people who are just hanging on. I kind of respect them at this point. It's like a week later, can't change it, and I'll just tweet, you know, like, oh, what a trick play in this bowl game.

They'd be like, fuck you for the Ashen Gentry hate. But guess what? I'm like, okay. I respect. Tip my cap. Boise State wins the national championship. You can then thank us for giving the Bulletin Bullets material. Yeah, the motivation. I mean, this is going to take you forever, Max. We're about to talk about the Commander's Eagles. Yeah, go for it. Go for it. That's just, I couldn't do it. One thing to note, and this is something the Ravens, like if you're looking for holes in this Ravens team, obviously their secondary hasn't been great, but they've gotten a little better defensively.

They are through week 15. They.

They are dead last in penalties against. They're dead last in penalty yards against. They're dead last in penalties per game. They're dead last in penalty yards per game. They're the most penalized team, and it's not even close. And that feels significant, especially when you're going to play in these tight games in late December and early January. What do we think about Deontay Johnson with the Ravens?

him and the Ravens have mutually agreed to excuse him from playing. That seems like the correct thing to do. Yeah. Being mutually excused. I think he had like five targets total as a Raven. Yeah. So it hasn't been great. It has not been great. Okay. Hank, let us know if there's any hunger dogs that you've seen. I love the Ravens. You do? Yeah. Oh, that makes me nervous.

Because you're a dog guy. I'm a dog guy. Okay. Eagles at Commanders. Commanders plus three and a half over under 45 and a half. I'll let you guys take away. I just had a question for Max first. Okay. Max, are you worried at all about the curse of Jim Kelly? Please explain. The curse of Jim Kelly. Are you worried at all about the curse of Jim Kelly?

I don't know what that is. Okay, so the curse of Jim Kelly is a curse that just hit the internet. Dan Mitchell posted it at Real Dan Mitchell. And essentially, it's any quarterback that goes to a Super Bowl and loses their first one never goes back to the Super Bowl. Jalen Hurts did that. Are you worried about the curse of Jim Kelly? This is a week-by-week league. I'm worried about the Commanders.

You're worried. I'm just saying. I'm focused on the command. PFT, do you think you should be worried about the curse of Jim Kelly? I'm focused on the curse of Jim Kelly. Do you understand the curse of Jim Kelly? Since Jim Kelly played and lost his four Super Bowls, any quarterback that has gone to a Super Bowl as their first time going to the Super Bowl and lost it

Never went back. Yeah. I'm focused on it. Stan Humphries, Neil O'Donnell, Drew Bledsoe, Chris Chandler, Steve McNair, Kerry Collins, Rich Gannon, Jake DeLome, Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck, Rex Grossman. All these guys are 0-1 and stayed 0-1 for a lifetime. Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Jared Goff, Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Brock Purdy.

Jared Goff. So you're telling me that Joe Burrow can never win a Super Bowl? I didn't say that. I said, are you worried about the curse of Jim Kelly? That's a crazy stat. It's a crazy stat. That's a nerd. Shout out real Dan Mitchell. Until the recent updates to that list, it's not great quarterbacks on that list. No, that's true. But recently, I'd say in the last seven years. But still, even like Cam Newton and Matt Ryan. Yeah. They never went back. Yeah. Max, I'll tell you this. I'm worried. I'm worried about the Eagles. I think you guys might stomp us.

There's always the opportunity. No, what does that mean? There's always the opportunity of a whomping. Yeah, I think it is going to be a whomping. PFT, can I give you a positive for this game? Okay. You guys have the good vibes going because you had both of your kickers mispractice, not as a couple, separately.

they both were expecting children. Yeah. That's what's crazy is like, it's been, it's been a crazy year. Things turned around in DC and it's so good that our kickers are fucking. Yeah. Zane Gonzalez, Joseph, both, both our kickers are having sex, which is crazy. Again, not together. We weren't having a baby together. Well, we don't know that. That's true. Love is love. Uh,

Yeah, that's good vibes. Things tend to be positive after a win. You go back and you look at some good things that happened in the first half last week. Hopefully our center's back because if we have that same offensive line that we had last week. Eight sacks. Yeah, Eagles are going to tee off. Yeah. Get ready to tee off, buddy.

So, Max, talk us through this. What's the vibe going to be like? Because this is for the NFC East, correct? No. If you win it, you clinch. It absolutely is. Correct, correct. But the way you said that, I thought you meant the winner takes the NFC East. Well, if you win. If we win, we get. But we just have to win one of the last three games. You lock it up. Okay. But it would be nice to lock up the NFC East. Home playoff game. This is for the NFC East. This is for the NFC East. This is for the Eagles to win the NFC East. This is for a home game. Yeah.

You don't want to come in the link. This is to make somebody come into Philly. Yeah, no, you don't want to do that. No, you don't want to do that. You don't want to make anyone go to Philly.

No, they all. No one wants to go to Philly. You don't want to make anyone go to Philly under any circumstances. The Eagles have lost one game at home this year, and it was the game that I attended. That's neither here nor there. What happened in that game? Saquon dropped the ball, and then we gave Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins, too much time on the clock. Imagine if you guys had won that game. Yeah. Oh, we would be. You'd already have the division. But then again, we also shouldn't have won the Saints game, and we did win that game. So that's why I keep going back to of like,

I can't believe we lost that game, but then I also can't believe we won the Saints game. Yeah. So, Max, I think that this is primed for a whomping for the following reasons. One, our offensive line did not look good at all last week against like a mediocre Saints defense. Two, it feels like every position on your team except for quarterback and maybe Terry McLaurin is better for the Eagles. Who is Terry McLaurin better than? Well, he's having a great year.

Gun to your head right now. A.J. Brown, Terry McLaurin, who do you take? Be careful. PFT is going to catch you. Gun to my head this year right now. Be careful. I'm saying right now. Terry McLaurin has 11 touchdowns. He's had a great year. Yeah, fantastic year. Terry McLaurin. Max, who's having the better year, A.J. Brown or Terry McLaurin? Who's the better football player? Who's the better person and teammate and friend? I think you want A.J. Brown. I think you want A.J. Brown. Aside from the quarterback position,

I just want to put some respect on Terry's name because he should get respect. He's got like a thousand yards and in every season since he's been in the league, basically. And yeah, he just doesn't get talked about. Terry McLaurin over Devante Smith. Yeah. National Sports Podcast. Terry McLaurin deserves all the accolades. But besides the position of quarterback, I don't think we have a single advantage over you guys.

Even that is tight. What? At this point in their career, the quarterback position. You said many times this year that you would take. That is out of context. What do you mean? If you had to take a position going forward with contracts involved. Gun to your head. You would take Jaden Daniels over Jalen Hurts. Yeah, well, we have Jaden Daniels and his contract on our team right now.

You're just adding stipulations to this. Who is better? All right, outside the position of quarterback, I don't think that we have anything that can... I'm trying to give you a compliment, Max. Thank you. Outside the quarterback, I don't think that we have a position that is better on our side. Kicker.

I don't think so. I don't know. Over 50 yards. Has your kicker made a 50-yarder this year? Yeah, several we've had. Jake Elliott has not. See, at this point of their career, I'm willing to give you that one. No, I reject. When was the last time Jake Elliott had a kid?

let alone two great question yeah we've had two for the price of one but isn't that's good that's good for your kicking game yeah is it yes yes it's a baby bump what are we talking about i know for wide receivers it works i don't know about kickers we should get we should do any time touchdown score for your kicker i like that so um max that's why i'm saying i think that you guys are in a position to to want but it's the nfl anything can happen each any given sunday any given sunday you guys are at home

You guys have a shit field. It'll probably be 50% Eagles fans in the stands. That's not true. I'm excited for... No, it's not true. You know that's true. We retook Ralph John Maryland this season. Okay. Yeah. We also do clinch a playoff berth, Hank, if we win and either a Falcons loss or tie and a Rams loss or tie, or if we win and a Falcons loss or tie and a Seahawks loss or tie.

There you go. That does involve the Falcons losing to the Giants, though. And you also beating the Eagles. And also us beating the Eagles. I think that's... We'll get to it. Hungry Dog? Wow. The Giants? Yeah. Oh, the Giants. I thought you meant the Commanders. No, no, no, no. Ask Hank about the Eagles. Hank, about the Eagles. I had a big gambling day on Sunday. Yeah.

And then I put a big bet on the Packers, won that. And then when we were doing the show, I was like, I want to put a bomb future down. And I put it on the Eagles. I have five grand on the Eagles plus 450. That'll be the biggest bet I've ever won. I almost did that mean thing, but I decided not to do it. Max down so bad. I almost did the mean thing. You should have. I could still do it. What's the mean thing? Maybe see after this weekend. I'll just say it. I was going to do. I was going to put a 20K future on the Eagles.

at the DraftKings Sportsbook in Wrigleyville and then send an email to the whole company and say, this is getting split evenly between everyone at the company under the only stipulation if the Eagles lose, you have to blame Max personally. I didn't do it, though. I didn't do it. You know what? I'm willing to. I would be willing to take that risk. That's the spirit. Okay. Let's go. But then that would be literally like every single, like Nicky Smokes would be like, what the fuck?

Everyone but Nicky Smokes. No, no, no. It's all or nothing. He would be such a bitch about it. Yeah. Hank. I would just basically weaponize everyone in the office against you. There's a difference between Hank having the future and you having the future. Correct. Because Hank is a winner. And I'm fired up to have Hank. Travis Hunter, 200K, buddy. No, no. Super Bowl winner. Yukon. That guy just ripped Super Bowl winners. When was the last time you won a Super Bowl future?

No. Oh, winners. Okay, all right. Hank also put a future on the Commanders to win the Super Bowl. That's true. He's a winner. And one on the Bears. No. Oh. Hank's a winner. Yeah, so, Max, congratulations. I think you got this one in the bag this weekend. I disagree. It's a way game. It's hard to win on the road in this league. All right, well, I'm excited to watch you guys. Any stakes or no? I got to get a perm. Okay. Okay.

So a double? Well, a double perm. The problem with a perm bed is my hair is curly already. True. And so if I get a perm, it's like, oh, it just looks like he's wet. If I lose, I'll continue to have a broken foot. Deal. If I lose, I will... I almost said something that I shouldn't have said, and I'm glad that I didn't say it. Good. Sometimes my mouth gets in front of my brain. I'm very happy you didn't say it. Good job not saying it. If the commanders win, I'm going to throw Max's wheelchair into the dumpster. Mm-hmm.

Love that. Fine. I'm kind of walking now. Yeah, you are kind of walking. Basically walking. Okay. Giants at Falcons. Falcons minus 8.5 over under 42. I mean...

Hank already buried the lead. He's going to take the Giants, but we should talk. Against his former GOAT quarterback, the guy that got you in a college football playoff as a Husky, Hank. Michael Penix. Turning your back on him. So we taped on Tuesday in the afternoon. We said that you should maybe think about Michael Penix, and it was announced later that day. Michael Penix was at

Costco about to get a $1.50 hot dog when he got the call and he said he wasn't hungry anymore after learning of the news. You got to still eat the hot dog. No, I like that. I like that. Also, Kirk Cousins called Michael Penix. Classy guy. He called him personally and he said, I like to shoot elephants in the room. So I thought I'd go and shoot one. Nick Nurse could learn something from that. Poaching. Yeah.

And Kirk Cousins, if that's the end of his career as the Falcons quarterback, he made $14.3 million per win, $7.1 million per start, $5.5 million per TD, $330,000 per completion. And also, Kirk Cousins, in his 14 games with the Falcons, $90 million guaranteed, and

has the franchise record for most passing yards in a game. That's pretty incredible. Remember, he did that against the Bucs. Also, just a round of applause for Kirk Cousins' agent. Agent of the year. That's tremendous. He's always getting the bag. I don't think that... We're going to see Kirk Cousins play another game. I don't think this is the end. For the Falcons? I don't think so. Probably not for the Falcons. Yeah. But he'll go somewhere else. I think he's definitely... He came back too soon from the Achilles. And it's still just...

shows just how ridiculous it was that the Falcons did that, signing Kirk Cousins to $90 million guaranteed, and then drafting Michael Penix two weeks later. Yeah, one without the other. I mean, it turns out that it was a good move for them to draft Michael Penix. Right, and a bad move. A bad move to sign Kirk. It's like they instantly regretted having Kirk on their team. Actually, it might be genius.

You just go both options so that at least you have a good option. You have a quarterback. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they were saying with Kirk, hopefully we won't be so... We'll be so good that we won't be in a position to draft a quarterback that we really, really like in the future. So we might as well get it right now. It ended up working out for him. So I like Michael Penix. If you watch him, especially his last year at Washington...

He was just the most accurate quarterback that you've ever seen. Throwing outside the numbers, attacking the entire field. And he didn't take sacks, which is, that's going to be a big one for the Falcons. Yeah. So he got sacked, I think, like eight times or something over the course of the entire season last year. He had a great offensive line, too. It was incredible. So, yeah. Fun fact about Michael Pennix, same high school recruiting class as Justin Fields. And Trey Lance...

Michael Penix is one day older than Trey Lance, I believe. Oh, wow. So, yeah, that stat will get thrown out there a lot because I think he started college in like 2018. Yeah. So I think he's going to do well. I think there's a perfect start for him against Giants team that is so, so bad. And I'll say it because we got to every time there's some type of new change, a quarterback for the Falcons.

Is this the guy to unlock Kyle Pitts? Yeah, maybe. Probably not. Maybe. Probably not. I think he might be the guy to finally unlock Bijan. Yeah. And give us a proper... Bijan's been good, yeah. But, like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. We all say we want more Bijan in the game plan. Yeah, need more Bijan. Now he's a lefty. So is that... Maybe Kyle Pitts just needs a left-handed quarterback. Yeah, Kyle Trask was not, but yeah. But still, I...

It would be... I just like the idea of just Kyle Pitts existing for the next 15 years and every time there's any little change, you're like...

Could unlock him. I also love the story about him eating a Costco hot dog. Yeah. Michael Penix just got the call. Well, he didn't. In the food court. He's got to eat it. He didn't eat it. Did he order the hot dog and then sit down and he had the hot dog? He said he was about to buy it and then he decided he got the call and said, oh, I'm not hungry anymore. Dude, you don't have that dog in you. Literally. Literally, yeah. He was in line. Yeah. But maybe that's good for Falcons quarterbacks to not have any dogs. Yeah, true. True. Okay. Okay.

Hank, you really are going to bet the Giants' money line? Yeah. There's not a lot on the board this week. It is Drew Locke.

Did you know that? But it's basically just taking a gamble on a rookie quarterback not performing well. Yeah. Which is definitely somewhat of a coin flip, but that's where my head's at. Yeah. Do they do the Boomer Doom for the hot dogs, or is it just the double chocolate chunk cookie? No, the chicken bake as well. Okay, but not for the hot dogs. I'm sure they have. I think everything in Costco is up for grabs. Okay, so they should do. That's not the foundation of the Boomers.

Doom, though. That's chicken bacon, the double chunk chocolate chip. Got it. The giant secondary should get it. They should be called the Legion of Doom. Yeah. Or the Legion of Boom, and they do big hits. If they're good. Yeah. Real fucking good. Okay. Lions and Bears. Bears six and a half. Sorry, Bears plus six and a half. Over-unders 48. The Bears have not won a football game since Jay Cutler got a DUI.

That's interesting. Yeah. 66 days since their last football win or 67, I believe 62 days since he got to UI. And it's like an even longer for on American soil, right? Yeah. Oh, because of the Jaguars. No. Oh yes. Panthers. Yes. I think Panthers was before the Jaguars. What week was that? Uh, six. I haven't won a football game in two months.

It's a long time. I don't know if you're going to win this one. No, probably not. No, we didn't make a bowl. You knew that. You're a piece of shit. What bowl game is Washington playing in? Yeah. I'm a UNC guy. Oh, you're a UNC guy? Yeah. What game are they playing? Well, they got this new program, New Year. Okay. My only note was if the offense doesn't look good against this Lions defense, I'm going to get mad again.

Yeah, it's not primetime. I think that's fair. It's not primetime. I think that's fair. You need to see something. And Lions are outside. Lions aren't as good outside. So that's good. Did you guys see the report? Well, it wasn't a report. Ramon Ross said it himself. He was sick before the Bills game, and he puked for the first time in his life.

That's just a guy who's been living a way different life than everyone else who didn't go to college to be a professional athlete. Does that mean he was never sick as a child? Does that mean that he is? I think so. He's never conditioned. He's been in great condition his entire life, which makes sense. Also, how old is Monrath? 25? If you puke for the first time in your life at 25, are you like, oh my God, am I dying? I've never had a bloody nose.

Yeah. I never had a panic attack. I think that if 25 might have been the year that I puked the most. No, mine was definitely like 20. Because at 25, I'm combining booze with also... Yeah, 18. That's when you start to get a little bit of acid reflux. No, because... Freshman year of college. Yeah, college, freshman year of college. Also, like, yeah, I would just puke white...

Two times a weekend, no problem. Just every single weekend. That's crazy to not puke. Also, like, every time in my 20s when I was like, I'm going to get in shape and then did a hard workout, I would puke. Yeah. Because you are super out of shape. Out of shape. I also want to say that, like, I think that I was always, I hated how you would get shamed if you puked.

In college, if you can bounce back, I don't think you should get shamed. I think it's your, what happens after if you puke and then you're like, oh, I gotta go to bed. I'm so drunk. No, no. I would just puke because I needed more room. Yeah, if you can puke and rally, that shows the

the ability to handle adversity puking for me you don't know if Amin Ra can handle adversity is he a pussy we don't know yeah puking for me in college was just like what's the woman's name Marie Kondo I was just moving furniture around in my stomach yeah that that 23rd love it or let it go yeah I don't love this anymore I'm gonna let it go it did not spark joy yeah so you got rid of it

Yeah, that's concerning to me. To me, it's more of a red flag. Yeah. Yeah, the Lions probably should win by easily because the Bears are dead. You guys beat them last year, though, right? We beat them last year at home. We almost beat them on Thanksgiving if it weren't for the timeout. Yeah. No David Montgomery is a real issue. Yeah. Big time. Big time issue. Okay.

Browns at Bengals. Bengals minus 8.5 over under 47. This is my circle of quarterback game, Joe Burrow or DTR. Yeah, I was just hoping for Jameis against the Bengals defense. I was looking forward to that. Now we can always say, like, imagine what would have happened if Jameis started this game. Speed bump. That's what he called it. Good. It's just a speed bump. It's another speed bump for him to deal with in his career, and he's going to continue pursuing his dream, and another team better give him an opportunity.

We need the Bengals to stay. We're taping this before Thursday Night Football because I guess it doesn't matter if Broncos or Chargers lose. One of the teams is going to lose, and the Bengals can spin it either way, but they do get to play the Broncos next week. I just like the Bengals still having something to play for. I get that Jameis gave you some headaches. I understand that. Jameis throws interceptions. That's what he does. He threw some pick sixes, but he fixed the pick six problem and only threw interceptions in the red zone after that. What else do you want him to do? Mm-hmm.

DTR is bad. Is not the answer. He's not a quarterback. DTR, his only win was a 13-10 game against the Steelers last year. He's worse than Deshaun. Yeah, it's not going to be better. You're not going to watch it and be like, thank God we made that change. Right. We look like we're competent. James can get you up and down the field. He just might not finish the drives and the ends of it. Correct. So do you want your guys to have stats? Do you care about your receivers having stats? Yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Judy, if you want to improve your Madden rating, you're going to want Jameis throwing you the ball. It's a classic situation of being like, we got to see what we got with the young guy. No, we don't. We've seen it. We know what we got with the young guy. He's bad. Like DTR. No. Awesome college quarterback. Loved betting on him at UCLA. No. Not an NFL quarterback. So if you look at the two...

Joe Burrow, DTR. Circle one. DTR and DTF. Yeah. I'm taking DTF. Yeah. Easy. It is my circle quarterback game. I had that last week. Mack Jones or Aaron Rodgers. Yeah. Circle one. Okay. Titans at Colts. Colts minus three and a half over under 42 and a half. The Titans, the Tennessee Titans are two and 12 against the spread.

That is remarkable. Good for them. 2-12 against the spread. We also had Brian Callahan. I kind of like the Titans this week just because Mason Rudolph and Brian Callahan had to answer to the questions about his team being soft, and he said, I think it's complete and total bullshit. That means you just don't watch this shit. You can shove that right up your ass. I love that. I loved it. When I first heard it, I was like, good for him, but also who called the Titans soft?

I don't think we've ever said the Titans were soft, did we? Yeah, I don't know who did. They're bad. Is that a discourse that's being had out there? Yeah, they're a bad football team. They're really bad. Like you said, they're 2-11 against the spread. They're a bad football team. They're boring. We didn't say that they're boring. Yeah. But I don't think we ever said that they were soft. A bummer. He also said that teams know that they just played them when they get done with the games.

Yeah, because they win. Yeah, well, they win. Yeah, they're like, oh, shit, we won. No, but he was saying it like they remember. They remember that that's the Titans we just played against. No. Because they left an impact. I would say that it's the opposite where you want teams to not be able to remember who you are because you just knocked the shit out of them. Yeah. Or they're confused after the game. Also, I think that really is like the Jaguars played the Titans two weeks ago and they knew they played...

because they're like, holy shit, we just won a game? Yeah. That was crazy. When we come off the field, they know they just played us. Make them remember forever. Remember the Titans. The day they played the Titans. Yeah. Yeah. This game stinks, though. So in the NFL script, it's always that Mason Rudolph is going to get a start before Christmas, right? Like, legally, they had to do that just so that people can make jokes about it.

Do we think that... I need Jonathan Taylor to run with... If he scores a touchdown, run with the ball all the way back to the bench. Yeah, so my fix to that as a coach would be to tell my running back... All my players, if you score a touchdown at this point...

I'll take the excessive celebration penalty. Do whatever you want in the end zone. Act like it's a gun and then go around and execute every single player on the defense. I'll take the flag, but you have to have the ball in your hand. Yeah. Something like AI or drone program needs to figure out a way where it's almost like running with a grenade, and if you drop it in a certain zone, it will actually blow up.

in training camp. Yeah. Live ammunition. Yeah, I don't mind that. If you drop the football in this zone, maybe there's a landmine that only is activated with bombs.

Balls? At the goal line. Yeah. Yeah, you set up it. Well, because, no, if it was like an invisible fence, then it would. Every time a player has a ball, because they do this in training camp anyways, every run that they have, finish every run, get to the end zone. So you set like a 15-second timer of explosive inside the grenade, and you have to cross the goal line with the ball for it to be deactivated. Yeah. Someone figure that out. Someone figure that out. Okay, before we get to the next game, because we have a lot to talk about in the next game.

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We love Burger Blitz. We love Blitzes. We love burgers. Tell you what, you throw a Burger Blitz at DTR, that's going to be an interception. Boom, I got your Shake Shack burger. Max and Memes, talk a little about burgers while I take a bite. I love Shake Shack. It's one of my favorite burgers. I think my favorite thing at Shake Shack is the Shack Stack.

You got the patty, and then you got the fried mushroom with the cheese inside with the shack sauce. It's so good. I'm a big fan of the shack stack at Shake Shack. I'm a huge fan of burgers. Fries are good. Can't go wrong with Shake Shack. It's awesome. It's really good. Their shakes are great.

It's milkshake season. I don't care. Some people say don't drink a milkshake if it's cold outside. I think it almost tastes better. I will also say Shake Shack's fries travel better than any other fry. They stay crispy. I don't understand how they do it. They still stay crispy even after you bring them home in the car and all that jazz. Facts. All that jazz. Okay. All that jazz. All right, we're good to go. Thank you, Shake Shack. Burger Blitz. Go check it out. Memes? A lot to talk about this game. Rams or Jets?

Jets plus three overrunners, 46 and a half. Memes, have you been on the internet today? On and off. Did you do any reading? I read some headlines. Yeah? Yep. Did you read anything below the headline? I read some things below the headline. Okay, so what did we read? What did we learn today? Yeah, what have we learned? That the Johnson family names their kids after erections.

Okay. Yeah. Woody. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Woody and Brick. I don't want to say anything bad about Brick. Brick and who's the other one? Well, Woody. Okay. Yeah, but who's the other son? Brick. Brick and Woody? Woody's dad. I don't know. Whatever. I don't want to say anything bad about the son because there was a report that came out today that essentially the Johnson sons...

Might be Influencing decision makings At the NFL level And I just want to say These kids What like 17, 18 year old kids in New Jersey I think they're in college College kids from New Jersey Maybe an SEC school

50-50 chance they're AWLs? I'd say higher. We might be shadow GMs of the New York Jets. Our decision-making might be influencing the New York Jets. So I'm standing with Brick. Do whatever you want, bro. I think that the problem is that Brick doesn't have enough power. Yeah. I feel like he's being limited. Like, one day he will own the Jets, the way that teams get passed down. I feel like Brick, it's time to just unleash full Brick. I'm fully Brick-ed up. I can't wait until next year when...

Jameis gets announced the starting quarterback for the Jets and Woody Johnson's like, we thought he was going to be a perfect bridge quarterback to win a Super Bowl. And we're just like, oh shit, that's exactly what memes said. But yeah, the report came out. A lot of dysfunction.

In New Jersey, a lot of dysfunction. It starts with the anecdote that we shared that the Jets were at the one-inch line of trading for Jerry Judy this offseason, and Woody Johnson talked to his boys, and his boys were like, yeah, his Madden rating is too low. So that trade was X'd out. He ended up getting traded to the Browns.

Great season. There's reports that one of the sons is giving away game balls. That is true. That one was tough. Like, basically jumping in front of the coach to give away a game ball. It was Ulbrich's first win as a head coach. He took it from Aaron Rodgers' hands and gave it to... He gave it to... Jeff. Jeff. Jeff Ulbrich. They love bricks in this organization. Yeah. They got Brick Johnson...

All brick Debrickishaw Ferguson I think I heard that That brick was actually Named after Debrickishaw Oh That's kind of cool Yeah They also Have been heard Maybe Talking ill Of the players In the locker room After games The Mike White Yeah the Mike White Story that He played He had broken ribs And then Woody Was in the locker room And Mike White Threw his helmet And Woody goes You should throw your helmet You fucking suck

Yeah. There's a story about the two Bobs, which is an homage to office space, where they have Woody brought in two guys from his investment firm who just go around doing interviews with people, seeing what they do for a living. There was coaches fired for no reason. What else? What else? That's most of the headlines right there.

Yeah, it's most of the alleged headlines. Okay, so alleged. Which one of these is not true? Well, we have to see if any other reporters fact-check that. But I'm going to wait for more information to come out. So who wrote this, by the way? Mike Silver? Mike Silver, who RG3 came on the podcast, called him a liar. Diana Rossini, who I came on this podcast, called her a liar. Yeah.

And Zach Rosenblatt. Okay. Yeah. So memes. What about the parts in the article where the team confirmed that the stuff happened? The Broncos confirmed that it happened. No, no, no. The spokesperson for the Jets said that they use Madden as a reference point. As a reference point. But it's not determinative. Yeah. Confirming that that happened. I mean, it is a quick way to figure out if someone's good or not. Or what about the part in the article where they talked about Woody Johnson and the team spokesperson said...

Yet he apologized for saying that Mike White fucking sucks in the locker room. Also, you have to suck that time out. Time out. That's a fair. That's a fair response. Time out. We've done everything wrong here. Can we please call him by what he likes to be called?

Mr. Ambassador. Yeah, Mr. Ambassador. Everyone in the building has to call him Mr. Ambassador. Yeah. And there was the part of the article where when he left to go overseas to be the ambassador to England and his brother, who also co-owns the team. Yeah. But Woody's like, this is my gig. His brother took over and was just like, he was the chill guy meme behind the scenes. Just like, you guys do what you gotta do. Yeah, just do your thing. Like, as an owner, I think I would buy a team and then I would probably act a lot like Woody Johnson in the first place.

like two or three years and then I'd just be like you know what I'm too rich for this shit well he's only owned the Jets for like two or three years right Mr. Ambassador yeah he's owned it since what 24 years something like that yeah oh yeah 24 years since 2000 something like that yeah yeah something like that memes this is bad this is bad still waiting to see if it's true

How are you going to find out if it's true? I'm curious to know how memes thinks the media works. So now that the stories come out, then there will be other reporters that go to the Jets and they're like, hey, can we confirm that that stuff is all true? And then that's the story you'll pay attention to. Yeah, but I also told Hank about this a month ago that it was possible that we were the shadow reporters.

Oh, you did? He did. Because they... It was like week by week, Devante Adams. We said Devante Adams. They signed Devante Adams. We said Hasan Reddick. They signed Hasan Reddick. It was week by week. So he might actually listen to the podcast. All right. So what's the next move? Because we're brick guys.

Yeah, we're big time brick more responsible. By the way, I just like to say as it pertains to Devante Adams, I think Tony Soprano said it. Remember when is the lowest form of conversation. So worry about the Jets. Devante Adams.

And not remember when stories. You guys see his story on Kay Adams show? No. It was a good story. He said, I'm sure memes treated a bunch. He said, talking about when they would play the Bears late in the season. He said, we didn't go into that game after worrying ever worrying about. Are we going to win? We were thinking about how crazy we were going to go. Can I set a record? Okay. So memes. We're again, we stand with brick. We're brick podcast. We love brick and his brother. I don't know. We need to know his brother's name.

He needs a cool nickname like Brick. Get it. Get his name. So, Memes, what's the next move? Give Mike Vrabel $200 million. Okay. Mike's going to appreciate that. I have another question about the Jets. You were talking about this to me earlier. What's going on with Aaron Rodgers and...

Who's he in a fight with? Oh, yeah. Aaron Rodgers is fighting with Ryan Clark. Oh, it's like a 10-round fight. And it's both guys being like, we don't give a fuck what the media says, and doing videos that are very explicitly meant to generate more love from whichever branch of the media they're fawning for. Yeah, and I unfortunately have to defend my quarterback. So if you have a vax, you're bad. Yeah. Well, your owner literally is the heir to Johnson & Johnson, the vaccine company.

Is Aaron Rodgers the last guy on earth who cares about COVID? I think so. I think he might be. Like, I don't even know. It's like him and Taylor Lorenz. That might be when he did ayahuasca for the first time, so his brain is stuck in 2020. It's crazy. I was like, what are we even talking about? He was cooking to defend himself, and then it just went wrong. He was. I stand with Aaron Rodgers in this because I want him back on the podcast at some point. By the way, we have an answer from earlier. The question was, would you rather have Jaden Daniels or Jalen Hurts and Max Head Phillies?

Okay. Yeah. That's not an answer. But memes. Yes. There was another part of the article that I noticed, and it kind of made sense for me a little bit. The Jets, they didn't hire any referees for training camp this year. Yeah. And that's a standard practice.

And then now they're the third most penalized team. Is this a form of legal bribery that every team does where they just, they pay refs to, to come to their training camp. And then it's like, Hey, you're on our payroll. We gave you money. Let's be nice. I'm not sure about the refs, but isn't that weird that teams can pay the refs directly. And then if you don't pay them, then the refs can be like, you didn't pay us this off season. Yeah. Yeah. And then what are you going to take the flags? What he always does talk to the rest before the game, which is weird. He does. Yeah, that is weird. Yeah.

The owner? Now, we should play both sides here and be a fair and impartial media presence. The spokesperson also said, Woody Johnson just seeks out and welcomes feedback and debate. We wouldn't have been named one of the best places to work in New Jersey if people thought that way. There's never been a complaint. So they're on one of those lists of best workplaces. So that is true because Ryan Fitzpatrick went on a podcast a couple weeks ago. He said...

that one jets drive is like one of the, one of the greatest places. Yeah. It's just, we have a fan that's in charge of our team and makes reactionary decisions and goes, we lost one game. Everybody's got to go. That's awesome though. Yeah. It's kind of the dream. What's the, that's why we need Mike Vrabel. Who's a winner. Hands off. What about, what about Pete? Hands off. Hands off. Hands off.

Nah, he's so old. Pete Carroll mentioned the Jets today. He did? Yeah. Like, saying what? Like, man, that was such a crazy story. Like 9-11? No. Yeah. No, I think he's like, I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind if they brought me in. Yeah, I would take Pete. There you go. You see who else they interviewed for their GM job? Who's that? Um...

Who's it? Nagy? Matt Nagy? Was it Matt Nagy? No, Jim Nagy. Jim Nagy. The guy who runs the Senior Bowl. So we might just get everybody from the Senior Bowl. I think you're just getting everybody from X, the Everything app. Yeah, no, we're in trouble. Still trying to figure out if the report's true. It's Jack. Rick and Jack. Jack is the other son. Shout out Jack. We're Jack guys as well. What's that, Hank? I said, what happens on X? Everything. It's all happening on X. Yeah, it is. It's not up today.

You are the media. I should have finished it off. No, I don't think you're... You are the media on X. True. By the way, as for the game, memes, do you think you're going to win? Based off of everything that happened this week? No. Okay. But...

West Coast, East Coast. Yeah. Aaron Rodgers also ate no lifetime against the Rams. Yeah, it's cold as shit. He's got a chip on his shoulder. Yeah, the cold is a real thing. It's going to be 24 at kickoff, and the Rams played four outdoor games under Sean McVay where the temperature was 35 or lower, and they're 1-3. So the only game they won was when they beat the Broncos, and Todd Gurley had 208 yards rushing. So I feel like the Rams are going to run the football.

Yeah, I think the Jets are going to run the football too. I have a question that's not related to this or the report, and I got to watch it myself to come to a conclusion, but my initial reaction is that it seems crazy to be this spiritual, go on these retreats to escape everything, but also film it all for a Netflix documentary. Is there any element of hypocriticism there? Hypocriticism. Is that hypocritical?

Probably, but I bet you he's getting paid a shit ton of money. Yeah. So no. And then that gets more trips to Ayahuascaville.

Right. Yeah. Just seeing that they were filming it. I was like, wait a second. I thought these were like spiritual retreats where you're supposed to, you know, find yourself. But it's like, let's film this. Wouldn't that freak you out more if you were doing an ayahuasca trip and you had cameras in your face? But I think this adds to his like, I'm telling my story. Yeah. So nobody else could twist it. Legend aura. Like, I'm actually a good teammate.

Jordan loves my guy. Yeah. I might not come back next year, but I might come back. I think you guys could actually win this game. 8-0. 8-0. Aaron Rodgers versus Rams. Best. I think that's the best record against another team. You know what the second best is? This one will shock you. Another undefeated. 7-0. Does it have it? Patriots? No. Tom Brady was 7-0 against the Cowboys, but he lost in a playoff game, so he gets technically a 7-1. Josh Allen, Dolphins? No. No.

Tua Patriots. Oh. I did not know that. Yeah. Tua's 7-0 against the Patriots. You like what I did earlier with the Sean McVay stat of him being 1-3 in cold weather games? Yeah. Those are the Jerry Goff stat. I just put it on. Yeah, we just put it on. We don't do narratives on this. No, we just put it on Sean McVay. We don't do narratives. We don't do narratives on this podcast. Okay. Let's rip. Beams, you good? You look confused. Yeah, I'm confused. I just don't. How do you get someone to sell a team?

I don't know, dude. I'm trying to do the same thing. Yeah. The only way is to implicate them in some sort of financial crime against the other owners. Yeah. That's it? Yeah. You can do anything. You need a federal probe. Yeah. Well, no, because the federal probe's about sexual harassment. They didn't care about that. You have to make the other owners think this guy's costing you money. Yeah.

Meems, you know like when you play the Sandlot, when they do the thing where they put their hands on the bat? Yep. That's basically what we've just been doing about embarrassing franchise stories this year between the Bears and the Jets. So I appreciate that you're back on top. Yeah, just got lobbed back. I mean, the athletic is just obsessed with the Jets. Well, I mean, I'm just going to throw this out there. So Mike Silver wrote this story.

about the Jets. He just finished a book about the 49ers. Was there anyone who coached with the 49ers who might have been a scorned person in the Jets organization? Yes. Oh, yeah. Robert Salah.

I love when these stories come out. It's like, well, I know who wrote this. Yeah, the problem is when you have a dysfunctional organization, then you have a lot of people who are very willing to become sources for articles like this and tell everything that happened behind the scenes. I think Robert Sala just handed Mike Silver his journal. He's like, here's my diary. Go ahead, write a story. Yeah. And I know that you think the Athletics have been obsessed with you guys' memes, but if... I know, I know. If...

Diana Rossini wrote a tell-all article about the dysfunction, say, for the Patriots at the end of the season. Would you be like, okay, I believe that? Yeah, I'd be her number one fan. That's probably the only way that she can get memes back. Memes, you've got to start a running tally because we'll probably see Diana at the combine and we'll have her back on. So have a running tally of all the questions and stories that she needs to, you know. I mean, for all we know, Max didn't shit himself on that flight. Yeah, true. Mm-hmm.

Now you're being the meat. No one said shit himself. Yeah, no one said shit himself. Now you're making stuff up. Whoa. Wait, Max, did you shit yourself? I don't even remember farting. I was asleep.

Okay, let's move on. We'll power through some of these Cardinals and Panthers. I don't know. Panthers plus five over 47. I'm going to take I'm going to take the Cardinals. I don't fucking know. Yeah, the real question. Did we learn our lesson last week about the Panthers? Yeah, I think I did. I think I learned a good lesson. Yeah, I got really nothing except that Kyler's probably probably won't be under a lot of pressure.

And the Cardinals will be able to run the ball, and that's usually a checkmark, checkmark. I want to bet on the Cardinals. I think I'm going to bet on McBride to score a touchdown until he does.

Yeah, so receiving touchdown. He's got a rushing touchdown, fumble recovery touchdown. Kyler Murray said that he was going to get him the ball in the end zone. I'm going to go down with that ship. I might double down on it every week responsibly for when it doesn't hit. I'm in. I'm in. Okay, afternoon. Vikings at Seahawks. Seahawks plus three over under 42.5. It looks like Geno's going to play. The Seahawks season kind of comes down to this game because they have to win out. It will come down to Week 18.

against the Rams, but this is very important. I don't know. I don't know. Kevin O'Connell should be coach of the year. If Geno plays...

I think I like the Seahawks to cover. I don't think I've gotten a Seahawks game correct this year, both on and against. I don't think I've gotten a single one correct. If I bet on them, they get killed. If I bet against them, they kill the opponent. They surprise you. You don't know what you're going to... If it's Sam Howell... Listen, I love Sam Howell. I was in that haliband for a short period of time. But he did not look good. No, he did not look good. He did not look good. And I don't know... Geno is like...

He is the epitome of just a completely schizophrenic quarterback one week to the next. So who knows? If he starts, I think I like to see Hawks to cover.

But the Vikings are the real deal. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. The Vikings are very much the real deal. The Vikings are going for the one seed, which would be... I mean, they kind of were just laying there in the weeds. Everyone talking about the Lions. Everyone talking about the Eagles. Vikings are right there, and they control it all because they get to play the Lions in Week 18. So what? Oh, yeah. What are the tiebreakers? I don't know. I saw some... Vikings have a tiebreaker. I saw some scenario. Not necessarily. I forget...

I saw something on Twitter that went through each scenario for the Eagles to get. It wasn't too detailed, though, to be honest with you. Pretty sure it's Vikings. Here it is. Okay. Scenario two is win out, Lions lose one, Eagles win the strength of victory tiebreaker. This is so confusing. But there is a way that they win that tiebreaker. I just don't know what that way is. Do we know what the strength of victory tiebreaker is?

We tried to figure it out. I don't know. I don't, I don't know. But according to this graphic, there is a way that we ha we win the tiebreaker over. There's no way we win the tiebreaker of their lions. There is a way that we win a tiebreaker over the Vikings somehow. I don't, I don't know how. Okay. Um,

I think scenario one is the most likely. Yeah. For this game, I do have one stat from my guys at Sports Info Solutions. The Vikings are one of the heaviest play action teams, and Seattle is one of the worst play action defenses in the NFL. So could see a lot of play action, maybe some deep shots to Jay Jetta's defense.

They're just so good. Yeah. Addison and Jay Jedis. Okay, Patriots and Bills. Bills minus 14 over under 46 and a half. I think the Bills can...

Need it. Hungry dog? No, no, no, no. I saw your face and I was like, what the fuck? I was going to say the Bills can name their number. When you say need it, you're saying... We need to womp it. You need to get womped. Yeah. Oh, you want to get womped? Yeah. Because you want your mail out. Gerard mail. Do you need to see the report? No. Vrabel McDaniels. Oh, that's a combo? Yeah. You don't... That's just... People for... Hold on. John McDaniels had Mac Jones in the pro bowl. Hold on. Hold on, though. Hold on. This would make me scared, Hank.

Because Vrabel McDaniels, yeah. What happens if Vrabel goes somewhere else? And they're like, well, we could just do McDaniels. Yeah, McDaniels was halfway in the door already. That's a problem. That's fair. I mean, obviously, he has very bad track record as a head coach. Very, very bad. He's at least... Right now, I have a defensive coach and a terrible defense. At least we would have an offensive genius with an offensive or new quarterback. So...

I wouldn't necessarily want him as head coach, but the report that I was reading was Rabel McDaniels, so I want that. And the thought that Robert Kraft wouldn't get rid of Mayo because of pride, I think he knows. It's like, let's keep it Patriots-Milford.

Super Bowl champions, he would do that. That seems like something he would be okay doing. Yeah, I think that it's very, very dangerous. Josh McDaniel's awesome offensive coordinator. Very, very good. But it's a little dicey now where the Raiders stopped. It seemed like there was some fucked up stuff going on there.

Yeah, but he had already gone from offensive coordinator with the Patriots, failed head coach, came back and was a great offensive coordinator. Sure. If I agree, I'm not saying I want him as a head coach. Right, but Vrabel would do the same thing. Give me Vrabel and McDaniels and I am pumped. I'm thinking soupy. We're biased. Vrabel's a friend of ours and we think very highly of him, but that...

Couldn't have worked out better for him that he didn't get a job last year. I know he wanted a coach and he didn't get one. Every single team wants him. He gets to pick whatever team in whatever number he wants. Yeah, it's pretty good for him. It's a good situation. So you want a whomping. You are begging for a whomping right now. You want to be spanked, daddy? Yeah. You're a little sub. Oh, shit. Give it to me, Josh. Yeah, get your dominatrix in here. Love that. Get whipped. Love that for you. It might be a whipping. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah, no, the Bills can do whatever they want. Yeah, 14. 14. The Bills can do whatever they want. And they're wearing the Patriots jerseys, as you said, which is a weird choice. I don't love it for this game. It's going to be confusing when you watch it on TV. You'll be like, wait, okay, that's the Bills because they're scoring. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, give me a whopping. Okay, you want the whopping. I think the whopping will probably happen. I think the Bills can just score whatever they want, and that's it. Yeah. They could set the record for the most 30-point games in a season. They're on 8-8 right now? No, I think they've got... I think they're 6 in a row. They've got 11. Yeah, so they're 6 in a row. And the Broncos have the record. The Broncos... Peyton Manning's Broncos? I believe it was, yeah. They had 13 30-point games in a season. So the Bills need to win out scoring 30 points in each game.

And then they have the record all to themselves. I think they can do it. Okay. Jaguars, Raiders. Raiders minus one and a half over under 40 and a half. We're not talking about this game, right? No, we don't talk about it. We don't preview the Jags. Hank, can you tell me what happened with the Hawk Tua coin? Again? Yeah. Has there been an update to it? You already told us? She's still asleep. Oh. Okay. No updates. The SEC is suing her. Why? Greg Sankey. What a dickhead. The whatever. The financial SEC. Oh, okay. Got it.

For doing a rug pull. She made millions of dollars. Oh, so she did actually make millions of dollars. Yeah. Wow. Do we know that? Yeah. I'm starting to get to the point in my life and age. I'm just missing stories. Like, I know. I know. I know that there was a rug pull. I did not know that she actually got away with millions of dollars. I don't know if that is entirely accurate.

I think she denies it. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Then we've got to take her word for it. I don't think that she created. Group of investors is suing Hawk Tua, not SEC. I don't even think SEC can sue like that. Okay. Yeah. I don't think that she created the coin and wrote the code and then engineered the rug pull where she dumped all the coin. I feel like. But is there a rug pull without Hawk Tua? There's no rug pull without Hawk Tua. Right.

Yeah. Lawsuit claims the token was improperly marketed as a security without being registered with the SEC, leading to significant financial losses. Miguel, let me ask you a question. Is there a part of you that thinks if you invested your money in the Hawk to a coin that you should have seen something exactly like this coming? And then maybe you should try to sue yourself for being a fucking moron. It's the financial Darwin Awards. Yeah.

We should. It's okay. That thins the herd. Yeah. I'm not saying that she was ethical. Yeah. But I'm saying, come on. And I say that as a talk to a fan. I'll admit that. Yeah. It's a good podcast. That would be funny if they're soon to get spit on.

I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to go to bed, guys. I'm kind of tired. See you all tomorrow. Okay. That was our Jaguars Raiders preview. 49ers and Dolphins. Dolphins plus one over under 44 and a half. I like the 49ers in this game. Also, Terry Hill says, time for me to go coach. Yeah, I saw that. I read it as it's a fucking a man situation. Yeah. Did he say it's time for me to go coach? Or is he saying it's time for me to go coach?

Because it was right after Mike Vick. I originally thought he wanted to get cut, and then I was like, no, he wants to get cut loose. Okay, so that's a third option. Does he want to get cut? Does he want to get unlocked? Or does he want to go coach college football? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't know. We don't know. I read today that the 49ers might be down to, what, would that be their fifth string running back? Mm-hmm. Because Garendo might not play? I think Garendo got hurt in practice. Is that Izzy? Izzy? Izzy?

Is it Izzy season? Izzy. Izzy two touchdowns this weekend. Izzy two. Oh, hell yes. Izzy Deuces. I might have to start Izzy. They should start. They got Banjo, right? He's on the night. He should start. And Kazooie? Banjo is, that's a fifth string instrument.

That's Izzy. Izzy. Look at him go. You're just showing us Izzy running. Okay. In the combine. You're just showing us Izzy exists. It was a tweet that said, reminder, recent 49ers running back edition, Izzy Ababadada ran an official 4-4-1. He seems like a strong potential Shanahan scheme fit. Patrick Taylor. Fucking pick him up. Who's Patrick Taylor? Set to be 49ers 4 starting running back. Patrick Taylor.

Okay. Maybe mix in some Izzy. Yeah, definitely give us a little bit of Izzy. People forget that he ran a 4-4-1 second 40-yard time at his pit pro day. Yeah. God, who? Unofficial. God, who? That's maybe the least inspiring tweet that I've ever read. He ran an unofficial 4-4-1 40. Remember that. Remember that shit. All right, last up, Bucs at Cowboys. Cowboys plus four over under is 48-40.

I don't know. Bucs? Oh, I love the Bucs. Yeah. I love the Bucs. He's going to take the Cowboys. Liam Cohen's been awesome. My hungry dog, I think, is going to be two. So the hungry dog is plus money on the year. I'm not going to get crazy. I think it's Titans, Giants. Titans, Giants. You're not going to get crazy, but the Giants. That's a little crazy. It is a little crazy. I'm a crazy guy. You are a crazy guy. You're a wild and crazy guy. I don't think the Cowboys would be crazy. And I like the Bucs. I just think that the Cowboys have been playing good. Yeah, they've been okay. One three out of four, maybe. Yeah.

I don't know. The slate kind of takes a tail. It just falls off a cliff. Viking Seahawks in the afternoon will be nice, but everything else is... Much like you guys, I have to reinvest my money. I put it immediately on the bills to win the Super Bowl and the NFC, the bucks to win the Super Bowl. Nice. At 30 to 1. I just put all my money back in the banana stand.

UConn 19-1. There you go. Always money in the banana stand. Okay. Let's do our picks. And we need a TD parlay because we are...

1-0 in our last one. I wasn't part of it, but I bet it, and I rode with the boys. Every day is game day at DraftKings Sportsbook, and now through the end of the year, it's extra special. All customers get a special daily promo every single day from Profit Boost, Odd Boost, No Sweat Bets, and more. There's something for everyone. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now. Use code TAKE. That's code TAKE, and take advantage of special daily promotions only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Okay, so here's what we got this week. We're going to do our TD Parlay. What do we got?

I have Mike Evans. Mike Evans. Okay. He needs 18 receptions, 251 receiving yards, plus one TD for $3 million. Okay. So I'm probably going to also bet his receptions over. Love that. Okay. Brian Thomas Jr. Okay. Brian Thomas Jr. Like it. I will go...

Can I do Sunday night? Yeah. Bucky. Bucky Irving. Bucky and Mike Evans. Oh, yep. Fuck. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah, you said with conviction. I'll take it. Yeah, you said it with a lot of conviction. Also on Sunday, when you're watching our streams, you'll see PFT and Max face off. We also... So we did our NBA Cup competition. It was a four-way competition. PFT...

Said he was the hottest NBA Cup gambler. Turns out I'm also just as hot as a gambler in the NBA Cup. We're equally as hot, so we split. So it was for a 10K bonus bet.

We're gentlemen. We were going to just be like, all right, we'll each take 5K. No, no, no. We'll put it back in the pot and we'll make another competition out of it. So on Sunday on the stream, it's going to be me and Max versus Hank and PFT. We're going to do a draft on the late slate. Each team has to pick five touchdown scorers, the most correct team.

wins the free bet. And if it's a tie where we hit all our, it's the most touchdowns. So if there's multiple touchdowns for your guy. Yeah, tiebreaker. So we'll release all those so you'll see them. I think Max said it best. Hank's a winner. Hank is a winner. So I'm happy to have him on my side. He's a winner. Okay, let's do our picks. What are the standings? Hank, 15.5 points first. Me and Big Cat, 15 points. PFT, 13. Max, also 13. Oh! We got a tie.

It's getting tight. Max was perfect last week, right? Yeah. It's wide open. No, I was 1-0-1. All right. What do we got? Max goes first. I go first. Max C. I will be taking the Niners minus one. Shit. You knew I wanted that. The Pittsburgh Steelers. Plus six and a half. Yeah. You knew I wanted that, Max. Why would you do that to me? I am going to take the Cincinnati Bengals minus eight and a half.

I will take the Ravens, minus 6.5. Okay. Buffalo Bills, minus 14. Wow. I will take... Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're right, you're right, you're right. Do you want to say it? Nope, I fucked that up last time and I lost. 49ers, Dolphins, over 44.5. I will take... Right? Yeah, me. I will take the Jets, Rams, under 46.5. I'll take the Jets, Rams, over 46.5. I wanted that one, Hank. I will take the Giants, Falcons, under 42. I like that. I will take...

the Cardinals Panthers over 47. I hate that. Gross, dude. Fine. Before we get to Coach Gruden, do a little Fantasy Fuckboys brought to you by our friends at Body Armor...

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What happened? Yeah.

Aaron, uh, uh, Aaron, Mike Stanton, ex-girlfriend. I forget which one. Mike Stanton. Either one. Bad locker room vibes. Bad team. Bad city. Fuck the Yankees. Yeah. It's going to be an issue. My sleeper. Hawk Dua. Oh, no. Spit on that bag. She's still asleep. It's been 12 days. Lost all my money on Hawk Dua coins. She might be asleep. Hawk Dua. Hawk Dua.

Alright, what's up? It's Vinny Testaverde. Vinny Testaverde. Vinny Testaverdeini. My stardom is the Pro Bowl. Oh. Guys, they're doing the skills challenges again. Hell yeah. And they're making guys punt. They're making guys punt and throw at the accuracy targets. Basically trying to get back to what it was like in the late 90s, back when the Pro Bowl meant something. Yeah.

I'm sitting cave exploration because one of our Italian friends named Ottavia Piana had to be rescued by 150 people from the same cave in the Alps for the second time in two years. Whoops. Maybe just stay the fuck out of that cave. Yeah, don't go there. Stay out of the cave. Don't go there. My sleeper is Barry Sanders because I think you could step in for the 49ers this weekend and still run for it. Probably be a good option. Barry Sanders looks like he could still come.

I thought you said Bernie Sanders. Easy. No, don't get political. Barry Sanders. What's up, fuckers? It's Dan Marino. Hey, Danny. My stardom is Sammy Sosa. He's welcome back to Wrigley now. What are you guys fucking wearing? Why am I in this van? Sammy Sosa. Hey, Danny. You want a little dust on the table? Oh, my sit-em is weird podcasters like you guys.

Trying to make me feel uncomfortable in the van. You didn't want to talk about OJ. Yeah, I didn't want to talk about OJ. The juice. The juice is loose. My sleeper is Josh Allen. I think he's going to score some touchdowns. Josh Allen. Need it. Also, Dan Marino, victim of the historic Jim Kelly curse. Jim Kelly curse. Jim Kelly curse. Went to the Super Bowl, lost it. A lot of people on that list. It was a surprise. Yeah, a lot of guys. A lot of guys.

All right. Should we do John Gruden? Oh, yeah. Sammy Sosa's welcome back. The Ricketts are the worst. They basically made him apologize. And then he didn't actually really say anything. But they're like, okay, that's good. It was the two biggest non-statements of all time. And it was just like, we need to shame you. A dozen years for you to say I'm sorry. And then he was like, I'm sorry. I did a lot of things that I regret, but I also tried really hard to...

Yeah, the Ricketts were like, we need to just, it's shame torture, and that's the only way we're going to let you come back. And it's like he had that statement welcoming him back prepared, and just all that needed to happen was like press one button. Yeah. And he's had that for years. Yeah. Okay, let's get to our interview with John Gruden, Coach Gruden in person. He's brought to you by our great friends over at Chevy. There's a reason why we've never done the Mount Rushmore pickup trucks interview.

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Most of the year, I'm a saw-tooth, thick, body wash guy. In the fall, I like the Buffalo Trace soaps. And during the holiday season, which is here, I put their big-ass lump of coal soap on my wish list. It's a holiday classic, like Die Hard. Shop now at DukeCannon.com, Amazon, in Target, or at Walmart. They're everywhere. Go forth and save up to 20% on Yuletide soap bundles and gift sets. The products, the packaging, you won't find better gifts for the men on your list this year. And now, here's John Gruden. Ooh.

Okay, our very good friend and colleague, it's Coach Gruden back in studio. Coach, you've been at Barstool for about a month now.

How are we feeling? Undefeated, man. I haven't lost a game. It's a great feeling. You've been so much fun to watch. I mean, is it, I feel like you're starting to get your feet under you on the internet and how this thing works, right? I'm trying. I got to do something with the Righteous Brothers. I got to do something with George Brett. I'm trying to cross train a little bit and get into some different things. I even made street tacos. That was kind of my claim to fame, but I am having a blast meeting some really cool people and

Like I said, getting better as every day goes by. Yeah. Has there been anything that you've been asked to do where you don't understand why you're doing this at all? And then pretty much all of it. I mean, there's no, you know, you take pride in a lot of intense preparation when you're coaching. I mean, you really sit in a dark room and you plan all these different contingency plan, everything.

from a to z but i show up here i have no idea where we're going with this show it's a great spontaneous creative vibe that i get from barstool and the people love you you've been you've been a massive hit everyone's everyone's feeling nicey you've spread nice about that i keep saying it yeah i keep saying got me feeling nicey i was in chicago last night having dinner one of the waiters i was at a really nice restaurant and a waiter came up and says how do you like that

steak, Mr. Gruden. I said, pretty good. He goes, does it have you feeling nice? Yeah, it does. That's incredible. Did anybody take your picture in the airport and then post John Gruden's in Chicago, maybe possible Bears opening? There's a lot of craziness going on in Chicago right now, but we'll get into it. Yeah. All right. So yeah, let's talk some football. My first question for you, and I think this is the biggest story that's happened in the last couple of weeks, is

The Detroit Lions, one of the best teams in football, is now just, I mean, they got hit with insane amount of injuries on the defensive side. They lose David Montgomery. As a coach, we heard Dan Campbell, and I loved his message, which was like, look, you got to, you know, we're going to get punched in the mouth. We got to get back up. This is good for us. But as a coach, like from a scheme perspective and a game plan perspective, when you lose that much talent on defense,

What do you do? What do you change? Because you know you're at a disadvantage going into a game. It's hard. I mean, I admire him for speaking publicly because your players are listening to you, showing confidence and showing the manhood that it takes to fight through adversity. But...

I'm looking out there, Quan Alexander's playing linebacker, and I take pride in knowing the players. Jamal Adams is over there playing. These guys weren't even in the media guide. Right. And it's hard to swallow when you lose high-caliber guys. Now, a couple guys are going to come back. Yep. But when you lose Montgomery, you lose part of the identity of your team. So I do know that deep down when Coach Campbell gets in his car –

He ain't feeling real nice-y. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah, but you have to give the message to your team that, hey, we're not quitting. We're not waving the white flag because everyone has injuries. You got to make guys believe that they can step into those roles. Have you ever had a guy that, you know, you suffer a big injury, one of your star players, and then somebody has to be elevated. You know that, you know, you're going to have a little bit of a downgrade there at the position, but you have to make that guy believe that they can play like a superstar.

Yeah. There's no doubt. I remember Cadillac Williams was the rookie of the year. We thought we had a back that would be with us forever. He tore out his patella tendon in Carolina. We have a young guy, free agent, Ernest Graham, who stepped in and really played good. There are a lot of players that just need an opportunity that will step up if they're given the opportunity, but...

You know, losing a lot of good players this time of year is going to be a real challenge for Detroit. Now, they're going to have to outscore people, and they do have the firepower to do that. Yeah, and are you okay with Dan Campbell maybe even, which is crazy to say, but I think he might even turn up the aggressiveness even more. Like, which, you know, he's been the most aggressive, but part of the whole onside kick, which...

You know, our take when it happened, we were just like, hey, if you could still do a surprise onside kick, that would be a good spot for it. The fact you can't do surprise...

Maybe you don't do it. But his whole thought was they're scoring every single drive. We got to take at least one chance to try to get, you know, to break the serve here. That's what Sean Payton did in the Super Bowl against Peyton Manning. I mean, he – Sean told me we're going to steal a possession from these guys because we don't know if we can stop Peyton Manning and Harrison and Reggie Wayne for four quarters. So –

I've seen it done, and I agree with you. Campbell is aggressive. And I think right now he's got to get more and more opportunities for golf. Ben Johnson, they're healthy on that side of the ball, minus Montgomery. But, yeah, they've got to do something to help outscore the opponent. Yeah, and keep the ball away from their defense on the field. Yeah, so you mentioned Sean Payton.

The job he's done in Denver is just incredible this year. What's different? Obviously, the quarterback position's changed. Bo Nix has been electric at times. But from an X's and O's standpoint, is there anything that he's doing different this year as opposed to last year that you love? I think it's totally different. You remember Drew Brees and the success that they had throwing the ball. They've kind of reinvented the offense and become more of an RPO. They're doing a lot of the college stuff, honestly, with Bo Nix because he can run. Bo Nix is –

a factor running the ball with these zone reads. But where the Broncos have crushed it is with this defense. I call them the anonymous crush. They used to be called the orange crush because they had a lot of recognizable guys.

But I'll bet you can't name two or three Denver Broncos on their team right now other than Pat Sertan. And they're the number one scoring defense. Them and the Chargers, they're tied. They have done a hell of a job. They lead the league in sacks, and nobody really knows who their sack artists are. How pissed were you about Jonathan Taylor? Pissed. That's the worst. Terrible. How does that happen? I'm sure Taylor is sick about it. Because if you know Taylor, he is one of the great guys we have in football, and he's one of the best backs.

And that was a game changer. Yeah. I mean, they got the game under control. It was a shitty night. The weather was terrible. Neither quarterback could throw it. And for them to lose a game on that play and then compound it with a flea flicker interception, they got to be sick. It cost them a chance to sneak into the playoffs. Did that ever happen to you? Did any of your players ever do it? I think we had a challenge one time, but it was overturned. We did end up getting a touchdown. You know, that's...

That's a colossal mistake. Is that a word I use? I'm trying to use more three and four syllable words. Because I got to sound smart with Fred Smoot coming in. But yeah, it's crazy. It's weird how that started. Like Deshaun Jackson did one time. I don't think it had happened before that. Or Leon Lett. The Leon Lett BB player at Thanksgiving. I think that's a little bit different because he started celebrating early, got caught from behind, stripped of the ball.

it makes you real mad as a coach, but that type of thing happens. But just dropping the ball before you get to the end zone, what would you do to a player if they did that? Well, there's not much you can say to Jonathan Taylor. He already feels terrible. But what will happen now is in training camp,

Every coaching staff will put that on their list of things that have happened that we need to cover. So they'll probably take all the skilled guys and have them run through the end zone with the ball secure. Run through the end zone, finish the play before you celebrate. But that's unfortunate, and it's sickening, really, that it happened to Jonathan Taylor. You would rather have your guy take an unsportsmanlike penalty for excessive taunting after the touchdown.

Exactly, yeah. I'd rather him reach underneath the goalpost and have a cell phone like Joe Horn did or T.O. with the Sharpie pen, something like that. Is there anything in the NFL that you've seen, you've been noticing over the, you know, the rules always change every year. There's something new, a new wrinkled point of emphasis they add in. Is there anything that you would make as a change to the way the game is either officiated or anything just about how NFL football is going right now that you'd like to see changed from a coaching perspective?

You know, my biggest concern is pass interference in pro football. I would make it the college rule, honestly, because some of these pass interference calls are impacting a game. Just one play there. And I don't think there's a common thread in what is and what isn't pass interference. I think this crew calls it a little different than that crew.

And that is a penalty right now that is, I think, taking over a lot of these games. Yeah. It's a little hack. If you underthrow a ball just slightly, you can draw a passer. Good quarterbacks will do that. Good wide receivers. I sat up in a booth in Monday Night Football with Jerry Austin. Jerry Austin wore the white hat in three Super Bowls. And our formula during the game was every penalty, Jerry would go like this. And that meant it's a bad call. Yeah. And if it was a good call, Jerry would go like that.

So here's a penalty. He would go like that. That's a bad call, you know, because I'm getting a confirmation from the ref. But anyways, Jerry Seaman or excuse me, Jerry Austin taught me that pass interference should call itself. We should all be sitting in a bar in Chicago and go, that's P.I. Yeah, that's how it should be a common thing.

Yeah. Obvious pass interference. Otherwise, let these guys play. Right. That's my feeling. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. Yeah, let the guy sitting on the couch be able to call it. Exactly. That's right. He usually nailed it. Instead of going to New York, we should go to Big Cat and his studio down here at Barstool. Yeah, they should have sensors hooked up to us. Something. Something.

give us six beers and then let 20 of us watch a game at the same time. We get a button in front of us. We all say yes or no. Then they take that data. Okay, no pass or pass. I don't like the way we're protecting the quarterbacks either. I don't know if you saw the Kirk Cousins play at the end of the Raider game the other night. But what is roughing the pass or what isn't, I think –

I think we got to be a little careful there, too. So you bring up Kirk Cousins. I know you guys have a relationship. He obviously gets benched tough. I mean, he's the ultimate pro about it. And I think he even called Michael Penix and was like, hey, let's shoot the elephant in the room is what he said. What do you think the future is for Kirk? Do you think he still has some years left in him? I know this is disappointing, but he also is getting paid a lot of money. You know, he's probably...

Going to have an opportunity now to really sit down and think about that. I wonder how healthy he truly is coming off that Achilles injury. I've seen that injury take over a year to get all the way back. But the one thing that's disappointing when I looked at the Falcons is they just never used a play-action pass. And here's Kirk Cousins. I think he threw 69 touchdown passes on play-action over the last three or four years in Minnesota. They don't even call a play-action pass. With that running game with Bijan and Algiers,

I don't know what they're doing offensively in Atlanta, but it was not a good mix from the start. They started poorly against Pittsburgh. It ended poorly against the Raiders. But I know this. He's a hell of a competitor. He'll be back. And they just got to figure out what to do with the contract. That's a big issue.

with how they loaded that contract. Yeah. Did you watch a lot of Michael Penix tape? I did. So what do we think about him? I know he can throw the ball to the outside. What I like about Penix, forget about Indiana and Washington, is I like what he did in the preseason. I really did. Now, he's inexperienced. He hasn't played one snap, really, meaningful snap for the Falcons, but this guy has a quick arm. He's accurate. He can really rip it down the field fast.

But I don't think the Falcon offensive line is playing great. They have committed so many penalties, holding penalties. It's ridiculous. False starts. The Falcons are still in this thing. If they can tie Tampa, they win the tiebreaker. So they have to win these final couple games. But he's a talented kid. I'm just anxious to see where he is with the system. Yeah, it's kind of – I mean –

Listen, it's good that he's starting against the Giants. The Giants stink. He should have some good opportunities against them, especially Dexter Lawrence is out for the season. But it's tough to be a rookie quarterback thrown in week 16 being like, hey, we got to win out to make the playoffs. That's a lot of pressure. It is a lot of pressure. And I think it's probably going to serve him well in the future. Yeah. Because if he does go out there and light it up against the team they should beat,

I think his teammates, you know, they'll start doing what the Washington Commanders did with Daniels. You see what Denver's doing, rallying behind Bo Nix. I think the Falcons, as you said, they have shot the elephant in the room. It's just inevitable. Yeah, right. You don't take a guy with the eighth pick at that position to sit for very long. Right, yeah. So this weekend, I believe we got the 49ers and the Dolphins, right? Yes. So both teams –

disappointing seasons for each one and it felt like a couple years ago two of the most dynamic exciting offenses now they've kind of just they've gotten slow it's not as fun of a matchup as it used to be what do you see i'll ask about the dolphins first what do you see out of the dolphins offense that's different now that they're kind of a little bit lackluster and whereas before they're lighting it up they don't have a running game yeah they can't run the ball i mean last year they had raheem most had 20 touchdowns they don't even play

A-chan's a hell of a receiver. I think in the last five games, they have run the ball for 50 yards a game or less. They just have no running game. It's a finesse, quick passing game. And if you have the guys like Lassiter and Stingley to lock down these receivers, it's hard uphill sledding. But they just don't have a running game. They're missing Chubb. They're missing Jalen Phillips. They're two edge rushers. And they've done a surprisingly good job on defense. But I just think they don't have a –

balanced offense. They don't run the ball, and it's all on Tua. And that's hard to do week in and week out. I also think Tyreek's maybe on the wrong side of 30, and it's a little different where it's not. He's still explosive, but he hasn't been that

you know, game breaker of no one knows what to do with him. And it is obviously the running game as well, but they, you know, it's a little, uh, one steps a little bit slower and it can change it. You say that name, that Tyree kill. He scares me, man. He burnt me. He, he put me into my grave. That guy.

But, you know, their left tackle, Armstead's out. He doesn't play. Their right tackle, Jackson gets hurt. They put in Kendall Lamb. He gets hurt. They're playing their third string right tackle. So I'm sure Coach McDaniels is like, man, we got to throw the quick game. We don't have the horses up front to run the ball. And it's caught up with them. Yeah. It's been tough. On the other side of that, Brock Purdy.

They're going to have to make a decision about Brock Purdy pretty soon and what the contract is going to be for him. Is he a guy that you would pay, or would you look to the draft, free agency? No, I'd pay Purdy. I mean, you've already developed the guy. He covered your ass, man. I mean, if it wasn't for Brock Purdy, none of these things that are good in San Francisco happened. We'd be talking about Trey Lance. They gave up three first-round picks for Trey Lance, and they get the guy in the last pick of the draft that allows you to get him out of here and put this kid in. He hasn't made any money.

and he's taking you to Super Bowls. He's a winner.

missing trent williams mccaffrey has not been right the whole season i don't know what happened to debo really and iuk has been out as well you talk about a team that's lost players you know kyle shanahan has lost a lot of players on both sides of the ball but i would definitely keep purdy i'm an owl man who am i gonna get to replace purdy and everything sounds pretty in this draft but are you now about are you now about sam darnell

How about Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield? I mean, here's two guys that have reinvented themselves. I know I use that word a lot, but that's what you have to do in this business. You know, Sam Darnold, you got to pay Sam Darnold. Well, we got J.J. McCarthy. Well,

You got to be out of your mind to let Sam Darnold. You're 12-2, man. How much better could your quarterback play than what Sam has played this year? I don't know. The guy can run for first downs. He's a horse. He's young. If you let Sam Darnold out of there, you're making a real mistake. Okay, I wanted to ask a question about the Debo thing because it kind of is like Tyreek Hill. As a coach...

When you see a player maybe lose a slight step, do you have a conversation with them or is it – do you start game planning a little different where it's like, hey, we know this guy is maybe not exactly what he used to be. Let's figure out a way to work for his strengths here so we can still get a lot out of him. Yeah. I mean, you help a guy maintain –

his impact somehow, some way. Jerry Rice, Tim Brown, I had those guys on the same team. They were deep into their 30s. But there's so many things these great players can do. You have to tap into some different areas. Right. But when I look at Tyreek,

He does have the wrist injury, and that's a serious injury that he's playing through. He's going to have to have surgery after the season. And his best part of his game is going down the field. Right. And when you throw these down the field deep ends and deep daggers and special seams, the quarterback's got to drop back and hold the ball. Yeah. But Miami doesn't do that.

I mean, almost every pass he runs, route he runs, is inside of 10 yards. Yeah, it's disgusting watching their offense. You know, I'm watching Tyreek Hill. I'm like, man, I wish he would have run those routes against us. Yeah, I think he hasn't caught a 30-yard pass since week one, I think. Yeah, well, last week they tried the wrong corner twice. Yeah, Stingley. And Derek Stingley was covering Tyreek and made a couple great plays. But you're right, they got to –

I think somehow get him to be a factor down the field again. Yeah. Sticking in that division, we're friends with Josh Allen. We love the Buffalo Bills. We're part of Bills Mafia, I think, maybe honorary part. Haven't gone through a table yet, but we love Buffalo. And it feels like this might be the year for them, the way that Josh is playing. Do you think that this is their best chance that they've ever had this year?

I do. I mean, I'm worried about their defense. Their defense made me mad the other day. Now, I understand when they went to the Rams and gave up 44 points on a short week. And I know against Detroit, they're missing both their safeties now. Rapp didn't play. Hamlin didn't play. Rasul Douglas didn't play at corner. But they couldn't stop Detroit or L.A. They couldn't stop anything the last two weeks.

I believe to have a championship team, you have to have a quarterback playing winning football, and you've got to have a fourth-quarter pass rush. What bothered me is they let Goff keep going down the field and down the field. They couldn't stop Detroit either. And I'm waiting for Von Miller and Rousseau and Oliver –

To close these games out, I mean, you know golf is throwing at every play. I was expecting to see a lot more pass rush, impactful pass rushes, hits on the quarterback and sacks than I've seen. It's why the Chiefs system works. It's why the Chiefs win. Chris Jones. Exactly right. How many times have we seen a playoff game where it's fourth quarter, Chris Jones makes a game-breaking play on a third down, and there's a fumble or a big sack, and it's like –

It's like Charles Haley. Charles Haley, he was the closer for the 49ers. When he goes to Dallas, he's the closer for the Cowboys. You've got to have guys that can end the game when Goff has the ball inside at two minutes, Mahomes has the ball inside at two minutes. You've got to close these quarterbacks out. This is Dwight Freeney.

Dwight Freeney, fourth quarter, hasn't done a spin move all game. Guess what? You're getting a spin move. That's my new money segment. I bought this chain. It's like a $3 million chain with diamonds. It's got a big money thing on it. I'm going to put my necklace on. We used to call it the green team. So at the end of the game, we would send out our green pass rush team, SAP.

Simeon Rice and Marinelli, our D-line coach, would put the other two guys out there. Greg Spires, Ellis Wims, whoever our money pass rushers were. So I'm going to put together my green team pass rush team. Oh, the guys making money? Yeah. I love that. Who would be your two ends? Who would be your two defensive tackles in today's game?

who would be your green team that you would send out there in the fourth quarter? Oh, that's a good question. But it'd definitely be Chris Jones inside. Probably Dexter Lawrence inside. You'd probably look at Miles Garrett, TJ Watt. TJ has a knack for doing that in the fourth quarter. That's when he's going to get a strip sack in. Max Crosby, don't forget my guy. Never comes off the field. Yeah, he's on every team, not just the green team. But I think as you watch the games this weekend, think about

these two-minute situations and look at the pass rush unit that's out there and look at that as the green team. We used to use a timeout. Warren Sapp taught me this. He's the first guy that ever pointed this out to me because I'm not real smart. He's like, hey, can I use a timeout? Think about this. We're playing Detroit. They have the ball. They got a chance to go down and win the game. And Warren says, can I take a timeout to rest?

Because what happens is these pass rushers, they rush, they go back. They rush, they go back. Rush, they get tired. And when the ball's incomplete, they tap out, they bring in a fresh rusher. Well, you're bringing in a fresh rusher for Warren Sapp. It's not Warren Sapp. So Warren Sapp takes a timeout. We get him some Gatorade. We go out there and fan him off. Bam! Sacks the next play, you see. So you got to think about that a little bit, I think. Yeah.

You've got to have guys that can heat up the quarterback without blitzing. Use your seven men and some kind of coverage and let these four guys eat up front. But think about taking a timeout for your defensive rushers to rest and think about who the money pass rushers are at the end of the game. It is so true that you kind of forget it where teams will, over the course of the year, there'll be teams that blitz more and they'll put up great numbers on defense. But at the end of the day, when you get to the playoffs, you've got to be able to do it with four.

You can't just always expect to be able to blitz your way out of stuff. Well, it sure helps. I mean, you've got to disguise coverages. You've got to stop Kelsey. You've got to stop Worthy over here. You've got to stop all these weapons, the back coming out of the backfield. You need men in coverage to do that. A lot of times when you blitz Mahomes or you blitz Josh Allen,

you might as well blow your brains out. Are you serious? They see it. They change the protection. They hand signal the routes, and they just thread it in there, man. Yeah. Or they take off because there's a big hole. So we're taping this early on Thursday. You hate Thursday night football.

I do hate Thursday. Okay. Now they're playing Wednesday. Yeah, now they're playing Wednesday. From your perspective, because you obviously lived it playing Thursday night football, why did you hate Thursday night football from a coach's perspective and just a quality perspective?

Well, you asked me if I could put in a couple plays with the barstool team. Yeah. And I'm anxious to do that. Yeah. Well, it's going to take a little time. So you guys are going to have to have a little time on the practice field to learn 682 and 683 diesel, 76 and 77 special. I'm even going to put in a couple other routes just to check you guys so we can have a little bit of versatility in our office. But on a short week.

you really don't get any time to practice. You don't get any time to really familiarize yourself with the opponent's blitzes, the coverages that they run, the stunts that they run up front. You don't get a chance to study their red zone defense, their third down defense. You don't get a chance to look at them in goal line and short yardage. So there's very little preparation. And these guys are beat up, man.

I don't like seeing these guys play 61 snaps on Sunday and then have to go play 68 snaps on Thursday. It bothers me. I don't mind doing it on Thanksgiving. I think it's a wonderful thing. But I do believe when you're playing –

Thursday football, there's very little preparation. There's very little time to recover. And it's going to take its toll on the performance. You just don't show up. This is not Major League Baseball where we can play a doubleheader and go out and play here. It's not the NBA. No disrespect. But this is a lot of physical contact, man. And a lot of these guys, they're hurting.

They are really sucking it up right now to play. Especially this point in the season, week 16. I agree with you. The...

I love Thursday night football. I wish they'd figure out a way to do a double-bye during the season so you could get more Thursday to Thursday. You know, like a team plays on a Thursday and they get extended rest or there's buys. Your double-bye ends up being your Thursday night game after that so you get a little more fresh teams out there. But the teams playing on Christmas and Saturday this week, they're playing three games in 11 days at the end of the season. That's crazy.

Well, it is crazy. And you've got to protect – I mean, I don't want to watch a playoffs if, like, some of these guys – you know, Patrick Holmes or Lamar Jackson isn't playing. Exactly. Hell, I look at Major League Baseball. They won't even let the pitcher pitch nine innings. Right. They're worried about his arm getting sore. You know, but you're right. How would you like to be a 12-1 team like the Chiefs and lose a couple players for the first round of the playoffs because they get hurt in one of these games that they're playing in three – you know, an 11-day period. But –

Is this microphone work? I make sure I can say this clearly. I hate Thursday football, especially when you got to be the road team. Yeah. And when they make you fly into a different time zone on a Thursday, it's ridiculous to me. I think you got to be really honest and careful with how you look at the performances on Thursday night. Yeah. And we saw an awful game last Thursday night.

This time of year, it seems like the product gets worse. Well, they say that they're the two best offensive coaches in the game, McVay and Shanahan, and the season really is on the line for the 49ers. Right. And here's the Rams trying to get back in and take control of the division, and it's 12-6. Yeah, it's unwatchable.

It was tough. Yeah. So with the Barstool team, if you're installing plays for us, you've got to know a lot of people here. And it's been fun watching you interact. Do you think that you've got to – do you have a starting 11 in your mind? No. Okay. I really didn't see a lot of talent the last time I was here. There was a lot of guys that – I don't think that's fair. Had great attitudes. It's going to be a tough job. Do you know quarterback, most important position?

I don't know who that is. The girl. I can't remember her first name. Megan. Megan. Yes. She had an arm. She had an arm. I think she's coachable. Yeah. Okay. What about me and Big Cat? You're going to be my F. Big Cat's going to be the Y. He's going to be the tight end. Nice. Okay. He's got a little size. Yeah. F is fullback? You're going to be my slot receiver, basically. Okay. Shifty guy. Love it. Yeah. You might be the quarterback, though. I did see some promise. I came in, I think, last place in a quarterback challenge. Yeah.

Okay, you're out. You're the F. Yeah, yeah. I'm like Julian Edelman. You see me as I was a quarterback before, but I get to the league. You're going to have to run the special seam. So I just want to see if you can recognize cover two, single high, and then convert it versus man. You got to do a few things on the special seam. What about Max? Max is a broken foot, but imagine he didn't have a broken foot. Podcasted right away. Max was going to be the center. He looks like Kelsey. Yeah. Oh, man. He just made his day. He can snap today. Yeah, he can. He absolutely can. All right.

In the NFC, I have some teams that I think could win. It feels wide open. What teams could you conceivably see winning the Super Bowl in the NFC right now? Man, it's tough. I think I have five. I wanted to say Detroit because they can really finish you with the running game. They've lost so many players, it's hard.

I want to say Minnesota. Yeah. Because they have a great skill set. When you look at the emergence of Addison, the return of Hawkinson with the great Justin Jefferson, I think Aaron Jones is excellent. Darnold's playing well, and they're playing solid defense. And their kicker, he doesn't have a lot of experience, but he makes all his kicks. I like Minnesota. I still think Green Bay is very dangerous. Yep.

You know, they got a quarterback that's got a lot of talent, man. They can run the ball, and they do have some pass rushers. Edgerin Cooper is a guy to keep an eye on. He came back off that injury. They're a rookie from Texas A&M, really played good against Seattle. And I think Green Bay's dangerous. I think Minnesota. I like Detroit.

But other than that, I'm no Philly. Philly? You got to put Philly in there. I got to put Philly in there. You got to put Philly in there. I think Philly's probably the favorite. Yeah. You got to put Philly in there. And what about, I mean, the Bucs and the Rams. That's the thing. It's anybody's game. Do you think, like, the Tampa Bay Bucs, in your mind, obviously there's teams that are more talented than them overall.

But I do think the way Baker's playing, they're unafraid. And they can go anywhere. I mean, listen, they've beaten the Lions. They've beaten the Eagles. Like, that's a team to me that I'm not going to say they're the favorite or anything to get to the Super Bowl. But it wouldn't shock me if we're sitting in New Orleans and the Bucs have made a crazy run and they've had a couple upsets and they're sitting there playing in February. I've been saying this for a long time. I mean, not –

Not bullshitting either. I mean, Baker Mayfield is a real quarterback now. He's playing great. Yeah. And the emergence of this Bucky Irving. Have you seen this kid play? I mean, he's a combination of work done –

Napoleon Kaufman, Charlie Garner, he is a badass, man. This guy's a hell of a back. Tampa Bay was 32nd in rushing offense the last two years. They couldn't run out of the stadium. Now they're a top 10 rushing team. They're balanced. Mike Evans is a complete stud. Hall of Famer. And Todd Bowles. No one gives Bowles any credit, man. This guy's a hell of a defensive coach. They just went to the Chargers and kicked their ass.

They are a dangerous football team because of their balance on offense and experienced defensive head coach. And McLaughlin makes big field goals. So I do like Tampa, and I like Philly.

This Philadelphia Eagle defense, man, Vic Fangio's got a couple rookies in the secondary. DeGene and Mitchell playing great. They got a lot of second-year players, Carter and Nolan Smith. This is the Kobe Dean. This Zach Bond guy comes over from New Orleans. They're good, man. What is it about a Vic Fangio defense? What is he preaching that makes it so hard to win?

because he's a great defensive coordinator. We've seen it time and time again, but what is it about his defense? They don't give up big plays, number one. They know where their help is. They know how to play leverage. They know how to play and eliminate big plays. They don't take unnecessary, stupid risks anymore.

They're hard to run against. They just do an excellent job taking away your strength and making you play left-handed. And they're a ball possession offense. They run the ball more than anybody. So they're not out on the field playing.

80 plays a game. They don't have to play a whole lot of snaps. I worry about the Eagles' pass rush depth a little bit. Huff is out. They just lost Brandon Graham for the season, and I told you about that money pass rush, man. I can't wait to see the money chain. So are you going to award that every week? Well, I'm going to talk about my green team. I'm going to get some glasses like you. I got those $12...

These are shady rays. We can get you a little better set than that. I might need to get some shady rays. I'm worried about the Eagle Green team a little bit. Yeah, so with Houston...

They've been kind of weird this year because last year it felt like their offense was way more explosive. It felt like they were dynamic, exciting. It feels like it's taken a little step back this year. Has it been concerning to you to watch the development of that offense? I thought they'd be a lot better. Their offensive line has been disappointing to me. They had 41 sacks allowed going into last week's game.

Not only the sacks. I mean, Stroud, if you look at the pro football focus, all the charts and stats, he's been pressured more than any guy in the league. This guy's been knocked down. He's been sacked. He's had the shit beat out of him. And I just don't feel...

I don't feel the rhythm of their passing game at all. Yeah, and they're boom or bust on rush. They really are. I went and looked at it because we're going to do our weekend preview for PMT this afternoon, but it was like,

See, Joe Mixon was like 110 yards, 20 yards, 120 yards, 15 yards. Like he either is going off or it's nothing. Yeah, he didn't run the ball at all against Miami. Yeah. It's not for the fake punt last week. They don't really score much in Houston either.

Yeah. But it's a problem because some of those linemen, I mean, Howard at right tackle, Tunsell at left tackle, they've got a lot of investments in that line, but they haven't picked up blitzes. When they stunt the line, they haven't picked up stunts. And it's impacted Stroud. He's off schedule right now. And I know they're missing Stephon Diggs, but Nico Collins is back. They got a pretty good tight end. I just...

I just don't feel the rhythm. You got to have a little rhythm to the pass game. Yeah, there's no flow to it at all. We talked last time when we were watching, we were doing the live stream of the Thursday Night Football, Commanders, Eagles. I heard that you didn't know that the cameras were on for that whole thing.

No, I had no idea they would film all of that. Yeah, we were just live. We were just live the whole time. But I'm going to let it rip tonight anyway. Yeah, you were great. No, people loved you. And we had the conversation about the analytics where you were like, there's some, you know, some nerd that's in your ear telling you, hey, go for it, go for it, go for it. And,

And then you mentioned like pro football focus and some of the people that do, you know, the talent evaluation. Do you feel the same way about those guys, the outside like third parties that grade players as you do about the numbers guys that are in your ear during your game? I love the pro football focus because it gives me a starting point. They say, hey, PFT is playing great. PFT is playing great. So, okay, I go in there. I said, let me see him play great.

Big Cats had a shitty game. So I like to go back and see for myself. A lot of times you might disagree with the guy that graded the film. You know, maybe you got...

You got the sack against you, but maybe when you look at the tape, I might say, nah, it wasn't his fault. But for the most part, these guys are pretty solid, man. But it does give me a pretty good gauge of where to start my studies, you know, in terms of I like to see it before I say it. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I can announce this now. We talked about our schedule coming up, but Coach is going to be with us for Wild Card Weekend.

a divisional round so we're gonna do streams saturday and sunday that's awesome i can't with us in the gambling cave i'm so excited to watch football with you you guys use artificial intelligence uh no we mean we know about it but we don't use it yeah why i've been using i've been see i'm you're using it hi well like when a when a quarter let's say you're a right guard okay and you blow an assignment in the back gets hit in the face for a three yard loss and

And you're the same right guard that whiffs in pass protection. And then you're the same right guard that jumps off sides. And you come over to the sideline and,

I would probably say, what the fuck are you doing, big cat? So I send that into artificial intelligence to see what should I say to my guard when he jumps offside, whiffs and passes. And some of the responses are pretty good. It becomes a PG-13 way of ripping a right guard. I like it. Same thing with ripping a referee. Or when the owner comes in and starts calling,

calling you names after you lose a game yeah threatening to fire you what should my response be yeah right and when you listen to artificial intelligence you're gonna say this might be the greatest invention ever that's great yeah and so have you ever had an owner say um i'd like for you guys to practice during the bye week oh yeah i mean now there's rules you see the collective bargaining agreement puts thank puts sanctions on what a coach can and can't do

So that's what makes it difficult. Yeah. How do you manage that? Because ultimately the owner is your boss, right? They sign your paychecks. You serve at their discretion. But then your job is also to just manage an entire. You got like two separate jobs almost like one is running the team and then the other is presenting a case of how you're running the team to the owner when things get bad. So how do you juggle those two things?

Well, I just use the practice field as my laboratory. You know, you want to take advantage of all the time that you have to practice. You may not need as much practice as you need. So you might take the bye week and let some of your young guys get some reps because it is a long season. You might want to install a couple new schemes. A lot of guys just say, Hey, you're out, get out of the building for the whole week. And sometimes the collective bargaining agreement makes you let the players be loose for X amount of days. But again,

You know, I like watching teams in pregame warmup. Some teams are working hard in pregame warmup. They're developing players during pregame. Some coaches are just putting their headphones on and they're jogging around the stadium.

But when you're trained, I think, under Al Davis, like I was, you're pretty much trained to use every second hit you have to train somebody in some way. That's interesting. Yeah, using the pregame warm-up almost as an extra practice. An extra period, an individual period. Look at it that way. Don't go out there thinking it's a –

you know, a bullshit dance lesson. You know what I mean? Yeah. How much did Al love speed? How much was he like, that guy's so fast? He talked about Raider bodies. He would see a lineman at the combine. He'd say, that guy's got a Raider body. And our scouts were looking for Raider bodies. Defensive linemen had to have length. Corners had to have length and speed. Torchback,

twitchiness, but he loves speed. He modeled his team size, speed. The one thing about the Raiders, we had a good-looking team, man. Every year when we got off the bus when Al was around. I got one last question for you, Coach. It's been awesome. It's the Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, promo code TAKE. Roback.com.

You got hip surgery. How's the new hip? And how's the golf game? Pretty good. Yeah. You know, I'm glad you brought this up because working at Barstool, you get the chance to meet other people. So when the guys came down,

My hip held up pretty good. Yeah, you played golf with them. Me and Trent put a whoop-ass on those guys. Yeah, yeah. We did. It felt pretty good. Trent's an all-time guy. It felt nice-y. Yeah, it felt nice-y. Yeah, it did. I hit some good drives. I never really snipered one at all. I was down the middle. Trent made a couple clutch plays. Yeah. And a lot of it had to do with great coaching, you know. Trent and I, we kind of had this synergy going here. It was like me and Rich Gannon again, in and out of the golf cart, you know. Yeah.

But it was so much fun. We had a blast, and it was a stunning upset. No one predicted us to win. I have the hips good. I like your strategy on the golf course, too, which is just every hole is a par five. Yeah. You know, that kind of lowers my standards a little bit because I do know I haven't played a whole lot of golf because of my coaching background. But if I shoot 86 at a nice course like where we play, that's a pretty good round. It's respectable. That's having fun. Is there anybody at Barstool that you want to fight?

Do you have an enemy yet? No. Okay. You're only on like week two of working with Stephen Chey.

Stephen Chase is such a Buck fan. He is. It's almost kind of a weird Buck fan. Oh, yeah. Almost, yeah. He remembers things I don't even remember. Yeah. He's a computer. Dude. Yeah, he knows stuff about you that you don't even know. Yeah, it's a little scary, you know. All right, well, Coach, thank you as always. Always fun to have you, and we're excited for the playoffs. I can't wait to watch the playoff football.

Yeah, so who do you got in the AFC real quick? Okay. I got the Bills. I'll go with the Bills as well.

I like the Bills. Yeah. I'm not going to go against the Chiefs, though, because they do have the defense, the fourth-quarter rush. Yeah. You know, all this close, ugly winning that they're doing is going to serve them well in the playoffs. They're learning how to win. They do all the small things right. If things go bad, but if they get that one break, they know how to take advantage. They dance on that margin just a little bit too much, though. What about their offensive line? Aren't you watching them, and you're like,

It's not sustainable. They have the best center and two guards. You can't do better than Tooney, center Creed Humphreys, and Trey Smith at right guard. You can't do better than that. It's just a left tackle. They've had a turnstile left tackle. Hell, DJ Humphreys was playing left tackle the other day. The AFC to me is just a little bit more clear that it's Ravens, Chiefs, or Bills. I think those are the three teams.

I think the Ravens are interesting. They've improved on defense. You know what the Ravens' problem is? They lead the league in penalties. They lead the league in penalties. They're undisciplined, which that will kill you. I watched that Steeler-Raven game, the first one, because I know they're playing Saturday. They had 12 penalties in that game. Yeah. You can't win like that. No, you can't. Especially when it's so razor thin in the playoffs. Wouldn't you love to see Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen go at it? Who do you have as the MVP? That's what I want to know.

I have Josh. I have Josh right now. Lamar's in the conversation. Lamar's been insane. 34 touchdown passes, three interceptions. Yeah. I mean, nobody's thrown 30 touchdowns in less than five picks except for Brady and Aaron Rodgers. So that's the kind of class he's throwing the ball with. And he's got 750 yards rushing. I mean, he gets 109 yards. He passes Mike Vick for the all-time quarterback rushing title. He's had a sick season.

statistical season. I'm sick. Yeah. And of course, MVP is kind of, it's just always narratives. It was, you know, the big game down the stretch. Last year, it was Lamar Brock Purdy and then Lamar beats Brock Purdy in week 17 and then it's Lamar.

So it's, you know. Josh Allen's something else, though, man. Yeah. Have you ever gone out throwing a pass in the snow in the cold, shitty weather with the wind blowing? Have you ever tried to do it? Yeah, of course. Did you see Josh Allen against the 49ers? I mean, it's like he's in a dome. That pass he made even in Detroit. Running to his left? Well, yeah. And he just, it was like, how is this even possible? Yeah.

I don't know. I'd have a hard time voting this year, but those two guys should probably both take it home. I think the fact that Lamar won it last year makes it more likely that Josh is going to get it this year. Yeah, you're probably right. Okay, well, Coach, thank you as always. And, yeah, we can't wait to watch some football with you. Same here, brother. Same here. Thank you, guys.

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It's probably going to take me a minute to explain too, so bear with me. I can help. I need to give the backstory first because it made a lot of sense after. In real time, it didn't. But to set it up, and I wanted to wait a couple weeks because I was dealing with some of the aftermath for a couple weeks, so I wanted to make sure I was good before I talked about it because it would have just made everything worse if I said it right when it happened. But going back, Thanksgiving, I was home for break. I was at a friend's house.

smoking a bubbler, like a little bubbler bowl. And this is all what I put together after the fact. Obviously, if I realized in real time, it would have been a different situation, but smoking out of a bubbler bowl. And basically I lit it and basically inhaled burnt ash, which went into my throat and like made my lungs swollen. I did not realize this at the time.

That was Saturday night. Fast forward to Monday. It was the Browns Chargers game. Browns Broncos. Browns Broncos. Yeah. Apologies. Browns Broncos Monday Night Football.

I was smoking a little joint by myself and it felt weird. Again, I didn't realize it was because my lung was swollen, but I was like, something's not right. This doesn't feel right. I put it out, but I didn't know what was going on. Went inside to my condo. I was watching the game and I was struggling hard to breathe. And I was by myself. I was like...

Couldn't catch my breath. And then I worked myself up into a panic where I, again, I've never had a panic attack. I joked about it in the beginning of the show. I had never had a panic attack. So I was essentially freaking out. I had convinced myself in my head that I was, there was something like a hole or something in my lung. I was losing oxygen and that I basically was never going to be able to get this oxygen again. So I worked myself into a panic. I thought I was having a stroke because I never had a panic attack.

I was like on the ground, basically like thinking I was like fading away watching James throw an interception being like, this is it. I think this is it. I didn't know what to do. The first person I called, I was like, I don't know what to do. I called big cat. I was like, I need to go to like urgent care. I don't know what's going on, but like, I can't, I can't breathe. I think I'm going down.

uh, and then I made my way. Big cat was, was super helpful. He told me what urgent care to go to. He said, he'll meet me there. And I was like on the way to urgent care, you know, not necessarily a huge religious guy, you know, believe in something out there. But I was like, if this is, this is not a big deal. Like I'll, I'll never, you know, I'll never smoke again. I'm going to get healthy. Like this is cause I literally thought I was, I thought I was dying. Like I thought I was, I thought I was never going to be able to breathe right again in my life. Uh,

And so shout out to big cat. He met me at urgent care, went through the whole process with me. They, you know, put me, put me on the tubes and stuff. And it, you know, turns out it was just, they told me after the fact, like your, your lungs are swollen. You're just having a panic attack. Uh, everything's going to be fine. So it was a bad couple of days that I had. I, and I, you know, then I haven't smoked since. So I've, I've been having a lot of struggles sleeping. I've gotten a lot better with it over the past three weeks. I think anyone that's quit smoking weed knows the, uh,

the anxiety that kind of comes with that and like the, the dreams and crazy dreams and like bad sleep that's gotten a lot better in the past three weeks. So I'm kind of through it and I, I feel good. I feel healthy. Uh, but yeah, it was, uh, it was a long month of December. Uh, and it was, it was weird to not talk about it, but,

I feel good. Anyone that's had panic attacks probably can understand what I was going through. I never had a panic attack. And I think obviously if I had realized I was having a panic attack, I would have been like, dude, you're having a panic attack. It's going to be fine. But I thought I had a heart attack slash stroke and was never going to breathe again. And like, was going to die watching James Winston watching my name, which would be an okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a, it's a post, it's a post mostly fire fest, but it was, it was bad. Um,

Can I do the funny stories now? Yes, yes. Okay, great. Again, I had anxiety about it for a while, and I knew if I talked about it, AWLs were going to be like, oh, you know, they were going to tell me stuff that was going to make me more anxious about it. So I wanted to wait until I was in a good place to talk about it. But yeah. Yeah. So I have some funny stories. I was with Hank in the ER for about four hours until like 2 a.m.,

Uh, it was, uh, so let's, let's start from my, from my perspective. I was at home. I was actually, I just gotten ready for bed and Hank called me and he, he's not, he doesn't usually call me at like, it was like 10 30 at night. And I was like, oh shit, something must be wrong.

Hank was nice enough to be like, oh, I thought to call Big Cat right away because he's like the adult in my life. That's not actually what happened. He called me and asked me if my wife knew what ER he should go to. So he was like, the only adult in my life is not Big Cat's, Big Cat's wife. So she helped us and was like, yeah, go here. It actually was the same one I had gone for my kidney stone. So I knew where it was. I get there.

I was nervous. I was legit, like, because the way you described it, like, I was, this is scary. Like, you can't breathe. Breathing thing, a breathing thing. So Hank had a little shame afterwards of being like, wow, I overreacted.

You don't fuck around with not being able to breathe. Like Hank couldn't even, he was, he couldn't speak either. He was whispering because he couldn't get enough breath to actually like talk loudly. It was like a cycle that kept reinforcing itself too, because you had, you had the actual lung injury and then you had the panic attack. And one of the symptoms of that is thinking that you can't breathe. Correct. So it's like the lung injury was feeding into your panic attack of being like,

I'm never going to have any more oxygen ever again, which makes everything worse. Yeah. And I had tried to like, I thought it was like, I got something stuck in my stroke. Like I had given myself 45 minutes when I was home to like,

This is fine. Something stuck in your throat. Like, you know, just like I was trying to, you know, cough it out and stuff, and nothing was happening. And that's when I worked myself into a panic of like... Yeah. Yeah. So we get there, and I was very nervous because I was like, yeah, but I'll meet you there because he didn't have anyone to go with, and that's so...

fucked up thing to have to go to the emergency room by yourself and just be alone in the emergency room so we get there um we check in he has his uh they did like an ekg on him right away and that's when i started to calm down because i was like all right they said that he's he's breathing okay it's something else but it's breathing okay so i was like all right he's this is this is gonna at least not like he's not being rushed off with like the compressors and everything um

We check in. Uh, I did say they asked, I was his emergency contact and they're like, how do you know him? And I said, best friend. Um, and the one was like, okay, like, why would you tell me that? We went, we went back. So we went back into the emergency. We got it. We, he checked in, we got everything checked in. He's like, all right, he's not going to die right away. Waited a few minutes. He had to go get an MRI. So we go all the way back. He has to get in the gown. Everything. We're sitting there. Uh,

And the guy, the nurse, male nurse walks in. This is like a sitcom. Yeah, and he just goes, oh shit, Hank!

Well, he like popped his head in. There was a curtain and he like popped his head in. It was just like, what's up, guys? I was like, oh my God. He was like, oh shit, Hank. Can I help you? You had like tubes? Yeah. Yeah. So shout out our male nurse. He actually gave me two Lunchables. That was probably... Or Uncrustables. That was probably too much, but whatever. I ate them. So shout out our guy. He took care of us well. He was very, very nice, but it was very... It was just like... It was like Kramer walking in the door. It was so perfect. He was just like, oh shit, Hank. And then he looked at me. He's like, oh...

What are you guys doing here? It's like, well, we're having a fucking problem. If you listen to the part of my take on that Wednesday, you can probably tell that Hank's voice is not like all the way there. But you gritted out. You got through it. But yeah, you were not in a good place at that point. No. And I'm glad that it's nothing serious that you're able to. Are you ever? Wait. Are you ever going to smoke again?

I think I'm going to stop. I'm not going to say I'm never going to smoke again. I haven't smoked, and I think I've kind of quit the habit. I'm sure there will be times with other people. I think my plan is to quit smoking alone and only smoke special occasions. Nice. Only when you drink. Yeah. Only when James is throwing interceptions. No more bubblers. Yeah. No more bubblers and no more Lonely Stoner. Okay. All right. And then... So...

There's a couple other moments that were ridiculous. One, I was happy I was there, not only to be with Hank, but also I was kind of acting as maybe his not decision maker, but like, hey, maybe because they were like, hey, do you want some anxiety medicine? And Hank was like, no. And then I went in the hallway. I was like, yeah, we need that. Like, this could be a this could be it. So and then the woman comes in. The doctor comes in. Doctor was a woman. No big deal. Yeah.

and was like, we're going to put you through some breathing exercises to see how your lungs are working. And Hank and I both are so stupid. We thought she was going to make him start singing and stuff. Yeah, like, oh! One, two, three. Or doing the pregnancy ones. That's when I started to get embarrassed. I was like, oh, no. Which, again, I was thinking to myself for the two hours when I thought it was bad. I was like, just please let it not be a big deal. So...

And then about 45 minutes after I took the medicine, I was like, oh, I feel good. And then I was like, oh, shit. Yeah. This was a panic attack. So I was a little embarrassed, but I was like, I did give the like, please let this not be a big deal. And I promise I'll change my ways. And I have. But it's like, I was happy but embarrassed when the medicine kicked in. And I was like, oh, if I felt like this, I never would have came here. I'm fine. And I was like, oh, yeah, it was just yet the anxiety medicine calmed you down and you

Yeah. So, I mean, once he did the breathing exercise, the anxiety medicine, it was maybe like 2 in the morning. And I was like, Hank was like, I think I'm good. Like, you should go. And I was like, all right, you sure? And I was like, yeah, you should go. And I was like, all right, I'll leave. Like, let me know if you need anything. And I was thanking the nurse, the AWL nurse, Dr.

As I was leaving. And then I go walk down the hallway and this girl stops me and she's like, Hey, are you, are you big cat? And I was like, uh, yeah. And she's like, Oh, I recognize your voice from down the hallway. Uh,

And I was like, oh, cool. And she's like, yeah, my boyfriend is a huge listener of your guys' podcast. Can you say hi to him? I was like, I thought she was going to pull out her phone or something. And she's like, yeah, he's right there. He just got hit by a car. It was a fucking AWL. Can you imagine? With a broken leg just laying. And I was like, what's up, dude? He's like, oh, hey, what's up, Biggie?

Imagine being that guy. You get into a car accident. You're in the hospital. And then Big Cat just pokes his head. John Cena, you think you're going to die? What up, dude? Yeah, we should start doing that. Going around to emergency rooms and just asking for dudes between the age of 18 and 40. Hey, we're here to cheer you up. I've been thinking about that guy. He was probably expecting us to talk about it right away. I hope he's doing okay. That sucked that you got hit by a car, dude. But yeah, I hope you're okay. But yeah, I mean...

End of the day, I was nervous for Hank. I'm happy he's fine. It was definitely a moment where I was saying the same prayers in my ride over, being like, he better be okay. Perspective. Perspective, and yeah, you guys were super, super helpful throughout the whole two weeks aftermath. Literally, you guys are the most important people in my life, and that just kind of reinforced it, so a little serious. Love it. I'm happy that I'm good, and

the dunking thing, it didn't work out, but it was a good, like a good, it helped the focus of like, you know, when, when I was home by myself, it was like, just get on the treadmill, throw in a bunch of layers and walk for like an hour and a half and just like stay out of my apartment and just kind of like distract myself. So, and it was a good distraction. You did improve a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You did. Yeah.

Do we want to say that you didn't dunk? We could say it. All right, well, you won't know about the shooting thing. The shooting thing is really, yeah, Hank didn't dunk, okay? We'll post the video. He wasn't even close. I was kind of close. There was one where you got part of your fingers above the rim. That was impressive. I gasped.

The full video will be at the end. Yeah, but you weren't part four of the PMT doc that releases next week. And that will be with the shooting with this very special guest. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm happy you're live, Hank. Yeah. I was very scared. You guys were there for me. Thank you. Best friend on emergency contact somewhere. Also, one extra one.

There's like every hospital has an app now where you can just sign up the app and you can get the alerts. And my wife was texting me through when I got there with Hank asking for updates and stuff. She's like, you should sign him up for the app so that he can get the alerts. And I was like, okay, cool, cool. I will. And I signed him up. I went through, I took his phone and I went through like this entire like 10 minute process of signing him up for the app, all his information and stuff.

I just signed him up for the wrong hospital. So he got no alerts. He just has an app. So if you ever need to go to that one, though, you're good. Yeah. Panic attacks, no joke either. I would probably be of the camp beforehand where I was like, panic attack. Like, just fucking don't be a bitch. That shit is no joke. I have a newfound respect for panic attacks. I'm sure there's a lot of AWLs that have gone through similar things. And that's where I was like, I didn't want... I knew people were going to reach out to me, and I knew that it was going to...

Like I was having a lot of anxiety afterwards for like a week or two. So I knew people reaching out and telling me, you know, what to do or what they've experienced was going to make it worse for me. So that's why I wanted to wait. It was smart. It was smart. That's no joke. Yeah. Yeah. Love all you guys. All right. PFT. All right. So I did not know that Hank was going to be doing the serious one today.

But I also have some news somewhat seriously, but it's good news. Okay. But it's like kind of the same health scare thing. Hank knows what I'm talking about because you were there for it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. I know we're doing this. Wait, what? Because I got the news on Tuesday. So I guess I'll back up to the start. Hank and I went to... This was fucked. Oh, I know this. See, I know this. Oh, shit. We're doing all this. I just got the news back on Tuesday, and I'm pumped about it now. Boys have been down. Yeah. So we go to the Sturgill Simpson show back in October, right? We go. We have, I think, two beers before the show. Go inside. We go to the Sturgill Simpson show.

And after about like three hours of the concert, because he played for like the longest set ever. Standing up. Standing up. It was an awesome, awesome show. And then after about like, what did you say? Like two and a half hours? I literally was like, this has to be over soon. I remember. And someone was like, it's probably 15 minutes left. So it was probably two hours and 50 minutes. Yeah. So it was a long time to be standing there. I start to like focus on my breathing because I'm having problems breathing.

And

And Hank, I don't remember that much about being in that room other than being very, very confused about what was happening. But Hank was saying that I kept saying, I don't think my head's hurt. Meanwhile, I was rubbing my head and wincing the entire time. So I'm there with Hank Chaps and Donnie, and I'm trying to figure out, they're like, do you want to go to the hospital or not? And I felt like I was getting better. So I was like, no, just get me home. I just need to be home. So eventually we left.

And I was trying to think, like, what the hell is going on? I didn't get... I wasn't hammered. I took one hit of weed and... Closed cigarette. Closed cigarette. And I might have had, like...

A small dose of mushrooms. Small dose of mushrooms. Small dose. It wasn't my joint, but I also had... It was like a keef joint. So it was like a little bit more elevated hit of weed too. So that, I think, played a factor. And shout out to the people backstage at the Salt Shed. We're not drug guys, by the way. No, we're not. No, no, no. Not at all. They were like, yeah, we've seen like three other people pass out tonight. So I was... They tried to make me feel better, like I'm not the only one. Yeah. So...

I they tell me like go to the hospital go to the cardiologist and get checked out and just make sure that everything's cool so um I scheduled an appointment went to the cardiologist and they saw like something on the EKG and they were like we're going to schedule you for like every heart test known to man so I was where I've been wearing a portable heart monitor under my shirt for like a month uh I guess I was like a month and a half now and then they put me through like a uh

They put me through like an ultrasound of my heart. All this shit gave me all these tests. And then the full body, the full EKG came back. And he was like, yeah, I see like there's a couple blips on here, but it's nothing to be worried about. I'm like, okay, all right, fair enough. I get an email like a day later and it says on the EKG printout,

possible heart attack. Oh yeah, I remember you telling me this. And it didn't say the words heart attack, but it said like possible infarction or whatever. And I'm looking at this like, what the fuck does that mean? I look it up and it says heart attack. So I had to call my doctor and he was like, yeah, I think the software just read it wrong. I don't think he had a heart attack, but we're going to schedule more tests.

So then I do more tests. And then I go in last Friday. I go in, I do a stress test on a treadmill when they had me hooked up to everything. And then they looked at that. That was the last thing they were going to look at. And just the blips on there, it was like no big deal. It's like if you haven't had enough sleep sometimes. Yeah, yeah. If you had like too many cups of coffee, sometimes they'll make that show up. But basically, they were trying to figure out if I had like a leaky heart for the last month and a half. But you don't. But I don't. And I got the results back on Tuesday. Ooh.

So in the clear on that one. Again, like Hank, not to get serious, but it's been a month and a half long fire fest. Yeah, that was scary. Yeah. That was another late night Hank call I got. He called me that night. He was like, hey, PFT, might have had a heart attack. Yeah, also I was more worried about the concussion. Yeah, because I'd never passed out before. It's scary to pass out. But I guess the real fire fest in all this. Can I say the one funny part of this too? Yeah. There was a lady who in the crowd –

was like, you know, we were huddled around and like chaps was on him and I was covering people up and the lady came over to help and was just like holding his leg. Like she got in the way. It was like holding his leg up, like stretching. I don't know if that's like a thing when things are going on, but she like took charge and was, I was, I wanted that lady like,

who are you and what are you doing like let go of his fucking leg yeah like she was like pushing his foot like trying yeah like stretching him out trying to burp him yeah the first thing i remember is waking up chaps is above me stabilizing my neck being like buddy can you hear me can you hear me and this lady is just grabbing my legs holding holding me back and be like get his legs up get

And Chaps is like, put his fucking legs down. But then I guess the fire fest of all this is finding out that the reason why I passed out at this concert was because I was dehydrated and I smoked weed that was too strong. So basically, I'm a pussy. Yeah, but you're not.

We're getting older. There was a report that came out that there was a rabies outbreak at Salt Shed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was like, for a second, I read the report. The days didn't line up, but it was like Salt Shed leads to people passing out from rabies. I was like, oh, my God. If there's one rabid bat that's in the crowd, there's probably another one. So I saw that and I was like, fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I got rabies foaming at the mouth.

Yeah. Okay. So sorry to get serious again. Yeah. It's good. We want to flush it out before the end of the year. Your broken foot doesn't feel so important now, huh? Both of them are fine. Yeah. That's true. No, I'm a pussy. All right. My Fire Fest is quick. I've just been rolling in and out of being sick for the last two weeks because I think it was Browns Broncos Monday night. I didn't get any sleep, and then I've just been worried about my other best friend maybe having a heart attack.

So just have him begin a sleep. Well, no, I actually, I did. I, my, I kids just bring in all types of germs. December on Saturday when Travis Hunter won the Heisman. I think I told you guys, but I,

I was so sick. I puked seven times that day. Seven times. First time. Did you get out of going to the holiday party? I did. I felt bad because people were treating me like how's the holiday party. I was literally just like in and out of sleep and puking. Like I was having, it was a 24 hour, but it probably sound. That's why my throat sounded bad on Sunday because I was so sick. But it was one of those like quick stomach viruses that you take a sip of water and just puke.

And that was just all day Saturday. Travis Hunter day. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Because I did get out of going to the party. But there was a fucking magician with a rabbit there.

So I miss the magician. Somehow our bodies know when it's not a show day. Dude, I literally... We've never had a flu hit us. Knock on wood. I was thinking about that. If I had to do the show... And actually, we have done an Army-Navy college football show like six years in a row, and we didn't do it this year. But if I had to do a show on that day, I would have been fucked. Because I still felt like shit on Sunday, but I was not throwing up. But yeah, I couldn't go...

30 minutes off throwing up on Saturday. That sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And put Max as a broken foot. Still have three kidney stones working their way down, buddy. Yeah. No, that's worse. I don't know. Broken foot sucks. Yeah, broken foot. Broken foot sucks. Is your foot really broken? Because you don't need surgery. Yeah. True. You told me that you probably didn't need surgery when you got surgery. He's an athlete. Well, I said, Doc, I'm not a pussy. Get in there. Look at my foot. Yeah, he's an athlete. Cut me. Okay. Okay.

Good show, boys. Reminder for next week, we have a show Monday, we have a show Friday. No show Wednesday because it's Christmas, and then we're going to do the same thing the week after. Show Monday, show Friday, no show Wednesday because it's New Year's. Okay, but we will see you. We will be recapping week 16 here. Numbers. 17. 11. 8. 3. 37. 94. 47. Jack, 47. 21.

82 82 love you guys