NHL Playoffs With Paul Bissonnette, Chris Berman, Thunder Take Game 1, Jordon Is Engaged To Be Married, RG3 vs Ryan Clark + FAQ's
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Hey, Pardon My Take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

But trust me, it looks delicious. New McChrispy strips now at McDonald's. On today's part of my take, we've got a twofer for the people. We're talking hockey with our guy, Biz Paul Bissonette, after his Leafs lose in game seven, previewing the conference finals.

We're going to talk some Panthers who look real good. We also have our good friend Chris Berman, the Schwab, on the show. Check in with him because he just signed his new deal at ESPN, and he's going to be there for 50 years. So we talk to him. We talk a little football with him, a little golf. Great catching up with him.

We're going to talk about the conference finals in both hockey and basketball on Tuesday night. Then when we get back into studio, we might have an engagement. Jordan has maybe said that she's engaged to Bill Belichick. We get Hank's thoughts on that. We talk about some beefs in the media world. Ryan Clark versus RG3, all because of a foul play.

Hot seat, cool throne, FAQs, great show coming your way. And it's brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. It's the best time of year for hoops fans, playoff drama, buzzer beaters, all the chaos we live for. And if you're done just watching and ready to actually win some cash,

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Let's go.

Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app right now and use code TAKE. That's code TAKE. Play $5, get 50 in bonus picks, better payouts, bigger wins, only on Pick 6 from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, May 21st, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are going to win the NBA title. You're probably right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, Big Cat.

Yeah, the game started. It was very funny that the game started and I think SGA had seven free throws in the first quarter. I want to hear what you have to say because I agree with a lot of what you're about to say, but let me just say this first.

Oklahoma City's defense is very fucking good. They're elite. They pack the paint so well. They make you take threes. They close out on those threes. The Wolves could not hit a three to save their life. I don't know if the Wolves' strategy of having their bench shoot 28 threes and hit like three of them is sustainable. Actually, I know it's not sustainable, but that is a lot of credit to the Oklahoma City Thunder defense. Their defense is so goddamn good and...

Chet Holmgren, I feel like, is going up another level. The way he was playing in the fourth quarter, how he impacts everything. He is so good. Their team is so good. Their defense is so good. They don't have a weak link on defense. And yeah, SGA, the floor is yours, PFD. Okay, so you're right. Credit to the Thunder. I think the Thunder are a good team. I think SGA is a phenomenal basketball player. I think he's an awesome basketball player.

But he doesn't have to do this shit. He doesn't have to do it. It pisses me off watching him play. It pisses me off when they show the replays. I have to watch the foul baiting like three times in a row where I have to see the same non-foul three times. You force the opposing coach to decide, like, do I want to use a challenge right now on this? Or do I want to wait until later on in the game? Yeah, they would have won the game no matter what. They were the much better team tonight. But it pisses me off. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

And I don't feel like being silent because it pisses me off watching SGA play. And Doris Burke is compromised too. She was like complimenting the foul baiting that he was doing. He leans into people at the last minute and then falls down. And to his credit, he's very good at hitting these off-balance shots as he's flopping. He practices those and he's very good at it. And so you have to take your hat off and be like, that was a really good shot that you made when your body was completely parallel to the floor as you were falling down because you didn't get touched. Yeah.

That one he made on the baseline in the fourth quarter where he was literally on the floor. And he got... Incredible shot. He did get fouled on that. No, it's similar to the start of the playoffs when I said the same thing about Jalen Brunson. SGA is probably worse than Jalen Brunson. But it's...

They're such good basketball players, and it's so annoying to have to watch that style of basketball. And I feel like Jalen Brunson actually has kind of not done it as much, and he's been so clutch and in such tight games. But SGA is the number one. He's taken the mantle from James Harden. He's the number one foul baiter, and he's so good. But...

It's it's it's partially rules like it's got it. Something's got to change because and maybe this will be if they win the title, which I think they will, because I think they're the best team. Maybe something changed because it is not fun to watch when he is doing the foul beating thing. And he is such a good player. He's about to win MVP and deservedly so.

But it's still, you can say those two things at the same time. You can say SGA is an incredible, incredible basketball player. I don't enjoy watching it. Yeah, and if you're a Thunder fan, you have to defend your guy. I get it. You're going to hate what I have to say about SGA. Like, I'm attacking your guy. So, yeah, I'll be the bad guy in this situation. But also, everybody else thinks that it sucks to watch him. Everybody else that watches it.

It's very tough to get through, again, the foul where you're like, wait, what did they just call? And then two replays from different angles that you watch and you get progressively angrier as they keep showing these replays. I don't know what they can do. Maybe it's like in hockey where, yeah, you've got penalties, you've got whistles, but in the playoffs you lose those whistles a little bit. Yeah. You know what the shittiest part is? It's –

It's very similar to the Jalen Brunson thing where when it happens in a bad way, it takes away from how incredible Jalen Brunson is, how clutch he is. When SGA does this, it takes away from how great the Thunder are as a team just because it's aesthetically not a fun watch. And that second half...

The Thunder just suffocated the Wolves. The Wolves were just terrible. I don't think they had a single transition point the entire game. Like I said, they basically were like, go ahead, shoot these threes, and they'll probably make some threes. They'll have a game where they make some threes, so there'll be at least a little drama in this series. But I don't know.

The Thunder's defense, there just is no hole. And I do not know how you like it's a nightmare series for Ant. It's it's going to I mean, Julius Randall got hot for a little bit there in the first half. We're like, OK, maybe you can carry him. I think if you took away Julius Randall's threes, I was looking at it. I think if you took away his three pointers, the rest of the team went 10 for 45. That's pretty bad.

That's pretty bad. And again, it's by design. They don't let you score 20 points in the paint. It was the lowest amount of points in the paint for the Timberwolves this year. The Timberwolves have to get out in transition. They have to get in the paint. They have to let Ant go downhill. And the Thunder just do not allow that because their defense is so goddamn good.

Yeah, there was absolutely no cutting to the basket. So they didn't even get the opportunity because the defense was so good. They didn't even get the opportunity to get a lot of those fouls in the end ones that Oklahoma City was getting. There were virtually no fast break points for the Timberwolves tonight either. It was, yeah, it was a dominant performance by the Thunder for sure. And also, yes, Julius Randle, great the first half. I think the Wolves are still going to get a couple games out of this because he went down the first half.

sprained his ankle again, came back. Very, very tough performance on his part to come back and still have some of the explosiveness that he normally does. If he gets healthy in this series, I think it'll be competitive. It's not going to be as lopsided as it was tonight. But as of tonight, the Thunder clearly – I mean, we spent several years being like, I wish teams would stop just taking threes and dunking. And then the Thunder do it, and we're like, no, not like this. Not like this. Yeah.

I mean, I don't want to overreact to one game, but this was the game that it felt like the Wolves would have had their best leg up because you had the Thunder playing in a game seven two days ago. They came out a little slow, like the Wolves kind of jumped on them. But that second half, it was maybe it was the kisses that SGA got from his kid at halftime. You see that? They also I think everyone should just we're going to be the first to report it. Breaking Moves is Hank here. He was breaking moves.

Breaking Moose. SGA. Go ahead, Hank. SGA is cousins with Nikhil Alexander Walker. I don't know if you heard that. I don't know if you heard that. I don't know if you heard that. Here's the other thing, PFT. So they brought that up a million times. It was the Kershaw-Stafford thing. I have a take on the... Because I agree with everything you said about SGA. And it's, again, it's just the...

Extreme foul baiting is just not fun basketball to watch. That's just what it comes down to. And everyone knows it when they see it. And it goes game to game. It can be one game on, one game off. But when it happens, it sucks. Here's what also...

I was thinking about it because I don't know if you noticed, like, it didn't feel like the Thunder crowd had a lot of juice, but I think they did. I think the ESPN just turns down their mics so much that they do them disservice because you could see moments when it was, like, popping and you're like, oh, that – they are loud. This is a loud crowd, so I'm not going to – I think OKC was loud. I think the ESPN, for some reason, they do this with hockey too where they turn down the crowd. It's like, I want to hear the crowd. I also –

The booth, the Richard Jefferson, Doris Burke, there's not a lot of aura. I'm sorry. We're just smashing the aura button on everything now. But I'm smashing it. We like RJ. I like Doris Burke.

As a team, it just doesn't feel big game-ish. It just – I don't know. Let Mike Breen just do it himself. It just didn't feel – something was off and it was like all the pieces, the crowd being low, SGA foul baiting, that booth just didn't – it didn't feel what I needed to feel for a Western Conference final game one. Yeah, and like I agree. I've watched –

maybe I think five or six Thunder games in the regular season before the playoffs started. And I, for some reason, I don't have a problem with SGA when he does this in the regular season, it's fine. But in the playoffs, it's like, come on, man, this really pissed me off. It's James Harden used to do it. I mean,

There's a lot of guys have done this. This is in a lot of guys get criticized for it. It just is what it is. Like guys have that in their game where they just, they go to the hoop and they try to get their, their initial, they're not trying to score as much as they're trying to get contact. Yep. Did you see that ESPN did a horoscope reading of the NBA playoffs? No, this is real deep stuff, real deep stuff. So they predicted the Pacers and the thunder based on everybody's horoscope signs going. Oh yeah. Yeah.

So I might have missed that because I want to shout out our guy. Maybe I'll give the main booth a chance again, but I'm going to recommend it. Yeah, this is partially biased because he is our guy. But Legler and Goldsberry were on ESPN2. Watch the second half on that. Great watch. Great watch. I'm going to have to check that out. Yeah, I will check that out. You're right. There were several times in the broadcast tonight where I was just –

I wanted to pretend like this game was closer than it was. And a good announcing booth will do that. They'll make it a big moment even when it might not be. This one, it felt like I was watching the circus. And it happens all the time in announcing booths. It's like you can tell when they don't have a ton of chemistry, rapport, years of rapport together. The Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson booth, I know we made fun of it,

but like they, they genuinely made each other laugh and they genuinely like to be around each other. I feel like this is more, they're just going and punching a clock.

So whatever. Maybe they'll get better. But it was a weird clunky game. And then it was also a game where the Thunder, it looked like it was going to be a tight game. And then the Thunder were just so much better in the second half than the Timberwolves. And it was easy. Like it was just once they – the Thunder have done this, I don't know how many times. I think it's probably half of their playoff games it feels like.

They've been able to empty their bench at the end of the game, like in a playoff game. And it's because they're so good. And when they hit that turbo button,

and their defense feeds into their offense, and they get multiple stops in a row on the defensive side? Because this game was close, and then it just wasn't. You blinked, and it wasn't. It was like, oh, yep, this game's over. They're going to cover, and they're going to win by a lot. Yeah, I actually do think that the Wolves are going to win two, maybe three games. I think that that's possible. I know it doesn't feel like it after what we just watched tonight, but, I mean, crazy shit happens in the playoffs. So if one game it was dominant, the Thunder defense was really, really good.

Like when we watched game one of the Thunder and the Nuggets in the last series, we were like, oh, shit, the Thunder are in real deep trouble here because they're not going to be able to do anything on the inside against – things happen over the course of a seven-game series. So it'll even out a little bit, I think. But I think they need to get – they need to get Ant healthy.

That would be a problem if his ankle lingered on for a little bit. Max, what's the injury prognosis? I think you probably have the exact same ankle injury that Ant has. You know, it's one day of a tough walk, and then, you know, you're fine. You're fine. Tape it up. They probably got better painkillers than me. He'll be fine. Yeah.

I mean, you're fine. Folks, it's the foreplay guys. Let's talk truly unruly. When you spend every day following the countless laws of golf like us, it's refreshing to get a little unruly. Whether that means using the old hand wedge to escape the bunker or just cracking open a hard seltzer,

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The Panthers are so good. They're so good. And we're going to talk to Biz about all hockey, but they're so good. And this, I don't think, because it's similar. Like the Panthers go from a game seven. They go from Toronto to Carolina. This is where you can get them. And it wasn't even, it wasn't a doubt. Like the, what was the final score? I turned it off. I won it.

Yeah, it was 5-1 or 5-2, and the first goal that Carolina scored was the kick that he kicked it in. He did like a back kick. This just reminds me, remember, this is from last year, the series, when their coach said after getting swept by the Panthers, I believe it was last year, right, Memes? I think they swept them last year. I'm going to look it up.

is he looking at i'm looking at a stat that matters here big cat uh if you want to talk about shots on goal if you're a carolina hurricanes fan um the carolina hurricanes had 33 shots on goal and the florida panthers had 20 shots on goal oh you guys won the shots on goal yeah shots on goal is huge shots on goal is huge um here filibuster real quick hank are you here

How you doing, Hank? Yeah, I've been here the whole time. What's up, boys? What did you think about the Thunder game? They took over. They dominated a good second half. I was doing a stream for a majority of it. What do you think about SGA? Foul beating. Not fun to watch. Unethical. Yeah.

Where, what is this? Where, where are you going with this? It was, it was, I'm not going anywhere. It was two years ago. You're going somewhere. When the Panthers swept the, the hurricanes, remember? And their coach said, that's the unfortunate part of this. People are going to look back and everyone's going to say you got swept. That's not what happened. I watched the game. I'm there. I'm cutting the game. We're in the game. It could have been four games the other way. They did get swept, but that wasn't what happened. But it feels like this might be the same thing where,

Her kids are going to have to be like, I swear we didn't get swept. Did you see what happened at the, I think it was like 10 minutes into the third period where Gattaspierre took that shot from the opposite end of the ice and tried to hit Marchand with it? Yeah, because Marchand got in a fight. They got a little brouhaha. Yeah. At least we've got some intrigue. Now we've got some real bad blood between the teams. Yeah. The Panthers bring the bad blood out of anyone.

That's just what they do. They're dirty. But, but like in the, that's a compliment when I say it about the Panthers, they're like, they're a big bunch of assholes. That's how, yeah, that's how, uh, that's how hot playoff hockey should be. Absolutely. Um, Hank. Yes. So we're going to kick it back to ourselves in the studio and we're going to talk, uh, some Jordan and some, uh, bill Belichick. Oh, do we want to do predictions for the next Pacers? Do we already do them?

Yeah, we did. We did. I think I just said game seven. I'd like to change my pick, though, before it starts. I can do that, right? Yeah. I think I said Pacers in seven. I'm going to say Knicks in seven now. Oh. Because I just found out that the Pacers are changing their uniforms. They're getting off the City Connects. That was NBA League mandate.

Yeah. So the NBA said you can't do that. You have to go to your core colors. So we've been demanding that they get off the City Connect jerseys. But now that they actually did it, I'm like, wait, they they won a lot of playoff games wearing those alternate uniforms. Yeah. But again, I feel like it's different that the NBA mandated it versus the Pacers doing it in free will.

So they're going to be upset that they're not playing in the City Connect. Right. There's nothing they can do. Hey, their hands are tied. The NBA, correct move by the NBA to be like, you have to wear the real jerseys. Yeah. All right. Before we kick it ourselves, Hank, you great stream tonight. Thank you. Why are you nervous?

Because you called me and were like, I have a question. I was like, what is it? You're like, I can't tell you. Yeah. So I've been thinking about what the question could be for 20 minutes. Okay. But why didn't I just, I could have just asked you on the. Well, yeah. No, hand up. I told you. We decided to do this stream, which we had to break Scotty Scheffler's Sunday round. And however many times it took us to do it was how long the stream was going to go.

So I was planning on just being on a stream till 4 a.m. So I assumed, you know, I was not going to be able to make the first 10 minutes of the show.

We finished early. Everyone was so happy. Like, we're going to get dinner. I was like, I'm in. I literally, until you texted, like, we were sitting down for dinner and you're like, send the draft things out. I was like, oh, no, I forgot it's Tuesday. Oh, no. I do part of my take. Well, no, but you know what I'm saying? Like, in 90, like, we were dialed. We had some clutch, clutch shots to beat minus. We were minus two or minus one. But.

If the stream was still going, I obviously was not going to be on this part of the show. Right. If anybody out there is like, Hank cares more about golf than about the podcast. I don't want to do that. Oh, my God. This is crazy. I think honest mistake, Hank. Honest mistake. But you're here now, so it doesn't matter. All is good. Yeah, I was here the whole time. Yeah, you were here the whole time. Hank, here's my question. And maybe we can put in the video. Do you think we can put this video into YouTube? No, stop.

Do you think we put this video in the YouTube? No. So for the listeners, go watch the video. Go watch the YouTube. See what I'm talking about for the listeners, though. This is the question. Hank posted a video on Instagram. Let's talk about my history, though. Okay. Okay. Let me explain it.

Hank has a history. He loves to post whale videos. I think it goes back to a Mount Rushmore. Yeah, slow-mo videos in the world. Yeah, so every time there's a whale breaching water, Hank is posting it. I look at Hank's Instagram stories tonight. Hank has posted a video of whales on boats...

being cleaned by like tractor vacuums they're driving the tractor over the back of the whale and they're cleaning off the barnacles it's a it's the fakest video i think i've ever seen in my entire life and i really do think hank posted it thinking it was real did you see my next story hank did you post it thinking it was real did you see my next story i didn't

Did you post it thinking it was real? No, you want me to play? I'll play what I posted because a lot of people were confused, but I cleared it up. Okay, so can you be honest, though? Be honest with the listeners. That was it. That was enough.

If the video is posted, it's like a beautiful... Thinking about whales that have barnacles stuck on their backs and they're just floating through the ocean stuck with these barnacles and then there's this group of people who get the whales onto a boat somehow and then power wash them to clear the barnacles off and basically free them. I actually was going to send it to you, PFT. That's what I thought at first. But I felt so good and happy for the whales. Yeah, I...

Yes. At first glance. I'm not joking, because we were doing the stream. I opened my phone, and I got scared, because I had 10 DMs from people I know. When you see that number, when you see it's usually one or two or whatever, it was 11 new messages from people being like, you fucking idiot. This is AI. Yeah.

I mean, they were tractors. They were full-on tractors on top of whales power washing them. They were driving. There was a guy like sitting in a driver's seat driving the tractor up and down the back, the spine of the whale. As the whale is just sitting there not moving like, thank you. Like the whale knows that he's getting power washed. They were making noises. They made noises like they were like, thank you and whale. Yeah.

I agree with Hank, though. Can you imagine how cool that video would have been if it was real? Oh, very cool. But I just, this is, everyone's talking about AI this, AI that, new evolution in AI. It's going to be a problem. It's going to be a problem for the Hanks in the world. He's the one who's going to be spreading this. But like, who's this? I didn't say it wasn't AI. I didn't say anything. I just shared a cool video.

You just said right now that you thought it was real. Again, this was like a trust tree. I posted on my story. I was like, just for the follow-up, but obviously it was AI, but like, I just, I share cool whale videos and this was fell into that category. Maybe it's not real now.

Here we go. Maybe it helps start. I just feel bad for the whales with barnacles stuck on. You're just ahead of your time. Maybe your post is going to give somebody a great idea for an invention, and they can actually do this for real to the whales. Yeah. Think about what Hank is spreading the message in. Hey, guys, we have the technology now. Let's start cleaning whales with tractors. I love it. It's good AI, man.

It's not that good. It's not good at all. But I also didn't hear the whales saying thank you. I didn't hear how accurate the whale sounds were. The whales, yeah, power washing. Cleaning. Have you guys seen, the other one that almost got me that I had to literally do research on was the. These guys are sliding on the back of the whale with a freaking, with a Zamboni. He's doing like Tokyo Drift on the back of the whale. This guy's driving a full on John Deere. Yes.

Also, the barnacles wouldn't spray. It depends on the power washer. Oh, my God. That was all I had. I'll post it tomorrow. Just for. Can we put it in the. Are we allowed to put it in the YouTube? I don't know. It's a toss up. Pug. Pug. President Pug.

Probably fine. It's AI. Yeah. I will post on my story tomorrow. I won't, I won't give any, any updates. So people listening, they know, but there was an Anaconda video.

Yes, Max knows what I'm talking about. It almost got me too. It was like a 70-put. It was like the biggest anaconda of all time. I was like, that's real. We're fucked. I believe all of them. There's not a video that I've ever watched that I thought was AI. Did you guys see the one that Stephen Shea posted a few months ago? It was a polar bear with what looked like a leech on its back. And it was like the leech was bigger than the polar bear.

And it was people going and scraping the leech off the polar bear's back. The polar bear was probably really appreciative. He thought that was real. We got to be better. PSA, we got to be better. Listen, I get tricked all the time. Our boss got sentled today. So it happens. But the AI thing scares me because we can't let AI take us over.

We're smarter than AI. We are. Although if AI does take over, just shout out AI. I actually seriously love you. That was just a joke earlier. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we got to tip our cap. Like, please give us a job.

Please give us a job to make like different faces into a camera and pay us $2 an hour. So the great thing is I, I don't think that they make AI that's dumb enough that could ever do part of my take. Like AI would never be dumb enough. Don't tempt them. AI would never be dumb enough to fall for an AI video of a whale. That's true.

It's true. The computer would figure it out. You can't program that. You can't replicate these moments. No. Okay. All right. Well, let's kick it to ourselves back in studio. Then we got Biz and Chris Berman. Okay. Before we get to the rest of the show, game time. Football is back. The 2025 NFL schedule is out. And the only place you should be getting tickets is game time. The official ticketing partner, Barstool Sports.

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the game time guarantee means you can get 100% authentic NFL tickets on time and for the best price plus fees are always included so what you see is what you'll pay we also have NBA and NHL playoffs still going on Wednesday night game one East

Eastern Conference Final. Hank. The Garden. The Mecca. It's going to be a pricey ticket. $669 I'm seeing as the cheapest. Okay. But game time. Get $20 off. Know you're getting the best deal with game time. So take the guess. We're kind of buying NFL tickets, NBA tickets, NHL tickets with game time. Download the game time app.

create an account and use code PMT for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again, create an account, redeem code PMT for $20 off. Download the game time app today. What time is it? Game time. Henry. Yes. Congratulations are in order. Are they? I think we're going to have a baby.

Who? Jordan and Bill Belichick. They're engaged to be married. Well, at least Jordan is saying that they are engaged to be married. I don't know if Bill knows yet. I don't think that Jordan would make this up, but apparently she's told at least one friend who then talked to the New York Times. Maybe or maybe without Jordan's direction to talk to the New York Times to let the world know. Happy news. Save the date. Save the date. Married.

Little May-December relationship. I also imagine this going as like Jordan just takes Bill Belichick being like, hey, we got to do some shopping real quick. We're going to stop at Whole Foods. I got to go to Lululemon. And then also we're just going to go pick out a diamond real quick.

Yeah, it's just a ring, just a diamond ring. You've got several of them. Can I get one? Yeah. So, Hank? I will wait until, you know, Ms. Hudson and Mr. Belichick report this themselves. I do not believe, you know, the New York Times, fake news media...

This is just a report as far as I'm concerned. It sounds like you don't want to believe it because you don't want it to be true. Right. Are you rooting against Bill's happiness? No, I think everyone should be deserved in life personal things. Everyone should be what? Like everyone's deserved the right to tell the world themselves. Everyone is deserved. Everyone is deserved in life. PFT, I think it's bigger than that. I think Hank's rooting against love.

I love love. No, you don't. I do. I don't love the fake news. But when you hear about an engagement of a young, vivacious couple that is going to plan the rest of their life together, my initial reaction is always congratulations.

No, but you guys have a lot of friends, you know, that have gotten married. Maybe you're possibly talking about getting engaged, things of that nature. Do you want to hear it from them? You don't want to hear it from, you know, a source of a source being like, oh, did you hear they're going to get married? I know what's going on, Big Cat. Yeah. Hank is just upset because he thinks that they're engaged and he didn't find out from Bill. Oh. He was expecting. He's like, I would have thought that I would have been on that text. Yeah. Listen, I want to make it a personal. I don't think Bill knows. I don't.

Well, he's going to be so excited when he finds out. Imagine that. Imagine you find out through the New York Times that you're engaged to be married. That's so cool. That's romantic as fuck. I mean, this is like the elite class of this country always does their wedding announcements via the New York Times. If Bill Belichick had to find out a way that he was engaged, he would have liked to see it in the press first. Yeah.

The media has always been his friend. It's your favorite thing, journalism and love. So, Hank, I want to make it a pledge. I don't know how we're going to do it. I don't really have any connections, but I will not rest until we get Henry Lockwood an invite to the Jordan Bill Belichick wedding. What's the hashtag going to be? I think at the very least, Hank should be invited to the bachelor party. Yeah, that would be fun. That would be a great time. What do you think it's going to be? How many rings? He has eight, so not...

Something with nine? I think it's probably going to be just love story, Bill's version. Oh, I like that. That's a great hashtag. You might be able to go to the... Oh, dude, think about this. Bill Belichick, we all know, listens to the show religiously. What if he's the AWO who we pick for his bachelor party next year?

That would be sick. I'd like to preemptively say that that's the guy. That would be sick. Bill, we know you're listening. We will send Max to your bachelor party. And when he has a sprained ankle, you can look at it and be like, you fucking pussy. I think Bill just wouldn't tell the media about the nature of the injury. Yeah. But we'll see how he does. He's got a lower body. We'll see it. I'm excited for you, Hank. Why aren't you excited?

I think a baby's on the way. I don't like this reporting. I mean, the hashtag's definitely going to be Chapel Bill, right? Yeah. Although she might have to sue herself, because I'm pretty sure she trademarked that already. She would love that. There also was a report that the...

of Hard Knocks and Carolina, their relationship might have been because Ms. Hudson, soon to be Mrs. Belichick. Jordan Belichick. Jordan Belichick. It's got a great ring to it. I wouldn't be shocked if they do hyphenated names. Bill Hudson Belichick? Yeah, Bill takes it. Yeah, yeah. Bill Hudson Belichick. I mean, you got to think about the kids. You want the kids to also be Hudson's. Ooh. When they consummate the marriage, if he's able to get it up, that's going to be the miracle on the Hudson. Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.

There was a report in the same article that Ms. Hudson demanded she be granted content approval and partial ownership of the show. She said this to NFL Films.

Allegedly. Allegedly. I don't believe that part. I believe the engagement. We're choosing one thing to believe from this article. It's that they're engaged. I think that HBO just heard that everyone's going to call it Tardnox, and then they backed out. I don't think this has anything to do with Ms. Belichick Hudson. They might be the new Kardashians. They're doing a reality show, their marriage, their wedding. Honestly, it's everything. It is. It's squad goals.

Me and who? I don't like your attitude. It's the ultimate zag for Bill Belichick. I'll say that much. The ultimate zag. Like, you think Bill's going to go one way the way he's won his whole life. Which is? Straight and narrow. Stay away from the media. Stay away from the drama.

Focus on the team and football. Sometimes opposites attract. I do think that there's... And this is the all opposite. There are a lot of very rich, powerful people that get attracted to women that just completely dominate them. Maybe I'm just basing that on the show Billions with Paul Giamatti. But Bill is a control freak and he finally met somebody that can control him.

and now he's just going hog wild. He loves it. Yeah. He loves being in the passenger seat for a change. Yeah, I'm happy for that. He's riding shotgun on the Jordan Hudson show. There was also a report that she was attending Patriots practices in training camp and that she would wear bright red sweatpants so that Bill could see her from the sidelines. I love that. That's love. And that's the year that...

Well, we don't have to talk about that year, what happened. That's inconsequential to the story, which is about true love, and I don't think that has anything to do with football. But apparently she was, yeah, she was, like, staying in the team hotel with him. That's normal. That's very normal for a couple that's engaged.

Yeah, for a coach's girlfriend. Let's stop with the girlfriend talk. It's a fiance. It's a fiance now, though. But it's a fiance. Let's respect it. She's also meeting with senators, according to this article. What's wrong with that? I don't know. Power. No, we don't. Why do you think I thought there was something wrong with that? I was very clear. I think it's wonderful. I think we need more women speaking truth to power. I want you to say fiance.

I can say the word. I want you to say it when it comes to Jordan and Bill Belichick. They are fiancés. When they do a collab Instagram post, then I'll believe it. Okay. Okay. There was also another part in the story. I didn't realize this, but when he was watching the Miss Maine pageant, which, again, very supportive fiancé move to do. Huge. I like that. Him sitting front and center rooting for her. That's fiancé goals. It is. It really is. And he was sitting next to her dad.

I didn't realize this part, but her dad is 49 years old. Oh. So Bill is old enough to be her dad's dad. Yeah. What? That makes sense. Yeah.

That does make sense. I mean, it's a little weirder that he's only 49, but he always was old enough to be her grandfather. Is Bill, like when they get married and it's going to be a lovely wedding, I hope that you're in attendance, Hank, is her dad going to walk her down the aisle and give her away to Bill Belichick? No, I think he'll be, he's still young enough to be the ring bearer. He probably could, yeah. Yeah, he'll come down and he'll be like, he and his, you know, Jordan's mom will come down with the flower, she'll be the flower girl, he'll be the ring bearer. It'll be so cute.

I think it's lovely. It is. It's beautiful. What, Max? Beautiful. Yeah, no. Do you think he asked for permission? Oh. Bill Belichick had to ask. Oh, I think the dad might ask permission from Bill Belichick. Will you please marry my daughter? Yeah. Are you okay with my daughter telling everyone you're engaged? This is Romeo and Juliet all over again. It's fucking beautiful. Except for the ending. The ending is going to be great in this one. It's fucking beautiful. It really is. Two star-crossed lovers. I love love.

Has Belichick ever done a big documentary about his life? I know he's done NFL film stuff. No. So she'll be in that. Oh, I think it's going to be a documentary about her life featuring Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick through the eyes of Jordan Hudson? Who's more famous, Bill Belichick or Jordan? I think it's pretty neck and neck right now. Bill's marrying up. Right. And non-football fans probably don't know who Bill Belichick is.

Anyone, any pop culture fan knows who Jordana is. She's the hottest thing going right now. She's it, girl.

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All right. Other thing we had to talk about, we have the world's worst Twitter fight because both guys can be a lot on Twitter. Ryan Clark versus RG3, all based on a foul in the WNBA. So quick summation.

RG3 did a podcast, which I didn't realize he does his podcast with his lovely wife Greta. Oh, yeah, Greta. Sitting in the background. Yeah. Is that RG3 and the Ones? Yeah. So she sits in the background. She's like Glenn Humperdick, whatever.

Oh, from the Tom Green Show? One of the most insane podcast aesthetics I've ever seen. It's quite something. She's a little more active than Glenn. Yeah, but she's sitting there, and then RG3 did an entire podcast basically saying that Angel Reese hates Caitlin Clark, which, why is that wrong? I don't understand why anyone would be upset about that portion. I understand there's racial... Again, this story, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese just becomes a race war instantly, but...

I believe that Caitlyn Clark does dislike or sorry, Angel Reese does dislike Caitlyn Clark very much. I kind of think that by now it goes both ways where Caitlyn got she was very upset. I think rightfully so last year when she got that hard foul and Angel Reese was the first one off the bench clapping and then Angel hit her in the head. I think that there's like there's definitely some animosity between them.

But yeah, I think that obviously it's clear that Angel Reese hates Caitlin Clark, or at the very least hates what she perceives to be Caitlin Clark's audience and what they stand for. I'm just going to go out right and say it. She hates Caitlin Clark. I think she does. And that's fine because rivalries are good. I'm sure if you gave them both true serum, they both hate each other. Yeah.

That's the fun part about sports. I think Angel Reese hates Kayla Clark more, though. Yeah, probably. And Angel Reese, because again, this goes back to what I said on Monday, the issue with this rivalry is...

is Caitlin Clark is just a lot better and more entertaining of a basketball player. If Angel Reese is a power forward, it's not going to be the same as the Steph Curry of women's basketball and Caitlin Clark. She is fun to watch hitting deep threes and everything. Getting rebounds is not as fun or appealing to the viewers. Not saying Angel Reese isn't a good basketball player, but Caitlin Clark is a

transcendent basketball. I'm lightweight upset that we're taping part of my take right now because this is time that I could be using to scroll X, the everything app to read more takes about Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark and what it means about our society and all the think pieces about the WNBA. Can we just take some time to appreciate the fact that we're at a point where people are now engagement farming and

off of the wnba oh yeah which should be a toxic that should be a massive win for the wnba right big time like they're they're now to a point where content about the wnba is leading the news cycle but it does get it gets absolutely exhausting reading all these takes like i am i'm worn out from reading these takes it it's exhausting but it's also so entertaining because i'm i don't really have a dog in this fight and that i'm just watching from the sidelines being like yeah

Yeah, that is right. Oh, no, that is. Oh, no, no, that is racist. Yeah. Back and forth. I made a list. I made a list yesterday of the best takes are the strongest, most wild takes I've seen about this because people are on their shit right now. They see this and they're like, I got to come up with a threat. I'm going to I'm going to compare the situation to Israel, Palestine. That's next. Very important thread.

But the best takes that I've seen, one, Caitlin should be arrested for getting a triple-double. Okay. Yeah, I saw that. Because she asked her coach to put her back in the game so she could get another rebound, and that is literally illegal. That person is going to – I hope that person is sitting down when we show them a tape of Ricky Davis. Yeah. That would shock them. Ricky Davis famously throwing the ball off the opposition's hoop.

to try to get the 10th rebound for a triple-double. Yep. Number two, what if Angel Reese had gotten killed on that foul? Oh! What if she got seriously injured or worse? Now, I'm going to be honest with you, PFT.

I didn't think about that. And now that I'm thinking about that, it's probably love that. It's problematic. I love that take. What if anyone died? Yeah. I mean, ever listen, when you have hard foul, it's a hardwood court. She could have hit her head on it. That's true. Number three, Caitlin Clark is a racist. Yep. And then number four, Caitlin Clark is not racist enough. So everyone's angry at everybody. And,

And it's something to see on... I personally think that this is a big psy-op to distract you from the fact that the Boston Celtics...

they blew a zero to two lead against the New York Knicks in the playoffs. The other one that I have, I enjoy very much is people basically saying Caitlin Clark has to speak for all of her fans. Yeah. And say something about them. You know, you can't hate Angel Reese. She needs to stand up and do her responsibility and say, hey, fans,

Stop it. Which she has done in the past. She literally did that, I think it was after the NCAA National Championship. She was like, don't treat her badly. And Angel Reese has also done the, she did a speech I think last year where she was essentially like,

I'm the villain here and I like it. Like I'm going to help, help grow the game for being a villain. And then they asked her about that this year and she said, no comment. But, uh, so, so back to RG three versus Ryan Clark, Ryan Clark then did a show. This is all very stupid, but also very funny. Ryan Clark did a show, uh, his podcast where he basically, uh, said that RG three can't talk about this because he has a white wife. He has, his ex wife was white as well, uh, is obsessed with making milk jokes, uh,

And then RG three came over the top and said, Hey dude, don't bring my family into this. Uh, that's fair. Everyone knows in mafia and podcast wars, the family stays out of it. But if the white, if the wife is literally true, good point. She is in the, she's in the show. Uh, and then that's a very good point, Hank. And then Ryan Clark,

I feel like Ryan Clark does this like maybe four or five times a year where he gets in a fight and then he does the like, well, yeah, I hope your dad dies and then walks away. He basically was like, yeah, hey, RG3, you were the worst teammate I ever had both on the field and at ESPN. Everyone hates you and you suck at your job. Mm-hmm.

Why did he just went all the way? It is funny how the podcast scene turns even like the hardest professional athletes into just middle school girls. Yeah, just little bitches. Just like, dude, you're fighting over a foul in the WNBA. Hey, Robert, guess what? You're not invited to my birthday anymore. Yeah. So suck on that. Hey, Robert, I heard in fifth grade you pissed your pants during lunch and people called you pee pants. So...

It is kind of exhausting to keep up with all this, and I just know that I'm the big winner in this situation. I just get to sit back and scroll, baby. Just refreshing the timeline. They should play one WNBA game a week so that we can have the other six days to just think about what that game meant and discuss it. So this is what Ryan Clark said. This was the final for now. And again, he just goes right to the lowest point, being like, hey, every...

You don't realize everyone hates you, which is such a shitty thing to do. But he said, bro, you know what it is with me and you. I saved you the entire season of Mennonite football. I urge people to let you be you no matter how corny, how bad a teammate you were. I had your back.

This is like, hey, I don't care what everyone says about you. I think you're an okay guy. What did you do? Invite someone on your show you know I don't fool with to ask questions about me and then hit me weeks later to tell me you're going to challenge one of my takes. You're a phony bro. One of the worst teammates I ever had both on the field and in TV. You got to do what you got to do.

I didn't attack your wife. I spoke on what you do on social media and TV. Like I said, I met your wife and she seemed like a lovely lady that was worth more than the color of her skin. You be good, bro.

It was a foul. It was a pretty common foul, and that's what RG3 should come back with. He'd be like, hey, dude, are we still talking about a foul? This is like heroin to me. Yeah. It's quite something. It's so good. And by the way, the one thing that Ryan Clark is correct on is RG3 is corny. He is. But he'll be the first to say that he makes them. And listen, I am compromised when it comes to the RG3 situation.

because I have no choice but to support his wife. Yeah. I think his wife is a strong, powerful woman with a great voice, and I will not ever say anything bad about her. I am not compromised, and I would say my ruling is RG3, yes, he is corny. Yes, it is kind of uncomfortable when he makes a joke about his wife's milk. That does kind of creep me out a little bit. But other than that, Ryan Clark is...

kind of a psycho and just went like nuclear on a take about a foul in the WNBA. I think Ryan Clark gets very, very emotional. Very emotional. That's kind of the thing with his podcast is the times where I see him go mega viral, it'll be like that soft, somber music and he'll just be like...

almost crying into the camera talking about something getting worked up. He's very in touch with his feelings. It basically comes down to RG3 had a misdemeanor of being corny online and Ryan Clark put him in front of a firing squad. Yeah. The punishment does not meet the crime here. What are you saying? I just more, I've been thinking, you know, my biggest takeaway is just thinking about the conversation between RG3 and Greta about setting up the podcast. Yeah. You guys are podcasting trailblazers.

Did you ever think, like, just sit someone... Let's just have someone sit without a mic 10 feet behind us. Yeah. Yeah.

Is that a joke about yourself? We actually have. But behind. My whole goal for... But behind. You're right. Behind. Yeah, actually, that's the crime. If RG3 really wanted to do a podcast, he'd put the person scrolling their phone on a couch next to him. Well, you guys obviously have not watched RG3's podcast. This was a clip that RG3 did. In the podcast, Greta is a very important part. She does have a microphone and she's allowed to...

She's allowed to voice her opinion, Hank. That's good. That's good. Got it. Now, if you had asked me when we started part of my take, what's the reason you're starting this podcast, I would have told you so that one day RG3 and his wife can also do a podcast together. And also one day we can do 20 minutes on Jordan Hudson marrying Bill Belichick and RG3 and Ryan Clark having a fight that literally does not mean anything to anyone.

Except it's very great entertainment. What I love about this entire situation, going back to the Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark dynamic, is that this is just but a small taste of how toxic sports fans can be online. Yeah. And the WNBA is just... Sports fans are mean and ugly. They're just getting a tiny nibble of what really goes on. Like the WNBA, if you...

or if you compare that to NBA Twitter or what's, what happens on NBA social media, it's way, way worse in the NBA. Although I think now it's like a new group, a new fan base being exposed to how crazy sports fans get online. And yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of the world that we live in. I think though, the only difference is like NBA Twitter is fun for the most part. People are trying to have fun, get jokes off. Not for, not for Hank. Well, he, Hank is specifically talking about the other night. Uh,

WNBA Twitter just takes itself way too seriously. It just can't... Every foul can't be the most egregious thing that's happened in race relations in the world. Where I get lost is kind of like the white boy Rick. Like when NBA Twitter is...

absolutely ruthless to every single player. Right. Making fun of them. Right. Like, every single night's a meme. It doesn't matter how good they are. Jokes are made at their expense. So, like, the Angel... People getting mad about a clip where Angel Reese is dribbling the ball at her face. Yeah. And kind of, like, poking fun at her. That's what sports Twitter is. That's where NBA Twitter... Yeah, like, they have a...

A quiet agreement that you can just be mean to everyone. And no one's going to really take it too personal. I saw Jalen Brown's face as Osama Bin Laden the other day. Yeah. Now, if I'm Angel Reese, some advice for both Angel and Caitlyn.

Just don't be on social media. Because I would imagine that most of the really, really bad shit that you deal with is from people that are DMing you from anonymous accounts, probably saying some really, really bad stuff. And then you take reading all that into the real world, and then you just assume the worst about your opponent's fans and all this shit.

I would just log off, have somebody else run your social media, do your ad deals, do all that shit for you. But don't. I would stay off. I'd imagine they are. That's also where I lose the angel argument a little bit, too, because I do think, which is rightfully so and not a bad thing at all. Like, it's good if she kind of flip flops between like, I'm a villain. Right. I have a podcast. Right. I do all these magazine shoots. Like, I'm putting myself out there.

But then she kind of takes the other side of like, whoa, I'm just a basketball player trying to do my job. She doesn't fully want to get embraced like the Bill Lambert role. Yeah. I think you have to be, that has to be in you to begin with. Yeah. You can't, like LeBron said. I think it is though. I don't think so. Remember when LeBron went to the heat? That was funny. That was good though. She's a good heel and she knows that and she says that sometimes, but then will also play victim. Yeah, you can't need, you can't

hate to be hated and love to be loved at the same time. But that's also the problem with this entire rivalry, again, is that I think that

I think she likes to be the villain in it until they play and it's like, oh shit, Caitlin Clark's really good. This kind of sucks. I think she likes to say, I'll be the villain because it makes her feel good in the moment, but she really does not want to be the villain. I also think that if the sky beat the fever in a playoff series, she would be the villain. Yeah. She would go back to be a villain. Right. Like you can't see. I agree with Hank that like you can't pick and choose when you're on top of

You can't be the villain, and then when you're losing, be like, oh, no, I don't want this. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, you can't have both. You can't need that love. I mean, honestly, Draymond, it's kind of like Draymond. Yeah. Draymond does something similar. Yeah, he does. All I know is that they should just play these games every single week. There should be a Sky Fever game every Saturday. And they're playing in Chicago next. Love it. We should go. I feel like we should go to that one. We should go. Just supporting both sides. What is the date? I forget. It's on Saturday, though. All right, I'm out.

But I'll watch the highlights on Twitter when people have. Yeah, I don't think I was ever in. I think I'm going to go. Yeah, Hank was not in. Just as a peacemaker. June 7th. Is that a Saturday? 7 p.m.? Yeah. Nope. Definitely. Okay. I'm going to take a rain check. Wait. What? What? Is it in Rosemont?

No, it's at the United Center. No, it's at the WinTrust. No, they play that game at the United Center. Oh, they move that game to the United Center? Yeah, the Sky Fever. You better believe it. Oh, that's awesome. I thought they played their games there. Kaitlin Clark effect. And Angel Reese effect. I might go to the game. You know the guys that wear the orange vest around Chicago and they try to neutralize situations? Yeah. You know them? Yeah. I think I might do that at this game just to try to calm everybody down. I forgot they were moving a lot of these Kaitlin Clark games to bigger places. What were you going to say, Hank?

I'm still out, but United Center makes it a little more appealing. Well, Wintrust is downtown, too. They play at... They play their games at Wintrust because of Caitlin Clark. They're playing it at United Center. I think they did the same thing for some other games. I can't remember where. I think maybe San Antonio have a team?

I don't think so. Sparks. No. Dallas Wings. You know what? We're just Sky Fever guys. Yeah, just let me know when this game is happening. We're Sky Fever. Yeah, the Stars. No, that's the... Oh, the Stars? The San Antonio Stars? Yeah. I'm pretty sure they moved that one to the Alamo Dome.

Oh, they do have a team. Yeah. Yeah, we know our WNBA. Come on, guys. All I know is that every... National Sports Podcast for a reason. This is all a big distraction, and the Mystics are 2-0, and nobody's talking about that. They're all talking about these other teams. All right, let's do hot seat, cool throw, and then we'll get to our interviews we got. Oh, wait, no. No, San Antonio Stars were a professional basketball. Okay, so listen, hand up.

We were fans. We have a nostalgia brain with the WNBA. Bring back the stars. We were bigger fans 10 years ago, if we're going to be honest. That's all I'm saying is bring the stars back. So they didn't move the game to the Alamo. They moved one of the games. I don't know where. One of the games. So find the game they moved so I can take a half a point. One of the games they moved to a bigger arena. It's similar to the Wintrust to United Center.

You're talking about they moved at some point in WNBA history. They moved a game in San Antonio from. No, no, no, no. I'm saying they moved. They've been moving games for Caitlin Clark to bigger arenas. So that's why the. Oh, OK. So Dallas. I was right. Texas. Yeah, they moved it from. They moved it to a bigger arena. That's the Caitlin Clark effect is that like when they go to these cities, they've been moving the venue. Yeah. I'm going to win. Trust United Center to a bigger venue because the tickets are so crazy.

All right, let's do Hot Seat Cool Throne. It is brought to you by our friends at Body Armor. This segment is brought to you by Body Armor Sports Drink. Body Armor has great tasting flavors like strawberry banana and orange mango with no artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners. In a bold new look with the same great taste, get your Body Armor today at Walmart or a local grocery store near you. Body Armor, choose better. We love Body Armor. They got the new look bottles. Strawberry banana, my absolute favorite.

Go get it today. Body armor. Choose better. Bold new look with same great taste. Get your body armor today at Walmart or a local grocery store near you. Hank, hot seat. Hot seat is Juan Soto. Yeah. Probably might be regretting the crosstown move. Yankees to Mets. Because I do think this is like a lot of the reports I've seen are from Yankees.

Kind of biased media. Tommy Smokes. Tommy Smokes. Michael K. Well, it's like Tommy Smokes, John Boy, Michael K. Yeah. Are the ones pushing this story forward. Michael K. said, people in the know say Juan Soto wanted to be a Yankee. He chose the Yankees, but his family wanted him to be a Met, so he chose the Mets. This feels like cope from the Yankees. But the private jet one there. What was that? He's taking private jets down.

instead of traveling with the team. Good for him. How common is that? I can't be common. Jeff Passon denounced this. Oh, okay. So that was from John Boy, that one. Okay. So that... I'm thinking he might have taken a private jet at some point for some specific reason. Yeah, there could be a...

a series in the middle of summer where he's bringing his family. Yeah. He's like, oh yeah, I'll just hop on with them. But there's no way he's taking a private jet for every... That's just a waste of money. Or he's got like a family event that he has to make it back for. Yeah. So he takes a slightly earlier flight. I...

This is big-time cope by Yankees fans, and I get it. You're not used to losing out on the big fish, and especially not losing out on a big fish that goes just right across town. So, listen, you've got to get through it somehow. So if you just want to tell yourself stories, that's fine. Yeah. Deal with it. But Mets fans, I mean, memes, you tell us. Mets fans aren't happy with them either. Oh, why? Is he hitting 150? That's what Frank said. Oh, okay.

He doesn't look happy he didn't run first base against the Yankees. That's the thing. It's like there's one play where he didn't run as hard as he possibly could to first base. I personally don't give a fuck. He's on the team for however many years. So it doesn't matter. You were met. Guess what means he's awesome at baseball. I got a bad take that I'm going to say out loud. If someone paid me $700 million to play baseball, I would sometimes not run to first base.

Because I would probably just be distracted and be like, shit, why am I running the first base? I have $700 million. That wasn't out. That's the thing is, if you reach that point where you get that massive contract, you won. Yeah, right. You won. Be hard to get motivated. I'll just be totally honest. It's human nature. You're 1-0 lifetime. Right. And you're going to retire with that record. Imagine striking out with a $700 million contract. Can you be that bummed? No. I don't think so. Yeah, but have you seen his projected numbers for his 15 years on that? Tell me about the projected numbers.

.050 average. This is in the whole 15 years. 34 home runs, 120 RBIs, and 2,087 double plays. Wow! Would that be a record? Was this baseball reference that he made? This was Frank the Tank Fleming. Oh, okay. Almost 3,000 double plays. Wow, and only 34 home runs? Two home runs a year. That probably means that...

Where's he hitting in the order? Fourth? Probably, yeah. That means that whoever's hitting ahead of him is going to be basically like the hit king. He'll get 370 caper and do his double play. By the way, speaking of home runs, Kyle Schwarber hit his 16th. He's one back from Shohei. He should maybe be MVP. The Cubs are good, right? Kyle Schwarber's not on the Cubs. I mean, the Bills always should. With the San Antonio Stars, Schwarber on the Cubs. I'm an idiot.

That was a bad moment. No, our guy Kyle Stowers, who if you didn't listen to this show on Monday, Kyle Stowers and Tyler Phillips were awesome on the show. It's a little different. We obviously don't have a ton of baseball guests, but they were just cool dudes. He had a big hit and beat the Cubs on Monday night. That sucked. Kyle Tucker maybe not running out to get a final out. Maybe not running as hard as he can, but he actually doesn't have an excuse because he hasn't gotten the...

500 million dollar contract yeah he's got no quit he might have might have could have gotten it i it became one of my favorite things uh that we do as sports fans especially online i don't know if you could pull up the the uh kyle tucker he he might have been able to get to it he's not the fastest guy but uh he there were two outs and there was a ball hit to him and it went past him and uh then the the marlins ended up winning in extra innings or sorry in in uh they walked it off

And just having a bunch of people being like, I would have caught that. Like me, I run a lot harder and I fucking get that ball. I do love that discourse though about Juan Soto. Like I wish that he would have run harder to first base on this. Therefore, he's not worth the money that we paid him on this one hit. Ideally, yeah, you'd like your players. But yeah, to your point, Big Cat, if you won the lottery...

Would you still take the trash out every single day? I'll tell you what. If I won the lottery, I would podcast. And then if you guys brought up a story I hadn't seen, I'd just be like, I don't care. Yeah. That would be me not running to first base. I'd just refresh my bank account like AB in a team meeting. Yeah, just be like, what are you saying, Hank? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at all the zeros.

Max is just in a torture chamber. Finding baseball highlights are so hard. Well, X. If they're not home. Yeah. XC Everything app doesn't exactly have the best search bar anymore. So it is what it is. All right, Hank, what's your cool throne? Cool throne is the All-American Rejects. Oh, yeah. I saw this. This is very cool. They're doing a backyard tour.

Oh, that's awesome. Across the Midwest. Yeah. They're just showing up in people's backyards. I think they're playing. They have like a sign up sheet that you can book them for a backyard. They were in Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. They did this the other night, right? Yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. Like they just were at a house party, which is one of the coolest things. This is something if I were a very famous musician, I would do all the time. Like, remember when we were in Atlanta for the Super Bowl and went to the Northside Tavern? Great fucking bar. Shout out Northside Tavern. Everyone was like, oh, you should have been here last night.

At 2 in the morning, Dave Grohl came up and played for like an hour. Yeah, I would do that too. That's so cool. I would get dressed up though as an old guy like Uncle Drew. Yeah. I would just be like, can you believe this old man got up there and then sang a song and sounded exactly like Good Charlotte? Remember? And they take the mask off. It's me, Bingey. Yeah, Jewel did that. I remember that video. She dressed. She put on prosthetics and did a karaoke night. Yeah. I was like, holy shit, this woman's incredible. This is very cool. I like the All-American rejects. Good for them. Yeah. Very cool. Cool throw. Okay.

My hot seat is the Tush Push Again So they've officially put this rule out there They're going to be voting on it this week About whether or not the Tush Push should be banned And it's All the reporting on it makes it seem like it has a possibility Of getting banned now Breaking Moose Sorry, Breaking Moose is huge Breaking Moose Glassbanger is out of jail

Okay. Glassbanger's out of jail. We'll talk to you about biz. But that's pretty big. Oh, you were holding the cow back in case it was Jordan? Yeah. That's illegal. You have to do breaking news. Well, I didn't know if you were. It could have been satirical. Yeah. He's out of jail. He spread the word LFG stars bang. He's tweeted. So how did that come across your timeline? Liam Blutman sent it to me. Oh, sick. Yeah. He just said out of jail.

Okay, well, that's going to affect how I bet on that series for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, sorry. Tush push. So the Packers proposed the rule change. We know that. That way there's no owner that everybody can get mad at. You just get mad at the entire city of Green Bay, and Matt LaFleur has to go on podcasts and take the bullets when it's not him that's proposing the rule change. And be called a pussy. Yeah, it does sound like it might get banned this year.

I'm opposed to banning the Tush Push. Just figure out a way to stop it. But also, if they do ban it, I'll be pumped because I was on the side saying, don't ban it, but now I don't have to deal with it anymore. Correct. So I'm playing both sides. As a podcast, we do not want the Tush Push banned. It's very unfair. But if it got banned...

I will not get in front of him. It's very unfair to ban it. You can't ban a play because one team is way better at it than every other team. But if it does get banned, that's awesome. Congrats, by the way, on Nick Sirianni's new contract, Max. You wanted him fired how many times in his tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles? Zero times. That's a lie. I don't know what you're talking about. I never said that. I think the real issue that they should deal with with the tush push, don't ban it. Just let the defense do the exact same thing where you can throw guys at the play. Yeah.

Fight fire with fire. Yeah. I think they do that. I don't think that you're allowed to... Well, you're allowed to push. Yeah. He's saying throw guys over the line. Yeah. What are the rules on defense? He's saying launch like people. Lift them up and throw. Can you propel a player on defense? Can you grab a player on defense and then push them towards the ball? It's the reverse Mike Leach. Like getting a shorter person and launching them over the line. Yeah. I don't understand why they keep saying player safety when no player's ever gotten hurt from the play.

Yeah, no. It makes no sense. They're trying to scare you. No, no player has ever gotten hurt. Chris Jones. Max, let me just follow what you're saying real quick. Are you saying that the NFL doesn't care about player safety?

Yeah. No. What? Are you serious? They're just whiny babies. Max, the NFL does not care about player safety. They just say players. It's basically the all due respect of the NFL where they can say whatever they want afterwards. They say player safety. And then they're like, yeah, you know what? Let's send a team to fucking Spain and play on weird grass and then have them come back and play a game six days later. But we care about player safety.

That's fair. That's the whole thing they do. Also, defenses are... Maybe this is just kicking plays. It might be on... They're not allowed to push or pull their own teammates is what I'm reading in the rule book right now. It might just be on kicking plays, though. PFT, the other rule that is up for grabs this week, which I am going to be upset about, is they are proposing to do playoff seeding one through seven strictly based on record.

automatically get in if you are a wild card or if you win the division, but they're going to do it on record. I hate this. I don't like it either because it's fun when you have a team that's below 500 that somehow wins a playoff game. It also doesn't make sense if you're going to have... The division winner should get a home playoff game. That should be... Some years it sucks.

Last year, this is all a reaction to one year where the NFC North was really good and the Packers and Vikings had really good records and they had to go all the way down to the wild card. They're making the argument because...

They did this whole slideshow. I read this article that they essentially showed that week 17 and 18 will have less starters sitting because there'll be just more up for grabs. Like last year, the Eagles could have gone down to the three seed. The Texans were locked into the four seed last year. They could have gone all the way down to seven. So their argument is you have to play the whole season. I get that part. I just think that if you're going to play...

a lopsided schedule where you play six teams in your division, you should reward the winner of that division. I agree. If you're not going to, then get rid of divisions, which would also suck. If you're in a great division, then yes, absolutely. It means more if you're able to beat that division. It puts more on the line in those games. Yeah. So I agree with this. I think it's reactionary to this one thing that happened that could have blown up in their faces, but it didn't even really blow up in their faces that much.

Yeah, I'm just scared that once because my knee jerk reaction was like, this is stupid. They're being reactionary. And then I saw that someone put together a slideshow about the ratings and week 17 and 18 starters. And that makes me nervous because if there's one thing the NFL will do is change everything so that more people watch. That's true. So that's where I'm scared that this could pass. They're also voting on whether or not to allow players to play in the Olympics in football. I think that passed. Officially passed.

Okay, it passed. So you can make the rule saying that the players are allowed to play in the Olympics, but I don't know if you've seen the flag football players that we already have playing flag football for us. And I don't know that Patrick Mahomes would be an upgrade on what we got at quarterback. We got that guy who's like 5'8", right? 170 pounds. Who throws it so weird, but he said he's better than Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, flag football specialist. Patrick Mahomes wouldn't understand this game. Pretty sure Patrick Mahomes would be able to be good at flag football. No, not better than this guy.

It's true. This guy, he's dialed in. Patrick Mahomes doesn't understand the rules of flag football. It's so arrogant for NFL players to think that they can just go in and dominate football. Could you imagine Lamar trying to get Lamar Jackson's flag? It would be so funny. Oh, I can't wait for the schedule release video that we do for the U.S. flag football team. Just roasting every other country. I'm just imagining like a Croatian dude trying to grab the flag of Lamar Jackson. Yeah. That's...

He would never be down. Or Tyreek Hill. Yeah. Oh, man. All right. Your cool throne? My cool throne is... I got two. One is friendship. Oh. Friendship's on the cool throne.

As we discussed a couple months ago, I drunkenly ordered eight tickets to go see ACDC. And then I had Greer give away all the tickets because I didn't want anyone to feel left out in this office. Smart move. I got a little notification yesterday from one of the people that had committed to going, Ben Mintz. Oh, no. And he got an offer for another ticket.

A better offer? I think my ticket might be better. I didn't ask, but Ben was like, is it cool if I take this other ticket and then you can have my ticket? Wait, so he gifted your ticket back to you? My ticket back to me. What a guy. So now, Hank, I'd like to formally invite you to go see ACDC on Saturday at Soldier Field.

I actually, I mean, I appreciate the offer. I do have a family in town, man, because you've been complaining about not getting to go see ACDC. Well, I accepted it initially. And then when you took it away from me, I made other plans. Okay. Well, Hank, I want, I want to get, don't you have someone else you need to get a ticket for? What about me? I'll pick out. Would you like to go? I'll accept the ticket. Okay. Hank, would you like to take my ticket?

No. All right, I'm going to give my ticket back. Tell you what, Noah. You have someone else you need to give a ticket to. I'm giving Big Cat's ticket back to Big Cat. And now Big Cat gets to decide who gets the last ticket to ACDC. I can't go. You're not going to take a free ticket? I would love to. I got commitments. I got Kohl's. What was that? Responsibilities? Do you have 18 commitments on Saturday? No. What if we got you another ticket?

Yeah. All right. So we just got to get you one more ticket. You know what? Let's convince Mincy he's got to give us that extra ticket. The new ticket that he has. That he has. We'll get that one and then we'll give two to Hank.

Okay, Hank's in. No, Big Cat, you are now officially in charge of giving away this last ticket to somebody. I actually think there might be a ticket up for Greer. I think I heard someone bailed in the Greer crew. Okay. So now we got two tickets? Am I going to end up with all the tickets now? Do you want me to ask if there's an extra ticket? Yeah. I got an extra ticket. Well, Hank wants to go. And Greer's got an extra ticket. So we've got two extra tickets right now.

So Hank's going to go. Then I would go. You would go if there were two tickets. Yeah. You would take two tickets and then just not use one and use one. No, he's going to use the other one. He's going to go with someone. My cousin is staying. He's moving in on Sunday, so he's staying with me Saturday. So I don't want to just leave him high and dry. Okay. He's moving to Chicago? Oh, nice. Where did he get a job? He's interning. He's got an internship.

My other cool throne is acting. I can't believe we didn't talk about this on Sunday or maybe even Friday when it came out. There's a movie coming out about the Raiders. Yes. Oh, yeah. I thought this was AI. Me too. When I first saw it, it's going to star Nick Cage and Christian Bale. Nick Cage is going to play John Madden. It looks so good. Which is incredible. By the way, I watched The Rock on Saturday.

Still holds up. Oh, of course it still holds up. That is a fucking banger of a movie. I'm going to watch it. Yeah, it's so good. Losers cry about their best. Winners go home and fuck to the prom queen. It's so good. Look at this.

Yeah, Christian Bale and Nick Cage. Christian Bale is Al Davis. Nick Cage is John Madden. I saw somewhere Shane Gillis is in it. Yeah, he is. I got to say, they nailed the pants. Yeah, they did. I've seen a bunch of pictures of Nick Cage walking around wearing pants, and it's like, those are John Madden 1970s pants. I'm so excited. It's hard to do a good sports movie. Like, there's a lot more. I feel like there's more bad sports movies than good ones. So I'm rooting for this. Well, here's the thing about the F1 movie with Brad Pitt will be good, too.

Fort Verde Ferrari? No, that movie's great. Shout out Peter Czerny. No, there's a new one that's coming out. Oh, okay. The thing with sports movies, they get a lot better if they have the official logos. Yes. So like Draft Day would have sucked as a movie. Yes. Like terrible acting from whoever played the running back that was drafted by the Browns. I forget that guy's name, but he sucked. But if they didn't have the official logos for the teams, that movie would suck. They had the official logos.

And the movie was awesome. Yeah. This is going to have the official logos. So now I'm going to watch and be like, is this the NFL? This is awesome. I think I'm watching the NFL right now. I'm watching football. It'll trick me into thinking the movie's good no matter. And also with those two acting. Fuck yes. Sign me up. Okay. My hot seat is the Phoenix Suns.

Phoenix Suns, as everyone remembers, they sold their team. What was the old owner's name? Robert Sarver? That sounds right. Yeah. For kind of institutional chaos in the Phoenix Suns. I think he was a wee bit of a racist, maybe. Allegedly. I can't remember. NBA owner? I can't remember the details to it, but that's neither here nor there. Matt Ishbia bought the team. And guess what?

They're back in it because there's a lawsuit now out that Sun CEO Josh Bartelstein might have had an inappropriate relationship with Sophie Cunningham, who played on the Phoenix Mercury. So the Suns are back in it. So this guy, Bartelstein, I looked him up. You know he was a college basketball player? Yeah, Michigan. He's a Michigan man. This is what I think of when I think of Michigan men. This guy, and yeah, I...

I kind of like having chaos around ownership groups in the NBA. I don't know what to think about this one. Was this an affair or was it... Allegations of an affair. There was a... I think there's been three different lawsuits filed against the Suns for bad workplace, unsafe conditions, discrimination. They basically have just been getting...

The same thing the old owner got. And then in one of these lawsuits, I think it was an old... An ex-security guard, like team security guard, who filed a lawsuit about racial discrimination and demotion. And in that, he was like, oh yeah, the Sun CEO and Sophie Cunningham are fucking. So do we know that that's true? It's all alleged as right now. But it's just also...

Very funny because the Suns are just backing it. If true, you probably need to fire that guy. Yeah. I don't think that you can be banned. At least fire him from the Mercury side of it because he's the CEO of both. Yeah. Well, unless he's sleeping with any of the dudes. That's true. You're going to have to do a little research. Going to have to do a little research. Also, my hot seat is, and this guy seems like a nice guy, but I have a problem with his reporting. I don't know if you guys saw, but in BP the other night on Monday night,

There was a Reds player who hit a pigeon with a, I think it was, I think he hit the ball and hit a pigeon. Yeah. Charlie Goldsmith reported in batting practice today, a Reds player hit a pigeon with a line drive. Unfortunately, the pigeon passed away immediately. I immediately was like, RIP to the pigeon. I feel terrible that we love that pigeon. I missed his update. He said, update the pigeon is alive, but he's essentially on life support.

I don't know what pigeon life support is. So maybe they injected him with that stuff that lowers the body temperature? Yeah. And just put him in a coma? Yeah, it's a miracle on ice. Yeah. I think that this pigeon, if it pulls through, then the Reds are the team of destiny. Yeah. I haven't gotten an update on what's happening with the pigeon. The pigeon also could have had...

do not resuscitate on his license. Is the pigeon brain dead? Yeah, so they could have, the pigeon family could have pulled the plug. So they've just got maybe a pigeon in a hospital bed with like a feeding tube of mushed up sunflower seeds that's just going right into its stomach. Just trash? Yeah. It's just like a solo cup of trash going, just ground up into his feeding tube? Yeah, this is, I mean, this is sad stuff. Real sad stuff. I hope the pigeon's okay. It would be an amazing comeback. Would be amazing.

It's actually Cincinnati, man. Yeah. Yeah. Something with the animals. Well said, Hank. We're going to throw it in there. It's true. The advancements they've made in bird health is kind of crazy. Prayers for DeMar. Harambe, our sweet prince. Yeah. I mean, both those things. Yeah. I mean, this happened on a Harambe, obviously, part of it because the animal, but...

DeMar died for a second on the field. So did this pigeon. Yeah. I mean, if this happened at a Bengals practice, the jokes would just be like, oh, another season cursed by injuries for the Bengals. We need to get a name on this pigeon. I need an update on this pigeon. And then my cool throne is Tom Cruise because he eats two buckets of popcorn at the movie theaters. And that is awesome. That's very relatable. One bucket is never enough. You guys do.

I try to do... What? What's that face mask? One bucket is plenty. One bucket is... No, it's not. I have never... I've never come close. I've never come close to even like putting a... I don't even put a dent in. I don't get a second bucket, but I finish my bucket before the movie starts. That's soft...

on Hank and Max's part because you never, that one bucket of popcorn, you can finish that. But there's stomach. I don't believe that you guys have never, I don't believe for a second you've never finished a popcorn. I finished my popcorn before the movie starts. Maybe if I was in like a, like me and one other person, I've never like gotten to the bottom of it. You're soft. Yeah, that is soft. I finished one popcorn every time. Also, the end of the popcorn is always kind of like, you know when it's like ground up?

The bottom of the popcorn can't be great. So that's where I would go get a second. I never really get up and get a second because usually that's right when the movie's starting and I don't want to miss it. But I like this move by Tom Cruise. That's a beast move. I went to a movie. He definitely knows the best parts time to get a popcorn. Right. That is true. I'm not in the scene for the next five minutes. I went to a movie a couple weeks ago. My very first bite of popcorn got a kernel stuck right in between on the very first bite. Nothing will ruin your day like bite number one. Worst. The worst. The worst.

Worst feel. We should do that for Mount Rushmore. Worst minor inconveniences. Yeah. We might have done that. Definitely. Probably twice. But I don't remember ever talking about the popcorn kernel in your mouth. Tom Cruise just throwing on the charm there. Look at him. Look at that. He's just popping it back. Oh, that's not even a small. Yeah, that's different. That is different.

He's eating a small, like a bag. You know what that bag is? That's like a bag they give you at a screening of an important movie that comes out. Hey, here's your popcorn. And if you get a small when you're actually at a movie that you pay for, the small is about like it's the size of a keg. It's crazy. These are still small. I'm looking at another picture of him eating buckets. It's another smaller bucket. Yeah, see, this is free popcorn. Shout out Tom Cruise. Like, the whole thing.

The whole Scientology thing is very weird, and you probably know where Shelly Miscavige, her body is buried and everything. He just was like, yeah, I'm going to put out a new Top Gun, and everyone's going to forget about that. Yeah, I mean, Scientology, say what you want about the religion, but they picked the best spokesman that they could ever get. But seriously, it felt like the block was getting a little hot with the documentaries and everything. He's like, I know, Top Gun 2. People won't care anymore.

It was a banger of a movie. It was such a good movie. I can't wait for Top Gun 3. All right. Let's get to our interviews. We've got Biz, and then we've got our guy, Chris Berman, The Schwarm. Before we get to Biz, he's brought to you by Truly and their Truly Unruly Lemonade. It combines the high elk fun of Truly Unruly with everyone's favorite, Lemonade.

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Can't go wrong with any of those flavors. It's the official hard seltzer part of my take. Level up your lemonade with Truly Unruly. Find out a store near you or visit trulyhardseltzer.com. That's trulyhardseltzer.com. And now here's Paul Bissonette. Okay, we now welcome on our very, very, very, very good friend and very special guest. It is Paul Bissonette. You can listen to him on Spittin' Chicklets. You can see him on TNT.

He might be the saddest guy in the world right now. We're two days removed from the Leafs getting absolutely shit pumped at home in a game seven. And biz, let's start with that games. We want to talk about the conference finals and who you have to win, but how are you doing? You're fully like, do you know that you can take off the Leafs gear now? I just figured I'd come in costume, right? I've been a clown for them all playoffs long, but, uh,

Not so much sad, just disappointing. Like, you know, I knew Florida was a great team defending Stanley Cup champions, but for them to show up like that in games five and seven at home, I just, I couldn't believe it. I thought they took their shit in game five.

So coming back, especially after the way they played in game six on the road where they locked it up defensively, you know, they didn't make many stupid plays. They were great defensively. Penalty kill was good. I was just shocked to see them come home and lay an egg like that. But ultimately, the pressure was too much. And credit to the Florida Panthers, man. They fucking beat the shit out of the Leafs. Like as far as defensemen and hits taken throughout playoffs, man,

I believe the Leafs, their top five defensemen were in the top seven as far as hits taken. Chris Tanev being the most, over 100 hits he took throughout the first two rounds. So Warriors back there, but yeah, just disappointing on the effort in game seven. So where do we go from here?

Yeah. I mean, Marner during the game, the cameras obviously caught him, you know, maybe he was getting the team fired up and he looked disappointed. He did a press conference today, seemed to be noncommittal about whether or not he was coming back. He ain't coming back. Do we blow it up? Are we blowing it up? I got a question before that about the Marner clip of him yelling at the team. Was his hair too dry to be yelling like that?

listen like the i'm asking the the internet's gonna run with it i think that like you know obviously he's wearing a letter and he's trying to be a leader in that situation um i think it's a little bit difficult when it's a guy like that at that particular time saying something where maybe he hasn't been at his best especially come that second round um there's a stat um i think he's played uh

like 20 to 22 games, games five to seven throughout his playoff career at the Toronto Maple Leafs. And he doesn't have a goal and he's got seven assists. So based on his regular season performance and numbers, like he just hasn't lived up to what, not only he's being paid, but what the hype is, uh,

in crunch time. And I think that that is a little bit of the criticism that's being snapped around as far as the whole core four. For those of you listening who are not fully aware of this situation, the Toronto Maple Leafs have had these four guys, John Tavares, Austin Matthews, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner, who, you know,

Making a lot of money. The core group for the Toronto Maple Leafs have constantly been criticized about not being able to make it out of the second round. Sometimes they can't even make it out of the first round. And ultimately, this was kind of the last season where you were going to see the four assembled, where Mitch Marner's contract's up. They try to trade him at the deadline for Mikko Rantanen, and that became made public. Along all the other things where, like,

I guess you could say Mitch and his camp have felt disrespected and where the Leafs have maybe lacked loyalty towards him. But at the end of the day, like the core four hasn't gotten it done. They're all making big, big money. Mitch Marner off his entry level contract, signed a deal where he's making $10 million. So there's only been one player that,

who makes $10 million or more, who has ever won a Stanley Cup. And that just speaks to the volumes of how, with the hard cap, you have to snap the money around and you can't just rely on a couple guys throughout these runs. Like, it has to be, like, you have to snap the money around. Sergei Bobrovsky's that guy who has won it. He's got a cap hit of exactly $10 million. John Tavares is at 11. Austin Matthews, who just re-signed a contract, he's making 13.5 million.

He was playing hurt throughout these playoffs. I think the diagnosis and what exactly he was playing through will come out later on. He did score in game six, but as far as offensive output compared to the regular season, just like Mitch, he struggled also. But I think people are a little bit more lenient on Austin Matthews because he has to play center and he's good defensively. He breaks up a lot of plays offensively.

I mean, the first two games at home in the series against Florida, they were plus three. They'd scored three goals their line against Sasha Barkov, who's an incredible two-way centerman for the Florida Panthers. So maybe he wasn't lighting up the score sheet, but he was doing his job stopping him defensively and doing everything else defensively.

that is involved in a good 200 foot game. So John Tavares, who was the older guy who was from Toronto, who was brought in as a free agent, signed a seven year deal where he, when he left the New York Islanders and Frankie he's, he's done hit that contract. So I would be surprised if they brought him back, but they might with a hometown discount. So three of the four core four members might be back and,

My theory would be that you bring back Nylander, you bring back Matthews and you can build around those guys. And with Marner and Tavares coming off the books, you have 21 million to spend right there in free agency. So that's kind of the synopsis as to what's going on. And, uh,

It's shitty, man. It was brutal. Like to see – Witt described it perfectly. Like Mitch Marner is a Toronto kid who has drafted top five to them, played for the London Knights in the OHL, gets to live his childhood dream playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He's making all-star games, putting up 99-point, 100-point seasons. Obviously, we talked about his playoff performance, but –

you know, his last game is a Toronto Maple Leaf. They get beat six, one at home and they're getting booed off the ice jerseys on the ice beers being thrown on the ice. Like just like not how you thought that it would end for like, you know, a dream scenario of this kid getting to play in his hometown. So he won't be back. It sucks. I do feel bad for him as far as the amount of heat that he's probably taking personally. I don't think that,

I think that when you are very vocal and a little bit greedy in contract negotiations, thinking that you're worth a certain amount and you don't live up to that, especially in crunch time,

I mean, it's Toronto. You're playing in a big market. You want to put yourself in that situation and not snap the money around a little bit more other places? Well, you're going to have to fall on the sword, right? I think that getting guys that are from Toronto might actually just make the problem worse because they've grown up as, you know, with all the Leafs failures that they've had in the playoffs, like that moment becomes bigger if it's a team that you grew up rooting for and now you're in that moment, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I would agree with that because you really can't escape it, right? Like your roots are in Toronto. Everybody who knows a Leafs fan, like you just can't get out of your bubble. And that's where I sympathize for these guys. We had Matthew Kachuk on to come stuff me in a locker for the, what, 14th time this season? Mm-hmm.

on yesterday's podcast and he goes i feel for those guys they competed but he goes any other market if they're living somewhere else i feel like they're a way better team essentially saying that the pressure and of how ridiculous fans are in toronto uh it's counteractive it's not even necessarily home ice advantage in fact you'd rather go play on the road like they did in game six get away from the noise but buddy you're playing in the big smoke like yeah like y'all i i

you know, you be vocal about not, not sign there or don't bend them over and contract negotiations. And the, the, but going back though, that is the, one of the bigger issues that I have with who is in charge. And when they handed these deals over, like, I think that, you know, bitch Marner, Austin Matthews, William Nylander are incredible players, but,

Nylander actually out of his entry level only ended up signing a $7 million deal. So he was being fairly paid, if not maybe a little bit underpaid, but Matthews and Marner got the big tickets, right? And

that's where I feel like they, because they were restricted. If I was the general manager, I would have said, Hey, I get that you guys are, are going to be superstars in this league, but you haven't proven shit. So this is the number we're prepared to offer you. You're restricted. If you don't want to sign it, sit the fuck at home and we'll get the job done without you until you want to sign something. That's more of a fair deal. Yeah. That's,

I got a fun little game that we can play, and then maybe we can move on to some things that aren't Maple Leafs related. But I'm going to give you a list of things, and you tell me if these things happened before or after the Leafs won their last Stanley Cup. This is good. Okay? Okay. All right. Post-it notes were invented.

I would say that those were invented past, post. For people at home, the last time the Leafs won the Cup was? 67. 67. Yeah, that's bang on. That was after they won the last Stanley Cup. The Rubik's Cube. I would say the Rubik's Cube is after they won the Cup. It's also after they won the Cup. Yeah. Next one. Dialing 911.

I would say that you could. I mean, were phones. Yeah, I would say that was before. No, that was after also. That was after they won the ATM. Oh, for sure. After that was also after the nation of the Bahamas. After that's also after. Yeah. Star Wars after also after. Correct. And landing on the moon after also after. Yeah, they were all after. These are all things that have happened since they won the Stanley Cup. Wow. Was that a fun game?

That's a tough one. That's a real tough one. Yeah, Leafs fans are cursed. It's much like the Boston Red Sox before they won theirs, the curse of the Bambino. And I actually thought that there was a chance, maybe there was a chance in that game where kind of like when the Boston Red Sox were down in game four, weren't they down like 3-4-0 in that game and rallied to win game four and then rattled off four straight wins? Yeah. I thought maybe...

Maybe when Max Domi put that in for a split second, I thought there was a possibility they could come back in that game. But 45 seconds later, they made it 4-1. And then the onslaught of jerseys and beers started flooding the ice, and they got booed. Ty Domi knew. When they showed him in the stands, he was just like... He didn't even think about celebrating down 3-1. And he was just... It was...

Just steel jaw. All right, so let's go from bad to worse. So you... The Maple Leafs lose. You get, like, mocked online relentlessly. Everyone's laughing at you. And then...

One of your top foes, two days later, gets out of jail. Glassbanger's out of jail. Correct. And he's going to go to the games and see the stars. The Western Conference final. Oh, he might not. I don't know if they're going to. I don't think they're going to let him in the building. Okay. Okay. For those of you who don't know, they've had this longtime fan in Dallas who wears an all-white suit, and he has a cardboard cutout that says hashtag bang.

And when the play goes in the offensive zone where like when Dallas is there or when the play even comes near him, he's like standing up and banging on the glass and like body checking the glass. He's essentially their sixth man in on the four check, but he's so obnoxious and he brings like hookers to the game. So he just completely annoys everybody in his section, including the people who are sitting behind him. Like,

they don't want to see this guy standing up, blocking the vision and, and, and creating all this noise. And nobody likes glass bangers at hockey games. It's a faux pas. You don't bang on the glass. Like those people are the most painful, annoying people on the planet. So it's,

He apparently had a bunch of DUIs and then like didn't show up for his court date. And in December of 2024, so about what, six months ago, five, six months ago, he got thrown in the clink. So he was gone. Obviously he wasn't in his seats for the first two rounds. Well, I think he just got out in the last couple of days. So yeah,

The Dallas Stars have been rolling. They beat the Colorado Avalanche, who a lot of people thought could win the Stanley Cup with the roster they had. They didn't have their top scorer and best defenseman in the lineup. They get through Colorado. Well, their top scorer comes back. They still were waiting on their best defenseman. Well, they end up winning the last round and getting through that one against the Winnipeg Jets in six games. So all of a sudden, hey, smooth sailing. They're going to play the Edmonton Oilers, a very difficult conference finals game.

And then he drops the hammer today on Twitter that he's back. And they get their best fan back. Holy shit. I would say best slash worst. Depends who you ask, right? I just love the rivalry you have with him. Yeah. I'm just fascinated by him because the Leafs have never gone against him. It's more about like, is he aware that his own fans hate his guts? I'm sure he is aware of that.

is he actually going to be in his seats come game one of the conference finals? Because they have home ice advantage, right? Witt's loving this. He's like, Witt might buy his tickets to put him in that seat because he's such a mush for them. And he's more of a distraction than a fan, including rattling all the other people who have had peace and quiet for this last six months at Dallas Stars games. Yeah. But think about the prostitutes. They're going to be happy.

Oh, yeah. The money trains back. The bartenders? I'll show your viewers a picture of him unless you guys are able to pick it up. Yeah, you can send it to me and we'll put it in the YouTube. Yeah. I'm back, baby. Oh, man. I just love any fans that think they matter this much. It's the best. This is what makes sports so funny. He thinks you should be paid like Mitch Marner. Yeah, right. Right. All right. So let's talk about this series. Who?

Who's going to win, and how is Witt feeling? So I picked the Oilers, and then Witt said, no, you can't. You're done. You're a mush. Stay away from my team. So then I switched my pick to Dallas and Seven. I'll be heartbroken for either of these teams because Pete DeBoer, the Dallas Stars head coach, he's never won a Stanley Cup. He's been to the conference finals, I want to say, the last seven years, guys.

And he's been fired in two of those years. So he went with, I believe San Jose Sharks was one of them. And then Vegas Golden Knights was the other one that he went with.

and he's just kind of been shipped around, and he's found a great home in Dallas. So he's 9-0 in Game 7s in playoff history. So if it does go 7, look out. He's undefeated. And also Jamie Benn, their captain, who hasn't won a Stanley Cup. I would put Jamie Benn up there with Joe Thornton, and the list goes on of a certain few, like Jerome McGinley, like legends who have never won the big one, who you feel bad if they retire and they never got the hoist of Stanley Cup. Connor McDavid.

Connor McDavid at this point, but he's only halfway through his career. But he hasn't won the big one. And he's in his prime. But, boy, he's like, I have a hard time betting against the Oilers right now because you got Leon and Connor, the biggest dynamic duo in sports right now, and the fact that they're getting secondary scoring finally. Like, I believe that they've gotten goals outside of Connor and Leon. I think they have 16 goals right now contributed by, like, basically their –

like their bottom six slash roll guys and all of last year's run they only had i believe 12 or 14. so already halfway through playoffs they've outscored last year's uh role players which is huge man because i talked about it like you're when you're like the toronto maple leafs when you're paying all the top guys like it's hard because you can't just rely on a few players you really truly need everyone so uh they've been getting great contributions from everyone but

Dallas has home ice. They're a wagon. They got that Miro Haskin in back who will be the best defenseman in that all around defenseman in that series. Evan Bouchard on Edmonton side is a lethal offensive defenseman who's been playing incredible. So guys, it's like both of these teams could easily win a Stanley Cup.

But the problem is they're going to beat the shit out of each other. And then Florida gets to play Carolina, which I think they'll make damage of in about five or six. And then a little bit easier of a path to get to the Stanley Cup finals, in my opinion. I think everybody would agree that Oilers and Dallas playing each other, those are two juggernauts going at it. So with the Hurricanes, do you think that this is a matchup where the Panthers should dominate?

So there's a few things that Carolina has on its side. They have home ice advantage.

They were able to beat Washington in five games. So they do have rest. So they've been sitting there waiting at home for the Leafs and Panthers to finish the seven game series. Well, they finished Sunday. I just talked to you about how physical Florida is like they, this is, this could be, if they make it past this round, their third straight Stanley cup final. So that's a lot of hockey being played boys. Like we're not talking about, you know, a sport with no, with no contact. We're talking about one of the most physical, if not the most physical sport in the world, uh,

especially based on the grind, 82 games and then going through playoffs every other day. So,

So Carolina, they got great goaltending. They have rest. They have home ice advantage. And the fact that Florida has played so much hockey, to me, I wouldn't be shocked if it goes seven games with Carolina. But I think that Florida should win this series in six, if not maybe five games. Yeah, that's my opinion. And a lot of people have been criticizing Carolina about maybe playing boring hockey. They do.

Compared to boring hockey when the New Jersey Devils were doing the left-wing lock and hanging out in the neutral zone in 2-1 games, Carolina goes.

Like they might not get all these amazing Gloria, glorious scoring chances because they tend to just throw a lot of pucks towards the net, maybe from non-threatening positions, but they're also sending guys there. And then like on the four check, like their D you're pinching, like they're getting up and they swarm you. So at least it's like fast and in your face where it's a, you know, it's not just sitting back and, and,

necessarily extremely boring. And I feel like Florida and Carolina have very similar systems in the sense that they're very aggressive with their D they're great at filtering back and, and like protecting like the forwards are great at supporting their defensemen who are pushing up. They both have great goaltending. They both have extremely good penalty kills and,

I would give the advantage to Florida on the power play. Carolina did struggle earlier in that series against Washington. They started figuring it out towards the end, but Florida comes at you like so hard. And then as far as Carolina is concerned, I want to say they were top,

one or two penalty kills all season long. And that's the case every year, year over year. So that was interesting. That was the one thing that I came away really impressed with the Hurricanes on is their penalty kill. On the penalty kill, not only do they stop you from getting shots off and stop you from getting to the neutral zone, they also counterattack really well on the penalty. They get opportunities for a shorthanded goal almost every time. As a player, what makes a great penalty kill?

They are just well connected. So they don't just sit back in like a little, like they call it the box or

or sometimes they call it the triangle. Depending how the offense sets up, you basically rotate it to take away what the offense is trying to accomplish. But they'll have one guy attack where, okay, well then the offensive player will move it to the open guy, but that next guy for Carolina knows that his guy is going, so they anticipate one another, so they all close on you very quick. So you have to make two or three quick runs

really, really good plays in order to beat their, their defense where, you know, with how hard they come and how fast they pressure, it's hard. Like at that, at that level to make like two, three really quick, good plays. And if you're, you're able to accomplish that, you probably will end up getting a scoring chance. So Florida, Florida is, is very strong on their power play because they have good high options with guys who can shoot the puck and have,

bombs, but they also have really good low plays. So they have a good option everywhere in Florida, including Sam Reinhardt, who is up for one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL. Like him and Sasha Barkov in Florida are up for the Selkie Trophy. So not only are they amazing offensive players, but they're being recognized as how good they are defensively. Like Sam Reinhardt's a 50-goal scorer.

So he, he is in their bumper position where if Kachuk doesn't like the low play, he'll hit it to hit him in the slot and boom, it's off the stick top corner, just a lethal sniper. So, um, I would, like I said, advantage power play for Florida, but both of them lethal, lethal penalty kills and Carolina, uh,

They roll four lines, and they're high energy all game long. They have six great defensemen, four great lines, so they're able to maintain that high pace throughout the course of the 60 minutes. Rarely do you see lulls because they're not just relying on the top guys all the time. They spread the ice time out very evenly, as does Florida.

Like Florida's got two guys, two forwards sitting out that could easily be inserted in the lineup and you wouldn't even notice and wouldn't even blink. And they could put one of those guys like Boquist on the top line with Barkov and he would fit right in because Barkov's just that nasty. So I think that high-end superstar talent also advantage Florida. But let's see if the rest...

and the home ice and the fact that Florida's beat up can pay dividends for Carolina because the last three times Carolina's been to the conference finals, they haven't won a game. They got swept by, I believe they got swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Boston Bruins, and then last time, two years ago, the Florida Panthers. We had the series. The games were very close. They were all, I believe, one-goal games, but

but you know, they just, Florida can play any way you want. That's what makes them dogs. Oh, you want to play the up and down game? We'll play that. Oh, you want to lock shit down? We'll lock shit down too. Oh, you want to try to be physical? Oh yeah. We'll fucking stuff you in a locker. So they are just, they're a Florida's a well, well-oiled machine. And who are the two best, most noticeable players on the ice in game seven against the Leafs?

Brad Marchand, Seth Jones, the two guys they make deals for at the deadline. So as far as management top to down, Florida's looking good. Rank the four goalies left. Oh, wow. So I would probably have to put Bob at the top, Bobrovsky, just because he's been there, done that. He seems very dialed, like maybe not as good early in the series against Toronto, but he tends to figure things out as the series progresses.

And like I said, he's just locked in right now. Guy's got a couple, couple of Vesna Stanley cup champion. He gets the nod to, I would put Ottinger, um, up and coming USA goaltender, uh, just beat out Hellebuck, who is the starter for team USA at the four nations. Um,

Um, he, he's really trying to prove himself as the number one American goaltender, especially ahead of next year's Olympics. And he seems very dialed right now. Um, and yeah, I would put him as the number two and Freddie, I would say shared position at number two with Freddie Anderson, Freddie Anderson's with Carolina. Um, he's dealt with a lot of injuries, blood clots, uh, you name it. Uh, didn't play the whole season this year. He shared the net.

But these playoffs, I think he has the best save percentage right now going into the conference finals. He's been unbelievable. That's a testament to also the guys in front of him and how they play team defense. He also looks like Ed Sheeran, so there's a little fun fact. That is fun.

Wedham-Essam is for Halloween one year. So if you guys want to check out that costume online. And then last, I would put the Oilers goaltending. It's been shaky. Pickard went in for Stuart Skinner. Stuart Skinner got the reset, and he's gotten shutouts in his back-to-back games in the last round against the Vegas Golden Knights. So no disrespect to him. He's an Edmonton kid. You talked about pressure of being a Toronto kid playing in Toronto. Yeah.

He's been, he's been pretty vocal about like the anxiety that he deals with because of the amount of pressure playing in a Canadian market as a starting goaltender. Um,

he's got the net back after Calvin Pickard kind of saved them a little bit. And he's posted back-to-back shutouts against the Vegas Golden Knights. So he's the fourth guy. But like last year, he turned it on the later it got in the playoffs. And the bounce back from the horrendous goal he let up for the one game that the Knights won, he then bounces back with back-to-back shutouts. So it's like that might be a change in his toughness, grit. He answered the bell in that.

You know what, Big Cat, sometimes when you're maybe playing a little too much hockey, especially as a goaltender, you get away from your fundamentals and you start being a little bit like slipping around too much, not being in position. And when I was doing radio for the Phoenix Coyotes, Rick Tockett was the head coach and we had Darcy Kemper. And this year he had an incredible year with the LA Kings. He was nominated for the Vesna Trophy. Yeah.

he,

He was scrambling like that, and they gave him like a week to reset with Corey Schwab, the goaltending coach. And then he came back, and he was one of the best goaltenders the rest of the year. So sometimes as a goalie, because when you're being put out there, you have to stay focused the whole 60 minutes. Like guys are getting a change, and if they make a mistake, well, they got the defense to help them out. Well, if the defense makes a mistake, they got the goalie to help them out. They're the last man there. Right. Right? So sometimes they just need that mental reset, get back to their old techniques, and then

and that could pay massive, massive dividends, and I'm happy for him, man. It must be a mental grind going through a season in Canada like that. Yeah, so are you rooting for Ryan Whitney to get a Stanley Cup? Like, how intolerable is he going to be? No, he's not nearly as intolerable as I am with the Toronto Maple Leafs. I actually give him full marks and full credit, and, you know, for me, it's...

It's been over 30 years now since Canada has brought home a Stanley Cup. A lot of Americans like to use that against us. I want the Americans to keep in mind these American teams are built of 50% Canadian players on these rosters that are winning them the Stanley Cup. But I would like, especially this season after winning four nations and the USA, all the barking going on in USA, I would like the Cup to come back to Canada for that reason. And of course, like Connor McDavid, man, what he's done for the sport and

um, the most electrifying hockey player we've seen since Wayne Gretzky. And just for every, you know, every fiber of his being that he's put into the game and, um, you know, living up in Canada, I hope he wins the big one. Yeah. Just like I was happy when Ovi won the big one, right. That was something like a scarlet letter that was being used against them where, you know, he got that. And then nobody ever talked about that again. He can ride off into the sunset and

And I really hope that Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisaitl are able to help them win a Stanley Cup. And like Edmonton, the people of Edmonton are the nicest people on the planet. Like, I really want them to like, that's all they live for. Yeah. That's it. That's it. It'd be nice. I have one question about Ovi because after seeing him in the series, I had some dark thoughts about Ovi after game five.

I didn't seem to really skating around that much. He was kind of just getting out on the ice standing there. He looks slow when he was skating. Is this something, should I be worried about Ovi going into next year?

I think that next year, like it's the last year of his contract. I believe he signed a three-year extension a few years ago. Yeah, he said he wasn't retiring. Yeah, I figured he would come back for sure next year. I mean, why wouldn't you? He scored, what did he have, 42 goals and he broke his leg and missed some games. I think he played just over 60 games, so...

when you're on that type of heater, like why would you, and they have a solid team around him. So it'll be enjoyable. Uh, I would assume they make playoffs again next year. He's just slowing down a little bit. I get, it's just, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, what's the term? Father time is undefeated. Father time. It fucking writes big cat. Way to save me there. And,

I think in playoffs, I think that did hurt them a little bit, if I'm not lying. I think that he should have been playing around 15 minutes a game for them to be efficient. And I think that he wanted to play more, thinking that he could help the team. But with how fast that Carolina was, they were getting exposed in that area. I don't think that Ovi's a 20-minute game guy now. So I think that next year he will return. I think he'll be playing –

right where he normally plays on the power play. And I wouldn't be shocked if he scores another 30 goals, but if he continues to slow down, it's just hard in today's day and age to keep up as far as skating. And he has been vocal about wanting to go play one more year and finishing off his career in Russia. Don't know if that's still the case, but I could see him after next year, going back to the KHL and playing one more year and, and,

really having his final swan song and goodbye. I really, really hope, and this is not a political conversation at all. Next year's Olympics, Russia's not going to be playing. It's, it would suck because like politics out the window, uh,

it would be probably Evgeny Malkin's and Ovi's last opportunity to play in the Olympics. And there's just so much momentum for the league. And there's so many good Russian players that are now coming into the NHL. Like you had Mishkov this year who was in Philadelphia, Kirill Kaprizov. Like this kid is a top 10 player in the NHL, no doubt worth the price of admission. This Nikitin kid who just showed up in Carolina, who I didn't mention during my breakdown with them. Like they would have,

They could win a gold medal. That's how good their young guys are, along with the nostalgia of having Ovi and Malkin kind of passing off the torch, as well as the fact that it probably would be Sidney Crosby's last Olympics, right? Those two guys entered the league at the same time and have carried the torch

for 20 years. Like we are blessed as hockey fans at the fact that these kids lived up to every bit of hype and surpassed it like insurmountably. So to see all of not only Russia, Canada, um, um, the list goes on Sweden, Finland, um,

I think Germany is going to be there with Leon Dreisaitl. Like it would just be so good for the sport with the momentum it has off of four nations. And would you guys not agree? Like, I don't know how hard core of hockey fans you are compared to other sports, but nothing has even came close to what the playoffs have provided in the first. Oh, it's been great. Yeah. It's the best. It's insane. I think, I think the Stanley cup is the hardest tournament to win.

It is. No doubt. I think it's harder to win a Stanley Cup than an NBA championship. I know it's impossible to actually measure those together, but just by the vibe of how things go and how hard these teams play, it feels like it's an absolute grinder to get to the playoffs in hockey. Buddy, Florida just finished a seven-game series.

They went to Toronto, packed for three games, and then won that game, flew to Carolina, and now they're playing tonight. We have the broadcast. So less than 48 hours, you're suiting up again for another seven-game series, playing every other night in these humid temperatures, Carolina, Florida. And then if they win that, they got to go play another round against Edmonton or Dallas and then start on the road. Like, it's...

It's a fucking grind, boys, and agreed. Hockey's on a heater, and I have so much respect for these players. All right, I got one last question for you, Biz. We always love having you on. Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code TAKE. I want you to be honest with this question. Game six, Leafs-Panthers happens.

Was there a small part of you that was like, holy shit, Oldie is my good luck charm. We're going to win it all with Oldie.

I thought that by the time that Toronto's run was over, there would be a statue of him outside of Scotiabank. Because I had the same feeling. I was like, oh my God, I think maybe this is, I think Oldie may be able to pull this off. So the craziest part about all this. So like, let's talk, let's talk about Oldie for a second. How this all came to be. I believe during Four Nations, I came on your pod and,

And you guys were talking about the stream you're going to have. And I said, we need Canadian representation. You guys kind of got the ball going on that. You had about four or five people who you were considering for applicants to come in and watch it. And then Jens must have, I think he listens to every single one of your shows. And he said, boys, I got to send in this oldie guy.

So he put you guys in touch with this oldie and you saw one second of his videos and you're like, this guy's electric. We're bringing him in. So he does what he does on your guys' stream. You guys hire him. He becomes famous overnight, rightfully so, even though he'd done a bunch of stuff for NHL guys and teams in the past. So fast forward to the other day.

Where I, before he, Yanz, it came on your podcast. I mentioned that I was going back to Welland, Ontario for game five to go to a local watering hole to bring luck to the Leafs. So Yanz was trying to figure out where I was going to go. And he said on your show, he's like, I'm going to have oldie buddy him up and try to get information so I could send Panthers fans to where Biz is watching the game to fuck with their mojo.

Well, Oldie listened to that and then he DM'd me on Twitter. Then he tried to call me on Twitter. I didn't even know you could do that. He's a big FaceTimer. Big FaceTimer. Loves the FaceTime. So I'm like, well, I'm going home. I texted Yanzi. I said, hey, can I get Oldie's number? And I invited him down to Welland. And after just spending three hours with him, even though Toronto got shit kicked –

I was like, he's like the most positive guy in the world. He's like, well, he's like, we'll get them in six and four and seven. And, and I'm, and then, and then Merle's text to the chat, he goes, you should send them down there.

So I had my lucky shirt on me. I said, would you go down there with my lucky shirt to bring the Leafs a mojo? Absolutely. He's got a wife, two kids. He's on the next plane down there, takes the day off work, and then does what he does behind the glass and makes friends with everybody. And I'm like, well, we've got to send him to game seven. And that happened.

It didn't work at all. It was close, though. Did he get kicked out? Is that what happened? I saw a cop escorting him up the steps. That was in Sunrise. They couldn't handle his little, he calls it his pocket pussy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we're very familiar. Intimately familiar. The reason I brought up Yans coming on your show was because Yans has been rooting for the Panthers, played there, still hangs around with a bunch of those guys. They love him there. He banged the drum with the biz idiot shirt on it, got them going for game four.

And then they fucking smoked the Leafs too. But he almost ruined the Panthers. Like their own guy. Yeah.

created that, put it into the universe. And that's how old he came to be, at least for the Leafs in this round. So it would have been so poetic that if, if Yans would have said that, and then old, he would have pulled off victories in game six and seven, and then he would have been off to the Eastern conference finals, but it didn't come to be. And there's one other thing I wanted to mention, and I'm sure you guys talked to wit or even Yans about it is that, that Miko Rotten. Yeah. You guys been following this story. Yeah. Unreal.

So this is a guy who won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche and they were going through contract negotiations and basically they never gave him a final offer and said, hey, if you don't sign this, we're going to trade you. And I believe that he would have taken eight years times 12 million in Colorado to stay. Well, they were kind of going through the negotiations. Things went a little bit silent and then boom, he gets blindsided, goes to Carolina and

He didn't want to go to Carolina to begin with Carolina asked to start negotiations even before they made the move and ranting in his camp were like, no, we don't want to go there. That's not the style of play. We want to try to work things out with Colorado. They make the trade regardless. He goes to Carolina. He's there for three weeks. Obviously it's not going to work out and they ship them to the same fucking division as Colorado and Dallas. And then he goes on that heater that he's been on. This is,

The dominance that he performed over the first two rounds is some of the likes we've... I think him and Wayne Gretzky are the only ones that had that many points in that period of time in the Stanley Cup playoffs. So talk about a kick in the dick, but I'm so happy for him having gone through all that bullshit for whatever it was, six weeks, two months, to now find a landing spot, sign an 8x12 extension, and then...

no state tax and then be on the heater. He's on. And I would say right now, he's probably the favorite for the con Smythe. And I just wanted to mention him before I logged off because he deserves his flowers and he's an absolute playoff beast right now. Yeah. He's been awesome. And yeah, you're right. The playoffs have been incredible and we love watching you. So, uh, everyone tuned in TNT, uh, biz, you're the best. We'll have you back on. Sorry about the Leafs. Uh,

We love you, man. I love you, boys. Keep doing your thing, and I appreciate you guys having me on as always. And thank you for, of course, thank you to Jans for bringing Oldie into our lives, but thank you for really putting him on that pedestal that he deserves and snapping the love of what is Oldie around. Yes. He's absolutely the best. He is the best. All right. We'll see you, Biz.

That might have been the biggest free agency signing of the year. Easily. Easily. He is the absolute best. He has the ability to just talk anybody down. If anyone's mad at him, he becomes their best friend in about two seconds. Two seconds. I love you, boys. Thank you, as always. Go Leafs go, baby.

Paul Bissonnette was brought to you by Proper 12. It's PFT here making my Irish entrance with Proper 12 Irish Whiskey. How do you make an Irish entrance, you might ask? It starts with a Proper 12 Irish Whiskey shot because real friends don't let French-Irish eggs at a party without a story to tell. The original Proper 12 is a rich and smooth blend of golden grain and single malt aged four years in bourbon barrels. Mix it up with some ginger ale. Get a classic and refreshing Proper Ginger.

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Spring's finally here, so come golf with us. Download the Barstool Golf Time app today. It's golf season. Download that Barstool Golf Time app today. And now, here's Chris Berman. And now for something completely different. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very, very special guest. It is our Schwamm, Chris Berman. And you're probably thinking, hey...

outside of football season? Huh? Huh? Well, we wanted to have him on because he just signed a multi-year contract extension with ESPN and it will run through 2029 when he will become the first employee at ESPN to hit the 50-year mark. So we wanted to congratulate Schwab

Schwamm, have him on, catch up. First of all, congratulations. Incredible. I think you, last time we saw you, you said that we get to plan your 50 celebration, the party, right? Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you guys are the grand show and the raconteur. I mean, I thought we'd be really speaking...

Well, Toronto's not French, but at any rate, I appreciate it. I fooled him one last time, fellas. I mean, you know, you can only fool him so long, but I, you know, like I said, you read it. I started at 24. I mean, our grandfathers or my grandfather's era, maybe you work 40 or 50 years at a company, not now and not in our business. And

I pinched myself. It's pretty cool. And you guys have always been so kind. You had the imitations right out of the gate. So I appreciate it. Yeah, it really is cool because it is something that in this business specifically, you don't make it that far. You don't work 50 years at a company. You don't work 50 years in the spotlight. And you've done it. And it's really cool. It's just a really cool accomplishment. So have you had...

I mean, I know that this is the contract extension. Have you had thoughts like, hey, I got one more in me after this one, too. Just keep running it. I want to see you keep going. I mean, look, I'll be 75 when this is over. Let's hope I have, you know, not worried about, well, let's just hope 75 is an easy accomplishment and we'll go from there. But look, I never thought of 50. We might have talked about this. I don't remember at the Super Bowl. I don't think so.

I never thought of it. Okay. ESPN was very kind. 45 years, they made a deal of it. And I was, you know, my God, I'm looking at myself in the mirror. Is this really you? 45 years, same place. And I was asked a couple of times, so do you want to make it to 50? And I never, that was never a goal, fellas. I mean, that's not, I mean, that's,

I'm not in my wildest dreams and I hope to be in the business 30 years, let alone the same place 50. Right. So I started thinking about it and I brought it to our president's attention, not in negotiation or anything, but in the fall, he goes, oh, you know, you got you got to be here through our first Super Bowl in two years. I said, well, I hope so. I'd love to be. But I guess that's up to you. Wouldn't it, Jimmy? He goes, yeah, I guess it is. So I just told you.

And I went, you know what would be cool? Not because it's me, but we may never have a 50-year employee again. I mean, we probably will. I mean, in engineering or a lot of different departments. But 50 years, you've got to start young, right? So what are the odds of even starting in your 20s and being still hopefully very good at your job? I'm not saying I am, but let's say an engineer is in his or her 70s. So...

Yeah, I'm not... One more... I haven't gotten this one done yet. Yeah. Let's reconvene after the party. Then we all may be hurting a little bit. Yeah. I think that would be an all-time record that would probably stand for forever. Yeah. And you put it in perspective. We've been doing this show for 10 years. Imagine doing this...

times, like not even 10 years for us, but imagine doing this five times as much as we've done it. It's a testament to you. It's a testament to the people that you've worked with, but like you have been a mainstay, I think for a lot of people's sports childhoods all the way up through adulthoods. And so we're glad that we're going to see you there. It would be weird if you went somewhere else. Did that thought ever occur to you? Was it going to be ESPN or nowhere? Or were you thinking like, hey, maybe I could join. Maybe I joined Barstool Sports. Yeah.

what are they cool well you never know there's time for everything but but to be honest um no i because my guy said you know if this gets tricky which it wasn't um are you interested in that absolutely not i if you read my bio of course everything changes but i mean this was written really 30 years ago fellas or 25 years ago and unfortunately

a lot of the people in the quote in my bio have passed i said i want to be walter payton for example i want to be tony gwynn to who to we've lost george brett uh maybe now more modern terms you know a derek cheater maybe a um you know someone that started and finished with my very first job and really for all intents and purposes it was um

Someone that started and finished with the same ball club. I mean, it's nowhere. I wouldn't, you know, I thought of Frank O'Hara's carrying the ball as a Seahawk. I thought of Tony Dorsett and Tony and I have laughed about it. That's Franco, another one we've missed. And he and I have laughed about it too. Tony Dorsett, his final year.

was a Bronco. I know some of them are fine, but that was like the last year. So if this is my last, no, I'll do it.

No, I couldn't. Yeah. No, thank you. Emmitt Smith on the Cardinals. Always whenever that pops up, I'm like, whoa, I forgot about that. All right. So you were definitely staying with ESPN this time. What was the closest you ever got to maybe leaving in your 50 years? Because I'm sure now that you've stayed, you can laugh about it. But was there a moment? And do you remember that moment of like, oh, well, these people, I don't know. We've got to see what happens.

Well, I guess once you turn 70, you can give some secrets up, right? Right, exactly. So we're good now. Well, one I've talked about, but that was a different time. So the real time was 10 years in, started in 79, 89. ESPN and even cable, cable was big by then, but ESPN was different, okay? So basically, I'll try to boil it down.

NBC, Dick Ebersole, inquired, would you like to come over? Well, I mean, I, you know, my contract's running up in a little bit. They essentially offered me times four. Now, let's not get carried away. This isn't just 1989 cable TV. To be honest with you, I wasn't, you know, I was 160,000 maybe. Okay, so this isn't old.

20 million versus 10 million. I mean, I've never gotten to those norms, I think. I mean, so this is a different time for our company, which is fair. But actually, there's another story I will tell you right before this, too, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of it. But get back to this. I, you know, and Bob Costas was doing their football show at the time. So that wasn't open. They said it was going to be soon, but that wasn't open and I was already doing it.

admittedly just two years at ESPN, 87, 88, when we got the NFL and primetime had started. We didn't have baseball yet. So it was interesting. And I went to our guys. Steve Bornstein wasn't the president. He was about to be, but he and I really, I said, Steve, I went to Brown. It's times four. I can add because I can too. I said, so,

We've not broken the mold, not only on somebody on the air, but really anyone, let's say, high up in programming or any. I know this is a tough decision, but and it inched along for a little bit for a couple of months. Never rough, never nasty. I mean, and I finally said to him, I said, Steve, you're not a golfer, but you got to get to within a nine iron. And I don't know what that means. And I want to stay.

And I said, I will tell you one other thing. And maybe I'm telling stuff I shouldn't. I reached a little farther and I said, the company may be watching this one. Not because I'm so good, but where we've gone, where we've come. If I go and they're the top in their area, well, they're not going to help me out either if something. Yeah. He actually, no, no. To give Steve, and there's a, actually,

he said thank you for saying that and within another week we had he got within an iron and in the end look the beauty about one of the many beauty of that things that's saying at espn was 10 years like you guys you built something from the ground up there's a lot to be said for that it wasn't only me but we built brick and mortar from the ground up a lot of us names you'll never know for sports like you guys get to talk

Golf, hockey, NBA, college. Want to talk darts on this show for 10 minutes? You could. We cover everything. Now, we may not have the Super Bowl or the World Series or U.S. Open Cup, but I got to go to all of them, cover them all. Well, or talk about them on the air every day. So if you love sports, there was that part. Why would you want to leave? Now, to fast forward where I didn't think I'd be going in this story, bringing up Steve's name.

When it was announced a week ago, I heard from him right away. I mean, he's long been out. George Bolton armor. I heard from George. Those two guys were president ended up maybe 22 of the 45 years. Um, that's the kind of place we had. And I'm, I'm my release at the time, the press release said it was a Brian Adams decision. It was straight from the heart. And, um,

I couldn't go. I couldn't. And it was the best move I never made, even though more money, bigger at the time. But was it? You know, that's not a knock on NBC, of course. It's just I live from here. So I want to live in New York City. I didn't necessarily want to do that. Yeah. Young kids. Now, one other interesting story that I know I rarely bring up. Rarely. This is a year before.

So it sounds like I'm looking to leave. I'm not. But I'm like this. From 85 to 89, I'm like this, okay? And ESPN was like this, more importantly. So I'm a San Francisco Giant fan, as you know, above everything, even though I grew up Northeast. Willie Mays, seven years old, in the World Series. He's a Giant. I'm a little kid. Giants, that's my team. The owner of the Giants then, Bob Lurie, great San Franciscan.

I got a call from him. I got to know them a little bit. I'm going on here, but this is a story I rarely tell. I got a call from his office. I'm so-and-so. I'm Mr. Lurie's assistant. When the Giants are playing the Mets late in May, he'd like to have lunch with you at the 21 Club. Now, first of all, the 21 Club,

My club is McDonald's. Okay. So what can you get for 21 bucks in 1988? McDonald's hell meals for a week. So, so we meet and there's nothing, you know, my God, I'm a young guy. Take the train in a couple hours. We meet and he goes, well, up till now, most teams, the announcers are hired by the station they work for. But just about a year or two before that,

Teams were hiring the main guy or woman, but let's just say guy at the time, was a team employee. I don't know when that happened in Chicago with Harry or with Jack Buck. I don't know, but it was starting, but only like one. He goes, next year we're going to hire, it's going to be our hire. We think you'd be a great San Francisco Giants play-by-play guy. Oh, man. Well, I've not done it other than Brown baseball, all right? But-

It was one of my goals to do the Giants. Right. And I told him, I said, well, we just got football and I'm kind of that guy. We didn't have baseball yet again. And I said, but this is, and it would have been a salary increase at that time. Oh God, yes. Not times four, but times two, maybe. Never discussed. Moved to the Bay Area, which I love from afar. Young family, I'd be hired by them. Hmm.

He goes, "Well, think about it. Call me in a day or two." So I did. And I said, "Mr. Lurie, I can't believe I'm telling you this. It's been my life dream, but I'm going to have to turn it down." And here's what he said. He said what good guy he was. He is. After what you told me yesterday about ESPN, about the NFL, and you're the host, you're Brent Musburger, you made the right decision. That's the guy who offered me the job. So that's '88 and '89.

Since then, I'm a Taurus. I'm stubborn. I ain't leaving. But your agent loves to hear that. Yeah. That's crazy, though. I mean, that must have been very difficult to turn down because calling baseball games for your favorite team, that would be incredible. Yes. Yeah. And Bay Area. Not even – I like the team, but do I – no. San Francisco, to me –

I mean, I know they've had after COVID more trouble than many other cities, but that's not the discussion. My favorite city. Yeah. Even though I grew up 2,500 miles away from it. So, but again, I was smart then. He said it. And by not leaving the S-Pan, look, we're having this discussion today. Yeah. I mean, I probably would have been, I would have been neither place.

In 2025, that's for damn sure. That's true. You built that place. That place also shaped you. So that's got to be tough to watch. I think it's been a great fit. I'm very glad that you're sticking around. It would be weird to see you if you just popped up on Fox Sports one day. Doing an NFL pregame show. It would look so weird. It would look really, really strange. I saw that the MLB All-Star game in 2029, they have not announced who's got the TV rights to it.

If that's ESPN, can we please get you doing the Home Run Derby? Well, I guess we have one more year before losing it. I mean, yeah, okay. I'm in. If they'll have me. Okay, yeah. I'm still signed. I mean...

Yeah, there you go. We'll have our 50th party at the Home Run Derby. How about that? That sounds perfect to me. When I think back of all the years of you on ESPN, I also think of the SportsCenter commercials. This is SportsCenter commercial. Do you have a list of your favorite ones? Well, you know, those ads were great. I was never in them because by the time they were doing all those

I was, while still doing plenty of SportsCenter, Charlie Steiner. What is it? Welcome to Freedom or Send Me to Freedom with the headband. Yeah, the Y2K one. Yeah, that was a pretty good one. There are a ton of them. It's funny. So I really was never, if I was in one, it was like one of the first ones when they weren't great yet. The football ones, to be honest, other than Bristol University, which was funny.

I mean, they were fine. We, the ones I was in weren't of the same caliber as the sports center. I don't mind. Again, I'm 70. I can say whatever the hell I want. Yeah. Hell yeah, you can. I'm not even senile and I could say. Not yet. Yeah. I might be for our, in five years, but yeah.

What were your favorites? I mean, you remember probably more of them than I do. I mean, that one was actually, I think, my favorite, the Y2K scare. I like the don't walk, the PSA that you guys did for NBA players to stop traveling. That was a great one. The crocodile hunter where he sees the Florida gator and wrestles him to the ground. And then my home arism. I like when Ovi, and I think it was Alexander Simmons,

lowered through the ceiling like they were in Mission Impossible, like Russian spies. I like the LT one where he was wearing his visor trying to sort the mail. Yeah. That one was great. I got to say, they were sharp. And everyone related to it. And the players and those in sports bought into it. Yeah. But the great ones I wasn't in, that's probably why they were great. I wasn't in them. So it is offseason right now. How's the golf game? Um...

In and out, you know, you struggle with, okay, 65, you were still hitting the ball. Not far. Let's not get carried away, but far enough. You know, it's really going to move up to not the goals yet, but that you got to play on the hybrid, but now you're the white because. And so you end up hitting the ball off the tee, and you say to yourself, honestly, once you get over a macho thing,

Ah, this is where I used to hit it. It's okay. I mean, I played yesterday. It was pretty good. Played the day before. It was pretty mediocre. So I'm a usual 14 that on occasion you want.

And on other occasions, you wish you never knew me. How about you guys? You never get to play, right? Yeah. We play on camera a lot. We're bad. Hank, our producer, plays all the time. He plays every single day. But he's also still bad, which is crazy. Yeah. I mean, you have to get to a point where you play all the time if you want to be good at golf. It's not something you can parachute in and out of. Right. But yeah, on a good day, I think we'll probably shoot in the 90s.

On Hank's good day, he'll shoot in the 80s. What's your best round ever? I don't think I ever broke 80. Maybe 81. That's a while ago. Here's the thing. I did look up the chart. If you get to 70 in the United States, average life expectancy, male 85, female 87. I have a shot to hit my eight. Yes. There you go. Yes. I will tell you this, though.

I played in the pro-am at New Orleans. You remember I did that once upon a time with your guy down there. So I'd never met Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin. We played with them day one. Media day the next week, Travelers, which I've done forever, right? Interviewed Scotty Scheffler, Byron Nelson that week. We just saw the PGA Tournament.

It ain't my game, but how's my game influencing others? Yeah. Not bad, right? Yeah. Do you think – we threw this out there on today's show, but –

Do you think there's a chance Scottie could creep up into that? Hey, we're talking about him versus Tiger at some point because it does feel, we're joking, he feels like he's 40 years old because he just has the look of, not in a bad way, but he just looks like he's always looked a lot more put together than everyone else. He's 28 and he's won his third in 22 starts in the majors this

It feels like he's going to be, you know, in the next five years, what would you like call it? You know, he wins, you know, five more in the next five years. He's now at eight and it's like, Ooh, now we're starting to talk about this. Well, let's see how many tour wins again. He's only, he's done them all really the last few years, right? He had not, I think seven on tour, but nine. Oh, by the way, the gold medal, um,

And now here's two more. I mean, here's of the of the current day or the last 20 years. It's really does he approach Phil? Yeah. Where do we put Rory? Who's not a general Tiger's not a generation ago, but Rory was a little, you know, was after Tiger 2010 and all that. So, by the way, what a perfect we have Rory. Hey, he's back.

He wins the players. He wins the masters. He's playing the open, the British open at Port Rush home game. Oakmont is the hardest course I've ever seen. So you better be really good if you plan to win there, by the way. I don't know if you guys have ever been, but of all the media day courses by about the eighth hole, you can't wait to get back to your community. Okay. So, so,

What an interesting setup. Here's one thing about Scott. So you don't want to go to Tiger yet because, geez, do we talk about Tiger to Jack? This was a little early even in Tiger's run to go Jack. But where are you going? You see Arnie, right? So he's still underappreciated. I know. After the PGA. Okay. But...

Here's an observation that I thought of knowing I was going to talk to you guys today and the PGA would come up. You won the Travelers last year, one of his seven. Like I said, I think he won nine worldwide, President's Cup, gold medal, et cetera. For the Travelers, you might remember, you know, signature event. We had the little thing on 18, but that's not the point. And he got in a playoff with Tom Kim, friend, and he,

But Tia was also in the last threesome, was in it, but by then not really but close. And I'm looking at these three guys because Travelers here in Hartford, I do the trophy honors afterwards, so I'm dialed in there. And here's Scotty at 6'3". Now we have a playoff with the two of them, with Kim and Scotty.

Here's Scotty at 6'3". Here's Kim, short, which, by the way, golfers come in all shapes and sizes. Look at the three of us. It's proof. And

And Batia, the next stiff wind is going to blow him into the sand and I'm not knocking him. I mean, my God, I'd like to be that skinny, right? Yeah. By the way, you could really have fun with Batia. Batia, that's all, folks. But never mind. It's actually debut right here. That's a great one. Never mind. Bugs Bunny. Can't believe I said that. At any rate, then Kim goes in the bunker. So Scotty has

A two-putt to win with no sweat, just trying to let down, kind of like his bogey up by five, only won by four, but who cares, right? And I'm thinking, this is like the old movies where there was a pie fight, or let alone a gun duel, and the knight in white armor is standing unscathed, and everyone else goes down one by one. And as I'm watching yesterday, or at this time when we're taping it, oh, his lead, he's tied.

with Rahm or, you know, here's Bryson and here's maybe one of the other two. Then all of a sudden he wins by four anyway. It's like he's – this stuff's flying around and he's there like, no, Bullen ain't going to hit me. No pie's going to dirty this nice white suit. And I know that seems crazy, but being at the event, unlike yesterday when I watched, like, you, TV, I was like, this guy –

Wow, it's just something about his demeanor. He's not, I mean, Tiger was Tiger. I mean, we don't have to go to Jack and Arnie. We know what they were. Phil, flamboyant with the way he played, the shots he invented, et cetera. Scotty, Rory bombs it. Does Scotty hit it just about as long? Probably now, I don't know that, but maybe not quite as, Rory's unbelievable, right? But so Scotty, name what he does unbelievably better than anyone else

except everything. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. He's not, this is him. Here's swashbuckling. Here's, he's so impervious to, oh my God, he's going to lose this. No, he's not.

It's unbelievable how he does it, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It really is. He makes it look easy. One of the craziest stats that I saw this week was that Scotty Scheffler, he's right now, I think, how long is this that he's been ranked number one? 82nd consecutive week being ranked number one in the world to bring it up to a total of 116 weeks. 116 weeks is what Scotty Scheffler has been ranked number one at. Tiger Woods,

has 683 weeks. Sure. So he would need to be ranked number one in the world every week for the next, what, 10 plus years to catch what Tiger did. Right. Just unbelievable. It's crazy. But conversely...

How many are in the hundreds? Admittedly, they didn't have, you know, when even Nicholas and Palmer, I mean, I don't know that they had that then. They certainly didn't when Byron Nelson, just to pick up a name, or Sam Steed, who won more than anybody else played. But how many are in the hundreds? Not many. Yeah. Yeah. I think Tiger's got the number one and number two spot.

All-time rankings for the longest streaks being ranked number one. It's crazy. Absolutely insane to think about. Yeah. Greg Norman might be...

A name that I don't know about a hundred. We'd have to look it up. Interesting. Yeah. Norman got up to 96 weeks. Okay. I believe. Yeah. So yeah, pretty close. And so I'm one thing we love about you is you're, you're such a football fan, even though it's the off season. I know that you've been thinking about football through the draft, through free agency, through the schedules coming out for next season. What, what are you thinking about the most? What are you looking forward to the most in the 2025 football season?

That's a good, you know, here we are. It's not any of it. You know, last year we had all the quarterbacks picked at the top and you're wearing a Doug Williams shirt. So obviously your quarterback now you're Washington is on eight million times on primetime. Where is the year before? Yeah. Why are they on? Right. What am I looking forward to the most?

Well, I mean, what Philly did was pretty darn strong. I mean, that was, I mean, we don't even need to rehash it. That was from the beginning. It was, whoa, okay. This is going to be trouble for the Chiefs. However, all right, you know what? I'll give you one. It's kind of obvious, but is this the year Buffalo somehow avoids Kansas City in the playoffs? I don't know what that means.

It means someone would have to lose or somebody, I don't hope nobody gets hurt, i.e. Josh, i.e. Patrick, etc. But somehow they don't meet. And then how does that flush out? By the way, I only thought of it today, even though the Eagles are the champs.

God, and they play week two, right, at Kansas City, right out of the gates. Yep. Which I don't know what that'll decide, not a lot. The Chiefs, you know, the Bills are the only team, again, it sounds like all I'm worried about is Buffalo. I'm not. The Bills are the only team to make, you know, to get to four in a row. Admittedly, they didn't win any. The Chiefs could get to four in a row, even though they didn't win last year and they were trying to win three in a row now. Yeah.

Philly could get to three out of four. Yeah. As we discussed last year, that's a short list getting to three out of four. So, but then who are the Washingtons this year? I don't know. What do you guys think? Who are, I mean, it's hard in May to say, well, I'm just telling you Atlanta with Pennix, for example. I'm not saying that's a team. Like what, what are the teams that are,

The Rams much better. I mean, they came every time in the playoffs. They're a tough out. Are they better? I'm talking about a team. Of course, Washington was not on the playoff radar. What's that team? Because we know like five or six of them don't go back to the playoffs. So I've got an answer. It's kind of a cheap answer, but the 49ers.

Yeah. They might get healthy. If they stay healthy this year, I wouldn't bet against them making the playoffs. Yeah. I got an answer that's a little... I'm still working on it. I think the Giants are going to be better than people think. And I don't know what's going to happen with Jackson Dart, but like Brian Dable, good quarterback coach, if you can get just enough, I think that defense is going to be elite. Their defensive line has just...

monsters on it. So I think they might be one of those teams where, you know, maybe they're not playoffs, but they're, you know, go jump up to seven, eight, nine wins. And it's like, Ooh, look, they're, they're not, you look at the schedule this time of year and you're like, all right, that's a win. That's a win. I don't think the giants are going to be a, that's a win team. Well, I think you're right. Of course, now we think,

Dallas, healthy quarterback along with Philly and Washington. That's a tough climb with those six games. Absolutely. And they go two and four. That would be a win for what you just said. Who else? Is there room to move?

Well, we know the NFC is tougher overall, right? Because, obviously, the Central, I still call it the Norris division. The Bears lost a lot of games. They're going to be better. But the other three teams, even though the quarterback is Minnesota, Detroit's going to be them. Green Bay is going to be good. Very good, again. So hard to move.

So the Bears have a much better record. Again, they got to play those teams. The West is, I agree with San Francisco. They either miss the playoffs or they get to at least the championship game. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to be good. The Rams are going to be good. Don't overlook Seattle, Arizona. I don't know. But let's just say two and a half teams in that division. South, well, that's the opening, right? Like could, but it won't be.

It's a little early for the Panther. You know what I'm saying? So in the AFC, where Miami fell and the Jets fell, and will they be back or back, the Jets? Will Miami be back or...

Or could the Patriots move like the Giants to your point? 7-10, 8-9. We still don't know who Pittsburgh's quarterback is in that division. We think the Bengals won't start out 1-4 or whatever the hell they always do. The Browns, I mean, I— Sad. Good luck. I bought a quarterback.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a good coach. He got a coach with one hand tied behind his back, Kevin. Very good coach. Yeah. You know, we know Baltimore, we haven't brought them up as usual, right? I actually looked at knowing I was doing this show and again, analyze the schedules. I kind of just looked at the upper echelon off of last year. I looked at Kansas City, Buffalo, Baltimore, just real quick, like a half hour ago. Just, it seems like

Baltimore's schedule is they play the good teams on the road. The others have more of the good teams at home. Again, that doesn't ensure anything. But they're going to be formidable. At what point is this a year for Lamar? But again, it all depends on the Chiefs.

But somehow the Chiefs and the Bills will miss each other in the playoffs. What does that mean? I like that. I like that as a Bills fan, you're thinking, okay, well, we've tried to take the bad man out. It hasn't worked for us. Maybe somebody else just does it for us. Maybe Lamar gets – maybe Lamar elevates his game, becomes a playoff quarterback, and then we don't have to worry about Patrick Mahomes. That would be a better formula. Could be. Or something else where the Bengals just beat –

The Chiefs, which they have, right? So betting against the Chiefs would be foolish, too. I'm not claiming the Bills will get there because they won't play the Chiefs.

That's why we talk about it in May. Yeah. Even talking about it has me juiced up, just football in May. All right. Schwamm, I got one last question for you. And again, congratulations. We love you and it's awesome. And we're so pumped for you to be able to still get to watch you for a

Another five years here. My last question, rowback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. My last question is this. In the offseason, do you ever catch yourself, maybe it's in the shower, maybe it's in the car,

Just throwing a quick whoop just to make sure you still got it. Because you're like, I don't know. I haven't done it in a few months. Do I still have it? Do you just test to make sure that it's still there?

That's a better question than you think. And I'll tell you why. Because I do go to Hawaii after the Super Bowl. I live there part time. I mean, you know, I get to go get ready, whatever. And I don't do the draft. The first time I even put a tie on after I from the Super Bowl. How do you tie this? So week one, now I do the Hall of Fame at Canton.

So that's a different deal. But other than showing up at the ESPYs, I kind of started Canton the way it is now and the way it's been the last eight, nine years primarily. The ESPN needs me for something. I'm here. Some big football matter. Can you come in in two hours? Yes, I'll be in. You know, but week one is why it's this really intelligent question. Intelligent question. Yeah. I know I'm really stepping out now, right? But week one, that's when

I know how to do it. We know how to drive a car. You know, it's not all of a sudden a stick ship that you rented in Europe and it's like, find them, grind them. Week one, you go in, it's like, do I, did I bring my little earpiece? Did I remember to bring my three or four times? I always am a game time decision, by the way. I always bring three or four and decide about

20 minutes before we go on. Okay, that's the one tonight. You got to have a game time decision. Yeah. I have a little butterflies. Not nervous, but it's not so much texting the whoop. Although I might drink grapefruit juice week one, but better for the throat than orange juice in the morning. Okay. A little better. A little citric acid action.

So I don't practice the whoop in the shower, in the car. I blast music. To quote, I remember Joe Torre telling me this. And it's kind of the answer. And at that point when he was managing, but he told me how many opening days it was. I had that opening day a few times, you know. And I went, Joe, it's opening day. You've been as a player and as a manager, whatever the number was, 35, I mean, whatever it was. It was Boomer. I don't care who you are.

If you don't have a couple of butterflies in your stomach on opening day, there's something wrong with you. And I never forgot that. It's not, can I speak? It's not, can I tie a tie? It's not, he could go all the way. I'll probably come up with it, but it's week one. It ain't as good as you thought you were because you haven't been doing it lately. You got this every day or two. I used to be on the air every day. Didn't make me good.

But it made me... I just did this yesterday. I mean, what's the problem? Right. Well, the problem is you haven't done it for six months. So there are some days that, okay, week one, let's give them everything we got in the garage. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe you haven't checked some of the toys out lately. Right? Yeah. Probably not. We might give you a batia batia. That's all, folks. But we might give you...

12 of them. Right. And you'll see if and when you ever get to the point where you're still a regular, but for whatever reason, I know you can't imagine not doing this every day, and neither can your fans, but

Butterflies. Opening day. Joe Torre. Who would know better than him? It's a privilege. It's a privilege to feel those butterflies. I got one last one for you, Boom, because every year we have, you know, when we do our recaps of the games as a tribute to you, we

We talk about Jameis Winston, and when we bring up Jameis Winston's name, we put him in the Eagles song. We put him in Take It Easy, Standing on the Corner, Jameis Winston, Cuyahoga is what it was last year on the Browns. Now he's on the Giants. So we had a couple ideas. We want to get your feedback, or maybe you've got something else. We're thinking Standing on the Corner, Jameis Winston down in Soho, or Standing on the Corner, Jameis Winston in Hoboken. Hoboken. Well, there's a...

There's a thought. Hoboken. So I go to Warren Zevon, which before your time, really. Oh, yeah. Werewolves of London. So then it's a different solo. It's a London soul. So that put me off the track for a minute. Well, either works because you wanted to represent New York. And it's funny, Jameis. I know you love him on your show. I ran into him in New Orleans in dinner and eating the next table and

We had a couple of chuckles. And I've told you, we love him. And I know you got to know him. He's so enjoyable, but not a but. He's one of the most exciting players in the league. And here's why. I think we've talked about it maybe off the air. Bill Walsh once described Steve DeBerg, not a bad quarterback. And I've taken this to Jameis, giving Bill Walsh credit. He keeps both teams in the game. Yeah.

I mean, that's as a he's must see. I mean, I don't know the Giants. I don't know what they're I mean, the rookie and two vets like who knows how that plays out. Right.

Is that a trade? I don't know. Yeah. Somebody gets hurt August 10th. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think he would probably be one of the first calls if you have a starter that goes down. At least I hope he would. Yeah. I mean, wouldn't you think they got to go Russell? I mean, how do we think the Giants start the year at quarterback? Not the rookie yet. I think he's probably going to go Russell Wilson. I would think so. But if it's a truly open competition, it could be Jameis. Yeah.

Should be Jameis. Well, unless Sierra thinks the national anthem. That's true. That's true. So what I'm hearing from you is, is stay on the corner of Jameis Winston and Hoboken. Such a fine sight to see. I like that. You like that? Yeah. Hoboken, you're going? I think so. Unless you, you know what? If you think of one, you text us. Standing on the corner. Hoboken.

Hoboken making an Eagles song is a pretty good left-hand turn. It is. A flatbed Ford that has a flat. Yeah, yeah. Which reminds me of, again, the poor fumble by Joe Pasarczyk, Herm Edwards, you know, the miracle in the Meadowlands. Not far from Hoboken.

Instead of Broadway Joe, poor Joe Prasarczyk, they called him Patterson Plank Joe. You know, like, yeah. Yeah. But Hoboken has a ring to it. Yeah. It'd be the only one including that.

In a song. Okay. I like it. All right, we'll continue. And that's something to be considered. Yeah. Yeah, we'll continue to consider. Yeah, we'll throw any other ideas we have off you. Trom, you're the best, though. We love you, and thank you for coming on, and congrats again. Very well deserved, and we can't wait for the 50th party. We're going to be there no matter what. Well, and maybe we'll join in the middle of the year or something. We know we got the end of the year. Whatever you want. Yeah, yep.

I can't wait to hear what you come up with in your Monday morning. I tell you, if it's great, it's on TV, and I give full credit. All right. Well, thanks so much, Swam. We'll talk to you later. All right, guys. Have a great spring and summer. Work on the golf when you can sneak it in. Yes. All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Boom.

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Put it in your refrigerator. You got cold brew all week long. So go right now and buy some cold brew. Hank. Dan. What's up? Those shoes look small. Small? Yeah, black shoes always look small. Slimming. Your shoes look small. Ten and a half. Yeah. Not the biggest, not the smallest. Same. When I was younger, my brother was a size 12, and I tried to convince myself for like a couple years. You were a size 12. You White Sox-daved it. Yeah. FAQs.

Hey there, men and loser Henry. Oh no, that's mean. That's mean. Bad start. Hank, how are you doing now that we're a few days removed? I'm fine. You know, it gets easier as time passes, but once the finals, like the conference finals start, it'll probably be sad watching the games. You don't sound fine. No, I'm fine. You're on to golf.

You're on to golf. I've never been off of golf. Right. But you're on to golf. But you're on to golf. Less distractions, sure. Yeah. I will be watching the same amount of ball and playing the same amount of golf. Would you say there's less distractions from your distraction?

So you can focus on your distraction. Well, that's the thing. As I said, I realized it's really not true. Like, I will watch every game and I will play the same amount of golf. So in that sense. But maybe there's a Easter conference final game that starts at 7 p.m. And you're like, man, I'm having the round of my life. Now you don't have to go home and be home at 7 p.m. Yeah. It's watch the first half from the clubhouse. Yeah. Love that for you. Whatever. No, you don't. I do love that you get love to golf.

Thank you. I love you for loving that I love to golf. Wow. Love fest. I love, love. We talked about that. What is your, I've reached a summit moment in your life, something you are hoping to achieve or have already achieved. Love you all. And thank you. Ooh.

I mean, I don't want to say something that I've already done because that implies that it's all downhill from here. But it probably is. Like, I'm 40. I'm a man. Yeah, I mean, I had no right being on the duck boat. I didn't deserve it. It wasn't like an achievement that I worked hard and reached that goal. But it was. That was it. Don't tell yourself so. It will be all downhill from there, and that's all right. I think Barstool getting purchased was definitely there. Buying a house. I was late to buying a house, but bought a house. Getting a house is cool. That was very cool.

Playing Freebird. Playing the Freebird solo. That's very cool. That's going to be it. Something that I've worked for. I mean, on stage with my brother, it was a pretty cool moment. Yeah. Going to the Sphere. Kind of reached that summit. Big time. Stanley Cup winning night in Vegas with the Cup. That's a tough one to beat. Yeah. Yeah. Being anywhere near the Stanley Cup is pretty fucking sweet. Yeah. Do you think anyone's ever fucked the Cup? The Cup has watched someone fuck. I don't know if anyone's fucked the Cup. I'd say like hundreds of people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Max, what's your summit? Max turning 30 this weekend? Yep. So huge. Partying with the Eagles after the Super Bowl. Yeah. The Mount Joy concert was a big, like, what am I doing here? That was pretty fun. Yeah. They have a new album coming out this weekend. Good play out at Mount Joy. No free ads. My summit was John's summit when he was on part of my team. I guess I'm just a bigger John's summit fan than you, Max. Big Catlin Williams fan, PF Caps, Shank. Oh, man.

If we see an AWL in the wild, what's our calling card? What do we say to acknowledge the other AWL? We don't say it anymore. We don't say it anymore. Just a what's up. Also, I want to compliment the AWLs out there because there were a lot of them at the Caps game, all very well behaved. I was around my mom. Not one person said the thing that we don't say anymore. And I appreciate it. Yeah, they've done a really good job of whether it be. It was a long time ago. Yeah, a long time ago. But the Max Homa pervert stuff, we were able to stop that. Good job.

You know what? You could say, do you think memes will ever get it? That's a good one. And then the other guy says, no. No chance. No way will he ever get it. That's a good one. Yeah. That's the inside. You know, baseball. Like, oh, memes won't get it. Or just say, hey, what's up? Pug. A bunch of my friends are starting to listen and to really enjoy PMT. But they can't understand the booth. And we, my AWL friends, try to explain to them that it used to just be Hank. But then they ask what Hank does in golf, which is funny to try and explain.

They get Max and memes, but they don't understand Shane slash pug. They think they are the same person. Very different people. Pug does the YouTube edits. Shane creates incredible A's in the graphics department. No, Shane does our graphics. Pug does our YouTube edits.

Memes and Max obviously are in here while we're recording. Jack Wiper is our new guy. He harasses us for ads. And Hank does a lot. I don't want people to be sullying Hank here. I don't know where they get the idea that all Hank does is golf. I really don't. I know. It's crazy. It's like a narrative that's run away. It's crazy. Yeah. Hank is weird. We're playing Friday, right? Hank's my most trusted guy. He's 10, 10, 11, 10. He's got a Hank's an ideas guy.

He's got the pulse of the nation. Just working behind the scenes. It's one of those things you don't want to have it defined because then... Right, because then someone might be like, hey, you're not doing much. You move in silence. Listen, I take care of business. But yes, there was a long time where Hank was the sole proprietor of the booth.

He was doing it all. I miss it sometimes. No, you don't. So then go. Do it. Do it for Max and Memes one day. I did. I edited the Super Bowl a couple years ago. Our sound guy fucked me. That's true. A couple years ago.

I would. The first time the Eagles were in the Super Bowl. Well, not the first time, but the first Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl. Why don't you do it? Just one random time. Just be like, hey, you know what? I got it tonight, boys. Let's get out of here. I got it. I would actually like to give... Because I don't ask him. I have to ask a million questions. You've learned the ability to do it? Or you've lost the ability to do it? No, but there's just more back end and...

I'd be fine. You can figure it out. Yeah, if I had to, if the booth disappeared, I could make it work. I'd like to give you the keys to the socials for like three days. Hank Weekend. Nice. Hank Early Week. Hank Monday? No, but it is crazy because... And like just the Twitter. At the beginning of the podcast, we didn't have YouTube. We didn't have a video for a lot of our interviews. Now we've gotten...

And the guys are awesome. They're they like keep it right. Like when we leave on a Sunday night after a football Sunday, we leave at like midnight or one o'clock. They're here till five in the morning. So shout out those guys.

Yes. The teammate part I sometimes think about.

Like when we're really, when we're getting deep into it and we're laying into somebody and they're like laughing at it and they have to stop themselves because they're like, oh shit, that's actually my good friend and teammate they're making fun of. Yeah. I just have more of like when someone says they listen, like when we had Pablo Torre on and he's like, yeah, Smiley. Smiley, yeah. I'm just like, why? Yeah.

Like, what? What are you doing? I think with Pablo, it's important to hear how bad podcasts can be so he knows what to avoid. But I still get a little like, it still gets me a little excited. Even retired guys. Even when like our guy Jens will text me being like, oh, that was amazing. I'm like, fuck yes. I made Jens laugh. That's cool. That's fucking awesome. And I definitely think there's a phenomenon, not phenomenon, but just like there's a lot of guys that are now professional athletes that

you know, when they're just high school or college, like grinding, it's not weird for them to listen to podcasts. It's just weird that now they're as famous as they are. But it is awesome. Like I, it never loses. It never loses the awesomeness factor where if someone says they listen, I'm just like, that's fucking awesome. But also why you got to have better things to do. Yeah, no, I mean, I, I,

I've always been in. I think it works. But denial about the listeners. Yeah, you can't think about it. You can't think about the amount of people listen because it will fuck you up bad. Yeah. As far as I'm concerned, it's just us. Yeah. And then somehow everybody else finds out. Yeah, it definitely will mess with your head because it's like, I don't think it would mess with my head if we were if I were smarter. But it messes my head because like, oh, this many people heard me say something really stupid. Ah, that sucks.

That's the part. I think it would always mess with your head, though. If you're smart. I get worried with sarcastic. The amount of sarcasm and just laying it on thick. And I know a lot of fans, they'll get seriously upset about it. Is there an athlete that's like, what a fucking idiot? No, I mean, everyone thinks we're idiots. But that's the beauty of it. Because we are. We don't run from it. No.

We run into it. We run into the Marines of idiots. We're the first responders of idiots. If there's a problem, we'll be there saying dumb shit.

Do you guys ever get FOMO when you don't immediately record? Max talked about it a little bit with Hanky, Celtics losing, Bang Bang, and not recording after any games. But other stuff like LeBron, Stephen A., or big trade news, is there anything you really wish you recorded right after? Yes. Yeah, I mean, we changed up how we do Fourth of July week because of the NBA trade deadline. Yeah. But there's definitely... Or free agency, not trade deadline. Yeah, free agency. When there's...

When something big happens on like a Monday afternoon, I'm like, shit, we got to wait, you know, or something happens on like a Friday night. That does always give me a little FOMO that we're not recording right then. Well, it's also because stuff is going to happen over the weekend. So by the time Monday morning comes around, we can't react to the same news on Friday like we would if it had just broken. Yeah. Big time. That's it. Oh, great job, Hank. Thanks. We love love. We love each other.

Yeah. Well, being around each other so much. Who would be your plus one to Belichick's wedding? If you can only choose one. I don't know. I have to go back. Tiff. Oh, Tiff. What a power couple. Show the tootsies. Show the tootsies, Tiff. Should we? Jerry's here. Jerry bing bonging Hank randomly. Just the bing bong button.

Okay, good show, boys. Great show. Big guests on Friday. Get excited before the long weekend. Let's do number three. That was like a three-way tie. Oh, man. I think you guys have to do odds or evens for this.

No, no, no. Memes, Max, and Hank. All you guys, one, two, three, shoot. Throw out a one or a two. I'll take odds. Three. No, no. What? No. Throw out a one or a two over your head. Max, pick one or two. No, shut up, memes. Hank, you know what to do. I'll pick three. No, you throw out a one or a two. Yeah, so one of them is going to pick one and one of them is going to pick two. I'll pick three. Three, two, one, shoot.

3-3-1. All right, so Max gets three. Ah, memes got you. Oh, memes. You got got by Hank. He's getting it back. Okay, I'll take... What was your second number you would pick? I don't know. I'm going to punch his computer if it's three. Okay. Dude, things are good right now. I'm going to go 95. 57. Six. 99. 44. 55. 21. I'll fucking chop up. Come on, three. Come on. Oop.

53. Oh, damn. What was yours, Wiper? 55? 55. Damn. He's the next person that needs to get it. Yeah. He's going to get it before memes. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Memes is just sad. It's just sad at this point. I guessed it for you. Then I got it again. Oh, my God. It's true. Right in your face. I'm fixing things. Love you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye.