The Big Suey: Huh vs. Hmmm
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Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

Let's move on, Stugatz, to Jonathan Taylor and his Guardian cap. Actually, before we do that, forgive me, video, go back to Jameis Winston because Jameis Winston over the weekend made a pregame speech that I just wanted to play for the audience because every word that falls out of the mouth of Jameis Winston, I'd forgotten that he was with the Browns. I shouldn't have, but he made me do a huh. That's why that's,

That's who I was thinking of first with the hop. Then he recalled, like, how did in their offseason did they add allegations? That's right. And the way they did it is by bringing this man into their pregame huddle where he did this. Go!

The message is simple. Be obsessed with your opportunity. All of us that came from wherever we're from. We got right now. So be obsessed with your opportunity. I got one thing for y'all, man. Help me out because I know we're a team, all right? I have this in my dream, all right? All right? When I say where my dogs at, y'all say we ready, all right? Where my dogs at? We ready.

I know we want to.

They're all bought into it. I got goosebumps. I'm going through a brick wall for that guy right now. Do you guys think that the team asked Jameis to do that or he just does it on his own? It's from the heart. That's a heart thing. That's a guy who's a dog who walks in and is like, nobody's giving a speech better than I'm giving a speech right now. Let's go. That is also Noah Lyles in terms of he gets out on the field and has no wind left as soon as he starts the game because of everything he expended in the original huddle.

The old Ravens will tell you that about seven years in, they got tired of that with Ray Lewis.

It stopped being the goosebump thing. And it's like, yeah, we've heard all of this. We've heard the dogs are the same place we put them the last seven years. Was that after the winning? Yeah, it was after the winning and still. It was like, okay, enough. I know where the dogs are at. We've discussed this every game for seven seasons. Tyler Huntley, also a Brown quarterback. A Browns quarterback. Yeah.

This is what happens with age. I'm happy to welcome you over to my side, putting S's in the wrong place and taking them out in the wrong place. Mike, you're in no position to laugh after making us afraid of shark people last week. Yes, he's a Browns quarterback. Yes, I was surprised. I mean, I just figured he'd always be the Ravens backup. I mean...

You do understand why people would get tired of that, but I was sucked right in to everything Jameis Winston was selling because energy and happiness and enthusiasm is contagious.

You can't borrow it from people when they're that kind of positive or we're always asking athletes to love what they do, right? That's a preseason game. That's a preseason game. I think when it's the preseason or your team is winning, you can digest that. Jameis is always like that, even when the team is 1-10. That's true. And you're like, hey, enough, dude.

It's kind of like Ray Lewis. I really can't get up for preseason games. I like to watch the rookie quarterbacks perform and see if I can be an expert in the five plays I watch them in. But this preseason, for me, is just about one thing, and it's the Guardian caps. Because the NFL over the offseason, those weird Guardian caps that we see in practices and scrimmages that go over the helmet, they decided that, hey, we're going to have those

available for game action. Now this looks strange. How is this going to work? Is it going to look like the helmet? Well, they decided we're going to put a little skull cap over the Guardian cap and make it look like the logo. So it looks a little bit more like the helmet. But as you can see here, Jonathan Taylor was the first star player to wear the Guardian cap. And he's been noncommittal about wearing this during the regular season. He said that he just wanted to try it out

I can understand why he's not committed to this because here's the thing about the Guardian caps. While it may make your brain safer and ultimately that's what everybody wants, people also want to look cool. And you don't look cool wearing this thing. And that's what is standing in the way for a lot of people. It just...

There are times where he's receiving a handoff in particular and you see a quarterback that's not wearing the Guardian cap and you see it like this is this is really strange looking. It'll take guys. I'm happy that he did it because it'll take stars like Jonathan Taylor to normalize this. And maybe it'll become more par for the course across certain positions like running back. You can certainly understand why they would have. I don't know why any offensive lineman doesn't just do what that Pittsburgh Sealer did. Just put that on my head.

I'm constantly getting collided in. I'm not a wide receiver. I don't have to look good, play good. But for one weekend, it's still kind of odd to me, dude. For those of you who have not seen it, without the draping, it looks like a Lego helmet. And I miss Andrew Luck because he would lead the way here. He would not be interested in looking cool. He would be smart enough to say, I'm going to protect my head. But Mike is not. That's right. In fact, yes, he left. Yeah.

Saying I'm going to go protect my head. But to describe it to the audio audience, what I would say to you is it looks like if you put the Colts logo over a Lego helmet and it were to look like the first and only time I ever tried to wallpaper something.

which is that there are a lot of places that are not smoothed out, and then I couldn't get it right, and then I quit carpentry and all construction work. I lasted one week doing it, and then I promptly quit, just enough time to pay for my Dickies work boots.

I have three words that will make this very cool, this helmet, the Lego helmet. O-B-J. Put my boy O-B-J in the orange one for the Dolphins this year, and I bet you everybody start wearing them with the moonwalk. But Mike is right about players wanting to look cool. They want to be safe, but they want to look cool when they're playing their sport. And so it's going to take superstars, megastars, to wear this helmet for it to become common in the NFL. Stigatz, we had this conversation with Shaquille O'Neal. We're like Shaq.

You're shooting 50% from the line. Rick Barry says you can do 70% to 80% underhanded. Nope. I don't blame him. Nope. Never going to do it. Not shooting underhanded? No. The answer is no. I'll lose a championship? Okay. That's fine. I ain't winning it that way. No, I prefer to lose a championship than win one shooting free throws granny style.

But the wallpapered helmets that Mike is talking about, it looks wrong. If you see helmets out there, and I know Chris Cody is worried in general about the Red Zone experience, but if I tune in for my first Red Zone experience and those helmets are all over my screen, I'm going to start fiddling with my settings, trying to figure out why it is that some of these guys are blurry. Were you about to say mess with the bunny ears? Come on, come over here.

The bunny ears. Come on, man. The bunny ears was like, I love Lucy. How does he know about bunny ears? Ah, guys. Back in my day, I had one TV set with a little bunny ear. I was like six years old and I remember having to move it around. And then it had like a...

I lied. Yeah, she had bunny ears and aluminum foil on top of the bunny ears to make it stronger. Put it on the poll, please. Did your grandmother's television have bunny ears on it? Your objections or your fear about the red zone is what, Chris? My fear is not about once the games get going. It's at 1 o'clock. It's one of my favorite parts of the entire week. It's Scott Hansen. We are ready for seven straight hours, and we see the Octobox of commercial-free football, and you see the Octobox –

and it just I'm so used to how cool the kickoffs looked and now I saw this preseason I'm okay with it in terms of safety and all that but it doesn't look as cool when I'm looking at a field before the kickoff and the players are 10 yards from each other I'm gonna it's just gonna take getting used to and right now I was looking at it I'm just imagining seeing eight of those at once and I'm just like oh this is not as aesthetically pleasing as it used to be so I'm worried it

about just the start, my energy level at the start of my seven straight hours. What you guys are saying is so funny from a couple of perspectives. Okay. First of all, the true absurdity in Mike Ryan arguing correctly that football players, even at the risk of brain health, would want to look sleek.

These kickoff rules are because the kickoffs are stupid and dangerous. Like all of the new kickoff rules are, is just because can't have guys, guys trying to stay on the fringes of the league, torpedoing,

down the field at 800 miles an hour. A gutter. Because their paychecks count on it and they're going to be in the league for four years as the 49th guy because they're good at just going down the field as fast as they can and colliding into another human being instead of just eradicating it because that's too much for us. Let's keep slowly changing the rules. Slowly changing the rules until a confused Chris Cody gets used to them on Sunday. Yeah.

This also brings the position more attention. There's more receivers, more opportunities now in the league for your Devin Hesters and whatnots. So I think that this is great for the NFL in my opinion. Well, it's great because it keeps everyone safer. And anything that keeps everyone safer is a good thing. I'm just saying the optics of it. I was okay with touchbacks. Give it

to me the way it used to look, I'm okay with 50 touchbacks. I didn't miss the returns that much. I was fine with it. But what if someone breaks one off for a touchdown? But the optics, though, are these guys six yards away from each other. If they're going to be six yards away from each other, onside kick it and don't announce that you're doing it either. It's a gack.

Stu Gatz here from my friends over at SimpliSafe. If you're like me, you're constantly thinking about the safety of the people and things you value most. After a friend told me about a break-in in his home in which many of his most valuable possessions were stolen, I knew I needed to secure my home with the best. I've trusted SimpliSafe to protect my home for six years now, and the level of security and customer care has been incredible. I sleep better every night knowing SimpliSafe's 24-7 monitoring agents are standing by to protect me

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Protect your home this summer with 20% off any new SimpliSafe system. When you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring, just visit simplisafe.com slash DLB. That's simplisafe.com slash DLB. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Don Levitard. I went in the margins. I'm like, I'm like your money ball of sex. I'm basically Scott Hatterberg. A lot of walks. Stugatz. A lot of walks, but I'm on base. When it comes to sex, I'm Scott Hatterberg. Other dudes, they can be Giambi.

You know your role, you play well. I know my role. This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugats. Stugats, I have found myself like super profoundly grateful as we head into our 20 year anniversary. Just...

Thinking about how absurd it is that all of this that we do is allowed to exist, never more so in terms of gratitude than during a time when like the media is shaking and there aren't many jobs available. And one of the things that I'm proudest of is.

that we have here is that a not very many people leave when they get here, but also that the people who do the Pablos, the Minas, the Beaumont, the Dominique's, you see how and where they go, where the Whittingham's when they, when they leave, they're leaving for these things that no one even thinks they're leaving. And I rarely feel that kind of pride and,

in general, in my life about things we've done. But another place that I felt it recently is when I saw that from within the inside of what it is that we're doing, Mike Ryan joined Cain's Insight as not just a correspondent, but as an owner and watching the last couple of years of him

sort of navigating the new college football space as booster and executive and businessman and also journalist, but not having to identify as journalist, but having his information be better than most. We've had a tricky time around here. We're often talking too much U.M. football and he wanted a space where

where he can talk about it more. And that place isn't here because people get so annoyed about how much we're talking about UM football around here, but they're headed toward what Mike is calling. And he cares about this program Stugatz in a way that,

I used to see when I was on campus and I'd see people gathered on the corner of Ponce de Leon at what was then Mark Light Stadium. And I was like, man, this is out of the 1950s, this sense of community they have here where people gather for a milkshake. There's nothing in Miami quite like this. And he's decided to raise his daughter inside of

and really be a part of what UM is doing. That stuff was happening as you were growing up when the Canes were dominant, when they were winning. They haven't been that in a long time, and Mike is still entrenched trying to make it happen. It was before UM was winning. It's when UM baseball was winning and signaling on the big

Mike, you're a big fan of the Ponce de Leon.

you're maintaining, as someone who not just cares about this program but knows its history, you're maintaining from a business perspective that Miami is headed into the biggest game it has played since when, with the first game against Florida. I think, and I've spoken to people, administrators around the program, people that have known this program for a long time, I think if you apply the appropriate context, the investment that the school has made

in athletics is something that fans and alumni were complaining about for decades on end. When you consider that, when you consider the individual and collective investments from the collective,

I think that you can make a solid argument. I'm not here to tell you what's most important, but I think you can make a solid argument when you consider the inflection point of college athletics and all those other things that I detailed, including national title games. I think you can make the argument that the game against Florida is the most important game in program history.

From an investment standpoint, that's really what you're doing here. Yeah, you're entering year three of Mario Crisobal from an evaluation, from an investment standpoint, from where college athletics is going, from on the horizon, who knows if collectives are going to go away or not, depending on what Congress decides to do. This is Miami's opportunity to get back to where they once were, and I think you can make a really sound argument that this is the most important game for them ever when it comes to football. No pressure, Cam Ward.

Welcome to Miami. Well, but he looks good, Stu Gatz. I know he looks good. Hopefully he's not listening right now. No, he needs to be good. I don't think Cam Ward will shy away from that stuff. If you've listened to Cam Ward speak at ACC Media Day, Cam Ward has a ton of confidence. You're getting a much different personality type there and a much different talent level than you've had at that position before. But they scrimmaged well.

over the weekend, and as any fall camp opens up, the defense is going to be well ahead of the offense. That doesn't matter. That's not a shot on the offense. If they're close, there's an issue. This defense, that defensive line, I will say, this is the most talented defensive line in my career

adult life around the University of Miami. Since I was of legal drinking age. Mike, hold on. I'm 38 years old, so let's date this back to when I was 21. In that time, I think Calais Campbell was part of one of these D-lines. I think this is the deepest...

Most talented defensive line of my adult life at the University of Miami. I'm not going back to before my adult life. All right? So it might be a little rhetorical trick. Maybe you think I'm older than I am. No, it's not a rhetorical trick. Or we're getting older. No, I remember Mike coming on here and telling me that at the beginning of one of these seasons that they had a ton of first-round picks.

along a ton of pros along their defensive line. Yeah, last year I said that there were scouts that were talking to me. It doesn't just go – network goes a little bit beyond UM homerism, though you can apply that context here. And maybe a lot of people listening right now are grateful that I have an outlet to just add my UM takes there. But I think that Miami's – when you talk about the talent that they have, the body types that they have –

It is different. And I'm not going to gas you up and get your expectations to a point. My expectations privately are they need to be in the college football playoff. And I think that it's all there for them this season. It really is. And they have the talent to do it.

Stugatz, I told you, okay, this is my introduction to big-time college football, okay, is I am beginning school at the University of Miami in 1986. I'm coming from Chaminade High School, which at that point wasn't any good at football. I have no access to what big-time football looks like. I'm a freshman at the University of Miami.

and I walk into the locker room and I'm standing in front of Jerome Brown. I look like a freshman. He does not look like any human being I've ever seen because he's physically bigger. And what I noticed when the University of Miami went from that to probation to the Ryan Clement years is I'd walk into the locker room and the kids got pimples on their face. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I was introduced to something that I thought was, this is all of college football. It is not.

It is Jerome Brown at the top of college football. Then I see what mediocre college football looks like.

Then I watch here over the last few years of what's been built. Oh, Derek King can play for most teams, but the people around him aren't good enough and aren't big enough and aren't fast enough. Derek King is someone who excites me at quarterback, but the rest of what's around him is not. The University of Miami is a top 20 team because they gave Mario Cristobal that money to be the guy who gets that.

those guys. Don't know if he can coach them well. Don't know if he's going to screw up games in the fourth quarter. That's an important part of it, though. Actually do know he's going to screw up games in the fourth quarter. Do know that. But he might have so much talent that they can overcome it. But you might see a University of Miami football team that looks a little more to you like the Michigan team looked last year. Yeah, there was a

There was a lot of excitement, and I've been excited about previous teams before, and I've gone to practices before, and I've talked myself into things. Juju, you remember that Alabama football game that we went to in Atlanta? We were all super excited. We get to the stadium grounds. We have field-level access. We see our canes come out. All right, cool. All right, let's do this. Let's hang tight. And then Alabama comes out, and they line up across the field from our guys, and you realize...

damn, we don't look like we have a shot. I'll give you a case example of what it is. I've been to practices going several years there, and one of the body types that I would say, like, who is that? Is this guy Chase Smith? Who's still around the program? Chase Smith would walk around, and I'd wonder aloud, this guy's the biggest guy on the team. Why is this guy not first guy off the bus? This guy looks incredible. Why isn't he playing? Second biggest guy was Lou Headley, the punter.

Now, Chase Smith is still around at practice, fighting for playing time. His body does not stick out at all. At all. The body types have totally changed. Yeah, Mario Cristobal is exactly who he was reputed to be from a talent acquisition standpoint, from a body type standpoint, from the type of football he wants to play. I think that they are ranked 19 because everybody has a healthy respect for the talents.

These aren't talents that you have question marks about. We've seen Cam Ward do what he did in Washington State. We've seen these D-linemen, both here and in their other programs, deliver. I think they're 19 because people have their reservations about Mario Crispo, which I think last year proved to be fair. So he's got to do the damn thing.

You can make the argument. I love Derek King as a quarterback, but you can make the argument given that Ken Dorsey wasn't a professional talent. He was a low round pick who was Heisman worthy because everything in their huddle was so overwhelming that Cam Ward is the most special talent they've had at the position this century.

this in the 2000s because again, Ken Dorsey if you go back and look at old film of Ken Dorsey and you will see Andre Johnson running wide open and be like, that's not a great throw. Dude, but those Canes teams would do that with Craig Erickson, with Walsh That's even older, you're going back even further. But occasionally I'll walk into Sandbar and they'll have like old Canes games on the TV and I'm super excited to watch Ken Dorsey, I'm like, wow!

That did not feel like this. A lot of gloritos being thrown. Yes, and poorly. And he missed a lot of people. Yes. But Mike, you wouldn't dispute that, right? As the new co-owner of Canes Insight and a correspondent for Canes Insight and now more and more of a University of Miami voice, you wouldn't dispute what I'm saying as a physical talent. As physical talents. Tyler Van Dyke looked the part and he had a big arm. The problem is he couldn't read his own.

And if you talk to Cam Ward privately, he's like, zone's easy. I just find the pockets. What's a big deal about zone? Like, they took the NCAA, like,

a minute to figure out, oh, Tyler Van Dyke doesn't know how to play against his own. But I'm not going to... I said a lot of flattering things of Tyler Van Dyke entering seasons, and I'm not going to take that away. He looked the part. He had a big arm, but there were just certain aspects of the game he didn't get. This dude, Kim Ward, has the confidence, certainly has the arm talent to do it. Brings some mobility to the position that we haven't seen since D'Erik King. D'Erik King probably would like a word in terms of like...

biggest talent even though he was very very small. Cam Ward can take a hit hopefully we don't see him take a hit he's got a good body type. Cam Ward appreciates a challenge to watch him at some of these practices he's a really competitive dude. He's got enough talent on the outside. I think if you can have any question marks

even though they're bringing back practically 2,000 yard receivers and brought Sam Brown in who's got NFL prospects very exciting and we'll see if Arroyo at tight end can actually give you something out of that position I think the question marks that you have as you enter year three of Mario Cristobal is we've got to get a little bit more on the outside and I think that secondary is a real question mark but the front seven should alleviate a lot of those concerns but O-line

D-line, running back room for certain. And quarterback, most talented team entering a season in quite some time. I'd say 2016 had a lot of sneaky NFL talent. In your adult life? 2016, yeah. Well, in terms of D-line, best. Right. In my adult life. But in terms of NFL talent?

2016, the year before they were good, before 17, if you remember in 16, they lost a lot of one-score games. Same thing happened last year. Miami lost a lot of one-score games, and that's historically a pretty good indicator year over year, especially if you add talent the way that Miami has. Year over year, if a team lost a lot of one-score heartbreakers, you can count on the math working out the following year, and that's what I hope happens with Miami. The answer might be different for everyone, but when does adult life start? Huh?

About 18. 18? Some people say 21. Some people say after your bar mitzvah. Some people say after the first time you had sex. When I saw the movie Showgirls. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. When does adult life begin? 21, 18, your bar mitzvah, or after the movie Showgirls? Or the first time you have sex.

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888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over plus age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash ftball. Don Libertard. Billy, somebody has written in here, I need way more

I'm sorry. I just said in his headset, haven't you been to all of them too? It sounded like you were speaking aloud. My bad. Totally on me.

100% on me. Stugatz. But that goes without saying. Right. That it couldn't have happened. Well, now he said it. He didn't say it. He said it. Greg, why? Greg, Greg. My apologies. Greg, why? Greg. Yeah. Greg. He apologized. Greg. Sincerely. This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugatz. Stugatz.

A person on Twitter has whispered to us, what does OLI stand for? Whispered. It's a whisper. He's ashamed to ask. It's outside looking in. Don't make, we're inclusive here, Tony. Don't make that person feel bad. I was going to say you need to whisper back. Outside looking in. Outside looking in. Thank you, Tony. Also, on ESPN, barely, barely, your voice is shut. Outside looking in. You've never totally been able to whisper. Listen up.

You would have a hard time doing 90 seconds in that voice. We're going to bring in E.O. O'Connor in a second. Not surprisingly, if you're tuned into ESPN this morning, Kendrick Perkins says that LeBron has now passed MJ because of that shot, and Mike Greenberg is saying Steph Curry's shot is the greatest in the history of basketball.

So we've got to, this is how we celebrate excellence. It's not even the greatest Steph Curry show. If we can't criticize you, we have to go the other way. And this is why it is. It's so hard for entities to just celebrate greatness. Also in the previous segment, I think you had Mina and Dominique and Pablo leaving us. And I don't think that's exactly how that one went.

Thank you for the correction. I can be prideful of it nonetheless. It's my pride list. You were thinking that too, huh? It is what I'm proud of. I snuck Whittingham in there to make it more... I was like, Pablo's with us. I think you heard what you were saying and then you're like, oh, Whitty. No, that one actually works.

Ian, thank you for joining us. I was telling the folks that Ian O'Connor and Stu Gatz was telling the folks that it's good to see that there's still a journalist out there wandering the earth in interest of finding the truth, of getting to the bottom of the truth. A fact-finding mission. That's right. So I've known this person for a very long time. He's a four-time New York Times bestselling author. His books are exhaustively reported. He's an exceptional writer as well. His latest book is out on Tuesday the 20th, and it's called Out of the Darkness.

The mystery of Aaron Rodgers. It's 250 interviews, including Rodgers himself. It's already making headlines. It's going to make more headlines. And I'm genuinely puzzled, Ian, and I'm happy to talk to you because I don't know what happened to Aaron Rodgers. So can you tell me what happened to Aaron Rodgers? What happened was COVID.

I think that those four words, yeah, I've been immunized in August of 21, changed his entire life. Because before that, he was actually considered one of the good guys and one of the more socially aware athletes in the NFL and beyond. And obviously, after misleading the public, effectively lying about his status, and we saw in November he test positive for COVID as an unvaccinated player.

he's never recovered from that in a public image context. And so he became a villain that day, and that's what happened to him. Because before that point, he supported Colin Kaepernick's stance. He supported the athletes who were kneeling during the anthem. He was involved in charitable causes for victims of the war in the Congo. What else did he do? He had a thoughtful response to Drew Brees' stance on the anthem.

He was considered one of the good guys in the NFL and in American sports. And that all changed with those four words. Yeah, I've been immunized. Is Aaron aware of that, that he's turned into a villain? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's aware of it. He's spoken in the past about that day, really, in August of 21. And there's a story now up on ESPN.com out of my book called

where he now says that if he had to do that all over again, he would not have said that. He would have told his truth. And his truth was that he was allergic to an ingredient in Moderna and Pfizer, those vaccines. He was concerned about side effects, possible side effects with Johnson & Johnson, and that the reason he didn't tell the truth that day is because he was concerned it was going to impact his appeal with the league. And in retrospect, he should have just said,

I'm concerned about these vaccines. I'm not getting vaxxed and told the truth. And I told him in sitting in his backyard in Malibu, basically, that if I were a columnist in Green Bay or Milwaukee, and I can't guarantee this because I wasn't sitting in the room and you told the truth and I was vaccinated at the time, I would have found that to be a somewhat reasonable position. I don't think I would have ripped you in a column that day. And I think you would have gotten a fraction of the criticism you ultimately got in November when the truth came out.

Again, the name of the book is Out of the Darkness, the Mystery of Aaron Rodgers, and he's talked to 250 people. I read something that was aggregated the other day. I don't know if it's from your book or not about the breaking up of his family over the fact that he was having premarital sex with Olivia Munn on game day. Is that from your book or is that from elsewhere? Is that is that what are the interesting things around his family stuff that you discovered? It was interesting.

part of it was obviously his family was devoutly religious and he was raised in that environment and i think he ultimately rebelled against that and that rebellion planted a seed for other rebellions and certainly that wasn't the factor or the primary factor in his estrangement but

the fact of the matter is that his mother particularly very devoutly religious and she was morally opposed to premarital sex and that applied to him in her mind even when after he had won the super bowl and he was asked by her when you travel with your girlfriend are you staying in in separate rooms and so listen my mother taught me premarital sex was a bad thing too so i'm not saying it's wrong i'm just saying that that's an example of something that uh did did bother him and but

But this was this estrangement. There's not everybody's looking for one singular reason why. And it's gone on for nearly 10 years. It's death by a thousand cuts. There's not one reason why. And certainly he could not illustrate that to me. And his parents still say they don't know why he doesn't talk to them anymore and hasn't for nearly 10 years.

So it's a lot of he said, he said, he said, she said. I think religion was a bigger part of it early. Now, not so much a big part of it. His best friend, Jordan Russell, I think has a key quote in the book where he says that

When Aaron believes that a family member or a friend is laying claim to something based on his accomplishments and success, he will go out of his way to make sure that person earns his or her own way. And I actually think that's a big part of it now is that he feels like the family unit revolved too much around his success and it was something that he rebelled against. Is his brain internet fried?

I think that's part of it, too. Yeah. I think he is on the Internet all the time. I don't think he would admit that for public consumption. But I think he's a very, very well-read guy. I think he actually reads too much or too much of the wrong material out there on the Web and in other forums. But yeah.

I think that's a fair way of putting it. What do you think was interesting when you report these things? For people who don't understand the amount of time, effort, and work that it goes into crafting something, the way Ian O'Connor would insist on it being crafted if it has his name on it, when you're reporting this, what are the items that jumped out to you again and again as like, whoa, that's surprising, didn't know that?

I think the way he's covered in the media, I think most fans would believe that his teammates don't like him. And the opposite is true. I mean, he's universally loved and admired around the NFL by the players. And I think that has to count for something. He's spending the most amount of time with them. And outside of a couple of guys who've ripped him at times over the years, Greg Jennings and Jermichael Finley,

Man, it's pretty impressive. I talked to one prominent NFL figure who knows hundreds upon hundreds of NFL players. And this figure told me he hated Aaron Rodgers. Basically, he couldn't stand him in anything or anything that he he stood for. But he said, I have to admit, I've

I've never met an NFL player who doesn't like him. And so that was surprising. And I think that would be surprising to a lot of fans who, reading the way he's covered, and we all know a lot of his wounds are self-inflicted, but I think fans would be almost shocked by that, that his teammates see him as a great teammate and leader. And just being around the Jets the last year and a half,

It's amazing to a man that they really have a tremendous amount of admiration for Aaron Rodgers. Just pre-ordered the book on Audible. It drops next week. Got to read the shit out of this with my ears. Nice.

Well, I'm telling the audience here that this person, Ian O'Connor, when he tackles something, it's not just 250 interviews. This has been an obsession for you for how many years now? How long have you been working on this? How many months have you been working on this straight? This one was shorter than my average book in terms of time. I left my job

and a fair amount of money to do this. I had never written a book or reported or researched a book without a full-time job on the side, so to speak. I left my columnist job at the New York Post to focus on this because I felt it needed to come out while he was still active and still playing. And actually, Dan, I was going to do a book on your guy, LeBron. I was under contract to do that biography.

But what happened was Jeff Benedict came out with a book I didn't realize was in the works. And I thought there might be a little LeBron fatigue. And then Aaron Rodgers gets traded into my backyard in New York and figured he's probably the most prominent American male athlete ever.

who hasn't had a defining book written about him. So I made the trade, LeBron, for Aaron Rodgers, and hopefully it was a good one. LeBron, another one of those who came through here and then went on to better things. I'm very proud of him. He left us. He did. Very proud of him as well.

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