NFL Draft With Todd McShay, Packers HC Matt LaFleur, Playoff Recaps In NHL/NBA + Listener Submitted FAQ's
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On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have our good friend Todd McShay on the show to break down the NFL draft. He's given us a little something different than Daniel Jeremiah, telling us what teams are thinking, how he thinks the draft may fall, what are the Giants thinking, who's going to trade up.

So great interview with him. And then we also have Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. We talked to him about draft strategy, draft war room, and maybe 10 straight minutes of us trying to explain the Rizzler to him, which there's no other podcast that's going to do that with one of the 32 head coaches in the NFL. We're going to talk NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, and then we're going to talk about the

We are starting on Zoom, going to talk to Tuesday night games. Then we're going to talk to Monday night games back in studio together. We have Hot Seat Cool Throne. We have listener submitted FAQs and it's all brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. It's the best time to be a basketball fan. All the thrills and playoff drama done sitting on the sideline and ready to win some real cash.

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pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. Okay, let's go. I love guys who like football. And guys who like football, they like me back. And I like them back. Even guys that don't like football, they try to avoid me because I'm always trying to get them to like football. Football. Football.

Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings. Basketball playoffs are here. Cash in with Pick 6 from DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app. Now use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to play $5, get 50 in Pick 6 credits. Better payouts, bigger wins, only with Pick 6 from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, April 23rd. And PFT, we had a not-so-great night of playoff.

hoops and hockey. Well, we had an overtime game in hockey. We did have a great Monday night, which we'll get to back in studio. But we also have a sick boy in the corner. Max is sick. If you're watching on YouTube, this is the coziest part of my take ever. If you're just looking at Max, you do look like you're snuggled up, which is adorable. I have an immediate take about the NBA, and I think Hank might actually agree with me on this one. I like this.

Can we just stop with the Eastern Conference playoffs? Can we just not do them? Because what's happening is every team is just kind of getting fattened up to get eaten by the Celtics and a delicious snack. Like that's what's going to happen.

I'm actually being serious. Oh, this is a reversal? No, no. Listen, I say that we should respect the Thunder, and I would like for Hank to show a little humility, but that's just because I can't stand when he's cocky and right about something at the same time. And he should respect the Cavs, or at least pretend to respect them. But the East is just – get it out of my face. The East, there's no point in watching these games in the East because all these teams are going to – What about the Cavs, dude? The Cavs have a solid team.

The Magic could be good one day. The Cavs could be a contender, but I don't think that they're a contender right now. I think that they're a very good team that is going to struggle against superior talent and coaching on the Celtics. But the East in general, I'm just, I don't want to watch any more Eastern Conference playoff games. I don't.

Okay, so, well, I mean, the Pistons- What about the Knicks, dude? Yeah, the Pistons-Knicks was a great game on Monday night, which again, so the schedule here is, because we're taping a little out of order, we're going to get to the Pistons-Knicks, we're going to get to the Clippers-Nuggets, OV, all that stuff back in studio after we finish the Zoom portion. I think the Pacers are good.

I do. I like, I know I like, obviously I don't know. They're probably not gonna beat the Celtics. They probably won't beat the Cavs. Um,

I think the Pacers are good. Like, I think they have a ton of shooting. They play a fast pace. Like, Nembhardt tonight was not only that big three, which was so sick when he just – he basically put – he was basically a snake charmer. He put Giannis into a trance and then slowly backed up and hit that three in his face. But he also put Dame in hell. And I know Dame was coming back from being off for a long time. Shout out Doc Rivers for playing him 37 minutes. It's –

So funny. But I like – the Pacers are fun. You make a good point about what Doc Rivers did tonight. It's ironic for his name to be Doc and for him to be like, hey, this guy has blood clots.

He hasn't been allowed to exercise, not just play basketball. He has not been allowed to exercise. And you know what? He's back for the first night. Yeah, we'll give him a full run. We'll play his way back into shape. Well, so the good news for Doc Rivers is he can't blow a 3-1 lead.

So that's off the table now. No, but Big Cat, you're being the fake news media right now. We should be talking about how good of a job he did building those 3-1 leads. That's true. This is a major, major fail on his part to not even get there.

I also am wondering when the Bucs are going to get some help for Bobby Portis because he was awesome tonight. But yeah, this was – all right, so I do want to talk about the Pacers, but this was about the worst day you could have as a Bucs fan because Dame comes back. You're like, all right, maybe this will be different. You don't win. You cut it close because the Pacers kind of played with their food, but it didn't – I mean the Pacers –

We're winning the entire game. And then you also get the report from Chris Haynes on Dan Patrick's show, who is a Dame insider. So I think he's like the preeminent Dame insider. He said that he would not be shocked if,

if Giannis doesn't finish his career in Milwaukee and that this is a very pivotal playoff for them. And if they don't make a finals run or win the finals, there could be a big wholesale change in Milwaukee, which is, I know that...

There's been a lot of speculation about Giannis. It's more like other teams being like, can't wait for Giannis to leave, can't wait for Giannis to leave. This feels like one of the first times that an insider is like, hey, I'm hearing that maybe Giannis is going to leave. So it's a bad scene for the Bucs today.

Yeah, it is. And it's funny that there is a Dame insider because that sounds like a job title. Nicky Smokes would give himself in the 1920s. But I would also agree that it doesn't feel like it's been working, even when Dame has been out there. It's kind of a bummer because I don't think this might be one of those things where we never really get to see this version of this team play to their true like potential.

Top level that they can get to because of all the injuries and bad luck. And when Dame got there, they didn't really gel so much right off the bat. So we might not ever know if it was destined to succeed or not because shit happened.

Yeah, I mean, I think last year's team, you could be like the what if with Giannis getting injured. I think this year's team is just not that good. And they have flaws. And I mean, like even the announcer being like so pumped for Kyle Kuzma to score, which he did. He scored 12 points tonight, which was more than the zero he scored on Sunday. I just think on the other side of it, like I think the Pacers are fun. I don't I get where your point is. Like it does feel like it's going to be Celtics, Cavs and most likely Celtics.

The Pacers are very, very fun, though. They push the pace. They got three-point shooters everywhere. Like, I don't know what the Bucs are doing defensively, just keeping Naismith open, who I think he was... I don't know if he missed a three. He might have missed one three. But yeah, I like watching the Pacers play basketball. So I don't want to fast-forward that portion, but...

But yeah, I could be down with some of the Eastern Conference just not being – like the Cavs are going to sweep. The Celtics are going to sweep. I think the Pacers could even probably win in five. But yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah, my point isn't that the Pacers are a shitty team. I just think that they're nowhere near ready to beat the Celtics on that level.

They are fun, and if you're a Pacers fan, you should enjoy the hell out of it. Like, this is why you watch sports, is to watch a team that's young, that's putting it together, that you're getting excited about, that's fun. So, yeah, enjoy it. I'm just...

I'm just kind of sick of the East, man. I am. The other thing, though, the other one I'd push back on is I do like watching this series just because these teams actually hate each other. They actually have beef. They have history. Remember the Giannis ball fiasco? What was it? He took the ball off the court. Then we had Pat Bev last year.

They talk shit nonstop. Like TJ McConnell was talking shit to Bobby Portis. How Burton's talking shit to Dame nonstop. How Burton gets voted most overrated player, which basically is the whole league being like, we hate your guts. And I actually, I liked that Rick Carlisle was like, it's a bullshit award having his back. But yeah,

But I like watching these two teams. There's genuine bad blood. It's not manufactured. They really do dislike each other very much. Yeah, Lisa, it does make it a little bit interesting. And I watched and I enjoyed the game. I was hoping that there would be a couple lead changes just to make it a little bit spicy in the fourth. But in terms of the other series, I would probably say it's the most –

The Knicks Pistons at times is fun. Yeah. But just the fact that the Pacers are kind of frenetic. And I know that we talked about their jerseys, the alternate jerseys that they're wearing. It's even doubly worse that it's like a throwback look to the era where they actually had good throwback uniforms. Right. But that's not one of them.

Right. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. Hank, um, what's going through your head right now. Do you think that PFT is, uh, using a different tactic on you? No, I think, I think he's being honest. I think, uh, I think he's seen the light. I think the calves, I think he's being a little disrespectful to the calves. You know, they're the one seed. Um,

But I see where he's coming from. Yeah. I am actually being honest. I'm not playing any games with Hank. It works out that I might be fucking with him a little bit, but that's not intentional. I'm serious. Yeah. Max is so fun. Max is like the POV of a lot of list. There's a lot of AWLs who are probably like their phone is just our POV of Max asleep. Yeah.

You're not in the rest of the episode because you didn't come to work today. Some people are calling it soft. We have never missed a show. What's going on right now? Are you falling asleep? No, I'm good. That was an internal roll of the eyes from whatever is going on about this Eastern Conference bullshit.

what what how many times i didn't go in i had the stomach bug i was awake all night last night coming out of both ends there's nothing there's no worse feeling in the world than having a stomach bug a lot of people are calling you lamar maxson do you have any comment on that no yeah i i didn't shit my shit my pants um

I may have gotten a little bit of puke in my hair at one point because there was an emergency situation and my hair was down and I didn't have time to put it up. It's been a bad day. It's been a rough day. I've been in this exact position for the entirety of the day. I haven't eaten at all, which is nice. I'm probably going to be skinny as fuck at the end of this. Yeah, you are. That was the first thing I texted you when you told me. I was like, I'm jealous of you because there's nothing better than losing a quick –

eight to ten pounds just from liquid and then being like man i feel good and then you just have one big meal and you're fat again that that happens every time uh means ron might have just got murdered guys breaking news i don't know if he's ever going to recover from this oh no see how bad it was oh no let's see is lebron okay his head he's down oh no what happened it looks like i think a pinky might have hit his eye oh he did actually get hit in the eye

He'll probably be down for another five minutes. Oh, Julius Randle. I don't know if that was dirty, but it did look a little extra. Oh, he's up. He's okay. Verbal meme, the handshakes, Max and Joel Embiid not showing up in the playoffs. That's a good one. I like it. Max, why did you roll your eyes internally? What does an internal eye roll even mean?

Like, I closed my eyes and was rolling them inside of my eye. Inside of your head? Wait, what do you disagree with? Do you even do that? I don't even remember what we were talking about. Max, what happened with the portal today? Villain of whatever.

Okay, that was your portal update. All right, the Grizzlies, the one series that we can all agree just needs to be over is the Grizzlies-Thunders. This is men versus boys. The Thunders' defense is so fucking good. They had Chet Holmgren out there blocking shots when they're up 20 with like 40 seconds left just because he could. It's not even – they could play this – they could play 100 games, and I honestly –

If you told me they were going to play 100 games and the line was set at the Thunder winning, turn injuries off, the Thunder winning 92.5, over-unders 92.5, I would take the over. Way over, yeah. That's how lopsided it is. I might take it over if it was 99.5. You would say 100 times out of 100? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, now you're leaving yourself open. If for some reason the Grizzlies win one game, you're wrong. No, not against this Thunder team. Not against this Thunder team.

You know what? I think it's 98 and a half, and I'm going to take the over. Yeah. It's just not a real series. They need to just move on with it. By the way, did you see – because we are big ratings guys. Did you see the NBA had its highest ratings in 25 years for opening weekend of playoffs? I did not know that.

I didn't see what the biggest game was. Was it Celtics Magic? I don't know. I'm always interested in that part of it. That was good. Sounds like it was Celtics Magic. I just saw that it was up. I didn't realize. Okay. So are you confirming it was Celtics Magic? I think I saw that earlier, but the ratings in general, that's great. It's great for the league. Yeah. All right. And should we... I don't really know. I feel like the Thunder...

Listen, I like watching the Thunder team. They're – Alex Caruso, by the way, our guy, just a menace. He was everywhere tonight. He just was in every single play, just rebounding, just a pest. The Thunder are like we should just tell everyone right now we're not going to talk about the Thunder or Grizzlies until – or the Thunder until the next round. Like let's just close this series out. Let's just say it's over, right?

Yeah, I would agree with that. Let's just fast forward to the finals. We all it's Celtics Thunder. Like there's no other there's no other way. Okay. I just want I just wanted to get it clear because I didn't want Thunder fans to be like, why aren't you talking about? We're already we're already putting you in the next round. That's how good you guys are. You're in the next round. We will discuss when you get to your next round. Big Cat. Did you hear that? The Thunder put you on the Jumbotron tonight? What? Saying wear the shirt.

Oh, really? Do you have the clip? I don't have a clip. Somebody just tweeted at me and said Big Cat was just on the Jumbotron before the game telling fans to put the shirt on. And the shirt guy was he was sticking out. He was he was like neon colored tonight, not wearing a shirt. Harden signed through the shirt on him and was like, put it on. And he didn't put it on.

Crazy. I need that clip. If the Thunder, if anyone from the Thunder is listening, I need the Jumbo Chunk. That's awesome. I'm fully supportive of the Thunder. I've said it before. I mean, Alex Crusoe and Lou Dorter are probably two of my top ten favorite players in the NBA. I do want to hear the Thunder fans' explanation for why. I want to hear his reasoning behind it because he might have a good reason. I don't know.

We still might get him on. I don't know. We got to figure that out. All right. The Lakers are going to win this game, right? There's three minutes left. Oh, they showed A-Rod. Let's talk hockey, and then we'll see what happens at the end of this game. Leafs team of destiny? It feels like they might be. It feels like this might be the year for our friends up in Toronto. Yeah. That was a sick overtime goal. The Devils should just be out. The Devils or the Grizzlies?

Yeah, same thing. Just go to the next round hurricanes. And I'm actually – I mean, the Wild right now are kicking the shit out of the Knights. That is where hockey is, like, better than the NBA in terms of playoffs. It's like the Knights are a better team than the – a significantly better team than the Wild, and the Wild are shit-pumping them right now. Yeah, I mean – At a clock central, the start time is insane. Yeah. It even got moved back too.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what remember that year was, I think it was last year that I bet the Oilers and I, Oh no, it was two years ago. I bet the Oilers were still living in New York. And I was like, it almost killed me because I was like, I can't, I don't know how I can watch these games. It's on way too late. So yeah. Big cat. I know we're going to talk about the caps in a second. Did you see the teeth?

No. So Alex Alexie, if he got he got hit in the face by a stick, it was inadvertent. They called it a four minute penalty at the time and they took it off because it was on a follow through. But he got hit in the mouth by a stick. He lost two of his front teeth on the ice.

and they found the teeth. And, of course, because the ice crew found the teeth, they took a picture of it and they put up online, these are some gnarly-ass teeth. They look like shark teeth. I tweeted it out a second ago. But apparently he needs, like, full facial reconstruction, dental surgery. And he's like, you know what? I'll do it after the playoffs. Fuck it. We've got to send this to Max, see if he can puke again.

Oh, shit. Yeah, pretty gnarly, right? You know what? Teeth don't get enough credit for being as big as they are. Yeah, they're like icebergs. Yeah, icebergs. Yeah, they're crazy when you take a tooth out. This is a front tooth? Two front teeth. Like a fang. Nuts. Yeah, it's a canine tooth. He's Russian. He might be part wolf.

Max, what would make you puke right now? What visual? No visuals. Why do you guys want me to puke? It would be great for numbers. No, it wouldn't. He's going to drown. The way this guy's drinking right now, he's going to drown. He's not even lifting his head. Memes, how many numbers would this clip do if Max just puked during the show? He just started puking on himself. It would rip.

It would rip. We had to call the police and be like, someone get to his house right now and put him on his side. So he doesn't Jimi Hendrix himself. I mean, if you die during the show, it would be tremendous for the ratings. Incredible. That would be true. Oh man. Um, all right. Do we have anything else? I, I, I know this has nothing to do with the NBA or NHL. Oh, I have two topics that don't, uh,

The Cubs are just one of the most exciting teams. They just play awesome games every night. They had a home run with one out left in the bottom of the ninth to go to extras and then win against the Dodgers. Fun to beat the Dodgers. They're very fun to watch. I don't know if it's sustainable to win every game like –

11 to 10, but we're going to find out. And then we should say the Pope passed away on Monday after we recorded on Sunday night. And are we as officially as a podcast? Are we all down to officially endorse Pizza Bala? I think that should be our pick. Well, I like him. But again, I go back to the fact that having a fat Pope would be great for the vibes. It would. I would love to see a fat Pope.

Pierre Batista Pizzabala. Yeah, it's a good name. That is his name. But Big K, that's short-sighted because when you become Pope, you take on a new Pope name.

Yeah, but we'll always know him as Pope Pizzabala. You'll forget. He'll be like, I'm Pope Innocent the 17th. It's not going to be Pope Pizzabala. What if he goes from Pope Pizzabala to Pope Calzone? He's like, my new name is Calzone. I would respect that. I would respect that a lot. Yeah, I would like to see a fat pope. Also, if you're the pope, it must be a real letdown to die right after Easter.

Because if you die on Easter as the Pope, that's some pizzazz. That's some flair. That is a one-way ticket to sainthood. Right? It's like when I think Thomas Jefferson, didn't he die on the 4th of July? I think so. Yeah. Pretty cool thing. If you're the Pope and you die on Easter, you're like, that's a legacy move right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and he missed it by like a couple hours, right? Yeah, and apparently our vice president, J.D. Vance, was the last person to see the Pope alive. Wearing a yellow tie. Interesting. What a surprise.

What is that? No idea. But you know how like Twitter works now where people be like, look like, what do you see? And it's just a video. And I just stare at it for 20 minutes. I'm like, I don't know what I see. I saw one that was like interesting. The JD Vance was wearing a yellow tie when he met the Pope. It's like, what is this supposed to mean? Or that the last two sitting Popes to die. It was like the, the two before the two world wars. Yeah. It was 1914 and 1939. Is that true? I don't know. I don't,

It can't be the last two sitting popes. Like what happened to the other popes? They retired and then they died? Well, that one pope, the Nazi pope left, right? Didn't he just bounce? Yeah, they got him out to paint. Hold on. I'm looking up the fact that I think this was just a meme that Hank saw because I saw the same one. Yeah, no, I saw one thing.

It was, yeah. I wasn't going to say it until you said the yellow tie thing, but. Well, I mean, just, I mean, you have to realize he was wearing a yellow tie. Pope dies 1914, World War I started, Pope dies 1939, World War II starts. But where's the, me being informed that sitting popes also died in 1914 and 1939, but there have been other popes that have died in between, right? I would think so.

Yeah. Based off how you just said that, like, like when did it's true that dude, uh, John Paul die. John Paul, the second, uh,

Okay, I'm looking it up. We're going to pull up facts real quick. By the way, the Lakers have won. Luka was awesome tonight. This is just – the West does feel like outside of the Grizzlies Thunder Series, it's going to be a war, those other three series, and it's going to be great. And it just – it felt like this is – losing game one at home, that's why I'm going to take the – here's a free pick for everyone, DraftKings. I'm going to take the Rockets. I'm going to take the Rockets tonight because I just –

If you lose game one at home and you're an equal team, I think you're probably going to win game two at home because you have a little more of a, you know, a little more drive. I feel like there's something mentally where if you win game one on the road, not that they're not going to try the Warriors, but mission accomplished. Yeah. You know? That's what you say at the beginning of every, like,

Yeah, we got to get a split. Yeah. Steal home court. Also, if you're the Rockets, game two kind of feels like a game seven. Yeah. Agreed. All right. So John Paul II, he died in 2005. So was he not the Pope then when he died? Recession? I don't know. I don't know. John Paul I died in 1978. So I feel like Popes die...

a decent amount because they don't don't when they make the popes they they always it's never like a young pope no you got to be old i feel like you have to be that's a netflix show in your 50s oh that's true is it actually oh yeah it is actually all right any other thoughts on the uh

I think the Lakers-Wolves is going to be a six or seven game series. And I expected the Lakers to win tonight, and I expected what we saw. I mean, Luka was the best player on the court when he wants to be, and LeBron is still really, really good. I mean, he went for 21-11-7. If they can get a little bit from – they got a little bit from Rui, they got Austin Reeves, and that's enough. Yeah.

I do have a Monday reading. That's okay. It's a tweet from Kanye West. Oh. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. But the thought did cross my mind when I saw it. Like, I already put something in the drafts for a banger week one. How are you getting ready for NFL Sunday with the Falcons' cousins, Phoenix? He might not be on them. He might not be on it. For PFTs, keep them, Atlanta. Keep them. Yeah, come on. Do the right thing.

All right, we're going to kick it to ourselves where we're going to talk Monday night schemes, which were a lot more exciting. And then we have Tom McShay on the show. We have Matt LaFleur. I said it at the opening of the show, but you will not find another podcast or media entity that will spend time

10 of the 30 minutes interviewing an NFL head coach trying to explain to him who the Rizzler is. That's a guarantee. That is where it devolved with Matt LaFleur. And then we'll finish with listener FAQs. And hopefully Max will be back in studio on Thursday for the NFL draft. Yep. I'll be back Thursday. Okay, we're back in studio. We're going to talk a little Monday night games. We're going to start with the Knicks and the Pistons.

I want to start with the Pistons PFT and congratulate Pistons fans. They had a 15 game losing streak in the playoffs. They had not won a playoff game in 17 years. May 2008. May 2008.

I know that obviously this series is only 1-1, and there's a lot of basketball left in this series, and they're probably not going to win the title this year. But you've got to celebrate these moments because...

Cade Cunningham was phenomenal and he's a real dude. And that was like the moment where it's like, Hey, this is all last year. Remember this team last year lost 28 games in a row. They lost 28 games in a row. They started the season last year, two and one. They went two and 29 to two and 29 to three and 36. They finished last season with 14 wins. They,

They are now, they won 44 games this year. They're in the playoffs. They just took a young team with a young star in Cade Cunningham into Madison Square Garden and almost won both games, but decisively won game, not decisively, but they won game two.

This is something that Pistons fans should enjoy and, and revel in and be like, yes, like it is now trending towards the right way. All of Detroit sports, by the way, besides the Red Wings, like think about it. The lions have been bad forever. They've, they've obviously the last few years have, have been really good. The tigers were bad for a really long time. They've been good. And now the Pistons and Michigan football beat Ohio state. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's cool for Pistons fans. Uh,

That's a moment that you're like, hey, the monkey's off our back. I mean, that's a crazy losing streak. I think it was the longest losing streak in NBA history. Yeah, so that 2007-2008 Pistons team, that was like the end of the bad boy era, the bad boy part two era. I think they won their first game, then got gentlemen swept. Yeah, so that was... I think that was the 23 points in the fourth quarter.

LeBron. That's when LeBron killed him. Yeah. Yeah, so that was, I think it was Rasheed, Chauncey, Rip, and Tayshaun. I don't think Ben Wallace was there. Ben Wallace came to the Bulls. Yeah. Put a big billboard up. But that's how long it's been.

Yeah, it's crazy. So I'm happy for Pistons fans that they get this moment, especially we saw it last year when you're a smaller market going up against the Knicks in the playoffs and the story's going to be about the Knicks. They went in there, won that game. Yeah, let's see what... I think they had won since their last series win. Okay, so that year they had won two series and then they lost in the conference finals to the...

to LeBron and then that was it. Yeah. Oh no, they lost to the conference finals to the Celtics. So, the, yeah, I think LeBron was earlier than that. That was a great series though when it was like LeBron and then nobody against the Pistons. Yeah, but I,

I'm happy for, for Pistons fans. Kate Cunningham is awesome. 33 and 12. He was, he was great. Tobias Harris has been great. Dennis Schroeder was, that was like that three that he made. Cause that felt like the Pistons were going to lose that game in a similar fashion to the game one, where it's like they played really well for three quarters and they just couldn't hold onto it. They couldn't hit a shot for like three minutes.

And then, uh, shorter hits that shot. And he's, I mean, he was like a very calming, you know, he's a veteran. He's been on a million teams, but he's, he's, he's seen some of these moments bet on himself, bet on himself. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was cool. And people, Paul, shout out people. Paul, our guy, people, Paul had a nice putback. He had six points. So the pistons, they're fun. The end of this game was, it was very, very close at the end. And that Schroeder three made, made all the difference. Uh,

And then watching, I didn't watch all the game because my eyes were mostly focused on the caps. But watching the highlights of this game, they showed Jalen Brunson highlights from the game. I don't think you can call them highlights. Yeah. I don't think, I don't, what they showed from that game was like four different plays where he does the insurance fraud. Yeah. Where he's in front of you in traffic.

slams on the brakes you run into you're like what the hell and then he's like oh yeah i gotta file a claim sorry you hit me yep the all right so yeah i have i have a take i was brewing last night that obviously i understand how this works nicks fans you have to defend your guy and jalen brunson's really good yeah so so nicks fans you you can be like you're an idiot you don't know what you're talking about fuck you all of it i understand how it works

I personally, I like Jalen Brunson as a player. I like, I mean, I loved watching the Villanova. Uh, he's a phenomenal basketball player. The foul baiting has gotten to a point where it's just hard to watch and it's not just the foul baiting. And this part is less Jalen Brunson and more probably Tibbs who I feel like hots, big time hot seat. This might be the end for him. Uh,

The Knicks in this fourth quarter, they just go to straight iso ball, foul baiting. No one else touches the ball. Jalen Brunson just trying to score. And it's bad basketball to watch. So from what I've seen, Knicks fans, they tend to agree. In games that they lose. Yeah. In games that they win, they're like, well, it works. It's winning basketball. But when they lose, I think even they're like, come on, man. Let's have some watchable basketball. Right. And by the way, because I know I saw this,

It is not just Jalen Brunson. SGA does it a lot. James Harden was the king of it. He invented it. Chris Paul. There are guys who do the foul baiting. And if you want to say... Jokic was flopping last night too. Yeah, and if you want to say, well, that's an officiating problem, I would agree with you. Remember there was that two-week stretch where they were like, hey, we're going to stop letting guys jump into another guy and not even try to attempt a shot. They called it for two weeks and they stopped calling it.

If they started calling those again, I think it would probably fix itself. But as it stands right now, I do not enjoy watching Jalen Brunson play basketball. And that's just a personal opinion of mine. It doesn't mean that he's not a good player. He's a phenomenal player. I just don't like watching it because it's not fun. And it's him isolation, doing the stop and start, kind of jumping into people. And it's not a great watch.

He'll jump in front of you. They need to implement something that's similar to the charge rule. Yeah. Where Jalen Brunson, if he gets in front of you, he has to have established position and you have to have time to avoid him. Yeah. Instead of just hitting two feet, stopping, getting the ball, and having the guy barely clip you on the back and fall down. Yeah. And it was a game that was so... It's not all on Jalen Brunson. I think the coaching for the Knicks was really bad in the fourth quarter. Yeah.

Carl Anthony Towns, and now Carl Anthony Towns is someone that has had disappearing acts in the playoffs. I actually don't know if this one was 100% on him. He took his last shot with 520 to go in the third quarter. They just didn't run anything for him. I think I saw, I got to find the stat. I think Jalen Brunson passed it to him 12 times total, which is pretty shocking. Like Carl Anthony Towns, whatever you want to say about the guy,

He is an elite offensive player, and he's one of the best big-man shooters of all time. And, yeah, here it is. Over the first two games of the series—oh, it's the first two games. Brunson has passed the ball to Towns a total of 12 times. 12 times. 12 times.

I don't understand how you're not running Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns in pick and roll. And I know Carl Anthony Towns has had moments where he's been soft or he hasn't pushed the action. Last night watching that game, I don't think that was 100% on him because I think they just were like, everyone clear out of the way and they're not running anything for him and they're not trying to get him involved and you just can't win that way when he doesn't get a shot for the last...

Quarter and a half? That's insane. It is. I thought 50 Cent put it best when he commented on what happened yesterday. Did you see 50's comments? No. He said, fuck today, man. The Knicks lost. The Pope died. And Kanye told us he sucked his cousin's dick for eight years. Yeah. I'm going to bed early tomorrow. Got to be a better day. Yeah. I mean, what else can you say? What else can you say? High level analysis from 50. But I do think it's lazy to be like, Carl Anthony Towns just disappeared because they also just, they're not running plays anymore.

to try to get him involved. The Knicks are the biggest good vibes, bad vibes bust, depending on what happens in that game. When they win, it's like these guys are a bunch of dogs. Tibbs has a guy playing. He's got the guys playing hungry. This is Tibbs basketball. This is awesome. I love the grittiness. When the Knicks lose, it's like this team sucks. I hate watching them. Yeah. And it all depends on the result of the game. And you also had Mikael Bridges missing a three at the end of the game, and he's not playing great, and they traded a lot for him.

It does feel bad vibes. Great vibe. But I also, yeah, Detroit, the big word that gets used a lot in the NBA community is ethical versus unethical hoops.

Cade Cunningham is an ethical hooper. Jalen Brunson is an unethical hooper. Okay. I don't really, I'm not using that. I just think it's very funny that they've gotten to that level. We're getting into moral relativism when we're talking about how people are playing basketball. Here's newsflash. There's no such thing as moral relativism in sports. Correct. It's like, is it allowed? Did you score? If it's not, yeah. Are you scoring, son? Yeah. If it's allowed by the rules, then you can do it. And if it's not, then you can still do it and try to get away with it. And if you don't get away with it, then it's bad.

My big thing is, Kate Cunningham is, I'm not going to say he's an ethical hooper, but he does, he tries to play through contact. He's going forcefully to the hoop.

I always just judge it is, is a player trying to score or are they trying to get fouled? And when it leans more to trying to get fouled, that's just not basketball I want to watch. It just sucks to watch. Yeah, we're not going to talk about altruism. It's ball truism. He's a ball truistic player. I do. You know what? Like, yeah, obviously that's a ridiculous take to make it to start putting labels on ethical or not.

It's unethical hoops. That's what people are saying. But the more I think about it, the more I kind of agree. Like, he's playing the game the way that it's meant to be played. Right. This is how I know I'm getting old. Yes. Where I'm like, yeah, you know what? When Dr. James Naismith nailed up the peach basket, he was thinking about Cade Cunningham. Yeah. He wasn't thinking about Chris Paul. Yeah.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Cade Cunningham was exactly, he was envisioning that. Yeah, one day. One day. There'll be a young Hooper from Oklahoma. One day, the Pistons will be on a 17-year drought in the playoffs. Well, at the time. And Cade Cunningham will come and be the savior. You would have been like, wait, what are Pistons? Yeah. Those don't exist.

That's true. Yeah. That's a good point. Now, Knickerbockers, they existed. When was the car invented? When was the piston invented? 1880. Are you just making that up? Is it a guess? It's a guess. It's a guess. When was the car invented? The piston invented. 1902. Maybe the first cars didn't have pistons. 1886. Good job. I don't know yet if there were pistons in them. I don't know.

The fastest horses. That's what he would have envisioned. Can you Google when pistons were invented? I just invented when was the piston invented, and it says that the jet for the Winnipeg is an F-15 Eagle, so this is all fucked up. Okay, so James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, so that was after the car. So it could have maybe. Yeah, internal combustion. I don't know. Not car guys. Yeah, not car guys. We're jet guys. All right.

Hank, do you agree with the Jalen Brunson thing? Yeah. Max is not here. He's sick. Very James Harden-esque. Yeah, and I didn't like when James Harden did it. No. And I don't like when SGA does it. Wait, are you saying Max not being here is James Harden-esque? Both. That is true. Yeah, like it's not just him. I'm not just picking on him. When SGA does it, I don't like it. It's lame. But Jalen Brunson also does things that you watch and you enjoy. Yeah.

Of course. His mid-range game when he came in, he's so clutch. Max isn't here, but it's like Embiid too. It's like when you – they get addicted to foul-baiting, and it takes away from their skill. It's like a kid in school that tattles early on. They get their way. They learn that they can have the teacher punish the kids they don't like, and then later, three years later, they're just a jerk. They have the ability to blow by someone, but rather than just finish, they're like, let me wait for someone to come behind me. Jimmy Butler does it sometimes where it's like you're not –

You're not trying to score. You're just trying to get fouled. And like if the shot that you huck up there somehow goes in, you'd be like, great, and one.

Not me. I'm an ethical hooper. I am as well. I don't call fouls. No. Literally, if I were in the NBA, I'd be like, ref, do not call a foul for me. Yeah, no blood, no foul. Clippers Nuggets has been an incredible series, and Kawhi is all the way back. What a fucking game for him. 39 points. He was 15 for 19. There was a moment there I think he was 11 for 12.

This series just rocks. Yeah. I said on, I think, Monday's show, like, if you watched the way that Kawhi just looked on the court, the way he was asserting himself, like, this guy is just 100% healthy now. I think he just refuses to play unless he's 110%, unless he's feeling like the best he's ever felt in his life. So with Kawhi, if he's on your team, you're either going to get –

Like the best player in the NBA, one of them all around, or you're going to get a guy that's just going to disappear for six months. Yeah, but so when we were talking about it on Monday, I thought game one, he had the look of it, but he didn't assert himself the way that Kawhi can assert himself and take over a game. He did that in game two. Yeah. He's like, I'm the guy.

And it's me. And there's nothing you can do about it. And he's got that ability where it's not even like stuff they're drawing up necessarily. It's just that he's got a one-on-one matchup and you can't stop his mid-range game and his moves. And he's just too strong and too fast, too tall. Like he just, he's so good. I have a question for you, Big Cat. Is Russell Westbrook contagious?

Oh, who caught it? Jamal Murray? Jamal Murray a little bit. Jokic caught a tinge of the Westbrook-itis last night. Jokic has always had a little bit of it. He had a good amount of it last night, especially down the stretch. What did he have, like seven or eight turnovers? Yeah. I mean, he did have a triple-double. He did? Yeah. But there were some out-of-control plays. Jamal Murray, he just picked up. Who was it? Norman Powell? Yeah. He just picked him up, and it was the most confusing thing ever. I feel like the whole team has just—they're a little bit more Russell Westbrook

even the guys who aren't Russell Westbrook than they were last year. I think they caught it a little bit. It's always funny watching Russ play and when he hits a big three, you're like, that was a big three, but it's going to cost you the next two because he's going to do it again. Yeah, get ready for some shots that go just directly off the back. Yeah, and it was nice to see Michael Porter Jr., who was not –

I think he got benched in game one, came back and played well. This series is just two teams that are both really good evenly matched that I hope goes seven. Porter might be hurt too. That would be concerning if you're a nugget. Yeah. I said this at PFT at dinner on Saturday, but Kawhi is the Brooks Koepka of basketball. Oh, I like that. His peers will be like, he's the best. He can be the best. He can beat the best when he's on his A game. He just doesn't care.

about maybe starts or playing the regular season. It's just when the time matters the most, he can perform better than anyone. Right. You could make the argument, so if you said last 10 years, everyone is equal, healthy, in their prime...

Would it be LeBron, Steph, Kawhi? He's got a pretty high hit rate. Would it be three? I think it was like Dragonfly Jones. He's been the best player in playoff series versus LeBron, versus Giannis, versus all these players he has had series where he's the best player in that series. And it's like all the people you're about to meet. And I'm saying 10 years because Jokic obviously is in the conversation, but that's more recent in the last five years. And obviously KD would be up there. Tatum Brown. But that's more recent. Yeah.

Yeah, you would. But yeah, he's up there. He's like, he doesn't get talked about like that because he's not only because he's hurt a lot, but he's also quiet. He doesn't have like a he's not marketing himself. Right. When his code is like completely compiled and every all the systems are running and he's out there, there's very few people that are better than him. Yeah. But when one thing is wrong, he just shuts. He goes into a hard reboot. Yeah. He's like, I need to go back in the shed for a while and wrench on myself and I'll be back.

I'm going to be back when I'm back. And when I'm back, I'm going to be awesome. And I'll say this for James Harden, not the biggest fan, but the combo of James Harden and Kawhi is why people are high on the Clippers and why they win games like this. Because at the end of the game in a playoff series...

You need guys who are just pure shot makers. You know what I mean? Like, they can make the big shot, and those guys can do that. I mean, James Harden maybe not later on in the series, but it's early enough in the series where he can still be the shot maker. Has there been a time if you're a Nuggets fan when you're watching this team and you're like, it would be advantageous to us if we had our coach? Who? Because there was one of those moments last night. Ooh, whoa.

It seemed like a couple just stutters of the rotation where it didn't seem like they were completely confident in what they should be doing. Yeah, but they did not like Michael Malone. That's true. As the reports. Yeah, but guess what? Sometimes the team unites around hating the coach. That's a fact. That's literally how Bobby Knight coached. Right. He wanted them all to hate him. Yeah, they have something that's great in common. Yeah. Like a bedrock of who they are as a person is they fucking hate their coach together. Yeah. As one. Together.

All right. It's like Hank and us. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yeah. If Hank would know he's right. I am right. Who am I in this situation? You're the coach. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you didn't sit on that couch and daydream about golf and tune in and out, PFT and I would maybe fight each other. Yeah. We'd have to take out our aggression on each other.

You're like a lightning rod where you take the most amount of lightning so we can just keep surviving. Even the fact that you're pretending to not understand this analogy is infuriating. It's pissing me off. It's pissing me the fuck off. I tune out so I talk less. That's why you do it? Yes. I used to edit this podcast for a long time. I used to hear myself talk. But you don't anymore, so you don't have to. But I'd be like, why did I speak at that point?

The more paying attention I am, the more I speak. So you don't... I like when you speak. So you tune out now because you had to do so much work back then. No, I just would be listening and it's like, oh, this is funny. Great banter. And then I would hear myself come in and just be like...

But P.F.T. is right in the fact that if we did just a podcast, if it was just the two of us talking and we didn't have anyone else speak, that would get crazy. Yeah. We would go crazy. Happy to help. Like Pug here. Pug. What up? In the big chair. Here we go. Do we think Max is going to join the Zoom tonight?

I hope he does from the toilet. Yeah. He's got bad diarrhea right now. Is Max... Because this is... We've never missed podcasts. No. Listen, the guy's sick, but we don't miss podcasts. Yeah, me neither. Right. You don't miss podcasts, Hank. We've never missed a podcast. Max gets... Knock on wood. He had... Last night was what? It was like chili cheese fry night at his favorite bar, and then all of a sudden he gets sick? Meatball night. It was meatball night. Yeah.

Was it really? Yeah, it was. And then he wakes up. He's like, oh, we had like a commercial shoot. We had to do all morning. Max was supposed to be part of it. He does meatball night. And next thing you know, he's sick. Meatball Monday is that's a wild move. Like getting back into your week with a meatball dinner. We should make him start having to do like LeBron style videos. Meatball. It's meatball Monday. Yeah.

Hockey, PFT, Ovi, awesome. Great game, huh? Well, not really. It was a great two periods. You almost blew it. And then half the third period, and then overtime was cool again. Man, I just love watching Ovi play so much. I think it was Grant Paulson tweeted out the clip of the hit that Ovi laid, and I think he had seven or eight hits last night. He's an animal. He was fucking insane last night. If you're a kid, if you're a 10-year-old kid, and you're creating your own player, your custom player in a video game,

and you have a certain limit of how many points you can give for attributes, I feel like you would create Ovi every time. Like shot power 100, shot accuracy 100, hit power 100. And that's what you do. He is exactly what I would create as a 12-year-old. But yeah, the guys look great in the first two periods.

just physically dominant, controlling play down on their end. And then it all fell apart in the second half of the third period. And then my butthole tightened up real, real tight. And I was like, fuck, we're going to lose because 2-0, most dangerous lead in hockey. That's facts. And they scored one. I was like, they're going to get another. And the goaltending, I don't know if you saw the second goal last night. This is what I'm worried about. The second goal from the Canadians, yes. This is what I'm worried about with this team.

Lindgren was standing a full crease outside of his own crease at one point, just leaving the goal wide open.

That concerns me a little bit. But overall, still feeling good about the Caps. I do like Ryan Leonard, too. I like the rookie that they've got. He hasn't really scored much, but he's just out there looking to hit people. And he's got those young legs that you can see. Like, he's fresh. So, yeah, fun game. It was also very funny that they put up the graphic that Ovi had never scored a playoff OT goal. Yeah. And then...

Three seconds later, he wins the game. What an animal. Yeah, Stav is walking across the screen right now. We talked to Stav a little bit about how if you're like a fan of a team, you learn to defend and you become like a deputized legal expert in anything that your players do wrong so you can defend them. I realized last night that I've become that way about Ovi. You have to. To the extent where now I'm like, Ukraine might have had some bioweapons last. There's some bad dudes. Some bad guys. Listen, I don't know.

They're saying they might want to join NATO one day. Yeah, some bad mamma jammas. And then, I mean, it was a great night. It was a great night in playoffs on Monday night. The Jets now have a commanding 2-0 lead. And then the Avalanche Stars game was awesome. The overtime was...

Like they were just going full fucking tilt back and forth. There's nothing better than playoff overtime when you don't get a commercial and it's like no puck stoppage and you just have like seven minutes straight of the boys just flying down the ice back and forth. I was going to say there's nothing better than overtime playoff hockey when you're not rooting for one of the two teams. That's in the overtime playoff. Yes, because that sucks. Oh, you have Max's Twitter? Yeah.

Can you tweet that? Are we logged in? Can you tweet that? Should I tweet that? Yeah, tweet that. Pug's just going to tweet meatballs.

And then did you guys see the Kings? The Kings Oilers game was very mean to the Oilers because the Oilers were down all game and they fought all the way back and they tied it 5-5 and then they gave up a goal with like 30 seconds left to lose the game. But the star of the night was the Harmonica band that did the National Anthem, which was...

If you're LA, that was actually a really smart move because what other way to get your opponent off their...

than just throw the most LA thing at them. Well, I don't know. You're in LA. You might think like Fergie's coming out there. And then it's Harmonica. And then it's Harmonica. Then you've got the Korean Harmonica Orchestra. Yes. I think all these ladies, they appear to be on the silver side of life. Yeah. But still very vibrant and youthful. I thought it was beautiful. Yeah, it was. I love watching our

Ryan Whitney's tweets during Oilers games because he's just living and dying. And it was like, it was actually really cruel what happened because they were down 5-3 and the game was over and they scored two goals in like 30 seconds to tie it 5-5 and then the Kings just came back and won it with less than a minute left. This one was quite literally like to an, I felt,

This was directly to me. What do you say? It felt like this was like a directly personal experience. I feel like I just dipped for the first time on the Gravitron at the carnival. Yeah. There's a town carnival in Scituate Harbor every year. And the Gravitron, it's like in the summer and everyone's... That's like...

I think the first time I dipped was in the summer at the carnival. You go inside and there's no parents around. Does everybody have a Gravitron? Because I had a Gravitron too. Gravitron, yeah. Is it the same Gravitron that just goes around the country? I think so. Or are there multiple Gravitron? And the first time you dip is just... Pukes it. What was it? I had braces too. I'm trying to remember. That's why I stopped. I dipped twice and puked. Grizzly. Very bad. Grizzly.

Grizzly wintergreen. Kodiak grape. Copenhagen. Oh, fancy boy. That's hard body. It's hard body. It was at a varsity football game. I was in eighth grade and everyone puked. And then we're like, I can't wait to do this again. Yeah. That rocked. My head is buzzing. We should get a Gravitron for the office. I'm down. Yeah, let's do it. How much do you think a Gravitron costs? I'm going to guess. Pug is really way better. I think it's more. I think it's like 129,000.

Pug is way better at this than Max. Googling. I think some of the things you said to me might apply to some other people, too. What do you mean? Oh, Max being the lightning rod that. Well, no, he's and he's like the smaller lightning rod that you pass your lightning off to him. Wait, Max is a smaller one. Yeah, it's crazy that it happened for $48,000. I mean, let's get what?

We need the soft serve machine first. We're just turning this into a state ferry. I need the soft serve machine. Where would we put it? On the roof? Rooftop Gravitron? Where do you want to put it? Okay, 45 passengers. Gravitron. I mean, we could probably rent one and put it in. We could do like a carny day. What are you shaking your fucking head? Don't shake your fucking head. Square footage for a fucking Gravitron. What if we did a day where we did it in the parking lot?

We certainly do have enough square footage. Look at that. It's, what, 55 feet wide? We have a basketball court. Yeah, but we do like to play basketball on it.

Once you get the Gravitron, it makes basketball a little bit harder. But I mean, we use the basketball court for other things. Hank takes it over for putt-putt golf two weeks a year. Yeah, I do. Yeah, he does. So we can do this for like three days. Yeah. Do it for your little science fair too. A Gravitron cup. Yeah. Who can stay on it long enough without puking? Yeah, marathon. And the person who stays on it long enough gets the Gravitron.

I like that. They just got to figure out how to get it out of here. It's now officially yours right now. Yeah. Stay long enough. Okay. Let's do some hot seat cool thrown and then we'll get to our interviews. Hot seat cool thrown is brought to you by our friends at Body Armor.

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With Body Armor. Get your Body Armor today at Walmart or local grocery store near you. We love Body Armor. Thank you to Body Armor. The strawberry banana. The absolute best. Okay, hot seat, cool throne. Hank, hot seat. What is it? Give it to us, Hank. What's your hot seat? My hot seat. I didn't know whether... I was thinking about switching up my hot seat and cool throne depending on how the wording goes, but I'll go with hot seat. Tell us what you were thinking. Give us both and we'll tell you which one should go to which. Okay, my hot seat. My first one was...

Cool Thrones. That should be cool. Okay. And then...

My cool throne was going to be controversies surrounding ESPN personalities. Okay, so hot seat, you're right. Go ahead. So hot seat is the cool throne. No, no. You have the right hot seat. Put me on the hot seat. I don't know why. Hot seat, PFT, and Max. Yeah, hot seat, PFT, and Max. We were having the guy off talking about who's got the best guys, Celtics, anyone else in the rest of the league. And this came across my desk courtesy of my stats and research department. Oh, no.

And The Athletic did a poll where they polled NBA players and they asked who they think is going to win the championship. Mm-hmm.

57.7% said the Boston Celtics. Hank, what we're seeing here from Hank is a terrible attempt to reframe the conversation. It's guys thinking that the Celtics have the best guys. No, and Hank, what you're doing right now is this narrative you're trying to put out there is completely false. Let me just cut that down at the bottom. You guys being confused is why I'm confident with my team. The guy off, Hank, was... The players in the league who are playing the games, 57.7%. Okay, may I retort?

Sure. Permission to rebut. I would also like a rebuttal. Okay. Well, tell you what, I'll just talk to Big Cat because you're not going to listen anyways. Okay. The guy off was because Hank said, guy for guy, everyone on the Celtics is better than everyone on the Thunder. Yeah, that's crazy. And so then we went down the list and found it. This is where it's like you have dementia. That's it.

Those words did not leave my mouth. You're just saying. I said, let's go guy for guy. I'm calling Max. I'm calling Max. Guy for guy. He's probably eating meatballs. I said, let's go guy for guy. I did not say every guy. While he calls Max, can I have a sidebar with you, Hank? It was frustrating me on Sunday. Don't tell him. What? You're going to tell him what he should have said? No, I'm going to tell him maybe something different. But Sunday. What, that you're picking all Celtics bench players? No, no, no. Sunday. Sunday.

When we're doing the show, I was getting very frustrated because in this room, I got no playoff teams. Max got no playoff teams. PFT basically trolled you about your confidence. And then he went on to say that the Capitals are playing great and all this. Why didn't you just say to him, who are you scared of PFT and hold his feet to the fire with the Capitals?

Because I'm not a troll. I want PFT. No, because you checked out. I was waiting for it the whole time. He literally was putting it up on a tee for you, and I was sitting there like, Hank,

Now is when you hop in and just hold him to these comments as well. You go down the list. But I'm not going to fake like I know NHL like he does with NBA. I'm not going to be like, oh, let's go guy for guy. Fucking let me read the roster and then just say, I don't know who you should be scared of, but I'm not going to pretend like I do. I'm not an NBA expert, but I do watch the association, and I do know some guys on the Thunder that could be better than guys on the Celtics. Can I say that I am so scared to tweet about hockey because of people just jumping down? There was a save in the

Stars-Avs game.

And it was an awesome save, and I was about to tweet that was an awesome save, but I was just waiting for people to be like, dude, actually, that was a routine save. Yeah. Because, like, I don't fucking know. This happens all the time. It looks cool to me. This happens every night in hockey. Like, basketball, I feel fine on. Did you see Nick Batum's no-dip three? Silky smooth. Also, now that you bring it up, I've been thinking for the last hour since we taped the NHL recap that my mentions tomorrow are just going to be like, dude, you don't even know the difference between Charlie Lindgren and Logan Thompson. Yeah.

And that's going to be tough for them. How could you? How dare you? That's going to be a tough morning for them. How dare you? I was looking at a graphic from TNT or one of the networks that posted the playoff schedules.

And I looked at it for like 10 minutes, seeing where I was missing the Bruins. Hey, Max. And that's how I found out they weren't in the playoffs. Max. I'm like ready to hop on the bandwagon. Hold on one second. Max, hang on one second. Wait, BFT, you have to, I mean, that was. Max, you're live to tape and part my take. I'm going to put you on mute real quick. He just said that he was looking at the schedule for the playoffs when they were released, and that's how he found out the Bruins weren't in the playoffs. Yeah.

Hey, what a sweet a second. Where the fuck are we? Okay, Max. Yeah, we're on part of my take. Number one sports podcast. Pugs doing a great job behind the glass, looking stuff up real fast. First question. How is your butt? Butt is still bad. I stopped puking, though. Okay, that's good. Max, second question. You have the neurovirus and you're tweeting about meatballs in the middle of the day?

That was somebody else who did that from my Twitter. Okay. They're liking all those pictures, too, from your account, I'm sure. The real reason why we want to talk to you is because Hank and I were having a little discussion, and he put both you and I on his hot seat. You were not there to defend yourself. So he was talking about the guy off that we had when we were talking about Thunder and the Celtics the other day.

I told Hank that the entire premise of the guy-off was because he said if you go down the list, there's not a single guy that you would take on the Thunder over a single guy on the Celtics. Can you confirm that that's true? Or did I say that, or did I say, do you want to go guy for guy? I think the only one that he said was Shea and Tatum are a wash, but everything else was...

But I didn't say the words. At the start of the conversation, it was Hank saying every guy on the Celtics is better than every guy on the Thunder. It was let's go guy for guy. You...

I think you may both be correct here. I think you said let's go guy for guy, but it was under the assumption of... No, if he says let's go guy for guy, that's not under the assumption that every single guy is better than every single guy. Well, if Hank says every guy on the Celtics is better...

was trying to say that but i never said the word that could be the assumption though that he has that he would win the guy off not that every guy is better than every other guy no he he said every guy on the celtics is better so i said well then let's have a guy like this is insane this is actually insane okay let's go guy for guy get back to your toilet all right bye so where did we get here do we do we have i'm not lying

But again, if he's trolling you, just troll him back with the Capitals. I guess I'll have to figure out how to do that. Get your research stats and research team. Maybe learn French. Get them going. Yeah, they'll be going. They're always going. What are the Lockwood Riders? What are they? I don't know. It's just Gaz. Oh, okay. Get Gaz to get some research going. If he does, he's my number one guy. Okay. All right. Your cool throne? My cool throne is...

with ESPN personalities. Yeah. Big time ESPN personalities. One's a little more serious than the other one, but it's worth noting. The first one is Shannon Sharp is being accused of...

and he's saying he released sex messages and he said he's releasing a full sex tape, which is going to clear his name. Well, he said that the sex tape that's about to be revealed is through his accuser's attorney, which is Jay Busby. And he's saying that they're going to drop a 30-second clip of the sex tape. So Shannon Sharp said, why don't you just release the entire sex tape and show the people the entire sex? Yeah, and he released some messages, which, again, it's pretty...

Pretty wild times that this is like his defense is like, no, look at which I understand to an extent. But it's he's on the hot seat. This was right after the reports of him signing $100 million podcast deal. I do think it's fair to say that context could matter in a sex tape. For sure. Yeah. I have like how big. Never mind. This is one that I've opted out on. So I'm going to wait to make a decision.

Wait for the facts to come out. That no one cares about. No one cares what my decision is, but I'm going to wait to make a decision. Fair. I think that's fair. And the other one, this was more just funny, I think, and it kind of... We talked about it on the show a few weeks ago or a month ago with the Pat McAfee, Stephen A thing, and I said, like, I think there's beef. Yeah. I got a lot of McAfee fans being like, no, like, they...

reached out the next day and were like, how are you saying this? That's a lie. Yada, yada, yada. Paul Heyman was on the McAfee show. And I don't know if he has beef with McAfee or he was drunk or he just went... Well, he's an entertainer first and foremost. Scorched earth and basically was like, yeah, Pat, this is all the stuff Pat was saying off air and just laying it all out there. He doesn't like Stephen A. He thinks Stephen A is overpaid and he should be making more. He doesn't...

He doesn't like, you know, ESPN tells him not to mention the podcast. What does he do? He mentions the podcast. And McAfee was as visibly and as uncomfortable as I've ever seen him. So I thought that was all fair as an entertainer. You bring him on, you probably expect him. He's going to say some wild card shit, right? The one thing I had a problem with with Heyman was he defied the sanctity of the blunt rotation. Yeah. So this was something. He also accused him of puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff, puff.

take an edible puff, puff, puff. Which is a hilarious accusation. Yeah. But that's still words that are said in the cipher stay in the cipher. Yeah. Listen, we like Pat, former co-worker, friend of ours. Paul Heyman is one of those guys that if you invite him on your show, he's going to make a mess of it.

Like, that's what he does. This is his job. He's a wrestling manager, and he's, like, incredible on the mic. So it was an incredible clip. Unbelievable. When Joe Buck has Artie Lang on, you got to expect him. He's going to say that he's going to jizz on your chest. Right. Paul Heyman is going to go crazy. Yeah, it was just a very. I mean, I felt bad for Pat in a way. It was like that. No one wants to be in that situation, especially to PFT's point. It's like.

You think you know a guy, you have conversations off air at a bar in a blunt rotation, whatever. When they just start saying that on air, like that's the worst spot to be in. Yeah. Like if we're having a conversation about ball and then it gets brought up on the air. And then, yeah. And then we hate each other. Yeah. So actually now I'm actually kind of on the back of the point. He was probably just putting words in his mouth that he never said. Yeah. He was being a troll. They're also the, when he, when he turned to the, to the fan in the crowd and he's like, you suck, but it was your mom that taught me. It was like, I can't do anything about that.

He's probably dropped that line 50,000 times in his life. And for the record, Hank, I'm not upset at you. I still love you. Okay. But I think that you're misremembering the conversation. I know you're misremembering the conversation. If one of you were to have dementia, who would it be? Me. Easy. That's easy.

All right, PFT. My hot seat is Anthony Edwards. He got fined $50,000 for some comments that he made courtside at the Lakers game. Yes. Told a fan that he had a bigger dick than him. Probably true. Which...

That's probably why the fine is only $50,000. And now that I think about it, $50,000 to have this pretty cool clip go out is easily worth the price. Yeah, absolutely. Like for PR value for Anthony Edwards, he was like, I have $200 million and my dick is bigger than yours. There's nothing that you can say to that. Yeah, I mean, he's, I don't know. They don't show the fan. It'd be funny if the fan sued for slander or libel. Yeah. It's like, actually, look at my hog. Yeah, let's- Hog reveal. Plot.

Plot twist, that fan, Jimmy Tatro. Yeah. Massive don't feel. My cool throne is Jerry Jones because Jerry Jones, people say that he's got, you know, a cold, almost dead heart.

He actually said that he cried a couple months ago. Oh, when Luka got traded? Yes. They asked him about the Luka trade. He said, yeah, I cried when they traded Luka, which is remarkable because they removed his tear ducts at least three surgeries ago. Yes. But, yeah, I hope that this is just a never-ending series of asking anyone who has lived in Dallas with any small semblance of fame what their reaction was from the Luka trade, and I hope it keeps going on for the next, like, three years just so that Niko feels like a bigger person.

piece of shit. It's the new JFK assassination from Dallas. Where were you? Yeah. What were you feeling? Someone's going to ask Scotty Scheffler. Yeah. Uh-huh. Has to. Yeah. So that goes perfectly with my hot seat is Nico Harrison because he did a press conference finally. And one, I don't know if you guys saw, but he... As he left the press conference, the door was locked that he was trying to go out of, which was very funny. Love that. Just a total cell phone. And then... Yeah, look at this. Watch this. He just like...

He's like, well, that was the... Can't get worse than that. That sucked. Well, at least I'm not in this room anymore. And he walks right up to the thing and is like, oh, shit. It's locked. And then he also said... He said he's never spoken ill of Luca at all. That's just a lie. That's not true. That has to be a lie. And then he also said that he didn't understand...

how much the fans liked Luka. I don't know how that's possible. It's crazy. Charles Barkley did go on. He said he knew that they liked him, but he didn't know how much they loved him. Yeah. And now there's reports that the owner is pissed being like,

How did you not know how much they liked Luka? Like, I was supposed to tell you that? It's a whole... It's the best. It's obviously the worst for Mavs fans. It's the best, though, that Nico Harrison is just not getting off the hook. Like, it's every fucking day. This trade happened...

two and a half months ago, and every day there's a new story on how stupid he is. And like I said, I said it on Sunday, I will make sure for the entirety of the playoffs, at least once a week on this show, I will just say, fuck Nico Harrison, he's a moron, and I'll keep doing that. But yeah, he's... I guess he's done with press conferences now? I hope not. Our goal is to never run away from the media. That's... He literally did an entire press conference where he didn't let anyone record anything. Mm-hmm. I mean, all of his...

All of his quotes are just so bad and so stupid. Yeah. Two and a half quarters one. Charles Barkley's like, you're my friend. I love you. Just shut the fuck up and take the L. Yeah. Like it's over. It's good advice. He said, I consider you a friend of mine. Don't do any more press conferences. I don't even know what you're doing. I really don't. The war is over, brother. You take an L.

Smart advice. Did you see inside the NBA last night when Shaq shit himself? No. Oh, you didn't see that? No. So it was after the Clippers game, and they're doing their wrap-up, and Shaq just— To me, I was watching puck. In the middle of the conversation, he just gets up and trots off the stage. Yeah, watch this. Watch the run he does away from the stage. Oh, yeah. Sorry.

That's neurovirus. That's the olive oil you've been drinking. I know. Hey, take some matches with you. Yeah. So he just leaves for like six minutes, comes back, and then he comes back and he goes, it was number one, Ernie. That was not number one. That was number two, Shaq. We know it. And he's apparently been doing this olive oil thing, the olive oil cleanse, which-

That's a good punishment to give to somebody. Yeah. All right. And then my cool throne is Kirk Cousins because there was a headline that caught my eye on ESPN today. And let me read the exact headline because I want you guys to also have it. Sources, Cousins surprises at Falcons workout.

In that he showed up? Yes. Okay. Because I clicked on it and I was like, oh shit, Kirk Cousins looking good? And it was like, the whole story was just, no one expected him to show up. His presence was a nice surprise. I mean, Kirk Cousins, if nothing, the man is professional. Yeah. He surprises at opening of Valkyrie.

Falcons voluntary workout. He will attend voluntary team activities. He's probably good at texting back. Yeah. Probably responds to most emails. Yeah. He's a pros pro. He's a pros pro. Okay.

Let's get to our interviews. We got Tom McShay, which great intel, a little different than Daniel Jeremiah, where we talked a little more like nitty gritty of the guys with Daniel Jeremiah. Tom McShay gave us a lot of insight on what he expects to happen on Thursday night, trade ups, what teams are thinking, what the Giants are thinking. And then we have Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. And then we will finish with FAQs.

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Okay, we now welcome on our very, very, very good friend. His very special guest. It is Todd McShay. It's Draft Week. He's at The Ringer now. You can go listen to his show, the Todd McShay show, at The Ringer. He's also got a newsletter that's great. So go check it out. Todd, great to see you. You look great. You're in the Hollywood studios in L.A. Out here in L.A. Yeah. All right, so it's Draft Week. Before we talk about the actual draft...

Will you be going – will you have Russillo in your beautiful studio this week, or is he making you go to his house? No, no. So here's how it went. He's not allowed in the studio. We don't need the disruption, right, and the confusion. I texted him actually a while back, and I was like, I'm trying to call you. Pick up your phone. And I gave him the – you know, like the town where it's like we're –

we're going to go do something. I can't tell you what we're doing. We're going to hurt some people. And I said on the text, I was like, I just need you to say whose car we take. Yeah. And so we called back and I explained my, my, my concept, which was, I just want to take over your house and make day three Saturday inside the Rosilla. Have you? Yes, we have. We have. We've been to his new house. He's got a great squad. All his houses.

Yeah, he's on his ninth Manhattan beach house. It's like this great man cave overlooking the Pacific Ocean. TV's everywhere. So we're going to go and we're going to eat his food, drink his drinks, and invade his house on Saturday for two hours, 3 p.m. Eastern.

to 5 p.m. Eastern. We're going to be there recapping the whole draft as the draft's going up. Wait, so he only gave you two hours? You're not even going to get to watch the whole draft with him? His only caveat was NBA playoffs. Exactly, yeah. He's got his notepad out. So I'm going to try to get him to run a 40.

Bill Simmons and I are setting the over-under. Bill had it at six flat. I said like five-two. So I'm going to try to get him to run to 40. He reminded me that he has a squat rack in the house. He does. So maybe we can do the 225 bench press rack. The squat rack that almost killed him, building it. He got caught behind it. No, he's under six. That's crazy. That's disrespect. I think he will, but he's built for power. He's like a linebacker.

I could see him. It's definitely going to be a hamstring issue, right? Yeah. Pulling up after 33 yards. Yeah, once he realizes in his head where the clock is at. Yeah. He's like, oh, yeah, I might as well just pretend I've got an injury right now. Daniel Jeremiah said we should run it in the sand for a built-in excuse. We'll see. He's got five. I'm going to say 5'3". He's got 5'3 speed. All right. So...

So this draft, we actually had DJ on on Monday talking about the draft. He was like, hey, it's not the best draft. There's five or six blue chippers and a lot of starters. How many blue chippers do you have, and is it a fair assessment to say this draft maybe is lacking a little bit of the sizzle we've had in the last couple of years? Here's how I look at it. And I kind of do tears off of grades, but let's break away from that for a second.

There's two guys that are at the top, and that's Travis Hunter and Abdul Carter. They're in their own tier, if you will. Then after that, there's a handful of guys. But what's interesting is a lot of them are not in premium positions. Ashton Gentry, running back. Two tight ends in Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland. And then you look at the rest of the list. Yes, there is. I think there's two edges that belong. Actually, three I would probably throw in there with –

with Jalen Walker, his teammate, Mikel Williams, and Shamar Stewart. But then also in that mix, I would throw in Jihad Campbell from Alabama and Mason Graham, interior defensive lineman. So that's kind of the range, and Cam Ward would be up there as well in that second tier, if you will. What's interesting, man, is we're now –

like hours away from the draft, right? And there's talk because of certain teams having specific needs, and this happens every year, but not normally this high.

We get to four, New England's probably going to take Will Campbell. Will Campbell's the fourth or fifth best offensive lineman in last year's draft. The information I'm getting as we get closer, it could be Ashton Ginty at four for Jacksonville. It's not going to be Mason Graham, the defensive tackle for Michigan. But the player that I keep hearing over and over again from people in the league and around the league is Tedaroa McMillan, the wide receiver.

So if that's it, and the theory behind it is Trevor Lawrence, go back to 2018, 2019 at Clemson, two six foot four wide receivers, 4,000 receiving yards, 42 touchdowns to Justin Ross and T Higgins, those guys. And he's had smaller receivers at Jacksonville and he's been missing the target by a little bit. Let's get him a big catch radius guy like Ted McMillan at six foot four. And so if that's the case and now Campbell goes for Ted goes five,

I'm told that Las Vegas is going to take Ashton Jinty at six. And so that could be an offensive tackle, Armand Membo.

Now you get to seven and all these guys, you ready? Mason Graham, still available. Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland, still available. Jalen Walker, Shamar Stewart, Mikel Williams, all still available. It's going to be, and Ashton Jinty. How about the, I said, hey Bears fans, wake up. There's a scenario playing out right now as I'm talking to people in the league, day in and day out, where the Bears come on the board at 10th.

I don't want to get everyone all worked up. But Ashton Gentry, Tyler Warren, and Colston Loveland are still available for them there. And is it Ashton Gentry in that spot? I mean, it feels like it. I would think so. Wait, so you said something interesting there. The Raiders are not going to take Ashton Gentry? Because I thought they were leaning that way. So that's what you're hearing. It's opposite? Exactly. I think every mock draft in the world for about a month straight had two of the same players of the same teams.

It was Mason Graham, Michigan defensive tackle going to Jacksonville at five. And one pick later was Ashton Jinty running back going to the Las Vegas Raiders at six. And I don't think either is happening. Wow. So how would you compare Ashton Jinty with running backs in the first round from the last couple of years? Like Bijan Robinson or Gibbs? Is he in that same class? Oh, absolutely. I actually think he's a better pure runner in terms of like contact balance, churning out yards after contact. Yeah.

then Bijan Robinson. There's been six running backs go in the top 10 in the last 10 years of the draft. And Saquon's obviously one of them. Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey were in 2017. Go all the way back to, I think it was 2015 with Todd Gurley. So it's not unprecedented for a running back to go in the top 10. He's certainly worth it in terms of the grade that he carries. But to me, Ashton Jett, he's like,

I haven't talked to any teams that view him not as one of the top six, seven players in this draft. And the fact that he could wind up falling to 10 to the bears would obviously it's positional value, but, but absolutely worth the pick and would I just like part of me fell in love with the concept of, of Warren or Colston with, with Cole commit and cooking it up in the lab with Ben Johnson and 12 personnel and all

But then you throw Ashton Jinty in the mix and taking the pressure off the quarterback position. If that's the scenario, they can't go wrong with the pick, and certainly they'd be thrilled to have him. Because there was a scenario with the Raiders taking Jinty at 6 and the Jets potentially taking Tyler Warren at 7.

where Colson Loveland was the best available at those positions at 10 for the Bears. And I don't know that that's going to be the case anymore. What if it's somehow Mason Graham, Ash, and Jenty at 10?

which would be tough to have that happen. But is there a chance that Mason Graham falls to 10? Because I love Mason Graham. There's a chance. I look at the Jets as a possibility at pick seven for Mason Graham. I wouldn't rule out Carolina at eight, but I don't know. I think if he gets past five and gets past –

The Raiders at six? Yeah, I think he could be on the board. I truly do. That would be exciting. I saw a report earlier today that the Giants and the Browns are taking calls, taking calls on their draft pick. I just got a text from an assistant GM in the league, and he's like, please try to ask around. And I just sent out some feelers, and I'm jumping on with you guys, and I'll make some more calls after.

Apparently there have been calls and that's not surprising. Yeah. But apparently someone's trying, there's a team out there that according to word and people are trying to figure out how true it is and how valid it is. But at this moment, there's, there's apparently a team out there that's putting a big offer.

to the Cleveland Browns to try to move up to No. 2 to get Travis Hunter. Can we guess what team it is? Does it rhyme with the Los Angeles Largers? I don't know. That's why I was sending out texts before I jumped on with you. There's some speculation, maybe the Dallas Cowboys? Oh, yeah. Jerry did say he's looking at doing something either before or after the draft.

But it could happen. We're not in the middle of it, though. No, no, not in the middle of the draft. Not in the middle? He said, we're looking at making, we're looking at two things, and these two things could happen either before or after the draft. So it could be anything. It could be the Cowboys.

Yeah, and he said for a player. I saw that quote. So that player could be Travis Hunter before the draft. So, I mean, it would fall in line, but it's definitely a wide open – I mean, no shit, Jerry. Everyone's going to do something before and after the draft and try to get somebody. Ideally, as long as you're still alive, then you can do something. So Jerry Jones confirms he will live through the weekend. When I saw that report that the Giants and the Browns are taking calls, I just immediately thought they put that report out there so that they will start to take calls.

They're letting people know, like, please continue to contact us because we're listening. I get it with the Giants, but you've known for over a month now that Cam Ward's going number one. So if you're Cleveland and you've made the decision, it's not quarterback. And I know that to be true at two. And then you're...

And you've got your choice between Abtool. I literally started this whole conversation with you guys talking about this year's class. And I said, there's two players that are in a group of their own. So at this point, you know, you're basically on the clock and you know what the board looks like. So why I get the Giants, because we can get to the Giants in a second, but there's some dissension in the Giants ranks. And so maybe trading out of that spot,

If you're trying to appease the head coach and Brian Dable and maybe get a quarterback, you'd like to move back, get a quarterback, have an additional pick to try to plug some other holes. If that's truly the case. And again, we can get to the Giants in a second. But if you're Cleveland, you either know you want Travis Hunter, you've decided that.

or you're looking at this and weeks ago you would have been talking to other teams about potentially moving up to the number two spot. It doesn't make sense that they would be putting out the feelers. It would make sense if the Giants were kind of reaching out, hey, any interest here? Right. So speaking of the Giants, you know front offices better than anyone. You'd have a bunch of sources. You'd talk to a bunch of guys.

The Giants feel like they're in that specific spot where it's a coach that's on the hot seat that is most likely going to get fired unless they have a crazy turnaround. Same with the GM. The owner's probably getting impatient because they've had some really bad seasons and it's like not Giants football. And will they take a reach and take a Shador Sanders knowing that buys them maybe an extra year?

Like, when you see that happen, it happens every single year in the NFL. Is there ever a front office that's like, hey, we're not doing this. Like, we're not going to do this. This is stupid. Why are we letting ourselves just do something so quickly just for self-preservation here? Let me give you a couple pieces of insight here. First of all, I was actually mildly surprised to hear as of Sunday, my information is that John Mara, the Mara family, they have not gotten –

And I don't mean they're not involved in the process. I mean, they're not saying we need to do this or we really would like to take Shador at three or really would like to take out there. They're letting the people they hired work out the decision.

Second part is everyone got all worked up. They're grabbing the Mara plane and they're flying to Boulder on Thursday of last week. Tuscaloosa on Friday for Jalen Milrow, Tyler Shuck in Louisville on Saturday. What is it going to be? No one wanted to talk about the Milrow and Shuck part or the fact that they worked out dark the week before. The face of this draft is Shador Sanders. So everyone media wise was on. You know, it's still in play at three.

What I can tell you is this, according to my sources, and honestly, I've been saying it for two weeks on the show. If you hire Brian Dable, you did so because he is one of the handful, not dozens, handful of human beings on this planet in the NFL that actually know how to develop quarterbacks and actually can get the best out of them and actually have a brilliant offensive mind. Okay? Yeah.

And I don't care if this quarterback outlasts Brian in his tenure. I don't care what the wins and losses are. Brian can flat out frigging coach, man. I'm telling you, this guy is at a very high level in the NFL in terms of offensive coaching. I believe that. So...

So you've got this man who's one of just a handful in the league in your building. He's the smartest man in the room. And for some reason, there's some people in the scouting department that prefer Shador. But the guy who's going to coach him that's great at doing that,

is not a Shador guy, apparently. And I say that because I've heard that from sources. And I also have said that even before I had sources on it, because I know Brian, I know his style. I know his history. We know Josh Allen. We know what Jalen hurts. I think at Alabama, he's Jackson dart fits the mold for him. Sturdy mobile, uh,

bigger arm than Shador's doesn't have to have a rifle, but like he just fits the mold. And so whether it's Shador or Tyler Schuck or maybe a developmental project in, you know, day two with Jalen Milrow, that fits a lot more than Shador, especially in that climate and that division. So I'm hearing now that he wants to take a quarterback at three or maybe move down from that spot and take a quarterback. He'd like to make sure they get their guy.

But I also have heard, and it lines up with my football sense, is that it's not Shador. So I'm hopeful that this organization is smart enough to say, well, Brian's the guy we've got to lean on with the quarterbacks. We'll handle all the rest of this. And it'll be fascinating to see. Maybe that's part of the reason why there's talk of calls to No. 3. Maybe move back down, take Jackson Dart a little bit later, get an additional pick or two, however that works out.

But that's kind of the backdrop on everything that's going on in that Giants organization. And I'm just hopeful they, I mean, he had to live through Daniel Jones. He got the best when Daniel Jones actually could stay healthy for a minute. He got the best out of Daniel Jones. Imagine he gets to handpick his guy and develop him and not have to rush him out there year one.

with Russell Wilson there and with Jameis Winston there, that's the direction I would go. And if I was the Mara family and I had to get involved at all, I'd be like, you let him make the quarterback decision. You guys make the rest of them. So let's say hypothetically, they stay at their pick, they make their pick and they don't take a quarterback.

They might want to move back up maybe late on in the first round to draft that quarterback with a second first-round pick. Do any owners, and I guess with the Marys specifically, would they say, hey –

no, we don't want to trade all this away to move up so that you can take a quarterback because you're kind of mortgaging the future. And drafting a quarterback kind of feels like it could be an effort to save your job, like Big Cat was saying. Getting a working quarterback in, are there any owners that will say, that will shut that down and say, no, I don't think this is a good idea? Yeah, but then you're basically saying, like,

this is your last year as my head coach. Right, you might as well fire him. Yeah. Or this is your last year as my GM, Joe Shane. So I don't know the inner workings exactly how that would go. I've heard unbelievably wild stories of ownership and last-minute making decisions that didn't align with what the personnel department and what the coaching staff wanted. Dan Snyder and Jay Gruden. But again, I do want to emphasize, because there's been a lot of speculation, that as of Sunday –

the Maris are letting, letting the football people handle the football stuff so far. I, I would like to think that if they do go Abdul Carter at three, that they would be wise in where they tried to try to move up. And if darts, the guy that, that, that Brian Dable wants, then, then you go out and get dark, right? Secure them at 25. Let's say with the Vikings who only have four picks in the entire draft, the few, fewest of any team in the league. So,

That's kind of how I look at this. The other part is, and we haven't even gotten to this, where's Shador going? Yeah. Where? And why? And if Shador, because 21's sitting there and everyone thinks, because the same principles apply with Kellen Moore and New Orleans at nine. I don't think it's going to be quarterback at nine. I am fairly certain Kellen Moore does not want Shador.

that he would be a Jackson dart guy as well, or maybe a Tyler shuck based off of like his last three jobs were as OCs were with Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert and Jalen hurts. Like those are, those are dark types of players or Tyler shuck types of players. She door doesn't have a lot of love right now, man. And listen,

Baker Mayfield was like, what, plus 2,000 to be the number one overall pick the night before. Michael Penix, none of us knew that Michael Penix was going to be the pick for Atlanta a year ago. So we've seen this over and over again. There's a team lurking, I'm sure, that has more interest in Shador in round one than we know of right now. But I'm also told, and this is the fascinating part,

Mike Tomlin does like Shador and there's love for Shador in that building, but it's a softer floor because everyone said, well, that's the floor for Shador 21. It's a softer floor than people want to admit to right now, or maybe people understand right now. And so if it's not 21 or if Pittsburgh's trying to trade back out of that, that spot at 21 because they don't have a second round pick after the DK trade, where should door going? And so is it going to be a situation where it's like, Oh,

Hold, you know, like Cleveland at 33, Giants at 34, New Orleans at 40. We've got private planes have been crossing over each other in the air the last couple of weeks. Workouts with Dart and Chuck and Milrow and Shador. So maybe everyone just holds off and waits. And maybe we only have one quarterback draft in the first round. In fact, like talking to people who are really in the know, even more than I am in the know.

There's a growing sense that it's more likely that one quarterback gets drafted in the first round than three. Wow. All right, so what do you, though, think about Shador as a prospect? Because you're going to go head-to-head with your childhood friend and our boss, Dave Portnoy, who said that he is putting his foot on – like, stamping his – getting on the soapbox, line in the sand. Shador Sanders is going to be a great pro quarterback.

pro bowl type player, where you land on Shador Sanders as a player. Yeah, I mean, Portnoy and I have been fighting since we were nine years old. He's a very accomplished scout. Get out of here. Well, he also then our own company found –

I think it was Mac Jones, Daniel Jones, and then there was one other. Maybe it was Johnny Manziel where he's like, I'll put my reputation on these guys. Right. He's like the cat with the lives, right? He just gets to keep drawing lines in the sand, and then it gets... That's what happens to the line in the sand. It gets swept away. Yeah. So I like Shador. I'm not lining the sand. I like Shador, but can we have some intelligence with the conversation?

The intelligence is like, I don't want him in a, in a system that doesn't fit him. It's like so much of this is about where they land. And I know no one wants to talk about it because it's not sexy and fun pre-draft, but it's,

If you told me that he went to Cleveland, even in that weather and playing in that division, if you told me he went to Cleveland and had a year or two, and he doesn't even need it as much as some of the other guys do. But if he had a little time, wasn't forced in right away, and had Kevin Stefanski, like I told you, Kellen Moore is dark. Shuck. Brian Dable is dark. Shuck.

Kevin Stefanski has won games with guys that aren't the biggest, aren't the most mobile, don't have the biggest arm, but process and like lightning fast and are accurate throwing the ball and get the ball out quickly in that West Coast system and lead receivers to yards after catch. That's what Shador is. So Stefanski would be perfect for him. He won 11 games with Kirk Cousins.

Who was it? McNown? Who was it? The quarterback before he won 10 or 11 games. So he's won games, a lot of games, with guys that don't have that great mobility, size, arm strength. I think he'd be perfect with Shador, but I haven't heard anything on Cleveland. Yeah. And, in fact, I was told do not expect Cleveland to trade up. If someone falls in their lap, yeah, but don't expect them to trade up, which would be interesting, too, because if you do stick and pick it, too –

And you get his teammate, Travis Hunter, and everyone's sitting there, we're at pick 24 or 25. Where's Cleveland? So that'll be fascinating to watch too. Yeah, I could see the Steelers on the clock at 21. The camera is live on them in the war room. And Mike Tomlin picks up the phone, but it's a call from Aaron Rodgers, who's drafting himself onto the Steelers. Just letting them know, hey, I've made my decision. I'm ready to say I'm going to play. I thought for a while it was going to be Aaron –

announcing that he was going to Pittsburgh at that big night out or whatever it was for McAfee. That didn't happen. And then we had the McAfee interview. And my guy, Mench...

was saying all along like you know it's going to be in green bay like he did it i was in cleveland i'll never forget we're getting ready for the draft we get all these hits for sports center and nfl live getting ready and previewing it and what are we hearing and where are you guys going to go and all of a sudden it's like everyone stepped down you know a shifter come on up and it was aaron rogers for like an hour and a half leading up to the draft yeah yeah so that wouldn't have shocked me but i kind of think it's we're going to go through like a little dead period and i think

I think that he'll be true to what he was saying and he needs a little time, but we'll have to see. So one guy we haven't talked a lot about because he's a presumptive number one overall pick, Cam Ward to the Titans. Yeah.

He's been just glazing his teammates on the Titans on live streams. I don't know if you've seen that. No. But good teammate. I would say good teammate on his part. But can you just tell us what you project him as as an NFL quarterback? Because it's just been, yeah, he's going to go number one overall, and then we move on to try to figure out what every other team's going to do. But in terms of him as a player for the Titans...

How would you have him graded in some of the last handfuls of drafts? I think the conversation would have started at QB4 last year with Cam Ward. I think with the other guy, with Shador and Dart, it would have started probably at QB... If I'm being honest, QB6, but for most people, QB7. I didn't have Bo Nix as high as some other... I had a second-round grade on Bo Nix, so I was wrong on that so far. Cam...

When you watch the tape and you study the cut-ups of him in rhythm, on time, when he gets to the top of his drop, foot in there, receiver's where he's supposed to be and drives it, he's an absolute sniper. And I think that's what Brian Callahan is...

is looking at and like, I'm going to channel that guy. Just like when Andy Reed and Brett Veach, the GM for the Chiefs, watched Patrick Mahomes and he's drifting and kind of just throwing from every arm angle. And it was an absolute mess at Texas Tech, but a beautiful mess, but still a mess. You know, they saw when you go and you isolate those clips when he's actually in rhythm and running within the, you know, the constructs of the offense. It was brilliant.

And it's the same thing with Cam. And I think Brian Callahan, the coach is, is absolutely qualified to help in his development. He started his career with Peyton Manning in Denver. Matthew Stafford, he spent a lot of time with, right? He, he obviously Joe Burrow brought them to the Superbowl. So he's been around greatness. I mean like the highest level greatness at the quarterback position and has helped in the process along the way learned and helped. So yeah,

I like that fit. And I think Cam needs channeling. Patrick Mahomes needed channeling, but they both share a similar trait. I'm not doing the Mahomes and Cam Ward thing here. I'm not. I'm just saying one of the special traits for Cam is that he feels the pressure, knows it's coming, but he's going to let you take another step or two towards him because then you're leveraged out. It's like the old out the way.

Instead of some of these other guys, you watch the panic, the drifting, the racing out of the pocket, and things get scrambled. He's unbelievably calm, and he is thinking a step ahead. And I think if you've channeled what he does –

in terms of in the pocket, on time, and then you allow him to still utilize those traits when the initial play breaks down, you could have something pretty special with Cam. Yeah. What are the wild card teams on Thursday night? What are the teams that were like, hey, we don't know what they're going to do. They could trade up.

It might not be a drastic trade like going up to two or three, but you've heard they're going to move around or they might love someone that's going to shock people. Are there any of those teams out there? The Houston Texans, there's some noise that they're trying to move up for an offensive lineman. Okay. Yeah.

Dallas is going to be interesting. You just kind of sensing that something's going on there. A lot of people have thought Ted McMillan to Dallas at 12. Now we're here in Jacksonville. I don't know if that would, that would force their hand and they would, they like them that much. I've got them right. 50th on my board. I like, I see the talent. There's a lot of other stuff I don't trust with Ted McMillan. So we'll see about that. Yeah.

Philadelphia, Howie Roseman can't sit still. So whether it's moving up, moving back at 32. But I do think Mason Taylor is an intriguing prospect for them with Dallas Goddard and the situation there. And the Rams, the Rams, could that be a quarterback team where they –

They just all of a sudden out of nowhere decided, yeah, we're going to take Jackson Dart if he's there. So obviously with Stafford and his situation, I don't plan on that, but it's just something to keep an eye on. Okay. Are there any guys from smaller schools that you're keeping your eye on?

Gray's able. One of my favorites in this draft, North Dakota state. They like play like Toronto Armstead, Cody mock Quinn minors. All these guys show up at the senior bowl, have awesome weeks, disprove the small school level and go on to have really brilliant careers and get drafted in all sorts of different ranges, but go on to have really good careers. Gray's able moves differently than every interior offensive lineman in this draft. I,

I think he could go as high as 18 to Seattle. Okay. All right. What about your QBs? So how do you have your QBs ranked? And then maybe give us the QB that you love that's ranked in the, let's say, four to eight range or five to eight range where you're like, hey, this is a project, but this is someone that I could see, you know, a team taking a shot at third, fourth round where it's like this could be a guy sometime soon.

So I've got Cam Ward one, Jackson Dart two, Shador Sanders three, Tyler Shuck four, Jalen Milrow five, and Will Howard six. Tyler Shuck's one of my favorites, man, and I got to spend a little bit of time with him at the Combine. He's 25, going to be 26 during the season, I believe. He had three season-ending injuries, all bone breaks. Injury-prone, you could call them, or fluke injuries. Okay.

He has he when he first started out at Oregon, he's been three different schools, seven years in college. He was in he was in the recruiting class with Trevor Lawrence. He was the backup to Justin Herbert at Oregon his freshman year. He's been around that long. Those guys are like going, you know, second contracts and all that.

He's matured a lot, and no one wants to hear the touchy-feely, fun stuff with quarterbacks. But you've got to know who you are as a human being if you're going to take over an organization, be handed the keys at some point in a year or two, and look in that huddle. If you do huddle in grown-ass men, they're looking back at you and got no time for some pup. He's had football. He was carted off the field, thought he would never play again. He's just been through a lot. And I look at him, and I'm like,

The biggest negative I have in talking to teams, this is the problem. Seven years, but only in this age, but only one year of starting experience, one full year, right at Louisville this past year. But he's with the Brahm brothers who know how to, you know, coach quarterbacks. He's developed unbelievably well in the past year, year plus. And he, the,

He can step in, and I think he's going to shock people when he plays. He's bigger than the rest of these quarterbacks. He's got a stronger arm than probably the rest of these quarterbacks, maybe the same level as Cam Ward. He's faster on a straight line than all these guys outside of Jalen Milrow, the top four guys for me. He's the fastest of all of them when he tucks and runs. The traits are there. The experience is there. The maturity is there. I would love to see him, whether it's the Giants –

Interesting. What about the wide receivers? How do you have them ranked?

I'm way different than a lot of people in this class. I like that. Yeah, it's good. Way different. I've got No. 1 receiver is Matthew Golden. Route running Christmas 429 40-yard dash. Second fastest player at the Combine. And the questions about him, is the top end speed great? He's not great after the catch in terms of making guys miss, but if he catches a crease, he's gone. Vertical speed, adjust to the ball. I like Golden 1.

Then the big surprise probably for most people would be Jalen Knoll from Iowa State. I've got him at number two.

at the wide receiver position he is so explosive he yeah he's undersized yeah he's probably gonna be a slot like that fine but but like look at lad mcconkey last year and what he came in like he's probably gonna have to be a slot i don't know and mcconkey was one of the best rookie receivers in a class that was like legendary for rookie production and wide receiver so i think noel is going to be probably a second round pick

He's not getting to the third, but not going to be in the first. So a second round pick. And I think he's going to way outplay his draft slot.

After that, I've got Emeka Ibuka from Ohio State, another probably slot receiver but consistent, a lot of production. And then I like the other Iowa State 2 guy, too, Jaden Higgins, big 6'3 plus, physical receiver, great getting off the press. Those are my top four, and Tet McMillan is down there at number 50 overall, as I said. And then Burden, because that's like –

Yeah, Luther Burden I actually have before Tet. And Luther Burden comes with a handful of –

and red flags and all that, but he is, he's not Debo. Everyone wants to say he's Debo, but I get the comp in that he's physical, explosive after the catch, versatile. You can do a lot of different things with him, never going to be your best route runner, but if you can get him the football, he's going to make a lot of plays. I don't know if you watch the same film I watched, but as a scout, Tet had this one catch. He wasn't wearing pads, no big deal, but he jumped up in the air, caught it, and then put the ball between his legs before he landed. Mm-hmm.

Did you see that? And if you haven't... I did. Did that change your mind at all? Clearly not. Okay. Because I just turned in my final top 300. I'll post tonight the McShea Report. Google it. Subscribe, people. Come on. Club McShea Shea. Give us...

Maybe not. Maybe not right now. Yeah, not right now. No. No, that's right. Shouldn't have laughed. I'm in trouble. Give us another guy who may be in the second or third round, any position that you love and you're like, when you hear this name, because that's what we love about the drafts. It's like, we're all going to sell ourselves on whatever ends up happening. Yeah. Be like, this is a guy. But if you hear it first from McShay, it's just confirmation bias. Whoever's listening and rooting for that team, they're like, yeah, McShay said that. JT...

Tui Mo Lalao. I've had to practice that name. Tui Mo Lalao from Ohio State. I just like him. I think I had prospect fatigue over time. The first report I wrote on him was in the summer of 2022. We're now going in the summer of 2025. So it was the same guy over and over again. But this year he took it to another level.

This year's draft, I agree with Daniel Jeremiah, it's not great at the top. There's not as many elite players at the top as you'd like to see. But teams are looking for starters. And if you're a base 4-3 defense, plug in. He's going to be seven, nine sacks a year, batted down passes, effort, gap control. There's nothing overly sexy about his game, but he's going to be one of those guys who eight, nine years in, we're like, he's still doing it at a high level. I like JTT.

I think Travion Henderson, if put in the right spot, like the Jameer Gibbs spot that he was put in, has got a chance to be special. Don't rule him out.

as a first-round draft pick. In fact, I've talked to teams that have him rated higher than Omari and Hampton. And there's a growing sense that he could wind up being RB2 in this class. So that's intriguing. Elijah Arroyo. So much time has been spent on Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland, and rightfully so. And Mason Taylor could sneak in at 32, right?

There's going to be a team that gets Arroyo out of Miami. And if he can stay healthy, which you could say about every prospect, but he's had struggles with durability. He is so explosive. And like his ability to get down the seam, run routes down the field. He's like a different level. And the thing normally these like Kelsey types, the F tight end, the flex out tight end, they don't block all that well.

This guy's got some prick in him, man. Like he loves it. He will embarrass you on tape. So I just, I think Arroyo is going to wind up really outplaying where he winds up getting drafted, which is probably gonna be somewhere in like the forties or early fifties. But I think Arroyo is an absolute player.

Where do you see the Washington Commanders going this year? Because they're an interesting team. On paper, they make the NFC Championship game, but then you look at the roster and you think to yourself, they do have a lot of holes. They've got a lot of places that they have to get much younger at because we've been doing one-year rentals on a lot of people. So what direction do you see them going?

I think edge is a spot that they'd like to be able to go. They're not, I don't think they're stuck drafting there. We've got a bunch of guys who are going to come off the board. And I think earlier than people expected. Now that I'm talking to teams, I think it's going to be Carter at three, Abdul Carter at three. I think Jalen Walker is going to go maybe as early as the jets at six. And then if not a couple of picks later, I think Michael Williams could go as early as let's say eight to, to Carolina. I think she more Stewart could go shortly thereafter. Maybe it's nine to the saints.

I think James Pierce could go like 15 to Atlanta, Mike Green, maybe 17 to Cincinnati. And all of a sudden you look up, you're like, shit, we're pick 18. And we said, what did I just list off? Like seven guys. Yeah. So,

I don't know that there's going to be like Donovan as a rock who from BC is really, really a savvy, proficient edge rusher. I just don't know that he's got that like he's shorter. He's not the fastest, most explosive guy. I think he's probably going to be early to why not? Why not? Travion Henderson there. Yeah. Yeah. It would make sense.

I get it, like cornerback, edge, or bigger needs, but if Jadé Barron and Will Johnson and Maxwell Harrison are all off the board, and all those edges are off the board, and you can't trade back, I don't know. Just getting a weapon in the passing game and adding that with Brian Robinson, what you already have, and I just...

I think he's got a chance to elevate like Gibbs did maybe not quite to that level, but to take an offense that's explosive and to do like just a little, you know, just a little more nudge where now you got to account for this guy. Who's a four, four catches the ball out of the backfield. We'll we'll protect too. He and his buddy, Quinshawn Judkins, their past protection tape is fun to watch. You know, I could see Henderson is as a,

as someone who's on the short list as a possibility. Yeah, I mean, Eckler did a pretty good job with that last year, but he's not getting any younger. And on third down for Jaden, he likes to find the running backs, move the sticks. That would make a lot of sense to me. I would personally like to see Malachi Starks. I love watching that guy play. I can see that. Jeremy Chin's gone. Yeah.

The safeties are, I mean, you talk about polar opposites of the spectrum, right? You've got Nick Eman, where he's like 6'3", 220 pounds.

like broke the broad jump record at the combine by like four inches and had the best over 200 pounds, like the best vertical jump of any player ever. Just insane workout. And his tape is really good and interesting. But like you talk about the kind of the football character stuff and the focus issues and kind of in and out of things and aggressiveness in the run support. So there's this like balancing act with him.

The traits are unbelievable, but what are we, are we sure that this is a first round talent, first round guy that we want to bring in?

Then you get Starks, who's like, Kirby Smart talks about him almost as glowingly as Nick Saban talked about Will Anderson a couple years ago, okay? Just loves ball, team first, prepared, does all the little things, smooth move on tape, is beautiful moving smooth and aggressive and plays fast and comes up and hits and all the things. And he's a first-round talent on tape.

But then he worked out, and it was like third worst this, second worst this, like among the safeties in the class, and didn't run very well. So I think –

I do think the safeties, if they come off the board in the first round, will be very late, like that 27 to 32 range. But I could see a scenario, too, where neither guy gets drafted by the end of night one. Are you a guy that puts any stock into drafting captains? Like you give a little bonus, like a gold star, if they're a captain on their college team? You get my attention when you're like a three-year captain. Yeah. And you get my attention when you've transferred in

from somewhere and you're immediately, you earned a captain. You were able to in that little window of like three, four, five months, right?

become a captain before the week week one of the season but there's a lot of captains out there yeah but yeah I'd prefer a captain over a non-captain yeah all right I got one last question for you always been awesome having you on Todd go check out the Todd McShay show on ringer you're gonna have to watch Ryan Russell hopefully run a 40-yard dash on Saturday live from his house

Uh, 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. I think we've asked this before, but I want to ask it again. Uh, just cause it's fun to look back. What was your number one? Like I nailed that and no one else had it. And your number one, I was way off on this person and I should have realized it. I can't, I, I, I hate when it's the negative stuff, but I, I,

I still go back to Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow.

Brady Quinn, but it wasn't, was it Quinn? No, it was Clawson with Kuyper. Yeah. Clawson with Kuyper. Yeah. I had a good run on, on, on shutting Kuyper down on some quarterbacks. Yeah. Clawson and Quinn. I think he had an agent who represented some of those Notre Dame guys, bumped him up. But I mean, I got him to promise to retire and he's still going. Yeah. That didn't work out. But what was your best? What's your number one where you're like, I had that guy before everyone else.

before everyone else or you or you were you were different like say for example this year if you're if your wide receiver board turns out to be correct you'll be very you'll be vindicated because everyone has tet going you know as the best and you have them as the fifth i had malik neighbors last year the number one receiver that's good that matters anything yeah although brian thomas was very good yeah brian thomas was very good marvin harrison jr will be very good um

I don't know. I don't like to sit here and pat my back on it. Yeah, pump yourself up. I still like, yeah, I don't know. I'll say this. The quarterbacks have always been the hardest. Like Bo Nix last year I talked about. Jamarcus Russell was the one.

Obviously, but there were a lot of people in the league that didn't like Jamarcus. I had the wrong information. My goodness, I've never – talk about learning a hard lesson early on when he's on his knee like throwing 60 yards, hitting the goal post, and you're like a 25-year-old scout sent from ESPN to do the first pro day ever, and you see that and you're like – Oh, my God. Yeah. How could this go wrong? Yeah. And then when he's sitting in the sideline –

doing interviews and sitting on the ground and media is coming up and putting the microphones in front of them. And I asked, I'm asking people at LSU, like, why is he sitting like, Oh, he's just chill. You know, he's like relaxed. And that's part of the reason he's so good. And it turns out like, no, that dude's just lazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

Okay. I like what you said about Bo Nix, too. I'm wrong so far on Bo Nix. Yeah, what's the year? How many years do you give it until you, like, after three? Then you give it up. Although Sam Darnold, I'm still, like, Sam Darnold...

I love you, buddy. I loved Sam Darnold in that class. Loved him. So you're still holding on to a little bit of stock. I mean, he was the best quarterback in the league for like 12, 13 weeks last year. It's true. It's true. So it's coming around. So if you were going to give up after year three...

Usually by year three, but not always. I do kind of feel bad for the scouts that spend all year studying guys, certain guys, and they fall in love with these guys. And they're like, I need you on my team. And then some other team swoops in and takes him beforehand. How are you supposed to detangle yourself from that relationship that you've built up? You've watched every play he's made. You've hung out with him. You've met his family. It's real, man. It's real.

And that's why every team gives, like, whether it's, like, the gold star or the red star or the red dot. Like, they allow their scouts to go up to the board and be like, pick your one. Pick your guy. And they do their best in the right situation. And they'll take it over a player with a similar grade and all that. But they do get to know them. Like, these scouts, man, they're...

I know no one wants to hear it in Crimea River. They work for NFL teams, but like what they get paid for the work they do talking to them now, like I've talked to a good friend who's in the Southeast and like, it used to be like 12, 13 players in the summer. They're evaluating. And now like NIL and transfer portal and guys all over the place. And it, it all missed. It was 12 or 13. And this year he had 30 players. He had to write up in the summer. And it's not just like watching tape. It's like, like,

Like you said, like getting to know the background, like all the history, who's in charge of this guy. Now who's the agent of this guy? What deals he – it's a lot of work that goes into all these individuals in a region, and then you handpick a few guys that you like absolutely love, you believe in. You present that to the general manager, and they do their best. But odds are –

I mean, maybe you get one or two guys at best from your entire region in a draft. And then you're looking at these reports, like a binder this big and like files and it's just all, it's all gone. Yeah. Wild, wild professor. Yeah, there should be a scout of the year award.

Because we don't celebrate the scouts. Actually, we'll give it to us. For John, we picked Josh Allen. Yeah. I'll never forget. That was like one of my, I mean, obviously we did like the combine together and all, but that was the first time being out in a real setting professionally with you clowns. Yeah, at the combine.

And I'm like, what is going on with you? You guys are like going up to like GMs and coaches. Yeah. You saw his arm, right? Yeah. Passing out the sheet. At that point, no one really knew what your whole deal was. Yeah. And like...

was not media was, was staunch back then. Yeah. Like you, like you had to have like permission and go through, you know, the certain channels to talk to a general manager head coach. And you guys were just like, yeah, you saw his big arm, right? We didn't get you guys yet. And I'm like, Oh gosh. I know those guys. Yeah. Yeah.

I was just timing, I was just timing big cat in a 40. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a grandma walked by. We think you might like this piece of literature, sir. Like Jehovah's witnesses for Josh. The pamphlet we used to call it the varsal pamphlet. Yeah. Yeah. He's laughing at his, looking out at the water right now in Miami. Um,

Yeah, there should be a Scott of the Year award. Yeah, we'll give it. We'll give it. Get on that. Get on that. Yeah. All right, Todd, you're the best. Appreciate you. Everyone tune into his show on The Ringer. And best of luck on the draft. Let's crush this draft. You got it, man. Let's do it.

We'll be right back.

And I'm going to be going to the Caps-Canadiens game in Montreal with Oldie and Pug on Friday. Pumped about that series. Game two is tonight, Wednesday night in D.C. Hank, what's the get-in price tonight? The get-in price tonight in Washington is $59. That's a pretty good deal. Great deal. Super deal. Game two, rock the red. Super deal. With game time, you get the best prices. And the ticket prices actually do get lower the closer you get to tip-off.

Game time. Who?

Hoo!

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Okay, we now welcome on a very good friend of ours, recurring guest. It is Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. Coach, it's draft season. We wanted to catch up with you, talk some draft. But thank you for coming on. Let's start, though. How would you grade your NFL head coach's picture at the league meetings a couple weeks ago? How would you think you did? Personally? Yeah.

I give myself a B. Okay. I think I had you in the hot guy crew. Yeah, the hot boy crew with you, Canales, Sean McVay, and D'Amico Ryans. I mean, that's a pretty good crew. I'll take that all day. Yeah, yeah. So do you think, though, that NFL head coaches are getting too hot? Because, like, I...

Like, we lost Matt Rule, who Matt Rule can dress up all he wants. He's going to look like Matt Rule. Do you think that you guys are maybe getting a little too hot and we're losing a piece of that game? Yeah, I don't worry about that. You know, I do take a lot of –

I love watching your write-ups on all of us, though. I think that's very entertaining. Yes, yes. But, I mean, you definitely – we know Sean definitely takes – he thinks about his looks. Sean takes a lot of pride in that. Yeah. He had the PRP injections to grow the beard out a little bit. Yeah. He does a lot of things. He's Hollywood, though. Yeah, that's true. He's right there. Can you blame him? Yeah. So what you're saying is you're just naturally hot.

you're not trying to do it at all, whereas Coach McVay is, he's trying to do it. He's got to get dressed up and have everyone, you know, he's spending money on his face and everything. You're just rolling out of bed good looking. Well, Arthur Smith said otherwise. He said I spend a lot of time on my hair and all that, which I can't say is totally wrong. Yeah. But...

Yeah. We do miss Arthur Smith in the league too. Like as a, as a head coach, having him in that picture was a, that was a nice touch too. Yeah. No, ours is the best. Yeah. Yeah. So, so coach you're, are you hosting the draft? Are you, do you have any hosting responsibilities? Yeah. Are they staying at your house? I have no hosting responsibilities. Oh, so nothing, nothing additional. Are you going to be at the team facility? Are you going to be like at the physical draft itself?

Well, yeah, technically since it's here, but I'll be in the same draft room that I've been in the last... Well, I guess it was our first year in our new portion of our building. So I'll be up there in the draft room on the second floor, but it...

It kind of, Goody's office is right around the corner, so you can overlook and see what's going on outside. Oh, all right. So can you break down, I know this might be boring for some people, but I'm actually fascinated with it, like your actual draft day schedule. Like what time does it get cooking? What time do you guys sit down? You obviously have done all the work, but like how does it work just sitting there in the war room and like, you know, the bullets are flying and you're trying to figure everything out?

Honestly, it's just kind of a waiting game, especially we're picking 23rd this year. And there's a lot of unknowns, I would say, in this draft in particular, probably more so in this one than there is in previous years. Just in terms of there's not, I would say, a clear consensus in terms of how some of these guys are going to fall. And it's always a little bit of a crapshoot, but it's a lot of waiting around to

But you can feel it starts to get tense the closer you are to making your selection. Yeah. So what's the snack situation like in your draft war room? You know, we got a lot of scouts that like to eat. And so I'd say there's some pretty good snacks floating around. Yeah. Who are you guys going to pick? That's a hell of a question.

I thought I got you. I thought I was going to have you. I feel like the Green Bay beat writers always know who you're going to pick before just because they know, like, you guys have a type. You're like the Ravens. Like the Packers and Ravens, it feels like they always get the guy that they wanted to get, and he ends up being good, and it's like, God damn it, it happened again. It's not always the case, but...

You want to be successful through the draft, and thankfully our guys have done a pretty good job. All right, so when you get closer to your pick, obviously you're not the GM, but you are the head coach. Are you being asked? Are you weighing in, or are you just like, hey, you guys have been doing all the work. I'm going to go coach the team. You guys have been doing the scouting. I defer to you, or do you throw in some thoughts and everything?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think the I mean, I'm sitting right next to Goody and the rest of our scouting department. And, you know, sometimes there's there's more conversation than others. But, yeah, I absolutely weigh in, especially as we're getting close. And usually there's a couple of guys within the range that you're kind of targeting and you kind of weigh in and give your thoughts and then.

Just wait to see who we pick. Do you guys still use the same draft chart, the one that Jimmy Johnson came up with where he assigned all the numbers, the different values for each pick? Oh, yeah. There's a couple of them out there. That is one of them that we have all this stuff up on the screen, on your computer screen, and especially when you start talking about trades and you hear the phones ring. I would say there's a lot of scouts in the room, and most of the scouts have –

a team that they're in communication with. So as those trades get thrown around, you start comparing and see where it falls. And those draft charts, they're all a little bit different. We have our own draft chart, as a matter of fact.

But we always use all those to compare in terms of where the value is. Yeah. Do you guys ever – has it ever come down to like the last second and you guys don't have your pick in? Has there ever been pressure on the clock that way? Because I remember the Vikings, they got – I think twice they didn't submit their pick on time and lost their pick. Yeah, that's – I mean, it hasn't happened in my experience here, but –

Yeah, usually you have – you always have a plan B. If something doesn't go through the way you want it, you always have something down just so that doesn't happen. Yeah. Do you text with any of your friends who are in different organizations, coaches, scouts, whatever, and like –

bust their balls like in a fantasy draft being like that was a reach like oh we had a third round grade on him I would do that do you not I would say you usually just compliment when yeah somebody that you like

And then there's some laughter within the draft room sometimes. Like, I can't believe they just took whoever that may be. But typically we kind of keep that in house. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Cause I would definitely not be able to help myself and just be like, even if it wasn't true, I'd just be like, dude, I had a third round third day grade on this guy.

I think I'm going to try that approach this year. Yeah. Just cause you see how they react. It will get in someone's head like that. When, when you draft in fantasy football and someone says, Ooh, that's a reach. You're just like, fuck, was that a reach? Even if they're fucking with you, you definitely get in your head and then you, you start making crazy decisions.

I think I'm going to have to try it. Yeah. Well, now, if any other coaches are listening to this interview and they don't get a text from you being like, good pick, then they're going to be in their own head thinking like, why didn't I get the good pick text from Matt? He must think that pick sucks. We set that up. One thing I would also do if I was a coach –

I would probably forget to do my draft prep and then read a mock draft on my way into the office that day and be like, oh shit, okay, now I'm good. Do you ever read the mock drafts and think to yourself, these guys have no fucking idea what we're talking about?

Uh, yeah, but I, I usually try not to look at any like mock drafts or any draft evaluations till the, till the very end of it. Cause sometimes you're, you're like, well, maybe I'm missing something, but, um,

You just don't want that to really factor into the work that you do watching the players and getting to know them. Yeah, you know what you need to do, too, is we found in our travels that NFL scouts actually listen to this show more than probably any profession because they're in the car all the time. And I've talked to them about it. We've gone to college games where we'll see a bunch of scouts and they'll come up and talk to us. I'm like, why are you listening to us? We're morons. They're like, well, we kind of...

We live football and we kind of want to shut off our brains and listen to you guys be idiots. And I was like, actually, that's a fair response. But I would imagine a scout listening to us too much is bad for their brain and scouting. So you should probably throw a test out there to see. Maybe be like, hey, you guys hear Max get pranked by Jerry O'Connell with Big Dom. And if anyone says they had, just be like, you're out. Get out of here. You listen too much.

Yeah. Well, you guys are so entertaining, you know? I mean... I don't know about that. I think it's just good for them to feel smart about themselves. They listen to us and they're like, okay, yeah, I know what I'm talking about. These guys don't. Right. Well, that's part of it, too. Right. There's no doubt about it. You basically... I would imagine a scout, like...

if they're out on the road 200 days a year, they're toiling away trying to find the next diamond in a rough, they turn us on and they're like, hey, at least I'm not dumb like these guys. It's almost like a confidence. Like, I can still do this. I can still scout football. I don't think you guys are that dumb. I think I personally had a first overall grade on Joe Milton last year. You still do. When you were scouting Joe Milton, were you like, man, that guy can throw a football a fucking mile?

Yeah, you can throw a mile. Yeah, I love watching them. Yeah. I have a real like Big J question for you. I need to hold your feet to the fire on something. A Big J? Yeah, Big J. Capital J Journalist. Okay. Why are you afraid of the tush push? Why are you scared of it? It's just a play. You can do it. You're being kind of a pussy about it. Well, I don't want to get into how I really feel about it. So like...

I'm good with whatever they want to decide and do adapt, but it has been a pretty damn successful play. Ironically enough, we actually do better when we don't do the tush push. So, Oh wait. So, but how do you actually feel? You don't like it.

No, I don't. I mean, I'm indifferent, to be honest with you. What does it feel like when you know the tush push is coming, though? That's got to suck. Well, yeah, you know, I mean, they're in a favorable situation because it's still like, you know, almost 90 percent effective. So it's a tough play to stop. That's for sure. And especially with.

how Philly's done it and Jalen does a great job. But I think, I really think it all starts up front. Those guys do a really good job of getting low and allowing Jalen to use his Herculean leg strength to,

push the pile forward yeah yeah if you're allowed to do the tush push i think you should be allowed to do the thing that frankie lou vu did which is just jump over the line repeatedly and hit somebody well see i think that's what we're trying to avoid right right yeah but that's still fun it's a good like the defense has the ability to do that i just i i thought it was very funny when the ref was like if you do it again we're going to award a touchdown i'd never heard that before

Neither did I. Yeah. I didn't know they could do that. That's a real rule. Yeah, yeah. It is a real rule. Sidebar PFT. We won't let Coach listen to this, but I read a theory that the Packers actually were like being the sacrificial lamb in –

trying to ban the Tush Push because they don't have an owner because they're weirdos like that and you can't get mad at one owner so like all the other teams wanted the Tush Push banned but the Packers are like we'll propose it we'll say it and then everybody will just be mad at a state right yeah

Oh, hey, what's up, coach? You still there? I'm here. I'm here. All right, so the real question is, and he's my coach now, Ben Johnson, you got beef with him. So, well, he called you out. I don't have beef with Ben. Yeah, so have you guys ever talked, and I...

Listen, he can squat 400 pounds. I don't know if you probably can't squat 400 pounds. I'd like to see that. He'll show it to you. That's fine. He also has a mean... I don't know if you saw his first pitch. It was nasty. At Wrigley on Saturday. I did not see it. Of course you saw it. I did not see it. You saw it. You probably didn't see it because it was too fast. Yeah, it was too fast. It had late breaking action. You would have struck out 100 times out of 100 times, but...

You're probably right because I never played baseball. I was not a baseball guy. Okay, nice excuse. When he said your name, though, were you like, what the heck? I've never even talked to him? Well, it's funny because a lot of people reached out to me and they're like, how well do you know Ben? I was like, I don't. It's good for the rivalry. You need to watch the pitch, though, because it was some nasty stuff. It was like Greg Maddux.

Really? Yeah. I think the most impressive first pitch that I've seen in a very long time. But, yeah, when he brought your name up, I think everybody was like, oh, old buddies just jabbing each other like they do. I assumed. Yeah. Do you work like .0001% harder because he said that? Yeah.

Anytime I'm just lacking a little motivation, I just think about that. It usually gets me over the hump. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like you could do the old got to beat the Packers. He just went more personal level. You know what I mean? He's like, got to go after Matt LaFleur. Make it personal.

Yeah, last time I checked, I thought it was Packers, Bears. No, it's Matt LaFleur, Ben Johnson. Squat, squat fest. We're going to do a squat fest. I love that. I mean, you haven't beaten the... That's pretty impressive. He can squat 400 pounds. Yep, I think it's 405. You haven't beaten the Bears in 2025, have you?

We have not. We haven't played. Actually, we did play. Yep, yep, yep. There was a game. So maybe a shifting of the tides. I do want to give you some credit, though, for your coaching job this year because I thought what you did when Malik Willis came in, to the outsider, it looked like you were calling – you were emptying the bag when Malik was out there, the way that you were designing the running plays. Was that a fun week of work for you when you're like, I am going to need to figure out a tale of this offense –

and win a football game, it seemed like you were having fun calling those plays. Well, I got to give our staff a ton of credit. Guys like Adam Stunovich, I mean, he's really the mastermind behind our run game. And so a lot of times we'll build off our run game, we'll build our passing game off that. So, yeah, he definitely – we have a saying around here, the only thing that limits you is your imagination. And he's –

He's a pretty creative guy. That's like a Disney World saying. It is. That's kind of lame. I actually bet on you guys, though, when Malik was – because to give you credit, I was like, Matt LaFleur is a very good coach, and I think he's going to have Malik Willis in a great spot. And I was like – there were a lot of people like Malik Willis can't play. I'm like, coaching matters a lot, and you guys – like you had the game plan for him.

Yeah. And he went out there. What was so impressive about what he did, he'd been here for three weeks before he started his first game. And I don't know too many guys that could handle that type of situation. And it's a credit to him and the guys around him being able to go out there and execute the plan. What this year, I feel like you got a little angrier this year. Are you working on your anger?

I am. I am. So what happened? Did you feel yourself getting angrier this year? Just in certain situations, you know, like when you call a timeout three times and they don't recognize it. You know, I think you kind of...

Earn that right to get a little angry, right? Yeah. Did you know that some people were calling you Mad LaFleur? Yeah. I did not. I was unaware of that. Yeah. You got mad. You got mad. You got triggered. People were saying that. In that game against the Dolphins, when you looked across the field and you saw Mike McDaniel just like all bundled up in his very cozy parka, were you like, we got this game?

This guy can't coach in the cold. Yeah, but it's never about us. It's always the players. Oh, that's a smart cop-out answer. I like that. I saw a report that you're bringing in new ideas to keep the Packers' offense evolving. What new ideas are we talking about? Is it PFT's lateral? Is it my fake punt-punt? What are you doing?

Well, I saw what Mike Leach said the other day. Yeah. Yeah. Or is this a report that he had said? Yeah. Would before he passed? Yeah. That one would be good. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. Would you sign the Rizzler? You know who the Rizzler is, right?

I don't know who the Rizzler is. You know who the Rizzler is. You're just playing coy. You're doing this. Yeah, smoke screen season. And don't make us explain who the Rizzler is because we probably would have the FBI at our door. I promise you, I don't know who the Rizzler is. You just don't want the Vikings to draft him. You're like, we've got him on our big board. He's the little kid that goes like this. Yeah. Do you know who Baby Gronk is? Yeah, I do know who Baby Gronk is. Okay, so you know who the Rizzler is. I don't know who the Rizzler is. Big Justice? Big Justice?

I don't know who that is either. Oh, man. And this is now you've reversed it on us because explaining it is just so embarrassing. Yeah, you don't need to know. I don't really want to explain who the Rizzo is. What do you guys do? Spend all day on social media or something? No. Literally, yes. No. That's our job. We're shitheads who sit on our phones all day. Do you have a burner? Do you look at social media?

You know, I try not to. I'm not going to say I never do because but I do not have a burner, but I try not to because, you know, I learned this lesson one time back when I was the coordinator for Tennessee. We we had a game versus Philly.

we won in overtime and you know I was feeling good about myself had like a 20 minute ride into work and they were saying great things on the radio and then the next week we went out and got smoked and so I just thought it was Karma bad juju I don't want any part of it both good or bad so I try to stay off of it as much as possible which I think is impossible in today's world but

For the most part, I try to stay away from it. That's probably pretty smart. We might have just relapsed you because you're going to walk away from this being like, who the hell is the Rizzler? I've got to find out. I can't. Waller, do you know who the Rizzler is?

Okay, he knows. Yeah, of course he does. He's a regular person. He's QB1 in this draft. You throw him over the line of scrimmage and easy touchdown every single time. It makes a tush-push look like the least effective play ever. I wonder if my kids know who the Rizzler is. They definitely do. How old are your kids? My kids are 13 and 11. Yeah, they know who the Rizzler is. They probably have the Rizzler posters.

They're probably going to make fun of me that I don't know who the Rizzler is. They actually probably will go. They'll probably say, yeah, dad, we knew about the Rizzler. That was six months ago. So they're going to not only make fun of you, but then make fun of us adjacently being like, these guys are fucking losers too. So that's going to suck for us. You'll have to update me if that happens. I got kind of probably a dumb question. It might be a good question though, depending how you answer it. Have you, Sean and Kyle ever gotten like on the group chat together and

and said like, what if we just, what if we just all teamed up again on the same team one day, like maybe 20 years from now, you know, how like the Eagles break up, they do their own side projects. They do a reunion tour. Has that ever been discussed? Yeah, I think it'd be great. We usually get together in other settings, you know, would you, are you closing the door on ever being on the same coaching staff again? Absolutely not. Oh, I like that. Who would be the head coach?

Ooh, we got some pretty strong personalities between Sean and Kyle. So I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if they could coexist, you know, be in same division all these years. Yeah. That's possible. That's true. When your former quarterback Aaron Rogers said that he's looking for a culture like the Packers, were you like, did you have a little smile on your face? You're like, I told you so.

Grass is always greener. No, I didn't know he said that. Oh, you're such a liar. I don't. You're such a liar. You're such a liar. That does make me grin. That makes me happy. Yeah. Yeah. He went to the Jets for two years and he's like, God damn it. I didn't realize what life was like. Yeah. I've heard some of those crazy stories from the Jets. My brother was the coordinator there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So were they true? Yeah.

A lot of them, yes. Wow, sorry memes or producers. Every time an article would come out about the Jets, he'd be like, this is completely made up. He'd just attack all the journalists. The Jets are fine. Diana Rossini, Florio, he'd go after all of them. Unfortunately, just between Sala and my brother, there's some interesting stories. Yeah, is there one reporter that if they call, you're like, oh shit, this person's called, they must have something.

Not really. I feel like most people don't even reach out to me. So I kind of, I don't mess with that too much. Yeah. All right. So when you guys draft and then you bring them in for minicamp, is there like a, do you have a feeling right away? Like, all right, we did, this is good. Or like how quickly are you like, I think this is someone that was going to be here for a long time versus we got some work to do.

I think every situation is a little bit different because I know there's been some guys that we've gotten that you think this guy is going to be a player and he fizzles out. So but, you know, everybody learns at a little different rate. And I hate to be just a blah answer, but I feel like that's really how it is. You got to get them in and, you know,

a lot of these guys just haven't been exposed to what they're going to be asked to do at this level or the type of system that we may have. So I think you've got to give these guys, you know, at least a year to figure it out. Yeah. All right. Off that, is it, what would you say is more demanding for a college, a guy getting drafted? Is it the physical side or the mental side of the NFL? I'd say both. But which one is more, if you had to say?

I mean, I would probably say the mental side because you're probably not drafting them if they physically can't do what you want them to do anyway. So I think in just, although the landscape of college has changed in terms of the length of these seasons now with, I mean, some of these guys are playing 14, 14 games, 15 games. So, um,

It's just the season has gotten longer in college football. And that's usually a big adjustment for guys coming to this level is, you know, you can, the rookie wall. That's a real thing. Yeah. Just the energy that these guys have. Yeah.

So, yeah, but I think definitely the mental. When it comes to a new draft pick, how often are you in touch with them on like a one-on-one basis? Because as a coach, you have a lot of jobs. You've got a lot of stuff that you have to do. How much time do you carve out to like meet with them one-on-one and give them specific instructions? Again, it depends on the situation. You know, I would try to spend a little bit of time with each coach

guys are onboarding and getting a chance to know them throughout the course of the offseason. But you're right. I mean, we've got a big roster size. We've got 90 guys in the offseason. So it's impossible to spend as much time as you'd like with each guy. Yeah. One thing I love about draft night is, is the first time that a coach makes the call to the guy that he's about to draft. We always get to see those videos after the fact of that, you know, initial conversation that you're having. Do they have your number stored already? And they know when you're calling them like, Hey, this is the Green Bay Packers.

No, I don't believe so. I think it just shows up that the area code shows up and it shows up as Green Bay. But no, they definitely don't have our numbers. How many numbers do you have going into the draft? Well, I mean, we've got a computer system. You just read the number and dial in the digits. It says all the players ready to go. He kind of talked down to you there. Yeah, but no, I'm saying you have to be able to call. I don't have all these guys' numbers on my cell phone. Don't let him talk to you like that. You have to look at a screen, but where do you get the –

I'm wondering how many numbers you have. I don't actually think they make the call. Oh, so you got – We got a guy for that. It's beneath you to dial a phone. No, yeah. Maybe. This is gotcha journalism. All right, well, Coach, I got one last question for you. 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.

The draft is three days. At what point in the three days are you like, enough already? Like, I'm done sitting in this room. Because I feel like, or maybe you're used to it, just sitting in the room and eating food, take out every single day for three days in a row. Maybe that's something you're used to. But that's something we're used to. Are you built for it? Are you like, halfway through Friday, you're like, all right, I'm ready to go. I want my life back.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of downtime. You're talking about hours for a quick selection and then you're just waiting. And the most brutal part of the draft process is watching all these players that you kind of fall in love with get picked by other teams. I mean, it's kind of painful to sit there and watch all these guys fly off the board and then

Inevitably, it happens almost every year where you're in a position where you got your target set on a guy and right before you picked, he gets picked.

So you got to pivot and go to another guy. Yeah. You got to get over it real fast. We'll send you some Rizzler videos for the downtime. Please do. I do actually have a lot of downtime where I can, I can figure out who the Rizzler is. Are you going to like listen to any music on the way into work to get pumped up?

No, I'm going to listen to part of my take. Oh, okay. That'll make you dumber. Yeah, that'll make you really dumb. I'm going to send you a Rizzler. It'll actually make me feel good going into the draft process, right? That's true. That's what you guys told me. Yeah. I'm going to get a Rizzler compilation and send it to you. And then that way when your GM is looking over and being like, hey, coach, what do you think about this pick? And you just have the Rizzler up, it's going to be like, what the hell is going on? Yeah. You're going to think much less of us after you watch this.

Two hours of the Rizzler. I'm excited about the Rizzler. The other thing I'm excited about, I got to see this first pitch. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say yeah. Really talk this up. Great late cutting action. Look like Greg Maddox. Have you thrown a first pitch? I have never done that. What? The Brewers never had you out? I've never thrown the first pitch. We were just talking about this the other day. Is it because you're scared? I've never thrown out an opening. You're scared to do it?

Well, now I'm going to have to do it, right? Yeah. You're scared to do it. It's fine. Don't be scared. I've thrown three first pitches. Do you think I'd get booed if I came to a Cubs game and threw out the first pitch? Yeah, probably. It would be fun, though. But you should – that would actually be very fun. Actually, we should see if you could come to a Cubs game, throw out the first pitch, have Ben Johnson in the box. He'll take you 400 feet. Maybe he can catch. Yeah.

Yeah, I want to see your first pitch now. We got to get this. Don't be scared. I know you're scared. That's a lot of pressure. I can tell you're scared. Don't be scared. It's not that hard. It's a lot of pressure. And you have to go from the rubber. I'm going to say that right now. If you don't go from the rubber, I will judge you. Yeah, of course. There's a lot of guys who don't. There's a lot of guys who step up.

No, I'm throwing for the mound. Okay. All right. Good. I got one last, last thing for you. Are you guys playing in Ireland this year? That's a great question. I can't wait to find out. Oh, you don't know? Yeah. Yeah, you are. I promise you. I promise you. I do not know. I promise you. I feel like they should tell you about the international games a little bit sooner, right?

Well, we knew last year we had a pretty good indication that we were playing Philly and Brazil. But on this one, we're kind of in the dark right now and just kind of waiting. I know it's a possibility. Because I've read Packers-Steelers in Dublin, Ireland. Oh, wow. That would be fun.

I think I'm sure they're waiting on Aaron Rogers, whether or not you can't get rid of this guy. Yeah. He's holding up your life still. Somehow he goes to Pittsburgh. Then I'm sure we'll probably be there. That's so perfect. This is all leads back to Aaron's decisions. You just another off season waiting for Aaron's decision. He misses that culture though, man. Congrats on the culture. Yeah. Hey, we take pride in that. All right. Thanks so much, coach. Take care. All right, guys. All right. Take care.

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spring is finally here so come golf with us download the barcel golf time app today okay faqs time hank let's wrap it up wrap it up he's he's lost yeah he's lost it's okay he'll get there he'll get there come on sweetie you got this you're good well i'm sorry i you did you there's no way you would be able to plan for the faqs coming up i have them right here come on sweetie

Hey there, Big Cat PFT and the guy who literally can't get the lottery ball. Oh. If you had to follow Wendy's rule of five dinner, what four recurring guests would you invite? Dead or alive? Rest in peace, Tommy Lasorda. Good question. Are we doing this as a team or is it your personal? I think we got to do it as a team. Jeannie Bouchard. I think we got to do it as a team. All right, Bonk. Put it on the Bonk list. Paige Sporanek. Bonk list. All right. Fauci. Fauci.

John Cena. This is tough. And Dak. This is tough. Yeah, this is. Because you don't want to do... You want to do...

guests that would normally not mix so like you wouldn't want to have i i love rassila and svp but if you brought both them it's like okay they're just going to talk about you know their show and their history like i want to have i want to have all other four people be introduced for the first time with each other it might be damon it might yeah he'd be fun it might be recency bias but

I think that Bill Raftery would be a great dinner guest. Great call. Bill Raftery and Waka Flocka Flame. Those are my first two. Have we had Waka Flocka Flame on the show? We didn't? No. I thought that we did. Yes, you did. Oh, we did? Yeah. You talked about the deaf sign language? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We had Flocka Flame. Flags. JLC? JLC. JLC, Bill Raftery's a really good one, too. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Dead or Alive, you said? Tiffany Gomez. Bill Walton? Good pick.

Bill Walton would be great. Bill Walton would be awesome. Bill Walton. And then John Cena. You could just leave a chair open. That's true. Yeah. That's a good question, though. It's so hard. Like, what would be the best? We should make a graphic where it's like, pick. Maybe Mount Rushmore. No, I'm... Oh. We've done that, and it hurt. It hurt a lot of people's feelings. No, no, no. It was recurring guests. You were about to pick Jules this time, right? Yeah. Before we stopped it. It's pick...

It's for a dinner party. Right, but I would like to see what the AWL is. Oh, I got the last one. What? Joey Chestnut. Oh. A little dinner in the show. You get to pay a lot. Yeah. We should do the meme where it's like you get to pick someone at your lunch table and it's like different categories. So you could put like you got to pick one of SVP, Rosillo, Herbstreet or whatever, you know, as basketball players. So let's do that. The vending machine should have SVP next to it. Yeah. Yeah.

Big Cat. Just? Yeah. Okay. Who in the crew would you trust most to babysit your kids for a weekend? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Uncle PFT is getting ready to buy some beers. Oh, boy. I weirdly...

I weirdly might say Max won. Yeah? I maybe... Either you or me, two PFT. You're one or two PFT. It's either you or Max. That's a guarantee. I think I would be respectful. No, no, I think you'd be very good. It's not... You sometimes forget things. I do. So that might... It was more that. It's not a knock on you in terms of... Wasn't there a girl? Right, yeah. There's a girl one round here. So it'd be you or Max, one or two. Max would be...

Maybe remember things more. I think you'd be more fun. Then Hank three, just because I think he would take it very serious. I don't know, though. Hank would have to golf. There might be a lot of texts. Like, where's the bottle? Memes. My kids would just watch TV all weekend. They wouldn't do shit. Is that fair? Memes?

No, we do stuff. Like what? I don't know. I'll go to the park. Okay. All right. I think the kids would love having memes. He'd come in with like six televisions. Yeah. So many TVs. Shane, by far last. Pug, you'd be in there. So I'm going to go final answer. PFT one, max two. Then we're going to go like draft like McShay did. PFT max one and two. So I'll say PFT one, max two. Those are my blue chippers. Then there's a big drop off. Hank, then there's a really big drop off.

memes. Then there's an enormous drop off. Shit. Jack's not even in the equation. Jack and I are beefing right now. Okay. I walked out and it smelled like shit in the kitchen. And I was like, why does it smell like fish again? And Donnie was like, it smells like beef.

And Jack was playing ping pong. He plays ping pong. He's actually a professional ping pong player. That's how he does every day. Is he? He plays all the time. He hasn't even come sniffed feeding me. And Jack just out of nowhere just goes, I don't think it smells that bad. And I just turned to him. I said, Jack, listen, your only jobs here are to play ping pong and agree with everything I say. And he's like, okay. And then he went back to playing ping pong.

Any smell can smell disgusting if you're not ready for it. Yeah, it was a new smell that I came out. You had been baked in it, Jack. Unexpected smells. It could be a gourmet steak. And if you don't see it coming, you're like, what died in here? Yeah. Jack, do you think you could babysit my kids? If you ask me to, yes. Okay. But what about you going out with the cool kid club here? I would take a day off. Okay. One day? The question was a weekend. As long as you need. All right. So Jack's above Shane.

Hank, were you upset with that ranking? Yeah. Why? You thought you should be ahead of Max at PFT? I don't know what Max has that is more responsible than me. Dog, girlfriend, I don't know, dog. Get a dog. What do you have? Spiders. Not anymore. So you let your spiders die. The dog is still alive. The dog is still alive. I think if you had a dog, you'd be up there. It's just like having a dog, I think, puts you immediately. You're halfway there. You are a dog.

Okay. Yeah, you are a dog. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did any of you guys go into an interview with little to no expectations and come out of it really liking or having a newfound respect for the guest? The Tony Hale interview you did a few years ago back did that very thing for me. Tony Hale. Oh, yeah, yeah. Buster Blum. Yep. I liked him. I would say... JLC. Yeah, JLC is the number one.

JLC is the number one. We didn't even want to take the interview. And they were like, come on, he's good. And we're like, all right, fine. And then it became our best friend. We're like, wait, that's the guy that's married to Rebecca Romaine. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can meet her. Maybe he'll give us some pictures. Yeah. Has there been any other? Because we always say JLC. I really like Julius Randall.

Yes. Didn't like to expect him that. I liked Palo a lot. I mean, old school Joe Buck. Like, I think we always thought we would get along with Joe Buck, but it was, you know, who knows? Because we didn't know if he was going to be, like, the best. And he was the best. I thought that Chris Long was a piece of shit until he was on the show. Yeah. I was like, yeah, I kind of respect him. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's any others. Hank, can you think of any others?

Gary Busey. Gary Busey was very fun. Tom Fornelli, I thought he was a piece of shit. Martin Shkreli. Still might be. Because he stole all the takes from Hank. Yeah, he's stealing everything from Hank. Prisco's a prickly one that I think... Exactly what I expected. Yeah, but I think we're the only ones who like him. Yeah. Like, I don't think anyone likes listening to him. We just like listening to him. Which, guess what? It's our show. You can come up with your own show.

Then you could ban Pete Prisco. I mean, another one would be Max Homa. We just knew Max as like a kind of quirky online guy, but we didn't know him personally the first time that we had him on. He had, I think, talked to us via DMs. He played Warzone with Hank. He and I had DMed a few times, but we didn't know each other. He came on the show and we were like, yeah, love this guy. Brooks. Yeah, Brooks. Brooks is the first interview we did with Brooks. We were like...

I can't remember. I got connected with one of his guys. He was like, hey, you ever won Brooks on? I'm like, I guess we'll go do it because they were playing at the... Was it the US Open? No, it was the PGA. US Open. It was US Open. I'm like, yeah, we'll go interview him. And then we're like, shit, we love this guy. And then he ended up winning more and coming on all the time. So that was definitely one. Yep. I thought it would be a one and done and it's become a... Someday we should... Relationship. We should get everyone...

Like, the day that we end this podcast, hopefully many years from now, but how many of these guys do you think we can get in one room? It would be pretty cool. Would be. Just have them all together. All right, is that it? Yeah. Good job. Thanks. Great job, Hank. You think you should have been two or one? No, no. I respect your judgment. Do you think you could take care of kids for an entire weekend? No. Right. But, Max, like...

Better than... I just... Max is like a... He's basically Santa 24-7. He is. He's a jolly big guy with a beard.

Yeah. Like kids like that. I mean, I've said it on this show. My kids are obsessed with when his I show him every time Max's butt comes out, which is a lot. His butt crack. And they always are like, my dad, my daughter's like, can I see Max's butt? Like Max is the funny guy. He's got a butt that comes out. Yeah, it's fair. Work to be done. Work to be done. You're not going to do anything. Tip. Find your find your inner parent on the golf course. Work to be done. Mm hmm.

You got a few girls that call you daddy, though. Nope. You're not a father, but kind of. Nope. That was the fastest nope ever. All right. Good show, boys. Numbers. Oh, no. 17. 77. 37. Nope. You weren't on, pug. You're on. 99, pug. 44. Nope. 94. Not today is the day.

You want to go one more, Memes? Yeah, let's go one more. Numbers. Three. I said it. I said it. I think I said it. I said it. I think I said it. 61. 77. 17. 99. If we both get it. 24. We both can't get it. I have 17. What were you saying? Today's the day? Today's the day. 100. 100. 100.

You couldn't be further away, Deems. I had a dream that one of you guys took three and got it, and all the computers in front of me were broken. How did they break? From me. Oh, okay. The podcast was safe. You left that part out of the dream. The podcast was safe. Love you guys.