Jon Gruden In Studio, NFL Week 11 Picks And Preview, Eagles Beat Commanders + Fyre Fest Of The Week
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We're going to talk to us about football. We're going to do NFL Week 11 picks in preview. We got all of our picks. We got Fantasy Fuckboys. We got Firefest. And we have Thursday Night Football Recap Eagles and Commanders. It's all brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. This is the week fight fans have been waiting for. Two epic battles on back-to-back nights. We're going to talk to us about football.

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Okay, let's go. Yeah.

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The 2024 Washington Commanders. Oh, no. You can't do that this quickly. I feel like the haters might... Wait, what do all those things have in common? Frauds, he's saying. Frauds. Sometimes the haters are right. When the haters are right, you got to say, great job, haters.

I'm if nothing I'm consistent about congratulating the haters uh I don't want to say that we're fully frauds yet but no you're not that's a tough divisional game and also the commanders being frauds nobody expected anything out of them so it's hard to say that they're a fraud however tonight gave me some deeper concerns than I thought that a loss would give me no some deeper not necessarily about being a fraud but I'll tell you a couple things that that gave me pause um

number one what are you laughing at hank you piece of shit you asshole you fucking dickhead i apologize that was rude why are you laughing already you piece of shit it's it's just i'm laughing at hank's laugh i know i know yeah it's like when someone dies you accidentally laugh like you don't mean to laugh that was that was uh that was unnecessary and i apologize you die you you laugh when people die i don't but like you know how sometimes what sounds like you do no like uh maybe when a clown TV show or something whatever i'm

I'm sorry. A movie or a TV show? Where someone says something really sad or something unexpected. Are you talking about just curb your enthusiasm? Kind of, yeah. Maybe that's what it is. Like Bare Naked Ladies. I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral. It had nothing to do with Jane Daniels? You shut the fuck up, Max. You're not talking yet. I was asking a good question. Max, you're not talking yet. Max, I'm the host of the show now. I'm going to talk over everyone. Now I'm laughing at PFT. Not laughing at you, but laughing at your reaction. Fat Italian. Here's the thing.

The thing that gave me pause about this game...

The coaching decisions. Yeah. Dan Quinn, when he went for it, I'm actually okay with it. I am too. He's being aggressive. Yes, three points gives you the lead in that case. And we're talking about the field goal that he kicked when he was down 10 to 12. Or didn't kick. Did not kick. Elected to go for it on fourth down where it looked like the offensive line didn't have the right timing of the play. It was just a fumble. Never went anywhere. Bad play. Bad result. The process, I'm okay with going for it because...

For the first time tonight, our offense looked good on that drive. And fuck it. Let's just go and get two yards. We've done it before. We're pretty good on fourth down. That didn't give me pause as much as the offense when we're down two scores at the end of the game and we burn up four minutes. I believe there's like five minutes left in the game. Burn up four minutes on the clock. We're running the ball. We're not calling timeouts.

Running the ball, running the ball, throwing inside passes. It seemed like... I don't think that Cliff Kingsbury understands that 26 minus 10 is 16, and that 16 is a two-score game. 16 divided by two is eight. Now, we've gone over this on the show. There are some 16-point leads that look enormous, that look like they're much bigger than 16 points. 26 to 10 is a pretty easy one. It's the easiest to comprehend. It's the easiest to comprehend. Yes.

It's not like you're skipping over two different sets of 10. It's 26 minus 10 is 16. Exactly. It's very easy. It looked like the players on the field knew that it was a two-score game, but the plays that were being called, it didn't feel like the guy who was calling it knows that's a two-score game. And here's what this gets at is going back to Cliff's entire existence and

In the second half of seasons. So back at Texas Tech. Here's his record as a head coach from 2013 to 2018 at the end of the season. Lost 5 of 6. Lost 4 of 6. Lost 4 of 6. Lost 6 of 8. Lost 6 of 8. Lost 5 of 5. At the Cardinals, he lost 7 of his last 9. Then he lost 5 of his last 7. Then he lost 5 of his last 6. Then he lost 9 of his last 10.

His offense looks completely different right now. We had Austin Eckler. That's pretty much it. Jaden Daniels, a lot of drops tonight, a lot of drops out there. But no, Jaden did not look good. He didn't look nearly as good as he – that was his worst game by far that he had tonight. Missed open guys, made some questionable decisions, felt timid on a few passes, didn't look particularly fast even.

I do want to give credit to the Eagles' defensive line. Yeah. Eagles' defensive line. That was the game. And their linebackers played outstanding. And your secondary played pretty good, too. The Eagles played very well tonight. The fourth and two that you didn't go for the field goal, which I agreed with, that was the game because you had second and one, and they stood up on three straight plays. Yeah. So that was phenomenal. That was great. And Big Cat, you brought it up during the broadcast. I've said it before, but...

But Cliff without the sunglasses. It's brutal. Listen. She's not hot. I more than anybody else understand that sometimes you look a lot better when you're wearing sunglasses all the time. Yeah. He should keep the sunglasses on. Looks like he got pink eye. Okay. So Jaden Daniels didn't play well, but he's a rookie.

Yeah. And he had a bad rookie game. Who cares? Yeah. It doesn't. That was a tough divisional game. You said it before. I think we all knew it going in. The Eagles have a better roster. They do. Like, that's just a fact. So it's not to win. That game would have been very difficult. You have the Cowboys, the Titans and the Saints coming up. You're still a team. Yep. So, you know, I just want to 1% chance. Are we at on the machine or in my brain?

In your brain. In my brain, 90. Still high. In the machine, probably 76. I'm going to guess. Still high. Oh, we're in the offs right now. Yeah. 70. 79. 79. That was really good. But in my brain. But we also haven't had the week 11 yet. Yep. Yep.

But can you... It was if loss. Max, I... They do... But what if the 49ers... Oh, oh. But what about the 49ers? Oh. It's just like right now in this moment, it was like...

It didn't change at all. It went from 80% to 79%. Max, I apologize for calling you fat Italian. No, that's fine. I deserve that. Heat of the moment. You jumped in. No, I deserve that. I deserve that. But congratulations, Max. Eagles look great. They've turned the season around. Yeah, I mean, Saquon Barkley is...

A problem. He's a real problem. Max, from your perspective, break down this game because obviously you were nervous. You were very nervous going into this game. You can tell when Max is nervous. He was like, he kind of like slapped me on the back at one point. Just kind of before, like this is like three hours before the game kind of just. Knocked the football out of your hand. Yeah, bouncing around like, you know, he was basically a little kid that needed like a weighted blanket.

For the last three hours before kickoff. You know I'm not good in the bright light. I know. And you had Dave here. You had Gruden here. That had max loss written all over it. So my question to you, though, is the game, the Eagles. I want to hear how you feel about the Eagles. But I also want you to hear how you feel about Jaden Daniels. Because you were nervous about Jaden Daniels. And he has been very good this year. And he's going to be in your division for a very long time. That was your first...

dance with him. Tell us where your head's at. Jane Daniels will be a very good quarterback in this league. Jane Daniels is still a rookie, and that's something that I think was very evident tonight. I think it's something that you have seen a lot when he has played good defenses. It's back-to-back games against two top defenses, and he's looked like a rookie quarterback. But that's okay because you expect that from a rookie quarterback to struggle against good defenses and to do well against bad defenses.

So going into this year, that's exactly what you want. But Jane Daniels, I don't think, is, as a rookie, a Super Bowl-winning quarterback because no rookies are a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. True. By the way, I would still cut off a nut for that line. Jane Daniels, 22 for 32, 191 yards, one touchdown, one interception. If you told me that was Caleb's line on Sunday, sign me the fuck up. Plus the drops. How many of those yards were? I mean, a lot of those yards came in.

That garbage time? Yeah, I mean, it was... Well, the drive where we did not kick the field goal, that was a good drive, too, and I wouldn't call that garbage time. So he got a lot of yards then. No, but I'm counting those yards. That's what I'm saying. I'm not going to say that Jaden Daniels played even an average game tonight. He played a bad game tonight. He was all over the map. He missed a lot of easy throws. He's a rookie quarterback. He looked like a rookie quarterback. And I think he might be injured, too.

I'm not making excuses, but the drops and the injuries. I said that before the game. That's the story of the game. I said that you can tell he's a little more tentative to run the ball ever since the rib injury. It was funny, though, watching the game with Coach Gruden. He saw Jaden warming up with a basketball, and he was disgusted. Disgusted. What is this, man? Playing basketball out here? Disgusted. Get that man a football, man. Yeah. God damn it.

This bitch. This bitch. But in a good way. Oh, man. So, Max, you're feeling good. Eagles are 8-2. This is, I mean, one seed? No. We're taking it one game at a time. Really got it. Jake Elliott. I'm going to.

Jake Elliott has enough in his history to give him the benefit of a doubt of like, this is just a one-off game. If it happens again, then you start to get worried. I'm like hovering over the panic button, but I'm not clicking the panic button on Jake Elliott yet. Because that was terrible. Realistically, the Eagles should have scored 35 points in this game. Can you issue a statement to the city of Philadelphia and Eagles fans? How should they be treating Jake Elliott moving forward?

Treat him like... Treat him the same from this game. But if he has one more bad game, panic, panic. The clip of him pacing the sidelines, double-tapping his head...

you never want to see that out of your kicker, ever. That was bad. That's like what I do. Yeah. That's like what I do when I'm like, I got to get myself right. And I for sure don't have the mentals to be an NFL kicker. No. But it's good that we have a little mini bye now because it'll be even more time for him to get this game out of his head. Yep. He can watch some games this weekend.

Chill out. Yeah, no. Also, the one seed's not going to happen because the Lions schedule is significantly easier than the Eagles. Yeah, we still are at Ravens and home against the Steelers at Commander. Yeah, the Lions have the Packers and the Bills at home.

And then the 49ers on the road. So I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. Hey, 49ers on the road. But the two seed wouldn't be bad either. Yeah. Two seeds. Good. I would like. Yeah, I know. You want the one seat. I would like the one seat, but it's all right. We're just going to take it. We're on the next weekend. Sunday night against the Rams in L.A. That's a tough game. That's a tough game. I can't believe we lost the Shark Week game.

Yeah, I was very nervous because I bet the Eagles tonight and I was – when the first half happened and the commanders were –

and the Eagles were missing every field goal, and then the Amazon broadcast was like, yeah, Dan Quinn decided this was Shark Week, and he's been just showing clips of shark attacks and jaws. Like, this is Mike McCarthy smashing a watermelon all over again. Yeah, the problem with Shark Week... And I think Dan Quinn was there for the smashing of the watermelon. I think he was. I think that's who he learned it from. Yeah, so the Shark Week problem is that Dan Quinn, as a boomer, looks back fondly on Shark Week, back when Shark Week was good. Also...

Don't think I would use Jaws for Shark Week because Jaws is an incredible movie, one of the best movies of all time. But who like to today's age, you watch Jaws and you're like, that's a fake shark. Who wins, though? Does the shark survive? I don't think so. So that. Yeah. Dan Quinn probably didn't know that. Yeah. Probably should do a movie where the shark wins. Yeah. Shark Week. Hey, do you have any thoughts on the game?

Commanders look bad. I was honestly thinking because... That was half a sentence. Commanders look bad. I was honestly thinking because Coach Gruden on the stream also, it was asked him about Caleb Williams or Drake May. Yeah, he said Drake May. And he said Drake May. Drake May is going to be a superstar. Patriots have looked good. Commanders have looked... Basically should be on a three-game losing streak. What does that mean? Whose line would it be anyway if the Patriots played the Commanders next week? Where? Where?

This is what I was saying on Wednesday. In Washington. This is what I was saying. In Landover? Commanders minus one? People were confusing me. You're insane. I'm just thinking out loud. This is way worse than what I did. This is what I was saying on Wednesday. Coach Gruden said it. No, these aren't my words. This is what I was saying. And people were like, oh, you're saying Jayden Daniels is bad. No, no, no. I think Jayden Daniels is really good. Caleb Williams, we got problems.

The fucked up nature of this podcast is this guy on the couch is now going to be like, I got the superstar. I think the spread, in all honesty, Hank, in Landover. Look at that smirk. In Landover, Hank, I think the spread. We definitely have some bookmakers that listen to this game, right? Tell us the hypothetical spread. My guess is Commanders 5.5. Yeah. Plus, at home. They were just 5.5 point underdogs to the Bears. Yeah.

The Bears quit. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that, you know. He did say Drake Mays is a superstar. Esteemed football mind John Gruden, when asked about the number one pick, he said he would take the number three pick, which obviously means he would take the number three pick over the number two pick. Just thought it was interesting. John Gruden has never coached. I don't think he's coached a first-round quarterback. But he's evaluated all of them. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, he has evaluated all of them. That's a fair point. Listen, I think Drake Mays is very good.

We're going to talk about it actually more, and I said something about Drake May that is a very high compliment in the picks and preview, but just... You asked my opinion. Yeah, I did. I did. Fuck. I did. I asked his opinion. That's what I was watching the game being like, this game is terrible. I did ask his opinion. What's your opinion about the game? The game? I mean, the Eagles have no kicker. That's going to be a major problem. He's a good kicker. He just had a terrible night. He's a good kicker. Terrible night.

I mean, that's going to be a problem. If I'm an Eagles fan, that's your kicker in the playoffs. That game is going to creep in your mind. But he's kicked in the playoffs before. He's had a bad game. I'm still going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Has he ever had a game that bad? No, not even close. So that's what I'm saying. No, the extra point was where it was really like, oh, fuck. If you're going into a playoff game, if you're saying that you're not going to be worried about him having a bad game, you're lying. And the commanders turn back into pumpkin...

76% playoff percent chance. It doesn't look good. You're taking the 24%. I think I might be. I mean, they lost to the Bears, and the Bears quit. Fact check. They did not lose to the Bears. They beat the Bears. But also, and a double fact check, that was before the Bears quit. That's true. Bears quit at the last play of the Cardinals game, at halftime. I'm also just... This did not have an effect on the outcome of the game, probably. But...

I would have liked to see a Hail Mary at the end of the first half. Yeah. You're at like the, what, 47-yard line? I agree. And we just run the ball? Like, why not try a Hail Mary? He's lifetime 1,000% on Hail Marys in the NFL. Agreed. I have one more thing. Any quarterback can make that throw. Let him try it. Yeah.

We as a national podcast need to, Quinion Mitchell is a top five. Yeah. Toledo, Maxion. It's incredible. He's awesome. The things that he has done this year. He is awesome. And it looks like you guys have finally, like Vic Fangio's defense, you know when it starts to work and it's starting to work.

Can I read against top receivers this year? Please. Packers week one, they don't have a true one. Gave up one reception for six yards. Drake London, one reception, five yards. Chris Alave, two receptions, 23 yards. Mike Evans, two receptions, 19 yards. Amari Cooper, one reception, 10 yards. Malik Neighbors, one reception, nine yards. Jamar Chase, two receptions, 19 yards.

Jaguars don't have a true one. One reception, 11 yards. CeeDee Lamb, two receptions, 14 yards. Terry McLaurin, zero receptions, zero yards. That's incredible. I mean, that's going through a gauntlet as a rookie and coming out unbelievably. Yeah, he's awesome. Happy for you, Max. Very happy for you. As a national podcast, we had to mention that.

I don't know why you said the national podcast thing before. Because I want the national media isn't saying anything about it. Oh, got it. We are the national media. Correct. So now we've fixed that. We talk a lot about rookies. I want to talk about my rookies. I appreciate Max because we try to get it right when we can. Yeah, we do. So in the spirit of getting it right, I'd like to correct Max.

Terry McLaurin did not get shut out for zero catches. He had one catch for 10 yards. No, that's against him. Oh, against him. Oh, against him. Okay.

Yeah, where was he? Because that was Cooper. He got a catch against Cooper. See, that's what worries me about Jaden is we didn't even really try to pass to our receivers. I know. It was a lot of dump-offs and like, yeah. We built the entire plane out of Austin Eckler and Zach Ertz. Where were his shot plays? Because he's been throwing those so perfectly. Didn't take any deep shots, really. That's why I think he might not be healthy and trying to play off short rest with a rib injury is probably not good for him. But, yeah. Okay. I feel like I'm being quite illusional.

And I will still take the 76% chance of making the playoffs. You also – and we do this every single week. And I think that there's maybe sometimes – because people listen to this at Friday morning –

When we have to record right after a loss, it is always a different mindset than tomorrow morning. When you get us right after a loss, it will always be the worst and most overreacting thing. I think tomorrow morning you're going to wake up and be like, we're going to be fine. I'm going to say something good about the Commander's Night. One bright thing. Mike Sanristrill. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a guy. Michigan. Five foot nine. Had him on AJ. AJ Brown's been cooking. Hold on. Before you do this, you should say that it's because we're a national podcast. Because we're a national podcast. I'd like to draw attention to Mike Sanders. Tell the world.

That guy is awesome. I love that dude. He's undersized. He's a fucking... What's a different name for a honey badger? He's a wolverine. He's a wolverine. A literal wolverine is what he is. And yeah, he played great defense tonight. When he was on AJ, especially in the red zone, he pretty much shut him down when they were matched up against each other. So love that guy. And at least we have a good cornerback moving forward. Plus...

Haven't gotten Lattimore out there. This game is totally different with Lattimore out there. Yeah, I would agree with that. Probably not. Okay. We just ran them. I know. Yeah, I know. Listen, I'm going through stages of cope right now, okay? So my stages of cope include Cliff Kingsbury has been bad in the last three weeks.

He might be on the downside, but at least that means that no team will try to hire Cliff Kingsbury as a head coach because he's kind of taken some of that shine off. That's one of the stages of Cope that I'm at. Another stage is we're getting an impact free agent from the New Orleans Saints who's currently on a roster right now that hasn't played yet.

Because we're a national podcast, Zach Bond has also been great. Also great. Badger. I thought about it. I was like, I can't do two national podcasts, guys. Yeah, but Badger, you should have. Yeah, Badger. National podcast. Yeah, Big Cat, as a national podcast, would you like to talk about the Wisconsin Badgers that played well tonight? Zach Bond played great tonight. Badger. He's a really good defensive player of the year, probably. Would you like to, Hank, national podcast? Anything? Christian Gonzalez.

From the game tonight? No, no, no. We're just talking about your guys. Luka had a great game tonight. National podcast. Oh, okay. Hey, national podcast. Real quick. National podcast. We should shout out the Cleveland Cavaliers. They're 13-0. National podcast. That's pretty crazy. 13-0. National podcast. I'm looking at the standings right now. It's like, you thought the Celtics would be there. The Magic are good. The Knicks...

but the Cavs 13-0. Yeah, how about that? And it's like, I mean, the Pistons are in there. The Bulls are the sixth seed. There must be a, oh, the Sixers are 2-9? National podcast. 2-9? 2-9. Jared McCain almost won the game by himself last night. National podcast. 2-9. The national podcast. The Sixers are 2-9. Almost. Do you hear Max today? Almost won the game? Yeah. We're building something. That was almost your third win? We're building something. Out of 12? We got good young guys.

National podcast. You just need a couple superstars to get in the mix, and you guys could have a real team going. Right. You're absolutely right. Maybe get them healthy, and then you got a real team. Thanks, Hank. Yeah. National podcast. I'm very excited. Tonight is, I think, Alabama versus Purdue in college basketball. I believe. National podcast. That's going to be a great game. I love Purdue.

National podcast. National podcast. Blake turns one and a half years. Oh, wow. Tomorrow. Yeah. National podcast. National podcast. We do half years. National podcast. Love that. Raise awareness. Love that. You should not do one and a half. You should do 18 months. 18 months. Just to throw people off. How many trimesters is that? Like my dog is 18 months. Yeah.

Like, what the fuck? Yeah, you should do months for Blake until he's like six years old. Okay. Yeah, bring that up naturally somewhere tomorrow. Be like, yeah, Blake is 18 months. I will. I will. It's a promise. Okay, let's kick it to ourselves. Weekend preview. An incredible interview with Coach John Gruden, our newest co-worker here.

In studio. Okay, weekend preview time. It's brought to you by our friends at Game Time. Football season is here, and we can't wait to get out to some games this fall with the help of Game Time, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. You know how much we love Game Time now with their brand-new Game Time Picks feature. They're making it even easier to get to a game. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats, so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets to

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Uh, they did. I love this every time they, uh, release this because it's like a, it's basically a pervert stat. It's the, what if NFL standings have been released? So what if everyone possession NFL game had the opposite result? Uh,

Who do you think would be first in the AFC? The Indianapolis Colts. No, it'd actually be the Cincinnati Bengals would be eight and two, eight and two. And last would be the Kansas city chiefs two and seven. Fascinating. Cause they have played all one score games in the NFC. I love this stat. It's the best. What if, what if the teams that were good at winning were actually bad at winning? Yeah. What if we have, what if every win was a loss? Yeah. The,

What if standings for the NFC? Tampa Bay would be 7-3. That's the big notable switch. Also, the Giants would be 6-4. And then the saddest part about this is the Carolina Panthers would be 1-9. So they would actually get worse. So they're good and they punch above their weight class in close games. They would get worse.

That's when you get blown out. The Jets would be five and five memes. Still in it. He wanted me to fact check you to make sure it wasn't the Jets. No, five and five. The Jets would be five and five. You reverse all one score games. Oh, we stink. Would that make them top five? No, they'd be out of the playoffs. Even in this what if fantastical standings. Yeah, in a fantasy land. You can't stink in a fantasy land.

I just always like looking at those because it is very funny just being like, yeah, what if everything was different? So what I like about this weekend is there are like three games that are awesome. Yeah. And then there's a just heaping mound of dog shit. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So let's start with it. Oh, let me... Someone, a listener said, could you guys please say the line when you say the game? And I will start doing that. Thank you to DraftKings. So we will start. Let me pull up the current lines.

Let's start. I got the lines right here. If you just want to say the game, I'll say the line. We'll start with the Ravens at the Steelers. Okay, we got the Ravens favored by three on the road over under 48 and a half. Okay, so...

This to me is... I'm very excited for this game because it will tell us a lot about the Steelers, I think. The Ravens, I believe, are going to be there no matter what because their offense feels unstoppable. The Steelers, if they win this game...

Why not? Yeah, why not? Why not Steelers? I already think why not. I'm very close to thinking why not. I would like to see it, especially it's Russell Wilson against the Ravens defense. Kyle Hamilton's out, so their secondary is banged up. Has not been great all year. Their run defense is elite. So what happens when Russell Wilson wins? If the Steelers can't run the ball, what's going to happen? This, though, is a strictly numbers game.

Because here are the stats, and it's ridiculous. So this is 36th time Tomlin and Harbaugh have played against each other. It's second all-time only to George Halas and Curly Lambeau. Over the last 20 years, the underdog in this series is 28-10-3. 74% against the spread. And Mike Tomlin as a dog against Harbaugh is 12-2-2.

And then also here are the final margins of the games between the Steelers and Ravens since 2020. 7 points, 7 points, 3 points, 2 points, 3 points, 1 point, 5 points, 4 points. These teams just play tight games. They don't like each other very much. No love lost between these teams. Throw out the record books when these teams get together. Lamar Jackson, as a starter, has only won one time.

At Pittsburgh. Against Pittsburgh. So his only win was in 2019, and that's when Devlin Hodges, Duck. Duck Hodges. Is Duck still around? What's Duck doing these days? I think he's in Nashville. Yeah, sure. Just hanging out? I don't know. Wasn't that when we went to Kittle's house?

He was like, sometimes I'll throw a duck. Maybe I might be making that up. I like that, though, for Duck. That's a great gig for Duck if he just goes and throws routes to George Kittle in the offseason. Yeah, I like that for Duck. Duck's probably just, he's in the middle of a field somewhere shooting a shotgun. I don't know the answer, but I like, if that is the answer...

I like where he's at in that answer. Yeah, he's probably very happy. That's a good life. That's a really good life. He's living off the land. Like a guy who had a cup of coffee in the NFL, started an NFL game as quarterback named Duck Hodges, cleans up in Nashville. Cleans up. Yep. That's just a fact. Yeah. So Lamar is 1-3 against Pittsburgh. Duck Hodges, that was the only game that Lamar has won against the Steelers. Yes.

So I love the Steelers as an underdog. I always do. Home game, home underdog against the Ravens. This game, my only qualm, this game should be at night. It should be a primetime game. Yeah. It's unfortunate that it's not. That it is, in fact, one of the early games this weekend. Yeah. So I don't love that. This will be sound. Sound.

Sound is going to be on this one. This will be sound main TV. We're going to have it. This is the crown jewel of the early slate. Yeah, we have, by the way, we have eight games and we only have seven TVs that we look at. We have obviously the eighth TV off to our left. So I think what we're going to do is just put one game on the eighth TV off to the left. I like that. And that's usually the Panthers game. Yeah. That's usually. The Panthers are on a bye week. They're on a bye week this week. So it won't be. It won't be this week.

I'm excited to see George Pickens and Marlon Humphrey go at it. So I saw that matchup and I thought to myself, there's a good chance that one of the two of these guys gets ejected from the game, just based on vibes from both of them. But then I looked ahead at the Steelers schedule and I saw Steelers playing the Eagles, I think December 15th, the day of the Hank...

And remember that fight, Hank? December 15th. December 15th. Hank's first knockout. Yeah. His first and only knockout. That is going to be a matchup of the Steelers and the Eagles. And that is when we're going to get an ejection between either George Pickens or C.D. Deuce. Yeah. It will be. But it's still going to be a feisty matchup between Humphrey and Pickens if they're on each other. Do you guys want a crazy Lamar Jackson stat? Yeah. I have one. This is from Dry Defender RS. Okay.

Lamar Jackson, so last week the Ravens were down 21-7, I believe, at halftime. That was the first time in 40 consecutive starts for Lamar Jackson. So where he plays the majority of the game, because obviously he's come out for diarrhea a few times. 40 consecutive games without trailing by more than 10 points. Wow. That's insane. He also is currently still on his streak of 40. So this would be the 41st game without losing by more than 7.

Lamar Jackson, that's insane. They just don't get blown out. The Ravens just don't get blown out. Yeah. I mean, they've been a very consistent team. And Lamar's been incredible. And I wonder, did the Steelers maybe show too much?

keeping jayden daniels in the pocket they were very very good at that and highsmith is out which is big yeah that's a big one also uh hamilton's out for the ravens yeah so a couple big injuries there uh they did a great job with their linebackers and the defensive line patrick queen is awesome and he's pissed and he's pissed off that he did not get a contract uh i don't know what they offered him if they offered him uh in baltimore but he's pissed off about about playing up against the ravens and he is still playing like at the top of his ability yeah he's very fast

He's pissed. There was one play last week where it was an RPO. Jaden fakes the handoff. Patrick Queen takes a step inside towards the running back, and then he beats Jaden Daniels to the sideline. Yeah. Keeping the ball. Yeah. He's elite. He might be spying. That's what Jerry told us. He said Patrick Queen's going to spy Lamar Jackson. Yeah. Did you see that there was a snake in Russell Wilson's locker last week? In his pants? Yeah, in his dick. That's what they called it. No, there was a mom-and-pop.

There was a snake that was in the locker, and then they couldn't find it. But they escaped it. Are you saying an actual snake, or is this something that Russell Wilson did and he's corny? Do you think he had one of those fake snakes? If I said to you, hey, Russell Wilson put a fake snake in his locker and said it's Mamba Mentality Time, would you think I made that up? Well...

I might. I said Mamba mentality. Yeah, I know, but if he had said that. If he had said that, I would buy it. I would also see. 100% buy it. I could also see Russell Wilson having a snake there, and he's like, there was a snake in my locker. Tried to get me to eat an apple before the game. I turned to the Lord. I said, no. I said, vanquish these Satan. Yeah, that also happened. Yeah. 100% happened. Okay. I agree with you. I like the Steelers in this game. Next game, Packers and Bears. Go on.

Longest winning streak in the NFL. Matt LaFleur's never lost to the Bears. He's 10-0. Okay, so this is not correct. This is not right or justified, but this is the way that I have to mentally get myself to a point where I can think the Bears can beat the Packers on Sunday.

Shane Waldron is the Antichrist. Shane Waldron caused all the problems. Shane Waldron, every war, tragedy, anything you can think of in history, Shane Waldron was the issue behind it.

That's the only, again, not right, not justified. Shane Waldron, probably a very nice guy, not a great football coach, but that doesn't matter. He's gone. And the only way I can tell myself that the bears have a chance is that Shane Waldron was deliberately holding the bears back in every capacity. And now everything's going to be different going forward. Also Keenan Allen's quote, where he said Shane Waldron was just too nice of a guy. That feels like it's all a mess. Yeah, that's not good. Um,

Shane Waldron, I don't know if you get the interim coordinator bump. I don't know if that's a thing that happens. But there has to be an element of the offense not having to deal with Shane Waldron that just makes them happier. When you have a guy that is clearly inept at his job, just being...

no longer around that guy all the time, gives you a little bit more confidence going into the game. You don't know what you're going to get, but you know that it's not going to be Shane Waldron. Yeah, so what the Bears are doing, and we've made this joke before that, you know, Sean McVay has such a great track record that it became a part of the NFL ecosystem that, like, if you got Sean McVay's coffee, you got a job.

The Bears are testing that theory because Shane Waldron, I think his highest level for the Rams was passing game coordinator and he's gone. And now we have Thomas Brown, whose highest level for Sean McVay was assistant head coach and tight ends coach. Now, was it Thomas Brown? Didn't he call plays for the Panthers last year? For three weeks. And then Frank Reich took it back. Yeah. So we are really going to the

bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the barrel of if you were in the same room as Sean McVay, you know how to call NFL offense. I don't think he does, but the Bears at least are testing the theory. Yeah, it's somebody new. Yes, Hank? Are there reports? I saw reports that Caleb Williams and him, Tom, don't talk. Yeah, that was weird.

That was weird. He was the passing game coordinator before. Now he's the offensive coordinator. There's been a lot of reports. There's a report that they don't really meet. There's been a lot of reports. There's been a lot of bad reports. I also saw recently. Is there a difference between Russell Wilson and Caleb Williams? Did you see the clip from Rossini's podcast, Chase Daniel? Yeah, I've done that clip a hundred times. I know. The way it was all laid out tight was honestly wild.

What does the clip say? It says everything I've said a million times over, but I'll say real quick again, they've basically, since firing Lovie Smith, they've gotten every timeline wrong. Phil Emery hired Mark Trestman. Mark Trestman leave. Phil Emery stayed. John Fox drafted Mitch Trubisky, fired John Fox after a year. Then it was Matt Nagy, I get my maths confused, who was there. So John Fox drafted. John Fox didn't even know he was drafting Trubisky.

Mitch Trubisky, Ryan Pace did. And then Matt Iberflues came on, inherited Mitch Trubisky, never drafted Mitch Trubisky, didn't want Mitch Trubisky. And then Mitch Trubisky's gone and they drafted Justin Fields and Matt Nagy then gets fired and Matt Iberflues inherits Justin Fields, didn't want Justin Fields.

drafted Caleb Williams and then he's going to get fired and whoever the next guy is going to inherit Caleb Williams probably not wanting Caleb Williams. Basically a history of coaches that didn't want the quarterbacks that they had and then a bunch of general managers who didn't want the coach that they had. Yeah. Just never actually hiring the right thing at the right time. At the same time. They're never on the same page as each other. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shit show. Hey guys, it's a shit show. And it's the Packers. Shock the world.

I told you, by Sunday morning, I'm going to believe that we're going to win this game because I haven't connected all the dots, but where was Shane Waldron on 9-11? Good question. I'm just asking. Did you see, by the way, did you see, so Carl blogged it, but there was an entire blog. He found, I think it was a Reddit post that essentially was like,

Paul Skeens is a sociopath. That's why he's so good at baseball. And they backtracked when he was born. And the theory is that his parents had sex at 9-11. The butterfly effect? And they basically blocked out all the noise of 9-11 and created Paul Skeens. Now, was this conception happen a little too much? How early in the morning? Was this before you get out of bed for work? You don't know the exact time, but yeah, people have way too much time on their hands. But I did think it was interesting.

He was born mad. Yeah, yeah. We like Paul Skeens on this show. I love Paul Skeens. I mean, it was a sociopath in a good way. He's locked in. He's so locked in that his ability to lock in and outside noise and just mow down hitters, that's why he's elite. It wasn't a bad thing for him. Yeah, I know. Good guy. Yeah, very good guy. Yeah. Okay, I don't have anything else in this game. The Packers are going to kill us. You never know. You never know. Division matchup.

I want Big Cat to be back. I'm going to bet on the Packers. I'm going to say fuck it. No, Bears. Sorry, yeah, against the Packers. Betting on the Bears. There's no reason why the Bears should win this game. Absolutely zero reason why they should do it. But the NFL is a weird place. Weird shit happens and chaos happens.

You need an ugly game. You've got to get an ugly game going here. Here's a recipe. You need Jordan Love to throw one of those weird behind-his-back pick sixes, get a defensive score. You need Caleb to just do handoffs.

I hope that the new offense coordinator doesn't have Caleb doing all that weird shit at the line of scrimmage. I get it. If you're like Peyton Manning or if you're Tom Brady, if you've been in an offense for a long time, have them direct the offense. Why are you making a rookie quarterback do that? It made no sense since week one.

The level of responsibility that you put on Caleb Williams when Caleb hasn't done shit in the NFL yet. Let him go out there and make easy throws. Don't have him trying to direct the symphony that is the weird, fucked-up Bears offense because even if he's able to know all the plays and tell players where to go, it's still going to be a bad result to these shitty plays that they're calling. Don't make him feel like he's got too big a part of that failure right off the bat. Give him easy shit to do. It's all, I mean, everything you said is correct, whether they do it.

Yeah. Probably not. It just makes no sense to have a rookie quarterback. None of it makes sense. And to put that much on him right now, straight off the bat. The guy's mentally locked up because Matt Eberflus is a fucking idiot and they're just doofuses. And Kevin Warren tried to cancel Big Ten because of COVID and he's the one who's calling the shots. And it's just, I hate everything.

Everything sucks. We're just back in an exact same spot. What about bare football? What about bare football, Big Cat? What about handing the ball off to your running back? It would be nice. And not letting him get sacked eight times a game. Offensive line, not been great. It would be nice. I actually wouldn't hate it, too, if Caleb Williams threw an interception in this game because maybe he would be taking a shot that actually was close to someone. You know what my red flag on Caleb is? He's been throwing deep balls that aren't even close to being intercepted.

You know what my red flag is? What? He hasn't even cried this year. Yeah, he should cry. I mean, the knock on him was he cried after bad losses. He's definitely cried this year. Well, he hasn't cried on camera. In private. I mean, I've cried in private. Yeah. So he's definitely cried in private. But, I mean, there was something about him last year where he was taking losses so hard that he was crying. Yeah. I'd like to see the man cry. It's a disaster. We're walking into a disaster. Also, our good friend Bear Down Cuz is going to come on –

on the stream on Sunday from Bob Does Sports Universe. He came last year. Yeah, great dude. So he'll be with us on the stream, so at least we'll have an extra. They're going to be on no sound. I just, whatever. We'll see. We'll see. They suck. They suck. Everything sucks. The organization is a joke.

They've ruined Caleb Williams' socks. Speaking of the Bears being frauds, did you see the clip that came out from California about the fraudulent Bear? Well, but the Bears aren't frauds. They're bad. Did you see the clip in California? So apparently these people are under investigation for insurance fraud. Every now and again you see...

a camera like a ring camera or like a security camera of a bear that climbs into somebody's car looking for food and mauls it up and tears up from the inside. Apparently there's been this group of people that have been dressing up as bears.

wearing like scissors on their hands, climbing into cars, scraping them up and then collecting all the insurance money because the car is totaled or the inside of the car is all fucked up. So they got like a human wearing a bear outfit, climbing into a car, trying to look like a bear and then scraping it up on the inside. Ooh, I just thought that was an interest. I would love to be a fraud. Yeah, we were frauds at four and two. That's what I'm saying. Being a fraud. I'm loving life as a fraud. Let me real quick. I want to just go around the room. Um,

I'm holding a number underneath my chair. One to ten. Ten being wins a Super Bowl. One being he's out of the league in like a year and a half. What do you think about the future of Caleb Williams? Be honest. Well, you're only holding one hand, so it's got to be between one and five. Well, yeah, duh. Three. Okay. Seven. That's a lie. I said be honest.

I would say higher than this, but the fact you only have one hand, I'll say five. Okay. For one hand, I'll say four, but I think he's an eight. Name's got it. I think he's an eight. That's where I'm at. And it's not Caleb Williams. The organization's a fucking joke. Do you extend that same grace to the offensive coordinators that come in? Is it the Bears just working for the Bears that makes offensive coordinators suck? No. Well, we hired the worst offensive coordinator on the market. Yeah, that's true. I mean, Jackson Smith and Jigba laughed when he got hired.

We all knew this was going to happen. It's not revisionist history. It's just wishful thinking that went totally awry. Okay.

Raiders of Dolphins. We're back to Gardner Minshew. What were you going to say, Max? You had something else? No, I had nothing else. You were looking at me like you wanted to say something. No, I just like Caleb Williams. Memes likes Caleb Williams. I love Caleb Williams. You could get it. Who knows? Who knows? It's year one. You could get it. It's not. You guys are being nice. I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you guys being nice. I really do as friends.

You don't have to. Caleb Williams is the best quarterback prospect since Andrew Luck. How many times did you hear that? Max, I agree with you. Caleb Williams is still a good quarterback. He just needs to get in a comfortable system. He needs to not be surrounded by a hurricane of shit. And he needs his players to not hate him. He needs his wide receivers to not hate him. DJ Moore's got to get out of here. I said that! How about this? What if Caleb Williams right now, what if he was on the open market?

For a trade? Easily. He's not. What do you give up for him? First round pick? Ask me. Mames wants him. All right. You can have him, Mames. I'd take him. First round pick. He's still the first round pick quarterback. I still want him. I'm not trading him. There we go. See, that's all we needed you to say. It's bad, but I'm not trading him. And they're going to beat the Packers. And Shane Waldron was the reason for all of this. Raiders at Dolphins. Line?

Oh, we got it right there. Yep. Raiders at Dolphins. It is going to be seven. Minus seven for the Dolphins. Okay. Yeah, Hank, you do the lines. Over under 44. Okay. Hank will do the lines. So we're back to Gardner Minshew. Also, we have to be full disclosure. I think I speak for both of us, PFT, when I say that we're rooting for the Raiders offense to have some success because our friend Scott Turner is now the OC. Yep. We like Scott Turner.

And Norv Turner. His dad is working as a consultant with the team. Love that. Norval. Bowled with Scott Turner in the 2019 Final Four in Minneapolis. I said Minneapolis. Minneapolis. Had a great night. Great time. Knows brother, too. So we love the Turners. Yep. I don't know how the Raiders are going to be able to run the ball, though. And I think that's what Scott Turner wants to do. Yeah, it's going to be a challenge for him. Although, we're getting Florida man Minshew.

True. Good point. So you're always looking for what kind of spark you can get out of Minshew. We always say if you put Minshew in as a backup quarterback, you get a spark. I feel like in the state of Florida, that's when you're going to get pure Gardner Minshew. I know he's not from Florida, but he's got big-time Florida energy to him. I like...

Yeah. It is. A bye week. Mm-hmm.

But the Dolphins are 5-0 against the spread when they are at a rest disadvantage since 2022. So the Dolphins don't need sleep. They're like sharks. Just keep swimming. Also, Tua said he would do it again when going headfirst into a tackle. I think he also said that just discourages me from throwing interceptions. Sure. Yeah, whatever it takes. I think we have to stop the hand-wringing about Tua. I know that everyone wanted him to maybe walk away later.

Tua knows what Tua knows at this point. I mean, if he's going to jump headfirst into people, it's like, what are you going to do? Yeah. What are you going to do? Yeah. I mean, Tua wants to play football. He wants to play football. You can't stop someone. I'm a believer in freedom of choice. You should be able to do this. Yeah. The Dolphins...

So they are just coming off. I believe they cut their team captain, which hardly ever happens. I can't think of another time that a team captain has been cut midseason. Shane Waldron was our team captain. Yeah, he was. And Desmond Ritter is now being talked about by certain segments of Raiders fans as being the answer. So that's kind of a sad state of affairs that you've got in Las Vegas right now. Desmond Ritter is the answer.

I don't know what the question is. Yeah. What question could Desmond Ritter possibly be the answer to? I think this game, the Dolphins are second in pass blocking. The Raiders are 29th in pass rush. But the Raiders do do a good job. They do the Chiefs defense where they just don't let explosives down the field.

I think it might be a little tighter. I just don't know how the Raiders offense does anything. And it's not because of Scott Turner. He's a very good play caller. Yeah. Ultimately, this might come down to football guy versus nerd. Yeah. Who do you take, Antonio Pierce or Mike McDaniel? Okay. Next game. Colts at Jets. Colts at Jets line, Hank? Yeah.

That was your only job. Jets are minus four. The over-under is 43 and a half. You do the lines now. I got the lines. Max got the lines now. I can do the lines. I just don't know. You have other things going on. I just don't know what game you're going to go to. I haven't pulled up right here. Max has them pulled up. I haven't pulled up. Hank's out. Okay. Max. Colts and Jets. Memes.

Jeff Ulbrich said to the team that they're going to return to fundamentals of tackling and be in pads and then needed a tackling presentation for the team before practice. What do we think about that? Sometimes you got to keep some things to yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Some media training for Jeff. Yeah. Don't say anything. This is why Jeff isn't, you don't have a head coach.

No, he ruined all chances of becoming a head coach. He was going to get some interviews in the offseason, and now he's getting... I don't know if he was. No, he was predicted to get some. Oh, really? Yeah, but then he got promoted to head coach. Who told you that? Tyson Bajenstad? A bunch of Florios. Okay, a bunch of Florios. You hear the good Florios. You've got two Florios on your shoulder at any given time, and depending on what mood you're in, you listen to the Angel or the Demon. This case, I don't feel like Jeff Ulbrich was going to be a real hot name.

He would have got some interviews. He would have got some interviews. Okay, memes. Here's some good news for you. When Aaron Rodgers was asked if he's going to play in 2025, he said, I think so, yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of fired up. Yeah? Yeah.

All right, so real quick, Meebs, I had a question about Jeff Ulbrich. This is really bad for me, too, because the Jets and Bears are in equal hell, so you being fired up just shows how ridiculous I am whenever I get fired up. Hold on. I said kind of fired up. Hold on. Did you take that as like a...

I think so, yeah. It's not an answer. You said, I think I'm fired up, as if his answer was, yes, I'm back. I just got to see who the coach is. Well, this is also tremendous inconsistency from you, Muse, because you said, I believe, last week that you hope that he retires.

Yeah, but it's a roller coaster room for the Jets. Okay, so right now where you're at at 3.10 p.m. on Thursday, you want Aaron Rodgers to play next year and you're kind of fired up about him kind of wanting to play next year. Yeah, because you could go all in in the offseason. Let's put it in this analogy, okay? So I have a garage at home and every now and then I'll forget to hit the garage door when I leave.

If my wife texted me and said, did you hit the garage door? And I say, I think so. Yeah. She's like, fuck, he didn't do it. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. It's not a good, that's a, that's a lot of no. And I think so. Yeah. I mean, you got to see how the team looks in the off season. Did you remember to do this? I think so. Yeah. That's pretty much. Well, now I have to go. Did you remember to turn off the oven? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think the idea of Aaron Rogers, he's a hall of fame quarterback. Yeah.

is good, but Aaron Rodgers right now is not good. Yeah, so... But I just want to keep believing that he's going to have that Aaron Rodgers performance, and maybe next year is that year. What other former friends of Aaron Rodgers would have to get signed by the Jets for you to be like, yes, we're rebuilding, we're all in again? David Bakhtiari. Okay. Oh! The missing link. Yeah, the missing link. I have some news on Memes' mental headspace right now. Oh, no. Before we started here, Memes said...

memes goes i hope that they lose this week so that they can just die oh and i picked up on what he said i was like wait a minute if they lose this week they're dead so they're not dead yet and he goes well if you look at the percentages if they win this weekend they're actually still alive yeah they bounce up to 20 memes are the jets dead right now technically no okay the answer there was i think so yeah you never know because that gives you a little no

Yeah, now I, if they win, they could technically be back. All right, so what does a perfect weekend look like for you, Mims? The perfect weekend actually happened last weekend. Yeah, I know, which is why you were like, but you were down after the perfect weekend. Yeah, so they'll win and everybody else will win.

Okay, so you'll hold up your end of the bargain. Yeah. Hold on. Can we just remind the listeners what happened to the Jets this weekend? Yeah. Defense doesn't travel. They got killed by the Cardinals. They got smoked. Memes, I'm living one week ahead of you. We got smoked by the Cardinals, and I was like, it's over. We walked into that Patriots game. I was like, we're going to lose this game. You need to get in line. The Cardinals are just graveyarding teams. Yeah.

So would you rather go up against Joe Flacco or Anthony Richardson this weekend? Joe Flacco. So you don't like the move to Anthony Richardson? He's actually right because it's the run. We can't stop the run. I imagine the switch to Anthony Richardson was they watched the Cardinals film.

And we can't tackle. And Jonathan Taylor and Anthony Richardson are just going to run the ball every single play. That would be crazy if Shane Steichen didn't throw a pass. Yeah, Shane Steichen, well, he had a quote about Anthony Richardson. He said, over the last two weeks, he's made strides, big-time strides in becoming a pros pro. So we got pros pro Anthony Richardson coming in. I don't know what that means. The problem that Shane Steichen, like, I always thought that benching Anthony Richardson, we've talked about this, it was kind of weird because...

you're not probably not a playoff team but then they're like maybe we are a playoff team you don't want to lose the locker room get that whatever the problem was they said that Joe Flacco was the future light or the starter going forward they should have just said Anthony Richardson needs a couple games to get his head on right and then you go back to him because now you're going back to him a

essentially saying we're not going to the playoffs. Yeah, the Colts, they should just say whoever has the best week of practice. Yeah. Honestly, they should flip a coin. Open competition. They should flip a coin and just take all, just be like, hey, we're just going to go this way, that way no one loses their competition. All right, so I think we can all agree that at some point this season the Colts are going to go back to Joe Flacco. Probably. Probably. Well...

Definitely because Anthony Richardson might get tired. That's true. But, I mean, as a starting quarterback. Yeah. If he gets tired from a hard week of practice. I think so, yeah. I think they will. The real question is are the Colts going to go back to Anthony Richardson this season? I think so, yeah. So, okay, we're going to get back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, I think so, yeah. At least one more time. I like that. I like that. And is there any rule that says that you have to name a starting quarterback before the actual game? I think so, yeah. Yeah? Okay.

I think so, yeah, is actually a great answer because you just give yourself such a great out. Yeah. Like, yeah, well, I didn't say yes. I said, I think so, yeah. So when Aaron Rodgers says, I think so, yeah, at returning, is he thinking that he might get a job in the administration? And in that case, he won't be back? I think so. Yeah, there it is. There it is. That honestly wouldn't be the most shocking thing ever, would it? If...

Rodgers went to work for the government. Yeah, no. I think his odds are better than to win a Super Bowl. Did you see the deep dive into Aaron Rodgers on ESPN? Did you read that article? I did not. Yeah, it was... I mean, it wasn't anything new. It was basically like this guy, you know, he's a legend. He's hurt. He doesn't have his mobility.

And I think the biggest issue is that he demands perfection. And a lot of the players in talking about it, like they were talking to offensive linemen, wide receivers, that you have to be perfect and on his wavelength. And he doesn't always explain what his wavelength is.

What does wavelength mean? Like, you got to know where he wants you. He wants everything specific. Like, he wants to know that you're going to be at this spot, at this location, at this part of the drop, like all that stuff. It's the Mike Williams play that ended that game against the Bills. It sounds like something that an offensive coordinator should be in charge of. Yeah, but they don't have one. We don't have anything. I didn't realize he referred to Nathaniel Hackett as his best friend. I didn't realize he was his best friend. Yeah. That's crazy. Best friend.

Too nice of a guy. Too nice of a guy. Okay. Next up, Browns at Saints. Max, we're going to get this eventually. I got it. I got it. I got it.

I was so confused. I was like, neither of these are my teams. It is... Memes, you're in charge. Browns minus one against the Saints. You're jumping all over the map. No one knows what game you're going to go to. Yeah, but it's all right there. Yeah, no. It was literally right there. It was literally the very next one. It's on there. I just panicked because normally you say Max when it's Eagles. I was like, neither of these are my teams. No, I just... I went... I think I went off of how ESPN had them listed. So... Okay. Browns-Saints.

I love the Browns in this game. I think we're back with Jameis. Yeah, also, big news out of Browns camp this week. Vrabel's back on the field. Vrabel put on the practice jersey and went out there and took some reps at defensive end. Now, it was the red non-contact jersey. I expect more from Vrabes. I was hoping maybe some pads and cleats. I actually do think he was wearing cleats. But yeah, he's back on the field.

And Jameis' revenge game. Jameis' revenge game. I also just think that the interim bump, you can only do so much. It's over. Yeah. Actually, I was looking back at the game on Sunday, the Falcons and the Saints. I actually think the interim bump ended at halftime, but they were able to hold on. Because if you look at that game, the Falcons outgained them by over 100 yards. The Falcons had...

I think it was 11 more first downs. The Falcons ran for 181 yards on the Saints. The Saints just got off to a hot start. They went with passion and fight, and then they were able to hold on to the last second.

That was a little misleading. The Browns coming off a bye. Nick Chubb now feels like he might be fully. This might be the Nick Chubb's all the way back game. Yeah. That's how I'm feeling. I don't hate that. The only counteraction is if the Rizzler clogs a toilet before this game. Yeah. That's what he's got to do. He's got to take a massive, massive dump. He has to. Bring Bounty Gate back, but this time it's about paper towels. Yes. He has to. So, yeah, I mean, I just think the Saints are 30th in pass blocking. The Browns are fourth in pass rush. The Saints can't stop the run.

The Browns are going to want to try to run. I'm backing on Jameis. Backing on Jameis. Yeah, let's get some weird stuff going here, Jameis. You know the building. You know where everything is located in that town. You're going to show up to the game, give a big pregame speech. It's going to be excellent. I think I like the Browns. Yeah. Okay. Rams at Patriots.

My Rams minus four and a half at the Patriots. You know what? Next week when I write all these down, I'll just write down all my notes, the line. So I can just read it right from my notes. That was my mistake. But it could change. But it could change. It could change. Could change. Hank. I'm going in optimistic. Probably the first time that, you know, I'm working my way into actually rooting for this team and being excited about games. I think we could win this game. I like how Drake may have been playing. It's been exciting. Yeah.

The Rams are a good team, well coached. There's a chance that Sean McVay, you know, just absolutely alphas the fuck out of Mayo and they score like 40 points. That's definitely a possibility, but I like our chances. I like us. I like us as hungry dogs. What about Drake Mays' speech yesterday?

It's a great speech. He gave a candidate for speech of the year. So he addressed the log. He asked the offense coordinator permission first, permission to address the offense, permission granted Drake. And then apparently he stumbled over his words a couple times, but the message got across. And Demario Douglas heard it and said, okay, it's serious now, now that Drake May is taking leadership on. Yeah, we got a leader. We got a leader. We got a good quarterback. The players are bought in. They believe in him.

I think they're going to fight. I have... I think the Bears quit, so I think that was a little misleading. That's fair. Not from Drake May. I think Drake May is pretty good. I think Drake May is like... He's kind of got a little Josh Allen. He likes to take off. And a couple... You know, the interceptions, if you can... Josh Allen threw a lot of interceptions the first year, like bring him down. Like I...

I'm not saying he's Josh Allen, but I like Drake May, what I've seen. I'm talking more about the Patriots' defense. They had nine sacks, which was, you know, they had 16 going into the week against the Bears, and then they had nine against the Bears. Yeah, and the Bears' offensive line is a joke. I don't think you can pay too much mind to that. That's what I'm saying. I think I'm excited for the Patriots' offense. I think there's a chance that the defense, you know, again, McVay's a really good coach, and Mayo's not the most experienced, so this could be a serious mismatch situation.

Rams offense, Pats defense, and the Patriots could lose. But we're at the point in the season where it's like I want them to win and I want the Patriots to play well. Even if we lose, I just hope that the offense looks good. Yeah, and yeah, your defense looked good last week. The Rams offensive line did not look good last week. But it's one of those tricky things where the Rams went from being very injured so you can blame poor offensive line play on just having stopgap guys to

To then now you can blame their bad offensive line play on getting their healthy players back and not having any chemistry with the rest of the offensive line. And they didn't give him much help. I think they used 12 personnel 9% of the time in week 10, which is like 25% lower than what they've been doing all season. Yeah. Yeah. The Rams. Yeah. It felt like that was the week they got healthy, but not all they need a game under it. Yeah. And the Rams have to win. Like they are still very much alive.

What's the weather going to be like, though? That is Rams cross country. That's a long trip. Yeah, also, who's keeping the light? I don't know who's keeping the light in Boston on Sunday. It's going to be nice. Oh, okay. 42-59. Obviously, Gillette's a little bit outside of that, but it looks like it'll be perfectly good weather. Sunny, sunny, 50 degrees. Did you watch the season finale of the Aaron Hernandez sports story? No, I haven't watched the season beginning. Season finale is interesting. The guys are going to be playing.

What happens? Kirk Minahan happens. Does Aaron survive? I've got to watch it. Basically, what they did was they did a full season on Aaron Hernandez's life, nine episodes on his life, his family, his career, and then episode 10 was Kirk Minahan. Yeah, I saw the clips. I had to watch the whole episode. Yeah, Kirk Minahan basically. He's like, yeah, he did it. He was the villain. He is the brand, the broken of the season of American Sports Story. It's ridiculous. Yeah.

Wait till Aaron Hernandez dies. He does. He does. Fuck. He does. So there's season two. I don't know if there's going to be season two. I did see that Kirk had a full movie theater packed to watch it, which is very funny. Yeah. So I got to watch that. I haven't caught up on any TV. Yeah. I mean, that's... I've started like six different shows. I got to watch The Penguin.

I heard that was good. It's so good. I'm not even close to it. I started the Menendez thing, maybe two episodes. Skip everything and go to Penguin. Yeah, I gave up on that. Shrinking. Shrinking is awesome. I know, but I can't. I start it, and then football comes back on. Penguin. Penguin's good. Penguin. Also, Aaron Hernandez, just because the guy that plays Matt Patricia and Robert Kraft. You've said that about like 10 guys. I mean, the Matt Patricia guy. What they did was they basically put a visor and a pencil in.

Max and then just had him sit in silence and they're like here's Matt Patricia. That sounds like Matt Patricia. Yeah. That does. Okay. Next up. So Hank optimistic also excited to watch Drake May. Yeah. I think that's fair. I'm glad that you're excited finally. Yeah. You finally got what we were telling you.

Yeah. If he gets hurt, rookie quarterbacks, watching rookie quarterbacks can be fun. If he gets hurt or if he gets tired during a play and has to take a spell, are we going back to Jacoby Brissett or is this Joe Milton? Okay. If that happens, I'm back out. Yeah. You're turning it off. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Vikings at Titans. Vikings at Titans, Max. That would be the Vikings minus six at the Titans. Oh, you yelled that. Well, I got excited because I was quick with it. Yeah, you were quick with that. I don't know what to make of this game because I still believe in the Titans defense and I think Sam Donald's slipping. But I also know that Brian Flores is probably going to cause trouble.

Massive havoc Yeah this is This is his wet dream Is going up against Will Levis Yeah A man who gets He gets excited easily I'll put it that way Yeah I kind of want to take the Titans In the first half They've played good They've played good football In the first 30 minutes Of every game Not every game But a lot of the games And then they just fall apart Yeah I just I go back to that matchup Brian Flores is tough enough To deal with If you've been in the league For a long time Yeah I feel like he's He sees a quarterback With like

Lots of tattoos on his throwing arm And he thinks to himself I'm just going to fuck this guy up this weekend Yeah Max just pulled up The Titans are still first in defensive yards allowed They're also 11th in DVOA They're a good defense Everything else I don't know what to make of They can get run on though

Yeah, a little bit. The last three weeks, they've had like 137 rushing yards per game against them. That was also the Lions, though. Yeah, that's true. And that was Jameer Gibbs' 80-yard rush. Yeah, that's true. Okay.

I saw an article that said that Sam Darnold could actually be the Titans quarterback next year. That's perfect. As a bridge quarterback. Oh, my God, is that perfect. So this could be a test drive for Sam. If you're the Titans defense, are you being told, hey, let's see what he can do. Let's run some different patterns. Let's mix up the coverages to see how he would fare against certain types of defenses so we can get a scouting. I'm mad I didn't think about that. That couldn't be a more perfect fit. It would be a great fit, right? Yeah. Okay, last question.

Early game, Jaguars at Lions. Jaguars at Lions. 13. No, I see in 14. 14. That's on me. I saw him earlier today as 13. It's 14. So the Jaguars have been underdogs of 13 plus points. How many times since 2010? Since 2010. Since 2010. 13 plus points is a lot. That doesn't happen often in the NFL. 11. 6? 6.

18 times. 18 times they've been 13-plus point underdogs since 2010. To put it into perspective, since 1970, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been 13-plus point underdogs one single time. That's quite something. That's quite something. They pay these guys to play football too. But this is Doug Peterson's firing game.

It's a bye week next week. Trevor Lawrence is hurt. Mac Jones is going again. I have this circled as quit watch. I'm predicting over one and a half interceptions for Mac Jones this weekend. Mac Jones is four and 15 against the spread in his last 19 starts as an underdog. Yeah, it does feel like a blowout. It feels like a blowout early and then a quit because if you're going to fire Doug Peterson in season, it's going to be after playing the Lions, going on a bye week,

That all just kind of tracks, right? Yeah. And the Lions, I think they're the number one team I would trust with a double-digit spread in the NFL right now. Yeah. I mean, their offense has all the weapons. It feels like they can score 30 points against anybody. And the Jacksonville secondary is one of the worst.

They don't have a single person that's in the top 50 at pro football focus. Yeah, and it also feels like the Lions are just like they're so dialed in. They're just push, push, push. What was that face, Hank? You're going to take the Jaguars? I think so. This is the NFL makes no sense game of maybe the year. Really? Don't you think? No. They won't be able to pass the ball. They're going to get at least 35 points scored on them. I like you releasing that, though. That was good.

That was for free, just so AWLs know. Hank just released his The NFL Makes No Sense Game of the Year. You're talking Moneyline? I will be taking the spread. No, no, no, you've got to take Moneyline. After making that statement, you have to take Moneyline. I'll definitely take a Moneyline personally. I probably won't put him in the Hungry Dog, but I'll take him spread for, well, I won't give away my picks. Oh, man. But I will take them Jaguars if no one else does. And also, I love the fact that Jared Goff threw five interceptions last week.

Yeah. I love it because he's not going to do it again. You got him out of his system. Agreed. Agreed. Okay. Oh, you want a crazy stat? This is a mind-blowing stat that I found. Aiden Hutchinson is still fifth in the NFL in total pressure. Yeah. That's pretty nuts. They were saying that he probably would have broken the all-time record if he stayed healthy. He hasn't played in weeks. Also, this is from Sports Info Solutions, the Jaguars have given up

11 yards a play versus play-action passes this year. 31st. The Lions are pretty damn good at play-action passes. But the NFL makes no sense game of the year. So now I'm in a pickle. Yeah, so Hank, how confident are you in this pick? In plus 14? Yeah. Confident. What about Moneyline? Not. But I will do it. But it sounds like you're supremely confident at plus 14. I am. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. NFL makes no sense. There's not stats behind it. I'm very close. But it happens every year. There's always games where it's like, how the fuck did the Lions lose to the Jaguars? When the playoffs come, I don't think it's going to affect their seating. I don't think it's going to affect their team. I love this energy. It'll be...

Oh yeah, the Patriots lost to the Bengals. That was week one, so it's harder for that to happen. It's like when Doug Peterson said after the last game, you wouldn't understand, he's talking about this type of game. You don't understand. The NFL doesn't make sense to you. Okay, so I'm very close to now releasing my Doug Peterson is going to get fired after this game, game of the year. Very close. And here's the only thing I'll say to you, Hank. I know what you're saying. There is always one or two of these games.

Can I interest you in a different option for this? Sure. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills. They're 10-0. Next week, they play the Carolina Panthers. Nah, it's the Chiefs. The Lions have the opposite of the Chiefs' black magic. Jack Mack, our guy Jack Mack, I just saw him tweeting about it that I guess it's like a trend on TikTok right now that people are making memes about the Panthers ending the Chiefs' undefeated.

Undefeated season. I like that, calling their shot. It's like, yeah, like everyone's just making hype videos a week and a half in advance. I like that. Listen, the Panthers have 14 days to get ready for the Chiefs. Yeah. They're dangerous with 14 days. What's Bryce Young's record off a long breast? Dave Canales is dangerous with 14 days. Mm-hmm. Dangerous.

I just like that the internet's getting ahead of this. I mean, it would be so funny if it happened and they just called their shot. This would be a shocking... Can we watch one of them, Memes? Can you find one? If Hank's right, this is a shocking result. Yeah. This would be a shocking, shocking result if this happens. All right, Memes is going to find one for us before we... I feel like this is a matchup of two teams that never play each other. Yeah, I'd agree. It does feel like... The Lions and the Jaguars? Yeah. Never seen that before.

Panthers and Chiefs also. Yeah, big time. Yeah, big time to have them play each other. All right, so before we watch this video and get to the afternoon games, part of my cheesesteak football is back in full gear. Ordering part of my cheesesteak for your game day meal or late night eats is the best play call you can make.

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Go right now. Use code AWL for free delivery. All right, let's watch this. You got this? Okay, so before we do the afternoon games, I want to see the memes that are going around about the Panthers ending the Chiefs perfectly, which, again, is 10 days early because they might have a— Oh, Max just had to do a are you a human drag the slide thing. All right, let's see this.

Who's going to stop the Chiefs three-peat? I like that the Panthers have their swag back a little bit. This is what I love about and kind of miss about having just like everything to complain about. Yeah. Is it forces you to find creative ways to love your team. Yeah. Yeah, because we haven't seen this fight from the Panthers in forever. Oh, hero. It's Bryce Young. He's throwing one of his multiple touchdown passes he's thrown. I love this. I love this. Good spiral. Yeah.

That was maybe a preseason game. This is great. I like it when they also mix in a dropped pass into the highlight reel. Yeah. Okay, so good luck to the Panthers in the... That might be my the NFL makes no sense game of the year. Yeah. Okay. Afternoon games. We have the Falcons at the Broncos...

I think the Broncos are going to get off the mat here and respond very well. And I think the Broncos are going to win this game. And I think we're going to be like, what's up with the Falcons? Can they win a game? Well, fun stat about Sean Payton, because I was thinking about this game, Payton going up against an old NFC South opponent.

Sean Payton this year is 3-0 against the NFC South, his old division. And not only is he 3-0 against the South, he's absolutely fucked them up this year. The only team that was within 14 points was the Carolina Panthers. The Sean Payton revenge tour. The feisty Panthers. So they have a plus 56 point differential in NFC South games this

I like the Broncos. They just replaced their field. For a third time. Third time, three years in a row, brought in new grass. It's Kentucky bluegrass. And they surprised Sean Payton with it. He didn't know what was going to happen. He's like, oh, it's beautiful. I love it. Got you a new field. I love it. Thank you. The Broncos are two and a half point favorites. Here's why I like the Broncos in this game. The Falcons cannot rush the passer at all. 30 second and pass rush.

They don't blitz. They don't do anything. They just don't get to the passer.

Bo Nix with time, lethal, Bo Leavers. I think this whole podcast, are we all Bo Leavers now? I've been a Bo Leaver since week one. I've gone back and forth, but I'm officially a Bo Leaver. And the Broncos are good. That's all you need to say. A pass blocking, yeah. I mean, I've been scarred by Bo Nix in college, so it took me a little bit, but I'm now a Bo Leaver fully. Welcome aboard. Yeah. I feel good about being there. Bo Leaver. I don't know what to make of the Falcons.

I think the Falcons, they're the perfect team that you would put into the slot of losing a wild card weekend playoff game. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that they're good. I would like the Bucs to...

maybe get that spot because I feel like the Bucks are more I just like Baker yeah I just love Baker now uh memes is going to be watching this game like a hawk oh yeah goddamn hawk oh you need the falcons he needs the falcons bad no no bigger falcons fan than memes this weekend you need the falcons bad you need the chargers bad too right and then you would be that that would make you almost all the way back

Almost all the way back. The playoff percentages are hilarious on the playoff picture on NFL.com. Yeah. But if you get those, you would be – if the Bengals, obviously the Colts would have to lose because you have to win, you'd be one game back, memes. And we have a bye after the Colts. Oh.

Wow. Get some people healthy. Get healthy. Okay, I might believe in this, too. Yeah, this is another game where these teams have never played each other. Yeah. Right? Yeah, Falcons. Well, especially in Denver. In Denver, yeah. It feels like the Falcons are not an altitude team. Yeah, this is the weird matchup week. Although Young Thug can go to this game. He can. He's allowed to. Oh, yeah, he can. Yeah, yeah. He should go to all their road games. Yeah, he should. Absolutely. Okay. Okay.

Seahawks at Niners. Seahawks at Niners. Niners, Seahawks off a bye. The Seahawks, we talked about the Dolphins cutting their captain. The Seahawks cut their leading tackler, which is a little weird. Linebacker Tyrell Dodson doesn't really make sense.

Geno Smith has never beaten Kyle Shanahan. But if we're going off of what team needs something more, the Seahawks, this does kind of feel like their season. They have to win this game. They have to. They have to avenge the loss from earlier this year. The 49ers are getting better on offense. So their offense, without Christian McCaffrey for most of the season, they are plus 1.4 net yards per play, which is the second best offense in the NFL. But...

their red zone is bad red zones back below 50 uh one of six teams that are below 50 but but that's maybe christian mccaffrey being back is gonna help that out a lot this is why i'm not i'm not out on the on the niners at all i feel like this is this is perfectly niners to start out this slow and then they put their foot on the gas yeah they're the the nfc west no one's run away with it so yeah the niners are gonna be in a fine spot i just uh yeah the sea this is the seahawk season off a buy you got the spot you're

playing in the division if you can find a way to win this your season's still alive if you lose this it's going to be big big trouble it does it does not make any sense to cut your leading tackler does it uh no i don't get it it's like how much how much more would you like him to tackle yeah i don't get it that seems like a problem if you're mad that he has that many tackles it's probably a problem with the guys that play in front of him yeah cutting your leading tackler cutting your team captain weird moves yep all right last one uh in the afternoon

The best one, Chiefs at Bills. Chiefs at Bills. We should start, as always, Patrick Mahomes is 12-1-1 against the spread as an underdog. That needs to be said. That needs to be said. That needs to be said. That needs to be said again. 12-1-1 as an underdog. The Chiefs are winning games by the skin of their teeth. Are they playing with fire? I don't know because the...

Because I would say that the University of Miami, they've been playing with fire all year. And they got burned. And they got burned. BYU's been playing with fire. They've been playing with fire. I don't think that the Chiefs have been playing with fire. I think they've been grinding it out. I think they've played with fire.

I don't know if they're playing with fire. Right now. They've played with fire. They've dabbled in fire. They've dabbled in fire. They've lit a match. The Broncos game last week was definitely dabbling with fire. That was definitely like a little kid lighting some grass on fire being like, ooh, this is cool. Yeah. Also, sometimes playing with fire just kicks ass. Yeah. This is more like a Fire Witch, like Game of Thrones, like blood sacrifice situation that they have going on.

Go on. Oh, okay. Wait, was that the redheaded? Yeah. She was hot until she got old. Yeah, I know. But then she got hotter. But it's like they've done some crazy shit to get to this spot. And that might be the fire they're playing with. But it's not. It does. It's because Patrick Mahomes, Patrick Mahomes, and it's Andy Reid that if it were any other team, I think we'd be like, they're fraudulent because they keep getting these crazy endings and they put it.

you can't say the Chiefs are fraudulent because they've done it before and they might just be, like you said, tough. There's a part of me that thinks that maybe the Chiefs have intentionally not blown teams out so that they can learn how to win and be comfortable winning close games. That would not... Like Andy Reid, when he dials up the weird shit in the red zone where he does ring around the Rosie, he's got Travis Kelsey throwing shovel passes to Patrick Mahomes, that weird stuff. Andy Reid sometimes, I think,

tries to put his team in very complicated situations to build up their mental toughness. Yeah, I agree. I'm worried about... So Keon Coleman, I believe, is out. Dalton Kincaid is most likely out. Amari Cooper is trying to come back. It does feel like a lot of... That's a lot of guys that the Bills need to be full strength. And again, Patrick Holmes is an underdog.

God damn it. The one thing that makes me bullish on the bills here, Sports Info Solutions has the Chiefs Blitz the fourth most in the NFL. Josh Allen has been the most efficient quarterback against the Blitz this season.

But what makes me like the Bills is that the Bills take the ball away a lot. Yeah, that's what makes me like the Bills too. Yeah, they take the ball away a lot, and Patrick Mahomes loves throwing interceptions. He does. Did you guys see Matt Collins' quote? It's the most, like, trying to inspire yourself for no fucking reason quote of all time. He said that he does not take elevators on away trips and on game days.

Because no one is going to carry him to success. I like that. He's built like that. He's built like that. Hardball. Ridiculous quote. How are you going to show your coach how much adversity you can respond to in a stuck elevator situation? He said when they get to the hotel, the team will, like, there'll be someone from the team who will be standing by the stairs being like, Mac, this way. Yeah. No shortcuts. No shortcuts.

Take the stairs. I'm fine with it. We have an elevator here in this office. We have two floors. I take it all the time. That's probably why my great grandfather sucked at football. Yeah. Love the elevators. Took the elevators. Success. Okay. Yeah, I'm so excited to watch this game. I just, I keep getting burned. Wait, what is this? Harrison Bucker's hurt? Harrison Bucker is out. Oh. He's got a knee injury. Oh, that's actually huge.

Oh, I might be Bills now because this does feel like a field goal game. Here's what worries me a lot. Here's what worries me a lot, Big Cat. The guy that they signed was off the Jets practice squad. They signed a kicker. Oh, he's going to be incredible. That's our kicker. We don't have a kicker on the roster. They signed a kicker who was not good enough to make the Jets as a kicker. He was our kicker last week. So who's your kicker now? Anders Karlsson. Oh. Swedish guy?

He was bad on the Packers. He was really bad on the Packers. But one game with the 49ers, he went 4-4, 5-5. Oh, my God. One game? But one game? That's about as low as you can get. A one-game sample size for a kicker? Signing the Jets backup kicker. No, but that— Imagine how bad he was in practice for the Jets to be like, No, that's their starting kicker.

That was their starting kicker. So he's on the practice squad right now. So they move him down, then they bring him up for game day. Okay, now this seems like it was just done only to piss memes off. But hold on. I would put the GM of the Chiefs as a top Florio right now because he just did this to fuck with you. And now I'm back on the Chiefs because, Hank, what is this game? The blood, whatever you said? Blood magic. Blood magic. The Jets practice squad kicker kicking a, like, 57-yarder to beat the Bills.

Of course. And Anders Carlson missing a kick to beat the Colts. Those two things are going to happen. Don't forget about that one game, though. Yeah, the one game sample size. You went four for four. There's also Andy Reid being like, we need to learn how to win in tough situations. Let's take our great kicker, the best kicker in the NFL, and we'll sub him in for a guy that can't make a kick. Yeah. And we'll see if we can overcome him shanking some shit into the fifth row. Just a little bit of adversity. Yeah. Just a little bit of adversity. Yeah.

You crack me up, memes. So he was on the... He did not have a game... Oh, he was 5 for 5 in two games. I believe it was two games. I thought it was just one, but either way. Fired up. Yeah, it was two games total he was 5 for 5. Ratings bonanza in this game. Big time ratings. Ratings bonanza. It's going to be an awesome game. CBS is jacking off to this game.

Ratings bonanza on mute. Okay, last game on Sunday. Bengals at Chargers. Boys, this is a huge one for our Chargers. Chargers minus one and a half at home against Bengals. This is a huge one for our Chargers future.

Yeah. Joe Burrow, Owen two against the chargers. He's only played it against Justin Herbert once. Uh, the over under is pretty high on this game, isn't it? Yeah. Isn't it like four? The Bengals just make everyone go over. They do make everyone go over. Uh, Joe Burrow leads league in incredible, incredible performances where he ends up losing somehow. Uh,

I love the Chargers here. I love how much Harbaugh loves Herbert. I love that shit. So we said on Sunday that he started telling reporters that we're going to start calling Justin Herbert Beast Herbert. Her Beast? I think it was just Beast Herbert. Oh.

And then you watch the mic'd up of Harbaugh during the game, and you can see the second that he decides that he's a beast. And then Harbaugh goes around to the entire coaching staff, all the other players, and tells them for the rest of the game, he's a beast, isn't he? He's a beast. He's a beast, isn't he? Yeah. He's a beast. He loves him. Bengals 27th in pass blocking, Chargers 6th in pass rush. I also just think the Bengals... So I was thinking about it more because I don't want to give up on the Bengals. But...

I'm also thinking about giving up on the Bengals because are we getting fooled a little bit by the Bengals playing the Ravens really close twice? Maybe they're just built to play against the Ravens. Because their other wins are against the Panthers, Giants, Deshaun Watson, and Raiders. And in our heads, we're like...

But they basically beat the Ravens twice. So maybe they're just engineered to play the Ravens close. Correct. Now follow me on this. I guess they did play the Chiefs close too. The Chargers have a shitload of old Ravens players that they brought over. So does that mean that the Bengals are built to also play tough against the Chargers? And their Harbaugh. And their Harbaugh's. I'm excited for this game. It's a great Sunday night game because it's basically if the Chargers win this game...

They basically end the Bengals season. The Bengals win this. They're back. And by the rule of the Harbaughs, no team has gone 2-0 against both the Harbaugh brothers this year. Yeah. Is T. Higgins going to play? Is he ever going to play again? Feels like he's making a business decision. Expected to return. Oh, okay. So he's back. But we don't know. We're going to find out more probably later today, tomorrow. Yeah. I feel like there's maybe a little business decision, which he should do. If you don't give him a new contract...

Why wouldn't you be like, I'm not going to get injured more on a season. Like, I'm going to wait until I'm 100% healthy. That's so funny watching the Bengals having to cross the street. So, again, just to remind everybody, the Chargers are the fourth team in the last 40 years to hold opponents under 21 points in their first nine games of the season. Only been done four times. Defense is legit, legit.

Our friend John Gruden, who's coming up, did point out that the quarterbacks they played have not been great. That's true. So you have to play that game in fairness. You have to play that game as well where you're like, okay, they beat up on some bad quarterbacks and Joe Burrow is a really, really, really, really good quarterback. I don't know. This game's great. I'm just going to enjoy it. You know what? I think Vegas got it right.

I like that. Hats off, Vegas. I actually don't think I'm going to bet this game because we have our Chargers future. So we have bet this game. This game is massive for the Chargers. I'm betting the under in this game. I cashed out. You did? Yeah. Do you get an option to cash out? Yeah, for like half. Oh, Hank. I added more. 35. I'm just a hardball guy. What can I say?

You didn't catch that with Travis Hunter, did you? No. Oh, nice. Okay. I can't. No, you can't. Okay.

You physically can't or you... I don't think they let you cash out on futures. So you won't do that to us? No, I won't because I can't. Got it. I'm not saying I wouldn't. Got it. In theory. Okay, let's do our touchdown prop parlay and let's do our picks. Every day is game day at DraftKings Sportsbook. Now through the end of the year, it's extra special. All customers will get a special daily promo every single day.

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Touchdown parlay. Let's hit one. I lost. Hank back in. Hank back in. I'll go J.K. Dobbins. We'll leave it up to the night game. Let's get the first two legs. J.K. Dobbins is minus 115 anytime. Someone told an A.W.L. tweeted me after the show on Friday. He's like, what you guys put in was doomed to fail because you had no conviction. So let's have conviction. PFT, you have conviction. I have conviction. I am a 12-man jury of one, and I'm convicting this motherfucker. Okay.

jameer gibbs oh i love jameer gibbs i love it against the jaguars he's minus 150 yes that's we're trying to get one through that's fine that's fine hank conviction sorry big cat i am gonna go easy a bet that i feel like is is not gonna be hard they're gonna score a lot of touchdowns i'm going josh jacobs he's minus 145 touchdowns don't apologize but yeah let's see what let's see one through so what are we at what's this what's this parlay up to should we had a fourth

No, let's get three. Let's get three. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. Okay. We got to do our picks too. What are the standings? We're all bad. I'm hot. You are? I'm 4-0. That's four. But what are the standings? I'm 500. Me and Hank, 10. And you're in first? Yep. So we're all bad. Speak for yourself. Number one is 500. Yeah.

4-0. Me and Hank, 10-10. Big Cat, 9-11. PFT, 8-12. Max, 7-12-1. Okay. We are bad. That's bad. We're bad. No one over 500 is bad. It's okay to be bad. All right. Who's up first? That'd be me. I'm going to go Kansas City Chiefs. Bills over 46. Fun. Fun over. Fun, fun, fun. Fun in the sun. Fun.

I am going to go Jameis Revenge, Browns minus one. Shit, I wanted that. All right. Wanted that. I'm going to go with the Niners minus six and a half against the Seahawks. Hosting the Seahawks. Okay. They went by 12 on the road without McCaffrey. I feel like six and a half, doable. All right. I really wanted that one, Max. You're a son of a bitch. You did that to me last week. It's true. I'll take the Denver Broncos minus two and a half against the Atlanta Falcons. It's a good pick. Yes.

I will be taking the Baltimore Ravens at the Pittsburgh Steelers under 48.5. A lot of hard-fought defense, field goals, not going to be letting up touchdowns easy. 48.5 is a lot of points, in my humble opinion. And then I'll be taking the NFL, doesn't make any sense, game of the year, Jaguars plus 14 at the Detroit Lions. Okay.

I'll take Seahawks Niners over for you. That was mine. Yeah, got your back. Yes. I'm going to go with the under in Vikings Titans. 39 and a half. That's a good pick. That's a great pick. I love it. I love this pick. PFT, that's a great pick. Thank you. I love it.

I want to marry this pick. I love complimenting each other on picks when we're just so bad. But you know that's a good pick. It's a great pick. Yeah, it's an awesome pick. It's a great pick. I actually don't care if it wins. I'm just happy with how good of a pick it is. Everyone's had great picks so far. I'm a process guy, not a results guy when it comes to gambling. Yeah. That's how you know I'm good. I'm lost right now. I'm going to go with...

This is awful. Bangle. No, I don't like that. This is awful. I always have just one pick, and then you robbed that of me. I'm going to go. Hank wants to kill you right now. Memes, you go. I'll take the Texans minus seven. Okay. That did nothing for me. I needed more of a spike. Oh, I'm going to go Packers Bears over 40 and a half. That's a bad pick. I like that. That's a really bad pick.

No, that was a terrible pick. Why? Panic pick. I mean, that could easily be a 34-3 game.

Yeah, it could for sure. That would be an under. Maybe Caleb's good now. Maybe Caleb's good. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like that. What's the weather like on Sunday? It's going to be nice. I think it's going to be nice, yeah. Balmy. That's an over number. That is. All right, let's finish up with Fantasy Fuckboys and we'll go to our interview with John Gruden in person. Our newest co-worker, Fantasy Fuckboys, brought to you by Body Armor, real hydration, real ingredients packed with electrolytes, vitamins, and nothing artificial. Body Armor sports drinks.

Has great tasting flavors like strawberry banana and blue raspberry. Not only do we hydrate with Body Armor, but some of the best athletes in the world do as well, like Christian McCaffrey, Joe Burrow, and Sabrina Ionescu. We love it. My strawberry banana right there is my favorite by far. Get yours today at Walmart or local grocery stores near you with Body Armor. Go right now. The best drink in the world.

What's up, boys? What's up, brother? It's Rico McRock-o-son. Hey, Rico McRock-o-son. Hey, you little bit. You got the Mick in you? You a little Irish boy? Yeah, I'm an Irish-Italian. Best of both worlds. My stardom this week is Duck Hodges. Yeah. He's not in the NFL. Turns out he's selling real estate and he's dating country star Lanny Wilson. Oh, good for Duck.

Good for Doc. Doc fucks. Doc fucks. And he fucking sells. Guy cleans up. Guy cleans up. My sit-em. Pray to God. Jake Paul. Jake Paul. I don't think it's going to happen, but I hope so badly that he gets fucking knocked on his ass and knocked down, sits down forever. Hypothetically knocked out. Not forever, but like for, you know, 10 seconds, fight gets called. Would love to see that. Don't think it's going to happen, though. But I really, really hope so.

Tyson's a bad man. He's a whore. My sleeper, Jamo Williams. Jamison Williams. Jamison. Take a shot. Jacksonville, 32nd-ranked pass defense, and they allow the most yards per pass play. Going to get a lot of points. I love that. It's going to be a shootout. Jags are going to win, but Jamison Williams is going to go off. He's got a little surprise in the trunk waiting for the Jaguars, if you know what I'm saying. Love it.

Hey, what's up? This is Alex Jones from Infowars.com, Prison Planet TV. They sold my website, so this is the only place that you can hear Alex Jones. What's up, Alex? I'm starting this weekend. I'm starting, folks, the New England Patriots, folks. I'm starting the Patriots. I've got the documents right here. I love New England's defense shutting down the Rams. You can bet on a Patriot Act to be used to prevent any future McVeighs from creating explosives. That's a fact.

Love it. This week I'm sitting C.J. Stroud. C.J. Stroud is number seven in your programs. I call this guy building seven because he collapsed the other week even though the Jets never really hit him that bad. My sleeper is Anthony Richardson. He's like Dr. Fauci taking so many unnecessary shots. The people are waking up. People are waking up. Expect a lot of false flags from New York Jets. Google operates to Northwoods. The Jets are Lazard people.

Oh, Lazard people. What's up, guys? What's up, fuckers? It's Tony Macaroni. Hey, Tony. What's up? Tony Macaroni. Hey, Tony. My stardom this week is going to be the Dallas Cowboys and Cooper Rush. I don't know. I feel I have a feeling it's my NFL makes no sense game of the year. You like that? I like the phrase. You like the phrase. You're my blood magic game of the year.

You like that? Yeah. What time is this game being played? That's Monday night. So there's no sun involved? No sun involved. My cinema is a use of Texas because they've had not one, not two, but possibly three players-only meetings in the last five days. I saw that. That's way too many. That's a lot of players. That's way too many players-only meetings. We just call that practice. Yeah. And my sleeper is daylight savings time. Set your clocks back this week. Everyone, it's going to suck.

But you lose that hour of sleep Daylight savings time Make sure you set your clock Saturday night Seriously though Make sure you set your clock Saturday night Very important I forgot last week I know I know I know you did Because you were late I was late All week Literally all week You were one hour late I know it sucked It was nuts You'd show up exactly one hour late Reverse Coughlin time Yeah Okay Let's get to our interview With John Gruden And then we'll finish up With Firefest of the Week

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest and our newest co-worker. It is Super Bowl champion, Coach John Gruden. First of all, congrats and welcome to the Pirate Ship. This is a pinch me moment for myself because obviously John Gruden, you know, you grew up watching him on the sidelines and obviously Monday Night Football, Raiders, you know,

And now you're a coworker. Does that now diminish your legacy? No. That you are sitting in the room with us? Are you kidding me? I really, it's like a dream for me. I mean, you talk about a new life. I don't know that much about anything other than sitting in a dark room. Yeah. But being a, you know, coming down here to Chicago, seeing this facility, hanging out with Portnoy, getting on this show with you guys and being a part of this team is awesome. I'm excited about it. I know I got a long way to go and a lot to prove, but yeah,

With your help. Yeah. I know I can make progress. Your number one draft pick. Yeah. It's also a genius move from your perspective as well because you, like, I think there's a group of fans. What was your years that you did Monday Night Football?

I think it was 2009. I did it for nine years. So 18. So it's been, what, six, seven years. So people forget that you were part of the best booth in broadcasting. And now you get to basically get reintroduced to the internet age. People need more Gruden. We're going to give them more Gruden. I'm going to do my best. I tell you, though, this whole operation, for the fans that haven't seen it,

to walk in here and see it. It's really incredible. The facility. Yeah. The kind of people that you've hired. The passionate sports fans. Yeah. You know, there is no clock that you guys punch. Everybody just kind of does their own thing. It's an amazing operation. I'm proud to be here. I like it. We've got a good organization going on. Yeah, it's been very funny. PFT, you just walked in, but...

People have been going up to Gruden, and he's gotten the introduction to everyone in their interesting weird tics and everything. Because Jerry immediately said, are you wearing Creed? So he spotted Gruden's cologne. Big T went up to him and was like, I have to ask you right now, how close were you taking the Tennessee job?

Mincy has tried to hire him to the Saints. He's just getting like – Wait until you meet Frank the Tank. Yeah, Frank the Tank. We've got to get you on a stream with Frank. Yeah, and then we've got a big game tonight. That's what I'm most excited about, you know, the Commanders heading into Philly. So it'll be an awesome night. I'm fired up.

Yeah, so Big T did ask me to ask you that on the record because he's a giant Volunteers fan. He only wears Tennessee orange. Only wears the Power T. He wanted to know how close you were to actually signing that because there was a rumor. Remember, you had your picture taken in a Hooters. Yeah. I think in Knoxville, Tennessee. And the internet went wild. They were like, okay, Gruden's in the Hooters. He's going to be our coach. I thought...

John Gruden might just love Hooters that much that he's just casually stopping in for an ice cold beer. No, I do love Hooters. I did love Hooters when Hooters was in their heyday. But my wife cheered at Tennessee. I love Tennessee. I was a graduate coach there and I did talk to the athletic director there.

And I don't look up to anybody more than I look up to Peyton Manning and Kenny Chesney. Those are two of my favorite Tennessee guys. And I was very interested in doing it. But at that time, I was having so much fun on Monday Night Football with Mike Tirico, I couldn't take any other job. Yeah, you did have that stretch where it was like every year, it was like, well, Gruden's open. That had to feel good.

It was every single year it felt like they'd be like, well, there's an opening, Gruden. Well, they fire so many coaches now, Big Cat. I mean, every year, you know, six or seven of your best friends get fired. And, yeah, but to be in the thought process is always exciting and, hell, it's fun.

Tennessee was one that is really close to my heart. I almost did consider pulling a trigger there. Yeah, you're talking about how coaches, they get fired all the time. We're in that season where we start to speculate about what openings are going to be ready to go next season. Do you think that the NFL moves on from coaches too quickly sometimes? I do. I remember as a young kid,

coach when I was coaching the Raiders in 1998 I went to the owners meetings and every owner and every head coach was in there I was 34 years old I look over there and there's Marty Schottenheimer over there's Mike Shanahan and Mike Holmgren then you see Joe Gibbs Bill Cower and it just seemed every team Tom Coughlin of the Jaguars Tony Dungy Tampa every team had a coach that was there for a period of years Dan Reeves with the Falcons and

And now they change coaches every year or two, and they change offense and defensive coordinators like they change shirts. And I think that has a lot to do with the lack of quarterback consistency and development over time. Yeah. What about offensive coordinators? So if you're a defensive head coach and you're setting up your staff, you want to get the best offense coordinator that you can, obviously. But then there's also the danger that if he performs too well at his job,

he's going to be hired as a head coach next season, then you have to go and find somebody else to fill that guy's shoes. Like, is that a double-edged sword where it's like, he's the best guy for my team right now, but I also have to have a roster of guys that I'm ready to elevate? That's a great point. Great point. That is a great point. You know, that's why the model that I learned growing up was with the 49ers. Bill Walsh called the plays, was the head coach. Mike Colingren, who I worked for, was the head coach, called the plays. So if you lose your coordinator...

You're able to call the plays yourself. But when you're a defensive coach, and as you said, if you hire a hot shot coordinator, he's probably going to be gone. You better have somebody in your operation that has learned the system, that can teach the system, and keep your system alive if that guy leaves. Yeah, yeah. This is a weird question, but I'm going to ask a weird question. Did Mark Davis ever say, like, hey, I really like your haircut? Yeah.

No, I said, I like your haircut. You should go Mark Davis. You know what? I get my $15. I get it dry and I let it fly and I move on. He's wearing a hat and sunglasses. But no, my hairstyle is...

It's not really well thought through. I mean, Mark Davis has. Did you ever think about it? Like, hey, he might give me a couple extra million dollars if I just start going bowl cut. Yeah, he might. Yeah. I don't know. It's just I never looked at it quite like that. But I have been criticized for my hair several times. Did I ask you if you ever went to a P.F. Chang's with him?

I have. You have? Tell us everything. We want to go to a P.F. Chang's. Well, in Oakland, there's a beautiful P.F. Chang's. Not in Oakland. It's a fancy part of town. I can't remember what it was called. But there's not a normal P.F. Chang's. It's like the killer P.F. Chang's. It's like the P.F. Chang's on steroids. Okay. An M.D. walks in. He sits up there. He's got the same seat. And they know exactly what he wants.

So he doesn't even order. They just bring it. Well, they pretty much know what he wants. He absolutely is dialed in at P.F. Chang's. I mean, it's unbelievable. And it's really a hell of a place. I learned to love it myself. Did he drive you there in the van? No, I think I met him there. The van is another, that's a bucket list item for us. Yeah, when we found out he drove that van. But yeah, the P.F. Chang's, apparently he goes there every day. You know, the Bucks...

Play the Raiders December 8th in Tampa. Maybe you guys should come down. Maybe MD will be there. There is a nice P.F. Changs in Tampa, perhaps. We did get a verbal yes. We kind of accosted him at the Super Bowl when we saw him in the lobby in Vegas. We were like, hey, come on the show. And he's like, okay. But I don't think it really stuck. I think we could do – maybe we do a double dip. Maybe we go to P.F. Changs and Hooters. Oh.

So I did a bad job last time we had you on the show because we talked about your Fired Football Coaches Association. Is that the correct name for it? Yes, it is. FFCA? The synthetic football team that you've built in a Tampa strip mall. I didn't know that you guys were essentially located in the headquarters of Hooters.

Well, at one time we were. Now I'm not. Okay. I have my own standalone building. I've graduated to higher levels. Okay. But when Hooters came around, my dad was coaching for the Bucs. I needed a summer job and Hooters just showed up. This is like 1986. Yeah.

and I got a job at the original Hooters in Clearwater, Florida. I was a wing shaker, oyster shucker, beer keg changer, best job I ever had. Then I moved on to Hillsboro Hooters, the number two Hooters. I was a backup college quarterback at Dayton. And I remember getting on the plane, going to training camp, crying.

I didn't want to leave Hooters, man. I just want to work at Hooters. My dad said, get your ass on a plane. I love Hooters. Oyster shucking, that's no joke. That's a tough job. They give you the glove. You can cut yourself up a little bit. Yeah, it is tough. I mean, it's hard labor. Yeah, but it probably makes it easier having the Hooters. But back in the day, when Hooters was rolling, there wasn't a better place for me. Yeah. Talking about the NFL this year,

Who, in your mind, is running the most innovative offensive stuff? Obviously, everyone knows Ben Johnson. He's talked about a lot. But who's maybe an under-the-radar guy where you're like, what he's doing is some stuff that people are going to start copying a couple years down the line because that's really what the NFL ends up being is a copycat league.

Yeah, that's something I've been looking for. I'm always – I have two servers in my office, and I make cut-ups. I'm looking for new concepts to teach and use if I ever do coach. Or when players and coaches come in, what's going on? What are people doing in the red zone, third down, short yardage?

I was interested in Grubbs, the guy that went to Seattle early in the year. They were shredding people, and I still think they do some really cool things offensively in Seattle. I do like Ben Johnson because I recognize the offense. I like what Cliff Kingsbury has done with Washington. And when you have a guy like Daniels, you can call any play you want. But

But their usage of those backs, they use two at a time, McNichols, Eckler, Robinson, it doesn't matter. Rodriguez comes in, and they do an excellent job with the ball distribution. I like teams that use the tight end, Zach Ertz. They got a go-to receiver, McLaurin. They can run the ball. They can do a lot.

So I can't wait for tonight's game because I want to see Kingsbury, the offensive coordinator of Washington, against Vic Fangio, the D coordinator of Philly, who's done a hell of a job. Yeah, Vic Fangio can coach defense. And their defense has gotten a lot better over the course of the year, too. So I don't know –

I've heard a lot of people say that it's getting more comfortable with the system, especially the quarterbacks and the safeties, understanding what Vic Fangio is trying to do. Can you explain to us what that means, how a team can finally understand the concepts of the system and feel comfortable with it? You know what I think, too, is, well, Vic Fangio is a great teacher, and he hired, I think, a very good defensive staff. And when you go watch teams practice, you can see the coaches that are better developing players and teaching their system than maybe others.

Fangio has a lot of young players on this defense. They're emerging. I mean, Nolan Smith, nobody realizes he's starting. The kid, the linebacker, N'Kobe Dean, he's playing his butt off. Zach Bond is one of the best-kept secrets in the league. He was an on-the-ball linebacker for the Saints. I don't ever remember him playing inside linebacker.

A rookie corner, Mitchell. A rookie nickel guy, Cooper DeJean. A lot of young guys that are really kicking ass in this system. I think a lot of it has to do with the simplicity of it. It's not a ton of blitzes and 96 different coverages.

But I also think he teaches effort. You know, he teaches guys how to tackle, taking proper angles. They're very detailed. They're very disciplined. And there are no exceptions. Fangio is a hell of a coach, and he's hired really good coaches to help him. Yeah, and from the offensive coordinator side, we talked a little bit about Kingsbury, but I want to talk about Ben Johnson for a minute.

So Ben Johnson, he was like the top, number one, hottest name head coach last offseason, decided to go back to Detroit. He's probably going to get even more money on the open market if he chooses to take a head coaching job this year. But what is it that Ben Johnson does that's so innovative? You know, he does a lot.

pre-snap. What I love about Detroit is they win in the pre-snap, meaning they'll change the tight end, they'll change the receiver, they'll motion two or three times before the ball is snapped, and they'll let Jared Goff pick a play. They're using the pre-snap to recognize your defense. I call it RCE.

You recognize the defense, and when you know what defense they're in, now you communicate a play to beat that defense. And that's what leads to great levels of execution. I call it RCE. Now, they're blessed. They have an excellent offensive line. They got a one-two punch in the backfield that's unbelievable. Those two cats are great. They got a great slot receiver who's a total badass, the way he plays and blocks. I mean, you watch this guy play. He's like a –

Tommy Hearns. He's like a Hagler type guy. He'll get in the ring and kick your ass now. And with Jamison Williams, they got the guy that can turbo it over the top. And Goff, other than last week, hasn't been good. He's been great. Yeah, he has. He's been like perfect. So the Jets, I got a question about the Jets. There was a report this week that Jeff Ulbrich, the interim head coach, said

went back to the fundamentals of tackling this week. So they put the pads back on. He even gave a demonstration of tackling to start the practice. I mean, we already know the Jets are in disarray, but what does that say when you have to do a fundamental of tackling? Did you ever do that as a coach, like halfway through the season? Like, hey, we got to learn how to tackle again? Well, we try to emphasize tackling. And when you have a poor tackling game or a poor tackling month –

want to emphasize tackling. I'm surprised he came out and said that. Yeah. Because your players, you know, they got a lot of pride in tackling. But the Jets do have problems. And I had always said that their defense wasn't part of the problem. But I

But I know Oldbrick is in charge of the defense. He expects a lot from the defense, and they didn't give it to him last week in Arizona. So I can understand his frustration. Yeah, it's been interesting up there. It feels like they didn't really have much of a plan going into the season, or at least a plan for how to fix things. So have you ever been on a team that started out slow and –

The media is saying coaches lost the locker room. They're going to move on, maybe in-season firing for Coach Gruden. Have you ever turned a team like that around? If you have, how did you take things from the brink of collapse to making everybody buy back in? Well, I was a coach 15 years, so I've been a part of everything. My hands are dirty. We've gone from first to worst. There's a short way from the penthouse to the outhouse. But in this league right now,

with the ability to change your team and free agency and the draft and your coaching staff, you can flip it in a year. So we've gone from last to first in the NFC South. You've got to have mental toughness, and I think you have to have a real –

bond in which how you handle the media and what you're saying in public. You know, there's just too much out there right now. When the fire starts in your kitchen, if you start releasing all these statements, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And if he comes in Inferno, you can't stop. Yeah. But there's negativity in Chicago. Yeah. That's what's happening. It's just a horrible thing. Yeah. So I was always one of those guys that

I was always trying to stir the emotions. I'd try to piss you off one day, make you laugh, make you cry, fire you up. I just think you've got to keep everybody together, and it's us against the world. I think the great teams, the teams that come out of it, are the teams that love the misery. And we used to talk about that. Don't you love that we're 0-2? We're all beat up. We're tired. We're a 10-point underdog. We've got to go on the road. Our dog just shit in our yard.

Certain teams love the opportunity to showcase how they can come out of it, and certain teams don't. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you said it. The cracks after the Commander's Hail Mary, like it just – it was a report from five different guys doing media, and it all looked bad, and it was finger-pointing. Yeah.

If you were to coach the Bears, I want you to stay here at Barstool, but if you want to coach the Bears, we could maybe get that worked out as well. If you were to coach the Bears, what would be the first thing you do to try to –

put Caleb Williams back on path? Because it feels like we're off the path right now. It feels like we're off the road, and it's starting to kind of careen to a bad spot. What would be the first thing that you would tell him, tell your team, tell your offense? What would be the first, like, hey, these are the fundamentals we've got to do? Well, it's getting late to do that. We're at the 10-week point of the season. I'm saying more for next year. I think the big thing you do is you have a private meeting with the guys you deem as your leaders. Yeah.

the defensive leadership, the offensive leadership, the eight or nine Chicago Bears, that you're really saying this is the heart and soul of our football team. And we're going to get behind this quarterback, and we've got to spread that news downstairs and publicly. But we've got to make this guy a great player. He is going to be a hell of a player unless we screw it up. Right. Let's be honest with you. You've had a lot of guys come through here, but this guy's a unique talent.

And right now, he needs support, man. And he needs it the most from his coach and the blue-chip leaders that we have on the team. Now, I don't know what kind of leadership they have on this Bear football team. Yeah. Brisker's hurt. They got a bunch of guys from different teams, DJ Moore, Keenan Allen. Everybody's the number one receiver. Swift is a new player. I think they're all searching for an identity, but we better figure it out. This is our guy right here. Yeah. And we got to get him to hand the ball off.

the swift play good defense win a couple ugly games the weather's getting shitty yeah but you gotta get excited about caleb williams and keep putting your arm around this guy and challenging him and helping him get through it what do you see on the tape tape

It's bad. There's too much of him. You know, there's 40 times he's carried the ball. There's 40 times he's been sacked. I just encourage him, you know, to get rid of the ball. Sometimes the best play you can make is throwing the ball away because that's the only good play you could make. I think he's waiting for receivers to get open, and I think it's hurting him. A lot of the sacks –

around the quarterback holding the ball. Yeah. You can't blame the offensive line for all these. No, I agree. I agree. There's it feels like a mental lock that's that's going on right now where it's like it's a combination of guys not getting open. But even when they are open, he's not letting it rip. I think they got to get him three for three to start the game. A quick

pass. I'm not talking about quick screens either. I'm thinking there are different routes we can run other than... If I see one more quick screen... You hate screens. Well, I can't take them. I hate them too. I like running back screens. I hate wide receiver screens. When you throw a bubble screen or a quick screen, I mean... How much...

How many times do you see Jerry Rice run a bubble screen? You never saw Willie Galt run a bubble screen. You got these three Corvettes. I mean, Keenan Allen was a number one guy for the Chargers. DJ Moore is paid to be a number one guy. You draft a guy in the top ten because you obviously think he's a number one guy. Now let him run some routes.

and tell the quarterback to throw him the ball or get rid of the ball but quit taking sacks. I've got absolutely no data to back this up, but I feel like 99% of the time they run a quick screen to a wide receiver, tackled for a loss of a yard. I feel like defensive backs have become too good at defending that screen pass where maybe now it doesn't have that same element of surprise that it used to. Yeah, there's like a couple guys that I would feel comfortable in the entire NFL being like, yeah, that's a good one.

Khalil Shakir. Yeah. He can run a quick screen. Rasheed Shahid. Rasheed Shahid. He can run a quick screen. Cool names. It feels like sometimes offensive coordinators are like, oh, we haven't run a wide receiver screen in a while. Let's just do it to do it. And it's like, what the fuck? Yeah. Why? They just always get guys are just – and you have to also – you can't run them if your wide receivers aren't committed to blocking. That's the thing that drives me nuts is when you run a quick screen and the wide receiver's not blocking.

and then you run a fake quick screen and you act like you're blocking and you take off. You know, the playbook has become what you see on Friday night football in high school, you start to see on Saturday. Everybody's clapping their hands, running RPOs, and now you're starting to see that on Sunday. That's why it's a pleasure to watch the Lions. It's a pleasure to watch the Chiefs. You know, some of these offenses that are really doing it the old-fashioned National Football League way, I think those are the teams you're going to be talking about here.

here in December. Yeah, and talking about the Chiefs, they just keep winning. They won't stop winning no matter what position they're in. They're never dead. They figure out ways to win games, which I think is a mark of one, just a really good football team, but mostly really, really, really good coaching that makes you pay attention to all those details.

And I feel like with Hopkins, who is actually, I thought that he was like 35 years old. I looked up, he's 32, I think. So he's still got some years. And with Hopkins, I feel like the Chiefs are in as good a position to win the Super Bowl as they've ever been right now, given what they have. What do you see that the Chiefs are doing? Like how have they evolved on offense in the post-Tyreek Hill era?

You know, I did get to go there for about a week in training camp. Andy Reid invited me up there, and you're right, man. They got a great coaching staff. I mean, Dave Tobe, the special teams coach, Spagnuolo, they get all the ink because they're the coordinators. I'm talking about the position coaches.

Their drills, their team periods, their competitiveness on the practice field, their organization's phenomenal. They're winning games in their preparation. Fans don't see them on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. They have a contingency plan. If they lose this player, we're going to play like this. If we lose this player, we'll play like this. If the left tackle isn't quite ready, we'll do this.

but they do have a well-orchestrated contingency plan. I think they're only getting stronger. Pacheco's coming back on the practice field. Juju Smith-Schuster's back. The last time he played, he had over 100 yards against the Saints. And they're going to get a Menahew, a very good pass rusher back. So I think they're going to get stronger and stronger, but –

You know, what they do is they just kill you with their preparation, their contingency planning for if it doesn't go the way they want, and their mental toughness. They got a great coach. They got a great quarterback and a great kicker, and their defense is on fire. Yeah, they are. I mean, it's...

It doesn't matter how you win. It doesn't matter how many you win by. You just keep winning. And Mahomes feels like that guy where every Chiefs game kind of goes the same, where it's like their offense looks a little clunky, and then there's a third and eight, and he'll find a way to get it.

Yeah, the thing that's really startling is how quick he's throwing the ball. You don't see him throw the ball over 20 yards in a game sometimes. And here's Pat Mahomes. I had him on Gruden's QB camp. He can throw better left-handed than I can right-handed. I mean, this guy's a magician. I mean, he can really wing it. But you don't see seam patterns, go balls, deep breaking routes. Everything has been quick.

But they are converting 52% on third down, which is way better than everybody else statistically. And I just think they're about to explode. We'll get back to Coach in a second. He's brought to you by Aura Frames. The best gifts feel like they were picked out just for you. That's why we love Aura Digital Picture Frames during the holidays. You can give your mom and grandpa the same gift and completely personalize it with all their favorite pictures.

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We just got the reverse cleavage going on. I feel like that would really complete the studio, tie it together. It is holiday gift time. Start thinking about it right now. Take care of all of your holiday gift shopping right now and go to Aura Frames. That's A-U-R-A frames.com, promo code PMT.

Use promo code PMT and you get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver mat frames when you use promo code PMT at A-U-R-A frames.com. Auraframes.com. It's an exclusive Black Friday, Cyber Monday deal. It's their best of the year. So don't miss out. Take care of all of your holiday shopping right now. Don't forget, terms and conditions apply. And now, here's more Coach Gruden. So Gruden QB camp, which...

You got to bring it back. Maybe that's part of what happens with Barstool here. Was there ever a guy who you walked away from, you're sitting doing film and you're like, I don't think that guy's got it. And then he went in and ended up being a great pro. You know, I did 63 shows. Yeah. So we had a lot of quarterbacks come down the pikes, you know. No, not really. Yeah. There were a few guys that came in and said, damn, I like that guy. Who were those? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I love Russell Wilson when he came in out of NC State. We made fun of his size. Well, Wisconsin. He came out of Wisconsin. Well, yeah, Wisconsin. But I was smitten with him. Matter of fact, I got to talk to Pete Carroll during the draft process, and they had just signed Tavares Jackson. They had Flynn. Yeah. And he asked me about Russell Wilson. I said, if you take this kid, and I said, if you bring him into your team,

And give him a chance. He'll beat both those guys out. And that's just what he did. The other guy I love was Kirk Cousins. Yeah. And I still stay in touch with Kirk Cousins. Yeah. And they drafted RG3 in the first round. I remember telling Bruce Allen, I said, this guy's a sumbitch now. Yeah. Be careful of Kirk. Yeah. And look where he is. Yeah. He's had a great career. Great career. Fantastic career. Got paid a lot of money, too. He really has. And when I watch him play, there's not many guys that stand in there

and take shots and deliver strikes like cousins. I mean, I love that about him, always have. I remember in Gruden's QB camp, was it Jimmy Claussen you got pissed off at? Yeah, probably. Yeah. I think you said there was a route that his receiver ran that was incorrect, and he told you that, and you're like, you can't fucking tell me.

that it's your fault take accountability so as a coach sometimes receivers screw up right they mess up everybody messes up and an interception might not necessarily be on a quarterback but you always want to see your quarterback say hey that's my fault I didn't do a good enough job communicating what you should have done is that fair it is fair I think the quarterback has to be bulletproof at least the ones that are great that I've been around

Now, in privacy, the coach and the quarterback, they address those issues. But, you know, you've got to coach body language, I think. I've got to coach Dan on his body language. Yeah, I got that. Well, I'm down right now. He's getting mad at me. He's getting mad at me because I'm very doom and gloom. You don't want to see your quarterback, you know, pointing fingers and blaming guys. I don't think it's healthy. So you've got to control your emotions. You've got to be an assassin, man. You've got to really have –

a very thick mental toughness about you and some do and some don't. Yeah. Yeah. So going back to your time in, in green Bay, when you were coaching Brett Favre,

One of the best arms of all time. Just incredible. Took a lot of chances. How was that coaching him when he would go off script and take some of these chances, throw these interceptions, and you were like, what the fuck are you doing, Brett? But you knew that ultimately the good was going to outweigh the bad with him. I was coaching receivers. I didn't coach Favre. I was the signal guy back then.

We didn't have the walkie-talkie. I would signal to Jet Dino, why shallow cross? And he had to memorize the formations. He struggled with that. But I can still remember Mike Holmgren, the head coach, when Favre was scrambling, he'd be saying, no, no, yes, great job, Brett. And then he'd be saying, no, no, what the hell? To your point, the first couple years, a lot of growing pains, but –

he had a triple X pouch, man. This guy had, this guy had, he had big balls, man. He was afraid of nobody. He was as tough as hell. And he had a rocket and he tried to prove it in every drill, every period. He tried to wow you. Yeah. And, uh, he broke a lot of our receivers, hands, face masks. Yeah.

He had a rocket. Are you, we had this debate, not debate, but I pointed out that I like my quarterbacks to throw a couple interceptions. I want, like, I don't like when a quarterback gets late in the season. It's like, oh, they have no interceptions. That means they're not taking the risks. Is that a crazy thought to have? Like, are there some interceptions that you're like, you know what, we can live with that because you're trying to make the big play. And if you keep trying to make the big play, it will happen.

I love this conversation. I hope you're having fun. You know what, when you're coaching aggressiveness with your offense, you got a guy like Favre and you got Sterling Sharp out there running routes. There's an understanding and trust there.

Hey, I'm the receiver coach. If you throw the ball, if he throws a ball to us and it's tight, he's giving you a chance. Right. So there's only three things that are going to happen, Big Cat. You're going to be a savage, and you're going to go catch the damn ball. That's why we're paying you too. Secondly, you're going to make damn sure he doesn't get it. You're going to play defensive back and make sure it's incomplete. Or third, you're going to be like an Academy Award winner. You're going to get me that pass interference penalty. Yeah, yeah.

But I think you've got to have a real careful understanding, and I think that's what the Bears' problem is a little bit, is do you trust that Keenan Allen – do you not trust Keenan Allen? Right. Throw him the ball when it's tight. He's going to catch it. He's going to make sure it's not intercepted, and he's going to get a couple fouls. Yeah. That's Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson going into that Steelers offense. You've seen it with George Pickens. He's going to give his guys a chance. And, like, yeah, there might be some interceptions, but –

but now his guys are more locked in and they know they can go get those jump balls, those moon balls, and their offenses look totally different. And when you watch Kansas City early in the season, they threw a bomb to Worthy, their fast receiver from Texas. And I know you remember the play. Cam Taylor Britt of the Bengals makes a one-handed interception and everybody's like, oh,

Oh, what a great interception. You know what they were saying in Kansas City? They were pissed at Worthy because what didn't he do? Go attack the ball. You don't let anybody intercept it. And I think that's one of the reasons Kansas City's a little bit reluctant to give him a ton of 50-50 opportunities. They used to do that with Deshaun Jackson. Yeah. But D-Jack, he would go up there and he would tip it away from somebody. And I just think these are little behind-the-scenes things that –

Young quarterbacks, they got to have confidence in their receivers. They will make you right one way or another. What about what's going on in Los Angeles with the Chargers? Because we love Coach Harbaugh. He's one of our favorite people. That man, his blood type is football. That's all he thinks about. He loves Justin Herbert. Justin Herbert's been looking pretty good. And the defense is playing at just an otherworldly clip right now. What has Harbaugh done to that team to remake them and to reimagine the Chargers over the span of one year?

Well, he's come in there and given them confidence. You know, I think he's walked in there and they've changed the whole dynamic of how they practice. They never ran the ball in charger land. I mean, I don't know what the rushing stats were last year, but you could go two or three games and not see 10 or 15 carries. This is now a smash mouth running team. Forget about Herbert for a second.

second. You don't know who their receivers are. I mean, their leading receiver is McConkie, a slot receiver. They really aren't a pass first team and they're not a pass second team. They are running the ball, possessing the ball and trusting their defense. He just has brought a lot of confidence and physicality to their team and defensively 13.1 points per game. Big Cat and I were talking earlier though, they have not beat

many quality quarterbacks. This will be a good test for him. Yeah, he went down the list of quarterbacks and it was not, it was Gardner Minshew, it was Justin Fields. It wasn't lighting the world on fire. Did you ever do a post-game handshake with Coach Harbaugh?

I don't think so. I think I was in the booth when he was in the NFL. I just competed against his brother. But you love coaches that compete. I think that permeates into the locker room. If your coach is fiery and he's competitive and banging on your shoulder pads and taking snaps in pregame warm-up, he loves football. He loves to compete. He's a badass. And I think the Chargers –

in some way are emulating their coach. Yeah, it's culture. Yeah, it sure is. You need that culture. You have guys who want to go take someone's head off. I agree. Yeah, that's what the Chargers feel like. They're just a tough football team. But you do also still believe in the Bengals and maybe making a run here. I just believe in the quarterback, Big Cat. I mean, watching that game last week,

That was the best single game played this year by a quarterback, in my opinion. And I think second best might have been his other game against the Reds. Might have been. Might have been. He's running around more than you think. He's not just your typical pocket passer. He's getting out of trouble. He's running for first downs, and he can see the whole field.

He's got great peripheral vision, and he has no wasted motion when he throws the ball. I really am impressed with him. Yeah, so you think that the Bengals might be – we may have buried the Bengals prematurely? I think the Bengals, if their defense gets going a little bit, and with the return of Higgins, I think they can be a problem. I do know this, though. They missed Joe Mixon.

They missed Joe Mixon's receiving skills, I think, in some of these checkdowns. I'm used to seeing Mixon come out of the trash. Yeah. Another team you mentioned that I think is going a little under the radar, but they have been playing great football, is the Arizona Cardinals. What are they doing? Because I thought they were going to be an okay team. I didn't think they were going to be sitting at the top of the NFC West in November, but they're a legit team, and it feels like they have everything clicking.

I know. I hate their uniforms. You know, there's something about it. It's either red on red, and I just, ah. Yeah. But they get Harrison, the receiver from Ohio State. Connor's a good back. I can't even tell you who their other running back is, but he is a beast. McBride is a hell of a tight end. And Kyler Murray's playing great. You talk about quick.

And their defense, they have my favorite player, Buda Baker. Jonathan Gannon's done a nice job with the defense. He stayed in his wheelhouse. And offensively, they're a problem because they're balanced defensively.

And they've already beaten the San Francisco 49ers in San Francisco. They're dangerous. Yeah, I love watching James Conner run with the football too. He's so upright. Very upright. He's crazy. But he gets shit done. Yeah, I can't even tell you who the backup running back is. I can just tell you this.

On the flight down here, I said, I better find out more about this guy because he's a load also. I always assume it's just, what's his name? Demarcato. Yeah, that's right. Oh, you got Trey Benson as well. Yeah. It's not Trey Benson. It's Demarcato? Yeah, Demarcato. Or DJ Dallas? Oh, it's Demarcato. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many hours of tape do you watch a week?

Probably too much early in the week. When you get the tape, they got the FedEx guy. He knocks on the door. It's like Tuesday morning or Monday night. You're like, hey, there's a tape. And my assistant, Jeff Leonardo... Wait, they send the tape? You don't just have it on your computer? Well, I don't want to get into all that. I pay a lot of money to get my tape. Okay, got it, got it, got it. Actually, you know what? I know. Now I understand. Yes, you got the tape. Yeah, yeah. But when I do get the tapes...

I get so excited. I actually have a notepad, and I'll write down, like I'll go over the stats, who had double-digit tackles, who had interceptions, who got the sacks, who had the explosive plays, you know, who did this, who did that. And I'll start making reels to see how they did it. Right. And it's an obsession. And then when I was doing my little –

YouTube channel Gruden Loves Football I always pick three or four games a week and I really tried to dig in on those two teams and learn all their players and some of the key matchups

I just love it, man. I love it. I can tell you love it. I love that you get tape FedEx to your place of business on Tuesday mornings. Does your wife ever like, hey, can you stop watching so much tape? My wife, when I got fired by Tampa, I had an office at my house, and I had my little projector. And back then we had the beta tapes. And I'd have coaches coming in the office at 6 a.m. My wife would come downstairs in her pajamas, and

she didn't go for this you gotta get out of here get all your stuff so i bought a building i rented a building yeah eventually i bought a building and when you guys come down yeah we're excited you guys will freaking like it i am i'm pumped to see that so when you're watching tape i know you get excited about guys i've seen you get really excited watching football do you still get mad do you get mad watching a football team if they're not if there's guys on the team so what's the last thing that made you mad

Well, to be honest with you, the Bears made me mad. Yeah. You know, I just have high expectations for the kind of roster they have. I mean, skill-wise. And I'm not just talking about the coaching or the coordinator or the play calling. The players are not making me happy. I saw a guy run an out route and sit down while the play is going on. Yeah, that was bad. You know, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. That was bad. Very bad. The Jets have made me upset. You know, I...

I put a lot of stock in this quarterback, Rogers. I think he's one of the best I've ever seen play. He had an injury last year. He's coming back. Their protection hasn't been good. Their running game hasn't been good. Their body language is horrific.

I get upset. Yeah. We do this with every guest that we have first time we have them in the studio. It's questions from a third grader. So this is from a third grade class in Dripping Springs, Texas. And this is Amy. This is Amy. She's in third grade. She wants to know, Coach Gruden, what's your favorite color? Amy. I love purple. Purple. Purple. The color of royalty. Yeah. Good answer. Coach Gruden, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a coach. My dad was a coach, so I've been around coaching my whole life, and I knew I wasn't going to be a good enough player. So I said, man, maybe one day I can be a coach. I like that. And then her third question, actually it's not really a question, Amy says, Coach Gruden, I agree, Roger Goodell is an anti-football pussy. He doesn't care. So Amy knows ball. Amy. Amy, tell me where I can get a new haircut. Yes.

Good job, Amy. Yeah, Amy's a, listen, she's a big fan, so. Yeah, Amy, I love you. Thanks for listening. Yeah. All right, so give me the list of teams right now that can win the Super Bowl.

We have our list. I want to see how it matches up. How many teams? I think we have, what, five, six? You give me five? Let's run through it. We have the Eagles. We have the Lions. We have the NFC. We have the Bills, the Chiefs, the Ravens. And depending on how the Steelers play this weekend, maybe the Steelers get put in that group. Well, you can't make that list. I was at the Bucs 49er game last week. And with McCaffrey back and Jawan Jennings back, I was telling Big Cat, they're going to be a hard offense to stop. Mm-hmm.

Because Mason, the backup running back, hell, he's leading the league in rushing down there. So you got, and Purdy is a lot better quarterback when you see him live. This guy is strong. He's loose. He's gutty, man. Gritty. Love him. And I think their defense, although they're missing some key guys, I don't know if their safety, Hufanga's coming back or not, but if he comes back,

I love the 49ers. 49ers added to the list. Did we miss any other teams? They might have the best fullback, too. We talked about Arizona. Yeah, Arizona. You know, somebody's going to come out of the West. Yeah. Somebody's going to come out of the West, and someone's going to win that division and get a home playoff game. Yep. Who's it going to be? Yeah. Who's it going to be? It's going to be Arizona, in my opinion, but I really think it's going to be the 49ers. Yeah. Okay. All right. And you think the Bills, what do the Bills have to do to get over that hump?

I think the Bills need Milano back. I think they need to get healthy on defense. The big thing with the Bills is Von Miller. Are you really Von Miller? If Von Miller and Rousseau and the fourth-quarter pass rush, Ed Oliver, if they can get that fourth-quarter pass rush humming, that's what bothered me against the Dolphins two weeks ago, is I thought that pass rush would just eat up Tua.

And it didn't happen. I think they got to get that pass rush revved up. And they could be. They could seriously be a problem if they do. Yeah. Okay, I have one last question. This has been great, Coach. We're so excited that you're here with us. 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. Last question. We know it's football number one.

What other sports are you watching? Because I heard a rumor that you watch all the sports. Yeah, I love sports. I love the Cincinnati Reds when I was growing up, so I love baseball. Matter of fact, I'm going to Arizona to see Tony La Russa. We're having a Wounded Warrior service dog event. Love baseball.

And I do love basketball. I was Bobby Knight's ball boy. I just don't like the three-point shot. I think it's too much. Okay, I like that. It's way too much three points. And I like golf. Oh. I do like golf. I got the caddy for John Daly one time. Yeah. That's incredible. So tell that story real quick because I remember when it happened. There was a rain delay, right? Yeah. And so you're hanging out. John Daly goes over to the Hooters tent. I was up at the Hooter Owl's Nest, they call it. I was just having some beers. I was coaching Tampa, relaxing.

Lightning bolt. They suspend play. So Daly comes up with this caddy. And this rain delay goes on and on and on. It gets cold and it's wet. It appears like the tournament's over. Mm-hmm.

So the caddy had a couple cocktails, I guess. He was off. I had a Daly's bib on. I was wearing his bib. We were meeting fans, taking pictures. And the tournament director came back and he says, Mr. Daly, you got 15 minutes to get in position. We're going to play four or five more holes before it gets dark. So we go up and hit balls. And Daly looks at me and he says, well, you're wearing the bib. Let's go.

so i carried his bag and i had been in this hooter owl nest drinking a few beers i had to pee like a rhinoceros and i got this bag and there's like 14 diet cokes in there uh umbrella thing weighed 100 pounds and we're on like the 16th i only did it for three holes i'm like the 16th all i the caddies pee on the course i don't know are there bathrooms out here

So I had to go pee. And then we come up on the 17th hole where the owl's nest was. That's one of the holes we played. And all my friends had stayed around. Everybody was gone. There was no fans left. And the fans started going, caddy, caddy. I said, I'm going to get ripped for this. And sure enough, on the Golf Channel, they destroyed me for not having any etiquette and not having any –

How did you do with the club selection? How did John Daly shoot in those last holes? I can't remember. I was nervous, but I did not get near the green. I just stayed over there by the bag. I didn't try to go up there and read putts or anything like that.

That was a great experience. That's so funny. I love John Daly. That's awesome. The Owl's Nest. Yeah. We're going to go to the Owl's Nest. I got to spend some time at the Owl's Nest. All right. Well, Coach, we're excited for everything we got coming up with you and Barstool. People are going to listen to this on Friday, but the stream tonight is. I don't think you're ready, just so you know, and this could look stupid in retrospect. I don't think you're ready. PFT is a diehard Commanders fan, but he's a respectable football watcher.

The mutant we have in that booth, Max. Yeah, I've heard about Max. Yeah. He is going to shock you with some of this stuff, and you're probably going to see his ass crack. He has a problem with his ass crack. Yeah, I've seen a lot of that in Philadelphia. Yeah. But he might cry. He might scream. He's Italian. He's fiery. He might spit on you accidentally. He might spit on you. So just, yeah, you might have to wear like a poncho. Max. Max.

Control yourself, Max. Don't peak too early, man. We got plenty of time before kickoff. I'll be good before kickoff, but once the whistle starts, I got no problem. There's no guarantee. My ass crack is confirmed 100%. You will see my ass crack. He said he's good for now, but once the whistle blows, he's ready to go. You got a score prediction, even though this is coming out tomorrow, so he might look stupid with your prediction, but what do you have?

I'm going with the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-20. I love it. I love it. Everyone, everyone, clean sweep. Everyone has predicted the Eagles. No, Hank. Hank doesn't count. Hank has the command. Hank doesn't count. Hank does not count. All right, well, thanks so much, Coach. Thank you, guys. Love you.

Welcome back to another Fire Fest of the Week. It's brought to you by our great friends over at Morgan & Morgan. You know what really sucks? Passing kidney stones. You know what else really sucks? Getting injured. But you know what doesn't suck? Calling Morgan & Morgan so they can help get you what you deserve.

While they can't help Big Cat's urethra pass tiny little shards of calcium, they can help fight to get you full and fair compensation when you're injured. Their fee is free unless they win. For more information, go to ForThePeople.com slash PMT or dial Pound Law, pound 529 from your cell phone. For more information, go to ForThePeople.com slash PMT or dial Pound Law, pound 529 from your cell phone. Okay, let's wrap up Fire Fest of the Week. Henry.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like this is one that's probably TMI. I don't, it's just actively going on in my head. So I'll share it on this podcast with you guys in the world. I feel like it's, I know the answer that it's a sign that I'm going through somewhat of a midlife crisis. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about, cause I bought my car that I have now.

It's in perfectly fine condition. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about selling it. The Audi. And then leasing a really nice car. Yeah. Like really nice. Yeah. And I also, again, like this is I'm 31 years old. I probably should have figured out at this point in my life. I've never been really good with. I have good credit, but I don't. I've never had a credit card that's like gets really good points and rewards.

And like miles and stuff, which I want, that's something I want to do. So it's like, why not open a line of credit with good points, pay the lease off with that and have a nice car. Um, so the midlife crisis, you think this car will fix it? That's kind of, that's, that's where I've been like, why do I want to do this? Fuck. I think you're having a midlife crisis. Fuck.

I do think you're having a midlife crisis. I do. What kind of car? You also think it might... It won't. Why I asked the question was if you think it will fix it, you should do it. If you think it will just be like, shit, I got the car and I still can't find happiness in my heart, then we got other issues. You just got this car. I preface this by saying I understand the situation. Are you going to sell it to memes? No. I sell it to someone else that works here, though. You know what, Hank? I think you should do it.

Yeah, why not? Is it going to make you happy? Yeah. Okay, well, I will take even like 1% less grumpy Hank. But I want you to be happy. I haven't been grumpy lately. Have you been grumpy lately? I don't think so. I feel like I've been good. You should have said, I think so, yeah. The only time Hank is truly happy, not counting on the golf course, is when he is pissing somebody else off.

But that's fine. That's fine. I don't think you've been that grumpy recently. I do think you're going through a midlife crisis. The problem with the car purchase, which I'm fully supportive of because I want you to be happy, is that if you buy it and then you're still going through the midlife crisis, what's next? Right. Whereas if you just don't buy it, you could always be like, oh, well, maybe the car would have fixed it.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I probably am not going to do anything about it. That's why I said I didn't even need to share it. But it's the only Fyre Fest that's stewing in my brain of like, why am I even thinking about this? There's no reason for me to even be going down this road. But I'm researching. I'm going to test drive some stuff this weekend. Oh, hell yeah. Test driving is so much fun. What are you looking at? You're done then. If you test drive, it's done. What are you going to look at, Hank?

Well, I don't want to spoil it. Also, Elise does not make financial sense. Oh, Beamer. I heard a different brand. From who? I heard a Lambo. People were saying Steve Will Do It's going to give you a Lambo. I heard Hank's doing a Porsche. Who said Porsche? Hank

I don't think this is going to solve anything, but I'm supportive. Of course, I can solve anything, but it could be fun. Like, because I drive a nice car, but it doesn't. I don't even think about it. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like I'm happy every time. You drive a nice car, not a sick car. Okay. All right. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Wait a minute. I got to get a new lease. Yeah. Damn. Damn. All right. All right. Fine. Now I'm going to get a better car.

We're going to have a car off. Hank, what if you took all this energy that you've got going into looking at new cars and you put that into fixing up Van Woodhead? I've also been... I mean, that's in the works. We're looking good with that. Are we? I've also just like... I didn't end up nuking all my clothes. I got rid of like 75% of my clothes. I'm completely redesigning my office room and just getting rid of a bunch of shit. So it's an overall...

situation that's happening where I'm just like get rid of everything get new stuff feel better I don't know okay so what else would go in this midlife crisis tattoos you think about getting more tattoos no no different apartment I'm so confused about this car what kind of beamer is this if it's that much better than big cats car

I don't think you understand how cars work. It's sicker. It's just if you put them next to each other, it's like, yeah, that's a nice car. That's a sick car. What if you got like a Subaru? What the fuck? What kind of car is it? Well, I also, I mean, I do have. I'm shopping around. I do have three car seats in my car. So that lowers the sickness factor of it. What if you got like a Subaru WRX? Just like a fast fucking car. No, that'd be bad. Racing car. Get a Lambo. Nah, I think you go Porsche Cayenne.

All right. Well, I'll see. I'm probably going to do nothing. Like I said, this is probably like I sometimes am like, why did I say it on a podcast? And so many people listen to when I'm probably going to do nothing. No, you're going to do it. You're test driving cars. You got to. Are you going to multiple dealerships? No. Oh,

Because I was going to say, the best part about getting a new car and test driving cars is you go... Is my leasing thought correct? That's probably where people are going to make a year of fucking... Leasing makes no financial sense. It's kind of a waste of money, but you get credit. But you get sick cars. Yeah, but it doesn't... Wait, what do you mean you get credit? You build up your credit. But it's stupid. Wait, are you talking about credit card points? Or are you talking about building your credit score? Both. Making payments. You know that if you finance a car, you also... I paid for my car in cash.

But you could also buy a car and finance it, and that would also... But what if this is a midlife crisis and in a year I want a different car? That's what I was going to say. I lease a car, but I know it's stupid financially, but I like to be like, I can have a new option in two and a half years. Yeah. Yeah, do that. Hank, if you buy a car...

Can you have me do the negotiation? I'm not going to buy a car. What I was saying is, Hank, you need to go to a couple dealerships. You need to go to a place where you know you're probably not going to buy it just so you can negotiate because it's so awesome negotiating at a car dealership knowing that you're probably not going to buy that car unless they just go crazy low. Yeah, I love negotiating. It is my favorite thing in the world. You just walk out. You just fuck with them.

We'll see. I needed you. Yeah, listen. You got fucked on my warranty. You got fucked on my warranty. I will provide that service as a former car salesman. It's my favorite thing in the world to go in there and then just ask them for all the cokes they have. Yeah. Get me another soda. I only bought a new car like me twice, but whenever I've done it, I've had my options. It's like one through five in the

fifth one i'll go and i'll be like if they offer me this deal i'll do it and it's a crazy deal and it's the best yeah when i got my car the guy kept telling he kept telling me the warranty and he kept and i kept being like no like i'm just gonna get the lowest one and they just kept asking me why yeah why aren't you getting the the higher one yeah i had no good answer so eventually i was like yeah give me the higher yeah yeah that's how they get you the finance he asked me

five times why don't you want this warranty and I had no answer you gotta secure your own financing have that ready to go when you walk in cause they'll fuck you they'll fuck you over then they take you in that second room and then the guy keeps walking back and forth to his manager let me see if I can do that it's a great process it's a lot of fun good luck my fire fest of the week is that Mike Tyson put me into an existential crisis

Whoa, what's going on in this podcast? Have you guys seen the interview with Mike Tyson and the little girl? No. Can we pull it up and we can watch it here? So ahead of the fight, Mike Tyson's doing press. They had a child reporter interview Mike Tyson, and he gave her answers that are definitely not meant for like a child, but he also made me think a lot about...

Like, what is life? Okay. In a very dark way. Okay. Goddamn. Career, what type of legacy would you like to leave behind when it's all said and done? Well, I don't know. I don't believe in the word legacy. I think that's another word for ego. Legacy doesn't mean nothing. That's just some word everybody grabbed onto. Someone said that word and everyone grabbed onto the word, so now it's used every five seconds. It means absolutely nothing to me. I'm just passing through. I'm going to die and it's going to be over.

Who cares about legacy after that? What a big ego. So I'm a die. I want people to think that I'm this. I'm great. I'm nowhere. Nothing. We're just dead. We're dust. Absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. That is something that I have not heard before. Someone say that as an answer. Can you really imagine somebody say, I want my legacy to be this way when you're dead? Why do you want to think I really want to think about you?

What's so fantastic? I want people to think about me when I'm gone. Who the fuck cares about me when I'm gone? My kids, maybe. Grandkids. True.

Oh, incredible. That's such a good class. It actually does make me think that Mike Tyson might be able to do it. Like he is, he's in a dark, no fucks given place right now. He's just talking to a kid about death. Oh yeah. She's like, well, cool. I've never heard of it. I've never heard that perspective before. I mean, credit to the interviewer. She did a great job rolling with it. Shout out. I am jazz. He's world TV on Tik TOK. Love that. But that tells me Mike Tyson is, he is locked in right now. Yeah. He's all the way back. Um,

Okay, my fire fest is, I think there's a word for it, karma. Everyone in my house has been waking up at 5.45 in the morning since something happened two weeks ago. What happened two weeks ago? We changed the clocks. Stella, all three of my kids, every fucking morning, I've been getting up so goddamn early.

So I deserve that. Why don't you get blackout curtains? Dude, we have everything. There's nothing. I changed the fucking lights. I changed what time the thing goes off. We changed the thing going off in my son's room until 630. He still came in at 630 this morning and said, hey, my light changed. Can I play? And I said, yeah. And then he goes back and I don't go back to sleep. Can somebody explain to me why we changed the clocks?

Well, I'll let you know when we do it on Saturday night. Okay. Yeah. Everyone keeps saying one of the world wars. The five o'clock pitch darkness shit is so depressing. It is depressing. The worst. When you go to work in the dark and then you leave and it's dark outside. Well, no, you go to work in the light. Yeah, but sometimes depending how early you get up. I've had jobs where I went to work when it was dark and then you step out and it's still dark. But I'd rather go to work in the dark and be...

have it be light when I get out of work. Yeah. That'd be a lot better. Yeah, I'm living in hell. We're just, we have not adjusted in my house. I'm living in Arizona or that little part of Indiana. We just haven't changed it. There's no, no good reason why we do this. Stop it. Okay. Max, you got something? Just that next week is going to be an absolute disaster. Oh, why? It's not like you're pitching against a really good, a really good team.

Someone say the best. I think we should post a picture after with the team we pitched so people get hyped up. Yeah, the PMTV this week was my bullpen that I did yesterday to get ready for it. How fast do you think my fastest pitch was? 60. 64. Oh, boy, that's going to be a lot of home runs. How fast do you think batting practice is usually?

About 60. About exactly what you throw. Well, good news is you do have four outfielders, so that's a little bit of an advantage. Yeah, they're great athletes out there. The bad news is the four outfielders are me, Brandon, Hank, and Jerry. Three and a half. You have three outfielders. Well, I don't know. Three. Brandon's gotten in better shape, but Brandon also could easily, like the sun better not be out that day. Brandon doesn't do well outside. Yeah. Where do you want us positioned?

Me and Hank in center? Yeah, I guess. Center right and center left? Yeah, yeah. And then Jerry and... Jerry...

And PFT's catching. Jerry played baseball. Yeah, Jerry played baseball. That's good. That's good to know. I didn't know that. The catching thing, Max. It sucks. I don't have a big frame for you to aim for. I apologize for that. That's fine. I'm going to try to wear the biggest equipment I possibly can. In our bullpen session that we had yesterday, I noticed you got a little bit of movement on your pitch. That's all I'm trying. And Max tried to say that he was going to have four pitches, like a two-seamer and a four-seamer. What do you think the difference between your two-seamer and your four-seam fastball is? Movement.

Love that. Movement, okay. I'm never throwing the four-seamer. There's no point. Okay, and then you said that you've got a curveball? Yep. How do we feel about that? It's a curveball. Does it curve? It does, but it's not good. Is it a hanging curveball? Yes. How high does it hang? It depends where I throw it. Hernandez curveball. And then I got a palm ball.

A palm ball. You got to throw an Ephus. Yeah, I know. I don't really understand an Ephus. I trust you to throw it really slow. No, you throw it high and slow. I also can mix in a little submarine. Okay. Okay. What are the chances you throw out your arm? 100%. Yeah. We need a pitch camp. We need a pitch camp.

Yeah, it's six outs. When you say submarine, the meatball sub, are you talking about throwing it hard underhand or softball style? How mad are you going to be if we drop an easy one? So mad. You're going to do it on purpose. No, I won't. No, I don't want to. I want to look good. That's true. So I'm not. It would be a shame if Hank did.

No, Hank was a little good, too. Max did bounce one. Maybe I'll have to do it. He bounced one into my leg. I have a feeling. No, Jerry would be the one to do it. I have a feeling I'm going to get in the balls a few times, Max. You got to work up. You got to work up. And also, it sucks, BFT, because it's also scary about foul balls. Yeah. And my umpire is, I already, he was umping my bullpen. He was giving me nothing. Yeah, Big T is an honest man to a fault. Oh, no. All right. Well, it'll be fun.

For the AWL. What about comebackers? Are we worried about that? Yeah, that was very scary. You should look alive. Because going into it last year, I was told that there might be that screen that was in front of me, and then we said, no, fuck it, that's going to look stupid.

And it was a constant fear of mine. You can do a screen. You can do a screen if you want. I personally didn't. I would rather you... We got to stop comparing. Just wear a helmet. Yeah, wear a helmet. I thought about that. Yeah. Because a comebacker hitting you in the ass would be very funny. A comebacker hitting you in the head would not be funny. I need one of those softball helmets. Also, you know what? No, I'm not going to put bad vibes out there. What? If a comebacker hit you...

And you have to go to the hospital. We're still going to come back to Chicago at the allotted time. This is this guy. I'm thrilled that that's your biggest worry right now. No, it's actually not a worry. That's what I'm saying. No, no. The first thing that goes in your head. No, your worry is your first thing that goes in the head is,

Oh, will we make it back? Ah, fuck it. I'll just leave. Yeah, no, it's not a worry. Can we set the precedent? No, but it popped into your head because that was a worry, and then you were like, oh, never mind. I just won't. No, the worry was I didn't want to say it out loud. No. Because I didn't want you to. No, but it popped into your head. Yeah, oh, yeah, it popped in my head. Yeah. But it's not a worry because we're going. Can we look into getting Fanatics to do the pants for Max? Get the see-through going on? You're going to be fine. If you want to do the screen, I would do the screen, so I will not call you a pussy.

Yeah, I'm probably going to do the screen. Yeah, do the screen. The good news is, Max, if you're throwing 60 miles an hour, they're probably not going to hit straightaway shots. They're going to pull the shit out of the way. Yeah, they also can hit it wherever they want. That's not... Yeah, at 60 miles an hour, they absolutely can. They absolutely can. They're going to be able to put it wherever they want. And hopefully none go in and then out of my glove. Can I give you some advice, Max? Yes. Read up on balks. I know. The balks will get you.

I mean, I know what... I'm not a good baseball player. I know the game of baseball.

All right, numbers. We got Jack. That's what's bullshit. I should be able to get in the box. 17. Is Jack doing a number? Yeah, give Jack a number. Shout out Jack. Jack is our new, he's part of our team. 24. Clips guy, the 24. Jack, why are you laughing? Oh, someone else? No, you were just giving him an intro. He's like 24. Yeah, he's 24. Give me the number. Jack is a Lions fan. Detroit sports all across the board. Yeah, but mostly Michigan football. Michigan football.

Yeah, that was after the Commanders-Bears game, and I was spiraling, and Jack was laughing. I was like, who the fuck do you root for? And he's like, Lions. I was like, no, fuck you. But Jack, welcome, Jack. Good luck, Jack. 21. 3. 99. 11. You got to reset. Oh, shit. Wait, is that 40 that's up there? 48 is up there. It would have been 44. It would have been 44. It would have been 44. I got a cervix.

It would have been 44. 44. That actually is the next one I want to do because I want to say 44. 5, 17, 3, 11, 21, 24, 76. 76ers. Have the 76ers won another game? No, they haven't. But Jeremy Kane's really good. He is. I actually bet him over 30 points last night. That was awesome. He was awesome. Love you guys. Don't cut that out.

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