Kyle Rudolph In Studio, Francis Ngannou Via Hologram, Saints Are On Quit Watch, NFL Week 7 Picks And Preview + Fyre Fest Of The Week
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Whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right, go to Carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way. Terms and conditions apply. On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have...

Kyle Rudolph, old friend of the show. In studio, awesome interview, awesome catching up with him, talking football, talking the end of his career, Tom Brady, everything. And then we have the first ever, pardon my take, hologram interview. Francis Ngannou, we had a hologram machine in studio.

the office in the studio. It was wild. It's like a six dimensional video. Yeah. If you're watching on online right now, you get the experience of us and then you get to look at, I don't know what the hologram is going to look like. I don't even have to watch the episode. Yeah, but it was very cool. It was cool. So Francis got a really cool guy. Uh,

We also have NFL week seven picks and preview fantasy fuck boys. We're going to talk some playoff baseball. We're going to talk Thursday night football. We got fire fest and it's all brought to you by our friends at draft Kings. The rollercoaster of an NFL season is moving right along and it promises to be a month full of tricks, treats, and of course,

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Okay, let's go. Well,

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And Bo Nix, baby. Yeah, Bo Nix. Bo Nix, he did it tonight. Kind of. He did all of it tonight. The Broncos rushing game did it a lot. If you've ever wondered what Taysom Hill would look like if he was a little bit better at passing and a little bit worse at running, you got the full Bo Nix-Taysom Hill experience tonight because Sean Payton was doing the old Taysom Hill playbook.

for Bo Nix and nobody loves calling their own number more than Bo Nix. He drops back like he does the five step drop looks one way and he's like fuck Bo Nix has to run this ball. Bo Nix has to run this ball or throw it in between two wide open receivers. So when you were like Bo Nix was fun a couple weeks ago I was like I don't know and I was thinking more about Oregon Bo Nix watching tonight like being able to take in a full Bo Nix and

game without any other games going on it's auburn bow nicks and i'll agree he is fun because he just you don't know if it's going to be the worst pass or the best pass every single time he throws we had full-blown bow tonight yeah he was doing nicks on it and he was it was the broncos running game they ran it down their face i think they had over 200 yards rushing and the saints are officially on quit watch i would like to opt out of watching the saints this year

That 2-0 start, baby. How bad is Dallas? That's what tonight really told me. How bad are the Dallas Cowboys? Yeah. Now, obviously, Derek Carr not playing. That has a little bit to do with it, I think. But the fact remains that the Saints, they're old, they're not fun, and they're not getting any younger or more fun. Because right now, we've talked for the last five years about how the Saints have just been in cap hell their entire life, or the entire, at least, feels like the last decade. Yeah.

Right now, this is from Jason OTC. They have only three players on the salary cap who would save the team more than $3 million in cap room next year if they cut. Oh, my God. So their current 2025 salary cap position is the worst in the NFL. Again. And how bad is it, Big Cat? How bad? It's...

75 million more in cap commitments than the next worst team. Jesus. This is what happened. We're currently witnessing cap hell. And they also are like, when I say quit watch, obviously injuries happen. But when key players start being like hamstring injury,

a weird knee injury and you're like, did we even see him get injured? It might be quit time. Dennis Allen, Richard Sherman said at halftime, he's like, they're trying to get Dennis Allen fired. I wouldn't be shocked. And the saints are just like, this was, so this was a bad game, but I kind of enjoyed it just for the fact that like Thursday night football, the last two weeks we've had really good games and,

Thursday football should be bad. We should just embrace the bad and just like, just bathe in just shitty, gross football. Cause you know, you got all the football coming up. It's like the entry point to the weekend. And I kind of enjoyed the fact, like even that first pass that Bo Nix had, where he split his wide receivers that were both two guys that were open and as wide open as you can miss both of them equally.

Yeah, but yeah, it was bad football from the Saints, better football from the Broncos. Broncos are feisty. Their defense is good. Patrick Sertan wasn't even playing. And Bo Nix, he's a roller coaster. He is a roller coaster. So, yeah, it's funny that you bring up what Thursday Night Football used to be because it's the one thing we – old people like to be like, back in my day, everything was better.

No, it's like back in my day, Thursday night football was shit. Sucks. If you get good Thursday night games, that's not what Thursday night football is. Thursday night football, I think, is at its peak when Al Michaels is actively complaining about how shitty the game is. When I think Thursday night football, I think Broncos Colts last year, two years ago. Matt Ryan versus Russ Wilson. That was bad. And it still will come because as the season goes on, the Thursday night football games get worse. That happens every year. Early season Thursday night football, you can get some good shootouts.

Then as the season goes along and everyone's banged up, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And I love it. I love it. So Broncos...

I mean, they're four and three. Sean Payton's doing a pretty good job. That Bo Nix design run on fourth and one was nice. That was some Sean Payton's like, I got both. Like you said, I have Taysom Hill in Bo Nix. Yeah, he's running the Taysom Hill playbook. And Bo Nix, he's not a great passer yet. He's not afraid to throw the ball, but he's not very good at doing it. No.

But he's better at passing than Taysom is. Yes. He's just not as physical of a runner, but they're doing the exact same plays that they used to do with Taysom. I'm looking at the schedule for Thursday Night Football. We have a couple Vikings play next week, but it's at the Rams. Then we have Texans-Jets.

That's good. That's gross. On Halloween, Texans at Jets. Okay, but that will be gross. That's a good game on paper, but that will be a gross game because you know both defenses will just have their way, and it will be like frustrated Aaron Rodgers. And it's on Halloween, so there might be somebody in the stands that's dressed up as a fireman, and who knows if he's going to get on the Jumbotrons.

Yeah, that's a great Sunday game and a bad Thursday game. I agree. I agree. And then Bengals at Ravens. That will be fun. That'll be fun. Then we got Commanders at Eagles for a perm. Week 12 Steelers-Browns. I'm looking forward to that one. Oh, yeah. That one's going to be great. Can I take the under? All right. What do you think? Let's guess the spread in advance. Thursday night, November 21st, Steelers at Browns Thursday night. 35 and a half if Deshaun's still playing.

Is it going to be Russie or is it going to be Jussie? I think it's going to be back to Jussie. Back to Jussie. I'm going to say, yeah, 34. And I'm probably going to take the over and it's probably going to lose. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we also had some playoff baseball happen. Unbelievable comeback by the Guardians. They were down 2-0. They were down. They were up 3-1. And then Klasse comes in and who has been their lights out closer, blows the game.

Season's over. Down 3-0. It's all for naught. It's back-to-back dingers by Judge and Stanton. Yeah, and then the Guardians just hit two huge bombs. A walk-off and one in the ninth. Or no, was it the ninth? Two outs. Two outs in the ninth. Down two. That's the beauty of playoff baseball. Do I think the Guardians are going to win this series? No, but that type of game, you just never know. Do you see the video of the stadium?

They got the audio reaction of the stadium from like a mile away. It was rock. And it was sick. It was incredible. The Guardians, I think they'll win one more game. I think the Yankees are the better team. Yeah, we said six. I think whoever wins the next game. Oh, you think? Wait, wait. But no, the series doesn't start until the road team wins a game, right? A-Rod taught me that.

I'm just happy for Guardians fans because that felt like it was just going to be doom and gloom, no chance to even celebrate. You beat the Tigers, obviously, but then you go to the Yankees and you get swept or losing five. But that was an awesome, awesome scene. And now they got hope. And now they got life. Now they don't have to go back to the Browns. Yeah. And then the Mets are memes. The game's not over. It is 7-2. We still have three. We still have three.

Three what? More innings. Nine more outs. There's nine more outs. So if we are wrong... All right. If we're wrong up to this point, we're dead. Okay. But I was going to say, if we're wrong, because the Thursday night football game was so bad, we're like, all right, we can just start recording. And this Mets-Dodgers game, 7-2. If we're wrong, before we get to our picks and preview...

I want a solo three minutes of memes. Three minutes of memes just going like coward. Just talking. Memes Francesa? Yeah, memes Francesa. You could do three minutes. But I need it to be three minutes. I don't want you to be like, you know, what? And no Jets talk. And you can't do karaoke tequila either. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Should we give Pug as a co-host? Oh, yeah, Pug can be your co-host. No, Pug should open up the three minutes with 30 seconds of Pug. You know, I want Pug in memes in these seats.

Okay. Yeah. That would be, I mean, now I'm kind of rooting for the Mets to come back. And if the Mets come back, then we should have seen that coming. Yeah. Because this is what the Mets do. That's true. Unfortunately, they didn't come back. They lost. It feels like the magic, the Dodgers are just too good and get too many. They have too many dudes. And like, I mean, it started with Shohei hitting a bomb in the first, that home run he hit on Wednesday night. That was a, he put it on the moon. The stadium. Did they see crazy? Did they measure how far it went?

I know it was the upper deck, like the middle of the upper deck, but was there a tape measure on there? Max is going to look it up. Okay. Max is going to look it up. Max is going to look it up. Because sometimes those balls that go into the upper deck, I expect them to come back and say there's a 470-foot home run, and they say it's like 390. Yeah, because it's the height. Yeah, the height of it. The height is overrated. I've always said that. He's going to look it up. Max said he's struggling.

Too many leadoff walks, though, for the Mets given to the Dodgers. And Shohei finally got a hit when there were no runners on base. That was a weird stat that he had. Yeah, now he's one for 21. One for 21 in the playoffs with runners on base, which is great. At some point, you have to think about not having him hit leadoff, right? Yeah. Yeah, you'd think so. What is it? What do we got? I'm struggling. Max can't do it. He's struggling. Go to StatCast. Just go to the box score.

Yeah, I thought I realized that right when I said I was struggling. Come on, Max. Come on, Max. All right, how far do you think it was, Big Cat? I think it was... You're right. They always... Those upper deckers are the best. Oh, Spencer Rattler just threw the most Jameis Winston interception not ever thrown by Jameis Winston. And the Broncos are going to score again. I'm going to say it was four...

38. Oh, 397? That's bullshit. That is bullshit, right? That went halfway up the third deck. That's wrong. I don't trust that shit. 32-3 is a very funny score. Ooh, maybe a score of Gommie? I'm going to look up score of Gommie. Might be a score of Gommie. That would make everything slower. 33 is a tough number to hit. That doesn't feel like a football number. No. 33? No.

Because you get 34 sometimes. 31 makes sense. 35, obviously. Spencer Rattler. I feel bad for Spencer Rattler. He's lost his entire offensive line. Alave was out. Shahid was out. Brutal. I think they had eight starters out today.

Yeah. So I think they had three actual starters on offense that were playing. Yeah. Okay. Do we have anything else? And maybe we'll have memes on in a second and not us. No, there's no chance. There's no chance. They got a runner on base. I'm rooting for it. Memes. I would love to see if it gets tied. You still have to do it. I'm in. Not even a way. Yeah. Yeah. If it gets tied, that would be crazy. If it got seven, seven.

And then what would he talk about? He'd talk about them losing and coming all the way back. You'd have to do, it's three minutes of Mets content. Three minutes of Mets content. Do you want to just do it anyway? No, no, no. I kind of want to see it. No. Pugging memes in the big chair. It would be.

I'm going to be here. I thought we were going to have an early night. Yeah, all right. Okay, all right. Let's kick it to ourselves. Let's talk some week seven NFL picks and preview. Okay, before we get to our weekend preview, Coors Light, no matter what happens between your favorite rivals this week, you've got a chance to win.

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That was another super cut. Super cuts has an average rating of 4.8 out of five stars on Google. 96%. That's more of a sure thing than an extra point. You may think, you know, super cuts, but I bet you don't didn't know it all. So, and you didn't know all that super cuts is great. Like I said, I went and just got my haircut a week ago. Super cuts. They go in, you go out. It's the, you know, you're going to get a great haircut. Uh,

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And listening to this right now, and you said to yourself, man, I crushed last weekend. I had it. Well, not you, Hank. We know that. I had the best weekend of the year. I'm smart. I know this league. I know exactly what's going to happen.

Just remember that on Monday it was reported that it was the worst weekend Vegas has had in like 20 years. Really makes me feel like a sucker. It was one of the best weekends for favorites of all time. Yeah, it was crazy. So this is a trap weekend. Watch out. Don't fall for the traps. Come in your trap. Take your trap. Yeah. Kirk Cousins. Memes. How do you feel about screwing that quote up and how many times did people get mad at you online?

Which quote? The Kirk Cousins one. Come in your trap, steal your trap. Take your trap. Come in your trap, take your trap. Come in your trap, pull out of your trap. Take your trap. Come on your belly. It was messed up? Well, you said Kirk Cousins talking about his upcoming game in Seattle. He was talking about his game in... Wait, whoa. Tony Bennett is retiring? Breaking Moves. The singer? Breaking Moves. Virginia head coach Tony Bennett is retiring.

What the hell? Man. Memes off the hook. So is Virginia going to be fun this year? I don't know. They can't. They can't do that. You can't do a switch, right? You can't just switch up your style. No, that's a weird out of nowhere. And then who's going to take his spot and is probably going to be an assistant, right? Yeah. I always wanted Tony Bennett to come to Wisconsin. But wow, Tony Bennett retiring. Okay. Memes, comment on the screwing up of that quote. Yeah.

I'll take full accountability. Okay, good. I'll take full accountability. There's a trust issue with when I send stuff to Shane. Oh, no. And I didn't overlook it when sending, and that happens occasionally. Did you send talking about his upcoming game in Seattle?

I sent him the video. Oh, and Shane editorialized. But you're going to take accountability. Because I press send. I just didn't read it. It was welcome to your trap. Take over your trap. Yeah, he was talking about the Panthers game. That was the main quote. Kirk Cousins has become the most Atlanta guy in the world.

I love it. I love it. Yes. Nothing brings me more joy than just seeing like after a game when Kirk Cousins puts on his little like mascot chains. Yeah. And everybody like claps for him. Like, look, look at our little boy jumping around. It's the best. It's the best. He does the Taylor Swift dance, the swag surf. Yeah. Swag and surf. Okay. So London, let's start there. Hank, will you be waking up for this game? Yes, bro. Yes. Yes, bro. The whole game. You're in London time.

Drake May in London going up against the Jaguars. How are we feeling?

This is a trap game. You said this is the trap week. I don't know. I don't think the Patriots have a trap game. Yeah, neither can the Jaguars. Yeah, it's untrappable. But the Jaguars are. I guess the Jaguars could be a trap game, but not against another one in five team. But the Jaguars are rested. That's true. But you knew that. So that's a trap that you know. But I think people are. I'm just worried that, you know. Jaguars are favorites, aren't they? Yeah, they are five and a half points. Can that be a trap game? Trap game for the Patriots.

Patriots. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. You can't have a trap game if you're underdog. There's a lot of people out there, I'm sure, that are like, the Patriots, Drake May, looked really good. Explosive offense. But you lost by 20. The Jaguars are terrible. But there were some fluky turnovers. The Jaguars are bad. This is going to be Drake May's coming out show. And I'm just worried that the travel, the Jaguars being acclimated, not traveling...

I'm just worried that people think that this is going to be Drake Mays coming out party and it just might not be yet. Okay. Are these people in the room with us right now? No, I'm prepared for the trap. I'm not falling into that trap. Are you going to take over the trap? Not the London trap. I think that Drake Mays can have a good game. Are you worried about his health? He got an MRI. That was a scary. Was that a real story? Yes. Who reported it?

I thought a lot of people did. I saw last night the Patriots reporter Ben Volin, I think, was the one who reported it. No one else reported it except him. I just saw that he took an MRI and then afterward there's no concerns after the MRI. And then I saw a tweet from an account saying, Mr. Fill Me Up, who said, I DMed Ben Volin and told him Drake May had an MRI. Hope this helps. So it might have been a fake MRI. He might have eaten the trash. It might have been a fake MRI or a fake MRI story.

Drake May was a full participant at practice. There was no great concern regarding his injury. And NFL Network's insiders, Ian Rapport, Mike Garofalo. That was the follow-up that they, I think only one guy reported that he had an MRI. May was on the Patriots injury report. Yes. So the team actually listed him on there with a knee injury. The Patriots would never play fast and loose with the league's injury policy. They did not deny him having an MRI. But they did not confirm it either. Correct. Correct.

That would be funny, though, if he got caught by some guy being like, hey, I heard you got an MRI. I think the Patriots are going to be a live dog here. So I don't know how the Jaguars are favored. By five and a half over anyone. That's a lot. It's a lot. Sounds like a trap. A trap to take the Jaguars. No, because they shouldn't be favored by five. If this line was three, I'd be like, oh, that makes sense. Or five and a half point favorites over the Jaguars are bad.

Which is why you see that. You're like, the Jaguars are bad. I'm going to take the Patriots. But the Patriots are also bad. You're forgetting that part of this equation. But when you say five and a half. You keep saying Jaguars are a trap game, but the Patriots are equally as bad. I think you're just explaining how the line makes no sense. Because the Jaguars are really bad. What's happening inside Hank's head is that Hank is thinking about the Patriots

As a collective football team that he knows, and the Jaguars as a collective football team that he knows, and he's like, why are the Jaguars favored by five and a half? I think the Jaguars should be favored by five and a half over anyone, but the Patriots are also bad. I know. I don't think you can... It can't be a trap game if you're an underdog. Let me just... You struggle with... Let me sound it out. No, I know... Sound it out. Sound it out. Okay. Okay.

Big Cat, Dan Katz, I think this line makes no sense. The Jaguars shouldn't be favored five and a half versus anyone. The Patriots are going to be live dogs. So it sounds like you're going to bet the Patriots. Yeah, which probably that might be... No, it's not a trap. I'm going to take the Patriots. Hank's talking about... That's the trap. Hank is hypothesizing that there's a double trap. So we should take the Jaguars. Yes. Okay. That's my point. Got it. I think you might be... All right, that makes sense. You might be trapping yourself. No, I've...

You guys just explain my whole point. All right. So when we first started this conversation, we said trap game. I was thinking like a good team going to play a bad team overlooking them. That's the trap game. You're just talking strictly on the line. That's a trap. Yeah. You're overlooking how bad the Patriots are.

because the Jaguars are also bad. Okay, now it makes sense. So you're going to take the Patriots, but I don't think that's the right move. I have a positive Trevor Lawrence stat. Well, not positive, but more in Trevor Lawrence's defense. I think I have the same stat. Yeah, the amount of drops? Yep. Yeah, so Trevor Lawrence, since coming into the league in 2021...

The Jaguars have dropped 113 passes per ESPN research, most in the league, and 21 more than the second-place team, Kansas City. That's insane. It's also crazy that Kansas City has the second most. How many of those are Kadarius Tony? Yeah, true. We have to account for that. Also, I read something pretty interesting about Kansas City and their drop rate the other day.

People think that their lights were fucked up for like the last seven years. Like the night games in the stadium. Oh, really? The light frequency, however, like whatever, like I don't even know what you call it, but it was a type of light that didn't provide, it was almost like a mini strobe effect and it fucked up every single receiver that played there. Okay. And it was only in the night games and it was for every team that was like statistically an outlier to every other night stadium. Hmm.

So that might explain part of it. Also, Kadarius Stoney. Also, Kadarius Stoney. But yeah, it's something not bad for Trevor Lawrence. I've seen a lot of drops, especially this year. Yeah. His receivers have dropped some easy catches and easy touchdowns. Can I just say one thing about it? Because there were some Jaguars fans being like, the Jaguars dropped four touchdowns against the Bears. It would have been a different game. Three of them were on the same drive. You can't score three touchdowns on one drive. Yeah, that's a seven-point swing. Yeah.

But they did drop a lot of balls. I said it on Sunday after the game. I said exactly that. The Jaguars dropped a lot of balls, and Trevor Lawrence is not getting any favors. What about Sisko talking about quitting? Yeah. So his teammates seem to kind of have his back. So Andre Sisko after the game said, feel like, should I say this? A lot of quit. There was a lot of quit out there. We weren't playing as one.

You don't like to use the Q word. There are two words you don't like to use in football, the Q word and the S word for soft. So when he said that we quit...

At first, I was like, sounds kind of weird to say that about your team. But then I thought about it and I was like, well, he's not wrong. No, definitely not wrong. He's not wrong about it. I feel like his teammates were kind of in that same mindset where they're like, yeah, we fucking quit last week. Yeah. And I think this game comes down to does anyone in that locker room like or feel good about Doug Peterson? Because if they do, they

They have to win this game to save his job. But if they don't and want to quit, you kind of can get out of it because he's going to get fired if he loses this game, right? Possible mutiny. Yeah. Oh, we know about that, Hank. Are you afraid of a mutiny? No. Hank, so I think Jerry Cormier is going to look good. The Jaguars defense is bad. I hope so. I hope he's well-rested. He gets no funky stuff with the layover or anything. Yeah. When did they travel?

I don't know. Got to look into that. The Jaguars are acclimated. So what's your pick, Hank?

My pick in this game? Yeah. I have to make one? No. Over. Okay. All right. I like that. Wembley. Wembley Stadium. They have a half retractable roof. So is it going to rain this weekend there, Mames? I think so. So half of the field. It's going to rain on half the field? Half the field will be rain. I want to look up what the first quarter line is even because the Patriots, I think they might be the worst team in the league in the first quarter.

What about the second and third and fourth? Well, that's different stories. Different quarter. But this would be the ultimate first quarter because it does include, like, if you see a team that's sleepwalking over there where they're still getting acclimated to time. And the Jaguars did win this spot last year against the Bills. Remember their second London game? And the Bills were pretty good last year, and they beat the Bills. So, yeah, I guess. Fuck. I think Hank was right. I think this is a trap for the Patriots. Well, it's a trap for us. They're 1-5 team. It's a trap for us. Okay, so...

Yeah. Are you finding it out? I'm looking. When do they go? What do you got, Meebs? Or Max? 60% rain now. 60% rain, but that's 30% rain with a half retractable roof. Correct. I think they did that right. Half retractable roof. I don't really understand it. Oh, Max, you just threw something. That's like a sofa, right? Yeah. Well, no, the lightning can come in. The lightning comes in. Yeah. All right, Hank, find that for us. We'll go to the next game. Okay. Seahawks at Falcons. Seahawks at Falcons.

I kind of like the Seahawks in this game. I think that the Seahawks, their defense isn't that far away. They've been injured. Yeah, they're dealing with a shitload of injuries, and they give up a lot of big plays. And I feel like that's a symptom of having a brand new defensive system that they're running with McDonald. But I feel like they're not far away because when they're not letting up the big plays, they're actually not that bad against the run. This also feels like...

a hungry dog runs faster game where you have the Seahawks on a three game losing streak. And the one thing that I could point positive to Seahawks, well, actually two things. One is from, uh, my friends at sports info solutions, the Seahawks, uh, love to, to, uh,

run plays against middle of the field open cover two or four. The Falcons run a lot of that. So there should be, Gino should be good today or Sunday. Also, the Falcons have no pass rush whatsoever. They are averaging less than a sack a game. They didn't sack Andy Dalton once last week against the Panthers.

Does feel like every Seahawks game we've watched the last few weeks, Geno Smith has been running for his life and been under pressure constantly. He might have some more time this week. I like the Seahawks. Yeah, he hasn't really been taking sacks, but he's been having to move around a lot and then just dumping the ball off or throwing it out of bounds and just firing something off that's not on target. Remember Matthew Judon? Yeah. He's on the Falcons. He is. Remember the guardrails?

I do remember the guardrails. The guardrails were huge for this. Yeah, so I feel like the Seahawks are close. They're not good. Their defense, don't get me wrong, their defense, especially their rush defense, is not good. I think it's the worst in the history of the Seattle Seahawks right now. But what I'm saying is they're not far from being good. Yeah. They just got to fix a couple things. And the Falcons do run the ball well. I like the Seahawks in this.

spot. I like the Falcons overall like for the rest of the year, but I've also retracted my take. I've done some soul searching about the Bucs. I apologize for saying the Bucs aren't very good. It is 100% Che Biden.

bias yeah that i mean i i can read you like a book i know it was a deep-seated i just i sat with che for an entire game watching him and it just it sits with you and it really eats away at you let me say i get it yeah i get it it's everyone gets it's not fun people who watch our streams get it there's an unnamed executive at the tampa bay buccaneers uh who when informed that i would be much more of a bucks fan if it wasn't for steven che yeah informed me

that they're willing to part ways with Steven chase a bucks fan. That would be great. It means that they can open up the big tent to getting people on the band. Cause I love Mike Evans. I love Baker Mayfield. I love, uh, I love Chris Godwin. I love Vita. I love Bucky. I love Bucky Levante, David. I love all these guys. Yeah. They're, they're a fun team. Che chase gatekeeping. Che screws it for all of us. Uh, okay. Titans at bills. Amari Cooper now on the bills. Uh,

He said that it's always funny because you forget Cleveland and Buffalo are very close together. So he drove to Buffalo from Cleveland when traded, and he said he had a lot to think about. Said Josh Allen plays a lot of grit and hustle, called him one of the league's best top quarterbacks.

to play with him is really cool, and he said that it felt like the first day of school again driving from Cleveland to Buffalo. That's awesome. I'm excited. Wait, first day of school? No, first day of school is fun. Yeah, because you get your new fit. Yeah, you got your new fit on. You get to see all the people you haven't seen over the summer. You go in there and you act all big and bad. Second day...

syllabus week, not that fun, you know, before you get to college. Yeah, and I love the internet for – I hate the internet for a lot of reasons. I love the internet for the random, hey, someone just thought of this game. Josh Allen has thrown a pass to a completion to Amari Cooper. Did you see that clip going around? It was in a week 11 game between the Bills and the Browns, and he threw one to the sideline, and Amari Cooper one-handed it. And the best part about the clip is the game was happening at Ford Field.

Oh, I love that. Because of the snowstorm. Yeah, I remember that one. So it's the most random clip ever to be like, look, Josh Allen and Mari Cooper have a connection. I feel like this is where people are going to get sick of the Bills glazing. But I feel like this is a great move for the Buffalo Bills. Yeah. And this is also... I feel like this might be a smash spot for the Bills. The Titans...

I can't, I can't keep believing in the Titans. I keep doing it and I just, I got to quit them. I'm quitting. I'm going cold Turkey on the Titan. I'm going to say, I'm going to, I'm going to call it right now. This is the weekend where Josh throws an interception. Oh, but I think the bills are going to win. Hunter start too. Yeah. I think it's, I think it would be good for Josh to get that first one out of the way. I just, I I'm done with the Titans. I'm done. It's probably smart. Can't do it. Can't do it anymore. Done with the Titans. Uh,

Bengals and Browns. This is going to be a fun game. Not really. Okay, here's why it's going to be fun. Let me pitch you on Bengals and Browns. Mario Cooper got traded. The vibes in Cleveland could not be worse, except for the fact that Nick Chubb is back. And I've watched multiple videos now. I think three different videos of Nick Chubb, whether it be going out to the practice field for the first time. He did a press conference the other day.

This team loves Nick Chubb as much as they hate Deshaun Watson. Yeah, Nick Chubb is the best. They are... It was basically he was standing at the podium getting ready to talk to the reporters and all the guys, they must have been walking in a hallway and they all were just screaming like, Chubb's back, 2-4, 2-4 and all this stuff. I think that you will maybe get a one game bounce from Nick Chubb being in that huddle and I might only run the ball 10 times, but just...

They needed something to change the vibes. Nick Chubb changes it for a game. I kind of like the Browns against the spread. Nick Chubb is a very easy guy to root for. And I've been watching some of his mic dups where he's wearing the wire and he steps out on the field and then the video goes for like two minutes and Nick Chubb still hasn't said anything. He's the best guy in the NFL to mic up. I hope they have him wearing the wire this time because it's just him breathing, grunting,

And then that's it. That's all he does out there. He's going to be fun. It's going to be fun to have him back. The Browns have not scored 20 points or had 200 yards passing in a game. Maybe it changes this week. Also, here's what's wild about that. You said 20 points. The last two home games that the Browns have had against the Bengals, they've won by 19 or more points. Oh, so they do own the Bengals. They own the Bengals. Yeah. Kevin Savansky also. Nick Chubb did a really good piece in the Players Tribune.

He's talking about his injury, his leg atrophying to a point where he said his leg was the size of his arm, which his arm is really big, too. Yeah, big leg. But Kevin Stefanski told reporters that Nick Chubb is a better journalist than all of you better football player, too.

Better journalist. Didn't have to have the football player. Well, technically not a journalist. He's a blogger, Kevin. But I like the football player being added. Just looking at a bunch of journalists being like, Nick Chubb's a better football player than you guys. Yeah, probably accurate. Yeah. But I still believe in the Bengals. They'll probably win this game. I just think it's going to be tighter than we expect. And yeah, the Bengals, this is where the Bengals, they're in must win territory, especially against the team that they are.

On paper, on the field, everything better than. Yeah, so the Browns, I want to bet on the Browns this weekend. I know that's very stupid, but you gave me a reason with Nick Chubb coming back. It's vibes. They've been the worst vibes ever in the NFL this season. Deshaun Watson continues to set records for just all the stats. You can find any bad quarterback stat and Deshaun Watson will be number one across the board in all of them.

I feel like this is, it's all lining up. The Browns, Bengals, we know how that's gone recently. Nick Chubb coming back. It's at home. I think I like the Browns. Yeah. Will I be man enough to bet on the Browns this weekend? I don't know. I think I'm going to be, and it's going to be scary as all hell. Texans at Packers. I got something I got to say to the Packers, and this actually comes from a place of respect. So hear me out.

The Packers going with the all-white uniforms and all-white helmets are a disgusting affront to football. Color Rush? It's a disgusting affront to football. The Green Bay Packers... Hear me out. The Green Bay Packers, and I hate them. I hate them. Can you use the proper term for it, though? It's the winter warning. The winter warning. I hate the Packers, but...

Their football jerseys and color scheme are football. Like, that's classic football. They are a franchise 100 years old. They have all this history. Like, they should never do any type of gimmicky alternate bullshit ever.

They have a uniform. It's like changing Alabama's uniform or Penn State's uniform. Like, don't do it. The Packers have a uniform that works. Don't change the helmet. If you're a Packers fan, you should be disgusted by this. Disgusted. It's disgusting. And the whole franchise, it's disgusting. I think that this is an appropriate uniform to wear in a late December game at Lambeau Field when it's snowing. Yeah. That would rock. Do you know what the temperature is going to be at Lambeau Field this weekend? Yeah. You can't have the winter warning anymore.

jerseys on when it's 74 degrees outside. This matchup, this uniform matchup stinks. What are you going to say, Max? You like it? Yeah. The Packers jerseys are sick. No, they aren't. The jerseys are fine. The jerseys are fine. You can't do the white helmet. It's probably not going to happen in mid-October. I think we're going to turn this game off and we're going to look at this matchup and be like, this is it.

No. This is a sick uniform. I would never say that, first of all. I mean, their regular helmet is a great helmet. They should never change it. Max, you can't turn on it. It's impossible to turn on a Texans game and say this is a great all-time uniform matchup.

They don't have the history. Nothing against the Texas uniforms. I think the Texas ones are going to look cool, too. I don't want to be a snob here, but throwback uniforms. We made a song about color. Color rush is for Thursday nights. Throwback uniforms are for the Jaguars. They're for the Titans. They're for the Texans. Great. Not even throwback. Alternate, weird, funky uniforms. They're not for the Green Bay Packers. I'm actually doing Packers fans a service because I'm speaking up for them. You should be disgusted by this.

I'm going to take the Packers in this game. I don't like the fact that it's going to be so nice outside wearing these uniforms. Yeah. I really don't. I think it's going to be very strange looking. I'm excited to watch this game, though. This is going to be maybe the funnest game of the weekend. It's a measuring stick game.

For both teams. For who? Both teams. See how they measure up against each other? Both teams. The Texans' only loss is in the NFC North. The Packers, now that Jordan Love is healthy, he also won the MVP last week, which hurt me very much so. But yeah, I think we're going to walk away. If one team can beat the other soundly,

I'm like, oh, shit. Watch out. I think both teams are very good. I think they're both capable of beating each other soundly. Soundly. Yeah. Soundly. I think the Texans have some defensive injuries they're working through. Well, they got... Jimmy Ward. This is kind of interesting. Mario Edwards Jr., he just got suspended four games for PEDs.

And so he's out, but they're getting back to Nico Autry, who's coming back after serving six games of his own for PEDs. Is Brian Cushing still in that building? I don't know, but it's a great, great idea if you're the Texans. They might be on to something. The Texans might have this like a calendar, a giant calendar set up where they have their guys go on like a regiment of steroids in cycles.

So it's like right when one guy gets popped, the other guy gets clean, comes back. Then he starts using, he gets popped, the other guy comes back. Yes. Pretty smart. That is smart. You keep them fresh. Keep them fresh. Yeah, Jimmy Ward is out. Yeah, I like to pack it. This game's going to be tough.

I'm going to text our friend Aaron Nagler and ask him what he thinks about these Packers uniforms. I'm going over. I'm going over. Those are over uniforms. You know that by looking at it, right? Yeah. Like, it might not be appealing on the eye to see those white uniforms in 70-degree weather. What, Max? It's so appealing on the eye. It's such a great uniform. In the snow, it would rock. I think, regardless. It'd be like camouflage. It would be very cool. I think once you turn the game on, you're going to be like, those uniforms are sick. You're not a historian of the game like we are. I think these are over uniforms, though.

Thank you, memes. Over uniforms sounds like good uniforms. No, but an over uniforms is a big difference between over uniforms and a great uniform matchup. Great uniform matchup could be the Steelers and the Raiders, and that's not hitting the over. That's a pretty basic matchup. What, Steelers-Raiders? I mean, that's a classic uniform matchup. It's classic. Yeah. All right, I think Aaron Nagler actually agrees. They're boring, he said.

Yeah, they are. That's the opposite of what you're saying. Well, they're boring and they're also you should never change a classic uniform. That's really what it comes down to. But he didn't say that.

He sent me a video that he did, so I'll have to. Okay. All right, fine. Play the video. I'm going to send it to you. Let's hear it. This is from the actual Packers. We'll get this settled once and for all. These are the guys that actually live and breathe Packer football. I'll tell you right now, if you're listening for X's and O's, find a new show. We're getting deep in uniforms. That's what we do.

It's also hard to tell when the Texans are wearing alternate uniforms. Are those black? You could never tell. Are those black or dark blue? Who cares? Who knows? I think I would like this uniform matchup if those were actually black. That's what I'm saying. I don't think I like any of the Texans' uniforms. I don't think I like any of their uniforms. I'm actually coming around to the new ones. The H-Town Blues? Yeah, I'm coming around to those. H-Town Blues? I don't think the Texans have ever worn black. They're blue. If you look at that uniform right there.

It might be black. I don't know. All right, here we go. This is from Aaron Nagler, Cheesehead TV, and his co-host...

Let's see what they say. Where the Green Bay Packers will be wearing their winter warning uniforms. I think there's a little bit of controversy around this. Like they're not very good quality or something. All I know is the merch line just isn't cool. That was my thing. You can talk about they should have done this with the helmets or they should have put it in primetime, which that I totally agree with because it would have popped. It would have looked so cool at night. Agreed.

Because this whole thing is a money grab. It's all about creating more merch, right? Yeah, you need more SKUs. More SKUs equals more dollars. More SKUs. We do that here, too. We did the Romeo. Exactly. I get the gig. I understand it, man. I totally get it. But then make the stuff cool. It is the plainest, boringest, most nondescript nonsense. That's what a lot of people complain about the women's stuff, too. They have a lot of women's stuff, but it's not cool.

That's not, it's a different argument. Yeah, but we got to the same point. No, we got to the same point. I think he makes a good point, though, that if this was at night and you have those uniforms, it looks a lot better. It would probably look better at night, but I still think it'll look good during the day. Not in the bright, hot sun. We ended up at the same spot. Okay.

We did. We both hate the uniforms for different reasons. I think the Packers should just cease to exist after doing something like this to the gods of football. Vince Lombardi would be rolling in his grave right now. All 5'2 of them. Very short man. Was he really 5'2? Yeah, people don't talk about it. He was very short man. That's crazy. I don't know if he's actually 5'2, but he was very short man. I'm going to look that up. Very short man. Okay. That was some good analysis.

It is weird to wear winter uniforms when it's 72 degrees outside. Five, eight. No, that's good. That's good. There's no way. Okay. Yeah. Basically a regular size human being, especially in that era. There was no, he's five to half of a man. Okay. Anti Italian discrimination. Dolphins is, is, is, is base Vince Lombardi's basement bar was like, that's one of those things that I wish still existed more in the world. The basement bar was,

People don't have basement bars. He just had a bar in his basement? Yeah. I feel like a lot of dudes have that. Yeah, but it's like all... Maybe it's the fact that it's now like a man cave with a million TVs. I'm talking like it was just like a... You just went there to lean up on the bar and drink.

That's it. You need nothing else. The modern man cave has become like, come see the room in my house that my wife lets me have. Right. And then I put stuff on the wall that I see advertised in commercials that explicitly use the term man cave. And it's also, it feels like the modern man cave is for Instagram and not for comfortability. You know what I mean? It's like, look at this. I got turf field in the basement and all these jerseys. It's like, dude.

What about just a really fucking old nice couch you can sit on and watch TV? Yeah, my buddy bought a shed and then he just built a bar in his shed. He just goes out and gets hammered in the shed and turns a red light on for the neighbors to come over. When the red lights on, that means come drink beer in my shed. That's man shit. Is your buddy named Mike Florio? It's not Mike Florio. He does do that with his barn. He's got a barn. Yeah, he's got a barn. Okay, Dolphins and Colts.

I want to take the Dolphins as long as Anthony Richardson is starting. Okay, let me tell you a reason why not to. Okay. He cut his hair. He cut all his hair off. Does that change the fact that he's literally the last in completion percentage from inside a clean pocket? It might. Nick Sirianni shaved his head and then he won. Barely. Barely, that's true. And he also freaked out. He might freak out. Anthony Richardson might freak out this week. It does feel like...

A step back to not have Flacco starting. Maybe that's just my excitement. Yeah, I don't know. I also think Tyler Huntley off the bye. The Dolphins ran the ball more last week. They were going to maybe lean into that being like, hey, we can't run the two offenses to coming back. Yes.

I believe he's planning on it. He's not allowed to come back till October 23rd. Do the Dolphins have any primetime games? That might be like they might have to do the warning when you're scrolling Instagram. It's like, do you want to see this graphic nature information that may be harmful to your mental psyche right now? I think they can flex to we're in flex territory. Yeah.

But yeah, two is not allowed to come back until the 23rd. That's to practice. That's not a game. That's to practice. Not a game. Memes?

It looks like they have two primetime games. Oh, no. One coming up against the Rams on November 11th. Oh, no. So that could be Tua, and that's a primetime game. And they also play primetime, it looks like, against the Packers. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I just am not a believer in Anthony Richardson. I get it. People do believe in him. But if Joe Flacco was starting this game, I'd hammer the Colts. Yeah. I'm going to...

I'm going to bet the Colts regardless of who's starting, I think. That's how little I believe in whoever the backup happens to be that's trying to fill Tua's role in this offense. Because I feel like they just don't know. Tua, who knows if Tua would be a good quarterback for any other team, but he works for the Dolphins. He's perfect for them, and nobody else can come in and do any of the stuff that he's done. They just look completely lost. But I think they're going to try to maybe do not the same stuff. They're going to try to run the ball more and be like, hey, Tyler Huntley, you're not Tua.

You would think so, right? You would think so. That's what I was thinking last week with Tyler Huntley. Well, they did. They ran it 41 times. Yeah. They also looked like shit, though. Yeah, they did. They did. What are we going to do about these tickets? We got Colts tickets this weekend to give away. Dolphins. Let's see. Why don't we give it to a Colts fan named Frank? Okay. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. I like that. So Frank, any Frank Colts fan named Frank? Francis? Francis?

No, Frank. Got to be in Frank. I mean, they could legally be Francis, but they go by Frank. They got to be going by Frank. Yeah. And you have to wear glasses. Yep. And chew on them. Yep. Yeah. Okay. If your name's Frank and you're a Colts fan, send us a picture of you chewing on your glasses. And then their tickets are yours. Tag. Pardon my...

Should we do part of my take or part of my meme? Part of my take. Part of my meme. Part of my meme. And part of my take. Part of my meme. But it has to be tagged to part of my meme. And also, memes got Xbox codes for some new games. Call of Duty. Yeah, Call of Duty. So hit them up. And next year's college football game. Yeah, hit them up. Tweet them asking for a code. Pardon my meme, hashtag memes. Yeah, and say, memes, can I please have a code for PlayStation or Xbox?

Yeah, we have them all. Yeah. Do you have them all? I have them all. Yeah, you have them all. Slide into his DMs. Yeah, pull up.

Okay. The game of... So the Texans-Packers, probably the second best game in the early slate. Lions-Vikings, I'm most excited for. Yeah, that's going to be so fun. So, so fun. I actually, I still believe in the Lions. Aiden Hutchinson, not good. I understand that if you're a Lions fan, probably pretty upset and you're like, what does this mean for a season? I still think that the Lions, they can make it happen because their offense is good enough. They'll figure it out. I'm a believer in the Lions long term. I don't know about this game.

Because I really do think that that Cowboys game, they were like, they had that circled. You could tell they had it circled. It was an emotional game. Jared Goff got a game ball from Dan Campbell. Then he gave it back to Dan Campbell. Well, it's because I don't think Jared got the game ball.

week, right? Yeah, or something like that. And Dan Campbell forgot and then he felt bad. He's like, I got to get Jared a game ball now. And then Jared gave it back to him. Which I love. Yeah, but it was like, you could see the locker room. That was an emotional win.

Losing Aiden Hutchins is an emotional letdown. Vikings off a bye. I don't know. Also, I have another stat for you from Sports Info Solutions. Vikings are third best in the NFL defending runs out of the 12 personnel, allowing 3.1 yards a carry. That's what the Lions like to do the most in the NFL. Okay. So I just like the spot for the Vikings. Also, here's a stat for you. Ready for this? Justin Jefferson...

has 1,037 receiving yards in eight career games against the Lions. That's the most by anyone in NFL history against one team in eight games. That's pretty crazy. That's a lot of yards. It is, yeah. That's a lot of yards. The receivers are, you can't cover everybody on the Vikings. You just can't. And so if you have good Sam Darnold, then you're going to give up some points. What do you think about the Lions? Maybe not Max Crosby. What about Hassan Redick?

Yeah. I think they called about it. They did, yeah. Didn't we talk about this, but then they have to give him a second-round pick? Oh, because of the NFC? Yeah. Good point. So that's why they're probably not going to trade him. I think if there's any team in the NFL that's able to get over an emotional loss to the leader of your defense, it's probably Detroit Lions. I feel like Dan Campbell is the right guy. I don't know when I, because we do so many shows. Oh, I think it was on the rundown. I threw out this idea, and Jerry Jones will never do it, but trade Micah Parsons.

Yeah, he's not going to do that. But you have to pay him. And your problem right now is it seems like you have lack of depth going forward. What's going to happen? You locked up Dak. You locked up CD. You're going to have to pay Michael Parsons. You could probably get a lot for him. I don't even know if the Lions would do it, but...

If I were Jerry Jones, like reload on draft picks and trade Micah Parsons. That would be such an emasculating birthday to have the Lions come in, kick your ass to the point where you're like, we don't deserve to have this beautiful man on our defense. We need to trade him to the team that just kicked. He'd be happier with them. Just throwing it out there. Not saying there's no sourcing, nothing. I was just thinking about it. Like, again, this is under the assumption that Jerry Jones would operate better

He doesn't have a lot of years left, so he's probably not going to operate in a long-term approach because that would be a smart long-term move to trade Micah Parsons and get a haul for him right now before you have to pay him and then reload that way. But knowing just a little bit about human psyche, the fact that you just gave Dak a big contract, the fact you just paid CeeDee Lamb, it's going to be a tough hill to climb to admit that you're not all in right now. Yeah, but they're not all in. They're all in my ass. All in my ass. All in my ass. All in my ass.

I also want to watch if Aaron Jones plays. That's going to be important. So they just signed, or did they trade for Cam Akers? Traded for Cam Akers, whose last game was in Minnesota. Yeah. He played for the, I think he was inactive last week, and then the Texans played in Minnesota, so that's kind of a fun wrinkle.

So Aaron Jones was at practice. I don't know if he practiced, but he was at practice. Okay. So take for that what you will. But I feel like picking up Cam Akers makes it seem like he's going to be out for a little bit. Yeah. And Aaron Jones is very good. Yes. And you probably don't want Sam Donald throwing you 45 times a game. Yeah. Aaron Jones returned to practice on Thursday. He was at practice. He was at practice. Did he practice or was he just there today? Limited? Vikings running back Aaron Jones returned to practice, according to Pioneer Press. Did he have an MRI? No.

Did fill me up. Maybe DM someone. Seeing him back on the field after not participating on Wednesday is a good sign. Okay. Okay. That is a good sign. That's a great sign. But let the record show I am unwavering in my support from the Detroit Lions. I am as well. I think they'll be okay. I mean, it sucks. I'm doing that right now because...

The Bears don't have any NFC North games until week 10. Then it's going to have to. I'm going to have to flip the switch. I'm going to have to flip the switch. I'm going to have to flip the switch and start poking holes at everyone to try to make myself feel better. That's kind of what sports are. You got to bring everyone else down to try to elevate yourself. I got a question for you, Big Cat. Is this the coordinator matchup of the week? Flores versus Ben Johnson? Yeah. I feel like it is. It is. I feel like this is coordinator matchup of the week. Let's see. Let's see.

Yeah, it might be the coordinator matchup of the week. Yeah, I think without a doubt. This might be the best coordinator matchup in the NFL all season. Yeah, it's going to be a great coordinator matchup. This is great. This is good stuff. It's our coordinator game of the week. The problem I have with what Ben Johnson did last week at the Cowboys is just I don't know what else he's got in his bag. Well, that was my whole point about the emotion. That was an empty the clip game. And what happens after you empty the clip? You go to shoot.

Nothing's there. Click, click. Yeah. The fact that you ran the play with Panay Sewell catching the lateral tells me that you're probably not... That has to be your most creative play that you have, right? Oh, I'm sure he's got more. So that's... Maybe he does. But I'm a little bit... It's probably like Panay Sewell laterally to Frank Ragnow. I'm a little bit worried that he emptied the clip. Yeah. How many shots were there? Do you feel lucky? A lot of shots. Okay. Eagles to Giants. Saquon revenge game. Saquon had a story...

On ESPN, I believe, where he's like, I don't think they'll boo.

I had to read it like three times. Yeah. That is a big question ahead of this matchup. I think they're going to boo. Well, if you're a Giants fan, you probably lived and breathed this entire saga with Saquon, and you know that he wanted to be a Giant, and then you know that the front office decided to franchise Saquon, give a contract to Danny Jones, and then eventually, yeah, the guy just went to a team that paid him more money. Yeah. A lot more money. I thought that was...

I feel like that's wishful thinking, being like, I don't think they're going to boo. I think there will be some fans that boo. I think there will be a smattering of boos. I think it's going to be 30% boos and then 70% people standing silently next to the people that are booing saying, hey, man, he was a great player for us. But you got to remember, if the game's in New York, there's still probably going to be like 30% Philly fans there. Make the drive up. They also could boo.

But they wouldn't be booing Saquon. They might be booing Saquon. Yeah, right. You might have to up your boo. Good sports town. 50-50 boo? No, Saquon wouldn't get booed. But he might. No, there's no way that Saquon would get booed. But Max, it's also like, think about it. If you're an Eagles fan and you're going to this game at MetLife and you hear boos, your natural reaction is going to just start joining in on the boos.

Nah, Saquon wouldn't get booed. Saquon, everyone likes Saquon in Philly. There's levels to it. There's like pre-boo, there's no boo, no boo. It's a great sushi place. No boo, yeah. Pre-boo and then current boo. Now boo. So wait, wait, wait, break that down to me? There's pre-boo. Which pre-boo? There's no boo. That's sometimes more potent than booing. No boo is no boo. There's no boo. No boo. Yeah, like...

This guy is not going to get booed. He's in no danger of getting booed. Then there's pre-booed. No boos for Instagram. All right, so he's like, we're feeling about booing. Yeah, then there's like, this guy's on the verge of possibly getting booed. It's like a dog with a bark in their throat. You can see them about to bark. You're like, that's a fat Philly guy who's got a boo in his throat. Great bow buns. Yeah. So when you, the first guy that boos, is there ever a guy that boos too soon?

No, it's like a collective thing. All it takes is one guy to start and then everybody else has to join in. Would you not agree, Max, that if someone just started booing around you, your instinct would be, let me join in on this. What is this, first take? No. We got to test this. We're going to forget. Let's just...

I'm going to set a secret reminder, and we're going to try to test this out later on. At some point, just start booing around Max and watch him just instinctively be like, where are we booing? Let's boo. No, no, no. I don't think that the majority of Giants fans are going to boo Saquon, but I do think that if he fumbles...

Everyone's going to cheer extra loud for that fumble. Which counts as a boo. Kind of a boo. It's a sarcastic cheer. No. We say no boo. No boo. What's the Drake line? Drake line, no boo. Something Malibu, no boo. How do you feel about this game? Bad. We lose in New York every time now. And New York just keeps dunking on me that I just keep thinking I'm going to get dunked on by New York. And this would be.

This would really be a doozy of a loss. If you rub it in, yeah. No Boston Scott anymore? No Boston Scott. You got to sign him. He's playing in Rocket League right now. He's like a professional gamer. Yeah. The Giants stink, but they're a little bit frisky, I think. Their defense is good. Yeah, they're frisky. There's parts of them that are frisky. Like neighbors coming back. But they still have the label of stink. So losing to them...

still will feel like embarrassing, like losing to a horrible football team. Even though it should be. But you agree with... I know what you're saying, yeah. There's a stink around the Giants. Correct. That losing to the Giants feels like a stink. I'm sure same like with the Commanders. If you were to lose to us, that stink is definitely there. We're not talking about the Commanders right now. And on top of that, there's like a stink and then also if you lose to Saquon, revenge, no boo game. Right. Right.

That would hurt as well. And the way the Giants can win this game would hurt extra, extra hard because all they do is like little passes and they were just little, little pass. It would be so boring and they would just get a little pass. It would be so boring because it would also. I also think the only way we lose is if I don't know, there's plenty of ways we could lose. But like I'm thinking of like a like a bad turnover or something dumb like that, that like.

Nick Sirianni strips his clothes at halftime and then comes out naked and you get a penalty? I'll say this right now. If the Eagles lose to the Giants on Sunday, Nick Sirianni will not be coaching the following week. Oh! I feel like that. Is he coaching now? He's coaching for his job. It's his job to coach. Yeah, it's his job to coach. Will he just be taking a week off or he's going to be fired? He'll be done. He just goes MIA? Yeah.

Like he's just going to leave? No, I think he will be fired. This is a prediction. This is a prediction. Do they let him back on the bus to go back to Philly? Respect. Philly's a city of respect. We would, of course, let him get back on the bus. But would there be a group of fans waiting to boo him at the facility? Yeah, and then he'll probably start yelling at them. The yelling at the fans last week really... It felt like if they lost... He wouldn't have yelled at the fans if they lost that game. But it like...

really bumped up his hot I saw a report I don't know if it was from the actual fan it was a guy claiming to be the fan you saw that thread so yeah so the guy I saw it was like a post on Instagram or something but he said that he was telling Nick Sirianni like what run the ball more like run the ball to Saquon and then Nick Sirianni did run the ball more then after the game he was like see I told you I was gonna run the ball more so it might not have been like booing then Nick Sirianni responding to the boo it might have been good coaching

You should hire that guy to be your coach. Regardless, you shouldn't be yelling at the fan about any... No. Because a fan told you to run the ball, you kept that in your head and you had to go back to the stands? That's what fans do. That's not what head coaches do. But that's fan 101. He's definitely heard probably a million fans before saying, run the damn ball.

But Sirianni shouldn't do that. I have a question for you, Max. If you lose this game and then you fire Sirianni, what is it going to look like? Is it going to look like Tommy and Goodfellas when they shoot him in the back of the head? Or is it going to look like Goodfellas when they do the wire? He sits in the front seat. How's Big Dom going to whack him? Big Dom would only treat any man with the most respect. So face-to-face? Yep.

Two in the face. Let him take his shoes off first. Yeah, Big Don is a man of respect for sure. Would Nick Sirianni wind up frozen in a meat truck? I don't know. Okay. I don't know. Would Nick Sirianni be, yeah, would he be like beat up in a bar and then buried upstate?

What would you think about the Eagles season going forward if we lost Sirianni and somehow got Vrabel in the door? That would be crazy. That would rock. I think that would be awesome for you, yeah. Mike Vrabel should be a coach in the NFL. I feel like Mike Vrabel is like a— It's ridiculous that Mike Vrabel is not a head coach in the NFL. Would the Browns let him out of his contract?

Isn't he just like an advisor? No, I think he's... No, he's an advisor. He's a consultant. But he was there. I don't think he has an ironclad contract. Yes. I'm sure they would let him out if he even had a contract. He probably doesn't even have a non-compete clause in there. Especially, it's not like they're playing for anything right now. Well, they got Nick Chubb back. Yeah. You forgot about that part. But they're punting. Andrew Thomas being out for the Giants should make you feel a little bit more...

about this game. Yeah, I guess. But it's... I guess our D-line looked better last week. Yeah. And neighbors come... They might not little pass you to death. They might find neighbors a few times, too. They'll still little pass him to death. They just might do some medium passes, too. I think neighbors is back. Well, he's back, but he has a new injury. From what? He got a concussion. Obviously, he's back from that, but then I think he has a groin. So do I. Yeah, we all do. Pulled groin? Yeah. Sounds like a Friday night. Mm-hmm.

That's rude. He's a full go. Damn it. He's a full go? His groin is 100%? Yeah, his groin is groining. Oh, no. I do like the Malik neighbors...

It's been going around like he doesn't wear any team issue things when he's been out on the sideline and people are very upset about it. It's kind of funny. What do they want him to wear? It does look a little weird. Did you see the picture? He's rocking Echo Unlimited on the sidelines? He looks like he's going to a concert and he's just on the sidelines. Pull up a picture of him on the sidelines. He did go to a concert. There it is. Look at that. That's the...

That is a ridiculous thing. That hat is sick, though. That's a ridiculous thing to wear while being on the sideline. Okay, but counterpoint. It's chromed out. Counterpoint. The Giants need somebody like this because they do Max's whole stink around the Giants has to do with them just being a boring team offensively. Yeah, and Malik Davis is not boring. Yeah. This is the guy that you need. This is a culture change.

He counteracts Daniel Jones being a Deloitte accountant. I would also like to say, for the record, in addition to Mike Vrabel, definitely should be a head coach right now in the NFL somewhere. The Giants, if their season doesn't go well, they kind of have to make a decision about what to do for their entire future. Yeah. Like with the whole Dable, Daniel Jones thing. You got to keep Dable.

I think that Dable is a good head coach. I don't think that they should fire him after this season. I think because you have to make the choice, right? Do you clean house, maybe get a new quarterback and a new head coach at the same time? Or do you keep the same guy around and give him at least a couple years to work with your new quarterback? I actually like Brian Dable enough to say that he should be their head coach. I think you just do a simple estimation of if you fire Brian Dable, will he be hired tomorrow? And I think he probably would.

As a head coach or as a coordinator? A head coach or a coordinator, but it would be pretty quick. Yeah. So you don't want to fire a guy like that. Yeah, and the Marys, they don't like to fire guys except like the last, what, 10 years? Oh, Ben McAdoo, yeah. They fired a lot of guys, but historically they don't like to fire guys. Yeah, and Brian Dable, like the one season that the Giants go to the playoffs, Darren Jones, that should be like front and center, I can coach. Yeah.

Because I did that. Yeah. We beat the Vikings. Okay. Next up, Raiders at Rams. I hate this game. It's a bad game. Jimmy G revenge game. Is Jimmy G playing? No. Oh. Aiden O'Connell. That guy stinks. I think the Rams off the bye.

Yeah, definitely the Rams off the bye. They're healthy, right? Cooper Cup, I think, is trying to come back. And then the other big story that we talk about with Kyle Rudolph a little bit is Tom Brady has been awarded custody of 10% of the Raiders, I believe. 5%. Oh, I thought he got 10, and then I thought... He bought...

Mark Davis sold 10%, I think it's 10.5%. Okay. 5% to Brady, 5% to Brady's business partner, and then 0.5% to Richard Seymour. Got it. So Tom Brady is now, according to the NFL, not permitted to be in another team's facility. He's not permitted to witness practices. He's not permitted to attend broadcast production meetings, either in person or virtually. He's prohibited from publicly criticizing game officials and other clubs, and

He's subject to the NFL's gambling policy and anti-tampering policy, too. So he can't criticize the refs. Oh, you forgot one thing. He also can't play. He can't play. Owners cannot play, which is a bullshit rule. That is stupid. Mark Davis going out there and holding the ball in kickoff would rock. Jerry Jones would definitely try to play. Yeah. Yeah, so Tom Brady is now a partial owner of an NFL team. I mean, he's going to eventually own the Raiders, right?

I don't know how this works. Is there some sort of succession power play he can pull behind Mark Davis' back? Well, isn't the whole story that Mark Davis' mom actually owns the Raiders and that eventually he won't have enough when she passes? When she dies, the inheritance tax is going to be more than he has in cash. Yeah. So his wealth comes from owning the team, and then I guess you take out lines of credit against the asset that you own. Sure. Yeah, whatever the case may be. So yeah, maybe it is he set himself up for the future.

Also, you think there's any truth to the Belichick rumors? Kirk threw those out there. They got picked up everywhere. It would be an all-time story. I don't. It would be an all-time story. I just don't think there's a whole lot of truth. Yeah, I couldn't tell if Kirk was screwing with everyone or not. I think that's what Kirk does. Yeah, right, which is hilarious because it literally got picked up everywhere. So it was a masterclass. He was also in sports, Boston Sports Radio. He knows how these things go. He knows how to say things semantically well.

where he can just say that's what I heard without reporting it as fact. Yeah, I feel like Belichick... He can say I heard anything. Belichick might not go back to the NFL. He might not go back to coaching at all. Oh, he's definitely... You think so? Yeah, because he's got the record. He's trying to go for the record. I feel like he's having a lot of fun. Oh, definitely not. He's got to go for the record. He's like a guy that worked in a factory his entire life and came from a hardscrabble town in the Midwest, Rust Belt.

He works, finally retires, always thought about retiring in that same town he grew up in, then goes to Florida one week, and he's like, this is really nice down there. I might just stay. By the way, the other owner is Tom Wagner, co-founder of Nighthead Capital Management. Nighthead. That sounds like the most evil company. That guy sounds like he will just... Sounds like a great company. He'll cut your fucking necktie and then shit down your throat. The Wagner Group? Is that what it's called? The...

Tom Wagner, the co-founder of Nighthead Capital Management. Nighthead. That's either the most evil name or the horniest name I've ever heard. Yeah, so that's the other. That's a 5% to each of them and then a half percent to Richard Seymour. See, if Tom Brady says that's a bad call during a game, is that criticizing the officials?

He's in a bad spot. Yeah. I feel bad for him. I don't know why he's doing it. Well, I know why he's buying the Raiders. I don't know why he's still doing the broadcasting. Because they're paying him $40 million a year. I guess you got to pay one. Yeah. I don't know why he got into, yeah, the $40 million a year, that whole thing. But I don't really understand why Tom wanted to do it. He's Tom Brady, isn't he? Again, it goes back to the thought of Tom Brady should be too good to

to be talking to me on my couch about games that are happening. That's beneath Tom Brady. What do you say, Max? I also looked up the Kirk stuff of if it was real. He followed that up today with saying that Kamala will be the next head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Are you saying that's not real? No, that could happen. Yeah, if we want to make sure things are real. That's very funny. Yeah, that could definitely happen.

Kamala being that coach. He was like, I only have one source, but I'll say it anyway. Kamala doing her pregame speech just being like, so I was born in a middle-class family. All right, boys, let's go out there. Let's be clear about one thing, okay? I have a plan. Go to my website and see my game plan. Yeah, I mean, it actually did kind of happen with Adam Schefter reporting Condoleezza Rice. Yeah, true, true. Okay, next game, Panthers and Commanders. PFT, you're in trouble.

I agree. Oh, why do you think I was going to say you're in trouble? I'm saying I'm in trouble because I ran my mouth hot and loose last weekend and just said I counted this as a bye week, and I regret doing that. I was going to say you're in trouble for a different reason because Dave Canales said that Bryce Young did a great job in the role of rookie QB Jaden Daniels on the scout team today and making the Washington offense concepts come to life. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. That's so sad to be like, yeah, Bryce Young, good job, dude. You pretended to be Jaden Daniels. That is very, very sad. That's brutal. Not only are you getting buried because people talk about you in comparison to the number one overall pick, or excuse me, the number two overall pick in your draft.

Now you're running scout team for the number two overall pick in the next draft. Like, just don't say it. No, he was one overall. No, I know that. Yeah. I'm saying he gets buried because of CJ Strauss. Now he's doing scout team for the next number two pick. Just don't say it. Don't say that, Dave Canales. Just be like, we had a good week of practice. Do you remember RG3 at one point when he got demoted to scout team?

But he wasn't playing quarterback scout team. He got demoted to being the scout team safety. Yeah. That was pretty sad. Yeah, that was sad. I think you're going to have a really fun time playing the Panthers. I'm just worried because I shouldn't have said that about the Panthers. I feel bad for Panthers fans. I don't want to bully Panthers fans. Okay, now speak honestly like you've been speaking honestly. I've been trying. Yeah, so now speak honestly. From what I've seen from the commanders, this is a game that we should win by 20 points. Oh, wow.

We should. I like that. I hope we win. Our defense isn't good. We actually stink on defense. We're one of the worst defenses. How many touchdown passes for Jaden Daniels? I don't know about total touchdowns. Passing and running, I'm going to say three. Okay. And then he's going to have two handoff touchdowns. Okay. Those count, too? Yeah, they do. Okay. Yeah, this is going to be a fun game for you. I hope so. Yeah.

This is a game. This is a take care of business game. Yeah. Just take care of business. Beating the bad team still counts. Yep. It still counts. I'm also just still amazed that we have a home field advantage. It's been a decade since we've had a true home field advantage. Yeah. So it's very cool seeing Commanders fans. Also, fuck you to that Ravens fan that beat up the two Commanders fans after the game. Yeah. He got arrested. Yeah. Well, no, there's a warrant out for him. There's a warrant out? Yeah. They'll find him. They will. Nolte will track him down. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Okay, another great game. This is a great Sunday slate. Chiefs at 49ers. Andy Reid off a bye, 21-4. Patrick Mahomes straight up as an underdog is 10-3. The Chiefs are one-and-a-half point underdogs. They are off a bye. Also, Kyle Shanahan forced the team to watch the Super Bowl this week and said, I think everyone understands that we've lost two Super Bowls to them, so that can give you a little post-traumatic stress when you turn on the tape.

I don't know if I like that. I think I'm going to take the 49ers, but I don't like that. I don't like the move of playing the game for the guys. Yeah. That puts bad thoughts in your head. Really bad thoughts. In what world does that improve morale? Zero. I guess you could just hope that it's going to piss them off.

Yeah, and they were so close to be like, hey, look how close we were. Yeah, so in terms of Super Bowl matchups, like rematches, the Chiefs lost to the Eagles last year. But before that, the last time the Super Bowl loser won the following regular season matchup was 1993. Oh, wow. So it goes back a long ways. The Chiefs-Eagles last year, that was the beginning of the end for Nick Sirianni.

Remember going up the tunnel? Yeah. Screaming at everyone? Yep. But he won that game. No, I know, but that was the beginning of the end. That was his Super Bowl. That was his Super Bowl. I think that was the end of the beginning. Oh. Oh, interesting. Okay. So now we're in the middle.

Or are we at the end? No, now we're at the end. Actually, you know what? No, that was the beginning of the end. If you point to one point where you're like, Nick Sirianni, he's kind of, he's really like, this is kind of turning. But that was like high. But remember how obnoxious it was? And everyone was like, what's his problem? But Eagles fans were like, whatever, that's our guy at that point. Yeah, but Max, I feel like the Super Bowl was the end of the beginning. Wrong. That was the beginning. We started 10-1. Okay, that was the beginning of the end without you realizing it was the beginning of the end. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yes. You just didn't go out for an intermission. You didn't know that it was the beginning of the end, but if you look back, you're like, that was the beginning of the end. He beat the Chiefs and was like, I'm done. Job done. Yeah. And stopped coaching. Hank's confused. Yeah, I was so happy. What did he say in the... Hank, what are you confused by? What's up, Hank? I think the walls are hacked. Why? Someone tweeted at me two minutes ago and said, do you happen to know when the Pats are flying to London this week? Yeah. So?

You think someone listens to us? Weird timing. That's a pretty standard question. Yeah. To ask me? Well, you should have known the answer to that. If my team was playing in London, that's the... I would have that. I knew the Bears were flying on Monday night. Memes also already tweeted it. I'm kidding. What's the answer?

I can't find a definitive answer. You don't find an answer. They practice in Gillette today. They're in Gillette, I'm assuming, tomorrow. Oh, so they're flying tonight. No, they're flying tonight. Okay. They're flying tonight if they practice in Gillette today. That'd be funny if they flew over early in the week, just like went on a sightseeing tour, then flew back, practiced, and then flew back again. Yeah, just got a little lay of the land. Yeah, we have our answer. They're flying Thursday night. Yeah, they're flying tonight. Okay. Okay.

Where were we? Beginning of the end. Chiefs Niners. I want to read a tweet for you, see if you can decipher it for me. Ready? This is from Charles Amenehu. Plays for the Chiefs. He's coming back shortly. I think he tore his ACL, so he's going to be back shortly.

And he is kind of pumping himself up. He said, I'm coming back to get what I deserve. The biggest shit. Anything else ain't for me. Done speaking till I'm back. Been too humble. Folks forgot what the fuck I did with less games than your favorite player. Okay. Let me read that first sentence again. I'm coming back to get what I deserve. The biggest shit. Anything else ain't for me. It sounds like Napoleon. Yeah.

It's a riddle. Yeah. No, it sounds like exactly what Napoleon said after he got exiled. Yeah. So what is the biggest shit? I don't know. Ain't for me. Ain't for me. And your favorite player. What was that about? Been too humble, folks. Forgot what the fuck I did with less games than your favorite player. How does he know who my favorite player is? Yeah. What if your favorite player is TJ Watt? Yeah. Jerry should reply. Be like, I don't think so. Favorite player is Andy Dalton. Then he probably did. They probably did. That's the point. Yeah.

Yeah, I like the Niners here. I don't know. Do we have an update on Christian McCaffrey speaking of the walls? No. Got it. And Jordan Mason, is he playing? Hank? Hank, you should... He practiced. Next week you... I think he's playing. Next week you should just... Am I like the injury guy? Yeah, no, I'm saying next week you should print out every injury report and just be the injury guy. Yeah, you're pro football. That would be actually very funny if we just had... You had them all just printed in your hand. Hank Dockwood. Jordan Mason was in a blue no-contact jersey today.

Wait, a blue no-contact jersey? Are there levels to the no-contact jerseys? I think the red is for the quarterbacks only. Or maybe the blue is just the injury tent. He was in the injury tent. He was wearing the injury tent. Okay, last game on Sunday. Jets at Steelers. How old are no flexes this week? Jets-Steelers is a pretty interesting matchup. You got Russie. You got everything going on in New York. Vikings. Vikings.

Packers or a Super Bowl rematch? The stations, Fox and CBS gets to keep a certain amount because they don't want to give them up. The Jets and Giants since 2019 are 4-31 playing at night in primetime. Is that memes? Your mic's still on. That was Max. No, that was you. What was that? No, it was Max. 4-31. Yeah, it's disgusting. That's insane.

I got a couple reasons why I love the Steelers this weekend. That stat that you just mentioned. Okay. The fact that they're squeezing out Fireman Ed. Yeah.

Yeah. Who's now taken to the media and there's stories about him in the New York Post. Yeah. Memes, what do you think about that? Fireman Ed is accusing the New York Jets of not putting him on the video screen as much this season. I believe him. I saw that. We're two and four. Let's just win some football games and not go on your Instagram. There's too many distractions going on with the Jets. We don't need Fireman Ed just going on Instagram and making a video. It's a chicken or the egg situation. Are they losing these games because Fireman Ed's not on the Jumbotron?

Didn't fireman had officially quit the jets. He did bullshit that this guy comes around actually like he's the jets number one guy and that it's, and that they, the team, he quit on the team. The team didn't quit on him. He quit on the team. He quit after the buck. Yeah. And then he came back and he came back and then he's like, I just demand respect like two years later. And he's like, now they're not putting me on the jumbo tron enough.

I love that. I love super fans getting into litigation with the team that they're a super fan of. So that's data point number one, why I like the Steelers. Data point number two that I have is that the Steelers are wearing their throwback uniforms. Oh, the Bumblebees? No. Oh, thank God. If we thought that Memes' Jets throwback uniform thing was ridiculous, the Steelers throwbacks...

Look at them and you tell me what's different. Can you pull them up? Pull them up. But here's a stat. It's got to be the helmet. Here's a stat about these uniforms. They've wore them four times since they reintroduced them, and they're 4-0. So what's different about these throwback uniforms? No idea. Hank, do you have any idea? Maybe the shoulder. Is the black blacker? No, it's block lettering. So the new Steelers uniforms are in italics. The numbers are at a slant.

And these are just the block letters on them. What the hell? But they are 4-0 when they wear these, but they're the most un-throwback throwbacks of all time. Yeah. I'm looking at this tweet from the official Steelers shop account. It says, you asked, we delivered. Who the hell asked for this? Everyone was asking. It's the same thing. So they are 4-0. They played 2018 against the Browns, 2019 against the Rams.

Christmas Eve against the Raiders in 2022 and then against the Packers in 2023 wearing the throwback numbers. So I like so funny. So I can't go against. Yeah, because you see the the new ones. Yeah, I see what you're saying. They're like sleeker. I like the Jets because I have a theory that doesn't really make sense when you talk it all the way out. But I'm going to say it anyway. I was on with our guys Pittsburgh Radio today and I

I think Mike Tomlin. So the courting process for Russell Wilson, they obviously they went out to get him. They still had Kenny Pickett. They you know, there was the stories about everyone like calling him being like, please come help Kenny Pickett. This would be great. Kenny Pickett's like, fuck that. I'm out. And they're like, all right, Rush, you're the starter, right? Like that was that was what Mike Tomlin told him. Then Justin Fields gets traded to the Steelers and Mike Tomlin, a man of his word.

He's like, I know I have a better chance with Justin Fields, but I promise Russell Wilson he's a starter. Russell Wilson was healthy last week. Why wouldn't you start Russell Wilson against the Raiders to get his feet wet against a very bad team? Instead, he's going to throw him out against the Jets to basically have him suck, and then he's going to be like, see, you guys told me that I need to start Russell Wilson. I told Russell Wilson it wasn't his job to lose. He sucks. Justin Fields.

That's not a bad theory. But then again, the theory all goes along the lines of Mike Tomlin's deliberately throwing a football game, which doesn't really make sense. But let's just forget that part. Yeah, I like the Steelers defense at night, their own stadium. This is a double renegade. Yeah, for sure. Also, shout out Devante Adams. His hamstring got better. It's crazy. Magically. It's wild. Yeah, he's good now. How did he even hurt his hamstring to begin with? Is it a practice injury?

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe a getting to practice injury. He pulled up lame, according to Adam Schefter. He pulled up lame. On a Friday. On a Friday. On a Friday before the game on Sunday. Yeah, that's like when Hank is just like, do you need me for the yak on Friday? Yeah. I'm not going to be around. Do you? No. Okay. You're good to golf. It sounds like you're just roasting your nerdiest friend for coming out to the bar for the weekend. Like, yeah, this guy pulled up lame on Friday. Pulled up lame. So lame.

That's such a mean thing to say about somebody. So lame. Yeah, I don't know. Jets are completely out of excuses. It's over. This is it. You got to win right now with what you got. Season's on the line. This is for the season. Yes, you got your coach fired. You got Devontae Adams. Aaron Rodgers has gotten everything he wants. The next blame is Aaron Rodgers. Memes, is there anything else that you can do? If you lose this game, is there another panic move that you can do to save the season?

I saw a reddick sign him bring him in yeah wait me get the deal done I want to your face there I said the next move is to blame Aaron Rodgers and you're not going to do that

I like Aaron Rodgers. Yeah. But he's literally gotten everything he wants. He's fun to watch. I want to see how deep this well goes. Like how many different things, how many different Band-Aids can you put on after heartbreaking losses before you get to Aaron? Yeah. Well, I think the next panic move is just sit Tyron Smith and then put Fashanu in. Okay. Because the offensive line has looked great. Apparently Tyron Smith has let up.

the same amount of sacks in his entire career in this first six games. So that's not great. Mm-hmm.

Okay. I also asked Memes if the season is over, if they lose this weekend, and he said, well, we've got a pretty easy schedule, even if they go 2-5. Yeah, because if we lose this week, then Aaron Rodgers will do that thing where he's just like, we can run the table, and then— It's too early for the run the table, though. Yeah, but he'll do that thing later in the season. Then we'll win a bunch of games and miss the playoffs by one game. This is all getting a little pathetic. All right, so next—

So next panic move is you sign Hassan Reddick, get him in the building, get the deal done, right? And then move after that is bench Tyron Smith? Yes. But we're going to win this weekend, so we're fine. And what's after that? Sign Izzy again? Izzy hasn't played all season. He's been inactive. Okay. Um...

All right, well, that was all the games. Let's do our picks, and then we'll do fantasy fuckboys. Okay, for our TD parlay, DraftKings Sportsbook, everyone has a shot to score big with DraftKings Touchdown Parlay Profit Boost. This week, all customers get up to 100%.

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We have to hit one, guys. This is sad.

Justin Jefferson. Brian Robinson. Saquon. Okay. I love that. That was good. Bang, bang, bang. I was really hoping someone was going to say Saquon. He's got to score back at MetLife this week. I love that. And you know Sirianni wants him to score against the Giants. Yeah, for sure. All right. Our picks. Who's up first? And what are the records? Max is up first. Me and Big Cat are 7-5. PFT 6-6. Hank 5-7. Max 4-7-1. Oh, Max.

Half a game back. Long season. When does it not become a long season? I'm half a game back. I know. It could be the last week of the year and it wouldn't be bad. That's true. Although that did happen to you. Yeah, fucking Davis Mills. Davis Mills, a piece of shit. The best. I love Davis Mills. All right, Max. I'm going to go to Jets. Jets minus two. Jets minus two against the Steelers. I like it. I like it.

I'm going to go with the New England Patriots, five and a half. Okay. I'm going to take the Chargers minus two, a Super Bowl winner. I am going to take the Washington Commanders minus eight. Wow. So, Hank, are you going to reverse what you did last week? Because we said it at the beginning of the week that that was the beginning of the show that that was the best week for gamblers, worst week for Vegas gamblers.

All the favorites covered. You did a round robin of all the underdogs? Yep. 165 bets. 0 for 165. I think I'm going to do it again. Do it on the DraftKings Sportsbook. All right. Memes? Niners minus one and a half. Okay. And I'm going to take the Bills Titans over 41. Hmm.

Okay. I'm going to take the Bengals Browns over 41 and a half. Okay. Someone took the Jags Patriots over 42. No, I will take it. Jags Patriots over 42. I like that. I'm going to take the commanders and the Panthers over 51 and a half. Love taking overs in commanders games. Yes. Max, I am going to take.

Packers, Texans over 47 and a half. Did anyone take that? Those uniforms? Yeah, we said that was over uniform. It's over uniform. Do you feel good about that? I keep saying I like the uniform. Do you want me to say it again? I like the uniform. I haven't hit a total once this year, I think. My total. If this game ends 10-3, will you admit that I was right about the uniforms?

Yes. Okay. Thank you. If exactly 10 to 3. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. That's all I wanted. I get an apology. That's perfect. But if it's 6-3, I will not. Okay. Deal. Deal. 10 to 3. Great deal. Great doing business with you. Great doing business with you. I get 10 to 3 both ways, though. It could be Packers 10 to 3 or Texans 10 to 3. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. 10 to 3 is all I need. Yep.

Okay. Let's do go. So we're going to have our parlay up for in the DraftKings Sportsbook. We have Justin Jefferson, Saquon, and Brian Robinson. So we're going to hit it this week. I feel good about this week. Before we get to our interviews, we've got great interviews with Kyle Rudolph and Francis Naganu. We're going to do some fantasy fuckboys brought to you by Body Armor. This segment is brought to you by Body Armor Sports Water, the alkaline water that provides real hydration with electrolytes for taste and

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What's up, boys? What's up, fucka? What up, dickhead? What's up, fuckface? What's up, fucka? My name's Paul. What's up, Paulie? Paulie. Paulie D in the pick of destiny. Oh, nice. My stardom this week is Tom Brady. Yeah, Tommy. The goat. The greatest of all time. He's now an owner. Oakland Raiders' second hottest owner on that fucking...

Second hottest owner? Second hottest. Who's the hottest? Mocky Mock. Oh, good guy. Mocky Mock, Davey Dave. My sit-em? Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi Leonard.

Yeah. Kawhi Leonard, yeah. What'd he do? Much like playoff P, much like Joel Embiid. He doesn't like to play a lot, and what do you know, he got hurt. He's out for an indefinite period of time. Oh, no. Indefinite. Season hasn't even started. Does he know the playoffs aren't a while from now? That's usually when he gets hurt. He's probably trying to wait until the playoffs start to come back. Okay. You sound like you might be a little bit from Northeast. Yeah, kid. Sal, are you a lobsterman? Yeah, kid. Gloucester. Pauly. My sleeper?

Cooper Cup. Yeah. Cooper. Cooper Trooper. Cooper Trooper. Cooper Cooper. Good kid from the old neighborhood. He's back. He's wearing the Guardian cap. I think he's going to go off this week. The Guardian cap a little light in the loafers. Not me. Good for Cooper. Not me. Cooper Cooper. Cooper Cooper. Cooper Cooper.

Queen's Gambit

Queens get great show. She was just doing pills the whole time. I forgot about that. She was fucked up. Eyeballs on the side of the head looked like a guy I shot one time. My sit-em is Jerry Reinsdorf.

Jerry Reinsdorf, sitting him. You're a fan of the Chicago White Sox. Congratulations. That was mine, too. The end might be near for you, my friend, because it looks like Jerry is going to sign off the team. Yeah. Looks like he's getting rid of the team. Sell the Bulls, too, bitch. He said he's going to focus on the Bulls. Am I right? Yeah, no, his son's going to focus on the Bulls. He's going to focus on the Bulls. Am I sleeper? What do you say we get our 401K and try and, you know...

Make a run at it. Go make a run at the White Sox? It'd be a real shame if the White Sox fell off the back of a truck and we owned them all of a sudden. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Would be. And then my sleeper going into this weekend is, I'm going to say my sleeper is Ashton Jinty. Have you guys heard about this kid? No.

I think he's a really good player. I hope the best for him. Be a real shame if he decided to save his knees for the NFL. I'm a Travis Hunter guy. I'm a Travis Hunter guy myself too. Up and down. I'm just saying, be a real shame. If something happened, Ashton Jente was like, I don't want to run anymore. I'd rather save my knees for the NFL. What's up, fuckers? My name's Nicky Chicken Palmy. Hey, Nicky Chicky.

Brasserio. Nicky Chicken Pomerana? Pomerana Brasserio. Yeah, I like that. NCPB. Yeah, Nick CB. Nick PB? NCPB. NCPB. That's how we spell in here. My stardom is Travis Hunter. He's actually the Heisman. Don't do that. That's a good point. Don't fucking do that. My stardom was Jerry Reinsdorf too. Fuck that guy.

I hope he sells the Bulls too. Maybe he'll sell the White Sox and be like, oh, I got a lot of money. Maybe I should sell the Bulls too. Maybe he gets addicted to selling. That guy fucking stinks. I hate him. My sleeper is Devontae Adams because he's going to solve all the Jets problems. I agree. Well, and if he doesn't, then they got to sign Redick. Yeah. Then that's going to solve all the problems. And then they got to sign another guy and then another guy and then another guy and then another guy and then fire another coach and then

Then they got to get their own stadium. And then maybe one of them will be like, maybe Aaron Rodgers is a problem. But nah. Nah, not Aaron Rodgers. He's good. Nah. Good kid. Nah.

All right, let's get to our interviews. We got Kyle Rudolph and then a hologram interview with Francis Nagano. Whoa. Yeah. Before we get to Kyle Rudolph, he's brought to you by our great, great friends over at Game Time. Game Time is the absolute best. Game Time is the place to go if you're looking for the best deals on tickets, even up to the last minute to get into any game that you want.

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You can easily score great deals with new game time picks. What time is it? It's game time. Cal Rudolph is also brought to you by Chevy. Chevy is the best truck. The Silverado is the best truck I've ever seen. It's the best truck I've ever been in. And that's the reason why we've never had to do a Mount Rushmore pickup trucks. There's only one pickup truck. The Chevy Silverado is

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Okay, we now welcome on recurring guest, friend of the program, been forever. It's been a while. Been a long time. It's Kyle Rudolph, retired multi-Pro Bowl winner or multi-Pro Bowl haver. That's a good question. Did you win the Pro Bowls? One and one, 2013-2012 season, NFC won that one pretty big.

I was fortunate to be the MVP. I got a car out of that one. Oh, nice. I should have said that. Pro Bowl MVP. Pro Bowl MVP. What kind of car was it? GMC Denali, like a Yukon Denali. My dad is still driving the truck. Seriously? Closing in on like 300,000 miles on it. You got to pay taxes on it? Yeah. So I think it was...

Like three or four grand for the taxes. Oh, that's not bad. No, not bad at all. We had an idea for the Pro Bowl where, you know, to get the players to have some skin in the game, the winning team all gets a year early to free agency if they want.

Yeah. What do you think about that? You think guys would go hard? Especially thinking about the guys that are in that game. Yeah. Or no franchise tag. Like they get basically a Uno card reverse on a franchise tag. If you win the Pro Bowl. Yeah. I feel like that's – Roger Goodell, give us a call. We got tons of ideas. Most of them are bad, but I think this is a good one. Yeah. But so we haven't had you on since I think it was the –

the Teddy Bridgewater injury many years ago, which is crazy because you're now retired from the NFL. Obviously, is Teddy Bridgewater still in the NFL? No, he retired. He's the head coach back at his high school in Miami Northwestern. I love that. I love that. Teddy seems like one of those guys that everyone loved and rooted for. Yeah. I mean, I remember being with you guys in that room. It was kind of like...

Yeah. It was weird. It was bad. Like, what the fuck just happened? It was bad. Yeah, we felt bad being there. And they're like, well, Teddy obviously can't do it. No one was looking us in the eye. They're like, well, you can talk to Kyle and Harrison, and then Blair Walsh will talk to you too. Yeah, the Blair Walsh one, that was the add-on. Because I know we were going to interview you, and we didn't get Zimmer. But Blair Walsh, and that just became, that was right after the year that you guys lost to the Seahawks in that cold game.

Yeah, that was bad. It was literally the training camp after the kick. Yeah, yeah. That game was cold.

Yeah. I remember driving to the stadium. I think we played at noon. Because it was bright, too. It was so bright. So cold. You check the temperature on your phone, and it wasn't wind chill, minus 26. It was actual temp was minus 26 driving to the stadium. And you guys were outside at the time because the stadium hadn't been completed yet. And then I remember before that game, Bud Grant walked out.

shirtless, well, not shirtless, but sleeveless. He was wearing a polo shirt. He was in his 90s at the time, right? Crazy. And it was just, he was like, I'm going to set the tone for this game by going out for the coin flip wearing a polo shirt. So he had an office like at our facility, you know, Winter Park, the old school facility. And then at TCO, the beautiful big building that they have now. And he always had an office there and he'd walk around and he was still very present, like literally to the day he died. And it was like,

There's just always this gritty toughness about him. So when he walked out for the coin toss with just a polo shirt on, you're like, that dude's crazy. Can't complain about the cold anymore. Did anyone go back to the locker room and be like, fuck, I got to take my sleeves off. I put my parka on and went and sat on the bench and warmed up. Wait, so you retired officially as a Viking. You signed a one-day contract. Explain that to us because we always are like,

It's not a real contract. I mean, I didn't sign anything. Oh, no, don't say that. It's got to be a real... You didn't sign anything? No, because technically, if I would have signed a one-day contract during the season, they would have had to have released someone for me to sign a contract. How shitty would that be to be the guy that gets cut so I can retire a Viking? Wait, but did you get to do anything? We always joke we'd want to go do a workout or something, or let me actually get the use out of this one-day contract. I think the coolest thing that I got to do was...

oldest two, my two, my twin daughters, they remember going to games at us bank stadium. Like they were old enough for that. My son does not. Um, he's five. Now the one year that he might've remembered some games was 2020 when no one went to games. Um,

So he remembers New York and Tampa, which for me, there's not a whole lot to remember from either of those two places. I didn't do much there. You caught Tom Brady's last touchdown, right? I did. That was about it. That's pretty crazy. Did you hang on to the ball? So I had the ball. We were actually talking about it out there on the floor. I probably devalued one of the most valuable balls in the history. It was my 50th career touchdown. So that's why I kept it. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I kept the ball.

I had no idea that was gonna be Tom's last regular season touchdown. I don't think anyone did. And so I caught the touchdown knowing it was my 50th. And now like, you know, like the marathon runners that run the marathon and then just drop like a hundred yards from the finish line, like their body just can't physically go another inch. That was like me getting the 50 touchdowns. I had like 47 touchdowns in 2019 and I retired in 2022 with my last game catching my 50th touchdown. Like,

I had never had a season with less than three touchdowns in a year. And I went like one in 20, one in 21. And then the last game of 22, I'm like, you know what? I'm just, I'm going to retire with 49 touchdowns the way it's supposed to be. Um, and I caught the touchdown against the Falcons from Tom. So I'm like, all right, I got, you know, I got the ball, my 50th career touchdown. Like that's pretty sweet. Um,

And then I gave it to the equipment manager. And then obviously he had it painted. It says Kyle Rudolph's 50th career touchdown. Oh, no. It does say from Tom Brady on it. That's awesome, though. I feel like that might be like when they make a baseball card and there's a small error on it or something. Maybe the value of the ball is even higher because you did that to him. You know what you got to do is you got to donate that to Canton.

because then it will just be Tom Brady's last touchdown ball, but it will be your – it will stay here. Because I'll never get in the Hall of Fame, so I could live in Canton forever. Yeah, they'll be like, here's Tom Brady's last touchdown pass. They'll just say, Kyle Rudolph, 50th touchdown. You got to do that. Take my boys to Canton in like 10 years and be like, look, your dad's in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, that's a fun fact, though. You can always say that, like the last one that he threw, unless he comes back and plays for the Raiders in two years, which I know it's impossible for him to do that, but in the back of my head, I'm like, well, what if? What if?

I mean, it's also supposedly impossible for him to continue to do the stuff that he's going to do at Fox. Yeah. I read something like the rules that he will have to follow. It'll almost be impossible for him to broadcast games with the protocol. He can't be in production meetings. He can't talk to anyone. He can't go into other facilities across the league. He can't criticize officials.

He has to abide by the tampering policy. So I don't know. Is he allowed to say, like, hey, this player's really good? I don't know. I don't know what the rules are going to be. It'll be interesting. But if they're going to change – to your point, if they're going to change the rules for anybody, it would be him. Yeah, it would be Tom Brady. And it's like if Tom wants to come play quarterback, they'd probably let him. Did Brady ever accidentally call you Gronk? Mm-mm. Would he ever give you a look and you're like, you're thinking I'm not Gronk? Yeah, for sure. Like, I remember –

Probably like halfway through training camp. You know, it's interesting because I had obviously never played with a quarterback like Tom. Not many people have. And it was more so the way in which he just simplified everything. Like if I'm running a corner out and it's zone coverage and there's a massive void in the defense, like when I come out of my corner out, like turn around, I'm going to throw you the ball. Yeah. Like so many quarterbacks that I played with were like, hey, you have a corner out.

You got to run up to 12 yards. You got to put your foot in the ground at 12. And I want you at 16 to 18 yards, like right over there. And if you're not there, I'm going to be pissed off because on the sheet of paper that we looked at on Wednesday, it says you have a corner route and that's where you're supposed to be. Torres Tom was like,

at times like recess. Like he threw, again, so I run up, I got a corner out. You know, I get by the linebacker. I put my foot on the ground thinking, oh man, I'm going to take this thing. Like there's no one over here. And all of a sudden the ball like skips next to me on the ground. I'm like,

What the fuck? Yeah. And I turn around and he's like, bro, what are you doing? There's no one there. Like, turn around. Turn around right away. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now I know why Gronk caught so many balls because it's like, hey, when no one's around you and you're open, he's like, I know you're open. I'm going to throw you the ball. Right. And I felt like that's one of the things with Tom. Like, so many quarterbacks are worried about

okay, here's the play. What do my guys have? What's my read? What's the defense giving me for him? He's just like, I know what my guys have. I've seen what you're going to give me like five times already. Like, so I'm just looking and it's like, Oh, no one's over there. I'm gonna throw the ball there. Yeah. That's crazy. Like, yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah. It becomes intuitive. Yeah. Yeah. Just get open. Yeah. And I'm like, Oh yeah, I probably should have done that. Gronk for sure would have done that. It'll never happen again. Tell my

Did you ever try to talk to him with like a limited vocabulary just to make him feel comfortable? I'm kind of like Gronk.

gronk just throw ball yeah throw ball i'll catch ball throw ball i catch ball yeah no it's it's for me you know that was really the only reason i went to tampa uh he tom had reached out kind of earlier in the off season as otas were going on not sure what gronk was going to do whether he retired or not and quite honestly at that point he was like look if he comes back i'll take both of you right like get down here you know for me at that point in my career um

I wouldn't say I didn't know that was going to be my last year going into it.

But I knew the end was near and I just wanted to win. That's all I cared about. And he's like, Hey, we have one of the most talented teams I've ever been on. And I'm like, sweet. Say no more. I'll be down there. And then obviously Gronk retired. And I'm like, no, I definitely want to go. What, what down the stretch? What was the, what was the moment where you're like, Oh, okay. This is, we're getting towards the end. Was there like something that you could feel playing where you're like, Oh, my burst or, you know, I mean, no, I mean like I, I,

I tell people you can't lose your burst when you never had one. Yeah, that's true. Good point. I've never lost my burst. Yeah, we still have our burst. And that was part of probably what was so frustrating for me is like –

you know, people like, oh, you know, you're getting older. Like you're in your thirties. Now I'm like, I'm the exact same size that I've been my whole career. And my skillset has never been my speed. Right. Um, I'm a big guy. You can throw the ball anywhere, big catch radius. Um, that has nothing to do with running fast. Right. So you can't lose something that you never had. Right. Um, but for me, like,

I knew it was coming to the end where like what we do for previously 16 games now 17 games like it's brutal it's a grind and if you don't enjoy it it's hard to go out and fake it and be like yeah I'll keep doing this like no like I I just kind of lost the fun in it um and and once I I lost the the joy and the enjoyment that I got out of the game that's where I knew it's like

it's time to hang them up. Like you can't get that back once it's gone. That might, that must've made it somewhat easier. I obviously it's not, it's not easy to retire something that you've been doing your whole life, but to have that feeling of like, I feel it. I know it's not the same as it used to be. He's got to make it a little bit easier. No, I'd say the, the decision's not easy, but it makes the transition easier because you know that you're making the right decision based on how you feel. And ultimately when you,

I tell people like when you can walk away from the game on your own, not many guys get that opportunity. Right. Football is often taken from us. And then you're on the outside, you know, looking in, man, like OTAs are starting. I should be on a team and like training camp started. I should be in a camp somewhere. And then it's like, you see preseason games on TV and regular season games. And like last season, the 23 season OTAs training camp, regular season. We went back to Minnesota week three for the retirement deal with my family and

not once was i like damn i should be like i should be yeah that's kind of good and i was just yeah like when i was done i was done um it's funny i actually got a phone call because like early in free agency there was still uh a few teams that were like hey you know what do you think you still want to come out um actually the raiders reached out in like august so it was like five or six days into training camp uh my agent called me and he's like hey are you sure you're done and i'm like

I'm at brunch in New York City, and it's like 9 a.m., and I'm already drunk. Yeah. Like, it's August 1st. Like, I'm done. Yeah, I'm done. I'm done. Probably a good call not going to that team last. That would have been a chaotic environment for you. Yeah. And that's – honestly, you know, one of the other ones was Cincinnati. I'm from Cincinnati. Obviously, they have one of the best quarterbacks. We talked about Joe Burrow and just, like, his elite ability. You know, he took a franchise that I saw just be –

for decades to a Super Bowl, which I never would have thought would have happened. And we started talking to them. And I like the idea of ending my career back home, going and basically playing there for Peanuts, having my family be able to come to all my games and watch games, and then being on a team with a legit quarterback and a good roster.

The year before going to Tampa, like waiting as long as I did, ultimately believing that I'm picking the best situation possible. And then,

having like for me personally and as a team like we completely underachieved as a team we were eight and nine we won our division but it was because it was the nfc south it was the worst division in football lost in the first round of the playoffs and for me it was just like not enjoyable of a year at all and i thought i was picking like the most favorable situation possible so that was kind of playing in my mind as free agency was starting at that point where

I think this is the best situation possible, but how do you really know? And sure enough, I would have been playing with Jake Browning. Yeah. We like Jake Browning. He was with me in Minnesota. Yeah, it would have changed. I wasn't going to be with Joe Burrow. You're doing one thing, and it's completely different. I also feel like if you go to Cincinnati to end your career, there's probably a good likelihood that you just stay there, right? And then you've got to eat all the chili. Oh, have you seen the chili ice cream?

I haven't seen the Chili Ice. They got Skyline Chili Ice Graters. Oh, Graters. Yeah, yeah. It's not the same. So Graters is its own deal. Yeah. But when you get a Cincinnati pack...

Skyline would be in it. Graters would be in it. There's like a pizza sauce, Montgomery Inn. No, no, no. Graters just made a Skyline chili flavored ice cream. Yeah. It's gross. I don't know how I feel about that. I'm going to try it. I have to. Kyle did What's for Lunch with Donnie and he made Skyline chili. He made chili. Was it good? Unbelievable. So Donnie came in yesterday. He was like, PFT, Kyle wants Skyline chili for lunch. What's in it? I was like, dude, just cinnamon. Yeah. It's crazy. Like cinnamon, chocolate. Because...

when we were planning the trip this week, they asked me kind of what I wanted to do. And we were in Minnesota for 12 years. There's some Minnesota type things like the juicy Lucy burgers, the hot dishes, all that stuff's great. And I'm like, you know, I born and raised in Cincinnati. Like I love my skyline chili. Um,

all send because like you can get like the packs of like how many people we serve in four eight thirty like i'll just give me the number of people and i'll have them send it all up and we can just rock out with it like no no donnie wants to make it from scratch yeah and i was like

Okay. Yeah. This is going to be – and sure enough, just walking across the basketball court into the kitchen, I could smell it. Yeah. And it smelled like Skyline Chili. It tasted phenomenal. So it was pretty cool for me to get to do What's for Lunch with Donnie and have –

A kid who grew up in Minnesota and watched me play for the Vikings. I know, yeah. He's a big Vikings fan, yeah. I don't think when we interviewed you, it was before the Minneapolis Miracle, right? Yeah, correct. So, yeah, one of the best plays, most iconic plays, probably in NFL history, and you were there for it. What was going through your head when that happened? It's funny because everybody remembers Diggs' touchdown and the miracle to win the game and the walk-off touchdown that it was.

But people don't really know kind of the whole flow of the game. You know, we were up like 16, I think it was 16 to nothing at halftime, like nothing could go wrong. They would come out at the start of the second half. Obviously they have Drew Brees, Sean Payton, like they were, the Saints had a run where they were really good for a long time.

And you never really felt like the game was over. But for us, it was like interception, blocked punt, like everything that we could possibly do wrong to let them back in the game, we did. And then sure enough, the last couple minutes of the game,

It was like back and forth, back and forth. They score. I think there was like 26 seconds left, but we're only down one. All we needed to do was get in field goal range to ultimately have a chance at kicking a game winning field goal indoors in a, in a dome. We weren't kicking this one at TCF bank stadium with it being negative 20 degrees. This one was going to be inside.

So, you know, we had 26 seconds. I don't think we had any timeouts. And it was like, oh, really, all we need is like two chunk plays. And if we can get like a big chunk and get out of bounds, now we're really good shape. And we had the play that we called repeatedly, like back to back, ultimately the one that Diggs scored on. And, you know, it's kind of myself, Jarius Wright and Diggs on one side of the formation. I go to the flat.

Jarius would go like a 12-yard out, and then Diggs would take the high corner. And ultimately, it's like we want to put three guys where you only have two defenders. There's only a corner and a safety over there, and you've got to pick which of the two you want to cover. So we called it on – I think it was second down –

And I like run out to the flat and turn and look back thinking the ball is going to come to me because there's no one around. Like they guarded Jarius and they guarded digs, like the 12 yard guy and the deep guy. And I'm like, this is perfect. Case can throw me the ball. I'll get like 10, 12 yards and get out of bounds. Now we're 10 yards closer to that field goal.

And, you know, I run to the flat thinking the ball is coming, look over my shoulder, and he chucks it to Jarius Wright, who was probably like 15 yards downfield, over his head, out of bounds. I'm like, shit, like now what are we going to do? Like, you know, that would have been 10, 15 yards. We just wasted, you know, however many, five, six seconds. So we come back, we call the exact same play. And the next time the corner jumped me in the flat.

And it was like, so we were in the bunch. I run to the flat. The corner covered me right away. And immediately I'm like,

What the fuck are you doing? Well, you're not supposed to be here. No, like you, we have no timeouts. We need like 35 yards to get into field goal range. If he throws me the ball, we're doing you a favor. Yeah. I'm not going to be able to get 35 yards and get out of bounds. Like why? And why would you cover me? Because he didn't win the last play and he was like, fuck, I should have gone to Kyle. Yeah. But ultimately that left Jarius and Diggs two on one with whoever that safety was.

He chucked it to Diggs. We all saw the play where he catches it, keeps his balance, safety. Johnson, I think he's in Baltimore now. Yeah. And we all were yelling, like, you got to get out of bounds. Yeah. And to me, I think about that. If that was me in that situation –

I probably would have caught the ball and ran out of bounds immediately. And then it would have been up to a kicker to win the game, which obviously we saw how that went for us once in the past. This is a couple times in Vikings history. I caught a ball. So in that Seahawks game, I caught a ball in that two-minute drill and got to the nine-yard line. And so I went out of bounds at the nine-yard line thinking this game's over. So for me, it's like I would have caught that ball and probably went right out of bounds because that's what you're supposed to do.

And for Diggs to have the wherewithal to keep his balance and then just run and score, it was amazing. It was incredible. Tough question, but do you think the way that game ended had anything to do with how you guys came out against the Eagles the next week? Or were the Eagles just that good? I mean, they were obviously on the Super Bowl run. I think it was a combination of that, but then also I remember –

Like that Eagles game, we went right down the field the first drive and scored. Yeah. I caught a touchdown. It was 7-0. They went maybe 3-0, but they didn't have the ball long on offense. We got the ball back. A couple first downs, getting ready to cross midfield. And I remember thinking to myself, man, these Philly fans, if we can score and go up 14-0, they might boo Nick Foles out of here. And we'll get him to turn and have the advantage being on the road.

And it was like the next third down, we threw a pick six. And it was all over. It was over. Yeah. They were cranking Meek Mill and it was like someone hit a bee's nest with a stick. I mean, just the place was going bananas. So everyone sees that score. I was like 38 to 7 or something. I don't even remember what the final was. But so they...

Made it 7-7. Then it was 14-7. We had the ball on like the 10 or 12 yard line, getting ready to score with a minute or two left before half. And again, I run a corner out. I look over my shoulder thinking the ball is going to be in the air. The game's tied 14-14.

And all of a sudden, I come out of my break, look over my shoulder. There's no ball. So then ultimately, I look down to the quarterback. Well, the ball was on the ground. So Case had got strip sacked. So instead of the game being tied 14-14, they have a sack fumble. They go down and score 21-7. They get the ball to start the second half 28-7. The next time we touched the ball, it was 28-7 instead of 14-14. Yeah. And it's over. So it wasn't how you came out. No. It wasn't how we came out. And then for them, honestly, like –

They were hitting everything. Like Foles hit a flea flicker to Torrey Smith. Like he literally caught it like 50 yards downfield, almost out of bounds. Yeah. He hit Alshon Jeffrey on a bomb. Like they were just dialing it up. Did it fuck you up though? A little knowing you're going to this NFC championship game in the Superbowls at home. Well, it had never happened. I know. And then it happened with the bucks. Yeah. Bucks in Rams. It was like two out of the next three years. It happened right away after we were so close. Um,

It fucked me up more coming back after we lost and then, like, having Philly and New England come to me. Like, that sucked. Yeah. I remember landing. That was...

I was fortunate to be in the Pro Bowl that year. So after coming back from the NFC Championship loss, we went to Orlando for the week. And it gave us a break being in Orlando for the week. You didn't really think about it. But we landed back from Orlando that Monday. The big Super Bowl sign. And it was like the whole airport was decked out in Super Bowl gear. Like the Patriots plane had landed while we were in the terminal. And you see it. And that's where I was like, I've got to get out of here.

And it was also – I remember that Super Bowl week so well because I have a bunch of friends from Minnesota, and I went out to dinner with them I think that Friday night, and they were like, thank God we had decent weather this week. It was like 20 degrees all week. Right. But they were right. That was actually incredible weather for the middle of February. I think it was up until Thursday or maybe even Friday morning that week. It was. It was in the 20s, which is a heat wave. The weekend though, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it was –

Brutally cold. I remember that Friday. It was like negative eight walking out to the car, and I was like, what the fuck? Yeah, but they were like, yeah, no, it's been incredible. It's been beautiful. The sun's out. It's 20 degrees. We're worried about this weather, and it's been awesome weather. Do you have any expectations put on you if it's your hometown that's hosting the Super Bowl? Do those players on teams, like are you doing any events that week or anything? Yeah, I mean, for us, I felt like it was –

kind of unique because it wasn't like we had four weeks to plan it having not made the playoffs. We were fully anticipating... For me, it's like, I'm coming back to Minnesota. I'm going to have my wife worry about the tickets. You handle all that stuff. I got to focus on a game. Instead, we lost, went to Orlando, came home. And then basically at that point, it was like, how much money can I make this week being that it's in our hometown? Make as much money as possible with all the appearances and whatnot. And then...

For us, we got the hell out of there on... I think it was like Friday or Saturday. You didn't come to the worst barstool party ever, did you? I was there. Oh, that was so bad. That was pretty bad, yeah. I just remember no one could get in. Morehouse was at the venue. Yeah, no one could get in. No, you might be thinking of the live radio setup that we had. Oh, yeah. On that Friday, we had this big indoor... Yeah, it was like in the... There was like...

It was like an atrium. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were there. Yeah, I just remember SVP called me. He's like, I'm standing in line in like 10 degree weather. Exactly. And you're standing on your freezer. Yeah, and Greg Olson, I think, got a table and it was just taken. And that was an embarrassment. And Glenny Balls had to get called outside to bring some famous musician. And I'm trying to remember who it was. It was like Flo Rida or something.

We did. Our Super Bowl party history is like we just crushed it in Houston the first year. We should never have done it again. That was the best party ever. And every single one after that was downhill. Was that Ja Rule and Ashanti? It was, yeah. Yeah. And it was like everyone came and everyone was like, that's the best party of the week. We should have just...

Walked off right there. Miami, the torrential downpour. Oh, yeah. You read that one? Absolutely. Rough and rowdy. Got washed out. Yeah. Like the apocalypse. The bridge was like on fire. Scooter McGavin just sitting in like three feet of rain. Yeah. That picture. Yeah. I'm at our party. I was actually just looking at a list here of quarterbacks that you've caught touchdown passes from because I looked it up. I was like, well, Tom Brady's obviously one from him. Can you name every quarterback that you've caught a touchdown from? Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Ponder, Matt Castle, Joe Webb. Joe Webb. I believed in Joe Webb. I was in Washington on Christmas Eve. I lost a lot of money thinking Joe Webb was going to go into Green Bay in the playoff game, I believe. I was like, Joe Webb is the answer. Michael Vick did it. Joe Webb. 2011 was when I caught the touchdown from Joe Webb on Christmas Eve, second to last. That was the game. We beat Washington in Washington.

So we didn't get Andrew Luck. We would have had the number one overall pick if we had lost to Washington and we lost to Chicago the next week. So Joe Webb kept us from having Andrew Luck. Joe Webb. But...

Ultimately, yeah. So that Joe Webb, the next year, Christian got hurt week 17. We beat Green Bay at home to then play them in the wildcard round in Green Bay. And the whole week we like because media is only at practice during the individual period. And like Christian pretended like he was practicing, even though he couldn't even throw a football. And it was like we tried to keep it a secret that Joe was going to be the starter. But then ultimately we didn't change anything.

Like we didn't change the offense to shoot Joe Webb. I thought you were going to go a full Joe Webb on him. The next week, Green Bay goes to San Fran and Colin Kaepernick runs all over. And it's like we had that guy the week before. We could have just let Joe run all over the place. I haven't thought of Joe Webb in forever. I was a big believer in Joe Webb. A very frustrating playoff game to watch. I was like, do something. I know you can do this. You're Joe Webb. So cold.

Um, love Joe to death from Birmingham, Alabama. Uh, you know, like as Joe's lips are frozen in green Bay, like with his, his,

thick like Birmingham accent trying to hear him enunciate the plays that was a challenge in itself yeah then it would have been let's see you who'd you say so far you said Christian Ponder Tom Brady Joe Webb yeah I'm gonna go chronological order that'll probably be my best chance so it'll be Christian Joe Matt Castle Teddy Bridgewater Sam Bradford Case Keenum Kirk Cousins

Daniel Jones and then Tom Brady. There's one. One more. Who would it have been? Matt Castle. Oh, you said Matt Castle. Yeah, you got them all. Because then there's – I mean, I've also had games that I've started with quarterbacks as well that I didn't catch touchdowns from too. So you've got Donovan McNabb, Marcus Freeman –

uh, Sean Hill. A lot of people thought that Marcus Freeman was the best quarterback coming out of college. Yeah. Or no, that's Josh Freeman. Josh Freeman. That's what I meant. Josh Freeman. Marcus Freeman's a head coach. The Donovan McNabb Vikings era was tough. Donovan, five games. Yeah. I went to, I went to a Monday night game. That was the last. Yeah. Bears, Vikings. And he was, I just remember sitting there and like chuckling to myself because every pass was just like five yards in front of everyone. Yeah. So that was, that was Donovan. Christian started the next week. Um,

The Josh Freeman – I can't believe I said Marcus Freeman. What a fucking idiot. The coach at Notre Dame. That's okay. Josh Freeman, we played –

in London against the Steelers we were 0-3 Christian was the starter for the first three weeks he got smoked in like a Browns game remember I think it's Phil Taylor was like the big defensive tackle from the Browns yeah massive dude like he hit Christian I think he broke like two or three of his ribs so Christian was out when we went to London Matt Castle started we beat the Steelers in London in like

We were talking about it over there on Yak. Like we stayed the night in London and then flew home the next morning. We were one in three, but we were going into the bye week with a win. We had a huge good time in London. Flew back. Matt started the next week against Carolina. That was the year that Carolina won like 15 in a row or something. So they beat us. And it was like ultimately Josh, we had traded for Josh Freeman over the bye week. He had been there for like five practices. We started him on Monday night in New York. Yeah.

And it was like one of the historically worst performances by a quarterback ever. And I felt so bad for him. He had been there for five days and we were like, yeah, let's throw him out there on Monday night football against the giants. Um,

So that was bad. But then they ran that back with Josh Dobbs, right? This might be a dumb question. This is probably just like my memory and just all the years of football. Was Josh Freeman a big snake guy? Yeah. He was. He had him like all over his place apparently. He was a big snake guy. He wasn't really. Yeah. Yeah. Like...

I don't know why. That's a fact I wish I didn't have in my brain. I could remember what I'm doing later today, but I'm like, no, I actually just have Josh Freeman was a snake guy. Yeah, and I never went to a spot, but I heard that you just kind of had them everywhere. They weren't in glass boxes.

Yeah, they're just living with it. Free range. Yeah. Free range snake guy. Yeah, I mean, coming out of college, the big argument was who do you want, Cam Newton or Josh Freeman? And I feel like Cam Newton might have won that debate. Yeah, I would say so. I'd say he probably won that one. Yeah, I mean, but Josh, I mean, he could throw it 100 yards. I mean, he had an absolute cannon. Who's the hardest –

what's the hardest you've ever been hit by any player? Uh, Lance Briggs, Chicago. He had a lot of, he had a lot of muscle behind him. He, it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We were playing in Chicago noon kickoff. Um, I was running like a crossing route. I didn't get the ball and he came down and just like smoked me. Uh, probably would be a penalty today. Yeah. Um,

Do you get mad about that? I was like sitting on the ground and it was kind of like one of those things I was collecting. My thoughts, um, didn't really hit me right away. Uh, I was like, okay, like he hit me pretty good. Go back to the huddle. The next play was fourth and goal. Uh, we ended up turning it over on downs, went to the sideline, uh,

I think the Bears went three and out. They punted it back to us. And then like we went three and out on the next drive when we got the ball back. And it was autopilot. Like I was out there. I was in the huddle. I was where I was supposed to be. I ran the route that I was supposed to run. I blocked like no clue. No recollection. Come to the sideline. And like one of the practice squad tight ends like tossed me like a beanie. And I'm like, bro, what's this for? He's like, it's your hat.

Holy shit. What do I need a hat for? And they were like, uh, Suge, like our head trainer, like, Suge, you need to talk to Rudy. He's a little out there right now. And so sure enough, they like came over and like, you know, do you know who are playing? You didn't have an answer? No. Oh, wow. They were like, do you know what month it is? And I was like, October. I was sure as shit. It was October. I said the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Yeah. I said October like that.

Nailed it. Nailed it, yeah. And I'm like, let me get back in the game. So they took me to the locker room. I failed my iPad test miserably. Our head doctor was like, you know, do you have anybody at home that can look out after you tonight? You know, just make sure you're all right. I'm like, yeah, I live with Harrison Smith. Like, he's on the fucking table over there knocking themselves out in the first quarter. No.

And they're like, well, do both of you have someone that can take care of you? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. My not wife, Jordan. It's like, she'll take care of us. So, yeah. She took care of both of you? Yeah, both of us. And it was funny because they like told her, they're like, you know, tried to, you know, typical...

Don't watch TV. Make sure you wake him up throughout the course of the night. And we got back and we're like watching Sunday night football in a dark room. Exactly what you're not supposed to do. Don't you dare wake us up. If we're sleeping, don't wake us up. But yeah, so that was the hardest I ever got hit. And it was funny because after I said that and I walked back towards my locker...

It like immediately came back. Like something triggered my mind that Notre Dame, I think there was like a, I saw, cause we had Everson Griffin and Matt Khalil, uh, Castle may have been on the team at that. We had like a bunch of USC guys on the team. And like, I don't know if I put like a Notre Dame something in one of their lockers or it triggered my memory like right away. And I like turned and ran back and I'm like,

It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Notre Dame just beat USC last night. Like, I'm good. And they're like, hit the showers. Like, you're not going back out there. So the iPad test that they give you, what was on the iPad? Yeah, it's like a lot of like memory thing and like numbers. So like, hey, here's five numbers in order. Like, repeat them back. Or, you know, here's six words. Like, we want you to remember them. And then we're going to ask you other questions. And we're going to come back and say like, hey, read me the six words. Yeah.

If you don't know what month it is or who you're playing, I don't even know why they gave me the iPad test. Right. Clearly, I failed. Well, you were confident with October. Maybe they're like, oh, he's got it. Yeah, they just want to have you believe in it. Yeah. I love the idea of them sending you and Harrison Smith home together and just like, okay, look after each other. Yeah, take care of one another. You guys got this. So what was that like living with a teammate? Was that always fun? It was cool. So Harry and I, obviously, we went to Notre Dame together.

He was a year ahead of me at Notre Dame. So he was there for five. I left after three. So he got to Notre Dame in 07. I got to Minnesota in 11. And then he got there in 12. So I had already been there for a year. We drafted him in the first round. And like he was trying to figure out kind of where to live.

And I'm like, dude, just live with me. Like, let's live together. And it was awesome. Like, we had a blast. It was, you know, to be able to live with, like, one of your college buddies as you're both still trying to, like, figure out the whole NFL thing. For me, it was year two. It was a good year for us both, too. Like, we went to the playoffs. You know, Harry kind of...

I don't think a lot of people expected him to be as good of a professional as he was right away. He came out, I think he had three touchdowns as a rookie, like pick sixes, just balled out from the beginning. Yeah. All right, so I got a couple last questions. It's been awesome catching up with you. Do you still talk to Charlie Weiss? I do, actually. Because I think you were the one who told us about the birds. Sol Fuego. Yeah, Sol Fuego. I think you were the one who...

Were you not? No. Who told us about the birds? We might have invented the bird, but then we talked to Charlie Weiss. He's like, yeah, I got a bird. I got a parrot. He's got two birds that he lives in his house and they like attack people when they walk in. Asshole parrot named Sol Fuego. Sol Fuego. No. So every time I would spend time, he always had like,

Golden Retriever, like dogs. Don't remember the birds. But yeah, I still talk to Charlie probably weekly. I was just texting with him the other day. I saw him. He came over. Obviously, he lives on the Atlantic side of South Florida, so he drove over to Tampa a couple weeks ago. We got together. But for me, like 18 years old...

you go to college and your head coach is so much more than a head coach for you at that point in your life. Like he, for me, he really became like a father figure and, uh, someone that I'm still super close with to, to this day. And, um, Charlie's awesome, man. He's lost like,

150 pounds. Holy shit. Yeah, he looks great. Like when I saw him a couple weeks ago, he's moving around as good as I've ever seen him move around. Charlie Jr.'s got a couple kids now and it's just like... He's at Ole Miss, right? Yeah, he's the offensive coordinator at Ole Miss and I think that really kind of just you know,

opened his eyes to you know like i need to get it together like you know charlie the grandkids like i want to be here for them and it's been awesome you know we uh one of my college roommates mike golic jr his family has a charity event back in south bend every summer do a cool golf tournament and stuff and charlie was back this year we had like 10 or 12 of the guys from my class it was just awesome to see him awesome to spend time with him and see him doing so well that's awesome you ever hang out with golic's pugs yeah yeah so the dogs are always around um

They're just the best family. I mean, like all the kids, Mr. Golick, Mrs. Golick, they really took all of us in. They were kind of like our parents when we were in school. They're good people. Yeah. No, we love the Golicks. We always love the Golicks. All right, so my last question, rowback question, rhoback.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts.

Roback.com promo code TAKE. So you came to the office today. It was awesome. We did the pro football show, which will be out Friday night. You're doing a bunch. You did the gauntlet. You're not plugging anything, but we got to plug the fact that you are still doing an awesome foundation. So we got to talk about it. That's what you're doing. For me...

Coming out of the pandemic, Jason Zucker, who played for the Minnesota Wild, he's on the Buffalo Sabres currently. We did a ton of stuff together in the Twin Cities around Masonic Children's Hospital. And, you know, we had all the traditional events. We had the Barstool golf guys out to our golf tournament. I remember that, yeah. We had Dave and Riggs, Trent, Frankie. Like, when Frankie was Dave's camera guy, like, I'd give him a hard time because it's like way before any of you guys were famous, you were celebrities in my golf tournament. Yeah.

And like now they're huge. They were not famous at the time. They were celebrities in our golf tournament. But we always had those traditional events, like the fancy events, the golf tournaments. Hell, we even created like a Beer Olympics on Lake Minnetonka, which is a touchy subject given the history of the Vikings in Lake Minnetonka. Fred Smith. Oh, and the history of the Beer Olympics. Yes. For us. So we called it...

the Lake bash. Uh, that was our like politically correct way of saying we're going to raise money for a children's hospital, but we're going to play flip cup and quarters and beer pong and all this fun stuff. So it's like, we tried to find as many creative ways as we possibly could to raise money for the children's hospital there. And the children's hospital is amazing. Like the, the nurses, the doctors, the staff, everybody, they're incredible. Uh, I've loved serving them as much as we can over the course of my time there. Um,

And, you know, for me, it was really coming out of the pandemic where we didn't have any events. Like you couldn't have all the traditional charity events that you always had. And sitting down with Jason and some of our other supporters from the Children's Hospital who have become co-founders in Altru, the company that we started to ultimately raise money for nonprofits. Yeah.

was we wanted to come up with a way in which, like you think about sports, particularly sports. Obviously now we're in music. We have, it's wild with right now on our website,

On Altru.com. I want to challenge the stoolies because the Swifties went crazy this week. I'm going to the Taylor Swift concert next Friday in New Orleans. Okay. Thanks to the Mario Davis. He had a suite there. You know, he hooked us up with some tickets. My daughters probably won't see the show. So I can say this. I'm taking my eight year old twin daughter. So my wife and I are taking our twin daughters over like they're super jacked about it.

But we had two extra tickets and we put them on our platform to raise money for the hurricane relief, which we've lived through both of them. And like seeing the Tampa Bay area and the destruction from Helene, which a lot of people don't realize because the storm hit so much further north. And you hear about Carolinas and Tennessee and Georgia and,

they don't realize how bad the Tampa area flooded from Helene. And then obviously from Milton, you know, that was a direct path right through there. And it was like, everybody pretty much already had their lives out at the curb because it was flooded. And then this, you know, storm rolls through with high winds. It's just, it's been pretty catastrophic for just that Bay area. And I was like,

Look, we did so much for Minnesota when we were in Minnesota and I get it. I was here for like a cup of coffee. I played like five games for the Bucks. I think I was in sweats a majority of that season. But I'm like, this is home now. We want to do something to support this community. And we have these tickets that people are just dying to get. They're in a suite at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. So we threw those up. And I mean, it was like $25,000 of charity right away. And like...

She's not even associated with it. Yeah. They're not even promoting it. This is just people seeing it on the site and like, A, we want to support the hurricane relief and B, like the Swifties came out and supported big time. So I need the stoolies to dominate the Swifties here on the back. And we got through the weekend. And then basically the way our platform works is we...

Most of the time we partner with celebrities. So, you know, whether it be... We actually did something with the foreplay guys. So the foreplay guys sent a winner and a guest to the Ryder Cup when it was in Paris. And the way we do it is like we want to create those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that most of the time are out of reach for diehard sports fans. Your diehard sports fans not spending...

10,000 bucks in a live auction to buy that trip. It's priced out of a majority of our fans who spend their hard-earned money on the game they can go to or the season tickets or whatever they can do to support their team. With us, you can support your favorite player, your favorite musician, your favorite actor for as little as $10. And it's like we do...

donations directly to their nonprofit from $10 to $500. And then you have chances to win these ones. Yeah. So it's a, it's a sweepstakes model in which, you know, for us, we have four co-founders who are to our core, you know, philanthropists and it's about raising as much money as we possibly can for, uh,

these other individuals, charities, and providing a platform for them. We don't go to anything, but let's do something with us. Let's do an auction where someone can watch NFL football with us on a Sunday. Come to the gambling cave. I would love that. Let's do it with you guys. We'll give fans the opportunity to join. That would be awesome. You pick the charity, so you get to pick the nonprofit.

And we'll get it up and going and get the stools to have an opportunity to hang out with you guys. That'd be awesome. We'd be happy to do that. And then when the next Ryder Cup comes around, me and Big Cat were just talking about this, they're pricing out all the real golf fans here in America. So if you want to go up to Bethpage and watch the Ryder Cup, was it $750 a ticket? Yeah.

Crazy. I saw that sheet that came out with the ticket prices. Maybe we can do something like that and send a diehard golf fan that's not able to afford it. It's crazy because in three years, we've raised, I think, over $6 million for charity. We've worked with over 165 different nonprofits. And to me, that's one of the cool parts. What we were able to do in Minneapolis with the Children's Hospital was amazing. And again, to serve those doctors, patients, families, nurses...

It's great for that community. And like the legacy that we were able to leave as a family in that small community is cool. That's awesome. But now what Altru allows us to do is impact organizations all across the country. And even like we worked with Sidney Crosby last year and we're getting ready to launch again with Sid, his foundations in Canada, it's like a youth camp in Canada that we fund for him through an experience to go to a Penguins game and like meet Sid and get assigned stick.

And, you know, to your point, like the diehard sports fans are often priced out of these once in a lifetime experiences. And of the call it 170 winners that we've had over the last three years, it's almost interesting how good like fate is. And we were just two weeks ago, I was in L.A. for Arnold Schwarzenegger had a poker tournament at his house to benefit after school all stars as his nonprofit. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be a part of that.

and we call them rallies because it's a sweepstakes, but ultimately we're trying to get fans to rally behind these causes and these celebrities. And so we did a rally with Arnold where the winner got to go to Arnold's house and play in the poker tournament and go to the event. And it's like,

to buy a seat at that event, it was like 50 grand to have a spot at the poker event. And this woman who's a diehard Arnold fan with like an Arnold tattoo on her thigh won the opportunity to meet him at their house. And so to me, like, yes, we're raising money for all these great nonprofits. And like, that's a win in itself because what I've tried to create is almost like a completely different pool of charitable dollars.

these little like 10, 25, $50 donations wouldn't be going to charity if you didn't have a reason to give them. Right. It would just be all of the events and the high net worth donations and the corporate sponsors. Like all of that money that's always been going to charity will continue to go. How do we take that? Call it,

billion dollar market and raise more money and add to it. Um, but then the flip side is the winners. Yeah. And when you, when you tell these people that they won and they can't believe it, uh, we, with the Minnesota Vikings foundation over the summer, we gave away a brand new Ford F one 50. So hell yes. Northland Ford dealers in Minnesota ponied up a brand new F one 50. They donated to the charity. Vikings fans got to donate for a chance to win a new truck.

And sure enough, the winner was like a local St. Paul guy had a Viking season ticket holder for 25 years. We get his address, Victor, literally the mascot and I roll up to his house, knock on the door and like,

This dude had a rusted out F-150 in his driveway. Oh, that's perfect. And it was like so cool. I mean, he just starts crying right away. He was like, I don't ever buy myself a new truck because I got my wife a new car. And he's like, I've been a season ticket holder for 25 years. I love the Vikings. I'm like, let's go pick out your truck.

So the winner side is almost as cool as raising the money. That's amazing. I do have to follow up since you alluded to the love boat, Fred Smoot and the love cruise that you guys had. This is before your time. It was. You weren't there. I think that was 2006. I was still in high school. But trust me, I lived on Lake Minnetonka. And the first time we went out on Lake Minnetonka...

it was brought to our attention immediately. This is what happened. Don't do it. So what stories were still in the building? Were there guys still from that team? Yeah, I think the funniest story, and it really wasn't even –

from two stories. I'll tell two stories. First of which was a result of love boat and or love cruise, whatever they called it. And it was Chad Greenway. Who's like a dear friend of mine, like was a mentor. As soon as I got drafted to the Vikings took me under his wing.

He was their first round draft pick that next year. And he's like, they 100% drafted me because I was like a clean cut white guy from Iowa. And it was like, we got to clean up our image. Like we can't be having like this love boat. So he swears that's why he got drafted by the Vikings. So that was a funny story from it. And the other was like the team meeting that followed, you know, so it happens like it hits the news, right?

Uh, everybody gets called into the facility. The will family had just bought the team. Like they just bought the team at Oh six. And so Mark and Ziggy are there and they're talking to the team. And, um, Mark doesn't have much of an accent. Like Mark speaks, um, you know, they're from New Jersey, but you wouldn't know that Mark is foreign. So Ziggy, on the other hand, like still has a very thick accent. And the guy said that, uh,

You know, Ziggy was just like – you could tell he was so disappointed in everybody on the team. And he's kind of going through it and he's like, you know, I just – and everybody in their mind is thinking like, what's he going to say? Like, what's he going to say that he's most disappointed about? Like, was it the hookers on the boat or the drugs that were all over the place or like whatnot? And he goes, I just –

I can't understand how you would pee in someone's yard. It was like when the guys got all got off the boat, that's what got them busted. Someone was peeing in someone's backyard. And that's like the police report was that someone was peeing in someone's backyard. And it wasn't that there was a million hookers getting off the boat and drugs everywhere. And they like, again, talking to Jim Klein saucer, who was a tight end when I got there as a rookie going into his 13th year, uh,

Jim would tell that story and he's just like, I was dying. He's like, you're thinking of what's the worst thing he could possibly say that this poor guy who just bought the team heard that one of our morons was doing on this boat. Yeah. I just can't believe you guys were peeing in someone's yard. That was like the most disappointing. I would have been sick if he was like, I just can't believe you guys didn't invite me. I just bought the team. Yeah. We just spent all this money and you guys didn't give us an invite. Yeah.

Well, Kyle, thanks so much, man, for coming by. Always great to see you. We will set it up, so we'll let everyone know when we get it set up, and we'll do something fun for the Stoolies. Always great having you on, man. I appreciate you guys. I can't believe it had been since 2016. I see you guys all the time.

Big cat. We hang out at, at Baja. We went to the Bahamas, but yeah, I hadn't, hadn't gotten on the show in a while. Just randomly checking into the hotel and for our one vacation a year after super bowl, me and my wife. And it was just Kyle standing there with his wife. It's like, all right, let's go to dinner. Yeah. We both did the exact same thing. It was like the season ended and we left the kids at home and went to the Bahamas to have our trip. But yeah, no, I appreciate you guys. It's been awesome to be back.

I tried to dust out my old big country t-shirt. Oh, yeah. I still have that somewhere. Yeah. One of the best t-shirts. A, it was like the soft cotton type t-shirt, but then just...

The fact that there's not a, aside from enjoying country music, like there's not a country bone in my body. We just put a nickname on you. It didn't work. Big white guy with tattoos. And it went like still to this day. I have people like, yo, big country. What's up, man? I am from a country. And then like,

Country is in my family. My mom grew up on a dairy farm. It's in there, but I'm not. Yeah, you're not. I was soft, grew up in Cincinnati. Who's next up? Maybe you can pass the nickname down. Maybe there's always one tight end in the NFL that's big country. Yeah, well, we could go through it. I mean...

I Cole who's here earlier yeah Cole could be a great big country and he's just like I grew up in in the suburbs like the rich area of Chicago he's probably never spent a day in his life on a farm big country uh could be a good country you want to get you want to pass it down to Cole we'll we'll convene after this I think we got to go through a more formal vetting process okay we're gonna watch football tonight we'll we'll figure it out yeah we'll definitely pass it on to someone that doesn't deserve it much like I did all right thanks so much appreciate it guys

Kyle Rudolph was brought to you by the PFL, Professional Fighters League. The MMA event of the year, the Battle of the Giants, is coming up fast. Lineal heavyweight world champion Francis Ngannou makes his return to the cage versus Hinen Ferreira.

World's MMA GOAT Chris Cyborg takes on 2023 PFL champ Larissa Pacheco. Johnny Eblen goes toe-to-toe with Fabian Edwards with a Bellator middleweight title on the line. The Battle of the Giants, Neganu vs. Ferreira goes down Saturday, October 19th, 4 p.m. Eastern. That's 4 p.m. Eastern on ESPN Plus Pay-Per-View.

And you can get involved with an official sports betting partner of the PFL, DraftKings Sportsbook. DraftKings Sportsbook, the crown is yours. Go check it out. And now here he is, Francis Nagano. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY 467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. He is one of the toughest guys in the world. It's Francis Ngannou. He's with us right now via hologram, getting ready for his big fight tonight.

October 19th, it's the Battle of the Giants. Nganou vs. Ferreira goes down October 19th at 4 p.m. Eastern on ESPN Plus, pay-per-view and DAZN pay-per-view. Francis, first of all, thank you for joining us. We are looking at you. It looks like you're in this room with us. I know you said you've never done a hologram before, but it's pretty damn cool from this end. So thank you for doing this.

You're welcome. Thank you. I mean, as I said, I feel a little uncomfortable. A little uncomfortable. Like the hologram stuff. I've never done that. I mean, at least not as an interview. I've done a hologram, but not for an interview. Yeah, well, it does look cool on our end. It's going to come out cool for our fans. So let's talk about the fight. October 19th, you're getting back in the octagon. You are participating.

putting on the MMA gloves again. What's going through your head now that you've had a couple years off, switched to boxing, now back to this? Do you feel like you had to sharpen your skills and kind of relearn some things, or is it like getting on a bike and just riding it again? It's not like relearning something, but it's like getting on the bike and riding it again. Obviously, after a while, you kind of question if

you're gonna ride it as you used to you know as fast performance and stuff but at the end of the day the skills did that then it just take a couple months to sharpen the skills you know yeah so it's like right riding a bike like um going to the gym the first time you're worried like

Am I even going to remember how this work like did I forget something and then you get in the gym you get on the mat you find yourself in Situation then it just feels like you were there two days ago. Yeah Do you feel like boxing made you a better MMA fighter? I think both are very different sport they are very

completely different because even if you perform your boxing, the training that you do for boxing, the position, the guard and everything is not what's added for MMA. You have to be very careful of your posture after coming from boxing to MMA because if you stand like you're standing in boxing in MMA giving an opportunity to a guy to kick your legs,

uh to take you down and all the stuff is no good at all yeah yeah i could imagine like have you noticed yourself doing that in training where you catch yourself every now and then doing like a boxing stance or acting like you're in boxing so that doesn't happen when you're training and getting ready for this fight no no no it's not like i've been doing boxing for i don't know for 10 years that now i have a body motor metabolism uh for it like

No. I've been doing MMA mostly. So going back into MMA is easier. I mean, what would be complicated would be like to come to do boxing from MMA after being doing MMA for such a long time, you know. But again, I was...

always able to distinguish both of them, make the difference between boxing and MMA. And you said that the punches are harder in MMA, right? In UFC? I mean, technically, yes. I mean, in MMA, remember, it's four-ounce gloves.

with sometimes like with your bendicles, some of your knuckles not open. So sometimes you get caught by that. That's why you will find a lot of injury in MMA. In MMA, knee and elbow are allowed, and I think those are more brutal. Yeah, yeah. This is a dumb question for you.

How awesome does it feel when you connect with a punch and knock someone out? That's got to feel like the coolest feeling in the world where you're like, man, like I could never knock anyone out. I'm a pussy. But for you, like hitting someone perfect, is it just an incredible feeling like adrenaline rush? I think winning is an incredible feeling. Like, you know, like right in the action with the adrenaline and everything when you're fighting, you don't think about like, oh, I knocked.

this guy out like the punches you know you just think about the overall result right which is what matters most because like sometimes during the fight you can really feel like you connect with someone and then he doesn't uh go down right and

And sometimes somebody goes down and you're even wondering why he's down, like if he slipped, because you didn't feel like you truly connect, but yet you clip him in some way. What's the most satisfying way to win? I have my own answer, but I haven't fought very much UFC, so maybe you have a different one than I do. Well, the most satisfying way to win is to have your hand raised. That's the most.

if you are asking about the most is to have your hand raised and then it depends on the play out you know on on how the fight play plays out um i think sometimes you go to a tough battle and then you come back uh you win the fight and then it's more satisfying you know than when you just get in the fight and get a knockout that seems like of course you're fresh you know you're not hurt but

He can be you like a lucky shot. Yeah. I think the best way, at least as a spectator, is a liver shot. When you connect on a body shot and then like two seconds later they collapse to the ground. That's my favorite one to watch.

Oh, okay. That's cool. I also, the UFC, like a guillotine choke, you've done that before. You submitted someone with a guillotine choke. Have you, in training and everything, have you ever tapped? I've never tapped personally. Have you ever tapped? Yes. Oh, wow. I have done. Why? I would never tap. Well, I think, no. Why? Maybe that's why you're not proficient. No. And I think...

I can handle myself. When you have somebody in the gym that will not tap, that's not good for training. He's putting people at risk. He's putting himself at risk and you at risk. Because I think the confusion here is to understand the purpose of training, of why you're there. Sometimes tapping is like, okay, I made a mistake.

You are there to learn, you are not there to prove anything. And I think tapping is not a sign of weakness. It's like noticing that yes, you did some mistake and then at that point, that maybe raises your awareness of what you did.

for not to do it again, you know, to learn from it instead of like being there and playing tough. Yes, maybe you might play tough in the gym and don't have to tap and then you get in the fight and then find yourself passing out.

yeah yeah i mean that's amazing he wouldn't he wouldn't then he wouldn't be productive uh your training wouldn't be productive just because of your ego but if you make your training productive you're trying to understand you are not there to prove to people you know like i always say like training for me is just exercising i don't really consider i'm there to learn like in fact for the most

most time like when I have partners which I think they are not in my level or even if they are at my level I want to put my arm like to get myself in a difficult situation and see how I can overcome that situation you know I like to get someone on my back I want to like to get some get down and get someone on top of me stuff like that you know learn understand like the keys of

getting out of those difficult situation then I learn but if I stand up I'm sure this guy will not take me down right so

so i'd rather just lay down for him make things easy and so he heard me walking maybe because this guy is a jujitsu guy but he's not a wrestler he does he's not strong enough to take me down right so it's for what i want you know i put myself in the position to learn then i find myself in the ground getting some time have to tap because he's a expert in jiu-jitsu in fact that's why i get him there yeah yeah

to help me understand what's going on. Yeah, I mean, actually now I think I will tap because Francis Ngannou, one of the toughest guys in the world, says it's okay to tap. I'm not going to tap because I'm never going to fight Francis Ngannou. That's my one rule. I've always said that my entire life. If I ever meet you, I'm not going to fight you. You can try all you want, but I'm not going to punch you. When you're training for this fight, are you trying to find somebody that mimics the style of your opponent? Do you have somebody that you hand select because you think that it matches up with what your opponent's going to do?

Of course. You always do that. How do you... Always, like, match up. Also, like,

it's not only about your opponent it's also about your strategy like what is the strategy that you want to implement in the fight what's your game plan how do you think you should approach the fight you know and also your your sparring partner could be um picked up into that you know like for example uh you want to strike and then you you better have a good uh training uh sparring partner you want to wrestle you better have a

sparring good wrestler as its sparring partner to get you walk those muscles congestion because otherwise you will get in the fight and in the first action like you feel the congestion in your hands and blood flow and everything you can move in yeah it might be a dumb question but do you ever get scared I was nervous yes

Just as nervous as you don't want to lose. As nervous as when a musician is going through a scene, they are nervous. I would say scared because you kind of tell yourself that at the end of the day, what can possibly happen? The worst is that I get hit in the face. At this point, I'm not...

I'm not into like getting really like considered that I don't want to get hit in the face, but it won't be a drama. It's not exactly like what it is. Uh,

It's not exactly what will kill me, you know, so it's okay. Yeah. So your story is incredible. You obviously, you grew up in Cameroon in poverty. You're working in a quarry, moved to France. Have you, do you have moments where you sit back? You're like, I can't believe my life and how I was able to make it through all this adversity and, and,

and basically given no chance to get to where you are right now to being one of the best fighters in the world. Well, yes, there are moments like that. I mean, I still do. I still, like, when I think from where I came from, when I go where I came from to see where I am today, it's still kind of, like, unbelievable, even though it's believable because you have to believe in order to make it happen.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a great story. It's so cool. Yeah. But, you know, the thing is that I don't really like just sit down and like count it because I think what...

I'm focused about right now is like how far can I go until I stop you know because like where I am today is not where I was yesterday and then my purpose is to be somewhere else tomorrow and the day after and the day after until all this ends so

Yes, of course, I look back for a reference, but I focus forward. Do you have a moment when you were growing up or maybe when you moved to France where you had a moment where you were like, I think I might have a special talent here? Or maybe someone told you it and you realized for the first time. Because I love those stories of incredible athletes having that first light bulb moment where you're like, oh, wow.

I might have something here that's different than everyone else. My light bulbs wasn't my talent. In fact, I didn't know. I didn't go into a combat sport gym, into a boxing gym until I was 22 years old. That's crazy. But yet, in my entire life, I believe in this. I think my light bulb was faith.

you know, determination in order to do what I do. And let's be honest right here. I don't think I'm the most skilled guy. I don't think I'm the most talented guy. In fact, I...

I think talent is very important, but I think talent doesn't make you a champion. Talent doesn't make you, put you in the top of the game. Like there's only one thing, it's your dedication, your determination and your hard work. Because the most talented people, for some reason, they are not always in top of the game. Yeah.

They might maintain play, use talent to get to the middle and start there. But to get on top of the game, you need way more than talent. And which is something that a lot of people, they don't have. And they never get in that position. Talent doesn't get you here. So I was looking, I mean, in fact, I think in some way, I would say,

is a luck not to have too much talent. Yeah, I'm very lucky. That's interesting. I'm a very, very lucky man. Because when you have talent, you rely on that talent, you trust that talent, and then you overlook the most important side of it, which is like the hard work, which is like your motivation, your determination, and all those stuff. You underline them, and then that plays back on you.

Even at school, you will see talented genius. They never do their homework. They don't do stuff. Everything comes to them and they just take it as it's granted.

Even though they might have the first note in the class, they don't study, right? But they get to the point that they need to study, but since they never used to study, it's hard for them. But the guy that was always in the middle, that was always granting, you know, started, he's there already. He has that core, and that's what drives him somewhere more than talent. Yeah, it's a great point. Like, knowing that you're not the most talented person...

can be a huge asset because you know you have to outwork the most talented person that you see that hasn't come to them naturally. What was the point, though, when you were growing up that you realized that you were super, super strong? I mean, in my family, we used to always be strong. We had a reputation of being strong, even like me as a kid.

as far as I can remember, my dad and my uncle, they were talking about them like the strongest guy in the village around and stuff. So I knew I was strong, but was strong

Is it enough to do whatever you want to do that you don't know even where to do it, where to start it? That was the problem. The problem wasn't about strength. Yes, you're strong, but we are talking about a discipline that you have to practice, you have to learn.

And I haven't learned yet, so how come would that be useful to me? So when you're talking about determination and how much you put in, how much work you put in, what does that look like in your world? How often are you training? What is your determination getting you? Determination is not just about like...

the training. It doesn't come about training. Let me tell you something. I believe in this sport and in what I'm doing, in where I am now, 10 years before the first time stepping in the gym.

You know, that faith is also a part of it. I think you need faith first and then you have the determination and then we will talk about hard work and everything. But you need to believe in it at first because you are not determined about something that you don't believe. It's a waste. It's first about like your faith.

to have a consistent faith, stuff like that. Those are more important. - Interesting. - That's what get you into the gym. That's what get you to believe into something, that self-believing, that faith that you have in you.

and your capability of achieving something. That's what get you into that. - Yeah, and I read that, and again, it's an incredible story that you have. When you're growing up, you had to walk six miles to school? - Yes. Every day, yeah, was six miles one way. - Six miles one, so what time would you have to wake up in the morning for that?

I used to wake up around like 5:30, 6:00 when I was living at our house that I was living in because the school was at six miles. So I would count like, we would count like two hours to walk. I mean, I'm saying six miles, I don't know exactly. I would say around that, but...

Yeah, that's that's that's such a long way to go to school. Like when I would wake up in the morning for school, I wouldn't want to even get out of my bed. I'd be like, no, the kitchen's too far away. I want to walk all the way to get breakfast. You're walking six miles. Yeah, but that's that's just human nature. You know, like I'm walking six miles that I think is far. But the other kids are walking.

four miles someone are walking two someone are walking one but even those who walk one thing is far and even if i was one mile away from school i would have think the same thing yeah it's just like human nature but when you don't have an option then you just get settled to what you have yeah yeah can i ask you a a random question uh a video that i saw last year that was uh i mean it's just

it's a hilarious video. The time you accidentally pushed on a pole door and broke and shattered the door. Can you, what did the, what did the shopper, did you see this video? I haven't seen this one. Francis goes up to like, it looks like a seven 11 basically. And,

he was pushing on a pull door and he just shatters the door. Didn't even look like you pushed it hard. What did the, what did the shop owner say? You paid for the door. You're, you're a great guy, but what did the shop owner say when he, when he realized it was you and it wasn't just like, Oh, someone had broken his door, you know, on purpose. Well, I think what's happened is that you didn't follow back on that video. Otherwise you wouldn't find out that he was a, uh,

He was a pram. He was just something that we set up. Oh, that was a prank? Oh, damn. That makes sense. You're contributing to fake news, Francis. All right, that was fake news.

That was a good prank. It wasn't a fake news. Let's just say it was a little action. You know, like a watch movie sometimes. I feel like an idiot now. I'm seeing this video and I thought it was real for a second. It's a well done fake news thing. A lot of people thought that. That was the point. To make it feel real. That was the

You should do that in real life, though. You should do that to a door. Just shatter it and make it reality. Well, if every door that I touch is going to break it, I think I will go broke. Yeah, true. You got to pay for everything. Either that or... But pay for doors. Or people see you coming and they walk out and they open the door for you. You'll never have to walk through another door in your life. No. Or people just set a fake door so you're going to keep paying. One of my favorite

questions to ask fighters. How's camp going? How has this camp been? It's been a good camp? Tough camp? In terms of diet, exercise, everything. How's camp going? It's going well. I mean, tough camp, I think a camp has to be tough. So, yeah. Tough on your body, tough on everything. Tough on your mental because you put yourself in a different condition. Get

in a very hard discipline and stuff and everything. You're always tough, but it's the part of the game. It's a process. How fun is it to get to put the weight back on after a weigh-in? Well, I don't have that much weight to put in. I don't deal with weight loss so much, so at least for that.

I'm happy. Yeah, you're good? You're good? Yeah, I managed to lose the amount of weight during my calm because I might have like what, maybe 5 to 10 pounds, which is not too much. And over a couple weeks of training, you're almost there.

And if at the end you have something, it's like two pounds, which is nothing. Yeah. Do you have a strategy at the weigh-in for how to get inside your opponent's head? Do you try to play mind games? No, I don't have that because it's not my game, but because we play physical games. And what happens if the guy...

is not receptive to your game, if he's strong enough for you not to penetrate into his mind, then he penetrate into yours. Because you think you're into somebody's mind while you're not, then in fact, who is in who's mind? That's a good point. I also think that you just showing up is more than enough, just like you physically standing there is more than enough to penetrate into someone's mind. You don't have to say anything. Yeah, I think that happens sometimes. You know, there is...

You know, like behind our keyboard, sometimes we can type stuff, talk a lot of shit. And then you get into a weigh-in sometimes with somebody, look at him, and you can see in his eye, like, what the fuck do I just put myself into? But you're like, bro, it's late.

Now it's going down. Yeah, yeah. You have to back your word. Yeah. Your word. All right, so I got a couple last questions. Everyone, again, Battle of the Giants, Duganu versus Ferreira goes down Saturday, October 19th at 4 p.m. Eastern on ESPN Plus, pay-per-view and DAZN pay-per-view. Do you want to give us a prediction for the fight? Some prediction? I think the best prediction is me going out with my hand raised. Okay, okay. I like that.

Yeah. I like that. And then you go ahead, PFT. I was going to say, do you have any plans on going back to boxing after this? Yeah, of course. That's what I just said earlier. You're going to go back? I think I have some cup of boxing. All right. So I had one last question. This has been awesome, Francis. We really appreciate it. Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com. I got to ask...

Is that a question? Yeah, well, that was the lead up to the question. I got to ask, I am a huge, huge Jackass fan. What was it like hanging out with those guys and doing a video with them and punching them? Because I love Jackass from 20 years ago. So what was it like being with those guys and around those guys? It was nuts.

Good. Like, for real, like, when I get there, I thought he was a movie star that you're going to pretend and do something and they might use special effect to him. They say, no, you're going to hit for real. I'm like, really? They say yes. So I turn around and I ask my team that, do we have some waiver here that is signed that I'm not going to be sued from hurting somebody from this, you know?

And they said, no, it's good. We always do everything. It's authentic. We don't pretend here. And I'm like, OK. And then, yes, I have to hit this guy in the nuts. And I was so worried. I was so stressed that I couldn't hit.

properly at the first at first and I'm like no bro just no real it's not how you hit like you're gonna start again and the guy is there screaming like I'm like so I'm gonna do it again I'm like yes for real I'm like okay

If we're here, let's do it then. It's incredible. I mean, those guys are the best. When you were on set with them, did they try to prank you at all? No. Okay. That was smart of them. That was a good job, yeah. That was smart of them to leave you alone because they usually try to fuck with everyone who goes on set.

No, like, I mean, I think that was their way to fuck with me because I didn't know it was real. I was going to do it for real. Yeah. Like, I put an 18-ounce glove and they say you're going to hit as hard as you can. I'm like, what happens if it explodes? Yeah. Like...

How come, at which moment a human being started thinking of such a thing? Yeah, it's crazy. I don't think that as a fighter you've trained to a point where you feel comfortable just winding up and hitting a guy in the dick, right? No, no, you don't.

That's never something that you can practice. Definitely not. Definitely not. Well, Francis, thank you so much. We'll be watching October 19th, 4 p.m. Eastern. You know, ESPN plus pay-per-view to zone. Appreciate your time. I know it was a little, the hologram, it's crazy, but it was very cool on our end. You look good. Yeah, you look great. Okay, thank you, guys. Welcome back to another Fire Fest of the Week brought to you by our friends at Morgan & Morgan.

You know what really sucks? Having to wake up early on Sunday morning to watch your team play in England, the time zone. They'll mess you up. You know what else really sucks? Is trying to figure out what a trap is. You know what else really sucks? Some would say those Green Bay Packers uniforms in the middle of the day when it's 72 degrees outside. But you know what doesn't suck? Calling Morgan Morgan. They can help get you what you deserve.

They can help fight to get you full and fair compensation when you're injured. Their fee is free unless they win. You know what else really sucks? Is having a spider infestation that starts to make their way inside when it gets cold outside. Then they just invade your entire apartment and take over your bedroom. Next thing you know, you're sleeping in the shower. You know what doesn't suck?

Okay, let's wrap up. We got Firefest of the week. Henry. Danny. What's up? What's up? Not much. What's up with you? JC. You trying to get me in a bit? Did he do up dog to you? Yeah, he did do up dog. Did you get up dogged? Firefest sounds like you had a good week.

Yeah, not much. He just answered, what's up with you? What's up? Not much. What's up with you? You're looking at it. That's cool. All right. Yeah, there was really a pretty basic week. This is like the lamest firefest of all time. I don't even know if I should say it. Say it. All right. We had an event at the office last night. Did not drink. There was an espresso martini still at Blue Station. I got a regular espresso at like 6 o'clock. Got home. Was tired. Got into bed.

Wide awake. Wired. Stayed up till 3. No big deal. New Stella Blue. We got Bully Beans. Bully Beans. I think I got the Bully Beans because they worked. I was wired. And Butter Cookies back as well. So you stayed up till 3 a.m.? Yeah, I just watched Queen's Gambit. That's a good show. Had you seen it before?

I was like, oh, this was a good show. And I watched it the first time. And then I forgot the whole premise. Well, embarrassing story. This is a fire fest, a retroactive fire fest. Okay. First time I watched that show, I was like, this show is really good. Avoided the internet kind of. And then once it ended, I went to look up Wikipedia. Like, what a crazy story. It's just not true. You thought it was based on true stories? Because surely they wouldn't make a TV show about chess unless it was like a real story. Yeah. 100% fact. But it is a great, great show. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't sleep. Did you sleep in? No, I got up, got up, went to the gym, eight o'clock. Well, Friday, you can get Friday off. No, I'll be here for a little bit. Yeah. How long? Like, why is this? Why is Friday your last day of golf? It's my last, it's my last plan day. Oh, okay.

No, but I don't see. I wouldn't be surprised if it is. I haven't golfed in the last three weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if this is it. Damn. That's how long it takes to break a habit, right? Is it 21 days? Yeah. Can you do a little putting your clubs away for the winter video for us? Yeah. See you again. Yeah. Do that for us. Don't put them all away. You never know.

Yeah, well, it'll be me putting them away in the simulator. It's going to be really nice next week, right? Is it? I think so. I think it is. But the weekdays... That's how fast it took for Hank to retire from golf. No, no, no. It's only... Weekdays you can go? No, I can't. Oh, yeah. Hank, it's going to be 74 Sunday, 75 on Monday, 70 Tuesday. Yeah, you're back. I'm a weekend golfer. You're back. We'll see. Sunday's a weekend. Yeah.

No, it's not. PFT. Are we going to do the weekend debate again? Yeah, it's a weekend in theory, but I'll be here for 14 hours. What about the morning? Go early.

All right. PFT. A couple of fire fests. First is I got the car back. So I guess it's a pre-fire. Hell yes. It's a pre-fire fest. I drove it all the way from the repair shop, which is about an hour and 15 minutes away. So I think it's probably out of gas right now. So we'll see if it starts up after I have to leave. Hour and 15 minutes. Back roads? Yeah, back roads. Did not take the highway on the way back. I learned my lesson. The other fire fest is...

Yeah.

And so he asked me that question, I think, for a reason. But we were hanging out, myself, Chaps, Donnie, and we had just talked to Jersey Jerry. And then we came up with an idea for a little prank on a good friend, Jersey Jerry. Yep. Which was we tried to find...

An advertiser that was walking around that was cool, that was a listener, fan of the show, fan of Barstool, and to get them to go up to Jersey Jerry and tell Jerry that they were from Pfizer and they wanted to do an advertisement with Jersey Jerry. Obviously, Jersey Jerry Lib of the Year. Yep. Loves Pfizer. Loves Pfizer, and he...

Whenever he sees John Legend or Travis Kelsey on TV, he just turns bright red and starts sweating. He's like, fuck these guys, fuck these guys. So we found a couple people that were into playing along with this. They went up to Jerry and they gave Jerry a pitch that they wanted to personally sponsor Jerry for, I think, $700,000. And Jerry immediately said yes and went running across the room to get a salesperson to close the deal.

So that was funny. Jerry got upset about it. I think he blamed you. I think he went over. PFT, he made me swear on my kid's life that I didn't set him up, which I was happily. I had no idea you guys were doing this. I was aware because Max told me afterwards. So I was like, yeah, I'll swear on my kid's life. I literally did not set you up. It was someone else.

Oh, yeah. He was like, swear on your kid's life. Then he came up to me hot. You were the last person he expected it was. He thought when he knew it wasn't you, he came up to me. He almost put me in a chokehold. Couldn't reach your neck. So then I come to find out that there actually were two people from Pfizer that were walking around last night.

And so then that screwed me all up because I'm like, what if they were actually trying to do a deal with Jerry? Right. And they go up to Jerry and they try to close the deal. Jerry's, well, he'll like flip them off and run away. Yeah. So Jerry's very, very upset at a lot of people. We do have video footage of the conversation happening. Jerry has said that he does not consent to the video.

I don't know what that means. It was just on the security camera. Okay. But Jerry says he doesn't consent. All right. He doesn't consent. So I don't know. Are we allowed to put that out? We'll just blur his face out. We can blur Jerry's face out. It could be blur out his tattoos. Yeah, blur out Jerry's face. It could be anybody.

But yeah, I think we do have security footage of it. But Jerry's upset. And there's a chance that we accidentally ruined a possible actual deal. But he would have done the deal with Pfizer. Oh, he agreed to it. Yeah, he agreed to it immediately. Yeah. Immediately. You can see. Good to know. In the video, you can see they're just like making pleasantries. And then you can see the exact second where dollars and cents get.

mention okay so we'll blow out the Jerry's face in the Jerry video yeah yeah but it's my title a Jerry agreeing to a deal with Pfizer yep it could be anybody though it could be anyone all right my fire fest is I've been betrayed by someone in this room this room not this room this room and this okay I've been betrayed by someone in this room in the studio hug some memes nope

That guy staring me right now. So we have a lot of people working here. I love my job. I love barstool sports. Oh, uh,

One of the parts of Barstool Sports, and I understand it, PFT and I are going to turn 40 soon. We have hired some younger people, and part of the younger people crew is a couple younger girls that terrorize me by putting me in their TikToks, and I feel so fucking old. And they say shit like, hey, are you going to go to the John Summit concert? And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Ella, who I like, uh, is Indiana grad and she is going to, uh, we're, we're doing, we're doing a show, a college football show. Come out to the college football show. This is great. 10 30 in the morning on Saturday. We'll be there. Uh, she's an Indiana grad. She's going to the game and she's trying to get me to go to Kilroy's after the game. I explained to Ella, I explained to Ella as clearly as I could that I will be by the time the ball gets kicked off, I will most likely be back home in Chicago. Uh,

Do you remember we went to Kilroy's one time? Yeah, Kilroy's great. It was a great time. It's nothing against Kilroy's. But it's everything about the fact that I'm 39 and have three kids and I work nonstop and I don't have time to go to... I would love nothing more. Take a load off. I would love nothing more than to spend an afternoon at Kilroy's getting shit-faced. I believe me. That would be great. It's also not... I can't. It's not a place for people in their upper 30s. Correct. Because we went there a couple years ago and...

We went upstairs and I think we were up there for like maybe 10 minutes. It's an awesome bar. I had a blast. Yeah, it's a great bar. It's a great place. Don't get me wrong. I love the people at Kilroy's. We did a t-shirt deal with Kilroy's 10 years ago for the black. I love Kilroy's.

It has nothing to do with Kilroy's. It has to do with the fact that I'm old and I can't... Wait, continue with the... Yeah, yeah, I'm getting back to it. So I told Ella this. I said, I'm not going to Kilroy's. It's just not happening. I appreciate the offer. I love Kilroy's. Not going to happen. I then got a text from Ella. She was like, hey, Max gave me your phone number. Can we set up a deal? What?

Hey, Big Cat, it's Ella. Max gave me your number. Headed to IU right now. Since you decided to bring your show to my alma mater on my grand weekend return, I would like to offer you my Kilroy's tab for my game day table if IU wins. So I have to pay her tab if IU wins. That's right. Oh, no. I get the tab. I get the fully expense tab.

That's right. Table fully expensed. Oh, no, wait. On you if IU goes 7-0. What the hell is this deal? So I have to pay her if IU wins? So she's making an offer to you. Her bet is you have to pay for my drinks if we win. Either way, she shouldn't have my number to text me about Kilroy's. Who did that?

You know who did it. She said who did it. As we were walking out, she went up to Hank and Hank was like, yeah, just say it was Max that gave you that. Oh, you fucker. You fucker. Well, no. What a plot twist that was. That's like a song where that guy that's in the room the entire time. I did say whatever. I don't care. Yeah. All right. Well, I was betrayed.

I was, I mean, she was like basically trying to figure out a way, like asking me, like how can I help get this table paid for? And there was a bunch of people just joking around. And I was like, oh, just, I actually first said, go ask Big Cat if you can use his card for the weekend, which obviously was a joke. And then she was like, oh, you think I should text him? I was like, yeah, text him. Tell him Max told you.

Well, I just replied to her because I hadn't replied to her. I said, I respectfully decline. Thank you for the consideration. These girls just terrorize me because they're just young and they just know shit that I don't know. And they just say words to me that I don't know. What was the question they asked you? Are you going to go see John Summit? Is that like a... Is John Summit a real... He's next up DJ. I know. He's already up. He's already there. I thought... Because when I heard that, I thought, is John Summit... Is that code for like...

meet in the bathroom. PFT. Our conversation was this. This is how our conversation went. No, this is how our conversation went. They said, are you going to go see John Summit this weekend? I said, who? And they said, he's the best DJ in the world. And I said, what happened to Diplo? And then they laughed in my face. Yes, that's tough. That's exactly how it went down. What about Shaq? Shaq's a good DJ. Yeah. So thank you, Hank.

Yeah, I mean, you're like the patriarch of this office. I think it's good for employees to have your number. That's fair. Yeah, that's what I needed. That's a good point. I needed that. She's going to FaceTime me from Kilroy's, and that's going to be so awesome. I'm going to really enjoy that.

And it's nothing against Ella. Sounds like you're mad. No, she's... No, you. Max. She's 23 years old. She should be doing exactly... She should be going to IU. She should be going to Kilroy's, having the time of her life. She's done nothing wrong. You have enabled it. My problem is there was no downside to this bet. This wasn't even a bet. It was just like, hey, if we win, you're paying. Yeah. And probably if I... And they're seven-point favorites. What if they lose?

Yeah, I don't know. Fired. She's probably so anxious. She probably woke up so anxious waiting for a text. And that's what she got. She's definitely freaking out about that text. Yeah. And I'm going to say, I respectfully pass. Thank you for your consideration. And I'm fired, Max, for giving my number away. What is she going to say? She's going to snitch? Or is it a test for her? That is a good test. Yeah. If she tells the truth, will you pay for the bar tab?

This will be a good test. We'll see. Yeah. Then she's fired. Yeah. Okay. She's not fired. She does a good job.

And Hannah terrorized me as well, but I got her back because Chaps does his videos and she didn't know where France was. Neither did Max. He was there. Yeah, that's true. I got to watch it live, though. It was great. Max, you don't know where France is? Max, you were in France. I know, and people keep saying that to me. Because when you were on that live stream, everybody was like, I see Paris, I see France. Oh, so funny. I'm just going to start using... I had multiple underwear companies coming up to me last night. Oh, I love...

I'm going to start weaponizing chaps. That's what I'll do. Because every time they put me in a TikTok and I don't understand a trend, I'm just going to be like, chaps, go up and ask them, like, what color is the sun? And that will be funny for me. So I got my ways. Yeah, I'm dumb. I'm dumb. I'm scared of the youths of America. That shouldn't be a surprise. Max, you got a Fyre Fest? Yeah, but we don't have to talk about it. Underwear companies? Underwear? No, I almost got evicted. What? Yeah.

I moved into a new place. I've had auto pay. What's the address? I never actually... What? You had auto pay? I've had auto pay in my last two apartments, so I don't really think about it. And then... Oh, no. I had to prorate it, so they said you can't set up auto pay until your next thing. So how many months late were you? No, I was like five days. And then someone... I wasn't even home. Someone... Apparently, my girlfriend said that someone came knocking on the door, like, really, like...

And then just threw a piece of paper at her and just said, from your landlord. Oh, shit. And it was your eviction notice. Was this a situation like Stephen Che when he bought... He got a new car and he thought he set up auto pay, but he just paid one time for automobile pay? No, this was me just, like, forgetting that I wasn't on auto pay anymore. But now I'm on a... I just...

Like, my girlfriend texted me. She's like, you have to pay right now. I just got this. Pay in an hour. What's up with the jacket today? You look good. Everyone keeps asking me this. I mean, that's... But you know what? We were saying this the other day. This is like the biggest fashion police building in the world. No, the culture we've created at Barstool Sports, which I welcome, is that if you try to better yourself even a little bit, you get shamed to hell. Mm-hmm. Ha!

But that's how it should be. I'm going to start. We all need to stay exactly where we are. No, I'm wearing a t-shirt. No bettering. This is the only place in the world where you can show up to work wearing a t-shirt and jeans and everyone would be like, whoa, you have a date tonight, dude? Yeah, when PFT has a button down, I'm like, who died? Yeah. Last week, I came and I wore a polo shirt and then I was wearing just jeans and Mad Dog was like, look at you. Yeah.

That's the meanest look at you I've ever gotten. I wore a flannel the other day and KB was like, why are you trying so hard? Yeah. If I have a button. Jerry said that exact same thing to me today. I love it. He said, why are you trying so hard? It's as toxic of a culture as you can get. I'm going to look nice. Tomorrow I might. No, I won't. But it's actually the nice part about it is equal opportunity because anyone who tries to wear anything nice gets shamed instantly across the board. We should do a dress up nice week. Built for comfort, not for speed. Yeah.

Yeah. I had to wear jeans yesterday. It sucked. I'm a joggers guy now. Throwing through. All right. Numbers. Three. Eleven. Five. Ninety-nine. Seventeen. What? Oh, shit! Who said what? Pug. Can't do that. Big hat started it. Ninety-nine. I like this. It's desperation. Ninety-seven. Oh, 99 actually came up yesterday. One of the advertisers, one of the pick a number, and 99 came up.

Six. Six. One off. Love you guys.

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