NFL Writer Michael Silver, Jayden Daniels Is Incredible, The Jags Are Dead, College Football Talk + Guys On Chicks
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Hey, Pardon My Take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

On today's part of my take, we have a great, great interview with Michael Silver. He's got a new book out called The Why Is Everything Talking Football, the Shanahan coaching tree, some awesome stories of behind the NFL. He came in studio, really, really interesting. He's been obviously in the game for a very long time. We're going to talk Monday Night Football. PFT was in the house. We're going to talk College Football Wednesday.

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And PFT, Jaden Daniels, is incredible. I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Get ahead of yourself. I don't want to get ahead of myself. Get ahead of yourself. He's so good. He's so good. He's so good. PFT is holding up a championship belt right now. Yes. I'm not going to get ahead of myself. It's a long season, and it's too soon to say anything definitive about him. But what I saw last night made me feel emotions that I have not felt in my cold, dead football heart in decades.

it was it was awesome it was so fun to watch and it's not just like the throw he had to terry at the end was one of the craziest throws i've ever seen in the face getting destroyed in the pocket and threw it on a dot to terry dropped it in the bucket i'm happy for terry too most of all because he's had some they showed the graphic i think that was his 11th quarterback he's got a touchdown pass from yeah there's been some bad names on that list yeah some real bad names on that list and uh

It was an incredible moment. That throw was obviously great, but what really got me excited about Jaden, I heard some people calling it J-Core Stadium now. Oh. It might be called J-Core. Oh. Yeah, so he won the LSU off.

And we'll get to the Bengals in a little bit. I think they'll be fine. I don't. But what got me the most excited about Jaden was how he handled like third downs, fourth downs. Yeah. He was cool. He was directing guys around. He was calm in the pocket, finding guys downfield on second downs, picking up like six, seven yards to make third down easier. Like I,

I think that's the best game I've ever seen a quarterback play for my team. He played a perfect game. It was a perfect game. Like every big play that you needed, whether it be run or pass, because he mixed in runs, but it wasn't like, oh, he's just running. It was just timely, perfect runs and then

big time passes. And yeah, it was, it was incredible game to watch. Like he was out of this world. Good. And eyes downfield while he's scrambling to the side. So you can't, the linebackers can't come up too far and commit. So he's going to take those yards when they're there with his feet, or he's going to find somebody downfield or,

It was so fun being at that game. I was screaming my head off. The Bengals fans, by the way, City of Cincinnati, awesome people. Love the Bengals fans. They were bummed out, obviously, because their team didn't look great on defense. But there were no punts, no turnovers. It's the first time that's happened since when? Like, I don't know. Last week. No, no punts and no turnovers ever.

the same game oh oh both sides commanders did it last week I want to say like 40 years 50 years something like that yeah and then the commanders did that I don't think the commanders have ever done that like two games in a row with no punts and no turnovers is just insane so it feels like I'm watching different sport now I have to get better as a fan because I'm not used I'm

I'm not used to winning. I'm not. So I've got to figure out how to win with class. That's a very good point, Big Cat. I didn't even pack a second Washington shirt to wear on the plane ride home the next day, which is a rookie move. And I know Chiefs fans are really good at this. When they travel for a game, you've got to pack a victory shirt to wear through your opponent's airport the next day. I didn't even have a victory shirt. I think there's levels to it. You've got to start with your victory shirt. I think you also have to figure out the victory koozie.

Because that's one, you know, pre-gaming at a bar, you get the beer, throw on the Chiefs koozie. Yeah, there's all kinds of accoutrements that you need. I'm not used to this. He's making all this better. I'm building a winning culture for myself as a fan right now. It was so much fun to watch. He was out, like...

Every pass was perfect. And you know what the best part was? It's just the feeling last night and then this morning waking up and watching every single highlight compilation. I was watching, I was downloading all these YouTube videos for the plane ride home. Even the like foreign ones that are spoken in the robotic British voice where they don't really have the rights to it and it's like still pictures. Yeah. And it's just narrating what happened during those still pictures. Yeah.

I was watching those. I was reading every article about Jaden. I was overdosing on Jaden Daniels. I OD'd on JD. You should. He was so good, it completely overshadowed the fact that Trevor Lawrence might stink. That's very true. That's how good Jaden Daniels was. Yeah, he might stink. Yeah. And I think Shad Khan said before the season, this is the best team that the Jaguars have ever assembled. So to me, that does not sound good for Doug Peterson. But sticking on your game, yeah, Jaden was out of this world good. Cliff Kingsbury called a perfect game.

I do think the Bengals are in trouble. Their defense is not good at all. Their defense, I think they have some injuries because I was reading Bengals fans getting upset. Trey Hendrickson obviously was playing, but I think they were on their 7th, 8th, and 9th defensive linemen. But here's why the Bengals, I think, are in trouble. One,

Their defense feels like it's a very big problem that is going to be hard to fix. Also, only six of the 225 teams that started 0-3 in the Super Bowl era have made the playoffs. One of them famously was my pinky team in 2018, the Houston Texans.

So 2.4% chance of the Bengals statistically making the playoffs. Does it help there's an extra game? Does that matter? It might. It might matter. I also think. Statistics major there, Hank. I'm going to look this up. Yeah, that's very insightful, actually. I didn't mean to actually. I'm just going to say that was very insightful, Hank. Yeah. But if you look at their schedule, I'm going to do a Pete Prisco on you. It's all about the schedule. It's not easy. They have an easy schedule. Oh, they do? Yeah. The Panthers. Ah.

Are the Panthers easy? Andy Dalton. Andy Dalton revenge game. Ravens. That's a tough place to play in Carolina now. It is. They got the brown bags off their heads. Keep pounding. I did see that Dave Canales tweeted out keep and then went dot, dot, dot. I don't think he's allowed to say keep pounding. It's part of his covenant. Then they got the Giants, the Browns, the Birds, Raiders,

Ravens again, Chargers. I don't... So I think they have one of the easier schedules in the NFL. But the problem is when you start 0-3 and you have to get the 10 wins, you can't have another fluke bad game. You can't have another unfortunate Chiefs ending of the game. Like, you can't... The margin for error now is so thin for the Bengals. But this is also what the Bengals do. It's true. The only reason I think it's different... They did kind of get robbed on the no pass interference again. Yes. Yeah. The...

Wait, again? No, sorry. That was the Falcons. The Chiefs got the pass interference. Yes, the Falcons. They didn't get the pass interference. The Chiefs didn't get a pass interference. I'm not going to write off the Bengals because Joe Burrow is Joe Burrow and that offense is elite. I just think it feels different because I don't know where the fixes are on defense. The only fix I have for the Bengals is Joe Burrow has to change his hair color. You can't be 0-3 with that hair.

And we love Joe, but I think he deep down knows it. That was a very popular sentiment in the section I was in. It was like, get rid of the frosted tips, Joe. That's a 3-0. You can't lose. You've got to cut your hair. They showed him going into his coach's office after the game. He didn't go to the locker room. He walked straight into the coach's office with Zach Taylor, and they had a chat about something.

He should just walk right into the barbershop right afterwards and be like, nope, can't do it. Take it off. You can't lose with frosted tips. Or like diet jet black. Yeah, go goth. Yeah. It's sad around here. He's in his sad boy era right now. Yeah, it was... God damn, it was a fun game to be at.

I mean, it had to have been so much fun. So before the game, I was lucky. I had a couple beers with the mayor of Cincinnati. Nice. Aftab Pureville. The guy who killed Harambe? No, he took over after. He's the one that covered up the death of Harambe. But you met with him before with back in the day, right? Back in the day, yeah. I don't know anything about his politics. He's a cool guy. Had a fun time drinking beers with him.

And we made a bet because I love the good mayor's bets where they do like the dorkiest bets ever. Did you get a Sarambay's Ashes? No, I didn't. I should have. Oh, PFT. My initial plan was to ask him for all the documents surrounding the death and subsequent cover-up of Sarambay. But the bet was if the Bengals won, he was going to get my Mega Jeans. Oh, nice. Because he loves the JNCO look. He loves the wide legs. And then if the Commanders won, he had to buy me...

full case, 24 Skyline Chili cans. Oh, wow. So he's going to be shipping some Skyline Chili to the office. I never saw that coming that you were trying to get Skyline Chili. Yeah, so I mean, I kind of got forced into this bet. So I guess I'm going to have to eat some Skyline Chili in a little bit. That's so much Skyline Chili. I have a hypothetical question. People are trying to drive wedges in between certain people on this podcast based on quarterbacks. I would like to talk about that. But I have the question of the week. Hank, do you have a noise for that? Doot-doot.

Oh, you almost. Wow. That was so close. You just edged us. Yeah. You literally edged us with the Nerd Nugget of the Week. Do it again. Okay, the question of the week. I'll ask Hank. Okay. Hank, I want to be respectful of everybody on this podcast. Always. But right now,

If you're starting a franchise and take everything like age, contracts, all that stuff into account. Coaches? Yeah, no, just straight up the player. Just the player. Would you rather have Jaden Daniels or Jalen Hurts? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what everyone wants to know right now. I like this question, BFT.

Be honest. Be honest. Contracts matter. Max, don't interrupt the question of the week ever again. Yeah. Well, I mean, you knew what that was doing. You knew. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't realize. Everyone wants to know the real question. No, no. I'll talk about the real question. You look like the fucking Kool-Aid man in the booth. That's what memes just said to me. You're ruining the question of the week, Max. Phillies.

I don't know these chances. The answers Phillies? Who would you rather have? Can we have that as a graphic? Would you rather have Jaden Daniels or Jalen Hurts answer Phillies? Who would you rather have, Jaden Daniels or Jalen Hurts? If it's contracts and Jaden Daniels, but just purely because of the contract. What about no contracts? No contract, Jalen Hurts has more experience. Okay. More experience, yeah. More winning experience. Max, would you like to ask the real question?

What do you say to the haters? What do you say to the haters? Big cat. I say that I say that the bears have done it again. Yeah. I say I'm in a fucking no win situation because if I respond to them, they're going to say that I'm just like trying to cope. And when in reality, I'm,

PFT and I have known each other for a very long time. We've been doing this show for a very long time. I consider him one of the closest people in my entire life. He was at that game. His quarterback history is just as bad as the Bears' quarterback history. He watched Jaden Daniels perform like that. I felt nothing but happiness for him. Nothing? Yes. Can you let me finish, Henry? Sorry. Now...

This is partially because I am completely undeterred with Caleb Williams. If I were deterred at all, I would probably have a different feeling. I am undeterred. I think Caleb Williams is great. I think he's going to be great. I know people want to fucking nitpick and say, LOL Bears, three weeks of the season, he's a bust. That's fine. They can do that. Me, when I put my head on my pillow at night, I'm like, Caleb Williams is fucking awesome. Why can't we both have awesome quarterbacks?

The only part of PFT's situation right now that I'm jealous of, and I will be fully transparent for, is Cliff Kingsbury can call a hell of a game as an offensive coordinator. And I got a fucking dumb, dumb, poopy brain in Shane Waldron. That one...

The commanders without Dan Snyder seem like they're running an organization correctly. The Bears still have their head up their ass. So it's not that I think Caleb Williams is – I feel that Caleb Williams is going to be great.

I still think the Bears are a big problem. I agree with that. I think they're both going to be great. I think they're both really good. People can't... Jaden Daniels is so good. If I say it, people are like, oh, you're just coping. But this is my true sentiment, so I don't know what else I'm supposed to say. They want me to be mad about something I'm not mad about. Here's the issue. If you get down to the offensive coordinator situation, Cliff Kingsbury, he was Caleb Williams' offensive coordinator last year at USC. He obviously knows what he's doing with talented quarterbacks.

Your offensive coordinator now was hired because he was the guy that would take a job in essentially a lame duck Matt Eberflus era. Yes. So if you had started over again and fired Matt Eberflus this offseason, then you would have a good offensive coordinator. We could have. We would.

you that's you could that's a leap you would you could potentially have a good offensive head coach yeah or potentially yes but the fact that they didn't fire matt meant that uh eberflus had to go out there and make phone calls be like hey i really need you to help me turn this thing around or else we're all gonna be fired yeah yeah so could you like maybe move to chicago don't

Don't buy, but rent a house. And then have a clip where they announced it live at a Super Bowl press row and Jackson Smith Najigba, who is live, was like, oh, they hired him? Yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, his former wide receiver. So, yeah. Listen, I stand with Big Cat. Despite what Big Cat may have thought a couple weeks ago, I am rooting very hard for Caleb Williams. No, I believe you. I want Caleb. I bet on Caleb Williams big time last week. I've seen the throws and the plays he can make.

He's going to be a very good quarterback. He just had the most passing yards for a Bears quarterback since Brian Hoyer in 2016. I don't know what... I mean, the Hanks of the world, the trolls of the world, they're literally going to not... If I say this, they're going to be like...

There's no way this is how he's feeling. I don't know what else to say. I was very happy for PFT. He deserves happiness. That was awesome to watch. Can I just... I literally would just... I just want to talk about how good he is again. I would... PFT, I would tweet, Jaden Daniels is incredible or Jaden Daniels, what a throw and just all my replies like, you're so salty. I was like, what? How can I... What do I need to do? How do I correct it?

I don't know. Just say he's so good. He is so good. There we go. He's so good. The thing is, everybody knows him. In my power rankings today, he was Jaden Daniels' incredible Washington Commanders next to him. Okay, so also having a tiny bit of success, and I fully realize this is one game.

And I'm not going to overreact and I'm not going to get ahead of myself. But now I can't wait for... I don't like that look. Hank's tongue is out. The tongue came out. Put your fucking tongue back in your mouth. He's like Steph Curry when he's about to put up a three from the moon. Hank's got a troll thought that he would like to ruin the podcast with. MJ's tongue and Hank's tongue, two most famous tongues. Not a troll thought, just a thought because you said it's been a long time. Maybe Stephen Chase. Years, whatever.

You did have an electric run with a quarterback. Taylor Haneke? Not too long ago. Right. Fitzpatrick? RG3. RG3 versus the Vikings. Primetime game. Electric. Oh, this is mean. I'm just saying. Listen, go back under the bridge. Is that not... That was a similar situation. Hater Hank. What are you talking about? That was a 2KQB, unbelievable game, great performance. You look like you have the QB in the future. What do you mean unbelievable game? It was an unbelievable season from RG3. Yeah, it was very good that season. Right, but...

Okay, Hank, two things can be true. You said that you haven't felt this in a long time, but did you not feel the same way with RG3? That's over a decade ago. Okay. That's 12 years ago. But did you not feel the same way? Listen, two things can be true. One, Hank's a piece of shit troll. And two... I mean, that's just a fair thought. I also think you said multiple decades. Yeah, you did. No, you definitely did. You won't let me even say .2. That's how big a troll you're being. My .2 is Hank is actually correct.

Yes. There's a lot of similarities between Jaden Daniels and RG3. They're both electric athletes. Jaden is already more developed as a pocket passer than RG3 was. His deep ball is incredible. Learn ball, Hank. Yeah, learn ball, please. Oh, and by the way, Taylor Britt, the cornerback on the Bengals...

He is the, who's the LeBron stopper? Dylan Brooks? Yeah. Lance Stevenson. He's like the Dylan Brooks of the NFL. He loves talking shit before games. It's crazy. He was right about Xavier Worthy. He was, but he also didn't have a great game against the Chiefs. I think he gave up a big

big touchdown. Yeah. But he was talking shit about the offense. He did have that crazy interception. We should, that the interception was Bengals fans are going to get mad that we didn't say that. Yes. But he's also addicted to talking shit. Correct. So he talks shit about the, the college style offense. Yeah. Simple offense. And then he, he got cooked. So, um, Oh, back to Hank. Yeah. The troll. Yeah.

There's a ton of similarities. There are a lot of similarities between the situation I'm in right now and where I was in 2012 mentally. The difference is I think that Jaden is built to last in the NFL. As long as we don't fuck him up with a weird, creepy injury, I think what I saw from him last night, that tells me I got 12 years of happiness. I think the organization helps too. No Dan Snyder. That's the answer. No Dan Snyder.

No Dan Snyder. I was just trying to clarify what your multiple decades comment was. Thanks for asking for a clarification. I know we're grass guys, but I'm thinking just like, please, maybe just bulldoze the thing and put in some really good turf. Like, keep them healthy. Split grass, whatever. Because we can't figure out how to keep a grass field healthy for people. I also don't appreciate Max's little grin. Like, he knows that I'm getting too happy. No. Commanders are top of the NFC East, buddy. Yes, they are. Yes, they are.

And I... Wave up at him. No, I wish Jaden Daniels was not in the NFC East. I'm willing to say that. He looks good. He looks very good. I wish he wasn't in the NFC East. That is the biggest compliment I can give. Yeah, I appreciate that. And what I feel a little bit is like maybe one day Eagles fans will hate the Commanders again. Maybe one day Cowboys will hate the Commanders again. I was thinking that. I was...

It was TV, too. It was Monday Night Football. You had Jaguars Bills on TV once? It was a blowout. Oh, you were watching Love Actually? Yep. No. Yeah. I was watching. You were doing Smoochie Face on Love Actually? Nope. Oh, were you watching? At least you're watching Monday Night Football now. The only answer you can say right now is Monday Night Raw. No. No.

You weren't watching Monday Night Raw? I never watched Monday Night Raw in my life. Were you watching Southern House or whatever? No, I was watching a movie. I was watching Twisters. It was a fine movie. Okay. That's pretty sick. You didn't see it in theaters? But I was watching it on my laptop. Oh, that's TV2? Oh, that's TV2? Yeah. I don't have two TVs. Which TV3? Your phone? TV3 would be phone. Correct. Well, actually, to be honest, it was Phillies, and then the Phillies started to put it away. Then it was... I love it. I love it. You're overlooking us. I love it.

What? No. No. I'm not overlooking it. Is Jalen Hurts the third best quarterback in the NFC East now? Well, if we're doing the question, like, which quarterback would you take, given the salary, age, all that? Yes, I would take Jaden Daniels. Thank you. Thank you, Max. Oh, wow. Yeah. On a rookie quarterback? On a rookie contract? But, yeah, he's, I mean, I don't know. It's one game. But he's the best quarterback in that division, maybe even in the entire league. It's one game.

And I'm not going to get ahead of myself. He's right about the one game. How many touchdowns did he score against the Giants? He's right about the one game. How many drives? How many touchdowns did he score against the Giants? How many punts did he have against the Giants? That's a real question we should be asking ourselves.

Two games in a row, no punts. No interceptions either. Yeah, no, he looks very, very good, and I do think he's going to be a very, very good quarterback. I'm also excited. But he scored zero touchdowns against the Giants. Okay, well, that was a long time ago. That was last week. That was weeks ago. Weeks ago. Decades ago. Yeah, just as many decades. No, Jaden Daniels looks incredible. I'm excited to also get mad at hypothetical quarterback lists now, too.

What did you say earlier before Hank interrupted you? You said that you're very excited about something. Yeah, I'm excited about getting...

Angry. Yeah, life. Everything. I'm excited about getting angry at people that I think are slightly disrespecting my quarterback. Okay. Like becoming full Stan. What is your schedule looking like? What's your projection now after last night? Well... You think it's soupy? No, no. Not thinking soupy. Yoffs? I did fire off a tweet at like 3 a.m. as I was... I got back from the casino. I had a couple cocktails, C.J. Abrams style. And...

I said that I think he's going to win a Super Bowl in the next five years. Whoa. And I think he is. I like it. Maybe even two. But Yoffs this year. Love that. We're thinking Yoffs. Yoffs is realistic. And I do think that the Bengals can make the Yoffs given their schedule. I think they'll...

Lou Amaruno, how do you say his name? Yeah, you got it. Anarumo. He's so good. Coach A. He's going to figure something out. I don't know if they have the dudes. They lost some guys on defense. Yeah, and then Trent Brown going down was bad too. Bad. Best tattoo ever. Yeah. Two girls sucking him off on his arm. Yeah. Yeah.

We should talk about the other game real quick. Josh Allen is incredible. I know people will be like, he's the leader for the MVP right now. He basically beat the Jaguars in 30 minutes. Trevor Lawrence helped to beat the Jaguars. He looked bad. The Commanders had a perfect game. Josh Allen had a perfect half. Yeah. And the game was over. It was over. It was over. I mean, DeMar Hamlin picked off Trevor Lawrence, and it was over.

But Josh Allen was, he was toying with them. That wasn't, it's so, I'm very happy for Bills fans that like the angst of having to reset the roster and everything. You have Josh Allen. And Josh Allen is what a franchise quarterback looks like. And we've said it a million times.

Just because he's not Patrick Mahomes doesn't mean he is the second best quarterback in the NFL, and this is why you see it. And it probably is addition by subtraction, losing Diggs. Oh, definitely. And Gabe Davis, who you never knew if he was going to actually be alive week-to-week basis. Yeah, Keon Coleman got a touchdown. Keon Coleman, it's...

It feels like Josh has turned a brand new page, a clean slate for this team. So he doesn't have any of that excess baggage that he used to have. And so now he's just going out there. He's like, I have to win these football games. And also, Cook is looking really good at running back. Cook looks awesome. Shakir looks awesome. And as the games get further into the season, it gets colder, they're going to lean on that running game. And Joe Brady loves to lean on the running game when it works. They're not going to abandon it. I think that the Bills are for real. Yeah, it looks awesome. It was Brady at like a...

Five touchdowns to five different players is a sign of a great team and a great quarterback. And yeah, just Josh Allen just seeing the game better than anyone right now. He is the leader for the MVP, I think, odds-wise. I mean, he's playing better than Mahomes through three games. Trevor Lawrence might suck. Now, I haven't thought Trevor Lawrence sucked because I'm like, it's the Jaguars, and also he was really good at Clemson, and that guy's somewhere.

When he did the spin to nowhere, that was the first time where I was like, oh, no. Or the pick to tomorrow. I mean, the pick was to tomorrow, but the spin to nowhere... Picked off by a dead guy. Like, bad picks happen. That was a really bad pick. But the spin to nowhere made me... That was a Sam Darnold scene ghost moment, where he's literally just... It was... He spun with... To nowhere. It just made it worse for him. Yeah. And so I feel like he's... He kind of spun into his own guy. Yeah, it was...

I don't know. I feel bad for Chaps. This is an ugly situation. And then, I mean, we did get to see Mac Jones' first play fumble, which was very funny. It was perfect. Guy just punched it out of his hand. I don't know where to go if you're the Jaguars. Yeah, it seems like... Yeah, go to London. You're right. When the owner says before the season starts that this is the most talented team he's ever assembled, then that means that it's on the head coach. Yeah. That means that Doug Peterson... Is not long for this world. Might not be. Bring Urban back?

I don't know. It was also one of those games you've seen a lot of. Nothing would look weirder than Bill Belichick. That's the weirdest fit ever. In a Jaguars outfit on the sideline.

What he's doing with the Cowboys is so funny. Have you seen that? No. He does McAfee every week, and he just is over-complimentary about how well the team is built and they have all the players and all the tools. That's amazing. They need something to figure it all out. He's just openly essentially applying for the job. Their roster is really constructed great. They have all the tools. He's got a little bit of Hank Lockwood in him.

He's got some of that troll going. Like when he was talking about the Falcons on the Manning cast and saying, yeah, he's one of those guys that they got in trouble for because they tampered with him.

Yeah, he's just going scorched earth on it. I got a text from Chaps. I just read it right now because I think he sent it during the game and I was drunk and preoccupied. He was in hell. He said, oh, yeah, same thing. Kind of cool that Trevor Lawrence is the first guy picked off by a former corpse. Oh. So, yeah. DeMar's back. Yeah, DeMar is back. Happy for DeMar. First interception. Very happy for DeMar. I love the double Monday night football. Double header Monday night football.

I know we had a discussion, but that was exactly why, because the Bills-Jags game was over in 10 minutes and the Commanders-Bengals game was awesome. If we had just Bills-Jags, that would have been a really disappointing Monday night. Yeah, something I'm going to have. We had a backup plan. I like having the standalone because it's good to just, especially after watching all your screens all day on Sunday, it's good to have one game that we can all focus on together. But if there's a blowout, it's good to have the backup plan. And this was a great backup. And we have it again next week.

Oh, who do we got? Lions, Seahawks. Yeah, Lions, Seahawks should be great. And then I think it's like Dolphins, which is actually, it's good because if they could ever do like flex scheduling to schedule it this way, it would work where you're like, this is the game that's going to be a bummer. And this is the game that should be great. Titans, Dolphins, bummer. But then Seahawks, Lions to save the day. That will be great. Yep. So it's like you just basically start your Monday Night Football a little bit early.

And, yeah, you get the Lions-Seahawks, which is going to be awesome. Yeah, it's going to be a very fun game. Okay, should we talk a little college football before we do Hot Seat Cool Throne and then get to our interview? Let's talk. I don't know where we want to start. We could start – actually, you know what? Let's start with Tennessee. Tennessee goes down to Oklahoma.

throttles Oklahoma. It's very weird watching Oklahoma play football without a good offense, but that's not taking anything away from Tennessee's defense because it feels like Tennessee finally has a defense. Yeah, and it also feels like the backup quarterback that they put in is probably going to be the starter for Oklahoma. Yes. He looked a lot better. What's his name?

Ah, fuck. He was shifty. He was twice as good as the starter. So I think Oklahoma will improve based on that. But yeah, Tennessee is for real. And Oklahoma officially on the... Michael Hawkins. Jackson Arnold was the one who got benched. So Oklahoma, they're supposed to be SEC now. Yeah. They ain't SEC. Not yet. No. It's weird. It is very strange. I mean, we...

It's all strange. I watched on Friday night, I watched a vaunted ACC matchup of Stanford versus Syracuse. That's so crazy, isn't it? So crazy. So Tennessee is for real. They have some big-time games coming up.

I'm excited because it does feel like Tennessee under the Hypo era. Hypo seems like a pretty good dude. He had a video where it was nice. It was touching because he obviously went to Oklahoma. Venables was his coach. All these things got fired from there. He had a video where he's like, it meant I know you guys brought a little extra juice for me. Mm-hmm.

The social media guy was doing a memes angle because he was just standing underneath Hypel's double chin. So I've thought this about Hypel for a little bit. He desperately needs a beard.

Dude, I don't know if a beard could save it. The problem is he was a really good quarterback and was very skinny then. Yeah, he was very athletic. And now, great coach. Great coach, and his offenses are fun. If you're a Tennessee fan, you're probably... He's the exact perfect coach that you would want, I think, because he's such a college...

head coach. Yes. He runs such a college offense that you're not going to be in danger of him leaving for the NFL, I don't think. Yeah. Because that's not... It's not going to translate. I guess it just depends on the money. Money probably... But I'm saying like if you're a... There are a lot of dumb owners that would probably make that gamble, but he's an awesome, awesome head coach and...

I think that what he's put in is pretty repeatable. Yeah, yeah, I'd agree. Obviously, Nico is a game changer. Nico's awesome. Nico's awesome. I'm buying Tennessee stock. Also, the clip, if you're a Tennessee fan, you're just Tennessee porn, the Peyton Manning coming out with Morgan Wallen in a full Tennessee jersey with the pants and helmet was... I'm not a Tennessee fan or a Peyton Manning fan, really, but that clip was hilarious. What was Morgan wearing?

Probably just, I don't know. I think he just wears a jersey every time. The Harrison Bucker jersey every time. Yeah, he wears a jersey every single time. All right, speaking of coaches, Josh Heupel, we have two coach things I wanted to talk about. One was your JMU...

Almost got Mack Brown resigned, but he didn't, which is one of the funniest things. So JMU put 70 on UNC. Hung 70 on them. 70. They got paid to hang 70 on them. A first half 50 burger. Yeah. And they lost so bad.

Mack Brown after the game told his team in the locker room that he was retiring and everyone believed it. And then after the game, there was someone from inside the UNC, you know, a program said,

He's not retiring. He will be in the office tomorrow and getting back to work. That source said Saturday night going in and having a normal Sunday. Sometimes you just got to say things. He just says it. Sometimes you just got to say it. And then you have almost a post nut clarity afterwards. And you're like, oh, that was stupid. I shouldn't quit. Yeah. He's driving home. He's like, I really like getting paid. Yeah. I like being the head coach. He said afterwards, he said he was disappointed in himself in his reaction to

by saying that he was going to resign, which I'm all for. I think it's a hilarious reaction. I think that's like if you get beat by that bad, just being like, you know what, guys? I'm done. Especially when you're old. Yeah, when you're old. Because it's like, you guys are going to kill me, so I'm quitting. I don't know.

I think in a weird way, he definitely wasn't doing this on purpose, but it's kind of like the Phil Jackson move of you've got a bad team and now the entire story is about Mac Brown and it's not about his players. He also said he clarified afterwards that he didn't fully resign. He said, if you all don't feel like I'm the leader you need, then I'll go do something else.

And then everyone was like, no, we still want you to coach. So he rallied the troops after a 70-point loss. Yeah, he quit, and then the team elected him coach again. Correct. Named him coach. Which tells you he hasn't lost a locker room yet. Is he the interim coach now? I think he's interim coach Mack Brown, yeah. Taking over for Mack Brown. And then the team will decide whether or not to promote him full-time. But yeah, that was an ass-kicking. I think JMU's really good. Yeah. I think they're going to be... I thought this was going to be a down year. I think they're going to be right there competing for the Sun Belt.

Yeah, they looked really, really good. I just love beating a team that bad to have a coach fake resign. Yeah. That's got to feel awesome. It's pretty good. And their offensive coordinator at JMU is awesome, isn't he, Hank? Dean Kennedy, situate kid. I've known him forever. He's like two years older than me. He's my sister's age.

That's scary. That was that when Hank knows someone who's an offensive coordinator, like he's running your team's offense and he knows Henry Lockwood. Yeah, he's a stud. I mean, that was absolute stud. He it's the Holy Cross effect. I was doing some research after I was like Dean Kennedy, offensive coordinator, JMU, but it's he went with the Holy Cross coach. He was there. Bob Chesney.

And now he's a JMU killing it. I mean, people are saying he might be looking at some NFL offers. Who? The other. Who's saying that? Me just right now. Yeah. The other people. So the other coach story was Hugh Freeze being a absolute idiot yet again. He had a double whammy. He had a ex-player, Bo Wallace, come out and just say he's the most selfish guy ever. It's always the quarterback's fault. It's never his fault.

And then he said on Monday, I love Sam Pittman and I hope he wins the rest of his games. But I'm telling you the hard truth is we play Arkansas nine more times. We beat them nine times. Yeah, that's what's hard to take. That's loser talk. They lost 24 to 14 in his quarterbacks through four interceptions, including Hank Brown. Sorry, Hank.

Yeah. He was the next up, Hank. Yeah, Hugh Freeze, I feel like the rope's running a little thin. Yeah. I think they're getting a little sick of old Hugh Freeze down there in Auburn. Well, I think also Hugh Freeze, not that any of these guys are good losers, but Hugh Freeze has won a lot everywhere he's been, and getting used to losing, he's not going to deal with it well. No. I mean, he won from a hospital bed. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so that was a funny. Auburn feels like they're in a tough, tough spot. Basically, they just need to lose by two to Alabama in the Iron Bowl. Be like, all right, we're building something. It'd be an ultimate football guy move if instead of inspiring your team from coaching from a hospital bed, you actually dig your own grave and put up a headstone, and then you're in a casket with an iPad, and you're coaching. You guys have killed me. I like that.

I like that. God save my life, boys. We should probably talk about the big Michigan win, which was old school smash mouth football that didn't work for the entire second half. So Michigan beat USC. Uh, it looked so Michigan starting Alex orgy who can't throw. And they were like, we're just going to run the ball. USC made, they were down early, made some good adjustments to halftime. Uh,

Going up to the final three minutes, Michigan had nine yards and zero first downs in the second half. And then Khalil Mullings had a 63-yard run and Michigan survived. And now...

I know it's obviously a cliche, but it is very funny that USC's first game in the Big Ten, and you could basically say, well, they just punched you in the mouth and played bully ball. Those soft California boys couldn't handle it. Yeah, they couldn't handle the fullback at the end. That was a good block by their fullback. Holy shit. Max Bredesen. Yeah, he gave them the old chicken wing and posted them up almost. Yep.

Yeah, they can. Michigan, you can spin this very easily and be like, yeah, we beat you playing old school Michigan football. But you probably got a little bit lucky at the end, too. Yeah. Yeah, because that was a play where they just couldn't do anything, and then they broke a couple tackles. But you know what? You know what you say if you're a Michigan fan to a response to what you just said? We leaned on them. You lean on them until they break. They got tired. You keep running the ball until they break. It was California vegan legs. Yeah.

Didn't have the fast twitch. So Alex Orji was 7 for 12 for 32 yards after being named the starter. Yeah. But that might be the formula for Michigan, just like...

Maybe even don't let him pass the ball. What's the point of having 32 yards passing? Just have zero yards. I felt like they were going to maybe put in Davis Warren again, who had thrown three picks against Arkansas State last week. And they were still like, nah, we'll go with Alex Orji here. Did you hear this one? You hear about this? You've seen this? You read about this? Tell me, tell me, tell me. They call him Orji because when he's on the field, you've got to put eight dudes in the box. Ooh, nice. That's a lot of dudes in the box. That's a lot of dudes. It's an Orji. Yeah, that is. Well, that's a gangbang.

That's a good point. Yeah, that's not an orgy. That's definitely not an orgy. Okay. Yeah. You got to clean that up. Yeah, I'll clean it up. Yeah. We're still workshopping that one. All right. Last story I had. I don't know what else you had, PFT, but...

Travis Hunter should be the Heisman. Thank you. Thank you. And maybe it's because I bet on him preseason, but Travis Hunter should be the Heisman. Thank you. That was the other thing I wanted to talk about. I said that on Twitter during the game, and then everybody was like, well, he is the front runner for the Heisman. No, he's not. No. He's not even close to being the front runner for the Heisman. But if you look at what the Heisman trophy is supposed to be, he is the best football player in college football. The best football player in college football, man.

Maybe the best football, if you said best football player alive right now, you could maybe say that. I think Jaden's got him. Travis Hunter, and I think he gets a little knock on it because people have Dion fatigue and all that stuff.

If you actually voted for Heisman, how it should be voted, best player, not how every award now gets voted on, which is essentially best team's quarterback, which happens in the NFL and in college football, which sucks. Travis Hunter should be your Heisman Trophy winner because he is the best football player in college football. He is averaging 131 snaps per game. 131 snaps per game.

He ranks fourth amongst all receivers with 37 catches and six with 472 yards and

And he's also, on defense, has allowed 11 receptions for 75 yards in 142 coverage reps. It's crazy how good he is. He's Shohei for football. And what he did at the end of the game was insane. He forced the fumble at the goal line, won them the game. PFT, he forced the fumble at the goal line to win them the game, but he also had seven catches for 130 yards. Yeah. And on the forced fumble, that was his 144th snap of the night. It's crazy. Now, you...

You could say, is this sustainable? Will he be able to play this many snaps? I think it might be. I know he got hurt last year, but it's fucking insane that a dude is... He is one of the best wide receivers in college football and the best cornerback in college football ever.

How is he not the Heisman? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. He is the Heisman. He should be the Heisman winner, but the haters out there like Brandon Walker would say it's not sustainable. I think Brandon Walker doesn't know college football. That's Dion fatigue. That's why he's not our college football expert on this show. But yeah, Travis Hunter is the best player in college football. But he did, Brandon did walk me through a mental exercise, and I think he's right, which is just close your eyes and think about an undefeated SEC team

How is the quarterback of that team not going to win the Heisman Trophy? I mean, if it's Jalen Milrow. Jackson Dart, he'd probably win it. What if it's Quinn Ewers and he missed a few games? That's a good point. That could easily happen. Do you think if...

Texas runs the table. It could be arch. No, I don't think you can lose your job. I think the Mannings even came out and said it, which of course they did. Uh, they're like, we believe in the process. We don't, we believe you can't lose your job to an injury. Very classy, very classy of them. Yeah. I think, I think that they're going to bring yours back in,

Unless Arch lights up a real SEC defense. If yours is out long enough, and I'm not talking about Mississippi State, I mean a real SEC defense. If Arch Manning lights them up, then I could see Sark saying, we can't really go back right now. They could also do like a Jalen Hurts Tua thing. Well, Arch does have, I mean, he does open up the game because his legs. That's what I'm saying, but they might have the option where it's like if things are going south,

throw Arch in, turn it around. He did have one bad. He had a bad interception to start the game, maybe because I bet over 13 and a half points the first quarter and I was watching intently. But then he came back and was awesome. But also, so back to Colorado real quick. They just play the craziest games all the time. The Hail Mary. I've never seen anything like it. Dave Aranda. I mean, he was going to be fired probably if he won this game. It doesn't really matter. He's running out in Baylor.

How do you have back-to-back Hail Marys that both one was completed, the other should have been completed, where you have one guy on a receiver? Yeah, it was bizarre. But that's what Colorado does. They play in these crazy, crazy endings. And it's so much fun. And it's so much fun to watch. And then you have the Dion factor, which is if you love him or if you hate him, it's going to be very interesting. It does feel like the Netflix reboot of Tebow Mania. Yeah.

Like, they just win. Yeah. They just somehow, against, yeah, sometimes some bad teams. I think the winning might. The winning's going to come to an end. Turn this weekend because it feels like, I think they're going to UCF and they're pretty good this year. And then they have some Big 12. Oh, shout out, by the way, Utah, back to their old tricks, Cam Rising. I can't quit them.

Cam Rising, they wouldn't tell us if he was going to play or not, and then he played one snap. That's just what they do. Kyle Whittingham loves... He's addicted to injury reports being vague with Cam Rising specifically. Keep them guessing. Yeah. We got some good games coming up this week. Oh, yeah. Georgia-Bama. Georgia-Bama. I like Bama. I haven't decided yet. I don't think Georgia... Pass. Does Georgia have the horses, Big Cat? Specifically in offense. Yeah, I...

Pass. Okay. I passed. I'm passing. Hank. I'll give you an answer on Friday. You watch a lot of college football. Georgia. You're taking Georgia? Do you know where the game's being played? No. Bama. You're taking Bama. Georgia. Okay. What about the shit guy getting off easy? Oh, yeah. Burrito guy. So this is just the new trend. We touched on it on Sunday. Florida State. Florida State won. Yeah, I know. Florida State did win. They beat Cal. So the guy who said there was the curse of the guy. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been such a great loss, too.

Cal was like the memes going into the game. Oh, Cal Twitter's awesome. They were going to turn to Calahassee and they were making these like AI generated images of a bear at the gates of the stadium confiscating people's guns. Yeah, Cal Twitter has been so funny because they just leaned into all of

the cliches about the University of California, Berkeley. They said they were going to rename it Woke Campbell Stadium. Yeah. This is Dope Campbell Stadium. When they beat Auburn a few weeks ago, they said that they renamed it's no longer War Eagle. It's like Peace, Diversity, and Inclusion Eagle. Yeah.

It's so funny. They said that they were going to turn. It was not going to be like a checkerboard pattern like Tennessee does, but that Florida State was going to have a rainbow. Yes. If you're sitting in certain rows, you have to wear a blue shirt, indigo, violet. It was very funny. It was great. It was great. Great week of college football, though. Great week of college football. Yeah. Love college football. Anything else from college football. Travis Hunter should be the Heisman. Everyone should tell two people. Mm-hmm.

If everyone tells two people, that's a lot of people we've told. Yeah, pay it forward. Yeah. And again, this has nothing to do with what we did. Did you bet him?

What's his odds right now? I don't know. He should. 20 to 1. I just looked as you were saying. I will bet him. I will bet him before this episode comes out. Bet it. Bet it. He should be. I mean, we did it last year with Jayden Daniels. I know. I was going to say. We don't really, like, we don't know the power of this podcast. I'm not saying that we got Jayden Daniels as a Heisman, but we didn't hurt it. Yeah. We should make sure it's a trade.

Travis Hunter should be the Heisman winner. Yeah, and just every week, even if he has a bad game, he's like, well, he played 130 snaps. Yeah. No one else did that. Okay, let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne, then we'll get to our awesome interview with Michael Silver and his new book on the NFL.

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Voidware prohibited. See terms at DraftKings.com slash Coors Light. Pick them. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. Hank, how's he going to do it? How's his Erling Holland? Oh, yeah.

Soccer. Talking footy. Talking footy. Did you guys see this? No. Man City beat Arsenal. Okay. And Erling Haaland, they scored, and he... Which I liked, but people are very upset with him. He took the ball out of the goal and was running back, and then there was a defender basically standing in the box facing the other way, and he just...

threw the ball at the back of his head an arsenal guy oh okay i like that so people are no easy buckets yeah people are fired up there was a little scuffle after the game people that shit people are calling him a scumbag but i think it's like if you're you know one of the best players in the world that's kind of kind of what you do yeah it would be an honor to have somebody throw a ball at my head if i was beating the shit out of them yeah no he it was the erling holland won and then just kind of

threw it at the back. Oh, Holland. Yeah, he threw it at his head. Yeah, the other guy. He sold the injury. Oh, okay, okay. Classless, as someone's saying. I like to move. More bad blood than soccer. Yeah, listen, Man City. I mean, soccer does have bad blood. Man City, you've got to stand up for yourself. It's a gritty, scrappy neighborhood in London, and the people that live there. Beatles are from there. Yeah, they probably like having a player like that who will embody the culture of their city. Agreed. I have another one. Yeah. Travis Kelsey. Oh. This, I think, is also a... Contract?

No, I think, and I don't really have the hate that I had for the chiefs when the Patriots were good, but I, so I can, I think it's easier to say that people are getting on Travis Kelsey. Hasn't had a good start to the year. They're saying he was going to retire if you didn't have a podcast. Uh,

But I think when you're the Chiefs and you're back-to-back champs and you know who you are, it doesn't matter that much. Yeah, Mahomes has not played great. But they're still winning, and as long as Travis Kelsey is healthy in the playoffs, he's going to be fine. Correct. They're going to be fine. Yeah, he'll be okay. But I think it's more maybe the Swifties, them getting involved and being like, why isn't Travis playing well?

is creating a narrative oh and they're showing shots of him on the sideline looking sad oh so is it is it mahomes fault that's there's there's a lot and wait no hold on i would like to do a message real quick swifties are you listening to this yes you are because you were big time awls this usually goes well so swifties let's talk heart to heart you love me i love you uh pnv we'll just pretend that never happened

Travis Kelsey is being blackballed by the Kansas City Chiefs. They're basically shutting him out. They're not letting him play. They're not letting him score. They're not letting him be great. And the name and culprit behind all this is one Matthew Nagy. Okay? Go find him. Actually, don't do that. That's bad. Matt Nagy was the problem. Swifties. I went a little too deep there. They won't. They're...

They actually are listening to this right now. My theory, Swifties, is that Brittany is telling Patrick not to throw the ball to Travis anymore because he's a liberal. Oh. But I thought, isn't Brittany, she's back with T-Swift? Oh, she's back with T. Got it. T-Rump. Oh. Tiana? I think Trump...

Britney to tell Patrick to not throw the ball to Travis Kelsey because he's a liberal. Again, though, I don't know if we're clear if Trump hates Taylor Swift or not. You might like her. His tweet just said, I hate Taylor Swift. That could mean anything. In like a six-year-old teasing way, he might love her. Gum in her hair. Yeah. I like this. Chicks love that. So the Swifties are mad. I like this. I think the...

It's fucked up. The Swifties literally, they've done one football season. They've won a Superbowl. Yeah. I'm gonna stop right here. I did see. And it's like, I, I think the, he was going to retire if he didn't have a podcast. It's a funny, ridiculous narrative, but yeah, laugh. Yeah, that is funny. Okay. Good job. Oh, cool throne. My cool throne Celtics NBA. I saw this quote. Celtics had, there was a bunch of quotes. It was media day. Uh,

You have to say the Jalen Brown quote. Taking it all in. What, the Jalen Brown Pistons won? Jalen Brown said about the Pistons, we're going to play through Peyton, let him go for 30, play through Sam, let him shoot 10 threes tonight. We're going to still win the game. That is the most disrespectful thing you can say about another team, just being like, yeah, our offense is going through Peyton Pritchard tonight. We're just a stacked team. They're a deep team. They did all the pictures with the Olympics guys,

Jason Tatum was more, you know, upfront being like, yeah, it pissed me off that I didn't play. I was mad. He basically said he's like, no one was happier about the Olympics than Joe Missoula because he kind of knew that he was going to be able to use that as motivation. Of course. They asked Missoula if he enjoyed celebrating the summer as a champion. He said, I didn't really enjoy the summer. I enjoyed the parade, which I can agree with. The parade was great. That's a highlight of his summer. Yeah, me too. Spending time with Hank. Yeah.

But yeah, it's just great. It's great when your team's coming off a championship and it's gearing back up. I can't wait for that. I don't really have the excitement of a championship potential team with the Patriots, but it's good that Celtics are back. How was Tatum's aura?

It was great. He's got some new shoes that are released. I was going to ask you about the shoes. The MVP. All-star MVP tattoo. He also got a tattoo of himself. Oh, like that's really kissing the trophy. Big time. Steve. I was going to ask you about the shoes. The shoes.

The shoes are sick. I'll be getting a pair. Okay. These shoes suck. Hank, we had a picture pulled up. There's also one that's way more green and blue. Yeah, that one. Fire. PFT. No, Hank, the way I would talk about these shoes is by saying they look like a pair of shoes that I would wear. Correct. The way you were about to say it, Hank, was crazy. Yeah.

That's a that's that's that's the PFT comes in with like purple shorts, a T-shirt that doesn't match the purple shorts, a brown T-shirt and those shoes. If they send them to PFT for free, he'll wear them. That's his. Yeah, I would. Those are the type of shoes. Exactly the type of shoes I would wear. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, they're hot. Good job, Hank. Thanks. PFT.

All right. So great job. I don't know if I can follow that up. Hank had two hot seats. He was on fire. My, my hot seat is Penn state students. Oh, because you got called out twice by Burt B. Lema.

Coach of Illinois. 4-0 Illinois. 4-0 Illinois. Ranked Illinois. Ranked Illinois. They won the tie against Nebraska last week. Burt said that Nebraska is a tougher environment than Penn State, than Happy Valley. And then he doubled down on it by saying that they're going to be doing a whiteout. And he said bringing the whiteout energy, whatever the hell that means. Oh. So he's fired up. Well, James Franklin said that.

James Franklin in his postgame said that I need the whiteout energy. I need the whiteout energy. What is Brett doing? Yeah, I mean, they're also 17 and a half point dogs. Yeah, but then he said whatever the hell that means. Well, I mean, that's just what James Franklin said. He's just like, James Franklin said at his postgame press conference, he was like, next week's a big game. I need the fans to come out. I need whiteout energy. Does that mean that they're going to cover up their mistakes? That is a Penn State thing.

No, you see in college football, Penn State has this tradition where they do the whiteout one game a year. The whole stadium is white. It's like a really big thing in college football. I'm well aware of the whiteout, Max. We've discussed it on this show, how you guys burn your whiteouts on lame games. Minnesota last year. That's Fox's fault. Big 10, fucking Big 10 kickoff is, big noon kickoff is bullshit. Okay. So, but I guess he's kicking the hornet's nest. We'll see what happens. Yeah, no. I will, yeah. What? What?

You want to finish that? If Penn State loses, you'll shove a burrito up your ass? No. Want to finish that sentence? If Penn State loses, you have to tear a statue down somewhere. Uh, what? No. No, I'm not saying any of this. I'm not...

I'm not really a big fan of Philly. Philly. Philly. That's your answer. I'd be worried about that right now. Then my cool throw is just lists in general because with the Diddy stuff coming out. Oh, Hank's been deep in it. Yeah, Hank is really, really deep into it. Would you ask me, like, do I think Tom Hanks is involved? No, he said no. His direct quote was, what are your thoughts on Tom Hanks, PFT? Yeah.

I don't know. He's a good actor. Forrest Gump rocked. That's pretty much the start. Oh, Captain Phillips was good too. Actually, he's been in a lot of good stuff. But there's some speculation that there's going to be lists coming out about who is at the freak parties.

The list never come out. They tell you that there's a list and it's a distraction so that you can come up with your old, your own like a fan fiction, like lore universe that you make up and you're like, here's who's going to be on this list. There'll be some fake lists that come out. Yeah. Look like real list. I think there's already been some fake lists that come out, but yeah. Uh,

There's some weird stuff. And what's crazy about the Diddy thing is you can go back and watch Diddy admitting to be a weirdo in real time. And everybody was just like, yeah, Diddy's kind of crazy. It's crazy that everyone knew this. I feel like I was the last to know. Yeah. I had no idea. You think we'd know about Biggie? What? He might have killed Biggie. I heard that. Oh, no. Is that your theory? Streets are saying it.

Yeah, I don't think the list will ever come out. They never do. But they love making you think that there's a list that's going to come out. Yes. Also, other celebrities have been coming out, like, denouncing P. Diddy. I denounce him as well. I denounce P. Diddy. This podcast denounces Hank. I think Dio came out with something that was like, I had nothing to do with P. Diddy or any of his parties. Yeah. Kind of a weird thing. It makes you think that. Yeah.

Meek Mill, the funniest Meek Mill who's like... Yeah, he's going through it. He's in a million pictures, videos. He definitely was in P. Diddy's circle. Tweeted like, I'll pay $100,000 if someone can figure out why I'm always getting brought up with the P. Diddy stuff. Yeah. I would like to defend our... You've been with him for five years. I would like to defend, maybe this is a mistake, but there is that one video that's going around where Diddy does a cheers with Jay-Z and a bunch of people and Leonard Fournette somehow in it. That always makes me laugh. Playoff Lenny.

I'm going to back playoff Lenny. Yeah. Yeah. Until proven otherwise. Until proven otherwise. Yep. He's our friend. And also Meek Mill. That was a Roc Nation brunch, not a Diddy party. Oh, there we go. Boom. Back playoff Lenny. And for the record, Meek Mill is 100% straight. His quote, when I got a girl around me, I'm fucking her twice a day. Oh, hell yeah. Ask some of your favorites. Pussy don't control me, but it's like a high. One love to the gay people, but that juicy pussy do it for me.

I done ran red lights to get that feeling y'all weird on here hell yes so suck on that one haters

That is sick. That's the straightest thing you could ever say. That's so sick. That reminds me of the old Diplo tweet. Doing girls is cool, but doing work lasts way longer and more fulfilling. I like that. Yeah. Doing girls. You remember when Mike Piazza had a press conference to announce that he was straight? Yep. That was funny. That was funny. All right. My hot seat is anyone who's ever bashed Dylan Rayola because I'm all the way in on him now.

He's got a brother who committed to Nebraska, Dayton Rayola, and he looks like Jackson Mahomes. Are you serious? In this one picture, he looks like Jackson Mahomes, PFT, and now it's the funniest thing I've ever fucking seen. I'm all in on these guys. That's what I was wondering. When he dropped the Jackson Mahomes, I'm like, fuck yes. It went from this is weird to...

I'm all in. Yes. I'm sorry for everything I've said. If this guy can start doing it, Dayton real can start doing tick tocks and looking more and more like Jackson homes. It is one of the funniest things that's going on the internet. So I wonder if Dylan is making his brother participate in his fantasy world and telling him like how to dress. You have to look at this guy or if it's just natural. It could definitely be.

That would be so funny. Yeah. I'm all the way in. All the way in. And then my cool throne is... Don't let Mr. Raiola drive a car. That's all I'll say. Yes. That's true. Dominic is his name. He played in the NFL and he was a fucking mean, mean guy. Player, that is. Center. My cool throne is memes.

memes you're on my cool throne because uh rogers you see rogers on mcafee he said that hassan uh the report that there was uh chaos in the locker room for the jets before the season was from hassan reddick's agent which now makes more sense so that was just never a true story hassan reddick's agent basically planted that to try to create chaos and there i even saw there was a guy who said uh

When it first came out, a random Jets fan said, shut up, bitch. And then at Tori Dandy, the guy's the agent's name, and then the agent blocked him right away. That's proven guilty in the court of the internet. So no problem. No, it was a Sunreddix agent. No problem. Aaron Rodgers also might have leaked that ex-agent fired.

Oh, he did? That's what Aaron Rodgers said. That was the exact quote. He said ex-agent. He said former agent. Oh, so you might be back. Might be all the way back. Oh, you're double cool thrown. So people think Aaron Rodgers might have leaked that and stuff's going on behind the scenes, but nobody's actually reported anything.

Shout out to Hassan Reddick because it sounds like he's a very loyal guy. Like his agent was costing him millions of dollars for not playing and he didn't fire him until right now. It feels like his agent was like, I know what we'll do. We'll say the locker room is bad and they'll give you all the money. That'll be good. This will definitely work. My master plan. My genius plan. Okay. Should we get to our interview? Great interview.

Michael Silver in studio with his new book talking about football. Before we do that, the farmer's dog, the days are warmer, the walks are longer, and one easy way to help your dog shine this season is with fresh, healthy food from the farmer's dog. The farmer's dog makes real fresh dog food.

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at the farmers dog.com slash PMT. Plus you get free shipping. Just go to the farmers dog.com slash PMT to get 50% off. That's the farmers dog.com slash PMT. We're also brought to you by our friends at Amazon. Thursday night football is on prime video this Thursday. Cowboys going up to MetLife stadium, playing the giants. Join now Michael's Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung as they, uh,

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All right, here he is, Michael Silver. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest in studio. It is accomplished NFL writer, Big J journalist, Mike Silver, Michael Silver. Drinking buddy. Drinking buddy.

There's some questions we got to get to about Hugh Jackson, but let's talk about your new book, which is called The Why Is Everything? A Story of Football Rivalry and Revolution. It's out on hardcover October 1st. I'm going to buy it on Kindle, just so you know. I just want to get that out there. I know it's a little cheaper on Kindle, but that's how I consume books. I just wanted to let that out there. I think any way you want to consume, as we established the first night we met,

any consumption. Yeah, we're not judging. Yeah. So audio books, that's fine. Yeah. Now, can you say I read a book when you listen to the book? It's like saying it's like the reporter trick where you say I talked to Jared Goff, but really, we texted. Right. Sometimes I'll go, well, we've communicated or, you know, Jared Goff said, yes, but I think I talked to is kind of skewing it. So

I think you just go, that book was great. I loved every... I enjoyed that book. Yeah, I loved every second of it. I enjoyed it. All right, so The Why Is Everything is the name of the book. So let's start with the why. Why did you decide to write this book? Well, you know, there's... You gotta... I'm old, so...

Go back to me covering the 49ers as a young beat writer. Mike Shanahan showed up as George Seifert's offensive coordinator, really trying to resurrect his career. What year was this? 1992. And he'd been fired by Al Davis ingloriously after a couple of years as a young head coach.

He'd been fired by Dan Reeves in Denver and accused of insubordination. Basically, he and John Elway, Dan Reeves charged, had gone behind the head coach's back. It was kind of this big scandal. So he was a broken man. And meanwhile, Joe Montana hurts his elbow. Steve Young's there. And even though the rest of the country is like, God, this guy's in a

quarterback. Everyone in San Francisco is like, he's not Joe. He runs too much. He doesn't read defenses. It's a mess. He literally won the passing title and fans would be like, get rid of him. He stinks. And Mike Shanahan kind of taught Steve Young how

that offense in a way that changed Steve Young's career changed Mike Shanahan's career and vaulted Mike Shanahan to the head coaching job in Denver where he took that Bill Walsh offense and did outside zone right now you have the modern Shanahan offense and so then we pick up in Washington and I've always been fascinated by that coaching staff I you know in the early 2010s with

with Mike Shanahan and no one in football history is going to look back and go, wow, the early 2010 Redskins. What an incredible run. We had 10 years or 10 weeks with RG three that were pretty good. Thank you. But, but in the football community, that's always been this mind blowing thing. What they did, they took a guy who had no pro style skills.

experience or link to it in RG3, they took their existing offense and morphed it into a pistol on the fly and caught everybody off guard. I mean, you remember, you know, they gained a third of their passing yards that season on one play called drift where he like

Fakes a handoff, turns, kind of throws blindly over where the linebackers would be. But the linebackers have come up and he was the rookie of the year. Not Andrew Luck, not Russell Wilson. It was revelatory. So yes, the dysfunction of the Redskins ultimately took...

that staff down and Mike Shanahan down, but it was seismic. And so the five people on the cover are Kyle Shanahan, who was the offensive coordinator, and fellow assistants Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur, Mike McDaniel, and Raheem Morris. And obviously they are now all in very prominent positions. So that's the jumping off point kind of.

But then you get all the petty and the rivalry and the dysfunction and the love occasionally. And I know, you know, you know, these guys, I've known these guys for so long and I've been around it and been out drinking with them and heard all of their various idiosyncratic opinions.

of looking at things. And I've just always felt like something's going on here. They're doing it a different way. What they did with RG3 to instead of just say, this is our system and we're going to run it, but just deconstruct and kind of think in an abstract way really goes against the tenets of old school meathead football, which really permeated the NFL for so long, which was we're

We do it because it works. It's what Bill Walsh did. And why do we call it the flanker? I don't know. That's what Bill Walsh called it. So they ask why a lot, and then they want to be able to explain why

To their players constantly. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because this book basically is why the NFL is the way it is today because it's, you know, whatever it is, a quarter, 15% of the head coaches all are part of this system and everything that's come off of it.

And really more because Kevin O'Connell, Zach Taylor, Robert Sala. You really could make a case it's like a third. Yeah, the coaching tree is crazy. D'Amico Ryans, although on the defensive side. Yeah, D'Amico and Bobby Sloic. Bobby Sloic. He was on that staff too, wasn't he? He was. Shane Waldron. That's great. Yeah, Shane Waldron. Probably a rough start for Shane Waldron this year, but I think he's –

I think he's a shrewd guy. We'll figure it out. It does feel like NFL offense has changed so much that year, and it rippled across the league, like you said. I don't think that we've had an offensive innovation that's been that pronounced since 2012, have we? No. The innovation off that immediately was McVay kind of speeding it up.

and then going 11 personnel and using the receivers as blockers on the outside. But they've had to innovate from that. And it really was a way of thinking, though, that has now permeated the NFL more, which is instead of we have always done it this way, it's let's

Let's make everything, let's just deconstruct everything and be willing to innovate and be creative from a new starting out point. And the willingness to do that

is definitely new. So amongst these guys, let's get to some of the juicy stuff. Amongst these guys in this room, it seems like it was a very collaborative effort and they all root for each other. I know they've done podcasts together. They've done media together. At the time, were there any rivalries between these two or was it all just like, okay, let's work towards this common goal?

well first of all there's a chapter in there called enemy friends which is how Raheem Morris describes Kyle and Sean and you know enemy first for a reason like they're friends but like

They definitely, you know, have... There's an edge to it. There was a big falling out with Kyle and Matt LaFleur that I get into that is an incredible story that is, you know, centered around the drama leading into that draft, the night of the draft when they took Trey Lance. One of the... Zach Wilson, two. Trey Lance, three. Anyway. But, yeah, you know...

In Washington, I kind of liken it to like, you know, I'm in Northern California. Imagine like

Silicon Valley in the early days and you've got you know Steve Jobs and Andy Grove and all these visionaries at one company young kind of hustling all rushing hey what if what if we try this nah I got this idea where it was encouraged to make these suggestions and they'd kind of all run to Kyle Shanahan and he'd decide what to use and what not to use so there was a uh

It was a collaboration and kind of a healthy competition back then. It's fascinating because these are always... Just going back to coaching staffs when you had... I think the other one is the Packers in the 90s when they had Gruden and all these guys on the staff. Yeah, Andy Reid. Yeah, Andy Reid and just like...

Going back in these time capsules along the NFL and you look at these coaching staff, you're like, holy shit. They had this type of brain power that then goes out and spreads everywhere in the NFL. So my curiosity about how we've evolved in the NFL is...

Why did it take so long for everyone else to kind of catch up and be like, hey, these guys are really smart? Is it just an organization failure across the league where it's like, we want to do the thing that's always been done and now this new age shit is kind of scary?

It feels like we're there now where everyone's starting to think outside the box, but that, that there's a little bit of tension that goes along with anything new. Yeah. And they have flaws, right? Like Kyle Shanahan has a very brusque style that wasn't very conducive to bonding with players. He's gotten a lot better. And so they were very sure of themselves and sure they were right and didn't really like

you know, uh, hiding that. Right. So that could be cool if it's working, but the other element of this, and I know Eric will be excited, but I, the dysfunction seemed to find them. Right. Like, uh, you had them all at Washington. Well, enough said, right. Uh, Dan Snyder, et cetera. Then Kyle goes to Cleveland. Uh, you know,

talk about our Hugh Jackson association. A lot of people have gotten caught up in that hell hole. He famously fought his way out after a year. And remember that was the Ray Farmer texting scandal. The general manager was texting assistant coach Dowell Loggins to tell Kyle that

Among other things, you should play Johnny Madsell, right? So Kyle had Mike McDaniel write up a 32-point memo of reasons he should be let out of his contract. And it ultimately worked. Holy shit. And so then he goes to Atlanta. And after that first year with Matt Ryan in Atlanta, there's a question about whether he's going to get fired by the Falcons. They end up having this...

summit meeting in Southern California, which is described in the book. And it was, it's been called, Matt LaFleur called it our kumbaya sessions. Somebody called it marriage counseling. But basically, they're gathering at Tom House and Adam Dado's place. And who's gathering? This is Matt Ryan.

Kyle Shanahan, who are the two guys who need to work stuff out. Dan Quinn and Matt LaFleur, the quarterback coach, with these two quarterback gurus, Tom House and Adam Dato, that Matt Ryan's working out with. And...

Famously, a few things were said, but at one point, Tom House is trying to describe Matt LaFleur's role as getting caught in the middle between Kyle Shanahan and Matt Ryan. And he says, Matt, you're the taint. Taint's very...

That's a good analogy. Yeah. No one wants to be the team. Yeah. Yeah. It's that's fascinating though. Like that, that tension that works and then, and then you get success out of it because like having, having that meeting, they get to the Superbowl.

Obviously, they were up 25 in the Super Bowl. Hard to do. Is that true? It's hard to be up 25 points in the Super Bowl. You could say that Dan Quinn is a Super Bowl winning head coach. He was winning by 25. I heard it was 28 to 3. Yes. And Matt Ryan wins an MVP, and that kind of launches Kyle Shanahan and then Matt LaFleur, right? Yes. So that meeting obviously worked. It really did. And so, yes, eventually they have all ascended.

Um, and now they just fight it out amongst each other and try to keep their prodigies. You know, I mean, look what the saints are doing. That's a Kubiak. That's part of the tree as well. Yeah. Um, but in Washington, that RG three year, even amid the rest of the league being kind of blown away and defense is not being able to stop it. Uh,

So you'll remember the Cleveland game that year. Yep. Kirk Cousins. RG3 gets hurt. And now Kirk Cousins, who they'd also drafted that year, which was the Kyle Shanahan, you know, favorite pick, has got to play in Cleveland. And they run a more traditional Shanahan offense game plan with a lot of boots. You know, the fake handoff and the rollout. And Kirk Cousins...

goes wild in that game and they win. So now here's the postgame scene. Dan Snyder barrels through the locker room, goes right past Kirk Cousins, who is having this glorious moment, almost steps on him to get to Robert Griffin and say, Hey, don't worry. It's okay. You're still my guy. And Kirk is just standing there. It's super awkward. I, while this is happening, I,

And RG2, Robert's father, who was very involved, has managed to somehow get in the locker room. And he's all over Mike Shanahan. Man, why didn't you call any running plays? And Mike's like...

He can run on those boots. He just chose to throw out. We want to run those plays with Robert. And Robert comes back too early, probably because he's threatened by that. All in for year two. I remember that. Yeah. And, and so it gets, you know, we all, I think,

That playoff game where he ends up tearing up the knee and that's the beginning of the end was horrible. But in most people's minds, well, he'll get surgery and they'll come back and they'll build on this and it'll be amazing. There's a scene in the book where Mike Shanahan, at the end of that season, because of how he feels about Robert, because he thinks Dan Snyder is so...

in believing that Robert's really a pocket passer and we're going to change him and we're going to show and he's my guy. Mike Shanahan ends up recommending to Dan Snyder, Bruce Allen, the GM, and the other owners, we should trade Robert now. We know...

He's not really what people think he is. The league's going to catch up, and it's not going to work out the way you think. His value is amazing. We might get back the three ones we gave up, and we can play with Kirk. And Mike Shanahan has it all figured out. He's like, this is the best idea ever. And it did not go over well. So in retrospect, that would have been a good play. That would have gotten a lot of people on their asses.

they've done that it seems insane to actually do something like that after you win rookie of the year though it would have been viewed as insane including in fairness even by me right yeah you know but but those are the type of moves too really where you're thinking ahead where like a belichick was famous for it like get get rid of guys a year early except instead of a year late and stay ahead of the curve here's another weird thing i you know peyton manning was free before that 2012 season yep

coming off the neck surgeries and Mike Shanahan absolutely had interest and Peyton was going to be in Denver anyway meeting with the Broncos so they set up a meeting at Mike Shanahan's house with Mike and Kyle and Kyle who is a football nerd and thinks Peyton is you know

the all time best at the line of scrimmage, the general, you know, he's so fired up. So Mike Shanahan flies to the Bahamas to meet with Dan Snyder, presumably on his very small boat. I'm sure it's tiny. So they're off on the boat. Kyle's in his office prepping for his, you know, meeting with Peyton Madigan. He's so excited. Uh,

They both get in the air. Mike is flying to Denver from the Bahamas. Kyle is flying from Dulles. While they're in the air, and this is pre-good Wi-Fi, Bruce Allen at Dan Snyder's behest trades with the Rams way before the draft for all those picks. So now we know they're picking RG3. So Kyle lands, finds out about it. He's like, oh, well, there's obviously no meeting. And Mike says, no, no, no.

We could still get Peyton Roberts for the future. And so Kyle preps. Peyton comes to the house. He and Kyle watch film for a couple hours. They're totally vibing. Like, it's the greatest meeting ever. Kyle's so fired up. Peyton leaves, and Kyle says, Dad, do you really think we still have a chance to get him? And Mike goes, no.

Like, we're drafting Robert. So he just let Kyle down easy. And so, yeah, history could have been way different. There's just so many sliding doors moments for my happiness that we're going over right now. Things could have been so different. And then the funny thing is, you know, 2013 is one of the all-time dysfunction junction seasons. That was my first season at NFL Network, and I was –

doing Thursday nights at halftime and then game day morning with Ian Rappaport. We're all, you know, we're doing, uh, I was being like his Mort, may he rest in peace for his Adam. And, uh, we were all over the Redskin dysfunction. And I remember laughing. I'm like, Dan Snyder's used to dealing with like Jim Zord. He has no idea about the Mike Shanahan, you know, ability to, uh, navigate this feud. And so he,

He ends up getting fired and Mike goes in for his exit meeting with the other owners. And he says, okay, I'm going to give you guys some advice. Take it or leave it. You need to trade Kirk Cousins. And they're like, huh? And he goes, there's no coach who's going to come in here and believe ultimately that Robert is better than Kirk Cousins.

So trade him. Yeah. Because it's going to be an issue. It's going to be a problem. That's fascinating. So are you surprised that Mike Shanahan never got another job? Because he does feel like he's such an innovator and such an accomplished coach that you'd think a team would want him. I remember even, I think it was 20...

15 ish 15 or 16 when the Bears hired John Fox he was he was a name that was being thrown around and it's like why is this guy who knows so much about football who has all this this incredible resume why is he not gotten another job yeah I agree with you he did talk to the Raiders of all teams at one point post Al and the Niners he should be in the Hall of Fame right now there's no question I hope this book helps make that case

He, there is something at 49er headquarters referred to as the Shanakam, which basically means Mike Shanahan needs to watch meetings and practice ASAP virtually. That's awesome. So he's, some people think he's the shadow GM. I think that's an exaggeration, but this is incredible. So because I was doing this book,

full force, I spent a bunch of time with him in May and June of 2022. And so in those conversations, I would ask about Trey Lance, of course, and Jimmy, and he kept talking about Brock Purdy because he'd seen some minicamp tape. And I was like, God, he's kind of weirdly into Brock Purdy, but you know, whatever. He's the 262nd pick.

Now, they open against the Bears. It's Trey Lance's first game as the unquestioned starter. The day before, I go to Mike Shanahan's room, and I'm sitting up there, and I'm asking him about Trey Lance, and he again brings up Purdy, and he says, when you have a guy like that in your building, you don't let him out. And I'm like...

Are we talking about, you know, thinking? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, so he's still got it. Yeah, this is why I'm saying, like, how is he not, like, Brock Purdy is a guy who it took him going to a Super Bowl for everyone to be like, okay, maybe he's actually really good. And Mike Shanahan, before he even takes a snap at the NFL, is like,

this guy is going to be good. And in fairness, even Kyle, who's great at this, didn't really know what he was. Obviously, I don't know if Mike thought all this before the draft to this degree, but when I was seeing him, he'd seen a few of the OTA tapes, and he was just like, I don't know. And then meeting the kid, he's just...

You know, for all the – he looks like he's going to class at Iowa State, right, with the backpack. And he's very polite and very personable. I don't know if you guys have met him yet. We haven't. Yeah, I think you'll really like him. But he's a stone-cold killer too. That's fascinating. So why hasn't a team hired Mike Shannon as a GM? I think that's also – I think if, you know –

I'm in the rare position where I have receipts. I have this on tape. He's talking about Brock Purdy in June of 2022 like he's an elite NFL starting quarterback. That's incredible. It also sounds like his son's the head coach. It'd be hard to hire him as a GM for another team. The 49ers essentially got just a great asset that's going to work for free for him. What if like...

The Harbaughs, you know, like, and the Shanahan's somehow, you know, all got crossed up. I think the Harbaughs would murder them. If there was, like, actually, like, family rivalry, I'd take Jim Harbaugh over any of those guys, yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, it would be hard for me to imagine a less...

tense atmosphere than a Harbaugh family versus any other family competition in anything. True alphas. Yeah. So you spent a lot of time around the league. I know that you were around New Orleans. You knew what was going on during Bounty Gate. And I feel like that's something that we don't talk about enough anymore. It hasn't been forgotten, but we don't talk about it as much as we used to besides the Kevin James movie. So what was your knowledge of Bounty Gate as it happened and

and how it came out, and all that aftermath. Well, I did get caught up in it, and it's funny, because this story is going to ultimately lead to Jeff Fisher, who I know we share an affinity for. We love, yes. And before I was too...

close to Hugh Jackson, I was also too close to Jeff Fisher, who also got turned into a cartoon character by America. And so it's 2012. Greg Williams has already left to go to the Rams, the St. Louis Rams, as their new defensive coordinator, a couple years removed from the Super Bowl. Sean Payton has been suspended, along with Greg Williams and

others because the NFL has decided that they have evidence that the Saints allegedly, I would say allegedly based on the evidence now, you know, we're paying players to

explicitly to injure opponents. And this is as the concussion lawsuits going on in the NFL is looking for a way desperately to say, man, we care about health and safety. They had some other issues with Sean Payton. Great stories that don't have to do with that. So it was,

It was already weird. It's also Tom Benson. I think you could do that to Tom Benson easier than you could do it to Robert Kraft or Jerry Jones. Easy owner to pick on. So Sean Payton gets suspended for a year. While this is all going on,

I learn of the existence of this audio tape that documentary filmmaker Sean Pamphilon had in his possession. He was working at the time with Steve Gleason on what ultimately became a documentary because he'd been diagnosed with ALS, a former Saints player.

Steve Gleason was a guest of the team in this meeting before a playoff game against the 49ers in 2011, 2011 season. And Greg Williams is caught on audio tape saying things like kill the head and the body will die. And Greg Williams is one of those guys that if you take him literally and

I relate. If you take him literally, it doesn't go well. Right. He's very over the top. Right. He says things for effect. But he did seem to, according to Pamphilod, be literal in that he made the money sign with his hands at one point, like, I got the first one, meaning I'll pay that fine. Yeah. Which would cross the line. So...

It was the smoking gun the NFL felt it needed to show the world, see, this is out of control in New Orleans. I get ready to write this blockbuster story for Yahoo Sports. Unfortunately, I had just...

finished with Jeff Fisher in Indy at the Combine asking and receiving permission to be in the Rams' war room in the upcoming draft, which is a big get for Yahoo and me. And I'm all excited. And now Jeff Fisher's defensive coordinator is going to be even more disciplined because there was a chance that suspension was going to get reduced. I'll never forget. So when Jeff called me back, I had to tell him what was going on. He just goes...

How bad? And I go, well, given that it's Greg, it's about as bad as you can imagine. So at that point, I just assumed that if not Jeff, his owner or somebody would say to him, we're not letting that guy in our draft room. He just ruined our life even more. But amazingly...

Jeff calls and says, when are you coming out? He said, why don't we have dinner the night before? So now we're outdoors in Clayton, Missouri, having dinner, drinking wine. He's telling me about what they're going to try to do in the draft. By the way, that was the Michael Brockers, Brian quick draft where they got too cute to

I was there, tried to, wanted Bobby Wagner, but thought, let's get him with the second of our two picks in this round because we want to get Isaiah Peed, the immortal running back, and then lost Bobby Wagner to the Seahawks. So Jeff says to me with a twinkle in his eye, you know, I want you in the room, but I also want you to have a workstation and for times where we really need to have a sensitive conversation to kick you out.

I do have a vacant office and literally I set up shop for three days in Greg Williams vacant office somehow after breaking the kill the head body oh my god we're gonna get back to Michael Silver in a second he's brought to you by blue chew you can have better sex with blue chew blue chew is the original brand offering chewable tablets the

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The interview is also brought to you by Wolf's, streaming September 27th on Apple TV+. It's a new action comedy movie starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, streaming on Apple TV+, on September 27th. The story takes place all on one wild night in New York City. You've got George Clooney, you've got Clooney and Pitt. They star as two rival fixers who are both called in to help cover up the same crime. Wolf's, streaming September 27th on Apple TV+.

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So back to Bounty Gate, though, the smoking gun that you said. Yes. In a team meeting, he said, kill the head, the snake will die, or whatever, the body will die. And then he says, I got the first one. Does the money sign implying I'll pay for your fine if you hit the quarterback too hard? Yes.

I think almost every defensive coordinator around the league has said and done stuff like that in meetings, at least at the time. Maybe they've been more careful since then. So what was it about Greg Williams in particular that made the NFL target the Saints? I think it was Sean Payton. There had been another scandal that had quietly gone away because of the arbitration clause that kept it from being public. But there was a scandal that involved missing players

at the Saints facility, Vicodin, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. But there were a lot of pills missing and there was some word or accusation that Sean Payton had been involved in that and trying to cover that up. I think there was a general feeling that Roger Goodell believed

These guys are out of control. They're, you know, and Sean, who I love, you know, was Bill Parcells trained. So there was the secrecy and the kind of the weirdness in general. Again, it was Tom Benson, someone you could make an example of. There was another incident during one of the London games at Wembley where they did a walkthrough the day before.

And the security people told Sean Payton, you guys are going to come out before the game and you guys are going to go through this tunnel. And you know how NFL coaches are like, it's gospel. That is the tunnel. We were told. And at game day, when they tried to go through the assigned tunnel, it had been changed and

And they really wanted Sean to go a different way. And he didn't want to. And I believe the story goes that he just kind of pushed through a security official. May have been a British security official. You know, not like he beat him up. But it got a little physical. And that got back to Roger. And I think that was another instance where he was like, this guy. So...

Again, it's disturbing to me in that they kind of did a Mueller report independent commission thing to try to prove that they had it. And they used Paul Tagliabue, of all people, the former commissioner who was a lawyer. And the report was not real friendly to the NFL. It was kind of like, eh, there's this audio from a game where

Somebody allegedly says, give me my money, Bobby. But it's not really...

clear that that's exactly what he said. It was flimsy evidence at best. Or that he said it. It was a witch hunt. If you're a Saints fan, you go, they had it out for our team. And again, there were some other reasons that might have been true. If you're a cynic like me, who then went to work for the NFL, but if you're a cynic like me, you say they were looking at an existential threat with the head trauma, which they were culpable for. They had...

beat their chest and show the world yeah we care about safety players let's do 17 games but we care about right yeah that's right yeah it's playing random stadiums across the world that are not good playing surfaces yeah right we don't care about safety oh uh world cup we're hosting fifa needs grass yeah oh yes fifa yeah we'll change it to grass right oh uh nfl guys think

Nah, sorry. Yeah. So you were talking about that Rams war room. I don't think about this guy at all, but it sounds like that's the same draft that they drafted Michael Sam. No, I actually repeatedly got in the Rams war room because I was a friend of the coach. You're such a good guest. Yeah, I was a guest. So now at NFL Network, NFL.com, I was there the year they took Michael Sam. So they had two picks.

At the end of the seventh round. And so Michael Sam had been the SEC defensive player of the year. So to a casual fan or to someone like me, even it was like, well, that guy's going to get drafted. Right. He's the, you know, he's an edge rusher who, you know, was the player defensive player of the year in the best conference.

But scouts didn't love him for football reasons. And so he was also openly gay. The NFL had never had an openly gay player. And things have changed a lot. But at the time, that felt super heavy. So Jeff Fisher is on the phone as their picks are coming in the seventh round. And he kind of looks a little serious. And he hangs up. And he stands up. And the Rams have one of those war rooms that...

everybody's in like the Patriots. It would be like Bill Belichick, you know, Scott Piolli and only two other people. Maybe we'll let the running backs coach come in for five minutes. Yeah. But the Rams are like, it's the scouts. It's the, it's ownership. It's the, all the front office people and me. And so, um, Jeff tells the room with pick two 40, whatever we are taking Michael Sam from Missouri. And, um,

People kind of get chills because it's history. And at that point, you're pretty far ahead of the telecast. So we have a few minutes to kind of be the only ones who know, like, this is going to be cool. And it's historic. And we're waiting and waiting. And the pick gets officially turned in. So now we know it's happening for sure. We're waiting and waiting. And then the pick is made. And it's kind of like everybody's just kind of looking at each other like,

We were there. It's pretty cool. Right. Well, then they cut to, they had cameras on Michael Sam at his house. I don't know if you remember this, but Michael and his boyfriend at the time, I think his name was Vito, celebrated the moment. And there was like a cake smushed face licking off of fingers situation going on.

And it definitely changed the vibe in the Ram War Room, not judging in like a homophobic way as much as just, yeah, that's not very football. Right. And it just kind of freaked people out. And I don't want to, I'm not even sure of the person who said it, and I don't want to ID him. But one person broke the tension by saying something to the effect of, damn, this

Usually you got to be in the league a minute before you start getting the white bitches. Oh man. Um, all right. So I got a big football question for you. Uh,

someone once told me and it's stuck with me ever since that in the NFL there are a handful of teams that are actively trying to win a Super Bowl organizations that are actively trying to win a Super Bowl doing the right things investing in the team and then there's like 20 organizations that basically are saying hey if we catch lightning in a bottle cool but otherwise we're just going to print money is that a fair accurate thing to say yeah and it's

been a thing and so it's weird because for all my lefty Berkeley you know grateful debt all my heritage I'm super free market on the NFL like I'm Adam Smith right and I used to call these old owners

Politburo bosses because they would take the standard their breadline and they would take their guaranteed TV revenue, which guarantees you a profit. And the NFL has like a lot of communist like sensibilities where she'll be first, the draft, the schedule, etc.

the salary cap, they control costs, they share all the revenue. And so there was not a lot of incentive back in the day to market. And the Bears are traditionally under-marketed. The Chicago Bears. The Raiders just were like, why would we market? Where are the Raiders? The Bengals still don't. And so...

Eddie DiBartolo, Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft ended up being the new guard of owners who got it a lot more entrepreneurial and started hustling. And there was this famous owner meeting where Jerry Jones says to Mike Brown –

I'm so touched that you want to name your stadium after your late father. That's really awesome. But because you won't take a naming rights deal, I have to subsidize you on this revenue sharing thing. And so I tend to be on the side of those more aggressive owners. So yes, they're all...

you know, you would think in such a highly competitive industry, everyone wants to win desperately. There's some guys who want to win desperately, but they don't know how. And they sabotage like Dan Snyder, David Tepper. Yeah. But then there's some people who are just like acting like they want to win because every once in a while they will. Yeah. They get, they,

They catch the, oh, we got lucky with this quarterback or this random year happened. Totally. And then we'll just have everyone live off that for the next 10, 20 years. Right. So if you're a fan, you want your owner to, and I did owner rankings at SI.com and Yahoo.com for years and years. And what I really valued the most was aggressive pursuit of revenue and aggressive spending to try to get,

And so Dan Snyder having players on his helicopter is well-intentioned, but it screws the authority of the coach and messes it up. But, you know, if you have the best facilities, if you pay your assistant coach as well, if you...

scouting department, all those things where it's like there's there just seems to be a lot of organizations. And I'm probably speaking about my the team I root for here very much so where it's it's frustrating knowing the further we've gotten into this job, the more we've seen it.

It's frustrating to know that a lot of these organizations just don't give a fuck. And they just, they, they honestly are fine. You know, every five years ripping off 10 wins and being like, that was cool. I don't believe that there is a more under marketed entity in

in American commerce than the Chicago Bears. I mean, the Chicago Bears. And I don't know if people know, like in this city, the Bulls had that amazing run. Yeah, but it's a football town. The Cubs are the Cubs, but it's a football town.

football down it is and and when the bears it you know in 85 and like that was it was just it it engulfed everything and they've been living off it since yeah you know and it's that lightning in a bottle where it's like hey we we aren't going to do all the steps we'll do a couple of the steps here and there and if we're good for a couple years oh awesome but then it never sustainable

The sustainable greatness of some of these organizations. Cause like, yeah. Okay. The Cowboys have not won a Superbowl since the nineties. They've still been in the mix pretty much every year. So, and it's hard to win championships, but like being in the mix and actively trying to win playoff games matters. I'm for the, I've been a Jerry ride or die for so long, but I'm starting to wonder now, like,

I know he's always told me this is all I care about. I just want to win. But like his actions the last few years, you know, he could have got Sean Payton. Well, this is a weird part. We talk about this a lot on the show about Jerry Jones because of how he dealt with his coaches in the 90s. We think he's one way.

He kept Jason Garrett for way too long. So he actually is weirdly one of those way too loyal, I don't want to change guys. Yeah, or I don't want to pay guys not to coach. But we think about the 90s and we think about Jimmy Johnson. We're like, oh, he'll get rid of a guy in a second if he has a problem with him. I mean, I feel like there have been two inflection points that he could have had Sean Payton and he knows. Yeah. He knows Sean Payton would have, you know, in his mind would have been the guy. He didn't do it. And then...

Is there anyone on earth that, you know, with respect to Mike McCarthy, who's done a lot of good things in this league, after the first quarter and a half of that playoff game against the Packers, is there anyone reasonable on earth who would have been like, man, Jerry Jones fired Mike McCarthy and tried to get Mike Vrabel or Bill Belichick? Like, no one would have said, wow, Jerry Jones is...

Yeah, he didn't give him enough time. Yeah, right. That would have made perfect sense. So why do you think that is? Why do you think that Jerry chose to remain loyal to McCarthy? Especially when you say the name Belichick. Belichick being out there seems like it would have been the ultimate Jerry Jones move, right? Correct. So why do you think he remained loyal to him?

It's a great question. I need to have a longer conversation with Jerry, preferably with him buying the red wine, which he tends to do. And he has a little bit more fleshed out taste than I do. But it just makes me think that he has changed because the Jerry I've always known and defended on this is

Of course. But you're right. You know, you're right in the Jason Garrett thing. He let that go a long way too long and Wade. Yeah. And Wade. Yeah. Right. So it's he kind of has become one of those owners that's like, I like what I like and

And I'm not going to rock the boat. And also, I don't want to pay. Right. And I always have said to Jerry, you do better with powerful coaches. Everyone thinks Jerry wants to walk all over people. But the best... Even Switzer had some juice. Jimmy, Barry...

And Parcells, which was a total clash. I have a great story on that one. But Jerry did better when strong people were in charge. There's a story where, you know how Parcells was, you know, wanted to run everything and

The Cowboys are flying out to play the Patriots, and they're staying either in Providence or closer to Providence than Boston. And so, of course, the assumption is the plane is flying to Providence, and the buses will be there, and they'll go to the hotel. And late in the flight, it becomes clear to Parcells that they're going to Boston.

Which makes no logistical sense until he learns that the Joneses have dinner plans with the Crafts. And they don't want to go from Providence. You know, they're not taking a bus. So the plane's going to land in Boston. And Bill, who cared a lot about such things, went up and kind of let Jerry have it. And Jerry smiled and said, I think the quote was, well, Bill...

When you buy your own team, you can have the plane go where you want it to go. I love it. There is a certain type of billionaire, and I think that there are owners in the NFL that are definitely doing things the right way, but those middling franchises and some of the bad ones –

There's some owners that are – they're super competitive but that doesn't translate to what they actually – the steps that you have to take to winning football games. They take more pleasure in like the petty stuff, like getting small victories over the other owners. Like if they find there's another owner that really likes this coffee shop, they're going to do everything they can to like have that coffee shop next to their house closed down. Billionaires are absolutely petty as we've seen.

You know what, guys? I'm thinking I might... I let go of owner rankings because they hired me for eight years. Should we bring it back? Yeah, I would love to see it. Yeah, because it is fascinating and it also is a really good... From a fan perspective, it's a really good way to see where you...

you land. I got the, I got the greatest feedback because, you know, there were people in Buffalo who said, if you come to the city, I will fight you in defense of Ralph Wilson. I'm like, really? Yeah. That's why you're going to fight me. But the best were, you know,

You ranked Bill Bidwell number 30 in your owner rankings. I defy you to name two owners that are better or that are worse than Bill Bidwell. There's no way he shouldn't be 32. But yeah, lots of arguments. But these are good things. It's like the blind poll that has started about the facilities. It shines light on it where teams are being – that's kind of an ownership ranking in its own right where it's like, hey, here's where they're cheaping out.

That's good stuff. Fans should know if their owner is not doing everything to win. Yes, and what I liked is that I got very personal and punitive, and so these people are not used to being criticized. It's one thing if I... Kyle Shanahan's going to read stuff in this book and want to strangle me, perhaps, but Kyle Shanahan is used to, as am I and you, we're all used to being kind of criticized brutally, so I think we tend to be able to...

filter that. But like

I don't think Mike Brown was used to that. Who, by the way, has done ownership rights to naming rights. Well, he's done naming rights to his stadium because he had to pay Joe Burrow. I will give this to Mike Brown. Everyone else would have fired Zach Taylor after year two. And because he's cheap or has a philosophy. He got lucky because he's cheap. Yeah. But in that case, they got to the Super Bowl and almost won it. Sometimes not firing a coach is the best thing that you can do. Correct. Back to that Washington, D.C. stuff. Yeah.

So if you were to do your ownership power rankings right now, do you know who the top five would be? That's a great question. I should have prepped on that. You know, I think that I am a big believer that the crafts are great owners, but, you

you know, they're in a weird kind of position. I'm heartened by the way the Patriots are playing, actually. Yeah. They're playing harder than I thought. And, you know, it looks kind of cooler so far. But, yeah, I'd have to, I'd really have to deconstruct and take a look because in most of them, the Crafts and the Joneses were kind of right there. Jeffrey Lurie. That's right. Jeffrey Lurie would be very, very high. Green Bay. Yeah.

Yeah, Green Bay's weird because they're going to change CEOs coming up. So that's interesting. With the Hunts? Or they just got lucky because they got Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid? Because the blind poll is very interesting that the facilities there... Murders them. ...gets killed. And you're like, dude, you're Patrick Mahomes. You should do whatever he wants to make his life great. My favorite story with the Hunts was I'm out with Derek Thomas, the late great Hall of Fame edge rusher who...

was one of the great social animals in NFL history in an era where it was different and we didn't have cell phone cameras. Also, they didn't have to stay in hotels the night before home games. Marty Schottenheimer didn't make them, so we even had some Saturday nights. Watch the Tupac-Bruce Seldon fight at his house the night before a game. Not Tupac, excuse me, the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight the night before.

Tupac was shot at his house with one of my buddies, one of his buddies, and Kid from Kid and Play of House Party fame who was on fire with the commentary. But Derek and I, early on, he was this big...

JFK conspiracy buff. And it stemmed because his father had been a fighter pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and killed. And so Derek's whole

belief was that the war continued because JFK was assassinated to continue the Vietnam War leading to the death of my father. And so he was very, very down the rabbit hole on that. And he started talking about some of the theories publicly. And it finally, I finally went and researched it. And I'm like,

Lamar Hunt, your owner, is one of the people in this theory that would be one of the people who put out the hit. Is that a little awkward? So we started having that conversation. That's awkward because I've seen owner-player stuff go really bad, like T.O. with the push-ups and all that, but...

that's a different level. You might've, you might've indirectly killed my father. Yeah. And, and the president, the president. Yeah. That's wild. So, um, I also heard that you've speaking to guys that you've spent a lot of time with where, uh, they benefited from not having camera phones around. You hung out with Dennis Rodman in Vegas. Uh, well, I did a book with him. Um,

So there was this Sports Illustrated story. I got there in 1994. And in May of 95, when he was still with the Spurs, they were in a playoff series with the Lakers. I got sent down to LA and a four-day, three-night, three-state bender ensued. And it was amazing. And I turned it into this cover story where he was

He's got the bird on his shoulder and the metallic hot pass, this iconic SI cover that I wrote in real time at his house in San Antonio as he engaged in activities with a stripper.

while the birds were all there were these wild birds squawking. So there was a lot of noise. And I did manage to focus and write this story. But yeah, I spent a lot of time with Dennis here. But that first night in L.A. when we went out, they eliminated the Lakers. I met him during the day at the shoot around. Wasn't clear we were going to do anything.

They eliminated the Lakers. He immediately walked off the court and told me, let's go. We ended up at a club in West Hollywood with some celebrities. I'm 29. He's 34. And I'm like, well, I could drink with any 34 year old. I mean, I could drink. Yeah, we know. So I was pouring out shots under the table like soon after it was Goldschlager and Jagermeister. And, you know, I

He drank me out of the table. But at one point, he took me outside and he started to talk about a lot of things, including Madonna, who was the most famous woman in the world. And he had been dating. And he said very openly, you know, she wanted me to... She wanted to have my baby. The quote, I think, was, she has ways of making you feel like King Tut. And so...

This, you know, Rodman was basically, as we went to San Antonio, then Vegas, then tried to go to Phoenix to watch game seven of the other series, Courtside, but that got derailed. We ended up back in San Antonio. And as all this is happening, um,

I was just going to go home straight from Vegas. I had so much good stuff and I was going to fly to Oakland. So we're having this kind of emotional goodbye at the airport. And he looks at me as I'm walking away and he goes, bro, what are you doing? This is the great, like I'm giving you the great, like stay with me. Yeah. And he was right. And so I just turned around and went to his gate and talked my way out of that plane and went back to Texas. And, um, it's before cell phones were really reliable. And I had told my wife, um,

Hey, I'm coming home. So when we got to Texas, I had to call her as Dennis and I were walking to his truck. And can you imagine the voice I was using? Yeah. So, honey, you know, and Texas, I get off the phone and he go, oh, bro, who wears the pants in this family? Who wears the pants? Okay. Well, story comes out. No story doesn't come out. Story gets filed. I fly home. They open against the Rockets Monday. Okay.

I in San Antonio, I believe I, and maybe in Houston and no, it was in San Antonio and I've just, I'm still exhausted. The story has been fact-checked. It's not coming out till Wednesday, but it closes Monday night and I'm just getting ready to watch the game.

And I get a call like an hour and 15 minutes before the game. And he's like, bro. And I'm like, what are you doing? Are you at the arena? No, bro, I'm at home. And he goes, you got to do something for me. And I go, what? He goes, bro, you got to take that Madonna shit out of there. And I go, who wears the pants? Oh, that's beautiful. And then literally he had me. He three-way called me.

And he was going to have me talk to Madonna and explain to her that he really, you know, he also said some nice things. Yeah. Oh, she's going to kill me. So I'm laughing and it goes to answering machine, not voicemail, answering machine. And, you know, it's like, hey, it's Em. I'm not here. Leave a message. And then here's me, you know, leaving.

leaving a message for Madonna. Oh my God. Don't be too bad, Madonna. That's incredible. That's a great touching moment though. You're about to give up on the party and go home and Dennis Rodman's like, come on, man. Yeah. Yeah. Just party with me one more night. Let's do it. Yeah. It was really touching because on the flight, he says to me, I, I,

So what are you doing after this? You know, after this story? And I said... They actually have me doing this NASCAR thing. It was this weird black and white NASCAR cover story. And he goes... He goes... Well, it ain't gonna be like this. And I go, no. And he goes...

it's never going to be like this. And he was right. And I kind of knew. Yeah, you've always been chasing that. I mean, I was on the balcony with John Elway at his hotel after his last game. He won Super Bowl MVP. He's got a cigar in one hand and a beer in the other. And he's telling me everything. And I write that story for Sports Illustrated all night. Like, I've had moments where I'm like, this is surreal. But it was never like that. Yeah. So what about fact-checking when it comes to, like, going out and partying with Dennis Rodman? Like, how do you remember –

the quotes and stuff that you're getting over the course of the night because they do trust and you are a fun guy to hang out with. Yeah, it's such a great question because how we were classically trained journalism, capital J, a lot of things, by the way, don't be the story. Don't inject yourself. I'm like, I'm too arrogant for that.

But, you know, SI, we had time. It was due, you know, 9 a.m. Monday morning usually or sometimes 9 a.m. Sunday morning. So you could deconstruct and go back and check it. But there are a lot of fine lines. Interestingly, doing the book with Rodman, I did back-to-back books with Rodman and Kurt Warner, very different books and experiences. But doing the book with Rodman was wild because his thing was –

You have to come here and rage and get in my orbit. And after like,

an undetermined amount of time we'd be on twin treadmills at the birdo center and he'd be like take out that tape recorder yeah and uh and then it would be amazing but my wife would be like how long are you gonna be gone i'd be like i just don't know yeah right i might get kidnapped it's a fair question for to ask you too if like you're writing a story and you're typing it as dennis rodman's having sex well there's a bird yeah but he he was amazing like the book came out and

We had gone out in Chicago to a place called Manhole. Okay. And Manhole suggests that it would be a bar frequented by dudes who are into dudes, which is what it was. But one of the people... And in fact...

big screen TV of hardcore porn with dude on dudes at the bar. But there was a friend of his called Mimi that went out with us, who was a voluptuous Marilyn Monroe lookalike with a sultry voice who had been named Michael and was in some form of transition, undetermined, but was Mimi. And

In the book, as Dennis, I talked about Mimi and I said I had been with Mimi a few times innocently, meaning I'd been out with Mimi. But he goes on Howard Stern and Stern's go and he's like, you've been with Mimi. And Dennis just went with it. He just goes, a lot of people been with transsexual bro. They just don't realize it.

Incredible. Well, Mike, this has been awesome. The book, uh, the why is everything a story of football rivalry and revolution. Buy it on Amazon. I have one last question. Rowback question, RHO, BACK.com promo code. Take 20% off your first purchase. Choose this polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. I have to ask grateful dead question. How many shows have you been to? I know we've talked about it privately. Uh,

How many shows have you been to total? Well, we're only counting Jerry Grateful Dead. Yes. Because I went to Jerry Band and Kingfish and obviously anything since 95 doesn't count. Right. We did it, my buddy and I. I think it's 60...

Wow. I went to Cal from 83 to 88, so they just played so much. Kaiser. And it was mail order tickets or buy one outside. It was 15 bucks. And it's so weird because we look back now and we're like, we should have gone to more. But we also knew. And I think I wondered the same. We knew in that moment we're seeing not just –

but that Jerry, it was just a different thing that was going on. How many did you get to? Well, I mean, I've never, I'm too young to have gone to true Grateful Dead. Yes. Cause I'm 39. Oh yeah. I've been to every iteration basically since Phil Leshin friends in the early 2000s. Nice. But so you got to see like peak Brent. I saw, I love, I saw peak Brent and yeah, I know you and I are aligned on that. That is my wheelhouse. So,

Jerry almost died in 86 and went into a diabetic coma. They took months off. He had to relearn how to play the guitar. And Dennis McNally, their longtime publicist, who was very close, has told me that he always felt Jerry after that was like a great pitcher who'd lost his fastball. Still amazing and hit momentarily.

but the speed, it just wasn't. So if I had a wheelhouse, I would say, you know, Brent, like once he started rounding into form, let's say 82 to diabetic coma, which is a summer of 86. Yeah. But it's all. So it's all one song. Yeah. What about, do you have a relationship with Aaron Rodgers?

Yeah, I just actually did two columns on him. One of them, I went out to Jersey and hung with him during training camp. And so he's a Cal guy. I met him coming out of Cal. He almost gave me my life quest, which is to see my team go to the Rose Bowl, which I think we all agree is not even harder. And he's been really good to me over the years. I think we probably diverge now on some –

certain things. You know, I saw you guys at Tahoe. I saw him going in there. It was a great interview. My favorite part was when you were talking about the doctor's assessment of the Achilles and you said something to the effect of,

So you were just trying to get them to make it seem like you could come back. Yeah, yeah, he was. He did it for the whole season. He took the Jets hostage a little bit. But you guys did pretty well, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's an interesting cat. I didn't like him forever because he obviously tortured me, but now that he's on the Jets, I'm watching him play now is a little...

It's kind of fun being like, oh, he's doing the same tricks where he gets everyone off sides and throws a touchdown to Lazard. It's like, I can't be mad about this. Right. I mean, I see Christian McCaffrey in that Niner locker room constantly. And, you know, as a Cal guy, I love him. But I've always regretted it because I was doing this story –

on Ed McCaffrey for SI and they only had two kids at the time. And Ed is a great dude, but not a great quote, but his wife, Lisa is hilarious. She's the one whose dad was an Olympic spreader. And she said in the story, uh,

Ed and I are breeding fast white guys, which turned out to be true. It's in the SI story. You can look it up. So we're in their kitchen and the two boys are running around, Max and Christian. I can remember the scene vividly. And I've always kicked myself

that I didn't sweep the leg because, yes, I probably would have done some jail time, gotten my ass kicked, and it would have been frowned upon. Probably would have got fired. But, God, it would have saved me so much misery. We didn't tackle that guy for three years. I mean, it was terrible. He was so good at Stanford. All right, well, Mike, thank you so much. It's been awesome, man. We really appreciate you coming by, and everyone go buy the book. It's football history. You're reading football history as it happens, too. That's the cool part about the book is –

It's not only history, but it's still going on. I totally appreciate it. And I feel like this adds to our origin story because we always have the Blues Bar and Jeff Darlington desperately trying to keep us from feuding. Yeah, well, you kept on saying Hugh Jackson got screwed. It's like he won one game in two years. You can say a lot of things about Hugh Jackson and you can say a lot of things about me, but at least please say that I'm a good friend.

You are a good friend. Yeah, you are. You're actually too good of a friend. It's arguable that I am too good of a friend. We get that same criticism. Like, we have guys that are our guys, and we will defend them to the ends of the earth. People get mad. My favorite part of the whole thing was Jeff is... I mean, Jeff was very...

you know, we're very close. So Jeff was giving me that look like you are not allowed to not, you know, you and I were already cool, but he was, he was just giving me like, you're not allowed to not be cool with this guy. I kept on just pressing. But he was also, he was also kind of coming at you. But my favorite part was you got so mad. And then you said, I could get Jared Goff not to speak to you. Yeah, that's right.

I was going to cut you off. And Jeff's like, I don't think that's true. He told me after, he's like, no, you couldn't. I was like, yeah, I took a bluff. But I did love the energy. I remember I kind of stepped back. I was like, wow, this guy doesn't play. But if we bring Odor and Rankings back, I will literally credit this moment because I've toyed with it in my head. I would love it. But I will probably unveil it to you guys first. I like that. People deserve to know. All right. Well, thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate it so much. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Mike.

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I really don't like the name, especially when one of his friends yell, how's your roach? Which I don't really understand at all. While I really don't like it, it's a strange reason to stop talking to him since I do like him. So should I ask him to drop the roach tag or just try to embrace it? Thanks. That's a scummy nickname. Yeah. It's not good. A bug or it's the end of a joint. Yeah. He might be a pothead. That would be better. Yeah. He should lie to you and tell you it's because he used to smoke a lot of weed. I don't do that shit anymore. It's kind of a badass nickname. No roach.

Yeah, Roach, but Roach is a guy that you call in like once every other month to hang out when you really want to go slumming. Roach is not a guy that you would trust to be like your best man at your wedding. He'd be an usher. Yeah. He'd be like, here, hand out these, and he'd probably forget. Yeah.

My girlfriend recently asked me about the typical placement of men at a urinal when she saw an Instagram video. She did not understand the concept. I explained it to her like each urinal is its own parking spot, and you as a person are the vehicle trying to park. I had her tell me where she would park herself if it was a parking lot and mimic the video. It still did not make sense to her. Did I explain it wrong, or is she dumb?

You usually want to give, if you have an extra space, you take that extra space. Parking spot makes sense. You would never park next to someone if there's two open spaces. Yeah.

I do. I mean, every now and then it's funny if you have like a full empty. Yeah. You go right next to the guy. Like one time I was at the Sirius XM studio and Ed Sheeran was taking the what at the urinal. Wait, the Ed Sheeran. Yeah. Ed Sheeran. But this was it was like he was starting to blow up as 2015. Holy fuck. And you know who was, though? I did not know who it was until until later. But we ended up peeing at the same like right next to each other.

Shut the fuck up. I lied. We both did not end up peeing. I was peeing and I was peeing like full stream. And then Ed, poor Ed, couldn't squeeze out any pee. So he really was trying to pee and he started spitting into the urinal.

I dominated him at the urinal, and then he had to do the fake flush, like he flushed the urinal like he peed, but he didn't pee. And then he washed his hands like he peed. He did not pee. And then just left sad. And I knew he still had to pee, but he couldn't do it because he was intimidated. How have you never told us this? I don't know. That's insane. It's a wild story. Yeah, parking space, though. That works. It's actually a great analogy. Yeah. Hi. My boyfriend told me to text this number. I saw his fantasy football team name is Hawk Tua spit on my chub.

I think it's weird to have a sexual name, but he insists it's a normal thing and it's just funny because there's a guy named Tua and a guy named Chubb on his team. Should I be concerned? You should be concerned because it's unoriginal. Yeah, I think we predicted right when the Hawk Tua video came out that was going to be the top fantasy name.

But everyone's named Hawk Tua. You name your team. But he added a little extra with the Chubb. Does he have Chubb too? What is he doing with his IR spot? He's got a shitty team. That's the big red flag. He's very bad at fantasy football. My fantasy team name has just been Jim Bob Cooter for the past 10 years. Respect. Just no pun. Just his name. I've decided that I'm just going to start naming my fantasy teams because everyone's like, oh, you got to change your name every year.

I'm going to start naming my fantasy teams like I'm six years old. So my fantasy team name is the Scorpions. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Isn't it? Or you can name your team just a real name. Like that's Bob. Yeah. I also, you can do. I just, I just said I did that. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim Bob Cooter. Yeah, but just give it one person. Yeah, but you're trying to do sexual. You're doing sexual. Yeah, but it's Jim Bob Cooter. But the Cooter is why you named it Jim Bob. It's a funny name. And Jim Bob is also a funny first name. Some leagues you can just do an emoji. So like one year I was just a wolf. That's pretty sick. Badass. Mine's Danucci Main. Nice.

Yeah, I would highly recommend, though, just go back to being like a seven-year. Like next year, you know what I'm thinking right now? I might change one of my team's names to the Fire Trucks. I just realized we basically just do fantasy football names every Sunday for boomers. That's true. Yes. That's exactly what we do. That's exactly what we do. There's probably a lot of people with fantasy names from boomers. Yeah. Remind us to do the Hawk to a joke this week on boomers. Yeah. Yeah. It's about time.

She's topping us in the charts. Actually, talk to us. But neither of those two players are going to play this week. It would have been awesome. We should do it. It would have been perfect last week because it was Hawks. Yeah. Dolphin. It would have been Hawk to a ship. Damn. Damn. I'll never get that moment back. Okay. Hank, last one.

This one said,

And I have to leave the house if I don't want to hear them screaming about fancy football or the Mount Rushmore dipping sauces. Is this normal guy bonding? I feel like this is just an excuse to get drunk. Should I be concerned? And will I ever get my boyfriend back for Friday nights? Was this guy was in a frat? Was this email from 2020? Thank you. Yeah. Mudang. Mudang supremacy shirts in the barstools. It's a sheet. Where is Mudang? Mudang supremacy. China. China.

This feels like an op. Maybe Taiwan. I don't know. Feels like a psyop. I love Mudang. Have you guys seen Pesto? That's how they get you. Have you seen Pesto? No. Pesto's a... Who is Mudang for maybe the... Mudang is a pygmy hippo that is the cutest fucking hippo ever. I think pygmy hippo. I don't know. Little baby hippo. I think it's pygmy. Pilar sent me that shirt last week and then she told me that

The Phillies NLE championship shirt was also in that box. So unfortunately, I couldn't touch it until today. Oh, okay. That makes sense. So go buy a Moody. Cutest. Pesto is a penguin that is a baby penguin that is like two times the size of his parents. So it's a giant. It's a unit. Yeah, but baby penguins are furry.

So he looks different. It's cool. Pesto is awesome. Oh, yeah. Pesto is pretty. Pesto rocks. Pesto is chill. Listen, I like Mudang. I enjoy the pictures of Mudang. But it seems like everybody loves Mudang. And it's a little convenient that it might be Chinese propaganda. That's fine. I don't care. Okay. This guy, this is a COVID email.

He just, she just emailed from COVID. That was 2020. Yeah. Like getting a group of guys organized for FaceTime that often is wild. That was, I remember doing it a few times with my friends when COVID was happening and it was nice. But as soon as we were able to go outside, which was like three weeks later, we were like, all right, that's over. Yeah. This is, it's really strange to schedule this on a Friday too. Yeah. And just get drunk staring at your screen. Yeah. Very weird.

Had to be a frat. Yeah, had to be a frat. Okay, good show, boys. Good show. We're going to do NFL Week 4. Excited. Yeah. Let's finish with numbers. Five, nine, three, five. Eighteen. Eleven. Number five. PFT and memes, you ever gotten this? No, I haven't, but I'm about to get it. I'll never get it. Jane Daniels.

Six. Oh. Nine. Let's go. You said nine. Yeah. Oh, shit. Fuck you, Hank. Oh, damn. That turned. God damn it. You fucking suck. In your face. Drake May sucks.

Damn. Good job, Hank. Nine darter, baby. Nine. Hell yeah. Woo. Happy for you. Very happy for you, Hank. Thanks. Feels good to win. What was it? What'd you do, Max? What? Winner. I win. And then you lost. That's actually the mark of a true winner, the way that Hank reacted. He was just like, cool. Yeah. Cool. Oh, nice. Nine. Yeah, but you gotta talk some shit. Love you guys. Bye.