DRAFT THEM BEFORE HOWIE DOES

1h 10m
Just one week before the 2025 NFL Draft, Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Conor Orr are joined by Matt "Money" Smith for some draft talk! But first, we react to the news: Dolphins CB Jalen Ramsey is on the trade block (8:57), something weird is going on with Saints QB Derek Carr (13:59), and future Hall of Fame OT Tyron Smith announced his retirement (18:15). Then, Money joins (24:19) to talk Chargers offseason and draft plans (29:27) and Draft Prospects Who Are Fun To Watch (41:43). Finally, we wrap things up revealing the results of the Best NFL Fanbase draft polls (55:46).

0:00 One week until the NFL Draft
5:04 NFL News
8:57 CB Jalen Ramsey on the Trade Block
13:59 What’s going on with QB Derek Carr
18:15 OT Tyron Smith retires
24:19 Matt “Money” Smith joins
29:27 Money on the Chargers’ offseason
41:43 Draft prospects who make you smile
55:46 NFL Fanbase Draft Poll Results
1:05:53 Wrap Up

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Transcript

If you thought goldenly breaded McDonald's chicken couldn't get more golden, think golder because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here, made for your chicken favorites at Participate in McDonald's for limited time.

The Heed the Call podcast

has no official comment on Katy Perry's trip to outer space.

I recognize that man.

That celestial being.

That's Matt Money Smith's music.

Filling in for the great Jason Zumwalt, the originator of the voice of God, Matt Money Smith, who will be joining us a little bit later today.

And that's very exciting.

Mark Sessler and Connor Orr.

What's up, guys?

What a...

What a stirring

callback there.

I mean, you know, Matt Money Smith, people would probably, he has like 12 jobs, and I think he does quite well financially.

That would be my guess.

But he never made a cent

recording those for us for many years.

He did it in a selfless,

in a selfless way.

Very professional.

Yeah,

that's very true, Mark.

Did I say something wrong there?

It's like, I thought that was a selfless act.

He never took any money for that role.

I feel like it did bring, it's bringing back memories.

And I remember you did often,

like any conversation around money, often started about how much money he must be making.

It seems to be a slight fascination on your part.

We could check in on his bank account at some point in the conversation today.

Yeah, we could do it today, Connor.

Yeah.

Connor, how are you, buddy?

Hey, guys.

How's it going?

How much is in your bank account, your checking account right now?

Let's get right down to the number of cents.

Once I was behind my high school best friend at a dispensary and I watched him get cash out of the ATM and I saw his checking account and I was like, Jesus Christ, like there was so much money in there.

And then I stopped asking because I was like, This is one of the most disheartening moments of my life.

So much more than mine.

It's always a dangerous thing to go looking at someone's checking balance because, in either direction, you get concerned.

Good show today.

Oh, speaking of today, actually, tonight,

exclusive on the Patreon, and we're all going to be on it.

As well as special guests.

The draft day live rewatch the film starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Gardner as a capologist tonight.

And we finally find out, Mark,

without any shadow of a doubt, whether the film was indeed, as you once claimed, filled with heart from start to finish and delivered on the quote great tension of the NFL draft.

Close quote.

We have reached the special day.

Yeah, it's, well, it's just another day where I operate as a, like a roaming clown.

I mean, let's start right there.

But I think that's a good idea.

Is there a guillotine feel to this live watch that those words are going to be almost under a magnifying glass for an hour and a half?

I think there's a sense that that could be, that's a reality that I face.

But I kind of have to own it and I realize I deserve it.

I learned a great lesson about mass media in that moment.

And

I don't attempt to

replay that move multiple times when I discuss films.

And I'm going to get ahead of this.

It feels like the most obvious thing ever that Connor, who will also be on the rewatch with us, will come out of this saying it's one of the cinema's great achievements.

This feels like a very Connor going against the grain take coming up tonight.

Don't want to spoil it, but it just feels like it's going to happen.

All I'll say is that I've watched this movie from start to finish in two different languages.

So

if that gives you any indication of how I feel about it.

yes.

What was the second language, by the way?

Spanish.

I used to have like,

when I lived with my wife at our old house,

we had like the entire HBO package, and for some reason it was on like the Spanish language HBO and I was really hungover one day and I was on the couch and I was like, I'm just I'm just going to be here, you know, and I'm going to see what it's like in

another language.

Now that's a completist.

Absolutely.

So yes, patreon.com patreon.com/slash heed the call,

sign up and be a part of the live stream.

And if you can't watch it tonight, time zones could be tricky because it's 6 p.m.

Pacific, 9 Eastern.

That will be up Friday morning as well for anybody on the Patreon.

And by the way, next Thursday, also draft day, the real draft, and we'll be doing a live stream.

It gets a little confusing.

We'll be doing a live stream of the actual draft one week from today.

That will be a lot of fun.

And then, you know, away we go.

Yeah, I don't know if I don't know if that draft will be like, I think these actual drafts because we're doing it, we're doing the exciting night, but full of heart from start to finish.

You get into round seven, it's like someone take me out with a with a rifle from a from a building top.

It's some, I mean, just like you can't wait for it to end at some point, yeah, assassinate me before the end of the draft.

All right, um, but first, let us do some news.

Okay, so y'all already said, really,

really,

Jamar

just

like the lymph, like the and then for my last one, my last one,

trailing Burks.

That's a presumptive number one overall pick, Cam Ward, sharing his top four wide receivers and notorious draft bust, Treylon

Burks

claimed by Cam Ward to be a top four wide receiver.

And

I can only say, Justin Graver,

local Titans fan, that that seems to be a clear indication of where he's going in the NFL draft.

Local.

Local to Dallas.

Yeah, I think he might have let the cat out of the bag.

The live stream was deleted almost immediately after he ended it, which makes me think someone gave him a call and said, get this off the interwebs, please.

But yeah, I love the personality that he showed on this, pumping up the guys that are going to be his teammates, even if it's completely ludicrous to say some of those things that he said.

I want to see the Phil Mushnik column when somebody wakes up Phil and says, hey, the number one draft pick is playing Fortnite.

Phil, that's a video game

and not focusing on the draft.

That feels like a Mushnik banger or maybe something like Stephen A.

Smith can

monologue about for about seven minutes when he's not fighting with LeBron James.

It is interesting you bring that up because video games have completely taken over the player

outside interest realm.

And so if you talk to a lot of teams, they're like, I'm not worried about these guys going out all night and drinking.

I'm worried about like when the new Harry Potter game came out and they were staying up until 4 o'clock in the morning and then getting three hours of sleep and coming into the facility.

Like this stuff actually happens.

I'm not, you know, that's not just it's not just the number one pick in the draft.

I don't want to take like a defensive tackle who's, you know, 6'5, 300 plus playing Harry Potter, though.

Like, it would depend what game they're playing to me a little bit.

Harry Potter, like, what it would be.

What if it was like a

some

Fakacta Star Wars game or something?

Would you be cool with that?

No.

Okay.

No, no.

Like, to be honest, no.

I wanted to express, I want it to be heavily masculine.

By the way, isn't Calvin Ridley on the Titans?

Yeah, Calvin Ridley was his first receiver.

Oh, so he had Ridley one and Burks four?

Yeah.

He did specify this is in no particular order, but these are my top four.

And we cut it off.

He also said that Tony Pollard and Tajay Spears were his top two running backs in the league.

So, you know,

we're not going to be on the edge of our seats when the Titans are officially on the clock one week from today.

Let's put it that way.

Also, your top four skill players after Calvin Ridley are.

Traylon Burks, Tony Pollard, and Tajay Spears.

If anything, he's made it very clear that the the Titans have more than a need for just a quarterback.

All right, let's get into the news.

You know what?

Don't let us rain on the parade, Justin.

You deserve to be excited about this fantastic young quarterback entering your world.

The Titans' helmet's spinning behind you even faster right now.

Very concerning.

Yes, I'm very excited.

Thanks for saying that.

And

I think Cam Ward is going to be awesome.

I love it.

I have no issue with anything he said, even though, again, it's ludicrous.

It's cool that he's already thinking like this.

It's going to be a long summer.

I'd still take Abdul Carter.

All right.

Let's get into it.

Really?

Interesting.

Let's get into the news.

Jalen Ramsey.

Man, this dude for a first ballot Hall of Famer.

It seems like Jalen Ramsey moves around quite a bit, and he's been with the Miami Dolphins for

the past two seasons.

The first season was a huge hit.

It led to a big contract extension before

last season.

He's owed $25.1 million in 2025.

And that is something that sounds like the

Miami Dolphins would be thrilled to part ways with.

Here is General Manager Chris Greer at the pre-draft press conference talking about the potential end of a union between Ramsey and the Dolphins.

We decided that it was probably in the best interest for all parties to move forward.

So

I will say these decisions aren't done quickly and

they're not taken lightly because we spent a lot of time this offseason working through this, talking.

And Greer was also asked about the timing of it, like when could this trade go down with the draft one week away?

Trades come together at all different times.

You know, you've seen from before the draft, day of the draft, during the draft.

You know, I think A.J.

Brown was during the draft.

It happened.

So,

you know, when it happens, it'll happen.

And, you know, if it doesn't, we'll deal with it then.

Jalen Ramsey is...

31 in October.

Connor, that's important, obviously, to keep in mind here.

Usually a cornerback, once he's past age 30, you start to look at him with a sideways glance, whether he could be truly trusted as a top-tier guy.

But Ramsey is also a different dude.

he it adds a little intrigue to draft it does I mean I was talking to someone about this the other day where and I know this might elicit an eye roll from you Dan but how does Howie Roseman put a stamp on the draft this year I mean he always seems to do something that

makes you walk away thinking that the Eagles are getting markedly better the Eagles at one point in time offered a first and second round pick for Jalen Ramsey in his prime and Ramsey did play with Vic Fangio last year maybe if he wants to start exploring hybrid safety which is something that you talk about with top-tier corners at the end of their career, if maybe the speed isn't there, the Falcons are another destination where I think that they just need to come out of the draft, making people believe that they got a little bit better.

And Raheem Morris and Jalen Ramsey have that relationship.

But I'll just say one thing about him.

He played hard as shit last year, and that was a bad Dolphins team.

And I remember watching deep into games when the games were over and he's diving out of bounds and tackling guys.

He, despite the reputation that he has, I think is still a really hard player and I think is valued around the lead.

The timing of this, and I think Greer danced around this a little bit.

If you trade him before June 1st, so if we're talking draft weekend, like he's lured, he's dangled out in a trade, the Dolphins take on roughly 25 million in dead money.

And that's only for this season.

There's more of that down the road.

And so, and maybe, you know, we could live in a world where dead money doesn't really matter the way that it used to, and I can see that.

But if you pair this with Tyree Kill, because to your point that he played real hard last year, it's like, what happened here?

I want to know more what happened.

Because if you pair this with Tyree Hill, you've got faces of the organization hinting at or flat out wanting out.

And is there a lack of belief in the quarterback?

Is there a lack of the belief in the coaching staff?

The Dolphins are having a weird turn in their history right now.

They're a strange team to me.

And I wonder where this sits with these players when you see people hit the Exodus button.

I feel the same way.

I was going to say that, and this has nothing to do with my fan leanings.

It's just looking at where they stand right now.

The Dolphins seem to be in a bit of a precarious place because you have the GM and the head coach, I think, entering very, very dangerous waters on the hot butt rankings.

You have a team where Tyreek Hill already said he wanted out, and then, you know, he ended up coming back in the fold, but that's obviously a shaky marriage at this point.

You now have

the other star player on the other side of the ball, Jalen Ramsey.

He wants out.

You have leaders like Callaius Campbell

joining other teams, and you just wonder if the locker room has been lost for Mike McDaniel.

And

what's the higher lower on when we did that exercise a couple of weeks for the Dolphins, Justin?

Bears was eight and a half.

Oh, bang.

Bang that lower.

Bang that lower.

That's where I stand on the Dolphins.

And I don't say say that to upset Handsome Hank, a resident Dolphins fan, but I just think this is a team on the wrong side of transition right now.

Bang that under.

Lower.

Bang that lower.

It's got a different sound.

In other news, you know, we talked about Derek Carr, Mark, and maybe, perhaps we should have talked about if there was something more going on with Derek Carr, because there is some buzz and speculation that this shoulder injury that wasn't serious serious enough to have it him on the injury report at the end of last season now is serious enough where it could threaten his

year.

And what is this shoulder injury?

Is there actually a shoulder injury?

Is Derek Carr trying to get out of town?

This

was reported Ari Miroff.

Is he a reporter or an aggregator?

Ask Connor.

Who is Ari Miroff?

Someone help me out.

I see Mario.

Yeah, he's both.

He's got a podcast.

He talks about the NFL.

He definitely aggregates stuff.

Sometimes he aggregates and tries to attribute, which is more than we can say for most aggregators.

But occasionally he will spell.

All right.

Justin is just

flown up a tweet from Ari that was sent out last week.

Under Armour has signed quarterback Cam Ward, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If Cam Ward goes, oh, wait a second.

There's cited reporting on this.

Per at Connor or,

so he did give you the Connor, he gave you the credit.

So you're all good with this, right?

No, he spelled my name wrong.

Oh!

And

as we've talked about before, a Connor with two ends is a last name.

It's not a first name.

I'm completely against the spelling of the name that way in general.

And so I think it's offensive on multiple levels.

He messed with the wrong guy.

Yeah, the wrong guy.

But anyway, Ari, before his career was challenged by Connor or one N, there's buzz around NFL circles that Derek Carr has been wanting out of the Saints all offseason and his shoulder injury might be part of that push.

Is something weird going on here?

I don't know.

Is there something weird going on here?

What do you think, Mark?

Well, I think what's happened is you've got a new head coach and Kellen Moore.

And like, it's not sometimes you get the coach that comes in and says, we absolutely believe in this quarterback.

We're going to ride this out.

This is the guy we want.

You haven't heard a lot of that.

And I think that like the Derek Carr experience, I'm typically tougher on him than maybe you are, Dan.

But like, I just don't think he's a great quarterback.

And they sit in a prime position to maybe land Shador Sanders or Jackson Dart or Jalen Milro and start over with a new quarterback to pair with Kellen Moore.

I think part of it's like reading the tea leaves.

If you're Derek Carr, you're not part of the future.

Right.

And does he have an indication that they're leaning towards drafting a quarterback in the first round?

And does that impact the way, you know, does he not want to be put in a Kirk Cousins situation?

And I think is he also at least reading the room a little bit?

Because if you look at Cousins in Atlanta and you look at Derek Carr now and you look at what's happening in Pittsburgh, there's still quite possibly a very attractive vacancy that's going to open with a desperate need for a veteran quarterback.

Are you at least trying to position yourself just in case Aaron Rodgers retires or waits to hang out and see if J.J.

McCarthy struggles in Minnesota so he can go where he wants to go?

Can I just like break this apart a little bit?

Because first of all, Diana Rossini also said on a podcast this week that the understanding she has is that this is a real injury, that the Saints were aware of it, but they weren't inclined to amplify it.

So it's possible that it's Derek Carr's camp that got this out there.

But then I'm thinking, how does that help Derek Carr get out of this out of New Orleans by putting it out there that he's got a bad shoulder when he wants to be traded?

That's the one thing that doesn't quite track to me on this.

Why would it?

Why would Derek Carr is already a guy that's a limited quarterback?

He's starting to get up up there in years and now you're gonna put out there that he's got a throwing shoulder injury I feel like that would lower the chances a team would want to acquire him but it wouldn't it wouldn't improve the chances to your point so what do you get out of it I don't know why would he I see it as like I see it as like strategic defiance almost where it's like okay I wanted you to get rid of me you're not getting rid of me now I'm gonna nuke my stock and so now get rid of me before I continue to do that you know and you know so I think that there might it might just be it's basically the only move they have right and so why why not fire the bullet?

And finally in the news, more happy trails.

Mark, you shared on the previous podcast, you thought that these retirements often get lost in the mix and they deserve to be the players amplified more.

So here's, I'm going to set it up and tee it up for you, Mark Sessler, to say proper goodbye to Tyron Smith, the football player, the former Cowboys star, had a very unimpressive and injury plague final year with the New York Jets.

What else is new?

But Smith Smith was

an elite blindside protector for a decade in Dallas, a Hall of Fame level player that's endlessly respected by his peers, and he's choosing to walk away as his body tells him, yeah, it's time.

Well, it's the right time.

He's 34.

Players don't need to play until 38, 39 anymore.

He's made over $124 million, and I'd say he's a Hall of Famer.

So it's like, what else do we need to accomplish or prove to society at this point?

Connor, what does he need to accomplish and prove to society?

There was an amazing story about him, right?

That he wrestled back.

He had lost a lot of the money that I think he initially got from Dallas due to some sort of a complication with, you know, where the finances were going.

I think I remember them being like a really incredible backstory to how he had to mature as a young player.

And so in addition to getting all that under control and putting out one Pro Bowl season after another, I mean, I think that's something you should be very proud of.

You have both an on-field legacy and an off-field legacy, which I think is really neat.

Yeah, and I loved, I mean, I loved,

just to be totally frank, I liked a lot of the moves that the Jets made the last 18 months in like in a vacuum.

And when they got Tyron Smith on a very team-friendly deal, I was like, oh, this could work.

It was just, he could not stay healthy, and he ended up with a neck injury, I believe it was, that led to

his season ending early.

All right, that's what's happening in the news.

Let's take a break, and then we'll bring on the great Matt Money Smith.

All right, Dan, I don't know if you're tracking this as heavily as per se, maybe someone like Justin, but 420 is coming up.

What does that mean to you in our world?

It is

the 20th day of April.

I don't know anything else about it.

Well, it's also lexicon for a certain activity or habit, and it's very good for you, 420, what we can do on 420.

Ah, okay.

Further enlighten me, Mark.

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Welcome back.

Our next guest is

a longtime friend of the show,

a gifted man, the voice of the Los Angeles Superchargers and also a local institution.

On the radio dial here with Petros and Money.

Oh my goodness.

Welcome to Heed the Call, Matt Money Smith.

Man, with that freaking sweet guitar lick, I feel like I should be sucking on a parliament and just

flicking it out there as we get ready to roll, man.

You just learned your partner was shot, you know, and now you're driving down the 405.

Yes, in a Mustang GT convertible.

Just me and my thoughts, man, of what

it all went wrong.

Hopefully that doesn't mean Petros is your partner.

We don't want him to be shot.

He's a very important

part of your profession.

That's exactly right, Sess Dog.

He is.

Very important.

Bunny, we are obviously such big fans of yours, and you are the original voice of God on this program, and you were nice enough to handle those duties once more for today's show.

What was it like getting back in the saddle on that front?

Well, you know, you mentioned Petros.

We have been, as you would imagine, quite focused on the Blue Origin spaceflight.

It's been a topic that we have decided to dig into

considerably.

What's your curious nature?

And if people don't know,

that I think it was four women, four celebrities.

Six.

Six, excuse me.

Went for a 11-minute space ride.

One was the pop star Katy Perry.

And yes, as we said in the open, we have no official statement on Katy Perry's trip to outer space, and we don't plan to release one.

One was Bezos' girl.

Yeah, Lauren Sanchez.

Lauren Sanchez.

And one was, I think, Oprah Winfrey's life partner.

Well, I mean, speculative.

She's married to Stedman.

Yeah, Stedman is.

But yeah, speculation is that she and Oprah are.

They're quite friendly.

And then some others.

So money.

Yeah, there was an actual rocket scientist, an actual, so at least one, and then there was a director,

a social

something

change artist.

I don't know.

And then

got to get her involved.

Yes.

Yeah.

It was a very

curious collection of people to send into space to make a statement, I think, about the power of women.

As opposed to, I don't know.

that's kind of what I thought it was more like the power of rich people well that's what I mean like I don't know maybe maybe have a some sort of drawing between you know young women that are studying rocket science at like Carnegie Mellon Rensselaer MIT and send them up into space that might

it and to the annoyance of some they return safely like I some people were very down on this whole mission I not me I again I've we have no official statement right

yeah I mean it's just

it was a just cluster F of massive proportions.

Interviewing them when they stepped out of the capsule, and Gail King is talking about how they were trying to urge Katy Perry on to sing Roar while they were taking off.

And it's,

oh man, it was a mess.

And Sanchez gets to go because she's got a kid's book called The Fly That Flew Into Space.

It's available on

Amazon.

Sanchez, by the way, was a longtime local news anchor here in L.A.

and

would draw the commentary of a young Matt Money Smith when he was on K-Rock when she was starting to make some noise in town.

If she saw you, would she give you a bit of a glance of disapproval?

No, if I had to guess at this point, so far removed from that from the mid to late 90s, it's just probably

has no clue who I am or forgot that portion.

But, you know, I always said she just, it's all that plastic surgery.

She looks like the Jack Nicholson iteration of the Joker in the Batman movies with all of just the way that it's been stretched and her mouth is out here.

And it, I'm sorry.

This is not what he'd call

this is a talking point on K-Rock.

I wish I could go back and listen to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's weird, though, man, when you travel.

I'm sorry.

That's it.

That's it.

I'm good.

Good.

good love Amazon Pro money's on heath

you gotta love it uh money uh yeah since you are before we get into some draft guys your your stable of men uh that you're excited about connecting

stable of men

nfl draft we might as well since you're here you literally are the voice of the los angeles chargers you have another guy in the booth whose name escapes me but like you sir are um an iconic figure now with the chargers let us uh check in with the Chargers offseason if you don't mind, real quick.

Sure.

And if you could fly that up, Justin Gravedigger,

the moves that the Chargers have made.

Notable offseason moves, and that, by the way, is a still image if you're watching on YouTube from Jim Harbaugh's cameo on Say by the Bell.

People forget that.

I have not.

So, signed: Najee Harris, Makai Bechten, Mike Williams.

Mike Williams back.

How about that?

Brought back Khalil Mack, Bradley Boseman, Denzel Perryman, among others, and departed, Joey Bosa, Gus Edwards, J.K.

Dobbins, Asante Samuel, Eli Apple, DJ Shark, Hayden Hurst.

These are some notable departures.

What do you think about the Chargers offseason and the general place of the organization?

Obviously, a disappointing ending in that one-and-done performance against the Texans, but overall, a positive year one with Harbaugh.

Yeah, I thought the signings filled the needs and helped create a best player available draft for them.

You know, that's ultimately what you want to try to do in free agency is get into the draft where you don't feel like you have to attack a need and take a player that's maybe not as good as some of the other players that are available to you because you're just so desperate to make sure you take care of that position.

I think the one departure ahead of all others that's going to sting the most is Puna Ford.

He was so good for them last year, and I think they wanted him back, and I don't know why it got sideways.

I would assume if they had a chance to hit reset, they would figure out a way to make sure he was brought back, because I do think that's the one spot where

you would say, hey, by the end of Friday, end of round three, they should probably have one of these defensive tackles in this deep defensive tackle draft as one of their three selections.

And I think if you had Puna, you could say, yeah, if it breaks right, then great, take one of those guys.

But because they don't, to me,

that's a huge need.

I like the Najee Harris thing.

You could see the difference when JK was on the field and when he wasn't.

And my takeaway there is probably medical, probably a little concerned about that knee injury.

He wasn't the same after he missed those four games.

So I think Najee kind of just fills into what they had hoped Gus Edwards could be.

Just that hammer.

Count on him every down, can give the ball to him 20 times if you want, 10 times if you want, but he's going to be there week in and week out.

Makai Bechton was huge, just making sure you get at least one of the three interior line positions settled.

I think the other two are up for grabs.

They're talking about using Zion at center, so he's going to get some work there there early on.

Andre James, you know, was a longtime center in Vegas and Oakland.

So we'll see whether or not he maybe plays center and Zion stays at left guard, how Boseman fits into all that.

But I think that kind of frees you up to say, okay, I don't need to take a guard or a center in the first round.

We can maybe wait for that unless, you know, they have like Gray Zabel rated so high and he's so flexible that they have to do that.

And then Mike Williams, just to kind of finish that up, is, look, he's a great ex.

He's a phenomenal ex receiver.

Last year coming off the ACL, I think, you know, probably expected to see him take a little bit of a step back from what we saw the year before when he was sensational.

And he and Herbert have that chemistry.

You know, it's a beautiful quarterback, 50-50 ball, downfield receiver bit of chemistry.

So I think that that was a great signing, and they'll probably want to get some depth there because of Mike's injury history.

You know, a year ago, I thought that as a new regime, GM Joe Hortiz trades up to get Lad McConkey.

That couldn't have worked out any better.

Their DNA and who they are, do you see them?

Because they sit at what, number 22, and so they really can address.

I think that's a good place in this draft with the number of needs they have.

Do you see them being frisky and trying to move up and down the way that they did a year ago?

Yeah, Sess, I think it's more down than up just in talking to enough people.

When I was out at the Combines, the scouts that I've just kind of come to know over the years, they all pretty much had a very similar number.

And first-round grades is somewhere in that 13 range, 13 to 15.

So, whenever you hear that, you're like, all right, well, when you're at 22, a lot of times you're talking about now they've got about 30 guys that are in the same grade range beyond that.

So, 22 might as well be 32, might as well be 35.

You know, it could be 20.

So, I think it's more of a

now that we're hearing some buzz on these quarterbacks on Jackson Dart and Jalen Milro, like, could you see a team wanting to get up there to, you know, and so that to me makes more sense because I think if you're going to, if we just talk defensive tackles, if it's Walter Nolan, if it's Kenneth Grant, if it's Derek Harmon, if it's,

you know, whomever that may be, like, you're still going to get maybe not top tier of those three guys, but it's going to be close enough.

You know, it's that you're picking at 32, 33, or even further down.

If it's Alfred Collins or, you know, one of those guys, like you're going to CJ West in the third round, things like that.

It's comparable enough.

They're like, yeah, dude, let's get out.

Let's get that extra third.

Let's get a second next year, something like that.

that.

I could see them going that way a little bit more than the other way.

Unless somebody, you know, Will Johnson, people are worried about his 40 time.

Like, he's a number one corner.

He's a really, really good player, and he's a Michigan guy, right?

So if he starts to slide, then that's maybe the one guy I could see them going, dude.

Number one corners go top five.

Sauce Gardner, Derek Stingley.

These guys go top five, and I think this is a, if that's how they feel.

If I think this is a top five guy and he's in the teens, then that's the one where I could see them maybe jump up and grab him.

One of the things that I like about Jim is his ability to sort of reclaim big bodies and just use them in different ways.

And even like St.

Juice from the Commanders, that's a guy that I think is universally disliked by services like PFF.

But if you watch him play the run, for example, he is tough.

He's extremely physical, like 6'3, 240, like President Trump's size guy with no body fat.

And it's one of those things where,

you know, it looks stuff that looks underwhelming on the surface when they've already transformed, you know, fifth and sixth round draft picks in the secondary.

I think, and I'm curious what your thoughts are, I think this has an off potential to be a much higher yield offseason than people are talking about as a whole.

Yeah, I think it's, and it kind of almost, it flies in the face of what I said about Will Johnson, right?

Is that

they're, look, this coaching staff is incredible.

Like beyond Harbaugh, you know, Minter is a stud, a star.

Like I can't believe that guy didn't get any head coaching interviews.

I'm happy he didn't because he's back, but

he's so good.

And Klink, Coach Klinkscale,

Steve, is the secondary corner coach.

Last year was Chris O'Leary.

They have a new secondary, a new safeties coach, Adam Fuller, in this year, who was the DC at Florida State.

But their coaches are so good.

I mean, so good.

And you saw it not just with Tarheb and Cam Hart, but Eli Apple, Marcus May, Tony Jefferson, who was a scout for the Ravens last year, is making plays all over the place.

So that's where the whole, you know, take the traits of St.

Juice, right?

Just the physical stature of St.

Juice, and then take the ball production of Dante Jackson, and then let's get him in here and let's coach him up.

And that's, at the same time, I still feel like you're in a division with Patrick Mahomes.

You're in a division with Sean Payton coaching, who likes to throw the ball over the yard.

Like, I think a dominant number one corner is something that is desirable for this particular division.

If you can get that guy that can lock someone down and make those quarterbacks hold on to it for a beat longer, that that's something that would be very effective.

By the way, not to get sidetracked, but since Connor brought it up, you know, a lot was made about the medical report on the president and his measurables.

Yes.

I still think by far the craziest thing in that write-up was,

quote, frequent victories in golf events, close quote.

By far the funniest part of it.

Yeah, I'll tell you, like, look, I don't want to.

Some North Korea vibes about that one.

Frequent victories in golf events.

In golf events.

And if you talk to people at his club, are those earned or are those manufactured?

I'll just say this.

Like, my,

obviously, I have many issues with all politicians.

I hate politics.

I just do.

I am apolitical, and I vote third-party across the board on everything just to try to make my statement that I hate the two-party system.

So let me get that out of the way.

I've hated each of our last two presidents.

So the big thing with me and Trump is how unathletic he is.

I've always had issues with guy because I'm not, you know, I'm 5'10 and change 150 pounds.

Like, would I,

my older brother is 6'2 ⁇ .

Like, what the hell, man?

I couldn't get the athletic.

I couldn't get the stature.

So to have a guy that's born 6'4,

you know, broad-shouldered, to not be an athlete, to be so pathetic

of a performing athlete that he's unwilling to throw out a first pitch anywhere because you know when he throws, it's going to look ridiculous, that he can't throw a baseball.

And that's why he won't do it.

You know, because we know, what's the tradition?

President goes out to the nationals opening day and you throw the freaking first pitch, but that's what you do.

You know, you get a little bit.

I mean, George W.

George H.

H.W.

was one of my favorites.

I mean, a former pitcher at Yale, but his son, coming off, you know, freaking World Trade Center attacks.

He nailed it.

20 ought one.

And a bulletproof vest, by the way.

Bulletproof vest.

And he gets a bender in there, man.

That thing's freaking got a little bend on it.

Like, did we got it?

We got our last two presidents can't throw out a first pitch.

Jeez,

this is not Connor.

If you ever read What It Takes by Richard Ben Kramer about the 1988 presidential election, he spends time with all the candidates at that time.

That's like the guy who unearthed like the Biden plagiarism thing back in the 80s and stuff.

But he was in the tunnel with George Bush won before he was throwing out a first pitch at like a Rangers game.

And the absolute tension in the air of that book is so palpable, but it's so important.

Like, I don't know what it is, but it is very important to me.

And I'm glad you brought that up: that someone can just pipe in a strike.

That's something, there's something very essentially American about that.

I mean, imagine had he sailed the ball like over the catcher's head in that moment.

If you're George Bush right after 9-11, that would have been an epic visual feast, a total disaster.

So, you have to put put yourself, I guess, in Trump's shoes on this.

If he thinks deep down, he would never share this with anyone, but if he thinks he would do like a baba booey type pitch, for instance, in that spot, I mean, he would never live it down.

And the other fun little anecdote around that post-9-11 Bush pitch at Yankee Stadium is that he was warming up under Yankee Stadium when Derek Jeter walked through, and he saw him warming up in front of the mound, and Jeter basically challenged him.

He said, you're going to throw from the rubber, right?

And that led to him taking the extra five feet back, and he still threw the strike.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's the greatest first pitch in the history of our presidency.

Obviously, it's not close.

I mean, it's not considering the circumstances.

Mark, does this qualify as our first political podcast?

I think it is.

We have a chance here.

Like, I'm connecting the dots here.

I think that, you know, in another universe, money, you would have been thrilled to see Ross Perot whip it down the.

Like, that's your kind of guy if you're a third party to get it.

I mean, come on, man.

Break out those charts.

You know, I mean, it's

a splitter.

Exactly off the charts.

And a diminutive man, you know, which I can appreciate.

That's for sure.

Although I was not a Michael Dukakis guy, despite his diminutive stature, certainly.

All right.

So let's spin toward the draft.

Let's get into money.

You are a man that knows ball in all forms.

You've called, what, hundreds of college football games.

So we were curious, somebody that has a keen eye, you're stable of men.

Now, there are, I'm sure you could point to guys in the top 10 that you like a lot, but we're going to focus on some guys that might be a little bit off the beaten path that you feel very strongly are going to be quality pros.

And with that said, let's start at the wide receiver position,

senior at a TSU, Jack Besch.

Let's dig in on him.

6-2-2-15.

There's a man making the most of his six-foot plus.

Exactly.

So Besh is

a TCU guy.

I'm not typically into Big 12 receivers.

They freak me out because there's not real good corners in the Big 12.

Big 12's changed a little bit.

But Bash, so Besh was an LSU kid and then transferred to TCU.

I think a lot of people listening probably know his story.

It's a very sad story.

His brother Tiger was killed in that terrorist attack in New Orleans when the car came flying down bourbon.

But Besh, like the guys that I'm sharing with you are, in case people haven't done the whole dig into YouTube to see highlights, these are just really fun guys to watch.

That's what I figured I would give you instead of, hey, here's a sleeper that I think is going to go on the fifth round and become a star.

This is more in looking at film and stuff.

Like these are guys that I just love.

You You get a smile on your face when you're watching them.

And Besh is one of them.

He's just, he's a real ass kicker, man.

He's very physical.

He wins at the contact point.

He wants to inflict some damage if there's a defender near him.

And obviously there's the story of Tiger, you know.

I mean,

it's a horrible story, but it's one that he carries with him and repeatedly tells and talks about how, you know, this NFL path is something that he and his brother, his brother played at princeton you know both had envisioned for themselves and now he's gonna he's gonna go in the second round he's he's gonna go he might go high second round just because he's got dependable hands um like i said he's physical he's dependable he runs it's not like he runs crisp routes he's just always in the right place you know he's where he's where the quarterback wants him to be um

so he's just It's just kind of one of those,

if you dig into YouTube and you pull up some of his videos, you'll see what I'm talking about.

It's fun to watch him beat up some secondary guys, and he's got some sensational acrobatic catches.

Like he's a, look, I'm not trying to say, oh, this is just a meathead that's out there, you know, knocking skulls with corners.

No, he's a freaking athlete.

He's a 4-4 guy, and he's got hops, and he's got explosiveness to him.

But it's just, it's a fun watch, and it's a great story, and obviously it's one we want to see end, you know, with as good an ending as possible for the family, and no doubt it's probably, it's, it's going to be the most emotional selection during the draft, and so figure plant the seeds for the Heed heed the call listeners to get invested in this as well and be real excited for him.

And it was a very emotional thing at the Senior Bowl.

I don't know if you guys saw it, but he caught the game-winning touchdown.

Right.

And the family and he were gathered on the sideline.

It was a really cool moment.

He fits the mold of the guy that's going to come in and produce.

right away for the right team.

And

Josh Norris and Hayden Winks, our guys here at Underdog, did a great piece on him.

And

I do think that his, like watching him, and I'm trying to to catch up on a lot of these wide outs, like he really stands out to me for what you mentioned, his physicality.

Like, he's got really interesting tape.

So, not to bring up the Chargers again, but it's almost like, wow, you could see that working out very well.

I'm with you, Sess.

I really could.

If he's there at 55 and they don't go wide receiver at 22, I think he's just, he looks like what they like.

You know, like he is a very

Greg Roman, Jim Harbaugh-like football player.

And I would have no problem.

What's it, you know, depending on who's sitting there, but if it's that same range of second-round receivers, you know, the Knowles, the Jalen, Jaden Higgins, like that whole group of receivers, like Bash is right there with them.

And, you know, sometimes I think people get so focused on the home run, they forget about the double, you know, like the guarantee.

If you shorten that swing, just to keep our baseball theme going here on a football podcast, you know, you just kind of shorten the swing and just knock the doubles, man, and cut down on the strikeouts.

instead of taking that, oh, I need the 6'3, 215, X receiver, and maybe they can't catch the ball.

And it's like, you know, Besh is that he's going to be a really good pro.

Like, is he going to be a great pro?

I don't know.

He's going to be really good.

And if he did end up with the Chargers as an example, let's not forget.

that the Los Angeles Chargers picked up a young man named Lad McConkey in the second round last year, 34th overall, and all he did was go 82 for 1,207 touchdowns as a freaking rookie in a run-first offense.

Not too shabby.

All right, let's move to the other side of the ball.

Another guy your way into, Nick Skorton, Edge out of Texas A ⁇ M.

What makes you smile when you watch that tape, money?

So this is one where you got to go back two years.

A ⁇ M plays a weird,

their defense is weird, man.

Like, they just, guys don't really fire off.

They're super...

just focused, hyper-focused on stopping the run, setting an edge.

Don't over pursue.

You know, keep your contain and don't get caught flat-footed and allow an explosive to run by you.

So Scorton,

Scorton's a bias for me.

I don't know why.

Maybe it's proximity.

You know, I was born outside of Chicago in northwest Indiana.

So

I just have a soft spot for Purdue defenders, man.

I always have.

There's something about that school that spits out just...

gnarly, punchy in the face with a freaking set of brass knuckles style defenders.

They're physical, they're mean.

Cliff Averill, Jawan Bentley, Rod Woodson, obviously is one of the all-time greats, but just like even more recently, look at, so like Skorton to me is, I was way into Carlofties.

I thought he was awesome.

And when the Chiefs got him, I was very, and everybody kind of said the same thing.

They're like, you know, solid, you know, great motor.

And, you know, but they never, but then you look at Carlofties and every year it's freaking eight sacks, 10 sacks.

You look at the pressures and like, and I know a lot of of that's a product of playing with Chris Jones, but Skorton was a Purdue guy before he went to A ⁇ M for one year, took the big check in the NIL, and they made him put on like 20 pounds, and he just kind of became a different player.

But what I think happened with becoming that different player is it made him more of a bully than he already was.

So now he's slimmed down for the combine.

He ran much faster.

He's sort of back to being that Purdue Nick Skorton.

And to me, this is some guy, he can probably creep into maybe the back end of the first round because the edge class isn't super deep.

And I think more and more people are going to sort of come around, or they already have.

I mean, it's not like I know anything.

The teams don't, but I think more of them have come around to the idea of, oh, yeah, let's just kind of evaluate Purdue Nick Skorton along with AM Nick Scorton and kind of get that.

And it's another one.

This is what I'm talking about, man.

This is your double.

This isn't the Mike Green.

Cross your fingers.

Hope everything's okay.

It's like Ezra Rock, who's awesome.

I think he'd be great for the Chargers at 22, but this is a guy I think that's going to be maybe more that back end, kind of top end of the second that's a really fun watch, super physical guy, and just that fits that mold of that Purdue Boilermaker.

One thing that I love about his A ⁇ M tape, though, and you kind of touched on it, Matt, was that he does not get fooled at all by backfield window dressing and motion and jet sweep and all that stuff.

He's so stable in those moments.

And I think now, as offenses continue to try to find different ways to misdirect people behind the line of scrimmage with all sorts of stuff, That is almost as valuable to me as like a vicious pass rush is somebody who's just going to be able to understand what's happening in front of them and to shut it down.

And I remember watching him against Notre Dame, and Notre Dame essentially had like an academy offense because their quarterback ran so well.

And the amount of different pulling and motion and sweeps that they were doing, and he was just a monster.

And he was really hard to contain in that game.

So I think I love him.

I think he's he's super valuable.

Yeah, it's a great one.

It's great.

It's exactly right.

It's doubles.

It's like, don't get freaked out by, you know, and there's nothing wrong with Ezaraku's 16 and a half sacks.

It's awesome, but there's more to it than just sacks.

And that's kind of squirting to me is you hit it right on the head, Connor.

He's the poster child of that.

It's like, this is a guy that's got it all, man.

It might not be 15 sacks.

It might be seven sacks or eight sacks and a handful of pressures, but it's going to be just rock-solid defensive end, an edge player.

All right, we've got time for one more.

I want to know what kind of extra base hit we have here with Harold Fennon, the tight end at a bowling green.

Because I feel like I could tell just by your reaction, that's the favorites, man.

Who makes you smile?

He is one of my favorites.

He is such, he is so fun to watch because he is so weird-looking, man, on the field.

He has just got this

squatty body, man.

I described the first time I saw him, I described him to a friend as Ron Say.

I was like, he reminds me of what Ron Say looked like.

Again, another baseball analogy.

What am I doing here?

For people that are old enough to remember Ron Say

on the Dodgers and the Cubs, he just had this crazy thick lower half, and he wasn't a super tall guy.

Now, Fannin's, you know, 6'2 and change, so he's tall, but he's not, you know, he's not Colston Lutland tall.

He's not Tyler Warren tall.

He's a 6'4, 6'5 ⁇ .

He's more in that 6'2 range.

And when you're watching him, it just doesn't make sense.

You're like, wait, his feet have these little,

like he's just got like this kind of little pitter-patter style of running.

You can't figure out how he got open.

He catches the ball.

He's got two defenders around him, and then he's dusted him, and he's gone.

The gentleman whose name escaped you, Daniel Jeremiah, who I call games with for the Chargers,

I was trying to figure out if there was a comparison, and he made it.

And he's freaking Antonio Gates.

That's who he is.

He is Antonio Gates.

How did he get open?

He's not that fast, but he's open.

How did he dust those defenders?

But he did.

Like, that's who he is.

It is so fun to watch the way he plays, and I cannot recommend.

And, dude, he put it on Penn State, man.

Here's Bowling Green freaking rolling into Penn State, and Fannin freaking put it on him.

It was really fun to watch.

Like, it's easily my favorite player I've watched this draft season.

Oh, God.

I hope one of these or two of these guys or three of these guys end up on my team.

Money.

Can I sneak something in real quick?

Yeah, go ahead.

Real quick, Olemis D-tackle J.J.

Pegese.

Oh, okay, yeah.

He's this squatty D-tackle, but they direct snap to him all the time.

And he is 315 pounds of direct snap just plowing into a line.

I mean, he will launch himself over the offensive line into the end zone on direct snaps for touchdowns.

It's awesome to watch.

So dig that up as well.

Ban the tush push and then eat that asshole.

I was going to say that when they figure out a way to ban the tush push, Howie will pick him up up and you'll see what's happening.

Last comments from Matt Money Smith.

We'll cycle back to the Blue Origin NS-31 mission.

Katy Perry, when she reached

Terra Firma once again, climbed out of the pod, kissed the ground.

And I'm just wondering,

in your opinion, in your estimation, Money, what is the cutoff for how short a flight can be where it becomes inappropriate or unnecessary or needless to kiss the ground to welcome yourself back to earth.

So the 11 minutes was deemed worthy of the ground kiss.

What is the number of minutes where it's no longer something you should do in good faith?

Yeah, I think when you're making it a spectacle to draw attention to yourself,

certainly.

Let me say this: as opposed to kissing the ground.

So she got interviewed.

Carissa Thompson's out there doing the interviews with Gail King and all that.

And when she interviews

Katie,

it's one of the great quotes of all time, right?

This is a $50 million

just excursion.

This 11 minutes costs $50 million.

She says, you know, she describes it to, and I can't remember the name of the method, something method.

She's like, you know, it was an incredible experience.

It was like meditation and the

Hackleford method or something like that.

And then she says this,

she utters this sentence.

I can't recommend it enough.

I couldn't recommend this experience more.

It's a $50 million rocket launch into space.

58 people on Earth have done this.

That's it.

58 people have done the Blue Origin thing.

And every time they go up, it costs 50 million bucks.

I can't recommend it enough.

I very much enjoyed that this is on money's radar and heavily on his radar.

Oh, yeah.

Thanks, Katie.

You know what?

I wasn't going to do it, but on your recommendation,

Blue Origin, you're on my list.

You're on my bucket list now.

Matt Money Smith.

Thank you, buddy, for rejoining us.

We've missed you, and now you have returned, and we hope you can do it again.

Return, just like Katy Perry, return to Earth with a high-end recommendation of outer space travel.

Follow money at

Matt Money Smith, Petros and Money, of course, and The Voice of the Chargers, and everywhere else you can find Matt Money.

Thank you very much, pal.

You got it, guys.

Appreciate it.

Ah, there he goes.

Mark, that's, you know,

there was a time in the ATN era where we had Justin Graver as our producer and Matt Money Smith as the voice of God on the show,

and you and I, of course, and now we got all together again.

That was very nice.

It feels right.

I always notice that whenever we have money on, and it's been a lot of times on remote, you know, that I start to forget that I'm on the show and I'm just transfixed by his voice.

He's just got one of those voices where it's like, you know,

it's an attractive quality.

Let's start right there.

Love that.

Love having him on.

And he's a good earner as you're off.

I decided not to go down that.

I didn't go down that avenue with him.

I thought it felt a little personal.

All right.

So good, good draft takes from money there.

And And speaking of the draft, by the way, on our Monday show, or our Tuesday show, I should say, we did our best NFL fan base draft with Katie Nolan.

And if you're watching on YouTube, Katie went Detroit, Washington, New England, Jacksonville.

Sestog went Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Las Vegas.

Zuzzer went Cleveland, Buffalo, Denver, New York Jets.

And we put it out there to the audience.

I think I knew how it was going to turn out.

I think think Katie knew I was turning out.

Old Panderin Sessler was going to be a heavy favorite.

And let's check out the results.

And yes, as I expected, nearly 500 votes on Twitter.

Mark gets two-thirds of the vote, 66.7%.

Zuzzer, 18.2%.

Katie, 15% of the vote.

And then over on Instagram, also, Mark, again, congratulations.

You sold out everything that you represent, but you got, you won this vote, 76%.

Dan, 15%, Katie, nine.

So take your victory, lap,

you pandering bastard.

I mean, it's, it was, it was nothing short of a dominant outing by myself, but I am not surprised that it's, it's, um, being psychologically frowned on here on the show.

Like, if it were reversed and you were taking 78% of the vote, we would have led the show with it.

So I see how this works.

Honestly, there was no, there was no chance.

Once I saw you abandoned the Browns and you were just looking for the highest vote totals, I knew this is what was going to happen.

So, but I, listen, you played the game well.

You get a prize of, I don't know, nothing, respect, I guess, and that's good.

I also, just for the data points, I thought it'd be nice to, something we do on the Friday Fun Show, the honor system.

I pulled up some other data points beyond the popular vote.

And if you're not aware of the honor system, that's Hanses' official notation of record system.

And these, these voting, it was based on what I had before the show had ranked as fan bases.

So just one, one look at it.

And according to this, I'm not sure who came out.

Oh, I did.

34 points overall.

Mark came in second.

So that's good.

22.

Katie third at 17 points.

And just again, because we really wanted to dig on this, I also have the Connor system, Mark.

And the Connor system is just Connor's ranking straight up.

And the Connor system is calibrated order numerated on reason.

And that would be Jacksonville, number one, Detroit, number two, New Orleans, number three, and Chicago, number four.

So Connor's Connor system unveiled in a big spot as well.

So we have a lot of data points, and you could choose what you want, Mark, ultimately to decide who won.

This is utterly fugazi.

And I'm like, of course, we're coming up with acronyms and false voting systems, and I don't agree with a word of it.

I don't agree with a shred of it.

How do we define best?

And I think that's why for me,

I felt like I had to go with the Jaguars because best to me is someone who just rolls with the punches punches and is generally there despite the hard times.

And Jaguars fans are just always like, you got the pool, you know, there's kind of a sexual environment there.

I just think that there's a lot going on.

And

I think it's really cool.

I don't trust the cleanliness of the

Florida's work in overtime at the every Sunday.

They're there in this vat of warm urine.

You know, it's amazing.

Can I just say this too?

The reason I put the Saints number three, it's one of my favorite stories ever.

It's covering the saints uh it was the uh the nikkel roby coleman game where uh there was the push at the end with the rams that the game that sent the nfc championship game that sent the rams to the super bowl right that led to the pass interference rule the doomed pass interference rule correct so we're sitting up in the press box at the superdome in new orleans and uh there are people talking because we can't hear the tv copy and all of a sudden everyone on twitter is talking about we can't hear a damn thing because there's this loud whistling noise that's going on over the broadcast and then uh some people in the stadium start saying oh that's the whistle monster this is a human being that can whistle and he's been like measured at the volume of a jet engine like he can whistle that loud and he was just on a heater that day so i left the press box and i went to go find the whistle monster and there's photos of us together and i interviewed him i did a great story and on the way out

he he's painted in all gold and he's got a massive whistle on his head.

And I had my phone out and I was interviewing him.

And on my way out,

he looks at me and he goes, you got Grateful Dead cell phone case.

And I was like, I do.

And he goes, just flew back from River Aramia five nights with dead and company.

And I was like, my man.

And then like, so Whistle Monster and I became like good friends.

And I was like, f ⁇ ing Saints fans are awesome.

I love these people.

It's a great fan base.

I think I had them actually in my top 12.

By the way,

did you get like a phone call or anything from Peter King after that?

Connor, I don't think this is actually the best use of your

own.

I think he wanted me to go.

I think Peter was the one that, because he was always into exploring.

And I think that was one of the things that was great about him was exploring fan, the fan side of it, going into tailgates.

He would always make us walk through tailgates, which I think was like a really important thing.

And I think he was the one that group texted and was like, it was me and Robert Klemko, who's now at the Washington Washington Post.

And Robert was like, if you don't go, I'm going to go.

And I was like, I'm going to f ⁇ ing go.

I want to see Whistle Monster.

And it was great.

It was

one of the great moments outside of seeing Sean Payton lose his f ⁇ ing mind when

he lost that game.

It was a great day altogether.

Wow.

Oh, and by the way, we were, one of the reasons Katie put the Jaguars on her list

was citing the enormous amount of fan interest in the UK, which we push back on that

that's a real concerted effort being made by the Jaguars organization, but are they actually even popular in the UK?

And we did find this bit of data point just for our UK listeners overseas.

Most popular NFL teams in the UK.

This is based off Google searches, YouTube searches,

Facebook likes

and what?

Miami Dolphins number one.

The Cleveland Browns.

Browns, number two.

The Browns number two.

The Cowboys, by the way, that's why I put them as my number one pick.

I knew they had this deep, passionate fan base.

Yeah, we don't doubt that you knew that.

The Cowboys, three.

The Patriots, four, the Eagles, five, the Bears, six, Seahawks, seven, Jets, eight.

Packers tied for eighth, I guess.

Yes.

And then the

Chiefs would be ten in these rankings.

And that's interesting.

I do know that the Dolphins, and I do know this, we mentioned Handsome Hank earlier in the show.

Henry, who's a couple of years older than me,

but came of age in the 80s, when he was growing up in England in the 80s, they used to have like an NFL kind of recap show

before, obviously, satellite television, the ability to watch games the way fans can today.

But there would be like a weekly NFL show that Henry in a small pocket and eventually growing pocket of fans would watch religiously.

And it makes sense when you look at it from that perspective that the Chicago Bears, that was the great Bears team of 85, and of course the great Dan Marino, one of the most prolific, exciting quarterbacks who ever lived, was in its prime at that time, why those teams would be popular and grab the imagination of a certain aged football fan overseas.

So very interesting stuff.

They were some of the earliest teams to go over and play in England before it became, I guess, a more official annual series.

And so a lot of fans of a certain age, the other thing about Miami, and I throw Tampa in here too, a lot of people from the UK, when they come to the States, they vacation in Florida.

There's an affinity for Florida.

Now, I don't know.

This is why I don't understand how the Cleveland Browns are sitting number two on that list, except they played a very early England game against the Eagles way back when.

But that's a good idea.

There were some very, as you know, Mark, very good Cleveland Browns teams in the mid to late 80s as well that perhaps

maybe that clip show was carrying more weight than we realized.

There's the old Jesus walking in the sand with a friend, and then

one day there's only one set of footprints, right, Mark?

And then the guy's like, yo, JC,

my toughest times, where were you?

You weren't there walking the beach with me.

And they say, nah, bro, heads up.

The one set of those were my footprints.

I was carrying you, bro.

I mean, this podcast, we've covered so many different bases in this episode, from political to theological, and of course, a little bit of sports.

Nah, bro is how Jesus responds to like a loyal disciple or follower.

I mean, I'm paraphrasing.

I wasn't there.

Yeah, okay.

But I think that's what I'm saying.

I think you nailed the meaning of that parable.

We don't doubt that.

You know who else nailed something as we say goodbye?

Mark Sessler, the latest newsletter is out from Sess Dog.

Our dream in Red is back with an all-new edition, and that's another

item on the Patreon that you need to be a part of.

Yes.

There is news attached to that, and it will be out soon.

It is no longer called that.

It's gone through a rebranding.

No longer called what?

It is called Silver Horses Now.

Wait.

The entire publication is called Silver Horses Now.

Wait a second.

Why is it no longer I Dream and Red?

It went through an organic rebranding.

I feel like I never said this is what we're going to do this for, you know, I could change it next time too, but it's the Silver Horses.

It's called Silver Horses?

Yeah, and in some cases, cases, Silver Horses exclamation mark, depending on how you want to.

Is this like a fanzine for senior men who are anatomically gifted?

I would suggest you take a look at the.

This has to get me to guest editor this time, too.

A guest editor.

So there's a lot to check out.

I hope people will check it out.

The production has been slashed from a reputation standpoint on this show multiple times, but now it's a whole different thing.

And Connor, I believe, is going to contribute to the next issue down the road.

I was, if you recall, Mark, I was planning an op-ed on the newsletter to address the misunderstanding about the political leanings.

I just hope you didn't change the title because of

the connotation of red and the political landscape.

Please tell me that had nothing to do with it.

It truly did not because

I have put out multiple issues while that was already being cooked up.

And I just, in my, like, from within, I wanted to rebrand it and change it and breathe some life into it.

So silver horses.

Yep.

Connor, how do you feel about the rebrand?

I think it's smart.

Anytime you face turmoil as a corporation,

it's good to look forward and not behind.

So I think that

I think Mark did the right thing here.

Well said.

And this is not a celebration of over 65 men who are gifted physically.

No, I believe it's got the readership is from both genders, from what I understand from some of the comments I've received.

Silver horses, check it out, patreon.com slash heed the call.

And we'll see you tonight for the live stream of Draft Day.

Cannot wait for that.

And we hope you're enjoying everything we're putting out there.

Thank you to Matt Money Smith for joining us.

That was a lot of fun.

And we will see you on Patreon tonight and next week, Draft Week.

How about that?

Till next time, heat the call.

Silver horses, let's go.

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