The Rise of the Seahawks, Salty Takes for 2025 + TNF Preview!

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Elegance is a journey.

Air France.

Who was watching the NFL like the past five or six years and thinking, you know what?

We need to make kicking field goals even easier.

And like, to me, those like, I don't like it.

This should be about scoring touchdowns.

Field goals should be a death struggle.

You know, they need to have no idea where it's going.

Like, they have the leg, but they don't have the accuracy.

Like, I was raised on bad kickers where a good kicker was special.

Heyo, welcome to Heed the Call and NFL podcast.

I'm Dan Hansis.

Wednesday,

hump day

with Mark Sessler and Justin Graeber on the ones and twos.

What's up, Miark?

We keep that hump day phraseology going outside my window.

And anyone that has to do these at home, which is all of us, there is intense, it sounds like warlike construction occurring.

And I just thought to myself, like, it's a dump truck or something or like some sort of construction arm.

Like, could I do that job?

And more importantly, do other people think that I could do that job?

More importantly, do other people see me that way?

To this, I say, Mark, choose to live in a war zone.

Don't be surprised by the battles, you know.

That is philosophical.

To heart, I've taken it.

We got stuff to get to.

I love it.

It's the end around show.

We got a big Thursday night showdown between the Niners and Rams, the depleted Niners.

It's a problem, I would say.

It's a problem.

But who knows?

Thursday nights are weird.

So we'll get to that game.

Two, three-in-one teams.

What else could you ask for?

We will also have our buddy, Roto Pat.

Mark.

I'm very excited for this because I love Roto Pat

from NBC Sports.

Patrick Daugherty.

he's going to jump on and we're going to talk about some things that we,

you know,

have been bothering us about the NFL season so far, the 2025 NFL season,

and what's grinding our gears.

And I know that's right up your alley, so get ready for that.

Yeah, I had to pare down my list, but I did come to some conclusion at the end, and we'll see what that is.

And we'll get you caught up on a little bit of news and fun stuff that's going on in our world.

But before that,

yeah, I don't want us to be some, you know,

cynical football show at all times.

So I want us to focus on some good things as well.

Like what, before we get into

the salt with Roto Pat, why don't we start today's show with some sugar?

Mainline that into our veins.

Get the old diabetes.

How did he say it?

How did Grimly say it?

If he had a type 2 diabetes,

he made so much money off of those commercials.

Yet another pop culture reference that Justin, Justin, just

nothing there, just a fog.

It's a fog of vape juice.

You know?

Do you know the diabetes reference, Justin?

I know it because of Family Guy.

There was a fake Family Guy commercial that used that callback.

So there you go.

By the way,

Family Guy did a nice job catching multiple younger people up on what occurred before they arrived.

Some people would say that's what's wrong with Family Guy, whereas like a smart

animated sitcom like The Simpsons

would have layers to their jokes and the writing would be sharp on a certain level.

Family Guy would just be like, here's a reference, you know, like a Wilford Brimley diabetes bit.

But what's the difference between that and what we just did?

These are all...

Nothing.

And it was their show, and

apparently it was successful

from what I've heard.

Coming up at the bottom of the hour, Seth McFarlane will join us for the Niners Rams preview.

All right, let's share something.

Let's share something positive.

I'll start.

I'll start.

How about this?

And Justin, I want you in on this one also.

Here's what I like about the season so far.

The Eagles are weird and annoying and kind of shitty, but also invincible.

And I kind of love it.

because it makes for good podcasting.

It does.

You know, like usually a defending champion, look at the Chiefs in recent years.

It does have that inevitability.

Like this team, unless there's some type of crazy injury as a defending champion, they probably just have to grind out their way through the regular season and then they become compelling again once we get to the playoffs.

No, the Eagles are not so.

And, you know, they're 4-0, right?

Including three BTWs.

That's my pop the hood analytics for you nerds out there.

Big time wins at Kansas City, home against the Rams at Tampa Bay.

And if you look at their upcoming schedule, it is well within reason that this Eagles team can get to 8-0

by the time they reach their Monday night football showdown against Mark's potential paper tiger, the Green Bay Packers, at Lambeau in week 10.

And by the way, even that sets up nicely, Mark, because they have a week nine bye, the Eagles do.

So they get to rest up and play on a Monday night.

So that's.

Oh, we see what the league was doing with that one, but sure.

Exactly.

And yet, here's some data.

You a data or a data guy, Mark?

Data.

People say stuff weird.

Data?

Well, no, it's like if you take that New York Times quiz, like many people where I was raised say data.

And you could go 10 miles away and people say data.

And then it's like, we're fighting about it.

True, true, true, true.

I say stuff weird too.

That's just the Northeast thing going on.

Even though you're kind of in the hinderlands of connecticut no real identity uh between northeast and you know new york and new england you just well says you say you i mean i'm like i was like a 30-minute ride into manhattan um surrey by train what about surrey of course you're you're even i collect well

yeah well

anyway that's how i got on dan you said ruined the other night instead of ruined which got on some people's what is ruined

what is ruined ruined r-u-i-n ruin You kill the eye.

You kill the I.

Stop it.

Okay.

I'm not to you, Justin.

You can say anything you want.

Everyone else, shut up.

Anyway, the Eagles' offense, here's some data slash data.

Leads the NFL.

Do you have that tweet?

I want to credit the person that had this.

I got this from Sam Hoppin.

The Eagles' offense currently leads the league in three and out rate.

Okay, that's a 4-0 team, not typically a stat that you connect to it.

Just edging out.

Two teams playing their backup quarterbacks and a team that won three games last year and is starting a rookie QB.

Okay.

How about this?

I just pulled up the rushing stats

and the actual rushing stats, not the ones that Mark brought up last week on the preview.

Saquon Barkley is 20th in the NFL in rushing, in rushing.

20th.

Shut up.

I know.

I heard about that.

20th in the NFL in rushing, averaging three-point yards per attempt, despite being second in the NFL in attempts.

3.1 yards.

3.1 yards.

And Jalen Hurts is, okay, the quarterback.

How about that?

Jalen Hurts is ninth in QBR.

Not bad.

That's fine.

But the man has thrown for 609 yards total in four weeks.

What?

Russell Wilson had that in the second half against the Cowboys in week two.

So,

and that has obviously led to the A.J.

Brown thing.

Brown had 109 yards in week three against the Rams, but he's had 42 yards in the other three games combined.

And of course, he quoted scripture after Sunday's game from a book that he may or may not own.

We only know for sure that he owns one book.

That got under your craw, Dan.

Yeah, it's like, come on.

Save it for the theology podcast, but yeah.

You better be in church.

If you're quoting scripture to seem like you're a deep thinker, your ass better be in church on Sundays.

And by the way, as a Catholic boy, you can't say, well, football, you know, I can't go to church.

You could go to the 6 p.m.

Mass on Saturday.

If you're Catholic, there were many options.

I was not Catholic, and it's like you have to miss the part of an early football game to be stuck in a pew, and that was unrewarding at times.

Justin, look up A.J.

Brown's religious denomination.

Anyway, so Philly must be winning because of its unstoppable defense, right?

Not exactly.

They just came off of a game where they gave up two 70-plus-yard touchdown plays.

So the back end's not invincible.

How about the front seven?

Zach Bond's a god.

But the Eagles have five sacks through four games, tied with the Bears, Niners, and Cowboys for the fourth least in the NFL.

While we're here, the Eagles have an NFL high four roughing the passer penalties.

No other team is more than two.

So how are they doing this?

Okay, I'm not sure, but I have ideas.

They are winning the turnover battle.

Hurts hasn't thrown an INT is one example.

And they're getting a massive bump from their special teams.

They have in two close games, block kicks were the difference.

And this from the athletic.

The Eagles are the first team since 1978 to block a field goal or a punt on three consecutive opponent possessions since at least 1978.

And they're the fourth team since at least 2000 to return a block field goal and a block punt for a touchdown in the same seasons.

Shout out to Michael Clay, special teams coordinator.

So anyway, maybe

Nick Siriani is the genius after all.

Maybe they're lucky.

Maybe it's Maybelline.

This can go either way.

Remember, they started 4-0 and 10-1 in 2023, and then everything went to hell.

But on the flip side, banking these four wins while playing at a C-plus level will be a major problem for the NFL if they actually lock in and play to their potential in these different areas.

Either outcome wouldn't shock me, and it makes them extremely compelling and fun for podcasting for the rest of the season.

It's a great pick because it depends what lens you look through with the Eagles.

Like you could say their best players, their stars, are underperforming and they're winning games in ways that you simply cannot count on to happen from week to week.

Like it's a 1978 total outlier that block punts and kicks are happening in a game-changing way that they have.

They do it their own way.

The weird thing is like from another angle, for years, they were the most deeply dipped like franchise in analytics.

Like they really were at the forefront of that with a couple other teams and nothing about them works analytically right now.

Like you just pointed out that

on the far end of stuff that you'd think of a team that's 4-0 from another lens though,

Their best players are not playing well.

What if they start playing well and you get this team that does so many things effectively, then we've only seen part of their power.

Right.

They are hard to figure out.

Like they're a, they're a strange one.

Are they playing the last NFC game of the season in late January, Mark?

Yes or no?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

How about yours?

What do you got, Mark?

What do you guys excited?

What has like made you happy and given you a sense of joy and purpose so far this season?

You know, I had to, last night, real quick, I was, you know, before bed, I was watching randomly on one of those stations that just plays like Family Feud a thousand times in a row.

Gilligan's Island was like an early 80s Gilligan's Island versus Batman with Adam West, celebrity family feud.

And one of the questions was,

what do you put on top of cereal?

And my mind is like thinking, well, milk, you know,

but then the first answer by Ginger

was like, Sugar.

And I'm thinking like, do people still put sugar on cereal?

That feels like something my grandmother used to do with like special K all the time, but like I don't, but it was, but it was like the second biggest answer back in 1984.

Milk was number one, by the way.

I would say like, yeah, if you were eating special K

or Wheaties or Cheerios, like you, you put a little bit of sugar on top of it.

Responsible cereal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you're not putting that on your frosted flakes or your lunch.

In 2025, all the cereal we buy is coated in copious amounts of sugar already.

So they just did it.

They did that.

They were in the old days too, Justin.

I'm just saying, like, you would have the fun cereals and then the responsible cereals, and the sugar was for the responsible cereals to make them fun cereals.

This is just, this is how it works in the aisle.

Yeah, I ground my mother down, my brother and I, to get at least one sugar cereal in the house at all times.

Anyways,

for my sugar, I really did think about this.

Like, what to me gets me excited to research, to watch tape, to like plan for these shows.

To me, right now, it is the rise of the Seahawks in a world full of big average.

And it's what I love about when you get to between like week four, week five, is like stuff's happened.

And the Eagles are another example, but like stuff's happened in a way and with results that I did not expect.

And the Seahawks, I just had out floating in the middle of the league, kind of like a team we're going to have to deal with.

Instead, if you look at the work that Aaron Schatz and FTN Fantasy have done, a friend of the show,

DVOA, DVOA, and I never use DVOA, I just, I'm like, I don't care, but like, it is, if you go from the top team to the worst, surprisingly, I could think that it would be five other teams.

The number one team and overall team DVOA right now is Mike McDonald's, Seattle Seahawks, which means it's not just his defense, it's the offense, it's special teams, it's everything that they do collectively.

And the Eagles are way down that list, by the way.

So when I look at what they've done, this defense is growing up in real time.

They have given up 17 points, 17, 13, and 20 in their first four games.

They haven't given up a 100-yard rusher.

They hammer the Steelers.

They vaporized the Saints, which I get that doesn't mean anything.

But three other Saints games have been close.

And I'm just saying they went and dropped a hammer, like beat bad teams the way that they did.

I like when teams do that.

They're six in points scored, second in points allowed.

And I think in a way,

there's a culture thing happening.

It's like you want to see a team if you hire a new coach.

And this is like to your point of being so frustrated with the Jets on Monday night, Dan, Dan, like an epic rant.

Like you got to give a little bit of time to Aaron Glenn, but if you're a Jets fan, you've been waiting for year three to pop with any coach ever and it doesn't happen.

We're in year two of Mike McDonald with the Seahawks and I see real change.

And I also think

the sugar inside of all this is that of all the places that Sam Darnold could have wound up, outside of staying with Minnesota, which would have been perfect at this point, To have him go to Seattle, I think was the perfect landing spot because they're not having him to throw the ball 48 times a game and save them.

He is the perfect quarterback for that system that's balanced.

And the whole team right now feels like kind of dangerous to me.

And they're rising up in our power rankings.

They're number one in DVOA.

Mike McDonald is a good coach.

The Ravens wish they had him back.

They're my little sugar cube right now.

I like that.

I like that.

You've joined me and Connor now.

That's great.

I think we can get behind this.

I don't think I wasn't with you, but like I had.

Right, but you were having your little Packers fascination, and I could feel you pulling away from them.

I was in a different relationship during that period of time.

You're Polly, bro.

Yeah.

I just.

No, I just want to say, like,

everything you said about that was, I agree with it.

And the Darnold thing checks out too.

But the only thing I, as the queen bee of the Darnold Hive, is sometimes I push back against.

And no, I'm not worried about a curse here because Connor and I counterbalance that.

And I'm not picking up something that was already established.

We landed on Plymouth Rock, okay?

For Mark, Plymouth Rock landed on him.

You know what I mean?

It's different.

But I'm saying, Darnold, it's almost like people, and this isn't you, but people are like always looking for a reason why, oh, Darnold's playing at a high level and it's because all these other things are good and he's not that good.

Maybe Sam Darnold is just like when a team needs a quarterback who's a good quarter, good-ass quarterback,

he could fit in and help elevate the team, as you see with the Vikings going through it right now.

Like, he's a perfect fit because he's a smart system quarterback.

Like, but then there's maybe not as many of those.

But that is true.

Like, I think he's a good quarterback.

It's not because they're hiding him.

I think he's grown and become better.

It's kind of like Baker down in Tampa Bay, good team around him.

Like, a quarterback deserves that, by the way.

Like, I don't think we should find out if he's good or not because you stick him on a

sinking ship like the Jets, you know.

And Baker's a great example because it took years.

But now Baker is just seen as a great quarterback, no strings attached.

Darnold, but it took a couple of years for him to get to that point.

It was like, oh, it's because of this offensive coordinator.

It's because of these playmakers.

It's because of this.

Now it's just like, no, Baker is actually a badass.

Maybe Darnold will get there eventually.

But right now, maybe people have yet to really come around on it.

And maybe he needs to finish a season strong now and have a good playoff.

All fun stuff to watch.

I like that.

I'm pumped about that.

One more before we take a break.

Go ahead, Gravy.

Yeah, so I've been waiting for this since the NFL introduced the dynamic kickoff at the start of last season.

This season, they made another change to the kickoff.

They moved the touchback up to, what, the 35-yard line.

And I think this has had finally the effect I've been waiting for.

Now, I was, I will say, I was hoping for like some really fun, creative return looks, like, different, like, play designs for the return game that just add a new excitement element to football.

We haven't quite gotten that, but what we have gotten is innovation in the kickoff, which is what I was waiting for.

Somebody had to innovate here.

We're not just going to boringly kick it off, touchback, landing zone, all that crap.

And the knuckleball kickoff is going to become a real thing.

There are two teams through week three that were really doing the knuckleball kickoff.

It's the Rams and the Panthers.

And now I have this tweet here that shows the opponent's average starting field position.

And as you can see, the Rams are far and away the best when it comes to pinning their opponents deep and having them start possessions deep in their own territory.

And the Panthers are second.

These are the two teams currently executing this knuckleball kickoff.

It's having a real effect because in this new kick return format, any delay when it comes to getting the ball and getting upfield can result in like 10 to 15 yards of difference in terms of where that return gets to.

And so I think this is obviously the very beginning.

It's a copycat league.

Other teams are going to be studying this.

They're going to be trying to copy this.

Mike Vrabel said before his matchup with the Panthers, one of these two teams, he spent two hours just watching kickoff film of the Panthers' first three games to see

what they're doing with this knuckleball kickoff and how, you know, what he can do as a team to counteract any effects of it.

But eventually, and it may take some time for teams to like get the right kicker in their system.

It may take a full offseason.

Everyone's going to be doing this eventually.

And I think it's going to go one step further.

We're going to get sites like whether it's Next Gen Stats or PFF or whoever doing deep analytics on classifying.

Like you're going to be able to go to these sites and look up how many knuckleball kickoffs a team tried, how many regular kickoffs a team tried, what was the average starting field position for the knuckleball kickoffs.

Like I think this is going to be something that sweeps the league.

We're at the very beginning of it now, and it really excites me because innovation is exciting.

You can feel like a

dense and beautiful Connor Orr thing piece bubbling up as we speak.

I mean, I think the cool thing about it, Justin, because

it's granular and I love it, is like it's rare that we get a significant rule change dropped on the league.

And like special teams, like we kind of ignore it a lot of times, but it's like those coaches are like obsessives.

They're obsessive.

So the fact that like,

The fact that like

rule change and like the fact that like we're two years into a series of kickoff rule changes, like the league is going to have to sit down, like coaches are going to have to sit down and study film what the right teams are doing about it the best they can and like they are going to copy it.

Like it's something to watch where this doesn't happen that often.

And there's another element to it where this is a different thing, but player stats.

Like we are in an all-time low for player stats through four weeks because there are less yards for teams to get because the teams who aren't on the other end of this knuckleball kickoff are starting either at the 35 after a touchback or starting even better field position because they get a nice return out of it.

And there's like, there's just not as many yards to drive.

The flip side of that, I guess, is if you only gain like 10 to 15 yards on your drive after a kickoff, you're punting it.

You have a way better chance of pinning your opponent deep, which creates more yards.

But there's some wacky stuff going on with that through four.

Yes.

Here is my thoughts on this.

Like, um, there was a great book, early days of ATN, Mark.

We all read it.

It was The Essential Smart Football by Chris B.

Brown, and such a great book.

And it teaches you about the game inside the game, inside the game, and all pro football really is

innovation and then the innovative, the attack from that innovation, and then how the other side of the ball counterattacks that.

And the league is always evolving in strategy.

And you're seeing that.

And in general, like kickers have never been more important in the NFL.

Like over at the kicker club, we're currently in the process of putting a second level on the kicker club.

I'm actually, we're also digging.

We're doing digging right around the property.

We're putting in a lazy river.

Like

business is booming in the kicker club because not only are you in field goal range, essentially when you cross midfield now, and how that has changed how teams can score and how quickly they can score and how much they have to succeed and not even really succeed and score anyway, right?

That's changing the game with their the big legs.

I mean, Nick Folk hit a 58-yarder.

Like, what is happening?

I mean, that's another great think piece out there to be written.

But yeah, we are, we're just,

there will be a counter-attack to this.

And then, and special teams, coaches are going to figure it out.

And then

you'll have the kickers and the special teams on the other side are going to have to figure out how to innovate back.

And it's going to be fun to watch.

And I, and isn't it funny that Brandon Aubrey, the best kicker in the world, is the best at this?

It's not funny for other people, but it's funny for the Cowboys.

I don't know one thing about the kicker club because we're right here in the thick of it.

This is the nights when these kickers would go and celebrate.

You've got the building under massive construction, building the second floor and a river outside of the.

I mean, could that have been an off-season project?

Or you decided to do it here on October 1st?

It's gotten so easy for kickers in the NFL now.

Same thing with construction.

Just green lights, no issues, no overdoses.

You've got your bulldozer cars.

Everything is right on schedule.

And I've kept obviously the main building alive for late nights and partying.

So yeah, everything's under control, but I appreciate you checking in on that.

Why did I question it?

Let's take a break and then we'll do a little catch up on news, then bring in RotoPat.

Stay right there.

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All right, we are back.

End around Wednesday.

So let's end around, Mark.

We should do that.

I like the way you put that.

Okay.

Nailed it.

Broadcasting.

That's why we both graduated from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting.

Theoretically.

Theoretically.

Neither of us did.

But we heard the commercial a lot on WFAN.

All right, let's start.

Let's tie up this

Robert Sala versus Liam Cohen thing

because as we pointed out on the Monday night podcast, Mark,

what Sala said during that interaction at midfield caught me by surprise because I was listening to it in real time on the show.

And I was like, I wonder if he's going to get fined or have to apologize because he literally threatened to live Cohen's life.

I think his exact quote, Mark, was, I will end your life.

That's not something you want caught on, Mike, as a professional, sure.

Right.

And it would be a little hypocritical for the NFL not to address that, considering they, you know, are all about bringing ethics and sportsmanship back to the play on the field and all that.

Anyway, so Bob Sowell, either by his own acknowledgement or being told to

at the podium for his little defensive coordinator press conference that they hold every week

in San Francisco.

You know how it is.

It's like

the DC and the OC, they'll get their little spot,

maybe, depending on the head coach.

I remember Parcells used to never let any of his coaches speak to the reporters, which looking back, is like, you know, Bill, these guys would like to be head coaches one day.

This is a way for them to sell their brand.

But this is how Salah got a head coaching job, along with the pumping the fist on the sidelines.

So, yeah.

And I might also argue to that point, this is why Robert Salah failed as a head coach because he kind of is like, he looks the part, but then he's not quite maybe cut out for certain elements of a big chair experience anyway here he is bob salah trying to clean up the mess after he threatened to kill uh a colleague no it's all good uh whatever happened on sunday doesn't change how i feel you know like uh

um i in my heart genuinely was trying to give a compliment and uh i i own the fact that i probably used it was a wrong choice of words but however you want to word it yeah you threatened killing they're really really good at putting their players in position to be successful.

I know what he's doing.

I know what he's threatening to murder someone.

So yeah, maybe that'll wrong joints.

Well, he is referring to, he's trying to take the temperature back to when he made last week's press conferences about them

observing signals and saying that that was the compliment.

But what you're trying to do is to fend off the NFL from sending a fine and say, look, we're all adults here.

This was a mistake.

I was misinterpreted.

But it's like, what about about the other quote that you made on the field?

So, deflection.

Deflection.

I think so, right?

Like, apologize before you're asked to.

That's a guy that spent a few years in the wars of the New York media.

Yeah, you're right.

And trying to avoid that FedEx envelope.

By the way, Kyle Shanahan,

by the way, talked about Kyle Shanahan on the Ringer NFL show with Shield Gapadia the other day.

So check that out, plug.

You only get the plug ding if it's the Titans, Titans, Titans podcast.

Is that what this is?

Titans, Titans, Titans.

I love it.

I picture it as like the Spanish exclamation point where it's upside down in the front and in the back.

Anyway, here's Cal Shanhan.

If any coaches could win a fight against Robert Salah while we're here, and

I would not recommend anyone attempts to fight Robert Salah because maybe now we have evidence that he will take it to another level.

Okay, here we go.

Pretty important question.

What NFO coaches do you think could beat up Robert Saul?

Just me.

That's about it.

Dan Campbell.

I'll probably bet on Dan over a lot of people.

Saul is too nice usually, but it seems like someone struck a chord later.

I mean, the other day, but I don't think there's any fights going on.

It was kind of of comical now to look back at it.

Kyle already looks exhausted, Mark.

Yeah.

Is he heading for a sabbatical, you think?

You know, to his son.

He's a strange guy.

So, like, I could see him

possibly, but like, he's right back in the mire.

And also, I think this has probably become like the beat writer is going to write their fourth piece on this Salah thing.

So he's sort of, it's not even funny to him.

The one thing that annoys me about this, like, because we even asked the question, like, and all you ever do is you pick, oh, it's going to be, oh, it's going to be Brian Flores could beat, win someone,

Sala could win a fight.

Like, Dan Campbell, like, have you ever thought about one of these like brainiac, wiry brainiacs?

Like, if you get, like, five shots of tequila in them, you don't, like, you could unleash someone.

I'm just saying that, like, the right, if you get a nice Tito's in you, a couple of nice Tito's, like one of these little, like a Sean McVay could go psycho on someone.

I'm just saying, like, you get him in the right mood and you catch a Salah off.

Hey, you don't mess with me.

I'm Sean McVeigh.

Like, what?

Why do you talk like that now?

Justin, who wins Robert Salah v.

Dan Campbell?

Cage match?

Dan Campbell.

Dan Campbell just has some like an edge, like a nasty edge to him.

Although Robert Salah threatening to end your world and end your life definitely is a edge.

He's got an edge.

He's got an edge.

But is he going to bite Dan's kneecaps?

Dan gets him on the ground?

I feel like if Dan gets thrown to the ground, your kneecaps are toast.

Okay, good point.

Good point.

All right.

In other news,

trust me, no Jets rant coming here, but I will talk about Sauce Gardner just because this was an interesting kind of legal thing and maybe something that we should keep in mind ourselves with what we do for a living.

Sauce Gardner

was recently awarded nearly $52,000 in attorney's fees and costs on Wednesday for defending and defeating a defamation and intentional inflection of emotional distress lawsuit brought by a Buffalo Bills fan.

Here's what happened, Ceci.

It stemmed from an exchange last year on Twitter between Gardner and Callie Mariakis, a Bills fan from Mississippi of all places.

On August 20th, here was the incident in question.

Mark, I'd like you to put on your Judge Sessler robe right now, okay?

The honorary

Judge Sessler.

On August 21st, 2024, Gardner posted a photograph of boxes, a ladder, and construction equipment for a golf simulator.

One of my buddies here in town has one of these things, by the way.

Great flex if you got a little extra money to turn your basement into a little, your own personal golf course.

I'm not there yet.

Also, if you have a basement, I mean, I can't do that.

It's a cool dad move to be like, hey, head down to my simulator.

Like, maybe we'll get there.

I don't imagine you'll ever, if you have a basement, Mark, I know what you're going to do with it.

And it's going to involve a fog machine and chains on the wall.

So that probably not a golf simulator.

I mean, I, you know, I don't really know how to respond to that one finally.

Latex, zippers, it's going to be wild.

That is, that's, that's, um, it's, that's probably unlikely.

Probably.

Anyway, he posts this photo of, you know, the construction of his golf simulator in his basement.

And then

a reply underneath it, this woman replies, a simulator to teach you how to not commit past interference or defensive holding?

The next day, Sauce sees this and responds to the post on Twitter.

I'm sure your husband wouldn't like it if I told you you DM'd me your OnlyFans link, would he?

To which she replied, nice comeback, Sauce, but what a shame.

It's a big fat lie.

Then she sued Sauce, arguing that the statement damaged her reputation.

And since she didn't have an OnlyFans link, something you know, Mark, I know you understand what's going on on that site, it was untrue.

She also sued Barstool for writing a story on the exchange.

All right.

A sex addiction?

You got a problem with sex?

What is happening on this show at this moment?

A sex addiction or something?

Judge Sessler, would you have awarded Sauce attorney fees for this woman wasting his time with a frivolous lawsuit and

a chase for cash from a multi-millionaire?

Eye for an eye.

What is more important to him

right now than producing his career, growing in his career and being a pro football player?

He puts something out there that's kind of like a get-to-know-me, me, which is what the relationship between athlete and a fan is at this point in the public.

And it's dodgy territory, but if she's going to come out of the woodwork

and take him down a notch publicly, and then he does the same to her, eye for an eye.

And I guess she's claiming to be the only woman in America that doesn't have an OnlyFans at this point, which is a different case.

But like,

give me a break.

Like, go back, go back home and do what you need to do, lady.

You want to come out and challenge a pro athlete and try to be wordy and mouthy, and then you can't.

You're oh, you're you come back and your feelings were hurt.

Like, what were you expecting?

What were you expecting, I guess?

Crickets, then you don't mean anything, but you get it.

He replied to you, which is kind of like you engaged him and you didn't like the reply when you started in hostile territory.

Both of you leave the courtroom.

Like, this case is over.

Yes, case dismissed.

I think we have a new Patreon,

Joe.

Finally, in our quick news rundown, J.K.

Dobbins, I always love, same thing happens with

my favorite young Yankee, Ben Rice, speaks fluent, fluent.

I think he went to Dartmouth, fluent Spanish.

So he'll do these interviews, and then he's this very like,

he's like straight out of central casting as like this, you know, white boy

and just fluent Spanish.

It's like, whoa, J.K.

Dobbins,

another wholesome all-American kid, speaks fluent Spanish.

Let's check this out.

This was a post-game interview after Monday Night Football.

Yes, but

Nix is especial.

Tienemo que, tenemo que

si giendo

con con

great play.

We're gonna keep going.

Okay.

Annunciaron que uno un Latino va cantar en el Super Bowl.

Bad bunny.

¿Qué pinas que un cantante va can

en español en el super.

What does it mean that a a Spanish singer is going to sing in a Super Bowl?

It means a lot.

Solo, solo escucho.

Solo escucho reggaetón.

I only listen to reggaeton.

I really like that bunny, a.k.a.

Bonito.

That's brunette.

I think.

Boricua.

Boricua.

Morena.

Big punisher shout out.

Rest in peace.

Boricua.

Is that blonde or

hang on a second?

He grew up on right by the Mexican border in Texas.

I think that explains what's going on there.

Anyway, Boricua Boricua is a native of Puerto Rico or a person of Puerto Rican

descent.

Let me figure this one out.

Anyway, that was good, though.

That wasn't easy for him, and he didn't have to do that.

So shout out J.K.

Dobbins.

Does he have descent?

Hispanic?

He traveled to Mexico many times and grew up wanting to learn Spanish.

Justin, did you learn more than that?

No, that was what I determined as well.

He has just a particular interest in Spanish.

There was a moment where John Sutcliffe, like, he gave a little right when he started speaking Spanish.

John Sutcliffe with the mic gave a little look to the cameraman, like, here we go.

Well, usually he's got to, you know, go bend to everyone else.

And like, they're having a lively conversation aimed at their audience.

Good for them.

So funny.

I had a you learned that at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting.

I had a teammate in high school, baseball teammate.

He was our center fielder.

His name is Steve.

And

he's Puerto Rican.

And

still not a player, Big Punisher was a huge hit.

One of my favorite hip-hop songs ever in the 90s.

And at the end of it, there's a refrain going, Boricua Morena.

I remember asking Steve, because he was a fluent Spanish speaker, like what that meant.

And I don't know if he was messing with me or if he actually didn't know, but he told me it was like brunette and blonde.

And now I'm learning.

And thank you to J.K.

Dobbins, because I never would have known or checked.

Boricua Morena actually means dark-skinned woman,

according to the internet.

So,

you know, we're learning things here, Mark.

You know, the thing is, as you get older, you have to never stop learning.

Have an open mind.

And other cultures.

That's good advice.

Well, even your friend perhaps still has a little more to learn if the internet is correct.

If I ever see Steve again, I will talk to him about this because he misled me.

Perhaps purposely, perhaps by not wanting to admit he didn't know what that meant.

Interesting.

A linguistic trick.

All right.

Let's

pivot.

Yes, Justin.

Before we move on, Mark, I wanted to remind you: last night we had a really interesting call come into the HTC hotline, and it was specifically for you.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I've heard this.

I knew this was going to come at some point, but

Dan, listen to this.

See what you're saying.

Okay.

Uh-oh.

Hey there.

This is Everett Colin from Wisconsin.

Just wanted to leave a message there and

let you all know how much we truly do enjoy the show and all the hard work you put into the show over there.

Doing a good job.

We're also very curious as to why Mark Sessler

chose to

choose our team to put a hex on.

Things were looking pretty good there.

Kind of looked like an unstoppable juggernaut, if you will.

And then all of a sudden, old Mr.

Sessler decided he'd ruin our day over here in Wisconsin.

So just wondering what it feels like to be evil

is basically what I want to know.

And because we're all sitting around thinking, gee, kind of feels like our cheese hats have been shoved up our behinds, if you know what I mean.

It's not fair, okay?

We're not used to that kind of nonsense, that kind of malarkey out here in Wisconsin.

How dare you, Mr.

Sessler?

We're out here bleeding yellow and green,

dying a death.

We're dying a death,

you son of a bee.

And

I don't mean to be too terribly

profane here, but you're a son of a bee.

A son of a bee.

Thank you.

Midwestern sensibilities there, but someone that's angry with you, Mark.

They are, and I.

I don't often do this, but I think I'd like to read a missive and just kind of address what I think is a little bit, it's bubbling up, and I'm not thrilled with it.

So

here we go.

Go ahead.

To the many hordes of agitated fans dotted along the countryside like directionless ants, I say this.

While it might be neat and convenient for you to blame the failings of a sports team on something unexplainable and arcane, get your act together.

The idea that the Packers, or Cardinals, or at one stage the Titans, or in fact the Browns, can be hexed because a podcaster covering He-Men suddenly delights in your team's defies logic.

Hexes, the stuff of witches and druids, are not the stuff of NFL.com former bloggers.

One does not simply put a hex on a franchise because.

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All right, we are back.

And as promised, one of our favorite people in this industry,

Patrick Daugherty, RotoPath, NBC Sports.

What's up, buddy?

Way too kind.

I've never gotten an applause track before.

I love that.

And yeah, you know, we've been texting.

I saw the film, been wanting to see the film, one battle after another for quite a while.

And my review is that today, the day after seeing it, saw it late night.

All I wanted to do was drive super fast in my SUV with my two children in it.

Two of my four children, I should say.

And it's like, all right, yeah, you know what?

You're a suburban dad.

You're not Leonardo DiCapri or Benicio del Toro.

You have to drive your Volvo slow.

It's been hard.

It's been hard coming back to civilian life after seeing this.

We have a, and I want to get in.

No spoilers, because I haven't seen it yet.

I think Cecil saw it also yesterday.

One battle after another, the new Leo PTA joint.

But I would like to, so you have a Volvo.

Famously on this show,

Connor Orr drives a 2016 pre-owned Chrysler Town and Country.

Some type of drag race between Rotopat and Connor.

Like

may the best dad win.

I'm in, and I don't know if we can facilitate this or get the clear the red tape in terms of legal issues, but

listen, this T6 is turbocharged.

This was before everything was like hybrid and all that.

Like, this thing gets a lot of gas.

Like, if I put the pedal down, and no offense to Connor, he would not stand a chance.

When I use my wife's Sienna, which I do drive probably honestly even more than my Volvo, then we might be talking because I don't know what.

Sienna VTNC, a potential battle, but the one, the other Volvo, no chance.

Interesting.

One battle after another.

There you go.

Mark, I know you saw it.

And I just want to say, like, this movie that I have not seen yet is like one of those movies that I cannot wait to see.

And I'm just curious.

I'll start with you on this one, Mark.

Like movies that you waited and waited and waited

to come out.

And you literally were counting down the days.

And when you sat in the theater finally to watch it, it was like, holy God, it's finally happening.

I think you and I, one of them, we're going to have in common.

Two for me came to mind in the last 15 years or so.

Yeah,

I'm going to bypass because I've spoke about it myself so many times, once upon a time in Hollywood, which fully delivered.

That would be my number two in terms of weight, like not happy with what I saw, but weight.

Yes.

And one thing about one battle after another, I can think of one movie when I walked out where I was like, everything's changed.

And it was pulp fiction.

And I feel that way about this movie.

I don't want to give any spoilers.

I went in with no spoilers, saw it at the Chinese man theater, and it blew my head off my body.

And I'm going to leave it right there.

I thought you said I saw it with a Chinese man.

I'm like, you don't really need that detail.

Yeah, well, that's always possible.

The movie, the movie that I waited for.

And because it was gossiped and rumored about, and back before internet and at the forefront of internet, little shards of information.

And this little nerd who grew up watching Star Wars heard that this like 20 years later prequel film was going to come out.

And I was not alone.

Thousands of people around my age had waited for 20 years for this.

And

I went to the midnight showing in Denver, Colorado with like eight friends.

And

name the bill, Mark.

What is the movie?

It was the Phantom Menace.

We've got the poster up on YouTube.

It was The Phantom Menace.

And I waited forever.

And about 10 minutes into it, there's these bizarre, like,

aliens.

And George Lucas was critiqued because they seemed very Asian.

And it was like a bad caricature of.

Was it a Chinese man?

It was not that Chinese man.

But right away, like, my friend turned to me and he's like, wait, is this the real movie?

Like, because we had been, you know, we had been doing beers before and was like, I don't know.

And then it kept going.

Never gets a bad sign.

It kept going.

Being in the right theater is a bad sign.

We honestly were like, was this kind of like a short or a joke?

But then I left and I did the thing if you've ever done with a movie, we're like, okay, I'm seeing it again the next morning.

Because

I know it was good.

I know it was good.

I know I liked it.

And then I saw it the next morning.

I was like, I'm pretty sure I liked it.

And then I saw it like another week later.

I'm like,

shit, this sucks.

I've done that with many albums of bands I love where it's like, first listen, woof, second listen, well, that song's not bad.

Third listen, now you're talking yourself into it almost out of defense of your own favorite band or whatever.

Once Upon a Time is definitely one for me.

The other one is The Dark Knight Rises, which everybody knows, obviously, The Dark Knight was the Heath Ledger one, that is the legendary one.

But so coming off that, the hype to see the ending of the trilogy.

And while the movie was good, it couldn't match up to The Dark Knight, which you made me think of it with saying that you were going again the next day.

I'll never forget, I was living in Hollywood when The Dark Knight came out, and we saw the midnight showing

right there in what's that mall where the farmer's market is?

The Grove.

The Grove.

We saw the midnight showing of the Dark Knight at the Grove.

And I remember the next morning I was going to the

Chase or yeah, it was at the time a Washington mutual at on Vine in Hollywood and a guy was all dressed up in Batman gear.

This is like noon.

And he was going to the ATM because he had already seen the movie twice and needed more money to go see the Dark Knight again.

Yeah, movies, man.

How about you, Pat, before we get into our main topic today?

What are the movies that you most anticipated in your life?

Well, I know when I was 10, this is not a joke.

This is not the one I'm going to go on about at length, but Independence Day.

Oh, yeah.

I saw the laser hitting the White House, and I was like, I've never seen anything like this in my life.

Absolutely.

And like, great call.

Had to see Independence Day.

The Phantom Menace, by the way,

first I collected all the Pepsi cans.

I don't know if you remember this.

Oh, there was a merchandise tsunami.

I feel like it has not been matched since, like, somehow.

Like, I've never seen a merchandise tsunami like that.

I collected every single one of the

Pepsi cans.

My parents kept them for a while and got rid of them when I was in my 20s.

I was like, yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, you should probably get rid of those.

I was only 13 when the Phantom Menace came out, and I really wanted to like it too.

And my brother and I were both just like,

I think the first thing we came out after seeing the movie was kind of like, you know, no offense to the kid, young Anakin, I've never seen a worse acting performance in my entire life.

Iconically bad.

The trailer that had me 2007, I was a junior in college.

This was when I was really becoming like what I thought was like a true cinephile.

Loved all the American auteurs, like Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, PTA.

And then they released like a 45-second teaser trailer for There Will Be Blood.

It was just like one of the really weird, dark Daniel Day-Lewis monologues from the movie.

Like, I hate most people.

And it's just like just seven lines like that in a row, with like the really weird Johnny Greenwood score.

And I had truly never wanted to see a movie more in my life.

And it did basically,

I watched the trailer and then like the official trailer, probably honestly, like over a hundred times.

Like very, very silly, stupid behavior.

But like, I was, I got addicted to a trailer.

And then I did love the movie too.

Love it, yeah.

That uh, by the way, can you do the rest of the show in your Daniel Plainview voice?

I used to have, I used to, one of my most common impressions was busting out the plain view.

It's been out of practice for about 15, 16 years.

I'm not entirely sure if I should lapse back into it or not, risk of embarrassing myself.

You know, before some asshole on the subreddit, it's like these guys don't even talk about football on their show.

Let me tie it back: the Independence Day trailer.

I think it dropped during the Cowboys Steelers Super Bowl.

That is true.

In 96.

And yes, it is the trailer for me as well that stands above all other trailers because it just was mind-blowing.

The special effects, even now, when you watch that movie, it looks great.

It was mind-blowing if you were a teenager in the 90s watching that.

And in the 90s, was like there was a massive Hollywood fetish for disaster films where

two end-of-the-world films would come out on the same weekend.

There was like, look back at World War II, and then there's like aliens blowing up the White House.

And that was because of Independence Day.

Like, if you look at the next three years of blockbusters after Independence Day, everything was the end of the world.

Deep Impact and Armageddon came out within like six weeks of each other.

Two meteor movies.

That's the thing.

And so, like, you know, what's you know what's not cool is blowing up the White House with a laser.

You know what is cool is a tsunami submerging the entire East Coast.

I like it.

Yeah, that was Deep Impact one-upping Independence Day.

Problems over.

All right.

Now, with that said,

so, yeah, we're talking about all these things that we're happy about the NFL season.

Oh, cinema.

Oh, Tinseltown, Mark.

What a world it is.

The entertainment of it all.

But how about things that have pissed us off about 2025 so far?

You are the guest, Pat.

Get us going.

Listen,

the state of kicking in the NFL.

Interesting.

And the problem is, first off, the kicking is too good.

Like, this is what's really got me hot under the collar.

Also, I will admit this on the show.

This is not a bit, it's partly out of like resentment.

I have still refused to actually learn the new kickoff rules.

Like, I'm just like, why?

First off, like, how are they so complicated that I can't just intuitively understand them?

Maybe they're not actually that complicated.

But, like, why is there like now have to be a graphic on the television?

Like, we have like the green zone.

It's an ugly graphic, too.

It's real, real ugly.

Yeah.

And it's like, kind of just partly out of protest, out of resentment, I've refused to even learn the new kickoff rules.

But it's like,

who was watching the NFL like the past five or six years and thinking, you know what?

We need to make kicking field goals even easier.

Like this, we now, it's no longer enough to just easily make 52-yard field goals.

Now you need to have like Joey Sly coming out, and you have basically no doubt that he's going to make a 64-yarder.

And like, to me, it's like, I don't like it.

This should be about scoring touchdowns.

Field goals should be a death struggle.

You know, they need to have no idea where it's going.

Like, they have the leg, but they don't have the accuracy.

Like, I was raised on bad kickers.

We're like, a good kicker was special.

And now, every kicker, like, if you can't hit from 60, you're not even going to make the team.

It's just too, it's another, it's another, we're losing recipes.

Like, kickers are kicking is just too easy right now.

This is so fascinating because at the top of the show, when we shared the three thing, the things that we love,

Justin was so excited talking about the kicking revolution that he had to stay seated during the segment.

Um, so we didn't get a strike for um explicit content on YouTube.

Like,

I, but it's good that we have the counterpoint to it that this is actually bad for the sport.

Yeah, look what Matt LaFloor did like Sunday night against the Packers.

Like, seriously, like, because field goals are so easy, he just ended up tying the Cowboys because he played for a field goal like four different times.

Like, dude, you understand you could have beaten the Dallas Cowboys.

We didn't really like dig that deep into it, Ceci, but like Matt LaFloor came so close to wearing the biggest goat horns in a primetime game since Belchek went for it on fourth and short at his own 20 against the Colts all those years ago, which, by the way, now the analytics model slurps him for.

But back then, it was like, what an asshole.

What a piece of shit.

They had like...

0.001 seconds on the clock on that last incompletion before the tying field goal.

They totally potched the time management of that entire final overtime drive.

I think we were stunned that a 40-40 tie had just occurred, but you're right.

Like looking back, that was a potential super dark botch job by the Packers.

They're lucky they got a tie.

And speaking of like having to stay seated so not to get an explicit strike on your YouTube account, yeah, I heard from several of you that that was a scorigami.

It was.

Go to hell.

Like literally go to hell.

It feels sort of like we would understand already that 40-40 is a scorigami.

Like you don't need to be told about it.

I hope that brought a little sunshine into your pathetic life, that that was a scorigami.

All of you, you know exactly who you are.

All right.

Anyway,

I'll go next.

I fell down a YouTube wormhole the other day, and I was watching a video from a

creator.

Is that what we call it?

I don't know.

Named Nick Johnson.

Pardon me.

Not the first baseman that never quite made it for my Yankees.

A different Nick Johnson.

Although it could be what Nick Johnson is.

Try the same guy, to be honest.

Try the same guy.

Anyway, the video is titled, Las Vegas is Only for Rich People Now, No Wonder It's Empty.

And if you're curious, here's how that particular video begins.

We will probably never come back again.

This is probably our last visit.

Las Vegas.

Yay!

Kind of.

Yeah, though, you know, I love that old lady.

Whoever she is, shout out to that old lady.

The title of that video pretty much covers it.

But if you're curious, here's the Cliff's notes.

Vegas had invented this perfect model where through variety in their business approach, they could cater to both blue-collar people and high rollers and siphon money from all of us.

That is until greed took over and they decided to just charge rich people prices for everyone, pretty much everywhere.

And now no one is going, and the whole city is in a panic.

And to which my official response, by the way, as an aside to those greedy, money-grubbing casino owners and oligarchs in that desert city, I'll quote Nelson from The Simpsons.

Which takes me to the Las Vegas Raiders, Chicago Bears in town on Sunday, and that building is filled with Bears fans.

There is no home field advantage for the Raiders.

The Raiders, does anybody know how bizarre that is?

If you grew up watching pro football, that the Raiders don't actually have a home field advantage anymore and how this was all swept under the rug, essentially, and we all just kind of moved on.

We all know that the Raiders have been a nomadic franchise, but in California here, they've always had juice.

The old Coliseum in LA, you know, where I live in El Segundo, they used to practice at the, where the middle school is.

They would practice there.

They were a Los Angeles team, and they play in that old Coliseum.

But especially during their Oakland days, which were, you know,

60s, 70s, 90s, 2000s, at that dump of a Coliseum up there, it was a beautiful, chaotic place.

I mean, talk to anybody who's gone there

to support a visiting team, raucous, loud, uncomfortable, legitimately dangerous.

The black hole, man.

So, what did the NFL and its infinite wisdom do?

They let them leave California and set up shop in this $2 billion hermetically sealed building that has all the danger and atmosphere of a Donnie and Marie Osman after party at Harris.

The NFL allowed Mark Davis to take the Raiders brand and sell it to all those trashy moguls of the strip.

And it's a move that surely made everyone involved a ton of money, including the NFL, but robbed the franchise of the grit and the personality that made it one of the NFL's coolest teams.

Like even people that hate the Raiders always had to admit they're kind of f ⁇ ing cool.

They're the Raiders.

And there's no solution here.

No way to turn back the clock.

This is what it is now.

Like, I'm not one of those people that just is doomsday all the time about the way things are now in the world.

Everything sucks now and everything used to be good.

I don't feel that about everything, although you can if you want to get in that mindset.

But this is one of those situations.

I'm watching that game on Sunday and the Bears fans who all dropped 10 grand on the weekend, maybe 20, maybe 30, depending if they got you in the high rollers room.

And they're filling that building and they're cheering for the Bears.

And there's not a Raiders, there's no juice, there's no energy.

And I can't help but think to myself, there is no limit to the NFL's hortastic ways.

Here's the latest example.

It's not just a Raiders problem either.

Like the bleeding edge of it, but it's become so expensive.

Like so many stadiums now are like full of like 20 to 25%, just like touristing fans, like coming to check out.

And, you know, none of the buildings.

I mean, I guess it's good that they don't feel literally dangerous anymore, like they did used to feel kind of literally dangerous a little bit, but you know, very anodyne, kind of stale atmosphere everywhere.

And I've been surprised at how it hasn't become like a competitive advantage to be like, like, we actually want our building to be like intimidating again.

Like, I think Steve Ballmer is kind of trying to do that, and the NBA has got some other problems now.

But realized, like, you want your building to actually be an intimidating place to play and not just like a big like Lincoln financial ad.

But yeah, it's the Raiders have it worse than anyone for sure.

I mean, I think you go back to the argument that if you could do, if you could move, you know, pieces around the chessboard, it was the Chargers that are identity-free in LA for the most part, should have gone there.

And the Raiders stay in California.

I went to the last Raiders game in Oakland for a piece for NFL.com back then.

And like, what they really wanted was not a game recap.

Like, we don't send Mark to do that.

Like, was just like, go get there at like 7 a.m.

as the sun is rising in Oakland.

Get to that stadium, which was a piece of S at that point and like leaking in the visitors locker room.

Like I got to walk all around it, but like go to the tailgate beforehand.

And there were people that have been tailgating together for two or three decades and watched their children grow up.

And these people kept their season tickets.

their entire lives.

And like the old Giants and Jets teams, like you pass them down to your son and your daughter.

And like these guys,

beyond the heavy drinking and what else was going on there, like not a single person was dressed as a civilian except for myself.

And when you go into these tents and these cookouts outside, and then you go into the Coliseum, and it was unlike any place I've ever been.

Is it bigger than other stadiums?

No.

Was it louder?

Yes.

Concentrated, utter madness.

And they lost.

Carr and the Raiders lost to the Jaguars that day in a terrible way in the final home game in Oakland.

And like, you know, there wasn't a riot, but there were certain fans at that point that had just so angry at the NFL.

And I'm with you, Dan, because I think the other little thing is that in 1995, you know, you go to any of these stadiums, it's hard to get that many visitors there.

Now, with the incredible ease of just selling your tickets online, people are dumping their tickets if it's not convenient to go.

It's not meant to be convenient to go to most NFL games.

You go because it's hard and because your team is what you do on your weekend.

And that's faded away for profit and sit home and watch on five screens and on my laptop tracking my fantasy team.

Well said.

Amen.

Sassy.

Very, very, very sad.

Close it out.

What is grinding your gears?

Mine may be seen as less critical,

but this is really on my radar.

And it really has been for a while.

That

when you go back to the classic days of football, and I'm with you, Dan, I'm not saying everything today is bad.

I am not a boomer.

I'm a Gen Xer, okay?

It's like, I'm not coming from some boom territory on this.

I don't think it's going to change.

I'm not asking it to.

But there was something special growing up and watching like Tom Landry, Dan Reeves, and Vince Lombardi come to the sideline in classic clothing.

Mike Sitka, look at that.

It's something about, I can tell that you're the head coach.

Okay, but even we moved into a sweater period a little bit later on when Pete Carroll in khakis and a nice a nice jet sweater You've got Mike Shanahan in a beautiful Broncos sweater you've then it then if you're watching on youtube when you move to these i don't know what do you call these like puffy new era jackets that was the starter jacket era starter era jacket

but these logo athletic this to me starts to become and this is

they were wildly colorful puffy jackets that like a dad or mom would wear like shoveling snow and now they're on the sideline wearing this um and it gave birth to what I think is the next era of this and it's the era that we're in now and it is we have got this is a picture and you're we've all you can see it in your mind if you're listening of Nick Siriani in a like in a like a visor and a big sweatshirt looking like a sixth grader playing basketball in his driveway

like that's your head coach and like here's the thing I'm not saying that we have to go back to suits and stuff but I am tired of my head coach looking like

Again, a middle schooler that has been dressed by someone who doesn't know how to dress.

And it's like, it's the NFL's like dress code business.

And it's all now putting the name on the product, the name on the hat, getting everyone to buy it, dress like the coach.

Belichick started with his stupid hoodie, but it's like, I am, I guess for one, I wish if we're going to do throwback weekends and all this stuff, have the dresses, like the dress of the coaches changed.

Put them in dresses.

That'd be cool.

Put them in dresses.

But no, but like,

I would love to see like our head coaches in hats and fedoras and suits.

And I don't know.

I'm not going to win this one.

Well, I remember that there was the coach for the Niners.

Who was that coach?

No,

I believe.

Yeah, who tried.

Dan Del Rio, Jack Del Rio.

He did.

Oh, and Jack did it too.

And it was just like, it felt like such a try-hard thing.

And Nolan remembers, like, I'm doing it because my dad is like, nah, bro, you just want to look hot.

Like, you want to be hot.

So, cool.

But can we agree that Siriani, like, and it's not just him.

It's, it's some of them are like just by the nature, they've found tighter NFL gear to wear and they look a little bit better.

But Siriani is an example of like, what are we doing here?

You look like the 18th guy on staff.

But I'm going to stay away from Siriani because I don't want want this to turn into like, oh, Dan's donkey on Siriante.

This is, to me,

Pat, this feels like just a change of the times and fashion.

Like the designs themselves now are a lot more minimalist and not as gaudy as they were in the 90s.

So the guys, I mean,

I don't really get it, Pat.

Mark's point, because the guys in the 90s and 80s looked ridiculous in those outfits.

Well, I'm saying we were just moving towards ridiculousness.

And we're right now.

But like this angle of like, but and now the NFL is greedy.

No, they were selling that shit and we were were all buying it in the 90s and 80s, too.

It's just the fashion changed, right, Pat?

It changed for the worse.

I am a boomer about this.

So listen, what I'm wearing today, I'm just wearing a regular collared shirt.

This is what I wear like every day.

But at the airport.

I feel like every appearance you've ever done on our show, Pat, you've been wearing the same uniform.

This is the same one.

I keep it.

I get it dry cleaned every day.

I get a polo dry cleaned, so I could be nice every day.

But like, this is all I wear.

This is my uniform.

This should not put me like in the top one percentile of well-dressed people at the airport is a complaint I would have.

And it's just like everything else.

Maybe they didn't need to be wearing suits on the sideline, blah, blah, blah.

You know, you probably didn't need to be wearing suits in like daily life all the time.

Like, that was too far to one direction.

Now we've gone too far

where it's like, not only do you not have to look nice, it's about like being as comfortable as humanly possible.

And, you know, some standards as a country, not a bad thing.

It's not the worst.

It was, it was too buttoned up before.

Now it's like too, I I don't even know what unraveled now.

I'm like, why can't we just find the medium, the happy middle?

Right, the middle ground.

Yes.

I liked when like the old days and the coach looked like hell.

He had a big fat ass and a male fupa and he was just dressed in ridiculous, like gaudy designs.

But that era is not coming back.

I think part of the issue, Mark, is the coaches are hot now.

The coaches are now, many of them are fit.

They are conventionally attractive.

It's almost part of the job now.

You have to kind of, you represent the franchise in a way that the NFL did not care about in the old days.

So now these guys care more what they're wearing, what they look like, and you see them be a little more conservative in their garb.

Because the old days, like Dennis Green and Wade Phillips and all those guys, like, they didn't care what they look like because they were just deep in their daddy.

They were coaches who had dads and they just looked like hell all the time.

These guys now care what they look like.

So it's just, there's less chances being taken, I guess.

I think also, like, to Pat's point, like, I'm not suggesting we go back to 1971, but like my grandfather, like, wore a suit every single place he ever went.

The only time I ever saw him, he was in a suit.

And like, it's Christmas morning at seven in the morning.

I think this would be a good chance for, you know, my grandfather to come down and put even like classy pajamas, suit, suit, tie, you know,

little pocket square, the whole deal.

Christmas morning.

Like, like, it was a different world.

We used to be a great country.

This was nice and salty, this segment with Roto Pat.

Pat, do you have anything else to get off your chest in any direction in life, or do you just want to get a plug-in?

Let's do it all.

Well, no, it tripped me too.

I didn't even get to get in my kicking ring.

Like, can we please fix the on-side kick?

Like, go ahead,

we need to, we need some uncertainty injected back in the game.

Or, like, you know, how about win probability added?

Whatever.

It's all fine.

Like, what we need, we need variants again, desperately.

Fix the on-side kick somehow.

I don't understand how, like, it's just been taken out of the game completely.

Especially when they're so fixated on the kickoff, how can you not be fixated on the even cooler version of the kickoff?

The on-site kick.

It must be a good thing.

It's a great call, Pat.

And isn't it weird?

Because

my son asked me the other day about on-site kick.

And I was like, yeah, there's no way they're going to recover this because no one ever does because they changed the rules to make it safer.

And this, this is, maybe this is going to come off wrong or unresearched, but that's where I thrive.

Like, do you remember a ton of people going down the opening scene and saving Private Ryan on on-site kicks before?

No, and

I think they even admit that, but that they, I think they feel like, like, because in the past, there was the surprise element with the on-side kicks, and they're like, well, we can't have people like confusion about whether or not it's an on-side kick.

So I always just felt like the solution should be like on-side kicks are not, surprise on-side kicks are not allowed.

But if you declare you're kicking an on-side kick, we can have the old-fashioned on-side kicks again.

And I just, I just don't understand.

To me, that was always a really obvious solution.

Declare the on-side kick.

Like, yeah, no one's getting sent to the the hospital when they're running 10 yards at each other.

They created a non-dramatic play that was what they were trying to solve with the kickoff situation to begin with.

So,

you know, pay Peter to feed Paul or whatever they say.

I think it's Rob.

Steal from Peter and maybe give it to Mary.

We don't know what Mary's up to.

I know you want to know what Mary's up to.

Not really.

That's not a religious figure.

Roto.

That's not who I was talking about.

Roto Pat, NFL writer for NBC Sports.

And you got to follow him and as i've said many times in addition to all the stuff he does essential reading every week is the roto pat uh rankings um it has it has helped me immeasurably over the years and anything else you want to throw in there for people to check out pat way too kind well when they're done listening to heed the call listen to the rotor world football show and we'll we'll break down fantasy football from more angles than uh you even knew existed and frankly more angles than should exist but we will do that though

beautifully said roto Rotopat, thank you very much, buddy.

We'll be right back.

The family that vacations together stays together.

At least, that was the plan.

Except now, the dastardly desk clerk is saying he can't confirm your connecting rooms.

Wait, what?

That's right, ma'am.

You have rooms 201 and 709.

No, we cannot be five floors away from our kids.

The doors have double locks.

They'll be fine.

When you want connecting rooms confirmed before you arrive, it matters where you stay.

Welcome to Hilton.

I see your connecting rooms are already confirmed.

Hilton for this day.

All right, we are back.

Let's finish up the show with a little quick look at Thursday Night Football.

As we said, it's the Niners

at the Rams, a banged up Niners team.

Feel good about the Rams, Mark.

I feel like they're in a very good place overall, a healthy place as a team.

The Matthew Stafford health concerns of the summer feel like they're pretty far away now and

everything's where it needs to be.

As Tom York once said, everything is in its right place.

Okay.

The Niners, on the other hand, they're the more compelling team to me, Mark, because I just don't know what to think of the Niners.

Obviously, they have the injury issues, and we'll find out if Brock Purdy plays at some point.

So it could be Mac Jones, could be Purdy.

But man, I'm watching that game against the Jaguars this morning, and I'm like, first of all, Purdy is not playing well in the game, and the team just does not seem to have it together.

So we talked about at the top of the show, the 4-0 Eagles.

The Niners were 3-0 before that loss to Jacksonville, and they do not feel like a 3-1 team that's in a very healthy place, either physically or on any level.

No, I think they've got to feel very fortunate to be 3-1 because right away in their season, when you lose George Kittle in the opening game, stuff starts crumbling.

You're already missing a bunch of other guys.

And what they've had to go through since, I mean, I think this, we don't know what's ahead, but you'd have to say this is a very strong early candidate for their biggest challenge of the season.

And I think that makes Shanahan burn because it's probably going to be, I would take a healthy Mac Jones over whatever Purdy is at this point if he's 70 or 80%.

Because I'm with you.

He did not look healthy or right last week.

But Mac Jones has functioned in this offense, but you have to go play a Rams defense that at this point, and it's PFF, if you like PFF, but they have the number one offense in the league and the second defense behind Cleveland right now.

They are playing at a high level, and it starts with that defensive line with its Jared Verse, Kobe Turner, Braden Young, Byron Young.

That front seven can just absolutely get to people and destroy them.

So,

what can the Niners do?

How do you approach a Rams defense that's singing right now?

I think it's like, how creative can Shanahan be with the limited number of pieces he has?

Yeah, I think this has to be for San Francisco to win this game, has to be the Christian McCaffrey breakout game.

You know, like his,

like Saquon Barkley, it hasn't gone to plan so far, like Barkley.

The Niners

and the Eagles, I should say, like the Eagles.

The Niners can't get, they have this supremely talented, celebrated running back who has not been able to really find his way on the ground.

They rank second worst in the NFL, averaging only 3.3 yards per carry.

They're the only team without a touchdown run this season.

They are one of only four teams without a run of at least 20 yards.

And it's not just Purdy who's banged up or the quarterback that's a question mark, whether it is Mac Jones or banged up Purdy.

It's the wide receivers that are banged up.

Rookie Pearsall.

I mean, it's the worst timing possible to be on a short week, to be on the road against a division opponent and a good division opponent.

Pearsall's banged up.

Jawan Jennings is banged up.

We know, obviously, Ayuk's not there.

Kittle's not there.

So I feel like the only way to win this game is for McCaffrey to have one of those like, I can't be stopped games.

And I wonder if the Niners, as presently constituted, have that in them because the whole part of what made McCaffrey unstoppable, beside the fact that he's incredible, is that they had balance to their scheme, and teams had to, defenses had to be kept honest because the passing game with Shanahan and Purdy could kill you also.

But I don't think that's the case.

So the Rams are going to be able to sell out against the run, and then they have a pass rush that can get to you without blitzing.

And I don't think any of this sets up well.

I think the Rams are going to win this game, and I think they're going to win it comfortably.

I'm going to go

28

to 13, and there's going to be a lot of questions around Shanahan's Niners after it.

Yeah,

I think the questions are, you have to bake in the health situation with any questions, but you're right.

Christian McCaffrey right now ranks second in the NFL in targets and third in catches.

So it's like that's how they're using him because to your point, it's just like stop him as a running back, and we'll take what we what we have here with three of your top targets not in the lineup.

Um, the other thing is you're, you know, Bosa.

Last note, like they averaged 17.3 pressures per game with Bosa in the lineup.

Last week, weird game, just five, though.

Like, they, how are they going to get to Matthew Stafford?

I'm with you.

I think this is the Rams have him where they want them.

It's a tough challenge in the NFL on a short week.

I'd say 28 to 13,

28 to 17 Rams.

Okay.

It's very important.

Very important.

I adjusted those four points there to be whoever's tracking that.

Well, that is very important.

And

Puka Nakua might be announcing himself as the best wide receiver in football.

Justin Jefferson, all due respect, you're kind of in a tough situation with the quarterbacks in Minnesota and their issues on offense.

But Nakua is at that place.

It reminds me of the greatest game in Rams history, arguably, their win over the Bengals in the Super Bowl when that last drive where it was like Cooper Cup Make It Happen cap with Matthew Stafford, and they couldn't cover Cup, even though they knew they were throwing it to him.

That's who Niku has become in this offense, and they have one of the better second bananas in the league in Devontae Adams.

I just think San Francisco, you know, you're going to need on the defensive side, Fred Warner to have like an incredible game, maybe come down with some of those interceptions he couldn't quite come down with against Jacksonville.

And you're going to need McCaffrey to give you 170 total yards and just be a beast,

ride your top players to an upset.

But I don't see it.

I don't see it.

Let's see.

Fun.

One One last thing.

Division games always weird on Thursday night.

So sometimes what makes sense on paper going into a game,

things play out a little funky.

So we'll see.

All right.

Fun show.

Thanks to everybody for checking it out.

The end around.

Thank you to RotoPat.

And we'll be back on Thursday with Connor Orr for our big preview.

Continue to bang the subscribe on the YouTube side.

We didn't quite reach 25, Justin,

if I'm not mistaken, but we're close.

We're close.

You guys did a hell of a job heeding that call for subscribers.

We were almost a thousand away from our goal last week.

And as we sit here finishing up this recording, we're a little over a hundred away.

That is a ton of subs in a week's time.

So we're so

we failed at the goal, but the actual goal was just to get more.

Rule change.

Rule change.

Push it to Sunday.

Let's get to 25,000 by Sunday.

And Mark will take off his shirt at the end of the show.

Rule change.

Well,

I'll have another rule change coming on that one.

All right.

Thank you to everybody.

Sincerely, we love you.

Heatedness Unite.

Till Thursday.

Heat the call.

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