Orlando Magic's Paolo Banchero, Yankees Have Life And Their Fans Are Grabbing Balls, College Football Talk + Listener Submitted FAQ's

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I mean, where else can you pair wall-to-wall hoops with hard-to-find whiskey? Only at Twin Peaks, the number one sports bar. On today's part in my take, we have rookie of the year, number one overall pick, future MVP, maybe Paolo Boncaro from the Orlando Magic in-studio.
Awesome interview with Paolo. It was so much fun.
We're going to talk college football. We're going to talk World Series.
We're going to talk college football we're going to talk world series we're going to talk uh hot seat cool throne faqs pack show for everyone there's making a sandwich and then there's crafting a sandwich and when i want something perfectly crafted i go straight to boar's head for over a century boar's head has been dedicated to crafting premium deli favorites every ingredient is carefully chosen every recipe made with a purpose their oven gold turkey smoke master ham and ever roast chicken are made from premium whole cuts hand trimmed and perfectly seasoned last weekend i made the ultimate sandwich oven gold turkey cheese pickles and mustard simple but unbelievable so next time you're at the deli, don't settle, get the best.

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The crown is yours. Today is

Wednesday, October 30th

and the New York Yankees

have life

thanks to two scumbag fans that took over the internet that we tried to get on this show but holy shit uh the the capa bianco brothers stole the show and the yankees bats finally woke up and the bronx is burning it was awesome good for those guys i mean you you go to that game and i saw people clowning them online saying you spent $5,000 for front row seats just to get kicked out. No, that's maybe the most well-spent $5,000 of all time for those guys.
They're heroes. If the Yankees turn this around and win the World Series, I don't know what the new regime is going to do.
George Steinbrenner would put them in Monument Park he would just like encase their bodies still alive in bronze and then put them out in the outfield uh that's the best use of five thousand dollars and it's funny because you know of course you shouldn't interfere with the ball in play but at the same time the fact that these two guys were straight out of central casting in terms of like scumbag yankee fans yes it's hilarious like reaching into Mokie betts glove trying to pry it off reaching and taking the ball out and then like holding their hands up like we we're doing we didn't do nothing the when i say scumbag i mean it in like a loving term because that's what they are and i think they would be like yeah of course we are they if for people who missed it it was one of the funniest things uh i know again you shouldn't reach into stay the stands and i didn't like when they grabbed mookie's arm that was a little too far but my there was a couple moments that were laugh out loud funny one obviously just trying to grab the ball out like the ump isn't standing right there and there's not a million replays two one of the capio bianco brothers uh did like an invisible line uh where the, where the wall is as almost as if Mookie bets is not allowed to put his glove past that line. Like this is our house.
This is our territory. You're not allowed to do, to make a play here.
Like it was going to actually, the, the, the ump was going to be like, Oh yeah, you know what? You're right. That's not a good call boys.
He crossed the, crossed the he crossed the threshold it's like you're in the back seat of a car and your brother comes across the center line you get to hit him he was on my side that's what they did with milky bets it's like no i can reach into that glove they tried to crack it over it looked like they were trying to crack open a crab to pick the lungs and meat out it was just like two hands on the glove separating it and then the one dude with i mean who wears sunglasses at night like a real piece of shit like that yeah but uh he reached over and he had a sliding mid on yeah he had a sliding mid on and he it's listen again don't do that but the yankees were desperate they needed something those guys sparked the yankees like i believe that those guys are responsible for this win in those bats waking up because basically the all the yankee fans sitting in in yankee stadium tonight were like do something and the capo bianco brothers like you know what we'll do something we're going to take matters into our own hands we also pft you mentioned the seats and how expensive they are so So obviously the paper had their name and they were posted everywhere. They do follow us.
So shout out these guys are probably AWLs. One of them has in his bio, work way too hard, but I'm blessed with season tickets to the best team in the world because of it.
And New York Yankees, let's go. And then to quote in the paper, because they got, they were, I think they got fined $1,000 a piece or no, they got, they got ejected.
I don't know if they got fined. The tickets were $1,000 a piece.
Darren Capobianco, when he was, when the athletic reached out for comment, he said, I just see the ball kind of, I don't, I don't want to say go up for grabs if that makes sense and then mookie was swearing at us not good yeah mookie swore at me after after i tried to punch his arm off the ball not good listen again that's it's the best use of money that you could have as a fan i i 100 believe that like you turned around the vibes of world series game that's as good as you can get for those tickets so so congratulations to them and then also i guess a little bit of credit to volpe too because he played his dick off tonight you know if aaron judge showed half half the uh the resolve and fight that the capo bianco brothers did this this series would be over it would have been a sweep tonight aaron judge is getting so Now, he did have a hit tonight he had a hit in an rbi and i think he had a walk as well but it's getting so sad for aaron judge he was up in the eighth or seventh uh one of the later innings and john smoltz was like you can see he's a lot less jumpy at the plate that's what we're that's basically where aaron judge is at was like he he looks a little more and then he immediately flied out but it is i'm just happy we get more world series this was supposed to be an all-time world series it looked like it was going to be a sweep the dodgers are so goddamn good freddie freeman has homered in six straight world series games it's insane uh and i do think the dodgers are going to win this series but at least we But at least we get a little fight out of the Yankees by their fans,

by the stands.

And Ashanti, great national anthem.

Shout out Biz and Witt.

They had Ashanti dead earlier this morning in a podcast clip,

which they got to confuse the Leah.

Those guys are the best.

And so I bet the Yankees say it because that was like,

Ashanti game, have to do it. And the Yankees have life.
Yeah, good. I'm glad.
More baseball, more Equinox. Good for everybody.
Yes. So I do.
I mean, hey, guess what? Listen, Garrett Cole is going tonight. Like the Yankees aren't dead if Garrett Cole's on the mound.
That's why you pay him so much money. He's supposed to be the guy that goes out there and shoves.
So Max, do you have any comment about the heritage of the Capo Bianco brothers? What Italians? Yeah. Passionate guys.
I also doesn't Marco Bianco. Does that mean like head Bianco? They're like the top Biancos.
Bianco might mean white. They're the top whites.
Top whites. Yeah, that definitely checks out.
Those are the whitest guys in America right now. Our good friend Tom Franelli texted me because when we were trying to get these guys on, which maybe we'll still get them on if they want to come on on Thursday, I hope they go to the stream in New York City at Barstool HQ because that's my next goal.
We were trying to get them on. The window was small.
Now that they couldn't come on tonight, I want them sitting next to Tommy Smokes and Hubs and Marty. I want them on stream just screaming because I don't think they're allowed back in Yankee Stadium.
But our good friend Tom Fernelli texted me. He's like, if you do get them on, please ask them how they ended up with the name Austin Capobianco because that does feel like a miss.
They went like Gen Z first name and Capobianco. They need to be Salvatore and Tony.
Joey. Yeah, something like that but the capo bianco brothers they they deserve a statue if they win this if they win the world series yeah literally put them in monument park yeah it's easy if you're the yankees and have them in the ticker tape parade going down the canyon of champions or whatever the fuck they call it yeah i listen i don't like the yankees i It's hard to root for the Yankees, right? I think we can all agree on that.
But Hank, do you have any advice to the Yankees on how to battle back from being down 3-0 in a baseball series? You got to have great pitching. And you got to have a loose team.
You got to have your stars playing well. Garrett Cole? I think they're screwed so they're screwed on the bump then we got garrett cole on the bump i'm rooting for the dodgers but i was rooting for the yankees tonight not just because i bet them but because i wanted more baseball i wanted more world series and as soon as the capo bianco brothers came out it's like you have to win for them you have to win for them yeah i mean he swore at him not good and also he went into their space it's like it's like they call it the bronx zoo right so you're at the bronx zoo if you you don't stick your hand into the tiger cage and think that you're not going to get bit yeah there also was some fake reports going around that they were yelling uh that was fake right yeah that was a fake report a fake account yeah because there was some fake accounts making up some stories about them um listen i we don't know them but uh as far as we know those were fake the stories that were were being tweeted about them and uh yeah not good whatever problematic statements they've made in the past i want to go ahead and and pre-disavow before they come out um but we don't know if they've actually said anything bad but if they have just know that we do not on part of my take condone that part of their bad behavior we do condone the bad behavior along the right field line well mookie beth's word not good true i love that he said i don't want to say but anytime somebody starts a sentence by saying i don't want to say it's about to be a fucking banger that that sentence about to go triple platinum i want to read the whole quote again i just see the ball kind of i don't want to say up for grabs if that makes sense and then mookie was swearing at us not good did you see the security guard who kicked him out too yeah

yeah makes sense and then mookie was swearing at us not good did you see a security guard who kicked him out too yeah yeah video of the guy wearing like the the full italian silk suit with a non-existent don mattingly sideburns and the flat top kicking him out that rock that was awesome man they did i think the other brother said that when they was reached for comedy he's like we're just trying to enjoy the game. Like they were watching the game somewhere.
They probably got a hero's welcome at Billy's Tavern or whatever it's called. So, all right.
Other quick things before we kick it back to ourselves and talk some football and have Paolo Bancaro. Joe Flacco is back officially.
Anthony Richardson has been benched. This is a move that is a, I don't know.
I keep struggling with it because again, we've, we've talked about this. I feel like every single week, if you draft Anthony Richardson for, you got to play him because you got to see what he is, but it feels like the Colts might've just said, Hey, we have a chance to maybe make the playoffs.
If we win a couple of joe flacco can win a couple games and thank you to the colts because they play on sunday night football this week and that would have sucked if it was anthony richardson and they're like hey let's put joe flacco in and give america a little treat this might be our last flacco in primetime game just know that so so make sure to tune in tell everybody tell a friend to tune in and watch Sunday Night Football. Because like we said, you got to cherish every single Joe Flacco start that you get.
And I'm going to make sure to do that. As far as the Anthony Richardson thing goes, it's the fact that they kept losing every game within one score, like all their losses within one score.
That's what did it. If you're getting blown out, then you can probably still say, we're going to start Anthony Richardson and see if we can work with him developing.
But the fact that you're so close in all these games, if you're the head coach, if you're Shane Steichen, you have to start them because you're wasting what could be a playoff season. And also you also risk losing the locker room when all the other guys are dependent on the quarterback for their salary.
They're not getting the ball. The offense isn't moving.
All those other guys then are like, Hey dude, what the fuck? I'm playing really hard. And, and you're absolutely tanking my chances at future contracts here.
So I get what I get why it had to be done. But at the same time, I also think that like, this is, it's, it's not good, and you're essentially giving up on a very, very high draft pick from just last year.
And this is how the NFL works now. It's the teams.
I feel like the leash for a quarterback is – I mean, I'm trying to think. Josh Rosen probably was the first one, but it feels like if you don't show anything for whatever,

10 games a season,

Anthony Richardson has played less than 10 games

because he was injured last year,

but Bryce Young's the other one.

And I don't totally disagree with it

in the fact that if you think it's never going to work,

it's better to move on quickly than to compound the mistake and just keep trying to do it even though you know it's not going to work. Yeah.
No, I agree. And I think that we've seen a lot of plays from Anthony Richardson where it's like that is not a play that a good quarterback makes.
Yeah, hopefully he figures it out on the bench and learns from Joe Flacco and he has another chance because I would like to see him get another chance. The other news was Stefan Diggs is out for the season for the Texans, which the Texans are a little snake bitten right now.
They need Nico Collins back real bad. But that was that's tough for Stefan Diggs to be out for the year.
And now they're down to – I mean, Tank Dell is the guy right now.

And I don't know.

I don't know.

That offense looks not great all season.

I mean, look, okay when Nico was playing.

But it has looked clunky a lot of times.

And they lose a big weapon in Stefan Diggs.

I don't know.

I mean, the AFC feels like it maybe got a little bit easier.

Mixing playing helps, though. Yeah.
It definitely helps the offense. And Tank Dell is a very, very good player.
And their defense is still very, very good. Yeah, their defensive line is elite, and they'll still be in games, and CJ Stroud will figure it out.
It's just like if your goal was to win a Super Bowl, Stephon Diggs being out might hurt that goal. Yeah, for sure.
And I think Diggs is on a one-year contract too. So he's going to be a free agent again this offseason.
All I know is I'm thinking about laying a hammer down on the Jets. Yeah, no.
Hell no. I'm thinking about doing it.
You saw their uniforms. Yeah, we're going to talk about them in a second.
I don't know, P pft that feels like the biggest trap ever because they're the jets are just gonna be the team that all season we're like well this is the game they'll prove it yep and then they just won't and we'll just keep doing it and saying this will be the game i mean it's aaron rogers derangement syndrome i'm i am the leading case of it in america my theory is that uh they will not get any lower than they are right now like everyone's shitting on the jets everyone is shitting on the jets aaron rogers is drinking water with cayenne pepper in it i think it's been pretty low um okay we have anything else was there anything else that happened between when we recorded this afternoon and now there's one piece of news oh snubbed again part of my take yeah for the eighth year in a row we did not win people awards sexiest podcast award and i just want to say that they got it right i think maybe for our 10th year which we gotta start thinking about boys about boys. We're at 15 months away from, from the 10 year anniversary, 16 months away.
That's pretty crazy to think about. Yeah, we are Hank.
Are we not? No, we are. It's crazy to think about.
Yeah. 16 months away.
I think we, I think the boys just go fucking crazy on some plastic surgery and try to win this award one year listen just just butcher our faces just look like completely different human beings i'll do a lot of things i don't think i'm ever going to take a surgical option to make my appearance improve at all it would be great if we could do plastic surgery temporary plastic surgery yeah like if we just have like a month where we just looked like completely different human beings and we're super hot what botox i don't know i ain't doing that shit i'm putting a needle in my face i'm down for ozampic what ozampic we don't get on ozampic yeah yeah we just get super hot super jacked yeah get get like uh i don't even know what what other Botox. I don't know.
Lip filler? I already have full lips. I don't know what I have to do.
Lip filler would rock. Maybe raising your ears, the facelift, tummy tuck.
Yeah, I could use the chin. I could get the shin lengthening surgery.
Yeah. Get like six inches added.
That would rock. I could get a breast reduction.
Maybe I'll do. I'll just get my entire face change.
And I'll say it's because I had a broken nose and I was snoring too much at night. So I had to get nose surgery.
And no, it's not plastic surgery. But then come out of it looking like a totally different human being.
Yeah, we should do it. Or we could just hire two super hot interns and just have them be on the cover art.
catfish like like millie vanilli yeah have your lip sync the podcast yeah um okay before we talk some monday football college football when your home system or appliance breaks down american home shield will help fix or replace the covered item no matter its age visit ahs.com slash listen for 20 off any plan cahs.com slash contracts for coverage details limitations and exclusions monday night football uh i can't believe that i ever doubted mike tomlin again after coming to the conclusion that mike tomlin is a top five coach in the nfl i know he hasn't won a playoff game in a very long time, but all he does is run a great locker room and have a competitive team every year. But Mike Tomlin, my apologies putting in Russell Wilson was the right move.
That's a crazy ballsy move that he made too. Yeah.
And so for all the hate that he gets being mediocre, Mike. And also I think there's like two things about Mike Tomlin that true always, every year.
One, people call him mediocre Mike.

Two, people also say this might be Mike Tomlin's best coaching job.

Yeah.

They say that every single year about Mike Tomlin.

Just depends on the week.

But this was a ballsy move that he made.

It was a very ballsy move.

And if you've watched the Steelers the last two weeks, and we don't know, like primetime games.

I've learned that this year.

I'm trying to absorb that into every core fiber of my body, that just because a game happens in primetime doesn't mean that it means anything more well it does but it's at night yeah it's at night and the terrible towels are going and renegades playing and it's a whole thing and they've won 22 straight on monday night football at home uh they did lose a monday afternoon game in 2020 on wednesday no it was a wednesday no it was a monday it was a i think that have been a different game uh they lost to the commanders in 2020 I think it was supposed to be a Sunday game it got postponed to Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. oh that was the Monday but they also had a Wednesday football game and I think that was the Ravens maybe okay it was they definitely had both yeah COVID fucked everything up and then and then Monday yes but when when it's monday night football games played after 501 p.m uh on monday night they just don't win that might be the craziest record in sport the craziest streak in sports well there's a crazier one uh daniel jones is now 1 in 15 in primetime games yeah that is quite something by the way the the other part of the mike tomlin uh switching to rus Russell Wilson which it is nuts I know they gave the job to Russell Wilson before the season and then he got hurt and you can do the whole thing you never lose your job to injuries but still they were 4-2 and you're making a switch at quarterback I thought it was crazy it turns out I'm the crazy one Mike Tomlin's a smart one because here's the other thing that happened they got one of the best free agent pick or trade deadline pickups in george pickens because he looks like he actually cares and he's completely unlocked with russell wilson this is what's awesome about george pickens because you have you have him doing hilarious he's the james winston of wide receivers correct is what he is so he'll make spectacular catches uh he'll just like get one foot down he'll make a spectacular catch.
He'll get hit, and then he'll get up and throw one of his six mouthpieces at the cornerback. He'll try to drop off somebody on the top rope like he did yesterday, which was just an insane play.
Yeah, the turnaround was so great, too. He's like, if you gave a six-year-old exceptional athleticism, that's how he acts.
Like a six-year-old that's on a sugar rush from drinking like uh too much sugary drinks and then you put him on a football field yeah he's just gonna start skipping halfway through his route sometimes but this was george pickens two weeks ago we were watching tape of him not even trying yeah and now russell wilson is throwing moon balls to him and he's completely unlocked and the steelers are and and here's the other thing that was just a classic tjatt game where the he is the closer for that team where if you get it if the Steelers can get the game script going where they're up late in the fourth quarter TJ Watt will just end the game and unfortunately for uh the Giants right tackle uh Jermaine Elman Elmanor I don't know how to say his last name Elmanor uh all-time bad quote because during the week he said he wanted to be left on an island against T.J. Watt.
Maybe he just meant like Jersey Jerry wants to be left on an island just hanging out. Yeah, that's a log cabin.
Like a desert island. A log cabin, yeah.
Or some place up in the Rocky Mountains. Should the Giants sell now? I think they should because Mr.
Mara has already said, and I actually believe him, that they're not going to make any changes to the front office and coaching staff. So if you are the front office and you're not going to get fired, why wouldn't you try to trade anything you can for draft picks and then extend your stay? Because you're like, well, we have draft picks and we got to see how they turn out.
So I would believe Mr. Mara, but the last two times he did that, he went back on it.
Yeah. So he did that to Joe Judge.
I think it was in November of Joe Judge's last year. He said, he's our coach.
We're not making a change. And then three weeks later, he made a change.
He did that. Was it McAdoo? Probably McAdoo.
He told the press, like, McAdoo is our coach. We're not going to make a change.
We're not firing him. And then two weeks later after that, they fired him.
So the last two times he's said that about a coach. Now, Brian Zabel's better than both those guys.
And again, I've said that they should keep him. Yeah, they should not keep Daniel Jones.
I don't really know how Daniel Jones is. We're going to look back and be like, this guy started in the NFL for six years.
Yeah. it's pretty remarkable because it's just he has not changed it feels like at all he had that one year that the first year with Brian Dable that he was kind of unlocked um but yeah it's every game feels like the same one in 15 in primetime games he needs to Daniel Jones actually might be a good quarterback for like the Carolina Panthers or the Jacksonville Jaguars who don play primetime games.
Yeah. He got the worst marriage in being on the New York Giants who are guaranteed five primetime games a year, and the guy can't win in primetime.
Yeah, it was sad after the game because I think Dable was saying in his postgame interview, I really liked the emotion. That was good progress that we saw from Daniel Jones showing emotion during this game.
If that's the highlight that you have talking about your quarterback, who's been your starter for six years, saying, I like that he's starting to show emotion out there, that's bad. He was angry.
This weekend, they're going to Germany. Wait, no, I thought they were playing the Commanders this weekend.
Oh, that's right, Commanders, and then Germany is going to be next up against the Panthers. That might be Daniel Jones' best game of the season.
Yeah. The least primetime game possible.
Yeah, the least primetime game, especially against the Panthers. Yeah, I think the Giants should sell.
And I don't know. If you're a Giants fan, Daniel Jones has to drive you nuts.
Week to week, it's exactly the same. I did the Rav4 Todd Bowles the other day.
I saw another one, a Giants fan, Big Mac meal versus Daniel Jones. Big Mac meal is $12.69.
Can't play football, can't read a defense, makes people happy. Daniel Jones is $160 million, can't play football, can't read a defense, makes people mad.
So take the Big Mac meal. Big Mac's got that special sauce.
Shout out G-Men Galaxy. I think the Steelers are actually very good, though.
I think what Russell Wilson's done in the offense, it's a combination of not having Matt Canada and now having a quarterback that can throw the ball to the middle of the field and that can actually trust his receivers to go make a play, I think that the Steelers are one of the best teams in the AFC. Does Russell Wilson, because I was wrong.
I thought Russell Wilson was cooked. Is it Russell Wilson got a little humble pie or not to kick a man when he's down, but it just further proves that Nathaniel Hackett might have been so, so, so, so bad.
That's also one way you can look at. I think you kind of felt the same way where it's like Russell Wilson's cooked.
He's old. He hasn't been good in a couple years, but now he...
It's not like he's prime Russell Wilson. I'm not going to get ahead of myself, but he clearly has something left in the tank, and he clearly adds elements elements to the Steelers offense that was missing in George Pickett.

I also think that Sean Payton and Russell Wilson was a marriage.

That's never going to work.

Yeah.

I didn't even count that year.

Cause that was like a million years.

That was also a forced marriage.

They didn't,

they didn't want each other.

Never in a million years.

Was that going to,

was he going to look halfway decent working for Sean Payton?

Like Sean Payton hated everything about Russell Wilson.

Yeah.

Basically Sean Payton's year one job was to just alienate Russell Wilson as much as possible and treat him like shit yeah yeah um okay so other things uh I I dealt with a very bad day on Monday uh here was here's how my Monday went PFT I'm sure you had a great day because you got to watch all the highlights uh I thought I was over the Hail Mary and then i uh took my two oldest kids out to dinner last night and getting into the car i was strapping them into their their car seats a guy parked a couple spots away from me was like hey what's up big cat and then we spent probably 10 minutes in the parking lot talking about the hail mary and how much that sucked and then it was it was basically my whole life of suck all in one because then at the end, I didn't catch this guy's name, but he was like, yeah, my son is actually the highest rated quarterback in Illinois right now. He's committed to Oregon.
And then I spent another five minutes trying to flip him to Wisconsin via Stella Blue Deals. So it was, I don't know why God just put that man there to have that conversation.
It didn't work. Oregon has a little bit.
Phil Knight has a little more money than Stella Blue coffee. Probably the uniform.
Yeah. But it was like, I got in the car.
My kids were just like, Daddy, let's go. Let's go.
Let's go. It's like, hold on one sec.
We're trying to get a quarterback here. Trying to close a deal out here.
But it was like everything summed up in one 10 minute random uh exchange with a stranger being like holy shit did that suck uh if your kids just knew how much happier daddy would be if that guy's son went to wisconsin they would be like no take your time yeah right yeah i should have just been like bucky will will come to your birthday party but i uh now that we've gone so yesterday sucked today is getting a little better because uh this might have been a silver lining in the fact that uh it seems like the Bears players are finally turning on Matt Eberflus which has not happened until this moment and they are we had Jalen Johnson come out and he's like if Tyreek Stevenson had been doing his job there's a zero percent chance that because Tyreek Stevenson was supposed to be on Noah Brown, there's a 0% chance that works. He also said that they should have called the timeout because it was chaotic.
That's something the head coach should work or should figure out. Kevin Byard was asked about the play before where Matt Iberflush just gave up 14 yards for free.
He was like, yeah, I don't know why we were doing that. We did sideline defense at the end of the first half.
I don't know why we didn't do it at the end of the game. And then Cole Komet talked about self-discipline and guys holding each other accountable.
And basically, all of this adds up to Matt Iberflues is to blame for this, which I came to that conclusion on Sunday night. But it's good to hear the players back it up.
And then on top of all of that, we had a report just a couple hours ago that apparently Ben Johnson was interested in the Bears job last year, and people are saying that's the one he wanted. So pack your bags, Matt Eberflus.
Thank you, PFT. You got the guy out of town.
So I heard about Ben Johnson. I also heard that Ben Johnson wanted like $15 million a year.

Done.

Sell blue coffee.

Which if you're most franchises, I think if you're an owner that really wants to win,

says that they want to win, you're like, okay, that's a lot of money.

However, I think Ben Johnson might be the real deal.

And if you're getting a rookie quarterback, that's the thing about bringing Caleb in

and not switching up anything to the head coaching staff. And we this I've said this many times about about the Bears you double fucked yourself you got double fucked because number one you you didn't bring in a new guy with your new quarterback meaning that there's a good chance that he'll have to experience two coaching staffs in his first two years and also double fucked is you weren't able to attract a great offensive coordinator because any offensive coordinator that would take that job would say hey if we don't do exceptionally well this first year then that's going to be a one-year gig for me as an offensive coordinator the good news is pft it's it's the bears are just learning uh that they double fucked themselves it's not like they've ever done this before yeah oh wait they literally did the exact same thing when they drafted mr brisky with john fox and then had matt nagy come in on year two and then did the exact same thing with justin fields when they drafted justin fields with matt nagy and had matt iberfuss come in year two yeah they just keep doing it it's a pattern if you're going to bring in a new quarterback that's highly drafted it's probably a good idea i would say an exception to that could be the giants yeah because i i think that dable is a good offensive coach but it's just so as much as yesterday sucked because it was literally everyone wanted to talk about it and you could see it on someone's face when they saw me i walked in the office at like 9 30 in the morning and fasoli i think he had been sitting there since like midnight with the camera ready to go uh so it was just one of those torturous

torturous days but the silver lining is it feels like they're finally realizing this is the first time that there has been players calling out matt eberfuss and players being like hey that was a winnable game that we completely fucked up at the end what is the path to getting him gone the quickest i think think anything besides an NFC championship run is probably gone. But you think he's going to be the whole season? I think he's going to be.
The Bears don't fight. They've never in the history.
They don't do that. They wouldn't fire him.
Greeny was going off. They wouldn't fire him in the middle of the season.
Did you see the Greeny clip? No. It was some of the most heated language I language i've ever heard him say by the way that's the dumbest thing i've ever seen it was do in my in my life we had all the time we had timeouts to spare we had we we gave up 15 yards for free to play on the play before the play before the hail mary was just dumb and his explanation afterwards was even dumber he was like i don't really see much of a difference between throwing the ball 65 yards in the air and having him try to throw the ball 80 yards in the air it's like that's that's a pretty big difference and that's that's where this feels like it's it's it's a significant shift in in the narrative because matt eberfaluse is a guy who will get up in front of the the the microphone after game and just never take blame for anything and just be like we we've got to look at the positives.
Having the players say, hey, there were some negatives there, which was very obvious to literally everyone with eyes and a brain in their skull, finally feels like, okay, he's kind of losing it here. And it feels like the Bears locker room is sitting there being like, we we are talented enough to be a six and one team you know the blowing that game at the end with the Hail Mary the Colts game and yet we're sitting here four and three wondering what the fuck has happened I I'm I'm excited that maybe this is they're gonna make the right choice but again it's the Bears so they probably won't so uh Rex Ryan has made it very clear that he's willing to coach again yeah he's doing that i'm not interested in that rex is doing that big time he's no he's putting his name on a lot of people's desks he would coach the jets he said he would coach the bears uh yeah the the play before the play was was very bad that was i'm going to use the word malpractice yeah i think it's coaching malpractice and then the players after i think it was either um yesterday maybe maybe this morning some of the players are saying like we want to be coached harder yeah it's okay if you that's basically what cole comet said it's okay if you coach us harder because we need that uh i don't know what they're gonna do with with the cornerback situation because i that would that would be a good cut that would be a good stevenson's good though that's i know i know i know But like a real football guy coach would just be like, don't even, don't even come in.
I don't think you can cut him, but especially because we have some injuries there, but I, he, he's a good player. He made a very, very bad mistake.
I think all the other players are going to hold him accountable. The problem is I don't think Matt Eberfuss is holding him accountable.
And that's, that's where the divide comes from. So, and it is like them talking about it after Jalen Johnson said, he's like, yeah, his responsibility was Noah Brown.
And that's that's where the divide comes from so and it is like them talking about it after jaylen johnson said he's like yeah his responsibility was no brown and that's why that happened and he instead ran into the scrum and hit the ball in the air so it's just it's crazy because do you think that was a good throw or a bad throw that jayden had on the hail mary i think it was a good throw okay interesting because max and i had a deep conversation about that. And there was an unfortunate clip that got resurfaced.

So during Sunday night's show, Max made the point,

like any quarterback in the NFL can make that throw.

And it just so happens there was a quarterback that tried to make that throw

in the Super Bowl on the very last play of the game.

And I believe he threw the ball about 46 yards in the air.

Oh, Jason Kels also stepped on his foot.

That quarterback was Jalen Hurd.

It was a good throw.

It was short, but it was a good throw.

A good spiral.

I don with this. I agree with this.
It's not like you can be a great Hail Mary quarterback. I mean, some are a little bit better.
Aaron Rodgers Rodgers maybe some are a little bit better than others but a hail mary is a very lucky play but that entire drive that led up to the hail mary he made he made a few big passes that wait there no that was only one pass on that drive i think there were two one that was wide open i think there were two yeah i mean that wasn't i don't want to get it back in the weeds but that i'm pretty sure that they literally let him that was a whole matt e whole Matt Eberflus thing. He had one throw to start the drive, and he threw it on his fucking feet.
I thought that he had two completions on that drive before the Hail Mary. I think he did.
I mean, he might have, but one of them was literally... Matt Eberflus is a fucking moron.
Yes, and I'm not saying that that means that Jaden's an awesome quarterback is that he threw a Hail Mary. Every quarterback can try to throw the ball that far, and a lot of them, you know, like it's a crap shoot at the end.
It was still a good play. Everything that happened on that play before he made the throw, scrambling around the pocket and getting himself into good position.
Yeah, we should have rushed more. It was stupid.
Yeah, that's – I mean, he did what he had to do, and it was a great play. But I'm not saying that that's the metric of him.
He made two completions. One was the one that they were – He had one incompletion.
Then he completed one to Zach Ertz. Then the one that was just given to you.
Yeah, so he had two completions and then the Hail Mary on that drive. A good quarterback puts their team in a spot where they can get lucky.
Right. Jalen Hurts' throw, there was no chance.
Jason Kelsey stepped on his foot. Just saying.
That's part of moving around in the pocket. Jalen Hurts threw for 350 yards and three touchdowns against Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl in that game.
How is that not putting him in a good situation to win? He threw an absolute dime on the drive before to tie the game up, and then fucking Juju Smith-Schuster gets away with a stupid fucking holding call. That's putting yourself in a position to win, Hank.
Listen, Max is right. I didn't say putting, I said give them the Hail Mary.
You said put him in a situation to win. No, give them a chance.
Give them a chance to make the, get lucky. Max is right.
Jalen Hurts had a great game except for that fumble, and he had a great season that year. I'm not saying that Jaden is on that level that Jalen played that year.
I'm just saying, like, let's not take away from the fact. Higher level? No, I'm not saying that yet.

Let's not take away from the fact he had a good drive to get them into position, and then he had a good play where he scrambled around the pocket and then threw a great ball

for a Hail Mary.

Let's not take anything away from this young man, Max.

You're the one who brought this up.

Well, because you brought it up on Sunday.

Yes.

I have a question for you.

If Jaden Daniels throws an interception on that Hail Mary, are you claiming that? It's a crapshoot. Yeah.
That plays a crapshoot. Yeah, that interception doesn't care.
At the end of the season, I will make sure to go back and tell everyone he actually had one less interception than you think he did. I just hated that game.
That game sucked because it was also – it was just the Bears are – I've watched that game a million times. The Bears are in an offensive slog and can't do anything.
And then Cale Williams got them out of it, and it was a game they should never have won that they were going to somehow win. And, yeah, it sucked.
I also, after watching it again, Dan Quinn tried to give that game away too. Dan Quinn tried very, very hard with not going for it on like fourth and inches.
Yeah. And giving the Bears the ball back and then just absolutely killing whatever time we had left.
I would much rather the Bears scored with two minutes, two and a half minutes left on the clock than with 25 seconds. And who cares if you give the ball up in your own territory at that point? Yeah.
This sucked. Whatever.
The Bears have to win against the Cardinals. That's the thing is they have no margin for error anymore and and I'm just again I'm the silver lining in all of this is Matt Iberfuss is being exposed for what we all knew but the vibes were high enough that no one was going to speak out against him in the Bears locker room and now that you have a loss like that that is so inexcusable with how it went down he's getting exposed and that's I think a I think, a good thing.
Did you see the – I think a good thing. Ben Johnson, hit me up.
Was it 9-9 at halftime last night? Two great offenses going at it in football? Yeah. Kick and field goals.
Yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah, the Giants and Steelers, known for their offenses.
It was great offenses. Yeah.
Moving the ball. Yeah, moving the ball.
Between the 20s. Kick and field goals.
It's the way to go. All right.
Memes, real quick. I have two things for memes.
Yeah. I like the Jets fan that retired.
Did you guys see this? This was from Igor2AHL, depressed Jets fan. He said, Due to recent struggles and constant pain suffered from the New York Jets, I've ultimately decided that I'm going to step away from the game.

I have once loved.

I'm not sure when I'll be back, but I can no longer endure the constant

torture and pain.

The New York Jets give me spend more time with the family.

Yeah, he's he did a for real retirement and I he did this on Monday.

I think he should have waited a day because I don't know if you guys saw

but the Jets have their solution to fix the season changing their uniforms again. Oh, I like that.
They're going, the All Blacks are Halloween. So, memes, you're kind of back.
I don't think we're back. I think we're going to get smoked on Thursday, and then everybody's going to get traded on Friday.
Everyone's going to get traded? Yeah. Who's going to get traded? Oh, man.
Devontae? Everyone. Everyone? Everyone.
Literally? Literally everyone. Literally every person? Every player.
I was thinking about the whole don't rent an old quarterback to try to make your team good and put Super Bowl aspirations on him. I was thinking about that.
The stats actually show that maybe you should try to rent an old-ass quarterback. If you don't have a top-two quarterback of all time like Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady with the Patriots, if you look back at the last 10 years, it's happened three times.
Peyton Manning, Tom Brady with the Bucs, and Matt Stafford. Peyton Manning's a little bit of a different one just because he won the Super Bowl no longer being Peyton Manning.
But yes, his best season was before the Super Bowl season. Yeah, the defense won that Super Bowl.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, the last piece. The Jets would have been happy having their great defense that they had.
And then Aaron Rodgers playing like average to slightly above. Correct.
That was the plan. Yeah.
So it's actually not. His Achilles blew up.
Yeah. It's actually not that stupid of an idea.
But when it doesn't work, it looks really, really dumb. It looks.
Yeah. If it doesn't up yeah it's actually not that stupid of an idea but when it doesn't work it

looks really really dumb it looks yeah if it doesn't work it's cam newton on the patriots

or matt ryan on the cults yeah um memes you what you care to explain this meme that you just posted

i saw you pull it up when you when you were scrolling twitter over there telling my kids

this is big cat max and pft and it's uh aj big boy, and the Rizzler. I love it.
So who's who? I think it's in order, right? Yep. Left or right.
So I'm Big Justice, Max is AJ, and then PFT would be the Rizzler. I'm the Rizzler.
All right. Fuck it.
You make out like a bandit there, PFT. Why are you upset? Dude, the Rizzler's the best.
You're the Rizzler. The Rizzler is the best.
I feel like the whole squad one when they went on Fallon. He's just, Rizzler's got the, he's just got all the swag.
I actually, I dress pretty similar to the Rizzler. Why isn't that one on the main? I think you have those shoes.
I think I do too. Post that one on the main.
All right. That's a great meme.
I also have a question.

I've come all the way around on those guys, by the way.

How can you?

Here's the thing.

The Rizzler is what?

They just do it.

Yeah.

They just beat you in a submission with the same video, and then eventually you're like,

all right.

The song, the dance.

Is it going to be the same video?

Yep.

Yep.

Just a couple different characters.

And the Rizzler is going to do the thing where he does his chin.

Great.

Yeah.

They're the best.

I've been a Costco guy from day one.

That's bad.

Was that bad?

Why was that bad?

You've got to be, like, mad.

Okay.

You've got to kind of furrow your brow.

You've got to furrow your brow a little.

Yeah.

That's a very funny picture.

A very funny.

Yeah.

The boys. That was a team win, having those guys on Fallon.

The Rizzler likes the chicken bakes?

The Rizzler's not as much of a Costco guy.

He's just in the cinematic universe, but he also is kind of the star.

Got it.

He does a trick on his bike, no hands.

I can't do that.

Yeah.

He actually just lifts them up for a split second. It's fucking awesome.
I have a question about the Jets. Yeah.
Memes sparked my attention when he talked about being a seller. In any sport, has there ever been a team that was the biggest buyer and the biggest seller in the same season? I'm sure it's happened, yeah.
The Jets are basically giving... Within the trade deadline period.
Yeah. The Jets are giving the Dream Team, Eagles, the Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, Lakers, that's the vibes.
They're like, you know, no one's going to stop them. Did the Padres kind of do that? Yeah, the Padres did that.
Yeah, where it's like, on paper, this is the greatest team ever assembled, and then they started playing games like, whoops. Trying to think who else could have done it in the NBA.
In the Nets. This is going to be one of those things that tomorrow morning people.
Yeah, if I had like 10 minutes to think about it. I'm going to say a bunch of things, yeah.
I don't know about the NFL, though. Because in-season, Devontae Adams is definitely the biggest buy-in move of the year.
It's a big buy-in move, yeah. So with the Eagles' dream team, what was that like? That was all before the season.
Yeah, it was before the season. Vince Young said that as the backup quarterback before the season even started.
There's just not a lot. There's not teams that load up in the NFL.
Yeah, it's hard to load up in the NFL. In the NBA and MLB, teams will get stacked teams.
NFL, they'll pick up one big pick up one big signing. What teams are known for winning the offseason Super Bowl? Now this is going to be fun.
That was the title of the Lakers Sports Illustrated. Famous Sports Illustrated.
It was fun. It was fun.
For us. Yeah.
Yeah, it's hard. I mean, I don't know if the Jets are going to be full sellers, are they? I mean, they do have a shitload of holes.

What if they win on Thursday?

I mean, if they win on Thursday, then...

That's the biggest trap.

We're not going to win.

It's the biggest trap line of all time, but Stefan Diggs and Nico are out.

Yeah, but Joe Mixon is going to run for 200 yards.

Oh, yeah.

I forgot about Joe Mixon.

But what if Aaron Rodgers does something crazy?

That would be sick. Yeah.
I mean, I don't think... No, I'm not kidding.
Ha ha! Meem! Let me see the uniforms. All black on Halloween night.
We could be back, depending on what uniforms these are. All black on Halloween night.
How black are they? We wear the stealth black Thursday night. I like stealth black.
Ah, you might be back. They're off the radar.
You might be back. This is like Aaron Rodgers is wearing a darkness retreat.
Oh, you might be back. And who do you have next after you get a mini buy after playing Thursday night football? And then the Cardinals? Wait, wait, memes.
And then the Colts memes? Stay on that picture right there because they're showing the difference between the old black uniforms and the new black uniforms. They're the same.
No, no, no, no, no, no. There's two lines.
Memes, I'm looking at the schedule right now. If we're just talking about the peak Jets on paper, they might run the table.
We got to win Thursday. They're the same uniform.
The Jets love doing this. They're just fixing everything with uniforms.
No, this on Halloween, I could see the Jets winning this game. I fuck around with this, yeah.
Should we talk a little college football? Yeah. Let's talk a little college football.
So we're getting into November. We have some awesome stories of undefeated teams.
Maybe one of the best stories is BYU and BYU, their quarterback. When he decided to commit, did he have different colored yarmulkes on the table? I don't know.
It's crazy. There's three Jewish students at BYU, and he's one of them.
That's awesome. It's crazy.
But, yeah, the BYU story is incredible. We got some teams lurking that were dead like Clemson you know off the week Clemson and Texas A&M are the two biggest like hey this is a long season because what Texas A&M did to LSU in the second half on Saturday night was incredible they had Nussmeier seeing straight up ghosts he looked he was going to cry.
That's what you get at A&M.

You're always going to have a great defensive line.

You're going to have guys that can get after the quarterback.

And then making the quarterback switch was a ballsy call, too.

And it's definitely the right call for A&M.

I don't know if it's going to be a full switch.

You don't think so?

No.

Who's their offense coordinator again?

Well, I don't think it's going to be a full switch because I think they should do – if A&M is smart, they do literally a two-quarterback situation, which can work in college football. Like, they're playing South Carolina next week or this week.
South Carolina has one of the best defensive lines in college football. South Carolina could probably bottle up Reed.
South Carolina's secondary is not the best, so Wegman could probably carve them up. It could be a situation that they do two quarterbacks, and it works.
That's right. It's Colin Klein.
Yeah. I knew that.
So Colin Klein. K-State.
I think he likes calling offenses for guys that remind him of his skill set. Yeah, but I actually think they might, and I could be way wrong.
We could, you know, Saturday comes around and it's just like they have one starter and that's it. But I think there's a chance they might go game to game, drive to drive with both their quarterbacks.
Because what Marcel Reed did in the second half was incredible. He's not like an incredible passer.
And then so when you play teams that don't have

great secondaries you just switch it up yeah so after the game mike elko i loved his comments oh yeah the game so now we're playing a big guessing game on who he was talking about because it's like a litmus test which way did you see this go when he said uh about the culture at a&m this is a real program it's not fake it's not a politician running this program brian kelly I thought Brian Kelly

I thought Brian Kelly immediately

he did he did the double i think not a politician running this program is brian kelly yeah uh and then talking fast and being s bsing everybody is jimbo yeah because brian kelly is not a fast talker no but he is a politician talking and jimbo is bsing everybody isn't brian kelly's dad like a congressperson or something yeah yeah so i thought that was at brian kelly the bsing everybody they had to come out and clarify that he wasn't talking about anybody he was just talking about his program um it's a great reminder though for texas a&m who did the let's get jimbo fisher and pay him a million a hundred million dollars and that will solve. Sometimes in college football, Mike Elko was not the sexy hire.

He was at Duke.

He's just a very good, competent, like, nuts and bolts football coach.

Solid B-Cups.

That's what he does.

He's going to make sure that your team is playing at a level that doesn't dip

and is not talking about recruiting class and all that.

And it's a great reminder that sometimes just hire the best football coach. And Mike Elko is a fucking great football coach.
And Texas A&M, after their week one loss, and everyone's like, oh, man, this isn't going to work out, are undefeated in the SEC schedule. Now, they do have, again, this South Carolina game is not, like people will look at it and say Texas A&M ranked, South Carolina not ranked, ooh, they'll kill them.
South Carolina is not to be looked past. And then they also finish the season with Texas.
But they're in the driver's seat where they control their own destiny not only to go to the SEC championship game, but the college football playoff. And so is Notre Dame, which Notre Dame is now benefiting from Texas A&M being awesome.
Yeah. Because their win week one looks even better.
Yeah, so it also goes to show you what a great thing it is to have a bunch of people who are absurdly wealth because they struck it rich in a particular industry controlling your program. Because the Texas oil people use their money to be able to afford Jimbo Fisher's, what, $70 million buyout? Yeah.
No other university would do that. But Texas A&M, they're like, we got fuck you money.
We might as well say fuck you to somebody. What's the point of having it if you're not going to use it yeah and so they they were able to buy them out it goes to show you that if if the nerds that graduate from stanford that got really rich on crypto if they cared one percent about football they don't which they don't stanford would be a powerhouse yeah just put all your money into just having a good football team.
That's what you should be doing with that money. Bring Harbaugh back.
Yeah, it turns out a great firing if you can afford it. And Elko, I like Elko.
I don't know if he's playing the game of saying something and then being like, Oh, shucks, I didn't mean what you guys all thought. Because it felt pointed at the time.
Oh, it definitely did. I was thinking about Brian Kelly trying to recruit Wegman in the transfer portal and trying to figure out what accent he should use to talk to him yeah no it was definitely a direct shot but Mike Elko is a good football coach who has his team playing good football and it was uh it's just it goes back to this season being a lot of fun because you have it feels like more parody and then the other teams I was going to mention is Indiana just keeps rolling everyone.
That scene in Bloomington is just on fire. They had game day this week.
I don't know if you guys saw the pick six. It was one of the coolest camera shots I've ever seen where the cameraman zoomed out at the perfect time.
Because they had a pick six early in the game where the cornerback intercepted it,

and it was so clear that there was no one close.

So as he's running, like, across the 30,

the cameraman zoomed out,

and it was just this packed crowd that looked just absolutely on fire.

And it was like, this is why college football rocks.

But Indiana, they, I mean, Michigan State's going to be not,

it's not a cakewalk going to East Lansing because they've been frisky this year. And then you have a big date against Ohio State, who Ohio State looks very human with some of their injuries on the offensive line.
They can't run. I mean, they lost their left tackle for the season, and they look – and I think his backup got hurt too during the game, they look mortal.
I think Penn State. Yeah, well, Penn State has a quarterback controversy.
So, Max, how'd you like Madison? Madison rocked, love the people of Wisconsin. I mean, it is.
Do the people of Wisconsin like you? They're very friendly. Yeah.
Much friendlier than they should be. I heard there were rumors that Max doesn't like Wisconsin.
No. No, he didn't like Jump Around because they didn't let him jump.
No, that's not true. I thought Jump Around was a little underwhelming.
I was excited for Jump Around. Because they didn't let him jump.
That's incorrect. Did you go on State Street? I don't know.
I went on streets. I don't know.
With a lot of bars. Yes.
I went on a street that had a lot of bars. Oh, you've been to Madison before, though.
It is the perfect college town in terms of setup. Yeah.
The bars and everything. And it's all right there.
There's a bunch of bars that are just in parking lots, which is awesome. That's right by the stadium.
Yeah. I got a question.
Why do they call it Camp Randall? What's the camp? It was a Civil War camp, I want to believe. The stadium was? hope i hope i have that right but i'm pretty sure i do uh yeah i believe it was a place where they trained uh people during the civil war yeah the satellite nailed it was a satellite let's go that would have been embarrassing but i didn't get it it was the stadium lies on the grounds of camp randall a union army training camp during the civil war fuck yes this brain still brain still got it a little bit.
That was going to suck if I was just way off. Yeah, the monkey bars out there, the ropes and the walls.
Yeah, but it was yeah, Penn State, look, I was thinking we had a chance to have an upset there and then that pick six. I really do think the Badgers potentially could have just punted and played defense for the rest of the game then the pick six happened and was like that's it it's over there's just no way you can come back from that we're not an offense that can do that and that's all yeah that's also how every penn state game goes is that they go down big in the first half and then the second half they just turn it on and then they beat the shit out of teams in the second half max am i crazy to think that that penn state could beat ohio state definitely can.
I think it's only four points. I like them in that game.
Bo. Are we going to start Bo Perbula? I think Drew Aller is going to be a game time decision, which makes me think that he's probably going to play.
But that's another one. Why not have some packages in? Because it's not like I'm not going to be crazy and be like, oh, Wisconsin wins that game with Drew Alleran.
But it was very clear that when Bo Perbula came in, the defense wasn't ready for the type of quarterback he was that was different than Drew Aller. Bo Perbula is exactly Trace McStorley.
They wear the same number. They look the same.
He has the exact same game. He's very mobile.
He's like a home run hitter. And Drew Aller is like a pocket passer, like NFL-style quarterback.
Yeah. So they do have that sort of, like you said, yin and yang of kind of UK.
And Bo Perbula will play a couple plays a game. Yeah.
I liked what I saw. I was like this kid has got something he's there's something about a college quarterback who's like you watch him and you're like he's probably not an nfl quarterback but he's a peak college quarterback you know yeah so i i think that they'll they'll put aller they'll play aller but i think but but we'll also we'll also get some packages in that game.
Got it. So that's a big game.
And then SMU-Pitt. But Pitt is undefeated.
SMU only has one loss against BYU. There's so many games that are – there's a lot of teams.
It's all going to shake out. But we have this great parity.
We have a doomsday scenario that's loading in the SEC, though. What's that? And only two things have to happen.

So I was looking at this calculator online. It's an SEC calculator for the championship game.
And the doomsday scenario, it all hinges on LSU-Alabama. Okay.
If LSU beats Alabama, I think they're both coming off bys. If LSU beats the Tide and the good teams stay good, Texas could then fuck things up if they beat A&M in their game.
If that happened, I think this is MRED's college football SEC calculator that I looked on. If those two things happen, LSU wins against Alabama and Texas beats A&M, it would be LSU and Texas A&M in the SEC championship game.
It would not be Texas. It would not be Texas.
It would not be Georgia. Yeah, because they do.
A lot of these tiebreakers are your strength of schedule. It has to do with strength of schedule, and they try to do a round-robin thing, but if you don't all play each other, it doesn't matter.
In the SEC, because it's so big now, they don't all play each other. And in that event, it would be LSU and Texas in the SEC championship, and then you would have Georgia playing a home game round one of the college football playoff.
There's another one like that in the Big Ten. It's essentially if Ohio State beats Penn State and Ohio State beats Indiana, I think that it would be Ohio State, Indiana, Penn State.
I guess Oregon would have to lose a game, but they would all have one loss and Oregon would not make it to the Big Ten Championship. It would be like Ohio State and Penn State, even though Oregon beat Ohio State.
I love doomsday scenarios. Yeah.
And 90% of the time they don't happen. They don't become close to happening.
But I like looking at how chaotic could my future be. Yeah.
Memes also knows another. There's another big 10 scenario.
All right, give me a doomsday. Send me all your doomsday scenarios, by the way.
Or there's a possibility of Oregon, Indiana, and Penn State going undefeated. Penn State has to beat Ohio State by more than one, and Indiana has to beat Ohio State by more than one.
And then Indiana and Penn State would play each other in the Big Ten Championship, and Oregon would be left out. Why would Oregon be left out? Because one of the tiebreakers drank the schedule.
Same opponents. Oh, is that the first tiebreaker?

That's one of the tiebreakers.

Yeah, it's all without the divisions anymore in any of these conferences.

It's crazy.

And also every conference is different the way that they write it up.

Yeah.

But I'm excited for – yeah, you're right.

None of these ever happen.

So it's head-to-head, record against all common conference opponents,

which would be the same because they would all be undefeated, And record against mutual conference opponents with best record, all undefeated. Big 10 winning percentage of conference opponents.
So I don't know if Indiana would. I think it would maybe be Oregon-Penn State in that.
Because I think Indiana's strength of schedule is not that great. It's just put up to a fan vote.
I have a question. Yeah.
And this could be very off base because i fell down a i don't know how i ended up in a iowa state pro rabbit hole but it was it's very good it was a fair question how how does notre dame lose at home to niu yeah and they're ranked higher than iowa state and then and i uses loses to ball state um right It's a fair like i again i could have been i was very in a very biased thread but i in my head i was like yeah that makes no sense yeah it does it does losing at niu at home mean nothing i think it's it's so i think a lot of it is the win against texas a&m and then they beat navy who they killed uh that was i saw that one coming. I had some Navy fans mad at me because I suggested that their defense

wasn't very good.

It was 14-0 with one second in the game.

Yeah, I mean, they did turn the ball over a bunch.

But I think that probably has more to do with Texas A&M having their –

or sorry, Notre Dame having their best win is a road win against Texas A&M.

And Iowa State's best win is at Iowa, who I don't believe is ranked anymore. So Brian Kelly's out there still improving Notre Dame.
By the way, I'm on your side. Iowa State should be ranked higher.
I always think that, at least in the Power 5 schools, if you're undefeated, it should just be all the undefeated teams, then the one-loss teams. You play the games for a reason.
Especially if you're one-loss, a bad loss. That's the Florida State thing last year, where it's like, if you win all your games, it should work out.
But yeah, Iowa State's very good, and they hopefully will get into the playoff. But the last thing we should talk about, does anyone know if a player in college football has won offensive and defensive player of the week in the same season? Is that even possible? You mean like all time? In the same season.
They've won offensive player of the week, and then another week they won defensive player of the week. I'm going back.
Charles Woodson was pretty good. He might have done it, but I mean, he was an outlier.
He's the kind of guy that would win the Heisman. Yeah, Max.

I think that guy from Colorado did it, right?

Oh, Travis Hunter.

He won offensive player this week, and he had won defensive player earlier this season.

Oh, that's crazy.

Wait, he won offensive player this year?

Yeah, offensive player of the week this week and defensive player of the week earlier in the season.

Conan O'Brien meme.

Travis Hunter?

You mean the cornerback? Yeah, I mean the wide receiver. Whoa.
Holy wide receiver whoa holy shit yeah we're back boys we're all the way back well he probably plays like he probably plays like defensive tackle and then he's probably a fullback as a fullback occasionally right no he's a wide receiver and he had over 100 yards receiving and two touchdowns that had four pass breakups played 140 snaps and he's also the best cornerback in college oh my god that crazy. And I'm not going to do the negative campaign.
We should talk more about that guy. Yeah, I'm not going to do a negative campaign of trying to talk down.
We're not doing negative campaigns against anyone else. Every campaign says that.
I wouldn't say Cam Ward played a hapless Florida State team and was okay, but not eight touchdowns. Oh, crying Cam Ward? I wouldn't go out there and say that Ashton Gentry, everyone keeps talking about Barry Sanders' record.
Look up how many games Barry Sanders played. He played 11.
Ashton Gentry's about to play 13. You're talking about crooked Ashton? I'm talking about 3.9 yards per carry, Ashton, against UNLV.
I'm not doing negative campaigns. You're right.
I had no idea, Max. That's crazy.
I think if you're just basing this off who's the best football player, that's a criteria, right? Yeah. Who's the best football player in the country? Yeah.
I don't think that it's up for debate. I do like a couple.
I'll still get a couple of AWLs being like, you're only saying this because you bet on them. Shit.
You know what? You know's uh actually a campaign yeah i bet you travis hunter would go on joe rogan yeah go on joe get him on talk to joe joe would talk to you get the word out there travis hunter for heisman and colorado is i know people there's a lot of people out there who didn't like dion and last year was probably a little too much too fast in terms of you know the hype and then them not being a good team they are bowl eligible for the first time in forever they're six and two and they have some winnable games down the stretch and they're a good football team people are bearing them early well the nebraska game which doesn't look great no in retrospect things happen sometimes patrick mahomes should be upset at dylan raiola at this point well i maybe that's's why Patrick Mahomes is starting to throw more interceptions.

Yeah.

Maybe that's why Dylan Raiola is throwing interceptions.

It's because he sees Patrick Mahomes. He saw and he's just like my hero.

This is how you win football games.

Do we think the wheels are coming off at USC?

They're banning media from practice.

I think this is a story that only the media cares about.

Yeah.

I don't know.

You can't really get rid of Lincoln Riley, but his name does rhyme with stinking.

Yeah.

You can't just ignore that part.

Yeah.

Thank you. You can't really get rid of Lincoln Riley, but his name does rhyme with stinking.

Yeah.

You can't just ignore that part.

Yeah. Stinking Riley.

Next week, we have Maction finally back.

So excited.

That's the big news next Tuesday night.

Maction's back.

This is maybe our last sports equinox night of the year.

Yeah.

I love equinoxes.

They're the best. What? It's not.
It we know football no there's football there's there's conference usa dude oh come on yeah they've been playing on tuesday nights you don't know every conference usa game ever all right so who's the pick sam houston all right hank doesn't know i've lost every conference US game every single night, every single week. I don't know why.
I don't even...

Why? All right. Hank doesn't know.
I've lost every conference U.S. game every single night, every single week.
I don't know why I don't even why I'm betting on Kennesaw State and Sam Houston and Louisiana Tech. They put it on TV and I watch it.
Yeah. You don't even know.
Come on. What are you laughing about, Max? The way you said that was funny.
What? I just do. And it's like there's something extra just like sick and perverted about being like, oh, why are you upset? I bet on Louisiana Tech.
Can you name one player on that team? No. Oh, I bet Sam Houston State, the Bearcats.
It's a K instead of a C. I was watching some of the bad beats from SVP last night.
Some of the schools that they show, how do they even get those tickets that are sent? Like who is watching like the Fordham game? Everywhere. And there's some like those, the shitty like Tuesday, Thursday night games that you get sometimes where the cameras are like on the moon, basically like in zone camp.
They're taping them from a blimp as they float above these games, but people are out there betting on God bless America. Shout out DraftKings.
Ebo, our guy Ebo, who people might not know, but he's one of our colleagues here. Great dude.
JMU. He sent me a JMU.
He sent me an FCS game on Saturday morning, and I personally moved the line by two points. That's good.
It also was the worst pick ever, and he's a scumbag. And I've been telling him all week he's a scumbag because he specifically texted people saying, this is my FCS pick today.
And it wasn't even close. He texted all of us.
It wasn't even close. You can't even watch it.
He's probably doing that, trying to move the line so he can take the other side. He might have.
He might have said that. He might have trapped me.
We said next time Big Cat isn't allowed to take it until everyone else does. Smart guy.
All right. Let's do Hot Seat Cool Throw.
And got paulo banquero on the show in studio ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working nah neither has ariot ariot work jackets and boots are packed with all the cold stopping waterproof protection you need to get the job done under any conditions so you can take any job out there and always deliver check out ariot in your local workwear retailer or visit Ariat.com slash work to get 10% off your first order when you sign up for email. And weather whatever in Ariat work gear.
My hot seat is Doc Rivers. Uh-oh.
Yeah. Uh-oh.
They lost last night to the Celtics. They are 1-3 on the season.
18-22 in the Doc Rivers era.

And Giannis

was talking in the postgame

and said, right now we don't have an

identity. How are we going to win the game? Are we going to

defend for 48 minutes? Are we going to move the ball for

48 minutes? Are we going to attack? We've got

to find an identity. We don't have that

right now. Ooh, no identity's bad.

No identity's bad. That seems like

that's a coaching thing. Yeah.
And I saw the clip that you posted, Hank, with Doc Rivers, like just bent over, assuming the, the Spike Lee half court position after it was Peyton Pritchard. He had another end of quarter three pointer and Doc, you could tell he's like, we worked on this, but he said it after the game, he's like, I circled and Peyton Pritchard had like 28 points.
Yeah. And he said after the game, he was like, I had Peyton Pritchard circled.
They were keyed in on him before the game, and he still went off. Probably need Pat Bep.
Bring him back. Yeah, I don't know.
It seems like there's Dame Lillard and Giannis. That's not working.
He never saw that coming. You see that block that Derek White had? Is that an identity problem for the Milwaukee Bucks? No, it's just Derek White.
If you're Giannis getting rejected at the rim by Derek White. I mean, Derek White, defensive player of the year, potentially.
So what do we have the Celtics record at? They're 4-0 now, right? 4-0. So what's the season one projection? 74-8 is what he's saying.
74-8. I want 74-8.
You want 74-8. I forgot someone.
I think if they win the play-in tournament, though,

they can get an extra win.

What?

That's an extra.

So it's 83 games?

I think so.

Oh.

I tweeted 74 and 8, and someone replied to me with that.

If they win the play-in tournament?

But they probably wouldn't.

No, no.

The mid-season tournament.

Gotcha.

The NBA Cup.

Yeah.

That thing that we all care about a lot. It's the NBA Cup.
I care very deeply about it. Yeah.
Different courts. It's color rush.
Yeah. Okay.
Cool throne? My cool throne is the AWWs. Award-winning watchers? Award-winning watchers.
Oh. We have alluded to it the past few weeks.
You guys had a great time. We all had a great time with Bob Doe Sports, guys.
That video is coming out Tuesday night. It'll be out today when you're listening to this.
Oh, nice. Awesome.
Oh, yes. And, yeah, if you don't like me and you enjoy seeing my misery and seeing Big Cat relish in my misery, make sure you tune in uh it was a tough day it was a great day i mean like that it is one of those things the last nine holes for you were last few holes yeah i mean i i it's something that you know we've been looking forward to for a long time i i love those guys yeah overthought it a lot and and couldn.
I was down tremendously, tremendously, tremendously. And then I just had to remind myself like, who cares? We're just playing golf with our friends.
But that Monday night after was like, it was tough. And I was, I was like, I talked to someone.
I was like, I'm, I'm in a bad spot. And then I kind of realized like, what are we talking about? It's a golf video.
Did you ever find out whose car you hit it was your car i have i have i'm putting the footage out because people have been coming up to me they that was bob to sports i want to blame memes but i can't uh the clip they posted from the video the first video which is on their channel uh i had a bad t shot it went in the road and then pft hit a car yeah well we pulled up but they only posted they didn't show the whole clip in the whole clip we pulled up there's a woman on the side has no idea who we are no idea what's going on she's like hey someone hit my car pft without even thinking or blinking was like oh no i thought that was hank's ball as if she was gonna make oh hank all right let me talk to hank no i said I said it was that man right over there. Ma'am, that's the guy you want to talk to.
No, I think you said that was Hank's. You definitely said that was Hank.
Yeah, I said that. I mean, I was pointing directly.
I immediately accused Hank. You did, you did.
Immediately accused Hank. Someone hit your car? You must be looking for Hank.
Yeah. And then come to find out it was you.
To be fair, Hank also hit a car on that tee shot. I didn't.

False.

Well, you did.

It was very loud noise.

But somewhere out there, there's a person driving around Chicago with a golf ball dent in their car.

And $300 in their pocket.

Yeah.

Because you gave them $100.

And I was like, you know what?

She kind of lingered after you gave her $100.

I was like, here, take a couple more.

I just had $100 in my pocket.

And then Big Cat was like, yeah, take $300.

And then I thought about that the other day. I was like, do you think it'd be a good racket to just hang out next to a golf course and say, excuse me, your ball struck my car? Because she had the whole story.
She was like, I just got it fixed. It's my birthday.
She said it was her birthday. That's, I think, when I added the $200 when she said it was her birthday.
That would be a good gig, a good side gig to just hang out and say that your car got smashed by a golf ball. Yeah, just wait for someone to hit a nasty hook and you just bang on the top of your car.
Yeah, if somebody followed me around every time I played golf, they would probably make like $5,000 a month. Yeah.
Okay, so tune into that. PFT, your hot seat, Coltrone.
My hot seat is georgia is using my credit card right now and i have to order food to the wrong address okay thank you hank uh i did i did do that again that was nice i had a seven day streak of not ordering food to the wrong address and then last night during monday night football i ordered korean food and uh it went to the office i got people were like why didn't you change the address? You can change the address. I'm aware of that.
I got the phone call as the person was outside the office again, and then I was like, you can just leave it there, and then Pug will get it. Pug got it.
PFT's down bad about this. We were just sitting in the studio before we started taping.
I was like, why don't you just double check? He's like, I know. Yeah.
I mean, that's the easiest thing. Yeah, why don't you just not do that? I know.
It's a a problem and people are accusing me of doing it as a bit this it would be the worst bit of all time if i was just doing this yeah it would uh so i think i've now done it four times in the last three weeks it's not good and so i think i just have to use different apps at work and different apps at home you could just double check fuck i did say that that it is something that i i me i'm a double check guy i'm not i'm not nothing about me is double check but then also on the financial side of things somebody in georgia is using my credit card right now uh and i think i might just let it play out because they're being cool about it so i got the notification yesterday they spent 22 at pizza hut okay and i'm like okay that's cool yeah like enjoy your pizza i'm gonna actively monitor it and see what else they're buying don't get crazy and don't get crazy if it's you out there like be cool like go out to dave and buster's maybe have a good time yeah uh if i see like a couple bar tabs here and there on a weekend just keep it reasonable wait but Wait, but is it your physical card? No, I have my physical card on me. They've got my number.
So I don't know. Also, maybe they ordered it online.
They might have done it online. Just be cool.
Just be cool, and we'll see if you can handle the responsibility. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Why? Why? If whoever it is spends $22 a week on pizza in georgia like that's that's a feeling it might go that's a cool thief yeah but differently yeah but event he's probably testing the waters right now and then i'll be like fraud but they already alerted you to potential fraud i got alerted to potential fraud so that's the thing if they yeah if they they're establishing residency for you you have a squatter on your card yeah Yeah, I got a squatter on my card. But I'm being a cool...
I'm not like all the other cardholders. I'm a cool cardholder.
Yeah, you're setting yourself up. You just don't feel like going through the process of getting a new credit.
That's correct. That's fair.
Max is a million percent correct. That's fair.
Although it is kind of a nice thing to just get rid of all your unwanted subscriptions when they all go to auto pay. And it's like that card doesn't anymore yes that's that's a good thing so max is max is right about that but if he does whoever it is he or she if you start fucking around i feel like i'm a dad whose whose son is at college right now and i'm monitoring the statement if you fuck around and spend it on things that you shouldn't be spending it on then we're gonna have problems yeah and if you do like get an emergency just put a note in it yeah like it was an emergency needed needed uh three thousand dollars worth of gas yeah cvs six orders of plan b all right listen the better you spend it now then i'm gonna have to spend more later on you yeah i'm gonna end up paying for this kid's like education yeah uh and then my cool throne is statues statues are back in a big way uh we fucked up on sunday by not talking about this we're just talking about football the whole time but uh the duane wade statue got unveiled on sunday down in miami and it it's an all-time statue yeah he looks like he's about 65 years old in it he's doing a weird pose where he's like pointing down.
And they showed Dwayne the statue. They took the curtain off.
And then the look on his face was just priceless because he was like trying to act like it was a cool statue, trying to act like what an honor this is. But at the same time, he was looking at his buddies.
He's like, what the fuck did they do? This is so bad. What did they do to me? Yeah, it was so bad.
Is this an insult statue that me like that's a that's the best thing you could do to fuck with somebody that you didn't like is erect statues that look like utter shit of them how is this keep happening i don't understand it statue making might be harder than we think it is i guess but isn't there just can can there just be one guy who's really good at statues how is how could they do it better in the like 1400s or even before that i think there were more statue makers in the 1400s yeah now people don't i guess yeah it's like cartoons too yeah people aren't growing up making statues we got a statue problem we got to figure that out yeah or you could 3d print them i liked his response though he said it's an artistic representation true okay that's an easy if you're if bad art you can be like what's art i think the problem with statue makers is they don't let anybody see their statue until it's no he saw it oh he saw it being made oh yeah there's there is i think it was the artist or someone that works with the artist tweeted pictures of him like in the warehouse looking at it long before.

Yeah, people are comparing it to the Cristiano Ronaldo statue.

Which that was maybe the worst of all time.

That's a great one.

Apparently, they fixed that one.

Yeah, they did.

I don't like that.

Yeah.

Did they make AI bigger yet?

Oh, no.

Philly still has miniature statues.

I mean, that has nothing to do with AI.

What are you talking about? We're talking about Allen iverson yeah you thought we were talking about computers no i knew you're what exactly what you were talking about all of the statues that are going into the practice facility are miniature yeah they made ai so small i had your back on the rundown max they tried to bring up the ai statue and i was like that's that's fake news They're getting fake news right now because all their statues are like that. Yep, thank you.
Thank you. All right, my hot seat is Altitude because Altitude might be making the boys gay.
So this was Earl E. Lunch, Blimp Brisket on Twitter.
Early Lunch. Early Lunch, Blimp Brisket is his handle, sent this to us uh it's from the reddit am I the asshole uh and it says am I the asshole for not believing my boyfriend that suddenly became gay due to altitude difference so she writes I can hardly believe that I'm writing this or that it happened but I am and it did sorry but I am and it did so here we go I, 20 years old female, have been with my boyfriend, 29 year old male for three years.
Every now and then he has to go to Utah for a few days because his team has a customer service branch that operates out there. I got a text from one of his coworkers who has become a friend of ours.
And it said that on the trip, my boyfriend cheated on me with some guy on the customer care team. By the way, what a narc.

I did not believe it at first because, first of all, my boyfriend has always identified as straight.

And second of all, I just couldn't believe it.

When he got home, I asked him about it, basically expecting him to confirm it was nonsense.

Instead, he got a real quiet and had a sit down and said he had to tell me something.

He said it was true.

He did have a one-night stand with a guy. I couldn't believe it.
I asked him if he was telling me if he was gay or bisexual and regardless cheating is cheating he insisted he was not gay at all but the strangest thing happened he said that when he was at dinner with his utah co-workers he suddenly became gay i was like what and he said what the fuck and he said he thinks it was due to the altitude i believe this guy what an all-time panic i gotta think of something move it's everyone's been in a spot where they gotta panic and think of something altitude you think altitude made me suck that guy's dick you think he had this planned or you think that was just spur of the moment totally no totally spur of the moment he he had none of this planned he i mean he cheated he's probably bisexual and then when he was called out on it he's like what the fuck do i do altitude yeah i'm never going to go to utah and find out though i also feel like a girlfriend saying my boyfriend's always identified as straight is not like oh that's most ringing endorsement it's like point my boyfriend's definitely straight yeah not like oh he identifies is straight my boyfriend has has told me in the past that he's straight yeah like if you've had a conversation in the past like if you're dating somebody and you know because you've asked them hey are you straight while you're dating that while you're dating them they might kind of have other inclinations right yeah they shouldn't have to identify to you how they feel i just i this guy listen he he was in a scramble drill and he's like this is gonna work so is he saying like lack of oxygen to the brain yeah i guess altitude i mean people get altitude sickness can you read that i just became gay yeah he insisted he was not gay at all but was the strangest thing. He said that when he was at dinner with his Utah coworkers, he suddenly became gay.

Yeah.

He just had a couple drinks.

I hate it when that happens.

Yeah.

He's experimenting.

All of a sudden, I was gay.

A couple beers, altitude, bang, you're gay.

Next thing you know, gay.

It's fucking crazy.

Could happen to the best of us.

I still think, shout out our guy.

He's not a segue because he's not gay, but shout out our guy buddha ben who got altitude sickness had to be driven out of colorado remember that yeah yeah altitude sickness is real oh yeah like you can get that shit i was there for a bachelor party a couple years ago and just walking to the top of the stairs in a townhouse it's like what what's going on next thing you know you're sucking a guy's dick yeah well there was a naked dude up there and i was like what's going on why am i up here i became gay suddenly became gay altitude sickness was that whoa okay no like when he when he the walking into the house yeah what it was altitude that's a question we need to ask was a was it the house of another man oh in montana yeah yeah yeah oh yeah that was altitude sickness weussil's a big equinox guy too yeah he was just looking for it the altitude sickness if anyone else has a experience of just being straight at sea level and gay and high altitude let us know isn't that the plot of brokeback mountain kind of yeah they just kept on going up and up yeah i never saw that movie i never did either because always lived at sea level. I did see.
Yeah. I saw Max and Hank reenacted on a live stream one time.
That's true. Yeah.
And then my cool throne is love. She's love.
Giselle is pregnant. Oh, that's nice.
With the karate instructor. Jiu-jitsu? Karate, jiu-jitsu, same thing.
Capoeira. Capoeira, dance fighting? Yeah.
Henry, thoughts? I feel for my guy. He posted a picture of the sunset last night with Landslide playing.
What? He went Fleetwood Mac? He went Landslide? And I felt like I just felt warm. Oh, my God.

Down bad.

Landslide you only use for down.

It's bad.

That is a holy shit.

That's a song you play when you want to cry.

Yeah.

For sure.

He was crying when he sent that, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh.

Yeah.

So are they getting married?

I don't know. Or is it just like a training-related injury that she's got? I don't know.
I just feel – my take is I feel for my guy. Yeah.
The landslide, like I got – I almost cried. Listen, you'd rather get divorced one year too early than one year too late.
Yeah. Right? Yeah.
So it's not divorced. And at least the sequence of events wasn't like pregnant then divorced.
You know what Tom Brady should do to get back at Giselle? He should get this unborn child addicted to playing football. And then the unborn child loves football more than his mom.
Dad cucks her? Yeah. Because, I mean, that was kind of how the relationship but you know tom brady was addicted to football just be like you got it max now it's a jiu-jitsu instructor so you know that thing's gonna be kicking in the womb yeah hi-yah hi-yah all that shit that's damn hey i feel like you're down bad i yeah i i was uh you should do the landslide because I thought about it.
Tom was team Hank, so you got to be team Tom. Duh.
Man. Do you think he's going to be team jiu-jitsu? Hi-ya.
Yeah, it's not good. We should take a karate class for a video.
That would be fun. You want to just fight? I'd like to see Max just in the...
Donnie does jiu-jitsu around here.

Chef Donnie?

Yeah.

I don't know if I want to do jiu-jitsu, though,

because that's the one where another man has your back and you're getting choked out.

No, I want to just do...

Yeah, Joe Mizzou, I'll let him choke me out.

I want to just break a board.

You might have to go through the mountains, but...

Yeah, breaking boards would be...

I'll let him choke me out on sea level.

I don't care.

Hell yes, Hank.

Hell yes.

Well, I mean, when you get chokedoked out you're technically just turning into gay because you're getting less oxygen in your brain he's choking you out from straight to gay every every dead person's actually gay yeah you you when you when joe mazula is going to choke you out you're going to wake up and you're just going to be gay that's how it works fellas is it gay to get killed it suddenly became gay nice try dude uh okay let's get to paulo banquero in studio uh before we do that we have a couple ads all protein bars generally taste the same but not one bars one made protein bars are actually delicious with reese's and hershey's. Only one Reese's Peanut Butter Lover's Protein Bar is made with Reese's Peanut Butter, and only one Hershey's Cookies and Cream Protein Bars is made with Hershey's Cookie Bits while delivering 18 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar.
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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. It is Paolo Bencaro.
Fresh off 50 points. We actually, Paolo, first of all, thank you for coming to the office.
Yes, sir. We appreciate it.
So it's obviously football season, so we're like, oh, this is going to be great. We're going to have Paolo in.
We can save it for when we need an interview and then you decided to drop 50 on monday night we're like well we have to run this right away because for i mean we'll start there what was it like being in the zone you were in the zone 37 and a half yeah yeah i was in the zone man uh it was just one of those games where like you make your first couple shots and uh you just get lost in it and then you just keep going. You know, you're not even worried about, you know, how many points you are scoring.
You just, you know, you don't want to stop. So it was fun, man.
I've had a couple big games in the league, you know, and playoffs and whatnot, but, like, that was probably definitely, like, the standalone game where it was just like an avalanche or, like, kept going. Did you actually feel like everything you threw at the hoop was going in no matter what yeah for sure that's awesome just when you get to that point you know it's like your instincts take over and so you just start doing stuff that you worked on in the summer you know shots that you know you practice that maybe you wouldn't you know shoot every game but like you're feeling good so that one fly.
So it was fun, man. Yeah.
What does it feel like? And have you figured out, like, have you thought about how to recreate that feeling? Yeah, for sure. That's all I ever think about is, you know, how can I get in that zone as often as possible? And I think it's just, like I said, trusting your instincts when you go out there, being aggressive, having, like, you but also not trying to press and force it.
I don't think anything or any bucket I had in that game was forced or was a forced shot. I think I just let the game come to me.
Everything was happening so naturally, and it was flowing. So it was really fun, though.
What if that's just how good you are now? Yeah. What if you go out tomorrow night and it's like another 50?

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I think in my head is like,

why can't I do it again?

Obviously, you're not going to put up 50 every night, but just that mindset.

No, I mean, what if you're still in the zone?

Yeah.

You could still be in the zone.

Yeah, I'm very much still in the zone.

It's only game four, you know?

So I felt like I got off to a great start in Miami, and I was in that zone, and I felt like I left a lot of points on the board in that game. And so the two after that was like, you know, I was chilling a little bit, wasn't as happy with my performance.
And then, you know, that fourth game, like, I was like, oh, okay, so this is what it looks like if I kind of put it all together. And I still left, you know, I missed a bunch of free throws, you know, a couple of shots I could have made.
So, like, it just makes it fun for me because I know there's more. You know, I don't feel like, oh, man, I gave everything I had.
I can't go any further than that. It's like, no, man, I feel like I can, you know, go get 60, 70.
Yeah, I love that. That's got to be the best feeling ever.
Are you going to eat the same meal before the game? Like do everything the same way? No, no. I'm not that superstitious.
I would say what I eat is not necessarily most about what I eat, but the amount of calories I get. I just got to eat a shit ton of food before the game just so I have energy.
So I saw that online that you lose seven pounds of sweat. Is that true? During the game? There was some, it's like, it got, the way it got reported, and when I was in college, it was like a little walkie.
Okay. But, yeah, basically, like, there would be practices you weigh in before, weigh out after.
And so I'd weigh in at, you know, a certain weight, and then after practice I'd be, you know, seven, eight pounds lighter. And so they were all like amazed by that but i just sweat a ton and so then i started cramping at the start of my freshman year a couple games and they kind of made it a big deal when really honestly people don't really know well i think i said it but like at that time of my life i didn't really have an idea of like electrolytes and like right like the fact that you need them every single game yeah because like i was just drinking water a little gatorade but i wasn't drinking like electrolyte conscious like you know pedialyte or stuff like that so i was going into these games like super high intensity game like stuff i've never felt before and like my body was like just locking up so i was like you know tripping at first but once i started drinking pediolite and electrolytes stuff like that i got i got right so what was there like a i always am fascinated the the jump of college to pros and then you you go from being a student and you know you're you're in college you don't have millions of dollars then you're a pro and now you're spending money on your body and stuff.
Have you noticed that for your body where it's like the amount that you put in offseason training, just how to deal with it? Like you're just that much stronger and better. Yeah, for sure.
I think you don't really pay attention to what you eat, or at least I didn't when I was a kid or teenager. You know, I was kind of eating whatever.
I was always in pretty good shape. but uh you know once you get older and start playing at a higher level you realize that you know certain stuff makes you feel certain ways and like you know for a game you know i gotta load up on a bunch of stuff because i know i'm gonna you know i'm out there trying to go 100 the whole game right you know for 40 plus minutes if i have to so i know how much energy that takes out of me especially me especially me being my size and trying to move as much as I do.
It takes a lot of energy. And so you realize that you got to eat, whether you're hungry or not sometimes.
Sometimes I'm not even hungry, but I know I got to get these meals in. I feel the same way.
You got to eat. I think it's interesting that Duke doesn't provide adequate nutrition for their players and they also make you weigh in all the time.
It's like it gives you a bad body image there. It doesn't sound healthy mentally for the players.
Do you want to do the Duke stuff now? Yeah, let's get it out the way. Okay, so when you sat down, I told you, I was like, hey, look, just so you know, I'm a very big Duke hater.
Yeah, so let me rewind a little bit on when I was talking about talking about this podcast yeah so they were like a barstool big cat yeah it's the is the guy who's running it and i was like hold on like why is that nick or why does that username sound familiar and i just remembered being in college coach k's last year and i always saw like on twitter and by the way going to duke taught me to like stay off twitter yeah yeah people guys like me are on those guys like it's not for you yeah it made me realize like you know stay off twitter during the season like just focus but anyway my whole freshman season every time we lose or have a bad game it'd be barstool fucking big cat talking shit and i'll be like who runs this account though i'm like who is this dude like he's shitting on you know us coach k and i just it would piss me off so kind of circled back it feels good yeah yeah so i so i'll tell you my trauma real quick i i went to the university of wisconsin uh i don't think they'll ever win a national championship in anything they were up at half against Duke in 2015 from that moment forward it was like I never I never liked Duke but that was like I that was it they a part of my soul is still in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis you were there I was there a part of my soul is sitting there in the seats and it's just never coming back so when coach K said that he was going to retire and he made sure that he let everyone know that he was going to retire 12 months before he was going to retire and we all had to suck his dick for a year, I decided that I was making a personal mission to just be on his ass the whole time. So you were actually, you kind of were like a casualty of war because it wasn't like a personal hatred towards you.
It was Coach K. You just happened to be on the last Duke team with Coach K.
So that last game in Cameron, that was awesome. Man, that was some bullshit.
That's what that was. That was, that was, that was, man.
I feel like you guys were put in a bad spot from a player's. Listen, I loved it.
I loved every second of that game. But from a player's perspective, to be honest with you, the pomp and circumstance, and when they roll out like 90 dudes who went to Duke and were Coach K like, the pressure that was on you guys was not fair, I feel like.
Is that an accurate statement? I wouldn't say it's not fair. I think that's why you go to Duke, to play in those type of games.
The brotherhood? Yeah. I mean, Coach K told me before I even got to Duke that my year was going to be his last year.
So I came in already knowing that every game we played was going to be a big deal because of him. And it was his last game.
And everyone knew that last game in Cameron was like,

before the season even started, you knew that was going to be the game.

Yeah.

The game.

Everyone was talking about it the whole season, like, man,

what's going to happen?

Who's going to be there?

It was already being talked about the whole season.

So I wouldn't say it was unfair because we knew what was to expect.

But then what about when you get in the tournament

and the pressure of the tournament knowing it's his last tournament? That's got to be a lot. I mean, you guys are 18, 19-year-old kids.
You go to the Final Four. You had a good tournament run.
Who did you guys lose to? You know who we lost to. Okay.
I was there for that, too. I was there.
I remember that they lost to UNC in the last home game. They didn't lose to UNC in the tournament, did they? No, no.
That was the last home game. team uh yeah damn yeah we know that sucks this is the beauty of our podcast by the way just to like break character for a second uh you just put up 50 in an nba game and you're like you know 100 million dollars one of the best players in the nba and we're sitting here being like ah you lost to unc i mean that's what i get that all the time, though.
I mean, like I said, I have like that. I loved my college career.
Like I thought it was awesome. But like that will forever be a stain, you know, is losing those two games to that school, obviously.
Because we were. It's hard.
Let it out. Let it out.
And they beat us twice. So credit to them.
They beat us twice, two out of three times. They were the better team in those two games.
But we were so much better than them, man. As a team, we were so much better.
We went in there. The first time we played them, we walked into the Dean Dome and beat them by 30.
Right. And took their – you could just tell we was just a better team.
I feel like if that second game was – Once a team in college, though, like once a team – any team in any sport is playing high and, you know, you can call a Cinderella run like that. They're hard to beat.
So, you know, guys on their team made a lot of shots. But it doesn't – it'll never, you know, I'll never be convinced that we weren't just hands down better than them.
I just think when the moment was there, when it was the moment, they had guys that stepped up and made plays in the moment. So you got to give them credit.
Were you thinking about going anywhere else besides Duke? Were you thinking about maybe staying at Washington? Our guy Spencer Hawes would have been happy about that. Yeah, you guys know Spencer? Yeah.
He's a good friend of ours. He actually told me to tell you.
That's my big bro. He wants his golf clubs back.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
They're in Seattle. He got to text my dad about that.
Yeah. Yeah.
But no, yeah. I thought about going to a few different schools, man.
Honestly, Duke wasn't even probably a top two or three until COVID hit. Because I remember going on five official visits my junior year before COVID and everything.
And so I went to Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Gonzaga and I had a blast on four out of five and Duke was the one I actually had, you know, it was a great experience, you know, being around the campus but like I didn't have a fun time, like it wasn't that fun. Yeah, yeah.
And so I kind of had, it was like, like, you know, not really feeling it.

But once COVID hit and everything shut down, like, you know, I just kind of started thinking about it even more and more. And that's when Coach K like, you know, you would expect a guy like him, the, you know, the goat to not be so, you know, anxious to talk to me every single day.

But he was like by far out of any coach, you know, calling me the most, texting me the most throughout the pandemic. Sounds like a violation.
No, no, no. He was calling you and I'll open up the file again.
So you didn't really want to go to Duke. And then when the country shut down, all the investigative parts of the NCAA shut down.
He started being in touch with you. No, I think what happened was I was a 16-year-old kid taking visits, and I was caught up in, oh, I didn't have that much fun on this Duke visit.
Right. So they're not that high up on my list.
And then COVID kind of brought me back down to earth, and I realized, look, I'm trying to go to the NBA. Yeah.
I'll be the number one pick. So I need to go to where I have the best opportunity.
Yeah. So obviously, listen, I don't like Coach K.
I don't like Duke, but I can admit that he's the best college coach of all time. There we go.
I mean, he is. He won in every decade.
It was crazy. All he did was win.
It pissed me off. What was it about him, though, like when you got there and you started getting into Coach K practices that made him different or how he pushed you guys? Because I do respect the fact that he's a great coach.
I don't like him otherwise, but I can say that much. Yeah.
I mean, he's just really like probably the best motivator I've ever been around. He just knows how to push your buttons and get the best out of you, no matter who it is.
He's just so good at knowing how to communicate with each and every person on the team. You know, he communicates to everyone differently.
And so I think for him, with me, it was like he saw how talented I was, but he knew that I had to become more of a leader and more of a voice, you know, because I used to, you know, I was really one of those guys that just kind of let this play do the talking, you know by example type of guy like I wasn't um very vocally you know active and coming in as a freshman like you know he would let me know like man it doesn't matter that you're a freshman you gotta if you're the best player on the team you gotta be a leader you gotta be the vocal leader you know or you're never the team's never gonna be what it should be right you're not leading it and so like I struggled you know understanding that at times back then but like now three years later when i'm in the nba like i fully understand and like it's crazy because everything he's ever told me or like everything he ever said was going to happen if i did this or did that like it's happened yeah so like when i look back and think about all the stuff he's ever told me or got on me about it's all like true and all came to fruition. Yeah.
It's crazy. That's pretty cool.
I read a story that he called your mom one time. And he told your mom, I'm going to read the quote here.
Paolo's going to call you tomorrow because I'm about to get in his ass. And then your mom said, I promise you he's not going to call this house.
It's not a soft place to land. And Coach K said, I've been trying to talk to him and I can tell he's mad, but I'm trying to be nice.
And then your mom told Coach K that if you want him to get pissed, if you want him to do what you want him to do, ream his ass, then kick him out of practice. Don't kick him out where he can sit in the locker room.
Kick him out of the building. So your mom was coaching Coach K on how to coach you at the time.
How crazy is that? That sounds like my mom right there. Yeah.
And she was an unbelievable basketball player herself, right? Yeah. She was an unbelievable player.
And she was a coach, too, up until I was probably 13, 14. She was a coach.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Wait, did you never want to play football? Because your dad played football. No, I played football.
Yeah. I was like my first love.
Were you obviously an incredible football player, too? Yeah was i was legit yeah i was legit and then i would say i hit a i started hitting my growth spurt and you know once you get to above like 6'6 in football it gets kind of hard yeah guys you know it's hard to get low you know but i love football man i was like my first love my dad i remember him taking me out back to the backyard when I was like six years old, working on hitting. Like, I love football.
I still watch football, religiously study it, follow it, you know, college and NFL. So my little brother plays receiver, you know, so.
Where does he play? He plays, he's a junior in high school. Oh, nice.
Oh, okay. So yeah.
Trying to get him to college. He should be good though.
So you're a Seahawks fan? Yep. All right.
You had a pretty good experience growing up then. Yes.
That was the golden age, man. Yeah.
That was like prime Seattle. Yeah.
Yeah. So Marshawn Lynch guy? He was Marshawn Lynch, Legion of Boom, all that.
Pete Carroll. Wait, where do you land on the Anthony Edwards that can play in the NFL? Yeah, someone else asked me about that.

I said that I think he would do it until he took a real hit,

and I think he'd want to go back and play basketball.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

The minute you go over the middle, it's like, okay,

it was pretty nice making hundreds of millions of dollars guaranteed money

in the NBA.

Exactly.

That's a big thing.

I also feel like you could just be a tight end on goal line packages. Oh, yeah.
Just throw a jump ball up. They don't have to put you in where you're going to get hit.
Yeah, no, I mean, I could play receiver. Yeah.
Yeah. For sure.
I would like to see that. I would like to see another two sports at this time, basketball and football.
I think it would be good for both sports. So you said at one point that you're delusional, that you don't think you have any weaknesses in your game.

I like that.

I like that a lot.

And I can tell that you get, like even just talking about the UNC stuff and Duke,

you have a chip on your shoulder where you're still pissed off about that

and you carried that forward.

You probably used that to make you better.

But if you think that you're self-admitted delusional

and you think that there are no weaknesses in your game, how then do you figure out what you have to improve on? By just realizing that I'm not perfect. You're really never going to be perfect.
So I think just doing whatever I can to chase perfection, like, or strive for it. You know, I think if you can strive for it, you'll land somewhere close to it.
And so just whatever I can do. I mean, obviously, like, I'm only in my third year, so every year has been something that I can improve on.
Like, nothing I feel is a weakness because I feel like I can do everything, but there are certain areas that, you know, I can get better at or that I can improve on, especially, you know, coming into the NBA. You know, it's a different game, better players.

So you have to sharpen up on a lot of stuff that, you know, in high school and college,

you can physically dominate guys.

And so I was so used to that.

You know, high school, it was really no challenges.

College, it was, you know, challenges, but it was, you know, pretty easy for the most

part.

UNC.

Yeah, but even UNC wasn't doing nothing. I'm on the even unc wasn't doing that i had 20 and 10 they wasn't stopping nothing but uh yeah i think every every level i think to be the best you you can't just stop working or you can't ever you know stay in one place i think you just have to always add something or sharpen something yeah you were i mean you were good right away uh in the nba but you were also a teenager to start in the nba was there any moment where you're like this is grown men like uh uh not a welcome to the nba moment because i think you had a ferocious dunk like one of your first couple games yeah but was there any moment where you're like oh shit like this is man strength verse i gotta get my weight up yeah my first uh people always talk about like the first regular season game being like the thing but like for me it was pre-season because that's i mean it's live action right so we played uh we played at memphis our for my first ever nba action was at memphis and uh that was they had a good unit that was when they had jod bane um brooks steven adams jaron jackson um and so yeah i was on steven adams a couple times and like uh i tried to free throw line box out and i'm trying to box him out and he just like nudged me with one arm all the way under the hoop and it was just like nothing you could do yeah i didn't have a very good game and so i just remember being like oh yeah that was different was not, you know, college, that was not anything.
Like that was a different speed, different strength, like all over the floor. And so I think those preseason games helped me.
So then when that first regular season came, you know, I was already kind of adjusted to it. But like my first taste of the NBA was like it was rough.
Like I don't think I scored more than eight, you know, seven, seven eight points that game yeah so so when you get to the nba obviously your number one pick everyone knows you're incredible basketball player but was there ever a moment where you get on the court with someone you watched and you're you had like a second where you're like oh shit that's kevin durant oh damn that's lebron where you had to like almost snap wait, no, I'm Powell Ben-Carroll. I've got to play in this game.

Yeah, I say every superstar I say that I played against in my rookie year,

I had a decent game except LeBron.

KD, I played well.

We battled.

He had 40 on my head, but I had 20-something.

I felt like I played all right.

But like Bron, I remember the first time we played Bron in Orlando, and I was just starstruck. In my rookie year, I had a terrible game, too.
I had two points, fouled out. Probably one of my worst games in the NBA.
But the whole time, it was like, I couldn't. I was like, damn, Bron's out here, and I'm out here.
And I couldn't get past it. I couldn't even think straight.
Yeah. Have you gotten, like, words of encouragement from somebody that you grew up, like, idolizing, somebody that you grew up as a fan of, and they see you, and they recognize you, and they come over to you and, like, let you know, like, hey, you're going to be great? Yeah, I mean, it's happened a lot, you know, up to now.
But I would say, like, you know, hearing it from Katie, Carmelo, those two right there, you know, I saw them my rookie year all-star break. And we were in an event and I was in the same event.
And they both pulled me to the side and we were all having a conversation. And basically they were just telling me, you know, you know, I'm one of I'm one of those guys.
I just got to, you know, stay, stay hungry, stay in the gym. And so my rookie year, hearing that from those two,

it was like that was all I needed to hear.

I didn't need no other validation from anybody else.

Those are two of my probably top three, four favorite guys ever.

So I would say that moment.

Yeah, it's got to be cool.

It's going to be awesome.

One day you'll get a statue.

Yeah.

You want a statue like Dwayne? I mean, there's a picture. Oh, you're talking about a statue of me? Yeah.
I mean, hell yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I just think a statue would be dope.
Obviously, I want it to be a pretty good resemblance of me, though. I think I've been seeing a couple statues that have been a little – Yeah.
You've got to be involved in the sculpting process the entire way. I've got to approve it.
You want to be surprised. Yeah, I've got to approve it it for sure.
Yeah, you got to see it. So this last year, you guys go to the playoffs.
The Magic are a really young team, fun team. You go to the playoffs.
You go to seven against the Cavs. Could you feel the difference playing in playoff basketball, like the intensity? And also, was there ever a moment where you're like, damn, these games suck? Because there were a couple games that were tough.
Yeah, I think. Both sides.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think definitely feel the difference.
Yeah. 100% you feel the difference just with everything.
The atmosphere, the buildup, the refereeing, you know, everything is just different. The trash talk, you know, everything is just elevated in the playoffs.
And then, yeah, I think those first two games were, like, pretty shitty because it was our first two games ever in the playoffs as a team. And I just remember Cleveland was talking so much shit, like, you know, telling us we wasn't ready for this and, like, they're beating us so we can't really talk.
And then I just remember winning those next two at home and, like, we all kind of felt like, nah, we belong here, you know what I'm saying? And then we, you know, game five is the one that hurts for me because I was so sure that we was going to win that game. And so when we didn't, I feel like that, you know, that game, if we win that game, I think we win the series in game six.
So when we lost that game, I think we lost about one or two at the last second. You know, that was tough.
And then game six won that. That was a hell of a game in Orlando, just doing that in front of the fans yeah game seven that was like big for the city i think just doing that you know not going home fighting another live another day and then uh game seven was tough too man because we were up you know 18 i think and we just felt you felt it for a second like we're about to do this like it felt like that for a second and then that shit just just went away in the second half.
But that's also kind of the beauty of the NBA is young teams are so much fun because they have to go through the pains, and they have to build up. So it's like you guys kind of earned your stripes last year.
Do you feel that coming back this year where it's like we went to the playoffs, we went to a game seven. Yeah, we didn't advance, but we know what it takes to get back to that spot.
Next year, it's going to be different. Yeah, 100%.
I think that's just the attitude of everyone. I think the whole summer, I think leaving after that Game 7 loss, I think that was just the whole vibe was like, this is just the beginning.
We're going to be back here, and it won't be the same result. So I think that just motivated everyone on the team throughout the summer.
And you just saw guys working and getting better. And, you know, when we came back for training camp, we had a pretty intense training camp, probably the best – or not probably – definitely the best camp I've been a part of since being with the Magic and the NBA.
And I think, you know, everyone's kind of poised right now and just trying to stay steady throughout this early season and realizing how important this early season is too because that's what helped us last year was having such a good start. So I think, yeah, everyone's just in a good mind frame.
I feel like the NBA playoffs, we don't talk about how long it is enough and how many games you have to play sometimes. It's a hell of a journey.
I remember just thinking after Game 7, I'm spent right now mentally and physically like i couldn't imagine having to get it together go play in two days at boston and start a whole nother you know series yeah especially you got like three more series after that exactly and to be able to win a championship is like that does seem to me like we talk about hockey being so hard we talk about the nfl if you have to go on the road a few times playing one game a week. But in NBA postseason, you're adding on like an extra two and a half months of your season.
Yeah. No, it's a full-blown second season.
That's what it feels like. But what about the NBA Cup? Maybe third season.
How focused are you right now on the NBA Cup? I think the NBA Cup's good. I think I like it.
We had a chance to make it last year. We lost a tiebreaker or else we would have been, you know, in Vegas.
But I think it's dope for the league to like have something early in the year that fans can be drawn to and, you know, you can win some money and a trophy. And it's also, you know, certain bragging rights are part of it, I think, as well, where you got got these pools with teams and you've got the NBA Cup showdown in Las Vegas.

I think it's all cool.

Yeah, thinking about going heavy on the magic for the NBA Cup.

To me, that's like how you guys learn how to win.

Yeah, you've got to win.

That's basically a playoff series.

Yeah, it can be, yeah.

Yeah.

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Hey, are you going to ever play for Team Italy?

You have an Italian passport, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm a citizen.

Listen, I'm not Italian, but my kids are Italian,

so I'm supportive.

I'm an Italian father, so I am supportive of your culture.

Max in the booth there, he's full Italian, kind of crazy, angry, and all that stuff. So are you going to do it, though? Well, I was.
And then now you're going to play for Team USA. Well, I already did play for Team USA.
But I'm saying, wait, were you in this Olympics? No. No, no, no.
I was in the World Cup. Yeah.
But so the next Olympics, you're in Team USA. So even if Italy drops a bag, what if Italy's like, Paolo, you're our guy, 100 mil.
Put a horse head in your bed. Sheesh.
100 million? Yeah. I don't know if I could turn that down.
Yeah, you can't turn that down. Yeah, I don't think I could turn that down.
What if it's guys like us playing on the team with you? I mean, I've seen their team. We played against them, actually.
When I played for USA, we played against Italy in the quarterfinals. And they were pretty good? No, we won by 40.
We won by 40. But it was a fun game.
They were heckling me a little bit, so I felt like it was dope. It was dope having that international.
They didn't really like me, it was like i embraced it it was cool okay and all the players and coaches showed love it was fans yeah you know it was i that was a that was a hell of a process man i that was a hell of a process yeah that whole uh that was after my rookie year like it was when i had to make the decision and uh i had been talking to italy for a while because they reached out to me when i was like 16 years old reached out to my dad and i'm sure they saw my name and was like who the hell is this kid he's got an o on the end of his name yeah with this italian name and so um at the time i had been trying out for usa's junior teams and i got cut so i wasn't really rocking rocking with the whole USA thing because I was salty about getting cut. And so I committed to play for Italy and they were going to put me right on to the national team as a 16, 17 year old.
And I was going to play until COVID. If COVID never happened, I would have played in 2020.
You wouldn't have gone to Duke and you would have been an Italian hero. I probably would have still went to Duke.
You kind of said you didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would have still went to Duke, though. Italian hero.
Yeah, I mean, you're going to... I assume the next Olympics, your eyes are on Team USA and want to be in the Olympics.
I mean, you should be. Yeah, I think that would be cool, especially being in LA.
Yeah.

But that's a long ways away.

Yeah, that is a long ways away.

But I'm going to vote for you.

I think it's a fan vote, and I'll fan vote you in.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

It was fun watching the Olympics this summer.

I was back home.

It was fun watching it.

Yeah.

Did you see our mutual friend Donnie McGrath partying with the team after?

No, I didn't.

Oh, I'll show you that video after.

I didn't see that. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, wait.
You know what? He was in Paris during that time. Yeah, he was.
Yeah. Donnie's a former teammate of mine.
Yeah, sounds about right. TBT.
That's Donnie right there. He's the best.
Yeah, with Lyft. You guys are crushing it.
Yes, sir. They're doing great things right now.
Yeah, they're the best. I feel like that would be an awesome honor to represent the United States at the Olympics.
But at the same time, you probably want a break from taking basketball, right? Give me my offseason. Well, yeah.
I mean, that was, yeah, I think definitely. Well, I don't think there's any international competitions leading up to it.
So if that was to present itself, I think being a part of that is probably a dope experience. I was on the World Cup team.
That was a little different. We didn't medal or anything.
So that was like a shitty experience. But I think if you win gold, though, it's worth it.
But if you lose, though, it's like trash. It's really no win.
It's like in the U.S., you should win at basketball. What's the one thing? I feel like all sports culture has kind of gotten a little weird with fans.
We're idiots. We sit on the couch.
We're like, oh, we could do that. What's the one thing that fans think that is easy in basketball? You're like, you have no idea.
Because there are guys who rip NBA players. You don't understand.
Even the NFL NBA debates. You don't understand how good NBA players are.
Even the last guy on the bench. Yeah, no, I think, I mean, fans, I think are really emotional.
Obviously, they act off emotion. So when you see someone have a bad game, they suck automatically.
But one, I think they don't realize for basketball players how tough it is to play 82 games or be in an 82-game season. Just with the traveling, getting in late, 3, 4 a.m., having to wake up the next day and play, and then fly out and play the next day.
You know, it's like there's certain stretches of the season where it's going to get to anybody. And so, obviously, fans want to see their team win no matter what.
But I think there's certain parts of the season where guys are starting to feel fatigued and mentally, physically. And then I think just on the court, probably just – man, it's hard to do – the NBA is the hardest league in the world.
It's hard to do anything in the NBA. I think that's something that a lot of people, even hoopers that aren't in the nba you know they say oh the nba so much space is so easy like it's only easy if you're like good as fuck like right you have you have to be like one of those guys and you have to like have a crazy work ethic take care of your body like or just be the most talented guy in the world to even put up those type of numbers so when you see see guys like Luka making it look all easy or like me or whoever, like, yeah, it looks easy on this Instagram reel, but like this shit is hard, man.
That's like J.J. Redick said it a couple years ago, which I never really thought about until he mentioned it.
He's like, everyone's like, oh, yeah, the NBA, they don't play defense. Like, no, the offense is so goddamn good that even if you play perfect defense, like Kevin Durant or Paolo Bancaro, they're going to still score 25.
Oh yeah. You come into it, the best players, you're not stopping certain guys from getting 30, 25, 30 points.
You can make it hard and hopefully get a couple cut stops cut stops you know when you need to but like you know certain dudes you're not stopping yeah i do love

the the mentality though of the average hater online like somebody that's that divorced from

reality that they're like dude you suck yeah so if you took like the hat the average hater online

and you said lock them in a gym with you and they have uh two days to score one basket and only one

of you can leave like if he scores the basket you have to stay in that gym for the rest of your life. Yeah.
And vice versa. Do you think someone could score on you in two days? Hell no.
Average player? No. Like, no.
You're talking about, like, an average person? Yeah, just one basket. No.
At any time. Like, if you fall asleep, you can dribble to the basket.
If it's two days straight, no rest. No, if I lose, I got to stay in the rest of my life.
Rest your life. I would not let them score.
Yeah, you wouldn't sleep. No, I wouldn't sleep.
Just lock them down? Yeah. Not even be able to throw it up? You don't think you'd be able to throw one up when you're- No, I'd just hound them.
Yeah. I could score on you, I think.
If you had 48 hours? Yeah, 48 hours. But I would trick you.
No, you'd have to check the ball up every time, though. You can't just go throw it in the basket.
It has to be some type of... Yeah, check ball.
Check ball. At the top.
I would start to dribble and just throw it behind my head and then hope that you didn't see me about to shoot it, and one of those is going to go in. One of them.
Yeah, no, you probably swat that into the fourth row.

It'd be a bad time.

Last Duke question.

Are you in the Brotherhood?

Yeah.

Okay.

What do you have to do to be in the Brotherhood?

Like, what do you have to say?

Do you have meetings and stuff?

What goes on?

It can't be explained, man.

You got to be there to be a part of it.

When you are a part of the Brotherhood, does anyone ever bring up the name Pete Gaudette? No. Okay.
All right. Yeah, I figured that.
That's the guy that when Coach K faked an injury because he had a bad team and he made Pete Gaudette take all his losses that season. I don't even know.
Yeah, I know. I'll tell you all about him after.
They don't let Pete around. Yeah.
What about JJ? Is he still in the brotherhood? JJ, 100%. He came to a few games when I was there with his sons.
Do you guys have a group chat? Do we have a group chat? Oh, yeah. Is there a brotherhood group chat? No.
Okay. No, I mean, we have a group chat with my team.
With your guys. My current team.
The 22 team, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, when you get to the NBA, do people still care where you went to college? Do they still talk shit or no? Yeah. I mean, whenever I go to Charlotte, it's always funny because I got a bunch of people in there who are Duke, and they're all loving, showing love, and then there's always some UNC fans who are giving me shit about losing.
Yeah. So whenever to charlotte i'm hearing that uh and then yeah different different places there'll be a duke fan or or sometimes someone let me know hey you guys lost to carolina like i get that all the time yeah yeah even when you're sitting doing a podcast exactly uh one thing i love about the magic is just their uh their throwback uniforms you ever push to be like hey can we can we wear the penny uniforms uniforms more? Yeah, I was sick that they took them away this year.
Those was like, that jersey is a staple, I think, just with the Magic and obviously the old school, new school vibe. I wish we could have kept wearing those.
Yeah, they got to bring that back. When you moved to Orlando, were you blown away by the majesty of the city? I was like, yeah, that messed me up a little bit.
I'm not going to lie. I hadn't been to Orlando before.
So I'm from Seattle. So in my head, I just thought Orlando's where Disney World is, Orlando magic.
Orlando's got to be a big city. And so when I got there, never been.
And I was like, wow, this is super small, way smaller than Seattle. and so when i got there never been and i was like wow this is super small like yeah way smaller than seattle uh and so it was like weird at first um but now i'm like i love it there now like it's paradise yeah it's sunny yeah chill there's like nice little dinner spots and stuff medieval times yeah not too much going on yeah yeah what you mean they got a great medieval times there have you Have you been to the Chili's in the airport? No.
You haven't? No, I ain't gonna lie. The airport is rough, though.
Well, not the Chili's. The Chili's is great.
You're getting rid of the Chili's, though. Yeah, there's an escalator that goes up to it.
Stairway to heaven. I don't like eating in airports, though.
Nah, go to that Chili's. Change your mind.
You gotta breeze by the medieval times. You've never been to medieval times? No times? No you gotta tell me about that Oh it's dinner And you also get to watch a bunch of knights Like joust each other And fight each other with swords and shit Yeah It's a great time Maybe we should do a team dinner there or something Yes That would rock Yeah Yes That would be awesome If you do a team dinner at medieval times You guys are guys are definitely winning the NBA Cup.
I can guarantee that.

That's team chemistry.

Yeah.

That's like, at the end, they're like, how'd you guys do it?

It's like, well, we actually went to Medieval Times.

Medieval Times.

Yeah, like three months ago, and it was awesome.

Yeah.

I did find a couple weaknesses in your game.

Oh, no.

I know you said that you're delusional and that there's no weaknesses in your game, but

I get a couple.

One is you currently lead the league in interceptions this year.

What do you mean? That's a Patrick Mahomes question. Oh, yeah.
That was a weird moment, wasn't it? Yeah. That was, yeah, that was like a, that was like, that like introduced me to the world in a way.
It was weird. It was so weird, man.
Like, it was crazy because I'm on the track, right? And at the time, I'm not even in the NBA yet. It's the F1 race in Miami.
It's the F1 race. And so I'm on the track, and I'm just taking it all in.
I never – I actually love – I used to love NASCAR, so I always loved cars racing and stuff. So the F1 thing was dope to be there.
And I just remember walking, bro, and I just kept hearing, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. And I'm like, man, I wonder who Patrick is.
Whoever is Patrick, someone needs to get Patrick. And then I hear Patrick, and then someone hits me on the back.
And I'm like, what? And I look, and it's like this camera in Martin Brundle. And the camera's in my face.
And I'm like, wait, huh? And so I'm not even realizing that this is like a world broadcasted interview. I'm thinking this is like local channel or I don't know what it is.
I've never been to F1. So I'm like, you know, I'm lost.
And he's like, Patrick, you know, what is it about being here? And so I just answer his question. And I think he kind of realized in the middle of the interview that I wasn't who I thought or who he thought I was.
And so it was like a 45-second interview. And he walked off.
I walked off. And then right after that, my phone just started going nuts.
It's so funny. Everyone started blowing me like, yo, yo, you was just on TV, bro.
He just thought you were Patrick Mahomes. He just chased you.
He just chased you for like a minute. You know, I thought you were Patrick Mahomes.
And so that was like the running joke. And then the next year at F1, I actually, you know, hung out with Pat Mahomes a little bit.
So we moved up. It was cool.
Yeah. That's perfect.
All right. Well, Paolo, this has been awesome.
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That's www.nobullproject.com backslash barstool for 30% off. So, Rookie of the Year, All-Star, do we want to say that you're going to win an MVP at some point? Be the first to report it.
Can we be the first to report that Paolo Bencaro is going to win the MVP one year? Yeah, I definitely think that. Okay, there it is.
Exclusive. Yes, exclusive.
We got the exclusive inside scoop, Paolo Bencaro MVP at some point. Can I tell you a secret pick? Yeah, I think it might be this year.
Yeah? You thinking that? You-hmm. You might still be in the zone.
It's not impossible.

It can happen.

It's only game four, but I don't put anything past myself. If the season ended today, would you be MVP?

I think you would.

I think you would.

Four games.

It'd be fucked up season.

Yeah, that would be a crazy season.

It'd be a crazy season.

Yeah.

Well, we're going to root for you now.

I'll put the Duke aside.

We're going to be Paolo guys through and through, so we got your back. You just have to come on anytime you're in Chicago.
We're done. We're going to join.
And it's perfect because you obviously, I think you went on Rosillo's podcast. He's kind of borderline like obsessed with you in a weird way.
Who? Ryan Rosillo. I probably, I did.
Is he a magic? No, he's Ryan Russillo. He's lives out in the, he lives out in LA.
The ringer is Ryan Russillo. I got shaved head.
Yeah. Strong guy.
I think I'm going to come up, but I've been on his show. Yeah.
You've been on his show. He like, have I been on his show? Yes.
Yes. Yeah.
You've been on his show. He would like die for you.
He's a Paolo rider.

And so now we're going to just go on to his block and we're going to take it over.

So we'll be with him, but we're going to say we were there first.

Okay.

Yeah.

We got your back.

We got your back.

We'll beat the fuck out of us.

We don't want him to get his stink on you.

Yeah.

No, he loves you.

He gets obsessed with guys.

Yeah.

And he's one of your guys.

So it's good to have like media people. There's a couple of media people who have your back, I would assume.
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
You guys are the ones that reach everybody. People listen to what you guys say, man.
Yeah. Which is scary.
That's a scary thing to think about. I'm already willing to go to war for you.
Do you have any enemies out there? None that you got to take care of, man. All right.
You let us know. Yeah.
If it pops up yeah i will because i don't i mean i'll show you later what i made a little uh card for all my coach case slander facts and i was handing them out in new orleans so i can get to work for you i you give me the name you know what did you make a video doing that yeah i was just handing i think i saw that yeah yeah yeah all those crazy i I was handing it to old ladies, and they were just like, whoa, I didn't know Coach K, Pete Gaudette. I didn't know that he did this.
Yeah, I was opening minds. We're probably the best assholes that you can have in your corner online.
I bullied a horse off Twitter one time. Yeah.
Made his fat ass quit. Kentucky Derby winner? Nyquist.
Nyquist. Winner? Yeah.
That fat bitch won the Kentucky Derby. Then he got fat and out of shape and did load management.
Yeah. And didn't even compete in...
Is it a preakness he bowed out of? So he got him off. So he didn't have that dog in.
Yeah. Gave him shit.
And then he logged offline. Yeah.
Gone. So yeah, if you need anybody to log off, you let us know.
We're on it. We're on it.
That's what y'all do. I got it.
Well, Paolo, thanks so much, man. We really appreciate you coming by.
And anytime you're in Chicago, we'd love to have you on.

So again, so you're a recurring guest.

You actually have to legally.

That's the deal?

Yeah.

No, once you come on once, you legally have to come on every time.

Well, I actually enjoyed this, man.

Oh, okay.

There we go.

I love that.

We can rock with this.

Yeah.

If like Rosillo asked you in the future, like you've been on part of my take, you guys

say, yeah, I know those guys.

Yeah.

I love those guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I love those guys.
Yeah. I definitely, definitely.
I mean, this is like a whole thing right here. And we don't really ask normal questions, I would say for the most part, because we're stupid.
So that's how this one goes. That's how these interviews go.
Very dumb. But yeah.
Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.
Appreciate you guys, man. Thank you.
Rated T for Teen. My name is paul hayman special counsel to roman reigns and the bloodlines wise man step out of the ropes and onto the island in wwe 2k25 an epic wwe themed world ruled by the one and only roman reigns the return of promos plus intergender matches my gm goes multiplayer and more wwe 2k25 available now okay let's finish up we got faqs hank yeah hank I still agree with I don't know if this is a

there's a follow up

hey yeah hank i still agree with i don't know if this is a there's a follow-up hey pmt team i notice whenever an interviewee says great question whoever didn't ask echoes that statement cracks me every time i was curious why slash when you started doing that just boosting your boys i don't know yeah we're just listen we're just a team here great question that's a good question yeah just boost just just lifting up our brothers it's a hard game out here i don't know what what the first great question was that we should go back and try to find that out yeah the origin of the great question what came first great question chicken or the egg great question great question the chicken great question what's up boys uh you guys have been all over for various sporting events what is your favorite city to go to for a big sport new orleans new orleans i new orleans is up there i always throw indy in there i mean the vegas super bowl was incredible it was i would like to do vegas should have the super bowl every year uh yeah vegas should have the super bowl every vegas is good to go to when when they have just any good big sporting event because it gives you an excuse just to be in Vegas. It's the perfect.
Because you know you're going to have a ton of hotel rooms. You know you're going to have fun.
It's the perfect. Tons of food, nightlife, clubs like that.
Vegas Super Bowl we did. A bunch of interviews.
Went to the casino. Went to the club.
The sphere. Went to dinner.
The sphere. They have it all.
F1 is there. F1, yeah.
End of the month. Yep.
And guess what? It will rock because that's what Vegas does. I think Vegas might be back.
Did it ever leave? I think it left for a little bit, and now it's all the way back. I miss the Tunnel of Chaos.
Yeah, the Tunnel of Chaos is pretty good. Oh, they should name.
I wonder if the F1 track has a tunnel in any of them. Name it the Tunnel of Chaos.
Just go through the Tunnel of Chaos. Raines money.
Yeah, Dana White's just on top of a bridge throwing buckets of cash on the drivers. Yeah.
The race is going through the strip. Oh.
And it might be a championship race. Hell yeah.
The season's coming to an end, so that might be the deciding race. If you in vegas you could see you know either what is it the daniel ricardo constructors championship yeah or the individual championship yeah daniel ricardo also retired guy you never know he could be there never know brett farre danny rick lando he's back it's lando's year yeah question not for pft but about pft has the glimmer of possible competence through eight weeks for the commanders turned pft into a completely delusional football fan yes let's look at the wins giants ass bangles ass cardinals ass but frisky browns with the sean ass panthers mega ass bears loser franchise are the commanders good or just an easy schedule it's not for me i can't answer this uh yes i think they're good you can answer it well the question was has this commander's team turned pft into a completely delusional football fan guess what the commander's also the rest of their schedules got a lot of ass on it too there's a lot of ass in the nfl right now yeah they have uh the giants the steelers those are tough game or the steelers would be a tough game eagles tough game then they play the cowboys titans saints i mean they're i see i see the and then they finish with the eagles falcons cowboysboys.
I see a bare minimum. Another four wins.
Easy. Don't say bare minimum.
Okay. I don't think I'm delusional.
I know the question's not for me. I don't think I'm delusional.
I just think that I know that you have a guy when you got a guy. And I think that we got a guy.
And I think that this guy. That's why I said I'm not saying Super Bowl this season.
I'm saying we could win a playoff game this season. I don't think we're a Super Bowl team.
I think that the Super Bowl window is open because we have a guy, and he's the guy, and he's on his rookie contract, and we've got one of the – I don't know if we have the most cap space, but definitely top five cap space in the NFL. I think you guys, yeah, are pretty good.
You're one or two. And, yeah, and then we're going to get a new stadium in the next, like, four years.
so yeah years. I don't think it's delusional to say that I'm existing inside of a Super Bowl window right now.
Yeah, you're inside a Super Bowl window. I haven't jumped out yet.
Next year. But the window based on plans.
Next year. But we should operate as if the window is open.
Operate under the the window being open the window is cracked right now and i'm thinking about opening it up there's a nice draft that's coming through sup boys not an faq but i am a disgruntled giants fan reliving the same torture season over and over again was thinking about this today as now the jets collapse is official too do you think if the jets and giants combined rosters they the Super Bowl? I like to think yes, but these franchises are so cursed, I don't know anymore. Whose helmets do they wear? Giants? Probably.
Yeah, maybe. Who's the quarterback? Rodgers.
Okay. Who's the coach? Rodgers.
Dable. I mean, Dexter Lawrence on that defensive line would stop a lot of those run problems.
Malik Neighbors. Finally get the Jets and help a wide receiver.
I think they could. Yeah.
They'd go to the AFC. Well, they'd go to the AFC and NFC Championship game, I guess.
Mm-hmm. They could.
I mean, add Notre Dame in there because Notre Dame has more touchdowns than the Jets and Giants

in MetLife Stadium this year.

I don't know if you guys saw that stat.

I did not see that.

Insult stat going around.

Did you see that, memes?

Did you see that stat?

I've seen it.

We haven't played many home games.

Yeah.

I think it was seven for Notre Dame.

I think it was five for the Jets.

Yeah, Jets have five.

And Giants have one?

I think two.

Two.

Who owns the team in this scenario?

Mr. Mara or Mr.
Johnson? It has to be Mr. Mara.
Has to be Mr. Mara.
Mr. Johnson can't own this team.
Yeah. I think you got Pelichek to coach.
They'd be pretty good. They'd be pretty good.
Coach for half the game. Yeah, they'd be pretty good.
All right. Last anyone? Last one? If the Bears or Commanders don't win a Super Bowl until after y'all have retired from the show, will we get a one-night-only live reaction pod? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I'll do it.
Guaranteed. Guaranteed.
I'll do it. Yeah.
There should be a window, though. Actually, no.
No window. No window.
We've been 80 years old. Yeah, 80 years old.
Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it.
Yes. Just put one up.
That would be fun. What about if we lose a Super Bowl? I think we should do that, too.
Also that. Also that.
There will be a post-mortem. If the Bears or Commanders are in the Super Bowl, you'll get a podcast no matter how old we are.
That's fair. But you have to stay subscribed to part of my take.
Yeah. Never unsubscribe.
Just pop it up. A ghost podcast.
Yeah. Like, oh, I thought these guys were dead.
Memes is saying something. What are you saying, Memes? We need people to start subscribing again.
There's a new tab on Apple Podcasts. That's like most subscribed shows, and we're not in the top 100.
Oh, okay. So let's subscribe.
We need everybody to subscribe. Subscribe.
Let's bring back roast for a little bit. Yeah.
How about that? Next week we'll do roast. Subscribe.
Leave a five-star roast on the podcast. Yep.
Or a five-star rating on the podcast and the comment for it,

just roast the fuck out of us.

Yep.

And we will read the funniest roasts.

Yeah.

Love that.

Love that.

Okay.

Good show, boys.

Hey, it's Rhea from Trix in the Office.

It's officially mini skort season

and Abercrombie has the ones to go out in.

Their Scarlet Mini is a classic.

It's one of those skirts

that fits the outfit vibe for any plans.

And I'm excited to style their new Sienna skort

All right, numbers. You can get five.
I got five on it. You technically said five before I said numbers.

Anyone would like five.

They can take five.

Would anyone like five?

Five.

Oh, Max, I knew you'd do that.

Three.

I know you want five.

I'll take one.

Hank, what do you got?

19.

21. 90.

Oh, that would have been great if it was five.

See you guys.

Love you guys. Thank you.
Thank you.