NFL Preview With Field Yates, College Football Is Back, Deion Sanders Has Receipts And Who's Back Of The Week

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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 of my take, we have our good friend Field Yates, actually a recurring guest because he helped us prank Mike Florio a couple years ago.
Good friend of the program. Actually, it's kind of weird, PFT, but we got guests changing their flights for us.
So Jerry O'Connell on on friday flew into chicago field yates extended his stay in chicago just to be on the show let's not book mark walberg on the show we could have another national security that's true that's true field yates was great though we did an entire preview of the nfl he gave us some fantasy little sleepers here and there uh very smart guy knows the league get us ready for football being back week. We're going to talk some college football, a lot of great college football the last whatever it was, five days in a row.
Who's back of the week? The boys are back. Reminder, we have a show today, we have a show Wednesday, then we have a show Friday.
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Okay, let's go.

Boys!

Boys!

Now in the street there is violence. We'll be is back.
Football is back, baby a question for you big cat yes do you believe now yeah oh i believe now do you believe now so i i wanted to start with dion but i want to do it even take it to a macro level the pack 12 is back oh okay fully so the pack dion switched the balance of college football the pack 12 is dead we know that but for one last year they're back you ready for this stat this is from greg maroz m-r-o-z greg just like justin mirage yeah yeah exactly uh since 1980 no conference has ever won their first 13 games of the season the pack 12 did it this year that's pretty spectacular pretty insane the last year of the pac-12 and the pac-12 went 13 and 0 to start the season yeah it's pretty good i mean shout out dion though yeah nobody believed in dion we believed in dion love it i know we picked him off air we talked about it off the air we didn't say it on the air but we believe we believe in dion i believe in travis hunter oh i believe in travis hunter 129 snaps so he played 129 snaps he had 11 catches for 119 yards on offense on defense he had two tackles and an interception now their defense wasn't spectacular but they did enough to win this is a crazy stat here you ready the last two players with 20 receptions and three interceptions in a season are Chris Gamble and Champ Bailey. Travis Hunter already has 11 receptions and one interception.
Yeah, it hasn't been done. Wild.
What he did hasn't been done in 20 years. Shador Sanders was incredible.
510 yards, four receivers with 100 yards or more. Shout out Sean Lewis, the oc he's a badger from kent state he went you know he was a head coach at kent state was like i'm gonna go to colorado i'm just gonna fucking turn this thing up with these guys that game was awesome deon pisses people off so much i love deon sanders so much because he makes our job easy because he starts.
Deion is basically the tree of life in Avatar for takes. So people get so upset at what Deion's doing.
And Deion also like the receipts and going and just attacking reporters, which I love. Then we had an entire discussion about reporters being fanboys and how Deion wrong for saying that like people doubted him.
That's not their job. And it's like, well, no, Dion's pumping himself up.
This is what Dion's doing to get his team motivated, to get his school motivated, to get his program motivated, to going from a one win season to then beating the national title runner-up as a 20 and a half point underdog at their home stadium week one it was shocking and awesome and everything so dion the the takes that i saw i i have two that i want to share with you pft one is from uh uh said golden who when we started the discussion about fanboys in college football and people being like well we're not supposed to say that you know dion like dion's calling out receipts that's not our job our job is to objectively report and it's it's ridiculous that he would like say this uh said golden said don't get me started on the blurry line between fans and journalists wearing the team's colors to the game saying we during reports etc makes me physically ill he's you know what he is he he's we fended by that yes yes shout out jim harbaugh for the great off it would have offense defense we have we fence jim harbaugh who passed away tragically that was tough the weekend uh his player his players went out there lined up information for him in remembrance of the legacy that left behind at michigan it was tragic they were in free harbaugh shirts getting off the bus they should have it wear the black patch he did self-impose that that punishment i know that it's bullshit we we stand with jim harbaugh against the ncaa but that was by the technical ruling he suspended himself yeah and they were like free harba In the big metaphor. This is it was suey season for Jim Harbaugh.
And then they lined up to remember their coach and held four. Hold their fours up.
Hold their fours in his formation. But yeah, the journalists are very upset.
It's physically ill. He said Golden is is has his head next to Ben Verlander in the toilet.
Right. I'm going to be sick.
Yeah, they're like, here, you hold my hair. Yeah, I hold yours, Shohei, and people rooting for, journalists rooting for teams.
So I don't mind what Deion did, which is basically he took some questions, and then if he didn't like what the journalist had written, he'd be like, I saw what you wrote about me. He basically said, you're fake news, next question.
And if the reporter prognosticated this game, got it wildly incorrect, going into it then dion has every right to be like you don't know what you're talking about and again he's using it as motivation for himself this is how dion runs like this is this is what you get he's very transparent with who he is and it works and the funny part is you'll get people that stand up for the journalists because you know journalists overall have an important job to do in society, I would say, if they do it correctly and they do it well. But you can't get mad at Deion Sanders for not answering questions when you then get to go ahead and you write 700 words about Deion Sanders not answering questions because you're fulfilling your own content right there.
Exactly. Back deon sanders is a tree of life yes he keeps the world going yes so there he's well within his rights to be like i'm not answering your question it's like when marshall lynch before the super bowl right was like i'm just here so i don't get fined and all the reporters are like i can't believe this this guy won't let us do our jobs i know what i'll do i'll write 2 000 words about how he won't let us do our jobs boom he gave it to you do.
I'll write 2,000 words about how he won't let us do our jobs. Boom.
He gave it to you. When Cam Newton, when he didn't answer questions after the Super Bowl, what a classless piece of shit that guy is.
I can't believe I can't follow a column. I'm on deadline.
Oh, wait. I'm currently typing my take right now about how Cam Newton is a classless piece of shit.
Yes. Deion, journalists should be thanking their lucky stars that Deion Sanders is part of college football because he makes it more fun.

I'm sure it doesn't feel good not to have a warm, fuzzy relationship with the coach of the school that you cover.

Should have said they were going to win.

You should have just sucked his dick.

Yeah, you should have put on a jersey and said they were going to win.

It's not rocket science what you have to do here.

There's a reason why we just kiss all of our friends' asses all the time.

We come and we come and we came.

Yeah.

I think Deion said that afterwards in the postgame. Yeah, that's Vin i came i came i came yeah uh the other one this one this one was great so there was also like dion obviously said something about how he pisses people off uh because his black head coach was 75 african-american team i think again i think dion is using everything just to motivate himself and his team, which I love because it works.
That's what he does. So then there became a whole discussion about that.
And there was videos of TCU students saying, fuck you, Dion Sanders before the game. There also was a video that was incredible of the, of TCU student section saying, throw it to Hunter, throw it to Hunter.
And then Travis Hunter made the goal line interception which was an incredible play which that was beautiful beautiful karma credit to the person that was taking that video too because they had the presence of mind to reverse the camera angle right after the interception and all the kids were like just stone-faced like oh my god and then somebody goes like who said that who's I think it was the guy who's holding the camera said he's like, who said it? Put your hand up. So anyway, a big discussion started.
And then Clarence Hill Jr. tweeted this out, which he then deleted because he got just dunked on royally.
But he said, you think opposing fans tell Nick Saban or Mac Brown F word you? He wrote out word F word you before the game. Or is that reserved for Deion Sandersers i've been on sidelines before and i haven't heard it the very first reply was from 2014 when on this the cbs game of the week the loudest fuck you sabin chant was happening in baton rouge yeah and then he was like oh whoops i i probably fucked this up but again f, Deion Sanders, take machine.
Like, I love that everyone has a feeling about him. And they're like, let me get some takes off.
And they're usually wrong and stupid, but they're great for the ecosystem. And he's great for the sport.
Yeah. He's awesome for the sport.
We love having these polarizing coaches that you can get your takes off about. So I'm glad.
I'm happy to see what Deion did. You know what? I think they're going to win by 30 next week in Nebraska.
I'm just going to say that that way. Deion, you hear me saying this.
You can't get mad at me. I'm on your side.
You're going to win by 30 against Nebraska. It's also the minute.
I don't think Colorado is going to go undefeated. I probably shouldn't say that, but I do.
They have a very tough schedule. I think they will.
Already, Deion has proven that he's turned this whole thing. They won one game last year.
So a lot of the conversations about Deion, rightfully so, but his son, Shadour, is one of the best quarterbacks in the country now, it looks like. And everyone was asking, can he take the step up? And he did that more so than we all expected.
But people will, when Deion takes his first loss, the world will come at Deion.

And that's how this goes.

It's just a pendulum that's going to swing back and forth.

That's going to be so much fun to watch.

We are Deion, guys.

I hope they go undefeated.

Be sick.

But you know that's coming.

But Deion doesn't care.

No, he doesn't care.

He knows that that's coming.

He knows that he talks shit.

But he backs it up more times than not.

That's going to give him more motivation. Correct.
Once they do start losing. They're going to have to come again.
They're going to get better more times than not. That's going to give him more motivation.

Correct. Once they do start losing.
They're going to have to come again. They're going to get better once they start losing.
It's going to be wild. So, yeah, people are saying that I saw a lot of takes out there about how TCU's defense sucks and how this isn't indicative of what they'll be able to do for the rest of the year.
And they had the recency bias of the last game that TCU played where they got smoked in the natty. But according to Jim Nagy, who runs the Senior Bowl, they've got like three or four future NFL players in their secondary.
Right. So they're actually not that bad of a defense.
They're a little bit undersized up front. But if you're talking about their secondary, they're very talented.
Yes. They're 20 and a half point favorites.
Yeah. This was not a fluke.
Shador Sanders is a fucking monster quarterback. He's very, very good.
Really good. Yes.
This was not. They were 20 and a half point favorites.
Yeah. This was not a fluke.
Shador Sanders is a fucking monster quarterback. He's going to be.
Very, very good. Really good.
Yes. All right.
So other story. Also, those white Colorado uniforms looked awesome.
So good. So clean.
They look like shit when they're getting their asses kicked. But when they win wearing those, they look really good.
It's also very funny. And this isn't supposed to be against Nebraska because they should have won that game against Minnesota.
That was unfortunate. They somehow figured out a way to get Matt Rule, who is going to probably write their program and then just play the most Scott Frost game ever.
They got to just flush that out of their system. But it is very funny that Nebraska and Colorado, which used to be like a great, great rivalry, that's going to be a huge, huge game on Saturday.
And Colorado is back before Nebraska is. Yeah.
Like they somehow beat them back. A team that had no hope and was like in utter despair has beaten Nebraska to the back meter.
And maybe Nebraska can win on Saturday and that they get more back. But right now, Colorado is more back than Nebraska.
Yeah. Now, if Texas wins on Saturday, they're more back than Colorado, I think.
Oh, yeah. Texas and Tuscaloosa for sure.
Absolutely. We were on back watch right now.
Yes. Other big moments.
Florida State is back. That was an incredible second half against LSU.
Listen, we love the people of Louisiana. We love the fans of LSU.
but this is the same conversation we had last year you got a coach that is probably the least likable person in the world outside of maybe Urban Meyer and so when they lose like I feel bad yeah Bill Cosby maybe like yeah it's a short list yeah in terms of coaches, though, he's probably the least likable football coach in college football right now. So when you lose, I can't feel bad because I just – Brian Kelly is so unlikable as a person.
And I do feel bad for LSU fans because I love LSU fans. But this is the – you went from like the most likable guy in Coach O to Brian Kelly.lly and so when you lose on a national stage there's a little bit of like haha look at brian kelly and his mad face for sure it was it was an ass kicking in the second half lsu came out the gate strong when they didn't score on that first drive where they had they got down to the goal line pretty much that was that was a bad miss it went downhill from there their offense didn't look good for the rest of the game.
That was stupid analytics, by the way. That was just going four downs and only running it on first down.
Yeah. Come on.
Come on, guys. Come on.
I was watching it with Hard Factor Will, who is an LSU alum. He went with us to the national championship that they won down in Louisiana.
And he very unironically was screaming at halftime, like, fire Brian Kelly's ass. Get his ass out of here.
I don't know if that's the majority opinion of lsu fans but i do know that like they're they don't like losing with brian kelly as their coach they can they can tolerate losing with coach oh right as their coach as long as they're building towards something but any small mistake by brian kelly is gonna be magnified they're like this this fucking carpetbagger coming down here and ruining our football program. Get the fuck out.
So they don't want him out. It's not the vast majority opinion.
But I do think that if he doesn't have a big season this year, you will hear some serious discussion about how much will it cost to get rid of him. It's the winning cure is all.
If you're an LSU fan, you suck up the fact that you're hiring Brian Kelly, who's not likable to basically be like, we're going to win a national title. But you did win a national title with Coach O.
So it's like, fuck. Yeah.
And they won one with Les Miles, who is likable. Yeah.
So they're saving somehow. There's a reason why Les Miles stuck around year after year of just the most like the hugest brain farts ever at the end of multiple games per season.
And that was because they liked him down there. Yeah.
The state of Louisiana liked Les Monson. I'm still rooting for LSU in spite of Brian Kelly.
That's how much we like LSU. Yes.
But Florida State was incredible. That turnaround's been awesome.
Keon Coleman, who I did have to tweet out Tuck coming, because that's tough. He transferred from Michigan State.
He looked incredible. Three incredible three touchdowns high point king he was just high pointing the ball all over lsu's cornerbacks and then his mom afterwards had one of my favorite quotes ever so ross dellinger wrote about this in yahoo uh keon coleman's mom said because he's from louisiana he's from not too far from baton rouge he wasn't't offered.
Wanted to play basketball and football. And his mom said after, oh, it was good, especially against LSU.
God is blessing him. God says to make your enemies your footstool.
He did it. Yeah.
I never heard that. I never heard God say that.
I had that note. He did.
Yeah. It's actually in the Bible.
God is no different than like hazing at Sigma Chi. God.
Make your enemies your footstool. God says they hate us because they ain't us.
Yeah. I just like, I might get that as a tattoo.
God said, make your enemies your footstool. There's a lot of parts of the Bible that we don't hear about that much that they just don't teach you.
I missed that one, but I mean, it's a great quote. I'm going to shout out God for saying that.
Like that's fucking no respect. God had it.
I mean, I don't even know they had that type of furniture back then. He's the original top G.
God said, go to West Elm. Get a fucking footstool of your enemy.
Psalm 110 verse one. The Lord says to my Lord, sit right.
Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Bang.
It's a bar go let's go so yeah florida state though looks for real and jordan travis is very very good um all right other so we started with talking about the pac-12 the pac-12 on friday officially officially is dead uh because stanford and cal and smu are joining the acc which is basically like these three schools are like, we need a home so badly. They're taking way less money.
I think SMU is not taking any TV dollars for the first nine years. And Cal and Stanford are taking like half TV dollars for the first like seven or eight years.
They basically just like, we need a home. And even SMUu there was a quote that smu was picked because for olympic sports they'll meet in the middle and compete in so smu it's literally like okay well we found a place that they can just like split it halfway they're gonna compete in dallas yeah they're gonna do they're gonna do like swimming in dallas Okay.
Yeah. So it's got this through.

There are a lot of sports that Stanford is really good at that don't include basketball and football.

They win that cup, whatever the fuck it's called.

I don't know what cup.

There's like a Champions Cup.

Capital One, I think.

Yeah, the dumbest thing ever,

where it's like how many sports you win in national titles.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that one.

If you have cross country.

They're like the best athletic school in the country in sports that nobody really pays that close attention to. Correct.
And it's funny because they're joining the ACC. I think we first speculated on that a few weeks ago and how ridiculous that would be to have like the ocean conference where it's just the coastal conference meeting each other.
And then I was looking at a map and I was like, you know, oceans don't have boundaries. Like it's all one body of water.
That's true. It's all one water.
They're touching each other. They're touching each other.
Who's to say what's Atlantic, what's Pacific? It's all the same ocean. Except SMU, who's just there in the middle.
They're just there in the middle for swimming. For everyone to get there and compete.
I'm looking forward. So if you look up the stats, women's soccer, UNC, Stanford.
Yes. Two best programs in the history of college sports.
It's going to be great. Who said conference realignment was bad? The rivalry is back on.
Yeah. The only other wrinkle that I'm just hoping this happens.
So Oregon State and Washington State are now screwed. They're totally left out.
There is a rule in NCAA where you have to have at least eight members of your conference to continue being a conference. But you get a two-year grace period to try to figure it out they need to just do the pack two next year yeah it would fucking rule so the north division and south division they they have to do this they have to keep the pack two alive for at least one year and they should have a championship game yeah they should have a conference championship yeah they should just play a round robin at the end of like in november do you get an automatic bowl qualification if you win your conference sure that's great i don't think so but yeah yeah maybe if you win your conference championship i think you still have to be well no i now they make bowls like five and seven get a bowl some of them do yeah yeah unless you transferred into division one in the last two years then you're not allowed to but we But we need that.
We need that. All right.
Other big stories.

I have a horniest dudes,

if you can make a decision on this,

horniest dudes that we saw on Saturday.

Urban Meyer getting caught

hitting on a co-ed at halftime

right before he was supposed to go live.

We have Hugh Freeze

getting himself back in the mix right away wins one game against

umass and starts replying to women on twitter being like come on it's war eagle all the time when uh i think some reporter madison gilbert said like who should i root for lsu or florida state and he's like why not auburn okay that wasn't the question hugh uh and then we have uh south carolina South Carolina Shane Beamer he was he somehow didn't blame himself whatsoever to the point that he blamed the chain gang for eating a hot dog at halftime and not being set for their onside kick which they did recover so I heard that that was some sort of tradition where they eat hot dogs at halftime there I don't know Shaneamer, all I know is in a horny world, Shane Beamer was just watching another dude angrily eat a hot dog. Yeah, and then blame them.
Yeah, and then the last one is myself and Quig's for Sam Pittman's tits. I don't know if you guys saw.
I didn't see Sam Pittman's tits. I'll text you right now.
Okay. Were they popping? than popping PFT.
Like he's got a great set.

I think,

I think Quig said the Sam Pittman's tits got me barking.

And I was like,

yeah,

you're right,

dude.

They are.

It's,

I'm a little worried.

Like they're so big that I might,

I don't know what's going on.

We are Sam Pittman guys,

but here I just texted the group text.

Zoom in on Sam Pittman's tits. He's with the Huckabees, too.
So you'd think that he wouldn't have the biggest tits. Let's see.
He's got some tits. Yeah.
Oh, wow. He's got a rack, dude.
Like, he's stacked. Look at that mincy build.
You think he wears a bra? I don't know. Because I can't see any nipples.
I saw him and I zoomed in. I was like, wait, am I horny for Sam Pittman's tits? I think I am.
Mike Huckabee looks old. Those tits, though, dude.
Huckabee looks like a mix of old Mike Huckabee and Kenny Rogers. Yeah.
So who's horniest dude? I'm going to go with Urban. Lifetime Achievement Award and being horny goes to Urban Meyer.
He was just chatting her up. He was risen her up.
I do like Hugh Freeze just being like, now that I'm back, I'm all the way back. Now that I'm not at Liberty anymore.
I am at Liberty to be horny as hell. You know Hugh Freeze is feeling himself.
He's like, oh, this is good. I got my swagger back.
He's in a hospital bed for Priperism. Just giving a thumbs up.
Four hours ain't shit. All right.
Other things I wrote down. Oh, Iowa.
First opening touchdown, opening drive touchdown pass to start the season since 1991. That's pretty impressive.
That's insane. Let's go.
They scored a touchdown on their first two drives. Then they just went back to Iowa offense.
And for people who don't know, one of the best storylines this year is Brian Ferencz, the son of Kirk, their head coach. He's the offensive coordinator.
Max just dropped everything. And in his contract, Iowa has to win seven games this year, and they have to average 25 points a game.
Can be defensive too. he doesn't do that he loses his job so it's basically they scored they scored 24 this week so that's that's tough when you when you need that like first that first week of the season you need to put up some points to kind of you know pad the stats but it's a great storyline to watch like to have that type of he's on like offensive explosion yeah he's offensive explosion at iowa yeah uh i have a i have a fuckhead of the week okay my there are no nominees there's just one person yeah thomas frinelli yeah recurring guest part of my take he came on gave his his week preview week one preview and he gave a game of the year right he said he wanted to make it a game of the year he didn't go all the way to game of the year he gave he gave texas tech to whomp wyoming he said i i bought it at 10 i bought at 11 i'm buying it at 14 i'll buy it up to 20 if i have to they go to laramie and they lose and they lose and they lost and it was bad and it was it was a bad game it was a a bad call.
Now, Tom does have a notes app apology. To his credit, if nothing, he's a man with integrity.
The title of the notes app was just, I'm sorry. I would like to issue an apology to the Big Cat, PFT, Max, Jake, and the AWL as for saying game of the year in relation to Texas Tech minus 14 during my appearance on part of my take.
Lost that, right? He didn't mention Hank. Oh, yeah.
Interesting. Well, it was the same person.
This is totally on me, and I accept responsibility. I also acknowledge that Texas Tech had a 17 to nothing lead and totally blew it, so it's really their fault.
But this is on me. I accept my four-day suspension.
I believe I said that it was an all-Italians suspension. They're banning Italians from part of my take for four days beginning Saturday.
Yeah. So starting on Wednesday, we can have Italians back on the show if we have to.
Yes. I banned him for Monday's episode.
So he can't listen. He couldn't listen to Monday's episode, the lost tapes.
The only thing that makes me feel better is that it is Tom's job. And he went, I think, one in 11 on Saturday.
So it made me feel a little better that he, you know, like if he there's nothing worse than someone giving you a pick it losing. And they'd be like, well, dude, I went like 10 and two.
What are you talking about? But Tom also like I do believe in Tom. I i trust the process he's going to have a good season he even went out tonight and he gave out a pick clemson over 34 and a half team total and the score right now is duke 21 clemson 7 well it's only like the first quarter right no there's 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter oh shit fuck all right so what are we what's her plan because it's very rare that you get an opportunity to either tail somebody entirely no you the pendulum swings are we gonna fade all this picks next week no you have to tell him i listen i i got my my my teeth kicked in on saturday it was like i actually had a moment um that i'm not very proud of because i told my wife i was like i'm not in football shape and she's like what do you mean and i was like my eyes just hurt so bad from watching all this football today like and i lost so many bets i got to get back in football shape and she was like what are you talking about so i i feel the pain that tom felt in a different way i had different picks but they all lost as well i think you gotta you gotta you gotta follow him next week i i actually i actually kind of agree with that because it's gonna be a lot it's gonna be a lot of fun if i tail him and he goes like oh and 13 again right you can't he will correct he will correct tom's good it's it's it's time to hop on and it's also just like that that's how gambling works it's week one for bloggers too also shout out all the people who for the three years that penn owned us uh claimed that i lost on purpose so that people would lose money uh one week into the college football season i think i'm down 15 units so haha gotcha looks like i'm just a bad gambler it wasn't a bit it was it would have been great though if i went scorching hot and everyone was like dude you were you were doing that as a bit.
You were losing money as a bit. No, I lose money every Saturday and Sunday as probably my favorite hobby.
Yeah. I mean, it's my favorite hobby.
Listen, I've never had so much fun losing money as I did on Saturday. It's mostly due to Tom.
I did go nuclear on that play. But overall, it's hard to win in week one.
haven't seen anything yet you got nothing but you know what i blame the media i blame the media for losing almost every bet week one because i listened to their advice and their offseason takes and also shout out like my whole day was just trash i watched games start to finish uh from starting at 11 a.m all the way till the night games and the and the Penn State James Franklin still running his offense at the end of the game to cover against West Virginia. He knows.
I like smiled. I was like, this is why I do it as I counted how much money I lost that day.
But I was like, but I won that one. He knows.
And that's the thing. It's not against the law if you're a coach to have in the back of your mind the understanding that your alumni are betting on you to cover the spread yeah and then you keep your offense on the field to cover the spread you're not betting on it but you are establishing an enormous amount of job security if they can trust that you'll push them over the edge whenever they back you yes drew layer is very very good max max is back by the way we'll talk to matt let's let's let's save the Mount Rushmore talk and vacation talk for afterfield Yates.
But Drew Laird is awesome. Yeah.
Best quarterback. Penn State quarterback.
I think I've seen it in my lifetime. Whoa.
Whoa. Whoa.
Christian Mettenberger. Okay.
Todd Blackledge. Yeah.
Christian Hackenberg. Was he a second-round pick? I think so.
To the was prototypical big 10 big tall strong arm guy that is insane that he was a second round pick well he was supposed to be the next Peyton Manning he stayed a year too long I don't know if he could have even left I remember him having all the hype and then him staying and being like, whoa, what is this? Did he ever play? Did he take a snap in the NFL? I think he did for the Jets, right? I don't think he did. Second round pick, 51st overall.
Yeah, he started. Oh, no.
He didn't play. He started three games in the AAF in 2019.
His middle name is Blaze. Oh, that's fucking sick.
That's worth a second-round pick right there. Yeah, Drew Aller better.
Got to take a shot. Oh, Drew Aller's awesome.
Yeah, it doesn't look like he played. Jets.
That's funny memes. All right, yeah, other things.
I don't want to root for. All right.
Hank, you're doing your you're doing your bar Big Ten thing, right? So you're going to go to a different Chicago bar for Big Ten team starting at some point. Probably this weekend.
Okay. I want to just throw this out there.
I know you probably don't care about it. Indiana.
I didn't know this till today or yesterday. yesterday indiana has a mcmahon on their team shane mcmahon's son is on indiana he's what are you doing jake jake wanted my laptop charger okay uh indiana has a mcmahon on the team and and shane mcmahon gifted indiana a takeaway belt like a real wrestling belt so that a little bit.
Definitely. They're not good, but having a McMahon makes them awesome.
And I saw, like, there was a picture. Some fan took a picture of Shane walking into the stadium in, like, Indiana gear.
And I was like, I fucking kind of like Indiana now. That's how much I love Shane O'Mac.
It'd be very funny if Hank moved all the way here from New Jersey and just picked Rutgers. Oh, they looked good.
They did. Well, they looked really good.
They beat my Wildcats. I was heartbroken.
It was weird. I didn't.
Did you tweet about the Wildcats at all? No. I frankly, I think that what happened with our football team this last season was disgusting.
So I don't enjoy talking about it. The only time I'll talk about my Northwestern Wildcats will be to admonish them and admonish the entire football team because i noticed you hadn't tweeted about him so i was like oh he and revel must have done a vow of silence on sunday oh he also did not tweet about them that's that's what we do very weird that's what we very weird we're boycotting it yeah that isn't that isn't that interesting it is interesting i'm on the group chat right now.
It's me, Ravel, Mike Wilbon, and Greeny.

And Greeny's got his hands full right now.

He's got Ankh walking into the studio.

He's got a whole thing going on in the seaport.

So Greeny, he's focused on the Jets.

That's what we're saying right now.

Greeny's in NFL mode.

Yeah.

All right.

Other things.

I mean, I really am.

I do think the Pac-12 won the weekend because Washington looked awesome oregon put up a fucking billion against portland state dj um looks good he had a he had like 20 seconds on every pass but he still looks good you know clemson's offense could use somebody like that yeah they could clemson dabbo hot seat i'm saying it well okay so i would I would toss Dabo into the conversation of least likable college football coaches. Oh, yes.
That's right. We did miss him.
Yeah. Yeah.
We went sideways when you said Cosby. Yeah.
Because then I was like, wait, Brian Kelly, Urban Meyer, Cosby. Yeah, Cosby would.
I mean, if he coached Temple. It would be a discussion.
And then last thing, Georgia memes, Would you like to disavow? Oh, the driving? Yeah. So Georgia had a staffer, Jarvis Jones, got a speeding ticket, and that is their 15th speeding or reckless driving charge since the terrible tragedy that happened in January.
15. That's pretty insane.
Well, he got arrested. Yeah, but that's pretty insane.
Yeah, yeah. It wasn't just a ticket.
He got arrested. I'm like 15.
After an accident. Kirby Smart denied that there was a problem in March.
And then in July was like, yeah, there's a problem. We have way too many speeding teams.
It's SEC speed, baby. Yeah.

Like, so memes?

Yeah, they got to do drivers yet.

Okay.

Like, can they put like a, can they put something in everyone's car that can't go?

Like, just give golf carts.

Golf carts, yeah. Golf carts is the move.

Or mopeds.

Yeah.

Mopeds don't go fast.

Like rollerblades.

45.

Yeah.

You should have the defense just get around campus on blades.

Bikes.

Yeah. Okay.
It was fun, though. College football college football's back it was very very fun to watch also mizzou's head coach oh he could have been in horniest as well because he was talking about one of his players and he was like uh when my daughter becomes of age i would love for her to date him yeah it's always a weird thing to say what you remember it was it was um i want to say the national championship where it was florida and oklahoma and uh maybe it was herb street or fowler whoever was calling that game just went on a diatribe about how much he would you want your daughter to date a guy like tim tebow yeah which you can kind of understand that because he's not gonna have sex with her but yeah very weird very strange I like oh yeah my underage daughter i can't wait till she turns 18 and then maybe she'll date him yeah very strange that's the highest compliment you can give a guy i guess i guess so but it's also kind of it's also kind of a diss yeah like oh you're not you're not a threat yeah yeah it is yeah you're a nice guy yeah yeah um did you okay so yeah i think that's it i think that's we got some who's back we're gonna do and then we have field yates what we needed that uh same faces different places powerpoint for college football i mean it's insane the amount of transfers uh emery jones cincinnati yeah yeah jt daniels rice keaton slovis on byYU.
Yep. How many schools is this JT Daniels fourth school? He's played in every school in FBS.
Good for him. Yeah.
And Keaton Slovis, who's a recurring guest, also has played on a lot of schools. He was at West Virginia last year? No, he's at Pitt.
He was at Pitt. JT Daniels was at West Virginia.
Yeah. And now he's on Rice.
Yep. Yeah.
yeah crazy it is there the transfer portal does get a little confusing yeah with all these names um okay do you want to do a moment of silence for jimmy buffett yeah that was sad very sad that was sad friday night old jbuff passed away he did go out at the end of summer he did fitting he did although we talked about this dying right before football season. The worst.
If I died the week before football season started, like dude from smash mouth has got to be just turning over right now. Jimmy Buffett saw Nebraska, Minnesota.
That's that was it. That's awful.
But maybe saints team of destiny. Jimmy Buffett, huge saints fan.
He's on the sidelines for like all their home games every year. True.
Jame put out a fire tweet just like r.i.p king of him and jimmy jimmy buffett was just an all-time good dude yeah he just he just dudes rock dude he made nation king he made billions of dollars off just having fun and just like telling people hey i like to have fun and drink and the best part is he he was like a workaholic yeah but he worked hard he worked so hard i did yeah he worked so hard at vacationing right i would like to see that out of hank yeah right now you kind of go on vacation you take a vacation from your vacation while you're on it jimmy buffett's also one of those guys uh you can't put on one of his songs and not be in a good mood no it's like it's just the minute it hits you're like man that that's fun i want to drink i i tweeted out the story about Jimmy Buffett, which I learned this last summer. I was in Jamaica for a wedding.
I think you'll appreciate it. It's a crazy like it's the ultimate Jimmy Buffett story.
He was flying. He was a pilot, right? So he was flying his little plane around through through Jamaica and he had Bono on the plane with him.
And he was like, hey, Bono, I know this great jerk chicken shack that we got to stop by it's right off the bay right off montego bay so jimmy buffett lands his plane in the bay so they can get out and get some chicken as they're landing the jamaican military opens fire on his plane and tries to shoot him down with automatic rifles and shit he lands the plane there's bullet holes everywhere in it and he they all hit the deck they get boarded by the jamaican military and they get on the plane and they're like oh fuck we just shot at jimmy buffett and bono okay and so they they were like apologizing so hard they were afraid that they were going to all lose their jobs probably go to jail and jimmy was like you know what i've i've gotten away with a lot of dumb illegal shit that i've done in my life this is just kind of a little bit of karma. It's probably good if I don't go at them for this.
I'm just going to write a song about it. And he wrote a song called Jamaica Mistake.
Love it. And it was a fucking smash hit.
Perfect. And he just went on with his life.
And then everybody from that point on in Jamaica, they're like, oh, Jimmy's back in town. Let's make sure we treat him right and not try to shoot his plane out of the sky.
Make a mistake. It rhymes.

Yeah, it does.

It's also crazy to think that back then people would try to shoot your plane down if you thought you had weed on it.

Yeah, I know.

Especially going to Jamaica.

Yeah.

What the fuck?

Wild.

Yeah.

Jimmy Buffett, though.

All-time guy.

All-time dudes rock guy.

Yes.

Like just a king of vacation, of good times, of just feeling good.

Like I said, when you hear the song, you're just like, I was at the Cubs game and he did

the Like just a king of vacation, of good times, of just feeling good. Like I said, when you hear the song, you're just like, I was at the Cubs game and he did this.
They replayed his seventh inning stretch, which was a nice tribute, but they were playing Jimmy Buffett throughout the game. And 5 o'clock somewhere came on.
I was with my son. I was like, I want to get fucking blacked out right now.
I want to drink. It's fantastic stuff.
So had a great time at his Margaritaville Times Square Resort. Went with Donnie about a year and a half ago.
And I know they just shut it down. But if you're listening to me, if anybody knows where the giant, like 30, 40 foot Statue of Liberty that they had inside in the foyer that had it had a margarita glass instead of the torch with sharks swimming around in it.

If anybody knows where that is, I'd be very interested in purchasing it. Yeah, we'll put it in the new office.

Put it in the new office.

We have more than enough space.

I can't imagine there's a big market out there for that,

but I want to throw my name in the house.

Yes, absolutely.

I will help fund that.

We will absolutely buy that.

Yeah.

No question.

Okay, let's do who's back,

and then we have Field Yates with a big-time NFL preview. Ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working? Nah, neither has Ariat.
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Who's back of the week, Hank?

Who's back of the week is diarrhea.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was a Delta flight this weekend

going from Atlanta to Barcelona

and it had to turn around

because someone had, quote, diarrhea all the way through the plane, which I don't even really understand. No, I think it's shit everywhere.
Like it was just leaking down the aisles? I think you're going to the bathroom, and it's falling out of your pants. I think it's shit on people.
I think it's shit on things. I think it's shit everywhere.
Did you hear the call? It was great. Oh, I got to try to find it.
It's like when you rob a bank and they put the dye pack in there and the purple explodes all over the money. That's the inside of the plane, but brown.
And it was a biohazard. Yeah, which makes me feel like next time I diarrhea, I'm just going to be like, yeah, that's a biohazard.
Watch out. I saw a good friend Scott Van Pelt tweeted out that that which would you rather be on a plane with the you're not real girl or the one that has explosive diarrhea? I mean, you're not real girl.
If you're not real girl had had explosive diarrhea on a plane, they'd be able to sell those plane seats for thousands of dollars. Please.
Also, it's Tiffany Gomez, our queen. Yes.
Let's put her name. Put some respect on her.
Come on the pod to discuss it. I can't wait for this person to reveal themselves.
I don't think they ever will. Actually, Jake, you should do a video like the Tiffany Gomez video.
Get all dolled up in makeup like part of my cheesesteak shoot and just be like, I'm just here to say that what I've gone through over the past week has been hell. It wasn't part of my cheesesteak.
Yeah, it was not. All right, here's the call.
It's so good. Hold on.
This is the official call when they had to call back to the airport. Negative, it's just a biohazard issue.
I only had a pastor who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane. All the way through.
All the way. No, I think he just, I think he probably was wearing shorts maybe no underwear it's hot out it's summer and it was just diarrhea leaking everywhere maybe went to magic city maybe got the lemon pepper wings video evidence of this everything anytime anything crazy happens in a plane there's video i don't know good question jake but if someone's running up with diarrhea i don't think i think you're like holy shit get out of the way out of the way.
He's going to diarrhea on me. Not holy shit, I need my phone.
He was running down the aisle. One person of a hundred and something is going to.
I don't know. I think you have to take care of yourself in that.
No, I agree with Jake. It's fun.
It's a little odd to me that there's absolutely no video footage of this. We should just put out Jersey Jerry's catastrophe and be like live footage.
Yeah. Live footage.
It's definitely someone that was on the flight that fell asleep too. Like right go to barcelona yeah wait they were going to barcelona yeah holy shit how mad would you be you're about to go on an awesome vacation it's a barcelona barcelona you have to turn around because somebody's got diarrhea everywhere everywhere i it was everywhere they should have shot the plane down it was everywhere yeah he should have just jumped out Yeah.
He should have been like, all right, enough for me. I'd rather not live with this.
All right, good. Who's back? Thank you.
Yeah. PFT.
Great who's back, Hank. Thank you.
My who's back of the week is Indianapolis Colts fans. Yes.
So as we promised on this podcast, when Jim Irsay went after Dan Snyder, I said I would become a Colts fan in the AFC and purchase season tickets if Irsay's push ultimately led Dan Snyder to sell the team. I'm a man of my word.
I bought Colts season tickets. Big Cat is matching.
So we have a total of four tickets to give away to Indianapolis Colts fans for every home game this year. Also, I should just say I matched and then I fucked up the match because they tried to get me to have Colts tickets for life.
There was a box I couldn't unclick that would give me Colts tickets for life. So I looked in my email and I thought I had them.
I don't, but I'm buying two tickets for every game, which actually will work in someone's favor because like Christmas time, I'll probably buy like, you know, 100 level tickets. Yeah.
So first game, it's going to be 600 level, but I have my two tickets. So we have a total of four tickets to give away.
I do have the season tickets and also shout out to the Colts because they reached out. This is pretty awesome.
They heard the podcast and they said, we appreciate you guys becoming season ticket holders. We're going to throw in two VIP sideline passes pregame.
Wait, we need to up that to four. So you can go.
I can ask. I can ask.
But right now, we have two VIP sideline passes for the pregame, as well as the two tickets from me and two tickets from Big Cat. So we have to figure out how to give them away.
If you're an Indianapolis Colts fan, here's what we're doing for week one i want to see youngsters go to this game i'll see youngsters get these tickets that wouldn't be able to creepy way not in a creepy way but i'd like to see the best jim ursay look like youngster baby ursay if you can if you're an indianapolis colts fan maybe you've got a son or a daughter wants to get dressed up like baby ursay send us pictures of a baby ursay and and we will give you free tickets to go see the Colts. We have four of them.
Yeah, so winners and second place. Winners and second place both receive tickets, and then at least two VIP sideline passes for pregame.
Not sure if we're going to have four, but we do have two. We'll just give them to both the baby Ursaes.
Just the kids, yeah. They'll just go themselves.
So how do we want to do this? Tweet at part of my take? Well, people might not have Twitter slash X. Should we do the PMT intern email? Yeah, sure.
PMT intern at Barstool Sports. And we'll tweet out the winners.
But we will tweet out the winners. Yeah.
Yeah. But if people don't have Twitter.
Okay. So either tweet them at us or email to PMT.
Intern at Barstool Sports.com. PMT intern at barstool sports dot com PMT intern at

barstool sports dot com and we'll select four

winners so giving back feels good to give

back to the community feels great my other who's back of the week

plug god is pup punk

so if you're in Columbia South Carolina

pup punk is going to be playing

at the Bojangles in Columbia

South Carolina as we've always wanted to do

don't be eating a hot dog in front of Shane Beamer

don't do it we're going to be eating Boberry biscuits in front

of Shane Beamer because the Boberry biscuit is

elite it's an elite fast food treat

Thank you. south carolina as we've always wanted to do don't be eating a hot dog in front of shane beamer don't do it we're going to be eating bowberry biscuits in front of shane beamer because the bowberry biscuit is elite it's an elite fast food treat so we're going to be there on friday free concert at nine that means me roan frankie robbie caroline nick we're going to be there we're going to play i think for an hour so come out say hi i like i love the cocks yeah i love the cocks so i want to see a bunch of cocks show up to that concert at the bojangles also and then saturday the college football show is going to be in tuscaloosa for the first time so i'll be in tuscaloosa huge four o'clock i think is the is the time so everyone come out to that texas texas alabama i did hear some people say malik murphy i heard people say malik murphy for texas i don't know i don't know.
Why Quinn yours? Quinn yours looks like he looks he looks like a very good, a very good average quarterback. That's what Quinn yours looks like to me.
Yeah. I don't know.
Malik Murphy's a fucking monster. Also Quinn yours cut his mullet.
Yeah, that's a problem. It was a very big problem.
He cleaned up big time. Okay.
My who's back. I got a couple.
The first is the water dogs in the semis yeah good for them it's the semis two wins away yep two wins away okay so hands off i went to the cubs game instead of watching them yeah well that's i knew that they were gonna win i didn't need to i don't i don't show up to watch water dogs games unless they're already in the semi it's the quarter finals you know like we expect to be there every year that's that we got rings big cat we have a tradition here at water dogs hq and it's we don't watch quarter finals we have we go to the semis and then we go to the finals then we win the whole fucking we have high standards and we got the back we got the final four coming up if we don't go back to back i hate this team who are you playing uh water dogs versus cannon fuck the can if we don't go back to back, I'm throwing my Water Dogs ring into the Chicago River. I'm going to.
By the way, I brought it. You know, I see it.
Like six weeks ago. Yeah, get ready.
They're nice. I'm going to do it, but I'm going to at the last minute not throw it and then just throw a paper airplane that says, thank you, Water Dogs.
Oh, nice. I love those fake jersey burning ones.
Okay. And then my other who's back.
Hank, did you see the report about your wide receiver, Juju Smith-Schuster? Yeah. I mean, this was a Florio special.
It read like. It was crazy.
I've never seen a report like this. If you guys didn't see it, it was Juju Smith-Schuster's knee could explode at any point and is a mess, according to Albert Breer.
Could explode at any point. What the fuck does that mean? It's like the plot to die hard.
Couldn't anyone's fucking knee explode at any point? Yeah. Right? He's been practicing playing.
I just saw it. I was like, what is good? I actually read it wrong the first time.
I didn't read the word knee. And I thought it was just Juju Smith Schuster could explode at any point.
And then I read it back. I was like, wait, what the fuck? I thought it was Buck Crack Sports.
Yeah. Where was it from, Hank? It was Albert Breer.
But that's not Florio. No.
No, I know it read, but it read like it read like a Florio. So anything negative reads like a Florio.
This is like you seeing the New Yorker cartoons, and you're like, that's a Florio. I can see it.
I can see it right now. Shout out Florio, by the way.
He did a book reading in Wheeling, West Virginia, and he said that one person asked him about his fantasy football team, and he refused to answer it because he thought the person had FaceTimed us. So it's good that we just live in his head this time of year.
It's the best. We'll get him again at some point, but it's good that we've taken a break and just let him live in horror.
He's just too ready for it right now. Yeah.
Which is his own punishment. Right, exactly.
He's just walking around flinching all the time. Yeah.
Okay, Jake, you're who's back. My who's back is the U.S.
Open. Oh, okay.
Yeah, Americans are cooking in this tournament this year. I don't know if you guys have been following it at all, but there's three American men in the quarterfinals.
Isner. Isner retired.
I know, I know. I saw that.
That was sad. He was crying.
Oh, yeah. Some kid fucking gave me Isner's his bet on Thursday, Wednesday morning.
Yeah, his retirement match. Best serve.
Serve goat. Serve goat.
Yep. Andy Roddick is my serve goat.
What about Novak's? Oh, yeah. See Rodgers? Yeah.
Kings respecting Kings. Rodgers went to the U.S.
Open and he had a picture of Novak and he said, shout out my guy Novak's and had crossed out Moderna, the ad that was on the U.S. Open.
Listen, Rodgers and I are starting to become very much alike. We both agree that Novak's is the GOAT.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the bottom half of the men's brackets, three Americans and Djokovic. Of course.
Is it Tiafoe? Is he still in it? Tiafoe's still in it. I like Tiafoe.
I still think he should come on the show. I think he's a good fit.
Djokovic lost the first two sets on Friday night. Everyone's like, oh, you've got to be careful.
I went to sleep, but I had no care in the world. Of course he was going to win that shit.
Jake, you have to keep reminding us every major tournament who these different tennis players are. Who's the one that gets upset all the time that people hate? Call Kyrgios, but he's hurt.
Okay, I like him because people hate him. Wait, is Alcatraz not in it? He's the number one team.
He's on the top half of the bracket. Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it.
So wait, we're celebrating Americans being in the quarterfinals?

After we just talked about how the quarterfinals don't matter?

It's the first time, I think, in over a decade that four men made the quarterfinals.

Or around the 16.

Let me know when they actually get to the semis.

Well, one's guaranteed.

Tiafoe versus Blake Shelton.

Okay, great.

So one?

At least.

That's not a story.

Versus Blake Shelton?

Ben Shelton. Okay, all right.
That would be very confusing. Versus Blake Shelton? Ben Shelton.

Okay.

All right.

That would be very confusing.

He's a dual sport athlete.

He should smoke him.

Yeah.

Come on, Jake.

We can't celebrate quarterfinals. Wait.

It's been a decade.

On this podcast?

Are the Americans playing each other?

Yeah.

So one's guaranteed.

Cannibalization, man.

I don't like that.

Yeah.

But yeah, I'm pulling for Tiafoe. I think you should be on this show.
I am too. DC guy.
Yep. Yeah, let me know when one of them wins it.
The whole thing? Yeah, we suck at tennis. Yeah, it's been a struggle.
We haven't won one in how long? I think Roddick or... Sampras? No, what was last time? Agassi probably.
Roddick never won a major, right? Yeah, he did.

I think.

Did he?

I thought he was supposed to be next up, but he never came.

He was the anti-Deon.

He was a serve god.

Did he win a major?

Did Roddick win a major?

I'm looking it up.

I'm looking it up right now.

I don't think Roddick ever won a major.

You might be right.

Yeah.

Jake, I know more.

No, he won the U.S. Open.

Oh, he did.

Yeah, 2003.

Well, I'll more. No, no.
He won the U.S. Open.
Oh, he did. Yeah, 2003.
So it's been 20 years. And then he was in the finals at Wimbledon for three years.
So it's been 20 years since we've won one. And it's our type.
Listen, if I ran for president, I'd be like, we always win the U.S. Open.
We just won't let anyone else play in it. It's just only Americans.
It's the U.S. Open, golf and tennis.
We need to win this. Yeah.
We have to. But Novak's going to win because he's the GOAT.
Okay, good job, Jake. Thanks.
Quarterfinals. Yeah.
Just keep us updated. I will.
I want to see one of them in the finals. Then I will root unless it's against Novak.
Well, like I said, three Americans and Novak are the bottom half of the bracket. Oh, so yeah.
He's going to waste them. He's going to waste them.
Never know. We went back to back 2002, 2003.
Sampras, Roddick, and then nothing. Sampras, all-time hairy dude.
Very hairy. Just the hairiest.
Super Greek. So hairy.
Also, women's side, Coco Gauff, still alive. Still alive.
Yeah. Coco Gauff next up? I think so.
Okay. Yeah.
All right. Jimmy Butler's been in her box.
Whoa, Jake. Respectfully.
Damn, Jake. That's what it's called in tennis.
I understand. But you understand what you said.
Jimmy Butler's been in her box. Whoa.
I phrased that wrong. All right.
I'm not wrong. I didn't phrase it wrong.
Well, yeah, you did. Yeah, you definitely.
That's exactly what you did, actually. You could have said sweet.
Yeah. Or he's been in.
You should have said he's attended the game. You should have said Jimmy Butler's been in her sweet box.
Yeah. Yes.
Yes. That would have been much better's get to field yates field yates great interview nfl preview with field yates 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 is carefully chosen, every recipe made with a purpose.

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Okay, here he is, Field Yates. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest in person.
Double very. Yeah, double very.
He was nice enough to change his flights around. He has been on to prank Mike Florio, but we thought we know Field Yates is a fan of the show.
We know he knows football very, very well inside and out. So let's get him on.
Let's talk some ball. Before we talk ball, Schefter asked me to ask you what your middle name is.
Oh, God. Minister.
What?

Yeah.

I'm a very non-religious person, so not exactly appropriate.

My mother's maiden name.

Okay.

That makes more sense.

Otherwise, my name's definitely followed me throughout my life.

Yeah.

Because it could be Stolen Valor.

Could be, yeah.

Minister Yates.

Yeah.

I've officiated two weddings, but not a particularly religious or spiritual person.

Okay.

That's not as cool as a story.

Schefter kind of led me down the wrong way there. I know.
You know, the best part about having a name that's unique is that growing up when a certain age of kids did sort of have their thoughts on being named Field. And it's like you have zero control over what your name is.
Yeah, that's true. What was the age kids started making fun of? Yeah, it's probably like, I'm thinking like eight to ten.
I will distinctly remember being like that. I have like i have an older brother younger sister picking up my older brother when he started at a new school and i was probably around when he was probably 10 or so so i'm thinking eight to ten isn't that the worst that first moment i remember maybe when i was like seven or eight and dan no no no at a pool one of my friends was like hey uh see if you can hold your hands together in front of you like this and i did and he's like look you have tits and i was like god damn it and that was it it was just like fuck i like i never i now feel like they let me off easy by just saying like your name's weird right when you're young you don't even think about these things in that first moment you think about it you're like well this will this will be something new new insecurity unlocked for the rest of my life content 30 years later though on the plus side yeah you got that going for people remember it too yeah yeah no and you know what's weird is like you guys i'm sure you guys to the you know 100th degree uh deal with this but like you know we're going to espn it's a big company and you know i've been there for over a decade now and all the people like amazing people that work in like studio operations but like all the time you know it's a different uh crew every single day like hey field how's it going and you're like shit oh yeah i know like we've definitely said hello we've definitely introduced ourselves before but like that might have been eight years for all i know and it's like hey pal did you guys do this recently like you know like the worst names to be called and i was like buddy that's constantly me way too much you gotta get a little you got a little older and you can do sport are you now are you subconsciously rooting for justin fields uh yes okay not even subconscious okay just outwardly yeah like because that you have to have a little bit of kinship there totally yeah and uh you know i'm not trying to like cater to the home team here now but you know ryan poles and i my first job out of college i got hired by the Chiefs to go work as a scouting assistant, which is as entry-level of a scouting job as there is in the NFL.
And we had, there were three desks in one room, and it was me, Ryan Poles, now the Bears GM, also hired at the same time. And then a guy named Mike Borgonzi is the Chiefs GM, Chief Assistant GM, excuse me.
So like the three of us were in this fishbowl together for a couple years. You'd like to see people that you know do well.
If Justin Fields does well, then Ryan Pouls might be the king of the city. Wait, I didn't realize you were – how long were you in the NFL for? Two seasons with the Chiefs.
The first year was scouting assistant. In my second year, I was Todd Haley's right-hand man.
Oh, wow. That must be something.
That was awesome. I have have very limited experience with todd haley i've met him a few times usually at the combine yeah we might take this story out but last time i was hanging out with him he just showed me pictures of his wife's tits he was like check this out we're not taking that out seriously well he didn't show it to me he was showing it to a group of people like check them out i had a great experience second so my second year is actually that's like not the not to derail wherever this was going but so when i had uh so when i first got hired there was like five of us that got hired uh in the summer of 2009 three of us in the scouting staff the guys i mentioned and then uh one of the coaches nick sirianni so nick sirianni now the eagles head coach was the quality control offensive coach or the offensive quality control coach he was like really at Todd's mercy I was you know a little more was it like a slightly larger buffer but yeah Nick Sirianni and I love people I was like yeah so you knew back then right totally you know like 22 year old me knew that 23 year old Nick Sirianni was gonna in his second year be a Super Bowl head coach and like have it all figured out but yeah it's been great to follow those guys was the goal to get to being like a head coach is that what you ultimately wanted to achieve or did you were you like i'm gonna play the long game and yeah make a last yeah yeah no the goal was to be in football for a long time uh the lifestyle is a little different than uh i'm from massachusetts and like moving out to kansas city when i first got out there like Like your first few years out of college between high school reunions,

like five-year high school reunion,

my friends who were on like the early adopters

of getting married and like having kids.

You know, like shit,

like I'm three years out of college

and I have not been to one significant life event.

Right.

That probably weighed on me more than I expected it to.

So I think it was more of a life decision.

The five-year reunion is a crock of shit.

Totally.

And you put so much weight into it at the moment.

You're like, oh, I got to have my shit together

Thank you. I think it was more of a life decision.
The five-year reunion is a crock of shit. Totally.
You put so much weight into it at the moment. You're like, oh, I got to have my shit together.
I got some friends that are making six figures in finance. Right.
And in reality, the five-year reunion is basically, it's utterly meaningless. You're like the anti-Tai Lu.
Yes, I am. Remember when Tai Lu said that he missed six different funerals, and everyone's like, dude, you had six funerals in like a month? And the Clippers sucked last year.
Right. So you're the anti-Ty Lue, but that's respectable.
So two years of the Chiefs. Yep.
Then I came back. I came back.
I was living back in Massachusetts. I moved back in with my mom, which that's the kind of thing that'll humble you at whatever, 24, 25 years old.
A little different than Todd Haley. A little different than working with Todd Haley every single day.
My mom had slightly different priorities than Todd did, you know, and different schedule too. And then I started the media thing.
I was like, and not to date ourselves, but you guys remember the days of having a blog. Yeah.
You guys came into prominence. You guys still obviously have a very strong online presence.
But Twitter was not in full force at that point. Obviously, Instagram and TikTok and all this stuff was not nearly where it was.
So I started the blog and, um, being in Boston, there's so many outlets there. So I had a million different places to try to reach out to.
And I had the same experience that most people do. Like, you know, no one responds to their emails.
And then it was one person, a guy at ESPN, Boston, Mike Reese, who covers the Patriots for ESPN, who responded to my email. And that was the start of my ESPN career.
Wait, so you're a genius. Two years with the Chiefs, you get to put that on your resume and be like, yeah, I worked in the NFL for two years.
Yeah, I mean, that's the best part is people are like, so like, you know, you're the Mahomes. Really, if not for your contributions, Patrick Mahomes would not be a Chief right now.
You never know. I mean, it's the butterfly effect.
Maybe there was something that you did one day.

You got Alex Smith the right smoothie.

He went out there, played well. He ended up in right the exact position to trade, to draft Mahomes.

We actually had a gem of a quarterback room when I was there.

This was pre-Alex Smith.

So Matt Castle.

Oh.

So like.

Oh, yeah.

It was the baby Patriots.

Yeah.

Yep.

So Castle.

Vrabel got traded there that same offseason.

Vrabel, absolute legend, obviously. And I swore.ore I was like I was so positive he would never coach after football because he seemed like one of those guys that was like you know he was so like football clearly was like his entire life leading up to it but one of those guys that just felt like whenever it was time he was going to be so at peace and he had accomplished so much that you're like dude like you can't possibly go up from being a three-time champion and whatever it was, 12 catches for 12 touchdowns.
And here he is, whatever, a decade later, a great head coach. Brody Croyle, Alabama legend.
Third pick and throw the ball a freaking mile. It was great.
And Matt Castle. Tyler Palco.
Palco was there. Palco threw that pass against the Bears to end a half Hail Mary.
Oh, yeah. I remember that.
Not many lefty quarterbacks anymore. And then he had that game.
He started on Monday Night Football against the Patriots, actually. So Palco, hey, he made his mark.
Great guy. Yeah, great dude.
That's a solid quarterback room. That's just great names.
I remember those Chiefs, they had a lot of people from the Patriots organization in the front office, right? And my theory has been that Belichick sends his disciples across the league to destroy other teams and then come home to tear down franchises from the inside. Did you get that vibe when you were there? I mean, it's hard to argue otherwise, right? Look at the track record, yeah.
How many head coaches? If you consider Brable a disciple, I feel like that's kind of stretching. That doesn't really count.
Right? He played for him. That feels different to me.
Like, is Kevin O'Connell a disciple? He played for Belichick, right? But yeah, it has not been a... I wouldn't say the track record is exactly sterling in the post-Patriot chapter of this.
Are you... My other theory is that you're a mouthpiece for the New England Patriots.
Is that fair to say? Yeah, I'd say that's pretty much like how ESPN hired me. Well, you're friends with Belichick, right? So prior to my chief's time, I spent four.
It's hard to call it an internship because there's not like an online application that you go and you apply to like, you know, Patriots sort of like scouting intern. I spent four summers and then I went to college in Connecticut.
So getting home during winter break was easy. I went to like every, like four straight years, basically.
I was at every Patriots training camp during the, when I was back home for any kind of breaks, I was over the Patriots facility. I go to all the games, home and road games, which is awesome for me.
And like the Super Bowl they lost against the Giants, the perfect season. There's like this infamous photo that friends send to me whenever it pops up.
Me like gnawing on my long sleeve shirt right behind Belichick. Yes.
Very Frank the Tank style. And yeah, so four years with Patriots, which is kind of like my, that was like my, I call it like my Rosetta Stone, right? Like that was where I kind of learned it all.
So yeah, I mean, Belichick may or may not have had a conversation with me on the way out the door. It was like, I think Kansas City would treat you well.
You know, like, haven't really infiltrated the Midwest yet. Just give it a couple years to see what happens.
They're building something out of here. I want to have been the person that snapped the street, right? You're like an advanced scout.
Yeah, he said. Yeah, I was just getting ahead of it, right? He's like, they've got Tyler Palco and Brody Croyle.
They're up next. I want you to destroy that franchise.
But his Belichick son, Steve, the one who's now their defensive play caller, and the same age. So we were right there together.
It was great. Had a blast.
Great, great dude. Would be a great PMT guest one day.
Great. I know he's like one of your white whales.
Yeah. Maybe do a double duo.
Does he have the same Bill Belichick voice, or does he put that on just to mess with the media like that that is a carbon copy that's it's like a little bit like it's like it's just jarring where it's like yeah it's just jarring you're just like yeah like disarming it's like that's awesome they are the same people um minus the hair yeah all right let's talk some ball let's do it i want to i want to do with a start with a thought starter give me the seven teams that are the playoffs in the AFC. You know what? I was hanging out with a buddy today here in Chicago, and he was like, have you guys talked about what you're going to discuss? And I was like, I figure we'll just crank it up.
Talk ball, yeah. And then he was like, well, who's making the playoffs in the AFC? So we had this conversation.
Okay, good. Division winners.
Bills, big time all the way in. Bengals, Jaguars, Chiefs.
I would say nothing surprising there. You're a Titans guy.
I feel like this is a classic Vrabel spot where everyone's forgotten the Titans. It's definitely a Vrabel team.
And they had that losing streak last year where Tannehill was out for some of it. And this will be the year that everyone's anointed the Jaguars.
Totally. And it's like, oh shit, we forgot about the Titans.
Also, I don't know if you guys have the same experience watching quarterback. Mahomes talking about the Titans in the week leading up to their game was like, this was like Malik Willis was starting.
And that game went to overtime. It was like Willis' first start.
And he kept, the defense is so tough. And one of the hardest groups will face all season.
You do sort of forget the variable effect. But yeah, and then Jets, Dolphins, Ravens.
So three teams from the AFC East. Okay, so that means no Chargers.
No Chargers, yeah. That means no Browns.
That means no Steelers. No Steelers, yeah.
I think the streak comes to an end this year. I ask that because it's crazy how stacked the AFC is that you do the seven teams and then you leave out like three or four teams that – it's not inconceivable some of those teams could be in the Super Bowl.
Like the Chargers, the Jets, like those – They want – I mean, they all think they're going there this year, right? I always – the question I always ask people is, so if you put the Steelers in the NFC South right now – Oh, my God. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the Saints are going to be legit, obviously.
I think they're going they're going to be good. But don't you feel pretty good about the Steelers competing for at least a wild card spot in the NFC? Yes.
But you think that they're not going to be 500 this year? I think the streak comes to an end. Wow.
That would be sad. Which sounds crazy coming off the...
No, I am. After the preseason, too, right? Five touchdowns on five drives.
I'm sure Steelers fans will be thrilled about this. If you look at that stretch, like the last month of last year, we're five and nine at one point, like the quarterback and you play on the schedule.
I'm not trying to say they have any influence over that, but like that was like that was getting by the, by the skin of their teeth last year. And they're obviously incredibly well coached and they do have tons of like individual talent, just that like someone has to be last in that division.
Right. Yeah.
And you think that's the Steelers, not the Browns. Are you backing on Deshaun Watson as a human? So I try to start there.
Pass on that one. So what's the more representative sample size? Is it five seasons or is it one season? My brain wants to say it's five seasons where he was this amazing top five-ish quarterback.
And then last year, it falls off a cliff. This preseason was pretty ugly from the Browns.
And I feel like, and I could be wrong here, I feel like during the training camps, beat writers probably tend to have a much rosier outlook on the teams they cover. I feel like every team, you know, we're days away from the season starting best shape of their life.
I kind of feel like everybody's going to be better than they're actually going to be right now. But even like the Browns reporting has been pretty downtrodden about Deshaun's performance this summer.
Like more questions than answers. Like not totally sure this is going to pay off.
And for a franchise has had as many failures at the quarterback spot like this would by far take the cake yeah it'd be the crown jewel when you look at the contract that they gave them yes but this is like but don't like this is the team and i think they wear this crown now it may be that for a while the chargers were there maybe the broncos were there previously but like every year the browns roster looks good yeah like where's the major weakness for the browns this year i don't I don't have a team, a spot that I'm like, well, they don't, you know, they have, you know, they got wide receivers. Now the offensive line's good.
Nick Chubb's the man, like defensively, it's like every level they've got a player who could be a legitimate pro bowl or defensive player of the year, like miles Garrett. So it's hard to pinpoint like that part is a major weakness for them.
But until they prove it,'s like they have that that sort of stink on them that uh the chargers in recent years and even the broncos which we thought would go away last year with russ i have had in the past like half decade so why why chargers no no playoffs um like probably bold take i like it just um yeah no no no no they i mean vibes may be a little bit contributing they always get injured they always get injured It's just a take. I like it.
Just vibes. Just vibes in general.
No, no, no, no. I mean, vibes may be a little bit contributing to it.
They always get injured. They always get injured.
Yeah. It's just a thing, right? The second half of that Jaguars game, that was the ugliest football.
I've never been angry at a team that I have when I was watching the Chargers just blow that. Yeah.
And I feel like, and right when, I think right after Herbert signed his extension, they had a video that had been pre-made and and somehow it referenced that game. And I'm like, what are we doing right now? Dude, we just got the guy signed up.
He's now signed for seven more years. I'm like, I don't need to hear about it.
Yeah, it was great. Great first half.
No, the Chargers, I think that the argument against a team, any team that you like in the AFC not making the playoffs, is much more an argument about teams that you do like. Ravens, I think, are a sleeping giant.
I think they're – at this point, you can't call them a sleeping giant. But a team that probably is not discussed as much as Buffalo, Kansas City, and Cincinnati, I think is awesome.
They've got – they always punch above their weight. Yeah, Tyler Huntley almost beat the Bengals.
Pro Bowler. Yeah, Pro Bowler Tyler Huntley Huntley but like the vibes are legit like legitimately like has a team changed how you felt about them more from the start of the regulars of the offseason to right now like there was a time where it felt like Lamar was done like would never play there again they had no wide receivers and all of a sudden you're like Lamar five years great fired up to be there last year was just bizarre at the last It was.
I know it was an injury, but I think we'd all be naive if we think that his contract and his general frustration with the organization was not contributing to it. So I love the Ravens this year, and then I'm having a hard time.
The Jets and the Dolphins, I'm having a hard time finding a way to differentiate between the two of them like the Jalen Ramsey injury doesn't help but they should be so much better dude I forgot I forgot like Fangio was there and it's like he's like he's so good he's a walking top 10 defense yeah it reminds me a lot of what McVay did when he brought in Wade Phillips yeah it's it's like you got the new school guy you got the old school guy running the show on defense it it tends to work. He'll get the most out of them.
That's just what Vic Fangio does. Coming into last year, it wasn't lack of talent that betrayed them on defense.
They just didn't play well at all last year defensively. With the Jets, the offensive line will be discussed a million different ways.
What makes me nervous about any of the teams that I picked is that if you just go through, and I try not to do this for every single team, but like the Jets' first four games, Bills, Cowboys, Patriots, Chiefs. Yeah.
Like if you go one and three there, like 0 and 4 is possible, then the whole season has, you know, that's like it's a do. You fight an uphill battle.
It's impossible. I mean, it's basically impossible.
But yeah, so Chargers, the argument's probably less about them and more about just like the strength of the Ravens, Jets, and Bills. I'm sorry.
It's not you, it's me. For any team that you're leaving out of the AFC.
There are a lot of people listening to this podcast. I got to make sure that I protect myself.
There's no such thing as Chargers fans. No, no one will get mad at you.
That's fine. Have you ever been a Chargers fan in real life? I've met one.
Yeah, well, we have Shane. Yeah.
One of our producers. There's my first.
So how about this? Let's do – give me your top six quarterbacks in the NFL, and then we'll delete one of them, and we'll put it on a graphic so one fan base will get really angry at you. Oh, okay.
And we won't tell you which one. Okay.
All right. So delete Mahomes.
No, no, no. We won't tell you.
Okay. All right.
Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, and man, it's hard to not have Aaron Rodgers on this list even after last year, but I'll go with Lamar Jackson. Okay.
So you are a believer in Aaron Rodgers this year because we had a discussion. Hank and PFT think Deshaun Watson is going to have a better year than Aaron Rodgers.
I didn't necessarily say that. I don't think.
I think that's exactly what you guys said. I forget.
I say a things but that was the exact bet i just think that is i think that is it's always more difficult than you think to just transfer into a brand new organization but he brought all his everything is going to be the same i got sucked in by hard knocks like this this may not be like a vintage hard not season yeah no i i know i'm now a full-on believer you know like i it's such a ridiculous and like oversimplified way of analyzing football but it's like yeah he just seems so enthused and happy again right like but it makes me think more and more that while aaron rogers got that extension a couple years ago in green bay and like played nice for an extra year or two like he wanted out and like this has energized him in a way that could legitimately impact the product on the field. So if the jets can protect their Roger, they'll be fine.
Yeah. I also think that's a big if though, it is a huge, it'll look great.
He goes from green Bay, which is maybe the best offensive line in football, or at least, you know, one of the three best offensive lines in football to the jets who like, there's like one fifth of the offensive line. I feel definitely really good Oh, give us top five offensive lines.
Ooh. That's good.
That's important. Eagles? Eagles, number one.
I will go with Packers, Chiefs, Cowboys, and – Ooh. Ooh.
I'm trying to think of – Lions? Is there like – ooh, Lions. Good one.
Yes, thank you for answering that for me. Lions right there in the mix as well.
Browns would be another one that I would consider.

Not to get too football nerdy here, but there's an epidemic right now of offensive line depth. That was one of the biggest things that I remember.
During preseason, I'm like, holy crap. You're one injury away from a serious problem arising right now.
Why do you think that is? I mean, there are people who feel like, you know, the influence of the spread offense in college has led to these offensive linemen are playing. Yeah.
I mean, they're playing from a two point stance every single snap. Right.
And like the habits, this is like some of my scouting buddies will talk about how like there are offensive linemen that we draft. And the first thing we have to do before we can like train them in our is untrain them in their system.
It's like a two-step process where the development period is a lot longer, and we've never had more impatient GMs or owners really in the NFL that you whiff on a third-round pick, and it's like you're held accountable in a way that you probably weren't a decade ago. And it also, that's interesting because it does, like, my answer for the AFC is basically whichever seven teams are going to be the healthiest.
And I know that sounds very reductive and like, no duh. Yeah, but that's the answer.
But it's so loaded that it's like whichever team can basically avoid the huge injury bug of this list of 11, 12 teams that you could say are like have a legitimate chance will be the teams. Yeah.
There's, and there's like three teams maybe in the AFC that I'm like, I have a really tough path. Like, I think like Houston, it's going to be really tough path to get to the playoffs.
And he's going to be like a really tough path to get to the playoffs. Maybe like, I'm not, I'm not there with the Raiders, right? Like sort of a weird, they're in this weird, not quite an identity crisis right now as a franchise, but like they spent a quarter of a billion dollars a year ago.
And in this off season, it was like trading away players like Darren Waller and sort of like keeping the band back together and trading away, you know, or cutting Derek Carr. Like, I don't know that on paper, I think they're like a much better team than they were last year when they were whatever, six and 11.
So other than than those three, I think every other team is kind of telling itself right now, yeah, we plan to make the playoffs this year. Yeah.
What about one guy I'm very excited about? This might just be from watching too many YouTube videos on watch out for this guy. He's going to be the biggest weapon that you don't see coming.
And Justin Ross on the Chiefs. Yeah.
They basically got what should have been a first-round pick, and they him for nothing and I just saw I saw one highlight where the Chiefs tweeted out like you just got Ross yeah and he looks unstoppable and with him and Patrick Mahomes together I feel like that's going to be he's going to be a touchdown machine fantasy brain in me has spent like way too much time this offseason talking himself into every Chiefs wide receiver yeah right like you could put the least talented receiver in the NFL in the Chiefs and I'd be like top 25 outcome like upside is there right like you have my homes you got a chance right but dude like justin ross in college his freshman year was like one of the best players in the country he had some really scary neck issues during college which kept him off the field for a while and that was part of the reason why he went undrafted but like finished off his college career on a high note and definitely has like you know like some of the unteachable stuff like size and speed um i'm trying to like sort of probably the biggest thing that's allowed me to contain the hype is just that like last year they didn't have a dominant receiver in my home still had the nfl in passing yards yeah so i'm like yeah my home like justin ross could be a healthy scratch or he could like not be on the team in week three and they'll probably still average 32 points per game. System-wide receivers.
Pretty much. He also gets the benefit of, I'm going to think that he's John Ross, who I still believe in.
He's so fast. Yeah.
So fast. I know.
When he retired, I think that was, like, a month ago. I was like, that, like, took a little piece out of my heart.
Yeah, it's like, what the hell? That guy, how'd he fail? He was so fast. And, like, now watching these college football players, like, getting ready for the, like, the 2024 draft already, I draft already i'm already like i i'm gonna fall like there are certain things that are just incredibly difficult to not be totally like enamored by and like a guy who can run a like there's always a soft spot in my heart for a guy yes john ross different yes different um let's talk about something you don't really spend that much time on on esp and hank's favorite team the dallas cowboys yeah i know yeah big year for them you guys don't really discuss them that much they're flying under the radar a little bit it's so funny you say that like so i've been uh so i spent so laura rutledge the host of nfl live was on maternity leave for the summer so i spent four months sitting in for her and i i'm not exaggerating i like it's just like part of the calculus right like it's it makes sense it's dude it would be production negligence to not talk about yeah people get mad at us when we talk about lebron it's like but people want to hear about lebron they want to hear about yeah that's just a fact we find a way so we find a way every day it's like uh and just and and i'm telling you that like the numbers would bear out that like if you did an extremely nuanced conversation about like you know the hey like i think the uh you know the the the vikings like you know front sevens like really looking strong this year and like you broke down each player individually and then it was like will dak improve or regress does dak suck will dak throw left-handed this year yeah you know we'll do that for seven minutes that's a good segment let's let's talk about does dak suck He sucks.
Dak Prescott sucks. He sucks.
He is a byproduct of the star in his helmet. I'm a big – you know what? He sucks.
I've become like – He got beat up at Panama City Beach on spring break. He sucks.
That was probably the point that we knew is a little bit of a question about his future. No, I'm a Dak.
I am a Dak guy. What does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah, I mean, like...
Like, seriously. You know what's funny? It's a good question.
All right, so here's the answer. Is that, like, I feel like so much...
The NFL is not like the NBA, where I feel like the NBA, so much of our interest is the offseason. Right? Like, we're just as...
Like, James Harden's next team is just as interesting as what he's doing that current season. Right? I feel like with the NFL, it's really not the case, except for when it comes to quarterback futures.
It's like going into this season, every year three quarterback, it's like, hey, if Mac Jones doesn't ball out this year, are the Patriots in the mark? Could they be a Caleb Williams team next year? It's like they haven't played a game yet. Justin Fields, if the Bears have two first-round picks, could they be the team, right? They have that fifth-year option that you have to pick up after this year.
So quarterback's the only spot where I feel like a quarterback's future is a 365-day topic for us, even in the heat of like, hey, it's week seven. We're coming off of an epic Monday night game.
So I think where I am predisposed to think about is like like the cowboys did not trade for trey lance to replace dak prescott next offseason right like they're gonna keep dak around and by the way at some point i expect dak to sign like a pretty unbelievable extension like probably 50 million dollars or more per year and it's gonna like crazy you know the internet's gonna hate it sucks he didn't suck no i'm i'm a dash i was a shitty quarterback i'm a i'm a dak guy uh i i think that um like this will be this will be a bounce back deck season I wish I was a shitty quarterback. I'm a Dak guy.
I think that this will be a bounce-back Dak season. A bounce-back Dak season.
Right to quote. Yeah, bounce-back.
Give us the seven NFC teams. Probably, in a weird way, as hard as it is with the AFC, it might be harder for the NFC.
Yeah, because you have to find seven. You have to dig for those six and seven.
Division winners, Eagles. NFC Norris, I don't like.
I picked the Vikings previously, and I couldn't like, could not warm up to that pick that strongly. But Eagles, Vikings, Saints, I feel good about that one.
And then 49ers. Seahawks make it back this year.
Cowboys, Lions for the 17. Lions get it.
So. Yeah.
But interesting. But they're going to be better than they were.
They're a more talented team than they were last year. But you go back to last season, and there's very few things that you can definitely count on year over year in the NFL.
One thing you can count on is close game luck will not persist. Yeah.
Which is one of the reasons why the Vikings are a close call even after going 13-4. But was it every game except for two last year was a one-score game in the fourth quarter? Yeah, 11-0, I think.
If you win a lot of close games and you do it consistently, wouldn't you say like Brian Dable has something to do with that? They're doing the small things correctly to make the ball bounce their way. I know you can't control like fumble luck.
That's one of our favorite things to look up is fumble luck there are like certain places in sports where i buy that let's like chris paul in a prior like a prior iteration of chris paul um like was his teams were always great in like clutch time like you know plus minus or whatever um but like there are very few like teams that i think have shown themselves capable of keeping it up year over year even the chiefs a couple years ago like i think it was the year after like the Mahomes breakout maybe it was the second year I mean Mahomes is so ridiculous that every year feels like a little bit like more of a breakout but they started the season like three and four because it was like after winning every close game that was Mahomes second season they like they didn't cover but they won like 12 straight to end the season but they covered one of those 12 and then the following year following year, they started three and four. It's just like hard to, the Braiders are the evidence of this last year.
The Vikings will be evidence of this this year. But going from 13 to four to like 10 and seven is still good enough to make the playoffs.
Yeah, could do it. So, yeah, the Giants definitely had some fourth quarter favor last year that is difficult to replicate.
You're talking about the officials and the Commanders Giants game. Potentially.
You said it, not me. That's bullshit.
Was that Sunday Night Football? Sunday Night Football. That was such bullshit.
Terry McLaurin lining up the judge throwing a flag on him even though he checked. That was bad.
Vibes are high right now with your Commanders though. They are.
Extremely high. I've been telling people we have the system.
We have Patrick Mahomes' system now. Yeah, we do.
Also, it's usually when a quarterback goes in the fifth round and we're talking ourselves into him, I'm kind of like, he still went in the fifth round, right? It's still probably happened for a reason. You didn't see Stephen Chase mock draft, the way too early one.
Yeah, no. We had Sam Howell number one overall.
I was starting to, for something I'm working on right now at ESPN, I started to look back because I was looking at some stuff for this upcoming year and you're looking back at the at the first mock drafts from prior years and it's just a reminder of like how much can change from year to year and i saw sam how yeah like number one overall and like north carolina's like i mean i was beyond drake may like they've got two receivers like they're loaded this year and skill position players on offense, but they had that baby drought during Sam Howell's final year at North Carolina that I think maybe the NFL overthought it on Sam Howell. Yeah.
If you were to redraft Sam Howell right now. Right now.
Amongst the second-year quarterbacks? Yeah. So it's Kenny Pickett, Malik Willis, Sam Howell, and who am I forgetting? I'm sure there's somebody.
Oh, Brock Purdy. Yeah.
Bailey Zappi um Matt Corral Matt Corral yeah still in the mix um yeah I think we'll can't think it'll be one and then I think it'd be a comp I think Sam Howell will be two there we go there we go so we're already moving up to the board maybe moved up to a second round oh you know I got a fan of 49ers fans I'm sure I'll throw with that yeah it's it's a broad it's a Brock Purdy Sam Howell conversation Brock Purdy is gonna be a fascinating player too, because I don't want to take away from a kid who helped them win a ton of games last year, but that is as brilliant of a coaching system as there is right now. He's got expectations now for him, yeah.
Yeah, I loved going back to preseason. I think it was the final 49ers preseason game.
Brock Purdy threw a four-yard out to Brandon Ayuk, who ran 47 47 yards for a touchdown. Football aggregators have definitely taken over Twitter these days, right? And like one of them just took the clip from the NFL and just posted it all caps, Brock Purdy.
Yeah. Respect.
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Do you think that John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan should be fired for drafting Trey Lance? I think I'm going to have to side with Will on that one. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, it's you could go through every NFL GM, every head coach and find like several flaws.
I think that what I it was a bad pick. Obviously, it was a major whiff.
Like they should have stuck to their guns, which if they I truly feel like the Internet persuade persuaded them. Really? When they made that trade, the trade was made in like March.
Yeah. Which you don't see a lot of trades made that early before the draft a lot of them are day of the draft or even the bears trade with the panthers last year was fairly early that was i think the friday before free agency um usually it's the days or the the hours leading up to the draft they made that trade in march and at that point we all know trevor was going one but it was probably leaning heavily towards that going to but there was still some question mark about who the the 49ers would

have at their disposal at pick three and Shefty who of course is dialed in as anybody was like

yeah the intention is to take Mac Jones and then like that had I don't know maybe a week's worth

of momentum and everybody was like how could you take Mac Jones third overall even though he had

just thrown for like 5,000 yards let Alabama do a perfect season and like was absurd

I'm going to go season and was absurd. And then it became like the upside of Trey Lance.
My football buddies talk about this all the time. Whenever they're in meetings, when they're talking about players on a different team, they can always talk themselves into the upside of a guy more so than they can in their own team.
Right. And this guy, like, you know, we're sitting here, like, examining, he got cut, he's on the waiver wire today.
The upside's kind of intriguing. It's like, dude, he got cut from, like, the worst team's defense in the NFL.
Like, the upside probably is what it is, right? Like, the upside is, like, probably you claim him, and then he's cut in, like, two weeks. People think they can fix a problem.
Of course. I used to, I mean, not to, you love Jay.
So I used to talk about this with Jay Cutler all the time, is that like coaches are built with like a certain, and I say this like in a way of admiration, they have an arrogance about them. Right.
Which is part of the reason why they're successful. Jay Cutler was like the litmus test for that.
Right. Because Jay was so talented.
Right. But hadn't experienced a ton of team success.
But every coach who coached him was like, this guy can be – like I can make this guy great. Like our team can be great with him.
And by the way, Adam Gase was like rewarded for that in Miami that year when he got him out of retirement and like helped him win a lot of games. But that's I think the case often with quarterbacks is you see, you know, you don't bother with quite as much of the downside as you do by being enamored by the upside and i don't know what the what the future is for trey trey lance but when you factor in being the cowboys backup for at least this year and probably next as well that's going to be five full seasons basically if not playing not playing football yeah how how can you expect that guy to be like and in 20 actually six because he only played one game in the cove well four of got four the nfl and one of college that they had that central arkansas game it's finally you're at north dakota state and you're like so five full years and is anybody gonna be unless dac gets hurt and and trey plays yeah now that we talked about him glowingly um like is trey gonna have like a market to become a starter in 2025 there will be a coach that's like someone will dislike lance he was picked what third overall i'd fall for that all the time i mean even the cowboys trading for him i was like of the teams that i had thought about can guarantee i put zero seconds of effort into the cowboys like i never like i had all the same usual suspects everybody else right like would the bucks do it with the you know the, the Vikings do it with the, you know, teams that have a question mark after this year, would they consider doing it? Um, and the, the Cowboys never registered for me.
Yeah. Uh, what's, this is a tough question, but you're, you're a smart guy.
What's the next, uh, zag on in the NFL? Like we've seen it, you know, obviously passing his, his King now, now you've seen a lot of teams play cover, too, and we had that whole discussion. Oh, can Mahomes beat this dink and dunking down the field? What's the next thing you see coming, whether it be defense or offense, that teams are going to start to do? I think we're seeing this.
The Giants are probably the best example of it right now with the approach they have, but positionless defense, baby. Let's go.
Amoeba like the old Rex answer special but um the uh so the Giants made a trade in the preseason for Isaiah Simmons who you guys remember from Clemson I mean freak I remember I was at the combine the year that he was coming out and it was like jaw-dropping everybody was talking about him and only him amongst the 250 guys that were there. And you're like, it doesn't matter where he plays.
He's going to be insane. And instead, he goes to the Cardinals.
And the problem was that he was like never good enough anywhere to ever stick. So that's why he got traded for a seventh-round pick.
But Wink Martindale, their defensive coordinator, is just crazy enough to just be like, you know what? He's played safety, linebacker, slot corner. He's going to be a nose tackle for us, and next thing you know, he's going to have eight sacks and make the Pro Bowl.
We're all going to be like Wink frigging Martindale. But we're seeing more and more of that now.
I remember being at the Senior Bowl this past year and seeing 220-pound linebackers or these defensive ends who who look wiry but they can like they they're just unblockable for these tackles that aren't trenton williams type athletes so that could be one that i we could see more of that answer there's a kid from uh from iowa cooper de jean the the defensive back yeah who's like ball hawk i don't know if he's a safety corner linebacker in the nfl but just finds the ball. Right.
And we're seeing, I think we're like, that's one example of many of the defensive players in this upcoming draft that are going to be like more and more in vogue these days. Okay.
I love that. I remember Steelers with their zone blitzes.
They used to drop James Harrison back into coverage sometimes. Yeah, dude.
James could do it all. He was a monster.
Also the only person like that. I think the only person that trains harder after they've retired.
Yeah, terrifying. Makes no sense to me.
Well, J.J. Watt now.
J.J. Yeah, he's in a lot of those 16-ounce curls.
Between those Guinnesses. What about on the offensive side? The NFL is due to pay more of a tight end tax.
One of the things that I will never understand, and I think he would certainly have a leg to stand on if he decided to make this his fight, Travis Kelsey would be like the 27th highest paid wide receiver if you just made him a wide receiver right now. It's absurd that a guy who...
How many wide receivers are you right now unquestionably taking over Travis Kelsey for this season? You could trade Travis Kelsey three maybe yeah like maybe it's Jefferson Jamar Chase and like TJ Moore maybe Tyreek maybe have a conversation yeah have a conversation yeah seriously right like the Chiefs kept you know they kept they kept uh Travis Kelsey but like you can make a conversation around like maybe three or four of them he makes like half of what what Tyreek Hill makes yeah and it's hard you know they're only there's only there's obviously only so many of these good tight ends but we're due for like a little bit of a tight end tax because uh there are guys like Brock Bowers from Georgia this year is going to be a problem like there's some legit college prospects that give me some hope that the tight end spot can get closer in line it was why when uh the running back and everybody like that was a great June to early July conversation was running back markets and how we need to fix the system. You can't really fix the system.
The way that it's set up, it's like... My buddies in the league, they were just like, what a waste of your time.
You guys are the biggest fucking idiots talking about the system. It's it's never going to happen.
Like, we're not going to undo the CBA to, like, just correct. Pay running backs.
You can't do it, yeah, mid-CBA. Maybe next time we can talk about something different with a franchise tag.
Sure, if you want to talk about that and apply it to all positions, that's fine. But, like, people are saying, like, you know, running backs should deserve, they deserve the chance to renegotiate as soon as after one season.
Like, Patrick Mah deserve to negotiate after one game. If we're just going to bend the rules, that should be how it is.
I like that, though. After one game? All contracts are game by game.
That could be complicating, but good. Yeah.
Salary cap managers everywhere would love that, right? They had a bad game. I have no idea how the draft works in this respect, but if you're a top running back coming out of college and you just – maybe it's after your junior year, you don't declare for the draft until after the draft's over and then – Go for the supplemental draft? Yeah, go for the supplemental draft or, I don't know, is there a way that you can get that supplemental draft pick used on you and then the contract's going to be different so you hit free agency a little bit faster.
I don't know. That idea.
There are some ways to game the system. Probably your best bet would be fake an injury because you'd become an undrafted free agent.
I'd be awesome at that. Undrafted free agents are eligible to extend after two seasons.
So you could be up to something here. You've got to eat shit for two years but then you get that big contract.
It Who do you think – it's a different year this year, but who do you think is – and it's early, but do we have any like the best back in college football right now? Braylon Allen. Braylon Allen probably is on the short list, right? The kid from Notre Dame, pretty damn good.
He looked pretty damn good, week one, week zero. Will Shipley from Clemson is going to be a really good player.
The back from Arkansas, Rocket, what's his last name right now? He's going to be a good player. But maybe one of them has to have the gumption.
Like bowl game, during media availability, you just get up there and just crumple on stage. Twisting it and walking up the steps.
It's got to be more than that. And then you're out for an 18-month recovery.
You're not going to have me until maybe the following year. And then instead be good, like Nash style after the draft I'm good who's taking me two years from now I'm extension eligible we're figuring this out I like it since we're talking dumb rules so we're going to run this Tuesday or Wednesday after Labor Day but this is as we're taping it cut day what if you just didn't cut anyone? Would the NFL stop you? If you're like, no, we're just going to have 65 guys.
We're just going to keep them all? Yeah, I think that might be. Someone should call their bluff.
I actually don't know what, because you have to be roster and cap compliant every day. The NFL says that, but I don't know what the repercussions are.
Is there the guy that checks that? Yeah, every day there is someone someone who is like with a fine-tooth comb going through and being like, do you have, during the offseason, 90 or fewer players? Are you under the salary cap? And this offseason, like the Chiefs have been dancing with like – there was a time where the Chiefs a couple years ago, and this is what happens when you have a lot of good players. They had $141 left in salary cap space.
That's awesome. $141.
They1 they're like the drill tweet with their budget yes and so and like somebody is sitting there and it's like you can't like you can't make a move until you've like do several other things and they ended up you know the nfl salary cap is obviously so uh you can manipulate it so much that they ended up at one point with like 30 million after that uh 141 bucks um the chiefs are the the saints have been in cap hill for like yeah five years you know i feel like this like one day i'll uh like this will be like the hill that i die on is that like you can do what these like what the saints do what the eagles do you just have to keep doing it in perpetuity it's getting off the train that's really tough right like going back to the middle which is what the bucks and the rams are both dealing with right now right they went all in they won a super bowl each now the bucks want to get back to their approach and it's really hard like besides baker mayfield like they had a very quiet off season because they had no resources to work with and they wanted to get back to where they had been prior to that so um it's you can do it you just have to be committed to it forever tell one of your guys just don't cut anyone i just would like to see what would happen i feel like if you're like a college team and you just show up with 90 guys on the first week yeah like you have to duplicate some numbers probably yeah but the nfl we've seen some of that in the nfl now i uh especially with all the like the new number like jersey number changes i feel like we're seeing so many like it always cracks me up when like uh some team like unknowingly like issues I don't know, like the star wide receivers jersey number changes. I feel like we're seeing so many.
It always cracks me up when some team unknowingly issues, I don't know, like the star wide receiver's jersey number to an undrafted rookie safety. And the receiver's like, dude, I'm 17.
That's my territory. That guy's going to get cut.
Dude, we promise you it's not going to be an issue in two weeks. Yeah, Teddy Bridgewater wearing 50.
Ugly. Yeah, terrible.
But he said he's like, I'm just going to get another number if I make the team. I mean, sure.
But was there nothing else available? I don't know. Was there nothing between 1 and 19 that they couldn't double issue? What's to stop an owner from just writing extra checks or sending Venmos to guys? Wasn't it the Dirk Nowitzki theory? Yeah.
He started taking a bunch of like, you know, he took like the, I think the last, one of his last deals with the math was like, I don't know, a third of his market.

Yeah.

It's like, hey, listen, we can't give you a big contract because of the salary cap.

Right.

Yeah.

But I can Venmo you $50,000 every three days.

You have a very rich owner now for the commanders.

This could be it.

Yeah.

Go cheat.

I'm all about cheating.

Like, just do. You should just work on handshakes first whatever yeah well hey that joe buck set him up if i go like that field what do you do oh you're coming reaching in like hey let's go i will say this joe buck's a piece of shit he should be ashamed of himself i'm like it was one of those moments where you're watching it and uh like definitely you got you guys imagine i spent a lot of time on twitter but like that was one of was one of those moments where I was, like, I was not watching.
I was just watching the game, like, not on social media. I was, like, that happened.
That happened, right? Like, I need to get Twitter. I figured one of you guys would have this covered.
And it was, like, you know, within moments, you're, like, oh, all right. That did happen.
I didn't. That actually did happen here.
So, to me, I think that that was a masterstroke by Josh Harris to deflect any conversation about the fact that he was wearing a burgundy polo shirt that did not have the name Commanders on it because I think he might be changing the name. He didn't want to be on camera and have everybody talking about, oh, they're changing the name.
That's why he's not showing it. So I'll just do this weird, awkward handshake, and I'll laugh at myself, and people will talk about that instead.
I'm big time.

I'm football team all the way through when they do change it.

Football team's good.

Football team, that was a magical season.

Yeah.

It grew on me very quickly.

It just makes sense.

It was uncomfortable for a little while, and then it totally-

We play football.

We don't need a cartoon bird telling us to cheer.

We're a fucking football team.

It just felt like it all worked.

Okay.

So you said the Ravens, that you're high on them.

What are the other teams that you're high on that NFC or AFC? They feel Yates is stamping approval of like watch out for these guys. I think the Seahawks are going to be really good this year.
Really? Yeah, their offense, I mean Jackson Smith and Jigba getting hurt in the preseason wasn't perfect, but I was talking earlier about how there's like no offensive line depth. The Seahawks are one of those few teams that actually has a formidable first five and a little bit of depth, too.
So they could be really good this year, and obviously Geno is going to be the pendulum for them. But I thought that what he did last year was, as I've thought about it more and more, I started to wonder, was he just like a, was some, not all, but was some of the first decade of his career more circumstance than it was ability? Yeah.
Like, if I were a backup quarterback, I don't think I would have signed to be Eli Manning's backup. I know that he did snap the streak eventually, but it's like, Eli Manning's back, he never misses time.
He never misses a game due to injury in his career, right? Like, that to me feels like the wrong place to wind up. And then going to Seattle was the same thing up until uh i think it was like the second to last season with seattle russ never missed a game during he got that thumb injury off of aaron donald's helmet you're like yeah this would like that'd be the last place i want to go except for the fact that it's probably great job secured right because like he just kept getting re-signed to a one-year deal in seattle but i'm more in than out.
Accuracy is quantifiable in the sense of completion percentage. But I think there's also a different side to it.
And Gino, his ball placement is some of the very best in the NFL. He was absurd last year.
It's very funny, too, that Russell Wilson leaves the Seahawks and then their offensive line gets amazing. Because for a long time, the knock against how was building the roster was like they just get fat tight ends and they just put whoever in like Tom Cable would build an offensive line out of duct tape and string be like here you go Russ yeah out there make it work they and they sometimes did um Ross also I'd like not to uh like take the offensive lineman off the hook I feel like with those quarterbacks like the only downside to the super athletic quarterbacks, I think, is that we don't parse out sacks as an offensive line or a quarterback issue.
It's always the offensive line. No one says the quarterback allowed 62 sacks last year.
It's like the offensive line did. And it's like, for as great as the mobility can be, it also— He'd run into some.
Yeah, you'd be like, all right. Might have just thrown the ball away and been fine there.
Second and 10 is okay. Sometimes better than second and 21.
That was part of it. But it was a much different approach for Seattle this past year.
Yeah, Pete Prisco will always tell you, Russ just runs out of clean pockets all the time. He watches the film.
Do you watch the film? I probably not am on Pete's level. No one's on Pete's level.
He's like clockwork orange in his office. Just tapes his eyes open.
With some of the stuff that I'm going to be doing now more at ESPN, more on the college film than the pro film because, you know, obviously on Sundays I have to work and then I'm watching as many of the games live as we can. We have a great setup that allows us to watch all the games.
Do you get to watch with Chris Berman? One of the coolest things over the past few years, so the past few years ESPN's had Sunday NFL Countdown from New York City, but there are a few shows that still emanate out of Bristol. Ours, Fantasy Football Now on Sunday mornings is on ESPN2 and then Primetime, which has been reborn over the past few years, has been on ESPN Plus, but in Bristol.

So Boom and I got to sit next to each other for the past three years.

That's awesome. It went from probably 50 people in the room to, in a post-COVID world, maybe 12 or 16 of us.

And so I'm like, Boom, who everything you'd imagine it would be and more.

I believe it. He still walks in with his briefcase.
He's got like several different newspapers, you know, like he's like, yeah, I comb, you know, he's kind of guys. I call him the globe.
I call the time. He's got like all, he's got everything.
He's got dice that digested all of his information. He's got all the lines ready.
You know, he's got the entire Ivy league rundown from Saturday, you know, like Brown do boom tough one for the boys yesterday, but you know, back, and he's the best. That's awesome.
I don't need to tell you guys how great he is. Does he let out a little whoop every now and then? The best is when something happens that involves with Damon, would he be in the room? If there's something Jets related, it just goes nods.
Boog is in the room, Booger McFarlane. Like, he just got his certain teams.
Lions, like, Lions has always been a big one for Boom. He's always had a special place in his heart for the Lions.
But they've been so good recently that – didn't Jared tell you that, like, the best pass of his career was the touchdown to a Monroe St. Brown at the end of the game? Yeah.
That moment, Boom, like, couldn't contain himself. It's like, I just – Lions? That's awesome.
For, like, 30 straight seconds, right? Just, like, getting up and walking around. He's the best.
He owes us a Brock and Roll All Night and Purdy Every Day. Just remind me of that.
Him workshopping a nickname for me in front of my, at the time, girlfriend and now wife. She was like, did that just happen right there? Field of field of dreams yates i'm sure he fields forever oh yeah all right that you could do field yates of hell yeah yeah yeah we get that happens often now like i've gotten to know tj mostly because the internet has asked us like i thought we were related i was uh i was going i went down uh for uh something in New York recently and I got in the car from they had a car service from ESPN and MBD MBD but it was pretty sweet and uh he was like yeah so um like how's your post-playing career treating you I don't I don't know what you're referring to he's like yeah weren't you in league for a few years and I, you know, like I thought he was – I was like, that's a pretty like good knowledge of like my background working for the Chiefs.
And he was like, no, like didn't you play for like Houston for a couple seasons? And I was like, oh, okay. I think you've like gravely mistaken me.
But I immediately texted TJ who's now coaching. He's coaching for the Falcons now.
He's doing a great job. And we've become friendly because of that reason.
So for a while, there was like a cross-section on the internet.

I thought we were related.

Probably some people still do. Yeah, I think we should just keep that thought rolling.

Yeah, let's keep it going.

I'm good with it.

Yeah.

The more successful.

He's got a couple cousins now who are playing college football.

So the Yates family.

You have a couple cousins.

I have a couple cousins.

That's correct.

They're playing college football.

Yes.

A couple of us.

Yes.

So there's some Yates out there that have some athletic ability.

And then there's D3 me.

Yeah. What position did you play?

It was a safety, yeah.

What was your game like?

Bad.

I started one game.

I played two seasons.

I played two seasons of football and four seasons of lacrosse.

I think I had maybe one start combined.

Oh, no wonder Belichick loved you.

Yeah, well, lacrosse?

Yeah, lacrosse.

Like, I'm a football player, but really lacrosse.

Yeah, lacrosse.

I got to get this guy.

I say to people, people are like, yeah, tell us about your lacrosse career. I'm like, you know, I was a great teammate.
Yeah. Blue guy.
Made a lot of good friends. Good, good.
I spent the day out here in Chicago with one of my college teammates. It doesn't matter how many starts I did or didn't have.
It's more like, would this relationship exist if I hadn't played lacrosse with you? This is the embodiment of the Belichick meme from the combine. He hears about you.
You this fucking guy? I can work with this guy. Hell yes.
Safety and special teams players. Because when you say special teams, no one can really check the box score on you.
Big time core special teams. I have one last question.
I think Piahti has a couple last ones too. Hey, it's Rhea from Trix in the Office.
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This has been great having you on.

You now have to be a recurring guest more often,

but we do have to ask a fantasy football question.

If you must.

You are a fantasy football guru, although it sounds like you're going to be a draft guy now.

We'll do some draft now in the future, too, which will be exciting.

Beautiful.

Congratulations.

Looking forward to that.

Thank you.

Squeeze out Todd McShay. No big deal deal uh jeez i mean he's our friend he's the best yeah i love todd why are you coming for each other you didn't say that you said that but you pushed him out todd and i did a show together for several years he is i love todd he for both massachusetts guys we go way back he's todd is the best um all right so fantasy sleep You know, I feel like when we did this with Florio a couple years ago, this was the one fantasy question you asked.
All right. So give me like 15 seconds.
Just like the reality of sleepers is that like if you're listening to this show, you probably know most of the names that people consider. You don't think so? Nope.
All right. All right.
I'll try a couple here. Say some names and we'll tell you the teams.
So, like, what I consider a sleeper is, like, all right, hey, like, 12th round and beyond in your fantasy draft, everything in the 12th round and beyond, it was like, that's a sleeper. That's when I go to auto draft.
Right. Yeah.
So, like, Jordan Addison, who I know you guys know. He's a first-round pick, right? Yes.
But, like, he's going, like, way too late in drafts right now. Very fast.
Zay Flowers from the Ravens as well. Matt Collins for the Falcons falcons like who was good last year and it's like become this like sort of hidden gem of a character for uh for for the nfl these days like he'll be more productive like the falcons wide receiver core is too thin for him to not have a legitimate role there larger more for the browns and then with running backs you have to find the running back room that you're not totally positive that the starter is going to keep his job for the full season.
So, like, I think Alexander Madison is going to be a good player for the Vikings. But until he's shown it for, like, an extended period, there's, like, the non-zero chance that Ty Chandler, the drafted a couple years ago at UNC, is going to be eventually become the starter.
Roshon Johnson for the Bears, right? Like, looked good in the preseason, Khalil Herbert. Deontay Foreman like was a good player for the Panthers last year.
But like would you be totally surprised if Roshon like had a real role at some point? This is some good strategy. Yeah, but like, you know, all the all the others like all the like starting running backs are known, right? Like so you have to find the guys that just are one, not even injured everybody's an injury away from being useful but like one sort of slump away from being fumble yeah yeah and then uh you know kenny pickett was once a uh quarterback sleeper but i think he's he's generated too much steam in the preseason about gibbs up in detroit yeah he's going so high in finish drafts now that like people are just all in yeah is bichon going in the first round? First round.
Jesus. I bet people who are listening right now saw Bichon go first overall.
Because in fantasy, definitely. Fantasy, we like things that we know, and we like things that are shiny objects.
Mahomes, best player in the world. He's going 13th in fantasy.
I do two quarterback league, though. Okay, so he deserves to go, right? But when there are between like patrick mahomes over the course of the season and like the 15th best quarterback is not nearly as significant as the variance from whether it's christian mcafrey or austin at the top of the running back ranks and the 15th best running back like at the end of the season you're going to be like wait like how was uh you know whatever like pierre thomas who's been retired for seven years the 15th best running back in fantasy this season so quarterbacks uh tend to go earlier because of name value and jameer gibbs who is awesome and um like in fantasy i think one of the traps that people fall into sometimes is like just wanting to not be last um which is you know it's it sucks to be last but like that trap for a baseball league okay so i've heard yeah um i listen not um but like you listen to that holy fuck field i get a lot of time jesus christ a lot of walks in the morning torture you live in this city they're playing dingers only draft in guantanamo right now i'm impressed uh yeah but uh the uh like playing for like fourth or fifth, that's fine.
Fourth or fifth is respectable, and no one's going to comment on you positively or negatively. But Jameer Gibbs is the kind of player that I don't think he's just going to be average.
I think he's either going to be like, holy crap, why did the Lions use a 12th overall pick on a guy and then not use him that much? Or he's going to be Alvin Kamara 2.0. Right.
You're going to be like, holy crap. This guy, Kamara is a rookie, had 13 touchdowns, 81 catches.
He was absurd. It took a little time to get there.
But from week six or seven on, his rookie season, was the best running back in fantasy. And I feel like Jameer Gibbs, especially with no Jamison Williams, the first six weeks, after Amon Ross St.
Brown, that's it.

Amon Ross moved up in my rankings after he came on PMT, by the way. He's intense.

Is he the most alpha dude in the entire NFL?

When I told him I was a Bears fan, I thought he was going to jump the table.

He was crazy.

I texted a couple of my buddies at the Lions after that,

and I was like, I got to be honest with you.

I was like, I don't like when people overreact too much to just stuff they hear or see in the media like i do with hard knocks sometimes but i'm like i think i'm like i think i'm ready to run through a brick wall for a mantra and he was like he's got every team that passed on yeah who they drafted 16 receivers like he's the biggest dog in the entire locker room yeah this guy's an absolute beast yes everything he's like he is the son of mr universe like that is what like to a t he is literally but also like embodies what you'd imagine somebody would be if they pretended their dad was mr universe yeah uh what about for uh for rookie quarterbacks yeah are you a strad boy are you in prices um i'm a strad boy for fantasy okay because in fantasy football you got to remember how valuable running quarterbacks are yeah uh they like they set this unbelievable floor like daniel jones last year even in years prior to that like had had flash had flashes where he was like legit in fantasy um he played much better last year but a big part of the reason why like he's going in higher than like dac prescott and kousins right now is that like he is a legit

Russian quarterback and they're I feel like it's pretty normal for coaches to spend time talking about how they're running their quarterbacks are going to run less like the Bills I feel like for three years have been telling us like yeah we're going to protect Josh more and then he just keep running the Giants have sort of alluded to like yeah like Daniel running for us is a huge weapon. Right.
Why take that away from an offense that will be better with Darren Waller and some receiver investments, but they're certainly not, as far as explosive plays go, top five or anything in the NFL. So Daniel Jones, way more valuable in fantasy, even if he takes a step back this year in real life.
Okay. Yeah.
Good answers. this has been awesome it's great yeah appreciate you moving your schedule for us what's like an extra night in chicago yeah i mean we got now we got the rapport you're gonna come back on we could do zoom next time yeah um i'm back for the event next year yeah but you are we'll definitely have you back on during the season let's do it some good answers you passed the test yeah passed test.
And I didn't know you were, yeah, I mean, you're watching all the college tape now, too. Say, that's the only thing about traveling these days.
It's like, usually I don't like to get away from my family for too long. It's just like the logistics.
We were talking about this. I'm sure this is riveting for everybody.
But like now you get the tape to grind. Like I was sitting there in the airport this morning.
Oh, you're doing the Orlovsky. I'm sitting there.
Yeah. Yeah, you're grinding tape instead of jerking off.
Just got the tape. Okay.
Nice. Are you allowed to- In the middle of the Hartford Airport, yeah.
Are you allowed to be in a room with a woman who's not your wife? I believe so, yes. That was confirmed.
You don't have the Mike Pence rules, the Orlovsky rules? Well, I mean, Jake probably wants to fuck you right now. Jake and I are going to- After this, we're going to hang out and talk to- I'm telling you, one day Jake will be my boss, and I have little doubt about that.
I i mean i don't know what the sport will call together but we'll find a way to make something happen yes in a different life i truly believe like i could have had like a very jake approach to my like career i totally does i'm i get so proud watching him every time on the pll or any of your guys events like it's legitimately cool yeah we are we are proud of jake we have to bust his ball so he he cheats in golf. Well, he's too much of an alpha, so we have

to bring him down. Yeah.
He came off. He had a good day

on the course today. Yeah, don't believe it.

Don't believe it. I saw one shot.

That's his vice. His one vice is just

fake hole in one. I'm just jealous of how

much him and Hank can play these days.

Look at Hank. Hank looks like a lobster

right now. He got some color today.

I just got beat up by the sun. I wasn't going to say anything,

but he got some good. I'm jealous of it.
I'm envious. Jake, did you offer Hank sunscreen today? I know you brought a lot out.
You didn't? Oh, wow. Oh, man.
Oh, man. Brutal.
All right. Well, Field, thank you so much, man.
Thank you, guys. Thanks, Field.
As we progress through the season, every fan knows that big wins are hard to come by and tough losses are even harder to accept. But you know what isn't hard to accept? Discover.
Believe it or not, Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. You heard that right, 99%.
So make a good call for your wallet and get Discover. Based on the February 2024 Nielielsen report learn more at discover.com credit card okay uh end of the show max is back max how was your vacation vacation was really nice necessary yeah yeah was it 13 days do you think it was necessary it was how many days count the days um well, Sunday, Monday.
We were working Thursday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
You're counting weekends. Weekends don't count.
It was five days. When did the weekend start, Max? Oh, you missed that debate.
Yeah, no, that was. No, I back my guy, Hank.
And sometimes you just got to let him cook. Do you think that Hank let you down with his Mount Rushmore performance? Because you guys did lose.
The final tallies out. You guys are going to have to spend 24 hours in a box together, in Hank's box, in his sweet, sweet box.
Do you think he let you down? No. I mean, I was sending out picks, too.
You didn't take a lot of my picks. I let us down.
It was bad. It was a bad end of the summer, but I'm excited to be in the box.
Yeah. Ready to go to the box.
I, I'm really good at all of these bets that we do on this show. Well, Max is running away with fingers only.
I don't know if the one thing that I'm actually good at. Wait.
So Max, the one thing I'm going to wait. Are you mad? Are you mad at Hank? He, he literally just gave up.
He gave up. Win as a team, lose as a team.
But you won by yourself and then you handed the ball. I know what you're trying to do here.
I'm not. You handed the ball to Hank and he's like, I don't want to play anymore.
That's not true. That is absolutely true.
The numbers say otherwise. The Wednesday show, you maybe you maybe didn't want to be there anymore but that's fine but you were still alive well that's because they were gonna yeah yeah what you were gonna rig it you you were mad about a pre-rig that we weren't even discussing it's fine it is what it is we we I'm a vacation supporter enthusiast uh whatever you want to call call it.
There's probably some science to the fact that we took these vacations at the end of the summer and the team chemistry just wasn't there. Yeah.
You know what? I think there might be something to the fact that when you don't have the other guy in the studio. And Billy left.
You don't have the background of a guy having your back immediately. Like, yeah, good pick, you know? Although, yeah, Max, that's a good point when hank was out you did really well yeah and it does feel like the jerome bettis pick was the start of the decline yeah and you were very adamant that that was a good pick it was a good pick it was a good pick lost you that bad pick it was what did he win pft uh he won offensive rookie of the year i think no one no one cares about jerome bettis on the rank he was also a first- team all pro, Big Cat, as a rookie.
Old people do. As a rookie.
Old, old, old. First team all pro.
They only choose one of those guys. Yeah, that's true.
So it was good to have you back, though, Max. I missed you.
I said that out loud. I was like, I miss Max.
I miss having him around. I missed you guys.
And the Phillies and Cubs are on a collision course. I know.
That would be something. Yeah.
I don't think Jerry knows. Like, Jerry thinks Max likes to titty fuck.
That's okay. I was going to say that.
I was going to say that. Sometimes you got to let Jerry go.
We let him go. It was so fucking funny.
Someone said it perfectly. They're like, in the year 2023, Jerry O'Connell did a cranky anchors of Max, and it was awesome.
I think mostly what it was about was just he was mad at you for making him visualize you. You titty fucking.
Yeah. But I said, I don't like it.
But you still had to talk about you having a titty fucking session and hating it, which is also gross. Talk me through that, Max.
You're on vacation, and you pull up your... You not listening to this show and you pull up your Twitter on Friday morning and you're like, what the fuck? So Friday was our big trip.
We went snorkeling. We went nice little three islands snorkeling tour.
It was nice. Oh, shit.
I get back. Do they have an extra lifeguard for you? I don't know what that means.
How burned is your back? Is your back back super burned uh no i'm italian skin you know yeah i get you get olive yeah i get a little olive although i i was worried whatever um but yeah i get back to look at my phone and i just have 10 texts from like my friends being like oh my god the titty fucking segment the titty i was like what could possibly how could this possibly be this big of a topic in the fantasy football preview with Jerry? That makes no sense to me. Well, Jerry gave us a great preview for fantasy football.
He said, Justin Fields and Darren Waller, no matter what, we got neither one of those guys. Yeah.
So we got. It just went sideways.
We got all Bengals. We got all Bengals.
So that's good. We know we stacked Bengals and I think Jaguars.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I mean, he's the best. We love having Jerry on.
But yeah, I did enjoy seeing you tweet that, Max, being like, it's got to suck to be Max on vacation right now. It's okay.
Titty fucking. It's okay.
All right. Anything else? Oh, Jake, did you not want to bring up your wild from over the weekend? Giannis and his brothers? Oh, yeah.
Sign with the team, all three of them. I love that Giannis was like, the Bucs have to do the right thing for me to stay.
And really, he meant just sign all my siblings. The Nuggets should do that.
Yeah. The Jokish.
Yeah. My fun stat is that we have one more part of my take until NFL football is back.
Yes. That's a fucking awesome stat.

We made it, boys.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Yeah, we could.

Not yet.

Jimmy Buffett.

Yep.

You never know.

I don't want that to happen.

Yeah.

Also, Jake, sorry.

I know that you had your Yankees big board for free agency.

Oh, yeah.

And Julio Arias was your number one target.

No, no, no.

So sorry about that.

This is a vow.

I know you wanted him.

You said Demigro Herman and Julio Arias would be great no, no. So sorry about that.
Disavow. I know you wanted him.

You said Demigo German and Julio Rias. It would be great on the staff.

You were saying that on Friday.

But you didn't have to say it on the show.

Look at Jake going along with bits.

Way to go, Jake.

Turn the corner.

All right.

So the lottery ball machine, I don't even know when we're getting it,

but I know we're getting the old one shipped to us.

So we will have that back. Did Clemson score 30 more points? They lost 28-7.
I mean, that's bad. It's bad.
I feel like a coward for not taking Duke Moneyline. I hit on that.
A little rescue bail me out on Monday night, but should have gone Moneyline. Yeah, I know.
I mean, look at Duke football. Duke football back.

Some are saying it's a football school

now. Yeah.
I think it always was.

Coach K's going to have to come back and save it. All right.
Numbers.

Memes, you ever gotten this?

Nope. 18.
3.

1. 69.

77. 20.

30.

Also,

last week I forgot to say that it was the third birthday of the lottery machine.

Thank you, Jake.

Very cool.

How could you do that?

How could you do that?

You're never going to look at the face.

I did it last year.

All right.

See everyone tomorrow.

Love you guys. I don't know what to say I'm sage anyway Today is a night A day to find you Shining away I'll be coming for your love Okay Take on me Take me on I'll be gone And after your dream Needless to say I'm on tennis But I'm'm here So a little Like Life is okay Say after me It's no better To be All the things that you say Is it all I've told Just to play my worries away You're all the things I've got to remember And you're shying away I'll be coming for you anyway Take on me.

Take me on. I'll be gone.
In a deep. I'll be gone

In a long time Oh Oh Oh, Oh,

Oh,

Oh,