Mark Titus, Guys On Free Agency With Mike Florio And March Madness Preview

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we have our good friend Mark Titus on to break down the bracket, give us his picks, talk everything March Madness, getting you ready for Thursday. We also have our internet father for PFT, my uncle, Mike Florio.
He's got a new book out.

We do a little guys on free agency. So we talked some football with him.
He's got some good insight onto where Deshaun Watson will go. We're going to talk March Madness.
We're going to talk hot seat, cool throne. We got a great show for everyone.
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No place to hang out or wash in, and then I can't blame all of the sun.

Oh no, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue, and then we'll take it higher.

Oh, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue. It's part of my take presented by Marshall Sports.
Welcome to part of my take presented by Venmo. New sponsor alert.
Use the hashtag PMT when you make a transaction on Venmo. And Venmo is giving $100,000 away to AWLs during March.
and you can up to five hundred dollars if you just put in hashtag pmt in your transaction thank you venmo that's unbelievable today is wednesday march 16th i'm ready for madness i am finally there i've been stuffing my brain with statistics and i'm ready i'm ready spreads don't matter by the way oh of course not No, they don't. They I'm ready.
Spreads don't matter, by the way.

Of course not.

No, they don't.

They don't matter.

Spreads don't matter in March.

You have to have a 12 over a 5.

These are the rules of the bracket.

You have to have one 12 over a 5 at least.

Then you can be smart and say it happens every year.

I have some stats for you.

You want me to throw some stats real quick?

We're going to talk with Mark Titus about the whole bracket.

Your brain is so filled with stats that you have to get rid

of some of them. I have to get rid of some

top 50 free throws.

Three free throw percentage. Ready?

This was going to be the one I was going to ask you about

because a lot of times I like to bet just

exclusively on better free throw

percentages. Villanova number one in the country.

Good thing I have them in my final four.

Colorado State, North Carolina,

St. Mary's, Chattanooga.

These are all teams that are top 50.

Really bad free throw teams.

Boise State, USC, TCU, Houston.

Just take this information and run with it.

It's a fun thing to say to people.

Let's know we have some real business we've got to get to.

Should we present it to Billy?

Yes. So Billy is doing – he made a lot of money, I think, in football season

off of his stats, right, off your spreadsheets.

and I'll see you next time. Should we Should we Should you present it to Billy Yes So Billy is doing He made a lot of money I think in football season Off of his stats Right off your spreadsheets Billy It worked a couple times A couple times What was the return on investment I think The season I did For the whole season The return on investment Was about $150 So based off how many units though I'm looking for percentages here Basically I Turn turned $100 a week into $150 by the end of it.
So Billy, for people who don't know the backstory of Billy, $100 a week to $150? Does that mean that you lost like $1,600? No, $50 over the course of 18 weeks. You were up $50.
No, no, no. That was including the $100.
Right. You reinvested it.
Right, right. So you made $50 total.
No, no, no. 150.
I counted the 100 that was first put in. So you started the year with 100.
You ended the year with 250. Yeah.
Okay. So just a little tip for you, Billy.
The way to say that is if you are a $1 a unit better, you were up 150 units this year. Perfect.
See how that sounds? $8 a Sunday. That's pretty damn good.
You say it like that and people are like wow this guy's a tout wait so it made 150 percent correct 150 units enormous that you you broke vegas yeah right but there was a couple places where it got oh you did something you deviated there was a little couple deviations billy just hit one billy realized that it just you could just bet on one game instead of betting on all of them So Billy's strategy, for people who don't know, he's the guy who at horse track, everyone's had this moment where it dawns on them, what if I just hit the all button? I can't lose every bet. One of these has to hit.
I'll just hit the all button and root for the long shot. It's essentially what Billy's done.
And that's what you're going to do for March Madness, correct? Yeah. This is going to be a fun one, guys.
So you came into this room about 30 minutes ago, and you had a look on your face. You even said out loud, like, I don't think the system's ready yet.
I don't give a fuck if it's ready yet, Billy. We're going to launch it.
This is called Agile Development in the software. We're going to launch it.
And you know what? Even the bugs are going to become the features. It's going to be like Theranos.
Theranos. Yeah, no, just go with it.
Yeah, we're just going to roll with it. The system might not be ready, but guess what? March Madness is starting, so it better...
Like, we don't have any time. We have to implement the best system that we have and go forward with it.
PFT has brought you a gift from the two of us. It's not even a gift.
It's an investment. This is a really bad idea.
No, we know it's a bad idea. Why are you guys doing it? Because you asked us for the investment.
Now you're getting it. You would be an awful, awful like entrepreneur looking for money from your VC.
Me and Big Cat are your angel investors right now, okay? So we're buying a piece of your system. We've got $2,000.
$1,000 from each of us that we're investing. We're bankrolling.
Which is roughly like, I don't know, like a minute and a half of PMT. Basically, this segment is paying for this.
Yes. Actually, it's run kind of long, so we could...
No, we're not going to invest anymore. So here's the issue I have.
I want to hear his system, but before we even hear the system, the problem I'm struggling with, we're handing Billy $2,000 of cash. I don't want to leave the office with that.
Right. What, are you going to get jumped? What are you talking about? Yeah, dude.
Okay, just go warm up. Billy just thinks he lives in fucking Grand Theft Auto at all times.
Yeah, just go Jason Bourne if somebody tries to jump in. I don't think anyone would be comfortable carrying around that much cash.
Billy, all the time I have that cash. We just talked to Dale Brown, the commander from the Detroit Urban Survival Training.
He showed you what to do in the event of a mugging. So you're fine.
Right. Jesus Christ.
All right, so Billy, here's my problem, though. We're giving Billy $2,000, and it's four days before St.
Patrick's Day, and he's got to go deposit this money and then put it into his Barstool Sportsbook account.

What are the chances you don't do that step?

Bro, I'm running to the Chase Bank with that, and I'm not letting anyone get near me.

See, well, you really do live in, like, Grand Theft Auto. What do you think this is? in Grand Theft Auto.
Are you scared of cash? I'm scared of cash. I don't carry cash.
My generation doesn't carry cash. My generation? When you're carrying a lot of cash, something bad's about to happen.
No, I disagree. Something good's about to happen.
I took it out, I put it on the table, and Billy immediately, if you notice his body language, leaned away from the cash. Have you seen those pictures where people analyze based on whether or not the woman or the man is leaning in to see who's in charge of the relationship? This cash just alpha the fuck out of you, Billy.
I tweeted this the other day. People carry cash.
Why do you carry cash? Because I literally don't find the point of carrying cash. Because it's fun to have cash.
You know how great it is to just be able to get paid in cash?

It's great.

And also, if you're going to a casino, a horse,

all these places, having a lot of cash,

actually, I disagree with you,

having a lot of cash means you're about to do something awesome.

And no taxes.

And no taxes.

They don't tax cash.

That's a fact.

Really?

Yeah.

So imagine the difference.

If we had just Venmo'd you $2,000. Hashtag PMT.
be like oh sweet that's cool yeah but you're looking at this cash right now and you're like intimidated by it that's that's the most cash i've probably seen in person ever yikes okay um you've never had you've never gone to like a casino well i go to a casino but i like you know i'm not i'm not doing that. Okay.
Don't unit shame. I'm not unit shaming.
That's like you've never had. Okay, yeah, maybe you just don't do cash.
I like to carry cash. It's in 20s on the table.
I like to carry cash. It's in 20s, so it's a pretty thick boy.
It's not like it's 10. Yeah.
Well, it's got fives and tens in there, too. It's like $2,200 bills's that's a lot just just hold it i want you to i don't want to touch that i want you to feel the responsibility i also realized that i just like if you're ever wondering if i've been gambling for a long time my yikes to billy there on the two thousand dollars cash like there's been many times i've had to have more than two thousand dollars cash cash to hand away.
Okay. So give us the system.

Okay. So here's the system.
So currently I have, it's in Excel. It's the, it's built out.

Basically it's got all the points where now I just got to figure out

which amounts I should put on the money lines to improve the outcomes. Okay.
So I built it with,

you put $5 on every, every money dog. You put $5 on every money dog.
Stop right there and you've got a winning strategy. The one seeds that don't have money line.
Then you buy, you get the futures on those. Okay, on Georgia State to win it all.
Exactly. That's where you get the big ones.
So basically the concept is you put $5 on the underdog. I got a better idea.
Instead of putting $5 on Georgia State to win the NCAA tournament, why don't you just flush it down a toilet? Yeah. Why don't we just ignore the 1 through 16? No, but you don't put the $5.
Just light it on fire. How about that? You don't put the $5.
I'll cover it if Georgia State ends up winning. Right.
No. So if Georgia State loses, basically the concept is is that the money line dog is your insurance for if your future goes out in the first round right but you can't put a money line i think the money line's too high on like georgia state so what do you do there um wait let me look at the let me look at georgia state right now because we need to okay so georgia state yeah yeah so actually gonzaga georgia state you don't actually put any money you don't put any uh you put money line on georgia state but you don't buy the future you put the future on gonzaga so you put five dollars on georgia state which i think equals out to like you know i actually don't know the exact line on that money line because they didn't offer it right before yeah they won't they probably won't a money line on it because when the spread gets too big, they don't do money lines.
Exactly. So, Billy, you need to figure out.
That's actually not my equation. The exactly part.
Hold on. We've got to pause real quick because the exactly makes no sense.
So, what do you do in this game? So, as of right now, we're doing nothing. Okay.
Got it. That's a pass.
Okay. That was a pass.
See, that's why I was kind of diving into it because I was like, there's an issue here that we have to get to the bottom of. Right.
What do you do in this game? So, for example, Baylor-Norfolk State's a better example of what to do. So you put $5 on Norfolk State Moneyline.
If Norfolk State wins, then you get $80 profit. So you put $80 on Baylor to win the whole thing.
So if Baylor loses in the first round... Okay, you put $5 on Norfolk State to win.
If they were to win, you'd win $80. Which would pay for the future.
So you put $80 on Baylor's future while also betting $5 Norfolk State money line. Exactly.
Got it. And what happens if Baylor beats Norfolk State but then loses in the second round? Well, then that's where the fun's going to come in.
Okay. Second round, you start looking at the money lines and start seeing which futures you have to balance it all out.
So you reinvest every round off of the futures. Exactly.
But what about... Okay, all right, I think I don't really understand it, but I guess I kind of do.
So, for example, your baseline, you're spending $160 on all of the money lines, dogs, in the first round. But that number might change just to make sure we have the best positive outcomes going forward.
Got it. It's going be weird it's i when you said there's bugs in the system i i might turn this into 2020 dollars which would be great which is positive that would be yeah that would be almost inflation exactly so then what do you give us back if that were to happen let's work on the on the payout math right now i i might just not tell you how this whole system is going to go and then just hide all this money and add a 20 to it and then yeah back yeah you like you're gonna hope that your system might be hold the money and hope you find 20 on the ground in the next exactly exactly it's a black box yeah exactly okay i mean that listen however you want to do it but no i want the spreadsheet i want people to follow the spreadsheet all right you feel, dude.
I'm going to get robbed. Again, I don't think that's true.
Jesus. Because this is also not a live show.
Let's not early drop this because I got to run to the bank. Because people are going to probably locate you.
Chase. Right across the street.
Well, I'm going to be running there. That would make people want to rob you more.
I'm going to tweet it right now. Billy has $2,000.
No, do not tweet that. I'm not leaving this place if you tweet that no okay I'm out I'm out Jake you carry it Billy why don't you just go for why don't you just go now yeah I'm gonna just buy guys yeah I'm gonna tweet that all right I just tweeted go I just tweeted hurry I just tweeted Billy has two thousand dollars his pocket right now first one to mug.
All right, Billy's running. I didn't tweet that.
He totally believes that you did, though. Jake, anything we should know before we...
He's crazy. He's crazy.
Of all the things to be scared of. Right? He was literally afraid of cash.
He was like red tiles. Red tiles with a former slugger.
Spiders. In boxing.
Jose Canseco. You ever see like a cat react when you put a cucumber on the ground? They're afraid of cucumbers because they think it's a snake.
That's what Billy was like around cash. Billy was thinking about going to Ukraine with a fucking rocket launcher two weeks ago, but a pile of cash.
Risk it all to be in the Marines. Yeah.
Has him scared to death. Maybe we should have rolled up all the bills really tight.
Then he would have been. He was offended that you even offered him cash.
Yeah. He's like, how dare you? Man.
That was crazy. What a weirdo.
What a weirdo. But yeah, Jake, what did we miss? What's going on March Madness? What's the latest? Yeah.
So I wait to fill out my bracket until after the first four. So I'll do it Thursday morning because in all but one year, we've seen a team that wins the first four advance to at least the round of 32.
But you can do that. Don't you get automatically? Yeah, but, like, for example, I like Indiana to make a run, but not necessarily Wyoming.
Got it. Okay, that makes sense.
Something like that. And then, I don't know, last year we had one Cinderella with Oral Roberts.
I feel like there's going to be a few double-digit seeds that make a run this year. Are you a Cinderella guy? Are you rooting? Because I'm a big first-round upset.
Yeah, you see both sides, of course. I'm a big first-round upset.
I don't want it in the Sweet 16. I want the best teams to be like, I want an Elite Eight with Duke versus Gonzaga and Kentucky versus Baylor.
I want the best teams at the end. I like one underdog making a run to the sweet 16.
Just, just one. But once we get to the elite eight, I want like, I want the best games because I need to look back five years from now and be like, that was George Mason's year.
You know, like I can't split it up and have them. Yeah.
Yeah. But I'm saying like, like we're going to new Orleans for the final four.
It would be, I was about it today. Like, what if the Final Four this year is Kentucky versus Duke on one side and, you know, Arizona versus Kansas on the other? Like, how sick would that be? It would be awesome.
Or, like, Villanova versus Kansas on the other. It would be awesome.
But, counterpoint, wouldn't it also be awesome to see Fullerton beat Duke? Yes. Yes.
So that's why you see both sides. Yes.
No, I know. Early upsets, upsets give me a death stare it's when we get to the sweet 16 elite eight and it's like we only have a few basketball games left right i don't want to blow out i want arizona illinois sweet 16 sick i want classics yeah so call me crazy jake but i'm just at the mindset that rutgers has been such a fucked up team this year that they're going to do some fuck shit in the tournament.

If there's one fuck shit team, who would we put that on?

I don't know if it's Rutgers.

Rutgers is very consistent.

They are the best team in the world in the famous Jersey Mike's Arena

where the picture was taken.

And then the worst team ever when they're on the road,

except for Madison.

I could see the winner of UNC Marquette beating Baylor and going to the sweet 16. Chaka has experience making runs when no one's looking at him with VCU in 2011.
He doesn't have as much pressure. He was at Texas.
I know Baylor's without their, one of their big men, Jonathan Chama Chachua, defending champions. I remember, yeah, it was 2015 or 2016.

No, you know what, 2017, Big Cat, when a one seed went down.

Wisconsin beat Villanova, the defending champions, right?

Correct, yes, yes.

So a lot of those guys have already won it all.

I know UNC had their big win for the Coach K tour.

But Chaka, I don't know.

I feel like this is a much better spot for him to succeed in the tournament versus when all their eyes are on him at Texas. Yeah.
Okay. I just had that rush of excitement last night.
I can't wait to just gamble on every game. It's the best.
It's going to be incredible. Need a stance one way or the other from you, Jake, on Ohio State and Loyola.
Everyone's just saying, oh, Sister Jean Loyola's making

a run again. That's why I think Ohio State.

Well, Ohio State has a great player.

Well, they've also faded.

They've lost a lot down the stretch. They looked bad.

Also, do you think those

guys who got embarrassed in the first round historically

last year want to go one and done again? I feel like

that's some more motivation. Of course.

Counterpoint, Sister Jean

is a witch.

I just know Ohio State has limped into the tournament. That's some more motivation.
Of course. That's true.
Of course. On counterpoint, Sister Jean is a witch.
Yeah.

I just know Ohio State has limped into the tournament.

Absolutely.

And I don't know if Kyle Young is going to play.

Right.

They have a couple other guys, I think.

But I think there's a stat saying if you win your conference tournament

or you're hot at the end, it's not necessarily the best thing,

which is why this tournament's madness.

No, there's a lot of recency bias. If you talk you talk to anyone right now i guarantee you the teams that they would say out of their mouth are iowa and virginia tech kind of and it's like all right well that's not because i buy it with my final four so kind of going against that did it yourself but they were hot before the conference tournament what is um what is the spread in that ohio state loyola game i think it's half a point because i i feel like.
Because I feel like I'm taking the underdog when I take Ohio State in that game because everybody else is on Loyola. I believe it's a half a point one way or the other.
I forget which way, but basically a pick-on. I think I'm going to go Ohio State in that one.
I think this is the year where Sister Jean's broom runs out of bristles and she falls to the earth, kills her black cat. She's looking young.
I'm telling you, it's a different sister Jean. She's looking young.
They replaced her with a clone. She's looking very young.
All right, anything else? Mitch Trubisky's on the Steelers. What other big news? The Jaguars are doing a complete renovation of their entire franchise.
I actually, I love what they're doing. They're signing every, they're paying everybody insane amounts of money because there is a Jaguars tax that you have to pay.
If you want a good player like Brandon Scherf or Christian Kirk, who I think are both above-average players, you have to pay them like they're superstars to get them to go to the Jaguars. And if you've watched the Jaguars games the last two years, and we are a Jagging Off podcast, we love the Jags, it's probably a good idea to try to get as many players who aren't Jacksonville Jaguars onto the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Yeah, we talked about it with Florio at the end, but yeah, I just think they have to do something to make Trevor Lawrence's life a little bit easier. So I know that it's fun to make fun of them, but I get it.
You have to do something. And we're also just waiting for Deshaun it's there's some limbo going on with deshaun watson and then baker mayfield it feels like the browns really want to get rid of him but they haven't like outwardly said it they haven't been like hey we're we're trading him per sources and my source on this one is jeff d low who's just plugged into the browns and his sources are probably dubious but he said that the commanders tried to trade trade for, for Baker Mayfield a few weeks ago.
And then they settled on Carson Wentz. I would have rather had, Nope.
You know what? I'm not going to say it. I'm, I'm currently undergoing like Carson Wentz conversion therapy where every time I think about saying something bad about Carson Wentz, I just administer like a shock to myself in honor of Carson Wentz.
I'm, I'm stopping all negative thoughts related to him but uh it looks like the Browns are trying to find a trade partner for Baker Mayfield yes it definitely feels that way um okay let's do why don't we do hot seat cool throw and then we'll get to Mark Tice we'll talk all the March Madness oh also we have Frank Martin on Friday he did just get fired That's a little awkward. But it was a great interview.

We're going to run it anyway.

So, I mean, you can't not run a great interview just because a guy gets fired.

A lot of people have been talking about the PMT curse recently.

And when Jake brought it up last week, I was like, oh, that's bullshit.

But then Bruce Pearl lost.

Yeah.

Frank Martin got fired.

Yeah.

A lot of people are saying that there's a curse. Carson Wentz went to the football team after Schefter.

Commanders?

Wisconsin hasn't won a game since we were there.

Commanders, yep.

Watch it.

Put $5 in the football team draw, Hank.

Wait, they didn't win one game in the Big Ten?

That's so funny, Hank.

I'm not kidding.

It's because they got a buy.

Double buy.

Oh, because they technically did win a game.

Yeah, double buys.

That's not like, sorry, I didn't know about a fucking double buy. Yeah, double buy, bro.
It's a double buy. They were the buy because they were the one seed, right? Well, PFT, they actually got a three seed in the tournament, and Illinois got a four, so you had fun in Madison.
Don't pretend. I did.
I had a great time. All right, let's do Hot Seat Cool Throne.
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Visit ahs.com slash listen for 20% off any plan. See ahs.com slash contracts for coverage details, limitations, and exclusions.
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Okay.

Hot seat, cool throne.

Hank.

My hot seat is people who want billionaires to pay for their own fucking stadiums.

Yep.

That was my hot seat, too.

Wow.

The idea.

The bills are getting a $1.4 billion new stadium.

It's going to be right next to their old stadium, all paid for by the public.

Wow.

Who says no?

Damn. How sick is the stadium, though? It's got to be pretty.
I mean, it's got to be right next to their old stadium uh all paid for by the public wow who says no damn how sick is the stadium though it's going to be pretty it's got me it's got to be sick we always have to refer to that stadium as the house that josh built yeah that's a fact i actually think that there is there is some truth to that obviously like 1.4 billion dollars i don't know if that's like it's tough to quantify one man's worth but do you really think that the city of Buffalo or the taxpayers end up footing a large percentage of that bill if the Buffalo Bills were a shitty team? Probably not. This is the house that Josh built.
That means that we get $140 million now from the city of Buffalo. I agree.
So that's a big bill. I went back and watched that original promo.

It's fine wine.

It's funnier with time.

The Simmons HBO.

With that being the very end of it.

The edgy.

Billionaires should pay for their own fucking standards. The best is that it only lasted for like four episodes.

What a loser.

Can you imagine being on TV and only being on there for like a month?

And then my cool throne.

I'm surprised you guys didn't talk about this. Chase Daniel.
Oh, he was on my cool throne. That's okay.
Do it. I'm just.
The God. The golden arm.
He's signing, re-signing with the Chargers. I saw this on the Barstool Sportsbook Instagram.
He will have made $157,000 per pass in his career. Yeah, they took it from me.
Yeah, I crunched the numbers. Yeah.
That's so cool, though. He took it from me.
Yeah, no, $157,000. I didn't see a hat tip.
It actually just bet the pigskin. His career earnings are $40 million after this year, and he's attempted like 200 plus passes.
261 passes. So it's insane what he's done.
He might have one of the greatest careers of all time. Yeah, Chase Daniel, if you're like a psycho sports dad that's been trying to get your son to become a professional athlete and you're working on all these intangibles, you're working on sending them to specialized camps, you should stop doing that and instead just try to get them to become a guy that looks like a good backup quarterback and that can stand on the sidelines and is a good hang that people want around.
Imagine what would happen if you gave him $157,000 in cash. He'd probably just...
He'd probably die. Chase Daniel? No, I'm saying if Billy was in the same room as $157,000.
That's Billy's problem is he would be the worst backup quarterback.

You're a starter or nothing.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so Chase, he is the only quarterback whose name is a complete sentence in the NFL.

Correct.

He's got seven seasons where he's got five attempts or less.

That's awesome.

That's so cool.

And he's got a few seasons where he's had like, he peaked with the Bears when Mitch got hurt. He had 76 pass attempts in 2018.
How long do you think Chase Daniel could show up with like a broken arm? Like a legitimately broken right arm and pretend that it was fine and still get paid week in, week out? It's crazy because I know that we laugh about it, but there is something to be said. It's like Josh McCown.
When people are like, oh, how does Josh McCown keep getting back?

He's probably a really good teammate.

He probably is really good with teaching younger quarterbacks.

There's something to be said about being that guy in the locker room,

in the quarterback room, where he adds some value,

maybe not $40 million, but some value to the team.

Brian Hoyer.

Yeah, you're an extension of the coaching staff.

Correct.

All right, good job, Hank hank thanks you're welcome my hot seat my hot seat since hank took mine which is fine because he did a great job oh no no he's paying for your own fucking stadiums yep um my hot seat is clocks the Senate just now, as we're recording part of my take, passed a resolution making daylight savings time permanent. So the clocks don't go back anymore.
That was just passed. I don't know if that's binding.
The Senate passed it. I don't know if that was just symbolic or whatever.
It's got to go to the house, right? No, the Senate's the final boss. So do we switch it back now?

We have to switch it back? So now this weekend, what this means is that on Saturday,

we have to turn our clocks back again.

I know we just did it last weekend, but since this just passed,

switch it back an hour on Sunday morning at 3 a.m.

Okay.

To 2 a.m., and then we're on that permanently.

We don't have to worry about this ever again in this country just this last weekend. So everybody get on the same page and do that.
We did it, Joe. We did it.
Yeah. My cool throne is Scotty Barnes.
Yes. Because as far as Rookie of the Year votes go, he's already got one locked up.
You know who that is? Who? LeBron. Ah.
I don't know if LeBron has a vote, but he said he would vote for Scottie Barnes. You know why? Because he reminds himself a lot of himself when he was younger.
Yep. Baby Braun of the week goes to Scottie Barnes.
Congratulations, Scottie. I don't know if you guys have been paying attention because there's obviously March Madness and a lot of stuff going on, but the Lakers are so bad.
It's awesome. Unbelievable.
I watched the first quarter last night. They were down 33-12 in the first quarter.
It was like 24-4 at one point. At first, I was like, wait, is LeBron playing? And then I was like, wait, no, he is out there.
He just doesn't try at all on defense. He's very close to packing it in.
The best was watching them just struggle and give 110% maximum effort in that overtime win against the Rockets. Yeah.
That was so funny to watch. No, that was a loss.
Oh, they lost that? Yeah. Oh, wow, that's crazy.
That's awesome. I would agree with you.
I also live bet kind of a sick move, but I live bet the Lakers when they're down like 30 just to enjoy the loss more, hoping that maybe they would come back. But I would agree with you that he's done, but he wants a scoring title.
That's how he can justify right this season sucking and his team sucking he can still post about his own personal accolades and be like year 19 won the scoring title never said i could do it blah blah blah so he's going to be gunning every game and they're going to be losing every game it's awesome though like that it was someone tweeted a screenshot it was like it looked like a 16 versus one game it was like they were down 30 and they were shooting 9%. Yes, yes.
And he doesn't try at all on defense. He was screaming at everyone the other night because they weren't getting a rebound.
And it's just a joy to watch. If you haven't tuned into these LeBron Lakers, it's awesome.
And Magic, he's even spin zoning it being like, he's so close to the scoring title. We're so lucky to have him in purple and gold.
Really? This season is, you guys suck. Are they the worst 30 and 24 team per Darren Ravelle of all time? Oh, yeah, that's right.
Darren's still got them, just hovering around 500. I mean, it's funny because I think they are, they're the nine or 10 right now.
The nine. They're the nine.
I want them in so bad. But they're also like 12 games behind the eight or something crazy like that right i want them in the play-in game so bad because they're not like the pelicans and the trailblazers like they're if they don't make the playoffs it will be maybe one of the worst seasons of all time okay but do we want them they have to make the play it's like i want them and then duke last year yeah tomato tomato they are yeah they're they're 29 they're're six, five and a half games behind the Clippers in the eighth spot.

They're 10 games back from the T-Wolves in the seventh spot.

I wanted to make the playoffs so they lose, or no, so they win the play-in game and then

the Suns sweep them.

That would be awesome.

Because then we get like primetime LeBron games and everyone gets to watch them not

play defense and it's just the best.

And it also would add to LeBron's career playoff win-loss totals correct which would be nice so we need him in um all right my hot seat is Fernando Tatis uh so junior he was he got into I think he hurt his wrist in a motorcycle accident and he was asked uh when his motorcycle accident happened and he responded which one nice it's like harrison ford crashing planes yeah big ben and motorcycles yeah um but yeah that's not a good answer for your franchise player no which motorcycle accident why don't most contracts say like hey please don't ride motorcycles they should yeah that's exactly right they say please and he says no thank you please don't uh ride motorcycles or play basketball in your driveway or what was the other really or uh have wet shower floors yeah yeah exactly iron don't please don't use an iron on your body on your body while you're wearing it yeah um and then my cool throne is our good friend max homa he had an all-time round on monday which i'm just gonna assume he just forgot that you know Monday is usually a practice day that's why he played well but he made uh he he made $327,000 on Monday by like going up he had the best lowest round that day and he went up like 30 spots on the leaderboard and then there was also a very funny anecdote. Some random guy on Twitter said, Max Homa just made $327,000 at the Players.
I'm currently chatting with him at the Jacksonville Airport Chili's. His wife booked him a flight while he was on the course today.
He ordered chicken tendies, and the waitress came back and said they ran out day ruined. And he quote treated it and was like, this was by far the worst part of my day.
Oh, no. Yeah.
That is pretty bad. But he's like, he's the people's golfer.
But in that moment, let's be real. If you're at the airport Chili's and you've got $350,000, brand new.
Cash. Cash in your pocket, Billy.
You're freaking out. How much would you pay in that moment for the chicken tenders that you want? Probably at least like 20 grand, right? I was going to say like $250,000.
I would probably just take out a stack and be like just make it happen yeah just go find me a bird whatever you gotta do yeah um but yeah max is the man congratulations max but again he did that because he was playing on a monday so he had no idea like if that was a saturday or sunday yeah if there wasn't weather he would have choked so um a couple years ago we had this idea on part of my take to make golf jerseys when you support a a golfer. I think Brooks is now doing that right now on his own.
Oh, nice. He kind of took her idea.
We should make jerseys for all the homosexuals out there. Yep.
To wear. Let's do it.
You want to make homosexual jerseys, Hank? Why not? Those would sell like hotcakes. What would the design be? It would just say Homa and it would be in rainbow.

I think it would be H-O-M-A plus.

Yeah. And I think maybe a hockey jersey

perfect for

perfect for just being

outside. Or a penny.
Yeah.

A wife beater. No, no, no.
I want to be a hockey

jersey. A sweater.
A little sweater.

A golf sweater.

Yeah. Why not?

All right, Bill, your hot seat cooled your own. My hot seat.
And you can's, too, since he had to leave us. What are they? The weed game.
He sent them. Oh, okay.
He texted them? He texted them? What a good kid. Always a diligent boy.
My hot seat's the weed game. Mike Tyson is selling ear-shaped edibles.
Gummy ear edibles. As an ode to his bite of Vander Holyfield's ear.
That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's pretty tight.
My cool throne is the New York Jets and free agency. If you guys have seen recently, they've had some major pickups, major re-signs.
Braxton Berrios has been re-signed and they recently picked up CJ Ozuma. Uzama.
Guest on the show. Ultimate deep threat.
It's going to be huge in the play action game. No, no, no.
Tight end. He's a tight end, but he's huge in the play action.
But deep threat? He's a deep threat in the play action. The ultimate deep threat.
Not just a deep threat. I think he's going to help stretch the field.
Sure. He's a big target.
Right, but he would be more in the middle of the field. Big target.
In the middle of the field. Big target.
Billy just spits out words until he lands on the wall. Ultimate deep threat is like Tyreek Hill and Sean Jackson.
I know, I know, but I was watching his highlights, and then off all these play-action plays, he's getting downfield. So that's what I saw.
Okay. All right.
All right, so CJ Uzama. I just feel think he's going to stretch the field.
I just got another notification from Schefter about something that the Jets did, I think. They just picked up somebody else.
Yes. Guard Lakin Tomlinson from the 49ers.
Another guy. He picked up another guy? The Jets have signed cornerback DJ Reed.
Oh, hell yeah. Name means audiobook.
There we go. Huh.
Well, yeah. Jets are a wagon.
Calling it. They are.
You're calling it. I'm calling it.
They're a wagon. Week 8, I think, at MetLife, they're beating the Pats.
Calling it right now. Week 8, home game.
What do you like about that, Hank? I'm just trying to remember exactly what you said week 2 last year. They were going to beat the Pats in the playoffs, but we're now on a new season.
We're a wagon now. We're updated.
I don't know if you saw the updated standings. They're a wagon.
Wagon. So things have changed around here.
Who's your quarterback? Zach Wilson. Okay, I'm not worried.
When was the last time he threw a pick? Like over several months ago. These are all facts.
There was a time he was throwing them every weekend. Now he's not.
And you don't have Mr. INT anymore.
Exactly. So there's nobody to cover CJ Uzama downfield.
Yep. Because he gets down there.
All right. Let's let's.
Oh, Jake's hot seat was water dog opponents. We released the schedule today.
Don't care. Yeah.
Fuck those dogs. We should do that.
Hashtag that hashtag fuck those dogs wheels are in motion to get back on the call fingers crossed that was jake's words okay i don't think i'm supposed to read the parentheses no i feel like he writes those for himself yeah yeah yeah i think he's gonna casually bring up that he might get back on the call i'll say something nice about the water dogs um while they were playing when j was announcing, they did a good job playing. I don't know if it was Jake's announcing work, but Jake is legitimately good at calling lacrosse games.
I also will say something nice about the Water Dogs. Drew Snyder, really cool guy.
Met him in L.A., Super Bowl week, hung out with him. Awesome dude.
Now, he retired, so now there's nothing cool about the Water Dogs, but retroactively I'm going to give them cool points for having a cool guy on the team. Gotcha.
And then Billy is now a Redwoods fan, right? Is that what I saw? How could you? No, the thing is the Redwoods have some of my favorite players from when I was from college. So I was just saying they're like, dude.
You know that this podcast owns the Water Dogs, right? Yeah, but I'm a fan of lacrosse as a whole. I wear the PLL emblem on my hat.
All right. Cool Throne One Shining Moment Tracker.
It returns this year and starts tonight. We'll be making a Twitter thread.
First prediction, a slow-mo of tip-off. Tonight's first game, Texas Southern versus Texas A&M, Corpus Christi.
I forgot about Jake's One Shining Moment. This will be great.
See how many he can get. can get we track it if you miss it last year he tries to predict what moments will be in one shining moment and then he tracks it throughout the course of the tournament uh just real nerd stuff that just really gets you going but we also add in what we think should be in right in his takes but yeah that was that was one of the highlights last year for me yeah um all right let's get speaking one shining moment let's get into our interview with mark titus talk some more march madness okay we now welcome on our very good friend one of our favorites he is on to talk some march madness it is mark titus of the titus and tate podcast go listen to it now i was on it last week before the conference tourney week.
I actually schooled Titus and Tate on basketball because I told them that the Big 12 is the Bill Self Invitational and they both were like I don't know. There could be another team that wins it.
And then as always Bill Self won it. What do you mean as always? Iowa State has won it a lot now.
Respect to Iowa State. Kansas always wins it.
They always win it. But we got brackets and we're excited to have you on.
Where do you want to start? I mean we'll go whatever direction you want to go because this bracket, I love it. I love just staring at the bracket, thinking about it, doing everything I can to stuff my head with stats that I won't use.
Let's just dive into it. Let's start with a team.
I don't know if you guys are familiar. It's a small private school out of Durham, North Carolina.
Duke is how it's pronounced. Small private, like under six inches.
That's just a little Duke humor. Yeah.
No, go ahead. The West is the region of Gonzaga and Duke with, I think this is the most fascinating, obviously, because those two teams are pretty interesting, obviously.
But you have Gonzaga who has to win a national title. I think we all agree.
If they do not win a national title, they have to fold program right like this is yeah i agree i i was thinking about this though and i want to hear what your thoughts are here gonzaga's always the you know even though they're not the plucky underdog anymore they still feel like it a little bit because the narrative has just shifted it was always like they'll never make a final four which we we hold that narrative we kept it yeah and then they've come close and they haven't been able to do it. So now it's like, oh, they get all these recruits.
They get Chen Holmgren. They had Jalen Suggs last year.
All these guys, they can't get over the hump. My question to you, though, is it actually a bad thing if Gonzaga wins it all? Because then we're going to – I personally will have to remind everyone that Mark Few is actually kind of a scumbag and got a dui with his two dogs in the car like he gets a pass uh gonzaga becomes the new duke if they win yeah they really do they really do like they they uh mark few is not as likable as i think gonzaga fans think he is but um he i don't hate mark I don't hate Gonzaga at all.
Like you said, there is still the underdog vibe to them, which is hilarious because they went undefeated last year. They were one game away from we're having discussions of whether they're the best team of all time.
They're not. They wouldn't have been.
But they would have run the table in college basketball. It's unprecedented.
And yet there is the feeling of they can't get over the hump. I still have people every single March explain to me that Gonzaga chokes in the NCAA tournament every year, and they've been to two of the last four Final Fours.
They've just raised the bar for what choking is at this point. Now, they're chokers all the way to the finals.
If they just don't win, then they choke this time. And I can't figure out – I'm not sure if America is going to love or hate Chet Holmgren because I personally love him.
I hated him the first time I saw him, but then you watch him play, and he's actually a pretty easy guy to root for. Yeah, I think the thing that helps Gonzaga move it forward – to answer your question, PFT, I actually really like Chet Holmgren.
The reason you hate him is because you turn on the TV and you're just like kind of his physique is jarring. You adjust the aspect ratio.
Yeah. What's going on with his shoulders? Yeah.
And his name's Chet. Yeah.
That doesn't help. That doesn't help.
I think Drew Timmy is his lightning rod, though. Like you can hate Drew Timmy and like Chet Holmgren.
Right. I think Drew Timmy is the guy on Gonzagaaga that people do and should hate um but like drew timmy it's crazy because drew timmy was on the number one team in the country last year he had the the entire season up until the national title uh and i guess they were still technically number one in the national title game um he celebrates like every basket he like wipes his mustache and is cocky as all hell.
Where's the headband?

Everything about him, he checks every single box.

And he comes into this season.

He's the preseason player of the year in the country.

Gonzaga's the number one team in the country.

I just don't feel like there's enough hatred around Gonzaga.

And I think it is because they never actually win the national title.

And I feel like, Dan, to your point, the second they win,

people are going to start paying more attention.

And they're going to start picking out these Drew Timmy types that are coming out like a guy like adam morrison comes along in 2023 say and gonzaga has won a national title everybody hates him right he was fun to root for back in the day because he was like the counter to jj reddick but now if it happens now everybody's going to hate him so i i think gonzaga not winning the title is actually great for college basketball it's saving them because i was thinking about about it. It's like Mark Few, he got a DUI, and it was kind of nothing.
You know what I mean? Like people – because it was college basketball. He's a big name in college basketball.
He's a fantastic coach. I was just laughing to myself this morning being like, if they win it all, I went and watched his DUI video.
I was like, this is going to be very funny. People are going to fucking bring it up, roast them.
I went and watched the DUI video. He had his two big...
You should watch the PFT. It's not funny because it's DUI.
He's got these two massive German Shepherds in his truck with him. And he tried to blame...
He was like, I was fighting off my dogs. That's why I was swerving.
And said that he has... He's sprained ankles, so he doesn't want to do a field sobriety test.
He's a real dick. Those are all great excuses by the way.
He's a real dick about it. Off the top of your head, if you're going to get pulled over and you're drunk, you could do a lot worse in the moment than being like, my dog tried to attack me and I'm injured.
Yeah, but I just know how America works and the media works. If you have success, they try to find your failures and bring them up.
You're the media doing that right now. No, I know.
Well, I'm pre-doing it. I'm letting everyone know.
I'm letting everyone know it's coming. And also, the DUI video is very funny.
If you see those two dogs. Watch the TMZ version, because the dog's like, there's one big dog.
How many different versions of this video have you been watching? There's one dog that pops out, and then there's like, holy fuck, there's another dog. All right.
So what were you going to say, Mark? I just love that you're breaking that. That's the tape you're breaking down.
The bracket comes out. We all turn to break down the tape and Dan's like on TMZ looking up the DUI videos.
We could talk about Ken Palm forever. This is the stuff people need to know.
I am very excited to finish, put a bow on the West region. I do appreciate that Coach K did not get the Midwest and he did not get Chicago.
And he now takes his losing tour out West. I want Duke, weirdly, to get to the Sweet 16 so they can lose in front of just a whole new fan base.
Yeah, I think they're going to get to the Sweet 16, by the way. A lot of people were excited about the idea of Duke playing Michigan State in the second round.
And could Michigan State knock Duke off like they did in 2019? I don't I this Michigan State team doesn't seem built for that. So I do think they're going to make the sweet 16.
I think that is best. I think I think what you want, the best case scenario for Duke haters like you and I is, you know, like Duke losing the first round would be great great.
And obviously like that, that is something we'll hang over their heads forever. But I feel like it's almost better for Duke to make the sweet 16.
And you have that, that lead up that like, it feels coach K is talking himself into like, we have this, they're doing the matchups and he got a Texas tech or an Alabama say, and he's like, that's, that's an easy W for us. And all we have to do is get by Gonzaga.
We're going to be the underdog. We're going to somehow get America on our side against Gonzaga.
I want that whole week of a lead up into like people picturing what it will look like when coach K goes to the final four and then he doesn't. And that's, that's, that's the, that's the visual we all need.
Is there anything that, that Duke could do to on their side? Like, what's the best? Coach K goes over to Ukraine to fight. Uses the military experience that he did not use in Vietnam.
Yeah, I don't know. I was going to say, a story comes out that Mark Few actually killed both his dogs because they were witnesses to his DUI.
That's pretty much it. Gonzaga is the only team, I think, that somehow you could get people to root for Duke over Gonzaga.
The interesting thing, I haven't really seen a lot of people talking about where Duke could lose along the way and the funniest outcomes and all that. Alabama beating Duke in the Sweet 16.
You remember Nate O last year the rivalry with coach K where coach K was like should we coach K loses two games at home to big 10 teams and he's like should we cancel the season yeah Nate Oates his first press conference is like this guy's a bitch he's always saying this because he's losing uh I would love to see those two guys play because because Nate Oates like the basketball Illuminati got in his ear and said you got to walk that back coach and he was like oh okay i'm sorry i didn't mean that but like deep down we know how he feels yeah he woke up the next day with a little red dot on his forehead yeah yeah like you're about to be taken out i'm i'm a little nervous uh texas tech like i think texas tech is better than duke but that screams this is how fucked up and deranged my brain is about Dukeke it screams teams that like play aggressive styles of defense are screwed against duke in this tournament because they're just begging for the refs to control the outcome oh yeah like texas tech is screwed if they play duke because they play a very like aggressive in-your-face defense and all the refs have to do is start calling fouls and do cakewalks.

If this is like a Big 12 game and they had to go to Lubbock,

Texas Tech wins by 15.

But the refs, yeah, I'm with you.

I'm with you.

Because that is a good matchup on paper, but I think your logic tracks.

I think it does.

With Texas Tech, it's interesting because they lost Chris Beard,

and everybody assumed that Chris Beard was, to a certain extent, a very large part of the program. And now they're kind of back.
Are they the new Fortune 500 company that just runs itself? Mark Adams is like the guy who took over for Chris Beard, Mark Adams, is if you watch Texas Tech all year, Fran Fraschilla loves pointing out how respected this dude is across the state of Texas. And that I really do think they've, they've gotten better almost done.
They almost won a national title on Chris Beard. So I'm not saying the program has reached the Heights yet.
We still have to see what March looks like. That's where I was driving you towards it.
You said it. You almost want to say that they're a better program without Chris.
Yes. The excitement around the program definitely feels higher than it, than it ever was around Chris because it, because it like those, those fans are so spiteful and like want to just fuck over Chris Beard so badly.
It, I've never seen anything like it. It's a late, like Chris Beard literally thought like no one would care.
He's like, I'm at a football school. I'm in Texas.
Texas tech caresas tech cares about football i'm gonna go to another football school i'm sure the fans won't really mind and and it's like it's like it's awakened something in the texas tech fans where they're like fuck this guy it could have been anybody basketball national title now it could have been anybody except texas if he had gone to any other school no matter who it was if he got to texas a&m even it would have been fine but the fact that he went to texas was like wait a second i'm pissed off yeah it really is the uh you know like it's it's it's something you've never cared about before and then a breakup happens and you're the the girl who dumped you points out how little you cared about something and you just become very spiteful and you just want to like get in great shape or like you know make a shit ton of money or whatever it is that's how i feel about texas tech is like they're like yeah i granted we never really did care about basketball but now fuck you we're gonna care and we're gonna be better than texas that's all they care about the scene in lubbock when texas went to texas tech this year was like all time off the charts uh incredible college basketball atmosphere all right let's do's do East, the East. Okay.
The East is my personal region of doom. It feels like there's some really good teams, and you have, you know, like Baylor, UNC, UCLA, who's coming from the Final Four last year, Kentucky, and then you have, like, even teams like Murray State and San Francisco that are very good lower seeds uh what do you what are your what's your big thought about the east uh I I have Kentucky I'll say this I've Kentucky in my bracket winning the whole thing um but I I'm I'm not super confident I just like Kentucky uh they they they are a team to me that can win in a million different ways and I think like what really opened my eyes with Kentucky was the Kansas game when it turned into a track meet.
And they were playing a style that I think would have – I would have thought Kansas would have been better suited for it. And Kentucky kicked their ass in Allen Fieldhouse.
And I came away from that thinking, all right, they can run up and down with teams. They can grind out these SEC games.
They laid a stinker in the SEC tournament. But as John Calipari pointed out, they did not take a shoot-around, so that game doesn't count.
They couldn't shoot, but it's because they didn't do a shoot-around. But I'm with you, Dan, in general because you go through the top seeds here.
Baylor is a team that is very talented. They're loaded.
They obviously won the national title last year. They have never really brought it all together.
We haven't really seen how good they could be because of injuries. And LJ Cryer's out.
And Jonathan Chamwachach was out. And a lot of different guys have been banged up all season.
Same with UCLA. Like UCLA, they've had like Hami Hakez, who's probably their best player right now, has two bad ankles.
And Johnny Juzang rolled his ankle. And they had like weird COVID pauses throughout the season.
Purdue, we've talked about, Dan. Like Purdue has a lot of good pieces, but they don't really fit well together.
And, you know, like Purdue losing in the first round wouldn't shock you. And Purdue going to the Final Four, you're like, yeah, no went to the final four i mean they have jade nivy and travion williams and zach edie so uh there are there are the east is the east is is is prime for a lot of chaos i think i think that's a good call the east the east is going to be a chaotic region for sure is zach ed the biggest player in this tournament i always love a good breakout just giant because every year there seems to be like one guy that plays on like a 12 or 13 seed.
You're a big Taco Fall fan. Love Taco Fall.
Who was the guy back in the day had a giant, giant undershirt played for New Mexico? New Mexico State. Yeah.
I love the breakout big guys. I've heard Bilar or something like that.

Is that how you – Sid – I don't know.

I wish Jake Marsh was here.

He would know.

Yeah, he was like 7'5". But, yeah, is Edie the biggest guy in this tournament?

I think Edie's the guy.

Yeah.

I think Edie's got to be the guy.

What about St. Mary's?

Do you have, like – who's the little wombat from Australia on St. Mary's this year that I can get behind?

Is it Tommy Cousy?

Is that the guy?

I think Tommy Cousy would be the guy. Yeah, St.
Mary's is actually good. St.
Mary's is they're a fun team. I didn't really do the deep background check on all their ethnicities.
I don't know if they're still Australian. If all of them are still Australian.
But let's just roll with it. Yeah.
Any're all – any white guy on St. Mary's is definitely from like Perth.
Yes, yes. So everyone's taking Virginia Tech over Texas.
I am also. Is that the right side? It feels like they should be the favorite in this game.
Yeah, yeah, Virginia Tech. Texas is another team that like some of the other ones we're talking about in the East, that idea of them i think has has uh intoxicated people all season but we've never actually seen what they the final form is you know and they're like now we're in march and you're like yeah but if texas can pull it all together just just wait to see what we could see here uh i don't think texas is is that great of a team i don't i don't in virginia tech's hot virginia tech has a fun offense um I think that's a fair pick.
I have Virginia Tech in my Sweet 16. I don't, I don't, I, and Virginia tech's hot.
Virginia tech has a fun offense. Um, I, I think that's a fair pick.
I think I, I, I have Virginia tech in my sweet 16, I have Virginia tech beating Purdue too. Cause I think, I think that's a good matchup for Virginia tech as well as playing Purdue in the second round.
That one makes me nervous just because there's always from a gambling perspective, you, you actually couldn't get Virginia tech at a higher high and Texas at a lower low. So it's like this doesn't – and Chris Beard, obviously, his defense in a tournament setting.
That's one of those ones I look at and I'm like, uh-oh, because my gut says Virginia Tech as well. And I'm like, wait, what am I doing here? Texas could not be lower.
Texas' problem is their culture. Their group of guys – they went to the transfer market, brought a bunch of guys in from Chris Beard in year one that put up a bunch of great stats, but lost a ton of games.
And they threw them all together and they said, look at how great these stats were for all these guys. And none of them are winners.
None of them know how to win. None of them have won an NCAA tournament before.
So I trust Chris Beard long-term. I really do.
I like, I've enjoyed piling a while piling on this year, uh, given the way he left Texas tech, but I do trust that he'll, he'll have a good program eventually at Texas, but I don't, I don't like this team at all. Yeah.
All right. Let's go to the South, uh, Arizona.
This one, I mean, this is you've Arizona who speaking of, you know, size, they are the biggest team in the country. It feels like the only teams – if you look at their season, they had the – shout out you, Mark, the back-to-back mountain trip where they tripped up against Colorado.
And then weirdly, Stanford played them well because Stanford's also a huge team. So to me, Arizona's finding another big team that can bother them inside.
And then you have Tennessee, who is one of the hottest teams, Villanova, who's always in there and Illinois, which I don't. Let's start with Illinois.
Yeah, I want to believe in Illinois, but I also am like, I don't want to get burned again because I did believe in him last year. And I feel like I'm going to get burned again.
I don't like, I don't like the vibes in Champaign. I picked up on this after Ohio state beat Illinois and Champaign a few weeks ago.
And it became like a little more personal to me. And I started noticing it more than Illinois fans are complaining too much and their players are complaining too much.
Their coaches are complaining too much. And there's too much like trying to figure out how the world is against them.
And like what, and, and all that could be true. Like I, I don't, you know, I, I, I do believe that, that the NCAA and the refs hate certain teams and, you know, I don't blame Illinois fans for feeling that way.
But, uh, I, I just wish they would like figure out a way to lock in and, and, and they, they haven't fully come together. Curbelo is, I don't, I can't, I can't make sense of him.
Like he's, yeah, he's, I said on your, on your podcast, I'll say it again. Some, someone put it perfectly.
Curbelo is if, if every play is a one to a 10, but they took out numbers three to seven, that's every single play for him. He is truly like take over a game and then just do the most maddening thing you could possibly see.
He had to play the game in the Big Ten tournament against IU, that pass he threw. That was an absolutely disgusting pass.
And he's a very good player. And yet at the end of the game, I for iu because i grew up an iu fan and my family all went to iu so like i'm pulling for iu and curbello's bringing the ball down the floor for the final shot and i'm like i was gonna win this game like curbello's going to try to do too much curbello he's gonna blow it yeah he literally was like this is my tyus edney moment coast to coast here i go and that terrifies me because i think like illinois is at in a position where they can't kind of on it's not like they're it's not like brad underwood's gonna like put curbello on the bench and not and only play in 10 minutes in big games and then say tournament you got to ride with your guy you know um but i wish i wish trent fraser was was given the ball more i wish uh alfonso plumber was i wish they ran stuff through both of those guys more than they do Curbelo.
But at the same time, Curbelo will make like two or three plays if you're like, never mind, I take it all back. Give the ball to this guy.
What about Tennessee? Because Big Cat alluded to them earlier. They're probably the best three seed in this tournament.
I'm done, by the way. I'm done being upset about them being a three seed.
There's only so many days that I can possibly care. And I cared on Sunday, and I was like, this a travesty i'm done caring now i was upset about it too because they should have had duke's two seed but like being being not in gonzaga's region is i think it works out well for them i think i think it's actually yeah they got like 36 hours of caring about it for me so i think that's that's a pretty good deal i'm done caring about it.
Right now, I like where they're at.

It's not an easy

group that they're in.

Especially, you know, you look at Villanova

that they've had. That's the tough matchup because

they beat Arizona.

We're just pushing Villanova past

Ohio State. That's what we're doing.

Ohio State's going to lose to Loyal

and that fucking witch.

Although I think I am betting on Ohio State in that game just because everyone's all up sister Jean's skirt. Oh, thank you.
Yeah, so. But with Tennessee, what's the likelihood they could actually get out of this group? So this is, I feel like Dan talking myself into circles with like the gambling brain, as you say, because on the one hand, it's Rick Barnes.
Yes. Like it's, I, I, I feel like Dan talking myself into circles with like the, the gambling brain, as you say, cause I, on the one hand it's Rick Barnes.
And like, it's, I don't know how you can't wait. We have years and years and years and years of data to suggest that like betting on Rick Barnes in this NCAA tournament is actually insane.
You're insane. If you think Rick Barnes is, is going to do anything with a good team.
On the other hand, we said the exact same shit about Scott Drew before he won his national title last year. We said the exact same shit about Tony Bennett before he won his national title before that.
Tennessee plays insane defense. They really are one of the best defensive teams in the country.
They bring it every single game defensively. They make teams look absolutely silly.
I've watched that Arizona game in the middle of the season uh that's one that stands out like arizona has a fun offense and and straight out of the gate tennessee just swallowed them alive um but there are a few things that worry me rick barnes um there it's also like with all of these sec teams they all they all look so fucking awesome at home and you And you just get so drunk, like watching Auburn in the jungle and watching Tennessee in front of their fans. And Arkansas is the same way.
Bud Walton is just absolutely fucking nuts. And like you watch Arkansas get a big win at home and you're like, oh my God, who's beating this team? So I'm worried about that.
The fact that Tennessee looked good in the SEC tournament makes me feel a little bit better. And, uh, the fact that they have good guard played, I, I do think that that's going to matter.
They, they, they're driven by their guards. They have, uh, you know, Kennedy Chandler, Vescovy, uh, Josiah Jordan, James, uh, Ziegler's pretty good too.
Like he can come in and he knows his role. And, um, I, I, I think that that makes me believe in Tennessee.
I have Tennessee losing to Ohio state in this week, 16, but I'm also extremely biased. I'm never going to pick Ohio State.
Truth be told, if Ohio State was wearing, I don't know, USC jerseys, I would have Tennessee giving Arizona a very, very good game in the Elite Eight. I think Tennessee is very, very good.
I'm an honorary vol for life. I want Tennessee to do well.
I think Rick Barnes is the big sticking point to me. It's kind of like whenever you're looking at the bracket and you try to start talking yourself into a Mountain West team and you're like, no Mountain West team has done anything.
Nevada went to the Sweet 16 with Muscleman's team, which they were electric, but time and time again, the mountain west gets in and doesn't do anything

do you know about this this guy david rowdy on colorado state oh yeah of course he missed that big free throw against wyoming right no he did he i i know i watch i watch mount west he's awesome he's fucking awesome dude like i i hear i hear what you're saying um but at the same time like we need colorado state beat Michigan. We need this.
I agree. David Roddy's awesome.
I'm just saying there's some tried and true things in the bracket where it's like Rick Barnes, Mountain West, some of these teams. But to Tennessee, I think the biggest problem with Tennessee, and I know this because I root for a team that has this same issue, and Tennessee's better than Wisconsin this year, but every fan who roots for a team that has this issue going into the tournament, it's essentially you're getting into the tournament and you're saying to yourself, can we survive that five to six minute stretch where we just don't have a field goal? Yes, that is Tennessee.
It's so scary, you're like, it's going to happen every game.

We just won't hit a shot for a stretch. Like it will go in between media timeouts and we're not going to hit a shot.

And can you survive it?

And that's the big question.

Tennessee is very high on the list.

I think Iowa State would be a team I would put up there too.

Of teams that are in the tournament, got at-large bids that if you told me

they went nine minutes without a field goal, I wouldn't even bat an eye. That is a concern.
That is a fair concern. They've had those stretches this year, but I don't know.
There's something that feels slightly different with this tennis. There's something that feels slightly different.
I think it is. They're so guard dominant that I have to believe that one of these guards can

figure it out.

Like one of these guys will in,

in those moments,

hopefully it's Kennedy Chandler.

He's been playing well as of late.

Hopefully it's like,

uh,

Josiah Jordan James has been great too.

Um,

one of these dudes could step up and just say like,

I,

I here,

let me,

let me,

let me score a couple to, to, to end this drought because they, they they are good defensively. That's the thing.
Even when they're not scoring, if they go nine minutes without a field goal, they're probably also only giving off four points in those nine minutes. And it's probably just a very, very ugly game.
So I don't know. It's going to come back to bite me, but I'm choosing to believe in Tennessee.
And I think it's just because like Scott drew and Tony Bennett had me

rethinking everything we thought we knew about coaches in the tournament.

Honestly, Tony Bennett's another good one. Yeah.
The, the David Roddy game I was

talking about, it was against Wyoming, which if you're,

if you don't watch mountain West basketball,

the Wyoming Colorado state game is electric.

It's insane. Those crowds were nuts.
He missed the, he,

he tied the game on an and one and he missed a free throw and he's like a

really good free throw shooter. And I remember being like, Ooh,

Thank you. Those crowds were nuts.
He tied the game on an and one, and he missed a free throw. And he's like a really good free throw shooter.
And I remember being like, oof, that was tough. But they beat him when they went to Colorado State.
So they are very good. So wait, who's coming out of the South? Arizona? I have Arizona over Ohio State in the Elite Eight.
Oh, my God, Ohio State? In four overtimes and a horseshit call that everyone saw was horseshit. Um, but no one, no, I'm the only one that's actually calling it like it is.
Uh, no, dude, I can't pick against Ohio state. I think Ohio state has, it, I have, I have, I have like been defeated there.
I, I've, I have said I'm done with this team like five different times. And then when wake up on selection sunday and i see we're playing loyola and loyola has to my knowledge no nba players i know lucas williams is really good maybe he'll prove me wrong but uh they they lost their best player from last year they lost their coach they have a first year coach they play in a fucking mickey mouse conference and you're telling me ohio state with an all-american and ej Liddell and a lottery pick and Malachi Branham, we're underdogs against this team? How is that possible? It's media bias.
You hit the nail on the head. Everyone hates Ohio State.
You need Kyle Young, my favorite 90s reliever. He's going to play.
He is. I love Kyle Young.
If people don't know Kyle Young, if you looked at him, you'd like oh this guy's a reliever he's a reliever in like 1994 i think you guys you guys need to get he looks like a guy he looks like a uh a quarterback that was taken in like the the 2014 draft that uh has had some or i guess 2014 is probably too far back like the 2018 draft that had some old tweets dug up and like had to go back and he was like from some small school and he was like wait that's just permanent i gotta go delete that yeah he looks like that kind of guy too you guys have to have somebody in the crowd to counterbalance the sister gene fat you need to get urban meyer oh no no it's gotta gotta be urban only urban can take away it's like the little angel and the devil on the shoulder of the game. Urban gets Sister Jean to dance in his lap.
He just wheels her into the women's room. Let's go, babe.
You know Sister Jean's older than the shoe? Oh, really? Yes. How about that? Like the Ohio Stadium horseshoe or like literal shoes? Both.
Probably. Hold on.
I'm going to look it up again because I'm pretty sure that's the fact. fact he's looking this up just give me um give me like a little bit of hope because we're big jelly walker fans on this podcast yeah me hank and billy we took uab as our bracket busters team this year um is there a chance that they can beat houston i i honestly in my heart of hearts i i'm gonna i'm gonna hedge i'm gonna i'm gonna speak out both sides of my mouth.
So that way I can't be wrong here. I also picked UAB to win, but I know that it's, it, this is, it's a very stupid pick.
I picked UAB cause I'm like you guys, I got sucked into the jelly Walker experience and I was like, I have to pick them to win one game. Especially if they're a 12 seed, I'm going to pick them in the 12, five game.
The problem. so Houston, I hate Houston.
People that listen to my show know this. I've been calling Houston a fraud for two years.
They went to the Final Four last year playing nothing but double-digit seeds. In the middle of the year last year, I don't know if you remember this, Dan, you might.
Mark Few and Houston and Gonzaga both had COVID potluck. Their opponents couldn't play.
They had to cancel games, so they had a week off. Mark Few tried to do an impromptu game with Houston and Gonzaga.
Houston declined, said they weren't ready to play. They couldn't play.
Instead, they scheduled a D3 team in Texas. That set off the alarm bells for me that these guys are frauds and they don't want the smoke from anyone.
Didn't they win by 70 points? They played a fake school. Our Lady of the Lake.
Yeah yeah that's right i remember that game i know that game mark come on so i hate i hate houston uh like where their program's at right now but i gotta say like houston loads up on wins on shitty schools that are like mid-tier and uab is exactly the type of team that houston beats the hell out of like they they i think houston the sense that if they play Illinois, if they play Arizona, they're fucked. But UAB is the exact type of team Houston will never lose to.
So I still picked UAB, but I understand that it's a terrible pick, and I won't be surprised when Houston wins by 12. And Houston, they're basically like, let's just get a bunch of big, tough dudes and try extra hard on offensive rebounding.
It's like, this should be illegal. Get back on defense.
This is not fair. You can't get five shots every time you go down.
I looked it up. Sister Jean was born in 1919.
The Horseshoe Ohio Stadium was built in 1922. She's older than the stadium.
How about that? How about that? All right. Let's go to the Midwest.
Listen, I'm actually, I've already convinced myself that Colgate's going to beat Wisconsin. Really? Yeah.
I'm so down. But this is actually good.
That's sad. Well, here's the good news.
When I'm the most down, that's usually when we do well. When I get confident is when things really fall apart.
PFT, where are you at with the Wisconsin fandom in the sense of – because I struggle with this too with Tate being such a Carolina fan. He lives and dies by every shot, and he swears he doesn't care.
But I'm also going to watch on Thursday. I'm going to be sitting right next to him as carolina's choking her way against marquette um on the one hand having your co-host have their heart ripped out it is great content on the other hand they're your friend and you don't love to see your friends upset so where where do you fall on this because i i struggle with this and i need your help that that's um it's a fair point because actually like one of the first videos that we put out was us at the Wisconsin-Florida game.

That was the Elite Eight, right?

It was Sweet 16.

Sweet 16.

Back in 2016, 2017?

17, yeah. 17.

And there was that buzzer beater at the end and Big Cat was completely crestfallen and heartbroken.

And then I'm just sitting beside him with the biggest shit-eating grin on my face because i know this video is about to do well and the next podcast is going to get some numbers um so i i get caught up sometimes like when we were in madison at the cool center um i was i was having a great time because i'm i'm in the atmosphere and when you're in a great college atmosphere it's tough not to get caught up in that so i i like their. I think that they're a fine team.
I like the fan base. I like the campus there.
I think Wisconsin's a great university, one that I probably would have had a lot of fun going to. So I can see myself rooting for those types of schools.
UNC is kind of the same way for me, where I could get caught up in a UNC run. So while it's always good to see Big completely miserable in terms of like the end result of the numbers that come in yeah in the moment i'm always rooting for his teams maybe yeah that's yeah that's where i'm at i i cheer for i cheer for the team but then the moment the clock hits zero they lose i see the silver lining immediately and i'm like this isn't the worst i think i think it's i from my all like genuine sense from from pft and hank and we've been doing it for a very long time i think they want me to be happy for a little bit but they ultimately as long as ultimately ends with heartbreak like yeah it's it's the build-up is almost better for the storyline like if they i was so pissed off in that rain delay in the world series where they were the endings into bluesy because.
Because it was the perfect run up until getting to see Big Cat completely happen. Right, and it's like they want me to get to a point where it's like I believe.
So actually right now, losing to Colgate would be bad. Yeah, I don't want that.
Because it's like I actually have talked myself into Colgate. The funniest part, though, about PFT is, though, like, if I had no, if I didn't go to Wisconsin

and they were just a random school, they would ironically be his favorite school because

it's all white guys and grit.

Like, he would ironically be rooting for Brad Davison all the time.

You know what I mean?

The D's in my game, not in my game.

That is true.

Yeah.

That is true.

And, like, they use the fullback nonstop in, like, football.

But you really are off the train, though., though. I'm not off the train.
I'm just nervous, and I don't want them to lose. People like to say that I'm like, I've overrated them, which is insanity because I've been very honest.
I think I'm actually very honest about my teams. I think they have enough to get to the Sweet 16.
If they get to the Sweet 16, I'll be very happy because then it's gravy. And, like, see what happens from there.
I'm very nervous. If they lose in the first round, I will be devastated.
Yeah. I think Wisconsin actually – I'm not even saying this to butter you up and get you to believe again, so that it'll be funnier when they lose uh i i really i really believe this so wisconsin has a great draw yeah you have like like iowa state is has has been sleepwalking through the big 12 season they had they they were excited just to like start what was it 12 and 0 or something like that they were dog shit last year they started hot uh So I think their fans have just been content since January.

And they're like, we're not trying to even do anything in this tournament.

LSU literally doesn't have a coach.

So you get past Colgate, second round game, great position to be in.

Then you're probably playing Auburn in the Sweet 16.

I think Wisconsin matches up great with Auburn.

Auburn's guards are, like Brad Davison is going to eat those guys alive

playing head games with their guards that try to take over every game.

He's going to love that. I agree with everything you're saying.
And I will go back to the fact that they're playing in Milwaukee on Friday, and I've been to a first two-round game in Milwaukee. It might even be louder than the Kohl Center because people are drunker, and the Kohl Center has a weird thing where half the crowd is like 70 years old and wearing sweaters.
So it might be louder than the Kohl Center. So I'm going off of that.
That that will be our ace in the hole. I still believe in them.
It's more that I've just got my guard up because I don't want to get hurt in the first round. If we lose in the first round, I'm going to tweet a porn link.
I'm going to tweet a porn link as my hack link. You should do the one that James Brown did.
Yeah, the damp lips. Yeah, a little blonde bitch sucking your trainer's cock.
Yeah, no, I will be doing that, so get ready for that. I'm already planned on doing it.
But yeah, whatever. All right, let's talk about the rest of this.
Wait, wait, wait. I just want to say, I do have a...
Every time one of these tournaments comes around, every time a big event where one of Big Cat's diehard teams is is involved i do go through it and i make a dream scenario in terms of the maximum amount of happiness for my co-host yeah while also getting that maximum amount of heartbreak for me this year it's wisconsin duke in the finals yeah duke beating wisconsin again the numbers you pick you to admit, the numbers on that podcast would be, we would release an emergency podcast on that Tuesday morning. Now, I might even toss Gonzaga in there because Big Cat's now a team anti-Mark Few DUI.
Well, I do stand against DUIs. You do? That's DU? You're okay with drunk driving?

No.

Okay, all right, okay.

I'm against drunk driving.

The charge is inconsequential.

I think you should not drive drunk even if you don't get a DUI.

Correct, correct.

I'm against all drunk driving.

Yeah, no, losing to Duke would obviously be maximum pain.

What about losing to Iowa in the Elite Eight?

Very bad.

Would be very bad.

Let's talk about Iowa because Iowa is similar to Tennessee, Virginia Tech, the hot team. They have been playing incredible.
Keegan Murray is awesome. I still, though, Fran McCaffrey has never been to a Sweet 16.
Is that true? I'm pretty sure that's true. I might have made that up.
I'm going to double check. I also just don't like – I wasn't saying it was false.
I was saying, like, Fran McCffrey choking in the tournament has not got on my radar yet i mean i know like like iowa losing oregon last year very fresh in my mind um i i i will not forget that for a very long time because it was that was a lot of times the nca tournament team like iowa who was the national player of the year is a two seed they lose in the second round You think to yourself, if they played that 10 times, they're probably winning at least five or six of them. This was just one of the times they didn't.
That Oregon game, it felt like if they played it 10 times, Iowa wins maybe one. Maybe they'd be lucky to win one.
They got their asses absolutely handed to them. Is that true, though? Yes.
He has never made a Sweet 16.

He didn't do it.

He made the tournament with Lehigh.

He made the tournament with UNC Greensboro.

He made the tournament three times with Siena and even won two games in the tournament.

And then he's made the tournament a bunch of times with Iowa.

He has never made it out of the round of 32.

And now everyone's saying that they're like a championship team. And again, I think they have one of the best players in the country.
And Iowa's one of those schools where I can never make fun of Iowa too much because it really is like the Spider-Man meme, Iowa and Wisconsin, when it's like, I fucking hate Bo Hannon. It's like, well, dude, you got Brad Davison.
Like, what are we talking about? Bohannon and Keegan Murray are Brad Davison and Johnny. Keegan Murray having his brother on the team.
Exactly. I understand where I'm going with this.
I just don't know how you can trust Fran McCaffrey that much when he hasn't been to the sweet 16. Yeah, I don't trust Fran McCaffrey.
I trust Keegan Murray. That's really it.
He's on another he's on another level right now. And he's, he's like he's somehow, I really like, I woke up this morning and I thought to myself, I, first of all, I didn't even realize that this was the case, but I got sent a link that I can vote for the wooden award.
I had no idea that I could actually vote for the year, but I guess I'm looking over the ballot. And to me, it's been Oscar Shibwe the entire seat.
Like he's, he's been unbelievable. He doesn't really have bad games.
He's a double, double machine. Kentucky's, you know, as I said, I picked him to win the title.
But then I was looking at it and I was like, am I going to vote for Keegan Murray? Like, am I, am I going to do this? Like, because he is unfucking believable and he's playing his best basketball right now. The concerns with Iowa are the defense.
I mean, that's always the concern with Iowa, I think. And this year, they haven't been a juggernaut defensively.
They've gotten better down the stretch, though, and I think that's the reason they're so hot. I think their offense has been great all year.
It will be great throughout the tournament, I think. I'm not worried.
Like, when they played Oregon last year, the problem was the athleticism of Oregon just swallowed them alive. You had Joe Wieskamp and Luka Garza types.
Those are the guys you were playing through. You're playing through Keegan Murray.
He has no problem with athleticism. You can throw, pick a freak athlete, put him on Keegan Murray.
Keegan Murray's going to be fine. I'm not worried about that.
I have talked myself into Iowa being okay. I am someone who jumped on the train.
I picked Iowa to be Kansas in the sweet 16. Uh, I understand that's insane, but, uh, I don't know.
We see insane things every year. Why not? Why not? I, I, cause this Iowa team is different from last year.
And I think, I think that's what my, that's what my function is here on the show. When I come on is I want to make sure like narratives are real and we should buy into them, but like, also we got to make sure year to year, we understand the differences between these teams last year, Iowa was, was slow.
They, they, their best player was like a big man who had cinder block feet that they were trying to play through. They went up against an Oregon team that was coming off of by because they didn't have to play the first round game.
Cause VCU dipped out cause of COVID. It was just a terrible matchup.
I don't think this Iowa team is built that way. I I've talked myself into like, they will be able to handle athleticism.
They play a little bit better defense. I still Jordan Bohannon being, being such a vital part of this team.
I don't love that. Cause like you a guard, a good point guard.
They can tear him apart, but I think Iowa's going to be okay. And especially, they're probably going to play.
Providence or South Dakota State in the second round, I think is a good matchup for Iowa. I think that's good for them.
Are we going to add you to the list of the haters of Ed Cooley, of which there are many? Are you a doub you a doubter of the friars are you one of these kin pom guys that looks at them and says you know what they keep losing all these close games they must be actually or they keep winning all these close games they must be a bad team i'm a guy that looks at a team that wins a lot of close games and says they're actually a good team they're already tourney tested right right uh the problem with Providence is they do literally nothing well. There's nothing I look at Providence and I say to myself.
All right. That could be an issue.
All right. Yeah.
Like Wisconsin. So Providence, Wisconsin feels similar.
But with Wisconsin, you have like they never turn the ball over. So there's that.
So there's like always that to come back to. And there's Johnny Davis.
I feel like Wisconsin has been very lucky throughout the season as well, but I still can talk myself into Wisconsin because they have Johnny Davis. And I'm like, all right, that, that, I, that computes Providence.
I mean, Al Durham is like, they're kind of become their closer this season. He, he, he is not even their leading scorer.
He's he just kind of like turns it on at the end of games and i i think providence worked themselves into a shoot where they like they're so convinced that they are lucky and they are so convinced at the end of games they will pull it out yeah that they they sandbag it throughout games and i and i just i i envision the scenario where like they they it's an under four timeout they're down four they're all smiling looking at each other saying like't this hilarious? The other team thinks they're going to win. We got them right where we want them.
And then they pass the ball to Al Durham. They're like, Al, hit those crazy-ass shots you hit.
And he's like, I got you, fam. And then just starts throwing up bricks.
Is it fair to say they're the basketball equivalent of Tim Tebow? Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one.
On that run that he had with the Broncos, it was like they just win games. They figure out how to win games.
They might win them 13-7, and they don't score a point until the last two minutes of the game, and Tim throws three interceptions and throws like three for 15 passing, but they win. They feel like how Jimmy Garoppolo was treated this year in the playoffs where it felt like there were a handful of defenders that were like, yeah,, if he's such a bad quarterback, how does he keep winning? How does he keep winning? Oh, okay.
He sucks. And they got there.
Okay. Gotcha.
Yeah. I love Ed Cooley.
I mean, they won the big, big East without any all big East players. Like you're right.
They don't, Johnny Davis is the, is the, is the part where it's like a little bit different where it's like, to that point that you're saying that is like, it's a good thing. And it is.
And like, we thing, and it is. We should celebrate that cool.
I'm not telling Providence fans that it was a fraudulent title, even though Villanova swept you and won more games in the Big East. I'm not saying it's fraudulent.
What I'm saying, it just feels weird that when we're complimenting Providence, if we actually stop and type out the transcripts of all the good things you say about Providence, you'd realize how fucking insane it is that you're like betting on this team to do it in a tournament. Like they have no all biggies player.
That's not a good thing. That's not good.
We want all biggies, but we want talented players to carry us in these tournaments. I don't know.
So I like Ed Cooley though. I'm not an Ed Cooley hater.
I love Ed Cooley, but sounds like myself out of sounds like you are of all the kids that he coaches one last thing on the Iowa thing they have played better defense I was looking it up so they're number two offense number 75 defense, the last month and a half they've been the number one offense number 50 defense, so they got a lot better they did, they got a lot better I'm going number 50 defense. So they got a lot better.
They did. They got a lot better.
I'm going to give Iowa credit. They have played a lot better defense than the traditional Iowa that just basically every game is who can score 80 first.
To be fair, I think picking Iowa to win the national title is absolutely insane because it is going to come back and bite them. They don't play good enough defense.
You have to play better defense than they play to win a national title. But to your point, Dan, they're playing better than they've played in the past, and I think that makes this team a little different.
I don't know. All right.
We'll see. So give us your final four and your champion.
We appreciate you coming on Titus and Tate podcast. Go listen to it.
Also, hilarious video. They had Titus' dog, Moses, pick the bracket.
And there was – what game was it? I've never seen a dog more frozen in time. He's never done this either, which is hysterical.
He had Illinois and Seton Hall. We do with Moses like you guys kind of did with making the picks, you put treats out and he, he picks one, by the way, I was doing this with Moses ages ago.
So the haters that are going to tell me that I'm, uh, ripping off part of my take, which is kind of how we ripped off Paul, the octopus, Paul, the octopus. Yeah.
I mean, like, are we the, are we the first people to ever feed animals on the air? People are asking. Uh, so I.
So I've been doing this with Moses for 10 years where we pick winners. And this is the first time I've ever seen him do this.
He had Seton Hall in Illinois in the Sweet 16. He had Seton Hall beat in Arizona.
And then I put two treats down live on the air. And I said, pick between Illinois and Seton Hall.
And he just stared at him. He just broke.
It was amazing. For a full minute, he just stared and would not move.
What's his all-time record? What's Moses' record? He's beaten me more often than not. I'll just put it that way.
I'll put it that way. His claim to fame is he had Florida Gulf Coast in the Sweet 16 one year.
Oh, wow. I'mth seed.
Yeah, I'm the 15th seed. I'm following last year.
Last year, he had VCU in his title game and VCU didn't even play. So technically, VCU never lost in the NCAA tournament.
So I think that was a pretty good pick. That's huge.
Oh, the question was your final four champion, then we'll let you go. Final four.
I have I went pretty chalky, as I always do, because I'm a coward.

I do think Gonzaga is going to make the final four.

I think Gonzaga-Duke is going to be the passing of the torch

where Gonzaga becomes the new Duke.

I like Gonzaga to make the final four.

I think Arizona's the best team in the country,

and I've thought that for a very long time this year.

I don't think they ever were number one, but I have loved Arizona all season. I think they're in the final four i've thought that for a very long time this year um even though they never i don't think they ever were number one but i i have loved arizona all season i think they're in the final four out of the south i i have kentucky to win it all so i i obviously have kentucky in the east and then the midwest to me is the hardest like the midwest i think that's where the most chaos is going to happen all the top seeds have obvious flaws to me um i i i took this a million different ways.
I wanted to pick Wisconsin, Dan. I really didn't.
I'm not just saying that to make you feel better, but I had Iowa beating Kansas. And then I went to do the Wisconsin Auburn game and I was like, there's no fucking way I can have two big 10 teams.
Yeah. And so I picked Auburn to be Wisconsin and then Auburn to beat Iowa and Auburn's my, uh, Auburn's my fourth.
I don't feel good about Auburn, to be honest. That's the one I feel the strongest about.
It is perfect that we've talked many times about how badly we want a Big Ten team to win the national title because we're sick of all the jokes and everything. And now going into this tournament, we're resting our hopes on a guy who has never gotten to the Sweet 16.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's our, Iowa is our, is our team. Now, like if you talk to any big 10 fan, they're like, I was playing great.
Iowa could do it. So I think we're going to probably have to wait another year.
We're going to have to wait another year. It sucks.
It's, it really, really sucks. It sucks to be in a position where you, cause you're, you're, you're better than anyone else at arguing that the big 10 actually doesn't suck.
Like you're, you're, this. You've been doing this your whole life.
I'm in a position where, like, I'm at a loss for words, man. Like, I really just don't know what to say when people are like, the Big Ten sucks.
You guys are never going to win a national title. I've run out of ammo.
Just never give up. I have no idea what to say.
Never give up. Never give up.
I do a lot of switching wins in the tournament to Big Ten bowl game wins. Big Ten bowl game wins, counting as tournament wins.
The reason I'm so flustered is it's usually we're fighting the war with SEC fans in football, and we can always say we're better than you at basketball. And then in basketball, we're fighting with ACC fans, and we're like, we're better than you at football.
But now the SEC has invested so heavily in basketball. And the SEC was like a better basketball league this year than the Big

10. We're in

a tough position. We're in a tough position.

I just basically play three-card Monty

at all times online with the Big

10 where it's like I'm just

shuffling the deck and moving numbers

around. I was flexing about how

they had the conference with the most teams in.

You just got to keep

getting people looking in different directions

hoping that they'll trick themselves into

thinking that we're good. That's always the big flex, though, is if you can say we have the most teams in the tournament.
That, to me, is the true test of a conference of champions. And then it's not your fault.
You just, you know, you get matched up against each other eventually and take each other out. Cannibalize each other.
I do think the Big Ten is going to find a way to get a lot of teams in the sweet 16 which would be a surprise to people i do i i think i think that's going to be our small victory i think we get like a lot of teams in the sweet 16 like and by a lot i mean like three or four three out of nine yeah and then uh and then none of them make the final four and we're like yeah but go back to the street 16 when we were tied with three other conferences for having three teams in the sweet 16 so suck our dicks everyone i'll do i promise this to you mark i will figure out an advanced analytics uh number system where i award points to teams in different ways and i'll have us as the winner of the tournament and i'll give that to you as your talking point how have you not gotten some one of those kids at Barstool to build an algorithm for you? This is a Jake Marsh project, to build an algorithm for you that has very heavy Big Ten bias, but it's baked into the algorithm so deeply that no one can really figure it out. It's going to be easy.
I think it's just my brain. You just do the points scored by conference.
Yeah. We probably lose that.
You should just take Ken Palm's algorithm and then just every Big Ten team gets moved up three spots. And that's really all it is.
But it's like slightly disguised to where you can't see it so obviously. But yeah, I don't know.
I'm on it. I'm on it.
All right. Well, Mark, thank you.
As always, we'll see you in New Orleans. Maybe we'll have you back on.
We'd love to have you back on. Yeah, you guys going to New Orleans.
Yeah. Do you want to drink a hand grenade with John Rothstein? I've only been to New Orleans twice in my life.
Once I was just passing through, and the other time it was absolutely dead because it was like right around Christmas or something, and I was going to – and Bourbon Street was dead. dead.
I've never really had the full New Orleans experience.

I'm excited. We're grabbing wings, Dan, right?

Yeah, PFT

is here for Steve.

PFT was in Hong Kong

last time we had the wing date. I was taking Molly

overseas. We're grabbing

wings. I want to call my shop because

that is, of all the times I've come on this show,

that is

the number one act of cowardice was recalling the wing story when you and Steve asked me to go get wings and I froze. You were intimidated by guys getting wings.
It was the most alpha shit I've ever seen in my life. I don't think that you're invited to the way you've kind of opted out of the wing state, haven't you? No, let's let him.
him second chances no i i really think like i i can't stress enough that this is the the the biggest like sliding doors moment in my life is what happens in new orleans on wing day because when i when i turned you guys down i was like what do you mean go to get wings and and all that happened i i got absolutely fucking roasted for it and the first thing i did was i looked up the next Final Four, which is 2020, and I wrote Wings with Dan and Steve on that Monday. I'm going to do it.
No tournament, obviously. 2021 was like not a real tournament.
I've waited three goddamn years for this. This is a big moment for me.
And to give you just a little peek into how beta he is, Stanford Steve,ve mark and i have like a a group text about college basketball and steve and i just have a running bit that we never spell mark's name correctly and he just eats it yeah he just takes it you spell it with a c because it's uh it is very that is the effeminate way to you can't do anything about it we just shit on his name and he's never brought it up, I need you in my corner for this Wings, because these dudes have been piling on me for three years. I've probably been one of the biggest anti-Mark Titus voices in the Wings.
Because my life is a series of engagements to go get Wings. You know what it is? That is the food that I eat probably 10 times culture besides soup yeah if you eliminated soup from my diet i my food pyramid is like 33 just a chicken wing it i i want to reiterate it wasn't the way i eat wings i'm a i i do i don't think you don't you don't this is like the way that you just i don't even breathe it didn't sound like a wing guy yeah Real Bros of Simi Valley, do you burn? It's like, I burn, guys, I burn I like a wing There are a lot of other things in my life That you could attack You could take my man card, say, for And it wouldn't bother me But for some reason, this one really hit me Because, I don't know I think ultimately, I want my legacy on this show To be a guy who gets it.
That's what means the most to me. Is I want, like, when we're all dead and buried and they talk about my run on part of my take, I want them to just refer to me as, he's a guy who got it.
And we're not even really sure what that is. They're just like, I love Titus because he got it.
And that is a great example of Titus not getting it. Nope.
I'll tell you what. I think if you out eat Stanford, Steve at wing day, I think at that point you, homeboy could get it.
Yeah. That's a, that's a great question is like, what, how do I redeem myself? What does this even look like? You got to show up to wings and, and act like you've been there before.
Cause I'm scared to even say this, but I don't want to say it.

That's going to.

He's going to show up.

He's going to order boneless.

Yeah, he's going to.

And he's also going to be like this guy.

But me and Buffalo sauce don't have a great.

All right.

This interview is over.

Jesus Christ.

You just do hate wings.

I was right.

Yeah, he hates wings.

He hates male friendship.

That's the worst part. Oh, my gosh.
That's the real part of it. Travis, it's not wings.
It's male friendship. He just doesn't get it.
Yeah, you don't get it. I'm going to hang off the phone.
I'm going to get off this interview. You're going to turn to each other and be like, he just doesn't get it.
This fucking guy. Who brought this guy? He fucking doesn't get it.
Damn it. All right.
Mark Titus. Hi, guys.
Yes. Thank you.
Titus and Tate tape podcast go listen um and we will see you in new orleans see you guys later mark mark titus is brought all protein bars generally taste the same but not one bars one made protein bars are actually delicious with reese's and hershey's only one reese's peanut butter lovers protein bar is made with Reese's peanut butter and only one Hershey's cookies and Hershey's. Only one Reese's Peanut Butter Lover's Protein Bar is made with Reese's Peanut Butter, and only one Hershey's Cookies and Cream Protein Bars is made with Hershey's Cookie Bits while delivering 18 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar.
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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on Amazon dot com. OK, we now welcome on our very good friend, Michael Florio, Michael P.
Florio, attorney at law. He's got a book out it's called Playmakers it's out right now everyone go buy it you don't have to read it this is going to be our plea to the people because we know our audience we're telling you right now Mike Florio has done a lot for me and PFT in our careers he's always been very kind to us he's been a friend of program.
He's been gracious to us at times when we have been outsiders and people say, fuck those guys. So we are asking you to buy it and then use it.
I don't know. Put it in the toilet, put it in the bathroom, read it every now and then, or don't read it.
We don't care. We just want you to buy it, to pay it forward for everything Mike Florio has done for us.
Is that fair? That's fair. And it's actually your first book, too, because you guys are on the jacket.
I've got it here, the final product. Oh, wow.
On the back cover. Can you read what we wrote? I forget what I wrote.
Did you write it for us? No, I don't know. I can't remember where any of this came from.
Mike Florio is one of our top three favorite writers at pro football talk thank you very much for that yeah and he is our favorite host of pft live thank you very much for that we thought this book was going to be about the espn show it's not but it's still good if you have to read a book this would be a good choice that's the nicest thing anyone said about the book well you're you're welcome, Mike. And it is true.
You've done more for us than a lot of people know. You probably could have just killed my career before it even started by asking me or suing me since you're a lawyer and getting me to stop using the PFT name in terms of what I write online.
So buy his book. It's actually, I'll go one further, Perfect Father's Day book.
Yeah. Because it's short.
I'm looking at these chapters. This is the best part of the book, I think.
Each chapter is like two or three pages, which makes you feel like you're doing some serious work as you're motoring through it. Hey, listen, I wrote it the way that I read.
I hate reading long chapters because you want to finish a chapter. You want to have something accomplished.
And I when I read, I find myself saying, God, how much longer is this chapter? Well, none of these are longer than two or three pages. Now, there's over 110 of them, but you get you feel like you're knocking items off the to do list.
And I also just want to say, like, you know, there'll be people out there. I get this often.
People will say to me like, oh, Florio's a dickhead or he's self-important or he took COVID way too seriously. And I'm always like, dude, he's my friend.
So like, if you think those things like, oh, he's a narcissist and everything he writes is wrong all the time. And he's doing it for clickbaits and he's just a terrible person.
I don't care about all that. Just buy the book.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
That's good. We should have had that on the back cover.
Now, Mike, I'm looking through the table of contents right here. I don't see anything about the Des tape.
How many pages did you devote to the des tape? Let me tell you something. There was an entry proposed in the original outline.
I put more work into crafting the outline of this damn thing than I did writing it. Once we had the outline agreed on, it wrote itself.
So there was going to be a des tape chapter, but that landed on the cutting room floor. Technically, it was never written, but it the outline it's like the des tape of the des tape right where it existed you're saying that there there was one but nobody knows where it went life imitates art exactly there still is one i know who has it i've never seen it but i know who has it and i doubt that it ever sees the light of day okay so we do guys on free agency.
That's why we have you on, but I want to have one last question about the book. Please do go buy it.
Give us, like, the quick summary of what the book is about. Last 20 years in the NFL, one scandal, controversy, anecdote at a time.
It's broken down into 10 different sections, and you can fly through it pretty quickly, and it will give you either a refresher of things you thought you knew or had forgotten or you'll learn some things you never knew i was talking to somebody last night who never knew chris sims almost died in 2006 because his spleen was ruptured during a game against the carolina panthers and and they had to do emergency surgery to save the guy's life so that's in there along with many other things it just shows you how the NFL's evolved over the last 20 years the things the NFL does

right the things it does wrong and the things it needs to worry about going into the future although

the reality is the NFL can screw up as much as it wants and it's still going to make a ton of money

and millions are still going to tune in and watch the game that's a fact that's a fact so that is

uh the the Chris Sims story is is a good is a good one to bring up obviously if you've met Chris

Sims you knew it because he says it to you right away. He literally introduced himself as, hey, I'm Chris Sims.
I don't have a spleen. All right, let's talk some free agency.
I want to start with Tom Brady. You were on it.
Now, you were kind of on it. I saw an interview you did like three or four days ago saying he's not retired.
He's coming back. but your understanding of it is that he's going to play for the 49ers are you standing pat with that that he is still going to try to find a way to play for the 49ers this season I think he's all in with the Buccaneers this year I think he came to the conclusion he wasn't going to find a graceful exit from Tampa Bay and that if he was going to play this year he'd better jump on now before they make a move at quarterback that would make it impossible for him to come back now he could have let that play out and then tried to finagle his way to another team we had reported a couple of weeks ago the Dolphins were looking at a package deal Sean Payton from the Saints after he had resigned try to compensate the Saints and hire him and get Brady from the Buccaneers that That went away when Brian Flores filed his lawsuit.
So there was at least some thought, I believe, from Brady to play for someone else. But at the end of the day, he decided to stay with the Buccaneers.
There's got to be a hell of a story behind that because I do think he at least pondered the idea of going somewhere else. Perfect for Playmakers Part 2.
Now, follow-up question to that. Do you think Bruce Arians is the coach for the Bucs coming up this next year? Because it's clear from everything I've understood, and I'm not an insider, you are, there was some tension there.
Do you think that Brady's going to come back and maybe we have Bruce Arians walk away sometime in the summer or something? Or do you think that relationship will be okay going forward? Well, it's going to be very difficult for Arians to walk away and have it not look like he was pushed and have it ultimately not look like Brady was the one who basically said, hey, I'll come back and play if we have a different head coach. So I'll be surprised if that happens.
I know there's some people who are watching and waiting to see if something happens with Arians now that Brady is back. And I remember when Arians in 2020 was calling out Brady for interceptions and whatnot, and it was getting a little monotonous.
It's like, don't you realize this is Tom Brady? And I always wondered whether or not ownership at some point said, hey, Bruce, look, we want this guy to be on the team next year when we can actually sell tickets and have people in the stadium because he'll fill the stadium. Nobody's showing up to watch you.
They're showing up to watch him. So quit criticizing him.
Start, you know, making him happy because we need him to play as long as possible. So look, 2022, that stadium's full of Tom Brady's the quarterback.
They don't care who the coach is. And I'm not saying that Arians is getting nudged away, but there may be just some things that have to change in order to allow the relationship to be what it can be.
Okay, so Tom Brady retires after this season. Do you think that this was his plan the entire time to come back and it was just a big game of chicken and he was hoping that there would be some sort of release? And so he kind of went down this road, kept going down the road and said, fine, I guess I'll just retire because he wanted to play somewhere else.
And then once he realized that the Bucs weren't willing to play ball, he just kind of threw his hands up and said, all right, you win. I'll come back.
I'll play for you. I really don't think he knew what he wanted to do when he retired.
I don't know whether others were pushing him. We know that his wife for five years has been saying the, what else can you accomplish line and really tried last year after they won the Super Bowl.
What else do you have to prove on the field in Tampa as the confetti was in the air? What else do you have to prove? And he got one more year out of it. And I feel like it was kind of a negotiated thing that he was going to retire after this year.
But I was always stunned by the retirement talk. I know there's a narrative out there that he just retired because the media was hounding him well no one was hounding him he had said all year long he's playing through 2020 he said for years he's playing through the year in which he turns 45 no one was saying hey gee maybe Tom Brady will retire after the 2021 season that all popped up out of the blue Rob Ninkovich was on ESPN and he was the first one to say it and they asked Byron Left Leftwich about it, the offensive coordinator of the Bucs the next day.
And his answer was enough to get me to say, holy shit, something's going on here. And then lo and behold, he retires.
But six days later, that's when I knew he was coming back. I mean, six days after he retires, he goes on his own podcast and says, never say never.
And I don't know how I'm going to feel in six months. He didn't know how he was going to feel in six weeks.
He was back. And from that point forward, I knew he was coming back.
Once I heard that, it was the same that I felt when Brett Favre was on David Letterman back in 2008 in April. And he said, when training camp rolls around, something's bound to happen.
And it's like, holy shit, this guy's coming back. That was the same feeling I had six days after Brady retired.
I just never thought he was coming back to the Bucs. It makes sense.
It makes sense. And you were on top of it.
Now let's do a different quarterback. The quarterback, they were all waiting to see what happens, Deshaun Watson.
Two-part question, Mike Florio sitting here right now, where does he end up in your mind? And will he serve any time suspended? Let me start with that one first because I had believed all along that once he was either exonerated, charged, whatever, anything other than felony charges, he would have faced some sort of a suspension from the league immediately. I'm now thinking that they're going to wait because one thing they've learned the hard way over the years, and there are plenty of examples spelled out in Playmakers.
If you act before you have to act, there's a chance you're going to make a mistake. So they like to wait now until they absolutely positively have to do something.
Last year, remember when he was facing all these charges like, well, is he going to be on paid leave? The league didn't have to do anything because he wasn't trying to play. The Texans weren't putting him on the field, so no need to make a decision.
They ultimately didn't trade him. No need to make a decision.
I think what they may do is wait to see how the 22 civil lawsuits play out before they decide what to do. If they settle, maybe they suspend him.
If he loses at trial, probably he gets suspended. If he gets exonerated by a jury on all 22 of those civil claims to go along with not being charged at all, what do you suspend him for? What did he do in the eyes of the legal system, both criminal and civil? He's done nothing wrong.
So I think they're going to wait. As it relates to who he's going to play for, that's all very fluid.
You got new teams popping up all the time. I keep waiting for the Eagles to make their move.
And I think that the Eagles and maybe some other teams want to see how the Tuesday deposition went. That was when Watson was going to be grilled for the first time, not take the Fifth Amendment, answer tough questions.
We've seen guys not hold up well under aggressive questioning. And if that ends up being a debacle, you could have teams back out and you could ultimately have the Texans holding the bag again, depending upon how badly that deposition goes, if it goes bad.
Right. So I was actually under the impression from some tweets that I read over the weekend that he had been fully exonerated because he wasn't charged by the grand jury.
That's how you're a lawyer. You agree.
That's how the legal system works. Fully exonerated.
The truth came out. He has no further issue.
Now, look, just because a grand jury doesn't indict you, it means absolutely nothing because the prosecutor's got so much sweat. The prosecutor wants to indict you.
Typically, the prosecutor can. If the prosecutor doesn't, there's an artful way to do it to get the grand jury to not indict because there's no one else in there.
There's no representative of the defendant. There's no representative of the victim.
It's just the prosecutor with the grand jury and a good prosecutor can get the grand jury to do whatever he or she wants the grand jury to do. And I think that's what happened Friday.
I think the prosecutor didn't want, for whatever reason, didn't want an indictment. Prosecutor didn't get an indictment.
So, um, so a lot of people are talking about the, uh, NFC South as being a potential destination. They're saying either the Falcons, they emerged as the mystery team today.
Uh, the Panthers, I guess the logic behind that is he just kind of wants to go play somewhere that was close to where he went to college that he's got connections um the saints have been mentioned as well i think the patriots just given ownerships uh past instances and dealings with certain massage parlors it seems like it might be a good fit there maybe kindred spirits i you know i i should have known i i should have written down before we started this places that my internet son will try to take me let's focus on the nfc have you ever been to a rub and tug no no no no no just the tug no no um yeah and that's every team in the nfc south other than the buccaneers obviously want deshaun And before Brady came back, they were in on it, too. Wouldn't it have been something if all four teams were interested in Deshaun Watson? I don't know how the Falcons pull it off with Matt Ryan's cap number and they restructured his contract.
And the cap consequence would be like 55 million if they trade him before June 1. That makes no sense.
It may just be the Falcons are trying to screw things up for the Saints or the Panthers. If I'm Deshaun Watson, I don't want to go to the Panthers because Matt Rule's on the hot seat.
I don't want to go through the whole Bill O'Brien gets fired thing again if things don't work out. And that's entirely possible.
And he didn't want to play for them last year. Now, I've seen some people suggesting after meeting with the Panthers on Monday night, he's willing to play for them.
That would be a change from last year. He wanted to go to Miami, not Carolina.
The Saints wouldn't have wanted him if Sean Payton was still there. I can guarantee you that.
But they're interested in him now that Payton's gone and Carmichael's running the offense. Dennis Allen's the head coach.
So we'll see. But all these teams from the NFC South circling to Sean Watson, if I'm him, I got to remember, I still have to deal with the Buccaneers.
I really do like the Eagles as a destination because the division's not the strongest. The conference is weaker than the AFC top to bottom.
I think that if I had to pick which team I wanted to play for, I'd say the Eagles if I was Deshaun Watts. Okay, so speaking of horny quarterbacks, where's Jimmy G going? Yeah, isn't it weird to think there may be a trade market and maybe like a bidding war for Jimmy Garoppolo? You get the Colts, you get the Saints.
I thought the Steelers are going to be in the mix, but obviously they've got your good friend, Mitchell Trubisky, for the next two years at 14 million. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they draft someone in round one.
I think that's the perfect placeholder contract, like the one Mike Glennon signed with your Bears right it's the same thing

Mitch Trubisky is the Mike Glennon of the 2022 Steelers you just you just backed up the fucking Brinks truck for Kirk Cousins so let's not the three of us are in like a Mexican standoff of bad quarterbacks let's hey let me tell you let me tell you Sims and I on Tuesday tuesday morning had that conversation kirk cousins at 35

million mitch trubisky at 7 million we're taking trubisky yes any day of the year cousins is not five times better than mitchell trubisky correct of course correct where where do you stand if you had to take one gun to your head one quarterback for one year carson wentz or kirk cousins because I'm battling the cousin stands right now online.

I, uh, This is not a popular take, and I know you're not going to like it, but I think Wentz has the potential to be pretty good again. And this is the example that I used last week, and I have reason to believe that it's an accurate read on what happened.
He got kicked out of it out of his house in Philadelphia. He got had a family member tell him, get the hell out.
But he had another family member. Open the door and say, come on home and Frank, right? Yeah.
So he was able to leave Philadelphia thinking it's not about me. It's about them.
They've got it all screwed up. I'm still good.
I'm being reunited with my family member from Philadelphia. Everything's fine.
Well, now he's been kicked out to a stranger's house. And now's the time when he's got to wake up and realize where he needs to improve.
He can do the hard parts of the job. He screws up on the easy parts of the job.
And I think Ron Rivera, who I have a ton of respect for, will say the hard things to Carson Wentz, including this is your last chance, pal. This is it.
If you screw this up, you are done. And we've seen him play at a high level in the past.
People forget that very quickly. And I know it was five years ago when he was an MVP candidate until he tore his ACL, but we've seen positive attributes.
And I would go with Wentz over Cousins for one very important reason. Cousins can run the play that's called as long as the play that's called goes perfectly.
The moment it goes to shit, Cousins can't do anything. Wentz has the athleticism to try to make chicken salad on the fly.
That separates him from Cousins, in my view. And for what he's getting paid versus what Cousins getting paid, I'd take Wentz.
I agree with that.

I like your analogy.

It's like Carson Wentz is,

he's a rescue dog right now.

We're fostering him.

He's been kicked out of old homes for bad behavior.

He's got one last chance before he goes to the pound.

Don't bite any little kids.

Yeah.

They're going to stick the needle right in.

If he humps another leg,

he's done.

Yeah,

he's done.

This is the last chance.

We'll feed you.

You got a warm place to stay. We'll try to rehab you.
We'll give you good, positive reinforcement. The second you piss inside, we're sending you the gas chamber.
I actually can imagine Ron Rivera. Ron Rivera have the little clicker and some treats.
A little treat like fanny pack running around trying to get him to go run the right way. All right.
Give me your surprise team thus far in free agency, what they've done. I guess the Jaguars, just because I feel like they're trying to spend their way out of dysfunction.
But you look at the guys they've got and it's like, well, they had to convince them to sign. And it's not like they ridiculously overpaid.
I mean, you want to be a team that wins the ties, that when it's you and another team, roughly the same money, the player chooses you. And I assume the Jaguars had to offer a little bit more to get these guys to go to Jacksonville.
But it's not like ridiculous. I know the Christian Kirk contract seems over the top, especially when it was first reported as four years, 84 million.
It's four years, 72, which is a slight difference. But at the same time, Evan Ingram, one year, 9 million.
That's not a bad deal. Zay Jones, that's not a bad deal.
Some of these other guys are getting Brandon Scherf. I mean, they're doing what they can to make themselves not a complete and total mess.
And we'll see what happens. I agree with that.
I think they're stuck in a spot. It's easy to make fun of the Jaguars.
We all do. But they're stuck in a spot where they need Trevor Lawrence to show that he's a franchise guy in order to attract these type of guys cheaper but they also need to put some talent around him so he can show these a franchise guy so this is almost a necessary step for them to get to the point where maybe in two or three years guys are wanting to go to Jacksonville because Trevor Lawrence is that guy and now's the time to spend on other players because you don't have to spend on Trevor Lawrence the way you'll have to if he becomes that guy.
Correct. And then you have to convince guys to take less because Trevor Lawrence is accounting for 18% of the salary cap.
What about Devontae Adams? Tell me that it's going to be impossible for the Packers to re-sign him. Well, the problem with the Packers is, and there's a few teams that do business this way, and I don't want to get too deep into the weeds, but the bottom line is most teams, when they sign someone to a long-term deal, will guarantee money fully beyond the first year.
The Packers, the Bengals, and up until last year, the Steelers didn't, except for quarterbacks. The Steelers finally changed with T.J.
Watt. The Packers this week, the deals they did with Preston Smith, Devondre Campbell, no guaranteed money beyond the first year.
They rarely use the franchise tag too in Green Bay. So when you have a guy like Devontae Adams, who has over 20 million fully guaranteed this year, and you're not going to offer him guaranteed money beyond this year, what's the point in signing a long-term contract? I'll just take the 20 million this year, and then next year you can tag me again, and I'll get a 20% raise.
So the way they do business is going to make it very hard to get Devontae Adams the kind of contract he wants. And I know he's told the team he's not going to play under the franchise.
Tag him his $20 million. He's going to do the Le'Veon Bell thing and sit out all year? I don't think so.
I think push comes to shove. He takes the $20 million, especially with Aaron Rodgers, back in the fold.
The question is what happens next year? I'm just seeing some breaking news right now. Randy Gregory is actually signing with the Broncos, not with the Cowboys.
So hashtag Shefty was wrong on that one. Well, you know, and that's the only thing to keep in mind, this negotiating period.
It's really the start of free agency, but nothing is done until it's done. And now he could have actually signed with the Cowboys since that's his former team.
But the players aren't bound to any of this until the contracts are actually to sign.

So one last last question.

Update us on the Kyler Murray saga in Arizona, because the way that played out this offseason,

I think it's clear that he's just not a happy person.

And anybody watching his body language, we are the body language experts on the sidelines,

could have told you that this season.

My big question is, how happy can the team be with him?

We know he's a big fan. watching his body language, we are the body language experts on the sidelines, could have told you that this season.
My big question is, how happy can the team be with him?

We know he's not happy with them, but I feel like what's happened over the last,

I don't know, four or five months, not only in the front office,

but maybe some of his teammates too, it's starting to wear a little bit thin.

Well, first of all, you know the answer to this question.

Is anybody 5'7 ever happy?

No, absolutely not. Unless they're trying to take over Europe.
I think this all comes down to and you look at the range of quarterback salaries right now and it goes from I mean, technically Aaron Rodgers is now at sixty one point seven million, although I really don't think he's going to make that kind of money. But if you look at a new money analysis of his contract, it goes that high.
And you've got Matt Ryan, the 10th highest paid quarterback at 30 million. There's a long way to go.
It used to be just a few years ago, the next guy who was in line for a contract became the highest paid player in NFL history by a half million a year. And they were going one after another, after another, after another.
Then Patrick Mahomes blows it out to 45 million. You get this broad range.
So you get a guy like Kyler Murray, who the Cardinals want to keep. But where do you drop that number? And Big Cat, we've had this conversation on PFT Live before.
We had it regarding Jared Goff. And we know the Rams screwed up and they know they screwed up.
They should have said to Goff, we're not going to make you the highest paid player in league history just because you're good enough to get a second contract. So I think the Cardinals have their territory staked out.
Murray has his, and there's a huge gap. And I think some of the crap that came out, the Mortensen thing about Murray being self-centered and finger pointing and immature, I think some of that stuff was coming from the highest levels of the Cardinals organization to try to reel in his expectations.
They have a problem. They got to figure out a middle ground.
And I think they've got a huge gap between what Murray wants and what the Cardinals will pay. And I think that's what's really going on there.
Okay, my last question. Give us your favorite story from Playmakers out now.
Go buy it. Again, you don't have to like Fleur.
You can, in fact, hate him, but do it for us. And then throw it in the trash.
We don't care. Just buy the book.
Your favorite story to revisit in Playmakers that you're like, wow, we got this wrong at the time. Oh, wow.
That we got wrong at the time? Yeah, where you went back and looked at it, and you're like, the takes that happened during this time period were very far away from the truth i think i know florio's answer in terms of what's the one story he loves to talk about that nobody else talks about ever is the whiznader story you you love the whiznader story i saw that but yeah the big cat's question what's one what's your biggest fuck up mike not yours personally but maybe the national media where we were just like we the truth ended up being something totally different than what we discussed in the present yeah the the story that would be our biggest screw-up also didn't make the final outline and that's when we killed terry bradshaw back in 2007 we'll eventually be right we will eventually be right on the scene on that report yeah but the one thing that that i keep going back to and this was the moment that the switch flipped for me about the nfl and you can't trust anything they say when it comes to one of these disciplinary actions investigations whatever the bounty scandal from 2012 because everybody in the media swallowed the hook on the saints doing something that was ridiculously wrong and over the top meanwhile there were plenty of examples of other teams doing the same damn thing that they ignored. And then they went out of their way to try to sell us on an existence of facts that wasn't true.
Once I came to the conclusion that they were trying too damn hard to make this look like something it wasn't, that was when I said, I am always going to assume that whatever the NFL wants me to

believe isn't true. And I'm going to force them to prove to me that they're right.
And we've seen

it time and again since 2012, whether it's the Patriots scandals, Deflategate, and what a debacle

that was. And we have some new reporting in the book that even confirms that strongly, more strongly

than it was. But it just seems like every time the NFL wants us to believe something, there's reason

to scratch the surface and get to the truth. And the truth is usually different than whatever agenda they're pushing.
And it started for me with the bounty scandal. And I frankly, I think I was the only one that was willing to stand up and call bullshit on the bounty scandal.
And everybody else in the media was just like nodding. Yes, NFL, you're absolutely right.
So you just alluded to something that's in the book. Can you give us any more information? I just want Hank to get excited.
What new info have you uncovered in the Patriots' Deflategate scandal that points the finger at the NFL and says, hey, you guys were lying about this? Well, the first thing is we outed the source for Chris Mortensen's report that 11 of 12 footballs were two pounds underinflated. That was the report that made this into a holy crap, somebody cheated.
Before that, it was like, something weird is going on. When Mortensen says 11 to 12 footballs are more than two pounds or two or more pounds under inflated, everybody's like, well, somebody cheated.
It's just a question of who did it. That was false information that was given to him by Troy Vincent from the NFL office.
We report that in Playmakers. And also 2015, when they decided they were going to do spot checks at various temperatures and atmospheric conditions to see how the air inside these footballs actually operates during games, they had a full year of checks at all sorts of temperatures, hot and cold and in between.
And at the end of the year, those things got erased for good at the behest of NFL general counsel, Jeff Pash. That's also reported in the book.
And that implies that if those numbers had come out, we'd have gone back and compared them and the temperatures at those games to what the temperature was for the AFC championship in January of 2015, what the numbers actually were in the Patriots footballs. And we just said best at best the end result of deflate gates should have been the evidence is inconclusive so there's a good selling point for Hank and and any Patriots fans that want to have this in their back pocket more stats that back you up and say that the NFL lied just wave this around and say we were right all along all along Tom Brady got screwed I mean the text messages were a little but still, you got to prove that the guy cheated.
And they never proved, in my opinion, never proved he cheated. I love it.
Yeah. Jeff Pash, handshake, Hillary Clinton, deleting emails and data to suppress patriots.
Be careful. That's Mike's president still.
Yes. Hillary is your president.
I thought you guys didn't't get political i've completely scrubbed any political thought out of my brain you don't do yeah we don't do politics either it's sports mike retweets that tweet from hillary every day every year on her birthday being like this this young lady became president united states um all right let mike i'm gonna do something very nice for you we end every show with the lottery machine this is the end of the show which we never we usually don't have guests the end of the show i'm gonna let you pick a number we all pick numbers and we're gonna send everyone on their way into the march madness oh do you have do you even know that march madness is happening i know it's march okay that's it that's good is March. Have you looked at a bracket? NFL is king, Mike.

Don't ever forget that.

No.

No brackets.

I have not looked at a bracket.

Will you watch any games?

No.

Accidentally, maybe.

You're psycho.

Okay.

Number.

Go ahead.

Zero to 100.

Zero to 100.

32.

32.

32.

I'm going to go 22.

I'm going to go 60.

I'm going to go 69 because Billy's not here,

and I hope that it hits while Billy's gone.

Yes.

Jake, Liam.

Six.

25.

Memes got three.

Hank, if you're there, you can chime in.

17.

17.

There's Hank.

All right.

What was your number?

32, Mike? 32.

62. 62.
32 62 62 Very close Well thank you for joining us Mike What's the point of that I'm sorry I'm not What's the point of writing a book That's it Yeah we could do this all day That's a very question. I asked myself that many times while I was writing it.
Well, thank you, Mike. We love you, and we appreciate you always supporting us, and this is us supporting you.
Again, just throw out the whole he went crazy with COVID and all this stuff, and, you know, forget about that. Buy the book.
That he hates the Bengals. Yeah, buy the book.
And that he's a Steelers homer and a Vikings homer.

And that he's short.

Yeah.

Don't forget about all that stuff.

He's tweeting cryptic things about drunk people texting him.

Yes.

Who was that?

That was me.

We're done recording now.

So who was that? It was me.

It was Shefty.

Oh, okay.

Thank you, Mike.

All right.

Thanks, guys.

See ya.

All right.

See ya.

Love you guys We're talking away

Though I don't know what

I'm to say

I'm to say it anyway

Today is another day

To find you

Thank you. I'm to stay out stage anyway Today is another day to find you Shying away

I'll be coming for your love, okay

Shying away

I'll be coming for your love, okay

Take on me

I'm not a fan of the world. I'll be coming for your love, okay? Take on me.
Take me on. I'll be gone.
return of tears Needless to say I'm on sentence But I'll be so willing away. Slowly learn that life is okay.

Say up to me.

It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Say up to me.

It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Take on me.

Take me on.

I'll be gone.

In a damn dream

All the things that you say Is it all I fall

Just to play my worries away

You're all the things I've got to remember

Are you shying away

I'll be coming for you anyway

You're welcome. I've got to remember He's shying away I'll be coming for you anyway He's shying away I'll be coming for you anyway Take on me Take me on I'll be gone

It ain't deep I'll become