Adam Schefter, Combine Review And Airport Review Number 2 (Madison Airport)

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On today's Pardon My Take, we are live from Indy.

Our voices are shit.

We've been on the road for, listen, we did like a basically a two-week road trip in two days

because we did, it feels like we did everything.

We have an awesome interview with Adam Schefter incredible great to have him back on uh been two years we have a airport review madison airport review actually i saw somebody tweeted at you yesterday and said uh hey guys you said that you were going to do airport reviews four years ago what gives guess what you got it number two second. Number two.
The second one ever. Was that just my elbow? I think there's a ghost in the room.
The elbow just turned on this light. The second airport review ever.
Incredible. It took us a while.
We're basically like the dude. Who's that fucking nerd that writes Game of Thrones? Tolkien? He doesn't write them anymore.
George R.R. George R.R.
We're George R.R. Martin with airport reviews.
All right. So we have that, and then we're going to just recap our road trip and everything that's going on.
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Today is Friday, March 4th. Our voices are shot and we're in a hotel room and we were told that we can't talk too loud because there's an echo.
We have to get super close to the mic. Hank is being very helpful in telling us like, okay, be this close.
Talk at a normal volume. We were talking doing a whisper part of it i have no i have no voice anymore this this road trip that we just did was two days and it felt like a hundred days because it like we we didn't sleep and we did everything we i mean obviously tuesday you heard wednesday's show i'm still coming down from that high i did appreciate that like we're in indy for the combine we're we went out to dinner last night we did a couple interviews people were coming up to me like congratulating me on the big 10 championship i was like yeah that's huge for you yeah i did a lot i did a lot of work it's good to see pay off uh it's fun going around indy because this is it's it's a great place to come visit for like two days it's our our most visited city.
I challenged any AWL to try to figure out in terms of content road trips. We were driving to Indy from Madison, stayed in beautiful Hoffman Estates on Tuesday night.
And I said, this has got to be the city we've done the most content and visited the most. So it's kind of our second home.
I think it's Indy and then Cleveland. Maybe Buffalo.
Another one, yeah. We are the official podcasters of Indianapolis.
That's a fact. That's just a basic fact.
It's our home. I'm going to miss Indy because a lot of people, I was talking to some big J's last night, and they were lamenting the fact that this is probably the last year that the Combine is going to be in Ind the nfl anytime they have something nice they're like well how can i make this 50 shittier but make more money doing it so they're going to move it people are speculating maybe dallas i actually hope that they move it to la because just to see the big jays just shit themselves no people would be so upset they're they hate change everybody likes going to the same restaurant on the same nights sitting in the same seats year after year after year going to the same restaurants waiting in line at the same starbucks people fucking are in love with this one starbucks there's a story about it they have a lot of growth about like the starbucks where all the deals get made yeah this is the best this is most important starbucks in the world uh and they're going to absolutely flip out when it moves if L.A.
And they have no idea where anything is. Yes.
India is the perfect city for the combine. I mean, I think this is probably our fourth or fifth year that we've come here.
We obviously missed last year because of COVID. But we've explained it like it's essentially the entire NFL world shows up to Indy and all converge at like two steakhouses and they all stand around sweaty drinking beers being like, I'm getting sick access right now when it's like really just like Matt LaFleur is talking to like 15 people at the same time, which is smart by him, by the way.
We did see him last night. The only story I have from last night is I don't know if you ran into Peteisco but he oh yeah i love pete so much he we were talking and then some guy came up to me and like um not interrupted but was like hey i just wanted to say a big fan like he does next gen stats and so he introduced himself and pete just goes let me ask you a question when the ball is is this far away from from the goal line so he's got his hands like probably like three inches apart He's like, what is that? And the guy's like, one yard to go.
And he's like, and what about when it's an inch in from the two-yard line? What is that? He's like, it's like one yard to go. He's like, when you fucking figure that out, I'll subscribe to your stats.
And that was it. And then walked off.
It's like the perfect summation of Prisco. He's the best.
He's got a rocking tan right now, too. I don't know how that's possible, but he showed up.
Tannest man in the room. I saw him coming, and he stuck his hand out to shake my hand.
I said, get that hand out of here. We're going to hug, buddy.
He's the best. I just wrapped him up like a tiny little burrito.
Yes, yes. And he's just, oh.
And he was like, hey hey prisco watches the film buddy he doesn't need stats yeah it was it was a good time overall uh got to do my annual three beers with scott turner yes that's like if somebody asks you what happens at the combine it's like well i'm gonna get drunk with scott turner yes that's he's he's a mainstay there got to uh we met a couple coaches it is weird seeing them it's almost like the coaches are in a zoo when they come into that steakhouse. It's so uncomfortable.
Everybody there is waiting for like, oh, I'm going to talk to a coach tonight. It's so uncomfortable.
It's like a girl at a club being like, oh, I'm going to go home with a baller. Yeah.
It's like the most uncomfortable feeling to be standing in a circle with someone talking. You can't really hear them.
And everyone's kind of doing that half, like half fake laughing. Like I'm in this conversation, but I'm not.
Yeah. It's yeah.
I, yeah. I mean, I, I enjoyed more seeing Pete and then my arch nemesis, Aaron Nagler, who, uh, he actually told me breaking news that Aaron Rogers is going to retire.
That's so tag him on all the tweets. Um, that it was crazy.
It was great catching up with him. But, yeah, he was very sad.

He was actually crying when he told me it.

So I had to, like, console him.

He cried on my shoulder.

He's like, Aaron Rodgers is going to retire.

I was like, dude, I'm sorry.

That's really, really tough.

And he's like, yeah, I'm probably going to just, like,

stop watching football.

Probably, yeah.

Because he's such a huge fan of not Aaron Rodgers.

Aaron Nagle is not a huge fan of Aaron Rodgers.

Football plays more a fan of what Aaron Rodgers stands for. And the fights that he's taken up and the causes that he represents.
So I feel bad for him. So maybe shoot him a tweet and tell him.
Yeah, I think Aaron said, didn't he tell you he was the modern-day Muhammad Ali? That's what he said. Yeah, he said it's incredible what he's done for the sport and everything that he stands for.
And he's like, it's actually going to be great when he retires because he's taking a stand against the nfl you know what maybe the funniest part of last night was at one point i think both of us were talking it might have been to i think lefleur was there we were basically just giving him trade offers yeah for aaron rogers and seeing what he would take like like we had any authority whatsoever yes yes like making concrete offers and he was just saying no to all of them.

And I was just doing it for like every other team.

I was like, let's just,

whatever the farthest destination is.

So yeah, it was a good time.

We had a good dinner.

Hank, you didn't like the calamari.

We ordered calamari and Hank hates it so much.

And shrimp cocktail.

Now there's a shrimp cocktail.

There's a shrimp cocktail arms right now.

The cat set it to the waiter just turn on and make a smile on his face.

Have you noticed that the shrimp cocktail sauce was spicier than normal? No. I think they're trying to compete with St.
Elmo's. So, like, I mean, once.
We got to spice off? It's an arms race. Wow.
Sounds like an article. Yeah.
You know what? The athletic. Jake, you should write the article.
I think the shrimp cocktail sauce is getting spicier at prime 47. Yeah.
We say it's like, at what point is it too spicy? It's a nuclear arms race. Yeah.
Like, St. Elmo's is going to eventually just burn your mouth off.
Be like, here's your bill. They're going to kill us all.
That was fun. I'm doing an underground cocktail testing right now.
I'm really locked in on the war, big cat. What? You got somebody.
Oh, dude. I'm just.
Yeah. It's a lot of.
Not like actually locked in. Sanctions.
Learning. Yeah'm not like learning anything.
Yeah, the lingo, like nuclear options, sanctions, all that stuff. That's pretty much all I picked up from this war.
Yeah, yeah. Except, and also the fact that like half of Twitter has decided that the war is like their new favorite Netflix show.
Where they're like, this fucking president would be so good in Ted Lasso season three. There's a guy, I'm not going to say his name because he doesn't deserve to have his name said, but he's, like, everything that he posts about this fucking war seems like he's, like, he's an Earth 2 guy.
Yeah. Like, meanwhile, on Earth 2, Hillary Clinton has already avoided this.
But he just, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of people, like, using war for class.
It's fucking. Yeah, Billy.
Yeah, exactly.

Just fucking shut up and go to Ukraine, dude.

We were actually joking on the way down.

We were like saying how like Jake, like someday,

Jake is our will hunting.

Someday we hope that he like, no goodbye, no see you later.

He's just like all of a sudden calling like professional sports.

And then we're like, and Billy, he's like the kid that like never leaves house. Like he's's gonna live there till he's like 30 we're like maybe one day he just goes to war he's just like no goodbye no see you later he's just got a fucking rocket launcher in kiev the next day i actually i told twitter i told billy the other day like just think think of how viral your video of you coming home to whitey would be yeah if you went overseas as a troop yeah that's probably break the internet's a great point.
That's a great point. I don't think there's a ton of sports stuff.
Obviously, there's some good college basketball games. The Sixers are officially, like, if you're an Eastern Conference team, James Harden and Joel Embiid last night, they just basically run pick and roll, and then no matter what, it ends up either in a layup or, like, the best-case scenario is it's a free throw

and they maybe miss one.

This might just be the fact that I took James Harden over two-and-a-half,

three-pointers, and he only had two.

But I noticed him.

He was, like, going out of his way to make passes when he was wide open for a shot.

He's a good teammate.

He's a great teammate.

I think that James Harden, he's really figured it out this time.

I think he's going to be smooth sailing from the Sixers.

Maybe he's, like, that's the key to James Harden. You just need six-month rentals where it's like he's going to be in shape.
He's going to be happy. He's going to try really hard.
You lease him. You don't buy.
Yeah, exactly. Never buy James Harden.
Always lease him. Yeah, they're awesome.
And then also, did you see Coach K requested to be in the Midwest region because he wants to play his last – well, he's being a little presumptuous because he's saying he's going to be in the Sweet 16, play in Chicago, his hometown. So it's like he requested that.
I mean, I'm sure the NCAA is just going to do – they're probably just going to put all 16 seeds in his bracket, right? Probably. I think they're letting him pick the teams that he gets to play against.
I am going to hate watch Saturday night more than I've ever hate watched anything in my life oh the mega cast is it's it's and they're doing like a lead up where they have like every player that ever played for duke like like saying their statements and stuff it's roy williams did it right roy williams went out the right way that's a classy ass coach they should do on the mega cast i am gonna miss them because i miss anyone that I hate. They should just straight up have every hateable Duke player in the coach's room like they do on the national championship game.
Get Leitner, get Grayson Allen, get J.J. Redick, get them all.
You know what they should do? They should get all those guys and they should do the version of the Haka and slap the floor one last time for Coach K. I like that.
The Duke Haka. Like a step team.
that's their step team in durham yeah the um yeah it's going to be i will miss him because i did i mean sports the the there's the the fun in sports is rooting for your team but also hating your rivals and hating the teams that you hate and i will miss him as a foe i absolutely will i hope somebody asked him about like military strategy. He was in the Army.
He was. It's also very funny because when we were driving, I asked a quiz question to everyone in the car, which was just a fact that I had learned the night before.
And I was like, how many years do you think Jim Boeheim has been at Syracuse? I think the answers were like 35. He's been at Syracuse for 46 years, and he's still not retiring.
It came out today. He was like, there's a plan in place.
And all the beat writers were like, what's the plan? He's like, I'm not going to tell you the plan, but there's a plan in place. He's probably going to have his sons take over.
Yeah, but he's coaching next year 100%. Yeah.
It's crazy. 46 years.
46 years. That's a long time to do anything.

Like, that's a long time to live.

Yeah.

It's a long time to, like, be in a house.

Be in the same house.

Be in the same city.

Yeah.

Be in the same country.

Yeah.

So, yeah, what else?

Anything else from Sports World before we do Fyre Fest?

We're going to do Fyre Fest before Schefter, and then we'll do Madison Airport Review to finish the show, which was great.

Anything else? I'm waiting on pins and needles right here to figure out what Kenny Pickett's hand size is going to be. Oh, yeah.
So they're doing the measurements right now. They're getting released.
Daniel Jeremiah, DJ himself, keeps tweeting about it. It's so funny to see when they, like the way they write heights down.
It's like 0602. I mean, 6'2".
You can just say like 6'2". It's like military code.
It works. Yeah.
No, they've deputized themselves as being like in the infantry. And then Kenny Pickett's hand size.
I talked to a lot of people last night about Kenny Pickett's hands, and they're talking about the different stretches. Yeah.
This is quite a sentence. I did.
I did. Because he's doing the stretches, so I'm very curious to know how much bigger can one make their hands via stretching? I think a quarter inch, probably.
So he's up to like eight and a half now? Yeah. I mean, it's still very, very small.
I think like, you know. Oh, here we go.
It just came in. Breaking news.
Breaking moves. Breaking moves.
Breaking moves. Can he pick his hands measured at 8.5 inches? Oh, there we go.
So he got that extra quarter. He got the quarter inch.
He definitely got that quarter. Schefter got that first.
Schefter, well, I don't know. I just have alerts for Schefter.

By the way, we are definitely writing the blog.

If you're listening to this right now, we're going to have Schefter on in a second.

But Schefter is officially talking to Barstool.

Also, I was giving him a water in the beginning of the interview, and Big Cat didn't want to redo it.

What?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that was good.

I mean, people like to see the behind the scenes.

How the sausage is made.

No, I was listening to it, though.

It looks stupid. It sounds very confusing.
Yeah. So yeah so i'm giving that's how the sausage gets made um all right should we do fire fest one take dan yeah one take danny should we do should we do fire fest by the way just one last psa um we are now officially so this saturday change of clocks um is it go ahead or back it's spring're changing the clock Saturday.
You finally get more sunlight. What happened is we screwed it up last year because we said spring back.
Right. And so a lot of people were mad at us because that's what we screwed up.
Spring forward. It's spring forward on Saturday.
Well, it's technically Sunday morning. Yes.
Sunday morning. Sunday morning, 1 a.m.
More sunlight at the end of the day.

Set your clocks forward. Yes.
So we're good.

So just a reminder to everyone

because you don't want to be the guy who's late on Monday morning.

Hank, your fire

fest. So we talked

about it. We were on the road late.

We left Wisconsin

midnight. Drove for two hours.

I was pretty hungry.

I had some food, but I was starving. We get there the hotel uh has like a little snack shack area and they had this like trippy uh cheetos mac and cheese i got two of them i was starving i'm like to eat this go to sleep get fueled up wait cheetos mac and cheese that's sick i know is it cheetos like flavored cheese or is it cheetos in the mac and cheese? Like Cheetos flavored.
Like, I don't know. I couldn't tell you PFT because I got to my fucking room.
Look around everywhere. I opened every cabinet, every drawer, every closet.
No microwave. They sell microwavable snacks and they don't have microwaves in their rooms.
That's fucked up. I was furious.
That's fucked up. I was thinking about making hot water and then pouring that in, but I didn't think that was going to work.
That's so fucked up. I don't think the water can get hot enough in a hotel for that.
So I went to bed starving and angry. Did you try to crunch on them, just like raw dog it? No.
Just drank water. Yeah.
Like, just drank water? Yeah. Just a belly full of water? That's all I had.
Like a deer? Damn. It was infuriating.
Yeah. I feel like you've been hungry this entire trip.
Yeah. I've been trying to catch up.
I've been trying to catch up. That was my catch up.
You've been behind. That was my get right meal.
And you just. I couldn't get right.
Yeah. Because last night, we went out to dinner, and it was a late reservation.
It was like 9.30 is the only one we had. And Hank was like, yeah, at 6, I ate dinner.
And then he went to another dinner. Healthy meal.
Yeah, you got to catch up. They probably had a microwave in the lobby, but didn't think to tell anybody, like, hey, you have to use this one.
It is bullshit. If you sell microwavable foods, you should have a microwave in the rooms.
Most rooms do. I actually don't know how it is because I've changed the OMAD diet,

but I don't do it correctly where I just eat one meal a day,

but I eat so far past full that I'm just sick for the rest of the day.

And then I'm not hungry again.

But it's definitely not.

Seven ice cream sandwiches was a sight to my goal.

Four.

I thought it was a bit.

You're like pulling them out of your sweatshirt pocket. It called cooling down the core you ever you ever see chernobyl when the reactors don't get cool fast enough my body was overheating i needed to cool the core down it's like when they it's like when a when a horrific like hit in the nfl and they have to do that crazy thing where they basically your body with ice yeah and they basically cool you down so that your body can like, like heal.
That's essentially what I do with ice cream.

I cool my. to do that crazy thing where they basically inject your body with ice.
Yeah, and they basically cool you down so that your body can like heal.

That's essentially what I do with ice cream.

I cool my body down.

Don't hate on it.

Also, if you keep it in your pockets,

you're cooling your skin down in your belly too.

Yeah, exactly.

I did.

There was a moment in the second half where I was like, I'm like, I'm cramping.

I got so tired cheering at a basketball game. I put my hands on my knees at one point.
I had to take a blow. Yes.
It was bad. Yes.
All right. You have to hear fire.
Kevin Durant responded, by the way. No, he saw it, though.
Yeah. I'm just going to keep.
We're going to get him on eventually. Never.
Never. My fire fest of the week is that we're all fat pieces of shit compared to Evan Nealal oh so have you seen the pictures of him evan neal who could be the first pick in the draft from alabama he's six foot seven like 337 pounds and he's like way skinnier than i am yeah it's ridiculous he's he's like a freak like aaron donald where it's like you shouldn't be what you are his body shouldn't exist right it was like built in a a lab.
He'd probably get like the heaviest bones in the world. Can I see a picture? You want to see a picture? Let me see a picture of this dude.
I've got several saved on my phone. Just shirtless? Shirtless, yeah.
Hell yeah. Let me see this.
No, I'm typing his name into Twitter. Hang on.
I think I did, by the way, it's going to be the greatest PMTV that we've ever had on YouTube. When is it going to drop? Tuesday? Next Tuesday? It will be everything.
I think there's a moment when you were painting my belly that I said, like, you know, me and Aaron Donald are kind of got the same physique. If I just worked out a little more.
Oh, wow. That's crazy.
How much does he weigh? 340 pounds. That's nuts.
That looks like the after picture of, like, he was 1,000 pounds. Yes.
Biggest loser. too big he's going to be a monster look at this picture of him this is bad radio but look at this picture of him at the podium yeah he's skinny he's legitimately a skinny man who's some someone's gonna draft him be like you gotta put on 30 pounds yeah no there's gonna be like some coach some strength and conditioning or nutrition coach it's like this is the perfect frame for me to work my masterpiece.
You know what?

He could probably get up to 400 pounds and still look regular.

Yeah, that's nuts.

It is crazy.

That is wild.

My other fire fest of the week is we've lost our darling Jake.

I don't know.

Should we sanction Jake?

No, I actually think we should let him.

I think we should maybe sanction him.

I think that was good for him.

Jake is sanctioned.

So he was on Stool Bench Bob, his podcast. Go subscribe subscribe now they had an awesome interview with tyler hansborough psycho t um he lost his cool he swore not once but twice i loved it i think we need to encourage it he dropped the f-bomb yeah like deployed the nuclear f which is good yes no it was big i jake is hereby suspended for part of my take for the rest of today's episode.
Okay. I think Jake, though, should like Putin, should just have the case of F-bombs open.
Don't use them, but just have them ready to go. Now Rico knows that he's got them.
It's called... We can get an F-bomb off.
It's called deterrence. That's what the policy is.
You can get a can at your head for that. That's what the policy is.
You can get a can at your head for that that's what the policy is you get a can at your head um all right my fire fest is my streak ended uh and i should never gamble on the road so it's terrible gambling on the road is the worst i was 10 and 0 10 in a row i'm now 0 and 3 i'm gonna get back to it um also my fire fest is like going back on tuesday to madison and having that night just like makes me be like damn college is pretty fucking sweet i wish i was back there which is not like a thought you should have as a 37 year old i think it's fine to have that thought it is you don't act on it right exactly it is that like to momentarily have that thought but like you don't want to be the dude who's like in his late 30s sitting around being like man college was so sweet like wish I could go back there right now no it's it's actually good that you have a weekend where you get it all out of your system as opposed to like constantly thinking about when you go back and then you repress that and then you find yourself like sneaking off in the middle of the night finding a college yeah then I got out there you got a fucking earring and a corvette and the whole life is falling apart then it's's a totally messy situation. But it was awesome to be back.
I still am like, that was the perfect night. It was the absolute perfect night.
And this is March. I'm very excited for March Madness, very excited for Conference Tourney Week.
We got some big guests coming up, right? Huge. Mark Titus.
That's not the biggest guest. If you apologize.
I don't want to be said. That was confusing.
That's not the headliner. He's like, no, he's not.
He's not even the starting five. He needs to apologize for what he's done.
No, I love Mark. He's on the Mount Rushmore of guests.
Okay. Let's get to Adam Schefter.
And before, or sorry, it's Adam Schefter. Then we're going to finish with our airport review.
And then we'll have numbers at the end. Before we get to Adam Schefter, PFT, you had a quick word from one of our sponsors? I do.
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Now here is Adam Schefter.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest,

recurring guest, great friend of the program. It is Adam Schefter.
That was a great intro. That was a solid intro.
Let's just keep going. All right, so Schefter, thank you for coming on.
We have a theory, and this is where we're going to start. We haven't seen you.
I can't wait to see where we're going to start. I'm waiting for the man to fall out of the ceiling.
Credit to you. For somebody to come up to the table.
We have no tricks. No tricks.
No tricks. Where are we going? Assault.
What do we got? Assault. Assault.
Credit to you. Whenever I text, I'm like, hey, you want to come on? You're like, yep, just tell me when.
So we were thinking about it. We haven't seen you in two years.
You haven't been on in two years because last year, obviously, COVID, no combine. Do you think that we've been more mean to you in the last year because we haven't seen you recently because we thought about it so i've heard so i was like i think we were too mean to shefty because we had like this is our reset every year our annual reset where we see you we have some laughs we have some fun and then we go about our ways and we're like next time we're gonna dunk on shefty we like pause a second and maybe don't until you want to dunk in the next time it is like the annual airing of grievances where we get all our stuff off yeah no we have grievances you gotta start working on it you'll ask me about all the grievances right we'll get to all of you want me to you want me to throw them out like where we're going you know which one do you think is the most well i figured that Cliff Kingsbury signed his contract today.
I was just saying. So I figured he could start right there.
Do you know Oklahoma? Yeah. What happened? I thought he was going to Oklahoma.
Let me say something. If he wanted the job, he had the job.
Okay. And I know everybody said, oh, his agent called Adam to tell him this and to plan.
Let me tell you this. I'm sitting on my couch Sunday afternoon.
I get a call from somebody not in the Cliff Kingsbury camp. Connected to the Arizona Cardinals.
Cliff Kingsbury mom. Yeah, his mom called.
And they said, are you aware of the fact that Oklahoma is kind of after him? And I said, no. And they said, they are.
And I said, okay. Well, I made a couple more calls and found out that if he wanted that job, he could have it.
Now, it was portrayed as I'm giving Cliff Kingsbury leverage. I could care less.
He did get leverage. Great.
Good for him. You know what? His record is going to give him the leverage he wants or doesn't want.
That's true. So under that same argument, though, is Bill Belichick not open for every college job every year? Well, again, do I think Cliff Kingsbury was going to go to Oklahoma? Probably not, but I'm just telling you that he had— It was talked about.
There were people that weekend reaching out to him, asking him if he wanted the job. So, my question to you would be, if there was an NFL head coach that was receiving interest from a college about becoming its head coach, whether or not he wanted it, would that be newsworthy? It could be.
And again, we don't know what your source was on this. I trust your sources.
Probably rock solid. Yeah, it was.
But there is like, I think in this past year, there's become more of that skepticism. It's unbelievable.
By the way, I live it every time. Yeah, I think it's fair to have some skepticism because you are, I mean, you do have a lot of power.
Do you know how powerful you are? You're a powerful man. Do you think the skepticism is just— I'm not powerful enough to be on the Wisconsin podium, voiced in a Big Ten trophy.
That's true. Not that powerful.
But you might be powerful enough, hypothetically, to say Jimmy Garoppolo has outperformed expectations and is a big part of why the San Francisco 49ers are where they are right now. You know what I said was, what I said was, Jimmy Garoppolo simultaneously has raised his value to other teams in the league, which he did.
To both the 49ers and other teams in the offseason trade market. What is wrong with that? 49ers would not be where they are today without him.
I think the timing of it was what did it for me because it was just like out of the clouds.

It was like you woke up.

It was a Sunday afternoon?

You woke up and you're like,

you know what, I'm going to gas up Jimmy G today.

Was that a direct one-for-one trade that Don Yee gave you

so that you get the Brady news?

100% not Don Yee news.

In fact, I did speak to Don Yee afterwards on the Tom Brady news.

Yeah?

Oh, we got to go through this timeline.

We're going to go through all this. I knew we weren't coming here to talk about the four ice cream sandwiches in 28 minutes.
Okay. I knew we weren't doing that.
Ultimately, you were right about the Brady news. Yes.
I want to hear all of it. I want to hear.
But there's got to be a moment for you. After you put the Brady news out there and then it starts to get disputed, even if you think like, yeah, your sourcing is is rock solid on it.
Well, here's the thing on any story, right, any time. What you always wonder about is you can say that this guy, this team is doing this.
Things get out. Dynamics get changed and shifted.
That's what you always wonder about, right? Material change. And so he was retiring.
I mean, there were other plans. He's doing a movie.
He was talked about as a limited owner of the Miami Dolphins. His family was at the – like the decision had been made.
He was retiring. And we reported – yeah, it – again, it's shocking to me sometimes how some of these things take on a life of their own.
Like the Jimmy Garoppolo thing, he was being ripped on all year long. They were in the playoffs.
They made a deep run. Did he not raise his value in the postseason? I think he did.
Don Yee never said anything. In fact, on the Tom Brady thing to get back to Don Yee, the first contact I had with Don Yee was afterwards when he called.
He said, and my wife was in the office. And I haven't talked about this before, but I'm in my office.
It was a Saturday afternoon. It was a snowstorm in New York.
Wife is sitting there. Don Yee calls.
And he's like, why would you not call me in advance? I said, I did call you multiple times. Left messages.
Never heard back from you. He said, I have a statement I want to read to you.
Now, when he said that, I will say, okay, what do we got here? Yeah. Like, what is this statement going to be? Because that statement could be what? It could be.
You're getting sued. Or it could be like other people said it's wrong.
Yeah. Or whatever.
Sued. What am I getting sued about for? I don't know.
Because you're right. Defamation.
Yeah. Defamation.
You said something really interesting right there, which is that Tom Brady was talked about as a limited owner of the Dolphins.

That seems like that conveys the supposed bad blood that we've all kind of talked about

between Brady and the Patriots.

That might be even more real if he's going to get in the division.

Now we're really coming up with conspiracy theories. No, I don't think that's that far off.
I hadn't thought about it like that. What do you think about the theory that maybe...
Hold on, but I want to go back to the one-on-one, because you were saying it was a one-on-one on Jimmy Garoppolo when I didn't speak to Don E. until after the fact.
You know, there are people who, media critics, like, why would you not reach out to the, I did reach out to the agent. The agent never responded.
Never responded. In fact, I remember he was saying, he was sitting out by his citrus trees that day.
That's nice. What, he's like Don Corleone? What's going on here? I guess so.
So, so, so what was the statement? It was a statement that you tweeted, right? Well, the statement, yeah, the statement out there, that Tom hasn't made it. Tom is the only one that will announce his decision, and he'll do it when he's ready.
Something to that effect, right? So was there ever a moment that you were like, uh-oh? Because this is obviously an enormous, enormous story. It's the greatest football player of all time.
You're basically saying he's retiring. He's saying, no, I'm not.
You know what's funny? I remember back in the day I reported that Tony Romo on a Monday. It was at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
The Cowboys and Eagles were playing for the division championship. It was Monday, 4 o'clock.
We had just finished NFL Live at ESPN. We were in the studio, and I get a call that Tony Romo needs back surgery.

And I reported back surgery, and it's the Cowboys,

and it's for the playoff spot, and they're playing the Eagles,

and all the media forces mobilize at the Cowboys training complex,

and ESPN sends everyone they got there.

And Jason Garrett walks out, and all the people start screaming, what's the deal with Tony Romo? We'll see if he's going to practice tomorrow. We'll see if he's going to practice.
My boss is, you sure you got your information right? You sure you got your information right? And I had somebody on the ESPN staff text me, hey, you might want to soften your report now. Again, when you report what you report, you report it for a reason, you're going to walk it back at that point? Yeah, it's not soft.
It's just saying like, hey, retract your statement real quick. You're saying do you worry about it? No, listen.
There wasn't a moment. Because it was obviously very, like I even said, I was like, I'm kind of, I don't have no dog in this fight, but I'm kind of hoping Tom Brady plays five more years.
Well, that's why I brought in Jeff Darlington as my body shield. I thought so.
Jeff Darlington, he's great, and he knows what he's doing. So, like, I figure, you know, people are going to come after us.
Let him go after Jeff Darlington, not me. Well, we did the opposite.
We gave Jeff credit for it. As you should.
As you should. How does that work out when you're splitting a scoop with somebody? It's like.
More credit for everybody else. I don't need any.
But deep down, give it to me. Not one moment we were We were like, oh, Adam.
No, no. You know what it was? It was like picking up my daughter at school on Monday and she's in seventh grade and she gets in the car and she's like, dad, why is everybody mad at you over Tom Brady? Why are there articles in the New York Post about you about Tom Brady? I'm like, oh, because we reported that he's going to retire, which he did the next morning, which again, I mean, it's just amazing, right? It was crazy.
And I still think, though, deep down there was one moment where you're like, oh, man, P-Boy, you did it again. You put yourself in a pickle.
P-Boy never peed his pants. Now, do you think – now let's transition to this, because you broke the news before Tom Brady could.
Do you think you're partially to blame for Tom Brady not adequately thanking Hank and Patriots Nation because he didn't have enough time? Well, I think Tom should have thanked Hank and Patriots Nation. I thought that was out of line.
Correct. Very much so.
That Hank was not cited in there. He was eventually.
And honestly, I was quite surprised that Tom didn't come under the scrutiny and criticism that Jeff and I did for our reporting of the story. Because that, to me, was a much more major transgression.
That was more valid. That criticism was more valid.
Tom Brady's reporting was incorrect on himself. Well.
When he put the skepticism out there. That was – you ended up being right.
Do you take a victory lap after all that? Like what's that like when you're vindicated? You celebrate a good scoop? No. Just go on to the next one? I mean there's relief.
Like, okay, this is over. Like my daughter's not going to hear anything at school.
Like she got kids saying things to her. I don't like that.
No, that's fucked up. Yeah.
That's legit. So she's actually, like, encroaching on your territory a little bit.
Or is that you also using her as, like, a bodyguard against you? Like, no, she broke it, not me. Yeah, that'd be a good idea to just credit her on the scoops, and no one's going to get mad about her botching one.
Or just have her do the reverse scoops so one of you is right. You know what? I was doing a thing with Rich Eisen earlier this year, and he said, you know, we're talking to my daughter doing stuff on Nickelodeon, on Slime Time, which honestly was probably the coolest thing of the whole year by far because for years I took my daughter to work with me, and this year for the first time she took me to work with her because I walked in the Tuesday morning after the Pittsburgh Cleveland Monday night game.
And I had a 6am flight back from Pittsburgh and I left the hotel like three 30 in the morning. And I remember walking about 815 and thinking I'm going back to bed for an hour.
I walk in 820, the phone rings and it's Nickelodeon and the regular host, young Dylan can't make it that day. my dylan our my daughter dylan make it i'm like okay well there goes that nap so literally turned around went into the city and it was the coolest thing ever to watch her i believe work but in talking to rich at one point he's like has she ever gotten scoopage information that you've kind of picked up i said no but you know what she had jamar chase on early in the year and she was talking to him about his nickname or why he wore and everybody calls him uno and and and his brother was born on the first and his father was born on the first and everybody it was a lot of unos in the family well somehow that kind of made its way into reporting.
And my daughter, I guess, triggered this little insight on Jamal Chase. Yeah, it's her first scoop.
So Tom Brady, she was the one that initially came to me. And she said, Dad, I just want to give you a heads up.
We canned our Tom Brady Nickelodeon interview. But he told me he's going to retire.
I'm not going to use it. I think it benefits the family more if you report it.
But you didn't tag her. So I brought in Jeff we knocked her out yeah jeff darlington is actually just a fake person correct he's just like one of those he's jeff darlington is the alias for dylan shefton okay okay so tom brady chances he plays again today i would say not going to play again today well Well, listen, today, March 2nd, as we did, I don't think he's going to play again.

How he's going to play again.

How he's going to feel in July and August when people are going back to training camp

and we're talking football when you guys got Blake Bortles coming on and he's going to

be getting a job somewhere or something like that, right?

Like he may get the itch.

That sounds like a shot at Blake right there.

It's not a shot at Blake.

No, I've got rabbit ears. I'm very sensitive for Blake.
Blake's your guy. Is Blake going to get signed somewhere? Is there a buzz? There are a lot of teams that need a lot of quarterbacks.
Okay. I think he might have another opportunity.
I've heard that simultaneously Blake Bortle has raised his own stock as well as the stock of the New Orleans Saints. That's a fact.
Agreed. After he played on the team and there are a lot of teams calling about him.
Would you say that's fair? Confirmed. Confirmed.
Next grievance. Are you – Shams kind of – he's kind of encroaching on your territory now.
Shams is? Yeah. Oh.
Jameis. Oh.
He broke that in your face. How'd that feel? Credit to Shams.
Well, I guess, you know what, it's sort of like – who was the guy that got dunked on the other – it was Jacob Poto by John Morant, right? Yeah. I feel like Jacob Poto right now.
So, but you've dipped in the NBA. So now it's like a tit for tat.
They're going to come on your turf. Is it a turf war? I'm coming for more NBA news.
Really? Because I've noticed that you're going down the gauntlet right now. Wow.
You've been slacking on the NBA news. You've been laser focused on the NFL.
You know what happened? COVID happened, and they've got a host of NBA reporters.

They don't really need me.

Mine was just like a fun kind of thing to do.

And so anytime that they have a game in Philadelphia or Brooklyn,

I'm happy to go do that.

Nobody from ESPN has asked me to do that.

That's just you.

That's like what you do for fun.

Your hobby is I'm going to report on a different sport.

And just dunk on and beat everyone to that. When I did do that, I did about a half dozen NBA games.
That was fun. The only thing that wasn't really fun was I remember we were getting ready for the draft, and they said, could you do a playoff game? I'm like, I'd love to do a playoff game.
That would be awesome. The only thing I ask is, we're getting ready for the draft.
We're still getting out of free agency. Could you just keep me close by? So they only sent me to Salt Lake City, you know, to do the Utah Jazz.
So I appreciated it. It was very thoughtful of them.
You got to pay your dues, man. Yes.
Exactly. You're starting over.
And I go to Salt Lake City. And the funny thing is I lived in Denver for almost 16 years.
I get out of the plane, and by about 12, 1 o'clock, I had so much altitude sickness that I couldn't. I mean, it came up on you really quick, really.
And you would have thought that living in Colorado, maybe you would have been used to it. No.
No, us short guys, we don't do well with heights. It's awful.
I'm not used to the air up there. It's too thick.
It was terrible. So they hadn't sent me back to Salt Lake City on another assignment or anything like that.
So we'll see. Where are manners? We didn't even ask.
How's the knee doing? Yeah. Oh, I asked him in the elevator.
He said everyone asks him. Oh, yeah.
elevator i said everyone asks him oh yeah sorry credit to the two things that we get asked more about the name tom brady and the knee the knee probably won and the des tape i've heard that in a long time we had to bring that that's always going to come up i've always i wrote it right here des okay where is it it is uh somewhere on the bottom of the ocean okay i would like to see it. All right.
But yeah, the knee. So yeah, yeah.
How's the knee? The salt.

You know, the ocean. Okay, I would like to see it.
All right, but yeah, the knee. So yeah, yeah, how's the knee? Assault.
You know, the knee, what happened was that night, I want to set the record straight a little bit because Steve Young was the white guy doing the gritty, like all over the field. And I'm with Booger and Randy, and we're having a good time, and so we're trying to stay warm.
So I just did. I didn't realize the camera would capture me and that my knee would get injured.
And so I went in, I got an MRI. And again, injury information that has not been revealed anywhere else, we'll reveal it here, but we scheduled surgery, knee surgery for after the Super Bowl.
My doctor, he'll appreciate Dr. Freeman.
Shout out. Yep we, we decided what we do is we do an aggressive form of physical therapy leading up to the Super Bowl, take two weeks off, see how it felt after.

I got to tell you, it feels pretty good.

I like it.

No surgery.

Not right now.

So you gutted it out for the rest of the year.

You're like, you know what?

I'm going to put it off for my team.

I'm going to continue to show up at work, do my best, play through pain.

You know what the worst part of it? How many players have we seen do that? Right? say they need to serve it, and they're like, you know what? Screw it. I'm not getting it.
I'm going to play right through it. And that's what we did.
It's refreshing to see. I think the worst part about that visual wasn't necessarily the dance.
It was awful. It was the boots you were wearing.
The boots were bad. Here's the thing.
I'm not going to let you defend these. There, here's the thing.
You can't spin the boots. There is a thing.
There is a thing. It was cold.
Of course there's a thing. They had fur on them.
We were in Buffalo the week before where I'm being blown out of chairs. So are we.
Yeah, we were. It wasn't that cold.
It wasn't that cold at all. It wasn't cold.
It wasn't that cold. No, it wasn't.
We actually took our shirts off because it was so hot in the suite. Well, I will say this.
I am very soft. Very soft, okay? You're not.
You're not. Very soft.
You play through meniscus? Yes. I can do that.
But put me in the cold? I don't do well. I can't stand it.
And so we're on the field in Buffalo where you say it wasn't that cold. I had a little bit of a different interpretation of it.
We were joking. We were in a suite the whole time.
Okay. Well, there you go.
But we were shirtless. Well, to me, it was freezing.
That wind was unbelievable. And so we went to Chicago.
Now, what was notable about that trip, not only was the knee, but I flew out with a guy in my row. In the plane, he continues to take off his mask.
Two hours flight from New York to Chicago. Jail.
Was his name Aaron Rodgers? Coughing, sneezing, wiping his nose the entire time. And then when we got off the plane, I'm walking outside, like literally the guy's like walking right behind me.
Two days later, I get home on Wednesday, scratchy throat, coughing. Hold on.
Three days later, the entire Schefter family. Big C.
Big C. Everybody, everybody tested positive.
That guy. Was that Aaron Rodgers? That asshole on the plane.
I'm I you. There's no doubt my guy.
That guy on the plane gave me. So I damaged my meniscus and got COVID.
But we played through it. This is a great way to just totally get us off track of these boots.
Because I don't know how we got to this. So the boots.
I completely forgot about the boots. His whole family got COVID.
I went on a journey with you. Just answer the boot question.
That motherfucker. To boot.
Here's what happened. That motherfucker almost killed your daughter.
That's disgusting. My wife is a type 1 diabetic.
Literally, literally, like, we had to get her IVs to kind of help, you know, bring her along. Because that's dangerous for a type 1 diabetic.
And it was that asshole on the plane that gave it to me. I'm so pissed off about him.
The boot. Buffalo haunted about how cold I was.
I'm like, I don't really care. Like, I'm on a set.
I don't care if I'm wearing fur boots and fur mittens and fur earmuffs. I'm going to be warm in Chicago.
Now, it wasn't that bad that night. It was cold.
So I'm not expecting to get up from the desk. I'm not expecting to be shimmying around on the field with Randy and Booger and following Steve's lead, but I was.
And so, yeah, you caught me in these furry boots, but you know what? They were warmer than what I could normally wear. And honestly, I don't care what it looks like as long as I stay warm on the road.
That's all I really care about. Did you consider reaching out to Dr.
James Andrews? Were you like, you know what? I'm basically in the NFL. Let's see if I can get an A-lister to do my knee.
No, but you know, there was a time in the Super Bowl in Miami where I was working for NFL Network at the time and came down with a violent, violent stomach virus. Like I had to go to the hospital.
Is your immune system okay? Maybe not. Maybe not.
I'm concerned concerned about your body as you should be okay too many donuts in the morning too much coffee big cat probably can understand right yes and so um i'm healthy like an oxo i've had covid like three times no big deal get right through it right every strain um i was sick at the nfl super bowl brought me on set they had a couple of the nfl doctors assigned to the teams looking after me i never got well that week i literally could not eat it was in the hospital wait the miami one the new orleans oh new orleans okay indianapolis back in the day got it got it so prince super bowl so no that was uh indianapolis chicago oh yeah that's that's right. Indianapolis-New Orleans.
Was that also Miami? That was Miami. Okay.
All our years blend together. Yeah, they do.
After a while, it's hard to answer through. Here's a tough question for you.
Yeah. Okay? Yep.
You just told us about the meniscus, right? You didn't get surgery. You're a free agent coming up.
Do you think maybe potential people now will hear this and be like, well, we want to sign him, but his knee could blow at any moment. I mean, that's got to be a concern.
I'm now putting that as a red flag. We're at the combine.
That is an official red flag. This is similar to the Jimmy G thing.
He's getting shoulder surgery right now. We're buying, you know, if someone's like, hey, I want to get Adam Schefter, it might just blow up.
It could. You could be on the DL.
And I'm trying to find a good deal. Like, I've been following some of these bets of the year.
Game of the year, to what you know. Yeah.
Are you going to get into the gambling industry? Because that's, listen, you don't have to. That's my theory.
I think you're a smart guy, and you've proven yourself at NFL Network and ESPN. You've worn the Big J, and heavy is the head that wears the Big J sometimes.
I feel like the gambling industry right now is throwing so much money at people. It's going to be hard for you to say no.
Well, I think the times are changing. I think it's a different day and age um but i will say that truly i'm i mean i've loved being at aspn um it's been 13 years there's been all sorts of fun incidents here that we've documented des tape des tape um you can blame floria for that by the way because like when he's on the So we just asked him about the desk.
Yeah. What's that? Is it news? No.
Oh, yeah.

And so I'm waiting for Cliff Kingsbury to tweet out where… We'll do it. Our Jake Marshall will do it.
He's actually… He's been covering your impending free agency. Yes.
For sure. We had him get on top of it.
Yeah. We want him to be covering every move that you make.
You know what's funny? There are these things out there that never happened sometimes. Like, you know, Adam Schefter met with this company.
Okay, but, and Piazzi wants to bring up something about Jake Marsh, but real quick, you are, like, I'm going to give you a compliment. You are an insanely hard worker.
You are at the top of your profession. It has to feel a little bit good to maybe get close to free agency here.
You know what's cool. It'd be like, hey, people want me.
Well, I've covered free agency for 32 years. And it's kind of fun to study it, watch it, and then essentially go through something like that your own.
So what lessons have you, are you like deleting ESPN from your Twitter bio? You should do that. Unfollowing people.
That's excellent. That's a great idea.
Yeah, you should. Oh, that's a good idea.
You should unfollow Jimmy Pataro. Well, you know, we, well.
That would be great. That would get everyone.
I love Jimmy Pataro. Yeah, but why'd you unfollow him? I don't think he has a social media account, but there are other people I can unfollow.
Burke Magnus? I like him too. Yeah, we like him a lot, but why'd you unfollow him? You've got to play a power play.
Yeah, yeah. Well, the power play takes on different forms, right? You've got to plot it out.
You can no-sap him? Well, listen. Are you on Instagram? You can scrub your Instagram like any pictures that you've ever had with Booger McFarlane.
I could have my agent release a statement that ESPN better pay me, or I'm not going to cover a Super Bowl. You know what you could do? You could also hold out.
Like what if on the eve of NFL free agency, you just said, you know what, I'm not going to cover this. I'm not going to give you anything until you give me my contract.
The double holdout has never been done before. Are you? I love that idea.
The double holdout is a genius idea. You don't understand your value.
You're like Aaron Rodgers. And right now Aaron Rodgers, I believe per our best friend Diana Rossini, said he wants to be the highest paid player in the history of the NFL.
Which he later denied. Oh, no way.
He said he insinuated something. I was like, why is the media misconstruing my words?

He seems like an honest guy.

You know what's amazing about that?

The Aaron Rodgers situation.

We continue to divert in all these other areas.

But there are people in that Packers organization that have no idea what he's going to do.

Oh, no duh.

He holds them hostage.

No idea.

And here we are on March 2nd.

Players don't know.

Coaches don't know.

Like, what's he doing?

So, I mean, the report was he wants like $50 million.

I could ask you the same, like, what's your number?

Yeah.

$50 million.

It is?

That's my, you could put it out.

Wait, so you said your agent could.

Adam Schefter demands $50 million from ESPN per year guaranteed.

Guaranteed.

And the use of Trent Tilford's private plane.

That too.

Or he's going to consider holding out on the EVA free agency and not show up to do all the studio shows in time. All released by your agent, Don Yee.
No, we're now his agent. His agent is Don Yee.
No, we get 10%. We absolutely get 10%.
Who's that call? It's actually the person. Big Cat and I had a funny thing today.
thing today was texting me where the room was where there was a team that wanted to do an interview for one of their websites so i said hey i'll i'll talk to this afternoon so i was texting big cat when i thought i was texting them and i told actually i told him i told him he said please don't sue me yeah you said, congrats, big cat on the Buffalo job. Yeah, you did the Bill Belichick.
Sorry, I really fucked this up. Dash, A-S.
Congrats. I mean, what a great week.
You get the Buffalo job, and you're on the podium with the Wisconsin team, presenting the trophy apart. What do you got to do to make that happen? It was crazy.
I don't really know. He's basically part of the team now.
Yeah, it was crazy. It was nuts.
I'm still, the only reason that I've come down a little bit off that high is we're now in the hotel that I was in when Wisconsin lost to Duke in 2015. So I'm having flashbacks.
And you're with me. It's like, what a company.
You're going to go to Madison? Yeah. And then right back here.
I walked into the lobby. You're the highlight of our trip.
You're this crap, yeah. Hank was like, I was like, what's your memory from here? And Hank's like, you dying right there.
And I was like, cool. That's awesome.
I'm going to grab my phone real quick to read the Jake Marshall. Okay, all right.
So, no, seriously, though, I want to compliment you. It's incredible.
Like, free agency. We give you a lot of shit.
But you are an insanely hardworking person. You're at the top of your profession.
Is it, like, are you going to do maybe a little wine and dine? Like, take me out to a steak dinner kind of thing? Like, let me go to, I don't know, DraftKings, and they'll put you up on the Jumbotron, or maybe like CBS Sports will give you a jersey. Maybe you do like Ray Allen, he got game, and you go and fuck two women at the same time.
I don't know. What are you going to do? I don't know because I really haven't been through this before, but I will say i already i did have one you talk about wine and dine and women well the only thing i've had so far is i had one breakfast with espn in a diner and i said to them i'm like hey the last time that i had uh a meal with an espn executive right was when i signed my last contract seven years ago seven years ago we went to a really nice dinner nice dinner.
It was me, John Skipper. And now it's a diner.
Seth Markman, Stephanie Drooli, Rob Savinelli. I'm trying to think of all the people that were at that dinner.
Former Barstool employee, Rob Savinelli. It was a memorable dinner.
And this time, we started out with a breakfast at a diner in Connecticut. I'm just telling you.
Times have changed. You see teams like there are free agents that fly in commercially, first class, some private.
I'm just telling you. Wait, free agents fly in commercially? I'm talking about football free agents.
They do? Oh, there are some, yeah. I guess there would be like lower price, but like big ones, you've got to fly prior.

Yeah, well,

different teams

take different approaches

with different guys.

Yeah, the Bengals.

Yeah, the Bengals

just trying to put you

on Spirit Airlines.

There are coaches,

there are coaches

that I know

who've been on job interviews

on connecting flights.

Like,

the way they're flying you

to wherever they're flying

on a connecting flight.

That's crazy.

Like, what the heck?

Okay, that is crazy.

So anyway, so we start with the SPM uh at a diner but like i said i have a lot of affection for a lot of people there i really do yeah if you go somewhere else you should you should demand to like bring in talent around like a like a high-priced quarterback being like i'm gonna need a wide receiver of course you gotta hire my daughter too of course yeah darlington's package deal. Exactly.
If Darlington's going to take bullets for me, I'm going to absolutely do that again. All right.
So I wanted to read this to you because Jake Marsh, he's one of our most trusted loyal employees here. He's at PMT Sports Biz.
He's the one that's been reporting a little bit on your free agency, gassing you up a little bit actually. Okay.
Good. Thank you, Jake.
He wrote to you. Yeah, it's very cool.
He wrote to you back in 2015 when he was a student at Syracuse University because I guess he had read a Q&A that you did with the Michigan Daily back in 2013. And Jake was rushing a fraternity, and he got rejected a second time from rushing.
Do you remember this email? No. I know somebody else who got rejected twice from a frater Yeah.
So I'm going to, I'm going to go ahead. So he's like a big fan of journalism in general.
That's what he wants to do. And he's going to do it eventually.
But he wrote you an email just kind of explaining where he's coming from. He's like, I saw how you talked about dealing with rejection.
And I got chills when he read it is what he said. And then you replied to his email.
Actually, you said, Jake, pleased to hear the encouragement you got from my interview in the daily. If you get a moment, please look at the speech I gave at Northwestern a few years ago.
I think there's a link to it on my Wikipedia page. That speech will sum up my thoughts on the college experience and advancing your career.
But you're doing the right things, getting involved, reaching out to other organizations. There's always a place for everyone.
It's up to you to find it. It sounds like you're well on your way to doing that, which I congratulate you for.
Make sure to use your college experience to gain as much experience as you can. Do as many summer internships as you can and work as hard as you can and screw the fraternity.
One day they'll regret not inviting you. One day you'll be better off for it.
Have a great time in college. Keep chasing your dreams.
Sincerely, Adam Schefter. That was a very nice email that you sent back to Jake.
Very nice. And it encouraged him a lot and put him in a better space.
So as much shit as we give you, I think you're a good guy. And I would say with that email, I would say with all the people that you listen, yeah, I don't know if you think I'm a good guy.
But anyway. Yeah, it's just a very funny, like, listen.
You're an asshole. For everything you do that is terrible, you're a good guy.
Despite your boots, I don't think you're evil. But grudgingly.
Yeah. I don't care what everyone says about you.
You're an okay guy. But listen, you got all those Wisconsin fans swarming Big Cat last night, right? There's a lot of people.
You guys have a huge audience in that age range. There's a lot of people across college campuses that hang on every word that you guys say.
So I'm asked for advice that that's advice that I would give to almost anybody. So his situation was that he was rejected from a fraternity, but there's somebody else that didn't get into a club or didn't make a team or doesn't get a job or whatever it is.
It's all, we're all going through the same things in college, right? It's the same stuff. So it's up to everybody else.
I don't go my soapbox here to just go make the most of your opportunity. But I got rejected from a fraternity my freshman year.
And that was when at that point in time, I went down to the football office to see if they needed somebody to pick up jock straps and hand out water bottles, and they didn't. Basketball office, they didn't need anybody.
I'm like, I got to do something. What am I going to do? God, the fraternity doesn't want me.
Football, basketball don't want me. I'm going to go to the student newspaper.
And if the fraternity had let me in, I'm telling you right now, I never would have went to the student newspaper. And then the fraternity, the second semester, a different fraternity didn't let me in.
And my college buddies to this day laugh about it because they finally let me in first term sophomore year. So all my friends got in freshman year.
I was enough of a loser that I couldn't get in until my sophomore year. But at that point, I had started to work for the student newspaper and just tried to make something happen when nothing else was happening.
I think it's a good message, though, that like some people can take rejection and then that turns into anger and resentment and it becomes a negative thing. Or you could try to turn into something positive.
But what did you do in between your freshmen? How'd you get so much cooler? I didn't get that. Let me tell you something.
The frack got worse. No, no.
You know what? I had some friends there. I don't think I got it.
They had a fight to get me in. Like, there was a real chance I wasn't going to get in.
You know what? If I didn't get in, I would have lost out on some of those great experiences and some of those friends. But it probably would have worked out elsewhere.
Like, it would have been a different experience. That's all.
That's the point, right? Whether you're applying to a fraternity, an internship, a job,

but there are always going to be people that tell us,

like I have hundreds of rejection letters, right?

Like I wanted to go cover the Colorado Rockies baseball team for the Rocky Mountain News,

and they wouldn't let me go cover the new baseball team,

the expansion franchise.

No, you're going to stick on the NFL, and you're going to like it, okay?

Like you got no choice.

And so I was forced to stay on the Broncos beat back in the day. But it's also, I think, a great lesson of a lot of people are successful.
A lot of lucky things have to happen. And things go your way in different ways where it's like, oh, that happened and now I'm here.
I think a lot of people get to a point of their career where they kind of forget about the luck or the little breaks that happen along the way. Oh, it takes all that.
Like, like I never would have imagined being in this position today with us, you know, holding out a free agency, contemplating a holdout, scrubbing my Instagram page. He's always been a team first guy.
Absolutely, absolutely. But at some point in time, that's got to stop.
Yeah. Listen, they're trying to make you play with a torn meniscus.
Exactly. And Tony O'Brien, rip off your shirt.
Get out of here. I need to be able to afford the next pair of furry boots.
That's true. Yeah.
Listen, yeah, absolutely. Your business.
You got to start thinking about yourself as a business. It would be so awesome if you actually did this, if you leaned into it.
By the way, how come I don't have a furry boots endorsement deal yet? That's probably because you tore your knee off using them. Yeah.
Come to Barstool Sports. We'll get you all the furry boots you need.
Oh, is that an offer? Are we in the... Is that an offer? Can we at least get a hat on the table when you do the announcement? Hats on the table.
Can we please at least get a Barstool hat? Yeah. The game's considering it.
We'll have an offer. We'll absolutely have an offer.
$49 million. Yeah.
Okay, great. Let's do it.
You can't use the bathroom. You just negotiated against yourself.
You said $50 million and I'm out. We just talked you down.
We got you. Well, I mean, let's get the conversations going.

We want to start at $49 million.

We get the hat on the table.

We go from there.

You're using us as leverage because now you're going to take the $49 million and you're going to be like, I'll take this unless $50 million.

Let me see what Don Yee has to say about that.

Okay.

Let's do a quick stories that are coming up.

Obviously, you don't have a definitive answer, but which way the wind is blowing? Oh, yeah. Those always result in headlines.
No, listen, we're not. Last week, I said, likely Jimmy Garoppolo is moving on, and that turns into a headline of not a lock that the 49ers are going to trade him.
We'll do percentages. Percentages always work.
I'll never do percentages. Percentages always work.
I'm not doing percentages. How about this one? We'll just call it gun to your head.
Yeah, gun to your head. Gun to your head.
Russell Wilson is the starting quarterback for the Seahawks to start the season. I would think that that would be the case.
Okay. Okay.
Gun to your head. Carson Wentz is the Colts starting quarterback to start the season.
Carson Wentz, I think we should put him in Washington just to see PSC's reaction. Shut the fuck up.
No, that's not even mean. That's not even.
You put a gun to my head, I'm coming back at you. That's not even a mean thing to do.
Seriously. I'll fight back.
My soul. When I think about Carson Wentz playing for the Commanders, my soul just kind of like, my body just goes, it just goes limp.
Oh, it'd be so bad. Do you think about that, by the way? And when you tweet out the graphic, that's like Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Matt LaFleur, all on the 2013 Washington Redskins team.
Do you think about how pissed off I'm going to be when you do that? The thought's got to be like, I'm so glad that PFT's mad at me right now. That was an incredible staff.
I'm not trying to rub it in. Yeah, I know.
Also, Mike McDaniel. You want to talk back to him McDaniel was there too.
Yeah, thanks. It's gotten so bad for PFT, he's like inventing new guys.
He's like, I think that guy was there. Tom Landry was there.
Vince Lombardi was on that staff. You were like, I think that guy was there.
Zach Taylor. Zach Taylor must have been there.
That's how bad he's been wounded by this. It's bad.
And rightfully so. I mean, as a commanders band, it's been a tough go for him.
Let me ask you this. What do you think happens first? So it's going to really bother you.
It's going to really bother you that all those guys are not there, but Carson Wentz is. Yes.
God damn it. It really takes my soul away.
And they were the worst interceptions ever. I know.
what happens first dan snyder sells the commanders or i die i i can't see dan snyder ever voluntarily selling this guy no don't those suck add like 13 i've had i've had 13 kidney stones. Yeah.
Not 13 incidents.

13 kidney stones. 13 stones.

And how many times, like how many times are you in the hospital that they passed?

Went to the hospital one time, passed two of them on my own.

He's got a vaping problem.

The others were really small.

So I'm pretty sure I just pissed those right out.

Have you revised your diet?

Absolutely not.

No.

No.

Because I passed the kidney stone and my doctor's like, you can't drink beer.

Like I'm like, you can't drink beer. That's their answer for everything drink beer that's their answer for everything well okay but again since he took like that was so painful well you could never drink beer that's why you didn't get in the frat that's exactly right right and you do you see my chugging contest with dan orlovsky yeah i can't drink beer that's you're damn right about that so answer the question yeah it is bad who's gonna die first and i know you said know you said voluntarily so, but the question is, will he sell the team? I don't think so.
I think he's got zero, zero intent to sell. But what about this new investigation? I can't predict what's going to come out.
I don't know. Cut to your head.
Does he sell or no? No. God damn it.
Okay. I don't like the news that you break.
That's my problem. Change the news.
Change the news. You got bad news.
Welcome to the crowd. I know.
It must suck sometimes when you tweet something and it's like, I'm reporting the news and then everyone just gets mad at you. It's become more and more like that.
Yeah. It's unbelievable if you think back.
Yeah. No, it's true.
Everybody's offended when it involves their team. Right.
Right. I'm not trying to offend anybody.
Which team do you hate the most? Which fan base when they're like, this is classic Shefty, he hates the Seahawks. Are you like, yeah, they're right.
I don't know that I hear any of that stuff. It's probably just, honestly, a cyclical thing.
Like when you say that Tom Brady's leaving New England after the year. The fans in New England don't like that.
Fans in Green Bay don't like the Aaron Rodgers. They think it's contrived or made up or whatever it is.
And he was pretty open about his feelings when he reported to camp. So honestly, it's whatever team, whatever fan base is involved in that particular story, a lot of times they're not happy about it.
I think you hate the Commanders based on the news that you've been giving me. I can't say I'm a big fan of that name.
It doesn't roll off the tongue. It's just an average name.
The only thing harder than saying the Commanders is the Commanders quarterback, Carson Wentz. Change the news.

Here's another one I'm curious about.

Your college coach, Jim Harbaugh, how close was that?

What happened there?

Because I was worried.

I mean, I think Harbaugh's an unbelievable coach.

I thought he would have been a home run hire for the Vikings.

I think he was definitely interested in hearing what they had to say.

He spent about nine hours.

He and I spoke that night, and he was definitely interested in hearing what they had to say he spent about nine hours um he and i spoke that night and he was he was very complimentary of the vikings organization of the ownership i think that they just had different ideas about the way that it was going to got it work and flow and and so he said back to michigan not going anywhere else i actually think i believe him i i think he's very honest about that stuff. Yeah, he's not someone who's playing some kind of weird mind game when it comes to news.
I don't think so. Yeah, I think he tells you the truth.
He's an honest guy. And so when he says he's going back to Michigan, he's not doing that again, I believe that.
Yeah. And it's probably true.
That's where he is right now. He's done a great job.
We hope and expect that he's going to continue to do a great job. Hopefully he's not pushing any Wisconsin coaches or do anything like that to Greg Gard, right? We can't have that.
But, you know, also the NFL, a lot of it, they're looking to hire these young guys right now. Right.
And Jim and I are, like, very similar in age. They're looking for the next Sean McVay.
They're looking for the next Zach Taylor. They're looking for somebody like that.
Yeah. And so I don't think they're looking for as much so for middle-aged guys.
Do you think it also kind of came down to the fact that I'm just guessing that Harbaugh probably didn't want Kirk Cousins? He was probably going to come in and be like, this is not my kind of guy, and they want somebody that has worked with him? That's another Washington coach. God damn I wish you know he wasn't on that staff he came he came in after that Kevin O'Connell did but he was on he was on the football team like if you got a yeah if you got in the full directory for him like everybody like that team photo from that year like yeah you need to do that like it would it would be fun do you screw it in probably what's do you up to these days haven't reported on deuce no i have not reported on deuce with the whole gruden thing you caught a stray in the uh in the whole that was gonna come up yeah yeah i mean i maybe we should just yeah there's 650 000 emails that one comes up yeah do you think that was because you're in a contract here you know huh.
Huh? Huh? Ooh. Interesting.
Ooh. Ooh.
ESPN planted. ESPN leaked it.
I'm not saying anyone. I'm just saying that might have dinged you a little bit.
Do you regret using the phrase Mr. Editor? I've had so many editors over the years that I'm conditioned to just say that.
Like news editors, managing editors, senior editors. That's the way it goes.
Editors. You know, 10 years ago also.
And we move on. You're proud of everything you did 10 years ago? Probably not.
Do you – I actually think you have a resiliency where you do seem to move on. Try.
Do those things linger a little bit though? Do they like you oh i i think they i think a little bit you do your best you do your best to develop thick skin and tune everything out i think i do a pretty good job of it yeah but in the world we live in it's so around you like that brady stuff that day when my daughter gets in the car right she brings it into the car. Like I'm not looking for that at that moment.
I've done a great job of not picking up the phone. Like that's Sunday morning.
I pick up the phone and there were a couple of woof. I mean strong.
Strong worded. Woof.
I don't think I said anything. But people in your company did.
I just was rooting for you to be wrong. I was rooting for you to be wrong.
That's fine. Because I thought it would be funny.
Like the Odell Beckham one. There was another one.
Which was that? When I said he's signing and all these people said he hasn't made a decision. He's saying he hasn't made a decision.
And you guys are doing a play-by-play of it on your podcast. Yeah, that's true.
Right? And what happened? Yeah, that's true. What happened? I think that's because...
He only tore his ACL. That's the last I remember.
You probably shouldn't break any news in between the hours of like 5 and 9 at night because there's always a chance we're recording. We're just going to start talking about it.
And I'm just like, well, Shepard says this. That was right through NFL Live.
And we don't fact check. No.
Just so you know, we do not fact check. You make the facts work for you.
Correct. We have the best news.
We run with it. We have way better news than you.
It feeds into our delusions. Yes, exactly.
Facts are what you determine them to be. Yes, it an alternate universe.
But yeah, going back to that Gruden thing, because it seemed odd, the selection of emails that were released. And at the time it was like, yeah, you can look at John Gruden's emails and say, these are bad things, objectively, like he should not have said all these things offensive to so many people, including NFL commissioners.
It was a clean sweep i believe is the phrase that you use um but you also have to ask like why were those the emails that were released and i don't think that we've gotten any closure on that yet yeah you'd have to ask the reporters of the story i mean i didn't come from me i don't know it's kind of weird yeah 650 a lot of offensive I'm sure. A lot of terrible things.
And so a couple of others came out. Yeah.
I just have to wonder, like, who benefited from all that? And it seemed like the target was obviously John Gruden on it, and they got him out. But there's still some, like, remaining dots to be connected on that.
That's the fascinating part of the NFL sometimes for me is it's like there's so many really wealthy powerful people that are trying to pull you never know who's you never know who's going to come after you right you never know and it's like everyone's trying to be the head puppet master at all times so who is the head puppet master you guys on the fact checking i mean if you're making the facts up as you go yeah exactly shadow commissioner arch manning just say ernie adams anytime everything um all right i got one last question it's the rollback question throwback rowback rowback rowback.com use code take for 20 off your first purchase uh r-h-o-b-a-c-k code take TAKE. They have performance polos, Q-Zips, everything.

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All right, so you're at a point in your life.

You're about to hit free agency.

You've done everything.

Have you, serious question here, have you been able to balance a little bit

with the work and life and not being so,

I need every scoop, or is it still there? Is it still maniacal? You can't do your job unless you're doing it 100. Well, I think that when you devote yourself to your job, you can't kind of do this job.
You're in it or you're not. Right.
It's not that kind of thing. But last summer, someone called me in the NFL media world, and they were talking, hey, when your contract's up, we'd like to do some things with you.
Just kind of talking, generally speaking. And they said, what do you want to do? I want you to think about what you want to do.
And I said, okay. I called that person back the next day after thinking about it.
I said, I want to be happier. Yeah.
That's it. I want my life to be a little simpler.
Yeah. Because it's not.
It doesn't feel that way. It feels like it's just, listen, I love what I do.
I've been doing this for 32 years, since 1990. It's a privilege.
It's an honor. And it's not a complaint because it is, I can't imagine what else I do.
I can't imagine loving a job. But any job done the right way, it just, it takes it out of you.
You guys, I mean, I know you guys are up to way more than $50,000 per episode right now. That's a long time ago, dude.
I think that was like our first year. 102 gross, 83 net.
See that? Yeah. Unbelievable.
Not a big deal. Do you still feel the same passion for it now than when you first started? It's different, right? It's different, right? It evolves.
I think I feel the same passion for it. There's never going to be the same level of holy shit that there was at the start when it kind of like took off right because the rise is like a different feeling but as our friend tom creen taught us get ahead stay ahead get ahead so there is a rush in staying ahead too yeah so i i think that we have something similar at times to your profession where it's it's not that you don't love your job because i think we all sitting here love our jobs it's's that when you get a scoop, you get what, like 10 minutes and then it's the next scoop.

Like we were in Madison last night, had a great night.

We drove here like after four hours sleep to do interviews.

Like so it's it's the constant like you do one thing.

It's awesome.

Next thing's up right away.

When I covered the Denver Broncos, which is a different animal for a newspaper for 16 years i can remember getting news stories and following them and thinking like wow that's a great story and then it doesn't mean anything the next day and i said it's kind of like just watching waves at the ocean yeah wave rolls in boom it rolls back in another one rolls you Do a podcast. Next one's on.
Exactly.

It just keeps coming.

And I guess that's being a pro.

Yeah.

Just doing it time and time again.

But I do go back to that happier answer.

Like, what is it that would make you happier?

Like, I've never had an assistant at all.

Really?

Ever.

That's crazy to me.

Are you looking for one?

And my life becomes – yeah, I am.

Okay.

Yeah.

We could do that. Yeah, we could set you up with one.

I think that's address here from Jake. I could just read it out loud.
You would get a ton of resumes. How would you have an assistant? That's nuts.
Well, but I think I'm at the point now where, like, you know where I need it? I need it with help at home, too. Correct.
My wife, a few times this year, type 1 diabetes, like I said, a couple issues. I'm in Seattle one time.
I'm not even there. My daughter's too young.
My son's in college. What are we doing here? Right.
No, I agree. So I need somebody just to help out, just to kind of be there.
Do you know Billy Football? What's that? Do you know a guy named Billy Football?

Who's Billy Football?

I think he'd be perfect for this assignment. I'll tell you what.
Barstool Sports will get you an assistant. I probably never should have said that.
I've spoken to a few people. And you know what? There was a woman that I worked with at the Denver Post back in the day, a woman who was unbelievable.
Loved this woman. Gracious, kind, generous, thoughtful, professional, like everything.
And I always said one day, one day I'm going to see if you can come work with me and be my assistant. And I'm going to call her soon and see if she would be interested in doing that.
But this is like, this is real talk because I, I do think that there's a watching you from afar and knowing you a little bit, you know, we, we, we catch up every couple of years, which we'll have to do again next year. We're going to be nicer to you now.
This has been a very good therapeutic airing of grievances. For all of us.
I do sometimes see you and I'm like, dude, like chef, he's just fucking, he's just, he never stops. And it's gotta, it's gotta, it's gotta like wear you down a little bit.
Cause we have something similar and we're a little younger and you know, maybe not in worse shape than you, but there's times where you're in good shape. I saw the basketball in your boobs.
There's times, though, where we're like, man, we're just tired. We just took a vacation.
It was very nice. Okay, you took a vacation, right? It was very nice.
Guess what? I haven't taken a vacation in 10, 15 years. Okay, as guys who just took a vacation, take a vacation.
Here's the issue. Touch grass, Adam.
Touch grass, bro. Log off.
Touch grass, smoke grass, right? Nope. All right, Trey.
All right. I didn't know you got down like that.
I'm surprised they didn't let you in the frat. Here's the deal.
Here's the deal. I would go.
My wife, again, has some health concerns. We've got five dogs at home.
She would never leave the dogs. So why don't you just go to the Hamptons or something? Bring the dogs.
You know what? Now you get an assistant. Take care of the dogs? Or take care of your wife and you...
Yeah, exactly. That's a good idea, though.
I like that. You take a vacation.
Yeah. Billy loves dogs.
And your wife. I can tell you this.
I hope that the woman I work with in Denver is a dog lover, because if she is, then she is going to make qualifications for the job. But somebody that could literally stay at the house for a weekend to try to mentally disconnect, which I haven't done.
Dude, you got to take a vacation. You're crazy.
Wait, let me say this. You're crazy for that.
This morning, I'm flying to Indianapolis. This to me is my closest form of a vacation.
But it's not. Well, I know that.
But in my mind, I've reconciled this is what I'm doing. So I was in the airport this morning, right? I went into the Delta Lounge.
They had this excellent breakfast. I'm like, oh, I'm sitting there by myself.
I'm online. Well, hold on.
I get to the gate, and there's this guy. He goes, Adam, they announced they had to move my seat because the seat was disabled.
And so the woman in the airport, could Adam Schefter please come to the podium? I'm like, so all of a sudden I got two guys. I go, what do we got here? Well, one of the guys I went to sleepaway camp with back in the day.
No way. And he wanted to talk to me.
And it was like, I'm like, oh, it was nice to reconnect with reconnect with Peter Rose Garden, who I haven't seen in 40 years. Right.
Right. And so this, to me, was like, then I got to go talk to the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.
Now I get to talk to you. Like, I haven't been on the phone much.
No, dude. I haven't had to walk the dogs.
I haven't had to pick up dog poop. It's kind of sick.
It's not a vacation, Adam. It's kind of sick that your vacation is going to an airport.
Yes. People put, when they go on vacation, they tweet out the airport they're leaving from and then the plane emoji and then where they're going.
Your vacation is just like New York City and then just the airplane. You got to go on vacation.
Just like I'm going on an airplane. You got to go on a vacation.
Talk to my wife. Okay.
All right. we will.
Honestly, I would love that.

Let Shafty chill.

Maybe one of these decades.

You know what you should do?

You should just schedule some tweets in advance.

Just like what you think is going to happen.

Carson Wentz has signed a four-year contract with the Washington Command.

Well, if you're going to bring it up again, I wasn't going to do this, but my last question was, did you kill my dog?

What happened with Leroy

here? I miss him. He passed away.

I know. Because he was so good at breaking news

that you got mad

at him and came over

and slid his throat.

Exactly. No, no.

I get enough crap for a lot of other things

that are on market. I'm just following the money.

I'm following the money. I would never kill a dog.

Never kill a dog. I have great love for all dogs.
All dogs. Even the ones that beat you to scoops.
I admire Leroy all the more. He would have been coming with me.
He would have been your assistant. During free agency.
Yeah. Were you a little bit jealous when he broke the Gronk news? Yeah, I was.
I never thought I'd get to a point in my career where I got beat by a dog. I know.

Those are the dog days.

Yeah.

Truly. All right.
Well, Adam, thank you. It's always great to have you on.
This was therapeutic. We needed it.
No joke. A week ago, we were like, are we even kind of mean to Shefty? Is it because we haven't seen him in a while? No, I had heard Cliff Kingsbury, Odell Beckham, Tom Brady, on and on and on.
But we're good. I feel like Big Cat gets to go on the podium and I get to go on vacation in the embassy suites with you guys.
Yes, exactly. It's a beautiful hotel.
I mean, it's a suite. Let's go in the pool.
Come on. The three of us.
Do cannonballs. Yeah, let's wait around in the pool.
And I'll change to my furry boots afterwards. Thank you, Adam.
Thanks, man. Thanks, guys.
Oh, man. That was great.
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different all right airport review number two time we are in madison wisconsin our first airport

I'm going to release a new batman you're like oh man i hope it's this year nope not this year. Okay, I hope it's next year.
Nope, it's actually going to be 2022 and it's Madison, Wisconsin. Yeah, it's the Avatar Trilogy.
We'll make our way out to like Seattle in 2029. I do like, you know what I really enjoy about this airport so far? Yeah, so let's go.
Brain dump for me because I've obviously been in this airport a few times. I like the size of it.
You can see from end to end and that's in general i like uh i like state capitals yeah they have efficient airports you know what it is it's it's this oh whole place shakes when a military is off fuck russia oh that is actually that is a fighter jet yeah um the no offense russia the nice thing about no offense russia no we, dude. Fuck to Putin.
This airport is very, like, if you could close your eyes and imagine what airports look like in, like, 1940. Do you know what I mean? Like, this is what the initial terminal at JFK looked like.
What I like is there's no digital signs anywhere. Everything, I feel like somebody comes by and, like, flips a number..
They put it up like it's a movie theater marquee sign.

We're literally walking,

by the way, so for people who are listening and not watching, which will be on

YouTube, part of my take YouTube, we're walking

the entire airport.

We're halfway through now.

From the start, we're now halfway through the

airport. Ooh, they got spotted

cow here. Yep.
Should I get a spotted cow?

You can buy it pretty much anywhere

now, so you probably don't have to buy

it in the airport. But it's like the cow here.
Yep. Should I get a spotted cow? You can buy it pretty much anywhere

now, so you probably don't have to buy

it in the airport. But it's like the first time that I

see it. It's like

whenever you just get off in an airport, you're

like, oh, I gotta get this. Yeah, they have that

everywhere. Yeah, it's like Cinnabon.
When you smell

Cinnabon on the way out. Got

some good badger gear.

They call this place Madtown?

I mean, you could, yeah.

I just saw a thing that said Madtown.

You definitely could.

You can call it whatever you want.

Mad Dog?

Sure.

Mad to the bone?

Yeah.

Keep going.

That's all I got.

Okay.

I really need a coffee.

Yeah, I will.

I'll get it while we're taping.

We'll talk to the person if we can find. Nothing's open right now.
The brewer look at this. This is cute.
The book nook. It's got a little fake library.
It's just books painted on a wall. That's my type of library.
It's wallpaper made to look like a book. That's actually a genius idea.
If you're building a new home, if you're an interior designer, shout out Carissa Thompson, Aaron Andrews, you can just put up wallpaper. Just Carissa, right? I don't know.
I think Aaron doesn't do it. She doesn't? No.
Shout out Carissa. I don't think she does.
I don't want... No, I think Carissa's doing it all on her own.
She's fucking crushing it. I thought Aaron told me that wallpaper was back.
Yeah, that's... Aaron Andrews has something we call opinions.
Chris is an expert. Got it.

Okay, well, regardless, I think that there's a good future for that in homes.

To have wallpaper resemble other things so you don't actually have to buy the books.

How much do you think this Rolex ad is?

We could probably get some Rolexes sold.

Madison and Rockford, Power Cities right there.

Yeah, I feel like that's...

Shout out Fred Van Vliet.

Madison seems like an upscale Casio town. Like the top of the line Casio.
Yes. Yes.
A little bit. There's a lot of...
I'm sweating. Pietro's got a bunch of stuff, too.
I'm exhausted right now. Got a lot of bags we're carrying.
I don't think anything's open. I think that that bar was the only place that was open.
Let's go in the bathroom. The bathroom is exceptional.
It's very clean. This is women only.
We almost went in the women's bathroom. I thought Big Cat was doing a bit right there.
No, I thought it was the divider. The divider was one side.
I was like 90% sure we're in bit town. Alright,.
This is the men's bathroom.

I don't know why there's... You probably can't bring the camera in here, Liam.

Look at this lighting.

It's like the ring lighting when you...

When you're doing an Instagram video.

Yeah, look at that.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, your eyes look great behind those.

Wow.

Yeah, that's a good mirror. Sexy, yeah.
That's a great mirror. I would say this is a 10 out of 10 bathroom.
I'm going to take it for a spin real quick. Okay.
I'll narrate while he does this. It's a 10 out of 10 bathroom in my mind.
One thing I love about this bathroom here is it's got a shelf above the urinal. Yeah.
See that? You can put anything you want up there. What is this? Oh, look at this.
You soap. You wash.
You wash. Oh, got a fart there.
And then you dry all in one place. Unbelievable.
It's its own station. That's great.
That's great. This is an incredible bathroom.
Oh, sorry. Someone just walked in.
That's a substantial stall right there, too. Does that door go all the way to the ground? I just walked in and was like, are these fucking guys doing a podcast in here? That urinal was rock solid, no splashback.
You get a lot of privacy in these photos. No, I know.
You could... This airport was built for people that like to use the bathroom.
Yeah. Yeah, no, those toilet bowls have seen some shit.
Get it? I just rinsed my hand off. I don't need to introduce soap to this equation.
Well, they have the all-in-one. Did you see it? I did see it.
I've already shown it for the people, so we're good. But it's quite something.
You good? You want me to carry this? If you can just hand it to me, I can grab it. I'm not great at bending over right now.
I got the best back right now. It's incredible.
All right. All right.
Bathroom. I'd say the bathroom's a solid 8 out of 10.
I gave it a 10 out of 10 just because, I mean, listen, the airport doesn't have to have a lot of people in it.

So, like, that's a really nice bathroom in there.

I would give it a 10 out of 10 if the doors went all the way to the ground on the stall.

Oh, so you could do cocaine?

Yeah.

Also, I didn't get to take the main bathroom area for a spin, you know?

Yeah.

So I can't give it a 10 for that yet.

Oh, look at this little spot where you can maybe do a little studying. It's a nice plant they have in here, too.
Is that a palm tree? We're going to loop around here. Guys, I got a palm tree in the airport.
We're going to loop around here. Gates 1, 2, and 3.
That guy's coat was a dog. Oh, it's the business center, guys.
Here, you want to make your hand? I'm making deals, so I'm fine. You're literally grimacing.
I'm fine. I'm great.
I'm fine, guys. I got no problems.
I got this. I'm basically a surfer.
I'm totally fine. It's the business center.
This is where deals go down. How big of a deal do you think has been made here specifically? Just so people understand in the podcast, it's got like seven cubby holes where you can just sit there.
You know what it kind of looks like? It looks like somebody could actually set up a full-time boiler room there. Just like put an ad on a Craigslist, hire five telemarketers for a day, do work here until you get kicked out.
I want to ask that woman what she's working on. Business.
It actually looked like she was working on a cheese platter. It's business, baby.
Business. That could be business, too.
Business is booming. Shout out to Antonio Brown, not for anything that he does in his life, but for the fact that business is booming.
By you say it you're just like wow business really is doing well antonio brown is like sneaky loki genius because pit to the palace is a banger yep but business but just saying business is booming like hey hey what's up man how's business oh it's booming like damn dude i didn't know you were crushing it that well also just, just saying, like, pit not the palace. It's just a cool thing to say.
Look at that. Nice chair.
Massage chairs. Thumbs up.
Love it. All right, so we just walked the entire.
We have to double it back. No, we walked the entire airport.
Now we're going to try to find our bags. I kind of want that spotted cow now.
You can only get it in the airports here. Get it in the airports.

You think there's someone

who does that where they eat a full meal

when they land before they leave?

Before they even get to the bag.

Let me sit at this Chili's

real quick. I guess Chili's would be the exception.

I would do that. I bet you Billy would do it.

If it was being expensed.

Whenever I land in an airport, the one thing you want to do

is get away from the airport as fast as possible.

Thank you. do that I bet you Billy would do it yeah if it was being expensed it's like whenever I get land in the airport the one thing you want to do is get away from the airport as fast as possible the Vegas airport sometimes I got hung up in there at the slot machine yeah all right okay so now we are walking out okay exiting let's go this way to the lobby bye guys guys doing thank you for your service thank you

it's PFT back. Alright, watch out.
What was that? They thanked you back. Oh, you're welcome.
They said thank you. Okay, look at this.
Beautiful, airy, light. Again, I think this actually teaches us that airports were meant to just serve the fewest amount of planes.
Because it's actually a nice... Look, there's a fireplace right there.
This is great. You know what I've noticed about the airport is I think that there are more actual customer lounges than there are gates.
Yeah. Which is awesome.
Right, because this doesn't serve enough people that you have to have chaos and all these things. Small? There's 12 gates.

Small regional airports are the best.

You don't need all the bells and whistles.

I don't need a Buffalo Wild Wings in every wing.

Look at this fireplace, boys.

Look at these chairs.

It's incredible.

We got Marty Mush here, Jake.

Marty, what's your general impression of this airport?

One of my favorites.

I love a small airport and a quaint.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

It is very quaint.

Jake, what about you?

Very nice until I saw that sign.

Thank you. One of my favorites.
I love a small airport in a quaint. Yeah, it's beautiful.
It is very quaint. Jake, what about you? Very nice until I saw that sign.
No pre-check. No pre-check.
No pre-check. Oh, my God.
What about clear? Jake, you realize the reason I have no pre-check is, yeah, there's like two people in line at any time. I've got to take my shoes off tomorrow.
Oh, he's going to take his shoes off. All right, you know what? I actually am going to agree with Jake.

That does ding you a little bit.

Having to take your shoes off?

Jake on the flight.

Oh, yeah, so when we got on the plane, I guess they hand you hand sanitizer or, like, little wipes.

I thought those were just so that you could wipe your hands.

Jake, it was like he had, like, a 67, like, Ferrari or something. I don't know if that was a good year for Ferrari.
My apologies to car people. It wasn't.
But he was wiping down his seat like he was waxing the car. He was doing it for like five minutes until he was having a conversation with me because I was sitting behind him.
I was like, dude, are you wiping your seat? He's like, yeah, that's i've been doing it for two years now to me it looked like he was just bathing a dog yeah just like really scrubbing it down getting every single inch of it it was so and then uh then we kind of bust his balls for wiping down the seat so hard and he's like i'm sorry you know i've been doing this for two years and then the guy two seats behind us goes, hey, you know, my name's also Jake, and I wipe down my seats.

So it's a Jake thing.

It's a Jake thing, clearly.

It was just a very, I honestly had,

every single time I got on a plane in the last two years,

they handed me that, and I would just either not do anything

or sometimes wipe my hands.

That was it.

Never did I ever think like, oh, let me wipe down the entire seat.

One time I took it and I wiped my face down with it, and the person next to me was like, me was like i think that's for your hand yeah see they didn't even think it was for your seat they corrected you and they corrected you incorrectly i just assume if you hand me anything on a plane i'm gonna bury my face in it let's do last thing real quick uh let's just check out the um the baggage claim and then we'll end this this is a nice little coffee shop down here yeah i know i wish one of them was open no it's even better to just imagine like i could see somebody in there sitting down next to i'd like to see the speed real quick of this thing let's put on i'm gonna put my my bag on it just to test marty can you grab can you go make sure that this doesn't go through i like like that poster. Imagine if my bag just went back through.

If you look back there, there's a poster in an airport advertising for flying on airplanes.

Oh.

Just in general.

I mean, best time to do it, right?

Just flight.

It's on everyone's mind.

That's pretty good.

Although, there's no guardrails, right?

Things could easily fall off. You could just get on there You could in theory just hop on there You're going to test out your bag In theory Then you're going to have to pick it up again Marty can you grab that for me Okay I'm just going to go for it Just You're just going to stand on it? Don't stand on it.
Sit? Sit. Okay, walk with me.
Ready? Yeah. Okay.
Luge. I'm on you with you, PFT.
Oh, it's going slower now with our weight. It's going slower with our weight.
You can feel it's going so much slower with our weight on it. My back feels a million percent better right now.
You can 100%

feel. It was like...
They say to sleep

on a firm mattress. This is as firm as it gets.

As a bigger guy, this is the feeling I

get every time I step on a treadmill

or in a golf cart where I'm like, oh.

I don't want to get off.

I don't want to get off. I guess I got to go.

I got to get off.

Baggage claim rating?

That was a great bag. Nine out of ten.
Yeah. Very fast.
Good motor. What's the horsepower on that thing? Pretty solid horses? Wait, do we have all of our bags? Oh, no, I got the other ones back there.
All right, so final ratings. I'm going to say, now this is obviously on a curve, because it's a regional airport.
Like, obviously, if we were voting, like, hey, how do you feel about going to fucking Paris from Madison? It's not great. Have you been to the Paris airport? This is a million times better.
Yeah, no, I love how small and quaint it is. I'm going to give it an 8.5 out of 10.
I'm going to bump it up. I'm going to bump it up to a 9.1.
Whoa. I love these regional airports.
I think it's got everything that you need. The bar was open, which is great.

You guys wouldn't let me have a beer because, I don't know, I guess I'm the only real man on this podcast.

The bar wasn't open.

It was a gift shop with Spotted Cow.

Even better.

We're like, we can just buy it somewhere else.

All right, Hank, your score, and then we'll rank them through.

8.1.

So 8.1, 8.5, 9.1. So that means that's a 9.
8.5. 8.6.
8.55. Let's say 8.6 for the people.
8.6. That's a pretty good rating.
That's a great rating. And look at this.
Look at the rental car area. It's right here in the airport.
Hardly any lines whatsoever. Although we couldn't get one.
Maybe I'll try to get one if I didn't pay for it. I love this place.
That's it. Tune in three, four years from now.
We'll do another airport review. Okay.
That was our Madison Airport review. Let's do numbers.
Let's do numbers. Let's do numbers.
By the way, we're going to hold us to this because I'm going to say it out loud. Berturt Kreischer, Monday.
Awesome fucking interview. Incredible interview.
Yep. Burt Kreischer, Monday.
Talk to him at the Super Bowl. Probably like an hour long.
Hank gets mad at you and I understand it. I don't get mad.
Yeah, but I do like having, like, when we do an awesome interview and we don't have to run it right away, I like having it in my back pocket where I can just, like, it's like a draw four card. No, no.
Yeah, you announced it publicly, but we've said Burt Kreischer the following show for five episodes.

This one, I mean it.

I mean it this time, guys.

There's a 50-50 chance we don't do it.

All right.

Let's end with numbers.

Send everyone on their way.

Remember, clocks change.

I can't.

My computer.

I'm going to go 8.

12. Okay, you know what? I'll just do it off the top of my head.
I'm going to go 8. 12.

Okay, you know what?

I'll just do it off the top of my head.

What?

No, you guys.

Yeah.

That's not how it works.

No, you guys text it.

Text it to the group chat, and I won't look.

Okay?

This is not how it works.

Well, then you don't get it.

Yeah, no, I don't get it.

I'm not going to guess.

Hang on.

Let me.

Watch.

I'm going to do it in my head.

Yeah, text it.

I'm not looking. I'm not looking.
My phone is down. You see it? My phone is down.
My phone is down. My Wi-Fi is off.
Ready? Has everyone said it? It's done. 61.
I got it. No, I'm just kidding.
Shit. That would have been sick.
What were your guesses? 99.

66.

Oh, kind of close.

29.

Oh, damn.

I mean, it was.

Five off.

Somebody out there playing at home guessed it right.

Yeah, 61. That would be an electric one.

That was a true random number generator because I was literally just like, I emptied my brain.

I was like, just whatever number pops in my head.

Also, it sucks that Rick Pitino is not going to be a Terrapin.

Yeah, but then again, Rick Pitino, it almost makes me think he might be because he lies so much. Yeah? You don't think he'd just pull out of an opening like that? That's our show.
Love you guys. Jesus is the one.
for your love okay shy it away I'll be coming for your love okay take on me take me I'll be gone and after your change needless to say I'm on sentence But I'm feeling stumbling away Early learning that life is okay Say after me It's no better to be safe than sorry Say after me It's no better to be safe and sorry. Take on me.
Take me on. I'll be gone In a day of dreams

Of things that you say

Is it love or just And I dare you all dream of the things that you say.

Is it a lot of just a flame that worries away?

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

Are you shying away?

I'll be coming for you anyway.

Are you shying away?