John Cena, Georgia’s National Title, Coach Firings & Bring Your Lunch Pail W/ Jersey Jerry

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we've got a lot of show. We got John Cena on the show.
We have National Championship Recap, Georgia Bulldogs, your national champions. We have Coach Firings.
We have Jersey Jerry doing a little blue-collar talk. an awesome awesome show for you

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GetRoman.com slash take. Today is Wednesday, January 12th.
Who's that coming down the track? You're supposed to do call and response. No, you say it back.
Who's that coming down the track you're supposed to do call and response no you say you say it back who's that coming down the track it's a mean machine in red and black it's a mean machine in red and black ain't nothing finer in the land ain't nothing finer in the land than a drunk obnoxious georgia fan a drunk, obnoxious Georgia fan Who, who, who, who, who, who Calling all the dogs, baby I love that chant just because they basically tell you I'm going to be drunk and obnoxious in your face And I love Kirby Smart after the game saying We're going to destroy some property in Indianapolis That was a callback I know, it was a callback But it was still an awesome thing to say on a hot mic right after you win an Addy.

Right in front of Nick Saban's face.

I saw a change in Nick Saban last night.

Yeah.

I don't know if you noticed this, but in the postgame handshake with Kirby Smart and even right after the game,

I think that there's a small part of Nick Saban that was kind of relieved that he lost.

That was more rat poison. Yeah, he's happy that he lost because now he's got all sorts of bulletin board material for next year.
But he was like, he was chilled out. He was smiling more when he was congratulating Kirby Smart than he was if he had won.
And we've seen Nick Saban collecting that national championship trophy before, and he'll let out, like, the corner of his mouth will turn up and they'll be like, oh yeah got to go get recruiting this sucks but he was like he looked like a different like a chilled out version of Nick Saban after that loss yeah no he's he said himself that like he's trying to show more of his personality be you know happier and it shows I mean he's won it all he's the greatest coach of all time losing one it's obviously disappointing for But, man, Georgia, what an unbelievable game. I love that game so much because it had everything.
The first three quarters were a complete defensive masterpiece. And there's something about – I know that the way football has gone, that we're used to shootouts and we love that Rams-Chiefs Monday night football game that everyone points to but there's something about a game like Monday night's game where every possession felt like life and death like if you got if it when it was nine to six at halftime and you're saying to yourself the first person to score a touchdown it feels like an insurmountable lead there was something just so incredible about watching that back and forth.

And then in the fourth quarter, you got the shootout.

Like the fourth quarter, we got the crazy

plays. Insane.

The touchdown pass from Stetson Bennett

to Adani Mitchell was

incredible.

I loved that game so much. It was an

awesome, awesome national championship. By far

the two best teams. And Kirby Smart

finally, and the Georgia Bulldogs finally get the monkey off their back and take down Alabama. It was also incredible to see Kirby jumping up in the air after that interception to steal the game.
He probably has like a 30-inch vertical leap, which is, I mean, for a guy that's got a face like Kirby Smart, there's nothing about that guy's cheeks that say, like, I can get more than a foot off the ground. But he got air.
You know, that's actually like the – obviously, Nick Saban took to Kirby Smart because he's a very, very good coach. But a big part of their relationship is the famous NBA, Noon Basketball Association that Nick Saban runs where he stacks the team so he always wins.
And they call it the Nick Basketball Association. When Kirby Smart was an assistant for Nick Saban,

he immediately was like, oh, this guy's actually pretty good at basketball.

He's on my team every time.

And that's what kept him around for a while.

Yeah, I mean, he stayed for, I think he was one of the longest tenured assistants

under Nick Saban.

I think that Kirby Smart, he can probably dunk.

He can get rimmed.

What's Kirby like, 6'1", 6'2"?

He might be a little short on that.

But yeah, I mean, this is also talking, what, like, this is also talking 15 years ago when he was a lot younger. Did you see him jump last night, though? Yes.
I think he can get rim. I think Kirby's sneaky athletic.
It was awesome, though. The game was incredible.
Stetson Bennett might be one of the coolest stories. I don't know if we'll ever see.
Obviously, you never say never with sports, but with the way college football is going and the ability for high-level five-star quarterbacks to transfer easily, it will be, I'll say this confidently, it will be a long time before we see a walk-on be the starting quarterback for a national champion again. That was the first walk-on or former walk-on who beat Nick Saban since 1997.
He was famously, he walked on at Georgia. He left because Justin Fields got recruited, five-star.
He went to a junior college. Justin Fields then transferred to Ohio State.
He came back, had a bunch of people had to get injured in front of him. He's a Georgia fan, grew up a Georgia fan.
Not like, it was crazy watching him get tossed around at times during the game because it's all these guys that are freak athletes. He's 5'11 and like 185 pounds.
And then little Stetson Bennett is like, this guy does, one of these things is not like the other and he's out there making big time throws. And that when that fumble happened I mean Georgia fans had to be as low as they've ever been and that was like I can't believe we trusted Stetson fucking Bennett in this game it felt like the game when you have a actually I'll take it back there was another play where I was like Stetson Bennett can't win this game it was on the flea flicker where I think he got intentional grounding on a flea flicker.
And if you get intentional grounding on a flea flicker, that's about as bad as it can get. It was also the first, the other Stetson Bennett can't win this game, which we all were proven wrong, I think was either the first or second game or play of the entire game for Georgia when he got sacked for like 15 yards.
And then I think on the third play, he scrambled for like seven yards and fumbled to himself and bounced. No one's ever started a game more nervous than him.
There were so many plays where it's like Stetson Bennett is in way over his head. And then he made that huge throw.
But I think if you're Stetson Bennett, at the end of the day, you can just remind yourself, like, my name is Stetson Bennett IV. Yes.
It is my destiny to be the quarterback of the University of Georgia.

And he now has everything.

I don't know.

The mock drafts say maybe fourth round to undrafted.

I would doubt that he's going to play much in the NFL.

Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

He's a king for life.

He's got to be a Gustav membership for life.

He's got to have at least four car dealerships in Athens.

He has it all.

I think he's going to start out with an ATV place, like ATV and boat rentals.

Yeah.

And then part of the Eastern Seaboard. It's such a cool thing for him, especially that he was a Georgia fan when he was a kid.
Right. It's every Georgia fan's dream to be the quarterback of the Bulldogs, and then he did it, and he shouldn't have been the quarterback for the Bulldogs like if you would hit Kirby Smart with true serum like would you rather have Stetson Bennett start in this game or a five star prospect that every elite program now has but no it's Stetson Bennett Stetson Bennett just somehow it was the exact right time exact right place for Stetson Bennett and and he took full advantage of it.
He had a great quote.

Ready for this quote?

He said afterwards, by the way,

it's so funny watching these guys do the interviews after,

being like, oh, we actually got to interview Joe Burrow when he was still drunk.

Because he was like, Stetson Bennett went on Good Morning America.

He was wasted.

The difference is we were also drunk.

Yes, right.

We said that.

Michael Strahan should have been drunk if he's interviewing Stetson Bennett.

It is fucked up.

I always thought that the meanest thing that you could ever do to somebody is make them call and talk to Mike Greenberg at 6 o'clock in the morning the day after you win something. But he said, I hope it gives someone a little hope.
Keep your mouth shut. Work hard.
Life is tough. Work through it.
And, like, he could say that because he was a walk-on, and then he was transferred, and then he came back, and then he had behind Jake Fromm, and then he had to have the guy last year, his name's escaping me, suck, and then he got in, and then JT Daniels was a starter, then he got hurt. All these things had to happen for him to be part of an incredible team, and obviously the real winner of the Georgia football team is their defense, which they played their absolute dicks off.
It felt like Alabama and Jameson Williams getting hurt was a big game changer. But Alabama, every time they would get these big plays and Georgia's defense was able to basically shake it off and be like, all right, don't give up a touchdown.
Make them score field goals here. So we're not going to do the thing where we debate whether or not the worst NFL team could lose to Georgia because I think the Colts would beat Georgia by at least 20 points.
Yes. But I do think that this game, the Alabama-Georgia National Championship, had as many fast players on the field as most NFL teams would.
It was insane. The speed on defense from Georgia, it's terrifying watching their big men run.
It's actually scary to me. And their linebackers are faster than most safeties.
And then, on top of all of that, you've got a guy like Bryan Robinson who's making them look small. There was that stretch where it felt like Bama had taken control of the game when they were just pounding and pounding and pounding.
It was like, uh-oh, they've sucked the life out of this game. I think it was when they, again, got a field goal because I think someone dropped it.
There was a lot of drop passes for Bryce Young, who's awesome. I love him so much, even in defeat.
But Brian Robinson was just bouncing off these dudes, and guys were trying to go high high and he was just carrying them for extra yards. You're right.
It was like one of those games where you watched it and this sucks to say, but if you're a fan of pretty much, I don't know, any team except for the top five, you realize it's a different sport. Those guys are playing a different sport than everyone else in college football.
Even the top two. The top two separation from- This year, yeah.
Clemson has dudes like that. Clemson's going to be able to reload.
Ohio State. But I'm saying as a Wisconsin fan, I'm watching it being like, no, this isn't the same sport.
No, this is not the same sport. Although Stetson is like the one wild card where Stetson Bennett, he probably wouldn't start at a lot of schools out there, a lot of D1 schools.
I did say to myself in a moment of utter stupidity, when it was 9-6 at half, I was like, this is kind of a game script that Wisconsin could hang in. Even though they would have been down like 40.
But that's the thing about Stetson is, if you root for a school like Wisconsin, or just any school that's 5 through 25, your quarterback's probably better than Stetson Bennett is. Yeah.
It's crazy. It could happen to you.
That's the most important position. You could find lightning in a bottle if everything else lines up perfectly.
Think about the quarterbacks that have won the national championship in the last five years. It's Mac Jones.
Trevor Lawrence. He sucks.
It's Joe Burrow. It's Tua.
It's fucking Deshaun Watson. Like, these guys are studs that are top picks in the draft, and then Stetson Bennett throw his name in there.
Combo breaker. Unbelievable.
Also, I don't want to get bonked for this because I don't mean in a sexual way, but they need to freeze this Ugga's sperm. Like, this Ugga, for whatever reason, has championship DNA.
Poor guy was just so tired. He was so sleepy.
So tired. He doesn't have a blanket.
He doesn't have a pillow. He doesn't have a bowl of food or water.
They just put him in like a plastic crate and make him go to sleep. He's in like the transfer portal to oblivion just passing out in there.
But for whatever reason, this Ugga has, he's built different. Yeah, he is.
You need to keep this DNA in-house if you're the University of Georgia, and all other Uggas need to be related to this one. And it's, you know, for Georgia fans, like, there's got to be nothing sweeter.
You win a title for the first time since 1980. You've been, you've had really good teams in that time frame.
But to beat Alabama, I saw a stat. So Georgia and Alabama faced off four times in the last, whatever, like three or four years, obviously starting with that 2018 National Championship where they were up at half until it comes in.
Georgia was leading 71% of those games, and they were 0-4. They were so close so so many times and they just couldn't climb that mountain.
So to not only beat Alabama, beat Nick Saban, come from behind and do it, it's like the perfect script for any fan. Georgia fans have to be just on cloud nine right now.
And it was cool to have a new national champion. Like we talk about it all the time.
It's kind of, I love college football so, so much, but I can also admit that when Alabama wins every year or Clemson for a couple years there, it gets a little boring. Georgia being new blood, even though it doesn't feel like it because it's SEC, it's fun to have a new team win a national championship.
I also like the fact that the game took place in Indianapolis. I'm glad that it wasn't in a southern city where they usually have, you know, if it was somewhere in Florida, somewhere in Georgia, somewhere in Louisiana.
It feels like it's so much cooler to have two SEC fan bases invade a northern city and just wreck its shop for a week. The Georgia fans that got arrested at St.
Elmo's for calling the dogs at St. Elmo's.
That's cool as shit.

Imagine being a Bama fan because Athens and Tuscaloosa are, I think, a little less than 300 miles apart.

So people probably aren't flying to those flights aren't the same.

But a lot of people, a lot of Alabama fans are flying back to Atlanta.

A lot of Georgia fans are flying back to Atlanta.

Imagine being a Bama fan, losing, and then having to get barked at on a flight all the way home. They're calling the dogs.
You couldn't go out to a dinner last night because they were going to call the dogs at Harry's and Izzy's in the airport too. You can't get on a plane.
You're probably waiting in an Uber line right now with a bunch of Georgia fans that are calling the dogs on you. You're getting barked at.
You've been getting barked at by human beings for three days straight, and it sucks, and no one feels bad for Bama fans because this is the cost of just being Alabama. You're in it every year.
You can't win it every year. They are significant odds-on favorites to win next year.
I don't think they're odds-on. I think them and Georgia are tied for number one.
No, I'm pretty sure they were plus 150 and Georgia was like 300 or something. Because they have Bryce Young coming back.
They have Will Anderson coming back. Odds-on would mean they're minus one.
Whatever. They are the significant favorites.
They are the favorites by far. Yeah, when I saw this morning, that might have changed just in the last couple hours.
Yeah, they're plus 150. Georgia's 500 okay state second okay that changed a lot then no that was i think i was right after but it's they they have every i mean they will most likely be in this game next year because that i mean nick saban i'm sure they will i'm sure they will alabama's gonna be around for forever minor setback for a major comeback for alabama yeah no one feels bad um Okay, should we talk some NFL? Let's do NFL coach firings.

So this is the downside of Week 18, that it overlaps. Black Monday, where we get all the coach firings, is also the National Championship Day.
I like to really soak in the coach firings. They do deserve to have their days of massive celebration from franchises.

Yes. Getting to turn a page.
Yes.

Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace both out in Chicago.

We expected it. Vic Fangio out in Denver.
We expected it. Mike Zimmer out

in Minnesota. We expected it.

And then the shocker, Brian Flores

out in Miami, which

I think did shock a lot of people.

In reading

about it, it feels a lot

like how a lot of the Belichick

disciples have gone where

I'm sorry. I think did shock a lot of people.
In reading about it, it feels a lot like how a lot of the Belichick disciples have gone, where good coach, maybe not like he's pulling some of the secrecy stuff, some of the team building stuff that isn't there, and your name's not Bill Belichick, and that can sometimes rub people the wrong way. Yeah, I mean, he ended up winning, what, seven games in a row this year?

He won, yeah, seven games.

But the problem is he also started one and seven, right? Right.

So, like, he is a good coach, especially his record against Bill Belichick.

I think he was four and two.

Lifetime as a coach of the Dolphins against Belichick,

which is pretty impressive.

On the same token, like, because everyone's talking about

how he beat Bill Belichick, the Bills beat the shit out of the Dolphins too.

So it's kind of like it's – I like seeing everyone say, like,

Why would you like a coach that beats Bill Belichick? Well, the last couple of years, the Bills have been the Patriots in the AFC East, and he didn't beat that. Also, the last four games that they've played, they've had either Mac Jones or Cam Newton as their quarterback.
So it's not like the Patriots, the Patriots that are playing. But I think Brian Flores is like, people were surprised because over the course of the season,

they seem to be building momentum.

Right.

But if you look at what they did last year and this year, it's kind of like,

okay, it's a little bit stagnant. The fact that you had a bad start like they had this year,

that's going to put you on the hot seat immediately.

Right.

And yeah, he had to have like a miraculous comeback in the second half.

I think he's a perfectly fine coach. I think he's an above average coach.
But I was surprised that they did it because I felt like if you're trending in the right direction and you have a winning record in the NFL, you almost never get fired. Right.
Yeah, you can win your way to keeping the job at the end of a season. it's actually someone likened it to Adam Gase having that streak at the end of his, I think it was either first or second year with the Dolphins.
Yeah, we talked about it a few weeks ago. They made the playoffs with Matt Moore.
Right, and they weren't a good team. That was pretty much the only time they made the playoffs since Chad Pennington.
Right, they weren't a good team. They just had a soft schedule, so you kind of win your way into getting that extra year.
So I I fired off a take and then I I actually like Dolphins fans I had a long discussion with them yesterday which I actually people will be like you like tweeting back and forth with people I genuinely do love it because I then went and dove in and tried to like understand it I I think that he he probably rubbed some people the wrong way and it it was what all NFL firings kind of come down to is,

like, are you liked by the owner and the GM,

and has the GM ingratiated himself to the owner?

So it's like a power play.

He lost the power play.

I think he's a good X's and O's coach.

You have to point out the fact that he had three different OCs in three years,

and none of them got promoted.

That's not great.

I would be fine with the Bears

I'm sorry. coach you can't you have to point out the fact that he had three different ocs in three years and none of them got promoted that's not great like if you're like i would be fine with the bears hiring him i would want him to have a set plan offensively because that does come under the coach like even though he's a defensive coach it's it's similar to vic fangio like if you don't get the offense figured out it still counts against you if you don't have a good enough offensive coordinator to get interviews somewhere else, it means that you just suck.
That the offense is just awful. Even if you have a winning record as a defensive coach, you're still not going to have that same – you're not going to be regarded in the same way as if you're an offensive genius and you're winning the exact same amount of games.
Right, and Jake, you can chime in because you obviously are a Dolphins fan, but from everything I kind of understood from Dolphins fans is that it wasn't that they thought Brian Flores was this incredible coach. It's more that he was the best coach you guys have had in a very long time, and that's why it's disappointing.
Yeah, that's the thing. They have momentum right now that we've never seen.
It's the first time they had back-to-back winning seasons since 0-2-0-3. That's crazy.
And for the Dolphins, that's a that's a high bar right so the fact that they actually had something going and then steven ross just yanked that i think that's what people are upset about i think people need to realize that more and more is that the people that own sports franchise the person that owns your favorite team is a pretty big idiot just like the sooner you come to terms with that the better they're just they're morons like everybody else like think of the dumbest people that you work with that is typically about the same iq level as an nfl owner which is a great segue to what the bears are dealing with right now i watched the entire press conference yesterday um george mccaskey he uh was asked about his role and he said he talked to the board and they want him to stay in his role which uh is literally means his mom still likes him um who else is on the board how many what are the percentages of people with the last name mccaskey he uh he also said his virginia who's like 99 uh said she was very very disappointed in the bear season so two varies which this is all a replay of 2015 2012 where they're just nothing is going to change they have a they have a an accountant Ted Phillips running the uh organization which shout out to him I I hate him but snake it till you make it this is a lesson anyone in life. If you can figure out a big project that you can kind of keep pushing down the line, it's very hard to fire you.
So he's obviously in charge of the Arlington Heights land purchase, and I think that will never happen because Ted Phillips knows as long as they're still negotiating it, he will still have a job. That's actually brilliant advice.
Yes. If you're the person that's got the long-term goal out there, then you almost make it people are afraid to fire you because then they'd have to find somebody else to restart your project.
Right. And also they've wasted so much money on you.
It's genius. They feel like they're a failure if they fire you.
Yes. That is very smart.
Here's the good news. The Bears have a very good plan going forward.
They hired 79-year-old Bill Pullian to run, to get paid probably $500,000 to run the coaching search. I want to start a search firm, a coaching search firm.
I would be so good at it. I would give you 8x10 pictures of Greg Williams, Greg Sciano.
I would probably print out a picture of one of the Shula brothers. Quote Bill Parcells.
Yeah, Bill Parcells. I'd have a binder of Bill Parcells quotes.
I would get one of the Bowden boys in there just to have somebody that you can say no to real early on in the process. You can look down on.
Yeah, look down and be like, okay, so we know what we're not looking for now, so let's keep moving forward. It's the best racket of all time.
And I think Pullian's first move is, isn't he bringing in like Jeff Ireland? Well, this is so bad. I'm officially like just giving up because it's, again, the only way the Bears can be fixed is Ted Phillips has to go and George McCaskey has to say which it's crazy that he still says he doesn't know anything about football when his entire life has been football like your family owns the Bears it's your only job it's literally your life is football maybe pop in an all 22 once in a while I don't know but either way if he's still calling shots and Ted Phillips is there, nothing really matters.
They hired Bill Pullian. They also said, which is the dumbest thing you could possibly do, they said we're going to look for a GM and a coach, but if the right coach comes we'll hire the right coach before the GM.
So Bill Pullian is interviewing coaches right now and also kind of GMs so you might hire a coach and then a guy to be the coach's kind of boss afterwards. Okay, here's what's going to happen.
Bill Pullian is going to bring in one of his old friends. It's really a shame that John Fox probably won't be the coach again because that was probably on page one for Bill Pullian.
It's just a sentence. It says, John Fox, period.
Yeah. But Pullian's probably going to bring in one of his buddies, interview that guy, and then they'll be like, hey, what if just the two of us did it? And then they hire themselves together.
Bill Pullian's now your general manager with the coach that helped select. They both kind of hired each other.
Does that make sense? Right. It's the old Dick Cheney looking for who james w bush's vice president is going to be oh it's me i'm right here i'm the best guy now that i've actually given you the criteria i check all the boxes yeah he has to have huge pants and he needs to steal food from espn yeah allegedly yeah uh they did the same thing though in 2015 but they got ernie or corsi who then who then hired John Fox.
So nothing's going to change. It's all the same.
I do want to push back on people who are like, Bill Pullian knows, like, you know, he was the architect of the Bills and the Colts and all these things. He knows so much football.
At some point, it has to, like, he's probably not keeping up the same way he did when he was 50 years old. Yeah, and also he's the architect of the Colts.
He drafted Peyton Manning. His biggest career accomplishment is like, I didn't take the other guy.
I took Peyton Manning. Good choice, Bill.
I'm just going to ride that for the rest of my life. I had one good week of work in the last 30 years, and now I just get to coast off that.
It's another great example of snake it till you make it. And then once you do happen to make it for a brief period of time,

just ride that wave, baby.

Ride it forever.

And Bill's doing a good job of it.

I think it's very funny what's going on in New York with the Giants situation.

So Dave Gettleman retired.

He chose to walk away at the peak of his powers.

He just figured it's time to write off into the sunset after he's accomplished everything that he wanted to accomplish in the NFL. And it looks like Joe Judge is going to stick around.
He did one of the famous long-term planning meetings with the owner where you sit and you probably cry and you fight for your job and you give him your plan of what you're going to do for the next three to five years. And it looks like he's going to stick around.
And then he said, you know, I'd really like to be involved in the search for the general manager. So he's doing – Why not? He just promoted himself to, like, senior general manager.
Yes. Who's in charge of hiring the GM who's going to be in charge of coaching decisions.
So it's even better than the Bill O'Brien being general manager and head coach at the same time,

where head coach Bill O'Brien can fire general manager Bill O'Brien and hire somebody else.

In this circumstance, it's senior general manager Joe Judge will hire his own boss,

but also then be able to fire potentially his own boss because he hired him. So I actually, I've come all the way around.
I actually think the Giants, they don't have anything, but keeping Joe Judge actually makes sense this year. Because I was thinking about it.
You're going to hire a GM. You can pretend, like you said, we'll let Joe Judge pretend that he's picking.
You know what I mean? I imagine Joe Judge is going to be doing fake interviews, and they'll be like, oh, Joe, can you pass over your notes? Like, thank you. Then they throw it right in the trash.
But if you're going to get it, the team sucks. It's got big time.
The craziest part about the Giants is they spent all this money, so they're like, obviously the cap is crap, but they're right up against it. They don't have a lot of moves they can make.
Why not keep Joe Judge, fire him midway through next season. The new GM can use Joe Judge as a cover and basically be like, all right, we've made a change.
Joe Judge is gone. And then the new GM gets his new coach.
That's what's going to happen. That's a very smart thing to do.
Right. I've thought about it a lot because on paper, Joe Judge still having his job and Brian Flores losing his job is fucking crazy.
It is nuts. But it makes sense because they're basically like, Joe, we don't want to pay someone else to then inherit a...
No real up-and-coming candidate is going to say the Giants is a great job right now, wait a year, get some draft picks, clean the slate, then fire. I do think that right now the Giants is a very attractive job if you're an aspiring general manager.
But for a coach, no. The coach, no.
Because next year is going to suck. Coach, no, but for a GM, absolutely.
Because you do have some draft picks this year. Yep, two.
Two in the top ten, and then you have the perfect scapegoat in Joe Judge. Nobody expects anything out of Joe Judge next year.
Right, that's smart, right? He's like a human shield. Yes, you need a human shield.
It's like if a coach takes over a quarterback situation where it's like somebody that you just recently drafted, and you've got all these expectations, but they stink in their second year. A coach can then immediately hit the reset button, either by trading for a quarterback or drafting another one if you're a new coach.
You've got another two years extension. Actually, firing Joe Judge would be the most popular personnel decision that the Giants have done in years.
Exactly. You basically are giving – it's basically the free box in a bingo card is what you're handing

the GM. Yeah, people are going to love you.

You get to show up, you get to go

through the first two months of the season, have the Giants

suck, then fire Joe Judge and everyone's

like, thank God he's cleaning house. The problem

with the Giants is I feel like Mr.

Mara, the Mara family, is

constantly looking

for another Tom Coughlin. Yeah.

They just want, they hired Joe Judge to be their younger version of Tom Coughlin, which is basically saying, like, we want an asshole. We want an asshole that happens to also be good at coaching football.
But the problem is, like, if you're going to be an asshole, you have to be an asshole that has a track record of success in the NFL. But you can't really be an asshole before you become a good coach.
Every Belichick disciple. You can turn into an asshole afterwards.
Right. But it's usually not a prerequisite for everybody to hate you before you get good.
Which is, it seems like the most basic human interaction piece of advice that you can ever have. It's second right like you make friends make friends first and then you can do whatever after you start doing good stuff the the the dolphin situation i read this article that uh i'm always obviously skeptical after a coach gets fired who's putting everything in the media but it was very fair and like right down the middle and they essentially said uh what's his first name? Greer.
Chris Greer. Chris Greer, the GM for the Dolphins.
They're like, why has Chris Greer been able to hang around through Adam Gase and Brian Flores and all these changes? And it's like, because he's very deferential and he shows Steven Ross a ton of respect. He's a suck up.
Sometimes you got to be a-up in your job. I mean, Vinny Serrato was the general manager and senior legal counsel for the Washington football team for the Redskins for, I want to say, like 14 years.
And the only time he ever got fired was one time Marty Schottenheimer was like, this guy sucks and he's a football dumbass, so I'm going to fire him for a year. Then Schottenheimer got fired so that they could rehire Serato.
But Serato's job was essentially to just get beaten by Dan Snyder in racquetball. This is Ted Phillips that we're talking about.
It's full circle. There's always one of these guys in every organization.
Just let the owner kick your ass in racquetball or golf, whatever sport that he plays. Laugh at all his jokes.
Make sure he has his nice cigars that he likes. Cover up any sort of sexual harassment claims that he's got going under the rug, and then you will have a job for life as being like the football Rasputin, the second in command of any franchise.
It's really hard to fire your friend. Yep.
That's what we've learned in the NFL. Yeah, the Giants, it will be interesting.
So there's four jobs open. I don't, it feels like Pete Carroll, they're going to – the Seahawks would be so smart to just bring Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson back.
They are. Be like, it has to happen.
You're better with these two guys than like 80% of the league. Right, but that's all they're going to do this offseason.
They're going to say, you know what? These two guys are coming back. We've got our quarterback, got our coach, so coach so we'll be fine we'll just roll the dice with these guys again and then they just won't do anything to address any other positions of need whatsoever but i i still would rather that than break up those guys because we see it you end up in football purgatory with revolving doors and there's a lot of franchises you can say that about the bears are definitely one of them the giants are one of them where you just lose your way and there's it's like a never-ending cycle so um okay should we do hot seat cool throne let's do it all right hot seat cool throne the barstool golf time app makes it easy for golfers to find the best tee times at the best prices stop searching all over google for your next tee time start searching multiple courses in your area from one app it's annoying to have to create accounts for each individual course to book online.
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Yeah.

Isn't there like a cult leader?

Yeah, yeah's go. All right.
My hot seat is Jim Jones, the rapper from New York, Dipset.

Isn't there like a cult leader? Yeah, Dipset.

Dipset's awesome.

Not the cult leader one.

Yeah.

In an interview with The Breakfast Club recently, he claimed that he learned how to tongue kiss

from his mom.

Oh, okay.

And it was very awkward where they kind of didn't keep going with it.

Bonk.

That's...

That was a bonk, yeah. That's a major bonk.
Kind of early guys on chicks. Oedipus.
Yeah. Did he kill his dad? Damn.
I don't know. I mean, I guess.
Yeah, that's a lot to digest there. Yeah, I don't really know.
I didn't know if he had a take on it. I don't.
My take is that it's weird. Yeah.
Did it, like, he kissed his mom or his mom taught him how to-

I don't know.

That's what they didn't ask.

Like, I don't know if it was just verbally showing.

It's, like, slightly less weird if his mom's, like, you put your tongue into the girl's

mouth.

And that's kind of it.

And that's it.

That's the lesson.

And then you kind of move it around a little bit, not too fast, not too slow.

So, yeah, this is fucked up.

Yeah, really fucked up.

I feel very uncomfortable right now. Okay, your cool throne right my cool throne is uh avril lavigne all right she alive yes and uh she she had a um what is it called she had like a cover like story written on her and uh i believe it was bizarre or like one of those okay and um she posted on instagram like who wants a new song and people are saying she's going to put out a new album, which I don't think she has in like forever.
I'm pumped about this for one reason. I saw her on New Year's Eve for a little bit.
I was flipping back and forth between her and Miley and her performance, she did Skater Boy. Switching back and forth? No, no, I didn't say that.
I didn't say that. uh she did a performance skater boy travis barker on the drums if travis barker plays drums on this new album i'm all in because whatever he does he's somehow like the best songwriting drummer where he makes any band or any act that he plays with that much better and we're also trying to get him on a song for pop punk so.
So, Travis. You're the man, dog.
Play with Pup Punk. Yes.
All right. Good job, Bubba.
Thank you. PFT, your hot seat, Cool Throne.
My hot seat is New York Times Crossword Puzzles. Oh.
Because people are playing Wordle now. Wordle.
And I don't know what the fuck Wordle is. I've reached a point where I've seen so many people tweeting about it and talking about it that now I hate the people that are talking about it because I haven't done it yet.
And so now I just might be an anti-Wordel guy. I tried to download it and I forgot my Apple password so then I stopped.
Okay, you want to be anti-Wordel? I'm in. Okay, fuck Wordel.
Fuck these nerds with your green dots. Yep.
Yeah, I've been doing it. I'm a crossword guy.
I've been doing it and they have a colorblind version and then I just fucking got roasted for it immediately when I posted it. It looks like it's like night mode almost.
Wow, progressive wordle. Explain it to me.
Pretend like I'm an idiot. So you have to it gives you, it's like five letter words where you guess and then if it's the letter, yeah, like that would be one.
And then it tells you if the letter is in the right space or if it's like in the word and then you just keep guessing as it goes. Oh, that sounds stupid.
You ever play Mastermind, the board game with the colored pegs? I don't like anything that's supposed to sharpen my mind. I'd like to just have my mind get duller and duller.
Yeah, that's why I watch TV. Yeah, exactly.
I don't need to read first thing in the morning. All right, your cool throne? My cool throne is starting wars in the Middle East.
Oh. Because the New Yorker is, yeah, nice light one.
Okay, nice. Wartle to wars.
The New Yorker is, well, it's a four-letter country. It starts with the letter I.
Who are we going to bomb next? If you guessed Iran, you are correct. The New Yorker is writing an article just being like, hey, heads up, Iran, they're actually going to attack, so we better start a war over there real quick, pronto, and take care of that regime, as if we haven't lived through the last 20 years of existence on planet Earth.
It's like the day a 60-year-old retires, and they're like, what do I do with my life?

I worked all my life.

I was at war all my life.

Yeah, you got to-

I got to go back to war.

You got to find something else.

Brooks was here.

It is.

It's funny how we keep doing the exact same thing over and over and over again.

It'll be different this time.

It'll be different this time.

You know what?

We're going to be greeted as liberators over there.

You know what it is?

Starting another war in the Middle East, it is like another team hiring Adam Gase.

And being like, you know what?

We feel like this time he's shown a lot of growth.

He had some bad setups in the past, some bad environments.

He was with Peyton Manning.

He was with Peyton Manning.

Remember he had that great season?

Yep.

They love it.

All he's got to do is eat McDonald's and blue jeans.

Exactly. That's us saying, remember the first Iraq war.
We won that in two weeks. That was awesome.
Had a great team around him. George Schwarzkopf.
Yeah, but so yeah, we're going back to war in the Middle East. Sick.
All right. My hot seat is Colts fans because not only on Monday night was it in Indianapolis, you could actually see the faint Colts logo at midfield.
And then the day after your season falls apart against the 2-14 Jackson Jaguars. Did they win three games? 3-14 Jacksonville Jaguars.
Carson Wentz shits down his leg. And then Andrew Luck up out of nowhere and he goes on with RG3 and that had to suck so fucking bad to be like, oh, all of our life's problems can be fixed by this guy who just showed up on TV.
But he doesn't even want to be there. He looked like he's lost about 70 pounds.
I actually don't think that Andrew Luck has picked up a football in the last

three years and he looks really

happy. But it was

right there.

It was right there. It's

right in your face. You're trying to

just drown your sorrows and Andrew Luck

shows up looking happy as could be

and Andrew Luck does not

lose that game. No.

He doesn't.

No, he does not.

He does not.

People forget, Andrew Luck was a very, very good quarterback.

Yes.

Even though Hank would probably dispute that.

I think he's one of the guys that Hank hates, right?

Yeah, there's a list.

Yeah, I run it.

All right, my cool throw in is Billy.

Because when Bill Pullian was announced that he was hired by the Bears,

I went and looked and tried to see his worst takes. Everyone knows the Lamar Jackson take but he actually said about that 2017, or that was the 2018 draft.
He said about the 2017 draft, the Mitch Trubisky draft, former Bills GM Bill Polian says Chad Kelly is the most talented QB in 2017 NFL draft. So Billy is running the Bears.
Well, have you seen Ryan Pace? Yeah. There's some picture that someone tagged me in where Ryan Pace, like, I had to do a double check.
I thought it was me. I would rather you be running the Bears.
No joke. Like, and that's not.
We'd have fun with it. Yeah, no.
At least we'd be doing some out-of-the-box things. High effort.
Yeah, no, you would just hire the Iowa strength coach that Urban Meyer hired. Great.
Who cares? Something different. We're going to be the strongest team.
But it's great to see that that's the guy they hired. That's your take.
Chad Kelly. Most talented guy.
And then also my cool Toronto's game of the year is 2-0. 2022.
It is thrilling. I would strongly recommend everyone do a game of the year or multiple because it feels extra special when you have that much on the line.
I feel like game of the year. I don't want to do a game of the year because that's your thing.
I would do like a game of the year. You did the dream game, which I told you, Billy fucked you up with the pills.
It was just reversed. No, but my score was perfect.
I'm saying though if you had just reversed it Georgia... The point total was perfect.
No, I'm not going to do a game of the year. Dream game is different.
Very different for you. That's just like something shows up in your subconscious and instructs you about something.
I would do a game of the decade. I've done a game of the century.
Game of the century. Yeah.
This is a game of millennium. You did a game of the century? I think I did a game of the decade last year or the year before.
I know Stu Feiner does game of the centuries like once every couple weeks. I might do game of a lifetime.
Game of the millennium. Goal.
Yeah, you can just keep going with it. It's fun.
When's the next game of the year? I got i gotta look probably the next couple weeks if we're being honest i'll probably end up with about 25 to 30 game of the years this year i mean it's january i'm already got two so i'm kind of i'm on pace for 48 48 yeah averaging one a week we're in the second week of january all right what's your hot seat cool throne, Billy? My hot seat is Pokemon Go. Two police officers were arrested for, instead of responding to a robbery in progress, they decided to go hunt Snorlax on their Pokemon Go app instead of responding to a crime scene.
Did they get them, though? Yes. They got Snorlax.
They did. Good.
It's kind of worth it. Yeah, mission accomplished.
And they both got fired. Why? Snorlax didn't do anything for them? I didn't even know that people were honestly still playing Pokemon Go.
That was the- That was 2016. It was also the most blatant, we're just going to take pictures of your house.
Yeah, everybody turn this camera on and videotape the inside of your house and then send it to China. Yeah, point it at all of your surroundings and neighborhoods so that we can Google map everything from the ground.
This is totally fine. But the fucking Pokemon showed up on your phone in your house.
It was cool. It was very cool.
It was cool. And your cool throne? My cool throne is the Turkmenistan Gates of Hell.
Okay. Yes.
Are we invading them? No, but it is basically a pit that's been burning since about, since they discovered it. They think Soviet scientists might've done it.
Turkmenistan has once again tried to extinguish the gates of hell and they have not been able to. It's just a mystery fire underground.
It's just a hole that is burning. That's not a volcano that is just burning gas.
It sounds like hell. Sounds like they discovered hell.
Exactly. It's like the eternal flame Wasn't there fire in Pennsylvania that lasted for like 70 years an underground fire sure I'm pretty sure there was it might still be going to this very day That sounds like something that I know they can't really be fact-checked that I think you just gotta you gotta spin it as a positive Yeah, like this is the the home of the longest burning fire in America.
Longest burning fire ever, yeah. Yeah.
My other cool throne is the Northeast because it's pretty fucking cold. Yeah, it was cold today.
It was windy. It was cold.
20 degrees. Yeah, winter sucks.
Historically cold. Winter sucks, but guess what? We still have like five more weeks of football.
So that is the positive to week 18 is it doesn't even – like I always get a little sad after divisional round because you're like, oh, shit, there's only three more games. Yeah, I start to get upset when we no longer have Saturday football.
Right. So we have two more weeks of that to get us through January.
All right. Oh, yeah.
The fire has been burning since 1962 in Centralia. There we go.
Still going right now. That's a sick fire.
My hot seat is Dick's Sporting Goods. So they tweeted out 10 p.m.
on the dot. Georgia champions.
They were right so their employees are on the cool throne but if they lost that could have been a big issue. I'm woke.
I feel like that was just a genius plan to get people to talk about Dick's Sporting Goods. Right? Here we are.
Like that every account should do that. Yeah.
It's genius. Michael Rubin is like putting them out of business single-handedly.
We should reminder memes, let's make sure we do that for the Super Bowl. So in like the beginning of the third quarter, tweet out from part of my take, congrats to fill in the-the-blank team with fake shirts.
Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, no, that would be great.
I like that idea. And people will own us.
Publicity. Everyone who's listening right now will know.
Wink, wink. Or what we can also do is, like right after Championship Sunday, schedule a tweet for 12 hours later and be like, congratulations to whoever loses that game.
So if the Kansas City Chiefs lose the AFC Championship game, congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs for going to another Super Bowl and then put up a shirt of the Chiefs. And everybody will be like, oh, when scheduling tweets goes wrong, and then sweet interactions.
Yes. Then we profit.
Yeah, we got this. I like the idea.
Also, maybe schedule a tweet of Jason Derulo falling down those stairs.

If we're just doing it right now. That's always a winner.

Just put that in there.

All right.

My Cool Throne with Masters commercials.

Yes.

They made their debut last night during the broadcast.

Oh, no.

No, Jake.

Oh, no.

Jake.

They made their debut on New Year's Day.

Yeah.

For the Rose Bowl.

Okay.

Oh, no.

It was during the Rose Bowl.

I was flying.

I was flying.

It was when Jake. Here we go again.
No, Jake. My other Cool Throne.
Jake. No, Bowl.
Okay. Oh, no.
It was during the Rose Bowl. I was flying.
It was when Jake, my other cool throne is Calamon. Taste the music, Jake.
Jake. The sun was going down in Pasadena.
They made their debut in my eyes. I even tweeted about it.
I said this is pretty early for Masters. They made their debut in my eyes.
I apologize. There we go.
Jake Broussard. Damn it.
Oh, my God. 2022 is not your year.
It really isn't so far. What a colossal fuck up.
Are you going through it right now? There's a lot going on, yeah. Okay.
Maybe a notes app will fix it tomorrow. Again? Yeah, I think the people need a notes app when you fuck up.
We need it. They made their debut on this show.
What do you mean? The topic, Masters commercials. Right now.
Okay. You just made their debut.
Okay. I apologize.
I remember tweeting about it being like, it's way too early for Masters commercials during the Rose Bowl. It's just crazy that the only person that we can trust on the bench mob is Marty.
Yeah, he's the last one. No, you can't.
The last bastion of integrity. Before we judge Jake, I think we should COVID test him.
Oh. To make sure have COVID.
I think it's only fair. Now he's going to be nervous all day.
I think that's only fair. Don't do that.
He's going to be an anxious wreck. My other cool throne are journalists.
They got their shrimp last night. The timeline was flooded with shrimp.
All of them tweeting at the exact same time. I love Big J journalists.
They act like they've never seen food before well every time there's food it's also in indianapolis we know like we've had the shrimp before it's just it's big shrimp and it's kind of spicy yeah the cocktail sauce is what's really good but they freak out about shrimp every time they see it like during the combine you'll see a million tweets from from newspaper guys that are up there and be like holy crap the shrimp is here first of all where are all, where are you getting your shrimp in Indiana from? Do we know? I was just going to say, why is it good there? Shipping's fast. It's probably the farthest away from any actual natural shrimp location of any place in the United States.
It is just, I love, like if you're an owner of a team or you own a stadium, why wouldn't you just go balls to the wall every time? Because journalists will always talk nicely about you. Here's what you need.
You need a shrimp cocktail. You need ice cream sandwiches or an ice cream selection for afterwards.
You need a refrigerator. Just filled to the brim with Diet Coke.
And then you need like hologram Bruce Springsteen. Oh, don't forget.
Very important. You need a cutting board.
You need some meat being cut. You need some either some steak, some brisket, whatever it may be, but you need the carving station because they fucking love a carving station.
It can be the worst meat in the world. But if you carve it, if it's hang carved, then they'll be like, oh, this is luxury.
Damn, this is incredible. All right, let's get to John Cena.
Good job, Jake. Thank you.
Apologies once again to the AWLs. Here we go.
I await the notes app. Alright, before we get to John Cena, cross-country mortgage.
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All loans subject to underwriting approval. www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org okay here he is john cena yo what's happened what's going on good to see you nice uh nice situation you guys got there you got a power rack in the back yeah this is some you bench so yeah last time you were on we were in our old office we're in our new studio now it's too bad we could have benched together that's an it's not a bench day for me it's more of a compound movement day uh but i appreciate it okay what are you doing deadlifts i was uh i'm gonna try to do some snatch nice yeah me too a little ollie weight ollie weight lifting i was trying to i was just trying to pursue a more perfect snatch technique.
Let's go. All right.
You good to go? Sure am. All right.
Let's do it. Three, two, one.
Okay. We now welcome on our very good friend, John Cena.
Go to HBO Max on January 13th. Peacemaker is going to be out.
The first three episodes are out on January 13th and then every week after that until the middle of February. New show.
It's going to be awesome. I'm very excited.
And you're in the Peacemaker outfit right now. Let's make some peace.
You got the gloves on too. You should see below my waist.
Well let's start that so i saw the um yeah let's start let's go right to it i saw the uh the the trailer you're dancing in your underwear um you said you were self-conscious how is john cena self-conscious when you are a greek god well uh you you need to get an exam, step one. Two, all of us are flawed, guys.
And all of us, if you're not nervous and you don't have fear in your life, you may have to see a mental professional about that. I can't sing.
I can't dance. And my first day of shooting in front of 70 strangers, even with COVID safety protocols, I'm in tighty-whities.
So I'm told to do two things I'm really new and not proficient at and not any good at and do it with pretty much showing my junk to the world. I was nervous about that.
I was hella nervous. But that was our first day.
And hats off to James Gunn for doing it for day one because we kind of set the tone to just have some fun. And it really set the tone on what the series was about.
Yeah, did you get to give him any notes on that? Like, hey, maybe I can wear cargo shorts and dance. I'd feel more comfortable if I had that.
I certainly would feel comfortable in cargo shorts or jorts, but I don't know if he's in the note-taking business and I'm not in the note-giving business. So I was told the tighty-whities.
So I brought my small piece to the table and we made some peace. I like that he did that on the first day.
It's kind of like Hoosiers when they practice without a ball. Everything's easier after that where it's like you're...
Honestly, it was. And it got the crew laughing.
Nobody really knows anybody. So when you assemble a crew for a 120-day shoot, you're going to develop relationships over that time.
And to do that first and to see one of the lead characters be able to just let everything hang out, I think it just took the edge off and we had a great shoot. It was really, really fun.
Growing up, were you a comic book guy? Did you used to read them back in the day? No, I wasn't. I was a wrestling guy.
I, I loved wrestling. Those were my superheroes.
So I really wasn't a comic book guy in the whole universe. You know, like when the first Batman, the Michael Keaton Batman came out, of course, I was riveted by that.
I've always loved Batman because of the gadgets, even the Adam West Batmobile. But, like, nothing really too serious.
No. Okay, so you're a bona fide A-lister.
You can anything you want you you know you've made a ton of money you've acted you've been this is hypothetical right we're no no this is all real you you've written books yeah you've written books you have a hit uh album which i loved i wish you would rap some more what made you want to do this show though like what's the process that says oh this is actually something i want to do because I'd imagine you are a guy at this point in your career you can do literally anything uh well you know our perception of other people's worlds is sometimes amazing uh James Gunn I got to work with him on the Suicide Squad and I got to see how fantastic he is he's such an amazing storyteller and he also has a asshole. And he puts together teams of people who there's not a bad apple in the bunch.
So you know, like I said, these are long shoots. And if you have somebody with a bad attitude, that can seep through to anybody on set.
So I liked the fact that I knew I was going to be surrounded by good people. I knew I was going to be surrounded by a professional that made me better.
And I knew James was going to put together a cast of the best people it could possibly get so i figured it could go uh it was going to be a great experience either way yeah great i mean that sounds i mean like i said it's it's got to be nice to be john cena at this point is there a specific thing that you haven't done that you want to do that you're like i mean you've done like i said yeah i know you're humble but i i'll i'll be not humble for you you you have done it all and you've done it all well is there something that you want to do that you you have your eye on you're like you know it'd be really cool to do this because i'm john cena uh you know i'll shave the last half off of that question i don't know any other way to live i mean i'm i'm myself so i live every day as as as I, I, I try to work on empathy. So I try to see things through other people's eyes and I appreciate the kind words.
Uh, I guess the answer is just something I love and I don't know what that is right now. It is definitely storytelling and I don't seek out like this role would be great.
I read, I read, I read a lot of scripts. Um, and if I read it and I'm riveted by it, I know that can contribute to it and it doesn't need to be I don't need to be the lead uh it could be a very small role I just finished a very um small role in a movie called The Independent where the the script was riveting and the it was intriguing to me so and that's a role that it's it's not this and it's not uh adult comedy like it's a it's a dramatic role and I was really I was just riveted by the stories.
And I didn't search that out. It's just, hey, read the script and tell me what you think.
So that's kind of how all of this stuff happens. I love to read, and if I'm riveted by the story, I know I'm passionate about it.
If I'm passionate about it, I know I'm going to give my all to it. Quick side question.
When you read a script, do you count that as reading a book? Like at the end of the year when you're like i read 10 books nope you should just a little tip there uh oh okay i'll i mean the only person keeping score on that one's really me so uh but i will okay what about if you listen to a book uh i haven't yet explored listening to a book what what's your what's your guys take on that audiobooks there's a really good one out there called goodell versus obama but uh i'm not really a big audiobook guy but i do count it though at the end of the year like big cat saying i think if you read like a pamphlet that's four pages long that counts as a book if you read the back of four different types of cereal boxes if you have to sign a lease if you have to sign oh yeah that's just like peruse it yeah if you like peruse the legalese i would imagine you're like your um cell phone provider or like a phone privacy agreement oh yeah yeah when you download a game and they say like hey we're taking all of your information and using it against you that's a book or if you if you were to watch uh any you know recurring series on netflix or on hulu or anything like that, HBO Max.

Or like HBO Max.

Yeah.

You watch Peacemaker on HBO Max.

If you watch Peacemaker on HBO Max and you put the subtitles on,

that counts as a book.

Each episode counts as a book.

Once again, to this fictitious scorecard that nobody cares about but us.

I'm a count holder.

People care.

Yeah, no, you got – What's the point of reading if you're not going to flex on somebody

at the end of the year and be like, I read more books than you this year? I don't know. Maybe learning something.
Who knows? I don't know. Come on.
So it sounds like from the tone of this conversation, how you're working on yourself and looking forward to trying new challenges, we can safely say that the professor of Thuganomics is not coming back. Oh, that's not true.
That uh you know i kind of over the over the years you've actually seen more of of the good doctor of thugonomics than than over like the past 10 years uh the uh appearance in the firefly fun house match the appearance at wrestlemania with elias it's almost like that that character has taken on a sense of nostalgia itself so when it shows up it's it's it's like a it's a thing that gets people excited so i never never say never dude i'm doing an interview in full peacemaker yeah true what i love that album i used to play it in college it was the fastest way to get chicks to want to leave a party is you just pop on the john c at like two in the morning they're like why why are these guys putting their hands in front of their face

and screaming lyrics at us?

By the way, little did they know that that would be the basis

of a lot of meme culture years to come.

They didn't know what a meme was.

In their defense, they didn't know what a meme was.

That's true.

I mean, I think my favorite phrase that you ever had was,

tough to bring down like an overweight running back.

That's just like a nod to Mike Allstott.

I thought that you were talking about.

Or Ironhead Hayward or Christian Okoye, you know, any of those.

Mike Tolbert.

The fullbacks.

See you next time. overweight running back.
That's just like a nod to Mike Allstott. I thought that you were talking about.

Or Ironhead Hayward or Christian Okoye, you know, any of those.

Mike Tolbert.

The fullbacks.

Yeah, Mike Tolbert, legendary goal line.

Athman.

Running back.

I actually made a remix of one of your songs back in 2014,

Make It Loud.

Yes.

I just took Make It Loud and I spliced in you announcing that we've killed Osama bin Laden throughout the song

just to make it a little bit more patriotic. I dialed it up a little bit for you all right that's that is a take yeah if you look back on your career is is saying like we have just compromised to the fullest extent osama bin laden is that maybe like a highlight because you had to think of that on the spot and i've never heard somebody use a phrase like compromise the fullest extent.
But when you said it, I was like, that's fucking cool. I think you may have a paraphrase instead of a quote.
Oh, okay. Maybe to a permanent end.
To a permanent end. That's badass.
That's even cooler. Yes.
So that was a big piece of news. And it just happened.
And I was being fed the news live and we were at a pay-per-view in the D.C. area.

And that, I mean, that's a, we're talking, this is a piece of news that shook the United States to its very core with the events of 9-11.

And I thought it was something that people should know and that they should like, okay, I know this information now. I'm in front of this audience.
They should know this. And I just tried to think of a way to convey the message to make it as digestible as possible.
And that's what popped into my head. I wanted people not to find out when they got home.
I thought that event and that moment in time was so impactful that I wanted people to know right there. And that's just, I tried the best I could to convey that message.
I'm glad you remember it in paraphrased form. I appreciate it.
It means it affected your life in some way, but I just tried the best I could to do it. It's an all-time moment.
It's an all-time moment. It's got to be an all-time thrill that we joke about breaking news to people.
There's something about that that's a rush. Breaking that type of news to a stadium of people has got to be a career highlight.
Obviously, there's things you actually did but like that's got to be one of the things that you remember most vividly I would imagine well certainly to be in a position where people pay attention to your message right and that's uh that that there's but there's there's no doubt that that um like I said that's a that's a moment that had a ton of gravity which is why and i i didn't do it for uh the broadcast i thought we were off air so i just literally did it for the people in arena because if you're before on the broadcast you can click and find the news elsewhere so i just really did it for the live people in the arena that may not have instant access to that piece of information wow crazy um you so i don't know if you remember to go a little lighter route uh i don't even know if you remember when you came in and we interviewed you the first time do you you've done so many interviews it's okay no it was in your your your like you said your old office all white offices we're pretty much in like a closet phone booth corner with you guys right yep and there was was there three of you then yeah three of us in the room probably maybe three of us in the room but yeah the the part that i'm hoping you remember um and i'm hoping you think about all the time is my belly button because you saw my belly button how deep it was and you wanted to risk it all i don't know you know how we have experiences in our life that we're not brave enough to revisit so we just black out and like it takes a concentrated dedicated therapy uh you just uncovered that experience for me whether i'm ready for it or not uh i don't know but i feel like i'm i may have to go to the bathroom and cry at the same time and somehow somehow I'll be moved in an emotional way. Yeah, you got a deep belly button.
I got a very deep belly button, and you gave it a sup with your eyes. I assessed your anatomy.
I did. All right.
You were revealing yourself to me. I did look at you.
Yes, yes. You look deep inside my butt.
It's more sensual than looking deep into someone's eyes, looking into the crevices of their belly button, the cavernous belly button. Yes.
Their former feeding tube. Yes.
Well, yeah, if you want to put it that way. We're going to get back to John Cena in a second, but before we do, HelloFresh is here to tell you about their Farm Fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstop skip trips to the grocery store and count on hello fresh to make home cooking easy fun and affordable that's why it's america's number one meal kit i tried hello fresh a few weeks ago it is delicious they give you great food high quality ingredients they make it really easy too there's some meal prep companies that send you stuff and it takes you an hour hour and a half to cook you don't have time to do that during your busy life use hello fresh it's so much easier the new year is a great time to focus on what's most important to you could be saving money by ordering less takeout it could be learning to cook or prioritize your wellness hello fresh is here to help with endless options to make cooking at home simple and enjoyable.
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That's HelloFresh.com slash PMT16, free meals and three free gifts. Now here's more Now here's more John Cena I got a question, this is kind of a headline grab so we're going to try to get you in the news This one should be great It's going to be excellent, it's going to be wonderful Get people buzzing about the new series on HBO Max, Peacemaker, check it out right now binge watch it, read a book while you're doing it Whose side are you taking? Make sure the subtitles are on.
Yes. Yes.
Otherwise, it doesn't count as a book. Otherwise, you're just looking at a book, not reading it.
Whose side do you take? Vin Diesel or The Rock? Oh, I don't think that story is about taking sides. I think that story is about hearing everybody's perspective.
And it's a story where me as a fan of the franchise, I'd love the franchise to get together for this last run. You know, I hope they call me to be in it.
But when someone says professionally they want to go in another direction, if you say anything other than okay, it's their professional opinion to make the choices they want. And I think that's very brave and very honest.
So I think Vin's perspective has a lot of gravity and honesty. And I think Dwayne's perspective has a lot of gravity and honesty.
And I think this is, man, if we could just stop taking sides. Just take a second.
This is very mature of you. To hear everybody, these are both two amazingly successful superstars, people who have crafted their own existence and are just globally adored.
And, you know, Vin's been the father of the Fast franchise. He's coming in on his 10th installment.
Dwayne has started as the most electrifying sports entertainer in the history of sports entertainment,

and he's now in his own universe.

So I guess it's just about understanding where each guy's coming from.

It's a very mature answer.

I'm trying to get headlines, and you're doing a very good job

of answering it like an adult.

Would you rather drink Coronas with Vin Diesel or tequila with Rock?

So straight spirits are tough. They make a night quick.
And I've always really wanted, because I'm a fan of the fast franchise, I've always really wanted to be invited to a barbecue. And I know I don't, I have to be grateful for what I have and not for what I want and being invited into the fast franchise, especially to play at Toretto was man, that's an honor, but damn it.
I was pissed when I wasn't in the barbecue because I've always wanted to be in a fast barbecue that, that symbol of family and camaraderie. And when everybody's drinking, you know, as it's just a, I wanted to be involved.
So because for that reason alone and the fact that, you know, spirits get you there quicker. And I've seen Rocky chugs tequila.
I just I don't know if I could go match for match with him. I think he just put me under the fence.
So maybe I'd stick to a fast barbecue. OK, good answer.
I have another headline grab. You recently died from covid.
What was that like? well, I would ask the person that wrote that piece of information. It's apparently they really make good animatronic robots.
It's more than the Hall of the President stuff. I mean, look at this.
This is really real. So I would I think that's a great exercise in fact-checking articles.

Yes.

Did you think that you were dead? Something that we all need to do.

Yes.

Yeah.

What was your – I mean, for people who don't know,

there was just one of those stupid internet rumors that John Cena died from COVID.

That's got to piss you off a little bit.

No, no, it doesn't.

Honestly, if anything, it just – when someone – see, it's weird that you can take a piece of information like that and say stupid Internet rumor. I wish I wish more people would have a perspective to cross check and fact check and dive deeper for truthful information, because there's so many things out there that might fall into the classification of stupid internet rumors.

But when it's something as silly as that that we know isn't true now because I'm speaking to you in real time on this show, I think it's a nice exercise into don't believe everything you read.

Was there a small part of you that wanted to just kind of go along with it for a day just to get some of the tributes out there?

Just so you can see all the nice things people might say and then be like they're a small part of me that wanted to end my existence the answer to that is a resounding no i love life and i'm i want to i want to have the gift as long as i possibly can so no not to end your existence but to just kind of not say anything about the rumor being fake for a day what and and where where is the good in that? People would be like, oh, man, I love John Cena. He's such a great guy.
Remember that time people would share anecdotes. Like I would have tweeted, remember that time John Cena wanted to fuck my belly button? Man, I miss that guy.
I know you guys are trying to have some fun. I just lost a really close friend two days ago.
Oh, shit. No, no, that's cool.
So when I say something like that and you take the smile off your face, loss is a really tough thing. And trust me, I'll joke about a lot of stuff, especially if you watch Peacemaker, I'll joke about a ton of stuff.
But if you're trying to get headline grabs, I don't think, especially at this point, at any point, at any point, the fragile nature of human life is a headline grab. So I know what you're trying to do.
I can't fault you for trying. But in taking a moment to reflect on the passing of a good close friend of mine, man, I just I see things from a completely different perspective.
I just don't think that's the right avenue for me to go down um john cena just fucking threw us through the ring there that was a hell of a no i feel bad yeah no no you're right well yo yo yo first of all don't feel bad again i think this is one of those things where uh now nowadays you we walk into sensitive territory right and people get scared and they get defensive and that's how arguments happen and nobody gets hurt. I get what you guys are saying.
I totally do. You caught me at a time in my life where I'm going through some stuff and that's just not a path I want to take.
That's not saying it's wrong. That's not saying it can't be funny.
And I think people need to maybe pump the brakes on comedy a little bit and be a little bit more uh you know um understand that laughter is the best medicine but i'm just saying in this case right now here that's just not a path i want to go down i hear you it's just not a path i want i'm not funny anyway so i won't i won't even try to go down that route yeah let's let's transition i'll transition Especially just not a path I want to go. I'm not funny anyway, so I won't even try to go down that route.
Yeah, let's transition it. I'll transition it.
Especially just not for people to click on, something to click on. You're right.
You're right. All right, I'll transition us.
So Peacemaker, like we said at the beginning, go watch it. HBO Max, January 13th.
The first three episodes are out, then it's out every week. It's a little fast transition, by the way.
Thank you. Yes, I got you.
I got you. The show looks like it is like you are being – you have a good sense of humor, very funny moments, but then a very serious side.
Is that – like I'm always awed by actors who are able to switch back and forth between those two because I can't act. Like none us can act how are you able to do that you know in the same day or is it something like all right I'm showing up today today I'm going to do some funny scenes tomorrow we're going to do some more serious scenes hey man you just sold yourself way short because in the same conversation we've had in what 15 minutes We had a laugh about me wanting to fuck your belly button.

Yep.

And we just got really serious about the nature of mortality.

So don't say you can't act and don't say you can't get serious and then have jokes.

I think that's why people are drawn to vulnerable performances where someone can laugh and then someone can cry and then someone can get serious.

We're doing it right now.

This is happening in real time right now. And I'm dressed up like a damn bc super every time you put your hands up it's funny i'm just trying to get more of the costume in there so i mean it's and and come i i hope this conversation you guys remember when we talk next time be like yo i remember when we did that zoom and like we did this and we laughed and you got serious for a minute and those those are, those are our best times of connection when we can let our guard down.

And then I hope your listeners have a, have a takeaway moment.

Maybe they, they engage in a conversation more than just the,

the regular gossip fodder for, for,

for having a moment of three people just being real together.

So you can do this because you just did it.

We just laughed about your belly button. And now we're just talking about something else serious.
And then we're going back to talk about a TV show. So you can do it.
And that's what makes it fun. And that's what makes hopefully more people listen.
I do wonder sometimes when actors, you know, they get into a very emotional, vulnerable place when they're when they're doing certain scenes. And whether or not that sticks with you, after you're with your day at work you go home you've just put yourself in a really tough place being able to you know access a part of your mind and part of your body where you're able to show like okay you're crying you're doing all this stuff in front of you know maybe dozens of people that are working with you that's got to affect you probably for the rest of the day i would imagine you can't just like snap your fingers go home everything's great or maybe i'm wrong no i think it's so i think it's different for everybody uh which my my thing is it just takes a lot out of you just like going out of the ramp on the wwe i go out there a ball of excitement and energy and i'm you know at a peak for 25 minutes and i come back and i got nothing left it's like the se Seeger song, every ounce of energy you try to give away.
It's the same thing when you're doing it on a more nuanced scale, you're just exhausted. So I think it takes, at least for me, it takes good people around me who support and understand what I'm trying to do, who could understand if I come home exhausted, it's nothing that they did.
They didn't, they didn't affect my mood. They didn't affect my trajectory and just kind of let me either either be in it or uh or vent to them or take my own process to get to get back to to seal up but it's it's it's the same as going out in front of a sold-out house you know giving every ounce of energy you got and coming back and just being you got nothing left it's it's the same process it's just over the 10 12 14 hour day i saw a quote from you recently you said that you know you'll always have a tie to wwe and like you know maybe wrestlemania 38 you're not going to be back but you you're a wrestler and you feel that and it's part of your family oh man i need i'm a wwe superstar i'm not aware you've seen any of my matches you know i'm not a wrestler no you're a superstar have you um so i'm i'm a child of the attitude era i loved it so i killed it for you and i'm sorry yeah you did that's okay um have you watched aew at all do you think that it's good for like competition is good here in terms of both products are just going to raise each other up because that was a lot of the attitude error was there was competition and everything got better.
And it was, you know, for a lot of people like myself, the glory days of wrestling. Yeah, I haven't watched AEW.
Do I think competition is good? I think competition is great. There's internal competition within WWE about performers wanting to be champion or performers wanting to be headliners.
I think whenever there is buzz around an industry it's good for the industry and it forces uh it forces all of us to be at our best because you know if you're not you're gonna your segment's not going to be good your performance is not going to be good you may not have a future with the company you're with and repeated bad segments from the group means the company ain't going to be good which means the the competition will succeed. So I think competition brings out the best of us.
I mean, I, for all time going out there as a performer, I always wanted to do the best I could possibly do and certainly, you know, set the tone for wanting to be the best show between Raw and SmackDown and certainly have eyes on the segments that I was on. I was fueled by a sense of internal competition, not knowing what it's like now to be essentially in a market with a lot of different options.
There's a lot of places to watch sports entertainment now, but that would only, for me, that would only fuel me even more to be the best that I can be. Yeah.
I was checking out your social media before this interview to see what, what was getting you going. And I noticed that you follow 365,000 people on Twitter.

Yes.

That's a lot of people.

Do you actually use Twitter?

Do you actually like go to your timeline?

Yes, I use Twitter.

I use Instagram.

It's tough to follow the timeline just because the amount of people I follow.

But I'm trying to learn more about the world.

I just went into a rabbit hole following EDM dance culture and non-fungible tokens and also Twitch streamers, because I know nothing about any of these avenues of the world. And they're just like people may not know about WWE.
Like, oh, isn't that the fake stuff where this happens? But there's fandom to there and there's passion to there. There's performers, stories performers stories.
So all, a lot of times we're explaining to people like, yo, check out how many people follow me. I'm, I'm really glad to say that I allow or 364,000 people have allowed me to follow them.
And I'm learning a little bit about each and every person as I go. And I try to remain as diverse as I can.
And I know social media is not the most positive place. So it's always a, it's also an exercise in developing thick skin.
Um, I really enjoy it. Twitter only lets you follow a thousand people a day.
Yeah. So do you do that yourself? Do you go through Twitter and you're, you're selecting who you follow? It's boring and it is arduous.
And, uh, but the end product to me is I get a, I get a greater scope of what's going on and I can learn some stuff about stuff I don't know about and hopefully create a community. If you've seen the people I follow on Twitter, hopefully maybe you've seen some of the messages I send.
And I try to send some stuff that like this interview maybe will evoke some philosophical conversation. So if we can get folks from all across the world, world, uh, from, from every different place and every different culture to, to start asking bigger and broader questions and start talking about some, some philosophical stuff.
I don't know, maybe just, maybe you can, it can balance that social media out to a little bit more positive. What's, um, what's one philosophical question that you've been asking yourself recently? Uh, purpose origins around purpose.
And I think that that's a question that

a lot of people throw that term around. And I think it's a really tough question to answer.

And my advice is just try not to rush it. Try to just really, you really have to look into who you

are and find out who you are and a clear sense of purpose. Man, really, it's like when you asked me,

you were very kind in saying you're John Cena. You can do anything you want.
What do you choose? Well, a lot of things have to coincide with my values and certainly it has to fuel my purpose. So that's just from philosophy, like not why are we here as a human species, but why are you here as a human being? Looking at that question, why are you here? And it could be anything anything and a lot of times people come up with an answer that's really fun for other people to hear that isn't really the answer that that is the real answer and i think taking an honest look at ourselves and maybe asking ourselves that question why are we here that's a heck of a start all right so john we appreciate you coming on ever go check out peacemaker on uh hbo max my last question was simply it's january most people are trying to diet and get in shape i literally wrote this down how do you get your muscles to look so awesome that that is a piece of dialogue that should be in peacemaker and i'm going to tell james gunn to write that into season two i mean need it need the tips how do you get them How do you get them to look so awesome? It's a, the tips are easy.
The application is hard. Make, make good choices and be consistent.
And that's, that's absolutely it. Don't make it a January diet, make it a lifestyle change, make good choices and be consistent.
And that's it. I'm like, when you say that, it's like, I go through my Rolodex in my brain.
I'm like, I am so inconsistent, and I make terrible choices. What if you're consistently inconsistent? So you go on the crash diets, and then you get like a week per month where your muscles look really good, and then the other three weeks they look like crap.
Well, then you find yourself in a bit of a conundrum where you may look good, but on the inside you may be really unhealthy. So So there's also a lot of balance you got to fine-tune.
That's a great tip. All right, WWE superstar John Cena and also star of Peacemaker out January 13th, HBO Max.
Guys, thank you for having the patience to get a little deep with me today. And also thank you for helping me process the loss of a close friend.
The guy, his name was Ronnie Bullington. He drove my tour bus for 12 years.
We lost him on Sunday. And he is an honorary member of the Sina family, having spent over 10 Christmases at my house, forming wonderful bonds with my mom, my whole family.
My nieces loved him. I'll always love him, but we were open and vulnerable men.
We talked openly with each other. He knew I loved him.
I knew he loved me. The world was a better place with him in it, and we're going to miss him.
So thanks for giving me a second to reflect on that. I appreciate it.
It's a beautiful message, and I think it's, I mean, I'm very sorry for your loss because you know we work in an industry where we we work long hours with people and and the people you work with really do become your family and it's a bond that maybe people who work nine to five don't fully understand sometimes but when you grind those late hours it it's more than just co. Yeah.
Especially as a traveling entertainer.

You know, I, he's pretty much my roommate for 12 years. So we had, we had a man, we had a wonderful time.
And I'm, I'm looking back on our time with a lot of smiles and my heart hurts, but it's filled with joy at the same time, knowing that he was in my life. So I'm a better man for it.
Yeah. Someone told me last time I went through a tough experience like that.
You'll start to you when you start when you think about them, there'll be a time when you smile before you feel sad. And that might be six months from now.
It might be a year from now. But once you reach that point, then you can kind of make a little bit of peace and and start to have that be, you know, his memory is now a positive thing in your life.
But I hope, you know, all the best to you and your family. And thank you very much.
That's great advice. And like I said, just to appreciate you guys.
So thank you very much. Absolutely.
Thanks, John. John Cena is brought to you by our great friends at Coors Light.
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Okay, we're going to wrap up our show.

We got our good friend, Jersey Jerry, back on the show.

It is Bring Your Lunch Pail slash Guys on Chicks.

So we're going to talk a lot of different questions.

All right.

But let's begin with your Steelers. How are we feeling about the playoffs? I feel good.
I was just at my desk just sitting over there just dinking about stuff. I think this team could make a run.
People laugh at me. I put up a tweet today.
I really think the Steelers could beat the Chiefs. I got laughed at, humiliated on Twitter, but I really believe it.
If the defense steps up and if they can contain, you know, Mahomes and Hill. Hill's not 100%, let's not forget.
True. And Kelsey.
The Chiefs are due for a bad game, man. They really are just due for one.
You know what the key to the game is? You got to heat Mahomes up. You got to heat him up.
Yep. You got to hit him.
If you can heat him up. Yep.
Break him in half. Yeah.
I agree. Just make him think about you.
For sure. That's when you run into problems with Mahomes is when he's not even thinking about the rush.
When he starts thinking about it, he's liable to do weird stuff. Oh, exactly.
And for anybody who's been watching the NFL this year or the past three years. No, let's say three years, the past three years, the best defensive player in football has been T.J.
Watt. It's a fact.
I'd agree. Aaron Donald too.
This year it's T.J. Watt.
He's my defensive player of the year. Aaron Donald's win rate is very, very high.
Yeah, you know I have a vote. I know you have a vote, but I'm just saying, you look at the numbers, even last year's numbers, T.J.
Watt beats him in five out of seven categories. You do have, you are such a diehard Steelers fan.
I knew that from the second I met you because I think we were maybe an hour into our relationship and you were giving me stats about how T.J. Watt beats Aaron Donald in all important numbers and that's a great fan like characteristic to have just walk around with info in your head to get into debates and no and it's not really debatable because it's a real number you close it um we watched sunday night football we were here in the studio we were all watching your stream yeah confirm or deny there were tears in your eyes yeah i, I was crying.
Just a little. I was crying.
You know, when Herbert got the two-point conversion, I mean, I just started, like, tearing up. And I'm like, this is it.
This is how Ben's going to go out. And it's not fair.
You know what I mean? And I'm so happy. You know, I even donated to Carlson's charity.
He has a bunch of charities. I love that.
I 50 bucks to his charity ultimate fan move out of respect you know what i mean did the bills build like an entire wing of a hospital for for andy dalton i think they saved like a million children yeah incredible it's crazy you know but uh yeah dude like i said uh big cat i i think i think this team is you, the story of the Steelers this year

and even last year, they just find a way just to win.

They just find a way to win, and I think Tomlin does a good job

of rallying the boys around them.

And I wouldn't be surprised.

There's a lot of Steelers fans that would be like, oh, my God,

I'll be so surprised if the Chiefs lose.

I won't be surprised.

No.

I won't because they're due. They're due for a bad game.
Okay. I love the confidence.
I like it too. When you were watching it on Sunday night, were you thinking this is rigged? 100%.
100%. I'm just curious to know because there was so much weird stuff going on during the game.
Yeah. I could see why somebody would be like, this isn't adding up right now.

But from your perspective, why do you think the NFL, at the time,

why did it feel like the NFL was out to get the Steelers? Because this is exactly why I'll tell you this.

When there was a part in the game where it was almost not impossible for it

to the scores match up and be right, and then just how somehow, some somehow some way in the fourth quarter the most important quarter of a football game the scores magically are going to line up if this team gets a touchdown in a two-point conversion it's like wow it's it's it's rigged this is rigged for ratings rigged for views that does happen in football overtime does happen. It does, but let's say this.
How many times does it happen this year, you think? Overtime? The Steelers go in? Yeah, the Steelers tied a game. They had a tie.
We tied a game, yeah. They tied a game.
But if you break down every single NFL game. Sunday? Yeah.
Well, the overtime, there was, yeah, that game. No, we tied against the Lions.
Yeah, but no, you went in overtime against the Ravens, too ravens too yeah yeah the ravens but i'm saying how many times would you say this year in total in nfl i would off the top of my head i don't know like seven no more no probably like 15 i was gonna say maybe jake will look up right now i probably i would say like 25 no i'd say it felt like one a week maybe a couple extra it did come down to the end, though. To be fair, there were two seconds left on the clock in overtime when that field goal went through, and it seemed like the Chargers were content to get a tie, the Raiders were content to get a tie, until that timeout just kind of shook everything up real quick and kind of snapped people out of whatever fog they were in.
Yeah, I don't agree. I think they were going to try the field goal regardless.

Do you know what's funny is the reason why the Steelers are in the playoffs

is because of a tie.

For sure, yeah.

If they had lost that game to the Lions,

the Raiders and the Chargers would be in the playoffs.

Good point, yeah.

The tie saved them.

The tie did save you.

Yeah, and I read a good stat today.

Every team that the Chiefs lost to, can you name them or no? Bills? Yeah. They lost to the Chargers.
Titans? Did the Browns beat them? Titans. What about the Ravens? The Bills, the Titans, the Ravens, the Chargers.
Who beat all those teams? The Steelers? The Steelers must have. Steelers are 4-0 against those teams.
Wait, no, they lost five games, though.

The Bengals, did you beat the Bengals?

Oh, no.

No, we didn't beat the Bengals.

Oh, no.

We're 4-1.

You didn't get to the end of the stat.

That's okay.

It happens.

But we played good against all those teams.

4-1.

That's an 80% chance you're going to win.

Yeah, exactly.

If you do the, I don't know what that would be. You know, these guys I'm getting my stats from lately, they're just wrong stats.
Where are you getting your stats from? I mean, what about the stat I said the other day? It was a fake stat. He was like, Jerry was like, you know, Big Ben is the longest tenured quarterback of all time for a franchise.
I was like, didn't Tom Brady play for the Patriots for 20 years? Yeah. And it was just a fake stat.
Who's just that guy? I mean, it's the hashtags on Instagram. Oh, like Steeler stats? Yeah, like, yeah, just put the hashtag Steelers, and it just...
I mean, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, it's making you look bad.
It is. And you're a smart guy.
This is fucked up. Yeah, it's the fake news.
Yeah, no, it's definitely something's wrong. The Bengals, like, that literally happened last week.
I just read that on the hashtag Steelers. And the Steelers not only lost to him, they lost to him twice.
Twice? It's just ridiculous. Yeah.
All right. Well, we feel good.
I'm excited. Sunday night, we'll be there with you.
Yep. Tune in.
Gambling Cave. I just want to know who's going to be at the show.
Brendan won't be there. Cool.
That was your question. You got a problem with Brendan? No, I just, I don't know.
I don't have a problem with him. He's got bad vibes.
It seems like there's been like, you've been hot and cold on him. Yeah, I mean, because it's just weird.
Some days are good, some days are bad, and now I'm at the point where I just don't want to even be around that. Yeah, so it's all bad.
Yeah. Yeah.
Gotcha. All right, let's do some questions.
So Lunch Pail and Guys on Chicks. Oh, your mic's not on.
Hold on. U.S.
Postal Service mail carrier here. Yes, I wear an actual blue collar.
Happened back during MLB season. I got some sick time coming to me, so I take two days.
Go to a day game and night game. Post a pic of me at a game on Instagram.
Coworker screenshots the pic and sends it to the supervisors. Now I'm in hot water facing a two-year probation.
This is a dude I've had post-work beers with on multiple occasions. Question is, how to handle things with the dirt bag trader? With respect, proud union member local 377.
Yeah, this happened to guys at my job all the time it's in our it's in our at least our rule book if you call out sick the supervision at any time can come to your house and check and check if you're still there it's against their policy to pretty much go out if you're on on sick time you know what i mean go out in public or whatever unless it's for a doctor's appointment you have to be home so i mean i would say just don't put any i mean in the past i've called out sick and and done things but i don't post it you know what i mean yeah so this is what where it kind of comes into play where his co-worker ratted him out yeah so it's not like the supervisor went to his house so he wasn't there. Yeah.
Got him in trouble. Like, that's kind of a...
Snitch, yeah. Yeah, we know...
Man card, man law. I think my union's a little different.
We wear stickers all over our hard hats that say we don't work with rats. And it sounds like this guy works with rats.
Got to flush them out. Got to set a trap up.
Yep. Hey, guys.
PFT got me into this this situation so y'all are responsible for getting me out of it my husband has trained our three-year-old daughter to say you're absolutely right boom instead of a simple yes almost exclusively it's to the point that when anyone asks her a yes or no question she replies with you're absolutely right boom including her first dentist appointment her grandparents Santa at the mall etc I've got about six months until she goes to preschool send help no that's a football gal this is awesome you're absolutely right boom it's a good thing it must sound so cute to hear a kid say it too yeah I never heard a kid say that yeah that's got to be the cutest thing ever maybe send us a video email it we don't to put you on blast, but it would be nice to see because that's very funny.

That's the best way to get her to stop saying it

is for you to take a video of it and then for you to

share it online. Yeah, exactly.

By the way, Jake got us most

overtime games in NFL regular season history.

25 in 2002.

This year was fourth most

with 21. Wow, that's a lot.

So 21 overtime games. So it happens.

It happens. But it's rigged.
Was it only two ties? How many ties were there this year? There's only one. Just one? Steelers.
Did the Steelers? No, they didn't tie last year. Alright, next question.
Hey Jersey Jerry, when I was at work I had a co-worker throw a can full speed at my head and then go ballistic. All because I called him by his name.
How do I proceed to build my relationship with him and coexist? It's a tough one. It's a tough one.
I don't know who this is about, but I would just say for now, I would just say, you know, stay away. Everybody deserves a second chance in life.
You know what I mean? Everybody. And for a guy like me, I've had multiple chances to turn my life around.

I'd say give this guy a chance and let him prove everybody wrong and get the help he needs. And then maybe down the line, you hear stories of people hating each other for years.
And then one day something clicks and they become best friends. So I could see a scenario like that happening here.
Also, sounds like, again, we don't know who we're talking about here. but sounds like it might be a little fallback plan being in, you know,

major leagues. Sounds like he's got a cannon.
Yeah. I would also just add that one day you might look back at this and actually see this as being one of the most important days of your life.
Where it's like, hey, we both got to grow from this and we came back so much stronger. I wouldn't be surprised if in a year these guys are I'd say you know going on vacation together with their families.
Oh you know what this is about? I think this is the office storyline with Andy Bernard when he had to go to management training. Or when he punched a hole in the wall.
Anger management training. Yeah you know what that's what it is.
That's funny. You tried to trick us on this one.
Very funny. You stopped going by the Nard Dog.
You just went by Andy. I just thought it was interesting that, you know, Hank...
Oh, sorry. I was gonna...
Okay. Not name names.
Where was Hank? That's all I'm saying. Where was Hank? Hank would have prevented this from happening.
Well, it was 10 a.m. Hank would have been there.
Yeah. Hashtag, where was Hank? Where was Hank? What's up, boys? I'm quitting my current job that is strictly commission-based, but I've heard from other coworkers that quit that they don't get paid for this.
Okay, he wrote this wrong. I've heard from other coworkers that quit that they didn't get paid for the sales they had made during the pay period they quit in.

My boss even said in reference to a girl that quit after vacation,

we knew she was quitting, so we didn't pay her.

I get paid on the 20th, and it'll be about $1,700.

Any advice on what I should do?

Thanks, Big Cat, PFT, Honk, my boy Billy, and Jerry in advance.

It sounds like you've got to wait until the 20th.

This is pretty easy.

But then you run into the situation where you put off your next check that you're not going to get paid for. Stop working, but stay at your job.
Physically stay there. Show up to work.
Actually, what you should do is you should take vacation because it's January, so you've probably lot. Yep.
Take a vacation from the 12th to the 20th, show up, quit, get your check. I also think that all you need to do here is just send a letter that you can even write it yourself, but then like make a fake name at the end and then put attorney at law at the end.
Yeah, there you go. And all they need to see is like, oh, this person knows a lawyer.
Okay. Because by law, they have to pay you.
Of course, yeah. You've earned that money already.
They're not doing you a favor by giving you the money that you've earned. Yep.
You're entitled to that legally. It's fucked up that they...
That's fucked up. A lot of companies are like that.
Just threaten them with legal recourse or just let the person know that you are in touch with the lawyer, that you are familiar with your rights. Hit us the name of the company jersey jerry will do a rant oh yeah yeah he'll get in his car and he'll fucking blast these guys i put people out of business that's just what i do jiffy lube's never been the same nope nope look at their stuff that was very funny talking about the air filter it's true yeah they always try to get you.
Always. Sup, fellas.

Question is for Jerry.

What's your opinion on the Elevators Technician Union? I'm currently second on the list and been waiting on a call since July of last year. Any advice would be helpful? One of the best unions there is, Elevator Union.
Really? Biggest money you can make. One of the best unions there is.
Wow. Yep.
Like this guy's first year, he'll easily make probably $120, $125 first year. I mean, you're talking about guys that make over $200, $250 a year.
Do you think people in the elevators union, do you think they just never take the stairs out of principle? I would assume so, yeah. Right.
They see a set of stairs, they're like, no. Either that or they know all the dirty shit that goes into the elevator maintenance and they know the buildings to not take the elevator so if you see an elevator repair guy taking the stairs you follow that guy it's like the people that wear the bomb shirts that say like bomb technician if you see me sprinting away run with me it is funny to think like stairs are you know like stairs were newspapers elevators or internet yep just internet.
Yep. Just fucking out of business.
Yep. Now, if you're in the elevator union, are you certified to work on both Otis and Throson Krupp units or is that just one? I don't know.
I wouldn't know. I was never in the union.
I never had friends in the union, but I've heard stories about friends, friends and friends, family members in the union. They make a lot, a lot of money.
Yeah. I got a friend that got into the elevator union, had a party.
They threw like a giant party once they got the news they were in because you're set for life. Oh, yeah.
At that point. And he's probably well off right now.
He's doing good right now, yeah. Love it.
My great-grandfather was an elevator guy. Yeah.
One fell on his head, killed him. I like Barstool.
I like everything this company does. I still got those thoughts, though.
What? Going back? Union? I still got those thoughts. We could unionize.
I don't know. Dave doesn't like that.
Yeah. As a joke.
Yeah. Billy, go ahead.
Last one. This is more of a question.
If the Steelers lose Sunday... What was the other one? This one's Specifically a question for Jerry For Jerry If the Steelers Lose Sunday, would Jerry Do a live stream of him doing a sink full of Dishes? If they lose No, if they win So Yeah, I think that's...
So if you don't know, Jerry's internet stardom started with Blake Bortles,

who's a very good friend of ours, ruining the Steelers season.

And Jerry was screaming at his mom, you won't find me doing nothing.

No dishes, no nothing.

You'll find me hanging from the ceiling.

And so I think if the Steelers win the Super Bowl, then you do dishes for a week. I do dishes for the rest of my life.
Did you do any dishes that week? I probably did that week because my mom would have just snapped on me. So it was an empty threat? Yeah.
I definitely didn't do them that day, though. I'll be honest.
I'll be honest. But definitely during that week.
I cook a lot your mom you and your mom had like a stare down a game of chicken like will jerry kill himself or will he do the dishes she was she was pissed she was pissed that that got released um but yeah i mean i still go crazy man i don't i try not to let myself get to that point anymore but uh i just cried during overtime at all yeah i mean she's what we like she's upstairs you know i mean out of respect i try to tone down because in the gambling cave you go crazy yeah because i'm not home you know what i mean but like even if you notice in the live video i was trying to stay quiet for the most part because i didn't want her coming downstairs and just snapping yeah do you make um you make bargains with the universe going into games like you know you know, just telling them. Oh, like I'd do anything.

I'll do this if we can just pull off this one win.

All week, yeah.

One last win.

Like my dream, like if I could have one dream and one thing come true,

it wouldn't be for me to be a millionaire.

It wouldn't be for my family to be set for the rest of their life.

It would be for Big Ben to go out like the bus did with a ring you know what i

mean okay i'd love that i'd do anything i'd do anything for that anything beautiful um all right well jerry thank you good luck sunday night we'll be with you let's do numbers let's guess numbers yeah 66 what are you not how do you not eight seven no

66

okay

6

I'll guess 7

would this be their 7 title too

yeah Eight. Seven? No.
66. Okay.
Six. I'll guess seven.
Would this be their seventh title, too? Yeah. So, seventh seed.
Big Ben, you know, a sign that I had. Last time they won, they were the sixth seed.
Yeah. This time they're the seventh seed.
Steelers have six rings. Yeah.
Number seven, Big Ben, seven Super Bowls. Seventh seed.
Seventh seed. Seventh seed, number seven.
It's going to happen. On the uniform.
What's the day of the Super Bowl? What's the date? February 7th. No.
No, it's not. I know.
I just made that one up. All right.
I'll go seven. Do I need to be suspended? I'll leave it up to the committee.
No, Jake, you don't self-report.

No, you can't self-impose punishments.

That's what I did last week.

Yeah, no. You have to

notes app.

No, no, no.

We've suspended enough people

today. Memes?

Three. 44.

It's up tomorrow.

Doesn't count.

Another redraw.

42.

42 almost got up there.

I'm seeing 69.

If this is seven now after that false start, I'm putting everything on the Steelers.

What is that?

Is that seven?

It's a one.

Oh.

It's a one.

Number one.

Jerry, you're number one.

All right.

See everyone on Friday. They use giant rats rats diffuse landmines.
Love you guys. I love you.
I love you. I love you.
Until I, until I, until I love you. I love you.
I love you. Until I find the only words I know that you will.
Until I, until I say the only words I know That you, until I, until I know We're talking away The words I know I don't know what I'm to say I say it anyway Today's another day to find you Shying away I'll be coming for your love of cake Shying away I'll be coming for your love. Okay.
Shining away.

I'll be coming for your love.

Okay.

Take on me.

Take me.

I'll be.

I'll be gone And after your team Needless to say I'm all descended But I need to go a little way Slowly learning the life is okay Say after me It's no better to be safe Say It's no better to be safe Take On me Take me On I'll be Gone Choo-'t do All the things that you say Is it a lot more Just play my worries away You're all the things I've got to remember You're shying me I'll be gone in a day