Kirk Herbstreit, Jimmy Graham, And Saying Goodbye To Big Ben

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we have a twofer for the people. We have Kirk Herbstreet talking college football, national title game, also opt-outs, and all the controversy that wasn't really controversy over the weekend.

We also have Chicago Bear tight end Jimmy Graham talking about his career,

talking about being nominated for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award.

Awesome interview with him.

We have recap of Monday Night Football, Big Ben's last game in Pittsburgh until next year.

And then Hot Seat Cool Throne and Guys on Chicks.

Great Wednesday show for you.

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Today is Wednesday, January 5th. And Big Ben has played his last game in Pittsburgh.
Not necessarily true, according to Antonio Brown, who revealed on Instagram livestream yesterday that he wouldn't put past Big Ben to come back next year. No, it was actually on a cameo.
It was on a cameo, yeah. Yes, it was on a cameo.
He went better. He went gremlin mode on Big Ben's career and said, he's not done.
Let's just take a moment. Let's take a moment.
Let's just take a moment and let it all soak in. It was touching.
Big, fat, big Ben's face with the teary eyes. He kept his helmet on.
They were bentastic years. That was one of the signs.
I actually don't think he could take his helmet off. I think his face had swollen up during the game.
Yeah, his post-game interview where he spoke into his mouthpiece. Yeah, and then when he was walking into the tunnel with his family.
His beautiful wife. Daddy's still a football player, guys.
Daddy's a football player. It's sad.
17, 18 years? 18 years. It was a long time.
I mean, just think about everything that's happened in those 18 years. Black and yellow.
I said black and gold. Black and yellow, black and yellow.

He put on that cape.

That black and yellow cape for us.

For the last time.

Question mark?

And we couldn't fix him.

He couldn't.

He couldn't fix himself.

Yeah.

The doctors couldn't fix him.

Big Ben tried.

What a scene.

And the best part was the game was just objectively terrible.

Well, Big Ben had one of a kind.

Like literally an all-time passing performance in the game.

I'll read it. What a scene.
And the best part was the game was just objectively terrible. Well, Big Ben had one of a kind, like literally an all-time passing performance in the game, a historical passing performance.
He's the first starting quarterback to win a game with 40-plus pass attempts and fewer than 150 passing yards. Oh, beautiful.
Since quarterback starts for first track beginning in 1950, starting quarterbacks were combined 0-13 with those numbers entering yesterday that's brought to you by that's we'll just say part of my take stats

and info that was i mean it was um he he went out with a win he went out with a win on his shield

and i really really hope deep down he just shows up to training camp next year and he's like what

wait what i i was i was just joking like i wasn't serious i'm still stealer it would be so funny if he did that next year and then we all think back like wait but we already did we used our good goodbye right last year i would be fine with it i would be i'd be perfectly happy to do this every year in week 17 for the net for the foreseeable future if it meant that big ben kept playing just a monday night game late in the season when when you know he could maybe go to every team and just do a goodbye for every city it was it was nice seeing him like celebrate at the end it was it was very funny though right after the game was over and they tried to give him a second curtain call by calling a timeout uh when he took that knee yeah there's still a couple seconds left tomlin tried to call the timeout but the the reporters were already on the field so you can't kick reporters off correct after that start so they just ended the game and then um big ben was walking towards the exit and they said no wait there's one last thing i've got to take care of and he turned around and then he just walked over to the bench and just sat on the bench by himself just to get that picture just to get that picture that picture is worth a lot there were cameras around him no no listen and then it was nice to see him celebrating with his whole family shout out drew breeze yep uh on the way out of the game and seeing the media follow him afterwards but it was very nice it was it was a good shot seeing big ben like holding his family's hands walking through the tunnel his beautiful family his beautiful family beautiful family. It was, listen, Big Ben is objectively one of the funniest quarterbacks that we've ever had in the NFL.
He's just funny. Like, his body's funny.
The injuries are funny. He won two Super Bowls.
He was, at a time, I would have picked him, like, up there. I know I saw Dave Dave made that discussion of like the the guys you'd pick in the fourth quarter to win a drive Big Ben was my answer for a very long time just because of how hard he was to bring down how good he was with his arm um it's I wish he could stick around because much like Phil Rivers or Eli Manning like the comedy of the NFL goes down a little bit when Big Ben retires yeah Yeah.
Big Ben, if you're listening, just close your ears real quick. This might be a triggering word, but there's a compilation of Big Ben doing the extending plays thing.
Yeah. That's probably like three, four minutes long.
It is the best football game that you can watch. It's just like, you know, from Big Ben's prime, there were so many instances in a fourth quarter of a game when he'd have three guys hanging on him like wolves trying to take down an elephant, and he would just shake them off, stumble to his left a couple feet, make a ridiculous throw that he had no business making, and look like the most unathletic person in the world while doing it.
Right. But he would do it repeatedly, and he was so good at it.
Eventually, you had to just be like, Big Ben, he is extremely athletic, but he just happens to look really, really goofy whenever he does some of this stuff. Yes.
One of the best quarterbacks in the last 20 years, for sure. So much fun to watch.
Did you think it was a little odd that they went like, to me, Big Ben, so much fun to watch, automatic Hall of Famer, two Super Bowls, like one of those quarterbacks that he kind of breaks the mold. You won't see another guy quite like him.
It did seem a little extra that ESPN and everyone was like, and he's a great guy. It's like, wait, but we know he's not.
Like, let's not pretend. Well, I mean, we've seen all the documentaries behind it.
No. We know he's not a good guy.
The last two years, Big Ben has put out some of the best documentaries film work. He's done kids' camp.
Chronically, what a good father he is. It's the old, you know, as good as Big Ben was as a player, he was even better as a person.
No, no. Not this time.
Let's just say Big Ben was a Hall of Fame player. I did hear one announcer refer to him as an outstanding young man yesterday.
That made me laugh so hard. Everything about that statement is wrong.
He's a guy. I will miss him.
I will miss him dearly. It's very similar to Philip Rivers or Eli Manning.
It's just I was actually getting a little sentimental last night of like 2010-ish era NFL when you had Peyton, Brady, Breeze, you know, Rivers, Manning, man, or both Mannings,

Big Ben, like there, I don't know, maybe with social media and everything, I feel like we

won't have as unintentionally funny guys and cast of characters.

Nobody benefited more from existing pre-social media than Big Ben.

Yes, that is absolutely true.

That would have been.

Well. Yeah.
I mean, point well taken. Yes.
Also. Big Ben on and off the field had a hard time with people that said you can't do something.
Yes. Yes.
But it's. You love proving all the doubters wrong.
It's a hell of a send off for Big Ben. They still got one more game.
He had to check himself, actually. He was like, oh, yeah, we got one more game, so we're going to try our hardest, even though we're not eliminated, but we are eliminated.
I am rooting so hard, not just because of my pinky, but I think that everyone in America should be rooting for the Jaguars because this idea that the Chargers and Raiders would have a kneel-off is so fucking funny. It would never happen.
It would be so funny. Not Rich Basicki as Raiders.
I don't know. But, yeah, if the Jaguars do win, then both the Raiders and the Chargers can both get into the playoffs with a tie.
With a tie. I think, I mean, just the Raiders, they feel like they're in close-to-tie games a lot, right? It might just naturally happen.
No, they could just kneel it, run it up the middle. If your team had the chance to go to the playoffs and all they had to do was kneel and they didn't kneel, you would be furious.
I would be furious. Oh, absolutely.
It has to happen. If somehow the Jaguars win, they have to do the kneel.
But you have to also depend on the other team to kneel. Yeah, no.
It's not just one team. But they could.
They both have to agree. They stand in the middle and they're just like, hey, just go for it on fourth down.
You don't have to turn on the other team to kneel. Yeah, no.
It's not just one team. But they could – They both have to agree.
They stand in the middle and they're just like, hey, just go for it on fourth down. You don't have to kneel, but you could just run it up the middle and just be like, do not score.
Just kneel. Both coaches should meet, agree to kneel, kneel it out.
Would be such a funny broadcast. If you're a coach, like, it's a win-win, literally.
Yeah. And then, I mean, we were close to it last year when the Eagles just gave up, right? Like, that wasn't that different.
No, that was a legitimate NFC East title for the football team last year. They just gave up.
I reject the implication that Nate Sudfeld was a white flag. Who stands to lose, though, if it's the Raiders and the Chargers? The Steelers.
So the Steelers would be the ones affected. Correct.
The Steelers would make, if the Colts lose, and then the Raiders and the Chargers play an earnest football game, and let's say the Chargers win, I think the Steelers then go if they win their game against the Ravens. And we get more Big Ben.
That's what we want. Yes.
That's what we want. I want Big Ben to just do a million more home games.
All the time. Did anyone actually ask him directly if this was it? Yeah, somebody did.
And I think his answer was, I think you can pretty much say that, like, I'm done with my career. So it's not done, done, done.
He's leaving it open. It's not done.
And you know that Mike Tomlin, when he's talking about Big Ben, he said all the right things, but you could see that there was like a little bit behind it where he isn't entirely sure because Big Ben is liable to show up at training camp next year not say a word and be like all right let's do this I think what Big Ben is doing now that I'm hearing all this is that I think he's essentially retiring and then on the last day of work he's gonna walk out of the facility and he's gonna do do the thing like, did you say something? Like keep looking back like, oh, did you want me to do another? Oh, did you want me? And hoping that someone says, hey, Ben, we want you back. Yeah.
And it's probably not going to happen. So he's going to sit in his car and be like, was Tomlin saying something when I left? He's going to get a text from like Friarmuth or one guy, maybe the punter this offseason.
like hey ben are you like officially done are you coming back and big ben's gonna say it sounds like the guys want me back i can't turn my back on all the guys yes i gotta come back and do it for my teammates one last year yeah so come back just do it do it um it was it was kind of appropriate though that uh the browns uh season kind of ended in a way at the same time as Big Ben was walking away from the game. The way that Baker Mayfield, after the game, is saying, you know what, I've been hurt this entire year.
Yep. I'm shutting it down.
I'm going to get the surgery on my non-throwing arm, and then we'll see where it lands from there. Because, listen, we're Baker guys.
I like Baker. I was going to say, objectively speaking, we're not going to sit here and defend Baker.
We're just going to say he's hurt. He's hurt.
We're Baker guys, but he's been hurt all year. You've got to give him a fifth year to decide if he's still hurt.
He's been here all year. No, he's been bad.
He's been very bad. He was bad, especially that first half.
No, he's been bad. He has been bad.
He would admit that he was bad. Yes, and I actually still think that the Browns, like, Baker deserves a lot of blame for not having a good year, but the Browns deserve a lot of blame for kind of bungling this entire injury.
Like, they never really were like, hey, Baker, let's get you healthy and try to put it all back together. Instead, it was just every week, let's get you out there.
And he got progressively injured and was playing progressively worse. I just think they screwed that up.
Like, if you go on a time machine, I don't even remember, was it week two that he got hurt? I think it was week two or week three. Like, if he had just said, like, hey, let's get you healthy, Case Keenum can – the reason why Case Keenum is a decent backup is he can go 500 for a few weeks.
Yeah, so the thing, though, if he had gotten shoulder surgery but he had a bunch of injuries but if you so yeah but it started off with that torn labrum and his non-throwing shoulder and if you get that surgery uh then that's like six months eight months where he can't really play before he gets back to full strength and if you try to do it without doing the surgery you're just going to hurt it again right when you get back in so the option was either baker either you can or you can't play but it's not it shouldn't be up to baker to determine whether or not he should be the starting quarterback for the rest of the year you have a head coach right and your head coach at some point should say okay baker is very clearly hurt he should be out getting his treatment done getting surgery getting fixed up because he is a good quarterback when he's healthy. That's not on Baker Mayfield to decide.
Some people are saying Baker's selfish for playing this year and for costing the Browns an opportunity at the playoffs given the roster that they have around him. I'd probably do the same thing if you're Baker Mayfield.
Yeah, no, your coach should be the one who's like – and to be honest, I don't know if Case Keenum would have made that much of an improvement over their overall record because, like you said, Case Keenum, he's Mr. 500.
He's a good backup. Right.
But I don't think that you can say without Baker, we'd definitely make the playoffs given the entire rest of the roster. Maybe they'd try to go out and get somebody else.
I don't know. Well, they were snakebitten all year, too, with a lot of different things.
It felt like they lost an offensive lineman every other week. And, you know, they were in it until week 17, until Sunday's games.
I don't know. I think you have to bring back Baker for his fifth year, but he definitely falls in the camp of a guy that you can't be giving a record-breaking contract to.
That's not like something wild. That's not a hot take.
I think we all agree with that. He's not an upper echelon quarterback right now.
Could he be? I don't know. But he isn't right now.
He hasn't shown that he has been. So I think that's where the frustration comes from Browns fans.
Like, what are we going to do? You can't. Every quarterback that has a little bit of success seems to get that big contract.
I think he's one of those guys you have to wait and see if he can maybe if he has a great year next year maybe but otherwise maybe move on well you're not going to find somebody in the draft that's going to if you're the browns you if i'm a browns fan it'd be a very tough sell to convince me go back to the draft right now given the fact that baker mayfield is literally the only guy that's worked out for you well no i think it's I think it's a drafted quarterback in the second or third round and see if he, you know what I mean? Like Baker's the quarterback next year. And if at some point maybe it's not a Kellen Mond situation, which Mike Zimmer, I loved that answer from him.
If you missed it, Kellen Mond, or a reporter asked Mike Zimmer, why don't you give Kellen Mond a chance? Like, why don't we see what he's got? And Mike Zimmer's like, I see what he's got every single day in practice. Next question.
Not going to happen. Yeah.
Yeah. We always, as fans, we always are like, start that guy, start that guy.
Forgetting that they do see them. And if, unless there's reports that he's lighting up the world, which that will happen sometimes.
But, but yeah, with Baker, I actually think maybe the solution is you do draft a guy in the first round and you get Baker pissed off. You get an entire offseason of Mad Baker.
That's when he – like, put him back in his walk-on mentality where it's like no one believes in you, Baker, for an entire offseason. That would be awesome.
Say, okay, Baker, no more commercials. Or you draft a guy and then you just you get him all the endorsements right in the offseason and then you watch baker as a true underdog scrap and claw to get not only his starting position back but also the progressive ads yes which i mean yeah he's got to definitely make sure that he has less ads next year no matter what it's funny because they shoot those in the offseason right but when when they're being played every single commercial break it does feel like i'm very dumb so when i watch it on tv i'm like why is baker doing all these ads this week he should have been preparing right right and then there was uh why is he still living in this stadium yeah there was another report that said that i think it was albert breer saying that the washington football team was considering trading the ninth overall pick for Baker Mayfield.
That seems steep. It seems.
I'm just in fuck it mode right now. That seems steep.
He'd be fun. He'd be fun.
That's all I care about right now. Yeah, maybe.
Yeah. Last night wasn't fun to watch.
Last night he's hurt. He's hurt.
He's very hurt. He's very hurt.
Okay. Should we do hot seat, cool thrown, Big ben uh we get one more week where who are they playing next week ravens i just here's what i guess we have to hope for is maybe someone we never root for injuries but it would be funny if someone on the steelers the quarterback on the steelers got injured next year and he came back and saved their season oh yeah i mean the second dwayne haskins he's gonna stay in shape oh for sure he's gonna be in the best i hope ben is like 400 pounds i mean by august what's he good yeah he's not gonna know what to do with himself this offseason maybe and i again like you said we don't root for injuries but if big bang could have like a minor like tweak tweak his knee or something like that in the very last he needs something to work towards in the offseason so he doesn't feel like he's just sitting around like let him just let him go to rehab just lie to him after the game and say hey hey ben thanks for your service uh also your elbow is screwed up so we're gonna need to see you in here every week every week just get treatment on that just keep it keep an eye on him yeah we can say hank the uh the baby boom that's gonna come from eight months or whatever at nine months after his hall of fame ceremony in Canton is going to be all time.
That's going to be the biggest Pittsburgh party for weekend that's probably ever happened. And I love Pittsburgh.
The scenes were cool because Pittsburgh's a football city through and through. And they all are just such diehard fans.
It was cool to see. It was a fun, memorable night, even though the game sucked.
Also, no one cares, but rest in peace to anyone that lost their fantasy championship because of Najee Harris. Or having Nick Chubb and having Kevin Stefanski fuck you in the face.
Or going against Pittsburgh's defense that got that interception. I saw a couple people that last interception, like meaningless interception.
It was. The Najee Harris run was such a meaningless fuck you to so many people.
And we don't talk about fantasy much on this, but championship week, those type of things will drive you insane. It was funny because I was watching the Manning cast when that happened, and they were all screaming at the TV, go down, go down, because that's a smart football play would be to go down to pull up Todd Gurley.
But, yeah, so much money swung based on that one touchdown run. And I do love watching Najee Harris run with the ball because he gets through defenders, and every single time it's an unconventional way.
It's either a stiff arm that puts you into the turf. Oh, he punched that guy right in the face last night.
It was awesome. Or he jumps over you.
Yeah. He doesn't really do, like you'll never see him pull a Barry Sanders type move around somebody.
But he gets through you either violently or directly over your head. He was sick.
Yeah. Oh, and TJ Watt.
Oh, yeah. TJ Watt, Defensive Player of the Year.
I'm so mad at myself. Instead of betting, you know, like I did on the Cowboys, which is I just burned my money.
I said TJ Watt was going to be defensive player of the year two months ago and he's going to he's going to set the record for sacks incredible incredible season the impact he's had on on like he is the Steelers defense he has to win this award he also it is very funny too because now we have 18 game season or yeah 18 gamegame season. 17.
17-game season, 18-week season. So a lot of records are going to get broken.
But the one record that I don't think anyone has a problem having it be broken is Michael Strahan's because he got it cheaply with the Brett Favre laydown. So it's very funny.
And TJ Watt also was injured for a lot of the year. I saw some people tweeting out different numbers about that, so I'm not sure exactly how many games TJ Watt's played in.
It's somewhere between – it will end up being somewhere between 13 and 16 games. Yeah.
So it counts. He missed one full game, and he left two other games with injury.
Yeah. So, yeah, it'll be like probably about 14 games.
But I don't think that anybody's going to say, like, this record should not stand one because of what you said and also because he legitimately accomplished it under that amount of games. And he was incredible.
Yeah, he was absolutely incredible. All right, let's do hot seat.
Although I did see one person say, like, this record shouldn't count. Maybe it was in reply to one of your tweets that you quote to a big cat, but somebody was saying, like, this record should have an asterisk because he got to play against Lam Lamar and Baker, yeah.
Yeah, Lamar and then Baker Mayfield twice. It's like, I can think of many divisions out there with two easier quarterbacks to sack than Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and he hasn't even played Lamar twice.
Yeah. So they have a week 18 game.
Yeah, that was very weird that people don't think TJ Watt should be defensive player of the year. I don't really even know.
Maybe Micah Parsons, maybe Miles Garrett you could throw in there. But I don't know who else would be in the conversation between those two guys.
And TJ Watt has better numbers than both of them. I just love that we've reached a point where I can't tell the difference between the people that just do the little fraud thing.
Where it's like, oh, this is a Mickey Mouse title about everything as a joke. And those who are serious about it.
I think that guy was serious. No, he was serious.
Yeah. Yeah.
He was an Ohio State guy. He was serious.
The Mickey Mouse thing is also serious. Oh, the bubble thing is LaFraud.
Yeah. And Hank getting Disney feels because of a graphic last night that made perfect sense.
What? Tom Brady, buck for life life it was a graphic that said most wins in a single stadium and uh tom brady was one in gillette it was elway far big ben and uh farv has played on multiple teams he was in his packers jersey and tom brady was in the bucks jersey but that's because he's a current buck he's on the boxs. But they're talking about Gillette.
Right, but he's on the Bucs. No, it's basically like when they would always say Ben has the most wins of any quarterback in Cleveland.
They should have had him in a 98% Patriots jersey and 1% Bucs jersey because that's the ratio of wins in Gillette. But I do really think that it was because he's currently playing.
We'll see. We'll see.

How are we going to find out?

When he retires, we're going to see what they put him up as. Okay, that's right.
That's true. It would have been weird, though, if he was a Patriot.
What if he plays the same amount of seasons with the Bucs as he did with the Patriots? Then, you know, if he wins five more Super Bowls with them, they can have that conversation. He's 65 years old.
also I hope Bills fans are watching the stat when they showed dominant

quarterbacks versus other teams. It was like Big Ben 24-3, and then I think it was Brady was like 34-2 against the Bills.
I think it would be very funny, though, if Tom Brady beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl this year. I think at that point, you have to go into the Hall of Fame as a buck, right? I'm just saying this right we beat the bills in the playoffs i don't care what happens whoa okay i'm just gonna say that right now they've been that mean to you no i just i'm just gonna put it out there which would you rather have right now beating the bills in the playoffs or what the celtics beating the 76ers in the playoffs oh with ben sim Ben Simmons on the Celtics.
Pat, Bills. Bills fans are my current, you know.
I can only focus on what's in front of me. Wow, it's gotten that bad that quickly.
There has been, to Philadelphia's detriment, there has been more Bills fans that have said, like, you know, sorry some Bills fans are being mean to you. It's not all of us.
That never happened with Philly. Philly's just like, yeah, we are who are who we are go hang from a bridge i've always respected that from billy they they are who they are and they don't care that's the best part all right hot seat cool throw there's making a sandwich and then there's crafting a sandwich and when i want something perfectly crafted i go straight to boar's head for over a century boar's head has been dedicated to crafting premium deli favorites.

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My hot seat, speaking of Celtics, former Celtic, Tristan Thompson. Yes.
What a story. He came out yesterday with an Instagram story that said, today paternity results reveal that I fathered a child with the girl's name.
And now paternity has been established. I look forward to amically raising our son.
I think that's his second, third, maybe fourth kid that he's had that's not with Khloe Kardashian. But in the next story, he said, Absolute king.
I have the utmost respect and love for you, talking to Khloe. Right, respect, yes.
Kind of mixed signals there, but probably not. Never fun to be Tristan Thompson in these situations.
Wait, I mean, are people not taking his side? Because he said with the utmost respect. Never fun to be Khloe Kardashian.
Both of them. I wouldn't want to be either one of them.
I would say Khloe is the one one that you got to feel bad for. Tristan, he just fucks everything.

Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, but respectfully.

I'm not saying I feel bad for him.

I'm just saying you never want to be in a situation where the whole internet's coming at your neck.

He's always there.

Has this not happened like four times? I don't want to sound like a Tristan Thompson apologist.

Sounds like you are.

No, I think my words are misconstrued.

But yeah, shitty situation for... Does she have any kids with her?

Yeah.

Yes.

Two.

Well, that's what...

So I think he had a kid with her.

Then he had another kid, and everyone was like, leave him, Chloe.

Then they had another kid.

Yes.

And that's where people are like, Chloe, what are you doing?

He's clearly like a serial cheater.

You're an idiot.

She's like, no, he's changed.

And then I think he's had like three more kids.

Yes.

And he had that video. He like had a porn video that got released.
Remember that? Yeah, that's a huge bonk. I don't remember that.
It did. It definitely happened.
Take your word for it. Yeah.
Send me that link. What are you looking at, Billy? Nothing.
Tristan Thompson trends like every six months for this exact thing. Wasn't it the video of just her friend grinding on him or something? I just remember Tristan Thompson was trending.
Everyone's like, you seen that video? It was very, like, he does this. He's the horniest man alive.
And then every time he's like, oh, I'm sorry, Chloe. Didn't mean that.
I mean, at some point, though, it's the whole, you know, fool me once, shame on you. I would say it's well past that point.
Have five children outside our marriage, then maybe fool on us. We won't get fooled again.
Maybe this is just their relationship. Maybe this is what they're addicted to.
This is what they get off on. Public humiliation.
No judge. No judgment.
Yeah. Okay, your cool throne? My cool throne is darts.
Yes. So this clip that came out today, there's been a few clips, you know, a couple, like the most electric thing, I think I got in during quarantine, darts, watching darts, following darts, the scoring of it.
A nine dart round is one of the most electric things in sports. It's basically a perfect game of darts.
And then today, this video, this guy's name is Ted Hankey. Look him up.
He's got a bunch of viral videos. He's an electric darts character, but he's basically talking to himself as he's throwing and he looks like Tony Soprano and he basically says, who's in charge? Me or the devil? I think me.
And then throws the dart he wanted to throw. Just an unbelievable trash talking clip that he talks his shit and then does what he wants to do.
Great clip and then obviously from that a bunch of other viral clips of him just being a psychopath. Apparently he had a stroke mid-game and finished the game and after the game he was like yeah no that was like what happened? You were like twitching and freaking out and he was like yeah I had a stroke.
He looks like Tony Soprano. He looks like Tony Soprano in real life playing darts.
And so yeah I mean there's always videos that perfect dart rounds go out. those go viral but just in general it's a great sport to watch i want to go to a that's one of my bucket list of sports events is like in a huge darting event in either england or ireland yeah the people are fired up because those look those look so fun you just you get hammered and then you just scream their chance i love any sport that has like organized songs and chants going on in the background.
The rest of the clip after the guy hits the double 20 or whatever it was, was also a stark reminder of how much different British TV is from American TV. Cause the guy's mic'd up and he's talking to his mic.
He's like, yeah, you're bloody well right. You can't like just dropping hard C bombs.
And the announcers are like cracking up about it. Like, oh yeah, he yeah he's a bit of a colorful character this one i'm just imagining like on on mic'd up if uh if like jj watt got caught dropping a c-bomb they i mean christ yeah christ yeah yeah ah jesus christ uh all right your hot seat cool throne pft uh well i was gonna put darts on there hank got to that before i did so on your hot seat? My hot seat or my cool throne, one of the two.
Well, he asked for your hot seat. So my hot seat was going to be the Red Wolves.
Red Wolves are on the hot seat. The Washington Red Wolves are no longer on the table for the Washington football team.
Oh, they officially took it off? They took it off, yeah. They're doing this thing called Making the Brand where they show the whole

franchise behind the scenes, like trying to figure out

what's going to be the next name for the football team.

They have a vote?

What? That sounds like...

Do those people have a say in it, though? No, it's just a video

series. They're just saying, like, alright, we're

just going to X out of this

Photoshop? No, it's...

They're like an image creator, and they're like,

alright, nope. Well, it's mostly based around Jason image creator and they're like all right nope well it's mostly based around jason wright and ron rivera like talking through all the options and so this most recent one was them saying we can't do red wolves even though we wanted to because there are other sports teams that have copyrights that would have made this impossible for us to execute on so now uh there's all sorts of conspiracies about what it's going to be they're going to announce the team name on fe February 2nd, which is Groundhogs Day.
We've got to leak it. Someone's got to leak it.
I'm thinking it's going to be the Red Hogs, which I love, actually, because you're giving a throwback to the Hogs, the old offensive linemen. Yeah, that's good.
And you can do so much cool shit with pissed-off-looking pigs. Yep, dicks.
Yeah, Razorbacks. Bonk.
Yeahorbacks, the hot, the feral hogs, Billy was saying, you can call them the 30 to 50 feral hogs. So yeah, I'm starting to like more and more the idea of the red hogs, but some people are saying it's going to be the brigade now or the Armada.
I don't, I'm just certain that no matter what they pick, everyone's going to hate it for the first 24 hours. And they'll probably continue to hate it until they win.
And then if you win, you can call them whatever. And people will be like, oh, yeah, that name's kind of growing on me.
Yeah, it's just they'll try for three hours, and then we'll all forget. Exactly.
Anything's better than football team. I like football team.
It's grown on me. It's kind of nice.
It's like we don't need a mascot. We play football.
It's just a football team. It's kind of European.
A little bit. A little bit.
Soccer teams, too. Club.
Yeah. Football club.
All right. And your cool throne? My cool throne is the low man trophy being an actual trophy.
Yes. This is mine as well.
Okay. Yeah.
We dropped it last night. We made the announcement at halftime of the Monday football game.
John Chenal. Chenal.
Again, still don't know how to pronounce his name. It's pronounced like eight different ways now.
He won. and then people got mad because people were saying that other people should have won the drill.
Yes. Well, guess what? Iowa got mad.
There was a committee that was convened, and we voted on it. And perhaps if you wanted your fullback to win, then you should have had simply a better rushing offense.
Yes. What were the final results? I don't know the ballots.
And't know the ballots. And who were the most mad? Yeah.
Okay. Iowa fans were the most mad, which is very funny because they go around the internet saying people are mad about Iowa.
Michigan State fans were mad that Connor Hayward, who is kind of a dubious fullback. He plays a lot.
He's listed in certain program guides as being a big boy weapon, which is why I obviously I took that and I was like, yeah, I'll allow this in the fullback category but um he was he finished i think in third place i've never seen the ballots that's the best part is they think that i have an inside job i've never seen the ballots it just happens that wisconsin runs the best offense with a fullback that isn't a triple option like i was saying on the text chain if we had a wide receiver trophy in wisconsin one then you would have a fair case that it's Rick. This is Wisconsin is fullback you.
Right. So what were the final votes? So number one was Chanel.
Chanel. Chanel.
Thank you, Jake. Number two was Jacoby Buchanan.
The Buchanan ball from Army. Who won last year.
Who won last year. And then number three was a tie.
I need to look at it. I think it was Hayward and Monty Pottebom from Iowa.
Let me just double check because I tweeted out last night after I looked up the results of the top three. But there was definitely a tie at number three overall.
I noticed in the video I kept saying without further ado before I announced the award. Like 90% of what I say in life is ado.
So you should be used to that. Don't give me shit about that.
I'm a big ado guy. It was also, Iowa fans were also saying that they don't have the correct representation.
What does that mean? In terms of voters. Yeah, they think that there should be a fullback.
Because Alec Engle is on there? Yeah. Is on the committee? He won.
Yeah, Alec Engle is a winner of the trophy. So that was the other argument they were making, that there's not enough Iowa players.
Who is the best Iowa fullback of all time? George Kittle. Tight end.
I know. We should just throw him on there to make everyone not mad anymore.
I do think was the top three so we're good third place overall was a tie between Connor Hayward and Monty Pada bomb okay perfect but it's good that people are mad about it because it means it's real that's the best part that's why I was on my cool throne too because if you're going to get mad about a trophy that means you're taking it too seriously that it might be real. And shout out to all the schools that made hype videos and stuff.
That also helps. That was sick.
Good stuff. That was sick.
Yeah, you're right. It's a good thing that people are mad.
Yes. They take it seriously.
And we are aware of allegations that one of our low man committee members was acting unprofessionally on social media, debating people angrily that were making accusations against him. That person has been spoken to and they've been told that me in the future uh please continue to do this because it's good for driving up publicity around the ward sorry i had to tell iowa fans they had the 102nd rushing offense i don't know that sucks is it true i didn't watch the game but if if they had a better rushing offense could they be kentucky they did go they the game? Well, they had fourth and one, and they punted, yeah.
Yikes. So, I don't know.
Seems like if you had a guy that could really push him up. I don't know.
Maybe. Army would have gone for that.
Also, I don't want this to reflect poorly on Monty Pottabon. No, he's still got an eligibility.
Year of eligibility, right? And he's an awesome fullback. Yeah, no, we love him.
Bulletin board material. He's probably embarrassed at the conduct of the Pottabon stands.
Yes unfullback-like for everyone to complain like this. You just take your award and you take it, and that's it.
All right, my hot seat is Jake still because Wisconsin beat Purdue at Purdue. Number three Purdue.
No one has ever been more wrong bracketology-wise preseason than Jake Marsh. Are they ranked? And everybody else.
That's it. See, this is the part where Jake, he had a moment in time.
Hank and I were kind of giving him a little guff this morning. He had a moment in time where he could have broken out.
If he had put the Badgers in the bracket before the season started, he would be the only one who looks smart. Yeah, but this is the brilliance of Jake's plan because he's like the pollsters who say, well, I'm only telling you what it would be if it started today.
Right, but he also could have just... Jake is not making any judgments on the actual teams themselves.
He's just saying he's a thermometer. You don't look at the thermometer and be like, yo, this thermometer sucks.
It's too hot outside. You walk outside and you get mad at the weather.

So be mad at the weather.

No, he should come up with his own opinions.

Not at our sweet darling Jake.

He should come up with his own opinions.

They weren't supposed to be good this year.

You knew that too.

No, Johnny Davis.

Right.

National Player of the Year.

If you had a vote.

Yeah.

Number one.

You would win it.

But no one would say that two months ago.

Low man and National Player of the Year.

I might have to get another shirt going.

All in one year.

Yeah, no, that was an awesome game. Jake, everyone go listen to Stool Benchmob.
Great podcast with Jake and Marty Mush. Hey, hey.
Billy, go ahead. Wait.
Billy, go ahead. Wait.
Hotsi Coulteron. Rico Bosco.
Oh, yeah, yeah, Rico as well. Yeah, Rico as well.
I want to give credit to Rico Bosco. I feel like he's been a forgotten man recently.
Rico, to his credit. and Rico would take a bullet for you.
Rico, to his credit, did say that if Wisconsin didn't have Johnny Davis on their team, they wouldn't be as good. I just think that's fucked a lie.
That is fact. Fact or fiction.
That is fact. I just think Rico gets a bad rap, and he's an outstanding human that more people should respect.
100% behind him. So my hot seat is the Washington football team.
Jalen Hurts recently released a letter asking for the Washington football team to take some follow-up action to what happened after the railing collapsed. He open-lettered us? He open-lettered you guys.
Notes app? I don't know if it was exactly. Yeah, it's Notes app.
He Notes app open-lettered us after kicking the shit out of us in our own house? Yeah. And, you know, some people were saying that when those fans fell on the field, they were just told to get the F off the field.
Ah. And the only one who helped them was Jalen Hurts.
That's a fact. So, on the hot seat.
Goddamn, I wish I would have been one of those fans that had fallen onto the field. Sued for everything.
I would have been in a neck brace before I got off the ground. Yep.
I would be in court right now, and I would be well on my way to owning the entire team. Also, there's a little discourse about whether the cameraman was kicking the people on the ground.
Oh, he was mad. He was so mad.
You could watch it again. He was like, what the fuck? Why did these people fall on me? Well, it's not their fault.
I like Jason Wright. That being said, I hope one of these – I rather have a philadelphia eagles diehard super fan the guy that was wearing the helmet i hope that guy sues dan snyder and takes the entire team away from him and ends up owning the team that's how bad things are right now i would i would rather the biggest philadelphia eagles fan in the world the biggest asshole in philadelphia i want you to own the team instead of our guy that we have right now.
Please do that for me. Please, Sue.
Thank you. And my cool throne is Antonio Brown because he hasn't actually been cut yet.
Oh, really? Hasn't been released. Interesting.
So no roster movement. So kind of cool throne on him.
But he's just like hanging out. He's not at practice or anything.

He was at the Nets game. Yeah.
And there's also a theory out there that he just didn't realize there

was 18 weeks.

So he's like thought the season was over. So it's

like, all right, well, it's

over. This is the season.
It's definitely

a possibility. Yeah.
Cool.

Like he thought he wasn't going to get all those incentives

and everything because that was the last regular season game.

All right, Jake, your hot seat. Cool thrown.
My hot seat is Kellen Mont, the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. His head coach, Mike Zimmer.
He was asked, will we see him next week? He said, not particularly. Why? I see him every day.
Got him. Do we have a situation where you weren't listening? We did.
Oh, no. This broke at midnight.
No, but Jake, we talked about it on this show. 15 minutes ago.
You got me. Oh! Wow.
Let's go. No one's a bigger winner than Billy in this situation.
In his defense. The words hadn't come out of Jake Marsh's mouth before Billy was grabbing the microphone.
In his defense, no. Ready to high-step on his dead body.

Oh, no, Jake.

Being on this green couch, there's a lot of quick thinking on your feet you have to do.

Men in the arena?

To, you know, like, someone takes.

We should do it.

For Halloween next year, we'll flip it.

You guys will sit in our seats.

Well, it's just the order.

Because we're scrambling.

Yeah, you think you guys are just AWLs listening.

Like, you have to do so much more.

I wish I could go back to just listening. In Jake's face right now is so much.
You can anytime. In Jake's face, there's so much disappointment.
I love it. You eat it.
I love it. That's what I want.
I want that. You die on that field.
He's so mad at himself. Jake, what do you think it was? Do some self-scouting at this point what do you think it was that made you miss that i think i was double checking the tweet maybe pulling it up because i had it in my notes i was looking at the context to read it out loud what pull up your your uh search history see what you were looking at online 20 minutes ago because i think that's when we brought it up.
That's brutal, Jake. I feel for you, man.

I think it was – I also have the tab open for the Wisconsin football

pronunciation guide.

That's – yeah.

All right.

There you go.

That might have been it.

That's what it was.

It was all show-related, but I apologize.

What a moment, though.

Don't apologize to us.

No, no, no.

I apologize to the AWLs.

Yes.

Notes up coming later.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

That's a classy thing to do.

I am keeping the bonk list, and I think I'm going to have to keep a zone-out list

and No top coming later. Thank you.
Appreciate that. That's a classy thing to do.
I am keeping the bonk list, and I think I'm going to have to keep a zone out list. And right now, Jake's got one up on Billy.
Number one. Damn.
By the way, I think the bonk list should actually be, it's impossible to do it this way, but I would prefer it be retroactive, like looking at what the bonk total was as opposed to making it competition so you can get bonked less in the future. I'm making a bonk.
Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything, and we'll go over it in like six months.
Okay. And we'll go over trickstress.
Works for me. Jake, man.
So my hot seat's me. Yeah, that was an incredible moment because I – wow.
Okay. All right.
Where were you? That's okay. You'll bounce back.
You can't be perfect. Yeah.
No, no, no, no. Your stakes happen.
Everybody in this room and outside of it. Yeah, no, I believe in you.
Absolutely. Redemption though.
I have 361 days for redemption this year. Yeah, but we only do a show every three days.
So, okay. So I have like a better have...
Also Memorial Day. We don't have one.
Yeah. I have like a hundred-ish days of production.
Okay. All right.
I believe in you. I believe in you.
It's not a good way to start the new year, though. Listen, buy Stock and Jake right now.
It's the lowest it's ever been. Okay, go ahead, you Cool Throne.
My Cool Throne's being old. The oldest person in the world, Kane Tanaka, turned 119 yesterday.

Whoa.

Guy or girl?

I believe girl.

It has to be, right?

Yeah.

No guys live that old.

Why would you want to as a guy?

Yeah.

Wow.

119.

That's insane.

Are you sure that she already turned 119? Yes, it's not a Betty White situation.

Okay, good.

So 1902?

Fuck.

That is crazy.

That's old.

She was living it up in the roaring 20s.

Oh, yeah, it's 2022.

Bonus hot seat.

Me.

Yeah.

But you'll be back.

I'll be back.

I fucking believe.

All right.

Let's get to our interviews. We got Kirk Herbstreet and then Jimmy Graham.
Back to back. Here's Kirk Herbstreet.
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Okay, we now welcome on our very good friend. It is Kirk Herbstreet.
He is calling the national title game on Monday, Alabama versus Georgia. He's off of calling the semifinal, the Rose Bowl, and also the entire internet hates him now because he said that everyone who opts out doesn't love football.
Did I recap it perfectly? I guess the internet part I mean I I think it it uh it kind of took on a life of its own after seemed like after the Matt Corral uh injury but I don't know how many people listened to the entire eight minute segment I'm guessing very few but they they definitely read some headlines yeah so I wanted to have you on because I want to talk about the national championship, but I also thought when I saw, you know, you were trending and everything, I was like, I know, I know Herbstreet. Like I know that this isn't exactly what he's saying.
And this is a conversation that has a lot of nuance in it. So I thought let's have the conversation.
Let's talk about the opt-outs and what, you know, is all the rage in college football right now. So where do you land on the entire thing?

The conversation was with Desmond Howard and myself and Pollock and Reese,

and we were just kind of talking about the new world.

I mean, we're not hiding from it.

It's just our new reality, and it's only going to get worse.

I mean, if you're a fan of watching these guys play.

So we were just talking about what's going on.

And, you know,

the one little line that I brought up and I, if you'd watched the whole segment, Reese came at me

like, well, that's, that's sweeping statement to say that players, maybe they don't love the game

as much as they used to. And then I said, no, no, I said, some of these players, you know, I think,

and first of all, just to give you perspective, I've covered this sport from the front row. I've

been behind the curtain at all these programs for 26 years. I'm really fortunate to be there.
I have four sons that are 21 years and younger, two of which play Power 5 football. I'm not out of touch with kids.
If anything, I get a pretty good feel of what they're distracted by. They love you guys.
They love a lot. I mean, I get it.
You know, it's different. It's a different time.
But I don't have my head in the sand. Like, I'm not oblivious to the game of college football is changing.
Caleb Williams came out yesterday. I read a quote saying, I'm going to go to the highest bidder.
I mean, you have to understand the game is changing. So it was really the whole conversation was about that.
And Dez and I were just talking about, you know, when we played, how guys would never think about opting out. They, of course, would play and how the team kind of overrode any kind of individual thought.
This is a long time ago. And we're just talking about, is it money that's changed this or what it might be? But the whole thing was some players maybe don't love the game the way guys used to.
It wasn't all players don't love the game. And I think that's what it became.
And listen, when I say they don't love the game, I think that going back to my own kids, they grew up literally in their internet age and they grew up with phones. Think about how we, even your guys' age, how we grew up.
We just didn't, if I would have grown up in this era, guess what? I would have been right there with them probably. It's just what they know.
I grew up, we didn't have a lot of stuff. So we went outside and played or you watched football, you know, you watched basketball.
We were entertained by watching games. So we kind of fell in love.
We were an out-in-the-yard plan. So we all kind of loved the game and the idea of, wow, one day maybe I can be on TV playing.
Guys today, like my kids, they're brainwashed football fans. If it's not Ohio State, yeah, they're kind of into it, but kind of not, you know, which is fine.
That's their prerogative. They're into their

phones. They're really into social media.
And I get it. So my kids included, by the way, don't have the same passion that I had.
And it doesn't mean that they're bad kids. They're my kids.
It just means they've grown up differently. And so I think it really got twisted.
It got really misunderstood. I don't think kids that opt out are bad kids.
I don't think that they're making a bad decision. They're making their own decision that they and their family think fits their best interests.
So be it. But I think that if you would have listened to the entire eight minutes, you would have heard a very different conversation

than I think some of the headlines that were just grabbed

maybe to try to help people kind of push their own agenda

or push their own narrative to whatever platform they might have.

Yeah.

So I think Big Cat and I agree that we like it when players play in bowl games

from our perspective as a fan.

Yes.

And especially if you went to a school and you see your team make it,

even if it's not the college football playoff,

if they make it to a good bowl game,

you like seeing the guys that you've supported over the years play.

I think that's a natural part of being a fan

to want to see these guys continue to play,

to see the best players go out there and play.

But also I think that we have a perspective where

if somebody chooses to not play in a bowl game because they have you know this looming nfl money waiting for them that they don't want to screw up they can change their lives they can change their family's lives they can set their kids up for the rest of their life and they don't want to take that chance during you know one bowl game uh for for their college team i don't think that it's fair to necessarily say

that that player doesn't like football

or doesn't love football

because they're making, by all accounts,

a tremendous business decision.

If you look at the risk versus the reward,

I don't think it's fair to say

that that player doesn't love football

because they choose to not play.

I can completely appreciate that.

And I think, again,

if you would have heard the conversation, I don't think you would have felt we said all kids that opt out don't love football. Boom, period.
It really wasn't that kind of vibe at all. It was more just, I think, as fans of the game, like, wow, look where we're headed.
My point was this, like, why is a bowl game meaningless? Like, if you're Brock Bowers, or you're Will Anderson, right now, one guy's played one year of college football. Bowers at Georgia.
Will Anderson's played two. And again, in that segment, I described it as there's two different lanes.
If you're a college football player, one lane is I'm here for three years. Whoever can get me to the NFL faster.
That's my goal. And you know what? You're entitled to that view, more power to you.
I wish you all the best from the bottom of my heart. I hope you make generational wealth, but that's one lane.
If you're in that lane, why would you not only not play in a bowl game? Why would you play in the entire season? See, I think that's where we're going. I think, I think we're focused

on, they skip a meaningless bowl game. And I'm saying, if that's your view, you're entitled,

but why stop there? Like why, if it's all about the end game, which is getting to the NFL,

poor Micah Parsons, poor, um, uh, you know, there's been so many guys. Yeah.

Both. Like if the goal is to get there skip your entire third year go to phoenix go train stay healthy that that was my point in that segment like i don't get skipping a bowl game like if it's about saving myself for a meaningless bowl game what skip yourself from the whole season that's that's the one lane and i'm not saying you're a jerk if you do that.
I'm saying go for it. That's your thing.
That's what you want to do. I don't agree with it because here's why.
Because I care about players. I care about kids.
Even though people are saying I'm this guy that hates players, furthest from the truth. I love players.
And I look at these players like my kids. I'm not related to them in any way, or not have relationships with many of them, but I really honestly do care about them because I've seen so many kids, you guys focus maybe on the guys that become Jamar Chase.
What you don't see the guys I see who end up having those same dreams as Jamar Chase and they didn't make it. They opted out of whatever they declared early.
They never make the NFL. So my point is this stay in the other lane, potentially have those same dreams, have those same goals.
But at the same time, man, you have no idea what opportunity you have. If you go to Madison or Columbus or Ann Arbor or Austin, Texas, go chase that NFL dream.
But in the meantime, get your degree, meet people, have relationships, be courteous, be humble, treat people well. And when you go play the NFL for five years or seven years and you don't make generational wealth, or let's say you don't make it to the NFL, you bust a knee or whatever happens.
You have this to fall back on, relationships. And those schools will take care of you forever with the alumni and with different relationships.
If you play the system, you can either let the system play you or you can play the system. And I'll say one last thing.
I didn't have a pot to piss in when I came out of high school. My parents were divorced, broken home, despite what I look like on TV.
That was my background. I had no money.
If I didn't get a scholarship, I would have joined the army. That would have, my sister paid off student loans till she was in her forties.
We had no money. So I say that because I have appreciation for what these players are facing because I had those same dreams.
I would have killed to go to the NFL. Guess what? Went in the cards for me.
I never, I never got to a camp in the NFL. What am I going to do? Am I just going to go home? No, I wasn't a great student.
I didn't take school as serious as I should have, but I got a business degree. I didn't know what I was going to do.
I stumbled into broadcasting, accidentally got into it making $12,000 a year, had no idea. It wasn't like, I'm going to go to game day.
I'm going to go to ESPN. I had no concept of what I wanted to do.
It was just bust my ass, work as hard as I can, opportunity like you guys do. Opportunity opened up and I eventually got to ESPN.
And maybe it's a one in a million story, but my point is the relationships that I took advantage of opened some doors for me to get that opportunity. And that's why it breaks my heart when players put all their eggs into one basket, NFL or bust.
And then when they don't make it, and 98% of these guys aren't making it. So that's what breaks my heart, man, is we focus on Jamar Chase and Micah Parsons.
And we don't focus on the 98% of guys that I care about and want them to have something to fall back on if they don't make it. So that's why I get kind of passionate, kind of fired up about this topic, because it's not as simple as go chase the money.
Because sometimes that doesn't always work out. And I wish they had a backup plan.
That's all. Yeah.
And I think it is true that what we're talking about right now, it's in the extremes because there's not a lot of players that are like, surefire, you're a first-rounder, you knew that going into your third year, you don't even have to go out there and put stuff on tape. I think the root of this problem is college football.
I love, love, love college football. College football is about tradition.
College football is about your own relationships with your friends from college or people you love going to games. So that's where I think it breaks where it's hard to be like, wait, the Rose Bowl means something, but it doesn't really mean a lot comparatively now than it did 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
That's just a reality of where we are in like the landscape of, of sports.

It just, it's, it's tough to swallow but it's the truth I at the end of the day though I my my biggest question and you said you've been around all these programs I'm wondering this has it changed a little bit in the locker room in terms of teammates being like hey man go get your money Like, don we don't like sit out for this book because I think that's a very important aspect of this where everyone takes they try to figure this out they either take the side of oh this kid should get the millions opt out it's a meaningless game or they take the side of well if I was his teammate I'd be pissed off what are those teammates saying because I feel like they might also think like, Hey, go get your money, man.

Like go get your money.

They're not as mad.

You know, I think they always are going to have their, their teammates back.

You know, I, I don't think there is this unbelievable amount of pressure that, wow,

I can't believe you're not going to play with us.

But on the other hand, if they say, Hey man, I can't, I can't resist one more.

We're going one more time. I mean, there would be a ridiculous celebration.
But at the same time, when they say, hey, I'm going to protect myself, it's become the new thing. Right.
Hey, man, we get that. You got to do that.
We totally understand it. We support you.
That is your right. That is very fresh, and that's how it is right now.
And that's changing. And my biggest take of the entire thing is I just don't like when anyone on the internet shames any of these kids one way or the other.
Like, if you opt out, that's your choice. You made the choice with your family, with your teammates, with your friends, everything.
More power to you. If you stay, though, and, like, Matt Corral gets hurt and people are like, oh, he shouldn't have played this game.
No, no, no. Matt Corral, he said, these guys have done so much for me, I'm going to do something for them.
That's a cool thing as well. And he shouldn't be shamed or felt like, oh, you might have screwed yourself over because he wanted to play one last game with his teammates.
Yeah, when I look back at this whole, like, last four days or so, like, if there's any regret, it's not for the people that are using me as a pinata, you know, over the last three days or four days. It's not that.
It's the play. If I could have been a little bit more clear, you guys do live TV.
You know what it can be like when, you know, there's producers in your ear. It doesn't even say something like, man, the producers.
So it's like, you're trying to get all your words right. And you're talking about a sensitive subject and it's always not always perfect.
So if I don't apologize to anybody, it'd be to the current players because they probably didn't see the segment at all. And all they're doing is getting on social media and saying Herbstreet says players don't care about that.
I really, really wish and hope that current players know that, man,

I appreciate the situation that they're in.

I love college football.

I love the players.

I've always been a guy.

You guys know me.

You watch Get Up.

You watch First Take.

You watch a lot of these shows today.

It's about throwing stuff, being a hot take artist,

throw it against the wall.

I'm not.

I've just never been that guy. I'm not comfortable with the story ever being about me.
I'm always about the players, the coaches and the storylines. And so I've been really uncomfortable over the last few days because I don't want it to be about me.
And I really regret not being clear in my comments to be able to make these players know how much I love them and appreciate them. And they don't to have to view the world the way I do, obviously.
But I don't ever want to be viewed as I'm out of touch when I have four sons that are all 21 and younger. And I get it.
I get what these kids are facing. And I would say what you just said about Matt Corral.
I would encourage anybody, if they have any hint. I remember when Ron Dane, your Wisconsin guy, when Ron Dane came back, I felt he was very tentative running the football, almost running to not get hurt his last year because he knew what he had in front of him.
And I remember thinking, if you run to not get hurt, you're going to get hurt. If you play in a bowl game and you're worried, oh my gosh, I'm playing in this bowl game, but what if I get hurt? You're going to get hurt.
So like if you have any, I mean any hesitation or doubt about playing a season or playing in a bowl game, I would encourage you to not play. Don't do that to your team, to yourself, because you are going to get hurt.
If there's any fear at all about what's at stake and, oh, my gosh, I would say don't do it. You've got to play the game.
It is a reckless game, and you guys watch it all the time. Dudes are flying.
But, like, when you're a freshman or sophomore, like Jackson Smith and Jigba, no one's even thinking about him getting hurt. He's just, like, catching the ball around.
I mean, he's just playing football, right? No one football right no one's like oh my god be careful but when you get to that level you either got to power through it and not worry about being hurt or you if it's bothering you and it's in the back of your mind you gotta you gotta you gotta nip it and say hey man i'm too concerned about it i don't want to hurt myself or the team so i'm not going to play would be my recommendation. It's also tough to get hurt if you're Jackson Smith and Jim and nobody's tackling.
Yeah. Right? If they were playing defense, I could see maybe how that could.
That was like 7-7. That was awesome.
That's the other part. It's like it just – after all this stuff and there was opt-outs for Ohio State, the game was incredible.
Oh, the game was incredible. How about Marvin Harrison jr.
Yeah. Gosh, dude is six, three, two Oh five.
So you're right. I mean, it opens up a door for another guy, but it's going to be interesting, fellas.
Cause I, I think next year and the year after that, and the year wait till we look, we'll pull back this discussion. We'll look in 2000 and whatever, you know, four years, five years.
We're going to be like, holy cow. Nobody's playing bowl games.
You know, like it's, that's what, it's just going to progressively continue to go down there. So I think there's another conversation to be had.
And I saw some comparisons side by side of the, the conversation that you were having about the players. And then also your conversation with Lincoln Riley, who is a guy that, you know, he took a new job.
He made a business decision for him and his family. But he also left his team before their season was complete.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. Yeah, yeah.
So I think some people saw the screenshot of you talking to Lincoln Riley and kind of, you know, you were playing nice with him because he's obviously had talks with you guys. You've broadcast his games before.
And you compare that to how you were talking about some of the players that were choosing to opt out. But when there's a coach that leaves before the end of the season, talk about how you feel about that particular set of circumstances because he's kind of doing the same thing as some of the players would be doing, opting not to stick around with his team through the end

of the season in a perfect world it'd be great if if the players and the coaches had some kind of bonding contract that allowed them to finish the task right because i i i think that's really important i and what brian kelly did at notre dame i mean his team was potentially in the playoff and of course Marcus Freeman stepped in.

So I'll say this though. I don't think this is just, everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
I just don't think it's fair. I don't look at players and coaches is apples and apples.
You know, I think a coach is a 45 year old guy. He's been a, he's been a student himself.
A lot of times he played. He was a GA.
He's grinded his way to the point where he is. And people get really upset to think, wow, coaches are held in a different light than players.
Well, they've earned that. You guys, compare yourselves right now in your career to where you are now, to where you were when you first started, wherever you were.
You're a little bit more seasoned. You know a little bit more.
You've earned the right to be in the position that you're in. And you will be – imagine where you'll be in 10 years or where you'll be in 20 years.
And imagine if there was a young guy that was coming up who got, you know, a podcast with you guys and he was just starting out. And he wanted to have the same opportunities that you guys had.
And you'd be like, wait, I mean, it just doesn't work that way. And with players, don't get me wrong.
I want to re kind of recalibrate the whole system. I say we make the players employees.
I say we're down a path now we form a union. I mean, that's where we're going with this thing.
And by the way, when you, if you do that, players got to understand when they go get a massage that's for free now, that's going to cost them. When they go to the cryo machine, that's going to cost them.
It's a very different relationship. But that's where I think that's where we're headed at this point, because players need to be treated that way.
They need to benefit more than they are, not just with name, image and likeness. The system needs to benefit them.
How? I have no idea. Yeah, but but they do.
They need to feel like, okay, they're appreciating what we bring to the table. These are all things that five years ago I would have never thought we would have gotten to, but we have to accept where we are.
But to your point, man, I personally don't like to see coaches do what they do. I don't begrudge them for going to a better opportunity or a new

opportunity, but I do not like to see them leave before the season is up. But I hope we find a way to curtail that because that's just like players you'd love to see finish the deal.
Same goes for coaches without a doubt. I don't think there's any difference there.
I'm really dumb. So maybe you can explain this to me like I'm the idiot that I am.
But if you start to treat players like they're employees,

you're saying that they'd have to like put a coin in a machine to like get Gatorade out or they'd have to pay for it. Yeah.
I don't know how it would work in that regard. I'm just saying that I've talked with a lot of people about, are we going to a point where eventually the players will be unionized and that kind of thing? And they say, if we do, it's a different, it would become a different, you can get fired.
You show up late to a meeting, you're fined. You know, it's like, it's just a different relationship.
It's almost, it's essentially like an NFL relationship. You know, I don't know if NFL players pay for, put a coin in and buy a Gatorade.
I don't know if it's like that. I don't know the specifics.
I have no idea. This is like the early stages of where it may go.
The game's changed. It's not going to look the same.
We just have to start thinking about where is the sport going and not be like it needs to stay the way way it is. And that's all there is to it.
I mean, I'm more than willing to listen and evolve with the times we have to, I mean, we can't, we can't just say, no, we're not going to do it. I mean, you have to, you know, I'd love to protect the traditions of the sport.
I love the game. I love what it stands for something that a lot of people, the newer fans or people that maybe look at the sport and just see money.
What what what what players would tell you, whether they play today or they played a long time ago, is what you learn from playing this game is really valuable. You know, whether it's high school football or college football, when you learn about being a good teammate, learn about getting your ass knocked down and getting back up, or you're not starting and you're really sad, but you keep working.
I mean, that's how real life is. That's how your job is.
My job is. I mean, life is hard.
I tell my kids that all the time. Like life is every day there's adversity every day.
And if you run from that adversity, you're as a youngster, you're not going to learn how to deal with it when you get older. And so we all have to go through it in football.
The great thing about that game is how much shit you go through to be able to figure out, man, this sucks. But this coach taught me how to get through this.
And when you become a 25 or 30 or 40 year old, you look back

at that coach and say, man, I couldn't stand that guy. But holy shit, he changed my life and taught me about how to deal with that situation.
And no one talks about any of that. It's just how much money is in it.
And that to me is kind of undermining what's so great about the sport and especially about college football. And I hope we don't lose that perspective or that lens.

Yeah.

And,

and we probably will at times just because the internet,

that's how it works,

but I think you're absolutely right.

All right.

Let's talk a little bit about these,

this national championship game,

these playoffs.

So we technically pushed our bet.

Our preseason bet was that Cincinnati.

Well,

Cincinnati was not going to make it over a one loss power five team they didn't i i would be curious though because you talked you said they wouldn't make it no no no this is the tape no it was over it was the entire estimation i was rooting for cincinnati i'm doing what the uh the guys did the last three days i'm just cherry picking what i want here no no no you said they wouldn't be in it listen i was always very much pro cincinnati i was also pro the committee will find a way to fuck them over and if there's a team that has one loss from a power five school and cincinnati's undefeated the one loss power five team will be a bit ahead of them was there you talked to the committee i don't't know how much you talked to them afterwards. Do you think in your heart of hearts if Oklahoma State had won the Big 12 championship game, they would have been in the playoff? I haven't spoken to anybody to kind of pinpoint that.
It would have been a hell of a debate. My hunch is Cincinnati would have gone ahead of them.
I think that's my hunch. Well, because it would have won you the bet.
That and because of where they were all year. I mean, think about it.
They weren't coming from 28, working their way all the way up, as usually the Power Five does. These sumbitches were sitting there at 6'7 at the beginning of the year and just like climb and climb.
So they were, they were invited to the party before the season started. And then what killed them is Indiana becoming whatever Indiana became.
I don't even know what their record was, but I remember when we were talking, I was like, man, they go to Indiana, like in August, that was a big deal. They go to Notre Dame, which ended up being a good win for them.
But then they kind of did. Okay.
Conference play was for them. I don't know, man.
I really think they would have gotten a nod and I would have enjoyed a steak. We'll do it.
We're still going to do it. We'll still go out to dinner.
Are you guys going to L.A. for the Super Bowl? Yes.
Done. We'll do a dinner there.
Yes. And I do think Cincinnati, if you put it into perspective, they did okay.
Like, Alabama, it's hard to beat a team that has 30. They do that.

30. And I do think Cincinnati, if you put it into perspective, they did okay.
Like Alabama, it's hard to beat a team that has 35 stars. They do that to a lot of people.
Right. You know, I don't think it's fair to lump the group of five.
And if Cincinnati would have won or if they lost, I would never, like, lump Cincinnati into, well, there you go. That's why the group of five doesn't get a chance.
I don't feel that way at all. I just think Alabama, they just took a rubber hose out.
You know, it wasn't a crowbar. It wasn't a crowbar.
It was just a rubber hose and just kind of bruised them up and just told them, you know, get out of here. Yeah.
Swopped them around for a little bit. It was, yeah.
I mean, it's just, it's a totally different, you know, level of athlete, strength, speed, all that stuff. But we've seen it.
It was no more on display in that game than the Michigan-Georgia game. Correct.
Oh, my gosh. The Michigan offensive line.
Think about what they did against Ohio State and the Big Ten. And they went in against Georgia, and it looked like, I don't know, a bunch of NFL players snuck into Hard Rock and got into some Georgia uniforms, defensive linemen, and they just overwhelmed them.
They really never had a chance. They had no time.
I do think Michigan had a weird game plan at times where they were trying to go sideline to sideline.

And, like, Georgia will just – if you've watched Georgia at all this year,

if you try to do anything within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage,

they have faster and stronger guys than everyone.

You have to beat them deep.

You have to.

The problem was they didn't have enough time to throw the ball often.

They couldn't get anything going with Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum. I they've been a they've been a run the ball play action team all year and when you can't run the ball your play action game's gone and then you're just trying to even I felt like some of their perimeter stuff it was with jet sweep it was almost like hey guys we're going this way you know it was very very predictable that kind of Georgia.
And then, like you said, Georgia with N'Kobe Dean and those guys, they can fly to the football. So those games are behind us, and now it sets us up for a rematch with Georgia and Bama, which should be outstanding.
Yeah, in the SEC Championship, Nick Saban was saying, you guys gave us some of that yummy rat poison this week because nobody was – for the first time when Nick Saban saying, like doubting alabama i think he's kind of right people were doubting alabama going into that game and we looked like idiots i felt so dumb after that game i was like i can't believe i actually doubted alabama it happened to me i know all of us did all of us did yeah and now there's they've got the rematch going on, and I have to try to figure out,

wait, now does Georgia have all the yummy rat poison from getting beaten by Alabama?

Or can Alabama – is there still a way that Nick Saban can sit his team down and say, okay, guys, nobody believes you?

Well, they're underdogs.

No, I don't care what Vegas says.

What you're saying – think about this.

12 weeks of football, we held Georgia on a pedestal, and then there was a gap, and there was everybody else. 12 weeks.
And so when Georgia went against Alabama, we thought it'd be competitive because it's Nick Saban, but there's no way you can be that Georgia defense. Stetson Bennett, whatever, it doesn't matter.
Georgia's defense, they're going to win the game. And 10-0 looked great.
They were doing what they do to everybody. And then you got it.
I mean, of course, Bryson Young ended up making plays. Jamison Williams, and they just went to another level offensively.
But there's nothing. I don't think either team, maybe Georgia, I don't know if any team can play up.
They don't respect us. We're going to show them.
Because in college football, that works. 18- to 22-year-old guys, they feed off of that.
But I don't know. we're going to show them because in college football that works 18 to 22 year old guys they feed off of that but I don't know other than Georgia like you said they just lost and maybe they're pissed off and maybe they show up ready to go and they're out to get revenge maybe you can play that angle up but I don't I don't sense the same kind of build up where it's real decisive and obvious on one side like the last time what about the element of this game I I still do think Georgia's a better team than Alabama and I think that they've been better all year Kirby smart though like is Nick Saban his boogeyman at this point because if it feels like one of those games that if Georgia and I don't want to Georgia fans are going to get very

triggered by what I'm about to say but if Georgia can't complete the deal this year it feels like it might never happen because this is like they are really really good they've been good all year Alabama has not been as good as Alabama has been in the past and it's just they can't get over that hump they can can't beat the boogeyman here. Fair.
When I think about Alabama's defense, and I ask you guys this, there's Will Anderson, number 31, who's just special. Outside of him, how many guys remind you of the old Alabama defenses? Christian Harris, a great player.
Jordan Battles. I mean, they've got talent, obviously.
It's Alabama. But I'm talking about those guys that you turn it on.
You're just like make a Fitzpatrick where you're just like, Holy cow. You know, he's a first rounder.
I just doesn't feel like they have that talent that they've had in the past. It doesn't mean they're still not a great team, obviously, but what your point is well taken.
And I think Georgia, they've been recruiting now they've had one arm tied behind their back with their offense they've had George Pickens who's as good a receiver as there is in the country had an ACL in spring you guys have been seeing him number one he's come back a little bit the last three games Jermaine Burton number seven who caught a big touchdown against Michigan he's been hurt most of the year here's 10, dinged up almost most of the year. So they've been more running backs and tight ends

all year. And now, more so even than the last game they played Bama, they've got some receivers

that can get vertical. And I think they have more weapons at their disposal to try to attack

Alabama. But what you're saying is fair.
This Georgia team's been building for this.

Kirby, you go back and look at those games, the game that Tua threw at the Montez-Smith in overtime. I mean, they were winning the whole game.
The next year when Jalen Hurts gets benched for Tua, he comes off the bench in the SEC championship. Georgia's winning the whole game.
Remember the fake punt to Justin Fields, who was the personal protector? They come all the way back and and Alabama wins that game led by Jalen Hurts. So they've definitely had their moments.
They're favored to win in Atlanta this year and couldn't get it done. So, yeah, there's a little bit of a if-not-now-win kind of vibe, and I think it's as mental of a hump as it is physical.
Right. Especially, you know, with Kirby trying to beat his former head coach.
Right. How much do you think that actually plays into his preparation for the game? If you're a Nick Saban protege, do you spend days thinking, like trying to think one step ahead of Coach Saban? Like, okay, here's what he used to do when I worked for him, so here's what I'm going to do to counteract that.
Or do you just go out there and you call whatever the game plan is that you think is best for your team? I think it's more about, you definitely are prepping. You're looking at that game in Atlanta, you know, in college football, I know in pros, we see it all the time when guys play twice, but in college it's very unusual to have another chance to play in a game.
So I think you're, you're studying that you're studying tendencies. You're, you're not going back to your time.
Now the buildup, the psychological aspect of it, like what he does the night before the game, what he does the day of the game, how he tries to get an advantage on his opponent. You have, you, you're privy to that because you experienced with him.
But as far as the actual game planning and the XO of the, of the matchup, it's all about what happened in Atlanta. Are they going to run the same stuff? Are they going to what wrinkles do we anticipate? Because we got to be ready to adjust.
But I think it adds to it. Instead of Alabama playing Ohio State or Michigan or somebody like that, you know, they're playing a team that they just saw.
And you wonder how much of that same game plan Alabama will use considering how well it worked. One last thing, Mechie, John Mechie not being in the game is big.
You know, he's a 1,000-yard receiver, fantastic player. He's not playing.
He got hurt in this game last time they played. So if I'm Kirby, I'm literally taking a guy, no matter where number one goes, if he's in the slot, if he's to the field, if he motions over into end of the boundary, I'm jamming his ass at the line of scrimmage every single snap with a safety over top.
And I'm making either Brian Robinson win the game running, the tight ends, you know, that they have Latou and Bingsley make another receiver that we're not as familiar with, make someone else. But Jamison Williams destroyed them the last game they played.
He can't beat me. He cannot beat me.
It would be my biggest key to this game. Yeah, I do think that Mechie being out is actually a sneaky big piece of this because he's been like this for the last couple years.
He's never been the best receiver on that team. Some might say he hasn't been the second best receiver on the team at times.
But he's always a guy that is absolutely a threat that you can't forget about and he's not just some guy that's popping up on the depth chart replacing someone he's been there and he's been making plays every week week in week out just a real solid guy are you as big a college are you a bigger college football fan or i'm a much bigger nfl fan you're a bigger nfl yeah but i i love mechie i've loved loved him for the last two years. I've been saying that he is the glue that holds this team together.
Okay, because you're breaking it down there a little bit for me on Mechie. I watch a lot of film, Kirk.
Yeah. Yeah, I grow over it, man.
Actually, I feel bad for you because you don't get to watch the coach's room during the simulcast when you've got like – I'm going to miss – I'll DV you've got steve as you like ordering pizza for everybody yes it's it's great man um all right well kirk thank you so much man we'll see you in la we'll also see on monday night we're very excited this is the other part i know that people get upset because it's always you know it seems like it's always the sec i'm so excited for this game they're the two best teams it's not close like What are you going to say? End of the day, whether it's a 12-team playoff or 30-team playoff, whatever you want to do, the two best teams are playing each other. I thought Michigan, honestly, I thought they were one of the best teams, the way they played and the way they finished their year.
They were doing that at the end of the year, but Georgia beat them and dominated them, so they get a chance and they should. As you said, it's's the two best.
Let's see who wins it. Yes.
Oh, and also good luck. You're calling an NFL game on Saturday, right? Oh yeah.
Monday night football on Saturday night. You've got the chiefs Broncos.
Do you need any help? Any prep for that? Cause Patrick is good. Yeah.
Just say Patrick Mahomes cheat code. Yeah.
Travis Kelsey. That guy's a cheat code.
But like, but I remember watching some of these shows on ESPN early in the year, and they're like, he's broke, his game is broke. And I'm like, how's he broke? You know what I mean? He threw a few picks, had a few bad games, but it seems like he's doing okay for himself right now.
Yeah, I'd say he's okay. He's pretty good.
He's a pretty good player. Pretty good player.
I'm pumped to see them on Saturday and then head to Andy right after the game. I love it.
Hardest working man in showbiz. All right, we'll see you in LA, Herbie.
All right, guys. Take care.
I appreciate it. Thanks, man.
Good talking to you. Kirk Herbstreit was brought to you by our good friends over at BetterHelp.
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That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com. And now, Jimmy Graham.
And now and now for something completely different okay we now welcome on a very special guest it is five-time pro bowler uh chicago bear formerly a saint as well also a packer and a seahawk all over the place it is jimmy graham one of the best tight ends of all time he's also nominated nominated for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. So each team in the NFL nominates one guy.
Jimmy Graham got that for the Bears. He's doing great work.
Let's talk about the Jimmy Graham Foundation first. So what is the Jimmy Graham Foundation doing, and were you surprised when you got nominated by the Bears as being the guy? Yeah, well, first, thanks for having me.
You know, it's an honor to be on Part of My Take, you know, obviously. And I appreciate all the things that you guys do and some of the most entertaining content I've ever seen.
So I appreciate you guys letting me on. Yeah, so for myself, so the Jimmy Grant Foundation, we basically provide flight experiences to veterans of any war and young underprivileged kids.

And that all happens in a helicopter that I rebuilt that fought in the Vietnam War. We throw and host big events, but a lot of it is really, you know, to thank and honor our veterans.
and then to give these flight experiences and days at the airport to where I can impress upon these young kids to get more involved with the STEM program

and how many job opportunities and opportunities that there are within the aerospace technology industry through engineering and whatnot and even a mechanic. There's all these jobs available, and I think that there's a lot of underprivileged kids who just are never exposed to that world.
Yeah, so I was doing some reading about you and seeing you are very much an, is it aviation enthusiast? You're a flight enthusiast, you're a pilot. You've got like five different licenses.
We're really smart too. I think we consider ourselves to be aviation buffs.
How do planes fly? Well, there's a, you know, energy lift and drag coefficient and really you just need, need, I tell most people, you know, to make a plane go, you need some cash. Because you've got to be able to afford a gas.
But, yeah, yeah, you know, I've been basically flying planes as long as I've been playing football. After my rookie year, I went and got my first license.
And I've gotten, you know, eight or nine or ten licenses since. And, you know, I fly a little bit of everything.
I'm a commercial helicopter pilot, commercial multi-engine pilot. I'm an aerobatic pilot, seaplane pilot, and just kind of the gamut.
So, you know, I go off, and I give these experiences, you know, I give these moments, and really just share with a lot of people, you know, my life, and, you know, how the sky's the limit. And, you know, to take a kid up and do aerobatics or, you know, really, really in the helicopter is a special moment, you know, obviously, because I'm a dumb jock.
And, you know, it really shows and proves that, you know, it doesn't matter where you start, it doesn't matter where your cards are, you know, you can determine your own destiny and, you know, you just try to put the work. Yeah.
As a pilot, I've always wanted to ask a pilot this. How do you feel about people clapping when the plane lands? It's always pretty interesting, you know, especially when you're dealing with the commercial airlines, you know, they're part 135.
So, you know, they go through some pretty rigorous maintenance inspections and those pilots are trained. And, you know, there's so much work that goes into that.
You know, if you really look into the numbers, it's very few and far between, you know, especially when you understand, you know, how these aircraft operate, you know, they have these Cat 5 landings now. So, you know, even in fog, you'll basically have the plane land itself.
But, you know, I mean, it's always funny, you know, I just always kind of laugh when, when, especially, especially on our team, you know, every team I've been on, everybody knows I'm a pilot. So the minute that there's a bump, you know, everybody's screaming my name, ask me what's happening.
You know, that's always fun. It sounds like you're saying that that planes have become, you know, able to fly themselves that you think that it's inappropriate to clap for the pilot when you land.
But what if you're clapping for the plane? Yeah, I think you should more or less clap for the plane. I mean, now most of the landings are done by hand, obviously, because you've got to stay current.
But really, every plane now, especially Trip 7s and stuff like that, they all have Cat 5 landing capabilities. So if something was really you know, those things are pretty much going to land themselves in fog.
So, you know, I always think it's funny, honestly. So let's talk some football.
It's crazy how unbelievable your career has been and how you've been so good for so long that I think a lot of people forget, not that you didn't play – you played basketball at Miami, but that you played so little football at Miami.

At what point, so what was your numbers in your one year at Miami football?

It was like 17 catches, right?

Yeah, I mean, I was just a hope and a wish.

Right.

I was out there just trying to learn how to play.

And, you know, I personally didn't even think I was going to get drafted or even go to the NFL.

So that was, I did all that because I thought I was going to the military. You know, that's really where my head was.
And so it just all kind of took a turn. So when when you make the transition, did you did anyone sit you down and like, hey, listen, dude, you have you're you're a good basketball player.
You play Division One basketball, but you average four and four like this is not going to work out. Why not try football? Or like, did hard conversation with you and then it all clicked and was like all right let's fucking do this um i had i had some pretty big influences donna shalala was one of them um you know she was the university my new president she loved me she honored me at graduation and always kind of believed in me especially since i fouled out every game uh she told me like my my sophomore year that I was playing the wrong sport after like my second time I fell out in a row.
And then honestly, kind of one of the bigger kind of names and people who got involved pretty early was Bernie Kosar. You know, Bernie Kosar, yeah, he met me randomly.
And, you know, it was, it was like, just random at i ran into bernie and uh you know he had a football so he was throwing the football with me in someone's backyard this is a no lie story and um you know after him telling me about the nfl and surgeries and this and all he had been through um uh he looked at me and said hey man uh you could be a playmaker the nfl i was like what what the hell is this old man talking about? So, you know, just kind of fast forward, you know, he was kind of a big convincing arm for me getting into football and, you know, really just trying it out because, you know, this guy Bernie, you know, told me that I one day could make some plays. That's incredible.
I mean, obviously there sounds like there's a lot of people in your life that helps you make that decision. But for the purpose of this show and headlines, we are going to distill it down to if Jimmy Graham never goes to a barbecue with Bernie Kosar and tosses around a football, he never makes it to the NFL and has an incredible career.
So thank you. That's a great – I mean, Bernie Kosar, change your life and change everyone who watches football's life.
No doubt. You know, I mean, I haven't seen him in a while, but, you know, obviously just incredibly thankful for, you know, him that, you know, saw this 21-year-old kid and, you know, after 30 minutes of just talking shit was like, hey, I think he could be a playmaker in the NFL.
So it's a pretty life-changing. That's crazy.
So the other part of the equation I never really understand, when guys switch sports, switch positions, because we'll watch and a guy will go from guard to tackle and be like, why can't you do that? You went from basketball to football playing tight end. At what point in your career in the NFL were you like, okay, I got this.
Like, I got this. I've this I've learned everything you know obviously you learn new things every now and then but you felt comfortable and it was not uh trying to figure out like actually how to learn the game at that level man uh for me there was so much learning on the job I mean most of my first ever were all in NFL games um you know it's it's uh you know most of my first ever were all on big TV games, you know, either good or bad, you know, so I had to kind of figure out and kind of have a kind of a kind of a small memory, you know, just just to move on and not live in them, you know, not rest on my laurels or not rest on the mistake that I did, because I literally have never seen that in my entire life, you know, and, you know, you know even I would say going in you know after I became a starter in my second year kind of midway through the season I would say about week eight just realizing just I was bigger and faster than basically everybody in the NFL and realizing it kind of then you know it it was one of the things where you know early I mean I think at the time you know I mean the year before I had five touchdowns and I was you know making plays and whatnot but until that year you know I think that's the year me and Gronk kind of went up against each other for the for the most yards it's like 13 something um kind of midway through that year is when it kind of clicked like you know I'm actually just bigger in fashion everybody yeah no I can go and I can go out here and embarrass people um and then you know, you know, that's the kind of mindset that I took on.
You know, obviously I had a great quarterback, great scheme with Sean Payton. And, you know, they kind of built me, you know, to be just an aggressor, you know, to just want to embarrass people.
And, you know, those years I was there and the moments that we had are, you know, legendary and special. Things I'll never forget the rest of life, honestly.
You've got to set up an archetype of tight end that I think people have been chasing for a while, which is like some people say, oh, you can just go out and get a Jimmy Grant type guy, former college basketball player, not really realizing that there are a few guys that are 6'6", 260, very athletic with great hands. They can out-jump everybody on the field,

too. And you see a lot of guys, like, try to make that transition, and a lot of times it doesn't

work out. What do you think is the one thing that's kind of separated you that allowed you to

really excel as a tight end, where a lot of guys, you know, whether it be from, you know,

certain blocking assignments or just the grind of, you know, a training camp in the summer, might have weed out some of the other guys yeah you know i mean over the last 12 years decade uh i've spoken to almost every one of those guys on the phone you know and and you know i've had my opinion piece to their coach on what i thought i need to work on and i mean i've i've spoken to so many guys you know it's just uh you know just kind of how it is but for me i always you know i always ask the guy you know like what's your why you know why do you want to do this you know if it's for the money it's not worth it uh because you won't make it um i always say that i think my childhood had a lot to do with it you know i um i gave myself no other option you know and and uh um you know from the things that i went through as a kid you know i just play with this type of intensity and tenacity that, you know, I was willing to, you know, I mean, I was willing to die on certain plays out there. And that's kind of how I took it most of my career, you know, at big moments.
You know, I'm just man to man. I always tell myself, you know, I'm willing to die right now.
And I think that that's the mentality you have to have when you get into this league, especially when you come from basketball or you come from experience where you really really don't know what you're doing. You know, you just out here running around trying not to get slapped over the middle.
So for me, that was kind of my mental piece. And, and, you know, I mean, at times, many times, even in my older career, you know, big moment, you know, you got to make a play and, you know, in my mind, you know, I'm going to die for it.
So I think that's kind of the big separator. So we had this debate because opt-outs are obviously all the rage in college football and everyone's talking about love of the sport.
Can you be very successful in the NFL if you don't truly love football? It's a tough question because it sounds like you obviously love football, saying I'm willing to die on this play. it sounds like you know you know your why as you said and so if you have a strong why then you can do things like uh that could simulate love for the sport because you actually have a greater purpose than that in football as a means of getting there yeah I mean if if you have a beast of a why the the how you get there and all the sacrifices is going to matter um and, you know, I mean, I think there's a lot of guys' whys that are a little different.
You know, a lot of guys are trying to provide for their families. You know, a lot of guys come from some pretty savage situations and, you know, this is it for them.
So their why is that. And, you know, when you're up against a desperate man, you know, there's not many things he's willing to go through to get there.
But, you know, I mean, I think in the end, you've got to love the game and you've got to

love to compete. You know, that at the core of it is everything because it'll catch up with you at

some point. You know, these off seasons, you can't spend on yachts and out here on vacation

and having a good time. You've got to spend time working.
You know, you've got to be under the

squat rack and you've got to take no vacations for six years so that you can reach the pinnacle. And so you can reach all these dreams and goals you have for yourself.
You know, if you don't want it for yourself, you know, I mean, it's simply not going to happen. So me, I would say what's your why one, but you have to, you have to like the competition of this game and what it brings.
And if you do, then all those little things add up. It's not going to matter.
It could be also you're, you're searching for your, why is your, why just constantly searching for it. Yeah.
Find it eventually. Yeah.
I mean, especially when you're young, you know, you're 21 years old and 20s, you know, you have no idea, you know, you have no idea what you're what's ahead. You have no idea kind of really what's going on.
So so I mean, even me, I understood that, you know, my why and what I was going to sacrifice for. But I think, you know, I mean, that's kind of something I talk to a lot of our young guys about, you know, with their lives and what they have going on.
And I hear, you know, this and that, you know, I always try to guide them in the right way so that, you know, they don't make any of these mistakes that might, you know, stumble their career. I like Big Cat's why, though, just kind of like your why is trying to find your why you're searching.
I think Leaves of Grass was written about that. Looking for your why is your why.
Yeah. Right.
Buddha did that for a while, too. So people forget that you're the reason why you're not allowed to dunk a football over the crossbar in the NFL.
Yes. You broke the upright.
I think that was in Atlanta back in 2013. You dunked on everybody.
Ruined it. And you ruined Arthur Smith's goalpost.
Did you ever apologize to him? No. You know, I think if I look back at, you know, all my times in that old stadium, you know, I always said I owned a little bit of real estate in there.
You know, I scored a bunch on them. I won a lot of games in there.
And, you know, it was always just a crazy rivalry. But, no, I'll do it again.
I remember, you know, Mark Ingram jumping on my back as I'm punching a goalpost. You know, I mean, it's a big statement.
You know, we were always battling with Matt and that team, you know, to try to win the NFC South. And, you know you know, it was high scoring games.
Whoever had the ball at the end would always win. So no, I'll never apologize.
What I'm mad about is the $32,000 I got fined in preseason for dunking the next year. Oh, okay.
That, yeah, that's, that's fair to be upset about that. Were you surprised when it broke? Because I've seen a lot of guys dunk before, but I've never seen a guy pull the axis of an upright offense kilter.
Yeah, I mean, back in the day, my last two years in New Orleans and my first year in Seattle, I mean, I weighed 208 pounds. I mean, I was a big dude.
I was a lot bigger than I am now. I was just, I remember weighing in kind of before one of the games and I was 288, which is which is nuts.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, obviously that probably why blew my blew my damn knee out, but you know, it was just a, it was also a different league back then.
You know, I mean, guys are huge, you know, Mike linebackers, the Erlackers, you know, Ray Lewis's, I mean, all these guys were two 50, two 55, and you can't survive as a linebacker in the box like that anymore.

You know, you've got to be fast running a 4-4 nowadays.

So, you know, I mean, it's just a different game.

Yeah.

So the famous Jimmy Graham contract, I'm a wide receiver,

I should be paid as a wide receiver on the franchise tag,

was an incredible back and forth.

If you don't remember it, the franchise tag,

for the Saints to franchise tag him, it was like something about 8 million.

If he was classified as a wide receiver, it was like 12 or 13 million so it was a big difference was i what is it more than that uh tight end was six million and receiver was 12 and a half okay so even more than that so six and a half million that you're you're fighting for my the question that has always stuck in my head from the entire back and forth who fucked up and forgot to take tight end out of your twitter bio well first of all that had nothing to do with it um but it was cited it was cited as part of the evidence yeah it was oh there was so much stuff cited i mean oh my goodness i mean this like i still have like the case file it's it's it's humongous like it's boxes and boxes of shit and um you know it's just one of these things where i you know i never held out i never asked for a penny you know i played my rookie deal out and when it came time they franchised me because it was six million bucks and they said when two years we'll franchise you twice you'll be 30 and then we'll get rid of you and i was like what uh so yeah i'm not doing that um you know for me i told him hey if if you give me one dollar more than Gronk, I'll take it. And Gronk signed a deal two years early.
I just wanted a dollar more and they wouldn't do it. So, you know, then that's, you know, that's when things get muddy, things get weird.
And, you know, I mean, it's that's when, you know, the the the whole aspect of the business takes over, unfortunately, you know, and then you got to stand up for yourself. And obviously, they're going to stand up for themselves.
And, you know, I mean, I know if I would have really won the case, then it would have been probably the way they pay players would probably be a little different now. You know, it was going to be more like there's like in the NBA, there's not a big man doesn't make big man money.
And a playing guard doesn't make our money. You know, you just make playmaker money.
And I knew that there was a few guys that were falling underneath this category. And so that was kind of the big tug away, you know, for me, you know, winning that and probably why Sean Payton testified against me in court.
And, you know. What happens after that? Is it awkward? Is it awkward that you had that you had your coach testify against you? You know, yeah, yeah, obviously.
You know, we had a couple of conversations and, you know, for me, it kind of hurt because, you know, yeah, yeah, obviously. Um, you know, we had a couple of conversations and, and, um, you know, for me, it kind of hurt because, you know, I mean, I, I really saw him as like a father figure, you know, he, um, you know, he built me, you know, I mean, he, he created me, uh, he helped me become who I was.
And, you know, I, you know, I thought it was more than that. So, you know, obviously the business kind of took, the business aspect kind of took over.

And, you know, equally, you know, I thought it was more than that. So, you know, obviously the business kind of took, the business aspect kind of took over and, and, you know, equally, I think because he was being like that, you know, I, I kind of stood, stood my ground and, and, you know, you know, I turned into a man at offseason.
Did you ever consider maybe converting to Mormonism? Because that seems to be the key for Sean Payton to want to pay like nebulous in between type guys exorbitant amount of money.

Well, you know what? I would say definitely kind of since then, I think guys in that I think guys in that place, you know, who earned a young got paid, you know, and they just figured it out.

You know, I think Kamara, I think the receiver, you know, I think they just kind of gave those guys the bag just because they realize, hey, you know, we don't you know, we don't want like a leader franchise guy to to to, you know,

and have to be traded. I think, you know, I mean, I think a lot was learned kind of through the whole experience, you know, unfortunately.
And I mean, you know, you know, and that's kind of how it is. You weren't around for the year where Sean Payton was suspended, right? So you're not going to be in the Kevin James movie?

Oh no, I was there. Oh, you were there for that.
So who would you want to play you or who does play you

in the Kevin James movie?

Oh, do they put me in there? I mean, obviously The Rock.

You know?

That's just a good answer for anything.

Keep it in Miami. Who do you want to hang out with tonight?

The Rock. Always

a rock dance. Pete Davidson I could see

playing you.

That'd be kind of cool. It's kind of cool.
No, dude. Dude's a stick man.
He slays everyone. Yeah.
Yeah. The stick man.
Yeah. All right.
So I'm a Bears fan. I got to ask, how awkward is it in House Hall right now? Awkward? You know, guys are just focused on, you know, and staying healthy and, you know, we're going to figure out who our quarterback is Sunday and then kind of go from there.
That was a great answer, Jimmy. Wow.
Yeah. Great answer.
Are you focused on controlling what you can control right now? Yeah, that's all we're doing here, man. And, you know, sometimes it's offseason.
We'll get back together. Jimmy, talk about the mindset that goes into your preparation for this Sunday.
I mean? Yeah, talk about the mindset. Where are we at mentally? No, I mean, you know, hopefully this isn't my last game.
You know, that's that's kind of where my mindset is, is, you know, obviously, you know, I want to be here for my boy, Cole Komet, you know, make sure that, you know, he keeps rising and keeps learning. But, you know, for me as well, I got to figure out what's next for me, you know, and I got to figure out if there's an opportunity for me to go on to um you know uh um you know uh contender next year and kind of see what happens you know obviously um there's a lot of moving parts all around the nfl and and you know we'll see we'll see who retires and who doesn't and and you know if i keep playing uh so that actually it just triggered something in my brain you were part of the famous 11 tight end room that Ryan Pace put together where he's like, I'm going to try to Pokemon collect all of the tight ends in the entire NFL and do this going into the training camp.
Did you have enough seats in the room? Did someone have to stand? How'd that work out? Obviously, tight end position is a big – it's a position that kind of always gets hurt, you know, kind of always gets banged around. And, you know, I mean, I think they were, you know, just trying to figure out, you know, what was going to be the best, you know, moving forward, especially, you know, with how much, you know, that they were supposed to be using us.
So, yeah, it was just, you know, I mean, it was definitely an issue. 11 tight ends.
Yeah, there's a lot of people did you guys were there like clicks inside the tight end room like this before our title room is pretty close and you know i'm old so the more the merrier because that means the less i have to practice um so so you know no we're all very close man we uh even you know however many we had i don't even remember what it was. You know, I mean, that's kind of how some of the off seasons are.
Every team at some point loads up on some position trying to figure out what their future is and kind of what the president is. So I asked you kind of an awkward question because obviously it seems like there's change coming to the Bears, hopefully.
I'll ask you an easier question. How big of a dickhead is Aaron Rodgers oh you're being serious Jimmy's nodding he's saying yep he just no no he just winked at us did you see that wink I didn't see that I didn't see the wink he saw the wink but I didn't see the wink but I saw the thumbs up yeah nah trust me Aaron Rodgers is my guy man he um you know obviously I spent two years there um you know it was kind of uh It was kind of a weird two years, obviously, because Mike got fired and new offense.
There was just a lot going on, kind of those two years there. That kind of built up into what it is now.
But me and Aaron are extremely close. We still talk every week.
No chance. No chance.
That's a lie. Yeah.
And, you know, I mean, obviously, bless all the know, all the times that we spent together and, you know, obviously the derbies and stuff. It's, you know, I mean, I owe him and we'll always be close.
Always. And that's real.
Has he told you how much LSD he did this offseason? He's so ridiculous. No.
I don't know his personal ordeals. You know, he's over there in California doing his thing, man.
But, you know, he's had a hell of a... Sounds like you're really close to him.
Well, I also live in Miami. So, yeah, we get on it every once in a while, FaceTime, catch up, talk about things.
And, you know, we share some similar opinions on very many things. Why don't we FaceTime them right now? We should just FaceTime them right now.
Yeah, I'm probably not going to do that. I mean, you guys FaceTime all the time.
I would never do that though. Never.
And you guys know that. First of all, if randomly somebody FaceTimed me while on the show, I'd be pissed.
We used to do that all the time to our guests they no one actually got we had tiger woods on scott van pelt called tiger woods no big deal

uh yeah i remember we had michael jordan on yeah we had michael jordan on denny hamlin called michael jordan so it works who's the most famous person your cell phone the most famous person my cell phone um wow um probably mark cuban maybe mark i think you can do better than Mark He's really He's not that famous we know him He's awesome right Yeah no he is awesome If we know him then he's not that famous What about Obama Well he's not my cell phone Oh I went to the White House a couple times to speak for him Oh no you got Trump in your cell phone then Trump No I saw him over in Palm Beach One time but that's it Alright so I had one last question This has been awesome everyone please check out The Jimmy Graham Foundation he is nominated For the Walterton Man of the Year. It'd be nice if the Bears could win something Super Bowl week for once.
So we're rooting for you, Jimmy. So you are a fantasy football Hall of Famer.
Your 2013 season was insane when you had 16 touchdowns. How often do people come up to you and, like, mention that?

Because I'd have to imagine a decent amount.

Every day of my life.

It doesn't matter where I'm at.

Almost it's anywhere every day.

I hear it nonstop.

I mean, I've been pulled over by a cop, you know, speeding,

and he's just like, hey, man, thanks for the win, man. You know, it's just nuts.

You know, I mean, I think fantasy football has just propelled Thank you. you know speeding and he's just like hey man thanks thanks for the win man you know it's just

like it's just nuts you know it's it's uh you know i mean i think fantasy football has just

propelled just offensive players on a different stratosphere man it's it's it's been great for

the game really has but it's crazy because that that that 2013 season it was also um it was like

kind of that moment where it was a cheat code where you're like oh wow tight ends can do like

a bunch for us here and also that i should mention the 2011 season when you had 11 touchdowns as well. You changed everything.
So people, it's like LaDainian Tomlinson and Jimmy Graham. Those are the two guys that I think of in my mind where I'm like, I can remember those specific years and it was so fucking awesome to have them on your team.
Yeah. it's i mean still to this day i get everybody in the mom just always um actually most of the people who probably donate to the to the foundation is always linked to something on fantasy football you're paying it back yeah i like that yeah just paying it forward so you know i appreciate all the people have been paying it for the last couple years for the foundation really appreciate it very cool uh my My last question is, do you get invited to hang out with George Kittle and Greg Olson and all those other tight ends when they get together and they do their little sleepovers? No, you know, it's kind of weird.
You know, this offseason, you know, I didn't get invited to the tight end extravaganza. Wow.
Yeah, which is, yeah, I was kind of disappointed. i told um i told clance um i told some of the older tight ends uh uh this year maybe or next year the same week um you know i'll throw the um i'll throw the tight end mafia meet jeremy shockey uh down in miami or or down in the bahamas and and uh you know we'll have our own little thing i like like that, a rival tight end get-together.
Or you could do, like, tight ends that should be wide receivers or vice versa. It's just you and Kelvin Benjamin hanging out.
That'd be cool. Listen, again, that was all just to get a contract.
But, you know, it happens. I would imagine if you asked, like, Kittle, although you were trying you were trying to help tight ends like overall because if you got paid as a wide receiver more guys would have gotten paid as a wide receiver but they probably are like dude you know what are you ashamed of us you turned your back on who we are yeah i mean i i don't know what it is i mean because uh cole commit went you know i mean didn't even get the invite.
Cole went and was sending me pictures

of all his little buds. Wow.
I think you've

got to put the narrative out there. Next time you talk

to Chris Collinsworth before a game,

just be like, you know what? I actually

take a lot of pride in my blocking.

And then have him say that on the air. He loves

saying that about tight ends. You know, actually, this guy

takes a lot of pride in his blocking, Al.

And if you get him to say that,

then maybe they'll be like, all right, he wants to get back in the club. And then kid will invite you to come hang out and wrestle for a weekend.
I assume that's what they do. They just hang out and they just, let's go.
Let's do it. Ash heads.
Yeah. If not, you guys can meet Titan mafia down, down in Miami, meet Jeremy Shockey, all the boys to get back together.
Kelvin Benjamin. Yep.
Okay. Perfect.
Awesome. Thank you, Jimmy.
Appreciate it so much. And yeah, good luck with the rest of the year.
Just try not to linger around like the water cooler. I'm sure that would probably be weird to get caught in a conversation.
We're all good, man. Yeah, just be you, you know.
I appreciate you guys having me, man. And thanks for the plug for the foundation, man.
And, you know, I'll keep watching.

Hopefully I'll see you guys soon.

Awesome, man.

Thanks so much.

Thanks, man.

Seriously, though, how big of a dick is Aaron Rodgers?

He's awesome.

He's awesome, dude.

You're winking again.

He's winking again.

He's the man, bro.

He's the man.

He's the man.

All right.

See you, man.

Thanks so much.

Okay.

Thanks to Jimmy Graham and Kirk Herbstreet. Let's wrap up.
We do a few guys on chicks and send you on your way. Hank? Hey, DadCatShortKing, the best in the office, and Spank.
I have a dietary question for Billy Feet Picks. Oh.
Speaking of which, Billy has supped us up. It takes me like 10 minutes to eat them all every day because there's like 17 of them, and one of them smells and tastes horrible, so I like gag them down.
That's the fish oil. I believe, though.
I'm a believer. I actually think my thought process is I've been so unhealthy and putting nothing good in my body that something is better than nothing.
Hopefully, you know, my liver stays intact, but I believe. I'm going to say that.
I believe in you, Billy. We got some probiotics, so we're working it from all angles.
Is there a chance, though? I'm actually seriously concerned about kidney health. Is there a chance that what you've given me will fuck my kidneys? Well, that's why we didn't put you on creatine.
Most of it's anti-inflammatory. I didn't really answer the question.
Good point. I totally bought it for a second.
I was like, okay, yeah, good. Billy thought of everything.
Nothing I gave you is like a salt or something that would be filtered. Billy wrote a very good blog today.
You guys should all go read it. He says exactly how he's going to get us all into shape and it also gave a little peek behind his his brain into what he actually thinks of us because in the first sentence he was like here's how you would potentially get uh one tall fat guy one skinny fat guy and then one you call me like short flab i forget what you called what you said about decent muscle building genetics yeah you did you did say that about my genetics and then at the end of the blog he said i am not a doctor none of this is medical advice it's bioscience from a bioscientist no that's bro science from a bro scientist i'm reading the blog it's you said bioscience from a bioscientist.
Specifically only for

bros. you are not a bro stop reading because bros don't sue bros for medical malpractice for organ failure i like that that's true it's guy code facts all right so this guy my boyfriend has ibsc don't know what that means so he drinks mirrorlax every day and it makes his farts and shits unbearable.
What dietary changes does he need to make life with him bearable because it is rough? So he's got irritable bowel syndrome. Okay.
So he's actually probably, I go the probiotic route as we just talked about. His gut health is not health is not with fibers but the certain bacteria

that's in his gut probably isn't

the best and that's why he's getting some of the

irritation I've actually seen

from some research that IBS can

actually be helped by a lot of probiotic

research the exact ones I don't know

but look into it you guys ever had a hemorrhoid

no nope

do you have one?

that's a very specific

question no it's kind of related to what Billy

was saying hey PMT boys

You can get what Billy was saying. Hey, PMT boys.
Wait, wait. You've had a hemorrhoid.
No. You've definitely had a hemorrhoid.
I was doing some research. You should get on my own independently.
You think you have one? Independently. No, no.
Doing some research independently. Yeah.
Just only one finger at a time? Yeah. Have you guys gotten that thing done yet? Colonoscopy.

No, 40.

Okay.

Hey, PMT boys. My husband had his AirPods in while I was in labor last week.
Today, I learned he was listening to PMT while we welcomed our firstborn into the world. Is this a weird move and or should I be upset with him? I think it's science has proven that listening to part of my take

while you're your significant other is giving birth is actually a very good way to welcome the child into this world.

It's not a weird move.

There's nothing that you the dad can really do in this situation.

You're just there.

It's not like the doctors are doing their thing.

You're trying to not get in the way, but also stay out of the way. It's a very hard line to walk here.
So I don't think it's a problem at all.

In all honesty, I have one maybe suggestion for something that you can do while your wife is giving birth.

Maybe actually don't listen to a podcast while the baby is coming out.

Is that too much?

No, it's again.

It's like, I don't know.

He's got one headphone in.

He probably shouldn't.

But also. maybe actually don't listen to a podcast while the baby is coming out.
Is that too much? No, again, it's like, I don't know, he's got one headphone in.

He probably shouldn't, but also it's a very emotional, weird situation,

so however you cope.

I'm not going to tell you how to deal with it.

He probably was listening to guys on checks thinking that we might be giving advice.

On how to pull the baby out.

Yes.

Listen, when my son was born on his birthday,

Glennie Balls gave me fucking four WNBA picks and they all lost. We all have different memories.
Okay. How do I get my boyfriend to let go of the past? I'm a Steelers fan and he is a Seahawks fan.
I can't even watch my games in peace without mad shit talking every 10 seconds because he hates the Steelers for defeating them in a Super Bowl in 2006. Yeah.
I've debated just letting go of the Steelers and becoming a Seahawks fan, but I can't do that. Born and raised Steelers, help me let him let it go.
Yeah, Seahawks should have won that game. Yeah, the refs fucked him.
The refs absolutely fucked him. He's in the right in this one.
You're very much in the wrong. I think you just have to know going into that relationship, there's always going to be that imbalance there.
The little tension. Yep.
All right, we've got a few few of these, two more. We got a few of these ones, so this will be a general one.
But hey, PFT, Big Cat Hank, Billy, Jake, and Bubba, I joined my husband's friend's fantasy league because I needed to fill the last spot before the draft. I asked my husband if he could help me through it since I never had gone through a draft before.
But I also told him I only wanted the cutest players. I called my team League Babes.
My first picks were Josh Allen, Harrison Butker. Anyways, I ended up winning the championship, beating the organizer in the finals.
My husband didn't even make the playoffs. Did I ruin fantasy football for them? Probably.
Probably. They won't say it, but probably.
Their passion has probably been taken out of it. A little bit.
But that's one of those things where it's like, that's kind of like gaming where you think you're smart, you think you know it all, and then the person that doesn't know shit wins it, and you're like, why do I even care so much? Yeah, if they hadn't realized. So it's not your fault.
Yeah, right. If they hadn't realized already that fantasy football is like 99% luck and totally weird bounces, and like a Najee Harris happens and your whole season gets fucked.

Even if you're the best team,

if they hadn't realized that by now,

they would have eventually come to that realization.

You just helped them along in the path.

Yeah.

I'm,

I wouldn't be mad because I,

fantasy football is like so fluky and that's why I get upset about it.

And that's why I don't like talking about it.

It's like you play it all year and then it just something right.

One of your best players just has a bad day or Najee Harris does that.

Thank you. And that's why I get upset about it.
And that's why I don't like talking about it. It's like you play it all year and then it just something.
One of your best players just has a bad day. Or Najee Harris does that.
It's stupid. Also, it's undeniable that Harrison Bucker is the second most attractive player in the NFL.
I like how they threw that one in there. Maybe just name? I don't know.
Look at him. No, she said I think he was the second overall pick for it.
Oh, he's a good looking guy. Pretty babes.
Pretty good. Total babe.
Yeah. Maybe that's, you know, no running back strategy, hot guy strategy.
Yeah. Could be something there.
Are hot dudes better at football? Probably not. Aaron Rodgers is kind of ugly.
Yeah. You think he's ugly? He's mad ugly.
Also, someone tweeted, I mean, this the other day. If Aaron Rodgers won the Super Bowl, does that reverse the long hair curse? Yeah.
I think it probably does. Sure.
I don't want to think about this. It's not even really a long hair curse.
It's just a fact that long hair quarterbacks have never won a Super Bowl. Right.
So I'm saying this would. It's not a curse.
It's just a demonstrable fact. It's a law of the universe.
Besides Kenny Stabler. I think we found that one.
He was shaggy happy new year last one happy new year big cat pft billy and hank no jake no bubba my boyfriend and i probably knew that jigs owned out yeah true uh my boyfriend and i have been dating about a year and live together the other night he was moaning so loud in his sleep so i rolled over and found out he had a raging boner i woke him up to find find out what his sex dream was all about only to find out he was going to battle with the Spartans. Should I be concerned or slightly turned on? Is it fear boner? Yeah, I want Billy to answer this.
There's somebody who's experienced in war mode. So there is an idea that there's a cycle when dudes sleep where their testosterone spikes.
I think that's everyone. Which causes like morning wood.
That's a theory? No, that's a fact. That's a fact.
Yeah. But like, so he could have been cycling through like high T in his sleep and he was going to fight with the Spartans and there's a couple side effects from that.
Is the morning wood, is that a byproduct of Tcling or is that blood? Just like blood goes to one part of your body. No, yeah.
I think that's different. I think it's the first hour of your sleep is something happens.
I'm pretty sure. Rem.
No, it's like I can't remember what. I don't know if it's testosterone because I think it happens with women too.
Like something. No, I don't know.
Either way, we're not scientists. We're not doctors.
Don't sue us. Boners.
Boners spike. That's right.
Mm-hmm. That's exactly what I'm actually looking right now.
It's the medical term. It is crazy to think that every dude gets morning wood.
Like the Pope, he wakes up with a boner. Just crazy to think about.
Something to smoke on for a while thinking about other guys boners yeah well just every guy's not other every guy's some dudes don't wake up with boners some guys don't wake up all right shout out those john madden r.i.p he didn't wake up sad jack cadavers have boners what what yeah what's a cadaver dead body has med school students all right we'll see everyone on Friday oh numbers what ask 92 22 288 disqualifying myself don't deserve to take a number that I'm taking 18 I'm taking 18 I'm taking 18 I'm taking 18 32 That was so classy of you, Jake. Oh, my God.

Hashtag, thank you, Jake. Verbal meme, Derek Jeter's little nephew.
I'll be back on Friday. That was incredible.
Dust nights are everywhere. Love you guys.
Say after me. I don't know what to say I'll say it anyway Today's another day To find you shying away I'll be coming for your love, okay Take on me Take me Take on me

I'll be gone