Woody Paige, Mt Flushmore Of Life's Small Victories With Brian Koppelman

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 Woody Page, legend of the game, Around the Horn. We talked to him about sports, some memories, dominating, being the Brett Favre of Around the Horn with the most wins and most losses.
we have

Hatsi Cool Throne and then

probably the most wins and most losses. We have Hatsi Kultron.
And then probably the most uplifting Mount Rushmore we've ever done. We have our guest, a recurring guest, Brian Koppelman on.
You know him from Billions Rounders. And we do the Mount Rushmore of life's small victories.
So we all were inspired coming out of this Mount Rushmore. It felt good to happy again so make sure you listen to that ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working nah neither has Ariat Ariat work jackets and boots are packed with all the cold stopping waterproof protection you need to get the job done under any conditions so you can take any job out there and always deliver.
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for email and whether whatever in Ariat work gear. Okay, let's go.
Hey! Oh, no, no, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.

And then we'll take it higher.

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The New Orleans Saints now have two Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Drew Brees and future Hall of Fame quarterback. Taysom Hill.
Jameis Winston. I almost said Jason Winston.
Jason Winston. Jameis Winston, he signed a one-year deal with him today.
He had many other offers, PFT. Well, he did.
He had offers to be a starter and for more money. In a lot of places that don't exist.
In better cities than New Orleans. That's like a three-for-three of things that definitely didn't happen.
It's like how ridiculous of a lie can I throw out there and have people believe it? Well, guess what, James? No one believed this lie. I mean, I would honestly sympathize with him if he was like, I wanted to go chill out in New Orleans for a year, make a million dollars or however much he's going to get paid, not have to work and just live in the best city in the world.
How about, uh, it actually is a genius move by him because Drew Brees, you have to think, okay, Drew Brees, maybe this year's his last year. Maybe he's got two more years.
If you can ingratiate yourself to Sean Payton and what they have going on there, like that's actually a very smart thing to do to be the guy in waiting. And you've made a lot of money already because you were a first-round draft pick with the fifth-year option being picked up.
get to be learning from drew breeze and sean payton and he can maybe even be like hey dude like the linebackers are the ones in the middle well yeah i mean that that'd be a good spin zone maybe they hired him so that he could play scout team and work on the hands of the linebackers and the cornerbacks in practice yes get some reps in catching some balls for a change i would love to see the film study though of like drew breeze being like all right where'd you throw it here and and james is like right there right where a linebacker is like no we're not doing that like trying to explain to him how the positions work he's like i just want to throw the ball drew that's it so i i looked up some stats on old james here okay so they're all unbelievable this is why i'm actually optimistic about jis in new orleans his grass versus turf split you ready for this on grass this is how bored we are on grass 22 touchdowns 27 interceptions on turf 11 touchdowns three interceptions wow his passer rating is almost it's 35 points higher.

So on turf than it is in grass,

he played. His passer rating is almost 35 points higher on turf than it is in grass.
He played, obviously, the Saints and the Falcons. Was there a third turf game? Isn't that just the general rule for turf versus grass? Well, and also the Falcons defense is terrible.
What was the other? Listen, I'm not here to get into actually breaking down the stats. I found a stat that fit my narrative for Jameis Winston, so I'm going to run with that.
I'm going to look up the other turf game because it's going to be hilarious if it was just the worst defense. Probably.
Yeah. It probably was.
But the fact is, Jameis likes turf. He doesn't like grass.
So this is going to be a great season. He loves domes.
I got a stat for you. If Jameis Winston throws zero touchdowns and zero interceptions this year, he still will be second all time at the age of 27 for touchdowns and interceptions only behind Dan Marino thank you Jameis that's a good stat so one thing that we know about about Sean Payton and when he looks at quarterbacks he has visions of what he wants the role to be all the time and it's not like other quarterback coaches that are like oh uh I want this guy to be a serviceable serviceable backup because he knows the system this guy's going to be my emergency no that's not how sean payton thinks he has actual defined roles for his different quarterbacks right like tasem hill was the guy that they'd bring in during games and teddy bridgewater was the guy that they'd bring in as the actual backup if drew breeze went down with jamis winston i don't know what that role is going to be is he going to be the teddy bridgewater from last year or is he going to be he could be the quarterback saves guy because Jameis Winston.
I don't know what that role is going to be. Is he going to be the Teddy Bridgewater from last year? Or is he going to be, he could be the quarterback saves guy.
Cause Jameis Winston seems like a guy that you could put in, in a fourth quarter. If you want to make things interesting, walk away with a save.
It just sucks that we might not get Jameis as a starter next year. The, the, the total comedy of the league has taken a hit by the way.
He scored 38. They scored the Lions in week 14.
So that might have been a help for the grass-verse. Jameis can only play who he plays on his schedule in domes.
Yeah, 38-17. That definitely helped.
He had four touchdowns, 458 yards. Still 11 touchdowns, three interceptions.
All right, so we had the Jameis news. We have new baseball news.
Wait, what is this? Oh, Jameis Winston has completed 10 career passes to Saints players. Taysom Hill has completed seven.
I don't like these stats that are supposed to just be mean to Jameis. I mean, it sounds like that's the team he's supposed to play for, though.
True. Mean to Jameis or Taysom? That's true.
I guess, well, James never played for the Saints. But yes.
Yes. Both.
Yes, both. It's a double mean.
They're just being mean all around. The other news we have is the baseball is trying, feels like, they might come back.
Early July is what's been said. They're confident in that.
And what I think we've talked about, but I love this idea that they're going to restructure how the divisions are, which is great. Because if this season is going to be weird, make it really fucking weird.
I need to get to the point where we're debating the designated hitter rule already. Because it's a mix.
Oh, yeah. What happened? It's a melange of teams from both leagues in each division.
So the East, you've got the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Orioles, Nationals, Phillies, Pittsburgh. Everyone in the East except for Atlanta.
Yes. They moved to the Central.
Yes. Which actually makes sense if you look at a map.
Does it? Yeah. Atlanta is farther west than people realize is it farther west than Pittsburgh yes I want to say yes Pennsylvania hold please we're doing some map exercises here again this is what we have folks we're doing some map exercises Atlanta is much much much farther west than Pittsburgh.
Okay. Much.
I use many muches. Atlanta is in line is farther west than Detroit.
Yeah. People don't realize how far west Atlanta is.
I think if you think about a map, people forget that South Carolina is kind of boxing Atlanta out there. That's why the Seahawks were able to beat the Falcons in the playoffs a couple years ago.
It wasn't that far of a trip. Correct.
It is central. I don't know if it's central.
No, it's not. It's not central time.
It's eastern time. But that's why Atlanta and Nashville should actually be playing in football more often because they're three hours away from each other.
So it makes sense that Atlanta is in the central, and then you just have the west team. So I like it because you get the Mets and the Yankees playing all year long.
You get the Cubs and the White Sox playing all year long. You get the Dodgers and whoever else is in L.A.
Dodgers and the Giants is really good. The Dodgers.
I love that the Angels are there. Oh, yeah.
San Diego's around, too. Close enough.
What did the los angels the los angeles angels of anaheim is still maybe the most ridiculous name we did that we did we there was like a sparkle quiz that this was before coronavirus started and it was you had five minutes or it may have been like eight minutes to name every single franchise in all four major sports and i missed a couple of the Canadian hockey teams, but the only other American team I missed was the Los Angeles. You got the Florida Panthers.
Yes. They exist.
Yeah. Because we had that whole thing.
Like, wow. Like everything else was easy.
And then I just forgot that the angels existed. And even when they said it to me, I was like, is that real? Their team.
Okay. If it wasn't for business, nasty, the coyotes would be a tough one to remember too yeah i think i forgot the uh winnipeg jets maybe i don't know either way that's neither here nor there baseball could be bad i think i think baseball is coming back it's going to be i kind of like how these divisions are broken down to be honest with you like there's there's really no need to have an american and national league if unless you have to like break it down through a whole 160 263 game season but like with this I don't have a problem with any of this I see a couple teams getting their asses kicked in the east but the divisions overall look pretty competitive this is the whole point of like the sports coming back I'm still skeptical but if they do embrace how weird this is in brick like if the NBA comes back and they play a finals in August don't start the season until Christmas and run it from Chris like run a shortened season the other way around to like embrace how weird it is how different everything is and make it different to like it would be so disappointing if they did a shortened baseball season and nothing was different.

They just cut out maybe like all interleague play or something.

Yeah.

It's like why?

Why?

That's why do I like that?

Why do you change the pace?

If there's 100 games, I don't need to see the Cubs play the Pirates 19 times.

I want to see weird shit happen.

What if what if baseball came back and heaven forbid the very first thing that happened was a home run derby and Christian Yelich wins it?

I think it doesn't count.

Thank you. see weird shit happen.
What if baseball came back and heaven forbid the very first thing that happened was a home run derby and Christian Yelich wins it?

I think it doesn't count.

Short and season. Asterix.
Doesn't

count. Asterix.
Plus

that's a coronavirus risk on our

part. Can you imagine if he never competes in the home run

derby? His back gets hurt and then

he goes and then he has

coronavirus happen and

then he gets busted for

whatever he's been doing and never makes the all-star

game again? You can make an argument that our asses derailed his career. He did sign his big contract.
That's true. He probably is not as hungry.
Getting fat and happy. Although you don't have to make the All-Star game to be in the Home Run Derby.
That's bullshit. And he would do that out of spite.
That's bullshit. Especially after I just said that thing.
He didn't do steroids. I know that for a fact.
He changed his stance. And he's a great guy.
As a matter of fact, what did Aaron Rodgers say when Braun got accused of doing steroids? I hate Jordan Love. He said that he would donate how much money? No, he said he'd retire.
He'd retire? So Big Cat will retire if Christian Yelich ever gets caught doing steroids. Boom.
Oh, man. Can I take an insurance plan out on that? Nope.
That great if i got a lloyds of london hook me up i mean if major league baseball knows what they're doing they will find a way to make that happen just to boost the ratings yes for the home run derby yes uh all right hot seat cool throne hot seat cool throne is brought to you by our friends all protein bars generally taste the same but not one bars one made protein bars are actually delicious with Reese's and Hershey's. Only one Reese's peanut butter lover's protein bar is made with Reese's peanut butter and only one Hershey's cookies and cream protein bars is made with Hershey's cookie bits while delivering 18 grams of protein and three grams of sugar.
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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on amazon.com. We started, you know, in classic us fashion quarantine started we said hey every friday to you know keep us motivated give us something to do we're going to review a documentary we're going to watch a movie uh i think we made it what two weeks three weeks uh-huh we forgot last week i brought it up today like what should we do for friday and and you guys are like well we're not gonna make it we're not gonna make it.
We can't do it this Friday. Hold on.
Hold on. We not only didn't do it last week, but we talked about it before we did the show and just forgot to say it.
Correct. And then this week, I was like, what are we going to do this week? And it was like, well, it's already Tuesday.
I don't know. We're not going to watch anything by Friday.
So my hot seat is us. But with that being said, we're, we're going to, we're going to reign it back in.
We're going to get back on track. We just need good, solid, quick documentaries that we can watch plan in advance for next Friday, the following Friday and so on and so forth.
Preferably under two hours in length. Right.
I was saying maybe exit through the gift shop, the Banksy documentary. That could be pretty good.
Maybe something to do with hard knocks. I don't know.
Just tell us tell us tell us tell us what to do this friday we have something special planned next friday we got you uh and then my cool throne is burning man it's back on it's on yeah shout out to arty atkin on uh twitter for sending me this but there he sent me a noisy uh article and this is the headline burning man a podcast burning man is going noisy is a is a news organization burning man is going virtual and so are the orgies hell yeah so burning man is good so we're gonna wait so we're gonna sit in our houses listening to music and jack off because someone else is gonna be jacking off so it's cool it's gonna be like a zoom jo sesh okay yeah my... I mean, I didn't read the article.
I just read the headline that he tweeted at me. Yeah.
A virtual orgy sounds like the worst type of orgy. I don't know.
Like a bestiality orgy. At least when you're done, you can just kind of shut your laptop and be like, all right.
Be like, I did this. I'm ashamed.
An orgy with like hardware equipment. You know what? I take that back.
An orgy sounds like a lot of pressure. I don't know.
There's a lot of worse orgies. Doesn't it? STD orgy.
Yeah. There's a lot of red flags that go up if you're going to an orgy.
Yeah. You don't want your car to get parked in because that's awkward if you have to leave and you're like, hey, can somebody move their car? Yeah, I mean, I never do.
I don't think orgies are a real thing. No, they are.
I don't think. Like, I'm 26.
Swingers. And I still don't think.
Like, that's one of those things where it's like, it still doesn't seem real to me. I don't think that they happen.
Go to Key West. Key West.
You'll change your mind pretty quickly. What I don't understand about orgies is, like, what happens.
I would come so fast. Like, do they have, like, a buffet that you can hit up after? Like, what do you do? I'm sure you have a spread.
You sit there and just talk about like oh okay. I feel like it's You guys are going to keep going? It's like a wedding reception where I'm sure there's a buffet there's assigned seating you sit down you meet your neighbor that sort of thing and then an emcee gets up and he's like okay let's this started.
Then he brings out like a ringer and then the ringer and him get started.

Then everyone else just kind of goes at it on the table.

So in that analogy,

I'd be the guy with,

uh,

I would have the tie around my head on the first song,

sweating through my shirt and then be like,

Oh,

I'm done.

Yeah.

I get the belt off and do the limbo way too early.

Yes.

I just have somebody grab my wiener and that would be the limbo stick. And they'd be like, I can't fit.
Yeah, it's over. It's way too small.
Was that it? That's it. All right.
I had a hot seat. Hot seat, cool throw.
A hot seat? My hot seat is Rick Neuheisel. So last time you've seen Rick Neuheisel, he might have been doing a college football halftime show or post game show playing his guitar and singing some song that he wrote about football uh well guess what he's got some company because gary patterson is putting out an album so gary patterson the coach at tcu has spent the last couple weeks recording an album of some sort he's being very tight-lipped about exactly what type of music it is who he's co-writing it with but he says he's got 15 songs of material.
He's being very tight lipped about exactly what type of music it is, who he's co-writing it with. But he says he's got 15 songs of material.
He's got, uh, he wears that vest, right? Well, no, he's the shirt changer. Shirt changer.
I thought it was a vest guy too. He, he occasionally does, uh, the vest, but he sweats and he'll change his shirt at halftime.
Yeah. So, um, I, I'm excited to see what's going to, I hope that this starts a trend.
I'd like to see more college football coaches get into releasing albums. Isn't this isn't this a way to get through recruiting loopholes? Like if you wrote a song specifically for a five star recruit.
Why is that called? Like put your hand in the dirt. You think that's not I'd love to see you in my purple shirt.
That beats out all the text messaging rules and stuff and phone calls. Yeah you write a love song about about a five-star quarterback every year from like plano texas yeah i like that i would love to see mike leach record some songs i'm sure he has already right yeah although i don't he strikes me as a guy who doesn't play instruments he just has a tambourine and he plays that and he brings it everywhere he's like you want me to hop in for a set he could also he could be a harmonica guy if he had the vest yeah i could see him he's played a lot of interest instruments he's tried every instrument he's got yeah he's got a study filled with like a trumpet two types of saxophones a bass oboe maybe probably has several harps yep that he's purchased after watching one of the rings or some shit yep yeah, I'm really looking forward to Gary Patterson's album coming out.
My cool throne is the circle of life for fullbacks. So James Devlin walked away from the game.
Sad. Very sad.
An angel gets its neck roll. Belichick gave him higher praise than he gave Brady pretty much.
Yeah. He retires as a Patriot.
Good for him. You never see that anymore.
I like players that really take pride in the team that they were around for so long. And as he departs, the Ravens got who I believe to be the next James Devlin in the draft.
So not only did our buddy Danny Vitale go in and take James Devlin spot on the roster, I think he'll be great in New England, but the Ravens got a guy from Kennesaw State. You remember Kennesaw State? They're the ones that had the turnover plank, which was the best turnover accessory.
They got Merrill Hodge. We call him a factor back.
He's six foot tall, runs a 4.4840, 230 pounds, and then put up 35 reps on the bench sheesh and i'm not even gonna say his name because he's a fullback and you'll you'll find out his name soon enough so it's the circle of life it continues the bull in the ring of life for uh for the fullback position um okay my hot seats is all of us again because ufos exist and tom de the fuck? Well, he's been, dude, he's been beating this drum for 10, 15 years. He was absolutely right, which is crazy to think about.
The guy that was writing songs about aliens and like jacking off a dog was 100% logical about his alien take. Hold on.
Does he get credit for that? Because if you're, if you don't think that aliens exist, you're a you're a fucking moron uh well does it like that seems like such an obvious thing i guess he's more passionate about it but i would say the people who are like oh yeah there's no aliens they're they're the idiots well you know who i blame is elon musk so him and tom de long like switched personalities at some point 10 years ago where tomLonge started working with all this technology to track down extraterrestrial life and did it, and then Elon Musk tried to bang pop stars and make a bunch of 69, 420 jokes on Twitter. So I would blame your Elon Musk.
I would blame Mark Hoppus a little bit from Blink-182 because he doubted Tom. I mean, I saw those videos.
It's real. Yes, there are aliens.
It's very real. Yeah.
So why can't the aliens come down and fix this fucking mess? Maybe the aliens did this to us. You think about that? Damn it.
All right. My cool throne is graphic visualization.
So I feel like this is one. I'm very interested in the industries that are getting a boom from coronavirus.

So I actually think bow ties are getting a big boom because every time I turn on CNN, there's a fucking weirdo doctor and a doctor who tries to dress up for TV. What do they do? Wear a bow tie.
the people who are making the the gifts of like uh you know like the spread of coronavirus the charts it's got to be off the charts for them right now no pun intended Nate Silver is behind this it's insane every day I see a fucking visualization of some shit that I don't even understand that has all these like repercussions about the economy and and deaths and all these things and i'm thinking there's some guy who's making a fucking killing off this so you're thinking that it's the nerds that are behind someone someone is benefiting i would like to interview anyone whose industry has just and i'm not talking about like oh i'm work for a health care company and i'm selling a shitload of ventilators because people are need iron lungs i'm talking about the the subtle ones that we don't they don't really meet the eye right away the people who are like oh that guy he's actually crushing it right now the pornography companies yeah absolutely killing it well they're i mean they're bulletproof they're recession they are recession proof i'd say they actually do better in a recession correct sad spanks or they count count almost more than normal Spanx. Yeah, what other companies? I would say your Seamlesses, obviously your Zooms.
Those are too obvious, though. Too obvious.
The ones that are flying under the radar. Here's one.
Electric companies. Electric companies, good one.
Hard candy companies, because people are dying and funeral homes need their hard candy that's gross.

There's no funeral. Were there?

No, there's some.

Oh, funeral home companies.

Yeah.

Big funeral is behind this.

Yeah.

No.

Bill Gates.

There's no funerals?

No.

None?

Social gatherings, no.

But you still have to send the body somewhere.

Right.

And someone has to go and eat the hard candy.

I don't agree. Interesting.
Agreed. Why don't you agree with that? He's right.
There aren't funerals. Like, you can't have funerals.
They're having virtual funerals. They are? Without hard candy, though.
No, everyone brings their own hard candy. It's like the orgy.
It's what they would have wanted. Grandma loved Werther's.
Yeah. Although Werther's is getting passed down and inherited probably more than people going on buying it.
So that probably comes out in the wash. The subtle places.
The cracks. Look under the rocks.
That's how we'll find out how this thing happened. Divorce attorneys.
Really benefiting. Yeah, but do you think people well why'd you have to bring that up? I wasn't talking about that guy.
Okay. Well, how about that girl? That girl.
Yeah. We're team Jay.
Maybe the problem was Jay... You remember the news that came out a while ago? That Jay unclogged her boobs because he was so good at sucking the milk out.
That's gross. Maybe he did too good a job and she started leaking.
I'm just trying to think. There's got to be other places.
I'll make a list. Places that we don't think about that are fucking stacking cash right now.
Central American ping pong leagues. Yes.
True. Nicaraguan soccer.
Speaking of ping pong. Speaking of ping pong, Thursday night, 6 p.m.
The rivalry renewed. It's back on.
PFT versus Hank. Seven games.
Don't wear. Make sure you wear a shirt that doesn't show your sweat.
I don't own any shirts that don't show my sweat. I'm going to comment, and it's going to get in your head again.
Listen, the shirt last time was a bad choice for the athletic event. I'll wear that.
What are you wearing right now? Dark. Dark shirt.
Dark colors. What I really want to do is wear all orange so that Hank can't see the ball when it's coming at him.
Like at Wrigley Field when they used to wear white out in center field. You can't do that.
You can do whatever you want. Whatever you want.
Is it a gentleman's game? Yeah. Well, you broke your paddle.
I think it's a scoundrels game. Oh, okay.
Do whatever you want, PFT. Whatever advantage you think you can get.
All right. Tune in.
Part of my take, Twitch. It's not going to matter.
Let's get to our interview. We got Woody Page.
We're going to get right back to the show. Auto insurance can all seem the same until it comes time to use it.
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USA! All right., back to part of my take. And now Woody Page.
Okay, we now welcome on very special guest. You know him from around the horn or the fact that he's been a big J journalist for a very, very long time.
He's seen it all. It is Woody Page.
He also has a podcast called Unmutable. You can go listen to it right now.

Woody, thank you so much for joining us. This is, as consumers of sports and sports media our entire life, this is an honor because you are a true Big J journalist and also a very funny guy from around the horn.
So thank you for joining us. Well, I've been a fan of you guys for quite a while.

And we were compatriots for a couple of days, I think.

Yeah, I think it was like 30 minutes. ESPN 2.
That's who I am. You may have remembered.
Yes. No, no, you're good.
I actually want to start there because, you know, you have seen it all. You know, writing for newspapers, doing TV, and now podcasting, the evolution of sports media, you have literally just lived through all of it.
Is there anything that surprises you at this point when it comes to where sports media has come from and where it is now? Do you think that we're blog boys and shouldn't be trusted? Or what exactly do you see our place in sports media and where you've come from i'm very i'm very excited about what's going on in sports media not given what we're going through now but when i was a kid journalist uh in my 20s and i'll tell you a very quick story i was in memphis tennessee my hometown and they had an aba team and they asked me to do the analyst job. And just before we went on the air, they handed me this thing to put in my ear.
And so the play-by-play guy said, I'm going to ask you about the center matchup. And I'm like, great.
So I'm talking about the centers of the Indiana Pacers and the Memphis pros. And I hear God talking to me.
And I turned around because I couldn't understand what God was saying. God was saying, you got one minute, then go to the commercial.
Nobody had ever told me about an IFB. The point of it is, so I am looking around for who's talking to me.
And finally, they ran out of the truck and they said, you're not supposed to respond to us.

The point was that when I speak to college journalists in classes, I always tell them that in five years, the job you're going to have doesn't exist because podcasts didn't exist.

Radio talk shows barely existed when I was a kid. ESPN didn't exist.
And so what you guys are doing and what other people are doing in the world of sports right now in four or five years, and you know this now as veterans, who knows what's going to be the next step in terms of sports media? Because we're seeing what I was talking about just forward on the air. The ABA, I used to write a column for the sporting news.
That was the biggest thing in the country along with Sports Illustrated and Sport Magazine. And Sporting News barely exists if it does anymore.
And Sport Magazine's gone out of business and Sports Illustrated illustrated has just gone out of business so i couldn't dream of ever being on tv i once asked

to kimbe mutombo that when he was growing up did he dream of being in the nba and he gave me a great

quote i think which is true he said i couldn't dream to the end of the dirt road so i think

that's when you talk about what's going on in sports media now we have no idea what will happen

Thank you. true he said i couldn't dream to the end of the dirt road so i think that's when you talk about what's going on in sports media now we have no idea what will happen because you guys couldn't have existed five six years ago yeah right no we're very much a product of the age that we kind of came up in and we did not go about this a traditional way like a lot of other people in this field right now i i get the feeling like and maybe you can correct me on this but uh when you were coming out of college it must have been extremely difficult to get your feet on the ground like getting and getting that first job because they were so limited you have to be affiliated with a newspaper or a radio station you know the the um the prospects for young sports writers seemed like they were extremely limited compared to now.
Well, I think I was very lucky. And nobody's really ever asked me that story.
But I worked all through college for the college radio station, the college TV station. I was editor of the daily newspaper at the University of Tennessee.
And when I got out of school, my thought was that I was going to go to Vietnam and die because that's what we were dealing with then. And I was a kid of the Vietnam War and I got drafted and I hoped that somebody would give me a job in New Jersey or something instead of Vietnam.
And I went to get my fiscal and I failed. And so I didn't quite know what I was basically going to do.
I thought about teaching school, and I went to the newspaper in Memphis, and I said, I'd like a job. And the guy said, well, we don't have any jobs.
He said, where do you go to school? I said, University of Tennessee. And he said, oh, the editor would like to talk to you.
He's on the board of governors of Tennessee. I went in to his office and he said, so you went to Tennessee? And I said, yes, sir.
And he said, hang on a second. He picked up a phone and he said to some guy, I'm going to send a kid out, give him a job.
That's how I got a job. That's crazy.
You pulled a John Elway on draft day. Yeah.
Like, I don't want to go to South Asia. Speaking of John Elway, I got a John Elway story for you because you guys are not happy that John Elway likes tall quarterbacks.
Yes. Well, no, I wouldn't say that, Woody.
I think we are happy that he likes tall quarterbacks because it gives us something to joke about all the time. Well, and also, I think we – This is breaking news for you guys.
all right go ahead okay brock osweiler paxton lynch we can go through all the together the bronco signed a free agent quarterback named riley neal out of vanderbilt he's 6'6 oh hell yes i love it perfect he's got it go away do you think now you obviously covered john as a player and now as a front office guy what is the uh vibe in denver right now in terms of the job he's doing because it feels like he might be teetering a little bit with the fan base when When he took over in 2011, I had a meeting with him actually a day before they introduced him. And I said, John, what's going to happen if you don't do well at this executive job? Because you are a guy that they'll put a statue of in the airport and downtown.
And I said, what happens if you do a terrible job? And he said, I haven't thought about't thought about that for a minute i said well you might want to think about it because a lot of uh remember marino became like general manager of the dolphins for about three days yep and and a lot of other ted williams failed matt millen i mean you said you've seen it right now with phil jackson you Obviously, he's the best coach of all time, but he was really bad with the Knicks. Yeah, I don't think John had really thought that out, that it could be bad.
Well, the last couple of years, there was almost a ruination, not totally, but there was somewhat of an erosion, if you put it that way, of his stature in Denver because of the poor job he had done drafting. He saved himself when they won the Super Bowl, 50, but they haven't pissed a drop the last four years.
And so I think that it was having an effect. People wanted him fired all the time.
That was a constant topic of discussion. And it really continued up until the Drew Locke appearance at the end of last year.
Drew Locke may save John Elway's job. And I just find that like poetic justice, that John Elway probably saved Dan Reeves' job in 1983.
and it could be that Drew Locke does it.

So that's why I think John was so intent in his draft

in drafting as many people that will help Drew Locke

because in turn that will help John Elway.

Yeah, and I think that Drew Locke is going to be a very good quarterback.

I saw some pretty good stuff out of him his rookie year that made me say,

okay, this guy has something to him, like a little bit of that moxie, where I think he actually can be the next guy in Denver. But there's also kind of like a double-edged sword with what they did in this draft because this offseason they've gotten him so many weapons on offense that if he so much as takes a step back or regresses at all, he's kind of in an interesting situation going into next year where it's like he might not be the guy unless he totally goes out there and wows you.
Well, I don't think anybody can determine right now Drew Locke's future. I mean, based on five games, but he was very successful those four games.
I like his swagger. I've gotten to know him, and I like his swagger, which is a term that's probably overused.
But he's got a – I would call it confidence. And he's got a strong arm.
He's got a John Elway kind of arm. And he did play impressively down the stretch last year.
But how important was that? They weren't going anywhere. The teams they weren't.
They were beating Detroit.

I mean, they were beating team Raiders.

They weren't really beating teams that were good.

So, again, I think that the idea was to surround him, and they drafted three wide receivers,

and they added two more wide receivers that were undrafted free agents.

They added – here's an interesting thing, and I haven't written them,

really haven't seen it.

They got five guys that in the combine or in quote pro days were in four fours. So when you think about that, they're chasing and copying the Kansas City Chiefs.
They're doing their best to get into position. They've lost nine straight games to Kansas City.
I mean, Kansas City's become as dominant as the Broncos were against Kansas City when Peyton Manning was here. And that's the only way you're going to in the AFC West with Kansas City and now Las Vegas and now Los Angeles, that all three of those other teams have got to chase the Kansas City Chiefs.
And oddly enough, I think the Chiefs had the best draft of the four of them. Yeah, I'd agree with that.
So can we talk about Around the Horn real quick? You are the winningest and losingest Around the Horn panelist of all time. You're also the longest tenured.
You're basically Brett Fav farve of around the horn you throw the most touchdowns the most interceptions is is there a certain level of like you actually do want to win these arguments and is there a rival that you like man i wish i could go back against this person because they really they really put it on you guys are competitive now Now I don't see Hank, wherever Hank is. He's behind the computer, yeah.
That's who I really want to talk to is Hank, that when you guys talk and do your podcast, you're competitive. You want to win the argument, right? Uh-huh.
Yeah. If you have an argument about the Washington Football Club or, say, the Patriots or Chicago, the quarterback situation is there, you want to win the argument.
I don't think there's anybody on the show, and I've been doing it for 18 years now since the first show, everybody wants to win, and people say, well, it must be fixed. It's not fixed.
You don't really know. If you win a round of applause for people who don't know, you get 30 seconds to talk about whatever you want to.
Well, I don't even think about what I'm going to talk about. I just think it just works out.
But every day the concept is, by me and I think everybody, Sarah Spain from Chicago, Tim Kalashaw from Dallas, Bill Plaskey, you can go on. Everybody wants to win in the show because you're competitive.
So it's not fixed. We don't know who's going to win.
Tony, I don't think most is going to win until the last second. And so from that nature, but I laugh when you said that because people say, gosh, you've lost more than anybody.
I think there's a famous plaque about Babe Ruth striking out 30,000 times.

So are you going to keep going so that your win number becomes untouchable

and you have the true record in sports that can never be –

someone's got to be on this show for 18 more years and you're still going. You are Brett Favre.
You're like, I'm going to keep throwing touchdown passes, hoping no one can catch me. Well, I will tell you, and I always speak the truth, anybody knows me, that I expected I would go away like 700 years ago and never thought about the wins.
I have a trophy that the of colorado gave me that fell apart when he gave it to me uh that says uh 600 wins on around the horn what makes it just like your show it's fun it's fun to do yeah it's not the most difficult thing if you look at my hands they're soft same i've never had a job in my life same blog hands blog hands well i think i signed a new contract they didn't make a big deal out of it i signed a new contract at the end of the year to go for two more years and i've never said this publicly or even privately but i suspect that uh two more years okay you're like tom brady you're just calling two more years you feel like you can do this yeah and then and then walk off into the sunset i mean, your record would be insurmountable at that point if you continue on the path that you've been on for the next couple. You're like Ricky Henderson with stolen bases.
No one's ever going to touch him. Yeah, Ricky Henderson and I.
Yeah. You put Tom Brady and me in a sentence.
You put me and Ricky Henderson. I'm sitting here.
I decided last night that

everybody's coming up with different plans for what's going on during the coronavirus. Last night, I shocked myself.
I've been home like 50 straight days. I go out for a long walk every day and give people a finger if they don't have a mask on.
But last night, I decided I'm going to invent something that when you touch the light socket, you don't get shocked. Have you wondered why that's never been? I assume when you walk around your house that you'll touch something and you get shocked and you know it's going to happen.
Why hasn't there been an invention? I know you don't want to talk about it. Well, no, you're talking about just baby-proofing your own house.
Wait, are you talking about the light switch or the actual sockets? Well, I don't stick my finger in the socket. Right, right.
No, but I touch a light switch or a lamp or something, and I get shocked all the time. Yeah, it's because you probably have luscious carpets around your entire house, and you wear nice wool socks, and you're just walking around, just getting the friction going.
No, I think, I think you just invented having a better electrician install all your appliances because I've never gone up to a lamp and touched it and be like, God damn. I just shocked myself on that lamp.
So I'm the only one. Yeah, I think you might be.
Yeah. I'm the only one on this show who's won 620 times over the whole act.
That's an ultimate Trump card. And get shocked all the time? Yep, yep, yep.
That's it. I noticed that you do have your trademark chalkboard in the background behind you that you have on every show.
My first question is, before you tell us what's on that one, who comes up with for you i do all of them uh we we wrote a book i won't promote anything you guys can do it but i came out with a book about two or three years ago with uh 2 000 of the quotes and people all people always ask me how'd you come up with it uh i was in new york with uh cold pizza with a guy whose name i forget uh i think he's on another network and i was doing cold pizza first take and the show that you know steven a and max do now and i was doing a show called dream job do you remember that yeah of course yep i was a judge with A. on Dream Job.
And so I was doing a bunch of shows there. And all I had in the background was like this, a bookcase that had nothing in it.
And they wanted to put helmets in the books and stuff. And I said to my associate, I said, we need to come up with something.
And he said, what are you thinking about? I said, well, maybe we'll put a blackboard up and make fun of Jay Mariotti or something. And so we put it up and true story.
You've dealt with ESPN. I got a call from the vice president of ESPN.
He said, get rid of the fucking blackboard. He said, that's not ESPN.
And I went, okay I was just trying something a week later he called me back and he said that's not ESPN and I went okay I was just trying something a week later he called me back and he said put the fucking blackboard I said oh the viewers responded he said no the president of ESPN likes it that's how I came up but who writes I sit in a bar and write on bar napkins and the next day i'll look at the bar napkins and i go that is awful and most of them are i mean i've got four here the one behind me says uh wouldn't touch him with a six foot pole is now national policy i like it i like it be safe out there that's good it's got a little bit of news to it i mean in terms of yeah so woody i I I like it. I like it.
Be safe out there. That's good.

It's got a little bit of news to it.

I mean, in terms of. Yeah.
So Woody, I always find it fascinating. You've obviously, like we said at the top, have been a columnist in sports for so long.
So you're also part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, which we talked to David Baker at the Super Bowl. So who in your mind is the greatest quarterback that you've ever seen and spoken with and covered? I think that there's a legitimate argument on best quarterback of all time.
And I felt like for years and years it was Joe Montana because, and I voted for him for the football thing, I think when you go to four Super Bowls and you win all four of them, what more you want. Terry Bradshaw really never got the attention for being a part of a Steelers team that was a dynasty.
And I thought he should have gotten more attention for it, but people always considered him as being dumb and that he was a result of what a great defense they had and other players, Franco Harris and all those wide receivers they had. But Brady's the best in terms of what he has accomplished.
I don't think there's any doubt about that. Joe Montana, I mentioned, but John Elway, and I go back to Johnny Unitas.
How's that? Johnny Unitas, when I was young, I didn't think there'd ever be anybody as good as Johnny Unitas. And I still think he belongs in the conversation.
I would put him in the top two paragraphs if I were going to do it. But I have that debate with myself.
Peyton, who I know real well because I covered Archie, his father, and we both went to Tennessee, and I knew Peyton from when he was a little kid. I have a great Peyton story if you ever want it.
Yeah, we want it. Peyton was the best cerebral quarterback.
So when you ask about that, I mean, there's never been – he totally recreated the position with what I said to him once. People said, well, he's got a hurry-up offense.
No, he had a hurry-up-and-wait offense, and you know that. Yeah.
He would go to the line of scrimmage and diagram everything. I talked to Adam Gase one time, and I said, how difficult is it? He was the offensive coordinator for the Broncos.
I said, how difficult is it for you to get the plays into Peyton? He said he wants to play the moment the last play ends. That's when he wants to play because he wants as much time as he can have to absorb it.

So he said, while the previous play is going on, I'm coming up with two plays to give him because he's going to choose. And so I don't think there's ever been a better mental quarterback, cerebral quarterback.
I don't think there's ever been a quarterback that was more creative than John Elway. Brett Favre, John Elway.

I liked both of them in regard to their creativity.

And Brett Favre told me once that he copied his game after Peyton's father,

Archie.

And people really don't remember Archie other than being associated with his

sons.

And he was a great quarterback with one of the worst teams that ever existed.

Yeah.

Did you vote for T.O. on the first ballot?

Sure.

Thank you. and associated with his sons.
And he was a great quarterback with one of the worst teams that ever existed. Yeah.
Did you vote for T.O. on the first ballot? Sure, yeah.
Are you just saying that? No. There was a linebacker for the New York Giants who said, don't put me in the Hall of Fame.
You're a bunch of old, drunk, stupid sportswriters or something. And I said, I'm not a drunk.
And he said, don't put me in. I don't want to ever be put in.
And we voted him in, and he kind of forgot about all those statements. Yeah, here's the deal.
If O.J. Simpson came up today, let's's say he didn't get in and he came around in the senior committee, you'd have to vote for it.
Yeah. Because the way that the rules for baseball, and I vote for the baseball thing, baseball is totally different.
Baseball's rules include that you're off field, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, bonds that that counts in football it's what happens between the lines so interesting baseball's got the character clause but still couldn't you just be like oj simpson uh i'm just gonna not vote for him and hope that nobody else does either sure i'll give you an example. Ray Guy came up, who was, I think, the greatest punter up to his period of time.
And a lot of people voted against Ray Guy because he was a pretty bad, and no pun intended, he was a pretty bad guy for a punter. I mean, he had a poor attitude.
So I think guys look at that, but because it's a a secret ballot unlike what's going on now in baseball where all of your uh ballots are revealed that because it's a secret ballot uh that guys uh might vote against somebody that they didn't like when they were playing you know nobody held it against ray lewis the first year he might have been involved well he was he was involved. Yeah, he was.
So you are, as we said earlier, a big-time capital J. You've been around for a while.
We always joke around on the show about rooting for storylines. Would you rather write about a Denver Broncos team that goes through a season that is 11-5, but they average 16 points a game, they have a pretty solid defense.
They win a lot of really close ones, but they're pretty boring. Or write about a team that gets into barn burners.
Let's just say write about a team that has Tim Tebow come back. Somehow they average 30 points per game, but they go 4-12.
Well, people who are my peers, Bob Ryans and Bill Plasky's, Tim Kalashow, when you ask them who they pull for or what they pull for, they'll always take the thumbs and go, me.

We pull for stories.

I've been to 32 Masters. I've covered 32 Masters.
I always pull for playoffs. That's what I pull for.
I thought that was the most fun. Truthfully, when the Broncos are really bad, that's a lot easier to write.
It's a lot easier. You know this.
It's a lot easier to be critical, like the Bears. Don't you think that it was more fun to talk about how bad the Bears were this year than how good they were maybe the year before well I'd like them to be good but yeah you're absolutely right when their team gets really bad I always say that the no man's land in the middle where they're like mediocre is just painful because then you don't you can't get excited for being a good team or get excited to bash a really bad team.
So do you, have you ever in your career cheered in the press box? Yes. Oh, shame.
Shame. In 1969, 1970, I told you, I'd gone to school at the University of Tennessee.
They played Ole Miss, University of Mississippi.

Archie Manning was the quarterback. That was my first college game to cover.
They sent me to the Tennessee Ole Miss game, which was both teams were undefeated. And Tennessee had fourth down and goal at the one, and the quarterback, Bobby Scott, threw it to the corner where the cone was, and if the receiver falls out this way, it goes over.
If he falls this way, it's a touchdown. He falls out of bounds.
I get up in a press box in Jackson, Mississippi. You know, Mississippi has its issues with people.
And I got up in the

press box and I started screaming.

And they all looked at me and I thought,

I'm going to die here.

And I sat back

down and I decided that's when you stop being

with them. Oh, so you haven't done

it since. Wow.

Not even thought about it.

Someone wrote me yesterday on

Twitter and said,

what team do you pull for? And I went,

nobody. And that's

Thank you. not even thought about it.
Someone wrote me yesterday on Twitter and said,

what team do you pull for?

And I went, nobody.

And that's, I didn't tell him that story,

but that's the truth.

And people don't really believe that.

They think I've got to be a fan.

Have you ever pulled a youngster aside,

a young journalist aside, and told them, hey,

don't let me catch you clapping in the press box again?

No, I haven't. I don't

care.

I like that.

All right, I got one last question

for you, Woody. Thank you for joining

us, by the way. Everyone go listen to his podcast

Unmutable. Who

is the most interesting

athlete you have ever covered?

A guy called the Great Tombaugh. The most fun I have is going to Olympics, and I've been to 14 or 15, and if you were able to see where you are, I've got a poster from every Olympics I've covered.
But Albert Tombaugh was a skier for Italy, and he won a gold medal in, I don't know, 92 or 94. And he came in, and he didn't speak English.
And so people said, well, how did you celebrate last night? He said, I was up till 4 o'clock in the morning to six women. I remember this guy.
He's a good looking guy. So I thought, I like this guy.
He's coming with some real stuff. So the next Olympics, he wins another gold medal.
And the first, I asked the question, I said, so how'd you celebrate last night? Well, his agent did the translation and said, oh, I had a bottle of milk and went to bed because I have to work out the next day. Well, that's not the quote I'm looking for after four years earlier.
And someone from Detroit, a woman journalist got up and said, I speak Italian. That's not what he said.
And everybody went, okay, what did he really say? He said, well, last time I stayed up to four o'clock with six women on the lot older. I was up till 6 a.m.
with four women last time. I love it.
Yeah, he's maturing a little bit. Junior serving for me and Michael Jordan.
I've been writing about the last dance.

Michael and I became friends over the years and played blackjack together.

Oh.

Monte Carlo.

How much money did you take off him?

You have to be friends there.

Yeah.

Did he scold you if you made the wrong move on the blackjack table?

I got blackjack.

He got two eights.

He got a third eight.

I bet equivalent of $25. He bet $4,000 on the first hand.
He ended up getting five eights. Holy shit.
And he ran out of money. It was about a $25,000 bet, his first bet.
And he stood up and he said, Chuck, go give me some more money. And I turned around, and Charles Barkley said,

he was sending Chuck to be his messenger to give me some more money.

He lost all five hands.

I'm celebrating my blind Jack, and he looks over to me and said,

you really don't want to celebrate.

That's great.

I was at that casino in Monte Carlo one time.

I swear to God, red, it was either red or black black one of the two colors hit 19 times in a row no bullshit there's something up with that casino that is uh were you in the original uh casino or yeah yeah the real one except it felt a little low class because they let me in and i was expecting everybody would be around me like wearing tuxedos like it was a Bond movie and I'm wearing shorts looking like a strung out Joe Dirt. They're like, yes, sure, go on in.
That was a little disappointing. It's a very quiet tuxedo.
It's not much fun, actually, but you're right. It's like you walk in thinking you're going to be in a James Bond kind of atmosphere and instead you've got me and Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.
All right. Well, Woody, thank you.
This has been so much fun. We really appreciate it.
And you're welcome back anytime. We'd love to have you back on.
So thank you very, very much. I want to get you guys on my show, but I'm more interested in Hank being on my show.
Yes. Hank will go on your show.
He's booked. We're booking Hank.
My best friends in television, all these shows that I've done, were the guys that were behind the camera. Yeah.
Yes. Hank is booked.
He can do it any time. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and schedule him.
When's good for you, Woody? How about in an hour and a half? We can go have drinks. Do a Zoom meeting.
We're going to have Hank, though. Everyone, that's perfect.
I want to have Hank on by himself one day. Yeah.
I want to have each one of you. Okay.
Done. Just ask.
Yeah. Yeah, we'll do it.
Thank you so much, Woody. That interview with Woody Page was brought to you by Dude Wipes.
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Okay, we now welcome on our good friend, recurring guest. It is Brian Koppelman.
He has the show Billions that you all know of that I personally love. It is back on Sunday, May 3rd.
Tune in 9 p.m. It's not up against anything else.
So you got to tune in. You have no excuse.
Seven episodes coming up. And then you're going to tape the last five when all of this gets back to normal.
But thank you for joining us. Do you want to give us one little like here's what you should tune in for who dies yeah oh everybody dies it's right within the first five minutes there's an explosion killing the entire cast uh and um it's really incredible no one's ever seen anything like it and then we have to restart the whole thing listen big cat the fact is here's all i'm asking you sometime during the episodes, go watch the pilot of the show.
I will. I'm going to watch it.
It's a great show. I don't know if you know, but I'm running a whole program out at USC and it's a lot of work, but I will get to it.
I'll tell you one thing that is a very underrated part of the show is the soundtrack that goes to the show. And that's our guy, Brian hand selects all the songs i've actually heard that

they have to sell sponsorships into the show where they're you've got actors doing product placement just so that you can afford the licenses for the songs that yeah well you know dave and i like dave and i are obsessed music fans and and yeah the way showtime does a really cool thing which is any product placement stuff instead of them taking it to like defray the budgetary costs which like a lot of places would just be like, Hey,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we,

we, does a really cool thing which is any product placement stuff instead of them taking it to like defray the budgetary costs which like a lot of places would just be like hey we want you guys to have the character drinking whatever they never say it but if we have the character do something like that and then we say to a brand hey uh you know if you're into this the character will drink you know we can work out. Every dollar that we get to spend on the show how we want,

and it's always for music.

So we had a Led Zeppelin song last year,

and Led Zeppelin songs are expensive,

but we were able to work it out that way,

and so that's how we roll on it.

It's a really cool thing that normally companies don't do,

and we're very psyched that they let us do that

and get the songs that we want to get.

I love it.

Right before we get into the Mount Flushmore,

It's Mount Rushmore. We're doing an actual Mount Rushmore.
That's right. Yeah.
Before we get into that, I have been reading stuff that takes us back through history and says when we had the bubonic plague over in Europe, that's when Shakespeare wrote not only King Lear, but also mcbeth so what famous work are you cranking out right now that we're going to talk about in a thousand years it was like a text i sent you guys where i said hey i could come on for a few minutes to bullshit tonight that's it that's it i think that's my shakespeare rounders okay rounders two is in in the works yeah well you know i was thinking actually that the two of you guys would be a really good worm and mike there we go if you i mean that would i mean it would work in a way if you think about it and we get to sell all of our own ads and you can make it yeah and then you're like nascar drivers playing poker then because then we use the money we just buy drink paint and we play that as the only soundtrack and then we make that money how about this how well here's the deal we'll do your rounders to any money we win while playing poker and rounders to we get to keep and you have me winning the world series of poker at the end so we played this you guys are gonna like this i think i've never i do not think the story has ever been told. Maybe once somewhere, but when we went to promote the movie, it was Matt and Edward and Levine and me, and we went to Vegas to the World Series of Poker, and someone had organized within it a charity poker tournament.
And the movie studio put up $10,000 to the charity. the movie studio put up ten thousand dollars to the charity the movie studio and binions casino i guess put up 10 grand for whoever won this little like eight person poker tournament and two of the guys who played in it were like the technical advisors on rounders and they were these half wise guys uh the kind of guy who in Vegas, they were wearing Hawaiian shirts the whole time.
And one of them came back from an interaction with a Vegas call girl stripper. And I remember saying this saying saying to the guy.
He said, oh, yeah, I just spent a lovely half hour with, you you know theresa and we said being innocent and young and they were a little older than you know we said did you use protection and he said uh nah she was clean and we said how do you know and he said i uh i smelled her ass when i was doing her doggy so those are that's the kind of i just saying, that's the kind of guy we're dealing with. So we played this charity poker tournament, and that guy, I guess, cheated to win, and he wins.
And the head of the movie studio flips him a $10,000 chip and is like, make sure that this gets to charity, the charity. And he was well of course sir and later that night we saw him take it and put it on uh like a uh red yeah in the roulette table and just try to roll into um a whole weekend we were very young and and in a certain way shockingly sort of naive to certain aspects of the way things went.
That's a great story. I would do the same thing.
So that'd be like you guys doing that. And you double it and then you give that half to charity and then you get your own.
Yeah, right. Keep doubling it.
And the next thing you know, you own Vegas. All right.
We're going to do the Mount Rushmore. So this idea came from your phenomenon that is everyone tweeting you their coffee mugs every single morning.
And royale what is the royale i just decided the first cup of coffee in the morning is so special i thought it needed its its own name like it's you know nothing brings like when you think about when you wake up and you that first cup of coffee really like it just changes everything and um i decided just for my own quirky i like just named named it the Royale for myself. And then I would talk about it on my podcast sometimes.
And then occasionally would just tweet a picture of me with the coffee, but never thinking it was anything that would catch on. I even use a hashtag in the beginning.
And then a buddy of mine was like, dude, it's my friend, Tom Kretschmar. He's a real life and internet friend.
He posted a picture of himself and he said, I think it would really connect us all. If like, since we're all so separated because of COVID, if, if we could share this coffee together, like we're having coffee together in the morning, I loved it.
And so I, then I tell people, Hey, start sharing your, your pictures. So all these people start doing it.
And then another guy, um, who actually runs a poker site, Lance Bradley, he said, you should make mugs with your picture and give your picture and give to your favorite charity and a third dude this guy chris sylvester said um gregory sylvester said i'll design him and he's a designer and he sent this hilarious design with me looking absurd in a crown and and and um all the money goes to the food bank in new york you can go to the royale b.com and get the official mug. But even if you don't get the official mug, the idea is that in the morning it's great.
And I had no idea, but, I mean, you've seen it. Like hundreds of people start sending their pictures to themselves.
It's great. It's great because it is true.
The first cup of coffee, it's all I look forward to. It is the best.
So this is the Mount Rushmore of life's little victories like that first cup of coffee in the it's all i look forward to it is the best so this is the mount rushmore of life's little victories like that first cup of coffee in the morning now you're our guest so you can start so it's a snake draft so you'll go then pft then i get two then it will swing back pft then you get two until we get four and we're going to go life's small victories actual mount rushmore uh because of the royale so if you want to pick the royale you can take the royale as number one which is a great one but you can do it's a great safe one to do i will say this uh uh getting uh over seven minutes of cardio in okay that's good good during this the seven minutes is when you want to tap out usually if you get past that you could just get past that seven eight minutes of cardio during this thing i think you can call it a win you can say you did cardio that day yes okay good first great good first uh for my first one i'm gonna go with the first time you step inside and feel that blast of air conditioning on a super hot day yes like we were down in miami for the all-star game a couple years ago and it was about 99 humidity but you step in that door and it just it feels like heaven just heaven washes over you that's a good first pick um all right i'm gonna go with my first pick which actually is kind of off of the music discussion when you have the perfect song come on whether it be in the car or when you're walking and you feel like you're in a movie and And it's like that. Everyone knows that perfect song.
You don't get it often. It's usually once a week, once a month if you're lucky.
But when that perfect song hits for your mood, for the weather, for everything, and it just feels like you are in the middle of your own movie, nothing better than that. Now, inside of that moment, there's another moment that I found music because I thought about this, too.

Have you ever listened to a song for the first time?

And for maybe after like 45 seconds or a minute into it, you know that you're going to go back and listen to the song another hundred times. You're going to wear it out.

Is that good?

Yes.

That's a great feeling, knowing that you're about to wear out a song that you haven't worn out yet.

Yes, that is a very good one.

All right.

My second pick is going to be when you wear a comfortable sweatshirt for the first time.

We'll see you next time. you haven't worn out yet yes that is a very good one all right my second pick is going to be when you wear a comfortable sweatshirt for the first time before its first wash big and you never want to take it off i'll sometimes not wash the sweatshirt for a couple weeks because it's like you just have to that that softness it fits right it hasn't shrunk at all you got the strings perfectly you know when you lose a string in the in the like a hoodie yeah it gets yeah or you know it gets all screwed up and the maybe the elastic on on the bottom gets screwed up but that first wear of a sweatshirt you feel like you could you could conquer the world when you're wearing a fresh new perfectly fitting sweatshirt that's a huge one for me as a a guy who was big not as big as i was but that's a big a huge one the right sweatshirt it's like almost like a it's like an invisibility cloak you're like i can conquer the world no one can fuck with me in this beautiful new sweatshirt and then you wash it and it's gone yeah it's gone it becomes a part of you if you wear it like five or six times a row without washing and you had the little fuzzies on your arm i love those yeah yeah all right your second pick my second pick is going to be um when you come home from a vacation you've been gone for a week maybe a week and a half two weeks and your dog sees you for the first time because you feel like the best person in the world no matter what kind of shitty moves you pulled on that vacation you come home you walk in the door and your dog just treats you like you're a superstar and it's tough to come down from that feeling i actually believe it when he thinks i'm a superstar i agree i agree good pick um all right brian you have two now all right i got one is the first either baseball or football catch you get to have when it turns into warm weather and throwing uh like if you when you throw the first spiral of the year and you actually like your shoulder doesn't you can actually just like let it go i know i'm not talking to two guys who throw a lot of footballs necessarily but for me that feeling of like being out there and just reminds me why i fucking love sports and why i've loved connecting in that way my whole life.
And, and that I, that when I was a kid, my dad would always have a catch with me. And, uh, even if he came home late from work, like I, my, my pop was really cool about sports in that way.
And like, I did the same with my son. And I'll say that, like, I just, when you asked the question, I looked across and I see a football and like, we went out the other day and it was windy and we started throwing and that feeling of, you know, going for a day out and out and catching it when you're kind of in rhythm and then spinning and throwing it.
I mean, that's a pretty magical kind of moment because it connects you to who you were as a kid and who you are now. You know how there's always like signs that you need to see a doctor.
Like if you have something wrong with you you're like oh there's something you know wrong i need to go check it out i think there's a sign of are you still alive when someone's throwing a baseball or football in your vicinity and you have yes you have to say yo throw it here if you don't say throw it here you're just dead you're dead inside you're you're dead that's so awesome i couldn't agree with you i couldn't agree with you more. And then my second one, just flinging it around, is that feeling.
You guys both have facial hair. You know that feeling when you successfully carve around the mustache or goatee without taking it off accidentally? Yes.
Yes, I don't. I know.
My facial hair is so bad. If I manage to do something good, it's totally out of luck.
But when there's a moment, that moment, cause you know, you could easily just slide the thing and then you got to shave yourself clean or you get like a little too high on one end and then you got to get a little too high and it just ruins the whole thing. It's a very precarious situation.
It is. So you wait, right? You don't really fuck with it for a while and you let the thing grow.
But then when you finally have to deal with it and you kind of pull it off successfully, I don't know. It puts a little bit of pep in your step.
Yeah, it's true. It's a good point.
All right. My third is going to be when you, when you enter a stadium and you're walking around the concourse and you see that little sliver of grass for the first time through the cement wall.
You know, that like little tiny bit as you're going out to your seat, that feeling that I feel that in my stomach every time I do it, it never loses its magic ever. Yep.
That's a great one. Absolutely.
The first time you see the uniforms, the grass, nothing better. All right.
My last two, my third one is going to be when you get the perfect bite of pizza. And what I mean by that is it's got some crust, but it also has some tomato sauce and cheese left right before you get full crust.
So it's the transition bite. And if you can time it perfectly, if you can get your, it's like a long jumper getting his steps correctly.
If you can get that step correctly and you get that perfect bite of pizza beautiful you bring up a good point because you have to take the two bites before that you have to think in the right proportion yeah you got to be seeing the board like a chessboard and being like all right i'm getting close i got to make sure i leave a little bit here this might be the closest i've ever felt to another human being right now. I knew you'd like that one.

That is so deep to me. Yes.
I knew you'd like that one. All right.
My last pick is going to be – it is more of a vibe. So it's – everyone knows the golden hour, but I'm talking specifically a fall golden hour.
So the sun is setting and you get that smell of either burnt leaves or a fire off in the distance. A wood fire, not an actual fire that's uncontrollable.
But that beautiful sun is setting, crisp air mixed with a little bit of burnt leaves wood. That right there, if you could bottle that up, you'd be's it it is nice it's very usually also when i'm losing every bet and i'm just looking at my phone not actually enjoying the moment but still alive it reminds me of football yeah that's a football smell right right that like especially if you've been like cooped up all day watching football you're like you know what i'm gonna go outside and take a little bit of a walk and and you get that you catch that and it's it basically gives you just new life it's about they need to sell a candle that has that smell just football scented candle yes um my last one is going to be uh when you when you pull out a cool ranch dorito from the packet and it has the exact right amount of seasoning on it yeah and i'm talking like not completely overloaded but just a thick coating on it on either side so you don't know even which side you want to put tongue down or tongue up just like the perfect dorito is such a nice little treat yes that's a good one that's a good one all right your last one brian my last one is very clear to me for and and I love the ones that you guys just did.

My last one is when you decide it's time for a Goodfellas rewatch and you,

and you sit down and watch it.

And that opening song rags to riches comes in,

but watching it from there,

right up until the end of the air France heist. That first 50 minutes of Goodfellas for me is total Mount Rushmore right up until Air France made me and I did the right thing and he gives the money to Pauly.
And that to me is perfection. I love that one because I had a similar one in my honorable mentions of when you sit down on the couch and you catch the beginning of a great rewatchable movie, like just starting organically.
And Goodfellas is definitely on that list where it's like you're cruising, can't find anything to watch. Boom.
Goodfellas is just starting. And you're like, all right, there goes my next two hours.
Yes. What other we do quick honorable mentions? The other one I had on there was the first week of new sneakers when you feel like you could be an athlete when you have that tightness to it and a little bounce in it the second half of the first week after you're done breaking in all the rough edges but that bounce that bounce where you're like i could totally see how i could be a marathon runner or like dunk a basketball just from that little bounce and And then it goes away and you're like, oh, yeah, I'm a flat footed fuck.
But that little moment is great. I had if you're in financially dire straits, maybe you're a young kid coming out of college and you're on a date.
You got to a nice meal and the server brings back your credit card and it was not declined. And you had that's great.
You had that moment of I'm not totally sure if this is going to work or not. And when it comes back and you're all clear, you probably only have like $5 left on your limit or whatever.
You know you went right up to that edge. But it's such a great feeling of relief.
Yes. Do either of you guys know how to drive a stick shift car? Poorly.
Very poorly. I know how to drive it.
You wouldn't want to ride with me while I'm driving it. Because the moment in a stick shift, you end up in a stick shift car uh very poor you wouldn't i know how to drive it you wouldn't want to ride with me while you're driving it because the moment in a stick shift you end up in a stick shift car when you complete a perfect downshift from third to second going into a corner and you fucking nail it so you accelerate right just the moment of nailing that thing and accelerating into a corner you feel like uh you feel like rock star.
That's a great one. There's also in driving in New York City when you hit all the green lights and you feel like a surfer.
But that's once a year, right? Once a year. I'll get it because I drive on Sundays because you can park for free.
So we'll leave at like 1 or 2 in the morning. And if I can hit it, I legit feel like it.
So you never have to hit the gas pedal and you can park for free so we'll leave at like one or two in the morning and if I can hit it I legit feel like so you never have to hit the gas pedal and you can go the entire like half of Manhattan without having to touch the the brake pedal and it's the best feeling I have one honorable mention that goes with your pizza thing and your Doritos thing and it's this it's really good one for me it's when you get whatever favorite soda is at, if you get to an old pizza place that still has a soda fountain with the perfect mix of the syrup to the bubbles, it can never be replicated in a can or a bottle. No, no.
When you just know it's just nailed. Yes.
Exactly. The way you like it, like not too carbonated, maybe just the right amount of carbonation with just the right amount of the soda syrup.
And again, that's the kind of thing that only happens a couple times a year that it's just perfectly nailed and you just feel like, okay, this could be it. This could be my death row meal.
A last slice of pizza and that soda. That's a Shawshank beer.
We call it a Shawshank beer on the rooftop. I would put that right up with having the perfect order of fries, like a fry that comes out to you perfectly crispy, hot in the inside, just exactly salty.
Yes. Straight onion ring in there.
Yes. Or a tater tot that lost its way, found its way up in the basket of fries.
We could do this forever. There's so many.
This is actually making me feel better. Yeah, it does.
What about Mount Rushmore? What about when you're like maybe almost running late for an appointment and you get to your elevator and the elevators at your floor already? Right. Or similar the when you're running late and the train shows up the minute you get down on the platform.
That is crazy. Amazing.
That's just how about flipping over an egg and not breaking the yolk at all. Yep.

Yep.

Yeah. A great accompl.
I agree with you. Great accomplishment, though.
I'd say this. The work required maybe makes it not quite exactly the thing we're talking about.
Yeah. Which are like moments of serendipity.
Right. That requires a little bit of training.
These things are just like amazing moments. The only one i had was uh when you accident when you are just about to uh reply all on an email when you're not supposed to and you catch yourself that shit is a dick magic yeah that's like dodging a train it's just like holy fuck i could have just my whole world could have come down but at the last second.
The adrenaline, because you know why? Because the adrenaline rush and the relief at the same time. You get adrenaline and cortisol somehow balance out in the perfect way.
Logging into a website that you haven't been to in like five or six years and nailing the password on the first try. That's such a good feeling.
That's a young man's game right there. It is.
That's a young man's game.ing uh that's what she said joke yes michael scott yes getting it perfectly just and what just a walk off yeah um all right this has been fantastic we go forever we brian thank you so much uh everyone tuned in to billions sunday night like i said 9 p.m this is the plan let me tell the plan the plan is so the land look i love the last dance i haven't missed an episode i can't wait for it uh but here's the thing there are commercials in last dance so all you need to do is dvr last dance watch billions in its slot also if you don't want to do that billions becomes available at 1201 saturday night when it becomes sunday so watch it beforehand on demand there you go you can watch it all day sunday get ready and then do last dance or just tape last dance watch billions and then roll into the two episodes and you want to do commercials hey guys you guys are awesome thanks for having me on to talk about this stuff i feel better too yeah i love this and i'm gonna go chase that slice of pizza yeah and we'll see you tomorrow morning with the royale royale tomorrow morning yes love it all right thank you it. See you, man.
Bye, fellas. Alright, we'll wrap up here.
We have bad visual. Alex Smith's leg.
Yeah. Fuck.
How? Are you asking, like, how ESPN got it before No! I'm asking, how does he still have his leg? It's nuts. It is a terrifying reminder of what can happen to really anyone if you break your leg.
Because a lot of times people think broken leg. Oh, not a big deal.
They actually shoot horse racehorses over that. Yeah.
But Alex Smith broke his. It was a compound fracture and it got super infected.
He did like 20 surgeries or something. I'm probably making that number up.
But those 24, he 24 surgeries to clean it all up. Also made that up.
Okay. it looked like if you left a gusher out in the sun for eight hours it was bad are you looking at right now bilba oh i'm glad he's all right um is he yeah i think so maybe not though like mentally i don't think i'd ever get over that spin zone if you R-words player and you get injured, you don't have to hang out with Bruce Allen all the time because he's going to not visit you in the hospital.
True. So you're going to have to hang out with that dick bag.
He also, yeah, Alex Smith, oof, get better. Well, he's better, maybe.
He's also got a lot of money. Yeah.
So that's good. Yeah, and he's regarded as one of the most solid dudes in the NFL.
He's a dude. He's a solid dude.
He's a great guy. Recurring guest.
Recurring guest, and he's going to go somewhere in the front office and make a lot of money for a long time. That's my prediction.
Oh, nice. You just get better at quarterback by hanging out next to him.
Yeah, absolutely. Hank, guys on checks.
Hello, gentlemen. What up? What's up? My boyfriend is constantly spreading his legs out and rapidly shaking his body to, quote unquote, unstick his ball sack from his legs.
Yep. Is this normal? Yep.
You could just, like, pinch it. Do the old pinch and twirl.
That's absolutely normal. I don't know if it's, depending on where you live right now, it shouldn't be normal.
Like if he's doing it in the winter, maybe not so normal. Well, inside a house, you don't know what type of environment she keeps.
True. But yeah, I feel like that's one of life's biggest rivalries is women not understanding that we like to touch our testicles all the time.

It's not always for pleasure.

Don't get me wrong.

Sometimes it's a twofer where it can be both business and pleasure. It's a lot of times just being like, yep, they're still there.

Yeah, a lot of times you just have to make sure that it's hanging independently.

Yeah.

And it's for your own good, too.

He's trying to stay fertile.

Sup soon to be thicker cat and tick tock honk.

I'm actually on a diet.

Thank you very much.

I was bored listening to some of the OG episodes of PMT on my flight home the other day.

We'll be right back. Sup soon to be thicker cat and tick tock.
I'm actually on a diet. Thank you very much.
I was bored listening to some of the OG episodes of PMT on my flight home the other day. Comma there.
I was bored, comma, listening to some of the OG episodes. There's no comma here.
Fuck. And notice PFT didn't say love you guys at the end of any of them.
Can he remember the exact moment he fell in love with us AWLs? Oh always been in love but i wanted to hear you guys say it first wow when was that i've been burned before jake marsh find out when the first love you guys if i remember i think the first episode i wanted to say something like tony kornheiser i might say like love you mexico because he always says good night canada yeah um but eventually i just said that I love you. I just couldn't hold it in anymore, and I just was about to burst.
Yeah, what people don't see is that PFT actually masturbates when he says that every single episode when we finish. No, I'm just peeling it from the side of my leg.
He just furiously masturbates while saying, love you, guys. Speaking of masturbation, how many jerk-offs per day is acceptable during self-quarantine? It depends on your situation.
There are a lot of factors that go into that. Yeah.
That's a tough one. Yeah, you can't just say.
If you're by yourself and you're like in your early 20s, I'd imagine it's become a disgusting act inside your house. What if you're by yourself in your early 30s? What's the difference? Well, you probably don't have as much tea, bro.
Oh, man. I can't wait till you lose your tea.
I would say if you're. As a guy who's lost all his tea, it sucks.
If you're 23 and your ceiling doesn't have stalactites coming from it yet, then you've got some low tea issues. You might want to get that cleaned up.
When are you guys going to do another part of my bake? Never. Never.
Never. Ever.
Definitely never. Friday.
Hey, boys, especially Sp especially spiral ham's jockey i couldn't help but notice that on the cover of sports illustrated coach dougs is wearing a wedding ring yeah how does mrs hollywood dougs feel about the latest coaching move well but the dougs storyline has his family has been left in toledo so they're two stops behind so how how does Mrs. Hollywood Duggs feel about the latest coaching news? Oh, the latest coaching news? Like just her, how is she doing? She's in Toledo, so she's not even Hollywood Duggs.
She's Central Ohio. But what you're saying is that he separates work from home.
He's out just strictly working on the West Coast. I told the family, when I get a head coaching job job i will bring you along and not a moment sooner and whoops i got another yeah oc job and guess what she's got a very important job too she's the head coach of the household yes so he doesn't want to interfere with that yes exactly um yeah so that's that's the story but yeah dougs has been rumored to be with like Jennifer Aniston.
I think some hot, hot people out in LA. Doug's is going to probably have a heart attack soon.
Damn. All right.
Last one. Uh, oh my God.
I'm so embarrassed. I tripped and fell and my boyfriend licked my ass while I was on the ground crying.
Yep. I don't know how to bring it up because it was kind of odd.
What do I do? Wait, read that back to me, it sounds like a dog. She tripped and fell and her dog licked her butt.
Boyfriend. Wait, she tripped and fell.
She wrote boyfriend. I tripped and fell and my boyfriend licked my ass.
Okay, so I don't understand what the embarrassment is. I don't know how to bring it up because it was kind of odd.
I think you're dating your dog. I think that's the embarrassment.
Your dog licked your ass and you've been calling your dog your boyfriend because you have quarantine brain. That could be it.
Don't fuck your dog. Also, just whatever happens.
Unless he's really hot. Whatever weird sexual things happen during this quarantine situation, just forget about it the second that it's over.
We're all going through our own thing right now. Just no judgment zone.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, Hank and I are going to cut each other's hair.
Yeah, eventually. You think, what, another week? I don't know.
I feel like I have to just look at Big Bennett. Like, I'm not going to cut my hair until, like, I can go to the club type deal.
What do you mean? Like, Big Ben's not shaving his beard until he throws another pass. You're doing your own Walden thing you're going oh natural nice i don't know i mean that's i don't know i don't know i will say this too i do think about like because it is fun to be like oh the first time everyone's out together it's going to be like the most amazing night ever but it's also something that always like it it makes me excited to think about and then makes me like depressed because i'm like i don't see that happening like in June.
I don't really see it happening in July. When is that? And if it's football tailgates, every football tailgate this fall will be the greatest thing ever.
Do you think that when we get back to normal? But I don't— I don't— What if we go out— As I say that out loud, I don't want to end the podcast on a bad note, but as I say it out loud, it just doesn't seem realistic. What if we go out, and we hit the bars, and we kind of miss being at home that's never happened you don't think that's gonna happen there will be some nostalgia yeah absolutely you're gonna be like oh man ease of working from home yeah absolutely there's gonna be like i wish not but i'm talking about like you gotta think of our night like yeah our jobs are fun so it's like that will be different like but someone who's just working a 9 to 5, being able to work remotely from home has been probably awesome.

Yeah, you're saying the things I've been saying.

I don't really understand how life is going to return until there's a vaccine.

So make the fucking vaccine!

That's my point.

Get on the make the vaccine train with me, Hank.

Just make the fucking vaccine. Do it.
Love you guys. I'm talking away.
Though I don't know what to say. I'll say it anyway.
Today is a lot of days. I found that you shined away.
I'll be coming for your love. I'll be gone Even after you So needless to say What's that is But I'll be in some little way Because then we're learning that life is okay Say after me It's the better Thank you.
Take on me Take on me I'll be gone Do the day I'm true All the things that you say Can't life all Just a day by the worries away Through all the things I've got to remember When you're shying away Are we coming for you anyway? Are we coming for you anyway.

I'll be coming for you anyway.

Take on me. Take on me.

Take me.

Take on me.

I'll be gone.

Do the day I'm gone. It's Pardon My Take presented by Barstool Sports.