Best Of Football In July Plus New Interviews W/ JB Smoove, Tim Howard, Prince + Cecil Fielder, 2 New Rushmore’s

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On today's part of my take, we have the best of the last six months or so. We got the best of football guests, a little football in July for you.
We have some Blake of the Year preview stuff. We have three new interviews with jb smooth uh tim howard and prince and cecil fielder and two new brand new mount rushmore so this is in place of a regular wednesday show if you have to work on friday make sure that you save some but we're going to get to all of that in a minute ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working?

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Okay, let's go. Boy!

Boy! It's part of my take. Presented by Barstool Sports.
Welcome to Part of My Take. Presented by the Cash App.
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Today is Wednesday, July 3rd. And we have a best of for you.
We're taking a break. It's a best of, but we've got some new stuff in there, too.
It's a little way of saying, happy birthday, United States. Our present is some old shit that we recorded that we repackaged, and now we're giving it to you today.
And some new stuff. So it's a good amount of new stuff.
There is. Actually, this is probably the most new stuff in a best of.
Yeah. Three new interviews.
And two Mount Rushmore. Two Mount Rushmore's.
The game is the same. If you have to work on July 5th, first of all, quit your job.
Okay? Everybody already quit their job after the life advice. Yeah.
Now that you've quit your job, you're good. But if you do have to work on July 5th, here's how you should handle this best of.
We're not going to have a new episode on Friday. This is your last episode of the week but it's like three hours so stop in the middle of it we'll tell you exactly where you can stop you can save some for you for yourself on friday you are like a little kitten a little cat that we're going away for the weekend and we've left out all the food all the water that you can have don't eat it all at first save some you'll regret it when you're hung over and you're at the job that you should have quit, that you didn't quit because you didn't have the balls to quit on Friday and you hate your life.
As an alternate suggestion, what you could do is if you listen to it all today and then go back on Friday and listen to it on half speed mode. It'll just sound like we're drunk.
That's kind of a fun way to double dip on it. Also, be nice to us.

And if you listen to half of it today, swipe and delete it and then re-download it.

Yes.

Well, do that anyways.

Yeah, do that anyway for every episode you've ever done.

Just listen to it in chunks.

We've got a shitload of content.

Yeah.

So open up.

Yeah.

So let's start.

Let's start off with some soccer, talking soccer.

We have a great interview with Tim Howard.

Speaking of which, PFT, if this is coming out Wednesday, the U.S. is in the finals already? The U.S.
has made the finals, so they're playing Netherlands slash Sweden. Three-nothing against England? No, in the first half.
Oh, so it was five-nothing overall. Yeah, and Rose scored two goals, so now I have to eat a bunch of Skyline chili because I made that bet hoping I wouldn't win it.
Fuck. Damn it that's not on the board no so we're good i really damn i was really hoping i wouldn't have to eat all that chili but yeah we're in the finals of the world cup uh this is going to be very very bad if we don't actually make the finals but we definitely did um so yeah tim howard one of the all-time great u.s soccer players i would say the greatest the greatest male u.s soccer player wow okay landon donon Donovan.
Kobe Jones. Alexi Lalas.
Demps. Psych.
Demps. Freddie Adu.
That's it. That's the list.
So here he is, Tim Howard. And Odell Beckham.
He was also a good soccer player, too. He should be on the list.
Okay, we now welcome on USA legend. It is Tim Howard, hero for all soccer fans around the world.
We have the Women's World Cup going on right now. We have the MLS season heating up.
Let's start with that. How's the MLS team going? Wow, thanks for the introduction.
Yeah, Colorado Rapids. Yes, it wasn't going great, and we've hit our stride.
We've unbeaten in five games, so winning fixes a lot of things. Unbeaten in five games means there was a couple ties in there.
One tie. Yeah.
You guys celebrate that. Damn right.
It's a result. Yeah.
Is that weird ever to be celebrating a tie? Not when it's bookended between wins, no. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
Just remain consistent. If you don't lose back-to-back games.
Oh, for sure. Then you're doing okay.
Yeah. Oh, for sure doing okay.
Would you consider yourself the best goalkeeper in modern football history? Are we calling it football or are we calling it soccer, by the way? We call it soccer. In modern football history, no.
Definitely not. Who's on your Mount Rushmore of goalkeepers? Gigi Buffon.
Tony Miola. Iker Casillas.
Tony was a good one for the U.S., yeah. Oliver Kahn.
Dominic Hasek. Possibly.
Possibly Oliver Kahn, yeah. You're not a big fan of Kahn.
I like him. Yeah, I like his fire.
He's good. Yeah.
So I would actually say that that game that Oliver Kahn had against us in the quarterfinals and your game against Belgium in the round of 16, probably the two best goalkeeping performances in soccer history. Yeah.
Thank you. So that game, you had 16 saves against Belgium.
After that game, you leave the pitch, you go on social media. Were you just blown away? Because in real time, everyone was like Tim Howard's the savior, secretary of defense.
All these things were happening. Was it just like, holy shit, this is really catching on.
And social media exploded. Yeah, it was crazy.
Because I always wonder with soccer,

the growth from 20 years ago today has been insane,

but you guys are still the fifth biggest sport in America.

Is there ever a complex that happens with soccer players

trying to break through the media?

Some maybe.

Yeah, not for me.

I played in the Premier League for 13 years.

That fishbowl doesn't get any bigger.

So for me it's you know i played in i played in the premier league for 13 years that fishbowl doesn't get any yeah so it's for me it was it was no problem but yeah i mean look the part of the world cup was as you said getting that crossover audience not being the biggest sport in america but getting hockey and baseball and football fans and basketball fans to be like yo i want to i want to cut cut out from work and go drink some beers and watch the u. play.
Right. Day drinking in public squares.
If you can get Americans to do that, then you will be an instant celebrity. I can't wait.
Yeah. No, it's a lot of fun.
So you mentioned going over to the premiership. So you got started here in MLS.
You were on the New York, New Jersey Metro Stars. I remember you had one save on a free kick from about like 25, 26 yards out.
Upper 90, stopped at that. I think that save right there, that got the attention of the coaches in England.
So the talent scouts are like, we're bringing this guy over, see if he can play in the real league overseas. You get over there.
What was that change like, that transition? Yeah, it was tough. I was going from a young kid in MLS to arguably one of the best teams in the world, Manchester United.
It was a big transition for me, and it proved to be so. I had a lot of success early on, and then some growing pains and kind of had to figure that stuff out as I went along.
Yeah, so Everton and Liverpool, like a famous rivalry. Yeah.
What is it like being in the middle of that rivalry? Because I think from the U.S. side, we all think of Duke-UNC or Yankees-Red Sox or Packers-Bears.
Is it a totally different level? Because it's the same city. Yeah.
It's families divided. It's the same city.
You go down to the pubs. I didn't go down to the pubs in Liverpool.
I wouldn't dare. But I have friends who are Evertonians.
And you you got to be careful where you walk and that kind of stuff. Yeah, and those games must have been, like, the pressure in them.
Amazing, yeah. USA-Mexico and Everton-Liverpool, for me, were the craziest games I've ever been a part of.
USA-Mexico in Mexico? Those always seemed insane. Both, yeah.
And, look, we're outnumbered if we play in America. Yeah, right.
The Mexican fans are crazy, man. They're out there in waves, and it's getting better.
Yeah. But obviously in Mexico we never won.
So I was part of a team in 2012 to be the first team to ever win in Mexico, which was – Dos Ocero. Yeah, that was impressive.
Nice. Is 2-0 actually the most dangerous lead in soccer? That's what they say.
I'd rather have a 2-0 lead than a 1-0 lead. Yes, really.
Yeah. But then if they score one goal, then it's 2-1, and it's a one-goal lead, and they've got the momentum.
They do. Agreed, but I'd still rather have the extra cushion than the extra goal.
You're a math guy. I'm not so much a math guy.
So you go over to England. You have some success over there, as you mentioned.
And then I think you were on Man U for a little bit. Yeah, three yeah three years for three years and you kind of became a celebrity over there at that point when you were still coming back to the u.s were you were you recognized when you'd be stateside no it was that was the nice part about coming back to the states is i just kind of blend in you know the shaggy beard either so that was more helpful yeah but yeah no it was it was much easier just to come back and lay low for the summer, just chill out and then head back over.
I've read that you don't actually enjoy playing soccer. Is that still true or do you now enjoy it a little bit? Yeah, look, I don't enjoy it.
Like it's too intense. You know, I go to some dark places to get ready for a game.
You know, I always have. And I've played nearly 700 games now.
So it's work, you know, it's intense. You have to prepare for the fight.
You have to prepare for the crowd. You know, you have to make sure you play great.
You also have to be prepared if you suck that day. Like, there's a lot going on.
So to say that like – Goal USA. Goal USA.
Goal USA. There we go.
3-0. Who scored that one? It looks like Megan.
Okay. So, you know.
That's the over for the first half. We're just updating our bank account.
Yeah, yeah. So I actually want to get into that because the psychological preparation for goalies, and I think this is goalies, you know, if you talk about hockey goalies, they're kind of the same way where they're out on an island and they're kind of the weirdos of the team.
Is that how it feels to be part of a team, but team but you're not really because you're playing something so different than everyone else well that's kind of that's kind of where where i i feel it's the the margins are a lot finer for a goalkeeper and so you have to be willing to take the criticism on you have to harden yourself you know to take and broaden your shoulders to take that criticism on and so along with that comes a little bit of like internalization and and that puts people off sometimes and they call you a weirdo and crazy but like ultimately you have to go to that place in order to be successful as a goalkeeper right because i think that happens same you know hockey and soccer similar where it's you look at the goalie and they're usually don't talk a lot and people will be like that guy's an asshole but he's just in a mental spot that's very different than everyone else on the team. So when you start a game, can you tell almost right away, like, all right, this is either going to be a long day or short.
Like, this is our defense just doesn't have it. No.
I'll take you back to the Belgium game, right? Like, when you look at that game, you think, gosh, you got peppered for 120 minutes or whatever it was. You're always thinking you can solve a problem.
So you're thinking, okay, someone just took a shot or they just took two shots. All right, I'll organize the defense in this way and limit it.
And hopefully they only ever get two shots the rest of the day. But you never know.
You have to prepare for what's next. You understand what I'm saying? Interesting.
Yeah. So how much is that the coach and how much is that that the goalie, like getting the defense in the specific spot and almost calling plays? So before the game, it's the coach, and if he gets it right, then that just kind of goes.
If the stuff hits the fan, there's no timeouts in soccer, right? So it's on the older players, the more experienced players, oftentimes the goalkeeper, to organize a back line just to get you to halftime, make a quick adjustment, and then get back out there. But for me, I think that's the biggest part of my job.
There are timeouts in soccer. You can just go down and pretend that you're dead.
Which is great. And then you're like, oh, no, I actually am fine.
It was just a little tweaked ankle. Yeah.
I don't mind if we use that to the advantage. Although I do like other sports where you get to police yourself.
Yeah, soccer is a little too stringent. Yeah.
Yeah, when they bring out the sponge, the wet Brazilian sponge filled with water and it cures an ACL in like 30 seconds. Cold spray.
Yeah, that's my favorite part of the game. So yeah, you bring up a good point because it's like the best case scenario for you as a goalie during a game is you do your job.
The worst case scenario is you get scored on and everyone points at you and says it's your fault because you didn't do your job. If you look at a striker yeah you might miss three shots right three very makeable shots for every goal that you get but they only remember the one that you have so yeah it does take a different type of person i think to play and i could understand why you don't necessarily enjoy that right those moments but it's more like relief when it's over yeah if you did your job correctly yeah i i enjoy like i enjoy competing almost statistically almost statistically.
I enjoy getting to that place. Wherever that place I go, I like it.
But I wouldn't say it's like enjoyment. So now the U.S.
is kind of at a crossroads. We've always had the best goalies, by the way.
I want to touch on that real quick. We've had Casey Keller, Tony Miola, Brad Friedel was a great goalkeeper.
We've had incredible luck developing world-class goalkeepers. What is lagging behind with the rest of our skill set that we're only able to produce good goalies? Well, I think we've produced a bunch of really good players down the years, outfield players.
It's just the goalies have gotten a lot of the attention because we've consistently done that. We had Claudio Reyna early on and then Leonard Donovan and Clint Dempsey.
Freddie Du. Freddie Du.
Poor Freddie, man. He's going to be awesome.
I don't know where Freddie is going. Future of soccer.
No, he's still around. Oh, no, he's still playing.
Yeah, for sure. He's playing in the USL somewhere.
And now we've got a ton of really good young players who are playing on the world stage. Christian Pulisic is a guy who comes to mind.
But McKinney is another one. We've got some really good young talent, so we need to foster that and push them to the forefront.
Explain that, though, because we're kind of dumb, and I think a lot of our listeners are dumb, but in a good way that we just sit here and like, why aren't we better at soccer? Like why, you know, the whole hypothetical that gets thrown out every single time we have a World Cup year, it's like, well, if LeBron played soccer, we'd win the World Cup. But I know that that's not the truth because all these countries have programs where kids are playing when they're like four.
What is the biggest difference between U.S. versus the other countries and how do we catch up? Well, the problem with U.S.
with soccer in America in general is is we've been talking about it the whole time. You start walking, start running.
Some uncle, aunt, granddad gives you a ball. There's a basketball, a baseball, a hockey stick.
There's a bunch of things that you get, right? In other countries where I've played around the world, there's one sport. Like in England, you've got cricket for the higher class.
You've got rugby for the wrong ends. Just people who want to bash each other's head.
And then for the other 90% of people, it's soccer. And so, you know, soccer is bred from poor countries, man.
And in poor countries, you have one chance to make it. And if you don't make it in soccer, you don't make it.
And the answer is crash the United States economy, and then we'll win a World Cup. It's too easy.
Listen, soccer in America is too easy, right? To my daughter's under 12 game, we bring orange slices and hot chocolate and make sure everything's good and nice and neat. It's not how soccer is played around the rest of the world.
It's like take your tight neck tie off from school or put your shoe down and play in the street, and that's how it is. It's basketball.
It's basketball's a it's basketball america it's hockey in canada yeah right like i'm playing a rink just go out on the lake and play right yeah you bring a good point because it's like in america we we have tuesdays and thursdays of soccer practice that mom drives you to then you have a game on saturday in other countries it's just naturally you're done with school you're like hey let's go play some soccer that's it and then your mom and dad are chasing you down to call you in for dinner you've been playing for five hours right like that's how it works and that's what about world cup wayne rooney that's that's how he started yeah yeah you know christian ronaldo that's how he started you can tell the difference like the one thing that i think has been great with the epl getting a lot more coverage in like nbc sports and and people are watching it more i feel like people are watching soccer a lot more than 10 years ago you can see the difference in uh the skill level and how big it is how big of a jump it is from u.s to the rest of the world and i don't have you like how long did it take for you to get over the not making the world cup in in 2016 i don't know if anybody gets over that you know what i mean i think that's i think that's probably etched in our history for better or for worse and you know what I would say is as much as it sucks, there was, particularly that year, there was three dominant nations, three other dominant nations, Holland, Italy, and Chile, who didn't make the World Cup. So anyone who wants to think that U.S.
soccer is God's gift to soccer and we should do this, think again. Yeah.
Think again. And you have to earn it.
And on that particular cycle, we didn't. It's the hexagonal, right? Yeah.
I always hear how brutal it is. Why is the hexagonal so brutal? I don't know, man.
I wish if I could bottle it and sell it, it'd make some money. I don't know.
We win a lot of our home games, and then we go down to certain places, and it's really, really tough to play. And it's been the case since the 80s.
Was Juergen Klordan klinsman a like a mistake by u.s soccer well it's hard to say his mistake we i mean we had a really good finish at the world cup in 2014 right under his tutelage so no you know it was just different cycles call for it and we we cruised it the cycle before i think we finished top of the group right and then the next cycle we don't make the World Cup. So, no, it's not down to one person.
I think the team in general, ultimately the team gets the results, right? And over the course of 10 games, we didn't get the results. It's simple as that.
I actually had the spin zone that it was good for soccer in America for us not to make it because the casual fan who hates soccer, and I put myself in that group probably 10 years ago, I would make fun of the U.S. for not winning the world, not being better in the World Cup.
You know, when we lost, I think, when we were bounced in the first, the eliminate, we didn't win a game, right? Like everyone made fun of the U.S. and was like, we suck, this is terrible.
Whereas in 2018, you got to watch world-class soccer and not have to worry about, like, will the U.S. embarrass ourselves, whatever it may be, and people were able to enjoy it with kind of stress-free and see it grow organically.
That might have been just a desperate spin-to. It's a spin-to.
No, look, I think it was good in the sense that we as soccer as a whole, we got comfortable because we've been on top for so long, and that's not unlike many other businesses and corporations and sometimes you need to check yourself and that only happen you know you don't check yourself when you're winning right don't check yourself when you're

hitting the jackpot it's only when you fail that you got to go oh okay you got to change something

yeah well you get shocked into actually making a change making a difference so forth so that being

said what would you do if you were to be like okay here you know three things that we have to do

to uh change the direction of American soccer,

make us compete on a world-class level?

It can just be one thing.

I just said three.

Yeah, no.

On a world-class level, it's difficult.

We have to produce better players in abundance right now, as we just talked about.

That's not the case in America, right?

These other teams are just churning out world-class players. And so in our structure, it's very difficult to do.
More soccer academies. Possibly.
I like to just say that. It's the structural foundation of U.S.
soccer. Possibly.
Yeah. Are you more in favor of having our young guys play over here in the United States or go overseas and get that experience? Oh, great question.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, look, one thing that I truly believe is everyone has a decision to make for their own career, and I've seen guys go to Europe and flourish.
I've seen guys stay here and flourish. Now that could be because maybe guys aren't strong enough to go live on a zone at a young age, whatever it is.
I don't know. But the MLS has shown that they can create and develop talent and sustain that talent right and and some players are going abroad but some players are also thinking the best chance for me to make the national team to further my career to earn big money is right here in mls so like each and there is there's not a there's not a blanket statement that you can say everyone should do this everyone should do that you scored a a goal for everton 100 100 yards what's the pitch 110 120? It just depends.
You scored the length of the pitch. Have you thought about kicking in the NFL? Chicago Bears need a kicker.
XFL maybe. No.
No, no, no. Could you? Do you think you could kick? Have you tried kicking field goals? I think kicking a soccer ball is incredibly easy compared to kicking a football.
It's a lot different. I was very humble of you.
No talk about like when they had miola we keep talking about tony miola because again we're dumb and we remember 94 and uh he tried out for the jets and they're like this guy kind of sucks at kicking because you can only make like a 40 yarder it's a different skill set kicking a football from a soccer ball terribly different yeah i'd still like you to try yeah just try just to get your you know we talking about that stupid stuff. By the way, forgive us because we've done a terrible job interviewing you.
We should have asked this question to start. Messi or Ronaldo? Ronaldo.
Get the fuck out of here. I know.
A lot of people have that. We're a Messi podcast.
Yeah, we are. That's fine.
So who would you rather... You're more scared.
We put a free kick right outside the box. You're more scared of Ronaldo than Messi? I'm scared of him both.
But who are you more scared of? I think Ronaldo. That's crazy, man.
You don't know soccer. I know.
True. I just like Messi because he's so small and he looks like the ball is attached to his foot.
Yeah. Yeah.
And Ronaldo, he's like, dude, okay, cool. You got a six pack.
Like anyone could fucking work out and get a six a six-pack. True.
He does the thing with his shorts, too, where he pulls them up way too much. Yeah, it's way too much.
No, it's too much. So Messi could never.
Dude. My fave would never.
Messi's got the NBA, like, 2,000. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. He's got the baggy shorts.
Ronaldo's like, he's the dude who, like, pops his top off, like, the first second that you go, like, on a boat. And you're like, all right, dude.
Come on. Like, we get come on like we get it give us all a chance he's got a nice body it's bullshit I'm sure Messi has a six pack too he's got sick tattoos who's the goat of all time Maradona his left or his right nostril yeah it's true man oh god can we to get another? I know you've got to run.
Let's do our last question with Jilly Football. You met her.
It's a SeatGeek question. Promo code TAKE.
Put in promo code TAKE. You get $10 off.
Go see an MLS game. Go see Tim Howard play for the Rapids.
Promo code TAKE SeatGeek. All right, Jilly, go ahead.
Okay. What do you got for me? I have this for you.
Okay. What happened with Benny McCarthy's free kick in the 90th minute during the Champion League second round game against FC Porto in 2004? What do you mean? I put it back in the middle of the goal, they scored a goal, and they won.
What do you mean what happened? I don't know. Giving up that juicy of a rebound.

I know.

Pretty bad.

I know.

True.

That's what I'm saying.

Pretty bad.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

Pretty bad.

I should have put it somewhere.

But you know what it did?

It kick-started my career

and here I am.

Okay.

And there you are.

Yay.

Okay.

Jilly, go with some more questions

you have written down.

Okay.

Who is the greatest

American soccer player? Mia or Abby? Oh, boy. That's tough.
Abby. Disagree.
Okay. I disagree.
I disagree, too. All right.
We all disagree. Now, this is a big one.
Okay. How do you get the grass stains out of your uniform? I don't.
Someone else is watching them for me. Oh.
Being a mom, I had to get them out. Yeah.
Spells and absa. Yeah.
That's tough. That's tough.
I got one last question for you, and then we'll let you go. Your best solo performance of all time, would you say against Belgium, Algeria, or at the end of Killing in the Name of? Oh, that's a good, that's a great song.
Yeah. Great song.
Yeah. Belgium.
Belgium. Belgium.
You look like Tom Borrello. Okay.
Are you going to play in the next World Cup? How many more years are you going to play for? I'm retiring after this year. Are you? Absolutely not.
Have you said that? Yeah. Damn.
Can we just pretend you haven't? Nah. Can't wait.
How about this? Breaking news. No, no, no.
Unretire real quick. And then re-retire.
Yeah. I'll come out of retirement.
Okay. Now are you going to...
Yeah, I think I'm going to retire. Alright.
Breaking news. Breaking news.
10 hours to... Oh, damn.
Score right here. It's on, though.
Score right here. There we go.
Boom. Golosso.
Oh. Get it right here.
Go. What are you doing? This is ridiculous.
This is like watching. We're playing inside the six.
This is insane. We're playing inside the six.
Someone score. Park in the bus.
Please. Strike it.
Please. Have it.
Oh, that's a down. Penalty.
Penalty. Ma'am.
Ma'am. Sir.
V-A-R. Oh, no.
That was literally like a foosball. Okay, Tim Howard.
Damn it. God damn it.
Thank you so much. Legend.
Awesome. Thank you for joining us.
How many goals would we score off you? Ten shots. Penalty kicks.
Penalties are easy. I don't know.
Five, maybe? Three. I'm saying more like nine out of ten.
No chance. At least seven.
No chance. Eight.
Now you want to score eight. Seven.
Awesome. If you saw us lining up to take a penalty kick, would you you just say I'm going to react to what they're doing or would you actually guess I'd react for one or two and just see what we had in our team I got no juice Tim Howard thank you so much future Bears kicker when your home system or appliance breaks down American Home Shield will help fix or replace the covered item, no matter its age.
Visit AHS.com slash listen for 20% off any plan. See AHS.com slash contracts for coverage details, limitations, and exclusions.
Okay, that was Tim Howard. Next up, that was a great interview with Tim Howard.
We should have said beforehand, but we were watching the famous 13-0, wow, USA has no respect for anyone else game against thailand thailand yeah thailand kicked the shit out of them um it was like foie gras i was like making a goose with foie gras except it was just a bunch of soccer balls being jammed out it was it was awesome you had the under in that game which sucked because we were watching live was it three nothing and a half so i had i had the under i had the under but i had the first half over and i also had some prop bets so i ended up winning money on that game, which sucked because we were watching live. Was it 3-0 and a half? So I had the under, but I had the first half over.
And I also had some prop bets, so I ended up winning money on that game. But yeah, terrible, terrible.
Hey, imagine being the guy at the water cooler that had the under on the 13-0 shit bumping. Damn.
So yeah, that was Tim Howard. We now have JB Smoove.
You probably know him. Leon Black from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I have a question, Big Cat. Yeah.
What if I wanted to watch these interviews, not just listen to them? I'm so happy. Hey, PFT.
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Smoove. Awesome look.
Awesome guy. Very interesting story.
I actually didn't realize before I started doing research that he was an SNL writer. And his whole how he became part of Curb was just complete, almost accidental luck where it all worked out and the stars aligned.
It's crazy to me that he was a writer and not a cast member. Yes.
That type of personality. It's like, no, we want this guy behind the scenes.
What the fuck are you thinking? Right. So we get into that.
We get into working with Larry David. Ass pregnant.
Ass pregnant. One of the all time skits.
He actually started just rattling off all the skits that didn't make it to SNL. And they sounded, we could make a show out of that.
So hopefully we'll have J.B. Smoove back on at some point.
But here he is, J.B. Smoove.
And now for something completely different. Okay, we now welcome on the man, the myth, the legend.
It is J.B. Smoove.
Yes, yes. He's in the new Spider-Man.
Are you Spider-Man? Oh, hell no, man. I wish I was Spider-Man, though.
But, you know, when they called me about the role,

the first thing you want to ask, if

anybody calls you from Marvel,

the first thing you ask them is,

what are my powers? Right. You know? Because you assume

they're going to give you something. Right.

No matter how minimal the power is,

you hope they're going to give you a superpower.

But no, I just play a teacher. Yeah, you're

Mr. Dell in it.
I'm Mr. Dell in it.
Was there any moment

where you're like, maybe I'm Spider-Man. Maybe they're

switching it up on us. You know what?

Maybe not Spider-Man, but maybe

I'm going to take. Dell in it.
I'm Mr. Dell in it.
Was there any moment where you're like, maybe I'm Spider-Man. Maybe they're switching it up on us.
You know what? Maybe not Spider-Man, but I thought maybe something would bite me. Maybe a termite or a roach.
And maybe that would happen to be radioactive. But you can't help but think, because everything is so secretive.
Right. You don't know what the hell is going to happen to you.
You're sitting there like, damn, I'm on set, but damn. Maybe there's still a possibility because when you read the pages, stuff is marked out and blacked out because they don't want to spoil it.
They don't want you to be a spoiler. So they keep stuff secretive.
So I'm still anticipating possibly something biting me. A roach would be great.
A roach would be freaking fabulous, man. Immune to atomic energy.
Oh, man. If I could be an atomic roach, let me tell you something, man.
Oh, that would be freaking amazing. I've heard that sometimes what they do is they put misinformation in certain scripts just in case you leak something out so they can catch you.
Just in case, man. I just wanted some powers.
That's all I wanted. But who's to say I'm not going to be in the next one? Yeah, true.
Speak it into existence. You have to do that.
I evolve into something.

That's true.

In a movie like this, dude, they give you any leeway

in terms of improv stuff? Because you could just

come out for a scene and be like, ah, damn it,

I got bit by this roach. Yeah.

You throw that out there. You try it.
And they say,

cut, cut, cut, cut. No roach

bit you right now, so let's do your

scene the way it's written. Oh, okay.
Because all they're going to do is correct you. But, of course, they have to give you a little rope.
You know, our amazing director, John Watts, he gave us some rope, and he let us have fun. Me and my guy, Martin Starr from Silicon Valley, we both play teachers, chaperones, on this amazing European trip with these amazing teens in this movie.
And Tom Holland and everybody else in there. And we absolutely had a ball shooting.
We shot in Prague. We shot in Venice.
We shot in London. Let me tell you something, man.
It's beautiful over there. Yeah.
You been to Prague? I've never been to Prague. You've never been to Prague before? No.
Prague is amazing, man. Now I got to go.
You know what I like about Prague? It's walkable. That's a good thing.
It says one of the only, one of the amazing cities

that wasn't involved

or damaged in wars.

Right, World War II.

Oh man, it's absolutely beautiful.

What's the weather like in Prague?

Because that's a big factor for me

when it comes to walkability.

It depends what time of year you go.

Now I was there,

we shot that movie from July 4th.

I shot from July 4th.

They shot earlier from June,

but I shot from July 4th

all the way to October. So it was absolutely beautiful.
Yeah, that's that's got to be nice I was in t-shirt weather yeah it was beautiful over there so I gotta ask you the thing that I find fascinating about your career you're a stand-up comedian that's how you started but you're not cynical and like we've talked to stand-up comedians before they all have a way about them where I think they're a little maybe reserved, a little more cynical, down. Look at the dark side of life.
You have the opposite feel. You are like, you know, everything about you is kind of over the top.
You bring people in in a joyous way. You have to.
You have to do that, man. But we all are different.
I think a lot of comics do have that trait in them and they are able to reshape it and do it on stage but you know it's more like therapy it becomes like a therapy session for some comics me I'm 30 years in and I've been I've done so much so many different projects and different types of things you know I think if I was just a stand up comic you know who knows what my mindset would be if I was just a comic and I was satisfied with being just a comic traveling around the world just doing stuff but a lot of times when you're just a comic you don't have any other other life. You don't have anything else that touches you.
You're not inspired by anything else. You're kind of like locked in.
You're kind of a loner sometimes. Sometimes some comics are loners.
Some of them don't have kids and wives. Some of them have girlfriends.
It depends how hard you want to live and how much you are committed to being a stand-up because you get a chance. I mean, you travel around the country.
You're never home. And all you do is travel, travel, travel, doing different clubs, different cities.
It can wear you down a little bit. That's all I did when I first started was get in the car and drive two weeks doing shows.
It makes you a different kind of person. Your choices are different.
You know, how long you hang out at night, who you hang around with. Sometimes I get a little seedy.
You got to deal with promoters trying to break their face with not paying you your money. You know, you got to deal with so many different things, you know.
You deal with so many things. And I think it's just a matter of how long you've been doing it or what you aspire to do after that.
You know, I've been lucky because I made some great choices when I first started doing stand-up and stand-up TV shows. You know, I chose to, like some comics did, stand-up shows six, seven times.
I did it once, twice, because I wanted to make sure I varied my resume and also my creative thing. You know what I mean? So I did a lot of firsts.
I did the first show on MTV, you know, one of the first parts they ever did called Apartment 2F with the Scar Brothers. I did sort of attention span theater at the inception of Comedy Central.
I mean, you name it. I did a lot of firsts.
So I got lucky in presenting a style that was inclusive to whatever they were looking for. Right, right.
But I got, you know, I just made sure I turned down what I turned down. I took what I took for a reason.
You know, I'm not the biggest actor and the biggest stand-up, but I'm consistent and I'm happy that I can do what I love to do. Also, as opposed to always being at the, always being happy to do certain things.
I'm sure we're going to get to some stuff with Curb Your Enthusiasm. I'm sure you've got some questions about that later, but I want to talk real quick about SNL.
Oh, yeah. What were you there for, like, two years, three years, something like that?

Three years. Three seasons.
So did Lorne Michaels ever learn your name enough to forget it? Oh, man. You know, me and Lorne hit it up pretty well.
Really? Because I've heard it sometimes it goes the other way. Yeah.
Oh, I've heard plenty of stories. I didn't have that experience.
I think because I

actually, you know,

I auditioned for Cast

along with a bunch of other people so I made it to the test which means I got a chance to go to NBC in the studio, SNL Studios and do my final test I was on with Finesse and Kenan and myself we were the last three left and that was a lot of fun to do so I got a chance to come in as a guy who auditioned for the show and then who didn't get the show but then a week later I got a phone call asking if I would want to come in as a writer so for me I hit it off with everybody over there when I first got there.

But I'm not invisible.

I'm very, it's very, I've never been that kind of guy.

You're the pitch king.

I'm the pitch king.

I don't like being invisible.

So I'm loud.

I come into the writer's room loud.

I'm talking.

I'm talkable.

I like to throw ideas out, which in turn led me to have five jobs while I was over there.

I was a writer on the show. I did warm-up on the show for two.
While I was there, I was in monologues. I was in sketches.
I also did Conan O'Brien maybe 10, 11 times. That's when he was still at NBC downstairs.
I was a writer on the show, but some people come to the show and they turn them into stars. Some people come to the show having already resume.
Right. I came to the show with a resume already.
I had already been on a Fox sketch show with Cedric, the Entertainer Presents. I had already done Lyricist Lounge show, you know, on MTV.
So I had already done a lot of stuff. I was already in a few movies.
So for me, it was different me coming there there. I did it because it would look good on my resume

to have a cool writing credit.

And who wouldn't want to take a job at SNL?

Yeah, absolutely. So I read that you were

the quote-unquote pitch

king. Pitch king.
And when

everyone's sitting around and pitching their ideas

to Lorne, it would get to

your spot and you would stand up

and just throw as many ideas out there as possible.

I would throw. I would do an average of four.
I would try to. Everybody would throw two.
I would do four pitches every week because I felt I like to get a rise on the people. But at the same time, I like to show that I was there doing my job.
But at the same time, even though I came in, I auditioned, I ended up being a writer on the show. I still wanted them to consider me as a cast member.
Who knew? Who knows what's going to happen down the pike? You know what I mean? But it was one of those things where, you know, I did it so it would look good on my resume. And I really had a great time there.
And I met some amazing hosts. I got a chance.
But, you know, I go back all the time and visit. I sit in Lauren's office.
We kick it. We talk about things I'm working on.
That's awesome. Yeah.
What was your favorite sketch that got on air? That got on air? Yeah, the number one that you always think about. The number one that got on air was ass pregnant.
That made air. I don't.
That made air, man. It made air.
I got pretty good. It was pretty goddamn funny.
Yeah, I can imagine what it is. I can't think of it off the top of my head but I think it's pretty straightforward it's pretty straightforward and Amy Poehler had this big I mean she went to her parents' house they opened the door and her body's normal and she walks in the door and her ass is huge yeah man it's just so was just so funny.
That's great.

That's good.

Did you ever write anything while you were there

knowing that you were

writing it for yourself

that you could play

a certain character

way better

hoping that Lauren

would be like,

you know,

JB,

why don't you just step in

and take this one?

I think it's one of those things

where,

you know,

you couldn't,

how we write,

I think is,

especially coming in as a stand-up and not coming in as a writer in as a writer I wasn't a writer when I got on the show I really was probably better off as a cast member and I've heard that from other producers who like now they would say you know what in hindsight we think you've probably been a better cast member. You came in with no writing experience, but you were amazing with your ideas.
And to this day, like to this day, I can walk in that room and new writers who weren't even there when I was there would bring up things they heard about me or bits they heard. So many bits, man.
So many things didn't make it. And even today, like, if I was the host of SNL, I would probably pitch doing all the sketches that didn't make it or at least a cool monologue of all my sketches that didn't make it.
Ask Pregnant 2. Ask Pregnant 2, man.
That's a good one, man. That was some really good ones, man.
Ass Pregnant number 2. Urine Detective.
Call of Duty. The Urine Detective was one of my favorites, too.
The Urine Detective. Yeah, I wrote that for Johnny Knoxville.
He was a detective that solved cases by getting the urine sample from you. And he would taste it.
He would drink the urine. It's Roger Goodell.
And break it. And figure out what happened.
I like this. Like he would take the first man to smack another man on the butt.
that was Tom Brady, who's a football player, throwback from the 30s. First player to smack a man on the butt after a good play.
He got traded to every team in the NFL because no one understood what was going on here. Yeah, this is good.
You need to write them all down. You probably have them all in your head.
Oh, the guy who worked at, oh, the guy who was, who worked at Subway, but he used to be a bank teller. And they fired him because he couldn't get being a bank teller out of his head.
So he'd make you a sandwich. He'd go, you want salami on that? He'd lick it? He'd lick his finger.
He couldn't stop. He couldn't get the bank teller out of his head, man.
That's good. I was torn between a bank teller and a dealer in Vegas.
Oh, that's good. Yeah.
So I was torn between those two. But it worked either way.
Yeah. So you don't get renewed.
I don't know how you don't get renewed as a writer on SNL. I mean, that had to have been a low moment.
No. See, I've always been a guy that loves to drive his own car, man.
And I think once you realize what your worth is and what you bring to the table and what you want to do, you can't be afraid to make chess moves and make moves. I knew I wasn't going back for my season four because I just did certain things that I knew would not allow me to come back, even though they didn't resign me for season four.
I knew once I fired my got rid of my agent who also handled a few other people on the show

already knew, if you don't have anybody to speak up for you, why would you be going back, you know, in that same capacity? So, already knew I wasn't going back. I said, if I fire this, fire my agent, I don't think I'm going to be called back because there's no one there to push to be going back.
But I was comfortable with that. It's one of those things where if they had re-signed me it would have been great.
But it led to curb. Something's got to step out the way for something new to come in.
And you can't be afraid to venture out because there's something, you know, when you intentionally make moves, you're driving your own vehicle. So you can choose to take what you want to take, but you also choose to eliminate something, you know, that, you know, maybe it was time for me to, you know, that opening was the opening I needed.
If I had, there's two things that happened. I went to LA

to audition for Curb.

While I was in,

while I was there

for a friend's memorial,

I went to LA for one day

for that memorial.

I had just signed a new agent

and I was with that agent

maybe less than a week.

And I went to LA

because my buddy had passed away

and I actually went to my LA office,

the LA office of my agent

to meet those guys.

I met them in New York.

I went to the LA office

to meet those guys. I met them in New York.
I went to the L.A. office to meet those guys.
And I ended up getting an audition for Kirby Enthusiasm. That's amazing.
So, yeah, there's twofold here. If I got re-signed by SNL, I wouldn't have never been able to do Curb because I would have been on the contract.
And two, if my buddy didn't pass away at that particular time, I wouldn't have been in L.A. anyway.
So I would have never heard about that. I would have never heard about it.
If I didn't fire my agent who had me on SNL, I wouldn't have never, that's three things that happened that had to be in the right order for me to have an opening and be free to go to LA. Butterfly effect.
And next thing you know, I'm in the office. I could have said I wasn't going to go

just to meet my new agent.

I could have just went.

I could have been to lunch

with somebody with friends.

Yeah.

I could have been doing

something totally different.

Too tired.

I could have been

jagging off in a hotel room

or something.

I don't know.

You know what I mean?

I could have been doing

something totally different.

So those things had to happen

in order for me to end up

in front of Larry,

who I'd never met before,

at an audition.

So at the audition,

I've always wondered this

because Leon is you.

You are Leon.

Right, yes.

There's no,

like obviously you play Thank you. who I'd never met before, at an audition.
So at the audition, I've always wondered this,

because Leon is you.

You are Leon.

There's no, like, obviously you play a character.

When you do what, you get into character.

But I can't imagine anybody else playing that character

because it's become iconic.

So when you're auditioning for it,

what is the character description that they put in front of you

as opposed to, like, how much you just bring in on your own?

It wasn't any description of the character. It just said just said you know he's the brother of loretta which is the hurricane family that came in but i wasn't from new orleans they were from new orleans i just lived in la and found out my sister was living at larry david's house i just came over and made myself a home so for me it was one of those things where there was no description of the character.
There was only sides, which means there's three scenarios that we can go in there and do. I can already figure the character out before I walk in the room.
And I got this thing I do where sometimes I walk in the room as the character. Because I like to be in the zone already.
To walk in the room and say, hey, how you doing? I'm JB.

And then turn the character on.

It's a weird turn to come in there,

like, hey, how you doing?

I came in the room as the character.

I came in there, strutted up in there,

doing some Leon mannerisms,

looking around the room at the other producers.

And they all started snickering a little bit. But see, that's when your other skills kick in.
Your stand-up skills kick in because stand-ups, we have to be able to read you. We have to be able to gauge what we're hearing, what kind of laughter, what are you laughing at actually, my mannerisms, my delivery? Are you laughing at how I'm walking, how I'm talking? Are you laughing at how I walked in the room? What are you exactly laughing at? so now i can take that and listen to what they're laughing at and say oh they're like the mannerisms they love the delivery they love the aggressiveness they love how i'm talking to larry right now like i don't give a fuck you know i mean i'm talking to larry very bluntly you know the first thing i said to larry when i walked in the room was i came in because i came in as the character he said okay jb you're to improvise with Larry.
And I said, okay, let's do this, Larry. Improvise, right? Okay, my man, let's do this.
You know what I mean? I said, I don't know. I might slap you in the face.
I don't know. You know what I mean? We're going to improvise.
Anything can happen. And I walked away.
Let's talk to scene. And everybody's like, what the fuck? What the fuck is going on here? Security? Security? Let this guy in? You know what? Right.
But that's what you want. You want to get a rise out of them because you can always pull back.
If you're going to an audition as high as possible, you hit that high note, they can always say, pull back a little bit. And you know exactly how to pull back.
Right. When you come your ass in low, they're going to say, I need more energy.
Now you don't know how much energy. Either you're going to give them a little bit of energy more, or you're going to give them so much, they're going to say, get the fuck out of here.
They're going to say, get your ass out of here, man. You're scaring people.
And also, that makes you almost turn your energy down. If somebody tells you, I need more energy, you're like, fuck.
It defeats you. Yeah.
You're like, oh, okay, okay. Yeah.
Yeah. Right.
I am going to kill you. You know what I mean? You don't know.
You look stupid. Right.
If you come in already controlling the room, you're driving your own damn car. Get up in that ass.
Get up in that ass. Driving your own damn car.
You drive your own damn car. Now you're driving.
They're passengers. They on their heels now.
You put them on their heels so they don't know what to do. All they know is, oh shit, this dude just changed the whole thing.

He just flipped it on him.

The whole injury,

I flipped it on him.

So how much is Curb?

Toss the turbity here.

Yeah, I mean,

it's fantastic.

It's hard to,

I would be,

I think most people

would be intimidated

to walk in a room

with Larry David.

I had no idea.

I think it helped

that I didn't know

what,

I anticipated

going on tape

and them reviewing the tape. Right.
That's how I prepared. But walking into the room and Larry's standing in the middle of the room it's like oh okay.
Okay. We're going to improv directly.
Okay. Let's do it.
Let's do it. You know what I mean? That made me turn up even more.
I'm going to show off now. I'm going to show out a little bit.
Because now I'm on stage, really. I'm on stage performing, actually.
I'm giving you something you didn't know you were going to get. And I'm sitting in the waiting room, waiting to go in.
It's like all kind of actors. I know most of these comedians in the room.
And I know their styles. I know his style.
I know her style. I know all these styles in the room already.
I said, okay. I said, okay.
I know what I'm going to do. I know his style already.
I know his style. Okay, I'm going to go in and give him something different.
I know exactly what he's going to do and exactly what he's going to do. You attacked it like Leon.
I know their rhythm from working with them. I know their style and I know their rhythm.
I said, okay. I know exactly what he's looking for.
So how much of Curb after that point, you know, when you're taping seasons, is it still improv and still kind of just throwing stuff out there? No, it's always, I always, when I go to the set, you know, you got to realize we have an 8 to 10 page outline for the show. Now, I ain't going to lie.
The first three seasons I did Curb, I never even looked at the goddamn outline. I ain't lying, I never looked at the shit.
You know, I found, I said, oh, there's outlines and shit? You know what I mean? I knew it was an outline because that's how they work. But, I just, all I need to know when I come to set is, what's my motivation? You only do one scene at a time.
You're not doing the whole fucking movie at one time or the whole TV show at one time. You're doing one scene at a time.
I might be in there for two hours. I got one scene today.
You know, I'm not going to come in there over prepared. I come in there, I don't want to read, I didn't even read the shit.
I ain't lying. I didn't read the script until maybe the last season I read my first

outline. Because I just

found it easier

to

find my motivation in the

moment. Because once I get dressed

in my Leon wardrobe,

put the do-rag on,

my little Leon cup with the Leon

written on it so Larry don't put his mouth on it,

you know what I mean, on my fucking straw. I walk, all my goodies, my little robe cup with the Leon written on it so Larry don't put his mouth on it you know what I mean on my fucking straw I walk all my goodies my little robe with no belt and I hold the shit closed like this in my hand once I do that I'm in Leon mode now I'm carrying myself differently I go to set I ask Jeff Schaefer the writer and one of the producers what's my motivation what the fuck did Larry do this time this time? Now, now I'm in my mindset.
Once he tells me what the scene is about, I can sit there and say, okay, I got three options in my brain of how I can do this scene. But we don't, we don't, because it's outlines, there is no dialogue in the outline.
You create your own dialogue. So you're driving, scene, whatever you want to do.
And I got to make a decision. In the moment, I got to say, okay.
Because even rehearsal, we don't say a word. All we say is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Seriously? If you even sit there and say a word save it

save it

save it

so like

blocking out

the scene

you just go

walking around

going blah blah

we want a natural

reaction to

whatever we say

we gotta start

doing that

before shows

so that's what

gets us in the mode

it's a natural

reaction

for the first time

can I interview

using that right now

blah blah

blah blah blah

blah blah

blah blah blah

blah blah

blah blah

blah blah

blah blah

blah blah

blah blah

blah blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

No, blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah.

Blah.

Look, you know that.

Blah, blah, blah.

Blah.

Blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

It could work.

Do we have tape of this?

It would be great to release all the curb seasons,

just the blah, blah, blah.

Just blahs, yeah.

Oh, DVD extras right there.

Yeah, everyone would be like,

I'd go buy a DVD player just to see that.

You're a genius. It is actually, be like, I go buy a DVD player just to see that.
Because he's a genius.

It is actually,

and then I have to make a decision

as an actor,

if I want to have his back

or if I want to go against him.

I'm thinking like,

what am I going to get the most mileage out of?

Having Larry's back on this

and riding with him

or going against him

and saying, Larry, you fucked up. This is terrible.
What you doing? Which way is best? And a lot of times it just depends what the magnitude of it is. Something about having his back is funny and something about going against him is funny.
You know, when I say he's wrong and I'm riding him and telling him why he's wrong

and how we should handle this, it's fun as shit.

But riding with him sometimes is fun when I agree with everything he's doing in my own way.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

And that's what I think you get the gold from is he's a genius, man.

He's basically underhand pitching you, or you got gotta do the swing the bat and hit the shit i've heard that you uh you get high the first time that you say something something that's never been said before it's like it's a good feeling for you right it's the most amazing feeling especially when you get somebody of larry's magnitude you see him smirking a little bit you see his you see, yeah, yeah. That means he's, you got him, you got him.
He's just trying to hold it, he's just trying to hold it in. Like, oh, okay.
Yeah. Okay, bro.
And he's trying to fight you and you're just giving it to him. And I don't break, I don't break, once in a while I break, it depends where my brain is going.
But sometimes I'm anticipating moving on with the scene and how far I can go with it that I can't laugh because you know if you watch the show Leon doesn't he doesn't laugh at all he barely he barely smiles on the show he might he smile at what's up man but he doesn't laugh you haven't seen him laugh on the show when I'm delivering lines, it's straight up. I'm giving that shit straight to him raw.
You know what I mean? I'm just giving it to him. You know what I mean? I'm telling him what the fuck he should do.
So when you're doing like a second take of a scene, do you ever repeat a line that you might have just improv before or do you try to come up with something new every single take? Once Larry figures it out and he stops laughing, that's when I change that shit up. Once I get that on tape really good, I'll change it up and give him something different.
One time I did a 10 minute rant and just kept rolling the cameras. I was just rolling.
I was just making up shit. Just going for a whole story.
The scene was already over basically, but I just kept going with it and just to see how far I can go. I could hear the producers in their chairs way over there in the monitor area just laughing.
And I just kept going as far as I could go. And I just stretched it out.
Somewhere Larry has it. But it was just something stupid.
And I just made light of him. It was that scene where Larry was, he told me when I thanked him, because my sister

Loretta had cancer, and I said, man, you're really an honorable man staying with my sister,

knowing that you can't have sex with her no more.

You know, I'm really proud, I really respect you a lot.

And I just kept going on and on how proud I was.

And the scene was supposed to be him realizing that he can't have sex with her no more, and

Thank you. I really respect you a lot.
And I just kept going on and on how proud I was. And the scene was supposed to be him realizing that he can't have sex with her no more.
And the camera zooms in on him like, well, he's trying to figure out how to get out of this shit. I'm going to get rid of her.
As a music place. I can't be with her.
I can't be with her if I can't have sex with her for the rest of my life. And I'm giving him props.
I respect him for staying with my sister like this. And you know you can't have sex with her no more.
And I went through the whole gambit. Like, you can't get on top of her.
All you can do is rub her titties once in a while. But you can't do nothing.
You know what I mean? You can't have real sex with her all the time. You know, I'm proud of you, man.
You should make a statue of your ass and put that shit in the city square. The man with the dry ass dick.
You know what I mean? And that's kept going on and on and on. I mean, every scenario you could think of.
But that being said, that is, you know, there's a balance to doing improv. Yeah.
Which is you you can, you you lead, you listen, you pick up where someone left off.

All the little rules and stuff we follow,

we have fun.

But it's really,

you know,

the dream job.

Yeah.

All right,

you gotta go.

So this has been awesome though.

Yeah.

Appreciate it.

You guys are great, man.

Yeah, thank you.

JB Smooth,

go watch Spider-Man.

It's out in theaters now because we're going to run this after

it comes out in theaters.

And like PFT said, an iconic character, Leon Black Oh, I appreciate you guys The best So anytime you're in town Please come through I will We'd love to have you on You guys got the book of Leon already? No, we need to get it You got to get the fucking book of Leon, man Yeah I can learn some lessons from him You want to give it to us for free or what? I could send you guys a copy Give me an address I'll send you a copy Yeah, send us a copy. Is there an audio book? Okay.
There's also an audio book. Yeah, I'll do that.
The audio book is great. I'm not allowed to.
No, no. I know.
I know what you're saying. I'm telling you, the audio book is great.
I elaborate even more in the audio version. But to have the book, the book is.
To feel it. To see Leon on the cover.
It's more about other people seeing me read it. So what's the cut? What's your split? You get more money for the book, right? No, no.
I don't worry about that. I just like horror books.
I'm over reader. Yeah.
I like the physical book. I like to say, leave that on the table when people are over.
Go ahead and look at it. And it's not, you can open the book.
You can open any area. You just open the book.
All right. So I'll do one better.
I'll do one better. I'll just play your audio book in my house all the time.
So people come in and it's just always playing. You know what I might do? I might take the audio book version, run it through a transcript thing online, and then print that shit out.
And then just have a stack of paper in front of me. Make my own.
You're like a 3D printer for words. Then get a photo of me and put my photo.
Staple it on the front. Staple that shit together.
All right. That's paperclip.
Or the ones that squeeze.

I like those.

I like those too.

You fold them back.

Yeah, you get your finger

pinched in there.

You got to be careful with that.

Thank you, man.

Appreciate it.

They're good on nipples too.

You put them on nipples?

No, I have not.

Of course.

Yeah, you can.

You got to get on that.

All right.

Thanks, man.

Hey, what's going on there, pal?

We saw you at the hockey game on.

Thank you. hey what's going on there pal we saw you at the hockey game on do i know you guys i'm ryan whitney i got a drink named after me not a big deal pink whitney that's what i thought see you fellas i invented the thing you pigeon pink whitney for legendary moments okay we next have uh prince and cecil fiel.
So these guys are awesome. I wish they were in person, but holy shit, they are like, I think I want to be friends with Cecil Fielder.
Two legends of the game for sure. Cecil? Cecil? I think it's Cecil.
I keep saying the wrong one. I grew up calling him Cecil, but I also grew up calling a lot of people a lot of weird.
I grew up calling him John Wooten. So I'm not sure.
I'm going to go with Cecil Fielder. You could make the argument that maybe they're the best father-son hitting duo of all time over the Griffiths.
Ken Griffith Jr. and Sr.
Yeah, I think Cecil was better than Sr. What about Vlad? Dude, Vlad Jr.
is one of our hopes for the home run derby. So we should actually just say that.
Yeah, it's Vlad Jr. and Vlad Sr.
for sure. But then the fielders.
So we had them on a couple weeks ago. Very fun guys.
Like I said, I wish we had them in person. Hopefully sometime in the future we will have them in person.
But here they are, the fielders. Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests.
It is Prince and Cecil Fielder. They're here with us from Kingsford.
They did the body by BBQ, so they got naked and took pictures. We got the pixelation, so we didn't have to see any of the private stuff.
But you guys, your bodies are looking good. What do you guys do to keep in shape? I'm not doing anything right now to keep in shape.
I'm out on the grill barbecuing with my Kingsford charcoal, so I'm eating more than I'm trying to stay in shape. Okay.
Okay. And, Prince, I wanted to start with this with the Kingsford partnership.
Do you remember when you were vegetarian for three months? What the heck were you thinking? Just trying something different. That's all yeah that was one of those like narratives that got you know that once once the media got a hold of it it became such a big story and i was like there's no way this guy is sticking with with uh being a vegetarian real weird man he's a weird guy he does weird things like that you know he's just weird what other weird stuff like that his whole life yeah what are the weird stuff what other weird stuff does he do or as a kid oh he's got superstitions he got all kind of weird stuff he does what kind of superstitions are we talking about he didn't like he didn't like sleeping he slept with his bat when he was in the swamp i mean i could see doing that doing that.
Yeah. Just spend more time with him.
That was a high school. That was high school.
That was high school. What are you talking about? You're so superstitious.
Dad, I got to get it done. I don't know.
He was really weird in high school. He was really weird in high school.
Prince, I remember seeing a couple of Instagram posts you put up of your pig. Do you still have that pig? Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. What inspired you to get a pig, like as a pet? Well, they told me that when the pig's, you know, real little, you know, they use a litter.
And, you know, we just, our house is being renovated and stuff. And I didn't want to have to, like, house break a dog that quick.
So with him, I could, like, take my time. And then once he got big enough, took him right outside, and he had one accident, and that was it.
That's amazing. So how big is he now? He's big.
I mean, he comes up to my shin high, but he's about, what, 150, 200? Yeah, he's getting big now. He's a chunk boy.
Yeah, veryunk. Yeah, he's wide.
Love it. Yeah, so you got a pig that's housebroken, but you named it Bacon.

Was that just you, like, putting the pig down and making sure it knew who was boss all the time?

Like, hey, I could eat you if I wanted to.

No, no.

I mean, you know, I just thought it was a cool name.

I mean, it's like naming a cat dog, you know?

I don't know.

Yeah, I actually think your dad's right. You are weird.
That is a very weird answer to give. Very weird.
Yes. All right, so, Cecily, you were a three-time All-Star Prince.
You were a six-time All-Star. But the most important question, you guys actually ended up with the exact same amount of home runs in your career, which is crazy.
Who hit the longer home run, though, in their career? Oh, there's no question. He knows.
Ask him. Prince.
I don't know anything. Yeah, you know.
Oh, McCall, you know. I told him one time, he hits bombs, I leave stadiums, and that's it.
I love it. That's a great line.
I love it. So, Cecil, you named him Prince after the musician Prince.
Is that correct? That is my grandfather. Okay.
My great-grandfather, I should say. Okay, so your great-grandfather was Prince or your great-grandfather named him Prince? No, my great-grandfather was Papa Prince.
Oh, okay. There's some misinformation on Wikipedia, if you can believe that,

about how you got your name.

I'm still going to stick with my question I was going to ask anyways.

What's your favorite Prince song?

Oh, I got him.

I'd go 1999.

Okay, good answer.

Good choice.

What about a little Raspberry Beret?

That's good, too.

Purple Rain, all that.

Let's go crazy.

1999 got it going. Kiss.
Computer it going Computer blue I can go on I also wanted to ask you I read, now this might be misinformation as well But Prince was a righty When he was born and you made him into a lefty What was the thought process behind that? Lefties Really own the you can hit left-handed, you can own the game.

And during his career, he owned the game while he was playing it.

So, you know, we did a good thing, switching him over.

How did you do that?

Because I've always wondered that about, like, if I have a son,

I want to train him to be left-handed as well.

I mean, he just started swinging from – He's young enough age.

Yeah, he was so young, it didn't really matter.

So I just told him, turn around, hit from the other side. And he just turned around and he started hitting from the other side.
But that's in the genes right there. I mean, everybody can't do that.
That's just in the genes. I mean, he was going to be a baseball player since he was wearing diapers, man.
That dude was swinging a baseball bat when he was one years old. So it was in his blood.
Yeah. He wanted to do it.
The famous clip of you, Prince, hitting a home run at Detroit Stadium off of Terry Francona, who was playing. I mean, it's insane.
You were 12 years old. You hit a home run out of an MLB park.
Were you at that age like, this is going to be, I'm going to be awesome at baseball forever? I mean, mean I was really it was I was surprised myself um obviously I never hit that was the first time hitting on a um in big league field or whatever so when I did it I was surprised but uh as far as thinking I just I don't know at 12 man I mean what would you think it's I don't know I was just excited I did it then I wanted some pizza really and you know, he was doing that at every ballpark.

He was taking batting practice everywhere.

So he started trying to go deep everywhere.

Yeah, it became a thing.

What was it like, Prince, growing up in a locker room like that?

You know, there was obviously that story a few years ago

about the White Sox locker room and the kids in the locker room.

You seemed like you had, you know, growing up, you were there all the time.

You were one of the guys. Was it just totally normal that you were, like, almost part of the team? It became that way, yeah.
There was a summer where I went with my dad, Sparky, you know, because Sparky never let kids in the clubhouse, but he let me, you know. So it was pretty cool.
The whole summer I got to spend time with my dad in the clubhouse. And, yeah, I basically became, like, you know, a mascot.
And I'm still, I was, I really believe I was in a pinch hit too, like I would go home mad, like go back to the hotel, like dude, that was a perfect opportunity, right there I was so mad, because I thought he was serious I was mad, dead ass I was so serious and Parky would tell him, Prince, be ready I was serious, I thought he was serious that's messed up, to screw withyear-old like that. I would definitely think I was getting in.
Yeah. He had built a fire in me, though.
I'm going to tell you, though. Tony Phillips and Rob Deere, they had him tied up in tape, put him in the trash can.
They were messing with my kid the whole summer. It was unbelievable.
I love it. I love it.

So, Prince, your dad says that you're weird.

There's got to be some weird stuff that he does that you're kind of keeping

and not telling us right now, but here's your chance to get him back.

What's he the weirdest at?

I don't know.

He's pretty weird.

I mean, if I'm weird, he's got to be weird.

No, no, no.

I mean, he's the weird.

He's the first one.

Let me see. It has to come from somewhere.
I don't know. I mean, no, his dad's not weird.
He's got to be weird. No, no, Chad.
He's the weird. He's the first one.
Let me see. It has to come from somewhere.
I don't know. I mean, he didn't do too many.
I didn't do weird things. Not yet.
Our game was so, like, it was, I mean, it was a different game, different era when I played. Everything was so, you know, it was just so businesslike.
You know, you did, know, dressing. Sparky used to make us, you know, wear sports coats if we came downstairs in the lobby.
I mean, it was a totally different game. That might have been weird.
Yeah, you're a rule follower. Yeah, Prince didn't follow rules, never.
He wears Zubas. Prince, you hit, I think it was two inside the park home runs in your career how are you still out of breath no no no i was great shape great shape how long honestly would it take like a inside the park home run for you to catch your breath like fully catch your breath after that uh i mean you know you're talking you're laughing with everybody i mean once you sit down and stop high-fiving i mean at least about a couple minutes but one thing about prince a lot of people didn't know prince could run yeah i mean i we were at a we were at a tryout i think we were at the reds tryout when he was out of high school and him and elijah dukes hooked up in the uh 60 yard dash he was actually beating Dukes for the first 40 yards, and then Elijah got him, but Prince had him.
Prince made him run, and Elijah Dukes was an athlete. He's got wheels for a big man.
I remember watching the Baseball Tonight commercial with you, Cecil, back in the early 90s where Peter Gammons told you to steal third base, and you got thrown out by about 40 yards on the way down to third, and then you kicked dirt all over me. Remember that one? No, me? Yeah, it's you.
I got through out third? I don't know. No, no.
You're a horrible base runner. Huh? You're a horrible base runner.
No, a horrible slider. Oh, terrible slider.
That was a horrible slider. Gotcha.
Terrible slider. So, Prince.
That's why it's neck. That's why the neck's neck.
Yeah. When you won the home run derby, what was your swing like going into that? And did it mess up your swing after hitting all those dingers at the All-Star game? Did it mess it up? Did it? Like for the next week or two afterwards? No, no, no.
For me, not for me, because that was the swing I wanted to take into the game anyway. I mean, I didn't want to hit the ball on the ground.
I didn't want to try to beat it out and hurt my hamstring. So my swing in the game, that's the way I wanted it, kind of like it was the home run derby.
Because, you know, the thing is, you know, you're always trying to hit the ball hard. And that was the thing for me.

If I'm trying to hit it hard, it will go out.

You know, I really wasn't trying to hit in the air so much.

My thing is, if I'm trying to hit it hard and in the face that that's the same swing i want to carry into the game and as a former brewer are you going to be rooting for christian yelich in this year's all-star home run derby oh for sure is he doing it uh hopefully not hopefully not yeah we don't want him to do it so um most important question I have for you, Prince, did you ever try to touch Adrian Beltre's head? I did. I touched it once.
He couldn't do nothing to me because I had a neck brace on, so he let it go. Yeah, obviously your career got cut short.
It was kind of tragic how it all happened. But are you able to look back and be like, do you have any remorse that it got cut short, or are you like, man, I really had an unbelievable career even though it got cut short? Yeah, yeah.
Just, yeah, like what you just said, just because, you know, I try to play every day. You know, there's probably days I probably shouldn't have played because I was hurt or this and that, but, you know, if I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't have been at peace with it now.
But I know, I mean, I literally, you know, broke my neck for baseball. So, I mean, I think that's why I'm a little at peace with it.
Because I gave it everything I had. Yeah, I got to say, hopefully this doesn't come across the wrong way.
But when you did your press conference with the neck brace on, I thought you were like a WWE wrestler. It was like a Stone Cold Steve Austin stunt.
Yeah. All right.
Well, thank you guys for your time. We appreciate it.
Kingsford, go check it out. Body by BBQ.
We're going to be grilling all summer long. You guys look great because you got a Body by BBQ and we appreciate your time.
Alright, man. Hey, it's Rhea from Tricks in the Office.
It's officially mini skort season and Abercrombie has the ones to go out in. Their Scarlet Mini is a classic.
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Shop their newest arrivals in-store and online. Okay, so we are at the portion of the best of.
You should keep listening. What we're going to do now is we're going to do best of football.
Guess a little football in July. We've been sitting here watching random sports for the last month.
We're waiting for football to come back. Here's the good news.
Once July 4th hits, it's like an arrow speed button that just goes directly to football season. It's like you're playing Mario Kart, and there's somebody that's way in front of you, but the video game helps you catch up.
You just got a star. God knows that you need an invincibility star to get through this summer, and you're about to get it.
Training camps are going to open up in what, like three weeks? Basically. Let's get it.
Let's just say three weeks. Two weeks.
Two weeks from now. We've got pitchers and catchers

of baseball reporting. One week

if you're doing the Mars calendar. Long snappers

and holdback guys report in two weeks.

Here we go. Let's get it.

Go ahead, Hank. Who's

going to be in it? Yeah, should we go? Should we list?

Let's just not even. Let's just produce this live.

So don't cut this. Should we

tell everyone what the whole list is

or should we come in and out?

Just the whole list.

Okay, here we go.

Let's do it.

All right.

So we got John Harbaugh.

Ever heard of him?

Yeah.

I'll say the name.

You say what they're famous for.

John Harbaugh.

Turtlenecks.

Jim Harbaugh's younger brother.

Older brother.

Sometimes you forget because John Harbaugh is older.

Yeah, but doesn't it feel like Jim is the older one?

Because Jim kind of like he seems like he is the dominant. Yeah, he's the physically older brother.
Patrick Mahomes. His voice.
His voice. Ike Taylor.
Rabbits. Also known for being sneaky, one of my favorite guests we've had this last year.
Incredible. Unbelievable.
Chasing rabbits. It's on site.
Did we put the story of Uncle James Harrison in there? You got to listen for the james harrison story if you missed the ike taylor interview you have to listen for the uncle james harrison story jeff fisher future coach of the year 10 wins away from being uh in the top 10 all time for wins all time that's all time for wins all time and we're not going to talk about the other side of the coin but as far as wins go all time todd mcshay and mel kuyper dad pumpkin pie uh assistant gm for the new york jets todd mcshay and mel kuyper that was a great rumor good i hope i hope mcshay got some cash oh that's exactly what that was for sure he was like you know what i'm gonna tell portnoy to put this news out there and then nobody will know for sure but i bet you espn will be terrified one of portnoy knowing about this and them not knowing about it two of them of them not losing me to the Jets. Smart move, Todd.
J.J. Watt from February, who the J.J.
Watt part do? Awesome. Yeah.
Because he's comfortable with us. Except for the part that he forgot about the Coast Guard.
That's true. Everybody forgets the Coast Guard.
Not us. Also, just so you know, we are talking to J.J.
Watt pre-engagement. So he's still a single guy.
So kind of wild. Still doesn't have that ring.
He was crazy. He was fucking wild.
We were popping beers. This is J.J.
Watt unfiltered. Yeah, as unfiltered as a guy.
Now he's got an old ball and chain, but not when we talked to him in February. I'm going to start referring to his wife.
I'm going to take it as disrespect if somebody calls her J.J. Watt's girlfriend.
J.J. Watt is now, what's her name? Disrespect.
What were you saying about disrespect? Fiance. It's like Kia Hay or something.
It's a nice name. Yeah, it's a nice name.
A beautiful named woman's fiance. Okay, and then finally we have one single question from Dan Marino because he fucking hated us.

And we kind of hated him.

Yeah, hey Dan Marino, suck my dick.

I hope Dan Marino comes on every single year, Super Bowl week, and doesn't remember who we are.

Oh, I guarantee you.

Yeah.

How does it feel?

It must be shitty for Dan Marino to be like the one, like the only person that you share a sponsorship with is OJ for Isotoners.

But people know you as the asshole. Right, exactly.
You're the guy who's like, yeah, he's kind of prickly. Can I say, are we in the trust tree? Can I say something right now? Yeah.
Just reading those names got me fucking goosebumps. Like, I just started thinking about football and Super Bowl week and all these things.
They're just a flush of memories coming back. Listen, it's about time to get started on your mock drafts for fantasy.

Oh, yeah.

As a matter of fact, that's a star that you're going to get

to get you through the next three weeks.

Just get started reading fantasy football magazines.

Yeah, when you're listening to this, if you feel like...

Bill Steele is coming out soon.

Yes, if you're listening to this and you're sitting in your office

and you hate your life because it's about to be July 4th but you're sitting in your office, why don't you tweet me, tweet PFT, tweet Hank. Give us your top five guys that you got circled for your mock draft.
You know what? Get it going. I'm going to say right now, I'm issuing a three-week moratorium on not caring about fantasy teams.
I care. Now I deeply care about your fantasy team.
Yes, for the month of July. So flood the shit out of us with all your fantasy football takes like real ones I want to know I do care because I have I'm in like year five of missing the playoffs so I do want to know I want to know about like the the keepers that you have I like know the ones that like you're trying to make these evaluations for your jettisoning next year uh who's gonna be your flex I care so much about this all right so yeah all july i hate

once august hits we don't care about your fantasy team anymore during july we care because we want to talk something football all right so here is your football in july to get you ready for football in a few weeks in july to get you ready for football in july july and football because training camp starts in july yep here they are okay we on a very special guest. He is the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, Super Bowl champion, and more importantly, the final token that we needed to collect to become a part of the Harbaugh family.
It is John Harbaugh. It's great to have you on, but you know that you have to go up against your brother-in-law and your brother and your dad for guests on this show.
I know. It's big company, but I'm pretty impressed you guys have now been ordained as part of the family.
What does that mean? There's certain obligations involved with that. I think we get to come over for Thanksgiving and have Jim kick our ass in basketball.
Yeah, whatever it is. And he will kick your ass.
You will leave a shell of the man that you were. Do you ever look at your brother, like just catch him, and he knows that you know? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, here's the thing about it. Over the years, you know how it is.
You guys got brothers. Yeah, really.
So over the years, there were times when I kicked his butt pretty good, and there were plenty of times, probably more than he kicked my butt, because he's kind of a big guy, especially when it got to the point where he got a little lower. So we were 25, and he was coach of the or he was the quarterback for the bears got his first big contract got paid and took us on a vacation down to amelia island you know it was great it was nice fourth of july paid for everything it got us out on the beach one day i'm really being grateful i'm thinking you know what this he's kind of turned the corner here a little bit this is pretty cool and uh we get out there we're building a sandcastle with the kids and next thing you know he starts like you know we kind know, we kind of work our way out into the water.
His waves are coming. Big waves are coming.
And we're wrestling. He throws a single leg into my right leg as hard as he can.
So I sprawl, full sprawl, cross face, right to his nose as hard as I can. You know, just smash him right in the face.
He's strong. He sinks the thing, picks me up, and takes me to the bottom of the deal.
Like sand. I see the sand come up around.
It's dark, salt water, and all the air bubbles came out. And I'm like, okay, cool.
You know, I get it. You know, all right.
But then he kind of keeps holding me down there. And the waves are coming.
It holds me down, holds me down, holds me down. All right.
I mean, I don't know if it was like a minute, but it seemed like 20 minutes. I'm thinking this is going to be it.
He snapped. You know, he's gone.
I've lost him. And he's going to be in jail for the rest of his life, but's not gonna help me i'm done you know so he let me up finally and once i got my breath he kind of gave me just what you just did right he gave me the old you know like all right bro i know you know we know where it stands right yeah and i had to live with that like for the next 23 years okay until the super bowl and now and now every now and then he gives you that.
You ever watch the show Bloodline? You just described a scene from Bloodline. No spoilers.
Yeah. That's very funny, though.
One of the brothers actually kills the other brother. Oh, really? Well, does it really have to come to that? Yeah.
Well, I mean, Jim has told us when we interviewed him, the human body craves contact. So I can just imagine, like, if you just brush up against him, he's like, let's wrestle.
Yeah. Well, he took, he took, he took, he was, he was, he was going over top of Allison when she was five years old, pull rebounds away and put bags to win the family basketball game on Memorial Day.
But now you have it. Now you have that look.
Yeah. You can just give it to him.
That's the ultimate trump card. It's kind of the ultimate one.
Yeah. He's going to snap one day and try to drown you again.
He doesn't give it. Yeah.
But this time he'll be able to follow through with it. Yeah.
He hasn up on that, though. He's planning on revenge or something.
There's a game somewhere along the way he's planning on winning. Right.
Do you miss coaching against him? Yeah. Yeah, I do.
I miss him being in the NFL. Yeah.
Because you just had that – he was watching the same tape, and we would talk about stuff. But you always tell when it got to the point where he was trying to get a little more than he was trying to give, you kind of knew where that was.
It's like, you know, I know you're holding something back, buddy. Yeah.
Right. So I'm not answering your question right now.
Right, right. That's fantastic.
When we talked to him, we asked him when the last time he was in a fight, and we were thinking he would say like 25 years ago when I tried to drown my brother or something like that. And he was, what did he say, like six years ago? Yeah, there was a situation a few years ago.
It was like an Irish fast casual restaurant where I had to put a guy on his back. So we have to ask you the same question.
When was the last time you were in a fight? It was about 25 years ago. Yeah, that's the appropriate answer.
We now welcome on two-time Super Bowl champion. Two times.
Two-time Super Bowl champion, Ike Taylor. Two more times.
Oh, you want four? No, I was just saying two times. You want two more? Yeah.
Do you wear your rings? Not at all. Ever? Not at all.
Okay, so it's Ike Taylor from formerly from the Pittsburgh Steelers two-time Super Bowl champion. Where are your rings? At the house.
Okay. Can I just say that it's really one and a half rings because you guys...
Well, I gotta be one and a half. Because the refs got the other half of the ring in the Seahawks Super Bowl.
No, not at all.

And also that fumble by Bettis against the Colts, that was pretty lucky.

Right, but that was not a fault that we won.

You take a half of my ring.

You should give that to Vanderjack.

And you're bringing up old stuff from the Colts.

Yeah, one and a quarter is really what it should be.

Boy, y'all hard on the pimp.

I was reading your Wikipedia earlier.

I think you're the fastest person to ever appear on part of my take.

Probably one of them.

Fort Earl Patterson and you.

By the 40.

Chris Johnson.

Chris Johnson.

That's my dog.

CJ, that's Jay.

So you, but you actually were timed in 4.18 seconds for the 40-yard dash.

That sounds like some Louisiana cooking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

4-2-7 was my fastest time.

Okay, so the pro day one, that was just like, that was your coaches being like,

Yeah, you totally ran a 4. Yeah, somebody probably was asleep.
Okay. Oh, 4-1, what? Yeah, that's really fast.
Right? So, I heard that you used to train your quickness in a very unusual way. You used to chase animals around.
uncle was old school like and that's and that's and i didn't know that that was kind of the norm in florida like the boys go in the fields and they really chase rabbits like that's what they do like i was just doing that because my uncle was like man this will get you better and faster and quicker yeah so I was just doing that just because I always had that drive of good work ethic. But you go down in Florida where Fred Taylor is from, where Santonio Holmes is from, they call it Muck City.
Yeah. Muck City, Florida.
That's what them boys really do. Yeah.
Them boys really chase rabbits. They run into that high grass stuff.
Yeah. And they get to chasing.
Yeah. Makes you quick, right? I mean, it's all mental.
Have you ever caught a rabbit? No, I got close. You know, it's the ski skirt.
They got the ski skirt. I'm not built.
If you get me straight ahead, I'm built with the ski skirt ski skirt. So you touched one? You ever touched one? Like a flag football?

You get them down on flag football?

With a rabbit?

Yeah.

No, I mean, I touched a human being in flag football.

No, but I'm saying like if you've gotten that close where you've like-

I've gotten real close and got nervous.

Yeah, because what are you going to do?

What do you do?

I'm going to catch the rabbit, then what?

The dog chasing the car and then they finally get it.

Right.

It's like, uh-oh.

Yeah. What about Ben? He's obviously come under some heat as being not a great leader.
Rashard Mendehal said that he was racist and well-known. What was your relationship with Ben, and do you think he – like what type of leader was Ben in the locker room? A lot of confidence.
This is what people don't understand about seven. Seven can do a lot of things.
I like how you do that, seven. Yeah, seven.
I mean, because seven and I, we were shuffleboard champions in the locker room. That was my teammate in shuffleboard.
Okay. We still hold the belt.
But seven just, if you ask seven to play one-on-one, pick up basketball, he going to smoke you. If you ask him to play ping pong, he going to smoke you.

If you ask him to play golf, they say he's a scratch golfer, he's going to smoke you.

He just so happens to be good at football as a quarterback in the NFL.

I think that's going on year 16.

So Seven can do it all.

He's one of the few that can do it all. You know, some guys like, okay, you're only just a football player.
Right. Seven can play any sport he want to play and be good at it.
But Seven kind of understood. And now I had no beef with Seven whatsoever.
Playing for Seven on offense, if you're a receiver or a running back, could be a little bit different. But on the defensive side, there's no beef at all.
So I didn't did a few sit downs with seven and seven used to sit down with too many people. Right.
If you and Terry Bradshaw after they made a miss. Yeah.
If he don't mess with you, he ain't messing with you. There's no faking.
Right. With seven.
If I ain't messing with you, I'm not messing with you ain't no gray area yeah but um i'm just one yeah yeah i'm so petty yeah no it's a good point because i think there's it's in today's uh like with social media and everything i think that everyone views these teams they're like everyone's best friends because you see it a lot you know you'll see everyone posting everyone posting pictures with each other and everything. When a lot of times a locker room, a football locker room, is a lot of fucking people.
Right. And not everyone's going to get along.
That's 53 alphas. Right.
So you got 53 gorillas in the locker room. Boy, that's a lot of testosterone.
So you can only imagine. Every blue moon, that locker room is going to get torn up.
Either somebody fight, but really, it's going to get torn up from fighting, period. Yeah.
Period. That's just how it was.
You knuckle up, you put the boxing gloves on, we're going to shake hands after. Who did you fight? Yeah.
Man, so many. Man, like for real.
It got to a point where Mr. And this was in the locker room and off field.
It got to a point where Papa Rooney on Mr. Dan at the time and Kevin Colbert, they sat me down and was like, hey bro, you do it again we gotta let you go.
Really? So who were you fighting with? Just a little bit of, and coming from New Orleans, it was like, at the time, eye contact could get you natural beef. So instead said like, if I didn't know you.
What a line. What a line.
Eye contact. If I didn't know you and you look at me, me and you walking in two different directions, right? That's why I wear the shades.
So if I didn't know you and you didn't know me. Yeah, we kind of have beef right now.
We fighting on sight. You just gave me that look.
No, I'm just saying like, we fighting. We fighting on sight.
We good. Okay.
But that's how, and I brought that mentality to Pittsburgh, not knowing the position I was in. Like, bro, you're a professional.
Like, you got to stop. So they sat me down one time, and I looked in their eyes, and I was like, dang.
And then I was just thinking and reflecting, like, I'm in a good situation to take care of my mom, my family. Like, I can't mess this up.
Right. So I just flip the switch and kind of turn everything around.
But that's also a good point of it feels like the Le'Veon Bell, Antonio Brown situation escalated where no one sat them down and was like, hey, we got a good thing going on. What are we doing here? Now, people can say what they want to say.
The locker room wasn't the locker room until Le'Veon left. Like, Le'Veon is the mediator of every – he's somebody you want to have.
Interesting. In that locker room.
Le'Veon is somebody you want to have. So his absence, you think, helped accelerate the Antonio Brown stuff? For me, 100%.
Really? Yeah, Le'Veon, super competitive, super. Like, when Le'Veon first came to Pittsburgh, not his first year, but his second year, my body fat was like 3.2, and it was like, oh, somebody got you this year.
And I'm like, who? Le'Veon? I said, Le'Veon who? Le'Veon, I said, what's this? 2.7. He's dead.

It's insane.

He's dead if it's 2.9.

No, not at all.

You know what mine is?

What?

Bleep this out, Hank, because I don't want it going over the air.

33%. Okay.

I mean, mine's probably 45%.

You don't have to bleep that out.

So explain to me the mentality about punching a dude while he's wearing a helmet.

You don't be thinking.

You just don't think about it.

You just piss. Yeah, it's just.
I've done that too many times. Yeah.
Too many times, like, and they, bro, like, what you doing? Like, you ain't doing nothing. You're going to break your hand.
Yeah. So, but at the time, you just don't be thinking, man.
When you're in the heat of the moment, you don't think at all. How many times did Bill Cowher accidentally spit on you? I feel like he spits a lot when he talks.
Yeah, I ain't no telling. Coach Cowher ain't no telling, man.
Coach Cowher was a player's coach. They say he was hard as a coach to work with, but a player's coach? So all this dressing up, going to the airport, showing up in suits? Coach Kyle was like, hell no.
Like, we're going to kick ass and come back home. So y'all don't need to dress up.
Right. Now just make sure your pants ain't sagging and you look presentable.
But dressing up? Flip flops. Wife beaters, tank tops, pajamas.
Troy Palamala's Velcro shoes. Velcro shoes.
Like Big Ben carrying a big sack of P.F. Changs.
Didn't nobody, Coach didn't care nothing about that. And what about Tomlin versus Coward? Like, what was the change like? The change was a little bit, you know, business-like.
Yeah. You know, that was Coach T, a little bit more business-like.
So, two different coaches, same goal. But the personalities were different.
Now, don't get me wrong. Coach T is another player.
Now, he's an all-the-way players coach. Right.
Maybe sometimes too much. That's the criticism people give.
100%. Like, he's going to let you be you.
Right. We did everything together.
We did everything. Like, to this day, I'm still in the 20-something man group text from that Super Bowl.
To this day, a 20-something man group text, and it's just our kids call each other uncle, like Uncle Troy, Uncle Ike, uncle Chris Hope, uncle Joey Porter,

uncle Casey Hampton.

Joey.

Like it's just everything is uncle.

But one thing I did like about, you know, Coach Kyle and Coach Tomlin, man, is just

he let our sons run around in that locker room.

That's cool.

Which was huge because my son to this day, he's 12.

He still understands and remembers what was going on.

Like, hey man, because my son played football.

Like,

you know, was huge because my son to this day, he's 12. He still understands and remembers what was going on.
Like, hey, man, because my son played football. Like, why you be trying to run through these boys? He was like, Uncle James Harrison told me to take the soul.
That's a bad idea. Yeah, he was like, Uncle James Harrison told me to take the soul out of these kids.
At 12. Yeah, so they can come in the locker room as long as you don't Instagram Live or Facebook live while Coach is talking.
I can just see Jim's hair sitting your son down and just being like, hey, listen. I need you to take the soul out of these kids.
And dead serious. Yeah.
That's so good. He was dead serious.
Like, hey, man, come here. Come here, little Ivan.
That's my surname. He'll come over there.
He'll be like, yes, sir. You play football? Yes, sir.
You in it good? Well, I'm just starting. When you hit him, make sure you take the soul out of him, okay? That's so perfect.
That's great. Okay, Grit Week, episode one for Grit Week, presented by Body Armor.
We are here in Kansas City. We're joined by Patrick Mahomes.
He's the reigning NFL MVP. And his fullback, Anthony Sherman, who's also known as Sausage with Hands.
And let's start with this, guys. Let's start with how we start every Grit Week interview.
What is grit? How do you define grit? Explain what grit is and where you can see it. We'll start with the fullback because Patrick, no big deal.
He doesn't really have much grit. I think the biggest thing is someone that just never gives up.
Always continues to fight. Might get knocked down three, four times, but always continues to continue to fight, fight, fight over and over again.
Someone that you want to take with you to a back alley and do some damage. Okay.
I like that. And you, Patrick? For me, it's kind of the same thing.
It's just someone that can make it happen. It doesn't have to always be perfect.
They don't have to have the right circumstances. There's someone that can find a way to make it happen, no matter what the circumstance is.
Okay. Okay.
That's a good answer. I like that.
We do nitpick you sometimes. Oh, yeah.
There are very few players that we do that to,

and those are players that are so universally beloved that we like a lot that we have to find something wrong with them because as fans,

we have to be haters at times.

So you want to get into some of the things we nitpick?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You go like this too much when you're trying to hear the play.

Yeah.

You put your both hands up to yours like too much.

Yeah, arrowhead.

Yeah, but you're too like. No, but you're on offense.
They're not cheering. That's a lie.
You wave them around a lot. You think you look cool.
Yeah, I think it's just because Arrowhead's so loud. You make a good play and they're still cheering.
It's so loud. Are you saying that they're bad fans because they don't know the game of football and to be quiet on offense? No, I'm saying they're good fans because they can never be quiet because there's so many people in the stadium.
Yeah, okay. What about how you always point for first downs on penalties and when you get a first down? It's pretty obnoxious.
Yeah, I got to make sure I get it, you know? Yeah, but you always like, it's just Patrick Mahomes. But think about it this way.
We get it. It's first down.
Think about it this way. The refs are thinking about it.
They look over. They see someone pointing for the first down and there's a first down.
Oh, that's like pointing a direction in basketball when there's a loose ball. Yeah.
Out of bounds. Or like the third strike.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
You've got to give them the idea. That actually is a very good explanation for it.
You wear a lot of turtlenecks. I've only wore one turtleneck all season last year.
It's big and forwardly. You wore it a lot.
You wore it 60 times. Yeah.
I wore it once. I've seen it.
I've seen you wear it once. Well, okay, maybe it's not always.
No, I wore it twice twice. I'll wear it two plates.
Exactly. Thank you.
And I'm pretty sure that I've seen you with, like, a headband around your neck, too. Yeah.
So there's just a lot of stuff happening at your neck. Yeah.
Yeah, I like to have a very humid and warm neck. You've got to keep that voice ready to go.
Yeah, exactly. I'll lose it quick, man.
Yes. What about the big white block on your helmet in the front? That's obnoxious.
You've got to talk to the helmet people about that. Well, you could put a logo of yourself on it or something.
Yeah, but then you wouldn't be a helmet guy. You'd be a meat guy.
He wouldn't be a team guy. Well, let's put a logo of you pointing to the first down.
That way you don't annoy me. Two birds with one stone.
I'm not annoyed by the white spot on your helmet, and now you don't have to point after the first downs. I'll put a picture of Sherm.
There weerm there we go guys know i have grit or maybe just a little sausage with his face and two hands stick hands coming out so so a full body picture of him yeah we might actually have a shirt and then you get a visor so that when he looks at you he's like shit i do have to throw it to the sausage with hands yeah i do want a next level it looks pretty sweet i just did the oakley deal so i can get him a visor for sure are you gonna next year? We'll see. Quarterbacks can't wear it.
Yeah. That's my pick, right? If you had the mirrored visor, that'd be sick.
I don't think they allow that because then you can't see the quarterback's eyes. But, I mean, that doesn't matter with me.
Not with you. That'd be an advantage for you.
It might help out the D. You look like a robot from the future playing quarterback.
Both hands. Yeah.
Not looking anywhere. Wait, so do you think our nitpicking was fair? You have to be nitpicked.
Some of it. The pointing.
You know you point too much. I do point a lot.
You do, a lot. Last one, your voice is hilarious.
Yeah, I mean, I've heard about it my whole life. I like it.
Again, this is one of those things that we have to find something, almost as a joke, to poke fun at. but it's it's a very unique voice and i know that uh coach reed absolutely loves it he does he calls you the voice he calls you froggy is that one of the i've heard he might say froggy real quick but the voice is his go-to and he actually can mimic my voice like perfect really can you do an impression of andy reed doing an impression of you then i'd just be talking yeah I'd just be saying words my last question have you heard my impression of Andy Reid doing an impression of you? Then I'd just be talking.
Yeah. I'd just be saying words.
My last question, have you heard my impression of you before today? Yes. I've heard it.
I've seen it on Twitter, man. Okay.
When you first saw it, did you think I was the world's biggest asshole or did you think it was funny? I thought it was pretty funny, honestly. Because you had like a full – it wasn't like you were just doing the impression.
You had a full like I was doing an interview. Yeah.
It made it better. To kick it down to you.
It made it better. Also, I think it helps that I suck at it, and I'm actually not good.
I just kind of do weird stuff that sounds like Yoda, and I call it an impression. That makes it better, though.
Yeah. It's not like you're actually going full out trying.
You're just doing whatever you think is best. Yeah.
Okay. All right, good.
That's been weighing on me. Do you want to ask a question, Patrick Mahomes? How good were you playing 500 when you were a kid? And you bet you could throw the football a quarter mile, right? Straight through the clouds.
All I heard was football as a kid, and I didn't play football until I was in high school. No, Patrick, you misheard me.
Throw the ball a quarter mile through the clouds. I heard it because I can't hear you.
Patrick, I was playing 500. I've never heard myself talk in person, so I can't understand.
I can't understand what I'm saying. Is that better or worse than Coach Reed's? No, Coach Reed's is on point, man.
Coach Reed is exactly what I think I sound like. So, to me, it's on point at least.
Do you think you could kill a man with a football? I hope not. I hope not.
I mean, it would have to be very fast.

I'd have to hit the perfect spot.

Ten yards away.

Ten yards away.

I'm standing over here, run my little mouth,

doing my little impressions of you, really annoying you.

You have a football, and you have an opportunity to shut me up for good.

Okay, maybe not kill me.

Maybe just break my jaw.

Yep.

So I can't talk.

I'd probably break the jaw, but I don't know about killing a man.

That'd be pretty tough sometimes you gotta go back to actually move forward okay we now welcome on maybe one of the most special guests we've ever had it is coach jeff fisher long time coming long time coming for you to be on pardon my take that's big company now you talk about most ever yes you've had some great people uh but you're i'm a fan believe me i know what you're doing you know i'm not just one of those coaches that's right off in the sunset doesn't keep an eye on what's going on out there so you got oh hell yeah i know what you guys are doing yeah so that's good company thanks for the compliment all right so then let's start with that because you keep an eye on it now i have to admit that the the eight and eight seven and nine jokes that get made on twitter i probably was part of the creation of that and i want to apologize to you well that's okay we'll talk after we're done okay perfect but i also am part of the solution okay because i'm also making the videos that is trying to hype you up to get you a new job well i appreciate it i'm um you know it's it you know shit happens in this league now i'm telling you and it and uh but it's okay i'm i'm you know we'll get into it but i'm in a really good place man i've had a blast you've had a blast the last couple years. I hadn't had a fall off in 30 years.
I didn't know what my cabin in Montana looked like in September. I got an opportunity to do that.
You can only take so many trips to Alaska or Argentina or only can fish so many rivers so many times or get chased by moose or bears and stuff like that. That'm good with coaching again i want to talk about that team the special titan season where you go to the super bowl so it's incredible because obviously everyone in their mind thinks you know one yard short but we have to go backwards here for the music city miracle which is an iconic play in its own right what what's going through your mind during the music city miracle and did did you guys practice that play? Well, yeah, the history behind it, before that year, for 10 years or so, what we had on our team that we practiced every Saturday was we called the Stanford Cow team, okay, the Stanford Cow play.
So you get everybody that can handle a football, left-handers and right-handers, and then you just kick the ball off, and they just try to keep the ball alive and push it down the field. And as we go through the course of the season, we would add defenders.
So, you know, you could score against three guys, and then by the end of the season you've got ten guys. It's a fun thing.
So Alan Lowry, our special teams coach, came to me prior to the 99th season. He goes, hey, come look at this tape.
He goes, I found this way back this summer on my vacation, and it was a play that happened Texas against Texas A&M or somebody back in the 70s and it was kind of designed that way where the kick went to one side and then threw back to the other so we actually put it in and yes we did practice it but the funny part of the story was so we practiced it every Saturday so when Christian makes the kick and there's a TV timeout I turn to Alan he turns to me to me. We simultaneously say home run throwback.
I go, yep. I go, okay, where's Mace? And so Derek Mason was our guy, okay? He was the deep guy.
He should have been the Kevin Dyson, okay? Mason has a concussion. The trainer says, Coach, he has got a concussion.
He's in the next week someplace. I go, okay.
Well, then the next guy, the backup, was Anthony Dorsett Jr. Okay.
Anthony Dorsett was cramping up when I called for him. So I grabbed Dice and I said, did you pay attention on Saturday, home run throwback? He goes, Coach, no, not really.
I didn't pay attention. I said, okay.
Hey, all you got to do, stay to this side of the field and make sure you are five yards behind the ball, period, outside the numbers. That's all you got to do.
He goes, I got you, coach. So, you know, the five-yard thing turned into the five inches.
I was going to say, he definitely didn't do that right. Yeah, no, but it was I got you, coach.
So we didn't work on the kick that Lowe caught. Every kick that we worked every Saturday was a deep left, deep right, hard squib, hard squib to all different guys, but it wasn't a bloop.

We never worked on that random bloop kick.

And so Lowe had the presence of mind to get it and like,

I don't want it, got rid of it, got it to Frank.

That's the most fullback move of all time.

Lorenzo Neal gets the ball and he's like, I don't want it.

I'd rather block somebody. Yes, I don't want this right now because I don't know what to do with it, right, except get it to Frank.
So he gets it to Frank, and I'm standing there watching this thing come. Oh, man.
And then as soon as he got it to Frank, and then I see Kevin kind of on the side, I can see across the field Frank. I'm kind of where Frank is.
And when Frank throws the ball to Kevin, I can see Byron Boston, okay, the headlinesman, point backwards. And I knew that he was calling it a ladder on the field.
So I saw his hand go backwards. I thought, okay.
And so now I'm kind of hopping down the sideline going, come on, get out of bounds, Kevin. Get out of bounds.
And I go, oh, shit, no, score. You know, kind of that thing.
He scored. And so so then you know the the part of the story that's not told is so you know it all goes to replay and everything and the world is a mess i mean the stadium's a mess to this day you'll find 200 000 people that say they went there and there was only 60 000 people right but so in my mind i'm doing the math and we're up by five, right? Or maybe four, whatever it was.
But I got to go for two. Okay, the most elementary chart in the world, go for two chart, says go for two.
I didn't think we could execute a play offensively once the ruling came back, stays on the field. So I said, what are the odds of this happening again?

In my mind, I said, screw it, we just kicked the extra point.

They brought the ball out across midfield to end the game.

No one talks about that.

That game wasn't over until it was over for me.

What would have happened if Dyson had caught it?

Did he have the arm to get it?

Was he going to throw it to Wachek?

Oh, yeah.

Dyson's getting the ball back across the field.

He's got the arm to do that?

Oh, yeah.

That's hilarious that he just didn't pay attention

and the five yards became that.

You know, Dyson's getting the ball back cross field. He's got the arm to do that? Oh yeah.
That's hilarious that he just didn't pay attention and the five yards

became that. You know, Dyson's

a Utah State kid, I think.

If I get it wrong, it was a play

Utah or Utah State.

It's kind of like a cool,

happy-go-lucky California

dude, you know?

Yeah, I really didn't pay attention, coach.

That's awesome. For the biggest play.
Yeah. Unbelievable.
he didn't have time to overthink it so bud adams was in the elevator going down game was over wow personally my father was in the restroom wow yeah he was yeah and so here's something you can't admit so i have a my son um was he was running polaroids back then on the sidelines so he's on theeline. And so we're all at home in the kitchen, got the little TV in the kitchen going, and everybody's over, and we're watching this thing right after the game.
And I hear him go, hey, look, there I am, there I am. He has fans playing it over and over and over.
And I go, where are you? He goes, right there. And so he's at the bottom of the screen, and he's jumping up and down.
You see him like 15, 10, 5, and in the end zone and he goes yeah that's cool i made tv i go hey what the hell are you doing in the white and he stops i go if you hit that fish will hit you bumped you in the you're in the white on the field none of this happens and oh i felt so bad he just like got sick so i go no no no no no it's okay it'll been assessed on the kickoff we've been fine yeah the Mike Tomlin special. And, oh, I felt so bad.
He just got sick. So I go, no, no, no, no, no.
It's okay. It'll have been assessed on the kickoff.
We've been fine. Yeah.
The old Mike Tomlin special. Yeah, right.
No, he wasn't even close. Dusty Baker's son.
That's Brandon. That's Brandon who coached with me for five years.
So let's go forward to that Super Bowl, which is also an iconic Super Bowl. Also on my birthday, whatever.
Not to brag. So we have that in common.
All right, so that game, one yard short. The one thing that I think people forget about that game is you guys were down 16-0, and that game was basically over.
And then there's a video of you yelling at the team in your zip-up sweater vest, which was awesome, by the way. Thank you.
That was a logo athletic thing that they never, ever paid me to wear. paid me to wear oh no it was one of those deals hey coach wear our vest and we'll pay you this yeah yeah then they went out of business the next year yeah and so that play so you're down 16 nothing you come all the way back and the play before is the mcnair play that is one of the all-time plays in the super bowl that kind of gets lost because of the next play that happens what goes through your mind that play? And basically, how many times did you watch that play over and over the weeks, months after? I didn't watch it.
I mean, you see the last play, but I didn't watch the game for 10 years. Wow.
Yeah. So I knew what happened.
I didn't need to. And I didn't until I was going to do a feature story on it.
So I needed to go back and refresh my memory. And I read the play-by-play first and then went back and watched the game.
But we lost our starting free safety, which is a key component of our defense in the championship game. Marcus Robertson down in Jacksonville the week before.
And then we lost Blaine Bishop, our other safety. So we're down to our third and fourth safety.
So that was an issue. And as a result, there was some confusion.
We gave up a couple of big plays. But yeah, see, I strongly felt this at halftime was that we got away from who we were, particularly because we were trying to do what they were doing, which is pick it up and throw it.
So we got the message to everybody, the coaches, that, hey, here's what got us here. Here's what we're going to go back to, and we're going to turn this thing over to Eddie and Steve and go.
So, you know, that happened. So, yeah, the Steve play at the end there to escape, you know, to get the first down.
Even the scramble around to get to Dyson to make a big first down was huge. And then, you know, it was one of those deals, you know.
You know, it was not – I mean, it was hard. It was so close.
I mean, if you look at the play on tape, they dropped Eddie who was swinging to the left. And then, you know, you guys get excited.
And, you know, the design was to have Kevin push, you know, a yard or two deeper. And if Kevin pushed a yard or two deeper, then Mike would have at least flipped his hips and been moving up the field.
And Kevin would have come underneath. And it might have been closer.
He might have walked in. Don't know.
But that's football. But, you know, the moments, the special moments that you have with your quarterback and your team after that and the memories, keep in mind, and we talked about this, but this year's Super Bowl here a few weeks away is the first time it's been in Atlanta since then.
And so there's a lot of people wanting to know about the specifics of the last thing. City of Atlanta was awesome.
It was just, there was an ice storm and we had one week. So we practiced on the ice at George Tech on the outside practice field.
We didn't have the luxuries that they're going to have this time around. But, you know, when it's all said and done and you realize that you're that close, the memories of the things that happened after the moments that I had with Eddie and the moments I had with Steve.
And, for example, Eddie, we leave Atlanta, go back to Nashville Tuesday. We have a big parade, and the parade's over.
Eddie comes into my office. He goes, I don't want to go to the Pro Bowl.
Really? What's the matter, Eddie? Are you losing your mind? No, man, Jeff, I don't want to go to the Pro Bowl. I go, Eddie, you were voted by your peers, voted by your coaches, voted by the fans to go to the Pro Bowl.
You can go out to Hawaii. It's warmer out there.
You can go out there, drink margaritas at Mai Tai's at practice. You don't want to go to the Pro Bowl? He goes, no, man.
He goes, I want to start on next year right now. That's what happens when you lose that game, especially that close.
Anything to get that taste out of your mouth. They want to start on next year, and that's how Steve was.
It was a great group of guys. Todd! Todd! Todd! Todd! Todd! Todd! Todd! Todd! Todd! Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests.
They are the draft gurus for ESPN. They have a podcast called First Draft.
Go listen to it. They have all the info you need for the draft coming up on Thursday night.
It is Mel Kuyper. It is Todd McShay.
I want to start with an easy one, guys. Do you sleep this week? Like, what does it look like this week? Are you just wall-to-wall draft coverage? Go ahead, Mel.
Yeah, basically. I can't speak for Todd, but now you have calls you have to make as well.
You know, you've got to, in between all the different stuff you're preparing for ESPN.com and obviously getting ready for the draft and finalizing grades and doing all that, you have calls to make to your friends in the NFL and obviously friends that used to be in the NFL, anybody that has information that you can kind of gather and put together and work in conjunction with what you've heard. So you need time for all that.
But now sleep-wise, I'd say, Todd, I'll say I usually get to bed around 1, 2, and up some at 5, 6. You know, Mel's earned it.
I'll give it to him. But he also stays at the Kuiper compound.
He's like the cozy home. Oh, yeah.
His wife there. Friendly compound.
Homemade meals and all that stuff. I'm back down here last night, Bristol today, tomorrow, all the shows,

and then fly into Nashville where he's just chilling and everything's good.

I'm going over to see Buzz Brainerd, the highway, over at Margaritaville tomorrow.

Okay, well, you guys are in your studio right now in Bristol.

We're here in New York, so this isn't face-to-face.

We're losing that personal touch, so I thought I'd just give you an opportunity

to set the scene a little bit, Todd. Can you describe to us in detail how mel's hair is looking right now he's in a different studio right now but let me tell you this i have stood with him on fifth avenue walking out of the hotel going over to uh where where was the the draft that year mel It was at Radio City, wasn't it? Yeah, Radio City.
And it was a windstorm.

You guys know it.

It's like the windstorm. where was the draft that year, Mel? It was that Radio City, wasn't it? Yeah, Radio City.

And it was a windstorm.

You guys know.

It's like the wind tunnels on Fifth Avenue and all those avenues.

I've got my tie is sideways.

Rain's coming down.

I'm a mess.

Everything's falling all over the place.

I looked over, and Kuyper's hair hasn't moved an inch.

Never does.

Consistency.

We like guys who look good in shorts, and, Mel know something about that uh jimmy clausen oh yeah that was one of my best evaluations ever wasn't it looks great in shorts he looks great in shorts what happened there walk us through how you still are working i guess i was too much of a notre dame fan because i had been ripped for not having rick meyer high high enough. I'm glad we get to talk about this publicly.

This is good.

And then what about Brady Quinn?

I had destroyed.

I figured I'll give them Notre Dame.

That's my team.

I love Notre Dame.

I'm a big fighting Irish fan.

And then you promised you were going to retire.

I'm going to read that quote for you guys here, okay?

Because you said...

I was forced out of retirement after about an hour.

We're going to run through the entire transcript here.

If Jimmy Clawson is...

This is Mel Kuyper speaking. If Jimmy Clawson is not a successful quarterback in the NFL, I'm done.
That's it. I'm out.
His career's not over yet, guys. He can come out of retirement now.
Then Todd says, what's your time frame, Mel? When do we make that assessment? And then you say, I want eight years. Todd says, it will only take three years, Mel.
We can tell inside three years. You said, I want eight.
It's been eight years. And you said that you were done.
And he was screaming. I was just a young guy trying to make my way in the world.
And he was just... Guys, I was trying to make Todd look good.
He was an unknown. Nobody knew who McShay was.
His Richmond Spider, 15 string quarterback. Nobody ever knew who the heck he was.
He wasn't on any boards. Nobody even knew he ever played the game.
And he's coming on to ESPN. People thought, yeah, who's this guy? I had to give him credibility.
What's the best way to give a newcomer credibility? Fall on the sword. Make Jimmy Croson.
Exactly. I did it all for Todd.
All set up for Todd. Yeah, all right.
So in fairness, Todd, I want to hear your worst, the worst evaluation you've ever done. The guy that you're like, I totally missed on him.
Oh, Jamarcus Russell. Oh, a lot of people.
He can throw far on his knees, though. That's 60 yards.
Yeah. That pro day, man.
I've never, I still have never seen anything like it. Just a freak.
But then, I mean young and dumb but I trusted the people I trusted some of the people I shouldn't have trusted in terms of who he was but I should have known Jamarcus went and sat down after his workout and made everyone in the media and everyone come over and talk to him because he was just kind of tired and lazy and everyone just kept saying no he's poised know, he's relaxed. He doesn't let anything get to him, but he was lazy, and I took it on the chin.
He was exhausted after his pro day workout. He was throwing from his knees.
Yeah, that would be a red flag. Do you guys root for the players that you've gassed up or the guys that you say, like, for example, in that draft, when Jamarcus Russell hits the field for the first time, are you rooting for him to succeed? I mean, I could lie to you.
I kind of do. Some guys.
Certain guys. I don't necessarily root for failure, although I don't get upset when Kuyper loves a guy, and I don't.
But, you know, just being real with you. Sometimes I watch, and I'm like, oh, man, what? Come on now.
here we go. What's the guy you guys have disagreed on the most? The most? Yeah.
The two Notre Dame quarterbacks are up there. He hated Josh Allen last year.
I did. Oh.
I introduced you to Josh Allen. Oh, give me a break.
I did his conference championship game the year before. You didn't even know who he was.
Oh, my. Yeah, but you hated him.
you must not have liked anything you saw. This is great.
This is great. I had him as like the seventh or eighth best player in the draft.
You're out of your mind. Yeah, but yeah, okay.
Go back to – hey, guys, go back to some of the little commentary from Mr. McShay, Todd, Todd, Todd, on Josh Allen, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I had to defend the guy to the hilt the entire way through the process when everybody was beating up Josh Allen. Thank you.
I defended him, and here we are, franchise quarterback. It's not even worth it anymore.
That's so good. That's so good.
Ryan Tannehill is another one, by the way. I like Tannehill.
You loved him. I wasn't high.
Yeah, I liked him. I'll eat it.
If he stayed healthy, this is the year he takes that next step. He is a good player when he's healthy.
Sam Bradford's a good player when he's healthy. He just can't stay healthy.
By the way, Sam Bradford went number one when Claussen went in the second round. At least they could cut the ties with Claussen.
Bradford cost them 18. Whoa, Bradford broke the record.
Let me give you some advice, bud. Stay away from Brady, Quinn, and Clawson.

Hey, stay away from Bradford.

What did that get you?

This is great.

I like back in there with John Clayton and Sean Selisberg.

Okay, we welcome on recurring guest and friend. Can we say friend? I think we can.
Okay. It is JJ Watt.
Best friend, JJ Watt. He's in New York City.
It's great to have you back on. Great to have microphones this time so everyone can not yell at us, which was our fault.
Yeah. No, hopefully they can hear us this time.
Fun little story. when we interviewed you in your gym in wisconsin we hired some outside people to like do the audio and the video and one of the guys brought home his computer and his kid like went on the computer like they transferred files and he just watched the whole thing and then dm'd us was like hey i have all.
Watt footage. And we're like, can you not release that, please?

So it was a clusterfuck from start to finish.

But it's good to have you here.

It's good to have you in the office.

Where do we want to start?

You want to start with football?

We can start wherever you'd like to start, Kat.

All right, let's start with football.

Good year for the Texans.

Good, not great.

Good, not great.

I like that attitude.

I like that a lot. So you're not getting younger, obviously.
None of us are but you're you know about to be 30 it's a hot take yeah it is a hot take about 30 you guys are the texans feel like that team that's always kind of flirting with it right where like is it get harder every year when you you know get bounced from that first saturday playoff game that you always play well i think with the type of team that we have we have now, and obviously you have a quarterback, and when you come into a season and you have a guy who you know is going to be the quarterback, you have a whole offseason to work with him, and the type of talent that we have, I mean, Hop is an unbelievable receiver. You've got Lamar Miller in the backfield, the defensive guys that we have.
You have a chance to build on that chemistry that we worked on, and obviously it didn't end the way we wanted it to, but the nine-game winning streak and learning from an 0-3 start and coming back and winning games. We have some young guys, and our quarterback's a young guy.
So to be able to go through that season and some of the ups and downs and to have such a tough ending like that, it makes you hungry to go back in there and work. And I think that that's going to help us this offseason.
What motivated you more? Well, no well no i know what motivated you more but is there a little small part of you that was motivated by the fact i would have to cut off my pinky if you won the super bowl once i heard about it i did start doing extra reps in the weight room i did stay after practice a little bit would you have watched would you have come i i offered i would have been there yes i said you could have cut it off i would have been there it would have been great i don't know if I could have stomached cutting it off myself. Right.
But I definitely would have watched. Well, and I also would have just sued you right away.
I mean, really. Like instantly.
Super Bowl check, gone. Yeah, there you go.
That would have been. Would you have legitimately followed through? Yes, 100%.
How much of it would have gone? From the tip up. And now I'm going to have to do it every year.
I'm going to have to pick a team. Right.
So I picked it when you guys were, Owen, I think you picked it when you were like 2-3. No, no.
What happened was, so we put the Dunn chain on your team. You probably were aware of our famous Dunn chain.
Everybody talks about it. When you guys were 0-3, we hung that necklace around your neck and said, the Texans, they're not winning.
They're not doing anything this year. We counted you guys out.
Amongst many other pundits, I think. Correct.
We wrote you guys off, and then after you went on a little run, I was like, I think we've got to reconsider the Dunchain and maybe take the necklace off him. And Big Cat was like, they're not doing shit.
If they win the Super Bowl, I'll cut my pinky off. And then it was a record scratch moment.
We're like, wait, did you just say that? I would. Once you say something like that on this show, we're all in.
There's no turning back from that. I would have.
He would have, yeah. I respect that.
it would have been a great content moment i mean can you imagine the viewership yes well i would have sold so many per viewed it yeah i would have sold ads like mini ads on the tip of my pinky and i had a zoom in and as it gets cut it's like brought to you by 1-800-5 you may want to consider doing it just for the content i need i need you to wait maybe it's no no. Do you stick with us every year? I mean, come on.
I'm going to stop. Do you know Tim Tebow? I mean, acquaintances, yeah.
So our thought was that he could come in and circumcise Big Cat's pinky. Just have to tip off.
Tip off right there. He's got experience.
It's true. I mean, if you want to make that phone call.
I mean, he has – yeah. He's been out there.
He's been in the trenches. Yeah, for sure mean i guess maybe i will do i'm not gonna do it right now but maybe next year i'll give you that extra motivation again and be like all right you can cut off my pinky you're watching me cut off my pinky because what better what better super bowl like you win the super bowl you're you know you reach the highest height and then you get to watch your your number one Twitter troll cut off a piece of his finger.

Oh, yeah.

Piece to the pinky.

Yes.

You got a hashtag.

So last time we spoke, we were probably – you probably thought we were huge assholes.

Oh, yeah.

And big-time Twitter trolls.

And things were a little dicey online with the HeyJJ stuff for a while, which kind of died down after you sat down and talked to us.

But to be fair, you've kind of moved past what you were doing in the past too with some of the cringy stuff, the extra medium shirts, all that stuff, the Fort Minor, all that. How much credit should we get for improving you as a person? Because I noticed that you didn't win Walter Payton Man of the Year until we visited you.
Right, right, right. No, I think it's fair.
I think that sometimes, obviously I think there may be times it was over the top with the, oh, hey, JJ, all that stuff.

But I also think that there is something to, I mean, sometimes people have to call you on your shit.

It's fair.

And I think that if you're not able to sit there and look at yourself and really kind of take inventory of what you've been doing and what you might need to change and things like that.

So I do think I'm a different person from that back then. I don't know if it was all because of that, but I do think that it played a part in it for sure.
But I'm always trying to grow. I mean, I'm still going to, I guarantee I make more mistakes going forward.
We're just your, like, we're actually your best friends. We're the friend group that's like, hey, we're going to call you out on your shit.
You're the people that say, hey, there's broccoli in your teeth. Right.
Clean it out. Yeah, absolutely.
yeah exactly exactly no but i you we were probably a little too harsh it was you the great part about that whole interaction how it ended is that you also proved that uh as soon as we i think we walked away being like don't meet the guys that you troll online because you find out they're great people like you actually are a great guy and it was fun to meet you and be like, oh, shit, maybe we should, like, pump the brakes. And you also, going forward, I think helped us with future guests being like, yo, if you come on, it kind of takes the air out of the joke, and it just makes it a relationship.
You know what I mean? It goes from this, like, adversarial thing to, like, hey, we're just friends now. Yeah.
Did you hate Hard Knocks? Yeah. But you were also the star.
It also came at a time that wasn't. That was peak JJ.
Yeah, it was. That was peak JJ.
Yeah. Did you hate Hard Knocks? Yeah.
But you were also the star. It also came at a time that wasn't.
That was peak JJ. Yeah, it was.
That was peak JJ. It is one of those things where you look back and you're like, man, if I did that today, I would do it a lot differently, you know? Yeah.
I'm happy that you did it, so I have that forever. I mean, it is just, it is such, they're around 24-7, you know?

And I mean, so like, I don't care how normal you say you're going to act.

I don't care how, like every single time you turn around and you see a camera or microphone,

you cannot physically act completely normal all the time.

Right.

It's just hard.

We have it here.

I mean, we get filmed all the time and it does, there's many times where it's like, this sucks.

Right, because you're, yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, no, but I look back at that and there's definitely some things where I'm like,

Thank you. But here, I mean, we get filmed all the time, and there's many times where it's like, this sucks.
Right, because you're, yeah.

So, I mean, no.

But I look back at that, and there's definitely some things where I'm like, dude, I mean, come on.

The tire flips were good.

I like the tire flips.

Do you still listen to Fort Minor?

It comes on every now and then.

But, no, I wouldn't say it's in the regular rotation.

Okay.

When it comes on, I think of you guys every single time.

I mean, you should. I like that.
You should. I mean, it's over.'s over i mean like what do you have me to do like 10% like oh fuck you know that's so good that's so good yeah do you think you're ever gonna get cut it's it's possible i mean it's no i mean it's it just popped in my head it's a business we're at that portion of the interview where we're just doing no i like that i like.
It's definitely possible. Speaking of getting cut, how come you haven't trained with knives like Aaron Donald? Good question.
It's because it's scary. Yeah.
It is. It's wildly dangerous.
He actually told us they were fake knives. That's bullshit.
Come on. How many more years do you think you've been trying? Like that.
Could you imagine? Could you imagine if I did that four years ago? Oh, we'd roast you. Yes.
I mean, it would be game over. Hey, JJ, knives are actually, like, cause thousands of murders a year.
Yeah. Like, every now and then, like, on my Instagram Explorer page, I'll see something, whether it's an athlete or not an athlete, and I'll be like, if I did that in 2014 or 2015.
Yes. It was peak.
Yeah. No doubt, no doubt.
But I think that's part of it, too, is like you're – that was kind of during like a come-up. Yeah.
So as you're on the come-up, anything you do becomes a news story. So, like, they'll pick up anything, and it becomes a headline, like my house up in Wisconsin, all that stuff, and it's headlines.
And then it's like you're everywhere, and it feels like oversaturation, and you kind of do stuff that i was doing right obviously i don't wouldn't do now but it just it all culminates in like uh okay this guy's turned into kind of the internet i think was a little meaner like the internet shifts the internet does weird things still pretty mean it is still pretty mean twitter mainly twitter is twitter but it all just kind of shifts i get maybe it's not the internet'ser. I think people have become more aware of trolls and start to kind of tune them.
Like, people now know the playbook on trolls. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Like, if you feed them, it gets worse. Right.
So you should never have responded to us. We wouldn't be here today.
Yeah, that's true. And we wouldn't be friends.
Best friends. How many more years are you going to play? It's a good one.

You almost retired.

When?

When you wrote that letter saying you almost retired.

I said I thought about it.

No, remember, but then you saw the kid wearing your jersey,

and you were like, I'm not going to retire because of this kid.

He wasn't wearing your jersey.

You're right.

That was almost like the end of.

Yes.

That was like the start of a transition towards.

Yes.

Two years away from the game will do that to you, man.

Yeah, it was a sappy story.

It was a good story. Yeah.
Was he actually wearing your jersey? Yeah wearing a jersey yeah no it was real i mean that whole story was real see that's the thing like even like during that time because of like what i had built up i guess yes like even when you're writing something that's 100 percent real and true and like everyone's like come on yeah it was like dude really the kid's wearing fuck jersey i'm like no i'm like. During that time, as I was writing this article, I was like,

this is so pointless because this is 100% true and it's like a legit story,

but I'm going to get ripped for it.

Ha ha!

Okay, we now welcome on NFL Hall of Famer.

Some say the best passer of all time.

I'll say it right now, the best passer of all time.

It is Dan Marino. Would you say that you are the most talented NFL player, like between the sidelines, to wear isotoner gloves? You or OJ? Don't ask that question.
Yeah, bad question. Between the lines.
Don't ask that question. Hockey is on.
And no matter the city, no matter the team, no matter the game, whether it's face-off or penalty shots, regular season or playoffs, win or lose, no matter what happens, no matter where it happens, New Amsterdam Vodka is there. Okay, if you are listening right now and you have to work July 5th, this is where you should stop because we got more new stuff coming and some old stuff as well.
Some Blake of the Year preview, but two new Mount Rushmore. So stop right now.
Why don't we give them some recommendations for podcasts they can try just this once okay part of my take the early years yeah listen to the 2000 our very fourth episode we should actually start to rebrand like the year 2016 is the early tapes our version 1.0 yeah the underground tapes unreleased we should start releasing unreleased stuff but then not all the unreleased stuff do we have anything that's just never been released uh pudge rodriguez pudge rodriguez maybe we'll do yeah you know what we should do we should build dan bilzerian yeah so i've got an idea for dan bilzerian what we should do is we can't that one we're like contractually obligated no no we know us for like 10 million dollars i don't care that'd be great publicity he'd probably sue us for saying that yeah um what we should do with that one, we should find one person to buy it. Yeah.
Screlly went inside of jail. Yeah.
So just sell it to one guy for $50,000 and you get the Dan Bilzerian interview. In.
All right. So actually, you should probably listen to this first Mount Rushmore, then stop it because we're going to do Mount Rushmore of songs of the summer.
Best songs in the summer. Not songs the summer yeah because that's different that would be like going year by year I have a couple of those yeah some of those are I'm sure those are in there but these are like songs that sound better outside yeah sound better when you're drinking summer songs sound better when you don't have any response actually every song sounds better when you don't have any response that's why Sunday Night Football Jam it's so nice but it is specifically, here's how we best explain it.
There will not be any Radiohead on this Mount Rushmore. Yes.
Right? It's going to be songs that you listen to in the summer. Oh, Hank's got all his Radiohead.
Hank has all a kid A. Okay.
So, here is the issue, though, boys. Can I address an issue before we start? We're about to do two Mount Rushmore's.
We also are time traveling, so we haven't taped Monday's show yet where we're doing a Mount Rushmore. What is the order that we're going to do Monday's show in? And then what is the next two orders? So on Monday's show, I went first.
I went first on the most. So you.
Wait, no, I went first on Friday's show. Yeah.
So I go first on Monday's show? No. I went first on Friday's show.
You did? Yeah. So then I go first because I think it's this way.
I think we're going this way, right? No. It should go big cat for Mondays and then Tuesday should be PFT.
Okay. Wait, wait.
So I go first on Monday's show. You don't have a show on Tuesday.
No, no, no. Wait.
For whatever this day. So wait.
I go first on Monday's show, right? Yep. All right.
So PFT, you go first on the first Mount Rushmore. than Hank, you go first on the's show.
You don't have a show on Tuesday. No, no, wait.
For whatever this day. I go first on Monday's show, right? Yep.
Alright, so PFT, you go first on the first Mount Rushmore then Hank, you go first on the second Mount Rushmore. Correct.
Got it. Alright, ready.
Songs. Not songs is number.
Summer songs. Summer songs.
Summer songs. Number one, keep it very simple.
Smooth. Nice.
Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas. years ago does it it feels like it came out yesterday

the way that they play it on every sporting event always does always does except for hockey it's never it's never an intermission son for hockey good pick on that i will also keep it simple little cliche if you will but still still bangs five o'clock somewhere that's good okay buffett That's good.

All right.

I will go.

So I get two now.

Okay.

I'm going to go with Sublime, Garden Grove, and Ice Cube. It was a good day.
Good choices. Both those.
Throw them on while you're in your car. Boom.
Nothing better. Good choices both.
I will go with Slightly Stupid, kind of like Sublime, Closer to the Sun. Slightly Stupid.
sun slightly stupid okay wait do we decide if we're gonna put any of these songs in this show i think maybe some clips do we yeah clips all right oh we're gonna make it we're gonna put a spotify playlist we'll do a playlist and here's the deal if it's not in if it's not in the actual episodes because of licensing issues yes we'll just say that exactly okay so what was your song closer what was your song? Closer to the Sun. Okay.
Interesting. Number two.
All right. So you have two here.
Why is that interesting? I thought it was an interesting choice. Why? I just thought it was interesting.
You just thought it was interesting. I thought it was a very interesting choice.
Is it okay for it to be interesting? I think that your brain's interesting. It's fascinating to me.
Appreciate that. Yeah.
No problem. I like to mix it up.
Yeah. All right.
My second choice is I'm going to Big i'm going to big pimping big pimping is a song that sounds it just reminds me of the summer when you hear it like the little uh the steel drums any any bob marley song but yes that's not a bob marley song but i was thinking steel drums it could be bob marley yeah uh so my next one is going to be despacito oh that, that's good. That was a song of the summer.
It was a song of the summer. It was a song of the summer.
Speaking of songs of the summer, Danza Caduro. Oh, you put that on every playlist that's ever been created.
Yes. And that's where it belongs.
I know, I know, I know. Okay.
All right. So I got my last two.
I actually have a bunch that I want to talk about after for honorable mention.

All right.

I'm going to go song three.

I'm going to say Allman Brothers, Blue Sky.

When that song hits, when you're in the car, oof, nothing better.

Nothing better.

And then my last pick is going to be a little night summer song.

So this is maybe when the party is ending and it's that, you know, when you get cool like maybe little breeze and a summer night beautiful summer night where the heat maybe it's hot all day and then boom the heat breaks a lot of description yeah well i'm setting the tone here little bob seger night moves night moves is a good one that's a that's a good one if you're driving in the summer like late night in the summer, and you just get those windows down, whoo. Yeah.
Night moves is good. I would also say Hollywood Hills.
Yeah. Or Hollywood Nights.
Bob Seger in the summer. Hollywood Nights with the windows down is electric.
You just want to scream at the top of your lungs. It's so good.
Say what you want about Michigan, but that state knows how to do summer. It does.
Okay, Hank, your last pick. There are a lot of honorable mentions, but I will go with Men Down Under.
Oh, that's a good one. Okay.
Very nice. That's definitely a middle-of-the-day one.
I agree. Get the party going.
Yeah, I mean, all my songs are based off, like, The Beach, being, like, songs you want to hear when you're at The Beach. So right now I'm agreeing with Hank, and I think it's a great choice.
I don't know what it is. We come from...
Wait. Yeah, that was...

Oh, it's Men at Work.

Men at Work.

Men at Work.

Men at Under.

I knew what you were saying.

Okay.

What did I say?

You said Men at Work.

Men at Work.

Men at Work.

Men at Under.

That works.

That's a different one.

Men at Work.

Totally works.

Yeah.

You're thinking about the Dwight Howard episode.

Yeah.

Okay.

My last pick is...

Well, shit.

I've got it down to two.

Oh.

Uh-oh.

I'm going to go with...

Oh.

That was a mean oh.

The German...

I'm going to go with. Aw.
That was a mean aw. The German March song.
Summer of 69. Summer of 69.
Summer of 69. Great song.
That's a good song. I got my first real 16.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
That was my fifth choice. I also had two honorable mentions.
Put me in, coach. That's a little cheesy.
But you could do that for a song this summer. Maybe if you're like 14.
It does sound better in the summer. You don't want to listen to Put Me In Coach in February.
Oh, fuck no. It's really just the beginning.
It's just that first, like, before the words start, that first, like. Yeah, okay.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if you play Put Me In Coach, let's say, in early December on Spotify, it should send a message to local law enforcement being like, pick this dude up.
All right, so Liam, when you make the Spotify list, put all the honorable mentions in there too, so it's not just a 12-song playlist. Right.
And we should definitely listen to this in late December. Yeah.
Just sitting around. When the sun sets at like 4 o'clock in New York City.
You know what the Beach Boys used to do when they recorded? They would fill the studio with sand to make them feel like they were at the beach. So we should do that in December.
Just bring a shitload of sand in and rock this playlist. That would be very healthy.
All right. So let's go honorable mentions.
Hot and Her. Hot and Her.
Summer Girls. LFO.
Are you guys Stevie Wonder fans? Of course. Living for the city? That one's a good one.
Master Blaster, Stevie Wonder. Another good one.
Summer Wind, Frank Sinatra. I know that says summer in it, but that one's a really good one.
Another evening song. I hate to be very generic here, but Margaritaville.
Yes. Travis Rice, Great Day to be Alive.
Just throw that out there as well. Isn't that Travis Tritt? Travis Tritt.
I said Rice earlier, and they got in my head.

I saw that, and I thought that maybe it was a new song.

No, I kept on fucking that up.

All Summer Long by Kid Rock, because it combines two number one hit songs in order to make a number six hit song.

What was the remix for Ever Young?

Who did that?

Jay-Z.

That one, end of summer.

August, late August.

There's definitely some late August songs you got to listen to where you're like, man,

this summer was a movie.

It's really good. that jay-z that that one end of summer august late august there's definitely some late august songs you got to listen to where you're like man this summer was a movie it's right yeah like high school seniors yeah i was gonna say forever young going into freshman year college forever young is a big time i love you guys prom scene at the end of a movie hell yeah hell yeah uh what about let's see katie perry california girls oh that's another great one katie perry fucking anything katie perry in the summer um i have oh so here are my songs of the summer i tried to remember a few of them fancy iggy azalea go watch that video we can put that out there again we can re-release my fancy music video with uh what's his name nick insider nick insider um i got a feeling black eyed piece that was 2009 the Macarena and mambo number five macarena always play macarena was an ultimate song so you know what what about uh horses in the back yeah that's a song of the summer right now that one will hit this summer that was as the kids say slap well uh pay attention because pup punk has a song coming out i think next week if you're listening to this oh wow called song of the good for the summer.
It is the Song of the Summer. Who plays the piano on it? Bleep it out.
Hank, do you have any other ones? The only one I had else was Wagon Wheel. Oh, that's a great one.
That's a great one. That's a very, very, very good one.
That one's a good bar song, too. Gin and Juice.
Yep. That's a good good one gin and juice is a very good one um i had allman brothers blue sky in my mount rushmore but like basically anything allman brothers in the summer rambling man yeah rambling man when that when the first guitar riff hits yep porch song uh by uh widespread panic that's a good one i i always clown on everyone who likes touch of gray because it is like that's that's a way that you know you're a cop but it does it does hit in the summer if you're trying to get some grateful dead something upbeat yeah if you're looking at grateful dead i would say like scarlet begonias yeah summer song yeah fire on the mountain scarlet begonias yeah boom great scarlet into fire uh we can go like with some more country music too on there and say kenny chesney Anything But Mine.
You know that song? The point is Mel Rushmore picked four songs. Well, we're just getting the vibe for the people, dude.
We're trying to get people something to listen to. It's July 4th.
All right, fine. That was our cue from our producer.
He just talked in our ear. You probably didn't hear it.
We're going to move on. And I'm excited for this about Rushmore.
Soank do you want to introduce this sure all right so we are getting ready for the show liam has no idea what we're about to talk about because he wasn't here so i'm gonna watch his face we are getting ready for the show and we are going through potential mount rushmore we have a list if you have uh suggestions for mount rushmore's send them to pmt sports biz we have a long list but there's surprisingly not a lot to pick from it. We've done a lot.
Send good ones to at PMT Sports Biz. He will continue to update the list.
And Big Cat was like, oh, this is for the July 4th episode. We should do something summery or like July 4th-y, America-y.
And I was looking at the list and I saw Pirates. And I was like, oh.
4th of July, the ocean. Pirates, the ocean.
Who doesn't think of the independence of America in pirates? Yes, lots of people will be going to pirate-themed bars. What? Pirate-themed bars? Yeah, beach bars are pirate-themed, basically.
Has anyone ever thought, Fourth of July, what am I going to do? Pirate bar. Yes, there will be tons of people with skull and crossbooks.
I've been to hot dog, shirts, apple pie, pirate flags. You don't think people go to the beach and wait like, oh, look.

They put a Jolly Roger on their boat for a joke.

Yeah, I've seen that before.

I've been to a lot of pirate bars.

Are you okay, Bicca?

Yeah, I'm just laughing.

The fucking pirates.

I've been to a shitload of pirate bars.

I don't think I've ever been to a pirate bar at a beach.

No.

It's just not like when you think of Fourth of July, you think of America... America.
Apple pie. Boats.
Hot dogs. Oh, boats.
Correct. Exactly.
My point. You just proved my point.
Thank you. Maybe it's because you haven't been working out, Hank, and you've got a sunken chest.
That's why pirates are on your brain. Gotcha.
That was like 2.7 boobs. No, it's actually negative.
That's a throw ride joke. It's negative.
Oh, no. I stole it from somebody else.
Throw Ride, yeah. That's an old joke.
But it would be negative 2.7 because it's a sunken trist, not big boobs. But then his back has boobs.
Yeah. Because he's got scoliosis.
Just a leper. All right.
A hunchback. Hank, you are starting your Mount Rushmore in honor of July 4th, your Mount Rushmore of pirates.
All right. This is going to get contentious, I think.
I don't think it is. I don't think so at all.
I think we're just going to be like, yeah, good pirate. Cool.
Nice pirate, dude. All right.
Well, I'll go with Roberto Clemente. Oh, okay.
That was good. So I guess I'll go a little bit more real pirate here with Johnny Depp,

Jack Sparrow.

So there we go.

I'll,

I'll,

I'll take a real pirate off the board.

Interesting that Hank chose pirates and then took a joke pick.

I have those,

but they're for later.

Yeah,

they were for later.

I was going to say Barry Bonds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Barry Bonds.

See,

I was worried that you guys have your own fucking Mount Rushmore strategies.

I have mine.

I know.

I was worried about getting Roberto Clemente back.

Cause I had the first pick.

All right.

Barry Bonds.

Number one,

Captain Hook.

Number two.

Oh,

that's a good one.

Captain Hook.

I'm going to go him. We canceled Mike Allstott.
Alright, Mike Allstott. I'll go with Captain Morgan.
Nice. Good choice.
And Julian Assange. Assange.
Oh, nice. Whatever his last name is.
Okay. I'll go with the guy from the movie I'm the Captain Now.
That guy. Look at me.
I'm the Captain Now. Captain Phillips.
Yeah. That pirate.
But you're going the Somali pirate. Yeah.
The line.

Yeah.

That became a meme.

That was awesome.

That's a good pick.

Yeah.

That was a good pick, right?

That's a good pick.

I mean, that's what I think of pirates.

I'm going to go with Long John Silver.

Okay.

I don't know if he was an actual pirate.

I think he's just the version.

I think he's a filet of fish guy. Yeah.

Seafood restaurant guy.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

Affordable.

Very affordable.

Low quality cuts of seafood, but great fries.

Mm-hmm.

And then do I have... How many more do I have? You have one more.
One more. I'm going to go with the guy who invented Napster.
Oh, nice. Justin Timberlake.
Yeah, Sean Evans. No, Sean.
I want to say Sean White. Timberlake.
Sean Napster. Sean Napster.

Sean Ulrich.

Sean E. Music.

Sean Napster.

Sean Napster.

Big Sean.

Big Sean.

Sean Parker.

Sean Parker.

Right on the tip of our talk.

We almost got it.

All right.

My last pick.

I'll go with Randall Simon, the pirate who hit the sausage in the head with the baseball bat. Okay.
What? I mean, that's an all-time moment. All right.
And link it in because you're probably eating a sausage July 4th and not thinking about pirates. I will go with my last pick, Pirates 2, Stagnetti's Revenge.
Yes. Yes.
Classic film. Great one.
All right, what did we miss? You know what we missed? It was more of an inside joke, Hank. I thought you were going to pick your boy, Theon, because he was your favorite.
Yeah. I didn't even think about him.
Weak ass. No, I didn't like Theon.
You did. Well, yeah.
I like Theon. I didn't like Reek.
Yeah. Difference.
Andre Barrett, Seton Hall Pirate. I had Dick Vitale.
Dude. one of my teammates.
David Garrard, ECU pirate.

Yeah, well, if you're going with ECU, the porn star DJ.

What's your name?

Shared a stage with her.

Sean Parker.

Sean Parker, the porn star DJ.

No one picked Blackbeard, the most famous pirate.

I had Blackbeard on my list, but I remember that I didn't know what Blackbeard did.

No, I thought Blackbeard was Jack Sparrow, which he might have been. So, I don't know what blackbeard did no i thought blackbeard was

jack sparrow which he might have been uh-huh so i don't know maybe i get credit for both yeah david i wrote down david jones but i think he's like a bad pirate because he's like stuck under sea forever well they all died what about uh what didn't spongebob wear a pirate thing no it's the first the first shot was a guy a pirate but he worked that counts i've seen him wear a pirate hat before. Spongebob?

Yes. I have too.
And a meme.

As huge Spongeb, we know SpongeBob. SpongeBob is a pirate.
He counts. Toucan Sam, is he a pirate or does he just wear the pirate hat? Does he wear a pirate hat? I thought so.
Maybe not. I feel like he does.
Jason Bay. Jason Bay.
Oh. Canadian pirate.
Andrew McCutcheon. Andrew McCutcheon.
Good one. That was my list.
Yeah. I guess that's...
Nope. Toucan Sam does not wear...
I don't know why I thought he was a pirate or had pirate tendencies. Oh, no.
Wait. No, that's a...
I'm thinking of Count Chocula. Never mind.
Okay. So that was a Mount Rushmore.
I mean, you could also go with some Raiders on there, too. Oh, yeah.
Some legends of the game. John Madden.
John Madden, yeah. Yeah, we could have.
Yeah, Kenny Stable. Al Davis.
Damn. I'm just going to go with Al Davis as my honorable mention.
Fuck. His face was falling off.
Mark Davis. Yeah.
The ultimate pirate. Okay, let's finish off.
So, wait, no, we have two more things, right? Two more things, Hank? So we're going to do our Blake of the Year preview. So this is the best of Bortles, Blake Griffin, and Blake Koepka.
And what is Blake of the Year for maybe new listeners? Blake of the Year is coming up. The takeies are coming up for everyone who is a new listener.
The Takeys are our mid-summer awards. They're not the ESPYs.
The ESPYs actually ripped us off. One of the awards is Blake of the Year, which was Blake Griffin vs.
Blake Bortles who would pick up our phone call faster this year. Blake Kepka, are we going to officially say that he's in the running? He's absolutely in the running.
He's getting a call like the three of them are getting a call yeah and we'll see who wins yep and so here's our best of those three Blakes okay we welcome on it's actually our last interview of Super Bowl week that's sad it is sad but we finished with our best friend in the entire world and the boat it is Blake Bles. He's in the back of the van with us.
I also should say man of the year nominee. Right.
Man. It's like everybody that asks, you know, what are you doing this week? It's like, I got to go to Atlanta Super Bowl.
They're like, what for? Just man of the year stuff. What did you do? What did you do to get man of the year? I helped out my community.
Okay. How? So, well, like I have a foundation that supports mentally disabled and first responders, and then they kind of like pick a guy each year, and then I guess this is the first year that they've brought all 32 representatives.
Yeah. Well, I think like every team gets a nominee every year, but then they used to only invite like the finalists.
The finalists, right. They made a big tent party here.
And we're still not all that high up on the priority list because me and Kenny Stills rode over together because he won it for Miami, and we both checked in at at the same time and both of us had two full beds in our room. Oh, that's a tough life.
Not the king? You didn't get the king? No. I said, you got to just one big one's fine.
Yeah. And they said, no, you got two fulls.
That's actually one big one. That's better.
I prefer that when I'm in a hotel alone because you got one that is just for like your luggage and shelf. Right.
Throw all your shit out there. Pretty much a closet.
Yeah, exactly. And that's actually the best way to do it.
So they really hooked you up. Yeah.
That's nice. You got two beds.
I mean, that's more than the barstool house. So man of the year nominee helped out the community.
But here's the important part. And PFT, I was just talking to Blake about this outside the van.
Wait, first, Blake, is there anything you'd like to say to me? Thanks for having me. Yep.
Good. What about me? Did you hear about yesterday? How was jail? Did you want to text me? Oh, no.
Blake's not on Twitter anymore. No.
Oh, dude. Happy birthday.
Thank you. Is it your birthday today? It's my birthday.
Oh, my birthday. Thanks, buddy.
Okay. Are we partying tonight? Yeah.
Let's get after it. Yes.
Joint birthday parties. Hell yes.
So, Blake told me outside of the van, he is going to the Super Bowl because they are trotting all the men of the year nominees out before the game. Now, that's just whatever.
Like, who cares? No one's ever thinking about this. Nor is anybody probably paying attention.
Yeah, well, we'll be paying attention because you're in it. Yeah, we'll take pictures of your face on TV.
Here's the rub, PFT. Do you think Blake can wear a hat? We got to go full suit, though.
You know what? But it is cold, and I've gone suit and beanie before. It's a dome, you know.
Yeah, but you can still say, I had to walk over. I had to walk over, yeah.
Here's a quick suggestion. Top hat.
Is it a fedora? No, no, top hat. Just top hat.
Like top hat, yeah. Could you imagine if you did a top hat and a cane?

Just go yarmulke and just cover everything up.

Do a top hat and a cane?

Yeah.

And maybe like a long cigarette holder?

A monocle?

Just a dumb and dumber scene.

So what are you going to do?

What's the plan?

You can't go out with your hair.

Well, see, the good thing about not a lack there of hair is that you don't have to do it. Like I kind of just my hat off, and it's like, all right, here we go.
It's not like it's a secret. Right.
I wear a hat for the benefit of other people because I don't like looking at balding heads, so that's why I wear a hat because I don't want anybody else to have to look at my balding head. That's why you're man of the year is because that's a public service that you do for the entire country.
It's kind of just a selflessness thing. No, I'm serious.
The top hat would be amazing. Or like a Peaky Blinders.
You'd steal the show. Yeah.
I'll go to Nortles. You'd steal the show.
So congrats, though, on Man of the Year nominee. Before we do our Wikipedia, we're going to do a Wikipedia that gets everyone ready for the Super Bowl.
Where are you at? I don't want to get too in the weeds, but like are you with the Jagu are you have you had communication i don't know how to ask i know yeah i'm a friend and i don't just yeah just say like hey what's your situation there's not a whole lot of communication going on okay um uh so i'm kind of just i go in and work out and rehab every day okay and then you still have your your access card right which is that's kind of like how i know like so we have a code right? You've got to punch a code in at the front gate, and that's the first thing that goes when you get cut or fired. Okay.
So each morning I show up kind of like, maybe today's the day. It keeps working, so I'm like, they're keeping me around.
That would be so shit if you woke up at like 6 in the morning to get a workout in and it was closed. Yeah, I know.
If that happens, McDonald's breakfast. It's a possibility that happens.
Oh, 100%. Oh, right.
Yes, steak, egg, and cheese, bagel. Right.
Six hash browns. Yes.
So, all right. So, we don't know what's going to happen, but you're going to be playing football, and you're going to be, like we've always said, a minor comeback for a major comeback.
Minor setback for a major comeback. Major comeback.
Do you have any big plans this offseason? Any vacations you're taking? No. I got another.
I'm not a big vacation guy. Like, if I don't have to play football, like, I vacation yeah that's yeah so it's kind of not working okay let's actually reverse that so that like for any now hopefully everything works out in jacksonville but if not let's say uh football is your vacation because you love it so much right right well yeah that's also a thing right yeah like you love.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Like, you love to work. Like, it's not work.
Like, I'm doing what I love, and then when I'm not doing it, I'm on vacation. Right.
Right. But you're depressed because you aren't doing what you love.
He missed it so much. Let's go say some cities, and you tell me what you think about these cities.
Just hypothetically, hypothetically. Okay.
We think about Miami. Like Miami.
Yeah. Good town.
Good football town. Good culture down there.
It's a good place. They got good fans.
Yeah. Good scenery.
You realize that if you, Washington, D.C. Well, big fan.
Nation's capital. That's right.
Yeah, it is. What's not the like? Right.
If you somehow went to Green Bay, we would not be friends. Really? Well, no, I'm going to rephrase that.
Because you hate Green Bay that much? Yeah, we would be friends. I would just hope that you would respect our friendship

and be a mole for me in the Packers organization.

Yeah, I'd let you know.

Okay, all right.

So then we can say friendship pack.

They might not let me in meetings as the third string tied in,

but I'd let you know anything I heard.

Oh, man.

All right, Blake, what's grit for you? Go ahead. Grit to me is kind of more like an acronym.
Getting raunchy in the trenches. Oh, okay.
With two T's, G-R-I-T-T. Grit.
Yes. But, yeah, just like Yeah What about getting raunchy In the Tesla Because we saw Your new fancy California car We gotta do that Yeah So Blake's driving A electric car What's up with that A Tesla A Tesla So the plan Was to buy a Tesla So that I could quit dipping Because then I wouldn't Have to go to the gas station anymore.
So now I just go to the gas station to buy dip. That's a very expensive way to quit dipping, but more power to you.
Yeah. I actually thought you were joking when I first saw it.
I thought it was like you were messing around. Like, oh, I'm in California.
I'm going to rent a Tesla. I also wanted to fit in.
But I have a pickup truck back in Jacksonville, and I was like, I don't really want to bring that out to California. Right.
So I figured I'd buy something where I could fit in. So have you gone to the gas station? Wait, how does it – you just plug it in at home? Yeah, and there's a charger at the facility.
So when you drive to work to the Rams facility, do you actually drive or do you just do auto? No, I let it just get on the highway, and you double-click the thing twice, and it just drives you all the way. Are you serious? So you're just sitting there scrolling through your phone? Yeah, I kind of check the news and see what's going on.
That's incredible. It beeps every 60 seconds, and you've got to touch the wheel.
So let you know you're alive? Yeah. So you can't take a nap or something.
You eat breakfast in your car on the way to work. You can, yeah.
That's pretty sweet. Tell them how you bought it.
That actually – wait, but hold on. Before you tell us how you bought it, that actually seems like the perfect car to be

able to dip in.

Perfect.

Right.

You don't have to worry about your hands, like where the bottle is.

There's no more like the bottle between your hands.

Yeah.

You ended up trying to pull one out while you're like mid-driving.

So technically, yeah, you should probably pick it up again.

Very safe.

So you ended up getting like a trip chamber just for dipping.

That's what the Tesla is. They should market themselves like that.
They put out a camo version of the car. I think the Venn diagram.
A Mossy Oak Tesla. Yeah, the Venn diagram of people who dip and people who own Teslas.
Don't touch. Probably just Blake.
Yeah, just Blake Bortles standing there. All right, so tell us the story of how you bought it.
So I needed like an SUV because I have a truck, and I wanted something like a Tahoe or something like that just to drive around. And I was kind of looking at websites, and then I ended up on the Tesla website, and it was like, you know, design your own.
So I'm like, I'm going to see what I can do here. And then I got to the last page, and there was a buy now button.
And I was like, well, I got to hit this. And then I got a call immediately like, hey, congratulations on your Tesla purchase.
It's like Nike ID shoes. Yeah, right.
Like sneakers app. Customize my own.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I guess that's kind of how they're doing it now. So did you have to enter a credit card number for the buy it now button? Or it was just like on your honor.
The guy immediately called me. It was just like I was sitting over the wiring instructions.
Oh, my God. All right.

Guess we got one.

So there's no negotiation as far as the price goes.

No, no, there was none.

Okay.

We now welcome on a very special guest. We're in his home, his rented home, in Long Island.

It's Brooks Koepka.

He is the U.S. Open 2017-2018 champion and also the PGA return champion, right? So you're trying to defend your crown here this weekend at Bethpage Black.
And I want to start with the most important question. You have three majors.
You're very good looking. You got muscles.
You got the whole fucking tan and everything. What's your problem? I got no problem.
Okay, well, we got a problem with you. We got one problem, Brandel.
Other than that.

Okay, yes.

We'll get to him.

Brandel Chambly.

I figured that might come around.

Yes.

But seriously, we're going to start a whole rebrand of Brooks Koepka on this show.

You are too perfect.

So we need to figure out, give us your biggest weakness to start this off.

My biggest weakness?

Mm-hmm.

Reality TV.

That's not a weakness.

You watch a strength. I know.
That's not a weakness. You watch a strength.

I know.

That's a big strength.

Real Housewives?

You're a Real Housewives guy?

Yeah, I've definitely watched it.

You got skinny recently.

I did.

That pissed off America.

That was really interesting

going into the Masters

because people were mad at you

that you lost weight.

I know.

I don't get that.

They were not fat.

I know what everyone else

is trying to do.

Everybody was just like,

I wish Brooks would put on 30 pounds

and get back to like, how much weight did you lose? I like 30 pounds what was the plan behind that i just wanted to look good that was it yeah you just want to look good for the gram yeah well yeah yeah if you got a phone shoot you might as well look good so you actually lost power though in your drive right yeah and we're not golf guys but we'll ask a couple golf we'll sprinkle a couple golf is that bad to lose power on your drive i mean it's not good so it won't be long when you noticed it like were you like what what's going on here i need to start eating again yeah well yeah once we got everything done squared away all the photo shoots done we uh i definitely ate like a champ i know that okay so you actually cheeseburgers yeah pizza and did you actually have photo shoots oh yeah so you lost weight look good, yeah. I mean, who doesn't want to look good? Did you stop working out? After, yes.
Huh. Okay.
I was definitely working out before. How much do you bench these days? I don't know.
I haven't benched in a long time. It's been like six weeks.
Really? Oh, that's a really long time. That's a really long time.
It's great, though. I heard that you used to be able to put up 315.
Yeah, I could. How many times? Just once.
And I also heard that you used to work out sometimes after rounds. Is that true? Yeah, before or after.
Isn't that weird, though? If you're lifting weights before you go out on the course, doesn't that affect? I feel like if I do three tricep extensions, I can't shoot a basketball for like a week afterwards. I look better in the shirts, though.
Your schmediums? In my schmediums, yes. They're very tight.
That's on my list as well. So wait, I want to go back because golf is one of those sports that everyone always thinks like, oh, the fat guys can play.
It's Phil Mickelson back in the day. Now it's completely different.
You guys train like you're in the NFL or like NBA we're not that big but you guys have had plenty of NFL guys there's no reason that but what's your training regimen like in the offseason like are you training every single day yeah in the offseason yeah I mean you might as well what else are you gonna do I'm not playing golf I got better things to do oh how long do you go without playing golf in the offseason I'll go six weeks that. That's crazy.
Yeah. When you get back out on the course after six weeks, do you notice a major, major difference in how you're playing? Yeah.
Really? Do you give yourself that break more mentally just so you can get away from it? I'd rather be on the boat drinking, hanging out, doing what everybody else is doing. You know that everybody else, they do the exact opposite where they go out to play golf to get away from stuff yeah yeah and that's their mental break yeah exactly you're not helping the whole like you're too perfect narrative that you got going yeah so you're getting ready for for opening round on thursday wednesday night what is your do you have a pattern that you do do you have i just try to be in bed by like 10 30 but other than that i got nothing yeah it's just whatever whatever i feel like i'm trying to find something what would you say uh that we could make fun of you most easily for besides the reality tv thing the thong photo yes the oh yeah that was a good one yeah yeah photo how about the fact i was trying so hard to be an instagram model it just backfired so bad what about your your logo socks sorry i'm getting a new one yeah okay there you go good yeah see there we go we found something i saw it i was like what's this it's just a b yeah and like what you gotta yeah yeah i got a new one coming so what's the new one look like i'll show you later yeah show me show me one right now you have i don't have it on me now i don't have my phone nobody all right so you fixed the one thing that i could i could say yeah we're getting we're getting a little have a very South African-sounding name.
I know. I want to hear you say it one time.
It's so satisfying to say, Brutskipka. Yeah.
It's way cooler. I've heard it a thousand times.
I just want to hear it in person. You should be South African.
There will be people who listen to this interview and be like, wait, what? He's not? He's not. That's true.
No, South African. A lot of people, they were telling me that during the Masters, when they were doing a behind-the-scenes thing with you, or they were discussing you, they were shocked, and they lost bets with their friends because they were hanging out.
They were like, no, he's from South Africa. No, he's not.
That was because of you. He's literally.
I heard that. It's actually funny.
Yeah. Bruce Kipka.
Say it one time. Bruce Kipka.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. It rolls off the it rolls up all right let's do fixing golf so why do you think golf like what do you think golf needs to improve on to get better like in terms of you're out there for five and a half hours i mean how bad is that nobody wants to spend five and a half hours out there yeah i mean unless you're like getting away from your wife or like trying to get away right you know that'd be great but other than that so how do you speed up the game literally i would just make it like 15 holes 14 holes i like that a lot yeah i like that because then you get to go in the 19th hole a little bit quicker yes and i always get to like 11 and i'm like this is it gets boring from like hole 5 to 12 you're just like where am i right now you are bored during a tournament yeah 5 through twelve yeah i literally can't tell you what like what happened during those holes you kind of like black out you're like oh yeah everything's repetitive it's it's true though because when you golf there is like the first three holes where you're like okay i feel good today and then like right around 14 you're like all right i got a few left yeah exactly and then anything in between it's just whatever can get a hot dog after nine? Yeah, exactly.
Just looking at everybody getting drunk. What about using a cart? I'd love to use a cart.
How great would that be? That would be sick having people driving carts. Daley's using a cart this week.
You see that? How awesome is that? Yeah, that is pretty. He's just commandeered the beer cart.
Yeah. Just kicked the girl out.
So what can they do to make it better for the audience? What was your exact quote? That golf is not fun enough or big golf fun? Golf sucks is what you said according to me. Real question about your swing.
I read that book on Tiger, and it seemed like every few years you just completely remake his swing, go from scratch. Have you done that? No.
I just do. I literally have two swing thoughts, and that's it.
I just hit it and go. That's the thoughts? Yeah.
Hit it and go. Literally just keep it short and swing it hard.
I think what we found is we found the Blake Bortles of golf. What's your IQ? It's impenetrable.
You are a normal guy who plays golf really, really well. Blake is a normal guy who's an exceptional quarterback.
Yeah, exactly. You're right.
I like that. I like that comparison.
So when you're hitting a shot, obviously you have different shots in your bag. You hit a draw, you hit a fade, right? I'm guessing.
Yeah. You hit a both, yeah.
I mean, I just try to stick to one because I know what I'm doing on one of them. But when you get up there and you're like, okay, which one's better for you? I fade it.
Yeah, I hit it left to right. Okay, so you get up there and you're trying to fade it.
You just think hit and go? Or do you have to walk yourself through the process and think, okay, I have to aim there? There's no thought process. It's just like aim left and just swing hard and it'll come back to wherever you want it.
Your caddy's just like aim at that thing and then you do that thing. Yeah, it just be like, finish it there.
Okay, I'll try. It's crazy.
One of two things is going to happen. It's either going to end up there or it's not.
Right. It's either going to be really good or bad.
So, I mean, yeah, I'm just starting because I feel like maybe we haven't interviewed enough golfers, but they have all these technical, like, oh, this is what I'm trying to do on this shot, but you're just like I'm just up there just mashing yeah what's the point of thinking of something else i think i figured you out i think you just you don't like golf very much and so you're always just like i want to get the fuck off this course in the least amount of time possible so i'm just going to take a i'm going to take a very few amount of strokes yeah yeah yeah exactly that's a good way to put it yeah and sometimes win the tournament. Yeah.
Yeah. Occasionally.
Yeah. Yeah.

Then you have to stick around and collect a check.

It's a whole big thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's probably a pain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you.
Best friend, recurring guest, Blake Griffin, nominee for Blake of the Year coming up soon.

Couldn't get the Blakes together, but we will eventually.

Thanks for inviting us over to L.A.

Yeah, of course.

Anytime you want to come to a city, just let me know.

Any city?

Yeah, for the most part, yeah.

You got a few places.

Detroit.

Yeah, done.

Okay.

Can we house sit in Detroit for you this morning? L.A., you're here. Yeah, if you want.
Do you have a house sitter? No, I don't have a house sitter. Is this empty? I got somebody that goes by, you know.
Checks it? You know, I greased the police a little bit. They go by once a day.
I got a question for you right off the bat. Are you intimidated that we have another Blake emerging for Blake of the Year and Brooks Koepka? A lot of buzz.
Huge buzz. A lot of buzz.
Blake and I, when you've been doing this for so long, I don't know, you see guys come and go. Yeah.
You hope that they can bring out some competition and make things interesting, but, I mean, we're veterans. Yeah, you've been on Blake all your life.
Yeah, for 30 years now. Did you get 30? Oh, you did.
Happy birthday. You're over the hill.
Thank you. Have you ever thought about maybe teaming up with Blake and taking on the newcomer together? Teaming up with which Blake? With Blake, not Brooks.
Take on Brooks. It's like a Blake union.
Yeah, like a little, what they do, like the little packs. Yeah, Survivor.
Yeah, Survivor, yeah. We should actually have them vote.
And you can't vote for yourself. Yeah.
A little intrigue. Because if you get rid of Blake right away, then you're the favorite problem.
Right, well, with only three people, you're really in a tight pickle. There was a part

of me, like a real conversation

that was had, like, hey, should I just name

my upcoming child Blake

to just steal it? But

it's not a good name.

So, it's like it would

be for a joke, but then the joke

would be like, hey, you have to be named Blake

for your whole life. I don't know that many Blakes.

I know two. I actually know three.

Yeah, I have a good friend.

Two of them are

Thank you. would be like, hey, you have to be named Blake for your whole life? I don't know that many Blakes.
I know two. I actually know three.
Two of them are professional athletes. That's true.
If you grew up playing lacrosse, you'd probably know several more Blakes. That's true.
Steve Blake. There's another one.
World champion. Blake Shelton.
Blake. Blake Lively.
Oh. All right.
So that was us doing the Blake. Sorry.
Let's do a real question. Ready? How's the knee? Knee's great.
Yeah. That's great.
Yeah. I saw you just willing yourself up and down the court in the playoffs.
That was impressive watching. A little mustard on that hot dog.
You were milking it, though. Yeah.
A little mustard on that hot dog. They didn't have to wrap you from your ankle to your balls.
Oh, my God. You had the biggest fucking knee brace on I've ever seen in my life.
It was my other knee. I just put the brace on my good knee, and everybody's like, wow.
He's really doing it. Yeah, no, that was actually impressive.
I mean, credit to you. I mean, as impressive as a sweep could be.
Yeah, well, listen. Milwaukee's lucky.
We played him four times in the regular season, all four but like i guarantee you if we play a ninth has kevin durant been in touch with you about maybe coming to detroit uh no not not yet but i was letting this season get over with and then i'm sure i'm sure like he loves detroit i'm sure i'm sure i don't know for a fact chris broussard said he loves he loves Detroit. Yes, that's a good feud.
Whose side do you take on that one? Not Chris Broussard. Why, dude? Brew Crew.
It means that you're part of a select group of newsbreakers that break news first and ask questions later. What was the shirt? Brew Crew.
I just did a photo of his wonky-eyed, and then it's just it's like it's wonky all over the place and i sold like a hundred of them i can't go with that yeah yeah you know what you should do is like right after the season's over just tweet eyeballs at kevin durant or just eyeballs in general oh yeah yeah yeah just start yeah now you can free agency time you can start getting cryptic yes and just firing off just the most random i'm i think i'll i think we should pick like three emojis that i tweet every every day leading up to free well let's do this when before we put out this podcast can you tweet uh i'll we'll text you before the podcast comes out the day before can you just tweet tweet eye emojis? And then everyone will be like, what is he doing?

What is he doing?

And then he listens to this and you're like, oh,

we're literally just punking you right now. Like you've just gotten to this part of the podcast.

You thought that Blake Griffin was doing something crazy on Twitter.

What's up, Wyn Horse?

We are just idiots sitting here right now planning this.

And it worked.

He walked right into it.

He walked right into it.

You idiots.

You idiots. God damn it.
That was good fuck dude dude so predictable preacher report wrote a story about it you yeah you guys are idiots one story they did a slideshow about it what does this mean blake griffin eyeballs oh man that was good like no one cares just doesn't get retweeted at all okay we will care. We'll care.
We will always care. Everybody retweet it.
We'll get out there. What are you doing for training-wise for Blake of the Year? Because it's coming up.
It's this summer. And it's basically based on who picks up the phone call first.
Yeah. I think a lot of – mostly just like response time.
So I just – a couple hours, I'll just have people call me. I send out a little text, like a group text.
Hey, guys, let's go. Thumb exercises? Any stretching? Yeah, and it's all just like, it's all just, so I work partially like if the phone's down and I have to swipe, and then partially if I'm on the phone and you got to hit the green first quickly.
You know what I mean? So it's a quick one. You know that if you win, that's going to be top of the list on your Wikipedia page in terms of like the award.
Blake of the Year. That's very prestigious.
So many people. Oh, who was it? Archie DiNacino.
I don't know how to say his last name. Today, somebody was shooting free throws.
And we line up and he goes, hey, man, good luck on Blake of the Year. So shout out.
On the Bulls. That's funny.
That's hilarious. The first thing I noticed about you when you walked in the room was your beard.
Like me and you kind of have a nice little beard thing going on between the two of us right now. Are you a lumbersexual now that you moved up to not Minnesota but Michigan? Yeah, Michigan.
It's all like the mitten. Lumbersexual.
Yeah. Lumbersexual.
Yeah. Can I get like a full definition? Do you wear more flannel? Use it in a sentence.
Wow. You really scarfed down those pancakes this morning.
That's very lumbersexual of you. I do love pancakes.
Okay. Wow, Blake, why are you fucking that tree that's very lumbersexual of you? I like trees.
As friends. Big tree guy.
Yeah, Blake, how come your mattress is made out of brawny paper towels and they're all still in the wrapper? I guess I am a lumber sexual. Do you think you're ripping off James Harden? You're shooting threes.
With this. You got the beard.
I don't know. I like to put my own twist on things.
Okay. Who's your best friend not on your team in the league? Not on my team in the league.
Chandler Parsons. Okay.
I've known him since I was like 16 league yeah he's with memphis okay got it uh who's your biggest enemy not on your team biggest enemy um that's tough i don't like if if you asked me like in my younger days like i feel like i would have had a good answer now like i feel like i I get along with everybody a lot better. You hate someone.
Chris Paul. No.
You guys are buddies? Yeah. Great friends.
Okay, there's a headline. Blake Griffin and Chris Paul have squashed their beef, their huge feud, and now they're friends again.
All thanks to this podcast. All thanks to this podcast.
I love that. I got an easy question for you here.
Where do you stand on the former NBA player, Heddu Turkoglu, and his support of Turkish President Erdogan, especially like how he's trying to kill Enos Kanter? That's got to be weird, right? Boy, that is a great question. That is a great question.
I think that there was like some sort of Turkish intelligence unit that got him stuck in that elevator. Oh, yeah, with Portland? Trying to gas him or something like that.
It's kind of weird. That would have been a good...
It would have been good for sports blog business. Definitely would have had some takes about that.
A lot of takes. Turk.
I played with Turk for like a year and a half. Great guy.
Did he ever give you any indication that he was an agent of a foreign government

no no no no okay no he didn't um i haven't seen the said interview uh did it come out today no no it's he's just been very supportive of the president i thought there was like an interview that he was canter's like in fear of his life actually you know what no spencer haas sent me like a

it was like a

I'm sure

a YouTube video

sorry

a reputable link

he's shooting me And Cantor's like in fear of his life. Actually, you know what? No, Spencer Hawes sent me like a, it was like a.
I'm sure it was a YouTube video. Sorry, Spencer.
A reputable link. He sent me like a preview of like some interview he just did on ESPN or something.
Oh, really? I think it came out this morning. Cantor? E60, does that come out on Sunday? Yes.
Yeah. Yes.
Well, I don't watch ESPN, so. Oh, there we go.
Respect. That was a little fist pill there.
Okay, last up, because everyone was obsessed with it for so long. What is this, Hank? Game of Thrones mashup of one-liner takes? Yeah, it's funny.
It's just like, I mean, I just cut up the six-episode recaps with just one-liners. Okay.
Strong. Perfect.
Are they good? Are they good? They're good recaps? Yeah. I mean, you saying Stannis was like Bill Belichick killing his daughter.
There's some takes. Some hot takes.
Hot takes. Okay.
So here's our mashup of Game of Thrones takes. And then.
You know what? I might watch Game of Thrones this summer. Yeah.
Okay. I might just get back into it.
Knowing how bad season eight was. I need football.
Okay. So here it it is and then we will see everyone on sunday back with our our regular show we'll be back in studio i think we're going to try to get christian yelich on the phone for a big monday night that's coming up that that talk about sunday scaries yeah after a week off and then home run derby we might have to eat each other's asses like Like, I'm going to be closing my eyes, and all I'm going to see is a hairy butthole.
That's all. It's tough.
It's not on the board, though. You know what? I'm not even going to watch porn between now and then, because there's a chance that I might see a butthole.
You just want to get extra horny for it? I think I'm... No, I think...
I'm going porn-free, because I don't think I... No fap before you eat my ass? Yeah, noap.
No fap. All right, here it is.
Game of Thrones takes. Instead of Monday reading for the next few weeks, we're going to do Game of Thrones recap because it's the hottest show.
Red Wedding was when that lady got stabbed in her uterus, right? Yeah, in her tum-tum. Yeah.
Ouched out. It seems to me like incest shouldn't be a big deal in this show because- No, it's not.
For such a small community of characters- Big come up for the state of alabama because it's normalized everything yeah everyone's fucking everyone's sister it's just like whatever it shouldn't be so stigmatized it's weird because at first when i started watching it i was like this is gross cersei and tyra uh uh jamie are fucking all the time and then like cersei just blows them i'm like oh whatever they're yeah their boyfriend girlfriend the whole north like the Starks the Wildlings the Army of the Dead they're all basically offensive linemen on like the Bears and the Packers I love it and then that Dothraki guy that looks like Steven Adams he seemed cool but he died died Cal Drago big time dead fuck Stannis Baratheon that guy sucks I liked him a him a lot. Up until he...
Oh, you liked when he burned

his daughter?

No, up until he burned

his 12-year-old daughter.

That's like Belichick shit.

He's got the blood...

Rather get rid of your daughter

one season too soon

than one season too late.

The many-faced god

is like T-1000

when she's running after Arya.

That little girl.

Is that like the calculator?

No, no.

T-1000 is the guy

from Terminator, dude.

The CIA-83.

The cop that runs

really fast

and he just keeps running

and it's like,

what the fuck is going on?

Hank, you're thinking

of Drug Wars.

Yeah.

I'll see seen Terminator. What's up with everyone getting their dick cut off and how do they pee? That's a good question.
Jon Snow was totally fine. Like, he got the news that he's actually fucking his aunt and he was like, I don't want to be the kid.
It's like, you're fucking your aunt yeah then he just didn't care yeah i mean listen to this day and age why would you it's all over the front page of porn hub anyways it's true it's true what it showed me is like a city under siege where everything's on lockdown that becomes a giant locker room yeah so like all is fair like there's that one the the beefy red-haired guy torment torment who just was trying to get laid and drink titty milk all the time. He's Jim Harbaugh.
Yeah, he was just sucking that giant's breast milk out of the horn. What a story.
And just trying to have sex with anybody. Yeah.
The whole city is just locker room talk. Jamie is a woke liberal.
He knighted Sir Brianne. He's a white knight.
That was just a flex on Tormund. Big time white knighted.
Big time white knight. Can you believe it? A knight? Oh, female knight in my lifetime? Could never happen.
Joining the legendary warriors such as Sean Connery, Mick Jagger. Who else has been knighted? Bing Kingsley.
Yep. Prince.
Prince. How many times do you think Jorah has jerked off to Khaleesi? Since hundreds Thousands He's just been following Khaleesi Daenerys around and being Like her right hand man but he secretly Just wants to fuck her Her hand But she's like no dude You're too old He's been with her as she's had like seven boyfriends.
That's the perfect seasons of friend zone. She's playing that exactly right.
Like get his testosterone all the way up, making him be horny all the time. Right.
That's what you want your defender to be. Right.
So he's just been jerking it to her like every single time he's off camera. And now he's going to die without ever feeling that.
Without ever feeling a woman's warmth. Yes, exactly.
It is kind of funny what Game of Thrones does to your brain where it's like the 22-year-old girl that you saw grow up. You're like, no, don't fuck.
And then the aunt and nephew and then the brother and sister, you're like, fuck yes, that's hot. Okay, we're back.
Battle of the Winterfell. The battle that no one could see.
Yeah. In my opinion, shows that take place in a visual medium, you should be able to watch them.
But wait, PFT, you don't understand. The Night King, the whole point of him is he acts in a way to make everything confusing, except for the fact I still would like to be able to see a TV show while watching it.
It was a deeper meaning than that. All I took away from the Night King, he fucking loves cocaine.
Night King, honestly, biggest showboater of all time. Like, bro, you were walking so slow to try to win that game.
He, Deshaun Jackson, dropped it right before the end zone. He's like the Mr.
Miyagi of bad guys. Insane.
All he does is he stands totally still, and then when you charge at him, he waits the last second and just goes, Hey, hey, hey. Yeah, he's Steven Seagal.
Yep. Fighting all those guys.
Akikido. The White Walkers.
So about their fighting style. They're dumb as shit.
They're like, they're super aggressive. Right.
But they're dumb as shit. They're like the Cincinnati Bengals defense of whatever, Westeros or whatever.
They basically are, I mean, they're all just running, you know, it's like basically playing, they play, they fight like a bunch of like seven-year-olds play basketball basketball. Everyone runs to the ball.
Bunch ball. And no one's spacing anything out.
And everyone's running around. Or like seven-year-olds playing soccer.
It's like 22 kids all in one corner. Like, yo, maybe space.
One of you can score a goal instead of all going after the same people all at once. My best performance is Theon.
What? Dude, Theon fought his ass off. Are you serious right now? What's your problem with Theon? He protected Bran.
He fought his ass off. That was the worst attempt to kill him.
That doesn't matter. Bran basically was like, Theon, you got no chance.
You know who's worse, Hank? Here's a name that's worse. Jon Snow thought he could just yell at a dragon and kill it.
What was that at the end? When he's like, I'm just going to stand up and just talk sternly to this dragon. And Arya saved his ass.
But, like, Jon Snow had no plan. He was just running.
He was doing classic Jon Snow. I can fight a million people and I'll be fine.
He probably racked up, what, like 50, 60 bodies? Easy. All without a dick.
How are you going to prepare for the battle of your life and only bring, 20 arrows dude he had a lot of tell me that tough tell me that tough to do it all right tell me that uh the dragons really like dude the dragons were like a really good running back just kept on going out of bounds like get in the game run north south there was sean alexander get the shit out of someone they just would come they'd go they'd come oh yeah so there's a little bit of turbulence and it's bad visibility out there. Just go light some shit on fire.
At one point, they flew above the clouds and just hung out. That was LaDainian Tomlinson jumping up and down on the sidelines while Phillip Rivers was out there with a torn ACL.
Let's see. What else? What else did I write down? Theon Redemption, which Hank totally disagrees with.
It was the worst take he's ever had in his entire. I mean, Bran did say, you're a good man.
Bran was basically like, alright, Theon, you're done. Bran, I'm so sick of Bran's deal.
I'm so sick of him. Where does Bran go from here? They never really told us what the Night King did.
I don't know. Like, what Bran was doing.
They built this whole thing up for eight seasons and never really explained it. that's a lot of bodies some dragon meanwhile back up in the castle kyburn did his best impression of a netflix documentary and got thrown down a staircase the hound took on the mountain like a saint bernard as the two brothers dueled to the death in a scene surely ghostwritten by cersei's main overrated archer, Aaron Rodgers.
And folks, put out an APP for Arya Stark, because stop me if you've heard this before, but a famous killer is on the run riding a slow-moving white prom car. I did like how they brought out the book and they're like, what's this book called? Oh, it's a song called Fire and Ice.
It's George R.R. Martin.
It's Samuel Tarly. Like, the whole thing was cheesy as fuck.
And then they're sitting around, like, the ending of, like, Seinfeld sitting in the jail. You know why? They're all sitting around the table at Kingsland.
Like, ha-ha. Well, we've got to get more wheat for the winter.
All right, you're on that, Brian. Oh, okay.
Well, someone's got to figure out a new fucking shitter because that one blew up with the dragon fire. It turned them playing sim city around the table at the end it's like you're like okay we got to build the electric power plant but make sure that's not too close to the resident residential neighborhoods our roads are kind of fucked up anyone want to do some paving where's the dragon oh it's not here okay good moving on oh yeah we saw it flying east yeah okay okay cool people are mad that's it it's a giant net that'd actually be pretty sweet way to travel to load yourself into a traduja and fire yourself into a giant net yeah it'll be amazing that people people i think book readers like are trying to speak this in existence but they think that uh george martin finished the books and he's been waiting for the show to end that he's just gonna drop this is the problem with the internet we get too into it and start doing these theories and none of them turn out to be right.
I mean, he's got to finish

the books eventually. He should stick to sports.

No, he doesn't. He's got good sports takes.

Yeah, he does. And he wears those stupid hats.

Like, he wants to be a train conductor

or something. Alright.
Yeah, looks

like a train conductor in a Dropkick Murphy's

music video. Yeah.

Love you guys. It's team time.

Crit Week 19. Love you guys.
Love you guys. Take care.
I'm coming for your lover. Take on me.
Take on me. Take on me.
Take on me. Take on me.
Take on me. Take me the same.
I want to say it. But I'll be so let away.
Thank you. Oh, oh, oh.
It's a place to say to be safe and sorry. Take on me Take on me

Take on me

I'll be gone

Let it be on my chest

I'll be the same

Is it life or

Just play my word

I'll be the same I'll be the same I'll be the same I'm hoping to sing and hear the lies of just a flame of the reason.

I'm often stuck up to remember.

Shine away.

I'll be coming for you anyway.

Shine away.

I'll be coming for you anyway.

Take on me.

Take on me. Take me.
Take on me. Take on me.
Take me. Take on me.
I'll make you. Take on me.
Take on me. Take on me.
I'll make you. Take on me I'll make you

Take on me

Take on me

Take on me

Take on me