The Big Suey: Tony's GuaranTee (feat. Dave Dameshek)

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Welcome to the Big Sue,

presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebetard podcast.
I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that.

In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries that if they're just there.

That hasn't happened to you guys. I've done it.
And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

This episode of the Dan Lebitsard show is presented by DraftKings.

DraftKings, the crown is yours.

We have competing stats of the day.

We've got Dave Damaschek coming on in a second, but I didn't want to get away from what it is that Trista said there because she is espousing the absolute viewpoint that will allow everyone to laugh at Miami after Miami has lost when she says, this is the game Mario Cristobal always loses.

Without exception, he will lose others as well.

But he has never actually won this football game, and therefore I will not believe it until after I've seen it happen because you're better than uh louisville you're louisville you're better i'm thank you i don't know how to say

you're better than smu and you lost to them and you lost them because of you because you're stubborn running it up the middle because you're turning the ball over because carson beck is throwing four turnovers you're getting out coached by braum clearly and obviously where he just throws the ball fast every time and they get four interceptions and they drag you at home and then you get and then they dragged you at home they dragged you at home louisville you were lucky to be in that game late because they fumbled they fumbled Perfect game against Mario Cristobal.

You're saying he's always going to lose this game this time too. Yeah, I mean, the only reason that you guys are saying this is very clearly because of Miami and Florida bias.

Nobody in the world thinks that Miami can win at all.

Like, nobody, no national, no real national media is like, you know, who has a real shot against Ohio State if you end up winning this Texas A ⁇ M game? Miami really has a shot.

Like no one believes that. Have you not listened to the greatest coach of all time and Nick Saban, who says this team is probably the best in the country? Does he not know ball, Trista?

Listen.

I think he does. That may be.
He knows ball. He knows that.
Just a picture. Just a picture.
But you act like just whatever is being said on TV is a real take and not just a posturing take.

Nobody believes Miami is like the team prime to win it all. It's the hardest path.
So what? They've got to win three games.

They've got to win three games against possibly Georgia, Ohio State, and this is the easiest of the three. Three to get to the National Championships.
And then win the National Championship. Yeah.

And she's saying nobody believes that.

But I would argue that nobody believes Mississippi could do it, that Miami's one of the five teams that most people would say, yes, I believe they're balanced enough to do it.

They have all of the things you want. A veteran quarterback, a healthy defense, a pass rush, and an offensive line that's bigger than Texas A ⁇ Ms.
And a star receiver in Malachi Tony.

Like you have all of those pieces, and you start looking around saying, okay, maybe the only thing that isn't up to par with all the other teams is coaching.

Yeah, agree. And I agree that.
But I will guarantee this right now. I will guarantee you.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
This is it happens to know beyond a guarantee today from Tony.

I got a guarantee with a capital T at the end. Okay.
For my name, Tony. Nippy.
Okay. I guarantee you that if the canes are up,

I guarantee you that if the canes are up at the end of the game and there's an opportunity to knee the ball to ice the game away, Mario will knee the ball to ice the game away i guarantee that ball

yeah here go show it to him right here look i really thought damn guaranteed look we got to do more guarantees with tony ends with a capital t dave damashek is with us and uh he thinks the cfb tournament is a waste of time

great take i know i'm i'm infuriated by this check out this week's episode of football america wherever you get your podcast i'm urging you to do that because chris long uh i'm going to believe uh without having heard what he and Damashek did, I'm going to guess that that is going to be both wildly entertaining and informative because I've heard Chris Long's analysis on Tua since it began, and I think he's been like sort of dead on in a way that's more accurate than just about anybody I've heard about correctly assessing what this person is.

And so I would guess that what Damashek brought out in this segment was real illumination if you want to get good Tua talk.

But what do I have wrong here, Damashek, on what I imagine Football America is doing today? Because I haven't heard anybody better on the subject of Tua than Chris Long. So far, so good, Dan.

Happy holidays. Merry Christmas to all.
I don't know why I didn't get an invite to the good party. I got lukewarm garlic balls.
Thanks. Thanks again, everybody, for that.

And while you guys bend the elbows and drink, except for Roy, who I feel bad for, can't have a little bit of booze.

What would the Earth's population be if it was left to the fellas to lay off the booze for 10 months? You're right about

Chris Long. We talk about Tua.
That's the tip of the iceberg though. We go on and on about all matter of things.
To the point, I don't want to sound like too big a Scrooge, except I can't really

avoid that reality where this college football playoff is concerned. By the way, I see you there.
Shout out to Broadway Tone there. You got to run off the field wagging your finger after you make it.

I have the Mink code too, Damashark. Do you? Nice, nice.
Hello to Amin once again. Amin is wrong, and I'll tell you why.
Zaz is right

about Tua. What do you want to talk about? You want to talk about this, or should we talk about this myapathy towards the college football player? Let's talk about Tua.

I want to hear how you think I'm wrong on

that. Zaz could be right on.
Also, I know what myapathy means, but I don't think Roy does. So, can you explain what myapathy means to Roy? I don't know either.

I heard someone smart say it, and I thought I'd try to pass it off myself. Is that one word or two words? I don't know.

It's my apathy. It's two words.
It's possessive. Yeah, it'd be a good website.
Zaz is right about Tua. Well, first of all, where the football of it is concerned.

Yeah, I mean, clearly, as they say, as Warren Sapp has said for 20 years now at least, you know, the defensive coordinators of pro football are going to adjust more quickly than any other organism on the planet Earth.

And so they see what a quarterback is, what his preferences are. They take that away.
The quarterback adjusts to that. Then the coordinators adjust again.

again, and so it goes back and forth for the entirety of that guy's career. Tua got figured out about three or four years ago, and that's it.

He had nowhere else to go. He is like a starting pitcher making his first go around the league, and he shuts down everybody.

Then the batters look at some tape, they figure out what he's trying to do, and then they start hitting him or they don't. And that's what happened with Tua.

What is bad is, though, what Zaz is 100% right about, and Amin is like one of these cools who's, you know, he's one of the actors who's behind the scenes and he knows what goes on behind the curtain.

And Zaz and I are mere audience members, mere paying customers. We don't want to see that crap out on the field.

You ask us,

the paying public, to buy into, we got to win this game, this battle, our warriors wearing our team's colors.

At the end of the game, if you want to play grab ass with those guys, go do it in the battle. That was damn last night.

I mean, listen, right, you want to do it? Go

do it.

The stadium where we can't see it.

Well, I don't, I don't want to look at that.

What you need is a little WWE in your lives. You know, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the American hero, and the Iron Sheik had a bitter rivalry.
Dan, you know about that hacksaw?

I just wanted to do 30 straight minutes of asking video to go get me Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Iron Shei video, and then I remembered all the things the Iron Shei did and I immediately regretted my but I wanted to just do a 30-minute wrestling podcast

right there no Duggan was a that's what I'm saying he's an American why is he an American hero because he because he took a two by four friend and he and he stapled a uh old glory to it ain't that enough and he used to wave it before and after his fights

to stick it to the chic and the sheik didn't know what to do with himself he was a hateful soul now they didn't like each other and and they would show that um in the squared circle. Now, okay,

they were later found in a car burning some tree and drinking some beers together. Well, yeah, yo, maybe

at least they had the dignity to do that out of the sight of the viewing public. Okay, Johnny Law picked them up, and that's that.
But two out there laughing it up with Jalen Ramsey.

Do you have any sense of the moment, man? Like, well, they're human beings, they're three-dimensional people.

Not in that context, I mean, they're not, they're not, I don't care who you, I don't care what your backstory is.

That's for Tuesdays with the feel-good pieces that roll when there's nothing to do on Sports Center.

That's when you roll in, you tap into the origin story of how he was born without a leg and all of that kind of stuff. You don't do that right out.
You don't do that right after the game.

Like, oh, Jalen Ramsey and two are old friends. You don't get it.
No, what you don't get, football, is that we don't want that grab at.

We want you to at least meet us. You ask us

to delude ourselves and dislike these other people because they wear the wrong logo on their hats. You got to meet us halfway, football players,

and not be doing that crap out on the field two seconds after your season ends. He's right.
He's right. He's right.
He's right about you being right. He's right about me being right.

Right. Of course I'm right.
Zaz is right. You and I, Dave, you and I are hacksaw.
Amiens Iron Sheik.

I don't like the implication of of that. I don't like the implication of the battle.
Whoa, whoa, wait, no, no, no. Daddy!

Dad's away.

Wait a minute.

We're eating lukewarm. We're eating lukewarm garlic balls and burning a tree in a car means ass.

That's what you would expect.

Accidental racism.

Tony saw the Iron Sheik.

I've never seen him. It's like Tony discovered, wait a minute, we're allowed to be this racist in wrestling? Oh, yeah.

What was his nationality no the iron chic american he wasn't as bad as kamala who was from mississippi and did nothing but slap

slap his

belly like kamala spoke full creole and they pretended like he just didn't speak english and slapped his belly in order to just be racist

oh damn don't even get started on cocoa beware

wearing a chain around his neck sheesh yeah it was it got pretty dark there for a while uh

it was pretty bad um but yeah listen, I'm glad Zaz and I, he's in the penalty box because he's a man of justice. That's how it goes.
You know, I don't understand this war.

No, if the guys get him a microphone so in there, he and Damashek could geek out on wrestling because I've been wanting Zaz to do a wrestling podcast.

But you have to explain, Damashek, to Tony, who doesn't know anything, just how ridiculous that iron sheet thing was. And incidentally, he just was a prolific, allegedly crack addict as well.

Yeah. Well, that's nice.
That's good for him. I also like that

a lot of the wrestlers in yesteryear weren't muscle-bound steroid guys. They were just like kind of big guys.

They were just kind of like a little bit bigger than the average human being, and that was enough to become a wrestler. Remember the guy

Piper's best pal always had, he always had a broken arm for like eight years, had a broken arm. But the cast didn't make it over the hand.

It was just over his forearm. He always had that, and he used it as a weapon.
Those were the good good times of WWE.

But now I want to talk about college football because I know you're excited about the U. And I feel bad.

I feel like I'm announcing to the world that I don't believe in Santa right now, but I'm not excited about the college football playoff. And I think

some of it has to do with the fact that I'm an old man and I still pine for.

I used to dig my heels in in the late 20th century on the virtues of the bowl system. And the primary one was that New Year's Day was

maybe the best day on the sports calendar. The five bowl games, pristine,

and at the end of it, at the end of the Sugar Bowl and the Orange Bowl, when you put your head on the pillow before you had to go back to school the next day, you knew who the national champion was.

And if you did that right now, I submit. that that would be a cleaner way to evaluate who number one is in the year of the Lord 2025 or maybe on the first day of 2026.

Dig, all this jive, I know Kirk Herbs, I know it's delightful for everybody to be admonished repeatedly by Kirk Herb Street and Joel Clatt and everybody else about how you don't really get how it works.

But plain and simple, Indiana v. Georgia, in the Rose Bowl or anywhere else, all hash is settled.
Is there any argument after that? Do we need all this jive?

Do we need all the hooey and applesauce of arguing about applesauce?

Again, with hooey and applesauce. That's with both of them.
That's right, Dan.

That's exactly what you're saying. Wooi and applesauce.

Your obsession with hooey and applesauce is not. Let it go, man.
Hooi and the bloofers. It's a crutch.

Lukewarm garlic balls. That's what I'm going with.
Well, that's why you weren't invited to the party. Everyone knows that they didn't want garlic bread there.

Just eating all the garlic rolls, eating the metal arc budget and garlic rolls, Merry Christmas. But am I right, though, Dan? You're an old man.
You get it.

The Fiesta Bowl used to kick it up on New Year's Day. You'd roll out of bed, hung over, and that was the best.
And it was always two high-scoring teams.

I don't know how they always arrived at two shoot-it-out teams, but it was always delightful. And then on the heels of that, the Cotton Bowl with the Southwestern Conference's best.

Usually it was Texas against some independent team. And now we were off and rolling.
And then the granddaddy of them all was a sight to behold with Keith Jackson.

And then you had the orange and sugar. And if we had that, here's what it would look like.

Okay, I'll stop talking. Go ahead.
Go ahead, please.

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Don Lebatard. What is the worst part of the life? Stugats.

The worst part of the life of what? This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

You are correct in saying that it used to be two bowl games for everything. That was easier.
New Year's Eve was lovely. But you're arguing right now against more football games than matter.

Like you're going to have, you'll have a losing argument because there's just more football on more days and the bowl systems have been eaten up and now you get to guess whether five teams might be able to win the championship because you've made it more random.

Like you're I agree with that.

You're longing. Like I don't know if this is the perfect metric to decide the best team, but you're just giving the customer more football that matters.

Instead of two bowl games, you got a bunch of them. That's the way to placate the masses is right.
It's more football and you're a curmudgeon if you're complaining about it.

But if you believe in merit in evaluating who the best team team is, we had to get off this old system. Jake Paul is fighting for a championship of some sort tonight.
I mean, listen,

but

as we've now experienced with Mike Ryan

and countless others, there's always going to be an argument. If it's 12 teams, well, the 13th team got screwed.

If it's a four-team tournament, the fifth team got screwed. It'll expand to 16, and then the 17th team will get screwed.
There's not, listen,

the best, the virtue of the old system was, whether it was the vote on it at the end of New Year's Eve or a two-team tournament, there was no,

there was none of this, this arguing about two-loss team versus a three-loss team deserving a shot at number one. The old system was unique.
I didn't say distinctive, Dan. I said unique.
No, the part

of the one. The part that I'm laughing about is you are informing these people while longing for the previous time that is factual.
He is not making that up.

I want you guys to imagine whenever it is that the last games are played, that we don't still know who the championship is going to because we have to wait until the morning until all of the voters, until someone has woken up, some writer in Louisiana at one o'clock at night and said, Who do you think should be the champion?

That is how Damashek wants to be. Oh, Nebraska.

Damashek wants the voters. We used to have to wait till like Monday afternoon after Saturday games to know if the voters, if the voters.
You used to be. co-champion.

So you're like, yeah, well, you're splitting a championship. Give me a bar.
Okay, one out of once at one, okay, once a decade, you did have that.

And by the way, I mean, look at what everybody's doing here, sitting around.

I'm across Football America from you guys, and we're talking about football, debating who would beat this team and who would beat that. That's fun.

I consider that an enjoyable use of time to debate that kind of stuff. That's what it led to.

And is this any more satisfying arguing about about Notre Dame or Alabama or Miami and who deserves into the tournament? It's the exact same thing.

You have arrived exactly what everybody had to get away from in the late stages of the 20th century and early portions of the 21st was exactly what we're doing anyway, which is arguing about,

but now we have let people less than the very best teams into the conversation. Now we're talking about Notre Dame who rendered themselves irrelevant by losing a second game in September.

That should have been the end of them. And that used to be the way.
And like I say, as somebody who forget the ratings and fan engagement and all of that. Yeah, more sports is better.

Yes, I enjoy watching sports as it happens.

But also, if you believe in merit, the greatest system that I'm aware of in American sports history was the Old World Series.

One team's one league's champ plays the other league's champ. Best of nine.
Dave. World series.
That was the best. Best of nine.
Anyways, Dave, I agree with you.

Like, back in the day, it was like, all right, what if this team played this team? Wouldn't that be sick? Now it's like, oh, no, this team is going to play this team.

And now we actually get to see the game. So instead of talking about seeing the game, now we actually get to see the game.
So you want to talk about the game. I want to play and watch the game.

Oh, I know, but except that Kirk Herbstree and everybody else has to cry about James Madison and Tulane being in there. Dear God, thank God.
Where did that come from?

Thank God it's back.

Oh my Jesus. Jesus, nobody can shut that up.
All right.

All right. All the girls can.
If you're new here, when that music plays,

we go to our magic creative content. Explain the show.
Don't explain the show. Okay.

Wow.

Minor penalty, two minutes for explaining the show.

God, shut him up. Is that what you did? That's what I sounded like? Yes.

Sheik was Iranian, by the way. Was naturally? Iranian.

Oh, he died, Tony. Persian.
I love saying he was, but he was, right? That's what Chris Long and I talked about. Here's a great.

Let's forget the college one. The music is playing.

Sorry, Dave. He's not respecting the magic crate of content.
Does he not get how this works? Shut up, Dave. Mute him.
Let him talk to himself. Just mute his microphone.

Just mute his microphone. You've got to respect the magic creative content.
All right.

What were you most wrong about in 2025? Wow.

Look at everyone kind of like stroke their chins and kind of look up to the heavens. What was I wrong about? I'll tell you what I was most wrong about.

Absolutely nothing.

Yeah, same here. That's a good one.
Oh, that's great, guys. That's exactly how the game is played.
I now long for Damashak talking.

I can't lie. I thought the Celtics was going to beat the hell out of the Knicks.

I was wrong both times on the Chiefs when I said they were done and they weren't. And then I said you guys were right and you weren't.
You weren't right both times. Both times I was wrong.

I was doubly wrong on the Chiefs. Now they're not in the playoffs.
Do you guys have that sound, please? Because you buried me in it.

You buried me in the sound that I had on the Chiefs where

how do I manage to get it right? and get it wrong twice. And it's just because you guys bullied me.
Y'all got Rasheed Rice.

Two games of Rashid Rice.

It's Amin's advice to Greg Cody. Just hang strong on being right and you'll be right.
Mike McDaniel's looking for conviction. He didn't find it in you.

I am sure the Chris Paul stuff on Tua is really good.

Can you explain to us in a condensed form, please, the best of what you've got on Football America with Chris Long because the Tua analysis of Chris Long has been better than I've heard anywhere.

Yes, he's very proud of himself. He was right on a number of subjects

in the news

in America. Well, listen to the show.
I mean, we really got into the behavior after the game. I mean, we agree.
I think it's settled hash. He's an out-moded quarterback in 2025.

They figured him out, and that's all there is to say about it.

I do wonder if there's a team out there like what Denver was able to do pawning off Russell Wilson by eating some of the contract, if there's a team out there that would look at two.

I really highly doubt that

that team exists come 2026. What Chris Long and I did talk about, though, here's a great thing.
I said to want to jazz up the NFL playoffs a little bit.

How about what I was right about, what I was wrong about this year was I thought the Ravens were going to be the number one seed. As it turns out, they're just not that good a team.

But what if at the end of the wild card round weekend, we punctuated it? The cherry on top is the number one seeded team that didn't play in wildcard weekend.

The head coach and their star player go to a podium and they announce who they've chosen to play in the divisional round. How exciting would that be? I love that.
I love that. So, wait, explain that.

So, the team that didn't play, the number one seed, gets to choose the lower seed that they play in the next round? Yes, they get to go.

It's not like it's assigned to them because, you know, you deserve certain privileges along with not having to play in wild card weekend.

On top of that, now, you jazz it up and, in fact, give some heat to that game that otherwise wouldn't exist. So, let's say you're the Denver Broncos.

You now have to go to the podium, podium, Sean Payton, and say who you are choosing to play in the divisional round. And that team's going to be pissed off.
That's a major callout.

That's why you chose them that you chose them. Like,

you could have taken any team to play. You want us? Oh, now you're going to get it.

Now it has an extra gravity to it. See, now I've just jazzed up football a little bit more.
Dave, I'm 100% with you.

lobbied for this in the NBA for years, especially now with the play-in tournament.

Because what happens is it used to be you're the one seed, you play the eight-seed or the seventh seed, and that's well and good. I played one of the worst teams, right?

But now, because of the play-in tournament, the three-seed knows who they're going to play. So

the last day of the regular season, we know who we're going to play. The four and the five know who they're going to play.

The one and the two, they're sitting there, they got to wait a whole week to figure out, am I playing him? Am I playing them? Like, what's going on?

And so I said, you should be able to call out your opponents. So that way, the one seed gets to pick whatever the lowest seed, five through eight.

Like it. Who's my opponent? And then like you said, you got the whole, on the one hand, yeah, maybe this is a better matchup.
Maybe I'd rather play the seven than the eight.

But on the other hand, now that team is like, oh, you think I'm easy? You want to pick on me? Let's do this.

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And it's February 15th, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
Don Lebatard.

I think I would have been on his side. I would have went to you, like, what did you say?

I'm telling you, me and my friend, the rest of the way home, all we kept saying was, I ain't cheating. Stugats.
It's like, I think you got your ass. I think he got your ass.

I got his ass. Hey, Chris, Chris won this one for sure.
Not with that.

Valy. It was great.
This is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugats.

I want to get back to professional wrestling with Zaz and Damashek. But before I do that, it was a fairly enormous football game that was played last night.
It was wildly entertaining.

I don't think there's a lot of difference between those two teams. I think a lot of people come away saying the Rams are still better.
I still think the Rams are better. I don't trust Sam Darnold.

He's always going to throw that dumbass interception.

But

the Rams could be undefeated this year because they've lost four one-score games and some of them are weird losses. Like they were dominating Philadelphia in Philadelphia.

They are four one-score games from being undefeated, and I trust Stafford to not do what Darnold did last night ever, even though he did it against Carolina.

But, Damashek, what do you make of the fact? That they've got these weird losses. Like, that's a collapse last night.

The Seahawks had played 155 games trailing by 16 or more and never won one of them until last night.

Well, Dan, you go at me for repeating myself. One thing I've talked a lot with about the gang that you're surrounded by right now is, and to bring it all home,

for Tua and Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins, the loss on Monday night football to the Titans, blowing that two-score lead on Monday Night Football.

I mean, it didn't just damn them for the rest of that season.

You can make a a decent case that that caused the entire era that was promising to spiral down. And now the Rams are in that same spot, which is, yeah, they're still probably better than the Seahawks.

It was semi-fluky to win the turnover battle to the degree they did time of possession and everything else and still lose the game. Nevertheless, they're not going to be the number one seed now.

And if you have to play an extra game in a league that has become about coin flips when the teams are fairly close to each other, that every game is going to be a 51-49 type of result, then the Rams may have just doomed themselves.

Oh, damage,

I think that I can make the case that that is the most devastating loss in Rams' history if the window closes on them and they can't win as a five-seed.

Like that, that I'm going to have a harder time figure. Maybe I, yeah, I know.
They lost a Super Bowl and a field goal with no time left. It's probably worse.
Okay, second. Second.

Fair enough. Yes,

having the greatest show.

My fault. My fault.
I overreacted. The greatest show on turf lost to the Patriots starting the Brady era.
That was obviously worse. I take it back.

Do we even count?

A super weird thing in 50 years is when people are going to be looking back through and be like, wait, the Rams were in St. Louis?

Wait, they won a Super Bowl and lost the second one while they were there?

That's a weird little

asterisk in sports history. Yeah, Dan, I think that's exactly right.
I mean, if we said,

hey, we're going to flip this coin, and if it comes up on the wrong side, I'm going to take one of your digits with this knife here.

You would want to flip it only twice, not three times, right? And so who gets the one seed? And that's what these games all are. Now, Goodell's beloved mediocrity called Parody

is at our doorstep now. And now, you know, it's really hard to divine.
I agree with you.

We all were weirded out by the way you cut off digits. All of us didn't understand what was happening there.

Cutting them off. Like that old

Twilight Zone episode, right? Wasn't it a Twilight Zone episode? That's right.

I still believe in the Rams a lot, though, because the way they lost that game, without that Rashid Shaheed punt return, we're not having this conversation without a couple of just lucky bounces for the Seahawks.

But while watching that game, I did have one burning question for Dave Demscheck.

What did you think of them Seahawks uniforms, brother? Yeah. Juju, a little drab, ultimately.
I thought the helmets were fashion fashion forward, iridescent, and all of that.

They did look a little oregonian to me, but overall, combined with the drab gray, color me unimpressed. C

Chris, hit the stat of the music for me.

Start of the day, start of the day. It is yes, start of the day.

Start of the day, start of the day. It is the start of the day.

Start of the day. Start of the day.
It is the start of the day.

Stat of the day is presented by Miller Light. Trista's dog is licking her laptop.

According to Mike Sando,

the Rams are the first team in NFL history to lose with 500 plus total yards on offense, zero turnovers, and over three opponent turnovers.

They're the first team in NFL history to lose having those combined stats. But damage, they got four weird ones when they should be undefeated.
Like, it's four of them, right?

So,

A.D. Mitchell doesn't drop that ball.
That would have been a loss in a game they won, but I take your larger point there. Yeah, it just doesn't make a difference, though.
They now have to win,

probably have to win three road games to get to the Super Bowl. That makes their path that much less likely to end in Santa Clara.
You can't pick them if they have to win three road games.

Well, the only way I do it is that Stafford won on the road road at Brady, and Brady did this over Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Brees, and everyone else. And do I believe that Stafford's the best?

Do I believe Puka is totally unstoppable? Do I believe their super balance and their pass rush will always make Darnold do that two or three times a game? Yes, I do.

I believe they've put themselves in a bad spot, but Stafford can do it more than Darnold can.

Like, that's a disaster loss for the Rams. They've done it the hardest, the hardest.
McVay and Stafford now have to do it the hardest possible way, with Devontae Adams a little bit hurt. But

I saw Seattle get shredded by Baker Mayfield, and I was stunned by what Puka did to that defense yesterday. Like, you know that.

Dan, a big difference between even the heavyweight teams in pro football today versus 15 or 20 years ago. You don't have to get in the wayback machine to make this point.

The best teams get hammered at, I mean, every single one of them.

The teams that go on to win to the Super Bowl, at some point, if you go back through their regular seasons, they get whipped by double digits somewhere along the way. That didn't used to happen.

And I don't mean in the 70s. I mean, like the Niners of the 90s or whatever, the Cowboys, they just didn't take 20-point losses.

Oh, yeah, they just had a bad day at the office and the Cardinals got them. That just never used to happen.
Now it does, and you have to kind of

have to exempt those sort of like a bad day on the golf course when you're submitting your handicap. Your worst loss and your best loss or best win and all that kind of get thrown out.

And what's in the middle is what counts, I think. But I think

that's exactly right. Three, I mean,

three road games makes it highly unlikely that you're going to get to the Super Bowl. Oh, my God.
And that's that. Dave, you're going to be.
You got to pull the inside straight.

You are getting me so excited for playoff football. NFL action.
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Demashek, do you have any idea? And this is why you didn't get invited to the company party, okay? It's not just the garlic breath. I'm going to need to be honest with you.
Let's talk straight.

Yeah, like, I'm sorry I have to do this to you in front of people. Okay.
Do you know why it is that Roy and Juju... Well, Roy was just laughing off mic at something that Juju said.
Do I know?

No, of course I don't. I'm in the dark.
I didn't get invited to the party. I'm over here.
No, but this is why you're in the dark, friend. Okay.
Okay.

Juju.

Nice timing. Respected Dano.

Snitches get stitches. Saz, go do your job, buddy.

Zaz looking around. Hey, magic crate, baby, let's go.

He wants to talk wrestling. If you're not.
I know.

Wait, for 20 minutes.

He's been waiting for 20 minutes to talk wrestling. He said,

iron shaped cheek. Talk about Jackson Jim Doug and the American Heroes.

Who is your favorite social media follow?

I like to follow Trista. Trista be entertaining on social media.
Every sport, too. That's a good teammate right there.
That seems biased.

It is a good teammate, but she's the best follow of anyone to follow. And you're not exactly a follower in the world.
Okay. Better than I show speed.

Alioop, wherever it is, you get your podcast. I think my favorite follow is this dude named Paul Olima.
All he does is mock all these internet videos.

So whenever someone's like, I couldn't believe I was, you know, my life was destroyed, but I built myself back up and they show themselves crying, he always does a reenactment where he puts his phone up, like, okay, wait,

because it's so weird that people on the internet film themselves crying.

Tony, your favorite? That's a tough one, Dano.

Get back to me. Okay, thank you.
That's good improv.

Dave Damashek is doing Football America, and you get it every Monday and Friday.

I've got the worst answer here, I think, because I've just checked out on social media. I'd actually like you guys to recommend people that because Amin took that question seriously.
Jeremy's fun.

Take every question seriously. Jeremy, who? Cachet?

Jeremy is the best follow. For you.
I'm trying to curate for you.

I think you'd enjoy that.

You think you're family.

You think I'd enjoy

eager Jeremy in my life

more forever eager Jeremy in my life think you're family

Best of the year in review club coming up in a little bit oh wow That's an exciting one

You know what? I have my Jeremy will be there my favorite follow Flanagans anytime I see Flanagans on my timeline all of a sudden I see some garlic rolls. I see some wings.
I see a burger.

I see the only place for

Flanagan. There it is, Roy.
Kendall Flanagans in particular. I mean, come on, talk about it.
The best of the best. Give me a zip line.
Talk to him. Top of the ultra.

Roy was laughing because Juju asked you to breathe.

To breathe. To breathe.

When broadcasting to the people who listen to this show, he was asking you very gently, meditatively, helpfully, to breathe.

It was bad. I don't know you, but it was so bad.

What was bad?

Just the breath thing.

You just were like non-stop. And it was like all the same tonality.
And I just glazed right over. All right, good stuff.
All right, listen. Now, what I talked to Chris Long about was

Matthew Stafford may well be your MVP right now, but it doesn't resonate. And why? Versus the Heisman Trophy.

A lot of people weighed in on Fernando and whether or not he deserved it and his speech and Diego and all of that.

Why does it carry more weight who the better college, best college player is versus the NFL MVP? It's because of the trophy and the quality of the trophy and the iconic name and all of that.

That's the assignment for everybody in there today. Come up with what NFL luminary should we name the NFL trophy after so that it does resonate more in 2026 and beyond.

So you get not just the NFL MVP, who remembers who won it six or eight years ago. ago you will remember i got the brady and then you have the the cool brady

that'd be cool right?

You got to name it after like Pat Summerall. Yeah.

Pat Sommerall. Susie Wiles, old man.
I had no idea. How about that? I don't want to talk vanity to hurt all of you.
Stop talking.