PMS 2.0 1356 - Ian Rapoport, Quentin Richardson, Jim Harbaugh, Pete Thamel, Kenny Albert, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome.

On this Overreaction Monday, June 9th, 2025, this program begins now.

Sports!

Are the greatest thing on earth?

And right now, in the NHL Standard Cup finals, we have a Tide Series.

In the NBA finals, we have a Tide Series.

And in the NFL world, we have a lot of shit to talk about.

It is a wonderful time to be a sports fan.

It's a wonderful time to have this as a profession.

We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this.

We hope you had an incredible three-day weekend.

A lot has happened, and we'll dive into all of it.

The show is packed today.

We got Ian Rappaport of the NFL Network joining us in about 10 minutes or so for a hot five.

Okay.

Hot five, quick five, quick five.

Holy hell, who signed with the Steelers?

Oh,

oh, wow.

That guy just got released from the Green Bay Packers.

Oh, wow.

That running back is now in Texas.

Oh, wow.

A lot going on around the NFL with mandatory minicamps happening as we speak.

Quentin Richardson, Q Rich, will join us, obviously, to chit-chat about what's going on in the NBA Finals.

Don't love how good SGA is.

I've seen it with Jalen Brunson.

Didn't love it with him.

This SGA guy is a scoring wizard.

I know people call him a foul artist, and they say he's a free throw merchant and all these things, but whatever.

What this guy is able to do on a basketball court is outrageous.

Then Jalen Williams, the guy can just drop it from wherever.

Chet and

Hartenstein, I almost call him Hogolstein.

Hartenstein, I apologize.

Those two, whenever they're on the court at the same time, which they were at times last night, massive problem for the Indiana Pacers.

The Pacers were able to steal one in the greatest environment in the NBA is what they call it.

Now they come back to Indianapolis, Indiana, tied 1-1.

Caruso, I mean, he's locked down defender, too.

I mean, let alone him shooting and everything else he's doing.

Absolute lockdown, let alone the dorture chamber, Lou Dort, what he's been able to accomplish.

This Oklahoma City team showcased why they were the best team in the NBA last night whenever they beat the hell out of the Indiana Pacers.

Now, there was a time late, you know,

when both sides decided to just sub out full line changes.

I thought to myself, We're down 16 right now with like two minutes.

This is kind of where the Indiana Pacers kind of do their thing.

Coach Carlisle pulled everybody.

They pulled everybody.

We move on to game three on Wednesday.

We would like to say shout out to Oklahoma City getting a win at home.

Shout out to the Pacers stealing the first game.

Shout out to the NBA delivering.

And shout out to

I guess to us.

We're going to be outside Game Bridge once again for game three on Wednesday.

Come join us at noon to two-ish, 2.30-ish.

We'll be down there in anticipation of game three of the NBA Finals.

It also says game four will be down there.

That is TBD.

Okay.

That is TBD.

We shall see.

I think the plan is to do that.

Let's see how Wednesday goes.

The last time we were down there, it was awesome.

We assume it will be again.

But let's also

not make any decisions on anything too far in the future.

Sure.

Wednesday, come join us if you're in town.

Doesn't matter if you're an Oklahoma City fan or if you're a Pacer fan.

Should be a blast.

We assume we'll be loaded with all the guests that come into town for the game.

It should be fun.

Now, the Toxic Table is here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt.

One After the Hammer, Don Cowboys AP Tone is here.

Nine-year NFL vet, DHJ Butler is here.

Debut.

I don't know if you heard this or not.

Aaron Rodgers is officially a Pittsburgh Steelers.

An entire offseason of chit-chatting about what the future could be for Aaron Rodgers.

Is he going to retire?

Was he going to be a Minnesota Viking?

Was he going to be a New York giant?

We knew he wasn't going to be a New York Jet after we heard that his conversation with the Jets' new head coach, a new general manager, lasted about three minutes.

After he flew himself all the way across the country to go shake their hands, they kick him out of the building.

What's Aaron's next step?

Is he going to retire maybe and and focus on something other than ball for the rest of his life?

Maybe continue to build up, you know, knowledge and things that we had never heard of before talking to him.

Darkness retreats, ayahuasca ceremonies, the enlightening of your body and your soul to become the best you possible so you can provide to society.

That is kind of the journey that seemingly Aaron Rodgers has been on.

What would his future be?

We all wondered.

including myself.

Now we know he is definitely a Pittsburgh Steeler.

It seemed as if all of Pittsburgh thought he was going to be a Steeler.

It seemed as if all the insiders thought he was going to be a Steeler.

He decided to announce on Friday that he was going to be joining the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I wonder why then, why now, and how long has he been in the decision of becoming a Pittsburgh Steeler?

He's making $10 million guaranteed, 13.65 salary.

Oh, that's it.

Is that it?

Yeah, 19.5 maximum value with another 5.85 million in incentives.

I assume that's team-based stuff.

If you win, if we go do this, go into Super Bowl with that team, I think they're thinking with one weapon like DK Metcalf, which they brought in for 30 million,

with one quarterback that can maybe operate this offense that Arthur Smith wants to be able to operate.

If we can keep TJ Watt, which they're still going to have to figure out, we're a team that can contend.

We're above 500 with absolute crap on the offensive side of the ball.

If Aaron can come in here and matriculate the ball down the field and eat up some clock, make smart choices, not have any turnovers.

Pittsburgh Steelers are dancing in the playoffs yet again.

And once they get into playoffs, who knows, especially with how good their defense is.

I assume that's how all of Pittsburgh feels.

Let's go to one half of the hammer.

Cowboys AP tone.

You guys excited that Aaron has officially announced that he's a Pittsburgh Steeler?

And what are your thoughts and expectations for the team?

Because just last week, I think you and many Steelers fans were saying, who cares?

We're not going to win Super Bowl with him or without him.

Who cares?

Has that changed at all?

Is there any sense of hope for a team going into an NFL season that maybe you can climb the top of the mountain?

I'm glad you brought up last week and how, you know, us Jensers and me in particular have been acting the last couple months.

You know, when the air news first came out months and months ago that there was a chance that he would come to the Pittsburgh Steelers, I stood on the soapbox and said, we need to get Aaron Rodgers.

He's a much better option than Justin Fields.

He's a much better option than Russell Wilson and whoever else is out there.

And then came that lull period where, you know, we started questioning whether he was going to come to the Pittsburgh Steelers or not.

And we had to champion Mason Rudolph during those times.

And, you know, during those times, maybe we did throw some shots at Aaron for squirting water guns on stage and doing stuff like that.

And that was only because, Pat, and you know this.

Yeah, we did not.

He's saying we had Steelers fans.

Oh, sure, sure.

Hinzers fan.

Formal weeds.

Because he was going through stuff in his personal life.

He explained more on Joe Rogan.

He had two people in his inner circle that were going through cancer.

People that are around him on a regular basis depend upon him as their employer that he felt obligated to attend.

And if you look back to last year with the Jets, he was at all the voluntary stuff with the New York Jets.

All of it.

Literally all of it.

And then the mandatory OTA or mandatory minicamp weekend just so happened to come on June 12, 2024, 6, 12, 24.

Now, we do not know if the date has any reason for that, but he had to go to Egypt, a trip that he had planned in advance.

As a 40-year-old, he planned this trip to Egypt a few years.

I don't know if it was last year or something like that.

Once in a lifetime.

Yeah, that's what he said.

He said it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Egypt.

He misses mandatory minicamp.

Was that everything, literally, for the first time in his career since he was like a rookie, everything else missed that.

It became this massive story of how selfish he was, how he didn't want to win, how he wasn't bought in.

All the negative stuff came.

So he approached this offseason from what he told us.

I know nothing other than what he said on our show.

Just to clarify for everybody.

What he said on our show was he didn't want it to be like last year.

He was very upfront with everybody, said that he was not going to be able to attend the OTAs.

He had the two people in his inner circle that were going through things.

He's also, I think he had a couple other obligations that he set up for his schedule.

So he was like, I don't want to sign with a team and then have us go through exactly what we went through last year when I'm not going to be able to be there.

So look for a decision to be made after OTAs.

This one happens after voluntary OTAs, right before mandatory OTAs.

Did not expect this to be the timeframe for him to do it.

We thought he was going to do it in the summer, but before mandatory minicamp feels like the right move for him and obviously a good thing for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Yeah, it's absolutely perfect timing.

And you know, as I know, being a man from Pittsburgh, we don't like to set ourselves up to be vulnerable.

So I think the fan base as a whole was like.

Yeah, we don't want him.

Yeah, we don't want him.

We don't need them.

But then you finally, you realize your real feelings when it finally happens.

And I was honestly super pumped when he signed.

You know, I started looking into things.

In 2019, the Bucs were seven and nine.

Oh, and then they got Tom Brady the next year and won a Super Bowl.

Okay.

He was 43 years old.

Peyton Manning, the Broncos in 2011, they were eight and eight.

And then Peyton Manning comes over as a 40-year-old.

They won a Super Bowl.

Okay.

Aaron Rodgers, a four-time MVP.

He's 41.

You know, he leaves the great Green Bay franchise, comes over to the Steelers.

Yeah, sure, there was two years of the Jets.

They don't count.

They're not a real franchise.

So he comes over to a team that was 10-7 last year, and he's 41

years old.

I think the fan base is pumped.

And who says no?

I'm thinking Super Bowl, baby.

Okay, it's great to hear because I was bummed out for you guys.

Yeah.

Because if you, as a 10-7 team last year, are thinking we can't win the Super Bowl, who is allowed to think in the offseason that they could win a Super Bowl?

I see Mason Rudolph doing all this stuff, talking at rallies, throwing out pitches.

He's getting the boys together.

You know, he's doing a lot of frontman first quarterback things.

There's a new sheriff in town.

I think he understands that.

I think Aaron understands that.

And I think this was the Steelers plan all along.

Tomlin and Aaron have great respect for each other.

Yep, always do that.

And Tomlin decided not to get any other quarterbacks, I think, out of a display of like, hey, we want you here.

How do you feel about it?

And what do you think inevitably happens?

You know, I like it for the Stillers.

If I was a Stillers fan, I may feel differently because now you, are your true expectations to win a Super Bowl?

Maybe if you're being super optimistic, yeah, but I mean, it kind of sets you up to kind of stay in that quarterback purgatory because what you're playing beyond Aaron for the future.

But for this year, he definitely gives you your best chance to win.

Now, the expectation when he went to the Jets, because they had that great defense on paper, he brought over some more weapons.

They had great weapons already there.

The expectation there was to shit.

Connor picked them to win the Super Bowl going into the season.

So those were the real expectations at that point.

You talked about Brady.

You talked about Manning.

Two anomalies.

You know what I mean?

And Aaron Rodgers will be on that Mount Rushmore quarterbacks right there with him.

But when you look at those teams and how they were built, the Bucs had a really good defense.

Mike Evans, Hall of Famer on offense, Chris Godwin, the Broncos, a couple great players on offense as well.

Hall of Fame level, Hall of Famers all over that defense.

So that team was built for a quarterback to come in and not really carry the team, even though Tom Brady did get hot late.

So, can Aaron do it?

He will always be able to spend the ball.

Absolutely.

But I think it's a lot more building you still need for that Steelers to really go and compete.

And it starts with the offense having some real weapons and then the defense showing up and showing why they are one of the most expensive defenses in the league.

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is Senior Insider for NFL Network, a friend of the program, host of the weekly wrap-up of the Rap Sheet and Friends.

Us being the friends, he being Rap Sheet.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ian Rapa Paul.

Rap, what's going on, buddy?

What's happening?

How are you guys?

Hey, everything is great over here.

We hope the same for you.

Not as much pizzazz as a few weeks ago.

I'm worried.

Yeah, I'm over

the pizzazz.

Yeah, yeah, you need to up my personal pizzazz?

Yes.

Low.

Okay.

It's been low.

Yeah, Eric signed before you went on vacation.

You should be happy.

Yeah, let's get right into it.

No, actually,

the signing was perfectly timed because I played golf in the morning and then it became clear in the afternoon.

I actually had just hopped off the Peloton and i was ready so it was actually the timing was great for me okay so let's talk about the timing it is before the mandatory minicamp for the pittsburgh steelers aaron rodgers officially signs one year 10 million i don't know if you were one of the assholes that was reporting he was going to won 40 million or something but there was a lot of you guys well sorry a lot of people in your uh

Vane of existence that were saying that the reason why nobody was signing him is because the amount of money the reason why he hadn't signed with the Steelers because he was commanding and demanding a massive contract, especially with whatever people are making.

We reported very early in the process that that was not true.

I think we even said 10 million bucks is about the number that it would probably take for Aaron.

He's not looking to get rich.

He just wants to look for another challenge.

I mean, he said it on this show, didn't he?

Yes.

And before he said it on this show, we reported that source says, had told us something, but obviously nobody listened to us because we wear t-shirts and talk about sports better than they do.

Now, with that being said, how long has this deal been the framework?

Has this been the offer since the beginning from the Steelers to Aaron?

And why do you think Aaron chose this time to sign?

And what are the Steelers saying behind the scenes?

Okay, we'll get to the offer first.

The 10 million number made sense.

And like, if you're going to sign a quarterback who has done what Aaron Rodgers has done and, you know, was on the open market, but it was different because it's not like he was like, all right, I'm going to the highest bidder.

Like, he's very selective.

Not Not that many teams from what I got the sense were in the mix because, you know, he's not going to go to a team that doesn't have a chance, for instance.

He's not going to go, you know, some team that's rebuilding.

So it's actually very limited.

So the way you do a deal for a guy like Aaron Rodgers is you're kind of like, what would it take for you to play?

Like, that's basically how the Steelers would do it.

And like, there's a really good history of really good, veteran, accomplished, decorated quarterbacks in the final, let's say, one or maybe two years of their career, taking less.

Brady took less.

Payton took less.

Elway took less.

A lot of these guys do it to give the team,

yeah, that's another one.

Exactly right.

And I know it hurt his agent, Tom Connant, to do, but like, this is what, you do it so the team can build around you.

The Steelers aren't done building also, but like,

this is sort of why you do it.

You take a low salary and you say, I'm not doing this for the money.

And you kind of just hope the team loads up around you.

I would also say, I always kind of weirdly got the sense that Rodgers was uncomfortable making so much money.

Like, that sounds weird to say, maybe, but like, I kind of got the sense he didn't like

how it felt to make so much.

So, like, this is probably something he's a little more comfortable.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, Ian.

I think you're right.

Good take.

I like that.

But I do think he was very comfortable with whatever team he was to go to next, whatever team it was to be after the Jets, even if it was the Jets.

I think he went in there willing to restructure in the old conversation.

He took a pay cut there.

I think he, exactly, even when he was there, he took a pay cut.

I think he wants a good team.

I think he wants another run.

I think that's what all these OGs want, which is why they're willing to take a little bit less.

Let's stick with the Pittsburgh Steelers because we have to kind of roll here.

TJ Watt deal now next on deck.

Is that kind of the idea here?

Yeah, I don't get the sense it'll be immediate.

These things take time.

I don't know why.

They just, they always do.

So yeah, I mean, this is

something that is ongoing.

You know, we'll see if he's there for mandatory minicamp.

Rarely do players give up guaranteed, you know, give up money.

Rarely do players take fines, but some do.

So we might see a couple players stay away.

You know, there's a couple who hang in the balance.

I mean, TJ Watt is one.

Terry McLaurin is another.

But yeah, I mean, this is the next big deal for the Steelers to do.

I believe it's going to happen.

I believe they'll get to a number that everyone can be happy with.

It just hasn't happened yet while the edge market had such a great play.

While the edge market is kind of a little bit in flux with Trey Hendrickson and Micah not done, like this is another one that we're kind of waiting on.

Okay, so TJ, you bring up Terry McLaurin.

He left OTAs.

Is that accurate?

I believe he showed up in this.

I'm not sure if he left or I don't know how much he was there to begin with, but I know he was not there for a lot of it.

And I would say very much up in the air whether he shows shows up this week at a contract situation that, as of right now, is not great.

Okay, we'd love to have him back here in Indianapolis.

He is an Indianapolis kid.

Feels like this happens every couple years with Terry McLaurin, and all he does is show up and deliver on the field.

You got Jaden Daniels, you got Cliff Kingsbury.

You had the magical run you had last year.

Let's assume they keep Terry around.

Let's assume TJ stays with Pittsburgh.

Hopefully, that starts expediting quickly.

Let's talk about this secondary market now.

Jair Alexander gets released from the Green Bay Packers this morning.

You thought they were going to potentially get a deal done, thought it got quiet.

It has not.

Clearly, they make the announcement, the bird call.

Hey, we're going to release Jair Alexander.

Now, this obviously means other teams can put together some trade proposals here in the next four hours or so to maybe steal him from getting released and take a trade.

But with him, Jalen Ramsey, Stephon Gilmore, there's a lot in the DB room still available.

What do you think is next for Jair?

Yeah, you're right.

I was a little surprised because he's really talented.

He's like not a bad guy.

Like, there's no like you know it's he's a little bit different and really hilarious honestly but uh not a bad guy it just uh

really what the packers tried to do a deal before the draft i know they did um couldn't come couldn't come up with a team that wanted to pay 15.3 million dollars for jair alexander offered him a restructured deal which i believe was a pay cut and He just never really dug in on that.

And I think, you know, sort of part of the thought was like, if it's not going to be Green Bay, let me pick.

Let me go find a place.

He's going to make some money.

He's going to make some real money.

He's made some in the past, but let me pick.

I mean, he's 28.

He's a Pro Bo caliber player with sick ball skills.

Like, these guys are not often available.

So I think he's going to have a real market.

It might, you know, might be before training camp, or he might decide to wait a little bit because he's in no hurry.

But it's rare that these guys are actually on the market.

Got it.

Is he healthy?

Yes.

I believe he is healthy.

Last year ended not great, but I believe is and has been healthy.

Yes,

setback.

He's a phenomenal player.

Everything Raphshey said last four seasons, only one season with over 600 snaps.

So that's the thing.

That's the thing, for sure.

So probably being a consent to laden contract, but he is, he's worth taking the shot off for sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

Come to Indianapolis, brother.

We'd love to see you.

And we'll make you captain when you're playing back in your hometown.

We'll never, ever forget it.

Chubb going to Houston Texans.

Is there anything else in the NFL world that we've missed?

That's a huge signing.

Chubb going going anywhere is a big deal.

If he's anywhere near what he was,

this is a massive get for the Houston Texans.

Is there any other signing that or any other things happening around the NFL we've missed?

First, I like this one.

Yeah, me.

I hate it.

We'll see how much he has left.

If he's close to what he was, I mean, look, look.

If he's close to what he was, him and Joe Mixon are going to be a insanely physical duo.

The only thing I would say that you guys missed, so I like this signing.

This should be official today.

I believe he's going to pass the physical.

Only thing you guys missed was David Chang,

the respected chef and personality, was on Good Morning Football this week, named his five best

NFL cities with regards to their best sandwiches

and left out Pittsburgh.

Yeah, so he sucks.

That's what I heard.

That guy sucks.

I mean, Pittsburgh, to me, is top three sandwich place in the country.

Top three.

We are a sandwich city.

That is literally what we own.

Literally.

Tier one.

Why is this guy on television talking about sports if he doesn't even know how to talk about fucking food?

This guy's a chef?

He is a celebrity chef, yeah.

What's his name?

David Chang.

Marco Foku, he's great.

Hey, David Chang, shut the fuck up.

What's going there?

How about that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm at the point now where I don't care about any of these fucking bums.

I don't care about it.

Who is the commentators for TST?

What are these dudes' names?

Hercules Gomez and Sebastian Salazar, I believe.

Bombs, get them off microphones.

John Mellencamp, bomb, get them off microphone.

This guy, bomb, get him off television.

Be a friend, tell a friend something nice.

It might change their life.

You know,

sometimes you got to say the right thing.

And last one here.

Something mean, Tom.

Jermaine Pratt.

Jermaine Pratt, Tom Pellisero literally just reported while we were live, captain of the Bengals, top 10 tackler for the Bengals last year, has been released by the Cincinnati Bengal.

I have no idea how much money he's making, but are they trying to make a move here to get money for Trey Hendrickson?

Or is this just them trying to shape up their roster, you think, Ian Rappaport?

Well, first of all, you always say, like, come to Indy.

This guy might actually come to Indy.

I mean, Lou Anna Rumo is Indy defensive coordinator.

This was one of his favorites.

This actually does make a lot of sense for Jermaine Pratt to land in Indy, so I'll say that.

Yes, this is good news for Trey Hendrickson.

They got mandatory minicamp.

We'll see if they're able to get a deal done.

I know they want to.

This does free up some cash.

Things do not exist in a vacuum.

We'll see if it ends up in a deal for Trey.

It saves $5.6 million for the Cincinnati Bengals.

So every dollar counts, especially whenever you're trying to sign a big money sack king in Trey Hendrickson, if that is still what they're trying to do.

We appreciate the hell out of you, Ian.

You are not a bum like Chef Chang.

Let's go.

Chef Chang is great, by the way.

Mama Foku is awesome, and they have great sandwiches there.

Okay, bye.

Yeah, I'll never eat there.

He's been on Good Morning Morning Football more than

Derek.

No, Deebane.

Yeah, David Scanzel is the Golden Moor.

I've never been on Good Morning Football.

Okay.

It's a good show, though.

Emmy Award-winning.

They got a chef that doesn't know fucking sandwiches on him talking about football.

That sounds interesting to me.

To be clear, Chef Chang, I don't know anything about you, but I know you don't know shit.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you wrapper board.

Why do you do that?

I don't know.

It's a Monday.

We got a long week ahead of us.

He knew exactly.

There was no reason for.

Is there anything else around the NFL world?

Oh, yeah.

Sometimes that your hometown sucks.

Yeah.

Think you know what you guys are known for?

You thought you were going to ask something, too.

That's like.

Yeah, I thought it was big.

I thought it was a big deal.

I'm like, oh, sweet.

We missed something.

Like, there's going to be something to talk about.

Instead of Chef Chang, why is this guy on TV?

Put his ass on fucking one of the food networks got shit all day.

Yeah, chopped.

Have him say dumb stuff over there.

Why is he saying dumb stuff on football?

We don't need that.

Talking about Pittsburgh not being a the top five sandwich in the NFL.

That's only 32 cities.

Well, I'm sorry.

30 cities.

Yeah.

Because there's multiples.

Yeah, New York and L.A.

Oh, true.

Out of 30 cities.

Not every city in the world.

30 cities in the United States of America.

What was his list?

Yeah.

You guys don't have a public.

I have pubs up.

You mean the grocery store?

Yeah, I'm not talking about that.

Listen, your gas station subs are nowhere near sheets.

which was...

I don't even want to get into this, but like, our gas station sandwiches are better than Chef Chang's top five list.

If I had to.

This

pisses me.

I don't need to see it.

How about that?

I don't need to see Chef Chang ever again either.

Not that I ever have.

I have no idea.

He was the one.

He was lower right corner.

He was lower right corner on Good Morning Football.

Exactly.

We had no sounds.

Should have been turning it up.

Need to listen to Chef Chang.

Unbelievable.

Not anymore.

This piece of shit.

I got to see the list.

I want to see the list, too.

You're telling me he's had Rudy subs?

Has he had Rudy subs?

Chef Chang is the expert on sandwiches.

He's never had sandwiches.

New York.

This is an order from five to one.

New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles.

I'm sorry, Philadelphia to Los Angeles at one point.

Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is the number one sandwich?

Not right now.

Tell you that much.

Hey, guess what?

Guess what I'm not doing?

Go to LA to grab a sandwich right now.

I was in LA on Saturday.

Yeah.

I was in Los Angeles on Saturday.

A lot going on.

Right down the road down there,

a few hours south, San Diego.

Ooh, raw.

Ooh, ooh, raw.

Okay.

I'm not going to say what the Paris Island people call the people that come from that particular base or boot camp.

or everything like that because I'm nowhere near as tough as the people that come from either of those places there.

But there's two entry points I do believe, you know, into the Marines.

One of them real close to everything that's going on right there marines first to fight i do believe i don't know if anybody in la

wants

simplify to be walking up those streets right i i don't just something to

oh my gosh a lot going on we hope everybody gets figured out figured out i put out a tweet this morning like let's have a positive day let's have a good day it's hard after chef chang does

you didn't know that curveball is coming got i put out a tweet like hey let's have a good day let's have a good day had a bunch of people tell me it's hard have a good day with everything going on in la It's like, okay, well, I wish I could help.

Okay, I can't.

I think this one's out of my control.

I think so.

But good luck to all parties.

We hope whoever wants to get it right gets a right.

And everybody's

going to get it figured out.

Yeah.

They'll get it figured out.

Those people who are down in the dumps, you should tell them like, hey, well, you know, Chef Chang ranked L.A.

number one city in the country.

Yeah, go find a sandwich.

Yeah, go go.

Maybe that's what they need over there.

Just eat some sandwiches over there.

Calm everybody down there.

Taste buds will be so far.

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, 13-year.

We do hope everybody's, but that there's a lot going on over there.

That one's a lot.

Algorithm, a lot of those.

Oh, yeah.

Everybody's kind of living in that right now.

That's how some people say it was peaceful.

Yeah.

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, 13-year NBA vet, co-host of the Knuckleheads podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, friend of the program, Quentin Richardson.

Yay!

Q-H, how you doing, boss?

I'm good.

I'm good.

How you fellas doing, man?

After last night, how's everybody doing in the Thunderdome?

Well, I tell you what, West Virginia lost to LSU.

Okay, West Virginia lost to LSU.

Concafa loses to Pumbas to Alabama.

Yeah.

Bad way.

Bad way.

Pacers lose to Oklahoma City.

Not good.

That was yesterday.

Then this morning I wake up and I hear Chef Chang says that Pittsburgh isn't a top five sandwich city in the NFL.

It's been a rough couple.

It's been a rough go here.

Okay, Q Rich?

But we'll talk about it.

I felt pretty good about hearing Chicago was in there.

I don't know who this Chef Chang Chang guy is.

I mean, from the sounds of it, he's not a real good guy up in this room right now.

So I'm not going to, I mean, I did approve of him having Chicago in there, though.

Yeah, it sounds like you're a big fan, all the big cities.

This guy's got a big city appeal, you know.

I'll say he's got pandering taste buds.

I like that.

Sure.

I like the good pandering taste bud that Chef Chang has.

He never had Ritty subs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He never had a whole Italian hot lettuce onion.

Mayo, let me get some fries on the side with some cheese, please, and a Turner's tea on the side also from pittsburgh i know chef chang's never had that okay well

any's i'm sure he's maybe seen one sure oh you got the camera i don't like the fries on my sand shut up

never had a rothesburger donna peppy's ever in his life ever in his fucking life this guy let's move along let's talk about sports Ian Rappaport should not have done what he did.

I was like five minutes into the show.

Yeah, it was distasteful.

He knew what he was doing.

Speaking of distasteful, Chef Chang,

that son son of a...

Let's talk basketball, please.

Can we?

Can we talk basketball?

Let's do it.

That was everything you guys wanted, huh?

What happened last night?

Everything that everybody wanted to happen to the Indiana Pacers happened last night.

The Oklahoma City Thunder on the defensive side, dominant.

On the offensive side, magical.

Pacers were never able to really get going.

It was like a 20-point game forever, seemingly.

At the end, you know, got down into the teens, but they continued to answer, put their foot down on the Indiana Pacers because of what has already happened in this series and what they have seen the Pacers do throughout the entire playoff run.

This is the Oklahoma City team that everybody was expecting.

This was how everybody thought this series was going to go, Q Rich, or what is your takeaway?

My takeaway is like,

I got to say this.

I don't have a horse in the race, so I'm just here to see good basketball.

I want the series to go as long as it can, as far as it can go, just because I know after that, we're going to be dead with basketball.

It's going to be no hoop for a minute.

So

I'm dreading that.

But

if you look at what the OKC Thunder have done after they have lost a game this year,

the writing was all on the wall for this to be a 15 to 20 point blowout.

I said that yesterday.

I was on Sports Center and I said that and Hannah was like, whoa, I'm like, but like if you look at the evidence they've given, when they lose a game, first of all, they hadn't lost a game two games back to back since like 24 sometime, sometime in 2024.

But the game this year, when they lose, you go look at the game they play after they lose, they average like 25, 30 point blowout games every time after they lose a game.

So this, the writing was on the wall for this.

And then just the way that that first game happened, they should have really finished the game.

They just didn't do it.

They were already in that position to do the same thing game one.

So I knew being in their home building, they would have that confidence to come back and get it done last night.

Their building is awesome.

And I'll tell you, watching them answer every single time, like Nee Smith would hit a three and it's like, here we go.

This is exactly what we needed.

Then the next time down, somebody at oklahoma said he would do something ridiculous put the fire out and then that crowd never really let it go either they were a huge part of the momentum just continuing they were relentless and uh they won one at home congratulations to them let's talk about a guy who is voted the most overrated player in the league this season uh by his peers allegedly go ahead tone yeah q there was a lot of talk this morning about that tyrece needs to maybe be more aggressive and look to score more.

Like, is that something you think he can do or should do, or just who he is to be more of a facilitator?

But like, or in the finals, do you think he needs to look to be more of a scorer?

Yeah, I agree that he does need to look to be more of a scorer because his team needs that.

But I think, you know, the whole conversation around him is kind of taken out of context, man.

You can't ask somebody to be something they're not.

Yes, he has the ultimate clutch gene.

When they get into the clutch moment, we've seen him time and time again hit the game winning shot or a meaningful shot down the stretch, and he has that ability to do that.

But if you look at what he's done, he's averaging 18.6 points.

Asking him to be this high-volume scorer, that's not who he's been.

He's a pass-first player, but yes, he can score, but he's not your guy.

He's not Steph Curry who's averaging 30-something points or close to 30 and shooting all of the shots and things like that for his team.

He's a guy that uses his teammates.

He makes his teammates better.

He puts them in position to score and do things.

This year, Pascal Siakam was the all-star.

He was the leading scorer for the team.

He was the Eastern Conference Finals MVP.

So because Halley Burton has made these shots and everybody wants him to be something he's not, just because he hits game winners and things like that doesn't mean that he has to go out there and average 30 points.

He's more of a Steve Nash type player than a Steph Curry.

He's a passer that gets everybody else going and makes everybody else better.

So I feel like because he's made these game winning shots, that people has taken it out of context.

Everybody wants to say, is he a superstar?

Is he not?

Like, to me, when I was playing in the league, Pat, when we played, we looked around at guys and we said, okay, are you an all-star?

Are you all NBA?

Do you make the Olympic team?

Do you got a max contract?

That's what matters.

Like, if he's got a super max contract, he's one of the best players on his team.

His teammates love playing with him.

He makes everybody's better.

He's the extension of his coach.

He does what he's supposed to do out there on the court.

He delivers for his team.

I don't really care about who's a superstar or not.

Like, in my mind, I got a max deal.

I'm playing.

I'm a starter.

I help my team.

He made the all-star last year.

He didn't make it this year, but he was an Olympian.

Like, these are all of the benchmarks to be a superstar.

You see what I'm saying?

So, like, if y'all don't want to call me that, that's fine.

I got the check that says so.

I play like it.

So, that's all that matters to me.

Like you said, the disrespect from the peers with the overrated, I showed them what I thought of that.

If you go through the entire playoff run here, K against the Bucs, game winner against Giannis, literally right in front of his dad.

Cleveland, game winner, this one.

Yep.

New York Knicks, this one.

and then game one in oklahoma city game winner to win a finals game with like 0.3 yeah left in the thing it's like the amount of moments that this dude has had and created through just this playoff like kind of run alone is enough for an entire career let alone what's happening right now he's hey he's stone cold

this guy is cold-blooded i you know because he laughs a lot He's kind of a nerd.

He's got Moxie.

He's got swagger.

But whenever push comes to shove, he is a killer.

We saw it in here.

Yeah.

We were up on him.

You remember Foxy?

We were killing him.

Me and Foxy were up on him in our shooting game, which we need you to come play, which I fear you are going to be

too good on him.

Yeah, I might have to change rules for you like we did for Tyrese.

Me and Foxy were up on him and Connor, though, in the shooting game.

And then all of a sudden, it was just like one little...

Flip of the switch happened.

The only way to win is he had to make every single shot.

The only way to win 20 straight NBA threes with us chirping at him.

And none of them touched the rim.

And it was like, oh, this guy is one of those guys.

This is one of those guys.

And he's been able to prove it.

I'm happy for him.

Still so young.

Tough series because they got a lot of guys on the other side that can, you know, bop the wood.

Oh, yeah.

As Q, you understand.

Connor has a question for you.

Yeah, Q Rich.

I hope you know too.

His nickname isn't the moment, okay, for Al Burton.

We all know what his nickname is.

It has some negative connotations, but the Photoshops are too good.

And Twitter has already deemed his name,

which I think we all respect.

Looking at last night's game, though, Q Rich,

you got to respect the player.

The bench for the Thunder kind of were the stars.

Wiggins and Caruso, they both have 20-plus.

Are you kind of counting this game as the OKC bench game?

Obviously, SGA had 34 points, but when you look at the sports books, his over-under was actually 34 and a half.

So thanks a lot for all those over-benders like myself.

But are you looking at this as a bench game?

And do you think now the Pacers have enough on the bench when you're looking at OKC and they're getting, you know, 40, 50 plus points from their bench?

I mean, this is who they are, though, man.

This is why, you know, when they were playing Minnesota, I was saying that their bench, the depth of their team, and this is why they had the record they had, you know, the best record in the NBA.

Wiggins has scored 43 points this season.

He's gotten off and went crazy.

So this isn't new.

And this is a guy that got in last night.

He hadn't played in a couple games before, from the last series and in the beginning of this series.

And he got out there and got to the money.

He was out there hitting step back threes and everything, not just catching shoot.

But this shows how deep they are and how much of a team they are.

You got guys sitting over there that's probably chopping at the bit to get in the game, but they not.

Showing it, you know what I'm saying?

In a negative way.

Once he got a chance to get out there and play, he balled out.

Teammates gave him the ball, supported him.

It wasn't like, hey, he not supposed to be doing this.

It's like whoever is going crazy, they let go crazy and i think that's a an attribute of a great team you know when they got depth like that and they could bring a guy in who hadn't played and he comes in and looks like he he should be six man or something and he plays that well offensively and defensively so i think this is just you know who okc is as a team they very deep and they very talented cruso needs to chill out

he needs to chill out Scott needs to relax.

He is a dog.

Hembo sent me a stat.

I didn't want to say it because, you know,

I just didn't want to do it.

Although Caruso is our guy, too.

It's kind of a tough thing to say.

Alex Caruso defended Tyrese Halliburton on 10 half court matchups yesterday.

Howley didn't score.

And at a 1-3 assist to turnover ratio.

Hey, Caruso, fucking relax.

Seriously.

Hey, everybody needs, everybody needs to relax.

All right, let's move.

Let's move along here.

Last question about the series.

Go ahead, Ty.

Yeah, Q Rich.

So far, who do you think the coaching advantage would go to?

Everyone's been talking about Dagano all year.

And then, you know, after game one, there was a lot of like, hey, the moment may have gotten to this guy.

He wasn't ready for it.

And he kind of, you know, made several mistakes down the stretch.

Obviously, everyone's been giving Carlisle their flowers thus far.

But at this point, 1-1, who do you think has the advantage so far

through the first two games?

And who do you like in terms of X's and O's coaching for the rest of the series?

My opinion, man,

I think Dagnot is a great coach.

He's a young coach.

He's growing.

He's trying to get his first championship and become

known as a great coach.

But I think the coaching matchup, that's Rick Carlisle, man.

He's a Hall of Famer.

He's a championship coach.

He's been one of the better coaches for a long, long time in this league.

But I mean,

that's no disrespect to Dagnot.

I think he would even know that, you know, Rick Carlisle would be seen as the superior coach between the two of them in this series.

But I mean, that still doesn't mean anything anything between, you know, Dagno, his team can still win the championship and win the final.

So, you know, that's just the way it is.

Carlisle is the beast, man.

He's one of the best to do it.

I think when he's all said and done, he's going to go down as one of the best coaches ever, too.

One with the Mavs, then he helped build the Pistons, right?

And then he guys kicked them out of town.

Then he gets one the next year.

Exactly, yes.

And then now he's been with the Pacers.

He's built the culture each year.

You see him like kind of building it in there.

He's perfect for us here.

Loves it.

Because in 49 other states, it's just basketball.

You heard him as soon as they won the Easter Conference finals.

He loved being there.

Yeah, yeah, it was awesome.

It was a great promo.

It was a great Indiana promo.

Like, as he was saying it, it, I was like,

I was like, yes, do that.

This is exactly what you should be doing in this exact moment.

Go ahead, Carlisle.

Yeah, that Mav Championship, too.

I forget there was a video going a little further back, and that championship they won is basically the greatest run of any team ever.

They played Hall of Fame teams in every single round.

They beat them all, and then it was the Heatles.

I'll tell you what, Carlisle will run them.

Carlisle will have the boys running.

Seems like that might be a little bit of

in question with the way Tyrese Hallebert walked in that press conference, walked out of that press conference.

Don't lie, he might be tired.

He might be tired.

Like Team USA soccer?

No, Team USA soccer isn't tired.

They're ass.

Oh.

Okay, that's a little bit different.

Tyrese is not Tyras.

He'll be out.

Okay, he's...

He's got two days, man.

That's just the, you know, that's a hard-fought game.

That shows, like you say, Caruso, all the different guys all up on them, fighting through it all game.

Like, you walk out of that store after that, after a game like that.

Yeah, the Dorture Chamber.

Okay, Caruso chamber.

I get it.

You know, all these things.

Lou Dort is a unit.

Have y'all seen him in real life, like in person?

Like to see him, you go to the game, watch when you see him in person.

Shinjo is a big dude, man.

I saw him in Montreal when they played the Pistons.

I was like, I was standing courses out of me and Richard Hamilton.

I say, bro, look at this dude.

He's so fast, too, Q.

He's able to get it.

He's that big.

He moving.

He moving.

I want to say fast because I don't know how fast he is.

Quick.

His ability to get body in front and then work through screen it's like he is a problem Lou Thornt is a problem that is that is something needs to get Lou sorted between before game three I'm sure coach Carlisle will have it figured out last question here for you Q Rich comes from D-Bud yeah we had a lot going on this weekend in sports Q is something that caught my attention one-on-one with two former NBA players Lance Stevenson Michael Beasley not only gameplay but Beasley was cutting some uh interesting promos what do you mean interesting just very very interesting but I want to know over your 13-year career, any great, I guess, post-practice one-on-one stories, number one?

And then, secondly, any dream matchups of two active players right now that you would like to see go at a one-on-one?

No real crazy stories from one-on-ones when we play.

I mean, it would happen, but nothing really crazy to tell.

But

I guess

a dream matchup

in the league that I would like to see of guys would be

SGA.

I would like to see Kyrie.

SGA.

Let me see SGA and Kyrie go at it.

Let me see that matchup because like, listen, people don't understand how magical Kyrie is.

This man here,

listen, I don't know that there's anybody on the planet that could guard him one-on-one.

If they play the king of the hill,

I don't know if anybody could stop him.

I didn't create this, so I don't want to act like I did, but somebody has been on the record of stating that if Kyrie was to be dropped back in, like way back, they would burn him for being a witch

for what he didn't do.

Like, this guy's got to be a wizard of some sort with what he's able to accomplish.

They were saying the same thing about Beasley, though.

People were saying, like, Beasley, one-on-one, problematic.

Just like Koozie.

Yeah, you can't stop Bees.

I played my one year in Miami with Bees.

That was Bees' second year, and he was the same then.

Playing every day after practice, whoever want to play.

And like, he literally, like, I truly think if

he got drafted to the wrong team.

He couldn't, he, he wasn't for that structure.

He couldn't, you know what I'm saying?

That kind of, that, that stunted his growth because he needed to go somewhere where he could just be him and just not have like, you know, some of the teams don't have the same structure.

The heat is straight up and down like six o'clock.

You're not going to do certain stuff here.

And it's, if you do, you're going to lose, you know, things are going to happen.

You're going to get fined.

You're going to, you know what I'm saying?

You're going to be in a bad, bad spot.

But there are teams in the league where the standards aren't that high.

And he could have went in there and he would have been averaging averaging 25 and getting busy and would have been the toast of the town.

I'm telling you, you asked some of the, you asked some people to play with him.

He'd have gone to a different situation where they just gave him the ball and said, go crazy, he'd have been averaging about 25, 26 points.

We'll never know.

Now, hopefully, it's just more one-on-ones where he's cutting interesting promos to say the least.

Straight up and down, like six o'clock is a great bar.

I appreciate the hell out of you, ladies and gentlemen.

13-year NBA vet Quentin Richardson.

From the NBA, let's go to the NFL.

Ladies and gentlemen, joining us us now is one of the most legendary humans in the history of football.

He's a national champion.

He's now a man who's in charge with leading the Los Angeles Chargers.

Ladies and gentlemen, everything that's right with ball, Coach Jim Horbal.

Coach.

How you doing?

Good to see you.

Good to see you, Coach.

High five.

High five.

High five.

Yep.

Bam.

Got it over.

Got it over here.

Oh, yeah.

Boom.

Happy to see that still standing.

Obviously, that was a gift from us, built by Tim McAfee, that we delivered to Coach Harbaugh when we took a visit to their beautiful facility.

Let's talk about that.

How is the facility?

OTAs, how's it to have all the boys back in there?

What's it feel like this year's team versus last year's team?

What's the mindset of this time of year for you, Coach?

Yeah, it's all training.

It's all training right now.

You know, super, super excited

for

what's been done to this point.

I mean, I got to tell you, I mean, just listening to that interview with Q there, I mean, I've got no insight for you.

I've got

we're in training mode.

We're in trying to get better today, be better today than we were yesterday, be better tomorrow than we were today.

That was a great interview.

You guys are up there demonstrating.

You got some real insight going there.

Thank you.

We try to be an additive to society.

Every once in a while, we are certainly a drawback.

Whenever you decide to stop being the consummate football guy, you on TV every day would be a gift from the gods.

But since we do have a conversation with you here, is every year starting back at the bottom of the hill?

Like, is that how you do it?

Is that so?

Like first team meeting, it's like reestablishing culture, reestablishing expectations.

Does that all happen again during these offseason times?

Oh, yeah.

And that's that's driven by the it's driven by the players.

I mean, if I looked at our

top, top guys who train, I mean, the

elite, you know, eight guys on our team,

that would be Justin Herbert, Derwin James, Khalil Mack,

Thule,

Zion Johnson,

B-Ladd.

It would be Joe Alt,

Rashawn Slater.

I mean,

that's no disrespect to the other guys that are at a training at a great and high level, but I mean, those guys are elite.

And they train.

Here's how Derwin does it, how Khalil does it, how Justin Herbert, they do it.

They train in the offseason like they've accomplished nothing.

Therefore, when they get to the season, they can be that guy.

And

that's how it's led.

And then the rest of us, we just, I mean,

we're feeling guilty if these great players can train the way they do and give it

the kind of effort they give it in the offseason when nobody's looking,

you feel guilty if you don't do the exact same

thing or attempt to do it at that level.

When your best players have your best work, I think that's when you have your best teams.

It feels like you guys have that over there.

Let's talk about the young guys that have come into your building, the rookies.

What are you looking for whenever they get into the building?

Is the judgment period or evaluation period over?

Now you're trying to build them up, or how do you kind of view the rookies in their first offseason?

Well, looking for humble and hungry, you You know, guys that want to make us better.

And

it's been a really good offseason for that, including the draft.

But then you get to see them.

You get to work with them.

You get to be in the meetings with them.

You get to see them train.

And

Lad doesn't like this.

Joe doesn't like this.

All I'm saying, I mean, nobody's, it's going to be tough for anybody to be better than Joe Old

or Lad McConkey.

But as a group, as a total, you know, all like

30 rookies, I mean, these guys have really been about their business.

And I've got to say, you know, just really pleased with the way they're handling their business and the way they're attacking each and every day.

If you're coming into a Coach Herb and a Coach Jim Harbaugh building, I think everybody kind of understands what is expected every single day.

You mentioned Joe Alt there and Lad McConkey saying these guys aren't going to like this, but they are unbelievable.

You know what else Joe Ald is?

We saw day one of him getting to your facility.

Huge.

Tone has a question for you, Coach.

Yeah, coach.

Joe is huge.

You bring in Makai Beckton.

He's huge.

You bring in Najee Harris.

He's big.

O'Marion Hampton's big.

You have big wide receivers.

You bring in Bud Dupree and Khalil Mack.

Those guys are huge, setting the edge.

You talk Derwin's a big safety.

Is that all on purpose?

Like when you guys are bringing people in and you look at your team, is it on purpose to potentially have the biggest team in the NFL?

We started visioning what the right side of the line would look like if we had Joe Alt there and added Makai Beckton.

And I mean, it looks great.

I'm going to give a little secret away here.

I think we're going to be a right-handed team.

Makai Bechton, with quite a rebirth of his career moving into guard, how has that been alongside Joe Alt?

And whenever you say what you're imagining with the team, whenever you guys are talking about this,

you and Hortiz are talking about what the team could be.

Then when you see him on the field, is it like, oh yeah, this is exactly what we were dreaming about whenever it comes to the Los Angeles Chargers in 2026, 2025?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

That, you know, that vision

is looking good.

I mean,

it looks good right now

and just trying to add to it every day.

I think, I mean, Greg Roman,

you know, there's

a lot of people that want to talk finesse.

They want to talk.

They want to talk,

you know, I'll trick them,

that kind of thing.

Been around Greg Roman a long time, been around Ben Herbert a long time, you know, that strong, strong winds.

And Greg talks about it like, yeah, we want to be, we want to have tendencies.

You know, we want to be predictable.

And then we use

those tendencies and that predictability to our advantage.

But, you know, this, just the...

You know, the things about football that I know that you appreciate, you know, that's what we're striving for here.

And And we're going to have to.

I mean, we've got to be better.

I think we will be better, but we're going to have to be better because I mean, the NFL is dog-eat-dog and

no more competitive than it is in our division in the AFC West.

I love hearing these.

You know, a lot of people say you got to finesse them.

And in the back of your mind, we ain't.

What do we?

This is what football is.

This is what football is.

I'll tell you a great story.

My dad played at Bowling Green and

played for Doy Perry, legendary coach.

And he said it this way one time.

My dad said

they were,

he was also coaching for Doyt at Bowling Green, and they were having a discussion.

And they had a coach that came in.

He said,

you know, this is how you do football now.

We're talking

late 1960s, early 1970s.

He'd go,

you know, it's more of a finesse game now.

And Doy Perry said,

I'll show you how to finesse somebody and that's to knock another man on his rear end that's like that's the only finesse that i understand when it comes to football so said it a little more colorful my dad get my dad on the show he'll tell that story a little bit better but uh you know i think you get the point there i mean that's that that's strong strong wins in football yes it does always has always will and i do think it does get forgotten i and i did not know in the 1960s and 60s they were pushing a narrative of not being a physical football team now we know it's just kind of all the time

It just feels like it's all the time it's going to be like that.

Let's go back.

You talk about the AFC West, and then you mentioned Coach Roman.

Let's go to Connor.

Has a question for you, Coach.

Yeah, Coach, going back to your San Francisco days, you and Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks had a pretty good rivalry, and now, you know, he's kind of following you around a little bit, it feels like, joining the Raiders.

How does that feel?

Kind of being that familiar with...

the guy, kind of knowing how the Raiders are going to be set up because of your familiarity with Pete Carroll.

And have you texted him like, hey, we don't have to be in the same division.

You can coach for a different team.

Well, we are, and we're playing them game two.

And then we just, what do we know about them?

We know they're going to be good.

And,

you know, Chiefs week one, Raiders week two, Broncos week three.

So, you know, we're going to find out where we stand in that competitive division, you know, right off, right off the bat.

So,

you know, it's coming.

We know it's coming.

So, so get ready for it.

I mean, let's prepare.

Let's make today.

Let's make it a great day and see if we can be better today than we were yesterday and be better tomorrow than we are today.

So many Hall of Famers over there.

It's insane.

Cannot wait to watch you guys do battle.

Shout out to the NFL schedule makers.

First three weeks.

You got them all.

You know, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet over there

for the AFC West.

It's good for us.

Obviously, a lot of very meaningful games early for all parties over there.

D-Butt has a question for you.

Yeah, coach, I just want to ask you about some early impressions of some of the new guys.

Tone already mentioned Nas Harris, but Amarion Hampton, you got up there at the top of the draft.

And then Trey Lance, been a backup quarterback.

We had Big Mike McCarthy, and we asked him, he was very impressed with him in Dallas last year.

What's your thoughts on those guys early on?

Yeah,

well, Amarion Hampton, I mean, we talk about what we're looking for out of the young guys.

I mean, people are going to help us.

And are humble and hungry.

Amarion's that.

You know what I like about him the best is

he's just

he's really put together.

He is trained and uh you know he just looked NF already love how he hits a hole I know we're just in in in shorts and no pads yet but you know I know that that personality because I've seen it on tape you know from him

so many other guys Trey Harris I mean we added a a lot of firepower to the offense

been really impressed with Aronde Gatson Kyle Kennard who was the SEC defensive player of the year

Jamari Caldwell.

I mean, I think he's, I mean, he's training.

He's making Ben Herbert his best friend.

That was like day one.

Hey, Jamari, your best friend should be Ben Herbert.

You know, he's going about it that way.

So

you mentioned

Trey Lance.

I mean, and Michael McCarthy, you know, he got that message.

Michael McCarthy actually got that message to us

to me.

And appreciate him for that.

Really excited about Trey.

And yeah, yeah,

we're just training and roller right now, Pat.

Before we let you go, we can't thank you enough for taking time here in the middle of the offseason.

As somebody that I know or I assume you care about immensely,

Mr.

Ursay passed away last week.

Any thoughts when you got that message?

What was your first feelings?

And

what was it like with your time here at the Colts?

Obviously, you're beloved here still.

Just it when Jimmy passed away, it just took my breath away.

It really did.

And then, you know, you just go back and then all the thoughts and memories just start

kind of flowing through your mind.

I mean, it's just a great, great, great, great guy.

I mean,

guys, guy.

I mean, he would get in the weight room.

I mean, he would get under the bar.

I mean,

he would deadlift.

He would bench.

You know, he was.

And then there's just a great vibe about him.

You know, he can play the guitar.

He's a people person.

You know,

one of the real greats.

But the thing you loved about him as a player, and I played, and

he was the owner.

I mean, he would get right there in the weight room with you and the chalk would be flying

and the iron clanking.

And you're like, this is my kind of guy right here.

You know, he's one of us.

I mean, nothing but love for Jim Ursa and the entire Ursae family.

Hell yeah.

And I know they send the same thing back to you, Coach.

You're the best.

Enjoy it all.

Tell everybody we said hello over there.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Jim Harbaugh.

He's in a ring of honor here.

Oh, yeah.

Jim Harbaugh's in a ring of honor here in Indianapolis.

So obviously he's very much appreciated.

You know who's not much appreciated?

Who?

Chef Chang.

Not at all.

I didn't know this guy existed before this morning.

What about Indianapolis sandwiches?

There's some good sandwiches around here.

That's in Boston?

You kidding me?

I heard the list was rigged.

Yeah, there's some people saying it was a little biased voting, maybe, by Chef Chang.

We have not done our research, so we'll not get into that yet.

No, okay.

They're saying maybe, though.

Nope, not getting into it.

Indianapolis sandwiches.

Oh, dude.

Come on.

You ever had a pork tenderloin?

Yeah, subway?

Watch it.

There's a bunch of subways around here.

Jersey Mike's also here.

Yes, there's a lot of chains here, but have you ever had a pork tenderloin from Dinair at Wednesday?

Everywhere.

Chicken parm sandwich from Buga de Bevo.

That is very good.

And you can get that here.

Change your life.

What's that deli?

The big one?

Steak and shake.

I'm forgetting.

Oh, thanks, Foxy.

Shapiros, Shapiros.

Boom, you gotta have Shapiro's, you get a great deli meat sandwich.

Oh, that's an indie pig.

That's an indie pig?

Yeah.

Yes.

It's not Ben's, Tony, what you're thinking of.

I don't know.

We'll be back on the other side.

We will still hate Chef Chang then, but we got a lot of stuff coming for you, I think.

Be a friend, tell a friend, something nice about change your life.

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spores are the greatest we're so incredibly lucky that we get a chance to chit-chat about them every single day it's not just me obviously the toxic tables here at boston corner and at tash mid i see that eagle howling on your chest brother man yeah yeah i got the eagle i also you know it's a it's a navy uh little tarp here i figured you know i i thought we'd talk a little you know marine corps maybe navy maybe just kind of go over the branches, just kind of dive into that type of stuff today, too.

Because I saw on your desk, there's a little bit of a camera.

I'm talking about a campaign cap here.

Yeah, that's what, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, this is from the Charlie Company down there, Paris Island.

Obviously, incredibly honored to have received this, but also get a chance to hang out with them for about 36 hours

Thursday night all the way through Saturday afternoon or Saturday mid-morning.

Felt like afternoon.

They wake up early over there.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

They do the military time, you know.

And I'll tell you what, I hadn't seen 0300 in a long time.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, I had seen, wow, it's 3 a.m.

already on the other side.

I hadn't seen 0300.

We're starting the entire day, but I had an opportunity to hang out with...

Maybe the baddest motherfuckers on earth, the Marine drill instructors, especially down there at Paris Island.

Once again, not take a shot at anybody out of San Diego.

But

if I was to echo the sentiment from a a lot of people that were down there, I think we do potentially take a little bit of a shot over there because Hollywood is close to that particular world.

It was an honor to learn everything I possibly could about the life of a drill instructor, the job of a drill instructor, and the culture of the Marines.

There's the yellow footprints that basically every single Marine recruit starts.

on and then you go through the silver hatch which is exactly where I was staying in front of that door and then you go through there I did not I went around sure they were they did have me go through what what a recruit's life is like from the yellow foot from the car from the bus is what they arrive on I was in a minivan very comfortable minivan had air conditioning on nice I don't think everybody else has that sure and they let me know that that that was certainly the case you go through the yellow footprints then through the silver hatch then you go into the silver chairs on the inside and then that is where you're basically 18 19 years old you signed up to join the Marines and here we go boot camp has begun there's a phone bank right over there if behind the drill instructor's back on the far side where you get your phone call that you have arrived at boot camp and there is a script for you to read and you basically say this is recruit and then it says name here I have safely arrived at Paris Island and while you're saying all those things there are three drill instructors saying hurry up hurry up shut up and then you hang up and hit your head back in there yeah and then it is the uh the building of a marine you know everywhere you look around parris island it says we make Marines, we make Marines, we make Marines.

And they take a lot of pride in that.

And there has not been a lot of change over the decades and generations of those who have had to come through Paris Island or got to come through Paris Island to become a Marine and go on and serve our country.

First to fight are who the Marines are.

So those who are coming through here are being taught and learning how to become a warrior.

I mean, and that I got a chance to watch, there's 11 different boot camps happening, 11 different companies going through it.

I got a chance to watch from the first day of pickup for a group, a 60, I believe, in the company.

And then I got a chance to see like day 11.

Then I got a chance to watch them do their crucible, which is like their final exam.

It's the final 54 hours.

And then I got to see an EGA ceremony, which is an Eagle Globe anchor ceremony, where the recruit gets their pin for the first time and they are considered Marines.

It's also the first time that the drill instructors in them have a relationship of peers in humans as opposed to DI in

recruit that needs to figure out that this ain't a game.

And

it was enlightening, it was eye-opening, it was an honor, and it was something that made me realize quickly that I had a little bit of worry, you know, about the way the world was.

I thought maybe we would be too soft.

Like if something was to really pop off, do we still have it?

Because I feel like other countries are still going through some stuff.

And I feel like if they had to, they'd have the toughness, the mental toughness, the physical toughness to have to do what you have to do whenever push comes to shove.

We're watching it it happen in a couple of different places now where we couldn't have expected things to happen.

And all of a sudden we got like invasion happening and war happening and boots on ground happening.

And I wondered about the United States of America.

Have we gotten too soft?

Do we even have enough to supply?

We're going to be just fine.

That's good news.

I want to let you know that.

I love that.

Yeah, we're going to be just,

the reason why I know that is because we have Marines.

and they do not.

And if you get through a Marine boot camp, 13 weeks, if you get through a Marine boot camp, you're going to have to be mentally tough.

I mean, you are going to have to be physically tough.

You're going to have to be mentally tough.

And you're going to have to be ready to go.

And because that is basically what they're creating down there.

A lot of people that end up at the Marines, a lot of the people that we saw, now, granted, there's legacy.

You know, dad was a Marine.

Family was Marine.

There's people that want to serve their country and be something great.

Then there's a lot of people that don't have a lot of other opportunities.

Homeless people, homeless recruits.

I got a chance to meet.

Guys who just basically said, I had nothing else going on in my life and wanted to find something.

So I signed up for the Marines.

And then they get here and now their lives lives have changed forever and the emotions that happened from day one of pickup all the way through the ega ceremony when you become a marine for some of them it was the first time they've ever accomplished or finished something in their entire life in their entire being they've done something so it was super emotional it was uh it was awesome to be down there shout out to first sergeant pete ramos break chains dog passion got you shout out to bobby yarbro sir appreciate you first sergeant patrick gartland steve price i appreciate the hell out of you And Emmett Berg was down there doing his thing with a camera.

Oh,

we lost him a couple times.

What do you mean?

He was,

he's got courage.

Okay.

He was.

He was

a filmmaker.

There's a couple different times where we're like,

we lost him.

And then we'd be walking around.

There's one guy with a white shirt on.

And then he'd be in the middle of, get down!

And he's like in there.

It's like, we got to get him back.

It was, they were so nice, so cool, and so thankful.

there's going to be recruits though in my i think um that were going through their crucible which is the end of an 11 week boot camp it's like a 54 hour straight uh you know series of events that leads to your graduation it's the hardest by far it's like everything you've done but limited sleep like two hours of sleep maybe over this 54 hours drill instructors sleep like three hours a night for 11 weeks that's the drill instructors they think the recruits need to get a lot harder.

It's the easiest it's going to be.

Through that crucible period, they're sleeping like four hours, maybe, and they're dead, tired, exhausted at the end of boot camp.

And they're doing a lot of shit, you know, like walking through different trails and woods and hiking and water and swampy land and dragging their face through stuff.

And then I was just standing there, you know, and I'm in a tank top, got a hat on.

They got these sand fleas that are just,

I mean, AR aggressive.

They are the Marines of the Hucks.

They are resilient, they are tough, and they will get you.

But there was a couple kids that I made eye contact with, and he could see them, like, they could barely keep their eyes open, and they're like,

and then they would just walk, and they're going to tell a story someday.

I think fucking Pat McAfee.

I might have been hallucinated.

There was a guy in a tank top sitting there.

I mean, it was

awesome, man.

And thank you to all those who serve, who have served, and those who will sign up in the future.

You know, obviously, all branches of military are incredibly appreciated by us here

at our entire program.

D-Butch's dad was obviously a member of the Army, I do believe.

But for what the Marines did to me, Semper 5, brother, ooh rah, okay?

And I ain't never going to be no Waddy.

And everybody understands what I mean, that what I said there, that are drill instructors.

Yeah, me neither.

You look like.

You never be a D.I., brother.

I'm just saying, I'm not going to be DI.

I don't want to give it all the way all the shit.

I don't know how much I'm supposed to say, how much I'm not supposed to say.

Waddy is my favorite term, though.

Me too.

Weak-ass drill instructor.

oh there you go

okay so you asked for like uh energy drink oh you're looking for a little waddy over there you yawn did i just see a waddie like so much of uh damn you can't yawn can't no checking each other no way can you yawn no way what are we talking about it's involuntary also watch where you put your hands watch where you put your hands dude watch where you put your hands break chains break chains break chains

Break chains.

Okay.

Yeah, I was very pumped to be there.

It was cool.

I'll tell you what, I am not built for it though.

Those drill instructors, just

four, four, 0,400 lights are on.

Lights flip on, but there's already been a lot that's been happening.

We're in there, and it is.

Well, good morning.

It is about to go from 4 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

It is just...

13 weeks.

How do those voices.

They don't.

They don't.

How do they last?

I heard a bat out of one pretty.

So while I was getting in the middle of learning what a life of a recruit is, okay, drill instructor, I didn't know his name.

I did not get a chance to meet him.

He is in the middle of either boot camps or going back to tour.

So drill instructors have to serve in the Marines first.

Then they either sign up to be a drill instructor, they have to go back to DI school, which is like a boot camp to become a drill instructor, or they go and serve.

And then they're asked if they would like to go back and be a drill instructor and help out or whatever.

And a lot of them do.

You got to be cut out for for it though.

Obviously not everybody's a drill instructor.

It is a two and a half, three hours of sleep.

You're creating the culture.

You are making Marines in this entire thing.

The guy that was the lead senior drill instructor for when I was coming through the footprints, I mean,

just

when I say ears,

you say open, sir.

Do you understand?

I sir.

Yeah, I sir.

I sir.

Ears.

And I was like, is that ears?

You know,

you didn't, that sounded different, you know?

So I said, I, I, sir.

And he goes, when I say ears,

you say, open, sir.

Do you understand?

I, sir, is.

And I'm like,

I still think you're saying those words differently,

you know?

Still think you're saying it differently.

So I didn't say that, obviously.

I was just sitting there letting my brain calculate.

Is he saying ears right there?

Or is he saying, because when he said, when I say eyes, you say, snap, sir, and you snap your head at me.

Eyes, snap, sir, faster.

Eyes, snap, sir.

Yes, okay.

Ears.

Huh.

What did you say there?

So my bro, I was rattled, bro.

I was rattled.

Couldn't even, I'm standing there.

I, I, I,

I,

open,

shit.

This guy was fed up with me.

He was done with it.

Couldn't even.

Simon says player.

Couldn't even so good.

Yeah.

I bet you the Marines, very good at Simon Says.

Yeah.

Probably best.

Tier one.

Elite.

Tier one.

I would say elite.

Elite Simon Says players.

Yeah, it was.

Did they tell you what the boot camp was like for these drill instructors?

Like when they get back from tour?

Yeah, I was there.

I actually went through it.

So they got to go through all the same.

So it's the same exact stuff.

Basically, because they got to be reminded of all the exercises.

So there's like a confidence course, which has all these different exercises.

There's like a rope thing, and then there's a hand-to-hand combat.

They're yelling.

Go through all that.

Yeah, yeah.

Go through all that stuff.

Then they got a DI score where they sit down and have to learn all this.

Like it is, you're right back into almost a boot camp.

Now, granted, there's more of a peer feeling

as opposed to how the recruits are viewed.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, the recruits, you have not earned the respect to be called a Marine, and it will certainly feel like that.

But a lot of the DIs, well, not a lot, I guess.

Some of the DIs end up having to serve with the people that were in their boot camps.

So like that is how they view it.

Like, hey, you're going to be at war with definitely other Marines, maybe even me.

So for these next 11 weeks, I am going to make you as hardened and as smart and as lack of reactionary or scared that you could possibly be.

But I couldn't imagine that at 18 years old.

I could not imagine walking in there at 18.

They call it the yellow footprints, you know, yellow snow.

Yeah.

Did you have a moment there?

Like, obviously, you took a different path.

Like, what if this was the path I took?

So, there was a couple of times where I was like, kind of mixed.

Like, because I'm talking to the people, I'm like, man, I have so much respect for all these people I'm talking to.

And the conversation is exactly how, like, I like to enjoy conversation.

Things we're talking about, the way we go by talking about the shit that's being talked.

There's a lot of shit being talked, a lot of sports similarities.

I'm like, ooh, this would be a cool team to be a part of.

You know?

And And you walk outside and I watch these guys going through Fallujah in a crucible when they are dragging their faces through a

field of mud because if they lift their face at all, they're seen.

All right.

So you can't be seen, have to be under there.

300 yards is dragging their faces just under barbed wire through stuff.

And I'm like, 18-year-old Pat would have, well, I would have never, I would have, and then you can't, though.

Yeah, it's too late.

You can't.

Oh, you want to quit?

Oh, you're broken.

We got a broken recruit.

Okay, so what's that mean?

Well, somebody else is going to have to drag me now through this.

So I just made somebody else's life miserable.

I could see how, like, if I had a kid that was a little bit, you know,

got to be a dog, but a little bit out, like the Marines will make you an adult.

They will make you a adult.

Like, I think back in the day, I don't think it happens much anymore where they say, you either go to like juvenile jail or you go to like boot camp or something like that.

I could see how that would be an answer.

Like I could see how that would be a, hey, we're going to teach you how to be disciplined.

We're going to teach you about accountability.

We're going to teach you about striving for perfection.

Because that is basically what a DI is trying to do.

They're trying to make every recruit be perfect at everything that they do.

And also, we need you not asking any questions.

Like, we tell you to do it.

You need to, because they're first to fight.

So, hey, there is a wall right there.

We need you to actually run through that wall.

That's what they're trying to create with the Marines.

And it's like, they do it.

They absolutely do it.

And then you finish with a 15K

hike that starts at 2 a.m.

at the end of that crucible.

They're on like two hours of sleep.

And you're just watching them walk through the streets to finish it.

And it's like just dragging.

I mean, everything.

Massive rainstorm.

So they're just drenched for three to four hours, chafing everywhere.

Glad you're on offside.

Bingo.

That's all I kept saying the entire time.

I'm so happy this exists.

That's all I kept saying.

Hey, what's your big takeaway?

I'm just thankful that this exists because I didn't think it was possible anymore.

And they've talked about how people have tried to change them over the years and they've certainly had to be getting different.

They've had to do things a little bit different.

But like they fight against like, no, we need this.

This needs to stay.

And they've won.

So shout out to Marines.

Uh raw, Ur, raw.

You get it.

And shout out to the Charlie Company, passion, dude.

Sorry about it, Alpha.

Graduated this weekend.

And shout out to First Sergeant Pete Ramos, First Sergeant Pat Gartland, Bobby Yarbrough, sir, Steve Price and Emmett Berg.

And everybody else that I met there.

Everybody was so cool.

A lot of fans of the show.

Nice.

A lot of fans of the show.

That's dope.

A lot of fans of Game Day, too.

A lot of Southern Boys.

Yeah.

good to know emmets get lost too you know emmett emmett berg a little bit different than mitt we did talk about mitt there yeah i mean i actually thought about mitt a couple times through that entire thing camp yeah

i think this is so

bobby yarbro i'd like um chief warrant officer bobby yarbro uh formerly enlisted now officer

He said, hey, if you need somebody down here, we got a couple different options.

Three day, one week, two week.

We can really straighten some things out.

You threatened E-bone this morning, actually.

Yes, I did.

I feel like we should all do it.

I'll tell you what, ah, sir.

Yeah, I think you should, too.

I think you should.

I think you should.

Ladies and gentlemen, live from an attic in Ohio, Ton, just as a guy that knows you at this stage of your life,

you don't want no pieces of Paris Island, brother.

They got a, I'm not going to give away too much.

They got some great shit on that island.

Briggs and Bruce.

That's a bar.

Got a sand volleyball pit outside.

Oh, hell, that's cool.

I'm going to ask him, is there a piano in there?

you know the whole thing everybody was too kind to me too kind i appreciate everybody all right live from an attic in ohio ladies and gentlemen a man who would have been a

i think that's probably his other old i think that's probably what it would have been if he wasn't a college football national champion super bowl champion rider cup winner the all-time leading tackler for the green bay packers ladies and gentlemen aj hawk

hawk Saw a lot of your faces down there, buddy.

A lot of your faces down there at Paris Island.

Those dudes are way tougher than anyone i i can't yeah i'm very thankful that humans like that do exist my father-in-law was a marine so yeah i know a little bit about it and yeah huge respect i couldn't do any of it legitimately very thankful they exist that was my takeaway uh that's still my takeaway and i'm very appreciative of how nice they were to me they're probably for

probably forced to be as nice as they were.

And I appreciate them allowing us to watch them do their thing, answer all my questions.

And going forward, obviously I've had respect for the military getting a chance to experience it hands-on and see what happens it's like much much respect you know like Jim Harbaugh say much respect now let's talk a little football here before we get to our first guest of the hour Aaron Rodgers officially with the Pittsburgh Steelers how long did you know when you talked to him at the Kentucky Derby about his football future was it the Pittsburgh Steelers and nobody else how close do you think he was to actual retirement just kind of what is your thoughts on him officially joining the Pittsburgh Steelers AJ

yeah I mean this is what this is kind of what Ian predicted, I guess.

He gets there in time for Minicamp and get the playbook when they send him home for the little summer break that they have.

I mean, I had no insight on this.

I didn't know when he was going to sign, if he was going to sign, but I did say he looked like he was in good shape.

He was eating healthy.

He definitely was working out.

He didn't look like a guy that was on the road to retirement, that's for sure.

Yeah, and him joining the Pittsburgh Steelers has Pittsburgh Steelers fans singing a little different tune.

I think they were doing a big, nah, let's not get our hopes up.

Let's not get our hopes up.

We don't like it.

We don't like it.

then it officially happens and boom all the steelers fans are all in maybe we go win something maybe we do something special here because the style of football that aaron rodgers is okay with playing is handing the ball off not turning it over being a smart offensive football team and it feels like with tomlin and that defense arthur smith and he are going to be able to do some magic now tone you just brought up a good point aaron's already out and about in the community is that accurate yeah he's already at a charity golf outing that cam hayward is hosting him and dk are there so yeah aaron's already best friends with the entire team he's already a leader of the team and i mean it's just the first step to a great season oh didn't cam hayward say you just shit or get off with paul yeah he did that was taken that was taken out of context cam like the rest of us he uh also you know was

you know he didn't want to get hurt So you say things like that until Aaron actually comes.

And then, you know, we are big, or at least I am a big, you know, under, under-promise, over-deliver guy.

So, you know, that's kind of how it was taking the whole season.

Well, shout out to Aaron getting out there.

Shout out to Cam Hayward being an incredible leader, not only for the city, but but for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And Mark Caboli, obviously on the scene.

And that's why Mark Caboli boots on the ground is good for the program.

And shout out to Swickley Heights Golf Course.

Very nice.

SHGC, you get a good two and a half months of golfing in there, but their greens are pristine.

I think Aaron doesn't even know that

he's about to have a tough day on that golf course out.

Yeah, it's a tough golf course.

Normally they'd be at Oakmont, but it's booked this week, so they went with Swickley instead.

That would be the U.S.

Open.

We'll talk more about that as the week rolls on.

Joining us is a man who has all the information about a massive ruling that has taken place, House versus the NCAA, House being a kid's last name, not the House of Representatives.

Basically, this case was going to be the one that was going to bring about a salary cap for D1 sports.

Judge Claudia Wilkin has approved the landmark House v.

NCAA settlement, which will usher in revenue sharing and roster limits.

to college sports.

Roster limits, obviously a big deal because it's doing away with walk-ons.

College sports and revenue sharing, big deal because schools will be paying players for the first time.

To tell us more about that, ladies and gentlemen, the man who is the authority on all college sports, friend of the program, Pete Dammole.

Yay, hey, Peter!

How you doing, Pete?

Never been better, Pat.

How about you guys?

You say that every time we talk to you, and I think it's that type of mindset that makes me love every time we get a chance to catch up with you.

Let's talk about it.

This House vs.

the NCAA court thing was supposed to happen in April.

That was just a setup of a hearing.

Now we have an actual ruling.

What does this mean?

How quick does this get instituted?

And is everything fixed now, Pete Dammel, which is great news.

I wish everything was fixed, Pat, because it'd make my job a little more linear.

I think the best way to look at the house settlement, it's that it's a completely new pathway for college sports to go on.

There are still a lot of questions, and there are certainly still some skepticism on how everything is going to work, but it's a complete reset and reboot of the system.

The headline is officially, formally, schools will be able to directly share revenue with players for the first time ever.

Long, obviously, overdue.

Long anticipated Friday night, 9.10 Eastern.

Judge Wilkins set that into motion.

So it is a completely new era, which is exciting because the old era was a mess.

But there's also going to be a ton of questions pushing forward, and

there will be some hiccups there.

It will not go smoothly.

I think that's the safest thing to say.

Probably the most important takeaway of the last 72 hours, Pat, is that an enforcement entity called the College Forts Commission was formed.

And about three hours after Judge Wilkins signed this document, a high-level MLB executive named Brian Seeley was put in charge of that commission.

NCA Enforcement, I think everybody can agree upon, was

a very feudal and inept organization that was poorly armed and poorly executed all these NCA investigations the last 20 years.

This new College Forts commission is going to come in and attempt to set and then enforce rules, which has obviously been one of your favorite words, Pat, a vexing issue for college sports.

So

how that all comes together and how quickly it can come together are the, you know, the issues we'll be pushing towards until the season starts.

So many follow-ups, we'll get into them all.

The first main one there is the sports commission that you're talking about that has been put together.

If people were to list groups that suck at their jobs, I think the NCAA would be in last in professional sports, and then the MLB would be right above it, wouldn't it?

I think literally every other league would be above, even the NLL, the PLO, you put a rabble in there above the MLB with how they go about handling their business as a whole.

So when I see a guy from the MLB is heading it up, my immediate thoughts are, oh, great.

That's great.

Let's get the guy from the league that doesn't do good to head up this brand new thing.

But everybody says this is the right guy for the job.

I think, is that because he wants wants the job?

And what type of experience does he have that makes us think, okay, he'll be good for the job?

I certainly am happy that somebody's signing up for this role.

I am happy that he has experience in professional sports, but the MLB is nowhere near a place where anybody looks at and says, yeah, that's the motto and how we should do things.

So just kind of why Brian Seeley?

And do you think he's going to be good?

Why Brian Seeley is a good question, Pat.

And I think that his experience as an assistant U.S.

attorney in Washington, D.C., so he has significant litigating experience, and he can combine that, obviously, with years of running MLB's investigations.

And so he

had his hand in two pots that are going to be applicable here.

I believe he is Princeton undergrad, Harvard law, obviously extremely intelligent guy.

He had a very much behind the scenes role at MLB.

So it'll be interesting because what his job is going to be in a lot of ways is he's going to be the sheriff of this whole thing, for lack of a more articulate way to put it.

And he is going to be in the crosshairs.

Everyone right now, we had five commissioners on a conference call this morning is kind of linking hands and singing kumbaya and say, we all need to make this work.

And it's only going to work if rules are enforced.

If you say one thing about the NFL, like you tamper and you're the dolphins, there's punitive measures.

And ultimately, he's going to have to be an unpopular figure in college sports because he's going to have to

help set rules, put them in place and enforce them with punitive measures.

And those are going to be in regards to NIL deals that are outside of revenue share.

And that's where the new tension point in the industry lies.

Everybody can give away their 20.5 million how they want.

I would guess 14 to 16 million of that go to football.

But it's how these outside NIL deals are gauged, how they are handled and ultimately approved or not approved is where the tension point in the industry shifts.

Okay, so on that note,

Tone is going to have a question about some deals that have already been negotiated, but let's talk about the deals that are supposed to happen in the future somehow under Sheriff Sealy's watch here of this sports commission.

I guess it was all supposed to be market value and there's like comps and everything and they approve whether or not it's an overpay or an underpay.

How is that possible in marketing deals?

Because you are worth exactly what somebody's willing to pay you in marketing deals.

Like, are they foreseeing a massive lawsuit coming down the pipe in that type of world?

Or will Brian Seeley be given the

power or the unilateral power to be like, no, this is what this type of deal is worth?

Because it feels like that could potentially,

that's where it could still get ugly, right?

That's probably the only thing holding it all up.

Oh, yes, there will be lawsuits, Pat.

That is for certain here.

I think the key term, if we want to go inside baseball, no pun intended, is that fair market value

quote you just mentioned is not actually the term that's in the documents now.

It's called range of compensation.

And I think for the very reason of the legal ties to, they don't want to be the ones determining fair market value.

So they're going to look at a range of compensation, see where this fits, and whether or not it is approved.

It's going to be a lot easier to talk about these deals once we see them approved or not approved than in the theoretical.

And nobody really knows, Pat, how it's going to go until the deals are funneled through the system and ultimately they are done.

Now, one thing for the athletes that is a notable shift is that these cases, so say your deal is not approved and

you appeal it, it goes to arbitration.

And the whole process of appealing and arbitration ruling is going to be 45 days.

You were around the NCAA long enough to know, Pat, that like sometimes these things stretched years and years and years.

So there is at least a focus on efficiency in a more nimble system,

Gauging what they're going to say yay and nay to and what is a fair market or

what is fair and what is not, that is going to be tricky.

Like there's, there is, there is no doubt about that.

I mean,

you obviously foresee a tension point there, and

it's hard to blame you forecasting that in the future.

Yes, for sure.

I didn't know defensive ends got $40 million a year.

Did you know that?

Did you know that quarterbacks get $230 million fully guaranteed?

No, the market said they don't, right?

Until somebody comes in and says they do.

The market is always

whatever somebody's willing to pay, you are worth.

exactly what somebody's willing to pay you.

So I appreciate the fact that they're trying to put a cap on it.

So, you know, these schools are with all the money.

You know, the Ohio State Buckeyes.

That's right, of course.

You know, the Oregon Ducks.

You know, the Texas Longhorns.

The Penn State Nittany Lions.

The Michigan Wolverines had enough millionaires to begin with.

Then he brought in Larry Ellison as a billionaire to join them in that entire thing, let alone the SEC and what they've been up to.

How are they going to be able to stop the NIL deals that are on top of now the school salaries from being absurd, which then leads to the deals that have already happened?

Tone has a question for you.

Yeah, Pete.

So basically, the schools are now pay to play for the athletes.

Before that, it felt like the NIL collectives were pay-to-play.

So what happens to the NIL collectives?

And then before this, people knew this was coming down.

So they were front-loading contracts for players this year.

Are those contracts still good

going forward?

And what do you see going on with the

NIL collectives?

Yeah,

all good questions, Tone.

So yes, there was a ton of front-loading.

And Pat referenced that date in early April where the industry thought a ruling was going to come.

So

the hurry up to front load has really been going on for a few months.

And my understanding is those deals that have already been brokered are not going to be subject to

scrutiny.

So pushing pushing forward tone,

sorry, I lost train of thought on your question.

The second part was what.

What's going to happen with the NIL collectives?

Yes, sorry about that.

So the collectives are still going to exist.

I think ideally when they started to set up this system, they set it up so that the collectives would no longer be part of the industry, but that's just not the case in a free market like we say.

So ultimately, I see the collectives becoming almost like marketing arms that are going to help players get deals.

And if you have a professional one

that falls within industry standards, that becomes a competitive advantage for you.

So basically, all those teams that Pat just mentioned, the Ducks, the Buckeyes, the Wolverines, the Longhorns, et cetera, they are going to have access to more deals.

And that is essentially going to give them an advantage outside of the 20.5 million and how it all works.

But you guys are doing a really good job distilling where these tension points are going to come.

Thank you.

Because what they don't want is, you know, John, John business in downtown Indianapolis just randomly giving a Hoosier $3 million in a pay-for-play thing, but actually judging what is market range of compensation, whatever you want to call it,

and what is pay-for-play is where this is going to be fascinating, especially if you're a private business, right?

Which you can, you know, in this country, do what you want to do.

So

there are tension points looming, and it's going to be Brian Seely's job to not only navigate Pat, which I think is important, but also explain what works and what doesn't and why.

Because the NCA system was always very distant, vague, non-transparent.

And this system, if it's going to work, has to be transparent.

And then if people do break the rules and they're caught breaking the rules, there has to be punitive punishments in order for people to respect the rules, which was not the case in the old system.

So we happen to be athletes that do sponsorship deals.

So

why would we potentially be able to forecast what's coming down the pipe?

I think because I've done all these things.

I think because I've had to do all these.

And I'm going to let you know that if if i was a player and some company was going to give me 1.5 million dollars and then sealy's crew says 250 000 is what's right that's an immediate that's a 1.25 million dollar hey i'm getting screwed here and that's just the way the world works like that's loud that's a lawsuit that's some sort of i i mean i don't know and it's like we thought that the revenue sharing was going to be the right play because now they have a salary cap and the schools are paying so we know it's actual real contracts.

We know that they're not going to get bamboos or we know they're not going to line to.

But the fact that all the other stuff isn't like banned, you know, and not saying it should be banned because guys should be able to collect their money however they collect.

But the fact that that's still available, it's like, well, you still have the NIL problem.

You still have the pay-for-play problem, but now it just has to be worded in ways that Brian Seeley and the team say, yeah, it's okay.

So it's just more paperwork almost as opposed to just the wild, wild west.

Hopefully it's good for players.

Hopefully it's good for teams, but it feels like there's a chance that we're still in the middle of chaos.

As long as the product on the field matters and is good, that's all that matters.

Now, let's talk about another thing that was reported a part of this entire ruling.

Go ahead, AJ.

Yeah, Pete, I saw what over 28 billion in back pay to former players.

I think going back to 2016, how did they come up with that number?

How did they come up with the 2016 mark to it to take it back to?

Yeah, so it's 2.8 billion, AJ.

And they came up with that number through

a complicated system that involved metrics and income and chopping up different revenue streams that the athletes needed to be a part of.

And I think this is all pre-2021, dating back a certain number of years.

Unfortunately, not dating back far enough for you and Pat to

capitalize on it.

And it does feel like bullshit.

Chef Chang put this together.

Feels like he was a part of it.

Go ahead, Pete.

Sorry.

And then how it gets distributed.

And, you know, the people used

Baker Mayfield, I see the picture obviously up there.

He's obviously

the type of high-profile athlete who should profit, should have profited.

And this is going to be essentially backpack for that.

People talk about Zion Williamson a lot, maybe as a marquee guy who obviously could have commanded a lot of money for his name, image, and likeness

during his season at Duke.

There are economists and people a lot smarter than me working on how to chop this up.

And there have been stories about like NBA locker rooms where there's like a representative and guys go around so guys can essentially like send an email and file for their backpack.

So that is in motion right now.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the math well enough to explain it to your broad audience, Pat, but

we are in the midst and throes of that money being pushed back.

The 2.8 billion AJ is going to come from different conferences, basically.

So this is all a deal, guys, to just sort of keep college sports going and keep college sports on the rails.

And it is an imperfect solution.

I think we all know that.

I don't think a random federal judge in Northern California controlling the fate of a billion-dollar industry is what anyone wanted.

But because the industry had gone so sideways and because the NCAA for so many decades had been able to hadn't been able to adapt and evolve,

this is just sort of the drastic lightning bolt to pivot the conversation, pivot where the money goes.

But anyone who thinks this is a solution and there's going to be a period of kumbaya after this is is naive there is there's going to there are going to be growing pains and that you know they need people to follow along this this industry and the and the coaches in it and the schools in it have for decades basically when rules have been set they have been they have attempted to find ways around the rules and the hope in the industry whether it's naive or not we'll see is that now that there are rules and there is money available for everybody, people are going to fall in line and follow the rules.

We'll see if it happens.

See Lee's got his hands full.

Hell yeah.

People always fully.

Amen.

I don't know how they decide what deal is good, what deal is not good.

Because if you give a,

let's say you give some percentage ratio deal to somebody and then you don't give it to somebody else, now you automatically start, because like, what would they approve?

What would they

each city is different?

Each school is going to be different.

Each city they live in.

Like, oh, does this guy have a million, 10 million TikTok followers?

That drives the value up.

Like, do they evaluate all of this?

this yeah what if you buy a bunch of fake hey lads yeah ladies i'm watching these softball players make a million bucks i mean all college athletes listen you just go buy those fake followers you go into court this is what you got yeah they can't say no to anything they can't i don't think they're gonna have the power to say no to any deal i don't know how you do without getting sued i i genuinely don't know how you do that

I mean, certainly, Pat, I think there's an expectation that things are going to be legally challenged.

And that's ultimately going to

help form how this stuff goes.

Yes,

my lighting's agreeing with me because it's blinking.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Yeah, blink wants if you agree.

Because imagine them turning down a deal.

What if it's for a kid?

Think about the story that they can paint.

Okay.

They see kid comes from nothing.

$1.25 million signing bonus available, also getting paid from the salary cap, 500,000 bucks or whatever from the salary cap for his job because they're going to do percentages of NFL rosters and what they make.

That's That's how they're going to end up making the $14, $16 million, who's worth what.

They'll be able to say this is equitable and everything like that.

But some NIL deal is going to come in.

It's $1.25 million for two posts or something like that.

And then Seeley's going to say no.

And then this kid could potentially have a lawyer say, this kid comes from nothing, was sleeping on the ground.

And now he's got a company that wants to give him $1.25 million.

And they're saying no, he can't have $1.25 million.

Just think about the.

All right, good luck, Seely.

I'm pulling for you.

I'm pulling for you.

I'm pulling for you.

There is a way to make money for your school, though, allegedly.

Go ahead, Con Man.

Yeah, Sam.

Well, everyone was reporting over the weekend that college football, the video game NCAA 2K, whatever, the newest one that's coming out this summer

will actually pay schools based on how much their school is used in the game.

So the most popular teams like last year were Ohio State, Oregon.

They would get more money because more players online and things are using their team.

In theory, does this mean if we all use West Virginia or Ball State that these schools could earn millions of dollars because of that?

Or how does that pay out exactly work?

Connor, that's an excellent question.

My instinct upon seeing that report was that it was a very wise marketing gimmick because hence we're talking about it here

on national TV.

And it's a good way to incentivize

fans to go and support their teams, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't think the money involved involved here is

particularly game-changing or anything.

I think it's sort of gussied up bragging rights, perhaps,

would be the best way to put it.

Gussied up bragging rights.

Hey, listen,

we need Pat White and Steve Slayton back on the game.

We need everybody playing West Virginia.

Oh, yeah.

And we need to go ahead and run it up.

We need to run it up.

Pete, we appreciate you keeping us updated on all of it.

It sounds like we get some more answers and then more questions arise.

That's college sports in a nutshell.

How many lawsuits are going to be coming from the sports that don't get as much money as the revenue share as well to the individual schools themselves?

That's probably something too.

Oh, yeah.

Well, athletic providers have difficult decisions to make, Pat, because if you're an SEC school that really values basketball, like non-Kentucky, and look, the SEC had the greatest single basketball season a conference has ever had.

How do you, you know, how if you're an athletic director, do you chop things up to keep your basketball relevant, vibrant, and competitive in the most difficult league in the country?

But at the same time, you can't cut into king football, which is why the NIL question really comes into refocus.

Because if you do not have the, if you don't have a lot of funds as an SEC school,

because football's getting it, rightfully so, they're the biggest revenue driver.

How do you go find money to have a competitive roster?

We've seen the headline about UNC's roster being around $14 million.

Kentucky's is in the teens or perhaps even a little bit above this year from what's been reported.

So there's, you know, the landscape has gone sideways with all this front loading.

And the thing that I'm probably most skeptical of, Pat, is that all of a sudden everything's going to get right-sized and people are going to make less.

Like we don't see in booming multi-billion dollar industries people making less.

So

definitely that's going to become difficult right-sizing.

I don't want to do a well-actually to you, but CBA happened.

AJ was pre-CBA.

Oh, this is

when the draftees used to just make like more than 10-year vets.

Like Matthew Stafford got like 60 million or something the year I was drafted, number one overall picked.

So they reset that market pretty quickly with the new CBA.

And that just was like, well, your generation kind of just gets screwed by it.

And then he moved forward.

It was still millions and millions and millions of dollars, obviously, but it was vastly different than what it was.

There's a chance that there's a generation now of kids that are going to have to experience that where it's like, if you were two years older,

you would have got $8 million for one year, buddy, to go up to Michigan and play quarterback.

But instead, they're trying to find those rules.

I think think there's a lot of chaos still to kind of figure out.

See Lee's the right guy for the job.

I hate being negative immediately upon seeing that he was from the MLB.

I don't like that.

I don't like that I was just immediately negative about that.

But the fact that you said he was an attorney general, is that what you said?

Yeah, AUSA out of Washington, D.C.

He spent a year at the Senate Judiciary Committee.

He's a big swing.

Your credentials, Pat, are, you know, extremely impressive.

He's clearly a bright guy who has experience in the highest levels of courts and in the highest levels of professional sports.

Whether that means he can solve this vexing college sports issue, we shall see.

It will be a challenge.

All right.

Well, Sheriff Seeley's going to do a great job, just like the authority, Pete Dammo, always does.

We appreciate you, brother.

Peter.

AJ,

they're not going to be able to turn down anything.

You can't do anything.

How can you shut down?

Every deal is its own specific thing.

Do you have 5,000 people working on this?

Yeah, I don't.

And also, yes, they would have to have a full committee.

They would all have to be able to see the exact same things.

And who's deciding what the range is for how much money you're allowed to make?

You know, like I just brought up Miles Garrett and Deshaun Watson just as two examples, so people can just have a reference for what a market is.

There's people that break the market, like that is how the market continues to evolve.

And you're like, well, they're not worth that.

Well, they are.

You know why?

Because somebody was willing to pay that.

It's like, so how is this group committee going to be able to be like, nah, you ain't worth that?

That ain't what you're worth.

Like, if these people want to pay somebody a lot of money to make them popular, they could do that.

You know, I don't think they have, but I think they could choose to do that.

And I think they've tried a couple of times in the past, but it's like, who says how much money they're willing to spend to make their business better is within a reasonable price or not?

Like, who, who gets, that's never going to.

The lawyers win.

Definitely.

Yeah, it will be lawyers.

But me as a person who has represented myself and negotiated my own deals and has had to put the number on what I think the deal should be worth.

And have had people like call me and be like, hey, if they counter you, they are debating your number.

You are in there defending your number.

Like that is literally the last marching orders before I went into a nine-figure negotiation was, hey, defend your number when you go in there.

So it's like every agent or every one of these players is going to defend their number.

And it's like, if they get paid that, who says they're not worth that?

I don't know how you stop that.

I think that's just what it is going forward, legitimately.

I think that's probably what life is going forward.

I appreciate Sheriff Seeley signing up for the gig, but I don't know how many legally he's going to be able to say no to.

Like, I just don't know how you're going to be able to say no.

Legit.

For schools, too,

we remember

the graphic of, you know, the percentage of teams that a school had, I believe it was LSU, that were in the green making money and that were in the red losing money.

So like if you're an athletic director, how can you decide to take money away from, let's say, the football team that's making 100x

over the softball team or soccer team or something like that, or vice versa, where it's like, hey, soccer, you haven't made, you don't make the school any money, so we're going to take a million of your dollars and give it to the football team.

Like, are they able to do things like that?

You also have to remember they have to hit a certain amount to get to the 20 million max.

Yeah.

Remember, because some schools aren't going to be able to hit the 20 million dollar revenue share because they're not going to hit the amount of money in revenue to get to that point.

I mean, there's just so many conversations about this because UNC,

I believe, a big part of the negotiation between Bill Belichick, Lombardi, and them,

I think Belichick was obviously representing himself, but I'm just saying Lombardi was the general manager, was there.

Would we be able to hit the revenue?

Would we be able to hit the max revenue?

And it's like, yes, we'll be able to hit the max revenue.

Now, UNC basketball plays.

How much will they give up?

And then you think about some of these schools that have a lot of Olympic sports.

Like I remember talking to people up in Michigan, and they're like, we have a lot of Olympic sports here.

So how much money are they going to give?

We're very proud of the amount of Olympians that come out of Michigan.

It's like sharing that money i think if you listen to a lot of athletic directors or coaches or people that have to make decisions on what percentage is going where they all want a mandate from sealy we would like we would like you to make a manifire yeah so like can you give a percentage has to go to the school

you get pressured to like get rid of sports i mean because the more

the more sports you have the you're at a bigger disadvantage from other schools that may not have as many sports you have to share that with that's where it's going to get the messiest you mentioned it without a doubt because all of these schools like the sec i mean we're talking about them in baseball like they are the the best baseball, college baseball conference by far.

But a lot of these, yeah, like, I mean, also, gymnastics, yeah, gymnastics.

I'm gonna find out real quick.

Probably a couple of these other sports, but then you mentioned like the Olympic stuff.

Like, they're gonna, a lot of these schools are gonna basically have to say, like, hey, sorry, we don't give a shit about anything but football, you know, and like that's just a reality, and that's absolutely going to happen.

But I think you're right.

I think where the other sports come in, and like scholarships getting pulled, or people not getting money, like, that's where this is going to get really messy.

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Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, Isumi, you know what?

I'm excited to get his take on this, actually.

He is currently the only sportscaster who calls NBA, NFL, MLB,

and the National Hockey League.

Tonight, he'll be on the call for game three down in Florida in a series that's tied one to one.

First game goes to overtime.

Second game goes to double overtime.

We're talking about the two best teams in the league.

We're talking about one of the best voices in the history of sports.

Ladies and gentlemen, a man who's been broadcasting since 1990.

Wow.

I was three years old.

Four.

Holy hell, what a legend.

Ladies and gentlemen, Kenny.

Kenny.

How are you, Kenny?

You were three, Pat.

I think I was seven at the time back in 1950.

Yeah, but you nailed it.

You nailed it at three or seven years old.

You were unbelievable, just like you are now.

Thank you for joining us.

I want to just just kind of set the table to get your take on this.

I assume you love college sports.

You seem like you're just a sports guy in general.

College sports is at a wild time and we all appreciate the fact that players are making money.

It's the wild, wild west.

Now the schools are going to be paying a salary.

Then there's also going to be NIL.

All we care about is that the sports don't get ruined, right, Kenny?

That's kind of the thought at the end?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I don't get to see as much college football as you might think because I'm always at an NFL city over the weekend.

We'll have it on on Saturdays, Saturdays, but you can't fully pay attention.

But I'm a big college sports fan, love college basketball.

And, you know, when I was growing up back in the 70s and 80s, I think back to Big East basketball, Georgetown, St.

John, Syracuse, Villanova, you knew which schools were in which conference, right?

The players stayed for three or four years.

The conferences never changed.

So that was sort of the glory days, in my opinion, of college basketball.

It's changed a lot since then,

you know, a lot for the better.

But as far as what you're talking about,

it is hard sometimes to follow which player is playing for which school, which schools and which conference.

But, you know, I guess that's for a lot.

A lot smarter people than me.

Yeah.

Hopefully, Sheriff Seeley is able to figure that out of the MLB.

I'm sure you know him with all your work you've done in baseball.

Let's talk about the NHL.

Let's talk about a Stanley Cup final that is living up to the hype.

Back-to-back games and overtime, second game and double overtime.

What are your thoughts on how the boys are playing right now?

And what should we expect for tonight, Kenny?

Well, it's been an unbelievable series so far, and I appreciate you having me on.

I think the last time we chatted was during the Stanley Cup final two years ago between Vegas and Florida.

Our NHL on TNT crew covered that one.

Rotates every year.

So our friends over at ESPN had Florida, Edmonton last year, and now we're thrilled to be back on the series this year.

And I don't mean to

start with a name drop, but Regards, Pat, from about 20 minutes ago, I was with Eddie Olchek and Wayne Gratzky having lunch here at the hotel wayne was telling us about you know what a great time he had on with you last week and you know eddie remembers meeting you back in the day when he was playing for the penguins and coaching the penguins so those guys say hello first off well um geez hey hey kenny will you please tell the great one in eddie oh that uh that i said hello and i'm a massive fan as well the fact that wayne gretzky came on our show Absurd.

He was so kind to us.

So kind to us.

What a legend, Kenny.

What a legend.

He's the best.

As good a player as he was, he's he's even a better person.

And I mentioned to him that I was about to come on, and he said, I had such a great time with Pat last week.

Please pass that along to him.

Thank you, Wayno.

We had a great time too, Wayne O.

Wayne and Eddie Olcek and Brian Boucher and Darren Pang were with us as well.

Those guys love you.

But as far as this series, games one and two.

And

I'm not the only one that feels this way because I've been around a lot of other media people, TV and radio people for this entire series.

Among the best games we've ever witnessed in person as far as the hockey.

The level of play, you know, you mentioned two unbelievable teams.

The first game felt like an extension.

It felt like game eight, an extension of last year's Stanley Cup final, and then on to game nine.

And,

you know, when you look at both first periods, a combined eight goals scored in the first periods of the two games, the Florida Panthers had the lead going into the third period in both games.

Edmonton ties it, sending it to overtime.

The late goal by Corey Perry.

We've had four lead changes, two overtime

thrillers.

So

we certainly hope those of us involved in this series and for the viewers and the fans,

hopefully it goes seven and we have five more overtime games.

Amen.

More hockey, more free hockey.

We love it.

Stanley Cup finals living up to everything we could have dreamed of in this finals rematch.

Go ahead, AJ.

Kenny, what's it like being in person watching Connor McDavid move up and down that ice and just how fast he is?

Is it when we watch on TV, I get a sense of it, but I would imagine in person that's something special to witness.

Oh, geez.

Well, AJ, I know you're very close to, you know, some players around the NHL, some family members, and I'm sure they've told you the stories about,

you know, what it's like to be on the ice with Conor McDavid.

I was chatting with one of the referees who's involved in the series, and he said, you know, Nathan McKinnon is probably number two,

but as far as the speed, there's nothing like McDavid and what, you know, what he gets going and skates through the neutral zone.

And McKinnon's probably the guy in the league who's next on the list, you know, as far as being close to McDavid.

In Edmonton, we have the good fortune, our broadcast booth is down low.

It's on the first concourse level.

It's about 25 rows up right behind the stands.

It's a great view.

The press box there, you know, where some of the other broadcasters are, is pretty high up.

But to watch those first two games from

not right against the glass, but a lot closer to the ice than we usually do.

And when he gets going,

it's just something special to watch.

And then you throw in Leon Dreiseidel and some of the other unbelievable players in this series.

And on the other side, you watch what Sam Bennett's been doing in the playoffs and Brad Martian.

Not as far as the speed of McDavid, but just some of the plays they've been making.

But

it'll be fascinating tonight with...

with Florida having the last change.

Will they try to get Barkov out there as much as possible against McDavid?

You know, which defense pairing will they try and get out?

So we'll keep an eye on the chess match.

But just getting back to AJ's original question,

it's just

a different speed.

We were talking about it with Wayne

a little while ago.

I think his son joked to him, you know, imagine if you had McDavid speed back in the day.

you know, Wayne looked like he was twice as good as any other player that was out there during his entire career.

So it's a lot of fun to watch.

Yeah, it certainly is.

And Wayno with McDavid speed would have been certainly something to watch because he said, you know, we'd sweat, we'd get 10 pounds of sweat in the old leather skates.

We kind of slow you down a little bit.

Don't you?

Sorry, sorry about it.

That cooking that he did,

that's in the Stanley Cup finals.

Oh, yeah.

That's not like game one or game two.

That's like game 40, middle of the season.

Like, that's been ah, ah, drag.

Pretty good defenders.

Yes, it's the Stanley Cup final.

Two best teams.

No blues he made in the past, just incredible.

Hi.

I see you.

Stanley Cup final.

This is not an all-star game.

People are trying.

There's a Lord Stanley Cup on the line.

Okay.

Let's move along here and talk about you, Kenny, on the call.

We can't wait to hear you yet again tonight.

Ty has a question for you.

Yeah, Kenny, when you look around every broadcaster, or most broadcasters who are, you know, worth their salt, you're certainly in that conversation.

Mike Breen's got bang, you know, and there are a laundry list of others.

You don't really have an opportunity to do it in hockey as much, but one of my favorite things about watching you on the call is you just get a quick, concise, yes!

You just, you pop that in time and time again.

I don't know if that's like considered your trademark because it's got a little bit of your dad in there too.

But are you noticed, like, do you consider that a trademark?

How did that come to be?

And

if you can, can you maybe pepper like 50 to 60 of those into the game tonight?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

You know, it's funny, in hockey, you know, you're right.

You know, Mike Breen has the tremendous bang call.

And I know there was a little controversy because he didn't use it for House Burton.

And I read an article where he said it's mostly for three-point shots, not two-point shots.

Okay.

Okay.

More national media bullshit.

Oh, that's what I read.

I don't know.

That's what I read the other day.

I know, I know.

I read it too.

I'm not throwing about it.

We deserve to bang that.

Yeah, I'd say.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry about it.

Go ahead.

People often ask me about signature calls.

And do you come up with, do you have a prepared line, for example, when the team wins the Stanley Cup?

And I don't write out a whole paragraph, but I do get some phrases, some key words and phrases in my mind.

When I worked the 2021, Tampa Bay Lightning won the Cup.

They had won the previous year as well.

So I was throwing some words around and came up with Lightning Strikes Tice.

So when the game ended, Lightning Strikes twice, the Tampa Bay Lightning win the Stanley Cup.

With Vegas two years ago, it was the silver trophy to the Golden Knights.

So that was what I used on that.

And then this year, we had the Ovechkin record-breaking game.

Speaking of Wayne Gretzky, and we were lucky enough to be there with our TNT crew back in early April on Long Island, and he had scored two goals in the previous game to tie the record.

And I was watching that in a hotel room in Atlanta.

And I had been thinking about, you know, what I would possibly do if he scored that goal.

And I was throwing around in my mind, you know, he's the great eight and Wayne's the great one.

And then Joe Beninatti, who does a terrific job on Washington Capitals games, he sort of used that for the tying goal for 894.

So I said, well, I can't go, you know, I can't go in that direction now because Joe did it for the tying goal.

So when he scored that goal, 895, it kind of came out naturally, the goal call.

And then I got in the number 895, but then I got out of the way.

And in, you know, in TV, what we call laying out.

And there have been a couple of other occasions in my career, the Batista home run and Bat Flip back in 2015, some other big overtime series winners.

I just shut up and get out of the way.

And so many other great broadcasters, Joe Buck comes to mind and many others do the same thing.

They let the pictures tell the story and the sounds from the arena or the stadium.

And it's ironic,

some of the biggest praise that play-by-play announcers get is when we don't say anything, when we shut up and get out of the way.

And that was my philosophy with the...

Ovachkin goal.

I know on the Corey Perry tying goal, I yelled scored twice.

Maybe I was thinking about Mike Green with the double bang.

I don't know.

On some of the big goals, and I think I did it,

you know, for some other big goals.

We had that great Winnipeg-St.

Louis game, game seven, when Winnipeg was down three to one and scored two goals in the last two minutes and won the game in overtime.

So sometimes you let it just come out naturally and then shut up and get out of the way.

Are you honey?

You drinking honey?

What do we, do you got some stuff for the voice?

What's the voice word?

Fortunately, knock on wood.

I haven't had many issues through the years and we deal with a lot of late flights the early mornings

halls cough drops are probably my secret remedy yes I don't I don't I don't drink coffee I don't drink tea unless I have a sore throat a lot of diet coke so I'm a big diet coke guy but

throat the halls cough drops that's about it okay well the voice always sounds so pure yeah it always sounds so damn great I'm very envious just know that because I'll wake up on a ray on Tuesday and it'll just be nothing I'm like what the hell happened oh I must slept with my mouth open last night.

Okay, so now you're

you guys have to talk for hours, so you have to preserve that voice, right?

Yeah, I know, and I try to, that's why I asked.

That's why I was like, Hey, what are you doing?

Every person that's a singer, I try to ask them what they do.

Some of them have some real interesting

some of your favorite singers, really, like what

remedies,

like you know, the uh, like a VIX

steamer.

I've seen older generations of Gumpy's laughing.

Gumpy was there with me.

Gumpy was like, yeah, this guy.

Okay.

This is the guy.

Yep.

Brought it out, put it on the counter.

We were having a conversation and just started huffing.

I mean, just huffing this steam for 35 minutes, I think.

Conversation with us, then right back into it like it was a ventilator.

And it was just Vic steam just going right down.

I'm like, that's John.

Now I will say this: radio broadcast hockey versus TV.

I don't have to talk as much on TV.

You don't have to describe as much as you do on radio.

And I have two color analysts, plus we have Darren Pang and Jackie Redmond downstairs.

There are five of us contributing, but I've done radio for 29 years with the Rangers, and there have been some playoff runs.

2014, for example, I was going back and forth in the conference final.

Rangers were playing Montreal.

I was working those on radio and then...

LA against Chicago on TV just about every other day and red eyes and flights.

That was the time period where I was most concerned because there was a lack of sleep and a lot of flights and early morning flights on game days.

But fortunately, no issues during that time.

Did you just have to put the SIGs down for that run?

No SIG smoking?

Yeah, I get it.

Nightmare.

Well, I should have thought about it back then.

Yeah, get that little grovel in there, get a little grovel in there.

Connor has a question for you.

Yeah, Kenny, it feels like you have called every single sport for so long.

And throughout that time, so many of these sports have changed.

Is there one sport you look at that has changed the most?

I assume baseball is the only one that hasn't changed as much just because it's still boring.

But as far as the other ones go,

what sports?

It's not boring.

Ratings are up.

I actually watched a baseball game this weekend, so I don't know why I would pick this time to say that.

But Kenny, is there one sport that has changed the most out of the four major ones?

You know what?

To be honest, Connor, and I don't do as much baseball as the other sports.

anywhere between five and ten games every summer on Fox.

But I think baseball may be the answer because of the pitch clock in recent years.

That's really sped it up and a lot of strategy changes and the ghost runner and X ratings.

You know, as far as the other sports, we've seen new rules.

And I think replay, you know, especially in football in the NFL, when I started with Fox back in 94, that's when replay was first coming in and the technology and, you know, going to

the replay rooms in the various sports, football in New York, hockey, situation room in Toronto, basketball, they go to Secaucus, New Jersey.

So I think the replay, video review, challenge aspects in every sport, that's probably the biggest change.

But I would say baseball from a broadcasting standpoint, and I tell this to, I speak to high school and college broadcasting students

every year, various camps and programs that I visit and so many other announcers do as well.

As far as play by play, hockey, especially on the radio, but hockey in general, radio or TV, it's just a continuous action for 60 minutes.

You're calling the play.

It's exciting.

It's fast.

Basketball, similar, 48 minutes, the ball is in action, but there are more whistles, more fouls, more stoppages.

Football is the most rhythmic to call.

And I know Pat's been in the booth for football games.

And by the way, I love what you guys did during the college football playoffs, doing the play-by-play, you know, right down on the field.

That was...

very entertaining.

But football, it's one play and then it's 20 or 25 seconds for the analysts to come in.

It's another play, play, 20 or 25 seconds.

Baseball, the ball is only in play 8 to 12 minutes during an entire game.

So if you're up in the booth, there's a lot of downtime to fill.

So I think it's the most challenging.

But the pitch clock has certainly sped it up over the last several years.

I've spoken to baseball announcers.

Howie Rose in New York, who does an unbelievable job with the Mets and called NHL games for 30 years.

He said calling baseball now almost feels like a hockey game because of the speed between pitches and you have to be uh right on it in case the next pitch is thrown.

There's not as much time to tell stories in between pitches and in between outs.

Okay, sorry, you just blew my mind there with that eight to 12 minutes of actual gameplay in a four-hour baseball game.

I try to do the percentages there.

So you do the math 8 to 12, put it at 10.

Baseball game is what, 240 minutes, four hours?

No, 240 minutes.

These days, with the pitch clock, two and a half, 240.

They used to be three hours.

I might have told you this story.

The last time I was on, I once worked a 20-inning game.

Never went to the bathroom.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I remember you dumped your pants.

Yeah.

Everywhere.

These days, it's about two and a half hours with the pitch clock.

But

they've done studies.

It's actually only eight to 12 minutes that the ball's in play during an average baseball game.

I'll tell you, I've been watching more baseball, just like Connor mentioned there.

Ratings are up across all networks for baseball.

I think it's because their superstars are playing well, but I guess it isn't a high.

It'll never be, never be called a high-action sport.

You know, never be.

College baseball, though, had some action.

I don't know.

The World Series last year.

It was awesome.

It depends, too, because

if you get a pitcher's duel, personally, I think that is incredibly.

Like watching Skeens and he's just mowing people down, you got to think like a lot of those balls are never getting put into play.

I love watching Skins.

You know what I mean?

Like, and that's a super entertaining brand.

It's just like you can get some nights where

a lot of empties.

So many open seats.

Right behind the plate, too.

He just needs to.

Great watching him, but he's so good at baseball.

Go to the Yankees.

Go to him.

Winning record since Don Kelly's taken over.

They're playing salty ball.

Yeah, that's right.

The Pirates are getting hot at the right time.

Don't look now.

Don't look now.

Only got a bunch of people.

That's a beautiful ballpark in Pittsburgh.

Love that place.

Don't you think they should sell the team, though, Kenny?

I probably haven't followed him as closely as you have.

So

I just love, I haven't been there in a while for baseball, but love Wharton games.

Beautiful setting there.

Kenny, I put you in a terrible spot there.

I put you in a bad spot there to say that.

And I apologize.

Are you looking to buy the team?

No, I don't.

Pirates?

No, no.

That's a few decades away.

We got to get really lucky to be able to buy a team like the Pirates or how expensive it is.

The problem is the guy that owns it.

He knows that too.

And he's just sitting there on fat cash.

He doesn't care about making the team better, even though we got a guy.

We got the guy.

But speaking of that, we got the guy.

He's playing well.

Shohei's playing well.

Aaron Judge is playing well.

It's like all the stars are playing well across baseball.

It's a good time to be a baseball fan.

It's also a great time to be a hockey fan, especially if you're from South Florida.

D-Bud has a question for you.

As Pat mentioned, South Florida kid, still a resident down there.

In that bubble, at least.

The sport has grown in popularity immensely.

I'm even seeing in my neighborhood, you know, hockey nets on the street that you would never see 10, 20 years ago.

Have you felt it at all in your personal life as a commentator, now more people just talking about hockey?

Because I feel like the guy, half the guys in here probably grew up hockey fans, but most guys, casual fans of sports, maybe that wasn't the case.

Well, in South Florida, absolutely.

You know, we've been coming down here for the last few years to do playoff games, but I've been coming here, you know, ever since the Panthers entered the league in 93, and they did go to the final in 96, but after that, they went 25 years without winning a playoff series.

And the building was half empty for a long time.

And what they've been able to do over these last four years, they won the president's trophy, best regular season record.

Then they went to the Stanley Cup final against Vegas, won the cup last year.

So it's been an unbelievable four-year stretch.

And

Vindy Viola and his wife, Teresa, they own the team.

The general manager, Bill Zito, they've all done an unbelievable job.

promoting the sport of hockey here in South Florida over this recent stretch.

And now they have

a great new practice facility.

I was just over there this morning.

It's in Fort Lauderdale, about two miles from the beach.

So a lot of the players live in that area.

Head coach Paul Maurice said he lives two blocks from the practice rink.

He rides his bike to practice every day.

Some of the players drive golf carts.

So it's really become a destination in the NHL because of the way they treat their players, the weather,

and just...

the level of talent that they have on this team.

You know, they were an excellent team when they won the regular season title, but then they trade for Matthew Kachuk.

And that, you know, as far as culture, that just added to it, you know, the type of player and person that he is.

He's out there, you know, amongst the fans, promoting the sport.

And they have a superstar, Captain Nbarkov, and a superstar Goltair in Pobrovsky.

And then they bring in a Brad Marshand and a Seth Jones prior to the deadline.

And here they are, three wins away from another Stanley Cup.

But you could sense, you know, all the games are sold out now.

There's There's so much talk about hockey in the South Florida areas.

We've certainly seen that here.

But you look at the Wayne Bretzky influence, you know, he goes to LA in 88 and gets to a cup final in 93.

And all of a sudden, kids in California are playing hockey.

Kids in some of the other warm weather states are playing hockey, the Sunbelt states.

And now you look around, you have two teams in Florida.

that have gone to the final six straight years.

Tampa Bay Lightning, three straight years, and now the Florida Panthers three straight years.

The Dallas Stars have been to the conference final three straight years.

They won a cup.

They won a cup back in 99.

Vegas won a cup two years ago.

The two teams in Southern California, the Kings won two cups.

The Ducks won a cup back in 2007.

So,

you know, once Wayne went out there, and, you know, he's such a humble man, you know, downplays it.

But that trade of Gretzky from Edmonton to L.A.

really set the table in the United States for these Sunbelt teams who have all had great success.

Yeah,

it was a great move for hockey to get Wayne O down there.

Wayne was emotional about leaving Edmonton.

Yeah, I feel like he didn't want to.

Wayne was a fun foot.

He was.

Yeah, wound up, and he's still beloved in Edmonton.

We were just up there with him for games one and two.

He's got a statue outside the arena,

helped lead the Oilers to the four Cups, and then they won a fifth.

After he left in 1990, they still had some of the other superstar players, but

he played such a large role, you know, obviously, in the success in Southern California and then all these other Sunbelt teams coming in as expansion teams.

And you could throw a national into the mix and

Carolina, you know, moving down from Hartford.

And all those teams have enjoyed great success.

Hockey's the best.

Hockey is awesome.

I'm happy more people are learning about it.

You know, hopefully more people get a chance to play it.

And obviously, it's expensive.

Hopefully, they're able to figure that out going forward to get more people on the ice.

I liked hearing there's

hockey nets on the street down there in South Florida.

It's a great game.

It's a great sport.

Hey, Gumpy, what are they saying about Texas hockey down there?

A lot of people playing hockey now, huh?

Because DeBoer is running the show down there.

Debo got shit canned, actually.

Yeah,

it turns out when you bury the franchise goalie, one of the best goalies in the league, they probably don't like it very much.

So thanks for the good times, Pete.

But hit the bricks, pal.

Teddy, as you brought up Dallas, as you brought up the Dallas Stars, we got a guy in the back who is a Dallas Stars fan from Victoria, Canada.

So, I mean, you piece that together, Howard, if you want.

He also likes the Miami Dolphins and he likes the Boston Red Sox.

So he likes the Red Sox, the Miami Dolphins, and the Dallas Stars.

He's got every corner of North America covered with those teams.

Yeah, I didn't even think of that.

Dallas has had, yeah, great runs.

We did the conference final there two years ago, or I should say last year against Edmonton.

Yeah, they made the change.

You know, we all know what took place with the board pulling Ottinger in the last game of the Edmonton Series, game five, and their general manager, Jim Dill, came out and said it's time for a new voice.

And Paul Maurice was asked about it.

He and Pete DeVoe are very close.

They played junior hockey together 30 years ago.

And he said, you know, Pete will definitely get another job.

He'll probably win.

Jim Dill said Pete will probably win a Stanley Cup final.

Wherever he goes next, he'll probably win a cup.

He's been to the conference final, I think, six of the last seven years.

And he's brought two other teams to the cup final.

So he's a great coach.

But, you know, Pat, AJ, you guys know how it is in pro sports.

I think the average life cycle in the NHL for a coach is probably three years.

There are so many changes every year, and we'll see who the Dallas stars wind up hiring.

But they've had a great run, but they haven't been able to make that final step into the cup final.

On that note, good luck to Coach Solley in New York.

Thank you for the time in Pittsburgh.

That's right.

Fired from Pittsburgh, signs the biggest contract in the history of coaching the next day for the Rangers or whatever.

Just like Leonardo.

Yeah, he's a great, you know, great coach, great man.

He was in New York as an assistant before under John Tordarellis.

So looking forward to the Mike Sullivan era in New York with the Rangers.

He brought us a lot of good times in Pittsburgh.

He's got a good one, though.

You're talking about Muse?

I am.

I'm talking about Dan Ball Muse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's honestly.

He was a Rangers assistant.

That's the new quote.

Yeah, he was a coach in Pittsburgh.

He was a Rangers' assistant.

I've heard a lot of good things about him from

people who are around some of his junior teams that he coached, coached in the U.S.

National Development Program.

So he's one of those up-and-coming coaches who's in his early 40s

that have been identified, you know, at a young age.

You look at Spencer Carberry in Washington and the job that he's done as a young coach in the NHL, just won the Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year.

Chris Knobloch in Edmonton, his second season, his second trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

So

the Penguins certainly hope Dan Muse can.

lead the Penguins in the same direction as Carberry and Knobloch have done with their teams.

I think a lot of people wondered about the framing of the photo of Dan Muse and the announcement of him being the new head coach.

You know, had him looking off to the side there.

Could have had some sort of

maybe a better photo of

the, he's looking down at the goal to the left side of the ice.

Oh, I got it because that's where we're scoring on.

Bingo.

Big brain.

Big brain.

Huge brain.

Him and Dubis are going to do a great job.

A couple young lads.

A couple young lads there in Pittsburgh are going to turn it all around.

No, Marco Stern.

Well, Sidney Crosby told me a big night out.

A couple more years, we're going to be doing exactly what we're doing here, here, packing this place out, having a good time chasing Lordo.

Musie is going to take us there, brother.

Don't you worry about that.

I don't know about that.

Let's talk about you and your career.

You said in 1990 you were maybe seven years old whenever you got your start.

We believe that you probably could have been able to do it as a seven-year-old, obviously, because the family in which you come from.

Tone has a question for you.

Yeah, Kenny, I believe I saw recently that you passed your father for second most,

let me get it right here, all-time and national calls at close to 1,500 games, which is just absurd all four major sports obviously is now that you're doing hockey right now is hockey you talked about it being the most action for sure as in the booth but is that is it the most fun sport to call

so a couple of things there um it's amazing that there are people that keep these lists uh of games called by announcers there's a gentleman named tony miller in the Midwest who has a site on social media.

It's called Unnecessary Sports Research, and he keeps charts of of every sport, play-by-play announcers, color analysts, sideline reporters, et cetera.

So it's fun to check it out and see what those numbers are.

And yeah, last week, I guess I pulled into number two.

This is for NFL, NHL, NBA, and Major League Baseball, national broadcasts.

It doesn't count the local broadcasts.

I think that would be too hard to keep track of.

For example, I've probably worked over 2,000 national broadcasts.

Sorry, local broadcasts as well, three years in Washington and now 29 years with the Rangers.

But that's the national list and it includes the other sports, like I said.

Doesn't include, for example, college basketball, boxing that a lot of others have done.

But, you know, it's a huge honor to just be a part of that list and see some of the other names that are on there.

Dick Stockton, number one on that national list of the four sports, but very fortunate to be involved in all of them with Fox since 1994 on football.

And

like I said, some baseball during the summer.

NHL on NBC for many years, Olympic hockey,

which we're looking forward to again next year.

And then NHL on TNT with an amazing crew for the last four years.

And also do the Rangers and some Knicks fill in on MSG.

So lucky to be around great people as far as my color analysts, the...

the executives, the production people.

But yeah, crazy that it's that many games.

It does not include the college wrestling event I did back in the mid-90s.

That's probably the one event where I felt like I had no clue what I was doing, even though I prepared and talked to an Olympic wrestler, Jeff Blatnick, and had a great color analyst that day.

And that was probably the one.

I've done some other sports at the Olympics, water polo, track and field, volleyball.

But the college wrestling, probably the one where I really felt like I had no clue what I was watching.

What the hell do you get a point for there?

One slide and he gets up, they put him down.

Was that Matt Madness?

You called Matt Madness?

This was the ACC, speaking of college sports, it was the ACC Wrestling Championships in Chapel Hill back in 94, 95, that year.

I wish I could have pulled it out.

By the way, Pat, I was, when I was seven, I was calling games into a tape recorder in my bedroom at home.

So I was doing it back then.

Do we have those saved?

Do we have those tapes?

I have some of them.

I do.

I do.

Oh, that's amazing.

I can't wait for you.

I could bring them on the show next time if you'd like.

You might scare some people away.

We would love that.

I just assume whenever you go into all the Hall of Fames, they will have that in the intro videos.

We appreciate your service to sports.

You're the man.

We can't wait to watch you tonight.

Well, thanks so much for having me on, Pat, AJ, the rest of the gang.

Really appreciate it.

A lot of fun.

And hopefully game three is just as exciting as games one and two.

We assume it will be because hockey is awesome.

Just like you and your entire TNT crew, tell everybody we said hello.

hello ladies and gentlemen the man

kenny albert

why'd they put muse's photo like that i don't know what do you mean what do you want it to be a photo you want to be lifting weights or something yeah maybe him skating maybe maybe him on the ice just anything but this one i think yeah he does look like a no-nonsense son of a bitch though yeah

it has no nonsense i saw him in a movie one time uh what was it slender man a few movies yeah i bet he's some okay i bet he's in those porno films you watch, Tony.

The NHL point.

Jeez, the Luis.

The NHL put this post out.

The Penguins are fired.

Okay.

But I can see why they want to be on the bottom.

Holy shit.

Are you kidding me?

We're going to win the next five.

Appreciate you, Coach.

Coach, we appreciate you, Coach Moose.

What the hell?

He talked about the guy's the head coach of Pittsburgh Penguins.

You built this guy in the loser lab.

It looks like.

Come on.

That's not true.

I just got a text saying that

big pop out of the entire chow hall.

Nice.

Whenever I said, I'm not going to be no waddy.

And then I believe they all called me a waddie.

They got TVs.

They got TVs there

in the DI.

Okay.

There's a DI.

Yeah, the recruits watch the TVs and then they have to act out what's happening on the TVs.

The recruits' eyes do not have any sight of a television.

Those recruits, man, I'll tell you, I appreciate them.

Hell yeah.

I do appreciate it.

Yeah, I do.

We need them.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Uh-rah.

Hell yeah.

Ur

Kill, slay, break chains.

So many little.

Yeah, oh, yeah.

Just listening to them bop phrases back and forth around time.

So many badasses.

So sick.

One place.

Felt very safe there.

You know?

Yeah,

I could see.

That's one of those places that you're just walking around.

It's like...

All of these people, all of them, could just handle whatever, whenever.

So remember that.

Whenever whenever we think, man, this world's going to shit, we don't have it.

We got Marines.

And I assume the other branches of the military are saying the same thing.

But with these eyes, what I've seen, we're in a good spot for a long time.

Packed out too.

That's good.

Sold out, you know.

Yeah, sold out.

No vacancy.

No vacancy.

No vacancy.

It's going through there.

And I guess summer is the big time, you know, because high school gets out of school and then it goes through there.

So the amount of camps that are going on right now, currently at this moment.

think of the weather the weather in the summer there for their training oh it was so hot so i

so

so i mean i got burnt pretty good i mean i got i got i got lit up pretty good who's the asshole in a tank top oh i shouldn't be wearing it you're just gonna get burnt you look like a idiot

told me to wear what i wear yeah i was told to dress as i dress yeah that's what i had so many questions going in i'm like what should i wear who am i allowed to talk to they're like just be yourself and wear what you would wear.

And I go, you know, I dress like an asshole.

They're like, just wear what you would wear.

All right.

Go down there.

So much room for sand fleas.

Oh, yeah, but so much surface area.

Oh, yeah.

So many mistakes made.

Sun beating the shit out of me, these fleas.

As I'm standing there on the yellow footprints, okay, 7, whatever a.m., been up for four hours already.

Holy shit, is this the longest day of all?

As I'm standing there, first sand flea of the day, I've heard about it.

I've heard about it.

I heard that these things are real.

As I'm standing there, right on queue, just right

to my face.

And I'm like, ooh.

Can't.

Could you imagine if I get this fucking thing off me?

Look at old buddy.

Jeez.

Where his hands are, a big deal right there.

Says a lot right there.

Where his hands are.

Great plush.

Yes.

Great.

Great plush.

When I say ears,

you say open, sir.

Do you understand?

I, sir.

Yell, eye, sir.

I sir.

Ears.

What?

That didn't sound like ears.

That didn't sound anything like ears.

Eyes.

Snap, sir.

Too slow.

When I say eyes, you snap your hand and you say, snap, sir.

Do you understand?

I sir.

Do you understand?

I sir.

Yell, eye, sir.

I sir.

Eyes.

Fuck, I forgot.

Snap, snap, sir.

Damn.

Back to the beginning.

I know.

I know.

I don't know.

I couldn't even imagine 18 years old.

Yeah.

Boy.

You know why they call it yellow there?

Pest in your pants.

And I was pretty close.

As soon as he, because I didn't see him, the two took me out of the, I had two took me out of the van.

There's a van over

back his shoulder there, like that way.

that I got pulled out of.

Two guys.

You know, get to the thing.

I get there.

All of a sudden, old buddy here comes walking out of sights unknown.

I've not seen it.

It's like, oh, this is the fucking one here.

This is Stone Cold Steve Austin coming in.

So I didn't even know what he looked like while I was looking ahead.

And then whenever he got in front of me, I was like,

this guy's playing no fucking game right now.

Obviously, there's a little bit of spit going.

Sure.

Obviously, there's a little bit of spit.

A little bit of spit going.

You worried if not?

Don't move.

Don't move.

Then you go from there to the in front of the silver hatchworks in front of the building.

That's like, uh, let's say 15 yards, 20 yards.

They're telling me to hurry up to get there.

So I'm like, do I run?

Yeah, I was about to say.

Am I supposed to run?

Yeah, March, Room.

You got burst?

What do you have?

No, run.

Do not run.

I guess if I would have ran, it would have been a big.

Speed walk?

I think you're supposed to

make it look.

It's supposed to be a little, hey, hey, Z-G, you know?

And then they're like, dude, these stars.

did the entire thing and i'm like i should not be standing here i kind of this is like a very important thing and then across the top obviously, which I did not even look up and see because I was scared if I lifted my head up like this, I was going to get a

from the other two.

So I didn't.

So as he says, move, for me to walk through the doors, I literally ask, I'm not going.

And like, this way.

Then I go around like, boom, boom, boom, boom, move.

They were, I mean, I was in it.

I was a recruit there.

Sit down in these steel chairs.

or silver chairs.

The only one in there.

So that means a lot of eyes on me.

All three of them.

Sit down.

Stand up.

Sit down.

I sir.

Stand up.

I sir.

Sit down.

I sir.

Because he tells me only to listen to him.

Okay?

A little bit of a mind fuck.

Outside, he told me, you will listen to me and only me going forward.

Do you hear me?

I sir.

Okay.

So we get inside.

There's two of them sitting in front of that desk right there.

Oh, shit.

He's telling me to sit down.

So I sit down.

Other one comes in.

Stand up.

I'm like, well, I was told.

Can you follow orders or not?

Yeah, my.

Is this a trick?

Is this a,

is this a,

I don't.

That is, Simon says.

That is a little bit.

So I can't be right.

I stay down.

I'm like, nope, almost this guy.

So this guy says, stand up.

And I don't even, I don't even budge.

And then the guy goes, stand up.

Okay, and I stand up.

And they go, you stand up, you say, I, sir.

You sit down.

You say, I, sir.

Do you understand?

I, sir.

Yo, I, sir.

I, sir, sit down.

I, sir, stand up.

I, sir, sit down.

I, sir, do you understand?

Oh, don't stand up.

And you know, if you would have stood up originally, he would have said, I told you only to listen to me.

Bingo, yeah, yeah.

I was in the middle of it.

I mean, there was certainly something.

It's it just mentioned

all over the place.

When I say ears, like elongated,

you say, open, sir.

Do you understand?

Say I, sir.

I sir.

Say it louder.

I sir.

Is.

like

are you saying yes you probably got different accents too oh and then they all lose their voice you know so they all have like a like a coach's voice probably yeah like very much but it's loud and it's very i mean it is they are that's exactly what it is by the way i realized quickly that all um

disciplinary coaches are just trying to be

what's happening there like that is how they are you know one person bobbles bringing the pants out to the line.

Oh, guess what?

We're all doing again.

All of them back.

You know what I mean?

Like, all you need is just one person.

Oh, buddy's arms aren't straight.

So now everybody has to go back.

Oh, buddy's left leg was not out of touch.

And so now everybody has to go back.

You know, it's like, oh, this is what football coaches are trying.

Like, it was very obvious, like, but that one's like.

They don't let anything slip.

That's the thing.

Yeah, they don't let anything slip.

Like, you can't give up an inch.

Hails, hails, hails, hails.

Good coaches.

Little things.

A little thing.

But for us, it's like we lose a game.

For them, it's fucking life and death.

Yeah.

Yep.

Did you feel like you were in like a scared straight episode?

They have that actually.

Yeah, I did.

And I could, we talked about this earlier.

Like,

I don't know if they still do that or not with, like, you either go to jail or a juvie or you go to a boot camp.

But like that should be something that should still be because I feel like that can really

I think it straightens you.

I think you're not, you're forced to

scared straight.

Holy fuck.

I watched that.

Either stay in and take it or go to jail.

Like, that's the thing, too.

Like, you got to make a choice.

Yeah, but then at the end of it, we got.

I saw the end of it.

I saw the end of it, and it was like, all of them, we are in this.

It was like a really cool thing to kind of see the first day pickup, which I saw.

I forget which group it was.

D, adult,

whatever.

Saw their first day, and then I saw the graduates, and then I saw in between, and it's like, you can see it like kind of happening through the meticulous accountability on everything.

And then by the last day, they're all, I mean, everybody

uniform, the exact same walk, talk, breathe, talk, like the way they, I think even.

I think even their mannerisms are all the exact same.

And it's like, that's what they're creating.

Yeah, built them in machines.

We make make Marines.

It was an honor to watch.

Thank you to all of them for the hospitality.

And thank you to the Marines for being the Marines still.

And thank you to

Sergeant that was yelling at me.

I didn't get a chance to meet him afterward.

They kind of.

He did not,

he viewed me as a recruit.

Sure.

Oh, is Tibby Toe?

I think he's leaning over.

He's leaning over.

Good forward lean.

Right there.

He's telling me to say I, sir, louder, you know, because I didn't say, I, sir, loud enough.

Did they ever bump you with the brim of their hat?

Like, get real close to you and start bumping your head.

So

they used to actually have

swagger sticks, I believe is what they were called back in the day, which drill instructors had, which is like, I guess, a ruler that nuns used to have at Catholic schools.

Yeah.

Like,

I guess that used to be.

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

No, there's no,

it's all

verbal.

What's that?

That's one of the things that didn't make it.

yeah i guess i guess those are getting pretty uh

they're abusing them a bit

i mean just like the nuns just like the nuns started you know cracking hands a little bit i assume at a time there's a little bit of that but it was

i mean the drone instructors might be the baddest motherfuckers i've ever seen just all from 4 a.m

all the way i'm sorry 3 30 a.m because they were even doing pre-shit for those who were on fire watch which terrible i don't know how they got picked.

Three people that were in the Charlie company, there, three people that were 11 days into it, and they were forced to watch, you know, a lookout.

And it's like they roll right into that.

The lights, lights, lights, like they've been up for the last.

Oh, buddy.

But we appreciate them.

Yes, we do.

Yeah.

And I'm thankful it exists.

All right, we'll be back tomorrow.

Be a friend, tell a friend something nice.

It might change your life.

We're in this thing together.

Team on me.

Team on three.

One, two, three.

Team.

Goodbye.

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