PMS 2.0 1394 - Kirk Herbstreit, Al Michaels, Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day, Adam Schefter, Joey Galloway, & AJ Hawk

Speaker 1 Herbie, we're live. We're live.
Welcome, beautiful people. We're here at the Thunderdome on this Tuesday, August 26th.

Speaker 1 Football!

Speaker 1 Cannot wait to be here, boys. Have a good money.
How are you doing, Herbie? Peter's here. Yes.
I feel a little bit outmanned because I don't have D-Bud here. So this is going to be fun.

Speaker 1 A couple hours to be able to break down some college football. We're going to talk NFL football.
We've got some great guests lined up today. Al Michaels will be hopping on here shortly.

Speaker 1 We'll be able to talk.

Speaker 1 He's got a golf ball. I just don't want him to choke.

Speaker 2 He can't swallow anything he's not supposed to. Yeah, I'm real worried about just sitting up here watching Peter think he's going to die, choking on a golf ball the whole entire show.

Speaker 1 That's okay. You know what? He kind of does whatever he wants to do.

Speaker 1 You know what? And by the way, this is awesome. I mean, he's got a whole play area here in the Thunderdome to be able to just chase.

Speaker 2 Well, we actually, funny enough, we work here, so usually dogs don't just run around and make it all messy. But hey,

Speaker 1 Peter's world. The good news is he's not going to drop a deuce.
You don't have to worry about that. There you go.
He's a little bit perplexed on what's happening here with the camera, but

Speaker 1 we got Al Michaels on today. We're going to have Ryan Day on to kind of preview the big game with Ohio State and Texas.
Second hour, we got to have Adam Schefter on.

Speaker 1 Huge day today in the NFL, cut down Tuesday, so we'll find out more about the latest names. names.
We already, it's been trickling in, but maybe between now and then there'll be no more names.

Speaker 1 And then Joey Galloway will come on as our last guest around 1:40. So, okay.
How are you guys doing? Good. Doing great.
I watch you all the time. You guys ready for football to get started? Yeah,

Speaker 3 I think with it being only like 70, 75 degrees outside right now and like being 50s early morning when you wake up, it feels like football season, which is

Speaker 3 nice. It feels like we've been waiting forever, but I think everyone's just rearing to go.

Speaker 2 We're rearing to go. Yeah, juiced up.
I mean, even just the games this past weekend week zero, you tasted like at 11.55, you know, we're sitting at a bar waiting for the game to kick off.

Speaker 2 It's one of those feelings you don't really get that often. It is incredible.
I mean, it's incredible to be here with you, Kurt.

Speaker 1 I mean, look at you

Speaker 2 being on the same stage as you is incredible. And are you a big sports talk guy? Is this your first one?

Speaker 1 I did it. No, is this the first one for you? That's like an AJ question.
Yeah, it is. It is.

Speaker 1 I know the room.

Speaker 1 I did it for 20 years in Columbus, Ohio. When I got

Speaker 1 out of Ohio State, it was my first job. I did local radio for 1993 to like, I don't know, 2011 around there.

Speaker 1 Every day,

Speaker 1 three hours a day, just radio. I had guests like I'm doing right now.
I told you, Joy Galloway would come on with me. Mike Vrabel would come on with me.
Eddie George would come on with me.

Speaker 1 So I was lucky to have some guys hop on. But yeah, I enjoy this.
I think it's fun. You can kind of steer it where you want.
You guys don't take calls. We used to take calls.

Speaker 1 But I want to hear from Tone as well. Tone, I know you're huge pirates and baseball,

Speaker 1 but you're ready for football to get started.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, as you were just talking about how you did it for 20 years, so you know it just like we know it. You know,

Speaker 4 NHL is great. Baseball is great.
NBA, the finals, everything with the Pacers here.

Speaker 1 You get to June, July, and it's

Speaker 1 great. But yeah, I mean, you know how much

Speaker 4 easier the show is when it's football season, just because there's, not that you don't care about the other sports, but this is, I mean, this is red, white, and blue USA. This is a football country.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 so football, NFL, college football. It's just so much better when we get to this.

Speaker 1 Did you guys envision this?

Speaker 1 Like, is this what you guys, when Pat had this thing going, is this kind of what you guys envisioned doing this every day and talking sports and it getting to become this big of a thing? Oh, I mean,

Speaker 2 I was smoking cigarettes when I started working for Brother. So, no, I wasn't really thinking about it too much.
I definitely did not think that freaking Dr.

Speaker 1 Pepper would sponsor the program. I mean, that's the coolest thing ever, but no, I have no idea.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Being on the same stage as you, I mean,

Speaker 3 there's been so many different forms of the show, like, since we started, you know, I mean, like, we did radio for a little bit and everything, but yeah, to think it was going to be here.

Speaker 3 And then, I mean, you know, once the season starts, like, we were on the sidelines of the national championship, like watching that game, calling it for work.

Speaker 3 So I don't think any of, I mean, speaking for myself, I don't think any of us could have imagined it would get to this point.

Speaker 4 I mean, we always did the show, but it wasn't always a daily show.

Speaker 4 Like, we started with the podcast and that was what was it like three times a week or something like that yeah and then we went to radio and it became every day and it just i it feels better as like an everyday because then like everyone watching keeps up with all the storylines that we're always talking about and then also you know like

Speaker 4 our fan like The reason why our show is great is like the fans are also invested, I think, like in our personal lives as well. So it's like as a day,

Speaker 1 they get to know that part of you.

Speaker 1 They're invested in not just the show and

Speaker 1 the Trey Hendrickson kind of stories, but like what's going on with your lives. But let's flip it to that.
But I know this story broke out, I believe, after you guys were off the air.

Speaker 1 You haven't had a chance to really react.

Speaker 1 I kind of grew up as a Bengals fan. I'm kind of impartial now.

Speaker 1 Doing my job, it's interesting. 30th year.
I kind of get a chance to get to know these guys as college players. 30th year.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's crazy.

Speaker 1 Good for you. Sorry.
And I, no, it's all right. And I end up

Speaker 1 kind of pulling for guys, you know, and stories stories as opposed to, you know, crying if the Bengals lost. But

Speaker 1 Trey Hendrickson finally getting signed. And it's interesting when Burrow signed and Jamar Chase and T.
Higgins, everybody thought, is there any money left for guys like Hendrickson?

Speaker 1 And the way this thing went on and on and on, we wondered if it would ever,

Speaker 1 finally, would they be able to get to an agreement? Your reaction to this is a defense that struggled mightily last year. Does this give Joe Burrow and the Bengals some hope to get him back?

Speaker 2 Definitely hope, I would say. I mean, Trey Andrickson's unbelievable.
This whole thing started at Radio Row when Trey reached out to Pat and wanted to talk to him about the entire entire

Speaker 2 situation. So it has been going on for quite some time.

Speaker 2 Rapscheek kind of alluded to it yesterday that the offer that Trey had turned out initially was a massive pay bump for this year, but no future money, which is exactly what he was looking for, which is you know, when he came on the program.

Speaker 2 And the biggest thing I think for all of us when he came on the program was how much, the program, excuse me, how much he loved Cincinnati, the city.

Speaker 2 Like, he even said, hey, look, if the best thing for the Bengals is to trade me, I hope they get stuff back that they can then go use to help them win a Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 Like, he wants Cincy to win a Super Bowl, so that's very clear.

Speaker 2 I'm just bummed out for him because he didn't get what he got or get what he wanted to get, you know, or what I think he deserves, what I think everybody believes he deserves.

Speaker 2 So that's the only bummer for me.

Speaker 4 I know, I assume the Bengals are happy because it's kind of, you know, just like reading the tea leaves, they didn't, they weren't exactly looking to give him a three-year deal or whatever with two years guaranteed.

Speaker 4 So they got on their side the one-year for 30 million, which it's also good for Trey.

Speaker 4 I mean, he does get a $14 million pay bump for this year, but he's also now controlled kind of by the team through next year because he doesn't have a no-franchise tag clause.

Speaker 4 So they can franchise him again this year, and he's playing on another one-year deal, which I know because I mean, talking to Pat and T about it, AJ, and we just talk about players all the time.

Speaker 4 They want that, like, like the certainty of having a paycheck for three or four years or whatever. Now he's got certainty of it this year.

Speaker 4 But if something happens this year, you know, if he has like an injury like was terrible for him, then that screws him. But, you know, I mean, he got the $14 million pay bump.

Speaker 4 He's making $30 million this year. But I assume as a Bengals team that has control of him now for two years,

Speaker 4 I mean, he's making $10 million less than Miles Garrett and TJ. Water feels.
I think they probably feel good.

Speaker 1 What do you think? I want to

Speaker 1 let me ask you this, because the Bengals defense last year, Joe Burrow could have been the MVP. The Bengals could have gone obviously to the postseason.
Slow start, again, hurt them last year.

Speaker 1 They're trying to avoid that happening this year. They fired their defensive coordinator.
They bring in Al Golden from Notre Dame.

Speaker 1 He's an outstanding defensive mind. They could not have looked any worse, even though it's preseason football.
They've been a sieve for three preseason games coming off the year they had last year.

Speaker 1 I think the optics of it, you almost had to make this happen if you're the organization.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, without a doubt. I mean, and I asked Rapsheet yesterday, and I'll ask you the same thing.
Like, obviously, he makes their defense much better.

Speaker 3 He's one of the best pass rushers in the NFL, but like...

Speaker 3 Them getting him back, does that automatically, like, do their defensive points per game drop by two touchdowns?

Speaker 3 You know, like, I mean, it doesn't necessarily make as big of an impact as everyone's making it out to be.

Speaker 3 But, like you mentioned, you have Joe Burrow and you just put all that money into the receiver's room.

Speaker 3 Like, you can't let this be a reason that you don't make the playoffs or that you lose a playoff game because they didn't have any pass rush. So, yeah, I mean, I think their hand was kind of forced.

Speaker 3 It's just crazy that this whole situation spiraled out of control the way that it did to ultimately, you know, get done this close to the city.

Speaker 1 I think that's a fair question. I mean,

Speaker 1 he's the best pass rusher in the NFL based on the numbers.

Speaker 1 That obviously helps.

Speaker 1 Having the rookie, Shamar Stewart, be on the other side, Miles Murphy, if he's healthy, Joseph Asai. I mean, they've got some bodies now if they can get teams into obvious passing situations.

Speaker 1 But their issue to me was stopping the run and having safeties that were compatible and worked together.

Speaker 1 You know, a couple years ago when they got to the Super Bowl and played against the Rams, their safeties were really, really sound.

Speaker 1 And the last few years they've been kind of chasing to try to find a couple guys that were erasers on the back end. And in my opinion, haven't been able to find that.

Speaker 1 So, you know, obviously Jordan Battle and Geno, Geno Stone will be their guys, Iowa Hawkeye.

Speaker 1 But I think just having him, when you get your alpha back in the room, I think that alone, just as far as the spirit of a team that's looking to start fast, that alone, I think, has got to help.

Speaker 2 Well, and like the morale of, hey, we were losing this guy, we all thought for, you know, six months and now he is going to be on our team. I bet that's a massive boost too.

Speaker 2 But like when we're talking about it with the defense, the only thing that I mean we're thinking of is can they win the Super Bowl or not?

Speaker 2 And if you go back and look at the last five Super Bowl champions, like they had great defenses, you know, or they at least had multiple guys.

Speaker 2 Like one guy, it's hard to think of one guy as a, who doesn't play quarterback that's a 14-point swing. Like that, it's just, it's very difficult.

Speaker 2 And there are, you know, TJ Watt stats with the Steelers where he, I mean, they, without TJ Watt, they're nothing.

Speaker 4 So there is, you know, part of it where you could think Trey is going flip it for him but when you just measure him up against those other Super Bowl teams it's hard to take them over them because of the defense also the immeasurable we've talked about a couple times on the show Sam Hubbard retiring yeah and he was one of the leaders if not the leader on that defense so now if you had if you didn't have him or Trey like then you have to expect someone to step up and be a leader of this young defense or defense that definitely needs to improve I think Logan Wilson yeah is you know he's put enough time in now he's in the middle of the defense he's a green dot I mean he comes across to me Real quick, because I know we're going to have Al joining us here in a few minutes.

Speaker 1 The soap opera down in Dallas.

Speaker 1 What's your guys' take on Micah Parsons? What do you see happening? Look into your crystal ball.

Speaker 1 Where is Dallas going in 2025? Is Micah Parsons going to be happy? He looks disgruntled, laying around, clearly not engaged at all.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts on how this thing ends?

Speaker 2 I mean, after watching the Jerry Jones Dallas documentary that came out, I'm assuming Mike probably doesn't play like the first two weeks or three weeks, and then he gets the deal that he wants just because of how good he is.

Speaker 2 But that's the thing we were talking about it, too. Like, people who know the Cowboys and cover them a lot feel pretty optimistic about this year.

Speaker 2 It feels as though they feel very good about, you know, the Cowboys and Schoenheimer and what they're going to look like.

Speaker 2 So if that's the case and they start off 3-0, it'll be interesting to see what, you know, if Jerry feels pressure to. But no matter what, their pass rush is going to be the same.

Speaker 2 their defense isn't going to be the same, and it feels like in the end, Jerry will just, you know, give them 45 a year and they'll be a Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 1 Why don't we throw all this? Yeah, seriously.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I mean, because we're talking about it.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 that's part of what it takes with the Cowboys.

Speaker 2 At least Jerry said, you know, the other day about the whole soap opera thing and how, like, if you're, you know, I forget, I think it was Damian Woody who came on the show and said, hey, if you are a player or a coach and you hear this, then you immediately think like, okay, football is not the most important because the other side of it is just the buzz around him.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of buzz.
You see Parsons signing and being happy. Like, is he going to become a happy Cowboys?

Speaker 3 I mean, I think if he gets the highest, you know, if he becomes the highest paid defensive player in the history of the NFL, I think you're probably going to be happy, you know, with that regard.

Speaker 1 If he doesn't get that, then he's not signing. Yeah, probably not.

Speaker 3 I don't think so. I mean, Jerry's already made comments about like, hey, we, we made an offer to make him the highest paid player.
He's obviously in his prime right now.

Speaker 3 His agent is one of the best in the NFL, if not the best. Like he's not going to let, you know, so there's just, we'll see.

Speaker 3 I mean, like Connor said, I think a lot of, I think the Cowboys have Super Bowl aspirations this year, and it's kind of got covered up by Shoddy being a first-year head coach, but you look at their roster, I think they believe they can compete, and I don't think you can't win a Super Bowl if you don't have Mike Parsons.

Speaker 3 Jerry knows that.

Speaker 4 I think that all of us, like this whole time, we've just,

Speaker 4 we don't know how it got to this point.

Speaker 4 Because, I mean, normally a guy like him, everyone else in his draft class, none of them had to get to their fifth year on their rookie contract they all got they all got the the extension before they got to their fifth year and you know like none of us we don't we don't have agents so I want to ask you obviously haven't have an agent like can you

Speaker 4 handshake deals don't really exist in this era when you're dealing with this type of money right can you believe that they even Jerry even thought he was going to get this deal done without an agent being involved I can't imagine that and I can't imagine any player thinking that

Speaker 1 hey you and I just talking just a couple guys talking. Like, I would never feel comfortable with that.

Speaker 1 And if somebody tried to approach me to do that, I would just steer them to the guy that needs to be the guy that's that's kind of handling that kind of business. But hey, we got a lot to talk about.

Speaker 1 We got,

Speaker 1 I don't even know how you intro this guy, right? I mean, this is the most recognizable voice to me in my lifetime. He's called more big events than anybody.

Speaker 1 It's an absolute honor for me to be his partner on Thursday nights on Amazon Prime. Let's welcome in Mr.
Al Michaels.

Speaker 1 Sir, yes, sir.

Speaker 5 All I can say is, dude, this is your one day off over the next six months.

Speaker 1 This is how you spend it.

Speaker 5 You are an animal. And I don't mean a golden retriever.
You're an animal.

Speaker 1 Hey, a friend asked for some help, and I just hopped in. That's all there is to it.

Speaker 1 How you doing, man? I got a chance to see you in New York. You want to talk a little bit about your offseason? I know what you do, but

Speaker 1 what do you like to do when you're not calling football games and you are hanging out with your wife, Linda, and your family?

Speaker 1 What do you do to kill time?

Speaker 5 Little

Speaker 5 traveling, love to read.

Speaker 5 I've watched, I think, every football documentary. There are now like 9,000 of them out there getting ready for the season.
But it's funny.

Speaker 5 I mean, the offseason just goes faster and faster these days. And I mean, to me, it feels like May.

Speaker 5 How did we get to the end of August? So here we are, but it's exciting. It's an exciting time.
We've got a good schedule, as you know, and away we go two weeks from Thursday.

Speaker 1 And you're now a scratch golfer, right? Really? Woo.

Speaker 5 Yeah, they scratched me from the roster at the Bel Air Country Club. No, no, I am.

Speaker 5 You know what?

Speaker 5 They call it a reversion to the mean in analytics when, you know, things go bad, but the next year they go good. No, no.
My graph in golf is

Speaker 1 straight down baby but you're you're a blast but people that play with you they they see you over at the club they're like al you're in let's go a couple cocktails on the course yeah it's fun no no no no no we're very sober but i mean look the great thing about golf is camaraderie you know people in football obviously in football you know better than anybody you talk about the camaraderie in the locker room and that's what you take with you same thing in golf you go out there let's have a bunch of laughs al i think the bonus that i have with with calling games with you on amazon prime is the downtime.

Speaker 1 You know, whether it's a dinner on Wednesday night or whether it's just hanging out, you telling stories of the 1980 Olympics or you telling a story about your perspective of a Super Bowl you called or a World Series.

Speaker 1 Looking back at all these amazing events, I'm sure you've been asked this a million times.

Speaker 1 Which one stands out to you and for what reason when you've called that many exciting moments?

Speaker 5 Nothing will ever top 1980 because it meant so much to the country. And, you know, some people, I'm sure, are probably tired of hearing about it.
It's 45 years ago, you know, when the U.S.

Speaker 5 defeated the Soviets and still had to beat Finland in the Olympics in Lake Placid. But the world was in such a strange place at that time where as a country, we didn't feel very good about ourselves.

Speaker 5 We had hostages being held in Iran. The prime rate was almost 20%.

Speaker 5 People were upset about a lot of things at that point. And all of a sudden, we had no chance to win a game against the Soviets.
And we did,

Speaker 5 and then won the gold medal. So because of what that meant to the United States, nothing can ever top that.

Speaker 5 I mean, I've done Super Bowls that have gone down to the end that have been phenomenal, World Series games that have been great, playoff baseball games that have been terrific.

Speaker 5 But how can you beat that when it meant so much to the country? And it wasn't really about hockey for most people. It was just, it was us against them.
at a particular point in the Cold War.

Speaker 5 So nothing will ever top that for me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Was the movie close to being accurate?

Speaker 5 The movie was very close. I mean, obviously all movies take some literary license, but I think the director, Gavin O'Connor, did a tremendous job.
He stayed as true as he could to the story.

Speaker 5 And when you look at, you know, Herb Brooks was the coach and the way he was portrayed in that movie was phenomenal, unbelievable. I mean, Kurt Russell.

Speaker 5 as Herb Brooks was as close to reality as anything I've ever seen in a movie. He

Speaker 5 studied like crazy. You know, know, he's been a great friend for years.
And I mean, he nailed it. It was perfect.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so many great moments, obviously. Connor, I know you had a question.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Al, first of all, if anyone ever tells you that they're sick of hearing about the United States,

Speaker 1 you can tell them to go to hell. Exactly.

Speaker 2 But going forward, of course, anybody hearing that story will be happy. But big storyline this offseason, Al has been the Jerry Jones debacle.
And I saw you in the Cowboys documentary last week.

Speaker 2 You were phenomenal. I thought there should have been more of you in there just because you lived through the entire thing.

Speaker 2 But when you look at, you know, the Jerry that you know that you've watched, you know, grow into the owner that we all know today, what do you think about this situation?

Speaker 2 Do you see it going the way with Micah as it did with Emmett Smith, you know, where he waits a couple games and then inevitably signs into the highest deal ever?

Speaker 2 Do you think Jerry is going to stay on pat? And a lot of people too are asking, has Jerry kind of lost it?

Speaker 2 Do you see it that way as well, that he kind of isn't with the times as much, and maybe it's time for Stephen Jones to take over?

Speaker 5 Well, I think that's a natural parallel to think back to the Emmett situation back in 1993 when they started 0-2. They wind up winning the Super Bowl that year.
So you can go back to that.

Speaker 5 Will he sign him? If I had to guess right now, I will say yes. I'm not sure it'll be before opening day.

Speaker 5 Jerry has not lost it.

Speaker 5 In fact, I was with him at the outset of

Speaker 5 the introduction by Netflix at the Egyptian theater in L.A. a couple of weeks ago.
No, Jerry is altogether there. And,

Speaker 5 you know, that team has, obviously, we know that they haven't won a Super Bowl in three decades, but they have lost some of the most gut-wrenching games ever along the lines.

Speaker 5 You know, regular season games that meant a lot, playoff games that have meant a lot. Stephen Jones is, he'll be a great successor, but he is already in there.
I mean, that is a partnership.

Speaker 5 It's not as if Stephen can weigh in and Jerry ignores it. That's not the case at all.
But I think, you know, you've got to give Jerry his due. I mean,

Speaker 5 I thought the documentary really caught the essence of the man. And I think the other thing that stood out in the documentary, I'm sure you guys probably think so if you've seen it,

Speaker 5 the candidness of the interviewees, Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith, Michael Urban, Barry Switzer, Jimmy Johnson. Wow.
I was, I mean, I thought I knew a lot about what happened at that point.

Speaker 5 I forgot a lot of

Speaker 5 what had taken place or didn't even know. I thought that part of it was sensational.
Those guys really gave of themselves.

Speaker 1 Yeah, absolutely. It was, you know, I love those shows, the documentaries that are, you learn a little bit.
You think you know, like you said, Alan, you get a little bit more.

Speaker 1 I thought the Cowboys documentary was.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like they, to Al's point, they show you Jerry Jones watching the Packers Cowboys playoff game in 2024 where the Cowboys you know they go down 21 nothing or whatever the hell it is and just watch seeing that and actually hearing you know what he's saying in the suite and stuff like that was unbelievable yeah for sure yeah and I'll tell you something else about that too is is you know I was a party to what took place when he walked out onto the field with Phil Knight so That day, nobody knew what was really going to happen.

Speaker 5 So I'm staying in a hotel across the street in Manhattan, and Jerry calls me at about noon. He says, come on over.
I got to tell you something. And tells me what he's going to do that night.

Speaker 5 And he says, so what do you think? I said, here's what I think. I think there will be an earthquake on Park Avenue at about 9.30 tonight.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 5 that's exactly what took place. So he had the vision to take the NFL, grab it by the neck, and make it so much bigger than it was.
They resisted, obviously. They sued him for $300 million.

Speaker 5 He sued them back for $700 million. But that was a seminal moment in the NFL.
So you look at Jerry in two parts. As a successful football man, they have won three Super Bowls.
We know it.

Speaker 5 They haven't won in 30 years. Got it.
As a businessman, as a guy who has now built the greatest franchise in sports right now, the most valuable, that stadium is off the charts.

Speaker 5 The stadium is almost 16 years old. It's like you can eat off the floor in it.
Phenomenal. What Jerry does, Jerry does some amazing things.

Speaker 5 It would be nice to see him. I know a lot of people don't feel this way, you know, to get one before he's gone.

Speaker 1 Yeah, everything he touches, the facility in Frisco is cutting edge and

Speaker 1 the best of anybody in the entire NFL. So he always does everything first class.
Tom, what do you have, buddy?

Speaker 4 Yeah, Al, I feel like you're the best person maybe on earth to ask this question to.

Speaker 4 Because besides Troy and Joe, I assume you've called more Aaron Rodgers primetime games than anyone on this earth.

Speaker 4 And obviously, you've done the Steelers a bunch because they're always in primetime as well.

Speaker 4 How do you feel about the fit for Aaron going into Pittsburgh this season, him and Mike Tomlin, who I know you know well, and then just the overall being a 40-plus year-old quarterback going into this season?

Speaker 5 I think a lot depends obviously on health. If he stays very healthy, and he is right now, I think he can still wing it.
You can see it in the clips you see from their training camp.

Speaker 5 He's as smart as it gets when it comes to playing that position. I think this is one of the most fascinating stories, as it was when he joined the Jets a couple of years ago, too.

Speaker 5 So here we are again.

Speaker 5 This is mysteriousness.

Speaker 5 But I think that, again, it all depends. If he's healthy, if he stays healthy, he's got some good pieces

Speaker 5 to play with. I have the greatest respect for Mike Tomlin.

Speaker 5 I see good things ahead from him. Again,

Speaker 5 you can say this about so many players in the National Football League right now, if they can stay healthy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And now you think about two NFL MVPs and the age that he was at.
And then he's had obviously some years where he's had to deal with the injuries. So knock on wood.

Speaker 1 We all want to see him stay healthy. Love to see him get hot for Pittsburgh.
Yeah, yeah, we do. And for Tone.
All right, what do you have, Ty?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Al, the last time we had you on the show, we talked with you about how, you know, there are a couple people on the internet getting pissy with you because you're not, you know, screaming and losing your breath for a first down in the third quarter of a, you know, Browns-Dolphins game on Thursday night football.

Speaker 3 But because you have called so many seminal moments in sports history, when this time rolls around every single year, do you get just as excited as you did when you first started?

Speaker 3 And how do you handle kind of like the critics maybe who at this point,

Speaker 3 you're a goat, you're a legend, and now they're trying to kind of poke holes or

Speaker 3 put a couple shots in you when it's like, hey, listen, I've done everything there is to do in this profession.

Speaker 5 Who doesn't get criticized? What are we talking about here? Everybody. I mean, Mother Teresa would be like a tenth of what she is if she was around during the internet.

Speaker 5 I don't do a game to get a YouTube or an Instagram hit. If you listen to

Speaker 5 the documentary and Pat Summerall and John Madden called a lot of those games. Did Pat scream? Did he scream his guts out?

Speaker 5 And Pat is probably as revered as any play-by-play announcer over the, you know, the past 40 or 50 years. I knew Pat very well.
Wonderful man. Love to hear him and John on the telecast.

Speaker 5 Does he scream at you? No, he does not.

Speaker 5 So in other words, to me, I'm in a visual medium. I don't have to explain or describe everything that your eyes are seeing.
In fact, my theory has always been to speak in captions and ellipses.

Speaker 5 Just bring a little bit

Speaker 5 to the game and get out of there. It's real simple.
You can't scream your guts out. I mean, you can scream your guts out and people will love it because they want to go on YouTube.

Speaker 5 But that ain't me, guys. You know that.

Speaker 1 Al, I hope you go on as long as you feel like this is your spot.

Speaker 1 Amazon Prime, that family, you're the straw that mixes that drink with the studio show, with what we do on the game.

Speaker 1 I mean, if you guys would ever hang out when we're with the other guys, I mean, Al is beloved by the entire group of people behind the scenes, like I said, the studio people. Al, how do you know?

Speaker 1 We just talked about how you've accomplished everything. How do you know, like, do I want to come back for another year? Is it just how you feel? Is it the love?

Speaker 1 You hear coaches get asked that and they say, if I ever stop enjoying coming to work, I'll know it's time. How do you evaluate when the right time is for you and your career?

Speaker 5 Eric, if you lose the passion, it's time. That's how I feel about it.
I'm still, you know, I'm excited. I love walking into a stadium.
I love watching the stadium fill up. I love the games.

Speaker 5 It's exciting. I love live television because it's been, you know, in my DNA for a million years right now.
I still get excited about it. I still look forward to it.

Speaker 5 I think if you don't, if you treat it as a job or as work or as drudgery, go home.

Speaker 1 Go home.

Speaker 5 I'm not there. I hope I never get there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's for sure. And we were driving over to the game the other night.
We were adding up, what year is this for you, Alan, just doing national broadcasts? And what year is this

Speaker 1 in the NFL?

Speaker 5 NFL 40 years. 40th year.

Speaker 1 And yeah,

Speaker 5 network television.

Speaker 5 I started in

Speaker 5 1976

Speaker 5 with ABC. So that's another 10 years on top of that.
Do you know who I actually started with at ABC?

Speaker 1 Bob Iger. Wow.

Speaker 5 Bob and I go all the way back to the start of our careers. Wow.

Speaker 1 So that's awesome.

Speaker 5 How's he doing these days, brother?

Speaker 1 Not as good as you. Yeah, you're both doing pretty well.
Al, thanks so much for hopping on with us today. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 Look forward to seeing you September 11th when we get started up at Lambeau with the commanders and the pack.

Speaker 5 Kirk, you've got, what, 11 college football games before I see you?

Speaker 1 You good, dude.

Speaker 5 Take care.

Speaker 1 Take care, brother. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 Getting out of the gate.

Speaker 1 That's how we do it, Peter. He's the best.
Yeah, he is. 40 years.

Speaker 1 40th year in the NFL, and he said he got started in network television in 1976.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Just a man.
And

Speaker 1 I know it's a different era. I know that we, you know, we were talking at the break.
I like... I like Pat Sommerall.

Speaker 1 I like that kind of call. I like Joe Buck.
I like Mike Tarig. I love Al.
Like, I love when the moment's right, punch it, but not in the first quarter for a touchdown or a 10-yard out.

Speaker 1 Like, I just, but I think there's a younger generation of play-by-play guys that have realized, hey, one of the ways to really get some momentum is to go crazy, and I'm going to go viral for the call, you know, no matter what sport it is.

Speaker 1 And I, for me, again, I'm from a different generation. I like it when it's special.
Give it to me. Otherwise,

Speaker 1 just call the game.

Speaker 4 I agree 100%. And like,

Speaker 1 how old are you now? now i'm 56. no you're not i swear

Speaker 3 so i'm 20 years younger than you so i'm obviously i assume that's a different generation but like keith jackson was my father oh yeah but again it was the moment that he would give that to you and he didn't do it it's a long game yeah it's that's a long watch if if someone is going crazy every first down because sometimes too you know like you'll be on your phone and someone's going ape shit and you look up expecting to see like a 65 yard touchdown and it was like a six-yard run for a first down.

Speaker 3 It's like, okay, what do we do? Like it's just, it feels weird watching. I agree.
I mean, you go back and watch some of those like Pat Sommerall games.

Speaker 3 Like, I don't know if monotone's the right way to put it, but it's just like, it's soothing.

Speaker 1 It works. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I tell you, my career, I've worked with Mike Tariq. This is how I came up.

Speaker 1 Mike and I started together, and then I went to ABC and I went with Brent Musberger, and then Chris Fowler took over for Brent. And now I do Chris and also Amazon Prime on Thursday with Al Michael.

Speaker 1 So two. With all the legends.
Think of those four guys

Speaker 1 that I've worked with.

Speaker 1 And when Al calls a game, you know, he's got his, you know, the greatest spotter that's probably ever done it with he and Al together for, I don't know, I think 46 years or longer.

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 1 there's so much communication between the play-by-play and the analyst, sometimes nonverbal.

Speaker 1 But, you know, I have a spotter, he's got a spotter, the truck's downstairs. There's just a lot of communication that's happening in every booth.

Speaker 1 I've just been, Al's 80 years old, and I'm blown away. And I can just tell you right now, he's not lost anything.
I mean, I watch him and things are, play-by-play guy, man, the things are moving fast.

Speaker 1 You know, and the producer's in his ear, and you got to go to a break, you know, and he never misses a beat. I mean,

Speaker 1 I'm not just saying that to say that. I am, you know, just comparing him with other people I've worked with, and there's, you know, zero difference.

Speaker 1 If anything, it's really more impressive how he handles what he handles. So

Speaker 1 I appreciate him hopping on. I know we only have, we got about eight minutes until Ryan Day hops on.
We talked back there with our big production meeting we had.

Speaker 1 We said, hey, we're not going to get a chance because we have a lot of guests on to talk about some of these topics. We've hit the NFL.
Obviously, college football gets started on Thursday night.

Speaker 1 Hawks Thursday or Saturday night? No, Saturday night in Kennedy. Saturday I know.

Speaker 3 I do not remember the last time that happened, that they started the season with a night game.

Speaker 1 Okay. It's been forever.
Is that the one you're on? No, I'm not calling the Iowa game. Who are they playing? Albany.
Tough Albany.

Speaker 1 This year, yeah. Yep.
Yep. You're not doing an Iowa game?

Speaker 3 Herbie said he was trying. He was, you know, basically.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait, the clock's ticking here. We're going to go through the power four conferences.
Hell yeah. And we're going to give you our pick since college football starts Thursday.
Sure.

Speaker 1 We'll give you our pick and we'll give you the sleeper. Okay.
Okay. Let's start with the Big 12.
Anybody want to start?

Speaker 2 I mean, I think my pick's probably the same as my sleeper.

Speaker 2 West Virginia, bitch.

Speaker 2 It's Rich Rod season, baby. I just saw GG Garrett Green catching a touchdown pass for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the preseason.
So yeah, I think the Mountaineers might do it.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, that's the sleeper and the championship.

Speaker 2 And the championship. And is that because the only other team I can think of is Arizona State? Maybe.

Speaker 1 But I don't want to buy your Arizona. It's tough.
Pick 12's tough. Tough to keep up with.

Speaker 1 Tough to care about.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think Sleeper, I'd probably go. I mean, I don't even know if you'd count him as a sleeper with how much money they've invested in the program.
But you know, that's fair

Speaker 1 until you see it. That's a good one.

Speaker 3 Tech's getting a lot of juice right now. And then my pick, I hate to do it, but I'm going to go with the clones.

Speaker 1 I like it. They look good.
Yeah, I mean, that's a Matt Campbell. That's a Matt Campbell team.

Speaker 1 It's a Matt Campbell team. Yeah.
Quarterback that can play smart. Right.
The defense was flying around. They moved well, too.
They looked really good. And the game started a little bit slow.

Speaker 1 It's the first game. All the way back to Dublin.
Drafty vet. But I thought they, you know, there were some turnovers early in the game, but overall, as the game went on, I was impressed.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Really, with both teams. But Iowa State got it done at the end with the quarterback.

Speaker 3 And I think, you know, Matt Campbell is the best Iowa State coach in a long, long, long time. And I think they've been building to this point for a while.

Speaker 3 I think it would make sense if they finally get over that hump and win the Big 12 this year.

Speaker 1 How about the unis? Do you

Speaker 1 give the okay on the unis? I hate them.

Speaker 3 I like the old Iowa State uniforms, and then they kind of got rid of Psy, like the bird inside the site. That's fine.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're from up that state. Yeah.
That state.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I don't love them, but I'm a black and gold guy as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, that's true.

Speaker 2 What are you going to do?

Speaker 1 That's true. Tone, what do you got? Big question?

Speaker 4 I think Arizona State's going to do it again. I think they're going to win it.
They have

Speaker 4 11 of their top 13 tacklers back on defense.

Speaker 1 And Levitt and Tyson back on offense. Bingo.

Speaker 4 The only real loss they have out of Gataboo. And they bring in Kanye Udo from Army, who I love as a running back.
So I don't think there's going to be any drop off at Arizona State.

Speaker 4 For sleepers, because it's the Big 12, I had a couple.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go with TCU.

Speaker 4 I like TCU.

Speaker 1 I see him Monday night against Bill Belichick. Hoover's back.

Speaker 4 He threw for 4,000 yards last year. So they just, what, two years ago they were in the national championship.

Speaker 4 Sorry, three years ago, they were in the national champion. Then they had the five and seven, I think, year or whatever it was.

Speaker 4 And then they kind of water found its level last year i think tcu maybe comes comes back kansas looked really good this yeah

Speaker 1 you know kansas state iowa state for me before the season started was kind of a coin flip it's ironic that they ended up opening up with one another um i i picked kansas state to to end up winning the big 12 now they're a game down behind iowa state it's okay utah is my team that people forget about they're in the big 12 because since they've been in they've not they just haven't been healthy at quarterback geographically

Speaker 1 i'm gonna go i'm gonna go with utah let's go sec because we're we have three and a half minutes until Ryan Day hops on here. What do you got in the SEC?

Speaker 1 Sleeper.

Speaker 3 I guess South Carolina, just because there are so many good teams in the SEC and Lenore Sellers. And then pick.
I'm going to go with Bama this year.

Speaker 1 Bama. Yeah.
Wow, good for you. Yeah, I'm going to go Bama.
You're not hearing a lot of Bama right now or Georgia.

Speaker 3 Right, which is what, and I think Kalen DeBoer is a really good coach. I think, you know, last year, obviously, just trying to find your footing.

Speaker 3 I think they'll win the SEC this year.

Speaker 1 Okay, Tongue.

Speaker 4 I'm actually going with Bama as well to win.

Speaker 4 I think Texas, Georgia, Bay.

Speaker 4 No quarterback concerns at all for I mean, there's definitely the quarterback, but I also think they have the best O-line in the country potentially with Caden Proctor at that left tackle position, and their defense is so good, and they get Ryan Grubb back.

Speaker 4 Sleeper is Texas A ⁇ M for me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Good one.

Speaker 4 If they could get the quarterback, if the quarterback position can progress like I think they can. Marcel Reed.

Speaker 1 Marcel Reed.

Speaker 4 They have a great offensive line. They have great running back room.
And I think Elko year two

Speaker 1 will be good. A ⁇ M is my sleeper.
Yeah, good. Good.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to go, bam.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm actually going to say South Carolina is going to

Speaker 2 not be a sleep.

Speaker 1 He watched the SEC dock and loved it.

Speaker 2 I love the Lenora Sellers, and I'm taking

Speaker 2 the Lenora Sellers from the Heisman. And also, I like how.

Speaker 1 Wow, you're all in. Yeah, I like how we're all agreeing.

Speaker 2 Just, hey, let's not be the ones to pick Texas, even though Texas will probably win it. But I think, what, is this the most deep the SEC has been?

Speaker 1 On paper, sure. It looks like it.
What's interesting is a lot of the behemoths are breaking in new quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 You know, like Georgia and Alabama, you know, you have a lot of confidence in what they have around the position.

Speaker 1 LSU, maybe.

Speaker 2 You take care of it. Maybe I'll switch it.
LSU, I think, would be, and I guess they're not chalk.

Speaker 1 It looks like Bama is.

Speaker 1 I flipped the coin between Texas and LSU, and I'm going Texas.

Speaker 1 Surprise team is Florida. I think DJ Lackway, if he's healthy, I was so impressed with him last year.
We've talked about that, how their coach was fired, and they started off slow.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, I think they won four of their last five or five of their last six. And the only loss that he had was when he got injured as a starter against Florida or against Georgia.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to go with Florida. I like your A ⁇ M as a sleeper as well.
Big 10 before Ryan Day hops on.

Speaker 3 I like Ohio State.

Speaker 3 And then not to be a homer, but the way their schedule sets up, if they can win a couple, you know, a couple of those kind of tough games, I think Iowa could find a way to sneak in this year.

Speaker 3 That quarterback.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm very excited for him play.

Speaker 1 I'm going back to Brad Banks. I don't know if you were born yet.
Oh, yeah. The last turn.

Speaker 1 You know, we thought Iowa's not just surviving and going to win with used to be

Speaker 1 Norm Parker, the defensive coordinator, now Phil. And it was, you know, run the football.
But this quarterback, I mean, he's a dual guy.

Speaker 1 It'd be interesting if they unleash him, or are they going to be conservative and try to win the Iowa way?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I hope not. I mean, they haven't had a guy with his skill set, like you said, in quite some time.
And

Speaker 3 you need to, I mean, that's just

Speaker 3 putting an awful lot on the defense to ask them to win 17, 10, 17, 13 every single week.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll go Penn State and I'll go Sleeper Nebraska.

Speaker 1 I'm still a Matt Rule guy.

Speaker 2 I don't know if we're going to keep doing this.

Speaker 1 Exactly. He's always good in year 2020.
We're going to keep doing this every year, but I think this is the year for Nebraska. Okay.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go Penn State. I know they haven't won the big one yet, but they got a similar vibes to Michigan and then Ohio State bringing everyone back to try to win a national championship.

Speaker 4 And then I was going to go Iowa, but because Ty did,

Speaker 4 not saying they're going to win the Big Ten, but watch out for Washington this year.

Speaker 1 You're too good. Quarterbacks for real.
Very, very good.

Speaker 4 I'll go Washington as someone to watch.

Speaker 1 Where would Illinois fall into this category? Would they fall in as sleeper even with the preseason hype?

Speaker 3 We kind of talked about it in LA a little bit at the Espes. They're getting a lot of heat for, hey, Illinois, you know, maybe should go to the playoffs this year.

Speaker 3 I don't know about winning the Big Ten, but I think they've been talked about too much to be a sleeper.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think a lot of the Illinois and you, Miami people, or not those people rather, I think a lot of the football fans in general have kind of picked those two teams as like possible Florida State teams this year

Speaker 2 versus

Speaker 2 going the other way.

Speaker 2 But I mean, shit, I saw Greg McCroy doesn't even have South Carolina's top 25.

Speaker 1 All right, and he has Nick Saban back coaching, so who knows? Who knows?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 All right, let's bring in the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, the defending national champs, Coach Ryan Day. Coach, how are you, Buckeye? Oh,

Speaker 1 great pleasure. Good to see you, man.

Speaker 1 You and I have talked a little bit, but I would love to ask you just an offseason as a defending national champ. Is it business as usual?

Speaker 1 Once you got done with the circuit, you just kind of get back to winter conditioning and recruiting. What was this like for you after you guys climbed the top of that mountain?

Speaker 7 It was really like every other offseason. The only difference was I got to do a lot of cool things.

Speaker 7 Got a chance to see some great people and do some really, really cool stuff. But it was really just like every other offseason, maybe a little faster because of how late we ended the season.
But

Speaker 7 spring practice came fast and the new challenges came. And

Speaker 7 guys in a building wanted to move on, just like the coaching staff. And that was it.

Speaker 7 I like to say once the confetti hit the ground, it was on to the next season. And that's it.
And so this is exciting for us with a whole new group of guys, whole new journey.

Speaker 7 And our guys hold the pen to see what this story is like because last year story's been written and here we go. We've got a whole new start.

Speaker 1 What in your mind, when you go through a season like last year, and they could make a movie out of last season?

Speaker 1 What are you able to take away? Because you're always learning and growing as a coach. What can you take away from that? to bring in to 2025 that you learned through some obvious ups and a few downs?

Speaker 7 Well, with the new playoff system, we know it's going to be a long season. So

Speaker 7 we have to make sure that we, again, it's not, I've heard people say this before, and I agree with it, it's not a marathon.

Speaker 7 It's 12 sprints, you know, and you have to make sure that you're there every single week getting better. You identify what the problems are, then you grow from there.

Speaker 7 And, you know, if things are going well, we can't overreact. If something goes bad, we can't overreact.
We got to identify what the issues are, get them fixed, and then move forward with them.

Speaker 7 And then grow as the season goes on. And I think that's probably the most important thing.
And then the older guys have to take accountability.

Speaker 7 I think when you have great teams, the leaders and the older guys are the ones that run the show.

Speaker 1 You know, before you got there, Ohio State had a hard time consistently recruiting high-level receivers and high-level quarterback play.

Speaker 1 And since you've been there, it's pretty much been just rolling.

Speaker 1 When you get a new situation at quarterback and you don't have a veteran coming back and you don't have preseason football like the NFL and even high school has.

Speaker 1 How do you figure out when you have a couple guys going at it who the guy is? How does that guy win the team over when he hasn't been out there in front of 100,000 on national TV?

Speaker 1 That's got to be a little bit tricky.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it is. But these guys are with each other every day, whether it's in the weight room or on the field, in meetings,

Speaker 7 outside the woody.

Speaker 7 And so they know.

Speaker 7 And the good thing is, you know,

Speaker 7 I feel good that we have a couple quarterbacks that we can win with.

Speaker 7 I do feel like Julian pulled away down the stretch here just with his overall performance. You know, he's very, very consistent, but Lincoln's working hard.

Speaker 7 He knows he's one snap away or who knows, even could play in this game. So,

Speaker 7 you know, you just try to go off with your experience and what you've seen. You try to put them in game situations.
You try to challenge them.

Speaker 7 You try to make it as hard as you possibly can so that the game's easier. And that's like training any athlete, but certainly a quarterback.
It's important.

Speaker 7 But you got to go back on what you know as a coach and, you know, the guys that you've seen in the same spot and make sure that you're preparing in the right way.

Speaker 1 Awesome. Tom?

Speaker 4 Yeah, coach,

Speaker 4 going back to the beginning of last season, you guys had guys like JTT and Jack Sawyer and Ameka Abuka and Will Howard who came in and Tyleek Williams who came back.

Speaker 4 There was a lot of guys that could have went to the NFL who decided to come back. And then obviously after you win the national championship, 14 guys are drafted to the NFL.

Speaker 4 And you talk about, you know, your old guys have to become leaders and stuff like that. How different is it this season going into it with all those guys being gone?

Speaker 4 And who are the new guys, the older guys that are going to step up for you this year in a leadership role?

Speaker 7 Yeah, well, when you think about when a bunch of guys decide to come back, it's a great, great thing, you know, for a lot of reasons for their team, for their brothers, for the school, all those things.

Speaker 7 The tricky thing is when that year is over, you almost have two years of guys that now are out the door and you got big holes to fill.

Speaker 7 But we knew that. And there's a lot of guys that are coming back.
You know, David,

Speaker 7 Davison Igbinosen, you got Sonny Stiles, Caleb Downs, Austin Sarvelle, Brandon Ennis, Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate. You know,

Speaker 7 the majority of our tight ends are back.

Speaker 7 And I think when you look at those guys and their leadership last year,

Speaker 7 now they're taking the next step. I think you're seeing it off the field.
But for some of them, they just need to get on the field and have production, the guys that haven't played a lot.

Speaker 7 Because once you do it on the field, you just have a certain confidence about you when you walk in the locker room. And so

Speaker 7 this is going to be a group that hasn't played a lot who's coming out and playing on Saturday. But we know what we see in practice.
They're fired up to start this journey.

Speaker 7 And the more they play, the more confidence they'll have and the more they'll feel confident leading.

Speaker 1 Today?

Speaker 3 Coach, going back to last year, it was really cool as we got to follow along through the entire playoff run. But I want to go back to that first playoff or the first round game against Tennessee.

Speaker 3 I'm just curious, was there any kind of like major advantage that you guys had having that game at home in the cold? Because we were there and I don't know what the actual temperature was.

Speaker 3 It felt like it was 50 below.

Speaker 3 Like, how much was an advantage playing that game at home against one of those teams from the South that maybe isn't built the same as you guys who have to deal with the cold on a regular basis?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I think

Speaker 7 when you looked at the way that the playoff system was put into place, I think everyone said to themselves, so what's it going to be like in December if you go have to play in the horseshoe?

Speaker 7 And that's exactly what it was like. I mean, it was cold.
It was, it was, it was football, though, in the Big Ten. And

Speaker 7 so,

Speaker 7 you know, great memories of that. But that was the first time that there's ever been a playoff game like that,

Speaker 7 you know, in Ohio. And so that was unique.
But I think the thing for us is, you know, at that moment, our backs were against the wall. You know, our players,

Speaker 7 our coaches, our fans, and we came out swinging in that game. And so, you know, we have to be the same way here.

Speaker 7 You know, just because we were in that situation last year shouldn't affect how we play. And so we need to have that same mentality.
We walk out of the tunnel here on Saturday.

Speaker 2 Oh, Coach, sorry about that. Thank you very much, Kirk.

Speaker 1 Coach,

Speaker 2 great to hear you had a wonderful offseason. That's awesome.
Saw you on a bunch of shows.

Speaker 2 We were very, very bummed out that you weren't able to come on our program after you won the national championship.

Speaker 2 But, I mean, everybody and their mother was asking to talk to Ryan today, so you can understand it.

Speaker 2 Looking back at last year, Coach, the Oregon game, the first time you played in Oregon, you know, obviously what happens, Will, you know, slides, the clock runs out, everything, you know, goes that way, it came down to the wire.

Speaker 2 But then when you look at the Rose Bowl, I mean, you guys beat the brakes off of Oregon.

Speaker 2 So when you're looking at those two games, what changed do you think between, you know, the first game and the second game? You mentioned confidence.

Speaker 2 Obviously, one of the games was, you know, later in the season. But for you, what do you think changed the most for your team between the first time you played Oregon and the second time?

Speaker 7 Well, I think the first thing is Oregon's got a very good team. I think Dan does a great job and playing in Otson Stadium is no joke.
You know, it's a difficult place to play.

Speaker 7 You know, we jumped out to an early lead, but then turned the ball over in the red zone and then

Speaker 7 had an onside kick that

Speaker 7 the coaches are responsible for that. We got to better prepare the players.
And so they got the ball in plus territory there.

Speaker 7 And then when we lost Simmons in that game, that certainly set us back as well. And then, you know, didn't finish the game the way we wanted to.
So there was a lot of factors that played into that.

Speaker 7 And, you know, that was the first time that we had traveled, you know, all the way to the West Coast to play a game since I'd been here for a regular season game.

Speaker 7 So there was a lot of things there that we needed to identify that we needed to get better at. You know, we're going to Washington this year.

Speaker 7 You know, we have to be able to handle that better, handle the environment better. But on the field, we felt like we had made a lot of adjustments.

Speaker 7 We had made a lot of changes in all three phases to make sure that, again, like we're talking about, that we're growing, that we're getting better, that we're adapting, and that, you know, we're, you know, kind of, as time goes on, you know, we're re-engineering ourselves.

Speaker 7 You know, it can't just be the same thing. I say this all the time, like the Apple 1.0 phone doesn't work anymore.

Speaker 7 Every week you have to upgrade. And so I felt like we did do that, and that'll be important this season.

Speaker 1 So Jeremiah Smith,

Speaker 1 physically, I don't know. Maybe you've seen people that look like that as a true freshman.

Speaker 1 Adrian Peterson, in 30 years of doing it, Adrian Peterson and Jeremiah Smith are the only true freshmen I've seen that are built and able to do what they are able to do physically.

Speaker 1 Where does he go from here? Like it is offseason. I can't imagine him getting stronger with Mick and getting quicker and getting more mature.

Speaker 1 What have you seen in camp from number four?

Speaker 7 Well, yeah, like my wife Nina said, she says, I don't remember anybody walking around our high school hallways looking like Jeremiah Smith.

Speaker 7 No, it's because they weren't.

Speaker 1 No, they weren't.

Speaker 7 They don't exist.

Speaker 7 I think with Jeremiah, to your point, like, you know, he early in the season was certainly very, very talented, but you saw him really take off in the second half of the year.

Speaker 7 I think there's just a certain level of confidence now going into the season, and he wants to win games. You know, he knows what's going to happen.

Speaker 7 You know, teams are going to try to take him out in terms of coverage and different things. They're going to know where he is, but he loves to win.
I think that's, you know,

Speaker 7 he's a, you know,

Speaker 7 underspoken person. Like he doesn't, he doesn't, you know, he's out in front of things.
He's not trying to get out,

Speaker 7 you know, in the media and say certain things, but he loves to win and he loves to compete. And so, you know, when you lose a game, I mean, you know, he's not himself for a while.
He loves to win.

Speaker 7 And I think, you know, he sees himself as winning back-to-back national championships. You know, he has things he wants to get done here at Ohio State.

Speaker 7 You know, certainly everybody wants to talk about, you know, where he's going to go next in the NFL and he'll have a great career there. But he wants to leave a legacy behind.

Speaker 7 And, you know, the way he works on a day-to-day basis is a great example to all of our players.

Speaker 7 You know, he's a tremendous role model, just in how he handles himself, but the way he works every single day.

Speaker 1 And we all know when the best players are your hardest workers, which you guys have had a lot of that, man, it just trickles down and really lets the team manage the personality as much as you try to stand up there and talk.

Speaker 1 When you got guys like that and Caleb Downs, I mean, that's a great place to start, Tone.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Coach, obviously, you're a great offensive mind, and you were dealing with the new offensive coordinator last year in Chip Kelly, and then again this year in Brian Hartline, even though he has been there for a long time.

Speaker 4 But on the defensive side of the ball, Jim Knowles was with you for the last few years, and now you bring in Matt Patricia.

Speaker 4 How has it been with Matt Patricia? And have you had to

Speaker 4 teach him at all about the college football game and how offenses potentially run difference and different than what he was used to in the NFL?

Speaker 7 Yeah, Matt, if you've ever spending time with Matt, you know how inquisitive he is. He's got a great personality.

Speaker 7 He's already built great relationships here in the building with recruits, with the players, and he's really, you know, embraced

Speaker 7 the entire program,

Speaker 7 our culture. And he walked into a room with a bunch of guys that have already been coaches here for a long time at Ohio State.
And that's not easy to do. And he did that, and he's doing that.

Speaker 7 But he's, yeah, he's very intelligent, but also inquisitive. And so, you know, he constantly is asking questions about

Speaker 7 the hash marks,

Speaker 7 how time

Speaker 7 gets handled at the end of the game in terms of first downs. That's different than the NFL.

Speaker 7 There are some differences for sure. And

Speaker 7 he understands it. He's watched it.
He's very, very intelligent. Again, like I said, and has a great background of doing multiple things.
So I'm excited to see where this defense goes.

Speaker 7 They're running around with a bunch of confidence right now. And

Speaker 7 I'm glad we have them because this is somebody that I've known for a while. But to see him work on a day-to-day basis has been impressive.

Speaker 1 How will you and Heartline handle the play calling? Is it all him or you?

Speaker 1 That's a hard thing for you to let go of, I know.

Speaker 1 How do you envision that Saturday?

Speaker 7 Yeah, so we spend a lot of time on the game plan.

Speaker 7 And I've said before, like if it goes up on the list and it's a first-down call, like, all right, if we stamp it, then we all have to feel good that that was the call, you know, and the more organization that we have on the game plan, the better we've prepared ourselves and the players, the easier game, you know, the game planning goes.

Speaker 7 And then, obviously, how calling the game will go. So they're all good plays.

Speaker 7 And when they're working, that's what really matters: is making sure that guys are prepared and the guys can execute the plays. That's the most important thing.
But I'll be right there.

Speaker 7 I'm right a part of it. He's got a great staff to work with.
Tyler Bowen's been excellent to work with.

Speaker 7 Keenan Bailey, Billy Fessler, Carlos Lachlan. We got a great group of guys.
So everybody's working together to put the best plan together, but ultimately it comes down to execution.

Speaker 1 We have like 45 seconds. We haven't even asked you.
What comes comes to mind with this breakdown of Texas? You played them late last year. Some new pieces, obviously, in some key areas.

Speaker 1 Anything stand out in your mind and the keys to this game?

Speaker 7 Yeah, they're fast.

Speaker 7 They run around and tackle really well on defense.

Speaker 7 I feel like, you know, both Sark and

Speaker 7 Pete do a great job in terms of what they run schematically.

Speaker 7 They're going to put pressure on you with the ball in their hand. You know, Sark does a great job in getting the ball out in space, shooting the ball down the field.

Speaker 7 And now, you know, you've got a quarterback that can hurt you with his legs as well. So great team speed, a lot of talent.

Speaker 7 Probably one of the most talented teams we play all season. So we know what it's like because we played them last year.

Speaker 7 A little bit, you know, a few different guys, but a lot of the same faces as well.

Speaker 1 Well, we applaud you for playing this kind of game, you know, in the non-conference. There's some people that go a different route.

Speaker 1 You know, we, we, as college football fans, most importantly, your players, they want to play in these kind of games. They look forward to them for months.
So we'll see you this weekend in Columbus.

Speaker 1 Thanks a lot for hopping on with this coach. Appreciate it.

Speaker 7 All right, guys. Go Bucks.
All right.

Speaker 1 See you next time.

Speaker 1 Go Bucks. All right.

Speaker 1 All right. Go Bucks.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 again, nothing against Iowa because Iowa plays Iowa State every year. They've always played people, but it's interesting.

Speaker 1 That's a big topic, what direction you go in the non-conference because Indiana is an example last year. Sometimes it's just, we got to 11 wins.
We should be in. Not necessarily who you played.

Speaker 3 Well, and the way it's changed. Like, I mean, they're taking, if they lose that game, it's not the end of the year year because it's not a conference game.

Speaker 3 You can still get a great seed in the playoffs. But, like,

Speaker 3 they have every right to schedule Albany as opposed to, you know, Texas. But that, like, and this was the whole conversation when conference realignment started.

Speaker 3 We were, you know, like rivalry game, sure, but we were worried, like, these were the kind of games that were going to start being absent from week one, week two, and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 So very commendable to both programs for agreeing, like, hey, let's play week one.

Speaker 1 You know, we got Florida State, Alabama, Alabama, you got Notre Dame, Miami, got LSU and Clemson. I mean, there's some really, really intriguing, important week one matchups.

Speaker 1 Does he say take five at the this hour or at the end of the show? Take three? Yeah, yeah, take three. Take three.
Yeah, it's only three minutes.

Speaker 1 Well, we've had a great that first hour, by the way, for me just flew by. Appreciate Al Michaels, Ryan Day, hopping on.
Next hour, we have Adam Schefter.

Speaker 1 It's cut down Tuesday in the NFL, so we'll talk with him. And my buddy Joey Galloway, also at 1:40, will hop on.
So we are out. We'll We'll be back in three.

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Speaker 1 We're here to talk football!

Speaker 1 Almost got it. Almost got it.
It was damn near close.

Speaker 1 This is hour two. First hour flew by.
Really having a lot of fun here. We also have not just Connor and Ty and Tone, but AJ Hawk, another buck.

Speaker 1 I know he has a huge intro, national champ, NFL, all-time leading tackler, Mr. A.J.
Hawk. And a big hawker.
hawker.

Speaker 6 Kirk, you and Peter look great up there, Kirk. Is Peter all right?

Speaker 1 I saw him choking on a golf ball last night.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's good. He's good.
He looks good. Jerry shit it out.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Funny enough, Hawk, I was pretty nervous about this just because earlier Herbie did not want to, you know, kind of stare you down face to face because he said he's still having PTSD from when you knocked him off.

Speaker 1 Oh, he killed me. He killed me.
I mean,

Speaker 6 Federal alumni game, Kirk.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, after that that one they never did it again was that your move were you no i i gave him that and it just

Speaker 3 didn't he didn't bite i was like i'll be

Speaker 1 how old how old were you when you were playing

Speaker 1 early 30s early 30s and hot and he was 16. i he was 15 or 16.
yeah i did i couldn't drive yet yeah i rode with my brother meanwhile he

Speaker 1 his head yeah some guys heads are just yeah heavy that yeah that size well you run it you're trying to run a triple option at 30 years old yeah

Speaker 1 I'm still running Ron Aulry's offense just trying to run fish it.

Speaker 1 But yeah, AJ knocked me out. Tell you what, a clip of you.
There you go. The clip of you.
Yeah, that's about, yeah, right there.

Speaker 4 The clip of you in that 70-yard touchdown.

Speaker 1 How about the shoulder pads, by the way? I know. That's what they were.
I know.

Speaker 6 Deez. I was weighed more than me right there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but you didn't have any of your wristbands on and any of that cool stuff that you always wear.

Speaker 6 Nah, not for Picture Day. No, that was just game day.
Just Picture Day.

Speaker 6 Because we probably had three practices after these pictures that we were, you know, sitting there thinking about we're going to be doing Oklahoma for the next two and a half hours straight.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's fair. That's real.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 AJ, we had a good first hour. We started to do some picks, and we're going to let you, if you want to hop in, we picked the Big Ten.
I didn't pick. How come? Was it right before or right?

Speaker 1 It was right before. Well, we had a guest.
We're talking up. We had a guest stop.

Speaker 1 So were you going to pick up?

Speaker 1 I was showing respect for our guest. Are you going to pick Ohio State?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 my pick to win the Big Ten is Penn State. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And my surprise team in the Big Ten is Iowa. Hello.
We're all the surprises. Hello.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So we already kind of cover those bases.
Do you find it tough now, actually?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, not with that. With your son playing for Michigan now and you being in Ohio State?

Speaker 1 Like, has that... No, it hasn't really.

Speaker 2 Because your other son played for Ohio State too. So even.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't really

Speaker 1 think.

Speaker 4 I heard he almost beat out Bryce.

Speaker 1 No, Bryce has been

Speaker 1 money from what I hear, which is great news. He's been great.
We haven't even talked. Michigan would be, would you consider them a surprise just coming off the year they have

Speaker 1 a preseason tier? They're right on that.

Speaker 4 They're right on that tier because obviously I think the top is still Penn State, Ohio State, Oregon. Yeah.
And then I think it's Michigan. Yeah.
And maybe you can, if you believe in Illinois.

Speaker 6 Why you sleeping on Illinois? Yeah, just because people are talking about Illinois.

Speaker 1 It's hard to pick them as a sleeper when they're 12th in the 8th.

Speaker 4 I have PTSD from last year because Illinois is of the same ilk

Speaker 4 as Pete Dampbell would say.

Speaker 4 Last year, they have the same DNA of like last year when Oklahoma State went 10 and 2 or whatever and they brought back 20 starters and

Speaker 1 then they fell off.

Speaker 4 And Virginia Tech brought back 20 starters and everyone was high on them and then they fell off. So I have PTSD.
That's why I'm not, I'm waiting. I need a team like that to prove it.

Speaker 1 Who's HA have for the Big Ten?

Speaker 6 Ohio State, Go Bucks. You know that.

Speaker 1 Okay. OH, right.

Speaker 6 IO. My sleeper team would be Illinois.
I don't care if the others ranked him at 12th.

Speaker 6 It's pretty damn good. Yeah, I mean, Bielma's doing something great down there over there.

Speaker 4 He does have a history of success in the Big Ten.

Speaker 1 He does, which is huge.

Speaker 3 And if Illinois either won the Big Ten or made it to the college football playoff, like that would be a massive surprise still.

Speaker 1 Massive.

Speaker 1 Totally agree. But that place, if they're winning, just like Kennick

Speaker 1 is a hostile, it has more of a reputation.

Speaker 1 Illinois has been so bad for so long, people don't realize that's a really huge home field advantage if they can win.

Speaker 4 Was the last time they were good, Aurelius Ben?

Speaker 1 Is that name correct? Juice Williams. Juice Williams.
And I don't even think that, but they weren't

Speaker 1 12 NEA people. People back, like in our era, they were really good.

Speaker 1 They had linebackers all in the NFL, Kevin Hardy.

Speaker 1 I mean, 80s, 90s, Illinois, you didn't want to go there, but it's been a long time. How about the SEC? Who do you guys have to win in the? did we pick the SEC? We picked the ACC.
ACC. Who do you have?

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 it's just kind of a one-team conference by Clemson. Then the underdog would just be North Carolina.

Speaker 1 I think. But a lot of people are talking Miami, though, with Carson Beck.
Did we have a quarterback transferring down there? I'm basically the opposite. They spent a ton of money, like Texas Dick.

Speaker 2 Basically, the opposite of a Carson Beck believer, you could say.

Speaker 2 So that's why, you know, I would lean that boy Dabo in their name, image, and likeness in God's eyes.

Speaker 2 But also, North Carolina, like what happens if they are kind of like in Indiana where they bring in 70 new guys and Belichick is still Bill Belichick and reminds everybody of that and that the college game's simpler, so it might help them out too.

Speaker 2 But I mean, I would love to see UNC be great.

Speaker 3 Okay. Yeah, I mean, Clemson, I think, you know, they have national championship aspirations.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you could really call them a sleeper since they made the playoff last year, but SMU, same deal. I think that'd be like, hey, if I want to see it again, you know, I mean, so we'll see.

Speaker 3 I don't know. ACC in general, it does just feel like it's a one-horse race and that's it.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, so no respect from Miami at all.

Speaker 3 Well, I just,

Speaker 3 I'm in the same boat with Carson Beck, and I feel like it's a lot different. Like, Cam Ward was the number one.

Speaker 1 Why are you there? Because physically,

Speaker 1 you could argue he's the most gifted college quarterback

Speaker 1 right now, this year.

Speaker 3 I just don't think he was that good last year to begin with. And, you know, like the expectations for him now when you pay him $4 million bucks or whatever was reported.

Speaker 3 It's like, hey, he needs to be the best quarterback in college football this year. And I just, I'm just not there with him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, do you guys think it's more mental?

Speaker 2 Well, I think it's just the fact that he's at Miami. Like, if Georgia loved him, he'd be a Georgia Bulldog.

Speaker 2 And that's the bottom line. And for them to let him leave doesn't make me think like, oh, okay, so Kirby Smart still is a huge fan of Carson Beck if he walked out the door and went to Miami.

Speaker 2 You know, it's not like, it's not like they went 9-4 or something. Like they had success that went to the college football playoff, Right.
But they still let them go.

Speaker 2 So that's why I just am not a huge believer.

Speaker 1 All right, Tom, what do you got in the ACC? Clemson.

Speaker 2 So just a sweep here.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yes.
And you guys are saying it like you're almost offended by the question. No, no, no.

Speaker 4 It's just like because they have so much coming back and they have so much first-round talent on defense.

Speaker 4 And Klubnik had 43 touchdowns last year, which I don't think a lot of people know about or whatever.

Speaker 4 And I love Tom Allen coming down from Penn State. Finally, I think they have a decent defensive coordinator.

Speaker 4 I think it'd be shocking if Clemson didn't. Obviously, Miami's the second team there for a sleeper.

Speaker 1 Is Louisville a sleeper? I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I think they're probably the third. And sleeper, sleeper would be Duke.
I think like Duke has been quietly really, really good the last four or five years.

Speaker 4 They've had coaching changes or whatever, but Darian Mensa comes in from Tulane, who was really good there. And I think

Speaker 4 they have a chance to shock some people.

Speaker 1 All right, AJ, what do you have in the ACC?

Speaker 6 I mean, how do you pick against Clemson? Like what Tone said with everything they have coming back and Dabo, I mean, people forget Clemson was like,

Speaker 6 they were it, what, I don't know, 10 years ago?

Speaker 1 It felt like they were going to be even seven. It's dumb and bad every year.
They won it nine years.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it was like Clemson's going to do this for the next 30 years, it felt like. So it is kind of weird to see how they have somewhat fallen off, but they still make the playoffs last year.

Speaker 6 Like, it's, yeah, Clemson's legit still.

Speaker 1 Any upset or any surprise, Stean?

Speaker 6 Kirk, how's North Carolina going to do? You said you're calling their game Monday night. Like, you have to be pretty intrigued at the product that is going to be on that field?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What do you bring? 70 new players in? 70. Yeah.
That's a lot. I mean, it's impossible to know what to think of them until you see them on Monday night.
You know, I mean, it's...

Speaker 2 As far as the game goes, though, like, you would.

Speaker 1 They're an underdog at home. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But you would know as far as the scheme itself, like

Speaker 2 on a scale of like one to 10, how simpler will it be for Bill Belichick to call defenses to confuse people in college?

Speaker 1 I don't just think it's as simple as that. I don't think it's just he's a mastermind.

Speaker 1 I think first of all the college coaches are pretty good.

Speaker 1 I think it's more of how does he adapt to 18, 19, 20 year old kids that still go to class and are you know part of a campus.

Speaker 1 Whereas when he was up at New England or you know with the Giants, I mean they were grown men. Pro football.

Speaker 1 Yeah, pro football, they show up at seven in the morning and you're there till five or six or later at night and it's seven days a week and you just that's what you do.

Speaker 1 And that's where I think his advantage would really come into play. I don't know.
That's what I think some of the intrigue of this matchup is. I would not sleep on the team they're playing.

Speaker 1 I mean, if we're having, you know, a relay race or we're playing the Olympics of some kind of pick seven categories, I mean, TCU athletically is at a very, very high level.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it's going to be interesting to see how, you know, he did it a million times in New England, maybe be outmatched physically and win the game. Yeah, that's it.
I mean, that's what he did. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And just not losing ever because of

Speaker 2 his own mistakes, always

Speaker 1 making sure it was losing. But the players kind of ultimately had to execute that on the field.
I mean, he had the mind, that beautiful mind that kind of helped them see what they needed to see.

Speaker 1 But at some point, they had to take it onto the field

Speaker 1 and have those moments that ended up winning so many games. So

Speaker 1 I'm thinking it'll happen, but what happened week one, year one? I have no idea.

Speaker 3 Don't you think there's a little bit of an inverse with that in college? Like that, that can work in the NFL because obviously everyone is so good already. So like you can be the less talented team.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And coaching can get you wins that maybe they shouldn't.
But by and large, in college, if one roster is much better than the other roster, like I just don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't care how good of a coach you are.

Speaker 3 Sometimes you just can't overcome that efficiency.

Speaker 1 Right. I think that's fair.

Speaker 1 And again, I think that's why there's so much excitement to see him coaching in college, you know, and in this first game, you know, where they are, they're an underdog, you know, and no one knows a thing about his roster.

Speaker 1 And he, you know, he doesn't either.

Speaker 6 Think about it. Like Belchek doesn't really know what he has either.
That's the thing until you get out in the field for your first game.

Speaker 6 And there is actually, Darius has said this before on the show. New England was different.

Speaker 6 Like on defense, when Bill's in the league, there's times where, hey, this week they might be playing a four-down front. Oh, next week they come in.
They almost install a whole new defense.

Speaker 6 They're doing a three-down front. They have a different look.
Like he was able to mix things up from week to week. I think that's just, obviously, that's going to be a learning process in college.

Speaker 6 Like how much that's going to be. That's very fair.

Speaker 1 That's very fair.

Speaker 2 And like even just looking at the players, to your point, like when

Speaker 2 Jonas Gray ran for four touchdowns against the Indianapolis Colts, he was cut the next day because he was late to the plate. So

Speaker 2 you wonder if situations like that happen where, you know, if your quarterback might miss a class, but he's the best player in, you know, in the conference, who knows?

Speaker 2 Maybe that's what happens this year. Is Bill going to still do

Speaker 2 things of that ilk, if you will, towards his players when they are out of line a little, but also knowing they're 18, 19 years old.

Speaker 1 I'm just pumped to see him back on the street. I am too.
I'm just so excited to see him coaching in football. Yeah.
Hold on, let's not let this guy off the hook.

Speaker 4 You gave us a bunch of shit for taking Clemson. Are you not taking Clemson?

Speaker 1 That's a great point.

Speaker 1 I did not. I said your tone was like, I mean, Clemson.
I think Miami's more of a player than I think you guys are

Speaker 1 making them sound. I think Clemson's the team to beat in the ACC, but I would not be surprised if Carson Beck had a good year

Speaker 1 and if Carson Beck at Miami ended up in the playoff. That would not shock me at all.
My surprise is Georgia Tech.

Speaker 1 Brent Key. Remember the Georgia, Georgia Tech game last year.
Oh, yeah, they should have won. Should have won the game.

Speaker 1 I just think there's something there.

Speaker 1 Haynes King is a quarterback that probably a a whole lot of people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you gave him a hundred.

Speaker 1 Listening don't know much about. He's, that kid is really, really talented.
It seems like he's been dealing with injuries a lot that he's had to overcome.

Speaker 4 Because he doesn't get down. He just tries to run through a brick wall every play.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, but I'm telling you, Georgia Tech, and they open up with Colorado.

Speaker 4 I know that's another exciting one this weekend.

Speaker 1 It is. It is.

Speaker 1 We're about to have Shefty on. Is there anything, if you had to say right now, what players getting cut, what story, has there been anything up to this point? Shefty maybe shed some light on some

Speaker 1 players maybe that got cut this morning, but anything surprise here? Any big names? I guess the biggest would be not a cut, but Pickett going to the Raiders. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And now we're all just assuming both rookies Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders are going to be along with Joe Flacco, right? I mean, that's a fair assumption at this point, I think.

Speaker 1 Definitely, without a doubt.

Speaker 3 Without a doubt. I don't know.
I mean, we were talking about this earlier.

Speaker 3 Like, when it comes to cut day, it seems like this year specifically, too, all the insiders have been tweeting like every person that get that gets cut and a lot of these guys it's like well i've never i've never heard of this guy before i don't know like how but if they're tweeting about it it it must be some sort of news you know

Speaker 3 so we'll see i mean obviously the trey hendrickson is is big and then still shefty was the one uh last week who said that he thought the micah and cowboys situation was heading towards a divorce he didn't know he didn't know when it would be but i think that still looms over everything yeah some receivers receivers, the Raiders, Jacobi Myers

Speaker 2 requested a trade. There's something going on with Adam Thielen in Carolina and Minnesota.

Speaker 2 Like there are those situations where that cutdown day brings where it's like, oh, they might really like a rookie and some vet who's making $30 million

Speaker 2 or $20 million, whatever, is going somewhere else. So stuff like that happens.

Speaker 1 AJ, I want to ask you, and I know you guys always get asked this on this day, but you've been where it's not an issue at all and you just knew you're going to make the team.

Speaker 1 And then you get a little little bit older in your career and you're wondering this day feels a little bit different.

Speaker 1 What are players going through on this day today, especially those guys that are, you know, fighting for those last five, six, seven spots?

Speaker 6 Yeah, it's brutal.

Speaker 6 I mean, I think a lot of the times you know going into the final, like, you know, the last eight, 10 days of camp, like where, who the kind of bubble is, like where that bubble is, where the spots are where you have too many guys at one spot.

Speaker 6 It might be a little too deep and you might not make the team. But the tough thing is guys get that initial final cut and sometimes people think, oh, sweet.

Speaker 6 They call their pamp their families, hey, I made it. I made the team.
I'm on the squad. But then you have those 24 hours to clear waivers.

Speaker 6 And you can still, if your team likes somebody that got cut somewhere else, they can still kick you to the curb the next day and bring this guy in off waivers.

Speaker 6 So until it's all cleared and waivers have cleared, try not to get too juiced up, I would say, if you've made the squad.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.
Yeah. I can imagine because that's a game-changing day,

Speaker 1 life-changing, I should say, day for a lot of these guys.

Speaker 1 let's bring our guy in and find out if there are some some stories that are breaking out adam schefter from espn who's on top of it chef day

Speaker 1 what's going on gentlemen how are we doing good how are you how are you we we were just talking chefty about just you know what what's the latest nobody better than you has there been anything this morning or this this early afternoon where some some moves have been made the one blockbuster of the day it just transpired breaking news

Speaker 12 Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift announced their engagement.

Speaker 1 What? Wow.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 That is.

Speaker 1 Wow. That trumps all these cuts.

Speaker 1 You weren't expecting that, right?

Speaker 12 That was on a day with hundreds of transactions. The biggest one of all was Travis Kelsey entering to that arrangement with Taylor Swift, becoming engaged.

Speaker 1 And look at the setting.

Speaker 1 Perfect setting. It's an album.

Speaker 1 Who would have thought that Jason Kelsey is going going to be taylor swift's brother-in-law like oh and all those not me and all those doubters a couple years ago they all said it was fake this program loves love if pat was here he would say those exact words and we've always been rooting for this oh you guys have oh yeah big time this program the internet the internet's not approved of this or

Speaker 1 on uh your internet probably not but

Speaker 1 no i'm asking

Speaker 1 i know you guys enjoy this program

Speaker 2 it's it's split right down the middle i'm a taylor swift guy i have been since Fearless, so this isn't any news to me, everybody hopping on the train.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I would say a lot of people either are bummed about this or hate it with the passion of a thousand sons. So

Speaker 1 you go to her concerts? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 We went to Arizona when it was here.

Speaker 8 It was awesome. It was incredible.

Speaker 4 But actually, those other people, they should stop hating it because they all thought it was an act.

Speaker 1 So now, unless they think it's this, it's that's next level acting. Yeah.
That's a good point, actually. They should love it now because it's real.
It's real. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, Shefty, we really didn't expect you to break this.

Speaker 1 Curveball.

Speaker 1 Wow. That's massive news.
Remember this day?

Speaker 1 Connor's crying over here. He's got a tear down.

Speaker 1 This is crazy.

Speaker 4 I thought he was going to say Micah's time or something.

Speaker 1 We just hit on the Browns with Kenny Pickett going to Las Vegas. Obviously, both these rookies now are going to be on the roster.
Is that fair to say?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I think they're going to carry both of them. They were planning to carry four.

Speaker 12 If you listen to Andrew Berry during the local TV broadcast over the weekend, he made it sound like they were going to carry all four.

Speaker 12 So now they've essentially traded Kenny Pickett to the Raiders for a fifth-round pick in 26.

Speaker 12 And there's three guys on the roster. Now, they could always, I guess, maybe bring back Tyler Huntley if they wanted to carry a fourth or sign another quarterback.

Speaker 12 But I think that they feel pretty good. about having Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders on the roster.
Joe Flacco is going to start in the opener.

Speaker 12 And look, these guys, Flacco gets the first chance this year. I would think at some point in time, Gabriel, Shador Sanders might get an opportunity.
But let's also remember this.

Speaker 12 The Cleveland Browns have 10 picks in the 2026 NFL draft. They've got their first-round pick and Jacksonville's first-round pick.
They've got double fives, double sixes.

Speaker 12 So they are loaded up with picks in what is going to be a quarterback-rich draft in 26 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 Shefty, can you clear the air air on, speaking of the internet, Shador Sanders seems to be a very polarizing figure. Everybody wants to talk about him, has an opinion.
Some are real positive.

Speaker 1 Some have concerns.

Speaker 1 What's real?

Speaker 1 What do the Browns think of who he is? And what do they think of Dylan Gabriel and what he has shown? Seems to be kind of a forgotten commodity at times, in my opinion.

Speaker 12 You know, Herbie, I think this. I think they think that Shador Sanders is a rookie quarterback, and there's going to be good moments and there's going to be bad moments.

Speaker 12 And he was the 144th pick in the draft. And so I don't think they're counting on him to be their savior.
They think they might have something. They don't know what they have.

Speaker 12 He looked great in the first preseason game against Carolina.

Speaker 12 He didn't look quite as effective against the Rams when he held on to the football too long and took sacks and made plays that basically, I think, contributed to him falling. in the draft.

Speaker 12 And the truth is probably somewhere in between where a lot of rookies are going to have ups and downs.

Speaker 12 Shador Sanders had him during the preseason, and it's the Browns' job to bring him along, develop him, give him a chance, and see what kind of quarterback he could be at the next level.

Speaker 12 And I think the same is true of Dylan Gabriel. Let's remember, they drafted Dylan Gabriel two rounds ahead of Shador Sanders.
So the organization had a higher opinion, higher regard,

Speaker 12 more belief in Dylan Gabriel when they drafted him than Shador Sanders. That's the fact of the matter on where they were drafted.

Speaker 12 And Dylan Gabriel's looked good during the summer, and my guess would be that he's going to be the backup for Joe Flacco.

Speaker 12 And it wouldn't surprise me if both rookie quarterbacks at some point this season get some type of opportunity to play.

Speaker 1 Okay, great. AJ, what do you have, bud?

Speaker 6 Chef, do you want to pivot? Obviously, everyone's asked you a million times about Micah Parsons, but in the next seven to 10 days, is anything going to happen?

Speaker 6 And if he's not playing week one, where is he going to be? Will he be on the sideline

Speaker 6 with a back tightness? Like,

Speaker 6 what's it going to look like?

Speaker 12 It's been the biggest question of training camp, aside from when Taylor and Travis would get engaged. It continues to be the biggest question of training camp.
And here's what I would say today.

Speaker 12 As

Speaker 12 negative as this situation has been,

Speaker 12 Terry McLaurin and the Commanders were not close to a deal, and they figured something out.

Speaker 12 Trey Hendrickson and the Bengals were not close to a deal, and they figured something out.

Speaker 12 If both of those sides can figure something out, that gives me some hope that there's a solution in there somehow somehow for Micah Parsons and the Dallas Cowboys. That's the upside.

Speaker 12 The downside is where they're currently at.

Speaker 12 They're currently in a state where the two sides have had absolutely zero discussions about a new deal since Jerry and Micah had their off-season meetings in late March, early April.

Speaker 12 They've had zero negotiations, zero proposals, zero back and forth. We've got Jerry really worked up and disappointed with the way this transpired.

Speaker 12 We've got Micah announcing the fact that he wants to be traded. We've got Micah not practicing at all during the summer.
Him saying he's got a tight back.

Speaker 12 And so they open the season in nine days, a week from Thursday in Philadelphia. And even if the two sides can figure out a solution, that doesn't seem like it's going to happen right now today.

Speaker 12 Even if they could do that, Michael will play, but he'd be limited. If they don't figure out a solution, my guess is his back is going to be too tight to play that night.
That's going to be my guess.

Speaker 12 We'll see how that works out.

Speaker 12 And if they don't figure out a new contract, I think it's the type of drama that threatens to hang over this team's collective heads all season long to where you don't know whether or not he's playing.

Speaker 12 He's got so much money at stake. Whenever he does get a new deal from whoever he gets a new deal from, he's going to become the highest paid non-quarterback in NFL history.
So

Speaker 12 from a guy who didn't play in his senior year or his last year at Penn State when it was COVID, I just think he's going to be very careful about when and if he's on the football field if he doesn't have a new deal.

Speaker 12 New deal, everything's off. And right now they're not talking.
But Hendrickson and McLaurin, I think, provide some hope that somehow they could figure figure out a way.

Speaker 12 This is the time that these things usually happen.

Speaker 12 But the issue with this particular situation is nothing has happened. Nothing.
And Jerry's dug in.

Speaker 12 So you tell me how that's going to break, how that's going to snap, and we'll figure out whether they can get something done to get him back in uniform.

Speaker 1 All the while, Shefty, you got a... brand new head coach and shoddy who's just trying to to fix all the other concerns that have that have haunted this organization over the last several years.

Speaker 1 Ty, what do you have about that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Sheth, you mentioned Trey Hendrickson. That happened yesterday, right as we got off the air.

Speaker 3 Is this a situation where we're going to be kind of right back in the same spot next year? Obviously, they get a little bit more team control.

Speaker 3 He can still be franchise tagged, and he gets a nice little pay bump.

Speaker 3 But had this been in the works for like a couple days, or was it really just like, hey, let's put our swords down and get something done because our defense absolutely stinks, and we need a little juice, and we need to get you back out there?

Speaker 12 I would say this: that

Speaker 12 it's a case where Trey and the Bengals were really frustrated with each other over the weekend. So I think it kind of came together quickly.
And the Bengals didn't

Speaker 12 or weren't prepared to pay him the type of money over a couple of years, two, three years that he wanted.

Speaker 12 And I think he was looking for long-term security, couldn't get it.

Speaker 12 And the solution, in the end, was doing this deal where he collects a $14 million raise, $14 million raise.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 up,

Speaker 1 up, up, up. Okay.

Speaker 5 Just minor little things.

Speaker 12 Just minor little.

Speaker 1 Don't up us for minor little things, Shafty.

Speaker 4 You get us excited.

Speaker 6 You got a house fire again? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I love these. I love these live

Speaker 1 live updates.

Speaker 2 It's sweet.

Speaker 1 I wish it was a home run, though, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was a foul ball in an Elizabeth line. Exactly.
Shot on goal.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Nothing.
So anyway,

Speaker 12 I was on Trey Hendricks and the Bengals.

Speaker 12 They came together.

Speaker 12 Again, that's what gives me

Speaker 12 some semblance of hope that maybe

Speaker 12 Micah and the Cowboys could have some type of breakthrough because I'm just telling you, over the weekend, these sides were nowhere. And it came together really quickly.

Speaker 12 And that's kind of how it happened.

Speaker 1 Okay. Well, you can take some time there because Connor is going to hop in next with a question.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Chefty, and again, I'm probably going to ask a terrible question, so you can ignore it if you want.

Speaker 2 But there's a report. I forget who tweeted exactly, but Jalen Milro is going to have his own package for Seattle this year.
Going to definitely be playing with the first team.

Speaker 2 Yeah, here it is with a special set of plays that they'll have in the game plan. What is the expectation in Seattle when it comes to Milro?

Speaker 2 They signed Darnold to the three-year deal, but the way the contract works, a lot of people are saying that it's really just a one-year deal and they can get out of it.

Speaker 2 Do they have hopes for Jalen Millroe to be the future in Seattle? And how much time should we expect him to get early on in the season?

Speaker 12 Herbie could answer this better than I could probably, but I would just say to you that they drafted Jalen Milro to develop Jalen Milro.

Speaker 12 And while they're developing him, and that could be be a couple of years,

Speaker 12 I think they want to utilize his talents because why would we not take advantage of the skill set that he brings you and what he can do?

Speaker 12 And Jalen Milro can be a weapon on offense for the Seahawks, and they know that. So they're going to utilize him in certain spots while they plan to develop him.

Speaker 12 And by the way, while they develop him, you know, we don't know what kind of quarterback he is or isn't going to turn into. But I'll say this, they are very pleased with Sam Darnold right now.

Speaker 12 I don't think they're thinking of saying, okay, let's get

Speaker 12 Jalen Miller ready here for 2027 so he can supplant Sam Darn. They are obviously focused on 25, and they believe in Sam Darnold.
And by all accounts, he's looked really good this summer.

Speaker 12 They are very happy. I know that to be the case.
And we'll see how he plays and how he produces this season. But Miller is going to be factored into their offense.
He's going to be mixed in.

Speaker 12 He'll be a weapon.

Speaker 12 But I think that they plan on developing him over time.

Speaker 8 Tom?

Speaker 4 Jeffty, there is a couple wide receivers who are rumored to potentially be on the trade market. Jacoby Myers, who had a thousand yards last season.

Speaker 4 He hasn't had less than 800 yards in like the last five seasons. It's been very productive, and I don't think he gets talked about enough.

Speaker 4 And then Adam Thielen, who had a thousand yards two years ago, was banged up last year, but probably would have had another thousand last year with Bryce Young.

Speaker 4 Both of those guys are talked about being potentially traded. Thielen specifically to the Vikings.
What's the latest on those two?

Speaker 12 Yeah,

Speaker 12 they have not made much progress. They have not been able to bridge their differences.
And again, I'll lean on the Hendrickson-McLaurin theories that these things sometimes can come together.

Speaker 12 But, you know, Carolina is not willing to give Adam Thielen away.

Speaker 12 And so right now, subject to this changing, it looks like it won't happen, but you never know if there's going to be a last push here today or tomorrow to get a deal done to send Adam Thielen.

Speaker 12 Now, if you're the Vikings, you say, yeah, we'd love to have Adam Thielen, but we're not going to pay what Carolina wants. Maybe we just go sign K.J.

Speaker 12 Osborne, who the commanders released today, and can step in to Minnesota, knows the offense there, and can help provide some relief until Jordan Addison comes back from his suspension and Jalen Naylor recovers from his hand injury and Justin Jefferson is recovered from his hamstring injury.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 Thielen to the Vikings,

Speaker 12 the Vikings have tried and they continue to try, but up until now, it just doesn't look like it's going to happen. The other, who's there to beers?

Speaker 1 Toby Myers.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 12 My understanding is the Raiders had one team reach out to them.

Speaker 12 They wanted the Raiders to pay some of the $11 million salary, and the Raiders are not willing to do that, and they're not looking to deal him. So Jacoby Myers is going to be there

Speaker 12 barring something unforeseen happening. I mean, they could decide a few games in, he's not happy, he's not behaving well, but they don't want to trade him, and they view him as a productive player.

Speaker 12 He's been a really good player, and he's entering the last year of his deal. So they want to hold on to him in Vegas.
They're not looking to deal him.

Speaker 12 And right now, they have no intention of trading him.

Speaker 1 Shefty, just talking to so many different people that you talk to, are there any teams besides the obvious? You know, we know about Buffalo. We know about

Speaker 1 the Behemoths, Baltimore, the Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 1 If you had to guess a team or two that you think putting some young pieces together and they look like they could become a team that's in the playoffs, is it Atlanta? Is it Seattle? Is it Arizona?

Speaker 1 Who do you think could make a possible run and surprise some people this year based on the people you've been talking with?

Speaker 12 Well, let me say this, that at this time last year, I was convinced that the Broncos were going to do just what you're talking about.

Speaker 12 And I believe that the Washington Commanders, if Jaden Daniels was going to do what he, so

Speaker 12 if I'm going to identify a couple of teams in that category this year, First of all, I think people, I know they've won the division four straight years, but I don't think the Buccaneers are getting enough attention as a proven team, as a sleeper team, a long shot team that we think is going to make a jump up this year.

Speaker 12 The first team I'll look at would be the New England Patriots. I just think with Mike Vrabel there, he's going to have them playing hard, and Drake May is poised to take a jump.

Speaker 12 And I'm not trying to make Boston Connor any happier here, but I think that

Speaker 12 here are going to have a chance to compete for the playoffs. So yeah, you can tell Mike Vrabel, I'm dialing up the heat on him here, right?

Speaker 1 No, no, no.

Speaker 12 Playoff team, right? Tough. You know, he's going to have a nice Labor Day weekend here after getting through cuts, a little breaking.

Speaker 12 And we got me dialing up the pressure on the Patriots saying that they could make a playoff push here. But I think they can.
I think they're good enough to do that.

Speaker 12 They've got some holes, but I think that that team is poised to make a jump. I think Arizona is going to be better than people realize.

Speaker 12 I think the New York Giants

Speaker 12 brutal schedule. But I think that team is a little bit better than people realize this year.

Speaker 1 Those are good ones. Falcons, you know, if Pennex can stay healthy, it seems like they have a shot.
Is there anything you're waiting on right now?

Speaker 1 I mean, we all get excited for this day to find out who might be let go. There always seems to be a few surprises.

Speaker 1 Is there anything out there that we should all be kind of waiting on that's an either-or situation with any NFL?

Speaker 12 Aside from a wedding date for a Taylor and Travis.

Speaker 1 That's fair, yes.

Speaker 12 I think that we could see Cam Robinson, the Houston Texans left tackle, traded. The Texans drafted a tackle in the second round.

Speaker 12 I have to look at the name to be able to pronounce it correctly because it's not a simple name to pronounce. But when I look at it, I think I can pronounce it correctly.
Give me a moment here.

Speaker 12 Hold on one second.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 their new left tackle is,

Speaker 12 here we go.

Speaker 12 I hope I say it right. Arante Ursury.

Speaker 12 Arante Ursury.

Speaker 1 Awesome name.

Speaker 12 Draft pick. And Cam Robinson struggled with injuries.
And Ursury had a chance to take over the summer and not only

Speaker 12 stepped into that role, but shined. And so it made it such that the Texans can trade Cam Robinson.
So I think that it wouldn't surprise me if he's traded.

Speaker 12 We're still waiting for the Vikings to make a move at wide receiver, whether that's trading for a receiver, signing KJ Osborne, doing whatever it is that they do.

Speaker 12 And there's obviously still going to be a slew of moves made between now and the the four o'clock deadline, 146 minutes from right now.

Speaker 2 Is the Vikings trade, Chef, that's strictly because of the Addison suspension, or is there any worry with Justin Jefferson's health?

Speaker 12 Well, again, you got Jefferson coming off a soft tissue injury. He's expected to be ready for the opener.
You've got Jalen Naylor, who would have been their third. He has a hand injury.

Speaker 12 Not sure how much time he's going to miss. And you've got Jordan Addison serving a three-game suspension.
So there's a few receivers that are banged up.

Speaker 12 And you got a quarterback playing his first NFL snaps. So you want to give him as much support as you can, being that he's never played in an NFL game before.
So

Speaker 12 they need to come up with another receiver or cue here, and we'll see what they can do to help out J.J. McCarthy.

Speaker 1 All right, one last question for you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Sheffield, real quick, because we haven't talked about it in a while.

Speaker 4 And I don't know if it's because Cam Hayward went back to practice, but there was never really a resolution on his contract that I'm aware of.

Speaker 4 Is he just going to

Speaker 4 go away or what's going on right now with Cam?

Speaker 12 Nope. It did not go away.
It's still there. It is unresolved.
And I think Cam Hayward talked about the fact that he was willing to retire.

Speaker 12 Now, I haven't heard anything since then, but there are a few unresolved situations.

Speaker 12 And this one just has not generated as much conversation either because people don't believe him or he's older or whatever it may be.

Speaker 12 But I think this one, we haven't heard the last of this one just yet. And we'll see where direction that goes.
I don't think he's been a part of a team practice yet.

Speaker 12 He's gone through individual drills. He's done running.
He's taking, but I don't think he's practiced with the team yet this summer.

Speaker 4 I think it's because DK and Aaron went on his podcast and said, oh, Cam, I forgot it's all about you and your money. And I think that kind of solved the whole thing.

Speaker 12 Oh, so that was it? Okay, great. Then it's over.

Speaker 2 Sounds like he's getting a couple of those under-the-table Italian knuckle sandwiches, which that means.

Speaker 4 Maybe we saved money on a punter yesterday. Maybe just give that to Cam.

Speaker 1 There you go. There you go.
Chef T, man, you really are always dialed in. Appreciate you hopping on with us.
And look forward to seeing what comes down. How many minutes left? 10 what?

Speaker 12 Right now we've got

Speaker 1 143.

Speaker 12 120. 143.

Speaker 1 Well done, Kirk. All right.

Speaker 12 And who would have ever thought, who would have ever thought this segment would start the way it did? I never thought that this segment today.

Speaker 12 That

Speaker 12 I actually sent out on as an ESPN alert because I felt like there's enough interest.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure there's power? Yeah, I didn't know you had the power. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you a Swifty too, Shefty?

Speaker 12 Let me say this, that I took my wife and my daughter. We saw her in Foxborough in the rain show.

Speaker 12 It was incredible. She was remarkable.

Speaker 12 It wasn't raining. It was.
pouring for three and a half hours. And you never would have known.

Speaker 12 Like, if that were me standing out in the rain after two minutes, I'd be like, get me an umbrella, get me inside. I'm way too soft for that.
She went out there, played the piano in the rain.

Speaker 12 You never would have thought anything was wrong. Wow.

Speaker 1 And it was

Speaker 12 incredible. She walked out that night.
She said, I've performed in the rain before, but this is the rainiest of rain shows I've ever been a part of. And it was.
It was a monsoon. And

Speaker 12 she didn't flink.

Speaker 1 Blink. And the crowd didn't blink.

Speaker 1 That was a special night. Probably a little.

Speaker 1 Shafter, you're the man. Thanks, buddy.
See you soon. Thank you all.
Shefty. See you, buddy.

Speaker 2 She's a legend when it comes to performing.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just

Speaker 1 a gamer. Entertainer.
Just goes through it.

Speaker 2 Well, it's so long.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Three and a half hours? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like that rain one, I remember trying to secure that invite.

Speaker 6 Sorry, but Shefty's just trying to secure that invite. Yeah,

Speaker 1 it doesn't do like that. Ton, I always love when we have Chefty on.
You get to the bottom of the Steelers, don't you? Well, you know, if there's pertinent information,

Speaker 4 I don't like to force things in there, but if there's a contract thing going on, yeah. But one of the things he brought up that we talked about in our extensive pre-show meeting was J.J.

Speaker 4 McCarthy and, you know, how it's technically his second year, but it's obviously his first year starting.

Speaker 4 And not having, you know, Jordan Addison and if Justin Jefferson is hobbled at all or whatever, like, Chefty's right, he does need those guys to start the year. Do you agree?

Speaker 1 Naylor.

Speaker 1 Yeah, obviously.

Speaker 1 Smonkey, right? He needs all the pieces. We were talking about how the KOC has probably one of the most quarterback-friendly offenses in the NFL.

Speaker 1 What he was able to do last year with Sam Darnold, what he did with Kirk Cousins.

Speaker 1 You know, if they have their pieces, I'm one that, and I know everybody's going to cast judgment on, you know, what happened in camp and preseason and a practice, but I think J.J.

Speaker 1 McCarthy in this system can be a superstar. You know, I think he can do what Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold did, but bring you that youthful energy to make three or four plays a game.

Speaker 1 And in this system, you don't have to do necessarily much more than that. Distribute the ball.
Don't make mistakes. And once in a while, use your legs to make a play.

Speaker 1 And I just think, you know, hopefully he gets his pieces all together. And I think they could become a real,

Speaker 1 if they're healthy, they could become a challenge to the Lions in that division and the pack.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I just, I wonder about expectations for this year because I think a lot of people last year, while Sam Darnold was still having his run were saying like hey next year you know or whenever JJ McCarthy you know gets yeah takes the reins like this team could go to another level so and then they won 14 games last year you know like they almost won the division so their defense is really good their defense is very good but but it's just it's it's tough to think that

Speaker 3 I understand how talented he is. I mean, I saw him play a bunch at Michigan, too.

Speaker 3 It's just, it's tough to think that someone's going to come in and

Speaker 3 have a better year and to think that, hey, this team might win 15 games and be the number one team in the NFC. I still think it's going to take a little bit of time.

Speaker 1 Put that graphic back up real quick, if you can. What's the best division, top to bottom, you guys think? NFC North?

Speaker 1 I'd say NFC North. NFC North? Yeah.

Speaker 6 You wouldn't be shocked by any team winning that, would you?

Speaker 2 The NFC North?

Speaker 6 NFC North. If all four, either four teams won, you wouldn't be flabbergasted.

Speaker 1 No, yeah.

Speaker 2 The Bears would be the longest odds, but

Speaker 2 you can see it it still with the Bears winning.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 what about the AFC West? Do you think the Raiders are coming

Speaker 1 with Pete Carroll? It's vastly improved.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know about Denver and Kansas City and even the Raiders, or I mean, even the Chargers.

Speaker 1 If the Raiders are, we just assume Pete Carroll, Chip Kelly, all the pieces they got, Chino coming in at quarterback. I mean, I think they're better.
What's the worst division?

Speaker 4 AFC South. AFC South.

Speaker 1 Yeah, by far.

Speaker 2 Actually, someone just tweeted out now two of the four starting running backs in that division are out for the first four years because Mixon

Speaker 2 for the Texans and Spears, for the Titans, I believe.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that division's wide open. We normally would say the NFC South, but I think Atlanta and Carolina are showing enough.
Tampa's already there.

Speaker 2 AFC West and NFC West are both the divisions where everybody's like, hey, this insert team in this division might be much better this year. Like, we just heard it again about Arizona,

Speaker 2 have heard it about Seattle, and then the AFC West, just because every single coach, I think everybody has a ton of respect for. You can believe.
For sure.

Speaker 1 For sure.

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Speaker 1 We now have another guest on. We're going to bring in my man Joseph Scott Galloway, who played in the NFL for, I want to say, 18 years.
25 years. 18 years.
What'd you say? What'd you say?

Speaker 6 25 years ago.

Speaker 1 25 years. 2-3 at age 40.
Still running as a 4-3. Joey Galloway.

Speaker 1 He's running right now.

Speaker 1 Joe, what would you run a 40 in today if you were stretched out, prepared?

Speaker 1 What would be your guess on a 40 right now?

Speaker 13 There is no what would happen in a 40 right now for me.

Speaker 13 I hung those shoes up when I decided I wanted to get better at golf.

Speaker 1 Now

Speaker 13 that has not gone well on either side. I might as well just keep running because the golf side of this thing is not going well.
I played today, and it was ugly.

Speaker 13 So I might as well start running again, to be honest with you.

Speaker 1 What'd you shoot today?

Speaker 13 It was one of those. So I played Muirfield Village, which has not been kind to me over the years.
And quite honestly.

Speaker 1 That's where the big dogs play. That's where the big dogs play.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 13 Yeah, and I and I was a little dog out there, and I played, and it was one of those, when you stop keeping score on the back nine, it's one of those rounds.

Speaker 1 That's my every round. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. That's why I play 9.

Speaker 13 There's no point writing down these doubles and triples any longer.

Speaker 13 Let's just move on to the next hole.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a frustrating day. You'll bounce back.
How many days a week are you playing golf in the offseason?

Speaker 13 Well,

Speaker 13 I try to get at least one. What happens now once football season gets rolling, because I help coach my kids, which A.J.
Hawk can understand.

Speaker 13 Herb, you've graduated out of this nowadays, but

Speaker 13 the help and coach the kids thing rules the day. And so I'm helping with a couple football teams.
And so the golf game has taken a back seat to that.

Speaker 1 Got it. Got it.
You're Ohio State, Texas, so many big games starting on Thursday, college football.

Speaker 1 We went through each conference, kind of picked our teams that we think could win each of the Power Four conferences.

Speaker 1 What about you and the Big Ten? Are you in Ohio State?

Speaker 1 You think Ohio State will win that conference? Do you think Penn State, who do you think will come out of there alive?

Speaker 13 I think Ohio State comes out alive. A lot of people like Penn State.
I like Penn State.

Speaker 13 But until I see Penn State get over the hump in the big game, I think it's still Ohio State's conference to lose. We'll see what Julian Sane looks like.

Speaker 13 Obviously, through a season, your young quarterbacks don't have to grow up. He'd have to make some plays for you.
I think right now, Ohio State's still the best team in the Big Ten.

Speaker 1 AJ, what do you think?

Speaker 6 Joey, so in this matchup, Jeremiah Smith, what are defenses going to do this year to try to take him away? And what can they do offensively?

Speaker 6 We know they have Carnell Tate, they have plenty of talent around him, but specifically with Jeremiah, we know what he's done, like taking over the college world.

Speaker 6 What do you think opposing defenses will do to him?

Speaker 13 Well, if they're smart, they just double-team him and stay back.

Speaker 13 I would give him as many hitches as he wants.

Speaker 13 And I would make him play underneath and just not

Speaker 13 that coverage right there. I wouldn't play that coverage.

Speaker 13 That did not work. I would get away from that coverage.
I would make sure I kept him underneath and just try to tackle the guy.

Speaker 13 He's going to get his. He's at that stage where he is absolutely going to get his.
You just don't want him to break the game wide open. And that coverage right there didn't work either.

Speaker 13 So yeah, you got to keep him underneath, tackle him, double team him. I would make someone else on the field beat me besides Jeremiah Smith.

Speaker 1 Tone?

Speaker 4 Yeah, obviously

Speaker 4 Jeremiah Smith is an absolute stud, but he has a new quarterback thrown to him. Oregon has a new quarterback.
Bama has a new quarterback. Notre Dame has a quarterback, new quarterback.

Speaker 4 Georgia has a new quarterback. All these teams are in the top 10.

Speaker 4 So do you give teams like, say, Clemson, Penn State, that actually have a quarterback coming back, that they have an idea what they have with that quarterback?

Speaker 4 Do you give those teams an early advantage? Even LSU, as we're looking right now, with Nuts coming back, too. Do you give those teams an advantage early in the season

Speaker 13 I do uh and probably because I played receiver it it just makes me know how important that quarterback is uh to what you're trying to accomplish because there is going to be times in a season no matter what you could be the best running team in the country there are going to be times when your quarterback has to make plays for you in big moments and big games And so if you have a guy that's been there, if you're Club Nick and Clemson, I think that's why a lot of people like Clemson right now.

Speaker 13 And that's honestly why a lot of people like Penn State because the returning quarterback situation. I do.
I think it gives you a leg up.

Speaker 13 Now, with you starting off in big games, if you're Texas and Ohio State and you're starting off in these big games, if you're Clemson, you're starting off in a big game against LSU,

Speaker 13 it makes the quarterback grow up fast and you find out what you have really early in your season.

Speaker 13 And then if you're teams like Ohio State and you play a Texas and then you have a couple games in there that are winnable football games, you find out what your young quarterback can do in in the big moments, and then he has time to grow.

Speaker 13 When you play Clemson, when you play OU, he has some time to grow and get, I guess, more settled because the Texas game won't be very settling for Julian Sayyan.

Speaker 13 It's going to be a learning situation for him in a big moment. He's got to make some plays.

Speaker 1 It's crazy, that graphic, seven of the top 10 in the preseason AP, all new quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 You know, you have three guys that bring you experience with the team that they are playing for this year. Ty?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Joey, speaking of that game on Saturday, there's been a lot of talk about Arch Manning leading up to the start of the season. Some people saying, hey, this guy should be the Heisman favorite.

Speaker 3 He's going to be the number one pick in the draft whenever he comes out. And then some people saying, well, slow down.
He's maybe the fifth or sixth best quarterback in the SEC.

Speaker 3 What are you expecting to see from him, not only Saturday, but this whole year?

Speaker 3 Obviously, Texas, a lot of people are picking to win the national championship with all the talent they have around Arch.

Speaker 13 Well, we've heard so much about him. And, you know, me and Kirk, we sort of joke about this a lot.

Speaker 13 It's when this is the time of year when everyone's picking the Heisman, when Arch Man is going to be the best quarterback anybody's ever seen. And we've yet to see that happen on the field.

Speaker 13 This is that time for the big statements. Everyone's trying to make hit a home run early in the season so that later on they can say, hey, I was right.
I need to see it.

Speaker 13 I've been covering college well now for

Speaker 13 I'm in double digits now. I'm getting old.

Speaker 1 There you go. There you go.
There you go.

Speaker 13 Yeah, and I've been around long enough to know, like, hey, I need to see it first. I think he's super talented.
I think that he'll be a really good quarterback.

Speaker 13 I'm just not in the camp that is saying he's going to win the Heisman. Can he? Yes.
Is he talented enough? Yes.

Speaker 13 But the amount of things that have to go right, especially for a quarterback in winning football games,

Speaker 13 you know, it's a long season. A lot of things can happen.
I think he'll be be really, really good.

Speaker 13 I'm just not one of those guys that's going to be like he's the best quarterback in college football before we've actually seen it happen.

Speaker 1 And honestly, I think that's what Arch prefers. You know, I think he's been a guy that he doesn't really get involved with social media.

Speaker 1 He answers questions, but he doesn't. go out and try to create hype.
He's kind of an anomaly, really.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's a man. He's a man.
I mean, that's what they do. He wants you to wait to watch him and then give your take.

Speaker 1 And that's what we'll do.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. What do you want to ask? Yeah, I'm good, Kirk.

Speaker 2 You're still crushing it. But, Joey,

Speaker 2 going past college, you know, someone, Jeremiah Smith's going to miss a lot. It's a Mecca Abuka.

Speaker 2 And, you know, he might go down as the greatest number two receiver ever because he's a number one, but he's just been on teams that have unbelievable wide receivers and that continues at Tampa.

Speaker 2 How do you think his transition is going to be? to the NFL? The word out of Tampa is that he is unbelievable.

Speaker 2 And with the injury to McMillan, I believe he is going to end up being the number three receiver, number two receiver, possibly right off the bat if Godwin's not back.

Speaker 2 What do you expect that transition to be like? And what is he going to deal with as he goes from college to the pros?

Speaker 13 I think if Jeremiah Smith wasn't on the other side, we would have talked a lot more about Mecca Abuka. He's that kind of talent.

Speaker 13 Ohio State's been on an incredible run of putting out these NFL-ready wide receivers, and he's another one in that line. When you look at him physically, he is physically ready.

Speaker 13 I think he's going to be in a great system. He has a good quarterback and Baker Mayfield throwing him the ball.
So I think he'll be really, really good.

Speaker 13 It made me laugh a second. You're trying to get a question in.
So you guys have now dealt with Kirk here for a while. And at times, it's tough to get a question in because you have Kirk sitting there.

Speaker 13 And honestly,

Speaker 13 we already know if Kirk is on the desk with you,

Speaker 13 sit back. There's going to be at least three.
He's going three deep and asking questions, and then he'll look at you like, all right, it's your turn.

Speaker 13 And you're like, hey, man, you just asked, you asked everything that was left on the table. He's inquisitive.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 13 yeah,

Speaker 13 he's going to go three questions deep before you guys get in. So I would say he's showing a lot of respect for you guys because you guys have jumped right in this thing.

Speaker 1 You've come a long way, big fella. Hey, I told you.

Speaker 1 They asked me if I ever hosted radio, and I told them, I don't know, for 20 years or so. And I said, guys like Joey, Joey, and Vrabel, and Eddie George would hop in.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 Joey, you would do it, and you'd always ask, How much am I getting paid? You know, I remember sitting on the page.

Speaker 13 It wasn't very much, but it has paid off in the long run because honestly, I learned so much. Oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 13 It is, it's come a long way.

Speaker 1 Joseph,

Speaker 1 Pat is back from his trip and is about to hop on here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hop in here, Ken.

Speaker 1 Yeah, how are you? Good to see you, buddy.

Speaker 8 Send me my headphones every day.

Speaker 1 It'd be bad.

Speaker 8 Kennywood hat.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, right here. Yep.

Speaker 8 Thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 Respect the Kennywood hat. What up, baby?

Speaker 8 Hey, Joey, let a nay say or no, brother.

Speaker 13 What's going on, big fellow?

Speaker 1 He can't hear you. He is out of his head both here.

Speaker 1 What's going on?

Speaker 1 Oh, here's something right here. Adi Sim, maybe? Yeah, that'll work.

Speaker 1 Here you go.

Speaker 8 Just got off a plane. Literally just walked off a bird here.
How we doing, boys? Joey, I'm so happy you're on the program.

Speaker 1 Herbie, thank you. Yeah, man.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 How long a flight was that?

Speaker 8 Okay, I was just off a,

Speaker 8 it was 15 or 20. I think it was 14 and a half, but we landed 30 minutes before customs opened, so we had to sit on the plane.

Speaker 1 You got linker over there, huh?

Speaker 8 The food, I'm not even going to get into a political debate here. The food in Australia, so much healthier than whatever we got going on.
It's problems. I used to be a big, hey, thank you.

Speaker 8 You're going to help me there. I appreciate that.
I used to be a big, hey, don't touch my Cocoa Puffs guy.

Speaker 8 I want my Cocoa Puffs to taste as processed and as fake as possible.

Speaker 8 I'll tell you what, those Aussies got great food, high-quality food. No process, nothing.
Feel like you're really in there?

Speaker 8 I'm not going to be a political advocate for anything, but I will say, I feel good.

Speaker 8 Joey, how you doing?

Speaker 1 He can hear you now, Joe.

Speaker 1 I am good. So you just flew in from Australia?

Speaker 8 Yeah, buddy. Brisbane, actually.
Brisbane, Vegas, they call it. It's a great place.
You know, the Blogstein there, pretty good people. Pretty good people, Joey.

Speaker 13 This is a different world. I don't really have friends that just flew in from Australia.
My friends fly in from like

Speaker 13 Chicago or somewhere like that.

Speaker 1 Australia, my God. Well, now you can count me.

Speaker 13 Sounds like an amazing trip.

Speaker 8 You'd count me as that guy. And I want to let you know, I heard you were talking a little shit about Herbie in the back as soon as I got here.

Speaker 1 You've been crushing it.

Speaker 1 I know, Herbie. You've been absolutely crushing it, Herbie.
You've been crushing it, Herbie.

Speaker 1 Same with Pete. Same with Petey out here.
You got a chance to see the Thunder Dome? This is a big day for us.

Speaker 8 I like you wore all black here. It's not really black.
It's a gray shirt, but on the internet, it looks black. I appreciate you doing that for the good of the program.

Speaker 1 That's what we do here, right? Yeah, for the good of the program. Peter looks a little different, too.

Speaker 2 Does he? Yeah, you getting worked on his face?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Peter? No, he's just

Speaker 1 growing into his body.

Speaker 8 You're giving this dog Botox already?

Speaker 1 No, look, look, he's carrying his leash. What are we talking about? Did he say that the dog?

Speaker 1 Look how he carries his leash. He's ready to go.

Speaker 2 Trying to get to the

Speaker 1 all right.

Speaker 8 We've done enough here, is what Buda said.

Speaker 1 He's like that. We got to get.
Yeah.

Speaker 8 Hey, any big-time cuts today? I haven't been there.

Speaker 1 No, not really.

Speaker 1 The first thing was Taylor Swift got engaged.

Speaker 2 That was the first story.

Speaker 1 Not actually. Oh, wow.
Excuse me.

Speaker 8 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.

Speaker 1 Travis Kelsey.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah. I mean, let's see.

Speaker 1 Travis Kelsey got engaged.

Speaker 8 Very good photos, too. Very.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Archie.
Unbelievable.

Speaker 8 I love it. They're so high school, you know.
Oh, yeah. Hey, I would just like to let everybody know that's listening that might be new to the program.

Speaker 8 We from day one have been saying they're actually in love and this isn't fake. So

Speaker 1 the internet didn't believe you.

Speaker 8 This pretty vindicated situation here for us. Congrats to them being in love.
I'm a big fan.

Speaker 1 Awesome. Awesome.
Joey, we'll talk soon, brother.

Speaker 8 Joey, love you, man. Have a great college football season.
Joey.

Speaker 1 Hey, baby, Joey.

Speaker 4 Love you, Joey.

Speaker 1 See you, buddy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I actually said if Pat was here, he would let everyone know that this program, as always said, that we love love and that they are actually in love.

Speaker 8 Yes, a lot of people, including people that work in Herb Street's world, saying this was a plant.

Speaker 1 My world, not Kirk. How many? Yeah, I don't know anything about it.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty silly today. I learned from AJ, I know nothing about Sergeant Schultz.
Too much work to be fake. Why would it be fake? Be way too much work.

Speaker 8 AJ, great to see you.

Speaker 1 Love the hair still growing. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 8 Thank you for doing this, Kirk.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you, boys.
Kirk Herbstreet.

Speaker 1 Yes, sir.

Speaker 8 Game day, Saturday. Let's go.
Let's go. We're back in it.
Good send out there.

Speaker 8 We're still live, as you know. You know, we're still live.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We've got another two or three minutes. What's up, dude? How are you feeling hopping on here?

Speaker 1 Did you get new shoes?

Speaker 1 What the fuck?

Speaker 2 Are you shitting me?

Speaker 8 Dude, there's a gym in Brisbane. What? That me and First Sergeant Gartland hung out in for.

Speaker 8 He just killed one of our balls.

Speaker 1 Take Take it, Pete.

Speaker 2 It's yours.

Speaker 1 You got a ball. Yeah, Pete, get your ball.
Enter the ball. Get it.

Speaker 8 Nobody can make a shot with it anyway, so it's yours, Pete.

Speaker 8 So the hotel that we were staying at didn't have the most to do. Sure.

Speaker 8 We're all kind of scattered throughout the city of Brisbane. Where me and First Sergeant Gartland were staying was a little bit away from everybody else.
Our hotel was nice, not a lot to do.

Speaker 8 There was this gym called TFP that we were allowed in. Five stories high.
Jeez. Has a tree growing in the middle of it.

Speaker 1 Pretty awesome.

Speaker 8 Pool, hot tub, sauna, floating pools. It's nicest gym I've ever seen in my life.
So me and First Sergeant Gartland basically made that our residence. We're talking seven hours one day they were there.

Speaker 8 Next day, eight hours there. And what we learned, everybody's wearing slides, you know.
So we got our, these are called our TFP. There it is.

Speaker 8 That's that might have been me actually walking right there. Yeah, this is the TFP place.
It is the nicest gym I've ever seen.

Speaker 8 the guy that owns it damian cavalucci he's a good man basically we became the mayors of the place

Speaker 8 on center uh i asked him that actually i said a lot of paisons he said mostly north because they've come down here

Speaker 8 but yeah it was a great place so these are my tfps and i uh i traveled them this will be the last time they're on my feet i was gonna say they look good what the hell they did well in australia though i will say all right travel what day of the week does it feel like to you yeah that's the thing it's uh if you had if you just what what i actually texted somebody on the way in.

Speaker 8 What day is it for you guys? I think somebody was trying to book somebody on a certain day. And I said, well, what day is it right now? It's Tuesday, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's 4 a.m.

Speaker 1 Brisbane Taylor.

Speaker 2 Yeah, what time is it for you?

Speaker 8 So it's Wednesday right now. The issue is...
4 a.m.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I took off 6 a.m.

Speaker 8 And then I landed 5.30 a.m.

Speaker 1 Geez.

Speaker 1 And the 6 a.m.

Speaker 2 was like 5 o'clock because we were talking to you last night before you were.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 8 so the whole thing's backwards. And they do drive on the left side of the road obviously down there the flushing I don't know if it goes the opposite direction Mm-hmm.
They hate weed down there.

Speaker 8 Really? They are not the biggest marijuana fans. They do love

Speaker 8 The snow though down there from what from my understanding okay for miners everybody that I would go to normally and be like hey

Speaker 8 You got any weed

Speaker 1 No, lad, but we got and then they something else for you no no I need that let's go up. How's the AFL? It was sick.

Speaker 2 The videos, the vantage point you had was unbelievable.

Speaker 8 Yeah, we'll dive into it at another day. I'm still pretty raspy in the voice.
Sure. Need to get this thing back before at least Saturday.

Speaker 1 So we'll definitely

Speaker 1 go. Yeah, we need you on Saturday.

Speaker 8 Yeah, so tomorrow will be a good time.

Speaker 1 When are you flying to Columbus or heading over? Friday?

Speaker 8 When are you going?

Speaker 1 I think Wednesday. I have to go see Jorge.

Speaker 8 I get a crown. Get the teeth done.
I got a crown.

Speaker 1 Smart. Smart.
I got a temporary crown. Oh.
I got to get it permanent.

Speaker 3 Protect that thing. Yeah.

Speaker 8 You remember I had to get that thing pooled middle of the year last year? Oh, man. The teeth issue will really get you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you should put one of Peter's teeth in your mouth.

Speaker 1 Something to think about.

Speaker 1 Evidently. I mean, I've never seen him carry a basketball.
Well, I've never.

Speaker 8 Those basketballs were very healthy before Peter had it.

Speaker 1 I've been here for a long time.

Speaker 8 AJ, love what you're doing with the hair. Still doing it.
I like that. Still doing it.

Speaker 6 Yeah, we're still doing it, man.

Speaker 1 Stay dedicated. I like that.

Speaker 8 All I've been able to see is clips of everything. It's so backwards.
So the the middle of the day, I called it the Australian shut eye because nobody that we know is awake.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah. Pretty isolated over there.
I will say, you are pretty isolated in Australia. Really dependent upon each other when you're over there.

Speaker 1 Is it winter there?

Speaker 8 Yes, it is winter where we were about to, you know, come up with what does that mean, what temp wise? It was 60. Oh, okay.

Speaker 8 The place we were at has a rooftop that has where the pool is, the hot tub, cold tub, and everything. And all they kept saying is, this is nothing.

Speaker 8 The summer, mate, just this place is crazy or whatever. And, yeah, I had shirt off.
I was like, this is

Speaker 8 a good time.

Speaker 1 I was having a great time. It's great here now, by the way.
It rained a little bit. Yes, I felt it sounded like 50 in the morning.

Speaker 2 55 in the morning.

Speaker 1 Oh, we made it. Yeah, glorious.
Football season.

Speaker 3 It's glorious. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 8 I was gone a long time. Cracker Barrel's gone.

Speaker 1 Yeah, new logo. Rest in peace.

Speaker 2 If you listen to the commander-in-chief today, I think he is suggesting going back.

Speaker 1 to Kraken Barrels to the old logo. So I don't know how long the logo is.

Speaker 8 I don't think he's the only one suggesting.

Speaker 1 I don't think so either. I think he's the most

Speaker 1 CEO survive. Gone.
No.

Speaker 8 Yeah, somebody got fired today on the flight era. Why would you do it?

Speaker 8 That makes no sense. I think it's an aggressive decision.
I appreciate it. No, I'm saying before.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 why would you make a change after decades of

Speaker 1 dominance?

Speaker 8 I assume you've got to remember these people who are super geniuses. They get into a meeting and they have it all figured out.
You remember, they're the experts.

Speaker 8 Much like social media people of the modern world, they're all geniuses. They went to school, they got a social media degree.
We understand what's going on.

Speaker 8 These olds that are running company, you guys can never understand what the modern world is. We get it, you don't get it.

Speaker 8 So I think what happens is people get in there. We're super geniuses, believe us.
And I think they were probably trying to expand their demo a little bit.

Speaker 1 They lost their base.

Speaker 8 We need to get younger, they said. And that would be like universities being like, we need to to start getting like 12-year-olds in here.
It's like you grow into Cracker Barrel.

Speaker 8 Like, that's just how it goes. You become older, you go to Cracker Barrel.
So trying to expand the demo younger just feels dumb, but good luck to them. I love that place.

Speaker 8 I used to play checkers with people.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, you bet. Oh, yeah.
The general store? Yeah. Yeah, that's the general store.

Speaker 8 I love cracker barrel.

Speaker 1 I am a Cracker Barrel goer.

Speaker 8 Still give it a go. See? Walk into the modern looking thing they got there.

Speaker 8 How's the B's and G's?

Speaker 8 You guys got to figure it out. But that was good whenever I left.
Gone now.

Speaker 8 It was 100 degrees when I left.

Speaker 1 15 years now.

Speaker 1 It feels great. You're a Hall of Famer now.
Congratulations. I'm at a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I guess that's happening. Thank you to West Virginia for the love.
I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 Hopefully we'll see them early.

Speaker 8 Yeah, very much so.

Speaker 4 I don't know if you saw today.

Speaker 1 Meet them both and figure it out.

Speaker 4 Bama's afraid of West Virginia.

Speaker 8 What's that?

Speaker 4 Bama is afraid of West Virginia.

Speaker 1 They just canceled their home at home.

Speaker 8 That's what I heard. And we just let them out.
We said,

Speaker 8 you guys have already paid enough with how bad this is going to look for you.

Speaker 1 I thought Richard. How about Rich Rod? They got everything.
Hey, Wanna Herbie. He's like, hey, they got sprinkles back here in the back.

Speaker 8 Want a Herbie.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Rich Rodriguez won a Herbie.
Oh, yeah. Big deal.

Speaker 8 That was a big deal. I want to let you know.
I was in Australia.

Speaker 1 You heard about it.

Speaker 8 Didn't see the Herbies live. Checked them afterwards.
West Virginia won one.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We like that.
Hey, I'm all in. If Rich Rod is there, I'm all in.

Speaker 8 I'm sure you've talked about this, and I have missed it.

Speaker 8 You already have your national championship pick, you've told everybody.

Speaker 1 I have not told everybody.

Speaker 2 We did our conferences. We didn't do a national championship.

Speaker 1 I haven't said that about the national title.

Speaker 2 Or the playoff.

Speaker 1 No, not yet.

Speaker 1 Who do you pick? Who are you picking? I'm not saying it.

Speaker 1 Who are you going to go?

Speaker 1 Texas and who else?

Speaker 8 I think they might just play against themselves.

Speaker 8 I like Texas a lot.

Speaker 1 You put a Manning out there anywhere. He's going to be a good one.
Yeah, I'm out. I'm on board.

Speaker 1 Penn State?

Speaker 8 I'm on board. Love the hell.

Speaker 1 I love Penn State.

Speaker 8 Drew Aller. I like how last season ended for Drew Aller.
A lot of people don't. Clemson.
Kate, you've been high on Cade Kloppnick for a long time.

Speaker 1 I like Clemson.

Speaker 8 I haven't seen much out of Cade last year.

Speaker 1 A lot of touchdowns. He played well last year.

Speaker 8 43. A lot of touchdowns last year.
Maybe they're back.

Speaker 1 LSU Clemson, opening game, winner of that game.

Speaker 8 Big deal. Big deal.

Speaker 8 Ryan Day, you guys had him on the show. Good to see you.
Came on the show. That's crazy.
Finally.

Speaker 2 Penn State, Texas would be a banger.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 1 How does Penn State not get there?

Speaker 8 Oh, how is it? That's a great question.

Speaker 3 Because they habitually choke in big games.

Speaker 1 Yeah. His effort against top five is

Speaker 1 18, 18?

Speaker 8 Hey, Aussies liked our sport.

Speaker 1 Football?

Speaker 8 Well, they send punters here. I mean,

Speaker 1 next year.

Speaker 8 I also informed them on how that's all actually going, and they all kind of...

Speaker 1 What did you tell them?

Speaker 8 Well, the Hawaii guy's 29 years old. Everybody's talking about how good he is.
He is. I retired when I was 29, made like my second Pro Bowl.

Speaker 1 The YouTube kicker, Hawaii guy, or the punter?

Speaker 8 The punter oh okay yeah he's 29 i think which is cool i'm happy he's getting an opportunity once again i an entire professional career i've been nominated for the hall of fame three times retired when i was 29 so taking on 17 year old kids for scholarships certainly something sure but love the aussie people also love aussie rules football went to the game I understand why they are so good at it.

Speaker 8 It is fantastic.

Speaker 1 I saw you punted one there. Yeah, I had to represent.

Speaker 8 Yeah, yeah, I had to represent. First time I punted in multiple years.
Have not punted in a lot of time.

Speaker 1 How did the hammy and everything hold up?

Speaker 8 Yeah, the hip flexor certainly felt it a little bit afterwards, but I'm on so much science now.

Speaker 8 I was asked, hey, you want to play tomorrow by a lot of people with jokes. I'm like, do you guys drug test here or no?

Speaker 1 And they're like, yes, we do.

Speaker 8 I'm not.

Speaker 1 I'm not passing any of them.

Speaker 1 I'm not passing any of them.

Speaker 2 We've never done it, but I mean, if, you know, the international game next year is in Australia.

Speaker 1 And so. Oh, we'll see.

Speaker 8 Do we know what city it's in?

Speaker 2 I want to say Melbourne, but I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 Do they know what time they're going to play that game at? Because 9:30 a.m. is what, 11:30?

Speaker 8 Yeah, it would have to be a morning game. Yeah, yeah, it would have to be a morning game.
So it's morning and night. I'm able to talk to you guys, but it was flipped, if you recall.

Speaker 4 It is at the MCG.

Speaker 8 Your mornings, yeah, the cricket grounds.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you were in bed when we were getting ready for the show.

Speaker 8 Exactly. Yeah, so everything's just completely backwards there.
It's a beautiful country, though. I would recommend it highly.
It's a long way,

Speaker 1 long way.

Speaker 8 People are awesome. Food is so good.

Speaker 1 So so. You don't like preservatives?

Speaker 8 No preservatives.

Speaker 1 No, you don't like that?

Speaker 1 It's real food. I'll tell you, it was.
I'm saying here, he doesn't like the preservatives.

Speaker 8 I do, though. I was a big, don't touch my fucking food guy.

Speaker 8 Like I said there, don't touch my food. I'm telling you, it started with cocoa puffs.
They changed the cocoa puff recipe to get it healthier. I'm like, I'm not cuckoo for cocoa puffs anymore.

Speaker 8 This is not how it's supposed to be. Worst.
Now, though, after eating like that for a week, it's like

Speaker 1 dropped a few LB.

Speaker 8 And also, you don't feel

Speaker 3 quite nice to not feel like complete shit after every meal you eat.

Speaker 1 Hash.

Speaker 8 I'm eating, I'm eating hash, like fried foods. And it's like, well, they don't use peanut oil.
They don't use any of these other. They use like really nice.

Speaker 8 Once again, not getting into it. I was told, hey, that's a big political conversation you want to get into.

Speaker 8 I'm just going to let you know, my whole body after eating after a week feels a thousand times better now.

Speaker 8 As soon as I got back to America, where's your ice cream?

Speaker 8 Ice cream is shit.

Speaker 8 The ice cream is too healthy.

Speaker 1 I believe it. It's too healthy.
It's a health record. Not enough cows down there.

Speaker 8 Too healthy. Need to have a little bit of a break.

Speaker 1 So you don't need to talk like that. You can talk up here.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. Kirk, you can't.
I kept talking down here.

Speaker 8 Did anybody tell you not to do that? I didn't even know. That's on the team.
No, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's bullshit.

Speaker 2 You can pull videos of your team.

Speaker 1 I was noticing when I was here, I couldn't really hear myself that well. So then I came down here.
Certainly louder when you're in it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but as you would actually hear me if I'm out here, hell yeah. I didn't do it during the show, yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think you did a great job.

Speaker 1 By the way, I think you did a great job.

Speaker 8 You did a fantastic job.

Speaker 1 These guys do everything.

Speaker 8 I'm just hanging out. Getting Ryan Day on the show.
That's crazy. I didn't know that fucking guy would come on the show.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 4 We got some inside info from the two Ohio State lads.

Speaker 1 Come on, dude.

Speaker 8 Me, Ryan Day, we'll call it outs.

Speaker 1 No. There you go.
Yeah. There it is.

Speaker 2 Two ships passing in the night.

Speaker 8 No, not even passing. No.

Speaker 1 I'm seeing his ship turned mine around to get the other way. Brian loves him.
Yeah, does he? All you guys.

Speaker 8 I don't know. I think he was on Ellen DeGeneres' show.
It was canceled.

Speaker 1 Definitely.

Speaker 1 Help him out. He wanted on everybody's show.

Speaker 8 He was on Ellen. Ellen's show wasn't even around, and he tried to get on it after he won a national show.

Speaker 6 I think anytime he knew he was offered to be on the show, he would come on the show.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah, but instead

Speaker 1 he threw a curveball. His opening comment

Speaker 1 had a lot to do with that.

Speaker 1 If he knew

Speaker 1 you wanted him, he would come on.

Speaker 8 No, I understand. Not everybody needs to come on our show either.
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 No, yeah.

Speaker 8 Listen, this is me understanding, hat in hand, you know?

Speaker 1 I'm guessing somebody dropped the ball.

Speaker 8 Thank you so much for the opportunity to potentially talk to you. You know that?

Speaker 1 But what if it never got to him? And you're saying all these nasty things?

Speaker 8 I'm not saying nasty things.

Speaker 1 I'm just letting all of them.

Speaker 1 Nasty things.

Speaker 8 What's that?

Speaker 1 Those are all nasty things.

Speaker 8 That I don't like him?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 8 He's a national championship winner.

Speaker 1 You love him.

Speaker 1 I don't. But I.

Speaker 1 You've had him on. I mean, you guys have gotten along great.

Speaker 8 Those days are in the past.

Speaker 1 Those days are in the past.

Speaker 8 And I understand we had Coach Lou.

Speaker 3 He's not a big fan of me. Coach Lou Hol.

Speaker 1 I saw your question was a good one, though.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah. I mean, you know.

Speaker 8 And I think you responded well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 8 But I was thankful you got him on here so that we could have

Speaker 8 been a national champion on the show. What an honor it is to have Coach Ryan Day on this show.
That was so cool. That was so cool.

Speaker 1 Oh, you'll get to see him again Saturday. Can't wait.
I got a lot to say.

Speaker 8 You know, I think it's a lot of self-reflection when you're on the other side of the world and nobody that you know is awake. You know, sending a lot of texts at my wife, no response.

Speaker 1 What's she doing?

Speaker 1 It's 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 Hey, you know, how come nobody wants to talk to me?

Speaker 8 Ah, it's 2 a.m. Jesus.
Wake up. I'm in the middle of this.
A lot of self-reflection. A lot of self-reflection.
I'm allowed to not like people.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 And I'm allowed to say that into here.

Speaker 1 But normally I hate. There's people that are nasty on the internet.
That's where you should send your.

Speaker 8 Oh, I hate those people. Yeah, I told a guy today that I didn't like him.
I'm going to fuck himself.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's okay. There's a new me here.
If you're doing that to the.

Speaker 8 And also, did you see this, Herbie?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I did. Ooh, raw, baby.
You know? Yeah.

Speaker 8 This might be the new me.

Speaker 1 It's a good look.

Speaker 8 I have a jawline for the first time.

Speaker 1 This looks good. Looks good.

Speaker 2 It looks like there's a little scruff on it still, too.

Speaker 8 Well, that's because I was in a plane for the last 60 hours true you're bad i say you go with that look clean shave what do you talk about i think i'm going to you should i think i'm actually going to the aussies are good people dude i'm telling you every one of them good personality best they have fun too right they seem like they all like to have fun and be outdoors dude good personality good vibes good attitudes like it was just it was really cool hate weed very good people weird also we're strapping our seat belts in the back seat or that thing's beeping at us okay okay what yeah Backseat beepers?

Speaker 8 Backseat beepers. That's sucks.

Speaker 8 Streets clean. Sidewalks incredibly clean.
I saw next to no homeless people. I guess the crime down

Speaker 8 way down. I mean, it's like.

Speaker 1 How do you do that?

Speaker 8 To be honest, I have no idea how they've gotten to where they are right now, but it is awesome. I think it's all just no weed.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And strapping,

Speaker 1 strapping a seatbelt in the back and no preservatives in the food.

Speaker 1 Everybody's happy on that. The preservatives in the food makes sense.

Speaker 8 Brisbane's hosting.

Speaker 1 Great white sharks.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I stayed away from the ocean. I looked at it, stayed away from it.

Speaker 1 Great white sharks.

Speaker 8 And the reason why I was down there,

Speaker 8 the reason why I was down there, there's potentially some scenes

Speaker 8 in the Great White Sharks waters.

Speaker 1 I'm telling you. And there was a lot of chatter amongst the group about, is there a plane for,

Speaker 8 you know,

Speaker 1 man?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you'd be fine. How about that one surfer over there who just punched one? Right in the nose.
Right in the nose.

Speaker 8 That's what I was telling him. What are you guys crying about? I should do punch right in the nose.
One Aussie guy. Yeah, do it.

Speaker 8 One Aussie guy was like, no, you actually got to reach into the mouth, grab its tonsils.

Speaker 1 I was like, yeah, bite its tongue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 8 Oh, my God. It was awesome.
It was a great experience. I was lucky to do it.
Can't wait to get back chatting with you boys on a regular basis. Cannot wait to be back into football.

Speaker 8 Excited for Saturday.

Speaker 1 I'm very excited.

Speaker 8 It's going to be a blast. It's going to be fun.

Speaker 1 You guys. So you're going Monday over to see Belichick, right?

Speaker 8 Yeah, for the kickoff show. Yeah.
Yeah, and congratulations.

Speaker 8 I guess not congratulations. Yeah, that's not the right word.

Speaker 1 The tribute to Corso was cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That was a really cool thing.

Speaker 8 That was a really, really cool thing.

Speaker 1 Were you able to see some of it? Yes.

Speaker 8 Not the whole thing because it was hard to find the entirety. But it was really cool to kind of watch just the amount of respect everybody had for him.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you guys are younger. You might remember, but in his heyday,

Speaker 1 he was kind of like Pat. Like he was for that era.

Speaker 8 Hated by every color football fan.

Speaker 1 He was hated by a lot of people. For being loud.
He said things that just not a lot of people said. I mean, he was

Speaker 1 a lightning rod. A G.

Speaker 8 Yes. Yeah.
Coach Core says a G. He's always been good to me.
He's always been very nice to me. It's good.
And watching that video, watching that tribute was sick.

Speaker 8 It's going to be an emotional thing.

Speaker 1 I was going to say Saturday Saturday is going to be very special. It's going to be very emotional.

Speaker 2 Especially like the ending.

Speaker 2 The end of the program itself.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He's going to.
In there.

Speaker 1 We're inside the stadium there. Well, Harvey, you're not an emotional guy, so you should be fighting.
I am. I mean, I'm Dick Vermeal.

Speaker 1 You know, I cry when I watch American Idol. I mean, I'm just

Speaker 1 a sentimental guy.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that's why I try not to watch them. I try to stay away from things that I know.

Speaker 1 Do you get emotional? I've seen you emotional on the set with me. Yes.
When Jen Ladda does a feature.

Speaker 8 I try to stay out of it. So, like, when Jen starts to, Jen does such a phenomenal job of telling her stories.
Whenever she starts a story, I do try to distract myself like, ah,

Speaker 1 la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la, but you get pulled in because that's inevitably about a kid and

Speaker 8 his dad and family mom.

Speaker 1 And having a daughter now, I mean, it hits you harder. Yeah, I cry my eyes out.

Speaker 8 And then it's like, all right. Field goal kicks on the other side.

Speaker 1 It's like, yeah, that matters.

Speaker 8 We just see what this is. But it's, thank you for doing this.
Very, very cool of you. I know know it's a busy week.
So thank you for traveling out here. Just like Rap Sheet.

Speaker 1 Thanks for, yeah, he did it a couple times.

Speaker 8 Shrag's was awesome. Yeah, it was, I'm very, very thankful for you guys doing this.
AJ, thanks for making the trip over. And boys, way to crush it.

Speaker 3 Appreciate you, dude. Good to have you back.

Speaker 1 And on that note,

Speaker 8 I'm going to smoke CBD here.

Speaker 1 Not weed.

Speaker 1 No, no, no.

Speaker 8 Just CBD, because that's all that's legal here in Indiana. And I believe this particular CBD trip I'm about to take is going to be like back in high school.

Speaker 1 First time long time.

Speaker 1 First time long time.

Speaker 8 But football season's here, boys. I'm thankful to be back.
We did it.

Speaker 1 We made it. All right.
We made it. Yep.

Speaker 1 Go ahead, Herbie.

Speaker 2 This is the team on

Speaker 2 the three.

Speaker 8 Team on three? No, no.

Speaker 8 Do a little bit of a speech here, like as if it's the call-up of a juice, Herbie.

Speaker 1 Some juice. End of a practice.
End of a practice, Herbie. Hey, appreciate you guys having me.
It's an honor to be here. Thanks for just a big surprise.

Speaker 1 When I saw that door opening, I didn't know what was going on over there.

Speaker 8 I don't think anybody knew. About two hours ahead of time.
I wasn't supposed to be back this early. Shout out to my pilot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, geez. We put a little DC flight.
Yeah, one up there and did a little.

Speaker 8 Hey, can we

Speaker 8 push it a little bit? And he did. Shout out to Cap.
Shout out to Cap. Shout out to you.

Speaker 1 Yes. Shout out to everybody who did it while you were gone.

Speaker 8 Yeah, shout out to Peterberg.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Shout out to Peterberg.

Speaker 8 You fucking beast.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wait till you see him.
You guys have probably seen some of the shots. I mean, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 Couple pictures.

Speaker 8 I will say, I think I did do good.

Speaker 1 We'll talk about that more, though. Oh, yeah.
We'll talk about that more. Yeah, thank you guys.
Appreciate it.

Speaker 8 One, two, three. No, no, come on, come on.
Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life.

Speaker 1 Be a friend, tell a friend something nice might change their life.

Speaker 1 Team on me. Team on me.

Speaker 8 Team on three. Team on three.

Speaker 2 You can do the rat.

Speaker 1 One, two, three. Team to buy.

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