PMS 2.0 1437 - NFL Week 8 Preview/Picks, TNF Recap, Professional Poker Player Matt Berkey, Mike McCarthy, Nick Saban, & AJ Hawk

Welcome to the Pat McAbee Show.

Feel good.

Friday, October 24th, I'm AJ Hawk sitting in for Pat at his desk.

He'll be joining us from Nashville, boys.

Big game tomorrow.

Football

is the name of the game.

It's what we do around here.

It's our number one thing.

Last night we had a big, a big game.

We have Vikings, Chargers.

Boys, Chargers absolutely dominate.

I feel like.

Obviously, early on in the game, Justin Herbert throws what we thought was a pick six.

They review it.

It's not a pick six.

They go on, what, a 16-plate drive, I believe, going there, and they capitalize.

They score a touchdown, go up 7-0.

It looks like, to me, the Chargers never really looked back after that.

I felt like the Chargers D-line was getting unbelievable pressure on Carson Wentz all night long.

They ran for over 200 yards, the Chargers did.

It was just

somewhat of a dominant performance, I feel like, from this Chargers football team.

Just what they needed after losing three of their last four games.

Con man, what'd you see when you watched this game?

Honestly, what stood out the most, I guess, when you actually think about it?

I mean, right there on that touchdown run by Vidal, they're running left.

Joe Alt being back was kind of the biggest thing it felt like, and it kind of solidifies the importance of how important the left tackle is just to both the quarterback and the running game.

And yeah, right there, they're 4-0 when Joe Alt starts.

And he's just one of those big sons of bitches that kind of sets the tone up for those boys.

And, you know, they could do whatever they wanted because Herbert had time, and it was just a fantastic performance start to finish for the offense.

Yeah, Carson Wentz, he was under pressure all night long.

I know you guys watched it and you saw, but it seemed like Carson Wentz, one, two, three, he's hitting his third step and he's eluding pressure all over.

We saw some Carson Wentz moments where this guy, you know, he's never going to let a play die.

That's what I love about Carson.

It's always all out in front of him.

He's always able to, he thinks, at least in his mind, he's going to figure out a way to get this and to get some positive yards, which I love and respect.

It was,

yeah, like I said, dominant performance.

I was so impressed by the Chargers' defense, to be honest with you, right, Tone?

Yeah, it looked like their early season defense, where the first couple weeks where they were dominant and they started 3-0.

I mean, what I learned last night is if you wear stupid, dumb, all-yellow uniforms and you play a good team like the Colts, you're going to get dominated.

And then if you decide to wear one of your coolest throwback uniforms possible and then another team comes in, you're going to dominate them.

And I think the whole NFL should take that into consideration when they're choosing you.

Were you surprised by this, Ty?

What happened last night?

I mean, maybe a little bit for the final score, but I told Connor when when I first got in here today, like, last night was the first time I actually felt bad for Carson Wentz.

You know, he just, like you said, under duress all night, so banged up.

Like, it's kind of rubber meets the road for the Vikings now.

Like, we get it.

JJ McCarthy's been hurt with the ankle.

Has he been hurt?

They got to see what they have.

Every athletic move he made on the sideline.

Avoiding complete disaster, I feel like at one point in the game, JJ McCarthy, if you watch him here, ooh, Haya jumps over top.

You think he's going to get rolled up on?

Here we go.

A lot of juice.

He's ready.

You You think that guy's got an ankle injury, Ty?

I mean, it certainly doesn't look like it, but, you know, we need to see him on the field because I think they know exactly what they can get out of Carson Wentz.

And the season could kind of get away from him pretty quickly here if they don't, if something doesn't change.

Yeah, it does feel like we're going to see J.J.

McCarthy out there very soon with the Vikings under center.

And I think Pat's already actually down in Nashville.

Pat, what's going on, man?

Your setting looked amazing when we touched with you earlier.

What's up, buddy?

Yeah, down here at First Bank Stadium in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee.

You know, they just opened this place in August.

$130 million was spent on this stadium.

They just opened in August.

Hold on, though.

I'm not done, though, okay?

You would think that would be a lot of money, especially in 2025, having a brand new stadium.

Remember, in years past, we've kind of mocked and ridiculed.

They had cranes and like they didn't even have locker rooms.

Remember, they were going through their construction.

They finally land here at the First Bank Stadium.

$130 million they put into this.

That's not it, though.

Right behind me here, I believe.

you see the Huber Center.

I got the JJ Watts situation going on.

That's the Huber Center right there.

That's for the the basketball team.

$90 million they spent on the Huber basketball thing.

We're not done, though.

You know, the baseball team, obviously highly regarded Vandi boys, $42 million they're putting into a new baseball stadium.

And then outdoor tennis only, outdoor tennis only, $14 million in a new facility.

And then indoor tennis, they're putting $7 million into.

So whenever you talk about a school going all in on sports, it feels like this Vandy team's doing that.

Now, obviously, Coach Lee and Diego Pavia are putting it on a national stage with the entire run in the college football world and obviously lucky to be here and celebrate this as mizzou comes to town but i think chancellor diermeyer okay you know candace story lee uh athletic director here at vandy are all in on the sports and i think it's a special thing you know when you're good at sports i think um it radiates about your culture about what you are we're competitive we like to have a good time we like to be community driven and also we want to beat the hell out of other people whenever it comes to on-field competition and sports so yeah i'm lucky to be down here in vandi i i certainly am yesterday was a once-in-a-lifetime actual day uh that i got to experience down here in nashville crazy that it fell on the day where the uh no betting a lot

had

their um

their biggest day but uh i thought you guys did you guys did an incredible job okay and i appreciate you guys doing that and to all the people that i was with yesterday that everybody will learn about uh going forward i don't want to drop all their names right now because it'll kind of give away everything we got going on.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your lives and energy and commitment towards yesterday for me.

That was one of the coolest things I've ever...

I've ever done.

Yesterday was awesome.

I was in the middle of a movie and a TV show for about nine hours and with some of the most talented people on earth.

And it was really cool.

It's a Nashville difference.

I had no idea that Nashville could be the football town that it is right now for Vandi.

And lucky to be here.

Now, on that note, Carson Wentz, quarterback for this Minnesota Vikings team, you talk about J.J.

McCarthy doing that move it wasn't just the um what's that called shed what do you guys call that aj the you're playing off a cut block or you're playing off a cut block yeah what's that move called though is there is that called a move or a playoff yeah i don't know play off the cut strike strike

yeah it's literally a drill though people roll balls and you like kind of you know you sprawl this is a sprawling technique where you're shooting out for yeah there's a sprawl that kind of comes with that that's a very explosive move okay and there's obviously a lot of movement that takes place not only with the ankles but the knees, everything else like that.

And then they walk off afterwards.

Yep, a little bit of sauce with that one.

As he's walking forward, it's like, okay, looks like JJ's at least close to being all the way back.

Obviously, emergency quarterback last night.

So if they needed him, they'd have him.

A lot of season left is what they were probably thinking.

But you got JJ McCarthy there, probably coming back.

You got Carson Wentz giving some Carson Wentz experience.

But to your point, Ty, I was following along.

A lot of people were like, enough's enough for this man.

Yeah.

Please,

can we take him off?

This guy's giving his all out there.

I like that there was a babyface turn for Carson Wentz seemingly last night in the midst of this massive defeat against the Chargers team that might be who we thought they were just a few weeks ago, especially with Joe Alt playing.

But you think about Danny Dimes, what he's doing with the Colts, we're lucky as hell.

We want to make him our governor.

We want to make Danny Dimes our governor.

He was in their building.

Now, allegedly, they offered more money than Colts did, but still, they let him out of the building.

Sam Darnold, okay, you got him doing what he's doing.

And remember, Aaron Rodgers was allegedly interested in being the Minnesota Vikings quarterback.

One year ago, last year, the Minnesota Vikings team, they were were fighting for the number one seed in the NFC.

Last game of the year, it's like, holy hell, this team is there.

And then now we're watching them.

Obviously, injuries happen.

And it's like they're just getting their shit.

pumped by the Los Angeles Chargers on primetime.

It's like, this is not what I think about the Kevin O'Connell Vikings team.

And there's been a lot of really good players that have kind of exited or people that wanted to be there that are playing pretty good football elsewhere.

So they're going to have to live in their world and their decision making.

And on that note, the Chargers decision making on those jerseys tone, to your point, those things look filthy.

I mean, I just thought about, I thought about Ladane and Tomlinson back in the day doing his thing and just electrifying and lighting everything up.

I know that the Chargers felt like they had to perform in those jerseys.

But once again, Justin Herbert, Jim Harbaugh, Minter, right, is the defensive coordinator that we're singing his praises.

It's like everything we learned about them whenever we went out to their facility, they're all rowing in the same direction.

And I think they ran into a very good Colts team last week.

Obviously, they have, you know, not a perfect schedule or a perfect resume, but it's like this Chargers team still has everything you could possibly need to go on a deep run, I think.

So, now, Ton, what were the betting numbers last night?

I know we were probably all on the Chargers, if I had to guess the way our show had to operate, even though I didn't listen at the end.

But what was the public on?

What was the money on?

And who ended up winning in this entire thing?

Well, I just want to let you know that yes, you were on the right side.

You were on the Chargers.

You said, Give me three, give me three and a half.

It doesn't matter.

Chargers are going to beat that their ass.

And they did.

AJ was on the wrong side, but AJ was with the public.

56% of the bets were with the Vikings last night.

I don't know if that was because Carson Wentz was 7-0 all time on Thursday night football and they believed in Wentz.

But no, it was an ass beating the entire time.

Chargers.

And one thing we haven't mentioned yet, we probably should mention, Aronde Gatson, the rookie tight end out of Syracuse, just three games in a row now where he's been absolutely dominant.

As you can see there, almost six, seven receptions a game.

Tons of yards, tons of touchdowns out of Syracuse.

His dad played in the NFL.

He's been a new weapon for Justin Herbert that he loves.

Yeah, and, you know, you got Dolphins fans going crazy.

Gumpy smiling like the butcher's dog over there is just listening to the name be mentioned.

Is that all right, Gumps?

Absolutely.

Yeah, he was getting zipper burned last night whenever we were talking about this entire and how that night, that guy's night continued to go.

I like this Chargers team, man.

Con, man.

It feels like Hardball is going to be able to get any group to kind of go and win.

Can they win a Super Bowl, Connor?

Can the Los Angeles Chargers win a Super Bowl?

I mean, when Herbert's playing like this, no doubt.

Even you go back to last week with the Colts and they got killed by the Colts, but Herbert did everything he could to bring him back, but he makes every play.

It feels like he really doesn't have too many flaws, especially when it comes to, you know, like decision-making with the football.

The guys they have on offense were running wide open sometimes, and then he can do this.

You forget Herbert is a freak athlete sometimes, and he's faster than damn near everybody on the field.

And the fact that they have a third-string running back playing the way he is, I think is just credit to Herbert because, you know, they damn near are just letting, or sorry, they're just trying to stop Herbert and they can't because the worry isn't too much about the running game.

And then you bring in a third string running back and he's unbelievable.

With Khalil Mack back, AJ mentioned it.

Carson Wentz really didn't have any time at all yesterday.

And again, I don't know what the injuries were on the Vikings.

I feel like I kind of got bamboozled just because Carson Wentz came out with a bionic arm and I didn't know that was happening.

But no,

as a team, as a whole, Adafe Owe, they get from the Ravens.

He's making an impact immediately.

And I mean, with Odafe Owe being that kind of player for them, getting traded this year, makes you think now with the other side, with the Vikings, like, do they start selling?

But who knows with that?

It was more so just the Chargers are all the way back.

And you look at that division, Chiefs and Broncos, they got to be a little bit worried now, too, that there really is a three-headed monster and then Max Crosby in the division.

Yeah,

I love the fact that that Hardbaugh is doing what he's doing out there with that team.

I think just because we appreciate him as a football guy, and we also respect and appreciate the hell out of Herbert, continued success out there for the boys, hopefully.

And for the Vikings, good luck.

Good luck.

A lot of people still asking questions about J.J.

McCarthy.

He can obviously go and prove them all wrong if he has a great back half of the season.

Now, yesterday I missed, which was a pretty big day.

Okay.

And I already did the no-betting allowed thing.

So I kind of blew that.

So

it still hit.

It did hit.

It was a shit hit.

Okay, six, six, six.

So the fact that

it happened yesterday and I wasn't able to talk about it is, you know, it was a bummer.

I was bummed out about it.

Like as it was all unfolding, I was driving to once-in-a-lifetime event while it was all taking place on our phones and we're all learning about it.

It's like, man, I feel like I'm a pretty good person to maybe chit-chat about at least the poker side of this entire thing because poker is a huge part of my story.

You know, I started playing with it and I was like 10 years old with my grandma.

She taught me how to gamble.

My brother and then my cousins and everything, they enjoyed different styles of games than I did.

It was a little bit different.

So my grandma literally taught me how to gamble and play poker as a 10-year-old.

So I feel like I've been, you know, in that world more than maybe just the average person that's speaking on a microphone.

Not saying that I'm a professional or anything, but just the poker world, the cards community, I am very proud to be a part of.

And I love cards.

And anytime you got somebody scamming the card community, that is obviously disgusting.

So I think that's a horrible situation that I cannot wait to chat more about here in a second.

But this whole co-conspirator alongside NBA players thing that's also happening at the same exact time that FBI director Cash Patel put up, it feels like we're just very early in this entire thing.

And then you hear about what the lawyer was saying about Terry or whoever was at the hotel and wanted them to do a perp walk and everything.

It's like, it's like Cash, I feel like, and, you know, maybe the FBI understands that sports.

gambling is becoming a much, much, much, much bigger part of our society.

And I see everybody talking about how, how can anybody on TV talk about it whenever they're taking money from sports books and things like that?

And I'm going to say this, we took and got paid a lot of money from a sports book in FanDuel.

So I would like to say this is potentially coming from a part of the problem.

But players being associated with rigging games and fans of sports betting on games, I think two very different things.

Obviously, is it a conflict of interest with how big sports gambling has become a part of these leagues, signing deals with leagues, signing deals with players in leagues, these sports books are.

And then obviously it's all over all the marketing and everything that's a part of the game.

Is that potentially a conflict of interest?

Because inevitably it's going to get into a locker room or maybe into the officials, which obviously we've already seen.

And it's such an easy thing to get a part of and wrapped up in.

Is that going to only become more?

I think these types of situations have to be big and have to be precedent setting because I don't think the sports gambling world is going to slow down.

It's obviously been happening for a very, very long time.

Now it's just legalized and trackable and there's big corporations and people profiting off this with publicly stock exchanges and marketing and coming together with sports as opposed to being the outlier of sports.

So I think the athletes have to remember that you can't give up the integrity of the game.

It ruins it for everybody.

So I think that's why they're making it such a big deal.

Now, is it becoming easier and easier to potentially rig some of these prop bets?

Certainly.

And are these co-conspirators that were up there with Jante Porter and now also being linked to Terry Rosier, how many people have they just went and talked to and said like, hey, I can get this.

All you got to do is just uh we need under three threes tonight can you just do maybe go get a layup maybe get a mid-range maybe put your foot on the line we got an extra 150 000 bucks for you and then these co-conspirators all kind of bank off the back end of it that's a dangerous game i don't know how they stop that i i honestly don't know how they stop that and i hope the only way that you stop it is you scare the living out of all the other players not only in basketball in all the other sports because we haven't even They haven't even ventured into the other sports that this is potentially happening in as well, let alone how many different groups of co-conspirators have their hands into different athletes, college, you name it.

I mean, it is obviously a huge thing, a spiraling web if you really was to become that.

So the precedent is going to have to continue to be set pretty strong.

And I think that's why the FBI came out and did it the way that they did it.

Now, on that note, I heard Wendy say.

that the NBA knew about this.

So then Terry had an injury or something like that and went out for the rest of the season.

And then I heard Shams last night on inside the NBA.

Shout out to Ernie Johnson, Chuck, the Jet, and Shaq for having Shams on last night on Inside the NBA.

And basically, he said that they don't have the ability to get warrants or it's out of their jurisdiction to be able to pull like evidence or go interview people.

So what the NBA could only get was what they could get.

The FBI was obviously able to get a lot more, which led to these arrests.

So there's an entire who knew what at what time and how many others do we know about until it's publicly kind of exposed.

We have no idea.

But now let's go to the poker game thing because that's also getting tied in with the co-conspirators being a part of that as well.

And that's Portland and then what, Charlotte and Miami?

That's really far away.

So let's assume that these co-conspirators potentially have a little bit of range.

The poker game's crazy just because of how many different stories have come from the allegations of a mafia-run poker game.

There was x-rays under the table that was seeing through the cards.

They knew what cards were coming.

Maybe they had glasses on.

The mafia's running this thing.

Everybody's losing.

And then you hear a podcast from 2023 from a jenser uh east of pittsburgh leechburg pennsylvania matt berkey in 2023 talks about how the exact name that was kind of mentioned yesterday in the poker world at least in his eyes they knew that the game was potentially worked or rigged in 2023 there was a game that traveled maybe from la

to nevada and the poker players knew that it was a rigged game Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is the man that actually said that on his podcast, The Only Friends podcast.

He's a professional poker player, has over $4 million in earnings, has made eight World Series of poker finals tables, and he's from the east side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

So we appreciate the hell out of him.

Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Berkey.

Yay!

Burke, what's going on, brother?

We'll talk about Sunday night football.

We'll talk about Sunday night football certainly here in a little bit and your thoughts on all of that.

But I watched your clip from 2023, and basically the way you were laying it out is as if you understood or people that were playing in this particular game or these particular games know when it's rigged or when it's not rigged.

How is that the case?

And what have you heard about these particular poker games that maybe got them caught, if you will, Berkey, if that's a good enough question to kind of get started?

Yeah, sure.

I don't want to lay it on the people who got taken for a ride in these games and make it seem like it was so obvious that they should have known.

But it is one of those things where when you as a professional who don't really offer too much to a high profile game like this that's being run around celebrities get the invite your radar should kind of go up um and this particular game it was happening both in los angeles and in las vegas uh i had gotten multiple invites as well as a lot of friends who um don't really have access to these sort of private games and it just seemed quite suspicious to me so i was lucky enough to pass i had a lot of friends who lost you know hundreds of thousands of dollars in these games just with the opportunity to play with a few celebrities.

Um, but yeah, once once you get outside of the casino, the rules get bent quite a bit.

Okay, on that note, how many of these types of games are happening?

Because obviously, it says a mafia-run poker game.

These games, a lot of these games are illegal in themselves, right?

Because they're obviously taxes and being held with no regulatory sanctions, anything like that.

And I'm not saying that it's somebody that's maybe played in a couple of these games, but this is very similar to like, and I don't want to go such like a harsh metaphor, but like a lot of people think that they can either sell fake drugs or beat up drug dealers because it's an illegal activity, so nobody's going to be able to turn them in.

So it's like if you do something wrong during an illegal activity, you really have nobody that's going to be able to turn you in because it's an illegal activity.

The person would be ratting on themselves.

How many of these maybe

non-regulated illegal potential games happen?

And whenever the mafia is thrown around, are they a part of a lot of these games right?

Like the history of poker maybe running these potential illegal operations that are taking place?

Yeah, I mean, look, it's it's it's gonna be an all-cash business, right?

And that kind of lends itself to organized crime in a certain way.

But I don't want it to be overstated.

Like, this is the majority of what's taking place in the poker community.

It's unfortunate that when we get these big platforms, it's usually because there's a giant scandal or somebody's been cheated out of a lot of money.

But the reality is,

at the highest stake levels, games are private, period.

That's just the nature of the beast.

You want to be able to play with recreational players, and they want to be able to cherry-pick the lineup.

So

if you want to be playing nosebleeds, then they're going to be privatized in some sort of capacity, whether that's a house game or a casino game, really dictates who you're catering to when it comes to the VIPs.

Some people would prefer it in a more friendly environment where they can partake in extracurriculars, if you will.

As far as like the mob's hand in it, you know, I think it's one of those things where it's like you hear rumors, you always suspect.

But this is the first actual like confirmation in my 22 years of playing that

I've heard any real involvement there.

Okay, now let's talk about cheating a little bit in these private games that are out of the casino.

Obviously, casino, a little bit more regulated.

Obviously, they have a gaming license, everything like that.

Dealers, professional dealers, you name it.

Whenever you got these private games, you're walking in on trust, basically, that everything is on the up and up.

Whenever the cheating happens or something like that, I heard stories.

There's x-rays now in the tables.

Did you know this was happening?

There's x-rays going through the tables, and then they're able to tell what cards around the corner.

Did you know any of these things?

And what is kind of your takeaway on what cheating does actually happen in these poker games or in poker games in general?

Yeah, I think the x-ray thing was a bit of a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of what actually took place.

Basically, the home games are ripe for cheating because the back of the house has access to everything.

So you as the player, you're trusting fully in whoever is particularly running this.

And this notion that absolute power corrupts absolutely is kind of where these things break down.

The game runner is incentivized to make the most money.

The game runner is incentivized to ensure that everybody is able to get paid and they're certain to get stiffed.

So they'll often take precautionary measures, whether that's taking a large rake or, in this instance, cheating the game,

to ensure that they're able to basically keep the Ponzi going as long as they can.

As far as like the x-ray and the other methods, I think that they confused that with

something that's known as

infrared decks.

So you can get these like pre-marked decks with infrared technology where like a fake key fob or something of that nature can actually read the deck top to bottom.

And if you have somebody in the back of the house who's able to get decks into the game, then of course it's going to be very easy to rig the game.

They also used invisible ink with context lenses, but

you know, to kind of

to make people at ease a little bit more, these methods are very complicated.

You could never do this in a casino or at least be incredibly difficult.

You need a middleman who's able to get the decks into the game, who's able to orchestrate the entire thing.

And that's kind of the issue with these unregulated games is that you're dealing with an environment where all your trust is solely in the person who is incentivized to make the most money.

Hand in the cookie jar.

Let's make sure we all get equal amounts of cookies.

That's an interesting dilemma for humans since the beginning of time, let alone maybe a potential gambling community.

Last question from me.

How many of these games are taking place on a regular basis?

Like if you just had to give a projection, like

I put this tweet out as soon as I heard about it.

And obviously, obviously, I grew up in a World Series of poker era.

I think you did as well.

And we're in the Pittsburgh area.

A lot of Italians, a lot of games.

We did a lot of this.

I assume that's where you started as well.

I just want to make sure to reiterate that fact.

That was not me.

There's a lot of Pat Max out there.

Now,

there is a lot of those.

But I played in a lot of games.

Like, I've played in a lot of poker games, a lot of private games.

Now, this is a long time ago.

Long, long, long, long time ago.

And I think statue limitation is like five years or something, depending upon which year, whenever it comes to these things.

So this was at least 5.2 years ago, you know, 5.1 years ago.

This was a long, long time ago.

These games are happening on a very regular basis, though.

I think that is something that needs to be said as well.

It's not like a majority of these games, to go back to your point.

Card community, I think, does have morals.

Like, I think we do have like unwritten rules in the card community, let alone at the level that you're at.

Like, this is an abnormal thing, right?

This is how people should be viewing this, as opposed to maybe a regular thing in the card world.

Because it's kind of an attack on cards, brother.

And I don't like that at all.

Yeah, yeah, it's uh, It's an attack on people who are willing to go to the ends of the earth to make a buck, I think.

Yeah, to your point, these games, they're happening coast to coast.

They're not actually illegal to run or to play in, so you don't have to worry about your statute limitation.

They're illegal to take a break.

So if the house is profiting off of it, now you're stepping on the casino's toes, and that becomes the big issue.

But yeah, you know, I was in the basement of the steakhouse the same way that you were coming up, just playing a little 5'10 with a bunch of bookies, Blairville, Johnny, and, you know, Mike the Greek, all flinging cards back and forth.

And, you know, at the time, I was 21.

I was totally naive to everything.

And I just went in there blindly trusting.

Thank God those guys were on the up and up.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, legit.

Me too.

I thought about, I literally thought about my high school story when this whole thing, mate, and I walked out into a basement, literally of like an Italian restaurant.

And it's like, man, thank God those guys let me win.

I guess like that was very, imagine if they don't, like on the way out, I I just don't go to the camp, my whole life changes.

It's like, I'm very appreciative of said Italian restaurant that took care of me there.

And I'm very appreciative of cards as a whole.

I hope people don't get scared to continue to play cards.

Cards are great.

Play Euchar, obviously, out in Indiana a lot.

Obviously, play Rummy with a wife.

Not scared to play a little tonk, not scared to play a little 727, not scared to play Hold'em, almost, you name it.

Like, cards are good.

It's good for community.

It's good, everything like that.

I hate that people are trying to scam the shit out of people at the highest level, and that's making national headlines but people like you burke will continue to carry the torch of good card playing and we appreciate the hell out of you thank you guys

all right man i hope you get every card ladies and gentlemen man burkey

Yeah, I thought that was just some information that people needed to know because there was some crazy stuff.

It was all kind of taking on a life of its own about what these card games were, what was happening.

I saw some people putting out graphics of these x-rays under the table.

It's like, oh, my God.

I mean, how could you know if anything was in there?

so i appreciate him who lives in it literally every single day for the last 15 years talking about it's crazy aj i'm a card person you are as well it's like this can't be this can't be like what what people think cards are as a whole you know yeah i don't imagine i think we're giving people too much credit almost thinking like there's these super complex situations going on all around the country where they're cheating everybody out of money i don't i don't think it's that rampant but i mean this is a giant situation giant case that the fbi came down yeah so it's happening for sure yeah like there's always been people that try to like, oh, I'll tap the table when I have a diamond or a space.

Like, there's always like table talk potentially set up options out of people.

But I feel like that's a part of me trying to catch those people while playing.

Like, I got to know that these people were pretty.

But whenever you, it's just like the Houston Astros, I guess.

Technology.

Whenever they go, like, yeah, like, whenever you get, whenever you, there's a let, there's a line here.

And then going that far is, is just not great.

The fact that these guys, with how much money that they have doing that, I don't, I don't get it.

I don't know what the leverage is.

There had to be some sort of leverage on these guys.

Definitely.

Yes.

That's what doesn't make sense.

Like, that's the stuff that I feel like will be interesting to look at just going forward with these cases.

And just like the baseball thing, to your point, now I'm just looking back through all my favorite players and all the guys I loved

growing up, especially in the NBA.

And you're just, now you just wonder about everything.

It's like, I'm glad.

No, I know, but seriously,

especially for Matt, I don't think I would have been able to ask him a question without wanting to know some sort of information about people or players.

And that's why this situation is so sticky because some people are coming out and just saying a lot of stuff.

And

it's hard not to look at that stuff.

And it's not meant for any public conversation.

Regardless, they're doing it.

But it's one of those things where now you just start to wonder about everything when it comes to things of this nature, just because it is so prevalent, especially now with gambling.

Yeah,

I don't think we need to to go back in time and start questioning anything.

You know, speaking of going back in time, Tim Donaghy is going, excuse me,

yeah, exactly.

Yeah, there's a,

that is just, it only opens up for it.

And D-Bud asked Adam Silver the other day, whenever we got a chance to talk to him about like, hey, tell us about gambling.

He talked about playing defense.

And now, Shams has reported that the NBA did not know about this until we all knew about this.

So Adam Silver at the time, I don't think, knew that all these announcements were coming.

At least that's what's being reported in this whole thing.

But he certainly knows that, hey, like one of the biggest knocks on our league especially now with how prevalent gambling is is that how riggable it is just because anything can be a foul anything can be a foul and if you give two fouls on a guy early he's out of the game so it's like all you in this case co-conspirator eight which fits a lot of the descriptors of the poker player up there in Portland, tells

Fanzie or Frainsy or something, I forget the name of the guy, that somebody's not going to be playing for the rest of the games, last 10 games of the season or whatever.

Nobody else knows that.

It's like you just, you pick one player out.

That's like a guaranteed loss almost to me.

Like basketball is so ripe.

Oh, yeah.

You know, if you, if you look at it from a praying standpoint of taking advantage of AJ, which we certainly know some gamblers will try.

So it's like him trying to play defense on that.

Like, can we get irrelevant props maybe out completely?

So there's not even like a thing.

That's, I think they're trying their best over there at the NBA, legitimately.

I think they're trying their absolute best, AJ.

Yeah, they're going to, I mean, you mentioned they're going to to probably, you know, make a come down with a pretty hard sentence or whatever is going to happen now because you have to scare not only NBA players, you need to scare football players, baseball players, call the MLS.

I'm sure the MLS is susceptible to this.

Everyone is.

Anyone can come and ruin a whole situation like that.

Yeah, no way.

Yeah, but we're a part of the problem because we book sports book money.

It's like,

I get that

different than manipulating a game and shaving points off a game and changing a game like that.

Yeah.

It's also legal.

Yeah, but

I understand how it's just sitting there, though, to use.

Like, I think yesterday there was ESBN bet logo on there.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And we'd like to let everybody know nobody's betting on that.

So,

okay.

So,

you know, like,

so, but it was up on the screen while they were talking about it.

And you can see how hypocritical that would potentially look.

And it's like, we're trying to say that there's a line.

Yeah, we're trying to say that there's a line between like the difference, but then they're, they're saying, well, the line is all kind of becoming, you can see how people are.

It's like, yeah, we can't, we all can see what the susceptibility is here, but we're all saying that there's certainly differences between being a part of the action and betting on the action.

People, 50s, go ahead.

I say, people are definitely taking like liberties, though.

Like, there's a big difference between promoting a legal sports book and betting legally versus rigging basketball games.

And that's, you know, as Berkey said, that's something, that's something Blairsville Johnny would never do.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

What do you say, Mike?

Mikey, Mikey, mikey the greek

mikey the greek yeah

yeah

somebody need to check out mikey the greek he always got cards this guy he was always hanging around turn river was always really nice to mikey the greek i think we need to check in maybe on what he's got cooking hey a little different greek yogurt on that particular thing you know what i'm talking about oh uh joining us now ladies and gentlemen is a uh an irishman from pittsburgh Okay, hell yeah.

So I would assume that he knows

about a lot of this stuff that is potentially happening, at least how it could potentially take place in the sports world.

Ladies and gentlemen, our coach, Super Bowl champion, Coach Mike McCourry.

Yay, coach.

Wow, cooking on the Irish right out the gate, huh?

Oh, my goodness.

I'm Patrick McAfee.

My name is Patrick McAfee.

You're Mike McCarthy, okay?

I come from

Italian community.

Was yours Irish or Italian?

Both.

There's both Irish and Italian in Greenfield.

And then the lower part of Greenfield was more hunky, Slovak, Czechoslovakian

of the sort.

We didn't have a lot of Czechoslovakians in Plum.

We had all Italians.

I mean, it was just Italians everywhere.

You just walk outside.

There's an Italian right there.

There's an Italian right there.

Jeez, Louise, there's another one.

Good God.

All right, we got some more pasta, more gravy.

Got it, got it.

Brigut, we do that.

Some of them weren't always on the up and up in those games we played in either.

I'll tell you that.

I know what

that is certainly a fact.

But on that note, the NBA is caught up in a massive thing.

Like, as a coach in the NFL during the era here of sports books becoming legalized and a part of the league and the culture as a whole, did you feel obligated to talk about that with your team at all?

Like, how do you kind of address that with the team other than just the signs that are

everywhere in the hope that nobody will want to kind of get involved with that type of stuff, coach?

Well, I mean, you definitely have to talk about it.

I I think the, you know, the league has done, the NFL has done an excellent job with the education.

You know, it starts in the spring during the off-season program and ultimately, as we've all been through, the meetings there in training camp.

But the continuing education throughout the season is important.

And I think just clearly just the volume of betting, you know, as far as the variation.

I think

we had a situation at one point in the past season where a player went out of the game and the communication wasn't clean between

the training staff, the player, and

communication to the head coach, whether the player was up or down.

And so, and when a player does go out of the game,

that obviously affects the endgame betting.

So I just think

when you add that whole element to the in-game betting has created a whole different, I mean,

my goodness,

you know, amount of scrutiny.

And

with that, I think just the communication as a coaching staff, training staff, players, and so forth during the course of the game,

your communication needs to be even better.

So, but yeah,

the landscape's definitely different.

I mean, it's totally different than I know when I first got in the league in the 90s.

I mean, you know, in the 90s, I can remember my first gambling

presentation, you know, and

you kind of laugh about it.

I mean, it was a joke, but it was like, hey, don't leave a paper trail.

Use, you know, cash only.

So,

Change.

You're part of the prom.

You're part of prom, coach.

You're part of the problem.

No, but like I said, it was a joke.

It was just a whole different landscape back then.

I mean, it's changed so much in the volume and the variations of what you can bet on, especially in-game, it's amazing.

Yeah, and you talk about what the NFL had to go through with like fantasy football.

Remember, Tony Romo wasn't allowed to go to some event in Vegas for fantasy football, but he was allowed to take a check for like a scratch off in the state.

And they're like, nope, you're allowed to play blackjack, but you're not allowed to take free drinks while you're playing blackjack.

Remember this?

You're not allowed to get a hotel room, but you're allowed to play

rule-ed if you want.

Like, they had to back, the NFL had like to really, there was a lot of NCAA just, what did the NCAA just approve?

Yeah,

they just legalized gambling for all divisions, Division I, Division II, Division III on Pro Sports.

Yep.

We're in such a weird time right now, Coach.

Yeah, as it's becoming so prevalent, like everybody's trying to adjust and be fair and be real about the situation.

All we all know, everybody that's ever been a part of any of the sports, can't have the players or the people in the games, coaches or affecting the games, be rigging the games because then you take down everything for all of us, okay?

So stop being so fucking selfish.

Now, let's talk about the game last night, shall we, Coach?

Carson Wentz, obviously in the middle of battle all night with this Chargers team.

Now, Justin Herbert with Joe Alt starting starting this year.

They're 4-0.

Feels like he's a real difference maker.

What's your takeaway from last night's domination by the Los Angeles Chargers, coach?

Yeah, definitely.

I think like most games, it really starts up front.

And I think having Joe Alt back definitely made a huge difference.

And you can't, you know.

From the start of the game, I mean, the Chargers were in control throughout.

I mean, I think they had plus 40 rushes, and I think Justin threw the ball about 27, 28 times.

So, I mean, that's a great formula for success.

I thought they ran, they threw it, I thought the chunk yardages, and I thought Justin really played a really gritty game, you know, with

his rushing attempts and, you know, extended plays.

And when he did throw it off the action game, you could definitely see the big play opportunities that they were able to hit.

So I thought Chargers were clearly

upfront.

I know there was a lot of injury challenges throughout the week.

And I know we've talked about this in past weeks.

The Thursday night injury challenge, in my experience, it's clearly the biggest because A, you're trying to get an injured player that may or may not play in the game, get him reps, but then also, if he doesn't go, you're trying to get the next guy the reps and to get that coordinated, to get the connection and continuity that you want to get each and every week going into it.

You know, it's Thursday night being a short week on its own is a challenge, but it's really on both sides of the spectrum of is he playing, isn't he playing, you know, and so forth.

And I think definitely, I thought Joe all looked like his old man there last night.

I thought he played a hell of a game.

Coach, we saw.

speaking of injuries, J.J.

McCarthy.

He's in the sideline.

We showed a quiet little bit ago.

I don't know if you watched him.

He's got some great agility.

He's supposed to have an ankle injury, I guess.

He's moving pretty dang well right here.

You see, he avoids a disaster.

That could have been really, really bad.

And he's still locked in on the game.

I guess it seems like we're expecting to see J.J.

McCarthy in the near future under center for the Vikings.

What do you expect to see when McCarthy gets back in here?

Well, I think the biggest thing

in not knowing without any communication, but the fact that he was the third quarterback in the game tells you he's close.

So I thought that was definitely a good sign for JJ.

But yeah, I think clearly getting back in there and just getting him into the rhythm.

I mean, I think clearly if you're calling a defense against a young quarterback, you really want to make it hard for him on first and second down.

Because I know as an offensive coach, an offensive play caller, you're always trying to make the ride for normal down the distance a little easier on your quarterback because we all know that third down and red zone is where they where they truly make their money and and the emphasis on making sure he's ready there because those those are the things when you don't play as a quarterback you know to get back into that time clock you know because things move differently faster and come come at you differently in third down and in the red zone part of it so I think if it can just you know move him around the quarterback the movements and keeps and so forth and you know tie the run and action uh passing him together you know give you know give give him some productivity so he's playing a favorable down distance in third down and and you know give him some clean opportunities in the red zone.

Yeah, you always want to have favorable down and distance, Donner.

You certainly want that whenever you're talking about an offensive game.

You want to matriculate.

Just teen you up here, Phil.

Just teen you up, Lil Pittsburgh.

Are we going half back today?

I didn't get the demo guys, right?

Lil Iris got dragging the sun on his face, it looks like

a master.

Hey, that looks all you look unbelievable.

AJ, please.

AJ, please.

AJ.

There you go.

There he is.

AJ, you look good behind the mic there.

There's the art type.

There we go.

Oh, there we go.

Tone throat.

Just dumping.

Tone thumb.

Don't do it.

Flip it around.

Tone thumping.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Oh,

god.

Yeah, yeah.

I got the height on it.

Back at you.

Okay, so the backwards hat boys are here to talk a little ball, and I am certainly having a blast about that.

Okay, let's talk.

JJ McCarthy potentially getting back onto the field.

Obviously, Carson Wentz has the night that he has under duress.

They had Sam Darnold in that building, obviously.

They had Danny Dimes in that building beforehand.

Aaron allegedly was interested in going there.

Now you're talking about guys that are having incredible seasons, and the Vikings are in the situation that they're in.

Excited to see how they move past that.

Hopefully JJ is a guy.

Let's talk about another quarterback that is having an absolutely massive season, which I assume is no surprise to you.

Go ahead, Ty.

Yeah, coach, like three or four weeks.

weeks ago, the Cowboys were pretty much left for dead, even though Dak had been doing, you know, unbelievable.

Last couple weeks, defenses looked a little bit better.

What's your overall thought on the Cowboys as we stand right now?

And do you think they're kind of, I mean, we've already heard Jerry mention it, and it's kind of been floating around.

Like, are they going to be buyers at the trade deadline thinking that they actually might be able to kind of make some noise down the stretch and going into the playoffs?

Yeah, I mean, clearly, staying out of the home or mindset here.

I mean, we've talked about this since the draft.

I think this is an ascending football team.

I think they did the right things during the offseason.

You know,

as far as going through veteran free agency,

the draft.

And my experience of being a head coach is the biggest improvement in your football team comes from the players that are already there.

And they got an excellent blockroom and an excellent group of core players, and they're young.

I look at the Cowboys and the Packers very similarly.

These are young teams that are only going to get better.

And I think that, you know, with the injury challenge that every team has, if they can just stay in front of that a little bit more, this team's going to get better each week.

And I do agree with you on the defense.

I mean, the offense has hit their stride.

You know, they're putting up big numbers.

But, you know, also, I think when you look at stats, you know, the defense has played in two overtime games.

So, you know, that you know, it goes both ways.

That definitely weighs down your statistics.

And I think the defense, if they can, you know, the mindset, if they can just get one stop, a half, you know, build that up to one stop a quarter and the way the offense is playing and their special teams, particularly their battery, their core guys are as good as anybody's in the league.

So I think this is a very good football team that has an arrow pointing up.

I've always felt that.

As far as being buyers,

I think they just got to stay the course.

You know, Micah Parsons deserved the contract that he received in Green Bay.

And, you know, on a personal level, when you see one of your players get that contract, it's obviously exciting because he's definitely earned that.

But what it has put, it has put Dallas in a position to do second contracts on

their draft class guys that are coming up.

And that's where AJ are experiencing Green Bay.

You know, we we are able to keep signing all those second contracts, and you do not have enough good football players.

We've talked about this on the show before: 77 players have won a Super Bowl.

And I think what they're doing in their roster development is exactly the way you need to do it.

They've gotten more second contracts done in the last two months, and I think I know I saw my time there, and that's a huge, huge benefit to the overall roster development of that football team.

Young team, excellent locker room.

They can lean on the offense right now.

I do believe the defense is going to be better.

It's the third, you know, three defensive coordinators in three years.

That stuff does factor a little bit, especially, you know,

philosophically, they've gone back more to more 23 than what they were in 24.

So I just think this is a good team that they can stay healthy, keep working together.

It's a really good group of guys that bust their ass, and

that's the facts, Jack.

That's the way I feel about those guys.

Yeah, and I was about to say, you've never been better.

Even whenever you joined us at the draft, which was just a couple months removed from, you know, you no longer being the head coach of the team, you talked about how good you thought that team was, how good the roster was.

Then when the Micah thing happens, you don't bury anybody.

You stayed very above board with the entirety of it all.

And you just talked about roster development and second contracts and everything like that.

Shall we give...

Landman Jerry Jones a little bit more credit maybe because everybody kills him for everything But it sounds like you're talking about actually being able to build from within and keep your own guys Which is what I don't think a lot of people think of whenever they think of the Dallas Cowboys Everybody thinks Jerry Jones got his hands on too many things He's ruining the roster as opposed to any other stuff.

Who takes the compliment for being able to build the roster the way it is?

And how did you know that this group was going to be a group that was going to be good, even though there was a lot of shit being thrown at them after the micah trade?

Well, first off, I do want to thank you for recognizing my EQ there, Pat.

That was awesome.

Secondly, I do think

it's good EQ.

But I think,

okay, awesome.

You're honest.

This is EQ.

This is EQ.

There you go.

I potted that up, no problem.

I think it's their process here.

I think the process of how they

build the roster,

you're looking at this thing as two, three, four years of draft classes that are coming together.

And one of the things I know when I first went to Green Bay and the benefit of working in Kansas City, I always felt was our off-season program was so good because so many guys lived there in the offseason.

And in Green Bay, that was a bit of a challenge.

And we, you know, had some guys, you know, later in the career that would stay there year-round.

But the benefit you have in Dallas, Texas, is your whole team's there 12 months out of the year.

And these guys are developing and working out together all the time, even if it's not at the facility.

It could be across the street.

So this is a very tight

house.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

In a weight room, though.

That's what he was talking about, right?

Well,

you're getting too much sun on your face here, my man.

Come on.

I was trying to talk some real ball here.

You better move that out.

Me too.

Me too.

Hey, Jay, let's write him back.

What are we doing?

Here we go, Coach.

Here we go.

We're back.

We're back.

We're back.

White House.

I'm sorry, it wasn't across the street.

That was across the practice field.

I'm sorry, I cut you out there.

But you're saying the boys are around.

You're saying the boys are around.

Oh, no, they're there all the time.

I mean, it's a good group.

And Dax,

I mean, he's an incredible leader.

You know, he has a

situation where he's part of a workout facility there.

I mean, you go in there, you know, January, February, March, there's 40, 50 NFL players there.

So it's just a really good training.

I just think that, you know, and we used to say it every year in Green Bay when we were together, you know, the biggest improvement will come from the guys that are already there.

The draft class, great.

You know, the free agents you're at, they're nice because they're new, they're fresh.

the dudes, the main dudes, your core guys, that's what makes the needle move each and every year.

And I think Dallas is in that mode right now.

I do.

I think it got a chance to be a pretty good damn football team next couple of years.

George Pickens, obviously, huge pickup as well.

Fits right into the culture.

They like,

yeah, huge.

And him playing as good as he's playing and buying in as quickly as he has, good for him, because he was fun to watch whenever he was playing good football.

And obviously, there's always going to be stuff around wide receivers.

I'm happy he's getting the rock deck, handling it perfectly.

Now, let's talk about some things that have come up in a couple of different games now.

Obviously, a couple of different games.

There's been some blatant misses when it comes to the refs, but the refs as a whole have become a little bit of a conversation piece connor has a question for you yeah coach uh there's actually a study you tap just did and they you know kind of released it about you know benefiting from certain calls as teams and you know the chiefs were the team to spotlight and i have a patriots helmet on my desk so believe me i get it okay but tj lang said uh like basically along the lines of look like when the packers you know when we were really going when we were the best you know uh like sometimes there were certain crews where we would benefit from.

And I saw some people respond to that, saying that's the single dumbest thing said in modern history, but I don't think TJ Lang, you know, took it that serious.

But when it's, you know, when it comes to those type of things, reffing crews, you know, and not just in the NFL, in NCAA, and kind of all sports, even, you know, umpire crews, if that's how that works, whatever, you get it.

When it comes to NFL reffing crews, why do you think some crews have a different feel for the game?

Do you think that is, you know, kind of depending on the teams do you think that's depending on the weather like why do you think that refs uh kind of decide to go about games kind of differently on a week-to-week basis when fans like myself just kind of see it as like hey whether it's a one o'clock game whether it's whether it's a prime time game whether it's wednesday afternoon football like the game needs to be called the exact same no matter what

Well, I look at it, you know, every season, you know, as a journey.

You look at, you know, as a head coach and you look at players, you know, the vibe and how everything moved through your season, you know, where you are as a team, there's ups and downs, and the ebb and flow is so critical.

Well, I mean, the officiating crews, they go through the same thing.

And I think the biggest thing is, to answer your question specifically, there's a number of variables, I think, that go into how these crews have to manage their ebb and flow of a season.

And this is obviously my opinion.

I think, number one, the white hat, you know, he's the leader of the crew.

He has the biggest effect on the crew each and every week because these guys put a ton of work into it.

And I think one of the best things the league has done here of late, the last, I don't know how many years it's been, five, six, seven years, is having the crews be a big part of the training camp.

So you're seeing these guys, these crews are going out to two or three training camps themselves.

So now the interaction.

with the players and coaches is higher than it's ever been.

So, you know, interaction, common leg wings, common understanding,

the fact that

players get to know the name and the face of each guy.

I've always put the guys up in front of the team meeting room and had them interact as much as possible, encourage them to be around the players as much as possible in the cafeteria and things like that.

So that's part of it.

But as the season goes on, they're getting graded every week.

They understand that the trends,

they know what the trends are of holdings up and what's down.

And they know if they miss a call and things like that, too.

So the human nature is.

Oh, I think so.

Oh, I think so.

I think the human nature.

Coach, coach, that poll report shit is bullshit.

I'm not standing up for the poll report.

Yeah, the pool.

I mean, who wants?

I mean,

I don't even know why they do the poll report.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That's what we're saying.

Yeah, because, you know, I mean, what are we testing?

Their immediate accountability after the game?

So, I mean, so there's another box to check.

You know, I, you know, that's that, yeah, that to me, I, yeah, yeah, I must have missed something.

I don't think, but is just something happened in a poll report that I've missed in my

call wrong or whatever, then every time we hear from them, it's always this pool report and they go, well, we actually did this, and there's no accountability.

So, like, one of the reasons why people get so mad is because there's seemingly no accountability from the refs at all.

And they'll send you guys an email, hey, we missed this one.

So, yeah, you guys lost the game.

Your entire staff's probably getting fired.

and the player has a low light for the rest of his life on there but we missed that call we apologize it's like the accountability thing is always like the biggest i think from the fans so you're saying they know they missed the call i think that's big news like okay at least behind well i'm not saying immediately after the game pat you know i mean the poll yeah

i'm sorry i didn't mean to interrupt they claimed coach they claim they get graded from their whoever their top official is they say they grade them and then those guys don't get playoff games if you're one of the lower graded crews i guess at least that's what they've said to me Yeah.

Yeah,

that's what I was referring to, the post-game evaluation process that they do go through.

I do know they go that.

And then as a coach, you do have the opportunity to call the league office and

call the regional director.

So I just think that it's just like anything.

I mean, you want to solve problems, heighten the communication, heighten the education, heighten the interaction, you know, between the people that you want to, you know, perform better.

And I think the league office has done that with the officiating crews.

You, you have the opportunity to communicate more with those guys more today, I know than back in 06, you know, when I first became a head coach.

So

I think the system of trying to get it right, they're definitely working it.

But, you know, at the end of the day, I know one of the things, you know, just watching TV, you know, being a fan, it looks like they've had a lot of change in personality too.

So, I mean, there's a, you know, there's, there's newer guys, there's more going on.

So, I I mean, that, that takes time too.

So, but I do think the white hats, you know,

the head guys are very much impactful on how that crew is going to officiate each week and the communication that goes into that.

And, you know, the fact that they can communicate now during the game on the headsets, I think,

was a huge asset when they put that in.

And what's that, 10 years now, eight, nine?

You know, so it kind of all runs together.

But I think all those steps have been very beneficial to improving our game or attempting to i i agree i agree and i even like the new york calling in saying hey this is obvious get away with it but then whenever they lie about i mean it's just a tough gig nobody wants to be refs there's a lot of new refs a lot of good refs leaving i think they're only going to continue to get better let's get some more players in a pipeline to become officials in the nfl as well last question here about the biggest game of the weekend ap tone has one about the another mccarthy bull

we have mccarthy bull one uh that was the cowboys and packers early this year ending in overtime we have mccarthy bull two this weekend sunday night football Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers take on the Green Bay Packers.

Coach, obviously, you have some ties to this one.

I don't know if you're going to be there or not, but how do you think this affects Aaron?

Like, because obviously you know Aaron better than a lot of us.

Like the motivation going into Sunday night football, how do you feel Aaron deals with that and just the game overall?

Well, first off, you guys are awesome because you've communicated so well that this is actually a McCarthy Bowl.

So I've been invited to this one.

Oh, hell yeah.

I'm really going to go.

Let's go.

Yeah, I think it's going to be a hell of a game.

You know, I think just fall, you know, fall ball back in Pittsburgh, the Packers coming to town.

I think it's going to be an incredible setting.

I'm really looking forward to watching the game.

So I think it's a pick'em.

You know, I'm going back to the old pigskin games.

I don't even know what the line is.

Don't want to know what the line is.

I think this is going to be a hell of a football game.

Looking forward to watching.

I'm excited for you to get back there and hopefully get your love.

I'm happy you were invited.

And we appreciate the hell out of you, Coach.

I think the backwards hat, not a bad play.

You you know dan quinn started doing it you saw it he became like a florida man whenever he joined you he started doing a backwards hat under your leadership uh we appreciate the hell out of you coach safe travels back to pittsburgh all right man have a great week thank you you're the man ladies and gentlemen coach mike mccarthy

Hey, look at this, boys.

Obviously, that's DoorDash.

If you need to get anything at any time from something that is around you in any capacity, go to our friends at DoorDash.

You had to save up $250 this season when you were on game days.

That's an asterisk.

That probably means there's something to talk about that more.

I do not have that on me.

Okay, now, DoorDash is the greatest, though.

We have obviously sang their praises.

Look at this.

Look at this.

I mean, we got a couple different shots here that have been plugged in by the boys.

Okay, that's obviously first pack setting from John Butcher.

How about this?

Boom.

Is that the Vanderbilt?

I'm not 100% sure.

I assume it's a super duper tower there.

And then look at these.

These are brand new suites suites that they just built in here.

Wow.

Look at them.

Oh, they're filthy.

Corner of the enzyme.

I like that.

That's awesome.

That looks fantastic.

And then here's a very artsy shot of me saying, this city of Nashville is so damn beautiful.

And there is obviously a lot of greats and legendary things that have come from this beautiful city.

And this particular football team is the next thing.

These sports here in town are spectacular.

I'm lucky to be here.

This Marshawn Beast Mode Lynch.

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Hey fans, welcome back to Fansville's cheers

and tears.

Okay, so like everybody deals with losing, right?

To a rival on a last-second field goal, whatever, it's fine, I'm totally fine.

But I cope with losing with an ice-cold Dr.

Pepper.

Those 23 flavors are like so delicious.

They totally wash away the pain of your college football team taking a big fat L.

College football, it's a pepper thing.

Football!

that's right pat what chargers obviously annihilated the vikings last night dominant performance what 37 to 10 i had to glance down and check i can't believe the score is that high actually 37 10.

what a win for the chargers pat what a win for you as well i picked the vikings i was on the wrong side of that with coach mike mccarthy looks like the chargers are ruining huh pat Yeah,

I didn't know that.

Honestly, I didn't get to see the pick segment of program yesterday.

I thought you guys did an incredible job.

I'm very thankful for you guys.

I'm down here in Nashville.

Yesterday was one of the coolest coolest days that has ever happened.

Obviously, you guys did a great job.

I assumed everybody was going to be on the Chargers, honestly.

I just, as soon as I saw the line, I'm like, this feels like a Chargers.

This team's very good.

Now, obviously, they look like ass last week against the Colts and dressed like ass last week against the Colts with the yellow jerseys.

And to your point, to start this thing, one half of the hammer.

Cowboys AP tone.

Maybe they just decided to wear the better uniform, and that's why the football gods bless them as opposed to the yellow.

And the toxic table at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt.

This Chargers team, Ty, look like who we thought they could potentially be.

And what a perfect time maybe to have their best game thus far, Ty.

Yeah, without a doubt.

Like you mentioned, especially coming off last, because I think a lot of people were jumping off the Chargers bandwagon after last week.

Hey, this team's so beat up.

But like Connor mentioned in the first hour, when Justin Herbert plays like this, man, it's hard to envision many teams.

teams that they, I mean, they can beat anybody, you know, and they're one of those teams who, you know, a couple teams have have been super banged up this year, and their season has gone one way, and it's kind of like, oh, it's over already.

But, you know, for their offensive line and running backs to be as banged up as they have been and them kind of just stay in the course and continuing to look this good, like, yeah, I'd agree, especially with Harbaugh and Herbert.

Like, I don't think this is a team you really want to see down the stretch if you're in playoff contention in the AFC.

Yeah,

Joe Walt's an absolute force.

The Chargers seemingly good with whoever's on their roster, and Lad McConkey is going to be one of the ones, you know, just long term.

Now, let's pivot away from last night's game.

Let's do some NFL news.

Remember when Dayball was telling the unaffiliated neurological consultant person to hurry it up with his quarterback in the blue tent?

You know, he pokes his head in there and goes, hey, what'd you do?

He's got a cigar.

He watches one rep from Russell Wilson, who we're learning now is one of the greatest tweeters of all time.

Love what he did there.

Sees one rep of Russell Wilson, goes, I don't think so.

Goes into the blue tent, says, where's Jackson Dart?

The entire thing.

Everybody the next day goes, that can't happen.

Full uproar, obviously, because the reason why that blue tent was made is so that the Unk and the doctors can get a little alone time without any pressure of making a decision that isn't good for the player, but it is good for the team.

Maybe getting back in there.

Everybody thought they were going to come down hard on Dayball for this entire thing.

Well,

they find them all.

So the NFL is fine.

The Giants $200,000.

Head coach Brian Dayball, $100,000.

And Cam Scataboo, $15,000, because you remember he put his, the issue with him is his head's so big.

He poked his head in there.

It's like when one of those Texas Longhorns puts their head into something,

the whole blue tent rattled when Scataboo put his head into that thing because of how large it is.

That's what the $15,000 fine's for.

I think he'd be okay to be proud of that.

But Dayball getting $100,000 directly and then the Giants getting $200,000 as a whole is certainly enough money that makes like head coaches say, I'm not doing that again.

I'm not going to lose $100,000.

But I don't know if any

punishment would be as big as what people wanted the next day.

AJ, do you remember how people were reacting the day after

this?

I had no idea

watching it in real time that people would freak out that much.

Me neither.

Dayball going in and hey, what?

What do we freaking

get him out of there?

Lot on the line here.

Lot of mine here.

It's not going good.

You know, that entire thing.

It certainly is, it was abnormal, especially because

Dr.

Visual.

Come on, can we do the test?

One, two, ballia, can we?

What are we doing here?

Let's get after it.

So him doing that,

and there's the doctor going.

You're not supposed to do that.

There's no way.

I assume that medical person says that, but on that exact night before the game starts, who's Dr.

Stills?

I think is the name from the NFL?

Sills.

Dr.

Sills from the NFL actually did a social media video about how this is a sanctuary in here.

This is sacred,

this blue tent.

This is what's in here.

Nobody's allowed in here at all.

And then four hours later, Dayball's just poking his head.

Let's let's kind of go ahead and do this.

So I think they made obviously a massive deal out of it.

I don't think the NFL wants to see anybody trying to interfere, influence medical people into getting players back on the field, especially with, you know, all the injuries and especially when it comes to concussions, everything they've been through over the last 15 years of science kind of telling us what it is.

So yeah, 200,000, 100,000, and 15,000.

I don't know if it'll be enough for the people that wanted maybe Dayball to be kicked off the the tour, Doug.

But

it certainly is a punishment from the NFL AJ.

Yeah, if I was Scatterboo, I'm appealing that, though.

I would say, hey, I was trying to go see the doctor.

Like, I was, what do you mean?

I was next in line or something.

That's all he's got to say.

For real.

Everybody's judging.

They don't think I could have had a headache.

I get it.

My head is a part of my superpowers, but I was also feeling a little.

Yeah.

I appealed that thing.

You just got it cut in half, maybe.

I don't know.

That's a $7,500 fine would be a hilarious fine from the NFL.

Have you ever seen one that small?

They used to cut fine.

They used to, like, you could get some leeway.

If you got fine 15, you might be able to cut it in half.

Then they stopped doing that a long time ago, I think.

These fines are huge.

There was an entire report or a statement, I guess, from McCarthy here, Brian McCarthy, the NFL's PR.

And it's a joint statement from the NFL and the NFL PA about how they got to this and what, you know, that blue tent represents and what it is, what players and coaches can't do.

So they obviously take care of that.

And it's a lot of words.

That's a big statement, Brian.

I mean,

come on.

This feels like a story, dude.

Can we get a statement a little bit?

You know, I'm not reading that right now on air.

Statement should be very easily read.

Like, let's just get to it.

You know, there's like two paragraphs set in the tone.

And I assume the NFL PA and the NFL are jousting for every word on how it goes there.

But that's a lot of words to be put on, Stavid.

Basically, can't do it is what they all said.

Can't do it.

So congrats to them kind of getting done with that entire thing.

The Bengals have a situation brewing.

Con man, what's going on with the Bengs and their linebacker, brother?

Yeah, absolute dog Logan Wilson yesterday kind of requested a trade out of nowhere, it felt like, especially coming off a Bengals massive win.

I do believe this is a situation where he's just kind of yelling at air.

Great tweet from Schefter.

Awesome.

Got to love it.

But just based off the Bengals history, don't think anything's really going to come with this.

This is kind of news that's not news because it's the Bengals, but there is a disgruntled linebacker in cincinnati and i mean aj you probably know logan wilson for the bengals is so good i've been following this so he there's two young rookie linebackers that are getting a lot more time this has been going on for i don't know two three four weeks now where logan wilson's playtime has just been you know reduced and i was in the stadium last thursday and i'm watching him kind of run all i think they said he played 40 some percent of the snaps uh that last thursday game but yeah logan wilson's actually handled it very well i've heard him speak to the media and he said like hey i'm gonna support these guys like i know they're stepping stepping in and they're playing more than me, but I'm gonna be there, I'm gonna be a leader and support them and answer all their questions.

He's doing it the right way.

It sounds like behind the scenes, but I don't know.

Ty,

Ty,

AJ Shane, he's doing it the right way.

Who's it sound like over there?

Cincinnati,

it sounds an awful lot like Trey Hendrickson, and it sounds like we have a new budding squeak scalari situation in Cincinnati.

I don't love it, but hey, listen, the proof's in the pudding.

If you disrespect me or offend me 15 to 16 more times, I'm done with it.

I understand where Logan's coming from, and I appreciate you saying doing it the right way.

And I view, I mean, I guess I used to view it the same way.

I say, sorry, being a good teammate to the guys who are, the young rookies who are stepping in.

He's not a dick to them, which is very natural if that did happen.

Yeah, and that's like him as a human, which I think we try to say the right way because we've been in there and it's like, hey, you don't need to be a distraction.

But the right way, seemingly, in these situations, is never the right answer to get something done.

Never worry about it.

You seemingly have to be just a terrible prick.

Unfortunately, that is the case, isn't it?

It does feel that way.

And I hate that.

I hate that that's the case because you and me both say like, hey, Trey Hendrickson's doing it the right way here.

Okay.

He's trying to be above board here.

He's trying to be good to the rookies.

He understands his value.

He's going in there talking to the media.

He's not really burying anybody.

Owner comes out to Trey Hendrickson and says, at some point, these guys just got to be thankful they're getting offered any money yeah okay and then Trey goes oh it's a they say they're we say ours I still think there's a you know that he's doing it the right way he's doing it the right way he's doing it the right way they give him 13 million dollars more I assume at this point Logan Wilson requests a trade and Trey Hendrickson looks at him and goes join a club bud

you you think we want to play here yeah right and then publicly unless you're like the loudest and the worst of all time I don't think it's going to sway anybody including the Cincinnati Bengals you know and the Bengals have just been kind of of steadfast on all this, how this all goes, AJ.

More news coming out of the NFL.

Sean Payton says, whoa.

That's not.

That wasn't.

What's that tweet?

That tweet's about me.

I was.

Is that what happened?

I don't think I know the full context of this one, Tone Diggs.

What did Sean Payton come out and say about the Russell Wilson presser that Russell Wilson certainly responded to for the first time in the history of Russell Wilson being Russell Wilson?

Yeah, he basically said that this was all about Jackson Dart and complimenting Jackson Dart.

It had nothing to do with Russell Wilson.

That's not obviously not how Russell Wilson took it.

I don't know if I believe Sean or not based on their past, but you know, I bet some people do think he was just talking positively about Jackson Dart.

I am not one of those people that does.

Nope.

Here's him talking about the situation.

I did.

Look, and

the euphoria, the way that game unfolded,

that was

strictly about Dart.

I mean,

and

that was in no way, shape, or form anything that was

directed at Russ.

So

I might be able to see how he might perceive that.

Coming off that win and watching how he played,

yeah,

that wasn't any intention at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, so listen, I'm putting somebody up.

It doesn't mean I'm burying somebody.

I mean, certainly, I guess I re-listened to it.

Yeah, I could see how he...

Rising tides.

The euphoria.

It was.

Yeah.

All right, enough.

I was talking about him.

That's what he said.

You know what I was doing?

Hey, that's next week.

That's next week coming out after something where he goes, I know how you all thought I said something last week.

I like to let you know.

I'm doing that right now.

This guy, guy, so much better than that guy.

I can't take it.

Sean Payton has a little pizzazz, been in the media.

Obviously, he understands how this all works.

But I think the reason why it's such a big story is because Russell Wilson did something that is very abnormal for Mr.

He did a little burial as opposed to something that kind of feeds the internet to bury him.

So a little bit out of character from the Russell Wilson.

And, you know, he's always let's ride the high road.

And we've told him, I think, over the past, he needs to stop doing that.

He needs to start, you know, letting people know that this is not okay the way they talk about him

i like him talking him his shit a lot aj i do too i like the what it with these three emojis how would you describe those right there

how about bruce retweeting and favoring this thing as quickly as possible when it bursts hardworks

yeah the favorites the likes is an interesting

now's not time for disconnection no

the views as well but the likes going private the views obviously uh

indicate that it's been seen by a lot of people how long has it been seen by somebody to just pop on a feed?

Who knows?

5.3,000 people say, I want to revisit this.

And we'd like to let Russell Wilson know that anytime you want to let these off, brother, we are here for it.

And I still believe in my heart of hearts that Scataboo, Jackson Dart, and Dayball were sitting around, saw the video, go like this to Russell Wilson.

Like, you hear what he said?

He's talking shit about you, buddy.

And then Scataboo goes,

you know, and

Jackson Dart says, this ain't how we roll.

And then Dayball goes, no quarterback on my team is just going to be taking shots from a coach on another team.

And I think there was a potential motivation around Russell Wilson to be like, hey, just one time, dude.

Just one time.

Will you fight for yourself and stand up for yourself?

So I'd like to tell Russell Wilson, we hope this is a new era.

We hope this is a new era.

Oh, yeah, Russ.

Let's talk about football a little bit getting better.

You know, the dynamic kickoff last year was supposed to be the big savior of special teams, but they adjusted the 35-yard line touchback, drive-start vert to the 30-yard drive start after a touchback.

And we thought the 35-yard line rule was a good one.

When they moved it to 30, I think everybody that knows special teams was like, this ain't going to change the kickoff much.

This year, offseason, they moved to 35.

Thank God they did that.

These numbers are crazy.

79.3% of kickoffs have been returned.

That's 877 of 1,100, up from 31.7%

last year, whenever they made the little bit of adjustment, which was obviously up, obviously, immensely from the year prior to that.

Highest return rate in 19 years.

There have been 32.

That's back whenever the kickoff was at the 30 and they were kicking brand new balls, I believe.

So balls weren't easily as pumped through the end zone.

So people were forced to return them.

There have been 32 returns of at least 40 yards, which is the most through week seven since 2012.

And there have been the most kickoff returns and kick return yards and second highest kick return average.

through week seven in NFL history.

I don't want to do McCarthy's job.

That one in the bottom leads the way Most in NFL history.

All the ones that are kind of most since, you kind of put those towards the bottom, McCarthy.

Let's lead the storyline at the top for most in NFL history whenever we're putting out these bullet points.

On that note, they were talking about how many games, how many thousands of plays did they say were going to be added when they were dreaming this up a year ago, whenever we were talking to Riz in the special field?

It was like thousands.

Yeah, 1,500, 2,000, I thought is what the number was.

Somewhere in there.

That was the selling point, AJ.

And now it's kind of coming to fruition here.

Good thing or bad thing for the NFL, especially because we've seen the end of some of these games with kickers hitting the ball fat and it hitting the ground before the landing zone, then a 40-yard line drive start whenever it really matters.

So some people are saying, wait, there's more pressure and more influence on kickers in the game.

What are your thoughts on it, AJ, now that we've kind of gone through it a little bit?

Yeah, I think it's good.

It took something.

I mean, we...

The old style kickoff look better when you're running, you have, you know, they're gaining ground 40, 50 yards and they're hitting each other.

But there was like the fact that there's way more returns,

it's better.

It's good for the league.

I i understand the uh you know the aspect of the player safety and they claim there's less concussions i'm not sure how all that works but uh i i think it's great it makes it a play and now even like till even if you're up like it's still a thing like you're how is it gonna dicker last night kicked one yes donged off the calf of one of his guys in the front line they gotn't even know it so that it's always a thing it can always happen it's wild and that's what's cool like it puts more emphasis on kickers now like now the kicking itself is more difficult.

Like we've seen games end because kickers haven't been able to get it all the way through and guys have returned it during a vital time when you know a two-minute warning or anything.

But Pat, do you think kickers are going to be practicing now more than the kids practicing for the Vanderbilt kick tomorrow?

Or do you think that is more so one of those things the punchers will just have to do?

A massive respect to the Vandi kids practicing their kick for the kicking contest this weekend.

That's an interesting little

wrinkle being added.

It says they got a kicker out there training these kids on how to kick.

Now, granted, I will say this, even if the guys or girls that kick are like actual ball kickers, making that kick with that amount of money with the amount of people around them is kind of the part of it all.

But I appreciated them doing that.

Now, back to the kickers hitting the punters need to start working on the squibs to be hitting the kickoffs into the landing zone.

I think that's going to be the next development we're about to see with this entire kickoff.

But Ty, you tell me, it's very similar to having to throw a strike in baseball.

Like, kickers at the end of a game, you have to basically put the ball in play and you have to go cover a kick.

This guy might have have been signed to your team literally on Thursday or Friday he's going to be running down there to try to win you a divisional game on a kickoff and he has to make a play and if he peaks one way or another it's a touchdown going back that's basically what they wanted out of this kickoff though they wanted more electricity they wanted more excitement but at the end of games ty it's very similar to baseball right you feel like that yeah for sure it's the same thing as like if the bases are loaded you have you have no choice but to throw to the guy you know like it because if you do anything they're gonna score a run or it's a situation where where if it's like the bottom half of the last thing, you know, the most important time of the game, you don't have a choice.

You don't have a free base.

And that's also what I like, what I feel like I've kind of noticed with some of these kicks at the end of the game.

Like if a team scores a touchdown to maybe take a three or like a seven-point lead, a lot of times they won't even try to do the squib anymore.

Like they will just boot it deep because it's not either.

They don't have a guy who's capable of landing it in the landing zone or they're just worried that something is going to to go catastrophic, and you still end up.

I feel like it's happened so many times.

You take that lead, they get the ball in the 35, and then you're kind of playing pre-vent a little bit, and then before you know it, like the other team is either in the red zone with an opportunity to score with a little bit of time left.

Like it is, it's really changing how teams approach the end of the game.

Yeah, and they're already talking about just kicking the ball out of bounds.

Yeah.

Like never has there ever been like, hey, just turn left and do the worst possible thing on a kickoff, kick it out of bounds.

And now that's become damn near a strategy if there's, you know, 205 left or something.

Yeah, college still does the old school kickoff, so it's fun to turn on on Saturdays and see him running and covering.

And I believe one of the greatest college football coach of all time has just sat down with Pat.

Yeah, there you are.

Gentlemen, the goat in the toughest environment in the SEC.

His words, not mine, ladies and gentlemen.

Coach Nick Shakespeare.

Coach.

Coach, obviously the story of you talking about Vandi a couple years back on this particular program took on a life of its own because what Vandi would go on to become and what they are now.

$130 million renovation of this brand new stadium.

They opened up in August.

How does it feel to be here and understanding that this Vandi football team is for real and also feels like they're invested for the future down here, which is abnormal for the SEC, obviously?

Yeah, well, there's no question about it.

I mean, that wasn't there when I was the last time I was here.

This wasn't here.

The basketball arena wasn't there.

So they have made a commitment and it's working and I think it's good for the league.

And I have have picked against them time and time again, and I want everybody out there to know that I am a J-O.

You know what that means?

I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Yeah, Coach Saba, yeah, J-O could be jack off.

Or jag.

There's a lot of J-O.

You know, there's jerk as well.

I mean, there's a lot that could kind of.

I define my J-O.

Yes, you did.

That was smart.

That was a good play.

That was was good EQ, sense of awareness.

A lot of people jumping on their bandwagon here.

Mizzou, also, very good football team.

Game day here for Vandi Mizzou, seemingly very improbable, but with the NIL and Transfer Portal, all these teams have a chance to make big-time

leaps in their talent level, especially if they have supportive kind of boosters.

What have you seen from Vandi?

What have you seen from Mizzou, and what are your thoughts on that as a whole?

Yeah, well, I think that

the culture of college football now, relative to no guard brailles, gives places like this the opportunity, if they want to make a commitment, which they did here,

not only in the facilities, but they have a competitive

collective where they have a chance to get some of these players in.

They made some academic adjustments where they can get some transfers in that are freshmen, sophomores, or graduates.

So they've done the things that they needed to do to have a competitive program, and it's paid off for them.

And,

you know, I still say this all the time.

This is a great academic institution, but the window that people look at this institution is really going to be a lot through the athletic program.

And there's no way that they can get more exposure than having game day here and playing in a big game like they did last week against LSU and they're going to do this week against Missouri.

Yeah, Diego Pavia feels like a guy who's ready for the moment.

Same with Coach Lee.

Good for them, happy for them.

You talked about how, you know, you got to be able to live up to the hype, live up to the hype, can't be a flash in the pan.

They're the faces of like kind of creating a whole new culture overnight, alongside Indiana as well.

What is different, you think, between those two particular programs as opposed to people that have used NIL and been good and then got bad?

Why do you think these two have been kind of sustainable here for the first couple years?

Well, I think that, first of all, you know, Kirk Signetti's done a really good job of, you know, everybody uses the term rat poison, but he's done a good job of controlling the spotlight on his team and keeping his guys focused.

You know, the more distractions you have, the more fragile psychologically your people become in terms of their ability to sustain success.

Consistency and performance defines success to me, not just having one successful game or season or whatever.

And he's done a really good job of that.

I think

this is still the question mark for Vanderbilt.

You know, can they deal with the flash?

You know, can they deal with the success?

I saw signs at Alabama when they played a couple weeks ago down there, you were there,

where that wasn't the case.

So can they do that?

Did they learn their lesson there?

And can they finish this season strong?

Which if they do, they're going to have a chance possibly to get in a playoff.

Boys, Coach was so pissed that Diego was practicing

victory formation in warm-ups.

So pissed.

It is a weird thing to practice in warm-ups, isn't it?

I understand understand that.

Look at it right now.

He's shaking his head.

He's about to beat it.

What's that about, coach?

I love Diego, but that would have been a catastrophic player-coach relationship moment before the game.

I mean,

I never wanted

our players to ever do anything.

I didn't even let them talk to the other team.

I never wanted them to do anything that was going to affect.

the other team's motivation to beat us.

So don't ever say anything.

Don't ever give anybody a reason.

They got enough reason to want to beat us.

Don't give them anymore.

Yeah, everybody wants Bama, brother.

And the reason is because the way you were able to kind of psychologically put your boys into positions to success for so damn long.

And everybody does it differently.

Diego has certainly captured the entire world by storm.

In us talking to him last week, he seems like he is just continuing to mature every single week and get used to it.

Absolute dog, though.

He is that, man.

He is an absolute dog.

I'm very appreciative of him in college football.

Tone has a question for you back in the Thunderdome.

Yeah, coach, there are a lot of job openings already this year, and there's a lot of pros and cons to every single job opening.

If you are a coach that is, you know, being lured in by these schools, what do you look for?

What is most important to coaches when they go to these schools?

Is it NIL?

Is it recruiting base?

Is it the AD and president and support?

of the school.

Is it, you know, facilities?

There's so much that goes into these coaching.

Or is it where you're from?

Is it your alma mater or stuff like that?

What do these coaches look and what do they value most when they're looking at potentially going to a new school that's offering them?

Well, where you're from has nothing to do with it, but all of the other things that you mentioned absolutely do.

And I think that the most important thing when you take a job is how do you establish the ground rules going in?

All right, you got all these people giving money.

so that you can pay players, but does that come with them having some influence on what happens in the program and how you coach your team and how you coach the players and all that?

So, you know, to me, when I took a job, I said, okay, this is how it's going to be.

I'm not listening to the Board of Trustees.

They're not telling me who to recruit.

They're not telling me who to play.

I mean, I'm not.

So understand that going in and go tell them before I take the job because I'm not listening to that bullshit.

All right, so that was that

because

I didn't want to have to deal with that.

So you need to set the ground rules for all those things.

What is name, image, and likeness going to be like here?

How is our administration going to be evolved?

What's the academic circumstance that you're going to support so that we don't have issues when it comes to academics?

Facilities are important.

They're not as important as they used to be because you could have the nicest facilities in the world, but if you don't have any money to pay the players, they're not coming.

So all those things are factors, but I think establishing the ground rules before you get there there is the most important thing.

Campbell, be house poor.

Now you're saying the facilities used to matter, but now if we're going to do 45 million in the facilities or 35 million into the players.

Let's go ahead and feed these players.

Feed the players.

If we can do both.

Feed the beast.

Yeah, let's certainly do that.

Feed the stud, brother.

Yeah, that isn't a bad strategy, actually, across any of the parties.

You said being from somewhere maybe shouldn't factor in as much as it has.

Clark, you know, here he is, Vandy guy, and there's a lot of quotes of him talking about becoming the number one program in the country.

I think Kenny Dillingham also, he's very proud to be from the valley over there at Arizona State.

Some of these jobs, though, are about to make some pretty crazy offers, right?

Wouldn't you think?

Florida, Penn State, there's obviously huge jobs on the horizon that are going to be available.

Virginia Tech just said they're putting in $229 million into it.

Feels like there's going to be a lot of big-time numbers for some of these coaches.

Do you agree with that?

I absolutely agree with that.

I think there'll be some huge numbers, but I also think that

some of the guys that you mentioned-you know, Clark being here, you know, Kenny being at Arizona State,

they probably understood how to set the ground rules and what the place needed to do because they had previous experience here, which probably helped them set the table for what they needed to do in the future.

Got it.

My point was, just because you're from someplace doesn't mean it's going to help you win.

But I think if you have knowledge and they're willing to make a commitment to doing those things, then you got a chance.

Yeah, there's a man standing right over there.

We're talking about how much money these coaches are going to get.

Somebody else is going to be getting a little bit of cash off all these deals, too.

You know, Big Deluxe is over there wearing his white khakis.

We're in his town right now.

You know, he lives in one of these penthouses.

I don't know which one it is, but there's gonna be a new one on the way with this new job opening, you know, Penn State and Florida.

Jeez, Louise, there's gonna be a lot of money in Jimmy Sexton's pockets in about a week.

You know, I want to stay retired,

and I do not want him anywhere near Miss Terry

because when she hears some of these these numbers, she gets interested.

And I am interested.

That was last week.

I believe that was last week, whenever the question in the grab bag was, who's going to be the next coach of Penn State?

And it was just so easy because everybody on the internet had put you there.

Penn Staters were like, Penn State needs to go to Nick Sabin and say any number that he wants.

So then we bring in, obviously, Miss Terry, the boss, and she goes, I haven't heard a number yet.

And I was like, oh, wait a minute.

That just made athletic directors out there go, okay, ho, ho, ho.

That wasn't a complete no there.

That was a, we could kind of work with this at this stage.

Okay.

No way.

All right.

No, no, no, it's fun working.

No, don't do that.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, you would potentially do that because maybe one of these places has a never-ending supply of money, and boy, they would like to fucking win.

So

I think there's a chance that that's on the horizon.

Let's continue to talk a little bit more about ball.

AJ has a question for you, Code.

Yeah, coach, there's a lot of good games this weekend.

One I think, maybe flying under the radar.

Michigan traveling to Michigan State.

I know you coached at Michigan State for a while.

What is that rivalry like?

I know I've seen the clips of guys coming out pregame and turfing up the logo, all that kind of stuff.

How do you think that goes, and what was it like being in the middle of that?

Well, you know, I think these rivalry games sometimes have a little imbalance in terms of what it means to one school versus another.

And let me explain.

You know, the Michigan-Ohio State game probably for the Michigan players is huge.

The Michigan State-Michigan game for the Michigan State players is the huge game

because they're sort of

not the most talked about school in the state, so they got a lot to prove.

Some of them probably would have liked to have gone to school at Michigan.

They ended up at Michigan State, so there's a lot for them to try to prove in a game like this.

But I do think, and I was very impressed with the way Michigan played last week against Washington on both sides of the ball.

And Michigan State struggled of the late, but I tell you, there's been some huge upsets in this series in the past, and it's always an interesting game.

Talk about that one side views the rivalry a little bit bigger than the other side.

It's natural, especially with how many rivalries there are in college ball.

But I think you've talked about your Alabama team.

There being a couple games that maybe it's harder to get your boys to believe that this is a rivalry than maybe some other games.

And the other team, this is the biggest game of their season.

How do you kind of adjust that with your squad?

Yeah, well, that was always a little bit of an issue as time went on, you know, at Alabama because

it's generational with the Alabama folks, but a lot of people see Tennessee as the big rivalry at Alabama.

This generation sees Auburn that way.

And then LSU

became such a big rivalry game because they were always so good and we were always pretty good and that game had such significance in terms that we played late in the season and whoever won was going to win the SEC or whatever.

So it became harder and harder and harder when you have multiple multiple

rivalry games to get the players to focus on all of them the way you'd like for them to, knowing that the other team, like Auburn, was always going to be ready to play us.

So especially when we played there.

So

everybody wanted Bama, brother.

Everybody.

Still do.

Yeah, still, there are still a chance we won Bama because of what you were running there.

At what point did you realize, like, oh, we are the mountain, basically?

Is that after your fifth national?

When

is it the fourth, the third?

When do you realize, like, oh, we are the mountain that literally everybody is shooting?

I think

we won in 9, 11, and 12.

You know, when we won three out of four years.

And the 10 team might have been better than the other teams, and they didn't get in the playoffs because we lost three games.

We had such complacency.

But I think from that time on, it was like...

You were just disgusting with the game.

We were going to get everybody's best game.

Yeah, you certainly were.

But if you could get the other team to run their mouth, that was helpful in motivating your team.

Yeah, we talked about the Vandy situation here or whatever.

No doubt.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, you certainly need that.

I couldn't even imagine just trying to figure out how do I keep the boys motivated when we are supposed to steamroll everybody and everybody is looking up at us.

Because any given Saturday, I mean, college football, much more than the NFL.

Any team can get any team, especially now with kind of the parody with NIL.

A couple good players in a couple good positions.

Wrong Saturday, which tomorrow could be, actually.

Let's pivot away from that and let's talk a little bit about the story that's kind of captivating all of sports right now.

You as a coach, obviously with college, this is a big part of it.

Go ahead, Ty.

Yeah, coach, the NCAA recently okayed all three divisions to have their athletes and coaches be able to bet on professional games.

And I think, you know, immediately people kind of think, well, it's a slippery slope.

You know, these kids know a lot of kids at other schools.

And not saying that the integrity of the game will be compromised, but you could see how it starts as, hey, you're only supposed to bet on professional sports.

And then eventually that kind of seeps into college.

As a coach, how would you address this whole situation with not only your players, your staff?

And ultimately, do you see this being like a very, very slippery slope for college athletics as a whole and kind of ripe for a scandal?

Yeah, I think there's no question about it.

And, you know, Pat and I were talking about this before, but anytime that you have something that is legal, that is against the rules in your sport.

So, gambling is legalized, but yet, from an NCAA standpoint, players can't gamble.

I'm on college games now.

But that becomes the most difficult circumstance to try to control as a coach.

And we went to great lengths.

I mean, I talked about it, but I had the FBI guy come in and tell them how they could get caught and how they would get, technically, how they could, you know, follow the gambling line and all that, especially if they did it on their phone and then i had franchisee michael franchisi was is the only mafia boss yeah that they didn't kill

when he was in jail and then he got hired to go speak everywhere oh yeah we know franchises yeah i i would bring him in and he would scare the players to death like you know you you know you you you you might you might get shot someday if you do the wrong thing so he would just scare them about how how bad it was to get involved with people in gambling and how they could force you to do things you really didn't want to do.

So we did a lot of things to try to make the players aware that this could be a huge problem for them and how it could affect them and their career.

Which, you know, to what we were talking about before, and this is no different.

I became very much a guy that talked less about team and more about individuals, thinking that, you know, players are selfish, they're self-absorbed, and they're ambitious.

So how do I take advantage of that?

And I would talk to them about all this behavioral stuff that could help them and enhance their value and all the behavioral stuff that actually could kill them.

And this was one of those things.

But they took that part of it better when you made it about them and how it would affect them rather than just talking about the team.

Yeah, personal stuff.

Scared Straight seemingly has worked for a long time.

I wish they would do another kind of round of that with actual prisoners and bad kids.

They always created good content.

Francies came and talked to us as well.

Did you know about his gasoline scheme?

Oh, yeah.

That was brilliant.

Unbelievable.

Brilliant.

Unbelievable.

Brilliant.

For somebody that used to pump gas, I was trying to figure out how could I do it.

He was scraping just pennies off of every single gallon.

And by the time they were about to catch him, he was at another place.

They were already gone.

He was like taking, it was a great loophole.

We're talking helicopters into the city.

This guy's got Ferraris Lambos.

Probably would have bought them from you if this time was happening.

Yeah.

We know Francis pretty good.

Francis has been a little bit of internet beef, you know, with other mob bosses in the past.

But anytime you can kind of hear from the source about what the possible outcomes are, that's obviously a little something that can maybe make you act a little certain way.

That's why I think the FBI, and I think even the NBA and all the leagues, are probably going to want really heavy punishments for this.

We've got to set a precedent like, hey, this ain't good.

Not just for the NBA, this is for all sports right now in the world that we're in right now.

Like, this is a huge deal.

We can't give up the integrity of the sports because then everything's gone.

Sports are gone.

Leagues are gone.

Sports gambling, everything is gone if the integrity of the game starts getting questioned.

Can't have it.

I agree 100%.

You are so right.

I want to let you know.

I played a lot of those poker games.

We need cash.

We need cash not to be snooping around.

Okay, I don't know if he's in Pittsburgh in the early 2000s, but cash, I hope you just kind of missed that.

The poker game one was crazy.

Yeah, I mean, I can't even figure that out.

How could you cheat in a poker game?

I know how you can deal the cards off the bottom and all that, but using AI, is that how they did it?

So we had Matt Berkey on, who's a professional poker player in the first hour because the internet was starting to run with a lot of different there.

They were saying like there was an x-ray machine in the table underneath the felt and everything.

It wasn't that.

I think there was a potential camera that was maybe on the on the table that was maybe showcasing what a card was coming, which is obviously big for hold them because there's a turn and a river coming.

So if that was happening, then that would mean the dealer was on the take as well because then the dealer would be showing the cards.

Then there's also a potential paint that they put on the outside of the decks if they were able to get the decks in there.

And if you have contacts lenses, you can see the top of the deck.

So I don't think they had x-rays, but I think they were using other things to certainly cheat.

But yeah, that is like going to that extent to screw people over is obviously disgusting.

No, it is obvious.

When it comes to cars.

You know, we have games, so people can enjoy games.

And it's not worth it to not play by the rules because that's what makes the competition fair.

And, you know, the honesty that goes into it not only built the character, but it makes you feel good about earning the success that you had doing it the right way.

Agreed.

AJ, did you hear that?

Maybe you should think about that when you play Euchre, you cheating piece of trash.

Never used any technology, Coach.

Never used any technology.

I'm a great teammate.

I can communicate with my teammate when I'm playing Euchre.

You're true.

Just because you're mute.

You almost got to be from Ohio to play Euchre.

We played Euchre when I was at Kent State.

I never heard of it in West Virginia.

Yeah, in Pittsburgh, I never heard of it either.

And then I get out to Indiana.

I play great game.

Do you still play or no?

No, not like that.

Okay, well, if you play and you and Miss Terry play, do not play AJ.

He cheats.

This guy's a cheat.

Not even close.

Like a son of a bitch.

Not even close, coach.

Yeah, he does.

He cheats like a child.

Even Foxy knows my favorite partner.

aj's a great partner that's all thank you foxy

yeah you guys are dealing weird and talking loud look at my hands you think i could deal weird with my fingers and my hands yeah i cannot deal weird i wish i could cheat on dealer i would i would deal from the bottom if someone would teach me

now on that note my wife also is a bender of the rules when it comes to cards i i play by the rules okay now do i know the game better than you potentially do i know a rule that you don't know that exists potentially we can google it if you'd like to but boy it is great whenever you win win and beat the cheaters like AJ Hawk, coach, to everything you're saying.

A little fulfillment, a little gratification, a little, hey, this is how the game's supposed to be played.

The card gods have blessed me.

And now, you know, Chauncey's going to find out the other card gods will certainly affect you.

We're waiting on it to happen to A.J.

Hawk and Euchre.

That is what we are waiting for that to happen.

That surprises me.

I always held AJ in high esteem.

You see how a little bit of misinformation can really stop yourself.

Gumpy, when you put this,

Gumpy, when you put this clip out, make sure you tag the fbi okay cash yes cash patel cash patel on it aj hawk is uh cheating and euchre arrest this piece of

get him out of here get him out of here now there's some stories coming out about the uh old teams that you have i assume it's nice to go take a trip down memory lane connor has a question for you coach yeah coach one of your heisman winners devonta smith was on the closed on sundays show with patsertain and tarion arnold and he basically told a story about how when it was uh jerry judy one of our favorite players across the board, Devonta Smith, Jalen Waddell, and Henry Ruggs, he actually told a story about how you basically went up to either the players or the OC at the time.

And he talked about how, you know, hey, you would tell them, hey, you guys got to stop scoring so quick because you're catching one ball, you're running 80 yards, scoring a touchdown, and then

basically our defense is dying because they just played their asses off.

Now they got to go back out on the field.

How many times did that happen to you where your team was that good, where you had to basically tell the players, hey, you know, I preach, you know,

stay locked in and play as hard as you can, but right now I can't have you play as hard as you can because if you do, the other side of the ball is screwed.

Did that happen often?

And when the OCs did get the word from you, not the negotiation, the ass chewing, I'm assuming, just basically, hey, you better run the ball or your asses out of here, Lane Kiffin.

What was that kind of like when your teams were that dominant?

No, I loved it when we had those kind of skill guys that could score fast and make big plays.

But, you know, there is a strategic side to all that because, you know, understand, we came from run the ball, play good defense.

Our defense was probably in the top five for the first five or six years.

We ran the ball, Derrick Henry had some great backs, and all that.

We shrunk the game, played good defense.

Well, when we changed over to take advantage of the rules, RPOs, throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage, blocking downfield, all those things, when Lane came and hired Lane with the idea that we were going to change because we needed to score more points.

Well, when you go no huddle and you score more points, you play more plays on defense.

So that was a psychological change for our whole team,

that we were going to win the game 44 to 40 sometimes, you know, not 19 to 6.

All right, so...

And it was also a little bit of a change for even me that sometimes when the defense got tired and we scored fast on offense that they had to go right back out there.

There were times

strategically we needed to just keep the ball a little bit on offense.

But I'll take the great players and the speed and those four guys were great players and they had great speed and we could score fast.

And I might have tried to get them to score a little slower, but I'd rather have that issue and have the other issue and not have any speed and not be able to score.

Yeah, I would assume it'd be nice to have to put a governor on your offense.

You know, hey, we got to slow this down a a little bit.

We got to at least have four plays before we score a touchdown, as opposed to having a team that can't score.

Well, you know, the 2019 team had all those guys on it when Tua got hurt.

That may have been one of the best teams that we ever had.

And when Tua got hurt, you know, we lost to Auburn with Mac playing when he probably wasn't quite ready, you know, to play.

But that was one of the best teams we ever had.

And they never even got into playoffs.

Yeah, that's the thing about college ball.

You got to get lucky in a lot of different ways.

I'm lucky that I get a chance to sit next to you.

The boys and I are lucky that we get a chance to chat with you.

And how do you feel about the vibe?

I'll tell you what.

I'm not going to say it.

Say it.

Tell them.

Might as well.

Hasn't been a lot of buzz around campus.

Whoa, no.

Whoa.

What?

I thought it was going the other way.

Nah, I saw the kickers kicking, and I thought it was what it was going to be.

And maybe I'm just on a part of the campus.

I was on a part of the campus that doesn't have humans.

Okay.

I'm going through.

There was nothing.

I didn't.

Gumps, please.

Gumpy, please, you're with me.

Yeah, there's nothing.

Yeah, there was nothing.

We might have been in wrong parts.

I'm going to search for it.

I'm going to look for it.

I'm going to certainly look for it.

Yeah, I think so.

Vanity.

Where is it down on Broadway?

Yeah, it is.

I was going to ask the question, is it possible that they were in class?

Listen to me.

Which you may have not done at West Virginia.

Yeah, don't ask dumb questions, Coach.

Geez, there is a chance they were in class.

So I got to.

You're right.

I didn't even think about that.

That's part of the problem.

That's part of the problem.

I apologize, Mandy.

I can't wait to experience tomorrow.

I've heard it's going to be electrifying.

Coach, you're the best, ladies and gentlemen, the goat.

Coach, say that.

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This is Kevin Clark for Manscaped.

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I know there's a bunch of of good games.

I know we have a college football slate.

There we go.

Look at you guys already potting up before I even think about it.

Out of these games, Ty Schmidt, look at this.

Which one's your favorite?

Which one would you pinpoint that you're going to watch the most?

The one I'm going to watch the most.

I mean, outside of the, yeah.

Which one are you going to?

Outside of, obviously, Texas

LSU.

I am actually pretty excited to watch BYU Iowa State.

Really?

Oh, I thought you were going to say, like, hey, why the fuck is Iowa not on Iowa and the Golden Gophers not on his favorite?

No, no, I would say that, but it's actually funny because that game applies to what Coach Saban was talking about, where the rivalry game is much more important to one school than it is the other.

This is the Floyd Rosedale game.

This is the Floyd Rosedale game, yes.

So, you know, it's a big deal, but I'm not sure.

Can you explain that to the people that might not know?

It's a pig.

Yeah, it's a big pig.

The first year Iowa and Minnesota played, the governors put up a pig, an actual live pig they played for.

I've never heard of this.

Oh, yeah.

It's an awesome trophy for Bruce if you can pull up the Floyd Rosedale.

and then after that they basically realized hey pretty hard to get this massive pig from iowa to minnesota every single year let's just play for a trophy instead so yeah boom floyd rosedale oh okay yes i have my bad i was hoping they still had a live trophy though well i mean i'm i'm sure they could but that's they slaughter a pig nobody nobody in iowa

nobody in iowa wants a hog from from minnesota oh really you know we got iowa hogs we don't need minnesota hogs okay

we ain't winning no medals at the iowa state fair i know that from the 4-h situation pat i believe you got saving in the crew.

They already departed, I think, but yeah, here we go.

I don't know about you guys, Pat.

Pat, it looks like a green screen a lot.

I know we have people moving on the field, but everything else looks almost fake.

It looks so nice back there.

Yeah, the lighting department did a great job here, I believe.

And obviously the entire production crew, Weeksy and his squad, I appreciate the hell out of you guys.

It's been multiple weeks in a row, absolutely flawless from the group.

So we're very, very thankful for them and how they pieced this thing together.

But yes, brand new stadium, brand new everything.

It is gorgeous here.

I don't know who these jacked dudes are.

They're jacked.

I don't know if they're a part of the team or not.

Very jacked fellas.

They've been trying to kick field goals.

Haven't made one yet.

They've only pulled every single one of them.

What the hell?

I'm not 100% sure that guy could throw it pretty good too.

It doesn't look like Diego appears to be

six Caucasian males, but I am

I appreciate the hospitality.

All right, let's make our picks here before we get off ESPN, AJ.

Last night, obviously,

I had the

Charges.

You had the Vikings.

I'm undefeated, but you could ride alongside of me to maybe a perfect slate bronze at New England Patriots.

Seven and a half-point favorites at home are Mike Vrabel and the boys.

Con man, quick thoughts on this game?

Anything we need to know?

Yeah, they haven't played a home game in a long time.

This will be the first home game in a month.

I think they were three straight on the road there, so it's been quite a bit.

I expect this to be an atmosphere, at least for New England, that possibly will kind of hopefully bring them back to when they they were very good.

They haven't had something to cheer for at home in a while.

They lost to the Steelers, I believe, last time they played at home, or they beat the Panthers, but they haven't been good at home recently.

So I expect Gillette to show out for the new and improved New England Patriots.

Tone, seven and a half, is that the only line?

You can get the Patriots minus seven if you please.

Okay, AJ, who do you like?

How do you like it?

I'm going New England Patriots minus seven at home.

I mean, we need to think about it.

It's like a revenge game, too, for Rapes.

Rapes is from kind of in that area.

He was on the staff for the Cleveland Browns last year, somewhat.

Here we go.

All right, Giant, I ride with the Patriots as well.

Giants, Eagles, Eagles favored by seven and a half at home.

Bruce Brown, how do you feel about your team getting seven and a half or getting seven and a half points, especially with the news of them getting fined?

$200,000 as an organization, Bruce.

Yeah, I would say that FOFO and 6 should be able to file a waiver where the unc doesn't apply to those two moving forward.

But this does kind of feel like that spot where perhaps the Giants get their asses kicked.

Historically, we're banged up in our secondary.

We do have the $6 million man, Graham Ganneau, back, so that's fucking nice.

But, you know, Jackson Dart is essentially the second coming of Patrick Mahomes thus far, so maybe we got a shot.

Any different lines, Tone Diggs?

Same as last game.

There is a seven out there if you prefer the Eagles.

AJ, your thoughts in pick?

I do prefer the Eagles here at minus seven at home.

Me as well.

Let's go to the Niners and the Texans.

Obviously, a lot of things said about the Texans.

They're favored by two and a half at home.

Who's starting quarterback there, boys?

Ooh, I want to say Brock Purdy.

Yeah, I want to say that as well, but I don't know if it has been confirmed yet.

Not sure if he's practiced this week.

Brock Purdy or Mac Jones getting two and a half down there in Houston.

Houston, tough place to play.

Any different lines, Tone?

There is.

There is a one and a half, if you prefer the favorite, all the way up to two and a half.

Okay, AJ, who do you like?

How do you like it?

Brock Purdy coming back.

We saw San Fran run the ball last week.

Maybe, maybe,

maybe coming back for him.

I just looked it up.

He did.

David Lombardi, who we've had on the program, said another day of spry Brock Purdy at practice.

That was yesterday.

So if he's practicing and he's spry, you would assume.

Oh, there it is right there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so we got some spry-ness out of Brock Purdy.

Go ahead, AJ.

Yeah, he's he's spry, and as long as Yuschek is in the lineup as well with CMC, give me the Niners.

I'll take the Niners as well.

We're on the same page, AJ.

Look at us.

Bears, Ravens.

Lamar Jackson has practiced multiple days in a row.

They have not made an official designation.

After the buy is when we all thought Lamar Jackson would be back, which is this particular game.

Jamison Hensley on the reporting there.

Bears obviously looking damn good at this stage of the season and of the Ben Johnson era alongside Caleb Williams.

They're getting six and a half in in Baltimore.

Tone, is that the only number?

It is six and a half across the board.

Jeez, that's insane.

Okay,

Ty, is there a reason for this that I'm not seeing?

No, yeah.

They assume Lamar's playing, I'm guessing.

Yeah, exactly.

Lamar has to be playing, but even so, you know, like just because Lamar's playing with how bad the Ravens have looked and the Bears are quietly, you know, they've been one of the best teams in the NFL over the last couple weeks.

So, yeah, this is very, very interesting.

This feels like a sucker line.

Tell the homie Zito, we're all riding with the Bears, it sounds like, AJ.

Yep, give me the Bears here.

You're up.

Jeez, unbelievable.

There's a man named Ari that's watching this show going, yes, yes,

yes.

More Bears talk.

I think all of Chicago feels that way.

Bills at Panthers.

Bills favored by seven and a half in Carolina.

Any other lines on that one, Tone Diggs?

That one is seven or seven and a half.

Okay, down in Carolina, Carolina's got a good football team.

Now, this is the one connor was saying hey wait buffaloes coming out of a bye week maybe they'll be slow shefter reported the panthers are listing quarterback bryce young is doubtful for sunday's game versus buffaloes that's andy dalton i believe uh still the back yeah yep down there in carolina josh allen andy dalton maybe a revenge game i believe connor brought up earlier aj who do you like how do you like it if i can get the buffalo bills at minus seven I will take the Bills.

I think this is get back on track game for them.

Okay, give me the Carolina Panthers plus seven and a half down there not that the bills don't win i just think maybe the panthers nope give me the bills not a seven and a half give me the bills really and a half jet yeah i think so just in my head we just came out of the bye and you said they might be slow out of there but for some reason i just thought josh allen coming out of the bye is going to be even better like yeah i don't know in my In my head, I just saw that.

That just literally just went through my head right there.

Yeah, I don't know about the slowness.

I know the offense will fly.

I just, especially with Andy Dalton playing, the Bills kind of weakness on defense is stopping the run, and they might give Rico Dowdell and Chuba Hubbard 20 carries a pop.

But

seven's a good number.

You're right.

Okay, give me the Panthers plus seven and a half.

I'm back on.

My first instinct was that.

Oh, no, no, no.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

I'm a three-year-old.

No, no, no.

No, Panthers, I'm on the Panthers.

That was my first pick.

Jets at Bengals.

Bengals favored by six and a half at home.

Any other lines, Tone?

You can get six if you want the Bengals.

Okay, so you can get minus six Bengals at home against the Justin Fields, possibly led New York Jets.

Aaron Glenn, head coach of the Jets, has yet to commit to a starting quarterback.

What does that mean?

We do not know.

Rappaport says, Tyrod Taylor with his knee is questionable, but trending in the right direction.

We don't know who the quarterback is.

If Tyrod can go, he's potentially out there because we can't complete a pass with Justin.

I like the

Joe Flacco led Cincinnati Bengals minus six at home.

AJ, you the same way?

Absolutely.

Give me the Bengals.

Dolphins at Falcons.

Any other lines there, Tone?

Seven and a half across the board.

Okay, Dolphins at Falcons.

I'll take the Falcons minus seven and a half.

AJ, who you like?

Man, yeah, I'll take the Falcons as well.

Gumpy, has he ever picked the Dolphins in this entire thing?

No, but Bijan and Algier might have six total tuds in this one.

We can't stop the run.

Okay, it sounds like we're on the right side.

Buccaneers, Saints, NFC South Battle.

Bucks, favored by four and a half.

Mike Evans was back.

He's back on.

Amekabuka was back.

Baker Mayfield fresh off a loss that didn't look like themselves.

Any other lines for this tone?

There's actually, you can go anywhere from three and a half if you want the Bucs to four and a half if you want the Saints.

AJ, who do you like?

I want the Bucs at three and a half.

Me as well.

Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts.

I'll take them in minus 14.5 for sure.

Welcome back to the Indianapolis Colts being odds-on, awesome favorites in games.

I love that it's 14.5 in the AFC South.

We haven't won that thing in 13 years, and we're more than two-score favorites in a game.

Let's go with the Colts.

Your pick, AJ.

Give me the Colts.

God, that was aggressive.

I didn't know that was going to be the line.

Can I get them at minus 14?

14 and a half.

If you wanted to buy half a point, yes.

But if you just all the books are going to be a little bit more than 100%.

What if we both want it?

Can we both get it at 14?

I'll allow it.

Okay.

Okay, we're both at 14.

Good for us.

Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos.

Broncos favored by three and a half.

Fresh off of a Sean Payton.

I wasn't talking about him.

He's talking about Russell Wilson.

AJ, do you like the Cowboys or the Broncos?

I like the Cowboys here on the road.

Me as well.

And then the Packers, Steelers, Sunday night football.

Aaron Rodgers hosts the team he played for for 20 years in the city of Pittsburgh.

Can Moneytime Micah end this thing for the Packers, or will the Pittsburgh Steelers continue to grind and pound and work towards a Super Bowl?

AJ, who do you like?

How do you like it?

As the Backers are on the road and favorites on Sunday night?

I will will take the Green Bay Packers on the road as favorites.

Minus two and a half.

It's going to be a sweet atmosphere.

We know that.

Big Mike's doing the coin toss, I think.

I'll take that Pittsburgh Steelers getting two and a half at home on a Sunday night.

Sorry, getting three

books at home on a Sunday night.

I can't wait to watch this weekend of football tomorrow.

Game Days Live from Vanderbilt here in beautiful nashville we can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living we'll see you on overreaction monday that's aj and the boys you're the greatest be a friend tell a friend something nice that might change your life goodbye

on the screws nailed it yeah you got it big time

You walk over to a $20 million new baseball facility and just pond it out of the park.

Yeah, exactly.

43.

Hold on.

So here's all the numbers.

130.

100.

I wrote them down because

I was in the elevator with a man named Austin who was clearly very proud of everything here.

His name is Vandy Austin.

What?

And Vandi Austin knows everything about Vandi.

What?

He had a few stats.

What?

A few numbers.

What?

A few money lines.

What?

A few stories.

130 million on the football stadium.

90 on the basketball arena.

42 on the baseball stadium.

14 on the outdoor tennis stadium.

Way.

7 million on the indoor tennis stadium.

Way.

And Vandi Austin said that's the bottom line because Vandy's got fucking money.

He's

what this guy said.

I mean, they're all in on sports.

and Chancellor Diermeyer and Candace Story Lee.

I think these two are really driving it.

And obviously, Coach Lee, Car Clay is obviously a part of it.

But yeah, Vandy's all in on the sports and obviously the history of the city.

I mean,

I can't

wait for people to see what I did yesterday.

Yeah,

same.

When will they get to see?

I'm not hurting.

You know, it's a...

I don't even know what I can say without giving shit away here.

We got some great footage.

We got some incredible footage, like some incredible footage.

like

it's gonna be a dock and then obviously a project it is uh

yesterday was cool yeah

but getting down to nashville in the middle of football season is crazy and then obviously i i've we i believe as a whole have become friends with a lot of people in the music world like very very lucky that we've become friends with a lot of people in the music world because a lot of country music especially obviously this is nashville a lot of country music all the guys and and girls that are in country music come from towns that they love college football.

So like, and all their friends love college football.

So like college game day and being a part of college football world has like kind of introduced us to a lot of people that call this city home.

And whenever they found out we were coming down here and that I was coming down here, it was like, it was.

I was part of history yesterday.

I just got it like.

All time.

It was the most absurd thing I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah, Gumpy's right in there.

I mean, Gumpy's in the middle of it as well, just kind of looking around.

It was fucking, yeah, and we documented it all, so it'll be something that everybody will see, and I can't wait for people to see it.

Just know that I think it's all incredibly stupid, and I'm wildly lucky to be doing it all.

And also, shout out to everybody that was with us yesterday.

Thank you so much for your effort and your time and your talent.

Like, I was watching, I mean, I was watching Masters at Workers.

Yeah, you are watching a master at work.

Yeah.

Yeah, every we're talking, we're talking everything.

Like,

I was in some places I shouldn't have been just watching these people create the magic.

And it's like,

yeah, it was very cool.

All right.

On that note, AJ, thank you so much for traveling into Indiana.

Boys up there, great work this week.

I appreciate the hell out of you guys.

Great work yesterday.

Good work.

You too, brother.

That was heavy stuff.

Behind the glass, good work, boys.

Way to go, boys.

Very, very grateful.

Great work, boys.

All week, obviously.

And then the graphic design boys and the entire squad back there.

Good work, boys.

Good work.

I heard you guys talk about D-buns crash out a little bit.

Go Red Bull at 6 p.m.

Yep.

After...

Yeah, shaky hands.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's kind of...

Irrational.

This is kind of a...

Yeah, this is kind of a part of it.

Because remember, he had that good first day.

Yep.

Remember that?

Oh, yeah.

So, good first day, he was like, oh, this is my game.

Yeah, this is how it's going to work.

And,

you know, me and Foxy both told him, like, hey, enjoy this now, you know, because

it's going to happen.

Reality's coming.

It's going to happen.

Very much interested.

Congratulations.

Enjoy this now.

And I even gave him like a forewarning about how I was a little bit worried about how excited he was, you know, like, because that means the is going to be even more.

And the other day it was the, that we saw it happen.

We saw it happen.

He was down the dumps when he was.

Oh, yeah.

He was chugging a Red Bull at 6 p.m., freaking out, blaming everybody.

And that is just, yeah, 6 p.m.

Red Bull chugging it while sweating, yelling at everybody.

It was like, we knew it was coming.

Literally, day one knew this was coming.

It happened yesterday.

And I'd like to let Debone know, I appreciate your competitive fire, bro.

I appreciate it.

Hell yeah, Bone.

And Bone, it sucks, by the way.

It sucks for you that this is kind of the world you're in.

I know it's very new, but there are people around you that are professional athletes.

And once they start to learn things, it's a little bit of a potential, there's a separator in there, you know?

And I don't think Debone has necessarily grasped all of that yet, but

it is certainly a good time in the office.

How was your U-ball experience?

I would say, speaking of, we got basically Shaq reincarnated on the court yesterday with the AJ Hawk.

No, we didn't win.

We won a couple games.

We got beat many times.

It's hard to, shooting is tough sometimes.

You got to get into rhythm shooting-wise.

He's a power dunker.

But on that note,

if you were to do it like three, four days straight, you're a professional athlete,

I think you would start to kind of figure it out.

You know, that's kind of a separate, I think.

It's shooting that small ball.

It's like shooting a golf ball almost, it feels like.

Yeah, you feel like shack because it's coming off your hand.

So then if you do it for four or five days straight, you know, and you happen to be averagely athletic, you're probably going to, and Debone just has no respect that there's levels of athleticism, you know, because he's D3 national champion.

So like Olympic

Olympic medal.

Yeah.

Well, not Olympic gold medal.

He was asked to be Olympic.

Olympic finalist for the football team.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He got in the second try.

And Shoppoot.

He thought this was it.

Like this game, especially with how fun it was, he thought this was it.

I'm never going to lose.

He thought he was never losing again.

Is that what he thought, really?

Yeah, this happened in Cornhole with him.

You know, like he was beating a couple of people in Cornhole, and then all of a sudden he lines up next to maybe a professional athlete and it's a different game.

Debo.

Like, I'm so sorry that, like, I am so sorry that this is just how it goes.

33, I think he maybe had like a game or two where he thought he was figuring it out, had like the moment, and then all of a sudden just not.

And then U-ball day one, he's like, holy fuck, this is the one.

This is it.

I'm going to, this is what I'm going to be great at.

And there was just like a little bit of a warning, like, bro, it feels like this might be the same outcome as the other couple, but he just keeps getting in there.

And that's why we love him.

Now, on that note, speaking of loving people.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a birthday today in the Thunderbolt.

Oh, yes.

Yumpy would actually like to make his way over here to celebrate this alongside all of us.

A man who's been, I think, continuing to evolve his creativity and his artistry.

And also, sorry, didn't loosen you ball a little bit, started participating in the Thunderdome events, you know, a little bit.

Obviously, a father, a husband, ladies and gentlemen, it's Dirty's birthday.

Happy birthday, Dirty.

We appreciate your mitch.

Happy birthday

to

you.

Happy

birthday

to

you.

There you go.

Happy birthday,

dear

girl.

Gordon

Happy birthday

to

you.

Yeah.

Real talk, dirty.

Great year, I think, out of you.

I think we would all say this.

Don't you agree?

Great trip around the sun.

Appreciate it.

Hell yeah, we appreciate you too, man.

Keep doing your thing.

Hey, you're awesome.

Dirty will make an incredible graphic and then spell one fucking word wrong and then roll like, hey, but

this is the only thing anybody's going to talk about.

Dirty, you've been kicking ass, brother.

You need to know that.

Happy birthday, man.

We appreciate you.

And also, maybe you team up with D-Bone and you ball.

Give him a little.

Yeah,

boy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Call you guys Dirty Bone.

Yeah.

Dirty Bone.

You don't want that dirty bird,

but we're ready.

I don't want to break up Tom Bone and Butt.

Bone and Butt was a great team.

I think that was actually part of D-Bone's crash out the other day.

He had a professional athlete as a teammate.

Oh, he forgot about that

yeah he was saying a lot of things i mean he's d bone happy birthday to you buddy yeah

happy birthday debone happy birthday bow

it's not his birthday andre i think you were looking around

i'm trying to find the guy i can't he's gone like this is usually his isolation this is usually his mid-afternoon shite time and it's oh boy like an alliseum for a while yeah my kids do that he's got a big window uh on that note you talk about sitting down maybe too long um on the toilet or

things that could potentially happen that I've been talking about earlier in the week with the boys, if you remember,

for me personally.

Yeah, oh, yeah, I remember.

Yeah.

Yeah, full explosion last night.

Hey, that's good, though, right?

Need that.

Yeah, definitely, definitely good news.

Look like a

look like a murder scene on my bed.

I don't doubt it.

Murder scene on my bed.

But life is a lot better now than it was.

What?

A lot of blood.

I had a blister on the back of my leg for some time.

I thought you dumped blood all over your bed.

You scared me.

That's not like normal.

No, yeah, it's just a little bit of a thing.

Okay.

There's a little thing that built up on my body, and then it just popped last night.

It was certainly aggravating.

And that was an eye-opener where I woke up, go to the bathroom, middle of the night.

Somebody died here?

What is that?

And then it was from myself, you know, so it was a great morning.

Just know there was a a lot of relief this morning.

Hell yeah.

A lot of relief whenever we woke up this morning.

So we're heading into the greatest weekend of all time.

AJ, safe travels back to Dublin.

Gumpy, let's enjoy the hell out of Andy.

Hell yeah.

And

boys, you're the best.

Happy birthday, Dorty.

Dirty, be a friend, tell a friend something nice might change their life.

We're in this thing together.

Let's never forget it.

AJ, anything to say to the team here?

Let's have a better one next week.

Anyways, Augur.

I hate that.

Ager.

Don't you hate that too?

AQ does it.

OBA.

Yeah, BA is there.

BA is a good coach, though.

Yeah, he is.

He is a great coach.

It is giving you infringement.

Well said.

Gumpy, do you have anything to say to the team, Gumpy?

Since AJ won't do it, I will take the wheel here.

It's been a great week, everybody.

You know, football is at full swing.

MLS Cups kicking off.

All the sports.

World Series starts tonight.

Johe O'Connor.

Bring it back.

Bring it back.

But we're heading into the greatest weekend of all time with the Dodgers knocking off the Blue Jays to get it started tonight.

I love that, Gunny.

Appreciate you.

Team on me.

Team on three.

Let's have the greatest sports weekend of all time.

Oh, the boys over there in a corner, too.

Hell yeah.

Appreciate you guys.

You guys did great work here.

See you guys on Over Reaction Monday.

Hope you all have the time of your life.

Team on three.

One, two, three.

Goodbye.

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