PMS 2.0 1470 - NFL Week 15 Preview/Picks, TNF Recap, John Cena LIVE in the ThunderDome, Texas A&M Head Coach Mike Elko, & AJ Hawk

Speaker 1 Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunder Dome.

Speaker 1 On this magical, feel-good Friday, December 12th, 2025. This program begins now.

Speaker 1 Football! It is insane, and week 15 kicked off in a spectacular fashion with a massive fourth quarter comeback for the Atlanta Falcons to get a huge win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Speaker 1 The Buccaneers are looking in the mirrors this morning saying, what the hell happened to us? We were supposed to go to to the playoffs. We're supposed to win the NFC South.

Speaker 1 Now they're on a little bit of a slide. And for the Atlanta Falcons and Kirk Cousins, when they're playing the Buccaneers, boy, do they ball out.
Kyle Pitts went crazy. Kirk Cousins gets a dub.

Speaker 1 Raheem Morris is yelling at the camera afterwards. And everybody from Tampa is thinking to themselves, We suck.
We are ass. We need to maybe start this entire thing over.

Speaker 1 Week 15 kicks off in a spectacular fashion. The Sunday slate is going to be absolutely majestic.
Army versus Navy, obviously a special day for our entire country.

Speaker 1 And then tomorrow night, Saturday night's main event on NBC,

Speaker 1 John Cena will have his final match as a WWE superstar. He will be joining us in about 10 to 15 minutes live in studio.

Speaker 1 And I want to let you know, those Jorts have been walking around this facility for the last 20, 30 minutes. And he is a special individual with a special aura.

Speaker 1 And every single time you talk to him, you want to tell him, like, hey, you're John Cena. Let's never, ever forget that.

Speaker 1 And all John Cena says, well, whoa I'm just lucky to be here I'm just lucky to be here so for our conversation with him it's going to be a lot of us letting him know who the hell he is and him responding to us on who we should maybe strive to be a little bit more like him he's got a tough one in Gunther tomorrow night as all eyes are in Washington DC to watch the never seen 17 time champion wrap up his illustrious greatest of all time career with the WWE.

Speaker 1 So special Friday here in the Thunderdome. The talks and tables here at Boston Connor at Ty Schmidt.
Big one this weekend for the Patriots Con huge. One half of the hammer.
Done. Cowboys, A.P.

Speaker 1 Tone's head is floating above something right here as we see Tone.

Speaker 1 Last night, nobody on this particular stage, or maybe even in the country, thought that the Falcons were going to be able to do what they did last night.

Speaker 1 What was the percentage of bets on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last night as favorites of four and a half points?

Speaker 2 65%. So it was another one of those that falls in the category of getting 60% or more of the bets on the public.

Speaker 2 And that was another loss and another start to a week of potential losing for the public, but just kind of how it's been. And

Speaker 2 Big Mike said it best yesterday. And these rivalry games, you never know what's going on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Division gave him this wall of points. And obviously, the Atlanta Falcons needed one.
They get one. The Bucks need something to change.
Let's go to last night, Con Man. Special game.

Speaker 1 We thought it might have been shite. We might have thought it was ass.
Turns out this was an electrifying finish. Somebody needs to tell Al Michaels.
Yeah, incredible.

Speaker 3 Christmas came early, you know, and yes, someone should probably let Al know, but let's go right to Kyle Pitts. It was all about the Pitts' prime time performance, if you ask me.

Speaker 3 This was his first touchdown wide open. Probably should maybe cover him.
I don't know about that. He continues to ball out.
And when I say continues, I mean right here.

Speaker 1 Bang.

Speaker 3 Touchdown number two. And let me just say, Kyle Pitts probably earned himself $30, $40, $50 million last night, let alone his incredible dance moves.

Speaker 3 But then the second half, the Bucs kind of pull away. It's okay.
You know what? That was cute, Atlanta. Chris Godwin's back.
Yep, we'll take that. He also got an octopus this game.
It's 2014 to 26.

Speaker 3 He gets the two-point conversion along with the touchdown. You don't see that area very often.

Speaker 1 That's fantastic. 28-14, fourth quarter.
Two scores, 14-point spread. Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a good spot, right, Conman?

Speaker 3 Yes, sir. And not to get lost in the Pitts performance.
Bijan Robinson, once again, goes over 80 yards rushing, over 80 yards receiving. This was his touchdown of the night.
Gets him to 28-20.

Speaker 3 They go for two. They don't get it, unfortunately.
So at this point, too, you're thinking, okay, you know, once again, Atlanta falling a little short.

Speaker 1 Down 14, they choose to go for two.

Speaker 1 Hey, they choose to go for two. This is the new statistics thing.
They don't get the first one. They're down eight, still the one-score game.

Speaker 3 Still a one-score game, and guess what? They get the ball back. Huge interception by Alfred, and who else? Kyle Pitts with his third of the night.
Now, his butt came down and his elbow came down.

Speaker 3 Butt inbounds, elbow out of bounds, but they call it a touchdown on the field. Huge call because in the review, as you see here,

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 3 the other angle from the

Speaker 3 right here does make you think, okay, he's definitely in. But then the other angle, if you will, makes you think, I don't know, not so sure.
But either way, hey, that's a touchdown.

Speaker 3 They go for two again down to 28-26.

Speaker 1 They don't get it. 28-26.
They were down 14. They scored two touchdowns, one for two twice.
They're still losing. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so it's 28-26. Game's over, right?

Speaker 1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers got to put this thing away. The Falcons don't even have any timeouts at this point.

Speaker 3 That's what you would think. Hey, just run the ball.
Don't have to, you know, get cute. Don't have to throw the ball.
Turns out they do throw the ball before the two-minute warning hits.

Speaker 3 The Falcons get the ball back, and Kirk Cousins does what Kirk Cousins does. He drives down the field.
He fumbles the ball, gets it back, but he drives down the field.

Speaker 3 Third and 28, they convert fourth and 14 to get here.

Speaker 3 Zayn Gonzalez, 43-yard game winner, takes the soul out of Tampa Bay post-game, and we're not going to run it because Tyl Bowles is just laced with profanity now, I guess.

Speaker 3 But he was dropping F-bombs F-bombs left and right. Everybody basically on Tampa Bay sideline has no idea what the hell just happened.
Zane Gonzalez comes through for Atlanta.

Speaker 3 Atlanta really not fighting for much aside from pride. And, you know, they get the job done.
Raheem Morris might have saved his job ruining Tampa Bay season.

Speaker 3 Carolina moves to first into the NFC South. The Bucs now out of the playoff race.
It was quite a night for Atlanta, quite a devastation for Tampa.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they're out of the playoff race, but they still have a chance to to win the NFC South. Excuse me, playoff picture.

Speaker 1 They have to play the Carolina Panthers a couple different times, the Bucs do.

Speaker 1 But if you look at this Bucs collapse from where they were to where they are now, let alone the 14-point collapse in the fourth quarter last night. Slick field two.

Speaker 1 Good job on Zayn Gonzalez getting the plant foot down and getting a good kick. Congrats to him.
Bucs percentage to win the NFC South. When they were 5-1, it was 80%.
When they were 6-2, it was 90%.

Speaker 1 Now they're at 55%, but they got to play the Carolina Panthers twice.

Speaker 1 So you're talking about a lot of battles down the line here with a struggling Buccaneers team and a hot Carolina Panthers team. Carolina Mike, I believe, is still doing his 150,000 thing.

Speaker 1 He was performing at the Big Lob Music Christmas party the other day. He's having shows.
Feels like the Panthers are up and to the right, the Bucs are down and to the left.

Speaker 1 Here's Tristan Wurfs after the game talking about being up 14, losing to the Saints. We lose to the Saints last week, and now we do this.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 we lost the two and 10 Saints, and we lost to I don't even know what the tracker is at home,

Speaker 1 up two scores.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't really.

Speaker 1 I don't know. That was fucking insane.

Speaker 1 At a loss for words, calling it insane. None of them expected to lose that game, especially whenever they go for two on both their touchdowns and you're up two.
Falcons have no timeouts.

Speaker 1 You mentioned it. Before the two-minute warning, Bucs throw it, stop the clock, incompletion.
Then the two-minute warning comes. All of a sudden, Kirk Cousins gets the ball back.

Speaker 1 He literally has two-minute drill, no timeouts, down two. Kirk Cousins been there, done that.
Now, Todd Bowles' defense, Bucs defense, you think maybe be able to get a stop?

Speaker 1 Kirk Cousins says, I don't think so. We're going to march right down this field.
We're going to kick the field goal to win this game in your building, in your face, in the middle of your playoff run.

Speaker 1 I can't say enough about this Atlanta Falcons team responding to everything that was being said about them.

Speaker 1 Kirk responding to everything that was said about them and getting a huge win in an electrifying game on Thursday night football in which we thought it could have been an ass game.

Speaker 1 And on the flip side, when it comes to the Bucs, it's like, what the hell is going on with the Buccaneers? You got Todd Bowles, and you said profanity lace post-game.

Speaker 1 It was like, yeah, he was very much. Most energy or most emotion I've ever seen Todd Bowles have was after the game in his interview.

Speaker 1 But I think a lot of Bucks fans are like, where's that door in the game whenever it's kind of all unraveling and you're just on a sideline?

Speaker 1 Feels like Todd Bowles' thing is like, I'm always like this, I'm always like this.

Speaker 1 Baker Mayfield, obviously, we've seen him up, we've seen him down, we've seen him at great runs with this Tampa Bay Buccaneers team. And then now we're kind of watching it fall off.

Speaker 1 Here's some stats from Hembo. Baker Mayfield with Bucs after week nine through 2023, 2024 after week nine, 12 and five win-loss record.
Now here in 2025, one and five down the stretch.

Speaker 1 Obviously, it's not just Baker, it's a lot of things. Mike Evans was back off of injury last night.
He has a huge night. He was seen on the sideline losing his mind as well.

Speaker 1 This Buccaneers team, I don't think anybody knows what's going on, but I know Buccaneers fans are saying everything needs changed immediately, Tone.

Speaker 2 So they had the great start, obviously, the 5-1, the 6-2. And then, you know, everyone kind of rode off the last month or so because of injuries.
And then last night, everyone came back, basically.

Speaker 2 You know, you had Evans, you had Godwin, you had Abuka, you had Macmillan.

Speaker 2 Like, you had everyone that you, all your weapons that you had in the beginning of the year, you had finally for the first time back again. And everyone thought that would fix it.

Speaker 2 And for three quarters, it did fix it. But also Baker, first nine weeks, 16 touchdowns, two interceptions.
The last five weeks, six touchdowns, five interceptions.

Speaker 2 So it's kind of come off the rails here over there.

Speaker 1 So maybe they're learning their offense. Maybe people know what they're having or maybe they're just not playing good ball down the stretch here.

Speaker 1 If we were going to like the box score of how many yards we're gaining and everything like that, the Falcons winning a game with 19 penalties for 125 years.

Speaker 1 Now there was fall starts and there was ugly football that they were calling. These refs also, hey, now is not a good time for you refs to be ass.
Okay.

Speaker 1 You guys are starting to like be in the middle of a negotiation with the NFL and the NFL is starting to release some information on what the current deal is.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, we're not even allowed to talk to these refs from February until May because the union says we're not allowed to talk to them.

Speaker 1 There's just no contact rule from the NFL to any of the refs for those three months. You know, they don't really speak to the media afterwards because they don't have to because that's in a contract.

Speaker 1 And the NFL is we're looking to change that. We're looking for off-season training, some off-season conversation.
We're looking for a little accountability. This refs union is not.

Speaker 1 One primetime games, the refs can't be making mistakes. Feels like they were a topic of the conversation last night.
Now, some of these, very real. We're not saying that that isn't the case.

Speaker 1 19 for 125 is a lot of penalties to win a game. Buccaneers still looking at it all saying, how did this happen?

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I think Connor hit the nail on the head, too, because if the Falcons were to lose that game last night and you lose that with 19 penalties, like that's the kind of thing where people point to and say, okay, this guy's message isn't getting through.

Speaker 4 This team's undisciplined. I understand, you know, penalties are also on the players.
You can't just put it all on the coach. But largely in part, that is like, that's on coaching.

Speaker 4 You know, hey, we got to make sure we're disciplined. We're doing the right things.

Speaker 4 So not only does Raheem Morris potentially save his job last night, but now people are like, and granted, it might just be against the Bucs, but does Kirk Cousins, like, is he all of a sudden, maybe it's not in Atlanta, but is he get a shot to go play quarterback somewhere next year?

Speaker 1 Because remember, last year he was ass. Yep.
So Pennix comes in. This year, there are some games that weren't great.

Speaker 1 Now on primetime, has a two-minute drive to lead the Falcons back to beat the Bucs as five and a half point dogs, five-point dogs. Kirk Cousins all of a sudden can spin he's putting in spots.

Speaker 1 And then Kyle Pitts, you mentioned him earning 30, 40, 50 million. Whenever he was drafted out of Florida, we thought this was the next one.
This guy's special.

Speaker 1 Whenever we saw him in college, we said this guy was special. Then he got to the NFL.
Obviously, some turnover in coaching, turnover in offense, turnover in quarterback. You name it.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of excuses that Kyle Pitts can certainly put out for why it hasn't gone necessarily perfect since day one. They have figured it out.

Speaker 1 Last couple of weeks, last three weeks for Kyle Pitts, historic. Three touchdowns last night on primetime.
Good for him. And

Speaker 1 I'd like to see what Kyle Pitts' career looks like going forward. forward because maybe he did flip a switch and become a guy and Kirk is obviously pumped for that.

Speaker 1 Raheem Morris, him yelling yelling at that camera, that was quite a moment. Yeah, that was.
I feel like that was a big moment for him, for his life, for his future. Yeah,

Speaker 1 all day, all day call game. Call that.
Call game. Call that.

Speaker 1 Ball game. Call game.
Whatever it is. I like that he's doing it.
I think him and Coach Tomlin pretty tight.

Speaker 1 Coach Tomlin has a scene where he's looking at the camera, talking his shit, not only the kiss, but in the past, there's been this one.

Speaker 1 So Raheem immediately afterwards is celebrating with the boys and then going, where the hell is this camera at? All these people have been trying to call for my job.

Speaker 1 Why don't we we go ahead and do a little bit of that? Love the Moxie out of Atlanta.

Speaker 1 Doesn't mean that they have anything really to go for the Lombardi this year, but to save a culture, potentially save their team, good for them. Now let's look at the weekend slate.

Speaker 1 We got big games this weekend. Huge.
Huge. Huge, huge games this weekend.
You stay right there across the top. Obviously, Browns and Bears is going to be a storyline.
Everybody's going to talk about.

Speaker 1 Khaleeb Williams, as Coach McCarthy would say, and Shador Sanders' storyline. Jets Jags, 13 and a half point spread for the Jags.
Congrats to them earning that. And then Bills Pats, this is it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 This, I mean, this is

Speaker 1 what we've been waiting for in the AFC East. This is what we've been waiting for with this particular Patriots team.
Can they do it against the big bad wolf?

Speaker 1 Can they, in meaningful games, as dogs, get a huge win over the MVP and the Buffalo Bills to be the actual kings of the AFC East? We get to learn a lot this weekend about your team, Con Man.

Speaker 3 Yeah, this is the feeling you've kind of been searching for as a Patriots fan to get this back again on a Friday, thinking like, wow, on Sunday, there's a chance, one, you can go win the division, but two, two, just kind of restamp what you've already done this whole entire year.

Speaker 3 The whole conversation for the Patriots all year has been schedule, schedule, schedule from the outside, not from the inside, but still people have been saying that.

Speaker 3 It is a chance to go out there and prove like, okay, as home underdogs, which is very interesting, but as home dogs off of a buy with Mike Vrabel, who's 6-0 off a buy, it's one of the, not including the playoffs, it's one of those things that you do kind of just.

Speaker 3 Can't believe we're here. Can't believe we're playing meaningful football in December in the division.
So excited. Just can't wait to see it.

Speaker 1 To hang a banner up there.

Speaker 3 No, we don't hang banners. What? The only banners we hang are Super Bowls.
We don't give a shit about the division like Bills fans.

Speaker 3 We don't give a shit about winning the conference like Bills fans, even though they really haven't done it.

Speaker 3 Don't really care about those. We only care about that number one spot, and that's why immediately after that game, I'm throwing on a Packers jersey for that Packers Broncos sleep.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Packers-Broncos, obviously gigantic as the Packers head into. Denver's two and a half point favorites.
Good for you, Ty. This is a huge game for the AFC standings.

Speaker 4 If the Patriots get a a win and the broncos get a loss that changes the trajectory of the playoffs entirely and for the packers this could be continuing stacking momentum into the most important time of the year yeah without a doubt and you know a lot of people are saying right now hey is this a potential you know super bowl preview i don't know about that but yeah i mean this is a massive test for the packers everyone knows how good the broncos d is and then you talk about you know the uh the kind of playoff picture in the AFC with the Broncos being at the top.

Speaker 4 Like the Packers are still right there in the NFC for home field advantage.

Speaker 4 We know how important home field advantage is, especially if you're a Packers fan and things would have to go through Lambeau and you have to play a team like the Rams, you know, or one of these warm weather teams, if you will.

Speaker 4 Like, so there's a lot at stake there, and now it's kind of all eyes on is Josh Jacobs going to play? Because he had another MRI.

Speaker 4 It came back clean, but there still is a thought that he might not play Sunday because they have a couple of massive games behind this one.

Speaker 1 Josh Jacobs is a dog. Let's assume that he's out there.
Chargers Chiefs, obviously gigantic for the the AFC West.

Speaker 1 76% of the bets are on the Chargers, getting five and a half, even though the Chiefs are favored at home. Tough night for Herbert, even after the win.
Got a lot of bad pub.

Speaker 1 Do the Chargers continue to grow? And I guess Jim Harbaugh could feel some sort of way with what happened with Michigan. I mean, there's a lot of negative vibes coming off a Chargers' primetime win.

Speaker 1 And the Chiefs talk about negative vibes. Yeah.
Trav. Man.
Yeah. It's going to be all right, man.
Travis. Kelsey.

Speaker 4 Down in the dumps.

Speaker 1 I don't like it.

Speaker 1 He's human exclamation point yeah exactly not anymore flip that upside down well that's what the Texans defense can do to people I think we need to remember that but Travis you need to know we love you we appreciate you and I do appreciate that you are bummed out at this stage of your career stage of everything with how the team is performing and how you're putting a lot of onus onto yourself we respect and appreciate that on his new heights podcast it was not no doom and gloom i felt bummed out i was bummed yes

Speaker 1 when i'm bummed out i watch new heights and i say hey trav jason why don't you make me feel good then i see this clip and it's like,

Speaker 1 how do I cheer up Trav?

Speaker 1 Somebody needs to cheer up Trav over there because of what's going on. Obviously, not the year they had hoped thus far.
Still five and a half point favorites over the Chargers at home.

Speaker 1 And then obviously, Vikings, Cowboys on Sunday night football. Lions, Rams taking place.
Colts, Seahawks.

Speaker 1 Chance of Raina Herder.

Speaker 3 Here we go. That's perfect.

Speaker 1 That's what Phil Rivers wants. That's perfect.
44 years old. Yeah, right.
Don't you worry about a damn thing. Phil Phil Rivers is ready to ball.
All right.

Speaker 1 As we pivot away from the NFL, let's turn to the greatest of all time conversation.

Speaker 1 There's a man that is currently in the Thunderdome who's going to walk his way up to this stage, who is considered the greatest of all time in something that is now a global phenomenon.

Speaker 1 Professional wrestling is something that has shaped my life. I think it shaped a lot of people's lives.

Speaker 1 When I was growing up and I would turn it on, I would see these superheroes of humans doing things that I never could have fathomed.

Speaker 1 And it gave me hope and inspiration on what I could be in the future. Athletics, a little bit of entertainment, some shit talk, and some magic all happening in front of me.

Speaker 1 Thank you for taking me away from my life and being entertained for a couple hours. This man, 23 years of that.

Speaker 1 This man, actual superhero. I think he had 2% body fat for 23 some years.

Speaker 1 Showed up every single day. He's just a dude from Mass up there who's worked his ass off so that he can be called the greatest of all time.
And he didn't do it for himself.

Speaker 1 He did it for literally everybody around him. Every single time or every single question you ask him, you're going to hear the most humble answer of all time.

Speaker 1 He might be the greatest thespian out there. Okay, he might be the greatest thespian out there.
We have no idea what his acting career will hold.

Speaker 1 We have no idea what his business acumen is going forward and everything else. But we do know he's going to be a success story.
We do know that he's going to be awesome.

Speaker 1 And we do know that tomorrow night is his last ever match in the WWE. He'll be taking on Gunther on Peacock

Speaker 1 at Saturday night's main event in Washington, D.C. Ladies and gentlemen, the Never Seen 17 John Cena.

Speaker 1 Yeah!

Speaker 1 Where's Snoo? Where's Snoo?

Speaker 1 Hey, hold it up.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're there.

Speaker 1 Unless you're

Speaker 1 standing in between us and you. Hold on, hold on.
We gotta wait, though. Yep.

Speaker 1 Your time is up. My time is down.

Speaker 1 You can't see me. My time is down.

Speaker 1 Pick up is a good coffee.

Speaker 1 I do love that.

Speaker 1 Where's that from? I got to shout out Amberson Coffee and Grocery right here in Indy. Man, this is one of the best coffee joints I've been to.
This is a to-go. They gave you the glass mason jar.

Speaker 1 This is a cup of getup in a glass mason jar. Okay.
Okay, so

Speaker 1 let's talk a little bit about your history. Okay, history.
That's just a cold transition. OVW.
No, it's not going to be a cold transition. That might be a cold transition.

Speaker 1 OVW in Louisville, okay, is obviously where a lot of this whole thing started. Rip Rogers, trainer, lives in Indianapolis, from Indianapolis.

Speaker 1 India has been a great hub for professional wrestling for a long time. How often have you been through our city, and how did you know about this place? It feels like you were very familiar with it.

Speaker 1 You actually yelled at me for not knowing what this place is. I just informed you that you got quite a good coffee shop.
You're like, oh, man, we got good coffee in the back.

Speaker 1 I was like, man, Coffee Forward places is Amberson Coffee and Grocery.

Speaker 1 They will change the way you view coffee. But it feels like you've been through the the city a lot.

Speaker 1 I certainly have over the past two decades, especially over the past year. We came to Indy twice.
So being able to do two runs here,

Speaker 1 that was extremely special. And

Speaker 1 later on in my career,

Speaker 1 I guess these last half decade or so,

Speaker 1 I've been around the world more than 10 times, but I haven't seen anything but the inside of arenas and airports.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I kind of changed my philosophy of like arrive early enough to experience something.

Speaker 1 I like a good cafe because it allows you to, you know, I like to have a coffee there and maybe some breakfast there. It allows you to see people coming into work.
You get a decent view of

Speaker 1 the city or people around the city. And then I try to stay for at least a meal afterwards to try to at least, if I'm only in a place for a day, I want to actually see it.

Speaker 1 I just don't want to see the inside of the arenas that look pretty much identical. And the inside of an airport is kind of identical as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you want to experience the town a little bit that you've been in so frequently. You've lived this, you know, professional wrestlers.

Speaker 1 Obviously, people know you guys are on the road a lot, and it's talked about as the old school days, but I think people aren't fully.

Speaker 1 You've been living a rock star life on the road for like 20-some years.

Speaker 1 A traveling entertainer's life. I don't know how rock stars live.
I don't want to think for them. Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 A traveling entertainer. I've been on the traveling road show for about 23 years now.
We're hanging it up tomorrow. Okay,

Speaker 1 I can't wear this for one more day. You know, I got one more day to wear this.
I just wanted to bring the jorts out one more time. Well, they look up.
This is the actual uniform for tomorrow, too.

Speaker 1 I'm very excited. USA.
USA. Thank you.
USA. Got a lot of Easter eggs on here.
A lot of stuff that's important to me.

Speaker 1 Well, you've been very important to the Bijanish that you've been a part of as a traveling entertainer for all these years.

Speaker 1 So I talked to Michael Cole, who I know is obviously good friends of yours as well. And he talks about wanting to retire sometime.
And this guy's been on the road for 30 years.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I don't think your body will let you ever kind of step away from this type of busyness or this type of hectic or chaos type schedule. Do Do you think about that? Have you thought about that?

Speaker 1 Obviously, you've experienced life without the WWE. You've gone away to do some movies.
This last time is now tour. You had 30-some

Speaker 1 jobs, which obviously was a conversation about maybe having 200 at some point, but you had 30-some. Have you thought about that, how life changes, how the schedule changes?

Speaker 1 You put a lot into there. You are non-stop.
You just wanted to talk about the projections for the tour, the idea, the actuality. You want to talk about like,

Speaker 1 are you ready for life to change? Bingo. That's the one.
This is just my perspective, and only my perspective. I think if you get into something with the understanding that it will be forever,

Speaker 1 that might be your mindset.

Speaker 1 I'm here on borrowed time.

Speaker 1 I got defensively signed in Orange County because of the WCW-WF wars.

Speaker 1 I was retained in OVW because I could be an entertaining personality to help the talent more prosperous than me fall down.

Speaker 1 They kept me around in WWE when I made my debut and failed with ruthless aggression.

Speaker 1 I'm used to, or I've known what it's like to walk that razor's edge, to face my mortality.

Speaker 1 And I've also, a tried and true lesson that I have learned through this business, through mentorship and actual, the business unfolding in front of my eyes, is everyone is replaceable. Everyone.

Speaker 1 So when you ask me if I'm set for the next chapter in my life without this thing that's been important to me for 23 years, my answer is yes, because this is something that I do, but it doesn't define me as a human being.

Speaker 1 I am John Cena, WWE superstar, until the bell rings at the end of the match tomorrow night. And then my role changes, but

Speaker 1 I'm still alive. I can still find curiosity in life.
I can still hopefully aspire to do good things and

Speaker 1 earn a good life and feel fulfilled. Yeah, you definitely will.
I mean, we're going to dive into your acting and how great of an action is. It also doesn't need to be monetized.

Speaker 1 I heard you say before, man, who knows what his business acumen will be? Who cares?

Speaker 1 Well, I'm just saying if you decide to start investing in companies, I don't know what you're going to do. Who cares? You got a big brain.
You got a big brain.

Speaker 1 I just want to always keep a childlike imagination and curiosity. And as long as that happens, I'm square, man.
Okay. Well, I'd love to hear that.

Speaker 1 And we will talk about your acting, which is seemingly the next step, at least at this stage, and already a current step. You are so good at it.
You are.

Speaker 1 It's outrageous how good of an actor you are. Yeah, that coffee's good.
You're a better actor than that coffee is good.

Speaker 1 You're not going to want to hear that. But just everything that you've done, Ricky Stanicki, not supposed to be that good.
Ferdinand. Ferdinand, right out.
Not supposed to be. That's how we met.

Speaker 1 Bingo, first thing I ever said to you is like, I don't know if anybody's ever said this to you, but you crushed it in Ferdinand. And no one had ever said that to me.
Peacemaker, nobody.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're just everything you're in, you are great. So the next step is obviously going to be great.
We can't wait to watch it.

Speaker 1 But the chaos of the life schedule, I'm excited to see kind of how you navigate it all. Now, hustle, loyalty, respect, never give up.

Speaker 1 These have been things that you've been, I've been a part of the John Cena character literally since the beginning.

Speaker 1 Have you done much reflection on career throughout this entire life? Remember how I told you there are Easter eggs on the shirt? Yeah.

Speaker 1 This is never give up in my words of what that means to me.

Speaker 1 I'm duking the, I'm giving y'all a spoiler. This is hustle, loyalty, and respect and in my words, what that means to me.
So

Speaker 1 those essentially are like core pillars or core values of my life. And

Speaker 1 they haven't really faltered over 23 years. I wasn't the same person I am yesterday.
I was certainly not the same person I was in 2004, 2010. We evolve, we grow.

Speaker 1 My core values of persistence, hard work,

Speaker 1 seeking, longing connection,

Speaker 1 and just

Speaker 1 respect for those who have given you opportunity and respect for the room around you, that has not faltered.

Speaker 1 So for me to be able to sneak that in on the final final, which is also a nice piece of inside baseball to those who get it, Michael Cole will get it.

Speaker 1 Like I said, there's a ton of Easter eggs on this, but a lot of them are selfish. So I took some real estate for me on this one.
I hope you don't mind. Yeah, no problem.
Three losers will love it.

Speaker 1 And you don't have to apologize to me at all for absolutely anything. That's another Easter egg, I do believe, if I was to drop that accurately.

Speaker 1 But do you look, you've looked back on your career a lot?

Speaker 1 No, not at all.

Speaker 1 My eyes are focused on tomorrow night, a Saturday night's main event.

Speaker 1 We got a hell of a program.

Speaker 1 I'm honored to share the ring with someone who considers the Matt a sacred place, whose moniker given to him is the ring general, because he commands the best out of his opponents.

Speaker 1 I know it's not going to be a walkthrough.

Speaker 1 Probably going to be some strikes. You'll probably hear some from the mezzanine section way up there.
I'm really excited to have such...

Speaker 1 a hungry competitor and such a billed match, which has tons of anticipation. I'm also excited that we get to glimpse at the future of the business.

Speaker 1 You know, Javon Evans, Oba Femi, Leon Slater, Sol Roka, all going to be on the card against main event WWE current superstars. So

Speaker 1 this is a program with a bunch of eyes on it that's going to allow me to bow out, but I'm going to earn my way out because Gunther ain't going to go down lightly.

Speaker 1 And at the same time, it's going to provide opportunity for the future of the business. So

Speaker 1 I'll look in the rearview tomorrow, or I'll look in the rear view on Sunday. But right now, it's the night before game, man.
I'm focused on Saturday. I think Gunther is the perfect.

Speaker 1 opponent for you, but that was obviously something that I couldn't imagine the decision being made. And obviously, he earned it through the last time is now tournament.

Speaker 1 And he was the one who in the ring earned the opportunity to be your final WWE match. Every match that you've had on this run has obviously been either highly scrutinized or highly loved.

Speaker 1 The AJ Styles thing getting added in is what everybody thinks allegedly. Who knows what's real, what isn't with the business, Dish Business, you never know.

Speaker 1 But all of these decisions getting made and all the things that you're hearing, I mean, let alone the heel turn and everything like that, you seemingly do always have that whatever's whatever's good, whatever's good, whatever's good for the business, whatever's good, whatever you think mindset.

Speaker 1 Have you had that your entire run? Who was the one that basically said like, hey, your mindset should be like this? And how have you maintained that? Because as soon as you walked in here,

Speaker 1 I got mad at you because I heard the Chris Van Vliet interview where you said, after you gave the AJ Styles by Alicia, who's incredible what she does, the intro, you said, I apologize because I wanted a business for myself and everything like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the apology was by choice. I was forced by no one.
It's something I had to do.

Speaker 1 I know, and I got so mad at you for saying, you're John C. You don't have to apologize to anybody.
Okay. No, no, I just, I didn't feel right.

Speaker 1 I had, uh, had I asked permission to do it, I'm, I'm more than likely I would have been allowed, or certainly I would have, I would have taken, I'm always in search for a good explanation.

Speaker 1 Somebody says no and then gives me a good explanation, well, that's no. If someone has a suggestion, and gives me a good explanation, that's fine.

Speaker 1 And a lot of my creative path and just adapting to the cards that are dealt is because they get dealt with a good explanation.

Speaker 1 And I don't really care about, and I said this on Chris as well, like, yeah, we can sit here and chatter about what could have been or we can react to what is.

Speaker 1 And we can go like hell to make what is great. And what I love about the whole year now, this is something we can reflect on.
The whole year was an intentional year-long story.

Speaker 1 Some moments folks liked, some moments they hated, some moments wished to pan out different. But

Speaker 1 that's like a microcosm of someone's existence. You know, as we go through 23 years of John Cena in the WWE, man, I wish some moments were different.

Speaker 1 I wish you had this opponent more because of the magic you had. Why did they ever book you in this angle? Why did you ever do this?

Speaker 1 It is a microcosm for what I've done. I love the fact that at least through it all, again, a small microcosm of my reality, Fans loved it and hated it.
Just like me, Let's Go Cena, Cena sucks.

Speaker 1 This last year has been been like a compacted version of let's go Cena, Cena sucks. And then the realization of like,

Speaker 1 it's almost not me. It's like all of us.
We're all just kind of getting all of our emotions out. And I'm getting way too deep.
And

Speaker 1 I just, I never put a lot of focus on, man, what could have been. If somebody chooses to bail or we no longer have this option, that's fine.

Speaker 1 The easiest indicator of this, and this happens all the time, is injury. And injury is easy because it's inarguable.
Hey, this person is on the trajectory to be the man. Blown out knee.

Speaker 1 We're going to have to have them forfeit their spot. Somebody's going to have to jump.
Nobody complains about that. What if somebody's burnt out? Oh, I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 What if somebody just can't do it for us? But let's move, let's move forward, man. Let's move forward.
And I love the fact that like, there's been so many pivots. AJ,

Speaker 1 that was a pivot. You know, Brock was a pivot.
Post-WrestleMania, all that stuff. Pivot.
Because of the pivot, I got Randy.

Speaker 1 Randy I got punk I got to work with Logan in a singles match because of the pivot I got dom I got AJ I got Ron Cena I got Sami Zane

Speaker 1 I got Cody at SummerSlam like because of pivots I got all these great moments never once was I like but it could have been this yo look what we got

Speaker 1 Going into it, going into it, you had a thought of what it was, obviously, whenever it's getting pitched. And now that we're at the end of it, I'm talking about this tour.

Speaker 1 I'm not talking about your entire career. Yeah, going

Speaker 1 by the way, probably the same.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I guess life. As I mean, we get deeper into that if you want to, but going into this last time is now-wade into the water.
You don't want to be in. Yeah, well, I smoke a little bit.

Speaker 1 I'll be in there.

Speaker 1 The last time is now, Tor, though. Whenever you sign up for it, that's a big emotional decision, I would assume.
You know, chapter of your life.

Speaker 1 Hey, we're actually declaring that this is going to be the last run. Now that we're at the end, we talked about that too.
This is it. I mean, tomorrow night, this is it.

Speaker 1 That, like, I'm, I am not coming back. And I I understand,

Speaker 1 you only have the data before me that you go on. No wrestler retires, right?

Speaker 1 That changes with me. Whether it all changes and everybody else after me retires and decides not to come back, that's fine.

Speaker 1 What I urge fans out there, please watch tomorrow and give yourself the closure that you need.

Speaker 1 Because my biggest concern is people like, oh, no, he's going to parlay it into WrestleMania or this match would be great. No,

Speaker 1 tomorrow night is it. And if you don't believe me, if you're not ready to take that on, you may not get the closure you want.

Speaker 1 And I just urge fans when they watch tomorrow to like let it all out and understand that that's it. I've come to grips with it.
I have,

Speaker 1 I look forward to tomorrow with such a positive attitude and so much excitement about like making that run one more time. But that's the last time.

Speaker 1 And I think that's important to say because the data before me suggests that that's not a permanent thing.

Speaker 1 Man, I've been called a lot of stuff, but very rarely am I called a liar. And I promise you, I'm a man of my word on this one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it feels like you are taking the integrity aspect of saying, this is my last time. I'm not lying to you.
And it's not just you. It's a lot of traveling entertainers.

Speaker 1 And I also don't, I don't, I don't mind the perspective that other folks have. They're entitled to that.

Speaker 1 If I could just use a couple seconds of valuable air time and say, like, yo, at least get the closure you need. I'm good with it.
I'll be fine, but I ain't coming back.

Speaker 1 Okay, and you're going first tomorrow? I heard you said that. That is Pizzagate, homie.
What? What? What?

Speaker 1 I was on Jimmy Kimmel. I said I'm ending the show.
I said, I normally go to bed early, but I'm going to have to stay up late for this one. I guess people didn't read between the tea leaves.
Like,

Speaker 1 we're last.

Speaker 1 And by the way, by the way, John Cena's final match is going last? Excuse me? Yeah, I don't know how the rumor started.

Speaker 1 I think some folks with credibility like to kick a hornet's nest every once in a while and get people chattering. And I understand we're in the age of information, so it's going to keep my attention.

Speaker 1 You're not last? Sure, that'll keep my attention for a few hot clicks. I don't even know how that started.
It's difficult to conceptualize that. Again, I don't make the menu.

Speaker 1 And if, gosh, if I show up tomorrow and they want me to go on first, well, that's what I'm going to do. But we are last as this point.
Okay, as you should be.

Speaker 1 Cannot wait for the entire show available on Peacock tomorrow, Saturday night's main event. But what I was leading into there was...

Speaker 1 the the idea that i had about the tour and the actuality yeah and also we're here now like we're at it and you said you'll be doing a reflection thing uh on sunday and all of that but now we are at the point where it's kind of over you're a heel for the first time ever okay yeah i'm sure you thought about that numerous times whether you're traveling or on the road what it would be like if you were a heel obviously celebrating and enjoying cities for the last time it's like now we're the day before the final time

Speaker 1 and your vibes about this last time is now entire tour tour. Good.
You said you think you crushed it because of the pivots and everything like that.

Speaker 1 So when you lay your head down tonight and you think about it all, and I know reflections for Sunday, but when you think about it all, you're going to say, we've done good here.

Speaker 1 This is a good piece of business. And

Speaker 1 you think you respected professional wrestling and your career with what has happened in this last time is now tour? A great question. I think

Speaker 1 there are so many metrics because it's opinionative. Am I entertained or not? So if you look at the collective data, right?

Speaker 1 my goal in life is anyone that bets on me, if you bet a buck on me, I want to give you back 10. Because I know you'll give me another buck and I get another chance.

Speaker 1 Every piece of good work is only a way to get you another opportunity. I'm not perfect with that ratio, but from an analytic company standpoint, I'd like to think we delivered.

Speaker 1 From a talent-to-talent standpoint, I'd like to think I delivered.

Speaker 1 From an audience participation standpoint, we had lots of folks show up and whether the noise was bad or good, I know what apathy sounds like because I heard that real early on in my career a whole lot.

Speaker 1 I didn't hear a lot of apathy.

Speaker 1 So you got consistent chatter, return business, and the company's happy. The fans seem interested.
I think

Speaker 1 the whole story of what this is is yet to be told, but we're here now. So as we go into the last one,

Speaker 1 I think not only with black and white analytics and just emotional instinct, I know I couldn't have given anything else. Man, I've given everything I've had creatively, physically.

Speaker 1 Like I said, I'm waking up in the middle of the night and my wife's like, yo, yo, you okay? I'm like, no,

Speaker 1 I got this idea for a spot. I got to write it down.
Or I got to remember to say this in the promo, or I got to remember to suggest somebody else say this. Like, I've been

Speaker 1 100%

Speaker 1 in.

Speaker 1 So what I do know is after tomorrow, I have nothing left to give, but I'd like to think that all parties included can say, like,

Speaker 1 man, it was a wild ride. Yeah, you've done good, John.
It was a wild ride.

Speaker 1 Thanks. Appreciate it.
Right. Ha ha for one cup of coffee to another.
I have to go cups. Yours is bigger than mine.
Yeah, it looks like you got a glass of coffee and I got

Speaker 1 a cup of coffee, but that's a scene of difference, baby.

Speaker 1 That's a scene of difference. I think you've done a great job.
And that whole reality. But that's okay.

Speaker 1 People to think otherwise is okay.

Speaker 1 No, I understand that. But you're talking about myself.
You're talking about the reality of the business is a huge deal.

Speaker 1 You know, like me having the opportunity to work in WWE for a little bit and getting to see it and then seeing what people have to deal with. Well, actually, it was somebody got sick in a city.

Speaker 1 Just something as small as somebody got sick or a flight got to sleep. I got my first match.
Under J was sick. He couldn't make the shot.
So Kurt Hamlet calls out a dude from ruthless aggression.

Speaker 1 I had to get my hair cut at 3.30, came back in and wrestled a gold medalist.

Speaker 3 You on SmackDown?

Speaker 1 Yeah, me on SmackDown is because everybody was stuck in Saudi. So I got a chance to commentate in Buffalo.
I get a call that says like, hey, everybody's stuck in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 Could you get to Buffalo tonight? Absolutely. I said, I could definitely do that.
Could I at that time?

Speaker 3 No. We'll find out.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I have no idea. But I said, yes, absolutely.
I can get to figure it out.

Speaker 1 And if you do good work, it'll get you another chance. It might not get you where you want to be.

Speaker 1 Like, like you had mentioned, I had an idea about what I thought this year would be. And the people who own the entity that I'm pitching, their response is like, I like the idea.

Speaker 1 We just want to do it this way. Just because it's my idea doesn't mean it's a good idea.
I got to be able to adapt. If I want to do the thing, I kind of got to be collaborative.

Speaker 1 And I think a lot of times in entertainment, especially with star-driven entertainment, we lose the idea that like, it is us doing this. We are only as good as our collaboration.

Speaker 1 Your effing John Cena is a testament to the business. That's why I got

Speaker 1 this morning. Yo, that is a testament to everybody I've ever danced with.
Absolutely. Because I'm a collaborator.
I'm not anything without them. And that includes the people in the stands.

Speaker 1 Because you, let's go to DC tomorrow and don't let anybody in. You see how

Speaker 1 you see how raucous that match.

Speaker 1 So we're all doing it together. That's why I say like tomorrow isn't about me stepping down.
It's about like sports entertainment closing a chapter and also opening another one at the same time.

Speaker 1 It's that last page of the chapter that folds into the next one. You get to see the future, but we're also closing this 25-year thing and taking a look at the next ride.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you'll be remembered then, now. Nobody remembers anybody.

Speaker 1 No, nobody remembers anybody.

Speaker 1 By the way, that's not the way it should be. Tomorrow should happen.
People should be excited and emote. January comes, I need you looking at the Rumble and I need you looking at WrestleMania.

Speaker 1 Because that means you're excited about the business.

Speaker 1 And in actuality, if you're excited about the business and the superstars in it, that makes every accomplishment meaningful, which makes a number like 17 meaningful, which brings me up casually in conversation when somebody's chasing down 17 and when somebody gets 18.

Speaker 1 That's how it all is supposed to work. But if they're still thinking about me in January, which is two weeks away from tomorrow,

Speaker 1 we got to focus on what is. You know what I'm saying? I appreciate it.
I appreciate the respect, but the utmost respect is to look forward and look at the future of where we're going to go.

Speaker 1 I understand that, and I respect that. And I think you signed an ambassador deal with the WWE.

Speaker 1 So obviously the WWE WWE still very much wants John Cena to be a part of the family, will forever, because you're fucking John Cena.

Speaker 1 So as you need to remember forever. In a different role.
Yeah, before the boys ask their questions for you, final one for me is, can you tell me about Stu a little bit? I obviously know Stu.

Speaker 1 Everybody that's been in the WWE knows Stu.

Speaker 1 You're talking about dancing partners. What a perfect tag team partner for you.
So first of all, again, you hear me say this a lot. Nobody does it alone.

Speaker 1 Honestly, all these memorable moments that we have, I have, there's a partner attached and more partners attached. I'm talking about like Dega Catering, who feeds us, all the folks behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 I was told not to break the fourth wall,

Speaker 1 not to talk to the camera. So I said, fuck it, I'll talk to the cameraman.

Speaker 1 And I can look right over the lens and Stu's there.

Speaker 1 We got a whole crew of camera folks and people that make this live event look the way it does. A whole TV truck of folks that shoot the cuts and

Speaker 1 make our stuff a lot better than it is.

Speaker 1 And my conversation with Stu,

Speaker 1 who's an individual I care deeply for, is also a conversation with what I call the truck. Everybody in that room over there, making sure we all look good.

Speaker 1 And every time I say, let's go to work, those men and women have already been hard at work making the show awesome before the first bump is even taken.

Speaker 1 Stu is kind of a conduit to my conversation, not only to the audience out there, because I'm stealing a way to break the fourth wall, but it's also me talking to folks that I care about who never, ever, ever get to be in the center of a ring and have the audience go, fantastic, but without them, we are worthless.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 It is the greatest. They are the greatest people.
And a lot of them, you talk about traveling entertainers. A lot of them have been on the road for 30 years.

Speaker 1 And do it because it is what they love to do because they're not getting applause, man. They're not getting any of that.

Speaker 1 They just show show up and and hustle like you're talking about pre-show routines to keep keep the body loose now because that's how long they've been around you're talking about prepping before the thing that all the camera people the people in the truck the lighting the everything i mean just the the time the greatest people the time under tension i've spent with these people over 25 years like

Speaker 1 man i i know them they're we're all it's a family business like you you spend so much time around these people you just get to know them what if stu tomorrow just punches you in the face oh from the camera Says, you know what, actually, I'm sick of this today.

Speaker 1 Still my go.

Speaker 1 If he throws a Ohio right

Speaker 1 and he connects, I'm going to tell him I've been with him 25 years. He hasn't learned to work in punch.

Speaker 1 You are a good puncher. I taught you nothing.
Hey, nobody talks about the old scene of punch. Sandra's got one.
I taught you nothing. All right, let's the bullies have some.
Go ahead, Con Man.

Speaker 1 Boston Connor.

Speaker 3 Yeah, John. Speaking of too, I love the last fit.
I'm hoping that maybe it's because you're rushing the passer for the Patriots on Sunday after your match.

Speaker 1 You can look through whatever lens you want to, my friend. I'm glad you like the style.
Yeah, perfect.

Speaker 3 All right. Well, then I'm going to just hold on to that hope until one o'clock on Sunday.

Speaker 3 But speaking of, you know, Stu and Michael Cole and kind of the tribute videos, like, what do you feel when you see stuff like that? Because a lot of it is awesome.

Speaker 3 All the old clips of you wrestling is incredible, and Michael Cole, Michael Cole is on the call for damn near all of them.

Speaker 3 And, you know, what does he mean to you just as a person, let alone an announcer?

Speaker 3 And when you do see all of these people who you've danced with in your terms and also people that you haven't even, thumb reaching out.

Speaker 3 Like, what does that kind of evoke out of you just because, you know, all the accolades, the 17 and everything, it is incredible. But just what about the relationships and what that means to you?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 the relationship with each individual here is,

Speaker 1 they're all different. I think what I take away most from all this is, again,

Speaker 1 we did this together and I understand exactly how lucky I am. I am like one of, if not the luckiest human being on the face of the earth.
Very rarely does life hand us a lottery ticket.

Speaker 1 I've been getting lottery ticket after lottery ticket after lottery ticket. Amen, brother.
Save us. Now

Speaker 1 every ticket is simply a chance to work harder. When I see something like this,

Speaker 1 I think when I begin to reflect on two and a half decades, the thing that I want to, I guess, be validated and the thing that I always struggle with is, did I do enough?

Speaker 1 Did I reach enough people? Did I use my opportunity correctly? Did I make the most of this lottery ticket or stack of lottery tickets that you've handed me? Because

Speaker 1 I'm a fan. I'm an observer of life.
I've seen people waste them and I've seen people use them. And there's no better feeling.
You want to root for the folks who use their lottery tickets.

Speaker 1 When I see something like this,

Speaker 1 it says that we shared a lot of moments and that there's mutual respect from especially people who are kind of apprehensive and even

Speaker 1 in the face of

Speaker 1 the show who respect the business will give me a second of their time. It means the world to see all this because it means

Speaker 1 hopefully I did okay with my lottery tickets. Yeah, I think you did, buddy.

Speaker 1 And you gave lottery tickets to a lot of people.

Speaker 1 That's because you're fucking John.

Speaker 1 That's a steal. Okay, so you need to know.
That's the business does, man. Two and a half decades into this, and we are living the luckiest life of all time.

Speaker 1 But it does feel as if everybody in this business, old school and new school, all appreciate you.

Speaker 1 You've gone through a lot of different generations here, iterations of professional wrestling, from when it was still kind of viewed as carney side, not really thing, to mainstream, to out of kind of public favor, to struggling with tickets, to now being the biggest it's ever been financially and tickets-wise, and globally, and everything like that.

Speaker 1 Your thoughts on the current state of the business. I know you said, if you want to pay the ultimate respect to me, you continue to watch and look forward to what the next generation is.

Speaker 1 You're trying to put over a lot of NXT talent. And whenever Sol Ruka's flip stunner is, or flip cutter off the corner is insane.
I think she did off the top rope, too.

Speaker 1 People are going to lose their mind. Javon Evans is outrageous.
He's real, dog. He is outrageous.
Oba is insane. I mean,

Speaker 1 presence. Yes, he certainly is.
So I appreciate the fact that you are utilizing your last platform, your last big one, to put over the future of the business.

Speaker 1 But the business has changed mightily since you got into it.

Speaker 1 sure there is a different world different time from the unreal situation going on with netflix which i think you and i kind of viewed it the same i don't want to say i'm old school niche business but i didn't necessarily love the thought of what unreal was just coming from the guy who filmed me backstage just you know just kept filming all the time i'm like yo man that was foxy that was foxy is there any like hey you where's this going yeah yeah it's so man yeah so i don't know i don't know yeah i appreciate that i don't know did you ever see that film anywhere okay anyways.

Speaker 1 We protect this business.

Speaker 1 But with the Unreal, with the streaming platforms, with how global it is, like, how do you feel about the state of the business?

Speaker 1 And what do you think about the future of it whenever it comes to creative, stars of the future? What's going to happen? Like, how long can the WWE continue to do this?

Speaker 1 How long can wrestling continue to do this in your eyes with the current state of our everything? So I honestly believe that.

Speaker 1 Live entertainment has a strong future.

Speaker 1 We don't know what the advent of new technologies will bring, but man, I think humans want to see humans do stuff. And I think WWE and sports entertainment's in a real good spot.

Speaker 1 I think people like getting together in groups. And the more we do this all day, the more maybe we want to get together in an arena or stadium and just emote and lighten our backpacks a little bit.

Speaker 1 I think WWE is in a great spot to do that.

Speaker 1 The talent roster is deep. I mean, we used to look to the bullpen.
It used to be a... only a couple guys on the bench.
Now we got people elbowing for spots. Like we are deep.

Speaker 1 And it has never been a better time. If you're one of the active participants, it's never been a better time to be a WWE superstar.
You get paid the most it's ever seen to train.

Speaker 1 You get paid the most numbers that I couldn't even think about the guys are making now to draw money. I mean, it is,

Speaker 1 you can make a vocation out of it in a short period of time.

Speaker 1 It's approaching that athlete's window where if you do your five-year deal, if you do the small three-year deal and then an extra one, gosh, you are,

Speaker 1 you will never know want. And it used to be more incentivized.

Speaker 1 I think they're taking better better care of the talent but i who's to say if that is good or bad i prefer to be incentivized i i you know i prefer to like go out there and create interest but i i don't know because i've never been on the other model we're working less events i prefer to get that in-season groove but i don't know the alternative and i love the create more demand which creates more excitement like everything has a good explanation behind it i'm not the biggest fan of unreal and i've told the producers of unreal that but i also say hey just because I don't like it doesn't mean it isn't right the business the consumer wants more and they want to show behind the scenes so they're just they're just going off of what they know and we're trying to give the consumer what they want I saw every episode so who's really wrong and I'm excited for season two so who's really wrong but just because it makes me feel uncomfortable if it's a success maybe I got to look in the mirror and ask myself okay what about me doesn't feel comfortable with this there's what I love about

Speaker 1 to answer never been a better time than right now. There have been the golden era, the boom of the attitude era.

Speaker 1 This is like sustained, incredible growth through all platforms and expansion and more content and allowing people to get out there and do what they do. There's never been a better time.

Speaker 1 The way we recruit is different with the NIL program, so we can get people who maybe didn't, you know, you didn't love wrestling all your life, but you can be drawn into it and fall in love with it as a second mountain.

Speaker 1 Yo, it is incredible. and what i love about it most is i was always taught in the business especially when i started gaining traction swing big

Speaker 1 do not be afraid to swing big and just because i personally don't get a lot of the swings when i hear a comment like i'm old school what i hear is i don't want to adapt That's all I hear.

Speaker 1 I like the way it was and I don't want to adapt. And if you want to look deeper into that, you can be like, okay, well, really what I'm saying is like,

Speaker 1 I like discipline or I like coaching this way. And I'm not accustomed to this way of

Speaker 1 how we're doing it. I get all that.
We can dig deeper on everything. But when I hear somebody say, I'm old school, it's they just don't want to adapt.
They like what was. So it's time to move on.

Speaker 1 As far as being in the business,

Speaker 1 never been a better time. But here's the kicker.
The biggest challenge now. is on the business, is on the men and women out there performing because boy, have they had some large shoes to fill.

Speaker 1 You know, we got to keep growing and we got to keep prospering. And I don't know if a lot of folks have seen hard times.
A lot of folks have seen a house 12% filled.

Speaker 1 You know what I'm saying? So having gone through that, you feel great about where you're leaving the place.

Speaker 1 But the kids now, they don't know shows aren't sold out and they don't know,

Speaker 1 you know, selective noise and like, again, 10% draw of an arena. But

Speaker 1 a, it's their lottery ticket. Their lottery ticket is like best time ever, work hard to keep it up.
So I'm interested to see where it goes.

Speaker 1 I mean, the consumer chatter is an all-time high, engagement's in an all-time high. We're in a real good spot.
I'm excited for the future.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you've done a great job with your time, and the baton is obviously well carried whenever you are carrying it. Excited to see the next generation of superstars take it to the next level.

Speaker 1 That's always the goal for the Schbisonish. Ty has a question for your next business.

Speaker 4 Yeah, in terms of your acting career, I read an article. I think it was earlier this this week, and it was maybe one you did with Variety or Vanity Fair or something like that.

Speaker 4 And it was when you were, I don't remember if it was 12 rounds or the Marine or whatever it was, but you were filming over in Australia, didn't really love the experience, you know, because it was a lot of, hey, we need you here by this time, and then you get there, and then you just wait.

Speaker 4 And I think you talked to either your business partner or someone, and the decision was basically made like, hey, we're done with this for now, right? You know, at some point in that.

Speaker 1 I want you to finish the thought because I want to jump in a bunch here, but I'm going to take a look at it. Okay, well,

Speaker 4 and this might go back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier with who knows if whether that's accurate or not but so then you you have that hiatus where you're not acting and it's it's all WWE for a while at what point did you if if that is true at what point in your career when you are established one of the biggest superstars in the history of professional wrestling at what point did it go off where it's like you know what maybe I do want to tip dip my toes back into acting and I want to kind of go in full board with this knowing that you had it made in the shade in WWE like you didn't have to do that but it was something that maybe you found like a new passion for.

Speaker 4 You're like, you know what? I actually could be really good at this.

Speaker 1 So the statement is great. The question is great.
A lot of what I'm hearing, the way you describe your question, is it was my choice. It was not at all.

Speaker 1 I did the Marine as a young 20-something superstar who went from going from city to city with audiences and arenas

Speaker 1 chanting your name and going bonkers. Like I, while I was in Australia filming the Marine, all I thought about was wrestling.
So my passion wasn't in it. I was uninvested.

Speaker 1 And in doing so, I was also unprofessional, which made me unreliable. Then I kept doing movies.
And the reason I did the Marine and did 12 rounds and did all these movies was a business model.

Speaker 1 WWE Films was supposed to make us movie stars so more people go through the turnstiles, which means more noise and more excitement. And we needed that at that point.

Speaker 1 I didn't do movies because I wanted to do the craft. I did movies to sell more tickets.
So something's going to suffer.

Speaker 1 Yes, we might sell more tickets, but the movies are going to suffer because I wish I was in Nassau Coliseum or Rosemart Horizon, not on a movie set, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for them to blow something up.

Speaker 1 My mind was elsewhere. I wasn't present.

Speaker 1 So when you say, oh, you know, you and your business partner said, we're not doing this anymore, no. My best friend and

Speaker 1 manager, I can't even call him manager because I don't like the term.

Speaker 1 My best friend, Dan Boeing, who's been side by side side with me for over two decades, I looked at him and said, after doing a bunch of shitty movies and said, yo, we're never going to do movies again, aren't we?

Speaker 1 And this is the guy whose job is to hunt for film. He turned to me and said, no, we're not.
But don't worry about it. We're going to find another way.
And we did. I started hosting live shows.

Speaker 1 I started hosting game shows. I started doing cameos on TV shows, little quick hits.
I read the news, stuff to keep me engaged, to keep my skills sharp.

Speaker 1 Just why I want to be an ambassador for the WWE. I don't want to lose the pulse.
I want to keep that sharp because there's passion there.

Speaker 1 And then I got a lottery ticket. Somebody wanted me to come and audition.
And I was a little older, a little wiser. And finally, I said, hey, man, if you say yes to this,

Speaker 1 we talked about this off camera. I want to be an actor.
All right, put the same passion and elbow grease beside it as when you said I want to be a wrestler.

Speaker 1 What did I do when I said I want to be be a wrestler? Back in Kentuckiana, I bought as many tapes as I could. I invested in my appearance.
I kept myself lean, strong,

Speaker 1 always looking to improve, go extra practice. Put that amount of effort into this and just see where it goes and do that over repeated amounts and the law of compounding interest should yield.

Speaker 1 But I didn't say like, time to get back in the movie biz.

Speaker 1 No, somebody bet on me and I approached it with the passion to give them 10 bucks back.

Speaker 1 and that happened So somebody else bet on me and I tried to give him 10 bucks back and like I said I ain't perfect but nowadays if you You were like yo man, we could do this over zoom fuck no we do a face-to-face No the fact that you flew all the way out here the day before your last

Speaker 1 we are very thankful.

Speaker 1 We are obviously very thankful for him But when I was being told you were gonna fly out here I was telling WWE people I was like no just tell them he doesn't have and you're like no we're definitely doing it Yeah, because I want to I want to be good for you guys.

Speaker 1 I want to be good for the show. I want to be good for our show.
You're an advocate for the business. Hell, you're a coworker.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 So again, y'all gave me an opportunity, and I'm just trying to give you back 10. You know what I'm saying? You did.

Speaker 1 But I learned from my mistakes early on of like, your heart wasn't in it. And if you try to put as much effort as you put into this thing that you truly love, then love it.
Love what you now do.

Speaker 1 Don't a lot of New Year's resolutions give me, I want to get in shape. Fucking do it.
One foot in in front of the other and start grinding. Like, I want to eat more healthy, do it.

Speaker 1 I want to drink less, do it. Like,

Speaker 1 you got to approach it with passion and commitment. And I didn't have that.
And I can say that because I got a lottery ticket. And honestly, without that ticket, I would still say that.

Speaker 1 Like, that's where I missed. But from my failure, it was a huge takeaway of like, man, you got a chance to do something.
Let's see where it goes. And I'm not going to be perfect.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make bad movies.

Speaker 1 I doubt it. No, man.
I don't think you are. Just like I'm going to have bad matches.
This whole year is, hey, this is great. This sucked.
This is awesome. Why is he booked in this?

Speaker 1 It happens. It happens, man.
But if you give all you can, I at least have, like, the sleep is sound. I've done all I can.
The sleep wasn't sound because I knew my heart was elsewhere.

Speaker 1 That's a great question. But do you understand how, like,

Speaker 1 you're like, oh, man. And then you just said, no, I'm not doing this anymore.
And then you just said, like, I'm doing it again. No, it was not like that.

Speaker 1 Well, we want to let you know that whatever lottery ticket brought you into whatever business, we're thankful for it because we've enjoyed the hell out of watching you.

Speaker 1 Thank you for your commitment to our entertainment. What a cup of coffee.
Great glass of coffee that you had there, but also incredible run in one particular business that we all love.

Speaker 1 Can't wait to see whatever you do next. Can't wait to watch tomorrow night on Peacock, Saturday night.

Speaker 1 Please watch.

Speaker 1 Please watch tomorrow night.

Speaker 1 For the love of everything holy, tomorrow night, Cena will dance for one final time with Gunther. Let's almost go to work.
Hey, I want to let you know, you can wrestle.

Speaker 1 You can wrestle. For one more night, after that, I cannot.
You are all right. I cannot after that.
Ladies and gentlemen, the GOAT John Cena.

Speaker 1 Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5 This is Joe Button, checking in this holiday season. Everybody is out here stressing, shopping, the rapping, cooking.

Speaker 5 But me, I'm trying to kick back, watch some sports, and go green on my PrizePicks lineups.

Speaker 5 Right now, PrizePicks is getting into the festive spirit where new users get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5.

Speaker 5 It's real simple to play. Pick two or more players, pick more or less on their stat projections, and you could win big.
Real simple, real quick.

Speaker 5 I'm talking two minutes tops, faster than heating up leftovers. Mix and match players from any sport so you don't miss any of the hard-hitting daily fantasy action with PrizePicks.

Speaker 5 Available in 45 states, including California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.

Speaker 6 Download the PrizePicks app today and use code TPMS and get $50 instantly in site credits when you play $5.

Speaker 6 That's code TPMS, all prize picks to get $50 instantly in site credits when you play $5. Winner Luz will get $50 in site credits for just playing.
Guaranteed.

Speaker 1 Prize picks. It's good to be right.

Speaker 6 Must be present in certain states, visit PrizePicks.com for restrictions and details.

Speaker 7 This is Ark Raiders, a multiplayer extraction adventure where most of humanity shelters underground. But raiders rise to the surface in search of something greater.

Speaker 7 In the Rust Belt, every run is pressure. Every decision is a play call.
Face the relentless machines of ARC and rival Raiders chasing the same prize.

Speaker 1 Push forward or extract while you're ahead. Team up.

Speaker 7 Trust no one. Ark Raiders is on sale now, available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC.
Rate a T for team.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to our Humble Boat, the Thunderdome. On this magical John Cena, Feel Good Friday, December 12, 2025.
Our tour of the program begins now.

Speaker 1 Football had a massive night last night as NFL week 15 kicked off in the NFC South as the Falcons got a unpredictable win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are in an interesting spot with an opportunity to still win the NFC South, but certainly down on their luck as Kirk Cousins and Kyle Pitts and B.

Speaker 1 John Robinson and Raheem Morris in a defense that was able to get stops whenever they need it, get a huge win on Thursday night football as week 15 of the NFL Slate is going to prove to be electrifying.

Speaker 1 We just got done with a conversation literally about 35, 45 seconds ago with the greatest of all time, John Cena, who flew all the way out here to have a conversation with us the day before his final match tomorrow night against Gunther, Saturday night's main event live only on Peacock.

Speaker 1 For one final time, we get a chance to watch the John Cena show. The dude's a beast.
The dude's a stud. He's everything you think he is.
You know, it's almost like a Tim Tebow type thing. Yes, it is.

Speaker 1 It's like you see him on TV, you wonder what it's like. Is this gimmick? Is this character? I know that's his name.
I know it's his WWE name.

Speaker 1 And then every conversation we've had with him today, or ever, basically, has all gone in a similar fashion. It's always John Cena.
And he's special. The run has been special.

Speaker 1 What he has done for that Buzznish is special. And tomorrow night, it wraps up.

Speaker 1 I can't thank him enough for doing that. The talks tables here at Boston Conner at Ty Schmidt.
One half of the hammer, Don. Cowboys A.P.

Speaker 1 Tone is here and joining us live from Anatican, Ohio, is a college football football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Rodder Cup winner, ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hawk. Yeah, Hawker.

Speaker 1 Hawker, what's up, dude?

Speaker 8 Cena was great, man. He gives you 10 back every time you give him one or he gives you one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he I've heard him do it around on a couple different other podcasts.

Speaker 8 I understood what he meant, but yeah,

Speaker 8 he's an inspirational dude, man, for sure.

Speaker 1 Certainly inspirational, but also like his work ethic and the way he views life and how appreciative he is of everything is certainly warranted of massive praise. And

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe we should have had the Miz on to join us for this entire thing, but tomorrow night's going to be special and we can't thank him enough. And how about this? How about this? I got...

Speaker 1 This bad boy is going to be in the studio for a while. Oh, my God.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, and Debone came as pants earlier.
It was pretty cool to watch. I heard.
I heard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a pretty cool little moment. Had to get a little wiped on, you know, in the pants area because of what he did whenever he saw John Cena walk in.

Speaker 1 And we're obviously incredibly thankful for all of it. And tomorrow night, we will all watch Army, Navy tomorrow.
Last night, though, AJ, AJ, week 15 kicked off.

Speaker 1 We both were on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because there was so much in front of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Mike Evans was coming back.
He's going to have a good night, right? They have to win.

Speaker 1 Well, he did have a good night. They had a good night, and they lose.

Speaker 1 Tristan Wurf's all-pro tackle for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the game was basically speechless about how insane it was that they lost the game, that they had a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 And so, AJ, your takeaway from last night, what are your thoughts on where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are right now, where the Atlanta Falcons are right now, and the the Carolina Panthers?

Speaker 1 Carolina Panthers might be hosting a playoff game this year.

Speaker 8 Yeah, it's pretty quick to turn around that happened to Carolina, but I take it more from, I give the Falcons credit for winning this game, going out and finding a way to win.

Speaker 8 Now, the Bucs, I don't know what exactly is happening with them. It's a weird situation, what we've seen, especially the second half of the year for them.

Speaker 8 But we should have known, like, of course, Kirk's got that magic left in him. Of course, Kirk's going to lead him back when they need a drive.
Fourth down, big third down conversions all the time.

Speaker 8 Like, yeah, Kirk still can show some of that Kirk magic. And obviously, it doesn't hurt that Kyle Pitts has a game of his life.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Kyle Pitts has the game that we all would hope that Kyle Pitts would have whenever he's playing his best ball. We hope we will continue to see that because he is a special.

Speaker 1 I mean, they even had a Sills has a catch there. He had a drop touchdown earlier in the game.
They had 19 penalties for 125 yards. Obviously, there was not a clean game.
The field was slick as hell.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're talking about potential ugliness, potential ugliness. And the Atlanta Falcons just kept fighting, kept fighting, kept fighting, get back, hit a game-winning field goal.

Speaker 1 A lot of people are not happy that Al Michaels just kind of said, and it goes in. And people in Charlotte are happy.
It was a 14-point comeback.

Speaker 1 Obviously, a huge swing of momentum goes to the Atlanta Falcons at the end of that game. An improbable dub.
Look how happy their team is. And the NFC South playoff race is now in complete turmoil.

Speaker 1 People weren't thrilled with Al Michaels' lack of emotion there late in how big of a game that was in meaningful football season.

Speaker 3 Yeah, maybe Al Michaels was just shocked too. And also just because the Atlanta Falcons are kind of playing for nothing.

Speaker 3 So I can sort of see Al Michaels' point, but at the same time, Al, just a little juice maybe.

Speaker 3 If you can go to the third and 28, Foxy, a lot of Falcons fans on the internet, and I tend to agree with them, are saying the Falcons have kind of made up for the 28-3 blown victory in the Super Bowl because of this.

Speaker 3 Because not only did this happen, Kirk Cousins also fumbled the ball on first down, and Ty goes to the runner, I suppose. And they end up recovering the ball at the same time as

Speaker 3 the Bucs do. And it it was a very quick Vita Vetta, of course, smart guy.
Hey, I know it's our balls game's over, but Kirk right here, fumble, and then, you know, he falls on it.

Speaker 3 Does anybody fall on it? But they immediately call it Atlanta. Like, maybe this is the turning of a page of the Atlanta kind of curse.

Speaker 3 We talk about it with the, with the Panthers, you know, the Panthers are almost cursed.

Speaker 1 28-3 is right there.

Speaker 3 Right there.

Speaker 1 It is right there.

Speaker 3 And it is one of those cool things. Like, they come back down 14.
They have a third and 28 on their final drive.

Speaker 3 I mean, even a fourth and 14 were kind of, that was kind of a casual, yeah, they converted a fourth and 14.

Speaker 3 Like, Kirk Cousins. No timeouts.
No, no timeouts to Mr. Sills, who respectfully isn't as if he was Kyle Pitts.
It was Mountaineer. The fourth overall pick.

Speaker 3 Mountaineer, a high school quarterback legend, basically changed the rules of high school football.

Speaker 3 But again, like a lot of the things that happened for the Falcons team on this drive were miraculous.

Speaker 3 Like it is almost, hey, if next year the Falcons go 12 and 5 and win the division, it feels like we're looking back at this game as when everything changed for them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you never know what's going to break a curse.

Speaker 1 And if it is a third and 28 and it says 28, three on the bottom and a 28's on the other team, on the other team's side, and three is on your side, like it is there at the bottom, three, 28.

Speaker 1 And then obviously on the screen there, it's different. But yeah, maybe last night was the breaking of the curse.
Shout out to Kirk for doing that for Atlanta. They paid him a lot of money, you know?

Speaker 1 So him breaking that curse is obviously at least the least he could do on his way out. Tone, the public lost again.
Yes, they did. That's what we've continued to do this season, Feelsley.

Speaker 1 We've had one winning weekend where 60% of the bets or more has won. Is that accurate?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was a couple, two or three weeks ago that happened.

Speaker 2 Every other weekend, the public lost.

Speaker 1 Okay, so we start out 0-1 as 65. We're in a hole.
Yeah, okay. And we're going to come back.

Speaker 2 But I was just looking it up. The Bucs are still the favorites to win the NFC South.
They're minus 130 to the, I believe it's plus 110 for the Carolina Panthers.

Speaker 2 Now, I don't know if that's only because the Panthers are only two-point favorites going into New Orleans, a good football team. Plus, they have to play the Panthers two times.

Speaker 2 So, yes, last night sucked. You would rather get that win so that your odds are even better to win the division, but they are not dead yet, obviously, with two games still left against them.

Speaker 1 The NFC South is going to be the division that everybody points to for changing the playoff rules, Ty.

Speaker 4 Yeah, without a doubt.

Speaker 4 And I think someone mentioned it before the show, you know, like, and it could ultimately, it could be them screwing over the Lions, who are the team that proposed in the offseason, hey, we need to do away with this.

Speaker 4 If a team is, you know, eight and nine or nine and eight, and we have another team in the NFC who goes 11-6, like that team needs to get in.

Speaker 4 There's a very good chance that one of these teams who is 11-6 is potentially going to get screwed over and miss the playoffs because of the NFC South.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and people are going to be mad they're getting a home playoff game. Yep.

Speaker 1 You know, when other teams have to go, we go from potential one seed to five seed, and now all of a sudden this team has this. It's like, yeah, that's how the rules are.
win your division.

Speaker 1 Maybe you'll be a little bit better. Exactly.
And they're like, well, if we're in the AMC South, any of us could have won this division.

Speaker 1 Well, you're not. So let's live in reality.
Okay. Let's not live in fairy tale land.
Speaking of reality, next weekend, the college football playoff will kick off. Friday night, Oklahoma, Alabama.

Speaker 1 Saturday at noon, Miami will travel to college station.

Speaker 1 Kyle Field will be hosting a college football playoff game as Texas AM, short into Elko's tenure, is now one of the teams still vying for a national championship.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now is the man who's the leader of that Aggie football team, a man who's had incredible quotes this year. I mean, just a professional press conference.
So good.

Speaker 1 Amongst many other things.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, friend of the program, a man who will see us on the sideline as we do a field pass for his home playoff game live on ESPN2, the head coach of Texas A ⁇ M's football team, Mike Elko.

Speaker 1 Yay! Oh!

Speaker 1 How are you, Mike?

Speaker 9 All right, before we get going, Pat, how much does it cost to get you on my team as the hype guy?

Speaker 1 Okay, I would love to be the hype guy for the Texas AM Aggies. I think you guys do have money down there, so I think we could see that.

Speaker 9 We do.

Speaker 9 I think we can put a good package together for you for sure.

Speaker 1 I'm open to anything. Send the pitch deck.
Would love to get down there. Love to cowboy boots down there.
Last time I went down there, I was gifted cowboy boots when I was gifted some hats.

Speaker 1 I mean, I love your town down there, College Station. Let's talk about it, hosting a playoff game.
Obviously, this is the dream whenever you take the job.

Speaker 1 But now that you're here, how does it feel down there? How does the community feel?

Speaker 1 And what do you think people are going to see if they're potentially watching Texas A ⁇ M in prime, not in prime time because it's a noon game, but you get it in a prime position where it hasn't been for a long time.

Speaker 9 Yeah, the energy obviously is real. I think this is what this program and this town has been waiting for, the chance to get to host.
playoff football first time in the playoffs. And you've been here.

Speaker 9 You've seen the electricity in Kyle Field when this place is rocking.

Speaker 9 And Saturday morning, when this thing kicks off, there's going to be 108,000 strong with the 12th man, and it's going to be a wild scene for sure.

Speaker 1 Okay, so tell me about your team in its, I don't want to say readiness for the game, but I guess readiness would be a good call. The Texas loss, obviously not great.

Speaker 1 And you're trying to run a professional press conference here line is one of the greatest of all time. I appreciate that you are certainly irritated because you're supposed to be in that moment.

Speaker 1 And I like that you talk some shit in it all. But how does the team feel? And what is your vibe of what the locker room is like as we head in to the most important game of the season?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I think guys are fired up. I think obviously it is hard to run the table and never have a misstep.
I think that's the world we live in today in college football.

Speaker 9 And, you know, unfortunately for us, it happened in the last game with a chance to go to Atlanta on the line and against our rival. And that's not what you want.
But,

Speaker 9 you know, at some point, that was going to happen. And so in our minds, we feel like we got it out of the way.
We feel like we've re-centered, we focused.

Speaker 9 Obviously, the goal has been to go and compete for a national championship. That kind of became a reality as the year moved on.
And now it's the time to go get it.

Speaker 9 And so, you know, we're excited to have Miami in here.

Speaker 1 Go ahead, AJ.

Speaker 8 Coach, you guys, you feel like you're battle-tested when I think of your team and like the season you guys had, you win plenty of games on the road and at home, like close games.

Speaker 8 You could win any different way.

Speaker 8 I guess, is that something you actually think about when you review the season and how it all went to where how you could be prepared, headed into these, you know, the biggest games of the season facing some of the best teams, obviously?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I know you guys are Midwest guys, but I think anytime you make it through the SEC season, you are battle-tested.

Speaker 9 The different venues you play in, the different teams that you've got to play, you don't survive the SEC gauntlet and qualify for the playoffs without feeling as though your team is ready to go compete.

Speaker 9 Now, obviously, the teams that you're playing in the playoffs are really talented as well, and that's not lost on me, but certainly feel like we're ready and we're ready to go.

Speaker 1 You're the only undefeated team in the SEC remaining. Go ahead, Con Man.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Coach, of course, you're in the college college football playoffs, so nothing else matters, but do you almost feel disrespected that you're the number seven seed?

Speaker 3 I mean, you guys were in the top three for the better part of most of the year.

Speaker 3 Is there any thought of like, hey, these people, these committees, you know, the country, they don't even respect you as a football team?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, honestly, we don't have time for that. We've got a really tough Miami team coming in.
We're in. That's all you want.

Speaker 9 You know, I think there'll be conversation in the offseason, and we've talked a lot about this, about processes and what this whole thing needs to look like moving forward.

Speaker 9 But right now, the only focus is the fact that we're in. We've got a chance to go compete for a title.
And we got Miami coming in here next weekend.

Speaker 1 You make the move from Duke to Texas A ⁇ M. And we all knew the story going into the change at coaching for the Aggies.
They spent a lot of money to move on from the coach.

Speaker 1 So we just assume in the modern era that we're in, okay, Texas A ⁇ M is obviously going to be able to keep up with everybody. You have proven that.

Speaker 1 You have a couple wide receivers that obviously come in and do huge things for you.

Speaker 1 Can you tell me a little bit about this offense and how special it's become with marcel and marcel mode at quarterback not even really talked about for heisman by the way not even really talked about for heisman at all

Speaker 9 No, I think, listen, we knew we had to get more dynamic.

Speaker 9 You know, we got into the back stretch last year and we felt like one of the things we had to do on offense was become a more explosive, more dynamic offense.

Speaker 9 That happens in the SEC with talent. I mean, that's the only way it happens.

Speaker 9 And so obviously the growth of Marcel has been a huge part of it, him becoming a much better pocket passer, him being able to push the ball downfield even more consistently as the year went on, but then going out and getting weapons.

Speaker 9 And so Casey Concepcion has been phenomenal, just won the Paul Horning Award and has been extremely explosive for us all year.

Speaker 9 Mario Craver's a kid who could take it the distance whenever you put the ball in his hands.

Speaker 9 And then Ashton Bethel Roman and Terry Bussey have kind of provided tremendous support and have made their explosive plays throughout the year as well.

Speaker 9 And so it's a huge part of what you have to do to be successful, you know, at this stage, right? When you get to this part of the year,

Speaker 9 you got to have explosive playmakers on offense to have a chance to win.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about the other side, which you are notorious for having a great defense. Your defense is kind of ass the early 80s, right? Was that what it was?

Speaker 1 Is that how we would reflect upon your defense now at this stage of the season?

Speaker 9 Yeah, until I threw a chair. And I think when I threw a chair,

Speaker 1 so is that what happened? Honestly, what do you think happened with the defense?

Speaker 1 Because you guys, because every week on game day, I don't know if you heard or pay attention to it, but I was like, hey, Texas A ⁇ M is real.

Speaker 1 Like, I was told that Mike Elko is an unbelievable football coach. They have the money.
They did the right things. They have huge wins.
Why is nobody else talking about Texas A ⁇ M?

Speaker 1 It was basically all year I was like this from jump.

Speaker 9 You are our hype guy. I know.
That's why I'm trying to get you on the train.

Speaker 1 Put a pitch deck together. Okay.
I would definitely watch it. I got a lot of jobs, but I would certainly add another one if I could.
And I love your team. I love your town.

Speaker 1 I love your, I love everything about what you have going on. But everybody pointed at, well, the defense is ass.
The defense is ass.

Speaker 1 That's all the stats that were kind of getting thrown into my, into my face. And then towards middle of the year almost, maybe 40% through the season, you guys turned.

Speaker 1 You said you threw a chair and change, but what was the actual change, you think, on the defensive side?

Speaker 1 Because I think people were holding that against you in rankings and in conversation for a large portion.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I think we didn't play the first two games the way we would have wanted to. And I think that just has impacted our overall stats.
I think,

Speaker 9 you know, whatever it was about the first two games, I didn't think we were on. Then we went up to Notre Dame and played a really explosive and got into a shootout.

Speaker 9 And coming out of those first three games, I just think statistically we weren't where we believed we could be. And I think, you know, we had some really strong conversations in our building.

Speaker 9 The kids took it personal. And I think over the last nine games, we have been much more consistent with what we've done on defense.
And we've got a really good pass rush.

Speaker 9 We lead the country in third down defense.

Speaker 9 I think we put ourselves in position, again, going into the playoffs to feel confident that we can make a run at this thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think you lead the country in sacks as well. Homefield advantage will certainly help that.
Ty has a question for you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, coach, I've never been to Kyle Field, but we will be there.

Speaker 1 Well, we're coming, we're coming.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'll be there next week.

Speaker 4 But listen, I don't know about what things were like when, you know, Bear Bryant was coaching there with the Junction Boys.

Speaker 1 And Pat. I neither.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 But Pat mentioned it.

Speaker 4 Homefield advantage in college football is a very, very real thing. And everyone talks about A ⁇ M and Kyle Field being one of the truest home field advantages in the sport.

Speaker 4 Do you anticipate it to maybe be the craziest environment it's ever been inside there with this being a playoff game?

Speaker 4 Like, have you thought at all about what you expect it to feel and look like inside there next week?

Speaker 9 Yeah, it's going to be wild. I would certainly anticipate it'll be as loud and crazy as it's been.
I've been part of some moments in this stadium that will be hard to duplicate.

Speaker 9 But playoff football in Kyle Field, this place will be rocking. This place will be hinders.
And for sure, it impacts the game.

Speaker 1 And when you talk about uh crowd noise and how loud it will be in here uh it certainly is going to have an impact on the game for sure are you going to be uh how do you feel running on because it's going to be my first time being on the field watching you run the boys onto the field as they hey

Speaker 1 are you are you we ready for the sprint out with the boys how do you feel at this stage uh primetime football playoff football yeah you know you got to you got to bring a little bit of swag to it when you go out there but um no, it's, it's a cool, it's a cool feeling.

Speaker 9 It really is. It's, it's when you get down to the bottom of that tunnel and the beat drops on power and the play starts bouncing.
And as you're walking down, you can almost feel the stadium shaking.

Speaker 9 It's just, it is. It's a really special environment.
It's a special place. Our fan base is extremely passionate and it certainly will be that Saturday for sure.
What I want to see is you rocking.

Speaker 9 I want to see if you have the ability to keep up with the beat when the beat drops.

Speaker 1 Hey, don't you worry about that, okay? Okay, you know, I got that.

Speaker 1 Just know, as you could probably assume, we are gonna have the biggest most outrageous cowboy hats on on that side for sure yeah as you should as you should cowboy boots rocking i mean pleated pants we're gonna do the entire thing out there we're gonna try to buy in to the aggie culture i think the boys are gonna try to go to the midnight yell too the night before to try to kind of experience it all i have to do game day early so i'm not gonna be able to make it you know that's something no i i think it'll be good that you guys do that i think it'll give you a different perspective really on what it is i i you know i think when you get in here and you feel this place and you feel the passion behind it, I think it kind of explains a little bit more what this place is really about.

Speaker 9 And I think if you go out and you experience what Midnight Yell actually is and what it actually feels like, I think you're going to get a greater appreciation of what Texas A ⁇ M football and what this culture really is about.

Speaker 1 It's a special place down there, man.

Speaker 1 We didn't do game day down there once this year.

Speaker 9 No, Saturday.

Speaker 1 I want to let you know.

Speaker 9 We had to get to the playoffs to get you down here to pitch it.

Speaker 1 I was pitching a lot behind the scenes. My words mean nothing with these people.
I don't know if you've kept up publicly with my disputes with these people, but

Speaker 1 I love, because your people show up for us every time, and your people are very appreciative of game day being there. Yeah, we were down there twice last year, both times.

Speaker 1 Very, very thankful that we were there, very appreciative, and a love ball, which I can't wait for the entire world to see. Now, with success, obviously, comes some adversity.
Go ahead, Tom.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Coach, obviously, Colin Klein is going to go back to K-State to be the head coach, and then your D.C. is going to Kentucky.
You're calling the plays, so that's a little bit different.

Speaker 2 But also, you know, there's Ohio State's losing a coordinator, Oregon's losing both coordinators. JMU and Tulane have head coaches and entire staffs going places.

Speaker 2 How is it juggling your coordinators going to different jobs, potentially doing two different jobs right now during the playoffs?

Speaker 2 And you guys obviously not being the only team dealing with that in the playoffs?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, I think obviously if you look around the landscape of the playoff teams, it's not ideal. And

Speaker 9 I don't know what a solution would be because you got a lot of different things coming together when you put this football calendar.

Speaker 9 But it's a problem. Like you said, everybody's dealing with it.
Oregon's dealing with it. We're dealing with it.
Ohio State's dealing with it.

Speaker 9 It just, it is what it is. And so, you know, I'm thankful that we got really good people in this building, people that are committed to doing the job here until the job's finished.

Speaker 9 And, you know, happy for the opportunities that the guys on our staff are getting. There's certainly a reason why we've had the success that we've had for sure.

Speaker 9 And so, you know, but I am also thankful that they're committed to doing what we got to do to finish this job.

Speaker 1 All right. Yeah, Tom, fix the entire college football schedule, please.
The floor is yours to fix every problem that college football has. Can you go full screen on him, please?

Speaker 1 Floor is yours, El Coca, and fix the entirety of it. Thank you.

Speaker 9 No, yeah,

Speaker 9 it starts with TV, right? We got to figure that part of it out first.

Speaker 9 Academic calendars, and it's not a good mix. And it just is what it is.

Speaker 9 I do think the people are working.

Speaker 9 I do think we're trying to do the things that make it make the most sense i do think having the portal closed right now is is a really good thing we made that adjustment this year i think at least now the kids can focus on just playing ball and don't have to worry about all of that noise which was not the case a year ago um i think each year we're trying to get this thing a little bit better and and credit to the people in charge for that but um obviously still some things we can we can clean up and fix yeah certainly texas a m having all the resources having that stadium and this guy's big-ass brain as the head coach, they're in a good spot for the long haul.

Speaker 1 Coach Elko's like, yeah, let's certainly make it better, but let's not change it entirely. You know, we got some really good stuff going down here.
Go ahead, AJ. Go ahead, AJ.

Speaker 8 Yeah, Coach, you mentioned your third-down defense, obviously best in the country.

Speaker 8 Was that an emphasis coming into this year? Is it something that you changed up throughout the year?

Speaker 8 I would imagine those third-down periods in practice could get pretty lively at times when you watch what your team does on Saturdays.

Speaker 8 What has the process been for third-down for your defense?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I think it's always been an emphasis. I think it's something, you know, as a defensive coordinator, we've been pretty consistently good at over the years.

Speaker 9 You know, I think we do some different things to attack protections and impact quarterbacks. And obviously, we've got some really talented players, and that's a big piece of it.

Speaker 9 You mix in some really talented rushers with some different looks and a home crowd that can really impact the game. And that's a really good recipe for success.

Speaker 1 All right, coach. Well, good luck as you continue to prepare for the biggest game of the year.
We'll be down there. I think we're going to annoy you for like a AJ, I don't know if you even know this.

Speaker 1 You know, so normally when we do these field pass games, we don't get a chance to talk to the coaches.

Speaker 1 But since we have a relationship with both coaches of the team here, I think we're going to annoy you next week with maybe like a 10-minute Zoom to kind of get an idea on where your team is and maybe a little insight so we can call the game better.

Speaker 1 We appreciate you for that and your hospitality as we try to make something that isn't shit next week.

Speaker 9 Well, I wish you luck with that, Pat, because

Speaker 9 I think if you could do better than that, I think

Speaker 9 that'll be a good thing for college football for our game.

Speaker 1 Hey, I like the way you're thinking. All right, tell the boys we said congrats on a hell of a year and good luck the rest of the way.
And we appreciate the hell out of you, Coach.

Speaker 9 Yeah, for sure. I appreciate you guys having me on.

Speaker 1 You think if you were to fight Crystal Ball.

Speaker 1 See you, Coach. See you, Coach.
See you later, man.

Speaker 1 I mean, there was something he had going on there.

Speaker 1 Like yesterday, Coach Crystal Ball, whenever he was on and you asked about some of the shit talk or whatever, he goes, we say no comment to this type of stuff.

Speaker 1 All right, Coach Elko, if you're going to fight Mario, I'm not talking. All right, I'm going to get out of here.
We'll get out of him at some point. That's a huge game, man.
Huge.

Speaker 1 That is a huge, huge game. Obviously, Alabama, Oklahoma, to kick the entire thing off is sweet on Friday night.
Can't wait to get there. Can't wait to get out there to Norman.

Speaker 1 It's a wonderful football town. Just an absolutely wonderful football place.
College Game Day will be there.

Speaker 1 And then one and a half point favorite, Alabama will try to continue the ride or will old beautiful Oklahoma do their thing.

Speaker 1 And then overnight, we travel down to College Station from Miami versus Texas A ⁇ M, Tulane in Ole Miss JMU, Oregon. College football throwing absolute heat the first weekend of CFP.

Speaker 3 It's also awesome too because last year, you know, we kind of followed Ohio State the whole time and now winner of this game will go to play Ohio State.

Speaker 3 Like we know Ohio State pretty damn well because of the four games we followed last year, let alone the Big Ten title game we just went to.

Speaker 3 Like, seeing now the team that they might play up close and personal and be able to just know, like, okay, hey, this guy's going to be covering Jeremiah Smith, who we just watched.

Speaker 3 You know, like, even those things will be really cool, and it'll be a huge test, too, for you know, AM, just their first ever playoff.

Speaker 1 And I don't want to give away too much, but I think you could probably expect to hear and see us standing on that beautiful grass over there at the road. Traditionally,

Speaker 1 you'll probably see that. Now, once again, again, just like John Cena was mentioning, like, we're not supposed to be doing these things.

Speaker 1 We understand that it is outrageous that we get the opportunity to do that. The actual call with Fowler and Herb Street and team will certainly be on ABC and on ESPN.

Speaker 1 But us getting an opportunity to kind of call the game in our own way from our own perspective on the sideline of these massive, historic, huge implication games is so stupid. We're so thankful.

Speaker 1 And we can't wait to get down there next week. ESPN too.
That's going to be,

Speaker 1 I mean, Miami AM.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let alone.

Speaker 8 I've never been to A ⁇ M. I know you have, but yeah.
Dude,

Speaker 1 it's way out there. You know,

Speaker 1 it is out there. Like you are traveling, Texas, Texas.
You know,

Speaker 1 you're going out there, but then you got people

Speaker 1 that just live by both, you know, like it is a football community. It is a football place.
Hundreds, something thousand, they love America down there.

Speaker 1 The biggest United States of America flag that I've ever seen flies right outside of Kyle Field. Then they got 200 American flags flying on top of that thing and everybody is all in on all of it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was just like, I mean, I've never been there either. Extremely excited to go.

Speaker 4 And obviously any one of these home teams could make a case, but Texas A ⁇ M will have as good of an argument as anyone with saying like, hey, we have the best home field advantage of any team in this first round.

Speaker 4 Like that, you know.

Speaker 1 Obviously, Miami's not bitching and whining because they got in about draw or anything like that, but boy, what a tough place to have to go and play right off the rip at texas a m we were asked hey where do you want to call where do you want to to kind of do the field pass and we're like well anywhere would be sick i mean otson's outrageous obviously that is uh that is a cool place oklahoma's sweet uh ole miss

Speaker 1 i've heard nothing but great things about that and then kyle fields there and we started chatting about it and every time i came back from college game day at texas a m i told the boys i'm like hey that place is just like It's a special place.

Speaker 1 Kind of felt it with Texas Tech this year too. You know, kind of felt it with Texas Tech where I've talked to you guys.

Speaker 1 So getting the opportunity to go there and I think for the boys to get a chance to experience something I've experienced a couple of times, obviously very special.

Speaker 1 But the whole first round is going to have great environments, which is why everybody thinks like, hey, one of the biggest parts of college football is the environment. Why don't we try to make that

Speaker 1 another round of that?

Speaker 1 Well, the weather is the weather. It's like, well, NFL teams are doing it.
So what is the, what's the biggest issue here? We don't really see what the issue is.

Speaker 1 We would like more of what college football is, which is the environment, which is the pageantry, which is the student sections, which is everything like that.

Speaker 1 So us getting a chance in the first round, obviously good. Beggars can't be choosers, but let's go ahead and get another round of that.
You don't think Texas Tech deserves to have a home game?

Speaker 1 Exactly. Indiana doesn't.

Speaker 1 Indiana has a home playoff game, but instead they win the Big Ten for the first time since the World War II era. And then now you can't have a home game because you have to buy that.

Speaker 1 It's like, that doesn't make sense really in theory, let alone Georgia and Ohio State.

Speaker 4 Yeah, not only do you not get a home game,

Speaker 4 you have to go to what is like geographically the farthest place away from where you are, but also just to what we were talking about, like how sweet would it be for Texas AM gets a home game first round and it's going to be 75 and sunny down there, and then you turn around and you have to go to Ohio State and it's negative temperatures with the wind chill.

Speaker 4 Like, that's football. That's playoff football.
That would just be awesome. It's probably not going to happen because all these bowls, like, they obviously would.

Speaker 3 It's a 16, maybe.

Speaker 4 Well, maybe, but it needs to get done.

Speaker 1 You're right, though.

Speaker 1 Let's go to the NFL. There's an updated story that certainly came out of nowhere and was pretty scary, I think, for a little bit.
TJ Watt ended up in a hospital. Then TJ Watt ended up getting surgery.

Speaker 1 TJ Watt ended up having a little bit of, you know, medical scare that had his whole family. Burt Lawton said that TJ Watt was currently in hospital.
JJ Watt gave a full update on everything.

Speaker 1 Yesterday, TJ had successful surgery to stabilize and repair a partially collapsed lung, suffered Wednesday after a dry needling treatment session at the facility.

Speaker 1 Recovery timeline is still TBD, but all went well and he's being released from the hospital today. He and his family are very appreciative of everyone's kind words and well wishes.

Speaker 1 Obviously, JJ, a part of the family, but he's talking about his immediate family. It's like, this was scary and came out of nowhere.
I think dry needling session at the facility.

Speaker 1 TJ is just trying to prepare for this continued playoff run that they have. Massive game.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, he's ended up at the hospital, getting an emergency surgery we called jj yesterday i called jj off air i'm like hey what the hell is going on and i think jj was a little bit like yeah like this is a very this comes out of nowhere this is a very serious thing so we're happy to hear he's okay but monday night i i don't think anybody at this point is expecting tj to play but man this is just like the reality of perspective that everything can change just like this you have no idea what's going to happen in this life age yeah i did i wasn't sure what like when i heard that he was in the hospital yeah obviously you're very worried and think I'm honestly somewhat relieved that it was something that happened to him instead of like, oh, they something popped up or they found something.

Speaker 8 Like, he's going to play again. We don't know when that may be, but I'm sure it's been a very scary, what, 24 or 48 hours for these guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and then there's obviously, I don't want to just immediately go to what football is, but football-wise, there's a lot of stats with TJ playing for the Steelers and TJ not playing for the Steelers.

Speaker 1 And the Steelers needed every single game down the stretch.

Speaker 1 And this just popping up on a Wednesday, obviously terrible for TJ and for for the Watts as a whole, but for the Pittsburgh Steelers, this is not good news either. Here's a Hembo stat.

Speaker 1 1-11 win-loss, including playoffs, whenever TJ is not playing. They allow 27 points per game and 380 yards per game, 26 touchdowns, 7 interceptions with a 70.8 QBR whenever TJ Watt's not on the field.

Speaker 1 Things didn't look great for the Pittsburgh Steelers to potentially win a Lombardi. Without TJ Watt, we can't even get into that conversation, Nap Tone.
No, we can't.

Speaker 2 Obviously,

Speaker 2 very, very happy he's okay, and who cares about him playing on the field right now?

Speaker 2 But the 1-11, when you lose or when you're not playing with one of the best defensive players in football, especially him and the way that the defense is created around him, they are not good without him.

Speaker 2 And it's a huge game for the Dolphins coming in Monday night and to try to keep that lead in the AFC North. So, yes, it's going to be very, very hard without him.

Speaker 2 Have no idea how long it's going to take for him to get back or even if he will be back this season, but just glad he's all right.

Speaker 1 Out of nowhere, Age. Out of nowhere.
Dry needling means he was trying to get like treatment. Like that's what he

Speaker 1 was choosing to go focus on ball, focus on his career, focus on getting better. I've done this hundreds of times, thousands of times maybe.
This is kind of standard operating procedure.

Speaker 1 And then boom, something, I don't know. I don't know.
What is it? Have you guys ever done it? Acupuncture? AJ, have you done it? I don't think I know what it is either.

Speaker 8 I've had it. I don't love it.
It's like, yeah, it's like acupuncture needles, but they kind of like jab them a little bit and go a little bit deeper.

Speaker 8 I don't know how far you have to go to actually hit a lung, though. That feels like that's pretty deep.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I think the immediate reaction is something with a lung. It must have been the Tyrod Taylor golf tee incident where maybe he was getting a shot that was able to get there.

Speaker 1 Dry needling to get to a lung. I don't know.
I have no idea, but I'm happy he's okay. That has to be a very scary situation out of nowhere.
I'm going to go get better today. Well, I guess he's

Speaker 1 super more jacked. I'm going to go get better today.
I'm going to go do what I've been doing since the beginning of my career, football career. Go in there, walk, hey, how's everybody doing?

Speaker 1 Got a playoff bush coming. Let's go ahead and do the dry needling.
It's gonna hurt. You need to go to the hospital.
Yeah, I do. I'm in.
Oh, you have emergency surgery happening. It's like

Speaker 1 quick how life can kind of just unravel like that. Happy as hell, he's okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, anytime like the terms emergency surgery and you like need to be rushed to the hospital, like I think it's it's just human nature to always assume the worst anyway.

Speaker 4 So I can only imagine not only his family, you know, but like Steelers fans yesterday you see this it's like this could this could be anything is this guy ever going to play for the steelers again and luckily it wasn't that serious but yeah i mean you mentioned it how many times does he probably do this during the year like how many how many does i don't know that's a good question dry needling dudes are normally like once a week right they are twice a week Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 8 I can't see anyone getting it more than once or twice a week. But yeah, I'm sure it's definitely a weekly thing for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 But I don't want to say dry needling dudes, but whenever I say that, I mean like there's dudes that do certain things.

Speaker 1 Like if he is a dry needling dude, which I would assume he is a dry needling dude, that's a part of the weekly recovery process.

Speaker 1 There's people that do the, what you guys just mentioned, acupuncture, acupuncture, there's people that

Speaker 1 appliability, all of that stuff. There's people that have their own way.
If you're a dry needling dude, I think you're probably doing that every single week.

Speaker 1 So that's just standard operating procedure for TJ. Once again, we don't know unless he added this to his kind of routine this week, which is certainly possible.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying it isn't, but it feels like this is probably just a part of his standard process, getting ready for a game, and then it coming out of nowhere, scary.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so scary. And to Ty's point, like that was what we were kind of speculating just after.

Speaker 3 You know, as a Patriots fan, there's been multiple players over the last two, three years who've had blood clots and they come out of nowhere. And then those guys are out for an entire year.

Speaker 3 So like, of course, we're talking about Monday and everything and even the week after and how important it is. But like my initial thought was hopefully he's not out next year.

Speaker 3 You know, like this, this is one of those things is to your point like it does give you a little bit perspective and how quickly everything does just change uh speaking of everything changing sometimes

Speaker 1 to be great

Speaker 1 you got to get the oldest guy in the league

Speaker 1 back

Speaker 1 50 hours 49 minutes seven seconds from now yeah philip rivers He's a correct four-year-old.

Speaker 3 We think it's correct. It'll be 48 at

Speaker 1 425.

Speaker 1 We saw some more clips, man.

Speaker 8 You got some

Speaker 8 zip on the ball.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we got zip on the ball. And also, he doesn't look like the big tub of lard like everybody had been saying.
That is true.

Speaker 1 Early in the week, people saw his neck and his face, and they're like, wow, this guy's a complete fatso. There's no way his 44-year-old body is going to be able to hold all the blubber he's got.

Speaker 1 He's going to be even less active than he was. A lot of people are saying that.

Speaker 1 A lot of people are saying that. And now I see him.
I'm like, am I missing something? I don't think he looks that abnormal to what Phil Rivers looks like.

Speaker 1 He looks exactly like what Phil Rivers has looked like. And just like it says right there, he has been on a relentless pursuit of greatness for 20 plus years.

Speaker 1 And now he has the opportunity to do it as a 44-year-old with a team that's still trying to win a damn Super Bowl. I mean, that is very evident that that is what the Colts are trying to do.

Speaker 1 We're not quitting on the season. We're not giving up.
We're going to try and go for it. In 50 hours, 48 minutes and three seconds.
We are going to see if Phil Rivers still got it.

Speaker 1 This is a highly anticipated snap, this first one from Phil, AJ.

Speaker 8 It really is. What do you think if they throw him off? He runs like designed QB draw, first play of the game,

Speaker 8 just to keep the defense on their toes and let Phil, like Phil wants to let him know, hey, I still, I got in my legs, buddy. I'm faster now than I was before.

Speaker 1 So when this news was announced, obviously there was people laughing in the face of the Colts. Still doing it.
Now, really?

Speaker 3 A lot of people.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Who? The books are for you.
Me.

Speaker 1 What? The books.

Speaker 1 The books are certainly laughing. Look at the line.
It's big. It's the biggest of the weekend.
It's the biggest of the weekend. I believe it's okay.
It was at 14 yesterday. It's back to 14.

Speaker 1 That's because people are seeing these videos from Romeo and from Kevin Bowen and Anthony Calhoun and James Boyd.

Speaker 1 They're seeing him spin it and they're like, wait a minute. The books are like, we need to go ahead and drop that back down maybe.
13 and a half point spread is the biggest spread of the weekend.

Speaker 1 Colts still in it. Seahawks, obviously, we know very much in it.
To have a two-score spread like this is pretty disrespectful to a team that still can go on and win the damn super bowl in week 15.

Speaker 4 do you think there's that i mean i it's the nfl so everyone you know like even when teams suck and they come in other team like a team like the seahawks if they're playing a team who has two wins they're not thinking like oh we're just gonna run through these guys and beat the shit out of them do you think though there might be like a little bit of

Speaker 4 like our they got phil rivers like we're gonna end just kind of going in way way overconfident or do you think

Speaker 1 my issue with McDonald is he looks like a full psycho.

Speaker 3 He's a psychopath.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he is a full-term.

Speaker 8 In the best way, he is.

Speaker 1 Yes, this is a compliment, not a bad thing. Yes.

Speaker 1 I'm saying that as somebody that has watched him on the sideline, and he's

Speaker 1 going to heat him up.

Speaker 8 They're going to heat Phil up early, I would imagine.

Speaker 1 And they're going to be throwing bodies at his, I mean, they're going to be diving at his feet. He's going to be, that ball's going to be out, and then there's going to be

Speaker 1 two, three, because who knows how long it's going to take for him to get up. It might be a delayed game.
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 We're not 100% sure

Speaker 1 all of that, but age, the more I see, the more I like. And around the building, it's not like, hey, yeah, we're mailing it in here.
We got a grandpa.

Speaker 1 Around the building, it's like he can execute the offense. He knows the offense better than anybody in the building.
He's very comfortable. He's seen every defense.

Speaker 1 Now, AQ Shipley, I didn't love this earlier in the week. He talked about, and I think D-Bud as well, Seattle's defense is showing stuff that has never been seen before.

Speaker 1 It's like, well, I guess if you're 44 and have seen everything, if you've never seen something before, that's not good.

Speaker 1 If they're adding new wrinkles to just NFL defenses, but it's like the last time I saw Phil Rivers play football, he knew what he was doing, and the offense was moving. That was a half a decade ago.

Speaker 1 Almost one playoff before COVID. That was half a decade ago.
Now, will that change with time potentially? But I'm excited to watch Phil. And

Speaker 1 yeah, I've been on roller coaster alongside the news. The Rivers roller coaster has certainly been something.
I like that the Colts went for it. And I hope Phil goes for 275.

Speaker 1 I hope he goes for 275. I think that's it.
You know what is over-underous? Three touchdowns. What's that?

Speaker 3 Do you know it is over-under us?

Speaker 3 It is. And

Speaker 3 I just said, I've been laughing. It's disrespectful.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 Talking about a guy who was a semifinalist in the Hall of Fame. I believe his over-under is 151 yards.

Speaker 1 Okay, so there's an easy bet, right? I mean, that's pretty easy.

Speaker 1 They're going to win outright.

Speaker 4 I really think they're going to.

Speaker 3 Don't do this. Don't do this to this guy, okay?

Speaker 1 You guys aren't going to be able to do it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This isn't for him. This is for me.

Speaker 3 I'm convincing myself that they're, but I

Speaker 4 literally

Speaker 4 no one is giving them a chance to win.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? No one.

Speaker 4 Anyone who's not a Colts fan who wants to go in and say, like, hey, the playoffs are still on, the Super Bowl is still on.

Speaker 4 Like, they're still talking about it on a lot of morning shows about how this is like gross negligence that this guy's playing on Sunday. Like, this is not okay.

Speaker 1 Are you seeing this? Like, are they seeing the same thing we're seeing?

Speaker 1 Bart Scott's going to get a tattoo. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I saw that somebody will tattoo the number 17 on Ash Cheek if the Colts get a win with Phil Rivers a quarterback.

Speaker 4 Bart Scott said that this morning.

Speaker 8 In any of the remaining games?

Speaker 1 No, no, this weekend.

Speaker 8 Just this. Okay.

Speaker 3 I mean, they just beat, we just watched the Falcons beat the Bucs last night, and they put up 29 points, and the Celsius just went into Atlanta. Anything is possible.

Speaker 3 Flew all the way across the country and beat the ever-loving shit out of the Falcons.

Speaker 1 No, so your angle isn't what Tone just said with anything being possible. Your angle is, hey, we just saw a team beat the Bucs and that team just got obliterated by the team that you're about to play.

Speaker 1 And it does feel like the Seattle Seahawks team, even though they're incredible and they're on their way to a potential Super Bowl, we all believe, they're not really talked about much or celebrated much because they're so far away.

Speaker 1 So they can't even get to the point of like being too cocky about it. Like they're just always under the radar.
Sam Darnold's been in the league a long time, got paid a lot of money.

Speaker 1 Jackson Smith and Jigba might be the best wide receiver in ball. Their defense might be the best defense in ball.
And nobody really talks about them that often

Speaker 1 because they're so far away. Because they're so far away.
So they they never really get to the point where it's like

Speaker 1 being arrogant or maybe not focused. Like every game is like a game for them to prove themselves.

Speaker 1 That is definitely what McDonald thinks, especially with their fans kind of turning on them like a year and a half ago.

Speaker 4 And the Rams in their division.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're the five seeds. They're not.

Speaker 1 So it's going to be tough, I guess, for the Seahawks to overlook and we're concerned about the Colts' defense, yeah.

Speaker 1 But Forrest Buckner was put into his window to return, which is gigantic for the Indianapolis Colts. I don't think he's playing this weekend.

Speaker 1 We need him. You know, they have that TJ Watt stat about what the Steelers are with and without TJ Watt.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the Colts are with or without DeForest Buckner, but I Colts defense this season with without with 20.1 points per game, without him an extra touchdown, with him only 87 yards rushing, without him an extra 50 yards rush or 40 yards rushing.

Speaker 1 And then the QBR is about 50 whenever he's in, 58.6 whenever he's not in. And that's not just this year.
Years past when DeForest Buckner is not playing, not good. It's just not good.

Speaker 1 And he hasn't been playing because he has a freaking neck injury. And obviously, we'd like him to be healthy.
But yeah, Sam Darno on that offense have been very good.

Speaker 1 And we don't have Mooney and we don't have Sauce.

Speaker 3 That hurts. Still feel good about the 13.5.
I will say that. That is a ton of points.
This is the end of it.

Speaker 2 I mean, Brady Cook is starting this weekend. And everyone, if you're not a college football fan, you're like, who the hell is Brady Cook?

Speaker 2 And I believe he's got a better spread than than the colts he fumbled his first snap last week and

Speaker 1 the houston texans with the cardinals the cardinals routinely lose games by 20 plus points correct houston routinely routinely i mean that is routinely what they do the arizona cardinals and they're playing against the best defense maybe in the history of the league maybe in the history of the league and uh you're playing against a defense that has new heights with a completely different vibe now one of my favorite shows in the history of shows.

Speaker 1 Bummed out. Travis is bummed out.
You got Patrick Mahomes giving press conference about, I don't know if we have any press. This is what the Houston Texans just did to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 1 Their spread against the Arizona Cardinals, the Houston Texans, less than the Colts.

Speaker 1 Might have an MVP Kelly, a running back, a semifinalist all of them Corbin against the Seattle Coaches. The Cardinals just lost by 28.
Routinely lose by 20-plus points.

Speaker 1 Shorter spread than Colts and Seahawks. So, yeah.

Speaker 1 Hey, Phil. Stack the the chips.

Speaker 8 Keep stacking the chips, Phil. Phil knows.

Speaker 3 That's all you got to do.

Speaker 1 Phil, is that dumb?

Speaker 3 Gunner's probably texting him. Hey, dad, they're telling me you're some dumb hick, some piece of shit.

Speaker 1 What are you doing playing? Raiders.

Speaker 3 And Phil is out there to prove it, not to us, to his family.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I'm okay with whoever he's proving it to. Just know, Phil, I have...

Speaker 1 All the confidence in the world in you on this particular Feel Good Friday. I think you're going to do great.
Now, could that change by Monday after what I see? Sure. Sure.
Sure. Could that change?

Speaker 1 For sure. But also, that could get amplified, brother.
That could certainly get amplified because I like our guys.

Speaker 3 And Riley might see something. Phil might do something that Riley hasn't seen yet.
And all of a sudden, Riley Leonard becomes a better quarterback.

Speaker 1 So I was thinking about a Riley Leonard package, you know, that we might have because he's so damn mobile. But that would involve Phil getting off the field and then getting back on the field.

Speaker 8 It might take a little bit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I don't know if we're going to have any of that, but I just want to let Phil know, I love you.

Speaker 1 I appreciate you taking a shot on the Colts at this stage of your life, and I can't wait to watch. Let's talk about the Philadelphia Eagles.
They're battling.

Speaker 1 They took that positivity rabbit out of the locker room. Yeah.
That's tough.

Speaker 1 I mean, anytime you got to take a positivity, anything out of something because you think it's affecting you in a negative way, you're really reaching.

Speaker 1 I don't like what I'm hearing out of Philadelphia.

Speaker 4 Me neither, but their schedule down the stretch here. They play the Raiders and the Commanders twice, and I can't remember who the other team is, but it doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 Like, they're going to beat the shit probably.

Speaker 4 You would assume that they will beat the shit out of the Raiders this weekend and out of the Commanders both times, and they'll kind of have an opportunity to get right here going in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 But can they beat any of the truly elite teams in the NFC? That remains to be seen.

Speaker 1 The Eagles story, fascinating, just in the history. I don't get it.
I don't get it. Me neither, dude.
Locker room dynamics, though, are always something.

Speaker 8 Is there, could you point to, there's no way you could, like, point to one thing. Could you point to a couple things that is? Like, what?

Speaker 1 I don't know. We're not in there, so we we don't know what has happened.
You know, like I don't know what the locker room, because that positivity rabbit being in the locker room

Speaker 1 as opposed to in the cafeteria is a message in of itself. Like, hey, this locker room needs a little bit more positivity.
It's like, do they win too much? Everybody gets too full of themselves.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden there's no real bonding or chemistry. Is that what happens? Did something happen amongst teammates? Was something said? Is there, you know, like all that type of stuff.

Speaker 1 I just don't fully know because we're not in there. But I am worried about about this Philadelphia Eagles team.

Speaker 4 Well, that's what's interesting, too, is they're on hard knocks right now with the in-season stuff. And I understand that that's selective.
And, you know, we're not seeing all of that. But, like...

Speaker 4 It seems kind of chipper, like, around their facility. Like, it doesn't seem like the sky is falling.
They're making tongue in cheek jokes about that.

Speaker 4 Like, they understand it, but it doesn't, like, I feel like we would still be able to maybe tell a little bit, like, oh, wow, like, that was a weird interaction.

Speaker 4 These guys, you can tell these guys don't really like each other. It doesn't really feel like that.
And again, that's just what they're choosing to show us.

Speaker 4 But I still feel like we would be able to tell if things were really, really different. It doesn't seem that way.

Speaker 1 Let's go to the Sunday slate one final time. We'll be making all of our picks against the spread after the show ends here on ESPN as we continue digitally.
Are we still on TikTok?

Speaker 1 That's kind of a thing that changes every day. We either get banned or attacked on there.
We get a lot of reported attacks from people. What do I? I don't know.
I don't. You think it's China?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Do people report it or

Speaker 8 robots? AI reports it.

Speaker 1 I don't think it's people. I think it's hating folks, you know.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we know they are

Speaker 1 through and through. It's a great Sunday slate for week 15.
We are in a great position for ball. All three time slots have magical football games.

Speaker 1 And then obviously Phil Rivers taking his first snap in five years is going to be must-watch there at 425.

Speaker 1 Let's talk a little bit about sports happening around the world before we dive into the picks. Have you seen this free diver? This Croatian free diver? I didn't know that was possible.

Speaker 1 He stayed underwater for 29 minutes. What?

Speaker 8 Oh, I didn't know if this was real or not.

Speaker 1 At Mizama TV, you think it's fake? You think Mizima TV is fake?

Speaker 8 I've been watching some of these free divers. I've been watching this guy that trains people to hold their breath for 10 minutes, which I thought was nuts.
29 is crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this could be AI. This could be a complete foogaise.
We have not back-checked it, but it showed up in my algo and and I saw it. 29 minutes.

Speaker 1 I heard like three, five minutes is a big deal. Yeah.
10 minutes is a big deal. 29 minutes underwater

Speaker 1 sounds like an insane thing. So the fact that this is happening, congrats to him.
We hope that this is just what future humans can do. I don't really know how you get to that point.

Speaker 1 I remember when David Blaine held his breath for like six or seven minutes or something like that. And it was an absurd feat.
Now we know that there's actual fish walking amongst us, it seems like.

Speaker 4 Yeah, this is ridiculous. And I didn't think anyone ever, I mean, TC basically held his breath, I think, for like 10 to 12 minutes when he was filming The Last Mission Impossible.

Speaker 4 I just figured that was higher than any human will ever be able to reach. So for this guy to go for 29 minutes, I would venture to guess that TC is in the pool right now.

Speaker 1 Okay, TC is not in space. I heard what happened.

Speaker 4 Yeah, basically he said, hey,

Speaker 4 I would need favors from the government in order to do this because I believe part of it was that they were going to shoot on the International Space Station. TC was going to do a spacewalk.
Turns out

Speaker 2 you can't just go up and do that.

Speaker 4 You kind of need the okay maybe from the president. And I think TC just said, you know what? I'm trying to make movies here.
I don't want to get politics involved.

Speaker 4 I don't feel comfortable asking for any favors. So he's going to figure out a way.
He just might not be doing a spacewalk on the space station.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because next movie that he was shooting was supposed to be a space movie.

Speaker 4 Yes, this thing has been in development for a while, and it was basically like, hey, this thing is full go. TC, when he wants to do do something, he's going to do it.
And guess what?

Speaker 4 He wants to go to space and he wants to fix the Hubble telescope.

Speaker 4 But yeah, it's not happening as of right now.

Speaker 1 He'll get it done. Yeah, he will.
We'll assume they'll all get it done. Let's go to some fun social media.
Did you see the Texans? Did you see the Texans?

Speaker 8 No, what happened? Fun social media.

Speaker 1 It's fun social media. Kyle McNair, owner of the Texans, was trying to get a high five from CJ Stroud after the game.
And CJ just kind of missed him. So high five and everybody.

Speaker 1 bang it, bang it, bang. Kyle McDerr, owner of the team.
CJ, thank you for doing that. Okay, gets caught on there.

Speaker 1 Kyle McDerr, a couple of days later, still holding his hand up, wants his starting quarterback to maybe give him a high five because of how much he loves what CJ has done for him.

Speaker 1 He walks through the facility.

Speaker 1 Hi, hi, not saying hi, not saying hi, not saying hi, just want a high five here. Gets all the way through it and inevitably, finishes off with a high five from CJ Stroud.

Speaker 1 And I'll tell you what, special stuff happening in Houston. You got the owner walking around like this for content and content purposes only, Todd.
This is unbelievable.

Speaker 4 I mean, you hit the nail on the head. This is fun social media.
This is great. And you know what?

Speaker 3 Even him still wearing the coat from being in Kansas City, just...

Speaker 4 And this is the guy everyone was calling Tommy Boy a couple years ago when things were bad. They're like, hey, Cal McNair, this guy's a big, dumb dipshit.
He is big Tom Callahan's son, essentially.

Speaker 4 Are we sure about that? Because this is genius. This fun social media kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 And wow, what a moment. And allegedly, it was his idea to do it.
I don't doubt it. He said, hey, listen, aren't we in a content-driven world?

Speaker 1 There's a reason why I'm in this seat and you guys are in your seat. Have we not thought about me maybe finishing the high five here? How do we go about getting that? They make the video.

Speaker 1 Shout out to the Texans doing it right. And also, CJ Stroud and the Texans,

Speaker 1 they might win the Super Bowl. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We think.

Speaker 8 If CJ can get hot and that offense gets hot with that defense, anything is possible. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Isn't it crazy this year? We're judging off the defenses. Like, hey, does the offense have enough to be able to beat one of these defenses is the question.

Speaker 1 As opposed to like, hey, can the defense get a stop? in a certain spot, which has been years past. Now it's like, can the offense have success against the other team's defense?

Speaker 1 Crazy kind of iteration of football right now that we're kind of watching.

Speaker 3 Well, it feels like that's kind of the first sign of the cyclical nature of football.

Speaker 3 Not only the running backs having more yards in the top five than the receivers, but also just how important now defense has been.

Speaker 3 Like the last, what, five, six years running the ball and offense has become much more prevalent. But now it is like, hey, what is your trenches?

Speaker 3 What the Eagles were kind of the ones last year that showed this.

Speaker 3 What's your D line? What's your O line? And that is the separator now between these good and great teams. You know, you look at the number one and two seeds across the board.
The Rams, unbelievable.

Speaker 3 The Packers, unbelievable. The Patriots and the Broncos, their highest paid players are on their D and O line.

Speaker 3 It's awesome to see, especially as one of those teams, but also too, you know, who has a young quarterback who, you know, has a young deal or a rookie deal rather, and where, you know, teams can spend elsewhere.

Speaker 1 Yeah, going forward, I guess he has a big conversation. We got some breaking news here out of Michigan.
Sharon Moore, we have video of him showing up to his arraignment today.

Speaker 1 Obviously, the story of him being fired for cause due to an inappropriate relationship with a staffer happens the other day. Then afterwards, he gets arrested.

Speaker 1 Now we know what the charges are and now we have seen him in court. Here's him sitting for the arraignment today.
It is a video of him sitting wearing a white suit.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is not where you want to be. Ah, Jesus.
This is not where you want to be. Obviously, this was a moment that is not great for Sharon Moore.

Speaker 1 And obviously, there's victims in this entire thing. So we are pulling for all parties.
But this will continue to move forward as he was arraigned today.

Speaker 1 I believe there's three different charges that he has been charged with, breaking and entering, stalking, and then something else in the entirety of it all.

Speaker 1 All of them carry years in jail and fines alongside of it. So Sharon Moore today versus one week ago, certainly vastly different.

Speaker 1 And once again, perspective, anything you do in the dark will come to the light and things can change very quickly. That is something that I think we all can remember from this story.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, I don't know. We'll figure out everything, I guess, in the coming months of what's going on.

Speaker 8 But man, yeah, just what a different life that guy has right now than he did just a couple days ago. And Michigan's in Shambles trying to figure out what to do with the head coach position now.

Speaker 1 John Gruden would be a home run, right? We all think. Yep, sure.
And I know Portnowie's pushing for it very hard.

Speaker 1 I saw Portnow posted something from John Gruden's maybe high school days where he said his dream was to be the head coach at the University of Michigan. And Portnow's like, the time is now.

Speaker 1 I mean, we're sitting in the middle of it. I know there's a couple other names that have been floated.
I think Pete Thamill mentioned Braum.

Speaker 1 Braum would be, I mean, there's a couple, that would be like a Matt Campbell type hire. Yeah, Matt Campbell gets hired to Penn State.
Everybody that knows ball is like,

Speaker 1 that's a really good hire from the situation you're in. And even if you weren't in the current situation, that's a good hire.
Braum would kind of be something similar in that aspect.

Speaker 1 Tommy Reese, offense coordinator for the Cleveland Browns, I believe his name has been mentioned. His name was mentioned for every head coaching job that's kind of come up as of late.

Speaker 1 Minter's name's been there. Michigan's got to figure it out.
But until then, the Ohio State people say, ha ha, it's great to be a Buckeye. Is that how you guys are viewing it right now?

Speaker 8 Yeah, it's always great to be a Buckeye, whatever is going on in Michigan. And so, yeah, you know, Sherlock Moore, that's a tough look, man.
That sucks for him.

Speaker 1 Ishigan, I think I heard you say.

Speaker 1 And obviously, the 126th Army versus Navy game is happening tomorrow. Shout out to the troops.
Shout out to America. Who's favored? What's a quick breakdown, Con Man, of that game?

Speaker 3 I believe Navy is favored. They won last year.

Speaker 3 This game is at M T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and if you remember Blake Horvath he he is very motivated as always and I'm I'm going Navy fuck it okay so you have yet to receive your Navy merch

Speaker 1 I hope you get it someday soon shout to Army Navy shouts all of you for allowing us to do this for a living we're back on overreaction Monday be a friend tell a friend something nice see you then okay um you didn't want to make a pick or you just threw it in there at the end just want to let people know i mean we just went to parris island and the marines are within the navy so I feel like it would be pretty wrong to not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, go Navy beat Army. Is that what you're saying? Yes.

Speaker 1 What's Army saying?

Speaker 3 Probably go Army beat Navy.

Speaker 1 Played Horvath last year, tweeted us to talk shit after the big-time win for Navy.

Speaker 3 Because of Monkin, yeah.

Speaker 1 I guess we do still have a football program because Monkin on our show said, does Navy even have a football team? And Horvath's like, that's cute. Let's go ahead and get the win.

Speaker 1 And then let's go ahead and talk a little shit about a couple Yensers on Navy as well as we look ahead to this game.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Horvath is back at quarterback heidenreich uh i believe he's number 22 uh is the wide receiver uh from pittsburgh and uh texa is tecza is the fullback for navy so there's yes there's a pittsburgh connection there minus six is the uh spread 38 and a half and is the total fun fact

Speaker 2 16 straight years it went under Okay, 16 straight years it went under. And then the last three has been a push and two overs.

Speaker 2 So not sure what's going to happen there, but for a long, long time, it was like a guaranteed under game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and underdogs have covered 10 of the last 14, 8 of the last 11, 3 to the last 4. Six points, a lot of points, man.
A lot of points.

Speaker 1 Especially with Army Navy, you know, and Hembo and Greeney said this is the greatest rivalry in college ball. That was their kind of take on it all.

Speaker 1 AJ, your thoughts on Army Navy being so special to college football and kind of having its own weekend alongside the Heisman?

Speaker 8 I like, yeah, I like the fact that it's kind of a standalone situation. First off, these unis are unbelievable.
I got a good buddy, AJ Hansel, who played for Army, who lives by me. He's a lawyer now.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 I'm pulling for Army for his sake, but obviously I understand the whole situation of both sides. Appreciate the boys from Paris Island, the boys and girls.
But

Speaker 8 I think the pageantry surrounding this game, I've never been there. It's one of those things that I think I absolutely need to go to.
I need to take my kids.

Speaker 1 Not doing game day there.

Speaker 1 We didn't do it last year either. We did it two years ago, I think I was there.
Bill. Didn't Bill come on? Yeah, Belichick came on.
And I'm going to say, it feels, people want us to do it.

Speaker 1 I want game day Day to do it. I say us as if I have any say in what those people decide with Game Day.
But I would like, it was kind of weird doing it, you know, because forcing

Speaker 1 the people to stand behind us. Wow, there's, it's a, I understand wanting to celebrate and make it a, a bigger deal and having college game day there certainly does that.

Speaker 1 And I'm very lucky to be a part of a show that does that.

Speaker 1 So maybe instead of out doing the standard game day outside, it's like maybe on the sideline for like an hour leading up to it as opposed to a full game day thing because it is you turn around and you're like don't stand here like you guys there's a lot of shit going on today you should what's that was it the cadets cadets and i think the other side too just in general like even the vets that are standing there it's like a weird it was kind of like a weird feeling doing it just from my own perspective i think obviously the vets that aren't there or

Speaker 1 you know, the alumni of Army or Navy watch game day and they like kind of get a sense of it through there. So I appreciate that and I understand that.

Speaker 1 So, I think if there was like an hour kickoff show inside the stadium, as opposed to doing like a full game day outside, is probably the right answer

Speaker 1 in my eyes personally, because we should draw a little bit more spotlight to this game because this is everything that's good with America, this is everything good with ball and everything like that.

Speaker 1 But I would just like to say, from my perspective, the game day was kind of like, man, you guys are, Army and Navy is a huge day.

Speaker 1 Like, the amount of this that happens, the amount of catching up that happens, the amount of everything that happens, and then for

Speaker 1 them to feel obligated almost to stand outside it's like it was just a it was a weird i was very appreciative very thankful to be there honored to be there but also like very much like ah

Speaker 4 i don't know if this is the right thing that it's supposed to be well and like by nature of it being the only game on that day if you don't count you know one double a playoffs and d2 and d3 and all that kind of stuff

Speaker 4 it almost gets overshadowed a little bit because you're going to talk about that game but you're not going to talk about it for three hours so naturally you start looking ahead to the playoff games and you know those games obviously And then you start looking ahead to like the Heisman and things like that.

Speaker 4 And it seems like Army-Navy itself, like it kind of comes back full circle when you make the picks, but it almost ends up not being the story of the day.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if I love it or not, but there is a bull game Saturday night.

Speaker 4 Nah, who gives a shit who is in it?

Speaker 2 Boise in Washington.

Speaker 1 Okay. CLA.
Is that Phil the Gronk Bowl or?

Speaker 1 The Gronk Beach Party Bowl? I don't know.

Speaker 3 It might be the Gronk Beach Party Bowl, but I mean, is anybody watching anything aside from Saturday night main events?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll be on the block for John Cena's last hurrah. He'll be on last, by the way.
Who would have thought? Yeah. Well, that'll be at what?

Speaker 2 Midnight?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 You believe it's his last time? Do you believe him? I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 He took an angle with me that I didn't expect off air, and then he kind of mentioned it on air. I'm like, brother, wrestling,

Speaker 1 never. You're never retired.
Because there might come a time where the John Cena character is needed back or wanted back.

Speaker 1 And there's an entire thing like that is kind of a part of the wrestling business.

Speaker 1 And chasing the dragon of going through the curtain and all that shit has been a part of the wrestling world literally since the beginning of the wrestling world.

Speaker 1 So, like, retirements aren't real in wrestling, is like a real conversation and a real statement that is made. And he even acknowledged that.
But then he said, like, I don't think I'm a liar, though.

Speaker 1 Do you think I'm a liar?

Speaker 1 And I was like, holy shit.

Speaker 1 I didn't, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was not calling you a liar there.
He goes, yeah, I'm just kind of questioning my integrity here. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 that is not what I meant to do. I did not mean to do that because, and he explained it here, I think, even more so.

Speaker 1 And he was also explaining to me again, like, I know you can only go off what has happened in wrestling. Your retirements are not real.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's just like a real thing, especially with a business opportunity that pops up or, you know, like, hey, Saudi Arabia wants to have a match where you are going to make whatever the money is for amount of 20 minutes of work.

Speaker 1 Like just sound decision-making process. Maybe you do think about doing that.
And then he went into a full speech about money and about like, is that what's driving decision making?

Speaker 1 Is that what you think?

Speaker 1 So now you're questioning my more. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not saying it.
I'm not doing that.

Speaker 1 But he is very steadfast on like, no, yeah, I don't want to be the guy that says it's done and then I come back because then I'm a liar.

Speaker 1 And then what was the purpose of this entire thing if I ended coming back later? And I'll tell you, he is way too humble for who he is. He's fucking John.

Speaker 1 Cena.

Speaker 4 And he has no idea that that's the case, I think, which is obviously a good thing, not a bad thing, which is why he's character and he is who he is but it's like i do think this is it for john i do i legitimately think this is it for john well and a lot of those guys like no disrespect to them but like cena is a he's a legitimate like a-list movie star now you know like he has his next thing lined up and you know he kind of said to us he was like hey if i don't commit to that and kind of put everything i have into that the way i did with wrestling that i when i first started like i'm not going to be successful at it so i could see that because like we said i mean and the fans do it too like when we were in Philadelphia, we went fucking ape shit when Undertaker and Cena and all those guys came out.

Speaker 4 Like it was the best part of the night, but at a certain point, like those people are always going to be asking for that.

Speaker 4 So it's like if you do it a few times, then you kind of do sign yourself up for like, oh boy, like, am I expected to do this every single year at WrestleMania?

Speaker 4 I could see, you know, not wanting to do that either.

Speaker 1 He's a special human. He's so jacked.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So huge. So, so has been forever.
Work ethic insane.

Speaker 1 let's go to work stu

Speaker 1 nice

Speaker 3 he did that on the way out he did

Speaker 1 yeah i'll never forget it yeah right out the door there he gets changed goes into the locker room comes out change you know to travel he looks at us somebody was up on the screen maybe you i don't know who it was he looks at us and he goes

Speaker 1 and he walks right down the hallway with

Speaker 1 what a moment yeah that was a real moment right there he's awesome check out d bone let's talk about the heisman tomorrow well we already know he's exploded all over himself.

Speaker 1 He has, he can't sweat right now because all the moisture in his body has exploded through his penis. He has

Speaker 1 he's come seven to eight different times because you know it's here. Paul's weigh 50 pounds.
Over and over again. Yeah, so let's talk about Heisman tomorrow.

Speaker 1 There has become a clear odds-on favorite in Fernando Mendoza. Minus 1,800 to win this thing.
That means everybody knows who's winning at this point, Tone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you would assume so.

Speaker 2 And like I said, going into the Big Ten Ten championship, it was kind of between him, Pavia, and Julian Saiyan. He won the Big Ten Championship, so that kind of automatically knocks out Saiyan.

Speaker 2 So it's between him and Pavia, and then he has that huge throw down the sideline to Charlie Becker, and everyone was tweeting about it. It's his Heisman moment and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Because, you know, there is everyone's watching it. That's the last thing everyone sees before they turn in their ballots and stuff like that.
So then his odds jump tremendously.

Speaker 2 And yeah, it's highly expected that he will be your Heisman.

Speaker 1 I appreciate that he

Speaker 1 is who he is. I thought he had an incredible performance on our show.

Speaker 1 Not that I

Speaker 1 judge how people do on our show, but I certainly appreciate that he came on, obviously knew the show.

Speaker 1 And I think the response from a lot of people that maybe didn't know a lot about him was like, this dude's awesome. I don't think a lot of people knew that he was awesome.

Speaker 1 He was being accused of reading AI answers in interviews because maybe he was too robotic, people were saying about him. And then he comes on our program and he's pretty wide open.

Speaker 1 I think because he knows us pretty well. He understands the program and has followed for a long time, from my understanding.
Fernando has.

Speaker 1 So the way he plays, the way he talks about getting hit, the way he views football, the plays he has made, everything about him screams.

Speaker 1 Heisman, I think, and somebody that they would want to be a part of their fraternity forever, but also number one overall pick, this guy.

Speaker 1 Like what a wild transfer from Cal to Bloomington, Indiana, takes the Hoosiers on this ride and also changed the trajectory of his life, AJ.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Imagine this guy's, imagine he's going to win the the Heisman most likely.

Speaker 1 His speech is going to be like, it's going to be perfect.

Speaker 8 It's going to be emotional. It's going to be inspirational.
It's going to be authentic to him. Like, yeah,

Speaker 8 it's impossible to root against this guy. I think he just, him and a lot of the guys in the team, when you hear him speak, they got something special going over there.
And I'm a huge fan of Mendoza.

Speaker 8 I always will be.

Speaker 1 I had a lot of Ohio people attack me because I had a hole in my jeans and I was chanting for the Hoosiers at Lucas Oil Stadium. You know, a lot of people call me a douchebag from Ohio.

Speaker 8 What's the hole in your jeans? What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1 Well, I was wearing holy jeans as if I thought I was some fucking Abercrombie or Fitz model.

Speaker 1 That's what Ohio people were saying. You know, classical Ohio.
I'm from Pittsburgh. I understand how Ohio people are.

Speaker 1 There were some people talking shit to me, calling me a douchebag, all these types of things on the internet and in real life for this particular moment.

Speaker 1 But it also felt as if the Ohio State people kind of have respect for Indiana. Didn't it feel like that, AJ? I don't know.
You'd be around it a little bit more than me.

Speaker 8 I think they definitely do. Yeah.
I don't hear like Indiana slander. I don't hear anyone talk like, yeah.
I think they respect who they are and how good of a team they are.

Speaker 1 I think they appreciated how tough they were. Like, I think that is what Ohio State people.

Speaker 1 And I'm not saying that Ohio State people are immediately going to respect a team that's tough because if Ichigan's tough, Ohio State's not going to respect them.

Speaker 1 But I think from my understanding, from what I have witnessed, and it might just be through you and the other people I know from Ohio that have talked about it, but it feels like Ohio State's like, Indiana's a good football team.

Speaker 1 Like we got to respond. Yeah.
Obviously we shouldn't have lost that game. We need to win those games.
But I don't think it's like Ohio State hates Indiana.

Speaker 1 I think Ohio State's like, yeah, we lost to a really good football team in Indiana, and now we're in the college football playoffs.

Speaker 3 Well, and it wasn't like a shootout, it was a

Speaker 3 gritty physical game. Like, to your point, if that was something where, you know, they were dancing around and maybe it was a blowout and it was a very pretty game from Indiana, that'd be one thing.

Speaker 3 But they shut down Ohio State's offense, and nobody has really done that. Actually, nobody has done that since the college football playoffs started last year.

Speaker 3 And when you're talking about their defense, too, like

Speaker 3 Hoosiers took punches. Like the first play of the game, Mendoza got fucking blasted and he bounced back and continued to play.

Speaker 3 And it feels like that is something Ohio people will look at and say like, okay, respect.

Speaker 3 You talk how you talk, whatever. You got killed.
You came back in the game and you stepped up in the biggest moment.

Speaker 1 It's good football. Good football.
Yeah. And that's all we're looking for.
Good football. Play the game right, represent the game right, respect the game, and let's enjoy the hell out of this season.

Speaker 1 All right, let's take a break and then let's make our picks on the other side as your connection is getting a little sticky over there as you're starting to compliment Indiana.

Speaker 10 This holiday season, Los Angeles is the main event. The lights dazzle, the city sparkles.

Speaker 10 From the star-studded streets of Hollywood to the candy-colored sunsets at Manhattan Beach, LA shines brighter than ever.

Speaker 10 The action kicks off with winter showdowns on the field, on the court, and the ice. The NFL, NBA, and NHL bring the heat to SoFi Stadium, Crypto.com Arena, and the brand new Intuit Dome.

Speaker 10 Then the holidays take over. Ice drinks under palm trees, glowing light trails, festive concerts, and shopping sprees that go late into the night.

Speaker 10 Cap it off with cocoa on a rooftop or fireworks over the skyline and take the elevator home to your room.

Speaker 10 This is the holiday season in LA, where sunshine meets sparkle and every night feels like a celebration. Find the season's top events and hotels at discoverla.com.

Speaker 7 As you know, managing maintenance, repair, and operations is never easy. But for the ones who always rise to the challenge, Granger has your back.

Speaker 7 From professional-grade products you can count on to fast, dependable delivery. They're there to help you keep things running smoothly.

Speaker 7 Plus, their technical product specialists are here to help answer your toughest questions.

Speaker 7 And because Granger knows safety is always a priority, they're committed to being your partner in protecting both your people and your facilities.

Speaker 7 Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Speaker 1 Fuck the ball! Hey, is is magical. That's AJ Hawk.
The Toxic Tables here at Boston Conner and at Ty Schmidt. One out of the hammer.
Done.

Speaker 1 Cowboys AP Tone is here, all the boys in the back, and obviously the Thunderdome is alive. We're very thankful for John Cena stopping by the Thunderdome in the first hour as he just

Speaker 1 sits one sleep away from his last match ever in the WWE as he takes on Gunther tomorrow night at Saturday night's main event, only available on Peacock.

Speaker 1 Now, we're about to get into our picks, but aj we would be remiss if we didn't pick this one cena gunther one-on-one washington dc in the final final

Speaker 1 for john cena's legendary goat-like career now he's taken on the ring ganara gunther who i've been in the ring with and i'll tell you what brother He's a problem. He's strong.
He's tough.

Speaker 1 And whenever that chop hits your chest, it's not only your sternum that hurts and your body that hurts your eardrums blow out because the smack is so damn menacing that your entire body can't help but to collapse john cena's obviously been in battles before but i don't know if he knows what he's into with this austrian monster and gunter aj Who do you like?

Speaker 1 How do you like him first? Let's get some of the numbers. Tone, what is the percentage of bets on who for this particular matchup?

Speaker 2 A crazy 85% is on John Cena.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 But it makes sense. He is minus 300 to win this match.
He's a heavy favorite.

Speaker 1 The odds have been moving, though, in this particular one.

Speaker 1 He obviously ends here as a heavy favorite, just like Fernando Mendoza for the Heisman, but it wasn't always that way when we were looking ahead to this match, Ty.

Speaker 4 No, it wasn't.

Speaker 4 And I think one of the reasons that it might be moving in the other direction towards Gunter is because a lot of people are speculating that the Kabuki Warriors might interfere with this match and somehow they've been raising a lot of hell over there.

Speaker 4 So we'll see, but that could be why things are kind of moving back in the direction of Gunter.

Speaker 1 So obviously, you bring up the Kabuki Warriors. Last time we saw Cena in a ring, Raquel Rodriguez gave him the Tejada bomb.
Then he got the pop rocks from Roxanne Perez.

Speaker 1 He got kicked into balls by Lib Morgan. So obviously a lot happened.
Dominic Mysterio becomes the Intercontinental Champion.

Speaker 1 But Conman, when you talk about not only the odds shifting, has that changed your mindset on who's going to win this? And what do you think the strategies are?

Speaker 3 I think you always have to look at the odd moving. I would take the over on chops.
I think that's my biggest thing is Gunther, especially is going to have to hammer him.

Speaker 3 I mean, this is the GOATS, the never-seen 17 champion.

Speaker 3 He will be going for his final bid, and he has all the motivation in the world. But Gunther also playing spoiler.

Speaker 3 I mean, he is Austrian, he's not American, so he doesn't respect anything that is true and real and patriotic. So I take over Chops because that's going to be his strategy.

Speaker 3 As far as Cena goes, I mean, I think he's just flying off of pure emotion. Who knows about sleep tonight? I don't see any in Cena's future.
So being well-rested, does that matter as much?

Speaker 3 I don't think so. Hard to go against Cena, but the safe bet here is just pain.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I almost at it. It's just pain.

Speaker 1 It's just pure pain delivered

Speaker 1 from Gunther.

Speaker 1 Pain puts away.

Speaker 1 What do you mean you almost got it?

Speaker 1 I almost at it.

Speaker 3 I had the perfect bow and I completely fucking pissed on it. So I'm actually incredibly, incredibly mad at myself right now.
I don't really want to get into it.

Speaker 1 But you're saying pure pain's on the way.

Speaker 3 Pain's on the way, man.

Speaker 2 I think Gutter wins.

Speaker 1 All right, Tone picking Gunther. Ty.
I'm not going against Cena. He's with 88% of the bets is what Tone says.
Con man.

Speaker 3 I'm taking Cena

Speaker 3 in a landslide.

Speaker 1 AJ?

Speaker 8 I would have to roll with Cena, but I think it's a possibility that for the business, Cena finds a way to just let... Gunther have this one.
That's my

Speaker 1 last time is now he's going to let something happen for somebody else. He's leaving it all out there, and he never gives up.

Speaker 2 He wants to put over the business more than anything. It's not about John Cena.

Speaker 1 It's about the business.

Speaker 8 That's what he said today. I mean, he's a humble champion.

Speaker 2 He wants to springboard the most violent champion of all time into the next stratosphere.

Speaker 1 And that's why you're taking Gunter.

Speaker 1 Well, how about showcasing to the next generation that if you work your ass off and you become the goat, you fucking win? Yeah, that'd be cool. Wouldn't that be a cool thing? That would be.

Speaker 1 And that's what it's going to be. Give me John Cena.
Hell yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I'll take Cena too. Give me Cena.

Speaker 1 Big fight, John. I mean, no problems.
I'm excited to see who all shows up now. I thought it was potentially on NBC because maybe Peacock would want John Cena's final thing on NBC.

Speaker 1 You know, the Peacock company would want the linear one to maybe get a little bit of a boost. You know, we got John Cena's final match.
What is on it?

Speaker 1 It's strictly on Peacock, which means there's no hard out.

Speaker 1 Ah, there you have it. Peacock, there's no hard out, right? So for us.

Speaker 8 This match could be two hours long.

Speaker 1 Not just this match. Who knows?

Speaker 1 This card. Not just the card, but who knows all the

Speaker 1 shits that could come with John Cena's final match. You know, who's going to want to say thank you to John Cena? Who's going to want to come see John Cena? You know, like that type of stuff.

Speaker 1 Those types of conversation. There's a chance that No Heart Out is definitely for the best of all parties, but also provides a lot of opportunity for tonight being, or tomorrow night being awesome.

Speaker 1 So congrats to John Cena. Get a big time win on his way out.
That's what he does. Boy, John.
That's what he does. The wall, I believe, is on NBC at 8 p.m.
Let's fucking go.

Speaker 1 They also have the Shrek the Halls Christmas special.

Speaker 2 Yes!

Speaker 1 You're not going to be watching that, though. You already said John.

Speaker 3 I got multiple TVs, and Shrek the Halls will be one of them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Pure Pain, though, is on the way.

Speaker 8 Per square inch.

Speaker 3 That's going to haunt you for the whole weekend.

Speaker 2 And SNL.

Speaker 8 Oh, yeah, SNL.

Speaker 3 What's he doing?

Speaker 2 Hopefully, it's not an indication of things.

Speaker 3 I'm so serious.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. We were watching.
Yeah. Until one o'clock.

Speaker 3 I'm going to be thinking about that

Speaker 3 two minutes.

Speaker 1 Please don't. It was great.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 actually saying,

Speaker 1 oh, so close, man.

Speaker 1 Maybe my favorite take you've ever had. Come on, man.
Thank you for the breakdown. Yeah.
Over on shocks. Good part.
Hey, that's a good

Speaker 1 bet. That's good prop bet, dude.
That's good prop bet. All right, let's get to our bets.
Week 15. Oh, Mendoza's winning Heisman.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, they shouldn't have odds on it because it kind of ruins the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it kind of does. It makes us know what's going to happen before a time, but we can look ahead to Mendoza's speech, which I think we all think.
Army, Navy, Navy favored by six. AJ, you'll take.

Speaker 8 I'm going to take Army on this one.

Speaker 1 Army plus six.

Speaker 1 I'll take Navy. I'll take Navy minus six, just strictly because, you know, we are representing for America on both sides.
If you would have taken Navy there, I would have taken Navy.

Speaker 3 It's in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 Kind of a home game.

Speaker 1 Uh-rah,

Speaker 1 boys.

Speaker 1 Six points, a lot of points.

Speaker 8 Man, those helmets, both helmets are sweet.

Speaker 2 Obviously, they both played Air Force this year, and they both won by three points against Air Force. I don't know if that means anything to you.

Speaker 1 Six points, a lot of points.

Speaker 2 Fun fact, I believe I saw it yesterday on the internet. I think

Speaker 2 each Navy helmet takes three hours to paint.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I saw the painting on the same.

Speaker 1 Very nice. It's going to to be special.
The

Speaker 2 flyovers always.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the pregame festivities are awesome. Six points is a lot of points.

Speaker 1 Army plus 6 Navy wins. I'm on your side there, AJ.
Six points feels like a lot of points. Underdogs.
Yeah, and the trends are this is going to be a close game. Snow, right? We assume? Cool.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know for sure, but I would assume it's cool.

Speaker 1 It feels cold. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this one feels close, doesn't it? It feels like it's coming down to the end.

Speaker 2 High of 43, low of 30. No precipitation, so just, you know, a nice cloudy Baltimore day.

Speaker 1 All right, I'll take Army plus six, Navy Winds though. Congrats to them.
All right, let's go to the Sunday slate, AJ.

Speaker 1 Last night we were both wrong, so that means we're zero and zero going into Sunday. Shout out to both of us.
Browns, Bears, Bears favored by seven and a half at home, over-under, 38.5.

Speaker 1 Shador Sanders, Caleb Williams, Khalib Williams, depending upon who you listen to. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it?

Speaker 8 Obviously, I was thinking Bears early, like I think everyone is, but you know what? For whatever reason, I think the Browns find a way to keep this one close.

Speaker 1 Give me the Browns. How cold is it now? What's the weather? This one's about to be historic.

Speaker 3 Yeah, 10 degrees, and I believe we got a 15-degree wind chill. It might get down to negative five.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it feels like negative four at kickoff is what it says. Chilly.
Yeah, that is a chill.

Speaker 8 Who knows how this game goes then? You know that. Who handles this the best?

Speaker 1 It feels like negative four, and then there's gusts coming. Yeah, it's literally just a mental toughness game.
That is, that is all this one is. I like where Ben Johnson's team is.

Speaker 1 I like them minus seven and a half, even though I could see Miles Garrett getting a couple. Congrats to him on his record.
I think Shador Sanders is going to do well again.

Speaker 1 I think he's going to throw for a bunch of yards, continue that conversation. But give me the Chicago Bears.
I like them. Fresh off a loss to the Packers.
Jets, Jags, A.J.

Speaker 1 Jags, favored by 13 and a half at home. Congrats to the Jacksonville Jaguars having the opportunity to be favored by this much in meaningful football season.

Speaker 1 Such a quick turnaround for Liam and the boys. Anything we need to know about this particular game?

Speaker 2 Brady Cook is the starting quarterback for the Jets because Tyrod and Justin Fields are hurt.

Speaker 4 And if you watched him last week, no disrespect to him, but this is one of those things where it's like, if you're a 13 and a half, a lot of points.

Speaker 4 But if you pick the Jets and they end up get beat by 35, which they definitely could, you're going to be kicking yourself come Monday.

Speaker 1 AJ, who do you like?

Speaker 8 Well, with that being said, I guess I'll take the Jags.

Speaker 3 Ty, minus 13 the hits.

Speaker 1 It was ugly. Me too, brother.
Okay, I'll take the Jags as well. Bills at Patriots.
Bills favored in Foxborough against the number one seed, New England Patriots. Whole new team in New England.

Speaker 1 Drake Mays, a bona fide superstar. Odds on favor to win the damn MVP.
Mike Vrabel has always won when he was a head coach.

Speaker 1 And the Buffalo Bills are fresh off of Jash Allen, MVP in the snow masterpiece, late comeback to beat the Cincinnati Bengals. Connor, any final thoughts that we should think about?

Speaker 3 95% chance of snow on Sunday in July. It will be a snow game.
It is a hat and t-shirt game. I believe it's the only one, first one of the season.
Patriots win. They win the division.

Speaker 3 They are officially in the playoffs. I'm not completely sure as far as injury report goes.
I know our third string running back is probably out.

Speaker 3 Christian Benford, starting corner superstar for the Bills, actually a guy who had the pick six against the Bengals. He popped up on the injury report.
I believe he had a boot for a toe injury.

Speaker 3 Starting left guard, Jared Wilson for the New England Patriots, who's been out past couple of weeks. with an ankle.
He will be back at left guard, which is massive.

Speaker 3 I mean, this is just kind of a throw everything out bloodball time, baby.

Speaker 1 Has Drake May played in a snow game yet?

Speaker 3 I don't believe so. Not this year.
He might have had one late last year in the snow, but I'm not sure. Nothing with stakes like this for sure.

Speaker 1 Let's go into the deets, shall we? Hand size, please, on Drake, and then obviously compare it to big-hand Josh Allen.

Speaker 2 Drake May, nine and an eighth is his hand size. Josh Allen is 10 and an eighth for his hand.
He's got an inch bigger hand.

Speaker 1 What's standard for big-hand quarterbacks to be over nine inches? Is that kind of the thing?

Speaker 8 I think anything over nine is considered good, right?

Speaker 2 Coming out of that draft, because this is how I found it or whatever, Pennix had 10 and a half, Bo Nix was 10 and an eighth, Caleb nine and three quarters, Drake May, nine and an eighth, J.J.

Speaker 2 McCarthy, nine. So I don't know what that does for you, but that's just kind of what the coming out of that draft was.

Speaker 1 Because Josh Allen in the snow, we all just see him do special things, and it's because he has massive hands. He's an athlete, he can move.

Speaker 1 Drake May, we just assume going to be good in a similar situation.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just for context, what were Kenny Pickett's hand size? Because that was the big thing.

Speaker 4 It was like...

Speaker 1 No, no, can we actually get it, though? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, let's see. Because that was the whole thing.
It was like, hey, this guy's hands are way too small. So if his are, you know, eight and something, then I guess, but eight and a half.

Speaker 1 Okay. So there you have it.

Speaker 3 So yeah, no big deal.

Speaker 1 All right, let's move along. Who are you picking, AJ? The Beals or the Patriots?

Speaker 8 You know what? I'm going to go with the Buffalo Beals on this one.

Speaker 1 I will take the New England Patriots, even though there's a lot of unknowns and we know how special Josh Allen can be in the snow. I like the Patriots team a lot.
Not that I don't like the Beals.

Speaker 1 Love the Beals. They've been very good to us, but I just like, and maybe it's because Connor and me following along with this story so closely to it.
They're a good football team.

Speaker 1 They're a very fucking good football team, the New England Patriots. And Vrabel,

Speaker 2 Connor said at the beginning of the show, off of a buy in the regular season is 6-0 ATS and straight up.

Speaker 1 Getting points at home, I'll take the New England Patriots. Cardinals, Texans, Texans, minus 9.5.
I've already talked about how disrespectful it is to the Colts for what this spread is.

Speaker 1 So everybody knows I'm on the Texans. How about you, AJ?

Speaker 8 Yep, give me the Texans.

Speaker 1 Raiders, Eagles, Eagles, favored by 11.5 at home, taking on a Raiders team that has just been very fascinating to watch. Who was playing quarterback for the Raiders last week?

Speaker 2 It was Geno, and then Kenneth Pickett came in. He threw an absolute dart, and he will be your starting quarterback.

Speaker 2 It's not a revenge game. It's kind of like a commemorative game since he was the Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles last year.

Speaker 1 Kenny Pickett, last person to touch the ball during the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl. At kickoff, it'll be 29.
It'll feel like it's 19 degrees.

Speaker 1 Precipitation probability 5%, so we don't have to worry about any of the hand stuff with the football. Not that Kenny Pickett ever has anyways.
He played a pit and won the ACC championship.

Speaker 1 He's from New Jersey. Just the bad weather.
AJ, who do you like? How do you like it in this one? 11.5, it's a lot of points.

Speaker 8 Yeah, 11.5 feels like a bunch, especially like I don't feel great about where the Eagles are right now, but I don't feel very good about the Raiders either.

Speaker 8 So give me the Eagles right here, minus 11.5.

Speaker 1 All right, I'll take the Raiders plus 11.5, even though I don't think they win the game ever. Two and a half favorites are the Baltimore Ravens taking on the Cincinnati Bengals.

Speaker 1 Bengals, interesting situation, especially with Joey B saying,

Speaker 3 this sucks.

Speaker 1 I don't even want to be around anymore. I ain't playing playoff football, so what is the purpose of playing? It's a kids' game.
Okay, we get paid a lot of money to do this.

Speaker 1 I certainly love it, but I mean, what do we play it for? There's a chance they play. This is where Joey Burrow is at.

Speaker 1 There's a chance, what's that, pal?

Speaker 2 If they win out, which their schedule is not bad, there's a chance they could still make the playoffs.

Speaker 2 So they still have something to play for.

Speaker 4 And if they lose,

Speaker 4 they're eliminated, and this could be the last time you ever see Joe Burrow in a Bengals jersey.

Speaker 1 Or ever. Any jersey.
At kickoff, yeah, because he was talking. And then all the Andrew Luck comparisons came, and we all saw what happened there.
At kickoff, it'll feel like it's one degree. Sheesh.

Speaker 1 Okay. Lamar Jackson and Baltimore Ravens, they've looked very interested this year, right? Yeah, very much so.
Man, interested is kind of a word that could describe the Baltimore Ravens.

Speaker 1 Have they been? I don't know.

Speaker 4 Juiced up, ready to go, excited to play in every game.

Speaker 2 I think this is Joe's first home game since he's been back.

Speaker 1 Two and a half point favorites in Cincinnati. AJ, who do you you like? How do you like it?

Speaker 8 I like the Cincinnati Bengals here. Now, I know who else out? T.
Higgins is out. Anyone else out? Trey? Bengals?

Speaker 1 I don't. Trey,

Speaker 8 Trey's continued to be out. Okay.
Yeah. Give me the Bengals at home here.

Speaker 8 I think Joe's

Speaker 8 rope of dope,

Speaker 8 letting them think that he's like all down the dumps. Oh, you know, what is football? What is life?

Speaker 8 Home. He goes, puts up five touchdowns.

Speaker 1 Joe's got to do a full. I love football.
I am Football Week.

Speaker 1 I like Joey B and and the Bengals as well. That's crazy to say about this Ravens team, by the way.

Speaker 1 Just in my head, I just saw the stats of Lamar for the last, what, four or five games or whatever it is. It's just not good.
Bad.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And

Speaker 3 everybody's hurt at this point, but

Speaker 3 it looks as though

Speaker 3 he's hurt. He's playing injured.

Speaker 1 Give me the Bengals. It's going to feel like it's one degree at kickoff.
Chase Louise. Chargers, Chiefs in the home

Speaker 1 of the

Speaker 1 Chiefs. He's favored by five and a half with 76% of the bets on the Chargers.
Obviously, after the huge primetime win, there was a lot of things that happened with Justin Herbert.

Speaker 1 Obviously, with everything that happened in Michigan, we assume Harbaugh's got a little bit of this going on.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of negative potentially surrounding the Chargers, even though fresh off a win. And the Chiefs, there's a lot of bummed at mindset.
What are your thoughts on the game, AJ?

Speaker 1 Who do you like? How do you like it?

Speaker 8 Man, I may be stupid, but

Speaker 8 I got to pick pick the Chiefs here. I don't know.
It's crazy to me that is this a big feels like a big line, right?

Speaker 8 Is that because Justin Herbert, the hand, the whole situation coming off the surgery, is that why the Chiefs are favored by this much?

Speaker 1 It's all points, man. That's the Division Gate.

Speaker 8 Yeah, for real. But I'm still taking them.
So, yeah, I'm going to go against Big Mike's judgment and give me the Chiefs.

Speaker 1 All right, I'll take the Chargers plus five and a half. Washington Commanders, New York Giants, Giants favored by two and a half at home.
Congratulations. Yeah.
Okay. Bye.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Snaps a 21-game underdog streak.

Speaker 1 Wow. Congratulations.
That's huge.

Speaker 3 That's a big deal.

Speaker 1 How about Mara just a couple years ago was sick of telling his billionaire friends about why his team sucks. And for the first time in 21 games, his team isn't expected to lose.
Good for him.

Speaker 1 Hey, congrats to you guys. Hey, Maura.
This is a bus wash game. Anything we need to know about this game that potentially would inform us on why you guys are favorites, Bruce?

Speaker 11 No, not really. I mean, the commies just got boat raced.

Speaker 1 But yeah, not a ton to play for or really care about here. It's just pure pride.

Speaker 11 Rivalry matchup in the division, win it for the gaffer, you know.

Speaker 1 Shit, let's go get one done. Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 11 Now we're picking first.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's do it. AJ, did that get it over the hump for you to pick the Giants, or are you going to take the commanders getting points like I am?

Speaker 8 Who are the starting quarterbacks in this game?

Speaker 1 Dart, Mariota.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Mariota, Dart.

Speaker 8 Yep. Okay, give me the New York Giants.
I like them at home.

Speaker 8 Oh,

Speaker 8 I do.

Speaker 4 Mike Kafka did say on hard knocks, we're going to win out. He said, you guys aren't coming to do that.
Get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 4 So, I don't know. Message landed.

Speaker 3 Remember they showed 2-10 on the board before the Patriots came?

Speaker 1 This fucking sucks.

Speaker 3 We're dumb with this. And then they lost to the pass, but they just had a buy.
So now they're 2-11. And they did it again.
Put the fucking record up. They said, nah-uh.

Speaker 1 Fuck this, guys. We can actually do it this week.

Speaker 4 Now, on the flip side, it kind of cut to the guys in the meeting room, and they looked very disinterested and kind of like they didn't care what he had to say.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? They're like, yeah, we are. Yeah, we suck.

Speaker 4 You're going to be gone.

Speaker 3 The fourth fucking guy to stand up there in the last month.

Speaker 1 Give me Mariota. Give me Mariota.
Without Zach Ertz, right? Because of the.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Zach, we appreciate your contribution to sports. And if you come back from this, that would be insane.
But that looked nasty. We hope you're okay in the future.
Let's go. Colts, Seahawks.

Speaker 1 Biggest spread of the weekend somehow. Seahawks, favored by 13.5 at home.
Chance of precipitation is Phil Rivers.

Speaker 1 He's 49 hours, 41 minutes, and six seconds away from making his first start in five years, his first playing time in five years.

Speaker 1 Is there anything else we need to know about this game other than old man Phillip Rivers is returning? Nope, that's it.

Speaker 1 AJ Hawk, who do you like? How do you like him?

Speaker 8 You know, from the minute I heard that Phil Rivers was signing with the Colts, I was very positive on it. I said, it's a great idea.
Why not? We got to figure it out. Let's find a way.

Speaker 8 So I'm going to stick with that. I'm taking the Colts here.
Obviously, Colts plus 13 and a half. I think if you have Colts money line, that's not a bad situation either.
Well,

Speaker 1 you're speaking from my brain. Jeez, Louise, I love that.
Thank you, AJ. You got my shirt on from Koofandy.
Okay, I love that. Amazon's looking out for both of us.

Speaker 1 And you're saying my words out of your brain. I love where we're at.
We're seeing the field the same way. Give me the Indianapolis Colts plus 13 and a half.
I think it was plus 14 yesterday, too.

Speaker 1 It was. It was.
We'll take the plus 14 as well, right, AJ, won't we? Yes, we will. We'll take it all day.
Titans, Niners, Niners, favored by 12 and a half at home. Titans, I don't know, man.

Speaker 1 Just really about anything.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know if you heard, but Cam Ward was being a negative Nancy on the team playing after with her win on it.

Speaker 1 I heard that was taken out of context. I heard that Cam Ward was basically like, yeah, it's cool, man.
We won, but also, like, what are we doing?

Speaker 3 Yeah, we suck. We're fucking doing 11.

Speaker 1 Then I heard somebody who's who's the team comedian who has a good relationship with everybody said, hey, it's hard to win. It's league.
Let's make sure we enjoy this.

Speaker 1 I don't care what the hell Cam Ward said. Cam Ward thought, he's fucking rookie.
You don't know how hard he's like.

Speaker 2 But I saw there's truth in every joke.

Speaker 1 Well, it's also, maybe team comedians are shit talker naturally. We know Cam Ward's a shit talker as well.
So that's just a little shit talk, I think. And I like the Cam Ward's late.
They are hot.

Speaker 1 Hey, let's not fucking have a parade

Speaker 1 because we won a game. Let's make sure we understand there's still things to do, which maybe bodes well for the future of the Titans if anybody in positions of power can make a good decision one time.

Speaker 1 That's all we need. TBD.

Speaker 2 That's asking a lot. It's going to shock you.
I looked it up yesterday. The Titans after a win this year are 001.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we don't have a lot to pull from. We don't have a lot to pull from.

Speaker 1 Is there any Niners' stats that we have here, other than the fact that they're just a much better football team than the Tennessee Titans? Oh, I bet there are.

Speaker 3 I don't have them at the helm, especially because stats today were a lot of opinions, but I do think it did feel like a mail-in on the stats. Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous.

Speaker 3 But Bob Sala against rookie quarterbacks. Can't imagine rookie quarterbacks do too well against a guy like that.

Speaker 1 All right. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it?

Speaker 8 I was leaning Tennessee when we started this, but I'm going to flip and take San Francisco minus 12 and a half.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I had the same exact trajectory as you on this particular pick. Give me the Niners.
Green Bay, favored by two and a half, heading into number one seed, Denver Broncos.

Speaker 1 Now, obviously, the Broncos defense is stout, Bo Knicks is able to get the job done on the offensive side. And for the Green Bay Packers, you want to talk about a stout defense?

Speaker 1 That's a smothering defense that they have. Halfly's name is now up for basically every single job.
Mike is doing things we've never seen of. And it's not just him.

Speaker 1 It's the entire squad on the offensive side. It's Toyoton.
Jordan Love's about to go absolutely bonkers. Ty, anything we should think about before making this pick?

Speaker 4 No, you kind of mentioned it when we talked about this in the first hour.

Speaker 4 Josh Jacobs did have another MRI just to make sure he didn't do anything to his knee and it came back clean, but there is a thought that maybe he won't play Sunday. I think he's playing Sunday.

Speaker 4 So at this point,

Speaker 4 that's kind of the only thing.

Speaker 1 Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said that running back Josh Jacobs will practice today in a limited fashion. It sounds like he's feeling pretty good.

Speaker 1 LaFleur added they will have to see how he feels after the workout. LaFleur said there, and we didn't hear it exactly.

Speaker 1 Josh Jacobs telling us he's playing this.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean, you know, this is a massive fucking game. I can't see there being any way he sits this out.

Speaker 1 AJ, who do you like and why is it the Packers?

Speaker 8 I'll tell you what, I mean, the fact that the Packers are favorites going into Denver when they are such a good team in a tough place to play at Mile High, that says a lot about what these odds makers, I guess, believe the Packers are.

Speaker 8 I think the Packers win this. I'm taking the Packers here, minus two and a half on the road in Denver.
We know the impact Micah has. Even if he's not making the tackle, we know what he can do.

Speaker 8 And the rest of that defense is very, very good around him. And Jordan Love's going to hit a few deep balls over the top, too.

Speaker 1 I don't like what my brain just did

Speaker 1 i don't like it i was on the packers there and i might end up still being on the packers

Speaker 1 but in my brain i saw jordan love backing up like this and doing one of these and for some reason broncos are on the other side of it there's a chance i mean he threw a pick he threw a pick early against the bears last week and then kind of recalculated and just absolutely shredded them.

Speaker 1 No, that's old Jordan. That's not this Jordan.

Speaker 4 I was going to say, he's, I mean, that would be, he's been playing so good over like the last four weeks.

Speaker 4 And I would guess that's why the line is what it is because ultimately the books just are a little bit more confident in Jordan Love than they are Bonix.

Speaker 1 I'll take La Doreen Bay Pack. What were you going to say?

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly what he said. Like if you look at the teams and how the Broncos have beat them, like

Speaker 3 they haven't had an impressive win at this point.

Speaker 3 We talked about this yesterday to someone who called you.

Speaker 3 The Patriots get a lot of gruff for their strength of schedule, and no one's really really talking about how the Broncos have the second easiest schedule, but they haven't beaten anybody handily really yet.

Speaker 1 Okay, I like the Packers minus two and a half. I don't know why my brain did that, though, because my brain was just trying to, hey, check some balances here.

Speaker 4 You know, every stone turn.

Speaker 3 To his credit, he does step up in big game. He does.
He does.

Speaker 1 I like Jordan, too, after his interview, which, once again, I can change the way I think about somebody entirely from one conversation.

Speaker 1 I liked Jordan Love coming into our convo with him earlier this week. I love Love now.
Boom.

Speaker 1 Detroit Lions, I used to love them.

Speaker 1 We all fell out.

Speaker 1 Mostly because we have zero relationship with the team, but also because they don't look the same this year as they did last year. No, they don't.

Speaker 1 I fell in love with them last year in the year past because they were tough. They were fun.
They were exciting. They were electrifying.
And MCDC was giving us a sound bite every single fucking week.

Speaker 1 Where have those been? They got bad. Honestly, good question.
He's focused on the offense. Well, Applebee's commercial was ass.
Madness. His press Press conferences have been ass.
Mad.

Speaker 1 What are they contributing to fucking sports all of a sudden?

Speaker 12 The locker room sellies have been

Speaker 12 worse than they normally are, I'd say. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Jameer Gibbs is really the only redeeming.

Speaker 4 Him and Jack Campbell, yeah.

Speaker 12 The offense is playing great. I'll give MCDC a lot of credit there.
And they're going to have to score a million points in this game, but I will say the defense has not been.

Speaker 12 If you guys remember, Brian Branch out with that Achilles injury.

Speaker 1 Kirby Joseph was supposed to come back.

Speaker 12 He's been out for a million games. Well, he had a setback, so he's out for the regular season.
And Terry and Arnold, another starter, out for the season.

Speaker 12 So that secondary is banged up, and that's not good against Matthew Stafford.

Speaker 1 Do they have the

Speaker 1 revenge game every time Matthew Stafford's playing the Detroit Lions? Do they have the A Mortal Chamber thing in Detroit for all these players, or did Matt only get introduced to that in L.A.?

Speaker 1 Great point.

Speaker 12 We need that. Also, let's look into the turf.
I think you brought that point up to me. That turf seems to be a problem because we have injuries two years in a row now, and it's not looking good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, nobody ever talks about Detroit's turf.

Speaker 1 And I'm not saying all the injuries are there, just natural thought whenever we hear about a team having a lot of injuries.

Speaker 1 It's like, what's going on there that maybe isn't where I was saying, maybe it's just on misfortune or whatever.

Speaker 1 But on that note,

Speaker 1 the amoral people, I think, have tried to get in touch with us. Seriously? There's a chance we'll get one of those trailers in here.

Speaker 3 That would be awesome.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're living forever. Our haters are going to be fucking mad when we are alive forever and they are not.
Probably going to be able to dunk again.

Speaker 1 Again? You were able to dunk? Yeah. True.
And you ball? Huh?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 No, I know you weren't. That's what I'm saying.
Like, what dunking are you referring to? Guess what? High school, brother. High school, what?

Speaker 2 Fucking basketball.

Speaker 1 You're dunking and huh? What are we talking about? Tennis ball, but.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I'm going to be 100% serious right now. I had no idea you had ever.

Speaker 2 Tennis ball counts.

Speaker 1 I'm saying with the tennis ball, you were able. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I didn't know you had that type of explosion in your life. I bet you still can.
You're more of a savvy player, I always thought. I didn't know you were like an explosive player.
Not anymore.

Speaker 1 Still savvy. I didn't know you could could get the tennis ball in that's even a good feat for you yeah for anybody yeah i couldn't touch a rim kidding me never

Speaker 1 not even close brother but you fucking got aj dillon on the sideline i was a savvy basketball player more of a stalk to could you smack the backboard when you were doing a layup the bottom the rubber the rubber part

Speaker 1 smacking rubber yeah i mean i look no one was picking me to dunk the ball you know they were picking me to pass the ball i know but for for a guy that, in my eyes, is a good athlete, I think you are a good athlete.

Speaker 1 After watching you do all different sporting styles, I think you are a good athlete. You're the first good athlete that I've ever met that has not been able to touch like rim.

Speaker 3 Jumping,

Speaker 3 and I mean this seriously, basketball is probably one of my better sports growing up, but yes, like jumping has just never been my thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but Connor, Connor can throw, Connor can shoot, Connor can do it. Connor, you're like a real athlete.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, I can skate. Like, if we go across the board in sports, I can do them all.
Just jumping, no matter what, has never been my thing.

Speaker 1 Dancing, though, you're not bad.

Speaker 3 Yeah, again, on the ground.

Speaker 1 Ten toes. Yeah, exactly.
Two feet. You gassing up that drummer the other night.
I still would not be able to ever. Okay.

Speaker 3 I mean, he was a talent. I mean, he might have been a cocky son of a bitch or something.

Speaker 2 Is that when he owned Tibeto?

Speaker 1 We were at a, oh, that was crazy.

Speaker 1 This might have been the reason why Indiana won, to be honest. At halftime, Indiana's band was doing their thing first.
Tobiddle was walking in front of us, our suite.

Speaker 1 And I don't know how many people are on that. Too many.
Maybe a thousand? A lot. A lot.
He got every other one of them. So 500, then they'll say if there's a thousand, 800, he got 400 of them.

Speaker 1 They would walk and they would have no idea. And they go, he taught him and go, hey, Tobitdle, Tobiddle.
And Ohio State Band would look and he'd go, on the field, Tobiddle. And then he.

Speaker 1 It was funny. They were pissed.
They were not.

Speaker 3 I laughed every other time I did it.

Speaker 1 Tobito and the Indiana band put on a good show at halftime.

Speaker 1 How come nobody was saying that about the Big 12 championship? What's that all about? I don't know.

Speaker 4 I thought John Party brought the fucking house down. He did.
But apparently not everybody thought came out of the ground.

Speaker 13 Give this guy some credit. He had three different stages.

Speaker 1 Three stages, fucking pyro and fireworks. This guy had a clean shave, sweet jacket.
That might have been the problem.

Speaker 4 Huh? That might have been the problem. He should have maybe grown a beard because I saw a lot of people saying, who the fuck is this wobble body? Oh, it's dirt on my boots guy.

Speaker 4 And he doesn't have any fucking dirt on his boots. Those things look brand new.

Speaker 1 Well, that's because he was in Jerry World, and they gave him a full thing. I don't think it was fair the way that people were talking about Mr.
Party.

Speaker 1 I agree. I will say this.
I thought it was great. And there might be a little dirt on my boots.

Speaker 3 Banger. Stage

Speaker 3 can't be the star.

Speaker 3 You can't be going after like, the stage was cool.

Speaker 1 Stage was cool. Stage was cool.

Speaker 3 But that can't be the one. Like, Jack White and Eminem.

Speaker 1 I don't even remember the fucking stage. I remember the setup of the fans very close, which I thought was a smart idea

Speaker 1 for the optics to have that many ends. Whenever they zoomed out and we're like, oh, that's only that many.

Speaker 1 Then the cheerleaders were in there. I thought maybe that was interesting because trying to utilize all that space is difficult on a football field.
So I think they're always trying to balance that.

Speaker 1 I think Eminem had the right idea, though. Wasn't there an icon? Everybody tighten here.
That was a couple years ago for Jack Harlow. It wasn't great.
John Party, I thought you did great, dude.

Speaker 1 Gumpy and I really enjoyed it. We were in transit.

Speaker 1 Gumpy and I were in transit and we're standing in airport watching said performance. A little bit of sound, certainly static sound out here.
This guy pops up out of the ground on the stage.

Speaker 1 We're like,

Speaker 1 Big 12 bringing it. And then we see the jacket of party.
We're like, holy shit. Sings a song, walks 100 yards to another stage.
There's firework.

Speaker 1 It's pyro and he's absolutely, you know, getting on that thing. And me and Gumpy are like, is this the...
This should be Super Bowl halftime, maybe. Did we hear it entirely?

Speaker 1 I mean, we weren't plugged in like some people were dumpy sends one

Speaker 1 party's kind of doing it here or whatever because we were so impressed literally stop what we were doing to watch it we're like wow what a show then i retweet double down this production's outrageous and then we got a thousand people telling us how terrible some mean things about him mean

Speaker 1 mean things

Speaker 1 i didn't like it not at all were you listening to it on mute i mean well and i didn't want to respond but kind of yeah i mean yeah it was maybe we didn't hear it as clearly but party we thought he did good Maybe John Old.

Speaker 1 He's hating Foxer Dookie, dude. Don't ever forget it.
Yeah. His jacket.

Speaker 1 So cool.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He should have just done dirt on my boots every time. Because there was a point during his first song he was up and he was like, God, ain't nobody fucking care that I'm up here right now.

Speaker 1 And he's starting to play. How y'all doing, Big 12?

Speaker 4 Which, you know,

Speaker 4 that never really plays.

Speaker 3 Yes, it does.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? Always. What are they supposed to say?

Speaker 1 I got nothing dirt on my boots.

Speaker 3 What's up, motherfuckers? Guess what? I got some fucking dirt on my boots.

Speaker 1 I mean, guess what?

Speaker 3 Every 70,000 on there.

Speaker 1 Fuck yeah, yeah, even and then when it's over. Hey, you know what? I was thinking the other day.
I just looked down here.

Speaker 3 Oh, shit.

Speaker 1 Got a little motherfucking dirt on my boots.

Speaker 3 Or point someone out.

Speaker 1 Hey, is that some hold on?

Speaker 1 You got a little dirt on your boots. Yeah, so remix.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Here at the Big 12, we all kind of got a little dirt on our boots. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, but he's a fucking artist. He is.
So why don't we have a little respect for everything he put into that? No doubt.

Speaker 13 Absolute showman. Debut.

Speaker 1 Amen.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Party, for the show. And we apologize for, I guess, just throwing you into the sun with our particular setup on our little portion of the internet.
But there wasn't one. No.

Speaker 1 I mean, we're scrolling. We got on a plane.
Phone goes in pocket. Send that tweet.
I fucking doubled down. Absolutely.
Phone in pocket. Let's walk to plane, get on plane, sit down on plane.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're going through the whole thing. Let's check phone before we take off.

Speaker 1 Geez, Gumps, are you reading?

Speaker 1 Holy fuck, this guy's trending right now.

Speaker 1 They haven't said one good thing about this guy. Gump, have you seen this? And Gumpy goes, it does appear as if we were a little off on our judgment of Party's performance or something like that.

Speaker 1 It was a great show, though. Are you kidding me? Look at that.
That's unbelievable.

Speaker 13 Yeah, he's just gassing up the crowd.

Speaker 1 The Mat LaFleur bump. I mean, look at all the fucking band on the entire.
I mean, they did. Everything Bub Party.

Speaker 4 I was going to say, people left in droves, too. They were borderline stampeding towards the concession stands when he came out.

Speaker 1 You're going to go to him out of the battle.

Speaker 3 I know. I'm just saying, it's not fair.

Speaker 4 You'd think people would be like, well, actually, I'm going to just shit or piss my pants because party's out there, but they didn't.

Speaker 1 Big 12, great job on halftime alongside party. Also, Big 10, what you guys did to Lucas Oil Stadium made it awesome.
I mean, like taking over these NFL things and making them college atmospheres.

Speaker 1 You certainly did a good job. Let's get back to the Sunday slate, shall we? We're both on the Packers.
We're all on the Rams.

Speaker 1 Yep. Me as well.
I, uh,

Speaker 1 man, I don't like that, though. It feels like it's the same old Lions.

Speaker 12 I got to give MCDC a little credit here because he's unlocked J-Mo. Gibbs is having one of the best years ever.
Golf's numbers are actually incredible if you look at them. And St.
Brown's doing St.

Speaker 12 Brown things. And that's without Laporta and without Ragnow and some of the, you know, so MCDC's doing a good job.
Only way we win this game is if it's a shootout. We have to win 42, 35 or something.

Speaker 1 But isn't that what the Rams want to? The Rams aren't scared of that either.

Speaker 12 And that's the problem. And that's the problem with our banged up defense.
Stafford will probably throw for 350, three tuts.

Speaker 3 This is what happens when you win a bunch of games. Your schedule gets very, very hard.
Indeed.

Speaker 3 And when you lose a few, when you run into the Rams late into the season, that's when it becomes a huge problem.

Speaker 1 75% of the Bets are on the Lions this, so maybe we're seeing it wrong.

Speaker 3 I kind of like that. 65 last night.

Speaker 1 You like the Lions? Yeah. How come?

Speaker 4 I don't know. I just feel like they have to win this week.
I think people have kind of written them off and act like they're,

Speaker 4 you know, six and seven. Like they're eight and five still.
Like this team is very good. They play in a very tough division.
And I don't know.

Speaker 4 I don't want to say that the Rams are due for a stinker because that's definitely not the case. But I could see this being like a big, you know, hutch statement game as well.

Speaker 1 Six points, a lot of points, man.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I guess I don't know if they're going to win, but I think they'll cover.

Speaker 1 AJ, final answer:

Speaker 8 LA Rams.

Speaker 1 I'll do the same. Panthers, Saints, Panthers favored by two and a half in New Orleans.
New Orleans fresh off a win over the Tampa Bay Buccans.

Speaker 1 Carolina Panthers can still win the NFC South, potentially should win NFC South with what is happening down there and host a home playoff game. Bryce Young, Shuck.

Speaker 1 How do you like it, AJ?

Speaker 8 I'm a little surprised the Panthers, well, I guess I thought they might be favored by more than two and a half going into this game.

Speaker 8 I know it's a tough place to play down in New Orleans, but give me the Carolina Panthers. I think Bryce Young lights it up.
I'll do the same.

Speaker 1 Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys, Sunday night football, five and a half points spread. Dallas Cowboys favored at home.
Tell me a little bit about nine in the Vikings.

Speaker 1 Any pieces of information that need to be heard?

Speaker 2 They're coming off a blowout win last week. You know, nine had an efficient game, if you will.
Didn't throw for a ton of yards, but 128 points something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's

Speaker 1 very, very efficient.

Speaker 2 He was nine to ten to start the game. But I heard someone say today, like, if the Dallas Cowboys don't win by 40, they're the laughingstock of the NFL.

Speaker 1 Who said that?

Speaker 1 Stephen A. Stephen A.
said that? Yep. Well, he's always got that little free don't with the Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 1 Minnesota Vikings have it all, man, don't they? They got it all.

Speaker 1 Except.

Speaker 2 Van Ginki, if you throw a quick screen his way, he's going to pick it off and take it the other direction.

Speaker 3 Cowboys still in.

Speaker 1 AJ, who do you like? How do you like it?

Speaker 8 Man, five and a half feels like a lot, but I like this Cowboys team. I really do.
And I don't know if the Vikings offense will score enough to keep up, so give me the Cowboys at home.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Dallas Cowboys as well, minus five and a half, as we wrapped up the Sunday slate there with our picks. We hope you have an incredible weekend.

Speaker 1 We hope you have the greatest weekend of your life. And remember, anything you want is available because of our friends at DoorDash.
Hell yeah. Win every week with DoorDash streaks.

Speaker 1 You know, you can save up $250 a season when you order on game days. And obviously, this QR code will make your life easier.

Speaker 1 And this pizza right here will not be delivered because this pizza is on a graphic. But any pizza that's around you can be delivered to you.
And it's not just pizza. You can get local steaks,

Speaker 1 Chinese food,

Speaker 1 fast food,

Speaker 1 healthy food.

Speaker 1 You get smoothies or shakes or burgers.

Speaker 1 Or pants.

Speaker 1 T-shirt.

Speaker 1 Medicine.

Speaker 1 Cleaning supplies.

Speaker 1 Towels.

Speaker 1 Anything with our friends at DoorDash. Shout out to DoorDash.
Shout out to all of you for allowing us to do this for a living. We appreciate the hell out of you.

Speaker 1 In the back, great work this week, boys. Workbase.

Speaker 1 The GDB graphic design boys. Good work this week.
Good work, Bates.

Speaker 1 Congrats to Debone.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What a day.

Speaker 1 He's in the middle of a hair transition, too. Yeah.
So he had to take a photo in the middle of a new haircut with his hero, John Cena.

Speaker 1 So I'll be excited to see how we view that photo four or five years from now. You know, it's like wedding photos that happen whenever somebody's in a different stage.
Here he is right here.

Speaker 1 This is obviously a magical moment for Debone. Oh, he's a big dude.
Bone, yeah, he's offensive lineman, national champion, offensive lineman.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's a gigantic guy. A lot of people are saying his legs are like pogo sticks and stuff like that.
Just know that he's a great athlete.

Speaker 1 Debone is a great athlete, and he's current U-ball champion. And he had a chance, obviously, to meet his hero and John Cena.

Speaker 1 And he kicked ass this week, as did Dirty, as did Talk, as did Bill, as did Mitt. Zito, we appreciate the hell out of you.
Tim McAfee, great work this week. AP Tone, way to go.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Toxic Table, way to go, boys.

Speaker 1 Hey, Jay, way to go.

Speaker 1 Hey, you watching around the world. Way go, you guys.
Hell yeah. Another week of doing this ass job.
Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Crazy.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 1 Your time is up. Time is down.
His time is up.

Speaker 1 Tomorrow night. Yeah, it is.
Sad. Damn.

Speaker 1 It's the dawn of a new day.

Speaker 1 And let's remember that we have no idea what it'll bring. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice.
It might change their life. Let's try to enjoy this life.
Team on me, team on three.

Speaker 1 We'll see you on Monday. 123 team.
Goodbye.

Speaker 7 Fellas, it's the season to shine and not just from the holiday lights. Manscaped is here to keep you looking sharp for every holiday party, family photo, and mistletoe moment.

Speaker 7 The lawnmower 5 body trimmer and Chairman Plus face shaver deliver precision, comfort, and control worthy of Santa's nice list.

Speaker 7 Whether you're tidying up before a big night out or prepping for New Year's Eve, Manscaped has your back and your face too.

Speaker 7 So gift yourself some grooming greatness this season because looking good is the best gift of all. And now you can find Manscaped products at your local Walmart.

Speaker 14 At Tab, we're all in on the NFL Miss By Five. On select NFL games, Miss By Five on any rushing or receiving yards market and Tab will still pay it out as a winner.
Now that's something to shout about.

Speaker 14 Tab.

Speaker 15 We're on. Only applies to selected player rushing and receiving yards markets.
Other legs in multi- and same-game multi-bets must also win for bet to be a winner. You win some, you lose more.

Speaker 15 For free and confidential support, visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.