NFL Preview With Chris Long, Seth Wickersham, Jed York’s Escapade, Deshaun Named Starter + Mt Rushmore Of Non Ball Sport Items

27:14The Bears, I feel like I've seen a million times. They're basically

27:19PFT Commenter:like Virginia Cavaliers. The Vikings look like early 2000s, like Ravens. The Lions turned into the Panthers. Did you see their helmet and their color scheme? I didn't see the helmet. That was the other thing that we learned about Shane. He can't really judge these by the pictures. He needs to see them on body, he said. I need to see him on body. Well, you're missing the pants. You're missing the socks. You're missing the shoes. Look up the Lions. Look up the Lions on body. Doesn't the body matter? Like which body you're looking at? Like the Deion Dawkins situation? Yeah. You're talking about? Yeah.

27:57If it's a big guy or if it's like a speedy wide receiver with a single digit number. The Houston, they get. All right.

28:05Seth Wickersham:Oh, those are Panthers. Yeah, they're the Panthers.

28:07PFT Commenter:The Lions turned into the Panthers. How stupid is that?

28:09Seth Wickersham:That's bad. That's bad. I had the worst ones the Colts I hate the Colts the Colts are really bad the only thing that you can set your watch to when it comes to all these different jerseys that they come up with is the Jets ones will always look exactly the same thank you to the Jets

28:25PFT Commenter:oh yeah what are the these Colts ones are just the Bills ones yeah I just I it was cool when Oregon was the only place that did it Baylor a little bit yeah yeah but it's become and again the NFL like your branding is so strong. Your each team, especially the historic ones, like don't mess with it. I don't, it's just whatever. Did they say how many times a year this is worn? I think it's just Christmas Day for the Bears is all I've seen so far. It's like the rivalry week. Yeah. So do you feel the same way about like City Connect jerseys and other sports? Yes. I think there's, I mean, there's some that are like kind of nice.

29:08PFT Commenter:no but even the City Connects I thought weren't that great in NBA and MLB yeah hit rates not high but some are really nice like the Washington Nationals the Cherry Blossoms yeah the Fenway Red Sox there are some cities that you can put like Maryland if they put the flag on anything people are going to buy it if they put Cherry Blossoms on anything DC related I don't care I will buy it and there's the to the Texans point there is the Carolina sky blue cheat code like the Cubs have their you know light blue uniforms those are awesome I don't know if those are technically the city connects but so those cheat codes like that doesn't that doesn't mean all these these jerseys are good it's just that teams figured out that if you do a sky blue people are gonna be like oh that's sick because it's the best color so yeah I'm jerseied out I would like to see a plaid jersey at some point.

30:06PFT Commenter:I feel like there has been. Has there? I don't know. A plaid jersey would not. Maybe I'm thinking of Twin Peaks. Yeah, you are. That is hot. Yeah. You're thinking of boobs. I am. Yeah. I jed-yorked myself there. Hey, criminal tools right here in the old skull. You know what I'm saying, Zach? I was thinking about it. I do think that might have legs being like, I got to go take a york. Yeah. You hear about that guy yorked himself last night. Yeah. Or someone saying like, oh man, that chick's hot And it's like, bro, chill out Your tongue's sounding like a criminal tool right now Yeah You gotta be careful Oh, actually, I just clowned Tony O 'Brown myself It's really like, I'm gonna go get some Jed Yeah Yeah Yeah Okay, so Zach, what were you gonna say?

30:50There's no way anybody's first York is 4am at the trailer park Oh, he's York before That can't be your first York, there's no way I disagree strongly You think so? 100 % with what you're doing That's a veteran York I think that's a lot of people's first times. I think that it's very rarely a billionaire's first time.

31:06PFT Commenter:I'm too much of a pussy. I would probably, my first York would be like 2.30 on a Tuesday. Like, there's no way they're doing a sting right now. Everyone's at work. All the cops are at work right now. Like, this can't possibly be me getting arrested. Yeah, I wouldn't do it on a weekend, weeknight, like a late night. But that's where you're horriest, I would think. I know, but I'd have to dip my toes in Yorking way, way before that. Yeah, like a Monday at like 10 a.m. Yeah, you got the B squad going. The cops aren't even up yet. This is fine. No, I do think that a lot of people's first times would probably be that type of environment.

31:40Yeah. Not a billionaire NFL owner. I think their first times would probably be an environment where like the line between just like employee and like working girl of the night is probably blurred like in a very swanky hotel lobby bar.

31:58PFT Commenter:but yeah this was a very very horny guy yes very horny all right so uh we kind of brushed over deshaun watson is the starting quarterback for the browns it is um i feel bad for browns fans yeah it is like i know that deshaun i guess could potentially be better than shador sanders but i would just much rather just wash your hands especially after his his press conference like just be like dude we're done with this like you you suck yeah you don't want to be here you hate everything about it let's just stop this i'd forgotten that maybe the craziest part in this situation the fact that the sean is the starting quarterback of the browns is the fact that his owner publicly like in an interview said out loud we took a big swing it was a miss no it didn't he also say and now we're hoping to hit a double or something yeah but he said like like bb is being like we're trying to make something out of this the guy that he referred to as a swing correct like publicly the owner called you a swing and a miss and now that guy is now the starting quarterback going into a season and you're trying to sell hope to your fan base yes even though you called him a swing and a miss like that sucks for browns fans it's it it's terrible that they have to go through this he's not good uh off the field he's never a pilot that's what we were saying the other day is like other people found redemption and like found communities and new cities as they try to like revive their careers that embrace them and like give them a second chance you can't get a second chance if you still are denying that correct your first chance is over a swing and a miss yeah all right so i have the exact quote we took a big swing and a miss with deshaun we thought we had the quarterback we didn't and we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him so we got to dig ourselves out of that hole it was an entire organization decision it ends with d and i so hold us accountable i think it starts with d and i right it was an entire organization decision and it ends with d and i i think you're supposed to say d is his wife by the way d yeah i feel like you're supposed to say it starts with me i think it's ends with d and me yeah but also i but also you should start it starts and ends i think is what you would ideally i think the buck stops here but it starts with me i think you say it starts the decision starts and it ends with d and i also what a what a what a shot for him to take at his wife yeah like nobody was blaming her at all for this yeah he's like i i know that there's a lot of people upset with d i want to say that uh both of us this is sean watson like she she brought it to me and we discussed and i approved yeah and so yes we both share equally in this decision right god she was just like totally skate nobody was thinking her wins are my wins my losses are her losses d you screwed this one up but i'll sit here with you but we both did you know uh wait so he went on to say it would be great if we could get the quarterback but we're not going to force it we're going to be patient and we're going to going to try to accumulate as many really good football players as we can so he is he's so over this yeah he never even said like Deshaun might be the like Deshaun was a swing and a miss yeah we screwed up the quarterback position by the way would you mind continue continuing to work for us like it's so stupid it's and again it's just it's Deshaun Watson is not good at playing quarterback anymore this was a crazy stat i saw this from doug clausen it's been 2059 days since deshaun watson's last 300 yard passing game january 3rd 2021 tom brady has 14 300 yard passing games since deshaun watson's last and he's been retired for the last three seasons yep and there's also names on that list because i have the list as well sam howell great quarterback great quarterback Zach Wilson, Josh Dobbs, PJ Walker, Drew Locke, Cooper Rush, Aiden O 'Connell, Taylor Heineke, all these guys, Ben Roethlisberger, all these guys have had a 300-yard passing game.

35:51PFT Commenter:Shador. Shador. Drake May. Yeah. Even Drake May had one. Even Drake May. You know what's crazy, too? And listen, I know that the Browns, like, I don't know. There's a world where you're like, well, let's see what we have with them. Joe Flacco took you guys to the playoffs. He's still playing. I know he's not the long-term answer, but it just sucks for the defensive side of the ball. They're just like, yeah, we're going to go with Shadour. I mean, Deshaun, how long do you think until Shadour plays? Like how long? How long does Deshaun have? I'd say no more than like five or six games. Yeah, I was going to say like a month and a half feels right.

36:31Like if you get a guy, and I'll bring up Baker. He used to be in the building. he's a guy that would uh if he gets banged up he doesn't give a fuck he's going to keep playing football i think the first hint of getting injured and they are real injuries in the nfl like it's you get hit a lot yeah it hurts like shit um but the first sign of like pain of an injury deshaun watts is gonna be like yeah fuck that yeah he's got guaranteed money he doesn't really feel like playing for that franchise anymore um so he'll he'll take himself out and then the crazy thing is like okay it's actually it's the perfect crime for the browns because they are clearly trying to lose games right it would appear well i don't know because it's also new coach

37:12PFT Commenter:i i don't know if they're trying to lose games i think they're just so fucked with the fact that they signed deshaun watson he's terrible at quarterback yeah well i guess they've got they've got deshaun if they want to roll him out there they'll probably lose some games but it's what i'm saying is a perfect crime like any other franchise that was putting deshaun out there for week one as a starter everybody would be like they're tanking the season the fact that they also have shador who has not played well right then a reasonable person could look at that and say like i'm actually not sure which one's better yeah but but you could look at at shador and say he's much much younger and you don't know what you have do you know how old deshaun is i was shocked to read 28 no he's no he's 30 okay but i thought he was 34 sorry 33 you did it's okay um I actually thought he was under 30.

38:01PFT Commenter:But, yeah, no, you're like, they, it's just, it's crazy. I feel bad for Browns fans. It's just they did not ask for this. And I also, in a weird way, and this is going to sound stupid, because Sean Watts is not good at quarterback, and he hasn't shown it for many years. It's like you were saying where it's like, hey, maybe he could have a good. You do look back and see what he was, and you're like, hey, just find that guy for a minute. It's the gambler in me. It's the gambler in all of us where it's like, what if we, what if we just win all of our bets? What if the Sean is just good again? So I think they're probably going with a little of that.

38:38PFT Commenter:And then they're going to pull the, they're going to pull them as soon as that's proven to be stupid. I have a question for you, Hank and Zach. Tell me how you think these quarterback situations are. I'm going to give you some teams. Okay. You ready? Yep. The Rams. Great. The Chargers. Okay. Oh, just okay. All right. Cowboys. Good. Bills. Okay. Okay. That's great. Browns. Great. Okay. What is this experiment? This experiment was just these are the top. Do it to me. Do it to me. All right. Rams. Really good team. Chargers. It's just a quarterback situation. Quarterbacks. A quarterback situation.

39:20Chargers. We'll see. Okay. Cowboys. About 16 out of 32. Bills. Great.

39:28PFT Commenter:Browns. Yeah. Dog shit. Terrible. Those are the top five most expensive quarterback rooms in the NFL. Wow. The Browns room is so expensive. You have, folks, for the Rams, Chargers, Cowboys, Bills, I would say all four of those teams are very, very confident in their starting quarterback. And then the Browns are the fifth most expensive team at$44.5 million. And they have two second-year guys in that room. Yeah. That's the craziest. that weren't first-round draft picks. I would say they got three. They got, well, one rookie. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. I would like to see. That guy's dynamic.

40:05He's dynamic. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough break for the Browns and Browns fans. They're still going to go to games, and they're going to boo because they were told not to boo. So we talk about this with Chris a little bit. It really worked out quite well for the rest of the NFL owners to have this contract to Deshaun going from being the worst contract that they've ever seen, maybe the future of the NFL, is giving guaranteed money for free agents or for big-name trades, to being the best cautionary tale ever to why you should never give out guaranteed money to a quarterback on a trade. I was thinking about what we're going to be looking at at the end of the year.

40:45If the tank does pay off for the Browns, there is a world where it would be Browns' first overall pick, and the presumable number one overall pick would be Arch Manning.

40:57PFT Commenter:I think, by the way, the Browns are not going to be the worst team, but yes. I agree, actually. I'm going to bet their win total, which I think is five and a half, they've got a very easy schedule, and their defense is good. But you could see it's a possibility. The Browns could be the worst team in the NFL as well. Yeah. So if that happens, Arch Manning presumed first overall pick, do you think that the family would let Arch go to Cleveland? Absolutely not. I thought that too Oh but Haslam But then I remember Haslam is the number one booster Yeah For the Tennessee Volunteers Peyton Manning obviously deep connections there I'm imagining they probably have a good relationship with each other Like a very good relationship That might supersede seeing all those names on the back of that jersey Yeah Yeah no you're right That would be the one twist where it's like Yeah But again it's not Peyton's son so Arch is an Ole Miss guy True And a Texas guy Not a I don't know This is just us using our This dude's using our imaginations We're just using our Fan fiction Not New York way Yeah Speaking of memes Do you think that The Mannings would allow Arch to go to the Jets Probably I was saying not in a Jed York way We're using our imagination for good Not evil We have good offensive line Good receivers Why wouldn't you want to Put your young quarterback in a good situation like that.

42:20PFT Commenter:Memes, how would you say this is going without Max here? I think well. Okay, good. Because there were people saying you're a Max merchant. You're the only one who's been saying that. But I think it's been going well. Literally when we start and it's like the first three seconds when I can't see something on the screen, I'm like, oh, memes, Max merchant. I heard Colton say it too. No, I think we're actually getting to the point where Max might be Wally pipped by Shane. I actually agree with that. Shane was electric. Shane was electric. He called – Max would never call Hank a pussy. One thing about Max.

42:56PFT Commenter:Yeah, one thing about Max. He would never. All right, let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne, then we have Mount Rushmore, then two great interviews before we get to Hot Seat, Cool Throne. Mountain Dew. Nothing goes better with hanging with your friends, talking about football, talking about jerseys, sitting around, just hanging out. We were playing cards last night, playing a little euchre nothing goes better than hanging out with your friends than having a refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew we're here at Camp Barstool thank you to Mountain Dew for sponsoring Camp Barstool we love coming here and uh we're doing it all we're kayaking we're canoeing we're fishing we're swimming and it all goes well with Mountain Dew we're gonna play some softball today an American original tasting great since 48 enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew an American original grab a do tasting great since 48 grab a do today thank you to Mountain Dew and uh tune in to all of our Camp Barstool stuff because we'll have live streams after the yak every single day and it's gonna be a lot of fun Henry my hot seat is uh I don't know if it's I guess players that want to go back to college okay even though they can still do it.

44:12PFT Commenter:The SEC released a statement condemning the actions, but they're not doing anything about it. I love that. What about the Big Ten? Lead from the front. The Big Ten's banning it. Yeah, we're banning it. We're actually doing something about it. Have you condemned it? Well, I disavow, I condemn. Because the SEC, they led the way in condemning it. Yeah, I would like to say I disavow and condemn, but are completely allowing it. But you're missing it. You're missing it. They strongly condemned it. it is sad to me that the SEC doesn't go all the way to banning it because they know they probably are going to need this to compete with the Big Ten.

44:47PFT Commenter:So if we're being honest, they need anything they can get at this point. But they condemned it. They condemned it. You're losing sight of that. They said this is terrible. It's a terrible thing that's happening. Somebody should do something about this. If you're one of the smaller conferences, you should just be like, we're Ellis Island for these guys. We will accept you. Give us your washed out training camp, 85th man roster guys. Yeah. We'll take them. You get Tish involved in an island, and he might be able to set that up. I think if it doesn't work out in North Carolina, a 33rd team would be nice to have in the NFL.

45:27Maybe you get all those guys. Actually, it would work perfectly in North Carolina. Everyone that doesn't make an actual roster in the NFL come to UNC. seat that's been the dream of lombardi yeah true make it happen true all right uh my other hot seat

45:42PFT Commenter:was was good good callaway yeah the stories feels like it's kind of broken containment from just like social media wait so did it go further new york times wrote an article oh no and then at three o 'clock in the morning the callaway ceo released a statement which like if you're wait That's York time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was on demon time. This guy's, the CEO's name is Chip Brewer, which I just thought was a funny. Yo, don't say that second name. It's a funny name. We can't say B-R-E-W. It's a funny name for a golf brand CEO. There's no way that's his real name. Chip Brewer. Chip Brewer. Oliver.

46:20Oliver Brewer. Oliver Brewer. Oliver Brewer. That's the most. It's impossible to say that name and sound sober. But he was. Oliver Brewer. Mom, I wasn't drinking. I was just over at Oliver Brewer's house.

46:32PFT Commenter:Oliver Brewer III. He said, long saving mistakes were made. We're taking the matter very seriously. The part that I found funny was he said, you know, once they realized how bad the video was, they removed it. We are also conducting both internal and external investigations and have already made changes to our approval processes aimed at ensuring this will never happen again. What does that mean? Just having someone with a brain? Like, what is the internal and what is the external investigation look like? They're looking outside the organization to see who was his influence from the outside. No, it sounds like they're hiring a law firm to do an investigation.

47:08PFT Commenter:To just check some emails of someone not really like, oh, looks good, guys. The craziest question. I think they're just walking around their office and handing them a photo, and it's like a man and a woman. And would you attack either of these people? And if so, which one? And every guy that says just the guy, they're like, all right, you got a brain. You got this. The statement from Callaway, what's his name? Chip. Chip. Oliver G. Brewer III. Chip Brewer. Oliver Brewer. The all black app that he put out. Yeah. Like, it was a screenshot of all black background. You know he means business. It's serious.

47:43Someone died or good good made a bad ad. Yeah, it was a stupid commercial that came out. Yeah. This is the easiest. Like, there's some bad things that companies have put out. There's some bad ads that have come out that you think, like, that's really, like, fucking stupid. that they put that out there. And they should be shamed for that ad. This was just a joke that was not funny. Right. Because you could ask them, like, explain what the joke was supposed to be. It's like, well, the joke, I think, is supposed to be that Garrett is so protective of his driver that he would do something stupid and act like an asshole, like push a woman over for trying to take it.

48:17It's not like, yeah, I don't... The New York Times should not be involved in this.

48:22PFT Commenter:No, it's... We did the sliding scales of ads where it's, remember the, what was the orange vanilla Coke? That was the annoying commercial. Yeah. What about Dr. Pepper for men? Dr. Pepper 10, it's not for women. The other spectrum, the other side of the spectrum would be. That was literally their tagline was it's not for women. The other side of the spectrum would be SpaghettiOs 9-11 tribute. Right, which is great. We're somewhere in the middle that we don't need to even like. I forgot about that one. It doesn't need to be like day six. What about Florida State honoring Martin Luther King Jr.? That was nice.

48:55PFT Commenter:That actually was classy. When they photoshopped the receiver. That was classy. And he was doing the chop. I'd like to buy those. I forgot. He was doing the chop. Or the, I think it was a Marriott or a Sheridan that did a 9-11 free breakfast from the hours of when the first tower got hit to the second tower got hit. That was touching. That one was really nice. Yeah. It's really not that big of a movie. It's nowhere near those. No, it's not. I'll tell you this. TaylorMade would never. No. No. Oh, they should actually market. We're happy to be the face of TaylorMade's next ad campaign, which is just being respectful to women.

49:31Like giving drivers to women.

49:33PFT Commenter:Yes. How about that? Yeah. Giving drivers to women and Tiger. Yeah. Excuse me, miss. Yeah. You look like you could use a driver. Here you go. That would actually be a funny ad. Yeah. Just handing out drivers and then Tiger walks in and you're like, hey, buddy, I got you. Yeah, you too. Okay. Good hot seats. I was just on the phone with Oliver Brewer. Let's talk to the president. You got a cool throw? My cool throw is the Pods. The Pods? The Pods, yeah. Okay. They got a new owner, Kwanzaa Jones. I saw this. See the press conference? She was pretty amped up. Two-second clip of it, yeah. We're going to win.

50:10We're going to win and win it all. We're going to win.

50:13PFT Commenter:We're going to win and win it all. I mean, that's what you want. You get a new team. You get a new ownership. Maybe once Jed York gets ousted from the 49ers, the new owner comes in. Wait, are you calling for that? I said maybe. Okay. Be careful. In the spirit of consistency, he is. He's calling for it. But that's exciting. If you're a pod, if you're a pod head, Pods Nation. I mean, they're a fun team. Where does she come from? I don't know. Like, is she just... Did she just buy it? I don't mean literally. I mean literally. It's her and her husband. Yeah, I think her and her husband bought it. Got it.

50:46I don't know anything about it.

50:47PFT Commenter:Oh, she's a singer-songwriter investor. Oh, okay. but her and her husband share a net worth of$3.9 to$5.5 billion. When somebody says that they're a singer, songwriter, investor, and they own a sports team, what they're really saying is they're an investor. Yeah. I didn't know that the Padres got bought. That's what I'm saying. When did that happen? August 2026. Yeah, remember? Because their former owner was sick, and that's why he went all in and did the Soto trade. That's right. And that's why the Nats got the best farm system in baseball. Got it. Got it. All right. Good. Cool to run. Yeah. Pods.

51:24PFT Commenter:Pods. All right. PFT. Hot seat. Cool to run. My hot seat is LeBron James. LeBron James. And I'm sad that Max isn't here right now to have this discussion. But in the Lakers and Dodgers news that we've been following for the last couple days, there's a new story that came out just a couple minutes ago. And that LeBron James, when he was signing with the Los Angeles Lakers, remember he signed a$154 million contract with the Lakers, that actually was only half as big as the deal that he had just signed with a Midwest life insurance company for a$300 million loan. yeah and so that loan that he signed with uh was there were companies that were advised by a branch of guggenheim okay investments which is what the owner of the lakers and the dodgers that's his company arranged by when he signed it okay so i'm putting up the pablo torrey bat signal right now i'm sure why was lebron needing immediate cash i mean it'd still be nice to have 300 million I agree, but what does LeBron need cash for?

52:36Maybe if you're making a movie. If your production company is making a big budget movie. But this was in 2018.

52:45PFT Commenter:Huh. So he's not going to be eligible to play this year? LeBron? Yeah. Oh, no, he's fully eligible. No, I'm just hoping that's the case. Fully eligible, right. As of now, but the NBA has not issued a statement yet. I think it's interesting. Hey, did you see LeBron being investigated? Nope. Okay, well, you should probably take a quick break from the sex vacation and look into this investigation. This is fake. No, PFT actually just said it. Max, months before he signed with the Lakers. The most reliable LeBron sources out there. Yeah, I would say I'm number one probably. Okay. You know what? We can't trust Max.

53:23Max is compromised. You're too... You're compromised. No, I'm not compromised. You're compromised from the start. How am I compromised? Any LeBron news coming from you guys is obviously fake.

53:34PFT Commenter:You sent me the Shams article. That was actually. That was about Joel Embiid. All Sixers news from you guys compromised. Max, follow-up question. When you got stung by a jellyfish, did you have to piss on yourself?

53:47Seth Wickersham:No, it was like, I actually should send you a picture of the damage. It was the biggest nothing thing of all time.

53:53PFT Commenter:Oh. But did you piss on yourself just for fun? I actually have gotten a sea urchin it's not really a sting I've stepped on a sea urchin I've had to piss myself I've had to piss myself I've had to piss myself okay piss myself piss on myself yeah Max Shane has something to say to you Max Shane has something to say to you Shane say it bolt up yeah bolt up no no say it Shane bolt up pussy oh he called you a pussy sorry he called you a pussy I know I heard that's tough it's tough to come back from Yeah, are you going to... He called Hank a pussy on Monday's show and then apologized for calling him a pussy, which is the most pussy thing to do.

54:37That's Shane, though.

54:38PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right, we miss you. Look at his LeBron investigation. It's actually a real thing. We're not fucking with you. I'm going to look into it. Okay. Max, you got$300 million in a guaranteed loan. In a guaranteed loan. And that was approved by companies that were associated with Walters Guggenheim. Guggenheim, Walters. Look into it. All right, bye. All right, so yeah, LeBron might not play next year. Yeah, that's what I got away from it. That'd be crazy. Yeah. I listened to a full podcast about Mark Walter. That guy, he's in too deep. Well, I mean, he was taking, like, people were paying him money every month for life insurance.

55:13Then he was loaning that money he was getting to the Dodgers ticket department. He was writing IOUs to himself. And not marking it as being, he was saying it was an unaffiliated loan when it was to his other company. Crazy. Crazy. Bad guy. And if he's giving that money to LeBron, I think we got to at least do a full investigation. Agreed.

55:32PFT Commenter:Agreed. Also, he might be racist, LeBron. True. So look into that. What do you do? Well, no, that's what President Trump said. Oh, yeah. For what? He doesn't like Donald Trump. He doesn't know. He doesn't know yet. We're looking into it. He said he might be. I stand with Mr. Trump. All right. What's your cool, Toronto? Yeah. It sounds like you got TDS, big cat. I didn't know he said that. Yeah, he did. That's very funny. It was very funny. I missed that. I think it was on the day that LeBron signed with Sixers. Oh, okay. Excuse me. My cool throne is the Army. Oh. Army's on the cool throne. What was that, Hank?

56:05You're doing horns up? Yeah, rock and roll. For the Army? Rock and roll for the Army. Love that. So there's a new incentive that the United States Army has put into place for one unit based out of Georgia. When it comes to reenlistment, they're trying to get people to reenlist for a minimum two years at a time up to six years at a time, but minimum two years. And if they're struggling to meet those quotas, they have a new incentive for those soldiers. The incentive is that they will give you four days off from the army to play the new Grand Theft Auto when it comes out. You get four days with GTA, and then time's up, sorry, you got to go back to war.

56:46But those four days are pretty fucking sweet.

56:49PFT Commenter:That is sweet. Yeah. Solid incentive for sure. You'd have to swap the snacks out during those four days. No MREs. You'd have to bring in the good stuff. Yeah. I think that they should give you a furnished apartment with a comfortable chair, a nice couch, a big-ass TV, lightning-fast Ethernet, sick lighting setup, and all the delivery food that you want. Yep. But you get to play GTA for four days, and then you've got to go back to war for two years. thoughts on if you beat the game don't have to fully enlist i like that like a speed run like hey if i can get to the end i don't actually would we want them to enlist like those guys are badasses actually fair those are our best they're actually great shooters yeah yeah you guys you get promoted to you're on the drone missions yeah like you don't okay you don't have to actually be in the theater but we're going to just like install a new copy of a game onto your computer we're not

57:45Seth Wickersham:going to tell you that it's a game or we're going to tell you it's a game we're not going to tell it's real life and just try to get the high score on this one too i know it looks like it's the ukrainian plane don't worry about that it's not it's a video game yeah carry on but yeah this is a uh it's a great incentive that they have um and probably the worst sunday scaries that you could ever have on like day four yes day three day four of playing gta and it's been awesome and then you're like oh shit i gotta i got i got two two more years training all right see you guys gotta

58:17PFT Commenter:to go back yeah that's facts um all right my hot seat is uh anyone who had a good run because it's always sad when a good run ends i think we can all agree right burgers max what no put on make sure hanks mike's on he said burgers and then he said max won't know um no anyone who's oh your mic's on right i couldn't really hear it anyone who said it's good it was a good run right oh Like that to me would be like, hey, that was a good hot seat. It's over. No, it was a good season. Wait, who are we talking about? Bryson DeChambeau. Yeah, Bryson DeChambeau. He said it was a good run. Everyone posts that shit when a season ends.

58:58PFT Commenter:Really? Yeah. Okay. What about when a league ends? The league's not over. Okay. It's just shifting. So that was just a good run for the cliques? Crushers. Crushers. Did they have a good run? They had a good season. Okay. And these pictures are all from this season. He wears the same fucking uniform every day. So you can't tell. It's tough to tell. It was a good run. Probably not because he's wearing shorts in the first one. Oh, no. So that's from the beginning of Liv. That's going to go down as the biggest bait and switch of all time. That Liv was like, you get to wear shorts. So, Hank, would you say that would be weird if like.

59:39PFT Commenter:So let's throw this out there. if LeBron should we call Max back? if LeBron after this year said it was a good run and he posted a picture of him in a Sixers uniform a Lakers uniform a Cavs uniform and a Heat uniform would you think he is saying it was a good run this year or he's retiring and it's all over? retiring okay and Price is probably not retiring but maybe he is okay it was a good run it was a good run it was a really good run it was a hell of a run It was a hell of a run. We had the best of times with this run. I think we could all agree. Yeah, they made major waves. Yeah. Does Crushers, they not even have a Wikipedia page?

1:00:21Oh, they got it. They got it. I don't think they do. I'm trying to look up their history of finishes. Can't find it?

1:00:28PFT Commenter:Crushers GC. Yeah, that's what I looked up. My cool throne. I have a couple. Cal Raleigh three home run night. We are not as good friends of Big Dumper Cal Raleigh. We are choosing to ignore the majority of this season. But maybe if he goes on a little heater, we'll start remembering from here on out. So three home run night, first three home runs in his three home night in his career. Pretty cool for him. Happy for him. Also, for anyone who I said this last episode, but I made an NIL donation to Wisconsin. I also am running a little fun thing where I got 50 season tickets to Wisconsin Badgers, 25 pairs.

1:01:06PFT Commenter:So 50 total. And you have till Thursday. look at my social to see how you could potentially win one of the pairs of season tickets. And then my other cool throne is Luca because he's skinny again. So it's just I think he just. Luca just he's he's Oprah. He go he yo-yos like he I kind of do the same thing. He looks very skinny, but like where I'll just lose 10. I'll fluctuate 10 pounds back and forth constantly. This is this is Los Angeles. Yeah, that's what that is. He looks hot. I'll tell you what. Luca would not be able to play at Virginia Tech or Wisconsin. No. Absolutely not. Beefiest boys.

1:01:42Beefiest boys. That list is so funny, the list of the biggest colleges. And I think Wisconsin was standalone, right, at like 242 pounds?

1:01:50PFT Commenter:Yes, it actually gave me, because I talked about donating to NIL and doing this stuff and trying to get more involved. It was the first time I felt a little hope about the Wisconsin Badgers football program, which I do think we're going to have a good year, and I'm all bought in with Fickle and trying to right the ship. But seeing that graphic, it's like, yes, this is what it should be. We should be the fattest all the time. Every single time. Zach, finish us off. My hot seat this week is going to be most of the teams in the Premier League because did you guys see that Erling Hauling has reached final form?

1:02:21Yeah, he just shaved his head. He's done what any man does, a drastic life change, and he went one guard all the way around. Wow. They're undefeated since he's made this adjustment. How many games? Through one. Okay. Is he going to lose his powers, though? Samson did that, right, in the Bible? Not to get, I'm not too familiar to get biblical, but I do know you don't see too many Vikings going shaved head. Maybe he's left out for the World Cup and he's now ready to go. Other quick update on that. Tottenham did lose their first game. Chelsea did win their first game. Tottenham lost. Off to the races boys.

1:02:56Tottenham lost. That's correct. Okay. Be a real shame. What team are you rooting for again? Chelsea guy. We did. We are 1-0 in the season. Oh, the guy that owns the Dodgers. That's a whole, that's a money thing. We're talking on pitch, you know. That's cool. Yeah. You giving out any loans? to your players? I don't think... Because he did to LeBron James. Someone's saying companies affiliated, right? $300 million to LeBron. What a loan. That'd be a great day. Yeah. You sign on that check? Which just means he's probably a good investor when that loan comes due in probably 30 years at whatever small interest rate he charged him.

1:03:26He'll probably make$10 million off that loan. If LeBron gets incredibly tied up for that, $300 million, is that worth it to LeBron to go into major issues legally maybe? I don't know.

1:03:38PFT Commenter:He's got some. I think he's got like infinite money glitch. What I've learned from all of this is rich people just loan money from themselves, from other rich people, then leverage it and make even more money and then pay it back. Like they just take out. They have money. And then they're like, hey, you know what? I'm going to put. I'm going to take$100 million of your money and invest it. Make it make$200 million. Then I'll give you$10 million back. That's just how they keep making money. You hold this little piece. Let me get that. Circle it around. Yeah, I'll use your money to make myself more money, and then I'll give you a little bit of the money that you gave me back, and then some.

1:04:15And then sometimes if you have a lot of money, you're like, I'm going to start this league, and we're going to lose every dollar of my money. But it doesn't matter because I just have more money. And also it doesn't matter because it was a good run. It was a good run. It was a good run. Don't forget the friends we made along the way. Cool, Tron. Cool, Tron, this week is going to be the MAC. Did you guys see the roster move that Ball State made? No. Ball State all-time roster move. Yes. Keldrick Luster. Yes. We're talking 5 '10", 250. Yes.

1:04:42PFT Commenter:Height and weight. Yes. Absolute unit. Dude, this is why the MAAC is the best league. And this happens like every couple of years in the MAAC. There was a Central Michigan kid who actually was really good. Like I loved watching him play, who is kind of a similar build. And this is what they do. They can bring back fatter or bad body quarterbacks and make them cool. What number is he wearing? We got to find out. Is it six? What was his measurables again? 5 '10", 250. Okay. 5 '10", 250. I love that. That's so good. And he's running through shit. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. You know, Drew Allard, 6 '5", 240.

1:05:27PFT Commenter:240. 245. 6 '5", 245? I believe it's 245. Fuck. Yeah. So big. That guy can play ball. He can. Yeah, he can. On a roster sheet, he can play ball. Some guys are meant to be in the NFL. Yep. Some guys, the stripes. They're being held back. Some guys, the stripes on the ball, they distract them. Yep. All right. Do you have any other? And then other quick cool-thrown 10 Bay Buccaneers, because Ring Honor member John Gruden says that Baker and the Bucs are close to getting things done. He said that. Oh, oh, oh. I was confused. I forgot they were in a contract dispute. I thought they were close to getting things done, like winning the Super Bowl.

1:06:03PFT Commenter:Oh, I mean, that's on the horizon as well. We're not throwing that out. But that's good. Good for Baker. We root for Baker. We want Baker deserves to get paid. Did Gruden report that? It would be crazy not to. He said he couldn't speak to any inside scoop, but he feels as if they're close. Okay. So this might be Malisek. This could be Malisek. Did Malisek say this or did Gruden say this? These things aren't to be, you know. Aren't to be known. Yeah. They're not meant to be known by us. But great things to know is that. I hope you're right. Baker deserves to be paid. He does. Good spot. Pay the man.

1:06:35PFT Commenter:Family man. Leader of men. Pay the man his money. Okay, let's do Mount Rushmore. You guys ready? Oh, I'm ready. Mount Rushmore. You ready? It is brought to you by our friends at Kraken. This episode of Pardon My Take is brought to you by Kraken, the official crypto and trading platform of Barstool Sports. Kraken just launched the crack card in the U.S. You can get up to 2 % cash back on everyday spending, and you choose whether you want it in cash or Bitcoin. So basically buy something stupid and potentially get Bitcoin for buying something stupid. That's a system we can get behind. No monthly account maintenance fees.

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1:07:50PFT Commenter:Crack Card is live in the US now. Go to kraken.com slash barstool to learn more. Okay, Mount Rushmore time. Mount Rushmore of Hank, prompt again? Non-ball sports items. Non-ball sports items. And we are down to the wire, boys. We have five Mount Rushmore's left. Yep, PFT bought a bottle of champagne earlier. Oh, good for you, PFT. PFT is up nine to five to five. So what's your magic number? Wait, wait, wait, wait. I kind of love that. Hank's right. I did. I did request a bottle of champagne. Hank, I'm rent-free inside your head. Is that true? I am rent-free. I told Dom, I was like, I don't want to jinx it, but New York Times bestseller list comes out on Wednesday.

1:08:38PFT Commenter:No, you didn't say that. Yeah, yeah. And then Hank talked that I was talking about beating his ass in Mount Rushmore. Do we have cigars? So thoroughly, no cigars. But Dom, you can confirm this was related to possible good news for the book. Hank. Hank. that's embarrassing that means he is rent free that's an embarrassing look that is you thought i cared enough about about beating you in mount rushmore to order a bottle of champagne with literally no punishment decided hey it was right it was outside that it was outside the cabin yeah rico bosco had night terrors i got like two hours of sleep the building was The basketball building was next door.

1:09:23It was right before we started recording. The chair was at a weird angle.

1:09:28PFT Commenter:By the way, these are prime fart chairs.

1:09:36PFT Commenter:Dude, you got to check that out. You have to go check that out. I should have put the mic on that one. There were some bubbles at the end. Yeah, there were. Hey, I'm not going to deny there were bubbles at the end. There were bubbles at the end. Can you check your boxers? Oh, no. That smells so bad, Zach. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, dude. Zach's just sitting there getting waterboarded. Dude, it's bad. It is so bad. That thing ripped out of your ass. Oh, dude.

1:10:12PFT Commenter:It's got an aftertaste.

1:10:18PFT Commenter:It has an aftertaste. I am sorry, Zach. You know, like when you're playing the Battle Royale. Zach, I'm legit sorry, man. All good. When you're playing Battle Royale and like the gas first starts to get to you, that cough that... Stop. That's what you're doing right now. I'm trying to get the air moving. You said these are good fart chairs and then just ripped one as hard as you could. Oh, I've been thinking about it since I sat down. I'm like, damn, this would sound awesome. All right, where were we? Oh, you're PFT owning you. yeah that was that was uh i'm just focused on the i think about the show all the time i'm not thinking about personal accolades and and the book is part of the show it's literally yeah and you're part of that it's a book he was gonna have you sip some champagne yeah it's for all of us but i'm i think about the podcast and and putting out an entertaining product not celebrating like past accomplishments no this would be actually like a current like but like that books i'm on to the next book i'm ready for the next book that's what i'm like i like the second that book was done, I'm going to focus on the next book.

1:11:14PFT Commenter:I would love for you to be a book writer. You know what? Would you? Yeah. How about this? Zach Hank, loser of Mount Rushmore, has to write a book.

1:11:27Minimum, okay, it could be like a short book. Minimum 50 pages. I don't like that, but I don't hate it either. Next book. And photo use and font counts up to the author, right? Of course. Yeah, I would say like photo, no more than 50 percent of the book should be pictures. Understandable.

1:11:44PFT Commenter:All right. Not against it. So PFT was not buying champagne for Mount Rushmore season. We are nine to five to five. Whose pick is first? I think I pick first. Zach. Hank. It doesn't smell anymore, dude. He just farted. I'm going to fart again at some point, but I'll let you guys know. Because these chairs are so good. These chairs are so good. I mean, if we're in the process of interviewing an NFL coach. Yeah. Zach, you're up first. Who's up second? Hank. Oh, Hank's in there. Dude, we got to start getting this. We got to get the mics on there. Go, Zach, you pick. For the non-ball sports item, first pick, I think it pairs very well with the ball.

1:12:31I'm going to go baseball bat. Well, bat first. Okay. Okay. Bat. Nice. I had that on the list. I had that on the list as well.

1:12:39PFT Commenter:I'm going to save it. I'm going to save it. I had it on my list, which I made, and it's three things. I am a football guy through and through. This is a football podcast. I am going to go with a helmet. Ooh, football helmet. Guardian helmet? Yep. We're in the cap? Okay. No, a helmet. A guardian helmet? Helmet. You don't care about their brains? It doesn't. I don't think it makes a difference. It doesn't matter? It doesn't matter? Their brains? I think there was actually a new study that was like one in the world. It's like way ramped up than what they thought. Right. Unfortunately. Really bad study.

1:13:09PFT Commenter:Anything that's one in four death is not good. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to go with basketball hoop. Ah, or as Ted Cruz called it a ring? Yeah, the basketball ring. Basketball, like the entire goal, I'm taking like the backboard and the rim. Good pick. Oh, you're getting both. Basketball hoop, yeah. You're getting the backboard and the rim. It's the goal. Wow. It's the basketball. Okay. 10 foot? Yeah, 10 feet. Yeah. Oh, you think maybe Koosh? I just want to share something You know Goosh is kind of It is kind of fun Okay I'm going to go Basketball hoop number one Number two I'm going to go golf clubs Yeah I can't believe Hank didn't pick that one Good pick Especially for women Yeah They're allowed to partake as well Anyone For everyone Safely Yeah That's my pick Oh we should remake the ad And it's A tailor made Righty Hank goes to grab it Hank punches himself in the face That's pretty good That is a good idea With his left hand Don't touch my righty club Don't touch a righty club You just start beating the fuck out of yourself That'd be pretty good We should maybe do it I'm gonna go With baseball glove Oh that's a great one Mitt Baseball mitt There's a difference by the way We all agree A glove becomes a mitt It's like a caterpillar into a butterfly When it's in a store If you're buying it in a store It's a glove The second you take it out of your mattress You sleep on it for a couple nights It becomes a mitt Once you put oil on it The oil, the mattress, the rubber bands You go shopping for a glove But you wear a mitt The way you talked about my fart Now you're just ripping ass left and right.

1:15:05I didn't know.

1:15:05PFT Commenter:That was just a test. His mic's not on. PFT's going. PFT's going. Check, check. PFT's going. Check, check. It went away. You got to do it on the chair, though. The chair is what makes it special. Check, check, check, check, check. Are you back? A mitt, though. Check, check, check, check, check. Do you want mitt or glove? I think you want glove. Yeah. Okay. Is this working? I don't know. Oh, no. Max Merchant. Memes is a Max Merchant. This wouldn't be happening if Max was here. Okay. Oh, here we go. Check, check, check. Zach. Memes. Max. Can you throw this up? You've got a lot going on right now.

1:15:49It went away again. Okay. I'm going to take the three-point line.

1:15:53PFT Commenter:Check, check, check, check. The three-point line? Yeah, definitely. Nothing better than a deep three, boys. Yeah, speaking of Merchant. What? Look, there was an Arab basketball with no three-point line. Yeah. I prefer right. Well, it's just taking it. I'm going to take the whole three point line. Yeah, three point line. It ruined the sport. OK. The three point line. Basketball was objectively better before the three point line. That's when good basketball teams could win. And it wasn't about who can make a trick shot the best. The three point line. Yes, sir. So if I showed you. What did you like?

1:16:25PFT Commenter:What did you take? Did you just take painter's team? No. I took the. I'll give him the line. Would PFT speak be like Plexiglass and steel? We know what these things are made of. Right, right, right. Okay. But like, okay, never mind. There's like, he... Never mind. He's got a hoop. He's got a glove. We're good. We're on the same page. We understand what he means by three-point line. He's got a helmet. He's got... Several items. He's got a mitt. Three-point line. All right. I didn't mean to do that to you. No, we're good. We're good. A lot of good picks left out there on the board. You're up again.

1:17:05PFT Commenter:You're up again. He's going to take the crease in the hockey. I would like to take receiver gloves. There we go. Now you're back. Good pick. I like that. Nothing better than playing catch when you have receiver gloves on. You just feel like you can catch everything. Or doing the chop. Yes. You become a professional wide receiver at any age. Yeah, get your hands together. It's so good. That's a great feeling. That's a good pick. We can bounce back from the three-point line. I thought it was a great pick. My pick next, I'm going to take the sports wouldn't be sports without these. Jerseys. Ah. That's just jerseys.

1:17:47PFT Commenter:Okay. Shane just shook his head. Goes to finally some respect. Nice pick, Hank. Like if you were watching a game, they didn't have jerseys on. You wouldn't know what's going on. You're absolutely right. Shirts for skins. What shirts? the absence of skins. But like it would be, you know, you got a guy in a white shirt, you got a guy in a green shirt, you got a guy in a black shirt. Right. Not a jersey. Those aren't jerseys. It would be hard. It would be hard to tell what's going on. Wait, are you taking shirts or are you taking jerseys? I'm taking jerseys. Okay. So shirts for skins. What about that?

1:18:15PFT Commenter:I'm saying, but like if the, if everyone is wearing just whatever shirt, like we did shirts for skins right now and still triggers those four were shirts, like they wouldn't look like an organized team. They would look like a bunch of rapscallions. If someone yells shirts versus skins, I'm immediately like, oh, fuck. I'm that meme, the guy at war, just looking off into the distance. Oh, that was a little toot. That was a girl fart. Yeah, that's cute. Yeah. All right, good pick, man. Let that fart touch my driver. I didn't think about jerseys, I'll be honest. Yeah, no, jerseys are a good pick. Caught me off guard.

1:18:49PFT Commenter:I also didn't think about three-point line. Me neither. Something to think about? All right, PFT, you have two picks. Okay, I'm going to go swimming pool. Oh. Yeah, swimming pool. So swimming is a sport. I just got a swimming pool. Damn. That's a good pick. Where does swimming rank on your sports? It doesn't matter. This is not the best sports. But hold on. I think you have to take Olympic-sized swimming pool. No, I just took swimming pool because you could also dive into it. There's nothing worse than when all the lanes are set up and you're trying to swim. No, because there's a difference between a backyard swimming pool and the one that's played with sport is a little different.

1:19:25But you could also dive into a pool. That's the deep end. You could also play water polo in a pool. I think swimming pools. I think it counts. Okay. And then I'm going to go race car. Oh. Yeah. I'm just basically taking kick-ass shit with rounds three and four.

1:19:44PFT Commenter:PFT. Can I do something? Yeah. The race car and swimming pool in three and four. I mean, that's a really nice. and you know what I should stop talking can't help himself I'm going to take smelling salts okay good pick like those give you a little boost

1:20:15oh again

1:20:18PFT Commenter:you got a strong draft I mean yeah I can see the look in Hank and Zach's eyes when I took, just when I said swimming pool. Yeah, it fucked them up. Yeah. They got fucked up. What was your pick? It was forgettable, but tell it again. Ah, smelling salts. Okay, yeah. Good pick. All right. I actually do think that was a good pick. That is a good pick. I'm also going to go, I'm going to take a recovery route, and I'm going to go Theragun. Oh, okay. I don't hate that. I like it. Do you own one? I didn't bring one with me, no. All right, what do we mean? Do you ever use one? Oh, certainly, yeah. All athletes, you know, you got to recover.

1:20:54PFT Commenter:You got to work out the muscles, definitely. Do you put on that? Of course, yeah. Zach, you've never used one, have you? Yeah, of course. No, he's used one. What did we miss? Memes sent me one single pick. Would hockey puck have been allowed? Yeah, that would have been allowed. Memes sent me one single pick. It was just a cup, which I kind of agree. I had jockstrap, hockey stick. Especially when you were a little kid. Clipboard. When you were a little kid playing Little League baseball and you just found out what your penis and balls are, and you're like, I don't really trust my hands yet to stop this ball from hitting my nuts.

1:21:27PFT Commenter:The cup was very important. You felt like Superman. And kids in baseball that grew up with mostly synthetic turf fields, I've seen a lot of those in Little Leagues, so you don't have to mow the grass. They don't know that when we grew up, a bad hop was every hop. Yeah, every hop. You don't have bad hops anymore, but every ground ball would be a bad hop, so kids were just getting drilled in the dick left and right. I also will say off of that, the like little league culture there's been a lot of talk about like all the gear and stuff I'll just fully admit it and this might make me lame but if I were if you could if I could snap my fingers I was 12 years old in 2026 I would 100 % have a sliding glove even though I'm not fast those things are fucking sick yep because you get an extra like three inches sliding into the base yeah and it's cool to put it on when you get on first base I probably have two of them like I know it's probably lame because like again I'm not a fast guy yeah I'm not someone who's stealing bases but i would put it on and steal zero bases yeah that's it's like a kicker wearing a guardian cap yeah but it would it would feel awesome yeah you would feel faster and i think that would make you just like a slightly tiny bit faster i think people get confused a little bit with like the uh little league culture and like the travel ball and that discussion is actually a real discussion that i think is a fair one to have because like when we were growing up i think actually all of us uh you just played you just played your local like you didn't play anything else you played your local town that's that's all you did and now it's got out of hand the one thing though that gets confused is then people will post videos of like kids doing hype hype videos of their little league team with all the gear and they're like this has gotten to listen those kids feel so cool it feels like you put on all that gear and you get a fucking neon yellow bat yeah you probably feel like the coolest kid in the world let the kids feel cool don't act like when you got your first baseball uniform or your first pair like your first glove you didn't go to sleep at night wearing that baseball you don't act like you didn't walk around in your basketball your new basketball shoes yes all day by the way that was i saw you i saw your picks and you had yeah basketball shoes were a great pick nobody picked basketball you had them basketball shoes seven yeah kobe seven's great basketball cleats are big uh batting gloves shooting sleeve that's another one i just i can't believe nobody picked basketball shoes is a huge you can make the argue that that's first round pick yeah well i don't know dude that first round was pretty good and then think about it we had the three point line in the second round actually hank race car was my last pick that i had i know i'm saying that was a great pick thank you yeah and swimming pool and swimming pool swimming pools like that's a pft special where it's like not really a pick but i think i think swimming pools have pfts is kind of like everyone's giving up fighting in the summer it's like taking ballpark or like if we could have taken like football field yeah like those are like this one was like the arena you should have taken wrigley yeah you've just you've just taken football operates was still out there you've done a great job of picking so much dumb bullshit answers that like everyone's just kind of giving up fighting i think that's a uh a perfectly fine i will of course you do i will agree with you that i have picked a lot of dumb bullshit answers yes this is not one of them right This is the blind pick.

1:24:42PFT Commenter:Hank, you sound a little salty. I'm not going to lie. No, I respect it. It's like he's done a good job. Like, you can't. I also had on my list the Goodyear blimp. Boxing gloves would have been a big one. Boxing gloves, good one. Oh, the boxing gloves is really good. Skycam, the blue medical tent, and the uprights. Backplate, visor. No pop. Champagne toast. That's gift to you after this draft. Yeah. Man, I've been thinking nothing sweeter than pouring that first glass of champagne after coming in third to last in Mount Rushmore. No, second. No, it would be second. Tactically, it would be second.

1:25:22PFT Commenter:Max, Memes, and I came in first. Whoever wins this comes in second. Okay, yeah. Yeah. All right, let's get to our interviews. We've got Chris Long and Seth Wickersham. Before we get to our great friend Chris Long, he's brought to you by Mountain Dew. I'm trying to get some Mountain Dew. Right now, who else has some dew? I'm dew. I dew. Zach, you got some dew? Great dew right here. I got a dew. Ice cold dew. Nothing goes better with summer camp and hanging with your friends than the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is proudly born in the foothills of Tennessee, an American original, tasting great since 48.

1:25:57Shout out to Mountain Dew. I might, you know what? I might just shake up some Mountain Dew and pop that as a celebration in a couple days. That, to me, sounds even sweeter. Love Mountain Dew. And here comes Chris Long, our great friend and also contributor to part of my book. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew, an American original. Grab a Dew, tasting great since 48. Here's Chris Long.

1:26:22PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is our good, good friend, Chris Long, two-time Super Bowl champion. We're going to talk some football. You can listen to him on the Greenlight Pod. Chris is the absolute man. but Chris we were just talking for a second there and we said oh man I can't I'm so excited for football to be back and you agreed you're ready for football to be back but I remember that every single offseason you're the guy who does the video who's like oh what am I going to do without football making fun of guys like us no it's not guys like you you're going to guys like us me it's not you guys it's like I don't know.

1:27:06It's the people that feel like they have to get so into character that they act like, you know, what are we going to do next six months? There's plenty of stuff on TV. March Madness rocks. Yeah, World Cup was awesome.

1:27:19PFT Commenter:Yeah, yeah. You know, like. There's a lot of stuff. It's more just that plug and play tweet where, you know, the last Sunday, you know, you count the Sundays till the next NFL Sunday. I'm like, dude, okay. That's fair. Yeah, it's just, it's unoriginal at this point. You don't have to do math to figure out how much longer we have to wait for football. We get it. A real football guy knows just by the temperature outside how close we are to football. A real football guy doesn't do math. No. A real football guy just walks outside. That's right. And I agree with you. I love the sports calendar because when football ends, I'm ready to stop watching football for a minute.

1:27:53PFT Commenter:And I do love March Madness. And I do love NBA and NHL playoffs. But this, like somewhere around, I don't know, like early, probably right after 4th of July, it's like, okay, it's football time. That's when I start to get like angsty and anxious and being like, I started firing off the can't wait for college football tweet. That happens whenever it just pops in my head. I'm like, God damn it. I can't wait for college football. You mean minor league football? Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, it is. You could make the argument maybe professional football is minor league football for college football now. You're right, dude.

1:28:27It's flipped on itself now. Yeah. What about the college game, Chris? Are you a real football guy like us? If your son gets married and he chooses that he's going to get married on October 19th, are you going to go to his wedding in the fall? Because he's no better than that. I'm going to go to the wedding with my phone horizontal, leaned against a flower arrangement on the table, and I'm going to be watching football. That's my favorite debate because that's one where it does become performative at times. It's like, don't ask me to do anything on a Saturday. Like, I'm not doing chores. I'm not taking my kid to the doctor's office if he gets sick.

1:29:02It's Saturday. I'm watching some fucking college football. Don't talk to me. Like, humans haven't been for at least the last 15 years. Yeah, you can bring a phone to a wedding, and you can be antisocial at the function. I've done it. It's just fine. You know, I've been to a couple March Madness weddings. one time I went to a Baltimore wedding and it was in March and it happened to be the night that we lost to UMBC and it was a whole dude I walked in in the morning and everybody was like we're going to get you tonight and I was like fuck you guys and yeah so yeah sports weddings wait dad by the way

1:29:41PFT Commenter:dad actually might be the worst experience when you go to something with a game that you know is happening but you're like I don't actually have to worry about this game it's formality and then having it hit you slowly like oh fuck I think I have to worry about this game like I have to start worrying about this game yeah first half I was pretty worried about that game and uh that you keep repeating it's a game of runs and the run never came for us so and you were at a wedding you happen to be at an event with UMBC grads like alumni I didn't know they had events where there were UMBC people in mass but I found the one that's crazy it happened to be the worst one of the worst you know when you wake up hungover and like it takes you a second to remember what happened last night like something bad happened what happened that was one of those mornings for sure dude it was it was awful but we're we won a national championship yeah so i totally forgot about that all's forgiven all right let's talk some football i had a a question for you to start off as a defensive guy i feel like part of my prep going into the season is trying to figure out who's who's new who are the new play callers both defensive and offensive what's it going to look like so my question to you as a player um how hard is it when you get a new defensive coordinator is it a hey it's going to take a month of live action the regular season before we feel like we can just play freely in the system or is it something that we're all professionals we can figure this out pretty quickly well i think for guys up front, the first thing you got to figure out is, hey, you know, what fronts are we running?

1:31:19You know, I've been in, you know, I've had six different D coordinators in an 11-year career. And, you know, two of them were both, it was Greg Williams and his son. So that's kind of one, Blake Williams. So it's kind of one system, you know, but the systems vary. Like I came in a league and, you know, I'm in Spag's system playing in a six technique for a defensive end, which is way different than being in a nine and you know just uh kind of rush crush close or whatever Jim Schwartz would say later in my career and you know Belichick's system is way different where you're getting checks at the line of scrimmage before the ball snap on top of the play calls which are really hard to remember and that sort of thing I mean like B-Flow was our coordinator at that point so you know the complication issue of a defense like that like that can kind of slow guys down and if you're a young player and you're in defense like that half the battle is trying to play fast and play free and not think because like a lot of young players think and uh when you when you get in those defenses sometimes they can kind of slow you down so it just depends on the defense like you know I think offensively um there's only so many trees right now that are in vogue in the NFL and so now you're seeing like the Ben Johnson tree and you had the McVay tree and that sort of thing and but a lot of it they're all souped up like kind of west coast offenses so So I think offensively, a lot of it is, hey, it's the same concepts, different terminology.

1:32:41You hear that a lot. But I think defensively, playing in a varied front. Like if you're in Buffalo and Jim Leonard comes to town, shout out Wisconsin Badgers. Love them. Yeah, you're going from McDermott's defense, which is a lot of four-man fronts, to a very multiple defense where guys are going to be in different alignments, a lot of sim pressures, a lot of different kind of exotic looks. And for guys like Deion Walker, the young kid from Kentucky, who's like 6 '7", at first you're like, how's he going to play a zero nose? But they're kind of playing a one-gap kind of defense, and they're going to be a nickel a lot.

1:33:17So it kind of all comes out in the wash. You have worries about scheme fits, but, you know, the hard part is in today's NFL, you don't get the time, dude.

1:33:27PFT Commenter:That's why I figured like September, like if you have a new defensive coordinator, it could look rough for a couple weeks because you just – you don't have the time. We're not playing starters in preseason for a lot of series. Like, all this stuff, guys are kind of missing out on. In some situations, you're simplifying things, and, you know, it's a better scheme fit for a lot of the guys. So it just depends. And I think the other thing that you talked about, which is, you know, trying to learn the new players, like not just the new schemes, but new players is really hard. I mean, you know, for somebody like myself who tries to cover the whole league and I do, I'm still catching up, you know, the first week or two of the season on who some of these rookies are.

1:34:09And we get so overreactive. You know, we see one Twitter clip on a player and he's going to be the worst player in the world or the best player in the world. I'll give you an example. I think David Bailey is a good pro prospect and, you know, certainly justifiable to pick him in the top 10 and that sort of thing. um you know the one clip that was was you know making the rounds this week and put him into the hall of fame was he beats broderick jones but he doesn't you know it's broderick jones first off but second off like the drop target for the quarterback in that play is like 11 yards so you know there's little things where you know to an average football fan it might look like hey this is a slam dunk or the other thing is you saw the sunny styles clip this week where he comes downhill on a read option and it looks like the defensive end doesn't we call that a surf technique where he's probably got the quarterback and Josh Job pulls it for 60 yards and now Sonny Styles is the worst player to ever play football and so you know like we just get so caught up in this kind of preseason hype thing I will tell you there have been some really exciting rookies this year on the defensive front and you know it's that's the easiest thing for me to download because I played there um but i need to see like 10 15 plays i just don't want to see one rep right yeah it does it's interesting with a lot of teams like you mentioned getting different defensive coordinators and you've played for a couple different styles of coordinator like is it harder as a defensive lineman do you just like do you look at the linebackers and the corners and the safeties when you have a guy that's like obsessed with exotic blitz packages coming in and you're like good luck with that or is there things that you have to learn to do differently too if you're playing for like a dr heat type guy Yeah, Dr.

1:35:51Heat type guys. I mean, if you're a defensive end and you like pinning your ears back and keeping things simple like a Jim Schwartz defense or something like that, or even the Jeff Fisher defenses on first and second down. Now, we got into some odd fronts with Greg Williams, and you're crossing face, you're looping over the center and that type of thing. But the hardest thing for a defensive lineman is you've got now buried techniques and pressures that you really have to rep, and you might be an all-world defensive end at just rushing the passer or setting an edge. but now you're spending 30 % of your time looping inside and crossing a guard's face.

1:36:25You might drop into coverage. You might be the curl flat guy on some pressures. So there's a lot of things you have to remember. And then I talked about the build defense where you're getting checks at the line of scrimmage right before the ball snaps. So I think for a defensive lineman, it can be disruptive. But for the guys on the back end, that's where the tough stuff really is. And, you know, I think about, for instance, we'll talk about the Eagles. Eagles have, you know, Makuba and some safeties that, you know, with Reed Blankenship gone that haven't played as much football. And you talk about the importance of pre-snap shells and rotation post-snap and, you know, kind of not giving tells pre-snap.

1:37:04So much of being a defensive back is like an art form and how you show pressure, don't show pressure. You know, you're going to you're going to rotate at the snap and all that stuff. And I think those little nuances kind of get lost in the wash. It's not just about not having an ME or a missed assignment, but it's also how you set up the pressures pre-snap. And are you in the right place? Are you giving the tells?

1:37:28PFT Commenter:Yeah. Are you sticking on the Eagles? Yeah. Where are we at with Jalen Hurts? I feel like you can go any direction in terms of he's being wildly disrespected, which I actually will buy, because this is a guy who outplayed Patrick Mahomes in two Super Bowls. He won one, lost one. Or is it, hey, last year was so ugly at times that maybe he can't do it without a perfect roster? Well, here's what I want to see with Jalen Hurts, who has a great resume. I mean, he's played big on the biggest stage twice, right? You know, when they played Kansas City two years ago, it was kind of a pick-your-poison thing with that team.

1:38:10You had great players outside. You have a quarterback that throws an elite deep ball in Jalen Hurts. And you've got probably one of the most dynamic rushing offenses that we've seen this century. I mean, I really do think the straw that stirred the drink with that team was the offensive line and Saquon and that run game and the way it affected box counts and all that stuff. And you got your matchups outside. But it was kind of a pick your poison thing. And Jalen torched the Chiefs. And even in that 24 season, you know, like as you aggregate the whole thing, the passing offense was fine. there were just some games where you say, hey, the floor, you'd like to see the floor raise a little bit.

1:38:46And when I watched them last year, the floor is too low. And, you know, it's too low for a quarterback of that caliber. And a lot of that is probably the scheme. And, you know, like we've talked about it ad nauseum with the terrible route concepts, the terrible spacing, the predictability. So, you know, I think Jalen's off the hook as far as last year is concerned, but you can't ignore the fact that the floor was so low on the passing offense. And, you know, like I do think there is some pressure on him this year. You know, whatever you want to say about like what's fair, what's not fair, what should happen if he doesn't play, what should happen if he plays well.

1:39:22You just can't deny that there is pressure on a passing offense after a performance like last year. And the quarterback's going to get a lot of the blame, fair or unfair. And I think the Mannion offense is all about, hey, getting back to running the football effectively. A lot of that's going to be predicated on the health of the offensive line. It's also turning your back to defense and delivering the ball in play action. It's pre-snap motion. It's all the things that, you know, the under center stuff, the stuff that the Eagles really didn't do a lot of. And we'll find out whether that was, you know, a Jalen Hurts preference thing or if it was just truly a bad scheme.

1:39:58So, you know, it's Philly. It's like you got to understand that the pressure is a little bit higher in Philly. Like they fired a guy who has a statue outside the stadium two years later. You know, Carson Wentz, they, you know, they draft Jalen Hurts. Part of what makes the Eagles so dynamic is they're always, they say, fuck the rules. We're going to, we're going to make the moves we have to make to, to be a better football team, no matter what. And that, and that doesn't, we don't leave the quarterback out of that equation. So I think, you know, to deny that there's pressure on the guy would be ridiculous.

1:40:29It's also ridiculous to say that, you know, he's a bad player, that he, he, he hasn't done what he's done because his resume is, is fantastic. And a lot of teams would love to have Jalen Hurts. you just want to see a little bit more production in the middle of the field. You want to see the timing get a little bit better. You want to see the floor raise in that passing offense. I think Dontavian Wicks is going to help them a lot. He's a guy that kind of flies under the radar. He's an awesome man-beater guy, comes over from Green Bay. Virginia guy, so I'm a little bit biased, but I think he's going to take a lot of pressure off him.

1:41:00And, you know, the tight ends are solid, so we'll see. Yeah, I mean, the quarterback will get a lot of the blame if it goes bad. They'll boo the quarterback, but please don't boo Deshaun. I think he's been threw it off. We can agree, right? Don't boo Deshaun. Is it too much to ask? Just let me stink up a$230 million guaranteed contract for half a decade. Yeah. Further sink this franchise into obscurity. I can't believe you guys have the audacity to boo a guy with all the civil cases and all that stuff. Don't boo. Don't boo. What did you guys say? You know what's funny to me? Don't boo. He was funny to me was the reaction to the Deshaun Watson press conference.

1:41:37the talking heads were like he's unplayable now I'm like now yeah I'm like so this is what it took yeah it wasn't the civil cases it wasn't the fact that he forgot to play football and also I think with the Deshaun Watson thing people that like a lot of people don't realize this is if you go look at his hits and sacks in Houston that guy was getting massacred he was getting hit more than burrow and luck and all that stuff and so I do think there's a physical toll that was taken on the player even outside the mental stuff yeah my my latest conspiracy about the sean and i don't really believe this but it is funny how it how it worked out he got that guaranteed contract 230 million dollars guaranteed the other owners flipped the fuck out they almost threw they almost had a riot at jimmy haslam they were like we cannot give out guaranteed money this is not the nba we can never allow this to happen ever again and then it actually turned out that it was the perfect cautionary tale to why you shouldn't give out that much guaranteed money where now he went from like the owners being like fuck you jimmy haslam to like jimmy haslam thank you so much thank you for giving him this guarantee money and now it'll never happen again no one's ever going to demand that we give whether it's a free agent or a big trade that we make a massive guaranteed contract like that no no question and the sad thing about the the browns is they really have drafted well at other positions.

1:43:03I mean, and they did have Baker Mayfield in the building and, you know, like Baker won them a playoff game and they torched the Steelers and, and they let the guy go. And, you know, like, I'm sure they'd still love to have him. But I think when you look at kind of the, the, the young talent, the Schwestingers of the world, the Fannins, you know, the offensive lineman they picked this year looks pretty good so far. Judkins, the whole thing. It's a very talent-heavy roster. Like, Concepcion, like, all these guys.

1:43:31PFT Commenter:Mason Graham from last year? Mason Graham under the radar. They got dudes. And, you know, obviously they lose Myles Garrett. And then, like, under the radar thing, I think Alex Wright hurt his Achilles in joint practice. So, you know, the defense is not going to be maybe what it was last year, obviously, but I think they're building. That's the ironic part. Like, it's so easy to get caught up in the headliner, which is terrible, which is that contract but um they do have young talent you wait i have a question about the booing you you as a you as a player you understand it's our right to boo because actually kyle had this happen wait yeah when i remember talking to him right after at the bears got in his field yeah kyle was like he called it unacceptable the bears fans we booed after we went down it was the game we lost the dolphins like robbie gold and brandon marshall fought after the game in the all this stuff and he he did a post game it was like unacceptable to boo and i remember talking to him after i'm like dude you can't say that like we have a right we it's our right to boo whether you like it or not we we can boo i i have a unique experience of playing for thest louis rams for eight years on terrible teams and i don't have to go into details but you know there were a lot of fans there that were very gracious towards us you know it could have been a lot worse Now, part of that's a Midwestern market.

1:44:48It's not a big market. It's not like even, obviously, Chicago's in the Midwest, but Chicago's kind of like that rule breaker where it kind of feels like New York. I didn't have that experience. You know, for me, I always tried to keep it pretty cordial with the fans. It just doesn't do you any good. you know and and at the end of the day like i'm making a lot of money to play the game and you know like there's people that are spending their last dollar on these increasingly ridiculous ticket prices to bring their families to games and that sort of thing and and there's people that have suffered a long time and and they do care they care in a different way as much as the players like you know players they got to move on to the next thing these fans can you know they can wallow in it for a week and so i totally get when fans are pissed off and i might not always agree and I might say, hey, they're not seeing the full picture, but you're never going to win as the millionaire football player being like, hey, you don't have the right to, you know, you paid$100 for this ticket and you can't boo me.

1:45:44Yeah. Have you played on teams going into the season? It does feel like this is kind of what the Browns are looking like. A great defense, offense, not really anything to expect. I've played on many, many teams like that. And I can only imagine how frustrating that gets during the season after you guys are playing your dicks off. And you're just like, if you could score one touchdown a game, that would be great for us. But before the season starts, you're probably dominating them in training camp. It's pretty clear to everybody in the locker room that one unit is way ahead of the other. What's the vibe like going into the season before any actual football has been played?

1:46:22Well, you like to lie to yourself and say, hey, you know, the defense is always ahead of the offense in training camp. That's what it is. It's not that we're bad. And, you know, a lot of a lot of bad teams, they spend money in free agency and you'll bring somebody in and, you know, you can mistake, you know, activity for progress. And sometimes as players, we get caught up in that thing where we we know the you know, the activity that the the offense has taken in offseason. You're like, well, surely we'll be better. You know, we had that for a long time, whether it was quarterback injuries or just a lack of talent.

1:46:54But, you know, we hit on some picks up front on defensive line. We had a bunch of first round picks. So, you know, we're getting 50 sacks a year and this is on a team that's never got a lead. And so, like, it's not just the losing of football games. Like, you're affecting our legacies as players. Like, you're taking money off the table for us. Like, you know, I watched some of these teams, you know, late in my career. I got into some of these good teams. I'm like, man, if I could still run, how fun this would be to play, to rush the passer. Prime 25-year-old me rushing the passer for the Eagles.

1:47:24We haven't been down all season or the Patriots. And so, yeah, it sucks when you spend a contract window or the prime of your career as a defensive player watching that. But, you know, I don't think it ever got to the point where we were like, hey, fuck you guys. Like, you know, you can razz the guys. You can put pressure on them. But bad football teams can't will themselves to get better. And so you kind of look at it and you don't throw your hands up. You say, this is just football. We're in a cycle of a team that's not great. and you try to keep things into perspective and control what you can control.

1:48:01Did you ever have a teammate, like, I'm thinking about the Max Crosby situation, how weird that must be for him. And probably other people in the locker room, too. Have you ever had a teammate like that that has, like, effectively been traded or thought he was going to be traded, and then they kind of, like, walk it back after the reports are already out there? I can't say that I ever had that happen. In fact, like, I went back to look. It's only happened a couple of times. I think, you know, Washington had that happen, you know, five, six years ago with a player. And if I remember correctly, you know, because there's a lot of people are saying, hey, the knee, the knee, the knee.

1:48:40There are situations that you can point to in the past where teams have balked at physicals like this and took shit for it. And then the players out of the league two years later. So, you know, I think what I think what Baltimore did is they just got cold feet straight up and they use the physical to to get out of the thing. You know, and the Trey Hendrickson, he didn't cost you anything. So it was a weird situation. And, you know, like I think Max is – the thing that upset me about it is that Max is like such a consummate Raider. And I mean that in the old Raiders, not the new Raiders. He's like an old school guy.

1:49:13I put him up there with, you know, those greats, including my dad and that sort of thing. And so culturally he's just such a centerpiece. I'd love to see him stay there. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him get shipped this year, man. Like, you know, it's like that story is probably not over. As soon as I saw him head back to Vegas, I was like, well, what do you do? Because you're in the building and you're like, man, I'm the best player on defense. You want me gone? Right. Like, you got to be fucking pissed. And on top of it now, you look at like your Jerry Jones is the world who are like, maybe I could get him for half of what now that he's like a distressed asset.

1:49:47Maybe I could just ship a one over and get Max Crosby. I don't think that story's over.

1:49:51PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. All right. in looking at this upcoming season do you have a couple teams maybe you're very high on because yeah I've got a couple teams I'm pretty high on but I want to hear yours dude I'm addicted to the bills I'm always high on the bills okay it's like a it's like a problem I you know and I just start there because I think you guys have a lot of fun with the bills mafia and that sort of thing I think that I think there's a reason to be excited about the defense Like I thought what happened was a straight up coup with Sean McDermott and the GM getting promoted to, you know, president of football operations, that sort of thing.

1:50:27And, you know, because honestly, it's I look at some of these young players that they have coming in and I think they could be a lot better defensively. A lot of it comes down to Jim and you say, hey, well, he's got to he's got to create pressure because they don't have a great pass rush. I like the T.J. Parker kid out of Clemson. I think Bradley Chubb's got some juice left. There's even guys like Michael Hoyt who, you know, he played really well for them and then popped his Achilles like immediately. He's kind of a guy that you can move around. I'm a big fan of Ed Oliver. I go up and down the roster.

1:50:59The linebacker, that was going to be an issue for them. They've got this kid, Alarms Orr, who's pushing for that linebacker two spot. There's a young corner that played really good football for them. It's a name that I still haven't downloaded. It starts with a name. a, a, a, a, a, a, no center or something like that, that kid can really play. So there it's a fun time if you're a fan, because you're looking at some of these young players and you're saying, okay, this is how they flip this thing in one year. And all they have to do is be, and they have been at times league average or better. They have to play well in the playoffs.

1:51:31So I think the bills could be there again, um, with a chance to, to go to the big game. Um, you know, obviously it was the turnovers last year. I think the Houston Texans are, that's one of my teams. they're a machine dude I you know they just need to be league average offensively just be able to

1:51:47PFT Commenter:figure out a running running game if they have a running game that that can help CJ Stroud like CJ Stroud doesn't have to be what he was he just has to be not he just can't be as bad as he was last year at the end of the year and in that I think he'll I think he'll be better dude he cut his hair like when you cut your hair cut your beard I have this theory that like you know some major growth or change is happening. I also think it's year two in the damn system. So that helps a lot. And the fact that you get Tank Dell back, David Montgomery is a big deal. They revamped the offensive line. But I'm telling you, I went to their joint practice with the Raiders recently.

1:52:21And like, when you walk through a building, you can kind of get the personality of the team and the vibe. And I'll tell you, I felt like I walked into the big bad wolf's house, dude, just walk watching these guys walk around. They are all fucking business. And that defense is so fun to watch and they had Reed Blankenship. They really don't have weaknesses defensively. I can't say that about another team in the NFL. And so that's a major strength. You know, obviously the Rams, you know, people are already fitting them for their rings and they look, they look, I mean, tremendous. You had a Trent McDuffie.

1:52:51He's not just a great corner. He's a Swiss army knife. Your front four is going to be awesome. You had Watson, you know, they're going to get big. They're going to be in 13 personnel, that whole thing. So they challenge people from personnel standpoint. Seattle's going to be good again, man. Like I think a lot of people are, are kind of discounting them. I think the Cowboys are going to be pretty good. That was my other team.

1:53:12PFT Commenter:I'm, I'm doing that. I hate that I am buying into the Cowboys hype, but I think their offense is going to be, you know, top three. If everyone stays healthy and their defense is going to get a lot better than it was. Uh, I love down. I hate that. I'm, I hate that I'm believing in that. Like it sucks I don't want the Cowboys to be good but I'm sitting here looking at all these teams I'm like what's the team that's gonna you know every year there's a couple teams that go non-playoffs to playoffs it's like why why are the Cowboys not that team well they had a historically bad defense right um you know and and and so I actually I went back and looked at this it's not it's not as far-fetched I don't have the numbers at hand but like there have been a number of defenses that went from like worst to top half.

1:54:00Like that's not a far-fetched thing. And when you add, you know, the Barms of the world, the Caleb Downs of the world, I think the kid from UCF, Malachi Lawrence, I was all over him. You know, some people thought that was a reach. I think he's a stud. I think they're going to get better. Christian Parker, he's running that En Vogue, Fangio tree thing. You know, so I don't want to leave out, I don't want to leave out, you know, the freaking the Chargers or the Ravens are for sure. I mean, like the Ravens defense has a chance to be elite. And I think the Bengals are going to be tough to deal with.

1:54:36Al Golden's unit from the first half of the season, the second half of the season, they totally flip the script. And I think it's easy in the NFL to look at a defense and say, that's just who they are. But they got a lot of young players and they tinker with some things schematically in the second half of the season. they were at least, you know, competent. The other team I'll say is I think the NFC North is tough to figure out. I think the Vikings have a chance to be very good.

1:55:03PFT Commenter:Every team. Very good. Every team in the NFC North. Every team in the NFC North. Everyone keeps saying, like, what do you think about the Bears? I'm like, I think the Bears are going to be a playoff team, but I also think the Lions are going to be way better. They were a very unlucky team last year. Good schedule for the Lions. Good schedule. Like, they just – they had a bunch of games that they should – their offense is going to be elite still. I don't think they play in the cold outdoors until maybe late December. Yeah, it's like week 17 or something. And then once Michael Parsons comes back for the Packers, and then if Kyler Murray can be good, like the NFC North, every team is going to be good.

1:55:34It's up for grabs. And then the other thing is I haven't mentioned the Eagles yet just because everybody knows I'm a homer and everything. But I think the Eagles' defense, it's a known commodity. I think the Grenard thing with the injury, we'll see what you get out of him. but he's a really good player. I think Jalix Hunt is a name to watch. I think Jalix Hunt is going to go off this year. And, you know, like they have the bodies up front to stop the run with the light box. We talked about the challenges the offense has to meet, but I think they're going to be very good again. So I think this year is – I kind of – I liken this year in the AFC especially to like the Red Wedding, if you remember the Red Wedding.

1:56:13Spoiler. I think it's just going to be – I think it's just – it's going to be – the teams in the AFC are very good this year. There's not a ton of complete teams in the NFL period, but I think some of the blue bloods kind of get back on the horse a little bit. We didn't talk about Kansas City. Or the Broncos or the Patriots.

1:56:33PFT Commenter:I mean, there's a lot of really good teams. I actually think the Steelers, I weirdly think the Steelers are going to like their defense. You're talking yourself into the Steelers. I'm not talking myself into the Steelers. I'm not talking myself into the Steelers. I think it might be the year where they win a playoff game. I'm not going that far. I do think their defense is going to be good, and I think, no, you know what? The Steelers are going to look exactly the same. Fuck that. It's all going to be different. Here's the thing nobody says. It looks like they're going for it. They really do have some – I like a lot of the additions they made, but the thing for me is they won so many close games.

1:57:07The thing that people hated about Mike Tomlin is the reason they never hit the floor. Yeah. And so are you going to win these close ballgames? I do agree that the roster looks very good. But is it a better situation than, remember, when Brady won in Tampa or Peyton Manning won in Denver? Would you say this roster is better than those rosters? I don't think so.

1:57:34PFT Commenter:No, those teams had, like, they have to be a top three defense for that to be the case. No question. I don't think they, you know, like certainly the way that, you know, the payroll on the defense is out of control. And I think the Patrick Graham thing is, it's a step in the right direction for sure. But yeah, they're going to have to rely on a lot of quick game offensively. They really are a lot of run after catch, a lot of quick game. Got to run the ball. They did that last year pretty efficiently. We'll see, man, like Rodgers, he's still got a freaking cannon. I mean, you know, it doesn't really bear out in some of the stats or the metrics.

1:58:11And, you know, stats will tell you he wasn't a great quarterback last year or the year before or whatever. But he's still got an arm on him. Can they protect him? Yeah. What do you think about the travel situation to Australia to start the year? We've talked about it a little bit. It's one of the crazier things that I can remember the NFL trying to force down our throats in a long time. The fact that it's Australia and how long that flight is going to be with two different teams taking, like, the most different approaches to how to handle a clock. it's going to be interesting i don't know what basically basically san francisco is like we're going to live and become australian and then you're gonna have accents the rock party is gonna yeah yeah brock party saw a dead body early today in the sand um i guess that was mac jones or um yeah then you got the rams and they're saying like we're not even gonna be in australia we're gonna pretend like we're not there like this is basically la dude there's like two schools of thought with this and you know like we used to do the international thing and you know i used to wish we'd go over earlier because i kind of like london i actually enjoyed it like we'd go look at castles and shit like you know just kind of bop around and um you know it's fun to it's fun to take these road trips as a team you can get closer as a team but the australia thing i mean that's like a 16 hour flight, 12 hour flight.

1:59:34I don't know what that is, but it's ridiculous. And, you know, the time zones are just totally out of control. Um, the, the sports science people say, and this is what, and shout out to the Rams training, uh, staff and the whole thing, Reggie Scott and those guys, like they are very progressive in the way that they treat injuries, the way that they, they structure their program. They want to get in and get out, you know, the, the sleep specialist and those guys will tell you there's no way you there's no way to acclimate to a new time zone right uh in in in three days you know so like why do it just get in and get out like kind of tactical strike that thing um you know and and i think uh i think it's probably the right thing to do but but it's exhausting and then you look at like what the rams are going to play the the fins the cardinals so the the you know or the niners are going to play the fins and the cardinals when they get back so the league kind of did them a schedule favor there but um you know i not to talk gambling here but i would just put those plays in now yeah i'd put i'd you know whatever whatever the dolphins are against the spread whatever the cardinals are it's just i can't imagine i'd have to be proved wrong here that a team that's limping into the nfl season in the car in the in the niners they got coaches in car accidents the owners At a mobile home with a hooker.

2:00:51He's doing shit.

2:00:52PFT Commenter:Yeah. Careful. He's doing shit. We don't know. Allegedly. Allegedly. He might have been the love of his life. If this happens, if it's proven to be true, I guarantee you the NFL, they have zero tolerance for that out of an owner. Yep. See you, buddy. You're gone. You're out of here. Yeah. Take a hike. I gave you this take earlier. Jerry Jones and Bob Kraft say not here, dude. Not on my watch. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. There's no precedent for anything like this, but I do think he has to marry this woman because then it becomes a pretty woman thing and it becomes a feel-good story. I think he honestly needs to get the sign.

2:01:27PFT Commenter:This is finally the moment where he can be like, you know what? We got to get rid of this substation because God damn it's making me horny. It's the substation. I just blame it all on the substation, dude. It's making everybody horny and hurt. Yeah, hurt and horny. Too brutal. The two H's, dude. We can't have them. We don't do the two H's. You can do one. We can be hurt or horny, but we can't be both. If I'm ever a coach, I might use that two H's. Yeah, the two H's. I just tweeted this out, but I genuinely believe it. I was talking to Zach about it, how horny he had to have been. Because there's so many chances to turn around.

2:02:03He's on the road, man. If you're going into a trailer park, you have to make the drive there. I can't imagine that it's too close to where he's staying as a billionaire. Yes. He has to drive on a highway, maybe pay a toll, go through a toll booth. He's got to exit the highway. He's probably got to drive for like 15 minutes on the back road. He's got to pass some weird shady gas stations where you're looking at him. You're like, I shouldn't be in this neighborhood. Like, I don't know what's going on. Where they sell like Kratom and shit. Yeah. Yeah. The real, the sketchiest places. Then you have to turn into the trailer park and then probably - Endure the looks.

2:02:36Yes. The looks of the first - Like, why is there a guy in a Mercedes here, dude? He might have had to rent a car to drive there because he didn't want to take the Mercedes. He's like, maybe I'll rent a Nissan so that I don't raise any eyebrows. You pass a couple people on their porches. They're looking at you like, oh, who's that coming in? You pull up. I can't imagine that the front porch light was too bright. So you're not sure if that's the right address of the Craigslist ad or whatever. You're knocking on different trailer doors. There's so many chances where he could have just turned around and jacked off.

2:03:05PFT Commenter:But it had to have been one of those just brutal hangover, horny, wake up. Internet wasn't fast enough at the Marriott. I don't know what's going on here. But maybe it's one of those states where Pornhub's banned. I don't know. People should look at that. What do you think the locker room, does that even matter, the owner? Does it matter for anyone in the locker room? No one cares. Yeah, no one gives a fuck. the patriots don't care about what happened this offseason right the players it's about football right you know i'm not saying i'm not saying right wrong indifferent i'm just telling you like the players are here to play football there has been much crazier shit that's happened than a guy going and it sounds crazy a billionaire going to a trailer park to solicit sex but that's those guys will be talking about it that guy's going to be at practice with his arms crossed watching the you know watching the next practice and the players are going to be like hey there he is like there's our horny owner but like other than that it's not really going to factor in it is a crazy offseason I mean between this and the Kyle Shanahan like you know in the substation it's not and on a on a serious note like I don't know how the Niners the Niners I respect them so much I think Kyle Shanahan should get like a lifetime contract because I can't imagine a better coach that I can't imagine ever saying like, Hey, let's take a chance on a new guy.

2:04:31He's such a, a stable commodity.

2:04:33PFT Commenter:Yeah. The way they played last year with what they had to deal with was nothing, nothing short of amazing, you know, but you lose Sala. You're, you're kind of, you're changing the defense up a little bit with Raheem coming into town and, you know, you've got injuries up front. Kittle's coming off an Achilles, you know, the whole thing, like the IU situation was bizarre I don't know how they don't take a little step back and I say that respectfully because I really respect the program but enough is enough the Niners still have great top end talent but it's older whenever a big trade happens and a team trades a couple first round picks and everyone freaks out the Niners are kind of an example of that where the Trey Lance trade, they don't have like, they don't have guys that are like coming into their prime.

2:05:25PFT Commenter:You know what I mean? They have young guys and they have old guys. Yes. And they don't have that like middle, they should have a couple studs that are in like, they're 25, 26 years old, 24 years old. They just, those are the Trey Lance picks, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and the Pierce all thing kills you. Yep. You know, like he just, he's a good, he obviously would have been a hit, but physically it just, he hasn't been able to, But if you look back at a couple of their drafts, like this is a big year for like the Mikel Williams of the world, the Alfred Collins, you know, the guys up front that they draft, CJ West.

2:05:56I do think I liked Upton Stout last year. So, you know, John Lynch is taking a lot of shit for drafting and your points taken. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of it is missing out on the, you know, if you miss, if you take a big swing and a miss on a Trey Lance, that definitely, you don't even get like a solid starter out of the guy. Yeah. What about the Patriots and the way their offseason's gone? What do you expect from them this season? Because they lost. Obviously, Diggs is not going to be there anymore. And then Booty just got traded to the Texans. Is that how we're saying his name? Because I can never.

2:06:31Is it Booty or Booty? I always say Booty because it's fun. Good. Yeah, it's fun. We can just agree to say Booty, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. And you're probably right. I think they're going to be better this year. but I think their schedule is going to totally throw that. Did they have a bad schedule last year? Yeah, you've heard about this. Was it weak? Evidently, it was weak. Oh, the Patriots. Okay. You know about this? No, this is the first time hearing of it. Hank doesn't know. I can call him and ask him if the Patriots had a hard schedule last year. He said no. Spent time with his kids today.

2:07:07I think they're going to be better, and I'm not trying to be lazy with my analysis, But I just think the schedule gets harder. There's bound to be a little bit of a regression because they were so, I mean, they were so good last year. I mean, defense, you also think about a defensive coordinator taking over for DC on the fly. He's not a known commodity. He brings a lot of heat. You know, I thought his pressure packages were incredible. You know, year two in that kind of system. You had Dobbs outside. You had A.J. Brown. I think A.J. Brown's got another thousand-yard season in him for sure. And you saw that in the Patriots-Eagles joint practices.

2:07:47He's still got it. And I'm a big Dobbs fan for sure. I think they're going to be better. But I think, like I said, the AFC is going to take a step forward. I don't know if I mentioned the Chargers earlier, the team they beat in the playoffs. I finished the season last year saying, I will never fall for that football team again. I don't care how good I think Justin Herbert could be. I don't care how much I like Harbaugh, but I'm never falling for that team again. And now, months later, I'm like, hey, they could win the division. The thing with the Chargers is I didn't want to leave them out of this discussion.

2:08:23You got to win in the playoffs. It sounds so obvious, but it's approaching mental at this point. It's approaching like you can say it doesn't factor in, but it absolutely factors in. And I'm a big McDaniel fan. I think this offense is going to look much different. I mean, the Greg Roman stuff got stale. You talk about having two all-world tackles who weren't out there last year. Now you can get on the edge. You run outside zone and everything comes with it. Get the ball out of Herbert's hands a little faster. I think they've got a chance to be very good. So I didn't want to leave the Chargers out either in the AFC.

2:08:57PFT Commenter:The Chargers are just that team that I find myself – I will just keep falling in love with the idea of them, and then every year I just be like, well, what did I expect? the Chargers have a toxic past they do a beautiful woman with a toxic past but sometimes we love that messy shit we're Jed York driving into the mobile home there's something hot about it fuck man I shouldn't be doing this I shouldn't be here you remember when Harbaugh was living in an RV last year yeah a couple years ago when he first took the job that's a mobile home probably a different kind of mobile home that's a football mobile home Yeah, that's football.

2:09:39So can I ask you about the commanders, and can you promise to answer me in a way where you won't completely break my heart? Yes. Okay. My expectation for the commanders is they're going to make the playoffs. I think the defense is going to be much better than last year, and all this is with a giant caveat of Jaden Daniels staying healthy. um the defense can i be do i have the right to be a little bit excited about the defense given that they've gotten so much younger and they have maybe a new dr heat or like yeah the new exotica guy i i almost bet their over win total and i'm glad i didn't because the next day tunsel got hurt i think that's a big one yeah he's a big one now they have some solid depth there but that's a big one.

2:10:28I think the digs really, the digs thing really helps, you know, it helps in the middle of the field. Um, it helps in the money downs. Like he's the guy that's going to get open and you know, you can, McLaurin's going to stretch the field and that sort of thing. Chig, Chigakonkwo, um, really athletic guy got to catch the football. He's had the drops a little bit, but I like, I like the player. Um, I, I actually like, I think the offense, I, I, anything Ben Johnson right now, that's the Blau thing. Like, although he's really young, I mean, it's crazy these coordinators now are like you know little babies man but um I think the offense is going to be fine the defense for me there were some additions that excited me we'll see about the Sonny Stiles thing I think the Amik Robertson thing is a low-key big signing he was such a tough player for them in the slot in Detroit and you talk about like you talk about playing physical and not getting flagged that that and being a little guy like he's a very unique talent I think the cross guy that you got from india is a tremendous player so i like the way they short up their secondary a little bit the kid from old miss last year the corner he's gonna take a step amos big strong long guy yeah um so i there's a lot to be excited about i do think up front like always got a lot to live up to with that contract i think you'll probably get a player that you're like hey man he's a good football player he's a good rusher but like we probably overpaid a little bit um and and then you had uh chase on and free agency and that sort of thing like it's it's kind of going to be a some of the parts type front seven and you've got to bring pressure and you just alluded to that so um i'm excited to i'm excited to see them play i mean i you know i'm not crazy excited i was a lot more excited before tonsil got hurt yep yeah yeah i'm with you but brandon coleman he was he was the uh left tackle when the commanders got to the nfc championship game so no question he's not bad but yeah you're right Laramie Tunsell is he's one of the I'd say like four or five really like game-changing left tackles that you have you can leave him alone yeah you can say hey Laramie you're on an island or Laramie we're gonna run we're gonna run off tackle and like you know well he's not Penny Sewell in the run game like he definitely helps get the ball on the edge so there's some concepts maybe some pin pulls that you're not as excited about or you know some stretch action type things that you're not excited about I just think it has a trickle-down effect.

2:12:51PFT Commenter:All right, last question, Roback question. RHOBACK.com, promo code TAKE, 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, Roback.com, promo code TAKE. Everyone do listen to the Green Light Pod. Chris is the best with the boys. We got to do this again. How's that book, by the way? Look at all those books. You're a part of it. I know. I talked to the guy, and he was like, I'll send you a copy before it comes out. I never saw it. Listen, this book, there was some errors in this book that we made that I think give it character. Give it life. Just like you're looking for something.

2:13:29PFT Commenter:Well, no, I mean, we joked about it, but I opened a parenthesis on page nine and never closed it. Did you really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So like that kind of shit. It's the first book, man. It's the first book, dude. Our second book, we'll start with a closed parenthesis. I've been manually adding a couple parentheses to a few books that I see in stores. Yeah. So that's like, you know, some very limited edition copies. We got it. Get closed out. If you have OCD, this is approved for you. Yeah. But thank you for taking the time because you can't tell the history of part of my take without Chris. A little plug.

2:14:00PFT Commenter:A little plug. Zach, take it away. How are we doing today, Chris? I did have a quick question. What's up, brother? What's going on, my man? Have you ever met Zach in person? I don't think we have. We got to get that together. I don't believe so, I think, just virtually here. But it's great to meet you for the first time, man. Yo, nice to meet you. All y 'all's dudes in the back are awesome there. So I know Zach's awesome. I was wondering, would you consider yourself a better football player or outdoorsman? Because what you can do on a kayak and kind of the side of a mountain is incredibly impressive.

2:14:32Honestly, that's a damn good question. Because I was a pretty good football player, but I wasn't like, you know. I'm pretty good, dude. Dude, like, listen, I can paddle on an eighth of mushrooms with the best of them, dude. So if that were a sport, I think I'm pretty good at that. I mean, I did nine miles yesterday. And, you know, it's just I love being outside, man. You know, and I, yeah, I wouldn't say I'm like a real mountaineer or anything like that. But I have somebody kill you a few times and I like to be outside.

2:15:05PFT Commenter:Is there a future in the Olympics? I know they have kayaking. You should try. No, dude. No, I can't. I don't know how to flip yet. You guys know whitewater kayaking? Yeah. You know how guys can roll and flip if you get dumped. And I can't yet. I'm too big. It just doesn't. I mean, I barely fit in my boat. So I think there are some factors that are going to keep me out of the Olympics. But if you guys come down to the James River one day, guys, I mean, it's not far. We were talking. Chris and I were talking. Maybe Grit Week, we float a river. It would be fun. Yeah, it would be so great, man. But yeah, no, I don't know, man.

2:15:48Whether it's football or the outdoors, I'm just trying to have a good time, guys.

2:15:52PFT Commenter:Love it. I love it. You're the best, Chris. Thank you, as always. And can't wait for football. You can finally, maybe when we run this on Wednesday, throw out that tweet. Be like, only 14 days till football. Yeah. I could finally say goodbye to my family. Well, no, that's the whole point. First, the kids go to school. You don't see them. And then second, you're like, hey, Sunday mornings, I'll see you Monday night. It's hard. It's a tough life being a podcaster. You know what you could do? You could say only 14 days, but for 14, have a player whose jersey number is 14. Oh, that's good. That would be a fun way to do it.

2:16:28I've never seen that before. Never done. Amon Ross, St. Brown. People are like, what do you mean? It's only Amon Ross, St. Brown days until football. i've never seen that before dude yeah that'd be fucking crazy try that

2:16:41PFT Commenter:all right thank you chris you're the man chris long is brought to you by our great friends over at venmo shout out to venmo sponsoring part of my take long time sponsor of this year podcast football is back that means that tailgating is back that means that you're about to spend money on all the essentials hot dogs, wings, chips, maybe a jersey that you absolutely did not need. And the great thing is you can buy all of it with the money already sitting in your Venmo balance when you use the Venmo debit MasterCard. That's the coolest part. Your Venmo balance is yours to spend on what you want. So when your buddy finally pays you back for the fantasy football punishment supplies, you can turn around, you can use that balance instantly with the Venmo debit card.

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2:17:39PFT Commenter:ID verification required to use a balance. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA. ID verification required to use a balance. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank We're about to get into Seth Wickersham. He's brought to you by Twisted Tea. It's officially the dog days of summer, and Twisted Tea is our go-to for cooling down when it's heating up. When it's hot, you know I'm reaching for something ice cold. Twisted Tea is the perfect drink for lake days, beach days, backyard grilling, and all the good stuff that summer has to offer. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea.

2:18:15It's made with real brewed tea and 5 % alcohol. Full of flavor, very refreshing. Goes down smooth. There's no carbonation, which makes it easy to drink all day long. Whether it's hitting the courts for a round, pre-gaming a ballgame, or inviting the guys over for some backyard grilling, Twisted Tea is always there to keep the good times rolling. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. And now, here is Seth Wickersham.

2:18:39PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is Seth Wickersham, who is a New York Times best-selling author, which I think we're going to run this next week. So maybe we are as well at that time. But you have a new book coming out on September 15th called Beyond That Hill. And Seth, it's the stories from the summits of sport. Seth, you wrote a book about sports and used a Bruce Springsteen lyric. Yeah. This is like nirvana for all older dudes, older than 50 years old. Why didn't we release this right on Father's Day? Because this is incredible.

2:19:19Seth Wickersham:It was a big marketing miss right there. But thanks, guys. Good to be here, man.

2:19:23PFT Commenter:Yeah. So you're here. All right. So let's talk about the book first. Then we have a bunch of questions because you are a fascinating figure. We always joke when a Seth Wickersham byline drops, it's like, uh-oh. So we're about to learn some things that no one wanted to see in the light of day. I think the last 10 years, you might be number one. If not, you're definitely top three. Don't pick up the phone guy. Yeah. If you get a call from Seth Wickersham, don't answer that call. It's not good for you. And I mean, as a true compliment. Yeah. No, I mean, you've got my phone number. I don't know how you just text me out of nowhere.

2:19:52PFT Commenter:You're like, Hey, it's not that hard. Okay. Yeah. All right. I realized that maybe it might've been the person who wrote the forward for your book. I realized that afterwards. All right. So, so this book though, what, what, what exactly are you like writing about and what's, what's going into it with stories, people you talk to.

2:20:10Seth Wickersham:Yeah. I mean, it's a collection. So it's kind of like a greatest hits, which is a weird thing to do because first of all, you're like, do I have any hits? and then you're like you have hits okay you know then you realize you have you pull way too many of them and you're like i know i don't have that many freaking hits so you have to call it down but you know a collection's a special thing and you know it's they're rare and it's kind of funny it's um it's a huge ego trip and also kind of absurd because you can google any of those stories basically yeah find them for free yeah but um uh i realize that might not be the best selling point but it's true yeah and um but it was cool to do and it was you know i don't know about you guys but like i'm not wired to reflect like yeah by the time you know i've spent so much time on these stories that when they're out in the world i don't ever look back at them and it was cool to look back at your career a little bit i mean you guys experienced it yourself with yours and see who you were at certain moments, where you were, and the memories that some of those stories brought up was pretty cool.

2:21:18Yeah, it is true. Like, if you're not wired that way, when you do put them all together, it does hit you a little bit harder since you haven't taken that time to look back. And, yeah, you've got bangers. You've got some hits. You're one of my favorite journalists in the entire world. It might be from a very personal place. I credit you, Dan Van Nata. Nata? How do you pronounce his last name? Don Van Nata. Don Vanatta and Jim Irsay as the big three that took down Dan Snyder. And I will forever be grateful to you for that. Growing up a Redskins fan in Northern Virginia and seeing what he did to that, really that city.

2:21:53Seth Wickersham:Yeah. It was awful. But you were like a dog just chasing after that car. You were right on his bumper the entire time. Was that hard for you? Because I know that he's threatened people. He said that he had blackmail on Roger Goodell. like did you ever fear that that he was going after you as well no maybe that's naive but we never did we did that story so that was um fall i think of 21 when we did that story and you know i was poking around on a dan snyder story for a while and i was struggling to get what i thought i had pieces of reporting but i didn't have a story and you know we knew that he was putting private eyes on people or at least talking about putting private eyes on people but i think bruce allen came out at congress and confirmed everything um but uh i know i was talking to don he had just finished a story on rob manford i think and i was talking to him and i said you know do you want to work together on this thing because i'm i have pieces of reporting but i don't have a story and he was like yeah and he had it immediately he said you know how has he survived like that's we should write about how he survived because the washington post had done all those stories and so that was the question and so once we had that framing tisha thompson came in and helped too but we just like attacked that that was fun and it came out and um you know obviously there's a lot of stuff in that story about the things that he had done um you know he had had an entire powerpoint presentation at the league office that the league office called the black mail PowerPoint where he was basically saying like if you guys and and um you know his lawyers presented it and and you know if you if you try to touch me this is what's coming yeah um so flagrant um but anyway the story came out and I remember I drove down to the league meetings um and it was in New York downtown New York and they had started if you I don't think you guys have really been to those meetings but you know it's it's basically a bunch of like reporters sitting around in a lobby there's really not a lot going on yeah and ursa kind of came in late and he he moved slow um and he stopped at the the meetings were going on upstairs and he stopped at the base of the stairs and i think all the press were kind of like is he just waiting for us to come talk to him and so everyone kind of slowly came over to him and i'm not covering the news off the meeting so i'm not like the first one in there and he was talking low and i was like wait a second i think he's talking about snyder and he obviously had read the story and was making a very calculated stand right there and i thought that that was again those things i think all kind of helped trigger the league to force him to sell yeah the uh the blackmail powerpoint when you get to a point where you're openly you're threatening roger goodell that's that's the one thing because i feel like owners and maybe you can tell me if this isn't true but I feel like NFL owner is a very, very hard job to get.

2:25:00I guess you could call it fired from, but to lose. It's a tough job to lose. And you have to do something extraordinarily stupid to get kicked out of that club. Is that a fair assessment?

2:25:09Seth Wickersham:I mean, I think you have to do a series of extraordinarily stupid things that your own owners find distasteful. And there's a disconnect between what the public finds distasteful and what the owners do. And I think that Snyder was a great example of that because the Washington Post did all their stories about the workplace atmosphere, the harassment, how toxic that was. I mean, mildly. And he survived it. It had gone away. Everyone knew that. And he was kind of laying low, hoping that everything would pass. and then it was our story where it came out that he really was going after his colleagues yeah and roger that i think you know was like we're done with this guy yeah the second you start withholding money or that too there's the appearance of withholding money it's like we we overlooked the the 20 allegations of sexual harassment yeah but the second the owners think that you might be shortchanging them it all kind of flips on a little bit i still think if he had gotten a stadium done he probably would have survived which is crazy yeah it speaks to the nfl yeah that's the language they speak yeah i mean that's that's a good segue to what's going on right now with the bears yeah um that whole thing me and big cat kind of have the same mentality which is it's not over till it's over and everything could be a negotiating point we've seen in sports before that deals are done and then they're not done all of a sudden so um do you know do you have any are you plugged in at all to the uh the back and forth like what do you see from the Bears ownership group I mean the only thing I and I've limited exposure to this I haven't written anything about it but like I think that um I think the Bears felt frustrated that they couldn't seem to get the attention of the governor and they had to do something and you know I think that there's a general frustration that some of these big markets are underachieving in the NFL and that you know the bears should have had a stadium by now and the you know the nfl presence in the city of chicago should be much more glitzy and modern than it is i think that like with the giants that's another example of like um huge market and the jets huge market can't quite get these teams relevant and um so you know we've seen situations like this the 49ers going to santa Clara.

2:27:34Seth Wickersham:The Chiefs are obviously going to move to Kansas. And I don't think the Bears were dying to go to Indiana, but they're definitely willing to do it. It's also, I mean, knowing how this all

2:27:47PFT Commenter:has gone down to like the Bears are also it's a mom and pop shop. And I say that like not in a disrespectful way, but it's there are certain owners and you know this by talking to everyone like there are certain owners they the mccaskies own this the bears because their their great grandfather started football 100 plus years ago and that's all the money they have is in this franchise so they don't have the means to do some of the other things that some of these other franchises are able to do and so they need the they need the state of illinois to give them a bunch of breaks and stuff and they weren't doing that right away so they they're using leverage i think goodell is eventually going to come in and be like you have to go to our own tonight's and I think that's probably how it's going to all settle.

2:28:30PFT Commenter:But who knows? It's all a mess. It feels like we've been talking about it for far too long, and they just need to get it done.

2:28:36Seth Wickersham:And these things, you know, there is some nuance to it. And these stadiums always end up being so much more expensive than people think. So, like, when you go back to 2016, we had the Derby for Los Angeles. And Van Nade and I wrote about it, and I put it in the book. And, you know, it was this one of the worst falls, I think, to be an NFL owner because people were just out for each other. You had Jerry Richardson fighting it. Jerry Jones. You had Cronky versus Spanos. You had Mark Davis floating around in there, kind of threatening to go to L.A. You had the league that didn't want the Raiders to go to L.A., but they really didn't know what to do to try to solve this this problem.

2:29:18Seth Wickersham:Kroenke buys this land and he presents the owners a 2.7 billion dollar stadium you know we all see and it's a it's a beautiful facility I mean that stadium ended up costing close to six billion right before it was done that's crazy and like not many people can write a check like that and um you know so I think that's why you have these situations the the chargers were like that where they kind of defaulted to LA you know now they're in la it's hard to tell like what fans they have right but you know they they felt like they had to do it um and you know it's like how do the bears navigate this better and smarter and i don't know really if there's a way because you know again their ownership can't just write a check for five billion dollars right they don't have the means to do that for the longest time the nfl owners had they had the boogeyman of las vegas yeah it was like hey if you don't pony up if we the tax money and la and la yeah those are the two it's like we can go to vegas and we can go to la now they're oh for two what is the next boogeyman that they can they can is it just indiana it's london indiana is going to take every team yeah is it london yeah um that's a great question i mean i don't see a lot of them you know i think that like i think people would i don't i don't see a lot of places left you know maybe there's none left and maybe that's something that maybe that's why roger comes out and says you know we'll see a team overseas at some point i mean the logistics of doing that is going to be incredibly difficult it's gonna suck yeah that when he said that it did feel like that's he's propping up london as as the next spot and then obviously everybody says oh the jaguars but but i don't think shot con is going to do that he just invested a lot of money to jacksonville yeah so like i mean not to tie everything back i i am like um charlie day and always sunny when i hear something like that i'm like dan snyder's gonna take the team He's going to do an expansion team in London.

2:31:16Do you see it being an expansion team? I never thought of that. That would be crazy if there was an NFL, like an expansion draft. We haven't had one in a very long time. But in today's day and age, seeing that happen again would be absolutely nuts, especially if the team, the players that get selected, you're telling them you've got to go live in London. I think they have to pay taxes there. Well, all athletes do. It's crazy. That's true. You should do a report on that, that athletes pay taxes.

2:31:39Seth Wickersham:I talked to owners at some point about how this would work, Because again, when the Jaguars were kind of in their situation, there was some talk about would they spend half the year there? And I think they were talking about like, you know, would the London team be in the States straight consecutively for half the season? Would they work out of some facility like in Austin or Atlanta or wherever it might be that kind of helped make sense for them? You know, I think the logistics would be complicated. um but i also don't think the league care if the opportunity is there the league is funny because they are incredibly slow moving and cautious on a lot of things unless there's a direct revenue pathway right and it's immediate and they will move incredibly fast in that situation and so right they'll they'll definitely like figure out the logistics if they think that this is like worth doing and would benefit everybody yeah you've got a you've got a very close relationship with people i don't know if you have one with tom brady himself but like people that are in tom brady's um inner circle it seems and you've done a lot of reporting on some really good stuff what do you think it is that makes tom brady go like man because we we saw him as like a uniquely competitive driven person and i think a lot of that was out of like fuck you energy when he was when he's on Patriots and still then on the on the Bucs and but he still seems to have that that edge to him now post playing and as a part owner of the Raiders like what do you think is at his core that drives the guy it becomes a curse you know without the game without a place to deposit it but I met Tom for the first time we were we both graduated from college the same year and ESPN magazine sent me to Foxborough in October of 20 of 2001 to write about the guy who was filling in for true blood so well and i had heard of brady obviously but i didn't know a lot about him we met at the old foxborough stadium which as you guys remember it was like a high school field we walked through the team shop to some office nobody stopped him he was wearing like a gray sweatsuit with a backpack he looked like a college junior and you know we sat down and we talked to we kind of felt like two i don't say peers but it was like we were both ambitious people getting our breaks at the exact same time.

2:34:04Seth Wickersham:And there was a little bit of a kinship there. And, um, I'll never forget. He's like, you know, football has always come really easy to me. And I wasn't, I didn't have the perspective at the time to appreciate what he was saying as a 24 year old. But, um, I, I think that like, you know, I was like, who's, who's saying this stuff? You know what I mean? This guy, whatever. Um, but I look back on stuff like that and I think that there's just an innate confidence. And if you look at his high school clips, you know, the guy could always throw, he's always had like an incredible arm. It was just in kind of a gangly body.

2:34:41Seth Wickersham:And then you have, you know, that little worrying piece of insecurity that's always within you that gets you out of bed. And he's had it to the nth degree. And there was years later, I, um, I was writing a story about him and he said, come by my house. He was in Boston and it was um i'll never forget it's a townhouse in the back bay and you the elevator entered into his living room and i walked in and no one was there and i'm going like is this kids gonna come around around the corner and wonder like who the hell is this guy in our house i'm standing in tom brady's living room wondering like what the hell to do um and he's like hey you know i'll be right up just make yourself comfortable he was the only one home but he was at a little bit of a crossroads in his career at that point where I think Bill was starting to think about post Tom life.

2:35:32Seth Wickersham:He had been, they hadn't won a Superbowl in close to 10 years. He was developing a lot of the TB12 stuff that would become his kind of religion. And, um, you know, he, he was a young man or he's, you know, I guess 35, but young, but middle-aged, he was a young father. And I was kind of trying to talk to him about that and i was knowing how competitive he is and how intense he is i still underappreciated his drive and he was like there is absolutely no off switch like nothing changes and the things that he did during that year i think set the stage for what he did during the last 10 years of his career he said like very nonchalantly and i think it was the first time he said you know my my first 10 years in the league prepared me for have prepared me for my what'll be my last 10 and i was like what yeah again it was like football's always come really easy to me i'm like what are you saying right you know whatever dude but like he meant it yeah and i think that like when he says something he means it to the bottom of his soul so i think all of those things are the things that like kind of create this mosaic that's created you know the greatest football player ever

2:36:46PFT Commenter:do you think that like brady looking at everything that happened with brady and belichick in the end I mean winning six Super Bowls the dynasty and then the end of it Brady had more closure than Belichick because Belichick feels like he's never really had closure on it with how it all ended Brady goes wins a Super Bowl he's now on you know doing the the biggest game of the week on Fox and all these things uh but Belichick it feels like that's the greatest coach of all time and it's kind of been a weird final chapter yeah you know I mean he opened the door for Brady you

2:37:20Seth Wickersham:know look the exit had been brewing for years yeah what year was it like start did you did you start reporting on it or seeing or hearing about it so it was after the falcon super bowl and i think that like they had gotten five together brady was coming out with his tb12 business and kind of doing a lot of promotion for it which was very atypical for a patriot right and very atypical for brady and i think he wanted a contract that would like solidify his status there for a bit hey let's freaking make another run you know let's do all this stuff and belichick you know wanted brady as his quarterback to a point and i think that he was just he presented craft a study at one point that showed how quarterbacks drop off after maybe age 35 36 and of course brady looks at something like that and it's like fuck that i'm gonna like take your study and you know and but you know bill planned for he was invested in garoppolo and so you know all of these things going on at the same time and you know then you had alex guerrero in the building and you know his presence was causing some problems the receivers were like do we go to guerrero rather than the patriots doctors to get in with tom like you know what are we doing and um you know belichick had to make some decisions you know he curtailed guerrero's access traded jimmy something he didn't really want to do and you know it's like a lot of that turmoil and some of it spilled out into public you know i wrote about it others did too but like you know you saw i remember brady had that game against um jacksonville on the championship where he had cut his hand he'd put his hand open during the week miles jack yes and he um you know rallies him i think from 10 down in the fourth quarter you know with a bandage on his throwing hand yeah and you know they ask bill after the game to say you know what about this performance you know what i mean and he's like you know it's not open heart surgery and i probably could do a better impression yeah and i think that like it just got complicated and brady knew that he was going to leave and then of course he leaves lands with tampa they look middling through most of the season and then they just catch fire yeah and you know brady cosmically won the narrative and you know does that bother bill i don't think so because i mean i think bill's pretty secure in his legacy um although don and i story about him not getting in the hall of fame you know that was a shocker yeah but like i think that like i think they're in a good place now but um you know how bill's career has played out after he opened the door for brady to leave you know it it it's it's dinged it a little bit and i don't think it takes away i think that like when the one paragraph about belichick in the hall of fame is written it's not going to say he let tom brady he opened the door for brady to walk out and brady did it's going to talk about all of his accolades but that's it's part of his legacy yeah and and do you put any stock in uh some of the rumors that were going around the super bowl of like you know brady was acting weird saying he didn't have a dog in the fight with the the patriots and in the super bowl like do you think that there's any lingering animosity between tom and the franchise i mean i don't know but it doesn't surprise me that he would say that because you know craft backed bill's decision to let him leave so you know he did a lot for that team and that team did a lot for him but like it doesn't surprise me at all i I mean, you know, the word competitiveness is interesting because it gives some of these guys carte blanche to act in really kind of bizarre ways under the guise of competitiveness.

2:41:01Seth Wickersham:And you've seen it, you know, with Jordan throughout the years. You know, you've seen a lot of examples of it. Joe Montana, you know, kind of like nitpicking at Brady's career. You know, it's Joe freaking Montana.

2:41:12PFT Commenter:Right.

2:41:13Seth Wickersham:Wait, did you write that story about Joe Montana? I did. That was a fascinating story. it was yeah and um uh but you know it took years for montana and a lot of work by jed york to get montana back in the sort of 49ers family right he was like look what i did for you guys and you wouldn't even give me a chance to win my job right to compete and you know i think that like those scars are deep scars and brady had accomplished so much and then you know he ends up leaving um so no it didn't surprise me at all that he would say something like that yeah so so

2:41:52PFT Commenter:where where do you think like do you think belichick has any chance of going back to the nfl that is that no past yeah i mean no it's kind of crazy when you think about it like he that he's not going to get the record we all kind of had his foregone gone conclusion like this guy is he is the greatest coach with record or no record but i think if you ask anyone in the world in 2019, 2020, even when Brady leaves, you're like, yeah, of course he's going to get the record. He's going to coach for a few more years, probably win 10, 11 games. And even if he gets fired, someone will hire him in a second.

2:42:25PFT Commenter:And none of that happened.

2:42:26Seth Wickersham:None of that happened. And Van Atten and I and Jeremy Fowler wrote about it. And, you know, the Falcons, he didn't finish in the top three of any of their decision makers, their circle of trust. They ranked their candidates and he didn't finish in anyone's top three. I mean, that is a huge. And look, I like Raheem Morris. And, you know, I think Raheem in a good situation would be a really good head coach. You know, they made their decision, but.

2:42:57PFT Commenter:Yeah, I mean, Raheem Morris, better person than football coach.

2:43:00Seth Wickersham:Well, it's just like, you know, I think. And I wrote this story on Sean Payton where I spent the playoffs with him. And, you know, he was so offended that he always says our league had no place for Belichick. And he actually thought of an idea where he would like hire Bill as the head coach, step aside, run the offense until Bill got the record because he just thought it was so embarrassing and a bad reflection of the league that someone with that credential is not getting a job. it's still it still is one of those sentences that should like again there's these sentences with bill that shouldn't make sense at this point but like you know bill belichick couldn't find a job in the nfl as a sentence that makes no sense yeah bill belichick wasn't a first ballot hall famer is a sentence that makes no sense and yet they're they're true yeah it was was sean payton serious about that like was because we all have weird sean payton especially he's got he's a little bit crazy yeah he's got weird thoughts when it comes to football and and they've been you know kind of a difference maker in his career that have you know he does things like an onside kick to start half the super bowl um but how serious was he about he called a fake punt in overtime against the bills in my story i mean holy cow on fourth and 11 yeah um it was more than a fanciful thought but it wasn't a fully formed plan i mean it would have been just too complicated at the end of the day it's just it was a fanciful idea but he did think about it what um who did you read growing up who were your like uh your authors that you looked at that made you want to get into this um rick riley rick tallender um gary smith and then later on you know tom jenote jim murray um mike wilbon you know mike i interned at the washington post and i didn't have a car and the nba draft was in dc that year and he gave me a lift in his press box there's his license plate was press box with one s i think or maybe no oh i can't remember but i was like you know that's that's awesome that's interesting you know those are the guys that i read and um uh you know when you're young you're you're so impressionable and then you know as you i had dinner last night with rick tellender who's like a you know not only good friend but just like a hero of mine and um it's a special thing to kind of like grow into your own and then have these relationships that as a kid you just didn't see that happening yeah it's kind of similar i

2:45:25PFT Commenter:I mean, we have a relationship with Chris Berman that we just cherish. You wrote about it. It's in your book. Yeah, we wrote about it. Like Scott Van Pelt, Joe Buck, all these guys. It's pinched me moments. We were like, shit, I can consider these guys friends now.

2:45:41Seth Wickersham:Yeah.

2:45:42PFT Commenter:What's the hardest part about your job? Like when you're trying to get someone to tell you something and like, how does that process work? Because we were joking before. Like, I don't really understand. We're not journalists. never never claimed to be i don't really get how you guys are able to do it uh as well as you are because it always feels like you're getting the secrets no one wants to say and then getting them you know to a point where you can print it uh but what what is that process like when you're trying to chase a story and it's like getting something out of someone i'll give you a for instance so

2:46:15Seth Wickersham:van at and i did a lot of stories in the fall of 17 when trump was coming after the players who were kneeling and Kaepernick was kind of at the center of it, even though he wasn't in the league. So we were writing about how the league office and the owners were handling this. And there's two stories that stand out. Number one, um, we were about to, a story was about to publish. I was, um, getting casual drinks with, with an executive. And I asked him about something that bob mcnair had said that we had had we had in our story but i didn't he thought i was talking about something else so i said so i mentioned yeah i heard bob mcnair at this meeting said and he goes oh my god it was terrible and i was like what are you talking about because the thing i was going to ask about was not terrible and he goes what are you talking about i was like tell me what are you talking about and he said you know he said you can't have the inmates running the prison and troy vincent got all pissed off and it was this like uproar jerry jones gets up and backs mcnair i mean it was horrible so i was like oh my god so i i called someone else and i said hey did mcnair say this in this meeting he goes yes it was terrible i gotta go so i'm like we have two people on this i actually reached out to amy palcic at the texans at the time and i said hey you know i've been told he said this and she said yeah he said it can i have some context to add you know whatever it is so you know that that piece of reporting comes out and that one caught fire and then there was another story that van and i were doing where it was on remember when jerry jones was threatening to sue the league to stop roger from getting a contract extension i mean those were the days right about that yeah that was a good that was a fun time but we were doing this story we all and it was we were really proud of this story but it was almost going to ship and um it was in the magazine and don had gotten a tip that there was a really contentious phone call between jerry jeff passion rocker goodell and now when the league told him that zeke elliott was going to be suspended and the guy told don because look i'm not at liberty to say what happened but you guys should find out so i called someone who i thought would know and he goes yeah you know there's this dialogue and then jerry says you think bob craft came after you hard bob craft is a pussy compared to what i'm gonna do to you i was like okay yeah so i called don don called somebody else got it confirmed you know and so that's kind of like how these things come together like sometimes it's luck like with the guy where you know it's what are you talking about yeah um but you know i think that there's a i think that being able to get people on the phone quickly can help but you know it's it's hard those are high degree of difficulty stories and you know i think that when we do them we wanted you know we're asking a lot of readers they're long stories and you know we to do a story like that you have to have don calls them like little bombs going off yeah and then kind

2:49:16PFT Commenter:of big bombs too yeah do you do you find it thrilling when you when you're chasing a story and like do you get a rush out of that i know you're supposed to kind of not be emotionally involved in the story as a journalist but i would imagine like finding out getting a tip being like hey find out about this phone call and then getting the actual details yeah has to feel good well then

2:49:36Seth Wickersham:there's two sides of it right there's the new when when maybe something is a new story like i did this story years ago on when cronkey remember this the the city ofst louis sued the league over the relocation for like a billion dollars and they settled for like 700 some million and cronkey went in front of the owners was like i'm not paying this they're like what are you talking about you signed an indemnification agreement as a condition of relocating and that blew up and so that was like one of those cool things where it became a new story um when don and i are working on these bigger stories or when he's doing them alone or i'm doing them alone you know again you want you're asking readers as you guys know it's it's a competition for time and so you want to feel like you're delivering them something new and noteworthy and that is immensely satisfying we've always heard about guys like jerry robert craft being the you know the most powerful voices yeah nfl um i think kronky has definitely put his name in that list as well is there anybody like behind the scenes that you look at and you're like that person has has now solidified themselves as having you know a sizable amount of power more than you might just think from the outside like because i feel like bob craft and jerry they still control a lot but they're you know they're getting older so there might be some more you know dynamic younger voices that are you know seeing the future of the league in their eyes so who would those guys be well they're all different and the funny thing about owners is that like they're all in this arranged marriage that they kind of hate but don't want to get out of and so like i think that one of the most interesting things about owners is how passive they all are like you see the votes for a p for an initiative and like most votes are like i think the bangles always abstains they're always like 31 to nothing there's very few votes that are close and so you see that like group thing takes over quite a bit right at the end of the day i think the most powerful owner isn't an owner and that's roger like i think that craft and jerry they care but roger is an incredible we always talk about how roger knows how to manage the 32 at the i think at this point in his career you know roger is making big decisions for the league and is able to get owners on board rather than kind of just taking bullets for them i mean he's an incredibly influential executive and i think that um you know you what the league is doing often jerry and and craft are involved and you know they're kind of funny um frenemies but um you know it's i think it's roger it's

2:52:19PFT Commenter:roger's league yeah i mean like you have guys like clark hunt you know but like when you're

2:52:24Seth Wickersham:talking about who's really influential under uh you know among that group i think cronkey you're right to her cronkey is but i think it's roger yeah and that you're right that has been like a change that we've seen from goodell over the years to being the one who's got like division and he Now he knows the personalities and how to manage those guys behind the scenes. So what do you think his biggest focuses are? Because he's getting another contract. He's at, what is it, 60 mil a year? What are his biggest focuses? Because now we're getting to the time, and this is kind of what I'm worried about with Goodell, like he's at the age where he is definitely thinking about his legacy and what he's going to leave behind in terms of, you know, he inherited a league that was going through some concussion lawsuits.

2:53:05He managed to kind of navigate through those in a way that I think you know it was good for the league ultimately it didn't blow up in their faces um so player safety would be one that he would he would point to right now but i feel like he's not done like there's something else that he wants to accomplish what do you think that would be yeah i mean in

2:53:22Seth Wickersham:don and i's story that's in the book about jerry and roger he says you know one more contract after that you guys have to figure out a successor and that was two contracts ago yeah so these guys

2:53:34PFT Commenter:never know it's like bob eiger like well he gets treated i mean roger gets to fly private to games he gets treated like a luminary you have power why would you like they're addicted to it i'm not saying that's a wrong thing but it's all these guys that have this power they never want to leave

2:53:49Seth Wickersham:yeah i think 18 games international and then i don't know if this is this is on the minds of some league executives is like do we figure out a way to coordinate with college because college football is changing rapidly has changed rapidly um they're going to have an officially professional model at some point you know that's going to happen and you know is there a way that the league and college football you know brian rollap was like involved in that college um when brian was at the league he was involved in that kind of brain trust of of college sports um is there a way that they figure out to make their puzzle pieces fit yeah i think those are interesting things like i don't maybe there's no impetus for the nfl to do anything official with college because they don't have to it's their pipeline but there might be a way that it benefits them financially smarter people than me will figure that out yeah uh who's the who's the someone that you've interviewed or gotten to know that like you just you never really kind of fully

2:54:59PFT Commenter:figured them out is there someone like that where it's like that this person's so interesting and fascinating and it's it's like i keep trying to pick at it i don't know if that that maybe is a bad question but you've talked to so many people that are so successful yeah how do you get a hand

2:55:13Seth Wickersham:well everybody has multiple selves right you know that's the thing is that like um you guys i think Andrew luck's first big interview after the story I did with him was with you guys, right?

2:55:25PFT Commenter:Yeah

2:55:26Seth Wickersham:And he was so fascinating. He's not that guy for me But he was so fascinating because he was so transparent about it. Yeah, and he was basically like I had to be all these different people and it was corrupting who I was and so yes The injuries played a role, but I didn't like who I was as a quarterback Right and I had to figure out if it was worth it for me within that context and there's very few people who have the self-awareness to do that um you know belichick's endlessly fascinating yeah you know i mean there's just there's so many different iterations of him and people that he's both the truest person to his self that i think that like rex ryan used to talk about how he thought it was cool that bill could be a dick at the at his press conferences because that's he was being true to himself right he was being true to his personality yeah and it would be phony if he tried to do something else and i think that like you know watching belichick throughout his career and just the staggering thought that goes into his decisions and i am privy to a glimpse of it um you know that to me

2:56:34PFT Commenter:is is kind of endlessly interesting yeah i could see that i can see i think parcells yeah parcells

2:56:40Seth Wickersham:is someone that like i'll probably write about at some point because he kind of created this system um that was dominant you know this ethos for 30 years and it destroyed the lives of the people who became great at it but it and you know they and they won a ton of games and a ton of super bowls but like so many things came out of his brain that influenced the league for so long and now it seems like it's kind of turning yeah and you know i'd be curious like what he thinks was worth it and what he thinks wasn't yeah just like any quote that he had just influences when he says like you are who your record says you are right like decades of coaches and owners and gms they just point to that one soundbite they're like that's why i'm doing this today yeah like it's not true you can be a really good team and you can have terrible luck yeah and your quarterbacks out for the season and then you lose a bunch of games it was interesting to be with Sean Payton when you know I was there when Bo Nix when he found out Bo Nix was out and I don't know how you guys feel but you know I think if Bo Nix is in that game they're in the Super Bowl yeah

2:57:45PFT Commenter:we also thought it was kind of crazy that he said it so quickly right after the game okay so I didn't

2:57:50Seth Wickersham:put this in the story um but and it wasn't for any reason other than I can't include everything you know but it was they were he got the news I was there he was explaining the fourth and 11 and punt to me the trainer comes in fake punt the trainer comes in looking very solemn but i didn't really pick up on it at the time sean keeps drawing the play on my notebook and then he says all right give me the news trainer's got a list of injuries and you know he says bo bo fractured his ankle he's gonna have surgery on tuesday his season's over and it was like the room stopped did did

2:58:24PFT Commenter:sean have any idea that that was coming because it like did anyone know he was hurt he got hurt

2:58:29Seth Wickersham:yeah but i don't think they thought it was that that was the crazy part we know no one saw it was you know the second last play if you look at like the replays since you see bo's face where he kind of knows it's over so anyway i was with him there and then they were like what immediately his his mind switched to like how can i use this to an advantage getting the team ready but they were like how do we tell the team and most of the players had dispersed at that point i mean they were going out it was a saturday night i think so you know they just won a playoff game everyone's gone and they didn't think the news would hold until the next team meeting so that's why he went

2:59:03PFT Commenter:out and gave a second press conference got it so under like your agreement with sean payton to shadow him you you're sitting there for that news that's breaking news if he doesn't say it that

2:59:14Seth Wickersham:night what do you do with it i we would have had to have a conversation so you would have said to

2:59:18PFT Commenter:sean hey you this was said in front of me i should probably tell shefter or whoever you know someone so and and what what if he says well no you you get out of here um i don't think it would have

2:59:31Seth Wickersham:come to that but like you know my agreement with sean was pretty simple i mean i was writing everything i saw unless he asked for something to be off the record and the only thing that they asked kind of to be off was the meetings where they talked about like time management and game management strategy because teams could just lift that yeah yeah um but uh you know yeah we would have had to have that discussion but it all happened really fast and at that point i'm kind of a fly on the wall i'm there was only a couple people in the room i mean it was george payton sean payton patrick smythe the pr guy and they were all strategizing and it was a pretty quick

3:00:09PFT Commenter:decision to go call the press back yeah are pr guys afraid of you they have to be right i don't When you call up a PR guy, are they like, fuck?

3:00:20Seth Wickersham:Nobody's ever said that. But I think that there's a little bit of like, oh, boy. Oh, shit. Yeah. What's going on here?

3:00:28PFT Commenter:Because you're basically like, if they see your number pop up, it's basically just a pop up being like, hey, guess what? The next like two weeks of your life are going to fucking suck. And that's. Yeah.

3:00:39Seth Wickersham:But PR guys can also be. Look, and I've had good relationships with PR guys. I've had relationships that went sideways. but you know they can be enormously helpful if you're honest and i think you try to do your work in a professional way and there's times that like you know that relationship gets messy but hopefully you end in a place where they feel like they were treated professionally and you know there's lessons i've learned over the years and probably lessons that people have learned working with me um so that the next time things come around hopefully it's a little bit easier but sometimes it is just contentious who's the who's the person who's gotten the maddest at you before

3:01:19Seth Wickersham:um the bills in 2003 when i did a story on travis henry remember they drafted willis mcgahey yeah they were upset with me um i'd imagine stacy james at the patriots has had some issues with don and i over the years um i think that's it so but do they call you and like try to yell at you and intimidate you or what how does that work no it's usually sometimes people get heated you're having a heated conversation but it's not you know it's kind of within the context of what they're trying to accomplish and what i'm trying to accomplish it's not a personal thing yeah yeah you should like once a year just call up like i don't know the eagles or jeffrey loran be like hey i'd like to do a positive you're about like a flag football team that you sponsor like just you know that way you're giving them you know a little carrot and you know addition to the stick that you have to call it later.

3:02:09I don't know. Did you still like some fluff PR for the guys? That's what I'm saying. Like, make them happy. That's not really me.

3:02:14Seth Wickersham:I think that's the thing they would probably get suspicious about. Yeah. There's no way this asshole is doing a thing on our flag football team. It's a bit here. In the aftermath of the Bo Nix injury, because I remember distinctly Kyle Shanahan saying that we would have called Phillip Rivers to play for us in the Super Bowl if they had beaten the Eagles in that NFC championship. did the broncos have any discussions about bringing somebody else in not that i was aware of i mean i didn't see it yeah i mean sean believed in you know he believes in steady like you know it was true how he felt you know i mean i think obviously bo is his guy but i think he thought that they had a good chance to win with stidham and um you know sean felt bad because he talked to parcells when it first happened you know when parcells obviously won that super bowl with jeff hostetler and jeff was protected by the coaches in a way that it's just you know sean it's a different game now but sean's also just like you know he's more aggressive yeah and i think he felt like that he didn't protect stidham in that game as well as he should have um particularly on the the fumble when he tried to lateral the ball away um you know i think he felt like we should just run the ball and punted so that was like those are the things that i think haunt coaches But in very real and profound ways.

3:03:38PFT Commenter:Yeah. Did you know Stidham might have a tail? PFT did a little investigation of his own. Yeah. Going back to college. There's been heavy rumors about Jared Stidham. These are things you don't think about. Possibly being born with a vestigial tail.

3:03:50Seth Wickersham:I did not see that. It was probably 100 % fake because the best sources I had for it were like Auburn message boards. Right. But you never know. You never know unless you ask.

3:04:00PFT Commenter:Yeah, right. You never know unless you ask. Yeah. So you read our book. what'd you think about it was it as poorly written as we thought it came out because there are some when we were doing the audiobook there was moments where i was like wait like did we not proofread this part did we not prove did you see that you notice that there was a couple but i also

3:04:21Seth Wickersham:thought it might could have been for a fact obviously there's the open parentheses that you told me about which is actually i think that like you should just own it and you know it's oh yeah it was it was intentional yeah definitely and yeah but i wish we had the only regret on that one

3:04:34PFT Commenter:is I wish we had closed it because that would have been very funny if the entire book had been a clarification of the first eight pages.

3:04:40Seth Wickersham:Your book's doing well, so you'll have a second printing, so you should just do that. See if anyone catches it. This right now, this is included inside that parenthesis. All of it. Everything we put out until we close it. Just keep going. You're on the record in the parenthesis. Redefine the parenthesis. Yeah. I think it was cool. And look, I mean, I think people always want to know how a hurricane starts. And as it turned out, it starts over DM and Twitter. and a couple of good parties but like i i thought that was cool because again you know you guys are self-made people and you guys have created this platform that you know you go to training camp tours and you're getting the quarterbacks and you're getting the main guys and they want to come on and talk ball with you and you know how that happens i think is something that i think a

3:05:29PFT Commenter:lot of people can learn from as a journalist do you ever look down at guys like us being like they don't ask any of the hard questions because we know there are times when i am it's not like a we know what the show is the show is supposed to be fun and that's been the the the ethos from the beginning that's i think why we've been able to do what we do but there are definitely times where we do an interview and i'm like yeah i'm kind of a coward for not asking something there but that's

3:05:53Seth Wickersham:also not what we do no i don't because i think that everybody we were talking about it i mean And the football is so big that like there's room. It's fascinating how much room there is for all these people to occupy all of these different roles. Yeah. And, you know, at the end of the day, we're all learning from a story that I write or an interview that you guys do. And the more knowledge you have is the more you can bring yourself to, you know, recognize something else down the road or use if you're ever writing about a guy. And so I don't I don't look at it like that way at all. Yeah. There's been definitely an evolution in the last, I'd say, like 15 years, 20 years when it comes to the written word and how it's monetized online.

3:06:35Yeah, or not. Or not monetized online and how that all feeds into the future of journalism, whether it be in the NFL or just in the world in general. But from your lens in sports journalism, where do you see your role evolving to the future? Because you've been a great fit for this day and age. And I think then it's shown that if you do serious journalism, there is a place for it online. But I get, you know, more and more pessimistic as the years go on that that will always be true. Like, and who knows what the next iteration is going to be. But where do you see it going?

3:07:09Seth Wickersham:I mean, I get the pessimism. And I definitely, you know, you watch the Washington Post sports section close. I mean, if someone had told me when I was an intern there that they were going to shutter it, I would have bet a year's compensation on that. I mean, it's impossible to think about. The optimistic side is I think that like maybe we can like reinvent the genre in a way and maybe stories that Wright does or the Don does or Tim Kuhn does that I try to do can hold readers and become something that is anticipated. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I think that like, I remember, you know, when I was at the beginning of my career, Rick Tallender, my buddy said, you know, you write, you write, you write.

3:07:59Seth Wickersham:And eventually you kind of have like a product. And I couldn't conceptualize what he was talking about at that point, but it happens. You know, it happened with you guys to a huge degree, but like, you know, as you said, it's like people might see a byline and they come to expect something and if you can do that then i think that like it's a positive sign for the form for those who do it and for those who want to cooperate in it like you know when i did the andrew luck story he did not want to be on camera yeah he did it partially because i think he liked me i didn't know andrew really before that but like you know i think he liked the idea of a written story and um you know i was like i can do that yeah no it's great um all right we a couple

3:08:50PFT Commenter:last questions so what's your favorite uh chapter on on on your new book beyond that hill which again september 15th buy it uh better well better written than than our book i would say well uh

3:09:03Seth Wickersham:one closed parentheses yeah but like i don't know you know i i i'm you know obviously i've written a lot about football i kind of major in football and minor and other things and there's a story on alex honnold in there that i've always been really proud of because such a psycho yeah in the best way in the best way but so interesting because like you guys watch free solo yeah and you're not only watching a maniacal obsession that you know is mind-blowing enough but you're watching a guy who's kind of a jerk at times yeah and i thought it was a really pure glimpse into greatness and so when i got with him and i spent a couple days with he and his thin girlfriend and now wife i was watching him try to be happy being domesticized yeah and that was really fascinating i mean he was kind of a feral animal you know he lived in a van i was with him the first day he moved into his real house out of the van that must have been tough for him i think it was really foreign and you know again he kept telling me i'm gonna be okay not doing something like that again trust me you know i don't want to die you know all this stuff and i was i wanted to believe him but i kind of knew better and then you see i think it was in january he went and did that building in thailand right yeah yeah and he's smiling the entire time he's got kids now i know so he's those are the types of stories that like look there's a lot of good football stories in there i think but again those little surprises i think are pretty cool that's awesome people like that house and like realizing like all the decisions that have to go into like picking out drapes yeah alex connell mowing along no he was why why do i own yeah he was They were emptying the dishwasher.

3:10:38Seth Wickersham:And, you know, he's like, what are we doing with this cup? You know, and, like, it was kind of funny to just watch those conversations from a guy who, you know, has some sort of space in his brain to be able to do those things that I don't think there's anyone on Earth who can really relate to. No. In a way, his life was very simple before. It's like van. He loved that. Van rock. Yeah. He talks about it. Adrenaline. That's it. no we were driving once to go climbing which was a i got exposed i mean my ass got exposed literally at one point because we were hiking to go to this wall that he wanted to climb i ran out of gas on the hike to the wall on the hike to the wall and i'm like hey i'll meet up with you and i got lost on the way meeting up with him i could see him but i got lost and so i needed to slide down this big rock to get back on the trail i eventually meet up with him and alex is like hey dude you know you're you ripped a hole in the ass of your shorts and i was like what i look at him like well nothing i could do now like we're all up on this mountain but we were driving to that he said he saw someone in clearly a climbing van and he kind of was jealous right yeah right oh

3:11:47PFT Commenter:that's funny my old life um all right well set this has been awesome we have one last question rowback question rho b-a-c-k dot com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos Hoodies, joggers, shorts, Roback.com Promo code TAKE. Zach, you ready for your question? Yes, sir. Zach, did you read Zach's chapter on ice cream? Of course. Yeah. Did you like the spelling of Haagen-Dazs? That was my favorite part of the book, I think. Different language, you know? Yeah. It might be German. No, it's actually not. Haagen-Dazs is famously from I think it's New Jersey or Long Island. They wanted to make it sound foreign.

3:12:24They got me. They put on our front.

3:12:25PFT Commenter:yeah yeah but okay go ahead with your question i was curious uh if there's ever been a uh a moment in your journalism career where you need to conduct a state a stakeout to get the information you needed to kind of put the pieces together a stakeout no i mean you've definitely knocked on

3:12:40Seth Wickersham:doors when van out and i were doing the spy gate to deflate gate story together that was our first story together um you know which was about how deflate gate was kind of a makeup call for what was conceived what was perceived as a lenient punishment for spy gate and years of cheating um you know we didn't do staking out but we definitely did what you know shoe leather knocking on doors and um you know it was a some pretty determined stuff it wasn't just over the phone or in like one meeting over dinner i mean that was like a shitload of work and a lot of it was finding guides addresses knocking on their doors seeing if they'll talk and um you know trying to learn ways the patriots either exploited exploited rules or flat out broke them in the run-up to that so is that where you land on on the whole

3:13:34PFT Commenter:thing that uh deflate gate way overblown spy gate probably under you know uh well that's that was

3:13:42Seth Wickersham:just of our story yeah yeah and it was a strange story in the sense that like we started working on it together we called an owner and he said this is a makeup call and it was you know usually you're very um you're pursuing a story wherever it takes you and you know you sort it out once you have all the material and in a weird way that story we had the point of it right away and so the entire story was like how do we take readers from here to there and fill in you know a makeup call how does that work how did why was it necessary what did the patriots do what did teams suspect the patriots did that they actually didn't do because the patriots were just in everyone's heads all of those things were the questions that we tried to explore in that book and some of the games or that story and some of the gamesmanship that happened you know during the league in those times kind of pre cell phone camera and a little bit less attention on it was really really funny like some teams would leave fake play call sheets there's a you know patriots would sometimes take the scripted plays we kind of slip them out of a locker room or whatever and from the opponent and you know the paranoia and the fun that they that other teams tried to have with yeah peyton manning talking outside of the locker room at all times when he was at gillette stadium with his coaches some teams leaving dummy play sheets you know out for the patriots to grab That type of stuff, I think it gets to the heart of the game in a kind of a really interesting way that I think makes it more interesting for fans because that's the good stuff.

3:15:16Seth Wickersham:I mean, those are the things that's really hard to find out and also shows a layer to the way that these guys operate that I think both within New England and beyond that I think is pretty cool. Do you think there was any truth to that, that the Patriots had the locker rooms bugged? no i don't but i think bill kind of liked being in team's heads yeah and like voodoo yeah like like letting teams think that they were bugged and that they were raiding their hotel rooms and doing all these i think he kind of liked that because and i think that other teams use that to their advantage where like you know these guys you can't leave your stuff out whether it was true or not that stuff kind of took on a life of its own yeah everyone became on edge um all right well

3:15:54PFT Commenter:Well, Seth, thank you so much. Congrats on another book. Congrats to you guys. Another bestseller. We probably ruined bestsellers for everyone after us in terms of the fact that we should not be on that list. No. Cheap in the brand. It's like when 3-6 Mafia won an Oscar. We can't close a parenthesis. We don't know how to do that. It's some basic stuff.

3:16:16Seth Wickersham:You were in the spot.

3:16:17PFT Commenter:All right. Well, thank you so much for stopping by, and we'll definitely do it again.

3:16:21Seth Wickersham:Sounds good, man. Thank you, guys. Seth Wickersham was brought to you by our great dear friends over at Chevy. Check out Chevy.com. They know that summer's in full swing right now. That means there's no schedules, no plans, just more of the good stuff. Chevy Silverado makes that possible. There's a reason why Chevy's called the heartbeat of America. The Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. These trucks work hard so you can chill harder. Whether that's getting out of town, heading to the lake, or just not turning around when you probably should, It's got the capability, the space, and the muscle.

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3:17:13PFT Commenter:Let's finish up, guys on chicks. By the way, Friday, J-O-C. Fantasy. Can't wait. Can't wait. he's got a lot in store. He's been doing a lot of saving for the show for me because I spent, I spent like maybe eight hours with him yesterday. Zach was witness to a lot of it. He did a lot of saving for the show. He started to like tell me a joke that he was going to say and I was like, save the show. I was like, yes, I appreciate that. I'm very excited for his fantasy preview. Jerry's been, And his sentence always starts with, wait, are we being recorded right now? Correct. Because I told him one time that I owned a pair of meta sunglasses.

3:17:57Yeah. And what he doesn't realize is I've been wired the entire week.

3:18:00PFT Commenter:And also there's cameras everywhere. And no, Jerry, we're not. Well, just tell him that we're not live tomorrow. He also says, are we being recorded? And then he says like the most benign thing. Yeah. It has no bearing whatsoever if we were being recorded or not. Yeah. All right, Hank. Rip it. Hey, Big Cat. PFT. Hank. Max. Zach. and memes. Shane now. Yeah. It's Shane now. My boyfriend went away with his friends last weekend for a golf trip slash beach weekend. As you'd imagine, they drank too much every day. My boyfriend fell asleep on the toilet. This is the second time in a few months he's fallen asleep on the toilet.

3:18:37PFT Commenter:It happens. Neither time I've been around. So I guess that's a plus. Should I be worried about that? No, not at all. This actually happened to me just a couple months ago. Actually Toilet? Fell asleep on the toilet. I was in the Jersey Shore. We had a little house that was on the beach. Big house with a lot of friends. Actually, not that big of a house because it only had, I think, two bathrooms. One upstairs, one downstairs. Middle of the night, I woke up, went to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet at some point. Didn't poop. Just kind of sat there. Yeah. And fell asleep. And one of the girls that was in the house opened up the bathroom door and was like, Oh, hey.

3:19:15I was like, someone's in here.

3:19:16PFT Commenter:Yeah. Someone's sleeping in here. Get your own bedroom. But that's the universal thing that you have to say when somebody opens the door on you. Listen, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just a comfortable seat sometimes. Yeah. I think the toilet, falling asleep in the shower, those two things are okay. I've never done that. Oh, I passed out in the shower. In college, I passed out in the shower. I think the only thing that you have to be nervous about, because this actually happened to my roommate when I was like 22. we had a five bedroom house in Lakeview and my roommate fell asleep,

3:19:51Seth Wickersham:drawing himself a bath and that flooded everything.

3:19:55PFT Commenter:Yeah. That's not good. That was bad. That was really bad. Are we talking about lights off shower, a dark shower? Yeah. Or like, you know, like if there's a, if you're in a shower with a seat or something kind of nodding off real quick. But I've been definitely in college. I've, I've had hangovers or drunks like where I've laid down in the shower and and then just fell asleep. That's a sign of a healthy body, I think, is being ready to get your rest in a moment's notice. I haven't done it in many, many years, but I think both those, depending on how much you drink, are acceptable. My husband of 16 years hates LeBron James, but every time he sneezes, he does the LeBron chalk toss and laughs hysterically.

3:20:35What?

3:20:36PFT Commenter:I thought it was funny the first time 16 years ago, but now he has gotten our 14-year-old, 11-year-old, and 6-year-old to do the same thing, even though they all hate LeBron. is this normal yeah the more i think about it it's kind of actually fucked up yeah he's just spreading his germs yeah but also kind of funny yeah true yeah it is funny to get your kids into it too that's kind of funny yeah that's kind of a dude's rock but also like lebron should apologize for that yeah for like being that sort of an influence well it's also lebron's fault for his longevity because you didn't think when he started this there you were like no way this is going to last another 16 years yeah and it has yeah you're like i'm just i'm a shithead 20 year old oh wait now i'm a 36 year old with a mortgage and three kids max is gonna fucking love the chalk tosses okay yeah except max does it with bag of something else uh congratulations on the book when he's making bread he's cooking with chef donnie doing bread making bread with max that's what i was saying with all the excitement that the world cup brought to the united states how can you not be excited about international teams one of the best things about being american is rooting against other countries.

3:21:41PFT Commenter:I personally cannot wait to begin a rivalry with other European nations. Hashtag I'm with Hank. Wait, they're talking about football. This lady's talking about with the World Cup excitement, how can you not be excited about the NFL having international teams? I don't because all the players would be American. Oh, I just realized something. Fuck. You know what's going to suck? all of our years of joking about American teams winning the Stanley Cup is going to bite us in the ass when the Philippine Tigers win the Super Bowl. And we're like, no, those are all American guys. They're like, well, fuck.

3:22:20PFT Commenter:It's never going to happen. Thanks world it is. Honestly, I hope I'm dead by the time there's teams in other countries. That's too much. Not my league, but Shane, imagine all the sick uniforms you're going to have. Oh, God. Oh, God. All right. Is that it? Last one. Rivalry uniforms for the international, like France versus Germany. That would go hard. Question for guys on chicks. Why do guys constantly practice their golf swing? I'll be in the middle of a conversation with them, and they're just air swinging a golf club. My boyfriend got an indoor putting green for Christmas and will randomly get off the couch, go to his room, and practice chips and putts.

3:23:00PFT Commenter:It makes no sense to me at all. it sounds like you shouldn't be a driver dry reps dry reps you got to train your body i would do it i could see why people do it i unfortunately my golf swing is so bad i don't know what i'd be practicing like what do you like you know it's like the whole practice perfect yeah i mean what am i practicing for like i would if i practice my golf swing with no club in my hands i'd still slice i see a video on instagram and then it gets me gets me thinking And it's usually a golf instructor where it's like, hey, do this when you're not, you know, practice without a golf club in your hand and do this 100 times a day.

3:23:37PFT Commenter:And then I do like 10 of them. Do you know who I love? I think I can't remember what his name is. Golf Strong Hit Bombs. No, the guy who wears like really nice clothes. Yes, I know you're talking about. He's fucking awesome. And he does talk about like the. Yeah, knees. Yeah. Fuck. I wish I had his name. Yeah. It's like Jimmy something or something. He's shout out that guy. He actually Jimmy Tropicana. Shout out Jimmy Tropicana. he's a good follow he makes things look like simple like simple and also I like what he does where he relates your golf swing to like hitting a baseball or throwing a baseball and that always clicks in my head where I'm like oh okay he's like if you threw a baseball you wouldn't do this I'm like yeah you know what I wouldn't do that and then I still slice but Jimmy Chappacana thank you and you fucking dress really well man guys should support guys you're a good looking guy alright good show boys good show really good show fun show Yeah, really.

3:24:31PFT Commenter:We don't have numbers. Really good show. Do you want to do it on there? Five. Generator? No one wants to win this. Seven. Three. We'll go with zero. I think you can use part of my balls. Yeah, use part of my balls. Pardon my balls. Yeah.

3:24:53PFT Commenter:The chair is just so good. Sorry, Zach. We got to get out of here. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We got to get out of here. Spin it. We got to get out of here. Sim it, James. Spin it. Oh, my God. 48. All right. Okay, no one cares. We're done. Happy birthday to Nas Reed. Happy birthday to Kyron Williams. Happy birthday, Mother Teresa. Happy birthday, Macaulay Culkin. Happy birthday, Liddell Betts, Jim Tomei, Aaron Paul, Cesar Milan, Pee Wee Herman. Happy birthday to Savannah James. Knock it out of the park. with all due respect. Love you guys.

3:26:06Thank you.

3:26:29Thank you.

3:27:00Thank you.

3:27:28atic and

3:27:33practical personall l