NFL With Andrew Whitworth, Washington Capitals Dylan Strome In Studio, Texans Beat Steelers And Mike Tomlin Resigns + Guys On Chicks

37:26Got to another Super Bowl. Yeah, I think he has. Let me see. Playoffs. Oh, no, you're right, Hank. Yeah. Hank's right. All right. Oh, that is crazy. That's crazier. So he's never played the same opponent twice? Yeah. Whoa. Hank, good call. Wow. I thought it was more playoff games. I thought he had played maybe a couple of teams twice. Yeah. So 15 unique opponents in all 15 of his playoff games. Credit to Hank. That's fucking crazy. Hank. I'm going to say it to me, Hank. The buzzer sound. Thank you. Dude, you're back. Because you had about a week and a half here where I don't think you got a single step.

38:02Right. But that was solid. Got the Royals fence. We got 15 unique opponents. We're buzzing. Stay hot, Hank. PFT, I have one more thing to bring up. Oh. Okay. This sounds accusatory. Yeah, that was. It is. All right. All right. I think you deserve the listeners an apology. Yep, I agree. The Jake Elliott stat was so wrong. It wasn't even close to right. We got community noted. What are you talking about? No. We got community noted? What are you talking about? On what? Memes chime in. How is it wrong? I think he's like 90 % on extra points. And a couple Eagles outlets picked it up too, and I think they even got community notes.

38:49Oh, that's awesome. You started a brush fire of community notes? So I had Stat Hole look it up, and he's got... It's right under the bus. It is true. He's got Jake Elliott attempting 43 extra points and making 31 of them, which leads to 72%. That sounded insane when you said it. He's 37 for 43, not 31 for 43. Also not the worst percentage in playoff history. They really got you on the community notes. This is, I think, via the Pro Football Reference Database. So I don't know. Sounds like it's not. I don't know where that went wrong. I'm down to fight back, but there was a lot of Eagles fans being like, How did you allow this stat to be wrong?

39:39You are exonerated, Max, in the fact that, like, what are we talking about? You think that, like, you know the exact extra point? Yeah, I don't know fucking numbers. We're not a numbers podcast. So if that stat is wrong, I apologize. If it's not, everyone else should apologize. Wait, so you're still leaving it open to maybe not being wrong? I'm going to say that's what the Pro Football Reference database says. I'm looking at a screenshot. I like being like, yeah, you know what? I'm looking at a screenshot. Never give up. Of the database right now. And that's what it says. So I don't know. Okay.

40:15I pulled up the database. This is good that we're really getting into the Jake Elliott. Yeah. On the database right now, his career kicking totals for extra points. Yeah. It says right here, 37 for 43. In the postseason. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 86%. So that would make him, via this database I'm looking at, even 86 % would put him in potentially last place. We got a second database. Or second to last place. No, definitely not last place because remember we got community noted. And it said not last. The community notes said not last. Not the worst. Also not the worst. Roy Garella was second to last in this screenshot that I'm looking at, and he had 86%.

41:00Roy Garella? Yeah. 37 for 43. wait that's that's jake elliott's so yeah they might be exactly tied or maybe there's maybe there's an error in the coding i don't know who's how do you spell his name uh r-o-y-g-e-r-e-l-a roy gorilla yeah and then third would be tyler bass oh 26 for 29 at 89.6 this is uh listen we're not a stats podcast we never have been we're not numbers podcast so but if you're if you're just going off like a hot hand hank has got a hotter hand than you way hotter way hotter also crazy last cleanup is uh the patriots texans being an espn sunday game yeah it's weird crazy weird i don't really understand it is that it's because of their hosting that they have the super bowl this year or next year yeah there's no the cbs and fox do not have a sunday divisional round game Is that going to be Monday Night Football on Sunday afternoon?

42:00I don't think so. I mean, I don't think it's like called Monday Night Football, but it's going to be Troy and Joe Buck. Which I'd much rather that than Tony Romo. Dude, we didn't talk about Tony Romo. He's, we've never been. He's been the worst. We've never been more right about anything. I just, because it's rare. And I don't like to take victory laps, but it's rare that in this, on this podcast, we get something so right so early. because we got a lot of shit for it. People are calling us haters. Hank. You're misremembering in this whole situation. I might be misremembering. I hated Tony Romo.

42:36Oh, okay. You guys called me a hater, and then you flipped the next year. Okay. Never mind. Hank, retract. Hank is hot right now. But a lot of the internet said we were just hating just to hate. Maybe it was Jake. Jake definitely would have said that to us. He's so bad. I saw someone. this is a this is like a month or so ago but it was that he was so good his first couple years because it was he knew the defense he didn't have to do work he knew the personnel yeah so he was basically able to just kind of talk about what he had been studying the year before and as time has gone by personnel has changed he hasn't done any work defense has changed to change brady on the other hand wasn't you know a hundred percent he wasn't the best last year he's gotten better he saw the he saw the comments and and has grinded his ass off because he's a he's a hard worker and he's become great.

43:24Yeah, I wonder if there's maybe a chance CBS tries to poach Greg Olson. Or they just boost J.J. Watt. Yeah, I mean, J.J.'s been awesome. Yeah. He has. Tony, at the intro of last week's game was insane. They don't like Al Michaels is still calling games next year. They don't make changes. Al's hanging around. You're going to have to drag Al Michaels out. Al's hanging around and hanging around. Because they can just play the ratings like they can be like, well, the announcers don't matter that much. The ratings are the same. The intro that he had to that game, the Jags-Bills game, was just the biggest piece of word salad that I've ever heard.

43:58He was like, yeah, you know, the underdogs, sometimes they're not the overdogs. And the Panthers, and they showed up yesterday against their Rams. So we'll see, Jim. I'm going to do, I want to make an announcement on Al Michaels. And I'm going to try to stay strong with this. And I want you guys to hold me accountable. I do think this has to be Al Michaels last year, right? Next year? Has to be? We've said this for the last three years. I would like Al Michaels. I know that I'm not a big believer in the retirement tour. Coach K doing one and just making everyone suck his dick. I would appreciate if Al Michaels would do a retirement tour because if he was like, this is it, I would not complain about him at all.

44:37Because he is a legend of the game. And he has so many incredible moments when you look back in sports history and your own sports history. So, Al, tell us it's the last year so we can embrace you and not be like Al Michaels asleep on a Thursday night. Yeah, my position on Al has been pretty consistent, which is I'm willing to overlook anything with Al. Yeah. Like, he can walk out on his own terms. It doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the game because when it's a bad game, yeah, he's liable to check out, and that's kind of funny. When it's a good game, I'd like for him to have a little bit more energy sometimes when an amazing play happens.

45:15Yeah. But I don't think it... The Rams-Seahawks game this year, which was an incredible game, that was my low point because there was a punt return that he barely called. Yeah. That was tough. Like a punt return for a touchdown. Yeah. Max, I'm looking now on StatMuse. Oh. And it has Jake Elliott 86 % in the playoffs on extra point percentage. They must have just changed it. So I don't know. Yeah. They must have just changed it. I'm also looking at 86%. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's 86%. Which would make him the worst kicker on extra points. Depends. I think there's probably a qualifier of how many attempts.

45:56This guy, Brett Maher, has missed five extra points in 13 attempts. Jake Elliott has missed six extra points in 43 attempts. I would say that Brett Maher is probably worse. So, yeah, this one that I have is minimum 50 extra point attempts in a career. Jake Elliott only has 43. We might need to get out of the Jake Elliott discussion. We might have to just pull the ripcord. It's also a little bit of a skewed stat since extra points are like 10 times as long as they once were. Do you know what, PFT, can I make a statement on behalf of both of us? Yep. We don't care about this stat. 10 times is also incorrect, by the way.

46:38We don't care about this stat. Yeah. You know what? I'm down to say I don't care. Fuck you, Max. We're bringing this up. It's boring. It's a boring stat. Extra points, Max. We're talking about extra points, Max. Extra points matter. We're talking about extra points on a team that got eliminated. Extra points matter. Okay, let's do our Hot Seat Cool Throne, and it's brought to you by Pizza Hut. So it's Hut Seat Cool Throne. Hut Seat Cool Throne, sponsored by Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut is the pizza QBs ask for by name, so Pizza Hut is leaning in. If your QB says pizza before hut, we'll throw your city a party.

47:12Tag your QB and use hashtag pizza before the hut. Pizza hut has a reminder for all fans. Don't forget to order pizza hut before the first hut is yelled. Who are we thinking could do this? Josh Allen might be able to. Bo Nix. Bo Nix. What about Drake? Do you think Drake makes it for the people? Of course he does. Give a good hut. Give a good. No, no, you give a good hut. Hut. That was pretty good. Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut Hut. Order Pizza Hut's biggest pizza before the biggest games. The Big New Yorker for just$10 at PizzaHut.com or in the app. Henry. My host is Liv. Oh. Yeah, I had this too. Liv Golf.

48:00Brooks is back. So back. So back. the PGA tour did a hilarious, uh, like reentry clause in the contract that if you've won a major or players championship since 2022 convenient cutoff since Phil Nixon won a major in 2021. Yeah. Okay. Uh, that you can return with some conditions of like paying a big fine. And yeah, what are the conditions he has to pay? Like to charity, 5 million to St. Jude's 5 million to a charity that he and the PGA tour agree on. I guess maybe they have with St. Jude's. And then he's also going to be excluded from the player equity partnership, which they estimate that could be like$70 to$80 million over the course of the next few years.

48:42Okay. And does he ever get back into it? The player equity? I think after a few years. Yeah. I think it's like maybe a three or five year. All right. So here it is. $5 million charitable donation, ineligible for player equity program for five years, projected$50 million to$80 million in lost earnings. ineligible for 2026 FedEx Cup bonus payout. But he's back. I'm so excited. And I appreciate Brooks. He wants to spend more time with his family. Yeah, it's good. He's a good guy for that. Yeah. Great guy for that. I'm excited to have Brooks back on the tour. He said that he's nervous to come back on the tour.

49:17He's going to win. He said that he's going to have some weird conversations with players that might not be happy with him for leaving in the first place. Knowing Brooks, I'm sure that'll be fine. but he's going to come back he's going to get refocused like this might be the year of brooks this might be the start of the championship dvd and i think hank when you look at your boys in the live tour the fact that they said come to our organization we'll let you play in shorts and then they just flipped it on the ultimate bait and switch he's no longer allowed to wear shorts that might have been the final straw i think that's fair i mean it's like if i'm if i can't wear shorts i might as well just play on the pga tour exactly and you're making me do not 54 holes anymore we're going 72 yeah i'm going back what what do you say is the number one live head out there it seems like the dam might break it depends i mean the the people in that list that are eligible to come back basically under those conditions are camp smith john rom and bryson john rom and bryson are huge draws if one of them flips that's a that's a second massive domino that it will be tough to come back from i like what the pga tour is doing they're operating from a position of strength now they're saying we'll give you until the first week of february to make your choice and after that there's no guarantee we ever let you back he's like this program this pathway is open just for three weeks so you better make up your mind right now and if you want to come back come back but you have to do the charity give up the equity bonuses prove you have no more ties to the Saudi government.

50:55You have to enlist in Houthi militia. There's a number of things that you have to do, but they're coming from a place of power in this, which I like for the PGA. I think for Jon Rahm it's different too because Bryson and Brooks started. They were in the first wave. Jon Rahm waited a couple years and then went over. For him to just flip right back would be probably tough for him to just do you know like on his own like being like i made this big decision and now i'm just instantly flip-flopping because brooks did yeah but the damn could break yeah i think it might i think john rom's gonna come back i don't know about cam smith but rom feels like the next guy that's going to flip yeah i mean i could see i i could see all three of them i guess it just depends on on the money but it's like cam smith i'm there they're cam smith and john rom though they're international guys like that's kind of the draw of live is they're more of an international league what uh would are you now that brooks has come back and again i'm so excited i think he's gonna start winning again i really do i think he's gonna get back his fire back to him would you if the live comes calling for you are you leaving it open yeah oh more breaking moves

52:17Kevin Petulo fired There we go It took a long time Well it was like a day and a half It took longer than Mike Tomlin to leave Yeah true Greg Roman also was fired By the Chargers So some teams making some decisions A lot of coaching changes A lot of guys got jobs they're losing That's what's happening A lot of guys got jobs they're getting Yeah true Class at full. Do you think that Kevin Petula will find a job as an offensive coordinator somewhere else next year? There was a lot of rumors that he's going to go back to the passing game coordinator. But this doesn't say anything about that, so I don't know.

52:58Are you nervous that you are kind of late to this? Considering that Blau already got the offensive coordinator job. Right. I forgot about that. You're a little behind. I forgot about that. You're a little behind. That's why you got to make this decision even before your wild card game. Yeah. We could be behind. Act decisive. One guy is not available. What's your dream hire? Mike McDaniel? McDaniel would be great. But then would you be nervous with Mike McDaniel in the NFC East knowing how close he is with Dan Quinn? I would be nervous about that. Do you understand the concept? Because I would just lose two games no matter what.

53:40You'd throw him. Be like, thank you, Dan. Thank you, Dan. You saved my life. Yeah. Now let me save your job. And it's cold in Philly. That's the other thing. Oh. Oh, yeah. But maybe that's exactly what he needs to learn how to coach in the cold. He demands to be on the sideline. Yeah. No, he would be a booth guy. You can't be. We already got a booth guy. Vangio's already a booth guy. Yeah. He might need a buddy. Whenever they cut to Vangio freaking out in the booth, I always think it's so funny. It's the best. I like how he called Vangio. Yeah. Vic Fangio? You call him Fangio? Yeah, Fangio. Coach Vic?

54:13Fangio? Fangio, but his name's Vic Fangio. Fangio. You call him Fangio. Well, Vic Fangio. It's actually a name for our next van. Fangio. Vic Fangio. Yeah. Vic Fangio. Vic Fangio. I feel like it's coming out Fangio. No, it came out Fangio at first. I think McDaniel would be an awesome coordinator, no matter where he goes. He's one of the best offensive minds in football. but I think the cold is a very important point to bring up. Like he's going to be so bundled up on that sideline. What was that face you just made? I got a little cold back here. I'm trying to fight it. Oh, no. Booth is sick again.

54:51Booth is sick again. Me and Zach are both. Memes is now healthy and me and Zach are sick. Okay. Do you think Big Dom could wear Mike McDaniel as a LeBubu? Oh, yeah, for sure. Mike McDaniel would wear the Big Dom LeBubu. Yeah. Well, he'd take the clothes off it and put it in where it is his wardrobe. Yeah. Or the Hank dog toy. Which is excellent, by the way. Excellent. It's one of the best. Blake fell asleep on it like a pillow last night on the couch. It's one of the best dog toys ever created. He's in love with Hank. My dog is in love with Hank. My dog is hidden. The Hank dog. My dog hides high value things.

55:32I haven't seen it in forever. she's hidden it somewhere just for herself because I was taking it too often high value to the dog or to you it's high value to the dog it is high value to me as well just hiding all your meatballs where the fuck are my meatballs we give her like bell pepper sometimes and that's a problem because she just hides them and then like gets little pieces of bell pepper everywhere that means that at some point you're going to be going around your house and you're going to be surprised by Hank yes 100 % He's got a corner there saying. Oh, there you are, Hank. Okay, your cool throw?

56:06My cool throw, I got a couple. First is Charlie Kirk. Yeah. Eight receptions, 144 yards last night. Impressive. Crazy. It was insane. So the Texans released a graphic that said C.Kirk, and then everyone was like, oh, why didn't you say his first name? And then Stephen A. Smith on first take today said Charlie Kirk had a huge game. Yeah. And they had to correct him. Very funny. We are Christian Kirk. we saw charlie kirk catch eight receptions for 144 yards i apologize oh my god christian kirk oh yeah he freaked out yeah freaked out on tv well steve a smith he he you know he dabbles in other things that he talks about and i imagine that was at the top of his head at the moment and uh it was he was like more nervous than everyone else everyone else on set was like hey you got this you got this you're okay yeah all right hank uh then my other cool throne is just stranger things i guess haters or fans who are upset uh with the way things ended there was no secret episode never happened shocker but they did put out a documentary on monday with all the behind the scenes of season five and it was just kind of like game of thrones when they would release like the post episode in look inside into the episode and like the directors just made everything so much worse by like saying how essentially incompetent they were but it was like like an hour long documentary where the writers said they hadn't finished writing the last episode when they were started shooting the beginning of the season.

57:36Yeah. And there was just a bunch of like clear, like mistakes where writers were saying this makes no sense. And they just, they ignored them. But, and you can tell that from the final product where it's like, well, if we're going to do this, we should do this. And in the final episode, like that didn't happen. This is like when, when a coach gets fired and a team just is completely dysfunctional and you get the aftermath report. like the post-mortem in The Athletic. That's what happens in TV shows that end abruptly and unceremoniously. It's like, look how much chaos there was because everyone's trying to pin it on somebody else behind the scenes.

58:08The Sharon Moore one, by the way, was incredible. On The Athletic. It was great. Guy was just walking around just crying all the time in the office. We should do an episode of part of my take on Netflix and call it Stranger Things Season 5, Episode 6. Yeah. Right? Is that the one that they - Episode 9. Episode 9, yeah. Stranger Things Season 5, Episode 9. Just try to get some of that SEO. Can we just do that? Can we just say stranger things Mike Tomlin fired? Yeah. We're going to give it a shot. Okay. Is that it? Yep. Good job. PFT. My hot seat is patches. Ah, yeah. Le patch. Le patch. Le patch.

58:49LeBron James is going to be wearing a special edition 23rd season jersey patch starting tonight in Sacramento. where his legendary career began in 2003. The patches will be removed after each game, and some will be placed into upcoming Topps trading cards, the company announced Monday. So LeBron is wearing a special patch with his outline on it doing the chalk toss. It says 23. It's got three stripes on it. He's got a patch for himself. His own patch. No one else is wearing it. LeBron's wearing this patch. Who knows whose idea it was? It could have been the NBA's idea. It could have been the Players Association.

59:26It could have been anybody who knows who's to say whose idea it was truly. But it's got a stripe on there for the Cavs, stripe on there for the Heat, and then a stripe on there for the Lakers. And he has not said that he's retiring after this year. So we might be doing patches and then another year. I don't know. To me, this feels like it was an idea that they came up with before the season. and then the execution took so long that they said, fuck it, let's just do it in Sacramento. Yeah. You can release it that night to commemorate your very first game ever. This is, congrats to LeBron. One of the best to ever do it in terms of congratulating himself.

1:00:07Yeah, it's an all-time patch. He's going to announce that he's retiring this year at the All-Star game, right? This is a trading card thing. Yeah. This is just to make money off of the trading card. No, it's to commemorate his 23rd season. But this is no one's idea except for how can we make the most amount of money. Oh, you're so cynical, dude. You're not a student of the game. You guys are just being like, oh, yeah, this is a LeBron self. I mean, it is. No, no, no. No, we're not. We're saying that it's a great move. You got to lay patch it. You put a little patch on. for our 10th anniversary podcast we should get patches yeah we should all start wearing patches and then just sell them yeah make some serious money he's gonna he's doing it because this is basketball history max yeah he's gonna announce he's retiring at the all-star game right they're gonna rig it so that he can win the all-star mvp it's in la and then he's gonna say i'm retiring i think so this has got to be his last year he's got to do any he's not gonna just retire he's got to do a retirement tour that's i am a little bit worried that he's coming back for 24 and he's going to make every team do the gifts yeah and the patches yeah a patch oh okay your cool throne uh my cool throne i got two of them one is going to be marcus freeman and this was before the the steelers opening came about but i don't know if you've seen any of the the hard knocks on notre dame i've seen bits and pieces so max i dm'd you a screenshot from this earlier but they had a behind the scenes conversation of all the captains at notre dame having the conversation of whether or not to play in the bowl game okay and he was kind of walking through that look at marcus freeman's coffee tables that he has in his office look at all the snacks that he's got that's pretty sick look at i mean one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten different bowls of snacks on his coffee table it doesn't look like they're that elite snacks but they're all in like decorative glasses that might be colored glass on the outside and presented really they might be delicious snacks inside like works of art containers they look like old old lady snacks one of them does kind of look like the strawberry you know the I think it's watermelon.

1:02:30The strawberry ones that are strawberry wrappers. Yep, I'm an idiot. Continue. You thought it was watermelon your whole life? Nope. Continue. Yeah, you did. You did. Did you ever taste one? It very much looks and tastes like a strawberry. We're just going to strike that from the record. Okay. I should have kept my... Sorry. But yeah, I was trying to identify some of the snacks that he had out there. I don't think I could identify one. Those all feel like maybe, I don't know, deep cuts at Trader Joe's. Yeah, weird. But it's a great office. It's like, did you have a principal or a guidance counselor in middle school or high school?

1:03:05And you would always love to go to their office because they had the best candy? Yeah. That's kind of what he's going for here. These are weird looking candies. I don't think he's got the best candy. I think he's just got a lot of it. It's almost like they're works of art. Yeah. On the table. But yeah, also, he did not assault anyone at a wrestling meet. That's facts. So he got to the... Oh, and they got the portal going too at Notre Dame. A lot of people were talking about the portal. Yeah. Then my other cool throne is Coach Missoula. Did you see this post-game press conference? Yep. Do you want to do a reenactment of it?

1:03:40Sure. A table read? Okay, I'll be the reporter and you be Coach Missoula. Take us through the last couple of possessions. Illegal screen. What'd you say? Illegal screen. Illegal screen? a legal screen what fell apart to get you guys behind a legal screen what do you want people to know about that a legal screen is there anything else you'd like to say a legal screen fan that's the end nice that was really good hank i didn't even give you the lines you got that did you practice natural i'm a natural was it an illegal screen yeah and you lost because of the illegal screen i mean it's the pazers we should have we shouldn't have been in that position that would have been very funny if you're like no we actually won the game yeah i was kind of waiting for you to say that that would be missoula to be like they won the game but he's still pissed it wasn't a screen and you lost and we lost by two this is it's belichick you got basketball belichick here seattle seattle we're on cincinnati we're blessed yeah someone did say online that it would be so funny if that lynn jones woman in jacksonville like what if she had done that with belichick after a bad playoff loss yeah like you know you're really good i love you or if she had said that to missoula yeah it's like illegal screen legal screen illegal screen i love him so much it's legal screen okay my hot seat is our guy zach zach what happened what happened we had an air time today everyone was here except for me yeah so this has happened a couple times it actually wasn't uh i don't want to overblow it because we said we were going to record at 9 45 which in our scheduling usually when we say we're going to do something at 9 45 we start around we like 9 45 is when we huddle up and then 10 is around when we start you got here at 10 12 so really not that you didn't really fuck up our day but you what happened like did you wake you woke up to the text being like hey where are you no i woke up like a like a minute before the phone call and i was just like oh so you screened my phone call no i was trying to schedule the uber and the phone call and then pick up at the same time when the screening got it i was trying to get the fastest transportation to work while trying to get out of the i figured just get here as fast as you possible smart smart what times you wake up today had been like i guess like 955 something like that Not good Not the right time to be here on time What?

1:06:17How late did you stay up last night? I was up decently late on accident Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait What does that mean? I've been playing this new game And it's immersive And I thought it was a little earlier than it was And it was really late I'm going to delete the game though It's really immersive So it's PvP and PvE So player versus player and player versus environment You go in, you get the goop and I was watching Peanut and Jamar Chase play and they were having so much fun. Jamar Chase was cooking, I was cooking, it felt like I was with them. Zach, what time did you stay up till?

1:06:50I did go to bed at five. Oh my God! When we first asked him in the booth, when we first asked him in the booth, before you guys were able to ask this question, he goes, not that late five o 'clock. Like, in the same breath, not that late five o 'clock. What? Five, Zach? When you go to sleep at 5 o 'clock, doesn't that feel terrible? Like, if I'm staying up late and I see the sun come up, I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach like, oh, fuck. So I've got the curtains. The light doesn't come in in my apartment unless you choose it. It's either no light or all the light. Obviously, I thought it was still just evening, so I was in no light mode.

1:07:30I didn't realize how late it was until I, like, went PJs and then tuck in. Wait, you didn't realize what time it was? I didn't know it was five until I was head to pillow. All right, what time is it? We got to go to bed. It's an immersive game. I'm going to delete it. I'm going to get rid of it. That's on me. So the fact that it's an immersive game is why it fucked you up? The stakes are so high that you go into the battlegrounds and you start looking for goop, and then you're trying to get gooped up, and then a guy comes in and takes it from you. You got to start from ground one. And then I figured, I was like, oh, professional athlete Jamar Chase is still on.

1:08:05It can't be that late. Right. Right. It's his off season. Yeah, it is. It's not ours. So people have been saying, and again, this is not like when you slept in for the commercial. This really did not affect our day. It was more like, where's Zach? Actually, how bad did it feel? Because we were all sitting outside the studio and you walked in knowing you were late. And then we all started clapping for you. That was probably a tough one. With a camera. First thing you saw was a camera. That was tough I didn't even like audibly consider the camera Or visually consider the camera Audibly consider the clap I just heard we recorded the show again And I was like yeah you're just a Like this is ultimately how This same factor is the same way Most things end in my tenure of Like chapters throughout life So it was like here we go Wait this is Sleeping in has ended another job?

1:09:01A couple times yeah Which ones? Like there was this one time I worked at the Publix Deli on a Cali Corners in Tallahassee. That did end because I was late. And there was another time they had my dad fire me because I was late. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What? They called your dad and then they told your dad to fire you? At the time, the guy my dad, me and my dad and the guy he's working with, they employed me. They gave me a job because I dropped out of college. Got it. and they're like you i know you didn't graduate with a degree but like if you let's let's try get let's try get your feet underneath you to work hard work yeah we'll show you how to work if you're not going to figure out how to take a test dumbass so get in here and then ultimately i was late and they just sent in my dad to cut the cord and what's your dad say he was like listen man you're fired and he's like but i'll see you at home for dinner tonight yeah i still lived with him he should have woken you up yeah yeah your dad had the ability to get you on time not his job you know what i mean like yeah it's on me it's 100 on me so this is a recurring theme did your dad say like yeah did you tell you we have to go in a different direction like how i tried so it was really just like sat he was like can we talk for a little bit and i was like yeah sure what do you want was this in your house no this is at work okay and then he was like you know they're saying like for right now this might not be the best fit maybe find something later and so i started transport driving and then wait when he fired you from your office did you go home i went straight home did he go home with you he stayed at work because he was still employed okay so he he was like he's like i'll see you later gotta get out of here yeah did when he got home was there i think i spent the rest of the week i mean we had dinner yeah you know but i spent the time before then and after them just in the room playing video games yeah it's an escape you sometimes that would drive me nuts yeah zach back to the the waking up situation and and i love when you describe it you become we it's like it's a team problem it's like yeah we were getting the goop we got to bed late and then we didn't wake up on time uh where's the issue with the alarms because you have i know we've been adding on to the alarm situation we got the bomb alarm we've got the alexa alarm we've got a bedside alarm we've got phone alarm right so we got four alarms yeah yes sir it is for double phone and alexa bomb and the bomb is like the cure the bomb does play i just had to i had to discontinue the bomb for the last couple days yeah so we need to figure out a way to solve this issue with the clocks which is kind of funny because you're a clocks guy why did you have to discontinue i got another noise complaint on friday so i don't want it it's a whole thing my business my building manager is also my neighbor so I want to keep that relationship like semi-solid.

1:11:48But I'm thinking about going bomb, but if I tuck it underneath the pillow, like if I put it under the comforter, she won't be able to hear it, but I'll definitely hear it. Yeah, you've got like the silence bomb. It becomes like an EMP. Yes, put an extended silencer on the bomb. Yeah. Okay, okay. Are we going to try to get to bed earlier? Yeah, 100%. We're going to uninstall the goop. Yeah, people were saying, the people were saying online we might have to take away your video games. I don't want to do that. Maybe just uninstall before show days. Yeah, I don't want to have to take away your video games, Zach.

1:12:22Yeah, you still need to play the games. You need to play the games. The games are a good thing for you. Maybe just not before show days. And I'll pivot to a different game. I can't play that game. You can play that game on not days before show days. That game's too addictive, Max. You didn't know it was 5am. Yeah, once you get in there You just don't even know what's going on. It's like a second world. He could still be playing that game right now. Have you been thinking about the game? Weekend comes around, you've got to play the game. I've talked about it a couple times just because I've got to go get my lick back.

1:12:53I've got to go get my goop. What about on weekends? Can you still goop on weekends? No, probably just the best case scenario for everything moving forward is just pivot. Just cold turkey? Let's be adults, okay? Let's try to take a step. Why don't you keep the game? I don't want to steal immersion from you. I want you to get immersive when you want to get immersive. When you play the game, set an alarm for yourself so that you can remind yourself what time is it so that you're not staying up too late. So real world clock for virtual world time. So like at two in the morning, it goes off. You're like, oh shit, Zach, I gotta go to sleep.

1:13:38I've got an idea. Zach, you can play all the video games you want, but you have to be streaming. Oh. And then if you want to get in the goop, if you want to be immersed, late night, you're streaming, the chat's going to be like, Zach, go to bed. You gotta go to bed. You gotta go to bed. You gotta go to bed. You got a big day tomorrow. The chat will be your reverse alarm clock, your bed clock. That doesn't make a ton of sense as far as crowdfunded accountability. Yeah. It's the best kind. Okay. Zach are you in the doghouse do you think you're in the doghouse Certainly you got I mean The show start we had a start time Of around 9 10 9 45 today and you guys have worked a half work Day already before you know I mean the least I can do a show On time like you like there I did have wake Up barcel today yeah imagine if I gooped Last night We should get a doghouse like an actual Doghouse Zach last question About this and then we'll move on Do you think you'll get a phone call From your mother about this my yeah Yeah, me and my dad had a pretty long talk about being on time a few times.

1:14:40Since you started here? Yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely. And what has he said? He's just like, yeah, it's an unbelievable opportunity. Like, you're still doing this thing where you're a fucking idiot. Like, get out of bed. Which is completely understandable and valid. What if, Zach? No, that'd be too mean. I want to fly your dad up here. This is enough punishment. And have him fake fire you. I'd be like, Zach, we got to talk to you. Please, your dad's up in conference room one. He's waiting for you. That was one of the darkest days. That's so terrible. Yeah, no, your punishment is over.

1:15:14Let's just get ourselves, let's get back on track. Again, this one was not, like, if you had come in at noon, I would be pissed. You came in realistically 25 minutes late. We can handle that. I'm not upset at all with Zach. I love Zach. We want you. You're in no danger of being fired, Zach. but I think that if you're going to be playing video games, it should be for an audience. Yeah. Maybe move into my house. Oh, like Antonio Brown? Yeah, right. I have a guest room. It would also make it easier when I fire you. That was your first example that you thought of when it came to being a roommate? That was for Antonio Brown.

1:15:56That was the closest thing. Yeah, it's frizzing and popped my head. Yeah. I mean, it would make it easier when I if I ever have to fire you, we can just I can fire you and we can go have dinner together. So it's like at least routine for you. Yeah, like I send like if you're fired, but dinner's ready. Oh, man. That. Yeah. All right. We'll we'll figure it out. You're good, Zach. You're good. You're not in trouble this time. All right. My cool throne is Ben Johnson because he was asked on Monday about his fuck the Packers comments. and everyone freaking out about it. And he did not apologize. And I absolutely love it.

1:16:32He said, there's a rivalry that exists between these two teams, something that I fully recognize and am part of. I don't like that team. Good. Good. I like that he said that team. I think we're done pretending to be upset at Ben Johnson. Yeah. I think America, like, you put a solid shift in. Your work here is done. Well, the new thing that's come out of this is that I saw there were people were reporting that there's like a cool kids club in the coaching world and it's the mcveigh shanahan coaching tree and lafleur and all these guys are friends and they all hate ben johnson i love that really i want that it's clicky i want ben johnson to be the outsider who like is like fuck all of you i'm here to do a job do they hate ben johnson just because he was mean to matt lafleur i think that maybe because he's just on the outside he's not part of the tree Yeah, this is a this again.

1:17:23I can't get enough of this. I love Ben Johnson. The alternative is having Dweber flu sit next to Matt LaFleur at a basketball game and give him all his secrets. I think he doesn't even have any. I think Ben Johnson probably still has Dan Campbell in his corner. Yeah, and I think Dan Campbell could kick all those guys asses at once. It's awesome. I love it. This is what sports is supposed to be about rivalry like him saying. I don't like that team. That's good. It's fucking great. Let's get angry. He's a psycho. I want a psycho. So, yeah, I'm so happy he didn't. Because there's an alternate world where he's like, yeah, I shouldn't have used those words.

1:17:56And he even said that George McCaskey was cool with it. He's like, we're on the same page. Of course. Which is also a testament to George McCaskey, who deserves a lot of credit. Because remember, they banned swearing on hard knocks a couple years ago. The only way the Bears were ever going to be good was for George McCaskey to hire someone who's completely unlike George McCaskey. And that's what he did. I forget about the cussing on hard knocks. Yeah. Are you allowed to wear Bears logos in their suite now? I don't know. I need to know that. I don't know. I don't think I'm getting invited. Have eased off that yet.

1:18:27But he found the thing he's not like, and that's what you need. You needed an alpha leader of men who likes to swear and yell at things and be mad at people. Yeah. I don't like that team. I think most of the people that were upset with Ben Johnson were probably Packers fans. Yeah. In which case, like, yeah, you're not used to having this happen in this relationship. Yeah. Okay. Zach. Finish us off. My hot seat this week is going to be Patrick Mahomes. He may have accidentally caused another Del Maraola swap. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. This is an all-time story, so go ahead. Tell it. So, you know, recently, Indiana beats Oregon.

1:19:06Patrick Mahomes has to wear an Oregon jersey on Instagram. Oregon beats Texas Tech. Oregon beats Texas Tech, so he wears the jersey on Instagram. Yeah. Then coincidentally, as soon as Oregon loses to Indiana the other day, recruit Dylan Raiola. But it was on his feed three days before, four days before. And he's like, wait, daddy probably wants me to go to the big O. I'm going to go. And he goes. Do you think Patrick Mahomes is weirded out by this? He's got to be after this one. He has to be weirded out. So it's obviously a coincidence, but maybe not. He loses the bet to his teammate, wears the Oregon jersey.

1:19:41one day later Dylan Raul is like I'm going to the Ducks I imagine the gate at the front of Patrick Mahomes house is is guarded and there's a photo like hey if this guy shows up hit the red button yeah yeah I would be very worried if I was him a little stalkerish yeah yes I would pay I would pay Patrick Mahomes$200 ,000 to put on a James Madison jersey just so I could take a picture of them because i think that's way cheaper than doing the whole nil thing yeah that way we get advertisement yeah yeah just just get them trapped yeah it is very funny it's very very funny halloween's got to be so confusing for dylan rail if he sees like patrick mahomes dressed as groot and he's like fuck it's probably like i gotta be i gotta be a minion now we got it we We got a game on Halloween, so let's do our Halloween party three days after Halloween.

1:20:36It's a good spot for him because, you know, I don't know if Dante Moore is going to stay, but, you know, Dante Moore sat behind Dylan Gabriel. Maybe this is the plan is that, you know, to become a – to get to that next step. Okay, you're a cool throne. My cool throne today is going to be Kyle Lowry. Yeah. You guys see that touching moment in Toronto? Yes. I thought that was pretty awesome. Explain it. So Kyle Lowry, history with Toronto, long time on Toronto. He's now currently on the Sixers. They had a game last night, and then the crowd started chanting, we want Lowry. It was a blowout, and the Toronto crowd was like, we want Lowry.

1:21:11And they put in Kyle Lowry, who I assume is not playing much for the Sixers. He's probably played in less than five games all year. Got to be the best job in the world. I'm so jealous of when Udonis Haslam stayed around for an extra like five years being the like being unc on an nba roster knowing you don't have to play but you can just hang out it's got to be so much fun well how can we celebrate it when cal lowry does it but we ball yeah how can we celebrate cal lowry when he does it but then when joel and b does it we just jump down his throat what do you mean plays in five games all year oh yeah that's true that's it seems to me like that's not fair that is i'm sorry zach i'm I'm sorry, Max, for not being fair.

1:21:54That's not fair. Apology not accepted. He's played in six games this year. He has? What is he working? Oh. Lowry. What about Joel? Joel Embiid has played in a lot more than that, and he's actually dominating as of late. Oh, wow. He's dominating the regular season. And he's not even the best player on the team. Sixers could be a problem. Ask Knicks fans. Ooh, I like this. I need Sixers Max back. There's something about basketball, Max watching basketball, that I enjoy more than football because football goes slow. Basketball is fun. Are they a problem, memes? Are they a problem? Venus in the regular season.

1:22:28So did the Celtics last year. So they're a problem. Officially, stamp it, problem. Knicks don't play defense. Okay. We got two interviews. We got Andrew Whitworth, and then we have a great interview with Dylan Strom in studio. So let's get to that. Okay, before we get to Andrew Whitworth, the NFL playoffs, let's go. DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL, makes every moment feel bigger. A running back cuts through the line. A strip sack flips the field. A tight end hauls in the kind of touchdown grab you'll talk about for years. Post-season games shift fast, and with DraftKings live betting options, you can stay right in the moment.

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1:23:48On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over in most states. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. Limited time offer. Here he is, Andrew Whitworth. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very special guest, recurring guest it is Andrew Whitworth you can see him on Amazon Prime on Thursday Night Football the season is now over they ended it with a bang at Soldier Field on Saturday night you can also listen to Fitz and Whit podcast with our good friend Ryan Fitzpatrick as well Whit good to see you I saw you on Saturday night can we start with that and we want to move then to divisional round and talk about some of these matchups but did you at any point think the Bears were dead?

1:24:42I'll say this. I was a little upset at halftime. I mean, I was pretty confident in how they were going to perform. So I was I was very disappointed just at halftime, like trying to figure it out. Like, damn, I thought they were going to come out and play. I thought this would be the week that they might start in control and stay that way. And sure enough, they do what they love to do, make it chaotic. I literally I'm still replaying in my mind how in the world they won the game when you're sitting there at halftime. 21 to 3 they've been out game doubled in yardage everything they're not even running the football well something I thought they definitely do uh I was mystified at halftime and then you just start to see those little things like the Green Bay's not pulling away they're not putting the game away uh we got pretty jacked up in the green room let's say I can say that yeah and it was crazy because it wasn't a linear path comeback where it wasn't hey the second half started and the Bears scored a touchdown then the Bears scored like that fourth and one interception was another like oh oh, well, this might be – there's just no chance we can come back.

1:25:38And then having the golden touchdown to have the Packers back up 11, but they found a way. It's crazy. Yeah, we got into it. In the green room, obviously you just want a good game. You want the game to be an awesome game. You're there. And I personally was like, man, I feel like this is the Bears moment. So we're jacked up in the green room. We're throwing food and drinks and like getting – like the fourth and one, we're losing our minds because we're like, they're about to come back and make this thing a game. And then they make the mistakes and you're like, Like, God, what is happening? And then the O-lineman catches the pass, fumbles it.

1:26:07They don't get on it. They knock it out of bounds. We're losing our minds in there because we just keep thinking, that was the moment. That was the chance. They're getting this game if they just take advantage of it, and it's just not happening. Absolutely insane finish, though. What a freaking game. Andrew, we haven't had you on in a while, but this is a very important question. I think we talked to Fitzy about this. You've decided to move on from being a hoodie guy underneath your suit jacket. What was that conversation like with yourself? Like, how did you reach that point where you're like, you know what, I'm done with the hoodies?

1:26:38You know, I'm going to still mix them in there. But, you know, just growing up, just maturing a little bit, you know, got to take it a little more serious. No, I think it's kind of one of those things that you'd be shocked. It's hard to keep finding hoodies that match every single suit that I want to try to wear. And, you know, I think I've worn every brand possible, every material possible. So, you know, it's important, guys. There's a lot that goes into it. You need the thickness of the hoodie so that it sits properly. You got to think of like, how big is the hoodie? Is it too big? Is it too light?

1:27:07Like in the wind in Chicago, mine was a little light. It kept blowing on my head a couple of times like during the pregame. So, you know, there's a lot of things that go into this decision. It's a big decision. So when you want to wear one, it's got to be the right kind. So it's just more figuring out the right hoodie every week. And you got to people yearning a little bit. I'll get some messages from fans and, you know, on different social media platforms, like where's the hoodie at? Why are you not wearing it? Yeah. So I just, I want to build that suspense when I can, you know, that's the opportunity I'm taking advantage of big cat.

1:27:36I want to ask you this though. You told me in fits a question. I mean, a statement in pregame, we asked you what it was going to take for the bears to win. You said it's going to come down to five plays. So I was just wondering, do you have those five plays? So memes who's in the producer booth was, was filming the whole game. I think I burned my five plays like halfway through the third quarter. I used one of my five plays on like a third down in the first quarter so it was at one point Fitz turned to me in the fourth quarter he goes what do you think Big Cats five plays are by now yeah dude unfortunately I was out of plays when Caleb made one of the five plays with the fourth and eighth because we got to it and I was like shit I've used all I basically I think I said the first fourth down that we went for I was like this is the game in like five minutes into the first quarter.

1:28:28So I'm probably not good at judging that. So it was an incredible game and a lot of fun, and now the Rams come to Soldier Field. I had a question about weather because we have this storyline now for both the Texans going to the Patriots and the Rams coming to the Bears. There's a stat floating around that I think it's 1 in 14 dome teams playing in under 40-degree weather. Now, I think that's one of those stats I'd love to actually dig into because if you're going to someone else's home, you're probably the lesser team. So is it the better team is winning or the cold team's winning? How much does weather actually play a factor for a team playing in L.A.

1:29:10or Houston going to a cold weather climate? Yeah, I mean, I think definitely you've seen it through history. There's been some teams probably coming, you know, when you're coming from California, probably especially Southern California, L.A., San Diego, back in the past, and you're going to a cold weather place. it's a challenge just because you hadn't been in it and I think it's more from the standpoint of like hey we're also probably talking about snow in some of these situations or rain or wind and you just haven't played a lot of games in those scenarios so there's just little things that happen in those games whether it's just securing the football you know quarterbacks been a little more inaccurate it's harder to throw it in the wind at times and so I think to me that probably leads to it I'll never forget in Cincinnati when we you know our year we win the division We're like one of the top seeds.

1:29:53We host the Chargers, and we were supposed to have cold weather. It ends up being like the warmest day in Ohio in history, and they come in and beat us and upset us. You're like, damn it, the one week that I want Cincinnati to just be cold and frigid, it's 65 and sunny. So it definitely can matter. And you look at the Rams, they're 0-2 under Sean McVay in Chicago. So I will never forget going up there and the famous Fangio game when we were rolling on offense in 18 and go up there and play Sunday night football. And, you know, I don't think it was a very good game for us. I think we scored three points maybe, but it was not a pretty outing.

1:30:29Yeah. As an O-lineman, are you a big-time no-sleeves guy in the cold? Well, Fitz would tell you this. I tricked the system. So what I would do is wear sleeves, like the thin sleeves. Again, it goes back to, you know, the hoodies. You know, you've got to know the texture of these materials. I would wear thin sleeves in training camp and like early in the season, just so nobody could make a comment when we went to a cold stadium and I had sleeves on. They'd be like, oh, he always wears sleeves. Yeah. But they were like thermal sleeves and you couldn't really tell the difference. So, yes, I love to rock some sleeves in the cold weather.

1:31:00Probably early in my career, I was like, oh, I'm never wearing sleeves. Later in my career, when you're 38 and 40, the bones just hurt, man. You need a little warmth, all right? Listen, do you want me to play good or do you want to worry about whether I'm cold or not in my arms? That's my thought on it. If the guy plays good, wear freaking sleeves. If you don't think you can play good because of the cold, if you're having sleeves on, then don't wear them. I imagine at some point as you get older, you just don't care. If people are like, dude, you're a pussy for wearing sleeves. You're like, yeah, well, I'm warm.

1:31:29I'm okay with that. How do you see this matchup actually playing out on the field with the Rams and the Bears? Because I do think that the Bears' defense is exploitable by a good offense. and I feel like Matt Stafford and Sean McVay would be two pretty good guys to exploit a bad defense. But they are opportunistic. They didn't get any turnovers last week against the Packers, but that didn't stop them. Do you think that the Bears' defense has a chance to mix things up and to keep it close enough for the offense to do what they do, which is somehow eke out a win with like four seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter?

1:32:06Well, I said this in our postgame. You know, it starts to become something as a team. It gets in people's head. We talk about mentally how it plays out in these games, whether it be your confidence or what you think the other team's capable of doing. What Chicago's created now is I go back to look at halftime. Matt LaFleur, first thing he wants to talk about, man, this team plays all four quarters. Micah Parsons is tweeting out, hey, man, listen, I know we're killing this team. Think about how dominant that first half was. And the only thing they're talking about is this team, listen, they play all four quarters.

1:32:36So it starts to become something you're thinking about, like, hey, don't mess it up. And so I think, to me, they've created a narrative to where, as a team, they create teams being tight and making mistakes because they're fearful of Chicago can come back and win this game. But when I look at it offensively, yeah, the Rams should have an advantage here. When you really talk about the Bears' D line, I don't see an advantage they're going to have in this game. That Rams' offensive line, I don't think they've gotten enough credit for how dominant they've been this season. Running the ball, play actions, drop back passes, you name it.

1:33:04They've been really, really good. It looks like they're going to get healthier. Chance Kevin Dotson's back this week. So a huge part of this run game. So I think to me, when you look at that mixture and really the matchups, Devontae, I think you look at it coming off a hamstring injury, you know, I didn't think as good as you've seen him move and stuff like that last week, you're going to see him take that next step now, right? When you come off those kinds of things, it's just getting used to opening up and trusting it that, you know, that kind of belief that, Hey, I'm good. I'm healthy. I think you're going to see a better version of him even this week.

1:33:33And then Puka is Puka. So I think the challenges the Bears defense has is, yeah, there's a lot of challenges of different teams with the Rams, the personnel groupings, really how they can beat you in a bunch of different ways. It's going to be a challenge for them to slow them down. They're going to need the turnovers in this game. I think they're going to have to have them if they want to win. Maybe my strategy is let the Bears get out to a lead so you don't spend the entire half time. That might be it. Get them up two scores. What about the other NFC game? Because I'm excited for that one. The Seahawks and the Niners.

1:34:04You've covered some of those games this year. I think the Seahawks are just so I think they're the most complete team left in the playoffs and I don't know if that's a bold statement but it feels like every game with the Seahawks everyone's like well Sam Darnold if he stinks well sometimes he hasn't had great games and their defense is so good it doesn't really matter do you think the Niners have any answers because it was really tough for them to move the ball in that week 18 game and how they can fix this yeah I think that was the most impressive week to me of this Seattle team because I thought you really think before that game San Francisco was playing on offense I mean they were putting up points you were saying hey man this team's only getting better and better they play Seattle and can't move it at all I mean could not move the football and that was the week I was like man this defense this is for real this is championship level defense it you know I'm not going to compare him to Richard Sherman's group uh the legion but man they that kind of dominance where you go oh man offensively we can run the football well well, you know, just play solid football on that end.

1:35:05We're going to win a lot of games because nobody's going to be able to do anything on our defense. And I thought that was the most impressive week. So this is a huge challenge for them to go to Seattle, be able to play against this defense. And I thought Sam Darnold continued to take more and more steps. You go back to our game in overtime, that drive to where he's showing command. He's getting better and better in these big game moments. We've seen him throughout the regular season now, two years in a row, be able to play productive football. But people always question, what are you going to do?

1:35:28Brightest lights, biggest moments. I thought that Rams hurdle there for him to take it and go win that game, that really gave him the confidence and the belief of this entire football game and organization, football team and organization. Like we can win it. And I said on that show that I thought the Super Bowl winner was going to come from the NFC West. I feel good about three of them still being in it in the NFC. That's pretty crazy. And I still think that I still think that the NFC West is going to be the Super Bowl champion. and it's whoever comes out of that. Now, what I will say is since that moment, you know, the Rams defense in the secondary has given up a lot of yards and some opportunities to guys and Seattle's looked more consistent.

1:36:04And that's the tough part of this. If you're a Ram, you got to get through Chicago, of course, but that's a challenge to go to Seattle and win. Yeah. And what about the 49ers? We've been saying that Kyle Shanahan, this might be his best job ever coaching because not only the injuries, which we've talked about, I don't know if you're a believer in the electric substation thing that's going around. We've reached the point where even if it's not true, Now people are thinking about it, so it is kind of true. But not only that, they've had Brandon Ayuk was supposed to be a big part of their offense and just was never around.

1:36:34They've overcome a lot. And with the Brock Purdy, Mack Jones, back and forth, back and forth, they keep winning football games. Might be Kyle's best job ever as a head coach. But I guess from your perspective as someone who's way smarter about football than we are, how are the 49ers doing this? Yeah, I think when you start to see it, man, one of the things you love, I think Stafford's this way, Josh Allen. You see some of these guys. Patrick Mahomes has always been this way in the playoffs. Like, the ability they have to just say, hey, I thought it was so impressive. Brock Purdy throws some interceptions, but he doesn't care, man.

1:37:05He's going to keep pushing the football, giving his guys opportunities, finding ways to win games. Like, they're not going to worry about, man, if you write an article tomorrow about, man, you know, Matthew Stafford threw the ball and so many interceptions and the Rams lost, he's okay with that. Brock Purdy, he's like, hey, man, you want to blame me after this game? Who cares? I am not going to let you make me stop shooting my shot. It's coming. Like every single play, I'm bringing it. I'm throwing it where I think it needs to go. I'm trusting my guys to make opportunities. And Kyle Shanahan coaches in that position as well.

1:37:35I mean, to think that Kyle Shanahan has not been coach of the year multiple times, just think of some of the seasons they've had with the injuries they've had and where they've gotten to in those years, even regardless of who's in or out of the lineup. I think it's unbelievably impressive the job he does. He's definitely one of those guys across the league. with the Sean McVeys and others that you go, man, I want to go play for that dude. It'd be a lot of fun. I think this Niners team, to me, is one of the best narratives in the entire playoffs because of you think of losing Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, they're two absolute dogs, elite players on defense.

1:38:05They've still held it together. And Robert Sala, man, after the Jets run, like to come and do what he's done with this defense, losing his best players. I think it's been crazy impressive. And it shows just how powerful Kyle and Robert were together a couple of years ago when they were talented uh you know listen this team right here they there is no quit on them and I think they're just as dangerous as anybody else because of that belief they have zero quit George Kittle goes down early in the game doesn't matter we'll go on the road beat last year's Super Bowl champs and a chance to go to Seattle play a great game and move on yeah who the hell's the best team in the AFC I actually you could I think you could make a case for every single team remaining that they they have the thing that could get them to the Super Bowl yeah I said this I said if you're better like you just before the afc playoff started i said just go put even money on every single team like just see what happens because i mean i don't know there's no way that you can tell me that there's one team that you're like no this is without question the best team in this conference like i don't think there's any chance like even looking at buffalo denver here we are talking about all buffalo's you know defensive last all season long man the defense hasn't been as good we want them to be they go into jacksonville they find a way defensively to turn the football over be big in big moments now they're going to denver well denver all year yeah they're the one seed.

1:39:16Yeah, they're elite team. Y 'all, their defense has been great. We've also seen their defense like lay down in some games and give up a ton of points to teams they shouldn't. And offensively, you never know what you're going to get. You get a little bit of the Bo Nix experience. Some weeks he's unbelievable. Some weeks you're like just left wanting for more and the running game so inconsistent. It's like one of those things where you go, man, why can't Buffalo go in here and win? I don't care that they're the one seed and they've had a bye week. I don't really see why Buffalo can't beat this team.

1:39:42So I think to me, when you look at that conference, it's just hard to really say that you truly believe in team. The Texans are unreal on defense, but C.J. Stroud has just not really been the C.J. Stroud that we saw a couple years ago, and he's looked tentative. He's made mistakes, things that you just can't do in these playoffs. They overcome him putting the ball on the ground five times last night. It's just crazy to think, who is it that you absolutely believe in and think can make a run? In the Patriots, you've got a young quarterback and a defense at times that you think is exposable. I think that To me in the AFC, it's tough to be a fan there and say that you got a team you think is without question the best.

1:40:18Yeah. What about the defense for the Broncos? We talked about them a lot this year, especially towards the start of the year. Do you think what they excel at is matched up well against what the Bills excel at, which is, I guess, this year it's been running the football. They've been a very good running team. And in the playoffs, you get that extra dimension of Josh Allen where he just says, fuck it, I'm going to put my body in harm's way. and if you want to try to injure me, you better injure me like five times or else I'm going to keep coming back. How do you see that matchup playing out with how the Bills like to play versus the Broncos' strengths?

1:40:51Yeah, I think that's the cool part. When you talk about the one-seed Broncos is like, yeah, this defense has been good, but really how they're built a little bit, playing a lot of man, doing a lot of things they do under Vance Joseph. When I look at this Bills offensive line and how they're built, I don't see any opportunities rear on the edges where I'm fearful of those edge rushers against really how good Spencer Brown, Deion Dawkins are. Like when I look at the interior, like Dave Edwards, he's been in these moments. He's a big guard. He's not somebody Zach Allen's going to be able to bully a whole lot.

1:41:17Like he's a big dude. And up front, Osiris Torrance, another monster right guard. Like I just think this group, how they're built, man, they match up really good against the Broncos front. So this isn't going to be some game where you're going, all right, listen, the Broncos have a big advantage here with these edge rushers with really how they play and what they're going to do. And then if you want to bring a whole lot of pressure to Josh Allen and him escape and run down the field and gain 100 yards, running past linebackers and everything else. Like, go for it if you want to, but that's not really the team that you can do that to either.

1:41:46And then you got James Cook, who just is an unbelievable football player. I thought Jacksonville did an insane job stopping him, but you could probably say too good of a job. Like, that's what they leaned on. Like, let's just stop him. And Buffalo was really able to take advantage of it and just keep marching the field by taking what they were giving them. So I think there's some challenges for Denver against this Buffalo offense that I think that Buffalo will be able to move it and they'll be able to score. So what does that mean? You're the one seed. You're at home. That's great. But this can't be one of those slow Bo Nix offense days.

1:42:14Like we've got to get going. We've got to be productive. Yeah, I've got a very stupid thought about that game. Maybe you can tell me just how dumb I am for even thinking about this. The Bills' strength is not their wide receivers. We've talked about it all year. Like they have wide receivers that are capable of being good players, but I don't think you've got anyone that's like truly dominant out wide. The Broncos have great cornerbacks. It's almost like the Broncos are wasting their massive strength on the Bills' average wide receivers. Is that stupid for me to even think about that? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I mean, is that when you talk about the matchup of this game, like what is a great strength for the Broncos really won't come into play that much against this team because that's not really what the Buffalo cares about.

1:42:57They're not trying to walk out there with a number one and they're saying, hey, you can't guard them and that's going to be the whole dictate, how it's going to dictate the game, or we got two receivers and good for you, You got one lockdown corner and you got another really good corner to where you guys can take away the second guy, too. They don't care about any of that. Like they're going to do whatever it takes in this game with whatever personnel grouping gives them advantage. Is it an extra lineman? You know, is it playing Jackson Hawes a lot because he's a hell of a blocker? Like they're going to do what it takes to go just continue to methodically drive down the field.

1:43:26I thought one of the coolest things from last week's game, watching Josh Allen play against Jacksonville, not something you always think about is that he just took the short throws and the things that Jacksonville gave him. and they just methodically kind of drove it. And to me, if Josh Allen is taking what's there, playing so fast like he was in this game, getting the ball out of his hands and taking what that defense has given him and then also has all the hero stuff too, this is a really tough offense to play good against defensively. So I think it'll be interesting to see, to me, whether Buffalo can go in and I think put up some points and play well offensively in this game and then that's going to come down to what are the Broncos on offense.

1:44:01Yeah, yeah. All right, the other game in the AFC, as a former offensive lineman and offensive player what what's the answer and there might not be an answer but what's the answer for the Patriots against this Texans defense what do they have to do what's the game plan going to look like to try to beat this Texans defense that feels like they do everything great and they all three levels they have dudes oh my gosh listen as an offensive lineman this is the kind of game that reminds me why it's really good that I'm sitting here talking to you guys and not having to go play in the damn game. I know that much.

1:44:34I mean, when I watch this Texans group get after it, you watched last night. I mean, one lineman's at Aaron Rodgers' feet, like bent over, and Rodgers is getting bent over by the other guy, knocking him into him. They are absolutely annihilating O-linemen and making them feel bad on tape. I think to me, when you look at this game, a big matchup, my guy Will Campbell from 318 Monroe, Louisiana. Shout out my guy. We're both from the same hometown. Love this dude, LSU Tiger. It's going to be a challenge. This is going to be, you know, when you're a young player in the playoffs playing against this rare group of talent, you know, you coming off of an injury, got bullied a couple times in the game this weekend.

1:45:11I think this is going to be a big one because Will Anderson and Daniil Hunter are dudes. And so they are about as rare as it gets as a tandem. And so I think that will be a big challenge of this game is can they keep Drake May healthy? We keep talking about Drake May and his ability and his talent, his pocket presence. And you love those things. But what has always kind of hurt those young quarterbacks is if you can get early interior pressure on them. And I think to me, this D-line, it's going to be the story. Like if they're going to be able to beat the Patriots, it's going to be them being able to take over the game, keep Drake May rattled a little bit, get him making some throws he doesn't want to.

1:45:47To me, Texans' only chance to win this game is that this D-line does what they've kind of done to a lot of quarterbacks this season. We saw what they did to Josh Allen on Thursday night football and just absolutely dominate. All right. I got a question not about these playoffs and it's more about your career because it is there is an analogy here and it's you know you obviously started in Cincinnati go win a Super Bowl in LA so you have a great ending to your career but that time in Cincinnati the Marvin Lewis Bengals kind of similar to what's going on in Pittsburgh right now with Mike Tomlin what what does it look like in the room when it's just every single year you're back in the playoffs and you don't win a game.

1:46:24And do you think that's a situation where it's like, maybe it's better if there's a divorce here. Maybe it's better if we change something because we keep doing the same thing and we keep getting the same results. Yeah, I think it's tough because that's really what it starts to be. I remember in 2015, after we lost that game to the Steelers where we had the game won, all we had to do was run the clock out and we fumble the first possession, the first play of the possession, and then they get the ball drive all the way down. We have the multiple penalties, You know, Burfield hits Antonio Brown in the head.

1:46:53Then Pac-Man gets a personal foul. Then they kick a freaking 50-something yard field goal to win the game and beat us. I just remember that the frustration starts to build up. Like, not just amongst we're not winning, but, you know, you can't help it. Like, hey, we're not doing this. Who is it? Which one of it is it? Like, we've talked about this over and over again, how we have to be in these moments. Like, everything we're going to say on TV, everything anybody's going to say to pick them apart of what they need to do better, you think they haven't sat in a room and had that exact damn conversation at this point.

1:47:23It's happening over and over and over again. They have. They just haven't found a way to fix it. They haven't found a way to get over that hump. And it's really challenging. So I think sometimes in these situations, if you let frustration build to that point, then yeah, I know for me, when I went to LA, it wasn't like some resent Cincinnati thing. It wasn't something where like, man, I hate that we never did anything here. But when I started to think about, all right, Fresh air, just a fresh opportunity. Let's go there and redo this, try to make an impact in a different locker room with a different group of guys and coaches.

1:47:54It wasn't anything against anybody I was already with. It was like, man, that just kind of seemed exciting. It seemed like something that reinvigorated me and gave me new life where I might have been thinking I'm going to be done in a year. Next thing you know, I'm playing five years. And so I think to me, yeah, I think that they really should sit down and say, hey, Tomlin, I don't think you'd ever fire that guy. I think he's an unbelievable football coach. But if you said, hey, you know, for you, is it invigorating for you to go somewhere else and kind of do this in a different place, like to change for all of us to get rid of some of this frustration amongst us?

1:48:25I think that really is a real conversation that needs to be had. Because I would imagine, and you can tell me this is way wrong, but, you know, the NFL is a lot about like, you know, next play up and it's a week to week league and you go 1-0 each week. but when you do have this kind of playoff drought and it is similar you know guys in the locker room every year you come back for training camp and there's still a little bit of that there there's still the vibes of yeah we've we've gone to the playoffs every year we haven't won a playoff game yeah well think about we just talked about with caleb williams like what do you think when it's chicago like every single coach that's playing i'm thinking well they might beat us even though we're winning 21 to 3 at halftime that's what we're talking about like this team might beat us Right.

1:49:03Like now the narrative there is and it's because honestly, it's almost happening the same way. It's the same story. We keep reading every year. They're going to have a winning record. They're going to like almost be in the playoffs or be in the playoffs and losing the first round. Like it was almost worse in Cincinnati that we had a five year stretch where we're either winning the division or going to the playoffs. And every single year it's ending with the same story. That's what starts to make it so frustrating. And you just start to lose belief. And that's the thing. Like Chicago's got belief they can win any game no matter what the score is.

1:49:35Like these teams, the Steelers, and my time during the Bengals, you start to have doubt. Like no matter how the season goes, man, that first week of the playoffs, like we're going to make some dumb mistake or we're just going to not do quite enough and we're going to lose. That narrative is in your head and you can't find ways to shake it. What was that locker room like after that game, the Bengals-Steelers playoff game? That's the craziest ending to a playoff game I think I've ever seen. Vontaze and Pac-Man, I think, running into the tunnel after the fumble recovery, the personal foul across the middle.

1:50:07That was an insane ending. Does your coach even give a speech after that? Like, is there a wrap-up speech, or is it just everybody at their locker being like, God damn, I think that's a masterpiece in how to lose a playoff game? Yeah, I mean, you think of that season. I mean, we started 8-0. We ended up being a 12-4 football team. you know like it's one of those things where you sit there and go man you almost don't want to hear what the coach has to say you almost don't want to come together because you're just like man we've heard all this shit like I don't want to hear all this again I don't want to listen to you tell me maybe next year you know Detroit's going through something similar like that right like they had this opportunity man they're right there and they just keep missing it and then this past year same kind of thing happens except for now they don't even make the playoffs like you almost get tired to hearing that and you want some other, you want to hear something else.

1:50:54You want to hear a different approach to it. Like, Hey, this is what we're doing now this year. Or this is like what I'm going to come in and say, like, it's almost like you want everybody to just own it and say, we got to be better. Like, I'll never forget. I always say this the year we won the Superbowl in LA. You guys remember this, the Niners had dominated us. Like, I think they were six and against us. And like the last six times we'd played them, but our last week, 18 game, we had a 17 to three lead. I think it was going into halftime, something like that. and they come all the way back, take us to overtime and beat us in week 18.

1:51:25That was a chance for us to be the two seed. We ended up getting flipped to the five seed and have to go on the road and beat Tampa to get that home game against the Niners. But when we walked in the locker room after that overtime, that was the first time that I'd ever seen our whole team be like, damn, the Niners are effing good. They are freaking damn good. We're going to have to play our absolute best to beat them. So sure enough, we get the opportunity, the NFC Championship, we're the ones behind. and you would think how it had been in that history, it would get snowballed and we'd lose. We'd come back and beat them.

1:51:54And so to me, it was like we had to own, like, man, they're just better than us. We have to play better than we think we have to play to beat this team. And I think that's what these teams need mentally. So your experience with McVay in the playoffs, he's great at putting new wrinkles in and throwing something at you that you might not have seen on tape. But you were also a very good team while you played there in the regular season. So in a playoff week, how much of your mental energy is dedicated to trying to figure out the new concepts that he's having you guys work on? Something new that you're putting out there versus just maintaining that same level with some of the same stuff that you've been doing all year?

1:52:31How innovative is he being week to week trying to put something new out there against a defense that can take him over the top that week? Well, I think that's what makes him and Shanahan so special. I mean, I can really speak to those two because I know them both well. like it's not just that they can draw it up and it's not just that they can put it on a piece of paper and we see this when guys leave them and go places that don't have success you're like well they're running the system they're running the plays like why aren't they successful like it's the ability they have to sit in a room and communicate the why and the reasoning for doing it and why you're going to be successful and give you confidence that everything they're telling you to do is actually going to work out and they're going to draw up the picture for you like you you listen to guys talk about playing for Kyle Shanahan and it's like, man, dude, you walk out of the room and you're like, man, I didn't understand it at first.

1:53:17And then he started explaining why. And now I'm like, dude, there's no way this play doesn't work. And he explains to you the reason he thought, well, this is why the defense, the defense is going to do this. They're going to set up like this. They're going to move here. Then this guy's going to come down here and you're going to be over here. And it's like, you draw up the picture and you're like, wow, I don't know how that wouldn't work, but where did you come up with it? Their ability to teach it, not only in the classroom, but on the grass. And as a player, you'd be able to see it. I used to always say this great coaches they can teach me like we're standing on the grass and I'm looking straight ahead because we don't get to sit up top and have some down view we don't get to look on a board flat in front of us like you got to play from the grass eye level and those guys are amazing teachers like I'll never forget what sticks out to my mind to your point on this when we played the Minnesota Vikings at home in 2018 on Thursday Night Football Jerry Goff had an insane game we had an insane offensive performance against a Zimmer defense we went through a walkthrough on a Tuesday and Sean hated all the plays.

1:54:11And he like, we look the way you do it on those Thursdays. We do one big walkthrough, take a break, come back for the second one. We come back for the second one. And all of a sudden he's like, Hey, forget the script. Just listen to me guys. And he walks us through the plays we're going to run in this game and what it's going to look like. And he was just sitting back there watching it all unfold. And then we get in the game and it's unbelievable. Everything's wide open. Everything's happening. And I was like, dude, this guy's vision for what it is, how it's going to play out, and his ability to articulate it to you.

1:54:39He just walked around with us on this field, explained to us what we're all going to do, and we all got it. I don't even know how we got it, but we got it. That's what you're going to get out of Sean. This week, he's going to have something for this Bears defense to where he's going to want them to play exactly how they play, and because they play exactly how they play, they're going to get exposed. That's what great play callers do. Ben Johnson's going to do the same thing to the Rams. I don't know if you saw this. They asked Sean about Ben, and I love what Sean said, but it was almost like, to me, I saw it as like, all right, I'm going to explain everything you do, everything that makes you special and why you're a great coordinator.

1:55:11But I'm also kind of saying like, hey, I already know you and I know what you're going to try to do to us. We'll be ready because it was like he knew he was explaining exactly what Ben Johnson will lean on in this game to expose them. And I think that this will be a fun one because you got two insane play callers going against each other. Yeah. And there's also the I don't think this actually matters, but Michael floor is on the Rams staff. if Sean McVay's close with Matt LaFleur, are they going to try to get revenge? Like, they do have the chance to get revenge for Matt LaFleur. Yeah, you do have that.

1:55:42I guess we'll see how the post-game handshake goes, you know, and where the other. I love, like, us always making stuff about that. I always think those are so weird, right? Like, here you are in this moment. These things change your life winning these games, and we're so worried about, like, what the exchange is when the game's over. Like, dude, this guy just wants to go hang out with his team in his locker room and go absolutely buckwalled and celebrate a playoff picture. The last thing he's worried about is what the decorum is for like handshakes midfield. So listen, these two coaches, one thing I know about them, like Ben Johnson, his intensity and the way it's impacted Caleb and their intensity, like this game means a lot because you can't forget like what they're both known for.

1:56:20Like Sean McVay, obviously it's a longer period of time. We've seen it, right? Test of time and how successful he is and what he's going to be like as a coach. But Ben Johnson has proven himself in this season. He's gotten to have that opportunity against his former coach. and Dan Campbell beating Matt LaFleur now twice in this season, as he kind of pre-predicted in his press conference. Like, he's done all that. You think that he doesn't want to beat Sean McVay, the guy who's known as the guru, the young guy, all those things? Like, this means a lot to him. So this game, to me, it's going to be about two intense head coaches that are honestly very, very rare human beings.

1:56:53And it's awesome the NFC playoffs having the Final Four be, like, all these guys that are very – you know, Kyle Shanahan's the old guy, And it's Mike McDonald, it's Sean McVay, it's Ben Johnson, these guys that all feel like, you know, given their age, they could be coaching in these games for a long time against each other. Yeah, it's insane. Like, think about it. Sean McVay drew plays up for Kyle Shanahan in Washington. Like, Matt LaFleur, who Ben just beat, like, he drew plays up for Sean in L.A. Like, Mike has drawn plays for both of them. Like, all of them kind of come from these same trees.

1:57:26They've all come up underneath each other, watched each other, They've been fans of each other. I think there's a really neat narrative there in the NFC of that. And so it's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out. And then we're not even talking about Clint Kubiak, who same thing, came up under all these guys. I think it's just neat that all of them have kind of been intertwined in another way of watching each other, being a fan of each other. So we're going to get to see them all kind of break out the playbook a little bit and see who can expose the other. You saw it live in person last weekend, but the crowd in Chicago was a difference maker.

1:57:57They forced a couple of delayed games. They were loud. You've got a bunch of people from Chicago that have been starved for playoff wins. It's cold outside, so they've had 10 hours to keep drinking, and they're going to be noisy again this week. What has Sean McVay, or what have you done in the past to prepare for just a really loud, boisterous crowd that's going to make it hard to hear the quarterback? Well, I think this is the reason Sean McVay has such a great road record. I mean, the reality is, I know when we were in the Coliseum, A lot of teams like to travel to L.A., so we were playing in the silent count a lot.

1:58:30And so far, it's been similar against some of these big market teams that travel really well. There's a lot of silent cadence for the Rams, home or away. So they're trained in it. You know, that's just the reality. Like Caleb Williams and the Bears are comfortable coming from behind in a game. The Rams are used to noise and having to fight through that and be in a silent cadence. That's kind of the world they've had to live in. So I don't think that that will play much of a factor. Now, I will say this, looking at the weather, I mean, about 12 degrees, nice and windy. That is a challenge. So I think that that will be the challenge to me for this Rams team is going out, playing in the weather, adapting to it and saying, hey, we still got to go just play up, be us, play to our style of football, and they'll be successful.

1:59:13But that is a challenge. Like, you know, you're not used to it. You're not used to it. Listen, I've gotten soft living out in L.A. I go to cold weather places now. I got to wear an overcoat and some gloves. Like, I don't know what happened to me. All right. I used to be a tough guy. I'm not anymore. But it's a reality. Like when you're not used to it, it is a shock. Just like when you go somewhere, you're from Chicago, and you go down to Miami and play early in the season, you are pouring sweat and huffing and puffing. Like it didn't – it's not because you're soft. Like just the reality is it's not what you're used to.

1:59:40So there will be some adaptation for the Rams. Like you're going to have to get out there, get used to the cold, embrace it, and let's go play some football. But once that ball's snapped, it's compete time. And with the win, Matt Stafford's finger is going to be a question too. Dude, Big Cat actually had a really smart idea when we were watching the games because we've seen a bunch of quarterbacks have finger injuries this time and you're hitting them off the back of their O-line. Tell me, you want to tell them your idea? Yeah, it was just that why are not all O-linemen wearing guardian caps? And maybe like a little bit extra level of foam.

2:00:07Just be like, hey, you know what we can't have? Our star quarterback hurt their finger on a helmet. I understand, Big Cat, but think of our world a little bit, okay? Like now you want me to wear – I already have a watermelon for a head. You want me to put on this foam? Now I look absolutely insane. Not to mention, you're putting me in a white uniform. I look like an upside-down popsicle. Okay, let me put it this way, then. We already look bad enough. Would you rather look ridiculous and block for Matthew Stafford or look cool and block for Stetson Bennett? I mean, honestly, I'd rather look ridiculous and block for Matthew Stafford.

2:00:43But I don't know if y 'all watch the game Chargers-Patriots, man. They did a close-up of Trent Brown coming on the field, and those white feet like this he was walking onto the field and he's got that all white on and i go man that dude he's got to be 390 pounds like that is a big freaking man all white is not flattering for us o-linemen okay guys can we get some off color we need to mix it up a little bit all right let's go dark pants white jersey something stripes you need stripes like like a fully striped shirt yeah yeah i mean yeah big cap brings up a good point it's like you can look cool and Matt Stafford's a quarterback, or I guess you can look ugly and Matt Stafford's a quarterback, or you can look cool and Jimmy Garoppolo steps in, and you're not going to look as cool as Jimmy Garoppolo no matter what you wear.

2:01:28Yeah, you're standing next to the hottest guy now. You're screwed either way, that's for sure. That's for sure. No, listen, I hear you. I don't want to put anything else on, though. I'm tired of being dressed. We're already zoo animals, all right? The old lineman, we're already zoo animals. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair, right? Just let us look a little dignity out there. Yeah, 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. I'm sure you've had to do a bunch of predictions over the course of the year, so let's just give you a – there's only eight teams left.

2:01:59Super Bowl and the winner. All right, I'm going Rams, Bills, Super Bowl, and I'm going Matthew Stafford and the Rams win the Super Bowl. That's my prediction. Oh, man. That would be heartbreaking for Josh. That would be very tough. Yeah. I mean, I love Josh, too. Would you feel good about yourself if you did that, if the Rams snatched that joy from the city of Buffalo? Would you be okay with that? I really wouldn't. Fitz and I would probably have to end the podcast. Yeah. I don't even know if we'd be friends anymore. Yeah. But you know what? Here's the thing. I'd be okay with either outcome, but obviously I would want the Rams to win.

2:02:32That's a tough one, though. Two guys, quarterbacks that I think are just absolute studs, great human beings, everything else, their neighbors. So we're going to play a little golf together. It might even ruin our golf experiences in the offseason. So I don't know. I might have just set up a bad scenario. We will remind Josh that you picked the Rams over the Bills. Thanks. I appreciate that. If it goes that way. I love you, Josh. All right. Whit, thank you so much, man. Really appreciate it. Great having you on. And we'll see you Super Bowl week. Yeah, appreciate it, fellas. Have a great one. Andrew Whitworth was brought to you by our good friends at BetterHelp.

2:03:06This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. The new year doesn't require a new you, maybe just a less burdened you. Therapy can help easily identify what holds you back by offering an unbiased perspective to better understand your relationships, your motivations, and your emotions. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and your preferences. And our 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means we typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from our tailored recs.

2:03:38better help makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash pmt that's better help.com slash pmt this episode is also brought to you by new body armor flash iv caffeine zero sugar if you're dragging but also dehydrated this is the move it's hydration with a caffeine boost it's zero sugar i keep going around for long days early mornings you know i've never actually tried this before it's brand new in the office i feel like i'm dragging a little bit just worked out not to brag i think i'm gonna try it live review what do they call this a muck bang yeah hank is this a muck bang sure we'll give you a muck bang zach is this a muck bang muck drink muck drink all right it's suck bang here we go

2:04:28oh that's out of bounds that's really good only 15 calories got electrolytes in it got caffeine in it let's go gonna be drinking these on the regular work hard hydrate hard with body armor flash iv grab it at 7 11 i've got the pineapple passion fruit right here it's delicious 95 milligrams caffeine 2290 milligrams electrolytes zinc vitamins b and c i love it check it out body armor flash iv with caffeine get it at 7 11 and now here's dylan strome okay we now welcome on a very very very very very very very special guest how many do you think you're gonna get i was thinking about it for a while honestly yeah i'm happy with that many though okay all right it's Dylan Strom from the Washington Capitals who is a big time AWL so we're pumped to have you here you're in town playing the Blackhawks uh what i mean you you are we love having guys on who actually listen to the show i know you listen to the show so So are you nervous at all for being in this seat?

2:05:28Definitely a little nervous, for sure. I am only a six-time AWL, though. Oh, okay. That's still pretty good. That's pretty damn good. So what, 2018? 20. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so we started listening in COVID. My brother, my older brother Ryan, just told us, you guys got to listen to this podcast and check it out. I love that. Pretty much from then on, it's three times a week, and it's kind of surreal to be sitting here, honestly. Do you feel yourself getting dumber? um no okay myself getting smarter about football and i love when you guys talk about hockey and now i feel like i know a lot more about football maybe not smarter i guess yeah do you have any any criticism of our hockey talk um no i love when you guys have biz and and wit on it's it's it's awesome not yandle um he's only been on once or twice he's been on a couple of times i like yans too i i actually went to a little camp thing with uh yans and i think it was 2019 maybe um with with Patrick Kane and I met Yans there and I thought he was the funniest person of all time.

2:06:24I was like on the ice a few times, like laughing. Yeah. Like, because he's just so funny at all times. He is that guy. Do you have any complaints with our analysis of the little exhibition thing they did last? I was, I was wondering if you're going to say that. Yeah. Yeah. All-star game. What did we play? All-star game? No, it was, yeah, it was a practice game, like goodwill type thing. Yeah. Actually, it's kind of funny because we, we watched, I think some of the USA Canada game together. Yes. Yes, that's right. Oh, my God. That's right. That was the three-fight game at the beginning. That was the best game ever, yeah.

2:06:56That's when I stopped watching. That's when I remember. Well, the U.S. won that game. Yeah, so that was the finals. Yeah, that was the finals. No, I mean, that whole tournament was incredible to watch. I mean, I guess who really knew that it was going to be that many fights at the beginning, but when hockey players get fired up like that, it's just Bell Center in Montreal. I know you witnessed the Bell Center last year in the playoffs. It was intense. Which was by far the loudest rink I've ever played in in my life in that game three was wild. It was absolutely insane there. I still can't get over how loud that arena becomes when they've got something to root for in hockey because it's been a while since they've cheered for anything, like a game like that in the playoffs.

2:07:30And then was it the end of the second period where just everybody got into a fight? Yeah. That was perfect too. I actually went to the dressing room. So there was four of us that just skated off the ice like we normally would because nothing was going on. Yeah. And all of a sudden we hear, like no one's following us for the dressing room. We turn around and I just see Wilson have Anderson and the headlock on the bench and the refs like between them on our bench our coaches are like right behind it i've never been a part of a game like that but um that rink when it gets going like and then i ran over our goalie unfortunately at the end at the end of the that was tough towards the end of the game but luckily we bounced back i can tell that you still like feel bad about that it was an accident yeah no it was and they scored and then you're out there for a minus and then it's just wait what do the guys say when they're like hey where the fuck were you for the fight well i don't think anyone really realized it was only those four of us we kind of just kept it hush like we just kept it hey just just keep it on the down low that we snuck into the room before yeah you're fun to be out there you're in the locker room after being like yeah you see what i did to that guy yeah we all were getting in it what does tom wilson say when he comes back in the locker room like they have to extricate him somehow like extract him i don't know how they got him out of the out of the box but like he was in there with three other dudes and then they you know send him on his way into the locker room what's his mood when he gets into locker room he's like was he like that was awesome or was he still fired up i think everyone was i'm not sure the exact score of the game at that time but he was i mean he was fired up but he he his neck got like he was getting headlocked pretty good his neck was was pretty mangled uh right after that so then he was supposed to be in the box to start to start the third period and then he didn't go in the box yeah and like you could hear the the other team was like you know pretty happy that he wasn't out there for the third and then sure enough he comes strolling out in the arena whole rink was booing him and it was just um and then he has that massive hit in game four that pretty much wins us the series so yeah he's the type of player that you love to have on your team and you really really got to keep your head up when when you're when you're against him yeah that was awesome it was a great game to go to um can we go back to like the start of your career in the nhl because i think you've got a really unique story yeah the way that you got to where you're at right now in washington so you were drafted was it were you drafted third overall correct so drafted third overall by the coyotes yeah did you meet biz when you were there when you were a rookie um he was actually doing the radio at the time yeah uh so i i had met him a few times before that we do like a summer camp um and i saw him there and i had known him a little bit and then I think I met him once or twice when I was there yeah so so you go to the Coyotes it doesn't work out for you with the Coyotes there probably had to be a few moments where you were just frustrated beyond belief for sure start of your career for sure well I was drafted behind McDavid and Jack Eichel so it was uh and then Marner was one behind me so yeah there was a few pretty good hockey players around there but yeah just um for whatever reason didn't work out in Arizona probably uh you know a cause of me you know not playing very well and and also not getting the best opportunity maybe um and then all of a sudden on a random sunday and my parents were actually visiting uh arizona we just got smoked by i think calgary or montreal like six or seven one i'm just sitting in my uh my gaming chair playing fortnight fortnight fortnight and i get a call from the gm and he's like we just we traded you to chicago um you know wish you the best of luck sorry it didn't work out here but uh i wish you the best of luck and hangs up the phone it was probably like a probably like a 20 second phone call i actually asked who do i get traded for i don't know why that was the first thing that came to my mind but i asked who i got traded for he goes I can't tell you um so then yeah I get traded to Chicago back with a guy I played with in junior Alex Debrinket um we were had so much fun in junior a lot of success together and um the first game I got to Chicago was two days later and and uh I played on a line with Debrinket and Kane in my first game so yeah that was gonna say like you go straight to playing with Kane and you're like what the fuck's going on right now and I I had a question about your time with the Blackhawks because it was probably I don't want to say weird but like it was the obviously the end of the cup run so So there was still Kane and Taze were there, but it was kind of going – like what was the vibe around the team?

2:11:10Because from the outside it's like, oh, these guys are still here, but they weren't winning like they were winning through the cup runs. Yeah, so I actually got traded two weeks after Joel Quenvo got fired. So it was definitely like a transition period of what was going on with Chicago. But, you know, for the most part it was – like you could just – from being in Arizona, it's obviously not a hockey town. You know, you're in shorts and flip-flops every day going to the rink, and then you get traded to Chicago. I remember my first day was like a blizzard when I got here and I landed and took the red eye and went straight from the airport to practice.

2:11:42And I walk in the room and it's like Taves, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Crawford, Chris Kunitz, like just guys that were like legends of the game, that had all won multiple Stanley Cups. And it was just – it was a weird time because at that time when they fired Quindle, they weren't doing great in the standings. We finished the year okay, but then the next year they actually traded for Marc-Andre Fleury. and it was kind of like, okay, maybe this is the year that we can kind of do it again because they still had the main pieces that they won the Cups with. And then unfortunately just didn't work out.

2:12:11We can never really get on a good run. But playing in Chicago, as you guys know, living here, the place is incredible. The sports are second to none and playing at the UC every night was awesome. Yeah, and getting that opportunity to actually play and develop, that must have felt good. It's like, yeah, okay, I'm not crazy. I'm good at this. Yeah, you kind of like, for sure, I was drafted in 2015. to the Coyotes and then basically had a full-time role in the NHL by like the end of 2018 basically started in 2019 so like you I played two more years of junior um and you put up a lot of points and had a lot of fun but when you you know you get drafted high there's a lot of expectations and I feel like just um getting to Chicago and and you know getting a you know a regular spot and a lot of ice time and just got to develop and learn from some some pretty cool players and and you know luckily it worked out from there.

2:12:58When you were playing with Kane on the same line were you ever like don't fuck this up it's Patrick Kane uh or is he ever like hey man like this is not how I want you to play or you know do this differently I mean he's definitely intense a few times uh the first uh I remember my my third game hopefully doesn't kill me for saying this but my my third game ever um with Chicago uh I had a great first game nothing the second game and the third game I made like a a little flick pass to him and it was like kind of like the a bobbling puck and he he kind of looked over at me and he goes it's the fucking NHL put it on my put on my tape and he was like so serious but like ended up becoming one of my best friends in chicago and i mean i got to play with him pretty much the whole time i was there and it's uh he's right i mean he wants to puck flat on a stick and and uh so it was my job to try to get it to him and then be ready because he's one of the best passers maybe ever to play hockey and so you got to be ready for it yeah and then you become a free agent and you're trying to figure out where to go right yeah is that how it went down so how long were you in chicago i was in four years so three three Three and a half years.

2:13:55So after those years, I'm assuming you would have been fine staying in Chicago. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, it was kind of a weird situation because we were like kind of like a mid-tier team. We would never be last, but we would never be in the playoffs. In the four years that I was there, we were kind of always right in the middle. And I remember my agent called me, and I was up for a contract. And my agent called me and said, come to my office, and we'll talk. And I got there and the first thing he said was, well, you're not going to be a Blackhawk anymore. And I was under, I was a restricted free agent at the time, which means, um, basically that they can continue to sign you if they want and they hold your rights.

2:14:33Um, and it doesn't happen too often where they, they just don't sign you and you become unrestricted. So I really wasn't expecting that. And, uh, and I was like, all right, it was like four or five days before free agency. And then, um, free agency rolled around and my brother and I were both free agents at the same time, which, which was cool. We were talking maybe, hopefully, or maybe if we were going to be on the same team at one point in our careers. But it didn't end up that way. But landed on Washington, and it was awesome from the start. Yeah, I've got a series of Ovi questions for you.

2:14:59I figured. Okay. So, first of all, what was it like meeting him for the first time? Just like the happiest guy. I got there a few weeks before the season started, and then you hear rumblings like, oh, the big man's coming in soon from Russia, coming back from Russia. And like one day he just strolled into the gym and just gave everyone like the biggest hug and said what's up. And just, you know, always just like so happy, so happy to be back and see the guys. And like the most easygoing guy that I've probably played with in hockey. Did you know how big he was going to be? Did not know how big he was going to be.

2:15:33That was a shock to me. And just how like generous he was. Like that I've seen throughout these last four years. How big he is for sure. and like the generosity. He's willing to give guys sticks after every game, give guys jerseys after every game, and sign anything. So it's nice to see. Yeah, he's a monster. He's massive. He seems like the best dude to hang out with. Does he still drink soda in his water bottles? Yeah, that is true. He has Coke on the bench. So like in the Gatorade bottles. So if you notice that he sits by the forwards door every time he comes off the ice, he'll barely ever slide down the bench.

2:16:09That's his spot. No one goes there. If you're there, he's telling you to get out. But his water bottle there has Coke in it, yeah. That's awesome. I love that. Has anybody, like, accidentally ever grabbed it to drink water and they're like, oh, shit. Not that I've really heard of, but just because it's his spot and he keeps the water bottle there. A lot of the time the trainer has it behind him, too, so he reaches back and then grabs it from him. He's got to drink water at some point, right? We were actually, like, we had, I mean, he's, like, the topic of conversation always, as you can imagine, on the team.

2:16:36And we were actually talking. We were like, have you ever actually seen Ovi drink, like, a regular water? and I don't think I have. He drinks coconut water. That's what he drinks. Okay, that's good. Yeah. Yeah, that's healthy. Does he still love hot Cheetos? Yes, he does. Actually, today was one of the first flights because of the dad's trip and it was kind of lots going on or the mentor's trip as we call it. But it was one of the first flights that he's came without the Subway and the Cheetos today. Oh, I don't like that. Well, we'll see what happens. I bet you if he has two or three goals tomorrow, he ain't going to bring Subway and Cheetos on the next flight.

2:17:04That's how he quits. Yeah, is he still super passionate about chicken parm? Yes, yes. Yes, some of the dads got to witness it yesterday when we eat our pregame meal at the rink after our morning skate. And when he comes in there, he is very, very excited about eating his pregame meal. And he has all the sauces. He's the sauce crosser, as I think you guys have heard about. Yeah, so he mixes everything together, right? Yes, mushroom sauce, marinara, meat sauce, and Alfredo. I love that. That's incredible. And then my last movie question actually has to do with you. I was going to say, keep going.

2:17:35Yeah, you were the secondary assist on goal number 895. What was that like, just that moment? And the buildup to it was kind of incredible as he's getting older, but he's still scoring goals at a crazy clip. That whole buildup and then being there and being one of the guys that set it up, what was that like? Well, like last year, to start the season, he had 15 goals in 18 games. And at the beginning of the year, we knew he needed 42 to break the record. That was like the number that everyone thought about him and wanted him to get to. And he starts off that well. And then all of a sudden breaks his leg in Utah.

2:18:08He has a hat trick in Vegas the night before that game. In Utah, the first two periods, he got two goals. In the start of the third period, he breaks his leg. So he was on a pace, even for him, which was incredible. He was on a crazy pace. And then he breaks his leg. And we're like, after the game, everyone's going to see him. And we're like, what's the prognosis? What's going on? And he's like, broken leg. And we're like, how long? He's like, I should be skating in two weeks. And we're like, two weeks? like you know maybe just like you know we want you to we all want you to break the records at that time as soon as it happens we're like you know we want you to break the record at some point like everyone wants you to break the record you want to break the record um so you don't just take your time getting back he's like no no two weeks i'll be back on the ice i'm all good and we're like all right so sure enough two weeks comes back it was just after christmas i think he he came back i think it was he started skating the two weeks after and then um played like maybe four four and a half weeks after which i mean for a broken fibula or whatever he had whatever that bone is down there it's crazy uh and he just kept going and then so leading up to the to the record it seemed like there was like 21 games and then 11 goals and then 20 games then 10 goals so you kind of could feel that he was like he was getting there and getting closer and then yeah just leading up to it i mean i had i had an assist fortunate enough i had an assist on like 890 91 92 93 and then the tire was 894 and i didn't get an assist on that i was on the ice for it but didn't get an assist and i'm like obviously you want to get an assist like i mean you're in the record books for for history and then um he tied at that game we had a an awesome night uh after that and then sure enough in new york it just everything kind of lined up on the power play in his office and was lucky enough to pass it to tom who passed it over to ovi and um it's history it's very cool and so that that goal we replayed throughout history and you're you're right there for it you're part of it yeah i i definitely when i first watched it back i i jumped like a like a little kid like probably maybe a little too much yeah i'm a i'm a big like stats guy and like hockey nerd in general so like just being a part of it was really cool and then getting an assist I think I kind of realized like as I was jumping up and down the ice like trying to get to him so as I watched it the first couple times I was like oh what am I what am I jumping like that for but now like that I've watched it probably a hundred times like I kind of like that I did that I like that I'm like jumping and going crazy so it's something that I'll remember forever I got a pretty cool picture like jumping behind him as he's sliding on the ice so yeah It was pretty cool.

2:20:22As a Caps fan, my biggest fear a few years ago was that the team was going to just essentially tool itself around Ovi and the chase for the record and maybe not be as competitive. But then you come in, and I think you're the biggest part of that, of kind of the rebuild of the Capitals, where we're a very competitive team while still doing that, which has been awesome to watch. And you've been playing – I feel like your game has stepped up big time since you've gotten here. I appreciate that. Thank you. That's very nice. Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, when I signed in Washington, Backstrom was hurt.

2:20:52And at some point he was going to come back, and it seemed like just a perfect fit at the time. And then, yeah, just getting to play with Ovi, learning how to play with him, learning where he likes it and what he likes. It's just been incredible. I mean, I could have never have imagined, especially after a team that not gives up on you, but they were obviously going for Bedard, and Chicago wanted to get basically worse. And they got rid of like four or five guys that were on the team for a previous couple years, and it just worked out perfectly in Washington. And I'll be forever grateful for that, just getting the opportunity to not only to play on the same team as a living legend, but on his line for multiple years.

2:21:26It's been incredible. All right, so you said you're a stats nerd. What's cooler, being the assist on Ovi's record-breaking goal or outscoring Conor McDavid for the Erie Otters in 2014-15? We won't talk about how many games he played. Yeah, I didn't say that. I didn't mention that. But you had 129 points. He had 120. That's a fact. Yeah. Um, those are, those are pretty, I got to say 895. Okay. Yeah. 895 for sure. Do you think it's fair of us to say, you know, we have a back and forth with wit about McDavid, who's the best player in hockey, but if he were the best athlete in all of sports, he should just not come off the ice.

2:22:03I wanted to talk with us for so long with this podcast. What about a football? What about the best football player ever? He doesn't play defense. He could, if he wanted to. Sammy Ball. Yeah. McDavid could never come off the ice if he wanted to, in my opinion. You think he could never come off the ice? He should try it. I don't think it's a bad idea. I mean, there's been playoff games where he probably has like five, six-minute shifts, I think. Okay. But if you listen to the show, you know that we were massive fans of Travis Hunter. Yeah. That's true. And he played both ways. That's true. Yeah.

2:22:27And that was just our love. Massive fans because of. No, no, no. Our love. Just like we're not going to mention the fact that McDavid missed like a ton of games when you beat him in the points, we're not going to talk about Travis Hunter bet. Yeah, I guess. That's fair enough. Actually, a funny story in that last game of the regular season in my draft year, Connor had 120 at the time I had 123 and Marner who was a we were kind of all right there for our draft year he had 126 going into my last game he didn't have a game that day and I did have a game that day and Connor didn't play that last game because we were kind of already locked up for a playoff spot and I think he was under the weather or something and so like the coach Chris Knobloch who's now the coach of the Oilers yeah back with McDavid came in the room before the game and said, you know, obviously we were at 49 wins actually.

2:23:15So he's like, you know, he came in the room and he's like, we have lots to play for today. Obviously our position can't move in the standings, but, you know, we're one away from 50 wins, which would be cool. And Stromer's three away from Ty and Marner for the scoring lead. And sure enough, I go out and I think I'm confident enough to say that I had the best game of my career. And what was your final tally? Four goals, two assists. That's amazing. It was pretty good. For 129 points and got the scoring record. So I'll always remember Chris Knobloch saying that before the game because he definitely didn't have to say that.

2:23:45And then for him to say that in front of all the guys before the game, the guys were passing to me left, right. It was one of those games where you're just kind of feeling it. That's awesome because it is like you say it, especially in pro sports, like, oh, I'm going after my stats. But in that situation, it's like, yeah, you're locked in. Yeah, it was cool. Let's go get our guys some stats. It was an 8-7 win, and it was one of those games that you wish could happen all the time. Did you know then that Conor McDavid was going to be? 100%. I mean, the speed, I always say when I saw him play in person, I think last year or the year before, it's like the speed just jumps off.

2:24:20You're just like, holy shit, how is this guy so much faster than everybody? Yeah, we're the same age. So he got drafted. It's called exceptional status in the OHL, which is Ontario Hockey League. And he got exceptional status. So he played at 15. When I was 15, we were still playing minor hockey, like on your minor hockey team. So he was in the OHL at that time. And just when I got to Erie, it was, I mean, I had watched him play because we were on the same like minor hockey team growing up. Just he was playing at a year older as an underager. And just you had heard stories and like, you know, everyone knew who he was and about him.

2:24:49But when I really got to Erie, you got to see it firsthand on how much better he was than than than than everyone. Yeah. And like, you know, I went third overall that year and he was like, obviously, that much better. Like it was no not a comparison. So it was just really cool to see and see, you know, you obviously want to be the best and you got to see it every day. and how he competed and how he plays the game and his knowledge of the game and just his hockey IQ is off the charts. But you had more points than him that year. That's forever. That's forever. Yeah, you were better than him for that season.

2:25:19Yeah, I had you in fantasy. I think he had 47 games and 120 points. No, we don't care about that. We might put up a plaque. Leading scorer on the Otters. Until Connor McDavid comes on the show, we're going to have a plaque back here and just be like 2014-15 OHL scoring title. The Otters, right? Yeah. The Otters, yeah. That's a great name. How did you become Stromer and why not Stromy? I feel like there must have been a fork in the road at some point. Yeah, I don't know. My dad growing up has always been called Stromer. And then just, I think for whatever reason, just kind of said, some guys do call me Stromy though, but now Ovi has changed my nickname.

2:25:52And now everyone on the whole team calls me Zini. Zini? That's my new nickname. What does that mean? No idea. I think maybe like you said, Stromy and Stromer, like Strom Zini. Strom just kind of rolls off the top. I like Strom Zini. And then it just changed to Zini. So, like, when he broke the record, he signed everyone's hats with their nicknames and, like, a little message on it after the game on the bus ride back to the airport. And he wrote, to Zini. And he spelled it Zed. I'm going to say Zed because it's in Canadian. Z-I-I-N-N-I. Z-I-I-N-N-I. Yeah. Zini. I guess if Ovi calls you Zini, you're Zini.

2:26:26Yeah, exactly. That's why everyone, the coaches even call me Zini now. Yeah, that's awesome. So, kind of a weird question. I've always wondered about hockey players, though. Like how did you choose your goal song? That's a good question. No teams really have goal songs. Like only I think maybe two or three teams have like their own individual goal songs. I think it's cool. But yeah, when I got to Washington, I just chose The Middle by Jimmy Eat World. And I just I think it sounds nice when I score. I like it. There's not really a big meaning behind it. But I just think it I really like the song.

2:26:57And the words in the song are like it just takes some time. little girl in the middle so i mean i feel like for me for my my career kind of like you mentioned like it just takes some time um to be where you're supposed to be and i feel like that kind of stuck with me and and uh that's why i chose it i like that you got any suggestions of what i maybe could change it to um no i mean if it's been working for you yeah i don't want to mess with it because like you've been a very good player for the capitals and i don't want to change whatever's going on does um does riley leonard does he do free bird uh yes he does okay i like that riley That's Ryan Leonard.

2:27:27Ryan Leonard. Yeah, not Riley Leonard. Colts. Yeah, Ryan Leonard. Did you grow up with a pond in your – or like did you make a rink in your backyard? We actually made – we have like a hydro fields right across the street. So like when it was cold enough, we would go over and just kind of shovel off a little area of snow and carry the net from our front yard and bring it over there and just play for a play. Wait, what's a hydro fields? I guess like hydro planes. You know what I'm talking about? No. Maybe that's Canadian. I mean, it sounds awesome. What goes on in the hydro field? Yeah. It's water and a field.

2:27:59Electricity. Electricity. Oh, okay. What would you guys call that? Why don't you just say that? Like a dam? We call it hydro fields. It's like a - Hydro fields? Yeah. Like a long - We've got our best guys on it right now. Hydro fields. That just looks like - Yeah, cell towers. Power lines. Power lines. That's the word I was looking for. Okay, yeah. Those big towers with the power lines, I guess we call it hydro fields. Okay. So over in the hydro fields, there was just snow, and then we went over one day, and we found it was ice. Wait, do you call it hydro fields because it's like, oh, power line is where we play hockey.

2:28:28We put the water on the field. No, just because it's a field and then there's. And then you put the water on for the hydro? No, it was just already there. It was just like a little, like, I guess it may be a rain or something. Got it. And it froze over. Froze over. That's sick. A lot of our friends had backyard rinks. I love the backyard rinks. They look so cool. Awesome. Every single time someone like in the end, like with lights on it. Yeah, I was like a big goalie. Like I wanted to be a goalie when I was growing up. So every time we would go to a backyard rink, I was just like, do you have pads?

2:28:54Can I play goalie? When did you realize being a goalie is the worst? I think in actual hockey, like with a team, I think I was six. I remember one game, no parent likes to be a goalie parent from what I've been told. I remember that I got a puck let in at the finals of a tournament, like 2-2 tie, and it just like a slow dribbler. The last second of the game just went right through my legs. And from then on, my dad just said, you're never going to go. I can't deal with this anymore. This is too much. Well, you've got to also be a psycho. Yeah. Like every goal is a little bit of a psycho. That is very true.

2:29:27Yeah. Very true. So it's like it's a natural thing. You're not a psycho. I'll take it. Yeah. How old were you when you first learned how to skate? I think I was about three. Maybe on skates at like two, like maybe walking in the house and then three on the ice and then try to start playing like in an actual league at four. That's awesome. I mean, when I was three years old, I could not walk. Did you get shoes or skates first? um i'm gonna say shoes but skates probably weren't far like my brother just had his uh my brother ryan just had his his uh third son about a year and a half ago and like we're we're so excited about you know getting him in skates because we all he has two other older girls i got three girls and now we got a boy so now we're uh he's got he's gonna be oh yeah right away uh a little birdie on your team told me that you are by far and away the most superstitious guy is that true and why did tbr say that uh yeah that's true um a lot of times as well as zini i'm also a little bit known as stish okay and what does it look like like what are some of your superstitions um just everything like i think i don't know how deep you want me to get into it yeah do it yeah i mean i think it goes even from breakfast like what you eat at breakfast so you're just waking up every game day and it's superstitions depending on how the game before went could change a few things okay um you know if you score or the team wins or depending on what time of the season so what's the dumbest superstition that you've like carried when you've been on a hot streak um probably we have uh crybaby gumballs you know those like the sour with the really sour ones yeah um and we do like this wax where you put your hands in the wax before the game like this little wax machine um and i give it to carlson like i feed him a crybaby a gumball and so depending on the how we did the game before how it's been going the colors change that's probably the dumbest one that we you feed him one yeah like he's putting his hands in the wax and you put it in his mouth and i just drop it in there it has to be the same color if depending on the wax thing is like i think it's perforin wax like i don't want to say the wrong word but yeah it just like heats up your hands and that's also a stitch i guess because i have no idea what it does but i do it before every game like three or four of us do it before every game you put your hand and you dip your hand in and then the wax like kind of stays on your hands and then you get you can peel it off when it's when it's done so your your superstitions actually carry over to other people on the team too for sure that's kind of where it becomes a problem because then if like things are going really well and like someone messes up your superstition but they're also a part of it yeah like that's when i'm like you guys got to know this yeah so now i talk about it a lot so guys are like aware like what are we doing today so what are you on now well we just lost and i got no points last game and we lost and we've lost uh you know like we're not on a good streak we're looking to switch some things up recently so okay so whatever you do before the next game you're just going to keep doing that running that if you win if we win yeah if you yeah yeah starting starting tomorrow morning starting tomorrow morning skate but then when you're on a bad streak you're not doing as many superstitions i would say like there's like some that i i like do every game regardless i think like most most hockey players like um tying my skates up at the same time on the clock that makes sense oh wait yeah yeah okay all right on the clock What if the game's – oh, the clock, the countdown clock.

2:32:27The countdown clock, yes. So same time every game for that. Do you time yourself? Or do you have to get it done within a certain amount of time? I just start tying my skates with 25 minutes, 25 seconds left on the clock. Okay. So no matter what, I've got to be in my seat, sitting down, tying my skates. I take my stick on the bench before every game after I warm up and then before sometime usually around 36 on the clock. No, that's not – that's exactly 36. That one kind of differs, but I usually – I just know I got to be back there with my skates on and ready to get them tied up at 25-25. Okay.

2:32:57And then what else? Oh, man. Well, in warm-ups right now, there's so many. This is like a topic of conversation on our team like every day. I love it. I always shoot in the goalie's glove hand in warm-ups. We got two Southpaw goalies, so that's kind of been new from the caps. I've never really been on a team with a guy that catches Southpaw, and we got two of them. So we're 0-5 in shootouts this year, and I'm going to strictly say that it's only because we always shoot on South Park goalies. We don't actually get to shoot on regular goalies for the shootouts. So we're 0-5 in that. But the superstitions, let me just think the gumballs.

2:33:33Wait, but when you're on a bad streak, you've got to – is it maybe you're not doing enough superstitions? Could be. Yeah, so I think you've got to amp it up. Oh, my God. That's a lot. There's a lot that goes on. But the funny thing is that everyone on our team has them. I think every hockey player has them. Some may call them routine. Some may call them superstition. But it's funny when you watch guys that do the same thing on every warm-up. Ovi goes on the ice and does two leg stretches, circles around, and then stops at the blue line and stretches. Like every game. So is that a routine or a superstition?

2:34:01Does he change something depending on how the team's going or what? This is how you cope with it. I'm not crazy. Specialized. When it's 25-25, I've got to start some time. I just need you to open your mouth when you dip your hands into the wax. For the specific colored gumball. Last game we went green Now definitely not green No you can't do green again Right skate first then left skate Does that matter? Yeah right skate then left Why don't you switch that up If you're on the losing streak That's what I'm saying That's a good point I think there's just so many That I switch up The big one that I feel like You switch up when you're losing Is the suit color Like what suit you wear To the game So that's like the big one Because then it's like Now I'm getting to the point Where like if so Say if you score two goals But your team loses And you wear the blue suit For that game Then what do you do?

2:34:46Do you wear the blue suit for the next game, but the team lost. It depends what kind of guy you are. Name on the front guy or name on the back guy? Definitely name on the front guy. So that's why I've been switching my suit, and then I don't score the next game. You're like, what else can I do? It's my fault. Wait, so I read a story. Did your wife give birth to one of your kids while you were playing? Did she not tell you? So what happened was a month and a half ago. She was three weeks before her due date, and we were home for a 14-day stretch, and we had one game where we were flying we played on a wednesday night we flew to montreal after the game we were playing thursday and then flying home after the game and i i didn't even think it was like a possibility at that time because she was three weeks and we've been through this before yeah um and sure enough yeah we i i finished uh warm up i get off the i talked to her right before i got to the rink i i get off the ice for warm up and our team services guy rob uh calls me off and he like pulls me into like the side room in montreal and i'm like i thought i was like in trouble or something yeah and that's how much i wasn't even really thinking about like that could be a possibility and uh he's like uh your wife's at the hospital do you want to do you want to call her i'm like i guess i better call her yeah so i get on the phone and the first thing i hear is like she's having a contraction is the first thing that i hear like it happened that fast um so i talked to the nurse and i was like you know kind of you know give it to me straight like do i have enough time to to get back here like should i leave right now can i make it back and she's like i mean you probably got like five hours and i'm like well it's six o 'clock right now or it's like 640 right now and i'm in montreal different country so if i were to you know somehow get a private plane to go back like it wasn't getting a flight out right if i were to get a private plane the best it was probably going to get me back was around like 12 or 1 and that's the time our team plane was getting getting back so i'm like all right i guess i'm gonna play like then our team services guy was like you your best bet to get back in the fastest is probably with our team plane right so i was like all right i'm gonna play and uh so i thought like i still at this thought I had like five hours until I could could so maybe I might make it yeah um I get off the ice for the first period had an assist on an ov goal in the first period um in Montreal which is like my favorite place to play um and so I was like you know feeling feeling great I gotta go check my phone to see what's going on hopefully everything's good um and I I walked to the trainer's room and I opened up my phone and I got a message on my phone a picture of my of my third daughter saying hi daddy oh my god and I'm like so I called her obviously right away yeah and I'm like like what just happened yeah you were like you know you were the nurse told me you had five hours right and so she actually left for the hospital at 605 and her and uh she was born at 737 oh shit so like i was thinking like even if i had a game at capital one arena and she was like at capital one arena and then had to go to the hospital and like left before me and i was like okay maybe i'll play and let me know how it's going i don't think i would have made it yeah even if i was at a home game okay so i have some follow-up questions by the way this happened for my third child it's not as cool but i was in i landed in west virginia for uh rough and rowdy to call a shiz at the riz at fight uh and my wife called me he's like hey uh i'm going in labor and i was like fuck and i i did get back i did the national anthem so someday i'm gonna like for my son i'm just gonna be like hey i sang the national anthem the day you were born but i was like it took her like six or seven hours so i got back and i had like maybe an hour to spare so but you got there before I got there before.

2:38:00Not comparing, but yes, I'm a better father than you. It's stressful, though. How stressful? Oh, so stressful. So I went into the game kind of just not really thinking about hockey. Obviously, other stuff was on my mind. Right. And sometimes you play your best when that happens. Yeah. Well, I also got lucky because we took a private plane there, and I was able to literally... I got in the green room, and my wife called me, and I was like, fuck. And then the pilot was like, I can take you back. So I was like, all right, great. I would have been fucked otherwise. Yeah. There was just no chance. Yeah.

2:38:28Like, I would have loved to have been back, but there was just no chance. So you scored a goal and we won? Three assists and we won. So we need to figure out a way for you to have a kid during every game. You're going to have to have a lot more children. All right, so here's my follow-up. One, how much has your wife held it over your head? Because, like, I don't think she obviously is not mad as it is what it is, but that's got to be an awesome situation for her where, like, if you ever get in a fight, she can be like, yeah, well, you missed our daughter's birth. I think she mentioned it like once, like the first couple of days I was back.

2:38:59It hasn't been brought up. Okay. But you know that it's there. Oh, it's there. Yeah. It's definitely there. Like the next time you're like, oh, like I had a bad day. She's like, well, you missed the child. Yeah. I mean, and then number two, like, you know, and maybe someday your kids are going to listen, but you know, you have to like make your third child, your favorite child, because like someday she's going to be like, daddy, where were you on the day I was born? Oh, that's tough. You are, but you just got to, you just got to like, I went through these thoughts when my third was being born.

2:39:28I was like, he automatically has to be my favorite because I might miss it. I know. I'm not at the stage yet where I think I have to pick a favorite child, but my first is my firstborn, obviously. She's born in Chicago. We just drove past where she was born. My second is the middle child right now. I'm a middle child. So I obviously have that connection with her. And then my third, I wasn't even there. So I don't know. I don't know. You have to overcompensate. I do the rankings like the college football playoff we do weekly right now it's my youngest my middle and then my oldest in terms of who i like the most so it can change day to day that's fair and i'll say it i say those are things to learn when my kids get a bit older i mean they're only four two and one month right now so there's not not a whole lot going on with who i can choose but we'll see that's a crazy story man that's like that she did mention like when i was yeah like i actually got to start the third start the second period we're on a five on uh five on three um and i'm like like that's a great chance to score and i'm on the five on three power play and i'm literally lining up for the face-off and my daughter was born like 20 minutes ago and i'm literally lining up yeah and i told her i looked over at the ref and i'm like i just had a kid yeah he's like what are you talking wait did you already have a name picked out yes okay all right yes i was gonna say that would have been very fun yes you got back and she had she had been like i looked over and he's like he's like what i'm like yeah like my wife just had a kid and he's like congrats yeah i was like thanks our third we couldn't pick it like we were so out of it took us that was the longest for sure we literally we're leaving the hospital they're like you have to name this child we're like all right fine well we had two girls first and then the third girl and so we were like before we we found out the gender a while ago but it still took us that long like after the third the third girl name is is tough yeah like it's tough so we yeah wesley emerson and sutton okay now sutton's good so sutton strom and then you wrote a book for him right no sutton stromsey stromzini sutton zini so you wrote a book for him my wife wrote that book a lot of people seem to think that I wrote the book it's pretty cool it's very simple but it kind of just explains what I do as a job and why I'm not home a lot of the time and a lot of people online both my 4 and 2 year old love it they can recite the whole book they love it so it's awesome I was going to ask if you had any tips for us about writing our book I know yours is a kid's book but kids can buy our book too I'm so curious to know about this book.

2:41:44Are you guys actually going to write anything about this book? Yeah, we have. We're writing it right now. But you said that I've heard so much about the ghost writer. Yeah, we do have a ghost writer. So what is a ghost writer? I've never heard of that. He's sat down with us for extensive periods of time, and we talk through everything, and then he goes - But then are you typing and writing the book, or is he doing it? His name's Matt, and so he sends us what he's written, and then we edit it, and we give him some feedback. We are actually sitting down at a computer and typing out some stuff. You are?

2:42:11For the book, yeah. Yeah, but I'd say the lion's share is going to the ghostwriter, but then we're going to interview the ghostwriter and put that in the book. He also has to write that. Yeah. That's fair. I mean, we've been... How long is the book going to be? I've never read a book in my whole life. You're going to have to read it. Maybe it's going to be the first one. You're going to have to read it. Longish? Yeah, it's going to be, but not too long. Or you don't know yet. Yeah. No, we don't know. We have no idea. When is it coming? Is there a date? Is there an end date? I think it's going to be...

2:42:36We actually are going to announce the date, I believe, Super Bowl week we're going to announce the date so I think it's going to be summer summerish fallish summerish fallish maybe not what's the title we still might pull the plug that's fair it's just like we're not doing it are you paying the ghost writer currently yeah does he get paid does he get paid regardless he's been paid okay so but that I mean listen that's just like hey or you could do like maybe like you like you only have like 50 copies oh I'm sure the publisher would love that no but that's good well then you sell them for the Wu-Tang album that dude Martin Shkreli bought.

2:43:09We make one copy of the book, and then we sell it to the richest guests that we've ever had. Yeah, that's a good idea. It's a very good idea. All right, I got one last question. It's been awesome, Dylan. We really appreciate it. Roback question, RHOBACK.com, promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. You are a big AWL, so give us some feedback. What do we got to do better? What do you not like that we do? The one thing I didn't like was the last year, the fantasy fuckboys. That was the one thing that I was like, I kind of just skipped through that.

2:43:43But now the Jerry one's awesome. I love that. That was actually, it was the last second call before we taped like our first episode of football season. Me and Big Cat were just sitting here. We're like, do you not want to do fantasy fuckboys this year and just have Jerry do it? Well, you know what it was? It was Julian Edelman got in our heads like three years ago. He was, and we've known him forever. He's a good friend. he like came in to hang with us and he's like guys the fantasy fuck boys thing sucks well like wait what i know you guys don't talk about fantasy football a ton because no one wants to care about your fantasy team but even though we did way too much i liked it everyone does fantasy i know i know but like the fantasy fuck boys i feel like you didn't really like it wasn't really like about fantasy and now jerry's minute it's like just like five random guys that like he's like maybe stream like whoever like at the time yeah yeah um the one thing that i always wondered and you guys watch football more than probably anyone um is why in nfl on on the broadcast watching the game like when you go to a game and there's like a deep ball thrown you can like see if the guy's open yeah one thing that i've never understood is why don't we see either the whole field or like an end zone cam yeah no it's true it's a it actually football would be better they never would do this i mean our guy sam schwarzen who does uh the prime vision on amazon prime is awesome because they give you that big like picture i never understood why we don't like when you play madden so wait you guys have a you can see you can see it if you if on thursday night football and actually the the the bears package game like the prime vision there's an alternate broadcast okay i haven't seen that yet it's awesome but i agree like i don't know why we don't do the the camera angle that you play madden on yeah behind the play where you can see everything open up how many times in the game when you're watching like the ball goes up and everyone's just like yeah is there a guy open yeah when you're at a game i've only been to like four football games but oh you met coach gruden yes we did he's the man that was awesome yeah it was so cool we saw him like we were like we knew he was there because we saw dave's post and we saw that he was with gruden and then sure enough we're in a box for our rookie party and we looked down and literally two suites over he's just sitting there yeah and we like we're like banging on the glass and he's like he's like he definitely didn't know who we were at the right at the beginning and we're like funny one more Sorry, funny story.

2:45:49We were on the way up in Tampa Bay to our suite, and like six or seven of us had got to the suite already, and we're like, where is everyone else? And the elevator got stuck on the way up to the suite, and apparently it was like 100 degrees. It was so hot. So when Gruden looked over, there must have been like five guys with no shirts on before the game even started. He's probably like, what is going on? But how did you get him to realize it was you guys? Did you put Ovi in front? No, I think we just banged on the glass long enough. He looked over like a few times and we started waving and we tried to like put Ovi there.

2:46:21And then I think Tom texted Biz and that's the whole story about Biz. Yeah. And I know Dave was like, you know, like those guys definitely didn't want to meet me, but we all wanted to meet him. So I wanted to clear that up. I just remembered that right now. Like we wanted to meet him too, but it was just Gruden was on our side and Dave was on the way other side. And I guess we didn't even hear that he gave us a sweet number because some of us would have gone over and said hello. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gruden's the man. Awesome. He is, he is just like, people always ask us like, what's it like hanging out with him?

2:46:46He is just him all the time. And that's exactly what you get just sitting next to him on the couch is what you see when he's doing his breakdown videos. He's always amped up about something. Someone was like, can you give us, we got the rookies here, can you give us something to tell the rookies? And he's like, his one thing, and we say it all the time in the room now, he's like, stay in the channel of success. Oh, I like that. And so now we're like, that's kind of been our thing a little bit this year. No matter what that looks like, what superstitions it is, that's your channel of success when you find something that works.

2:47:12I have one last question for you. So you are a big stats guy, right? You memorize stats, and you spend a lot of time looking at them. How many career goals does Paul Bissonette have? Six. Right? Six. I'm seeing seven. Seven. I'm seeing seven goals. Okay, sorry, maybe I was wrong on that. Seven. How many career penalty minutes does Paul Bissonette have? Maybe like, if you played like, maybe like, I don't want to get it way off. I'm going to say 1 ,200. 340 penalty minutes. Oh, jeez. But that was generous. That was way off. He acts like a tough guy. Yeah, he's a tough guy. He's tough. He's also a teddy bear deep down.

2:47:52We all know that. Yeah. He's an awesome guy. Yeah. All right, Dylan, thank you so much, man. We appreciate you coming by. And anytime you're in Chicago, come back by. We got to get you some ice cream, too. Perfect. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah. Dylan Strome was brought to you by Twisted Tea. It's a refreshing hard iced tea. It's made with real brewed tea, 5 % alcohol. It's the perfect drink to keep the good times going all day, all season long. whether you're hanging at a friend's house catching a game at the stadium or at the bar or day drinking with friends twisted tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time i love twisted tea love drinking it during football season had one monday night when i was watching the steelers and the texans i had a half and half at my house delicious doesn't fill you up grab a refreshing twisted tea today okay let's wrap up we got guys on chicks henry yes hit us hit us hit us bad boy

2:48:49I have a question about shh that's these are about weigh in tomorrow by the way boys are we nervous while Hank finds it are we nervous weigh in tomorrow it won't be as good as last week obviously I don't think it'll be bad memes got the flu the first weigh in so that was sick I think I'm gonna be down this week too oh from the flu so yeah so down from down last week so down also this week more down wow zachy it's your first win it is i'll probably come in either neutral or a little lower okay nice let's go boys max i i think it'll be good i think it'll be i think i'm gonna be a little lower i won't be as good as i was last week but i still think i'll be lower if i don't eat dinner i'm gonna come in like probably a half pound lower so we're skipping dinner okay go ahead hey pmt experts on the female experience my husband is in AWL.

2:49:41I have a male personal trainer in the gym. My husband tells me that you guys have mentioned on the show that men in that situation are naive. How can I assure him he has nothing to worry about? Tell him that it's not a personal gym instructor. It's a jujitsu instructor. He has nothing to worry about. Yeah. Not good. Not good. What not good? but I just think it's not good. It's awkward, but listen, you trust your girlfriend, you trust your significant other, you'll be fine. Why not get a female personal trainer? That's a good question, Hank. I think what you have to do here - That's how you can assure him.

2:50:25To answer your question - Well, no, the real answer is a gay personal trainer. That's the sweet spot. You got to tell him this guy's gay, you guys hang out, you work out, and you talk about heated rivalry. my girlfriend started seeing this guy they've only gone on two dates so far oh it's a girl saying this but he's hit her with at least 10 babe via text and love should she run for the hills or is it normal boy behavior he's 35 and she's 31 if that adds any context when you say love is he like calling her love thanks love or babe he's using those he's interchanging those thanks love is he British babe is weird British would change it if we're British it would be very normal thanks Ben if he's Australian he's like thanks cunt

2:51:20completely different meaning if he's American I think that's weird yeah if it's American he better at least be like a die hard soccer fan yeah he pretends that he's British babe makes me feel he gives me like the heebie jeebies can't say that hey babe yeah i think the 35 to 31 thing is nothing i the only thing it says is like hey if you're getting to the point where you want to settle down yeah if the worst thing that he says is babe it's okay yeah 35 and 31 that you're the same age yeah yes you become the same age how old are you 32 you become the same age basically after 25 it's like tranches it's like 25 to 30 30 to 35 35 to 40 then 40 plus so like kind of all the same yeah like that yeah hey PMT boys with 2026 finally here what steps are we taking as a group to take care of ourselves not only nutritionally but mentally with the volume of content that gets produced in Chicago it's important to have a healthy work life balance so AWLs like myself can enjoy this content for years maybe decades to come go birds is this a trick question because I feel like we had the same question we might have memes is saying that we We already did that question.

2:52:32What did we say? I think we said exercise. Yeah. Oh, I might have been looking at the last batch. I'm going to smoke better weed. Oh, yeah. This is when I said I'm actually okay. Follow up from last week. I stopped doing the coffee memes and I have started. I do not get on my phone until 8 a.m. And it's actually been really nice. Like I get up. I get my kids ready for school. I drop them off to school. Then when I drop them off to school, then I sit outside the school for like 15 minutes and doom scroll. but it's a nice start to the day at least you're not waking up that way right exactly i recently took a look at my my health app on my iphone and you know it says like your steps per day on there and i shouldn't have done this but i scrolled back on it like for the yearly total and i'm just seeing the last seven years it's just it's a mountain oh yeah going downhill yeah so now i'm like i'm just getting my steps in yeah we gotta get steps in i saw you on the treadmill i did the treadmill i did some squats today dude i've been doing that too i've just been doing a mile and a half on the treadmill i'm back i'm back my steps are going to be all-time high this year that's that's my resolution you know what's crazy more steps even doing a mile and a half walking on the treadmill it sucks yeah it does it's way more boring than running it sucks i've realized that any type of exercise sucks you don't think it sucks max nah my own oh i don't do it on the treadmills treadmills in themselves are inherently variable you're right you're right i should start doing it outside like me and my fiancee have been going to we've been doing we've been walking around the track of our of our gym it has like an indoor track of the club of the club yeah and like that's that's like absolutely fine because we're talking about random shit and it goes by quickly i have you're probably talking about what you're gonna have for dinner yeah honestly every single time i'm not shaming you every single i realized that like i think i realized that over Christmas break, like, I don't know, 75 % of conversations is just what are we going to have for dinner?

2:54:32We were planning out what we were going to eat not only for dinner last night, but for every meal the rest of this week. Are you getting recognized at the club? Too much. Anyone who's listening, if I'm in a towel in the locker room, please do not come up to me at the club. Well, at least you don't have his dad. Wait until he takes the towel off and he's completely naked. I got a club. I go to a club, but it's more geared for my kids, and it's like a bunch of kids go there after school, so I get the recognized, but it's like 16-year-olds. That's tough. Yeah, that's no good. The locker room recognized thing is...

2:55:12It's awkward. And it's where I get... Because it's the closest face-to-face interaction, so it's where the people feel the most comfortable to say something and it's the least comfortable i feel yeah remember when you tried to fuck that dude yeah you're gonna have to narrow it down a little bit no i know i know what you're talking about i i had somebody call me a liar for that the other day somebody was like remember when pft made up that story about the gym locker room it's like why would i why would i make up the guy trying to fight me in the locker room yeah but yeah it happened to be one time max in the steam room and that was really strange and the guy waited for everyone else to leave I probably tried to fuck that guy he'd give you a bracelet yeah I like talking to people but there's something about if I'm in the towel I'm already uncomfortable in the towel and then it's like if I'm clothed clothed is good go for it is that it?

2:56:11great show boys Great show Numbers Now I did three Oh 22 Are we gonna get the new machine? Yeah It's expensive But it'll be ready It's worth every dollar It'll be ready in a month It's worth every dollar What does it look like? I'll show you Is it big? Yeah Is it awesome? It's an upgrade I fucking love it But did you make it not too big? Because if we all get it We're gonna have to make it an even bigger one The starting price point is This is like the worst model. So we're kind of stuck. No, we got to keep going bigger. Right. Yeah. But it's just going to be more and more expensive. There was a catalog I was looking at, and it was like, oh, let's get this one.

2:56:59That's$100 ,000. All right. We'll have to get that someday. We'll do the show forever, and we'll get it. 13. Memes, you said three. What did you say, Hank? 22. What do you guys got in the booth? 77. 66. 8. 99 put. 10. I'm going to go 71. Jake Elliott's extra point percentage.

2:57:27Damn. 40. 40. 40. I didn't say 40. Nope. Nobody said 40. We're going to be 41. This next one can select multiple balls at the same time. Do we care about that? Being 41 is the same. I think it's the same. It's the same. I feel nothing about my birthday this year. Like you said, the tranche is 40+. Yeah, we're in the tranche. We're in the extra. We're in the ready to die. Yeah. Love you guys. Why? Love you guys. Happy birthday to Dave. Also, Zach, my clock is dead wrong. Dave didn't hear that. Happy birthday, Dave.

2:58:12Thank you.

2:58:42Thank you.

2:59:17Thank you.

2:59:42Thank you.

3:00:01Right.