PMS 2.0 1435 - Watt Wednesday, Shams Charania, Stanford Steve, AQ Shipley, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

18:25Pat McAfee:Listen, that's all I want to hear. Shout out, Josh. You don't need to say everything that comes into that brain, okay? You can go ahead and filter something. I'm just refreshing memories. So I don't know how long ago this was. Was this after the Brandon Miller on court? Several years after. We got to do some. Now, how could it be several years? It was like this year. It was. It was like a month ago. But he says in the interview, like, I haven't picked up a basketball in years. The last time I picked it up was, insert story. No, no. We got to figure out the years. He said he hadn't picked up a basketball in years whenever he was asked to shoot the free throw.

19:01Pat McAfee:That's why he felt the pressure. So, Pat, me as a listener, I'm hearing that. And I'm like, what's years? Is years five years, six years? I know for sure he picked up a ball in 2022. So that's probably. There you go. The air ball and free throw. He said, I'm never doing that again. I'm going to go golf. And then he did it. And then he made it. So the ending, for our fantasy purposes, we'll just. No. No. For reality.

19:23AQ Shipley:Remember the camp, too, where the kids, it was like if he makes every shot or if he misses one shot. Chris Paul, I think. How many years ago was that?

19:30Pat McAfee:It was 2020, maybe 2019. That feels like it was a little longer ago. That was the FD kids. Yeah, if you make every single shot. If he misses one of these shots, everybody in here gets free Jordans. Free Jordans. Yeah, yeah, right. I don't think so. I will say, though, Pat, I think the return of players, whether at Amazon, NBC, we're seeing a lot of former players up there. And I love it. I mean, back when I was at FanDuel TV, worked closely with Chandler Parsons, Lou Williams. We had DeMarcus Cousins on, Iman Shumpert, Evan Turner, guys that would come on. And from my purposes, I know what I do.

20:08and it's always refreshing to hear the experts, the people that were in it, that lived and breathed it. I mean, you guys, you, DB, AJ, the other AJ, like you guys have that experience, the expertise that I think the fans hopefully can get and absorb that.

20:26Pat McAfee:Yeah, me, AJ's into D, but always try our best to just kind of give our perspective. But we think everybody obviously is a good voice to be heard. Now, when some people take themselves a little bit too serious that they've ever done, they're going to get buried every once in a while by some people. But that's the game that we're in. That's the world that we live in. And we appreciate what you do because we obviously can't do that. But I'm excited to hear the former NBA legends commentate all year long. Now, let's talk about a legend that is currently not playing but still in the league and has played against all the guys that are currently on TV now.

20:56Pat McAfee:LeBron James. So he has a sciatica in the back there with the Los Angeles Lakers. Three to four weeks is what it was being said. Obviously, at this stage of his career, this might be beneficial for him long-term if he misses three to four weeks' worth of games here at the beginning, whenever obviously at the end of the year is whenever you're going to need LeBron James at his absolute best. Last year, he was flying around like he was a 29-year-old still. They were expecting him to do that. Luka obviously brought in to be the future of the franchise. Are we about to enter LeBron James, sit in the corner, let Luka cook?

21:29Pat McAfee:Maybe LeBron James save the legs a little bit, still be able to dominate. Nate, is this a new era of LeBron James basketball with the Lakers? And when are we expecting him to be actually back with the Los Angeles Lakers? Watching the Lakers last night, I think they need LeBron James, who's going to be there, have the ball in his hands whenever Luka doesn't have the ball in his hands. And Austin Reeves is either off the court playing off the ball. They need LeBron James to beat LeBron James. That's what I saw last night. I mean, a top 15 player last year, he was on an all NBA team. and this sciatica that we talk about right on his right side um it is important to note here pat i'm told he first had this back situation occur late july early august in an on-court workout i'm told he's working out with tyrese maxey and zach levine and he felt something in his back and then he ends up getting tests and things of that sort and so this is an injury that's been described to me and i think draymond green spoke about it last night that it comes and goes you feel it you don't really have like a set timeline or there's it's not like there's a a treatment that you just do and it just heals it's time it's how you feel and i think there was maybe a notion that he'd feel better by now but obviously he needs time because all of the the off he didn't have an off season so all that time that he missed you know we're usually accustomed to seeing lebron in august and september post these 6 a.m workouts we only saw that really for a couple weeks this summer so he didn't have that routine normal lebron james off season and so i think this this training camp i think right now is a lot about him getting back into basketball shape and being able to go out there and play uh with the proper conditioning that we're accustomed to seeing him play because he's not a guy that's going to come in the game and just stand in the corner i don't see that from lebron james this year never say never where that could be next year or he keeps playing or you know how the second half of the year goes if he's not able to be back physically but i am told he's doing more and more on the court but sources tell me he's going to be very very patient uh with this injury and i'm told the lakers and lebron are looking at mid november ish for him to make his debut so we're still looking at some time here before he's going to be able to be back out on the court there's still some boxes he's got to check and in the meantime you know he's sitting there watching this team and you know i think back rich paul told me the day that LeBron James opted in that they just want a realistic chance.

23:52LeBron James just wants a realistic chance of winning a championship. And I think we're going to see how this team looks. And watching this team, I can only help but reread Rich Paul's statement to me back on, I think it was June 30th. And kind of that message that they had was a cry for help. We want this team to be as loaded, as stacked as possible so we can have a chance to win a championship and you know we'll see i'm not going to panic over one game i'm sure laker fans panic but we'll see how this team looks as the next few weeks go on deandre ayton right was brought in for

24:26Pat McAfee:the los angeles lakers now they're getting an opportunity obviously see what the roster is without lebron playing you talked about him not being standing the corner guy at this stage and june 30th text from rich paul about wanting to win a title it's like if lebron can continue to be the freight train that he has been he's a modern marvel this guy like he is an actual and then We don't even have to go back to the Olympics. It's insane. It's insane. He's about to be 41 in December, and the fact that he's playing at this level, that's why I can never picture him standing in the corner. I think a lot of scouts, a lot of teams would agree, these Lakers need LeBron James to be LeBron James for this team to have a chance to really contend and compete for a championship.

25:08So if he is a stand-in-the-corner player, I think that's going to shift the balance of powers a lot.

25:14Pat McAfee:Yeah, LeBron James on your team, on your roster. Need him to be LeBron James to win. It's like, I'm excited to see how long that can last. Because remember, it's been like the last three, four years where they're like, LeBron James can't just be the ball dominant, run heavy at the age that he's going, especially. They're running on hardwood. Think about how big he is, the joints, everything like that. They talk about the body and everything, the travel schedule, the lack of rest, all the shit that NBA players talk about. This dude's 41 years old and he's bigger than everybody. He's somehow still doing it all.

25:40Pat McAfee:The guy is an absolute physical specimen. and I can't wait to see him back. So what it sounds like you're saying is his sciatica might not be still hurting right now, but he needs to get back into game shape is what we're hearing. And through this process, the sciatica might pop up a little bit because it's kind of a sporadic. This sciatic is a little sporadic. Okay, that's pretty good. A couple bars there, actually. So that whole thing to think about certainly going forward in my life. But it is a sporadic thing, so it might pop up. But mostly this is him training to get into season shape at the moment is how your kind of feel your feel is for the situation.

26:16He went a little over a month before September 29th, which was media day and training camp. He went over a month prior to that. So we're thinking late August, mid-August. He went that far without touching a basketball, like real, real live basketball action. so you're already behind the eight ball when you're starting training camp and you haven't really done live basketball you haven't been your routine normal off season so he's he is playing catch up in a lot of ways as far as his conditioning and i'm sure he's looking great in his individual workouts he's got to get to the point where he's feeling like lebron james he's able to move like lebron james but listen in the meantime and even as we move forward i think a lot with the lakers changed once they got Luka Doncic.

27:00Like, Luka Doncic has been the guy. He is the guy for this team. He is the new face of this franchise. And so, yeah, they need LeBron James to be LeBron James. But Luka Doncic is 20. I think he just turned 26. Like, he is supposed to be that guy. If you're asking for LeBron James to be LeBron James, which is probably on this team having the ball when Luka doesn't have the ball, probably being the 1A, 1B option. but you need Luka Doncic to be the face of your franchise as well. We saw that last night. He was absolutely brilliant. He played great basketball, didn't force the action and the numbers he put up at the end, just unbelievable.

27:37Pat McAfee:Yeah, one assist away from a triple-double. He goes for 43-12-9, okay? And Lakers lose to the Warriors. The Warriors improved to 27-8 when Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, and Draymond Green all play, including regular season and playoffs. Jimmy Butler III, 31 points, his most in a regular season game since joining the Warriors. And Luka Doncic, 43 points, most in a season opener by a Lakers player since Kobe Bryant in 2007. So obviously, Luka comes in in great shape playing his best ball. Are the Lakers poised to go on a championship run? And if they're not, what does that mean for LeBron? San Antonio, San Antonio.

28:18Oh! Oh!

28:28Pat McAfee:Is that what you're saying about that June 30th message? That sounded like a meteor. I think that's what that was. The sound you guys just made is like a meteor hit. The meteor might hit. You never know. Oh, he's saying that thing. It's buzzing. It's buzzing. We know when LeBron James has been on the court. We saw with the message from Rich Paul. Like, they want – like, he – in his mind, he's about to be 41 years old, year 23, never been done before. It's about having a realistic chance to win. And only time can tell. You know, one game isn't going to decide the Lakers' season. Oh!

29:06Pat McAfee:All right. There was another trade. We're not talking about LeBron being traded at this moment. We're just saying, hey, these things are all obviously being chatted about. There was a trade last year that obviously rattled the entire industry, rattled the entire sports world. on the same night as the Royal Rumble in Indianapolis, Indiana. There was a trade that sent Luka to Los Angeles to become the face of the Lakers. He looks better than ever, but at the time, it was earth-shattering info that maybe not everybody had. Go ahead, D-Bud.

29:29AQ Shipley:Yeah, absolutely. Talk about longevity. LeBron, first player to play with his son, and his son is making rounds now on the Internet. See some Internet reports. I want you to clear this up for me. Did you text Bronny James to break the Luka trade, or how did this work with him sending that into the Lakers group chat, Shams? Can we pull that tweet up? Sure. Can we pull that tweet up? Boom.

29:53AQ Shipley:What's the tweet? I can't even – I can't see it. We have it up. So he put my tweet – see, some people hit me. They're like, yo, why are you – why is it coming out that you were texting players? I'm like, what are you talking about? It says right there. So they're saying that Bronny posted my tweet in the Lakers group chat.

30:15Pat McAfee:That's right. that's right you told him to do that you told him to do that i think i had time i don't think i had time to text anyone that night i i had time to pick up like five phone calls that night you being one of them pat you being one of my hands were shaking they were like like literally literally literally i was i was sweating bullets i was like i don't want a typo this is you have typos and tweets this is not the tweet for a type yeah you know this this is not the tweet for a but you got to make sure you're on it you can't have any detail wrong and i i the only people i was texting were my sources on the story so about five people i was talking to the last call i had this is exactly how the call went i picked up i said did this really happen and the person goes yeah and did that's it hung up i i didn't even have to say what it was they didn't have to say what it was, we knew it, and maybe 20 seconds later, I put it out.

31:12Pat McAfee:How about self-censoring there in that big of a moment? This is a family-friendly airways. I can take advantage of the platform. You're a senior NBA insider. You need to make sure you... Watch your mouth. You need to watch your mouth. I'm about sick of your mouth, too, the way you've been talking about these stories. You need to Slow it down, Sean. That's obviously the tweet heard around the world very quickly. Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame tweet. Hall of Fame break. So, no, to clear up, DB, I did not text Bronny James anything about anything that night or really any night. But, you know, that night was five people I was in constant communication with over a seven-minute period.

32:01And then my phone started going crazy. A lot of sources. picked up my guy Tom DeCorty's call, SportsCenter producer. Shout out to him. You obviously called. So there were a few, there were a couple GMs I picked up, a couple other people, but yeah, there it is. There it is.

32:18Pat McAfee:Yeah, this doesn't even count for people that screenshot it and posted it themselves. I mean, this thing's over a billion, obviously. No typos, great capitalized letters there. I think you really pieced it together well. Thank God. I will say his hands were shaky strictly because I did FaceTime him, and it was like he was in that moment of like, holy shit, like it just happened, you know? And I was telling him he got hacked. I think everybody's probably telling you that. And you knew I was woefully unprepared because when I had glasses on, you've seen my... You're one of the few people that have seen, you know, the hair without the hair.

32:51Pat McAfee:Shams looks very cool without it all kind of, you know, buttoned up. Just like whenever he's not saying words. Yeah, exactly. You know, like, Shams got a little messy hair, and he's not doing king. You know what I mean? And he is, there's two Shamses here. And we appreciate this Shams, obviously.

33:07AQ Shipley:I expect the Shams to be a wake up and make the bed type of guy, too. I know you're in a hotel, but, gee, Shams. The best mate, what are you talking about?

33:14Pat McAfee:No, right there over your left shoulder, brother. It's right there on the. That's mate poorly. Oh, man. You kidding me? What? Are you four years old? That's mate. Am I true? What are you putting it on the counter for? What's it on the side table for? What's that? We might have a little straggler on the side, but it's a made bet over here. Who made it? Helen Keller? Jeez. Come on, Choms. Helen Keller would have felt that on the side. That's a good point. It would be better. You're right, dude. Helen Keller would have felt that if I had to get it. Because that was, right? Yeah. That was her entire means.

33:53Pat McAfee:That's wild. The amount of patience. Oh. We don't have to get into that. No. We don't want to get into that. But let's talk about patience. There's going to have to be some in New York, you know, because we're all figuring it out. Go ahead, Con, man. Yeah, Shams, as a Celtics fan, I just try and rile Bruce up as much as I can because he loves the Knicks, and he actually is kind of pissed off today because Carl Anthony Towns, one, is questionable for tonight, and two, said that he doesn't really know what his role in the offense is with their new coach, Mike Braun. So what's going on with the Knicks?

34:27Did they kind of build a team for Thibodeau style, and now they're realizing that they have to completely change the team because Mike Brown's style is different? What do you kind of expect the Knicks to be this year? And am I wrong in thinking that the Cavaliers are going to win by 50 tonight? No, I mean, the Knicks and the Cavs have the pressure going into this season to be coming out of the East. I mean, Orlando, Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, if healthy, Boston's going to always be competitive. And we'll see Jason Tatum, the way he looks. I'm sure he really wants to come back this season.

35:05But yeah, I mean, that's the pressure that they have. When you fire Tom Thibodeau after making it to the conference finals, you know it's championship robust. Mike Brown is entering a championship robust situation. The Knicks roster knows it. But even the players in Cleveland know that this is a championship-type season, championship-robust season. That's what's on the line, at least getting to the finals. So what comes with that, of course, there's going to be growing pains. I think Jalen Brunson, Carinthine Towns, O 'Giann Inovey, Mikhail Bridges, all trying to figure out exactly how Mike Brown is as a coach, his offensive systems and all that.

35:38But honestly, BC, the thing that I'm more worried about than anything is the fact that this team in New York right now is so – you know like they're dealing with injuries like they're they're banged up already in the season hasn't started Mitchell Robinson is out tonight Josh Hart is out tonight those are that's your starting center and essentially your sixth man who basically can be a starter for your team so you're already starting the year and those two guys I'm I I think there's a very real chance they're missing real time to start the year Mitchell Robinson it's been touch and go with him all throughout the last couple years.

36:13He's had ankle surgery, ankle surgeries. He's had time off. He only played, I think, 17 games, 18 games or whatever last season. So this is a team. They need to be healthy. They need Mitchell Robinson. I'm more concerned right now about how banged up they are. Even Cat, he's dealing with a quad strain. We'll see if he plays tonight. I would expect him to try everything he can to play. He's been playing through a ton of pain throughout the last few years so um i'm more concerned about their health i watched cat run up and down that

36:43Pat McAfee:court against the pacers with these eyes right here i'm happy i'm not that tall he's lugging i mean it was boom after about 40 times of that i don't know how a body that large kind of continues to go he was a weapon for him whenever he was balling them oh yeah big per was killing it for the next year for a while big games obviously tonight and uh last question obviously comes from ty about a an ex big man go ahead ty yeah shams we need an update new season's uh officially started zion looks absolutely jacked he's no longer a fatso which everyone absolutely loves uh what does this mean for the pelicans i feel like we've been doing this you know the last five years early ever since he's drafted now you know it's kind of they gave him the keys okay and And is he going to be able to take him to the playoffs?

37:33What's going on with Zion and the Pelicans? I'm looking at their injury report, and all of their main players are healthy. Kevon Looney, their backup big, he's out to start the year. But everyone else that matters is healthy, and that's the only thing that matters for the Pelicans. When Zion Williamson's on the court, we know he leads to winning and he leads to success. The problem is he has not been able to stay on the court, and then when he misses time with soft tissue injuries, He obviously, you know, he looks different than before. And he also sets them back conditioning-wise, his basketball shape, and it prolongs his time period.

38:11And the Pelicans, trying to look out for him, set these expectations and set these ground rules. But they do have a new management in there. Joe Dumars is the new president of basketball operations there. David Griffin. Let him play. Let him play. He's one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three, four-on-four, five on five well let's hope it doesn't get to that point this this season with him but joe dumars i will say this he's the guy that's won a championship he's he was a champion with the bad boy pistons then he was the gm of the of the pistons in the 2000s when they won a championship then he's been a part of building cultures building teams and he's holding zion williamson accountable i think this is for the first time in his career he's had a voice like this really hold him accountable.

38:57This is a pretty make-or-break season for Zion Williamson, for the Pelicans, see how this team looks. When he's on the court, we know what we get. He looks like he's in shape this year.

39:07Pat McAfee:Yes, he is. We appreciate it. Let's go, Zion! Come on! Let's go! Zion respects the art of being a chef. He dabbles every once in a while. He just doesn't do as much working out as he's supposed to do. Then all of a sudden, everybody says with his style, the way he is built, They say, this guy's fat. Then he goes on the court. He has a quadruple double somehow. Okay? And that's just the Zion Williamson story. Everybody looks at him, says he can't do it. And then down there in the Pelicans are like, well, we need him to be able to run 45 wind sprints. It's like, can we just get fucking five minutes out of this guy?

39:38Pat McAfee:Because he puts the ball in a hoop and then he finds somebody. He's electrifying whenever he plays. He is dominant whenever he plays. So if we get a Zion Williamson, we've been pulling for this for like a half decade now. Long time. Long time since I started seeing him dunk. I've said this numerous times. Look at this. Look at this. Boom. He's been doing that on little tiny white kids in South Carolina on the internet since I'm what, like 25 years old? For sure. I'm 38 right now. Yeah. So he's been doing that a long time. I have followed Zion's story. The shoe blowout, the whole thing. I love how he is so explosive.

40:11Pat McAfee:He is such an explosive athlete. Like they don't make a lot of humans in the history of the world that are as explosive as Zion. To be able to be as big as he's always been and to be able to do what he does at the effortlessness that he does it, it's like, this is a special talent. Then he gets the Pelicans, and they all have him on court. And he has good vibes, too. Like, he's a jovial guy. Yeah, that's why it sucks. He's got himself into some stuff off court. No doubt. Because he's, ah! Yeah, exactly. You know, so it's an interesting dynamic down there with him in the Pelicans. And then they pay him a bunch of money, and they're like, yeah, we're still not going to let you play, though.

40:43You've got to be able to see more out of you.

40:46Pat McAfee:I don't know if I'm ever going to get that. They've got to do a fucking chef right down the street right here. I don't know if you want that. Now they're going to let him out there? I hope it happens. Let's go, Zion. Let's go. Looking back on it, it's crazy how him and Ja went one and two and how their careers have both gone. They've both been paid. They've both been very successful. But very two different controversial number one and number two overall picks now. And they can wrap it up in the Hall of Fame. Hell yeah. And that's what it's all about. That's the thing. Both of them have a chance here, still have a trajectory line here.

41:16Yeah. to make a great second half. These guys are still so young. It's scary. These guys are like 25 years old. We're talking about how they're going to finish their career. They have their whole 26, however old they are. They have their whole career. But I think everyone in the league would love, even fans of his, other players, they'd love to see him put together a 70-game season. The way he's dunking, he should be in the dunk contest. Try to lead this team to the play-in playoffs. That's what everyone's been waiting for. Come on, Zion.

41:47AQ Shipley:Let's be real. I mean, don't they play 82? We just saw the GOAT last night. 82 games. Well, 70 would be great. Let's get Zion to play 35. Yeah. All right. Let's put him on the court.

41:59Pat McAfee:That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That doesn't sound like what I'm saying. Listen, I'm a big Zion guy. First of all, I liked fat Zion, so I don't know if I love new Jack Zion. We'll see if he's the same guy. Connor said he's very jovial. So being very jovial is a fat guy trait. That's not really like a jack guy trait. That's true. We'll see. Everyone here. Bingo. In the room. Yeah, living, breathing embodiment right here. Yeah. Two different people. We'll see. AQ and AJ. Yeah, but you know what? To be a dog, maybe he has to be a little miserable, a little hungry. You're right. Maybe that's the new sign.

42:33Pat McAfee:Wait, AQ or? What's that? AJ? Okay. All right. All right. I forgot about that. Yeah. That was you, Shams Insider. but not for football, obviously, or the program. Last question here from D-Bott for you. Big debut tonight.

42:48AQ Shipley:Oh, yeah, going from one Duke number one pick to another one. Cooper Flagg, what should we expect from his usage? Heard some reports about him being a point guard for the Mavs. What should we expect from Cooper Flagg? I think he's going to spend a lot of the early part of the year at point guard. We'll see what the final starting lineup is, but the way they finished the preseason was D 'Angelo Russell coming off the bench and Cooper Flagg as the point guard. I mean, this guy does everything. He's able to impact the game on every single level already in the league. So I think it's going to be very interesting to see not a playmaking game so early in his career.

43:24They're kind of experimenting with it. Kyrie Irving, we'll see when he's going to be back. Obviously, that's their point guard when he's healthy. But in the meantime, I think they're going to put him in position pretty early.

43:36Pat McAfee:Jason Kidd says we got him. This whole them getting number one overall pick with this Cooper flag main event generational type talent after the Luka trade that we just talked about having at least a billion views and becoming the topic of conversation. It's certainly some conspiracy fodder, and your name is involved in all of them, including group text. We appreciate the hell out of you for joining us, Shams. Have a great NBA season. Appreciate you guys. Happy NBA season. We'll be talking soon. Let's see that. Let's see that better real quick one more time. Can we just so we see that? Hey, hey, hey.

44:03Look at this. Look at this. That's a made bed. No, it's not. Look at the pillows. Why are the blankets?

44:08Pat McAfee:Hold on. Look at the blankets on the left side, too. This is like your thing? You put them up on the side tables? No, no, no. We have some stragglers here. It's a big bed. I love my comforters. Maybe I got double comforters here. The pillows are up.

44:25AQ Shipley:Oh, double comforter.

44:27Pat McAfee:Look, this one's on the table. Oh, yeah, on the left. And it's over here, too. Keep moving, Sean. On your right, Sean. The other side, too. This one's over here. It's on a table, right? Isn't it, Choms? Maybe the comforter is so big you can't tell. Well, get a comforter that's big enough for your bed that fits the size of your bed. But I also, how do you not know when you're making the bed? Because you have to be pooled. Oh, no, I got an extra six feet here. Actually, there's a chance that Choms does. You ever see those people jump in the pool feet first and then they go all the way down? Yeah.

45:02Pat McAfee:Shams actually goes in the top, under the counter. Yeah, you're right. So he doesn't even have to pull them up. I think this is a seven, seven and a half rated make the bed moment, right? Oh, my God. Seven and a half? You are disrespected. A lot of made beds right now. Nice spirits. You're out of control. Ladies and gentlemen, Shams from Ronnie. Yeah, Shams. So he pulled those up, right? Unless he did the, which he could have, or from the bottom. Yeah, bottom slide. Which he could have done. You think that's what he did, right? For sure. And that's what he might do, too, when he gets in bed. He might just throw them up as fast as possible.

45:45Pat McAfee:There's a chance. Yeah. I mean, there's a chance with Shams. He's so dialed in into, you know, having conversations, building relationships, getting inside information. Outside of that, I don't know Shams, you know? I don't know with him. No. I never know with shops. Yeah. But that's why we love them. Bingham. Well said. The water alarms. What's that? Drink water alarms. Yeah. Lunch. Oatmeal. He put a fork and oatmeal. Yeah. That's certainly a move. That's a decision that was made. Wife had a little potato soup the other day. Ooh. It was thick, though. Didn't know if I should go with the spoon or the fork, you know, because there was little bacon bits on top as well.

46:24Pat McAfee:One with spoon. I am a fork user, though. I think I would rather fork than spoon basically nine times out of ten. I think I'm more of a fork guy. That is very interesting because I've been having the same debacle with my microwave meals, and I have learned that I am a spoon guy no matter what. Really? Yeah, like I've been eating just steak and rice, little pre-made ones. So you'll go down in the corner and use that thing as a shovel. Bingo. That's where I come in and I have problems because my guys, you know, pitchforky, they can't get it all. So I got to turn this on to sideways. Sideways. And I'm trailing this way.

46:59Pat McAfee:You see, you guys are doing a little bit of this, it feels like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I still use sporks.

47:04AQ Shipley:Yeah. Boom. What's that, buddy? I still use sporks. That's how we used to elementary school.

47:08Pat McAfee:You go into your kitchen.

47:09AQ Shipley:Mm-hmm.

47:10Pat McAfee:Oh, that's a pretty good day. Let me go ahead and get a paper plate for sure. That's my house.

47:14AQ Shipley:I'm big paper plate. Come on now.

47:15Pat McAfee:Paper plate for sure. Let me pull that out. Let me go ahead and open this drawer right here. Spork.

47:19AQ Shipley:Yep. Got spoons, butter knives, forks, sporks. Metal. Always love it. Metal silverware. Spork? Metal sporks? Custom. One of one. Wow. Always available. Always. If you have sporks, I'm so jealous. I haven't been jealous like this ever. Silverware sporks? If you have metal sporks.

47:40Pat McAfee:Yeah, because you only think of spork being the plastic or the shite. Exactly. Oh, yeah. It took months to come in. KFC, right? They're the only ones? Yep. KFC is the plastic sporks, right?

47:50AQ Shipley:That's the model we use.

47:51Pat McAfee:Say, hey, we need to say actual match the rest of the set. Going to camp. That's like a little chipper on the side of the green. You know, it's just like perfect for the occasion. It's high unduffable. Exactly. The unduffable silverware. That is exactly right. Ice cream, soup, spaghetti, doesn't matter. Oh, my God. What the hell? That is the right move. I don't have a sport. Ice cream cracking through. And then, don't worry, I got you. It says the spoon. Oh, my God. Everything. Spaghet is. I mean, boy, because usually you get the big serving spoon with the fork to kind of twist if you want. All in one.

48:28Fuck it. That's for the birds. Get a spork. Yeah, both of them.

48:31Pat McAfee:Yeah. You guys use scissors while you're eating spaghetti? Sometimes. Sometimes. I think I'm out on spaghetti. Just as a whole? Yeah, I think I'm a pete guy. Yeah, I think pete pasta is fantastic. Oh, my little linguines. Sure. I'll do that entire game. I agree. Spaghetti is my least favorite of the pastas. but boy do the Italians love having a good spaghetti like you go to an Italian's house yeah no thanks spaghetti I like would much rather the thicker one that has a little bit more like no you gotta try the spaghetti it's like okay I'll definitely do that but the other ones I think are better you guys should maybe take a little bit more pride in those ones than you do spaghetti why Nick why is the spaghetti always the one why is it just the orige it is the orige it's standard it's it's just the best option it goes with everything I see and that's what we're saying.

49:16Pat McAfee:We don't agree with you. We think the other one isn't much better. The penny one, the rigatone, not bad either. Both ties. Yeah, the both ties not bad. Tortellini. There's so many different options.

49:26AQ Shipley:I could never be out of spaghetti.

49:28Pat McAfee:No, that's because of the tradition of it, I think.

49:30AQ Shipley:Is that what you're doing? It's always there. It's tough times. Go a long way. It's good. Goes with everything.

49:36Pat McAfee:And also, you can get a little Parmesan on top of it. You don't even need the sauce or the gravy, whatever it is. For me, though, I don't like the... Yeah, I don't like sucking it up. I don't want to eat my food through a straw like you are with spaghetti. But you've got to be able to do the hanging. That's where the scissors come in. You do the twisty twist and then you do the scissors. Now, all of a sudden, guess what that is? That's a fat-ass rigatone all of a sudden riding your fork. And it's like, yep, I got to the final game that I was looking for here. Thank you for letting me do that. Nonetheless, shout out to the Italians.

50:05Pat McAfee:You guys got great food. Fazoli's. The only place you can eat spaghetes. Fazoli's, baby. It's the only place they do it, right? Everywhere else it tastes like cologne. Okay. That's not real. That's not real. The only Italian house has been wearing spaghets. Mmm. No thanks. Not good. No. Yeah, right. Terrible. Let's go to Hammer. Done. Done. Anthony DiGiulio, what the hell is going on out here with this conversation about bad skets out here and Vaseline's being the only good spaghetti? Sounds like a bunch of Irishmen talking about Italian food. Oh!

50:43Scottish, too. I'm a rigatone guy.

50:46Pat McAfee:Okay. Me too. Okay. So we're all on the same page, even the Italians know. No, me and you are not on the same page. Ever. Well, rigatone, you guys are pretty on the same page. Oh, what? You don't like pettone? Okay. Whatever. Guy's eating steak with a spoon. No, a spork action. No, that was D-butts. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right. You're right. When it's cut up already, you know, he's getting the pre-made meals, obviously, which a lot of people are doing now. They're so good. It feels like the chefs are getting good at distributing good food for people to get into shape. I think that's a good advancement of society that we have right now.

51:19Nothing makes me more mad than whenever they don't pronounce the vowel at the end. Prasout. Mozzarella. Who's they? Who's they? What the fuck are you talking about? Mozzarella. It's mozzarella. No, it's mozzarella. Yeah, technically it's prosciutto.

51:35Pat McAfee:Duh. No, it's gabagool. It's mozzarella. No, I hate it. Prasout. Yeah. Pronounce the vow at the end. You are. This is the Joe Donoru. Disgusting. This is a part of the problem. I didn't know this was the game. Let's go back to Hammer. Don, Don. Anthony DiGiulio. This is disgusting out here. Sick. Anthony DiGiulio. Why don't we just call him Anthony DiGiulio? We do. We do. We actually do call him. And there's an E-O at the end. Like E-I-E-I-O. So you would have to hit the E at least at the beginning. Anthony DiGiulio. I don't like what's going on here amongst the stage. I want to let the Italian conglomerate know that I am.01 % Italian.

52:13Pat McAfee:It's undocumented. And we love you. And grazie and prego for that. And I'm thinking about going to rent an Italian club and joining the Peperon. Yeah, sure. The Peperon. The Irwin Peperon. You should think about joining Coach Diggs' team instead. He's got a great team name for his boys. What's the name of the team? That's Tony. Tony, what's the name of the team? I can't remember. Isn't it the fight in Dang Nabots or something like that? I don't think that was the name, but they are a tough squad on that bocce court. They don't like playing on the rocks they got over there at Penn Hills, but we'll certainly get it figured out.

52:47Pat McAfee:Tone, we appreciate you, buddy, for sticking up for the Italians because it got disgusting out here. Yeah, that was gross. I love the Italians. Thanks a lot, AJ. Love the Italian food. Appreciate it, AJ. That was outrageous. The AJs. Yeah. That was good. Well, you should be going by fake name anyways with what you just said about the Italians. It might be smart for you to lay low for a little bit. I think they just need to pronounce the vowel at the end. That's it. Peperon. You're talking about a bocce team name. That's a brand. That's a brand name. Yeah, you're right. They don't cut that shit.

53:17We probably shouldn't rile up AQ Schipple anymore just because he might blow a gasket. All right.

53:23Pat McAfee:Let's talk about some of the news that happened around the sports world over the last 24 hours. The NHL did hit a home run. The NHL had a magical moment. the NHL did something and the Boston Bruins and the Boston Bruins fans did something that happened. And, you know, I don't want to say very rarely because it does happen. You know, like it feels like sports do try to pay respect to the people that have given to their team, to their cities, to their franchises. Now, everybody does it differently. You know, Jerry Jones said when Emmitt Smith came back, of course we fucking. For Maka, there's enough to say thank you.

54:00Pat McAfee:We said thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We're getting out of here. There's none of that. And here with the Colts, I got a chance to see Edron James, who obviously meant so much to the City and team. He got an entire video. I think Jeff Saturday did as well. Obviously, Peyton Manning did. So this does happen. This is something that does take place. But the way teams kind of do it and how the fans buy in and how the player receiving it kind of operates certainly makes the moment great or makes the moment bad. What Marshawn returning to Boston happened, that was some of the most beautiful shit I've ever seen in the history of sports.

54:31Pat McAfee:I damn near say. Now, obviously, there's breakthrough moments that have happened in sports that made the world a lot better. There's championship moments that will be iconized. Immortalized? Immortalized forever. There's the word I'm looking for. But it's like this moment right here, I think everybody's going to be trying to chase whenever they're trying to pay tribute to somebody who means so much for their city. How long was Marshy up in Boston? And on that note, you as Bruins fan watching this? I mean, I got teary-eyed watching this. I'm a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. I assume you did as well. Yeah, he was there for 16 years, and it was his whole career.

55:00It's not like he started somewhere else. He started in Boston, stayed in Boston, was the rookie young kid making a name for himself, was awesome right away, too. He's been the same player the entire time. And that's the stuff that really gets you, him and his kids. Because when he first came here, he didn't have an entire family. And his kids grew up here. And he talked about it after the fact. Yeah, it was very emotional for me driving into the stadium or the arena because then I started thinking about everything my kids have sacrificed and my family just to go from Boston to Florida in that sense, too, but also just supporting him through his entire hockey journey.

55:37I mean, the thing is, too, no one will ever wear the number 63 again in Boston, and Boston is an original six hockey team. It's a historic franchise. He's one of six players to ever score 1 ,000 points for the Boston Bruins, and you look at that list, and it's Bergeron, it's Bobby Orr, it's Ray Bork, it's legends of the game, and he's in that category. And I'm sure for him, being an undersized NHL player, you never imagine when you're starting out, like, yeah, I'm going to be a 20-year vet with my jersey retired in multiple places, and now he might be that. And he did leave the door open after the game.

56:13Like, I do see myself possibly coming back if the situation presents itself.

56:16Pat McAfee:Florida Panther, Marci, how did you feel watching that all take place?

56:20AQ Shipley:I mean, that was awesome. I love when places just celebrate their legends for sure. And now it took me back to last year when he was traded. The one time in however many years we worked together, that con man legitimately wanted to fight me. I came in after the trade, hit him on the back, and he, like, the look in his eyes was like, okay, this is real. And watching that, experiencing that, it took me back to them, okay, they really love this guy, and we love him too. And he loves them. Yeah.

56:45Pat McAfee:I like that he got emotional out there. Florida gets the win off a terrible, terrible bomb. Meant to be. The NHL was awesome. The NBA was incredible. The NFL is about to cook.

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57:59Pat McAfee:football is magical the nba uh tipped off its regular season last night the nhl had a magical moment with marshy returning back to the boston bruins and tomorrow week eight of the nfl season kicks off we're in the middle of a great time to be alive we thank you all for allowing us to do this for a living the toxic tables here at boston connor and at ty schmidt nine-year nfl vet darius j butler is here what are you wearing there i'm a clarin fit

58:23AQ Shipley:Nice hoodie. Two drivers trying to get their first championship this year.

58:28Pat McAfee:Is that the one that Vanderstoppens on?

58:30AQ Shipley:No. Verstappen. Verstappen.

58:36Pat McAfee:Max Verstappen.

58:37AQ Shipley:Max Verstappen. Are we driving G1? Max Verstappen. He actually is driving for Red Bull. Oh, really? Who's on McLaren? Is that a... That is... Let's see if you got it. I think you got it.

58:51Pat McAfee:That's Mr. Lewis Hamilton.

58:54AQ Shipley:Not Sir Hamilton, but he did just set the record for all-time points. Scored over 5 ,000 Ferrari.

58:59Pat McAfee:That's got to be either Oscar or Lando. Both of them. Boom. Boom. Boom. I will say I got assist on Lando. Come on, bro. I'm not going to assist on Oscar. I feel pretty good that I pulled Oscar up. Down under. Yeah, Pistorius. And I'll tell you what. No, no. That's not his name. He's from South Africa, too. I don't think that's down under. Yeah. Yeah. Poor little Ting Ting. If that whole thing wouldn't have happened. I know. I mean, who knows where we're sitting now. Truly. Nine-year and our 12-year NFL vet, Super Bowl champion, A.Q. Shipley. Thank you so much. A.Q. We're about to get into your takeaways, but please let me introduce a man who was a Hoffnum this year, but did not make it to the semifinal.

59:37Pat McAfee:But this is a kind of standard operating procedure from my experience. I was Hoffnum three times. A.J., I think, is going to go on to make the Hall of Fame, and he should. This guy's the all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. He is a college football national champion with the Ohio State Buckeyes. He's a Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers. And this man has a tree on a campus named after him. It's not just a redwood, Taylor. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Is it more of a Japanese maple or is it more of a redwood, the tree that you have on there, A.J.? It would be a Buckeye tree.

1:00:12You know, Ohio State Buckeyes, that's where I went to school. So that kind of makes sense.

1:00:16Pat McAfee:What does a Buckeye tree look like? Is that thing... Pretty sweet. Look them up. They look pretty sweet. You know, Buckeyes, you know, they grow on them. They're very hard. You could throw them at people if you want. Nuts. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. So what is the bill? Is it a... What is the bill? Is it a rounder? Is it a little Christmas tree? It's got a trunk, and then it goes up like that. Oh. Like an apple tree. I think I could take your little Buckeye tree with one of these. I don't think that's exactly a Buckeye tree right there. I think I could take that thing down with a shin kick.

1:00:47Pat McAfee:I think I could potentially get one of those right there. Is that AJ's tree right there? Do we just look up actually AJ Hawk's Buckeye? No. Do Buckeye trees normally sit amongst their friends? Is it normally like a wood? In the wild? I don't know how it works in the wild. It's called Buckeye Grove where they plant them so they're amongst their friends there for sure. You're telling me that I couldn't go shin kick that thing in half right there that I just saw? That thing on the internet that you pulled up, yes. You could definitely kick that little baby tree down i didn't pull it up i did okay on that note ai is cooking for these sports books in the nba okay we need to know that they're going to be throwing a hot hot hot hot hot baseball in this basketball odds world now gumpy obviously one half of the hammer down cowboys didn't even know there was nba action he was actually uh betting on kuso last night it was conference usa and then maybe some footy but there are people that are noted basketball gamblers and what we would like to let people know is they know what's going on okay these sports books know what's going on what was

1:01:48AQ Shipley:some of the bets that you had last night on kevin wayne i had him to go over his prop which i believe was at 23 and a half well i know at least in the book that i uh bet on it was at 23 and a half he ended up with 23 points in a double overtime game opening night which is tough um and then steph curry i believe his was maybe 24 points and uh he was one short as well so uh you know You bet on two all-time greats, open night. And, you know, they're right there. And they give you hope early because their shots are falling. Oh, yeah. Shots are falling.

1:02:19Pat McAfee:KD, he came out hot first half. Yeah. Cooking. And they're feeding him the ball. Mm-hmm. Of course. And then Big Turk and KD. It's like, wait a minute, these guys are the new – this is the new duo.

1:02:27AQ Shipley:Yeah, I think I made a decision to just bet on, especially after the conversation yesterday with the great Steve Nash, I think I'm just betting on the international guys going forward.

1:02:34Pat McAfee:Okay, because they're going to bop the wood. You know that.

1:02:37AQ Shipley:Lucas, Shingun, Joker, Giannis, SGA. Yeah, I think I'm going to go with those guys.

1:02:44Pat McAfee:Okay, not a bad idea. Let's go international heavy on the prop betting for the NBA. Just to kind of reiterate the fact about them knowing what the hell is going on, you mentioned a stat about the sportsbooks last night. Yeah, points and rebounds for KD was 28.5. He had 20-8 going into overtime, got one rebound in overtime to get the over 29, and then I guess in the double overtime he hit a three as well. So, I mean, without the overtime, a lot of bets don't hit last night, especially with Kevin Durant prop bets. SGA, too, just looks like he's shooting at a bigger bucket, AJ. This guy's special.

1:03:16Pat McAfee:I don't know how much of the games you got to see last night. The Oklahoma City-Houston Rockets game in Oklahoma City on banner night. And shout out to the boys that are currently on Houston. They got a chance to watch the banner fall and them get their ring. The rings were very... All right.

1:03:36Pat McAfee:A lot of ingenuity in their rings. So you're able to just pop off a ring and then basically get a smaller ring that you can wear out and about in public because nobody can wear Super Bowl rings except for Bruce Arians when he comes in here. And he puts this thing on and it literally looks like he's got, I don't know, some caricature of a ring on his hand. And it just makes noise. AQ needs to do that. But it's so big. I think a lot of people talk about it. There was even multiple tweets about how a lot of people say these Super Bowl rings and championship rings are getting too big. So for them to think past that and be like, oh, let's actually get a little ring inside of it.

1:04:07Pat McAfee:We can put all this stuff. Then the boys can wear that whenever they want to go out and about. And then obviously whenever we want to flex our shit, we can go ahead and put the bigger one on. This Oklahoma City team is special, AJ. That's what I think I watched last night. They're only going to continue to be that. Yeah, I'd actually like to attend a game there. I bet it's one of those places where if you go in person especially, you feel like the atmosphere and how they rally around the squad. I watched the whole pregame situation where they're getting their rings and all that. Man, Oklahoma City seems like the center of the basketball universe right now if you watch.

1:04:36Pat McAfee:Well, I mean, let's not get crazy, okay? Because we got the fever here doing obviously magical things. Great year. The Pacers obviously about to go off and do something magical with Rick Carlisle. But on that note, we all watched as Pacer fans last year during the finals like, damn, that place is awesome. That place is cool. And people like watching their style of play. Now, SGA was called foul merchant and all these things. He's just so much better than seemingly everybody on the court are just getting buckets. The guy will get a bucket whenever the hell he wants. They needed a two because Kevin Durant missed the free throw.

1:05:10Pat McAfee:Everybody's like, you can't miss that. If he would have made it and they needed a three, SGA's knocking down a step back three. That is just kind of who he is at this stage of his career. He's fun to watch, man. His mindset, too, is deadly.

1:05:21AQ Shipley:Yeah, and I've been loving watching some of the clips from the starting five that he has kind of behind the scenes, just his whole vibe and his mindset. I think a part of it, he was like, they asked him about a 30-point game, and he was like, that's a below-average game for me because obviously he averages more than 30 points. He is one great guy to bet on that note. But, yeah, he's a walking bucket. He's a clutch bucket. He can get it on all three levels. He can get to the rim. He can hit the mid-range, which is kind of a lost art at this point in the game. I love everything about SGA's game.

1:05:50AQ Shipley:And then hearing other great scorers kind of talk about him, James Harden was talking about how kind of easy the game has become for SGA at this point in time. So love watching him play. Yeah, and that's the other thing about some of these props, too. Like the big guys, like me and D-Butch were betting on KD. You know, you're never going to go wrong doing that. But if you were to bet Sangun, a guy like that who's always been good but now is starting the year super hot. The two. Yeah, the two, exactly. Like his odds are massive. And then there's another European guy playing for the Bulls, Matthias Buzelas.

1:06:20and he actually is one of those dudes people think are going to be really good. And like his odds to score are high. And when I say international, I mean he's from Illinois, but his name is Matthias Buzelas.

1:06:32Pat McAfee:Okay, so it sounds like at one point potentially family was not from here. Exactly. Which kind of sounds like everybody. Wait. Hold on. Wait. So we betting on everybody now. We're not getting into it. We're not doing that. Here's some stats from Hembo about last night's Oklahoma City-Houston game. SGA has scored 20-plus points in 73 straight games. Jesus Christ.

1:06:56Pat McAfee:This guy's unbelievable. I don't think you can bet on him to score 20 points. Yeah, won't even get an odd on that. Passing Kevin Durant and Michael Jordan for the fourth longest streak in NBA history. People have done it more. Okay, we shall see. Thunder outscored the Rockets 26-12 in points off turnovers. Kevin Durant took only three shots in the fourth quarter in OT, which certainly made Darius J. Butler pumped about betting on his over there, including zero in the first overtime. he's passing a lot. He was deferring a lot to others. I found that interesting. Obviously, new team, they'll kind of work through it.

1:07:23Pat McAfee:And then Singun here, the big Turk fella. First Rockets player with 35 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists in a season opener in franchise history. Rockets, their starting lineup had an average height of 82.2 inches, the tallest for any starting lineup in a season opener since starters were first tracked in 1970 and 1971. So, hey, Hembo, come on, bro. America, we need to know what that is. Yeah, and that's going to get broken tonight by the Mavericks. just for the record for tallest lineup ever if Cooper flags play in point guard. And then Wemby has an opportunity to potentially break that with any teammate that they bring in on any given whim.

1:07:55Pat McAfee:But on that note, 82.2 inches, 12, 24, 16, 17, another would be 12, 17, 18, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19. Six, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19. 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19. Now, that is us just saying what a high number would be in our mind. We didn't do the actual math there, right? Well, I just did, you know. 72 plus? 6 '10". Yeah, 12. 6 '10"? 12 times 5, you know. I was just saying a number that would be a big average. That's literally all I could do. 72 is 6 '10". Yep. So, 6 '10". 72 is 6'. Yeah, yeah. So, 7 feet is, yeah, 84 inches. Yeah. It's a tall team. They're playing at a different altitude, AJ, than anybody since the 1970-71 stat was created, AJ.

1:08:44Pat McAfee:Yeah, it's a tough team to handle, especially. Is that a good thing? I mean, is that always a great thing? Can they get back on D? I don't know. I mean, they lost. You're worried about them. You know how tall, you know how these big tall, you know, you watch in person. These guys are stopping and starting, getting back. Like, they are freak athletes. We know that for being 6 '10". SGA put Kevin Durant in a little bit of a blender, actually, to get him to foul out. Kevin Durant fouls out of last night's game. He was bummed out, too. I appreciated how much he cared. It was great, too. He was on.

1:09:10Pat McAfee:Effort, max effort. That's overtime, too. That's a lot of max effort on there. Like, he was in SGA's head. He's like, oh, he's going for it right now. SGA goes, I don't think so. And then gets him, bang. And it's like, you watch Kevin Durant. Damn. Like, that's not good. He walks out. Obviously, team needs him. And SGA just knocks those down. I mean, that's just what's going to happen.

1:09:28AQ Shipley:What did you think about how the Thundercrout boot KD? It seemed like he loved it. And he kind of spoke about it after the game, saying, like, you know, it's kind of in jest. That's just him.

1:09:37Pat McAfee:I mean, they love him. Obviously, started there a long time ago. Long time ago. A lot of teams ago. Great run there. obviously with Russ and Harden, and obviously everybody's had their own careers now since. They're kind of like The Shield, aren't they? A little bit. Yeah. Kind of like The Shield, Roman Reigns. That's somewhere he might go back. Like we were talking about LeBron, the era where he might sit in the corner. Like if KD were ever to be in that era, it feels like OKC would be the place he would go back to do that. Oh, my God, SGA? So Kevin Durant is sitting there like it's a practice drill?

1:10:08Pat McAfee:She was 60 % in three. Think about that lineup with, you know, it would be Chet, Harman Stein, KD, Caruso. Caruso dunking on dudes in the fourth, too. And OT, AJ. That was an overtime. That was the best. If you would have made that dunk, it would have been an earthquake in Oklahoma City. Like, this was so awesome. I mean, honestly, in his head right here, yo, I'm going. Don't care. Yo, I'm going. Caruso, we love it. We absolutely love it. Caruso has certainly found quite a home out there in Oklahoma City. Joining us now is a man who's found a home in the booth. on Sundays. He's getting comfortable.

1:10:41Pat McAfee:Showing different looks, showing different styles. Ladies and gentlemen, a first ballot Hall of Famer whenever the time comes. A member of the Bull Ring of Honor for the Houston Texans. Oh. Oh my God. The last member. Jeez Louise. I'm not into that ring. JJ Watt. JJ! Holy shit. I was prepared to come on and talk all nice about the Colts. I'm ready to talk nice and then you just want to come in hot hold on speaking of coming in hot yeah you know geez louise what i had to look at the tv up here just get a closer look you look so cool right now do you understand how cool you look right what is going on here because i saw the glasses in the booth obviously we've seen the hair come through a couple different things you said you were trying some stuff appreciate you guys having a good time what are you just enjoying life right now that's why you're doing i'm just messing around, man.

1:11:35I love it. These were $5 on Amazon. I just tossed them on. Just messing around. Having some fun.

1:11:42Pat McAfee:And look at the hair, too. You got strong hair. I'm trying to Connor. Nice. Don't worry about the back, brother. The flow on the top is your strength, dude. Yeah, let's keep this look right here. This is really good. You might even be able to take that son of a bitch up a little bit. You might be able to take that thing right over top there. Just, hey, you explore the space. You're doing a great job. We appreciate you. Let's talk a little bit. Did you watch any of the NBA games last night? Do you have any takes on that? I watched a little bit of it. My son was rustling around a little bit in the bed, so I was bouncing back and forth.

1:12:16I saw the end of regulation. I unfortunately did not see the end of two overtimes. Monday night really buried me staying up until 3 in the morning watching the Texans game.

1:12:25Pat McAfee:That was tough to stay up and watch, and we won't have to talk about the Texans anymore. I don't want to make you feel bad, especially with how good you look, but let's talk about the AFC South. Indianapolis Colts. I saw your tweet. I retweeted it. I don't know when you tweeted it, but I don't know. I just saw it. And your breakdown is everything that we have been kind of thinking as well from watching this team at the Loud House. But I do appreciate you having a chance to learn about them, talk to them, watch a game, call the game, especially against a team I think we all respect in the Chargers.

1:12:52Pat McAfee:What are your thoughts on the Indianapolis Colts other than just this tweet? And they're for real, right? It feels like they're actually for real, Jage. It's pretty incredible. You know, having heard about them all season long and finally being able to call one of their games, the offensive efficiency. I mean, I just sit up there in the booth and I'm watching as a coordinator. Let's say you're a defensive coordinator. I'm like, OK, what's my game plan going to be here? I have to stop Jonathan Taylor. No question. Number one priority. OK, I'll stop Jonathan Taylor. Then they're going to run these play action schemes.

1:13:24They have Tyler Warren, who's just wide open all the time because of some of these schemes. Okay, so I got to stop Jonathan Taylor. Now I have to stop Tyler Warren. Okay, well, Danny Dimes is also firing balls into Alec Pierce. He's got Pittman. He can do all these different things. Then they open up the screen game. The offensive line is blocking at an unbelievable level. I'm sure AQ's talked about it already. They are just opening everything up for this team in the run game, in the pass game. Danny Dimes is not taking sacks. He's not even phased by pressure in his face. He's delivering efficient throws when he has to and also crazy clutch, tough throws when he has to.

1:14:03This offense, I said it many times this week, this offense has no weaknesses. It is truly, truly impressive to watch.

1:14:10Pat McAfee:Yeah! Change! Love what you're saying! So the AFC South is obviously the Indianapolis Colts. The entire AFC might be for the foreseeable future, but whenever you learn about this team, we're going to have to pay Danny dimes and hopefully Danny Dimes understands that he wants to be here as well. And hopefully that is how he feels. I assume he's enjoying his time here. I know the city loves him. I know there was potentially a gathering this past weekend between maybe Pacers and Colts players. And I believe Danny Dimes was having beers with the boys. I love that. The city, which we like. We like to see that.

1:14:48Pat McAfee:We like to hear those types of things. And it's like all the pillars that you're talking about, all in. It feels like the vibes of this team just vastly different. What do you think for the course? Go ahead. Talking to them during the week, that was a major theme. So, like, these guys, the offense gets together on Monday nights and watches Monday night football together. All the position groups do their Thursday night dinners, which a lot of teams do. But you could just tell, like, this team likes each other. They hang out a lot. They find time to get together. Danny made a great comment about it's a little easier to get together in Indianapolis than it is in New York City.

1:15:23But he just talked about Tyler Warren came in, and he's a guy's guy. He just wants to be part of the hang. He wants to be there and be around the guys. And Poris Buckner was telling us about the Thursday night dinners and how attendance has been 100 % this year, whereas in the past it hasn't always been that way. The organization, top down, you can just tell everybody's loving it.

1:15:45Pat McAfee:Oh! Love to hear. It's tough to play in a lot of us. Very. It's tough to play in a lot of us.

1:15:52AQ Shipley:Especially when you look that stinky. What did you think about those Chargers jerseys? You know, I always got to ask you your thoughts on jerseys. What did it look like boots on the ground? All right. All right. Let me break this down for you. So in the stadium, the end zone, the branding around the stadium, unbelievable. We all know the Chargers have 10 out of 10, some of the best uniforms in sports history. These are not it. These were not it. we made the Savannah Bananas reference it's just it's off there's too much yellow they have so many great uniforms so many great colors that charger power sign in the background awesome the uniforms unfortunately were not

1:16:35Pat McAfee:I guess tomorrow night they're debuting a throwback yeah like the filthy old school dark blue bolts on the shoulder LaDainian Tomlinson and all the highlights you see of him they're wearing those tomorrow night That's the equipment staff in the Chargers saying the blue light from Men in Black. We got our fastball, dude. Don't worry about the Minions shit. Don't worry about all that. And we lost in this entire thing. Oh, yeah. Look at that. We still got it. But us as fans think you guys got this in the chamber. What the hell are we looking at these yellow things for? We hold the Chargers, I think, in such high regard when it comes to all these things.

1:17:15Pat McAfee:When they roll that shit out there, especially as a Colts fan, I was kind of looking forward to what you guys were.

1:17:19AQ Shipley:Yeah.

1:17:19Pat McAfee:And you guys can't have this.

1:17:21AQ Shipley:We were in the facility. Remember they had all the Americans dressed up? Sick. All the different unis, different areas.

1:17:26Pat McAfee:Fire, fire, fire, fire. Oh, and they're proud of you. Yes. They took a lot of pride in that, as they should. I think even white pants. Like, if they just went white pants, you just got to break it up. You can't go full mustard bottle, you know? Let's get a hammer. Dot, dot. What'd you say, Tom? Yeah, I just want to get ahead of this right now. Sunday night's going to be an absolute disaster class, as far as uniforms are concerned. Steelers are going with a throwback with, like, brown, tannish uniforms with a yellow helmet against the Green Bay Packers and their yellow helmet. What? Sunday night's going to be horrendous.

1:17:59I just want to get ahead of this now. I know. Trust me. I know. Yo, Packers, Steelers, why not have two of the most iconic uniforms ever on Sunday Night Football? Nope. We're going to go with the worst uniforms of all time. See you Sunday night.

1:18:11Pat McAfee:Okay. Well, you know, the Packers hadn't won since 1970. in Pittsburgh against the Steelers. That's ass. What are we doing here? This is what we're putting out there. Why are the Pittsburgh Steelers doing that? And then there's a chance that the Packers go out there looking like this. Yeah, it's a blood ball game for the Packers. They're going to wear the old leather helmets. I think they have like the brown leatherish tint helmets that they might be going out there, maybe with the Acme Packers uniforms. But that's the way Sunday night football should be. I guess most people are watching. Let's put our worst uniforms out there.

1:18:44Pat McAfee:But nonetheless, Packers, Steelers, big deal. Also, Bears-Ravens this weekend, you have that particular game. Ravens got rid of cornhole ping pong. Video games. Allegedly, via a report, they got rid of all fun. Jacuzzi. All team chemistry building things, get them out of here. A lot of distractions in the building. Allegedly, this is a report. We do not know how much of it is exactly real. I will say this as a person that was on a team that Chuck Pagano was the head coach of, and he was from Baltimore, and we bring big number 90 Corey Redding over from Baltimore. They tried to turn our locker room into more of a Baltimore-style locker room.

1:19:21Pat McAfee:That's where I was introduced to Cornhole. So the Baltimore Cornhole thing with the Ravens, I think, is a big deal. I think it has been for a long time. You had never heard of Cornhole? No, but on that note, I never lost either once I learned about the game. So I don't know if that was good for the Midwest that I learned this game in the locker room because you guys got a lot of meetings. I don't care. Yeah, you got a lot of time. A lot of time. Yeah, and once you get that little pizza toast, you know, that little turn that song bitch sideways, you can really start gauging that thing. And then once you start playing a little defense and then we're running this thing, oh, I got a climber too on this.

1:19:54Pat McAfee:You want me to go ahead and layer it bird this thing? We can do that as well. I got real good. Too good, some would say. And I didn't want everybody to know that because maybe they take the cornhole boards out of our locker room. But the Ravens are at the point where they're taking shit out of the locker room. Okay, that's not good. That's never good. This is players only meeting stage of things happening over there. And then on the other side, the Bears, are they a real team? Good, better, best. Never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best afterwards. They're going crazy.

1:20:18Pat McAfee:What are your thoughts on the game you're about to call right now? Yeah, I mean, I think we're all waiting. It should be happening right now, the Ravens practice, to see if Lamar is out there. I mean, before the bye week, it sounded very confident that he would be back out there for this game. Now you hear the press conferences at the beginning of this week. It does not sound nearly as confident. So we're all kind of waiting to see what practice looks like today if he's out there because that's, I mean, we all know we've seen what that product has looked like the last few weeks without him out there.

1:20:45He's former two-time MVP for a reason. They need him back out there badly. And on the other side, the Bears, four-game winning streak. They're starting to look like what you would imagine Ben Johnson's vision is for this team. They're running the ball really well. Their offensive line is playing together. The running backs are seeing it, hitting the holes. Dennis Allen has that defense humming. They have turnovers on turnovers on turnovers. TJ Edwards comes back, plays really well. Honestly, if they even continue to elevate Caleb's game to another level, there are much more things that can be unlocked for this team.

1:21:21So you look at it as a four-game win streak, and you think to yourself, wow, they're playing really well. And then you turn on the tape, and you're like, these guys could be playing even better than they're playing right now.

1:21:30Pat McAfee:Sound football, though, is what you're talking about whenever you say like Ben Johnson, like tough, sound football is what you're seeing from film? I think there's a lot of run game. He's really implementing that run game, kind of that Detroit, like take advantage of what you know you can control well. I mean, they have some really condensed formations. They run a lot of shifts in motions. They have, I believe it's the number one most explosive plays in the NFL. The guy just really knows how to scheme, and you can tell that the players are picking up on what he wants them to do. And as you saw by the locker room after the game, they're also buying in from an emotional standpoint.

1:22:05Pat McAfee:How about him? the mic'd up of their score in a touchdown, fourth down, stop, everything. He doesn't even... Psycho. He's awesome. He is a psycho. He's a psycho. Yeah. That is exactly what he is. And I don't think we knew that. I mean, obviously, we knew he was very good. He was the belle of the ball. We did not know he was a full football psycho. No. Had no idea. Yeah, we had no clue. Him walking into the Bears thing. Exactly. Us watching that now with what we know. Yeah. Because we see his offense. Gimmicks. People run all over the place. This guy might be fun. This guy must be a good time. Now what we know about him, looking back on his first speech to the entire building, Jesus, he hated everything about it.

1:22:40Pat McAfee:Yeah. He hated every single thing about that. And we'd like to let Ben know, you might be the perfect guy for Chicago, brother. And I think if you continue to win, they're going to love everything about it. They don't need you to be doing all the bullshit. No. We just want to win football games for the first time, long time. And if Caleb's bought in, there's a chance here. We got something special brewing in the midway. Good for them. Thankful for them. And the NFC North now is done. Uh-oh. Uh-oh, Ty. Uh-oh. Best division in football. It might be the best division in football, but now it also makes more sense looking back on maybe his relationship with Dan Campbell and why it worked.

1:23:12Dan Campbell was like, this guy's a fucking psycho, man. I got to stay away from him. He's not a big, tough guy like me, but I'm not fucking with this guy. Serial killer Rodger. Serial killer guy. I respect this guy, man. He can do whatever he wants.

1:23:27Pat McAfee:Yeah, you can see they get along. Going to Chicago, interesting, because they haven't had that, I think, for a long time. Him doing it, it's great. I can't wait to see you on the call. J.J., you've been doing great work in the booth, brother. We're not just bullshit, not just the funny photos in the ash. J.J., you've been doing a great job calling games. We appreciate you. Go ahead, A.J. Yeah, J.J., you were mentioning the explosive offense that Chicago has, a pivot to an offense that hasn't been as explosive, the New York football Jets. I don't know if you saw Woody Johnson, their owner, had some comments.

1:23:54He was trying to defend the head coach, Aaron Glenn. I don't know. Some people may say he kind of threw his QB under the bus, even though he may not have been lying when it comes to stats and performance, I guess. But how would you handle that? How do you think that goes in the locker room, I guess? Yeah, that was interesting. Just because we all have eyes. We know what's kind of been happening up there. We know it hasn't been great. But for an owner to just pretty much explicitly say that the quarterback has been bad in the way that he did, that's not something you see very often. and Justin Fields, whether he's been playing great or not, like he is very well-liked in the locker rooms he's been in.

1:24:34The players like him. So when your owner says something like that, it definitely is discussed. I mean, it's definitely something that people see, and around the league people see that, oh, wow, even though whether he's benched, whether he's not benched, who knows what that situation is. That is something that I can't quite remember an owner saying something like that in the middle of the season while the guy's under contract. Can you?

1:25:00Pat McAfee:No, no. I mean, Woody does a lot of Woody stuff. You know, it's pretty cool just to say, I mean, our coach is good. Yeah, the guy,$20 million a year I paid, socks a quarterback. Yeah. Might be a Bill O 'Brien situation. Antoine Staley. Oh, yeah, that's my little fight to coach. Antoine Staley, New York Daily News reporter, says Aaron Glenn when he was asked about the quarterback situation, we will have a quarterback. They will line somebody in a quarterback position. Okay. That's good for the sport. Good move. That's good for the team. I think that's good. You kind of have to have somebody there at some point, even if it's the punter, you know, because the punter lines up, I guess, technically in the quarterback position every once in a while.

1:25:34Pat McAfee:And Aaron Glenn's letting you know, we will take the field. Love that. With a QB. Aaron Glenn's trying to change. You talk about Ben Johnson. Obviously, they both come from Detroit, where if you think about Aaron and Ben, oh, my God, and then MCDC, think about everybody thinking the same exact way about everything. Now you get dropped into a new building, and they don't think like that at all. And it's like, you got to do not just the team, not just the locker room. That's an entire culture shift. You got to do it with building Ben being able to do it as quick as he's been able to do in Chicago.

1:26:04Pat McAfee:And then what Aaron's going through in New York, do you think there is success on the other side with Aaron Glenn? It's really hard to say, man. I mean, I having been there, we did their first game of the year. We saw him in the preseason. I mean, we said he says all the right things. The building seemed to buy in. He wants it to be football first. He doesn't want it to be the fluff, the media, anything outside the building. he wants it to be pure football first. They've had a really, really tough go of it here. There's no question about it. And yes, the quarterback play hasn't been great. Some of those first half, end of the half situations have been pretty wild.

1:26:37I mean, you have Garrett Wilson kind of questioning your own decisions on your team. So that's where you start to see some cracks where you're like, oh, hang on a second here. There's doing everything the right way and making sure we're doing it. And then when it comes time to implement it in actual game situations, if it doesn't go the right way and you see players, captains, leaders start to question it. I've been in those before. We've all been in those meetings where coaches go over those situational situations where it's like, hey, at this point in the game, this is what we're going to do.

1:27:06This is how we're using our timeouts and this is how we attack it. And then all of a sudden you get in that situation and they don't do it. And you're like, wait a second. Why do we have that 45-minute meeting? The guy can't throw.

1:27:16Pat McAfee:We're trying to get to halftime. Okay, that's, let's see. So you got Garrett Wilson throwing everybody under the bus whenever he said, I didn't know what the plan was. Then once I found out what the plan was, I was bummed out about it. I was bummed out that was the plan. Then you got the owner coming out saying, coach, isn't the problem. You guys are looking at the wrong guy. That quarterback sucks. That's like the most. It's a tough place to play, man, because it's just there's a billion eyeballs on you at all times. The pressure is so high. You have to win immediately right now. otherwise everybody gets pissed you don't have time to develop or build that culture so i i have sympathy for that but it's it's certainly been tough i also know if you win there you're top of the world so parades somebody's gonna figure it out at some point we hope there's more of this we hope there's more of this over there for aaron because that that jet's job has sucked a lot of happiness out of humans and a lot of emotion and a lot of soul out of people we hope that doesn't happen to Aaron Glenn.

1:28:13Pat McAfee:Good luck over there, AG. Yep, good luck. Kelvin Shepard's having a good old time in Detroit right now. He's running up and down the sideline, yelling, and Aaron Glenn's over there like, my owner won't, and a quarterback and a wide receiver. Yeah, we have a quarterback. Yeah, we will play with a quarterback. That's a different world, but hey, you're the head coach now. Now, let's talk about another pressure position, being a Philadelphia Eagles player, just in general. Now, this Eagles team obviously has a lot of drama, but maybe they got a leader You're coming back. Go ahead, Con, man. Yeah, Jay, it's Brandon Graham coming out of retirement and rejoining the Eagles.

1:28:48Last year, he was the one in the media, actually, that accidentally said something about Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown. So maybe there's a chance he's coming back in there to maybe, you know, heal the locker room and get them back on track. What do you think about this move? And now that you are, you know, this far away from coming back and all that shit after the first couple years you were done, Can you tell us what the closest time, your closest team you were to coming back, if there is any at all? Yeah, I think this is great. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. I'm happy for him. I mean, I know exactly how it feels to be out and watching and like having that itch.

1:29:27So I'm really looking forward to seeing him play and him getting that experience. And just there is literally nothing like playing NFL football, man. It is the coolest, best job in the world. And no matter what you try and do in the real world, you can never replicate that locker room, that adrenaline, that feeling of that competition. There is nothing better. So I'm happy for him. I can't wait to see how he does. I do think that they're, you know, the Eagles are like, it's crazy. Like you see him start out the year so well, and then you see him go through all this stuff and the media and everything.

1:30:00And there's still a very good football team. Like we can pick them apart and everything, but like, there's still a very good team. so maybe he's bringing it together and is the ultimate glue guy um but i'm just happy for him and then from my standpoint i mean it was never actually legitimately close the two teams i was watching always were the texans and the steelers um because it would have to have a real true significant meaning for me to have come back and it just never came to fruition both those

1:30:26Pat McAfee:situations needed you and you chose not to do it i think if i recall yeah both those teams did need a possible pass rusher named J.J. Watt. I think because we got real excited every time one of those situations popped up. Hated that somebody got hurt. Didn't like it. Actually, we thought there was going to be no injuries this entire season. Turns out we were wrong. You're going to be wrong whenever you're on daily sports talk, whatever the case. But we thought maybe you were going to go back to the Steelers. I mean, it was like storybook shit was happening. TJ and J.J. getting introduced last as they're coming out on the Akersfield field.

1:30:59Pat McAfee:I mean, doing the entire thing. Doing all of it. I mean, that was like a potential possibility there. we thought with the way the roster was uh kind of constructed and then the texans same exact thing you were in the building too you're in the building you're in the building so you i think mentally didn't want to deal with the monday after the game i think i've heard you talk about that yeah yeah and i was very conscious of like the retire on retire thing for me like when i made the decision to retire i took a lot of time to think about it because i knew that i was most likely going to be a retire once and be done guy so i didn't take that decision very lightly and I knew that it would take something unbelievable to get me out of it.

1:31:37And that situation never arose. I was always ready. I truly believe for two years I was fully ready. At the end of two years, I could have still gone back out there and played. Now, this is probably the first year where I would be like, you got to give me a legit three months to get ready if I need to get ready now.

1:31:55Pat McAfee:Okay, so you finally stopped training like an asshole? Is that what you're saying? A little bit, yeah. I mean, I still train like an asshole. I still train like an idiot. But I'm definitely taking an off day here and an off day there a little bit more off. Yeah, I remember when we were talking your first year of retirement, and it was like, what are you doing? This is not what it's supposed to be. No, I need to be able to walk in every room and beat up everybody that I walk in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that whole line. And we thought you were a psycho. We're happy you're at the point where maybe you sleep in for a day or maybe take a day off and let the body recover.

1:32:26Pat McAfee:And we're also excited and thankful that you did a retirement, and then you said, you know what? I did my shit. and now we're just awaiting on the Hall of Fame because if you would have won back, that delays the Hall of Fame. Yeah, exactly. That delays the Hall of Fame another five years. BG John Clark of NBC Sports over there in Philly is reporting that it's his understanding that Brandon Graham has been working out regularly over the last month or more to get ready for a possible return with an original plan of possibly returning for the Green Bay game after the bye week. It looks like it's been sped up.

1:32:52Pat McAfee:I'm told he's been ready and is in great shape. Okay. Bruce Brown's shaking his head. He thinks there's a little conspiracy cooking up back there it feels like. That's New York Giants fan Bruce Brown. Yeah, I haven't dug into how it works with the dead cap and the salary cap and all that, but I just know that Howie Roseman's pulling some bullshit here that's planned all along, all offseason to have him just show up after the bye. But, you know, Jackson Dart beats him, and they've got to speed it up. Oh, that is potentially the case. Let's get back to a team that obviously you know a lot about, and you said you would have went and played there if that was the case.

1:33:27Pat McAfee:We are going to stay away from questions about the Houston Texans because of what I did early, But A. Kusch actually has a very good question about the dynamics potentially behind closed doors down there. Yeah, the Texans defense is playing at a high level. Obviously, we saw that the other night with four takeaways. Is there ever a worry or a concern that there's some division between offense and defense in that locker room? I don't think there is in this locker room. I do think that there are teams where that's certainly been a part of. I think with this team, there's almost – it just seems like on the offensive side It might be more like not 100 % sure of exactly who they are, what they're trying to be, or what they're able to accomplish.

1:34:09CJ was just under fire this past game. I mean, every single time there's guys coming right up the middle. He's running out. He's running all around. Obviously, he had the one where he ran back in the safety, no safety situation. But the offense just hasn't found their legs. And whether that's Joe Mixon not being out there and not being able to establish what they want, whether it's Nick Caley not quite running things the way that everybody envisioned, because like we've talked about before this offseason, everybody was crazy excited about this offense. They were really excited about the install and about what they would be able to do.

1:34:43And it just hasn't happened, whether it's Laramie Tunsil being traded away. There's just all sorts of questions and not a lot of answers. And I know it's very frustrating because people down here in Houston, and especially remember that rookie year for CJ and had big, big visions of what that was going to become. And switching offensive coordinators was supposed to be the thing that springboarded this team into the next stratosphere of legit Super Bowl contender with that defense they have, and it just has not happened.

1:35:12Pat McAfee:Yeah, it was tough to watch. I don't like what's been going on with the Texans, even though obviously it's the Colts division now. But I don't like, because we were big fans of CJ and everything they were growing. We loved D 'Amico, obviously. Casario has been very good to us. Obviously, the Houston fan base is fantastic. So we thought this was a time where the Texans were about to be great for a long haul. For whatever reason, they haven't been able to do it. We have some updates on some news that we have discussed here, especially for the game that you are going to be calling. Adam Schefter is reporting that Lamar Jackson is practicing today.

1:35:42Pat McAfee:Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is practicing. And we also have from Source Ciz within the building, the report that it was the coaches pulled out the toys from the locker room is false. That's huge. I was not looking forward to asking that question in a production meeting. So I'm glad that we already take care of that. That's never fun. Did the players do it? Were there moves, though? The wording is we got a text from the building. It says report it to was coaches that pulled out the toys from the locker room is false so i don't know what the hell if that was the actual say well that that whole article i don't know if that was the same article or a different one but there was like an article that came out that said like we talked to 25 players in or 25 people inside the ravens organization during the bye week and this is what we came up with that's there's a lot of things there first of all 25 people in the organization singing like a bird is pretty crazy not good i don't know that's never good second you never know what kind of agendas are going on here because i think part of the report was like we blame the offense more than we blame the defense and there's all sorts of so there's there's a lot to digest here now that being reported false which you never know with those types of things sometimes they're like we took it out for cleaning uh you know there's uh we forgot to put it back this is this is the type of stuff that comes out when you're an expected super bowl contender and then you end up sitting there at one and five well and like if it wasn't the coaches and the players did it that changes it right if if the players made the decision to do something like that?

1:37:17Anybody making the decision is terrible news.

1:37:20Pat McAfee:If we feel like we've got to get the cornhole boards out of the locker room, that's not good. There is somebody in there that loves those cornhole boards, and they're now pissed, and then they're getting their group together that's like, hey man, that guy's an asshole. He thinks that's why we're losing? Well, maybe he should cover somebody a little tighter on a man. Let alone the politics of who's voting to keep what in there. But also, this is where people gather. There is shit talk happening in these moments there is let alone me punter kicker whenever they're everybody else is studying film and i i've i've really i've gone through every rep you know i i i i got some time here to do it let alone that whole aspect of it but these things these these little places in the locker room or in the building this is where people gather you know this is camaraderie this is where people become humans ping pong table even if you're not a ping pong player there's a couple people playing you'll stop by for 30 seconds 45 seconds have a little moment keep it moving even maybe potential gather entire team it's like these are just little moments to provide moments you know many who yeah many hope is huge time to compete together you get to compete like it's more it's great it's yeah it's that thing where everybody's always like you need to be locked in on football it's like okay i you do not watch film or study your playbook for 24 hours a day when you're in the building not every single moment is in the meeting room there are times where you are resting and relaxing in between.

1:38:42Some of the best memories are those, where you got guys dropping$20 on who can make it into the garbage basket with their tape after they take it off. Yeah,$20. Those are the... I kept it low. I don't know what the threshold is for whatever it's supposed to be.

1:38:57Pat McAfee:Yeah, whatever it's supposed to be. 20 push-ups, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. M &M's, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've lost a lot of push-ups in my day. Yeah, I didn't expect somebody to make the Gatorade bottle shot that they certainly made right there. Lost about 600 M &Ms on that particular shot. We got another message. It was the veteran leaders that wanted all of the games out there. Oh, so it is out. Yes. So it is out. Oh, boy. So the message was that the veteran leaders saw what was going on, and there was too much. I think the young players are abusing it or something. Like, how does that work? I wonder.

1:39:29Too much jocularity going on.

1:39:30Pat McAfee:Guys coming late to meetings. Yeah, trying to play Fortnite all day in the locker room. It's like, hey, why don't we look at a coverage or something? Yeah, why don't we watch the film? Why don't we – man, that's tough because now you've got leaders and then now you've got a little segregation in the locker room now. Yeah, and I saw a pretty – Then you have somebody saying, well, I don't agree with the leaders, and then you're undermining leaders. Yeah, yeah.

1:39:54AQ Shipley:A lot of vets on their team too. It's not like a – you have obviously young players that play. Pagano might have been cooking everybody on the ping pong table. Was he cooking?

1:40:04Pat McAfee:Hey, they call him ping pong Pagano actually because of his ability to do it. they go out and dominate this week and then every team is just firing ping pong tables out of their locker room. Everybody get out of here. See you later. Do the Dolphins have a ping pong table? I don't know. Not enough of those to get out of the locker room, brother. I don't know if that's going to help them. They stink! Football down there in Miami. We don't love that. What are your thoughts on that situation? Go ahead, Ty. Now that you brought it up, Jage, and you're thinking about retirement, wouldn't that be a great place to go back for you this year?

1:40:38maybe come in, save the Dolphins season. Listen, it's not great. It gets worse every single week. They've said, hey, listen, we're not going to fire Coach McDaniel anytime soon. It's not imminent. Steven Ross doesn't really care, it seems like. And, boy, he's going up to the podium postgame and saying, um, a lot. And that's really – people have kind of met their threshold with that, too, is throwing people under the bus. He's throwing two under the bus. Just kind of what's your whole view of this entire Dolphins situation? ah this is this is far past ping pong table territory um when you are doing it as publicly as they're doing it and and hiding it as little as they're hiding it uh it just makes you wonder what it's like behind the closed doors because it's pretty wild how much stuff they're saying publicly and when you sit there and watch it and you just think to yourself you didn't have to say any of that like to it didn't have to say what he said the other day the coach doesn't have to say what he says at the podium like it's you can stand at that podium and give coach speak and players speak answers people do it all the time and you can handle stuff behind closed doors so when it gets to the point where you are discussing these types of things in public generally that means it has been pretty bad behind the scenes for a while uh and uh clearly it has to be at that point there i mean we all saw this team as a legitimate playoff team a few years ago and potential for bigger bigger things and unfortunately it just seems to have unraveled

1:42:10Pat McAfee:quickly yeah i think it has unraveled pretty quickly and their fans have certainly witnessed it all kind of unravel in real time alongside dumpy watching this team will anybody ever be able to win in miami why not because well have you been i mean obviously you're jj watt so i think you probably live and move a little bit differently than some people but whenever you talk about a football team and the sum of its parts and everything that is available in Miami, I think it's a tough, I think it's going to be a tough place to win. In 1972? I mean, that's true before the merger. Yeah, you're right.

1:42:46Pat McAfee:1972? I didn't even think about it. But you can say that about like LA. LA's got a lot going on. No, I don't think so, actually. I think that's a little different story. Like Miami? Florida and Cal. Just never sleeps. Miami never sleeps. A lot of opportunities. Yeah. A lot of opportunities. And a lot of places you think are nightclubs. They're not nightclubs. They're actually adult ballets. And then you walk in there, they're also serving you steak, and they're telling you he can be here until 7.30 a.m. And guys are like, well, I don't got a meeting until 8 a.m., so why don't I do it? I think there's just a lot of options down in Miami.

1:43:16Pat McAfee:I don't know. And I know the Miami Heat have been able to win. Obviously, we've learned. Gilbert Aranis just gave a great quote to Neon, I believe, about what the lifestyle is of an NBA player and everything like that. Talking a little too much, a little chatty. Oh, I got to see that. A lot of stories, a lot of stories coming in. It was a lot. He said a lot. I'm sure there's a lot of people, yo, yo, yo. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, man. He's just telling us, we're learning from outside looking in. I think Miami's going to be tough to win. And then we go back to what Tyreek Hill said after the season last year.

1:43:45Pat McAfee:Tyreek was done with his shit last year. Oh, yeah. And everybody kind of buried Tyreek for it. And then now the season's happening, and Tyreek's like, that's what I was saying. This place sucks. It might be a reverse Dan Campbell situation, too. I mean, obviously, they never knew what he was going to turn into, too, but he was their interim head coach a couple years ago. He was in their building. If he gets that job, do things change? Do they stay the course a little bit more? They were like, this guy's a fucking dipshit. Get him out of here. Let's bring him in. I don't know, man. Detroit and Dan Campbell were the perfect marriage, perfect time and everything.

1:44:17I don't know if maybe he does, maybe, but I do think you have to have the right mentality and infrastructure for that to happen. We always have to remember what happened in his first year. You had to be able to weather that storm uh and i i just i don't know if it's the same situation in miami

1:44:34AQ Shipley:if he is able to do that you you mentioned miami and the miami heat in particular the one of the first things you think about when you think about the miami heat is pat riley and the heat culture and that's why even being so opposite of what most nba franchise at least from the outside in look it's like hey i mean chip ran lebron out of town because damn cookies you know i mean like that's Riles, we heard UD talk about him every time he came on the show. So that type of structure, obviously what's going on with the Panthers, obviously a very different culture just in hockey in general. But that style of leadership from the top down, Coach Maurice, Zito, all those guys.

1:45:10AQ Shipley:So you definitely have to have the structure from the top down. And you look at Coach, once again, we're not in the building day in and day out. But you hear a lot of people that have been around football for a long time. And the way they talk about Mike McDaniel, they'll be like, Hey, that's the complete opposite of what you need, especially in a place like Miami. So, yeah, it's going to be tough to win down here.

1:45:29Pat McAfee:He would have had to have won a lot. And they were starting out good, but all your shit that you do that they love whenever you're winning, they hate whenever you're not. Oh, yeah. Which brings us to Russell Wilson. Greatest tweet he's ever sent. I mean, let's ride Mr. Unlimited. You're talking about a guy that's given us a lot of catchphrases. He's given us a lot to the Internet. His greatest work might be a tweet that just had no context was just sent out there saying, hey, you know who I'm talking about. And I think this is potentially Jackson Dart, Scadaboo, maybe even Dayball. Say, hey, listen, we can't just be sitting here letting this shit happen.

1:46:04Pat McAfee:I understand that you are a super good guy all the time and high road all the time. You're Russell Wilson, bro. Super Bowl champ. Get the hell out of here with this whole thing. Then you probably got Jackson Dart pushing him a little bit. This guy's a bounty, remember? And Scadaboo's like, yeah, fuck this guy. There's probably a little bit of a motivation happening and Russell Wilson says, yeah, you know what? Send it. First time we have seen Russell Wilson do this, legitimately. And I want to let him know we love it, Jage. How do you feel about it? Yeah, I mean, I'm great with defending yourself against a just seemingly out of nowhere unnecessary shot.

1:46:40So, yeah, nothing wrong with that. What I'm focused on right here now is that's a weightlifting glove type look on the right hand there with the fingers cut off. I had never seen that before. It's thicker. Me either.

1:46:51Pat McAfee:It's thicker. Dangerous. Yeah, it's thicker size. I did not know that we were operating in that. Wet bandits. Love, yeah, that type of territory. That is a wet bandits. Yeah, it is a good call. Yeah, because you need those fingertips so you have a control, but, you know, you need the thickness of the weightlifter to kind of keep it warm. Now, granted, it is certainly going to be a different feel of the ball than what you're used to because there's a layer of warmth there in between. Maybe that was the reason why him and Sean Payton really didn't get along. Sean Payton saw the glove and said, this guy sucks.

1:47:22Pat McAfee:His fingers are cold. We were just talking about when stuff gets public, what it must have been like behind closed doors. I mean, this is a – your team's doing great. They just won a big game. They're in just a shot out of nowhere towards New York City. Like, there had to be some stuff going on behind the scenes for that to still be in the back of the mind after all that. I love Russell Wilson responding. Love. Hey, Russ, if this is the new you, we're happy about it. Let's keep it going. And, Jage, if this is the new you with the glasses and the hair, just know that we love it, brother. Keep going.

1:47:58Pat McAfee:We appreciate the hell out of you. Thank you. I appreciate the hell out of you. What's behind you there? What do we got behind you? There's a lot of stuff, like, perfectly placed, it seems. That's the cleats from the game I played after my son was born, two sacks. No big deal, Cody. Right after he was born. My wife. This is a book from a family vacation, all of us. of the ball. My son got me a Father's Day gift. I can't figure out the point for my life over here.

1:48:27Pat McAfee:Yeah, you did it four times. You got the wrong side four times. I have no idea what's going on. I was even close. Ladies and gentlemen, JJ Watt. Nailed it, JJ. You know every once in a while you put those glasses on, you kind of lose your sense of direction. That is something on a camera, though, whenever you're trying to... You'll see me just get kind of caught in the middle. I'm trying to go up and to the right. Is it that way? Well, in me, it's actually up and to the left here, but on the camera, it's up and to the right. J.J. had quite a moment there. Before we get out of here on ESPN, we need to do some takeaways from week seven of the NFL season.

1:48:59Pat McAfee:Age, this is some great segs, is it not? Great, unbelievable segs we've been having, yes. We have been having unbelievable segs, have we not? Yeah, great segs every week. Yeah, we've been doing a lot of segs around here. Best segs of my life. I love good segs. Me too. We do love good segments. You're talking about segments. Correct. That's not what it sounds like coming out here, man. Thank you. You need to know that, AJ. So let's talk about your – why'd Shams do that to you? I don't like it. But let's take your big three takeaways coming out of week seven of the NFL season from AQ Shipley. Let's start in San Francisco.

1:49:34Pat McAfee:Block party in the Bay. Oh, it's a party. It's a party. It's a party. Love that. Let's just talk about Kyle Juszczyk and George Kittle being back on the field together for the first time since week one. And let me tell you, Kyle Shanahan had all his toys back. Would you ever use a fullback to block a five-technique defensive end? No. No, never, right? Let's send Kittle out. Juszczyk cut off the defensive end. Christian McCaffrey right up the middle. Damn. Big time play. Big time from him. Yeah, I did him to third and short there. That's pretty good. Pretty awesome, right? Let's take a look at this one.

1:50:09Kyle Juszczyk. Kyle Juszczyk here on the left. Let's look at George Kittle on the backside, chasing down the backside safety. Look at Trent Williams, Juszczyk out in space. He got all his toys. The operation was up and running. All the shifts, all the motions, all the eye candy. Take a look at Juszczyk again. Fake. Nope. Bring it back. That's nasty. That's pretty sick.

1:50:27Pat McAfee:Now he's able to run his full operation. First down there for the San Francisco 49ers. CMC got 63 % of the yardage for the San Francisco 49ers, the most by any player of the San Francisco 49ers. That was a Hembo stat. They're special over there when they can run the rock, obviously, and George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk helped that. There was a time in the offseason, I think this got brought up the other day, where they weren't going to bring back Juszczyk and then to get the deal done. He's a vital piece of that entire process. He's everything. That's the whole reason why I brought this up. With him and Kittle there, they can do everything.

1:50:54And sometimes it's opposite sides. Sometimes it's together. But the fact is, by having them there, they're interchangeable. They can do all the shifts, all the motions, all the things.

1:51:02Pat McAfee:I remember a couple years back you said, if you want to know where they're running the ball, you've got to follow Juszczyk. Juszczyk is literally going to take it to them. That's why they do the pump fake on the – what's that called? An orbit motion. I don't know if that's what it's called. And he sold it with the tilt. Is that what it's called? Yeah, well, you can kind of call it that orbit would go behind the quarterback. What's that one called? It's really just a fake. Like he's just selling like he's going across. And if you notice, can we run this back real quick? Absolutely. When he goes like he's going across the formation, watch what it does to the linebackers.

1:51:27And that sets up the block for Trent Williams. Leverage. Bingo. Now Trent Williams has leverage. That's the worst.

1:51:32AQ Shipley:Anytime you snap the ball while the player is in motion, it always messes with the defense. because the conversation a couple weeks ago, like, leverage. Everybody's trying to get and win. Start to boss over. Exactly. Oh, no, Bo. We got a Bo, actually. Bo means, like, reduce.

1:51:46Pat McAfee:And then Trent will punch a guy in the face as well, which is always good, AJ. You're off balance, and then he's going to punch you in the jaw. That's good. Welcome to football, baby. What's your second takeaway coming out of week seven of the NFL season? Money time, Micah. And here's why. He is the closer. Every single time in the fourth quarter, you need a play. It's coming from him. They were supposed to chip there. He recognizes it. Does the old Reggie White hump move inside. Gets the pressure. This is in the fourth quarter. Guess what? Very next play. Let's get the sack. Let's go up and around Jonah Williams.

1:52:16Tough day. I know. I saw it. I watched it live. Yeah, it was big. Push, pull. Get that. It's 20-20 right now in the fourth quarter. They're driving on the eight-yard line. Need a touchdown. They don't. They get a field goal, and then Green Bay goes down, scores a touchdown. They win the game. What did you say, AJ? Slingshots himself? Slingshot. Push, pull. Like the AQ said in the last one. And that was a great dip and rip there. Punch him and then use his momentum and throw yourself into the quarterback.

1:52:38Pat McAfee:This is why you paid him in Green Bay, right? I mean, this is literally the reason. Yeah, that's it. I mean, after the last sack, that's exactly why you trade for and pay this guy. Help me. Because he single-handedly won in the game. I remember, you know, and I was texting a little bit with AQ, and he just said, like, yeah, once he moved over to Jonah Williams' side, like, it was blouses. All right, let's go to the last takeaway from AQ shipping coming out of Week 7 of the NFL season. Stafford still spinning it. Yes, he is. This time in London, AQs, quickly. Yeah, let's look at this first one real quick.

1:53:09We are going to get hit in the side of the head. Let's just sidearm it to the back of the end zone. Touchdown. Damn. Go to the next one real quick. We got to fade to Devontae Adams. Incredible what he's able to do here. Just one step. Throw it perfect. Only he can catch it. Wow.

1:53:23Pat McAfee:Matthew Stafford got drafted the same year as me and AQ Shipley and Darius J. Butler. He's in London at 9.30 a.m. spinning it all over the place. I'm worried about maybe getting a hemorrhoid while I'm pooping. That's the difference in lives. That's the difference in greatness. Matthew Stafford is elite, brother. And that was incredible. Hey, thank you for your takeaways. We'll be back tomorrow as week eight of the NFL season kicks off. You're the greatest people on earth. Goodbye. I just had it. We had like 34 seconds here. I thought you did a great job with Justin. You could sense the urgency.

1:53:54Pat McAfee:NASCAR, NASCAR, NASCAR, NASCAR. You kind of did your thing. Waving the towel. Yes. We were coming in. You did a great job there. Running straight off the field. not trying to get in everybody's way because you don't want to hit the kicker. You want to get the hell out of the way. Don't go at an angle because they're coming at an angle. That's situational football. Let's go back. You said bow is something. What is a bow? What is a bow call? What is that? Like if you boss your boss and you're all like taking your step in strong. Okay. We're moving over stronger. Say the safety comes down here. We want to boss this way.

1:54:19Like watch. Okay. Boss, boss, boss. Oh, here we go. No. Actually, we need to bow back to where we were. Okay. So actually. It does. AQ said, I'm sorry. again, there's a lot of good things on here, but it does. It sets up these guys' box. It takes those linebackers and already gets them out-leverage. Boom, you're setting up the box down the field.

1:54:36Pat McAfee:We started seeing this in the last few years of offense coordinators designing plays to set up blocks. Niners are the biggest proponents of that. They use their shifts and motions to set up plays down the road. That right there, you think he's going across and then he runs the crack toss. Later in the game, they're going to do that. They're going to stop. He's going to cut the defensive end. Kittle's coming as the second puller, and they're running two tight end counter. Then the next time, they're going to start like that. They're going to stop them and then send them the other way. Like, there's a million – and then there's a play action off of it.

1:55:04There's so much they build off of it.

1:55:06AQ Shipley:And then, AJ, if you put the clip back up there, the boss, the S in the boss, is that to the run strength and the bow is to the weak side? Yeah. Okay. Usually boss strong, bow weak, yeah. Okay. So you don't have to say it. Boss, boss, boss, bow, bow, bow, and it already tells you which way you're going. Gotcha.

1:55:21Pat McAfee:Yeah, and S strong, bow, it obviously doesn't have anything strong. strong side, weak side, strong side, you guys doing all that type of stuff. And all Shanahan and Jushek are doing is just big braining the shit out of you. Just puppeteering. God, we need you all to shift this way. Thank you. It's going to be hard for us to get you if you just stand there. Thank you. Let's go ahead and do this. And we got Christian McCaffrey. He's more explosive than all your guys. It's amazing what this Niners team. You got to work it though. Sorry, you got to work it and you got to be good at it because if not, it looks like poop.

1:55:48If you're trying to run all this pre-shift motion shift and then all of a sudden you're getting TFLs every play, Oh, cool, nice. Why don't we just line up and play, buddy? So, yeah, you have to be very, very good at it.

1:55:58Pat McAfee:The timing of it all, you're saying, very well rehearsed. Oh, they've repped that a billion times. Like how many times have they repped everything? I would imagine walkthroughs, practice, everything. This is why it's so good, and you can ask B.A. when he's here next week because most teams around the league, when they get to Thursday, when they get to Friday, it's mostly pass because it's a passing league, right? Every single run period, every single pass period, it doesn't matter what period they're running in practice, they're getting 8 out of 10 of them as runs. And they're constantly working on it.

1:56:26That's why it looks so good. And that's something that we do forget right now with Miami. Like McDaniel revolutionized the whole motion thing when he started doing that sprint out. And maybe that only works for players like Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddell. But that's another thing with those motions that just completely changes the game. Like you mentioned, like setting up blocks. It felt like Miami was unbelievable at that for a while. And, you know, it started in San Fran.

1:56:49Pat McAfee:They started blurring the lines with the motions. Big time. The Miami Dolphins offense started blurring the lines. And that's why there was so much promise. So much. And so much hope. And so much optimism. Oh, man, it's going to be impossible to stop. It's also impossible to learn as a quarterback. If Tua goes down, we are fucked. Oh, yeah. Completely. And unfortunately. And if Tua ends up not playing well, we are fucked completely. And our culture, boy, it's splintering quickly. and our head coach just get me out of here. Yeah, he doesn't give a fuck. What? He cares? Not anymore. He's done. You don't think so?

1:57:28Pat McAfee:No. Side-eyeing Quinn Ewers, was it for you? You think that was it? When he was cold, it was rainy, it was 60 mile-an-hour winds. Quinn Ewers is playing the game. Okay, great. And then he does ass and he jogs off and he's side-eye. You think that was the moment where McDaniels said I'm dumb, please? That was part of it. I think it might have been after the game when he had the presser and that person put out the super cut of him just saying, uh, and um. He knew what kind of questions he was going to get asked. He was just like, fuck it. I'm just going to go up and say uh, and um a bunch. I don't care.

1:57:56That wasn't AI? We don't know. There's a chance there were a couple doubles in there. Yeah, they could have doubled them up. When I re-washed it, there was a couple double ups, but it was still accurate.

1:58:07Pat McAfee:Yeah, good at it. Especially with how similar they all sound.

1:58:10AQ Shipley:Exactly. There was also a moment in the game where I think Tua threw a pick and the offense is kind of like kind of, you know, moseying off the field. He's like, fuck off the field.

1:58:20Pat McAfee:Here's a clip, actually. It's like a half a second here. You've got to wait for it. Not yet. They'll show Tua first after the pick, obviously. Not good. It's 24-6, fourth quarter. Things have knocked on well. The weather stinks. Tua's not... Get the fuck off the field. You're done. He is not happy. He's not happy.

1:58:38AQ Shipley:So he's still invested. He cares. Yeah, he does. How do those team meetings go? AQ, how do you think they're... How do you bring the juice as a coach for team meetings? It's really tough to sit up there every single week and be like, boys, hey, this week we just got to be 1-0. This week, 1-0. You know, it's tough. It's really tough. I mean, I don't know, especially when you're starting to lose all these games, especially when you lose a bunch of games in a row, you lose the locker room and then you start to see what's happening outside of the locker room in the press conferences. It's tough. They need to go to Kennywood.

1:59:06Yeah. Not a bad idea. Sure, yeah. You see this? It's always a good time. Oh, I see this shirt. Is Kelsey's company investing in Kennywood or what?

1:59:15Pat McAfee:No, Bruce Brown had it all wrong. Okay, Bruce Brown said... Yeah, why would they ever... There's no way they were putting any money in that place. Yeah, man. Seems like Travis Kelsey's saving Kenny World. Shut the fuck up, Bruce. Okay, it's Kenny Wood. Okay, it's not Kenny World. But Travis Kelsey, I believe, is an investor in Six Flags, and he's looking to make it almost as good as Kenny Wood, right? Is that kind of what you read, Bruce? Yeah, that is correct. I believe they purchased a 9 % stake in Six Flags, and the stock was up 18 % on the news. yeah, I believe his focus on the Cedar Point location to kind of restore it to his childhood glory.

1:59:50But I just figured, you know, they would just, you know, maybe acquire Kenny World in the aftermath of the deal and get that shit going, you know, as a Six Flags operation. That's a good idea. This motherfucker. Good idea, Bruce.

2:00:03Pat McAfee:Now, this is very cute. I'd like to let that be done. That's very cute. I love that the Kelsey family is classic Cleveland family. I like that they are going to the amusement park. I like that they're doing the six flags. I like that they're doing the entire thing. I love that he's invested. I appreciate the fact that Travis knows what's good for a community and what's not good for a community. I appreciate that he's trying to make things better and also be a businessman going forward. With that being said, you saying Kenny World, as natural as you've been saying it, needs to fucking stop. Okay?

2:00:33Pat McAfee:That's a great name, actually.

2:00:35AQ Shipley:I'm sure it is.

2:00:36Pat McAfee:They should have potentially named it that. We don't need everybody to know that Kenny Wood's not the right name. Kenny owned the woods and it's Kenny Wood. Just like the Italians dropped the final sound there. Just get rid of the S for the woods and just keep it as Kenny Wood. And just know that Travis, Kelsey, he might have invested in some other amusement park dump that needs saving. Kenny Wood's just fine. Kenny Wood's just fine. We had that cinder block underneath that water roller. Yeah, he's got that picture still. Yeah, yeah. We don't have that picture up anywhere. We can pot it up. That was really good.

2:01:04OSHA certified, no question. Definitely.

2:01:06Pat McAfee:It's a strong cinder block. It's from Pittsburgh. That fucker's ready for it. That thing is built for it. Don't you worry about anything. Did you hear about the racers? No. I was on them this summer, though. Oh, buddy. Brave man. Should I let you? Brave man. Should I have not been on? It's kind of where you're safe everywhere. Of course. This ain't one of those aha places. But yeah, they put a cinder block underneath one of the roller coasters. Somebody found it, took a picture. It looks certainly sketchy. It certainly looked like it was right around the bend. But they said, don't you worry about it.

2:01:31Pat McAfee:We got the mechanical engineering all figured out. These things are taking care of themselves. That thing's not feeling any pressure. and I went over to the potato patch and I fucking believed him. Then I went over to Noah's Ark. I said, wow, these things are just the same as it was whenever I was growing up. It's amazing. I rode the Jackrabbit and I took my seven-year-old daughter with me and I told her, I said, hey, listen, this first little dip we're going to go down. It's going to go up. We might lose you. So just we're going to hold on real tight. I mean, I had her in a full tilt headlock and I thought I was going out too.

2:01:57You're talking about the whoop-dee-woo or the Jackrabbit? Yeah, the boom-boom.

2:01:59Pat McAfee:That's the whole purpose of the Jackrabbit. Hop, hop, you know, I do appreciate it. It was cool when I was 12. As a 39-year-old man holding a 7-year-old daughter, I thought we were goners. See, that's a kind of difference. Also, this was fine. Okay, this was fine. Oh, Facebook log out. Jeez, Bruce. Bruce. Bruce just got booted by... Is that by Zuck? Just kicked you out? Here it is. One Berg's post here. No way. What's wrong with that? That was really, really sturdy. Wait, there's a lot of hills in Pittsburgh. What the fuck do you want these guys to do? That's how we were thought to fix stuff, bro.

2:02:32Exactly. What is that?

2:02:33Pat McAfee:You know, whenever you're at a restaurant and the table's a little wobbly, You obviously put Splenda under one of the fucking corners. That's exactly what you do. That's what they do with roller coasters. One Berg knows. They appreciate it. I don't think they should have let humans on the outside see that. No, definitely not. That was their mistake. They obviously put up a board here. Nobody can see it anymore, and we move forward. And on that note, Kennywood doesn't need saving. Because it is thriving. Has QB won Ben to Kennywood yet? He was at the Penns game last night. It's a hockey night in Pittsburgh.

2:03:03Pat McAfee:Obviously, Keese will cut a great promo. Will Hired's out there with the boys. I assume Aaron Rodgers want an experience, Kennywood. I don't think you really go to Pittsburgh and not do that. I don't know. Hard to imagine that. What are you talking about? The swings? The best swings in the entire country. I mean, these things go fucking way out there. They hit up Phantom Fright Nights after the game last night. I talked to them. Okay, so they went by Fright Nights, which is obviously a legendary time to be at Kennywood, which could also be called Kenny World because the entire world of happiness kind of resides right there.

2:03:33Pat McAfee:So let's get to a break on the other side. I would do another college football convo with Stanford Steve. Oh, yeah. Just reminding you that Kennywood is getting more expensive and they're not really adding many things, but they need you. Now more than ever. Bad. Just for maintenance. Free parking and food. No. No, no. Oh, that's done? From what I've been told. It was an expensive day. Okay. Like 15 bucks. As it should be. The whole day was expensive. I think whatever you pay, you don't really know how great it's going to be. So you often wonder, wow, that's a lot of fucking money per person. What is this place?

2:04:09Pat McAfee:Is this Disney World? Even better. It's Kenny. Yeah, if we're paying that much, I want to kick Kenny Kangaroo in the dick. You can't do that. He's around. Boom. Did you see him? Did you take a picture with Kenny Kangaroo? I didn't. He's a little creepy looking. Remember? Yeah. He kind of looks like a tube sock a little. Yeah, he's got a little bit of that in him. But there might be a new Kenny Aroo. Yeah, you don't know. Because Kennywood, brand new. I'm jedițiare! Pay's Checkout is offered by your banks and credit unions. So when you shop online at participating merchants, your cards appear in one place, ready to use and kept up to date.

2:04:45And the best part, your actual card number isn't shared when you check out. Because boundaries are healthy, like no work emails after six. One small step for boundaries, one big leap for checkout. Pay's, it checks out. Activation required. See pay's.com to learn more. Terms and conditions apply. Are all batteries the same? That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with Power Boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Goats only trust Goats because they're built different.

2:05:30And Messi only trusts Duracell.

2:05:38Pat McAfee:football is magical that's aj hawk the toxic table is here at boston connor and at ty schmidt nine-year nfl vet darius j butler is here 12-year nfl veteran and super bowl champion aq shipley

2:05:47AQ Shipley:is here god bless you god bless you so sad season no i've been seeing up allergies no allergies are they come for everybody pill this morning yep yeah we'll see you're not can i get a heads up

2:06:01Pat McAfee:whenever it's time to do that. I'm new to this entire thing. I told you you can't miss days. I said you got to start it and you got to ride that fucker through December. Yeah, but you know I'm not used to this being my life. So maybe a reminder every once in a while, especially on a day like today where it sounds like it was pretty obvious and I got big time sneezes happened in the middle of hour threes starting it with Stanford Steve's. I don't like anything about any of this. I get it. See, but personally, mine's more towards the sniffles. You know, I'm not going to be sneezing for any allergies.

2:06:27I'm just going to be...

2:06:28Pat McAfee:Which is even worse. Exactly. Exactly. So if I sense that tomorrow morning, boom, I'll text you at 530. Please. And let you know.

2:06:35AQ Shipley:Internet doctors actually told me that's bad for your immune system. It weakens it, taking all that vitamin C in medicine. Really? Yeah, that's what I was.

2:06:42Pat McAfee:Now, herd immunity is what you're talking about here, bud. Okay, but you're allowed to add some PEDs to your herd if you want, like we've been seeing up over there. You're telling me that that's been a waste of mine?

2:06:53AQ Shipley:I'm just relaying the message that was given to me. Don't listen to that. He doesn't know fucking shit. Does anybody.

2:07:00Pat McAfee:Does anybody. About anything. Yes. There's one man. Two men, actually, that know about college football. And we get a chance to chit-chat with them every single week. One of them is live from Hammer. Don. Don. And AP Tone, who's a published college football author multiple times. And another is Ahmad, who's on the game day set. He's also with SVP every single night whenever they have a show. Four nights. Oh. When did they? That's a good question. Steve's always on a road. It's because always on TV, always on the road, and always keeping us updated on what games we need to be paying attention to coming into the weekend.

2:07:35Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another college football convo with Stanford Steve. Steve, how are you doing? Did you take your allergy medicine? I guess it's that time of year, even though Ty's keeping that shit tight lip. I don't know if I'm on the same medication as Ty. I don't know if I'm in that tier. But yeah, the runny nose dripping like a faucet season is here for sure. Yes, it is. and we will survive. We will certainly get through it. But I've been vitamin C in to try to combat against this and then all of a sudden we got a UConn educated man coming over here saying that ain't doing nothing for you that's actually hurting you.

2:08:08Pat McAfee:I don't like that one bit.

2:08:09AQ Shipley:Just drink your water and get your rest.

2:08:10Pat McAfee:Yeah, I understand. Ice and stim. I get it. We will certainly figure that out. Okay, I will hammer the water. Let's talk about this weekend. We have the incredible opportunity to head down to Nashville and celebrate this Vanderbilt University football program that has obviously come through the ashes and now is a powerhouse in college ball, not just in the SEC. They're hosting Missouri. What are your thoughts on this game, and how should we be viewing it before heading down there? Fired up to go down to Nashville. After watching Vanderbilt for our lives, they had never been favored over an SEC-ranked team until last week, and now this week they're again.

2:08:46So after never being a favorite two weeks in a row, they're a favorite. After that impressive win over LSU, obviously Pavia is the story, the face of that team. He's fourth in the Heisman rankings now around 10, 11 to 1. But Missouri played their first road game last week, looked a little vulnerable, didn't run it as well as they have in their home games, still good against the run. Both these teams are top 12 against the run. So to me, it's whoever shuts down each other's run games. Pavi has just been insane on third downs and keeping his offense on the field, and now is in full vision last week against LSU with him converting third downs, fourth downs.

2:09:28They're over 56 % on third down, which is top two in the country, I believe. So that's the story to me is what the defenses bring to this game and what should be a hotly contested ranked matchup in Nashville.

2:09:39Pat McAfee:Tone, whenever Vandy LSU was on the board, Nick Saban said, I know that Vandy's good and they're favored for the first time in 575 games or whatever the case is. it is just hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that LSU is going to lose the Vandy. That is literally what Saban said. Saban said, I've just been around too long. I am sorry. I have respect for their team. Yada, yada, yada. I just can't see it. This team, not only last year, obviously, had a big time run with the NIL transfer portal. They got even better this offseason. Feels like Vandy feels great. Now, they lose the Bama. Obviously, people are going to talk about that.

2:10:11Pat McAfee:But another opportunity to prove that they're for real, Tone. Is that what you're thinking as well? Yeah, last week with LSU, I disagreed with Coach Saban. That was strictly because LSU does not have an offense at all, and I was favoring Vandy because Pavia is going to score points. They're going to get rushing yards. Steve talked about these two teams. They both can stop the run, and they both can run the football. The difference here for me is Pavia over Pribula. It's not that Bo Pribula is bad. Pavia is just him with a little bit more moxie in my mind. And Mizzou is definitely better than LSU in my mind because they can score points and LSU cannot.

2:10:49And the defense is really good. But I think the difference in this game, Steve talked about being in the top five in the Heisman race now, is Diego Pavia and Tim Beck, the offensive coordinator of Vandy. It's his second year here. He came with Pavia. So second year for everyone in this offense down here. So I think they're going to continue to get better on offense. But Pavia is the difference for me.

2:11:09Pat McAfee:AJ, special story in Nashville, dude, these last couple years for this Vanderbilt team. It changes everything, literally. Like, they're talking about the projections and expected people that are going to come through game day, and obviously there's multiple sites visited and everything like that, and there's people in South Dakota State that are pissed off about us not going out there. And I just learned from the internet that it was actually six years ago this weekend that I had the opportunity to be the guest picker out there in South Dakota State. That place was fucking awesome. Go big, go blue, go Jacks.

2:11:34Pat McAfee:But down there in Vandy, obviously anytime our show is mentioned as something that people want, it's a big deal. It's like, hey, this is the biggest game of the weekend. This is conversation about your program. This is spotlight of everything you're doing because of how the football team is. Last year, it could have been just a kind of a flash in the pan. Instead, they've continued to build on it. Great for the university, AJ. I think it's a beautiful thing when sports can do this for somebody or something. Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, their team is awesome. I mean, it starts with Diego. We know that.

2:12:01It's unbelievable when you think about the impact that one player can have. And I understand, like, there's studs all over the place. But when your quarterback is a guy that plays this well, but also has that kind of personality, I think, that makes him very, very easy to root for, it's ridiculous if you think about the money that he has brought into that universe just by being a great football player and seemingly a great person.

2:12:21Pat McAfee:Now, Vandy, obviously good school, everything like that. Pavia alluded to that in his interview with us. Like, hey, everybody thinks he's like, hi, academics, yada, yada, yada. He said, we're a gritty group down here. We are a gritty group. And their coach seems to be the perfect fit for the guy to be the head coach of this particular team. Ty has a question for you, Steve, as we wrap up this particular game. Yeah, Steve, maybe this is out there and I just haven't seen it, but why isn't Clark Lee's name being mentioned for a lot of these open jobs? He's obviously got a pass with Elko. He was the DC at Notre Dame.

2:12:51I think people are finally starting to realize, oh, wow, this guy is actually really good. I know he played at Vandy, but why isn't he right up there being mentioned for the Florida job or the Penn State job or any of these other big jobs that might open up? Well, I think with the Penn State job, Ty, they don't want to look at another Vanderbilt head coach coming. Fair. Franklin came, and I think there's a little bad taste in their mouth right now there in Happy Valley. But, no, I agree with you. I just think he's made it known how much he loves his school and what he's built there. I mean, people are going to bring back the old press conference.

2:13:27I think it was from 22 when he said the goal is to have the best football program in the country. and I think there's a lot of stability. There's a lot of foundation he's built. With the stadium being redone and he's made it known that, I mean, you look at what Signetti did and putting his boots on the ground and getting extension after extension. I think Clark Lee is more than happy to take one of those to stay at Vandy in a place that he loves so much.

2:13:53Pat McAfee:You think about Dillingham out of Arizona State too, you kind of think the same thing. Like this guy just loves the program, loves the area, loves everything about it. So there is still some, you know, love of program love of sport happening in this massively business world because if you know some of these schools come in with an offer like hey 96 million dollars we was just paid by indiana to signetti so now there's a comp like on what yeah to not go to penn state what the deal is you know so if some of these places can't keep up with those big checks push comes up love the place love the school do you love them 30 40 million dollar difference do you prove it how much do you you know that's an interesting dynamic for a lot of these guys and players too are having the same exact situation at a smaller level for the amount of money going different places it's a wild time now we had two undefeated sec schools before this past weekend texas a &m now the only undefeated sec school uh old miss loses to georgia they got a big one this weekend and so does oklahoma your thoughts on this matchup, brother?

2:14:58Yeah, I know AQ talks about leverage all the time, Pat, and we got a playoff leverage situation here with this looking like an elimination game for Ole Miss and Oklahoma. Oklahoma's a little bit favorite. You see that four and a half, but the probability of these teams right now is below 50 % to make the playoff. With a win, the numbers, the math, the analytics, whatever you want to call it, the stuff I can't comprehend, says both teams get over a 60 % chance. Oklahoma's got a tougher remaining schedule, but But this is a monster spot for Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin, you know, being that close last week and then just getting it given to them in the fourth quarter.

2:15:36You know, they only had three possessions. I don't even think they had a first down in like 13 yards. It didn't go well. And you saw – we talked about last week about, you know, this game, the Georgia game against Ole Miss, and I talked about Georgia having more depth amongst the line of scrimmage. I felt like you saw that in Ole Miss. They weren't the same team in the fourth quarter as they were the first three quarters. And on the other side, you've got Oklahoma, who had to go to South Carolina, get a much-needed win. Mateer looked a lot better. The defense is as good as it gets in the country.

2:16:08So this is a test of good, I should say very good, on very good. When you talk about Ole Miss' offense against that Oklahoma defense, that's the matchup that everybody wants to see. It's a matter of what Ole Miss' defense looks like going on the road and going against Mateer, who got things back on track after looking rusty in that Red River game.

2:16:28Pat McAfee:Tone, what are your thoughts on this matchup here being a playoff decider basically here going into week nine of the college football season? Yeah, I agree with Steve, especially for Oklahoma. They can't lose anymore because their schedule is still so hard going out. Ole Miss with two losses, if they lose this one, their schedule's actually pretty easy going down the stretch. So I think they still may have a chance with two losses at the end of the year, depending on if it's an SEC championship game or not. But I love Oklahoma's defense, and this is by far the best defense that Ole Miss is going to be playing so far this season.

2:17:01They played LSU's defense, but it was at home. They scored 24 points, which was their lowest total of the year at that point. And Oklahoma last week, for the first time all year, ran the ball. They ran for 170 yards. Ole Miss has the 100th ranked rushing defense in the country. So with Mateer and a running game at Oklahoma with that defense, I tend to lean towards Oklahoma in this one.

2:17:27Pat McAfee:Let's look at the Oklahoma Sooners schedule. It just got pulled up here by Bruce. They got Ole Miss, and then they got number, number, number, number down the stretch here. Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, and then LSU. Now, a lot of people are saying, well, just because there's a number next to a team, does that mean they're actually good, or is there an SEC bias? That's a good point. You know, because the Alabama stat that they won four straight ranked games for the first time in history, I saw everybody from outside the SEC go, ranked teams. Yeah, they're ranked teams in this entire thing. So I think a lot of people are wondering who's who in this entire college football world that we're living in right now.

2:18:02Pat McAfee:But nonetheless, Oklahoma has a lot of opportunity to win their way back into the college football playoff conversation if they were to lose this game. But if they lose this game, they got a lot of potential L's around the corner as well for Venables.

2:18:15AQ Shipley:Yeah, it's week nine, so I put a little bit more respect on those numbers now. It's not like that number that was next to Penn State before the season started. So I respect it a little bit more. But what do you think about the number next to Oklahoma, that minus four and a half, Steve? I guess it's for Steve and Tony. What do you think about that number? Good or what do you think? I thought it was good, and then I looked at this stat. Listen to this one. Top 10 teams are 2-15 against the spread when an underdog against a lower-ranked team. This was Ole Miss last week against Georgia. And that's them again this week.

2:18:47It's 0-6 this year when you look at that. Top 10 team as a dog to a lower-ranked team. Oklahoma versus Texas. Illinois versus Indiana. LSU against Ole Miss. LSU against Vanderbilt. Ole Miss last week against Georgia. And Texas at Ohio State. That's a trend that's not good being on the wrong side of. So I like Tone's call there of the defense being at home and Oklahoma getting that ground game. They have some young guys, some freshmen on that offensive line. They got it going against a good defense in South Carolina this year. So that makes me lean Oklahoma.

2:19:21Pat McAfee:All right, let's go to the next game that we need to be watching this weekend. You know, the slate, interesting. Okay? Slate's interesting. We got a lot of good teams. We got a lot of good storylines. This weekend, not as many massive games, but ball will show up for us. And this game could be special. This game could be Texas A &M reminding everybody once again, like, hey, we are for real, dude. Every week that passes, that Notre Dame win looks better and better and better that they go into there with Texas A &M. Only undefeated team left in the SEC. They're taking on an LSU team with no offense, Steve.

2:19:55Pat McAfee:Is that the story of the game in your eyes? Yeah, also the history. LSU is 12-2 against A &M. A &M has just not had much success against LSU at all. You go back to last year, that was the Marcel Reed coming out party where he ran all over that LSU defense. If A &M were to win this game, I would think they would be wary of a number one ranking, Pat. When you look at what that win is that looks like now at Notre Dame, and now you go to LSU on a Saturday night in a place that's just been wretched to you in years past, I think it has all the goods. Marcel Reed, those receivers against that great defense of LSU is an awesome, awesome matchup.

2:20:37You got everything you want in this game as a top-ranked team coming in. as a small favorite against a team that's great at home, hasn't lost at home this year. And the key to me is Marcel Reed in that offense because in these two road games they've played, they've gone to Notre Dame and scored 41, and they went to Arkansas and scored 45 last week. So that's the matchup. LSU's defense at home against Marcel Reed and a guy who continues to climb up those Heisman poles and odds and all that stuff. What happens in that matchup when A &M's offense is on the field?

2:21:12Pat McAfee:Operator, won't you put me on through? Gotta save my load in a bedroom. Hurry up, gotta put me on a line. Gotta save my load in one more time. I'm coming back through. Brian Kelly lives down there. Go ahead, D-Bucks.

2:21:28AQ Shipley:Yeah, he does right now. Is this kind of a must-win? It may be crazy talk, may be a crazy question, but are we entering must-win territory now for Brian Kelly? Absolutely. Absolutely. When you look at their schedule the remaining way, they're going to be underdog a bunch of more times. If chalk holds up, I believe they're going to be 7-5. I don't know if Brian Gilley makes it to that. They got road trips to Alabama. They have to go to Oklahoma or they get Oklahoma at home. And then also you got Arkansas in a rivalry game. At Oklahoma. Yeah, this is a monster, monster spot for LSU. At Bama.

2:22:06Pat McAfee:At Bama next. Jesus. At Oklahoma. Now, they've got Western Kentucky there. Hilltoppers are no job. Good team. Yeah, huge, huge. Obviously, middle of the week football is good for all of us. Let's go to Hammer. Don, Don. Tone, what's the story of this game that maybe we haven't hit yet? Yeah, I love this A &M team, and I love the A &M offense because they are so balanced. They can run the ball with that running back room. That's incredible. They can run the ball with Reed. They can throw the ball with Casey Concepcion and Craver on the outside. The defense, Steve was talking about how much the offense has scored on the road.

2:22:43They are on the road here at LSU. The defense gave up more than 40 at Notre Dame and more than 40 at Arkansas. So we'll see. I mean, LSU offense has not been good, so they should be better on the road here. But, I mean, they got a guy on defense for A &M whose name is Cassius Howe. He's got eight sacks. He's going to be a first-round pick next season. They're the number two third-down defense in the country. I love A &M. I think they should win this one. It would be a huge upset for me if they did not. I think as a team, they're just very, very well-rounded.

2:23:15Pat McAfee:All right. So we like A &M. They're undefeated. We've liked them since the beginning. We really like Ohio State. We really like Indiana. So we start piecing these teams together. Alabama we all really like, right? Really like Vandy. Really like Vandy as well. Really like them. Because we really like Bama. Yeah. So it's like it's one of those situations. It feels like the cream is starting to kind of rise to the top, but also it's college football fucking anything can happen. This weekend is one of those weekends where absolutely anything can happen. On that note about anything happening, James Franklin joining the game day set.

2:23:52Pat McAfee:Steve, your thoughts? I thought everything I told James Franklin on the set is exactly how I felt about it. I just want him to know about it. I want everybody to know about it. You sitting up here is fucking wild. I wasn't able to say that, but I do appreciate you just getting into the pocket here and just sitting right in the middle of what could be incredibly awkward because he has no idea what we're asking. I was not given a question to ask. I was not told, now, do I want to bury a guy that is spending his Saturday morning clothes with an asshole question? Probably not. But he did not know what was going to happen there.

2:24:22Pat McAfee:It's live television. Anything can take place. If you listen to the Penn State people, they're like, well, it was really nice of you guys to do for James Franklin. Okay. hey, how come we didn't hear a lot of stats being said? I saw the graphics of a lot of these stats. Didn't hear you guys saying anything about, hey, you never won one for us, even though 2016 Big Ten Championship there. So I think Penn State people are a little emotional. What were your thoughts on James Franklin joining us? And what were your thoughts on him saying, yep, we're just going somewhere else to win a national championship?

2:24:49Pat McAfee:It feels like he's even more energized for the future of coaching. Is that your takeaway from our convo with him? And what did you think of it as a whole, Steve? First off, I thought it was extremely brave to do. Agreed. People, you know, to your point, he's still getting up on the desk. He's still getting to Athens, Georgia, you know, in the middle of nowhere when you're talking about Big Ten country and all that. And to show up and do what he did is not an easy thing to do. I don't care what the questions are. To be, you know, humbled like that and fired, you know, before a team meeting, the Sunday before and to go through those losses at UCLA, at home against Northwestern, to see him walk off the field, what looked to me like he knew that was the last time, like it was going down, to come back the next Saturday and stand up in front of there.

2:25:43I mean, you're in the middle of the interview. I'm on the side. I'm trying to take it all in. I mean, you could hear a pin drop in that thing because I think people were really that interested in what he had to say. And coming out of that, the want of him to coach again was pretty evident. So he's going to have – I mean, the list is only going to get bigger and longer for him to possibly be a candidate of. So I don't think he's going to be out of that coaching for a long time at all. I think he's going to jump right back in.

2:26:13Pat McAfee:Massive respect for him going out there. Yeah. Like, you guys got to even think that's incredible. Like, A.Q. Shipley, Penn Stater, okay? Yeah. I saw your name on the wall there a couple times whenever we were there. How'd it look? I thought it looked great. Especially the Remington Award trophy that's up there. Really, you know, symbolic of greatness at Penn State, which is how I think the Penn Staters view it, right? Like Penn State people are sick of being third, fourth in the Big Ten. We want to win national championships. We are putting the money up to win national championships. We want to win the big games, let alone losing at home in front of a$700 million renovated stadium that somehow still has$112 ,000.

2:26:50Pat McAfee:And it feels like the expectations of that place are to win a national championship. But you guys haven't been there in a long, long time, which I think a lot of people are saying on the counter side of that. It's like your guys' expectations aren't really realistic. So what is your kind of takeaway? I think the biggest thing was, first of all, yeah, it was very admirable that he went down there. I mean, obviously, that's not an easy thing to do. But I think whenever you look at what Penn State is expecting, I think five years ago, pre-NIL, pre-transfer portal, you're sitting there in 10-2. You probably accept that and you feel pretty good about it, right?

2:27:15But the fact is that they put the amount of money that they put back into this roster and kept everybody from going other places. I think that was the issue. The expectations were preseason number one. So many people had them preseason winning the national championship. And, okay, you lose the game to Oregon, that's fine. But you've got to come back the next week and you lose to UCLA who hadn't won a game all year and then you lose to Northwestern, which you just can't accept.

2:27:42Pat McAfee:That's what the Penn Staters were saying to the entire segment on game day. I don't know if you kept up with the internet reaction. Obviously, I do. I live in that world. It's a tough world to be in, but I have to be in it for the gig. And it's like the reaction from the Penn Staters were like, this is real fucking nice, you guys. Just, yeah, let this guy, just let him come up here and redo his entire image. It's like, I don't think we were doing that. We were just kind of getting an opportunity to talk to a guy that's in a very unique situation. I mean, this guy, very good football coach, has built, I think what I said to him about you guys like 10 years from now, you will look back on James Trent.

2:28:13I said that to you last week. And I think everybody will be very grateful for what he did for that program and where it was when he took it over and where he brought it to.

2:28:20Pat McAfee:But in the moment right now, we're not in that time. We are not in that time right now. We will be in the future. But who do they get, Steve? Who's the right fit? Obviously, everybody says Matt Rule. Matt Rule was on our show last week. He's like, we can build a powerhouse here, which obviously, you know, it is what it is. It is college ball. But it's like that's really the only name now at this point, Sig Sinan and then other people. Is he a fit? Are they not a fit? Other people potentially not wanting to leave. Like it's a pretty crazy time right now in the head coaching search, I'd assume for multiple people, including adding Florida into this.

2:28:53Yeah. I just look at Penn State. If they were going to pull the trigger there, you have to think they have a plan, right? I mean, Pat Kraft's too good and been around too long to not have a plan. I mean, you hear Coach Saban talk all the time. He talks about getting, you know, coordinators leaving. He always had a list. He always had a couple guys. I've heard athletic directors talk about it. So after the Oregon loss, you could sort of feel this, you know, hey, we missed a monster opportunity against a top-10 team, which has been the crux of Franklin's tenure. So I don't know. It seems like it's pretty tight to the vest with all that's going on and all the money that they're spending.

2:29:32There has to be a plan that they are keeping pretty tight to the vest.

2:29:35Pat McAfee:Yeah, we shall see. It'll all work out, you know. Or it won't. What? Or it won't. I think if you have that much money for a roster that they're going to continue to have, we will assume, they're always going to have good players, I think, in this modern world that we're in.

2:29:50AQ Shipley:They will. A lot of NFL talent.

2:29:52Pat McAfee:I think they'll always have good players. So does that make them like a champion? I don't know. But I think they will be like – I think whoever gets in there will have a good team. I think they will be a good team. I don't think they're going in a shitter. They've been a good team. They've been a good team. They need to win a national championship, don't they? Yeah, like next four years between Michigan, Oregon, Ohio State, and Penn State. Who do you think is out of those four? Like I have more faith in bingo. I'm not even including Indiana because they're already going to win the 90 this year.

2:30:19But like add Indiana.

2:30:21Pat McAfee:Other than Indiana. Yeah, other than Indiana. Or you can add them in here because I forgot about them for sure. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. No, you never forget about Mendoza. Mendoza for housing. Baby, my jersey's in the mail. But still, like out of those schools, like no doubt about it, I would ring Penn State last. and then the other ones having a better chance just the next four years. And that's because of what has happened over the last 10 years. That is what you're going with. And obviously all those places have cash as well. And they're losing every recruit right now. Every recruit is decommitting.

2:30:48So Terry Smith, his job as interim is, hey, how can we get this culture back to where at least a semi was and how do we keep some of these recruits? Or you've got to make a splash higher to tell these recruits, hey, let's come back.

2:31:01Pat McAfee:I would not be worried about the decommitments because whatever coach you get, you're going to get there. Those guys flip. Yeah, it's like none of this matters right now. The portal. It's totally different now to NIL. It's just going to be money. I really believe that. When you look and hear what coaches talk about, as long as you have the money, you're going to get the players. Which goes back to they're going to have a good team. Always going to have a good team. Yeah, always going to have a good team because the alumni are like, we would like to fucking win in Nashville. It would be cool if we were able to go to these places and just kind of flex our shit to everybody.

2:31:36Pat McAfee:But instead, you start rattling off things. What if IU? All those schools have money. I get money's a thing, and Penn State has a lot of money. Indiana has a lot of money. Oregon has a lot of money. Michigan has a lot of money. Ohio State has a lot of money. Like, everyone's got a lot of money now. Sorry, not everyone. The top billing teams have a lot of money. And so, like, sure, you can. It does come down. Like, I completely agree with you, Steve. It does just come down to money when it comes to players. but at the same time, if everyone's money's kind of similar, then what's the next best thing?

2:32:06Chance to win a championship and Penn State is not in the top three. We're just talking about the Big Ten.

2:32:13Pat McAfee:Think about this sales pitch. You could be the one that brings the national championship to Penn State. You could be a hero here forever. And I think they're top three in draft picks, by the way. Putting people in the NFL and the James Franklin era, by the way. They put people in the pros and they all are killing it in the pros.

2:32:27AQ Shipley:Good players, yeah. Why don't you guys just sign John Gruden and get over it?

2:32:31Pat McAfee:I hope they don't steal Jim Mora from – I wouldn't hate that. I said Mora would be an awesome hire if he was to go to Penn State. I said John Gruden on game day, and I was not planning on saying that. Like, that was not like a planned line. Just in a moment, I'm like, fuck, doesn't Gruden want to coach again? How come we're not saying Gruden's name? He would be a great college football. Guy with a pulse, you mentioned. Jeff Braum. He's coaching soon, too, by the way. Who's that? John Gruden. Where? John Gruden versus Jay Gruden in the Hula Bowl. Oh, sweet. Excuse me. Maybe that's an audition to get back in the game.

2:33:04Pat McAfee:Yeah, let's get it. Can we go?

2:33:06AQ Shipley:I just see him in the SEC, John Gruden. I don't know why, but I just see him as an SEC coach. Him in Lagway?

2:33:14Pat McAfee:But then down in Florida, there's a lot of names that are associated with that Florida job. True. Steve, who ends up with that job? Oh, put me on the spot, huh? We know who they want. Tim Tebow? Oh, yeah. Yeah, reading stuff this week, I thought it was interesting. They know Lane is the guy that everybody wants. People have talked, you know, he's the modern-day Spurrier, and you look what Spurrier did there, and he's still the god. So from what I read, they're going to make Lane say no twice. So that just means more millions of dollars. I mean, he's up there, but now you're talking about$11,$12 million, and he's going to say no?

2:33:51That's a tough deal. That's not the big separate.

2:33:54Pat McAfee:Obviously, the millions for him is obviously a big deal, but the finances for the team, right? Like that is the different ballgame. Like everybody says Florida has big NIL, right? Yeah. Yeah, I just feel like there's – I don't know if they're aligned correctly, if that makes sense. Yeah, makes sense. You know, you got ADs, you got donors, whatever. Like they just need to get on the same page, and that's when you have a school that monstrous and cares that much, that's where I feel like their problems have come. So alignment. and obviously money. Assignment technique. Swap's getting redone too.

2:34:29Two-year project.

2:34:30Pat McAfee:Why did Governor DeSantis, who's he trying to pluck? What's he doing? There's something. He was trying to pluck Sig. That's what it was. Yeah, he was trying to get Sig Netty. Governor DeSantis quote-tweeting things saying, hey Sig, you'd love Florida down here. It's like, hey Gov, we don't need that. He doesn't like Florida. Okay, then he signs a$93 million deal. He's like, no thank you to Florida. I like the follow-up here. But whenever you're talking about the governors getting involved and trying to figure out the fucking state school team. They're going to figure it out down there at some point.

2:34:58Pat McAfee:I hope they do because this bad boy is awesome, whatever it's like. And it's a special time. We appreciate the hell out of you, Steve. I'll see you down in Nashville. Sounds good. No pressure for AQ, but the Colts are the best offensive line in the league now. This is an accumulative rankings that we do, though. Thanks for having me. Stay for Steve. You will see In the Trenches top five performing offensive lines tomorrow. You also see everything DB, good D, bad D tomorrow. And for us, we're going to head the hell out of here. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. AJ, great work today.

2:35:35Pat McAfee:The hair looks phenomenal. Yep, I don't know, but yeah, I appreciate it. Great job by you. I do appreciate the fact that you had to change your entire hair because they said it was starting to look like a yarmulke. That's what he's doing right now. No, that was in the process of it, I think. The yarmulke came as I was growing up. Oh, really? I thought it just for some reason your hair... I don't know, maybe. Maybe early. I don't know. But, yeah, I think that's when it came up. Hey, it's okay. Mazel, dude. It's all good, bro. I'm all right. Jeez. It's been months and months. It's a month. Yeah, it takes a long time, right?

2:36:04Pat McAfee:I think it looks good, though. I think your hair looks good. Yeah, we'll see. Good haircut, too. Face is shiny. It is. Jawline. It's really warm up here. I can't regulate this attic very well. Sometimes it's super hot. Sometimes it's super cold. We're in that time of year. Not only do you need allergy stuff, you also need to know that if the sun's hitting your windows well it could be a thousand degrees inside yes but then as soon as that sun disappears we're in the desert now it's cold as fuck in there and then do you have the heater on do you have the ac on why i have auto on well my fucking auto has no idea what's going on either it's tough to kind of adjust so we're in that time of year you know we're in uh oh the house is 78 degrees all the way down to oh the house is 61 degrees that is where we are right now it's a good time to be alive it's football season tone why don't you come out of hammer don ton let's go ahead and get the hell out of here, shall we?

2:36:52Pat McAfee:Hope you're good, buddy. Hey, hope you're good. Do you want to do a giveaway? Sure. Ooh. Ooh. You know, D-Bound threw one off the wall yesterday. He did. It's about the luckiest fucking thing I've ever seen. It's pretty sweet. Divine intervention. You son of a bitch. It was unbelievable. Here it is right here. We're fast-forwarding it live on camera, I believe. Is this feed to show right here that we're showing? This is it. Okay. Got some time to get to it, I think. And D-Bone got a motivational speech from Bruce Ahrens. He steps into the D-Bone spot. He says he is a U-Ball pioneer because he does that shot right there with a throw.

2:37:30Pat McAfee:Off the wall. Nothing but chain. Boom. That's D-Bone U-Ball right there. He's calling himself fucking Magellan of U-Ball. He's calling himself Christopher Columbus. Lois and Clark, if you will. He is a U-Ball pioneer because he throws it like this when everybody else was doing this. and I want to let you know, AJ started to mock him yesterday before he did the throw. I mocked him because I'm like, hey, it's like the Dr. Pepper thing. You're supposed to throw it. Don't be doing chest passes. The throw might be the right move and D-Bone's doing a lot of this. I'm a pioneer. A lot of that.

2:38:03AQ Shipley:Christopher Columbus is a good comparison. Just fucking lost out there. Good luck.

2:38:09Pat McAfee:I think that is a good comparison for Team D bone and butts. That is my partner though. Ever since that first day, you guys haven't Oh, yeah. Sorry, D-Block did have one win. I think the D-Boys, though, certainly started stacking some L's. It's been a rough going. There is a champion of the office. AJ, I don't know if you can see it as Tone has made his thing. Damn it. Where does this ball reside? You know where it resides. Yeah. With me and Foxy. Foxy, good work yesterday, buddy. Yep, good shooting. Here we go. Who's AQ's partner? Tone. Oh, okay. Did you cancel me? No. Tone just found that out.

2:38:43Pat McAfee:Tone will get rid of you as a partner. He was my partner last week. Yeah, Tone will certainly say, this ain't working. It's not you. It's me. See you later. And kind of get out. This is my partner on Wednesdays. Bone is my partner on Thursdays because Bucs isn't here. Yeah, but you fired Bone. What was that, last week and the week before? No, Bruce. I fired Bruce, yeah. Me and Bruce now are a unit. Pretty good little team. We got a lot of good teams kind of brewing out here. Dirty, actually, good player, too. Dirty's been working on his shooting. He's going to end up being teammates with somebody, and they're going to steal a win.

2:39:12Pat McAfee:Dirty Mitts. Dirty Mitts. They were just trying not to get shut out yesterday. And they did. Got potential. Got two points. They do got potential. They're out there.

2:39:20AQ Shipley:Yeah.

2:39:20Pat McAfee:They can stand on the court. Thank you. What do you want to do? It's football season. Come on. It's U-ball season, too, but where do you want to throw this football? Okay. This hoop right over here. If you're able to bury this particular football for the Brandon Baby Duke into that basketball, what are you staring at on jaw before? That job will beat your... I like this. I'm going to let you know, Jabba don't play no games, bub. The job will hit you with a higher, higher, higher. I don't know if you should be messing with Jabba whenever you're trying to win some people some money. That's a good point.

2:39:56Pat McAfee:AJ actually has a motivational message for you to go ahead and make some people happy on this glorious Watch Wednesday. Yep, I sure do, AJ. You know, hey, do this one for James Franklin. Win it for him. Boom. There it is. For James. This one's... And Shams. For James. A.Q. Shipley, 25 winners of$500 if you're able to put that football into that basketball hoop right over there. The chain net is obviously all busted because of too many splashy splashes into that particular hoop. Not a lot by you, but I do know right now could be the time for you to win 25 people$500. A.Q., for the good of Penn State, not a lot of wins over there recently.

2:40:35Pat McAfee:You could do it for the people. A.Q. Shipley, whip you a Hall of Famer. steps up wearing khakis and a hoodie. Oh! Good ball, though. Good ball. I think that went in. Might have. I can't tell. Yeah, I can't tell either. There is a chance. I don't know what everybody's talking about. There's no net on that side. It clearly did not go in. I would like to let everybody know that that did not go in. Me and Tone, we got pretty good eyes on that. I'd say you were four feet off It looked good Best draw I've had in a long time Alright well let's go We're off on that one Be a friend, tell a friend something nice It might change your life We're in this thing together Team on me, anything you say AQ?

2:41:21Pat McAfee:Hey let's have a better week next week huh? Yeah Let's go, get better every week Yeah Team on three One, two, three Team Goodbye Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter Stay cool and save up to 50 % off custom window treatments during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com. From outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services. Or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50 % off site-wide plus huge savings on doorbusters right now during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com.

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