PMS 2.0 1452 - NFL Week 11 Preview/Picks, TNF Recap, Pitt Head Football Coach Pat Narduzzi, Nick Saban, & AJ Hawk

19:58Pat McAfee:And what if it happens again for the Jets? Exactly. If you don't evaluate, you can build up all these picks you want. If you don't bring in the right people, you continue to set your whole franchise back another year. Like, it's just, yeah, they have to figure something out pretty quick, I feel like. They're paying them$20 million this year,$10 million guaranteed next year, $30 million in total to be the quarterback for the Jets. And maybe they're just kind of looking to next year. And they have good eyes, we've been told. And they'll be able to find a talent that maybe we can't. Speaking of the talent, we are standing in a stadium.

20:29I am standing in a stadium here that has obviously held a lot of talent on this ass grass field.

20:35Pat McAfee:I will say the grass field down here looks spectacular. I think the spray painters were probably out all night last night. But on that note, this place is going to be electrifying tomorrow. And Connor, don't you have some stats on Pitt football's history here as we get set up with the man that's been leading it for now 11 seasons at this point? Con, man, this University of Pittsburgh, although, you know, hasn't hosted College Game Day on a Saturday for 20 years, and although they haven't maybe been in the national championship game in the last long time, they create legends around here and they have won national championships here and it feels like there's a little special thing brewing with this new QB.

21:19Pat McAfee:Conman, tell the people a little bit about the University of Pittsburgh football program can you? Oh absolutely, yeah Pitt, we were kind of looking into it. First of all I had no idea they had this many Hall of Famers Tony Dorsett, Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Donald Dan Marino, Mike Dicca Bill Fralick, Mark May, LaShawn McCoy. Not sure if LaShawn McCoy is in the Hall of Fame just yet, but still. Notable alumni. Curtis Martin, Tony Saragusa. No, I'm not just reading that for the first time. Holy shit. Tony Saragusa went there. Let's go. Darrell Revis, James Conner, of course, still bringing it. Notable Pitt coaches.

21:52Pop Warner. Come on now. Everybody play Pop Warner. You guys know where it started. It started in Pitt, baby. Nine national titles for the Pitt Panthers. Top 20 in all time. FBS wins 12th most College Football Hall of Fame inductees I mean the list kind of goes on And on and not to mention You know it's in the beautiful city Of Pittsburgh baby I mean They share a facility With the Pittsburgh Steelers That's kind of the coolest thing of all time when you're talking about College football teams and what you're trying to grow Into a professional football player So I mean Pitt Panthers don't look now But they're kind of rolling Hawker yeah don't look now Pat I know you guys got set up there with another legend here at Acrosure Stadium.

22:34What's going on?

22:36Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, the man who has led this 7-2, number 23-ranked Pitt Panther football team this year, and for the last 11 seasons, I believe, as a whole, head coach Pat Nardisi. Yay! It was a little delay on the clap. I didn't like that either, coach. How are you feeling, bud? I feel great. Huge weekend, it feels like, for your football program, but obviously just next weekend for you. Is that the mindset? That is the mindset. You know, it's just another game for us. You know, we're excited. You know, we've got a great team coming in here. We've got a great football team. Should be a great show tomorrow.

23:07Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about what you said earlier in the week. You stepped in a little bit. Yeah. Hey, I'm Italian. Yeah. You're going to step in it a little bit. I'm going to step in it a little bit. We step in it. You know what I'm saying? I step in it all the time. But also you, I think what your intent was, what you would later say is like, I wanted my team and everybody to know, like, hey, for us, our season is not derailed by whatever happens on Saturday. But obviously national audience immediately hears that and goes, what is this guy even saying? How do you kind of get to the point of what your messaging is, what your mindset is, and how you're trying to kind of build a narrative each week?

23:41The most important thing is our football team. We've got a great football team. The most important thing is our guys in that room, in our team room and their belief. And I think our guys got a ton of belief in what we have ability-wise, you know, for tomorrow at noon. And that's the only thing that matters is what our kids think.

23:57Pat McAfee:Yeah, I think so, too. We started chatting about it yesterday, and some of the boys at the toxic table actually said, Narduz said that. Narduz. Narduz said that so that he, Narduz said that because then Freeman's got to answer questions about winning 103-10. Was this a little, was this closed Sicilian? Were you potentially doing a little chess play here to put all the pressure on Notre Dame? You know what, I don't know. I have no idea. Oh. You know, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just worried about what we do out on the field tomorrow. It's about executing one play at a time, and we'll get it done.

24:30Pat McAfee:Hey, listen, you tell me. Maybe I did do that. A.J. Hawk has a question for you, Coach, back at the Thunderdome. Yeah, Coach. A.J. Hawk. Yes. Hey, let me first. A.J. A.J. What's up, Coach? Coach D 'Antonio talked about you all the time. Oh, he's the man. Coach D. Coach D. He talked about you. He loves you. He loved you. You were his man. Oh, man, I love Coach D 'Antonio. He scared me to death every single day of my life I played for him, but I respected him, and I would die for that guy. So I appreciate that and appreciate what he is doing. But speaking of great defenses, Coach, your defense, especially stopping the run, you have some stud linebackers, obviously, and you guys do a great job of stopping the run.

25:03Jeremiah Love comes into town, I guess. What is it when you're playing great run defense? What do you have to do? I always say there's no secret thing you can do. It's just, hey, gap sound. It's all the boring, cliche stuff. But what do you guys do so well, and how do you continue to do that? You know, AJ, we do what we do. I think that's the main thing. We're not going to change our defenses. I've seen some people change what they do structurally, you know, playing Notre Dame or some other, you know, great teams around the country. And the great thing is our guys get to go out and execute our defense and see how we match up against a great football team.

25:34You know, we're going to play with three linebackers as you talk. Kyle Lewis, Braylon Lovelace, Rasheem Biles will be ready to roll. So we're excited to have him back. And, you know, we're going to go out and play defense. You know, it starts with that front four. But we're at 4-3. We're not at 4-2-5. and we think Kyle Lewis could play safety. As you saw that one interception against Stanford, that was as good an interception as ADB could have. We're just going to go out and play our game.

25:59Pat McAfee:Okay, let's talk about your game. It certainly looked a little bit different on the offensive side. AP Tone, Plum Native, who he's Duquesne guy. So you know how you've probably heard a couple things he said, but he loves what you're doing on the offense the last few weeks. Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Coach, I do. Obviously, you start the season with Eli Holstein, and now you have Mason Heinzel come in, who is a true freshman. How early did you know in his career? Because I know I believe he enrolled early. Before coming into the season, did you know there was a chance he was going to play? Because Eli obviously had a great season last season.

26:32When did you know it was going to be Mason? And just talk about him a little bit, how incredible he's been as a true freshman. Yeah, he's done an incredible job. He's a heck of a competitor. He's a preparer. No, but we didn't think we were going to play Mason this year. We had total trust in Eli. We still do. But we had a couple bad games, and we had to try something just to shake it up a little bit. And, you know, I could have looked like one of those paisans making a bad decision. We don't like that. You know, and, you know, it worked out for us. We knew he was – when he came in, we were like, this guy's special.

27:01You know, the first time I saw him, he was our scout team quarterback in bowl practice, you know, before we even enrolled and took a class. And we were like, woo, you see him throw that ball. I mean, he can throw it. You know, he made our defense better in bowl practice. And, you know, so we knew there was, you know, the ability to get it done. But, you know, did we know it was going to be this early? Absolutely not.

27:20Pat McAfee:Coach, we rattled off all the Hall of Famers out of the University of Pittsburgh. Obviously, all the deep history and tradition. Feels like a lot of them coming back for this particular game. It's going to be a huge environment, not only because Aaron Donald's numbers getting retired at halftime, Tony Dorsett's getting acknowledged. There's going to be everybody seemingly in the history of Pitt football here. tomorrow and special. Ty has a question for you about all of that. Yeah, Coach, with all that in mind, is there any plan to have any of those guys maybe address the team or talk to them and kind of remind them about the history and like the excellence and tradition that Pitt has had?

27:57We saw the Steelers. This happened a couple weeks ago where Coach Cowher came back and the 05 team was being recognized and we basically saw a new Steelers team on that Sunday. They looked unbelievable and you could tell kind of being reminded of the history and the tradition from people who had done it at the highest level, it added a little extra juice for the game. Are there any plans for that going into obviously this massive tilt this weekend? Yeah, we've always got a plan. The first plan is, you know, Darrell Rivas is starting at the beginning of the game. So we're starting him at the corner.

28:29That's the first thing. Tony's going to come in and give me the old Heisman pose as well. We may get him a couple snaps as well You know, Jimbo Covert You know, all those guys But, you know, to answer your question We always have someone come in on game day Speak to our football team We've done it for a long time I got that AJ, you guys probably did it at Ohio State D 'Antonio got it from probably Jim Trestle But we always have an honorary captain come speak to our team So we've got, you know, an honorary captain coming in I won't mention his name here because it's a special guest But we're excited about the new guy coming in You want me to break it to you today?

29:05Yeah. Tyler Palco's coming in. Oh!

29:10So, Tyler Palco, for you, I'll break it on.

29:12Pat McAfee:I appreciate you doing that. And also, I love Tyler Palco. The Palco family, legendary football family in Pittsburgh. Obviously, he used to have the sick flow. His left-hand spin was outrageous. And he's a great talker. He'll keep that thing colorful tomorrow, from my understanding. He will. He's kept it colorful after a game, I think. We might even have to play that. his postgame? Do you remember his postgame? Oh, yeah. That's what we need tomorrow out of him for a big one there. There was a stat that was sent over to me. I think it was 2017 Miami came in here. Number two ranked team. They were like 12-point favorites or something like that.

29:46Pat McAfee:Obviously, Pitt ends up beating him. It was a massive upset. Whenever you think about what's on the line tomorrow for the other team, you've already acknowledged it. Yeah, a little bit too much maybe. Whenever you think about what's on the line for the other team, do you tell the boys about that? about a spoiler possibility? Do you use it as motivation? Not really. One game. We'll talk about it afterwards. We've had some major upsets throughout. I mean, we went down in 2016 and beat Clemson at Clemson. But, you know, what happened in the past doesn't really matter. This is 2025. You know, what happened in 23 when we went to South Bend?

30:19What happened in 20? None of that's going to matter. I mean, you know, Tony Dorsett being here, that's not going to matter. It's going to be about what we do tomorrow.

30:25Pat McAfee:Aaron Donald being here might matter. Aaron Donald, I forgot to tell you, he's starting to. No, you guys can't do this. Yeah, yeah. He's starting, too. I forgot to mention him. I forgot there was a – But he's actually starting the second half. After he gets his jersey retired, then he comes out. Oh, new number. Yeah. Yeah, new number. We're trying to retire that after this game. We'll retire both his numbers. I love it. They've got G League players signing for college basketball now. So you might be able to sign Aaron Donald, especially because he's going to be able to play forever. Now, speaking of Aaron Donald, I think he's given back massively to the program, if I'm not mistaken.

30:55Pat McAfee:Connor has a question for you about all of that. Yeah, Coach. Coach, first of all, I had no idea Bill Goldberg was an alumni of the Pitt Panthers. I didn't realize his jersey was hanging in those rafters. Pretty cool. But one thing that's kind of different, you know, we mentioned before, is that how you guys share a facility with the Steelers. Is there any, you know, advantages that you see on a day-to-day basis with that kind of process? I mean, playing in, you know, Accrashire Stadium, formerly known as Heinz Field, that also just being around their facility, kind of seeing how they operate.

31:27What are the advantages? And do you have any aspirations for wanting Pitt to have their own stadium, their own facilities, or do you enjoy kind of the camaraderie and togetherness of sharing it with the Steelers? Yeah, Connor, you know, the ability to practice next to Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers is absolutely probably one of the biggest advantages we have at Pittsburgh. You know, in the summer, our guys will be out there watching their team practice. We get to watch the tempo. Recruits come in, watch what we do there with the Steelers. We're out there on the field at the same exact time practicing.

32:00They're on one end. Mike Tomlin's walking down, seeing what we're doing. We're walking off the field, watching what they're doing. I think it's a major advantage if all of our guys want to play in the National Football League, but for our guys to go watch how it's done at the next level at the same facility. As a coach, it's special for us. Whether it's OTAs, we're out on that. We've got a patio over looking to practice. We can walk out there, see what they're doing, whether it's special teams, offense, defense, and just pick up different things. My first year here, I remember sitting at my desk looking out the window.

32:30All of a sudden, I saw him doing punts inside the 10-yard line and watching him out there with a volleyball. It's like, what a heck of an idea. I mean, you talk about just those little things that you can pick up as a football coach. It comes down to the details and the little things. Certainly. But they were using a volleyball, which is going to bounce better for you so at least you can practice and have success at downing that ball. I thought, what a great idea. So, I mean, there's all kinds of things. That was one of the first things I picked by just looking out my window, and I'm like getting off the phone, running out on the patio to watch more.

32:58Pat McAfee:Hey, maybe I should be watching these guys practice a little bit. Maybe Tomlin's got to figure it out. Maybe the NFL does. Let's talk about your team and figuring it out. Obviously, when Kenny Pickett was quarterback, I think he was the last time you guys won the ACC, you're still in it right now. The ACC is wide-ass open. Notre Dame. We play Notre Dame tomorrow, Pat. Will you get locked in? You're worried about the next step. We're worried about just one football team. Come on, man. No, but it didn't sound like that from earlier. In the past, were you thinking about the next game? No. You sure?

33:27Pat McAfee:I just want to make sure. When you played? Well, I just want to – okay, so winning the ACC for the Pitt program would obviously be gigantic. Right now in the world that we're in, I think – you tell me more, actually, because we're in this modern NIL recruiting world that we're in. I think having success is a great thing in the modern – Absolutely. Especially trying to get this younger generation that understands brands and business and everything more than ever. Feels like NIL, Pitt's going to be in a good spot. I mean, we just mentioned Aaron Donald. He's given back immensely. He's getting his number retired, and he's a college game day guest picker, and I think he has, like, a part of the locker room that he has given back.

34:04Pat McAfee:NIL, good. Transfer portal stuff, easy because you're in Pittsburgh. You talk about tradition. If you win a championship, that's it. Like, what is the modern world for Pitt whenever it comes to recruiting and finding players, and how much do ACC championships and shit like that matter over maybe all the others? Yeah, winning every weekend certainly matters. I mean, it's your brand. We still have our Pitt brand. I think, you know, what we do as coaches, we develop players. I don't know if anybody's developed a football team like we have. I think we've done it with Les in Pittsburgh. And all that NIL stuff is great.

34:34I want guys that love football. You know, we're going to take that lesser guy, maybe the guy that's not making as much or, you know, got two stars or three stars and develop them. I mean, look at a Klyger, Kansi, and Servasier, Dennis, some of the guys that have gone. Kenny Pickett. I mean, I think Kenny, you know, Kenny made peanuts when he was here. It was the first year of NIL. But guys that love football is the key. And winning a championship, you know, we've won one. I think there's only been three teams winning an ACC championship in the last 15 years. Clemson, obviously, Florida State, and Pitt.

34:58So we've done it. We've been there. But we're going to take it one time, you know, one play at a time and one game at a time.

35:03Pat McAfee:You guys have been paying players for a long time up here, haven't you? Back in the day. Yeah. Back in the day, they did. Did they not give you enough or what? No, well, they didn't offer me anything. But now I'm starting to think maybe that one game, I think you remember, 13-9, maybe they should throw that out. Maybe we should get a win for that. Maybe. Because you guys are paying players around here. I'm going to investigate that. I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I want to let you know that. But I love the way your team plays. You always have a hard-nosed team. I think that is something you would like your team to have, obviously.

35:29Pat McAfee:You say you're looking for guys that love ball. Being tough, too, feels an obligation from Pittsburgh. Is that an accurate depiction? Yeah, we talk about attitude, effort, and toughness. And, you know, that effort and toughness is critical. I mean, we want to be a tough team. Whatever happens on that field tomorrow, you know, when people walk off the field, they're going to get hit by a pit. That's kind of a bar. Hit by a pit. That's kind of – I don't know if I can really say it that often in my life. Look at that. That hit right there. Hit by Biles. He's back. Yes, he is. Look at that. Look at that catch.

35:57Is this a Biles highlight tape here today?

35:59Pat McAfee:It certainly is. Look at him. It's a defensive highlight, I think, for you guys. Absolute stuff. We are a tough football team. We know what to do. We play fast. Try to keep it simple and let our guys go. Go ahead and hunt a little bit. AJ has the last question for you here, Coach. Yeah, Coach. All right, AJ. You mentioned recruiting these tough guys that love football. How do you know? Is it tougher now to figure out if somebody truly does love ball with all the NIL situation and the money floating around? You're exactly right. I mean, I think that's part of the evaluation. That's part of those phone calls that you constantly have, what's important to a kid, just digging into who they are.

36:28You know, I'll say this. You know, when we get in conversations, our coaches are in schools talking to guys. When the first thing comes up is money and what are you going to pay me, probably not a pit guy, okay? I want someone to tell me who's going to coach me, who's going to develop me. To me, those are important things. There's time to make money in the National Football League. We can – obviously, you know, I love that we can give our kids money now in NIL and rev share. But, you know, that's all great. But we want guys that want to go out and play football and win championships.

36:54Pat McAfee:I'll say this, Coach. I didn't expect you to have Air Force Ones on when you walked in. Hey, it looks pretty clean. My equipment guy is good now. Yeah, you look pretty good. You look good. Hey, you look good. Not enough sauce, I think, for the pies on that you have. Maybe a pinky ring for tomorrow if you want to take down the Irish. Tomorrow's a big Italian. Pink ring, will you have an extra one for me? No, no, no. Maybe a lucky one. Usually in the box. I'll get you one. Yeah, I'll get you one. I had a.01 % Italian in me. 23 and me told me that, so I felt like I could really do all the shit. I had a finger ring.

37:19Pat McAfee:I put on two chains. I did it all. You know, you get it. You understand. I get it. I know. Well, I want to let you guys know. You got the horn? No horn. I used to have a horn. I think I lost that in the ocean one summer, you know? It's the ocean now, yeah. The wording off evil spirits. Basketball team might need one. Look at Nardu. Let's not go there. Did you hear about last night? No, I did not. I've been locked in. I'm focused. Oh, well, let me update you. Yeah. West Virginia. we're doing. We're smacking. I mean, we are. We're bopping wood. We're tough. We're tough out. West Virginia, we're a tough outfit.

37:53Pat McAfee:Did Bob Huggins come back last night? I forgot. You know my dad tried to hire Bob Huggins at Youngstown Stadium. Smart man. Hey, let me just tell you this. It's about finishing. You know, it's not a one-game season. It's about finishing. You can win a big game, but can you compete and do it week in and week out? Pitt does that. All right. We appreciate you, Coach. I don't want to hurt your feelings. You did. We beat you. You didn't beat us. We beat ourselves, but it's okay. Go put the video on. Go put the video on. We won. You did. You did. They don't call legal procedures anymore. Go ahead, next.

38:32Pat McAfee:We won having game day come here. Feels like the city is alive and excited for tomorrow morning. We can't wait to experience it. Thank you for the hospitality, brother. We very much appreciate it. You got it. Where are you going to dinner tonight? Where's your special spot in Pittsburgh? So I eat Rudy's Subs every time I come back. Also Dallas. That's for lunch. What are you having for dinner? So Serafino's maybe I might stop by there. Is that your spot? That's my spot now. I get you reservations because they probably won't let you in, but I'll get you reservations. Just let me know. I've been in there under somebody else's reservation.

38:58Pat McAfee:I have been in there. The guy that owns it. Joey. Yes. Joey's the man. He's making it, and then he's delivering it, and then he's telling me where Bill Karr's from right down the street. I love that place. Yeah, that's a great place. That's my spot. So that's your spot? That's one of my spots. I got plenty of spots. There's so many great places out here. Yeah, so many. There's everywhere. You know, this is the best spot to eat food. I can guarantee you that. That's why I love Pittsburgh. There's Italians everywhere. So I go out to Indiana. Nothing. No Italian. East Lansing. Nothing. It's a culture shock.

39:26Pat McAfee:It is. I'm sure it was. I go from Pittsburgh. Exactly. Fazoli's, he just said. Delicious. All the garden is the closest. Great gravy. Bravo in East Lansing. That was it. And Bucca de Beppo started showing up a little bit. Ooh, de Beppo. But I'm telling you, in Pittsburgh and then West Virginia as well, Italians everywhere. So you just assume that you can get a good something. I've never eaten a meal down there. I don't think I ever will. I'll get poisoned trying to kill me. No, I think it's a good idea. You know, we got that hard edge. I know you're trying to do an art edge. All right, we appreciate the hell out of you.

40:00All right, appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

40:02Pat McAfee:Coach Mark Dosey. Yeah, Coach. I'll tell you what, I appreciate Coach's passion, his energy. he's pretty pumped up for this game against Notre Dame. And I know there's a bunch of other good games, Tone, that we see as we pop up the slate of college football games popping up this weekend. Tone, what's the most intriguing game here for you? Yeah, Narduzzi's a great fit. But all of these, like starting Notre Dame at Pitt, if Notre Dame loses, they are out of the college football playoff, most likely. USF and Navy, the winner of that one is first place in the American, which is most likely going to be the conference that gets the 12th seed for the college football playoff outside of the group of five or whatever.

40:37Virginia at Duke, the winner of that, most likely going to make the ACC championship game. Iowa and USC, that's, USC has got to win to keep the chances most likely for the Big Ten to get a fourth Big Ten team in there. And then those other two, those two SEC games, the Oklahoma and Texas, I believe they're ranked 11 and 12 right now, or 10 and 11 right now, if I'm not mistaken, in the college football playoff. So if they win, they jump up. If not, they can potentially come out and other teams could get in, and then Alabama and Georgia would just solidify their spot in the playoff. All those games have huge playoff implications this weekend.

41:07Yeah, a lot of teams that have to win or their playoff hopes are dashed, I guess. I don't know if Pat is still talking to Coach Narduzzi. I like the Nard edge. Yeah, the Nard edge, the Nard dog. He does have some Nard dog in him, but it's crazy seeing that college football slate pop up and it's week 12. The season really is flying by. It's awesome that we're here because it's the most important, But, I mean, shit, football is flying right now. It goes way too fast, Pat. I believe Coach Nardu's got back with the squad. Hey, he was bringing it today, Pat. Were you surprised at how juiced he was for this game?

41:43Pat McAfee:Every time he's been on the show, he's been great on the show. And I forget how Italian he is. I mean, that is the perfect coach for this city, I would say. And I appreciated how he kind of laid it out. Hey, we're looking to develop guys, you know, two three-star guys. Let's go ahead and build them. Let's go ahead and get after it. I appreciate where he's at. Him saying the 100-10 thing, I think, was potentially a little. Yeah. Go ask Freeman if they win by 100-10. Go ahead and ask him. Yeah, put that on his tape. They should win 100-10. They're a very good team. Yeah. All right. Go ask him about it.

42:15Pat McAfee:And then have their players hear that as well. And then have Notre Dame think to themselves, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whenever he said to me, I don't know, maybe you told me. I'm like, wait, it's Narduz. I've been giving Narduz a lot of credit doing that. italians are good at that game they ship uh-huh maybe they are and him saying oh i got so many spots around town he loves it he's been to every italian place in town every single day i love it and this game is going to be gigantic literally every i think every person that is alive that has their name in this building is going to be here like not just university of pittsburgh guys i think there's a bunch of stealers coming too because obviously uh bus uh drone better notre game guy and i think jerome bettis has a couple events happening like fundraisers so i think all his teammates are potentially coming as well so like i think it's going to be uh i don't know from my understanding this is going to be a pittsburgh football just everything basically in here and that's incredible yeah i can't wait to kind of wake up tomorrow and see what it's like if i'm if i'm not mistaken either i believe his son is a wide receiver on notre dame i think he He got his first catch last weekend, I saw.

43:22And then I believe Ike's kid, Ike Taylor, kid is still on Notre Dame as well. So the ties are – there's a lot of ties tomorrow between the Steelers and those two schools.

43:31Pat McAfee:Yeah, it should be pretty electrifying here in the city of Pittsburgh. I cannot wait to try to eat all the food that is going to be sent my way. I mean, there's a lot of Italians reaching out saying, hey, we got a little – Yeah, I assume you're going to get a bunch of meat delivered to a game day set tomorrow, right? yeah tomorrow's food deliveries will be pretty epic second uh feeding saving you know tomahawk steaks again you know all of it uh pittsburgh brother hey can't do tomahawk steaks you just said i mean we certainly can do steaks if you would like us to do meat we can do meat i don't know if that's what you like but you you got to remember who what is this entire city some pasta on the side or something you could spoon it you could do that you could twirl it in the spoon for and put your hand under it and feed, Coach, you know how people do that?

44:17Pat McAfee:I will do the big spoon with the twisty spoon. Smart. Please don't put your finger. The hand underneath the fork thing, that just makes me crazy for some reason. Like, they don't want to drop it. You know, if someone's like, you see people on movies trying to feed somebody and they put their little hand under the dumb spoon. Yeah, they don't want anything to drop. Or the fork, you know. They don't want to spill anything on the table, whatever it is. You don't spill sauce everywhere. You see people feeding each other a lot? Yeah, in movies and shows I do. Yeah, of course. Like, get your stupid hand out from underneath the fork.

44:45if it falls on the table I'll wipe it up are you seeing somebody you seeing somebody put their

44:51Pat McAfee:fingers over their nose when they jump into a pool don't do that you accident you accidentally see somebody doing this in a movie I don't like seeing the visual right now of you doing it honestly it's like that's one of those that's like it's like nails on a chalkboard to me yeah but you know like that the person that's doing that is trying to portray like I care like I care a lot. You know, that is what that is for. And you get disgusted. I think it's somebody saying, hey, I'm going to big dog you here. Here we go. I'm the king here. I'm your master. And they feed him. Oh, you're talking like Scataboo with that taco.

45:22I was just going to say, I cannot wait until we're at the next thing where we all have a meal together. And everyone does that to you all night long. I'm just going to be smacking forks all over. Smacking forks of spaghetti out of your head. Hey, who's the big boy? Who's the big boy?

45:37Pat McAfee:Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. You're right. All right, I'm going to do that tomorrow. Please do it to Saban. I want to see what Saban does. Yeah, I can't wait. Okay, let's talk about some news happening around the NFL here before hour one wraps up. I'm live from Akershire Field, right? Is it Akershire Stadium or Akershire Field? Akershire Stadium. Oh, yeah, there it says on the thing. So what's the field? Poop field? Heinz field. Heinz field. And just like I said, I don't think there's any Heinz bottles in here. Remember, that was a big thing. Oh, yeah. Are they going to keep? Is Heinz still a sponsor or not?

46:15They still got 84 Lumber. Yeah, that's huge. Okay. That's fair.

46:19Pat McAfee:UPMC obviously still doing it. Still bringing it. UPMC huge for, oh, I guess I could do this number here, I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, PTZ. Oh, no, that's on that. Yeah, and I'm not on the wide. Let me go ahead and figure this one out. Boom. Yeah, brother. Yeah, brother. Yeah, brother. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, you see the Ford fan zone there, and then obviously you see the – So right in that area back there used to be a Heinz bottle that people really celebrated with. Yeah, right on top of this. Right on top. Damn. Now it's – Now it's Accra-Shure, which we all know what that is. The glass building that's standing tall above that is in every single photo of the city of Pittsburgh.

47:05Pat McAfee:ppg uh obviously that is uh an incredible building glass they said uh people marveled at the architecture when that thing was pieced together they said and then bridges you know that's on that uh jumbotron right there we have the most bridges of any city in the world i believe even venice counting is that accurate i believe so i believe so you know we have the most bridges in the world here in pittsburgh obviously because our city is surrounded by rivers uh two of them lead into one The Allegheny and the Monongahela lead into Ohio. So we basically birthed that state. You're welcome, AJ. And let alone the steel, we built every city as well here.

47:47Pat McAfee:So we have a lot of pride, the people from Pittsburgh, in the city of Pittsburgh. But not everybody in Pittsburgh are Pitt fans. There's actually some people in the city of Pittsburgh who don't like Pitt, like actually hate Pitt. And Tone Diggs is one of them. Tone, would you like to speak on that a little bit more, potentially? I like it. How the city and the university within the city have an interesting relationship. And when you say Pitt, you're talking about the university. When you say Pittsburgh, you're talking about the city. So people say, let's go to Pitt this weekend and watch the Steelers.

48:18Pat McAfee:No. That would be the university you're heading to. The city is Pittsburgh. The school is Pitt. So there is quite a dilemma in the city about all of that. And there's a lot of Pitt people right to my left. but I don't think that hears it. So that is why I'm talking like this. I don't think they can hear me, but that is a very real thing in the city of Pittsburgh. Can you back me up on that a little bit? Yes, I can back you up. Pittsburghers, it drives them crazy when people call the city Pitt because that's the university. The city is Pittsburgh. But no, there's a lot of college football fans in the city, and they are divided between Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Ohio State mostly.

48:58Duquesne. duquesne obviously there's a huge fan base for bobby moe as well bobby moe all those carnegie melon uh but like penn state west virginia pitt ohio state all within three hours so like there is huge fan bases of all all of those schools so it's not like hey just because the college is in the city means that everyone in the city is huge fans of the university of pitt no there's a lot there's a lot of different other college football you know fan bases in the city and you know now

49:25Pat McAfee:On that note, on that note zone, every one of us know a lot of Pitt people. Oh, yeah. So we all know Pitt people, but not everybody is Pitt people, if that makes sense. I don't know. And I think tomorrow, from what my understanding is, game day potentially going to be a football celebration. I know Pitt's going to show up. I know the Pitt fans are going to show up. I can't wait to see the Pitt fans. I'm excited for that kind of banter, actually. I'm pretty pumped up to see them on a spotlight. But I think a lot of Pittsburgh people are just coming for football. I think you're going to see a lot of yinzers just for football celebration tomorrow.

49:57Pat McAfee:And I think that's kind of what should be talked about. Because the University of Pittsburgh represents a city that is football. Like, this is football town. Like, that is 100 % what it is through and through. So tomorrow should be epic, AJ, is what I'm thinking. And it's a professional sports town. And I just got word from a source. One of the Heinz bottles is down in the Great Hall, which is underneath the stands in the stadium. Underneath? So we can't see it? No, the Great Hall, you walk through it when you walk through. I believe it's gate. That's not gate A. Gate B or C on the side. They buried it.

50:28Pat McAfee:That's what I heard. No, no, no. And then they put the other one in the Heinz Museum. So, sorry. I mean, that doesn't help the Steelers. I don't see it. I heard they remember getting a red gold bottle in there. Shut up. Out there. I'll mute you right now. Shut your mouth. And that is one thing that we all agree on, okay? We all agree on that in the entire city, whether you're a pit person or not. The fact that there is even other ketchup available in places is scary. That's a scary thing for society. So you get your red gold bullshit time. Hey, I didn't say it. I don't like red gold. I hate when we go around here somewhere.

51:06You go to a nice restaurant. You sit down. You want some ketchup with your French fries. Oh, let me get some Heinz. Oh, nope. That's red gold. I'd rather piss on the side of my plate and dunk it in this stuff. So I don't love it either. I'm just saying what I've heard. Oh, you love it. See? Here's your guy. Yeah, I'd much rather dip it in Red Gold or Hunt than urine. I mean, that's just common sense. Right? I figured you'd be with the one guy who'd be able to soak him up.

51:34Pat McAfee:I think so, but I think it's just a part of it. I think it's a part of being from here. Very proud of the Heinz catch-up and everything that Heinz has done. Yeah, I move out to Indiana. I think Red Gold's actually from Indiana. I believe it is. Back before anybody I mean, I had a little bit of a following on Twitter around Indianapolis. Pretty good. It was a pretty strong following around Indianapolis on Twitter. And I walked to some place and they had Red Gold in front of me, and I put a tweet out. I was like, this is disgusting. What are we even doing here? And I get called into the Colts office.

52:06Pat McAfee:You know, Red Gold's a big sponsor, big sponsor of the Colts. And they were wondering if I would change it. And they're not a sponsor of mine. If your guys' Twitter account wants to say they're good, sweet. You go ahead and do that. They haven't given me anything except for nausea when I see them on a table or whatever. And I got all the way up to Jim. You know, Jim was asked to talk to me about it. And Jim goes, brother, can you just not kill him? Like, you can just don't kill him. Imagine the owner being brought there. Like, that comes to the owner's desk. That's the best. Hey, we got, you know, Pat's just killing one of our ketchup sponsors.

52:41You got to talk to him.

52:42Pat McAfee:Or only. Dude, they're from Indiana. They got Colts logos all over the ketchup bottles. They're in the entire facility. I think I actually took a picture in the facility. That was before I really knew business. You know, like, oh, they're probably paying to be in here if I had to guess. So I took a picture of that thing. Like, yuck. I can't believe this world feeds professional athletes. And it turns out they're from India. We like to thank them for their ketchup fanhood of Heinz. Yeah, fair job. Thank you. Being a fan of Heinz and trying to honor them by creating their ketchup. But on that note, I ain't doing it ever.

53:14Pat McAfee:Not if I'm paying for it. But Ty, huge things happened in baseball last night. Congratulations. First time back-to-back MVPs in both leagues. Is that accurate? And Aaron Judge and Shohei having the seasons that they had going into the year, these are the two biggest stars. Then boom, they back it up for baseball. Everything up into the right MLB-wise, especially with these two winning the MVP, or what are your thoughts, Ty? Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, this is kind of the perfect scenario if you are Major League Baseball. you hope that the two biggest stars in the league could be the MVPs. Shohei was kind of a runaway in the NL.

53:52Very hard-pressed to find another guy who would even maybe be mentioned in the same sentence with him. It's kind of what he's doing year after year now. That's his fourth MVP award already, which is crazy. I don't think it's nuts to say that Barry Bonds had seven MVPs in his career. Shohei could, I mean, this guy could win ten MVPs. It seems like he's got a pretty solid path to potentially winning one every year. And then in the AL, that was where there was a lot of kind of discussion, and it ended up being one of the closest votes ever. Aaron Judge ultimately did win the MVP. This is his third MVP award, and like you mentioned, back-to-back.

54:33And he got 17 first-place votes and 13 of the second-place votes, and Cal Raleigh flipped that around. But if one voter would have flipped these guys around, it would have been a tie. And a lot of people were saying, hey, Cal Raleigh should win this award. You know, historic season, unbelievable. And while that is true, I was a little surprised he didn't win it. I just asked Gertie, I just said, hey, can you just, you know, just maybe put their stats side by side so we can kind of put this thing to rest. So you'll see Cal Raleigh, yes, he did hit more homers. He did have.

55:06Pat McAfee:That's his game. That's the game. That is the game. Home runs bring the tickets. Home runs bring the views. Who had more? Yep, exactly. Now, granted, he didn't hit 20 more than Judge. He hit seven more. And, you know, so it's not that bad. And you see down there, if you go down a little bit more, Judge's batting average was about 100 points higher. He did win the batting title. He's the first person to post a batting average, an on-base percentage, and a slugging percentage of that magnitude since Barry Bonds, who a lot of people think is the best player of all time. And listen, right, wrong, or indifferent, whether you like it, the MVP is kind of like the MVP in the NFL.

55:46It's going to go to a quarterback in this case. It pretty much goes to the best hitter. That's just how it goes. So a lot of people were saying, well, why don't you account for Cal Raleigh, catch it and all. He didn't win a gold glove. He obviously adds a lot of value for his team. But when you look at Judge's numbers, if you don't give it to him, it is just because it's fatigue. like he is the best hitter in baseball now Shohei is the best player in baseball on which side of

56:11Pat McAfee:the plate on which on one side that seems like pretty easy imagine if Cal Raleigh just won on one side of the plate that'd be pretty cool yeah it would be and you know he'd probably do decent now granted you know I don't know if he just hit on one side of the plate if he's going to raise that batting average 100 points that's a pretty fucking big margin uh when it comes to that but But no, Cal Raleigh had an unbelievable season. Judge is just one of the best five hitters of all time. And on that note, both Cal Raleigh, Shohei, and Aaron Judge came on our show. So we're very thankful to all of them.

56:44Pat McAfee:And Aaron Judge, congrats, brother. I am just clearly talking shit to Ty Schmidt in this particular case. Aaron's a dog. And I'm very thankful for the season he had, for the good of sport. Same with Shohei and Cal Raleigh.

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57:47Welcome back out to the Pat McAfee show. I'm AJ Hawk sitting in for Pat here in Indianapolis, Indiana. Pat's in Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Pitt. Big matchup, boys. Football! Pat, you mentioned something. I'm sorry. You mentioned something as we were coming back. You got a situation going on over there? What's happening? It sounds like something's on the loose.

58:09Pat McAfee:There's nothing happening over here, AJ. There's nothing happening over here. It's more so where you guys are. I don't know if you know this, but Fox 59 News in Indianapolis is reporting that there is a chimpanzee on the loose at the zoo currently. Now, listen, these chimps are certainly a fantastic creature. When you look at them, you think to yourself, wow, that might be a damn human, just a little miniature version of it. But God damn, it's going to be stronger than any human could ever be. So if you're around the Indianapolis Zoo area, don't only look on the ground. Look in the sky. These things are great climbers.

58:44Pat McAfee:That chimp could be already in Ohio. We have no idea. Now, Fox 59 is obviously breaking the news down. We appreciate them doing that. But you guys need to be on a lookout for the Thunderdome. We need no wires to be chewed on. We need nothing to be pulled out. We have no idea where this chimpanzee is going to head to. Let's make sure we have that place on lockdown. Maybe have Bill on night watch tonight outside sitting on the roof. Anything like that. Let's not take this for granted That there is a chimpanzee On the loose Now Zito just sent a text into the group Asking if we should send Mitt I think that's a good idea I think we should send What's up dude Great movie They said they need you back in there It was a great Great movie Your dad and Bill are going hunting tomorrow So I think they have the rifles on them So if they want to get started early Don't shoot the chimpanzee Run chimpanzee we've seen those conditions You need to run Get out of here chimpanzee go on now You're talking about the orangutan Yeah free them too Now to be clear The Indianapolis Zoo is a very good zoo It is a lot of money on Preservation of animals And yada yada all that stuff They take care of a lot of stuff Visitors say chimp on the loose at Indiana Zoo Fire crews called for animal bite So he bit somebody and then took off We don't know.

1:00:12Pat McAfee:We don't know what's being real. This is Fox 59 News reporting. I will say I have a lot of respect for the people that run that zoo. Private zoo, no state money. They run it themselves. It's a wonderful zoo and obviously great for our community. But chimpanzee on the loose needs to be, I've seen. Dealt with. Whenever it. The Indianapolis Zoo says the loose chimp has been sedated and safely recaptured. Okay. No staff. Ladies and gentlemen. The last guess where the chimp were injured in the zoo has since been re-earned. We got him. We got him.

1:00:47So he was loose for 12 minutes or what happened? I don't know. That's a lot. In chimpanzee minutes, that's two years. Yeah. Long enough to go get an RPG from the basement of the zoo and safely get him back to where he needs to go.

1:01:01Pat McAfee:I'm happy, though, that they got Caesar. You know? Yeah. When you get Caesar back, it feels like you get the entire flock. What are monkeys? A group of monkeys called? Cackle. A flock. A group. A murder. Pride. A crow. A collective. That's a lion. A collective. A collective. Because they're humans, obviously. They're like the committee and the committee of the committees. I appreciate that they're back. It's a beautiful Friday here from Pittsburgh as tomorrow Notre Dame and Pitt will play. Notre Dame needs a win to continue their national championship hopes. And tomorrow for Pitt will be an absolutely insane scene.

1:01:37Pat McAfee:Jerome Bettis, obviously living legend in Pittsburgh for what the boss was able to do winning a Super Bowl in his retirement game up there in Detroit. He's coming back, obviously, because he's Notre Dame legend, has a lot of events around, so we assume that entire team is going to be back representing as well. And then for the University of Pittsburgh, Aaron Donald will have his number retired at halftime, so all the Pitt greats are going to be here as well. Should be a fantastic weekend of ball, and college football is going to do great. I think Sunday is going to be spectacular. And last night we had a great game to kick it all off for week 11 up there in New England.

1:02:12Pat McAfee:Drake May in this New England Patriots team. Trace Vion Henderson running back out of Ohio State goes for three touchdowns. Drake May almost has a perfect night. Stephon Diggs has over 100 yards. Will Campbell and the other rookie playing left guard named Jared Wilson is an absolute beast. Vrabel obviously supreme commander on the defensive side after giving up a touchdown on the first drive. basically shut it down for the rest of the way. Huge night for Patriots fans to celebrate. Anything we're missing there, Conman, that hasn't been talked about enough about last night's AFC East battle where the New England Patriots say, we're the best team once again in this division?

1:02:49I think just to hammer home the buy-in from the entire team, Fox, if you actually go to the start of the video of Rabel dapping everybody up and just pause it, Milton Williams, who is the highest-paid player in the history of the New England Patriots, which is crazy to say, D tackle. He's actually standing behind here on the right side waiting right there on the right side also waiting to dap everybody up. He didn't finish the game. He left with the ankle went to the locker room came back out tried to get back in the game and Vrabel basically said like hey let's get ahead of this and let's relax a little bit.

1:03:23He's on the right side there and he waited with Vrabel to dap up everybody basically for New England. The other thing too that was really cool is He was tweeting from the locker room as well during the game. I don't know if you want to pull it up, Bruce, but if you go to his account, Christian Barmore hasn't had a sack in a while. But he actually said in his tweet, I think it was two years or a year for Christian Barmore because last year he had the really tough situation with the blood clots, so he missed most of the year, so he hadn't had a sack. and when Christian Barmore did get a sack last night, Milton Williams just tweeted, and it was at like 11 p.m.

1:04:05The game was damn near over. But he tweeted just like, hell yeah, BMO. And I think that's the biggest thing because we talked about the Diggs buy-in, but even just the Milton Williams, the highest paid player, he really doesn't have to, you know, one, battle to be out there, but two, do stuff like this, which is really cool. And then the other little thing I think just to highlight was the Mac Hollins entrance. He wore the 9-8-8 suicide prevention line while he's walking into the game. And, like, I just think that's really cool. Not to mention Chris Gonzalez. He does a lot of help with one of the mental health places, the charity.

1:04:40And I'm forgetting the name now. But that's kind of his, you know, specialty foundation, if you will. And then Matt Holland's doing that. You know, with everything going on, like the Marshawn Nealon situation, one thing. But just everybody on a day-to-day. Matt Holland's doing that in prime time. You know, we know he does wear the funny stuff and he does all the sweet Instagram videos. He's like fixing the washing machine or he's changing the oil in a car or doing all kind of like great stuff. Like I enjoy his content. Yeah, exactly. Like it's typically funny and like the videos he makes are hilarious.

1:05:11He's wearing like a like a three piece suit as he's breaking down like the Bermuda Triangle sometimes. But him doing something like that in prime time, I just thought was really cool. and it's just the team as a whole. It's crazy that, you know, as we talk about the rookies and everything, you know, Pat mentioned the left tackle, left guard being rookies, but it's just the premier positions in general. Like, yes, Drake Mays, 23. Will Campbell, you know, he's 21 and he was locked down once again and he's gone up against, you know, T.J. Watt, Max Crosby, Miles Garrett, who had five sacks, but still has been battle-tested throughout the season.

1:05:46It's incredible when you think about those positions being as young as they are. You know, Christian Gonzalez kind of being lost in the fold because you never hear Christian Gonzalez's name. You just don't. He flies up and makes tackles. He actually had five tackles last night, so it was a little bit more. But he's 23. And this thing that he does for the last two weeks, last week he wore Bobby Orr, this week he wore Larry Legend. Stuff like that is so cool just because you're kind of seeing the players on the team, the young guys specifically on the team, embrace not just the Patriots in the city of Boston, but embracing the history of sports within the city of Boston.

1:06:24That in itself, I think, reflects a lot about kind of the knowledge Mike Vrabel brings. Christian Gonzalez was never doing this before this season as far as those type of shirts. But now, you know, seeing that, that kind of makes me think like, oh, okay, so Vrabel's also educating them on like the sports fandom. How special it is. I'm sure he tries to tell them, hey, guys, it's not like this everywhere else for you players that this is the only NFL experience you know. Like, it's not like this. I was in Green Bay for nine years, and guys would leave and come back, or they'd come from other places, and they'd be like, man, this place is special.

1:06:56Like, it doesn't – they don't do it like this everywhere. As we're talking about legends, Gronk, what do you call it? What did he do? The keeper of the light. He's the keeper of the light here. I don't know. Jesus. This is amazing. Damn here, yank that kid off the top of the lighthouse. Look how high up they are, too. Gronk is just everything he's doing is full go. Like, I love this whole situation with what Gronk – he was – yeah, here we go. smashing guitars. Who's he singing with here? Juan Jovi? Yeah, I don't think it was JBJ, John Juan Jovi. And I think Kenny is back on tour. I'm assuming it's just one of the locals, maybe Dalton and the Sheriff's.

1:07:31But, yeah, Gronk being back as well is just so cool to see for me as someone who grew up with him and him going to Tampa, everything, that's all forgotten. He's a Patriot for life, baby. Were you surprised? You can't be surprised. Yeah, we're glad he retired as a Patriot. but you weren't surprised by that. He was in what? Was he there two years? Yeah, yeah. He was there for two years. But yeah, it's not something you're surprised by. It's just more so the gesture. We know Gronk is retired. He obviously isn't coming back to play football. But just the gesture of, hey, I'm going to make it a point that I love this place way more than anywhere else.

1:08:06And even though I played for Tampa and won a Super Bowl here, that doesn't discredit all the time I spent in New England. This is where he grew up. This is where he met his longtime girlfriend. like so many things had happened in new england so before the game sorry to cut you off before the whole crowd i think this is halftime actually i think he's trying to get the people going at halftime because his whole before the game was the keeper of the light thing so it's it's just it's awesome to see stuff like this and it just goes back to how much football means to the people in new england yeah football means a lot to to most people that watch us fans all over the country and pat i believe is sitting down with our our friday legend with you pat here we go here we go coach Nick.

1:08:44Pat McAfee:Yeah, I think that's a great descriptor there. The Friday legend, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Friday afternoon, Nick Saban. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the hell out of you, man. How's it feel to be here in Pittsburgh? Your thoughts on the city of Pittsburgh as a whole? You coach for the Cleveland Browns, obviously, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns have and have had for a long time that rivalry. I don't know how much University of Pittsburgh history do you have and what are your thoughts on us being here? Well, I love being here because was A, about 125 miles down the road, down I-79, is where I grew up.

1:09:19So to come to Pittsburgh when I was a kid, whether it was to go to Kennywood Park, see the Steelers once a year, see the Pirates once a year, that was like it, man. That was it. Kennywood. And then of all things.

1:09:31Pat McAfee:Tell me more about Kennywood, please. I love it. What was it, the Pip or something? Yeah, certainly. Yeah. I still remember that. The rabbit, yeah, yeah. The jackrabbit. Yeah, from when I was a kid. But, ironically... If you had to guess what year that was. You know, 60s. Hasn't changed a bit since. Okay, don't listen to him. Go ahead, I'm sorry. So then, ironically, everyone where I grew up is a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I've been a Pittsburgh Steelers fan all my life. And then I go to the Cleveland Browns. So, when we play Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, I've got to get 100 tickets for Steelers fans.

1:10:11and then when I get in the bus to leave the game, they're all out there fighting the Browns fans.

1:10:15Pat McAfee:Yeah, exactly. None of them rooted for me. Yeah, I mean, that's a Pittsburgh story and a staple there with the fighting and football. But it is a football town, like very much a football town. You can feel it. And I think tomorrow morning is going to be special. Tell me about this Pitt team, what you've learned from watching. We just talked to Narduzzi, and he said everybody that's on his team, he wants to love ball. He wants to be tough, obviously. He's going to have a lot of greats back. What do you think about this current Pitt team? And can they knock off Notre Dame from the college football playoff?

1:10:42Pat McAfee:That's what's on the line tomorrow, basically. Well, I think Pat Narduzzi has done an outstanding job here, no question. I think this is a tough job, and I think the job he's done this year with this team, this freshman quarterback, I mean, this guy is the real deal now. He's athletic. He can run. Really good passer. And they're throwing it 63 % of the time. So, to me, this is the type of team, when you have a passing team that can make explosive plays and they're going to air it out all the time. They're the type of team that can upset a team that's better because as long as they can protect well enough and the guys can make plays, they've got a chance to score points.

1:11:19So that can always, you know, when you're a, I call it, wad ball team, like you're running the ball, running the ball, running the ball, and you play somebody better, that's hard. This, not so hard because you can take advantage of making big plays. Now the question to me is going to be, how does Pitt's receivers match up against Notre Dame secondary because Notre Dame plays a lot of man-to-man. So if they can't be man-to-man, they'll have a tough time even though they're going to throw the ball effectively.

1:11:47Pat McAfee:See, Notre Dame has quite the advantage, I assume, in recruiting for DBs. They got NFL DBs all over the place. Not that Pitt doesn't have NFL guys, but I'm just saying Notre Dame has been built basically with five stars. So on the outside, whenever you talk about wide receiver DBs, that's a great athlete out there normally. And you're talking about wide ball whenever you play a better team. That's normally because the D-line better athletes than what the offensive line is used to, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, now you're creating a matchup with, you know, is our O-line good enough to block their D-line where it's a lot easier to get receivers and a quarterback that can make throws and just get in their way long enough until we can throw it.

1:12:24Pat McAfee:And you think that's Narduzzi's plan tomorrow? And what do you think Notre Dame's plan is? Just a standard, let's play how we play, we run the ball all over this team and kind of dominate from beginning to end? You think that's what Freeman's Well, I think they're scoring 39 points a game, so Notre Dame's got a pretty powerful offense, and it's balanced. They can run it. They can throw it. So I'm sure they're going to think that we can continue to do these kinds of things. But Pitt's defense has been really good against the run. They're one of the top teams in the country in stopping the run. So if you can make them one-dimensional, I think you've got a chance.

1:12:55But I think what Narduzzi's thinking is I'm going to try to affect the quarterback. They pressure like 40 % of the time, try to upset Carr as a quarterback, and then can we make enough plays on offense, throwing the football to score enough points to have a chance to win this game?

1:13:11Pat McAfee:A lot of Italians where you grew up? Yeah, a lot of Eastern European people and Italians, yes, sir. Eastern European, I like that. I'm Croatian, that's why I have to say Eastern European. Because you're describing to us on a map where the hell Croatia is. That's what you just did to me. most people don't know but it's eastern european idea though yeah right by turkey that would be for the rest of my life yeah we love croatia don't we have croatian oh yeah come on dc brati no do you know brucevic is actually married into a uh or getting married into a or yeah no getting married into a croatian family he speaks a little bit do you speak croatian oh yeah i know dobra Good.

1:13:54Yeah. You know, I mean, my grandparents spoke Croatian and, you know, when I was a kid. But how's Croatian food?

1:14:00Pat McAfee:Croatian food good? I went there once and visited and was not that impressed. You got to try the cevapi. The cevapis are phenomenal. I never heard of it.

1:14:16I like Italian food, man. Terry's Italian and speaking and cooking. I love it.

1:14:20Pat McAfee:I was about to say, here in Pittsburgh, there's like a thousand Italian spots. I'm excited to see what you end up doing, what you end up getting into. This place has great food all over the place. Yeah, well, you know, Sabo's on our staff, South Sinceri. Yes. And I guess his family has a little deli or something here. And we used to bring the, you know, sausage and all that stuff in. It was good. Yeah, Sinceri's have one. There'll be a bubba-da-bu-ba-ba-ini right down the road. And then there'll be a soup-a-da-bu-ba-da-ba-ini around the corner. and then you get a Pepe there and then you'll get a Dalla Salah, then you'll get a De Giulio, then you'll get a Miraldo, then you'll get a Master Giacomo, then you'll get a Proneo, then you'll get an Impavito.

1:14:58Pat McAfee:These are just people I grew up with. Sounds to me like you're a pretty expert. I know a lot, yeah. And I took a 23 of me and found out I was.01 % Italian. And that really changed a lot of things that I'd said. Nick, I'd like to let you know that was a big moment in my life. Don't you think, Nick? I think that was a big moment for the way I'd been operating. Don't you agree, Franklin Moraldo up there? Absolutely. Yeah, that changed a lot of things. You know, you had viewed a certain group of people a certain way. And then when you realized you were part of that group, I think you became more enlightened.

1:15:29Pat McAfee:No, no, that is, I don't think that is exactly right. I was like the only Irish guy. Okay. It was all Italians. I was the only Irish guy. So obviously football town, shit talking town, only Irish guy, all Italians. You could probably assume how that probably went, especially with me being involved. Then I found out I'm actually part Italian. It's like wait a minute so we got to go back and uh trying to change some things but great we make great food i mean we we make great food and you talk about kennywood you need to go back there they're opening up for you tonight if you want to go stop i hadn't been there for probably 50 years go ahead tonight everybody's still going yeah i'd love to go shut up aj i heard a little negative stuff out there we don't need to talk about that aj actually has the last question for you on this particular game before we move on to the rest of the college football slate so coach that field behind you gets a lot of play.

1:16:18It gets talked about a lot. We've seen some situations. The turf there is not always stable. Were you a coach that made your players? Did you ever talk about the field conditions going in? I know the NFL coaches do this where sometimes they'll make their players wear screw-ins in certain situations. Was that something that you actually talked about or you cared to talk about with your team? Yeah, what I talked about with my team was that it's a bad field, get some shoes that work. It was really simple. I wasn't going to try to pick the shoes for them and then they come to me saying he's hurt my feet get some shoes that work but don't look at me when you slip and fall and you could run for a touchdown because i'm going to just look at you and say get some shoes that work it's a simple coach haven't said this in the

1:16:59Pat McAfee:meeting he said i told the boys as long as it's 53 yards wide 100 yards long we're going to play football it doesn't matter what it is i followed up immediately uh coach haven't said that as a man that doesn't have to run a single yard on that particular yard. But it is real. If both teams have to play on it, let's not talk about it. What are we even talking about, basically? That's right. But, you know, every stadium that I played in, as soon as I walked in this room and looked at this field, I remember playing the Steelers here when I was a coach of the Dolphins. And, you know, we worked so hard.

1:17:32They would corner cat. Dick LeBeau was the defensive coordinator. But most of the time when they corner cat, they played three deep zone, and we worked hard when they went to two trap because it was always throw it hot to the X. Dante Culpepper. Hot to the X. Two trap. Pick six. It's the first thing I remember. I mean, why can't I remember good things when I go to a stadium?

1:17:54Pat McAfee:You remember them dancing into that end zone? Dancing in the street, baby. Absolutely. The grass does look good. Now, granted, with where we're sitting, we're not able to get as good of a shot, but the grass does look good. Now, granted, they do spray paint it too i mean that is just as a matter of fact that they do and uh i i don't want to i don't want to get on that it looks much better than i thought honestly yeah it looks good it looks impeccable but you know the problem with the field is you know people like to use zoysia grass on a field because that makes a really nice field but then it doesn't grow when it's not warm enough so you have to put rye grass to complement it to make it green now this is a problem and i I never wanted to do this, so I said, we got to get some grass that grows until football season is over because when you put ryegrass on a field, the blades are really thick in the ryegrass and it makes it very slick, especially if it's damp at all.

1:18:51And people are slipping and sliding because the cleats don't go in the ground because the grass is so thick.

1:18:56Pat McAfee:Yeah, so it's kind of like your cleat sticks on top of it. On top of it. So it's almost like you're on actually skids, which the grass is thick. I know exactly what you're talking about as you were explaining it. I had no idea you had a green thumb. I'm a Kentucky bluegrass fan myself. That is my favorite style of grass. Yeah, well, I just wanted something that, you know, the players wouldn't. Because, you know, you get this happening in practice, and you lose players and get hurt with twisted ankles and all this kind of stuff because you've got bad footing. So I was a stickler on that big time.

1:19:25Pat McAfee:What about Bermuda grass? That's pretty good grass as well. Oh, yeah. But it doesn't grow when it gets cold either, so you've got a problem. Bermuda grass, soft-ass grass. Super grass. teams not being able to play in the cold. That might be true, but they sure as hell can play in the Southeast.

1:19:43Pat McAfee:Yes, they can. Speaking of the Southeast, Diggs has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, let's go down to Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Alabama has a big one this weekend, but overall, I want to talk not only about this game, but their overall picture. They are 120th, I believe, in running the football. Can you win a national championship or get to a national championship being a one-dimensional offense in your opinion? Well, I think it's hard. I really do. But if you've got a good enough quarterback and you've got good enough receivers, which that's the strength of their team to me, you know, Ty Simpson and the receiver core.

1:20:21And they make a lot of explosive plays. Now, they have struggled to run the ball. The offensive line is going to have to continue to improve because they have pretty decent backs, but they just have not been able to sustain and finish in the run game at all, which puts them behind the sticks a lot. But they make more explosive plays on run downs. That play right there that you're watching right now is a first and ten play. So I'm like, throw the ball when they think you're going to run it and just keep making explosive plays that way. And if you want to run it better, run it when they think you're going to throw it, and maybe you'll do a better job and develop some confidence in your ability to run the ball.

1:20:57Pat McAfee:Okay, so on that note, the SEC has a lot of games. Okay, there's a lot of games left with a lot on the line. Ty wants to ask you about a big one down in Athens. And it's crazy to think all the teams at the top of the SEC are going to have to play each other, you know? That's right. And you're going to hear a lot of the SEC people say, isn't that convenient? Okay, all the best teams have to play against the best teams. So now the number in that second column, the lost number, is going to have to go up for some of these good teams. Are they going to beat the hell out of each other? Natai has a question about Athens-Georgia, Coach.

1:21:26Yeah, Coach, that Texas-Georgia game, Texas over the last four weeks, obviously they're 4-0, but a couple tight overtime games, and then the Vandy game last week being tighter than maybe some people thought it would be, but Arch has looked unbelievable. And then on the flip side, Georgia kind of just workmanlike. They just continue to win and win. How do you see that game going, and do you think that most of the questions that people had about Texas a couple weeks ago have maybe been answered because they're kind of coming back pretty strong here. I think a lot of people see them as, okay, this is maybe partially the team we expected to see coming into the season.

1:22:08Well, I think Texas has improved for two reasons. I think in the last two games, Arch has played better. He's playing with a little more rhythm and not hurrying everything up. He's been more effective and efficient and his completion percentage is way up and all that. and the offensive line has played better. So those two things, I think, have made them show improvement as a team. But they still haven't been a dominant team. I mean, even the games that they've won, they either had to come back and win, win in overtime, or just barely beat Vanderbilt. And then they had terrible issues last week in the secondary where they gave up over 300 yards passing.

1:22:45So they still have issues on their team that I think they need to resolve. Now, they're going to play a really good team, and this week would be a great week to do it. But I'm telling you what, this Georgia team, now their offense, I mean, they can run it. Gunner makes plays. They got some decent receivers who can make plays. I mean, they're a good team. The only thing that is Georgia's issue is they don't have a significant pass rusher and they don't create a lot of negative plays on defense and they haven't been able to get off the field on third down like they historically have been able. So that allows the other team to keep the ball.

1:23:19So those are things that they can improve on. So both teams have some flaws that they need to improve upon, and whoever can do it in this game best will have the best chance to win.

1:23:30Pat McAfee:Now, on that note, Georgia very much in the running for a national championship right now. They pick up a loss to Texas. It'll be a huge conversation about them losing to Texas. Texas, at some point, I think they're going to play Texas A &M as well. They're going to pick up, but if they pick up two wins here with how the entire season has gone, all of a sudden Texas right back in the conversation. What's the conversation about Georgia? What's the conversation about Alabama? as they've gotten through the hardest schedule that maybe the entire college football season has had. It's like you guys down the south are certainly going to have a lot of reasons to be pissed about whatever happens at the end, and it is because of the scheduling.

1:24:01Pat McAfee:But we want these big games to happen, so it's kind of like an interesting dilemma right now in ball. Yeah, I would like to have the good games. I think that's good for fans. I think it's good for football. I think players love playing in games, you know, like this game here or like, you know, the Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Texas A &M, Texas later on. But when it comes to getting in the playoffs because of the way it's set up, it's not necessarily in your best interest to play a tough schedule right now. But when you've got seven teams in the top 15, which you don't want to admit the SEC's worth a damn.

1:24:36They've got to play each other. Mr. Big Ten over here.

1:24:40Pat McAfee:No, and in the 12, and in the 12, and in the big 12. So they're going to play each other. So somebody's got to lose. So somebody's going to end up with three losses, and they're not going to be able to get in the playoffs, but yet they may be a better team than some of the teams who get in the playoffs. It happened already last year. You know, last year was the first year of the 12-team playoff. And, you know, the BCS model where there was a bunch of different, then we picked which one's the national championship, and then the four teams was obviously a big expansion. Everybody was pissed about who's the fifth team.

1:25:08Pat McAfee:now with the 12 team one now everybody's pissed about who the 13 team is because you know the five highest ranked champions is notre dame going to get a spot well everybody in football including the sec big 10 big 12 acc definitely everybody's pulling for notre dame to lose at some point but notre dame still has a track to the college football players for sure if they win these games and that takes away a spot now from one of these teams you're talking about that has to play one of these schedules and that kind of goes to ohio state's conversation now uh desmond howard's been bringing it up for a few weeks because he's obviously Michigan guy but also I think he's been tasked with doing some Ohio State you know research basically for college game day and he's like listen Ohio State hasn't really played anybody now granted every game you could lose in college football you're talking about 18 year olds to 22 year olds I guess there's some 45 year olds playing in certain situations but you know it's a younger group and having everybody show up every single week is part of you being great and why you're the goat so winning every game is certainly impressive dominating every game definitely impressive but when you look at who they've played you don't really see anybody on the schedule so i think we don't know dan orlovsky yesterday comes out and goes we don't have their good team we've never seen them losing in the fourth quarter kind of contradicts himself there we don't know if they're a good team they've never been down in the fourth quarter it's like wow wow you know if they were not a good team i guess they would have some times where they're down at some point in the game but i think what a lot of people are saying they haven't been tested so like how do you look at an ohio state team because they have been so damn dominant, but it feels like they haven't had like a staple win other than Texas at the beginning of the year, and everybody thought Texas at that point was nowhere near what everybody thinks they were going to be now.

1:26:44Pat McAfee:You know, like how do you judge the Ohio State kind of run that they've been on? Right. Well, they've been dominant. I mean, they're only giving up like seven points a game defensively, and they score a whole bunch of points. They've got good receivers. The quarterback's played well. They don't run the ball great if they have a flaw, but at the same time, I always wanted our teams to be tested. I always wanted to play against good teams because I wanted to see how, what the competitive spirit of our team really was, what the mental toughness was, how we could overcome adversity. Because when you dominate everybody, then you get in a tight game, people start getting frustrated because they're not dominating.

1:27:21That's not, you've got to win, you know. I mean, you can't get frustrated just because you're not dominating the game. So, but I do think Ohio State has a good team. I think there's three teams that's kind of proven they're a cut above A &M, Ohio State, and Indiana. Those three teams have kind of shown that they're a cut above the other teams. The other teams are good enough to beat them, but they all have a little flaw or something that they need to overcome. So it'll be interesting to see how that works out down the stretch here.

1:27:51Pat McAfee:Okay, so in the NFL, they say, like, the people in the know, after the season starts, everybody kind of understands that there's probably like seven to eight teams that could actually go win the Super Bowl. in college, it feels like there is tears each year on who can actually win, and then everybody else that is in the good level. That's why people are saying if we go to 16-team playoff, or if we go to whatever, like, does it matter because a lot of these teams are just going to get the doors blown off them whenever they play against a good team. How many teams are those normally? Three, four teams that are, like, built for it?

1:28:19Pat McAfee:And did you know your teams were national championship teams during the season, or did you think, with some of your squads, like, maybe we're not at the level that we need to be to be actual national championship? I don't know if that makes sense in the question. Yeah, it does. And most of the time I didn't know because I think when you're coaching a team, you're always looking at what do we need to improve on. So you're not actually trying to compare that team to all the other teams. But I do remember one thought I had. You know, we won the national championship in 20. Waddle broke his leg at Tennessee on a kickoff return.

1:28:54Shouldn't even brought it out, but he did. And he got hurt. so and I'm saying we had Smitty we had Waddle and we had a really good quarterback you know Mack and I said you know this team's got a chance but we got to do it because we have the good skill guys and when Waddle got hurt I said in my mind it went through my mind as soon as they told me he was hurt and he was out we won't have a chance to win now but we did yeah and Waddle played right if I recall in the national championship was that played a few plays he could run in a straight line but he had a hard time changing direction and he wanted to play.

1:29:27Oh, yeah. And he caught a pass or two. But, you know, Smitty had a phenomenal year and won the Heisman Trophy. And, you know, we had balance on the team. But that's the only team that I remember ever thinking that something happened that. It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. When Tua got hurt, had the same feeling. Because that was one of the best teams we ever had is the year Tua broke his hip. That was one of the best teams we ever had because we had four first-round draft pick receivers. and I like them receivers, man. They scored fast and they get on me about, you know, me thinking being a defensive guy we're scoring too fast and protect the defense.

1:30:02I loved it. I loved it when we scored fast.

1:30:05Pat McAfee:Yeah, but the reason why they think that is because watching old school Alabama, you were winning, but it was just like so boring. You know, you were just handing the ball off. You guys were just running all over people and then, all right, your defense is going to dominate the other side. And it was like it was 1970, 1980. We're just going to beat the hell out. And you guys did. And that was like, we're a tough football team. We're going to pound the shit out of you. Quarterback never really got a lot of credit. It was always everybody else. So then when you make that change to become like an explosive offense and keep up basically with what football I became, everybody did assume that you hated it.

1:30:38Pat McAfee:They're like, oh, Saban's yearning for the days where we're all falling asleep in the third quarter as they're just pounding another team into oblivion. Did people thought that about you, Coach? No, they probably did. But I actually figured out when people were throwing RPOs and going no huddle fast and starting scoring 40 points a game that we will not be able to win playing this style of football. We have to be able to utilize, you know, make people defend the whole field vertically and horizontally, have great skill guys, get a great quarterback, and score more points. And, you know, we won some championships by outscoring people rather than playing defense.

1:31:17Pat McAfee:Yeah, I'd say you won some championships. The trophies are all over the house. There you go. They're literally falling out of the shelves. Seven-time national champion. The national championship odds right now are sitting with Ohio State at plus 185 at the very top of this thing. Indiana plus 450. Texas A &M plus 750. To your point about the three teams above, they also have Alabama in that. If you were to look at the odds, not that much different from Texas A &M. Notre Dame at plus 1 ,000. Big one here at Pitt. There's going to be a lot of energy here in this building. I think it's going to be a tough one for them.

1:31:47Pat McAfee:Georgia plus 1 ,300. Texas plus 3 ,500 down there at the bottom obviously meeting. Oregon in the mix. Texas Tech, Ole Miss, and that rounds out the odds. But you know one thing about this whole thing, and you know you say Ohio State hadn't played a tough schedule, but just taking Alabama, which I'm closest to because I live there, this has been a tremendous grind for this team. I mean they've played like four or five games in a row against really top opponents. Now they're going to go play Oklahoma, who's a top opponent. LSU is no slouch, regardless of what you think, from a player standpoint.

1:32:25So they've been through this gauntlet. So can they actually build on the momentum that they have, or are they going to get the poor me's, I call it, because sometimes your team gets the poor me's at this time of the season. You know, poor me, I'm tired, poor me, I'm hurt, poor me, this and that, all that. and if you get that then you don't practice as well, you don't prepare as well, you don't play as well and those things start showing up in your performance and I'm just hoping this team can sustain their way through it and prove that they are where they should be.

1:32:57Pat McAfee:I love you just looking at a guy saying, oh poor me I love it, that's where it all came, I call it the poor me's the amount of time you've seen somebody patting or thinking a certain way just in your brain coming up with the poor me's. I wish I was there for that moment. Sounds amazing. But the fact that you have motivation for every single situation is why you're the goat of college football. And we're lucky that you chat with us every week. Let's talk about sports as a whole and let's talk about the game that happened last night. The guy who's the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman is in his second year, Drake May.

1:33:27Pat McAfee:Boston Connor has a question for you about him. Yeah, coach, Greg Olson put out a tweet kind of about basically the importance of recruits playing other sports. He does a foundation, Youth Inc., and it's just all about getting kids into all types of sports and he kind of tagged it with a photo of you and Sark at Drake Mays High School. I believe it's the Mustangs he represented in high school and it's you watching him play basketball. But I just wanted to ask you about the importance and what you would do when recruiting players. You know, was there ever a time where you went to watch a Julio Jones or a Derrick Henry and they were maybe hitting a baseball 600 feet or dunking a basketball from the free throw line and you honestly had more respect for what they were as an athlete and a player a football player?

1:34:11Was there ever a time, too, where you damn near wanted to recruit a kid and get him to commit early so he didn't go to the NBA or go to the MLB within a year? And what do you think about that when it comes to recruits now who typically focus in one sport and then in their offseason are playing that same sport or preparing for that sport's next season? Do you think that recruits all over should be playing at least two sports? And how much does it show you when you get to see a guy outside of football compete in a different field? Yeah, well, first of all, Drake May was one of those guys that you're talking about in the first part of your question that really impressed me by the way he played basketball.

1:34:54He probably could have played basketball at North Carolina, too, and was going to out of high school. And one of the reasons that he was committed to us for a long time, his family was all Carolina, which I knew would eventually be an obstacle, but he wanted to play basketball as well. And he probably could have because I was very impressed watching him play basketball. I mean, this guy was a good player. And he obviously is everything that we thought he was going to be coming out of high school as an NFL player now and also had a great college career. So he was one of those guys that impressed.

1:35:28I was never a guy. I liked it when players played multiple sports because to me that says something about them as a competitor, that they love to play, they love to compete, they wanted to play whatever was in season because that's how I grew up, that's how we all did it back in the day, and I love to see guys do that. And I think other sports tells you a lot about a guy. Like baseball is basically boring. Amen, bro.

1:35:56Pat McAfee:No, no, no, no. Baseball is good. Baseball is good. But I love guys that play baseball because to me, even though it's a slow game, you have to have more athletic intuition to play the game than other games. I mean, you can run track and one track meet and have no athletic intuition. You're just fast. But in baseball, you got to make lots of choices and decisions about, is it a ball or a strike? Should I hit it? Should I not hit it? What pitch is he throwing from the time it leaves the pitcher's hand and gets a home plate? Nobody can teach you that. Ball judgment. You know, I mean, I mean, how many DBs do you see that have terrible ball judgment?

1:36:29I used to like to recruit track guys to play corner, and after they'd give up big plays because they couldn't judge the ball, I started recruiting baseball players. I knew they could judge the ball. So, you know, these are all things that I think you can learn about players when you watch them play other sports. And I loved it when guys played other sports, and I was never opposed to guys playing other sports because I didn't think it ever affected their development in terms of what they would do in the future.

1:36:57Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about that because I think there's a lot of gurus and specialists and experts that are telling a lot of these young guys and young athletes, I have a daughter, she's two and a half, she hasn't been in it yet. I think AJ would be able to maybe speak to this better than all of us in Ohio. I don't know how it goes and how AJ, he's a professional athlete and played every single sport. So I'd assume AJ agrees with us. But what is the sell, AJ? They're saying that you've got to spend every single minute that you have working on your craft if you want to be able to become a professional.

1:37:22Pat McAfee:Is that basically the sell for these people to only do one sport year round that you've experienced with your kids or that they pitched to other kids yeah i mean i've kind of experienced it all and talked to all different kinds of coaches from what i've found that bad coaches want their want kids to specialize in one sport like coaches that aren't great they want to specialize they just make it really tough you have to be an absolute stud to play like three sports in high school now because basketball is going all year round lacrosse is all year round football is the one that's like hey football is football season yeah you have off season stuff but i just think they make it tough because there's so many things you have to miss if you do want to play other sports.

1:37:58But you just got to be good enough. You got to be too good to where, hey, guess what? I'll be there once this basketball season's over. I'll show up at lacrosse, but I'm that good you're going to have to play me. That's kind of how it is right now, I feel like.

1:38:09Pat McAfee:And on that note, AJ, I think all these experts and gurus that probably never made it, and they probably blame the fact that they didn't make it because they didn't solely focus maybe on one sport, so they're projecting themselves onto younger athletes. It's like I think you develop in your main sport by playing other sports. Even though you're missing out on some reps, it's like what you're gaining, your point about ball judgment, everything like that, these other sports make you better at your sports. So it's like I don't get it. Now, granted, I had schools looking at me in three different sports coming out of high school.

1:38:43Pat McAfee:I don't know how many people have that. But on that note, it's like I grew up playing every sport. I didn't play video games as much because I had ADD. So I was playing sports, sports, sports, sports. And everyone fed into the other, seemingly. And I don't know how that kind of gets missed. Yeah, but to AJ's point, it's more difficult for guys to play all sports. When I was in school, I played whatever was in season I played, but football ran into basketball, especially if you got into playoffs. But we might miss a few games, but then we'd come and play. It's harder to do. But my point is the best player is the best player.

1:39:17I don't care how much you try to develop him and how much he specializes growing up and all that. like Michael Dean Perry. He didn't like to practice. But when I was at the Cleveland Browns and we'd put him on the sled and it was, how fast can you hit the sled? His hands would be on the sled and all them other defensive linemen, their hands still be in the ground. So he was just that much quicker than everybody else. So did he have to specialize in his sport from the time he was eight years old to do that? I don't think so.

1:39:45Pat McAfee:You said it feels like people are trying to make decisions that have already been made for most people and how they were created. That's awesome. Well, and kids get burned out. Yes. Absolutely. I mean, how many tennis players and people like that did you hear about that they start specializing when they're eight years old, and by the time they're 16, they want to quit? So we have CFO Phil is a Pitt grad. He's all excited about this, obviously. Oh, yeah. He's super pumped about Pitt, getting a little bit of love, a little celebration for the University of Pittsburgh. He's got a boy, Lil Phil, okay?

1:40:17Pat McAfee:Lil Phil, really good hockey player. Hockey, you know, is one of those sports where it's a lot of commitment. They move out of their hometowns, you know, and he's very good. But they have made a conscious decision, I think, at this stage of his life where, yeah, you're still playing baseball. We're still doing other sports because it's going to help hockey. But at some point, he's going to have to fully commit to hockey because of the amount of time that it kind of takes. It's interesting what sports have become, I think, to you and AJ's point. Like, some of these sports are going to commit full time.

1:40:42Pat McAfee:How about those Olympic sports? Like, let's just say figure skating, swimming. Insane. Those things are like the amount of – it's like 4 a.m. you're in the pool. and you need to be in the pool for three hours, and then you're going to do school, and then afterwards you're in the pool. It's like, how do you do anything? I don't know. I guess that's tough to balance, AJ. So I have a question for you. So from a hockey standpoint, you know, these guys get drafted when they're 17, 18 years old. They can still go to college and play. They can go to some, you know, league somewhere in Canada or wherever they're from and play.

1:41:15And then they turn pro when they're 21. You think that's ever happening in football?

1:41:21Pat McAfee:It's already happened. They're pro whenever they get recruited. And then they transfer, and then they transfer, and they're already pro. So, yeah, I think it's already happening. Yeah. IMG? Yeah, but the NFL team doesn't have to draft them out of high school. That's different. Oh, you're saying having the rights out of high school develop somewhere. So, like, teams draft high schoolers and then send them to Ohio State to develop or something like that? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Oh, wow. And then the other question I have is now that they let guys come from the G League, Back to college hoops.

1:41:54College hoops. Is the New York Giants going to be able to send their third team quarterback to Penn State to develop at some point? These are my questions.

1:42:03Pat McAfee:Definitely not Penn State. These are my questions, he says. Hey, you guys ask me questions. I'm asking. That's great. Good question. I never thought about that. I mean, it's happening with hockey right now. To your point, Gavin McKenna, I don't think he's been drafted yet, but he's been the number one recruit prospect for the NHL for multiple years now. And kind of out of nowhere, he decided to go to Penn State this year. Because they have money, because the amount of money that they're paying there.

1:42:32The Penguins first round draft pick is at Michigan right now, and he's leading the college hockey in scoring right now. So they have his rights, and he's playing at Michigan, leading the NCAA. That's what my brother-in-law did. My brother-in-law drafted number three overall in NHL, and he went and played at Michigan two years and then went to the NHL.

1:42:47Pat McAfee:Okay, is that just because the team he got drafted to? I guess we should ask Nick. Nicky Skates in the back there, Frank Paisano. What is it with hockey? They still keep your rights? They can send you to any school? Or how does that kind of work? No, and I mean, it's different. It's case-by-case circumstances. So, like, in AJ's case there, I believe Jack Johnson was drafted to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Or, I'm sorry, Carolina Hurricanes. He may not have been ready to make the pro team. He said that, yeah. He said he wasn't ready. He admitted to me I was not ready. I needed to go play in college, actually.

1:43:16So they give him a couple years to develop, and he gets free reign of where he goes to school or if he goes to play junior or anything like that. But then he goes to Michigan.

1:43:23Pat McAfee:Did they do this in baseball, Ty? Is this baseball, too? Or no, are they designated for the minor? Sorry, go ahead. Is that a hockey? You still have hockey? Yeah. No, I was going to ask. They still keep the rights for two or three years, though, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. When they draft a guy out of high school. So on that note, baseball, Pat White, whenever he was with us, he got drafted like four times because they wanted his rights, I think, just in case football didn't work. Ty, is baseball doing this with college too? Because I know, like, don't guys get drafted and then choose to go to college?

1:43:50Pat McAfee:Do their rights remain with the guys that they got drafted to? No, so it changes. So, like, we talked about this with Kyler Murray. Like, in that instance, like, if he were to go back and play, like, the A's still have his rights. But if you get drafted first round out of high school or first overall pick, a lot of times what will happen is they can't agree on a signing bonus or something, you know, or the team sucks and they don't want to go there and just kind of wither away in the minors, those guys will go to college, and then when they become draft eligible, their rights are open again so they can be drafted by anybody.

1:44:23In three years. Yep. Three years. Yeah. Got it. So you mentioned a guy there, Pat White.

1:44:27Pat McAfee:Yeah. Guess who he was committed to? Yeah, I heard. You didn't want him to play quarterback. Yeah. And again, what a dumbass. I'll tell you what. I watched his ass take the snap and run all over every field, and I rode his coattails through some big moments. I mean, it was awesome, right? He was fantastic. He was cool, man. He was a great leader, too. Like, incredible leader. Like, that's the thing about him. His dad, fire chief, I think. So, like, his dad, obviously. Yeah, Mobile, Alabama. The home of Mardi Gras. That's where Mardi Gras was actually created. Then it went down in New Orleans. I learned all this at the Senior Bowl whenever I was very intoxicated.

1:45:00Pat McAfee:I missed my flight tonight to the ESPN skills kicking contest. Missed it. Why does none of that surprise me? I don't know, man. I should have been a little bit more locked in, And especially with how I understand how it all works now at this point. Could you imagine? I go down to that ESPN kicking contest. I miss the first meeting because I missed a flight out of Mobile, Alabama. There's only like two flights a day out of that place. So, obviously, I'm stuck there. I miss the meeting, miss the rehearsal, miss the rules, miss the engagement, miss all the gifts, the swag. Everybody knows that I missed a flight.

1:45:30Pat McAfee:And I assume they know why I missed a flight. I show down there, win a contest or two, and then I kind of get out of there wearing pink cleats. And I think everybody goes, you either like this guy or you hate this guy. Thank God Bill Pullian said, we like this guy. And he got a little boozed up, Bill Pullian said. Who cares? They want a senior bowl. Let's do that. But, boy, I could have certainly been making sandwiches here in Pittsburgh for the rest of my life. And it would have been at Rudy's Sub's. And you might learn a little bit about Rudy's tomorrow, Tone Diggs. Watch your mouth and your tone whenever it comes up tomorrow on the Internet.

1:45:59Pat McAfee:Okay, Tone? Rudy's is my favorite best cheeseburger salad in the country. Is that basically like a meatball sub? Nope. Coach. Coach, I'm sorry. You've got to deal with this. I love these guys, though. They're really good. They bring out the best in you, too. Thanks, Coach. Coach, you like meatball subs? Coach, you like meatball subs? You like meatball subs? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes. Meatball subs are just meatballs. How about pepperoni rolls? You guys know what pepperoni rolls are. Oh, yeah. Most of these guys don't even know what pepperoni rolls are. She's made them before for us. Yeah, she brought them to Alabama.

1:46:31Pat McAfee:I think we had them in Alabama. Listen, a lot of Italians around. We know what pepperoni rolls are. Oh, yeah, we do. I understand that. Meatball subs, though, can't have it. How about mashed potatoes? You like mashed potatoes? Not my favorite. Okay. 50-50. 50-50. We like that. How about pizza? We pizza? You look very good. Oh, yeah, I like pizza. You're in very good shape. What is your diet? Do you eat? Do you eat a lot of that? What's your workout ready? No, I try to work out. I always save up for a good dinner, spaghetti, whatever. Oh, so you're fasting almost during the day and then housing dinner?

1:47:04Yeah.

1:47:05Pat McAfee:Because you look good. I appreciate it. I'm going to try to force it. You know, when you're my age, you've got to get ready for 90 now. So that's my theory. Smart. You've got to work out a little bit, stay in shape. And that's why you're Nick Saban. You know what I'm thinking about? I ain't going to make the 40. Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Saban. Coach does look good, though. Yeah, he looks really good. Skin's glowing. He is glowing. Everything about it. Every single week, it feels like the guy gets better looking, gets better in shape. And he's more and more comfortable on TV. He's just having fun up there.

1:47:38You can tell he legitimately enjoys doing it. Whereas early on, I think it might have been like, man, what am I doing up here? I'm sure that's so jarring when you've coached your entire life to all of a sudden you're talking about the eighth best Big Ten game or something like that. And it's like, what the hell am I doing? But you can tell he genuinely enjoys it and has a lot of fun up there. And changing his viewpoint to your point. And like him having that idea about the media as a coach for your whole life, being like, don't listen to them. They're stupid. They don't know what they're talking about.

1:48:12Just avoid them at all costs. I don't want to talk. Oh, hey, coach, you want to do this? No. My first answer is no every single time. Feed them shit and keep them in the dark. Yeah, and now you're part of it. So it's a whole situation, I guess. I think Pat might have some – I don't know if he has Rudy subs. I don't know what he has going on over there.

1:48:27Pat McAfee:You know what I have. You know what I have. Oh, you got a meatball sub? What do you got? No. No way. This is my sack of subs, baby. Oh, hell yeah. What kind do you like? Whole Italian hot lettuce, onion, mayo. Thank you so much. Yes, definitely grilled, cooked. And I would like some fries on the side with a little bit of cheese. The issue is, I think this has been here for a while, so it's a little bit chilly. It'll still be. Let's not get it twisted. See, I need Marco Boli's cargo pocket to maybe do nature's microwave in this entire thing. But, yeah, I mean, yep, and that's a cold one. We don't want to eat that.

1:49:04here we got dump you got a microwave over there there's gotta be in the suite right yeah so i

1:49:10Pat McAfee:think the only thing i'm worried this one feels we'll figure it out there's a sack of six subs here being on people be damn fine uh but i have not eat i've not ate eaten eaten eaten yeah i've not eaten uh strictly because the amount of food that i'm about to have to go eat you know because there's a lot of this about to go happen and i know a lot of people that have a lot of food places around town and i'm trying to show love and obviously say hello and also the food here is so good so it's like i literally have not eaten is that what you're going to put sure i've not eaten in like uh since yesterday before show last night i had like a couple peanut butter balls before bed oh no delicious keep me over and then this morning i had three cups of coffee i think this morning a little bit too much i as i was drinking the third one i'm like what am i doing I need to get a water.

1:49:58Pat McAfee:I love this for you. Yeah, I'll chuck another one. So I am very hungry coming out of this show here, and I'm about to go eat like 15 different restaurants, I think. So I cannot wait for that. I'm excited for that. And, you know, it's nice to be just – look at this place, dude. Let me see you, Pittsburgh. Could you ask for a better Pittsburgh day than that? Is it gray out? Yeah. Is it awesome? Of course. Are we preparing for a massive football weekend? And, oh, let's have one here in Pittsburgh. Lucky to be here. And I'm going to eat the hell out of all their food. So that's the thing. I talked to Narduzzi about it when he was talking about going up to Lansing.

1:50:34Pat McAfee:There's just no Italians up there. It is. It's a culture shock, AJ. There's Italians over there in Ohio, right? Yeah, there's definitely different pockets where there's more than others. But, yeah, there's Italians. Youngstown. Youngstown, especially. The Irish. Northeast, yeah, you get it. The Irish and the Italian create this city. you know like that is kind of what a plum super italian place obviously there's a lot of times everywhere but i am excited to see how many fighting irish fans are tomorrow i think what is your i think a lot yeah i think so too i think it's going to be i think it's going to be pretty because the irish are heavy here in pittsburgh pennsylvania tone yeah i made a mistake when i was i was talking about ohio state penn state west virginia and pitt i should have also included notre dame because just growing up like there's just there's so many notre dame fans all over the all over the country, but also when you grow up Italian Catholic town, there's also a lot of Notre Dame fans there.

1:51:24I also made a mistake earlier in the show. I misread something on the internet. A group of monkeys is actually called a troop, not a collective, so I just wanted to get that off my chest as well because it's been burning a hole inside me for the last hour. A troop of chimpanzees. It also sounds incredible.

1:51:40Pat McAfee:Yeah, a collective sounded right, though, because these things like the gossip. So when I looked it up, a group of, like, when you look up, hey, what's this group of animal? whether it be a murder for ravens or a troop for monkeys, I believe that is a collective noun. So I read collective there and just spit it out of my stupid fucking mouth. No, son. Son, it's okay. It's okay, dude. Journalism, you corrected yourself. Thank you. Thank you. That's important. A group of chimpanzees is called a troop or tribe. Tribe would have been better. Tribe would have been cool, too. I think I'm going to use the word tribe.

1:52:18Pat McAfee:tomorrow when describing ends or so just a little inside big yeah okay yeah that's your that's your ideal right there you go to yeah oh yeah look at that oh yeah yeah yeah that looks good yummy look at the bread the mancini's bread yeah the bread looks fantastic oh they make their own bread in-house well they get it from mancini's down the strip yeah jesus okay i thought i assumed they shipped it in from somewhere somehow out of state sicily you're kidding me out of state you You think we're getting shit from out of state for this stuff? Right here is just fine, buddy. Okay. Now, I will say, this thing's been sitting at the bottom of this bag.

1:52:56Yeah. That came through a little bit. Yeah. In the bite or the look? In the look. In the look. It certainly looked a little saggy. It's not about the look. It's definitely not commercial stuff.

1:53:08Pat McAfee:It's not about how it looks. You need to show some respect, please. I thought that's part of it. Mule appeal. Is that flatbread? You put that under a brick? No, it was at the bottom of a bag. It was at the bottom of a bag. You could probably sit on that for two days. He's got a lot of rigs. Maybe. Honestly, maybe. All right. Oh, my God. It's still good. It's still good. It's still good. It's still good. All right. Have an incredible weekend. Football is going to be amazing. We're very appreciative of it. We'll be back for Overreaction Monday. Game day tomorrow morning. We'll be live on X and on ESPN.

1:53:47Pat McAfee:It should be an electrifying morning in Pittsburgh. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Felt like I really nailed it. Yeah, you did. And almost choked on it. Show will be live on X, though. Nice. Love that. For the third straight week. Last week, I had a little, I don't know, I guess what you would call it, internet outage in Indiana right before it won live. So we had to battle through that quickly as it got started, and the boys did a great job back at the Thunderdome. Tomorrow we'll be once again live on X from the city of Pittsburgh. We're going to have a great backdrop. I mean, we're right alongside the river.

1:54:19Pat McAfee:The stadium's going to be right around the corner. The city of Pittsburgh's going to show up in a big way to celebrate football, and there's a massive Notre Dame-Pitt game that's going to be kicking off immediately afterwards. The stars are going to be in abundance. Pittsburgh royalty is going to be everywhere, and we can't wait for the morning. And, you know, there is a dispute going on between, you know, two parties, and there's a lot of people missing ball and missing the things that they love, just know that on X tomorrow, game day, we'll be live and for free. Shout out to ESPN, Jimmy Pataro, Burke Magnus, Old Faso, and everybody that says, yeah, let's continue to do that.

1:54:54Pat McAfee:That's good for our fans. That's good for football. And that's good for unifying ball fans, which is certainly something that we need at this point. So we'll be live on X tomorrow, and it should be a scene tomorrow, I believe, is how they describe these types of things, AJ. Yeah, I think it's going to be an interesting collection. I know we talked about it. What is 50-50? You think fans pit to Notre Dame? Like, I want to know in the stadium, when's it going to be loudest? When who's on, you know, say Notre Dame's on offense. Are the Pitt fans going to be louder than when Notre Dame's fans are from Pitt's offense?

1:55:23Constant noise. The whole time. Yeah. Incredible atmosphere. Like the World Cup. I think it will be an incredible atmosphere for real.

1:55:29Pat McAfee:I do wonder what the percentage would be. Who would know that? SeatGeek would know that. And right now, you can get$30 off tickets if you use the code PATMACAFEE. P-A-T-M-C-A-F-E-E. That works for all event types, football, MLB, concert, Broadway, you name it. If it has tickets, SeatGeek has your tickets. And you can get$30 off with the code PATMACAFEE. It doesn't matter if you're a new or repeat purchaser. $30 off with P-A-T-M-C-A-F-E-E. Restrictions apply. Obviously, you're going to have to pay attention to those. And we appreciate the hell out of SeatGeek, the greatest ticket-buying platform on planet Earth, and...

1:56:05Pat McAfee:The Boom! That's right, AJ. Are we going back? There was an event that was going to be had. Well, I've heard we've been there six times. Somebody said to Kim Kardashian. I heard we are going back. We are going back. Who? Who's doing it? Do we know the guy? The United States of fucking America. U.S. Bay. A chimpanzee that escaped the Indianapolis Zoo, yeah. They used to take chimps into space, right? Before they took humans? Yeah. Just to test, see if it worked. Just make sure they explore. Were they good with the joystick? Are they good pilots? Great pilots. That's what I heard. Yeah. Really? They don't get distracted.

1:56:36Pat McAfee:I guess no chimpanzees have ADD. Nope. That's a big part of getting to the moon. For whatever reason, too, they were just excellent at being able to land a lunar module and actually lock it into the dock. It took a while for our actual male and female pilots. So they trained our astronauts. Correct. Exactly. Yeah, dude. Cool. Yep. They did this. The more you learn. Exactly. Wow. Everyone was like, holy shit. Yep. Yeah, whoa. We need to do that when we go to space. But why is he still, why don't you put a diaper on him and he poops all over still? Well, the pooping thing is quite an issue for a lot of animals like fat corgis and also chimpanzees, I think.

1:57:18Pat McAfee:But didn't, we just caught, we just caught something. I just saw something. Bezos. Yeah, Bezos. Bezos Blue Origin became the second company to be able to successfully land the rocket after it took off. Yes. But didn't that catch something from the moon or Mars or something? I think there was something alongside of that with another place that whether it could catch something that comes back or it did catch something that's coming back. I'm not sure. Yeah. The thing I read was that it's like testing to see, I guess, like the something about the sun basically changing like the atmosphere around Mars and like why that is.

1:57:53Like, I think that's what the ultimate goal is. I don't know if that's actually happened yet, but apparently scientists have noticed like, hey, something's going on with the suns. And it's changing what's going on with Mars right now. I don't like that.

1:58:05Pat McAfee:That was an interesting theory that I didn't really think of. It's like the sun basically took Mars' atmosphere. Yeah. I think is basically what this talked about. Correct. So we see it as the red planet. This particular tweet that I read, and who knows if it's real, basically said it's red because it was fried to a crisp, basically, by the sun. The sun basically just took its entire atmosphere, which makes you wonder, did they, you know, did they potentially go in, you know, because they're not in there, and did they do their entire thing? Hopefully we learn that. You think it's in our lifetime we learn about any of the other shit?

1:58:38Yeah. I mean, they'll be going to Mars in our lifetime. They'll be going to Mars within the next five, ten years, right? Sending humans.

1:58:44Pat McAfee:How long does it take to get there? Like nine months? No. Isn't that like a nine-month one-way or a year? No, that's the avatar you're talking about. They're trying to train. The girl who's training to do it, she knows she's not coming back. No, we don't have one-way missions. we know that they say that i think in the next gen like in your guys kids generation is when it'll happen lifetime i don't know if like we might be on the like the very end of when it's happened when we go there when we habitat and we build things and we live there you're saying to aj hawk's to aj hawk's point uh internet tells us it takes seven to ten months to get to march aj i like that i like that because i started i got overwhelmed when i heard like people were going to be in a spaceship for nine months travel in one way and then you get there knowing you have nine or ten eleven months back like that's that's a mental test that's more like that right there freaks me out well maybe they put them like jacob sully in one of those tubes and he's gonna put you to sleep for six seven months yeah nice yeah and you don't even know it's just like kind of a sleepy six months take a nap wake up we're two months out from mars okay well i need to learn a lot what are we doing up there and then on the way back yep you know the deal putting your ass to sleep until we get to around the moon and we'll wake you up send you back into america now the thought on that just becoming reality is kind of what elon has talked about right he talked about just being able to pick up and just he's saying we're gonna have to right he's saying like there's gonna be a time we have to go live on another planet so he's an alien right we i mean sure precisely hybrid all right let's take a break and then on the other side let's make our picks and then let's have a hell of a Friday, shall we, AJ?

2:00:15Pat McAfee:And by the way, by the way, yeah, rest in peace. Are you already finished? Housed. Already. Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's sitting at the bottom of a bag and it's crushing, it's a little bit chilly and it's supposed to be hot.

2:00:32Pat McAfee:Still delightful around here. Still number one out here. All right, let's get to a break. On the other side, we'll make our picks and then we'll get the hell out of here for the greatest weekend in the history of weekends because it's the next weekend. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. Take Fiiiight!

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2:01:55Feel good Friday, November 14th. This is the Pat McAfee Show. I'm AJ Hawk sitting in Pat here in Indy. There's a big one this weekend, boys.

2:02:07Football! Oh, we got Goop. What's up, Goopy? I see your Dolphins actually looking pretty good. We'll see what happens in the picks these days. I might actually jump over and pick the Dolphins here, I think.

2:02:19Pat McAfee:Okay, great work, AJ. Yeah, this is Gumpy. Okay, Gumpy is the greatest internet splunker on earth from Canada. He is a Miami Dolphins fan. My name is Pat McAfee. Thank you so much. I am from this city in which I am currently live from for game day here for Pitt Notre Dame tomorrow. We love the way AJ kind of handles his business, doesn't he? Hi, baby hogger. It's hard. Gump is such a presence. You know, sorry about that. He's such a presence. I lift my head up and I see Gump right here. Yeah, I understand. And we get excited when we see Gump, but maybe not everybody knows who the hell Gump is.

2:02:51Pat McAfee:Well, Gump is here to help us navigate this NFL Sunday slate and make sure we're getting all the right picks. It's not just us here you see on the screen. There's the toxic table as well at Boston Conner and at Ty Schmidt. Boys, we need all the info we can get whenever we're making these picks because we're trying to have a perfect slate today, Con man. Oh, hell yeah. We got it all locked in. A lot of stuff moving, actually. Not trades at all. It's way past the deadline. But injuries, things of that nature, we got it. Yes. Ty Schmidt, I hope you and the Packers faithful didn't hear what a radio guy down in Atlanta said.

2:03:24Pat McAfee:I don't know if you heard what he said. He basically said, source says that he trusts and he respects are saying maybe the floor not that sweet up there in Green Bay. Listen to this, Ty. I got an interesting phone call earlier in the week. Oh, yeah. From somebody I trust. Okay. In the media. Okay. Who told me to put something on my radar. I said, okay. All right. Who? Put it in the back of my mind. Now, the problem is I'll forget. So I had to bring it up here or else it would escape. I was told by somebody to keep an eye on Matt LaFleur. And I said, tell me more. Because we're here in the midst of the Raheem Morris discussion about short-term, long-term.

2:04:07We know the Raheem Morris era will end at some point with him being fired. Whether it's at the end of this year. I don't know. Monday, next year, five games into 2026. I don't know. But I was told that the Packers, who are one of the more stable franchises in all of the NFL, might make a switch at head coach if they don't make the playoffs, which I was shocked to hear. Matt LaFleur's record with the Green Bay Packers is 72-36-1 in seven seasons. That's one of the great starts to a career anybody's ever had. And he's handled the whole transition to Jordan Love thing beautifully.

2:04:41Pat McAfee:There's never drama. They don't attract free agents. That's why the Micah thing was so big for them, because they just don't do stuff like that. But I was told that he still has a connection with the Falcons, a good relationship, and would be interested in coming back here. And I will tell you 100%, that is the perfect choice for this franchise that could save them. Like, I'm talking about if Green Bay was ever, and this to me would be short-sighted, if they're ever in the position where, like, we just can't move forward with Matt LaFleur. If Raheem's employed and Matt LaFleur is not, Raheem's unemployed the next day.

2:05:13Pat McAfee:You go get Matt LaFleur as your head coach Play sheet in his hand Bring stability in a way You ready for this? That Dan Reeves brought it in the 90s When the Falcons were following Jerry Glanville and June Jones And they needed stability Dan was further along in his career But remember what Dan brought Experience, winning He could work with young quarterbacks Matt LaFleur can bring all that stuff Because you and I both know this, Charles After you go back-to-back first-time head coaches What do you have to do? Oh, you gotta go with experience, Scott I think Arthur's going to say we need a commodity.

2:05:45Now, my fear is that would be Mike McCarthy, and that would scare the hell out of me because Mike McCarthy doesn't do much for me. But if Matt LaFleur, if what I was told is true,

2:05:52Pat McAfee:that the Packers would even consider moving on from LaFleur if they missed the playoffs, if I'm the Falcons, snap him up. No brainer. Hey, Chernoff knows, too. Chernoff knows down there at 680, the fan in Atlanta. And, Ty, do you hear the way other teams are speaking about your coach, and does that make you change your tune a little bit? I heard a good record there, Gump. Did our years, were we the only ones that heard that record? That is a good record. 70-20-1 or something like that, I believe is what he said. And then I heard somebody fart into a microphone. I don't know if that was in Atlanta or back there at the Thunderdome.

2:06:23Pat McAfee:But, Ty, that's who your head coach is. Let's remember that. You know, one team's potential perspective trash is another's. What do they say? One trash, one treasure. Yeah. The other way. Does that change the way you think about this season, Ty, knowing now how Atlanta's turnoff potentially feels about LaFleur? I mean, it certainly is a bit startling, and that makes sense. You know, I could see Matt LaFleur, while his team is 5-3 in one and in the middle of a division race and trying to get into the playoffs, I could see him being like, you know what? I wouldn't mind going back and coaching in Atlanta.

2:06:53I could see that happening, so that certainly makes sense. You know, hey, listen, this would be a home run for Atlanta. If this were to happen and Matt LaFleur were to be let go and Atlanta hires him, I mean, you want to talk about winning the offseason, winning the coaching cycle, certainly. But what I'm more concerned with is every opportunity Peter Schrager gets, he's opening up his goddamn mouth and saying, Hey, Jeff Halfley to the Giants. You know, just last year, Ben Johnson had the opportunity to go into Chicago with the Lions. And remember, they beat them like a drum. He did everything in his playbook.

2:07:29And that really wowed Bears ownership and everyone in that organization. That's why they went to hire him. And Jeff Halfley has that opportunity to do that this Sunday. So the floor thing is one thing. Listen, if they don't get the offense fixed, his ass probably is going to get fired. And if they don't make the playoffs, I think it's very fair to say that Carmen Policy is going to say, all right, pal, there's a reason I didn't give you an extension before the season. Hit the fucking bricks. But I need Schrager to stop trying to get Jeff Halfley out of town as the defensive coordinator on every single one of these fucking shows.

2:08:04He's been doing it for several days now, and I'm sick and tired of it.

2:08:09Pat McAfee:Yeah, I think the conversation around policy making moves is certainly a policy that we like. Him not giving the extension to Guttenkunst and LaFleur was almost a message. Don't you think, AJ? Yeah, of course. I mean, when you go in there, it's like a prove-it year, I feel like, isn't it? Hey, you go out there and you – I don't know exactly how far he has to go to make Guttenkunst and the rest of the organization happy. I mean, what does that look like? How many – you got to get to the Super Bowl? I mean, I don't know about Super Bowl, but there has to be some sort of growth. They've done the whole, hey, we're going to make the playoffs, win a game, and then that's it.

2:08:42You definitely need to start scoring more points, obviously. Yeah, that of course, but also policy is a dog. From day one, didn't he come in and say, yeah, we're not just going to extend these guys for no reason. They've got to prove it. They already had that. Sorry, go ahead, Pat.

2:08:57Pat McAfee:No, I was going to say, and then he makes that huge Micah play. It's like, hey, we are different than what we used to be is what he's saying, Ty, I had to kind of echo what Connor just said. Yeah, without a doubt, and this has not been the way the Packers have operated, obviously, for quite some time. But when they made the playoffs a couple years ago in Love's first year, that was the big surprise. Like, wow, this team, this super young team, they won a playoff game. But it's the same deal with the Steelers and the Packers. After a while, getting to the playoffs and then getting beat like a drum in the first round, that doesn't mean shit.

2:09:29this team is one of the most storied franchises in the NFL. You need to at least make a deep run into the playoffs because, again, Jordan Love isn't on a rookie contract. He's making$55 million a year. You traded for Micah Parsons. You have two of the highest-paid guys in the NFL on both sides. So you've got to go do something with that. And I don't think getting into the first round of the playoffs and getting beat is – people want to see a Super Bowl.

2:09:56Pat McAfee:Let's talk about Super Bowl teams. Let's talk about the Sunday slate. Last night, we both picked the New England Patriots to cover by 12.5. They did. The Hammer Dots boys told us the under was the right bet. That hit as well. Are we seeing the board better than ever? We shall see. Look at DoorDash delivering for everybody on their game days. We appreciate that. We're 1-0 heading into the weekend. Washington Commanders taking on the Dolphins. Dolphins favored by 2.5 in Madrid, Spain. 9.30 a.m. kickoff, which is obviously spectacular for ball fans. Gumpy, let's hear it. What are your thoughts? Your favorite in a game.

2:10:34Pat McAfee:Way to go, dude. Way to go. I don't know if everybody knows this, but Miami actually been adopted as Spain's team. They're going to continue to go. Why would you do that to a new country? Well, they're just. Why would we let that happen? Where'd you hear that go? That's how it is. We're going to be going there every year. If we gave up home game to go there this year, this is what's going to happen. No, but Spain is like a great place. Remember we've been seeing out of the Espanol following with JJ Watt In the morning we drink coffee In the afternoon it's rum And then we play soccer and we win everyone It's Espanol Espanol Espanol Looky, looky, looky, it's another fucking goal Yeah, like we like these people, don't we?

2:11:22Pat McAfee:We like Spain? why would we place the Dolphins upon them? That's like the kids that are born Jets fans. We watched them last week with Sauce Gardner when he got traded, and they're running around crying, and everybody's like, yo, that's the first to many, kid. Just get used to it. That's kind of what it is. Why are we doing that to Spain? You wouldn't wish this life upon an entire country, would you? Why would you say that? I mean, if I was a fan in Spain and I just saw what the Dolphins did to the Bills and they're marching into Spain, I'd be happy to them be my squad. Two and a half point favorites.

2:11:52Pat McAfee:Do you like that or not? Yeah. I mean, they love us there. Malik Washington, he's going to score a touchdown. He got a jersey from Fernando Torres, Liverpool, Atletico Madrid legend. Okay. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? I'm not going to lie. I've been leaning Dolphins for a while, but you know what? I can trust my instincts. I'm taking the Commanders on this one. Wow. Okay. You can get three if you want the Commanders. I'll take Commanders plus three then, yeah. All right. I'll take Commanders plus three as well. Okay. Let's go to the next game. All right. as we do Chargers versus the Jaguars.

2:12:24Pat McAfee:Chargers favored by two and a half going in the Duvall. Obviously, heartbreak last week for Jacksonville in the end. Chargers starting to find themselves. Anything we need to know about this line, Tone Dig? 69 % on the Chargers we see there. 69 % on the Chargers. It is two and a half or three. So you get Chargers minus two and a half or the Jaguars plus the three. Obviously, we know with the Chargers, they had their offensive line issues as far as injuries are concerned and how PFF feels about them. But other than that, everything is pretty up and up as far as the starters and things like that, as you know.

2:13:01Pat McAfee:Travis Hunter, obviously out. Trevor Lawrence, what's the question for him? Is he a guy? Is he not a guy? Well, the Chargers defense is certainly problematic. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? I have a hard time picking against – I really like this Chargers team, But for whatever reason, I like the Jags here at plus three at home. Okay, you got the Jags plus three. I'll take the Chargers minus two and a half. Carolina Panthers taking on the Atlanta Falcons. Both these teams, I guess, who knows? More so, Carolina Panthers feel like they could be good. Atlanta Falcons down up, down up. They're like a Catholic church session with the way they kind of go about playing this season.

2:13:38Pat McAfee:Ty Schmidt, Carolina Panthers, Atlanta Falcons, your immediate lean is what? I'm going to say Panthers. I know Rico Dowdell is once again a bit banged up, but I think last week was a little bit of an aberration. The Panthers have been kind of up and down, but the Falcons are just like one week, and it really hasn't been like this for a while. Early on in the season, one week they looked like world beaters, and then they looked like shit, and then I feel like they've kind of bottomed out in the last few weeks. So I like the Panthers. Something we need to think about too as the Falcons continue to play against the Panthers is the Rams have the Falcons first round pick.

2:14:16So right now the Rams have a top 10 pick in the NFL draft, and they're also a Super Bowl favorite. So the Falcons are either going to really screw the entire NFC by sucking and then giving the Rams a top 10 pick and letting them get a great player and or their future at quarterback. So, you know, Atlanta might need to pick it up a little bit here. We're going to need you here. Yeah, they're 10th right now, a loss to the Panthers. would not be good because I don't think their schedule is too favorable.

2:14:46Pat McAfee:Certainly in play to potentially get a top five pick. I mean, depending upon what the rest of the year looks like. I think there's going to be some draft conversation on the show tomorrow. I'm happy that we got that list in there. Who do you like? How do you like it, Gums? I like the Falcons just because they're at home. They seem to show up at home and they lost 30 to nothing away to the Panthers. Maybe a little revenge here. AJ, who do you like? I like the Falcons here as well. I mean, three and a half feels like a lot, but I would take the Falcons at home. I think Raheem Morris, he sees those comments being made about his job and his job security.

2:15:14He wants to make sure he gets a win and shuts that up.

2:15:17Pat McAfee:Okay, can I get four or four and a half on this, or is it just three and a half? Three and a half across the board. Is Dowdo not playing? Is that what you said? He's banged up, but I think all indications are that he should be able to go, but it hasn't been confirmed yet. I'll take the Carolina Panthers plus three and a half. Post-Germany, one o 'clock game. True. Hey. That's tough for Atlanta. Overtime game. Yeah. Good point. Overtime Germany game. Second flight out, we've learned. Yep. Yeah. I just saw them play good against the Colts.

2:15:52How much do they have left in that tank? Colts kind of bottled up Bijan, though. Raheem Morris knows, too, now. Like, dude, if I don't win, freaking Mount of Flores, you coach.

2:16:02Pat McAfee:Turn off says it. Gotta happen. Done deal. All right. Give me the – I'll take the Panthers. I'll take the Panthers plus three and a half. And on this field right behind us, the Cincinnati Bengals will be traveling to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, it'll come one day after Notre Dame pit on this exact same field that has certainly been questioned before. So look for it to be a little bit of a mutter on Sunday. Who does that help? Who does that hurt? Four and a half is the current spread with the Steelers being the favorite. Tone Diggs, what should we be thinking in this? Has 66 % of the bets are on the Cincinnati Bengals plus four and a half.

2:16:36Yes, everybody loves the Bengals. I saw for the Bengals, Shemar Stewart is out as well as Trey Hendrickson. So neither of those guys will be back for the defense that has not been great so far. Steelers in one o 'clock window, right where we want them. And we already blew a primetime game against the Bengals this year. So we already got that out of the way. So I'm actually feeling pretty good about this one.

2:16:56Pat McAfee:Connor, man. I'm sorry, Connor. What is the story? Joe Burrow has been practicing the last few days. Doesn't mean he's playing, but just means he's back to potentially playing. Is that the story we're getting? Yeah, bingo. Three straight days of practice for Joe Burrow. He's already been designated to return off the IR, so his window's open. It's looking like it's not going to be this week, but it seems as though next week that he might practice. I mean, play, rather. If you do three straight, if he's doing stuff like this on a turf toe, he must be pretty healthy. Everything we heard from Jason Glazer kind of indicates that he is feeling good and he attacked his rehab.

2:17:32Kind of butchered that, but whatever. But so I would assume that the vibes, at least in the Bengals, are pretty good. And they know, hey, if we win one of these next three, at least, and then Burrow comes back, then they got a shot.

2:17:44Pat McAfee:Why is he wearing green sweats? Why is he wearing green sweats? What's going on out there? Yeah, what kind of sweats are the other guys wearing? Those team issues? Black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black, black. Look at Joey Flack moving. Yeah, why is he wearing green? I don't know. I don't like that at all. He's a fashion guy. Yeah, exactly. He's got that pizzazz. At least they're not super baggy, though. Yeah, I don't care. What are we? It is kind of weird. Give me the Pittsburgh Steelers whatever. I don't like that that's happening. I don't know. That's not how I – man, I just feel like I learned something.

2:18:21A lot of coaches would send you back in. A lot of coaches would send you back in and get your team issue on.

2:18:25Pat McAfee:It seems like such a small detail, but I feel like I just learned a lot about Joey Burrow and the Bengals right there, AJ, like legitimately. I feel like I just learned a lot about it over there. just by the color of the sweatpants. And people are going to say that's ridiculous and absurd for me to say. I get it. You've never been a part of an NFL team either. But, like, that's a decision and a choice. And then everybody else sees it as well. I don't know if I like that at all. And I love Joey Burrow. I feel like I'm one of his biggest fans, actually. Given the Steelers, if that's a lot to be happening over there, they obviously got everything out of control.

2:18:54I'm sure Zach Taylor put the hammer down, though, after he saw that.

2:18:58Pat McAfee:Yeah, he might have actually put the pants in his locker for him to wear. He's going to be dressing different to everybody else because he is, by the way. Joey Burrow is different to everybody else. Flacco's certainly been great. The Pittsburgh Steelers defense, you know, throughout the entirety of the season hasn't been fantastic, but as of the last couple weeks, they've been much better. Will Joey Flacco get the Pittsburgh Steelers back-to-back as a Cincinnati Bengals quarterback? I don't think so. I like the Pittsburgh Steelers minus 4.5 here at Accrashire Stadium. What are your thoughts, AJ?

2:19:25Yeah, I'm going to go Steelers minus 4.5 at home. I feel like the Steelers have to find a way to double Jamar this game. Remember last time they played? It was a Jamar show for no doubt. He's going to get his, but maybe they won't give him 12 or 14 catches. Someone might have poured hot coffee or something on his original pants, his black one, right as he was going out to practice.

2:19:47Pat McAfee:Yeah, but they're black sweats, so you can have coffee. It's probably hot. It's hot all over my dong area. I've got to change. Oh, okay. Too hot. There's the Bengals logo. That'll be too cold. Maybe it'll be too cold. because once you get hot coffee on your dog area, it's hot. He's sick all of a sudden. I keep cold. Maybe it was mayonnaise too, dropping out of one of these Rudy's sub sandwiches he was eating. Anytime you get mayonnaise on the groin area, especially with black sweats, everybody automatically assumes this guy's got cum on his face. Maybe that's what happened. That's a good point.

2:20:23Imagine this conversation if he was running with white mayonnaise all over his dog area. Pat, you would be really amazing. Yeah, maybe they were again. I was excited to be back playing ball. Yeah.

2:20:31Pat McAfee:And the Bengals don't want that to be the narrative about the entire thing, and neither does Joe. Okay, so I get it now. All right, I didn't even think about that being an outcome. I'm happy we kind of worked it through. He dropped mayonnaise on his pants. We've all been there. People judge you. He said, give me the green sweats, even though everybody else is wearing black sweats. That's Joey B football. Okay, we appreciate him doing that. And Justin, it seems like we all like the Steelers. Let's go. Houston Texans favored by five and a half, headed into the team that has the projected number one overall pick again, the Tennessee Titans.

2:21:01Pat McAfee:Anything we need to know about this one, Tone? Titans coming off of a bye. We all know how good Coach McCoy is off of the bye. And then CJ Stroud is still out with a concussion, so we will have Davis Dougie Mills starting again on the road for the Texans. 26 zip in the fourth, right, for the Texans. That's what they're coming off. So what that sounds like to me is Dougie Mills figured it out. And Dougie Mills going to Music City, I think he's about to sing quite a tune. I like the Houston Texans minus five, if I can get it. Yes, yes, you can. Minus five, Houston Texans in Nashville, even though I love that city.

2:21:39Pat McAfee:Go ahead, AJ. I'm going to take the Houston Texans minus five. I think old Davis Dougie Mills showed us some stuff last week. I think he's going to continue to ride that heater. Yeah, I was about to say, not just last week. Dougie's been putting tape on. We like him. I love Dougie Mills. He should be starting for an NFL team. He is. Full-time. Not my team, but somebody's. How many teams you got? You guys would fucking love that. Oh, my God. Tua's spinning it right now. I understand he's spinning it, but for the good of Spain in their football fanhood. Spain would love Dougie Mills. Yeah, Dougie Mills' neck in Spain.

2:22:15They might try and keep him there.

2:22:18Pat McAfee:Ooh. All right, let's go to the next game. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills, J.J. Watt is on the call. Both these teams coming off a loss. 63 % of the bets are on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers getting six and a half, or can they get even more? No, it's actually – I'm seeing five and a halves across the board, and there's one six out there now. Okay, so now it's down to six, I guess, is what you can get if you like the Buffalo Bills. AJ, your thoughts on how the game's going to go? Man, the Buffalo Bills are – I mean, I was picking them to win a Super Bowl before the season. I still don't count that out, but I like the Tampa Bay Bucs here coming off a loss, getting what, six and a half?

2:22:55You get six. Yeah, Bucky Irving is out. Chris Godwin is out. I believe Hassan Redick is also out. I'm not sure about Anthony Nelson, the player who got one of B.A.'s balls a few weeks back for his performance against the Saints. And then Dalton Kincaid also did not practice yesterday. Yeah, there it is. He is out. Another D-lineman for them. Fadarian Mathis. Unbelievable spelling. He not playing is actually huge because they are so banged up on the D-line for Buffalo.

2:23:27Pat McAfee:Okay, so I like the Buffalo Beatles. Minus five is what I heard I can get. AJ, who are you on? I'm on the Tampa Bay Bucs here at what? Plus six. Plus six, okay. Okay, Green Bay Packers fresh off a great performance, taking on the New York Giants favored by seven and a half at MetLife. 63 % of the bets are on the Green Bay Packers. Ty Schmidt, it doesn't sound like you've been as optimistic about the Green Bay Packers long term, but seven and a half point favorites on the road with 63 % of the people betting on them. Feels like the rest of the world likes Green Bay this weekend. How do you feel about it?

2:24:03Yeah, I mean, I guess there is a part of me that thinks this could be like the Jameis coming out party where he throws for a bunch of touchdowns and a bunch of yards. But we were talking before the show, and Connor mentioned in the wake of Travion Henderson having that three-touchdown game last night, B.A. saying how rookies basically just need to be ready to go right now. The Packers, I think, expected a lot of Matthew Golden. He didn't play last week, but he's a guy they need to get going this week big time. Ever since Tucker Craft got hurt, they haven't really been able to run the ball. They need Matthew Golden.

2:24:36I kind of expect him to have a big game. And, yeah, I think this is a good bounce-back spot for the Packers because everyone is kind of potentially exaggerating their demise pretty early here. AJ, who do you like? I like the Packers here. I think Jameis might have a little bit of magic in him, but I like what this Packers defense is able to do, and hopefully the offense finds a way to get going. Six and a half. Okay, six and a half for sure.

2:24:59Pat McAfee:I would take the Packers at minus six and a half alongside AJ Hawk. Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, NFC North battle. 61 % of the money is on the Chicago Bears heading into J.J. McCarthy's world. I'm sorry, nine's world there. Nine is favored by two and a half. What am I not seeing here, Ty Schmidt? Bears defense is very, very, very banged up. Yeah, they just announced T.J. Edwards in the middle. He's their leader on defense. He's their middle linebacker. He is out on Sunday. J.J. is going to get a win, and he just feels like that's who J.J. McCarthy is. I already beat the Bears once in Chicago.

2:25:33That was his coming out party. That's when 9 was born, if you will.

2:25:39Pat McAfee:No, 9's been there, brother. 9's won a national championship. 9 was on the bench last year getting rehabilitation, but it was always down in there. It's all about controlling 9 so we can keep the competitive stamina and the spirit throughout all four quarters. How do you keep 9 on track? Well, if 9 wins more games, people are going to have to respect 9 and JJ for the time that he does on a football field. I guess I'll take the Minnesota Vikings, minus 2.5, even though I don't love it at all. I love Ben Johnson. I'd love to hear good, better, best, never let the race and do good as better and better as best because I love that quote personally.

2:26:14Pat McAfee:I've certainly known it for a long, long time. No, fuck that. Give me the Bears. Yeah. Also, for the Vikings, TJ Edwards being out for the Bears, big deal. Jonathan Grenard hasn't practiced this week for the Vikings, so not sure if he's going to be good to go. I just thought of like, no, the Chicago Bears stole that one last week. Give me the Vikings. I'm going to take the Vikings minus two and a half. I'm going to take the Vikings minus two and a half. Still believe in the Bears long term, but I like the Vikings this weekend to win that game. What do you think, AJ? I'm kind of with you. I mean, your waffling back and forth got me thinking for sure, but I was leaning Vikings early.

2:26:51I'm going to stick with it. Vikings minus two and a half at home.

2:26:54Pat McAfee:This is a good football game. This is a good football game. We like that this football game is having a lot of them across the slate, including a San Francisco 49ers, a Brock Purdy, I do believe, favored by two and a half, flying into beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, to be taking on the Arizona Cardinals. 72 % of the money is on the San Francisco 49ers, and Brock Purdy will return as the San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback versus Cardinals. Kyle Shanahan told the 49ers game plan, which is a great show. We love 49ers game plan. Oh, yeah. We turn that show on every week. And because of the UTV-ESPN dispute, we've actually had to find different ways to watch 49ers game plan.

2:27:30Pat McAfee:And we've certainly been able to dodge, dive, and dodge our way to being able to hear the 49ers game plan show because that one's the fucking show. Is it not going to be? Especially with Shanahan. Oh, when he stops by, he always says something. It's good ball talk. He's got such a good flat bill on. He always looks cool. And he says, Brock Purdy is our quarterback. I think Brock Purdy crushes this weekend. Give me the San Francisco 49ers minus two and a half, AJ. Yep, give me the San Francisco 49ers as well. Brock Purdy, I think he's been. Can you imagine how, like, the pent-up energy this dude has to get back on the field?

2:27:59He's heard Con Man say that Mac's taking his gig and he's not going to have a job anymore. So he's ready to get out there and show us that he's still the man.

2:28:06Pat McAfee:Somebody's playing drums on the microphone. If you could stop doing that, that'd be great. You're blowing out my eardrums. The Seattle Seahawks are taking on the L.A. Rams. 75 % of the bets are on the Seattle Seahawks. That's wild to think about as the Rams are favored by three and a half, and they're going to be in their midnight mode jerseys. Matthew Stafford's going to look so damn cool. I cannot wait to see how that turns out in so far. Four o 'clock slate absolutely loaded this week, we feel. Seattle Seahawks, one of the best teams in ball. 75 % of the money is on the Seattle Seahawks. Is it plus three and a half, plus four?

2:28:39Pat McAfee:What is the most we can get, Tone? Yeah, you can get the most you can get if you want the Seahawks is plus three and a half or minus three for the Rams. Okay, so give me plus three and a half Seattle Seahawks. L.A. Rams might win the game, but this is a two for them. I don't want to put it on the official record. Love that. No, never mind. Completely forget what I just said. Seattle Seahawks plus three and a half. I like where they're at. I like where they're at a lot. I don't know who wins, but I like the Seattle Seahawks plus three and a half. I think this is a road game. McDonald on the road has been damn near unstoppable.

2:29:12Pat McAfee:And, yeah, I think this is a big one for Sam Darnold to continue to be Sam Darnold of now as opposed to Sam Darnold of yesteryear. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? Man, this is a tough one, too, when you think about me. The Seattle defense scored twice last week. I like the Rams here. I can get the Rams at minus three, Tone. Is that right? Okay, I'll take the Rams at home. What do they call it again? What's their dark uniforms? Midnight? Midnight mode. I like midnight mode. Midnight mode, Matthew Stafford. He stays on track to win the MVP possibly. Give me the Rams. Okay, there's a chance both.

2:29:43Pat McAfee:Conman, you were going to say something, I think, before I cut you off? No, no, all good. Not at all. But Sam Darnold, I think they were talking about it earlier on the broadcast, TV, whatever the fuck. It's kind of a redemption game for Darnold. Last time the Vikings, when he was with the Vikings, they went and played the Rams. He got absolutely shit kicked. So they were talking about that angle. Also for the Seattle Seahawks, now the second week with Rashid Shahid in the lineup. So their offense probably going to be firing on a much higher cylinder. And, of course, the Cooper Cup return. We talked about it yesterday.

2:30:17That's seemingly a big deal. Puga Nikula is already like, I can't wait to see Cooper Cup. I can't wait. It's going to be awesome. So he might not be thinking about Paul then.

2:30:27Pat McAfee:Nine and Dime podcast. Hopefully he has another episode maybe before the game with Stafford and Cup. 75 % of the money on Seattle is crazy. Congrats to the Seahawks getting some respect. That's what that says to me. Kansas City Chiefs at the Denver Broncos. Chiefs favored by three and a half with 58 % of the money. Gumpy, your first thoughts on this line? This feels like the Chiefs, you know, AFC West, Broncos at the top right now. They're still the Chiefs division, and I think they show it in a big way. Broncos have kind of been skating by lately. They've been winning games, but they've been tight.

2:30:58I don't think they can do that this week.

2:31:00Pat McAfee:AJ, your thoughts on what Gumpy just said and how you see this game going? I mean, as much as I hate to say it, I completely agree with Gump. I kind of have the same thought when I think about it. Can I get him at minus three? And I don't mean I hate to say it. As you were saying it, though, Gump, I was just cosigning every single statement you had. Give me the Chiefs on this one. Is it minus three or is it minus three and a half across the board? It's three and a half or four. So if you wanted the Broncos, you're getting four. Okay, I'll take the Chiefs minus three and a half. You know what? Minus four, actually.

2:31:28Pat McAfee:Give me the Chiefs minus four. Okay, I'll take that. No, no, no. Actually, no, I don't want that. Don't do it. Don't do it. I would take that half point. I just got over 500 for the first time last week. Ravens, Browns, Ravens favored by seven and a half with 78 % of the vote. Yep, I'll run it as well. Give me the Baltimore Ravens minus seven and a half. in Cleveland. I like Dylan Gabriel, though. I don't think he's bad. And that's kind of quietly not been a story anymore. Because until Dylan Gabriel plays full ass cheeks, which is definitely going to come, maybe this game, maybe the Baltimore Ravens defense can fully click and confuse the young quarterback.

2:32:02Pat McAfee:But I see him spinning it, making good decisions, and it's not really a conversation. So good for Dylan Gabriel, good for them in all of it. But Ravens are on a comeback, revenge tour after starting the season like absolute bums. Sports books had them as the favorites in the AFC North, even whenever they only won one game in the first six or whatever the case was. That's because they know what they have. 78 % of the money doesn't scare me because it's already hit this season at 80 % rate. Give me the Ravens minus 7.5. I love what they're about to do in Cleveland. Man, see, yeah, Lamar, he missed one practice where there's a sore knee, but they said he's fine, he's full go, he'll be okay on Sunday.

2:32:40You know what, for whatever reason, I like the Browns here. I think the Browns find a way, their defense finds a way to keep this game close. So give me the Browns plus seven and a half. What do you guys think about the situation with the quarterback, Pat? Because I agree with what you said, especially after the Patriots played the Browns. Dylan Gabriel is solid. He is a good quarterback. He'll be in the NFL for a while. But at what point do you think that they say, okay, we've seen Dylan. He's great. We can have him be our guy. Do you think there's a time this season where it's like, let's just put Shador out there just to at least see?

2:33:14because say he goes and plays really well, then he could be a trade piece or Dylan Gabriel could be a trade piece. Do you think that's a possibility at some point?

2:33:23Pat McAfee:Well, I'm not 100 % sure. You know, maybe Shador could play for the Plum Mustangs. We'd certainly love it. But fifth-round draft pick rookie, third-round draft pick rookie, if they think Dylan Gabriel is their guy for the future, they should give him more reps, right? That's kind of the balance. If you think he's the guy, you should give him more reps. Backup quarterbacks aren't getting a lot of reps in practice because the starting quarterback is who they want to go with. So if we do want to get a look at Shador, I love it. I certainly wouldn't mind watching Shador Sanders play football in the NFL again.

2:33:53Pat McAfee:Certainly would enjoy that. Watch him play football just in general. But if Dylan Gabriel is your guy, more reps the better. That is what we're trying to get in this entire thing. Now, I think, do they think long-term Dylan's the guy? Do they think he's not? I think they're probably trying to figure that out. But that's why the conversation is what it is. Whenever they draft him in the third round, then they draft Shador in the fifth round, And then they bring in Kenny Pickett. They bring in Joe Flacco. It's like, how are you going to be able to manage it all? And what if you do find a guy? Is everybody else going to be able to find?

2:34:18Pat McAfee:Well, we're going to trade Joe. We're going to get Kenny out of here. And then we're going to play Dylan Gabriel. And then Shador, is he the backup? Well, we'll see. It's like, all right. Well, you're going to piss off everybody. That is, it's an interesting dynamic. But if Dylan's your guy, I think you've got to give him reps. I'm not saying he is. I'm just saying, if he is, the more the better, AJ. That is kind of how I would view it if I was on the team. Yeah. Yeah, and the fact that they draft him the third round, they want him to be the guy. So, yeah, he needs to get every single possible look he can in practice and the game.

2:34:48So, yeah, I agree with that.

2:34:49Pat McAfee:Yeah, I think so. Now, granted, to your point, though, Connor, can we just get a look at this guy? I would like to look at Shador. You're right. It would be good to see him in real game action. Even if they say to Dylan, hey, you are a guy, but we're just going to give Shador a game. Then he throws four touchdowns and he's not going to die. Yeah, not midseason at the end of the year. Yeah. He's still got Deshaun Watson, too. Oh, yeah. He might come back. He could. At some point this year, he will be healthy enough to play, won't he? I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. But, Connor, I just think if they think Dylan's their guy, reps.

2:35:25Yeah.

2:35:25Pat McAfee:We need as many as possible. Like, every situation is good situation because it's a situation, and he needs more situations. You know, like, that is how – if they think he's the guy. If they don't think he's the guy, why not try to see what Shador's got? Like, that is certainly something a lot of us would like to see, but that all comes down to what they think is actually going to be the future there. Yeah, that's just what I thought about watching the Jets, because, you know, as you're watching them, it's like, okay, those teams don't work close, but, you know, what happens if they get a quarterback and then you just start going through, you know, the draft and what draft pick they'll have and stuff, and then you start thinking, like, shit, there are guys out there who, like, Shador, who haven't had an opportunity.

2:36:03Like, do you take a flyer on one of those guys and try and pull them out? do the Browns even trade a Shador? But, yeah, it's just a crazy situation.

2:36:12Pat McAfee:Very crazy situation. And, obviously, all those teams could have drafted Shador. Yeah. Baltimore wanted to draft Shador, and then they were told no because they didn't want, you know, the potential sit behind Lamar, even though Lamar may be an incredible guy to sit behind and learn from. But now there's Cleveland. We'll see how it all works out. We would like to see Shador play football, but also we'd like the Cleveland Browns to make good football decisions for their team, which I think Cleveland Browns fans say, Ha! Yeah, right. That's not how it goes around here. Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday Night Football.

2:36:43Pat McAfee:Thank God we got a banger. Yep. Because we're actually going to be waiting all day for Sunday night. Jerry Goff and Gibbs going to Philly fights. J. Lee Hurts, a Siri on E with A.J. Brown saying, where's the ball for me? They got a lot going on in Philadelphia, always. They were able to win a Super Bowl with always having drama somehow. Like, hey, don't have distractions. Don't have drama. Don't have negative vibes. Philadelphia's like, yeah, right, brother. We're going to have it every day, all the time. We're going to win games, and people are going to be pissed off, including our own fans. They're going to call for our head coach's job after we're fucking 6-1.

2:37:31Pat McAfee:They're going to say, we need this guy out of here. Then we're going to go on to win a Super Bowl somehow. And then on the flip side, the Detroit Lions, they've completely saved an entire city of football fandom by having some greatness with MCDC, who's not scared to be a tough guy. And Jared Goff, who's resurrected his career from being a guy who was kicked out of the city of stars to a guy whose name is chanted all around Detroit Rock City. Who wins? How do they win? Is there any different lines, Tone Diggs? and 82 % of the public bets riding with the Lions plus 2.5. There are no other Lions.

2:38:05It is 2.5 across the board. And then when you look at injuries, Lions, Terran Arnold, Kirby Joseph, and Sam Laporta did not practice. Lane Johnson did practice for the Eagles. So that's your injury report for the game.

2:38:19Pat McAfee:Foxy, 82 % of the people are betting on your team. Congratulations being at this point of life. How do you feel getting 2.5 points in Philadelphia on Sunday night? I love it. Got a quick stat for you. Jared Goff, 22-10 against the spread as an underdog with the Detroit Lions. I assume that's why 82 % of the people are riding with the Detroit Lions. Like you mentioned, the Eagles are kind of a mess right now. The media at least is making it that way, which as a fan of the Lions, I actually don't like because that means I think they could come in, you know, rally and make this a really good game.

2:38:51But I like where the Lions sit. I like where MCDC sits calm plays. So we'll see how this goes. This is a big, big test for our Lions.

2:38:59Pat McAfee:Oh, I forgot about four eyes MCDC back behind the wheel. Oh, yeah. Gumpy, your thoughts on this game here? I love the Lions, but it reeks. It smells like a square dog a little bit. I wouldn't be surprised if the Eagles win, but as a betting man, I would like the Lions on the points. 82 % of the bets, plus, plus two and a half for the Detroit Lions is what he is referring to as stinky. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? I mean, Dan Campbell, Colin plays, Jameer Gibbs, Jared Goff. I have to go with them. Give me the Lions plus two and a half. Hook, line, and sinker. I'm done with the Lions as well.

2:39:35Pat McAfee:Hey, you got us, Sportsbook. Exactly what you wanted us to do. We did it. Okay, congratulations. They might be running closed Sicilian against us. You know, it's great to have this plum football hoodie on. It's great to be back in the city of Pittsburgh. Tomorrow will be a hell of a celebration of the greatest sport on earth, football here in the city of Pittsburgh. We hope you will join us. College Game Day will be live on ESPN. It will also be live on our X account if you cannot get to ESPN due to any disputes that are taking place. AJ, I know you're going to DoorDash, and you can win every week with DoorDash Streaks.

2:40:07Pat McAfee:Save up to$250 this season when you were on game days. AJ, I know you like that pizza. I like the white linen glove holding it like that all awkwardly with your thumb over top more, actually. AJ, I know you like that pizza. There you go. Bye, baby. Wow The paper is part of the problem There it is You got short arms dude Hey Jay tell us about that pizza That you're holding right there This beautiful looking Pizza actually doesn't look that good So I don't know why this Muppet or whatever this thing is doing Is holding it like it is But maybe that's why because he's so disgusted By this piece of pizza that he's going to hold it With his dumb old weird Oh you think he's about to throw that piece of pizza I haven't even thought about that So the Muppet or the duck that is holding that piece of pizza is saying, get this shit out of here.

2:40:58Pat McAfee:Let me DoorDash some good pie. And I'm going to do a lot of that here in Pittsburgh. I couldn't even fathom all the great pizzas in the local spots that are on DoorDash here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Holy fuck. Have you thought about that, Tony? Yeah, I just did. I was one in mind. I literally just thought of it, Tony. I'm sorry. Go ahead. But unfortunately, I know a lot of those mom and pop shop owners, and they're saying we ain't letting DoorDash take any of our money. Oh. Yeah, you're right. I actually just opened it. As you were saying, and I just thought of that too, like, you think Dallas Salad is letting DoorDash fucking do anything?

2:41:31Pat McAfee:Not a chance. But it's just because of the quality. The quality is so high and DoorDash does a great job of actually transporting your food in the concealed bags to keep them warm. But with those mom and pop shops, they just have so much strength, honor, and respect for their product that they know it just means more when you come into the shop. Yeah, strength and honor obviously is what we're looking for whenever you're having a slice of pie around here. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hey, great work back there in Indianapolis, boys. Trust me this week. You too, dude. Big week. Behind the glass. Oh, it was a big week.

2:42:03Pat McAfee:I completely forgot about it. It was a huge week. Great work behind the glass, boys. Work, boys.

2:42:10Pat McAfee:Graphic design, boys. Way to go out there, GDP. There you go. GDP. Good work, boys. GDP. Mitt, really good work, Mitt. Almost saved the chimpanzee today, Mitt. Tough week for the McMahon family. Mitt showed up every single day. We appreciate him for doing that. AJ, thank you for traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana, here at the Thunderdome. You're the greatest man. You are truly one of a kind, and nobody will ever dispute that. Appreciate that. Good job. You and Gump are going to have a nice dinner tonight? Where are you going? I'm about to eat like seven. I'm about to eat a lot. You've got a lot of people asking to come eat, don't you?

2:42:46Pat McAfee:Yeah, there's a lot of food that's about to be enjoyed. Great food, so I'm here for it. Let's go. It's going to be one of those ones. I've talked about this. When I got arrested for public intoxication, I was put in the NFL substance abuse program. Three months in the first phase, I aced it, and then they moved me into the second phase. I wasn't happy about that. Second phase was just like the first phase, but it was 24 months long. So in total, 27 months of substance abuse program. I was tested over 200 times. Eight times a month I was tested and couldn't do anything. Couldn't be seen with a beer.

2:43:19Pat McAfee:Couldn't do anything. I used to vacation back in the city of Pittsburgh. I'd come spend Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday back in Pittsburgh, and we would just do one thing and one thing alone, and that would be hammer boost. I mean, we would just absolutely hammer boost. And I had to stop for 27 months. I had to completely cut it out. And I was getting tested a lot. I learned a lot about myself, cold turkey on everything. And then the lockout happened. And the lockout was no testing, okay, because the lockout was out. There was no testing. So I said, I'm going to booze every day of this lockout so that when it's over, I don't want to booze anymore.

2:43:59Pat McAfee:You know, like that is – I'm going to really do it. That lockout ended up being 100-some days. And I'll tell you, I did not expect that. But lo and behold, by the end of that thing, I did not want anything to do with booze. And I would like to thank the city of Pittsburgh because they were a big part of that time during the lockout. I'd like to thank Nick. Nick's liver, kidney, and insides also took a big hit through that time. Thank you, Nick. Thank you for everything during this hard time. You're welcome. Yeah, I appreciate that. I know we won hard. We didn't expect that lockout to be that long.

2:44:30Pat McAfee:I don't think any of us did. But, boy, we certainly went. And by the time it was over, it was like, all right, I'm not drinking anymore. What today is going to be is I'm going to eat so much food today from here. It's like, all right, I'm good until the next time I come back to Pittsburgh because there's so much good food. So, I'm about tomorrow. tomorrow, you're going to see me probably 260, 270, 270. I'm about to be stuffed like a pig, but on the way out, I'm not going to want to have it, and I'll be good without it for at least the foreseeable future. So, AJ, this should be a great time here in Pittsburgh.

2:44:57Pat McAfee:Lucky to be here. Can't wait for tomorrow morning. Thank you for traveling. Safe travels back to Ohio. And, yeah, let's enjoy the hell out of the greatest weekend of all time. Be your friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three. Have a good one, boys. You too, man. Feel the love of the city, dude. Well, Rivers Casino could show a little bit more. Still number one. Good luck. A lot of love still. Six card 21s. Fuck out of my face.

2:45:32Pat McAfee:That changes. I'm not going to that casino. Team on me. Team on three. Have a great weekend. We love you. Thank you for allowing us to do this for a living. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required.

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