PMS 2.0 1455 - Watt Wednesday, Va Tech Head Coach James Franklin, Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love, In the Trenches with AQ Shipley, Everything DB with Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

16:30AQ Shipley:Great heads up play. You mentioned it, just the feel, because if he keeps running there, that cornerback that's on the goal line, and he got influenced by Stephon Diggs. You can see kind of two defenders go with Diggs out there, so it's a great play design. I'm not sure if it was a quarters match or a cover two match, But down here in the red area, that corner is kind of playing the goal line. He can play the high to low. So if he puts that ball, kind of try to go to that back pylon, that corner can make a play on it. But since he just kind of faded to that open space, Drake saw him. Good ball and heads up awareness by a young player.

17:00AQ Shipley:Yeah, young player just kind of knowing to get more touches, get more feel in that field. I love it. Two young players there. Yeah, very smart team. Josh McDaniels too. I mean, Hunter Henry was wide open on that play. Now we get two run plays right in a row here. I love this play because Michael Onwenu, the big, powerful right guard, come across Quincy Wins, boom, put his ass on the ground, keep it moving, walk in the end zone. How good is that?

17:22Pat McAfee:One of the dims. Can we get the dims, please, Onwenu? How good is that? You're going to need height, weight, and width there as well. That is a wide son of a bitch. He's a hardball guy out of Michigan. When he got drafted to New England a few years back, they actually told him, like, hey, he's one of the biggest sons of bitches Michigan's ever seen. Yeah, I would assume. Powerful. Holy shit. Look at the way he's able to move and bend. I mean, yeah, right. That's a human. Oh, yeah. Think about that. Think about that. All men are created equal. All men. He looks like he's 400 pounds. He might be.

17:57Pat McAfee:And he can run. And look at him dancing. Look how light he is on his feet. Yeah, right. The thing I love about this play, too, and you just mentioned it right at the end. Look at all the boys celebrating. It is different in New England right now. They know they got a team. Obviously, we see this play well blocked. the play before, obviously doing their thing. This next play, we're going to see this little flip. 6 '3", 350 on Wednesday. That's what he's listed at. Huge. Look at the size of this dude. And he might be 400 pounds now. That's what I'm saying. That's your rookie year weight. Let's always remember that.

18:26We always go up his line.

18:29Pat McAfee:Not everybody. Hey, this last play, though, check this out. This is all Henderson. We get a little flip. Look, fake one way, flip it one way. They sniff it out. He just does this all by himself, and they find a way to push him. Hey, look who's on the back of the box. I don't know if you saw. Oh, yeah. when who's on the back of that train range. I mean, yeah, right. Can we get him the ball? Watch him. Yep, you're moving in there. Yeah, we're scoring a touchdown. Holy shit, I need an on when in New Jersey. Oh, yeah. 6 '3", 350. Listed. Yeah, exactly. I'm assuming he isn't just, you know, heavier to your point of IQ.

19:02He looks 6 '5 to me out there. I don't know why we're even saying 6 '3", but it's just a buy-in. Like, even 58, if you see him, Jared Wilson, you talk about celebrating. He rolls on top of the pile and goes bananas on the backside of the touchdown. The buy-in's incredible. The sights and sounds from every single game are great. And the coaching. I mean, the coaching is just showing up. You really just can't talk enough about the coaching staff and what they've done to this team. I love this group. I really do. Yeah, we all do.

19:31Pat McAfee:Right now, it's kind of like we're happy for Vrabes because he got fired at Tennessee. That was a good move. Thank you. Thank you, Amy Adams shrug. I need a jersey. And Amy Adams shrug. And will it be the old Houston jersey? Yeah, because we'll take those too. Yeah, well, there's something she'll never give up. And that's those jerseys. Or power. And we'll have J.J. Watt on a little bit here to chit-chat about that whole entire thing. But yeah, just looking back on that decision. Man, oh man. And not to mention the narrative that was built about Vrabel coming into the season because the Patriots started one and two.

20:05They weren't great and everyone was coming around on their high horse. Vrabel never starts out that great. He was an average coach in Tennessee, and everyone just kind of thinks that he's some guru good coach. And now it's like, well, where are you? And they're all at the schedule sucks, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what are you going to do? You can't do about that. I mean, people are so, so stupid, especially on the Internet.

20:26Pat McAfee:Yeah, the Internet has a lot of that. I mean, we've obviously contributed to it, so we'd like to apologize for everything that we have added to the stupidity out there for sure. But it is interesting the way people can frame things whenever they have set in their mind that they're right yeah you know like well i definitely said that i believe that so even if i'm shown stuff that is completely contradictory to my beliefs i have to prove somehow that what i said at the beginning was right because if not i'm dumb it's like hey as people that are in the daily sports world just know there's a new piece of information coming on fucking you think that you have all the information in your daily in your life fully scripted show obviously of course of course there's going to be new information you have to be able to change how you feel about things like you have to be able to adjust the vrabel thing is not a good coach i think that one's that that's a good depiction of how society is potentially always stuck in their ways yeah i think that is because if you look at the numbers whenever he was at tennessee i think he had the most guys on ir or something like that we didn't know anybody on their team he barely knew any of the people on his team they were the number one team in the afc Now, granted, they lose to the Bengals.

21:32Pat McAfee:Bengals end up losing to the Super Bowl and to the Los Angeles Rams. But they have like nine sacks in that game or something like that, which is Vrabel's defense, which a bunch of guys that you don't even know on the team. So Vrabel being a good coach, we knew. So then as soon as they fire him, we all go, what the hell are they going to figure it out? And then the way it's all going out down there, you think to yourself, maybe the Tennessee Titans are the biggest dumpster fire. You know? Maybe they are the biggest dumpster fire in ball. You know? And that's a crazy thing to think about, especially because Nashville is such an awesome city.

22:01Pat McAfee:Like the NFL loves Nashville. Football time. The draft there. It's like such a, it's a special city. It's an awesome place. And they just, he's not even showing up whenever they're firing the coach and GM. She's not even at the, the owner's not even represented. I'm here to represent the owner. It's like, don't you think we should hear from the owner? I'm here. Yes, you're 100 % right. But I am here to speak for the owner. It's like, what a shite organization. Good luck, Titans. You got this. Don't figure it out. And on that note, congrats to the Patriots. Hell yeah. And also, Cleveland, you know, Braves is in the building for a year.

22:34Pat McAfee:Yeah. There's another team, too, out there that was in the building. Cleveland's got it figured out. Big announcement this morning. Oh, yeah. They're good. They're a good ass. Shador Sanders will be starting for the Cleveland Browns this weekend. Good luck, Shador. There you go, Shador. Now, this will be a full week with the offense being kind of shifted around what Shador does well, what Shador likes, what Shador doesn't like. He will be getting the reps with all the starters, including, you know, offensive line but more importantly wide receivers everybody the timing of things him and Stefanski will be able to watch film together this is big news especially from the people that just found out like a couple days ago that backup quarterbacks don't really get the bell of the ball treatment in NFL buildings they're certainly there they certainly have a job you certainly are part of the team but this is starting quarterbacks team and it's not just the backup quarterback that has to act that way but it's everybody in the building is acting as if it's the starting quarterback's team.

23:26Pat McAfee:So now that is Shador. So good luck to him. Excited to see what Stefanski does with Shador and what their offense does. Who are they playing? They play the Raiders. It should be that tough physical elite offensive line against Miles Garrett. That should be a pretty fun one to watch on Sunday. And on the flip side, Max Crosby with Shador Sanders. Yeah, exactly. And I think maybe their friend? It could be. That's what's tough though. Max Crosby could have 15 sacks and force like eight fumbles and the Raiders still might get beat by 50. Which goes back to our we're not doing it. Get him out of there.

24:02Pat McAfee:Congrats to Dora though. This is a big day. How do you think they do?

24:07AQ Shipley:I mean, you play the Raiders. We always look at the schedule and say, hey, when would you want a quarterback to get into? It's the NFL. This is the plan. It's the NFL, so it's always tough teams. But yeah, if you could dream it up, this is the game you'll want to enter and get an opportunity. So this will be cool. He's going against the team. They know, you know, he knows, the family knows. Tom Brady has a relationship there. Obviously, the Raiders had an opportunity to draft him. But for him, it's going to start, for me, up front. Like, how well can he set protections? How well can he be protected?

24:35AQ Shipley:And then that's when you can see the true talent of a quarterback. We see it happen all the time when people go to certain places. It's like, okay, this guy stinks. But Daniel Jones, for example, like, he was under duress for his entire career in New York. And then he gets here and has a full competent offense, surrounded by some talent. And he looks like a complete different quarterback. So it'll be start number one, you know, in the middle of the season, which is always tough. But I'm excited to see how he figures it out up front, first and foremost. How do they – are they talented?

25:00Pat McAfee:I mean, for a fifth-round pick, you're always going to get your start probably in the middle of the season. Just so – yeah. In the backup quarterback thing, I don't know how any of them ever have success. Like being 100 % serious. Like think about the situation that Shador got dropped into and everybody that didn't really know how like a week-to-week works and the team was like, this – he has no idea what he's doing. It's like, yeah, that's – backup quarterback's getting dropped into games. Insanity in my eyes. You've got to be very good. That's why normally these backup quarterbacks stick around for a long time because it's like a position.

25:30Pat McAfee:You're doing homework. You're able to execute every offense against your defense that you need to give looks for. And also, if you've been standing around for three and a half hours in the freezing cold watching something else, you have to be able to put your – you have to go out there right now in, oh, yeah, most important position right now. And you're going to get blindsided, and you have no feel for how this game has gone. So backup quarterback sucks, I would say. There's a lot of people that want that job. Yep. But I think that is a very difficult job to succeed in.

25:58AQ Shipley:As a coach, having a rookie backup quarterback, that's the worst position you would be. We see it with San Fran, Mack Jones. He was ready. Even Mariota, he's going to give you an opportunity. Jameis Winston. Jacoby. Jacoby Brissett. Mason Rudolph. You have these veteran quarterbacks. Mason Rudolph, legit, you have these veteran quarterbacks who have either been a starter at one point. When we had Matt Hasselbeck, if luck was out for three or four games, we were running out of the tunnel. We still felt like we had a chance to win every game. But when you're putting a rookie quarterback who hasn't had live reps, even if you're getting practice against the starters, you're not getting live reps.

26:31AQ Shipley:You're not getting real pressure. You're not dealing with everything as far as the play call and all the different moving parts. So everybody's kind of figuring it out at the same time. So it's going to be a huge challenge to your point. It'll be crazy. So if he is successful, that'll be more surprising than the opposite. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

26:46Pat McAfee:Like, people are going to kill Shador. Like, if it goes bad, which it could. Could go bad. Could go great. I mean, there's a change. Because you look at these balls, I mean, the arm talent is very real. So, like, what Shador, and Shador takes a lot of hits, gets right back up. There's a lot of great in Shador's game. Now, being able to understand the comprehensive defense and the blocking and where your guys are going to probably lean to as opposed to actually being and all that type of shit, it's like, we have no idea if Shador's able to do that. That's the biggest difference, right? In baseball, it's like, can you hit the curveball?

27:19Pat McAfee:That separates you from being major versus the – in football, a quarterback, it's like, can you figure out what they're doing on the other side and how quickly can you do that and what does that information do for you? Like everybody obviously talks about, well, if you're a great athlete, you can be a quarterback or whatever. It's like maybe in college. In the NFL, you have to know what the hell is going on and your football IQ is going to be on display. This is the highest level for a reason. So it's like what is Shador's football IQ, I guess, is going to be found out here. And I'm not saying that we know week one, but that's the difference.

27:49Pat McAfee:His arm talent's there. His toughness is there. We assume he's not scared of the big moment because his life is literally just a big moment all the time. He's being watched by everybody since he was in eighth grade or whatever. So I just, I don't know. I'm excited to see how it goes. But there's a chance he dices. There's a chance he dices some things up, especially with Stefanski who's not a bad play caller. And then there's a chance it goes really bad. There's a chance it goes really, really bad. And I think you never know with a rookie quarterback, but boy, Monday is going to be allowed one way or the other with Shador.

28:20Pat McAfee:And for the Cleveland Browns, we say thank you for adding that into our sports media. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Yeah, no. I mean, and boy, it's crazy to think that this game now will maybe be like one of the most watched games of the weekend. Clipped for sure. Yeah, exactly. Whereas going in, you know, it's like, hey, this is arguably maybe the worst game of the NFL season. So like having that is, you know, at least. Maybe Roger Goodell made the call. You know the NFL, they can do whatever they want. Goodell might be there. He might be in the owner's suite. I don't know where it's being played.

28:51He might be sitting in Jimmy Haslam's suite watching this game firsthand. We'll see.

28:57Pat McAfee:Let's go to your last takeaway here before we have an incredible guest about to join us. Josh is Jack of all trades, master of all. See, the quote is Jack of all trades, master of none. They wrote that about me coming out of college. Yeah, because I was able to do it all. but boy, I wasn't great at any of them, is what old buddy said, I believe, in the magazine. It's a quote about normally saying, like, it's an SUV, you know, it can do a lot of things, but not really great at one. For now, what you're saying is Josh is good at a lot, he's great at all of them. And that has become very evident, seemingly, with the way he's played.

29:30Pat McAfee:From year one to now, it's like he's grown every aspect of his game, and it's seemingly on display every week. He's probably the most improved football player the National Football League's ever seen, right? When he came in, he couldn't throw the ball. He was a 50 % completion percentage guy. Wasn't very accurate. Now he does everything. He's accurate. He runs. He's gotten a little bit better at running and protecting himself. And then these are the plays that really makes him. These off-schedule plays. When it's not there, run around, convert the route deep. Watch this throw. I mean, just chucks it 55 perfect in the back of the end zone.

30:02That's easy. Now this one's great because we recognize Antoine Winfield, number 31, is down to the left side as we see it to the bottom. of the screen. He's blitzing. He knows he's got three over three up top. Blocker on blocker. Get it out to Ty Johnson. See you later. Bye. Look at Vita Veyer running, by the way. You're saying high football

30:19Pat McAfee:IQ play right there to Josh Allen. He knows exactly where his pressure is, where people aren't going to be, and I'm happy that he's healthy there. Looked like the hamstring there for a second, and then he really started bopping that thing up there, didn't he? Oh, yeah. Were you allowed to bop on the ground? I know you're not allowed to bop in the air. I have not heard as to whether or not he's been fined. I think you can maybe bop on the ground. Do not be sniffing anything. Definitely not. No sniffing of anything. Because these refs, they know what used to be on those fingers. So whenever you're doing the sniffy-sniff, they're saying, Hey, cocaine!

30:50Pat McAfee:That's what they're saying. Can't do that. That's what they're doing. They're calling it. CeeDee Lamb got two of those. Trey McBride got one this weekend. I didn't like it. The refs. The refs were real interesting in that game out there. The refs are getting real. Do you know what the penalty difference was in that game? What was it? 17-1. Arizona Cardinals had 17 penalties. The 49ers had one. on discipline football team. Yeah, but Brock Purdy's leading a very good program out there. He's on the exciting weight line. That's absurd. I have not heard that. Yeah, me neither. We need to keep those stats in mind as these refs continue to become a part of the conversation.

31:20Pat McAfee:We appreciate your takeaways. Hey, Koush. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, was the man who was the bell of the ball of this college football coaching cycle that has begun much earlier than in years past. he led the Penn State Nittany Lions for over a decade into an area of success that became a national championship or bus type conversation every single year but when he took over the program it was not at that stage it was at a very different stage what he was able to accomplish there obviously led to the rest of the country saying we want him as our head coach Virginia Tech became the official university that signed him ladies and gentlemen the new Hokie football head coach James Franklin How you doing, bud?

32:05Pat McAfee:What's up, guys? How we doing? How was the press conference? You felt good? You feel like you nailed it? I only saw a couple clips. I didn't get to see the entire thing, but I feel like you brought good energy. I feel like there was excitement in the room. Is that what you felt as well? I think so. I'm going to wait to hear what you have to say because you determined that. But, yeah, I thought it was good. I had some fun with it. There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. As you guys know, you've got the Corps of Cadets here, which is a huge part of the university and program. They were in there going crazy.

32:32So it's been great. It's been great.

32:34Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about what happened. Obviously, you get let go from Penn State early in the year after a couple-game slide that I don't think you or anybody could have ever expected at Penn State. All of a sudden, your name is on the market. You come on a college game day, and we basically have a conversation with you, and thank you for doing that still to this day. That was one of the coolest things that has happened on game day, especially with how loud it all was around it. And basically, you implied, hey, I am a football coach. That is what I am. All we are going to do now is take what we learned in trying to win a national championship and go win a national championship somewhere else.

33:10Pat McAfee:Through this entire process, have you reflected more on that particular thing? And what exactly do you think you take from so many years of experience at one place in the spotlight and bring to Virginia Tech, who's hoping to get back there? Yeah, so I think your question's a great one. And what I would say is, right, it's unique. There hasn't been too many guys that have been a head coach in the SEC, a head coach in the Big Ten. Really unusual success at a place like Vanderbilt that hadn't had that type of success before. And then go to Penn State, win a Big Ten championship the first year off of sanctions.

33:48The last three years, we had more success than anybody in the country but four programs and a few plays away from playing for the national championship. So we're very proud of what we were able to achieve there. And I am forever grateful for that time and experience. So being able to use all those lessons and experiences and now bring it to the ACC. The ACC was my first break at the University of Maryland working for Ralph Regan. So I've experienced there. I've been a coach in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers. So just going to take all these experiences that I've been able to have and pour them into my time here at Virginia Tech.

34:27So excited about the opportunity. Obviously, we've got a ton of work to do. College football has changed. You have the ability to flip your roster a lot faster than when I took over those other two programs. And we're excited about the opportunity.

34:41Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about that. What does it look like for the next few weeks as season goes on? You're obviously monitoring locker room, playing practice, kind of seeing who are your guys who are not. What does it look like for the next couple weeks as you kind of get introduced to the football team while they're still playing? But, you know, that's kind of an interesting dynamic. Rich Rod did it last year at West Virginia. He was around for the last two games. And I think he learned a lot about the locker room, about who is that from the practice, what it looks like, maybe what he can see in some of the guys and maybe not.

35:09Pat McAfee:Is that the same thing for you or how are you kind of going about it? Well, I was timing you to see how long you'd have a, it would take you to bring the conversation back to West Virginia, which is always a part of what you're going to talk about, right? But yeah, it's, it's different and it's, it's unique, right? being able to be here two weeks early. The calendar has changed. I think that's why you're seeing a lot of the athletic directors and presidents making some of the decisions they're making. We're going to have an official visit this weekend. We're going to have an official visit next weekend.

35:40A lot of these schools are not going to be able to have that, and then we're going to go into a dead period. So some of these programs are going to lose an entire high school recruiting class. So I've got to do that. We've got to spend time evaluating the current staff. I want to be very respectful for Coach Montgomery and what he has done here. I do want to get up in front of the team and just settle them, that I'm excited about getting to know them and build relationships with them. But then we'll also, obviously, making sure that we're doing whatever we've got to do to increase the competition level at every position.

36:15Pat McAfee:Okay, I love to hear that. And obviously, one transfer portal is now the new rule, and that is in January? Is that when it is? When is it? December? That's right. January is obviously when it is, which will be interesting for the other coaching jobs on who the coaches are potentially going to go to those other jobs, you know, because if they're in a playoff, then transfer portal other plays. Weird. You're in a good spot, I think, Coach. I think this is a good move, getting this thing done early and being able to kind of put your fingerprints on the kind of the franchise early here. Now, you guys have Miami at home, okay?

36:49Pat McAfee:That means one thing and one thing alone. Go ahead, Con, man. Yeah, Coach, congrats again. And I read that you're 128 and 60, so everyone who was talking shit about you, it's like, hey, who cares? I won way more games than you did. But when you think about Virginia Tech, have you visualized yet kind of that first entrance into the stadium with Enter Sandman, with all the boys, you know, behind you? And have you also already made Enter Sandman your ringtone? Because it is one of the greatest songs of all time. Yeah, so can't wait to have the opportunity to run into the stadium with Enter Sandman.

37:25Pat McAfee:I will tell you, I think you know this. I'm more of kind of an R &B, rap, hip-hop type of guy. Jay-Z, Biggie. But I appreciate good music, whatever it is. And all I really care about is what it does to the fans. And that place is rocking. I've been on the other side of it, not as fun. So I'm looking forward to have an opportunity to do that. We'll get a chance to see it this year as well. I've watched the last couple games, even after a challenging season. This place is rocking. We're going to need it rocking again on Saturday because we're going to have a ton of recruits at the game. But, yeah, it's exciting.

37:59It's one of the better, I think, entrances, if not the best, in all of college football.

38:11Now,

38:14Pat McAfee:Metallica might send us a C &D just for doing what we just did right there. They run a tight ship on their business, Yes, they do. Which actually makes me respect them even more now that I'm growing older in this particular business. We need to get you to a Metallica concert. I think it would be a spiritual experience for you as they go through it all, as you get ready. Now, Penn State alum, obviously, Penn State legend A.Q. Shipley has a question for you. Coach? Coach, good to see you. How you doing, buddy? Good to see you. I hate those colors on you. But before I get to my question, I think I need to say this, right?

38:48Obviously, as a former Penn State player, I think everybody appreciates everything you did. And I think when this whole thing is done and we move past everything, I think everybody down the road is going to look back and say what you did when you took it over and what you did in that time, everybody will be forever grateful for that. I think that needs to be said. But having said that... I appreciate it, Q. Having said that, is there any thought to picking a staff now? Are you evaluating the current staff? Do you have some guys in mind that are kind of locks already, or are you kind of waiting to evaluate your own team and your own staff before you get to that?

39:23Yeah, so as you know, I got guys that have been with me. When I left Vanderbilt, went to Penn State, I brought 16 people with me. I think a lot of times these coaches, they get these jobs, and they act like it's all about them, right? I didn't do this by myself. I've had great people around me, and that's what it's all about. So there's some people that are core to me and will continue to be. But I also want to be very respectful of the people that poured their hearts and souls into this program here at Virginia Tech. And I want to be respectful of that. So we'll take some time to get to know the staff, to interview some people, and then put the puzzle together.

40:00That's the Penn State people as well as some of the Virginia Tech people. And then also nationally. We've got to be great in the footprint. but in today's college football you got to be able to go nationally as well because as you guys know I don't know why this is but when you're running inside zone and you hand it off to Saquon Barkley for some reason the plays work better so the coaches the coaches we get a lot of credit but this is a player's game and we want to make sure that we got really good players in all phases

40:28Pat McAfee:that can impact the game to echo your sentiment I think coach Saban says like I learned quickly that I was an okay coach with not good players. I was considered a great coach with really good players. So that is what we are trying to do at all times, which is why I think the grindstone that you have on recruiting is such an advantage and why everybody was kind of seeking you as their coach. Go ahead, Ty. Yeah, speaking of that, Coach, how much does that change now that you're at Virginia Tech and it's a situation where you're trying to kind of restore a program to its former excellence and glory, whereas when you're at Penn State, you're at an established blue blood.

41:06You know when you're going into these kids' houses that you can tell them and be 100 % truthful, like, hey, we're going to compete for a national championship every single year you're on campus. So, like, does the pitch change? Does the way you go about recruiting change? Or just how is it different now being at Virginia Tech trying to build them back up as opposed to when you're at Penn State? Well, I think that's changed, right? We've seen that in college football. The landscape has changed. And as long as you're at a place that's committed at the highest level to win, you can do it. This season and last season, there's been evidence of that.

41:45There's also, again, the ability to turn your roster over quickly with veteran players. We're still going to be a high school developmental program because I think if you make the decision to go all in on the portal, it's hard to ever come out of that because you're going to have so much turnover every single year that you're forced to stay in that world. And we'd like to have a healthy balance between the two. I do think in year one, we're going to have an opportunity to get a bunch of players out of the transfer portal that can come in and help us compete right away. And there's also enough talent on this current roster that's going to create a really competitive environment.

42:20But long term, we'd like to have a balance between high school recruiting as our base and then complement with that with the portal.

42:27Pat McAfee:Yeah, it feels like the mindset, very NFL like you build your culture through the draft and then free agency comes in and kind of takes you to the next step. hopefully like to hear that you have the experience in this world and also view it the same way i think that's why the virginia tech you know they interviewed 20 people i have no idea how many people they interviewed 20 ba told us now he signed an nda so he wasn't going to tell us anything basically throughout then we got him to lose loosen his lips a little bit he said they talked about that nda that nda is over now that that the contractsman signed that's on you guys to figure out with ba not with us but he mentioned like they they talked to over 20 different people or whatever and from the beginning you were the guy and i think it's because and i assume that's other jobs as well they were thinking the exact same thing just understanding the current world i think is a massive advantage having a brand new coach like a coordinator or you know maybe an up and coming promising type coach take it over right now you have no idea how it's going to go for you you had such a great resume it's like i think you're in such a good position they always say like the second time you get to do something now this is like your third time getting to do something but like every time you only get better and better.

43:34Pat McAfee:And Virginia Tech's putting a lot of money in, I think. That's no NDA. I think they are also all behind athletics. We're excited for this story for you. Now, on that note, D-Bott has a question for you.

43:43AQ Shipley:Absolutely, Coach. You got the resources. And with the transfer portal, you can turn over the roster much quicker. You mentioned that a bunch of times. But as far as like a realistic timeline, I know you want to win right now. What is your realistic timeline to compete for that national championship? Outside looking in, we all say, hey, the ACC is gettable every year, so you're going to be in the dance. But what's that realistic timeline for you to get your culture into Virginia Tech? Yeah, well, obviously there's a lot to be determined there, right? I just got on campus about two hours ago. I need to evaluate the current roster.

44:17I need to see how recruiting is going to go. I need to see what's going to be available in the transfer portal, what coaches. There's so many different moving parts. But the reality is we're going to be aggressive. We're going to be very aggressive from day one. We're not going to put any ceilings on who and what we can be and wake up every single morning and give Virginia Tech everything we got. But I think to your point, the investment level is what it's all about. College football has changed. And the reality is this place made some decisions before I was even part of the conversation, which was helpful that it wasn't just me coming in saying, here are all the things we need to do.

44:59They had already done their benchmarking in the ACC as well as nationally, and I think that allowed the conversation to go faster and smoother.

45:08Pat McAfee:Good for you, Coach. Enjoy it all. We can't wait to watch what it becomes over there. And don't be scared to schedule West Virginia whenever it comes across your desk. So that's twice you've been able to bring up West Virginia. It's unbelievable. Like, do they pay you in every image? You're going to find a way. No, it's actually the other way around. College football has changed. Yeah, college football has changed. Hey, there's a new landscape. You know, not a lot of money. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, you got to do what you got to do for the good of the squad, for the good of it. But I do think, like, those old Big East, I guess, rivalries in West Virginia and Virginia Tech.

45:44Pat McAfee:In the state of West Virginia on the southern side there, Charleston, that old area, like, Virginia Tech still considered, like, massive rivalry with West Virginia. I think a lot of people in West Virginia feel that way, and I think Virginia Tech people still feel that way as well. So if we can make that dance take place, we should definitely be doing that. Just, you know, I still love the Pittsburgh accent. You know, my dad's from the Hill District, so I love hearing the pro-grom. I love hearing all the little, yeah, yeah, Yinzer. I love all that stuff. Hey, why don't you drop it in there up there in the hills of Virginia Tech.

46:16Pat McAfee:We went to a saloon up there. Where were we at, Foxy? We went to a saloon up there. It was a great time. It was awesome. Copperhead Road came on. Another song you love. I know you love that song. Copperhead Road came on, and people were sprinting down the street into the saloon to get onto the dance floor so they can line dance. It was one of the most electric environments I've been a part of. Did you get out there with the belt buckle that you loved? Were you out there? Yeah, it's the electric slide with an extra kick, I learned. I love that. Yeah, so it was at Roanoke we were in, which I don't know how close that is to Blacksburg over there, but it's a wonderful area.

46:51Pat McAfee:They love ball there. Man, they love ball over there. So hopefully... So the electric side with the electric slide with a little extra kick step. Yeah, boom. And then we're going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, boom. And then we're taking that thing back, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, boom. And then you go here, bang. And you're kicking twice. And then you turn that thing. And then you turn that something. Okay. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as I was watching them from the side, I was watching them from the side. I was trying to... Because this felt like the moment to be a part of. This one, there was people.

47:22Pat McAfee:There was like a 75-year-old man over here that was just housing diesels. Okay, just at the bar. Legend. Copperhead Road came on. I watched him. Fuck. Oh, shit. Gotta do it. Yeah, gotta do it here. Yeah, here's me hitting this thing. Here's me hitting this thing in the middle. Yeah, bang. Are you slid out there with him? Bang, bang, bang, bang. Where are you at? I don't know if that's Copperhead Road because I think Foxy was actually doing Copperhead. That's me right there, bud. Yeah. Oh, that's you? Yeah. Yeah, and obviously, I don't know. You have some rhythm. I didn't realize you had that much rhythm.

47:50Pat McAfee:I'm from Pittsburgh. coach you fucking heard you just said it what do you think this is what do you think this is James and we need to get you a god damn Metallica concert ASAP alright we gonna get a new burger out there too yeah you need a different burger we can't be doing turkey burger there you know you did that last time I know I was trying to do the healthy deal the players gave me a hard time about that so this is what we learned remember we learned from the last place it's all a process you learn you adjust the next one we'll have a pound of bacon on it Here we go. Heart attack. All right, have a good one.

48:23That's one of my lessons that I learned. Don't have the healthy burger at the local restaurant. See, that might have been the old.

48:29Pat McAfee:Just trying to get better. That might have been the thing. Oh, yeah. Too bad we thought of it now. I mean, would have been. That's right. Perfect timing for Virginia Tech. Yeah, you're right. That's right. You're the man. Congratulations. You deserve all this. We can't wait to watch it. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach James Franklin. Yeah, Coach. He's hilarious. Yeah. He knows exactly who we are, too. He knows exactly. He understands, because his dad's from the Hill District, about how people from Pittsburgh view Penn State people if they did not go to Penn State. So he has never taken any disrespect from anything that has been a shit-talking situation.

49:04Pat McAfee:And then, obviously, getting a chance to know him. He put us right outside of his office. Yeah. I mean, he let us right outside of his office. Sweet. That was a much different time, you know, when this show was broadcast right outside of his office. Yeah, they were going to win the national championship. It was like 10 years ago. Oh, my God. 70 employees working on the social media department alone and the recruiting just kind of get it going. They have a full operation. And then a couple things start happening. Overtime. Lost to Oregon. That was it. Drew Aller breaks his leg. That was it. It was the overtime loss.

49:32Just sent them off a deep end. UCLA can't have it. See, I say Northwestern, you could say. Northwestern at home. That was the end. UCLA, no, it wasn't. It was getting new hazled.

49:43Pat McAfee:Northwestern at home. Yeah, but that was after UCLA. That's what I'm saying. You guys said that was the end. That was the end. That was the beginning of the end. Yeah, no, there was another one that came immediately afterwards. And I'm not saying that's James Franklin's fault, but I'm just saying like that overtime win or lost to Oregon, is that James Franklin's fault? I don't think so. That's a tough game. But also could have won that game multiple different times. Didn't execute. Don't win that game. UCLA going over there and getting New Heisled. Maybe that you put that one on it. Northwestern at home, it's like, is anybody showing up?

50:12Pat McAfee:Like, what are we? Can't happen. What the hell is going on out here? So it just kind of unraveled quickly. And then going into the season, it was like, hey, better win a national championship. And then everybody has his record against top teams. Well, who are the top teams that are counting for that record? Oh, the national champs normally. That is normally the national champs. So it's like, well, this guy can't win the big game. It's like nobody's beating the teams that he is in there. And he talked about having the fourth most wins or fifth most wins in the country or whatever it is. It was like Penn State was sick of hearing it.

50:39Pat McAfee:Like that is just it gets to that point. so like a perfect refresh for him at Virginia Tech and you guys trying to I don't know who you guys are gonna hire I'll be excited to see who that is that has to kind of go from this point but it did feel like a refresh was inevitable it did feel like that absolutely I think I know who they should hire I mean I was pretty loud about it last week and once I did a little bit more digging he's got five Super Bowl wins and a national champion offensive coordinator at Alabama Is that a good resume? Who are you talking about? Brian Dayball. That's a bad fit. But when you're talking about Penn State, that Oregon game, that Oregon overtime game, we forget it was 17-3.

51:18They're about to lose 24-3 in the fourth quarter, and then they have this massive comeback even to get it to overtime. So you're talking about a good coach, having your players believe enough to the point where you're at home, the whole crowd's dead, it's the fourth quarter, there's 14 minutes left, and they're still fighting and battling. to get into overtime felt like a big deal.

51:37Pat McAfee:I think there's a lot of moments where you can say, James Franklin, very good coach. And then there's a record that everybody points out and says, well, well. And it's like, well, he won a lot of games. Well, and only won one Big Ten there. It was a long time ago. In football places, we all understand this. Yes. I mean, it's happening in Pittsburgh. In football places, it's like, yeah. Good job. That's good. I mean, we can't talk shit to anybody. Penn State people run into an Ohio State person, and it's an immediate, hey, yeah, good to see you guys. And then the Ohio State person says, oh, you guys getting better.

52:18Pat McAfee:Thanks. That is how football people feel from Penn State. So I think a refresh was inevitable this year if they didn't go on and win a national championship, which is crazy expectations, right, because only one team will win that. So him going to a new place that is desperate for that type of shit and him being able to build it and learn from it, good for Coach Roman. I think it's good for them. And then whatever Penn State ends up doing, it's like if they end up getting there, it's good for them as well.

52:40AQ Shipley:Yeah, and those are the expectations you want as a coach, especially when you're recruiting. And the one thing I would say close to equally as important as winning and winning a national championship is how much talent do you send to the NFL? Because when you're sitting in these recruits' living room and you can run down that book or show, hey, we got this many guys that's been drafted first, second, whatever round. They may have been this many stars. as they came here, they developed, and I said, like, this is my track record. That's just as important as, you know, winning national championships and winning these things.

53:10AQ Shipley:You see guys, now they go to school, and you got to re-recruit them every year anyway. So if I know I'm going to play for a coach or if I'm a parent and I know my kid really wants, hey, let me go to a coach who's done it time and time and time and time again.

53:21Pat McAfee:You heard him mention Saquon there.

53:23AQ Shipley:Yeah.

53:23Pat McAfee:Hey, hey, don't know if you remember. Yeah. Yep, that guy. Yep. It was all his guys, though. Yeah. Michael? I mean, whenever he was at Penn State, like his track record from the time he got there, they were always combine freaks. They always ran four threes, had 40-inch verticals, went on to the next level. Guys may have had just an average college career, and then you go on and all of a sudden, Pro Bowl, Pro Bowl, Pro Bowl, Pro Bowl, Pro Bowl, Godwin, right? The list goes on and on. Micah Parsons' numbers in the NFL are 10x when it was at Penn State. And he's Virginia Tech's head coach right now.

53:56Pat McAfee:Virginia Tech. That's a big deal. That's the thing. It's crazy to think Virginia Tech is... If they win nine or ten games next year, they'll burn Blacksburg to the ground. Hey, good for Virginia Tech. I'm happy to see you guys are in ball. I like any school that says we're investing in ball. This is clearly that. Let's talk about college football. Let's head over to Hammer. Don! Don! CFP, brand new CFP put out their predicted playoff at this seat. How do you feel about it, Tony? What's the conversation coming out? Yeah, so the one through eight was exactly how I thought it would go. obviously of Ohio State, Indiana, A &M, Georgia, five, Texas Tech, six, Ole Miss, seven, Oregon.

54:33That was exactly right with Oklahoma at eight. I had Alabama at nine. The CFP committee disagreed. They have Notre Dame at nine. So now, I don't know if anybody has seen on the internet, Notre Dame is now public enemy number one. Everyone is taking shots at Notre Dame. Bama fans, BYU fans, Miami fans, Vandy fans. and the new CFP chair, Hunter Juracek, did not do them any favors last night. Foxy, I don't know if you have the video when he was asked about Notre Dame and Miami last night. I think when you look, Reese, at Notre Dame and Miami, we really compare the losses of those two teams. Miami has lost to two unranked teams.

55:12Notre Dame has lost to two teams that are ranked in our top 13. And so we really haven't compared those two teams. They haven't been in similar comparative pools to date. but Miami is creeping up into that range where they will be compared to Notre Dame if something happens above them.

55:29Pat McAfee:Let's keep that audio all the way up on Reese in the arena. Go ahead, Biggs. So people are pissed that they're not in the same comparative pools, even though they played each other and Miami won. And he basically also said that good losses are better than good wins when it kind of comes to Alabama, because Alabama's three more wins, I think, top 25 teams versus Notre Dame. So people are very, very mad at him and very, very mad at Notre Dame right now. Yeah, and you know, Mack Rhodes, Baylor athletic director, was the chair of the CFP committee. He steps down amongst a bunch of things happening.

56:06Pat McAfee:Who knows what ends up being that? This guy steps in and I'll tell you, he's a little bit more robotic than we expected. A little bit. And the answers he's given, it sounds like he's reading from a script. So we need him to be a little bit more believable because if you start changing what you're judging upon each week, which is possible with what you did here this time, boy, it's only going to get louder. And that's why we're thankful we're not in that seat and that they are. Good job in there. We're going to judge you so hard. Big time. You're never going to get it right. But we need you to be a little bit more personable when you're giving these answers because it sounds like you're being forced to say what you're saying right there and you don't even believe it.

56:43Do a studio show too. Don't do it from Madison Square Garden where it's loud as shit. Well, they got the hoops. Well, I get it, but they could have still done a studio show.

56:52Pat McAfee:You could just do this, though, I think. And then you're back up. But why? I don't know. We'll see you next hour.

57:02As you know, managing maintenance, repair, and operations is never easy. But for the ones who always rise to the challenge, Granger has your back. From professional-grade products you can count on to fast, dependable delivery, they're there to help you keep things running smoothly. Plus, their technical product specialists are here to help answer your toughest questions. And because Grainger knows safety is always a priority, they're committed to being your partner in protecting both your people and your facilities. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly!

57:36Check engine, ABS, or maintenance light on? Take the guesswork out of your warning lights with O 'Reilly Veriscan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we could recommend a shop for you. Ask for O 'Reilly Veriscan today.

57:56Pat McAfee:Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly. Auto Parts.

58:09Pat McAfee:Hello, beautiful people. And welcome back to our Humble the Boat. The Thunderdome on this walk Wednesday, November 19, 2025. Our tour of the program begins now. Football is the greatest. We're so lucky we get to talk about it every single day. The Toxic Table is here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Nine-year NFL vet Darius J. Butler is here. 12-year NFL vet, Super Bowl champion, player coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. AQ Shipley is here. Hi, baby. AQ. Live from Hammer. Don. Don. It's AP Tony. Way to go, Tony. Way to break down the college football playoff committee. Thank you. Hey, you think they're going to remain consistent with what their criteria is for ranking for the rest of the way?

58:51Pat McAfee:Or do you think maybe there is a little bit of dodging and weaving that they're going to do to maybe pick who they want to pick? Yeah, I think they're going to dodge, dip, dive, dop, and dodge this whole thing. whatever they're feeling that week, it feels like potentially. Yeah, it does feel like it's going to be loud. And maybe they do this on purpose. You know, there is an old – I hope everybody's all right there. Did you just choke into the microphone? I almost did choke on the water right there. Yeah, sorry. I hope you're okay. We heard. Yeah, we hope you're – we hope you're okay. There used to be something where, like, Dan Orlovsky would give a take, and we say, Dan, clearly put one of those things out there just to stir the pot.

59:31Pat McAfee:Like, here's four actual things and then there's one that is just, like, we think, I've never been told this is done by somebody who actually did it, but we as humans who take in content can realize that sometimes it seems like one of these things is strictly in here to stir shit, right? Like, it feels like this one is the attention seeker and then you come into the other one and you do it. It feels like that has been a strategy that has been used by content creators, especially in the sports world for a while now. It feels like that is something. Is that what the CFP committee is doing? Are they going to leave like one thing each week for people to get incredibly upset about?

1:00:04Pat McAfee:Like, I do wonder if that conversation, especially with Hunter back in charge. Hunter up in charge, like, all right, what do we need? Okay, so that's what we actually think. Now, we need to do something just to keep people kind of interested. Because what if they put one out that everybody agreed upon? Would that ever happen? Would that ever happen? Not with college football fan bases, no. I don't think it's possible. But, yeah. They need to merge with the BCS old system. It's time. The BCS problem was that they only had to pick two teams out of a bunch. Now we got 12. Merge with the BCS system and help these people because the BCS is a robot and will probably still speak better than what we heard yesterday.

1:00:42It's one of those things where that's the biggest portion of the CFP committee. Like, we need a transparent communicator on what the hell is going on because that's why we didn't like BCS. We still don't have that. at least BCS. Well, hold on. This is Hunter's

1:00:54Pat McAfee:first time. That's true. Foxy, what was your read? You watched a lot of his film to figure out which clips.

1:00:59JJ Watt:Yeah, I watched it last night. My only takeaway was I felt like he already knew the questions. Like, they told him, hey, we're going to ask you this, we're going to ask you this, we're going to ask you this, and he had all those answers canned, and there was no rebuttal on his answers, and that's why I felt like he already knew what he was being asked.

1:01:13Pat McAfee:As a non... Listen, I understand the rebuttal situation, especially in those conversations. We're not saying anything about Reese Davis at all. No, they're tight on time what we are saying is the way it's set up i think reese is the only one that's allowed to i think that's a part of the entire deal and it's like i think the cfp committee understands that it's going to be loud no matter what we say so let's just kind of get through this and then let's keep it moving i do wish there was a little bit of pizzazz on that person i do wish there was a little hey there's 12 people in here okay so we're trying what do you everybody has their own opinions we thought notre dame yeah yeah they lose that game but how about how they win though this game.

1:01:51Pat McAfee:And then we think for Alabama, yeah, Florida State. Okay, they lost to Florida State. Look at Florida State. That's who they lost to. Yeah, they won four straight ranked games against top 20 teams that we viewed as top 20 teams. But they still showed up one time very early in the season, did it against Florida State. It's like if they just said that, I think we'd be like, okay, so this is what it is. But I don't think they can. I legitimately don't know what the right answer is for any of it. No, and I'd give Mr. Jurczyk the benefit of the doubt a little bit because I believe he is the AD at Arkansas, correct?

1:02:20Woo pig. Yeah, exactly. So he don't give a shit. Right now he's up to his eyeballs trying to figure out who his next head football coach is going to be. No, he cares. You think he wants to talk about what's going on at all these other schools in the SEC? They're getting in. Meanwhile, he's thinking, Jesus Christ, they're throwing bricks through my window. They're putting four sales signs in my front yard, and I've got to talk about how good Alabama is and Georgia and A &M. Oh, you think he's miserable, not robotic? I think so. I think all he's thinking about is Jesus Christ. I am the AD at Arkansas, and we are so fucking far away from being in this conversation, and I got to get up here and talk about all my rivals and all these other people.

1:02:58I think he's up to his eyeballs, and he's just figuring, I just got to swim forward.

1:03:02Pat McAfee:Connor, is that what you were thinking as well with Hunter? Well, that's what I was thinking. I mean, just talking to James Franklin, like you can't have a motherless football team. You just can't, and that's one of the biggest things, especially in college football. If you do, especially now, what are you going to do with all your recruits? Like, are they all going to leave Arkansas? Like, that's a problem. You can't have a motherless football team? Fatherless, motherless. You can't have a football team without parents, head figures of your football team. And in the SEC, we're talking about Virginia Tech, how important it is, and that's the ACC.

1:03:29We know it's different down there.

1:03:31Pat McAfee:For ease of comparison, here's BCS know-how's tweet from last night. The latest college football playoff rankings against our most up-to-date simulated BCS had Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A &M, Georgia. Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A &M, Georgia. They had Ole Miss after Georgia. Georgia, they have Texas Tech. Oregon sitting at sixth in the BCS one. Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Notre Dame at nine on both sides. Alabama at 10 on both sides. BYU, Utah, and then Vandy and Miami. CFP committee has Miami much higher than the simulated BCS would have. But you could say, hey, there's some numbers you can put behind a sign.

1:04:09Pat McAfee:Joining us now is a man whose team sits atop them all. Yeah. And I don't even think he's going to get millions of dollars. He just has a Halloween party where he dresses up like rather untasteful this year. This year was bad taste. Not just, I mean, a lot of the Halloweens, I think, coming out of this particular state maybe as a whole are certainly fascinating. But this man, he's a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner, all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. Ladies and gentlemen, a man who has a treat on the Ohio State University campus, A.J. Hawk.

1:04:40Yeah, Hawk.

1:04:42Pat McAfee:Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. I mean, I was honoring a past president. We were a couple, so it was very tasteful. Yeah, I understand you were buying into the gimmick. And those Halloweens, obviously, and all the events that you go to, the we could see with boozing, cruising, the thing you do out there, always raising money to make the city better and to the hospital and also to get good players. Yeah, exactly. Also get good players. Let's make the world better and our team better. Let's come together for a good cause of Buckeyes. So I appreciate everything you've given back there. Whenever you see the CFP playoff predictions at this time of the season, obviously it's easy to say none of this matters.

1:05:18Pat McAfee:None of this matters. None of this matters. It kind of does, though, whenever we start to get a sense of how the committee feels about certain teams and programs. Anything that kind of scared you about last night, or do you think all of this is going to play itself out because there's a lot of games left, and getting mad about this on this particular day is not maybe the best usage of your energy? No, I mean, I understand people getting mad about this. I mean, be excited if you think you're up a spot or two more than you thought you would, or if you're slightly left out. I can see people and fan bases getting pissed, but we still have some time left.

1:05:50Teams can still figure it out. But yeah, that's a tough job for what Mr. – what's his name again? Yurichek. Hunter Yurichek. Woo-pew. Hunter Yurichek. You think they're just worried about saying – I don't know. They think – like misspeaking, so they want to make sure they have an idea and he doesn't just fly off the handles and say something crazy?

1:06:06Pat McAfee:Yeah, maybe he doesn't know what the questions are, but understands the general basis of, and they all go through maybe what we're going to say to all these different things. It just, you know, and maybe Ty's right. Maybe this guy's so miserable. You know, maybe this guy is just so miserable as he's talking, but it really felt like he was an authority on things and was stating things that were pieced together. And I'm not saying the previous chairs have been any better. I mean, there's no information normally coming out of this, but now they're starting to set a precedent a little bit, even with the new chair.

1:06:34Pat McAfee:We would like to wish them good luck, and all these teams have an opportunity to play themselves in or play themselves out, except for who? Ohio State? Indiana? Texas A &M? That's probably it, right? Yeah. Georgia loses to Georgia Tech and then loses in the SEC Championship. That would give them three losses, which would probably be a big-time conversation. That's the only thing, though. Did they have three last year when they lost the SEC title game or when they won the I forget what it was, but aren't they kind of going with the, if you make it to the conference championship game with two losses and then you lose your conference championship game, it's going to be hard for them to eliminate those teams so that has not been officially placed in but i think we all have kind of agreed that like hey if you make it to the big 10 champion or the sec championship there you should get a bid yes because you and then but they're like we will maybe is what the cfp committee said last year is like everything's taken into account what teams are playing what teams are not playing they like never gave us an answer that like yes it's okay if you're getting a loss in the championship but it did worry a lot of college coaches like well a championship game is now not a good thing to go to because it might be a third loss and then all All of a sudden you're being judged against the other three loss teams as opposed to SEC championship team.

1:07:40Pat McAfee:It's a very – that's why the job is impossible. They opened this thing up to 16, like was allegedly being pitched. They opened up to 30, like it's being pitched. Don't do it. It's going to be impossible no matter what it is. And how many teams can actually go and win the national championship? Let's head back to Hammer. Don, Tom, Tom, what do you got? So I think actually with Georgia's situation, because one of Bama's losses is to Florida State, which is not in the SEC. So their conference loss would be to Oklahoma, and they have the head-to-head against Georgia. So I think even if Georgia wins out, as long as Bama wins out as well and A &M, it'll actually be A &M and Bama in the SEC championship, if I remember correctly, if I'm thinking correctly in that situation.

1:08:20I could be wrong, but Bama has the head-to-head advantage over Georgia right now, and they both only have one conference loss. So I think Georgia's actually going to be in a really nice spot where they just play the rest of their regular season out, whatever happens in the SEC championship happens and then things will fall as they fall.

1:08:36Pat McAfee:So, Tarn, are you saying those top four in, we think, regardless? Yes. Congratulations. That's awesome. I personally think Texas Tech is in as well. Well, wait, hold on. Let me clarify. Yeah, they got West Virginia and Morgantown. I know they got the Mountaineers next weekend, but if they take care of West Virginia, I don't see them dropping from five to completely off. Yes, he is. Not yet. Yes, he is. Really? You think, D-Butt? Really? Hey, hard edge Scotty Fox. Have you had eyes on this Scotty Fox boy? Have you seen this Scotty Fox boy? He can play for real. Saw that filthy 90-yard touchdown pass.

1:09:15Yeah, it was a great throw. Yeah. Dart. On the money.

1:09:20Pat McAfee:Now, running back did take that thing 92 yards of that 93-yard thing, whatever the case is. It was a good run, but we got a good team. All of a sudden, hard edges there. And if we're able to get this, we beat the Big 12 champs. Yeah, but Texas Tech's defense is unbelievable. You think you're going to be able to get this against that? You might not be able to get this against Texas Tech.

1:09:36AQ Shipley:Yeah, Texas candidate over there.

1:09:38Pat McAfee:Yeah, Rodriguez is certainly a stud at linebacker. They got a D-line, though. Them dogs like to hunt. They're very big, very athletic, very strong, very fast. That is a worry, you know, because it does feel like throughout a majority of the year, the problem you see lies in the trenches. and it feels like a starting group, well, the solution can be found in the trenches as well, which I think is something that could have been addressed maybe in the offseason, but there wasn't a lot of time. But it certainly is being addressed right now if you look at the local headlines, if you will. But the starting O-line has gotten kind of worse.

1:10:16Pat McAfee:They've kind of stayed the same and got worse, which is not supposed to happen. No. Throughout the year, you think... It's just big people moving other big people, though. Isn't that what they do? I heard that Texas A &M what they are very very very very very strong at West Virginia maybe not our best and somehow getting worse maybe as the season progresses and on that note and he gives it Saturday and with the boys getting a little motivation maybe Kevin Bryan maybe his jawline and the couch thing kind of threw its way, Bluetoothed in to that offensive line. They're saying, you know what, boys?

1:10:58Pat McAfee:We're starting to get big-time recruits in the offensive line. Maybe we should learn how to play football good. And maybe they start really doing well, and that could happen this week against this Texas Tech team. That could happen. Possible. Tony, you have some clarity on the SEC? Yeah, so if they win out, it is A &M and Bama. Georgia would need either Texas to beat A &M or Auburn to beat Bama to get into the SEC championship. Hey, crazier things have happened. That's right. Oh, yeah. Hey, crazier things have happened. That's why it's rivalry week next week. Exactly. I think the big thing, though, you mentioned it earlier, is with everyone being pissed about Notre Dame.

1:11:30Like, at this point, they play Syracuse and Stanford. You know, so it's like really the only thing, unless Notre Dame absolutely collapses, which I don't think anyone thinks it, they're only going to move up. So they're just going to piss more people off. So if you're one of these teams, it's kind of like a frit. You might just need to swallow that poison pill and realize that Notre Dame probably is going to be in there.

1:11:49Pat McAfee:Yeah, and Notre Dame, very good. We actually had a conversation with Jeremiah Love that we'll be running at some point today. He is very likable, too. Not only is he a Heisman potential winner, he is phenomenal. And the way he talks about Marcus Freeman and the team and the brotherhood and the culture and the way they've been playing since those losses, it's like I know we all don't love it, but it's a very real thing. Notre Dame gets a lot of eyes on them on a very regular basis, so people see their team where they're at. As opposed to watching film of these teams, which some of these CFP committee members probably have to do, in the moment.

1:12:22Pat McAfee:It's like Notre Dame is being followed by everybody all the time. So when things are up and to the right, they're always going to get the benefit of the doubt. Not saying it's right. It's just reality of the situation, D-Bud.

1:12:32AQ Shipley:Absolutely. I love these conversations. I love talking about it. Look, UConn, we're a year away. We'll have a Heisman finalist with Joey Fernando. We'll have a Blintnikoff Award winner. That's his name. Skyler Bell, wide receiver. But the thing I do get most excited about outside the actual games, that song. That song. Well said. There's no way we're doing this again. It's going to be shot to shine.

1:13:00Pat McAfee:It's more than a lot more fun. Starting with 12, counting down to 1. That's how we crown a CFP national champion. That's how we crown a CFP national champion. Jumpers, champs keep the dream alive. One through four, get the first round by. From five to eight. She loves ball. Five to twelve. Winners move on and the crowd's on the hill. One final. New Year's six. Bowls on a rotating basis. That's a bar. Oh, yeah. All-time favorite team. Somebody new bursting on the scene. No one's going to stop. Okay, man. Baby. Countdown to one. That's how we crown a CEP national champion. That's how we crown a CFE national champion.

1:13:54Pat McAfee:All right, we're done. We're done. We're done. We can't do that. What? What? What? I never seen that part. I didn't know there was more. What the hell? Why are we stopping it? I couldn't take a great reminder. We need to see that. This is new. This is new. What is happening? Hold on. This school gives shots. It's more games and a lot more fun. Started with 12. Countdown to one. That's how we crown a CFE national champion. TMP National Champion. Wait, we skipped a new stuff. Go to the new stuff. I thought we were going back. What the hell? Didn't we all think we were going back? Yeah. I had Bruce in to get it, and Bruce was done with it, too.

1:14:28Pat McAfee:So maybe we'll catch you next time, boys. It's really nice time to shine. Okay? It sucks. No, no. It's going to be okay. We've got a lot of time to do this. When was that video released, and why did we not know about it? Well, I think maybe it has been the entire time, and maybe. No. No, we wanted the whole thing. Yeah. That's last year's. That's bullshit. No, Dan. Shut up. That is 30 seconds of additional content that we have never seen before. Show us that shit, man. Right there. I've never seen any of it. Here we go. Here we go.

1:15:03Bar.

1:15:04Pat McAfee:Bar. Oh! What? Get a shot. I mean, those college football fans were mind-blowing. We need to listen to that 10 more times right now so we can memorize it. They're definitely fans. That classroom looks like big fans. They are. They're mind-blowing. That was great. How did we miss it? I am living right now. So they had a radio edit release that they put out? Must have. And then they decided to cut out that one? Yeah, right. We need that one. Did Cameron direct that thing? Honestly. Yeah, Hans Zimmer made the music. There's a chance. I think Diplo even potentially touched that. Yeah. But whatever.

1:15:45Pat McAfee:Now that we know more about AI, it feels like potentially. Yeah, which once again. You think AI's putting that together? Hell no. No way. No way. We're not that advanced. Starting with 12 counting down to one. Computer ain't coming up with that. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is the man who is a computer of a human, but somehow still remains an ability of moxie that makes him lovable to the entire world. This guy is a machine. This guy is great at everything he does, including owning soccer teams. He owns Burnley in England. Relegation zone. Oh, no. Again. They're way down here.

1:16:25Pat McAfee:They're getting a shot to shine right now. They're getting a shot to shine right now. Espanol may be winning an entire thing. Now, they could have Ponch Tina. He's ours. The head coach of the United States men's national team. but they let him walk out of that building before JJ was on it. Ladies and gentlemen, JJ walked.

1:16:44JJ Watt:Who said again? Who said again? Some freaking idiot, dude. Freaking. Did you just get out of the shower? What did you do? Just hop out of the shower? You don't have a blow dryer? You don't have a towel? Yeah, man. Freaking clean. Good burn.

1:17:00Pat McAfee:His hair looks good. It is flowing today. Is that what you were referring to there, Jage? Is that what you were talking about?

1:17:04JJ Watt:Yeah, I mean, it is. There's not a lot you can attack with the hair besides the fact it's not dry because it does look pretty damn good. Four eyes. I mean, that's a layup every time. No, I wear the glasses now, so I can't. I put the glasses on every now and then, so I can't attack the glasses and be a hypocrite here.

1:17:20Pat McAfee:Remember, he has the big – Oh, yeah. The Dahmer ones. The Dahmer ones. And then he has the – right? That's the one? The hair has been on point, though. There they are. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Yeah, that's exactly right.

1:17:32JJ Watt:Too much glare. Too much glare.

1:17:33Pat McAfee:Well, that's because the blue light's not getting through there. You're training your eyes. at the same time you're training your body. You're doing a great job. I mentioned it there. Espanol, you guys could have had Ponch Ponchettino as your head coach. You guys decided to kick him out of town, and now he's leading the United States men's national team to win the World Cup this year. Have you seen what we're doing right now? Maybe you signed Berhalter, bub. He's in the MLS. I don't know if he'd want to go play in the Spain League or in whatever league you guys are in in England at this point.

1:18:00Pat McAfee:The Premier. But boy, what a ball striker here, JJ. Maybe you opened the bank account for old Berhalter, who's going to lead the World Cup.

1:18:09JJ Watt:Yeah, love to see them winning. Yes, Poch is an Espanol man. He's been at a few matches this year during their breaks. He's very, very, very well-liked in our area of Barcelona, and he's welcome in our stadium anytime, as he has been multiple times this year.

1:18:23Pat McAfee:Yeah, well, don't be trying to poach, poach Tina, because we need him before the World Cup. Do you have any Americans on any of your teams?

1:18:33No. Wow. This guy hates Americans.

1:18:35Pat McAfee:Wow. When we were in the World Cup, what's your excuse going to be? Yeah. What's that going to be? Because guess what? Luna and the boys. Okay. Burr Halter and the boys. Wow. Pacha Pacha Tino and the boys. Okay. They have found an inner dog. And Uruguay is a good team. Great team. In the world.

1:18:53JJ Watt:Uruguay is a great team.

1:18:54Pat McAfee:5-1, we win. They pick up a goal 45th minute. They all scored a red card. Our boys didn't overreact. But last game fought. Yeah. Okay. Our guys aren't flopping around. They're not divas. Pacha Pacha Tino found a bunch of dogs. Is that your Espanol team? And why don't you have any Americans? What's that? You don't like Americans? What's going on here?

1:19:13JJ Watt:We're open to them. We're welcome to them. We've discussed a few Americans in the transfer window. Oh, have you? A couple of these teams. But, I mean, Spain and England are different games also. You have to understand that. Spain's a different game. It's a much more technical game. England's a little bit more of a physical game from that standpoint. So it's been really interesting watching the two differences between leagues and how they play these games because they are completely different styles.

1:19:40Pat McAfee:Okay, so England, we're a little bigger, stronger. We're knocking it down. We're getting it in the blender. We're making some plays. Spain, we're kind of knocking it around a little bit. We need a little bit more individual school and also maybe a little bit more flopping and rolling around in dramatics. Is that what you're saying, a little bit more of that?

1:19:54JJ Watt:I don't know about all that, but there is certainly a lot of technique and tactical play in there. but I mean, it's coming, it's everywhere. I mean, Pep at Man City obviously brought a lot of that with him when he came over from Barcelona, and it's really fun to watch. It's fun to break down, and you have to try and find a way to keep up because the teams at the top obviously have so much money to be able to spend on the very top players who are the best technical players in the world, and when you literally can't spend at the same level, you have to find different tactics to keep up, and that's where we're at.

1:20:28JJ Watt:And we're not in the relegation zone, by the way. I didn't say it. I said it because that's what I was told. Yeah, he said near. Oh, I'm sorry.

1:20:38Pat McAfee:Lurking. Yeah. You know we're at the bottom and the relegations. We're right above it. Is that not where you are right there? You're right above it.

1:20:46JJ Watt:Hey, those three red lines, we ain't one of them right now.

1:20:49Pat McAfee:Yeah, you're right. Hell yeah. You're right. You're right. We're still fighting. We're scrapping. I heard we had a tough loss.

1:20:53JJ Watt:We got Chelsea this weekend. We got a big one. What is it? 7.30 a.m. Eastern time. Uh-oh.

1:20:59Pat McAfee:What day?

1:20:59JJ Watt:Big match this weekend, Saturday. So you'll be taking – your shirt will be off by that time.

1:21:04Pat McAfee:We'll see, you know, out there in Oregon. Where are you guys here? Oregon. Eugene. Eugene. Ooh. USC's traveling. Second time this year? Yeah, second time in about a month or so. Always a good scene. You know, they say for game day since long before I got there, since I've been there, always a great scene out there. Early, you know, any of those pitch black ones that kind of start and then there's kind of daylight at the end. and I don't know how the rest of the guys on stage and everybody on the show feels feels like you know when you walk out of a casino and that light hits you that's kind of what it feels like about two and a half hours into that show is that sun starts to really come up and start peppering you a little bit and it's like wow okay here we go the day has just begun and somehow the people that are from out there they're getting empowered by this thing they somehow are out there early and are even more they're some of the best fans I think that all the sports have out there in Oregon and they've

1:21:58JJ Watt:always had a great scene Montana I'll be on at 4 30 a.m so if you need if you need something to really get your gears going 4 30 a.m burnley kickoff out there I'll be up I'll probably wake up wasn't this the week you guys were going to go to a small school I thought so there was an

1:22:13Pat McAfee:opportunity Montana Montana State they've played 147 times I think is that right tone 147 it is the 124th brawl of the wild. Okay, I was nowhere near. Three is in the Bobcats, right? Yeah.

1:22:26JJ Watt:It is in Bobcats up there. Boom.

1:22:29Pat McAfee:Yes, you know, Missoula, Bozeman. Yeah, 124 times they've played. This is the highest they've both been ranked, obviously. They're one and two, I think, right now, right? Is that not accurate?

1:22:37JJ Watt:Two and three. What?

1:22:39Pat McAfee:Perfect. I didn't know that, too. Why did you choose this, Pat?

1:22:41JJ Watt:Why did you choose this one? I didn't choose it. You chose it. Don't lie. We all know you have more power than anybody in that entire building.

1:22:49Pat McAfee:Not a game day. for this particular program, yeah, I fucking got it. I definitely do. Both back pockets.

1:22:55JJ Watt:You go shirtless and you kick for$2 million. Let's be honest. Who holds the power here? That's my pocket.

1:23:02Pat McAfee:That's the money coming out of it.

1:23:03JJ Watt:I know.

1:23:04Pat McAfee:I think you're paying more than that. The whole show production. They're making a lot of money on that show. Hum Deepa pays a lot of money for that show. Yeah, Old Dominion Frontline.

1:23:14JJ Watt:You're getting up there. Where is the limit? Where is the limit for the amount you are putting on a kick? I don't know. I generally don't know. You gotta slow it down, man. It's getting unbelievable. I know.

1:23:24Pat McAfee:It's outrageous. You know, I shouldn't do it.

1:23:25JJ Watt:Did your wife call you after? Did she call you? Hey, hey, that was two million dollars.

1:23:31Pat McAfee:It's not just the wife. You know, it's also busy. We got 18 employees here. I mean, there's a lot of people that are probably like, hey, what are we doing? I hate rooting against these kids. I do. Exactly. I root against them every single time. Fuck those kids. I agree. So, Jage, yes, I do get the messages from people saying, hey, let's go ahead. what are we doing here you know these they showed up way to go okay yeah that that means i guess they should just get you know something that we have worked our asses off for here in this entire

1:23:58JJ Watt:thing yeah that's what everybody says you just made it too big dude you can't you can't go back to a hundred thousand dollar kick now some kids are gonna be like well i don't want to even show

1:24:06Pat McAfee:up for this yeah and there's no business that's going to be like yeah you can just say whatever number you want out there which kind of makes it you know the kind of the whole thing you know so So it's certainly, I've worked myself into a shoot here, and it is certainly, if you've come up with your big brain any outs of this thing, we will certainly.

1:24:23JJ Watt:I'm loving watching it, man. You're on a track, and there is no offshoot. This isn't like one of those semi-truck up the ramps. You are zooming down the hill.

1:24:33Pat McAfee:Yeah, and there's no more floating the gears, actually. That thing's just kind of bopping around, and it's just, we're doing this one right here.

1:24:39AQ Shipley:It's like Peter, brush off the edge.

1:24:41Pat McAfee:Yeah, Peter, he tried. Remember, he pooped on that kid. Oh, yeah. And then made the kick. Worried about Peter. It's a long season. He was tired. I saw him taking a nap. Yeah. Peter's got good energy. He's actually becoming like a mature dog. I'm like watching it happen. Okay. Peter's a good dog, dude. Peter's a good dog. He's so big. He's so big. His tongue never. I don't know if his tongue. He's a little tuckered out. He's a little tuckered out. He's a little tuckered out. Time to give Mitch a shot, man.

1:25:09JJ Watt:Let Mitch eat. That bed is nicer than the bed I sleep in.

1:25:14Pat McAfee:Yeah, J.H., Kirk Herbstreit's been doing it a long time. Okay, Kirk Herbstreit's been doing it a long time. He's on the road a lot. That pillow is so nice. So nice. Peter actually wishes it was a worse one. Kind of get a little imprint in there.

1:25:28AQ Shipley:Yeah, but Peter's the best.

1:25:30Pat McAfee:Peter is a great dog. Herbie, obviously, in the middle of a hell of a run. Tomorrow night kicks off week 12 of the NFL season. Let's chit-chat a little bit about, you know, I heard you were making some faces there as we were playing the 12 down to one before we get to the NFL. You don't like the college football playoff song?

1:25:46JJ Watt:I mean, it looks like it was made by the people that made that It's a Bill song. Dude! What you got against Schoolhouse Rock? Banger! Yeah, I'm just a Bill. Yeah, it was phenomenal in 1995.

1:26:01Pat McAfee:I want to let you know, we've got a photo of you watching this thing live. You need to not be that angry. at the CFP. Is this a Wisconsin thing? This is a celebration. It's more schools getting a shot to shine. What's your problem, Jake? What is your problem?

1:26:18JJ Watt:I mean, the video aligns with the thoughts of the people making the decisions. Is it me?

1:26:30Pat McAfee:I've played that song more than any other platform. I've never seen

1:26:34JJ Watt:it outside of the show in my life. I have never once seen it outside of this show.

1:26:38Pat McAfee:They played it once on College Game Day. And Matt Garrett, actually, as it was playing, was like, this is strictly for you right now. And then obviously I was like, I'm singing this thing. I think it was maybe at Oregon last year. It was quite a moment. Yeah, I think we're the only one.

1:26:52JJ Watt:You guys have it down. I mean, you guys know it a little bit very well. We thought we did.

1:26:56Pat McAfee:One, two, one, two, three, go.

1:27:00JJ Watt:We'll make some things up.

1:27:02Pat McAfee:It's about time. More schools get a shot to shot. More games and a lot more fun. Start with 12 to count down the world. That's how we crown a CFP national champion. That's how we crown a CFP national champion. Let's keep the dream alive. One through four. Get a first round by five. Five, eight, ho, nine, four. Undercut. Wake us up. Wake us up. Wake us up.

1:27:32AQ Shipley:A classroom might have. Corner finals, New Year's Six.

1:27:36Pat McAfee:Bowls on a rotating basis. You hear that? That's a bar.

1:27:39AQ Shipley:Didn't know that.

1:27:40Pat McAfee:New Year's Six, rotating basis. Hey. Tating. Six. Big six. I mean, that is. I mean, not to mention the lives we don't even freaking know, man. If we played those, those sounded awesome. No, we got a lot of days. All right. Until we start our 12th countdown to one. Let's go back to the NFL. You had the Bucs and the Bills. Josh Allen is just absurd. What is kind of your takeaway from his historic day? Him and Otto Graham, the only ones in the history to do what he did this past Sunday with J.J. Watt on the call. And I will say, J.J., I saw the people tweeting that they enjoy you and Mr. Eagle on the call.

1:28:17Pat McAfee:I will echo that sentiment. I think you guys are very good at what you do. And you commentated history this weekend with Josh Allen. What are your thoughts on the Buffalo Beals and what they can do with Josh?

1:28:27JJ Watt:They were the crazy game, man. Nine lead changes. I believe that second most in a game in NFL history. It was a nuts game. It was awesome back and forth. I mean, the very first drive of the game, Todd Bowles was heating Josh up and he chess passed an interception out of his own end zone. And you were kind of like, oh boy, where's this one headed? And then he just casually has three passing touchdowns, three rushing touchdowns. And you hear his interview, I believe it was either today or yesterday. And he said, I still don't think I played my best. I missed a few throws. And if you watch this game, that's actually true, it which is scary like he played unbelievable he was playing free he was playing like superman he was playing like josh allen you know you watch that miami game two weeks ago and you're like what's wrong with this bill's offense great and then you watch them this week and he is completely free playing how he wants to he tried a lateral while he was running down the field ended up being a forward pass but just seeing him try those things and do those things was nuts but he even still could have been better at his own admission.

1:29:28JJ Watt:There were a couple balls that he missed and he would love to have back. So if they really start to figure this thing out, they've gone through a little rough patch in the middle of the season. But that Bills team with that offense now on the other side, the run defense is a problem.

1:29:42Pat McAfee:Yeah, you can't win a Super Bowl without it, right? I mean, that's just kind of understood at this point.

1:29:46JJ Watt:I mean, unless you can score 44 every time. But no, they need. Tex. Yeah, ladies. These dogs just don't understand. 1210 to 1 o 'clock. Just zip it.

1:30:03Pat McAfee:What's the deal? What's the deal? Why didn't you do that? He'll usually tase him. Don't usually tase him during this time? He's a squirrel. Call, dog.

1:30:14Pat McAfee:Where are you? What part of the world?

1:30:17JJ Watt:They're out back. I'm in the office. There is a squirrel running along the fence. they see the same one every single day and they bark at it every single day i have tried a couple different tactics to get that to stop some uh more uh widely accepted than others and none of them are working squirrel with a hammer what are you doing yeah you out there like painting your face now with the squirrel the squirrel the squirrel No, the squirrel's the answer, Cage. Don't bark at us. Squirrel's the answer, Cage.

1:30:55Pat McAfee:Yeah. This is defense versus offense type conversation with the brain here. You've done it with the dogs. You know how many squirrels in the world? You said it's the same one. You got to get them off. You got to get everyone that comes in your backyard. Just try and get a nut. It's awesome. You just got to get one.

1:31:08JJ Watt:That would be a problem. If I was popping pellets at this squirrel, there would be a couple problems.

1:31:14Pat McAfee:That's what we thought you meant whenever you were saying, like, more accepted than others. No, yeah, no. We didn't know if it was, like, crossbow.

1:31:19JJ Watt:I don't live like you guys on, you know, farms. I got somebody who might be popping one through the window if I.

1:31:27Pat McAfee:Oh, coming right back. Yeah, yeah. And that one probably has a better shot than you do if I had to get it. So let's make sure that squirrel kind of understands. I guess we should not be opening fire. But on that note, if they can score 44, they can win a Super Bowl. Josh Allen seemingly can. Doesn't it feel like that? And even if he does, like Baker was nine lead changes you talked about. Tampa Bay obviously has that as well. Can you win a Super Bowl if you're the Buffalo Bills? I guess that's the only question. And I hate that that's a question coming out of Week 11, but they have, like, best player in the world, Josh Allen, MVP, reigning, potentially going to win it back-to-back, which would be crazy to think about.

1:32:01Pat McAfee:But they are in a position where their fans are expecting and hoping, and I think Josh only wants Super Bowl. Like, that's what we're here for. Can they do it? Can they do it after watching them here in Week 11?

1:32:10JJ Watt:I think one thing we do have to say is that at home, they are a different team than on the road. They are 26-3 at home, I believe, in their last 29 games. And that crowd is awesome. That stadium, awesome. Obviously, the weather plays a factor there. But then you look at that Miami game and whether that was just a letdown game where they thought they could walk in and win or what it may be. But at home, they're incredible. It doesn't look like they're going to have that home field advantage in this playoffs, obviously, with the way the Patriots are playing. Who knows how it's all going to shake out.

1:32:44JJ Watt:But they're not a team I'd like to face. I would not like to try and have to stop Josh Allen from scoring a 44. And I do think that at some point, that defense is going to start tackling better and is going to start playing with a little better gap integrity. Sean McDermott prides himself on the defensive side of the ball, and I think they're going to find a way to get it right. But right now, run defense is rough. I mean, you know Gump. A-Chan ran all over him, and then Tucker this last week ran all over him as well.

1:33:09Pat McAfee:HN, top five running back in the league, if you were to watch all right at the base. Ain't that right, Gump?

1:33:15JJ Watt:Maybe top two.

1:33:16Pat McAfee:Gump's didn't love how Jonathan Velma was talking as if nobody knew who the hell HN was. And then we told him, why don't you go around the office here and just see how many people know how good of a player he is. And I think what Gumpy found out is not a lot of people know that the Miami Dolphins have a great running back in HN, but the Buffalo Bills fans certainly do at this point, Gump. Yeah, he ran all over them, ran all over the commanders. I mean, guy's one of the best players in the league as far as I'm concerned. Fast.

1:33:40JJ Watt:It's unreal, dude. Like, he'll break a run out the gap, and you're like, oh, this is going to be a nice little chunk. And then it's just gone. Nobody even has a shot against him.

1:33:48Pat McAfee:Yeah, that's the difference with, like, Saquon we saw last year. You know, it was like a massive get-hoes, obviously non-contact. Before contact, the yardage was insane. But then being able to just take it to the house. Jonathan Taylor right now, if you give him, he's going to take it to the house. that high-end, top-end touchdown speed is what separates, I think, the guys from the top. And obviously, you've got to have good blocking and all that shit. But A-chan's for real.

1:34:11JJ Watt:This week will be a really good test for the Bills because they have the Texans defense, who's the number one defense in the NFL. If you're going to have to outscore teams, if they can do it against the Texans, the number one defense in the NFL, then that's a great sign for them. And obviously, Davis Mills being back out there instead of C.J. Stroud, played very well so far and won won some games for him. Thursday night is going to be a great football game.

1:34:34Pat McAfee:Dougie Mills is an absolute dog down there for Houston. He's been around for a long time. All right, let's move on to other NFL topics. AJ has a question for you, Jage. Yeah, Jage, I noticed online you've been tweeting a few times about the roughing the passer situation that's been going on in the NFL. I guess where do you think we're at right now? Are refs consistent with this? And how are defenders supposed to hit quarterbacks these days?

1:34:58JJ Watt:No, I'm frustrated with it. I've been frustrated with it for a while. I remain frustrated with it. I try and call it out in the games that we have when I see it. But then obviously these couple I didn't get to see because of the games we had. And I think this game, I didn't get to watch the whole game, but from my understanding, this one was first. And then there's another one later where the guy kind of has the quarterback in the grasp and lets him go. Here it is. And I think it's a direct correlation to the previous one. because that guy knows I can't drive this guy into the ground. If I keep driving my feet and drive him into the ground, I'm going to get another penalty.

1:35:37JJ Watt:So I need to just wrap up and assume that they're going to blow the whistle for forward progress or whatever it may be. And anybody who says this is just a bad tackle, he literally took five or six steps and realized I can't take him to the ground or I'm going to get a penalty. That's my problem is if you don't hit him high, you don't hit him low, you don't land your body weight on him. this guy's right hand braces himself to protect how do you want him to play that tackle right there is as textbook football tackle as you could possibly make and it just pisses me off because there's so many things a it's a penalty gives them an automatic first down 15 yards b takes a sack off of this guy's record and that's huge for so many different things whether it's pro bowl whether it's contract incentives whatever it may be could literally change a game and he may or may not get fined if they find him for this that is insanity it's just i get so frustrated when a guy makes a

1:36:28Pat McAfee:great plan he's punished yeah it feels like this conversation has been happening for a while now the counterpoint is we had to make rules to protect quarterbacks because there was a year where we had like 90 quarter 60 i forget what the number was like 68 it was an absurd number and then obviously go back to the carson palmer with the low shot so like the nfl has all these things and situations that have happened that they've tried to corral and make sure never happens again but like football is football you know like there's a chance that everybody's going to get injured and i think we all appreciate that hey we're going to change it to the uh a hit zone or a target in which you can hit people because obviously knee injuries and head injuries are something that take out a lot of stars but when it got to the quarterback remember there was a conversation like did you throw to the ground or did you place on the ground that's my problem

1:37:10JJ Watt:the head and the low fine we all agree those are out no problem like this driving to the ground one is way too hard for officials to to officiate right it's also football like it's football like that guy has to get him to the ground justin herbert's six five like 245 he's a huge dude like it's very difficult to get that guy to the ground and he also turns into it there i just i think the driving into the ground one is the very difficult one to officiate and often the one that

1:37:40Pat McAfee:makes people the most mad and i think if you listen to quarterbacks there's every quarterback will basically go on the record and be like, I hate some of these rules. Not asking for flags on those. Yeah, because they look bad to their teammates. Now, granted, they will take them. Let's not get you. They will certainly take it.

1:37:54JJ Watt:There's also some that are looking for them when they're not even there. Ooh, who's that? Some quarterbacks.

1:37:59Pat McAfee:We know who it is. But 15 yards, first down, good for the team. That's the whole thing. Now, I would like to say, as a guy who's in a position of potential flopping, you could potentially flop in that thing, never wanted to be seen on film flopper or roundbacker. just didn't think the boys would take me serious now there's a couple times where i got actually flipped and landed on my head and there was no penalty i'm like what next time yours are scary

1:38:22JJ Watt:because that plant foot it's like flat in the ground with the knees straight that is that's

1:38:26Pat McAfee:scary well so the thing about it is i wasn't flexible enough or have good enough form so every time i punted i jumped so i was in the air so i was never really i was in a spot where if you got me it was going to be a head over heel yeah it is going to be a show here you know like cincinnati bangles got made the team and uh i'm on netflix hard docs and he is flipping me into my face in slow motion on uh the last uh last which is worse which is worse that where

1:38:51JJ Watt:he comes in at your leg after you've punted it or does a blocked punt where he gets your leg hurt

1:38:56Pat McAfee:more where you can't follow through brahman uh brahman came right across my knee and uh i punted

1:39:03AQ Shipley:the ball still on the other side but his knee oh yeah i remember his body operated as like a knee

1:39:09Pat McAfee:brace for my leg certainly hyper extended around and probably did long-term damage if i had to guess that's the worst one yeah i would rather somebody just take their helmet right through my face as i was punting as opposed to your knee feeling like it's like hyper extending because it's scary you know it's super scary you're like oh yeah it's over forever i'm never gonna be able to kick a ball then get up and yeah right fuck yeah i'm still doing it you're terrible at blocking punts and then he told me no i blocked two on you already that guy was a psycho he was so good at football he was so good at football dude he was so fast so explosive he blocked two against me i think he blocked two against me like every time we played him he would tell me to before the game coming i'm like i know yeah i know you are i know you absolutely are such good hair what do you have like an eight pack too yeah the guy was unbelievable one of the most like ripped

1:39:57JJ Watt:like barbarian looking human beings ever and complete disregard for the health and safety of his own body at all times on the football and others.

1:40:08Pat McAfee:Yeah. It was, it was, he was awesome. I think you're going to win a Superbowl with the Eagles beast. I think you're going to win a Superbowl with the,

1:40:15JJ Watt:gave a hell of a pregame speech. You guy, you, cause it was like, we're all going to die today with every one of us. We're going to die today. And you're like, Holy shit. All right. I'm, I'm with you, but you seem serious. right now.

1:40:28Pat McAfee:And he played like that too. And he was so good. For special teams, he was perfect. I mean, he was absolutely perfect. But yeah, he got me one coming across this way and he also got me one this way. So I would say strictly from the Brahman blocks, I would rather take the one coming this way as opposed to across there. But for quarterbacks, you can't be flopping around. Can't be flopping around. Unless they're going to give you a first down and then if you're on my team, let's see you flop. Let's get this first down. Let's extend this drive. Let's keep this thing going. They should have stayed away from you.

1:40:54Pat McAfee:Then there are rules. And JJ said, I'm a part of the problem. So I do apologize. for that. Let's talk about some of the other things happening around the NFL. Go ahead, D-Butt.

1:41:01AQ Shipley:Yeah, we're talking about Josh Allen and kind of his nemesis in the playoffs, Ben Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Going into Week 12 now. Chiefs sitting at 5 and 5. We just had that playoff picture up and you see them lurking right now. What's your thoughts on the Kansas City Chiefs going forward? Because I need you on record.

1:41:19JJ Watt:Yeah, I like that.

1:41:20Pat McAfee:Right now.

1:41:21JJ Watt:Records saying what? I don't know. Whatever you say. Are they dead or not? Probably six of their next seven. because the tiebreakers aren't in their favor either right now. So they need to go on a very big run very quickly. I think that last week's game is obviously one of those that you're looking at as a marker of, all right, they find a way to win and then they didn't. It's crazy. I mean, you look at them, you look at the state of this league right now, this has to be one of the most parity seasons that we've had in a long time in terms of the teams that you thought would be at the top aren't.

1:41:57JJ Watt:We had a graphic on Sunday of all the division winners from last year and where they stand this year. And three of the four were out of the playoffs and the Bills were in the sixth seed. So it's crazy where everybody sits this year. But in terms of the Chiefs, I don't think it's crazy to say they have to win six of seven, right?

1:42:15Pat McAfee:Yeah, and they got the Colts this weekend. So I don't necessarily love that the Indianapolis Colts are potentially the first team that they have to play in a time where they have to win. This is like a playoff game for the Kansas City Chiefs. And I have always been a very, very firm believer in the Kansas City Chiefs. Patrick Holmes, Travis Kelsey, Andy Reid, Spags, Tobe, VH, you name it. I just think they are great for a reason. I respect greatness. I really do. I have for my entire life. I think that is kind of something I've always wanted to know why the greats are great. And the Chiefs were certainly that.

1:42:49Pat McAfee:And it was something where I rode with them, where they were winning very close games when the sports folks thought they were going to win by a big amount of money. And I lost a lot. I lost a lot of money riding with this Kansas City Chiefs team. But we had some good times. Great. Great times. Super Bowl. We did the entire thing a couple of different times. We took over the world, Kansas City Chiefs. Travis Kelsey was on Taylor Swift's stage. Yeah, exactly. Over somewhere else. He was flying down in Brazil. Maybe that's all he wants to do. Patrick Mahomes owns the G1 team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of other stuff, huh?

1:43:20Pat McAfee:No, that's been the whole time. There's been a lot of other stuff. That's why it's like, these guys are awesome. This is great. This is what it's going to be. This is the new dynasty. And I love that they're drinking Coors Lights. I like that they're seemingly relatable and cool. I think this is good for ball. And then all of a sudden you watch them like the last couple of years and it's like, I don't know if this is the same. And then this year it's like, I don't know if this is the same. And then sportsbooks still have good odds to go win the whole thing. And it's like sportsbooks believe that they're going to come back.

1:43:48Pat McAfee:And I think it's because we all believe they're going to come back. and it's like, what if this year is a reset year for the Chiefs? That'd be crazy to kind of witness, Jage, no matter what we see.

1:43:58JJ Watt:Broncos defense, though, you got to be giving them credit. That Broncos defense is nasty. Vance Joseph, all the guys that they got. I mean, that defense gets after people, dude. And the pass rush and the coverage working in sync, like it is. They are fun to watch and I would have to imagine extremely scary to play against.

1:44:16Pat McAfee:Yeah, I do not love that it's the Colts this weekend. On that note, fresh off a bye, Shane Stike and Danny Dimes, you know what their record is together? Undefeated. Let's move along. At Arrowhead, right? It's in the home. At Arrowhead? Oh, it's home?

1:44:33JJ Watt:Oh, geez. Yeah, the boys are going to experience it. Outdoor. Pittsburgh, that game was outdoor. That was one of the questions we've talked about. Everybody tries to move the goalposts on the Colts, and one of the goalposts was they hadn't done it outside on the grass. they went to Pittsburgh and didn't do it now they're going to go outside on the grass I'm just saying I'm not saying I'm saying it I'm saying what people are saying sounds like you're saying it Charverius Ward designated to return off IR so they'll have their full Tim Bynum, Mooney Ward and Saltz Gardner

1:45:06Pat McAfee:is he on the team? yeah I forgot about that is the MVP still a running back for the team? freshly Shane Steigen got to watch self-reflection probably. What have I been doing a little bit too much of that we don't love? And what have they been doing that we don't love?

1:45:24JJ Watt:That offense is nasty, dude. It's a nightmare.

1:45:27Pat McAfee:So enough with the whole what you were kind of alluding to for a second.

1:45:30JJ Watt:I'm just trying to give the storylines of the week and that is a potential story.

1:45:36Pat McAfee:Okay, yeah, it's starting to become a little bit of a taker-taker here. Could I pass? Oh, see? Even the internet hates it. Even your house's internet hates it.

1:45:46AQ Shipley:Another storyline, Mahomes defeated against the Colts.

1:45:49Pat McAfee:Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah. Colts are tough. Colts are tough for Patrick Mahomes.

1:45:52JJ Watt:I was talking about how good the Colts are. I literally said the Colts offense is unstoppable. That's what I said. I said those words.

1:45:59Pat McAfee:Let's remember that whenever we're thinking of the headlines of the week. Okay, now let's talk about teams.

1:46:07Pat McAfee:Talk about teams leading divisions that we could have never expected. Chicago Bears. Go ahead, Ty Schmidt. Yeah, JJ, you have Steelers-Bears this week. Rogers doesn't have surgery, I guess, and given his history with the Bears, I think a lot of people are assuming he is going to try to go. And then on the flip side, the Bears, I think a lot of people are poking holes at their schedule and the fact that they've had so many come from behind wins and they haven't really put anyone away, but what's your take on that game and how legit of contenders do you think the Bears are?

1:46:39JJ Watt:I think you can certainly look at the Bears' comeback wins and the final craziness at the end of the games two ways you can look at and you can say all right they're not that good they're seven and three with a negative point differential that's not good and is that sustainable or you look at that and you say ben johnson has clearly instilled a belief and a confidence in this team that regardless of what happens even in this minnesota game at the very very end of the game we're still going to find a way we're not going to be the same old bears and that's clearly been a message in that locker room and it's clearly something that they have taken a hold now the issue in this game for both teams in my opinion the Steelers and the Bears is that they live and die by the takeaway that is just these both of these defenses if they get takeaways they look unbelievable if they don't get takeaways they look terrible so it completely is going to come down to who is able to take the ball away in this game yeah I um Aaron Rodgers

1:47:34Pat McAfee:coming back with that wrist okay we can go to hammer done done what are your thoughts on who Who plays quarterback this weekend, Tom? My thoughts are that the Bears are basically Aaron Rodgers, like his magic pill. Okay? This is exactly who he needs to play right now. He is the owner of the Bears. He's the mayor of the Bears. He's the president and king of the Bears. He's basically like the Browns to Ben Roethlisberger. So him getting back into this game to go against the Bears, I think, would be exactly what he needs, even though I thought Mason looked pretty good. Okay. All right. That's a good spot to be to have a good backup quarterback.

1:48:09Pat McAfee:obviously the Pittsburgh Steelers still have everything in front of them. Ben Johnson and his Bears team. Insane to think where they are right now, especially with how it started. How it all started. I mean, it's just, it's a wild story. Bear at the top of the North. The Bears, the Kings of the North. Get used to it, Ty. Says Chicago people. No, for sure. Do the playoffs start next week? No, we got like a month and a half, two months left, right? So we'll check back in. But yeah, the Bears are Ben Johnson. He's the real deal. He is the real deal. That's Green Bay Packers fan.

1:48:40JJ Watt:Can you give me the rundown real quick on that Packers game? I literally did not have a chance to watch it. I was excited to see what Jameis did. I saw a couple updates, but just run me down through the real quick of the game. The Giants kind of ran the ball at will. Jameis looked pretty good. He had about five or six balls that probably could have been intercepted. Jordan Love's stats weren't great. The wind was a very serious deal, but when it mattered, Jordan Love had this touchdown pass to Christian Watson. And then on the most, you know, the Giants going down to tie it, Jameis finally in the most important moment of the game, you know, in the red zone, he threw a pick that I don't think was really on him.

1:49:19But all in all, Jameis actually looked pretty good. You could tell that the Giants played very hard for him. Yeah, and it wasn't just Jameis.

1:49:25Pat McAfee:Did he not get a false start on that play? I don't know. I didn't see it. Let's watch it back. That was definitely a false start. On Jameis? Oh, Jameis, yeah, falling backwards, you think? Yeah. All day. Such a Jameis play. Yeah, he locks in. He is falling. Now is not the time. Jameis, now is not the time. But even in this snap, obviously Jameis is entertaining. Before the game, we heard his speech. He had a press conference afterwards. And I don't know if you saw, he brought back the Harlem shake, too. He absolutely crushed it. I mean, just absolutely. That's the best angle. Do the Harlem shake.

1:50:00Pat McAfee:Clean. Keep going. Yeah, not enough. After he did the feet, could have – after he swept the feet, could have been done. He said, no, let's toss another one on top. He obviously quoted Hamilton, did the Harlem Shake. He's taking a tour. I don't know if he's going to bring pizza out for Brooklyn. I will be very excited to see what Jameis does. But that is literally Jameis football. Let's talk about football growing worldwide. We need Jameis maybe in a Super Bowl at some point. That will help. But also the traveling game seemingly smashing success. Go ahead, Conman. Yeah, J.J., I'll let you know that I thought you kind of did the Bucs-Bills game.

1:50:30You did it justice and you didn't respond because I think you thought I was being sarcastic. I was being genuine. Just want to clarify that here. But the international games, yeah, wrapped up in Spain. Kind of awesome this year with Ireland getting their first game ever. How do you think about the entire international slate? It is being reported today, actually, that the Saints possibly might play in Paris next year, as early as next year. And also, yeah, Spain did a fantastic job, set it up perfectly. I saw McQuaid actually mention that he thinks that a Super Bowl should be played over there just because of how special and great it was.

1:51:06I'm not sure if there were McQuaid stats on the field itself. I believe, you know, in order to do this, Lads, we're talking just pounds and pounds and pounds and pounds and pounds of paella to actually smooth out the seams. We remember a couple years ago, you know, in, I believe it was the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Lads, there was the big seam down the middle, and we remember David Bocchiari basically was bitching and moaning about, hey, I can't play on this. They brought a lot of fresh paella, kind of smoothed those seams out, and a lot of lads were actually saying, hey, this is the best turf I've ever played on lads.

1:51:37Pat McAfee:You're talking about Spain. That is Irishman McQuaid, Jage. But go ahead, Conman. Yeah, but Jage, overall, how do you feel about it? What do you think about the Saints possibly playing in Paris next year? And what do you think about Tua suggesting Jerusalem next year?

1:51:52JJ Watt:I'm going to stick with the Spain game here.

1:51:57JJ Watt:I thought it was, I mean, that stadium is unbelievable. Like everybody's well aware that that stadium, what they did there is, is incredible. They built something spectacular. What I will say, which is really interesting is I've seen so many people saying, this is a reason why the NFL players should be mad that they don't have grass. If they can do it like this, we can do it. Well, the, I'm a hundred percent on board with that. I'm with the players on everything, But this is very similar in a way to what Houston had a while back with the bringing the grass in and putting it together. And like you just mentioned, Tottenham with the grass and the seams.

1:52:33JJ Watt:It's there's a there's seams. There's a lot of seams in that field because those are all put together. So it's an unbelievable system. I think it's incredible. It does still have I mean, that's an engineering feat that I don't use hard to get your brain. So much money. So much money. So much money. But I do think that this thing is headed towards an international game every week. I think that's what the NFL wants. And that's what the commissioner wants. I think we're headed towards at some point, maybe not week 18, but every week other than week 18, I would imagine there will probably at some point be.

1:53:04All right.

1:53:04Pat McAfee:We have 30 seconds to a hard out. You talk about the grass not being good. The NFL has filed a grievance against the NFLPA about the report cards. Just quick take on that. just one sentence, maybe two or three about the NFL and the NFLPA maybe doing away with the way the report cards are currently being done?

1:53:19JJ Watt:Which teams complained? Was it the ones with good grades or the ones with bad grades?

1:53:23Pat McAfee:We don't know exactly because there's no transparency.

1:53:25JJ Watt:I think we do. And also, they trust the players to vote on the Pro Bowl, but they don't trust them to vote on how the facilities are. There's a lot of interesting things here. I don't think the Vikings complained, probably. They were number one in literally every category. It probably wasn't them who complained. And what happens if an owner comes out and says that their quarterback's no good? Is that public disparagement? Because that sure feels like public disparagement. I'm just trying to piece this together here because somebody's upset, and you would imagine that it would be the people that had to dole out some money to do it.

1:53:58JJ Watt:So maybe don't be cheap. Build a nice facility. Treat your players well. Make them happy. Be a friend. Tell a friend something about that you love them. And have a great day. Be a friend. Tell a friend. I can never remember it. Have a great day. It's so close. That was perfect. That was perfect. That's amazing. What the fuck is it? You nailed it.

1:54:24Pat McAfee:Yeah, you just tell him whatever you want, dude. I think you nailed it. That's what you need to tell a friend at that moment right there. Yeah, that was good. Damn it. Hey, that was a good take, too. Oh, nice.

1:54:33JJ Watt:Be a friend. Tell a friend. No, be a friend. What is it? It's whatever you want it to do, brother. It's something nice. Be a friend, tell somebody something nice.

1:54:44Pat McAfee:Close. I mean, you had the first two sentences the whole time, and then you just abandoned ship.

1:54:48JJ Watt:Be a friend, tell a friend, might change somebody's life.

1:54:49Pat McAfee:Close. Very close.

1:54:51JJ Watt:You don't believe it. Be a friend, tell a friend, something nice might change their life. Whoa! Yeah.

1:55:01Pat McAfee:That's more so on me than it is on you. You have no idea what it is. It's probably the delivery. That should be something that's the least catchy at this point. But way to nail that. And I want to let you know, you went from take to close off like a seasoned vet. No mistakes at all. No flubs. It ended muted. What the fuck is it? It's hitting zero. That's wonderful. Now, let's talk a little bit more about the report card, shall we?

1:55:25JJ Watt:Yeah, let's talk about it.

1:55:26Pat McAfee:Yeah, because we've kind of delayed the conversation until this moment with you because I enjoy the way you view it. You get very upset for the players, I think, which I respect and appreciate. Your resume is also a Hall of Fame one. So normally the people that are speaking for the players in the NFLPA type situations are not Hall of Fame players. Normally it's like people that are NFLPA people. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but all of us just thought of all of us. How many years you play, JJ? Twelve. How many years you play, AJ? Eleven. How many years you play? Twelve. How many years you play?

1:56:02Pat McAfee:Nine. So 52 years of NFL experience here on this. I said NFLPA players and we all thought the same people. Not normally Hall of Fame people. Not normally like Hall of Fame guys. Hall of Fame people, yes. Hall of Fame players, that was not normally what it is because it does take a lot of other stuff. So anytime somebody like you speaks out about things that are NFLPA issues, I think it's a big deal. I also appreciate how passionate you are in the pro player side of all of this. Now, here's what the NFL was saying about the NFLPA report cards. According to my source, CIS, at the league. Obviously, you addressed it.

1:56:37Pat McAfee:The disparaging thing. Not supposed to publicly disparage each other. Obviously, there's a lot of opportunities for that for both sides. That's a part of the CBA agreement. This is a part of our business. They say that the report card is certainly disparaging to the league, and it's coming out very publicly. Transparency and who's voting is what they say. We heard like five guys on one team's voting, ten guys voting on another team. Who are these guys? Are they actual players? And then they say there's been times that direct statements from the pillars of the teams have contradicted the report cards shortly afterwards.

1:57:08Pat McAfee:I think what was stated was something along Kansas City Chiefs, something came out about a training room or something, and then Patrick Mahomes or Travis or somebody, Chris Jones, somebody came out and said, like, we have the best trainers in the entire NFL. So they, I think the way they are viewing it is we would just like to know who's voting in this entire thing. and then I pushed back and said but it has to be made public right like it has to be made public because that's the only way that change happens and I was told yeah but if the owner knows this information like think about Jim and think about the Ursae girls right now like if they know this information they'd be likely to change it I immediately fired back Cincinnati was charging players for Skyline Chili for lunch okay so like that there's a little bit of a there's a little bit of a different level in this entire thing so I think they are not necessarily completely out on it but they're just like hey we need to at least know who's saying what in this entire thing is

1:57:55JJ Watt:their kind of angle on it why do they not you can contradict voting why do they not have any issues with pro bowl voting award voting all that because i know the guys go into there and one rookie fills them out for the whole group or or guys or the pr person fills it out for them but they're fine with that nobody's ever questioned any of those things they're fine with voting that literally affects contracts because if a guy gets voted to the pro bowl that he can have an incentive in his contract where he gets much more money because of it but that's all we don't know how that works the fan voting everything like the coach voting like that who filled those out you and i both know that in the locker room those are not properly filled out yeah and the top 100 players or

1:58:34Pat McAfee:whatever they i think i i don't think i i think i voted on that one time at the pro bowl but all the other shit i've never really voted on anything and it's like okay so who is the ones doing it i think for all the polls that come out of locker rooms we all kind of question that type of thing

1:58:46JJ Watt:and in the disparaging in the disparaging comments section i mean i have a million thoughts on that i had a heart issue when i was playing and i found out that that was going to be reported nationally because somebody in the building leaked it so you want to talk about disparaging players like there is a whole bunch of shit that goes on that's disparaging from that side of things that is a lot worse than we're eating shit food in the cafeteria all right there's like a whole bunch that goes on. So don't tell me that that's a big deal. And lastly, like I said, it's the teams that are getting bad grades that are frustrated, which I understand.

1:59:20JJ Watt:Like, yeah, you're looking bad. And the Vikings look unbelievable. The Dolphins, I believe, had incredible grades. And like, yeah, players want to go play for those teams who do these things and treat their people well. So they don't want to spend money. They don't want to get it right. And if you're complaining about something it's generally for a reason and we've seen improvements made there's reasons teams make improvements and things get better it's i don't know i i get very frustrated when like there's one little thing that the players have finally to voice their opinion on what's going on in their building and now that thing is being suppressed and like no you can't do that see i mean the jets owner literally called their quarterback shit basically in london like come on

2:00:01AQ Shipley:He just said he couldn't complete a forward pass.

2:00:03Pat McAfee:What's that? He didn't call it shit. No, yeah, he...

2:00:06JJ Watt:Yeah, I take the word literally back. I apologize. Redact, redact, redact.

2:00:10Pat McAfee:Dump, dump, dump. He didn't literally say it. He let all of us say it, and he led us to basically going in and saying it. And he would say, that's what they said. I didn't say it. I was just pointing out the obvious with my team. And it's like, well, we're just pointing out the obvious with your building, is kind of what James is kind of saying here. Thank you. And I think in the report here, at the NFL League meeting in March, New York Jets chairman Woody Johnson, who along with Art Rooney, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots, Michael Bidwell of the Arizona Cardinals, which obviously a massive piece of this conversation, and David Tepper of Carolina Panthers, received ownership grades, a D or worse, called the survey totally bogus and hinted that it violated the CBA.

2:00:43Pat McAfee:Now, that would certainly be a move I would be doing as well if my shit was told to be bad to my fans who are expecting me to want to win as much as they do and everything like that. And I appreciate you saying it's the first time the players have really had a voice and the NFL goes, that's illegal, can't have it. We've negotiated every way for you not to have a voice. What I am saying is if I'm an NFL owner, a billionaire, and I didn't know that these things could potentially come out the way that they've come out the last couple of years, I think there should be some sort of agreement for both sides here, like the NFL and the NFLPA, because I don't think you can just eliminate these report cards at this point.

2:01:18Pat McAfee:I don't think you can eliminate a ranking at this point. I think the NFL is going to have to understand that, but we still need public pressure. We still need public pressure. That's the only way you're doing it. And the league should want that, by the way. The league should want their buildings not to be asked.

2:01:30JJ Watt:Yeah. What I can say about being in that room when I had the chance to do these things was that was the vote. There were two votes that were taken seriously. Team captains and the NFLPA report card. Those were the two times where we handed out cards in the room and everybody stayed in there and thoughtfully went through their answers. Because you don't want to screw up your team captains. You take a lot of pride in that. You know what it means. and you also wanted to get things right in terms of the building both good and bad you don't want to like we we knew the the volume that this held the value that this holds so we didn't want to screw that up like i said pro bowl voting top 100 voting like all the awards definitely those were just tossed um but those two were taken yeah yeah he's got one of these awards but you're saying um

2:02:20Pat McAfee:if we're going to look at just this vote, as opposed to all the other ones that are very, let's make sure if we're doing any voting, let's make sure it's transparency is what you're saying. We need transparency.

2:02:31JJ Watt:I mean, I just, I think that it's, I think it's been great. I think that it's been really cool to see which teams. And I mean, you talk to guys around the league, like what we've seen publicly reported in terms of the grades lines up with what you've heard from players. That's not, it's not like it's like, Oh my gosh, that team was that bad. Like, well, no, I've heard that for years. Or that team was that good. I've heard that for years.

2:02:54Pat McAfee:Jade, to your point, one owner told ESPN, the only owners who don't care for the report cards are the ones who get subpar grades. So owners that have invested in their building and everything like that, I think they're okay with the report cards coming out too. Yeah, good. That's a shit organization over there.

2:03:10JJ Watt:Do you think, like between us, you just said whatever, 54 years or whatever, between all of us. If we went down and we ranked, Just from what we've heard from teammates and friends and guys around the league, and we ranked where we thought it would be ranked, I would bet we get pretty damn close to what those records were.

2:03:26Pat McAfee:Yeah, because it's been talked about forever is what you're saying, basically. Like, all of these places that are being showcased to the world for being ass, not necessarily the team, but the buildings, it's been talked about amongst players for a long time. So I think, Jage, the reason why you are potentially so upset is because finally there was maybe something that could change it. You know, because players have been telling their ownership groups for a long time about, hey, can we get another cold tub? Like, can we get them? Yeah. Our team meeting is in the same places where we're eating. Like, can we add a shed?

2:03:57JJ Watt:And there is, I'll give a little defense to the ownership in that there has become a very high level of expectation from colleges having such unbelievable facilities to now kids coming in and seeing that, wait, some of these NFL facilities are way worse than in my college facility. and now seeing what some other teams have done or you've heard like, oh, wow, they have that. Why don't we have that? There is some, like, some of these requests are getting a little up there, but there is a baseline that there should be that a few teams definitely don't reach.

2:04:27Pat McAfee:Younger, newer ownership too. Like, I'm thinking about the big three here in Indianapolis. It's like, they don't want their players to think like, hey, our stuff's shit. Like, I think there is a little bit more with younger owners. Maybe as opposed to them cutting corners and saving every dollar, I think younger owners might be a little bit more in tune to like what is potential. So maybe this won't be an issue like in 10, 15 years as like the old, hey, this is bottom line business. People aren't going to invest in their company owners kind of fade away. But I think there is a little bit more because everything's social media, everything's shown.

2:04:59Pat McAfee:So you almost like see a lot more now of what's happening behind the scenes. So it's like, I don't think anybody wants to get exposed anywhere. Yeah. Like the truly great owners see this stuff and they're like, Hey, this isn't going to fly on my watch. Like after Dan Snyder, when he was the owner of the Commanders. We remember they had all Fs, and then Josh Harris basically came in and said, this isn't okay. You tell me exactly what you guys need so we can flip this around. And then they had a brand-new practice facility or practice field. They revamped the training room. They did all this stuff, and they saw that their grades over the course of one season, they weren't all Fs anymore.

2:05:33They went from the worst team in the NFL to the middle of the pack. And I think there are several owners who actually look at this stuff and they're like, that's not okay. This is not the reputation we want around the league.

2:05:44Pat McAfee:I think there's some. Go ahead, Connor. Just solution-wise, instead of making them public, can't they still all do the report cards still and then submit them to the NFLPA or the owners? And then instead of the news being, hey, these are the report cards, could they not have a league-mandated yearly change where, hey, this is the report card and this is what we're changing in every building because of the report card. Instead of doing like, hey, this is the report card, it sucks. And then later on, when all those grades do get better, to Ty's point, you don't hear about the yearly changes or whatever really.

2:06:17You mostly focus on all the negative shit. That's just today and how it is. But if they do league-mandated changes, can't that work?

2:06:23Pat McAfee:The league will never mandate that billionaires that own the league have to spend more money guaranteed every single week. Don't they have a G5 fund? But on that, no, that's to do repairs and stuff like that, to things which could potentially be your building, but some of these buildings need full thing. I don't know if they'll ever agree to guaranteed money spending on the other side. Maybe they just release the top 25 teams in order. Release the top 25 teams in order, and if your team's not on there, ass.

2:06:49JJ Watt:Can we build a song for it? Can we build a song for it and put a cartoon to it?

2:06:53Pat McAfee:Maybe the top 12. Maybe they do put out the top 12.

2:06:57JJ Watt:Top 12 last place down to one. Yeah, but I don't think... Back down to one. this team has no cold tub that's actually pretty good write that down write that down let's not redact that let's keep probably shouldn't have rookies or maybe say hey only third like you got to be in the league two or three years before you take this poll because if you're a rookie coming in you don't really know the ins and outs of the training room and the staff and all that and you might have these elevated expectations coming from a crazy college place that you know they're trying to bring recruits in so they have that was always a known thing i assume you guys knew that like i assume when i went to the nfl the facilities will be worse than college i heard that i was wondering if the facilities because of nil now if college facilities will start to get

2:07:38Pat McAfee:a little worse house poor brother you don't want to be yeah they don't want to have all the money up uh all the investing money into facilities because guess what we need that money for actually players yeah so if we could actually sell about uh 4 000 square feet of this gym to somebody

2:07:51AQ Shipley:to get the money it's prime real estate that's that's a big part of recruiting no is it anymore

2:07:57Pat McAfee:That's what we're saying. Where are you going to be spending adequate now? But if you have a shit ton of money, definitely have good facilities. And also, like, down there at Texas Tech, they have so much money. So their facilities are going to be very nice, and they're going to have enough money to pay the shit, you know, pay all the shit. For teams that don't have a shit ton of money, it's like, would we rather have money to give to players, or would we rather have money to upgrade our 15-year-old weight room rate? Like, that's the decision that's coming in.

2:08:25AQ Shipley:That's kind of short-sighted, though. because, yeah, you want the top flight players, but we all know, like, you're only as strong as that. The middle of the pack, the guys that are playing special teams, like, and those are the guys that are not making the big money. But if it comes down to these three or four schools, like, okay, but these facilities are great. The meeting rooms, the hot tub, cold tub, all this different shit. Because even coming from UConn, like, they made the guys that built it, they built a great facility. And then you go – because I assume the opposite. I assume once you go to the NFL, everybody has top flight shit.

2:08:56AQ Shipley:And we definitely took a step down going from UConn to New England at that time. I don't know how much has changed at this point. Colts as well.

2:09:03Pat McAfee:West Virginia was not – they built our facilities while we were there.

2:09:09AQ Shipley:Same.

2:09:10Pat McAfee:Pat White, Steve Slayton, you guys, Orlowski, you guys kind of built that place. And they got to reap the benefits of it for sure.

2:09:15JJ Watt:Man, AJ took a pay cut to go to the NFL. Exactly.

2:09:18Pat McAfee:Well, that's also with AJ, though, at Ohio State. They're an NFL factory there. So he's got a lot of OGs coming back and telling him about what the NFL is like, which I think is an advantage to a program that has a lot of NFL guys. West Virginia, we had Pac, Slim, Chris Henry coming back and basically telling us what NFL. I didn't have really any info about the NFL other than just being a fan of the NFL my entire life because I grew up in Pittsburgh, and when the Steelers won, the world's better. Now, did I fall in love with the Pittsburgh Steelers? Certainly loved when they won, but I love the NFL players.

2:09:47Pat McAfee:I just like players. I like the league. I like everything about it. But I didn't know the ins and outs of it, and I think it's because at West Virginia we didn't have a lot of NFL guys. but to your point i thought i was walking into yeah that's the one that got drafted i could wait i'm like oh man every day i'm gonna be walking in this place i can't wait first time i walk in plus this show no didn't think that but i did think wow like i think west virginia at this point he's got it was almost like we're back to like my sophomore year at west virginia all of a sudden it's like sitting down we got the cage lockers obviously there's no it's like hey where were the steelers at on that list because we know the steelers are there they They have to be where they are splitting their facility with Pitt.

2:10:24Like, I would assume they didn't grade super high.

2:10:25Pat McAfee:Yeah, Rooney was in a part of the conversation, yeah.

2:10:29JJ Watt:The split facility is wild. The split facility is wild.

2:10:34Pat McAfee:Yeah, there's more information there. Because Tomlin can go to Narduz and ask him questions, and Narduz can do the same. They did the volleyball thing, remember? They did volleyball, down and punch. Yeah, the Duz loves it. Such a better bounce we can work on.

2:10:47JJ Watt:Your point about when you walked in the NFL locker room is really interesting, too, because if you think about it, who is in your locker room and like the leaders of the locker room and the guys that are giving you the information and teaching you how to be a pro that is so vastly different from team to team. And it completely changes it because like you said, you've never been in the NFL before. This is your first experience. And the only thing shaping your entire experience is this group. And if you got a shitty group, you have a completely different outlook a daily routine and future vision than a guy who comes into an incredible locker room and

2:11:22Pat McAfee:is set up for success i walked in there adam vinatieri's on the team yeah right what a hilarious situation then payton's like one of the greatest leaders of all time so i'm just gonna watch these guys i guess i i just lucked out that i just fell into the fucking greatest 10 years in the history of the nfl i'm gonna watch them but to your point like that's the only reason why i was successful greatest what uh sorry winningest decade in the history of the nfl regular season There it is We don't need to fucking

2:11:50AQ Shipley:I just walked into the Patriots locker room So I thought that so we couldn't think the same thing Tom Brady just won the Super Bowl The year before That's what I did Well I paid man

2:12:01Pat McAfee:To the boys Not enough trophies for those boys I agree They really fucked that up Ran into a tough Tough squad up there in the northeast I mean, Phillip Rivers at home, too. I mean, they fucked it up. Well, now, to be clear, Phillip Rivers at home is the reason why I got drafted. Which, shout out. Yeah, so I appreciate it. Let's not forget Steelers in Indy. That's a good point. Let's get out of here. We don't need to talk about it. I appreciate you, man. You're the best. Keep killing it on Sundays, ladies and gentlemen. JJ Wong. JJ.

2:12:39AQ Shipley: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. Compatibility and availability varies 18+.

2:13:03Pat McAfee:Hi, Diva. It's Rachel. And Jordan. Yeah, hi. Quick question. Why are you not spending your Venmo balance? Yeah, we're concerned. You can, like, buy stuff with it. Ugh, you love buying stuff. And earn cash back on eligible purchases. You love purchasing eligible things. So the money your friend sent you yesterday, that's today's ramen or ride share or eye patches. The skincare kind, not the pyro kind.

2:13:25JJ Watt:Spend with Venmo and you can earn cash back with Venmo Stash. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max$100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo.me slash slash terms. ID verification required to use a Venmo balance.

2:13:36Pat McAfee:All right, ladies and gentlemen, we got a chance to catch up with Jeremiah Love. And I'll tell you what, the running back from Notre Dame is obviously incredibly talented on the field, off the field with the chat with us. I think he's going to make you fall in love with him. And I know a lot of people aren't going to feel this way, but maybe even the entire Notre Dame operation. We'll see you on the other side. What is it like under Coach Freeman? What is it like being a Notre Dame fighting Irish football player? Is it a full commitment? Is everywhere you go, everybody knows who you are, I assume, at this time?

2:14:07Yeah, pretty much. It's pretty much a full commitment. Um, gotta give everything my all really, um, school football. Um, and then even off the field, like, you know, I got things I gotta do, um, just business related, you know, so all my time is just taken up, but you know, I'm, I'm all in on football, you know, doing whatever I gotta do, um, you know, in a classroom. So I'm, um, ain't got nobody worried about me grade wise. Um, and then, you know, making sure I'm getting extra work in, um, and constantly, uh, improving so that coaches can continue to trust me to go out there and make plays. But, you know, I'm all in to everything, school, football, you know, outside life.

2:14:47Pretty busy, man. Hey, you're a legend. A lot of things going on.

2:14:49Pat McAfee:You're a young legend, pal, and we've enjoyed learning about you and watching you play. And it's all working out, I would say, with how much you're all in on everything. Let's talk about, obviously, you just cooked Pitt, and it seems like the grass wasn't that big of a deal that I thought there maybe was going to be. Did you feel anything with the grass being asked? because obviously you looked like you were floating around Akersher. No, I didn't feel the grass. Actually, I didn't. I think the grass is actually pretty good, I think. I felt pretty gripped now. I mean, I wasn't slipping. I did slip one time, actually.

2:15:22So the grass was, it did catch me one time. It caught me up. I was going to be out on this play. It was like a mid-zone play. I was going to be out, and I freaking slipped, or I got tripped or something. I don't know. It was probably the grass because you said the grass is trash.

2:15:37Pat McAfee:No, yeah, yeah. That's what they say. They say the grass is ass, but it looks pretty good, I will say. So the groundskeepers are going to be pumped to hear what you just had to say, especially because they had a double weekend. Let's talk about the Pitt game a little bit and the atmosphere. You know, the big story of that game was for Pitt, Coach Narduzzi said it on the other side, we can lose by 100 in this particular game. It doesn't really affect the outcome of our year because we can still win the ACC. thought there was a chance that's how it was going to go the first couple minutes of that game.

2:16:04Pat McAfee:I thought maybe you guys were going to win by 100. But the story for you guys, and it's been the story all year basically, is another loss and it's over. Another loss and it's over. Another loss and it's over. You have that miraculous, amazing, fun run last year. This year, it feels like every week people are wondering if it's going to be over. How have you guys addressed that and kind of focused on what matters as opposed to what could potentially happen with an outcome every week? um so what coach free does i will say every week uh is he reminds us you know of the pain of of losing those two games you know early on in the season and uh he kind of uses that uh reminder to you know help us to make sure we're doing everything that we can to uh put notre name in the best of which is impossible to guard and have success um and as a player what i do mentally is I just respect every opponent.

2:16:56I don't go into any game thinking that anybody's going to lay down because at the end of the day, we as a program feel like people got a target on us. No matter how we're doing, no matter where we're at on the rankings, whatever it may be, people want to beat Notre Dame. So I go into every game respecting every single opponent, and I feel like this team in general goes into every single game respecting our opponents, and we're not going to play down to anybody's level. We're going to play to our Notre Dame standard. And that's what we try to do week in, week out. Just make sure that we're just doing everything we can to put this program in the best possible to succeed.

2:17:33That's really all it is. Just staying on the move and working every single day. You know, we're never, you know, settling for anything. We're just constantly trying to get better and reach our full potential every single week.

2:17:45Pat McAfee:Tell me about getting better and tell me about CJ Carr. Obviously, we were introduced to him at the beginning of the year. a lot of primetime games, spotlight games. They don't go your guys' way, and it's like, hey, this guy was like the prince who was promised, basically. You know, his family, obviously, football royalty. What have you seen from the beginning of the season of him starting versus now maybe as he carries himself? He's gone for like 270 through the sky every single game. It feels like he's kind of figured it out. What have you seen from him this year? I mean, since game one, I've just seen a ton of improvement from CJ.

2:18:15I would say he's always been a baller. Like he's always been able to, you know, make the difficult throws. He's never been, you know, the type to cower down or be scared of any defense that we played. You know, CJ has been just elevating mentally, I would say, every single game. I feel like every single game is just getting smarter. I'll use an example. So like last game, they pit show like a little blitz, a blitz package or whatever they were doing. And CJ immediately recognized it. and went out of his way to motion Malachi down so that he can get a better angle on coming to, you know, block that safety.

2:18:54And that's just something that CJ just recognized, you know, just from him, you know, going through whatever he has to go through as a quarterback to see whatever's going on defensively. And he picked that up and was smart enough to move his guy down in so that he can get a better block on our safety to give us as running backs a better opportunity to break free for a touchdown or break free for 10-plus yards. And that's the thing I'm talking about mentally with CJ. He's been able to just get better at things like that week after week after week. And I've been noticing it. I feel like everybody in the building has been noticing it.

2:19:30But CJ's been constantly on the trend of just getting better every single week, man. And I don't think he's stopping it anytime soon.

2:19:36Pat McAfee:You in the backfield as he's doing that, Okay, young buck. Okay, young buck. Love that. That makes everybody comfortable. That makes everybody confident whenever your quarterback's doing that type of shit. Legit, I think. That radiates through everybody, right? Yes, sir, it does. I have the utmost confidence in CJ. You're standing back there. Yes, CJ. Yes, CJ. You talk about the running backs benefiting from that. You guys have a great room over there. Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Jeremiah. Obviously, if it was just you in the room, it'd be the best running back room in the country, but you also have Jadarian Price and then Aeneas Williams also.

2:20:12It's incredible, the talent in there. Obviously, you get your touches, but how is it as a room with all of that talent and everyone wanting to get their touches in a game? I would start off with saying it's a very positive environment, the running back room. Oh, snap. Are you all right? It's a very positive environment. You're getting choked up. You're getting choked up talking about the running back room.

2:20:32Pat McAfee:I get it, yeah. There's a lot of love in there. A lot of love. Jeremiah and you know, love as a whole. Lots of love, man. But it's a very positive environment in the room. You know, everybody wants to see each other succeed. You know, there's not been a moment at any time where, you know, anybody's been jealous of anybody. There's been any type of animosity or anything like that. You know, everybody just wants each other to go out there and do their best, man. I feel like as a as a running back room, that is what helps us, you know, stay together and what helps us to really go out there and perform better.

2:21:02Because, say, I might see a look in the game and I don't execute. you know just with you know we wanted to see my teammates do better than myself you know I relay something to JD tell him about something that I saw and he picks that up quick goes in there and makes a huge play or goes in there and scores a touchdown and I feel like that's just how we are as a team like everybody wants to see each other succeed whether that's defensively offensively or special teams wise like everybody wants everybody to get their shine They want everybody to get the glory, and they just want everybody to succeed, man.

2:21:37That's just how this team is. I feel like we're really, really close-knit brotherhood, man.

2:21:42Pat McAfee:That's a great culture. Great culture. And you also seemingly at this point have a very calloused culture as well. Go ahead, D-Bot.

2:21:48AQ Shipley:Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned Coach Free earlier, and you guys had a great run all the way to the title game last season. How does a team feel compared? I know every year is a new team, but how does a team feel compared to last year going into this home stretch? I know you're not in the playoffs yet, but going into the home stretch of the season.

2:22:07I feel like this team is really good, man. Compared to last season, I would say I feel like the brotherhood is there more. I would say, you know, kudos to last year's team and whatever we were able to accomplish. You know, we got to get to the national championship. We didn't win it all, but we got there. We took some lessons from that. And as far as this team this season, man, we're ready to go, really. You know, we got to focus on the now, you know, finish the season out, the regular season. But once that's over, man, we're putting our foot on the gas and we're going. And we feel very confident in our ability to go out there and compete with anybody.

2:22:48But this team in general, man, a brotherhood is there. You know, we got the players. We got the culture. We got the coaches. So we're just going to go out there and do what we got to do and put our best foot forward and, you know, compete.

2:23:01Pat McAfee:I'm a big fan of yours, Jeremiah. Seems like every answer you give, I become a bigger fan of yours. I am. Now, granted, is this your last year? How many years you got left of eligibility? I got one more year of eligibility left after this. That's awesome. West Virginia would certainly love to have you. You know, I don't want to do any of that type of tampering stuff. But it seems like you're going to go down the record books in the Notre Dame Halls of Fames, if you will. Ty has a question for you. Yeah, Jeremiah, obviously, with so much left in front of you guys this year, it's probably hard not to just stay present and be in the moment.

2:23:32But have you had the opportunity to think about the legacy that you'll leave behind at Notre Dame? I went to Catholic school, first grade, through high school. And if you go to Catholic school, you want to go to Notre Dame. And when people become Notre Dame fans, it's a lineage thing. their Notre Dame fans, their kids are, their grandkids are, et cetera, et cetera. Have you had the opportunity to think about that? Because you already are a legend at Notre Dame, but when you leave and you are a legend at Notre Dame, you live on forever. You'll outlive yourself, your kids, all that kind of stuff.

2:24:06If you do what you have done and continue to do, you will be a legend at Notre Dame long after you're gone. Have you had the opportunity to think about that at all? um a few people have asked me what type of legacy i want to leave um but like i haven't really took the time to sit down and really think about it um if i'm just to go off the top of my head like you know i want to leave a legacy of of greatness i guess you could say um you know i want people to think of me and think of a guy who um never gave up you know played through anything and everything played for my team, did things not for myself, but for the guys that, you know, I trained with every single day.

2:24:49I just want them to think of a guy that, you know, tried to inspire people through his play. Because at the end of the day, that's really what I want to do. I feel like God gave me an ability to do great things on a football field. And, you know, I want to use that ability to inspire lots of people to just be themselves, because it took me a lot to get here, man it it took a lot of hard work um lots of ups and downs so i hope people you know after my career here look at my story and my journey and uh it inspires them to be themselves and to keep going and to just do whatever they want to do and have fun with it you know um but i haven't really had time to think of my legacy but um yeah we're just spitballing right now this is what i would like

2:25:31Pat McAfee:people to hopefully think of you know i laid it all in line for my team we won a lot i worked my ass off to get here. I hope I inspire others to do the same. And I want to let you know, brother, signed, sealed, delivered. Your legacy is already set at Notre Dame. We can't wait to see everything else that you do. But a part of that inspiration in the road that you took to this place was visited with Jen Lotter early in the season. I want to let you know, man, maybe the best thing I've seen somebody do in a long time is be that transparent. Connor has a question. Yeah, Jeremiah, the Jen Lotter piece from Game Day was incredible, and it kind of talked about your upbringing and who you are more so just as a human, let alone a football player and one thing she said in there was how your mother kind of mentioned that you told her when you were you know five years old you know mom I don't really feel emotion uh is is there a part of that journey um where you developed those types of things is it something where you're more uh emotionally intelligent where you can kind of feel the vibes off of other people uh versus actually feeling them yourself and also did you use that to your advantage like at what point did you view it more so as a gift from God and something that you can use to make you a better human, better football player, better everything?

2:26:42There's definitely been some evolution in my emotions. As a kid, like you said, I did tell my mom I didn't really feel emotions. And that was true. Like I really didn't, like a lot of things didn't phase me. A lot of things didn't move me. I was just the type of kid who I feel like was kind of just there. I mean, I was just there going throughout whatever I was doing in the day. I didn't really feel too much of anything. But as I've gotten older, you know, as I've, you know, just got to experience a lot more things like love and friendship and things like that, like my emotions have definitely shown up a lot more.

2:27:21You know, I'm still working on being more emotionally intelligent. I feel like I've got a great vibe on people. I feel like I can tell how people feel about me and I know how to read situations now. But emotionally, I feel like I am a lot more there than I was as a kid. Like, I feel a lot of things now. I feel, you know, love. I feel happiness. I feel sadness. I feel a whole bunch of things. But I just got to become more emotionally intelligent. I feel like I'm still growing in that aspect, but definitely way different than I was as a kid. And I use that to my advantage in football or I use it in my advantage in football growing up because whenever I would lose or whenever we would lose games, I wouldn't care.

2:28:06And I would just immediately want to get back to work like it wouldn't faze me. I would use the games as more of a lesson rather than a loss. And I should go feel down. And even still today, like whenever we are to lose games like. But yeah, I'm like, I didn't want to lose. But at the same time, I still have that mindset of I don't think that I lost. I'm going to use it as a lesson. You know, even when I lose, I win because I learned something. And I just feel like that's just a weapon for me. Like things don't affect me like how it affects other people. And I just use it to my advantage, you know.

2:28:42Pat McAfee:Well, I hope you get a chance to experience the happiness that your game and your hard work has brought. And we are very thankful that we're getting a chance to watch your entire story kind of unfold in front of our eyes. And thank you for being so transparent through it all. From feeling like you're just existing, basically is what you said there as a young boy, to now thriving and inspiring and motivating an entire country. You're special, dude. We're lucky you came on the show. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Now get your ass back to class. You're the man. Ladies and gentlemen.

2:29:17Pat McAfee:Jeremiah Love. Thank you, Jeremiah. He was awesome. He was legitimately awesome. He came sprinting from a class for us to record that, and then he was heading back to another class. He is a cool dude. And the fact that I think he said on game day, like growing up, didn't play football, kind of picked it up later. He's only going to get better, stronger, tougher. And he said what he worked on the offseason was running people over. So not only is he dynamic, obviously, and mentally it sounds like he's in a better spot because of everything he's been through than maybe everybody else, but now he wants to work on the physicality even more.

2:29:49Pat McAfee:and he has some of the toughest runs in football over the last couple years. It's like this guy's going to be a monster on Sundays, and obviously Notre Dame knows that. What a perfect kid to be at Notre Dame, isn't it? Like, listen to him speak. He seems so intelligent, so smart, so, like, dialed in. But, yeah, his story is cool. I remember the game day piece, obviously you guys talked about it a lot. Yeah, I love this kid. It's really hard not to root for him. And when you watch his play on the field, like, there's so many plays, I feel like, to where this dude is down. Either he's on the ground, he's stopped or whatever, and all of a sudden it's a 70-yard touchdown run.

2:30:20Like, that's what I think of when I think of Jeremiah Lowe.

2:30:22Pat McAfee:We talk about home run speed with a couple of those running backs that we've seen around the league. A-chan, Saquon, Jonathan Taylor. We had eyes, boots on the ground. What, a 98-yarder with this guy? Against Indiana, yeah. That was really where it was super cagey, and then all of a sudden that happened, and it was kind of like that was kind of the play that kind of catapulted Notre Dame into, you know, going to the national championship. That kind of started everything. And also, he was kind of banged up throughout that entire playoff run. Yeah, exactly. It was almost every game like, oh, I don't know if he's going to play.

2:30:52And obviously, yeah, we were right there, I think, on the goal line, almost getting ready to head to Columbus for the next day. And then, boom, this happens. And it's like, wait a minute now. Notre Dame's kind of cooking with gas here. A little bit different.

2:31:05Pat McAfee:Yeah. Jeremiah, watching him run, he's different to everybody else on the field. He's more explosive, seemingly has the ball, seemingly has a lot more yards. and then all of a sudden they just ride him, you know, and Riley, obviously, but they ride him all the way to the National Championship. Then this year, first couple games, he wasn't getting the Rock as much. It was kind of like they were splitting it. We're like, what's going on with Love? We saw him on the sideline. Is he hurt? Is he not hurt? No, he's in it. And then obviously they got a great running back room, so they have to manage all of that, but he is clearly the guy.

2:31:32Pat McAfee:So with Lacey yesterday, Ole Miss, and then out Jeremiah Love, you know, we can say we've had the best running back in the country on this show.

2:31:40AQ Shipley:Yeah. That's right. For sure. 18 touchdown.

2:31:43Pat McAfee:We pissed some people off yesterday, Tone, whenever we were saying Ole Miss is the home of the best running back in the country. Yeah, I was thinking about that. But it's hard not to do that when he's literally staring right at us and Lane is saying that into a microphone. Yeah, Jeremiah Love is the best running back in the country. Jeez. But, hey. I didn't know you were just going to roll over that quick. Lacey was very good for us. Yeah, yeah. Jeremiah was awesome. Yeah. I mean, not that Lacey wasn't, though. I don't think anyone's going to be super mad if we say, Jeremiah Love's the best running back in the country.

2:32:14Pat McAfee:No, a lot of people actually were super mad that I said somebody else was yesterday. So that is how I learned of that thing. And they didn't even know I had a Jeremiah Love. We talked to him. Yeah, I agree. And I actually told him he's the best running back in the country. There's a lot of those. There's like three, four guys around the country that are obviously special. Running back position is going to become even more important to the NFL game. As we saw last year, Saquon Barkley won the Super Bowl alongside a great offensive line, a great run game. And now we can kind of tell who's going to be on the run to the Super Bowl.

2:32:42Pat McAfee:Every single week, we get a chance to go in the trenches with AQ Shipley for the top five performing offensive lines of Week 11 now. Thank you. AQ, obviously, there's a lot of pressure on the top performing offensive lines because they are going to carry a team to a Lombardi. There's a lot of pressure on you to tell us who the right ones are because they're seemingly, a little bit earlier in the season, became a little bit of a bias, wasn't they? He was getting phone calls from offensive line coaches and saying, hey, you're doing a good job on there. You look thin. And then all of a sudden, the next ranking is like, hey, number three, shit team is on here.

2:33:15Pat McAfee:Their offensive line is really good. It's like, AQ, it feels like you got bought a little bit. Now, we're getting to playoff time. We're getting to important football time. AQ, you know what's at stake. We are going to strictly judge who can win a Super Bowl off of your top five list because the only teams that can win the Super Bowl are teams that have top five performing offensive lines. So I hope you understand the pressure and the magnitude of the conversation starter that you are a part of. I watch 30 hours of film every Monday and Tuesday of every single game. Piece by piece. Runs first.

2:33:44Then I go back and double check it with the pass game. Make sure it looks good. Don't ever say I got bought. Never got bought.

2:33:54Pat McAfee:Never bought. Integrity Fool. Let's go to the top five out of week 11. Number five. The Baltimore Ravens. Congratulations. Why be less so you can be more out there. That's right. They had over 190 yards rushing. Derek Henry gets over 100. I said this when Patrick Ricard came back, that they were going to be going up, trending up. And look at this play. It's a double wham. Really, I've never seen this. Normally, you wham once. They send Kolar and Ricard back, and then there goes Derrick Henry, 59 yards to set up a score. Derrick Henry is obviously an alien as well. He's 6 '3", 250 or something like that.

2:34:28Pat McAfee:He's deep into his career and still has the capability to do whatever, whenever. How come I was watching Budda, and Butter doesn't believe that the Baltimore Ravens offensive line is top five. He actually thinks that the right guard might be on the take. Oh, no. That's been quite a topic of conversation. That's a great block right there, though. It is. Daniel Falele with a great block right there on a really good defensive tackle. Kick out, find a butt, get up in between. See, Butter, you need to watch these plays because Butter was showcasing some other plays where he was. Now, having said that.

2:35:04AQ Shipley:He's on top five. I'm going to make you.

2:35:05Pat McAfee:He's got to be back in games. That's what Butler said. Butler said, I want an investigation with his hat. I mean, the entire thing. There it is. He is not happy about this. He played offensive line, too. You could hear that he played offensive line in high school. He goes, you need to get to the second level. You've got to cross your face. This guy crosses his face. He just lets him go. He's got to be on the tape. He has been catching a lot of flack the last couple years. He's a big guy. We talk about him a lot on here. He's obviously talked about a lot on the internet. He doesn't bend real well, but he is 390 pounds.

2:35:36He gets in the way. Probably not their best offensive lineman, but he's the best they have to offer, and he has a heck of a block on this play.

2:35:42Pat McAfee:But let's watch these types of plays. Maybe he's just trying to get better. But Butta said, right guard ain't that hard, man. Right guard ain't that hard. Butta was like, you're either getting this guy or you're going up. He missed all of them. The fact that they're on top five after watching Butta, I think is surprising. That is a mind-blower to me. Let me also say this, too, because I think we talk about this a lot, too. The offensive line can play really well, but the scheme also makes them play better than maybe they're capable of playing. And I think against this Cleveland team, it was an up-the-field, penetrating defense.

2:36:18Munkin, the offensive coordinator, had a great plan this game. So they did a lot of pulls. They were trapping guys, letting them get up the field trapped. They were trapping left. They were trapping right. They were whamming right, whamming left. And so I think that helped this group this week. and obviously Ricard being back helps us.

2:36:31Pat McAfee:Is this best offensive line in the run game or best offensive line as a whole? Let's give it a hammer. Don, Don. He's got a question about the Ravens at five. No, I just had a question because I did see that Myles Garrett had four sacks. I think they had five overall, so I didn't know if that played. Myles Garrett had four sacks? Yeah, so three of those were Lamar Jackson rolling out right play action, nothing there, and then just eats a sack. Three of those. Three of those plays. So it wasn't really a good game by Myles. Three of those plays. Three of his four sacks were literally, you can pull it up, roll right, Nothing there.

2:37:00Six seconds, seven seconds. Chip. Boom. Okay, cool. Now he comes in and gets the late sack. Oh. Does that make sense? Marge's running to his arms. Oh, so he's a sack. Miles Garrett's a sack merchant. Well, he stole some this game. Here it is right here. This is one of them right here. Just start there, Toadie. I mean, throw the ball away. Well, he's trying to get a touchdown. Trying to score a touchdown. Trying to score a touchdown. Trying to make a play. I mean, this is seven seconds. Throw the ball. What are we? That was right in the pocket. He did kind of knock that tackle down right off the line.

2:37:24Yeah, there was the one. That was the only one where he had a clean one. It was a highlight reel play. I mean, he threw Rosengarten.

2:37:31Pat McAfee:Listen to this offensive lineman. Listen to this offensive lineman, AQ. Guy had four sacks against you guys. Three of them not on the other line, though. He's on football. You blame me. Do you know how many times we sat in a room and watched quarterbacks jerk the ball off back there and say, throw the fucking ball. Throw the ball. Yeah, because you're holding on for dear life. For dear life. Every single play, all season long. We're inferior athletes going against freakazoids. If it's meant to be out, five-step, hitch, throw, get it out. We can't do this. Yeah, so it shouldn't be on the other lines, what he's saying, Tone, even though he even got a cosign from Frankie Skates in the back, too.

2:38:09Pat McAfee:As soon as Tone dropped in the ear and goes, didn't Miles Garrett have four sacks? And then Nick in the back goes, he did. That's happening while you're talking. This was best-case scenario for me because it gets him to kind of talk shit a little bit on the Ravens' offensive line, and I kind of had an idea of what he would say about Myles Garrett. So that was a win-win for me. Okay, yeah, I'm happy you got it in there. Myles Garrett, great football player. Great football player. Okay, let's go. Number four, performing offensive line. Wow. San Francisco 49ers. Congrats to them all the way back.

2:38:37Christian McCaffrey averaged 6.2 a carry. They ran for over 100 as a group. But let me hear, before we let this run. Okay, so when we run counter week, everybody from the day one install, A.J. knows it, D. Butts knows it, everybody that's ever played defense knows is you kick out the end man and you wrap. Watch what they do. They send Trent Williams out. They leave the three tech unblocked because he's reading Trent Williams, which widens the hole. Now you get the easy kick out. You check up underneath, 20 yards up the middle.

2:39:04Pat McAfee:Everything has reason and purpose, you're saying, and it is all to block somebody easier and better. That's exactly right. That's Dante Stills, former West Virginia Mountaineer, falling for the Kool-Aid right there. Yeah, well, hey, listen, sometimes you've got to believe what you're seeing, especially if you're getting duped like that. If you live in a paint, you're going to get dunked on. But Christian McCaffrey matched with the Shanahan run scheme in this offensive line has been a match made in heaven, especially if he's healthy with Juice as a fullback for him. He's been fantastic. And I think what Christian has done week in and week out from week one until now, he's gotten better every single week.

2:39:35They are so close to him being back to where he was in 23 when he was having an unbelievable year, 23, 22, whenever he comes over. And it's like they are so close. They're getting better. They're getting healthier. Everybody's blocking, straining. They are this close to being 150 yards rushing every week.

2:39:49Pat McAfee:The Rams are next for the San Francisco 49ers. No, who do the San Francisco 49ers play next? I think they've got three easy games, don't they? I don't know. In the field. Yeah, I don't know if there's any easy games. But you get what I'm saying. Teams that aren't. Team record-wise. Okay, so they have Carolina next. That ain't an easy game. What, are you looking at, the record or film? That's a go football. You're looking at the record or film? I'm talking just strictly record. You look at them because they have the fourth or third place schedule. So their schedule, strength of schedule based off last year's record, they have a pretty easy schedule.

2:40:23I want to say it's either the first or second easiest schedule in the league.

2:40:26Pat McAfee:They got Carolina, Cleveland, Tennessee, Colts, Chicago, then Seattle, obviously. Chicago by then. You think Christian McCaffrey goes for 150-plus in at least one of those games? I mean, rivalry game, right? That's his old team. They traded him away. Oh, you're saying this weekend he goes for 150-plus. You don't respect the Panthers at all. Yeah. Watch that. You don't know what you're saying. Did you watch Packers-Panthers? That's a good football team. I did. I know who they are. And their offensive line, Rico Dowdell? Yeah, I know. He ran for 23 yards this past week. He did great. He's quarterback.

2:40:55He's quarterback.

2:40:56Pat McAfee:Yeah, they didn't run the ball much. I mean, it was a different offense. It's unbelievable that that's how you just kind of slide that in there. Now, on that note, who's the number three performing offensive line out of Week 11? The Los Angeles Rams. And why I say that is because I absolutely love their scheme. I cannot wait to see where this goes because Sean McVay has completely flipped to where he was a couple years ago. It was 11 personnel, literally no tight ends basically on the field, and everything was shifts, motions, wide zone. Now they go 13 personnel, use one of those tight ends as a fullback, motion one, get two double teams at the point of attack, fullback come frontside, boom, get the kick out, Kyron Williams.

2:41:37Look at Devontae Adams blocking in space. I mean, this was the first run of the game.

2:41:41Pat McAfee:Yeah, they started the game this way, And Kyron Williams is obviously a weapon for the Los Angeles Rams. We're talking about Matthew Stafford a lot. You're saying, hey, maybe the offensive line needs a little bit of a chatter as well. The O-line's been great, but I love what they're doing scheme-wise, like I said, with this 13 personnel, because they run about nine different plays off of this exact same look. They can run frontside with the duo. They can go backside with the Bob scheme, which is back on back or iso. They can run the inside zone, the outside zone, and then all the play actions that come off of this.

2:42:08Sean McVay's got a big brain, AJ. You can't stop it. You can't. I wanted to ask AQ, are there any teams that are elite run blockers, but they can't really pass block? Is there any teams like that in the NFL right now? So I think whenever you look at San Francisco, I think that's who they are. I think their run game allows them to be good pass blockers. But if they get behind in games and you ask them now to become a drop back scat protection team, they're going to get their heads run over.

2:42:34Pat McAfee:Okay, so a great answer. He's watching 30 hours of film. Oh, yeah. He's watching 30 hours. It's true, though. I know AQ, I know guys, I don't know how you were, but I know guys that were big-time recruits as high school O-linemen, and then they came in and they couldn't pass block. I know that's a thing, too, where you kind of have to learn. They were big road graders in high school, and then all of a sudden you've got to kick slide, and it's tough. He's talking about Kevin Brown. He is talking about Kevin Brown. What? That's what you're saying. Absolutely not. I'm talking big old heavy 375-pound fatos that can't kick slide.

2:43:04Pat McAfee:Yeah, but it sounds like I'm watching these films and this guy being a road grader, but then he can't pass block because it sounded like you were talking about yesterday's film. He never crossed my mind. Oh, because he didn't go to Ohio State, obviously. Just know that the film that you're not seeing – I'm a big fan of Kevin Brown. Okay. Okay, I would like to hear that. Huge fan. I love – when an O-lineman is finishing five or six dudes every single play, I'm on board. I love that. I just hate the fact that he decommitted from Penn State. Who, Kevin Brown? Kevin Brown. Yeah, but he committed to – If he kept the coach, he would have stayed.

2:43:34Exactly. You guys decided – He can still commit somewhere else. I mean, there's no – you know, he didn't sign anything.

2:43:38Pat McAfee:No, he can't. And he will sign something as soon as it's allowed to sign something, which is coming up pretty soon. Oh, man, yeah. Eight minutes of highlight. This is the first minute. Just punking these guys. Okay. These poor kids. That was pass protection right there, if you're wondering. Yeah, and maybe we're back on a run here. Let me move some big bodies. Let me dump some big bodies. And it's Pennsylvania football, by the way. I love it. You know, this ain't no – I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to take a shot at Indiana State.

2:44:03AQ Shipley:Some of these DNs.

2:44:05Pat McAfee:What's that? Great football players. 170 pounds you're talking about safeties that have come down the box you're talking about safeties coming down the box that's what you're saying Kevin Brown going to West Virginia changing the entire narrative we love it in the trenches and H I don't like what you just did there's 7 minutes of him going hey! hey! I promise you I was definitely not thinking of him he could do anything trust me I don't hold it against him he came on the show do you really think I thought he was committing to Ohio State? Well, I kept you off that screen for sure. Well, I know.

2:44:39I would love to see your reaction if he did a little rope-a-dope. Oh, and he had a little WVU hat and he flipped it to Ohio State or even North Carolina. I'm sure that would have gone well.

2:44:47Pat McAfee:What a play that would have been. That would have been nice. Honestly, what a play that would have been. Because I didn't know about the couch at the end. Their experience arsonist, I think, I think that should be something that is talked about. They were very comfortable spraying that gasoline. A amateur fire person gets a gasoline bottle in hand and panics. It says, no, no, I've seen on the internet where the fire will come up in there and very rarely goes for it. Tim Brown, Kevin Brown's dad, former NFL offensive lineman, former Rich Rodriguez, hard-edge football player at West Virginia. Side video, we've got a couple different ones because I think there was local news there as this was all kind of unfolding, kind of chasing them around as if they were paparazzi.

2:45:24Pat McAfee:Dad, Tim Brown, just dumping that gasoline as that fire's going. It's like, oh, they've done this before. Yeah, Tim Brown plays no games. There's been so many different fires that they have started back there. Obviously, the leaves, it's going to burn these things down. I'm sure you're not supposed to do it, but I'm sure there's been some tires potentially that have disappeared, maybe some trash, maybe some dumpster. They come from a place with a lot of land, it appears. And, yeah, I don't think any of us expected a couch to be on fire or a door on the show yesterday, but, hey, memorable. And that's Kevin Brown football.

2:45:52Yeah, and that's the thing about AJ. You know, like he's a little salty for two reasons yesterday. One, of course, Kevin Brown doesn't choose his school. and second, his adult cheerleading team did not win the competition they were in. So I know he is not happy about that. Wait, what? Yeah, Hawker had a pretty cool – I'm not going to lie. I see the resemblance. I do. I understand. I don't know what we're talking about. He flew down to North Carolina right after that. Just wait.

2:46:18Pat McAfee:Oh, wow. There he is. There he is. There's a photo caught of Coach Bill Beledick supporting Jordan and her adult co-ed cheerleading team that competed against others. And right next to Jordan there is a guy that kind of looks like an old Irish mob boss. And then on the other side, there's A.J. Hoff. And I'll tell you what, A.J., I would assume, I don't know the team well, and we haven't looked it up, and this is most talks about women in sports. The A.J. one, I think, is the one doing the – Oh, yeah. Crushed it. I actually watched a lot of film. Not even joking. Watched all the videos. I could not get enough.

2:46:56They won? No. The AJ guy, though, did, in fact, the AJ guy freaking crushed. Not even joking. I knew it. I knew it.

2:47:05Pat McAfee:AJ, maybe next time you sign up to be a part of this. I might. I mean, how do I? I didn't know we had, like, adult co-ed competition. So, yeah, I got to sign up somewhere. It doesn't look like it's, like, pickup. Like, I don't know if they just have pickup in here. If it's anything like the kid dance and kid gymnast and stuff like that in dance and cheerleader community, very intense. Oh, yeah. It was. Full-blown, huge routine, long time. Dance Moms. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My daughter wrote that show. Oh, how could you not? That gym, the Dance Moms, Abby Lee. Oh, yeah. Seven Iron from Nick's house.

2:47:39Pat McAfee:Oh, shit. Couple of ladies on that show from Plum. Yeah, so anytime I was watching. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. That was a trip back to Plum every time you watched that show. It was like, yep, there it is. And Penn Hills, obviously, which is where Aaron Donald was from. so that is uh that was a trip back in time there one of them actually commented kelly i think is her name blast from past i said holy shit i've seen you back at the aldc yeah she said i love what you said i'm from plum uh for the pit open and on instagram and she followed me and i wanted to say like hey thank you for your donation of time uh for my entertainment everybody else's back in the day because boy it was cutthroat at abby lee oh yeah oh my god i don't know how much training Jordan's been able to do with all the recruiting she's probably been doing for UNC, but I assume the amount of work that is poured into this particular adult tournament much more than other adult tournaments if I had to guess.

2:48:32I hope so. Bill looks fucking disgusted at whatever routine he's seeing right now, so I hope that maybe that was just like a warm-up and not actual competition reps, but he does not look happy with what he sees. She is a champion, if we do recall, when they were on the red carpet and they had all their rings on, she did have her Bridgewater State rings, but yeah.

2:48:51Pat McAfee:One of Bill's Super Bowl championship rings? Yes. That guy's wearing one, right? The MC guy with the mic. Yeah, Bill understands. He got to politic a little bit.

2:49:00AQ Shipley:You want to wear a ring? He looks like an NFL vet, too. Like, exactly like the guy he's got. I'm not going to say his name. Who? No. Because that's a 10 out of 10 suit. I got way too much respect for him.

2:49:09Pat McAfee:That is a 10 out of 10 suit. Yeah, I need that. And Bill giving the guy a Super Bowl ring for the day, saying, hey, this is what it could be. You know that. And think about the amount of extra pizzazz and sauce on the intro of this particular team, CB. When the CB team comes out here, cheerleading Belichick, when the CB team comes out here, I mean, the amount of juice on the MC is just through it. And that's what it's all about, bringing the juice. That's right. And congrats to Jordan winning. Hell yeah. Connor said she did win. Yeah. But she did win at Bridgewater State. Actually, fantastic program in Massachusetts.

2:49:44Pat McAfee:Plum High School has a cheerleading competition team. They go and compete. The World Mustangs Here Fund has supported trips to, like, I think Disney hosts. Oh, yeah. I think they host the tournaments and stuff like that. Now, is it a sport? Because judges are deeming who wins.

2:50:02AQ Shipley:Cheerleading? Yeah. I would say sport.

2:50:04Pat McAfee:I think they're athletes. I would say sport. More of a sport than the other thing trying to be a sport. What's that? What's that? U-Ball? So I think they're athletes. Very, very athletic. I don't know if... That's good. I just got it. That's good. That's real good. Because judges deem who wins. You know, it's like ice skating. Like, I don't think they can win. Like, they can't determine the win. They can hope that somebody else judges if they win. Does that make sense? So it's either a sport or a... Competition. Competition. I think it's a competition if somebody else is judging if you can win.

2:50:47Pat McAfee:Sport if you can outright win. Don't think it's non-athletic. Is NASCAR a sport then? Yeah, because you can win. Okay. Yeah, I never thought of it that way. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense, though, that breakdown of the two, actually. And I think I came up with this in my brain. I don't know how many times I've said it publicly or if I've ever said it publicly. It's during, like, the Olympics. Because, like, Nathan Chen will go out there and absolutely crush it. And then he still has to wait to see if the Russian judge thinks that it was good. Like, can't outright win. So you're competing for a score.

2:51:13Pat McAfee:Yeah.

2:51:14AQ Shipley:Simone, she's Simone Biles. You have shit that couldn't even be graded.

2:51:17Pat McAfee:Exactly. Like, she's definitely an athlete. But I don't think, like, if you got a point for everything that you did as opposed to, like, somebody deeming what you did, I think that's two different. Yeah, that is interesting because you get points for trying stuff. But if it's not as clean, you get deducted points because it's not perfect. Yeah. So I'm not saying they're not. This is not a, hey, you're not an athlete. Like, some of those cheerleading competitions. I'm not gymnastics, obviously. Oh, this thing. I'm not saying you're not athletic. I think sports, the separator is you can outright.

2:51:47When there's judges. Yeah, when there's judges and it's in somebody else's hands, it's different.

2:51:51Pat McAfee:I would get so pissed. I'm staring down a time where my daughter might get into something here that does the judging besides. The amount of what the fuck do you know that you could just, oh, my God. And let alone if I see a Super Bowl ring on one of the judges. Or the emcee. What do you even think in that entire thing? All right, let's get back to it. Congrats to CB team. Getting out there and doing it. You watched? I watched every single clip I could find on X. Yes. Is Jordan a flyer? I think we should just get back to the trenches. Let's go in the trenches. Who's the number two performing offensive line coming out of week 11 of the NFL season?

2:52:30Pat McAfee:The Jacksonville Jaguars. Jacksonville Jaguars. And they were dominant in every facet, pass and run. They beat the shit out of the Chargers. Let's watch this man scheme right now. Center guard pull. Look at this. Look at my guy, Hainsey, right there. Boom. Now watch him take him right into the end zone. Barry on the way. How good is that? Oh, yeah. How good is that? 73. Run, run, run, run. Boom. Barry on top. That is a hell of a run. That's a lot of effort. Liam Cohn's got a team down there, huh? They got a squad. They're going to be very good. I'm telling you. They ponded the Chargers. Without Brian Thomas Jr.

2:53:07Their O-line's been great all year long. They went out and made a conscious effort. They went and got a new guard, another new guard, and a center. So they revamped basically their whole team in the last two years, I mean, up front. And they have really become very good at football all of a sudden.

2:53:21Pat McAfee:They certainly have fans. Okay, I'm not saying they don't have fans. But I appreciate the fact that their fans aren't just attacking everybody for not talking about them all the time. Feels like Jacksonville Jaguars fans are pretty much like, hey, let's just kind of be quiet, actually. Let's just hope that this continues in here. But everything they're kind of working for is seemingly coming together. And Liam Cohn, damn good play designer and play caller. Unbelievable coach. Unbelievable scheme. I think the one thing, obviously, they lose Travis Hunter. They're another team that whenever they have to throw the ball 45 times a game, that's not the guy.

2:53:51You sure? Yeah, what's going on over here? I just saw the number one. We're asking you that. Okay. I like it. The number one. You guys got to watch the tape. Want me to show you? No, it's for you. Please. Please show us.

2:54:02Pat McAfee:Hey, Gumpy, congratulations. Wow. It's like I fucking said they would. Okay. Yeah, you did, Gumps, for sure. Gumpy's been singing the praise. First of all, I love this. Look at this. We're in shotgun. We got A-Chan as an offset back. And look at the big boy in the backfield. Brunskill, go back. Again, they're getting in on the 6-0 lineman trend. Look at Aaron Brewer out in space on Frankie Louvoo. Bury his ass into the ground. Best center in football. This team showed up. Aaron Brewer, best center in football. O-line's been trending this way. A-Chan's been running like this. This team's got it.

2:54:33See the pump fake on the flag. Look how fast he is in the second level, AQ. Are you kidding me? That's what I'm saying. He's the best center in football. Then he finishes him. Yep. And there's seven reps of him doing that. What is that? What is what? Can we talk about the rep? Yeah, one time. It's like they got away with one, maybe. Look at him. Pulls the flag. Ah, fuck it.

2:54:51Pat McAfee:Oh, what was that for? I think he thought to himself, is that a football play or not? Do I really want to call this? This would be a big deal. I appreciate him doing that. I like a little second. Ah, not going to do it. Yeah, we're in Spain. I want to get the fuck out of here. Get home. Yeah. Commander sideline, not happy at all either because the coaches clearly saw something, and then when he didn't throw it, what the fuck, dude? This guy was going to throw it, and it looked at 35 right there. Excuse me. You saw the same thing we saw. I think it's on 55. I can't believe the Miami Dolphins. I cannot believe the Miami Dolphins are the number one performing offensive line out of Week 11 of the NFL season.

2:55:26Pat McAfee:What is their record right now? 4-7.

2:55:28AQ Shipley:Yep. Still in it. Battling. It's every week, brother. We're lurking, brother. Can't judge it on the year.

2:55:34Pat McAfee:Okay. Okay. Okay, I would like to say this. How did I set this entire thing? I need a new script to set this entire thing up. I say we're going to judge who we think is going to be able to win a Super Bowl. You did say that. You want to know the most interesting thing? That was my entire lead-up. Like, man, you know what? In years past when we've done this, what we have learned is, wow, the teams that are on this list are the teams that are going to be around in the end. And now we've got the number one team, the Miami Dolphins. Now? Hold on. I know what the new script is. go back to last year.

2:56:08The teams that are in the end are the teams that are up here most consistently throughout the year. So the teams that go eight weeks, nine weeks, ten weeks. So the Colts have been on here the most. Where are they this week? They're on a five week. They ruined my week. They should still be up there. It was tough to find. I mean, the groups, and there's only 400 yard rushers this week. I mean, O-lines are, I mean, we're down this year, boys. We are down. But Miami's up. It's up. He's up. It's up. Hell yeah. It's a good group. It's a good list. Jacksonville's been up. LA's been up. San Fran's been up.

2:56:44Baltimore, first time up since week one.

2:56:46Pat McAfee:But sportsbooks think Baltimore is about to get real hot. Me too. I've been saying it ever since Ricard came back. Ricard is the key. Fullbacks in the NFL are key. Teams using fullbacks or tight ends as a fullback are the best running team. The key card. Yeah, I think I like this Dolphins team in a weird way. I do, I think. And then all of a sudden now I'm seeing the screen appear. It feels like the Dolphins are about to get love again. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for everything DB, good D, bad D. Is this bad, D? No, this is good, D.

2:57:18AQ Shipley:This is not where I was going to start, but since we're carrying the Dolphins water, why don't we keep going? One of my favorite Dolphins and one of kind of the locker room's favorite Dolphins, Jack Jones. He actually called his shots a 13-13 ball game here in OT, and he's matched up against Zach Ertz at the bottom of the screen. He's going to get a chip block and then kind of just run a drag across the screen. This ain't the matchup you want to go through, Mariota. Zach Ertz to Jack Jones undercutting, doing what he does, It's just his instincts, his anticipation, and his ball skills kind of separate him from the pack when it comes to cornerbacks.

2:57:51AQ Shipley:He always is – when he's around the ball, he's most likely coming down with a big-time game-winning pretty much interception right here from Jack Jones.

2:57:59Pat McAfee:That's first play of overtime right there. Obviously, you're in field goal range at that exact moment. Not that every kick has been made in this particular game. But, yeah, this is game-winning interception basically on the defensive side. And the Dolphins winning games now all of a sudden. They're chanting Jack Jones' name in there. and we had a chance to catch up with him. We'll run a conversation with him tomorrow. You're going to love Jack Jones. He's got a sick grill, but also feels like the culture down there is not maybe dead. Gumpy, what the hell's going on in Miami? They're on the top five performing offensive lines.

2:58:27Pat McAfee:They're on good D here to start this thing. You've got to be on cloud 10. They love McDaniel, and they've got some real leaders on the team. Bradley Chubb, Jordan Brooks leads the league in tackles. You had another 20 on Sunday. They're sticking together, man. For what it's worth, I know they're 4-7, but they never gave up and they fought in every game they've been in. McDaniel might be a leader down there. Okay, that's good D out of Miami. What else do you have, D? Absolutely.

2:58:52AQ Shipley:Let's see where we're at now. Let's start at the top of the league when you're talking about takeaways. I believe JJ mentioned it earlier. Much like the Pittsburgh Steelers, they live and die on taking the ball away, and that's what the Chicago Bears have been doing at a high clip this year. This is against nine last week. 7-3 ballgame right here, second quarter. Cover three. Running back to the beginning real quick, Foxy. Cover three. start off with a split safety shell. And on the outside, cover three a lot of times just turn into pretty much man-to-man. You can tell the difference of the coverages based on the interior defenders.

2:59:21AQ Shipley:And just watch Kevin Byer here who's going to have that circle. He's a flat defender. He gets his width. Covering the tight end but reading the intentions of the quarterback. He sinks right back into his window. J.J. McCarthy never sees him. And another kind of common thing with a lot of these interceptions is defenders around the quarterback. A lot of dirty pockets in the National Football League. Nashawn Wright, he could have been on here as well. He had a great pick where he went up and high-pointed it. Great coverage here, too. I don't know if Justice Jefferson catches that even if Byer isn't there.

2:59:48AQ Shipley:But if you watch, I believe this is Grady Jarrett getting right up in the interior of the offensive line. Quarterbacks hate. You know, you can come off the edge. You can run by guys. But when you get in that interior and get in their face where they can't step into these throws, that's when you really create some havoc. And Kevin Byer leading the National Football League in interceptions right now with five. And two of his teammates are right up there in two and three with Edmonds and Deshaun Wright right there who's in coverage.

3:00:11Pat McAfee:Bears get a huge win in the NFC North. They got the Pittsburgh Steelers this weekend at home. Here's a Hembo stat about that. The Bears this season, 22 takeaways, which is the most in the NFL, plus 16 turnover margins, also the highest. Steelers this season, 77 points off of turnovers, which is the most in the NFL, plus 54 points off a turnover margin. Okay, so they've been taking the ball away and then making teams get punished by it. Chicago Bears have been turning people over more than anybody else. Kind of an immovable object and a hard play.

3:00:38AQ Shipley:They're taking care of the ball, too. And Caleb Williams, he's not where he needs to be yet in the passing game. But to take care of the ball, he's playing well late. And they're running the ball really well as well with that offensive line. Greedy defense. Yeah, made a bunch of additions on the offensive line. Swift had a good game. And just all around playing winning football right now.

3:00:55Pat McAfee:I love that they're the Kings of the North.

3:01:00AQ Shipley:Yeah, they are currently. Going to last week, led the league in explosive plays. Which is surprising. 10-plus yard runs, 20-plus yard passes.

3:01:09Pat McAfee:What's that? The third most important stat they're saying when it comes to winning games. Fox, it's crazy that the Bears are the Kings.

3:01:15JJ Watt:A lot of ball left. So much ball left.

3:01:19Pat McAfee:Yeah, but what about nine down there in Minnesota? Yeah.

3:01:22JJ Watt:Yeah, can we – I can't really talk shit about nine because he beat the Lions in Detroit, but I want to talk shit about nine because he stinks. And nine plays the Packers this week, and that would be just on brand for me talking about how much nine sucks. He might go out and throw for 300 yards or rush for 100.

3:01:36Pat McAfee:I would like to talk about this real quick, just because we haven't addressed the nine thing. And I think it is certainly something we should address. In my eyes, everybody loves J.J. McCarthy, right? Guy's a leader. J.J. McCarthy I'm talking about. Two characters. J.J. McCarthy off the field. This guy's a great leader. He's got the amount of moxie. Whenever he shows up, everybody knows him. The aura of a starter. Obviously, meditation. He takes care of himself. He's all in. Nine is who he becomes on game days. J.J. McCarthy loved by everybody, right? Nine just kind of ass on the field at this point.

3:02:07When nine catches up to JJ, boy, Minnesota's going to be a problem for everybody.

3:02:13AQ Shipley:When's that going to happen? That's the thing. When you think about it, we kind of talked about it earlier. You walk into a locker room with Peyton Manning. I walk into a locker room with Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers. So, like, a lot of these guys, like, they kind of just who they are. Now, other players, like Brian Dawkins, he turned into, what, like Weapon X? Yep. and you had other people kind of flip that switch and kind of have these alter egos. I can't recall a quarterback, maybe outside of Cam Newton, Superman, but like a quarterback who kind of flips that switch and turns it into another alter.

3:02:42AQ Shipley:I can't recall. You don't recall this? Maybe he's just beginning something new.

3:02:47Pat McAfee:What's that, AQ? What is he doing?

3:02:52JJ Watt:Fucking demon time, dude.

3:02:53Pat McAfee:He's a leader. That's his style. Yeah, would you rather have a guy whose quarterback flipped a switch or would you rather just have the constant same guy consistent every day? As long as you're good, I think it's all that matters. You know, everybody does everything differently. But it is interesting that to the point that he made, I think Bruce also brought that up yesterday. B.A. was like, I don't know any cornerbacks that really have two different personalities because we kind of need them to be who they are all the time. And I think J.J. was just saying, like, I just turned into a different person.

3:03:25Pat McAfee:I'm a competitor. I'm just a competitor, yeah. When it means the most, that's when I step up. People have certainly run with it and been like, nine's ass, dude. That is what we're seeing here. He certainly fed it. But once again, everything we know about J.J. McCarthy, forget nine, but J.J. McCarthy tells us that he'll get better every offseason. That is what allegedly we are being told and what we've heard from him. Even in the Bears game, he played like shit the entire game, and then when they needed him to, he drove right down the field and they scored a touchdown and they took the lead. Maybe that's nine.

3:03:56Pat McAfee:Maybe, like, nine takes a little bit to get there. Yeah, maybe he needs to get rid of JJ McCarthy and just go nine 24-7, which would be a nightmare for everyone who knows him. But if he's good on Sundays, it's going to kind of make his life much better. Yeah, because maybe it is the transition from JJ to nine that kind of takes a little bit, three quarters, three and a half quarters. Yeah. JJ's still out there saying, have fun. Come on, Jed, it's gritty, dog. And then nines are really, like, walking. Yeah. And they're just kind of, ooh, and then he throws it in the front row. Yeah. Because they're battling inside.

3:04:29Well, and that's the other thing. Like, do you really want, and I'm using this term very loosely, and this is a joke. Do you really want a schizophrenic at quarterback? I feel like you shouldn't have a guy that's two different people.

3:04:40Pat McAfee:Well, yeah, I remember Luke Kuechly was quarterback of the Carolina Panthers defense. He was two different characters. I get that. Completely. You've got to be a fucking psycho to play linebacker. But he also showed up the first play of the game. can't wait until the fourth quarter to be that different. That's not a great playoff. Yeah, thank you. LeBron James locks in too. Thank you so much. I love JJ LeBron. Yes. Luke Keekly. Yeah. What's wrong? I like we're in this pantheon. Kobe Mamba. Yeah, Mamba mentality. Maybe he could do that. Change his name to Mamba. Mamba McCarthy. Okay. See, it feels like you're trying to put him in a bad spot.

3:05:18No, I'm just trying to get nine to be who he is at all times. That's probably dangerous. Or JJ. Can JJ play football? We don't know. We know nine. Can nine lead?

3:05:35Pat McAfee:It looks like in crunch time he leads pretty good. I love that shit. Interesting character study. It really is.

3:05:43JJ Watt:Was Justin Jefferson frustrated with JJ or nine? Nine. He might hate them both. No. I've heard it's impossible to hate JJ.

3:05:51Pat McAfee:I've heard it's impossible to hate JJ. Have you heard that from Michigan men? No, people are not Michigan men. Okay.

3:05:58AQ Shipley:A lot of people do hate him on the internet, but that's not fair. And that's not real. I don't want to see another personality come out from Jesse Jefferson because I think we may be nearing that. We haven't seen that before.

3:06:09Pat McAfee:Let's see 18. I'll tell you what, 1-8 out there. He could have already, we would all think. But on that note, whenever the team decided to go a different direction, he was one of the first people to come out and say, hey, it doesn't matter who's quarterback. It's my job to make their life easier. I feel like he is the pillar of the Minnesota Vikings. He is the face of the Vikings, Justin Jefferson. Yeah, agreed. So I think people are reading everything he does, but he's also allowed to be frustrated if the offense is at. Absolutely. So people automatically saying he has a bad attitude or he feels a certain way.

3:06:41Pat McAfee:It's like, I think he's just mad at their ass right now. I think that is natural from your leader. you'd want to see that. But it is interesting that the wide receiver is basically viewed as the face of the offense and not nine. But nine will have his time. Yeah, we hope so. I mean, look, Josh Dobbs came in in two days and he threw for more yards than JJ's thrown in any game this year. Josh Dobbs is a fucking astronaut. There's no doubt. But he had two days with the entire team. Not to mention, I think Nick Mullins threw for 400 yards in this offense. He did. And I think Nick Mullins is a fucking junkyard dog.

3:07:15I don't want to make it seem like I don't think that. But come on. You're the 11th overall pick.

3:07:21Pat McAfee:Bruce Brown just tried to say that maybe he needs to take a trip down to the rainforest and get rid of one of those personalities and just fully embrace the other one. I love that. I think that would be a bad idea. That might be the only way to go about it, especially with how torn it seems like he is. Nine's telling him to throw it and J.J. saying don't. And every throw is just not going where it's supposed to go. And then finally, whenever it's game-winning time, it's just nine full-time kicking J.J. out of the game. It's all over the place. he needs to get JJ the fuck out of the first three quarters I would love to be a fly on the wall in KOC's office not when anyone's in there just when KOC's alone just to understand what he is going through mentally because he had it all man he had two all pro quarterbacks in his building last year legitimately Darnold is probably going to be first or second team all pro in the NFC and Danny Dine is probably going to be first or second team All-Pro, depending on how things turn out in the AFC.

3:08:17Yeah, but nine next year All-Pro. So they're betting on the future, which is what they've done this entire time. That's true. The Pack and the Bears, they're going to fall off cliffs. And the Lions, what am I? Yeah, they're all going to fall off cliffs. They're not building anything special, whereas the Vikings, they're fucking stacking bricks, bruh. It's true.

3:08:36Pat McAfee:Nine's going to have them. I believe in Kevin O 'Connell. I believe that J.J. McCarthy can get better just because we've seen it before, but he is going to have to learn some stuff with this one here. You know, we saw it at the Rose Bowl. Yeah. He threw about a 120-mile-an-hour ball to somebody on the sideline, and we made mention of it in a numerous different way. Wow, throws a fast one out there. And then obviously, what a strong arm he's showcasing on this entire thing. It's like that ball doesn't need to be every time. The way overshot. overthrows. You can't have any overthrows in the NFL.

3:09:10That's the problem.

3:09:11Pat McAfee:Yeah, because that's going to get picked. You keep that on the field. I keep saying they're landing in the stands. It's good news they're landing in the stands because if those things are on the field, that thing is going back the other way. It's like we've seen, obviously, Josh Allen and others get good in that particular department, but that might be a difficult thing. Obviously, this is his first year as a starter. Obviously, last year was his rookie year. He gets hurt. He misses the entirety of it. This year, he's like a rookie, but he's not a rookie. He's not considered a rookie. He should be better.

3:09:34Pat McAfee:It's like this offseason, I think, will be his first. They need it because they had it all, man. They had it all. I don't think they're giving up this season yet. That's the problem. You're right. Oh, next year is going to be great. You're telling KOC that? You think he's okay with that right now? No, 1-8-8 either. I mean, he's – Addison's making big-time catches. 3-8-7 probably. Aaron Jones. 7-1. I can't even imagine how pissed he is. They had it all. They have it all. Full defense. They have it all. We need more nine. That's what we're saying. More nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine.

3:10:09Pat McAfee:It doesn't seem like everybody's on board with more nine.

3:10:11AQ Shipley:I don't think we're on board with nine. I thought I just. I think we like JJ. Yeah, that's what we've talked about. Man, nine kind of sucks. Maybe it is JJ.

3:10:25Pat McAfee:Because I thought we needed JJ the fuck out of there. Yeah. You're saying what we need is nine. Now I'm thinking, well, have we ever. Nine did ever exist. Have we ever seen JJ play QB? Has it always been nine? we'll find out, won't we? The Bears run that division anyway, so who cares? Yeah. Ain't that right? Right now they do, yeah. Go beat the Packers twice, and then you can cram them. And the Lions. Not just the Packers. The Lions put up 50 on them earlier this year. Yeah, 52 points. Beat the fucking shit out of them. That was a different team. Yeah, you're right. A different team. They're so bitter over there.

3:11:02Not bitter. They are so bitter over there. The Bears and the Lions. The Bears might have the best O-Lion in the NFC North.

3:11:07Pat McAfee:The Bears and the Lions were supposed to be ass. Okay, forever. For eternal time. That is kind of what the NFC North was supposed to be. Lions all of a sudden bring in this meathead and they become good. What the fuck? Then all of a sudden the Bears start figuring it out. All of a sudden the NFC North is vastly different. So it's like right now is not a good time to not be good in the NFC North because everybody is very good in the NFC North. So it's like what they had last year and the year before that and basically since KOC got there would be good to have that right now with how good the NFC North is.

3:11:39Pat McAfee:But they're going to have to be patient, I think, with the development of... J.J. McCarthy. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but this is a thousand percent of fireable offense for Kwasi. Boom. Aaron Rodgers even wanted to be a part of that. Bingo. Imagine Aaron. Allegedly. He never told us anything. True. We are not going to say that he told us. We were never told this. This is just kind of what was being talked about at the time. Imagine him KOC's offense. That would be like the first time Justin Jefferson would have 1 ,200 yards right now Instead of 185 like he has And that's the other thing too If the whole thing was JJ wasn't in there Last year Then why wouldn't you bring in a Vet quarterback or hold on to the one of the two All pro vet quarterbacks that you already had Well it's so easy to say it's not a week of evidence No doubt In the moment we weren't saying that were we?

3:12:30Don't want to be looking over his shoulder Every three and a half We should have known. I mean, Carson Wentz's shoulder was tied together by a fucking piece of shoestring, and they were like, no, he's got to start. He's got to play. It was like three weeks in a row, and then a game ends. They're like, yeah, he actually needs an arm transplant. That's how bad it was.

3:12:50Pat McAfee:Carson, I would have done the same thing again. I'm just trying to lay it all in the line for my team. And then we all go, it feels like your team should have needed somebody else maybe at the time. J.J. was what? Remember there was? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was against the Reds. Linebackers were coming over. He's doing a sprawl drill. And they were spiking Carl's head off the turf. Yeah. Fucking puking on the field. Quit being a pussy. Get back out there. Let's go. That was crazy. So on that note, what we're saying is nine's going to have to – sorry. J.J. McCarthy is going to have to develop into not needing nine is what everybody thinks potentially to have success in the NFL.

3:13:27Pat McAfee:Is that a fair assessment, AJ? Yeah, that does seem to be. But I want to know what JJ stands for. Maybe he could go. Was it Jeremiah? Maybe he could go by that. Maybe that's his new altruism. Maybe it is Jeremiah James. You know, that would be good. Jebediah, maybe. We got a Jebediah in there. We got a Jebediah. What if it's Justin James? Yeah, we need it because then we would need Justin James. What if it's Justin Jefferson? That would be so sad. Jonathan James. Johnny James?

3:13:52AQ Shipley:John James.

3:13:53Pat McAfee:John James is a great name. John James on Sundays. Who do we need? Yep. John James. James. Jingle on a field. Name McCarthy too. Whenever he goes out, he throws the ball. Real south. He'll get better. He will. They were telling us they were going to be a better team with this guy. Yep, maybe not as many wins. In a championship. What are Lovsky's saying again? Not just Dan. There's a lot of people telling us this team's going to be better with J.J. McCarthy as quarterback. Still have time. A lot of ball left. A lot of time. NFC North has it. Let's get back to some good D with everything DB, D-Bud.

3:14:32AQ Shipley:A lot of ball left with this Denver Broncos team, too, but they are dominating their division right now. Now, another question with Bo Nix, another sophomore quarterback who had a good rookie year. A lot of room for improvement on the offensive side of the ball, but Vince Joseph has this defense role in leading the league in third downs and also in sacks. And this is Jaquan McMillan, who's been a dog for them, been a great slot defender, had two sacks and one interception in this game. This is the interception, kind of a quarters variation of coverage right here. It just turns to a scramble drill.

3:15:02AQ Shipley:We've seen 15 Patrick Mahomes do this a ton. I love that reroute in the beginning. Love a good reroute in any zone coverage. And then once again, intentions, eyes back on the quarterback. You rarely see Mahomes make this type of mistake. But when he does, you make him pay. And then you just set your offense up in a good position. Unfortunately, it threw a flag, and we talked about it last week. I think it was. we talked about as a defense, blocking the quarterback and blocking the intended receiver. And they hit 15 pretty quick here. They called an illegal block in the back, I believe, on the return.

3:15:33AQ Shipley:But a great play by Jaquan McMillan, who has been a great player for the Denver Broncos for years now in the slot.

3:15:40Pat McAfee:I love that the Denver Broncos' defense is always supposed to be good, and they're without.

3:15:44AQ Shipley:Yes.

3:15:45Pat McAfee:Right? And they're still showing up every single week on here. Is that because of the entire system? And is he going to get a head coaching opportunity, do we think? I think so. Is Vance going to get back into that?

3:15:54AQ Shipley:I think he'll get another opportunity. Yeah, the system is definitely a part of it, but we mentioned it earlier. I forgot which coach you said, but players. If you have players that can come in there, Riley Moss is a very good player. They kind of have that red dot on him right now as far as throwing a lot of flags. He is a physical. He's kind of a handsy guy. He's a white guy. You got Hufango back there. You got Brandon Jones. That's why. Hufango is a big pickup. I think Hufango is great.

3:16:17Pat McAfee:What are you saying? You're saying that he's a white guy? They're throwing the flag on him? No, I'm saying that's why he's got the red dot. This white guy sucks, but he's very fast. You're saying milk check everywhere? Every single time you go out there, and unfortunately, yes, he does get flagged and he does get a little handsy out there. Well, they see it more, you know, obviously. Yeah, exactly. Because it's moving slower.

3:16:34AQ Shipley:We assume. He's moving. He's a dog. They call back a pick six, I believe, on like an eagle contact against him. Ridiculous. It was a very, very questionable call. It was a bullshit call, for sure. But he's been a dog. And it's defense. Bunch of dogs up front. Nick Bedino, he could be defensive player of the year conversation. Jonathan Cooper, he's unbelievable. They got players all up and down this defense on every level.

3:16:57Pat McAfee:Speaking of great defense, what a battle between Seattle and L.A., it appears.

3:17:01AQ Shipley:Absolutely. Speaking of great players on every level, this Los Angeles Rams has the same thing with this Chris Shula-led defense. Now, they had four interceptions this week, so all of the good D could have been from the L.A. Rams. But this is one from Kobe Durant, and we had Puka on a couple days ago, he spoke about Kobe having this – Kobe Bryant, I'm sorry. No, this is Kobe Durant. Yeah, so Kobe Durant outside picking off the speed. Yeah, L.A. Rams because Kobe Durant is on the Seattle Seahawks, so it's kind of a mindfuck here on this defense. But Kobe Bryant is on the Seahawks.

3:17:34Pat McAfee:And it's a lot. And it's in L.A. It's a lot. And it's black. Damn it. And it's black and yellow. I mean, there's a lot of Lakers. Number 14. Quarter. Kobe, Kobe, Kobe.

3:17:42AQ Shipley:Kobe. Kobe, yeah. A dog. So, picking off the speed out here against JSN. Unbelievable play. Great break. That's a very, very tough thing to do when you have your hips open towards the quarterback. It's kind of like a zone turn. And then to put that foot in the ground and get back and make that play. But once again, it starts with the pressure up front. So, if you look at Young with this stunt, they lead the National Football League with the stunt, the left defensive end up to that left hash, right in the face. Boom. So, you try being that quarterback in that position. You can't step into that zone.

3:18:12Pat McAfee:Why can't they block him, Maykill? Well, see, what I would tell my guys is the minute you open your hips, you're fucked. See the right guard open his hips, he's fucked. Can't get it. Boom. You're beat both ways. Yeah, but what do we got to do? We got to set and just let him come to us? No, you got to keep that outside hip up the field. You win with the hip, outside hip. Minute you open, screwed. That's what happens. You got to be able to pass it off. Use your fucking hands. That's a good stunt, though. That's a good game.

3:18:33AQ Shipley:That's a great execution. If you go back to the wide copy, this is quarters coverage, and I believe it's Rashid Shahid in the slot. So if the pressure doesn't get there and the offensive line does pick it up, you get up on that safety and court pause it. Oh boy. That could be he could be out of it. That's 22 a big play receiver obviously but when you don't have that protection up front and as a DB when you know you have those dogs up front you know hey I can sit on this third and nine let me play around the sticks let me make a play and take a chance.

3:19:02Pat McAfee:The entire purpose of that is to get the ball out right there right? That's why they're running that stunt. So everybody is banking on this stunt getting home.

3:19:08AQ Shipley:Yes and as a veteran you're taught to play you know tendencies but you're taught to play the sticks. So it's third and nine and this route is pretty much at the sticks. You pause it here, you see the first down marker up there. So we're playing the sticks. As that safety, you're probably trying to play the sticks as well. So you're hoping Young or Verse or one of those dogs up front get home because if it doesn't, it can be trouble back there. Great play.

3:19:29Pat McAfee:Rams are a good team.

3:19:30AQ Shipley:Kitch has had two of them. Darius Williams had one. So four interceptions on the day.

3:19:35Pat McAfee:What is this? Is this good D, bad D?

3:19:37AQ Shipley:This is the Dallas Cowboys on good D.

3:19:40Pat McAfee:On good D. That's big D on good D. Swing that deep. It's a good deep. Yeah, we're down in big deep. Yeah, they got that good deep. Yeah, Dak is a good deep. But now we got some good deep. Down there in big deep. Terry Jones loves that good deep, huh? Good for them. This is not a topic of conversation for the first 10 weeks. It was not.

3:20:01AQ Shipley:And it's very good for Kenneth Murray, too, because they made the trade for Wilson to bring him over and play some Mike linebacker. And Kenneth Murray has been their Mike linebacker. When you think about the Las Vegas Raiders and their offense, you think about stopping one guy. They got one game record, and that's 89. Brock Byers, I think the best. Everybody's healthy. I think he's the best tight end in the National Football League. And right here, bite up on the play action, fake the genti, and then get back in this middle read and immediately look up the route, get a head around, boom. We talk about tips and overthrows.

3:20:29AQ Shipley:Great awareness by Murray to get his head around, get his arm up, and then great job by Marquise Bell on the back end, take advantage of the tip.

3:20:37Pat McAfee:I can't believe Dallas Cowboys are on a good D segment. They're on a bad D Hall of Fame. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're talking Bad D Hall of Fame. First ever quad box in the history of Bad D. First one. First ever. There it is.

3:20:48AQ Shipley:And now we see why Jerry was grinning up there in the skybox. We talked about Quentin Williams. He had a sack and a half. We talked about the other additions. You got Hooker back healthy. You got Overshawn. Hopefully, you know, you can figure out that knee brace or, you know, get rid of it sooner than later. But a great job taking advantage of that tip in the other ones. Right now, this is a ball game. This is a 17-6 ball game. inching towards that two-minute drill at the end of the first half. So this is a big moment in the game. Kind of after this point, it was all downhill for here. Maybe the Dallas Cowboys go on a run.

3:21:21AQ Shipley:Maybe.

3:21:21Pat McAfee:Maybe the Dallas Cowboys.

3:21:22AQ Shipley:They got a good D. Maybe. They got good defenders. They got good players. And I know Floos is taking a lot of shit, but he has been a good defensive coach in the National Football League for a while.

3:21:32Pat McAfee:Okay, now it's crazy to think that a team other than the Dallas Cowboys is going to be on bad D, but I guess we have to showcase something.

3:21:38AQ Shipley:Yeah, we do. Honestly, to be fair, to be completely fair, the San Francisco 49ers could have been on bad D2. They gave up an NFL record 47 completion, 400. Jacoby can spin it. Jacoby can absolutely spin it. But AQ actually showed this play and talked about this play earlier. It's Brock Purdy being in full control. You send Christian McCaffrey out there to get some intel, get some information. You're under center now. Now it's like check, check, check. And then once you shift to this final formation, pause it here. So now because of you got 21 personnel on the field, two running backs, one tight end.

3:22:12AQ Shipley:Now you have very favorable matchups all over the field. So you got George Kittle matched up on a linebacker here now. And you have a cornerback out wide guarding Juice. So you don't want a cornerback as a defense. I don't want my cornerback guarding a fullback. And you got a linebacker on one of the best tight ends in the National Football League. You got another linebacker on Christian McCaffrey. You got Buda Baker at safety on Kendrick Bourne in the slot, which is another favorable matchup. I love Buddha, but as far as man-to-man coverage, that's not what you want to be. Once again, cover three, basically man-to-man, and you let it run here.

3:22:43AQ Shipley:Great job. Con Man mentioned it earlier with Brock Purdy using his eyes to hold that middle of the field safety, and then you just make a great throw, but he didn't have a chance against George Kidd.

3:22:53Pat McAfee:Christian McCaffrey had it as well. Obviously, it's an incredible throw and incredible catch. Go back to the wide here. Christian McCaffrey's got the same route to the other side, and I'll tell you, is this second play or first play? What is this? this is the same play oh yeah i remember he makes a change i forget that we broke this down uh earlier with akees shipley on his takeaways christian mccaffrey has the same route the other way yeah and he's gone that's a touchdown oh that's a nightmare for that one yeah so much space too that's awful hey think about brock purdigo man it's nice to be back here okay we got christian are we on kittle yeah let's get kittle back in the fray a little bit here let's do that that is a bad d over there in arizona hey q did you call any of this out while you're calling or were you doing bias homer bullshit on the call no i think they probably thought that i was a niners fan by the end because i was so pumped looking watching all the shifts and the motions and all the things that shanahan does obviously i've talked about that a lot over the years so it's real easy for me to see i was talking about a lot i felt bad bid while the owner of the cardinals is this guy worked for us or why is he so excited to call us getting our asses beat by this guy well he really likes their offense well why aren't we doing that we completed 47 passes to be fair, pretty good little offense.

3:24:02Pat McAfee:For some reason, Cardinals. They just keep digging themselves too big a hole. It's two weeks in a row now. I mean, they return the opening kickoff to the 1-0 13 seconds into the game. That's tough. And then you got two fumble recoveries the week before for touchdowns, just 21-0 before you can even blink. That's tough. Very tough. And then you put this on tape.

3:24:19AQ Shipley:Yeah, Niners, they live in kind of 21 personnel. They love that personnel. But when you have Juice, who can do all the different things he can do, you have Christian McCaffrey, who can be a wide receiver or the best running back in the league. You got George Kittle who's a wide receiver or another tackle in the run game. So you put the defense in a blender because you got to try out bigger bodies. You got to try out a base. You can't just go nickel unless you're Seattle and you have Nick who's 230 and plays nickel. So when you put those bodies in, Tom Brady made this point about the Rams because they're doing it a lot in 13 personnel.

3:24:50AQ Shipley:So it's the same thing. You got to try base coverage out there. What Brady said is when you have base coverage on the field, there's only like three or four different variations of coverage you can run. When you get nickel and dime and all these different body types on the field, we can do all these different blitz and disguises, but that's not the case when you have all those big bodies on the field. So you simplify it matchup-wise for the offense, you know what you're going to get, and you get these matchups where you had two players you could basically hit for a touchdown.

3:25:15Pat McAfee:And Brock's not going to miss.

3:25:17AQ Shipley:No.

3:25:18Pat McAfee:Most of these guys aren't. Yeah, I mean, we're not getting back into the conversation. But yeah, Brock Purdy obviously is going to make the right decision. That is why Brock Purdy is Brock Purdy. And the fact that we even forgot about that there for a little bit. We do apologize. Niner seemingly all the way back. Cardinals, bad D. Is there any other bad D that you found around the league?

3:25:36AQ Shipley:One more. And it's tough to say bad D, but it is. And Joe Brady just kind of put the Bucs in a blender here because this looks like man-to-man coverage. You'll see the motion that will give that indicator as well. But when you snap this ball and you look at James Cook, like, and AJ, you can probably expect maybe two or three routes that he's going to run from here. The route that he runs, you're not expecting this. from that position, especially if – I don't know if Levante David had him or the defensive end had him. J.J. Watt was on the call. It was Anthony Nelson. What do you want him to do?

3:26:07AQ Shipley:He said Anthony Nelson had him. I don't know who was responsible for him, but that is a tough, tough route from the backfield. You're not anticipating that. And they did a great job for the receiver just running off the corner, but that's a great job for Joe Brady.

3:26:20Pat McAfee:Was Mike supposed to get him here? No, so it's Peel. I know this. They blitzed Levante, and then that end has Peel on the back, which typically is going out. but they see you're hoping he's running a little bubble you don't expect him going down was this wheel then they were calling for him to do a wheel or just let go

3:26:38AQ Shipley:we would kind of call this like a seam route almost because if you just imagine him as like a tight end and just running this route drawing up it'll look like a seam or like a almost like a slot fade because you got the post and then like the fade behind it then you got a dark knocks coming around

3:26:52Pat McAfee:is there a chance that this is going to come

3:26:55AQ Shipley:and decide yeah but when you run this blitz and you have a peel for that defensive end, that's usually for one route like you're hoping for because you don't want Anthony Nelson guarding James Cook for any route outside of that bubble. And you just have leverage and you just kind of peel with him. And a lot of times if you pressure, you can kind of keep that back end of protection. But this was a design for James Cook all the way. Do we think James Cook was supposed to run –

3:27:16Pat McAfee:yeah, he was supposed to go deep because he's running like side angle there. Does he see that guy maybe supposed to pick him up and decide to cut up?

3:27:21AQ Shipley:I think it's designed. It looked like it's designed.

3:27:24Pat McAfee:Because he's running directly towards the side. Now, granted, that might be the sell. But James Cook sprints towards the sideline here, and then he sees that guy fucking him out of here, or you think it was supposed to be the flat?

3:27:34AQ Shipley:I think that was the route, and it was kind of like the conversation we had yesterday, maybe about how teams start against Todd Bowles' defense, and then it seems like they kind of heat up. So AQ said, hey, I know what they're doing here. So Joe Brady probably knows, hey, if we get this look, if we get this situation, this part of the field, if we get this, if we got James Cook, Cook on a defensive end. I don't care who that could be Miles Garrett. I don't care who that is. That's a favorable matchup. This has been a big trend offensively this year because Tyler Warren did it. LA Rams are doing it.

3:28:08They call it a C-gap insert. Normally you run that stuff wide like AJ we were talking about earlier. But now they're sending you through the C-gap which just changes just a little bit. Now you can run the wheel out of there. Now you put your guy on a blender because you get one-on-one on that back. And also traffic too, right? A lot of traffic and now you can pick people off. There's a lot of things. So now they're sending them through on this C-gap insert and then getting to the routes.

3:28:28Pat McAfee:I love football, boy. I mean, I would hate to be a Buccaneer and Tony Nelson right there, but, boy, I love football. I love the brains. I love everything, TB. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thank you. Great work, buddy. You guys, too. AJ, great work today, Bob. Thank you. In the back, waiting. Go ahead. Sorry, Nelson's got to look at the sidelines and say, you guys absolutely screwed me on that one, coach. You've got to make up for it some other time. This is tough. This is yours going to the sidelines saying that's absolute ass. behind the glass. Good work, boys. Graphics on, boys. Way to go over there.

3:28:58Pat McAfee:Yeah, boy. Good work, boys. You too. Good work. Hey, Tone. Tone, why don't you come out of Hammer? Tone. Tone. You think he puts his pants back on the whole thing whenever he gets up from there? Oh, yeah. Does he take his pants off when he gets in there? He has to slide them back up. He gets comfortable. Oh, you think he's just rubbing his hair all over his feet? Hey, what's up, man? They're saying crazy things about you. Good to see you. Great work today. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We're in this thing together. What's that? Yeah, they were right. That's what we thought.

3:29:31Pat McAfee:I mean, hey, that's the type of culture and chemistry you can't teach. You should see the splooge inside the top of his hat. Yeah. Great work this week, D-Bot. You too, brother. Thank you. Great work. Safe travels, everybody. Team on me. Anything you say, AQ? November football. Almost December football. Hey, now's the time to find out who the most physical group is. Let's go. Hell yeah. Thank you. Team on three. One, two, three.

3:30:23For more information.