PMS 2.0 1478 - OVERREACTION MONDAY, NFL Week 17 Recap, Adam Schefter, JJ Watt, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

18:02Pat McAfee:Holy shit. That's pretty cool. Okay, so that is what Derrick Henry is at this stage. And let's go back a week. He didn't get the ball for the final 12 minutes of the game. Then Harbaugh says, I should have spoke up a little bit. This game, 36 carries. We're riding Derrick Henry. And the Baltimore Ravens go into week 18 in a must-win game for a playoff berth against the Pittsburgh Steelers, seemingly having it figured out that they need to give the ball to the alien they have in the backfield. And that's Derrick Henry, Darius Butler.

18:29Adam Schefter:Yeah, it's not hard to figure out. You have a modern marvel back there running the football. And what he's been able to do throughout his career, you mentioned high school, his college, but what he's been able to do from the NFL level for this long a time is unbelievable. Yeah, just give him the damn ball. And now, you know, you talk about our six-game loss streak with the Colts because of injuries. This team has been dealing with injuries with their quarterback, Lamar Jackson, kind of all season long. He was out, so Derrick Henry needed to step up, and they gave him a career-high 36 carries, 200-plus yards, and four TDs.

19:00Adam Schefter:Green Bay knew it was coming. Baltimore knew it was coming. But it's nothing you can do about it when you've got a guy like this. You mentioned all the different things. Early on in his career, he was kind of bouncing and trying to get outside, going a lot of east and west running. And once he started getting downhill and punishing guys, like you get on that second and third level with linebackers and DVs, nobody wants to tackle this guy.

19:19Pat McAfee:Joins LaDainian Thomas in a pretty good company, and Jim Brown, a great company. He's the only players in NFL history with 25 career games of 100-plus rush yards and multiple rushing touchdowns. Ty, we saw it early with him moving. I mean, he had a touchdown within the first couple minutes, second touchdown, followed suit there. It was like, is Derrick Henry about to have a career day? possibly. Now, back with the Titans, Vrabel, their entire thing was, we're going to hand this off to Derrick Henry, okay? Early. Might be getting an average yard per game, like a yard and a half, two yards. We don't care.

19:48Pat McAfee:We're going to stick with it. Do it again. Then by the third quarter, fourth quarter, it's going to become wide open. Those little holes are going to become bigger holes because Derrick Henry's just going to wear you down, wear you down. He started early against you guys. You were immediately knowing that you were in a tough spot whenever he gets rolling like that, Ty? Yeah, definitely. And just before that, he actually had the most rushing yards in the history of Lambeau Field, and Lambeau Field's been around for quite some time. So when you put that in context with everything, that's pretty crazy.

20:15But yeah, it's one of those things where it's just so demoralizing because once it starts, and like you said, usually you're waiting for that third quarter, fourth quarter, okay, and we'll be okay in the first half. He was unbelievable in the first half, and it's just one of those things your offense has to play perfectly. Like if you're not scoring Because every time the Packers would respond And get a little momentum The Ravens would get the ball back And then immediately boom 8 play, 80 yard drive, 12 minutes off

20:41Pat McAfee:And if the Packers go 3 and out That defense has to face Derrick Henry again I mean it is a lot of pressure to keep the ball And to keep your defense on the sideline a little bit So you don't have to eat more of Derrick Henry's knees I mean it's a real problem for any of these teams That have to square off against the Ravens Yeah for sure and like you said Especially at this part of the season If your defense is even a little banged up, you don't have your A-plus defense out there. And that is exactly what happened. They would turn the ball over or they would score. I don't know if the Ravens had a possession less than six minutes, and all of them were ending in Derrick Henry touchdowns.

21:15Pat McAfee:This is the football that we thought the Ravens would be able to win with. Now, last week they forget to give them the ball. I think it was last year when Harbaugh came out and said, we're not going to be giving Derrick Henry the ball 20-plus times. And then they started giving the ball 20-plus times and they started winning. This year, for some reason, they don't want to give him the ball in certain games and think bad things happen. Then they give him the ball and great things happen. What is it? They're just worried he's going to get hurt. They don't think he can do what he is. What do you think it is about the Ravens potentially not using him all the time?

21:40Pat McAfee:And do you think they'll ever make that mistake again after he literally breaks the record books at Lambeau and in the NFL? It's almost like, hey, we have Lamar Jackson. We're giving him$200 million. Let's use him as much as possible. And because of that, everybody else kind of falls by the wayside. But I saw a stat that's interesting. Snoop Huntley has their only two victories over 500 teams. So it's something to think about like, oh, okay. When Lamar goes out and they focus on Derrick Henry, is that one of those things where, hey, they have more success and no one ever wants to have this conversation?

22:09There are 28 teams that want Lamar Jackson at quarterback, but when they do focus on Derrick Henry, they have more success. Okay, and on that note, number four headline in the NFL, the inevitable.

22:23Pat McAfee:If you grew up in one of these cities, I think you understand that this was inevitable. Sunday night football. The Pittsburgh Steelers in Accrashire Stadium will host the Baltimore Ravens. One of the greatest rivalries in all of sport, certainly in the NFL. The Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers will be battling, not just for an AFC North title, but you lose, you go home. Playoff berth means maybe we can go on a run. Derrick Henry, if he gets in the playoffs, Is there any team that's going to be able to stop him for four quarters if they're able to do it? And on defense's side, are they ever going to be able to just flip the switch and become great at defense?

22:58Pat McAfee:Because they've got stars all over the place. I'm watching that game, and I'm seeing big name, big name. I know that guy. I know that guy. I know that guy. How come they're ass on the defense? How come they haven't been fantastic? Well, let's just say they turn it on, and Derrick Henry's able to do his thing. Are the Baltimore Ravens going to be able to win a playoff game this year? Maybe. If you have a home playoff game, maybe. And the Pittsburgh Steelers, they go all in on the offseason. They're trying to win a Super Bowl. Team's hot. We're doing it. Then we cool off. Just lose to the Cleveland Browns.

23:26Pat McAfee:Oh, my God. But who cares? It's Cleveland, and you move on. You win on Sunday night football, and you're in the playoffs. This was inevitable. And, Tone, I think you were staring it down for the last few weeks, and you're bummed out about it, it feels like. Yeah, it was inevitable. I am bummed out. Soon as – and this is why I was rooting so hard for the Packers on Saturday night, you know, put out the hashtag go Pack go tweet. as soon as they lost all Steelers fans pretty much had a good idea of what was going to happen yesterday because Ravens Steelers week 18 Sunday night football was the inevitable is the thing that we are going to all have to go through once we move past the disappointment of yesterday we'll then be able to focus on this matchup and whether Steelers or Ravens have a chance in it Steelers the last three weeks have given up 78 15 and 63 yards rushing so that will be the game then versus Derek Henry and we should feel good because we didn't dominate.

24:21We won 27-22 the first matchup of the season, but they scored 10 unanswered in the fourth quarter. But, you know, it's just something right now. I'm just mad that it's happening.

24:32Pat McAfee:Yeah, it does feel like you have a lot of negativity. And if you make it in the playoffs, you're going to have to play a primetime game. You know, it feels like he doesn't want a primetime game because he doesn't want the world to see primetime Pittsburgh Steelers. Last game of the year. Because then his mentions become pretty wild. but I like the fact that this is Sunday night football. I like that it's Aaron Rodgers and his Pittsburgh Steelers team playing for life or death for their season, not for actuality. And now Hembo Center versus that, this will be the second time that Aaron Rodgers will play in a win or go home game for the division title in the final week of the season.

25:03Pat McAfee:The other came in 2013 against the Bears, leading the Packers to a 33-28 victory and a late touchdown to Randall Cobb in the final minute. This is what we have here, actually. It's 28-27, 46 seconds left. Fourth and eight, Aaron Rodgers. Magic to that stud, that handsome, blue-eyed Randall Cobb. Those were good old days, Ty, weren't they? Yeah, they certainly were. Ben Johnson's done on the sideline for that Bears team. And that was before they were good, better, or best. And that was when they were letting it rest instead of never letting it rest until the good became better and their better became best.

25:34Pat McAfee:Bears are certainly a different team now than they were then. Jay Cutler, obviously, smoking Jay. We're certainly a fan of him as a human. But the Green Bay Packers getting a late win or go home. touchdown like that is special. Would that be the same thing that happens on Sunday night with the Pittsburgh Steelers? Do you think the Pittsburgh Steelers have a shot against this Baltimore Ravens team who seemingly just found who they were in Week 17 going into the biggest game of the year?

25:56Adam Schefter:Yeah, and that last matchup a big reason the Steelers won was because DK. DK Metcalf had a big game and now DK won't be there. We saw the guys who were there when the game was on the line. So I think they'll be missing number four and I think the Ravens will, whether Lamar plays or not, I think they're going to lean heavy on 22, keep giving the ball, and force the Steelers to show up and stop them. We'll see if they can do it. But I like the Ravens going into this one.

26:21Pat McAfee:Yeah, it's going to be hard. Nah, it's Aaron Rodgers. Let's remember. Guy just ran for 236. I mean, it's going to be hard not to think about all these things as we're picking this game. We don't have to do that today. We'll do that on Friday. The dog in this series between Harbaugh and Tomlin is 25-8-3 against the spread. Against the spread. What about straight up? Well, I know the Steelers were dogs in Baltimore earlier in season one. Oh! Okay, so I won it on the last one.

26:45Adam Schefter:That's definitely too many points.

26:47Pat McAfee:Three and a half. It always seems to be three and a half in this game. Well, is Aaron going to treat MVS like Megatron? Might have to.

26:53Adam Schefter:He might have a great week of practice. What was the demon? The demon was out there. I mean, is Artie going to forget that we're paying Jonu and Muth more than anybody else on the offense? I don't know. The real question is, is Ryan Kennedy going to be sitting in Accordshire Stadium front row wearing a backwards Ravens hat? That's kind of what this comes down to.

27:15Pat McAfee:People are thinking he's actually working for the Baltimore Ravens. Correct. All season. And he said in his press conference on Friday, I've been a season ticket holder. I've never had a violation. You can look it up. I respected him sitting in there and explaining his entire situation, especially when it comes to animal cruelty and racism. I agree, by the way. I agree. I shout out to Ryan Kennedy doing that. But a lot of people are saying, this feels like this was like a Baltimore Ravens, super high intel chess play almost maybe. Getting DK Metcalf, the guy who was their weapon and explosive weapon, out for the last two weeks.

27:48Pat McAfee:I'm sure Butto would be sending a thank you to Ryan Kennedy if the Baltimore Ravens were able to get into the playoffs. But I saw them all pulling for the Cleveland Browns as well. So it seems like Baltimore vibes, fans, team, everything, good. Steelers, full disarray. You lose to the Cleveland Browns. You got Shador Sanders throwing pump fakes in the air. They threw it. That ball has to be done. That thing's still floating right to his guy. That's a touchdown. Pittsburgh Steelers-Ravens Sunday night football for the title for a playoff berth. That's a beautiful thing. What a ball. I mean, that's exactly what it's supposed to be.

28:20Pat McAfee:And it's not just the only great game we have in Week 18. Week 18 is about to be epic. We have an epic final weekend of the NFL season on deck. You have the Carolina Panthers-Tampa Bay Buccaneers Saturday 4.30 kicking it off. That's for the NFC South title. Winner goes, loser. Seattle Seahawks versus the Niners. Oh, that's just for the number one seed. That's on Saturday night at 8 p.m. on ESPN. And then for Sunday, 425, a lot of 4 o 'clock games that are good. Chargers, Broncos, that's for if the Broncos win, they get the number one overall seed. If they lose, they could potentially drop to the third overall seed because they're still AFC West chance for the first time in a decade, so they'll certainly be top four.

28:59Pat McAfee:But there's a world where the Jags win, I believe, Broncos lose, and then the Broncos are the third seed, Patriots are the one seed, Jags are the two seed. So everything for this is seeding purposes, but for the Broncos, the 7.5-point favorites, I like that team a lot. I like the Denver Broncos a lot, especially with big ball Bo Nix. Hey, big Bo Nix is actually spinning it right now, and it feels like he's under complete control of the offense. Now, if you watch this Denver Broncos team all year, you think to yourself, well, it hasn't been that electrifying to watch. The finishes haven't been that big of blowouts.

29:33Pat McAfee:The defense is still who the defense is, and Bo Nix is only getting better, seemingly, D. Butch, as they take on the Chargers in the final week to potentially be the number one seed in the AFC.

29:43Adam Schefter:Yeah, this is crazy. The turnaround in Bo Nix, the jump that he's made from year one to year two, he's been great. Sean Payton and his defense, like this defense, this pass rush against the Chargers offensive line and those group of guys that try to block for Justin Herbert. It's going to be a scary situation to watch. We just saw it in the Houston game. Even though it was still a close game, once again, some late calls down the stretch there on both sides. But it's going to be a great battle in AFC West this whole week 18. But this Denver Broncos team, electric finishes, and I feel like Bo Nix plays his best ball when it's the highest pressure moment.

30:17Adam Schefter:So I love that about quarterbacks, especially a young quarterback like Bo.

30:20Pat McAfee:I like Bo. Oh, yeah. I like the way he plays. I like the way Sean Payton. And remember, this Denver Broncos team decided last year to take on the biggest salary cap hit in the history of football. Now, are they laying down kind of the groundwork or trailblazing for other franchises to cut bait with bad contracts and just go forward with people that want to be there? Maybe. But what they have been able to accomplish with not as much money as everybody else is certainly fantastic. And if they're the number one seed in the AFC, that would be bananas.

30:48Adam Schefter:You like Bo? You like Bo more than you like Justin Herbert? Ooh. Healthy, Bo.

30:55Pat McAfee:Absolutely not. Justin Herbert is full track meet. Okay? So I feel like any time you judge quarterback, and we're part of the problem, we don't talk about the entire picture. Justin Herbert's running for his life a lot. Everybody. I mean, it feels like he's running for his life a lot. Now, is there always going to be excuses? Like, is that always going to be the excuse, potentially? But they've had some pretty impactful injuries at that offensive line, and Herbert is seemingly always running for his life. And against his Denver defense, I just don't know if that's the position I want to be in, but I have faith in Herbert.

31:26Pat McAfee:Like, Herbo is not. You should be a good one. I'm a big fan. Very good. Will they ever be able to just figure it out, though? Like, you know? Like, they always have it.

31:34Adam Schefter:It's tough. And that's why we put so much respect on teams that actually go and win it, especially if you win multiple championships, because there's always teams or franchises or quarterbacks or coaches that you can make excuses for. That's just life. That's football. So the teams and the quarterbacks and the coaches that can kind of get over that hump and win a big game, whether it's the Buffalo Bills, can they finally go and get it down the stretch? The Patriots, oh, they're not tested yet. They haven't played a tough schedule. It's always these built-in excuses for everyone. So we'll see who can figure it out.

32:04Adam Schefter:But, I mean, watching Judge Herbert against even this Texans team, like you expect it coming into the game. You know what that pass rush is. You know what his offensive line is. And you actually watch the game, you're like, damn, like I feel bad for that guy. Sometimes you never want to feel bad for an NFL player, especially a quarterback. But, like, you see shit like this and it's like, come on, man. But I guess it happens, you know, pretty much every game. But it should be a great one. Seven and a half points I think is a lot of points for a divisional opponent's week 18, but I'm excited to watch it.

32:30Pat McAfee:So, on that note about the Texans' defense and what the Broncos' defense, Chris Rim reported via ESPN Research, the Texans pressured Justin Herbert 20 times on Saturday. That's his fourth game with 20-plus pressures this season, most by a quarterback in a season since Justin Herbert in 2022. It's like, are they ever – they tried. Harbaugh comes in, first draft pick, oh, we need another one. We need to do this. And then you get a couple injuries, and all of a sudden it's back to the same old shit, and it's Herbert running for his life. Actually running for his life back there. Well, it just – you know, you read that, and it makes you feel like they're never going to get it figured out.

33:02And again, maybe they do have that excuse in place because they have tried to do everything they can. But every time we go into a season, I feel like everyone's hot on the Chargers because of how good Herbert is and because of Jim Harbaugh. And then at this point in the season, we're saying the exact same thing. It's like, well, he's running for his life on every single play. His offensive line sucks. His skill position players aren't as good as they need to be. It's just a broken record over and over. But who knows? Maybe this is the year that changes. Well, and that's the thing. They've been strapped for cash for so long.

33:31I mean, we forget that they got rid of Keenan Allen, Mike Williams a couple years ago. They got rid of Joey Bosa. They've had to get rid of a bunch of players. Now, if there was ever a year for the Chargers to make a run, it would be when the Chiefs completely fall off. But instead, you know, the Broncos kind of rise up with the second easiest schedule in the NFL. People forget to talk about it. And that's why with the Chargers. Who had the easiest? The New England Patriots. Everyone talks about that, though. With the Chargers, with Herbert, though, that was the first time on Saturday where it was like, wow, okay, this guy is so screwed.

34:00damn near every single play. They should have scored, what, three touchdowns? They should have had 24 points at least against the Texans. We're talking about the Texans with the field goals. Dicker misses a kick that he statistically...

34:12Pat McAfee:Most accurate kicker in the history of the NFL. Yeah, so it's like everything seemingly always goes wrong for the Chargers. That's why it's damn near impressive that Herbert has willed them to 11 wins. Now, who knows what happens in the playoffs if all the favorites win. To your point about the seeding, they end up with the 7th seed, and they end up traveling to New England. So it's just, will they ever figure it out? I don't know. I genuinely hope they do, though, because watching Justin Herbert is a treat every single time he's on.

34:39Adam Schefter:Their defense is very good, too. Defense has been playing well under Mentor, so they'll have a chance.

34:44Pat McAfee:And he's gone. And he's gone. Yeah, is he going to be gone to be a head coach? Who knows? Let's move to the next headline. You mentioned potentially having to travel to New England. The not-so-evil empire is back. We've been talking about this for a bit now, And I think it's maybe because of who we are. But we like Vrabel as football coach. We like Vrabel as human. We like Vrabel's story, getting kicked out of Tennessee and basically going freeloading to Cleveland Browns for a year back at his hometown and then going back to the place in which he's in the Hall of Fame. Drake May, this guy was talked about being a guy who, yeah, he's athletic, but it's going to take forever.

35:18Pat McAfee:Every time he answers any question, he says the right thing. And he's damn near perfect. I think he just had the best quarterback game in the history of football. Yeah, ever, ever. is the highest QBR in the history, single-game QBR in the history of any quarterback that's ever played football since 2006. Drake May just did that. Now, granted, we're going into the playoffs, so what a time to play your best football is what we're aiming for, but not only does he play best football on the field, it's like off the field, he says everything that you would want your lead mind, your front mind to say and be like.

35:46Pat McAfee:Seems like the entire team loves him. Seems like the locker room is together. Vrabel has it right, and it's hard to hate this team. I'm going to be honest. It's hard to hate the New England Patriots. Now, will we be able to figure out how to hate them if they start stacking up Lombardis like they did for the last 20 years before in the last dynasty? But it's crazy to think that the evil empire, the New England Patriots, are all the way back. Could be the number one seed in the AFC. Could obviously win the Super Bowl this year. No questions. They have everything that you could potentially win a Super Bowl with.

36:13Pat McAfee:And it's almost a more likable squad because it's more unexpected at this stage. Is that what it is, D-Bot?

36:18Adam Schefter:I don't know. Maybe we're too close to it because we like Vrabes. We know Vrabes. I mean, most of us, we like Diggs. We like a lot. I love Drake May. We love him. I think outside, if you zoom out a little bit, I think the majority of NFL fans probably still hate the Patriots and probably will forever hate the Patriots because they always won. They always got calls. And now you got another second coming of the quarterback that you lost to for two decades. So I think the hate is still out there. I think they still are the evil empire, even though they are more like what we had. Shregs up here, he was talking about from a media standpoint, being in the building, and how it feels different.

36:53Adam Schefter:People actually smile about you, not walking on eggshells and shit like that. But, yeah, I think that's still an evil impact. He got choked up.

36:59Pat McAfee:He got trapped in that place.

37:00Adam Schefter:Yeah, man. He got choked up seeing him back.

37:02Pat McAfee:Go ahead. It's funny you said something in there that I just – I don't want to completely go there yet. He's not the second coming because he's kind of the first coming. No one's ever done the shit he's doing. My apologies. It's okay. You know what? I will forgive you for this time. He's the first ever quarterback with 90 % completed passes while throwing for 250 yards and five touchdowns in a single game. He actually was removed from the game with 530 left in the third quarter. So that would have been for 300-plus yards and probably seven-plus touchdowns in a single game, but we were robbed of that.

37:35But that's because the Jets are the worst franchise in all of sports. He's also the first-ever quarterback with 4 ,200 pass yards, 30 pass touchdowns. What? 110 pass already. What? 400-plus rush yards. What? Four rushing touchdowns. I mean, that's the coolest thing for me is that he also has the mobility that people forget about. And then, yes, to the one that was just shown, this is just the second time ever that a team has gone from 13 losses to 13 wins. Drake May's first year to his second year and Peyton Manning's first year to his second year. And you might say, well, this is a 17-game season.

38:09Well, shut up. We did it in 16 games. This is, and I can't emphasize enough, the coolest feeling ever. You know, as a Patriots fan who went through all the shite, it was tough. But to sit here last night and watch a scene like this, and I don't know if we even want to play the audio, but it's just the Patriots watching the Bills melt, and the Bills actually became, you know, the first team ever to win five straight division titles and not go to a Super Bowl once. Kind of cool, I guess, too, for a New England Patriots fan, another victory you can take. But it all starts with that guy. It truly is Mike Vrabel.

38:42And just seeing the vibe around it is something that is new when it comes to winning. Because the winning shit isn't new for New England Patriots fans. But the winning with a smile on your face, that is new. It is cool to see all the players get the love and kind of respect that they deserve from the layman, if you will, and from the football fan. But yeah, you might as well listen to it.

39:03Pat McAfee:No, no, no, listen to it. Him calling everybody up at the FBO after a game, after a flight home, not normal. This is an abnormal situation just in general. and by the way to your point about Vrabes just everybody buying in, yup, Vrabes is talking let's go ahead and relax and you hear, every time you hear a Stephon Diggs talk with everything that's ever been said about Stephon Diggs in the world that Stephon Diggs is currently in where he's more famous than he's ever been I would assume his clout is higher than he's ever been it's like listening to him be a leader on the team that was clearly Vrabel going to him early like hey, I'm going to need you to be a guy in here it's like what he does, how he does it clearly gets everybody to buy him but it's winning football

39:38Adam Schefter:it's winning football as well And you mentioned it a few times before that he kind of seems like he's in it with the guys. Like, yeah, I'm in it with the guys. Obviously, my vote just counts 10. And I don't know, you probably have more context, but I saw a clip, and they have the audio on with him and Christian Barmore going into a halftime. I think Barmore may have got into it with another player. Yeah. And you see, like, Vrabel, like, in his face going back and forth. And that's the thing. A lot of coaches are put in a position, and sometimes they avoid those type of conflicts or those type of conversations with their players.

40:06Adam Schefter:But Vrabel just steps right into it.

40:08Pat McAfee:I assume he said, like, hey, we'll fight him afterwards. Something like – it felt like – It was like a very, very intense – And he hit him in the chest, too. Fravel hit him in the chest a couple times. Like, yo, we don't need that right now. Who you are and who they are. I think it was – and hopefully they do have the mic'd up moment. I think they won 8-0 on the road. I think that was something they all talked about as motivation. You heard Stephon Diggs talk about it. You heard Drake May talk about it. I think people on the defensive side talked about it. And I think they said something about packing their culture.

40:33Pat McAfee:Is that what they said? We can pack our culture, take it on the road. I forget what it was. They had a tagline, though, that multiple guys said. It was like, oh, this is how Vrabel motivated these guys. 8-0 on the road, and we can pack or something. I forget what it was. But basically trying to prove like, hey, we can go and do this. There's been other teams in the past here that have done this. We need to accomplish it. Felt obvious that that was the motivating factor going into the final week against the New York Jets, and they obviously smacked the hell out of the New York Jets, who might be.

41:00Pat McAfee:They are. They are actually a friend of the program right here, a good friend Michael Cole of the program. He has jumped ship. He is now a New England Patriots fan. He is done with the Jets. That's not real. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I'm telling you. That can't be real. Just think about the kick thing that happened with that lady. Just think about that. Let alone your ass. Your team is cheeks. This is a butthole operation from top to bottom, and it has been. Then this girl is doing a kick for her dad, and then they find out that she might actually be able to make this thing. She played middle school soccer.

41:33She can't do this.

41:34Pat McAfee:We thought there was no chance she would make it. No way. Did you see Nick play tennis? There's no way this lady's able to make a field goal. Then they find out somebody goes like, hey, she's a high school soccer. She has kicked before. Cancel it. Cancel that thing. Completely get that out of there. It's like everything they do is like, how can we be the most hateable franchise? Like, how can we make our fans hate us more than they did before? And obviously that is just kind of in it. And we would have done a kick. We reached out to the Rose Bowl where the next game day is. and we thought there'd be no chance Rose Bowl people would say yes.

42:04Pat McAfee:And with the torrential downpour potentially coming, who knows how it'll go. The Rose Bowl people are like, yeah, you can use the field for game day for her to kick, by the way. So we were going to do that. That was something that was happening. So when I put the eyeballs up on that thing, I very much text, call, easy. Let's see, can we do this? It would have been for$252 ,000. You know, and I think it would have been at the Rose Bowl, whether or not she wanted to do that. So shout out to the Rose Bowl saying, yes, we will definitely do that. And also shout out to the Jets for saying, actually, yeah, she can do the$100 ,000 kick now.

42:31Pat McAfee:Now, she missed it, which stinks. A lot of people missing kicks. I mean, that's pretty obvious going out there. But just everything about the organization sucks. And then you start seeing, well, it's a new defensive head coach and a defensive mindset. It's like, well, they have zero interceptions on the season. Zero? Zero. None. Not even like one that was tipped up? Nope. Tips, overthrows. Got to get those? They ain't. They ain't get any of them. That is just something that hasn't happened. Defensive coach. Now, they trade pieces away, great piece away, to get more assets. and obviously they'll make the right decisions on what those assets should be going forward.

43:03Pat McAfee:We assume maybe. I'm a fan of Aaron Glenn, but the shit that's coming out about this defense being historically terrible and this team being historically terrible is outrageous. Lost four straight games by 23 points in the history of the NFL football. History. Jets in 2025. Then you got to go back to the 70s, the 50s, the 30s, and the 20s. The Oorang Indians in 1923. lost four straight games by 23 plus points. And you think to yourself, the Oorang Indians, that's not a team. It is. Yeah, Nicky Sass's boys. Yes, actually, you do know of them. Who was the star on? Jimmy Thorpe. Yeah, you ever heard of him?

43:43Pat McAfee:The Jim Thorpe? Yes, Jim Thorpe was the star. The Oorang Indians were a team of all Native Americans. I can't believe they called themselves that. I don't know if they know how offensive that was to themselves at the time. Okay, obviously, that would vastly be different now. but the orang indians were a team uh jim thorpe was on that was led by a guy who was literally just trying to sell dogs from his dog kennel they lost four straight games 23 plus points they didn't think it could be done at the time their first team ever do it 1923 teams like there's no way you could be this ass and then the orang indians were like it's not about football anyways we're trying to sell these sweet dogs they got very cool the airdale terriers i believe is the name of the dogs good looking dogs i mean they got good stances good posture good good noses and everything.

44:27Pat McAfee:Smart dogs. They were named the Oorang Indians because the name Oorang was a kennel where this guy was trying to sell dogs. There it is. That's the dog they're trying to move. That ain't the dog, actually. Is that Jim Thorpe? That's not the Airedale dog. Yeah, Bruce got completely wrong. Jim Thorpe loves dogs, though, which we certainly respect. That's not the Airedale that they were trying. That's what was Ryan Kennedy. Yeah.

44:47Adam Schefter:What's that? You're right. Oh, yeah. That's one of the things.

44:50Pat McAfee:Oh, yeah. Animal cruelty. I completely forgot. Space hot. But anytime you're in the same conversation as the Ourang Indians, who are a team that was literally only put together to move some dogs, you know it's not going well. And that's the New York Jets of this season. It's first year with a new head coach. He's a defensive coach, and we love Aaron Glenn, but we don't save him. We don't know if they could be saved over there in New York, honestly.

45:15Adam Schefter:I mean, it was ugly all the time, but you talk about zero interceptions, that seems impossible to be able to do there. I think they're second or third to last in the league when it comes to sacks as well you mentioned trading uh quinn and williams trading sauce gardener so obviously they were tanking on this year it was a little stretch in the middle of the season i think they won two or three maybe back-to-back games but yeah it's just an all-around shit show from the top down in new york jets say i mean will it be one and done i hope not for erin glenn i like erin glenn i hope so for erin they have all these picks get out will they do the right thing they haven't done it historically let's see if they can figure it out but i mean that that shit is it's all time bad The only thing I was thinking with this game right after halftime was get Drake May out.

45:57Adam Schefter:Like, I would hate to see him just go down and be hurt for the playoffs or anything like that because this team, who Brady Cook was that quarterback now? Yeah. It's just, it's a shit show. Well, and that's why when you say, like, we like Aaron Glenn, I actually don't because the only thing that I was worried about was the injuries, and then they're doing cheap bullshit after the plays. It's like, okay, so this guy, or I won't say this guy, but this team is a detriment to football because watching them makes you not like the sport. But then at the other side of it, it's, oh, I'm now worried about just the safety and medical future of the players of the team I root for.

46:29When you think of the front office and ownership, they're crooks. I mean, sure, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Pittsburgh Pirates guy, Bob Nutting, he just goes down to the Pirates field and he collects a check and he doesn't spend money. And that's cool and great.

46:43Pat McAfee:We just paid O 'Turn, thank you. That's right. Two years,$26 million. In baseball, that is basically pennies. But again, it's one of those things where they're honestly just collecting checks, and that's how it feels. No matter what you say about this Jets team, there's nothing you can look at and say, like, that's good. Garrett Wilson hasn't played since October, and he's their leading receiver. It's almost January. That is abysmal. It's pathetic beyond sports. It's pathetic in the sense of getting Fs and finishing last in a race where you should finish first. I don't even know what to compare it to because it's so embarrassing.

47:18And as a Patriots fan, as a member of the AFC East, I'm calling for their fans to either veto some sort of movement or growth within MetLife, within the team. If I'm Aaron Glenn, if I'm a fan of Aaron Glenn, I'm telling him, hey, you've got to chain yourself to the practice facility and say, hey, no one's allowed to use this thing until either ownership sells, until they completely redo their front office because there isn't any hope. And guess what's going to happen? They're going to use those picks they got. They're going to draft two guys and bolt those guys. One of them might be really good.

47:51They're going to trade him in three years after whoever they draft that quarterback doesn't work out. And most likely as well, they're never going to rebuild. The Dolphins, I have way more faith in the Dolphins. The Bills have Josh Allen and the Patriots have Drake May and Mike Freiburg. Realistically, the Jets are not going to win for another 20-plus years unless there's changes. I-J-E-T-S. Jets. Jets. Jets. He quit again. Unfortunately, it is our fifth retirement tour for Fireman Ed. Fireman Ed has called it again. He's doing the George Blanda. He's doing what you're saying.

48:24Pat McAfee:Yeah, he's saying. Enough. Enough of this. Enough of this. I used to run towards fires, not away from him. Why am I standing up to cheer for dumpster fires? I'm a firefighter. I'm supposed to be fighting against these things. Exactly. And he feels like what he's cheering for at this point is a fire. Now, on that note, they were not in the lame bowl yesterday between the Raiders and the Giants. That was another team that caused MetLife. So shout out to the New York, New Jersey people.

48:48Adam Schefter:You're doing great. Jump ship. At least they had a run. Giants. Yeah, they did. Oh, yeah.

48:55Pat McAfee:The Jets did too. Remember Broadway Joe? No, I don't remember. Yeah, me neither. I've just seen a clip. Yeah. They look like a good time. He's by the pool. There's no social media. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we're going to do this. Sick. All right, let's go to the number one headline coming out of the weekend. By far, the Sunday night thriller. The game of the year. Between the 11 and 4 Chicago Bears versus the 11 and 4 San Francisco 49ers. Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson taking on Brock Purdy, Kyle Shanahan. Now, Shanahan, Ben Johnson. Hello. I mean, here we are. Obviously, McVay's name gets tossed in there and some others.

49:35Pat McAfee:But whenever you're talking about offensive minds, when you're talking about offensive brilliance, you're talking about those two coordinators. And then the defense coordinators in this game, Dennis Allen, former head coach. Robert Sala, former head coach. So whenever you talk about four supreme, incredible coordinators, you talk about this particular matchup. In forecasting it, I don't think we would have expected a shoot-up. I don't think we would have expected this thing to get to what it got to. But as we were watching it, any of us could think to ourselves, it was, wow, football is the greatest.

50:02Pat McAfee:Brock Purdy's obviously dancing his ass off. He's got the Dougie down pat. He said he'd been practicing that in front of the mirror. He certainly has. First play, pick six, Chicago Bears defense. how you doing keep it moving in santa claire 15 seconds into this game it's seven nothing chicago bears is brock purdy gonna have one of those ass games that he's had in the past is christian mcaffrey not gonna be able to do anything uh-uh christian mcaffrey goes absolutely harm now i put out a couple tweets about christian mcaffrey and the way we talk about him is as if he's a machine he never gets tired how is this guy on the field all the time how does this guy get the ball all the time how does he take this many hits how is he able to just never get tired and how is he always explosive because you know in uh in boxing later rounds the the juice is all gone so laying in a massive shot in like the 10th 11th 12th 30th is going to be difficult just because you don't have enough explosion in you because of how long the fight has been in the fourth quarter third quarter after you've gotten the ball 40 times both through the sky and on the ground i don't know how there's any explosion left in your body.

51:06Pat McAfee:He somehow always has it. Always explosive. Never gets tired. Always has the ball. And this dude is special. And Brock Purdy, he's seemingly at a different level this year. The Purdy moxie is fantastic. It's not just through the sky and understanding what is going on. How about on the ground, I'm going to be faster than you, and then I'm going to do my shit. Yeah, I'm going to, ah, ah, ah, ah. Hey, hey. I saw some white people on the internet saying what Purdy was doing was cringe. Yeah, right. Purdy crushes that thing. Now a little bit of a juke here, you know, stays clean. He didn't even give us the Hulkster.

51:34Pat McAfee:Huh? Excuse me. Let me hear it, Santa Clara. You got an absolute dog here getting paid$50 million a year. And then this play, obviously going to run for the rest of time for Brock Purdy on Sunday Night Football. He's shaking. He's baking. He's cooking. He's looking. And touchdown Harvard. Big brain juice with the perfect spike. And Brock Purdy got Euro stepped. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Brock Purdy, unbelievable. Now, Trent Williams pulls a hamstring. Okay, so what is that going to do? George Kittle obviously not playing. What are they going to look like going forward? But this San Francisco 49ers team outgunned, outmanned, outlasted the Chicago Bears team who had a chance.

52:12Pat McAfee:The Chicago Bears had four seconds left on the clock, down four. And they had Caleb Williams with the ball in his hands. All he had to do was score a touchdown from the two-and-a-half-yard line. He's cooking. He's moving. Is anybody open? Final answer, no. Was he throwing? Yes. Does Tirico make a great call? Absolutely. Love the energy. The San Francisco 49ers win. The San Francisco 49ers won that game on that play. Nobody was open. Now, were we expecting some Ben Johnson shit? They ran a hook and ladder right before that to get down there. Was there a two-point play maybe that could have happened that Ben Johnson had in his back pocket to win the game?

52:46Pat McAfee:Potentially. But instead, what we saw was an electrifying, epic, instant classic between these two teams, who obviously are going to have great runs in the playoffs, and potentially are only getting started with these two franchises for the next five, ten years. Thank you, football. Thank you, Bears. Thank you, Niners. Thank you, Sunday Night Football, D-Bud.

53:04Adam Schefter:Yeah, unbelievable stop right there by De 'Aminor Lenore at that corner on that hook and ladder. If he likes to get that edge right there or even get out of bounds, it's kind of a different game down there. You kind of maybe some Bears fans want to just play a little closer to the end zone, but if he wins, they win it. He scores right there. Ben Johnson's a genius. Just a great game by both teams, both offenses. Usually you can find some corner of the Internet bitching or moaning or something about any game, and most of the internet is pretty universally agreed, like, hey, this is a great game.

53:34Adam Schefter:This is a great primetime game. Went back and forth. Wasn't history, I think, back and forth being tied all the way up to 35. Just an unbelievable game. Great game by Caleb Williams as well. 330 in the air, two touchdowns, no interceptions. But back-to-back games now for Brock Purdy being responsible for five touchdowns. And we always talked about it earlier in his career. Hey, he's just doing this because of Kyle or Deebo or Aiyuki. You mentioned all those names being out of the lineup and then putting this shit on his back. So just a big-time performance by both of these teams and an unbelievable job by the Niners.

54:02Adam Schefter:Still got a chance to get the one seed to have, you know, home field advantage throughout the Super Bowl. Tong is doing his thing.

54:08Pat McAfee:Pearsall doing his thing. Jennings doing his thing, having a couple massive plays. And it's like without Fred, we saw Fred last night, which was cool. It was good to see Fred. He was pretty active. Without Bosa, is this team going to have enough? Do they have enough on the defensive side? I know Ben Johnson and Chicago Bears' offense is very good, but do the Niners have enough on the defensive side? They're playing for the number one seed.

54:26Adam Schefter:No, I think that would be the question for both of these teams. The defense, can they step up and stop? You gave up 80 points on the field. So I don't think either one of these teams have enough on that side of the ball. Offensively, I think both of these teams can make a run.

54:36Pat McAfee:Okay, so that's the number one headline coming out of Week 17 is the Sunday Night Thriller. What are a couple things we missed, D-Butt, you think?

54:43Adam Schefter:We kind of mentioned it a little bit with the Broncos. First time in 10 years in a decade winning their division. Last time, I believe, is when they went to the Super Bowl. And then on the flip side, on the other side, the NFC, the Eagles, they get an ugly, ugly win in Buffalo. But their defense since week eight, giving up 15 points per game since that Jalen Phillips trade. Cooper DeGene has been phenomenal. Quinion Mitchell, also a pro bowler. Two pro bowlers in the back end. Jalen Carter's back. And whenever he's on the field, he's going to be dominant. Had his mitt on another field goal this weekend.

55:15Adam Schefter:So, yeah, this is a team that is poised to make a run in the playoffs. I've never jumped off the Eagles bandwagon. I know my head coach just missed the locker room, but I'm still on the bandwagon. I think they can get hot and get rolling.

55:25Pat McAfee:Josh Allen missing that throw. Abnormal. Completely abnormal. Jalen Carter blocking a kick, the extra point of Michael Badgley, not abnormal. He's a guy. Obviously, Jalen Carter has become a part of this. And maximum effort on field goal or extra point blocks is a good sign from your best players, especially with Jalen. And if he has a little bit of hope that he's going to be able to get it, he's going to continue to push. Them going for two, I didn't mind it. I mean, I know people are saying, hey, Eagles offense, I think Jalen Hurts was 0 for 7 in the second half passing, which is like the worst, I think, out of any team that's ever won a football game in the history of football or something like that.

56:00Pat McAfee:So why not take this to overtime? You have it. It's like, well, you have all the momentum, too. The guy's wide open. Josh Allen does what Josh Allen does 99 out of 100 times and puts this on him. They win the game right there, and everybody says they love the play. So it's very Monday morning quarterback-ish to be able to go after the decision. But on that note, Josh never misses them. No.

56:18Adam Schefter:He's bringing MVP. He put the ball in his hands.

56:20Pat McAfee:And Coach Sirianni afterwards was talking his shit going up the tunnel.

56:32Not so much anymore.

56:35Pat McAfee:AJ's ID got it. Locker room's right here. Almost missed the locker room. That locker room's been there since the beginning of that stadium. Them coming down the same tunnel, out the same tunnel, is obviously a part of a lot of different scenes in the history of ball. But him almost missing that locker room just so he can talk his shit, feels like Sirianni's back. The Eagles defense is back. Is Jalen going to be able to get back? We shall see.

57:24JJ Watt:protecting both your people and your facilities. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. O 'Reilly Auto Parts can help take the guesswork out of your check engine, ABS, or maintenance light with O 'Reilly Veriscan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. O 'Reilly Veriscan can identify the most likely problem with just one scan. If you need help, O 'Reilly Auto Parts can recommend to shop for you. Don't ignore a check engine, ABS, or maintenance light. Ask for O 'Reilly Veriscan today. A free service exclusively at O 'Reilly Auto Parts.

58:06Pat McAfee:Football! Here's the greatest. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. It's not just me, obviously, the toxic tables here at Boston Corner. Fan of the AFC East Champ, New England Patriots! Been there one night. Yeah, exactly. Wish we cared about division titles and stuff I'll fight that when we count Super Bowls. Okay. Yep. All right. Sounds good. Ty Schmidt, obviously. Green Bay Packers fan. Malik Willis, a player. Might be a little bit too good of a player. What? I don't know. You know, after watching that game, you know, I mean, you maybe have a couple ice cold pops in and you're starting to think, well, we're already in the playoffs.

58:42Jordan loves in concussion protocol. Maybe he just stays in concussion protocol for a couple more weeks. Let him get healthy, fully healthy. you know brain injuries are very serious i don't want you know anything to happen to him and i really maybe wouldn't mind seeing malik willis you know in the first round of the playoff wow boy that offense was humming now granted defense looked like hammered dog shit but the offense was

59:05Pat McAfee:absolutely humming on saturday on that note micah has got his acl surgery i believe well soon he uh posted a photo yeah we would like send positive thoughts and prayers to micah parsons as he covers and everybody else that's going through surgery. Obviously, a season, a game of attrition is what football is. You get a couple important injuries, you know. Boy, your season could change. And they're talking about collapses. You know, the Packers are one of them. Yep. Colts are another one. Yep. It's not great. No, we made the playoffs still, though. Ooh. You know. One out of the hammer. Die. Cowboys AP Town is here.

59:39Pat McAfee:Collapses. Are the Pittsburgh Steelers going to be a part of that conversation? Or are the Pittsburgh Steelers going to have a home playoff game after a big-time win at Hackershire. Yo, and I was super down, but then I forgot that the Ravens' defense is ass. So maybe we will have a – No, that's not the takeaway from Malik Willis. Malik Willis is fucking good, okay? It has nothing to do with the Ravens' defense. No, I just remember back and I was like, oh, Aaron threw for 290 against his defense a couple weeks ago. So it's like – Now DeKalen was there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So that's, you know, a different story.

1:00:09Pat McAfee:Nine-year NFL vet, Derrick J. Butler is here. Are we going to revisit that punishment now that Glazer did his scoopage yesterday? What's that? Just, you know, about the reports about the fan from last year and things that were said. What did he say? Some sort of scoopage. I can't remember exactly. No, the scoopage I saw from him was that they kicked Max Crosby out of the building and he wanted to play. That was scoopage as well. And then Max Crosby basically said, I'm not hurt. Look at this. Sick. Hey, he's got a silky jumper. Yeah. He has got a silky jumper. Jay Glazer reported that, you know, Las Vegas – watch that.

1:00:40Pat McAfee:Splash. Thank you. Yeah, no problem.

1:00:42Adam Schefter:Leave the kid.

1:00:43Pat McAfee:Obviously, incredible gym at the house. A lot of people are commenting on the names of the businesses on the pads there. If he got those businesses to pay for this gym to be in his house, great move, which I would expect Max Crosby to do. Good businessman. But the scoopage from Jay Glazer was... I still can't see. Well, okay, there we go. Scoopage! Raiders told Max Crosby they wanted to shut him down the last two games. Crosby, who has played with injuries for much of the year, vehemently disagreed and has left the building at NFL on Fox has learned this could lead to questions on his future in Vegas.

1:01:19Pat McAfee:We love whenever Glazer drops in and throws a fastball. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, from Manatic in Ohio is a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers, A.J. Hawker. Jay Glazer said, I don't do the day-to-day stuff, okay? I ain't got the time. I got other things to figure out, but that's a pretty big little bomb that was chit-chatted about over there in Las Vegas. Yeah, it seems to take Max by surprise, I would imagine as well. I don't think he was expecting this, but I credit him for posting this. He does. You're right.

1:01:45He's got a great-looking jumper and a beautiful home gym right there.

1:01:48Pat McAfee:Yeah, incredible home gym. Love the daughter. Also, he shoots one left to right. Another shot that is just silk. I mean, just absolutely pure. We've heard stories of the offseason of him actually going into UFC Octagon. This one right here, yep. Hey. Yeah. Off his off foot. Yeah, it's a little dark. He's got a little dark in him, plus, you know, A little Wemby as well. Then he was also on trampoline just to showcase stability. The same day? The same day, yeah. This is him getting a chance to kind of hang out with the kid. I've just been sending him from a building here. Now, Pete Carroll was asked about it.

1:02:19Pat McAfee:Pete Carroll was like, he's known what's going on. We talked about this since Monday, Tuesday. We've kind of been going through it. He's obviously a competitor. He wants to fight. Nobody wants to hear that they're being told that they can't play football anymore or whatever for this season. He left. Yeah, he was upset about it. It's kind of how it went. and it's like, geez, Luis, is this what it takes to get Max Crosby out of Las Vegas and they tell him he can't play in a meaningless game? And if that is the case, is Max Crosby exactly the guy that everybody wants on their football team? And then you start looking at his contract, I think it's very tradeable.

1:02:49Pat McAfee:It's unbelievable. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is senior NFL insider for ESPN, a man who might have a little bit more on this entire situation, Adam Schefter. Yay, Schefter! Schefter, I don't know if you heard Jay Glazer here just moments ago or this past weekend or saw his tweet. He chit-chatted about the Max Crosby Raiders situation where they basically told him or shut him down because he wasn't healthy enough. Good to see you. Good to see you back out here. Hey, good to see you back out here. But anyways, they basically said they shut him down because he wasn't healthy enough to play.

1:03:20Pat McAfee:He'd been fighting through something, obviously, the last few weeks. He got upset about it. Then we saw videos of him doing some stuff. What is kind of the Max Crosby Las Vegas Raiders situation from your perspective, Shefty? I think both sides could be right. I think where the Raiders are coming from is they had scans done on his knee on Tuesday. Doctors felt like his condition had worsened. He needs knee surgery at some point this offseason. They're in a spot where why would they expose him? He is a football player and wants to keep playing, of course. His drive, his energy, his attitude is what has made him so successful.

1:03:56So he wants to keep playing. And from their standpoint, they don't want to risk putting him out there and making it worse, especially when they're competing for the number one pick. Like, there's no reason for them to do that. So he may not like it, but it sounded like what they were doing was the right thing. And again, I think both sides in this particular case are right. They have no plans to trade him. I don't know if that'll change. I don't know if he demands anything and makes it such that they have to trade him. But right now, that's not how they're thinking.

1:04:25Pat McAfee:All right. We love you, Max. Love you, Max. Oh, yeah. Continue to love you. Who knows what the Raiders look like in the future? If Max Crosby's there, we'll continue to watch him two to three times a year whenever he's playing a good team and he's on prime time. We would like to see Max Crosby, though, in prime time on a good team, take things over. Could you imagine Max Crosby in a Super Bowl? Some country that only watches one game a year watches Super Bowl and goes, holy hell, what is this white doing? On the Patriots. Oh my God. I mean, people would lose their mind, be good for the game, but I understand also loyalty to your team is good for the game.

1:04:55Pat McAfee:Max, we're pulling for you. Godspeed on the recovery. Let's talk about some recoveries. Trent Williams last night pulled a hamstring. Do we have any update on that? He was obviously out in space, blocking, which is what he does. He's like greatest tackle in generation. Might be greatest tackle of all time. I know there's others. Joe Thomas, I believe. Oh, I'm missing the two names. I'm so sorry. Randall Pace. There's people up there in the convo, but they're saying Trent is in that convo. And obviously, what the Niners look like with him versus without him, stats-wise, even though they win last night, not great.

1:05:27Pat McAfee:What should we be expecting from him? And then also George Kittle as the Niners make a push for the number one overall seed. Kittle is going to push to come back this week. He never tested it last week at all. They weren't going to play him on Sunday night, so he didn't go out there. He was out. He'll have a chance to be back this week, Saturday night against Seattle. Trevor Williams went out of the game, didn't come back. Older veteran player, tough on a hamstring. I think if you're the 49ers, you probably want to see if you can get that by, give him two weeks off and then bring him back if that's possible.

1:06:03Now, again, you'll see how the hamstring's feeling this week, see if he's got any chance. I think it'll be tough for him to come back in a short week with a hamstring injury that prevented him from playing. But here's the great part for the 49ers is they give him veteran rest days during the season. So the young left tackle that they brought in last night, he's kind of used to that. He's not Trent Williams. Nobody is. But at least he had gotten some reps during the season because they were giving those rest days during the practice week to Trent Williams.

1:06:29Pat McAfee:Okay, how about Fred Warner? Because obviously you saw him very active last night. So I'm on the field, so I'm talking. They reported last night that there's a chance he's back. What do we think about Fred? He's been talking about this on his podcast for the past week. John Lynch said that he's got a shot. My understanding is it is, quote-unquote, a long shot for him to play again this season. But it's a great thing for him to continue to work for, strive for. And I would never put anything past that guy ever. He is as impressive as they come. And if anybody can make it back, that guy certainly can.

1:07:01Everybody would love to see it. Again, the person I spoke to told me, long shot. We'll see if they can make it. They'd have to advance in the postseason. He'd have to continue to make great progress. It reminds me a little bit of Aiden Hutchinson last year in Detroit. Same type of situation where there was a lot of conversation about it. Ultimately, it didn't happen. It would have been great if it did. And I kind of feel like that's where we'll be here. Although, again, with Fred Warner, anything's possible.

1:07:27Pat McAfee:And last one with the Niners on the injury front. Christian McCaffrey's back. Is that a thing we need to watch? What are we thinking? There's zero chance that he wouldn't be out there this week. Like, that guy, I just think he's a warrior. He's going to do whatever it takes. And it's hard to imagine him missing. He went out. He had some back spasms. Yeah, I think he'll be. Are they flawed on it? Wow. Acupuncture. Niners yanked it. We lost you there for a second. You said he'll be active, though, for the game in your own? I would be surprised if you were not out there this week. Got it. Okay, AJ, go ahead.

1:08:07Shefty, with this Niners team, I think some people on the outside may be a bit surprised at the success they have had this season with the injuries. Is there anyone on their staff you think that might get poached away, possibly head coaching candidates? Is Sala going to get another chance? I think Robert Sala is definitely going to get interviewed here in this cycle. We'll see whether or not he gets one. That certainly will be a possibility. His name has been bandied about here as a candidate. Trying to think of other guys that they would have. They have a young guy on their staff, Clay Kubiak, who eventually I think is going to be a head coach one day.

1:08:40Clint Kubiak's brother. I don't know that he's there yet, but eventually he may get there. They have some young GM candidates there as well. from the head coaching standpoint, Salah would represent their best hope to get one this offseason.

1:08:56Pat McAfee:And then for the Seattle Seahawks, there's some Darnold stats coming out about back-to-back 13 win seasons. And obviously what McDonald's been able to do there has been very special. The Seattle Seahawks, whenever we're forecasting or projecting what they could potentially be or become, what are your thoughts, Shefty? Look, they do two things very well. They play great defense. It's Mike McDonald knows defense, and that defense has got a lot of talent. And they've got two very talented running backs. The running game has been up and down this season. Hasn't always been successful, but they ran the ball effectively.

1:09:32Yesterday, Jack Charbonnet was ripping off runs like this against the Panthers. Kenneth Walker come in. You never know who's going to get hotter on a particular day, whether it's going to be Walker or Charbonnet. Of course, Jackson Smith and Jigba is about as good as there is in the game right now. Now, they're just a really good football team, really good football team. And if they win on Saturday night, then they're the one seed. And now you've got to go win in Seattle in front of the 12th man for two games. Like, good luck with that. Somebody might be able to do it. AJ, you won in Seattle when you were playing for Green Bay and the playoffs?

1:10:09Oh, you son of a bitch. I don't know if we did it. I don't think we did it. We've won that. It's not in the playoffs. It's a tough place to play in the playoffs. You're not lying right there.

1:10:18Pat McAfee:Well, and on that note, talk about just Seattle being tough, San Fran being tough. Seahawks 49ers will be the first regular season finale in NFL history between teams both entering on win streaks of six or more games. And it's for the number one overall seed in the NFC. We're talking about special stuff. And if the Niners are going to keep playing like how we've seen them play in the Seahawks, I think they just held Bryce Young like 54 pass yards or something like that yesterday. I mean, you're talking about a battle of Goliaths. It's a shame that one of them has to lose. But, hey, one of them's got to be the number one seed.

1:10:49Pat McAfee:Go ahead, Shefty. And the interesting thing here is, and we've talked about this, but if it's San Francisco, then San Francisco essentially will have won Saturday night and then would have to win three more home games to be world champions. Three more home games. Now, again, Saturday night to me is a coin flip. Seattle's great. San Francisco has played very well. I see the oddsmakers have established the 49ers as point-and-a-half favorites, so basically it's a coin flip kind of game. But if San Francisco could find a way to prevail, the Niners would have home field advantage. They'd have to win two home games to play the Super Bowl at home.

1:11:28Pat McAfee:The oddsmakers see them as favorites this weekend. I wonder how many they would be favorites continuing down the playoff road at home for the San Francisco 49ers. Them being able to win in Santa Clara would obviously follow suit with the Rams in Los Angeles and Tampa in Tampa. Before that, which was COVID here, it had never been done winning in your home stadium, but obviously it's a massive ordeal. Let's talk about another game this weekend that has a lot of implications, especially for the kitchen that's always hot, the AFC North. Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Shepty, Sunday night football, Ravens at Steelers.

1:12:01Lamar Jackson did not play this past weekend. Is he going to get the go for the season on the line on Sunday night? I think the Baltimore Ravens you're preparing like Tyler Huntley is going to be the starter. Last week, Lamar Jackson didn't practice at all. It was a very painful back injury. And he's missed at least one day of practice, seven straight weeks now. Ankle, toe, knee, shoulder, flu, whatever it may be. And so he has consistently missed practice time. Now he's coming off a back injury that was very painful for him to endure. And so he might be able to make it back. But I think they're operating under the assumption right now, okay, let's go get Tyler Huntley ready.

1:12:49Tyler Huntley beat the Packers Saturday night in Green Bay. He beat the Bears earlier this season. Now he's going to have to try to go win in Pittsburgh. Again, maybe Lamar does make it back. That would be the hope. But right now, I think you're preparing and operating like Tyler Huntley is going to be the starter.

1:13:05Pat McAfee:Okay, that's the AFC North. Win and you're in. Lose and go home. Let's go to the NFC South. Bucs, Panthers. Bucs, what happened? What happened to the Bucs? Their ass. Their ass? I don't like that the Bucs are ass because it's everybody I know is playing for you. It's not like the people we don't know are playing. It's not like significant injuries to many positions. It's like they're actually getting more people healthier.

1:13:28Adam Schefter:Yeah, they got healthier as the season went on and seemingly got worse, lost a bunch of games. and Shefty mentioned the oddsmakers that they were favorites. And so, yeah, it's a great question. What the hell happened to the Bucs?

1:13:38Pat McAfee:And the Panthers played like ass against the Seattle Seahawks, but are the Seahawks going to make a lot of teams play like ass? What do you think about the NFC South? Somebody's got to win it, I guess, Shefty? Well, I think Carolina's played pretty well here. Even yesterday against Seattle, they didn't win the game. But Carolina played the Seahawks pretty tough. And they've gotten better as the season's gone on, and the Buccaneers have not. The Buccaneers have gone the other way. And I don't know when this started, how this started, why this started. I have a feeling that Baker Mayfield has been playing hurt.

1:14:11I have a feeling that we'll hear something about that after the season. Like, oh, his shoulder was hit. Like, he just hasn't looked right at all times. And the defense, usually the Buccaneers under Todd Bowles, they're aggressive. They're unpredictable. They make things happen. And this defense has not been that way for the past six or so weeks. And I think football, a lot of times, it's a lot about confidence and momentum. And this team's lost its confidence, lost its momentum. And they've been one of the worst teams in football the last six or seven weeks.

1:14:48Pat McAfee:Yeah, and it's been ugly to watch. Shout out to the Dolphins, though, hey. Hey,

1:14:54Adam Schefter:look, Baker may be playing hurt, but to be honest, we don't care. I don't care. Josh Allen's playing hurt. Justin Herbert's playing hurt. It's week 18. in the NFL season. Old man Rodgers player. He got a 44-year-old quarterback. We know he's hurt. He was hurt as soon as he walked in the building. So, I mean, that's just part of it. Guy's throwing his shoulder out for the Packers. That was awesome. Leave it on the line.

1:15:15Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about that, Shefty. It got a little loud by drunk Packers fans after their fifth time now watching Malik. How many times did you guys see Malik come in? Yeah, I think he started at least four games. He's played a few more, but he started at least four. How real – and this is not saying how I feel. I love Jordan Love. Jordan Love came on a show. We are very thankful for Jordan Love in front of the program. But there was a narrative building by Packers fans that were like, every time I see Malik, everything looks good. Every time I see Jordan, maybe it looks good. So you tell me, percentage of good versus percentage of uh-uh.

1:15:48Pat McAfee:There was people really rallying the troops for Malik Willis from the Green Bay Packers faithful saying, we can kind of maybe get something for Jordan Love and return to this entire conversation. How much of those convos are anywhere near real? let's not just stay here Huntley in Baltimore I think I saw some Ravens fans even talking about I do like what Huntley Snoop goes in there it really starts playing like how real are any of those things and Lamar Jackson next year definitely a Raven is that what we're thinking and Jordan Love next year definitely the starting quarterback for the Packers and who is going to pay Malik Willis maybe the Colts yeah maybe the Colts Adam Schefter well here's what I would say that It's overreaction Monday.

1:16:31Pat McAfee:Have some respect. Let's overreact and have some fun. But in the NFL, no definites ever. Nothing's ever definite. But it would surprise me to see the Packers move off Jordan Love from Malik Willis. Malik Willis is going to be a free agent, and there's going to be a market because there are enough teams in that quarterback space that need help. Could you see him in Miami? Could you see him in Atlanta? Could you see him in Minnesota? Could you see him in Vegas? Could you see him in Arizona? Like, we can go on and on. Jets. Like, there are any numbers. Don't go to the Jets, Malik. Don't do it. We like you, Malik.

1:17:12Pat McAfee:You've already been in one dysfunctional franchise. We don't need you to go to another. Tennessee to the Jets? Jeez. That'd be a tough go for a kid who seemingly has it all figured out and is a great football player. You didn't say Indianapolis, so I like that. That means we're probably bringing back dimes, and he's ahead of schedule is what Schefter's saying from my understanding of what you just said there, Schefter. Well, I think they are banking on Daniel Jones being back and I do think that they'll re-sign him and I do think he'll be ready for the start of the season and if that's the case, then the Colts don't need to sign Malik Wills.

1:17:43Therefore, I need to mention the possibility.

1:17:46Pat McAfee:Daniel Jones in the building this past weekend, by the way. He was at the game. I don't think he was able to do anything, obviously. He just had surgery. We wish he would have been able to get down there on a side line with the boys and motivate them because what Liam Cohen and Jacksonville Jaguars are doing is outrageous. This is outrageous what's going on. Did you know, AJ, did you know Josh Hines Allen is the biggest fucking guy on the field? Did you know that? I knew he was a large individual. I didn't know he was the biggest guy on the field all the time. I heard you guys talking about it in the first hour.

1:18:12But, yeah, he's a gigantic human being, I guess, the more you look at him.

1:18:15Pat McAfee:It was startling. I mean, this is him walking through the tunnel. Obviously, it's Cam Little, the kicker, so it's a little bit different. But he made everybody look like that. I mean, everybody looked small. Every human that walked by him on the field, off the field, looked tiny. I didn't know that about Josh Hines Allen. I guess I should have known that, and I should have looked into it more. But it was like our offensive linemen were standing there, guys I thought were pretty big, and his shoulder pads were sticking out wider than him. I'm like, what is this thing? And then walkers on the other side, it's like they were both hunting, and they did not have any time for any of Phillip Rivers' stuff.

1:18:49Pat McAfee:I mean, there was no jocularity. There was no jocularity. Rivers threw the ball. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well. And he damn near killed Josh Hanzo. Yeah, he almost did. Yeah. One of the D tackles, I think, grabbed his hand. Yeah, there was a lot. I mean, we were there. I did not expect that type of heat from the Jags. But then I remember Liam Cohen has been telling the boys that everybody on earth has been pissing in their faces and telling them that they're nothing. You know, like that. Liam clearly. Oh. Ouch. That guy's 6 '5", 270 right there. Okay, that guy that just got knocked down by that ball.

1:19:21Pat McAfee:And that's what Phil Rivers can do. You know, Phil Rivers throws a ball. It might look slow. it's got power behind it and i we didn't do the full ea equals mc squared but if somebody else is throwing that not that big of a hit coming out of phil river's hand a little bit more thump to it a little bit more thump to it and we obviously have respect okay let's start talking a little bit uh broader pictures and we don't want to talk futures immediately because it's not a fun thing to do for teams or for franchises or for families or for guys that are potentially losing their jobs but we're going in to the last week of the season go ahead todd yeah chef the outside of uh some of the usual suspects who we've already discussed this year who coach teams that absolutely stink and are probably going to be fired are there any other names that are kind of starting to bubble up like there's been a lot of smoke about hey maybe the the Colts are firing both GM and head coach I saw a lot of stuff hey if the Packers with their late season collapse and if they you know are eliminated in the first round of the playoffs is it possible that Matt LaFleur loses his job you mentioned the Bucks and Todd Bowles like are any of those kind of names starting to kind of bubble up to the surface or where are we at right now with coaches on the hot seat?

1:20:25Well, Ty, I think we're going to get some conversation about all these guys here in the next week and the speculation obviously will run rampant. And I think it just comes along as part of week 18. It just comes along with this time of the year. I think when you look at it and survey the landscape, I think where it's interesting is that Sunday night game because somebody's going to lose that game. And when somebody loses that game, we heard the Steelers fans chanting to fire Mike Tomlin earlier in the year. We've heard Ravens fans saying that there should be conversations about John Harbaugh after the season.

1:21:00Somebody, one of those two teams, is going to come up short. One of those fan bases is going to be unhappy. One of those owners is going to want to have some conversations about what went wrong. And so I don't know what's going to happen. and I don't know what the fallout and all these other coaches that we're talking about. But every year, there are always some things that happen. It never just goes the way that people think it will. There are some obvious names this year. We already have two openings. There are some teams that people have talked about. But it's always those second tier, that unexpected level of indecision coaches that we don't know how it's going to go.

1:21:41whether it's Baltimore or Pittsburgh or some of these places that haven't, well, I don't think it's going to happen, Andy. But again, we don't know how the owner has not said that to me.

1:21:54Pat McAfee:So on that note, when you talk about Pittsburgh fans, Pittsburgh fans think unless Tomlin says I'm done, don't ever make a change. I think Baltimore Ravens fans think that it's gotten to that point with John Harbaugh too. So you saying that right there, saying ownership might want to have conversations. I think for Pittsburgh people, their ears perk up a little bit saying ownership might actually do something. Didn't know that was even a feasible outcome in Pittsburgh. I think it's how Yinzers feel. Yeah, I think that somebody's going to lose that game. And when they do, there are going to be conversations that occur all over the organization.

1:22:22What went wrong? And look, there have been questions about both coaches' futures. What's so funny? What did I miss?

1:22:30Pat McAfee:Well, just saying somebody might lose that game. They could die. I'll tell you what. Tomlin or Harbaugh kicking the extra point to tie it with 10 seconds left in overtime would be epic. What happens? Do we know what happens? Steelers go because they already won the first game. Steelers would make it? I believe so. Tomlin would know that and he would definitely kick the extra. Oh yeah because they have 9 wins and right now the Ravens have 8 wins. That would be a great way for the Steelers to get into the playoffs. Beat it. Oh my god. A tie to the Ravens. Almost happened. Chargers-Raiders a few years ago.

1:23:04Pat McAfee:almost happened. That decision was made. They called timeout and they decided to get you. That would be amazing. So somebody might lose that game. I guess you're right. There's a chance both of them don't lose. There's a chance that that happens. Well, I also think that both these coaches, Mike Talman and John Harbaugh, for all they've done, for all they've meant to their respective organizations, for all they've meant to the national football league, they will have a big say. You mentioned owners. I didn't say owners. I think these guys will go in there and say, okay, you know what? It's been a great run.

1:23:38One of them may go in there and say, it's been a great run. Might be time to go try something else, whether that's TV or another job somewhere else. Those things are possible. They're within the realm of possibility for the wide range of outcomes after week 18.

1:23:55Pat McAfee:That's right. And I will say, if you go back and listen, you did say ownership. We'll have to have some conversation. That's what you said. I'm happy you corrected it, though. I'm happy you corrected it because that's how Jensers and I think Baltimore-ers, I don't know, what are they called? Baltimoreans. Baltimoreans. I feel like they feel the same way where it's like ownership will never do anything to the coaches. These coaches have to make the decision. So, you know, maybe after a Week 18 Sunday Night Football loss and a miss of the playoffs, there's certainly that to happen. Or maybe they think we can run this back and have some success next year.

1:24:27Pat McAfee:And I think both fan bases would not be surprised if that was the outcome. Now, speaking of surprise, I think there's a couple names that are out there to be a head coach. One of them, though, you know, if he was to get a head coaching job, I don't think we would be surprised. Go ahead, D-Bug.

1:24:40Adam Schefter:Yeah, we kind of touched on it earlier with the Robert Sala, but Jesse Minter, Vance Joseph, and Brian Flores, who put on another master class against the Lions this week to kind of boot them out of the playoffs. I saw some, I know it's rumblings time. Maybe Dallas poached him to be their next D.C. or him getting another opportunity to be a head coach. What's the likelihood of that? And what do you see for the future for Brian Flores? Well, I think he's in a good spot here because that defense is very aggressive and very productive. And his contract's coming up. So he's a coaching free agent in the truest sense of the word.

1:25:14He gets to go interview for head coaching jobs. And if one of those works out, great. And if it doesn't, there are enough teams that need a great defensive coordinator. So Brian Flores can opt to stay in Minnesota. He can move on to go elsewhere. Like I said, there are going to be six, seven openings this year, six, seven, eight openings. And those people will need defensive coordinators and his contract's up. So he's not locked into staying in Minnesota if he doesn't want. He's going to have some options here. And I would think that he will definitely get some interviews, coaching interviews, and we'll see how those go as well.

1:25:51Pat McAfee:Is there still a pending? Yes. Yes, that's all happening with the league and Brian Flores? I believe that's still out there. How about league in John Gruden? Is that all still happening?

1:26:03Adam Schefter:I believe that's still out there, too.

1:26:04Pat McAfee:Because I'm so confused about the John Gruden stuff.

1:26:07Adam Schefter:So neither one of them would be head coaches.

1:26:09Pat McAfee:That's what we're assuming. No, I wouldn't say that.

1:26:12Adam Schefter:While litigation is going on? Really? I wouldn't. No, I think, you know, look, if there's an owner that wants somebody, whether it's Brian Flores or John Gruden or somebody, whatever. I mean, I guess there aren't too many people that have litigation going on against the league. I think that's it, yeah. If there's an owner that wanted to hire one of those coaches and felt strongly enough about one of them, I think they'd do it.

1:26:32Pat McAfee:Interesting. Because Gruden's name not really being up for anything, I'm like, am I missing something? Especially when he is very vocally like, hey, I still want to coach. And hey, I still only do football all day. And it's like Flores with what he's doing, it's like, it didn't go great in Miami, but did anything go good in Miami at the time? And then you automatically start thinking, well, I think they're both in some sort of litigation. And if we know anything about the – Sheffro, I appreciate you saying what you're saying. I got it. I think there's a chance that Gruden's going to be opening boxes on the internet for a little bit or potentially getting a college gig, hopefully, or it all gets settled and figured out and he's back in the NFL.

1:27:11Pat McAfee:But on that note, your college got a new head coach. Go ahead, Con, man. Yeah, Sheffy, Michigan brings home Whittingham. How do you feel? I think everyone was kind of shocked when the AD refused to shake his hand. But how do you feel about the hire in general? and Underwood seemingly staying as the quarterback as well. It looks like that's about as good as Michigan could have done here. He seems like a great man, great coach. The funny thing is, in early December, I had some people reach out to me about him. I remember sitting in the green room before an ESPN show and asking Alex Smith about him.

1:27:45Alex raved about him to me. I passed that on to some people. They went through a whole host of candidates. And they wound up on Kyle Winningham, which I think Alex Smith absolutely would have agreed with when you speak to him. And the people that know this guy, I've never met him. I've never spoken with him. But the people that know him and have been around him speak very highly of him. And his record is the same as Michigan's going back to 2005. They've had the same winning percentage. They've had the same number of winning seats. It feels like he's somebody that's going to come in and stabilize the situation and get things running in an orderly way.

1:28:22Pat McAfee:He knows exactly who he is, which is what I think is good for anybody hiring a coach is the person knows who they are. Just like I said in that tweet, Campbell, too, knows exactly who he is, knows exactly what his team looks like, knows exactly what players he needs. Now they just get a massive bankroll behind him and a brand name. Not that Utah and Iowa State weren't, but we get it. Michigan and Penn State, a little bit larger. or that M and that P or the lion. I mean, everything's big with the money they have behind them. So I'm like pumped for Whittingham and for Campbell to get a chance to experience like, okay, if we do have all of the shit that everybody else has, what can we look like?

1:28:56Pat McAfee:Because it feels like, not that Utah, I'm not saying it doesn't have a great support at Utah, but at Michigan, the amount of support they're going to have financially and everything. I mean, it's a Jordan brand school. I mean, you're talking about full court press on anybody you want out there, let alone Larry Ellison potentially becoming also a donor to your entire organization. I like Whittingham. I like the style in which he coaches. I also like the fact that the guy will go down a double black diamond 80 miles an hour on skis. That's right. Okay, so this dude is a dog. I don't know if he's going to be able to find that in Michigan.

1:29:23Pat McAfee:Do you guys have any of those up there in Michigan, Fox? You guys got mountains?

1:29:26JJ Watt:Yeah, if you go far enough north, you can find one.

1:29:28Pat McAfee:What, Canada? Is that what you're saying?

1:29:30JJ Watt:No, go to Traverse City area. It's absolutely beautiful. People are going to hate that I even said that because it's a hidden gem.

1:29:35Pat McAfee:Okay, so dump that is what people in Michigan are saying. Don't talk about it. But this guy, I like this guy a lot. I think it's a great hire. And to your point about when the hires were made, like when the firing took place, when the hirings were made, getting Campbell and getting Whittingham for these two schools, I think is a home run for both of them. I think the Big Ten got better, honestly. Yeah, and really, I mean, Michigan just needed – they're just trying to distance themselves from the Sharoni Moore era as much as possible. And this guy, I mean, he's about as good of a guy – he seems like a stand-up guy.

1:30:06We've met him before. Like, if – he's going to do things the right way, which is kind of what Michigan needed for this new iteration. Yeah, I'm not sure if you guys saw AJ over there when we were talking about it. Guy's shaking in his boot.

1:30:18Pat McAfee:Ohio State's nervous. That's what it seemed like. He's the team up north. That's a great hire. Hey, I think best possible hire. When I was thinking of candidates, he didn't pop up, but I think it's an absolute slam dunk of a hire for Michigan. What would people be saying negative about it? Just he's old? Yeah. Old, no ties. Yeah, the big stat that I – That he doesn't have Michigan ties, I guess, right? That'd be good, though, right at this time. Yeah, I remember when James Franklin got axed. He had the second most ranked losses as a head coach at Utah. So I know that was kind of what some of the Ohio State Buckeye fans were holding on to.

1:30:49Pat McAfee:We are big fans at Good. How old is he? 66. He's young. He's young. 80 miles an hour.

1:30:58Adam Schefter:That's impressive.

1:30:59Pat McAfee:Yeah, he's a hoss. I told him, I said, skiing's out here crazy. And he goes, oh, yeah, I'll take you. Like, immediately, just like that. And I'm like, you're skiing out here? He goes, oh, yeah. And then he had his watch, I guess, keeps me. and he showed me it was like 82 miles an hour last week. I went 82 miles an hour down double blacked out. That's so bad. I'm like, holy fuck, man. Dog. Holy shit, dude. He's like, yeah, it's awesome. It's beautiful out here. Getting him to leave Utah I think is a big deal, first of all. Him leaving the state I think is a massive ordeal. So congrats to Michigan being able to do that, and I think you guys got the right guy.

1:31:30Pat McAfee:And shout out to you, I guess, saying you guys need to hire Whittingham. Alex Smith told me it's a good hire. I like Alex's brain. I like yours as well. Have a good one, Shefty. We appreciate you. Happy New Year to everybody. Hey, spend New Year's Eve with us. Wednesday night, we'll be on ESPN2. Sure, absolutely. I'll be watching. Unless you're inviting me on the show, yeah, I'll come on. And if you want to, if not, then I'll just watch you guys. That's all. Yeah. I don't know if we can have you on. It'll be Ohio State versus Miami, I guess. Oh, they'd be so pissed if a Michigan man was on during that.

1:32:01Pat McAfee:Oh, Schefter coming in. I know what Whittingham would do. All right, you're the man. Ladies and gentlemen, Adam Schefter. Thank you, buddy. Hey, gentlemen. AJ, getting a chance to call that Ohio State game on Wednesday night is going to be fantastic. I'm so pumped for it, honestly, especially with the relationship we've built with the Miami team. Obviously, D-Butt refused to put the cowboy hat on down there at Texas A &M because he's South Florida Hall of Famer, Broward County Hall of Famer down there. Miami feels like they're all the way back. Big underdogs taking on this Ohio State team, and obviously we've got a guy who's got a tree on the Ohio State campus that's going to be joining us.

1:32:35Pat McAfee:Felt like we need to do this game. We weren't scheduled. I don't want to act like, you know, we do things that are crazy, but we are not scheduled to be on this game. I believe we're just doing an extra one, okay? You have business by me just to kind of give this up and say, yeah, we want to do it, we will do it. But shout out to the people at ESPN for allowing it to happen on such quick notice. Mike Foss making it happen. Ben Ward and Dish, I think, are going in on their New Year's Eve to do this whenever they weren't supposed to do it. So, like, there's a lot of people that as soon as we sent the text, once we found out that it could be potentially possible that said yes let's do it so we're very very grateful to be there and thankful to be there and uh i think we're going to enjoy new year's eve in a beautiful way with a great football game aj hawk yeah i think it's gonna be an awesome game i know they what's the line still nine and a half for ohio state yeah it's big and they haven't played i think that's a big deal i think having that first round buy is not good i mean i guess we're gonna find out yeah how it goes but last year it proved to be not good let the other team kind of catch their wind, catch their rhythm, and get the rust off.

1:33:35Pat McAfee:That's a big deal in these games, and there's a chance Miami was able to do that. And this will also be the first time we've ever seen a team get a bye off a loss. This is the only team, you know, it's only been a couple years, but Ohio State loses, gets a bye. Ryan Day's been able to pull for, what, three weeks, three and a half weeks about how you guys stink, the number one team in the country, IU. Everyone's talking about them. It will be interesting to see. AJ, after watching that Miami team live, your thoughts on the matchup. It feels like physicality-wise they can match up with Ohio State.

1:34:03Yeah, Miami, obviously their D and O line is unbelievable. Big, fast, strong dudes. Their defense runs the ball. I was super impressed. I think I said it multiple times during that game. But also the break might help Ohio State a little bit. They had some lower body got things with Carnell Tate, Jeremiah Smith. Both those guys were kind of dealing with lower body injuries. So hopefully that little extra rest will help those guys.

1:34:24Pat McAfee:Valid. I think we're going to see great on great there. And then obviously we travel over to California for the Rose Bowl. Got game day in the morning, and then will be field pass ESPN 2 at 4 p.m. Eastern for Alabama-Indiana. Favored by 7 against Bama in the Rose Bowl. Well, in the college football playoffs at the Rose Bowl. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's been calling games all season and has done a fantastic job. Called the Seahawks and the Panthers. Excited to get his take on a team that could be the number one seed in the NFC, the Seattle Seahawks, and everything else.

1:34:53Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, in front of the program, Bull Ring of Honor member down there in Houston. Future First Ballot Hall of Famer, J.J. Watt. Jay, how you doing, pal?

1:35:03JJ Watt:I'm doing great. I was just trying to figure out the math on the travel of that New Year's Eve, 7.30 p.m. Eastern time game to the Rose Bowl. That is a tight window for you guys.

1:35:14Pat McAfee:Yeah, you guys is me. I'm the only one that's on game day the next morning, 6 a.m. local time. I'll certainly be trying to figure it out. Maybe we got lights off super quiet in the plane, boys. Okay.

1:35:23JJ Watt:I'll definitely be sleeping in the plane. It's going to be intense. I love it.

1:35:28Pat McAfee:That's the issue with me is I won't on that plane. You know, I will want to celebrate life. It's New Year's Eve. The boys are on a private plane. We're living good right now. Why the hell would I sleep? Well, probably because you're going to have about two or three hours whenever you get to California to go ahead and do college game day from the Rose Bowl, which is ridiculous that you're allowed to be a part of. And then noon is when game day ends. You got four hours after that. Then you're calling Rose Bowl and potential torrential downpour. So we get to do this. But, yes, it is all very tight and all last-minute thrown together here, Jage.

1:35:56Pat McAfee:All last-minute thrown together.

1:35:57JJ Watt:Yeah, no, that's, listen, it is the best job in the world. You get to talk sports. You get to go to the best venues. You get to do all these great things. You get to hang out with your friends. You get paid a lot of money for it. Does not preclude, that's not the word. I don't even, I'm not even going to try. We're still falling. We got you. We got it. We're all there. We're all there. Does not take away from the fact that that is thoroughly impressive from an energy, an effort, a commitment, a brain power standpoint. Just want to tip a cap here because I know some people won't.

1:36:27Pat McAfee:Okay, we appreciate you, James, don't we? Thank you, James. We appreciate you, James. Thank you, James. Happy New Year, James. Spend New Year's Eve with us and New Year's Day and the next day and the next day. Go ahead.

1:36:38JJ Watt:Visually. Visually from afar, I will.

1:36:40Pat McAfee:Oh, I thought you were going to travel down and call a game with us.

1:36:42JJ Watt:I do not. I do not. I mean, the Rose Bowl is my favorite place to play ever. Lost there, unfortunately. But it needs to be the national championship. Sick of us all dancing around it. Everybody wants it. Everybody talks about it. Let's just do it. Best atmosphere. not the best to get in and out of but best atmosphere in football make it the national

1:37:01Pat McAfee:championship every year rose bowl is iconic it is beautiful kind of a not going to get into it but it is beautiful it is a beautiful scene getting in and out of it i think they're gonna have to figure that one out but those mountains oh the sand gabriel oh the gabriels and we're not even gonna get to see the cotton candy no we're not because i guess the weather and by the way Thoughts and prayers to everybody dealing with the weather over there in Southern California and across America. Tornado watch last night and warning. Cut into the game. Saw Mike Fike, right? That was his name. Was it? Yeah, I think F-E-I-C-K.

1:37:35Pat McAfee:Mike Fike.

1:37:37Adam Schefter:The weather guy?

1:37:37Pat McAfee:Yeah. I think that was his name. Saw him pop up while I was trying to watch that. Him having suspenders like this with this guy. This guy was awesome. The best of all time. Maybe. Maybe the greatest of all time. The best of all time. What is this? I missed all of this.

1:37:52JJ Watt:I missed all of this. I wasn't playing.

1:37:54Pat McAfee:There was a tornado watch in Indianapolis, so it obviously cut into the game. Normally, they take over the full screen, so I did appreciate Fox 59 giving us a little halfie there because the Eagles, and it was like a playthrough box with Mike Fyke on the side of it. But whenever you talk about the Eagles taking on the Bills, it's a very important game. They're a very important game. And meteorologist Fyke knew that. He said, I know you guys won't watch the game. Get your phones out. Watch it on there. Stay away from the windows. I mean, this guy was really hitting on all levels and had a couple grandstanders respond to my tweet saying, like, he has to do that.

1:38:27Pat McAfee:It's part of the law. I'm not – I know that he's not choosing to interrupt the NFL game, but I'm just saying in December we got a tornado watch. What the hell is going on with the weather? I didn't know this was potentially the case. And then last night it felt like my house was going to blow away for the entirety of the evening. I mean, it was just relentless nonstop. It went from 60 degrees. I think it's getting down to 15. So that northerly wind that was coming through Indiana caused a lot of hell. But I was introduced to maybe my second favorite meteorologist. He's probably top five. I don't want to put him up there anywhere near DiNardo because DiNardo is DiNardo.

1:39:03Pat McAfee:But Adam Fyke. Adam Fyke. I apologize.

1:39:07Adam Schefter:Larry King ispo. Yeah, he was great. I like that. He crushed it. I don't appreciate the fact that he basically had three minutes worth of stuff he had to get out there. and they made him do it for 25 minutes. They said, okay, you hit your three-minute mark, now we're going to restart. Do it again. Then do it again. I did appreciate it a couple times.

1:39:26Pat McAfee:He was like, doesn't really look like this. Yeah, he kept saying that. Again, not seeing many tornado signatures here. But again, you know, we do have this kind of pocket up here of severe weather, and he did that on repeat. So all anybody was saying was, well, if you're not seeing it, why the hell is this guy on my TV? Like Adam Fike's making the decision, you know? And we'd like to let him know, thank you for taking advantage of the moment. Adam Fike, you looked incredible. I'm expecting that type of drapes from anybody that shows up on my TV doing the weather ever again. Thank you, Adam. It does look like kind of a larger bill, McComas.

1:39:58JJ Watt:Is that a hard part in the hair? Is that a hard part? Yes.

1:40:02Pat McAfee:It wasn't like that before. That's actually the wind. So it used to just kind of sit flat, but he was trying to showcase what the wind was doing for the tornado watch that was coming. Just got off the boat. Merchant Marine, I believe, is what I looked into. I don't know if the Marines are going to like that. he potentially... Saw a couple built like that. I don't think so. Sergeant Major literally told us, we don't do... I'm not going to say it. You do the weather, we appreciate it. He's a devil dog. No, he's not. No, he is. Yes, he is. No, he is. You know, I know. I'm just looking. I can tell.

1:40:38Pat McAfee:Let's get to the end of the part. He grew up in Allegheny County. Yeah. Adam Fyton? He served eight years. You got a plum? Was he a plum Mustang? DiNardo is definitely his role model. And I appreciate him saying, listen, it's a big game. I get it. I don't want to be here either. Get your phones out and get away from the windows. Actually, it doesn't look like there's anything that should keep you away from the windows. I don't know why. We're still in the middle of a warning. But I'll tell you why. It was crazy. But that means good football is happening. You saw the Seahawks. Let's talk about this.

1:41:09Pat McAfee:You had Seahawks-Panthers. Is that accurate?

1:41:12JJ Watt:That is accurate.

1:41:13Pat McAfee:Number one seed potentially for the Seattle Seahawks team. How do you feel about the squad that McDonald's been able to put together? And what do you think is their superpower over there? Their defense, obviously, outstanding. Sam Donald playing great. Is it their culture? Is it their vibes? What do you like about the Seahawks after calling their game?

1:41:29JJ Watt:Yeah, I mean, their defense is obviously unbelievable. They started slow in this one, which they also did against the Rams the week before. Took them a while to get the game going, specifically offensively. And then they took advantage of a couple of huge turnovers in Carolina territory. the second half that really sprung board this game and kind of broke it wide open. But their defense is just unbelievable. I think it was like halfway through the third quarter, the Panthers had 16 yards of passing on offense. There was just nowhere to go. Those D tackles up front, Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy are so stout on the double teams and they shut down the run.

1:42:05JJ Watt:And then they also dominate against the pass. You got Eman Worry on the back end and all those guys, Witherspoon, Mike McDonald's a genius. He dials up so many different things. And then they did find their rhythm in the second half. They have to start a little bit faster, but they have guys everywhere. And Darnold can do it all. Clint Kubiak draws up some great schemes. I thought the Panthers' defense held their own for a while in this game. It was the short fields that ultimately got them and hurt them. And then there was one huge penalty that kind of swung the momentum of the game when the Panthers had him in third and 30 and got a face mask penalty to give an automatic first down that kind of hurt them.

1:42:45Pat McAfee:Okay so obviously inopportune penalties will certainly affect an outcome. Seahawks have the Niners on Saturday night. Did you watch last night's epic Sunday night football game of the year and you know obviously two good defenses for the Chicago Bears and the Niners didn't really matter because Purdy and Caleb put on a show But Purdy has been dialing it up the last three weeks. He's outstanding. Obviously, Christian McCaffrey dealing with a little bit of back spasm, I think is what I heard, Shepter. He's seemingly still explosive and unstoppable. Then you've got guys all over the place making plays.

1:43:17Pat McAfee:Trent Williams with a hamstring. Who knows what that looks like going forward. But this Niners team, no Fred Warner, no Bosa, no problem. Is that what we're thinking for the Niners, JJ?

1:43:27JJ Watt:I mean, they are – it's incredible. And I know there's people out there that say Kyle Shanahan in the coach of the year category. And we've kind of turned that into a who turned an organization around fast as opposed to, you know, true coach of the year, which is understandable and rightfully so. But he's done such an incredible job having to go between all the guys that are missing. Mack Jones going back to Purdy. I went I watched the beginning of this game and saw the TJ Edwards pick six and a couple of the other players went to put my son to bed, came back down. and it was 35-35 and I was like, what the hell did I miss?

1:44:02JJ Watt:Oh, yeah. Watched the end of the game and it was, I feel like this is the year of the game of the year. We've had some of the greatest games coming down to the ends this year. There's just, if you were doing an Oscar-style category, it would be very difficult to whittle it down to enough to six to put on the screen.

1:44:20Pat McAfee:Fourth quarters, it's two. So primetime games, fourth quarters, because sometimes these first halves, not last night, but some of these games' first halves have been ass. you know kind of boring a little late night 9 30 10 o 'clock primetime games kind of starting a little bit slow people fall asleep myself included then you wake up whatever time you wake up you look at your phone you go what happened last night and then you find out oh most epic fourth quarter of all time oh 17 point comeback oh they were able to get crazy in the second half it has been a lot of that i think the game that the thing that made this one different is from jump literally pick six to start the entirety of it all, and the energy never relented, D-Bud.

1:45:00Adam Schefter:Yeah, it was an unbelievable offense. The one that I can remember most recently would probably be the Seattle Rams one with the two-point play. That was a wild game, unbelievable game. Yeah, this has definitely been the year of the great game for sure.

1:45:12JJ Watt:Good for the NFL. Yeah, the Packers-Bears one. I mean, there's so many. Both of them. It's insane how many that there have been. It's, yeah. J.J.

1:45:21Pat McAfee:Vikings, J.J. McCarthy-Vikings-Bears. Was that four? Yeah, week one. Week one or week two? Bills-Patriots a couple weeks ago, Josh Allen coming back down 21-0. Yes.

1:45:30Adam Schefter:Texas Jack, 26 straight. Texas Jacks, yeah.

1:45:33Pat McAfee:Oh, Danny Dimes only didn't punt for like five weeks, remember? Yeah, yeah. Every game was the game of the year.

1:45:39JJ Watt:Good times, man. There's been some – I mean, like, that game last night was obviously awesome because you've got the coaches, the masterminds, the people. Like, you can just see so many different mind games going on within the game. I think that there's been some really, really good coaching matchups this year

1:45:54Pat McAfee:showcasing a lot of skill on the sideline uh we mentioned or i mentioned there and purdy just filthy i mean in the dougie in the euro step into the dougie keep doing it purdy okay keep doing it purdy we need more of that not less of that uh i'm excited that he's coming into his own and obviously he's a wealthy man at this point and i think he gave away toyota's uh uh as his gift but also i think to vets as well how do you feel about the quarterback gift thing that we got going on a lot of ads okay a lot of ads which i respect i respect that it has become an ad based thing i don't think that's necessarily the quarterback's fault quarterback gifts to the offensive line has been a thing since the beginning of football i assume i'm not 100 sure i'm not a quarterback but then it becoming like a sponsored event almost i don't hold it against the quarterbacks because if i was being offered up and this is not to his offensive line this is the vets shout to brock pretty doing this but to quarterbacks buying things for their offensive line it has become an interesting little game, J.H.

1:46:52Pat McAfee:It has become an interesting little game. And the fact that Joe Burrow bought something that was not sponsorable, okay? Fossils. I like the move. I think that was a statement about, like, hey, I bought these. Like, I think that was Joe Burrow saying, I bought these things. Your thoughts, D. Bud? I wouldn't say that. I don't know. You think big dinos giving away fossils to Joe Burrow? No, I just

1:47:16Adam Schefter:don't think it's a Burrow statement. I just think it's Burrow. He's seen the quarterbacks He's just a weirdo. We win six games, I get bones. What?

1:47:26JJ Watt:Is there any part of it looking across being like, man, did those guys just get 4x4s? Did those guys just get pickup trucks? This is really cool. Bones! Fossils! Please, have some respect for these dinosaurs. I'm sure Ted Karras loved it. Ted Karras is a jovial, jovial lad. if I see someone getting a truck in a 4x4 and I got to take home a freaking mammoth tooth what about a quarter of a cow I think a quarter of a cow is also sick remember last year it's Cindy Lou Who man we're all doing it at every level some of us with our own kids some of us with our offensive lines it's all commercialism who can have the most and now you're sitting there trying to figure it out the brands are calling it's corporate I don't hate them for taking it I've done my fair share of endorsements and dads over the year I can't hate on anybody for that.

1:48:16JJ Watt:But where are we at? Is an offensive line going to get a house in the next five years? Coldwell Banker coming through. Guys, whole neighborhood's ours. Here's your keys. I mean, there's a chance. $60 million a year.

1:48:29Pat McAfee:Let's start to go ahead and pay for some stuff.

1:48:32JJ Watt:Guys, we need to create the chemistry. We're all in the same cul-de-sac. Look, it's five starters, five houses. I'm at the end. I'm the corner.

1:48:38Pat McAfee:The O-line chemistry compound where you buy just 10 ranch homes, You know, no families. You got to live behind the center. The lineup is actually center, guards, tackles, backups are right behind them. Obviously bigger than yard for the starters. Something to think about, building a whole compound. Then investment money obviously into it so we can sell this later to another builder. If these guys want to really be good teammates, this is what they should be doing.

1:49:04JJ Watt:Yeah, bonding.

1:49:05Pat McAfee:Oh, fossils.

1:49:07JJ Watt:It's got to happen. Fancy bones. They're fossils. You sound like you're out on the fossils. I'm surprised. Imagine walking in and being like, Joe Burrow, big fashion guy. I'm going to get a Louis Vuitton suit or bones. The fossils. Last year it was the swords. Last year it was the samurais. This year it's the fossils. They're building like a museum in their houses. If you stay there long enough, you're going to have the Smithsonian.

1:49:30Pat McAfee:I like that he's thinking outside the box. What does he get?

1:49:32JJ Watt:Yeah. Grow up. Samurai swords and dinosaurs. That's cool. It stinks every year. Oh, my God. Gumpy's first thing. I haven't seen. Do we have a picture of any of them? Is it like a T-Rex tooth? What kind of fossil is it? Ted Karras got a mammoth tusk. And then I believe we're going to land on. That's cool. That is cool. It'd be cool if it was the whole head. The whole head. Well, I've seen the rock. Doesn't the rock have it? It has a T-Rex head. Is that what Joe's giving up? That's fake. No, I think he's giving up. That's fake. No, it's not. The rocks is fake. See, look at that. Look at that. That's what you're going to have to deal with now.

1:50:09Hey, this is my mammoth tusk that Joe Burrow got me for Christmas one year. Yeah, okay, Ted. Okay. Where are your Hot Wheels, too? Let's go play with those, Ted. I'm sure you believe in that. Probably just gave it to his dog to chew on.

1:50:22Pat McAfee:Here's a picture of the tusk. Everybody will think it is true and real. That is cool. Oh, yeah. Merry Christmas. That might be worth$200 ,000. Nice bones, Ted. Not cool.

1:50:35Adam Schefter:Leave that under your pillow for the tooth fairy, too. I didn't see that one. That one stinks. I thought it was like a T-Rex

1:50:41Pat McAfee:What about a side-by-side though? Exactly That one to the right

1:50:46JJ Watt:There was a mini head That was cool Look at the mini head Joe kept that for himself Ted got home with this thing And threw that fucker in the corner of his garage No he did not

1:51:00Pat McAfee:As a dinosaur I went to the children's museum this weekend They got some good bones I want to let you know Ted, we appreciate Joe. I appreciate that Joe spent his own money on this stuff. Not that everybody else isn't doing it. Well, actually, I don't know if he was doing a big museum. He may have dug them up himself. Do we know? Like Joe could have dug these up in the off season. True. I mean, very valid. He could have cleaned these things, framed these things, did the whole thing. So we appreciate that any gifts are being given. It's the holiday season. It's very kind. But I'll tell you what.

1:51:26Pat McAfee:The boys hopping in those side-by-sides. That feels so cool with that garage kind of opening up. What's that, Jay?

1:51:34JJ Watt:It was an archaeological dig. and he was out in the middle of Egypt just digging up bones. Would you be shocked? I wouldn't be shocked. Me either. With the record, I wouldn't be shocked. That would add such a cool layer to the story. I feel like it would take a long time. Connor, would you rather have that Galactica game in the background or the whole table of bones? I mean, you just nailed it. Yeah, give me the arcade game, Joe. I don't want your stupid bones, okay? I want something that I can actually have fun doing. What am I just going to stare at my bone for three hours? No.

1:52:08Pat McAfee:James, there was no reason to do what you just did right there. You knew it. You knew what you were doing the whole time. Joe Burrow, thank you for thinking about your teammates. Maybe. Maybe he got those for someone else and he was like, shit, nobody wants these because I'll give them to my linemen. Yeah, these guys suck anyway. They have these stupid-ass dinosaurs. What do you guys get each other? Do you guys do gifts? do you guys do gifts yeah we uh hang out with each other every day it's a good present presence oh the gift that keeps on giving every day you know every day you got new year's eve night together new year's day together the next day together is anybody's significant others ever like hey this is a lot uh yeah i would i would assume that that is happening in a lot of houses just but just by my personal research okay i would assume and shout out to sam love you baby absolutely love you and mckenzie you know it's amazing but yeah there's a lot christmas new

1:53:06JJ Watt:year's eve new year's day you guys are we're there and i saw you went in on the day after christmas you were like i had to stop in and pick up some stuff i'm like is anybody ever like you're going in on the one day you don't have to be there and you're still going in no first of all

1:53:19Pat McAfee:you know always okay always which is part of the problem and i do understand that but wife absolute badass and you know we're pregnant right now she's pregnant right now uh baby bambino every once in a while there's going to be days where you're a little sick and I might have some things. So me getting out of the house probably good move for about an hour or two. You know what I mean? So then getting back in there. But yes, we enjoy the hell out of what we do but we do a lot of it. You know? Somebody has to. Somebody gets to. And it's us somehow. Hell yeah. I have no idea how that's the case. We're incredibly lucky to do it.

1:53:49Pat McAfee:That's JJ. That's AJ. The boys are here. We continue digitally. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice, Jage.

1:53:55JJ Watt:Might change your life. Wow. Wow. Nailed it. Best one yet. Oh, a little party. You did a little party. And 2025 on a high note, baby. Yeah, baby. Let's do it.

1:54:10Pat McAfee:I'll tell you what, you're becoming a full television broadcaster like that. With the finger point, too, on the throwout. That was pretty good. That was pretty natural out of you. Hey, how tall are you? What's your weight? What's your dims?

1:54:22JJ Watt:Six feet, six inches, 272 pounds. Just a Goliath of a print.

1:54:29Pat McAfee:Josh Heinz Allen. Have you seen Josh Heinz Allen? You and him eye to eye, right?

1:54:32JJ Watt:Yes. Met with him a couple weeks ago. Great player. Big dude.

1:54:37Pat McAfee:What is that Godzilla and Kong? That is when you two are looking at it. He was bigger than everybody. He was bigger than everybody on the field. I had no idea he was that large. I genuinely had no idea until I saw him.

1:54:51JJ Watt:What do you think of Forrest Buckner?

1:54:54Pat McAfee:He hasn't played much because he's got a hurt neck. And I am very worried about DeForest Buckner because he played and then now he's not playing again. That means did something bad happen? We'd like to let DeForest. Sauce procedure. We appreciate the hell out of DeForest Buckner. We love DeForest Buckner. Thank you for your service. And we hope you come back to play football. But anytime we're talking neck, it's crazy. But yeah, DeForest Buckner, big. But DeForest Buckner, middle of the line, you know, so I'm not watching. Like Josh Hines-Allen, we're seeing him do, like, little guy shit. And it's like, I don't think in my head I had him pegged as the biggest fucker on the field, you know, just by watching his film.

1:55:31Pat McAfee:He's gigantic.

1:55:32JJ Watt:He is. The most impressive recently physical specimen I've seen is Daniel Hunter. He is as like if you were building it in a lab, Daniel Hunter is it. It's unbelievable. Okay, on that note, go ahead, Ty. Yeah, Jage, after Saturday night when it looked like the Texans were about to beat the Chargers by just 100 and the offense started to look pretty good. We obviously know how good their defense is. Do you think they're the scariest team in the AFC right now going into the playoffs? I mean, I think they're going to be hard-pressed to find a team that would prefer to play them over some of these other teams.

1:56:07JJ Watt:I think their defense just being what it is, their offense finally starting to really figure it out and come together. They've said all season long that Nick Caley, C.J. Stroud, they're trying to find exactly what the identity of the offense is going to be and get everything to click. And they're starting to find that, which is dangerous. It's the perfect time to start it. And their defense is what's kept them in it all year long to allow the offense time to figure it out. They are nasty. They are tough. They are physical. They take the ball away. They hit you in the mouth. They wear you down all game long.

1:56:40JJ Watt:So I don't think many people are going to want to see them. And I'm looking forward to seeing how far they can go because I think that it's an organization that's never been to the AFC Championship game, obviously never been to the Super Bowl. And I think this city would go absolutely bananas if they were able to do it.

1:56:58Pat McAfee:And CJ's got it. CJ's got it in there. Yeah. You know, if he needs to. Third and long, we need one. Fourth and 12, we need one. He can make the play. We assume they all can. Anybody can win it this year. Kind of everybody's conversation. Patriots, really the most dominant team in the entire NFL, but they might not even get the number one seed in the AFC. The Broncos could get it. And just to go back a couple minutes, Ted Karras sent over the photo, okay? And that is a woolly mammoth tusk. That's 30 ,000 years old. Okay? Does that change anybody's opinions? No.

1:57:27JJ Watt:That thing was late. I'm on record saying the tusk is cool. Okay. I'm on record. We're trying to bring it back. We're trying to bring a mammoth back. Whatever's behind it. There's a T-Rex head in that picture. Someone got that. They won.

1:57:39Pat McAfee:That's a baby T-Rex, it appears. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. This is real. Why can't we kill a baby? Well, I don't think. I think these things potentially died all at one time. We don't know.

1:57:51JJ Watt:Allegedly. Were you there? What's the thing behind? Directly behind? Because that thing looks like it stinks. Oh, like on the table behind? You mean everything on the table? That little thing. Did somebody adjust that? Yeah, yeah. One person, they showed up one by one. I believe it was seniority picks first and then went down the line. And whoever was last ended up with elephant poop or something that was fossilized.

1:58:18Pat McAfee:Okay, so then this one, the mammoth tusk, woolly mammoth tusk, permafrost deposits in Yakusha, Russia. Okay. So dinosaurs are in Russia. Dinosaurs are all over the place. Oh, great. It's a spot. Although I was not there, AJ. Would have destroyed the room that I was in. Are you shitting me, Joe? You're making$250 million a year. I got bones. Get me something cool, Joe. You just spent$10 million on a Batmobile, and I get bones? What a joke, man. You just found out, Bones. I'd request a trade. Bones that spy on you as well. We don't know if this is a Russian oligarchy. It's certainly possible. This can't be discounted.

1:59:01Don't get me started on the birds over there.

1:59:02Pat McAfee:All right, let's keep moving. Let's keep moving. I appreciate the fossils as a gift. I think it's very thoughtful. and the baby T-Rex over there, I didn't know they came in that size. I've only seen them in the big size. That thing was paper mache.

1:59:18JJ Watt:They popped out of the womb full bore. Did you know? Were you there, Jage? Were you over there? I assumed that they were babies and eggs and then were grown. I did not think that the eggs came full size.

1:59:33Pat McAfee:I've never seen it. Just like Jesus, I don't want to get into it, but I've only seen him as an adult, I think, and baby. He's probably so handsome I see him through his teenage years. Oh, yeah, there's a couple still shots of when the tax collectors were set up in the temple, and he went in there, and he was like, uh-uh, fuck this bullshit, and he started flipping tables over. Oh, really? Vascularity, I assume. First ever. Big time. First ever vascularity, I'll tell you. That's amazing to think about. He had a crew cut, too. That was before he had the long hair. Oh, in the middle. He was in one of those middle stages?

2:00:07Look up how much that Wooden Mammoth Tusk will go for. Someone might pay $200 ,000 for that.

2:00:13JJ Watt:Somebody did last week. Yeah, exactly. They got the present and said, oh, thank goodness. I'm going to sell this and that'll be my present. My present will be what I get for cash for this bone. It's a fossil.

2:00:25Adam Schefter:I like that Joe's in the holiday spirit. Me too. Somebody's calling him Boohoo Burrow, so I'm glad that he wasn't called for.

2:00:34Pat McAfee:It does seem like your algo is pitching a lot of...

2:00:36JJ Watt:I'm curious about this. A woolly mammoth tusks.

2:00:41Pat McAfee:Values vary from a few hundred dollars for a few small fragments to tens of thousands, even over$100 ,000. This might be the best investment they've ever made. Joe Burrow's giving them stock, basically. Joey Burrow's giving them a collectible. Joey B says, hey, hang on to this thing. In about five years, a couple hundred thousand.

2:01:01JJ Watt:Wait, wait, wait. A rare 100-pound, 9-foot tusk might be$67 ,000. That sucker ain't 100 pounds, and it definitely ain't 9 feet. You don't know? It might be 15. It might be 15 foot. The best thing you can do with a gift is sell it. It's a bad gift.

2:01:17Pat McAfee:No, it's an investment. People give people stocks all the time. That's something you can do. You're trying to sell that thing at the end. Could go down as the worst quarterback gift ever. Look at that video of Aaron giving out those gifts. Those guys are having the best time of their lives. Yeah. The Niners linemen, holy shit.

2:01:35JJ Watt:We got trucks. Where do you stop on the trucks or the 4x4s? So you got the starting five. Is the guy that signed to the practice squad last week, is he getting one or is he just kind of awkwardly in the corner? Where is the line?

2:01:50Pat McAfee:I think you're telling a couple of them that they need to wait in the cafeteria. The boys and I need to go take a trip out. Yeah, starting to meet a 53-man meeting right now. What's your number? Exactly. You stay. Here's a$500 Target gift card. Congratulations.

2:02:05JJ Watt:It's an interesting one for those big ones.

2:02:07Pat McAfee:DoorDash.

2:02:08JJ Watt:For those big gifts, like, it's really interesting where that cutoff line is. For the fastles.

2:02:12Adam Schefter:Got to go the whole way.

2:02:13Pat McAfee:What do we think is happening? We think half, they're paying half for these things? Because it's still a lot of money. I mean, those things are like$25 ,000 a pop. Like,$30 ,000 a pop.

2:02:22JJ Watt:Yeah, I would say at least half. I would say more than half. I don't think it's as much as everybody thinks. I think so, too.

2:02:31Pat McAfee:me even bringing it up like well it's an advertisement i feel like i'm undervaluing how much they're actually spending on each one they're still so they might get a discount like a good discount like hey can we make a video that we're doing this and i think probably the local dealership there in pittsburgh was a part of it because i think he shouted it out he used that local dealership isn't just giving up 12 of these things for free you know yeah give us a social media post still spending a lot of money on these gifts but i do like that it has become a little bit of, hey, you got an epic thing.

2:03:00Pat McAfee:Can we... And then you'll... Boom. Perfect. Because back in the day, it used to be a lot of watches. I think guys got a lot of watches. Better than Bones.

2:03:09JJ Watt:Let's go through this list. A lot of bags. A lot of Louie and Gucci. Better than Bones. Jet skis.

2:03:18Pat McAfee:Who's in a lot of jet skis? That's a great game. I've seen jet skis in the past, I feel like. Wasn't it... Was it Adrian Peterson who gave all of his linemen in Minnesota snowmobiles? because Minnesota's. If you want Bones, you're going to go out and get them yourself. Okay, so on that note of Adrian Peterson, OJ Simpson, I believe, had five 200-yard games. Adrian Peterson had six 200-yard games. And after Saturday, the Baltimore Ravens running back, Derrick Henry had seven 200-yard games, most in history. Go ahead, Conman. Yeah, J.H., obviously, you know, Derrick Henry, former Titan, you former Texan.

2:03:57What is it like when you're playing a guy like Derrick Henry? And I say guy like Derrick Henry, but there's no one like him. So what is it like playing Derrick Henry when he is rolling like that? He was unstoppable on Saturday night. He keeps the Ravens' season alive and causes this Week 18 Sunday Night Football showdown against Pittsburgh. But can you just talk a little bit about Derrick Henry and some of your battles you guys had in the division back in the day?

2:04:23JJ Watt:Yeah, it's not fun. It's not fun at all. And I can tell you the thing that's crazy. I mean, everybody knows it. Obviously, the discussion after last week was very loud about it. But the thing about Derrick Henry is early in the game, he may not even get rolling huge, but you just keep feeding him regardless because of the wear and tear it puts on a defense throughout the game. having to tackle him over and over and over again wears the entire defense down by the third and fourth quarters and then he can pop off even more big runs so that's what gets frustrating i mean we've called a couple ravens games this year and you see them and yeah they fall behind a little bit so they think you got to go to the air a little bit more but the reality of the situation is you just keep feeding the beast and at some point it's going to pop and at some point it's going to demoralize the defense and wear them down and he is going to have his way you watch that Packers game and it's like, yeah, that's what happens.

2:05:19JJ Watt:And it's such a, you know, for them, it's such an unfortunate stark contrast from the week before where you're like, why didn't you just do that? Because it's, don't make it so complicated. Just do the stuff that's been successful for so long. And the Ravens offense is the most successful when they have that run game rolling and they're running those complex run schemes that mess with defenses and Derrick Henry's running wild.

2:05:42Pat McAfee:200 plus yards, four touchdowns. one Lambeau.

2:05:46JJ Watt:I think I might be on two of those.

2:05:47Pat McAfee:In the 200-yard games?

2:05:49JJ Watt:I think I might be on a minimum of two.

2:05:53Pat McAfee:So what was it? Your team just quit? I think that's the thing. Adrian Peterson, and I said this earlier, so I don't want to act like it's my first time saying it, but I never really watched OJ play. I've seen him run. The Adrian Peterson and Derrick Henry running styles are very punishing. They are beating you up. so you could see how if he was to get 130 yards he's probably getting 150 yards which is probably getting 200 yards and if it was five quarters probably going to be getting 300 400 yards because i think his fourth quarter stats are outrageous too like to your point about just keep feeding him he's going to beat you down it's like he really can get a team to quit make business decisions like what is it about it whenever he gets rolling jage yeah the thing the thing that

2:06:36JJ Watt:i've always said about playing him i think a lot of teams say this is you have to stop him in the backfield otherwise that momentum going downfield and the ability like once he's through the line of scrimmage it's over he's stiff arming people he's running over people he's running away from people you have to try and stop him before he gets that downfield momentum going and so like a couple of the games that we had against him you let him through that line of scrimmage I think he had a 96 yard touchdown on like the first drive of the game against us and boom you're already halfway way to 200 yards after the first drive of the game.

2:07:09JJ Watt:And it's just, he's, it's that rare combination that he can break through it. He can run over you and then he can run away from you. Like a lot of these guys that can run through you or stiff army down to the ground, aren't having that breakaway speed where they can get out in the open and run away from everybody. He has both and it's unbelievable. And it's so hard to stop. But the key is you have to penetrate the backfield and stop his feet before they get going downfield, North and South.

2:07:35Pat McAfee:We said it was cheating that he signed with the Ravens because obviously you do your E equals MC squared squared. I don't know what the 22nd would be in the math terms. So the 22nd power? Okay, boom. Thank you. And how do I do that on my phone? I don't know how to put the two up there. Is there a button I can push to get the... Hold it down.

2:07:54JJ Watt:Hold it down.

2:07:55Pat McAfee:Hold it down. What, the C? The two. The two, and then it'll help you put it up there. It'll shoot it up?

2:08:02JJ Watt:Shoot it up there. Nope, it doesn't do that. That does that for the degrees if you do zero. Okay. It doesn't do it for... The little arrow button. The little arrow up top, like if you're going to do that on the calc button, like that is what would symbolize to the power.

2:08:17Pat McAfee:That feels like it's so 1999, though. Do we not have... Yeah, you got to get the Texas instrument, the Apple calculator. Anyways, this guy could light up a room for 90 seconds with how powerful he is. The amount of energy he could create with the amount of joules that he has, which is 5 ,500. Now, it'd be 45, 90-mile-an-hour fastballs all at the same time. It'd be a 2 ,000-pound vehicle moving at 8 miles an hour, and there you are just standing in front of it with no brakes. Okay, this will be fun. That is Derrick Henry football. Jay just been there, done that. That's why I respect him. Age, did you play Derrick Henry whenever he was rolling?

2:08:50I never played. Nope, never played Derrick. I'm very happy I never played Derrick Henry, but Jay just right. If you don't get penetration up front and make him reset his feet and go east to west in the backfield, you're screwed. He's coming downhill on everybody.

2:09:02Pat McAfee:Adrian Peterson you had though, right, for years. Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Honestly, because we talked about it being a cheat code when he went to Baltimore because he had Patrick Ricard there too. He was like a 320-pound defensive end. But back in the day, whenever it was CTE football, like you guys were playing up there in the NFC North, I mean, Adrian Peterson, I assume he had some fullback as well that was coming through there. Always. They were trying to kill you. Oh, that's awesome. They were trying to beat you up. I mean, that's what they were trying to do, and you just had to stare it down every single time?

2:09:30Yeah, that's when you've got to play the old school cliche, like, hey, we've got to be gap sound. Nobody can peek. We've got to build a wall up front and counting on all 11 guys getting to the ball to bring this dude down. Oh.

2:09:45Adam Schefter:Jeez. Look how violent Adrian runs. Just look at him. He runs so violent. It's a whole body convulsion. I have so much respect for him. Honestly, I love that.

2:09:54Pat McAfee:Okay, so tell me this. Willie Gay was 1 '7". He tried. Yeah, he definitely tried. we appreciate him doing that but everybody's reaction being geez to that to that highlight popping up right there is special uh but age i know you're big uh ohio football guy okay i know that and jage you as well fresh out of wisconsin we're big tough guys night before those types of games you know like hey tomorrow i'm in it like literally tomorrow we are not that you weren't in practice with coon because you guys have told us neither of you would turn it down but anytime you're playing uh adrian peterson or derrick henry it's a mindset too like hey we got a fucking this is going to be a jump don't let him get going yeah it's like hey don't let this guy get going especially if you're on the road and say the first series didn't rip off like a eight yard or 12 yard or 25 yarder then they get the crowd behind them and then it's just like all right here we go that's when guys start you start um you start doing things you don't normally do guys jump out of a gap like okay this guy the d-line i got a shade he's supposed to be in the a gap oh he might think this time hey maybe i just peek into that b gap and then everyone behind him it's like a you know a domino effect.

2:10:57Everyone behind you doesn't know what to do and then all of a sudden the rest of the game you're sitting there trying to communicate and figure out what to do.

2:11:02Pat McAfee:You're the one peeking, Jade. Stop peeking, dude.

2:11:05JJ Watt:That's a fact. Yes, I let everybody behind me figure it out. That's the nice part about being up front. I just do it and you guys figure it out. That's good that we'll play off you. If you're decisive, you guys behind you will play off of it. Absolutely. I'm with you. I was very decisive. I was very decisive. How about Jade going?

2:11:23Pat McAfee:I'm fucking going. You've got to figure that out.

2:11:25Adam Schefter:That's a fact. Play fast. AJ, make it right. And the night before, if you're that free safety, you're not worried about X going deep and getting off the ass. You're worried about 22 or 28 hitting the A or B gap, coming straight down. It's just you and them and nine yards between you two. That is a fucking nightmare.

2:11:43JJ Watt:Nightmare, yeah. That's the fear. That's like up front, we're like, do not let them get on the safeties because that's a loss. Like you could have the best safeties in the world. at some point he's going to stiff arm or run over the top of him that's just a fact so up front we're like dude we have to stop this or it is a problem let's talk about up front there might be

2:12:03Pat McAfee:somebody on the move if you listen to jay glazer what did jay glazer say about the situation in las vegas what did he have uh scoops uh basically mac crosby is fucking pissed at the raiders and he wants out of town okay so i don't know if that was the exact report but jay glazer fucking welcome back. We like whenever Jay is mixing it up. And if Jay's going to start mixing it up during the playoff run here, we fucking love that, Jay. But he said, basically, Max Crosby, who's been playing through some stuff, was told, hey, you can't play. They wouldn't clear him. You need to get knee surgery in the offseason.

2:12:33Pat McAfee:Just can't do it. He got upset, left the building. Pete Carroll was asked about it. Pete Carroll mentions something along the lines of, we've been talking about this for a while now. Now, go ahead, D-Bud.

2:12:44Adam Schefter:Yeah, with the Condor, I just want to know, did you deal with any situations like this? I know everybody's kind of banged up week 17, week 18. A lot of people can opt out and get surgeries. And sitting down, obviously, competitive like this. Have you ever dealt with something like this in your career? What's your thoughts on Max and his future?

2:13:01JJ Watt:I haven't dealt with that exact thing. I definitely have been a part of some teams that were out of it at the end and teammates and seen some situations where there were decisions made in that light. but clearly he's trying to show in these videos that he's fine he wants you to know that he's fine and uh also i'm just with everybody else on the internet trying to figure out why he has advertisements on the boards in his in his own house i think which was i think there's a chance

2:13:32Pat McAfee:somebody else is paying for that gym that he has in there it's a beautiful gym looks like it's a couple million bucks and new era papa john's anybody else want to kind of get in on it maybe somebody else foot the bill for him or he just wants it to look legit so he puts some ads on the

2:13:46JJ Watt:pad it's great um but i mean it sucks like he's he's a guy who's such a great player he's stuck in a very tough situation there i mean if you literally just look at the contract that he signed last year he could have signed a significantly better contract i mean it is he that was a very team-friendly deal when you look at the play that he's had and the leverage that he had that he did not use which to his credit he was taking that deal for that reason he wanted to get it done early great but that is a deal that could have been significantly better for him he's back in

2:14:22Pat McAfee:the building and rapaport is reporting that raiders coach pete carroll says max crosby is back in the building today okay everybody wanted to chit chat about him not being in building and him being pissed off and pete carroll said i knew he'd be pissed off any competitor wants to play you know with what we got going on what he fought through he did the classic pete carroll boy i didn't like I don't like seeing Pete Carroll like this. It's not how I'm going to remember Pete Carroll. Okay, I want to let everybody know that. No. This is not how I'm going to remember.

2:14:46Adam Schefter:USC, Seattle. Having fun. For sure.

2:14:50Pat McAfee:Spinning it. You know, Will Ferrell's coming to practice. Snoop Dogg's there. They're doing shit in a team meeting. Like, that is how I'm. In Seattle, alongside the water there where he's running, having them compete, do the music thing. Like, that's a... I don't even know what you're talking about.

2:15:06Pat McAfee:That's... Nah, because they pan over the walls, so... That ain't real. That came out that that was not necessarily 100 % true. There are some Legion of Boom tributes and some others, I guess. Oh, I remember Legion of Boom. Fuck. Are you kidding me, Cam Chancellor? That was the best. Pete Carroll, the gum-tourer from Vegas? No, he was originally. Well, he was with New England. He was with you guys. No, no, no, no. He was. That's like Patino with the Celtics. That never happens. When was Patino with the Celtics? That's what I'm saying. Okay, that's what we're doing with Vegas, with Pete. That's what we're doing.

2:15:41The only thing I'm going to remember from Pete Carroll's entire tenure, Vegas. No.

2:15:46Pat McAfee:Don't do that to Pete Carroll. Fuck Pete Carroll. Is he gone for sure after this? You think he's gone for sure? I don't know, man. One and done is crazy decision. Only had a three-year contract. Most of these coaches that are with their teams, it's four or five years, right? Because he's old. He only signed a three-year deal because he's old. It was kind of flip the culture. He flipped the culture. He flipped it so much that he pissed Max Crosby off, and now he wants to leave. Okay, Max Crosby's back in the building. Let's remember that. And they are potentially staring down a full rebuild. Going to have to get a new quarterback.

2:16:14Pat McAfee:Geno Smith, obviously, I'm a big fan of. It didn't work out out there. Fired all the coordinators. I mean, you're just. Well, not all the coaches, though. His boy is still the whole line coach. Mendoza, though. Hey, the Mendoza Vegas stuff that's cooking on the internet right now. Keep it going. It's amazing on the internet. They're going to try to get Mendoza down to Miami, I think. Could you imagine Mendoza as quarterback for the Miami Dolphins? speaks perfect Spanish. I mean, the whole thing. And he's a guy. From down there. And if it was McDaniel's offense, we think Mendoza would be able to figure it out, right?

2:16:49Pat McAfee:How are we going to get him? Is he going to be number one fish? Spend yours. Spend in it right now. Raiders are, I mean, they are full-blown. I swear I saw the offensive line do an entire sunshine move and just let Geno get fucking bobbled on a third down. I am almost sure that happened yesterday. Okay. Well, Pete Carroll needs to get it tightened. up over there. Max Crosby's back in the building. He's going to get surgery is what everybody's saying. Who knows what building he goes into next, speaking of buildings. One could look very different next year, especially if there's a loss in Sunday Night Football.

2:17:20Pat McAfee:Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Jage, how many defensive MVPs do you have? Three. Okay, so teams probably game planned around you a few times. Did you ever think to yourself during a game, oh, tell you what, they don't care about winning this game. They're just trying to stop me. And I asked this question because Because there was a large sentiment of the internet yesterday who said the Steelers only cared about stopping Myles Garrett and the sack record. They didn't care about making the playoffs. So did you ever feel that way? And I'm sure it's Monday, so I doubt you've seen the tape yet, but how do you feel about that sentiment?

2:17:57JJ Watt:Yeah, I mean, if you're trying to stop the best player on the team from getting sacks, that's generally the way to try and win the game. What would be the alternative? Let them get sacks?

2:18:13Pat McAfee:No, you don't get it. You don't get it. Trying to score. Aaron was throwing. He threw his third, I think, fastest of the season, and Myles Garrett was chipped the eighth most this season. So.

2:18:28JJ Watt:I mean, that would be my strategy. Yeah. Like, he's a game wrecker. He destroys the game. The Steelers have an undrafted free agent tackle who's first time playing Miles Garrett. So they should have been one-on-one.

2:18:40Pat McAfee:No, the Steelers didn't want to win the game and make the playoffs. They wanted Sunday Night Football Week 18 to be bigger. So they said, Miles doesn't get the sack record. Let's just get Sunday Night Football for the last one. But on that note.

2:18:51JJ Watt:I mean, if you look at the Steelers all year long, Aaron's got – he gets the ball out of his hands faster than anybody else in the whole league. That's what he does. That's what he's done all season long. And, yeah, I mean, of course they don't want Miles to get the record. that's that's that's in a rivalry that's exactly how they're going to do it but i mean trying to comprehend the the first sentence you said where they're they try to they care more about that than the win i'm just saying like if you let the game wrecker wreck the game you're not going to win now they didn't do a lot of other good things it seems i haven't watched the tape yet i saw the final drive that was a lot of bad certainly uh interesting um but i think that the way to win the game is to not let the best player win the game for them.

2:19:32Pat McAfee:Yeah, you take care of the game wrecker. You know, normally you have your best shot to win the game. So maybe one comes with the other is what everybody around ball is saying about Miles Garrett. Miles said it as well, too. So I don't know. It must have been something.

2:19:45Adam Schefter:He said what? That they were more concerned with him getting the sack? To an extent, they were more worried about keeping me away from Aaron than getting the win.

2:19:51Pat McAfee:Let's hear it in his words. I believe him. To an extent, I feel like they were more worried about keeping me away from Aaron.

2:19:58JJ Watt:than getting the win. And I think that's what came back to bite them. So they'll have to fight it out with Baltimore next week. But I'm just proud of the guys for fighting and getting this win. That's the main thing. And I'm always going to keep it that.

2:20:14Pat McAfee:Miles, you know ball better than me, Miles Garrett. I think a lot of teams are going to try to keep you away from their quarterback in an attempt to win the game. No.

2:20:24Adam Schefter:Obviously not. He's half a sack away from the record. Yeah. They've only won, what, four games? To D-Bud's point, actually, the Patriots, part of their strategy was like, hey, we're going to let Miles Garrett get five sacks, and then we're going to beat him by 20. And that's what they fucking did. Boom.

2:20:38JJ Watt:Maybe that's it. Let that guy eat, and then guess what everyone else is going to do? Then beat everybody else. Not eat.

2:20:45Pat McAfee:What if that becomes the blue? Nobody else can eat is what Connor's saying. Only one eater. So if that becomes the way to beat the Browns, and they're just letting Miles get five sacks a game, holy shit, that this record's only lasting. So he's got one week to get this record, right? Yeah. What's the number? 22 and a half? Yes. So he would have to get to 23. Where's he at right now? He's at 22. 22, right? He's at 22. Needs one to get to. Next year, if this is the way to beat them, is just let Myles Garrett get all the sacks. I think so. 50 sacks by week 10. That's what I'm saying. What is this?

2:21:20Pat McAfee:2 and 8. Yeah.

2:21:22JJ Watt:It's weird, though, because the Steelers beat them earlier in the season and Myles didn't have a sack in that game. either. So I'm just confused by the strategy.

2:21:29Pat McAfee:Well, why'd they change what they were doing then? They only gave up two sacks yesterday. It's not like they were quadruple teaming.

2:21:36Adam Schefter:Did you see Aaron when he got sacked? Did you see how quick he turned around? He's so pissed. Even fucking Nance.

2:21:44Pat McAfee:Aaron is the sack of the quarterback. Jim Nance thought he had it. He thought he had it.

2:21:52JJ Watt:The first game is a great point from the back there. I think it was Nick. Thank you, Josh. That's such a great point. Joe Thomas tweeted it. There was a lot of people out there. What I've learned today is you guys are on a ball.

2:22:07Pat McAfee:That's a fun little fact we picked up. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We'll talk to all of you later about something you might know about because we're talking ball right now. And bones. That was a woolly mammoth touch from Russia. Well, funny enough, I just scrolled through the auction thing of all the woolly mammoth stuff. half of it's fucking bullshit. What do you mean half of it's fucking bullshit? I mean, we read that a pair of them might be a million bucks. A pair of them's like fucking$65 ,000. What are we talking about here? $65 ,000 Tusk is what Joe Burrow's gifting people? I'm saying we have no idea.

2:22:45JJ Watt:I don't know about that. He said a pair. That looked like only one. He said a pair.

2:22:52Pat McAfee:That's also a subspecies. which there's not a lot of these. That's a dwarf. That's just a little one. That's a cute little moon. Is that a baby?

2:22:59JJ Watt:That looks almost identical. That's a Wagyu? That looks way cooler. That 15 Gs at the bottom looks very similar. I'd venture to guess Burrow spent$100 on each of these in Game 2. Yeah, maybe a couple scratchies. A couple scratchies. 15 sounds right. That feels like it's in the ballpark. Does Flacco get him stuff too? Because he played for a decent amount of these. Yeah, Flacco gets some good shit because he's got a clue. Amen. Burrow had them hold their bones as he played chopsticks on his piano. What is everybody's problem?

2:23:33Pat McAfee:This is a good, thoughtful gift. A fossil? Nobody else.

2:23:37JJ Watt:Where did the Burrow burial session come from? He's been calling him Boohoo Burrow. I haven't been calling him that. People on the internet have been saying Boohoo Burrow. And I said, whoa. We don't have to call Boohoo Burrow. And he's not boohooing anymore. or he's got bones. Speaking of the record, that's where it is this week, isn't it? That's who it's against. Oh, no. Yeah, Burrow's just going to throw the ball at Garrett. Did you guys happen to see the clip of Flacco on the sideline by any chance? It's going down. Yes. He was frozen.

2:24:08Pat McAfee:He was happy. Well, that might have been the first time he heard about getting a bone. You're right. Just taking back. Holy fuck, a wooly mammoth from Russia's available. See you, Jage. I could drink water out of this. James doesn't like that we're burying the fossils. I want to let you know, I am in an interesting spot now on all the fossil talk. At the beginning, I was a big fan of it. Now I'm trying to wonder what I would have done with it. There was a time the Colts would get Christmas gifts for all the players. Does that happen everywhere, Age? I don't believe so. Definitely not a green bag.

2:24:43Like ownership? Yeah, I think so.

2:24:45Pat McAfee:Yeah, it was ownership. What kind of gift? What would you get? Xbox. Xbox. They got us a little. All that stuff. TV was one year. It was awesome. Like making a bowl game? The first, it was like a bowl game. It was like a bowl game. First one, though, was meat. Just all meat. Okay. Just the first one we got was just a shit ton of meat. And I remember being so bummed out, but like so happy. I was 22. That's what Josh Allen got his line. I know. I was 22, 23 years old. Like I didn't have, I was fucking living in an apartment. I wanted to do shit. What am I going to do with it? Yeah, exactly. Does it fit on the George Foreman or not?

2:25:19Pat McAfee:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But, like, it was an older team. Those guys love it. So it was like a great gift. Like, I would, like, thought to myself, like, that's a great gift. I hope I get to the age where the gift comes and I like it. And then the next year it was like a TV or something. I'm like, now we're talking. Now we're playing again. He's always good. It's not easy getting gifts for people, though. Like, it's not easy to get something. Especially rich people. Especially rich young people that have a lot of great things already. Yeah, especially because, you know, the different ages and different life.

2:25:46Pat McAfee:very different interests yeah everything so like the fossil one is certainly outside the box but I assume everybody was like man fucking nobody from all walks of life all ages all demos all religions whatever they all said nobody's ever fucking thought about getting me a fossil now the side by side does hit with everybody from my understanding as I seen trucks join us now ladies and gentlemen JJ Watt

2:26:09JJ Watt:JJ sorry I just yeeted myself right out of the conversation

2:26:13Pat McAfee:well we missed you obviously we covered it in much more detail. You missed a lot. And on that note, great work today, Jage. We appreciate the hell out of you, man.

2:26:22JJ Watt:Yep. Great.

2:26:25Pat McAfee:What's your problem?

2:26:29JJ Watt:I have no problem at all. I'm doing fantastic over here. Do you have any dinosaur bones, Jage? Do you have any of these fossils around? No.

2:26:39Pat McAfee:What do you collect? What are things? What do you... It seems like a gift to you. Oh!

2:26:44JJ Watt:oh that's good that's a good one yeah yeah uh yeah um no i i mean i don't have anything like good you're playing pickleball those billionaires right i'm a big mug guy i like coffee mugs i like coffee mugs so places i go i like to collect coffee mugs that i'm meeting my wife and i like to give them as gifts to each other so very simple but coffee mugs no i like

2:27:06Pat McAfee:coffee i'm super i'm into coffee now i've become a full-on coffee person and uh it's a nice little culture, a little community. A little coffee community

2:27:15Adam Schefter:is a real thing. Yeah, she's got them from everywhere. Pop's in the military so they travel a bunch. Every state, every country, she's got different coffee mugs with kind of like if you do shot glass. I used to do shot glass. I travel out with all the shot glass. Starbucks does that now too. I do golf balls now. Every course I go wherever I go. Golf balls. Like every state, Starbucks has their own state mug that they sell at. That's cool. Yeah, it is actually.

2:27:38Pat McAfee:That's a good idea. Commercializing a local thing. Yeah, exactly. Cards, playing cards There's a lot of those Matches, lighters Those are good See a coffee extraordinaire What's that called? Somebody that's really into coffee

2:27:56JJ Watt:Barista makes them right?

2:28:00Pat McAfee:Aficionado

2:28:02JJ Watt:Aficionado Nice word

2:28:05Pat McAfee:Does it work with coffee or only wine?

2:28:09JJ Watt:I just Applied it to everything I think it's just one. Pretty sure it's just one.

2:28:15Adam Schefter:No.

2:28:15JJ Watt:No. I'm the... Which I saw. We had... People are all in on the roughing the passer stuff this weekend. Oh! And now the sommelier. Wait. Now the sommelier of roughing the passer.

2:28:26Pat McAfee:Wait. Thank you for actually reminding us because we did this earlier today. There was a couple we would like to get your answer on. Can we do that right now?

2:28:34JJ Watt:Absolutely. Let's do this.

2:28:36Pat McAfee:Okay. Let's go to the Chargers-Texans game. Chargers-Henley. up the gut. Oh, makes contact with what appears to be the chest. Finish your tackle.

2:28:45JJ Watt:Nope. Done. Not roughing the passer. Next.

2:28:48Pat McAfee:Okay, easy as that. Arms down from JJ. Let's go to the Titans-Saints game here. Go ahead and run it. I don't... Sorry, wrong one. Patriots-Jets. I didn't know what that was. Okay, let's go to the Patriots-Jets game here. Obviously, Connor Cook at quarterback. Patriots Jeremiah Farms. Oh, man.

2:29:15JJ Watt:Nope, not roughing the passer. Move on.

2:29:17Pat McAfee:Okay, thumbs down there from J.J. Watt. Now we go to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Browns. This is Cam Hayward on Shador Sanders. Has contact with the ball. Finishes through. He's a big body, big head on Shador. J.J., yes or no?

2:29:33JJ Watt:Nope, not roughing the passer.

2:29:35Pat McAfee:Okay. That's because it's brother's on team.

2:29:38JJ Watt:Do you guys want explanations? are like i got no problem none of those are roughing the passers i know that most of those three were the new rule of weight laying the weight on them all three situations guys put their hands down to brace themselves watch every single guy put their hands down the side to brace themselves watch cam's left hand here come off he doesn't drive him in he braces himself on the ground i don't know what more you want i don't think i think you should be able to drive him to the ground that so i won't even give any of those my roughing the passers that i will give on this show every time we do this hitting in the head hitting below the knees i will give those two or if you're hitting too late but i will never give a roughing the passer for a clean shoulder

2:30:20Pat McAfee:hit in the body that was third and eight in the fourth quarter there they call that obviously that was a massive call and this one the steelers end up losing the game so obviously it's a massive call but these are like program changers 15 yards big ass deal but also it slows people down when they're around a quarterback in the future right jage which is why we need to get this right it's like

2:30:41JJ Watt:you're saying like this is a 15 yard penalty automatic first down you could be generally they're going to happen on third down so you would be off of the field giving your offense the ball back and these guys are trying that's a form tackle that is a form tackle using his shoulder off to the side, puts his hands down to brace when he's there. Like, this game is hard, dude. We are massive, massive men moving at extreme rates of speed, trying to play it by the rules that you have put down and the rules that you keep adding to it. And it gets harder and harder, and our position continues to get harder and harder to play.

2:31:19JJ Watt:They're trying to do it, man. Stop punishing them for trying to do it right. There are ones that definitely are worth it. These are not.

2:31:26Pat McAfee:And that's a roughing the passer, Somalia, J.J. Watt. Yay! Three thumbs done. Pick up the flags. Let's play football, ladies and gentlemen. Happy New Year. That's J.J. Watt. Thank you, J.J. Happy New Year. Thanks for having me. Is he coming down at Cotton Bowl and Rose Bowl? I don't remember. Didn't sound like it. He said TV from a distance. Do you think we – nope. We'll be pumped to do it. We get to do it. Yeah. I can't believe we get to do it.

2:31:58Adam Schefter:Yeah. It's going to be awesome. Great matchup. Hopefully. Matchups. Yeah. You think potentially blow out Ohio State? I mean, I could absolutely see Ohio State putting it on. The other one might be a slop bowl. I think they could slop them up in the Rose Bowl if it's raining.

2:32:15Pat McAfee:Torrential downpour, seven-point spreads a lot, especially if what they're talking about with the weather was. Yeah, could that change if they, you know, we think for sure? Big time rainfall. What are they saying? 50 degrees? 60 degrees? Yeah. Anywhere from 50 to 60. Yeah, usually from the last few years, the first quarter and a half, sun, like, light should still be coming towards Earth. However, once the sun goes behind the San Gabriel Mountains, is what they're called? You're saying when the sun goes down, it gets colder. when the sun goes down. Especially when you're wet. Yeah, we got about...

2:32:59Pat McAfee:When the sun goes down. You're at the Rose Bowl. But it feels like you're in hell because it's cold. You're going to bring a poncho? About 80 % chance of rain the entire time the game is gone. They're saying pretty good rain, too. Not just, like, misting rain. I'm going to get full rain gear, like, uh... What's his name? Not DiNardo. Jim Cantor. Jim Cantor. There we go. We had full convos about do we get the ponchos and do the whole gimmick. And then there was a conversation about, well, I got a good rain jacket. I want to show off, some people said. And then we immediately went to, well, what are we wearing on New Year's Eve?

2:33:41Pat McAfee:And then you saw us make a decision in the group text. You watched it all unfold, and you participated, and we appreciate that. Feels like that's the only answer for New Year's Eve. Yeah, I think so. Feels like that's the only answer for New Year's Eve. Rose Bowl, though, I'll be excited to see what everybody does. I'll be excited to see what everybody does. AJ's got a good idea. Look like a couple of the fishermen on the Northwestern. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, smoking cigs. I got those boots, too. I got those rubber boots I could wear as well. Keep my feet dry. Deadliest catch. Yes. That's what we need to be doing.

2:34:09Pat McAfee:Sig Hansen. Do these things get delivered in time? Is that going to happen? Will they let us smoke cigarettes on the field at the Rose Bowl? Yes. They better. It's open air. If we're dressed like that, I think they have to let us, from my understanding. I'm not 100 % sure. Deadliest catch? Discovery's deadliest catch. Still landing big fish in year 10. This article on Variety. They're still doing it. Okay. I thought it was the deadliest catch. How are they still doing it? Survivors. Dogs. We have lost a few good sailors. Yeah, we certainly have. Yeah, more than a few. Shout out to Closter. Yeah.

2:34:41All their monuments for shoot dedicated to lost fishermen.

2:34:46Pat McAfee:Rest in peace to everybody. We appreciate you guys. It's a perfect storm. Hell yeah. Have you ever gone deep sea fishing?

2:34:51Adam Schefter:Mm-hmm. I went once.

2:34:54Pat McAfee:Twice. Seasick? What did you catch?

2:34:57Adam Schefter:No, I didn't get seasick. Oh, I forgot the name of the fish, but we had... Crabs? No. Forgot. Barlow? On a Father's Day one of my year. Bonita fish?

2:35:07Pat McAfee:A red... A bonita fish big. A red...

2:35:11Adam Schefter:Red snapper.

2:35:12Pat McAfee:Red snapper.

2:35:13Adam Schefter:Sword fish? Big... I'll find him. I'll find some pictures.

2:35:16Pat McAfee:I went deep sea fishing one time. Mm-hmm. We didn't pay enough, I guess, So we were supposed to be around the little fish and then they just took us way out there. It was pretty sick. It was pretty, it was actual sick. Yeah, the whole thing. Then we get out there, first cast down there. I'm not a good fisherman. We've all seen it. First cast down there, catch a massive fish. And there's a big fish jackpot on the boat. Everybody beforehand put a hundred bucks in, I guess, for the big fish jackpot. There's a bunch of different groups. And yeah, first cast, I guess we accidentally happened upon one of these big fish was in amongst all the smaller fish.

2:35:51Pat McAfee:And it was my first cast down there to pull out this big fucking thing. It was unbelievable. The thing was bleeding real blood. It's on my boots. It's on my entire thing. And I go, holy shit. Is this what we're catching all day? And the guy's like, no, you'll win the big fish. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, we aren't finding these fish today. We're finding. We have no idea. And I'm like, sick. That's awesome. So I had three hours out there just knowing I had the big fish jackpot. The amount of shit I was talking to everybody. I mean, I'm okay with this whole thing. There's boozing out here.

2:36:18Pat McAfee:It's good water. I didn't mind the deep sea fishing.

2:36:20Adam Schefter:Was it just you on the road or was it connected to the boat? It was connected to the boat. Okay.

2:36:24Pat McAfee:Literally doing nothing. You just hit that thing and it drops. Yeah. It's like a carnival basically. Yeah. And then you do this and then we pick up and we move to a new area. While you're moving to a new area, there's music, there's boozing happening, yada, yada, yada. We get to the new spot, do the drop thing in there. They do it. But they were taking us, I guess, to small fish parts of town. You know, I guess that's where we're headed for how much we paid. So major sport. I think it was a red something. I forget what it was. Red fin tuna? It was big. They were worried about the actual... The rod snapping?

2:36:54That might have been tuna then, actually. Yeah, I was going to say, tuna are fucking massive.

2:36:57Pat McAfee:I don't think it was that. I don't think it was that. I just think they did not expect that big of a fish to be caught. It was a general surprise, like a genuine surprise for the people. But I understood the gimmick of going and doing. It was like a good time. It's like the skiing is a whole fucking thing. I think that's the fishing thing, AJ, I think. Yeah, I puked my balls off, so you will not catch me getting another one. Yeah, I was pretty sick as well. And then I got out there, got pretty boozed up, you know, won the big fish jackpot. I think it passed out on the way back, got sunburned. You know, it did the whole thing.

2:37:29Pat McAfee:So I think I checked that box. But, yeah, boats and water, not the best. I'm scared to death, too. It's all out there. My alga has been feeding me some scary ocean stuff. Okay. That needs to stop. Stay away. It won't. Like what? What scary part? Like what's going on? Well, here's an aerial shot of an octopus that was on. Well, that fucker's as big as the city. Why is that thing that big? He's like, that's fake. And then you scroll the next one. It's like, this is not fake. And it's like, feels like this is fake, though. And I go to the next one. They got a picture of a guy who looks like he might be telling the truth.

2:38:01Pat McAfee:But that could just be an AI guy. Now that we know that Photoshop or whatever is now a part of what's real, what isn't these days. Who knows? What I know, sports are real. Always will be. That's right. And they're not scripted tone. no matter how much you think that the NFL was in on making Sunday Night Football the AFC North title game. It wasn't just that. You know, if the Bears win last night, then, you know, the NFC West is for nothing. You know, if there was a lot of other things that happened that, you know, Week 18 could have been a real bummer, and now it's so exciting. Yeah, it's an epic Week 18, and we're actually pumped up about it.

2:38:37JJ Watt:Rich Eisen here. The April 15th tax deadline is coming fast, but don't worry. Hand off your taxes to a TurboTax expert today. You know how April feels. Everything speeds up. Games matter. More hoops and hockey schedules tighten. Your phone won't stop buzzing. And somewhere in the middle of it all, there's that quiet little reminder. Taxes. You'll get to it tonight or tomorrow or after the weekend. And if you handle it the old way, you're refreshing your inbox like it's breaking news. Waiting. Wondering. Hoping everything's squared away. That's a lot of mental bandwidth. With Intuit TurboTax Expert full service, you can match with a dedicated expert who understands your specific tax situation and handles your taxes for you, start to finish.

2:39:19JJ Watt:You can do it all online or meet in person at one of their new tech-enabled store locations. Have your tax forms imported directly into the app and hand everything off to your TurboTax expert. While they work to get you every dollar you deserve, you can go about your normal routine, giving you time back to focus on what actually deserves your attention, like rooting for your team to make the playoffs. April 15th is not waiting, people. Visit TurboTax.com and hand off your taxes to a TurboTax expert today. Hey, sports fans. The ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network in service.

2:40:00And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional cost. Visit activate.espn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN, all in one place. Sign up or activate now.

2:40:23Pat McAfee:Football! Yes, it's 2.52. Hour 3 starts now. That is A.J. Hawk. The Talks at Tables here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Want to have the hammer? Down. Cowboys AP Tone is here. Hammer? Down. It's obviously a sports gambling podcast that, you know, goes live from a studio right over yonder. What are the public betting numbers like coming out of week 17? Did we win? Did we beat the book? Or did we continue to lose to the book? So we actually never got to this last week, I believe. We won last week. Did we? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Stop. We did it. We did it. We didn't get to do it last week.

2:40:57Pat McAfee:We are now borrowing a time from last week and inserting this particular celebration into some shitty part of our show last week. Now, it was the Christmas week, so it's going to be tough for us to really do anything of good for the world. But we would like to take this moment of we did it. Oh, yeah. So this week. Congrats to all of us. Here we go. This week, I'm not sure if you saw the Christmas Day games. They sucked. The dogs all covered there. and then the dogs covered Saturday. So the dogs were off to a 5-0 start when that happens. Jeez. Normally not great for the betters, but they came back a bit.

2:41:334-6 against the spread this week was the public when teams were getting 60 % or more of the bets.

2:41:39Pat McAfee:4-6, we're almost there.

2:41:41Adam Schefter:Almost.

2:41:42Pat McAfee:That close.

2:41:43Adam Schefter:Almost. In Christmas games.

2:41:45Pat McAfee:I'm starting to think NFL should play. Give them back.

2:41:48Adam Schefter:Yeah, just give it back to the NBA. I was watching.

2:41:50Pat McAfee:I was watching the NBA. The guy had a good day. Fucking great day. Joker at it. Yeah. I mean, they had a great fucking day. They kind of stunk last year, too. The Ravens blew out the Texans and the Chiefs blew out the Steelers. I mean, even like Cavs, Knicks, I believe. They had a big comeback. Big comeback. Tyler Cole. But also, it's Madison Square Garden on Christmas Day. I felt like, yeah, it's kind of cool to be watching this. Then Coco and Donovan Mitchell, I guess they're dating. I learned that while I was watching. I'm like, I'm fucking happy for Spider. Look at this guy. He's doing his thing.

2:42:20Pat McAfee:And then a huge comeback. I mean, it was a fastball. The NBA, I think, threw its fastball on Christmas. And, yeah, Jokic is out.

2:42:28Adam Schefter:Stink. KD versus Brown. Really? Luke.

2:42:31Pat McAfee:Well, J.J. Redick's saying these fuckers are bad at basketball, man. That's right. He ain't doing it. Fucking sick of that guy. Who? Whoa. J.J. Oh, you don't like accountability? No, it's just he's trying way too hard to be Joe Mazzullo. What? And that is a fact. I love him. He is. First of all, I love Joe Mazzullo, West Virginia grad. I just learned another West Virginia legend is on that coaching staff, and I assume the world knows. I don't want to pull him on blast, but I'm a big fan of who he was as a basketball player and the person who's also coaching up there. So I respect what you guys got going on.

2:43:04Pat McAfee:They also played the Pacers, I believe, in the last few days. Gumpy was sitting second row for the game. What was it like watching the Celtics live and Missoula live? Missoula was running all the boys. Everybody on the bench gets burned, and I told Ty about this. Garza was just up and down the court. I mean, he probably logged about 30 minutes. The bench kind of pissed off Jalen Brown. He wasn't doing nothing. They started laughing. Jalen Brown looked at him like, all right, here we go. Went off the rest of the game. Unbelievable. I'll say this. Dumpy told me they got an all-whites smack in the wood.

2:43:35Pat McAfee:I mean, they're coming out there for five minutes of hell for the team, and then it's a substitution. Is this brand new? Has this always been an NBA basketball? I didn't know we had that. I believe it's brand new. Jalen Brown has had 30 points in every single game in December. He actually has had a historic month when it comes to basketball. But, yeah, we have our bench mob, and they come in and they cause havoc. They chew on wood. Chew on wood. That's what he said. He said they come in there and just give us some relief, but it's just like hell, like absolute hell for them. Basically like semi-pro when they put on the eyeliner.

2:44:09That's what they do every single day. And there's no sweat.

2:44:11Pat McAfee:It's not running into their eyes. They're able to do it again and again and again. I didn't know that was – that sounds like a sound idea, especially if you're out one of your stars. like, hey, how do we kind of shorten the game? Well, we can put this crew in that's all grit and job. I mean, all grit and job. Nobody's going to be ready for it. Missoula's always cooking. I mean, that's basically the point of this whole thing. Yeah, one of the best coaches in all of basketball. Wemby, what's going on with him? He's the guy. He's dominating. Yep, he first shoot hates Chet Holmgren. Now, those allegations are no longer allegations.

2:44:44He hates that fucking guy. Awesome to watch, though.

2:44:47Pat McAfee:Oklahoma City, what, 27-5? Yeah, Oklahoma State. I think they're even – I don't know if they've lost – have they lost five? I'm not sure. I think I saw that as well. I think I saw 27-5 on a graphic. They had lost three games whenever I ran – Caruso was at Texas A &M because they had lost two out of their last three, three in total, because I had a full surprise moment when Stanford Steve tells me from across the field basically, they're the fucking best team in basketball. And I go, what? They just lost two out of three? He goes, yeah, they've only lost three. out of the entire thing. So then I go to Caruso.

2:45:20Pat McAfee:Oh, you guys are playing really well. And he's like, I heard Steve as well there. So I was like, okay. So you kind of caught me in this entire thing. I had no idea. But I guess Oklahoma City, the real, right? The real deal this year, yet again. Three of those losses. Three of the five are to the Spurs. Okay, and that's the next question. So Wemby is who we fucking thought he was going to be? Really? Oh, yeah, big time. If he stays healthy with Castle, too. I mean, their team is so young. The fact that they're this good.

2:45:46Adam Schefter:Harper, too. The number two overall pick this year, Derek Harper Jr., he's a monster.

2:45:52Pat McAfee:So I like that he hung out with the Monks, right? Yep. Which is like quiet, reserved, everything like that. Still high thinking and everything. He flexes immediately. I mean, he is because he wanted to hang out with Kevin Garnett as well, right? Feels like he knows everything about everything too, and he handles it all perfectly. He started talking about the universe with us, or whatever, not with us. He started talking about the universe during interviews. Before the draft, we didn't really know anything about this guy. You've got a big French guy who's allegedly an alien. Yeah, he is. And that's actually what they're going to design his entire line of shit around, which is sick, too.

2:46:24Pat McAfee:It's a great logo in the entirety. And it's like, well, this guy would be the greatest basketball player of all time. Could be, they said. And he is. That's what's starting to happen here. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, you could make the argument he's already the greatest defensive player in the history of basketball just because of what he does on the court and his presence. He's 7' what? I think he is 7 '4 or 7 '5, yeah, and then his wingspan is like 8. So that's why it's just like everything is getting – he is the SWAT team.

2:46:50Adam Schefter:Yeah. Pulling up. Even when he doesn't, like, go up, just his presence in the paint. Like, people will – Yeah, they'll dribble right through. Like, pass him or even throw a layup up because he's, like – No easy buckets. Yeah. It's crazy. Block party. Yeah. And he can dribble and shoot, you know. That certainly doesn't hurt. Jeez.

2:47:09Pat McAfee:So if I recall the story, he gets drafted there. There's a couple older people on the team that don't get it, that he's the one. And then they had to kind of change out the team? Is that accurate? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Remember they had all the primetime games and all those guys were looking to get their shine in. It was tough because Greg Povich had a stroke midseason, so they had this whole new coach comes in, a lot of different stuff. And then blood clots last year. Makes the all-star game, first half of the season, unbelievable. Gets blood clots, misses the entire second half of the season.

2:47:39So that season also goes down the tubes. And now this year, fully healthy, De 'Aaron Fox, guy they got, another very highly paid player. He's probably their vet, but he's only like 28 years old, if that. And then the guys they've drafted over these last three years since drafting Wembe, Castle, and Harper. It's like they have their own homegrown big three.

2:47:59Pat McAfee:So everybody knows that it's Wembe's team. Yeah. Like he's the guy. And shout out to him. Also, I saw you post LeBron without high-ing. The Lakers stink their ass.

2:48:10Adam Schefter:Yeah.

2:48:11Pat McAfee:What do you mean their ass? I thought they were really good. Well, when LeBron wasn't playing, it was all Luka, hey, let's pass the ball. You know, everything goes through Luka. Not that LeBron doesn't pass the ball. He does. But more so, everything goes through Luka. And now with LeBron, it's just different. And the West is really good. They're a current four seed right now. Go ahead.

2:48:29Adam Schefter:That's probably why a comment said he was tired of JJ because he was talking about, you know, defense and guys not getting back on defense. And then he also mentioned the offense being out of whack since LeBron came back. And Austin Reeves is hurt, too. So he'll be out for a long stretch. Austin Reed was having an unbelievable year this year. Luka's still leading the league in scoring. He is unreal. He's what he's always been.

2:48:50Pat McAfee:I saw Jalen Brunson still can't miss. What the fuck? Guy's outrageous. Watching him play the Pacers last year live, it's like it makes no sense. He's doing shit, and it's going up, and it's not even touching the rim. It is somehow falling. Whenever they need it, he does it. I saw a lot of that on Christmas, and I guess he followed it up the day after as well. The Knicks, a team that's going to be in it? Oh, yeah. We're all the way back. We have a bench now, too, which is awesome. So, Tyler Kolick on Christmas Day. Oh, I saw a little Kolick. Yeah, he came in, hit a bunch of threes. He was a game-high plus 25, I believe it was, plus minus.

2:49:23And then Mitchell Robinson, our big rebounder, he's still coming in off the bench.

2:49:26JJ Watt:I think he had 13 rebounds in 16 minutes, so almost a rebound a minute. There was a possession where he got three offensive rebounds in a row.

2:49:33Pat McAfee:How was Marty Supreme? Timothy Chalamet, I immediately think of with the Knicks. It did the biggest opening for an A24 movie ever, the studio it was with. Way to go, Timmy! A lot of people are saying it will be a travesty if he doesn't win the Oscar for Best Actor. Okay, he's going for that though, right? Because we heard him speak before about how he wants to win. This is his goal. He wants to be great. Yeah, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. These are my inspirations, not other things like that. He wants to be great. And then everything he does seemingly lives up to the expectation.

2:50:05Pat McAfee:His entire marketing angle here, they were talking about as it's the most innovative thing of all time. It's like he became a full-on internet person. He basically exposed the fact that he understands what's going on in the world that we currently live in with the way he marketed it. And then his performance, what, he just buys into the character so well? Like, what are you being judged whenever you win those types of awards? Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it. I don't know how many people his age are, you know, I don't know if I'd say he's method, but I think he does. like the Bob Dylan one, a lot of that is coming back around where he basically said, like, hey, I invested, like, five years of my life into, like, you know, really diving into this character, making sure I got it right and everything.

2:50:45And I think a big part of it is he makes the right choices movie-wise, and now he's getting to a point where I think, like, directors who are really well-respected by the Academy and things, like, they want to work with him. And it also doesn't hurt that, like, he's one of the top guys right now. He's not really doing any movies where he's in two scenes and he's got 12 minutes of screen time. He's up there the whole time.

2:51:07Pat McAfee:And on that note, he's a sports guy. He's a sports guy. Knows bald. Yeah, he does. We like people that know bald doing their thing. And congrats to him. And I can't wait to watch Marty Supreme. When's it coming out? I would like to support. I'll go buy a ticket on Fandango to support you. When's it come out on the thing? I'm not sure. I'm sure it's one of those things where in February, maybe you can rent it on Apple. because that's the other thing is if it's like truly Oscar bait, they're going to want to keep that in the theaters for a while. Because they want to run numbers up in that particular world, even though they understand the modern world.

2:51:38Pat McAfee:I've been back in the Oculus, AJ. You know what that means. Really? What do you be playing, ping pong? Well, boxing mostly. I found out I could box in my bathroom in the Oculus. That's changed things a little bit. So, you know, the boxing in the Oculus, I don't know how many new listeners we have. Sounds dangerous. So, you draw your hair, it looks out for you you know make sure that you're staying in there but i haven't been able to and i'm sure somebody more technically savvy would be able to do this mine doesn't have any uh boundaries now except for whenever i'm getting close to the boundary that i created it like pops up a wall to let me know i can't be there starts vibrating so it helps you set up a boundary on where you could be it's connected to the internet it helps you out when like when i play ping pong I used to be in like an arena like I'd get in there and I'm in arena so I'm in the room that I'm in but in my mind I'm there's 7 ,000 I'm Morris Spring I'm Morris Spring in there and I'm playing against a floating head somebody from somewhere Germany maybe uh you name it all over the globe and they have the access to it now I haven't been able to figure it out I'm just in the room that I'm in in all these things okay so I'm boxing this guy he's walking out of my fucking closet aj this guy's walking out of my closet okay i'm sitting there in my bathroom personal it's personal exactly exactly so i'm throwing bombs in my bathroom i mean absolutely we know that overhand right is coming we know you better watch out for that there was yeah you know this guy's walking out of my closet yeah right so it's uh it's been fun but i've gotten back into the ping pong in there like after the boxing i do the little ping pong to kind of uh calm it down because boxing takes a lot out of you if you're getting punched in the actual face or in the oculus face and you actually need to knock his irish champion out because you know for the good of the bathroom and in the closet you got to win boom yeah there bang boom i'm in an arena right yeah well this is the third round this is third fourth round yeah you don't know that that guy was getting tired in that moment that might have been tejada you know tejada it gets a little loose with his hands puts him down shout the valve walking through she understood we were in between rounds we need to get back boom bang pal boom left hand needs bang there's a lefty by the way knocked everybody up bang i want to knock him out lefty boom boom i want to study film on these guys okay anyways real fighting in there there's a real character in there yeah okay that's i'm connecting with somebody's actual something's actual face in there and i started doing a ping pong afterwards and i thought to myself marty supreme they need to that that ping ping-pong company in the thing, they need to be pushing.

2:54:16Pat McAfee:Like, if ping-pong becomes something because of Marty Supreme, which it certainly could, right? I mean, it had a hell of a run. Did you play ping-pong down in South Florida? No, I never really got into it. Was there games down there? Ping-pong? Yeah. Yeah. We had somebody, like, one person every group basically have a ping-pong table in their garage was kind of like how it worked. In Pittsburgh, same in Iowa? Yeah, ping-pong, big deal. I mean, exact same thing. at least multiple people in my friend's group had ping-pong tables. Massachusetts? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I feel like it is a game that, like, everybody – Ohio, you guys certainly same as us, I assume?

2:54:52Absolutely. My grandma had an old pool table in her basement, and she had, like, the ping-pong tables you put on top. We would set it up, yeah.

2:54:59Pat McAfee:And then attach that net to the bottom.

2:55:01Adam Schefter:Boys and girls club. It's weird, like, ping-pong pool.

2:55:06Pat McAfee:Always in a garage. Larman had one. had one over there. Fessick had one. Ping pong is fun. Ping pong is legit. I enjoy ping pong. It's a great sport. In the Oculus, they kind of got it figured out. I'm actually surprised they don't have some sort of Marty Supreme tie-in on there. That's what I'm saying. I guess the Oculus is dead. I saw there was $78 billion loss or something like that. They were saying it was dead. I was like, well, this ping pong company that's in here should be trying to like, hey, this is really good. All you need is fucking four feet and it's like real. You're playing against people around the world.

2:55:45Adam Schefter:So Marty Supri, a ping pong player? Yes. Yeah. I didn't know that's what he is.

2:55:49Pat McAfee:Yeah. I've not seen the movie. I do not know the story. I've only seen a trailer and I saw the actual guy playing. He's still alive. He still had it. There was still a lot of this. So he was a worldwide sensational table tennis ping pong player. Yeah, I believe so. And I think it's just loosely based on that guy, but again, I don't know very much about it either other than, yeah, Tim Chalamet is playing like a big-time prodigy in this. How are you, ping-pong? Not good.

2:56:18Adam Schefter:You should be good, though. Got a brother that's really good. Yeah, military, big. Your dad

2:56:22Pat McAfee:probably played a lot.

2:56:23Adam Schefter:He does the spinning and shit.

2:56:25Pat McAfee:You should get Oculus ping-pong. I'm telling you. You can get really good really quick, I think. It does fuck your real-life ping-pong, though.

2:56:32Adam Schefter:I can't have that. I realize that. You played pickleball lately? Last time you did that, Arizona Super Bowl? Yep. Then we played here for a while.

2:56:39Pat McAfee:We had Thunderball in here.

2:56:40Adam Schefter:Remember we picked up the tape? Yeah, we didn't even have the tape. Perfect dims. I drove past the pickleball place around where we lived. That place was packed. Oh, everywhere. Still.

2:56:50Pat McAfee:What was, Ben, the chicken and waffles and pickleball? Remember that? What was that place called? Yeah. Chicken and pickle? Yeah. I think it was chicken and pickle. It was a pickleball restaurant place. out here? Yeah. They invited us to come play a couple times. We couldn't make it happen. Wish we could have, though. Pickleball was a good time. I don't sell sanity here. Well, you get a little chicken and you get a little pickleball. You don't do it at the same time. It's like bowling. You're eating pizza while you bowl. It's a similar thing. Exactly. Actually, some people take the chicken and then they put that right into the hole.

2:57:27Pat McAfee:And they don't even do the wind. You're not bowling right now.

2:57:32Adam Schefter:Pickleball. Work up real.

2:57:34Pat McAfee:Yeah, real work.

2:57:35Adam Schefter:Real lather.

2:57:36Pat McAfee:When was the last time you played? You played?

2:57:38Adam Schefter:No. My boy, I was in Arizona a few weeks ago. I played there.

2:57:41Pat McAfee:I think it's an Arizona State game. Feels like that's probably what's going to happen. When we travel back to Arizona, we'll make sure we bring our fucking rackets. Yep. Next week. Remember, we had 14 different. Is that real? Semis. First game of semis, yeah. Guess the ball. Here we go. Okay. Here we go. Holy fuck. Find the house. I cannot wait. We need an Airbnb stat. We need to find that entire thing. Kyush is part of a Pickleball country club. Remember they all did that? He's got a roller bag with like seven brackets in there, didn't he? He has a score. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he does. He's rated.

2:58:13Pat McAfee:It's fucking wild. Pickleball really had a run there. It did. Is it still going? Is it still big like it was? I see like the Pickle Shack and different places going up that are like where people play. I do think it's still going as big. Yeah, it's still bringing it. Oh, yeah. Really? It's not in our spheres.

2:58:30Adam Schefter:A lot of tennis courts have been renovated to maybe two tennis courts. Now it's four pickleball courts.

2:58:38Pat McAfee:I love down there. I watched all the tennis this weekend. That came out of nowhere. Expected. Then we watched TGL for a couple. Yeah, Billy Horschel with an absolute bomb.

2:58:50JJ Watt:No. What? Wait a minute. I'm an avid TGL fan. It was right in the middle of Sunday football. Didn't watch a second of it.

2:58:58Pat McAfee:You didn't?

2:58:58JJ Watt:That was the dumbest thing they ever could have did as a fan.

2:59:02Pat McAfee:Yeah, Foxy's one of their biggest fans. Foxy would really like the TGL to work. I think Foxy would like it because I think Foxy's game would translate well to TGL golf. I think he'd be able to play well if we were able to get in there. Yes. And Foxy watched religiously, I'd say, season one, much to the chagrin of everybody, basically, because we had a couple times we watched a couple weeks and we kind of got it. Foxy was all in, dialed, plugged. I love listening to Matt Berry up there. And then Marty, the real Supreme Smith, was actually out in the audience a couple times. We thought it was interesting how they chose to do it.

2:59:37Pat McAfee:We thought this year, obviously, they get a second crack at it. And then they launch in the middle of Week 17 NFL Sunday football. It's like, who do you think watches this? Tough decision. Football people watch this. We got Wednesday night at 9. That's where they fucking need to live. That's where they need to live. I'm just joking. That's the New Year's Eve. That's when the John Bull is. I'm not sure what the next one is. How the fuck would I know and watch on Sunday?

2:59:59JJ Watt:Last year they kicked it off on the first Monday night after Monday night football was over, and I was like, yes, that makes sense. Sunday at 3 o 'clock makes absolutely no sense.

3:00:08Pat McAfee:Well, maybe they want the lads to get back into the swing of TGL things. Maybe this is like the NBA.

3:00:13JJ Watt:No, it's funny you say that because I actually read on the Internet, so I don't know if this is true or not, that one team forgot about the hammer rule, which is basically the most important rule in the entire TGL. So they used no hammers, and they lost the match.

3:00:24Pat McAfee:These guys love this league. They just love it so much. They don't even want to use the hammer. Forget about the only fucking gimmick they got.

3:00:30JJ Watt:Can you gamble on this? I don't know if you can, but if you can, and these guys don't even know the rules, that's a problem in itself as well. If you're gambling on this, call the number. I mean, this is a ridiculous, ridiculous thing to gamble on. There's been a lot of attempts at alternative golf formats, and honestly, I thought this one was the most fun to watch. That's why I enjoyed it last year, and then they kicked it off on Sunday NFL. I think we found it.

3:00:54Pat McAfee:Don't we think we potentially have found what the golf alternative could potentially be? That sounds awesome. We didn't create it, but it was certainly presented to us. It feels like there is a lot of golf interest in the world right now. I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing. We would like TGL to make sounder decisions so we could watch this thing because I think we would be the demo of people that would enjoy that. Short attention span golf people, sports people. I mean, it's basically built for a digital thing. We think it's great. We think it could be amazing. We would like it to see.

3:01:24Pat McAfee:You just need, you need somehow like the, I don't know, you need some animosity between the teams. You need the golfers to really play into it, I think. Which Billy Horschel is great for the sport. AJ wants, for TGL golf, Billy Horschel? Yeah, he really is. Well, he led TGL in singles points last season, as you can see clearly. And Billy Ho's back. I mean, that's Billy Ho football. And we appreciate him. We just wish more people would watch it because this has a chance to be awesome. And more of this is good for the world, not less of this. So shout out to Billy Ho and the Atlantic Dream. Crush your game.

3:01:57Pat McAfee:All right, let's get back. That's the WNBA team.

3:01:59Adam Schefter:Next match is Friday night. Friday night? Okay, good. Boston Common versus LA Golf. Oh, BCGC's play? They struggled that season. Yeah, but how many free agents were there in the first offseason?

3:02:12Pat McAfee:Were people hitting the transfer portal? Did I see Scotties in this? Yeah. What team's he on? Oh, good question. And by yes, I thought I just saw him in the audience.

3:02:19JJ Watt:Yeah, I don't know if he's officially on a team yet, but I did see him hitting balls.

3:02:24Pat McAfee:So I saw him hit one. He's too busy winning real golf tournaments. All the boys are trying to win some real golf tournaments. This is just in their spare time, which they don't have a lot of. Scotty Scheffler, par 3, 161. You saw the same thing I saw. It was his first shot at the SoFi Stadium. Yeah, these guys are approaching NFL coaches for me. Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't want to go home.

3:02:46JJ Watt:And if you remember, there's like an expansion. There'll be more teams in there. So I assume Scottie probably has a piece of one of those teams and he'll be in it next year. That's my guess.

3:02:55Pat McAfee:Yeah, the Maze does have a team, I think, out there in Las Vegas. So we would turn this Thunderdome into one of their TGL things is what we would do. And we would have a team. We would host shit here. We could do that. I don't – Is that how it works? No, I think it's all at SoFi Center. It's Florida. Yeah. Oh, so people aren't building for – if you have a home team – A giant screen. You got to have that giant screen and all the cameras and everything. I think it's 60 feet. But you got to build a stadium for every other thing that you find. How many stadiums do they have? Do they only play in one spot?

3:03:28They only play in South Florida at the SoFi Center that they built for this.

3:03:31Pat McAfee:But what would be goal for them as they expand? Is there going to be multiple, I guess? Yeah, I thought that was actually happening.

3:03:37JJ Watt:I'm not positive on that, but I thought they would. One of them collapsed. How do you make money? Probably Arizona and then like Vegas or something. Is this open to the general public? Yeah, I think you're buying tickets. It has to be to make money, right? It has to be all week. And the next one is too good. No, I mean to like a top golf. To play. Yeah, exactly. So they're never going to be able to make any more.

3:03:54Pat McAfee:Ah, but maybe it does become that, right? I mean, maybe that would be the play. I can't play football. Top golf's not doing great. I know that, too. What? Top golf doesn't have bays booming anymore? Yeah, I think they sold it. I don't know. I think golf. It was a Callaway bottom, and then it went way down, I believe. Yep, Callaway. Golf's going down? I mean, I don't know why they're doing this gimmick shit if it's going up. Well, I think they're doing the gimmick shit because it's going up. Oh, okay. Nice. Good for that Alright now that I hear a counterpoint I agree with what you're saying Did you see the video of the top golf in Michigan I think it may have been over the weekend Where this kid is stepping up to hit And the right side the nets I don't know if they were like frozen The nets just start collapsing Just one thing at a time Yeah it's just like a fucking tidal wave And the kid just backs up And you can see them just kind of Let's get the fuck out of here Top golf Auburn Hills the whole net came down pictures.

3:04:46Okay.

3:04:47Adam Schefter:In Michigan. Oh, my God.

3:04:51Pat McAfee:Holy shit. Wow. I think they lost a lot of golf balls after that. Michigan got a lot of snow and ice this weekend.

3:04:59JJ Watt:Yeah, it was frozen.

3:05:00Pat McAfee:I'll tell you what, Topgolf in Michigan, I guess it makes sense because that's kind of the upsides of Topgolf is that the bays are heated and you can hit full balls. Right. So you guys are saying Topgolf's not in the same spot? Because I remember it was impossible to get in Topgolf. Yes. In my brain, it's still impossible to get into Topgolf. I guess that's not the case anymore. It's weird, though. You either go there and use their wobbly clubs that are for, like, a 95-year-old geriatric person, or you're the weird hard-o that brings your own clubs. Like, what are you supposed to do? That's a problem.

3:05:27Callaway just bought them. I am correct.

3:05:29Adam Schefter:Callaway bought them years ago. They may have just sold. Yeah, Callaway just sold 60 % of those. They lost a ton of money. Boom, it was Florida.

3:05:38Pat McAfee:Callaway acquired Topgolf for$2 billion in 2020, but is now selling the business to a private equity firm for$1.1 billion. Same venue sales are down double digits. Jesus. Higher rates have destroyed returns, and Callaway stock is down 50 % of chases. That's not good. Hey, buy the dips, they say.

3:05:58Adam Schefter:TGL will help. I think. Scotty's not on the team, by the way. He just owns the team? I don't know. I know some NFL owners are getting in, but Billy Ho, I think he's the captain, can't leave. Justin Thomas on the team. Rory, he has his team. BCGC. Tiger still has his team with Max, Tom, Kim, and Kaisner. Colin, Morikawa, Justin Rose. We'd like to see it work.

3:06:23Pat McAfee:Matt Fitzpatrick, Xander. It's everything that we would like in something. I have different groups come in, like stream. I have sometimes where it's strictly streamed online. It's like Coach B.A. and Chuck Pagano versus Bill Belichick and somebody else. Yeah, in my head, I'm looking at this place, and I'm thinking about what it would take to build this particular thing. And then you can make it an attraction. You can sell it to groups and then, you know, bachelor parties, all that. You can get groups in there to do it. You would have to monitor it, I guess. And simulators kind of suck, so you would have to fix those.

3:06:53Pat McAfee:But there's sim bars everywhere, right? Oh, yeah. Aren't there sim bars? Those are super popular. This is why I think flag football has a run, because I would rather watch flag football with people that I don't know than watch this, for sure. Well, for the viewing part of it, like AJ said it jokingly. A thousand percent. Diego, okay, Pavia versus, I don't know, Cade McNamara or Granowski. Yes, absolutely. Or the Miz should have a team. Because right now we're just watching guys not play real golf who are pro golfers and everything kind of looks the same on the screen until they go up and do the putts.

3:07:29You need some people who love golf who suck. to be. DJ Khaled. Boom. Where they miss the screen. Yeah, him playing against Rory's team or whatever. That would be entertaining.

3:07:42Pat McAfee:And you don't even have to have, the pros do the close. Oh, there you go. The random people, celebs, if you will, they're the ones that have to hit it to the screen. That has to be. The only issue there is shh, shh, shh. You've got to kill some people. Put a couple nets up. That's TGL football. Everybody's got to wear a helmet. Everyone's wearing helmets. All right, that's golf. We talked about it. 3 o 'clock, it's hard to talk about it. Had to talk about it by talking about how bad of an idea it was to do what time you did it at. But we did talk about it because we would like it to succeed. Shout out to the TGL another season.

3:08:15Oh, yeah.

3:08:16Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to check the temperature of the NFL fan bases from around the world. I put a tweet out this morning saying, hey, we'd love to hear your overreactions on this second-to-last regular season. overreaction monday wow let's take that in a little bit oh my gosh this is crazy we're already here let's enjoy every moment let's enjoy every tweet that had hashtag i don't want to overreact but let's get to the first one here this one's from a boston connor this guy's making a lot appearances this year on this one hashtag i don't want to overreact but caleb's awesome bo nix is a winner jayden daniels is cool but drake may is the guy for the next 20 years can't believe I get to cheer for these two every time the Patriots take the football field.

3:09:02Pat McAfee:It gives me chills every single time or every single game. Truly an honor. Shout out to the Patriots being all the way back and Boston Connor getting a chance to enjoy this all. I don't know if you saw over the weekend Ben Johnson was doing an interview with Tony Dungy and said one of the most influential coaches that he has ever had or worked alongside was Clyde Christensen. Obviously we know Clyde Christensen from his program. I am a huge fan of Clyde Christensen. Sorry, we all are right right right right right but people forget drake may uh was with clyde christensen his last year at north carolina clyde christensen told us as the draft was about to happen drake may's the guy i mean this is peyton manning and andrew luck combined i i don't know what else you can really do is what clyde told us then d-buck goes and golfs with him and d-buck comes back and he goes drake yep he's number one overall pick if clyde christensen who's worked with everybody as quarterback coach and has literally had to take calls at 2 3 a.m from the greatest quarterbacks on earth and have answers for them if he says he spent a year with this guy and says he's going to be a guy and then around his brothers and around people and in competitive atmosphere maybe some other people boozing the way he operated and handled himself he's a guy it felt like those who knew drake knew he was going to be like this but nobody else kind of expected it his footwork he wasn't going to be able to develop where the new england patriots going to be worth a fuck you There were so many questions about it all, and now we're staring down a prodigy, basically, in Drake May.

3:10:26Pat McAfee:And he's still how old? 23. Unbelievable what's happening up there. Congrats to you guys, Boston. Yeah, so cool. And you've got to give a lot of credit, rather, to the Kraft family just because they let go of Mayo, and now this whole thing has kind of started with Vrabel. But, yeah, going back to what you said, I had a bunch of faith because of Clyde Christensen, him coming on before the draft in 2024, basically saying all those things, what D-Bud said, And then last year, you know, that was the whole entire thing. His rookie year was every single game there was some sort of sign like, okay, this guy has it.

3:10:58This guy, he can move. He can make the tough throws. He can make the deep ball throws. And then Vrabel coming in, kind of uniting everything. That's why if you are a team, that stinks. But maybe has a guy, a quarterback who's young. Maybe all it takes is one or two guys, a left tackle by chance, maybe Will Campbell, a couple veteran signings in free agency, and then just the right guy at the helm like Mike Vrabel. I mean, it is just truly a dream. And I can't believe, like, I was even sitting here before the show saying, holy shit, like, the playoffs are in two weeks. Like, yes, it sucks that overreaction Monday is the second-to-last one and we only have one more of the regular season.

3:11:32But as one of those teams that gets to actually go for a Lombardi, I can't wait for meaningful football.

3:11:38Pat McAfee:Hey, welcome back for you guys. Oh, yeah, good to be back. It'd be great to be there with you. It'd be really fun. Maybe three years. Let's go to the next ever reaction. This is from KC Jones at KCKJones14. Hashtag I don't want to overreact, but take me behind the shed and put me done. Then if Todd Bowles is still the head coach for Tampa after January 5th, dig up my body and shoot me twice. I'm done. New year, same bucks next year. Hashtag crew. Hashtag fire the cannons. And hashtag fire the coach. Okay, Bowles doesn't have a lot of favor down there. This feels like a pretty big collapse. This feels like a pretty big collapse.

3:12:15Pat McAfee:You know, we talked about some teams that were in a great spot, maybe middle of the season, and then here we find ourselves in not so great. Colts, Packers, a couple injuries, and then this Bucs team. What the fuck is going on? I don't think any of us fully comprehend what's taking place. D-Bot, what are your thoughts on the Bucs team? Because I know a lot of players that are playing when I'm watching them play. I know him, I know him. He's good, he's good, he's good. They've been good. Just it's not coming together for some reason. What are your thoughts?

3:12:43Adam Schefter:I mean, it's wild. because we've had B.A. in here all year long, so he's obviously tightly connected with the organization as well. So you hear some things from him where it's going good. They're winning close games and winning walk-off games. They're making the right plays. You're like, okay, this is a good team, and they're doing that despite of all these injuries with a lot of these players that you're mentioning. And then you get a lot of these players back kind of one by one, and they start playing worse down the stretch when you want to be playing your best ball. It's very concerning, and if I was a fan of the Bucs, I'd probably be feeling the same way about my head coach.

3:13:13Adam Schefter:And you heard Todd Bowles too. maybe last week after the game when he just came out and just talked like you've never kind of heard Todd Bowles speak in public. That was a loud siren as well.

3:13:24Pat McAfee:I'm worried about him, age. I'm worried about him. They're calling him the suckaneers again. I don't like that. I don't like that. Yeah, what do you think of Shefty? Shefty's saying he doesn't – was he saying that Baker may be playing hurt because of stuff he has heard, or is he just saying – he's guessing, hey, there has to be a reason why this team isn't playing well. If Shefty's saying it, I'm assuming it's something he's potentially hurt. You know, like we got to take that with everything that Sheffield says. We have to assume it's coming from a place in which he has some information that we don't have.

3:13:50Pat McAfee:Right. We have to take that with Sheffield. That's part of the insider game. That's why he's, you know, not really paying attention to anything.

3:13:59Yeah.

3:14:00Pat McAfee:Uh huh. OK. Yes. So what's got to take this? That's his life. Take a shower. Wiping the steam off the shower. Trying to look at what his new text was. Yeah. get this kind of currently washing my ass okay okay okay i'll break it i'll break it i'll break it huh is that two years or three oh come on oh i gotta take finish my shower that's his life yeah he's committed to it full time so anytime he's speaking about anything one of these was something about it you know that's even if it's from another place that place somebody that played the place like i just assume he is a constant stream of intel shefty and then what he's speaking is what he thinks he's allowed to say you know that's like whenever you say um what do you know to people so you know what the parameters of what you're allowed to release like what is the information that we already have so that i don't go past that feels like shefter sets those parameters a lot on what we hear what we don't hear what we know what we don't know so that's like anytime he says anything i'm thinking there's some educated guess probably yes especially if you had those contacts i mean i don't want to talk about it too much but like us getting to talk to these coaches before these games holy fuck what an advantage yeah legit if you get a chance to talk to the team about what they're thinking and how they what an advantage that is shefter has that with every team right yeah Yeah, I think so.

3:15:33Front office people everywhere, yeah. Well, Baker, we know he threw his shoulder out against the Rams. So he might just be saying, like, hey, he only missed the second half against the Rams that so far. And then after that, he never really missed any time. So he could just point to the left shoulder. But to D-Butt's point, and you've said it a lot, it's week 18. Like, how many guys on every team aren't hurt? I mean, I know Josh Allen's hurt. Josh Allen's gone hurt in damn near every single game. And, like, you never see anything about that. And then, you know, we talked about it as well with – what's his name?

3:16:01Herbert and Rodgers. I mean, they have broken, and Rodgers missed the game. Herbert had surgery on a Tuesday, and he played on a Monday. So it's like I get the hurt thing, but this has been a historic collapse. It's not as if this was just recently.

3:16:15Pat McAfee:And they're a fun team. I think we like the Buccaneers. Like Vita Vey on the defense side, he's fun. Mike Evans, he's fun. Werfs. Baker Mayfield, fun. Werfs, fun. I mean, it was fun. It was. It was. It was on Winfield. Fun. Bucky Irving. Yeah. It's a fun team. Tom Moore. They were. They stink. They suck. No fun in here. Still got a chance. There's a chance. Winner against Seattle. Or San Fran. Hey, chip in a chair, brother. That's right. That's all you need. The long fight. I don't love it. We lost our playoff opportunities the night before the game. You know, and everybody's saying, well, why the fuck is Phil Rivers playing?

3:16:53I had a thought, though, like, because you guys came out hot. I was like, oh, the Colts are used to playing with no playoffs in the future. So, like, they played really good. No.

3:17:01Pat McAfee:The reason why they played really good is because Phil Rivers cut a fucking promo before the game to the boys that motivated them about being kids and playing football. And does it matter? Yes, it does matter. And it always will matter because it's the sport we're representing out here. And then he was intro'd last. First time he's ever got the opportunity to really experience a thank you from Lucas Oil Stadium, from the Loud House. And I'll tell you what, big thank you, Pop, for Phil Rivers. It wasn't just for what he did this year, coming out of retirement. It was for like 2020. 20, he never got to experience it.

3:17:31Pat McAfee:I felt like we all had it. I got a little emotional for Phil. Came out last. They announced Jonathan Taylor and I'm like, holy fuck. They're letting Phil go last year. And then he comes out and I think everybody in there was like, hey, not for this year. I mean, obviously, thank you for this year, but we never got to say thank you for COVID too. And I think he took it in a little bit. He's in front of his entire team. He's in front of his entire boys were there. Would have been cool to get a win.

3:17:54Adam Schefter:Bonus games.

3:17:55Pat McAfee:That's right.

3:17:56Adam Schefter:Never saw these coming.

3:17:57Pat McAfee:He said, don't make the fucking movie. We got to win a game to win make a movie, you know.

3:18:01Adam Schefter:True.

3:18:01Pat McAfee:Not an indie. Alright, you need to stop it. They don't give a fuck. Big three are in the middle of it. They're going to have to make a big decision. Carly, Casey, and Kalen, welcome to being owners in the NFL. If you stick with the operation this offseason, that's a huge decision. Huge decision that's going to be judged. If you decide to move on, that's a lot of decisions that you have to make, and you have to get them all right. But I think they're ready. They're prepared for it. Welcome to the biz, though. Welcome to the biz.

3:18:29Adam Schefter:Exactly.

3:18:29Pat McAfee:What a fucking melt.

3:18:31Adam Schefter:What a fucking melt.

3:18:32Pat McAfee:Historic melt. We all learned about it at the same time. There's that fibula.

3:18:38Adam Schefter:You gotta, you know, it's football. Long season, huh? I mean, is there anything wrong with him?

3:18:46Pat McAfee:No, he's good. I think he's going to be fine. He should be managing it. It'll be okay.

3:18:54Adam Schefter:Oh, yes, you're right, AJ. Maybe Shafty doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. So he should be good to go for the start of the season. You said he had a broken leg. That seems like something you would have to deal with.

3:19:04Pat McAfee:He's got a broken leg. He's got a torn Achilles. Yeah. He's a free agent. He'll be back for the beginning of next year. And it'll go well because it's Danny Dimes. And we appreciate Danny Dimes. And I like Danny Dimes to stick around. I would like Danny Dimes to stick around. But it's like, what is the whole thing? What's the contract? What does everything look like? We don't have one. So, like, who are we? Do we got pieces? Oh, no, that is a shame. Alec Pierce. His contract's up, I think. He's a good weapon for us. We like him. He's going to get a lot of money. Jonathan Taylor's going to want a new deal.

3:19:38No one's just crazy. He's unstoppable. When do you have to pay Tyler Warren? $800 million. In two years, probably? Three years, thank you. Four, maybe.

3:19:48Pat McAfee:Quentin Nelson makes another Pro Bowl. He was willing to fight a couple people for Phillip Rivers. I appreciate that. Phil Rivers got John while they're walking. and Quentin Nelson walks next to person in between Phil and person, just kind of like a little quick walk. I'm like, I like that. I like what we're doing there. Got a couple pillars, you know, we can build around going forward. Do you bring Phil back? Would you like my opinion? Yeah. Fucking right. Okay. They're not even bringing him back for the last game of this season. They're not? We'll see what Riley's able to do. A Riley start? I think Phil should play the last game.

3:20:20I don't get it.

3:20:21Pat McAfee:Okay, so it sounds like you're being a condescending prick right now. No, I'm absolutely not. If Phil was on the team, why isn't Phil playing? So I don't know. You think he's going to be? I don't know. That's a good point. He misses the headset, man. He's going to grab the headset and call plays. Maybe they didn't want to send him out on his deathbed against the Texans. Why don't you play this game, then?

3:20:38Adam Schefter:We're already out of it. We're going to start Riley this week.

3:20:40Pat McAfee:Riley didn't get any starting reps all week.

3:20:43Adam Schefter:Phil took all the reps. Oh, okay. I get it. Because there was still a chance. But I mean, fuck it. Send him home like Max. Yeah, they don't care. You want to throw Riley to the Wolves then? Yeah. The Texans? I mean, what do we do? He's a tough kid.

3:20:55Pat McAfee:I will say, great deep ball. He is. He threw a great Hail Mary. He did. He gave him a chance. He gave him a chance. He did hawk that thing. What happened? I'm not going to get into it. What do you mean? I believe the commentator thought that maybe there was a curtain call for Phil Rivers. That's why they're bringing Riley in. I can't remember if it was red zone or I was watching the actual game. They said, take him out. I think it was red zone. Take him out. Oh, you heard it too then. Taking out Phil for a curtain call. I don't think so. Six boy K. Six boy K. I was kind of confused by that. Okay, so yeah, you heard it then.

3:21:24Pat McAfee:It's football. We're all trying. But on that note. A lot of announcers sucked yesterday. Yeah, and normally they're so freaking good. Yeah, well, that's the thing is everybody thinks we suck too, so it's hard for me to judge anybody. Well, I do, and I can admit it. These people won't admit it. Okay, and I think that is our difference. We admit that we suck on a daily basis, but we appreciate everybody that follows along. And on that note, if you'd like to hear us impersonate ass and cheeks This week's all game. We'll be on New Year's Eve ESPN2 and New Year's Day 4 p.m. ESPN2 as Field Pass continues to travel to the college football playoff, both at the Cotton Bowl as the Miami Hurricanes, who just beat Texas A &M in a windstorm down there in College Station, will take on the reigning national champion Ohio State Buckeyes, and at the Rose Bowl, Alabama, who just beat Oklahoma after a 17-point comeback in the second half, will take on the Indiana Hoosiers, who are the only team in America that is undefeated.

3:22:20Pat McAfee:The reigning, defending Big Ten champs get their first college football playoff action in the Rose Bowl. They haven't been there forever. Love what's going on. There's going to be a lot of talking, and we're going to sound bad for a lot of it, but you can enjoy it alongside of us. Let's get to some more overreactions. This one's from a Greek man from Baltimore, John Minadakis. Hashtag I don't want to overreact, but Sunday's matchup is a true loser leaves time match between Harbs and Tomlin. Miss the playoffs and be gone from the territory. On that note, hope Tone Diggs can refer Mike a good moving company.

3:22:58Pat McAfee:Raven's about to smack the Steelers on Sunday night, says Jimmy's Famous Seafood, which we will say... Stinks. What? That is not what we were going to say. It ain't as good as Big Mike McCarthy's cheese. cheese i'll say big mike mccarthy's meat and cheeses were certainly a home run but anytime jimmy's delivers to the building here which they can serve nationwide by the way yeah they get the best crab cakes uh on earth and they can serve you wherever they will ship it directly to your house it's actually an incredibly delightful presentation when it shows up the people that are doing it though just know that they uh they're hoping that mike thalman and the pittsburgh steelers have the worst Sunday in the history of Sundays.

3:23:40Pat McAfee:That's what type of operation they're running over. I'll say this. Middonkis sent me a little shot glass from Jimmy's for Christmas. I spit in it, and then I smashed it on the floor. Smart. Just so he knows that. I told him already, but just so he knows that. I don't know if he spit in it, rewrapped it, and shipped it back. That would have been interesting. Next year. I don't know if he's going to send you one next year. I hope he's going to go out on a Christmas list. But to his point, I said this earlier. If this truly was, and if the NFL had bowl games, this would be a good idea for this week 18.

3:24:10Loser, losing head coach gets fired. Winning team obviously goes to playoffs. I think win or lose, I think both fan bases would be happy.

3:24:20Pat McAfee:Oh, how the North has fallen. It's a shame. Reminds me of that mama's dinner table match. Yes, exactly. Winner gets the bomb. OCW classic. Yeah, that one baby didn't have them all more. Yeah, Test 2 Baby. Yeah, Test 2 Baby. They're not. Kind of created an alarm. That's our champion. Yeah, he resented the champion. Kind of like Derrick Henry. Created an alarm. Maybe, actually. Let's get to the next overreaction. I mean, OCW Championship was worth it all, too. History repeats itself, man. Dan Riley, do you know Office Championship Wrestling?

3:24:55Adam Schefter:I remember, was it Jesus versus the devil? Okay. No. Jesus assisted. Wait, I'm sorry. Easter Bunny versus the devil. No. He also was involved.

3:25:07Pat McAfee:The devil was working with the Easter Bunny the whole time. Oh, it was our champion versus the devil? No, against the Easter Bunny, I think. No, Easter Bunny came in to help DB. No, the devil was stealing our soul. Nick was running his mouth. Yeah, Nick talked shit to the devil. It's very New Testament. The Easter Bunny, though, did show up and helped the devil, which is crazy. Crazy heel turn. We didn't expect that. And then Jesus Christ showed up, and guess what? Our souls were saved. That was a pretty big day. It was a casket match, actually, if I do recall. Oh, yeah. Straight to hell match.

3:25:38Pat McAfee:Straight to hell, yeah. Wow. It was crazy. Casket, really tough clothes, actually, we found out. Yeah, Jesus almost broke his fingers. Yes, he did. Jesus almost broke his face, too, because he was standing on the right side. Quick hands.

3:25:50Adam Schefter:He would never.

3:25:51Pat McAfee:Quick hands by Jesus. It was close. It was really close. Honestly, we were surprised as well. He was floating. But Jesus was on the right side. Always. Always. Amen. This is Dan Riley at D Riles. Hashtag I don't want to overreact. But the Bills will either be one and done in a wild card round or they're going to the Super Bowl. There's literally no in between. They're the only team that can hold an opponent to 17 total yards in the second half and still lose that game. Fuck them. Okay. Is that how all Bills fans feel? Bills fans are kind of done with them. Yeah, there are a lot of these. And then kind of, I think it kind of opened the door, too, for, you know what?

3:26:27Fuck Sean McDermott. Get this guy out of here. We've been doing this long enough. If we don't win the Super Bowl this year, fire this fucking guy. But, yeah, it was a lot of that kind of stuff.

3:26:35Pat McAfee:Isn't that crazy, too? Because if a completion happens that Josh Allen would always complete, Sean McDermott and the Buffalo Bills would win over the Philadelphia Eagles. They go for two. They do it all. Instead, not a completion. They lose, and now all of a sudden the Buffalo Bills are dead. It's like the Philadelphia Eagles are a great football team. Your teams are going to lose to great football teams. We talked about this last week. Philadelphia Eagles are a great football team. Not saying the Bills shouldn't be bummed, but boy, I think you should be pumped. You got Josh up there. But are they falling into the Mike Tomlin and Sean McDermott world where they're like, yeah, being successful is cool.

3:27:11Pat McAfee:This is a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. We can't go win a Super Bowl. Is that where Bills fans are? It's crazy. Yeah, but it's worse because they're doing it with one of the best quarterbacks in the league. So that's tough. Yeah. And it's worse for this year because now everyone, you know, I don't believe this, but now everyone is going to say like, you know, no Chiefs, no Ravens, no Bengals. And like the Bills finally kind of have a clearer path versus all the other teams that are unproven. Because, I mean, you go down the list, no playoff wins for Bo Nix, no playoff wins for Drake May, one playoff win for Trevor Lawrence, Steelers or Ravens, we'll see what happens.

3:27:46But, you know, the Ravens and Lamar have never been to a Super Bowl. Rodgers hasn't been to a Super Bowl in a long time. And then, you know, Herbert, no playoff wins. and who's the last one there? The Texans. Stroud. I've got a couple. Who they've won a playoff game in each of his first two years, but this would be the year that a lot of Bills fans are expecting them to go.

3:28:04Pat McAfee:Yep. Good luck, Bills fans. Good game. It's from Dr. Gonzo, Ph.D. and looks like in booze at Real Gonzo. At Pat McAfee Show. Hashtag I don't want to overreact, but the Steelers are dead. Last three games they've played in a dog pound. They've lost. Rodgers needs to shut down his book club because he can't even read defenses anymore. Start watching baseball because Pittsburgh's no longer a football town. Jeez, is that accurate, Don? This guy's an idiot. I mean, everything he said was wrong. You could be mad about the game, but don't be wrong about everything you say, dipshit. Okay, so let's go on what was wrong.

3:28:43Pat McAfee:Huh? What was wrong? Rodgers can definitely still read defenses, okay? He doesn't have a book club anymore. Okay. So, Pirates have had a great offseason, but it'll never be a baseball town. Never. Yeah, it's a hockey town and a football town.

3:28:57Adam Schefter:Great offseason. Have they really lost the last three games in a dog plan? Yeah, they lost this one. They lost last year in the snow to Jimmy Winston. And then the year before that, I believe the quarterback. DTR, I believe. I believe it was DTR, yeah. Fun fact, I believe the last five times that they've played teams. Oh, there it is. There's a stat. That's what I was looking for. These are teams that are eight games or more below 500. So that's at least halfway through the season. So we're in the back half season. These are must-win games. And you just can't beat shitty teams. That two and ten pass team, though.

3:29:35They were fucking. Zappy was fucking so true. And that was a Thursday night and Mitch Trubisky had to start. So I don't fully blame them for that one. But no, you just can't get your team ready against terrible teams.

3:29:51Pat McAfee:What are you saying? What is that all about? We can't beat bad teams. You can't beat good teams. We're just kings of mediocrity. Crown them. Fuck still a crown. You said just like the Bills guy. All right, let's move along. Let's go to the next one. This is from Karthik Vangala. Hashtag I don't want to overreact. Bud Cohen, Ben Johnson, Joe Brady, McVay, Clingsbury. and all the other hot shot offensive minds sit at the kids' table in Shanahan's house. He's going COVID Vrabel this season, deserves a coach of the year. Injuries, suspensions, whatever Ayuk has, Shanahan got the answers. I'll tell you what, JJ mentioned it, how the coach of the year candidacy has basically become, was the team ass and are they good now?

3:30:36Pat McAfee:Which certainly should be talked about when flipping a culture and coaching and everything like that. But with what this Niners team has had to go through this season, The fact that they're staring down a potential number one seed, Shanahan's name should definitely be in consideration, AJ Hawk. It absolutely should. I mean, a lot of people I feel like wrote the Niners off early in the season felt like these guys, this is not going to be their year. But with what they've overcome and how well Brock has been playing later in the year, you've got to feel really good about where you're at if you're the Niners.

3:31:03Pat McAfee:Tone just said that they're the number two in odds currently sitting at DraftKings. He is currently number two in odds sitting at DraftKings for coach of the year. Yeah, so Vrabel was first, then Shanahan followed by McDonald, Cohen, Ben Johnson, and Sean Payton, which, I mean, any of those guys you can make an argument for. Yeah, but you can make probably the strongest argument for Vrabel, so boo-hoo. Yeah, but does any coach care? Do they care about winning this? They might get a bonus in their contract, I guess. I think their agents care. Yeah, I mean, it's nice to have, but they all know, like, I need to win the Super Bowl.

3:31:34Pat McAfee:Yeah, I mean, I think that's how coaches are wired. I think their business people care, though.

3:31:37Adam Schefter:Especially Shanahan. We're talking about the Bills and not being able to get over the hump and win it. San Fran has been there a couple times, and obviously you're banged up. But Shanahan has done an unbelievable job coaching this offense. And that offense, like the shit that they do pre-snap and post-snap and Brock Purdy playing like this, they'll be unbelievable. Defensively, can they figure it out? But this whole stretch is always – we talk about excuses or injuries, obviously our injuries, and they've had to deal with it seemingly every year to big-time players. But, yeah, they got a big hump and a big monkey to get off his back as well.

3:32:06Pat McAfee:I didn't like the Christian McCaffrey back thing, you know, in the second half. They were talking about it. I mean, it's inevitable with how much he gets the ball, you know? But it's like they're a special team and a fun team to watch. And talking about how smart that guy is, the fullback who just lives at the Pro Bowl in Juszczyk. It's a cool team. Congrats to Shanahan getting a squad in. Congrats to Purdy putting it down. I mean, absolutely putting it down. Let's go to the next one. This is from Garrett at Death Pain. Seemingly got his own logo there, too. You see the D and the P in there? That's a really good logo.

3:32:37Pat McAfee:Hashtag, I don't want to overreact, but I'm not worried about Caleb. He has shown he can make any throw and compete with anyone and is already the best Bears quarterbacks we've ever had. Parentheses, low bar. But this defense is an overrated joke, but low average at best when you take away the turnovers. If anyone is going to ruin this magical run, it's going to be the defense. Paul needs to get his head out of his ass and figure out a way to spend money this offseason. Bear, darn. If you take away the turnovers, they stink. If you take away the points, the offense stinks. I think turnovers are a big part of the defense.

3:33:11Pat McAfee:Now, granted, I think what he's trying to say here, Mr. Death Payne, is like, this one of the basketball teams lives by the three. You know, whenever the threes don't fall, you're done. So whenever it's just turnover-friendly defense and you're not getting them, it can be a hard day, tough day. But, yeah, it's a – I mean, they've got to pick six immediately, which is certainly a celebratory thing. But a lot of points last night from that San Francisco 49ers. offense. A lot of points in that game last night, H. Yeah, I mean, I can understand getting worried, like, hey, what if we don't get turnovers when it matters, when we're in a true sudden death game in the playoffs, but it's not a bad thing that your team, your defense, finds a way to get a bunch of turnovers.

3:33:49That's a positive thing. Yeah, hey, if you take away all the good plays, we're a terrible team. Yeah, that's basically what you're saying.

3:33:54Pat McAfee:Oh, you're saying that's a little bit of a rude overreaction. I can respect it. They still got a shit ton of turnovers. Let's go to the next one. Seems like another cool logo here. Jeez, a little bit of a run on AI here. Outrun Phoenix 69. at Litton, Dakota. Hashtag I don't want to overreact, but it's the same damn shit every week with the Eagles. Get a lead and pray the defense holds up. Vic Fangio should be allowed to bitch slap Sirianni and that dipshit Patula live at the 50-yard line every week. The offense fucking stinks. Wow. A lot of that coming out, I assume? Yeah, a lot of that. No one really happy that they won, even though as the Eagles have continued to win and their offense might not look good, I'm starting to come back around.

3:34:33I'm like, man, this team really could win the Super Bowl, but their fans don't feel that way. They kind of always have hated Sirianni's guts, even when he won the Super Bowl, and Petulo's just the newest kind of toy that they can really, hey, we got somebody. We got a guy we can just fucking shit on every single week, which I think they need.

3:34:52Pat McAfee:Jalen Hurts, oh, yeah, it's good for the Philly culture. 0 for 7 in the second half, I guess he becomes like the first quarterback that has no completions in the second half to win a game, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that type of stuff. And I think these Johns over there are accurate in their depiction of the offense, though. It does not look like the offense from last year whenever they won a Super Bowl. And they've been complaining since the beginning. But they win games.

3:35:12Adam Schefter:Yeah. You got to find a way, especially if you watch that game yesterday. It was an ugly game. Bad weather. Didn't throw the ball a bunch. Had a couple throwaways. But, yeah, the offense looks absolutely terrible. When you try out a defense out there week in and week out that can match up with anybody, regardless of what that offensive style is, you got a chance. And then with those players on the offensive side, you would think at some point they can figure it out and put a couple games together. We've seen them do it, too. We talked about coaches. They got great coaches on both sides of the ball.

3:35:40Adam Schefter:So I'm still not out on the Eagles.

3:35:42Pat McAfee:Yeah, me neither. And also, most important time, maybe they dial it up. Maybe they're getting too used to the confetti in the spotlight that they need it. They fiend for it. That's when they play their best. Sirianni's talking his shit out of the game. Miss the locker room. Sure. You saw that, H? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. A.J. Brown's like, Coach, we're going this way. Oh, yeah, that's right. I was watching A.J. Brown the whole time. Yeah. See if he was going to get in on it. Go pile on, guys. You know, we started measuring, guys. Yep, all right, Coach. Yep, see. Oh, fuck. Got it this way. Got it.

3:36:14Every time I watch, it's better.

3:36:17Pat McAfee:Fucking that locker room has been there for 60 years. That is where that has been. He's been in and out of that locker room seven times that day alone, probably. Sorry, he's locked in on talking this shit. I mean, it's Sirianni football. He's just walking right out of the stadium. He's going right to the bus. That is literally the exit right there. Yeah, right at the top of that tunnel. Interesting dynamic there coming out and going in the same way. That new stadium should be spectacular. Hopefully they still have that fight factory, you know, for pre - and post-games where everybody's coming in the same.

3:36:45Pat McAfee:Almost another one this weekend. Offensive lineman was walking out. Spencer Brown. Yeah, he and a couple of D linemen were getting into it. It's like, I can't believe that is still how that whole thing goes. That's crazy. Good chivalry up there. Let's move along. This is from Aaron Bagg, I assume. Air Bagg. Hashtag I don't want to overreact. But. Once again, the Colts stink. And collapse late in the season and miss the playoffs. It's time for Carly to send Osama Ben Ballard and Coach Stinking out of Indy and straight into the burning sun. Let him fry just like they've fried our happiness for nine years.

3:37:19That's not his name.

3:37:21Pat McAfee:That is not Chris Ballard's name or Steichen's name. And I would like to say that I know there's a lot of teams that have excuses seemingly every year for why their team's not good. There are a lot of excuses for the Chris Ballard era of why there hasn't been success. But, boy, it's just one after another. It's like, is this guy Kirsten? Is it more like Kirst Ballard as opposed to Chris Osama bin Ballard? Is it maybe Kirst Ballard? I'm not 100 % sure. And then Shane Steichen, I guess, you know, whenever Dimes was playing quarterback and he had a quarterback that understood everything that was going on, we're the number one offense in football.

3:37:53Pat McAfee:He was coach of the year. Yeah. What are you talking about? But is it every year there's going to be something? You know, and is it like, do you need a – Your starting quarterback does get hurt every year. That is a tough coaching situation to be in. And front office. You know, in a front office thing. But it's not just – but it's like who are the quarterbacks that they're choosing to pick as opposed to what they're trying to do. We obviously had the number four overall pick at one point. We have players that we've paid a bunch of money to, but for some reason haven't been able to have success.

3:38:20Pat McAfee:It's like, I don't know. It's a conundrum. But maybe it does need just like a reset or maybe it'll just click. And I said after last season, whenever it came out, I was at the Intuit Dome. I believe it was the premiere of Monday Night Raw on Netflix. And it was right afterwards. And I was talking about how it feels like what the Colts currently have going on. This was last season with everything that was coming out about being late, missing this and skipping this and basically not being professional athletes and then collapsing the way that they did and how they did. and me talking about it obviously didn't make any friends in the locker room, kind of exposing the lack of professionalism that was happening there.

3:38:56Pat McAfee:But it was like, in my eyes, I thought everything that was in that building was going to be tough to fix because it's already been a culture. Guys are under their second contract in this shit. Ballard's been here nine years, ten years. That's two contracts of, like, his guys. So it's like, how do you change the culture in the building? So I thought it was impossible to be able to do that without a reset. Then they bring in Danny Dimes. They bring in a couple other guys. Then the word out of camp is like, hey, these dudes are actually, All they needed was just a little optimism that they could win.

3:39:22Pat McAfee:And it was like everything was going right this year. And it was like, okay, they did figure it out. And then all of a sudden to get an injury to the quarterback, get a couple other injuries, and it's over again. And they just look like ass. And now they're going to lose eight straight. It's like, did we just go immediately back to what we were last year as soon as Danny Dimes got hurt? What does that mean? And what does that say? It's like, I don't know. I don't know how they fix it. I genuinely don't know. I don't know how it goes. But it feels like every year there's a genuine reason for why the Colts are ass.

3:39:52What a tough offseason I guess not tough but like there's tough decisions to be made for the big three in their first offseason to where their dad is not around Yeah

3:40:03Pat McAfee:Right in it I mean this is huge decisions It's ownership baby And the clock's ticking We need two more Super Bowls in the next four years That's why I think you just ride Ballard and stiking out one more year I genuinely believe in the vision. We saw it this year.

3:40:23Adam Schefter:They like their guys. And I like their guys.

3:40:27Pat McAfee:They became really bad really quick, though. Very quickly. I mean, like, as soon as there was a hint that, like, you guys might be asking, you got it, we'll take it. It wasn't a slow crash, though. Tough schedule. Yeah. Yeah, we play a lot of good teams. Oh, you didn't hear? You guys get to just play the Cardinals every game next year. Boom. So maybe... Titans mixed in? Yeah. We got them twice. Shout out Trey McBride. All-time... Receptions leader in a single season. Good football player. Great football player. Doesn't help that the Jags look like they're going to be a pretty solid squad the next five to ten years.

3:41:06Yeah, in Houston. That's why you kind of have to hit the reset. Like, is there any other... Maybe the Steelers, but I feel like there are a lot of people who would still be okay with Tomlin coming back. Like, if they retain both Steichen and Ballard, I feel like the entire fan base will be picked on.

3:41:20Pat McAfee:Yeah, we got to remember, the entire fan base was already. Yeah, exactly. So you're kind of in a lose-lose. No, I think it's like 92 % negativity going into the season was that one place's poll. Now, who are the people that are reading that place in voting? Oh, were they right? Exactly. I started thinking about them the other day. I'm like, they knew that we weren't going to be able to withstand anything like that. Because you look at the Niners, and obviously Brock Purdy got hurt. Then they put Matt Jones in, and then Brock Purdy comes back. But they lose two of their stars on the defensive side, and it wasn't just like, let's quit.

3:41:51Pat McAfee:It was like, let's play a little football here. Let's win some games. Yeah. I haven't seen a lot of people do a lot of good football for the Colts in a while. It was a bummer. I took my shirt off in the stadium yesterday.

3:42:04Adam Schefter:What happened to the run game?

3:42:06Pat McAfee:Exactly. What the fuck happened? JT got him sweet gifts.

3:42:09Adam Schefter:He did do that, but I mean. Jesus. What did he get him? Did he get him fossils?

3:42:14Pat McAfee:No.

3:42:15Adam Schefter:Side by side?

3:42:16Pat McAfee:Side by side, yeah. I got little trucks, right? Wasn't it little trucks? The names confused me. I don't know what they're called. The Matt Rules? Those were cool, yes. Yes, the Matt Rules. I saw him, Scott. What the fuck's he doing? What do you mean? What's he doing? He was on a zip line. Yeah, I know he was on a fucking zip line. I saw it. Believe me. He's recruiting. It was awesome. Always be recruiting. That was the hardest I've laughed in a long time. A long time. Just all of a sudden. Just fucking rule flying across the circus circus. Flying across the inside. Oh, man. I watched that maybe a thousand times on set.

3:42:55Whee! Flying, dude.

3:42:59Pat McAfee:You're going very fast. I appreciate the fearlessness. And the boys love the two. The boys love the two. You know who's – we talked about that quarterback going in. There's conversations about him going back to Nebraska potentially. Oh, is there? I think so. Bro? Oh, so that was like a situation where you go test the waters and you're getting a lot less than you're supposed to. Oh, it's a C.E. Amaliava situation. No, we don't know about any of that. I'm just saying I think people in Nebraska have not given up hope that he comes back to Nebraska.

3:43:24Adam Schefter:They still want him back? Wow. I wouldn't want him back. Kick rock. Fired his uncle, right? Yeah. Yep.

3:43:31Pat McAfee:All right. Last overreaction. Coach Rule, we like what you're doing out there. It's from Jacob James, J. James underscore 59. Hashtag I don't want to overreact, but in a must-win game, You can bet the house, the kids, the fate of the fucking world on the Panthers losing. Fuck. All right, you got a big one this weekend, buddy. Sounds like you can bet it all. He already knows. Good luck, brother. Good luck to all parties. We appreciate you all for hanging out with us today. It is 3.56 Eastern. That's a pretty good little day here. Good little show. We only got a couple of these left. I know. It's almost off-season time.

3:44:10Pat McAfee:This goes into good off-season. Okay. Shit. Wait, wait, wait. It might land on the... We do play it. Shit. Oh, no. There's a bunch of shit this offseason. It's right online. Terrible offseason. We got the World Cup. We got the Olympics. Fucking World Baseball Classic. Yeah, this is... So I need the international ball. International, yep. We forget. Playoffs is like six weeks long somehow. UFXFL. That. Oh. And the NBA. The draft. Is the USXFL happening? I saw AJ McCarron's got a team. Yes. Teddy Ginn. Teddy Ginn's got the Columbus Aviators, too. They're bringing a squad to Columbus. Where are you guys playing?

3:44:53High school? Horseshoe. Cruz Stadium. The old Cruz Stadium they're playing. Really?

3:44:57Pat McAfee:Yeah. Let's go. I'm excited to see if it works. They got the guy from Noble. What's his name? Mike Rapoli. There it is. There it is. I saw him cut a promo at some press conference thing talking about the USXFL is about to be the best ulterior something. He was really getting after it. He was jacked up about it, so I was pumped to see that there was good energy behind it. My first and only request would be let's make sure that there's self-awareness on that team. All the teams. We're holding on. Okay. Well, I'm holding out my eyes from watching. Okay. I'm not doing it. This is the year we go all in.

3:45:41They didn't want the pizza, right? They didn't want pizza. That was a different league. Oh, that was a different league?

3:45:47Pat McAfee:Yeah, that league, I guess, didn't even pay hotel bills. Correct. The Sycamore situation. If this goes in, it's going to be a great USXFL league. Hell yeah.

3:45:58Adam Schefter:Hell yeah.

3:46:00Pat McAfee:Just like I fucking thought. Just like I thought. It's gone. I think it's going to roll out of the whole Thunderdome. Oh, man. I'm watching the USXFL this year. What is your team, the Columbus Aviators, Ted Gidd? Yeah. Yep. What's A.J. McCarren's team? The Birmingham Stallions, I think. Mm-hmm. That's a good squad. I'm taking them. Who's your team, Foxy?

3:46:21JJ Watt:Michigan Panthers are dead somehow out on the league.

3:46:23Pat McAfee:Oh, wow.

3:46:24JJ Watt:We were in the finals last year. They could have won the whole damn thing, and now they're not in that team. Really? Yikes. From the finals? Yes. Puka's brother was our best player. Oh, well.

3:46:37Pat McAfee:All right. we got Monday Night Football game tonight let's go ahead and pick that AJ I beat you this weekend AJ I beat you this weekend pretty good we're staring down a potential tie here AJ I've seen it pretty good 8-6-1 you were 5-9-1 no chance to come back I appreciate what we got going on this will move me to 7-8-2 on the season obviously you 8-7-2 it all comes down to week 18 how it's supposed to that's exactly how it's supposed to be AJ tonight Los Angeles Rams Matthew Stafford potential MVP candidate takes on the Atlanta Falcons. Rams favored by seven with 81 % of the public vote. Remember this weekend, if you had more than 60 % of the public bets on something, they won four times out of 10.

3:47:20Pat McAfee:They won four and six. Last weekend, we won for the first time. And then every other week, other than a tie, we lost. So whenever a majority of people are feeling a certain way, normally percentages are telling us it's not going to go great. Tonight, is that different. Tone, what is the bet to be looking at as we look at the Rams and the Falcons? Either you take the Rams and lay it. Okay, D-Player, are you going with the Rams or the Falcons?

3:47:44Adam Schefter:I'm going to listen to A.P. Tone. I'm going to take the Rams and lay the touchdown.

3:47:47Pat McAfee:A.J. Hawk? Yeah, I mean, I think McVay wants Matthew Stafford to win the MVP, so I will take the Rams. Me as well. Monday Night Football, Matthew Stafford. We're all in the Rams, minus seven. We'll certainly tune into that tonight. We appreciate you all. We'll be back tomorrow going crazy. Then Wednesday we're at the Cotton Bowl. Then Thursday. Game day, 6 a.m. local, and then Rose Bowl, 4 p.m. Eastern. It's a great time to be in ball. Great time to be in ball. Yeah, it is. Next TGL is Friday night.

3:48:13Adam Schefter:Yep. Can't wait. Wait. 7 o 'clock. Who's playing? Boston Cannons in Los Angeles. It's Boston Common Golf Club. You fucking asshole. Boston Cannons. Boston Cannons. The LA. It's BCGC. Get it right. Yep. Those guys, too.

3:48:31Pat McAfee:Speaking of Boston, Talk got me this for Christmas. Oh, I saw this. Yeah, good luck to everybody at golf. Patty learned how to putt. Yeah, this is... Is that legal? I think it is. I believe this is legal. Foxy? It's legal. I don't see why it wouldn't be. Okay. I didn't know the answer on whether or not it was legal. I'm not totally positive. I was assuming that when I showed up with this thing, somebody was going to say something from some rules committee, and I was just going to have no other options in the bag. So I was going to say, what, you want me to use?

3:49:01JJ Watt:I mean, you can use a driver to putt, so why wouldn't you be able to use that? Yeah, you can use whatever you want. That's true. What are you, playing some PGA sanctioned events? Are you worried about?

3:49:10Pat McAfee:Maybe I come back out to Tahoe. You know, maybe I – Yeah, you can use that out there. I mean – Have you seen –

3:49:16Adam Schefter:You guys still got that bit? Yeah, that's iron. Time is ticking.

3:49:22Pat McAfee:No, it's not. I got nothing but time, buddy. Here we go. I mean, I think you're going to – especially that open stance, you're going to drain stuff. Yeah. There's a ball in there. I do know you can't do that. I know that's against the rules. What's that? Having your foot point towards the hole. Why? Really? I don't know. You can do whatever you want. It's illegal, the internet says. Really? The putter is illegal. The putter is illegal? Yes. Stop it. It's illegal. What's illegal? Wait, why is it illegal? Here it is. What's the problem?

3:49:50JJ Watt:It's designed violate several key regulations. Like what? Mainly it's flat back. Oh, flat back. You can use it. Then put something on the back of it. Make it not a flat back. Just tape a piece of cardboard to it.

3:50:00Pat McAfee:I'll tell you what, that's why the Saudis understood they could come in the Gulf and maybe get it. Okay? You can't be adding shit like this. I'm sick of it already.

3:50:10Adam Schefter:Did you see Brooks left, Liv? Mm-hmm. Now Bryson's saying he might be on his way out, too. Uh-oh. Don't say that. Uh-oh. I love my crush's gear. It's over. Who cares, dude? Cadillac Formula One's coming around the corner. Good point.

3:50:25Pat McAfee:Nope, we're not doing that. TGL will never sniff it. I know that. I'll tell you what. My TGL days might be behind me. Oh, no. I didn't like they went at 3 o 'clock on Sunday. You know, that was very disappointing. I'm like, who's brain is doing that? Can we give it a shot? I don't know. Hopefully they do. A lot of smart people involved over there. Have you seen the names? There's a lot of big names over there. It's like, is anybody paying attention to the actual thing?

3:50:55Adam Schefter:NFL owners. They're involved. No, they don't care.

3:50:58Pat McAfee:Yeah, how old are they? Shit. It's not about that. No, I know. Dinosaurs. Fossils. Yeah. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice because we change your life. We're interesting. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team.

3:51:11Adam Schefter:Good night. From 30 for 30 podcasts.

3:51:23Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami. Gun down.

3:51:27Adam Schefter:The key to this case, it's Brian. Boy, he scrapped it. An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing what's about. This might be a hit. You want the truth. They just want a conviction. They're placing him to arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now. 911, where is the emergency?

3:51:46JJ Watt:It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver.

3:51:56Pat McAfee:19-year-old Sarah Stern.

3:51:58JJ Watt:Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies wherever you get your podcasts.