PMS 2.0 1483 - Super Wild Card Weekend Preview/Picks, CFP Semifinals Preview, JJ Watt, Nick Saban, Adam Schefter, The Trenchys with AQ Shipley, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

18:47JJ Watt:I made my entire breakfast this morning and I was extremely excited to eat it. As I carried it from the counter to the table, I caught the edge of the counter and my entire breakfast ended on the floor. Oh! No! I don't need any shit from anybody. I've already got enough on my plate. Okay, well, off your plate.

19:10Pat McAfee:Because it's on the floor. Oh, James, we're sorry to hear that, dude. It's Super Football Weekend. Got a new coach for him, don't you? Yeah, good call. Hey, I'm sorry about the eggs because I've heard about the way you guys all eat over there at the Watt family. That was like an entire thing. Yeah. It takes a long time to kk all the – Yeah, he's doing that. It's a long process. so we apologize that that happened. You weren't able to get the protein to start your day you need for JJ1. I did learn a Burnley's record. I didn't like it. I didn't like that it was shown.

19:40JJ Watt:I don't like it either.

19:42Pat McAfee:Well, we're going to fix it, though. Just like we're going to get more eggs, more chickens, again, popping those things out. I don't like that this was shown right to my eyeballs. 3-3-14, I believe, is what your team's record is, even though it's not on that particular graphic right there. 3-3-19, sorry, Jesus.

19:57JJ Watt:Big match. Big match. Big match today.

20:00Pat McAfee:Okay, so if you're thinking about a new coach, though, I got a guy. Gumpy, what happened to this dude? He was the Columbus crew coach. Then he goes over to Scotland to coach Celtic, right? Is this not accurate? We got an MLS coach that got called over to go coach elsewhere. What happens, Gumpy? He's the MLS coach of the year. He goes to Celtic. After 33 days, he gets canned, loses six out of eight matches. He is now unemployed. That's not good for GMLS. That's the business. Tough business. That was the sell? That's the new coach He's available He's available He's available Who are you talking about?

20:34He's 3-3-19 He just got the call up and fucking shit the bed Got fired That's a tough job in Scotland, dude He won 2 out of 8 Not 3 out of 25

20:45Pat McAfee:Exactly, Gumpy, do the math Sorry, the Canadian has to do the math here I miss company, man 2 out of 8 He won 2 out of 8 They won 3 out of 25 Tough barns over there Remember, look at the odds I was expecting something wildly different when I heard that over there. But, oh, we maybe got a guy for Burnley. I was expecting, like, yeah, it was like the heir apparent to Pele. That's some guy who was the MLS coach of the year and then got the call to the big leagues, and then they found out quick, this guy sucks and fired him. And you want JJ to hire that guy at Burnley? Two wins in eight games. They'd be dying for that right now at Burnley.

21:23Pat McAfee:Okay, please. And we need an MLS guy to represent over there. KK would get fired 30 seconds. It doesn't sound like he's the right one. He's the coach of the year. Where's the soccer coach pool? All right. Hire Landon Donovan. Lando's got to watch. Where's Lando?

21:37JJ Watt:Am I missing something here? Did Connor just get off a plane from Venezuela? Whoa, dude. What the hell are you talking about? You're at Tough Morning. Don't bring us, Don. You should know. You should know of all people. You know what this is? This is a Nike Classic Tech, okay? First of all, how many times did you walk into a game in a jumpsuit? Okay. That's what I'm doing. I'm ready for the weekend, brother. I got a huge playoff game this weekend, man. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. All right. You're oiled up. You're ready to roll. I'm not. I'm not. I wouldn't go that far. Not yet. That's more of a game day thing, but I mean.

22:10Especially if it's cold. Yeah. If it's cold out, you know, and it's going to be cold in New England. Hope Herbert's ready. Get his Nike tech ready. Yeah. Yeah. You better have a couple classic Nike tech sport things from the playoffs.

22:21JJ Watt:Yeah. Speaking of special teams. Yeah. They did a great job getting you suited up there.

22:25Pat McAfee:Jeez. A lot of special forces out here working in our favor. And that's good news, especially in this football world that we're talking about. Let's go to the fact that you're giving inside information to the Texans opponents. When you call Texans games, they are undefeated. Two of them are against the Indianapolis Colts. Most recently, this one that just happened. Don't love it at all. Everybody's worried about Tom Brady. The third member of the Bull Ring of Honor potentially just, you know, infiltrating. And I'm sure Shane, big fan. Shane, younger guy. Probably loves J.J. Let me tell you everything we're going to do.

22:54Pat McAfee:now couldn't stop Riley Leonard for a bit.

22:57JJ Watt:Didn't know Riley Leonard was going to be going bombs over Baghdad over the top of the defense all day long.

23:02Pat McAfee:Just more. I appreciate the situation. I appreciate the situation.

23:06JJ Watt:That was completely not even intentional, but it worked out very well.

23:09Pat McAfee:I thought you were just doing all international incidents and stuff like that. Things that are going on around the world. But Riley Leonard is a guy, and on the flip side, this Houston Texans team giving up like this to Riley Leonard a week before playoffs, have you a little bit worried what are your thoughts kind of going in for this houston texans team who i think obviously with that defense is going to be able to win any game if cj stroud gets loose they can win it houston texans could win it all that is a very very real statement how do you feel after watching them so much this year and how do you feel coming out of the last game yeah the last

23:40JJ Watt:game was a weird one i mean obviously we were on the call there and it the vibe was just strange because jacksonville jumped out to a big lead early and the texans pulled their starters at halftime and like even going into the game I mean yes everybody said all the right things and but you kind of you kind of knew and you could sense it just around even in the stadium the fans and everything like yeah we want to win this game but we also want to get to the playoffs healthy and we want to make sure that we're once we're in the playoffs everybody is ready and so it was just a strange thing now give credit to the Colts right Leonard comes out on his first third down deep to Alec Pierce there's a little bust in the coverage there on the back end they'll have Amari Lasseter back at corner.

24:20JJ Watt:So when you look at the AFC, I mean, this year is, as everybody said, more than ever feels like the most wide open it's been. The Texans defense, without a doubt, can stop anybody. It's going to come down to their ability to put up points on the other end that is going to determine how far they actually go.

24:37Pat McAfee:The Houston Texans defense brings the boo birds to your stadium. That is what they do. Your team fans normally going to be booing your offense because the Houston Texans don't give up anything. That's why when I see Riley Leonard do what he did to them, I'm like, 10 years, 500 million. Let's see if we can do that going forward. We're running it back. Obviously, you know that. But that is what we expect from the Texans' defense. C.J. Stroud, we assume he's going to play his best ball in the biggest moments. That's kind of how I view C.J.

25:06JJ Watt:I have a question first before we move to this next game. Is there, obviously, you guys are in Indianapolis, Colts territory. has there been any thoughts or discussions or questions after watching riley leonard play about

25:18Pat McAfee:what if uh whenever we go back in time so he had a hurt knee remember first that first week he had a hurt knee whenever we put phil in now granted does he get healthy and then we go roll with him that next one after watching him spin it and be able to move remember jage this guy actual hooper true hooper in high school with uh his size incredibly athletic we never said this publicly because we're big fans of the way he operated and how he was as a human and a teammate and everything like that but he couldn't throw he was a bad thrower I mean he was a bad thrower I was third string quarterback in the NFL uh for numerous years of my career have a couple throws on my belt not as good as Rigoberto Sanchez this past weekend there's no reason for you to bring up that other play in real time while I'm watching that game at home but like uh having a chance to kind of like watch practices, NFL practices, with how many different quarterbacks come through and what NFL quarterbacks look like when they're throwing the ball.

26:12Pat McAfee:It's hard to take serious somebody that misses a lot of throws. And Riley Leonard is just missing all of these throws. So I was like, maybe Riley Leonard would be a good tight end because of how athletic he was. So I just assumed he was ass with his arm. Then he comes out and he starts layering throws. He's been on. I'm like, obviously he's an incredibly athletic dude. He's clearly worked on this and good for Shane Steichen and the quarterback coach for developing him. But, yeah, I didn't expect any of that before seeing it, J.J. I genuinely didn't. And then I started asking the same question you were asking.

26:40Pat McAfee:It's like, well, we had this guy the whole time? How long has he been like this? You know, that's the next question.

26:46JJ Watt:Yeah, and like you said, I mean, obviously the first game he wasn't available anyway. And Phillip came in and did what I don't think that O 'Reilly might have been able to do against the Seahawks defense, having to read all those disguises, coverages, everything. Phillip gave him an unbelievable shot. And it was really cool for us to talk to Phillip this week and just hear his whole experience, perspective, the fact that they live a mile apart in Alabama and that he hosted a mini camp for Riley and the Notre Dame receivers two years ago like it's just the story goes crazier and crazier the deeper you get into it but Riley's movement in the pocket the way that he was able to shuffle around set his feet feather throws in fill some in and also run run the ball and they didn't even do that that much because they were protecting against having to put in their backup who just arrived on Monday.

27:32JJ Watt:So you add in a zone read layer to that game. You add in a little more run game. There's no question there's something to work with there. Some of those throws were impressive. I mean, unfortunately, Pittman dropped two of them for him right in his hands. So it's like he played a good game. It was enjoyable to watch. And I think there's at minimum, if Daniel Jones is the guy next year for them and he does need a little extra time, you are more than happy to put Riley Leonard out there.

27:57Pat McAfee:And it would suck for Daniel Jones if he was to resign with us and end up being Riley's backup, but I think we and Indy would be cool with that. You have to sign Pierce.

28:06JJ Watt:Can you sign Pierce?

28:08Pat McAfee:Pierce, I think Jonathan Taylor's going to want money too.

28:11Adam Schefter:Pierce ain't signing unless Danny Dimes is the guy.

28:14Pat McAfee:He came out and said that that certainly is a part of the entire process, which I respect him doing that. People are going to want Pierce on their team, though. I saw a lot of Colts fans saying Pierce needs to shut it. It's like we want him back. We would like Pierce. Very good.

28:28JJ Watt:player. Also, his ejection, in my opinion, I get it. I understand the rules, but man, that ejection was that's, we gotta figure that out.

28:36Adam Schefter:I appreciate you, JJ.

28:38Pat McAfee:These refs have gotten worse, and I appreciate you calling it out. Now, I do fear that they're gonna keep putting you on Houston Texans Colts games, because you did it, but I appreciate you doing it.

28:48JJ Watt:I was shooting it straight, dude. I mean, like, You have to, Jake, for the good of balls. It was such, like, Like, yeah, you throw the flag, that's fine. But, like, I don't – that doesn't have to be an ejector. Are you kidding me? Right there? Like, if you showed that video to somebody and said, somebody got ejected from this play, they'd be like, all right, where's the rest of the video? What happened? That's what got them ejected? Come on.

29:13Pat McAfee:Listen. Bull. Yeah, I don't like it at all. I appreciate you speaking up for it in there. Because there's some commentators that won't tell the ref analyst, hey, shut it. How about that? You know? And Steratore, I appreciate how he operates. We would like Steratore to speak for everybody. You know, Western PA, Pittsburgh guy, Paisan.

29:30JJ Watt:Big Pitt guy.

29:31Pat McAfee:Yeah, yeah, certainly.

29:32JJ Watt:Pittsburgh. He calls me babe all the time. He cracks me every time. I love it. He's such an old school dude. All right, babe. Great, great call, babe. Thank you. Thank you, Gene. That just gives me some confidence.

29:42Pat McAfee:Yeah, Paisan, too. Give him a grazie one time. And it's Pittsburgh.

29:48JJ Watt:As opposed to?

29:49Pat McAfee:You said he's a big Pitt guy.

29:51JJ Watt:Oh, yeah. I do that all the time. I didn't realize that that was such a touchy subject over there. I used to always just call it Pitt and say, I was going out in Pitt. I did not realize that they were so sensitive to it. It's not sensitive, it's just the reality of what it actually is. The backside you nickname. Well, I mean, there's a lot of cities and places in the world that, you know, some people, yeah, exactly. So I didn't, so sensitive would be the word.

30:17Pat McAfee:No, sensitive would just be understanding that it's different there. It's different there.

30:21JJ Watt:Because I also got yelled at for saying the Berg. I like the Berg. You say Berg. People don't like the Berg. You say the Berg. I said the Berg. And people were like, it's not the Berg. Nobody calls it the Berg. I'm like, I don't know. It's pretty cool.

30:31Pat McAfee:That's true. We don't. But I think you say the Berg is cool. Yeah.

30:36JJ Watt:All right. All right. So the Berg is fine, but Pitt is not. Why? Because it's the university? Can you use it in a sentence?

30:40Pat McAfee:Can you use the Berg in a sentence? That's a good call, actually.

30:44JJ Watt:I thoroughly enjoy all the time I spend in the Berg. and it is significantly hillier and more, I don't know. It's much different than I thought. You could die on the roads in the winter. So you have to.

30:58Pat McAfee:Is there a comma in there somewhere? I don't know. You have to say, I enjoy going down a burg. It's got a lot of hills and stuff. Yeah, da burg.

31:04JJ Watt:So did you drop da? Oh, okay. So it's da burg. Da burg. Da burg. Yeah, like da bears, da bears, da burg. And put it down before. Okay.

31:13Pat McAfee:Yeah, and down, and in that, if you want to toss it on the back. but Pitt is the University of Pittsburgh. Okay, let's go Mountaineers. And Pittsburgh is the city. Not everybody that is from Pittsburgh goes to Pitt. Pitt kind of took that. They did great branding with it, by the way. They just took the first four. I mean, that was a good move, buddy. They're smart. They're smart. That's a very smart school. I think that's a good thing. But, you know, you got Duquesne Dukes in Pittsburgh. You certainly got a lot of people that don't go to college in Pittsburgh. So not everybody wants to be associated with Pitt, you know.

31:39JJ Watt:Carnegie. Got it. Duberg. Duberg. There it is. Wow. What a weapon you are. All right, let's talk ball.

31:46Pat McAfee:Let's talk ball. D-Bud has a question for you, Jay.

31:49Adam Schefter:Yeah, Jay Jay, today's NFL. You know, obviously it's always conversation around the quarterback and a lot of people want the offensive savant. What are you looking for in a head coach right now if you're hiring, especially in this cycle in particular?

32:02JJ Watt:I personally, everybody has different opinions on this. I personally like a head coach to be a CEO type, not the coordinator calling plays type. I think there is so much that goes into head coaching from a day-to-day operation standpoint, setting the vision for the building, and also running things for the entire team, not just your side of the ball, and on game day when it comes to managing a game, managing timeouts, managing challenges and everything. I believe that the guy should be a CEO type, and even if he is one of these hot coordinators that comes in, which Ben Johnson is certainly making a case for the other way, and some of these great coaches, but it's just there's so much that goes into it, man.

32:45JJ Watt:I like a CEO type, so I like a guy that comes in and still hires somebody to run everything else. And you saw this year, D 'Amico handed off the play-calling duties of his defense to Matt Burke. Defense went on to become the number one. Texans went on this nine-win streak, so I like it like that. That's me personally.

33:02Pat McAfee:You can always help, you know? You can always, like, help on the defensive side, but there's if somebody's spending their entire existence focusing on something there's a chance they're going to be a little bit better at it or more in tune with it or more dialed in on it now on that note mcdonald's calling it out there in seattle yep right number two or number one in every other category other than houston now how many years does that last demico is obviously not in his first year second year as a head coach like mcdonald is in his first couple years like will that be on forever it's just so much another counterpoint to my own argument as i'm just

33:35JJ Watt:debating myself for no reason. Liam Cohen this year was telling us a story about how early in the season he tried to spend a lot of time with the defense because he knew the bias he had towards offense. And he was like, I need to go over and make sure I'm a head coach, not just an offensive coach. And then he said after a few weeks, it wasn't working that well. And he was like, no, I just need to focus on the offense and let my defensive guys handle the defense. So I do think it can work if you have full, complete trust in your defense. So when I was in Houston, we had Gary Kubiak as a head coach who also ran the offense, and we had Wade Phillips on defense, who was basically a head coach of the defense.

34:11JJ Watt:And we were essentially two units that were working at the same time, but who was the head coach of it all. But we had two head coaches, essentially. It was a really cool setup. And if you can do that, I think that's very effective.

34:23Pat McAfee:Yeah, especially if there's respect for each other. It was that the Bears back in the day, they hated each other. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, bud. It's like literally two different teams, almost rivals of each other. And that defense, I think, won, you know, big time, long term. It's really the only person we talk about is defense side. Well, the shuffle, I mean. Oh, yeah. Jim McMahon, though, he was nice. The fridge. The fridge. But they did have two units, basically, kind of in it all. If you can have respect for each other and keep it moving, great. But if one team starts doing a lot better than the other team, that starts getting better.

34:56Pat McAfee:That's when things start getting bad. Let's talk about another coach that you played for. Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, Jay, a guy that you played for as well who played caller, Cliff Kingsbury. He is gone now from Washington. Him and Dan Quinn went into a room and maybe beat the shit out of each other. No one really knows yet, but he's no longer the coach for the Commanders. What was your experience with him? Do you think that is one of those situations where maybe he was, you know, played caller and head coach and learned from that after going and, you know, doing some time in Washington, and now as he gets back into the cycle might change it up a little bit?

35:29Or was he one of those guys that could do two separate units, great on offense, and then just have someone run the defense? Because it feels like he's had a bunch of success as a head coach. Obviously he had a bunch of success with Jaden Daniels in his first year back in coaching after getting let go from Arizona. How do you feel he will do if he does get the opportunity to be a head coach somewhere?

35:50JJ Watt:Yeah, I think Cliff certainly learned a lot from his experience as the head coach and then since then being in other roles and having time to reflect and grow. I think I love Cliff. He's one of my great friends. And I think I hope he gets another shot. I would imagine that he will. But we did have something similar. When I went to Arizona, a big part of it was also because Vance Joseph was a defensive coordinator there. And Vance Joseph is another guy who I believe will get a head coaching shot again at some point. He's running one of the best defenses in the league in Denver. And he is a guy who can manage the room extremely well, even in tough circumstances.

36:24JJ Watt:So I would imagine he'll get one as well. But these guys that have been head coaches before, you would certainly think and hope that they've learned since then and wouldn't do it the exact same way the next time through. But this coaching pool in general is an interesting one. Just there is not necessarily that same. I mean, now that Harbaugh's in the mix certainly changes it. But like last year, you had the Ben Johnson where it was basically, okay, it's a sweepstakes. That's number one. And now maybe Harbaugh slips right into that role. But it's an interesting pool this year. To me, it's not the same as always.

36:57JJ Watt:And I always have a funny take on GMs. Like every single year, there's a whole lot more head coaches fired than there are GMs. Yet they're the ones choosing things. And it's just a...

37:10Pat McAfee:No, but we don't know the GMs. And the GMs only speak, what, once a year or whatever, basically. So they kind of keep themselves guarded. and that's a smart play.

37:17JJ Watt:They sit very close to the owners, smartly.

37:21Pat McAfee:Yeah, it does seem like there's some politicking. I'm putting your team together. It's an honor to do as such. We certainly have all seen it, I assume, is what we're speaking from personal experience. Middle of punt period, that's crazy. Right across the field, I get it right now. It's crazy. Why would... Oh, okay, that makes sense. So that's an interesting thing. So, you know, just the whole thought, though, that if the GM and the coach aren't on the same page, definitely not going to work. Like, definitely not going to work. So, we talk to Coach McCarthy a lot, and obviously his name is going to be up for a lot of jobs, as they should, if he wants them.

37:55Pat McAfee:He's told us, basically, yes, he's going to try to get back into it. How has it gone for the entire process? We don't know. We are excited for him to get back in the ball. He loves it. But the amount of times him and every other coach that we've ever talked to has all talked about alignment.

38:07Adam Schefter:So important.

38:08Pat McAfee:I need alignment. I need alignment. I need alignment. Owner, GM, head coach, and, hell, even quarterback we all need to be rowing the exact same direction not trying to undercut each other you know because gm says front office personnel they got good players that's a good roster coaches need to get better out of them coaches say our roster sucks these guys are terrible we're ass we didn't even get good guys for our scheme once that starts happening then you find out who is politicking with the owner a little bit better and then that person sticks around longer they made a better case and then all of a sudden next head coach comes in well you already know that this person's willing to bury this person we've seen it already happen so this new person that comes in you're not going to bury whenever things get up like how does that kind of go then we saw teams start to interview coaches and gms together remember that agencies were kind of like piecing gms and head coaches together for interviews like hey these two will get along if you were to hire them as a thing and then now with the places that we're at it's like a lot of gms sticking around with head coaches coming in these are the winner of it all are these search

39:10JJ Watt:firms oh that is hands down the winner of it all like we all don't know who the candidates are and you can't just call and bring them in and interview them yourself you got to bring in a search firm or two in some cases and have them run the operation and take just a whole bunch of money to end up in

39:28Pat McAfee:the exact same spot you were going to end up no they're geniuses do they know ball maybe we'll learn about it do you know our building what you tell us we know do you know our city yeah travel down there all the time do you think you will know what's best for the company that i own right now yeah flash you get to pay me 20 million what an honor and these owners like yep and then that i don't aj or sorry i need to move on i had the same conversation with that's on me i'm so sorry jay i'm not all white silk the same especially big athletic ones with jay i apologize for that one i told shefty though soon shefty told me about the two down there in atlanta you see you know some people i said call them cowards and then shefty was like oh what do you mean by that shefty got like intrigued by i'm like well you're in a position to make a decision okay yeah that is what you are there for there's not a lot of people that are that's what you're getting paid for that is what you're that is why you are there to make a decision so whenever you opt out of taking any of the blame of a bad decision by hiring it outside i just think you're not the person that's supposed to be in the the place that you're in like that so

40:42JJ Watt:that's just well the problem is is you're taking the heat when things go wrong anyway so like this these search terms have been placed as a buffer they're trying to be like this buffer where hey we hired the best people possible and they made the decision don't put it on me they told me this was the best person to make yet when stuff goes wrong people go straight to the owner and they say hey you got to fire this guy you got to do this you got to do that you you put us in this spot get us fixed well if you're going to take the heat for it anyway just make the decision and

41:10Pat McAfee:actually own it and i think you and i both agree getting recommendations not a bad idea like having other eyes like troy aikman's getting brought in down there for the dolphins i think dan marina is down there as well obviously like i don't hate that like i don't hate that having search firms that don't have anybody related to ball in them just to do like human HR search, like whatever they're doing, I just think that is such a terrible decision, especially in the NFL. There's only 32 of these teams. There's only 32 people technically that are sitting in an actual position to make an actual decision.

41:42Pat McAfee:Like you get to do that. You don't have to do it.

41:44Adam Schefter:But to be a devil's advocate, we've seen them make plenty terrible decisions. But is it them? I mean, yeah. So why not try something new if you're the New York Jets? Why not go? And I don't mind the 33rd team, at least those people know ball. You got former coaches, former GMs, et cetera, and going to just another firm. And obviously consultants do this in all these other Fortune 500 companies. But if I done messed it up for 35-plus years, let me hire somebody else.

42:10JJ Watt:But if these firms – so, like, are these firms only working for one team per year? Because if you're the firm doing multiple teams, who's getting choice 1A? Who's getting choice 1B? Like, how are you selling this? Like, hey, I found the best one. but don't tell the other team that I also found the best one for them.

42:27Pat McAfee:Well, on that note, we need to not kill this business, remember? I'm not in the business.

42:32JJ Watt:What do I give a shit about?

42:33Pat McAfee:Not yet. Not yet. We will be, though.

42:35JJ Watt:I don't want to be in it. I don't want to need anybody calling me asking who to hire him. You don't know the pool of candidates in the NFL.

42:41Pat McAfee:James, you don't know what is possible in the future. What if I go to some owner and I say, hey, we'll be able to make good decisions. J.J. Watt's coming in. You pay me$25 million and I go, James, got$10 million for you to come in here and look at some candidates.

42:53JJ Watt:He's been setting in for a long time. I'll write a list down real quick. There you go.

42:57Pat McAfee:Exactly. So let's not bury the business as a whole. We just like the right consultants to be consulted with, you know, for the good of the business.

43:05JJ Watt:I mean, apparently I'm the only analyst not consulting, I guess, on some team in the NFL.

43:10Pat McAfee:Telling the refs it's bullshit, not consulting with ownership. Hey, we appreciate you in there for the people, Jay. Appreciate you in there for the people. Speaking of being in the booth, go ahead, Tashman. Yeah, Jay, I don't want to just blow smoke up your bunghole, but because you dropped your breakfast this morning, I figured you could use a compliment. You were absolutely terrific in the booth this year. That is no bullshit. And I think we've seen a lot of these guys, like former players, former greats the first year, they're kind of getting their feet wet still and maybe aren't as good as they could be.

43:40I think you came in like gangbusters with Ian and were incredible. What did you think of being back in the booth for your first year? Is there anything you maybe think you need to improve on? and just the experience as a whole. What did you enjoy most about it?

43:54JJ Watt:Yeah, I appreciate that very much. I do. Going into it, I truthfully didn't know what to think. I had no idea. I said my whole career I didn't want to do it. I didn't think I would enjoy it, and I was wrong. I absolutely loved it way more than I thought I would, and I had an incredible team to help me out, everybody at CBS, but obviously Ayan. For having a guy like Ayan who is a stellar play-by-play guy but also has the wit and the humor and the personality to play off of. And we had such great chemistry. I'm so thankful for that, Evan down on the field. But then even beyond that, I mean, our production meetings and everybody, Ken Mack and everybody giving me the ability to grow and to learn.

44:33JJ Watt:I have a weekly call every week with our producer, Ken, and I would go over the game with him and he would give me his notes and we're trying to find the best way to make this thing great. I really love it, man. And in terms of what I want to work on going forward, I mean, I think it's always about balancing the amount of football logistics and knowledge and explanations with the fun humor laid back, like sitting on the couch talking ball. Because you can get too in-depth with the football stuff, but you can also not give enough. And I think there's a perfect line that you're always trying to find as an analyst, where you're explaining why the things in the game are happening, but you're not talking down to the viewer.

45:12JJ Watt:I never want the viewer to feel like, this guy thinks he's smarter than me. I want you to feel like it's just we're hanging out, and I know this because I played the game, so I'm going to try and fill you in on it.

45:22Pat McAfee:How much steak, how much sizzle? You know, that's kind of what we're trying to figure out and try to serve. I think you did a great job. And I think your angle there from defense, especially with the Miles Garrett story, which you were a part of a couple different times, obviously you had TJ with Houston. You obviously had a lot of things you were a part of, and there was a lot of opportunities for you to potentially be a biased journalist, and you didn't. You know, you remained good for ball. I think that is kind of how you viewed it. I don't know if you actually did view that, but we want to let you know you were good for ball the way you talked about it all.

45:47Pat McAfee:And we saw two Colts losses against Houston Texans with you on the call. I thought you were phenomenal, man. And you talk about the entertainment, the levity of it all, and trying to be a human. I think that is very important. Very. Anybody can get up there and just talk about exactly what's going on and try to showcase how smart they are ball-wise. Because you saw it. Yeah. Yeah. He had a lot of conversation on the internet about that already happening. So, you know, that is the difference, you know, between just being somebody at home and being J.J. Watt, who is also somebody that people at home would view a friend, you know, as opposed to superstar J.J.

46:18Pat McAfee:Watt. So I think you did a great job. I'm sorry, man.

46:20JJ Watt:Love that segment, too. It's a blast. Where they ask him questions. Ask J.J.? I don't know if it's called that. It's where they have questions sent to ask him, and then J.J. Watt. Maybe it's called J.J. answers questions. It's a brilliant idea by the production crew. I mean, top-notch stuff there from the think tank. Yeah, well, remember, we forgot about it a couple times.

46:44Pat McAfee:You know, so CBS is not.

46:47JJ Watt:We didn't have a graphic like you guys do, though. We don't have a cool AI-generated graphic. Hey, whoa. There's a lot of people that think you can eat more pizza rolls than me. I will say that. There are a lot of people that believe you can eat me in a pizza roll. What was yours? 143. I don't know if I have pizza rolls, but if it was like bags of Pirate's booty, I'd fuck your shit up, dude.

47:07Pat McAfee:Okay. So what is it?

47:08JJ Watt:Yeah, you get deep in that Pirate's booty, don't you? Oh, yeah. You got no idea. I'm digging for treasure. Oh, yeah? We're talking double knuckle. Oh, dude. Family size, baby. Oh, wow. We're fisting.

47:21Pat McAfee:Two hands. Good for you. I don't think I fully know exactly what we're talking about. Pirate's booty. It's like a little popcorn-type adjacent snack. Very good. I thought there was a chance we were actually talking about ours butt. Could be.

47:34JJ Watt:You're telling me Kenzie's never had a little pirate's booty?

47:36Pat McAfee:I don't know. I don't think so. What is it? Pirate's booty. It's like cheetah. Yeah, corn, cheddar, or not cheddar, corn, cheese, you could say, like, snack, so good.

47:46Adam Schefter:Kind of like a white popcorn blended with Cheeto. Yeah, a Cheeto puff. Yeah, a Cheeto puff. White cheese curls. There you go. Free ads.

47:54Pat McAfee:I don't think, I mean, it sounds like they've done a lot for our lives. Not our lives, but your guys' lives. Live for the booty. It's no free ads. I mean, they've certainly, they've delivered booty to you guys. I don't think I've ever done the Pirates booty.

48:08JJ Watt:I honestly would say don't even try. A bag goes down in the blink of an eye. Yeah. It gets deleted. Deleted. Well, and that is the one thing they could maybe do is it's about 80 % air, 20 % Pirates booty every bag.

48:20Pat McAfee:Yeah, but it's not just the booty doing that. I think there's a lot of kind of bagged items that have become really a lot of gassed up air for our sake, they say. That's why Pringles, they always deliver. You know exactly how many are in there.

48:35JJ Watt:They don't throw that sucker to the top. They don't fill that sucker to the top.

48:39Pat McAfee:Are you talking about the little ones that you have to peel off the top or the actual ones you pop and can't stop?

48:43JJ Watt:No, I'm talking about the full tennis ball tin. It's the big dog.

48:47Pat McAfee:No, because it used to be so high you couldn't get your fingers down to get it out there. You know, the Pringles game. And it's still kind of like that, I'd say. You look like you're digging for booty the way we do with the buyer's booty bag. So is that a two-finger thing? Sometimes. Really? Because if you don't want to get ahead of yourself, because you can eat a full – I mean, you could probably eat 10 party-sized bags. You do just kind of do like a twofer just to get a couple out. And then you throw them like Tom Cruise. Exactly. Okay, I got it. Yeah, yeah, you do a little bit of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

49:19Pat McAfee:How you doing? Thank you. Yeah, all right. I think you did great in the booth, though, nonetheless. You said 100 and what on those pizza rolls?

49:28JJ Watt:Well, I said I think 150 or 143 to 158 or something like that. But you have to remember, it was to pass out. It wasn't to throw up. It was to pass out. And so I do think I might need to raise it even higher. What comes first? To pass out is a lot. Because you're going to puke and then keep eating, right?

49:45Pat McAfee:Yeah, you're going to puke and then keep eating. Are you a pizza roll guy? That's why this question came up?

49:51JJ Watt:Obviously, I've had many of them in my life. I don't know why the question came up. Somebody just asked. But everybody knows the problem with the pizza rolls is that you never wait for them to cool off. And then you just destroy the inside of your mouth. And you have to stop before you're actually done. so I would need all the corners cut off if we were doing it

50:08Pat McAfee:yeah the corner cut off is a big deal it still doesn't matter because that sauce is coming whenever it happens I love a good late night pizza I used to at least I don't do much anymore I feel like that would certainly make the amount of dumps you're going to have to go through too for that 140

50:19JJ Watt:yeah a lot of yeah there's going to be a lot of wipes there's going to be a lot of wipes

50:24Pat McAfee:and we know how you freaks do it don't we

50:26JJ Watt:I was a hot pocket guy I was a ham and cheese hot pocket ham and cheese that was my face wow I was a ham and cheese hot pocket pepperoni nope nope Nope. Nope. It's a Philly steak one. It's pretty darn good. A Philly cheese steak one.

50:38Pat McAfee:There's a ketchup one out there. Yeah, you can really get cooking in that entirety. Did you do, what did you eat as, you ate everything as a kid, right? That's like kind of the what thing? We ate everything? We just eat?

50:48JJ Watt:We ate a lot of food. A lot of food. Yes, a lot of food.

50:51Pat McAfee:Dad, firefighter, chef too, right?

50:53JJ Watt:Yep. Went to the firehouse all the time. They'd be making up good food over there. Yeah, very fortunate. My parents, I mean, my dad was trying to bulk us up. there's no question we had milkshakes every single night trying to put on some weight uh he'd buy some of like that whatever the cheapest form of steak was he would buy those like i don't know if it was sirloin or like the lowest grade just no steak like actual i don't

51:14Pat McAfee:think is that lower this the steakums i think those ones that you're peeling out sizzling i

51:18JJ Watt:think that would be the lowest form of steak if you had whatever whatever protein like we were he was like we need i know you need protein and we'd have like spaghetti like plain spaghetti and everything. Yeah, just hammering food 24-7. Every time my friends came over, they knew there was going to be food.

51:34Pat McAfee:It worked out, didn't it? Look at you now. TJ's got the second most sacks in the history of NFL season. You're both going to be first ballot Hall of Famers. What are you, third most in a season? I have no idea.

51:50JJ Watt:I'm the only one to ever have 20-plus twice.

51:54Pat McAfee:Let's see that, Miles Garrett. He's like one of five to have three straight defensive player of the years as well. Let's get a milkshake every night for Kenzie, it sounds like.

52:06JJ Watt:Only three players have three defensive player of the years. So not one of five. Who is that? Aaron Donald. One of three. Aaron Donald and Lawrence Taylor. Lawrence Taylor, yeah. Pretty good company. Which Lawrence Taylor. Pretty good.

52:22Pat McAfee:They're right up there. They're always looking right over my shoulder to remind you.

52:27JJ Watt:And just in case you need to remember, I actually did play football before I had cool haircuts.

52:33Pat McAfee:Well, we can't see him now because you're wearing, I'm not going to say what I was just about to say.

52:36JJ Watt:It doesn't look good. It doesn't look good right now.

52:39Pat McAfee:That's his old hair. And now let's flip to the new hair that debuted. Just, ooh. Yeah. Ooh. You look very superhero-ish with the new hair. A lot of people are saying maybe this guy's on the local news, maybe he's selling insurance. What I'm saying is he's a dashing lad with a great haircut. And I'll tell you what. You look younger than ever out there, and I think it was the right move to celebrate the season with the new haircut. And it sucks that this happened this morning to you. We got footage from your ring cam inside your house. Obviously, it's a nightmare situation for James.

53:11JJ Watt:That's incredibly accurate. Unbelievable. Good-looking breakfast.

53:13Pat McAfee:Let's go all our food. This guy never stops eating. I know. That's kind of the Watt way. The only thing that's not believable is how small that kitchen is. I bet his is huge, man. Yeah, think about the island, how big the island is. Two or three of them.

53:24JJ Watt:Look at how close the island is to the countertop over there. AI really messed it up.

53:30Pat McAfee:Well, it's not an island. It's just an extension of your cabinetry, obviously, there. That's what that is. The island is behind us here. What color is your kitchen? White cabinets for sure?

53:39JJ Watt:No, navy blue.

53:43Pat McAfee:Oh, Jayge. Okay, do we have a massive island in the middle? Is there a hibachi oven in the middle?

53:50JJ Watt:No, nothing is on the island besides a little wet sink. But no, the oven and everything is on a wall. The island is just an island for the most part.

54:01Pat McAfee:Congratulations. You did it, man. Hell yeah, Jake.

54:06JJ Watt:I've also realized that for anybody out there with islands, there's a certain size that the island is an inconvenience as opposed to a convenience, whereas you can't reach the middle. I got super long arms, 34 inches actually, and I can't reach the middle. So if I put, there's no reason to have anything in the middle of your island.

54:22Pat McAfee:JJ Watt can't touch the middle of his island in his kitchen. Wow. That's when you know. Holy shit. Wow. Good for you, JJ.

54:29JJ Watt:Yep. It's like you with your planes. You know, you can't reach your arms out and touch both sides. That's how you know you're on the right size. I'll have you know. For Pat.

54:35Pat McAfee:We didn't have Starlink on one of our flights. It was. I'll tell you what. It was tough. It was tough to get there. Yeah.

54:41JJ Watt:We did a peek and go. How was the stop, the New Year's? That was crazy. How'd it go?

54:48Pat McAfee:It was good. Everything was good. A couple hours of sleep.

54:51JJ Watt:Oh, yeah. That voice really secures it.

54:53Pat McAfee:It was. It was a good time. It was kind of like our fake punt back with the Pacano. There was no reason to bring that up. You said my name, too, and I understand across the bottom of that.

55:03JJ Watt:You were on the field. You were on the field.

55:05Pat McAfee:I was trying to get off it, but obviously I didn't sell it good enough because nobody bought it from New England and they stayed right there.

55:10JJ Watt:Dude, how sick was that when they went with the punt team staying on the field on first down? Genius. It's genius. That was so good.

55:18Pat McAfee:It is such a good idea. I'm not even going to say anything. But, yes, it was a genius idea. I'm happy everybody's response to it is that it's a genius idea, and I'm happy that it worked, and I'm happy somebody tried it. Because, boy, it's been sitting there this entire time. If we don't sub, then they can't sub, right, immediately after the play? Yes. Throw a go ball in this thing. We should have too many men. The natural reaction for the defensive team after a punt is just to walk off the field. They're tired. The whole thing, like, oh, they just ran a fake on us. Fist. This sucks. Walking off the field, head down.

55:50Pat McAfee:Defense, actual defense, jogging on field, pissed. Once again, you're talking about a lot of pissed off people not paying attention. It's like, first of all, there's going to be 15 people on the field. Second of all, is anybody going to be covering Gunnar if we were to throw a go ball here? I don't think so. Genius stuff. I love it.

56:04Adam Schefter:This was a Carly call. This was right from the top.

56:06Pat McAfee:Could potentially be what saved them their job. Could potentially be what saved them their job. And I'll tell you what, if we're going to get more of this type of thinking, I'm all about it. I'm all about it. All right, Jage, we got a hard out, brother. We can't thank you enough for joining us. You're the man. Good luck to your Burnley squad. We need it. Up the clarets. Up the clarets. At least a couple times. You know, maybe two times in eight games. Get that Columbus crew guy. I'm not calling for any jobs. So I'm just saying there is one that is certainly wide open.

56:29JJ Watt:I'm going to go make some breakfast. I'm going to make some breakfast.

56:32Pat McAfee:Let's keep an eye out. You got this. Let's get a little self-awareness. I know it's the offseason for you. I got it. But let's make sure we check this island that is, what, 13 feet by 13? Sounds like it. Ladies and gentlemen, J.J. Watt. Yeah, J.J. Jeez. Yeah, J.J. That was a great appearance by J.J. Fantastic. J.J. what? Can't get to the middle of that thing. Golly. It's a pool. Let me get a broom. Mm-hmm. Imagine having short arms. Oh. AQ's on there like a little boot.

57:03JJ Watt:Welcome back to, uh, yeah, that's a pepper thing. First up, we've got Harrison wrapping his Dr. Pepper in a tiny quilt so it feels at home. Oh, how tender. That's a pepper thing. And over to Becca, who's whispering affirmations to her can. You're sweet. You're unique. You're the best thing I ever poured over ice. She swears it makes it taste better. It's not a science thing, but it's a pepper thing. Why do they all do it? All for that sweet, delicious, truly one-of-a-kind taste of Dr. Pepper. It's a pepper thing. This is Ark Raiders, a multiplayer extraction adventure where most of humanity shelters underground.

57:38But raiders rise to the surface in search of something greater. In the Rust Belt, every run is pressure. Every decision is a play call. Face the relentless machines of ARK and rival Raiders chasing the same prize. Push forward or extract while you're ahead. Team up. Trust no one. ARK Raiders is on sale now. Available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Rated T for Team.

58:28Pat McAfee:We'll be right back.

58:33Pat McAfee:with a field pass. Friday, Oregon versus Indiana in the Peach Bowl. Two Big Ten teams collide for the second time this season. Indiana undefeated and favored over Dan Lanning and the Ducks. We'll be live on ESPN2 for the field pass. Rams, Panthers, Packers, Bears on Saturday of Super Wild Card Weekend. Bills as favorites on the road. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars, welcome back to hosting a playoff game to do

59:05Pat McAfee:Niners, Eagles, Chargers, Pats, and then Houston Texans, Pittsburgh Steelers. This is Super Football Weekend, and we're certainly excited about it. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. The Toxic Table is here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Nine-year NFL vet. Absolute stallion of a brain in the football universe. Hell yeah. Host of NFL Matchups on ESPN. Two.

59:28Adam Schefter:ESPN Plus.

59:30Pat McAfee:and

59:32Adam Schefter:ESPN ESPN Deportes really Disney Plus

59:40Pat McAfee:what ladies and gentlemen Mr. Worldwide Darius J. Butler

59:44JJ Watt:good to see you D-Butt

59:47Pat McAfee:the All Everything DB team yesterday was phenomenal it is awards season we'll certainly be celebrating some awards here in a matter of moments with our 12 year NFL vet Super Bowl champion player coach ladies and gentlemen A.Q. Shipley Thank you. Got the Trenchies today. Yes. Today was almost Trenchies Wednesday, but super football weekend because of what we got going on. Well, you know, it's like five days of action, so we're certainly going to talk about that a little bit more. But it was almost Trenchies Wednesday because this Trenchie has kind of been a trailblazer in the offensive line awards space for a few years.

1:00:17Pat McAfee:They're actually doing it at the NFL now. I don't like that they're not taking our trophy that we give out here at the Trenchies. They should. But I like that more people are giving awards to the offensive linemen. I appreciate you paying attention all year to who should win them. Absolutely. And I think they should have given us a little credit maybe. Maybe given us a little bit of credit. Just saying. I mean, there's some other people that got some credit. We've been doing this. We've been doing this for quite some time now. People are getting full speeches at press conferences for doing it, and we appreciate them.

1:00:41Pat McAfee:We are happy about offensive linemen getting recognized, and we are fans of offensive linemen, which is why we are excited that more people are going to be celebrating the big boys because that's who decides if you're going to win or not, especially in the games that matter. And this is the trenches, ladies and gentlemen. That's a trophy. He's been a trophy since day one. And on top of that is a man who is shaped like a freak. I mean, I look svelte right there. Before you say anything. Okay, so that is A.Q. Shipley. I was going to say just random NFL offensive lineman. That's A.Q. Shipley. If the boys who stole a skeleton from his front yard during Halloween knew that he was shaped like this, I don't think they're showing up.

1:01:19Pat McAfee:Or running away. I think they're probably just walking that thing out of there. Now, on that note, this trophy signifies the greatness of the big men, and we can't wait to give them out later. Great season out of the big guys. The big boys were awesome this year. It was really cool to see. It was a little bit different the way defenses played this year. We saw a resurgence of the run game a couple years ago when we started to see five yards per carry. This year, there was a clear effort to stop the run on the defensive side of the ball, started bringing another safety down in the box and forcing teams to beat you through the air.

1:01:51But the big boys still got after it. There were still some really good run games this year. And pass protection picked up a little bit this year.

1:01:58Pat McAfee:Okay, on that note, it feels like people are doing a little bit more six-man protection, maybe big tight end. Was that just me watching the Pittsburgh Steelers and a couple other teams, or has that become the new norm because of what defenses are doing? Well, listen, we've talked about it a lot about tight ends, DNs being a horrible matchup, especially in the run game, right? So now instead of doing that and sending the tight end through like McVay has done in recent years, now we can just get a big guy there and we can get back to running old-school football, putting a tight end on a D-end, but that tight end now is Spencer Anderson from the Pittsburgh Steelers who's 6 '4", 6 '5", 320 pounds, and you feel really good about that matchup.

1:02:31Pat McAfee:Darnell Washington from the Pittsburgh Steelers. That's right. Yeah. 3-15 or whatever that is. He might as well just switch his number to a 70s number. No, he's got – what? Then he'd have to report eligible every single play. It's all right. Because he's out here doing this one, this one here, he's doing this one here, but you're right, he's doing a lot of this stuff right here. He makes a lot more money. What, with 70-something? Oh, yeah. Why doesn't he just start working on it? Now that he broke his arm, maybe he does. I mean, just, you're already there, right? That's right. You're already there.

1:02:59Pat McAfee:Yeah. I mean, he's already got it all, right? So he just needs to work on this, which is the hardest part. You become premier left tackle in the NFL. I mean, that's a lot of money. Jason Peters. Even the right side now. Oh, yeah. Yes, I guess because run game becoming so important. Yeah. And obviously we need probably four or five guys anyways. Tackles being good would be good news. Why doesn't he? Is that something that's much harder? I would assume that's very difficult to learn how to do. Probably, but again, Jason Peters, he mentioned him. That was what he was. He was a tight end at Arkansas.

1:03:30Started off first year or two special teams. Hey, that guy's got good feet. He's about 300 pounds. Let's maybe work an offseason like this, and all of a sudden you get one of the best tackles to ever play the game.

1:03:41Pat McAfee:No, you've got small arms obviously operate in the inside of the offensive line. If he was coming to shipyard two, three months, will be able to get him to kick slot on that thing? That's still a tough ask. I mean, I have worked with some guys. Oh, no, don't go to him. No, it's still a tough ask. The biggest thing that you have to understand about offensive line play, even moving from tackle to inside is a whole different world. It takes some guys two, three – can you do it? Yeah, but it still takes guys two, three years to become comfortable moving from tackle into guard or tackle into center.

1:04:10It's a whole different world. I think so many people in the scouting world and the GMs and the front office are like, oh, well, it's not working at tackle. Let's just move him into guard. Peter Skaronsky, for instance, has become a damn good offensive guard. Mackay, is he still playing? He's still playing. But, again, when you make that move.

1:04:24Pat McAfee:He was a renaissance move there for the Philadelphia Eagles. And, again, he was much better under Jeff Stoutland's tutors. He kind of took a step back this year, as that whole offensive line out in L.A. did. But when you move from tackle to guard, and then if you take it another step, tackle to center, a whole different world. Yeah. Darn no one should I think he's. Just get him on the line. I saw you teaching your nephew. Just get them all on. That's all I need them to do, right? We got to start somewhere. A couple of those. That's it. Let's go to hammer. Time. Time. AP Tone, how does it feel to maybe have your premier left tackle or right tackle already on the roster?

1:04:58Pat McAfee:All I need to do is head to the shipyard, maybe. Come on. Steelers fans have been saying this for a couple years. Tomlin's been asking about it a bunch. I know Daniel Jeremiah has suggested it as well. Yeah, we could see Darnell being our left tackle for the future because the center right guard, right tackle, second year, They're the offensive line for the next 10 to 12 years. So, yeah, left tackle, Darnell being there, yeah, that'd be awesome. And maybe Aaron Rodgers just plays for another 10 years. He could. At least one more. What's that? He needs to play at least one more year. After the season?

1:05:31Yeah.

1:05:32Pat McAfee:That's your public ask right now? Yeah, because there's basically no quarterbacks coming out past the first two, and there's no quarterbacks in free agency. Ty Simpson. Yeah. Ty Simpson declared for the draft today. You don't know who the next shuck's going to be. See, that guy was a third rounder. Now we got people saying, yo, this is going to be the guy. Sure, yeah. I 100 % agree. But maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers make a big-time play with a draft in Pittsburgh. You never know.

1:05:53Adam Schefter:Got Will Howard waiting. I agree. I agree, but they're not going to play him. They don't get it.

1:05:59Pat McAfee:What do you mean they don't get it? They drafted him. They did, yeah. And who did he beat in the national championship? Riley Leonard. Riley Leonard just carves up the Houston Texans defense. Maybe Will Howard should start this week. So you want Aaron Rodgers to come back another season? And now you want Will Howard. I'm just saying Will Howard could do it. Such a Pittsburgh fan. I mean, how many years did Jordan Love sit behind Aaron Rodgers? Three. Okay. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is live from an attic in Ohio. He just turned another year older yesterday. Everybody knows January 6th, this guy's birthday.

1:06:32Pat McAfee:College football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner, ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Yeah, Hawk. Hawker, how was your birthday night with the fam? Hope you got a chance to celebrate everybody happy you survived another year, thrived another year. Yep, everybody's happy, survived and thrived another year. But, yeah, everything's good. Tone kind of worries me. Tone is such a flip-flopper for the Pittsburgh Steelers, I'm not sure what to think. Well, is that worry you about the Houston Texans coming into town with the number one defense in the league on Monday Night Football and with what just happened in Baltimore, all eyes on Pittsburgh because of the way Tone's talking right now?

1:07:04Pat McAfee:A little flip-flopping Tone, AJ? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think Tone deep down, though. He really wants the Steelers to win. We know he's just protecting his feelings. That's what he does. He does this to protect. He doesn't want to get too hurt if for some reason doesn't go his way. He's self-handicapping. I said not one word about the game on Monday. Not one. And it's weird that you let another man. You said Will Howard. Maybe Will Howard should start this upcoming game because what Riley just did to the Houston Texans. That was just hypothetical. But it was a word. You guys don't get it.

1:07:34That's clear.

1:07:34Pat McAfee:That's what it sounds like. Nobody gets it. We don't. And AJ lets another man affect his opinion on what he says. So, you know, is he actually a man? interesting okay tone trying to use some of my own material i get it yeah i like all right happy birthday aj happy birthday walker uh ladies and gentlemen joining us now he's the greatest of all time we are so incredibly lucky that he obviously joins our show every single week also get a chance to listen and hear his thoughts on the state of college football is obviously something we all need a little bit more of ladies and gentlemen the former coach of albama lsu Michigan State.

1:08:12Pat McAfee:He was at Cleveland Browns, Ohio State as well. And probably somewhere before that. Miami Dolphins. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. They wouldn't fucking hire him, remember? He played there. He's an alum. They won't give him a job. From my understanding, if that is accurate. Proud Golden Flash. Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Saban. Yeah, Coach! Is that right? How's it doing? Great. How are you doing, man? And was there a time you wanted the Kent State job and they didn't hire you? Do I remember you saying that sometime? Yes. Yeah, you're right about that. I came in second. Sometimes the best deals you make are the ones you don't.

1:08:52Pat McAfee:We'll see. Amen, brother. Amen. Speaking of good deals, we got a great final four here for the college football playoffs that obviously start tomorrow at the Fiesta Bowl with Miami and Ole Miss. And then we got Oregon and Indiana. And obviously you are going to know a lot about all four of these teams because these are four of your disciples leading the way here. And I don't know if you heard or a message got back to you, but the other night, okay, and you said, I'm one of your close friends, so like I view you the same way. I'm happy we view each other that way. And as your close friend, I want to let you know, I will get disrespected for you.

1:09:23Pat McAfee:I will feel disrespected for you. So all these other schools are hiring Saban disciples. Okay, the final four are all Saban disciples. Then Alabama loses and they don't have a Saban disciple and you're already there. Did you ever think about that whenever the decision was being made? with Greg Byrne, like, were you part of the conversation on whether or not, should we continue with one of my guys? Should we go a different direction? Like, why do you think that happened? And should I feel disrespected for you, for them deciding not to hire one of your disciples when it's clearly the right decision in college football in 2025, 2026, and forever?

1:09:56Yeah, well, I think if somebody was available, I'm not sure anybody was available that they could have maybe gotten to come here. And I do think that Cade on DeBoer is a really good coach and doing a good job here. This is a tough transition, especially in this environment that we live in in college football in terms of, you know, players coming and going. I think there were like 26 players that got into Portal when I retired. So that's a lot to overcome for anybody. And it would have been a lot to overcome for even, you know, one of the guys that formerly coached for me. so um you know i fully support greg burn and what he what he decided to do and how he's done it and i'm hoping that they get the get the ship going in the right direction here it's not bad to get in the playoffs and and finish um you know in the final eight but um not the expectation around here

1:10:52Pat McAfee:which is tough to live up to sometimes yeah well you created that expectation obviously and we will certainly talk about your disciples having the success that they're having and what you see from their teams that maybe you see from the programs that you were building there. But Alabama losing in the way that they lost, I think all of us are like, this ain't the Alabama team that we know. And it's easy to just automatically point fingers. Kalen DeBoer signed up for the job. We think he's the right guy for the job at the time because of how much success he has had in the past. Felt like he was mature enough to have to fill in for your shoes.

1:11:20Pat McAfee:And we're not saying that at the time we weren't on board with Kalen DeBoer. We're big fans of Kalen DeBoer. But now that we're looking at these four teams and they're all from your tree, it's like, wouldn't that have been the right move? Maybe keep the success train rolling. I appreciate you saying, I don't know how many people were available at the time, and obviously you support Kalen, but let's talk about these four teams. You know, obviously Mario Cristobal and you, very close, we got a chance to see that. Hard-nosed football team. Ole Miss, this golden guy, I don't know if anybody else could have been able to do what he has done in this mental toughness that is needed to keep everybody going in the same direction with the massive distraction that it was with Lane Kiffin.

1:11:56Pat McAfee:Dan Lanning, this guy seemingly just psycho for football, loves this thing out there, has completely run Oregon into a place where it is a premier destination for all five stars, basically. And then Kurt Signetti in Indiana, obviously this is literally out of a movie. What do you see from these four programs that you think, you know, maybe I did have a little piece in helping create the cultures of these places? Is there anything that you see? Yeah, well, you know, one thing that I see in all these teams is they have a mentality about them to play physical football and a lot of mental toughness in how they play and how they compete in the game.

1:12:34And I think that's contributed to their success. Even Ole Miss, who is a fastball advantage throw, but they run the ball extremely well. And, you know, Dan Lanning has changed the culture of Oregon as well. in terms of a physical tough on the line of scrimmage team. Every one of these teams have tried to build themselves on physical tough on the line of scrimmage teams that play with great intangibles. And, I mean, Indiana, man, I mean, they were impressive in the game. Not that Alabama played great and they made some mistakes early on that hurt them, but these cats, man, and everybody talks about their offense, they got some dogs on defense now.

1:13:18I mean, these guys play hard. They play fast. They make plays. They play together. They don't make a lot of mental mistakes. They're well coached. They fit the runs. And this pop they put on Ty right here.

1:13:34Pat McAfee:Pawns. Yeah, that's Pawns right there. Hit that. I mean, absolute hit stick right there. And he's a good player. So incredible the job that they've done at Indiana. I mean, just, you know, Kirk Zigg has done a fantastic job there. There's no question about that because his is a tremendous turnaround from a program that had no real tradition in football and has been able to establish what he's established in these first two years he's been there is phenomenal. Okay, on that note, Connor has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, as you can see, I'm ready for the playoff games this weekend and on Friday with Indiana.

1:14:12and right now people are kind of pontificating that SIG could be a candidate to go to the NFL, especially to the Raiders in Mendoza, kind of a package deal almost at the number one overall pick, and then SIG as the head coach. What do you think about that type of situation? Do you think that's something that might intrigue SIGNETI? Do you think that's something that might work? And what do you think would be kind of the difficulties with SIGNETI going to the NFL? And then also, real quick side note, did your golf buddies kind of understand that, hey, Indiana isn't Indiana anymore, and they need to put some respect on their name now?

1:14:45Yeah, they're all bought in. They're all bought in now.

1:14:48Adam Schefter:Good. So I've never talked to, you know, Kurt about going to the NFL. I don't really know that he has any interest in doing that. You know, I will say this, though. It is a fairly difficult transition to go from college to the NFL if you've never been in the NFL before. You know, when I took the Dolphins job, I had been in the NFL for six years, you know, prior to that. Four years as a coordinator of the Cleveland Browns, two in Houston as a secondary coach. So I understood the NFL. But if you've never coached in the NFL, you know, I mean, developing players is not a lot different. But how you bring players to the team is tremendously different.

1:15:34and um and i i think you've got to have a organization that is vertically integrated from top down uh to be able to have success in the nfl because you have a lot more impediments in terms of competitive balance in the nfl you got a salary cap uh you got you can't draft whoever you want to draft you got to draft who's available when you pick so that sometimes that doesn't work out. You know, you got to pay the right guys on your roster and on your team. And then you got to develop a team chemistry that is a little bit different than, you know, working with college players. So it's a lot different in terms of the system and the parity of the system, you know, things that you can do in college.

1:16:18And that's one of the reasons I came back to college. After two years in Miami, I said, I can control my own destiny a lot better in college than I can in the NFL because here we have a team that I took over that's 4-12, oldest team in the league,$17 million over the salary cap, and no draft picks because they gave them all up for Ricky Williams. You know, all that is kind of hard to overcome. And I love Ricky Williams. You know, he's a great competitor and a great player and played great for us. But, you know, there's a lot of obstacles in the NFL that are a lot different. and you don't see a lot of games in the NFL, like 70 % of the games are, you know, decided by a touchdown or less.

1:16:59You don't have that same parity in college football. And I think it's more difficult to succeed because of that, you know, sort of competitive balance that's created by the league, which is really good and what makes the NFL what it is. I mean, really, you know, you've heard me say this before. If everybody was, you know, 500 going into the 18th week of the season, everybody would be happy because there'd be 32 fan bases that are still cheering for their teams to get in the playoffs.

1:17:34Pat McAfee:Yeah, optimism is certainly high. Now, in the NFL, you've got a lot of fan bases that know their team's ass about three weeks into the season, and they still hate watch the rest of the year. But the NFL's numbers, outrageous. College football's numbers, obviously, outrageous. I think a couple of things you mentioned there, obviously, hysterical. I think you said impediments, which is a great word. I'm going to start using that as my own. I'm going to act like it's mine. But also impediment, a hindrance or obstruction of doing something. Incredible word. I love the fact that whenever you're in Miami, you're just like, so many impediments are out there.

1:18:02Pat McAfee:So many. What's a word I can say for all this shit that is everywhere around me? Impediments. Contracts are real there, too. You're not salary capped. Contracts are real. Here in college, you can kind of hit and miss as long as you have somebody continuing to back you. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, Coach. Coach, I think a big thing that people don't think about, someone has a great coach, they hire a great staff under them. I guess your coaching tree is legendary. It will be forever. You can evaluate players, obviously, very well, but you seem to be able to evaluate coaches and bring in the right type of people.

1:18:32How did you hone that, and how did you learn as you were a coach, like, hey, this is the right guy to hire, this is not the right guy, maybe? well you know i always look for people that had great character um good knowledge uh could relate with people uh good teachers could present to players as good teachers um but also you know you have the advantage of what is the track record you know most of these people that i hired had a good track track record i mean they may have had some issue along the way but they had a pretty a good track record in terms of what they were able to accomplish with with whatever group they were responsible for so um you know players you don't always have as much of a track record as

1:19:16Pat McAfee:you do with coaches yeah the uh nick saban waters has blessed a lot of people you know a lot of people i don't know if you've been hearing the quotes these coaches have been saying about you brother i hope you have signetti said i learned more in one year with coach saban than i did in the last 27 of assistant coaching and how to be a head coach and then coach lanning talked about you know the one year i was there and then i was a kirby which is basically the same thing and they all talk about like basically the attention to detail is kind of you had a plan for everything do you think that was your superpower like what do you what do you think you were able to do that maybe others weren't and what do you think these guys take from you and kind of uh take it to their day all four of them lining up compliments for you coach and honestly most people would hate that that's happening but because it's you everybody's like hell yeah happy to see this guy get his flowers that's very abnormal you're very abnormal character you need to know that but what do you think is the superpower of your program well i i think what we were able to do is create more value for players and not just in terms of how we developed them on the football field but you know whether it was academic support graduation rate medical staff psychological development uh so that you could help them sort of figure out what it takes to be successful, strength and conditioning program for development.

1:20:35I mean, we had the best of almost every one of those things. Nutrition, we were always a little bit ahead of the curve. And I think some coaches look at things through a straw, just like, okay, I coach the offense, I'm worried about the plays that I call and the offense and all that. But there's so much more to it than that. When it comes to being able to recruit good players and showing them that you want to create value for them so that they can have success not only here in college but maybe when they go on to the NFL and then when this process that you develop comes to fruition in terms of how many games you win and having the most players playing in the NFL making the most money it just sort of brings in the next player that's pretty good and I think that they kind of understood that this is a process that's much more detail than just what we do on the field and once you see a billion dollars in contracts are having

1:21:31Pat McAfee:it almost starts recruiting itself yeah but i still got to go out there hell miss terry see you saw me two stepping up in the house you saw me doing the whole thing you you got to do all that stuff but it all matters is basically what everybody's saying about the way you go about doing your business i've been but i can step through it though right i mean you you saw me stepping through it. It wasn't like I was not having rhythm or anything. And you also had the upper body timed up with the lower body. I think that's maybe your baseball, maybe your golf as well. I don't know if that's where you got your rhythm from, but obviously you can move.

1:22:03Pat McAfee:You can do a little Tuesday. I don't know if I saw the Cupid Shuffle up there. I would like a little bit more action maybe. We'll see if you can kind of get into that. Let's talk about the action, though. That's about to happen on the field. Go ahead, D-Bud.

1:22:13Adam Schefter:Yeah, Coach. Playoff time. This goes for the NFL and the CFP. You kind of are who you are. Your identity is what it is on both sides of the football. But if you had to lean one way, obviously you have to adjust as the game goes. If you had to pick one, a red hot quarterback just kind of on a heater or an elite defense, which way do you lean going into these big time games? Well, I think you need to do both things, really. I don't think you can win on one side of the ball or the other. And when you look at these teams, I think that all four teams that are in the finals for the college football playoff could beat either one.

1:22:50Either team could beat, in one game, could beat the other team. Like the three plays that Chambliss makes against Georgia and the drive that put them ahead, it's 57, 58, and 59 on the playlist if you want to look at it. I mean, this guy scrambles around three times in a row and makes big plays that change the whole game. He could do that against anybody. Now, Miami, you could say they have such a good defense and they're so athletic, maybe he won't be able to make those kind of plays against them. That remains to be seen. You know, Oregon, you know, the Oregon-Indiana game the first time was 20-20.

1:23:30You know, Indiana made a couple plays, critical plays in the fourth quarter of that game that turned out to be the difference in the game 30-20. I know they were playing at Oregon. But either one of those teams could have won that game depending on how they finished the game. So, look, I don't think you can win unless you can keep from getting beat, so it's important to be able to play good defense. But the way people score points now, and the whole reason that we changed our whole philosophy here from running the ball, old-fashioned kind of NFL football, play-action passes, running it more than you threw it, Derrick Henry gaining 1 ,800 yards, playing good defense, Hard to win that way now.

1:24:09Hard to win that way now. As soon as people started going no huddle, spread, advantage throws, RPOs, all these things that took advantage of the rules, people started scoring more points. So if you can't score points, it's hard to play good defense and win games.

1:24:25Pat McAfee:I think we got the four right teams, man. I'm so excited to watch these squads. Thursday, Friday, leading into Super Wild Card Weekend. It's a wonderful time to be in ball. How are your Predators doing? Are we winning? Are the Nashville Priors winning or losing? I don't know. What's going on? They're 6-2 since we bought in. So they're doing all right. They were 6-1. They were 3-0 to start with. So maybe I need to go give them a pep talk or something. No, they're 0-1. Remember the night you actually signed? I don't think any of them met you, and I don't think you did a press conference yet. They lost.

1:24:59Pat McAfee:So that would mean they've been on quite a tear. Have you talked to the boys? Have you been in the change room that they have? No, not this team. They have a, I don't know what they call it in hockey, but like a mini camp for a lot of their prospects, whether they're playing in college, whether they're playing in American Hockey Association or whatever. I went to that camp. I talked to those guys. I've talked to the front office on occasion. So it's fun to be involved. It's fun to be involved with the team. Can we get you on skates? Have you been on skates before? No, I don't know shit about hockey.

1:25:39Pat McAfee:leadership and winning baby this is the type of consultant you call for anything we appreciate you uh safe travels out to arizona coach hey we're looking forward i guess i'll see you out there tomorrow right yeah you got it brother what are you having out there you had not to forget i'll see you out there tomorrow in the morning i'll see you out there tomorrow yeah all right have a good one guys appreciate you man thanks long flight coach long flight long flight I lost that one. That's Nick Saban. Yeah, Coach. Obviously, we're flying good and easy, but it's like, you know, send a text. Hey, how long is the flight?

1:26:14Pat McAfee:And then also, how long is FBO to where I need to head to? Just so we know the entirety of it all. And it's like, whoa, this school is way out there. All right, we got a long drive. We got a double. We got a long drive on the other side. That was like LAX. That was LAX whenever we got out there at Rose Bowl. I don't think any of us expected that. Well, somebody, a couple people had a short drive. They happen to be right here. Just landed right near my room. Tomorrow should be awesome. It's a fantastic time to be alive. Now, who will be getting hired in these jobs? Who will be getting each individual franchise back on track?

1:26:54Pat McAfee:Who will be the guys, Tass, or ladies? hey, no women in this pool here, but maybe there's somebody that we haven't brought up that maybe gets a head coaching job in the NFL. But nonetheless, there's a lot of places that are down in the dumps. And these dudes are going to be tasked with turning an entire city around. It's not as easy as a couple of these guys that made it look. Think about Liam Cohen. That's a dream situation right there. Liam was hired so late with so much chaos that they thought he wasn't going to be able to provide a staff. Remember, they thought he wasn't going to be able to hire a staff.

1:27:26Pat McAfee:It's too late. This guy's not even going to be able to. Is he going to have a running backs coach? I don't even know if he's going to have a running backs coach. Oh, yeah, he's going to have the greatest season in the history of Jacksonville Jaguars or they're going to host a playoff game. Crazy. That can happen like this. New GM? How old is that kid? What is that thing? These idiots are trading how much for the number two overall pick for a wide receiver in a corner? What the? Jacksonville Jaguars going to do what Duval do, man. That just sounds hilarious. And then they turn it around completely, and it feels like their culture is completely set.

1:27:54Pat McAfee:And then you see them in real life, and it's like, hey, they look like they got it that jacksonville jaguars team really does oh yeah this is a scary ass game for the buffalo bills i would assume i think so too and a lot of people

1:28:05Adam Schefter:obviously just coming in if you haven't watched the jaguars all season long and just knowing who josh allen is and who he has been since he's been in the league you will lean that way you always look at the quarterbacks with this team on both sides of the ball you talk about hiring the staff anthony campanelli has been great with that defense turn the ball over and also playing good but with the other numbers as well. Trevor Lawrence has been unlocked. He's finally the guy that a lot of people expected him to be. So I cannot wait to see these teams on this stage because everybody knows the playoffs is a completely different landscape.

1:28:35Adam Schefter:And as far as the coaches go, nine offensive coaches, five defensive head coaches now in the NFL. And I think four of those five defensive coaches are all on the AFC side. So I'll be interested to see how that impacts this hiring cycle. Yeah, and to your point about Trevor Lawrence being unlocked in Gladstone, Once they got Jacoby Myers, like the entire team, it felt like change. Like Brian Thomas Jr. had that really slow start. I think Jacksonville actually led the league in drops, or at least drop percentage. I don't know how those graphs work, but they had a bunch of drops. They bring in Jacoby Myers.

1:29:05That offense completely changed. Parker Washington, you brought up earlier, he's been unbelievable since Jacoby came in and became that kind of safety valve for Trevor Lawrence in the offense.

1:29:15Pat McAfee:Liam Cohen, what does he do on the offensive side, AQ, that makes people sometimes be wide-ass open seemingly during these games? It's the same thing Sean McVay does. He does such a good job of using his tight ends and disguising them, sometimes putting them in the backfield, putting them through the B-gap. They get lost in coverage, and all of a sudden, Brenton Strange is wide open, missed coverage down the field. It's Parker Washington. It's the shifts in the motions. It's the run game. It's all the stuff that you see what makes McVay so good. Liam Cohen brought that same thing. AJ, they got an edge to him, too.

1:29:43Pat McAfee:These guys got an edge, age, which I think we all love, obviously, but it's dangerous in the playoffs, age. It's definitely dangerous. I think how D-Bud put it, Trevor Lawrence has been unlocked. I feel like Liam Cohen is the guy for him. If you remember early in the year, remember the rumors back and forth that they weren't really getting along or seeing eye-to-eye maybe 100 %? That absolutely is not the case now. They are definitely both on the same page for sure. Packers, Bears, how do we feel as we sit on this particular Wednesday, just a few days from Super Wild Card Saturday time? I still feel good about the Packers in this one, but both of their defenses have kind of been shite the last several weeks, so it feels like whoever can get a stop late in the fourth quarter might be the one who wins the game.

1:30:23Both of the games so far this year haven't been too high scoring. They've been pretty back and forth. But, I mean, I think both of these offenses are going to move the ball at will and score points.

1:30:35Pat McAfee:Yeah, I'm excited for Super Wild Card Weekend. I'm excited for all of these games. I'm also pretty excited for if you guys get a chance to kind of watch tennis. I didn't know they'd do this. Did you guys know they'd do this? you can just kind of sign up online win a raffle and then just like the field goal contest that happens on game day you can win a chance of being in an actual professional tournament this lady right here Abdelkader that's an actual I thought she was rope-a-doping her and then all of a sudden she turned it on later no she got two points from two double faults from the actual professional tennis player a lot of people in the tennis community are saying hey pro you're double faulting against this person that has never really held a racket before This is almost like Superdog down there in Australia for the breakdancing.

1:31:21Oh, yeah.

1:31:23Pat McAfee:Ray Gunn. Ray Gunn. Ray Gunn. Superdog. Yeah, Ray Gunn. Same thing. Same difference. She was Superdog. She was. Do you remember whenever they were coming out saying, I trained hard for the – afterwards, they were trying to get mad at people, and then they kind of just bought into it, I think, like, yeah, we kind of did. We're in the Olympics. So don't know what to tell you. This lady in an actual professional tennis game, congratulations to her. She had no right to be there, and she knew that whenever she stepped up to the plate and to the tape. So we appreciate the hell out of that. Yeah, could have qualified for Wimbledon.

1:31:53I think they should put a player like this in each tournament anyways just to show how good tennis players are. Ray Gunn ended up – there was a big scandal there, right? Ray Gunn ended up married to the guy who ended up picking who won the goal or who was supposed to be on the team.

1:32:08Pat McAfee:I don't remember it exactly, but I do remember that people were certainly saying Ray Gunn was not our best representation of breakdancing around this island, continent of Australia. And after going to Australia and seeing the humans and how jacked they all are, I assume there is some phenomenal breakdancers out there. And they were probably pretty bummed out they got dead last place in that entire thing. But the run in a circle while laying on your side, my daughter was doing it the other day. She's two and a half. I thought to myself, that's Olympic breakdancing. Yeah, changed the game. She did.

1:32:39Pat McAfee:The super dog changed it all. And who are we talking about? You know, we're this far removed. If we're not talking about who won gold or silver or bronze, we're talking about Ray Gunn. When I landed in Australia, I asked four or five people, is this the town Ray Gunn's from? Got a lot of, they used a punt word. To me, though. It's like basically knowing that I was joking and telling me to scram, basically. I don't think they have a lot of gratitude towards the Superdog, the breakdancer. They should. But we should be respecting the hell out of this lady. Can you imagine if she accidentally puts arm up like this, Daria, it hits and just right down on the line after something comes back so fast.

1:33:21Pat McAfee:And then all of a sudden starts stacking points. Maybe this one accidentally. A little drop shot because her technique's so bad. 30 love. Oh, wait a minute. What do we got going on here? We got one here. All of a sudden we're stealing one. Now we got a brand new movie. This is like the garbage picking, field goal kicking. Philadelphia phenomenon. Philadelphia phenomenon. That's what we have happening here right in front of our eyes, potentially. I didn't know tennis allowed this. We need more people to start signing up for the super-duper raffle to play the professional. That was also bullshit because she is a hardcourt player, and that was on clay.

1:33:51So she really wasn't ready for the surface. I think that's what threw her off a little bit, why she didn't know where she was supposed to serve from, et cetera, et cetera. Had this been the Australian Open, for instance, where they play on a hardcourt, I think that suits her skill set a little bit more than the clay. Learned how to play from weed tennis. I mean, I don't even know. That's what I'm saying. I think it hasn't even... Definitely a surface. Definitely a surface issue, though. Ty's right. On hard court, she's unstoppable. That's the first thing I thought. I said, well, she's not a clay court player.

1:34:20Pat McAfee:Is a square stand, jump, serve, the move on hard court? Taylor made for hard court. Okay. Yep. Okay. I like that she walked right out there. She had to have a couple friends in his stands. Fuck it, I'll play. You hear what whatever her name is he's doing? She's in an actual tournament tomorrow. Has she ever played before? And she looks over probably a little cocktail or two. No. I have no idea what I'm doing. Pumped, though. So excited. It's going to be fun. Does the lady you're playing know? No. She's no idea. Walking in there with the fucking thing. We're supposed to have Schefter seven minutes ago.

1:34:57Pat McAfee:He's been on the phone with an owner or two. So who knows what moves are potentially being made. Maybe Schefter will have news break for us, even though he'll save it to tweet it. We'll have a chance. Well, the thing about the X, and I've realized this over time with these insiders because these things like to compete. Oh, yeah. These things. The X is the scoreboard. That is the... Certainly. This is the original. This is when you're putting your score up. This is the time. This is when I got it. So that is how I believe it is all tracked on who had what at the time. So every time these things tell us like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

1:35:30Pat McAfee:And we're like, tell us, tell us. Wait. Okay. ownership fired blah blah blah blah. It's like that. They need to get that. That needs to get on to X as fast as possible. So anytime this man takes time away from his multiple phones and his life of gathering NFL information, we appreciate him. Michigan man, ladies and gentlemen, Adam Schefter. Yay, Schefter! What's going on, gentlemen? Oh, new watch. Wow. This guy. Same watch. Same watch. Oh, the ACS there. What's the middle name? Charles?

1:36:03Adam Schefter:Charles. Chester.

1:36:07Pat McAfee:No. Adam Charles. Adam Chuck. Adam Chucky Shefty. Craig. Craig. Craig. Oh, Craig Shefty. Okay, Craig. You know what? Pat, you'll appreciate this. My mother wanted to make my middle name Scott, but then the initials on the shirt, you can only imagine what that would have looked like. Yeah, ass would have been sick. I like that she's thinking that far ahead, but also Adam Scott would have been such a good insider. Oh.

1:36:35JJ Watt:Yeah.

1:36:35Pat McAfee:Yeah, it would have been good. What could have been? But we're in a good spot. Obviously, Shefty bombs are a thing. You dropped one with the Harbaugh firing from Baltimore. Felt like you guys kind of had an inkling that this was possible heading in to the last week, basically. And I'm saying you guys. I'm talking about the Insiders as a whole. Rappaport said on the Insider Show that he had heard from his sources that maybe the locker room didn't like Harbaugh anymore. And maybe they'd known that there's been a rift. What is kind of your information on how we got to this point? and obviously what Harbaugh...

1:37:06I don't think that information right there could be any less true. The players were coming to his office crying, hugging him, sending him goodbyes, calling him one by one. If they felt that way, why are Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers and Isaiah Likely and all these players coming in, crying, hugging him, giving him these long, warm goodbyes? I'm not buying that.

1:37:31Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's go ahead and slide that to the side is something that is not happening. AQ Shipley, who played for the Ravens, said that Harbaugh is his favorite coach that he's ever had. That would be consistent with the type of things that I've heard. Shefty, I've never seen a coach take their players back more than John Harbaugh, especially in the media too. All the stuff that Fa Lele took early in the season, he stood at the podium, he stared every one of them in the face and had his back. And I think every player respects him because of that. Okay, so how did we get to this point then? What do you think was the reasoning?

1:38:00Pat McAfee:Was it just everything that we had talked about? I just think here's the deal. Sometimes nobody does anything wrong. You go on for 18 years, and it's time for everybody to go a different direction. It's okay. Nobody has to do something wrong. It doesn't have to be some salacious reason. It doesn't have to be some fight or something like that. Sometimes it could just be they fell short the last few years, whether it was for Zay Flowers dropping the ball, fumbling the ball at the goal line, or Mark Andrews not catching the two-point conversion or Tyler Lute missing the field goal, and you don't get the job done.

1:38:34And you know what? It's time to just go make a change. Like, when I covered the Denver Broncos back in the day, Dan Reeves was a great coach. And after a while, Pat Bowen just felt like, you know what, it's time for me to take back my franchise. He wanted to go a different direction. He hired Mike Shanahan. They won Super Bowls. That's what happened. In Denver, John Fox took them to the number one seed three times. He did a great job. It wasn't like he did something wrong. They shook it up. They moved on from him. They hired Gary Kubiak. They won a Super Bowl. It doesn't always work out with a happy ending, but sometimes these owners just feel like time to make a change.

1:39:10We see it in the business world. There are companies that make changes of CEOs after 10, 12, 15, 18 years. 18 years is what John Harbaugh did. He won more world playoff games than any coach in history. He's the bell of the ball right now. These teams are going to trip over themselves to hire him. He can pick the spot he wants right now. It's just time to make a change sometimes.

1:39:36Pat McAfee:Okay, and them making a change after 18 years, something that they haven't done because he is the CEO, was the surprise. I think a lot of Baltimore Ravens fans were potentially looking for the same thing that maybe you're pitching there, like a little refresh, a little reset, new voice in there. You talk about him being the bell of the ball. You put out a tweet that alluded to maybe a team that hasn't fired a coach has already reached out to John Harbaugh to potentially look at an interest. And then you followed up with that, like at least one, likely more. Okay, so right now, everybody around the NFL, outside of, I don't want to give a particular number, but there's a lot of teams looking at their situation, wondering if John Harbaugh would be better, that maybe wouldn't have been thinking that if they didn't know, when they didn't know that Harbaugh was available.

1:40:18Pat McAfee:Is that accurate? I think what happens is, And I think it was a little bit like when Bill Belichick is let go. When there's a legendary coach who's out the door, I think every owner looks at himself and says, okay, do we think that John Harbaugh or Bill Belichick would be an upgrade over what we currently have? And there were a couple of teams with acting sitting head coaches that reached out to just kind of see what was the temperature. You know, this is what Brian Harlan said. And again, all these teams make decisions. There are the immediate teams with openings. Okay. And I can tell you that the majority of them, if not all of them, have some level of interest.

1:41:05Some that I've spoken to is extremely high, extremely high. So again, John's going to have this choice there with what he wants to do. And you have to evaluate the situation. Who was the owner? Who's the GM? Who's the quarterback? What about the market and the city? These are all the things that you take into consideration. I don't think there's anything more important than the quarterback situation. Anything. And if you go back to Washington a couple of years ago, that organization was as bad as there was for decades. And all of a sudden they draft Jaden Daniels. And in one year, bam, they transform themselves into a place that's exciting and interesting.

1:41:47They didn't play well this year and they're struggling, but for a year it was magic. And so I think it's going to be about the quarterback and who you can build on. One other point I want to make about John Harbaugh here. When Sean Payton of another pedigree was available, the Denver Broncos gave up first and second round draft choices to go higher in. First and second. John Harbaugh is about as accomplished as Sean Payton. And so he's now free where the team that hires him doesn't have to give out any compensation. No first, no second. Just go hire the guy. So how would that not be wildly attractive to any one of these teams out there?

1:42:32It is. And he will be. And he'll have a job if that's what he wants. And I believe it is what he wants.

1:42:38Pat McAfee:Okay. So there at the end, you kind of noted that he does want to continue to coach because I don't know what the contract setup is with Baltimore, but obviously he's very accomplished. Some coaches take a year, just kind of breathe a little bit. Whenever everybody in the NFL that needs a coaching change is calling you, offering you$18,$20 million, whatever it is, to come in and fix their place, obviously you've got to listen. Congrats to Harbaugh. You've earned it. Now let's talk about another older coach, one that was AJ's coach for the entirety of his at Green Bay. Go ahead, AJ. Coach, I'm sorry, Shafty.

1:43:07What about Coach Mike McCarthy? What are you hearing about him? We hear rumors he's interviewing for the Giants or other teams. What do you think about him? What's the timetable, and is it likely that he gets a head coaching gig in this cycle? He's going to have a chance. I would say that. He's going to interview the Giants next week. He's going to have another team that lines up an interview, from what I understand, so there'll be at least two teams that are interviewing him. Now, again, let's be honest. Again, I come back to John Harbaugh because I think he's going to be option A for a lot of teams.

1:43:34So if all of a sudden the Giants put on the full-court press and they get John Harbaugh, bam, they got their guy. If not, I think a guy like Mike McCarthy absolutely comes into play. He'll be in play elsewhere as well. He's been around, understands what it takes. Teams know what they would be getting. I think he's got a chance, but early in the cycle right now, hard to say how it's going to shake out.

1:43:56Pat McAfee:Okay, let's talk about previous head coaches. Yeah, tell everybody, and we appreciate you doing this, it does feel like there's some sort of hammer hitting something at one point. Hold on, let me go shut this door. Hold on one second. Hold on. Hold on. Shefty, shut down a set. Shut down a set. shut down i said we got good tupperware dinner we made our lunch let me tell you what's going on here let me tell you what's going on here pat okay we had a we had some uh we had a leak in our kitchen mildew and so they got to replace all this stuff and i i i can't even tell you the way we're living for the next three four months here this is this is going to be as unpleasant as it is no you got to go get airbnb brother you got to get out of there black mold potential that'd be your excuse you need to get out of there dude because if that's what where are you at what you know what you know what my wife doesn't want to leave we got we got two disabled dogs that we can't have them disoriented we have to kind of take care of them okay and uh so um we're here we're gonna live through it it ain't gonna be fun you can make adjustments so you're like three four months yeah three four months i mean we can find something similar to what it is maybe same decorations even in there you know you got no but but but pat my wife took the occasion to while they're doing this.

1:45:07Of course, we're just going to redo the whole kitchen. Of course.

1:45:10Pat McAfee:Yeah, we have to. I never know where that black mold is. That could be anywhere. I'll kill you. Now's the time. Yeah, you're right. That three, four months, too, that's definitely how long it's going to be. How old are the dogs? How disabled? I don't want to go there. We have a 19-year-old dog, blind, deaf, has lost her vision. We have a 16-year-old dog, lost the use of her back legs. We have to take her out every time she needs to go out. We have two other dogs. We run an assisted living puppy facility, like a dog care facility. It's amazing. 16 and 19 years old. Hey, that beat the game. Congrats on those dogs.

1:45:43They refuse to leave us. They love it too much. My wife gives them too many treats and bones and everything like that.

1:45:50Pat McAfee:Respect. Shout out to those dogs living the long life. Okay, let's get back to ball here. That's your house. I thought for sure you were in public. No doubt. Hotel. Three, four, six, seven months. You know, these contracts are working. It might be two months. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, yeah, maybe. It just started this week, too. Just started. Oh, and they found out at your house? Did they know it was your house before they give a full projection or after just now are they learning at your house? I have no idea. Oh, I know. You know what? My wife gets very anxious for obvious reasons about travel. She doesn't like to get on an airplane.

1:46:23I tell her, and I mean this, I feel the same way about construction and noise and all these workers and, like, porta-potties in your driveway that she does about travel. Oh, man. It makes me very easy. Let them shit your bathroom.

1:46:35Pat McAfee:Yeah. Better than them thumping in your room. Yeah, you don't want them in your bathroom. Hey, get one of those, like, super nice port-a-johns. That's like a trailer outside. Make sure these guys' cheeks are paid off. And let's not have single ply out there so they can get this done a little bit quicker. But what I'm saying, as soon as they looked and saw it was you, buddy. Three, four. We got an idea here. We got a new upgrade in this. Oh, logistical issues. Weren't able to travel this stuff. But guess what? We got a replacement. 500 bucks more. It's easy, man. Just similar. I mean, you were about to get worked out there.

1:47:02It's going to be 18 months.

1:47:03Pat McAfee:Oh, dude. Hey, stay strong out there, brother. Good luck in there, man. Who's going to be the head coach? Insert team name once they know. I mean, you get a couple Giants fans in there. Oh, my God. Leaks are coming out of that kitchen. Oh, yeah. Not just through the pipes. Right. Oh, you better keep that shit locked down, Shefty. Okay, let's talk about this coaching cycle as you're certainly battling. Go ahead, D-Bud.

1:47:23Adam Schefter:Yeah, Shefty. We know Harbaugh, he'll be a special team. He's a special teams background guy, so he's kind of the rare one. But your early lean on more defensive or offensive head coach. I mean, look at this coaching pool right here. More hot defensive names right now. But what's your early lean right now? Wow. I mean, that's wow. Well, again, I'm going to take the layups. I think I think John Hallball is getting a job. I think I think Kevin Stefanski is going to get a job. So there's my two jobs. And now we got some really interesting candidates. Robert Sala, Vance Joseph, Brian Flores. Minter.

1:48:08Oh, I think Minter's got a real chance to get a job here. Sig? Who else?

1:48:15Pat McAfee:Signetti up there on the high dive. You never know if he's coming in. I don't see it. I haven't heard anything yet that tells me that he's going to the NFL. Okay. That's great news in Bloomington. By the way, that doesn't mean it can't be. but to this day, to this moment right now, nobody has said to me, Kershignetti's looking to go to the NFL. And no NFL team has said to me, we are plotting to make an overthrow of the Indiana football coach. An overthrow? Top of the regime. I mean, it would just destroy Indiana. Indiana's holding on to IU football like there's no tomorrow. That's all they got right now.

1:48:50Pat McAfee:We got Sig, what, for 10 years, right? 10 years. We got to be signing for a 10-year deal, and that deal changes every single time a new deal is signed, basically. And Sig's Puttengreen Diner goes from three to four to five to 18 holes. It's going to be Wahlberg's backyard by the time it's all said and done. Is that still for sale? That house was so nice. Oh my gosh, how does he ever leave that place? Well, he doesn't. He spends... That's why he's waking up at 4 a.m. He wants to see the whole house. That makes a lot more sense now that we know his schedule. That place was so nice. I think he just built one down in Florida.

1:49:19Pat McAfee:That's what Sig's got in Bloomington. He also has a statue on the way. Already? Oh yeah. I mean, already has a statue on the way for the Big Ten Championship. All right, Shefty, we appreciate that. I would say take Kurt Signetti off that board until further notice. Take him off. Who should we move up forward closer to the front? Yeah, who needs to be bigger in the pool? Let's see. Who's far from the shalala? Anyone not on there we need to have.

1:49:46Adam Schefter:Okay, Halfley back there, Kubiak, Weaver. Halfley, Halfley. Jeff Halfley definitely needs to be on that board. Definitely. He is, but he's in the way back.

1:49:55Pat McAfee:He's behind Matt Nuggy. He's behind Salah. Casey Garrett, Chula. I mean, you know, it's always hard at the beginning to know how it's going to shake out exactly. Like, a lot of speculation. Again, I'm going to come back to John Harbaugh. Just like I think teams were waiting to see what would happen, he's free. Now we have to see where he goes, and then everything follows that. Ben Johnson of this year. Vrabel. Vrabel or Ben Johnson. I get Ben Johnson. But yeah, either or. Those are the choices. Well, he's like Vrabel. Ain't no Vrabels in this pool. Okay. We know that. That guy's ready for Super Football Weekend.

1:50:35Pat McAfee:Do you have one of these Nike Techs, Shefty? What are the Nike Techs? I don't know. I don't got one of those. It's a sweatsuit. You know what? It's going to be hard for us to find them these days. Connor's got more cred than I do, obviously. and he's got more connections and more pull than I do. I don't got one of those. Well, he's not the most important person. Sorry. Yeah. It's pretty important. Yeah, very important. Down south, yeah. Yeah. Way down. Yeah. Nike Tech's in the news today. Obviously, you wouldn't know that because you got

1:51:08Pat McAfee:happening in your kitchen for the next six months and a coaching cycle happened. We appreciate the hell out of you, Shefty. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you, brother. That's Adam Schefter. Yay, Shefty. Kitchen isn't where you hang out in your house either. Never. We got to have him on every day to see how frustrated he gets with the more and more banging that's going on. Did you hear that? Let me shut this door. Okay. Cutting marble and cabinets over there. That's going to be a while. As soon as they saw Schefter, too. You talked about the same watch, same watch. They saw that, too. Yep.

1:51:41Pat McAfee:For one of those watches, we can add a full. Think about this. How about an island right here like J.J. Watt has? Mm-hmm. You definitely won't even be able to touch the middle of you. We got that here for you. We'll have a little hole for you. Pop up in the middle. You're already paying this amount. Just an extra$10 ,000? That's nothing really in the grand scheme of things. Get a loan out for it. 30 years,$10 ,000. Start doing the math. Paying$333. $333. Worth an island? Certainly worth it. Don't you think? Oh, yeah. His wife. I didn't even know that was possible. It's going to take us from three to five months, though.

1:52:14Pat McAfee:You're already doing three months. Done. Well, how about this cabinetry over here? We got a chance to really put in a hibachi grill, and we have to change the fan above it because that's got to be an exhaust fan, you see? But then we need to build an entire exit up to the top of the roof. Only takes two to three more weeks on construction and on the build, but you have an hibachi oven right next to your other oven. And then obviously you got multiple grills out here. But you got a hibachi grill, you have friends over, you do the thing. Oh, how many more weeks? Three weeks? 20 more grand? Put it on there.

1:52:47Pat McAfee:What's that? 700 bucks over 30 years? Oh my god, no problem at all. Boom, now that's going to take us 5 months to 7 months. Okay, no problem. We've got to build it all the way up. But that's actually 12. This guy's in this for the next 2 years. Not a doubt. Those dogs aren't going to make it through the renovation. I didn't like the way you guys were talking about 19-year-old and 16-year-old. That might be part of the plan, to be honest. At a certain point, 19-year-old dog, that thing is just begging. Begging to run into the street at the right time. No! No, that 19-year-old dog's waking up fighting every single day.

1:53:23Pat McAfee:That's what dogs do. That's why they're absolute dogs! Yeah, I got Val right now. Val's old dog, senior dog. It's an interesting thing with Val. How old, though? 13, 12, 12. And 7 years. That's so long. Oh my gosh. Alright, we're off tomorrow and Friday from the show, but we're live on the Field Pass and College Game Days. Super Football Weekend kicks off tomorrow with the semifinals of the college football playoff. We appreciate you all so much for allowing us to do this for a living. We'll see you on ESPN2 tomorrow night. Goodbye. All right, we got to make picks. We got to give out trenches.

1:53:59Pat McAfee:We got to wrap up this beautiful Wednesday on the other side. Let's enjoy the hell out of this. Let's go. Boys, it's Super Football Weekend. It's awards season. Woo! Come on. Let's go to Hammer. Don, Don. Don, you pumped about awards season? I love awards season. It's my favorite season of the year. Where did John Harbaugh go to Cleveland Browns? Oh. I believe his wife's family is from there, so. Oh. What if he says, you know what? I want a battle of the Steelers every single year. I believe he grew up a Browns fan. There it is. He was born in Toledo. I think he played at Miami of Ohio, too. And Stefanski goes to Baltimore.

1:54:32Pat McAfee:Okay, listen to the Steelers fans. That being said, he'd have to be a moron to go coach LeBron. Bingo. What if he did it? Imagine if he turned them around, though. Imagine if he made them something.

1:54:42Adam Schefter:I don't think Tone thinks he's a good coach. You don't think Harbaugh and Stephens are good coaches? Because you would want them out of your division if you thought they were. We know that gimmick. No, I just thought that would be a fun thing where they just flip-flop.

1:54:51Pat McAfee:On that note, Jason Garrett to the Titans makes sense. Mm-hmm. Let's get to a break.

1:54:58JJ Watt:When you think about it, yeah. Don't do that to Cam Ward. He doesn't deserve that. Dude, what?

1:55:02Pat McAfee:That guy had winning football down there in Dallas.

1:55:04JJ Watt:Jason Garrett's doing great, doing Sunday Night Football, doing those dances. He took Romo from Northern Ireland football.

1:55:10Pat McAfee:ball to the number one commentator on CBS. Good quote. I would like to say, I agree on that note. I would like to say that I think Jason Garrett on TV is one of the best we've seen from league to turkey. He's phenomenal. And everything I hear him say, I think to myself, that guy should still be coaching with the way he's acting and talking. So if he's going to go down to Nashville and save Nashville's team in the AFC South, I'd like to see him do that. No, can't lose him from that show. Can't do it. Cannot do it. Will not do it. Can't win with it. Can't do it. Won't do it. Yeah. He's a Nashville guy, though.

1:55:44Won't do it. Isn't he? I mean. You can see it. He can dance. We know he can dance.

1:55:48Pat McAfee:Oh, my God. We would like to give a shout out to that entire Football Night in America crew for their commitment to the bits of the TikTok dances. I mean, they're full. I don't know how many days in advance they're getting these things. There's some real choreography happening in some of them. I respect and appreciate their full commitment to the bit. Hell yeah. Very much so. I do also appreciate the fact that Mike Florio, okay, Mike Florio commits fully to these things. Yes. But also, he is going to find a hilarious angle for every single piece of information somehow. His tweet today about the ratings being the highest since 1989 and then in parentheses going, interesting, there's more viewers than 1989, isn't it?

1:56:27Pat McAfee:Especially with the way everything is today. Back into parentheses. Here's the layout of how it all works. It's like, what a fucking hilarious thing. All-time high in ratings, basically. In 2025, the NFL had its highest regular season viewership since 1989, which means more people were watching NFL games in 1989, which is kind of surprising given the current popularity of the sport. It's like, what a fucking angle. I would not have been able to think of that angle. You're right. Holy shit, I was two, so I don't really know if I was contributing there or anything like that. But just hearing that stat and then immediately going, 1989 kicked the fuck out of 2025.

1:57:00Pat McAfee:That doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? It's like, that's amazing. Just immediate.

1:57:06Adam Schefter:a lot more impressive now attention grabber a lot more because 1980 now would you have seven options to watch on tv if that yeah now you have eight platforms just to watch you know streaming and tv like the only thing people watch now is live sports like live outside of that like my kids barely watch like regular tv the kid the cord cutting oh yeah

1:57:29Pat McAfee:generations are happening there's still a lot of people that have it obviously the numbers are outrageous for linear stuff. I mean, these numbers are crazy. 57.3 million on Thanksgiving. Congratulations, Thanksgiving. Still holding it down as the best football holiday. We need these turkey bowls to still happen. We need kids that are unathletic going outside in the yard. Maybe on the street, telephone pole to telephone pole. Maybe hurting themselves. Playing ball for the good of America. Thanksgiving is clearly a football holiday. Always will be. Amen. Well, we know the actual holiday. We'd like to let everybody know we do know the whole thing.

1:58:10Pat McAfee:That felt like a good moment of people coming together. Just like football. Thankful. Super football weekend. Let's see what these numbers are, huh? Football, up and to the right. Sports, up and to the right. Feels like we're all understanding that sports are the great unifier.

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2:00:14Pat McAfee:Football! He is the greatest. That's A.J. Hawk. The Toxic Table is here looking very normal at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. I'll tell you what, A.J., no mention out of you. Pretty crazy. We thought that was potentially going to be the first thing that you were saying, but instead you took a shot at Hammer. Dan Tons AP Tone because his little wishy-washy Pittsburgh Steelers takes that have been happening all year. He's kind of self-handicapping himself, but expecting a Super Bowl, and if it doesn't happen, going to be very pissed. Nine-year NFL vet, Darius J. Butler is here. And 12-year Super Bowl champion, an absolute legend.

2:00:44Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, A.Q. Shipley. Hey, baby. Go, boys. Age. Yes. At the end of the show. Yes. I'll be eating booty, brother. yep i heard have you ever had one of these booties pirate booty i've had yeah kids love that stuff okay well the boys here certainly love their booty and i have never i can genuinely say i've never tried this i i have seen the bag i think the bag kind of looks like ass so maybe that's why i haven't chose it uh i'm more of a cheetos man myself and cheetos household you know cheetos puffs i believe are what mckenzie enjoys uh whenever she's trying to eat something in this avenue of uh food but i'll tell you what aq's just telling me that he's going through two buckets of these things a day con man said he's eating booty from morning till night basically i'm not kidding i'm eating uh enough booty to feed a family like it is a full family sized pack of booty and in iowa did you guys eat booty as well uh no not not as much uh i am not also buying booty, but if we get on a plane and there's some booty there, I'm going to eat it.

2:01:54If I come in here and I have to open the bottom drawer and there's some booty there, guess what? I'm eating it. It's kind of one of those things where it's like if you see booty, you eat booty. Bruce brought it up. It might be an East Coast thing. Like New England, we've been eating booty since we were five. I believe it's made in New England. Okay, there it is. Is it? I'm not 100 % sure. Kind of a younger thing. Younger kids are into that a lot more than older generation.

2:02:18Pat McAfee:No, no. I regret to inform New England another great thing out of Hershey, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania just creating greatness that's crazy PA just doesn't eat booty like New England I don't think so because if that was the case I feel like Pittsburgh I don't know if I'm the right person to judge anything as we all know with how I go about how I've operated with everything we got multiple I know a booty eater when I see one Tony Diggs Tony Diggs. He would have been the one pounding the drum for it. My daughter eats booty literally every single day. Okay, so what about when you were a little lad, a little paisano, were you a booty eater?

2:02:59No, we were more of a Snyder's Cheese Curls city. Snyder's of Berlin. Cheese Curls, barbecue chips.

2:03:06Pat McAfee:Oh, I remember spinning the big top thing. That's what I was doing. That's this genre of thing. But you don't get that as much. It's not as it doesn't leave a mark. It's the type of booty you eat that just kind of goes away. My wife texted me and told me the booty eating is like eating air. It's a little lighter than... That's kind of what I said. That's correct, yeah. Which is why it's great. Which is why you can eat a 10-gallon bucket of booty in one sitting. I guess my wife's not a big booty eater from what the text messages and from what I understand. You can learn to love it. Yeah, you can learn to be a booty eater.

2:03:43Again, never buying a booty. I'm not going to the store and buying booty. My kids aren't to that point yet. But, again, if I see booty, I will eat some booty.

2:03:51Pat McAfee:Okay, well, let's talk about the origins of booty here. Pirates Booty was started in 1987, same year I was born, with Robert Ehrlich, who founded Robert's American Gourmet Food and created the Cheesy Puff Snack in Seacliff, New York, aiming for simpler, more natural ingredients than competitors. It began as an organic-focused snack, later sold to B &G Foods and then to the Hershey Company. but it's originalized with Ehrlich's vision for a better cheese puff. And listen, I saw the Pop-Tart story as well. Getting something to really pop off is a big part of transforming your family's life in an entire area.

2:04:23Pat McAfee:Hershey obviously grows in what it is. Pop-Tarts, the entire town blossoms in this. I assume Booty has done a lot for a lot of these towns. Yeah, dude. I assume Booty has really done it for Hershey, if I had to guess. Phenomenal. Chocolate Booty, people eating chocolate Booty, I assume. Well, in Hershey, they combine them. I'm assuming you get a Booty sandwich. You can get some chocolate, put some booty in between it, and then you can kind of like a s'more almost. Oh, yeah. I got to like get the salt and the. I love some chocolate booty. Really? Oh, yeah. See? Okay, so that's basically Hershey, Pennsylvania.

2:04:55Pat McAfee:It sounds like Hershey, Pennsylvania is chocolate booty heaven. Yeah, capital. South Florida. You guys making chocolate booty down there? I think so. I don't know. This says it's in Hershey, Pennsylvania. They're making the chocolate booty that we're talking about. Got another factory down there?

2:05:09Adam Schefter:Yeah, upgrade. Kind of off the – Oh, you think South Florida has a little bit better chocolate booty?

2:05:15Pat McAfee:Boom. I mean, there's a chance. There we go. And that might be South Beach on the bag, actually. Yeah, they might be knowing. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I think there is some chocolate booty hubs, if I had to guess. And, yeah, I mean, I haven't even had regular booty yet, so I guess I'll give it a go for chocolate booty at some point down the road. I mean, we're going to be in one of the cities this weekend. I mean, any city – Friday. I believe Atlanta. Atlanta. I believe Atlanta has a I believe Atlanta loves chocolate booty. I'm pretty sure very similar to how Pittsburgh, you know, it's in Hershey, PA and it's worked its way up north, you know, to New England.

2:05:53South Beach, clearly hub, and it has worked its way up to Atlanta.

2:05:57Pat McAfee:Atlanta is a chocolate booty. I think they also like regular booty

2:06:03Adam Schefter:though. Much like Ty. Not buying the booty, but see the booty. Atlanta's big for Pringle cans too, I heard. Oh, they like Pringles as well? Remember when we were talking about Pringles earlier? They're Pringles. Make it disappear. I think you're talking about different stuff

2:06:21Pat McAfee:there, honestly. We don't need to be talking about Pringles. We'll talk about Booty here. I'm going to try this at the end. We've got a lot of things to get through. And not just get through, celebrate through. Ladies and gentlemen, it is awards season. That means we need to go ahead and spotlight those who are great this season. Greater than the others. And although everybody is good, who is the best of them all? Well, ladies and gentlemen, for I think the third annual year, it is time for the Trenchies presented by A.Q. Shipley. Go ahead, A.Q. Here we go, boys. We are going to start with the rookie Trenchie, which is the rookie lineman of the year, Gray Zabel of the Seattle Steel.

2:07:01Hey, what do you say?

2:07:03Pat McAfee:Go on, Gray. Go on, Gray. Hey, what do you say? Go on, Gray. Go on, Gray. Trenchy winner this early into his career. Wow, that's a big deal for him. One of 12 rookie players across the entire NFL to start all 17 games this year. This guy was available. He was durable. He was mean. He was nasty. He was a prick. He was the starting left guard out of North Dakota State. Let's watch this screen. Get out in space against the Niners in a huge game to get to the play. Bury his ass. We got another screen play coming up against the Rams. Again, another late game season. Watch this dude run. Get downfield.

2:07:39Be the lead blocker out in space. Boom! Put his ass down. Kind of tackled the guy in there a little bit. I mean, that's a big time play now. You want to see physical? You want to see physical? Come inside. Boom! Put his ass to sleep. You're not coming near me. That's right. Big touchdown, too. Yeah, that's Sam Darnold balling.

2:07:55Pat McAfee:Obviously, are we going to see more of that in the playoffs? Obviously, I think so with how he performed to earn the number one overall seed. Did not know they had a rookie sensation. Congrats to Gray winning the rookie trenchy of the year. Who do we got next, AQs? We got the guard, Trenchy, and that is Mr. Joe Tooney. Wow, Joe, congratulations, Joe. Way to go, Joe. Way to go, Joe. All right, let's talk about this. Nine years in the league, nine division titles, one of the fewest penalized offensive linemen in the history of the game. He's unbelievable in the model of consistency, and oh, yeah, he breaks ribs whenever he's uncovered right there.

2:08:33Let's look at the next clip here. Check this out. As he's sitting there, he's going to go get some more ribs. Boom, go. He's phenomenal in pass protection. Now this last one is awesome. Now check this out. Zone play away. Now watch this. Go behind the center. There it is.

2:08:46Pat McAfee:There's the big cut. Touchdown, Joe Tooney. Chicago Bears invested in the offensive line as soon as Ben Johnson got there. Seems like it paid off. Nine years, nine straight division titles, three different teams. Why is that, you think? I think he started in New England. He is a leader, first of all. So obviously they were great there, but it starts with him. He was always one of their best offensive linemen. Then he goes to Kansas City. He's their best offensive lineman. Everywhere he goes, he's the model of consistency. He does things right. He's accountable. He's always available. Never misses games.

2:09:16He's always in it for all 17 games or 16 games prior, whenever there was a 16-game season. But he's physical, and he's a technician.

2:09:24Pat McAfee:All right, so congrats to Joe Tooney. He went in a trench. He's won a lot. Yeah. Congrats on finally getting a trench up there on the shelf. All right, what's next? the tackle Trenchy goes to... No, the best center, A.Q. Oh, you're starting with center. We all were. Yes, Evan. We're all here to say he's getting jacked up. My fault, my fault, my fault. Okay, I'm getting jacked up. I like that you're jacked up. Trenchy's giving me jacked up. Alright, the center Trenchy, my favorite position, goes to Aaron Brewer. This guy's an absolute animal, absolute monster, and listen, didn't even make the Pro Bowl, so I'm not just going with what everybody's saying.

2:10:01I'm going with film. Biggest Pro Bowl snub. Let's watch Aaron Brewer. Watch him go. Here we go. Climbs up on the second level. Boom. Watch this. Throw his ass out of the club. See you, guy. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

2:10:17JJ Watt:Uh-oh. He's got khakis

2:10:21Pat McAfee:on, too. Oh, boy. Right in the middle of the trenches. He's about to go through a little booty, maybe. That's all right. I mean, that's crazy. Sorry about that. Best center and ball doesn't deserve to have a massive code red DEFCON 1 poop situation with Ty Schmidt happening in the middle of it. This is a trench-y tie. Come on. Well, check out Aaron Brewer against the Indianapolis Colts being that we're in Indianapolis. Let's watch him climb up to the middle linebacker, take him 10 yards, bury him. That's illegal? Yeah, exactly. Who was that? AJ, watch this. On Lou Vu, downfield. Put his ass on the ground.

2:10:55That's not a hold, so don't even say it. buries people. This guy's physical, this guy's athletic, and he's the best

2:11:01Pat McAfee:center in football. He seems to keep his feet, too. Normally, fall whenever you have a pancake. This guy's somehow keeping his feet and going forward. Congrats on Miami Dolphin winning an award. Congrats, Gumpy. You've got to feel good about this. Yeah, best player on our team all year. He was unbelievable. He goes downfield, never stops working, never stops running. He's been lights out all season long. So, are you guys going to continue to trend since he's the best player on your team to trade him? Oh, no. That's what the Dolphins have been doing.

2:11:29JJ Watt:Steelers trade worked out pretty well, actually. Manko was lights out all season. True. Jalen Rams looked a little long in the tooth last game.

2:11:37Pat McAfee:Oh, it was a tough battle with the Baltimore Ravens. It was. That's a John Harbaugh-led team. You know, it's going to be a tough fight, depending upon where he heads to next. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the Mountain. Who wins the tackle trenchy of the 2025-2026 NFL season, AQ? Yush. Possibly the greatest of all time, Mr. Trent Williams. Yeah! Congratulations, Trent. You did it, buddy. You did it. He's unbelievable, and he does it all. I think this first clip against the LA Rams, watch him go against Jared Verse. Boom! Just a simple punch. Puts him down on the ground. Second one's obviously against the Indianapolis Colts.

2:12:11Get a two for one. Boom. Boom. Kyle Juszczyk has no one to block. He's like a spider monkey out in space. And then let's watch this last one as we show his athleticism. Pull around. Yep. Watch this. Get a DB in space. Stop. Oh, my God. Take his ass down. Now, watch this. Now, watch him. Just nuts right in his face as he walks over. All right. A little lip in.

2:12:32Pat McAfee:I see the teabagging happen. Yeah. AJ, I felt like there were some holds in these highlights of these Trenchies winners. Well, you know, that's just some savvy vet play, I think. I don't know if you call it a hold. It's very quick. Very quick savvy vets. Yeah. That'll frustrate you a little bit if you're a defender. The guy's physically dominating you, and he also has those little tricks like that. Trent Williams, what a dog. He's so much fun. Obviously, the Niners are different. Now, hamstring is interesting because a hamstring can pop up whenever. And obviously, we hope he's healthy. We hope he's good.

2:12:58Pat McAfee:We assume he'll fight through it all because he's an absolute dog. Him coming out first with the boom box has obviously been a staple of the San Francisco 49ers team. What a special talent. We're lucky we get a chance to see him live. And he's moving, striding. I mean, he's striding out there. He's way too big. They had him in motion last year. I don't think they've done that this year. Wait for that in the playoffs, I guess. Yeah, to your point about him being a dog, I believe the last time that they were in the playoffs two years ago or whenever they were making their run in the NFC Championship against the Eagles, he had like a very, very bad ankle, and he was still just doing everything that he does.

2:13:31Pat McAfee:David Lombardi at Lombardi himself is reporting that no practice for Ricky Pearsall and Trent Williams today to begin the week. Shannon said Pearsall aggravated the PCL during the Bears game, but he did participate in the 49ers' three late practice sessions last week. We'll keep an eye on Trent Williams. Looked upbeat on the sideline last week. Okay, so those are the trenchy.

2:13:47Adam Schefter:What's that? So Wednesday is typically the day you'll give a G day or an extra rest day. Thursday, Friday, he's not practicing yet, I'd be a little more concerned.

2:13:57Pat McAfee:Yeah, Friday we should see something or hear something about him moving a little bit. Just get a little test out is what you're saying? Absolutely. I think so too. That's a good call. Hey, Trent, we hope we get to see you back on the football field. You're a modern marvel, bro. Modern marvel. As are all the Trenchy Award winners. Now, can we get a full offensive line? Who are the first team all Trenchy members, AQ? Okay, so if we look from left to right on this graphic, it's right to left because they're facing us. You've got Trent Williams, Joe Tooney, Aaron Brewer. That's your Trenchy Award winners.

2:14:26And then you've got Chris Lindstrom and Darnell Wright. Congrats, boys!

2:14:31Adam Schefter:This graphic is sick. That's a graphic is sick.

2:14:33Pat McAfee:Way to go, D-Bone, offensive lineman. He's looking to win a Trenchy for Trenchy graphics is what D-Bone's looking for. Remember, D3 national champion, although his team, North Central, wasn't able to get it done against Wisconsin River Falls this year. Yeah, and I think he still has a chance to get on this list. I mean, he's been back in the gym. It feels as though he might put on a couple LBs of muscle. Oh, yeah. Maybe play for the Colts next year. Yeah, I mean, there's a chance. I think he's going to do an open trial. Maybe we send him to one of those tennis tournaments that he can just sign up for that we saw that lady playing in.

2:15:01Pat McAfee:Boom. I mean, anything is possible right now with D-Bone. He's working out for two hours during the workday. That is like his new thing. That seems to be pretty sweet. I like that he's committing to his fitness and to his health.

2:15:10Adam Schefter:Current U-ball champion as well. You know, won't mention that. But also, Fritz's Freight. He made. True. Hey, two-way player, D-tackle, right left guard. Kicker, too many. Cold line quarterback. Think about it. Kind of the team of Indy right now, the Fishers' freight. I mean, I've heard a lot of people are kind of done with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Colts and that they might jump to the freight.

2:15:33Pat McAfee:That's not what they're calling a Colts. Nobody's saying Mickey House Clubhouse, which is a great show, by the way. My daughter loves it. Thanks for doing what you do down there. And Goofy's so goofy. But whenever we're talking about the Colts, we're talking about maybe a team that just, you know, their fans are I don't know what to say about them, man. Honestly, I don't know how to spin it. I fucking hate it. I fucking hate what's going on. The nicknames are flowing, though, which is at least good for anyone. I don't know how you Would you have rather been terrible all year? No, I enjoyed what we were because it was cool to see all the players that have been here for a large portion of their lives.

2:16:08Pat McAfee:These guys who are on their second, third contracts having success like that was cool to see you know because there's a lot of belief in these guys for a long time that they were going to be the next ones and it was like i was obviously just a punter here for the colts but i live in indy love indy and i'm a huge colts fan i'm very thankful for what the ursa family did for me they took a shot on me they continue to back me whenever i had my fuck up so it's like i'm very thankful for the colts organization as a whole but i'll tell you man it's hard just to continue to lose three different jaguars coaches have won the afc South.

2:16:41Pat McAfee:Since the last time the Colts have won the AFC South. Jacksonville Jaguars.

2:16:47Adam Schefter:I didn't know that. That used to be the easy game you circled.

2:16:51Pat McAfee:And you've had less coaches. And less GMs. Now, Chris Ballard, he's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's been good to us. Got a great accent. He's a good guy. Shane Steichen, I think he's got great bra energy. I like Shane Steichen. I enjoy Shane Steichen. I saw him with Gardner Minshew. I saw him with Danny Dimes. I've interacted with him. here yeah i i enjoy shane stiken but it's like yo like what are we how long do we just assume that something great is gonna come well you saw it was yeah but then it wasn't and as soon as there was an excuse for this particular locker room to stop playing fucking good football they took it and it just went immediately down is that a culture issue is that a team issue is that a player issue is that a building issue like there has to be some sort of something for this long sustained suckness you know and it's like well is it just bad luck and it's like well okay well can we try to change our luck?

2:17:39Pat McAfee:You know, it's just like, I hate where we're at right now, but by the time we get to season, I will be pumped. I assume they'll make some moves. I assume if we get Danny Dimes back and Danny Dimes is projected to be healthy and we got a chance to do that, I'll be back to being excited. Riley Leonard, if we're going to give him a shot for what he did with Houston, I'm back with that. But I don't know if the culture is like a winning culture. I think you got a lot of people looking for reasons to lose in there. And I don't know if that's fixable. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. Actually.

2:18:05Pat McAfee:I don't like, and I'm paying a lot of money. be a season ticket holder. A lot of money. I'm trying my best in there. Credit dances. We got a chance. Fucking try to bring that place alive.

2:18:15Adam Schefter:Since the urgency's never been higher.

2:18:17Pat McAfee:I respect that. I think that was a clear, like, hey, if this shit, this is it. Like, I think that was a clear one of those. And now, obviously, Colts fans are like... You got the first eight games? Is that what it means? Hey, you got eight games? And if you don't start out hot, see ya? I don't know, man. Because Colts fans are like, well, when was the fucking urgency? You've paid these guys all a lot of money. You've paid all these guys. And the players. All, everybody. You've paid. And that's where the injuries have happened, too, which sucks. Like DeForest Buckner, you're paying him half the salary cap, and he gets injured.

2:18:45Dimes. Daniel, exactly. Sauce. I mean, there's always. Sauce getting hurt sucks. That sucks. Having sauce get hurt.

2:18:50Pat McAfee:There's always, like, legit excuses. Like, genuine, legit excuses. But it's like, well, how come our team always has that then? Should we not potentially look at maybe something different than it doesn't happen? Is it in the building then? Is it not that, like, is there anything to try to, you know, do something. It's a long off season. You look around the AFC and it's like, there's a lot of good fucking young teams out there and we're just staring down what? Not being good. Well, we're going to try to get back to what we were with dimes. It's like, okay, I have faith in dimes. I respect dimes.

2:19:23Pat McAfee:What's that deal going to look like? How long is that going to be for? And when's he going to come back from an Achilles and a broken leg? Yeah. I mean, there's just so many, you know, and Jonathan Taylor is going to want money again. We're not in the playoffs. He's going to be demanding money. It's like first half of the season. and he certainly warranted the most money in the history of running backs. But are you going to not pay Jonathan Taylor because it hasn't worked going to the playoffs? We've proven that's not the case before. It's like, I don't know. And they released their annual letter to their fans.

2:19:47Pat McAfee:You know, this is an annual letter that they're right, the Colts send out. And it's like the timing of it was immediately met with, we heard the fucking press conference. We don't need you to do it. It's like, we do this every single year. We don't know if everybody hears everything. And it's like everything they're doing right now is just getting like absolutely crucified. and that's because it appears as if they're content with us not being good at football. And this is the most exciting time. We're a Super Football weekend.

2:20:12Adam Schefter:Yeah.

2:20:12Pat McAfee:And the Colts haven't been able – Phil Rivers took us to Buffalo in 2020 for playoffs. Okay? And did we think Phil Rivers was going to win a Super Bowl? Yeah. Because that's what you do when your team's in the playoffs. And he's like, we don't get to experience that really anymore. It's tough. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back a man who might have just won the Super Bowl. Nice. You know what I'm saying? Jogging a little better. Had a baby time. Good hustle. Good hustle. You look lighter. You look lighter already. That's incredible going into Super Football Weekend. You were able to lose some weight, it appears.

2:20:39Pat McAfee:DEFCON 1 is what you said, code red. Did we battle through? Are we in a good spot right now? I fear that that is my first battle of many today. Oh, that's round one. Yeah, that was a well-planned sneak attack I was not prepared for. I'm going to have to be ready for the next one. Hey, I hear you. The sneak attacks. What did you eat? Is there any sneak? What did you eat? Honestly, just your basic run-of-the-mill Chick-fil-A sandwich, which I have not done. Was it spicy? It was not. I do not do the spicy anymore because, although it is delicious, I know what comes on the back half of that. So this is just run-of-the-mill.

2:21:16You know what? I did have some of their, what was it, maybe the honey sriracha sauce. That could have had something to do with it.

2:21:23Pat McAfee:Oh, and then also what Gallbladder Nick was eating right next to you again. Welcome back. Yeah. Yeah, the Jets pizza. I mean, he hasn't had that in months. Yeah. He's been eating. Remember, he's been eating lettuce. I know. Every single day. This guy's been eating apples and lettuce leading up to, you know, the procedure he had done. Got the procedure done. It's green flag racing right back in there. So I think you're potentially inhaling some of that grease while you're eating the Chick-fil-A, and then all of a sudden you've got a 12-round bout with absolute shite all day, it looks like. Without a doubt.

2:21:51You know, and that's the first one of the new year. I haven't had one of those situations yet. But like I said, I fear that I'm going to be in one today.

2:22:00Pat McAfee:We know you're more than ready and capable I hope so You just never know Khaki pants Yeah I know I know But luckily You know I kind of got it I got the bunghole clenching down to an almost science You've dropped bunghole twice today I know Both times you said it Good pop out of my soul I just want to let you know It was good to have it back Very good to have it back Speaking of Did you know that we have First team All-Trenchy And then we also tie this year Second team All-Trenchy Who is it? A.Q. Shipley. Okay, on this graphic, let's go from right to left. Tristan Wirfs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Quentin Nelson from the Indianapolis Colts, Creed Humphrey, Kansas City Chiefs, Quinn Miners, what a dog, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Penny Sewell, right tackle.

2:22:46Okay. Second team.

2:22:49Pat McAfee:Whenever you think about Quentin Nelson being on there, I like to think that's a guy you want to build around. Creed Humphrey, same thing. Quinn Miners, this guy, remember, he was on NFL Network every day before the draft. And we thought, this guy's a clown. Why is he on TV? He's got dreads, the whole thing. He's an absolute dog over there for Denver. Has been since the day he stepped foot in the NFL. He's an absolute animal. And whenever he gets downfield, watch out because he puts people on the ground every single time. Penne Soul, congratulations. Detroit got some representation and some awards.

2:23:17Pat McAfee:And then Tristan Wirfs, he was injured, right, a little bit? He missed the first couple games of the season, but since he came back, he's an immovable object. Well, maybe they just need to give him the ball down there in Tampa. He did have a touchdown this year, yeah. He did. Is he an Iowa guy? Yes, he is. Iowa's got some pretty good athletes. Yeah, they do. Did you see the Trailblazer yesterday on EverythingDB? I did. I absolutely did. He might be the best of the bunch. I don't know all the crooks. That'd be a fair argument. It'd be a fair argument. All right, let's go to the top five offensive lines of the season, officially in the trenches with AQ Shipley.

2:23:53Pat McAfee:who are the top five offensive lines of the 2025-2026 NFL season. AQ, number five. Number five is the Denver Broncos. Way to go, Denver. Sean Payton said he wanted to build before he got the gig. After he got the gig, before he got in the building, he said, I need to fix the offensive line. You and him had a conversation offstage. Seems like you think he's done that. Well, he has because they tied for the fewest sacks allowed in the entire NFL, this offensive line unit, and they were fantastic all year, even in the run game, about 120 yards rushing per game. That guy we just talked about, Quinn Miners, Right guard.

2:24:23There he is. Boom. Put him on the ground. Keep climbing. Boom. Get the safety. And there you go.

2:24:29Pat McAfee:Congratulations, Denver Broncos. Top five, top five, top five, top five. Who's the number four offensive line of the 2025-2026 NFL season, AQ? The Seattle Seahawks. Wow. Hey, McDonald. Hey, Seattle. Yep. That guy's playing good defense. Ain't got number four offensive line in the entire league. Jeez, Louise. They're doing it right over there. Schneider with the pits. Yeah, you will hear a common trend here. Fifth fewest sacks allowed for this unit. This is the Rams. This is the Rams. Seattle Seahawks is four. We just moved. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. There we go. There it is. That's on me.

2:24:59Pat McAfee:That's right. We all have it. We all have it. That was on me. So, Seattle Seahawks, again, fifth fewest sacks allowed. 123 yards rushing per game. Look at Graze Abel on the backside getting that block. And then you cut out the backside. Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker, two-headed monster. They've been fantastic. I'll tell you what. Charbonnet, he's untackleable. I appreciated Troy Aikman dropping a little piece of information. He said, I watched this kid at UCLA because Troy Aikman, obviously, UCLA legend. He said, nobody tackles this guy. Nobody tackles him on the first go. And it's like, that is going to be huge.

2:25:29Pat McAfee:If they can run the ball, eat the clock, and then their defense is able to get three and outs, it's like they can really punish some people all playoffs. Seattle Seahawks, fascinating story. Yeah. So far away. So far away. So nobody respects them as much. They're almost like the NFC's Jacksonville Jaguars in my eyes. Sure. Just a dominant team. Just an absolutely dominant team that not a lot of people are talking about.

2:25:51Adam Schefter:It kind of sounds like you want to crown them. You want to just go ahead and hand them the limbo right now. And a lot of people do. You talk about a great offensive line. We always talk about at the end of the season, if they're on this list, they got a good chance to run the table and win it all. Obviously, being a one seed in the bye week, great defense. So in favorites to win it all, it's just going to come down to the quarterback. Can he do it? We've seen him do it now in the big moment. Can he do it now in the biggest stage? That's the question. You know what one of the biggest pieces was was Cooper Cup.

2:26:18It's not talked about enough because Smith and Jigba gets all of the credit, right? But when you watch all of these runs, all their big runs all year, guess who's the lead blocker? It's Cooper Cup. All the time. He's been fantastic.

2:26:29Pat McAfee:I love Cooper Cup. Going back home up there. Going back home. Maybe bringing them a title. Maybe Seattle Seahawks win a Super Bowl odds on favorite. Shout out to DraftKings doing that. And I do appreciate the crime over there at DraftKings. But he has earned. Not just talked about. I also like the New England Patriots, too. Okay. I like the Mike Frabel's telling Stephon Diggs to shut the fuck up on his side while talking shit with him. Like, I really like that. Boy, I really like that.

2:26:54Adam Schefter:You can write it down. Seattle, England, matchup for Pat. I mean, we've seen it before.

2:27:00Pat McAfee:I mean, yeah, okay. You know what? About 11 years ago. Houston Texans, even Jacksonville, I mean, those are good odds right there. Houston Texans, plus 1 ,300, and Jacksonville Jags, plus 1 ,300. There's a good odds, especially because we've been talking this entire, basically, last half of the season, like, who knows who's going to win this? And I think it's strictly because nobody wants to crown the Seahawks because they're so far away and it's such a quick turnover. And nobody wanted to crown the New England Patriots because of, you know, new quarterback, first-year regime. Same with Liam Cohen.

2:27:29Pat McAfee:New quarterback, or not new quarterback, new coach, new regime. They're not going to be able to do it. And then Sean Payton and the Broncos, going into the season, everybody's like, Broncos might win it all. They get the number one seed. Nobody's really like, Broncos are going to win it all. It's good. Hey, good playoff. Good playoffs. A lot of great offensive lines. I think we know, but who's the number three offensive line? Yay! LA Rams. I tried to grab a play from each of these teams that embodied who these teams are. This team switched to 13 personnel. You see the tight end going across to the left.

2:27:57You already have a tight end left. 87, Davis Allen in the backfield. That's your third tight end. Fullback. Yep, there it is. This is the first play against the Seattle Seahawks. Everybody wants to crown the Seahawks. The Rams have beaten them. The Rams have beaten them and the Rams can't beat them. If this is a matchup that happens in the playoffs, watch out because that's the one team that has played well against Seattle.

2:28:15Pat McAfee:Sean McVay is a wide receiver. He's an offensive guru. Obviously, Devontae Adams has 15 touchdowns or something like that. I forget the number. Matthew Stafford, potentially the MVP. I appreciate the fact that you're pointing out they go to 13 personnel and they'll run that shit and they certainly will. They'll stay patient with the run too. They're not scared just to get pass happy. I think that's the maturity of McVay but also having Matthew Stafford back there. It's been really cool to watch them adjust this year because they've always been an 11 personnel team. Well, they got three really good tight ends.

2:28:41They really have four because they just got Higby back. Higby was fantastic this week against the Cardinals, so watch out for him in the playoffs as well. But they got him, they got the young guy in Ferguson, they got Parkinson, and they got Davis Allen as their fullback. Jeez. Yeah, really good. A lot of weapons with the Rams. A lot of weapons.

2:28:57Pat McAfee:A lot of weapons. Oh, okay. All right, that's Connor talking about the MVP race between Drake and Matthew Stafford. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a big one. And if you would have said this last year or the year before that, people would have laughed in your face. The number two offensive line in the entire NFL for the 2025-2026 NFL season is who, A.Q. Shipley? The Chicago Bears. Wow, congrats, C.D.O. Chicago. Congrats, C.D.O. It just shows that if you invest in the trenches, you have a chance at the end of the year. What they've done, they went out and invested in the interior three, Dolman, Tooney, and Jonah Jackson.

2:29:33But this embodies who they are as well. We get the motion. As you're going to see this, there's the motion. They rock and roll the safeties. You send the tight end through like we talked about earlier, and then you get the kick out, and then huge holes against one of the best defenses in the NFL.

2:29:46Pat McAfee:So the Chicago Bears, not only does Ben Johnson design plays to set up good blocking schemes, they invest it in good blockers, and they weaponize it is what you're saying? Absolutely, and they do such a good job with the shifts and the motions to create leverage. We always talk about leverage on defense and offense. They create the leverage by the shifts, the motions. They get a safety to move out of a gap. Now you get Colston Loveland up on the safety right there, and you get the blocks, the easy blocks frontside. It's too easy. This is what you're missing up there, man. This is it, Foxy.

2:30:13JJ Watt:No, big time. I mean, it's no coincidence. We were on this list last year. We're not this year. The only difference, no Ben Johnson. It's a big-time bummer, but that's what MCDC is going to fix this offseason.

2:30:21Pat McAfee:He's in the NFC North. Oh, yeah. I know. He's young. Caleb's pretty young, too. Oh, my God. Ben might have, like, really gray hair by the time he's done in Chicago. You know, like super long eyebrows. Yep. Cold as shit calling a game. You see it. That gray hair is underneath. Maybe we got snot frozen. With nose hair. Yeah, yeah. With nose hair. And he's still good, better besting. You know, he's still got the intensity, but he's still dialing it up. And Caleb at that point, just shotgun, not moving, kind of doing this whole thing. That's potentially what the future looks like. And the Lions fans are just going to have to sit there and watch the entirety.

2:31:01Pat McAfee:That's crazy to think about.

2:31:02JJ Watt:Well, let's slow the brakes down here a little bit. They haven't beat us yet, all right? He's undefeated against Ben Johnson right now, so we're doing okay right there. Just got to fix the O-line, that's all.

2:31:13Adam Schefter:And a couple of baners up there. That's easy. Johnny Moe got thrown under the bus. Hey, big time.

2:31:17Pat McAfee:Big time. What they did to Johnny Moe. They fired his ass. Hey, Johnny Moe, you fucking suck out of here. It is all your fault. All your fault. That's basically what they said. We knew it was coming. Hard to argue. We knew it was coming. And then they say, look who we had. Yeah. Down here in Chicago. And then MCDC took it over to South Party offense, too. They let Johnny Wocall play, what, six, seven games?

2:31:38JJ Watt:And then, all right, that's enough. Yeah, I think it was like week nine. Week nine or ten.

2:31:43Pat McAfee:I wonder if it was a cultural fit, too, you know? That's like Dan Quinn meeting with his OC in D.C. Going in the meeting thinking you like him. Hear some things. I don't like him. I'm not doing this again. Get the fuck out of here. Ladies and gentlemen, the number one offensive line of the 2025-2026 NFL season in the trenches. The Trenchy Award winner for greatest offensive line in the NFL goes to who? The Buffalo Bills. Wow. The Buffalo Bills. Yeah. Hey, that's a shot. Look out. Hey, led the NFL in rushing at almost 160 yards per game. Spencer Brown, Deion Dawkins, absolute dogs. Torrance at right guard, obviously.

2:32:23McGovern at center and David Edwards as the left guard. This group has been fantastic. But I need to mention Jackson Hawes, who they drafted as a tight end, and Reggie Gilliam, 41, their fullback. This was their bread-and-butter play all year long. You get YNF counter going backside. How easy is that? Don't they run the same play against you? If it works, they'll run it. They just keep running the same exact plays. Against the Steelers, it was the duo play. 22 times or something like that. Over and over again. It was duo to the right or it was inside zone to the left. But early in the season, this was their bread-and-butter, and they will get back to this.

2:32:55Pat McAfee:But that is exactly what you would judge an offensive line on. Like, hey, if you can actually take over the game, now let James Cook is a special talent, obviously a running back, and you need that obviously behind you. But the offensive line was winning games for them. Obviously having an alien at quarterback and James Cook behind them helps it all out. But this offensive line, in your eyes, number one offensive line, is the reason why they are in the position that they're in right now? Far too many times this season you turn on the game film and they are imposing their will against the guys across from them.

2:33:26That is a good offensive line. That is the best offensive line. Those are the traits you're looking for against the Pittsburgh Steelers when you can just line up and run the same play to the right, to the left, 40 times and beat the shit out of a really good defensive line as we saw against the Baltimore Ravens the other night. I mean, damn, they're very good up front.

2:33:43Pat McAfee:Man, congrats to these top five performing offensive lines of the 2025 NFL season. Yenzol get trenchies out there. Hope you hang them up there high. Put them on the shelf. Polish them up. We'll send them to you soon. You'll get this. This trophy will arrive soon. And if it doesn't come, just know it's coming soon.

2:34:02JJ Watt:Yep. It's coming.

2:34:03Pat McAfee:Eyes peeled. Yeah, just keep – never know. And we try to get it there. It might have got lost in the mail or whatever, but – There it is. The trench is on the way, and – Best trophy of sports. Hell, yeah. KG's hair on top of AQ Shipley's body is certainly something that you would definitely want if you were laying it all in the line for your team every single week. Congrats to the Bills, Chicago Bears, Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, and Denver Broncos.

2:34:25Adam Schefter:Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Now we know who can win it all.

2:34:28Pat McAfee:Well, that kind of scares me. It's time to make our picks because I've been kind of leaning one way pretty heavy.

2:34:33Adam Schefter:Me too, and they're not on this list.

2:34:34Pat McAfee:Yeah, they're not, and the other one's the best of all kinds. All right, let's not worry about that just yet. We'll get to that when we get there. Let's start with Saturday. Super wild card Saturday. Sunday NFL countdowns from 10 to noon, and then I think there's a bunch of basketball games on, And then, ladies and gentlemen, on Fox at 430, the Los Angeles Rams will take on the Carolina Panthers. Rams favored by 10-1⁄2 down there in the Queen City of Charlotte, North Carolina. Five, six weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers beat the Los Angeles Rams. Will that happen again? 10-1⁄2 points is a lot. D.

2:35:04Pat McAfee:Butch, your thoughts on this game. How would you lean if you were to pick it?

2:35:06Adam Schefter:We're just picking against the spread, right? Uh-huh. Okay, so obviously I trust Sean McVay and Matt Stafford on this stage. Been there, done that, won a Super Bowl. But something they've done, even though Matt Stafford has had an MVP season, they kind of played down to their competition at some big points in this season. So I'm going with the Panthers plus 10.5 at home.

2:35:25Pat McAfee:Okay, home underdogs in the wildcard round, our 18-14 win-loss record over the last 1978, 22-9-1 against the spread. Cagey affairs normally in the playoffs, especially first-round Super Wildcard weekend. Nobody wants to blow their entire season by making some stupid mistake. Let's play close to the vest. AQ Shipley, Rams, Panthers. 59 % of the bets are taking 10.5 points with the Panthers. So is Darius Butler. How do you see it? I will take the Panthers with the points as well. But let me also say, if we're just going straight up, I got the Rams coming out of the NFC as your Super Bowl contender.

2:36:01Pat McAfee:Okay. So not only this game, he says. If I'm not around, the next one too and the next one. Okay. AJ Hawk, do you agree with the boys and the public? or are you going with the Rams to blow out the Panthers? I think the Rams win this game, but I am taking the Panthers plus 10.5 with those points. We all see it the same way. It feels like kickoff will be 71 with a little bit of rain. I think everybody will be okay. Bank of America Stadium has quite a gladiator feel. That thing goes straight up and down. Should be an incredible environment for the Carolina Panthers hosting a playoff game. Congrats to them winning the NFC South on a couple of different technicalities.

2:36:37Pat McAfee:And good luck to all parties. I like that you're already picking your Super Bowl contender for the NFC. Let's go to the Green Bay Packers versus the Chicago Bears. This has flipped one and a half one way, one and a half the other way, one and a half one way, one and a half the other way. There was one time where the underdog getting the points was actually the favorite in the money line whenever it looked at the odds. Sportsbooks are saying this is a toss-up. This was a split during the regular season. D-butt, Green Bay, Chicago. Are you good, better, best, or do you like Toyotathon?

2:37:05Adam Schefter:When you talk about a toss-up or kind of a pick-em game, a lot of times I automatically lean to the home team, third time playing. I do have a lot of faith in Caleb and Ben Johnson. He's been playing great late in games. If Caleb can play better in quarter one through three, it'll be big for him. Kind of banged up in Green Bay. I'm going Chicago winning in cover.

2:37:28Pat McAfee:Okay, winning plus one. You're getting a point right now, actually. Getting a point in half. Yesterday you would have been favorite, which is crazy that that's happening that quickly. It actually happened in real time while we were looking at DraftKings. AQ, who do you like? How do you like it? Same thing. I like the Bears with the points. The reason why is because they played their guys, and I think there's going to be a little bit of rust with the Packers sitting some of their guys, and obviously Jordan Love's been out for quite some time. Time leading in game whenever Green Bay won 28-21 on December 7th, says Hembo, 34 minutes and 51 seconds, zero.

2:37:58Pat McAfee:And then on December 20th, 22-60, 42 minutes to zero. I don't know how that makes sense. I guess they'll be tied in those other situations. Tied going into overtime, so that doesn't account for that. I guess, yeah, because they've scored in overtime in one. So, Ty, does that make you feel good? Yeah, I mean, I watched both these games, and the Packers choked that second game away. I mean, we all remember they couldn't recover the onside kick. I mean, they are banged up, and that is, I guess, the big thing, is they sat all their guys week 18, so they're healthier now than they have been for a while.

2:38:28But based on, I mean, like they dominated the second game they played and they dominated a very large part of the first game they played. It being in Chicago and like the weather, the elements don't really matter to me at all. I think there's a chance it's going to snow Saturday night in Chicago. But yeah, I like the Packers.

2:38:47Pat McAfee:We need a little snow in Chicago. Saturday night, super wildcard weekend, Packers, Bears, a little snow, a little frosted football would be fantastic. AJ, we know kickoff 34 degrees. Chance of snow. I think it's not 32. Perfect. 31. That's like perfect day here. What's the wind doing? 19 mile an hour there in the fourth quarter. Ooh. Yeah. Going to be a windy city, windy football game.

2:39:11Adam Schefter:Depends on what 19 miles per hour. What were they saying in Texas A &M? 15 or 16. We felt 40. So we'll see.

2:39:19Pat McAfee:Yeah, Soldier Field does have a little bit of a resume of being windy as hell in there. Good luck to all parties that are kicking and throwing footballers. That should be fun. AJ, you're taking the Packers, favored by one and a half? Yep. I think the Packers go on the road. Jordan Love plays well, and they win this thing.

2:39:37I know you want to pick Chicago. I do. I really do.

2:39:41Pat McAfee:They're a good squad. They were past this last week. Wow. And they were allegedly trying to play football, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what Ben Johnson said. We're playing football, and we're playing football. Yeah, which I think was a shot at the Packers, I assume, resting all their guys in Week 18. But that is that Love didn't play against the Ravens either, and he left in the first half of the Bears game. So he hasn't played in two and a half, three weeks. So is he going to be a little bit rusty? Maybe. But Josh Jacobs is the first time he hasn't been on the injury report since Week 11, so they think he's healthier.

2:40:14Pat McAfee:How's that defense without Micah? I remember that being a problem. I mean, hit or miss, you know. It really is hit or miss because they – like, Halfley is really good, and they've been decent. They were very good against it. They basically shut out the Bears for the first 55 minutes of that game, and that was post-MICA. And I think that game kind of, whether it was like the mojo, the team or whatever, because then the following week, obviously Derrick Henry runs for fucking 800 yards against them. So they're kind of tough to pin down right now too. All right, I'll pick the Bears. Strictly because they played like ass last week.

2:40:45Pat McAfee:Give Ben Johnson a lot to kind of yell about. Is this going to end with a good, better, best, Never let it rest until your good is better and better is best. It feels like it. Holy shit. Ben Johnson. Chicago Bears. I don't know. Jordan Love, dude. He's so good. Jordan Love. This is kind of the big, like, hey, especially with, like, all the chatter about how well Malik Willis, like, Love's got to play well on Saturday night. Not that there's going to be any, like, big, but, like, just everything. You know, like, the pressure with, like, LeFleur. Who knows what happens there if they get beat? If Love doesn't play well.

2:41:18This is a massive game for the Packers.

2:41:21Pat McAfee:Oh, Ben Johnson loves that, I bet. Especially because he came in talking shit to LaFleur, didn't he? Oh, yeah. Go to better best, buddy. All right, I'll give it to the Bears at home. Let's go to Sunday. Bills at Jags. Buffalo Bills, number one offensive line in the league, says AQ Shipley. Okay, nobody's talking about that whenever people are talking about this particular matchup. They are favored down in Jacksonville. Having a chance to see the Jacksonville Jaguars live in person, holy hell. Big, fast, mean, locked it. Okay, seems like they got it all to potentially go on a run. And then the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen, no Lamar, no Mahomes, no Burrow.

2:42:00Pat McAfee:If not now, then when, Josh Allen? D-Buck, we'll start with you as the Bills are favored in Duvall.

2:42:06Adam Schefter:Yeah, Jags, they've been very impressive. Wire to wire on both sides of the ball. Liam has done a great job. Trevor Lawrence, I mentioned it earlier, unlocked. and then everything which you said, the experience with Josh Allen, been in the playoff, been in these moments. Also the head coach, Sean McDermott, he's been here. A lot of pressure on him to at least get to the Super Bowl at this point. I don't think they lose in the first round. I think they handle business. I said coming into the playoffs it will be tough for me to pick against a Josh Allen-led team. So I'm going to stick with that in this first round.

2:42:36Adam Schefter:I'm going to our Bills winning and covering the one and a half.

2:42:39Pat McAfee:Okay, you like the Bills. I'll tell you, this is an interesting game to start on Sunday. It's going to be awesome. Yeah. This is going to be – anytime Josh Allen plays football, it's awesome. But then you add in this Liam Cohen, Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars team at home for a playoff game. I mean, it's going to be a special game. Highest points differential at home this season. Obviously, these are with the wild card line there in parentheses. Jaguars are plus 98. Nobody's close except for the Patriots at plus 90. You know, Foxborough is a real home field advantage. But so is Duvall, they're saying.

2:43:10Pat McAfee:You get in front of those pools and you get in front of those Jags fans, things start to happen. Maybe they become a wagon. What do you think happens, A.Q. Shipley, as the Bills head to Jacksonville as favorites? Yeah, this is the hardest one for me to pick because you think back to Mahomes, right? Like, they always didn't have the best team, but they had that guy Mahomes. It's the same thing for me. They got a great offensive line and a great run game. I don't think they have a great receiver. Really good tight ends. They got a – not a great defense. So it's like, where do you go? Best second year in the NFL.

2:43:38That's what Dan Orlovsky said. Yeah, good job, Dan. I just think – Good job, Dan. And that sounded kind of condescending. I just don't think they have a good defense. But, again, the Jaguars, I'm hot on them because every time I watch them, they play physical, they look good. Parker Washington's been fantastic. Their tight ends are good. I mean, they got guys, and their defense looks good. I'm going Jags.

2:43:57Pat McAfee:Okay, there you go. You're about to talk yourself out of it, it sounded like, because it's too good to be true almost for the Jaguars. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it in this one? So I was leaning Buffalo early, and then watching AQ present them as the best offensive line in the NFL, I am taking the Buffalo Beals on the road here. How about him? This is the second year in a row now. Best offensive line in the league, going to pick them not to win. And the entire sell of the In the Trenches segment is the offensive line decides who wins the game. Philadelphia Eagles last year, they're going to lose.

2:44:29Pat McAfee:Well, I thought the offensive line decided it was, are they playing quarterback too? They're not playing quarterback. Guess what the Philadelphia Eagles want to do? He had it right literally from the beginning. Philadelphia Eagles win the fucking Super Bowl. Now he's doing it again with the Buffalo Beals. Is that what it feels like is happening right here? Yeah, it feels like the exact same thing, and I, quite frankly, just don't understand it. I don't understand it. I don't like it. Are we supposed to take this serious or not? I don't fucking understand. Best run game. Love the group. Love the protection they're going to get.

2:44:51Josh Allen's going to have time to throw, but does he have a receiver that's going to separate and make plays?

2:44:56Pat McAfee:So this is the offensive line always doing this one right here. Yeah, and the Jags have the number one rush defense in the NFL, so it's kind of number one versus number one. There you go. But the Jags are the team that's the underdog at home, which their head coach is aware of, which will probably lead to more motivation on Jacksonville's side. I'll take the Jacks or Jaguars plus one and a half. I don't like it, though, because I like this Bills team, and I would like Josh Allen, and I would like Josh Allen to have that success. But, boy, if the Jags do what I think they're going to do, which is win this game, it's going to be so loud on Monday.

2:45:30Pat McAfee:Holy fuck, it is going to be so loud up there in Buffalo. Oh, yeah. New stadium, new this. I mean, it is. And Buffalo fans are very passionate. it. And they, for good reason, they got the number one offensive line in the league. They got an alien playing quarterback. They got the best running back in the league. Figure it out, McDermott. What are you doing? If he doesn't, and they don't, and it's the Jacksonville Jaguars, which we like the Jacksonville Jaguars. Good ball. Jacksonville Jaguars is a good football team. I think it's going to be hard to sell those Bills fans. We're losing to the Chiefs every other year.

2:46:01Pat McAfee:Now, somehow, we're losing Trevor Lawrence to the Jags. Liam Cohen is what, that's going to be cool. All right. I like the Jags to do it just strictly because I sink them. I sink this team. They are unbelievably athletic, fast, large, and physical. I mean, it is what I think football is supposed to be. Speaking of San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Eagles absent from the top five. That's first time, long time. Lane Johnson, though, potentially back is what we are hearing. And then the San Francisco 49ers can't get the win for the number one overall seed, have to travel to the Lincoln Instead, they're four-and-a-half-point underdogs.

2:46:39Pat McAfee:What are your thoughts on this game, D-Budge?

2:46:41Adam Schefter:I've heard AQ say it for years that how much one guy can change an offensive line in kind of a team. So if Lane Johnson comes out of that tunnel and that glass breaks, I think they can flip the switch with Saquon, who had to rush the title last year. I'm going with the Eagles at home to win this one. I trust the quarterback, I trust the coach, and I trust the offensive line. And damn sure I trust the defense.

2:47:01Pat McAfee:Okay, on that note, Sirianni and Hurts at home in the playoffs. Currently, they're 5-0. Average score, 35-14. They have zero turnovers with 14 takeaways. That's pretty impressive. They've trailed for five minutes and 43 seconds in five total games at home in the playoffs. So, Sirianni gets the dogs barking. They got a lot of dogs over there. Are they going to be their best in the biggest stage? We shall see. D-Butt thinks yes. Do you think that as well? Just like D-Butt just said, an offensive lineman can change everything. I think on the other side, there's a guy named Trent that if he plays, could change everything.

2:47:35The problem is they might be starting Kysir White and Eric Kendricks at linebacker. Don't love that. I'm going with the Eagles.

2:47:42Pat McAfee:Okay. You're both these boys like the Eagles. A.J. Hawk, who do you like? I'm with D.Butt here. I think Lane Johnson getting him back. I think they find a way to unlock this run game and unlock Saquon. He goes on a run here in the playoffs. 66 % of the bets are on the San Francisco 49ers plus four and a half. All of us are on the Eagles, minus 4.5. And I think that's just because we've seen it before and we expect them all to turn it up because it's the biggest stage.

2:48:05Adam Schefter:Oh, yeah. Right? Talking about defense and taking care of the football, those are two critical, critical things in this stage.

2:48:09Pat McAfee:And the Johns are going to go crazy over there. And Coop's going to – Coop's going to Coop. Coop's going to Coop, baby.

2:48:15Adam Schefter:What's the forecast for this one?

2:48:17Pat McAfee:Tell me something, Bruce.

2:48:22Pat McAfee:I assume it's going to be 30, low 30s? Yep. 45. Wow. Oh, unseasonably warm. Oh, feels like 40 across the board, 11-mile-an-hour winds, 10-mile-an-hour winds. Okay, so it's slight chance of rain in there. Okay, so this is a good Philadelphia day. I mean, rain sucks. I will say cold and rain is the worst possible, but it is just chance of rain there, 40-some percent or 43 degrees. I like the Philadelphia Eagles in this one. Not that I think it's going to affect the Niners. I like this Niners team a lot. The fact that they've been able to do this, Well, Bosa and Fred obviously goes to what Salah's been able to accomplish.

2:48:57Pat McAfee:Shanahan being able to continue to dial it up whenever you lose your$50 million a year quarterback for a portion of it. Congrats to them. I like the Eagles, though. Let's go Chargers, Patriots. Patriots favored by three and a half. How's the weather going to be up there, Con, man? I believe 30 and cold and possible snow. I think that Philly precipitation rolls up north. Kickoff, it's 36, slight chance of rain. 35, slight chance of rain. Gets down to 34, so it's just rain. Seven-mile-an-hour winds at the end of it all the way through. Gusts up to 16, 17-mile-an-hour, though. Okay. So it's going to be a little breezy.

2:49:30Pat McAfee:It's going to be rainy. It's going to be cold. This is ass. This is ass conditions right here. This is not desirable at all. This is exactly what Vrabel wanted for the New England Patriots, or is this what Jim Harbaugh wanted the Los Angeles Chargers to travel into and maybe be forced to do what they do? D-butt, who do you like? How do you like it?

2:49:50Adam Schefter:This probably would be what Harbaugh wanted if he had his offensive line intact, but he does not. And you talk about a West Coast dome team going over to Foxboro this time of year, and if the evil empire is really back, they ain't losing at home in a wild card game. They are winning in cover. I'm taking Vrabel, Drake, man, the boys to win in cover.

2:50:10Pat McAfee:To expedite that point, Greg Roman's offenses in the playoffs with Baltimore and Chargers, 12.8 points per game, two and a half turnovers a game. Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert as the starting quarterbacks in four of the five games. So they're saying Greg Roman's offense is maybe whenever they run into a playoff defense, don't have as much success. And especially with a defense that is like this New England Patriots defense, everybody's smart, everybody's physical, and they're everywhere. They're a young group of lads, not a lot of stars yet, but those will come over the next few years, we all think.

2:50:38Pat McAfee:All these guys are going to be household names from what this New England team is going to do. Conman, do you hate or like where you're at in this position? Oh, I absolutely love it. Milton Williams came back last week. He's the highest paid player in the history of the New England Patriots. D-tackle from Philly. Very aware of what it takes to win a Super Bowl. Just did last year. And then Christian Barmore, the other D-tackle. They are the two best D-tackle tandem in the NFL. They actually have the highest or second and third highest rate as far as getting to the quarterback. All of that. So the whole entire thing about New England having a bad pass rush, that'll change Milton Williams.

2:51:09Weakness of the Chargers team is their offensive line. And then we got the guys in the secondary and in the middle. So, Bob Spillane coming back will be huge. Team's leading tackler. And then Drake May and Josh McDaniels in the playoff. Josh McDaniels has already game planned against a Chargers team before and won.

2:51:25Pat McAfee:Thank you. We haven't seen Drake May do it in a bigger stage, though. Haven't seen him do it. You know, we assume he'll be able to because he's a dog and he's a little brother and he hasn't had any situation kind of rattle him thus far. He's in his second year. He's 23. He's in the MVP conversation very legitimately to win this entire thing. His wife, he's married. She makes cookies for everybody. It was like it's a perfect setup. Do you think Drake May on the big stage gets his first dub, or do you think Herbert travels in there and gets a win? We haven't seen him do it, but we're about to. Pat's by a million, healthiest they've been all year, and hate the Chargers offensive line.

2:51:58Zion Johnson's really good at left guard. Other than that, they've been decimated by injuries. Coming west coast to east coast, healthiest the Patriots have been, plus Josh McDaniels, Pat's by a million.

2:52:07Pat McAfee:Pat's by a million. AJ, do you agree with that? Yeah, I don't know if I'd say Pat's by a million, but I do think that this is going to be – the Patriots are going to grab the momentum early on. They're going to get up early, and that place is going to go crazy. So give me the pass. What's that song you guys sing up there? What's the song in the stadium whenever good things start happening? They do Thunderstruck a lot, ACDC. Shipping Up to Boston is also another one. They don't really have a go-to like the Colts and some other teams do. Yeah, so for some reason I remember – maybe Shipping Up to Boston is what it was.

2:52:38Pat McAfee:They played a lot of music. You probably remember this. Pa-pum! Yeah, they shot enough to take up multiple minutes, too, these fuckers. I mean, they scored a lot against us. LeGarrette Blount's still running. Oh, yeah. That fucker's still going. I don't know how he still is running and scoring more touchdowns against us. Yeah, that's what I mentioned earlier in the week. Sonny Michel, his rookie year, he had three touchdowns. I'd expect Trevion Henderson and Ramondre kind of both to have massive days. Shout out to DoorDash. You can get a sweatsuit. You can get your local favorite food. You can do basically anything you need.

2:53:07Pat McAfee:DoorDash is your assistant. Isn't that correct, D-Bone?

2:53:09Adam Schefter:Absolutely. Every day, every morning, I use them.

2:53:11Pat McAfee:And if you need a Nike Tech maybe because you forget that your entire pre-playoff routine is to wear a Nike Tech with sunglasses and headphones, DoorDash got your back. Yeah, get them if you can. Get them while they're hot. I've had this for years. So anybody who wants one, you should try and go get them because they are sold out basically everywhere. Save up$250 a season whenever you order on game days. Win every week with DoorDash Streak. Shout to DoorDash. Honestly, I almost put a tweet out, but I didn't want people to call me a corporate show this weekend because I ordered baby girl some food.

2:53:42Pat McAfee:I ordered her a snack. I ordered the dog a toy, all from different places. And then my wife ordered something, and fucking Boris had 13 ,000 deliveries. And we had five different deliveries happening at the same time. And they all got there like 25, 30 minutes and just kind of answered a problem that we had in so many different places. And I almost put a tweet out that was like, fucking congrats to DoorDash. Like, honestly, way to go. and thank you for what you've added to our lives. Some of the fees get a little bit absurd and, you know, the standard to express thing we need to lock in on. But the drivers are up$13 ,000,$14 ,000.

2:54:17Pat McAfee:I think Nick had a guy who had$19 ,000 maybe. I forget the other.

2:54:20JJ Watt:$19 ,000.

2:54:21Pat McAfee:Hey, we appreciate your services for what you guys are doing. Honestly, DoorDash. DoorDash. DoorDash is a brilliant concept. Brilliant concept. Especially with the whole COVID time. We're not allowed to leave our house, so don't worry, we'll bring it to you. And I don't know how this didn't happen earlier. You know, we had pizza delivery for so long. how did not everybody think that that was the right move for literally everything? And then DoorDash came in and was like, we got you. We got you. We got you. We got you for everything.

2:54:44Adam Schefter:Especially me. This time of year, like once I get home after work, I ain't leaving. Nope. So anything I need is probably get DoorDash.

2:54:51Pat McAfee:Shout out to DoorDash. We appreciate you, DoorDash. I love you, DoorDash. There's multiple seasons out with DoorDash. I think it's like three of them with him. And we appreciate the hell out of him. And to be honest, they'll never be able to pay for this particular show enough for, to get the money back for us that we have spent on them. this gate right here has a camera on it strictly for DoorDash delivery drivers. We have a DoorDash cam that we set up for this entire thing. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm not saying it's a great thing. It's a necessity. DoorDash. A necessity. Bingo.

2:55:21Adam Schefter:Who do you like? I do wonder the premium we've paid. I took Patriots here. What'd you say? I do wonder the premium we paid on food. Not just here, but just home, everywhere. all the time. If you looked at that Excel spreadsheet. I don't want to. Scary. We don't need any P &Ls on DoorDash.

2:55:44Pat McAfee:It'd be ugly. We don't need any of that. Because I know the ROI is happiness. And convenience. I'm going to pay it. And time, it's saved in your life. Think about that. If you're a happy person, do you do better work? Yep. How do you kind of equate that entire thing? Because I'm really fucking happy when P.F. Chang shows up. and I don't have to drive I don't have to drive 20 minutes to it I get really pumped up when there's some Chang's chicken and then there's some shrimp fried rice right there egg roll, two fortune cookies so I can kind of make the decision so I feel like the universe is kind of taking me one way or the other because if it takes me to the right one then I know what it says inside it's a big deal and I crack that fucker open and boy I'm putting that right in the pocket and guess what that's living there until that thing gets washed who knows when that's going to be jeans might be this week, might be next week hell that thing might be carrying me forever now I do it a little bit differently than people from Michigan I don't know if you know about this I don't think any of yours have came true from what it sounds like.

2:56:34Pat McAfee:Yeah. I think we can look around and see if that's real or not. But for you, the people from Michigan, they actually open the fortune cookies. Shout out to whichever fortune company restaurant you order from for DoorDash. They open it, they read it, and if they like it, they eat it. So it actually becomes a part of them like the boys did with the Rose Bowl. Yes. And then it comes true.

2:56:57Adam Schefter:Foxy does that. I can see you in grass. That makes sense. Granddaddy. Natural. That's where we're going to end up with. Eating paper?

2:57:02Pat McAfee:Yeah, we're at the airport. We stopped by Panda, I think. Yeah. What's it called? Panda Express? Panda Express. Panda Express. I always call it a red panda. Obviously, it's not. Yeah. There's one red panda. You know, that entire thing. Exactly. But I'm sitting next to this fucking psycho. We're eating in the airport. Pretty tired, I assume, at this time. And he cracks that thing open, reads it, goes, hmm. And fucking just pops that thing right in his mouth. I go, what the fuck is that? because I like that one. I don't want it come true, so I ate it, so it comes true. And boy, I don't know, maybe the next three weeks it was all I could really talk about with Foxy.

2:57:38JJ Watt:Yeah, and then you eat the cookie with it, wash it down, makes it easier to eat, and it comes true. So you've got to be very select because you don't want to eat that much paper, and then it all comes true.

2:57:45Pat McAfee:This dude's pickled back in a fucking fortune out of a fortune cookie. Yes. Need one for a new OC. I probably should order Chinese. It's a good idea. You should. With your friends, with our friends at DoorDash. A necessity. All right. I picked the Patriots as well. Let's go to the Monday night. Oh, we'll pick it on Monday. Yep. All right. Good show, Lee. Good show. Good show, boys. Great show, boys. Great show. Great week. See you soon. Hello. Hey, wait. Wash my hand. Yeah, I'm not a fucking animal, AJ. I'm here. I'm shaking. Here you go. Thank you, AJ. There it is. Got it. You want to shake hands or what?

2:58:27Pat McAfee:Thank you. Stealing all of them, man. I like stealing a good... I'll tell you what. that's a good move just for you to take uh amongst your friends fist bump if two of your friends are by the fist bump slide your hand right in the middle and just say stole that and just keep walking it's a good reaction every single time nobody expects it i mean it is something that is very unexpected just two guys or ladies i don't know how much fist bump is happening in the ladies groups but if you go for a fist bump just go ahead and slide your hand in there and then on on either side gotcha good and walk away it's a fun little game you were trying to do that with air fucking handshakes.

2:59:01Pat McAfee:Hit an air high five.

2:59:06Let's see.

2:59:07Pat McAfee:Saw that coming. Nice. Walk. I know you could get two glasses on. I just realized that you get two glasses on. Feels like this isn't what you always do for playoffs. Yeah, well, first year with glasses. Typically, you know. Kind of have to deal with that with all the glasses. I got like 50 pairs of sunglasses. Those don't work anymore. Just got to get the Raiders in there. Bingo. I got them. Hey, Tony, why don't you come out of Hammer? Don, don. Let's get out of here. We'll see you tomorrow night on ESPN2. Game day also tomorrow. I think Tony will know better because he got the rundown. It's 6 o 'clock.

2:59:40Pat McAfee:What time? 6 Eastern. 6 Eastern to 730. Got it. Hour and a half college game day to kick off the Fiesta Bowl. AJ, I'll let you know. Fiesta Bowl? Mm-hmm. I didn't know that's like kind of your bowl game. I played it three times. Won it all three times. Yeah, yeah. D-Bot, he didn't just win it all three times, one of them being a national championship.

3:00:00Adam Schefter:Yeah, we talked about that. It's true freshman year. You know, he downplays and didn't play that much. But I did not know the other two times he played it, he was the defensive MVP of the Fiesta Bowl. Yeah!

3:00:11Pat McAfee:2004 and 2006. Woo! Fucking MVP of the Fiesta Bowl. Legend. Three-time Fiesta Bowl champion. We had no idea that was the case. We need to be celebrating you. Is the Fiesta Bowl having a fucking parade for you whenever you come back for this field pass tomorrow? What's going on? Honestly. Are you the greatest Fiesta Bowl player? And it's the Lombardi Award, so he's won multiple Lombardis. Yeah, a career. Played for the Ohio State, winning Lombardi Award and earning an American.

3:00:36Adam Schefter:Twelve tackles, three and a half TFLs, and two sacks against Notre Dame.

3:00:41Pat McAfee:Brady Quinn, right there. Split jersey game? Jersey was split right there.

3:00:44Adam Schefter:That was a split jersey game. Wow.

3:00:46Pat McAfee:And he was trying to split his homer, wasn't he? Split his homer. AJ, we had no idea you were one of the greatest Fiesta Bowl players in the history. I happen to be on the Fiesta Bowl team as well because I murdered punts. I mean, murdered punts. I think I had something like 69 yards. I forget what it was. Six yards, longest pun in Fiesta Bowl history. Thank you. And Fiesta Bowl people tell me that. Now, do they tell me that strictly because of the position that we're currently in? Yes. So I do feel like all these things are kind of outrageous. But we had a lot of success at the Fiesta Bowl, loved the Fiesta Bowl, and felt like a big game whenever we were out at the Fiesta Bowl.

3:01:17Pat McAfee:Thought it was a great host. Thought it was incredible. I had no idea you were actually the best player in the history of the Fiesta Bowl. we should have been talking about that a little bit more I think so can't wait to get back to your bowl game tomorrow night as we watch Miami and Ole Miss play AJ I had a great time out there every year I was that was old school ASU stadium like carved into the mountain that place that was a special spot okay so We didn't play there. I don't think that's where we played. We played at the University of Phoenix. I think we played at the University of Phoenix.

3:01:47Yeah, it might have been the last time they played it. My senior year might have been the last time they played it there. I don't know.

3:01:51Pat McAfee:Look at this guy right above me right here. He's so fucking pumped that you're an Ohio State Buckeye. I fucking love this guy.

3:01:57Adam Schefter:How could you not?

3:01:59Pat McAfee:Defensive MVP. Two times.

3:02:01Adam Schefter:Centerville Oak. He had a jacket. Remember that jacket he had at Rose Bowl? Oh. Yeah, with the patch. Yeah.

3:02:09Pat McAfee:Hey, we're expecting something, Fiesta Bowl. This guy's the greatest ever play. And we'll be honored to be back there. I hope you guys will join us on ESPN2. We're so incredibly lucky that we get to do all of this, and you're the only reason why it happened. So thank you. Boys in the back, great work this week. GDB's hilarious work this week. Hilarious work. Well said. Mitt is running four miles at seven-minute miles pace on this treadmill after work. And it's loud. Yeah, he's pounding that fucking treadmill. No, certainly. Don't worry about it, Mitt. We don't have anything going on over here for the good of the business.

3:02:42Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

3:02:44Pat McAfee:And then he comes walking over.

3:02:48Pat McAfee:I go, so what did you do over there, man? It was four miles. I go, you're really getting after seven-minute miles. I'm like, that's fucking.

3:02:57Adam Schefter:Good pace. That's really running.

3:02:59Pat McAfee:I'm getting after a little bit. I'm rolling a little bit. It's like, yeah, I hear you. I'm like, okay, you can do this breathing somewhere else, but I am very proud of you. Mitt, we're proud of you, Mitt. Hey, Mitt, we're proud of you. Mitt's taking care of himself. He really is. Zito, good work. Congrats to your Chicago Bears. And to everybody that watches, way to battle through another three days of our show. You know? Feels like we really gave some shit this week. We'll be back again next week with some more. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We're in this thing together.

3:03:29Pat McAfee:Hey, Kush, anything on the way out? The best weekend we've been waiting for. We got football and big-time football. Now the playoffs are here in the NFL. Let's fucking go. That's right. Like he said. Hell yeah. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye. From 30 for 30 podcasts.

3:03:57Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami. Gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. A hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody. This might be a hit. You want the truth. Biggest one of convictions being placed under arrest.

3:04:14Adam Schefter:We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.

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