PMS 2.0 1488 - NFL Divisional Playoffs Preview/Picks, Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal, University of Miami President/CEO Joseph Echevarria, Jeff Passan, & AJ Hawk

15:21Jeff Passan:I think so.

15:22Pat McAfee:They got the right two teams. These two coaches obviously live and breathe their teams, their programs, college football as a whole. You have to in college. It's year-round recruiting. It's year-round coaching. It's year-round schedule control for 115 of the players trying to get the greatest team on the field as possible. And these two have certainly proven that they are worthy of battling out in the big college game for the big college title. Now, Cristobal, beast. Signetti, dog. Their teams littered with all of them. We had a chance to catch up with one of the coaches who's going to be coaching in the big college game earlier today.

15:58Pat McAfee:And I'll tell you what, I jumped off his high dive. Oh, yeah. We're on a sideline. Yep. I threatened to tackle him. And now just a couple days away from the big college game, a few days removed from him throwing a left jab at me. Hey, I made a slip.

16:14Jeff Passan:Good slip. Almost got you in the throat. Could have parried it if you wanted.

16:18Pat McAfee:Yeah, definitely could have. and I thought about bang to the liver shot. And he almost had the... He would have belly to belly suplex me there. Yeah, he had me too. I gave up good liver. See, I stepped back though. I feel like I timed it right. We're shadow boxing. But he got me. I went in and he immediately knew he was going for under leverage. He lifted my hand up and did that. That's what these jujitsu things do. That's right. That's exactly right. These are machines. They are fingering your rib cage so you just go like that a little bit. And as soon as you do that bang chicken wing broken shoulder like that is what that they are masters of the body they control what you and he did in that moment i thought we're coming in for casual thing after we did the entire thing nope leverage lifts it up bang and i'm under your arm and you're dead he knew that was a toss over the head like kind of a cheap shot to be honest well it was right in front of my face though so kind of happy but you thought you guys were done the bell had rung and he came in and just gave you a little one of the stuff he didn't hear no bell but there is no but Yeah, and I should have known that.

17:16Pat McAfee:I heard the bell. Well, the bell rang whenever they just got done kicking somebody's ass. That's right. And that is certainly what their team likes to do. We caught up with that coach earlier today. What a beast, what a monster. Congrats to him, and thank you for his time. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now is the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes who will be playing in a national championship, a big college game on Monday night in their home stadium. Ladies and gentlemen, he's big. He's strong. He's a former player, a former Natty winner, an absolute dog. Ladies and gentlemen, Mario Cristobal.

17:47Pat McAfee:Yeah, Coach! How are you, Coach? What's up, guys? How's it going? Great, man. How are you? You're playing in a big college game on Monday. Excited? You did it. You won. You did it. Yeah! That's what we're looking for. Well, I appreciate you guys having me on the show. We're just getting ready for practice, man. You know, got another big one. Really good meetings, great prep so far, so just keep doing it. Okay, whenever you look at the Indiana team, I've kind of felt this way, as have the boys. He's pretty like-minded individuals leading the team. Do you kind of see that in the similarities or the traits of what you've seen on film with the Indiana team and how you want your team to be viewed as well?

18:23They're fast. They're physical. They're really, really talented. High football IQs. The level of communication is really, really high. You don't see many, if any, busts, especially down the stretch here in the last few games. They work well together. They swarm the football. They chase and finish. You know, they secure the football really, really well, and they force a lot of turnovers on just an elite-level football operation.

18:50Pat McAfee:The way everybody's talking about it is how you're talking about with this Indiana team. Obviously, they've been through the most dominant run in college football playoff history. For your team, we've got a chance to watch just dogs, dude. Feels like whatever the game calls for, they show up with. At Texas A &M, 25, 30-mile-an-hour wins. I mean, it won't get talked about, but that changes game completely for both sides. Kicking game, obviously, deeply affected for you guys. There wasn't many points in that game. You guys kind of adapt, do what you have to do. Ohio State, same thing. Then against Ole Miss, it was like, hey, we've got to be able to spar and keep up with this team.

19:23Pat McAfee:Is that something you're proud of? Whenever you think about your team, we can win in a variety of different ways, or is that just kind of the DNA of your squad? They'll get the job done. Like, what have you learned about your team over this college football playoff run? We just go, you know. it's a whatever it takes mentality every team is different right every every fight has its own like unique strategy and aspects that are unique to that particular contest and i think our guys understand that their level of commitment to doing it to a certain way and a certain standard has increased and it's gotten even better down the stretcher so just a really strong appetite for getting better for just getting pushed the drive determination is legit these are like self-starting dudes that love football and they absolutely love competing and smacking each other around out there in practice and preparing.

20:15Pat McAfee:Answering the bell, I think, is the big thing is how I would describe your team. Because, you know, maybe Miami teams of the past or, you know, flashy teams of the past, if they were to get into an actual fight, they'd roll over. Like, I think that is what I think you consider yourself and you don't say it. And obviously, I don't think people that have an alpha or a toughness trait don't come out and tell you about it. So anybody that's telling you about it is certainly something but i think a lot of tough people would think that all these show front runner type teams if they get into a real fight they'll kind of they'll fold your team starts getting into real joust answer answer answer and then over the top and it feels like on the offensive side obviously carson beck is making all the right decisions they're able to protect him him running in here and screaming for the final six yards what a moment for him but it does feel like you have guys that are ready to answer the bell at all times.

21:09Pat McAfee:Running back position, dogs everywhere. Wide receiver, dogs everywhere. Offensive line, dogs everywhere. Defense across the board, dogs everywhere. How do you find these guys? Like, what are you looking for whenever you're trying to find the next Miami Hurricane? Because it feels like across the board you got dogs, and everybody's looking for that, I thought, but you seemingly have found them. We've been very fortunate to have a collection of guys that are men of action. You know what I mean? They're, they know talk is worthless in this profession. They know the only value and the only thing that matters are the dudes within the walls of our building.

21:44That's it. And they also understand that like, like this is an awesome place. If you love working, if you love football, if you understand the value of a great education, because we hammer all that stuff and we hammer it hard and we go. And, you know, the, the reward on the other side is that you just, you get better, you get better individually, you get better collectively. and then you grow a legitimate and genuine respect for each other that galvanizes a unit or an organization and makes you play harder for each other. So we just believe in that. We just kind of shut out all the outside stuff, man.

22:20It's us. It's always been us. It's always going to be us, so we like that.

22:23Pat McAfee:Yeah, I like the way you guys view the games and your defense, the way they're thumped people. You know, which reffing crew you're going to get certainly matters, I think, for the way in style of play. And you guys have been able to dial it back if you have to. But whenever these refs are letting the teams play, which we like, I think everybody likes that, your team is like a 1995-1999 football team. I mean, it is just everybody's looking for some. And it's like every tackle was ending with punishment. It's been an honor to watch your team play. Last question for me before the boys have a few, Coach.

22:58Pat McAfee:You know, we saw Mark Fletcher, this guy, Monster, Do his thing, do his thing, do his thing. Then fourth quarter, late in the fourth quarter, you bring in Marty Braun, this guy. Who is that guy? We haven't seen him all. Catch in the fourth quarter. Run in the fourth quarter. He's seemingly like a closer for you guys with Fletcher. Can you tell me about kind of the stable you have in the backfield and how you kind of decide who goes when? Because it feels like those are two NFL guys that are certainly making plays for you in big moments, both of them. You know, we feel we're pretty fortunate. We're four and five deep, and judging by the freshman that's on campus now practicing with us, we're going to get continually better at that position.

23:35The best part about that group is they get it, that it's a long season, and that you have to share responsibilities and carries, and that your responsibility in blocking for the quarterback or blocking in some of the run game is just as important as carrying the ball, and nothing's more important than the ball. That's the program. But they're a ton of pride, really, really physical, really as good of a leader as you can imagine, you know, a guy like Mark Fletcher and truly the heart of our football team. And like yesterday, we, you know, you have a bunch of new guys on campus, right? 30 new freshmen.

24:09They're riled up ready to go. They haven't been in pads and, you know, a scout team comes out and they try to get a piece of him. And all of a sudden, you know, I think it's, you know, I guess.

24:19Pat McAfee:Hey, welcome to college ball. Yeah. Welcome to the year. And you know what? It was welcomed by the whole team. And I thought that was a really good indication. That's what it's supposed to feel like. That's what we've been striving for when the competition stuff is never viewed as like, hey, man, chill, slow it down. No, bullshit. We have to get better. We're playing against a really physical team. You have to practice in a physical manner. And I think we're taking a lot of – there's a lot of growth in those particular areas in our program. Yeah, brother-in-law and each other ain't getting anybody better.

24:50Pat McAfee:That ain't helping anybody. And, you know, there are some places that have that shit happening, you know, and that is obviously because you've been around, obviously you've played. You know, there's always a guy, not always, in bad teams, there's always a guy looking for a brother-in-law situation. And then that starts, that's two people now. And then all of a sudden, that's three people. Then you've got four people. Then all of a sudden, that kind of spreads throughout the entire team. Love hearing that about your squad. That's because of your culture. That's because of your leadership. Now, let's also talk about the maturity of your particular squad.

25:22Pat McAfee:Todd, go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Coach, you and IU, two of the older teams in the NCAA this year, Michigan was an older team. Ohio State brought back a lot of guys. They were an older team. Do you think that's a coincidence? Or when you're bringing in guys like Keontae Scott, he's older. Mo Torre is older. Mesidor was proven and older when he came in. Your entire offensive line, Carson Beck, those were all older guys. So do you think that's a coincidence? Are you doing that on purpose? And then when you get Malachi Tony, the superstar freshman, young kid, like how does he mix in? How do the freshmen, how do the younger guys mix into this older regime kind of that you have?

25:59Yeah, no, that's a great question. I mean, I think we have a very unique combination. Like I think we have the right blend of older guys, experienced guys, guys that have been around for a couple years, and then some young elite talent. And they all mesh really, really well together. You know, we do believe that the core of your team, the nose tackle, D tackle, the center, the quarterback, the linebacker, the safety and the running back, that just the middle, the gut of your team has to be like experienced, hard nose, tough ass experience guys, because that's always going to be the easiest way to get gutted if you're not right.

26:33You have to have real deal dudes right in the middle of your football team. But if you look at our team, I mean, it's it's spread pretty evenly. The young talent that has earned time, they're on the field. It's not just Malachi. It's Bryce Fitzgerald. It's now four years in a row we've had one or two freshman All-American on our football team. And then you have some guys like Carson that's been around for a long time, guys like Moe Touré who's been around forever, Pianti Scott. They've seen a lot of ball. Those are old eyes. They kind of have that sixth sense that allows them to play at a level and make plays that maybe a particular call didn't call for.

27:11You know, so I think it's the right blend, and they do a great job mentoring and pushing and hold the young guys to a standard.

27:18Pat McAfee:That Keontae Scott pick six jump against Ohio State is obviously going to be one of the lasting images of this particular big college football playoff that we have going on right now. Your team has a lot of those. Carson Beck, I mentioned it. Whenever he ran in that touchdown from the six, he's yelling the whole time. And you can almost see like, I don't know, a 4 ,000-pound gorilla maybe off of his back in that exact moment because of everything he's kind of been through. And I said on game day, and Tone Diggs and I kind of talked about it heading into college game day, they're talking about storylines that potentially can come out of this particular playoff run for these teams.

27:53Pat McAfee:It's like the rise, fall, and rise again of Carson Beck could potentially be the case. Tell me about Carson Beck, your quarterback, what you've seen from him and kind of the whole year that was with him as your quarterback. Because whenever he goes to your place, and obviously it's outside the building, there's a lot of drama immediately about Carson Beck. I think he gets his car robbed. I think a lot of other things happen. People start burying him. You guys lose a couple – you aren't perfect. It's like this guy stinks. And then all he does is seemingly just keep showing up like the rest of your squad.

28:25Pat McAfee:Can you tell me about your quarterback a little bit and the decision to bring him and now where you're at? Well, if you watch film on him in 23, like it's off the charts. He's ripping it all over the place and leading that team to high-level victories and a great season. And in 24, it just seemed that offensively, you know, they were – and a great team, obviously, have been outstanding for a while. But you could tell they were off offensively. There were some guys down on the offensive line. Protection wasn't holding up as it was before. And then the receivers, you know, there wasn't a connection there.

28:57And then he gets blasted and gets hurt. We had enough people that knew him, knew of him. The background check was awesome. And he's like an elite human being and elite competitor. And he's got elite traits. And he's got a lot of experience. And we felt that if we could surround him with the right offensive line, the right pieces outside in a strong running game, that he could get back to elite form. So the guy's awesome. The guy could give a rat's you-know-what about all the outside noise and people talking. And I think that kind of rubs off on his teammates. They're cut of the same cloth, the same type of DNA.

29:31So this guy's been nothing but awesome for the University of Miami. And I'm really happy for him that he's continuing to push on and have an opportunity to go get another 1-0 because, again, that's all he cares about. He doesn't care about personal accolades and awards and all that stuff. He just wants to win, so fired up for the guy.

29:50Pat McAfee:Yeah, your wide receiver crew is awesome. Marion Daniels, Malachi, and then obviously you add in Fletcher and Brown and offensive line that has 6 '9". Is that what Bell is if I were 6 '9"? Yep, 6 '9". 6 '9". And then I think you got what? 6 '6", 6 '5", 6 '7", and then like 6 '7 on the other side. We're pretty large up front. We end up getting some big dudes. But you know what? They're athletic, jumbo athletes, man. These guys can run. Their metrics are really high level. Some are off the charts. You know, the bone density of my Noah is like that of like a brontosaurus. You know what I mean? And so, and you know what?

30:35And they approach every day like they're nobodies. And they like getting pushed. You've seen Coach Mirabal off. It's a lie. Coach, man, he gets after their butts like it's day one freshman just trying to earn a spot on the scout team. You know, that's why they're great. They just, they're all about it. And you know what they do? They do a great job helping us find the right guys to come in after them in recruiting. They're really good with that.

30:56Pat McAfee:I love to hear that. Passing down the baton of a great offensive line is, once again, great culture from an offensive lineman. I would expect nothing else. They're always with the ball carrier, too, whoever it is. We've noticed. And obviously, you see that on film. Anytime you're big guys, like when Quentin Nelson got drafted to the Colts, Quentin Nelson was picking up the wide receiver who had the ball. This guy's 20 yards down the field. First person to him was Quentin Nelson chasing the ball, chasing the ball, chasing the ball. It was like, holy hell, this sets a standard. Every time you guys score or any time you guys have a play, these massive jumbo humans are in the end zone with their teammates.

31:30Pat McAfee:It feels like you have a very tight group, and it feels like that offensive line does lead the way. Now, you have a very busy schedule coming up before the big college game, so we appreciate you taking time. On that note, a little different than Indiana's week, it feels like. Go ahead, Ty.

31:42Jeff Passan:Yeah, Coach, in terms of preparation, are you treating this week as a traditional home game? or do you have to kind of tweak things a little bit because it obviously isn't a traditional home game? I mean, I understand having the blinders on, but I'm sure you have all the players are dealing with family, friends, asking for tickets. Obviously, there's just a bunch of pomp and circumstance and bullshit surrounding the team being down there playing at home. So what is the preparation like going into Monday's game? It is no different than any road trip and has road trip mentality. And I'll tell you, you just mentioned a lot of the reasons why, But, you know, the parents, you know, we we engage them with messaging early that we're shutting down all the outside stuff.

32:24And as it relates to tickets and everything else, because we have great families. But, you know, like anything else, right, everyone wants to be there and be involved. And they've been awesome and understanding, knowing that we we're going away. We're going on lockdown. We do what we do. It's a road trip mentality. We get to use our home facilities, right. Our, you know, our practice sites and whatnot. now and we get to play in our home stadium but we're actually on the other side and in our away uniforms you know and those are dynamics that you know the way that i don't know the dna of our team and the way we practice and prep that kind of stuff really doesn't factor in you just kind of lay out the dynamics for everybody today we take them and lock them down after practice in our hotel so we have our three days to ourselves handle media handle practice just stay in preparation man everything one or no mentality and uh you know really just dive into what uh what we're we're playing against which is an awesome football team is this what you've done every single game of the college football playoff same exact setup the exact same setup it hasn't changed at all and you know it works for our guys you know for it's kind of neat for our guys they're experiencing the equivalent of the old school nfl season right 16 games and they've been great and you know what we've done a great job taking care of the bodies and at the same time just letting it rip at practice man and cutting it loose and being physical and never losing that part of our team you know never compromising the physicality and the work with come that comes with you know being able to to play your best on on game day being able to balance having an edge and keeping people

33:55Pat McAfee:healthy is a fascinating dynamic your team obviously been able to figure it out last question here about the you as a whole go ahead connor yeah coach there's been stuff about you

34:04Jeff Passan:know your president ceo joe etreveria and it feels as though he was a massive part of you coming to Miami. There's a couple of press conferences where you actually talk about it. What does he mean to just the program and the school and how big of a role is he going to play, you know, in the football team going forward and just the continued success of the University of Miami? Yeah, he sees the massive reason of why it was, number one, I had the privilege of being offered the opportunity, but then eventually choosing to return, you know, because that was a difficult decision in terms of just life family dynamics you know i've been a selfish son of a bitch my whole life so it is what it is but uh it's always been miami it always has been but it had to be right and not in terms of me and my contract and you know i don't i'm not uh and all the money stuff is you know it's just not like football and being a miami hurricane's always been everything to me and the bottom line is i i feel like me anyone that played here we were young knuckleheads man we were and coach jimmy johnson erickson all these guys they shaped us they changed our lives forever so i owe miami and i think all of us that went through her we owe miami and it had to be done right but but we had to have a man right at the head of the whole thing um that was going to be able to provide us with all the resources to make it Miami like come into modern day football because Miami had lag behind Miami had completely abandoned ship and let's call it what it is man I couldn't go to the grave without Miami being Miami again that's the bottom line and that's why I came but Joe Echevarria his leadership uh his engagement his involvement his passion for it like the whole objective is to take Miami you know we're progressing we're getting better we still have a long ways to go but brother that guy is a hungry dude and he gets after it um and what I could I couldn't ask for a better situation man so it's uh in lockstep throughout this whole thing good for

36:06Pat McAfee:you proud of you man I couldn't go to my grave without seeing Miami back Columbus High School obviously getting a lot of chatter your high school photo you're hey strapping lad strapping lad tell me about the mauler that was fernando mendoza senior as a high school teammate yeah that's a great great team right there great offensive line uh fernando mendoza senior was a great player you see alex mirabal there number 65 he was a great player man a lot of some of those other guys were some crazy rounders but they were really good players as well but we uh we won the district we won the sectionals we actually played against the number one team in the state beat them you'd be proud swirling wind we punt they muff it we recover it kick a field goal three nothing carlos huerta drives it through the uprights and then uh we got beat after that against carol city um and uh but unbelievable memories man it really really was all right well hopefully you get to reminisce a little bit after the game uh with former high school teammate and obviously his boy who's going to be on the other side he's representing miami well too up here in Indiana, we'll have you know.

37:13Pat McAfee:He's been great for our community, great for our society, and obviously great for football. So, muchos gracias to Columbus High School. Your Spanish is still suffering. You didn't give me a de nada right there. Isn't that the answer? Hola, aquí estamos, mi amigo. Muchas gracias por Columbus High School. You got no shot, brother, but we'll work with you. We'll get you ready. And I do want to say this. I appreciate you guys having me on. I know well. Again, very much appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Go Cains. Thank you. We love you, Coach. We've been following your team this entire playoff run. It's been an honor, dude.

37:50Pat McAfee:You're the best. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Cristobal. Yay! Coach Cristobal. He is the man. He is the man. I thought I was going to do a little Spanish conversation there. I like to showcase the depth every once in a while. If we ever have a French speaker on, I will certainly do the, bonjour, ça va, ça va bien et tu? You know, the whole thing. Just so we can show that we have range. On that note, speaking of range, that guy's a beast. I mean, just you name it. We appreciate how transparent he's always been with us, and we also appreciate how great his team is down there at the U. Having the U be all the way back, even though he doesn't like saying that until they win a national championship, he doesn't want to say the U's back until a national championship banner is hanging.

38:24Pat McAfee:That is like his kind of thing. He got real mad at Scott Van Pelt. Do you remember that? Yes, he did. Oh, yeah. Real mad at Scott Van Pelt for saying the U's back. Now, SVP and he, friends, I don't think he's getting publicly mad at anybody he doesn't like. So, like, that is something I think a lot of people took a little bit too serious. But he is very locked in on Miami being all the way back. And congrats to them. They've got a tough Indiana team they've got to face in a big college game. Now, to get to that big college game, we've been giving away opportunities all week to win two tickets.

38:52Pat McAfee:Now, today will be the final contest to win a pair of tickets to the big college game on Monday. Today's might be... Yeah.

39:01Jeff Passan:Yeah, not might. It is. The best.

39:03Pat McAfee:Today will be a hashtag PMS SeatGeek relay. The way this will work, Mitt, Talk, Bill, and Bone will run a 4x293-yard relay. That's an interesting yardage, you say. Well, it was one that we didn't know before we measured it out with one of those roller things. 293 yards each lap does feel like the perfect amount. Each runner will complete the Thunderdome dash, which is a 293-yard sprint from the putting green right here. There will be a launch zone. You see the taped-off area? That is the launch zone right there. They will start in that particular square. The on-deck circle will be right next to it, and then the other two runners will be lined up off to the side.

39:41Pat McAfee:You will start on this putting green. You will sprint out of the Thunderdome, and then you will touch a wooden post at the very tip of the property of the Thunderdome straight out the front door. It will be a straight sprint to a wooden post and then a straight sprint back. Now, the terrain.

39:57Jeff Passan:Why don't you peek your eyes outside if you see what's going on right now, by the way?

40:01Pat McAfee:So is there snow?

40:02Jeff Passan:It's snowing. It's a slippy track.

40:03Pat McAfee:Okay, so the weather is what it is. There's a little snow. There's some reports of it feeling like it's 16 degrees outside. It's cold. There's some reports of it feeling like 20 degrees outside. And the terrain that they'll be running through, not only the wood here in the Thunderdome, then the carpet in the Thunderdome, then there is hard pavement. Then there is a good drop-off of a curb, and there is another batch of hard pavement. Then you've got to get up over another curb onto some grass that is basically a pasture. That thing's up, down, up, down, up, down. And then there's a drain grade out there.

40:34Pat McAfee:So it actually goes down like this and then up like this at the very end. This is going to be like the steeple race. This is going to be something that is going to be very difficult to accomplish. Each person, four of them, will run one up and back. The time will start whenever their foot hits the wood to start this thing. And whenever any body part of the final runner touches the green. Obviously, right now, you will be putting out your guesses. only five entries per Twitter account per X account. I apologize for calling it Twitter. That's it's unbelievable. It's called X though.

41:08Jeff Passan:Well, yeah,

41:10Pat McAfee:but it's always going to be Twitter.

41:12Jeff Passan:Yeah,

41:12Pat McAfee:so it gets a little difficult. Anyways, that platform is where this is all happening. Use the hashtag PMS SeatGeek Relay and project what your guests will be in time to the second. Now let's meet the four runners. Shall we? Here is the team. They'll be competing. First, we have a six foot tall, 190 pound man named mitt now he's all jacked up ready to go he runs four miles a day at seven minute mile pace now speaking of running a lot of miles this man runs six miles a day on the

41:40Jeff Passan:treadmill this is your college classmate yeah and he is duck footed that might help him out that might be the end of him especially when you're talking about that terrain out there that's six

41:48Pat McAfee:foot two talk and then here's bill bill's a powerhouse five seven two hundred pounds now Now, back in the day, they called him Big Mudder because in track, he did have some gas.

41:58Jeff Passan:Yeah, I believe, and I don't know if this is corroborated, I think he has the state record for 4x1.

42:04Pat McAfee:And the anchor. A man who said, I need a Subway sub for the graphic to let people know that, yeah, I do eat. I am a big body. I'm D-Bone. 6 '4", 335 pounds. Wow. Former D3 national champion. We got athletes out here. We got four guys that, well, we got three guys that work out very regularly. Okay? The first three guys work out very. Oh, the first three. Two a days. Two a days, Mitt does. Yep. Long-ass day talk. He'll run six miles, then does four. He's like two-and-a-half-hour workout guy. Bill's doing three a days. Yeah. Okay? Actually trying to become a ball of muscle, we believe. So we don't know how that will affect him running.

42:48Pat McAfee:Actual track guy in high school, though. Has some records at his high school.

42:51Jeff Passan:Yeah, he's got photos.

42:52Pat McAfee:Yeah. Yeah, it's a wild thing. And then he got D-Bone.

42:55Jeff Passan:That's right.

42:56Pat McAfee:He's been jumping rope for three days. The body's been back getting active. We don't know the last time he was wide open. He is young, so he just thinks that his body is still 100%. He's 25, and he's a D3 national champion. He's the anchor. We'll be excited to see how he finishes. Whenever a body part of his touches the green, it'll be over. So it starts whenever they leave the green. It ends whenever Bone touches the green. What is this second? I'll be the one keeping track of the overall time. Tone will be keeping track of the individual lap times because there is a lot of competitions within the Thunderdome happening on those particular times.

43:31Pat McAfee:A lot of money on that. There will be five-second penalties for exchanges that have to happen. For instance, the next runner has to shake the hand of the current runner twice and cannot step into the launch zone until the current runner, X runner, is completely out of the launch zone. Only two feet can be in the launch zone at one time. And you must leave bang throughout. a fall plus five seconds we do not want these guys trying so hard that they fall any injuries plus five seconds we would like them to be careful as they do this but we do have great fear that they are going to be wide open out here and that field's going to beat them yeah yes take that into account 293 not easy yards joining us now ladies and gentlemen is a man who might have some ideas because from my understanding and my experience this might be one of the best business people that i've encountered not only because of his work at deloitte which is obviously a professional services place where he oversaw 70 000 people or something like that in professional services and you know he's just joey from the bronx that's right they say and comes from a single mother works his absolute ass off and climbs through the business ranks and then he gets the opportunity to become the president and ceo of the university of miami and all you see now is cranes everywhere and their sports teams blowing up a man who seemingly has it figured out, could be retired and on a beach smoking cigars, instead on a beach also influencing the future of furthering of education and also overlooking an entire health system.

44:55Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, the president and CEO of the University of Miami, Joe Echevarria. Yeah! How you doing, Mr. President? I am fantastic, Pat. How are you guys? Good. Did I nail the intro? I want to make sure I get everything right because there's so many accolades. I want to make sure I get them right for you because I'm so impressed by the work that you've done legitimately I want you to let you know that well you did it not as well as your 10 meter dive was but you did pretty well hey not bad there I had to find a balance you know there was a moment there was a moment I thought about turning around going back you know there was a moment I was uh thinking about turning around going back I was trying not to look down I was looking out at the students out the students then I accidentally looked down saw where I was headed oh boy that's some really clear water I'm seeing the bottom of the pool how deep is this pool I need to know how deep that is so it was a wild time a moment that i'll have forever and your university was so kind to us and you were so kind to us as well the conversations the information i thought uh we were very lucky to meet and i'm very thankful you're joining us today let's talk about it obviously miami is hosting the national championship on monday your team is in that what does that mean for your school what does that mean for your university and whenever you take over and decide to kind of go in the direction that you go is this dream scenario for the university and for miami as a whole here so it's pretty magical for us as you can imagine you know one thing that people don't realize is we started this journey on december 6th of 2021 literally that's when we picked up mario and his family in eugene oregon and landed in miami uh airport um december 7th we get invited to the college football playoff so it's exactly four years so it's extraordinary for the city it's extraordinary for the university but as mario likes to say we're here now and the objective is to stay here.

46:37Stay here meaning let's continue to be relevant. It happens to be in our city. You know, we won three of our national championships at the Orange Bowl. So we like being at home. We're not the home team, but we are at home. So it's pretty extraordinary for us. The city has gone crazy. There's nothing like this. Look, you know this and your guys there know this. Nothing galvanizes a community like sports. All the differences get put aside. All the rivalries get put aside. And everybody is singly focused on the University of Miami.

47:06Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's talk about sports. Feels like you, whenever you take over president and CEO of Miami, understand like, hey, if our sports teams are good, that's good for the university as a whole. I think down in Alabama, whenever Nick Saban signs on to be their head coach, the president and leadership said, hey, we think the football team's growth and development will be great for our university. You, always seemingly knew sports would be great for the university. And what is the tie between having good sports and like kind of the rest of the campus and everything. It felt like that was a main focus for you.

47:39Pat McAfee:Is that accurate, Reed? Yeah, it's very accurate, but all three domains. As you know, we talked about this when you're down. By the way, I haven't disappointed you, but you called me a suit that day. I'm still wearing a suit. I know, yeah. You are president and CEO. You're like super suit, actually. But I don't want to know. I've still got a suit on. It's not the same suit, but I got a suit on. Very accomplished super suit, I would say. So not all suits are bad. Yes, go ahead, sir. So anyway, so, you know, we're in three things, right? What most people think of as a university, the academic side, the research side, that needs to be great.

48:08It's extraordinary. We have an academic health system. That's what we were yesterday. It's top 10 in the country today. It wasn't a few years ago, but it is now. And athletics. And athletics lifts the entire brand of the university for us. We have a storied program, football, baseball, but some other sports. So it was important to be great at all three. So we're focused as all three. this show is about athletics and i love athletics you know me you talked about in the beginning i'm just a kid from the south bronx so for me it's extraordinary but it's all three it's not one or the other you know that you logo that you have up that was built by athletics that was not built by anything else and athletics raises the brand and the consciousness about the university of miami it wasn't that way when i went to school in 1974 at the university of miami nobody called us the U.

48:55Nobody knew who we were. In fact, they called us suntan U back in those days. So it changed the architecture of what people think about us. It's an extraordinary accomplishment, but it's part of three schools. Pillar of academics and research, pillar of health system, pillar of athletics. They all matter. All three.

49:13Pat McAfee:Each of them have their own job, seemingly for you guys to be in one of the best places I think I've seen a college be at a private institution as well, obviously, so everything's self-funded. Everything kind of comes together. Your ability to do business while also So having empathy and understanding of what's going on around you and self-awareness seems to be your superpower. But let's talk about your business acumen. We're in a world now of NIL, right? NIL, this new business, business, business world. You guys are in the ACC. Nobody really talks about the ACC other than a couple schools tried to exit the ACC.

49:42Pat McAfee:I think Florida State, the number was like going to get$750 million of private equity. And they were going to use that to buy themselves out of the TV contract to try to get to the SEC or something like that, allegedly. That was a couple years back. didn't end up working out. There's a lot of crazy business stuff happening in the world of college sport. How much are you involved in this? Feels like your voice should have a lot of say. And in the ACC world, how does navigating it all as the Big Ten and the SEC are seemingly the ones driving most of the conversation? A lot to that. So you're right.

50:13You're right, Pat. And part of it is the brands and how much viewership they have because you're right, it's a business, right? So the networks, the streamers, ESPN, one of our great partners, obviously, They're looking at viewership, and viewership is what drives the contracts. So I tell people all the time in the ACC, we're playing for our next contract right now. Right now, we need to improve the viewership top to bottom. We happen to be one of the top viewed programs, but nevertheless, the conference as a whole needs to continue to invest in athletics so that we can have that success on the field.

50:46I'm quite proud of the fact that the ACC is in the championship game. We had to beat some teams in the SEC and the Big Ten to even get here. but we did so i think that proves that the conference is very competitive from top to bottom so we're proud of that um but the truth of the matter is football college football and sports in general has not found its equilibrium in terms of market forces a little dislocated and all the professional sports at some point have to find equilibrium where you move from a control process to a partnership all the professional sports have a partnership the The value today of being in the NFL is different than it was when you played, when AJ played.

51:25The value of being in college today is different than when you guys played, when you played at West Virginia and AJ played at Ohio State. That's what happens when you can create a partnership and some alignment. So I think the next step is to find that equilibrium, and we have to find it in the ACC, as do all the conferences, and we have to rise all the boats. And until we create that market equilibrium, it's going to be a little bit bumpy ride. Look, Major League Baseball, Kurt Flood, you're not old enough to know who Kurt Flood is. Oh, I know Kurt Flood, please. Kurt Flood started the challenge.

51:56Andy Messerschmidt and Dave McAnally finish it off in the 70s. They get some equilibrium. The big old Oscar Robinson starts it for the ABA and the NBA merger. They get equilibrium. John Mackey starts it for the Colts. Reggie White finishes it off in 93, and that group gets equilibrium. We're still on our way. we haven't got yet to that equilibrium because we're still functioning as independent conferences. But the bottom line is this. We, the member schools, remember, we are the NCAA. We keep talking about the NCAA. No, it's the member schools. We haven't won a market-based litigation since 1984.

52:34Oklahoma and Georgia beat us in 1984. We tried to control TV rights. They won that case. We've lost virtually every case since then, which means we have to let go of that model and we have to create a partnership model just like the professional sports have that's that's a long journey though they didn't get there overnight we're not going to get there overnight but i feel good about the trajectory and where it can go all right sounds good so

52:56Pat McAfee:you're going to get that done hey we're going to get that done okay i like to hear that i like to hear there is a little optimism and maybe a road to some back-end control or i'm sorry not control back-end partnership that can keep everything kind of rolling forward because the sports College sports are only up and to the right. I mean, sports are up and to the right as a whole. So we've got to make sure we're able to keep that on track. And we also got to make sure we keep all the sports in college that we have. Sports are good. More of it better than less sports. So if we continue to kind of just let things spiral, it feels like, you know, what's good for the gander is good for the goose.

53:33Pat McAfee:And some people got to really think about that. And I appreciate the fact that you seemingly have a plan. So this offseason, after you guys either win a national championship or end up losing in the national championship, which is an incredible run. Need to go where? Congress? You've got to go to Congress and say all this? What is even the first step for that, Mr. You have, I'll try to use some acronyms. I apologize. You have SCORE Act, which is something very specific, but the Broadcasting Act. The Broadcasting Act is where the Major League Sports get antitrust protection around revenue so that you don't have to negotiate TV contracts as five conferences.

54:07You can do it as one. So you need broadcasting rights, which gives you the antitrust exemption. The next thing you then need to do is you have to create a collective bargaining partnership with the players. That will help everybody rise up. Today, the share that we do is$20,$22 million in the house settlement. That's what universities now can pay. But the outside market has no cap on what it can pay, obviously. And so you have to take that next step and create where both sides become partners to each other. That requires some form of collective bargaining for players. It cannot be one by one by one by one because that creates sort of this sort of dynamic where you have a lot of chaos, if you will, in the marketplace.

54:48And it's not fair to everybody. It's not fair to the players in particular. There's about 4 ,000 kids, I think, in the transfer portal. There's not 4 ,000 opportunities. But that process is dislocated. And so that's kind of where it starts. it's not going to be a one year thing or a two year thing, but we have to recognize that we have to land in a different place than we are today. All of us. I don't mean the ACC. I mean all the conferences and all the schools that want to participate at this level. Joey, you're a dog, dude.

55:15Pat McAfee:I appreciate the hell out of you for joining us. A president of a university, obviously talking actual business that presidents of universities are going to have to figure out that affects the sports world. I'm very grateful for this convo and I'm very grateful for our relationship. And I'm thankful that you brought Mario Cristobal back to the U. because it feels like the U is back, even though he doesn't want to say that. Thank you so much. We'll see you on Monday, boss. Is AJ there? No. You can deliver a message, though. Well, tell AJ I forgive him, but he's got to give me back that 2002 national championship.

55:44Hey, you're a businessman. He is as well.

55:46Pat McAfee:We'll see how that negotiation goes. You're the best. Ladies and gentlemen, that's President Joey Echevarria. Yeah!

55:53Jeff Passan:Woo! Dog. Yeah, what a weapon. That's genius. Curtis Flood, Cardinal I believe

56:01Pat McAfee:he started and this happened Mackie comes in then this happens ABA, Oscar Roberts and then this happens we need this one then we can do this it's not going to be a year thing, it's going to take a while this dude's a weapon, really cool guy, great energy and then you learn his story, it's like he wasn't supposed to be this guy he decided and worked his ass off and he's on it he was in a suit, but I did immediately go suit and then just kept walking and then he afterwards was like, hey, come on. I'm in a hospital all day. I have to wear a suit. Yeah, it was a cool convo. He like sought me out basically and it was like cool to talk to him and once I learned he was the president of the university, I was like, oh, so sorry I said that to you.

56:44Jeff Passan:Yeah, makes sense. You probably shouldn't be wearing sweatpants.

56:45Pat McAfee:Yeah, I'm happy you don't look like an asshole like I do but nonetheless, you're a good suit. I appreciate what you're doing. You're doing great for sports and for the U. That university is beautiful down there. Yeah. It's a resort that has like very high end. They got it going on. When they win an Addy, we shall see. Hour 2 on the other side. Be a friend, tell a friend, something nice.

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58:02Must be present in certain states. Visit ProjPicks.com for restrictions and details. 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!

58:49Pat McAfee:This podcast features Mario Cristobal and AJ Hawk and Pat McAfee and Jeff Passan.

59:05Pat McAfee:One half of the hammer. Dead! Oh, they might have a little bit better one than us. That's not true. This is stage now. One half of the hammer. Dead! See, Tone, you could participate to maybe make it sound good and represent for us. But we lose a guy because he doesn't want to do his own intro. That's interesting. They got four. We got three. It is a strength of number. We lose an entire vocal box because old buddy's too humble. Stage is too humble maybe to keep up with them. Now stage one more time. One half of the hammer. Dead! See, that's going to be tough to beat because I came in a little bit afterwards, carried that thing a little bit higher, and then Con Man came in with a right hook.

59:36Pat McAfee:Now behind the glass, one half of the hammer. Done! Oh, see, they weren't ready. No, not at all. We had them.

59:42Jeff Passan:Not from the gut either. I say down every time.

59:45Pat McAfee:Oh, no. We got a weak voice out here. It's Honey. They say the strength of the pack is the strength of the weakest wolf. Feels like in this particular case, we're losing to behind the glass because the man who's supposed to be chanting for himself just can't be heard. Stage only, one half of the hammer. Done! Did you mute yourself? I don't think your mic is on. I muted him. I just wanted to make sure that Tony was actually saying it. Oh, you muted all of us. Yeah. Okay, did he say it? I didn't hear it because I was yelling, too.

1:00:13Jeff Passan:Maybe Tony just goes on his own this time.

1:00:15Pat McAfee:Okay, just Tony. One half of the hammer. Oh, you son of a bitch.

1:00:21Jeff Passan:All right, maybe we don't do it anymore. Oh, you mean I'm saying how it's supposed to be said, you dickhead? You're supposed to yell it, brother. Yes!

1:00:27Pat McAfee:You're supposed to give it a little bit of juice. This is not supposed to tear us down, boys. This is supposed to rally.

1:00:31Jeff Passan:Now it is, and I hate the back room about this now, too.

1:00:34Pat McAfee:It's bullshit. Foxy talked about this the other day with us. If you're from where we're from, I just go into full attack mode. Yeah, Foxy did mention this. I mean, I guess it was kind of a read of Yinzers, I guess, that he's been around. Not all Yinzers, I guess, but just the ones that we do. Pretty much all of them. If you just point something out about the city of Pittsburgh, the Steelers, the Penguins, anything that involves Pittsburgh, and you just say a comment about it that might be a little bit negative. They're not going to rebut that or defend that or have an excuse for it. No, they're immediately going, screw Detroit, screw Michigan, screw the whole state, and screw you.

1:01:09Pat McAfee:And that's how it goes. You punched the punching bag yesterday and got a one. So Michigan will be buried for that forever. That thing's broken. We are an offensive city. We will go into offense. You have some offense? Sick. That was cool what you said. We have some ideas too. Bang. We're going right back at it. And I guess that is a pretty good character trait that we have that could be viewed as a negative in some situations. Yeah, or positive. In some situations it's positive. There's other situations where it's not. For sure. Somebody maybe didn't know that that was definitely going to happen, so they take what you're saying to them as like, do you hate me?

1:01:46Pat McAfee:You have to take offense to everything. No, no.

1:01:49Jeff Passan:You have to take offense to everything because if you don't, then when you get caught off guard and someone's just completely shitting on you to your face, you don't even know. That's the difference between Michigan and, I hate to say it, Indiana and some of these Midwest. You're right. Basically, everything to the west of Ohio, you can make the argument. And I'm not including Texas. Texas is its own state. You'll get shot down there, okay? But I'm saying everything to the left of Ohio.

1:02:14Pat McAfee:That's why they call them nice in the hospitality you're saying. Bingo.

1:02:17Jeff Passan:It's the Midwest hospitality. Bingo, yeah.

1:02:19Pat McAfee:They're nice people. Not everything is a potential shit talk straight back. Joining us now is in Ohio. Bingo. Folk. I mean, to a T. Ladies and gentlemen, he's a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion. He is not one half of the hammer. Cowboys, A.J. Hawk. Yeah, Hawk. Do you think that's an accurate descriptor of Yinzers or just most people east of maybe the most western tip of Ohio, whenever you say we go on offense in return? It's definitely a regional thing. I feel like certain groups that may react, I guess, quicker and just with more violence, I guess verbally that can happen.

1:02:57That's a Pittsburgh thing a little bit, which is fine, though. It's what makes Pittsburgh great, though. Yeah, some people might not like it, but it's also what makes you great.

1:03:03Pat McAfee:Yeah, that used to be old Twitter. You know, somebody would talk shit to me on Twitter because he could say whatever, and then I would do research, and I'm coming back. Oh, yeah. You know, and they're like, classless. I'm like, this guy's allowed to say whatever he wants to me. I didn't know that that wasn't possible. I think going back now on therapist Foxy's read here. Foxy? Yeah, Dr. Foxy. I think I'm going back that that was inevitable I guess and we gotta acknowledge that

1:03:28Jeff Passan:we gotta acknowledge that

1:03:31Pat McAfee:there's nothing wrong

1:03:33Jeff Passan:with verbal violence when it's to people that you know even when it's people that you don't know Michael Scott has a very famous quote about this about friends and just how everything works it was from a very early on season so I'm not going to say it but I will say TV was a little different. It was much different. And maybe it's because I'm re-watching the office right now. What's the gist of it? You don't call your friends idiots. You call idiots your friends or something along those lines. Okay. And look, that's just a point of verbal violence. That's a point of jousting. How are we supposed to get better?

1:04:08Jeff Passan:How's Foxy supposed to get better? Focky? Focky. How's Focky supposed to get better if he's not verbally jousting with people who have been doing it his whole life?

1:04:16Pat McAfee:And that's sports in a nutshell. Uh-huh. You know? Yeah. Shit-talking's good. It's competitive talking. Yes. It's nice to compete. Speaking of competing, we've got the biggest competitions in the history of this NFL season coming up tomorrow and Sunday. A twofer on Saturday, and then, oh, yeah, another twofer on Sunday. A little bogo here, actually, on both Saturday and Sunday, divisional round weekend. Buffalo Bills, Broncos, San Francisco 49ers, and the Seahawks are on Saturday. We talked about the 12th man being on display on Saturday night. We are pumped for the world that maybe doesn't get to watch all of NFL football, get a chance to see a massive game out there in Seattle, AJ.

1:04:53Pat McAfee:We talked about that in the first hour in a big way. Yeah, I want to see how do these teams, not only Seattle, how do the Broncos, how do they come off this bye week? We had all that talk in the college football playoff about the teams. Indiana's the only one to come off a bye and find a way to win. So that's a thing in the NFL that they have to deal with too. And obviously, Sam Darnold, what the hell is going on? Do we have any updates on him? That comes out of nowhere. Questionable is a big one. Huge. Questionable, right to questionable is crazy. and it was mentioned in the first hour. Out of nowhere, Sam Darnold questionable for their playoff game Saturday versus 49ers due to an oblique injury.

1:05:26Pat McAfee:Then whenever he was jogging on the field, there was a video I saw where he had a Theragun, but I think he was on the outside. I don't think it was necessarily on his oblique, so maybe that's just standard warm-up for him, but he was jogging out to practice. Was this during a workout? Was this during a practice session? I don't think we know much.

1:05:42Jeff Passan:For what it's worth, and he's usually pretty good about this stuff, Pro football doc Dr. Dave Chow said that this is about a 2 out of a 10 for him in terms of whether or not he's actually hurt, not going to play on Sunday.

1:05:55Pat McAfee:Okay, well, we move on then. We just think – because pro football doc, we've had him on the show a couple times. Him in the lab. I don't know what it's called.

1:06:05Jeff Passan:The Sports Injury Institute or something like that. Laboratory. It should be called a laboratory.

1:06:10Pat McAfee:Yeah. Him and other ex-sports doctors sitting in a room back-to-back to each other with a bunch of screens around him and then basically just eyeballing injuries from, you know, wherever they're sitting and going, man, that looks like a, what do you think? You think that's like a PCL? I feel like that's probably a PCL. Let's just wait till he gets up. Ooh, wait on his outside. Yeah, he might've got it actually. Our determination is what they did. Our determination is that he sprained his PCL while potentially tearing his meniscus. This is anywhere from a two to four week injury and this will be the recovery, but not a catastrophe.

1:06:43Pat McAfee:That is what they do basically all year for all sports. It is actually quite a weapon. Now, I have, I don't want to put their shit over too much, but I don't think I've ever seen them actually be wrong. No. No. And they'll stay away from things, I think, that they're like, ah, we don't know what that'll be. But anytime they've opened their mouths about something, they have seemingly been right. Now, I'm sure throughout the history of their business, they've been wrong somewhere. I assume there's a tweet that was wrong or a misread because it's hard to diagnose something from thousands of miles away.

1:07:10Pat McAfee:but whenever they decide to speak normally, pretty spot on. Two out of ten is what he said? That's what he said, yeah.

1:07:16Jeff Passan:His level of concern was a two out of ten. I just sent in, yes, there's that. I also sent in Darnold talking about how he did it and his percentage of chance to not play. Hey, let's run that.

1:07:27Pat McAfee:Do we have that right now? Yeah, obviously, you know, just in routes on air, just kind of felt a little something out of the week. Just didn't want to push it. But, you know, it wasn't the day to push it. So that was it.

1:07:44Jeff Passan:So just came inside, got some rehab, and, you know, feel like I'll be ready to go for Saturday. That was just today that happened? Yeah. Have you ever had anything, oblique issues or anything before? No, no, never had oblique issues. But it's fun. You know, we'll attack it the next couple days and be ready to go for Saturday. Is this on, like, throwing side? It's just on my left side. You know, it is what it is. But, yeah, again, like I said, felt it on a throw. But, you know, we'll be ready to go. What percent of you thinks you might not play? Very low percentage. Probably closer to zero.

1:08:23Pat McAfee:Any other questions? Sam Donald's playing. Yeah. That was a good question. Good question. What percentage of you might not play? So, left oblique? This is oblique? So, he must have been, like, torquing around to throw just routes on air and something just grabbed on him? Because, you know, if you get that.

1:08:39Jeff Passan:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right there.

1:08:40Pat McAfee:Jack, don't. And that thing is just like, not today, Sammy boy. Okay. We've been doing this all season. Let's go ahead and relax. And he gets that Theragun on it. Oh, there's a spot right there.

1:08:57Pat McAfee:All right, we hope he's okay. So he was listed as questionable for the day? Is that how these things go? I think so, right? Because we've experienced this year. If there was a game that day. If you don't, we did this with Lamar. If you don't complete the entire practice, you have to be listed as at least questionable. Limited. Or limited, yes, yes. Limited. Which limited equals, if you were limited in practice, that equals questionable, I believe, on the injury. I don't know. We need to learn more. We cover it every day. I mean, this is what people say whenever we're just assholes on the air or whatever, but it is like a very interesting thing they seemingly move the goalposts for.

1:09:29Pat McAfee:When do we have to judge who as what and what are they? There was a penalty coming. Ravens almost faced like a draft pick compensation penalty because they maybe falsely listed Lamar Jackson one day. And did they do it on purpose or did they not do it on purpose? Is this a game? How many people are doing this and why is it so confusing? Sam Donald just told me he's 100 % playing. Why is there a cue next to his name? My brain's not good enough to understand that because when I see questionable in my head, I go, oh, it's a question on whether or not he's going to play. Yeah, it makes sense. But then Dr.

1:10:00Pat McAfee:David Chow comes out and says,

1:10:02Jeff Passan:That's two out of ten.

1:10:03Pat McAfee:And then Sam Donald comes out and goes, zero out of 100. percent that I missed the game at all. It's like, well, why is there a Q there? That doesn't matter. We got to figure that out further. And by we, I'm saying the NFL is going to figure that out. And I would just like to offer up myself as the standard doofus. I just think that that is a little confusing for me. And I don't want you to just change for me. I assume there's a lot of people. Feels like he should probably be a P. He probably going to play.

1:10:27Jeff Passan:That's what they need to change. He's probable or doubtful. You know, one of the two. Two quarterbacks played this This year with a strained oblique, it was Mac Jones and Baker Mayfield. I saw some Seahawks fans saying, hey, Mac Jones threw for 300 yards with a bad oblique. We should be just fine.

1:10:43Pat McAfee:Okay, let's pivot away from the divisional round weekend and then the big college game. And, A.J., I don't know if you've seen hashtag PMS SeatGeekRelay. Oh, yeah. What are you talking about? That's all anyone can talk about. Darius Butler sent us a video of him watching it either in an airport or a very public place. But the hashtag PMSC Geek Relay is today's contest for two tickets to the big college game on Monday night down there in Miami. We've given away three pairs of tickets already. Today will be the fourth. And today's one is going to be the most electrifying, AJ. Mittalk, Bill, and Bone will run a 4 by 293 yard relay.

1:11:19Pat McAfee:Five second penalties will be assessed as they are timed for each runner doing the Thunderdome dash. Which will be a 293 yard sprint from this putting green. Right here, AJ. Standing in that box will be each participant. They will sprint across the basketball court, down the hallway, which Zito is currently just at the exit of. There will be a camera outside shooting. They will sprint through the double doors, through the other double doors that are bulletproof and padlocked. Yes. Through both of those double doors, across the driveway, then across a pasture to the outer tip of the Thunderdome's property that we literally just sold to the city because they're making a roundabout right out there.

1:12:02Pat McAfee:That's right. You will touch that wooden post. Then you will have to run back. It's called a roundabout out here. Rotary, maybe over there in New England. Run back all the way in to this green right here. And then once all four are completed, that'll be the final time. You just have to guess to the second what it will take these four gentlemen. Now, AJ, let's meet the four participants, shall we? Yes, please. running the Thunderdome dash. First runner leadoff will be made. This dude once played D3 football for... For DePaul. DePaul. For DePaul. Yep. With a W. And here's an Emmy Award winning editor, Age.

1:12:45Pat McAfee:Talk is going to be the surprise of it all, I think. Don't you think? Yeah, talk can run. He can probably run 100 miles and not even sweat. Yeah, and that's real. We don't know if he can do any type of terrain. He's only on a treadmill. And speaking of terrain, this guy has all of them. The ball of muscle, Bill. His name was Big Motor back in high school because he was a track star. And then we got a national champion here, Bone as the anchor, AJ. I mean, I know Bone has been – he's very confident in what he can do. Does he feel – is he still feeling really good about this, about him being the anchor here?

1:13:17Pat McAfee:Bone's been very confident because Bone's bringing him home. And Bone home. Bone home. That is kind of what it's going to be. So if you can perfectly predict the time it will take for Mitt's foot to leave that green and Bone's body part to touch the green and the other two runners in between, you could potentially win two tickets to the big college game on Monday.

1:13:45Jeff Passan:Boom.

1:13:45Pat McAfee:If we get 10 people to get it accurate, the first 10 people to get it accurate will be put into a pool. We will randomly select one of them to win the final pair of tickets that we're giving away. Awesome stuff. Thankful that we're able to do it. And I cannot wait to watch these boys do their thing. Quick question. I'm sorry if I missed it because we talked about it earlier. Is this seconds or tenth of a second, a hundredth of a second? Just to a second, not tenth of a second. Yeah, we were going to do tenth of a second, but we thought that might be tough. So just to the second. And Bone is getting ready.

1:14:12Pat McAfee:He heard what you're questioning, and he's been out there touching his toes. Oh, that's gross.

1:14:17Jeff Passan:That's gross. What do you mean? Someone clean underneath where he's sitting down. because I've seen those white tights before, and he had quite the morning. We'll just say that.

1:14:28Pat McAfee:He did have quite the morning, which included preparing for this particular relay. I'm pulling for Bone, honestly. The other three are very active every day. Like, maybe the most active people I know. Oh. But Bone's been jump roping, I thought. Three days. Three days of that. Is three days enough for a 25-year-old? Talk runs six miles every single day on the treadmill. I hear every single step of it. Six miles every single day. Mitt's running four miles plus full workout day. Bill's doing three a days right now, including cardio. The three guys leading this off, I would say they would say in the best shape of their life.

1:15:06And then Bone is the anchor.

1:15:09Pat McAfee:And Bone's 25, and that's what he's been banking on this entire time. It might be a little bit of a wake-up experience here for Bone about life as a 25, 26, 27, 30, 40, 50-year-old in this entire thing, or that D3 national champion heart and that D3 national champion mind will carry him through as he glides to that post and comes back. He was a track star in high school.

1:15:30Jeff Passan:Yeah, that D and D bone stands for determination for sure. I don't think people understand how bad the terrain is. If it was Darius Butler running from here to the post, I'd be worried because of the ground itself, the amount of little mounds, little divots, Like cross country in high school Exactly, I'm not going to say no one's going to finish But I do worry about the time If someone blows an ankle out Or a knee out And me and Ty standing out there Maybe having to go and kind of helping them get to the finish And I can't do that Because that would not be right You gotta let them finish on their own So you gotta take that into consideration When you're guessing as well

1:16:10Pat McAfee:And also remember we're adding five second penalties To the entire group for every failed exchange on the green here. There has to be two hand shakes between the past runner and the next runner. And the runner that just finished has to be completely out of the launch zone before the next runner can get into launch zone. If that is failed, five-second penalty. If they fall, five-second penalty. If they get injured, five-second penalty. So you've got to factor in all those things as well, AJ, because we're putting these penalties in so that they take them serious. Exactly. Hey, don't fall, okay?

1:16:47Pat McAfee:We don't want you to fall. You don't have to go all out and fall. Don't get hurt. That's not cool. We're at a very important time right now. We need everybody here. And then on the exchange, have a little chivalry here. A little bit. Have a little respect for the Thunderdome Dash. Shake hands with the next person. Wish them good luck. Get the hell out of the launch zone and watch the show.

1:17:07Jeff Passan:But also, if they have any pride, go as hard as you can. Well, also, it's cold as shit out there. So you're not really going to be wanting to dilly-dally.

1:17:14Pat McAfee:Weather report coming out of the Thunderdome. Feels like 16 right now. Wind goes up to 20 miles an hour. 75 % chance of snow. I already seen it. You know, people are talking about Chicago this weekend. We're pretty close. Yeah. Yeah, we're pretty close. Normally, we get the weather before Chicago gets it. You know, because usually it's good. Everybody thinks, you know, because the jet stream is west to east, which is true. Feels like a lot of this stuff comes, like, up and at them from the west to the east. Very similar weathers between our state and their place. It might be the home of the Bears, actually, Indiana.

1:17:46Pat McAfee:It probably should be. Might be the case. But nonetheless, it feels like 16 outside. That's the only degree I need to know, by the way. I'm tired of them telling me what the actual degree is. Yeah, tell me what it is. Because that's not what it actually is. What it feels like is what it actually is. Correct. Who's the actual one for? Not humans? Like, who cares? What's the equation to make the feels like situation? Yeah, exactly.

1:18:09Jeff Passan:The DiNardo edition, right?

1:18:12Pat McAfee:Yeah, but I don't need to know what the actual weather is. Just tell me what it feels like. It feels like what should be bigger. All I know is what it feels like. That's all I know. If I walk out, this is what it feels like. They always do the actual one big, and then they do feels like small. It's like that should be reversed. It should be feels like one big, and then actual one bottom, just in case scientists want to do any experiments or anything with the actual temperature that I can't feel and no other human that can read what's on the screen can't either.

1:18:39Jeff Passan:Yeah, I feel like it's just solely for record high and record low purposes because we get that on top. Wow, look at the record high. This is the coldest it's been in 85 years here in the state. There's really no other reason to give the true temperature other than that type of stuff.

1:18:55Pat McAfee:Scientific record. Right. So that's cool. For scientific record, that should actually be what it says. For scientific record, the actual thing. I just want to know how it's going to affect me. I have eyes. I don't know if the scientific record does. I'll text Cantorius. Joining us right now, Jim Cantor needs to get to bottom that. Donato would have, and everybody needs to think about him when they're making these decisions. We'll miss you, Joe. Joining us now, we do. Rest in peace, Donato. God, Donato. You did such a good job doing what you did. Rest in peace to you, legend. I'm actually thinking, never mind.

1:19:24Yeah, keep that one in.

1:19:25Pat McAfee:Donato degrees, perhaps?

1:19:28Jeff Passan:The feels like one? Donato's. 34 Donato's outside.

1:19:32Pat McAfee:Yeah. Just like that one guy was the amount of pylons. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen. Speaking of, same number. Unbelievable. He does not deserve that. Yeah, he's last year right. This guy, geez, he doesn't even know what you're talking about right now. Exactly. And I'm sure he does feel offended. Joining us, ladies and gentlemen, is the voice of a sport that an entire generation likes and appreciates. Has complete tone. You don't need to be laughing at what he just did. Yeah, he got it.

1:20:00Jeff Passan:I just realized who was coming on. Yeah, Tony got it. I mean, he's put a bomb on me.

1:20:04Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, the authority on baseball, friend of the program, Jed Pass. Jed, I don't like what he just did, brother. If you have anything to say about anything, anybody you'd like to kill, myself included, go ahead. Let's just get it out of the way before we get started here. I have no desire, Pat, to kill you. I've just been wondering this entire time why Connor is wearing a hat that makes him look like a penis.

1:20:28Jeff Passan:Grow up, Jed, okay? It's called football, man. Look into the history of it. This is what they used to wear, brother. called Leatherhead, man. Have some respect for the people that built the NFL. Yeah, it does have a pain in shape. Respect for people that built the NFL. I do not have respect for men who wear that in 2025. I do have respect. Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's 2026. It's 2026, bitch. It is 2026. I haven't gotten much sleep. I'm sorry. It's all right. It's a good thing. Everything's going to blur. I'm sorry. I was just smitten by bone. What a unit. That guy is going to be the absolute superstar of the relay.

1:21:10I am so excited to see it. The truest anchor I've ever seen. It's like the size of the three other guys combined. It's tremendous. That's the scale, too.

1:21:21Pat McAfee:I don't know if you saw the silhouette beforehand. I don't know if anybody knew who was going to be the anchor. Incredible work here on the motion graphics. The thought of these guys leading us in this, the final contest for the ticket giveaway for the big college game, it just feels right. And it feels like it could get a bit out of control, which leads us to your sport. The Dodgers are just going to buy every single good player and they're going to ruin the game. And now baseball's over. I put out a tweet last night after I saw this massive signing and deferral payments and over$2.1 billion now in total salary, I guess, on their roster.

1:21:57Pat McAfee:I said the Dodgers are so good at baseball. I mean, they got all the good players. They're so good at baseball. the responses were very negative to me and to the Dodgers as a baseball operation. What does this mean? Why does it mean it? And how did this get done, Jed? It's a lot for you, but if you could explain why I was getting murdered for what I said, please. Well, let's start with the dollar figures because that is why, Pat, they were going after you. And, you know, we saw last year with Juan Soto getting$51 million a year over 15 years, setting a new mark for contracts, not just in baseball, but across all of major professional sports.

1:22:35It was an enormous deal, and I thought it was going to be a long time until that average annual value was beaten. It lasted all of one year because there weren't a whole lot of deferrals, $30 million out of the 240 that the Dodgers gave Kyle Tucker for four seasons. It takes the average annual value down to$57.1 million a year. This looks like an NBA contract. It looks like a supermax. It's one of those types of deals. And the reason that the Dodgers are doing it is very simple because Kyle Tucker is 28 years old and they are getting those prime seasons. And in the case of Juan Soto's contract, had he gone for something shorter term, he might have gotten 70 or 80 or$90 million a year in this market.

1:23:18He chose the long-term guarantee. What Tucker gets is the optionality with opt-outs after years two and three, where if he can get that longer term deal and go back out onto the market after a great season, he's going to do that. I think the anger, Pat, from baseball fans is understandable. It is warranted and it's illustrative of where the game is right now and what both owners and players need to do as the collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1st. Baseball needs to listen to its fans. and what its fans are saying right now is this system that has worked and operated with no salary cap for the entirety of baseball history really has been wonderful to players and it's been great to the game and you don't necessarily need a cap to achieve what fans want.

1:24:14That at the end of the day is what this story needs to be and what it should be about. that fans right now feel like this game is unfair. And if enough fans, and we're talking 29 fan bases, we're talking Yankees fans, Red Sox, Cubs, Padres, everyone looks at the Dodgers right now and the way that they are operating, which, by the way, is within the confines of the rules. But sometimes rules need to adapt. Sometimes rules need to evolve. Sometimes rules need to reflect what the modern society is asking for in the sport. In the sport right now, baseball fans want to feel like when they go into a season, their team has a chance.

1:24:56And right now, because the Dodgers have won two World Series in a row and have gone out and signed the best free agent on the market in Kyle Tucker and the best closer on the market in Edwin Diaz, they don't feel like they have that opportunity going into the season. And it's not just the fans, Pat. The players themselves, I heard from players last night, Like, how do we beat the Dodgers? And baseball is the kind of game where the best team doesn't always win. It's just happened to the last couple of years, and the fear is that it's going to happen again.

1:25:25Pat McAfee:Okay, so thank you for all the information there and for breaking it all down. Dodgers doing what is legal in current baseball, you saying what 2026 calls for has to be a different system. Now, what happens to all these contracts? Because isn't the CBA up in like a year, and what would the move be? There would be a basement amount of money that has to be paid, and then there will be a ceiling on the amount of money that's allowed to be paid. So a salary cap has to happen. So like Pittsburgh Pirates fans, our owner has to spend this amount of money and then the gap between what has to be spent versus most allowed to spend is much smaller.

1:25:56Pat McAfee:Is that what their next negotiation is? And what are all these deals that are deferred for 15 years? Shohei's deal, he's not getting paid really until 20. Yeah, most of it's deferred. So that would be after the new CBA. So how does that kind of all play together? and what is the fix to make people happier or feel optimistic about their teams? Because I think there's a few of our teams in here where we're not really optimistic ever to begin with. So we would like to feel optimistic at some point as well. When does that answer happen and what happens to baseball if it was to happen? So here's the likely way it's going to play out.

1:26:28December 1st, 2026, the collective bargaining agreement expired. And when it does, unless there is a deal in place, their major league baseball is going to lock the players out. This happened back in 2001 going into 2022. It was problematic. They did not lose games. The positions that have been staked out by both sides are this. Owners want a salary cap. They look at all the other major men's sports in North America and they say they have salary caps. Why don't we? Salary caps would bring some semblance of competitive balance to the game. Now, I don't know that that's entirely true. That presupposes that a salary cap causes as opposed to is correlated to parity and to evenness and to fairness, so to speak.

1:27:16Players, on the other hand, look at it like, hey, we have a system right now that's paying Juan Soto$755 million. We have a system that's giving Kyle Tucker$60 million a year. Do we really want to change that? Do we really want to limit the earning power of players and limit the ability to make the kind of money that they are right now? Major League Baseball argues that, hey, under this system, you know, players are going to make even more. But you guys know how salary caps work. They start at a fixed percentage of revenue that's given, and every negotiation is just ownership trying to take that percentage down and down and down.

1:27:53The first deal in a salary cap you get is the best. Players don't want to open that Pandora's box. The real question at the end of the day is where do they find compromise? Can they find compromise? Or are both sides going to take this sport and drive it off a cliff? Because ultimately, what do they do this for? Yeah, they do it for the businesses on the owner's side. Of course they do. They want to make money. On the player's side, they do it, yes, to make money and yes, to win championships as well. But really, they do it for the fans, because with the fans, they ain't got nothing. And fans right now are feeling alienated.

1:28:28They are feeling disaffected. And everybody involved, players and owners alike, need to listen. Listen to what fans are saying. Listen to each other and try and find some sort of compromise that's going to prevent baseball from doing something that it's going to deeply regret if this labor war turns into what it could.

1:28:47Pat McAfee:So you're saying for the good of ball, we need to figure this out because what? There was the. No, I'm not. I'm not saying there needs to be a salary cap out. No, no. You're saying for the good of ball, though, this shit needs to be figured out, obviously, for the good of the fans, for the good of ball, all that stuff. Yes, I agree with you. Absolutely. And it's, dude, it's easy for me to sit here and say that I don't have any stake in. I'm not invested in baseball. I'm not trying to make money playing baseball. But everybody needs to understand this is a universe that people will escape if you don't give them what they want.

1:29:19Pat McAfee:Yeah, fans have proven, especially over the last like 10 years or so, that they will say, nah, we're not doing that anymore. And almost protest actively what you have going on. Obviously, hopefully for baseball, that's not the case. I don't know if you're getting an update right now. We will certainly love it. Yeah, I just got some news. JT Real Muto is going back to Philadelphia. Three years,$45 million. Come on. Hey, congratulations. Real Muto's, real deal. That's a good gift. That's a great gift for Philadelphia. One of them, Boston. Is that 15 per there? Is that what that is? 345? Yeah, yeah.

1:29:50That's what it looks like. And look, the Phillies were in on Bo Bichette. And Bo Bichette earlier today, you know, we talk about Kyle Tucker's deal, four years and$240 million. Bo Bichette got three years and$126 million from the New York Mets. So, really, the fallout from the Kyle Tucker deal last night, he goes to the Dodgers when everybody was thinking it's going to be the Mets or it's going to be the Toronto Blue Jays. The Mets turn around and they pivot to Bo Bichette and bring him into an infield that was filled already. But they needed a bat to protect Juan Soto and their lineup. And the Phillies were in on Bichette.

1:30:23They now go back to Real Muto, who's been their catcher for a half decade and has been part of all of the great things that they've done. It's interesting times, man. Like, I think baseball is in such a fascinating place right now. And as bearish as some fans are, based on what happened yesterday with Kyle Tucker going to the Dodgers and with them seemingly getting anybody that they want, there are solutions that can be had if you have people going to the table in good faith and having the same goal in mind, which is to preserve all of the great things baseball has going for it and to build the game and to really reward fans who invest as much time as they do in this sport.

1:31:07that lasts for six months. And that demands two and a half to three hours from you every day. Baseball's a lot, but it's worth it.

1:31:15Pat McAfee:It's a lot. Okay, so on the point of agreeing at the table in good faith, the players that don't want the salary cap or the money to change right now that it is, they're just going to say, the team you referenced there, the Mets spent the most and they didn't even make the playoffs. So if it's just spending money, how come that's the argument immediately, right? I assume from Dodgers and from those people. So then how do you get everybody at the table to agree? Who knows? All right, good luck. Good luck over there. We're pulling for all parties for the good of all because we're getting interested.

1:31:41Pat McAfee:But there's another story out there that you guys have. Arbitration or something, which is a wild thing that baseball has that no other sport that I know has. Go ahead, Ty.

1:31:48Jeff Passan:Yeah, Jet, is there any kind of update on Tarek Skubal? Because I think a lot of people assumed that he was going to be traded at the winter meetings like any of the reporters you talked to. That was obviously a hot topic of discussion. Then we saw his ARV number was much different than what the Tigers wanted to pay him. Is there any update there? Because I think that, you know, the Kyle Tucker thing is one thing, but I think if Scoobal were to get traded to the Dodgers, which is kind of what everyone just assumed when this first got brought up, I think that would send things into much more of a fever pitch.

1:32:22Jeff Passan:What's going on there? The Scoobal situation, I'll lay it out accordingly. And it's fascinating because Tarek Scoobal is the best pitcher in the world. He and Paul Skeen's both. I mean, they're absolutely incredible. And the way arbitration works, guys, is that after your third year as a big leaguer, you essentially get to argue for your salary. You can say to the team, I believe, based on past comparable players, I am worth this much. The team then comes back and says, we believe you are worth this much. Ninety plus percent of guys wind up settling somewhere in the middle. But those that don't settle can go to an arbitration hearing, which is where you have the two sides.

1:33:06Each has given a specific number of salary that they want. In this case, Tarek Skubal has put$32 million out there, higher than anyone has ever gotten into the arbitration system. And the Tigers countered$19 million, which they believe is fair based on the comparables. And they essentially spend three hours arguing back and forth in front of a three-person panel. And at the end of the day, that three-person panel picks which side it wants. There's no in-between once you get into the hearing room. So you've got this enormous gap, this enormous disparity. And the most fascinating part to me is that Tarek Skubal is one of the eight players on the Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Subcommittee, which means he is one of the eight most powerful players in baseball because he's going to be sitting at the bargaining table across from Major League Baseball as they're trying to hash out all of these issues.

1:33:59And this is almost like Scoobble saying, as players have in the past, you know what? In the position that I'm in right now, with as much juice as I have as a player, I'm going to go and try and make gains for the player population. I'm going to go into that room and the lawyers around me are going to argue to this panel that I'm the best damn pitcher in the world. I have won two straight Cy Youngs. How can you possibly not pay me at the level of other players like a Zach Wheeler who's making, you know, 40 plus million dollars? You know, like a Dylan Cease who this offseason signed for 30 million dollars.

1:34:37They're going to be those comparable players. And Scoogle, because the system allows players in their final year of arbitration to compare themselves to free agent contracts, he's going to go in there and do that. And if this gets to hearing, if there is no settlement, it's going to be an incredible decision that I think is one of those pieces that when we look back historically on this, I think the Tucker contract is going to be one of those flashpoints. I think the school arbitration case, we're building all of these interesting elements that ultimately are going to lead to this negotiation that's going to chart the course of baseball going forward.

1:35:12Pat McAfee:We appreciate all the information on baseball. Baseball is interesting. Baseball is cool. Off the field, baseball is awesome as well. The most ever given in MLB arbitration,$31 million to Juan Soto, who settled with the Yankees in 2024. Shohei Otani set a mark at$30 million in 2023. Okay. The highest ever awarded in a hearing was lower, though. $19.9 million, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Okay, there it is. Don't test me, McAfee. I appreciate and respect your knowledge there. So when Skeens walks in this thing, this is going to happen to Skeens, what, after this season? Yeah, after the season. Oh, no.

1:35:51Pat McAfee:And then this would be when he would be gone, huh? No, we're signing him for a big deal. No, no, no, no, no. You got four seasons of control of Paul Skeens. He has now, because he won Rookie of the Year his first year, he got a full year of service, even though he wasn't there opening day. That's essentially an incentive to call guys up at the beginning of the season because if they win an award, they get that full year. But after that third season, Pat, you go into arbitration for three different years. And so Tarek Skubal is in his third year of arbitration right now. And then that deal is for how long?

1:36:25It depends. I mean, what if the team doesn't want to pay it? They have to or they'll trade the guy. But that's what I'm talking about here. In this case, though, Pat, arbitration is still like the salaries are dwarfed compared to free agency. That first year of arbitration, you know, because it's based on past comparables, you're not looking at much more than, you know, eight to ten million dollars. Like that first year is still going to be depressed. That second year is still going to be depressed. That third year is when he could go out and ask for a lot. But, you know, the aphorism pad is true.

1:37:00There is no such thing as a bad one-year contract. And I think those shorter term deals with Kyle Tucker and Boba shit sort of illustrate that, you know, teams are much more willing to give those high dollars for those prime years than they are to pay a guy when he's 38, 39, 40.

1:37:19Pat McAfee:Interesting. Or they could be doing salary cap gymnastics like the NFL folks do, where the more years you can spread out the money on. And the only thing that really matters is the first couple. It's a wild time in baseball. We'll certainly follow it. You're the man. Ladies and gentlemen, jet pass. Hey, baseball's always got something cooking. AJ, what'd you take from that convo with Jet there? The arbitration situation is crazy because you sit there like the player is in there, I think, a lot too. So they get to hear all the terrible things being said about them. And you're trying to, you know, present your case.

1:37:48The team and them are trying to say, this guy's awful. He's terrible. We want to pay him the low amount. And then you're an agent and you have to argue how good you are.

1:37:54Pat McAfee:Scoobo, obviously, dog Detroit. Fifth richest owner in the baseball is Detroit? Yeah, fifth or fourth. Okay, so top five richest owner in baseball. so that conversation maybe goes different. Skeens walks in there and then somebody from the Pirates is going to say, he's not worth it. Who's going to say that on that side? Nutting's got no problem from the cut of his jib. I know, but think about Paul listening to that. Are you fucking kidding? Because to your point, having to hear that. You know, that's why people have agents. So agents can do the negotiation because the negotiations are pawn stars.

1:38:24Pat McAfee:The episode, you're the thing on the table. And you know, Dave? There it is, bald Rick. still a little... Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Father... Gone. Rest in peace.

1:38:39Jeff Passan:Son, I believe, gone. I don't know.

1:38:41Pat McAfee:Whatever. I watched Pawn Stars. I ran through the entire thing.

1:38:45Jeff Passan:Yep. That's a good run. Great run.

1:38:46Pat McAfee:Great run. They did phenomenal stuff. Anytime you brought in an expert, if I was the person selling it, I ain't fucking believing this guy's an expert. What are we talking about?

1:38:52Jeff Passan:Medieval weapons expert?

1:38:54Pat McAfee:No, he's World War II's second battle in the Pacific Theater expert. Who said that? Who said he said... He's got a certificate right here. Anyways, he says this thing, 200 bucks. So I can give you 50 bucks for it. Maybe 35 bucks is what I'm thinking. A really niche group of buyers for this thing is going to sit on the shelf for a long time. That's who you are in this negotiation for any of these negotiations. And arbitration crazy. Baseball always hot.

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1:41:02Pat McAfee:Speaking of hot, I mean, the competition's about to be heated. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to give away our final pair of big college game tickets. As the Toxic Table will make its way to its broadcasting location directly outside of the Thunderdome. we will ask the competitors our relay team to make their way out to the green here they obviously dressed in a fashion in which you would think to yourself wow those guys look like they're ready to go run those guys look like they're ready to do something for the people bone obviously sporting a tank top bill with the short shorts and the tights talk potentially going to freeze out there showing a lot of skin and a lot of meat and then you got mitt obviously wearing the white tights in the super cool shoes, brah.

1:41:53Pat McAfee:These four will obviously be taking part in the Thunderdome dash. Right now, you can use the hashtag PMS Seek Geek Relay and try to predict how long it'll take these four men who'll be doing a relay like style run. Stop stretching. What do you mean stop stretching? More stretching. They're all sitting here to this fake stretching like they need to do. That's not fake stretching. That's real stretching. I'd like to see some hot knees and butt kids and stuff out here. Hey boys, remember Remember, you will have to leave from the launch zone. Two feet only in the launch zone. Do not overstep. It'll be a five-second penalty.

1:42:27Pat McAfee:If you trip outside, five-second penalty. If you trip inside, five-second penalty. If you hurt yourself, five-second penalty. Do not hurt yourself. Is that clear? Yes, a lot of yes, sirs, in case you guys couldn't hear them. Yeah, they all agree. Do you all agree to do this? Yes, sir. Okay, all right, good, good, good. Careful if you get hurt. There's some chance a real catastrophe happens with this pasture. Now, final guesses can be put in, and I assume right now we will cut them off at, let's wait until 144 for any of the final guesses. This is where we will be running from. We will be running from this green across the court, down the hallway, outside the Thunderdome, where Connor and Ty will be reporting.

1:43:11Pat McAfee:Boys, how's it feel out there?

1:43:13Jeff Passan:It's very fucking cold.

1:43:14Pat McAfee:Very cold. There's no joke out here. Yeah, it doesn't look like it's snowing, though. It's not snowing, right? No precipitation?

1:43:19Jeff Passan:That is correct. Precipitation has ceased, and it doesn't look like we're going to have any more anytime soon.

1:43:25Pat McAfee:Okay, I believe we also have a view from back where the post will be that they have to touch. That is a drone. If we can get the drone to be shooting back towards Thunderdome, I think that would certainly be the proper way to look at that. Don't we think? I agree. Even where the tree is, looking back through the wood. See them running to you. Yeah, but I do like the fact that we have a drone out there to make sure that these guys ain't cheating. Got to touch the wooden post, boys. I didn't know we had the capability to have a live feed to a drone. Yeah, we have a live feed to a Zoom, to a view outside.

1:43:59Pat McAfee:Let's not show that. And let's... Boom! Yeah, there we go. That's the view right there for the drone. They would be touching that wooden post, which is 146.5 yards away from the green. All right, boys, get in your positions.

1:44:22Jeff Passan:Here you go, boys. Hey, good luck. Oh, we got a fire truck taking off right now.

1:44:26Pat McAfee:And we appreciate the boys' service. We might need that, actually. Over there at the fire department. Mitt, you were actually in the launch zone. talk who will be going second is on deck mit whenever your foot hits the wood my clock will begin for the overall time tone will be doing the individual lap times for you guys to compete amongst yourselves if you'd like to put hashtag pmsc geek relay and who you think will have the fastest lap you'll win an autograph thing from the thunderdome exact time for all four in the relay could potentially win you two tickets to the big college game on Monday.

1:45:04Pat McAfee:Mitt, are you ready? Mitt has been running four miles a day, seven-minute mile pace for this moment. Can he show up for the people? Will he have the fastest lap? It is on you, Mitt. Ready, set, and go. He's off to a quick start. Good start. Good heel drive. Boys, he's right past you. How's he look? You got to move. You got to move. Oh, a good step down. Here comes the terrain. Ty, you got to get out of the way. You're directly in front of the camera, I believe. as Mitt is running. He's almost to the wooden post. Maybe the drone shot. Yes, here he comes. He's lost track of where the post is. He's missing the post.

1:45:40Pat McAfee:We might be at the wrong post. The drone is at the wrong post. That is the greatest thing of all time. We assume that Mitt... Oh, no. The right ankle might be bumped. He might be blown in the air. What can FedEx do for you in the back? He's dragging that left leg. Oh, no. There's a big up. Get up over the curb. Well done. Here it comes. What's happening? There must be two handshakes in the transition era. Mitt not trip. Good work. Good work. That's a clean transaction. No five-minute penalty. No way. There's no way. That's not how he runs. He's cold. He's screaming coming out here. Oh, no.

1:46:20Jeff Passan:He almost just tripped. It's a bit. It's got to be a bit. Nope. This is how he runs. Ty, you got to move. Ty. It's got to be a bit. He does not run like that. There's no way, man.

1:46:32Pat McAfee:Six miles every day. Con man, this is what he's prepared for. Yeah, I don't know if he's prepared for this court, Pat.

1:46:39Jeff Passan:His nibbles could cut glass right now. Look at him.

1:46:42Pat McAfee:It feels like he might start bleeding. He is now wavered from the direct path. A massive thank you to the police that just honked at talk. They probably think something's wrong. Nothing is wrong. A man is completing a Thunderdome dash. He's been prepared for this moment, Thunderdome. This is what we hear those feet clapping on the treadmill for. This finish, this go home right here. I've never got actual eyes on his form until now other than on the treadmill. Yep, this guy is a distant guy. Let's go work, Doc. Let's make sure we got it. Huh? Huh? And good work, Doc. That's incredible. And now Bill, formerly known as Big Motor, high school track star.

1:47:18Pat McAfee:Oh, he's happy. Holy shit. Gritted like the butcher. Oh, no. Oh, no. Over the terrain. He turned his ankle. Pretty good. and I think that's only the first time that's going to happen. He does appear to have a little bit of a left ankle lean. Touches the post, obviously. Good start with the left foot back. Bill, former track star, doing three-a-days, preparing for this moment. Ty Schmidt, the knee drive, arm swing, insane out of Bill.

1:47:44Jeff Passan:Yeah, I mean, Bill looks like an Olympic runner compared to these two other guys. I got to say it, I'm very impressed by Big Motor.

1:47:50Pat McAfee:Here comes Bill, seemingly flawless, unless he hurt his ankle. Good stride in Bill. Now can they get... Oh, wait a minute. I don't know if two feet were out before the anchor. Boom! Bring him back. Holy news! Bring him back. To the one... Oh, my gosh. D1 athlete. He's going the wrong one. D3, sorry. He said the path less traveled is a C, not A to B. Takes a looping effect at it. Maybe misses some of the terrain. Conman, your thoughts as bone whisked by you.

1:48:23Jeff Passan:I mean, top to bottom, this guy's thicker than a$2 steak. I cannot believe the movement he has, though, and the terrain not playing as big of a factor. These guys are battling out here. Bone is finishing.

1:48:33Pat McAfee:Ty Schmidt, what is your message to Bone as the anchor of the relay here starting to celebrate early? Bone, get those jokes moving. Come on. I want to see them bouncing. What's he talking about? He's talking about his knees. Obviously, we need to see his knees bouncing. Here we go. Come on, Bone. Final steps to the hashtag PMS SeatGeek Relay at 335. 335 for the boys. Incredible work. Incredible run from the beginning to the end. Boys, you should be incredibly proud of yourselves. Go ahead and take a bow as you try to catch your breath. The crowd says, thank you for your performance as the Toxic Table makes their way back into the Thunderdome.

1:49:17Pat McAfee:3.35 now. We do have a replay on the exchange between Big Motor and Big Bone. Oh, we're going to have to watch that again. I do not know if Bone waited for all of Bill to be all out of the loading zone. There might be a five-second penalty. Their finish was 3.35,.81, very close to 3.36. Here's the replay. Do we think Bone was in when Bill was? because maybe one foot and one foot each, we said only two feet allowed in there, because I think maybe one foot of bill was out, one foot of bill was in, one foot of bone was in, one foot of bone was out, so technically two. Huh, interesting. I think it's good.

1:50:05Pat McAfee:It looked clean from here. Razor close. Yeah, what do you think, Aids? What would you vote? I think they're good. I think they're good, honestly. I think they got it. I don't think they deserve a penalty there. I don't think so either. So 335 will be the number. Boys, thanks for bearing the elements out there. and broadcasting for us. It was an honor.

1:50:19Jeff Passan:I mean, I cannot believe watching those guys come through the door. A lot of different vibes. By the way, Mitt, silent, deadpan, nothing going on up here. Talk, though. Talk. He was ready for the cold. Bill smiling. Big time. Bone, I think. As soon as he hit those doors, he realized I ran way too fast to get here. I'm not going to be able to finish. It felt like we saw

1:50:41Pat McAfee:it at the end. See, what I watched out of Bone there is a guy who's done football conditioning before. Did you not see that, AJ, there? Oh, yeah. You can tell. You can tell. I feel terrible, but I'm going to finish this. I have to finish this. And he even gave out a little fake energy while he's still out in the pasture.

1:50:56Jeff Passan:He was confident, too, because right after he came out the double doors, he screamed, I'm him, at the top of his lungs. He did. No, actually. Him! Yeah, so he was ready to go. Oh, no.

1:51:07Pat McAfee:Was that an I'm him performance? A 335, I think, is a good score from these guys.

1:51:11Jeff Passan:Not bad at all. I'm surprised. I'm interested to see the splits, actually, because it felt like, surprisingly, all of them are very similar.

1:51:19Pat McAfee:Okay, and the splits did not have the handshake. They had foot hitting wood to getting back touching hands, so there will be some differences there. Tone, if you would like to read through who had the slowest, which we think we know, and then who all the way up through who had the fast. Who do you think had the slowest?

1:51:37Jeff Passan:If talk didn't, then I don't know anything. It was talk. Yeah, I was going to say talk. Yeah, he looked the slowest. I don't know.

1:51:42Pat McAfee:A lot of steps. I guess he's not really going anyway.

1:51:45Jeff Passan:And he swayed because of those feet right there. That blew my mind.

1:51:49Pat McAfee:Talk is like a little bit of a DJ. His arms, too. His arms were crazy. He's like chopping wood, you know? They're coming in at the side there. But I like that he finished, you know? Head up, chest out. He finished strong. So Talk had the slowest. I think that should be something that Bone should hang his hat on. Here's Talk during his takeoff, which really got the boys buzzing. Good, clear two handshakes on a bit in Talk, which obviously all of it. And he was gone.

1:52:14Jeff Passan:Forward lean on him.

1:52:17Pat McAfee:It wasn't his start, I don't think, because his start might have been the best out of everybody. It might have been. Oh, my gosh. He was close to going down. One second faster than talk was Bone. Okay, Bone. Way to go, Bone. He's 25 years old. That's right. He's one of D3 national champion. Way to go, Bone. Three seconds faster than Bone, who was a bit stiffer up top than I thought he might be, was Mitt. Wow. You know, he does have a little bit more muscle. So 6 '1", 190, obviously. It looks good. It looks jacked. Yeah, and he's doing a lot of running. I think that's kind of a race against himself in every time he steps on that treadmill, which I respect and appreciate.

1:52:54And then 10 seconds faster than Mitt, the fastest by far, the form, the drive, everything, was our sprint star, Bailey McComas.

1:53:04Pat McAfee:I mean, big motor was glide now. He was. You know, I got this blue healer dog, okay, we saved from the Humane Society. This thing glides in the pasture. Looks like a horse, how it runs. Doesn't even make sound. That was Bill.

1:53:17Jeff Passan:Yeah.

1:53:17Pat McAfee:People call him Big Motor. He's more like a horse the way he got. God. I don't know if he got two feet in the launch.

1:53:23Jeff Passan:Yeah, you might have to run that back. Hold on. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

1:53:27Pat McAfee:Bill might have turned a corner there because he's too good of a track star. Might have taken less steps, but that was a part of the rules is two feet must get into the launch zone. Oh, yeah. I got that little toe. Perfectly. God. He mastered it. He's a sprinter. If he needs to do it again, the doors are still wide open. Yeah, we do appreciate everybody that was a part of setting that up. Zito production all the way through. The drone on the wrong post for the first one, the greatest.

1:53:50Jeff Passan:Yeah, awesome.

1:53:51Pat McAfee:That is how it should work. We will assume that Mitt touched?

1:53:56Jeff Passan:Yeah, I'd assume so. I think he might have taken a bite out of it, actually. Mitt says, oh, dude. Okay, so that's all you need.

1:54:04Pat McAfee:A couple news stories before we get out of here that need to be mentioned. Monday we'll be live from Hard Rock Stadium. We can't wait to get down there to celebrate the big college game. We'll be making our picks for all of the games happening this weekend on the other side digitally. But there's a story that you need to hear before you get to that national. Big motor, incredible workout. Hey, Bill. Hey, Bill. Hey, Bill. Coach Cignetti is an actual robot, an actual machine. What did we learn about him in the last 24 hours?

1:54:32Jeff Passan:He eats a Chipotle burrito bowl every single day. He's had about 500 of them. It started initially when he first got there. He walked up to his assistant's desk. He said, hey, you hungry? His assistant started talking. Boom, cut him off right away. Great, here's my card. Go to Chipotle. Every single day, I want white rice, black beans, chicken. Don't skimp on a protein. Make sure there's enough protein in there. And then a side of guac. Every single day. It just takes away one of my choices. You know, Steve Jobs, why you think he wore a turtleneck every single day. That's one less thing he has to worry about, okay?

1:55:05Jeff Passan:I don't want to be worried about, am I going to get Chinese? Am I going to get McDonald's? Am I going to get Burger King? All good. Yeah, all great options, obviously. I want Chipotle. I want to think about it. All I want is that bowling from me so I can sit down, watch film, and prepare for the next game.

1:55:20Pat McAfee:He's an actual football robot. Yeah. Crystal Ball earlier, we just want to play bowling, man. We don't care about anything. Signetti eating the same thing every day at the same exact time. My life is as it is. We asked Coach Sig for a couple different times to be able to talk to him. And, like, love you, but can we please? Yeah. Can we please? There's a big college game coming up on Monday. Can we please have a little? It's like, all right, yeah, you got it. You got it. I understand. I love how locked in they are. I love how great football is. And we got a great weekend ahead of us, AJ. It's going to be the best.

1:55:50I mean, this is, yeah. Like I said, the football season's coming to a close, but it's going to end in unbelievable fashion. I can't wait.

1:55:56Pat McAfee:The grand finale has begun. You know, when you go to a fireworks show, it's divisional round. Four games, two on Saturday, two on Sunday. Boom, bang, bang, boom, pow. Not one of those big ones. And then he got championship. Then he got the Super Bowl. We're in a great time to be alive. We hope you have the greatest weekend of all time. We'll see you on Monday. Goodbye. Kind of bars. Yeah. On that note, let's pick this weekend's games, AJ, shall we? All right. Yeah. I mean, that run was amazing. I was not prepared for Mitt and talk there. I was not. The running forms? More just talk. The takeoff and then everything after that for talk.

1:56:32Pat McAfee:Talk was committed. Yeah. Talk was prepared. I give them all credit. They all ran hard. You know the interesting thing about Todd, because he's a treadmill runner, you don't move. Right. So he just has to go up on the treadmill. Just up, up, up, up. Right here. Yeah, so he's doing a lot of just sidestepping as opposed to gaining ground. Sure. You know, like some people.

1:56:56Pat McAfee:He almost fell. A couple times, yeah. Wait until he comes back. He started to gas right there. You can see him. He's like, oh, no. Oh, I'm not used to running on terrain. Some people stride out on treadmills, you know, like running forward. He, I guess, does just kind of levitate above him. Consistate. He just kind of lets it skip underneath him. That's why he's not gaining as much ground in the real world. You put him on a treadmill, it sounds like that fucker's going Usain Bolt.

1:57:24Jeff Passan:Exactly. I mean, feet to pavement, hard. So I figured he was just going to, like, that was going to be second nature. Turns out it wasn't.

1:57:31Pat McAfee:Slow, he's long term though. A 293-yard dash, that's not Tox game.

1:57:37Jeff Passan:Triple that in Tox winning.

1:57:39Pat McAfee:I think Bill still got him there. Maybe we have a 5K next time. Bill showed no evidence of stopping. Yeah, Bill's three-a-days right now, dude. Bill wanted to keep running. Bill would have done 50 laps. Bill was pretty jacked up that he was provided the opportunity to showcase that this fucker can run. And he certainly can. He said the last – I've been wide open a couple times over the last few weeks. He did say that. Good to feel alive again, big motor. You know, Big Motor's been alive. I didn't know what to expect. He is. He is out there, wide open. He took advantage of his opportunity. I mean, Bill looked great there.

1:58:09I believe him. I know Big Motor's got plenty of records still in high school.

1:58:11Pat McAfee:This morning, we were setting everything up, and Bill was just gliding from one position to the other. I asked him for something. He goes, oh, it's in the locker room. Glides over there as like a warm-up run. Yep. Then he comes out. Oh, you need something? Glides across the thing. Go to his seat over here. It's like, oh, Bill is pretty primed to go ahead and glide. He's got a good little bop to him. He does. He's got a good little bump. The shoes, too, I think were perfect for the environment.

1:58:34Jeff Passan:Yeah, and he did. He had a Caleb Williams moment out there against the Packers. He turned that ankle going up that hill almost all the way. I thought he was going down in just a heap. He didn't. He ate it. He kept going and, I mean, blew the doors off everybody else. Yeah, he did. Not even close.

1:58:54Pat McAfee:Congrats, Bill. Hell yeah, Bill. Go work, Zeke. Go work, Zeke. A lot of wires getting run for that. Yeah. We like that. Long wires. We love that. Long wires. It's amazing how long they can make these wires. Longer to better. These wires are long. Really? The drone shot, the live drone shot, I didn't even know that was a possibility. Yeah, drone, I believe drone goes back to a device, like let's say a computer. You have your computer because you have an app open that the drone is going to. Then you can put computer on Zoom call, right? So then that feed is literally just the Zoom for everybody else.

1:59:29Pat McAfee:you could do this if you've already figured it out you figured it out but that feed is going live to somewhere you just got to make that the feed for the zoom basically now all of a sudden you got nice live feed you know shout out to the cops coming by the firefighters awesome the boys sprinting through the double bulletproof doors it's good news there's another one that comes down right in front of this court here that should have been maybe a mover like miniature golf

1:59:55Jeff Passan:Oh, yeah. Time it up. Bone runs right through it like the Kool-Aid man. Hole in the wall. Good show.

2:00:08Pat McAfee:Great show. I think we got enough space to build one of them. Definitely. All right, let's get to the picks for the weekend. Thank you for your – Did anyone ever win that show? Sorry. Yeah, we did as the viewer, which is why we like that show. Okay, let's go. What's that? Somebody's puking?

2:00:27Jeff Passan:Sounds like someone's puking right now. Get some eyes on the think tank. Bone had a ton of chicken Alfredo right before we started.

2:00:34Pat McAfee:Is Bone puking right now? Dwight Schrute? Zito, thumbs up that Bone is puking right now. Jesus.

2:00:41Jeff Passan:Put eyes on Bone. I mean, come on. I mean, I know it's cold, but I mean, there's toilets too. We all sit right there. Oh, yeah, I know.

2:00:53Pat McAfee:That trash should be taken out by somebody other than Bone.

2:00:55Jeff Passan:Him puking into the toilet would be better than him dumping in there too. We had to make him change toilets.

2:01:01Pat McAfee:Hey, Bone, thank you for pushing yourself to vomiting, man. Without a strength coach, that's a good mental toughness thing to be able to put yourself that hard. Do you need an ambulance? But also decisions. If we're eating chicken Alfredo before this. Well, he wanted to carve up. He was supposed to carve up, A.J. If you never played a sport. Yesterday, he was drinking bottles of water like they were Mountain Dew for him. And then last night, we think he carved up. He brought in these delicious cookies.

2:01:28Jeff Passan:Which he also had about 10 of. Which I don't know how you don't.

2:01:31Pat McAfee:these cookies that showed up in here from his household oh they're made incredible job incredible job yeah unbelievable work not safe to be in here no to be honest brownie cookie with chocolate syrup drizzled cooked in between mixture sea salt on top to open up the taste buds a little bit which is why that and it was so bones got no chance really if that's going to be around I don't know how you don't eat him. Morning of his big Thunderdome dash, I hope you stayed away from him. Yeah. I hope he did. And if you remember, when Guther attacked you at WWE Monday Night Raw and we hopped the barricade, I mean, there was some physicality in there, and Bone was so juiced up after, he puked after that one as well.

2:02:15Pat McAfee:Oh, so he's like Josh Allen. Yeah.

2:02:17Jeff Passan:Yeah, like if he moves, he pukes.

2:02:20Pat McAfee:That could defer people from moving.

2:02:22Jeff Passan:Yeah, exactly. Which I understand. Even hearing it. Even hearing the throw-up sound. Well, it's getting my stomach crumbling.

2:02:30Pat McAfee:Okay, so that's something. I do know that happens for some people. That sucks that that happens.

2:02:33Jeff Passan:It's the worst. I try to avoid it. I hate throwing up.

2:02:37Pat McAfee:Yeah, it's not a fun thing at all. Especially when you don't have anything in there. Which normally, he has stuff in there, we assume. Always.

2:02:44Jeff Passan:Yeah, I don't think we have to assume. Bo never has to worry about dry heaving. Let's just say that. What was he taking down again? a triple meat sandwich from Subway. Delicious, I get it, but we know he's full.

2:02:59Pat McAfee:Yeah. So when I would work out, when I would run to a point where I would puke, it would be because of soccer or whatever, you know? That thing was always yellow.

2:03:09Jeff Passan:Yep, just straight bile.

2:03:11Pat McAfee:Yeah, because there was nothing in there because I was scared to death that I was inevitably going to puke.

2:03:15Jeff Passan:Makes sense.

2:03:15Pat McAfee:I like that he didn't think the Thunderdome dash was maybe going to get him. Rolled the dice. He went for it, paid for it, and that's why we respect him. That's right.

2:03:24Jeff Passan:Guess what? Just puke. Whole new lunch coming in. I mean, that whole thing's out. Got to reload, brother. Get those bullets back in the chamber.

2:03:34Pat McAfee:We got two guys in a truck down there right now moving things out. We need stuff to be moved in. Stat. We appreciate you, Bone. And talk. And Mitt. It also could have been that icky mayo and lettuce he had on that sandwich, too. He might not know. Yeah, first time. I can't have a full mental toughness conversation here. The wrong sandwich from Subway came, and it had mayonnaise on it and lettuce. You know, we didn't. This isn't just triple ham. What the hell? I can't do it. That's my first time having lettuce. That's what he said earlier today with a straight face. Connor was in the middle of telling a very good story.

2:04:15Pat McAfee:D-Bone comes in with an icky face. Yeah. You know, like that, dressed like that. and he goes, no, it's my first time having lettuce, let alone mayo, and just everybody stops and goes, you're the most absurd human ever. How are you an adult? His food thing is very interesting. You can't just be looking at mayonnaise and almost puking, though. I think that is, we got to get through that.

2:04:39Jeff Passan:Also, lettuce is bad. Lettuce is a very easy thing to eat. Bone should consider maybe mixing in a salad every once in a while. Or just a piece. Like, hey, you can have just a piece of lettuce, okay? It's not going to kill you. And he says, like, the conviction that he has is what really gets me.

2:04:57Pat McAfee:Yeah, like, he's right. We're all wrong.

2:04:59Jeff Passan:Bingo.

2:05:00Pat McAfee:Yeah, and when we're like, you've got to expand your horizons, he's like, I can't.

2:05:03Jeff Passan:This is how I live. What, you want me to be happy? Okay.

2:05:06Pat McAfee:But he's incredibly athletic. He's very athletic. He has. I've seen it. He can run. We've seen it. I think Bone has it in him to be a specimen. Yeah. We'll see that after today, I think. I think he impressed himself. Fun fact, I don't know if the viewers have heard. Did you know who his father is? Ty?

2:05:25Jeff Passan:WWE superstar of the big show. Well! Yeah. Yeah. You didn't know that? I was not aware.

2:05:33Pat McAfee:I did not know? Yeah. Paul?

2:05:36Jeff Passan:Yeah.

2:05:37Pat McAfee:Yeah, WWE superstar of the big show. The big show. Yeah. Bone's dad. I mean, that would make sense because Bone, if he was to deliver it, it would be good. But the Big Show, though, he ain't puking after 293 yards.

2:05:50Jeff Passan:No, certainly not.

2:05:51Pat McAfee:The Big Show was like base jumping up onto the top rope at one point of his life as he's a seven-footer gigantic human being. And I guess we could just assume that's what Bone was doing, too, a couple years back when he was D3 national champion. Exactly. Let's get him back to those days. I think today could potentially lead to that. Good for you, Bone. And good for you, Big Show. World's largest athlete. That's right. Let's see if we're going to make some picks, shall we? Tomorrow, it all kicks off at 4.30. God, that's a lot of day. That's a lot of day. A ton. Which is why Super Wall Car Weekend maybe has a little bit of an edge as opposed to Super Divisional around weekend as we're in Super Bowl season right now.

2:06:28Pat McAfee:4.30 p.m. kickoff on CBS. Bills and Broncos. Broncos favored by one and a half. Last week, I think we both took the Jaguars, or did you take the Bills? I don't recall. I think I took the Bills. Okay, so you understood the assignment whenever it was Josh Allen in the playoffs against anybody. Are you going to do that again here against the Broncos, or who do you like? How do you like it? Yeah, Broncos come off that bye. I'll be curious to see how they start out, but I am sticking with my Buffalo Bills right here, and Josh Allen, I think, he finds a way to get it done. I think it's going to be tough early.

2:06:57No question. It's going to be loud, but the Bills get it done.

2:06:59Pat McAfee:It's hard not to fall into what have you done for me lately with this. Very hard not to. And then just last week, I liked the Jags against the Bills, and then immediately upon watching Josh Allen on a football field, you go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Fucking idiot. Why would I do that? Why would I ever think that? Am I going to do the same thing against his Broncos?

2:07:21Pat McAfee:Give me the Bills. I'll take the Bills. Is that overplaying? Do we know? I don't think.

2:07:28Jeff Passan:I'm not sure if he got activated yet, but remember what Shefty said? They have until a certain time.

2:07:33Pat McAfee:Saturday at 4.30. No, today at 4.30. Because it has to be 24 hours. All right, so we're both on to Bills. Yep. What if they're allowed during the huddle, though? Over there in Denver. Then Beal's got to go score early. Take the crowd out of it. Ed was officially questionable after practice yesterday. Sam Donald was questionable. Better than doubtful. Is it? Questionable is better than doubtful, I think. Yeah, it is. Probable, questionable, doubtful, out. Probable is the best. Questionable is above doubtful. Yes. See, I don't know. That's interesting. Because doubt is heavier than questioning something.

2:08:22Pat McAfee:Right. Because questioning, you still have optimism. Yeah. Exactly. Doubting is complete negative. Yep. No chance. Got it. So once it gets to the D. Good luck. We're dying. Hopesers thin. Very. Questionable was still 50-50 maybe. Yeah. Still wondering what it is. Yeah. Probably, hey, this guy's going to play. Saturday night, San Francisco 49ers taking on the Seattle Seahawks. Seahawks favored by seven at home. 73 % of the public bets on the Niners. George Kittle, obviously, first game he will be missing because of Achilles tear. Fred Warner has been bouncing around, but nobody's really said he's going to be playing in this particular game.

2:09:01Pat McAfee:They would have to find out tonight. Go ahead, Tom. I believe he's officially out. Okay, Fred Warner officially out. Sam Donald oblique. He said 100 % in. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? Well, seven points, obviously, for a division game is a lot of points. So I love Seattle and what they're doing. I love Sam Darnold. The oblique does worry me a little bit, but give me San Fran plus seven here on the road. Golly, dude. I think Seattle definitely can still win, but I think seven is a lot. Oh, you're saying, hey, let's go ahead and give a little twofer. I'll follow your lead on that one.

2:09:31Pat McAfee:We're both the same on Saturday. Let's go to Sunday. Houston Texans, New England Patriots. Patriots favored by three at home. I think we're going to pick the same maybe the whole way through and maybe this is our first perfect weekend, AJ. Yeah, it's possible. I assume you're going on my side with this one. Actually, I don't know. Now, Houston, Texas, their defense scares the hell out of me, obviously, for the Patriots offense and them getting after Drake May. But I like Drake May at home, minus three. I think they find a way. I think this Patriots defense steps up and probably gets a couple turnovers off this Houston Texans offense.

2:10:04Pat McAfee:Here's a Hembo stat that you'll like. Will Drake May use his escape hatch? May has 29 first downs on scrambles. Texans allow 9.2 yards per scramble. Wow. Now, obviously, we assume there will be a spy on Drake May, D 'Amico Ryan. You guys give up. You guys obviously take advantage. You think the Texans are going to give up a bunch to Drake May on the ground, which is obviously always the X factor with Drake May?

2:10:29Jeff Passan:I can see it. I mean, we'll see. They lead the league in man coverage or something along those lines. Top five teams, they love to run man. I think you could see Drake taking a couple shots deep. I wouldn't be surprised if we maybe get a deep ball touchdown. All the conversations about running the ball and holding on to it and can they move the ball against the Texans. But, I mean, this is the number one offense in the AFC. It's one of the best offenses in the entire NFL. I'm most excited for this game as a Patriots fan, but also just from the outside looking in, top defense, top offense. Those are the matchups you love.

2:11:04When you look at the rushing over-unders for the Patriots, it's actually interesting. Ramondre is – Stevenson's at 39.5, his over-under. Travion Henderson, 35.5. Those are their running backs. And then Drake May is also 35.5. So they think he potentially will have as many rushing yards as the running backs.

2:11:21Jeff Passan:He was the leading rusher for New England last week against the Chargers. I believe he had 65 yards on the ground. We all saw the long run. But, yeah, you could definitely make the case that Drake May, hey, this is it. You know, you want to win the MVP? you want to do in regular season award, we get it. But this would be his signature moment, you know, going out there, putting it down on the Texans.

2:11:43Pat McAfee:I'm trying to figure out whether or not my brain's just going to give me a, you know, a vision. Yeah. The only thing that keeps popping up is Drake May stepping up into the pocket. Yeah. That's his natural instinct, which is a good thing. Great. Not a bad thing. But that Texans defense, they swarm. Like that is actually what they do. Texans, if they don't have the back-to-back defensive touchdowns, is it that big of an ass-beating against Pittsburgh Steelers team that none of us think we're really that good whenever push came to shove, right?

2:12:14Jeff Passan:No. And do you think if the Texans turn the ball over three times against New England, is New England not going to score any points off those turnovers, kind of like the Steelers? Maybe they got a field goal off one of them, but same deal. They went three. Actually, it was three plays, minus two yards.

2:12:30Pat McAfee:They're all really good. All these teams are really good. that can all win the Super Bowl. Here's the weather in Foxborough for Sunday, January 18th, 3 p.m. Feels like 29 degrees, 5-min-hour, 29-29, 24, 5-min-hour, 5-min-hour, gusts up to 10. That's not bad at all. That's a perfect day up in Foxborough, it sounds like. Not too gusty, yeah, it's going to be fine. I'd expect everybody to play their best ball, their perfect ball.

2:12:56Jeff Passan:Yeah, big time. And I believe Nico Collins, yesterday he didn't practice either, and a lot of people were kind of forecasting that he might be out.

2:13:05Pat McAfee:Did Jage end up doing a video or no?

2:13:07Jeff Passan:No, he said not this week.

2:13:09Pat McAfee:Patriots. All right, L.A. Rams taking on the Chicago Bears. Matthew Stafford in cold weather, under 30 degrees, has the same amount of games as Caleb Williams in the NFL, under 30 degrees. Both of them have four games under that temperature, and they are 2-2. Caleb Williams has colder games in the NFL than Matthew Stafford has in his entire career in the NFL. And Matthew Stafford was in the NFC North for 100 years. I don't know how that works out, but both teams seemingly prepared. Tony, you have a discretion with the line, it appears. Yeah, it has recently moved to 4.5. The Rams minus 4.5, even though 60 % of the bets are on the Chicago Bears.

2:13:50So that's what they call in the gambling world reverse line movement, which tends to favor the team and the Rams in this scenario.

2:13:58Pat McAfee:Okay. Age, are you going to go with the reverse line movement with the books or are you going to take the Bears at home really cold football? I'm going to take the Los Angeles Rams. Do I get three and a half or do I have to go four and a half? Four and a half. Okay. I'll take them at minus four and a half on the road. Yeah. I have a lot of respect for this Bears team and how they play, but, man, I just love what Matthew Stafford and Puka and this Rams offense can do. And it's not even mentioning how awesome their defense is. So give me the Rams. I love the Rams as well. Plus four and a half at home.

2:14:27Pat McAfee:Going to be freezing cold. I'll take the Bears. I'll take the Bears plus four and a half. That doesn't mean they're going to win, I don't think. I think the Rams pulled out a close one. Maybe Matthew Stafford does some more MVP bullshit at the end. But maybe Caleb does as well. We need Caleb to play four quarters of football. Actually, just two quarters. Unless the Bears are down 30 in the fourth quarter, you can't roll them up. Getting four and a half at home. Divisional round. Could be heartbreak at the end for the Bears for sure, but I think it's going to be a close game. Four and a half is a lot of points.

2:14:56Pat McAfee:The books think the Rams are going to go ahead and win in Chicago. Maybe the Bears are a team of destiny. It could be. How many minutes have they led all season?

2:15:05Jeff Passan:Not very many. I couldn't find the entire season, but just specifically the three games they played against the Packers, they went 2-1, obviously, and I believe they ran two offensive plays while they had the lead for that entire series this year.

2:15:20Pat McAfee:The cardiac care bears up there in Chicago who might be coming to Indiana. Could be. Have you seen this and heard this chatter, AJ? Yeah. Is it all like negotiating through the media or what are we doing here? Like, is that actually really going to happen? I assume that the Chicago Bears are very happy that Indiana is letting out what their offers are for the Chicago Bears to come to Chicagoland up there in northwestern Indiana. Governor Braun, open for business, always has been, is a businessman saying, hey, yeah, we'll front all the money. You guys will pay us back. while you're paying us back, no taxes, then you'll get it up afterwards.

2:15:53Pat McAfee:Feels like a great setup for the Chicago Bears to build what they want. And, you know, the money up front that you don't have to use is a huge deal to run your business. And then getting to pay it back without having to pay tax, that saves tens, hundreds of millions. I mean, it's an incredible offer that is being presented by Indiana. It's like, hey, we're actually closer than where you were thinking about going to dead center Chicago. You guys can own everything. Chicagoland. Yeah. Come through Chicagoland. It's cool. Come on through. We got a Peru, Indiana. There's a Brazil, Indiana. We got a Chicagoland, Indiana.

2:16:28Pat McAfee:All of a sudden is what the Governor Braun's pitching. It's close. It's there. You own it. Hotels, casinos. Do whatever you need. Hell, you can even have a hunting thing set up over here if you want. A couple stores. A little mini mart. They make Casey's Gas Station pizza around here.

2:16:43Jeff Passan:Oh, they should. You want some hot dogs?

2:16:46Pat McAfee:You want some of your pizza? A little lasagna bread? what you guys make. Like, go ahead and let's everything you want here. Chicago land. Build it up. Get a dick of sports in here. Chicago land. Portillo's. That's what Indiana's governor Braun is saying. I don't mind. It would be tough to turn all that down if you were the owner of a team. It'd be tough not to at least entertain their offer and hear what they have to say. At least let that get out public so then people in their state can say, hey, we'll give you something. Can we do something? Which, you know, tax-funded things are always going to have drawback from the taxpayers too as well.

2:17:21Pat McAfee:Whoa, the Illinois taxpayers say first what the Indiana taxpayers are saying because I'm an Indiana taxpayer. Connor's an Indiana taxpayer.

2:17:29Jeff Passan:Yes, sir.

2:17:30Pat McAfee:Ty Schmidt's an Indiana taxpayer. That's right. Tone's an Indiana taxpayer. Most years. Do you guys want Chicago land or no? Yeah. Would you mind if your money was spent on Chicago land instead of maybe the potholes outside? Yes, I would mind. The potholes aren't getting fixed though. I'd rather my money go to ball. Going to ball is pretty good. Potholes aren't getting fixed. Yeah, I know, but the potholes need to get fixed. Agreed, but I don't think they ever will. But I do like whenever they go like, would you rather have potholes fixed and police paid? You're right. That is kind of always the – Or would you rather have a football stadium?

2:18:05Pat McAfee:Or you want to have some fun. Okay. Oh, a football team from another city? Another state? Okay. That's always the argument. Governor Braun's like, don't listen to any of that. Yeah. Chicagoland. I know my local is going to go to where I live. in my state, they could go to the football.

2:18:18Jeff Passan:That's the thing, though. I can't stomach another terrible football team taking my tax money for no championships. They're in the divisional realm. Oh, yeah. Can we pick which team our money goes to? Because I want mine to go to the Bears. Not the Colts. I'll send mine to the Colts.

2:18:34Pat McAfee:Thank you.

2:18:35Jeff Passan:Mine's been going to the Colts. And I'm about sick of it.

2:18:39Pat McAfee:I don't think you just turn it off. You're going to have to send it somewhere. That's kind of a part of it.

2:18:43Jeff Passan:And that's what I'm saying. Sunday's game, I guess, then becomes a tax game. Actually, mine should go to the freight. Fisher's freight. They need it.

2:18:51Pat McAfee:Especially, I mean, we're going to try to force them to have to let Bone try out. I don't think he should try out. The guy's going to puke all over the entire building. They all do, if I had to guess. Let's go ball. Speaking of, we've got a lot of it this weekend. We appreciate the hell out of you, AJ. Good week this week. We'll see you down in Miami. Oh, yeah. Can't wait. It's going to be awesome. And also, Bone should try out for one of these UFXFL teams. They're signing guys right now. That's true. I'm seeing helmet displays going out. I think those guys can run. i think there is a little bit of a difference and bone can work to get there remember he's 25.

2:19:20that's right boys behind the glass great work graphic design boys great work zeto productions

2:19:26Pat McAfee:go work tim acfe great work yeah mitt go work boys on stage guys absolutely crushed it you too aj really good work from friday bookshelf thank you you too and everybody that you know allows us to do this for a living by paying attention to us speak about this stuff every single day you're the greatest on earth. Let's have an incredible weekend. Let's have the best weekend of our lives. Why? Because it's the next weekend, because it's the next day. We have no idea how many of these we're going to have, but what we do know, division around weekend's about to deliver, and then big college game Monday.

2:19:58Pat McAfee:This is it. This is the time to be alive. We appreciate you all so much. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice that might change their life. We're in this thing together. Team on me, team on three. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye. At Blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100 % satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Because at Blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you.

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2:20:49Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami. Gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. Boy, he's ripped him. An 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. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.