PMS 2.0 1494 - The Patriots and Seahawks are Going to the Super Bowl, Adam Schefter on the Coaching Carousel, Pete Thamel, & AJ Hawk

21:18Pat McAfee:He would go out with the kickers and punters in the pregame to get the wind patterns. I mean, like the little attention to detail things because he's been around ball for so long. And it seems like he's a very observant individual, it feels like. I think he sounds different because he's from Pittsburgh and still talks like a yinzer as opposed to changing how he speaks. But he's now been the head coach for the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys, and now the Pittsburgh Steelers. I mean, there's obviously something that those three organizations have done right over the long haul of the NFL. And all three of them have said, this guy deserves to run our team, and we put trust in this man to run our team.

21:54Pat McAfee:And I would say after our experience with him, I would trust his ass too. Now, the Ingers aren't happy about this. No, they aren't. There's a lot of Maddie Ingers, yeah. What are we doing here? They were saying some stuff. They were saying some stuff. The internet was doing its thing. Comparisons to past head coach, current head coach. Is this kind of a lot of those? What are we doing here? So we're just going from one mediocrity to the next mediocrity. Sorry, above mediocrity to the next above mediocrity. And the answers aren't even thinking. This is an offensive guy. This guy has a little different mindset.

22:33Pat McAfee:This guy's been in a couple different buildings. Maybe he'll be able to bring a fresh attitude. It seems like his teams do win. Now the defense getting pounded in the playoffs a couple years back whenever they had Dak in the best offensive season that he has ever had rolling down there in Dallas. people kind of forget about that. So you would assume in Pittsburgh, going to have a good defense. What's the future look like? We don't know. But on the offensive side, going to have to get some pieces. Is Aaron Rodgers staying up? Because of his relationship with Mike McCarthy? Is he sticking around?

22:56Pat McAfee:Is he retiring? What's going on there? What's the future look like? I don't know. But it's hard to judge, I think personally, a head coach signing day one, even though we have done it multiple times. Yeah. Yeah. Duvall. So when there's manure, Or you put a seed in manure, and it grows through the manure, and then a flower comes. And what we want to do is less thinky, more athlete takeover-y. That's right. Tell you what, man, we're in our kneecaps. Yeah. Okay, and then we're going to get up, and then you're going to knock us down, and then hell yeah, you've got another patella over there. We're going to eat on that thing too.

23:34Pat McAfee:So like day one hirings have certainly been something that we have judged heavily, but I do think every time we have done that it has gone on to potentially go a different direction strictly because we have no idea what's about to happen behind closed doors we have no idea who they're going to sign we have no idea who his staff is going to be you have no clue any of these things so I think it is hard in good faith even though we do it all the time to necessarily rule a hiring of a head coach as a bad hiring of a head coach Signetti worst hiring of all time McDonald out there in Seattle, worst hiring of all time.

24:09Pat McAfee:Sirianni, worst hiring of all time. Dan Campbell, worst hiring of all time. Liam Cohen, worst hiring of all time. So it feels like it's hard to judge immediately, but boy, it's fun too. Because the things that were being said about Big Mike McCarthy, unless you're his family, obviously, very impressive. Very impressive and good internetting, I would say. Yeah, the internet was very, very active on Saturday afternoon. Yenzers and Steelers fans. You brought up a lot of good points on why you should like Mike McCarthy and the hire. We loved him on here this year. He was definitely more of a deep thinker than we thought he was going to be.

24:42He was always very, very prepared. Offensive guy, all that thing. Great quarterback developer. I think the reason why Yenzers and Steelers fans were so, so, so, so, so angry was for the point that you brought up that the reason they've been angry for the last eight years is because it's, you know, win nine, 10, 11 games or whatever, go the playoffs and lose. And that's basically the MOs that coach McCarthy has had recently. Very, very similar records to coach Tomlin, very similar playoff results to coach Tomlin. So they've kind of thought of this as a lateral move, which is not what they wanted, including me.

25:23I mean, I wanted when they first fired Tomlin I was Shula and Sheilhas tweeting about it, making memes, stuff like that because when we made the change, the fan base wanted something new and exciting and a lot of people were mad about the process that they only brought in three guys for in-face interviews, for in-person interviews, everything everyone else, they did hire, or sorry, they did interview Shula and Sheilhas and Clay Kubiak from the Niners virtually. I heard from some sources that those guys, their interviews were underwhelming is what I was told.

26:01Pat McAfee:Well, that's because they were so bummed out about the facilities. Maybe. I mean, that could be. I mean... No, that's what people on the internet are saying. People on the internet are saying, well, the facility is so ass that they just got to kind of take whoever they can get at this point, which is why they signed McCarthy. And it's like, I mean, maybe. Maybe somebody doesn't take the job because of the case. Remember, we've seen head coaches agreed to jobs, get on plane fly to go to press conference that has been set up for a job, and then think, remember that whole towel dumping situation?

26:29Oh yeah, disrespect. Turn the plane around.

26:33Pat McAfee:Allegedly. So there has been, yeah, he's back in a good spot. But there is, you know, like there is little things like that that anytime somebody's taking a job that can certainly sway some things. So is that potentially go like, oh, I have a hamstring like a James Harden or whatever because you don't want to get the job maybe? Who knows? But it was interesting to hear that you heard, not me. I'm not. Hey.

26:57Correct.

26:57Pat McAfee:Goes in here, goes out there. So I try to keep myself away from any information that is whatever privilege. You don't want it out, don't tell me. Okay, it's going to – I'm on this thing a lot. So I'm going to do it at some point. It's not going to be good. But you hearing that it was, you know, underwhelming or whatever, I do wonder what you're comparing to because all the fans are doing is comparing to Coach Tomlin. Coach Tomlin, like maybe one of the greatest speakers of all time. Right? Yes. Coach Tomlin is like one of the greatest speakers to ever exist. Yeah. Which is why we think whenever he gets into TV, he's going to be stupid.

27:30Pat McAfee:LaFleur is still the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Yes, he is. Got a new D.C., though. That's right. Who's that? Jonathan Gannon, former head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. So let's just say I got a nice fresh fire in my gut this morning. Would have taken the bus to work had the buses been running today. But, yeah, I mean, I know we're talking about Mike McCarthy. I think you could argue that this is the smash hit home run hiring of this entire cycle. Head coach, defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator, you name it. As DC, he had success. Yeah, correct. 2021, 2022, Eagles, DC, 21.4 points per game.

28:07Pat McAfee:11th in the NFL. That's top third. That's pretty good. Yeah. Now it's Cardinals, different story. Yeah, he wasn't calm plays. But was he a part of it is the question, or is he just eager to get back into the headset to start dialing it up and not having to worry about all the other stuff that comes alongside being a head coach, which we have certainly seen before. McDaniel, by the way, getting introduced with the Los Angeles Chargers, he looks cool. Always. He looks so cool. Think about the Los Angeles Chargers colors and gear and everything. McDaniel's got his glasses. He's got, oh. So cool. Come on.

28:39Pat McAfee:I think we put this one together. I think he did some sort of photo shoot for him as an introductory to the Los Angeles Chargers. that they just posted. Chargers social team with McDaniel. I mean, we're talking about some real magic this offseason. Oh, yeah. Oh, look how cool he looks. So happy to be in Cali. Oh, my God. Think about the time he had down in Miami. Remember, he was heading down there, super genius. This guy's future of the NFL. They hang 70 on this Denver Broncos defense that we just watched not too long ago. 70 of them. They pay Tyree Kill more money than anybody. That's why Tyree Kill went down there.

29:11Pat McAfee:He was at the Chiefs, was looking for a bigger contract. Andrew Reid and him said, we can't do it. We're so sorry. And he goes, all right, well, get me out of here. He goes to Miami, does the whole thing, gets paid more than anybody, resets the market. They are unstoppable. This guy's the guy. Cool shoes, tags on them. Joggers, sweet glasses. Funny, swaggy. So swaggy. Supposed to be the future. It's the next one. Then just completely unravels it, the Dolphins. They trade away all those good players. Okay? Seems to be tension that has brewed in the locker room. Is that his fault or is that other?

29:44Pat McAfee:Now he gets another shot to be an offensive coordinator of the other guy drafted in that particular draft class. And if he does well here, he's going to have multiple head coaching opportunities and people saying that he's justified. So whenever you think about McDaniel having a great situation and a setup here, I think Los Angeles Chargers are certainly in that conversation, Ty Schmidt. Yeah, without a doubt. And I think, you know, a lot of people, like he's obviously a brilliant offensive mind, But I think the big question kind of after they had that hot start and they were doing all the motions and their offense was just going gangbusters against everybody.

30:18It was like, does his demeanor really kind of lend to being the head coach of a team? How does that work in a locker room? Well, now there's no questions about that because guess what? You got Harbaugh, who is a supreme leader. Like, that guy, I mean, yes, he's going to be handling the offensive room and everything like that. But not everybody is kind of marching to the beat of his drum. they're marching to the beat of Harbaugh's drum. So maybe he will flourish in this situation.

30:42Pat McAfee:I think it's a good match. I can't wait to hear Harbaugh talk about McDaniel and vice versa. I can't wait for any of that. And on that note, Dolphins hired Bobby Slowick as their offense coordinator. He also interviewed for the Eagles' OC job. Shout out to Schefter, who will be joining us here in a few moments, breaking that news. Eagles offense coordinator thing, interesting situation. Now, Bobby Slowick, a couple years back, C.J. Stroud's rookie year where he took over and did something that we didn't think any rookie quarterback should be able to do at this stage of ball with how sophisticated defenses are and how hard it is to kind of adjust to NFL football, especially at the hardest position in the sport like quarterback.

31:17Pat McAfee:We all were taken back by Bobby Slope, who's this super genius. Got some interviews, didn't take any head coaching jobs, and gets fired from the Houston Texans when it doesn't work out. Now he's back as an offensive coordinator for the Dolphins. Congrats to him. It felt like he was also one of the next super geniuses there. There was a crown put on Bobby Sloick. Now he's down there in Miami. Obviously, also had the Eagles offense coordinator job available. So what's going on over there for the Eagles? What is going on over there? It makes no sense, right? McDaniel was potentially in it, but not in it, right?

31:48Pat McAfee:Was his name ever mentioned? I don't recall. I believe it was, yeah. But I don't know if he ever even took an interview with him. And there's people rescinding interviews. I know McDaniel did that for the Cleveland Browns head coaching job, which a lot of people are doing, which is crazy. But the Eagles offense coordinator position feels like that's a good job. In my mind, I guess you've got to deal with the potential stuff from outside you've been watching the last couple years where maybe it's just part of the culture. I don't know. That's an interesting thing over there in Philadelphia, not having an OC.

32:15Yeah, it feels like there's a couple jobs that would possibly be better than being a head coach at Cleveland. I mean, basically any job there. But as far as OC for a team goes, Philly would be like you've got premier wide receivers. You've got a superstar running back. You've got a great O-line hand. You have a Super Bowl MVP quarterback. Where else would you possibly want to draw up your offense, especially for a guy like McDaniel who's very creative and things like that? Sure, you might want to go and play with or go and coach Herbert, but when you're just thinking about a slowick or really anybody who would hopefully want to get their first head coaching opportunity, Philly would be one of the top five jobs that comes to mind when it comes to just complete offenses.

32:57So there has to be something very serious, not like legally or anything, but serious behind the scenes within the locker room that is wrong or not to put anything on Sirianni, but like why wouldn't – would Sirianni be the reason why you wouldn't want to be a coordinator? I don't know.

33:13Pat McAfee:Yeah, all these things are potential reasons. I mean, I wonder if they just haven't offered it. What if they haven't found anybody they like? And this is a whole you-didn't-fire-me-a-quit type situation that is happening because Brian Flores signs an extension with the Minnesota Vikings to be their D.C. if no head coaching roles come. It feels like all the information and news to people is seemingly breaking in a weird manner this year. You know, like signing the extension as coordinator if no head coaching jobs come, that's strictly because if you don't get a head coaching job, you would also like to know you're okay and not completely out of the loop like Nagy.

33:49Yeah.

33:49Pat McAfee:Matt Nagy, formerly of Chiefs, then the Bears he was head coach before then I think the Chiefs before he was with the Chicago Bears his offensive coordinator role contract I guess just kind of ran out then it was announced that he's a potential candidate for uh head coaching roles you know hey he's getting head coaching opportunities here and then now they they replaced him in Kansas right is that not what happened that is correct that's a series of events they just kind of like yeah go ahead so the contracts that are happening right now are they indicators for who's going to get head coaching jobs who's not like do we kind of know who's who's getting what now at this point does anybody have a clue because there's still a lot of jobs that are open right now yeah I think the the most recent thing I've heard in terms of openings still is that they've basically said that Clint Kubiak basically has the inside track in Las Vegas and now it's kind of a formality they're just waiting until now after the Super Bowl to kind of bring him in and and wrap that up but like we heard the Browns this morning like they have all these candidates coming in and And very rarely does it seem like, especially for first-time head coaches, guys are just withdrawing their names.

34:56They're turning down second interviews because they don't want to be the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. My bad. Sean McDermott, we got reported yesterday that he's done for this year. Rap Sheet said that he's going to take a year off, so he's not a candidate. I know Arizona was thinking about it, but it's weird.

35:11Pat McAfee:I like that he's doing that. Congrats, dude. Yeah. Congrats. Take a year, man. Yeah. And just kind of take it in. because, I mean, Coach Pagano, McCarthy, you can have calls with the leagues each week, with the league each week. They have representatives that do that. Keep you updated on what the rules are, what the officiatings happen, maybe statistics of what's being run, why things are being run. Like, I think the league takes care of the old coaches. Or like the Doug Peterson thing where you kind of just bounce around to buddies you have in the league and you're, you know, in Cleveland for a week and then you're in Jacksonville for a week.

35:40Just that kind of stuff.

35:42Pat McAfee:You have updates on jobs? They're just like kind of tea leaves of kind of where guys have been rumored, like the Cards, it feels like Anthony Campanile was kind of the leader in the clubhouse. He's the D.C. for the Jaguars. He's Paisan. He's one of the guys. Jersey Paisan. Yeah, he's a Paisan genius. He talks like it as well. Ty talked about Raiders and Kubiak. And then Browns, it was reported this morning that they're meeting with Shoehouse today, I believe, in L.A. So that's kind of where the tea leaves are right now. And then the Bills one, who knows? Who knows what's going to go down? Phil Rivers has withdrawn his name.

36:17Pat McAfee:Okay. What is he doing? He said, not this year, maybe. He wants to go bounce around different training camps. Kind of see how people are doing, just like we're talking about. Gary Folo of the Insiders on NFL Network says, Phil Rivers has withdrawn from the Bills coaching search. After his interview, say, you know what? I don't think that's for me, actually. Dad go in. Not enough room for two 17s, I guess, in Buffalo. Well, you think that was a little bit of the issue? Maybe sitting in on the interview, there was some... Belly to belly, maybe? got on each other's face a little bit. Hey, when 17's talked about around here, guess who it's going to be?

36:50Pat McAfee:Me, Josh Allen says. Look at his hand size, brother. And also, guess what I can do? Move. You ever done it? You think they fought in the interview? And then Phil Rivers said something so, so mean, but without any swearing. Yeah, likes with a couple bad gums. Yeah, and just sawed him down. And then Josh Allen went right back. Remember, he was voted best trash talker, most trash talker. Josh Allen was voted. By the players. Phil Rivers, I assume they weren't doing a vote back then. I think he would have probably been. Imagine if it did just turn into them right in front of Bean and the entire operation.

37:25Pat McAfee:Terry Pegula's in there like, whoa, trying to get a word in, and they're just sawing each other down the entire time. And that's kind of turned Phil Rivers off. Let's go settle this on the field. And Phil Rivers out through them. Did he really? Yeah, I guess Phil Rivers threw the football like 95 yards. Phil said, I can't win with this team unless I play. Yeah, he was like, they brought in Riley Leonard to throw the Hail Mary for me. against Seattle, but in reality, watch this. Watch this, Josh. 90. Phil, good luck in any future endeavors, even if it's high school coaching or NFL coaching and your family.

37:55Pat McAfee:I believe there's, like, good luck with everything. We appreciate the hell out of you, Phil. Okay, all these headlines are obviously awesome out of the weekend, but we felt that there's top five headlines that need to be talked about separately. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to continue a segment that we started this year, top five driven by Ram. Now, whenever you hit the gas pedal in a Ram truck, it's going to be big, it's going to be powerful, one that's going to sound like this. They're getting back into the truck racing. They are. And they've signed the first driver already. Who? Smoke Stewart.

38:23Ever heard of him?

38:24Pat McAfee:Yeah. Tone? Yeah. I have heard of Tone Stewart. Bingo. He was just racing the... He was racing these drag mobiles. The drag race mobiles. Funny cars. The funny cars, yeah. And nothing funny about this speed. No, there ain't nothing. Over here in eastern Indianapolis, There's actually a track that I used to live by. They used to get after it over there. That's where Tone was. Tone was burning rubber over there, going real fast. Core mile. How you doing? It's got wheels. He's driving it. Yeah, exactly. He's racing it. He's not scared. Even jet skis, too. I think he said, I'll even do the water. What?

38:56Pat McAfee:Yeah, he's going to be in that Dodge truck. I think it's a good idea to have smoke in there. I think so, too. All right, let's get to the top five headlines. Number five, weather is happening. Did we know that the snow was going to be coming sideways over there in Denver? I think Fike told us there's a chance of a little precip maybe over there in Denver. He said, I haven't looked, and it seems like that is covering. There's a graphic covering Denver on the map in the forecast. But, boy, this became one of those snow globe games. This became one of those games that will be remembered forever. This becomes one of those games that Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal in.

39:29Pat McAfee:This is eerily reminiscent of that Raiders game where there was a tuck or a no tuck. And I don't know if either coach had any idea at the beginning of the game. You know, a lot of people talking about Sean Payton going forward on fourth down with a backup quarterback who came out like gangbusters. I mean, it was steady city there for a little bit. I mean, he's calling things. He's checking out. He's doing everything. He's calling the tunnel screen, motioning people out. He'd been there, done that a thousand times. Hits a deep shot. Wow. Holy hell. I get a FaceTime from AQ Shipley. I get a FaceTime.

39:58Pat McAfee:AQ says, I said he was Joe Montana. I said he was Joe Montana. AQ was all jacked up. He thought he had a – that was literally because he FaceTimed me and told me this whole thing. Then on a fourth down, they go for it. They don't pick it up. They don't kick the field goal. Now, granted, kicking was going to be a problem for both teams this entire evening. A lot of people were asking, did Sean Payton know what it was going to become? Which was an absolute blizzard and snowstorm at mile high. I assume it was windy as shit. Did Sean have any inclination that the rest of the game was going to be very difficult to score?

40:29Pat McAfee:Or did he have any inclination that the two best defenses, I guess you've got to add Seattle in there, so I can't just say that. Both these defenses are the reason why your teams are here. points are going to be at a premium. I think that question can certainly be asked. But as a whole, I don't think we knew that's what that weather was going to be. That was awesome to watch. There's people that hate it though, Gunman. Yeah, of course. And people are always going to hate it, especially if the Patriots are winning. But I didn't think we were going to get this much precip. NFLweather.com right before the game, I checked it at 245 Eastern and it said there was going to be snow every single quarter.

41:00So when the first half happened and there was no snow, I damn near thought, oh, no precip. Fike just lied to us like a jack wagon. There is not going to be any precip. This is just going to be a cold game, maybe a little bit of wind. That third quarter, I don't think anybody expected it to be like that.

41:17Pat McAfee:Sideways in Sean Payton's eyes, obviously kicking being very difficult, which is why Adam Vinatieri's kick back in the day even more so, I think we should think about. He also has a kick against Buffalo a couple years back that moved a full upright in the middle of the snow. Talk about just being locked in, laser focused, and him being there for all this to happen as they block a kick I mean, special teams, defense, not turning the ball over, and huge plays by your quarterback whenever you need it. Feels like we're back to the good old days with the Patriots. And that leads to number four headline.

41:48Pat McAfee:What's the play? Drake May. His bootleg bucks the Broncos out of the tournament. Drake May called this himself. Nobody else on the field had any idea that he was going to keep this thing himself. Everybody thought it was a run to the right. Drake May says, actually, I'm going to keep that thing. And I, Drake May, who led the North Carolina Tar Heels in rushing and passing, am going to do my thing to get a first down to win this game. He was mic'd up. NFL Films has Inside the NFL on X, and they're doing it right. Inside the NFL for NFL Films has been a legendary show for NFL Films for a long time.

42:33Pat McAfee:they have realized what the world is and what they need to be they've moved strictly to clips on x and we get this beautiful clip of drake may mic'd up for the entirety of the game winning bootleg out to the left for the first down in a trip to the super bowl

42:58that's how you do that that's how you do that that's how you do that that's how you do that that's how you do that alright

43:10Pat McAfee:alright calm down yep we did it we did it yeah Javi what a moment for him now granted how many people did not know that that was coming, how many people did know that was coming, whatever the case, Drake May showcases something that they don't rely upon heavily with, which is his legs, and sends him to the Super Bowl. What a moment for you, Patriots con man. Yeah, that's how you do that. That's one of those plays that will live on in Patriot lore. You know, hopefully we complete the mission next Sunday and go on to win a Super Bowl. When you talk about moments, this is the first playoff win in Denver for the New England Patriots.

43:46Like, when you think about games in the future, because Drake May and Bo Nix, both very young, should have many battles in the future. This is one of those plays that will kind of stamp Drake May's, not legacy as a whole, but when you think about Super Bowl appearances, yeah, you're going to go back and remember Drake May calling his own number and keeping the ball for the first time to win it all.

44:06Pat McAfee:Unbelievable performance. Can't wait to see the 23-year-old in his Super Bowl. Not this upcoming Sunday, the following one. He'll be taking on number three headline, not the same Darnold. We talked about this ad nauseum already. Sam Darnold could have folded in the NFC Championship and everybody would have been dancing on his grave. Everybody would have been saying, we've been waiting for the pumpkin. We've been waiting for water to find its level. This is who you actually are, but instead, he has a three touchdown, 340 plus yard night where he's spinning it all over the place. Jackson Smith and Jigba, obviously outrageous.

44:39Pat McAfee:Cooper Cup does his thing. Kenneth Walker, more like Kenneth, runner over everything. They're unbelievable. They're fun. Sam Darnold, congrats to you, buddy. That's a huge monkey to get off your back. Number two headline coming out of the weekend. Listen, Alex Honnold is must watch. Okay, this is not in Championship Sunday. This was on Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern. It was supposed to be on Friday, 8 p.m. Eastern. Had some rain. Can't do, obviously, the precip whenever you're talking about climbing glass in buildings. They move it to Saturday. It was windy, but no precip. And my man, Alex Honnold, of free solo fame, which obviously won an Oscar and changed all of our lives and how we view everything.

45:20Pat McAfee:After watching Free Solo, we were mesmerized by the fact that this is how some people, this man being the goat of it, spend their full lives committed to this. Working out, training, traveling, climbing things that are seemingly impossible with no rope, with a chance of death at every single movement. I watched for an hour, they said hour 35. I saw hour 31 whenever he got to the tip of this thing. I watched every single moment of it. I just put baby girl down to bed. Perfect timing to sit down and kind of settle in. And I watched this dude scale this. That was the most tense, intense viewing experience that I've had.

45:53Pat McAfee:That's what it's supposed to be when people are doing death-defying stunts. I appreciate the hell out of Honnold doing this. There was a couple of obstacles. This is a dragon. I think there was another one, music note or something. I forget what they were calling it, that he had to get past. Could have just won around it. Could have just won around it. Any given time, could have won around it. Instead says, I got to conquer this thing. Climbs up these things that are on the corner of this building. leaps a couple different times does uh incredible up upside down shit on the edge of this building hangs off it with no arms yeah i'm just gonna lock my legs up here at the top of 1 ,667 feet this is how high this thing is he's doing this live in real time i saw a lot of people you know trying to downplay a little bit like watch free solo all capitons a real deal and it's like of course it is and i was very impressed then my palms were sweaty whenever i watched i loved everything about it this is live in real time the the other option is death just this guy potentially gonna die he gets to the top of the mountain just like he does every time takes a selfie there's people with cameras in his face in the building did he know that was gonna happen him going wow there's people right here hey how you know i try to give a high five to the about 1500 feet in the sky i try to give a high five this guy but he wouldn't put his phone down you know kids with his phones this is what this dude's saying while he's doing this not a care in the world seemingly and what they were saying is because how prepared he is how much he works out He's got a 10-pack.

47:10Pat McAfee:Saw his house. He's got little training things he does. This was must-watch. This was a very different experience than I've ever had watching anything. And I'm grateful for Arnold. And Netflix, good idea with that entire thing. Now, I'm not sure they knew it was going to be, like, super tense. You know, I think they might have misread, like, the vibe that it was going to be whenever he was that high. But on that note, congrats to Netflix on a definite successful live event here on Saturday. I loved it. I loved every moment of it. I couldn't turn away. I could not turn away from this man scaling like fucking Spider-Man, the Taipei 101.

47:44Yeah, and we talked about when they did the stuff with the Walendas, how that kind of fell flat because there was no stake in it, really. It's like, hey, nothing is going to happen. And while it is highly unlikely that Netflix was going to broadcast him fall to his death, that is still very much possible. I mean, when he is on the very top of this thing, an extra strong wind gust comes, and guess what? it blows him off the top, and he's fucking dead. Every time he's hanging on that, and he would take one of his hands off to get a little chalk, I just did it here. I had to look away. It really is, man.

48:19You'd be hard-pressed to find something more tense to watch than this.

48:23Pat McAfee:It was awesome. I'm very appreciative that that was happening this weekend. We appreciate that. And the number one headline coming out of the weekend, ladies and gentlemen, happy Super Bowl season. By far, number one headline. To talk more about it being Super Bowl season, and his senior NFL insider for ESPN, friend of the program, Michigan man. Ladies and gentlemen, happy Super Bowl season to Adam Schefter. Hey, Jay! Schefter, happy Super Bowl season. Happy Super Bowl season to you. What does this mean? Obviously, McCarthy gets the Steelers job. We got some jobs going around. Arthur Smith goes back to Ohio State.

48:56Pat McAfee:You got some OCs getting filled. What does Super Bowl season for you entail, as we only have one game left of this magical NFL season? Well, Pat, we got one game and four head coach openings. So there's more of an emphasis on the four head coach openings right now than the one game that's 13 days away. And obviously it's the biggest game of the year, and there'll be plenty of time to that. But I would think that we would have all these head coaching jobs filled this week, probably sooner rather than later. I wouldn't be surprised if by Wednesday there are no openings left at this point in time.

49:29Pat McAfee:Okay, so that's all four jobs. Is there one domino piece that kind of sets it all off or all of these acting individually? No, I think the candidates on the Raiders and the Bills radar are pretty similar. We have essentially the Bills feel like they're going to go offense. They feel like they're going to go offense. And it feels like Davis Webb, Brian Dayball, Joe Brady, Grant Udinski. That's what it feels like to me in Buffalo right now. The Raiders, it looks like it could be Davis Webb, Joe Brady's there today, Brian Dable. Like the same names in both places. Now, I would think that obviously Josh Allen's going to be more of a drawing card than the Raiders situation.

50:22But if you love Fernando Mendoza, then go take the Raiders job and spend the next decade with him.

50:27Pat McAfee:like that's certainly viable rookie quarterback contract hold on Shefter let me can I uh expand on the bills and raiders a little bit here rookie quarterback contract as well for at least the next four years maybe five years let's assume Fernando works out we think he's going to be generational do these two teams know that they're talking to the same people or when you say this on this show or tweet this that's when they find that out I think everybody has a pretty good idea what other people are doing like you know Joe Brady's there today he was with Buffalo over the weekend um Brian Dayball interviewed with the Raiders on Saturday.

50:58He's been with the Bills. Both sides are talking to Davis Webb, the Broncos' pass game coordinator and quarterback coach today. Today. And I just think that they both know that they're in play on basically similar guys. Buffalo has a former MVP to offer. The Raiders do not. They have the number one pick to offer. So, again, Buffalo would appear to be closer to having a Super Bowl caliber roster right now. So that's kind of those two teams. Cleveland, I think when you look at it right now, Grant Udinski pulled out on the Browns this morning. They've got four candidates left. The Commanders run game coordinator, Anthony Lynn.

51:43The former Ravens offense coordinator, Todd Monken. And the guys, the two guys that I believe this job is coming down to. which are the Rams passing game coordinator, Nate Sheilhouse. Oh, hold on a second. Hold on.

51:59Pat McAfee:Bills might be making a hiring, actually. They have an MVP candidate. You can mute him, please, Nate. We muted you. We muted you. So I think the Browns' job, in my mind, they've got four candidates left, and I think it comes down to, in the end, the two guys out front are the Rams passing game coordinator, Nate Sheilhouse, and their own defensive coordinator, Jim Schwartz. I think those are the two choices. Okay, for the Browns, what's this deal with homework and a quiz and all this stuff? What's going on? There's been reports of their hiring process maybe being a little bit different. Sleeper NFL is all over it.

52:34Pat McAfee:We do not know how accurate it is, which is why we ask you this question. Is there anything different going on at maybe the Browns' interview process than anywhere else, or just people don't want to go to the Browns maybe? Well, Tone, Connor, Ty, they told me that they had to take tests to come on your show before they could be hired full time. Yeah. I mean, that's a word on the street with your show, Pat, that you've got to pass a quiz. I know I failed the quiz, but you were kind enough to grant me immunity to put me back on the show. I'll tell you what. I feel like that was a situational failure there more so.

53:06Pat McAfee:And you're just a part of that. You know, if I had kind of described the situation more accurately, I would say that. But yes, so the tests, you're potentially saying this is a normal process. A lot of teams do a lot of different testing. Now, I think the Browns has been a bit more intensive this cycle. You know, whether you have homework, you know, term papers, I don't know about all that stuff. But it certainly seems like they are taking it to an extreme. There are teams that do psychological testing profiles. They do all kinds of things on these guys. But it does sound like the Browns have kind of gone next level on it.

53:47It does sound like it.

53:48Pat McAfee:Sit down. Exactly. Worst thing that's ever happened to you, think about it. Oh, you're already thinking about it. I already ruined your day, didn't I? How are you going to come back from that? Got a meeting right now. Let me see it. Oh, man, it was a bad day. Yeah, but we need you to bounce back on the other side. Is that what the Pittsburgh Steelers did? Tone has a question for you, Shefty. Yeah, Shefty, I don't know if you've seen it on the internet, but Yenzers and Steelers fans aren't exactly thrilled about the Coach McCarthy hire. They kind of said it's a lateral coaching hire. But the big part of the reason is they're mad is because they only brought in three in-face interviews.

54:23Do you have any insight into their hiring process and potentially how it shook out? Yeah. The other two finalists were Anthony Weaver and Brian Flores. All three, including McCarthy, were brought to Pittsburgh for interviews. And I think if we go back to Art Rooney's press conference, when Mike Tomlin had stepped down, and he talked about the fact that he didn't want to rebuild. And they've got a veteran team. And this is a team that won the division this past year. They won the division. They're not ready to shut it down and rebuild. And so they felt like a guy like Mike McCarthy, who's got the experience he does, who's familiar with grooming quarterbacks, could be helpful either growing Mason Rudolph and Will Howard or whoever they draft or potentially even helping to lure back Aaron Rodgers.

55:17Now, they didn't hire him. They did not hire him to bring back Aaron Rodgers. But I guarantee on their checklist of things, like, well, this is one little bonus. He's got a relationship with Aaron Rodgers. And if Aaron decides that he wants to play again, he'll know the coach. He'll know the offensive system. And maybe that will help make Aaron's decision. But they didn't hire Mike McCarthy to bring back Aaron Rodgers. That did not happen. They just felt like, here's a team that won the division last year. We want to maintain our standard. The standard is the standard in Pittsburgh, right? And they were trying to achieve that standard by going and hiring the oldest coach they've ever had.

55:57The oldest. Like, they've never had a sitting coach older than Mike McCarthy is right now.

56:02Pat McAfee:Yeah, and they hire in the 30s. That has kind of been the move of the past since 1979 or 69. So, you know, the organization has hired good coaches for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the past. we assume that coach Mike McCarthy will do great things because we agree with him Pittsburgh Steelers fans are gonna have to see it they're gonna have to see it just like everywhere you're gonna have to earn it and Mike McCarthy knows that more than anybody he's from the city so I think he's excited for the opportunity I'm excited to see that veteran crew continue to run it back and we'll follow along on your Twitter account for any breaking news over the next couple days for these head coaching vacancies we appreciate it's gonna be busy what day you know I'm sure there'll be some things today, but again, by Wednesday, I believe the majority of those jobs, if not all of them, will be filled.

56:48Pat McAfee:Big day tomorrow. That's Adam Schefter. Yes, Captain.

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58:15It'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!

58:29Pat McAfee:Football! It is the greatest, and we are officially in Super Bowl season. Congratulations, and we hope you have an incredibly happy one The toxic table is here at Boston Conner and at Ty Schmidt. What happened to the hammer? Done. Cowboys AP Tony's here. Done. Feels like we're going to have a defensive struggle potentially in that Super Bowl. What's the over-under projected for the Super Bowl right now as we sit 13 days away? It's not this following Sunday. It's the next one. 46 and a half. That means 24-23 for that thing to cover? It's a bit high. The way that the Patriots games have been going, those have been lower.

59:04but they've also been in snow in Denver, in snow in New England, and then they scored enough and just dominated the Chargers in the first one. The Patriots' defense has been unbelievable. So has the Seahawks. But, I mean, you never know how these – I am very, very eager because you talked about it earlier about weather, and, like, I love seeing the weather in the AFC and NFC championships. One place where we don't love seeing weather is in the Super Bowl. Like, that's the one place where it should be on an even playing field. We need to watch that in San Francisco because that could be a slippy track out of there if we get some moisture, some precept.

59:32Pat McAfee:Yeah, who knows what the weather's going to be out there, I guess, because easy come, easy go. We assume it'll be a great vibe, great electric kind of atmosphere out there as the Seahawks take it to Cali, you know. And when you think about the Patriots traveling out there, it's so crazy that this is 2026. Yeah. It's so crazy Seahawks and Patriots are back. Legion of Boom, Dynasty. Crazy. Bill, Tom, Russ, Sherm. What? Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now is the guy who's going to have the utmost amount of respect for the defenses that are about to play in this Super Bowl. And does the defense actually win the Super Bowl this year?

1:00:09Pat McAfee:Potentially. Sam Donald balls out. Drake May might win the MVP, but across the board, it's been a lot heavier hitting on the defensive side. Joining us now is the all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. He's a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner. Ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hawk. Hawker, Seahawks defense. Obviously, Matthew Stafford is going to be able to do some things. Parkinson, 6 '7", too. Do we know that that guy is 6 '7"? What a monster he is, let alone all the other weapons. Devontae Adams still doing it. Puka showed up looking incredibly cool, always does Puka stuff.

1:00:40Pat McAfee:And I guess the Seahawks defense is going to get – the Seahawks defense, Patriots defense, this is strength, strength, strength of these teams, AJ Hawk. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you can watch these games. They're obviously very different games because of the conditions that they were played under. But, yeah, what a fun game. Both of these games were awesome to watch. Stafford and Darnold going back and forth was cool to see. Anyone that's not a Sam Darnold fan, you would have to feel pretty good for what this guy has done in his career and how he has revitalized everything and changed things in Seattle.

1:01:11We're showing these defensive clips. You've got to be kidding me. They have so many studs at all three levels when it comes to Seattle. Then, of course, New England, we know what they can do defensively. They just kept coming, man. And the Rams had many different opportunities, I guess, to find a way to win that game. And Seattle's defense just said, no, it's not going to happen tonight. Not in our house.

1:01:31Pat McAfee:I appreciate what you said there about Sam Darnold, though. I mean, he's still got his haters. Oh, yeah. He's still got his people that are still waiting and seeing, is what they're saying, until the season is over. I guess that's actually a pretty good angle, you know? I learned that that was one against Dak Prescott. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. So you can just pawn off the debate for 15, 16, 17 weeks and say, well, my entire angle is whenever the lights get bright. Well, it's like, well, what are we going to do in your eyes? It's an NFL game. A lot of people watching, light's pretty bright, I think.

1:02:06Pat McAfee:It's just a standard NFL game. Is it for a number one seed NFL game? Is it for playoffs? Is it for NFC Championship? What is the thing? I guess you could just kind of pawn it off and only one person can really win each season, so it's not bad. but it's like for the number one overall seed, I thought that was a big night, made some plays. For the NFC Championship, a huge night. He goes for over 300 plus with three touchdowns. It's like, I'm happy for Sam Darnold, man. I am happy. And also Drake May. Drake May with how young he is. Can he do it in a big game? I want to see him do it in a big game.

1:02:35Pat McAfee:That was an argument against Drake May this year. He's having an MVP year. We'll see. We'll see. When will we see? Playoffs. What about what he's doing right now? We'll see. It's like, well, he's obviously able to do it, especially with we're hearing that he calls his own shot for the first down. It's like great storylines coming out of both these quarterbacks. Yeah, and Drake will still deal with it. I feel like, you know, the schedule thing was one thing, and then every single game basically throughout the playoffs, it hasn't been about, you know, him taking care of the football and just getting the job done and winning the game and getting the hell out of there.

1:03:06It's more so been about, you know, no Bo Nix, CJ Stroud, Stinks, and Justin Herbert doesn't have an offensive line. So no matter what, that's going to happen. But when you talk about Sam Darnold, Is Sam Darnold like the greatest comeback story in the history of the NFL? Of course, Kurt Warner, American underdog, that is one thing. But Sam Darnold as a top three pick to go from the New York football Jets to this guy seeing ghosts absolutely stinks, to backup quarterback with the Panthers, to getting benched with the Panthers, to then back up again, then to Minnesota, getting run out of Minnesota, and now in Seattle to go into the Super Bowl.

1:03:44It's remarkable. his career arc.

1:03:46Pat McAfee:Yeah, and him being chosen by this Seahawks team. This is McDonald saying, hey, we need you. Here's McDonald immediately afterwards about Sam Darnold. Can't talk about the game without talking about our quarterback. I mean, he just shut a lot of people up tonight, so I'm really happy for him. What do you think got you in this point? If you could key out tonight, what it took for him to have? I don't know if anybody could hear me afterward, but the power of 12 is one is real, you know. Just synergy. People buying in. doing it together. I love the way this guy has come in there and got the entire city to believe in because remember and I hate that we have to bring this up but we have to.

1:04:23Pat McAfee:It wasn't long ago other teams were coming into their stadium, AJ. They didn't believe in the turnaround, you know? And I think 12s will say, we believed. We just, there was a price for these tickets now. You know how the economy and everything like that. We just let the Buffalo Bills come in and take over Lumenfield which has never happened. I mean, the 12s are like historic and legendary. We thought Maybe they had lost their fan base. Instead, it feels like they rekindled a relationship with their fan base about how you will love this team. This team works hard. This team doesn't talk shit. And our quarterback is an incredible underdog story.

1:04:57Pat McAfee:And our coach is a football computer. I'm listening to him talk. He has a lot of signety in him. He is a football computer, AJ Hawk. Yeah, he is. If you remember when he first got hired, a lot of people weren't really sure who the Seahawks head coach was after Pete Carroll. McDonough was almost not in Seattle, obviously, not in coaching circles, but for the casual fan. He was like an afterthought. They weren't really sure who this guy was. So that's the thing when it comes to hiring coaches. You don't know when you hire a coach if he's a good hire or not. You need to wait a couple years. Shitty for them, just right for us is what he said in that first team meeting.

1:05:28Pat McAfee:And it's like he built a team built on that vision. They got a real culture out there of dogs already. And being able to establish it this early in your head coaching, what a run. Vrabel was able to do it in his first year up there in New England. Yeah. Isn't that crazy, H? I mean, if you think about it, it's really not. The success that he had in Tennessee early on, the success he had as a player, this guy wins wherever he goes. He's the guy that knows how to build a team and to get them all going in the right direction. Also, having McDaniels there as the OC, that guy is an absolute mastermind when it comes to offensive football, too.

1:06:01Pat McAfee:Yeah.

1:06:05Pat McAfee:Vrabes, what a perfect football coach. Sounds like, the way I appreciate it. accountability very high but he's going to be all in he's all in he's in the locker room and he's the chief commander of the locker room yeah he's talking to the boys as if he's a guy but everybody in there understands his resume everybody understands what he's been through and i assume he says things that legitimize him as somebody that can make them be the best version of themselves which is what every coach has to prove to a player for a player to buy in that entire locker room has bought into mike vrabel and him screaming warriors what is that you you explained to me earlier and it was part of mac yeah mac came in with glass bottles on his fingies and obviously he was barefoot for his return to the action he made a couple massive plays congrats to mac hollins doing everything he's doing up there in new england and uh so he showed up with these on his fingies i would be worried to be stuck forever you know because we have gotten a finger stuck maybe on a ball before you never know what's going to happen to like i'll bust this thing off of me he didn't worry about any of that and then i heard this warriors thing said bunch What is this, Connor?

1:07:06So I'm not sure exactly what the movie references. The movie is some post-apocalyptic scenario. Yeah, classic film from the 70s called Warriors. Called Warriors, and that is one of the main characters. They have bottles on their fingers, and they're yelling Warriors. I know their thing all year was Road Warriors. He yells it right here. I don't know. Come out and play! Yeah, come out and play. That's like from the movie itself. So I know Road Warriors has been their thing, and that kind of maybe led to the movie Warriors itself. When you talk about Vrabel, though, is he one of the one most obvious things that was going to happen?

1:07:42Not Super Bowl, but I think we all kind of thought, even before Vrabel got hired, like, hey, wherever this guy goes, they're going to win. And the team meetings are incredible to watch, too. And Bob Kraft kind of, at the end here, gives him a game ball and just gives it over. Him giving basically the team to Vrabel in the offseason was amazing. But don't you guys kind of think while we're doing the hiring now, especially with the new cycle, like Vrabel was the one we all kind of thought he's going to get the job done.

1:08:09Pat McAfee:Ben Johnson was expected. Yeah, sure. Okay, a New England Vrabel. I don't know how quickly everybody thought it was going to happen. We had high, high hopes because I think we think we know him a little better because of your relationship with him. There was no chance he failed up there, huh, H? That kind of feels like Vrabel football in a nutshell. Yeah, I didn't think there was a chance that he would fail. I just – we didn't know it would happen this quickly, I guess, that, hey, he takes these guys to the Super Bowl year one and has them all by it. It just seems to have like, yeah, we're looking at another Patriots dynasty run here, it feels like.

1:08:37Pat McAfee:Yeah, congratulations to the mass holes. You're certainly enjoying it all. Thank you, guys. Certainly enjoying it all. Thank you. And I will pass that on as well to everyone else. I saw Portnoy just laughing at his phone. It's like, this is where we got to live now. This is it. This is what it is. A whole new generation, too. I think a lot of people were worried about the one to seven-year-olds in New England as far as fandom goes when it comes to football. We won an NBA championship just two years ago. It hasn't been that long. I just got a text. We have some breaking news. What?

1:09:13Pat McAfee:Yeah, this is in the vein of things that we would break, I think. Okay. Definitely is. I could tell already. It's very different than what we were just talking about. If it's breaking news, it's in the vein. It's breaking news. Journalism, breaking news. For the first time in two decades, ESPN will carry live coverage of the PGA Tour on its flagship linear channel during the Farmers Insurance Open from noon to 3 on Thursday, January 29th, and Friday, January 30th, with the opening round broadcast coinciding with Brooks Koepka's return to the PGA Tour. Brooks! Brooksie baby! Bringing golf to ESPN on Thursday and Friday.

1:09:52Pat McAfee:Now that means we're getting booted. I was just going to say, okay. So we're getting booted over to ESPN, too. For good reason, though. Brooks Koepka back in the PGA, we are pumped about. We are excited about. We think it's good for golf. We think it's great for golf. And I'll tell you what, if Scotty Scheffler is just going to continue to win every single tournament. It doesn't matter. Scotty's just going to. This guy's a machine. And then we got Blades Brown now. Look out. Oh, Blades Brown is about to be a real weapon. This guy's rock, paper, scissoring people on his way down to the green to make a 35-foot putt.

1:10:24Pat McAfee:This guy's 18 years old. Graduated high school, goes to a corn ferry thing, goes to a Bahamas thing, comes over here, drives over this place, goes ahead and shoots a 60, should have shot a 59, missed a putt by about an eighth of an inch or whatever. Blades? Is the future of golf and his name is Blades? I mean, what are we talking about? Is this the one? Could be. Scotty Scheffler is obviously the one. We got the one. Yeah, we're seeing the one. Because I was kind of thinking the same thing, and then all the stats are coming out and we tend to forget. Sky Scheffler's not even 30 years old yet. So he's got quite the runway left.

1:11:02So, I mean, we'll see. It was pretty sweet seeing what Blades Brown did, but did anyone go into Sunday thinking, oh, my God, Blades Brown is going to unseat Scott Scheffler? He's 18, Ty. Hold on, Ty. Excuse me. We're not attacking Scott Scheffler. I know. I know. I'm just saying. We got the one. We do got the one. His name's Scottie fucking Scheffler.

1:11:21Pat McAfee:You're right, and we are very thankful that we are alive. and on microphones during the Scotty Scheffler era. We are very, very thankful for that. We think he is awesome for sport. We think he is awesome for golf. He's also getting a lot more comfortable on the microphone. We think we have noticed over the last year or so, developing into his own superstar and how he wants to handle being the greatest golfer on earth. But yeah, as soon as Scotty's name is even on the board. Oh, he's winning. Oh, that's so sick that Scotty's blessing that golf course. That's what I think. Oh, Scotty's playing this weekend.

1:11:50Pat McAfee:Good for this tournament. Damn it, they must have some real people running this tournament. They've got Scotty Scheffler. That's how I view it. And it's like when he's on there and out there, which I think he's out there every weekend, he's winning. He's unbelievable. Brooks coming back, though, is good for the Scotty Scheffler legacy because they were starting to have that conversation about like, well, Scotty's not playing against all the best players like the guys in the past half. You know, I'm saying the negative people have been saying that. Brooks comes back. Potential DeChambroe return, right?

1:12:14Pat McAfee:There's a potential couple others that might come back from Liv to the PGA, which Brian Rollap, new head of the PGA, kind of extended it all over the branch saying, hey, you have this amount of time. If you did this, you can come back to PGA, but you won't get any equity in the PGA over the next few years. So there is a penalty, financial penalty for everything. So I'm thinking Scottie Scheffler's era is awesome. And Brooks Koepka going back to PGA. Great. Starts on Thursday. Oh, it's huge. Can you imagine a final pairing, Scottie and Brooks, like 18 holes? Like say they both are, yeah, that would be, that's going to be amazing.

1:12:43Yeah, Blades. I don't know. What? Maybe he can, maybe he can continue. you. I mean, the guy is hot. We know that. He is absolutely hot. I think it's great. He, uh, can you imagine being 18 out there competing with these dudes, like threatening to win a tournament?

1:12:55Pat McAfee:He doesn't even know what it feels like. No, this guy's got no idea. He's just bopping around a golf course, making incredible shots. It's unbelievable. He's at the, like the, you don't know what you don't know, uh, stage of golf, it appears, but also do you ever know what you don't know? Like this could just be who blades Brian is and we might be getting introduced to a new one. That was fun to follow him this weekend. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know Scotty's going to be up there, but having a nice, fun, exciting almost 59 coming out of an 18-year-old is insane. Brooks playing in this week's tournament.

1:13:25Scotty is not, so the first time that they have a chance to be paired together is AQ's tournament that he hosts. The Waste Management Open next week, Super Bowl weekend. They'll be in that tournament together, I believe. Okay, so Scotty's not golfing this weekend? No.

1:13:36Pat McAfee:Brooks golfing, though. Yeah. Okay, good news. We'll watch it. Is Rory in any of these? BCGC tonight, actually. TGL need him to come through. I know BCGC Boston Common Golf Club, they're going up tonight for TGL. So I don't know if Rory is as focused with TGL going on. Okay, TGL certainly taking the world by storm. It is worthy of a watch. I think you will be entertained. There's chips, there's putts, there's things that happen in there that are good golf. And obviously getting a chance to watch them just absolutely nuke one into a screen is a good time. Golf's always going to have that. Let's go to college football.

1:14:13Pat McAfee:AJ, you know there's some drama. You know there's some drama. I have seen some clips. Yes, there definitely seems to be some drama. So that boy, Dabo Sweeney, head coach of the Clemson Tigers down there, he is a guy who I think has been known as a great football coach, but somebody that wasn't the most pumped for this modern era of college football. The NIL era, the transfer portal era, he very rarely, at the beginning of it all, used it at all. A lot of people were saying, Dabo's got no idea what he's doing. He can't coach in this era. He refuses to coach in this era, which is why the Clemson Tigers have kind of fallen out of relevance.

1:14:46Pat McAfee:Then he dabbles with the transfer portal a little bit, kind of does his thing, understands the business, evolves. I think Dabo is just kind of late to the party, but I do think Dabo is a great football coach, so I think he'll figure it out once he's all in. I just think he was being a bit stubborn about something that was happening around him. Now, on that note, he was being stubborn because he feels like it's not good for the sport. I think he was trying to hold out in hopes that maybe others would. They are not. And even more so, they're going above and beyond. And Dabo Swinney laid it all out to us.

1:15:14Pat McAfee:Dabo said, let me tell you what's going on in this college football that we're in right now. Everybody wants me to evolve to this college football. I don't want to do this college football. I want to do the previous college football. Because this college football has this stuff going on. Guy commits. Transfer portals over. Signs. Contract. Head coach of another team is sending pictures of a million dollars. Asking them how much a buyout is. How is this not tampering? Who should enforce this? How does this go? And then the coach that's being accused of it, hears about it all, goes to his ex-account, just post a shark, baby.

1:15:49Pat McAfee:Obviously, Ole Miss has the sharks. I do believe that is a part of their entire branding and everything. But a shark would also be sending text messages to other guys' players with pictures of a million bucks saying, hey, what's the buyout to get you out of there? How ironclad is that contract that you just announced that you signed and everybody thought was all over. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who's going to get to the bottom of it. How normal is this? What are the rules? Who would be enforcing the rules if there was rules to enforce them in college football? Ladies and gentlemen, the authority, Pete Thamel.

1:16:19Yeah, Pete!

1:16:21Pat McAfee:Pete, you look awesome. Thank you for joining us. Did I accurately lay out everything that kind of happened there? And can you give us a bit more detail and kind of where we go from here in this situation? Yeah, absolutely, Pat. Thanks for having me. So I think the most important part of Davos Sweeney's direct calling out of Ole Miss and Pete Golding is just how rare it is in the modern landscape. A, you don't hear sitting head coaches, especially those who've won two national titles. I think he's one of two guys who's won two natties that's active right now. Just get in front of a microphone and lay out piece by piece allegations of tampering, giving specific examples of evidence in how the tampering went.

1:17:03That is like the wow in all this. That just does not happen in an environment in college football right now where tampering is par for the course, man. Tampering is first and 10. It is rampant. It is out there. And one of the reasons why it's so rare that coaches call it out is a vast majority of them or their staffs are doing the same thing. Dabo is one of the few coaches whose backyard is clean enough that he can come and say, hey, look, like this is happening. This should not be happening. Have you talked to Group 5 coaches, FCS coaches, people like that? I mean, they could give you examples.

1:17:34And what's happened is generally on the landscape, Pat, coaches have become cavalier about this. They have not been careful. Like they used to use burner phones. They used to kind of be – they used to be – McDonald's bags. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there we go. There we go. Yeah, cavalier. And yeah, now it's just, as Dabo alleges, pretty blatant. The head coach is texting, allegedly, the linebacker, who's very good, by the way, in sociology class to say, hey, come here and here's what we'll do. And here's how this will go. So around the industry, Dabo's move was like wildly applauded because in general, people want rules, right?

1:18:15Like in general, people want paradigms, guardrails, however you want to say it. Like people want rules and they want them to be followed. But college football, as we know, and college athletics in general, have a rich history of rules being made and people finding ways around the rules. And it is the least surprising development in the history of college athletics that this iteration we're in right now has followed along with that, with now the CSC and the NCAA. Like people thought it was the NCAA that couldn't enforce the rules. But the reality that we're learning is nobody wanted to follow the rules.

1:18:46So they're not going to until someone forces them to do it. So this specific case, Pat, is going to come to the NCAA. I was told by NCAA officials on Friday that they processed 90 tampering cases in the last year. Now, that could include tennis or ping pong or whatever else. There have been in the last since the NIL era started, I would say there has been a distinct lack of high profile tampering cases, considering how rampant it is in the in the environment. Seton Hall basketball had a case where Kevin Willard, their former head coach, was suspended and Shaheen Holloway, who's now the head coach there, who's at St.

1:19:22Peter's at the time. They had to serve a couple of game suspension each. But, you know, that is the one example where I can recall a sitting head coach in a prominent sport actually serving time for tampering because they were caught that red-handed. So this is going to be a fascinating test case going forward. But let's be real, Pat. Say Pete Golding gets caught here. Say he did what he's alleged and the NCAA finds evidence to charge him. Is that going to stop an environment where I would estimate 90 % of the schools are doing some kind of tampering? My guess would be no. So ideally, what Dabo did, people were applauding and they were behind.

1:19:59And, you know, there was a wave of enthusiasm for that. But until that changes the reality, I don't know how much of an impact it's going to have.

1:20:10Pat McAfee:Thank you for the breakdown. So Dabo Swinney is a fish trying to swim up a waterfall right now, is what you're saying in the entirety. Certainly morally correct and potentially has the right angle from the entire industry side. but it's going to be tough to change anything with just this one particular case. So sociology, actually a pretty good class to take for studying how this all kind of turns out. Anyways, shout to Professor Feather. I appreciate the hell out of you. Sociology was a fantastic class. So you're saying 90 % of the people aren't really pressing this type of issue because they got skeletons in their closet doing the exact same thing.

1:20:45Pat McAfee:So how would it stop? And are they going to go back and punish people once rules are made? Like if there's a harsh punishment to Golding here, who I don't think, does he even know that he did something wrong? He's very new head coach. This is the world that he was kind of raised in. Him just putting a shark tweet out there. It's just like, yeah, so what? So what? So be it. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Like he doesn't know what the punishment could be. What is the punishment that could happen to Coach Golding? And is the punishment going to be strong enough that it stops everybody from doing it?

1:21:12Pat McAfee:Or how do you stop? Like what is the right answer here to stop all of it? So it is not all going to be stopped. I am convicted on that. I do think if there is a punishment to Pete Golding for these allegations, and again, they are just allegations, it could curb or maybe change behavior or de-incentivize that kind of behavior. Or they could have third parties do it, et cetera, et cetera. The rare part of this is the allegations are that the head coach was this direct in the tampering allegations. Now, look, Dabo laid out pretty clear these things. What we don't know is, do they have copies of the text messages or were those just verbally articulated?

1:21:49Is there actual hard evidence of this? And that's ultimately what it's going to come down to from an NCAA standpoint. You know, can the NCAA go interview Luke Farrelly and say, hey, did this actually happen? You know, it is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Ole Miss and Pete Golden going forward. That is that is certain. Can I sit here watching the impotence of NCAA enforcement for the last quarter century that I've done this and say, oh, they'll get this – they'll just hammer them to the wall here? No, of course not. It just simply hasn't operated that way at any point. So I don't know why we would think this would be a paradigm shift or a paradigm changer.

1:22:28I think there's optimism in the industry. It could curb some behavior or maybe alter some behavior, but I don't know that we're this deep in this path where it's just, you know, everything's going to go full stop.

1:22:39Pat McAfee:Okay, thank you for that update. Sounds very positive. AJ has a question for you. Yeah, Pete, do you think we will see more coaches possibly doing this, especially if the NCAA does not come down hard on Pete Golding and what they've done? Do you think other coaches might feel comfortable calling other teams out for tampering? Well, I think that was the point of Davo doing this, is to basically say, and he even said it on the record in this, he just said, hey, look, we need to do this to save our industry. We need to call out this type of behavior. Usually what happens in these cases, AJ, is a coach finds out that some assistant recruiting director is tampering, and that coach calls the head coach and says, hey, cut it out, and typically they cut it out.

1:23:20I've heard countless examples of that happening. But look, if you stop tampering, you lose a considerable competitive advantage. And to have 136 of these schools, let's say 120 of them are doing it, right? Do you think all 120 are going to give up their competitive advantage or they're going to find another way to create the competitive advantage? Now, I certainly appreciate Dabo doing this. I mean, it's from a content perspective and from an idealism perspective, it is it is absolutely rare. It is honorable what he's doing. And I think it comes from the from the right place. But again, you cover this industry long enough.

1:24:03Cynicism develops. So I can't I can't come on and promise this is going to be the tipping point that changes that changes everything. But it is a fascinating snapshot, fascinating moment in time and will be very interesting to track. The thing I would caution here, Pat, is right now in the middle of January, everyone's hot and heavy on this story. We do know that the NCAA process for enforcement is reputationally historically really slow. So could the NCAA process this case with appeals by opening day, you know, September whatever this year? Historically, zero chance. Maybe they can change. Maybe they can expedite it to make an example.

1:24:41Maybe they can do anything. But remember when Conor Stallions happened, Ty's favorite case? Not just Ty. It had broken November of that year, and people were like, well, they'll adjudicate this by the end of the 23 season. It really didn't get solved until, what, three months before the 25 season, right? It was June maybe when that came out? You tell us, Pete. Sounds like you were on top of it. Yeah, right around the nose. Buckeye Pete, if you do recall. Greasy Pete.

1:25:11Pat McAfee:Greasy Pete. Pete, you were an informant for Ohio State reporting all the terrible news about Michigan as it was unfolding in real time. The block got hot for you, Pete. Block got hot for Pete Thamel. I remember that as you were doing your journalism. But yes, your point is certainly made. The NCAA takes forever to kind of rule on things. Normally a lot of impotences. There's usually a lot of impotences. Impotence. The effective resistance of an electric circuit or component to alternating current arising from the combined effects of omic resistance and reactance. That's a good one out of you.

1:25:45Pat McAfee:That was a good one out of you. Of course. It was more impotence. Yeah, impotence. Oh, impotence. Oh, like you're not POT is what you're saying, which is a lack of. Your swimmers don't work. Bingo. You're impotence. Yep. So you're saying their brain is like the seed of man. That's right. Is what you're saying. Suck. Got it. Not able to forecast a conclusion. Bring it home. Well, Pete, I love the way you're talking about it. I appreciate the hell out of that. And hopefully the impotence of the NCAA is no longer, although it appears as if the accountability remains the same as they all just kind of point to other people having to do this.

1:26:29Pat McAfee:The government's got to take care of this, actually, because that's got to be some sort of law that they're breaking there, just texting millions of dollars. Is IRS on top of this? That's what they will say. They will say, because they're all scared to get sued, right? because if you suspend anybody then you're taking away employment opportunities for these people now so now the ncaa scared to death to really do anything because they don't want to get sued by every single person that they do anything to right and that kind of a part of it yeah it's fair to cast this pat as a giant spider-man gif oh point at each other yes i mean it was telling that uh last week in the charles bettyako alabama basketball case that the ncaa said yep this is why I would need Congress's help.

1:27:07That was kind of what, what this, what this, what the statement, what the statement said. So they don't have a lot of faith in enforcing their own rules. And in that case, quite frankly, the NCAA said, no, you cannot play. And then they just went and found a judge to say something different.

1:27:21Pat McAfee:On that note, Connor has a question for you about college basketball. Yeah. Pete, can you take us into the nebula of college basketball a little bit here? What is kind of the big storyline? Is it the G leaguers coming in and kind of playing in college again? And now I saw Tennessee's X account actually added the G leagues team that that player was formerly of. Is that kind of the biggest thing right now? And do you see college basketball being hindered by any of this at all? Similar to what Dabo is saying. Well, Connor, it's nice to be coming to you from the city of champions today. Okay. 18 and a half inches of confetti falling outside my window.

1:28:01Boom! Boom! God celebrating the pages. None of it's orange. They left those in the can, didn't they? Yes.

1:28:13Pat McAfee:It's great to have you guys back. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. As for college basketball, Connor, great question. Saturday was one of the best days of college basketball I think the sports had in recent years. There was just a flurry of electric performances by freshmen all around the country, And it really, as the focus of the nation starts to shift off of college football to college basketball, and eventually after the Super Bowl, it'll be in full force. We're really bracing for an electric college basketball season. You know, this weekend game day is going to be at Kansas BYU. We have A.J.

1:28:46DeBanson, pride of Brockton, Mass. I'm sure he's proud of the Patriots as well. He's BYU likely number one pick in the draft. Obviously, Darren Peterson for Kansas is in the thicket of that conversation. They're going to play each other in Lawrence. in Lawrence, but there are seven or eight freshmen all around the country that have just delivered and redelivered, you know, scintillating performances. There was one after another. It was almost like an accordion on Saturday afternoon. So I do think while Bediaco's situation took up a lot of the headlines and kind of became a cause celeb for a lot of the modern issues, the sport itself is in a pretty healthy place in terms of on the floor product right now.

1:29:26I'm really excited to see how this is going to push forward and conclude here.

1:29:30Pat McAfee:Cause celeb. That was good. That was good. Tie in. Hey, it's a big storyline that everybody thinks is a great depiction of the world we're living in currently. Let's go ahead and talk about it. That's a cause celeb. I think I just pieced together the context clues there. Co-opete, one of those guys going crazy. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Arizona has been a juggernaut. Co-opete's been, Co-opete's been, you know, electric. Arizona, you know, could have three or four players drafted. They kind of remind you of like an old school 90s basketball superpower. Michigan's a wagon. They are excellent.

1:30:02Dusty May really has them playing at an extremely high level there. There are, you know, there are eight teams where you could really easily say you'd make a compelling national title case. Texas Tech, our friends in Lubbock, Buddy Beach and company, Pat, were fired up for Houston coming into town on Saturday. I think they was there. Did you go get some meat from Buddy Beach?

1:30:24Pat McAfee:Did you go get some meat from Buddy Beach? I did not go to Lubbock this weekend. What? I don't travel for game day to start the season. I will in the future, but I would have gone to Las Brisas, Lubbock's finest steakhouse if I was there. The weather was actually so bad that our crew, Reese and everybody, were planning to go, but they couldn't go. Lubbock got shut down on Saturday. I think some of our crew is actually still in Lubbock from Saturday night. Godspeed, Godspeed, Godspeed. The weather is crazy, obviously. The weather is crazy. I forgot that you guys get right into college basketball game day.

1:30:56Pat McAfee:I did see the Texas Tech signs and stuff from their basketball setup. I love that Buddy Beach and the boys are still down there doing it for that area. That place loves sports, and obviously they come together behind Texas Tech. It looks like they're in it for the long haul. Speaking of the long haul, not a lot of changes were made, but one big one was made to the college football playoff. Last question for you here, Pete. Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Pete, last week we found out that there will be no changes to the amount of teams going, at least for this next year, for 2026. 12 teams will be the college football playoff format, but some changes as far as who gets in.

1:31:29So now if you win the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12, or the Big 10, you are automatically in the playoff field. For those that don't know, Duke won the ACC this year, so they would have been in the tournament. And then if Notre Dame is in the top 12, because they are not in a conference, they worked out a deal. And I believe all the commissioners and AD's agreed on it, that they would also be in the playoff if they were in the top 12 rankings for the CFP committee. Is there anything else that I left out, and how did that all come to do? Tone, good points. I think the simplest way to synthesize that is that both Duke and Notre Dame would have been in this field, and Miami would not have been in this field, if these current rules were in for 25 as they're going to be for 2026.

1:32:17As for the macro for the sport and for potential playoff expansion, it's a bit of a quagmire, Pat, to use one of your favorite words. You know, the SEC and the Big Ten essentially have control of the CFP. The SEC is open to moving to 16. The Big Ten is only open to moving to 16 if there is a ladder within two or three years to move to 24. Both sides were convicted of this and neither really moved. and there was never really any significant discussion pushing forward because neither would move off those stances. So it will be interesting to see going forward. One of the Big Ten's big criticisms, guys, is the CFP committee and giving too much to the CFP committee.

1:33:01So how will they handle the SEC now that the SEC has nine conference games is one of the big things in the weeds here that people are going to be looking at pushing forward. So the drumbeat of this conversation will continue. It will likely continue through next season. And come December, we'll be in some beautiful CFP location. And we'll be talking about this on Game Day again, Pat.

1:33:25Pat McAfee:Yes, we certainly will. And it feels like a dog chase tale for college football. There's always going to be some ripple effect of a problem that's going to come from some other decision that is made. Let's keep it at 12. So they both agree they want to get to 16 right now. But Big Ten wants 24 at least in the next couple years. SEC says 16 is good enough. Okay, shut up. Come on. You too. We're way too early in this process to be making back-end guarantees on a deal. If you both want 16 right now, we're still evolving. Let's go ahead and get there and then figure out the 24 later. My personal opinion, not that anybody needs to listen, this is just a take on the situation.

1:34:00Pat McAfee:We are, what, three years into this version of the CFP we're about to be? It's awesome. We don't need back-end deals being made for progress to be made on something that is still evolving into what it is. That's me, and I love Petiti. I'm sure he has a reason for that. and sankey i'm sure he has a reason for that but it's like come on we're not if this was 30 years old and we're trying to lock in something else like let's do that but evolution to make it however they think is better not that 16 is the right answer but if you both want to get to 16 let's not let something that might be five years down the road affect something that could change right now and make it much better than it already is potentially 16 games would be sick would that add a champion to the mix miami not being in this year would have been crazy would have changed the outcome of a lot of different things so hopefully we're able to get it right the notre dame situation let's talk about it pete my name is patrick mcafee okay sure i am uh irish my father catholic we did not practice growing up but you know obviously irish catholic in pittsburgh is a thing that certainly exists i understand that what notre dame has been able to do as an independent is certainly incredible i think you have to remain relevant you have to obviously remain good you have to be able to be your own entity and not rely on the rest of your conference uh pals to get deals done and stuff like that now them just automatically getting a bid if they're ranked in the top 12 of the college football playoff committee is certainly attackable for like yeah right why do we continue to change and bend the rules for this team and university that wants to do something different than literally everybody else if they want to do what we're doing tell them to do what we're doing if they want to make it they have to join a conference is what some people are saying why are we better on the flip side notre dame says top 12 is like our auto bid because you guys are giving conference champions auto bid so if we're top 12 that's our automatic bid even though we're not in a conference and then people say we'll get in a conference if you want automatic bid like that's how you have to work if you want to earn that large bid i think if it is going to all come down to how they're ranked don't you think they're going to have to rank them properly like if they beat an ass team by 15 it's like all right you're 16th in the country because I think the biggest deal with Notre Dame this past year was they were ranked, what, 10th or 9th or something early.

1:36:11Pat McAfee:And then all of a sudden for the last one, it gets flipped on its head. And all of a sudden they're like, we've been ranked above Miami this whole time. We've basically been competing with Alabama for this entire thing. And then you flip us for the last time. I think the college football playoff committee and everybody else is going to have to rank them for what they actually are against the actual teams that they're playing. I think it has to be a little stricter ranking. Do you not agree with that? Or do you think that is the only answer? And how do we kind of get through this entire Notre Dame thing without it looking like everybody is just changing everything for one particular institution?

1:36:42Sure. So from the macro, Pat, like Notre Dame is a brand is really a juggernaut. And they they have existed sort of in this unique space for, you know, more than more than a century. And until they are like club to the wall and forced out of it, which would basically have to be by no one scheduling them, they are going to, they've made it very clear. They want to exist in that space. I do think there will be an additional layer of scrutiny on their schedule. Now, look, sitting here in January, it's always hard to say, we just don't know who's going to be good and who's not, especially in modern college football, how it, you know, how much, how much changes in the, in, in the off season right now.

1:37:22Right. But yes, is there a, Oh my God, that's a top five matchup on their schedule. Probably not. I mean, the Miami game obviously looks good. and I'm scanning this. I haven't studied this, but I'm scanning it now. Like they have some very good games and how Wisconsin and Michigan State and Carolina ultimately end up looking and BYU, I guess, are probably, you know, is going to determine whether that schedule is tough or not. They do always play a lot of power conference schools. It's funny because Notre Dame for years almost was criticized for playing too difficult of a schedule because they would come out and play Michigan and the world has changed and evolved a little bit.

1:37:56So, I mean, no one's forcing the CFP to do this. But look, the CFP understands the unique role of Notre Dame. They are ratings juggernaut. That's a big part of this, right? People care. We're sitting here talking about Notre Dame's 2026 schedule on January, whatever it is. Like they are part of the star system in the sport. And nobody came in and said, hey, you need to include them. They're including them because they consider them a vibrant part of the landscape. and the TV partners obviously want Notre Dame in there. That'd be hard to argue, that entire narrative.

1:38:30Pat McAfee:Notre Dame, obviously a part of the college football season. Everybody's college football season. Notre Dame is a part of it. If they want to remain independent, I guess in their eyes, they had a good enough argument to say, hey, we should still get an auto bid if we perform well. I think it makes sense. If they're ranked in the top 10, they should get in there anyways. That's how we should be doing the make it thing anyways. Now there's one at large. So hopefully they'll just do real ranking through it all. Now, AJ has last, last question for you because there's a big move happening in Big Ten.

1:38:58Yeah, Pete, Arthur Smith, Ohio State Buckeyes' Ryan Day, is bringing him in as the offensive coordinator. Is this something, I guess, that had been the worst? Did you think this was a possibility, and how do you think this is going to play out? I was a little surprised at this, to be honest, AJ. He's not a guy who – he was linked to the North Carolina job last year, and he had some time early in his career at Ole Miss, but he's really not a college guy, per se. Arthur Smith has always kind of come up through the pro ranks. I think this can be looked at as part of the trend of the professionalization of college sports where taking these college jobs now have a little bit less of a stigma than it used to because the recruiting demands aren't what they once were.

1:39:39And if you're going to coach in a place like Ohio State, you are going to have superior talent to an overwhelming majority of your schedule. So he can come in. He can coach Julian Sane. He can coach Jeremiah Smith. Ohio State's going to return a really good offensive line. They're going to be very good. You put yourself in a position to succeed, much like you watched Matt Patricia go and I think completely overhaul his on-field coaching reputation after what happened at the Lions by coming in and leading what was for a vast majority of the season the number one defense in college football. It was historically good up until the end of the year.

1:40:15I do think some of these high, high-end college jobs where you're not hauling around for a month, kissing up to some 16-year-old lineman and really going through the grind of recruiting, if you can kind of have these jobs where you're going to sit back, you're going to be the play caller, you're going to run the offense, and everything else can go work around. And AJ, I think this comes to pass because recruiting now is tied to buying players, right? There's really no other way to say it. The facilities don't matter as much. The players come and they say, how much are you going to pay? And so that necessitates a lot less text messages, phone calls, a lot of the performative parts.

1:40:53Pat McAfee:Yeah, voice memos. Baby, baby, baby. You remember that? Oh, yeah. That was when my eyes were. Yeah, jump in pools, too. Remember you got to jump in a pool with the recruits? Oh, yeah. Jump in pools. That guy decommitted. You don't even get them. Yeah, let alone flying three hours out of your way in a helicopter. Not that that's a bad life. I'm just saying. Taking your entire life, going down, doing a full parade for this kid, doing a whole thing. Song and dance, photo shoots. Yeah, all the money. And then them going to your rival, literally. Saying thanks, but no thanks. We're going to move on.

1:41:29Pat McAfee:Turns out you don't have to do that much anymore. How much money are you going to pay me? You like me more than a rival? Yeah, I do. Show me. This is what we're going to pay you. And some sharks out there will say, it don't matter how much they paid you yesterday. How much can I pay you today? Ladies and gentlemen, that's Pete Damel. We appreciate you, buddy. Yay, Pete! Thanks, gentlemen. Thank you, Pete. Go Pats, Connor. Go Pats! Pete gets it, man. That guy's the GOAT. I'm really happy for you guys, honestly, getting to experience that. Sounds like there's not a lot of optimism, though, for a couple of the parts of the conversation.

1:41:57Pat McAfee:Ty, what was your big takeaway there? Yeah, essentially, the NCAA is never going to fucking figure it out. You heard Pete Shayet. They're impotent. They're shooting blanks. They've essentially castrated themselves. They've sliced their testicles right off because they take so much goddamn time, you know, so institutions don't believe in them. All these college football coaches are essentially looking at him and saying, look at this dickless ballless bastard. We don't have to listen to this guy. You know, he's impotent. He can't shoot a big load, so why should we listen to him? That does feel like what he basically said about that at the beginning.

1:42:31Pat McAfee:Because it is like all these NCAA problems. Dabble Sweeney, eight and a half minutes, talks about the entire situation, calling it out. Big time. Crazy. Is this thing on? I have some stuff to say. Good run. Really? Really, yeah. Sits down. Let me lay out my case here. As if we are the jury, the people that he's speaking to, and we all watch and go, eh, that's fucked up. That sounds like that's not how it should go. But, hey, Dabo's laying out a pretty good argument here for some scumbaggy behavior. And then Pete Dan was like, all the other people are doing it too, basically. They're not the only ones.

1:43:05Pat McAfee:It'll be 90%. Is that what he said? Yeah, about 90%. 120 of 134 institutions you're going to give up that competitive advantage? Tampering is quite a competitive advantage. We all laugh. Yeah. That is cheating. Cheating normally is a competitive advantage which is why it's deemed cheating and not allowed to do it. Everybody's just tampering now. Everybody's cheating. Is that what you're saying? Not Dabo. Dabo said there's a window. There's a window. I get it. There's a negotiation. I don't like that I even have to do that now. Correct. Okay? But when that thing's done, signed, sealed, delivered.

1:43:41Pat McAfee:Okay? We're ours. That is how this thing goes. Now we got guys, head coaches. Might I add you? Head coaches. Sending pictures of a million dollars in Brinks trucks. Coming your way. Hey, coming your way. Coming your way. Holy shit. You like this? It'll be yours. Think about some of these college coaches just going, how fucking bored are you at that school? Sending pictures of downtown. Sending pictures of team meeting. All that stuff. Just constantly working it. burner phones he brought up. So Golden just doing it from his main phone. Love it. Don't need burners anymore. They don't care. They're not scared.

1:44:13NFL has the blueprint. Why are we screwing around by not just having a legal tampering period like you've brought up a couple times?

1:44:23Pat McAfee:A couple big things have gone on with the Super Bowl contenders being named. Congrats to the Broncos. Congrats to the Patriots. And the Broncos for making it that far. Congratulations, AFC Championship and Sucks Bo Nix got hurt like that. I wish we could have found out. Congratulations to the Broncos. And then the Seattle Seahawks getting a huge win. Also, congratulations, because I was lost in the Honnold sauce on Saturday. Gaethje. Yeah. Holy hell. Interim lightweight champ against Patty, the baddie. And they're pounding each other. Patty's face. Yeah. Gaethje walking out of that octagon. That's Gaethje, man.

1:45:02Pat McAfee:Dude, it's insane, AJ. It was a hell of a fight, hell of a night. He's interim lightweight champ again. And what a beast. He's never had a bad fight on TV, I believe. No. If you want to watch fight, if you want to see people fight, I mean, we see that right there, a little eye poke. But if you want to see people fight, you want to watch Justin Gaethje fight anybody because he, yeah, either he's going to kill somebody or he's going to get killed pretty much every fight he's in. And Patty said, I'm a scouser. We don't get knocked out. That was tested. Turns out that was true. Yeah. It turns out that was absolutely true.

1:45:32Pat McAfee:who sat in there and banged with Gaethje. I guess this is the second time Gaethje has been right on the jaw. And Patty just looks right back at him. What's going on? I think goodnight for Patty all the way from the entrance to the entire war that they go through in there. Gaethje, though, second time he's interim champ. I guess the first time he wasn't really impressed with it. You know, like the classic, you win the AFC Championship, you win the NFC Championship. I appreciate if Rabel not just throw in that thing like we've seen in the past. Like, still a good thing. I guess Gaethje first time he wins the interim title he's like I want to win this I want to win a real one loses doesn't actually enjoy I guess now you know enjoy the hell out of it 37 year old and on the way out uh as he was walking down the tunnel back to his locker room he said I wish you didn't have to feel this way to feel that way but it's part of the job or whatever it's like him describing what it's like to be in the middle of the arena literally man in the arena fighting in a cage.

1:46:27Pat McAfee:That dragon that I assume they're all chasing, the walk into the octagon, the standing and banging, proving your toughness in the middle of it, imposing your will on another dude who is trained. It's like, what a feeling for these guys. I don't have that, you know, want or urge, but I think the guys who do, I appreciate the hell out of them. And Gaethje's willing to, it does feel like Gaethje is willing to die in there. You know, it does feel like that is the case. So certainly worthy champion for the UFC. Can't wait to see what Patty does next. And congrats to Sugar Sean. Yeah. And a huge win back in the limelight.

1:47:02Pat McAfee:Obviously, first fight on Paramount. I don't know if I figured it out yet or if they figured it out yet, but they certainly will. And if these fights are going to continue to go the way that these two fights went, and also Big Derek gets Big Derek Lewis, I mean, knee right to the mouth, saw him Yudong stood in there, took him down a couple times too. Thought there was a chance that Yudong was getting that win. Sugar Sean gets a dub. Happy for him. big Derek Lewis loses and it looked like he got his face like kind of washed like just like a quick little slow shot actually lands clean whenever they show the slow motion UFC provides a slow motion shots of faces moving more than anything else I think they do so I thought it was a good fight after Alex Honnold dangled from 1700 feet AJ I know the Alex Honnold thing I didn't see it live I watched the next day so I knew he didn't die but it was still unbelievable to watch like I sat there and watched it with my kids.

1:47:54They had five trillion questions, and I didn't have any answers. Like, why aren't you using ropes? I don't know, because he's awesome and he doesn't need them.

1:48:00Pat McAfee:That's his thing. That's his entire thing. The little rope chalk holder is hilarious. You could easily get a little thing with a little clip, probably, too. He's got the little tied rope around his waist. Watching him tighten it, too, was cool. He always had to pull his shirt out from under it, too. Every time he was stopping, he had to pull his shirt back down. I'm like, man, this is so uncomfortable. It seems like he's probably been doing it since he was a boy with this exact chalk holder. Awesome. Comfortable out there. Obviously can't have much that weighs. There was a guy that knew rock climbing that called like a smear technique he used.

1:48:30Pat McAfee:And then their canvassing he did at one point of it. And then, you know, just watching it live, it was must watch. Foxy, you and I, I think, watched it live. I don't know. I watched all hour and 31 minutes. It was immediately after Kenzie goes down for bed. I go downstairs. I'm just sitting down, basically. And it starts immediately upon me sitting down. I'm like, all right, let's see what this is about. i couldn't look away i couldn't this guy's dangling off of a building and then you know obviously we get a chance to hear from him every once in a while it was a time where he was talking multiple times where he was talking they had other people's voices talking yeah can't be doing that you know we can't be doing that we had him in a small screen he's dangling from a building okay that's the that's what we're here for okay let's make sure we we do that don't want to judge other people but there was multiple things that were happening in there where i'm like oh i don't think you guys are understanding what we're feeling at home right now like what we're feeling at home right now is like sweaty palms i was feeling sweaty palms yet again when they were shooting down the building oh yeah okay shooting down the building it's the same thing as when i watch free solo it's like oh my god this guy's for real one cramp what if his finger just cramps sneeze he's dead sneeze anything you talk about anything that could happen that is out of normal and it's over actually over.

1:49:51Pat McAfee:It's like, what a thing. Am I crazy to say it was the most unique live event in our lifetime? Am I being dramatic by saying that? How old are you? I'm 31 years old. Okay, so I don't know when the really crazy stuff was happening. Jim Cantor mentioned the guy walking to Grand Canyon. I think that was without a thing. I don't know how long it was. On a wire. Yeah, I think he was walking on a wire, but I think he was without a... I think he didn't have... There was something underneath. Yeah, but I think it was a long time ago. You're talking 20 years, I think. I think long time ago. That was my biggest takeaway.

1:50:23My biggest surprise is that Netflix did this. They allowed this legally and all of that stuff. I just couldn't believe it. That's why I was so mind-blown the entire time watching this absolute animal. And I didn't watch the documentary, so I had no idea what to expect. And this guy made this look so easy. That was the huge takeaway.

1:50:39Pat McAfee:And he was casual throughout it. I mean, he was just casual waving at people in the building. Oh, man, they got their cameras out. Good to see you guys. I'm kind of getting tired, he said at one point. I mean, this part, he kept doing this. I'm like, that's not a flat surface. That's a little like, yeah, I mean, that thing, when he was doing this part, that's what made me the most nervous, honestly, when he's standing up here at the end. And the guy that's filming for him, shout out the legend, Brett Lau or Lowell. Awesome. This guy is one of his closest friends, obviously longtime climbing partner, a member of Yosemite crew is what we learned.

1:51:10Pat McAfee:I guess there's a Yosemite crew that does a lot of climbing together. He was also a massive piece of the free solo filming. I assume you also have to be of the same ilk to be the film crew. which also shout out to the funicular goats uh funicular is the cable i guess that kind of goes up or the or the the core or whatever the ropes or whatever it is so they're the funicular goats as they're bouncing around on cables to get us all the insane shots that there were that was a that was a good piece of business i i uh that's a good name obviously great name obviously i had to google what funicular was i had no idea i thought they were like makes sense though because goats are really good at climbing mountains they are and walls which is what this guy climbs up Now, there was a couple times you think to yourself, okay, if he falls here because he just hit another landing, maybe he doesn't die.

1:51:54Right. Hopefully.

1:51:54Pat McAfee:So he breaks a leg, though, for sure. There's certainly a bad thing that's going to happen if he slips here. And that's kind of the conversation you're having a little bit. And then you get back into it, and a former NASA scientist is doing a Q &A with somebody that I've never heard of while old buddy's talking to me about not dying. I can't wait to see how many people watched it, and I hope they do it again. I don't care what he climbs. He can climb the Eiffel Tower, and that might be so easy to him, but I would love to watch it. Yeah, and that number is going to be gigantic. They have to be.

1:52:21Pat McAfee:If people knew about it, real-time worth a watch. I don't want to sell something that we have no affiliation to, and I think could certainly maybe second time around, things like that. But the experience was awesome. It was great. It was absolutely incredible. I'm very happy they did that. To your point, I can't believe it got approved. Can't believe it got approved. Let's see. Anything we miss so far? No, I don't think so. Last message, what I wanted to say. Obviously, on this particular Monday, we're celebrating two champions, the AFC champion and the NFC champion, who are headed to the Super Bowl.

1:52:57Pat McAfee:Obviously, Alex Honnold conquering a feat that is insane. UFC champion is happening. But what we really want to do as a sports show and as a program is bring people together. You know, that's kind of our goal. And I know we don't always, you know, get it right. I certainly understand that. My mentions, my DMs, and things like that. I think everybody kind of feels that. But we believe that sports are the greatest because it brings us all together. And we're excited to celebrate the hell out of that. We hope that the world can emulate what sports are, what sports buildings are, what sports facilities are, what sports stadiums are.

1:53:26Pat McAfee:And we hope to see more of that in the world as opposed to everything else that is certainly going on. We love sports. We're very lucky to talk about sports. We appreciate the hell out of them. And we hope you, no matter how you view the world, feel welcome and comfortable in our world. The world needs more sports, less division. Let's go ahead and celebrate the shit out of what sports bring us all. We're lucky to do this. We're thankful to do this. And if you'll join us tomorrow, we will be back. It should be a good week celebrating all that sports happening. The NBA is happening. The NHL is happening.

1:53:54Pat McAfee:Yes, it is. College basketball is happening. The WNBA is happening. TGL is happening. And the Super Bowl is just 13 days away. Wow. We are so incredibly thankful we get to do this. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We're in this thing together. Let's never forget it. no matter where you're at. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team. Have a good one. We'll see you tomorrow, ESPN. Goodbye. All right, let's take a break. On the other side, we'll come back and we'll cover everything that we haven't dove into enough. And then maybe we'll try to get home in the ice and snow that is currently sitting outside and will be for the next week because it's negative degrees for the next foreseeable future.

1:54:34Pat McAfee:Yes. It's crazy, Age. A lot of snow. I don't remember seeing this much snow, honestly. I really don't. I understand we talked to Fike and we talked to Jim Cantor. I was not paying attention enough, I learned, to the local weather. Sure. I apparently missed, and it's 100 % on me, don't be like me. Everybody's saying, don't go out. Don't go out. Sunday morning before championship Sunday. Don't go out. Don't go out. Everybody was reporting that. I didn't see it. I missed it. 100 % on me. I went out. I went trying to get a cake pop for my daughter. She wanted a cake pop. I went out there. There was nobody out there.

1:55:24It's great. It's really nice going out with no one out there. I love it. You got a truck.

1:55:27Pat McAfee:Eight, nine inches of snow on the road in the back roads of Indiana. It wasn't until about four or five minutes in where I realized, man, there's no way I'm supposed to be out here right now. And at that point, I was pot committed in my closer to the cake pop for my daughter, who she definitely wants a cake pop. Definitely earned a cake pop. They always do. Disney on Ice was incredible the day before. She was awesome going to bed. Waking up, she was a sweetheart. She deserves... DoorDash obviously shut down. That should have been... That should have been the clue. I'll go, yeah, cake pop. This Dasher doll won't go get it.

1:56:01Pat McAfee:I'll do it. I shouldn't have went out there. I should not have been out there. It was... Oh, yeah. Got stuck. Got stuck out there. It wasn't in my truck. I was in wife's car. But truck, I think, would have been stuck too. This shit was... I mean, it was the most snow that Indianapolis had in one day since like 1970-something. Yeah, a long time. It was insane, man. If you didn't have some sort of large vehicle, you had no shot of getting through it. You know? And I was just out there. Just out there. Then I go to Starbucks. They're closed. weather's too bad no cake pops no cake pops all the way out there damn that was a real conversation with myself you fucking idiot you gotta be the dumbest now I gotta get back then the roads are gonna be worse than they were coming out of here don't be like me pay attention to your shit that was a bad idea I'm happy I got back happy cars alright listen I mean you couldn't even I mean, there was a couple.

1:57:01Pat McAfee:Drop that thing into neutral, obviously, so we don't have power going to the wheels. Oh, it does not matter. Nope. It's fucking really frozen out here. Oh, we're on top of ice. There's no papa. We're ice skiing with a car right now on top of this. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Couple of those. Then like a slowdown. Holy fuck, man. How are we getting back? We got to get back now. I saw a couple spots on the road that got me on the way out to the closed Starbucks. Coming back, I had a forethought. I had a vision. Not going to let them beat me again. So I went a different way. Got me again. The same fucking spots.

1:57:39Pat McAfee:Seems like they had me out. All those years of training on those hills of Pittsburgh, they got you home. Exactly. I did feel like Indiana is much easier to drive than anywhere else I've ever lived. No doubt. But whenever it's icy snow and you're just on top of it, that's a crazy. You're ice skating with a car. It's not going anywhere. For the long haul, everybody be safe out there. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. Here's me being a friend to you guys. If they say don't go out there, don't go out there. I didn't know they said that. Especially in like a Toyota Corolla.

1:58:09Don't be going out there. Definitely.

1:58:12Pat McAfee:Door dashers are in a tough spot right now. All their cars not built for this. But we appreciate what they do. And this weekend, I tried to be like them. It was scary. And the place is fucking close. I would get no stars. That's what Mackenzie would have given me. I went to my dad and mom's house on the way. I stopped over there, grabbed cookies from them. Oh. Brought it back. Consolation. Good pivot. Made sure Papa got this and Grandma got you. I didn't want a stolen dollar. But on that note, it was a smile, and that's all we needed. Dad almost died trying to get you a cake pop. Got cookies instead.

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2:00:42Pat McAfee:Football! He's the greatest. That's AJ Hawk. He's a champion at all levels of football. Wow. Even he'd go all the way back to peewee football. Yep, that's right. This guy had a bigger and thicker cranium than all the little kids, little lads that were running around on the peewee football fields over there in Centerville, Ohio. He utilized his jaw and his forehead as a weapon and won it peewee. He won it super peewee. He won a junior high, high school, college football national champion, and a Super Bowl champion. This brain, this skull, they win at football. You know, we're at Super Bowl week now.

2:01:16Pat McAfee:Bring back any memories of you being a champion, A.J. Hawk? Any championship mentality that kind of rekindles in your heart and in your mind as we look ahead to crowning the world's best here in just 13 days like you were crowned once before, A.J.? Yeah, I was lucky enough to be a part of a Super Bowl and win it back in the day against the Steelers. But I guess when we do finally get the final two teams that are going to be squaring off in the Super Bowl, it makes me realize, damn, it's a really tough long road to get to the Super Bowl. These guys have done a lot, and things have gone the right way, and they've done all that you need to do.

2:01:47And now here you go. Let's see who can finally win it. But, man, think about starting your offseason workouts and then to now. How much has happened and what you have to do and what has to go right for you. Yeah, just football's the best. We know that.

2:02:00Pat McAfee:You mentioned beating the Steelers there. obviously we have to ask big mike mccarthy is going to be the head coach for the pittsburgh steelers from pittsburgh obviously has a lot of pride in pittsburgh never changed the way he spoke from your stories and others that were in green bay i assume dallas would say the same he has a lot of pittsburgh references and pittsburgh memorabilia around his office and the way he's built has always felt a great sense of pride uh being a yinzer your thoughts on him getting the head coaching job and how do you think he goes about doing his business over there i think it's awesome i know he was super super excited about the possibility of becoming the steelers head coach i mean it's something didn't we joke about this last year like a year or so ago like hey if for some reason tom was out of there like you you could come be you can be the next guy now that's actual reality now the fact that he is the coaches i think it's awesome and i think for people if people are pissed if they're not pissed whatever steelers fans like i don't know give the dude a chance.

2:02:57We don't really know. We never know. A lot of times a head coach gets hired and a lot of people don't know who the hell the guy is. They don't know a whole lot about him. Well, we do know a decent amount about Mike McCarthy. We know he wins. He develops quarterback. So let's give him a chance.

2:03:10Pat McAfee:I'm excited to see how he does. There's now if you listen to the way Schefter was talking, basically they feel like they got a veteran culture, a veteran roster, so they don't need a full rebuild with a young guy that's going to talk to a younger generation with the X's and O's. So I'm intrigued to see how long this is for? Is it a four or five year deal? How many of the same players are going to be there? Are they going to retool, rebuild? I think there's a lot of things that still need to be figured out from my perspective as fan outside looking in on how we can judge what it's going to be. But ultimately if he wins, he'll be loved.

2:03:42Pat McAfee:If he loses, he'll be booed out of the city again. That's basically how it'll go for Mike McCarthy in Pittsburgh as a Yenzer, as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah, I agree with AJ when he said, you know, maybe give him a chance. That was kind of my sentiment this weekend was like, you know, this organization has only hired three coaches in the last 50 years. Maybe we trust them on their decision-making as far as the coach is going. But to your point there, I think, and a lot of people have said this, it is hard to ask a first-time head coach to come into an organization with a lot of older players, oh, and you don't have a quarterback.

2:04:17Like when you're a young first-time coach, it's a lot easier when you have an established quarterback and you don't have to worry about that. So maybe in this situation, it's a better hire when you have someone who's running.

2:04:28Pat McAfee:The fuck? Are you fighting to get these words out? Are you okay? What do you mean? Are you trying to sell yourself on this right now? No, I'm just making sure I say the right thing. Because earlier, you know, I said that Mike Tummel was fired. He wasn't. He resigned or whatever. So I'm just making sure the words come out of my mouth. Are you being attacked for that, I assume? No. No, just you felt bad that it happened because he was not fired. Correct. And he stepped down. Now, granted, you know, how do we get to that? cancer is certainly a part of it. But you heard Ryan Clark talk about it. Obviously, Ryan Clark, part of that Pittsburgh Steelers organization, winner for the Pittsburgh Steelers organization.

2:05:04Pat McAfee:He said, you know, whenever Tomlin leaves, you get a lot of people very bummed out. They're talking about people crying in a meeting, you know, people crying around the building. So you bring in Mike McCarthy. It's a fascinating move to bring in an older, already established coach in there as opposed to a new coach that might try to prove himself to the building. I think McCarthy being a yinzer, he understands completely why and how Pittsburgh people are going to react to his hiring. All he's worrying about now is winning ballgames. And that's going to be his message to the locker room, right, AJ?

2:05:33For sure. I mean, so, like, you talk about not knowing a coach. When I got to Green Bay, I got drafted to Green Bay. He got hired a month or two before that. So not a whole lot of people knew who Mike McCarthy was. And I think I knew from the very first team meeting, like, this guy's a dude. Like, he has a presence about him. And then from probably within 15 minutes of meeting him and hearing him speak, I was like, this dude loves Pittsburgh as well. He has referenced it nine times in his team meeting. And that continued throughout my nine years in Green Bay. So, yeah, dude loves Pittsburgh, loves ball.

2:06:03Let's see what happens.

2:06:04Pat McAfee:I don't know what all I'm allowed to talk about from my conversation with Coach McCarthy immediately after he finds out he's getting the gig or whatever. But he's chasing holding that Lombardi seven for Pittsburgh. That is, his Christmas wish was that his mom and his family could experience a Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl because it took him back to the glory days whenever he was growing up. It was like his actual wish was to see his family and his friends back in Pittsburgh see the Steelers win again. And so much so that I think he's like, all right, I got to go do this for him. I got to go.

2:06:39Pat McAfee:I would like to be the person that does that. That's an incredible story if it ends up coming true. You know, if it ends up coming true, it's a phenomenal story. If it doesn't work out, though, the Yenzers are going to do it. I mean, they've already been doing it. They're expecting it not to work already. And I think I have faith in McCarthy because we know him. But winning in the NFL is hard, man. It is very hard, even though they're already the AFC North champs still. Yeah, very hard. But also, you know, as much as the Lombardi is a massive deal, and that is, of course, what you are trying to do.

2:07:09Like Pittsburgh, Tony, and you can let me know if I'm wrong, but, like, you guys are just looking for wins in the playoffs. Even if he goes and they win a wild card game year one or two and then a divisional, yeah, and then you make a conference title, even that is a victory. And when you think about Dallas before Big Mike got there, it's kind of similar. Dallas was just kind of stagnant with Jason Garrett, the clapper. They weren't terrible, but they also weren't great. I don't think they made the playoffs in Garrett's last couple years, so definitely different there because the Steelers have.

2:07:40But he is kind of used to taking a team that isn't too different than what he is going to do and then just making them better and winning 12 games.

2:07:48Pat McAfee:Green Bay, Dallas, Pittsburgh. Three legendary cities, Ty Schmidt, the coach. Yeah, arguably the three. I mean, maybe the 49ers when you talk about the totality of the NFL. But that's arguably the three most famous franchises from the inception of the NFL. Obviously, the Patriots come along and do what they do. But that's the other thing. He understands the expectations. Yeah, the people in Pittsburgh maybe go about it a little bit differently in how they would voice their frustrations, but he understood the stakes when he took the Packers' job. Brett Favre had already won three MVPs when he got there.

2:08:25It's like, hey, you need to go win Super Bowls with this guy, and then obviously Rodgers, and then Cowboys, same deal. It's like we all know what happens if you don't win with the Cowboys. The expectation is that they win a Super Bowl every single year. So, yeah, this Steelers team, like the roster might be a little bit different and they might not be in the same spot. But, like, he is fully aware of what happens when you take a job like this with a franchise like this and if things don't go well. The one thing that the Yensers were happy to hear is that he is intrigued and high on Will Howard.

2:08:55So, because everyone wants – listen, I love Will Howard. We saw him firsthand. We thought he was really, really good in the playoffs. He's a sixth-round draft pick, so a lot of those times those guys don't get shots. But the Yenzer fan base, the Steelers fan base, has wanted to see him get a shot.

2:09:10Pat McAfee:Fifth-round pick just made a Pro Bowl. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Bang. So, Stefanski, he got fired for having a Pro Bowl quarterback? Yeah, how does that work? Guy had a rookie get to the Pro Bowl as a quarterback. Fifth-rounder. This is kind of like the Browns MO. They win a playoff game, get the quarterback out of here. Coach gets a fifth-round rookie quarterback to the Pro Bowl, get him out of here. Yeah. Oh, reverse the curse, perhaps. Because the first time it kind of... Oh, so this is like a... Yeah, double hijinks. Like a get back. Yeah. I understand what you're saying. Like the sacrifice.

2:09:45The bakers started a curse, and this would be a sacrifice to make that right.

2:09:50Pat McAfee:Do we think the Lions did their sacrifice with that tub of whiskey? Bobby Lane. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also think trading Matthew Stafford, which he asked for, helped all the good mojo in that building. Which he asked for. You hear him drop that. Just need to make that clear. That's why he wanted to leave. If we didn't want it, a certain amount of time. Now that we know what we know about Matthew Stafford at the Rams, think about how bad the Lions were for 12 years, that they couldn't win with that guy. They were cursed. And Calvin Johnson. Yes. Yeah, I mean, Barry, you want to go all the way back?

2:10:18Pat McAfee:You guys ever won a Super Bowl? Yeah, we'll win one eventually. You think? Yeah, we will. Oh. How many teams have not won a Super Bowl? So, I don't know that, but I know there are only four teams that have never made a Super Bowl, and I know the Lions are one of those. Vikings? Never made a Super Bowl? Bills haven't won one either. But Shefty reminded me that this weekend in one of his tweets. Okay, so you guys just haven't even had the opportunity to have this 13-day period of everybody celebrating your team, talking about your city. That's correct. In your entire franchise's history? Yeah, that's correct.

2:10:49So we've won a bunch of championships, and then when they went to the Super Bowl era, yeah, they've stunk ever since then. Yeah, I don't say championships.

2:10:54Pat McAfee:So it sounds like the Red Wings a little bit. No, no, no, no. Hockey Town's fine. Pistons, they've won as well. Tigers, they haven't won a World Series for a while, but they've been there twice in my lifetime. So the Lions, yeah, we stink. Never made it to the Super Bowl? No, and so that's why you go back two years ago when it's the NFC Championship. They had the football. And we're kicking ass in the first half. I believe it was 24-3, and then we had the worst third-quarter collapse in the history of the sport. That was a bummer. That was definitely a bummer. Yeah, because it was right there.

2:11:25You had it. And then last year, we go 15-2. We'll probably never go 15-2 in the franchise's history ever again. Whoa! And we have all of those injuries. We get the bye week, by the way, and then we lose to the Commanders. And then this year we don't make the playoffs. So, yeah, it's definitely a bummer, and it just shows how fucking difficult it is to make it to that goddamn Super Bowl. Oh, yeah, they had like 90 active players last year. Listen to this guy. Listen to this guy. 90.

2:11:52Pat McAfee:Connor, back for another dynasty run. There was a time for 20 years where every other year they were in the Super Bowl, and then every other other year they were winning the Super Bowl. It's like what the Patriots accomplished for 20 years. this guy's life parades he's going to them he has hope for these 13 days basically his entire life yeah they fall face the earth they're back already you ever one time and then Connor's like these guys check this guy out yeah I mean that's what I said it's not fair that's what I said right away it isn't fair what I get is not fair I wish I could actually I don't wish I could split it because I want it but I wish you guys could just feel it I wish that there was a like a junior your league.

2:12:29And maybe that's what the Lions should do. They should stop playing. Like an NIT? Exactly. They should stop playing in the NFL and they should say hey, guess what guys? We're doing this other tournament. It's for the teams that are shit. XUFL? Yeah, sure. XUFL. XNF. XNFXFL. NFFL maybe. The National Fun Football League where it's all about fun and ribbons and holding hands. And the Lions can do that and then maybe they can win.

2:12:56Pat McAfee:Jeez, this is what comes with it. Foxy, you've never got a chance to experience what he is doing right now. Watch your mouth, Connor, first and foremost. But this is why all those years I said 10-6 in a playoff win, because I had never seen a playoff win. I didn't even know what that was like. And then two years ago, they won two playoff games in my entire life. They have won two playoff games. I don't even think Connor can count how many playoff games he's won in his lifetime. 40! Not in my lifetime, but we actually just became the first NFL franchise in the history of the NFL. Fun fact, what you just brought up right there.

2:13:25Yeah, to reach 40 wins. We have officially won 40. I think that was my 37th. This little fun bonus game

2:13:33Pat McAfee:thing we call the playoffs, yeah, we've won the most in the history with 40. There's actually been 12 teams that have never won a Super Bowl. Beals, Vikings, Bengals, Falcons, Panthers, Cardinals, Titans, Chargers, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, and Texans. Now, Lions haven't even made it to the Super Bowl, one of only four teams, but boy, the A.C. South there. Tennessee, Titans, Jacksonville, Jaguars, Houston, Texans. Colts haven't won a division in 11 years, 12 years. They got one of them Bulls, though. We do, but I'll tell you what, 12 teams not being able to enjoy this ever. Oh, that's tough. And then these guys.

2:14:10Dude, I mean.

2:14:10Pat McAfee:And the Seahawks being back, too. Let's talk about that. I mean, the Legion of Boom had a little run there. We were seeing them in a big one a lot, too. Them being back is crazy. And there's just some franchises, I guess, that would never get to experience it, AJ. Ever. What's that all about? I mean, imagine being an owner. Imagine being like an owner for 20, 30, 40 years and not ever getting there. No wonder the Pagoulas, you know, no wonder Terry Pagoulas goes up there and he's like, the fuck do you want me to do here? Trying to get to the big one. I can't get to the big one with the guy. I got to make some change, right?

2:14:41That's my golf partner here. Yeah. This guy's good, Brandon Bean. I like this. Listen to him talk. He's got a cool accent. Sean McDermott, he's got nothing. And I don't get his pregame speeches. Nobody does.

2:14:52Pat McAfee:That's like Mara when he came out a couple years ago. I'm sick of telling my friends why we lose all the time. Yep. Those 12 teams got to go to those owners meetings. How's this going up here? We vote, but does our vote even matter? Yeah. Do you think they said their own table? Like a no. Like a kid table. Oh, my God. Like a kid table that has never gotten there, I hope. Just go ahead, please. Please. Plates only, no balls. And then it's not she, the Ford Ham's fault, obviously. No. Potentially. Plastic. Like, she and three others are at a different table. Oh, yeah. That's even worse. And Kraft is just walking around in no pants.

2:15:29Dick out. Yeah, for sure. What's up, everybody? You also can't do that because then, you know, you got Mark Davis who's sitting at the big boy table in a booster seat, you know, in a high chair pretty much. Because of what happened in the past. Because of his dad.

2:15:43Pat McAfee:But, hey, that's just – that's a lucky, lucky, lucky club. That's the way it works, baby. I saw him scouting his future quarterback. He was doubting. You did. And he did say, just win, baby, to someone. To Bruce. Yeah, Bruce. It was awesome. What'd you say, Bruce? I said, go Raiders. And he just immediately, without skipping a beat, just win, baby. It was perfect. Did you fist bump or anything or just keep walking? Just that. Just the just win, baby. Did he look at you or just say it while looking straight? He maybe, like, turned a little bit. Just win, baby. And then just kept going to go watch Fernando.

2:16:13Pat McAfee:Man, you could have got a fist bump right there. I think you could have still won. And you might have grabbed your hand, too, like, turkey. Yeah, yeah.

2:16:23Gotcha.

2:16:25Pat McAfee:Oh, my God. What a dream. All right, next time. Let's remember that. Yeah. That's how we see it. Remember, you got a fist bump. Got to get a fist bump. Yeah. All right. Speaking of got to get, let's get to the thoughts around X. This morning, you know, normally it's an overreaction Monday, but it feels like the overreactions have kind of simmered down because not as many teams are active in the NFL season. So we wanted to celebrate the Super Bowl season. So I put out a tweet that basically said, Hey, use hashtag PMS Super Bowl season and let us know your thoughts on the Super Bowl being 13 days away.

2:16:55Pat McAfee:Just one game left, AJ. We're already here. We're here. I guess we need to enjoy it, right? Yes, we do. I mean, obviously, we're going to enjoy Connor's time leading up to this game. But yeah, we all need to enjoy it as well. Yeah, Connor's going to have a good time. Going to have a good time these next 13 days. Let's get to a couple that Ty Schmidt picked that need to be read. First one here from Braden at B. Howard 11. Patriots went on historically the hardest playoff run in terms of defenses playing and are still being dotted. We got the MVP, the coach of the year, and the assistant coach of the year.

2:17:26Pat McAfee:Keep the dots coming. Pats by a million. The Pats are back. Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. There's no doubt about that, Brayden. Congratulations, and we're all pumped for you. Ain't that right, Connor? Yeah, we are. But look, this is the last fun season, quote-unquote. You know, expectations going forward. We talk about this all the time. You win football games. Expectations change. This year it was, hey, let's get better. Granted, our getting better is going all the way to the bowl. Good, better, best. And we're probably good right now. Going forward, we'll get better. I cannot wait for these next 13 days, and it really is a miracle that the MVP of this guy who's at the helm is only 23 freaking years old, man.

2:18:05Pat McAfee:Congrats to you and to Brayden. Let's get to Todd Villarreal, Mr. Villarreal32. Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. What a shitty Super Bowl this is going to be. Sorry, Connor, but your Patriots don't stand a chance against the Seahawks. The Patriots walked the yellow brick road to the Super Bowl and are going to get blown out. Seahawks by 30. Hope the commercials are good. That's a good call there by Todd. I forgot about that. Ty, how many people were saying this about the Super Bowl, that it was going to be a blowout? I did not expect that. A decent amount. I think a lot of Seahawks fans, pretty much.

2:18:38They watched the AFC Championship, saw 10-7, maybe not the most explosive offense, and then they saw Sam Darnold throwing for 370 yards and three touchdowns and thought, why are we even playing this game? We're going to beat the shit out of this team. So in terms of confidence, it seems like Seattle fans and Seahawks fans and really kind of just everyone who doesn't want to see the Patriots win, they're kind of on that side of the coin.

2:19:00Pat McAfee:And the commercials being good, I forgot about those being a thing. There is one commercial for the last few weeks that has been tough. I don't know if it's won over anybody, but I do appreciate that they continue to run it. The food one? All right, let's move along to the next one. Let's go to Zane Leslie here at Zane Leslie 2. Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. It's time to bench the narrative surrounding Darnold and big games. Hell yeah, that conversation is over. Sammy D slammed that door shut last night. Seahawks taking their revenge now 11 years in the making thanks to Darnold. Contract looking better and better every day.

2:19:35Pat McAfee:They're not paying Darnold a lot of money, AJ. They got him on a great deal. Going forward, I guess Sam Darnold could say, I want a little bit more cash. Shola for what has happened here. But congrats to him taking a shot on the Seattle Seahawks and them in return doing the same, especially how the Vikings' tenure ended, AJ. Yeah, and they win this game. They get to the Super Bowl not, like, in spite of Sam Darnold. They win because of Sam Darnold. He's a huge reason why they're getting it. That's why it's – yeah, I mean, it has to – for him, yeah, he's not, like – he's not satisfied, but he has to be a little bit relieved that he played so well.

2:20:06He does this at home and beats a great Rams defense. and just goes head-to-head against Matthew Stafford and finds a way in the biggest game of his life leading up until the Super Bowl. That will be the biggest once he plays in that. But imagine if he comes out on fire and completes a deep ball early in the Super Bowl as well. This Seattle fan base is going to go crazy.

2:20:27Pat McAfee:I think he will. I have a lot of faith in Sam Darnold. I think he's balling. I also think Jackson Smith and Jigba is incredible in football. I think their offense is fun, and I think they've got a great running game. And I love what's around them. Now, on that note, the entire culture seems to be in a great spot as well. Let's go to the next overreaction. This is from Jello Christ, at Jello underscore Christ, or Chris, depending upon how it's pronunciated there by Mr. Jello with a great mustache. Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. Erect the statue of Mike McDonald in the middle of Pike's Place Market.

2:20:55Pat McAfee:His hire will go down as one of the best in Seahawks history. His Seahawks defense is going to make Drake May feel like my mother after a second divorce. Hopeless. Go Hawks. Hope your mom finds some hope. Obviously, that's a tough run. Pike's place where they throw the fish, it does feel like if he's able to turn this thing around this quickly for Seattle, they can't help but fall in love with this guy. He's special. He is a football computer, I think, AJ. And the boys obviously believe in what he's pitching. Yeah, he is. I think it's good to see we got two defensive-minded coaches in the Super Bowl.

2:21:26That's something that I think those guys have almost been devalued over the last few years. So here we go. We got two defensive guys.

2:21:33Pat McAfee:There's a stat on that because two defensive head coaches, Remember, normally offensive coordinator, offensive type wizards are in the spotlight during these coaching hiring cycles. Two defensive coaches in the current Super Bowl, and that is... It was the last time since Patriots-Falcons when Dan Quinn was with Atlanta where both coaches were defensive. I thought there was another one Bruce might have had, but I know that was the one we went back to. Yep, a defensive head coach has not won the Super Bowl since 2018 when Bill Belichick beat Sean McVay. That 2016 was the last time that both teams had defensive head coaches.

2:22:04Pat McAfee:All of the coaching cycle hiring became offensive guru, offensive guru, offensive guru. Feels like we're getting some tough culture football back. And, you know, last year with the Philadelphia Eagles, obviously we saw a run game and we saw defense kind of take the way and carry the load for that particular team. Now you're starting to see a little bit more tough football. Now not only Sirianni is in this thing, now you got two alphas in there leading the squad. McDonald's still calls the defense, though, So I don't know if, you know, play caller, non-play caller conversation still exists strictly because he's not on the offensive side.

2:22:37Pat McAfee:But he leads that defense. That's unbelievable. Yeah, now that we're saying this as well, is 2018 the last time one of the head coaches was a defensive head coach in the Super Bowl? Because it was basically after that every single year, it was Mahomes and Andy Reid in the AFC or Zach Taylor with Burrow. And then it was Brady, McVay, or Bruce Arians, but yeah, same. McVay, Sirianni, Shanahan. I don't know if there's been a defensive head coach in Belichick. The boys are back. Congrats to them doing that for that side of the ball. Congrats to you guys, AJ. Congrats to the defense. Yeah. Congrats to the defense.

2:23:13You couple a solid offense with a great defense, you got a chance to win it all. And you have great offense and great defense, good luck. That's the Super Bowl we're going to watch.

2:23:21Pat McAfee:That's what we're looking for. and normally only a few teams have it. This year, a lot more good defense. Feels like we're coming around to some big old good D. The next couple years. Ain't that right, AJ? That's right. I can't wait for Darius to break it down for us. What do you mean? Which segment? Whenever he does the good D, bad D segment. I know right now he's not going to do that today. I assume that he snowed in. Did Florida get any snow? No, he's South Florida. I heard the Panhandle got snow. He was snowed out, actually. So, flights in the Midwest where all the snow is, obviously. It's going to be tough for people to travel in and out.

2:23:55Pat McAfee:There's been delays, cancellations, movement, everything like that. D-Buck got canceled last night, canceled this morning, canceled again. So he's actually snowed out of Indianapolis. I believe he's in route, but safe travels to everybody out there. The storm has obviously affected a lot. I saw there was definitely a line of demarcation. I think Baton Rouge was like 25 degrees, and then New Orleans was 70. So there was definitely like a line where it was like, hey, normal, and then shite. Hey, we saw they took the hurricane plans out there. They actually got the systems aligned. Then they had to move north a little bit.

2:24:27Dropped those planes. A lot of ice down there.

2:24:29Pat McAfee:I'm talking to Jim Cantor about what's going to be on the ground. And I just get out of my car and just go. That was a bad idea. We had weather people on the show. That's how bad the weather was going to be. We wouldn't have the weather people on if it wasn't so bad. So I should have just been paying attention. So one thing leads to another. She wants a cake pop. I'm getting out there. They lied about Denver. Okay. I mean, they did not tell us. Fyke said pre-sip, but the wind. Cantor did say there might be some second-half snow. Yes, but not pre-sip like that. Might be some second-half snow versus, hey, it's going to be blowing fucking sideways.

2:25:02That's my line, baby.

2:25:03Pat McAfee:Hey, on that note about the AFC championship and the offensive performances there, great defenses obviously across the board everywhere, but certainly in that AFC championship game as well. This is like when Texas A &M played Miami down there, and the wind was like 30 miles an hour. people that weren't there couldn't feel the wind. Yes. Like, you can't play football in this. It almost feels like yesterday, especially whenever that shit was going sideways, that feels like a tough environment to play football in. Not that it was great before the snow was coming, which was later in the game. I'm just saying I don't think we should necessarily be judging everything that happened late in that game because I think it would have been tough to play football regardless with the weather.

2:25:42Yeah, and clearly the Patriots changed everything they were doing on offense. I think they threw the ball maybe twice from the start of the snow until the end of the game, one of them being a flea flicker. And I think a lot of people's lives flashed before them when they did that. But you could tell that they were just, all right, we're going to hold on to the ball, run it, and just hope Jared Stidham doesn't drive down the football field, which he didn't.

2:26:03Pat McAfee:All right, the Patriots are back. Here's from at Boston Sports Ball. Oh, hell yeah. Boston Sports Guy. Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. And after years of agony, the New England Patriots are back in the Super Bowl. Mike Vrabel walked in, built a team, built a culture, and did it in one year to show the entire NFL that it can be done quickly. Patriots reign supreme over the AFC again. We're back with a dab down there from Vrabes. You guys are back, okay? You are back. And expectations are going to be crazy. I think J.J. Watt talked about how Cignetti has only been in Indiana for a couple years. McDonald's only been in Seattle for two years.

2:26:41Pat McAfee:Vrabel's only been there for one year. Expectations of quick turnarounds are certainly going to only increase with this massive success that everybody's having. Vrabel in year one, outrageous, AJ, up there in New England. Yeah, it's absolutely outrageous what he's able to do. We've documented on this show today how tough it is to get to the Super Bowl, especially your first year in the building as the head coach. But is this going to cause other owners here in the near future to fire guys even quicker than we have in the past? I'm not sure. We got a lot of consistency over here in Indianapolis.

2:27:12Pat McAfee:Okay? We like our guys. Ten years. We like our guys. We should. It's hard, though, to keep the faith after years and years and years of not having success, and then you watch another place build it twice within the time in which you haven't had it. That's difficult, especially when New England was like the clear-cut kings of the NFL for a long time, like clear-cut. Conspiracies being made about them, actual rules being exposed, different gates. The entire world hated him. I mean, it was like clear cut. The New England Patriots are the king of the NFL. Like that was a long time. Everybody knew that.

2:27:45Pat McAfee:That's why everybody hated him. Because people throw rocks at things that shine. Tyler Swift said that. Chiefs were starting a little bit, but literally the Patriots were known as that. So to watch them get back to potentially being that again after having to rebuild and lose everything. Lose everything. Yeah. Lose everything. All of it. And then you watch them build it back. it's like, what the fuck is my team doing? I assume the Lions and the three other teams that have never made it to the Super Bowl are certainly questioning that on a regular basis. I'm starting to think, does any of it matter?

2:28:16Because the Lions aren't going to get there and the Patriots are just going to get back there anyway. So does it matter?

2:28:21Pat McAfee:Well, when you talk about mattering, it's like, and the NFL knows the script. Anyway, what, September? They put that graphic on? Yeah, week one. Self-scripted. Did you see that age? Oh, isn't that fucking convenient? it yeah and so we're always gonna have this right i mean with the internet we're always gonna zoom in please i wish i could i realized that that was a big uh shitty on me right there okay so fox immediately upon putting it on screen realizes that there's no way for us to zoom in just now up in the front there who's there drake and darnold oh is that right up in the front yeah first two basically if you were to count it in a certain line formation that was in september so Okay, and then Saquon Barkley and the Eagles obviously have the year they have.

2:29:03Pat McAfee:Oh, man. Who's controlling all this? You tell me, Age. You're probably in on it. I'm asking. Number five overall pick in the past. Super Bowl champion. Certainly benefited you, hasn't it? Whoever's controlling this all. It has, hasn't it? This goes way above me. Did Rabel with a hat on throw anyone else off? Didn't even look like him, in my opinion. That's like prison Mike from The Office. When he puts a hat on, he just turns into more of a jovial guy. If he's not in a good mood or getting a trophy, don't even try to put a hat on that head. It is too big. Did you see his back pocket? Yeah. Was there a circle?

2:29:38Pat McAfee:Maybe the most defined one I've ever seen. It looked like a pint. His head is – he's got an Ohio head there, just a gigantic cranium, not supposed to have hats on. It's a flat bill, nonetheless. But right there across the top, it says champions. Yes, it does. Has he been clean-shaven all year too? No, he had the Movember run where we went five minutes. Defeated with the stash. But clearly, yesterday morning, he took a clean razor. Their home is Gillette Stadium. I'm going to assume he's got a clean face. The best razor. I assume he's got a clean face if he's upper. A lot of clean faces up in New England.

2:30:13Pat McAfee:A lot of clean faces. A lot of young faces, clean, just beautiful, really. Just beautiful man faces. Just championship quality. Yeah, look, it is what it is. Let's get to that next one, please. This is from Evan Trezazas. Yep. At Trezazas, 14. His favorite number. I remember when they said the Broncos' O-line was so good, it would allow Stidi to thrive. Why don't we give the Patriots' defense credit for causing absolute chaos on opposing QBs? Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. I think we have now. We're going to have to for the next two weeks. Let's get to the next one, shall we? Shout out to Evan.

2:30:49Pat McAfee:If this is all Derek Miller here, hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. Beating the Rams is always going to be harder than winning the Super Bowl. Hawks by a million. Jeez Louise. The NFC was favored in any matchup that the Super Bowl generated with the Denver Broncos or the Patriots heading to the Super Bowl. The NFC was the favorite regardless. And I'll tell you what, a lot of people thinking the Seahawks are just going to handle the New England Patriots. And with the way it started yesterday with Stiddy, I thought maybe the Patriots have finally run into the day in which they won't be in a game, in which they won't be able to make it ugly, in which they won't be able to keep up.

2:31:23Pat McAfee:And then all of a sudden those clamps came done. From that defense. And the weather then starts to change. Everything starts happening. It's like, oh, no, yeah. Maybe they did a little something in that first series that they weren't expecting. And maybe they didn't know he was going to be able to do this. And maybe they made it too easy for Stiddy at the beginning. Then they just dialed it up. And then all of a sudden we got guys shot putting the ball backwards while trying to throw it forward. Because they're getting tackled backwards so much. So, you know, like that's Patriot football basically.

2:31:48Pat McAfee:And then Drake May just runs it in. It's like they're just like a boa constrictor. It's just always applying pressure. It's just tightening up. I thought Steady City was coming. I thought for real. I thought he was the mayor. I was like, holy shit, this guy's going to get paid$40 million a year going forward as a starter somewhere, maybe earn his way. And then as the Patriots de-locked down, obviously kicking was difficult for both teams. And then Drake May and the New England Patriots offense is able to get enough done and not turn the rock over and have explosives whenever you need it. It's like, that's Patriots football in a nutshell.

2:32:18Pat McAfee:And they're all the way back. They're all the way back. All the way back. Blocking, kicks, I mean everything. Yeah, everything going the way that they needed it. And, again, it's his first year, dude. Like, it's Mike Frabel's first year in Drake May's second year. Like, this really is something everyone needs to stare down the tube for a long time. Now, they missed a couple kicks, you know, which might have led to a couple decisions that were made earlier. Here's the last Super Bowl season thought from Jake at J-Dawg. He's out of Texas, number four. Hashtag PMS Super Bowl season. This is a bit of advice for both teams to get to play one more time for the season.

2:32:52Pat McAfee:If you're in field goal range and you got a fourth and short, don't matter. Take the fucking points. Sean Payton's certainly going to be thinking about that all offseason. He's not the only one. There's a lot of games that were decided by a mismanagement of a situation. And obviously, if you pick that up there, you're a superhero. You're the smartest person on earth. You miss it, you're the dumbest person on earth. That's always going to be ball. That's always going to be the beauty of hindsight. But on that note, he should have known that it was probably going to be a cagey affair with both those defenses.

2:33:21Pat McAfee:Will Lutz, veteran kicker. I know he got one blocked and he missed another one yesterday. But you think he probably knocks those through 10-7 early. Wait a minute. Does everything change? We'll never know. What we do know is we'll be back tomorrow. You guys are the greatest on earth. AJ, you're the man, buddy. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, guys. Hell of a play by the Patriots D on that fourth and one. Obviously, you can question kicking or not, which I would have loved to kick it if I was the Broncos. But, man, Patriots D stepped up huge when needed. Yeah, they brought it there, huh? Look at that.

2:33:51Yeah, no chance. Nobody didn't matter. Like, the Broncos had no chance. Like, sorry, pal. We got you. That guy right there, too, who makes the pass breakup, Craig Woodson, rookie. He has been so good all year. He's the reason Kyle Duggar and Jabril Peppers aren't New England Patriots anymore. Rookie out of Cal. He doesn't get as many, you know, headlines as the defense just hasn't in general. But he is someone who will be very good for a long time.

2:34:16Pat McAfee:Such good defense. And then, obviously, the Seahawks defense outrageous. Sam Darnold, Ball and Drake May. Second year, 23-year-old in the Super Bowl. So many storylines. We're going to talk about them for the next two weeks. Yes.

2:34:34So awesome. You got to get a Braves tattoo on the other tricep. I think we might be able to cover this one up. We'll see. We'll see. Let's go get one done. Let's not celebrate too soon and start thinking about tattoos. You're covering up six Super Bowls? just joking

2:34:50Pat McAfee:be a friend tell friends something nice in my chair be safe out there with the weather and let's remember we're in this thing together I don't like us battling each other it's not good sports will bring us together and we're thankful for that alright team on me team on three one two three team goodbye

2:35:18My offers on the NRL. Download the Tab app to get personalised offers on every NRL game. Now that's something to shout about. Tab. We're on. Available to account holders online. T's and C's at website. What's gambling really costing you? For free and confidential support, visit gamblinghelponline.org.au. Two teams, one cup. The primetime stage is set for the TGL presented by SoFi Finals. Los Angeles Golf Club vs. Tigers Jupiter Lynx. Keep up! It's playoffs! Tune in Monday, March 23rd, 9pm Eastern on ESPN2, and Tuesday, March 24th, 7pm Eastern on ESPN and on the ESPN app.