PMS 2.0 1508 - Boston Bruins Defenseman Charlie McAvoy, Freestyle Skiing Halfpipe Olympic Gold Medalist Alex Ferreira, Aaron Rodgers, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

13:41Aaron Rodgers:So as far as the books go, they still think it's Bills, Ravens, Chiefs, which has been the AFC majority for the last decade. And then obviously the Patriots, who are the young upstart franchise, coming back into it. But no, the Chiefs are still up there in the odds. I don't think anyone is ever going to count them out with Patrick Holmes. He's probably going to be back for week one of next year. If they can figure out the running game, which they are linked to basically every running back in the draft and or free agency. And then they let corners go. That's what they do. D-Buts highlighted it.

14:11Aaron Rodgers:They'll be fine.

14:12Pat McAfee:Look at the divisional favorites odds here. And we talk about the Chiefs and how once we see Patrick Holmes on TV, we're going to get back on board with him. It's like they already think that in the book. So they're like, yep, Chiefs will be back. Let's go ahead and make sure that's the case. You start looking around some of these. I mean, Connor's face right now is epic that he just read that the Buffalo Bills are favored by that. Could have been something else. He had a look of complete confusion. Obviously, there's a lot of things up there. I'm not just pointing out one particular thing that he could lose in his mind.

14:40Pat McAfee:But for me, the thing that stuck out whenever I looked at this odds graphic first, Vikings they were playing for the number one seed yeah think about that isn't that nuts and then Ben Johnson gets to Chicago and now we're all like Chicago's probably a real team now like for real Detroit we think they're a real team

15:03Aaron Rodgers:I'm surprised they're favorites that's MCDC football

15:08Pat McAfee:Dream Bay we obviously all think they're a real team for sure so all of a sudden you're the vikings fans and it's like i'm learning a lot about my state right now and also two years ago we were playing for the number one seed in the nfc and then now we are the worst odds to win just our our division at this point what a wild fall that potentially is for what a coach that we think is one of the best definitely in the entire league or whatever the cases the nfl is so hard and if you're winning you got to hold on to that for as long as you position well not only yeah but i just think in general if you are winning you have to hold on for dear god and that goes in minnesota vikings now they're looking for a veteran quarterback and it's very obvious every report coming out of the combine is like the minnesota vikings are open for conversation con man you have been big on if kyler murray gets into kevin o 'connell's offense Yeah.

16:04Pat McAfee:Because whenever we talk about arm talent, right, we talk about Kyler Murray. Whenever you talk about the ability to, you know, be in the moment, I guess, because you've been there, done that. There's stats coming out of Kyler. You look at Kyler Murray's desert era, and he sent out a tweet saying thank you to Arizona. He was so thankful. 20 ,000 yards, you know, passing. Yeah. 121 touchdowns. You start looking at stats, it's like he's accomplished a lot of shit. Like a lot of shit has happened on a football field with Kyler Murray. He's seen a lot of snaps. He's seen a lot of defenses. Now, the entire conversation is the off the field stuff.

16:33Pat McAfee:is he an actual leading man is he a front man is he a ceo of a billion dollar organization is he a guy that'll do everything you need him to do to be the starting quarterback and also the influence on the rest of the entire team and how the locker room goes the team goes as the quarterback goes and that's not just on the field that's how he operates that's how he kind of handles everything and the conversation always around kyler has been like the off-field stuff not necessarily exactly what you would want for quarterback. Definitely wide receiver, running back. He's in a corner. He's an immense talent.

17:08Pat McAfee:He's the only guy ever to be drafted top 10 in MLB and the NFL. Yes. You're talking about freak show athlete. One of the greats in the history of humans existing. It was just always a conversation, is he an NFL quarterback? And I think that got thrown at him a lot. But then you look at like, we can't talk about him now, obviously, because that is a breach of contract for the NFLPA. But you look at the NFLPA report cards back whenever they were put out. Sure. Just back in the day, like last year.

17:40Aaron Rodgers:Yep, can't talk about them.

17:41Pat McAfee:Everything's terrible with the Arizona Cardinals.

17:43Aaron Rodgers:Yeah.

17:44Pat McAfee:Everything's terrible with the Arizona Cardinals. There's some people that have gone over there that we have respect for. Lost. There are stories that have come out of their ego. That's not a real organization. They're not the only ones. There's certainly other places. So was Kyler ever going to win? Was anybody ever going to win at Arizona? Would it have taken somebody like a Peyton Manning, who's like an executive, coming in there being quarterback? Remember the story was he interviewed Bill Polian of the Indianapolis Colts whenever he was coming out as opposed to the other way around. Would it have taken somebody to go in there and change the entire, hey, this is how we're doing this.

18:14Pat McAfee:This is how we're doing this. This is how we're doing this. And how many of those exist in the modern world that we're in? Is anybody or would anybody have been able to do a successful job for the Arizona Cardinals? That is a question now that I think is allowed to be asked. Sure. I am also a person that as soon as I saw the clause put into Kyler's contract that's never been put in anybody else's contract to say you've got to watch film, immediately said that can't happen at the quarterback position because of how high I hold the quarterback position in. I hold the quarterback position in such high regard.

18:44Pat McAfee:You are GM, coach, and that's because I watch Peyton. That is literally how I got introduced to the NFL is watching Peyton Manning do it and how he operated. It's like, this is a goat? Yeah. Okay. Then you hear stories about how Tom Brady operates. This is a GOAT. Okay. This is how this is supposed to go. Go back to the day. So that's how I hold the quarterback position. So whenever that clause gets put in there for the first time ever for a guy, that was tough for me to ever believe. But as we continue to learn shit about this Cardinals organization, it's like, what, anybody ever tell them? Like, hey, this is how this shit's supposed to go.

19:15Pat McAfee:This is what you're supposed to do. Like Vrabel right now with Drake May, he's letting him know, hey, this is how you talk to these guys. This is where you go. this is what you do on Thursday nights instead of being at home with the lovely Ann Michael May and all that stuff. You're going to dinner with boys here. You're buying them this. Somebody is teaching people how to do this job as well right now literally in New England. I assume Sean Payton's doing the same thing with Bo Nix. It's like, did Kyler ever have somebody tell him exactly how to be? All these questions still remain. And then you turn on the tape and you watch this thing happen.

19:50Pat McAfee:And it's like. so if Kevin O 'Connell can get Kyler Murray to buy in to learning his offense entirely and I'm not saying that that'll be a problem but I'm saying if he can get him to buy into that offense completely and understand what's going on and utilize everything that he can do it's like that would be a lethal that would be a problem I think if he was able to get the best out of Kyler Murray I think that would be a problem and also the Minnesota Vikings who are the worst in the division become the story of the season where it's like, see, we gave up on these guys way too soon, both of them.

20:24Pat McAfee:There's a chance that that could happen in Minnesota, and you have been the driver behind that in my world. So I appreciate you opening my eyes for that.

20:30Darius Butler:Well, it's just like Sam Darnold. Obviously, Kyler Murray was the first overall pick. He's had success. He's led a team to the playoffs, and Sam Darnold before Minnesota wasn't technically that, didn't have that type of resume. But if you were to bring Kyler into a KOC offense, Kyler, like you mentioned, he gets a KOC kind of course on how to attack a defense, which as we've seen, Once he gets a quarterback in there, he can teach anybody to do it. He had Josh Dobbs' ear for three days, and Josh Dobbs went on to win. And then you mentioned the talent around him. He's never played with talent like Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison.

21:02Darius Butler:He's had A.J. Green in the back half of his career, D-Hop for a little bit, Trey McBride has been his guy as of recent. But as far as Justin Jefferson-type level, that has to be the most attractive guy as far as wanting to play with, wanting to throw the football to him. Now, we've talked a lot about it. their cap is awful they have a really really tough cap situation that's why granard and all these guys are being told like hey we might trade you you're getting released but that's why the 1.2 million number for kyler murray is perfect for minnesota like if you're kyler you don't have to go to minnesota forever but you can go for one year learn the koc offense see what sam darnold has become realize i can do that and also know that hey if i go out there and absolutely ball out for the Vikings, they're not going to do the same thing that they did with Sam Darnold with me.

21:50Darius Butler:They already realized, like, hey, we had Sam Darnold. We let him go. We go from 14 wins to 9 wins, miss the playoffs. If I go there and win 12, 13 games, the Vikings most likely are going to give me a deal.

22:02Pat McAfee:You talk about all these great things that could happen. I don't know if you mentioned it there as I was trying to read some stats. Daniel Jones has credited the Minnesota Vikings for making him a much better quarterback. Kevin O 'Connell with the way he handled his week, what he looked that helped me out. It's almost becoming like a Shanahan type situation over there in San Francisco if you're a quarterback. Learn how to be the guy. This is kind of what you can do. Oh, you see Mac Jones throw that chunk of ice?

22:27Darius Butler:That was unbelievable.

22:28Pat McAfee:Oh my God.

22:29Darius Butler:He's just one of the boys now. He's not backup QB, Mac Jones.

22:33Pat McAfee:Unbelievable. It takes a shot out of this. I've never seen this concoction. Is that snow? I'm not 100 % sure. Whatever the case. Hose. Hosenhausen right there. I mean, that was a Hosenhausen out of Mac Jones right there. And an immediate dance afterwards. You see George Kittle just like lock his head back and let him keep laughing. George's reaction was, that's Mac. That was his exact reaction there. Mac's vibes. He's having a good, yeah. Can't spell immaculate. Without Mac. Without Mac right there in the middle. I love seeing that. But on that note, he goes to San Francisco, becomes what he's become, as I assume it's going to happen again.

23:09Pat McAfee:It's like Kevin O 'Connell has already been given credit. If Kyler was to go over there and have success, everybody else would be like, of course. Like, this is obviously what it is. And then you just have to start thinking about that NFC North, and it's like, who's the odd one out? The Vikings. Let's say Kyler has success. Yeah, the Vikings. What? You don't think he has a chance to become, he's 28 years old. Athletically, talented-wise, yeah.

23:33Aaron Rodgers:But, you know, we've all heard the same stuff. I mean, what, is he going to change overnight?

23:38Pat McAfee:Maybe. And I thought about this as well. Maybe everything they were saying is unfixable, like being an NFL quarterback. What it calls for to be an NFL quarterback. That is interesting. But what if he hears all that and just strictly out of spite decides? That would be cool. You know what? I'm going to prove everybody wrong, and I'm going to go in there and absolutely – there's a chance with how competitive he is that that becomes his angle, and he's almost driven out of that fact. So I'm not saying that everything that they were saying about him is true, and I'm not saying that I don't believe in him, But there is a chance that he uses it all as, like, motivation to become the best version of himself so that he can say, I told you so, basically, to almost everybody.

24:16Pat McAfee:That is certainly an angle that athletes have used in the past. Absolutely. Especially elite athletes.

24:21AJ Hawk:And he's playing for a coach, obviously. Well, if he goes to Minnesota, he'd be playing for KOC, who's a former player, former quarterback. And this is a position that Kyler Murray's never been in, at least from my perspective. He's kind of always been that guy, even coming from Texas. He was, I think, the most decorated quarterback coming out of Texas, then going on to be the Heisman winner, number one pick. And this is a guy who's 5 '9", 5 '10", achieving these type of things. You mentioned being drafted in MLB, the top 10 as well. This has always been the elite of the elite. So now he's in a position where the whole football world is looking at him.

24:55AJ Hawk:Everybody's kind of out on him. He'll be playing for a million bucks for this team. Obviously, he'll be getting his money, but they'll be paying. So now you're in a brand new situation. You're not the guy walking into the building. You're a guy that we hope can be the guy. So, yeah, he can do this out of spite and out of just kind of like sometimes you get older and you start to see things from different perspectives. We know he has the talent. That isn't a question. And now having the other pieces, Justin Jefferson and some other pieces that he have there, man, it could be one of the best turnarounds that we can see in the NFL.

25:26Pat McAfee:Yeah, and you described it right there perfectly. It could be a maturity situation, you know, whenever you finally get told that you're not the one. Don't come in the building. We don't want you. There is a perspective changer that could potentially happen. There is reports, ESPN report that came out that said he's interested in two teams. And we would assume that if one of those teams is the Vikings, that everybody who throws a football good would certainly be interested in that particular gig because of Kevin O 'Connell. And Connor and I had this conversation earlier. We were just out there.

25:53Pat McAfee:Might be nice not to have Scottsdale in old town and, you know.

25:56Aaron Rodgers:A lot less to do. Scottsdale to Minnesota. Yeah. Well, I think that's the biggest thing. Whoa, no, no. Minnesota's beautiful. It's beautiful, you know, when the season starts. If you're not used to it and you're used to, like, that. Oh, you think it might break them? Yeah, I mean, negative 20 degrees, dark at 4 p.m. Like, people talk about, like, seasonal depression. You know, if you're from here, it's like, whatever. It is what it is.

26:20Pat McAfee:Yeah, I am depressed. Thanks. Yeah, exactly. And it's not just that season. There's four of them.

26:24Aaron Rodgers:But I think this is, like, he has an opportunity to kind of just flip all the narratives. because whether it is true or not, that is what everyone says. You go to a place like Minnesota where things aren't going great, that could go really bad, or he could be their savior.

26:41Pat McAfee:Maybe their savior, maybe his savior. Maybe he goes and plays baseball. And I'll tell you what, I like that our country played San Francisco first. I'm watching this tape out of the Dominican Republic, and their fans are going absolutely apeshit. We're playing the San Francisco Giants, and there's some Giants fans in there, I think, that were kind of – the Americans beat the shit out of the San Francisco Giants. And I couldn't be more pumped up about that. Right in the face of some of those Giants fans, the boys might be a killing machine. Might be. No, but I'm saying this might be what and who this team is.

27:20Pat McAfee:We watched D-Row stack days, he said. Keep doing the right thing. hopefully good things happen he's taking this skipper opportunity as the honor of a lifetime like actually he has a morning show i believe on mlb network he's done some media former player played for a long time i think there's been teams that have asked him to maybe manage or come and be a skipper somewhere when he gets this opportunity during the last world baseball classic late he got to experience he fell in love with it he also fell in love with like the opportunity to tell the boys how big baseball could be for the country and how we can kind of changed the future of baseball with what we're doing.

27:57Pat McAfee:He's seemingly the perfect guy. And this team is his. These are his guys. Yeah, you have been selected for a reason is what these guys have been told. And it is a motivated bunch. And it looked like it yesterday. It was spectacular watching them do their thing, especially after we literally meet them all and watch them work the day beforehand.

28:18Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, and I think, you know, again, these early games, like this was my expectation. Like this is what we should be doing. This is arguably the best collection of talent in the world. We saw clips from the DR and stuff like that, but guys hitting homers. We talked about Bregman. You look at him, and if you'd see him just in public, he'd be like, yeah, this guy, he hits this ball 437 feet, just an absolute nuke, and that's what all these guys were doing. Our lineup is so difficult. I mean, it's one of those things where this is an elite competition, but a couple of those early games, we're going to be seeing pitchers like these guys, and they did exactly what they were supposed to do.

28:53Aaron Rodgers:Damn near everybody in the lineup had a hit or multiple hits. We scored 15 runs. The pitching staff looked great. Every single thing, every box that I think they probably wanted to check, they checked yesterday, including a guy like Tony Tony's boy, Roman Anthony, and his third at bat as a Team USA player, he hits a home run. You can just tell the confidence is building with all these guys.

29:17Pat McAfee:I'm pumped to watch the boys. Yeah, when it matters. And then you're seeing the photos of, like, Paul Skeens has a little boy with the Team USA gear on. And it's like, this kid has literally been, once in a year, loves America. Loves baseball, obviously. So him getting a chance to do that and be America's ace, even though he won't be the first game, he's taking that as a huge honor. He's not the only one. They're all viewing it that way. Like, we are here to represent our country, represent our sport, and it's beautiful. And that's how you can get behind people that play for, like, the Boston Bruins, if you're from Pittsburgh.

29:48Pat McAfee:that's how you can kind of watch a group of lads go and take on some italian ice and take on the entire globe and become the greatest and not worry about who they're potentially wearing and representing on a nightly basis in the greatest league on earth nhl ladies and gentlemen joining us now boston lad boston boy olympic gold medal hockey player for team united states of america charlie mcafoy

30:17Alex Ferreira:what up dude hey guys how we doing uh how long did you know you're coming on the show was it yesterday or a couple days ago or did you just find out this morning uh traver guy had mentioned it uh like a week ago after we won um but then we got it on the books i think yesterday he told me

30:32Pat McAfee:we're good to go so i was fired up so you're playing the pens last night can't have an own goal or something make me feel good can't do anything like that can uh look out for i was

30:40Alex Ferreira:thinking about that yesterday when he said it i'm like we're gonna have to beat pat's uh pat's answers tonight but uh and you did yeah thanks for doing it charlie just like you did over in

30:48Pat McAfee:the olympics it was fun to watch can you please you know every olympian we've talked to shares like a real passion for representing the country and i had i gave i felt obligated to give a speech about how i grew up in soccer which is an international sport and all we wanted to do was prove that the people from our country are better than everybody else we wanted to prove that our region was better than the other regions and then whenever it gets the country we're better than the other countries the sport of hockey has obviously never been america's you know it's always like fighting fighting fighting is that a mentality whenever you guys had any of these olympics especially this year like hey we have the right crew now to kind of take this and our country will fall in love with this was that a mentality heading into the olympics or did you guys just kind of ride the wave as it went along man i think looking like looking back now now that it's all

31:36Alex Ferreira:been you know been said and done um we did we talked a lot this group about how this was this was our time um you know we we were not shy about broadcasting it when people asked that we were going over there to win a gold medal um we spoke about it a ton you know as a group dating back to that four nations that this was kind of our our golden age of hockey this was the best team that we've had yet um and we all got a chance to do something really special and then just about not letting it slip um you know and then now looking at it like that tournament flew by it was the two fastest weeks you could ever imagine um and we just didn't want to blink or miss any of it uh and let this opportunity slip away and man it's just amazing that we were able to get it done

32:19Pat McAfee:american swagger felt like the perfect mantra is that something that you'll continue to think about as you roll forward or maybe usa hockey will use going forward how do you think about that Solly-ism, I guess, that kind of carried you guys through a very tough Olympic gold medal game.

32:35Alex Ferreira:Yeah, he kept talking about it the whole time was that we needed to play with swagger. We needed to have that American swagger. And I thought that was so neat because, you know, if you kind of digest that, like it was so true playing with that confidence and that belief and like, hey, you know, we are who we are. We're America. We're the best country. We are the best hockey playing country and it was our time to prove it uh and i think it's just unbelievable you know that we leave italy and both the men's and the women's like that we are undisputed we are the best hockey playing country in the world right now what do you think that means for the future

33:07Pat McAfee:obviously the hockey uh life is crazy as a kid ice time the amount of commitment what uh the cost the family every hockey is not an easy sport in america yet i think for uh everybody do you think there is a world where we could potentially continue to advance that especially off of this and how do you feel the reaction from america about hockey has been on your side because we know a lot of people that aren't the big the hockey people but boy they fell in love with watching you and the women's team i think it's good for future hockey do you feel that and what's the conversation amongst you hockey folks about it yeah it's amazing i mean i got so many texts

33:45Alex Ferreira:um you know people saying thank you uh you know just uh and then also about the impact that this is going to have moving forward, you know, that we've inspired the next generation. And I think one of the coolest things is that, you know, we've been able to talk. We were FaceTiming like Chris Chelios before every game, Brian Leach. Like, these are all the guys that we had their jerseys. You know, we dream because of them, because of what they did, you know, in that 80 group, Mike Ruzioni, who I've known since I've been at BU. Then you had that 96 World Cup of Hockey team, like all these guys that just paved the way.

34:22Alex Ferreira:that was why we wanted to do this. We got into hockey because of them. And then it was just so amazing that, like, we got to share it with them. We got to FaceTime them and be like, man, look, we did it. Like, we did it for you guys. And then hearing, you know, how we'll be the ones, you know, getting FaceTimes all these years later being like, hey, we watched you guys do that. We dreamed because of you guys. We thought it was possible because you guys did it. Like, that just gives you chills. That's been, you know, probably one of the coolest parts about the whole thing.

34:50Pat McAfee:Yeah, I think Jack said Team USA is a brotherhood. Team USA is a brotherhood. And you weren't just talking about this particular team. It's like, hey, our entire country has been trying to make this sport bigger. And it's been happening for a long time. Your sport's impeccable. And that game was electric. It had me feeling things that I don't know if I've ever really, you know what I mean?

35:12Alex Ferreira:I was feeling the same thing. Yeah, you're in it, though. You're in it, though. So you've got to do what you've got to do.

35:17Pat McAfee:But there was people who had probably watched hockey, or they would say the hockey, like probably four or five times in their life that were up in the morning, early ass. You know, that was 5 a.m. Pacific over there. Just like, yeah, let's show up and watch this. Screaming at their TVs as Halibut standing on his head. And like, I'm getting videos of people that are like, hey, this guy's never watched hockey before. And watch his ass watching you. It was like, it was spectacular. You guys put on a great showcase of your sport, I think, In that gold medal game, it was fantastic hockey, brother.

35:50Alex Ferreira:It's unbelievable. I think that's why when we've had these conversations amongst the group and amongst guys, it's hard to put in words the difference between putting on a Bruins jersey, which I take so much pride in. I love the city of Boston. I'm here now. I raised my family here. I love it. But it's just something different about putting on that Team USA jersey. It just means everything. And like you're playing for those people that are going to tune in and give you all their love and support because they're American. And that's what we share. And like that's what makes it so unbelievable. Like no matter where you are in America, like we're all one.

36:29Alex Ferreira:We're all one. You're not rooting for the Bruins or the Penguins or the fly. Like we are just one for two weeks in February. And like, man, it doesn't get any better than that. Like it's just amazing, you know, how it all played out. It really is.

36:43Pat McAfee:Yeah, I don't know if you saw where the ratings were. You don't have to worry about Flyers fans. You try to say to Flyers, you don't have to worry about Philly. You know, it's been a long time over there. It's been a long time. Yeah, Buffalo, huge. Pittsburgh, huge. Obviously, Boston, gigantic. I mean, Florida, huge. Yeah, Florida, huge, I believe, because it is Hockey Beach down there. It was special watching. And then, like, the women doing it before you was such a good, like, hey, like, what's coming, you know? It's happening. And then the goal that Megan has, so filthy, just, like, so good.

37:13Pat McAfee:so good for women's hockey i think that goal being that goal don't you think charlie

37:19Alex Ferreira:oh unbelievable like we watched it and i i mean i want to say it was probably 10 of us we all we went to dinner we played the next day so we knew that you know some guys went and brought their kids but most of us you know we were like it's probably a poke to get to like we should probably get to sleep early a big game tomorrow okay a little bit of a we watched it in the in our team it was a group trainer's room for the men and the women and we watched it in there and like i'm talking all 10 guys when she made that move we were like oh and then when she buried it it was just like we're all hugging and jumping like you felt it like we felt like we won we felt that pride that you guys felt like americans like hey like we we did it and uh and it was just unbelievable and then seeing them you know because they stayed through the whole rest of the tournament because they walked in closing like every day it was just you how are you guys feeling today they were just on their little bender that they were going on.

38:13Alex Ferreira:They're still going to score, as they should have been. And it was just so cool to watch. And we were just saying, like, man, we got to do it too. We got to do it too. Look at them. They're on top of the world. They were floating around the village, that whole group, that whole women's team. And we're like, man, we got to do it. It was just incredible. Yeah, they inspired us, no doubt, watching them do it first.

38:34Pat McAfee:That's beautiful. That's wonderful. Hockey's our sport now. That's right. That's a cool thing to be able to say. were you jealous that Jack Hughes got to lose teeth in the gold medal game? And is that why you put your face in front of the net next to him, just hoping that you'd be breaking your shit again? Was that the goal of that entire thing? Like, let me try to eat one of these things in the gold medal thing so Jack Hughes isn't the only one busting chiclets out there, pal?

38:57Alex Ferreira:Man, I've lost way too many teeth this year. I'm good. I hope I don't have to lose anymore. I don't know if you've seen all this from this year. Hold on, hold on.

39:05Pat McAfee:We missed it, we missed it, we missed it. What was it? oh yeah oh yeah you got a little bit of like a spot to put a hose in there yeah i see that

39:15Alex Ferreira:kind of a little that was that was montreal and uh it was november 17th this year i broke my jaw uh i lost all those teeth and i missed like three weeks um honestly it just makes everything even sweeter now like how got back on the ice got back on track like made it to february you know in a really good spot and then and then you know it had a happy ending this year everything really

39:38Pat McAfee:Yeah, well, thank you for doing that, by the way. People got chills whenever you were just putting your life on the line and trying to eat a puck for the good of America. It was like that grit, that grit. That's why I think Hollabuck was so celebrated because this dude's literally standing on his head. But it was as if he was like, no, we're winning. This is not how this is going to go. That shit, this one, iconic forever. That photo from above, I forget. Oh, I should know the name of the person that got that photo from above. It was some special.

40:04Alex Ferreira:Man, I had a front row seat to that. you saw it like i had i was coming back like oh my god and when he saved it i still can't believe it boom that one you were you right there i'm right there that dash man i would have been dashed up oh i i still i couldn't believe it i couldn't believe it didn't make any sense how he saved it like it was insane and then the other the other one that you showed like in the in the play when that's happening like you're just trying to be in a good spot good position on that like i'm by the net and then when it started to come in like all that stuff just happened so fast it wasn't until after the game that i'm getting all these notes like you you saved the game too like yeah you know they kept it in like didn't even stop to think about it you honestly can't because you're just like next shift to a minute later i'm back on the ice and you just yeah but it was uh yeah you're just in a good spot oh my god here we go like and then even after this they had another poke another poke like it was a full group effort there like look at larks he's diving on the ice and then i think it's sandy that gets it out like we just all bared down man they they had so much pressure on us really for for a lot of that second and third period and like it was just a full group effort and then heli like we you should see the group chat the team group chat every morning it's Still, somebody writes in it, like, first thing, hey, thanks, Hallie.

41:27Alex Ferreira:Morning, Hallie. I just want to say thank you. I just want to say thanks, man. Hope you have a great day.

41:33Pat McAfee:Good morning, boys. Hope you're all doing well in your respective cities. Dot, dot, dot. Hallie, can't thank you enough, dude.

41:38Alex Ferreira:Hallie, can't thank you enough for the gold medal, man.

41:41Pat McAfee:Hey, we're getting standing ovations in every fucking town because of you, Hallie. So thankful. But it wasn't just him. Obviously, you all did it. And let's talk now about the NHL, okay? I don't love it. that we have to have this conversation, especially after what just happened last night and what the foreseeable future looks like. But you guys are doing something cool up in Boston. Boston, Connor has a question and some thoughts for you.

42:03Darius Butler:Yeah, Charlie, absolute honor. Obviously beat the dog shit out of the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, which was very fun. It was a sturdy 2-1. It was a blowout 2-1. People don't talk about it.

42:15Pat McAfee:Charlie, don't laugh. Don't laugh, Charlie. Okay, you're a little fucking American hero right now. We don't want you to piss anybody off in Pittsburgh, pal.

42:21Aaron Rodgers:And one team does have more points than the other.

42:24Darius Butler:erroneous on all accounts you guys just shut up and let me talk sorry get back to your little boston hero thing good lord but that was incredible to watch but the whole season has been awesome i mean you mentioned breaking your jaw and you're back three weeks later it felt like that was a miraculous thing to do and then during team usa throwing your body in front of the net after getting the bowl taken off mid-tournament like just incredible so thank you for your service but talking specifically about the bruins this year there hasn't been a captain last year brad marchand gets traded uh you guys don't name a captain for the team has it been kind of odd going out there without anybody with a c on their chest have you felt yourself kind of stepping up a little more as that role you and pasta as he's hanging over your shoulder on that chain how has that vibe kind of been uh this season with the bruins and keep going brother

43:13Alex Ferreira:keep beating the shit out of the penguins yeah man i honestly i think one of the coolest things I learned like about uh just like the the leadership aspect of it because we've had so many amazing captains here like whether it was Z then Bergey then Marshy like we had all these guys you know that you do it by committee you do it as a group uh if there was one thing that I learned like when I got to you know elevate it into that like you know the captaincy circle is that like it takes everybody in that group you can't do it alone you don't want to do it alone you want to shoulder to other people like you know we you know we're all stronger together so I think me and pasta you know we had that feeling and we pulled guys in you know early uh that regardless of whether there's a sea or not like you know we're all going to share this together we're going to bounce things off each other so it's been me it's been pasta Elias Hampus uh you know Zdorov like we've we've all leaned on each other uh to do it and we've been able to have great

44:09Pat McAfee:success this year with that who has the nastiest dangles in america nastiest dangles in america

44:17Alex Ferreira:man i think it might be captain america i think it might be austin matthews okay but i mean he's

44:23Pat McAfee:kind of in canada he's kind of going through not for long we are bummed out no no no no no no we don't know any nhl we don't know but i just see the way he's asking answering questions like hey

44:38Aaron Rodgers:He wants to come home. I don't like what you're doing. I don't get him out of that shithole.

44:42Pat McAfee:Okay, I don't like... Jeez. I didn't say that.

44:45Aaron Rodgers:I meant the Maple Leafs, not the country or the city of Toronto.

44:48Pat McAfee:No, and on that note, we don't like the way that you Canadian reporters have been attacking our guys for doing something that... Yeah, okay? Yeah, stop it. But I do also respect it, kind of. Because if we had... Well, actually, we traded Sidney Crosby with the utmost respect in Pittsburgh, actually. Exactly. So we have actually shown it before. Nonetheless. Let's talk about the tensions that are very real, seemingly, between the two best countries of hockey, which is a good thing for sport, not a bad thing for sport. Go ahead, Ty.

45:15Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, Charlie, I don't know how many Canadian teammates you have. And obviously, anytime you have a situation like this, you guys are professionals, so you would think, hey, post-Olympics, we'll enjoy it and all that kind of stuff. But then once we get back to our NHL teams, we're on to try and win a Stanley Cup. But have you noticed, because there was just everyone talked about it, And it seemed like this year it was just maybe to another level. Like, is there real animosity or tension between some of the Canadian guys and like U.S. players now that the Olympics are over? And we, you know, hockey is our sport now.

45:50Aaron Rodgers:It is no longer Canada's sport. And I assume some of those guys are still a little raw about that.

45:55Alex Ferreira:Yeah, I mean, we didn't have any on our team. Go, we had Morgan Geeky that's been, you know, he's been amazing for us. And, you know, he didn't end up making the team, but he was pretty close. you know, so I haven't seen anybody on that side. You know, we actually played, we played against Team Sweden in the quarterfinals. So we had, we had two of the guys there on our team, Elias Lindholm and Hampus Lindholm. And like, you know, it's, it's all, it's all respect. It's all love. Like as soon as we got back, you know, they were two of the first people to congratulate me. You know, I think after like, you got to put it all aside.

46:28Alex Ferreira:Cause I mean, it was crazy. Like we got home. I feel like we weren't even, you know, off our, our victory tour. He kind of barely had time to sober up there and we were already back on the ice playing for the Bruins. It happened really fast and now we're back. It's one common goal. It's the Boston Bruins, nothing else.

46:46Pat McAfee:I think you guys did celebrate properly. I do wish you guys were given a few more days. A little bit more of a runway. I think

46:53Alex Ferreira:we're going to find them this summer, Pat. Don't feel bad for us. We'll do it all over again.

46:57Pat McAfee:I heard you guys are paying for that one. On that note, wow, I got it. Yeah, you're welcome. It wasn't just for me.

47:05Alex Ferreira:Thank you for that, man.

47:06Pat McAfee:Yeah, I was from America.

47:07Alex Ferreira:That was one of the best nights you could ever imagine, man. It was insane.

47:12Pat McAfee:I heard it was epic down there. I just want to let you know. I wish the thought was I'm going to get down there actually. Like, oh, let's go ahead and do that. Couldn't do it because we had combine happening here. Thought somebody was going to pay the tab. Lucky to do it. Would have done it if I was there. So, like, just kind of lucky to be a part of your guys' celebration. On that note, heard the night was epic. Heard you guys had a great time. Thank you for celebrating America properly. And then I got a chance to chat with you, obviously, the next day. You guys were traveling up for Halibut to go get the Medal of Freedom that you would later find out and also get honored at the State of the Union.

47:45Pat McAfee:I heard you say something about a kick. Jack brought it up, too. Jack brought it up, too. A kick? Are you athletic?

47:53Alex Ferreira:I mean, I like to think I'm athletic.

47:56Pat McAfee:Yeah, but ball sports, we know you hockey players. We know you hockey players. You guys are like the wrestlers.

48:01Alex Ferreira:you know like i mean i love i love football like football is still my my second favorite sport without a doubt so i played it up until middle school and it's just so tough because you know every weekend you're playing hockey so every weekend you're having to choose between that or your football game and like it would just get too it just got too much like you're missing practices people don't like if you miss practice and playing the games type thing yeah parents get real loud coaches get real loud about that so it kind of just became like all right well time to I wish I could have played it a lot longer.

48:31Alex Ferreira:No, it worked. It worked. It all worked. It all worked. But I still love it. So I remember we used to mess around and kick. It wasn't move back like it was now. It was just the old school extra point. But that was always fun to do for middle school football.

48:47Pat McAfee:I wonder what I would do now.

48:49Alex Ferreira:I honestly do. I don't know if the pressure would get to me when you're on college game day there and you got all the people on top of you.

48:56Pat McAfee:I try to make it a little bit more pressure packed. You know, that's why I, everybody always asks why I take the number up. It's like, cause I'm trying to, I'm trying to break these people right here. That's like a part of kicking. That is what kicking is.

49:08AJ Hawk:The crowd too, the gallery.

49:09Pat McAfee:Boom, yeah, let's make this, let's go ahead and make some noise here. There's a lot on the line. Hey, you thought this was worth a hundred? How about this actually? 200 ,000. And then they have to have a moment there where they're like, oh shit. Like that is a part of kicking, you know? And that's why when Jack Hughes was there with the ball, he said, I'm a little nervous right now. Shut up, dude. I don't want to hear that. I think you'll be okay. It's just whether or not you have the technique. But if you were kicking in eighth grade, I feel like you potentially do.

49:34Darius Butler:And they do the warm-up with the soccer ball. Yeah, do with your skates on, though.

49:37Pat McAfee:Oh, yeah, because a lot of Europeans, do you guys do the soccer ball warm-up? Are you a part of that?

49:41Alex Ferreira:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We play soccer. It's called sewer ball. Basically, it's just two touch. You get two touches, and then you've got to kick it to the next guy. But the object of it is to try and put him in, like, a tough spot, give him a ball that he can't really handle, and then you get down to one guy, and you're the winner.

49:56Pat McAfee:Oh, it sounds like you're a real nail gun in sewer ball. Yeah, it seems like.

50:01Alex Ferreira:I kick that thing like I'm kicking a 50-yard field goal. It's a full boot. You better duck and cover.

50:07Pat McAfee:Okay, so you're used to kicking things. You are an Olympic gold medalist. You play football. You would eat a puck if you, literally. Yeah, multiple.

50:14Alex Ferreira:Yeah, heavy. I should have been wearing a football helmet during that one.

50:19Pat McAfee:No, don't, by the way. I know Brock Nelson had to. I know he had to. I know he had to, and I'm assuming he didn't want to and all that stuff. that looked like a guardian cap out there. And obviously he didn't deserve that. He's tough. It had to do that. But it was hard not to just immediately guardian cap out there. And I'm like, well, this guy's smarter than everybody else. And then he got McAvoy. I learned about him. Yeah, he's Mr. Hush. Yeah. How are you doing here?

50:47Alex Ferreira:It was crazy. Our doc has been back in Boston. He's been amazing this whole time. But he kept telling me, like, three months, I want you three months in the bubble like that's when i'll feel comfortable so i hit three months like right after the group stage at the olympics and i'm like hey i didn't i didn't forget about that whole three months thing can i take this off okay just come and right he was like yeah i didn't i was hoping you'd forget yeah okay like yeah you're good on my on my end so i had that thing off as fast as i

51:13Pat McAfee:could yeah you guys are animals you hockey players are animals and we learned about two families of animals throughout the entire uh olympics i think the world learned about a little bit more feels like we got something special going on florida panther found d butt has a question absolutely

51:27AJ Hawk:to tucks and then the hughes brothers they're awesome obviously seeing jack on the show and seeing that interview i think that kind of got introduced his personality just his vibes for the world what can you tell me about kind of both of those brothers brother groups i guess

51:42Alex Ferreira:man first off like i just can't i think it's the coolest thing in the world like could you imagine how proud like their parents must be like i mean if you're the hughes you You have three guys in the NHL and then, you know, obviously Jack and Quinn getting a chance to do that. Like if you're Chantel and Keith Kachuk, who I've known the Kachuk brothers forever. Like how amazing is that? The following Keith's footsteps and like the two of them get to be, you know, NHL players. And then, you know, those brothers to go over there and like what we've just accomplished. I think it's just the coolest thing in the world that they could look back at that and be like, man, like look at the genes in that family and both families.

52:20Alex Ferreira:Like, man, they were doing something right. But, I mean, Brady and Matthew are just clowns. I can't listen to them open their mouths. I'm already laughing. Like, especially Brady, man. He was kind of like the class clown the whole tournament. And he just kills me. Like, you know, both of those guys are hysterical. They don't take themselves, you know, too serious. Like, they're unbelievable locker room guys. And then, obviously, the two of them have that edge, that mean streak to them. I'm like, they're going to get in front of the net, and they're going to piss everybody off.

52:52Pat McAfee:They double-damed somebody over the boards in the first period. I forget who it was. Yeah.

52:56Alex Ferreira:It had to be so – The Slovakia game, they got thrown out, the two of them. They got thrown out together. And then there was the rumor that they were trying to fight in the hallway. All of them. Rumor, rumor, allegedly.

53:07Pat McAfee:Yeah, I heard about that.

53:08Alex Ferreira:Yeah, allegedly. But then, you know, and then you have Quinn and Jack. And, you know, Quinn is obviously, you know, I think the best defenseman in the NHL right now. He's unbelievable. and his approach is like he's very serious um you know he he works so hard like everything he does he's a little bit more you know straight straight arrow um you know and then jack's got got a little bit of a different personality like you guys were hung with jack like jack's funny you know he's he's that jack's the pretty boy right there man that's america's face now he's um but he's unbelievable. The two of them just have such amazing skill.

53:49Alex Ferreira:The way that they skate, it's different. The way that they maneuver on the ice, it's different. You can tell that they both grew up together doing all the same stuff. They just move different from everybody out there. You put both sets together, you can see why our team was so good, man.

54:04Pat McAfee:And then you had a dog and a goalie that says, yep, we're just going to not really... We're not going to lose today. It's a beautiful thing. We're so lucky that we got to watch you do that. Good luck the rest of the way except for against the Pens. Anybody else?

54:20AJ Hawk:And the Panthers. We still got it. Actually, was it Chucky's idea to come down and celebrate in Miami, down at Hockey Beach, Hockey Capital of the World?

54:31Alex Ferreira:Man, I think he could run for Marin and probably win now. He said he's gone three years in a row and I think his quote was all championships, the road leads right to 11.

54:43Pat McAfee:I heard.

54:44Alex Ferreira:They got him on a first name basis there now, man. He was holding court at 11, man.

54:49Pat McAfee:Chuck, him calling down there and being like, hey, we won again. You know the deal. We're going to here.

54:54Alex Ferreira:He's like, yikes. It's me again. We're coming back.

54:59Pat McAfee:The boys are here. I mean, you should see the boys. They're ready. We're going to swing by elbow room, obviously. We have to. All roads. We have to. You're the man. Good luck the rest of the way. Thank you for doing what you did for us, man.

55:11Alex Ferreira:Man, thank you guys so much. And, Pat, thank you again. Night of my life. Appreciate it, bro.

55:15Pat McAfee:I'm happy to hear that. That makes me feel good. That makes me feel really good. I've given$150 ,000 to others that haven't even said thanks. Why not do that? Yeah, you know, you say the night of my life. That makes me feel really good. You're the man, ladies and gentlemen.

55:29Alex Ferreira:We're on our way to Nashville. We got to run.

55:31Pat McAfee:I can buy Charlie McFly. Yeah, Charlie! Holding up to team. Oh, no. They're going to call him a squid. Yeah, they are going to call him a squid. And they got quite a poke there from Boston to Nashville. That's a little bit of a trip.

55:42Aaron Rodgers:That is a bit of a poke.

55:43Pat McAfee:The hockey boys, just the lingo and the way they operate. Oh, yeah. The best. Squid. That's a classic. Nail gun was unbelievable. We just got a whole team of nail guns. Bit of a runaway. Oh. You Canadians, I think, are probably the reasoning for that, Gumpy. So we appreciate you guys contributing words to hockey while we contribute hockey to hockey.

56:03Alex Ferreira:Yeah, 45 more tournaments. We'll be tied. Keep it going.

56:06Pat McAfee:What are you talking? I just watched the tournament.

56:09Aaron Rodgers:Exactly. Yeah, you won the last one. Congratulations.

56:11Pat McAfee:How many Olympics has there been? 58 Olympics?

56:14Aaron Rodgers:58 major tournaments for Canada.

56:16Pat McAfee:Are you talking about World Cup?

56:18Aaron Rodgers:Talking about it all. Juniors, you can run it all.

56:20Darius Butler:Oh, yeah. Okay. This isn't soccer. This is part of the problem here. Exactly.

56:26Aaron Rodgers:Hey, you run any tab. You can cut out any tournaments. You know, you can do Olympics. We can do World Championships. We can do juniors. Whatever you would like to do, we can do that. You got music?

56:35Darius Butler:What was the last time? Sorry about that. What was the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup? Never.

56:42Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, because no Canadians are on Stanley Cup winners. They don't let them touch the trophy. Marshawn actually didn't add anything to that Panthers team last year.

56:50Darius Butler:Especially not this year. Let's get to a break. Thank you, Sam. He's getting traded back to Boston. Is he? Probably. They're sellers. That's what they're saying.

56:56Pat McAfee:Big friends up. Big friends up. Nice to change your life. We're back on the other side. Goodbye.

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58:31Pat McAfee:Sports! to dominate defensively against a very dominant attack from the Canadians. They would go on to win the Olympic gold medal alongside the women's hockey team and proclaim ourselves as the owners of hockey. We can do that because that's what happened on the ice with a bunch of people we've never met personally, but we're certainly happy that they did it for us. Yes. So sorry to Canada that that comes with this, but that's just part of the entire game. And speaking of the game, it's ours. Talks to tables here at Boston Conner and at Ty Schmidt. Con man, not only is McAvoy cool, but Ty Schmidt.

59:03Pat McAfee:We're talking Alex Pereira, fresh off a skiing half-pipe gold medal. He's a three-time Olympic medalist, one-time gold medalist, and he's going to be joining us, I assume, with some outrageous mindset that we're going to be inspired by, if I had to guess.

59:15Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, I would assume so. I don't know how I missed this during the run of the Olympics. I didn't see any of this stuff, and then I watched his full run this morning. I might be more impressed by what he did. You're not supposed to be able to do that kind of shit on skis. I get going downhill super fast. This guy's doing three backflips, twisting. It's crazy.

59:36Pat McAfee:I think we were super invested in snowboard half-bite because Chloe Kim, obviously Sean White, and also the X Games with Tony Hawk and everything. We know that. So I think we've always been invested in that. And also, during my generation, I'm not on mountains ever. A lot of people think I love snow. I do not, actually. From the cold, do not mess with snow. I'm more of a tree guy myself. but I've never been in it. I watched movies where they were kind of saying skiers were nerds.

1:00:04Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, big time.

1:00:05Pat McAfee:And skiing was kind of like the... Yeah, everything like that. Rich punks. Yeah, absolutely. Johnny Tsunami. Yeah, was that the movie I saw? Yes, that is what you're thinking of.

1:00:13Aaron Rodgers:That is the movie. Okay, there's two parts of mine.

1:00:15Pat McAfee:But we're all on that same page. Yeah, that's how I was being pitched. That movie was clearly saying skiers are the heels. Yeah, that's how it was, yeah. Squids, yes. Yeah. Snowboards, nail guns. Yeah, bingo. Okay, that is kind of how the whole thing was old. and I, not knowing the culture, just like, all right, that's how I'm rolling forever. That skiers suck. Hard for me to get into it. Then you obviously watch Lindsey Vonn. Then you see Michaela Schifrin, and you're like, hold on now, though. We got the fastest. We like that we have the fastest skiers as well. Never would have thought to get into the halfpipe because it's like seemingly just a snowboarder thing.

1:00:50Pat McAfee:I'm going to say it. I'm officially a skiing halfpipe guy. Now, is it because Ferrara won? Probably. but also because everybody that went finished their runs. The snowboarding stuff, they pull out early because they don't hit something perfect. They know it's not going to be a good enough score. They're gone. The skiers hit shit. They are full-sent. I don't know if it's easier or if they're all better. Whatever it is. I can tell you which one it is. Watching it, these eyes, I like them landing and continuing to do more crazy stuff. I don't know if he's ever done the this one. Oh, yeah, sure. Where they just catapult.

1:01:28Pat McAfee:No, no, not the flying one. The flying one as well. Absurd. Big air. Squirrel suit. That thing's insane. Skiing might be, I don't want to say it, half pipe better. It's gone. Flying squirrel better. Yeah, the big air. And then the one where they catapult them in there and they just straight up in the air and they go and then do you ever see that one? I don't think so. The Mach 4-H one? No. No, they're literally, they're just skiing like this. And they hit a jump that goes straight up. If you go up the side of a building, basically. We won gold. And they just send them. And they can't see any. I don't know if they close their eyes or what they do.

1:02:06Pat McAfee:But they're in the sky, and it's like a gymnast takes flight. And they're spinning a thousand times.

1:02:12Aaron Rodgers:Kind of like the high diving of skiing.

1:02:14Pat McAfee:Oh, and they don't have poles. And they don't see any. No poles. They don't see anything. And they're just like blindly, like landing and then skiing down. I got to get eyes on them. Oh, my God. You've got to get eyes on that. It is literally like they take a slingshot, and then they just send them. And these skiers just fucking, I mean, straight up into the sky. And they can't see or think. They might have done, I don't know, what, a 17 ,000? Sure, probably. I don't know what it is. 16, 20. And then they hit the ground. And it's just like, thank God. I nailed it. It is. And they were stomping this shit out.

1:02:47Pat McAfee:It was skiing. Every skiing event, I was like, yeah, I'm watching this. Wait till you see this one. I can't believe you missed this one.

1:02:54Aaron Rodgers:No, I need to get eyes on this now.

1:02:55Pat McAfee:Yeah, it is. Is this it? No, that's Mac Forhand. No, this is another one. But once again, skiing is awesome in this one. Yeah, because they're going a long way. The one I'm talking about, they shoot them straight up. It's called freestyle ski. Freestyle ski. It is, I'm telling you, certain death every time they get launched into the sky.

1:03:15Darius Butler:If you're skiing and doing tricks like that without poles, you know, like, hey, I'm going so high. I can't have poles in my hand because if I do, something's going to go wrong. D-Bot, have you seen this?

1:03:24AJ Hawk:I have not. What? D-Bot? They land on the pieces of mine. A little too Caucasian for me. Whoa!

1:03:30Pat McAfee:Come on. Come on. Okay, bud. Yeah, the snow. You're out there riding horses. That was racist. I'll tell you what. It certainly was accurate, though, I think. I did not see a single black person in that particular shot. There's some shark week. There's an absence. There's a lot of things. A lot of viewers, though.

1:03:49AJ Hawk:We watched

1:03:50Pat McAfee:that yeah yeah we certainly will which white is gonna get eaten none of them all right i'm not watching this again you guys teased us all shark week i'm not doing it again next year comes i'm like oh what white's gonna get eaten again by a great white out there let's do it none of them yeah there is a couple of super white events and uh this one was certainly

1:04:10AJ Hawk:i will say and i definitely need to get eyes on dude it is a we can't find it we can't find it

1:04:15Pat McAfee:Yeah, that's unbelievable. Big whatever is trying to hold us back from this becoming maybe our favorite. Big snowboard. I think big snowboard knows that they lost it. And I think what we've realized is it's all personality-driven. The snowboard is more personality-driven. Is this? Is this? Yes, this is it. Okay, yes, I have seen this. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is awesome. They can't see a damn thing, dude. They are just getting rolling. Do we have any others? Is that just one run? This is the same one. Okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. Just, I don't know. No. That's it. Yeah.

1:04:50Aaron Rodgers:Just gone.

1:04:51Pat McAfee:Yeah, see?

1:04:51Aaron Rodgers:I love this shit.

1:04:52Pat McAfee:Yeah. All of it. Yeah, and they stomp it out there. And if their ass hits the ground, which I don't know how it doesn't. You're getting dropped from 100 feet, whatever it is. The ass touched the ground. They go, say that. There it goes.

1:05:05Aaron Rodgers:It's kind of like gymnastics. They go off the palma. They got to hit. They got to land it. Landing counts. The moves count. Everything.

1:05:11Pat McAfee:Yeah, it is. This one's spectacular. If you get eyes on this one in four years, you're going to like what you see. Yeah, it was fun. Nine-year NFL vet, man who hates white sports, Darius J. Ball.

1:05:21AJ Hawk:Hockey, love hockey. I love hockey. Daughter just start riding horses. Got a daughter in golf. You know, I love all sports.

1:05:29Pat McAfee:Yeah, I love competition. But I will say that the slingshot into the sky, not look flippy, twirly one, did feel to your point.

1:05:39AJ Hawk:I'll tell you what, though. If we did get in there, I think we – did you see that wide receiver group? Yeah, they're flipping along.

1:05:47Pat McAfee:That's doing – oh. That's combined.

1:05:49AJ Hawk:Striped some skis on. I was down in – I think I was in Memphis.

1:05:53Pat McAfee:Figured out. I think I was in Memphis. We were walking down Beale Street during the day, which I think from my understanding is when we should be.

1:06:03Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, correct.

1:06:04Pat McAfee:From we were told. That's what we were told. We were told. I'm just telling you what we were told. It was a beautiful time. It was great. there was a team I guess I don't know a crew 40 guys just did I don't know 150 backflips down the street and they were on America's Got Talent I learned we do have good flippers America has really good flippers I think that's why in the summer Olympics whenever we do gymnastics we always are like we are going to win this one and then we change all their scoring systems and everything if we were to get into which I think we did we won by the way

1:06:40Darius Butler:We're already in there.

1:06:40Pat McAfee:When we're going through the sky, it feels like we are bringing it out there. Yeah, certainly.

1:06:44Darius Butler:There's not a Norwegian judge. Well said. Yeah, who was that? That was Snowboarder, right? No, that was the skier. That was the big one. The Mack forehand one that was showed before showing the right one. Guy did a trick never been done before. Landed it. Perfectly.

1:06:58Pat McAfee:Came in second. Came in second because of Norwegian judge.

1:07:00AJ Hawk:Oh, kind of like Simone Biles when they couldn't grade or shit because it was too good. So good.

1:07:05Pat McAfee:Yeah, we had one of those. Because normally, in the history of these types of events, from our understanding, outside looking in, if you accomplish something that's never been done before, you win. Didn't happen.

1:07:18Darius Butler:It's bullshit.

1:07:19Pat McAfee:And then a Norway guy won. Huh. Let's look at those numbers again. Who's giving what out there? It's bullshit. He did his super duper McFlippy? Yeah. Nobody's ever been doing it? No. We didn't win? How's that? Let me get eyes on, who's that? Oh, humans are deciding that? This is something that's never been done before. But wait until you see this. He does a 22 ,000. Yeah. Remember when a 900 was something? Oh, yeah.

1:07:41Darius Butler:And that's why we don't own snowboarding anymore. The kid from Japan. Yeah, Japan had one, two, three, I think. He's been running snowboarding basically since Sean White. I think he was 14 when he started. So for the good of snowboarding, we need the baseball team to win.

1:07:54Pat McAfee:I'll tell you, I don't know. That Dominican Republic team.

1:07:57Aaron Rodgers:They're a fun team. We got the bullpen.

1:08:00Pat McAfee:We definitely do.

1:08:01Aaron Rodgers:We got the arms, yeah.

1:08:02Pat McAfee:I agree, but the Dominican Republic's got the world.

1:08:04Aaron Rodgers:The crowd. They're playing the Tigers. How many runs they score? You're right. It was a close game. How many runs we score? You're right, 15. Theirs was a little bit louder, wasn't it? They did have a better crowd. Their crowd was a lot better. Yeah.

1:08:15Pat McAfee:I do wish we would have played this at a place that would have liked to watch the United States of America in a fashion like this, though. And I don't know where that would have been. That's what it would be like on Friday.

1:08:24Aaron Rodgers:It's tough because we still – What is the real game? Yeah, exactly. You know, like they're playing this in the DR. So, like, there are – you know, no one from the Dominican Republic is showing up with, like, their Tigers hat on and being like, Like, hey, listen, I know the boys are getting ready, but I want to see what the Tigers do tonight.

1:08:39Pat McAfee:I didn't think there was enough pop over there. I love Arizona. I didn't think there was enough celebration whenever fucking Roman Anthony took one 700 feet. I didn't like the lack of enthusiasm.

1:08:53Aaron Rodgers:It's the home of the Giants, though. We don't need to celebrate. It's the home of America. Scrimmage games.

1:08:58Pat McAfee:No, I understand you don't need to celebrate, but maybe you do, actually. Did you see how the DR's treating these scrimmage games down there? Yeah, maybe that's the problem.

1:09:06AJ Hawk:Yeah, we're a lot more spoiled here. You know, go back home to DR, you got Soto, you got, like, you got all of the guys. Those are the biggest guys. Yeah, coming back home. And not even just the guys playing. You got the OGs over there as well. Big Papi over here doing his thing. Pujols. Yeah, so, like, yeah, it's going to look like the fucking World Series over there.

1:09:23Pat McAfee:Well, I don't like the amount of juice that their country's behind them, Especially with if those bats get hot. I mean, that's an electrifying team. Yeah. And then Japan, they're over in Japan.

1:09:34Darius Butler:Yeah. I expect to see that. I like how that's happening, though.

1:09:38Pat McAfee:I like that the Dominican team is in Dominican Republic. I like that the Japanese team is in Japan right now. I like that it is getting a feeling of home training camp. And then let's go ahead and do this. And they're having the games in different places. I like what the World Baseball Classic is doing. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, Dominican Republic team looks dangerous.

1:09:56Aaron Rodgers:Yeah. So did we, though. We looked pretty dangerous yesterday as well. Yes, we did. That's pretty potent. Yes, we did.

1:10:03Pat McAfee:Judgy just immediately drives into.

1:10:05Aaron Rodgers:Giants ran out of arms. You know, we had already been like, hey, we've played everybody. All these guys have multiple hits, multiple RBIs. We don't want to get anybody hurt. Let's grab a couple slapdicks from over there who aren't going to make the team. We'll throw a jersey on. They won't have the name on the back. Those guys were ripping base hits once they put the colors on. I mean, it was just – it was a bloodbath.

1:10:23Pat McAfee:Oh, my.

1:10:24Aaron Rodgers:Exactly. That's what it was. He pitched yesterday. How'd he do? He looked damn good. He threw about four pitches, you know, set them down right away, did exactly what he was asked to do. His brother pitched the next inning for the Giants. That was actually pretty cool. It was.

1:10:36Pat McAfee:Yeah, we got some magic happening. Joining us now is a guy who, I'll tell you what, he didn't get a chance to experience Team USA baseball training camp, but he'll be loud about USA being better than everybody. Oh, yeah. He's college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Yeah, Hawk. How you doing, Hawker?

1:10:54Darius Butler:I'm doing great. I tell you what, I watched that game and watching the U.S. seeing their batting lineup and just trying to figure out, oh, hey, sorry, this guy's got to hit seven. This guy's got to hit eighth, ninth. We got studs everywhere you look. So I don't see how – I understand Dominican has a bunch of juice. They have a lot of talent, but there's no way you're taking down this U.S. team, I feel like.

1:11:10Pat McAfee:Okay, I like that. I feel the same way, and I think Team USA feels an obligation for that to be the case. What I'm saying is there's some good teams out there, and baseball is an interesting thing. So the boys coming out and hanging 15 is a beautiful sign that that is what's happening here early. Paul had to get a couple early pitches out. They took advantage of him early, and then he turned off the lights on him. All the boys did. It feels like we are gearing up for a big one. First game of the World Baseball Classic for the United States of America will be Friday night, 8 p.m., against Brazil, as Logan Webb will take the bump from the San Francisco Giants.

1:11:45Pat McAfee:Then they play Great Britain. The pitcher for that particular game will be...

1:11:50Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, Scoobs.

1:11:51Pat McAfee:Tarek Scoble who will pitch 55 pitches. That's already been announced. And then the third game against Mexico, Paul Skeens will be our ace. And then against Italy, it'll be –

1:12:00Aaron Rodgers:I believe Nolan McLean. Yes.

1:12:01Pat McAfee:Okay, so that is our starting lineup. And then obviously you got Bryce, you got Judge, you got Bregman, you got – Chorbel. Chorbel. You got Tony Tony's boy. Bobby Witt. I mean, it is –

1:12:13Darius Butler:Are there any major leaguers on Great Britain? Yes. Yes. Yeah, Ben Franklin. Jazz Chisholm. Jazz Chisholm. The captain. Okay. Ben Franklin, he's an up-and-coming player. I know you guys are thinking of electricity. Is he related? Maybe.

1:12:26Pat McAfee:Deep, deep relations between the two. I believe Brazil doesn't have any major leaguers.

1:12:32Aaron Rodgers:They do not.

1:12:33Pat McAfee:That's Friday night, 8 o 'clock.

1:12:35Aaron Rodgers:Correct. There's a chance that we score like 25 runs in the first inning.

1:12:40Pat McAfee:There is a 10 run or a 15 run. I forget what the rules are.

1:12:43Aaron Rodgers:I believe it's after 5 and after 7. 15 after 5, 10 after 7. So there is a chance that we still win like 55-0.

1:12:51Pat McAfee:And I believe from my understanding, listening to the mindset, we are trying to dominate. We need to get hot quick because baseball is a sport of runs. So it's not like, hey, we're playing. They don't care. We are going to try to get hot. And once you get hot, if you can stay hot for two weeks, which teams definitely can do, this is the time. And everybody's chasing that. Japan's going to be chasing trying to get hot. Dominican Republic's going to be chasing, trying to get hot. Cuba, I believe, is going to be trying. Venezuela. Venezuela's going to be trying. They're kind of close. All these teams are going to be trying to get hot.

1:13:25Pat McAfee:What's that? Go ahead. Pool D.

1:13:28AJ Hawk:I'm surprised those odds are, I guess, that close. Yeah. Good ball club. They're very good. Okay. Okay.

1:13:35Darius Butler:I heard they're rolling up in Nike. Canada, they're not too bad either. I like their value. Who's the worst squad in the group?

1:13:41Pat McAfee:It appears if we look at the odds, it might be Israel and Czech Republic.

1:13:46Aaron Rodgers:Great Britain, yeah.

1:13:47Pat McAfee:They're in, okay. That's in Nicaragua as well, plus 6500. This is a fascinating thing. This is a really fascinating tournament. I love what MLB has done with the World Baseball Classic and who's all in and who's all out. We appreciate the buy-in from the boys, honestly, so we can celebrate it all. Let's talk about some football, shall we? It has been fun celebrating Team USA, though, especially on this particular platform being able to do it. You know, because as athletes, especially growing up, if you're told, and this is one of the benefits of ESPN, which I certainly would like to let those be known publicly because I've certainly said a lot of the drawbacks publicly as well, which there is always going to be, from my understanding, in life.

1:14:26Pat McAfee:You're dealing with humans, so this is going to happen, especially with a big of an organization as ESPN. We love a lot of people at ESPN. We certainly hate a lot as well, but we love a lot of people at ESPN. But saying, hey, would you like to come on our show, so much different for a lot of people, whether it's agents, managers, or even the athletes themselves that grew up watching ESPN SportsCenter being like, that's cool that ESPN is giving rub to this particular sport. And the fact that people are saying that about our show is a really cool thing. Like we talked about bowling yesterday and I saw a bunch of people say like, hey, thanks for talking about bowling on ESPN.

1:14:56Pat McAfee:I don't even really like calibrate that, but that is like a really cool thing. So we would like to thank ESPN for being a position that whenever we talk about something, people get very excited because of the years and years and decades and decades of commitment to sports. So that is something I think that is a positive. On that note, PR team says that NFL Live is going to lead Free Agency Frenzy in a tweet. That's false. We will be leading Free Agency Frenzy at noon when it actually starts. And we got Schefter that's going to be in here. Orlovsky's going to be in here. Schrager's going to be in here.

1:15:24Pat McAfee:I think we got some LED boards that are going to create some beautiful moments in here. So, you know, there's always that game. There's always this game going on. But we are thankful and lucky. And to all the sports and the athletes that have represented for us, we are thankful. Now, let's talk a little bit about NFL football. Huge trade this morning. The Kansas City Chiefs sent Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams. Patrick Mahomes has weighed in on this particular trade since we talked about it the first time, which is four letters, a couple periods. Yep. Damn. That's all he said. Damn. Anytime you lose a great player, obviously the locker room is going to feel it.

1:15:58Pat McAfee:I assume Trent McDuffie, who's won two Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs, also very tight with that particular locker room. He's going to go on to get paid by the Los Angeles Rams in his new home, and the Chiefs will receive their second or later first-round pick. They have the 13th overall pick. They also had the 29th overall pick. They trade that away. They get that, and then they get a fifth, a sixth, and a 20-27 third. So congratulations to the Chiefs picking up some picks that I assume they'll bundle, AJM, not 100 % sure. How do you feel about the move as a whole, and what do you think this messaging is from both teams?

1:16:30Darius Butler:Yeah, I mean, for the Chiefs to let a great player like this go, it just tells me they just have other needs, I guess, that they feel, and they don't want to pay him the giant contract that he deserves that he's going to get once this rookie deal is up. So I guess they wanted to get some picks. Like you said, who knows what happens during the draft if they bundle things wherever they try to get. But McDuffie, unbelievable player, man. I love this dude. I love a young corner that is physical. I mean, watch him come up. He's not scared to tackle. I always love seeing that. But I don't know. I think the Chiefs doing this, it's just they have other needs.

1:17:00Darius Butler:They're trying to figure things out. They know they've got to score some points on offense. They've got to protect Patrick Mahomes, and they're going to continue to try to do that.

1:17:05Pat McAfee:Yeah, and, you know, the Los Angeles Rams pick up a weapon over there.

1:17:09Darius Butler:Yes.

1:17:10Pat McAfee:And they've been up and to the right seemingly every single year. Is this a move that can change, like Super Bowl odds for you or Super Bowl optimism, everything DB host Darius J. Butler?

1:17:20AJ Hawk:Yes. Obviously, when you bring a guy like this, he's going to add value, not only to what he does, but the guys around him. You have flexibility for a guy like Chris Shula. Now you can expand and do some things differently. We did the Monday morning DC, and we had a couple plays from the Seahawks that was against the Rams. It was obviously large windows, even in that tight red area, where usually you like to get matchy and tight, and now you have the ability to do that with a guy like McDuffie. And he can blitz. And what A.J. said is important, too. When you're one of these top-tier cornerbacks, a lot of times the drawback is they don't want to get physical, get their nose in there and make tackles, and he's not afraid to do that.

1:17:56AJ Hawk:He's been coached by Spags his entire career. He's played a huge game. He's been going up against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid his entire career and practice and how to go through just those type of flow of things. So I think this is a great pickup for the Rams that can get them over that hump, help get them over that hump.

1:18:11Pat McAfee:Well, speaking of getting over the hump to win the Super Bowl, they were tied for the best odds to win the Super Bowl. They are now the favorites, plus 750. This move was made – shout out to a corner. Hey, that's a corner doing that. We've seen quarterbacks get signed to teams and their Super Bowl odds not move at all. Yeah, good quarterbacks. Yeah, good quarterbacks. Quarterbacks that have, you know, accomplished things in the league. McDuffie goes to the Rams. They go from being tied for the best odds to outright best odds. That's huge for the sportsbooks to make that move. Let's go to one half of the hammer.

1:18:40Pat McAfee:Cowboys, AP tone. Is that just strictly because McDuffie's there, or do you think the sportsbooks are seeing the fact that people are going to see that seemingly their big issue that they had last year and why they weren't great is seemingly now fixed?

1:18:51Aaron Rodgers:Both. When sportsbooks move, it's obviously because of the talent of the player, but also because of the – what's the word I'm looking for? Deficiencies of the team? No, sorry. The sportsbooks are going – they're going to have more money bet on that team. So they need to – thank you. They need to lessen the handle or whatever they're going to have.

1:19:11Pat McAfee:Oh, I like that you had a little brain fart on handle.

1:19:13Aaron Rodgers:Very.

1:19:13Pat McAfee:Yeah, I mean, you were deep in there. We were all watching your brain look for it through your eyes. It felt like you were not anywhere near.

1:19:21Aaron Rodgers:No, I wasn't even close. But guess what?

1:19:23Pat McAfee:We're there now. So the handle, obviously, is about to come because people are about to get eyes on the Rams and start thinking about last year and then maybe what the chances actually are. They're trying to get ahead of that?

1:19:31Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, so more bets are going to come in on the Rams. So when the more bets come in, they don't want to have to pay out greater odds. So if you leave their odds higher, then you're going to have to pay out later if that does come true. So they lower the odds so that the payout at the end doesn't have to be as high. So it's part of the talent of the player and then also how much they know that people are going to come and bet on the Rams because secondary was a position of weakness for them.

1:19:50Pat McAfee:Super Bowl at SoFi, yet again. Okay, so the Rams trying to double down on that entire thing. I believe in the Rams. Them having the best Super Bowl odds is crazy to think about because of how many different iterations they had. Is Matthew Stafford still getting in that trailer? I would assume so. Oh, yeah. Bringing his buddies, too. I think we're getting, I think amoral people, they've been trying to get messages to me, I believe, through a lot of different avenues. A lot of different avenues. Hey, you know the amoral people would like to say thank you to you. It's like, tell them I said no problem.

1:20:22Pat McAfee:Hey, you know the amoral people are trying to get a hold of you guys to say thank you for what you did for them. It's like, tell them no problem. Then somebody else, hey, you know these people, the immortal people, they're trying to get a hold of you. Tell them I said, no problem. It's like, no, I think they want to like. They want to send you a fucking trailer. So like I appreciate their persistency. Just know that I, on my end, immortal, we think you are a huge part of the story. I mean, Matthew Stafford was not going to play. Yeah, no. He was supposed to come.

1:20:50Darius Butler:Did we figure out what's in there? Do we know what's in that Airstream? Like what is it? A red light bed? What is it?

1:20:54Pat McAfee:Yes, a$150 ,000 vibrating thing, a red light bed that they have. I think Puka said it's like the best 30 minutes of his life. Of his life. Of his life or whatever.

1:21:03Darius Butler:Oh, yeah, that's right.

1:21:03Pat McAfee:Yeah, so I think they have all the shit maybe into one, whatever the case is. They're a huge part of the entire story of last year for the Los Angeles Rams. Matthew Stafford was supposed to be back out. Here's a little inside baseball that we won't say. Matthew Stafford, I guess, has a bed that is inside the A-Moral, not a harm's sanctuary. Yes, okay, that is what it is. Looks super cool. Looks incredibly uncomfortable, but I assume it is actually more comfortable because it's making him better. whenever we were out in LA for the ESPYs last year we put a request in for Matthew Stafford okay we're like hey we're in your city uh if you have time go ahead and do it and he told us and I guess we could say this now I assume he wouldn't be mad if we said it now he told us he was like uh hey I sorry I can't make it I got an appointment on my back this is actually like a thing you know and we're like oh that feels like real information okay first of all on Matthew Stafford but also you should you didn't have to tell us you could have just said no in there but he was like trying to be like hey actually want to want to do the show i just want you to know want to do the show i'm thankful you guys are out here in la i feel you know like the whole thing but like real thing happening so then as the story continues to roll on about him uh potentially being back by this time and he's not back by this time and he's not back by this time and then this trailer rolls into the back door of the thing it's like holy shit is this old ass quarterback gonna be done and that was really the chatter about the los angeles rams is that matthew stafford's not gonna make it back as something that's like unhealable.

1:22:26Pat McAfee:And then all of a sudden he gets on MVP. What?

1:22:29Darius Butler:Crazy.

1:22:29Pat McAfee:How's that even happen for his old ass? Once again, we got drafted in the same class as him. I've been nominated for the Hall of Fame three times. You've got to be five years out of the game to get nominated for the Hall of Fame. We got drafted in the same class. That's old. He is an old man in this game. Back problems. So that immortal group I think is a big deal for them. And if Matthew Stafford could be healthy again, they had a stud down. because if you can run zone with 10, right?

1:22:56Darius Butler:If you can run zone. That D-line, that front they have too, you know, those guys are nasty up front. So you can press, especially like third and short situations. Man, like a lot of these clips, you're seeing McDuffie pressed up a lot of times, which you have to do when you get third and short.

1:23:07Pat McAfee:But he can take away one guy, right? And then you're just, then you can run all your shit without. That was the Rivas answer, right? Like Rivas was kind of like that. Adding a number one, what does that do for a defense like in whole?

1:23:18AJ Hawk:You just, you talked about it earlier in the first hour, change the math. Whenever you bring over a great player, and typically the guys that are at the top of their positional group getting paid, whether it's a wide receiver, a pass rusher, a left tackle, all these guys change the math. If you're a left tackle, hey, I don't have the chip. I can get an extra guy out in the pass rushers. You got to put another offensive line on me. So all these guys change the math, and it's the same thing that Trent can do. Either you can double team the number one guy and just lock him up on a number two or just have him on a one guy and do different things.

1:23:47AJ Hawk:And a lot of the, I guess, the bones of their defense is that front four. They've been dependent on that young front four. I'm interested to see who gets paid from that front four because somebody has to get paid from there as well pretty soon here. But, yeah, Trent McDuffie does a ton for your defense.

1:24:02Pat McAfee:Les Snead is active. Tone, these first-round picks are hilarious for him.

1:24:07Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, and Phil Gates put out the tweet earlier. 2017 traded first-round pick. 2018 traded. 2019 traded. 20 traded. 21 traded. 22 traded. 23 traded. 24, they took Jared Verse. So that was awesome. Great pick. 25 and 26 both traded. Now they do have a first-round pick still this year. 13. Yes.

1:24:24Pat McAfee:I said 12 earlier. It's actually a 13th pick. I do apologize for that. But it feels like if we look at their history, everybody in the NFL knew that they were shopping 29. And what does Les say? Fuck them picks. Fuck them picks. Yeah, but those picks are able to get you really good stuff.

1:24:39AJ Hawk:That's a haul, too.

1:24:40Pat McAfee:A haul. Yeah.

1:24:42AJ Hawk:For a corner, like, that's all you got to pick. Yeah, but really? Fifth, sixth, next year, seventh? First, and the third, too, next year?

1:24:50Pat McAfee:Yeah, third, I guess.

1:24:51AJ Hawk:Third is a lot.

1:24:53Pat McAfee:But this is a second victim of 29, no offense. I don't want to knock any draft classes saying that something is 29. He's in a first rounder because it certainly is a first rounder. But those 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 picks, seemingly now that we're covering the draft a little bit more, those are viewed for the first round teams as second round picks. And for third bad teams, they're viewed as, oh, that's another first round pick in there. You know, it's interesting how easy teams are to get off of, especially the good teams, how easy they are to get off of that type of stuff.

1:25:25AJ Hawk:But you never know, you know, who that player is. You know, it's always a pick. It looks different when it's a number. But like, what was Cooper Cupp was a third rounder. Like these guys, you never know. Richard Sherman, fifth round. Like it's always Puka is the fifth round. So you never know in each draft, you know, all these teams fall in love with certain players and they'll slip. Or maybe they have these different picks. They can jump up a couple picks. So you never know kind of who that player is. and I'm sure they probably have a handful of players that they love.

1:25:50Pat McAfee:Puka is enjoying the hell out of his offseason. I can't wait to see. If he's able to do everything he's doing right now and also dominate a football field, which I think is what he's going to do, we're talking one-on-one. Wildly impressive. We are talking an impressive individual, which he is. Puka certainly is. I think people need to remember that whenever they're talking shit about everything Puka's doing. It's like, go watch the film.

1:26:15Darius Butler:Watch him block. Watch him block downfield. Watch him do all the dirty work and all the tough stuff as well as make the giant catches over the top.

1:26:21Pat McAfee:Yeah, Puka's allowed to do whatever the hell he wants. If he's not breaking it up, Puka's allowed to go live his life. And Puka is beloved in every single room he has ever walked into. And if this is the type of – if this is who he is as a professional athlete, we are lucky that Puka is in the NFL. He's going to be an entertaining lad for the next couple years. Now, he still has to play good. Yes, of course. He still has to play great, which we assume he'll be able to handle his business.

1:26:44Darius Butler:When that stuff happened midseason, he went out against Seattle in primetime and had like 220 yards and a touchdown. I don't think that'll be a problem for Puka. But on the other side for Kansas City, Deba mentioned it earlier. I don't know who they have in their scouting department at corner, but they've been able to move these top, top guys and then immediately replace them, whether it be a rookie or a second-year guy or a trade. McDuffie was one of those. Or draft him. Or draft him.

1:27:08Pat McAfee:I mean, McDuffie is one of these guys we're talking about. Yes. Because Spax came out and said, hey, we got young guys. We had to throw them out there. and just figured out the way. That was him.

1:27:16Darius Butler:Yeah. Yeah, so literally. And Spags, that's the other thing, too. Like, they're probably very comfortable with getting rid of an all-pro corner who, of course, is going to make the Rams better, and then immediately replacing them and having Spags either coach them up or just picking the right guy that they know is going to be a day-one dude.

1:27:31Pat McAfee:We're in a beautiful time right now because all we can talk about is just drama, stories, leads, or pictures. You guys see Todd Munkin and Shador? That was sweet. Good crop on it. I like what's going on. obviously when Munkin showed up for his opening day and he was dressed the way he was dressed we all thought to ourselves this guy's awesome yes then you start looking at his history and his success you kind of do your thing and then all of a sudden you know Munkin tells Shador in their first meeting on uh some of Shador's programming I think or maybe the Cleveland Browns social media team he's like hey you know I wanted you I was the one that wanted you in Baltimore we're gonna have to talk about that someday yeah and Shador was like yeah yeah we'll talk about that whatever He goes, no, really.

1:28:07Pat McAfee:Like, I was the guy that wanted it. I believe you wanted it to Georgia as well. I was actually the guy that, like, wanted you or whatever. So I think Todd Munkin is excited about this relationship. But I think Todd Munkin also, am I going to say it?

1:28:22Aaron Rodgers:Damn good football coach.

1:28:23Pat McAfee:Is there a chance that he does have success? I hope so. I think so too, AJ. I think there's a chance with how good of a football coach he is. Just handling situations. You know, like that is a part of being a head coach. Just handling situations. there was a situation where he's talking shit about miles garrett no never said that not one time what i actually said was this feels like he might be perfect for the cleveland browns i mean obviously everything's tbd but i do appreciate him posting his photo and the cleveland browns and being like yeah let's go ahead and just do this shit but there's a chance he does lead the browns to not being ass aj and i think we need to acknowledge that yeah i mean i think we got

1:28:58Darius Butler:to understand like what the standards are what the expectations are for cleveland they're not sky high right now. We know they've been trying to figure out the whole Stefanski situation and move on from that. The quarterback's always up in the air. But to Monken, I feel like he's flying under the radar. There's a whole lot of people that couldn't name the Cleveland Browns head coach at the moment right now. I think that's a great thing for Monken because he can kind of slide under the radar and hey, he can only go up from here pretty much, it feels like for Cleveland.

1:29:23Pat McAfee:Isn't it crazy? The last head coach got a head coaching job before anybody else, basically. From the Cleveland Browns. Then a report card got leaked. He was the worst. got a head coaching job somewhere else immediately that's big deluxe football but on that note i think a lot of people thought that stefanski was a great coach remember he won coach of the year who's voting on that doesn't matter who knows but he won coach of the year a couple times there in cleveland and they weren't able to have success so the immediate question is like well if you got the best coach in football it's getting coach of the year and you guys stink like what are you doing how are you gonna ever win and it's like well actually guys went to the playoffs and won playoff game and they remember you forced a guy out of the building who did that was that the coach was that somebody i don't know who was who so i think i think the browns nope i'm not gonna say i don't want to start an all-out war on stefanski okay i definitely go i'm sure he's a good guy and i and i like matt ryan okay and i think matt ryan does have a good football brain he's the one who hired him but like i think any coach coming in there would be would have been better than what they they they had going on personally now everybody else i think is saying Andrew Barry's the problem.

1:30:26Pat McAfee:The ownership's the problem, right? That's kind of what the NFL, I guess, is saying. Definitely the ownership.

1:30:30Aaron Rodgers:Yeah.

1:30:31Pat McAfee:But remember, Tepper was a problem until they got good. Yeah, exactly.

1:30:35Darius Butler:But the Haslams came out and basically did say, like, yeah, we forced everybody's hand and decided to pay Deshaun Watson $230 million. He is still in the mix.

1:30:43Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, is he the quarterback or is

1:30:45Pat McAfee:working out? He looked athletic. I did see him moving and working out. Good security. He's coming back off of something that if he was to be able to be a good football player again we'd all be incredibly impressed with his uh ability to find it again you know because he gets paid more money than anybody in the history of sport at the time uh guaranteed i assume baseball player had something bigger in the history of our sport 230 million dollar guarantee and that was all happening while some of the most serious things of all time were taking place off the field and he couldn't play so not only does he opt out because he once traded so he's not playing then everything happens terribly off the field that he doesn't play.

1:31:23Pat McAfee:Then that all gets behind him. Then he's back on the field. It's like he hasn't played in like two and a half, three years. Is this going to be the NFL still, right? No, he'll be able to figure it out. He didn't. Then injuries happen. And then now all of a sudden we still have a contract that we have to kind of uphold here, the biggest of all time. And he takes another run at it. It's like if Deshaun Watson plays good football, that would be very surprising. That would be the most surprising.

1:31:46Darius Butler:He's going to be there though, right? He's going to be on the team, isn't he?

1:31:48Pat McAfee:Yeah, I assume the Haslams that paid that deal were like, Yeah. Yeah, you've been a – I heard a deal at the Combine of a former college football coach. Oh, yeah. This is one of the best deals ever. He is currently a janitor on the campus at, like, the rec building because his contract had in it that his money would be guaranteed to him. And if he was fired, he would be moved to another job on campus to fulfill the contract. So I believe the current job that is being filled to fulfill the college football head coaching contract for FAU is currently mopping floors at the rec.

1:32:33Darius Butler:What? Is it a no-show job or is he really doing it?

1:32:37Pat McAfee:We got mop in hand. Good for him. Doing a great job, by the way. That's a good-paying gig. Yeah, that is highest of all time. Yeah. But also, that's one of those ones where they're looking for a breach. so they would like to not have to pay you. So, I mean, if you don't have good form on that, they're saying breach. I think he has to be very good. I think he has to be very good because they've got eyes looking.

1:33:04Darius Butler:They're sending people through there slipping, hoping he doesn't put the little warning sign up so they've got people there taking falls all the time.

1:33:09Pat McAfee:Where's the expressado? What's the, in Spanish, the caution wet floor? C-U-I-D-A-D-O I believe is what it says I get so happy when I read I always say C-U-I-D-A-D-O I don't know what it means She's on the sign there He's slippy Yeah they're looking for that with him Wow yeah

1:33:28AJ Hawk:That's news to me I didn't hear that

1:33:29Pat McAfee:Oh the people that told me that obviously wanted me to hear that Yeah And see your reaction Yeah and Immediate There's a guy He's a janitor right now I'm like what? Yeah he's currently a janitor Where? Good for him Is this like a passion project? They're like no Can't have a breach of contract Needs it to get paid It's like, how's that working? And then they obviously shit on the person that negotiated the deal.

1:33:50Aaron Rodgers:Sure, sure.

1:33:51Pat McAfee:Well, dipshit, ba-ba-ba, you know, immediately goes into it.

1:33:54Darius Butler:Living in Boca, too?

1:33:56AJ Hawk:Yeah.

1:33:56Darius Butler:Not a bad spot. I mean, if you had a brain, you'd just buy 15 Roombas and just set that shit up. You see that one with dog poop on it? No.

1:34:04Pat McAfee:Yeah, all of a sudden, it'd start painting the canvas. Oh, God. Yeah.

1:34:07Darius Butler:It rolled over some turd, like dog poop, and then it painted.

1:34:11Pat McAfee:A little loose stool gets underneath the Roomba. All of a sudden, Roomba becomes Bob Ross. and all of a sudden you just got the whole poopy house. You need to blot that shit, they say. Well, that shit's actually everywhere, so you ain't got no, you got nothing. It literally looked like one of them roller painters. Oh, jeez. Not good.

1:34:29Darius Butler:Fox, are you still Roomba in your whole house? No, I gave up on that thing. What about the outdoor one? That's the one I'm talking about.

1:34:36Pat McAfee:The outdoor one didn't make it to the new house. That thing sucked. Don't get an outside lawnmower robot. It doesn't work. You don't say.

1:34:44Darius Butler:You're going to get the super expensive ones, though.

1:34:46Pat McAfee:It worked for like four years, so I always say I got my money's worth, but it sucked. No, by working, what does that mean? I mean, everybody knows if it comes to cutting grass, you look at the lines, you look at the levels, everything like that. You think this Roomba grass thing was doing any of that? Absolutely not.

1:35:02Darius Butler:It looked good. It was a pain in the ass because the wires would break. Once the wires break, you had to fix those in order for it to go at all, so it was brutal.

1:35:10Pat McAfee:Yeah, you need a Z-Tar, doctor, if you get a four. If you can afford a Z-turn, you get the Z-turn. You get and put that thing straight out of rabbit, straight out of turtle, right to rabbit, and then you let that thing eat right there. I actually bought a house in my NFL career, about the middle of it, that had a massive field in the back because I didn't like to work with other people. So I just wanted to kind of work in my backyard so I can kick balls. I needed a big field. I got it. As soon as I got it, I bought the Z-turn. Boy, I had a good time. Yeah, it's fun. It is so many. It's time-consuming.

1:35:44Pat McAfee:It is. It is certainly time-consuming. But, boy, it's a good time because in Pittsburgh, it's all, hey, and we are going, hey, it's not that good of a time. Right. I mean, we're pushing sleds straight uphill is basically what you're doing there. One of them Z-turns. I don't know if South Florida has much opportunity for that unless you're working on a golf course. Yeah. Probably not.

1:36:00AJ Hawk:But you get a field. Well, probably. I mean, not speaking.

1:36:02Pat McAfee:It's a good time, man. You could disappear out there. It's therapy. It is therapy. Yeah, it is. It's pretty nice. Foxy don't want it. He's fucking letting robots do it. Yeah, they'll make Bronco versions of the Z-turn. Kyler Murray potentially on the move, definitely on the move. Where will he be? Well, ESPN's reporting that he has two potential destinations in his mind and that there's obviously a lot of interest in him is what his people are going to say regardless. I've come full circle on Conor's theory that if Kyler goes to the Minnesota Vikings, the Vikings are a problem. That is kind of where Conor has been since the beginning of this.

1:36:33Pat McAfee:I think that is because of the amount of respect we have for Kevin O 'Connell and his offense. but if you remember I think the only thing we've ever said about Kyler consistently is that guy could spin it like his uh his ball flight his spiral his uh pinpoint accuracy his ability to do it all especially with his size but just his arm talent alone is outrageous and what do you need in a Kevin O 'Connell offense well you need to be able to put the ball exactly where it needs to be you also need to know where it's supposed to go and that goes to the clause that was put into his contract will he be able to accomplish that and connor has convinced me yeah he will be able to do that and now all of a sudden i'm thinking of kevin o 'connell and kyler murray and justin jefferson they're letting go aaron jones obviously i think he's a big time weapon for whoever he signs with was for the minnesota vikings but i've come around fully to kyler in minnesota there's other vets being talked about heading over there as well what are your

1:37:25Darius Butler:thoughts aj yeah i mean i think kyler with ko see the more you think about yeah it would make a ton in a sense and I think for Kyler a change of scenery could be good for him and a different person in his ear to help him out and obviously we know quarterbacks all about confidence I don't feel like Kyler lacks any confidence but with everything just watch these clips, no one really else on the planet can do what this guy can do so when you can couple that with a guy that can sit in the pocket and also sling it yeah, Kyler absolutely has a chance to resurrect his career I believe especially if he goes to a place like Minnesota

1:37:56Pat McAfee:You know something to think about here too as we're running those highlights and you're saying he's one of one. There's another one of one out there in Anthony Richardson. Remember, Kevin O 'Connell gave him a full... He did. The fat dude.

1:38:07Aaron Rodgers:You've been playing this league for a long time. You can't do that.

1:38:11Pat McAfee:I almost sent him a text and said, hey, give us a one then. Immediately after that, I almost send us a one because maybe you are the one that can make him live up to his full potential because Anthony Richardson at his absolute best is the thing that draws everybody to like, hold on. And if we think Kevin O 'Connell's the guy that gets the best out of everybody. It's like, hold on. Is Anthony Riching going over there? Can he layer a ball?

1:38:37Aaron Rodgers:We haven't seen it yet.

1:38:39Pat McAfee:He can throw it 68 yards off his back foot. Well, you understand that. Can he layer a ball? Because that is, from my understanding, that is what Minnesota is going to be looking for, first and foremost. We need somebody that needs to know where the hell the ball has to go, and they need to be able to put it over a linebacker in front of a safety. We need that ball to be in our offense immediately.

1:39:00Darius Butler:That's why if that is the only thing, and I don't know if Anthony Richardson can do that. I'm right now probably going to say, I don't know if I've ever seen it, but again, that deep ball. It's not the first thing we think about. Not the first thing we think about. Yeah. But if that is the only thing the Vikings are thinking about, if Tua goes to the Vikings, they may go 17-0 because that's all I think about when I think about Tua.

1:39:21Pat McAfee:And there's another guy. There's another guy that people are like, bum. Yeah, exactly. Bum. And then all of a sudden, pair him up with Kevin O 'Connell, and it's like, hold on. Are we scared of them? Yeah, we are. We are a little scared of them. Joining us now is not from the world of football, but certainly the world of, let's go ahead and send it, bruh.

1:39:39Aaron Rodgers:Yeah. Okay, that's what I learned. Fresh powder out there. Let's get going. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now, Olympic gold medal.

1:39:48Pat McAfee:Free, no, skiing half piper. Okay, I don't know all the official titles. Sure. He skis. He's in a half pipe. He's the best in the world. clearly was the entire morning I was watching. Three different runs. This guy's the man. Ladies and gentlemen, Alex Ferreira.

1:40:01Darius Butler:Yeah!

1:40:04Pat McAfee:How you doing, brother? Thank you so much for having me on.

1:40:07Aaron Rodgers:I'm doing great. I'm on an all-time high, and I'm never coming down, so don't try and break my stride.

1:40:13Pat McAfee:We're only here to lift you higher, brother. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your altitude for a few minutes. Let's talk about the halfpipe. We mentioned this earlier. We are very out of the winter sport world. I don't really know it much. I get into the Olympics, though, every single time, especially when America's kicking ass. Thank you, brother. But it felt like the skiers have kind of taken the halfpipe. It felt like every skier was nailing something absurd. And I grew up with what's the movie? Johnny Tsunami. Johnny Tsunami, which kind of judged the skiers. And I'm outside the winter sports world, so I always thought the skiers were the worst.

1:40:47Pat McAfee:Then I watched this halfpipe, and it's like, wait a minute, the skiers are definitely more entertaining on the halfpipe than the snowboard was for me. and then all of a sudden you roll out there and they're like well wait a minute we actually got the guy i want to thank you for a spectacular watch and also winning but can you tell me more about when did every skier become phenomenal at the half pipe because it felt like that's what i

1:41:06Aaron Rodgers:was watching yeah absolutely i mean the snowboarder guys are super impressive as well as the girls as well but definitely as far as the ski side of things goes everybody is on their game nobody doesn't land any runs anymore everyone's always landing everyone's crushing it and yeah the competition runs deep it is a super steep steep track to compete against all these guys so i'm

1:41:30Pat McAfee:just super grateful to be on top yeah definitely on top and we'll certainly talk about uh some guy seemingly follows you around as well who's uh a little bit of a um an ex a little bit of a wild card yeah former gold medalist probably yeah and he lives in you know he's good a good idea i think for the good sport. What are you being judged on? Because I saw them talking about how high you were. Okay. What are you worried about most? How high you're getting, how clean you're spinning, how clean the landing is? Like what is a mission one for you as you're heading down into the half plate?

1:42:03Aaron Rodgers:That's a great question. Let's just start with amplitude is king. There's a variety of criteria. There's overall impression. There's degree of difficulty, but the main, main thing is amplitude is king. You got to go huge. You got to execute on your grabs perfectly. And the idea or my whole style is all about making it as clean as possible. I want people to watch on TV and be like, oh, maybe I could do that. So I just try and make it super, super, super. Yeah.

1:42:28Pat McAfee:Nobody thinks that. Yeah. But young skiers, young skiers are thinking that. But I like the fact that you, you all think to yourself, like when people watch on TV, this should be a clean, like it should be good because whenever people are just cutting off their runs, I found myself getting disinterested. Like, and I think that was happening in the other half. You guys, you're talking about all of us are going through clean. It was. It was a hell of a spectacle. Ty has a question for you, Alex.

1:42:51Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, Alex, like when you're going out there, I mean, because like Pat said, if you're trying to make people think that this is like those, even you coming in on the half pipe and just like revert. Now, I don't ski, but I was like, I would fall back and probably break my neck on the entry into the half pipe there. When you're trying new tricks, like what is that process? Like how do you just kind of keep pushing the envelope? because I feel like some of this stuff, it feels like the human body, A, isn't supposed to do that. But if you're practicing this kind of stuff day in, day out, if you're not landing this kind of stuff, obviously you could get super, super hurt and not be able to compete.

1:43:27Aaron Rodgers:So what is the process like when you're trying to put together a gold medal run like this? I mean, let's just be real here. It's scared. I'm scared shitless. It's absolutely insane, everything that everyone's doing. So you got to be on point. And we're skiing on a brick or a block of ice, right? Like this isn't just, oh, we're going for a fun ski. You know, this is pure bulletproof ice. If you don't land, you're going to have a bad day. So it's always, I always say I'm in the business of landing. Try to make it as clean as possible, land the best of my ability and put on a show. I noticed early on, like you were saying, Pat, when people are landing runs, the audience is getting disinterested.

1:44:08Aaron Rodgers:It's not as fun. I always try and stuck to the characteristic of consistency is key. Be as consistent as I possibly can and everything else will take care of itself.

1:44:18Pat McAfee:Yeah, your prep is probably insane. AJ has a question about that actually.

1:44:22Darius Butler:Yeah, I wonder as far as your final run, you posted a run and you had to sit there and I believe watch three other competitors go. Can you take us through what that was like inside your head, how nervous you were watching each guy go?

1:44:33Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, it's a living nightmare. It's absolutely terrible just watching the top three qualifiers coming down below and the whole time you know i'm not much of a religious man i believe in the universe do unto others as you would like the golden rule right and i just kept talking to god basically just you got to give me this one come on the last one you got to give me and uh you know he came through big time so thank you to the big man upstairs i guess yeah i

1:45:00Pat McAfee:believe in the universe and then i realized in that moment okay there's god out there too yeah Somebody needs to be hearing this. Now, does he have a son? I don't know. I mean, if there would have been four qualifiers, maybe we would have seen if we got to that point. That's a beautiful thing, having faith in that moment, obviously. But also, getting it to cash in and get to enjoy the benefits of all your hard work is special. So I appreciate that. Conman has a question for you.

1:45:24Darius Butler:Yeah, Alex. Pat mentioned it earlier. I was infatuated with Hot Dog Hans. It seems as though he follows you around. I believe it was kind of something you and one of your friends who was a filmmaker kind of developed. Can you tell me more about hot dog Hans and this absolute nuclear weapon of a persona?

1:45:44Aaron Rodgers:You rock. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. Basically a friend came to me and said, Hey, have you seen uncle Drew, Kyrie Irving? This thing is amazing. He dressed up as an old man. He's dunking on people, 360 dunks, layups, whatever. And I said, no, I hadn't seen it. He showed me. I thought, wow, this is fantastic. He goes, we should do this with you in skiing. And it just so happened at the time, one of my best friends, he owns a production company called Vital Films. He's working for people like the BBC, Nat Geo, ESPN, you name it, he's on it. And basically, we came together. I dress up like an old man, and I mess with people on the slopes, and we have a blast.

1:46:19Aaron Rodgers:Our main goal is to bring humor and originality and some major creativity to the space. And I think we're doing a great job so far, and I hope everyone keeps enjoying it. We're just trying to have a lot of fun. Fun we have.

1:46:31Pat McAfee:Hot dog haunts, a bit of a ledge, you know, and obviously palling around with an Olympic gold medalist does not hurt. The skiing world, we learn about it every single Winter Olympics. There's a lot of options out there. Go ahead, Tone.

1:46:45Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, there's a ton, Alex. In the football world, we always talk about, you know, it's impossible to play both sides of the ball, offense and defense. Let's say you had four years, okay? Could, like, obviously you're very, very, very, very comfortable on your skis. Like how would you do in big air or aerials or let's say you're going super G or slalom? Like because you're so comfortable on skis, if we gave you four years, how do you think you would do in those other events? Listen, man, I'm super confident, but let's be real here. I would get absolutely slaughtered. This is not a joke. There's so many different disciplines of skiing and you need to specialize in your discipline because everyone has gotten so freaking good.

1:47:24Aaron Rodgers:It's just the reality. It's the nature of the beast. Everyone's amazing.

1:47:27Pat McAfee:do you do the skiing like uh do you do uh do you do like the the hang we'll take the basic yeah like do you do the black diamond double blacks what's Michaela Schifrin do slalom from those things have you ever like done that are you like a natural like go hang out do the skiing whenever you're not doing half pipe skiing like how does that all work out

1:47:49Aaron Rodgers:absolutely I'm a skier first and foremost I'm a soul shredder I go out and ski with my friends with my mom, with my dad, whatever. I'm there for it. I like being around. I'm especially there for the app racing. I like to have a good time. We're not here for a long time, so I'm trying to enjoy it. But yeah, we have a great time. Any type of skiing, you invite me, I'm there. Heli skiing, normal groomers, powder skiing, park skiing, whatever. I got my ski boots on right now. I'm going to Stred Park right after this.

1:48:17Pat McAfee:You're the man. Okay, how can we... Let's do it. Yeah, okay, yeah. All right, we love that. You're living in your boots. This guy hasn't taken his boots off since the Winter Olympics. I have not gotten into the skiing at all. Where should I go in America? Where would you – a couple places. You don't have to pick a favorite and piss anybody off. But where's a couple places that if we were to take a group to kind of go do a skiing and also an apres skiing, where do you think we should head here in the United States of America?

1:48:46Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, yeah. I'm happy to piss people off. You got to come to Aspen. I'll show you the best time of your guys' lives. If you haven't skied before, we'll have a blast. And yeah, you let me know when you want to come and I'll set the whole thing up for you and your crew. Woo.

1:48:59Pat McAfee:Boom. And that's why you are the man we need representing the United States of America on those two skis. You're the best. Thank you for taking time and congrats again.

1:49:09Aaron Rodgers:Much love. Go USA. Appreciate you boys having me on. All the best. I will see you soon.

1:49:13Pat McAfee:Thank you for representing for us, man. And good luck out there. Go Shred Park, dude. Alex Ferreira. Hey, Alex. Yeah, what are you talking about, dude? I'm kind of fucking blowing it right now. There we go right now. Hilarious. Living the gimmick. Such a beast. I mean, he's the one.

1:49:29Darius Butler:Is he doing like backflips over people if he's going down Black Diamonds? Like are there jumps out? I don't skied either.

1:49:34Aaron Rodgers:Like today when he's going to park, yeah, there's boxes, there's jumps. We got to go.

1:49:38Pat McAfee:We got to go. Is that still happening? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

1:49:40Aaron Rodgers:Out there until March. Last February. What's today's date? March 2, 3.

1:49:45Darius Butler:Oh, you'll be able to ski out there until April.

1:49:47Aaron Rodgers:Yeah.

1:49:49Darius Butler:I'm in. D-butt skis, right? You've gone a D-butt mountain.

1:49:53AJ Hawk:I went, God rest his soul. Vontae was a huge skier. Former teammate Vontae Davis. He would go out there all the time. Some of his friends who I was still in contact with, they go multiple times a year. So I am definitely down. I went once, and, you know, I picked it up fairly quickly, but I'm definitely down to go anytime.

1:50:09Pat McAfee:I got invited to go live a little with Vontae on a ski trip, and I couldn't make it happen. And I was seeing the pictures of what happened, and I'm like, man, that ski time looks like a good time. You know, I don't know if I'll be able to do the skiing, but it does feel like the skiing community is a good time. Yes. Like it does. Like the opera ski is just like a part of it. Like, yeah, we're going to have a good time here. Like that is what we're here for. And it feels like it's a great therapeutic type of thing. Great workout.

1:50:37Darius Butler:It's like a nine to three type thing too. So you can get some sun, nice little suntan while you're going.

1:50:43Pat McAfee:And a lot of chiefing, right? A lot of chiefing.

1:50:45Darius Butler:A lot of boozing.

1:50:47Pat McAfee:And then you can really devastating, right?

1:50:50AJ Hawk:Certainly.

1:50:50Pat McAfee:There could be some really terrible things that will happen.

1:50:53AJ Hawk:You could die for sure. You could die. You need to wear a helmet. Make a decision, though. Skiing or snowboarding. Right now, am I doing it? I still have my board, so yeah. Okay, yeah.

1:51:02Pat McAfee:Am I making a decision right now? Yeah, sure.

1:51:04AJ Hawk:Why not?

1:51:05Pat McAfee:Give me the ones that are straight up into the air. No poles? Yeah, give me the ski. Mostly because I've walked on two feet my whole life. And getting me on a skateboard, very difficult.

1:51:15Aaron Rodgers:If you've never done it, skiing is a lot easier, like the first three, four times.

1:51:18Darius Butler:I got mini skis, too, by the way. They got skis that are this big.

1:51:23Pat McAfee:I've gone rollerblading before. Exactly. They have those size skis. Do they work or no?

1:51:29Darius Butler:They do work, but they are like trick skis. You're supposed to be a very good skier to use them, but still. What do you mean?

1:51:35Pat McAfee:I can't just go out there first time and do a little how do you do? You can't. Am I grinding on that?

1:51:40Darius Butler:Yeah, grinding, hitting the boxes like Tony said. Those are good if you can ice skate.

1:51:44Pat McAfee:I think I can kind of do that.

1:51:47Aaron Rodgers:If you could stop wearing hockey skates, then you could do those.

1:51:50Pat McAfee:Okay, so I'm doing trick skis first time I'm out there. Okay. I've decided. Because the long ones scare me. They're tough. The length of it is what scares me. Because doing this whole thing. Because I've had the little mermaid things for swimming. What are those on your feet? Flippers? Oh, yeah. Floaties? I can't. The flip. Flippers. Hey, Jay. Floaties.

1:52:08Darius Butler:What are you talking about?

1:52:09Pat McAfee:I'm talking about those big floppers. Scuba slippers.

1:52:12Darius Butler:Flippers. Yeah, like your scuba. Like, yeah. Flippers.

1:52:15Pat McAfee:Flippers, yeah. Yes, flippers, not floaties. Okay, flippers.

1:52:19Darius Butler:That's what it sounded like you were saying. I don't know. What are you using flippers for? Where do you put floaties on your feet?

1:52:23Pat McAfee:Your kid's got no shot. Is that where you put your floaties? I was talking about my feet.

1:52:27Darius Butler:Their feet stay up and their head goes down. You got to really test them. Throw them into adversity right away. Yeah, I understand.

1:52:32Pat McAfee:Yeah, I get hanging on to them by their Achilles. Yeah, I understand what you're doing there. No, anytime those things, I'm just not good at the big flop. Yeah. And then the long skis, just that feels like that would not be good for my knees, too. That feels like that's a lot of... So if I'm getting a little... I'm getting roller blades?

1:52:50Darius Butler:Yeah, you can do that. There's best of both worlds, too. That's the hardest part of skiing.

1:52:54AJ Hawk:I'm getting roller blades. That does not sound like a good idea.

1:52:57Pat McAfee:What are you talking about? I'm turning that thing sideways. I'm dragging that thing down the hill. Like that is what they say.

1:53:02AJ Hawk:I mean, that's kind of your MO. You go right... Hey, let me get in the batter's box. I go up and get gliding. Let me get a ring. I'm stone cold. Yeah, go ahead. You know what? Go ahead. Put the fucking roller. It'll probably work.

1:53:13Pat McAfee:You're right. So that would be harder, those little ones? Yeah, they are definitely hard. I thought we were talking to you. AJ's gone. AJ's already had Aspen. Oh, nice.

1:53:21Darius Butler:Someone called him.

1:53:23Pat McAfee:All right. Well, as we end here on ESPN2, as the Red Sox and Yankees play each other on ESPN, we will let you know that the Team USA, with Clayton Kershaw pitching, I do believe. He's not starting, but. Oh, at some point he's pitching? That's what we were told, right? Or playing the Colorado Rockies. That's available nowhere. Nowhere.

1:53:45Aaron Rodgers:MLB TV.

1:53:46Pat McAfee:Okay, okay. It is available somewhere.

1:53:47Aaron Rodgers:Yes. All right. Yes.

1:53:48Pat McAfee:That's on me. Meet a friend. Tell a friend something nice. If I change your life, we're back tomorrow. Aaron Rodgers will be joining us on YouTube, ESPN +, Disney +, TikTok, and hopefully you'll join us as well. See you tomorrow. Goodbye. Did I miss anything?

1:54:00Darius Butler:No.

1:54:01Aaron Rodgers:Uh-huh.

1:54:01Pat McAfee:Got it.

1:54:02Aaron Rodgers:I think I hit them all. Yeah, the lineup came out and Yarbrough is getting a start from the X, I believe.

1:54:07Darius Butler:Hopefully he's sponsored by that company. What? Marbrough, Yarbrough. That's money.

1:54:12Pat McAfee:I don't know if they're doing as many cigarette sponsorships these days.

1:54:15Darius Butler:In pro sports?

1:54:16Pat McAfee:Just any. I think it's kind of a tough thing. Just too established like Red Bull?

1:54:20Aaron Rodgers:Yeah.

1:54:21Pat McAfee:No, it's a little different. I think Red Bull has a lot of hats on these skaters. That's true. I think Red Bull would say we do more to support Olympic sports than maybe anybody else, which we would like to say to Red Bull, we appreciate your service. Not only that, but also when you guys decided to tag team with vodka everywhere, we appreciate what you did for all of our lives as well. Foxy just gave a big head sigh. Sounds like he survived some nights. Big time hangover when you do that. I loved it, though. It was great nights. Boom! Okay, sorry you had one with the lads, pal.

1:54:52Darius Butler:Don't start your Roomba lawnmower, pal.

1:54:56Pat McAfee:I'll tell you what. I was looking for one of those for five hours over there in Phoenix just at the end of the day. I'm glad I bet, dude. Oh, this next place is awesome. You guys got Red Bull Vodkas here? No. We do got We're not the mountains But it's always Snowing Jesus Get me out of here Any hangover with that? I don't know To be honest I've only done it a couple times Literally two times Always alongside an immense amount of alcohol Yeah how do you know? Chicken or egg? Yeah, the thing that I do know, though, I don't know about the hangover, but I do know looking in the mirror going, what the, oh, you fucking, you are a real, okay.

1:55:46Aaron Rodgers:Okay, Tony Montana. This is what life is.

1:55:48Pat McAfee:Yeah, I was, that was my issue with it. Now, I've had a lot of friends, obviously, that were into that particular thing. Good time crowd has, you know, certain traits, I think, everywhere. I was always a part of good time crowds in, like, a lot of different cities. So, obviously, I see that type of stuff. But for me, it's never good. And I don't like that everybody just automatically calls me a cokehead as soon as they see me with some energy all the time. It's like, actually, no, it's the complete opposite. I've talked to me about it after, and I didn't like me. I don't like what it did to my brain.

1:56:18Pat McAfee:You got to be Adderall out of your mind. It's like, nope, actually, hate that as well because it keeps me too on track. I actually like to kind of voyage out of there. Oh, so what? You got to be doing some meth. You want fucking meth? No, man. I wake up like this, and I'll tell you what. It annoys me too. But then we take some, then we take an herbal remedy. And I think that slows me down enough. But boy, that upper stuff, I think there's a lot of that in those X Games type stuff. I think those guys are, I think they have to. I think they are a good time crowd. I think all of them are. Which is why I think it's so electric when we watch the Winter Olympics.

1:57:00Pat McAfee:It's like a very electric time.

1:57:02Aaron Rodgers:I mean, like you said, that's no bullshit. Those guys could break their neck every single run they have. You're doing flips and shit like that on skis. You could die every time. If you've never been on a half pipe, the top part and then where it goes down to, it is ice. It's ice. It's basically concrete. People that land on the top and then where it starts to go down on their back, that's landing on a curb.

1:57:27Pat McAfee:I saw a guy hit edge. I saw a guy hit edge because I think he tried to steal another jump at the bottom. so he thought he I think he was trying to jump more and he jumped into the wall basically and started flipping and didn't even know it and boom and then he goes down and he's on and they send in a whole thing I'm like oh I just watched God break his back and then he gets up walks down the half pipe and then starts making fun of himself and then walks away and I'm like this group is dogs everywhere shout out to the Winter Olympics let's get some break on the other side Aaron Rodgers will be joining us i can't wait i have no idea what do you know where this is headed no maybe wait though have you talked to him about coming on over the last couple days

1:58:13Darius Butler:no not really have i like nothing like yes oh sure nothing um in detail about anything just hey what's up how are you always lying yeah why are you no so what are you gonna make a decision on what you're gonna to do this next year. You think I'm texting him that?

1:58:32Pat McAfee:Okay, so that's what people expect, right?

1:58:34Aaron Rodgers:Oh yeah, everyone thinks that he's making a decision today.

1:58:37Pat McAfee:Don't think that. That'd be sweet.

1:58:40Aaron Rodgers:He should. I agree, AJ. He should. Text him, man.

1:58:44Darius Butler:Get his time as ever.

1:58:46Aaron Rodgers:I agree.

1:58:47Darius Butler:He loves March 4th. If not now, World Baseball Classic is about to start.

1:58:53Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, exactly.

1:58:55Darius Butler:We just won gold in men's and women's hockey. Everyone's riding high and everything else. Yeah.

1:59:05Pat McAfee:He's got a dog named Apollo, right? He does. First thing that comes to mind, what do you think of Apollo?

1:59:11Aaron Rodgers:Apollo 13 or Apollo Anton Ono.

1:59:13Pat McAfee:Okay, so let's get rid of the first one you said. Apollo Anton Ono.

1:59:17Aaron Rodgers:Which is what? Winter Olympic. Yes, Winter Olympic legend speed skater. What about Apollo Creed? That was my first. That works too. Summer Olympics. Who gave Rocky the star-spangled banner trunks? It was Apollo Creed.

1:59:32Pat McAfee:So he's going to be pumped up about what just happened in the Olympics. Yes.

1:59:36Darius Butler:Because of that. Oh, I see how you tie it together. What about the Apollo Theater? I thought that might have something to do with it.

1:59:41Pat McAfee:I mean, literally, any Apollo you're thinking of now is not the first one that I was talking about. Apollo Creed potentially is the right answer. Very good. Apollo 13, also opportunity. Apollo Anton Eno is what we're trying to get to. The Greek God. Yeah.

1:59:55Aaron Rodgers:That movie with the Apollo Theater, great. Is that Chris Rock? Get him to the Apollo. So anybody know that? Is that what it's called, AJ?

2:00:04Darius Butler:Get him to the Paul. I thought it was the tall guy, Russell Brand. That's get him to the Greek. That's get him to the Greek. Oh, yeah. There it is.

2:00:11Pat McAfee:All right, second break. I'm just going to act like he named the Paul after Paul Anton. I don't know.

2:00:17Aaron Rodgers:There's a good chance.

2:00:18Pat McAfee:And he was watching these speed skating come out of the Olympics, and that's why he's seemingly glowing. I said earlier in the show that talking to him the last couple days, that is, he was glowing through the FaceTime. And I don't know if you feel the same way or want to say the same thing. This dude feels very, it feels like he feels very good about where he is in his life right now. You agree with that?

2:00:39Darius Butler:I would imagine. I mean, what do you think he would want to come on if he wasn't feeling good? I mean,

2:00:43Pat McAfee:there's been some times, yeah, where he wanted to, you know, feels like.

2:00:46AJ Hawk:There's a lot of other shit going on in the world, too, outside of sports. They may want to talk about. Good call. I don't think he would do that. I don't think he would do that. Until right now.

2:00:55Pat McAfee:I just thought about that right now. All right. Fuck it. We'll see. Hey, be a friend, tell a friend, something nice might change your life. Feels like Aaron is in. I'm excited to hear what he has to say. Excited to catch up on what the year that was. So much has happened since the last time we talked to him. What does his future look like? Does he know at this exact point? Is he allowed to take his time to figure out what he wants to do because he's already a first ballot Mount Rushmore football player? No. Okay. Yes, he is. Be a friend, tell a friend, something nice might change your life. Take five.

2:01:21Pat McAfee:Five. Five.

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2:02:31Pat McAfee:Sports are the greatest. I just had to burp. I just took down an incredible rap over there. And I did not expect the type of up that was coming there as I was introing this wonderful hour that I assume is not going to be talked about at all. That is A.J. Hawk right there. He's a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner. The Talks at Tables here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Good to see you, Ty. You're glowing a little bit right now.

2:02:56Aaron Rodgers:Hey, you know, it's tough not to. I mean, we got a guy who I'm looking forward to talk to, and we got Team USA Baseball taking on the Rockies at 310 today. It's a great time to be alive.

2:03:03Pat McAfee:Life is good, isn't it? Yeah. Life is good. And it's a great day to be alive. I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes. Yeah! And I'm your NFL fan, Darius J. Butler. One half of the hammer. Dad! Cowboys AP Tone. And joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a four-time NFL MVP, a Super Bowl champion. Last year was the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Before that, he was the quarterback of the Jets. Before that, what people will remember is an iconic run with the Green Bay Packers where some kid out of Cal became an absolute icon. That man's name, Aaron Rodgers.

2:03:48Pat McAfee:How you doing, dude?

2:03:49Charlie McAvoy:I'm glad you guys played that song because AJ loves that song. He really does. That's one of his favorites.

2:03:54Pat McAfee:Oh, really? Do you want to sing with us? It's a great day to be alive. Did he say it?

2:04:02Charlie McAvoy:What'd you say, dude? He's talking about. He's muted. Travis Tritt. Can't hear him. I love it. Can't hear him.

2:04:09Pat McAfee:Go ahead, AJ. What did you say? Oh, no. You are. No, he's doing that on purpose, I think, Aaron. I think he's doing it on purpose, Aaron. Oh, I don't know if you guys play with me or not. We actually cannot hear you right now. So if you could turn off your mute, that would be sick.

2:04:24Pat McAfee:Hey, you are muted, dude. They're saying it's your side. Everybody in the back is, oh, he thinks we're lying to him. See, this is part of the problem.

2:04:31Charlie McAvoy:There's got to be some technical issue when I come on, right? Yeah, always. I think I'm good today, but there's got to be something.

2:04:38Pat McAfee:You look good. You look incredibly happy. I told the boy, let's call AJ back. AJ, you actually could not hear you. AJ thinks we are. You think we're fucking with you, AJ. We are not fucking with you. We actually cannot hear you. Aaron, thank you for being a part of that moment. And also... This is a better two-shot anyway. I'll tell you what, Aaron, you're going to be handsome, which is a part of a lot of things. Bro-magnon. Yeah, exactly. I like the blue shirt. Blue eyes just going absolutely crazy right now. But you're also glowing.

2:05:06Charlie McAvoy:It's a shout-out to where I did my rehab twice, collarbone and my Achilles. So shout-out to Heather and everybody over there at Elite Ortho. Just saw it in the drawer today. and you can't see it, but I've been doing a lot of push-ups and lifting. So it was kind of tight on the arms. I kind of liked it. I kind of like you, wearing those tight shirts.

2:05:27Pat McAfee:Well, I'm on a bunch of peptides. You'll learn about that when you retire. And I don't know what you're planning on doing in this particular conversation, but hearing that you've been working out, and what I said to the boys is getting a chance to FaceTime with you over the last few days and catch up with you after the season, it's like you look good, man. You look healthy. You look happy. And obviously a couple times you weren't able to chat because you were working out. you will be a guy that will work out for the rest of your life or is this a part of your process still on what's next for you as a football player as a human i don't want to literally we are so happy you joined us it's great to catch up i don't want to immediately jump into it but you're talking about working out it's like okay are you just always going to be like that is there a reason have you got to that point in your mind like where do you sit on this particular march 4th

2:06:07Charlie McAvoy:probably somewhere between you and aj i would say maybe closer to you i know you've got a good workout schedule. AJ's like 5 a.m. on the VersaClimber in there, you know. I'm not doing that, but no, I'm trying to stay fit. I mean, it's harder when you get older, so you kind of can't take the same amount of time off as you used to. You know, after so many seasons, I would take, you know, a few weeks off, a month off, a month and a half. Now, you know, now at 42, just to stay in shape, you got to kind of always be dialed on the diet and sleep and workouts if you want to look the right way you know i i want this this is uh you know we're not on espn i mean it wouldn't matter but but you know i want to look good i want my wife to want to fuck me all the time

2:06:55Pat McAfee:okay okay all right on that okay so we'll get back to uh the workouts and why and everything

2:07:01Charlie McAvoy:like that and i'll tell you i got out to yeah shout out to icelandic water of course I'm usually a Mountain Valley spring water guy, but I do love the Icelandic. And, you know, when I got to Pittsburgh, there were a lot of guys. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. A lot of guys that, you know, copied some of the things that I did, you know, with the wired in headphones and the Mountain Valley. And Vince Karanek is one of the top ones. He came out to Malibu. We had a good time and threw the ball around a little bit. And after that, you know, the next time I saw him, he was wired in, green bottle with him everywhere.

2:07:34Charlie McAvoy:So I take a lot of pride in that. I appreciate that. TJ Watt, you know, went to wire it in headphones. Okay.

2:07:41Pat McAfee:Bad teammate.

2:07:42Charlie McAvoy:I appreciate all those guys.

2:07:44Pat McAfee:Notorious bad teammate, Aaron Rodgers, potentially influencing the locker room. Let's talk about you being old man for the Pittsburgh Steelers in team New City. When we talked to you at training camp, it was still the stage of, like, everything was possible. And I think Jalen Ramsey was talking at training camp about, once I heard everybody's why, everybody was really motivated, You're really excited. The season goes how it goes. You have success. Obviously, win AFC North. Doesn't end up with a Super Bowl. How do you look back on the year that was with the Pittsburgh Steelers? And how thankful are you?

2:08:15Pat McAfee:And I'm asking you that because, yes, I am Yinser and everything like that. Former pump-passing kick world champion for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But how was the year versus what you thought it was going to be and then what it inevitably ended up being? And how do you sit now with what last season was for you?

2:08:31Charlie McAvoy:Well, first of all, I just had to do not disturb because obviously Ben Skoranek's watching it, so he just texted me.

2:08:38Darius Butler:Yo, thank you, dude. Hey, baby, Benny. Yeah, shout out, Ben.

2:08:41Charlie McAvoy:Shout out to Ben, man. There's a few guys I've really connected with quickly, and he was just one of them. I love Ben, and he's such a quirky, kooky. I don't know if you guys have a chance to talk to him, but he's hilarious. Every day, he's just on one. just on one and uh i never you know there's some doldrums you know throughout the season you know long weeks or training camp but him every day the same just cracking jokes ripping on people uh inappropriate you know things that he would bring up all the time oh yeah so he you know there was a lot of guys that made the year special then obviously my quarterback room i mean i'd never met mason rudolph before mason's one of my favorite guys i ever played with him and mason got me through every single day.

2:09:29Charlie McAvoy:I mean, he is just hilarious. I mean, he's such a, such a naturally funny guy and, and super dry and cutting. Uh, so we had a blast and then Will Howard, like what a great young player just got the right moxie, the right personality and loved working with him. And Skylar Thompson, you know, Sky is one of the quietest dudes I've had in the room, but Sky's a sweetheart, man. He's just such a, such a nice guy. So we had a blast. And then obviously Cam and TJ were great. And the guys I got to spend time, you know, a lot of time with locker room wise, you know, next to Pat Friermuth. You know, I love Pat and just loved his whole demeanor and the way he showed what a true professional he was the entire year.

2:10:09Charlie McAvoy:And Calvin Austin, what an absolute sweet kid that guy is. Like just special, special guy to share the field with. And so many guys, you know, you mentioned Jalen. I love playing with Jalen and Deshaun Elliott, who said I need to be retired in the offseason. I gave him a lot of shit about that, but I love Deshaun. I mean, what a great guy. There were so many people, Arthur Smith, Tom Arth, Mike T, obviously. Mike T was a huge reason why I went there. Mr. Rooney, just the way I was treated out there, I had a blast. Obviously, we talked about this. It's like when you're off the field, stuff is not an escape.

2:10:50Charlie McAvoy:It's a blessing. You know, it's a refuge. It's a home. You can just play and just enjoy the heck out of everything the game has off because the game is a tough game. It's a grind. You know, it's a long season and there's ups and downs and highs and lows and emotional swings and momentum. And the mental of leadership is, you know, heavy a lot of times. It's something you love. But to be able to go home after work and be able to have that part, you know, so locked in and so special and such a refuge, you know, made the year even more fun. But I give a lot of credit to the organization and Mike T and Arthur and all the guys I mentioned, the quarterback room and Ben and DK and Calvin and Roman, Scotty.

2:11:34Charlie McAvoy:And it was just a fun group of guys. And I really enjoyed my time.

2:11:38Pat McAfee:Yeah. And obviously only one team wins the Super Bowl. That was not you guys, so it's always going to be a devastating finale to a season. Then Coach Tomlin obviously steps down after a long tenure. With the way it all ends, you're not sour about the decision to join the Pittsburgh Steelers at all. And on that note, Mike McCarthy going back to Pittsburgh, Donner, to become the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach. Feels like it's a movie, doesn't it? Doesn't this all feel kind of like a little bit of a simulation-type situation here with this all kind of happening at this exact time? Your thoughts on him getting into the Steelers building for the first time in his life as Notorious Inzer and friend of yours, I believe I can say, now that he's kind of taken over.

2:12:20Charlie McAvoy:Yeah, Mike's one of the great guys in the league. Just an absolutely exceptional human being with a huge heart. We had a lot of great years together, a lot of fun. You know, he just, he really cares about the players. but he also holds guys accountable and creates a lot of structure and details in the process. But man, I love my time with Mike over the years. Obviously, there were some times, it's like a big brother where sometimes you love him, sometimes you're pissed at him. But deep down, there's so much love for Mike and appreciation for the time we spent together. And I think, you know, what was really special for us was in 2022, he was with Dallas and they came in and played a night game against us.

2:13:07Charlie McAvoy:And we were going through some struggles. And Mike and I had talked like that Monday of that week, really before I came on the show on Tuesday. We had talked on Monday and said, hey, let's let's spend some time together, you know, before the game away from the cameras. Because we knew it was going to be a spectacle, you know, everything that was written, most of it bullshit, you know, about our relationship. and let's spend some time together where we're not like with a boom mic over the top of us and a camera on us. So I was telling you this, you know, I want to share this story. But so he hit me up on game day and was like, hey, what time do you want to get together?

2:13:46Charlie McAvoy:And it was like we had a night game. It was like noon, I think. And I said, you know, I usually come, you know, four hours for the game, but I'll come a little early. I said, what time are you going to be over at the stadium? He said, I'm already here. So I said, OK. I said, where do you want to meet? And he said, let's meet in the sewing room. So there was a room off the locker room, off the equipment room, where the sewing ladies, sweethearts, would put the patches on the uniforms and names on the uniforms. And so we met in there for like an hour, just him and I, and just had a really special time, like talking about the time we spent together and the appreciation we have for each other and the gratitude.

2:14:28Charlie McAvoy:And that was a deeply meaningful moment for both of us, I think I can say. And I'll just say, you know, the league, the way it's covered is so fickle now. There's so many opinions. And it used to be just, you know, on SportsCenter, it was like it was on ESPN. It was highlights, you know, and the stars were the people in the highlights. And I've talked about this, but now the stars are the people, they think they're stars are the people who are debating. It's all talking heads, and the majority of it, I would say other than this show, I think that I'm not speaking out of my ass there, is very negatively slanted.

2:15:02Charlie McAvoy:It's like somebody has this opinion, somebody has this opinion, they'll have a fight about it, and it's mostly negatively slanted, or at least one of the people has a negative slant on it. So I saw some of the stuff written about Mike, and I just think, one, he doesn't give a shit about that. Two, it's the majority of it's bullshit, any negative thing about Mike. I don't give a shit about how old he is, how long he's been in the league, or the trend of the new young play caller who's been on the staff of one of the Shanahan disciples. It seems like that's kind of the hot thing. I get that. There's a lot of great scheme in there.

2:15:39Charlie McAvoy:But there's something to an old school organization. The Pittsburgh Steelers definitely are. I just think the Green Bay Packers were. And bringing in a guy, not only who brings accountability and in a program that's proven to work at multiple places now but he's a fucking yinzer yeah he grew up literally like we're on the practice field and christian coon's our long snapper who's pittsburgh through and through you know grew up there went to duquesne great dude i loved i loved the coon's he's hilarious i just gave him shit all the time but he's like i remember one day i said hey where's greenfield avenue where mike's from he's like you know in his accent he's like He's right over there, you know, just near the side of the hill.

2:16:16Charlie McAvoy:I mean, that's where Mike comes from. Mike bleeds, you know, Pittsburgh PA. And I think there's something special about that for a guy who's going to come home and lead in a historic franchise. There's not many of them in the league I've talked about. There's only a few kind of those cornerstone franchises. Who else would you rather have lead? You know, a guy that like literally bleeds black and gold and loves the city with all his heart. And this is like a dream job for him. I was telling him after he got hired, like, what an awesome thing. Like, you've now, you're going to have coached three of the iconic franchises, Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, and Pittsburgh Steelers.

2:16:52Charlie McAvoy:Are you kidding me? That's 60s, 70s, and 80s, like, dynasties, you know? And for a guy to try and come back and lead back to that greatness, I don't think you can do better, you know, at this time in this franchise's history than bringing in a guy like Mike McCarthy. So I'm really happy for him. We've had good conversations, and I have a lot of love for Mike.

2:17:15Pat McAfee:We're incredibly proud of that Yinzer legend, Mike McCarthy. Like, legit. You talk about him being a hit.

2:17:19Charlie McAvoy:He was on the show, too. You guys had him.

2:17:20Pat McAfee:He was great, wasn't he?

2:17:21Charlie McAvoy:Unbelievable.

2:17:22Pat McAfee:He quoted Galileo. I didn't know he had that because, once again, he is Yinzer. So just by looking at him and hearing him talk, I naturally am like, I know him. I've met a thousand of hims before throughout my entire life just because he is such a Yinzer. but then he was quoting the things he was saying like i go out there with the partners of kickers and you know if it's really windy sometimes you gotta have a conversation about which way it needs to go which way when you go that you're talking about him being there at noon or whatever for an eight o 'clock game it's like the amount of depth that he had from all the years of football and the way he views things and seemingly has adapted with the time and i'm sure he hasn't been perfect and i appreciate the fact that you mentioned that conversation you guys had in the sewing room in the bowser lambo which is like one of the most historic places in football you two having one of the most historic football combos potentially if what happens is about to maybe happen here which i would definitely lead to next but mike mccarthy impressed us every single week i was actually asked though by the pittsburgh steelers people first time i've ever been asked we've had a lot of people get hired for jobs coming off of this show first time i've ever been asked like hey what was this person like to deal with and it's like hey every week this guy was more prepared than anybody else no offense to anybody else that has ever been on a show we're appreciative of that he came with ideas he came with thoughts hey i saw this i think this maybe this and then we'd say something you go i never thought of that and they like sit there and like take an actual genuine thought of it and then he's oh i guess that kind of leads to and then he goes this it's like yes like he was fully invested with us and we very much understood like he's trying to get back into coaching and he was all in for us so we were appreciative i was mind blown by him and i i was turned i think all season being like yes he can coach in the modern nfl let's talk about you now still playing in the modern nfl you're 42 years old what year would next year be if you played?

2:19:05Pat McAfee:22. You've lived through some errors now, bro. You've gone through some errors in humans and technological advances in society and in the NFL and personality changes in everything. So you've been there for that long. Mike McCarthy being able to coach in this day and age, seems like you're all in on that. Is that something you think that can win a Super Bowl in this day and age? And do you think the Pittsburgh Steelers can be a team that can get number seven because that's all their fans care about? Are those things that you've thought about with Mike being paired with the Pittsburgh Steelers? Because the only thing either of them care about is winning a Super Bowl, basically, right?

2:19:40Pat McAfee:That's the only thing that matters for either side at this stage of the journey in the football lives. You agree with that or no?

2:19:46Charlie McAvoy:Yeah, I agree with that. I think the league is very cyclical. I think if you've seen just you talking about trends in the league and where it goes, if you look at the trends last year in the NFL, and I felt like, you know, Arthur was kind of on the front of a lot of this. the six offensive linemen as a counter to some of the things that defenses were doing. Whereas you've seen in Buffalo, I think Buffalo did this more than anybody, playing nickel to every personnel. Because Darren Johnson is one of the best players in the league, and he's one of the most underrated players in the league, I think, for whatever reason.

2:20:19Charlie McAvoy:But he can play a box linebacker and stop the run, and he can cover guys. And because of that and their willingness to play nickel versus any personnel grouping, I think some of the responses, and definitely in Pittsburgh for us, as you see more teams doing that, not matching personnel, so going more nickel to base personnel groupings, was go six offensive linemen. And we kind of rolled it out really the most against Cleveland early in the season and against Minnesota. And it was a good counter for us for sure. and you saw more and more teams start to get to a sixth offensive lineman. Now, many people were saying that Darnell was like a sixth offensive lineman, but I think Darnell proved a lot of people wrong this year about his run-running ability, his ability after the catch, his catch radius, and his ability to be a full-time wide tight end.

2:21:08Charlie McAvoy:But the flexibility that we had with Spencer to be able to come in and be the sixth offensive lineman, there you go right now, you're bringing up, okay, it's, yeah, I mean, that's the highest since 2007, but I would say what's the percentage of six offensive linemen packages that I'd say would be under 5%, probably, or at least under 10. That number probably jumped up this season as well. So what I'm saying is you see trends change in the coaching ranks. Mike Tomlin, when he got hired, was an outlier. There weren't really any around that 40-year-old range coaches being hired. And then Sean McVay got hired, I believe, at 33.

2:21:48Charlie McAvoy:He was in his early 30s.

2:21:50Pat McAfee:32, maybe.

2:21:51Charlie McAvoy:I don't remember if it was 32 or 33, whatever it was. it was absurd yeah and then and then when goes the super bowl and wins the super bowl and i think everybody's like oh you know that's what happens you know with defenses the seattle three everyone needs to win seattle three with the shanand system everybody should get a shanand guy with young coaches everybody should get a young coach because obviously works and that's the way the league is very reactive in that way but i think as you see like i'm saying with the cyclical nature of of the fullback position obviously i think becoming more of a factor in the next coming years as you play more base personnel if defenses want to play nickel and the reason for that is because usually the third linebacker who gets taken out in nickel situations is not a great cover guy.

2:22:26Charlie McAvoy:So now you're creating big personnel in order to put that guy in a bind because obviously he comes off the field in passing situations or in nickel situations. So the fullback comes back around. But I think what I'm trying to say is that I think you're going to see more older coaches get opportunities because you realize that maybe, you know, the experience and the accountability factor and having been through multiple decades were stretches of the changes, the cyclical nature and change of the league, they have a better opportunity to deal with the things because they've seen so much stuff. Me and Mike were laughing about it on one of our first calls.

2:23:02Charlie McAvoy:Which Mike?

2:23:03Pat McAfee:Which Mike? Which Mike?

2:23:03Charlie McAvoy:Mike McCarthy. Okay. Big Mike. Yeah, me and Big Mike were talking about a play that is all over the league now, but I didn't see it back in the league until he was running it a few years ago with Dallas and Dak. It was a play that we ran back in the early 2010s and late 2000s where you have a lead blocker for a swing route. So on the backside of a progression, you have a fullback or a tight end lead blocking, and you have the halfback running a wide route. So now the halfback's not just catching a check down and having to make multiple people miss. Now you have a lead blocker going. And just the fact that that's the way the lead goes.

2:23:36Charlie McAvoy:When people see concepts at work, they change it. When people see older coaches have success, then it's going to allow for more of those guys to get job opportunities, like the Rich Passacchis of the world who, you know, had a chance in Oakland after the Gruden stuff went down and had a great run, but then was passed up for a younger guy from a tree that was hot at the time. And more of those guys need jobs and deserve jobs. And hopefully Mike has, Big Mike has success, and it can open doors for more guys in the 50-plus range who've been lifers who know how to coach ball.

2:24:14Pat McAfee:Yeah, when we see Big Mike have success, obviously, hopefully that'll continue the trend that you were speaking about. We just saw Munkin get a gig. Obviously, Vrabe's been around. He gets a gig last offseason. McDonald, new coach, certainly having a lot of success in Seattle. But just like the quarterback market, where the experienced guys are getting another opportunity and maybe having success, we'll see if that happens again at the head coaching position, especially in Pittsburgh. What it sounds like is the offense that you've known your entire NFL-ness is starting to become a little bit more significant around the entire NFL.

2:24:44Pat McAfee:And maybe this West Coast offense that Mike McCarthy is certainly going to bring in is something that you have mastered for a pretty long time. You've obviously had to do a couple different offenses as the game has changed, but this is the one that you were birthed upon in the NFL. So that would mean you would want to be back in it, right? Is that not a – okay, now you would have to make the decision you would still want to play, right? which I'm not putting... I want you to know that if you don't want to say anything, we do not give a shit. Now, is there a lot of people that want to hear if you want to play next year or not at this exact moment?

2:25:14Pat McAfee:Definitely. But you have earned the right at this stage, 21 years in the NFL, first ballot Hall of Famer, Mount Rushmore in this entire thing, to figure out what is right for you and what you want to do. So you don't feel like we are putting a deadline on you. But have you got to that point where it's like, would be cool to play in Big Mike's system again? Would be cool to be in Big Mike's building again? would be cool to get a chance to maybe rewrite the ending of our relationship in a place that, although it is not the same, has similar history whenever it comes to NFL story. How much of that convo have you had with yourself at this stage?

2:25:46Pat McAfee:And what has that been like, reliving what could possibly be next year?

2:25:51Charlie McAvoy:Well, I want to say that anybody on here who's expecting me to make some big decision, just shut up. Just turn it off now. Just leave, you know. We would like to say, you are good people. Not everything's wrong with you.

2:26:02Pat McAfee:Tone's leaving right now. Okay, Tone is leaving. The rest of Pittsburgh is on the way out. Okay, you're good people, but just like this is a gigantic decision for a human being's life. And I know football is gigantic, but this is two decades plus worth of shit that has to get sorted for how life kind of continues to go. But on that note, you've had to have done some daydreaming about what it would be like to be back with Big Mike, I assume, or am I assuming incorrectly there?

2:26:29Charlie McAvoy:Well, I mean, what are we sitting here? March 4th for agency starts in a week. Um, I've been spending a lot of time with my wife. We went on a ski trip, um, just been laying low. There's a lot of other things going on with the situation in Malibu that have, that have changed, uh, some, some things, but, uh, I've talked to Mike, I've talked to Omar. Uh, there's been no deadline that's been, you know, that's been put in front of me. There's no contract, you know, offer or anything. So there's nothing that I'm, you know, having to debate between them. I'm, you know, a free agent. And, you know, again, I'm enjoying my time with my wife and enjoying this part of the offseason.

2:27:13Charlie McAvoy:And, you know, I think there's conversations to be had down the line. But right now I'm not – there hasn't been any progressive conversations. You know, I love Mike. And Mike and I have kept in contact over the years. I've, you know, had conversations with Omar. I really, you know, I think Omar, you know, enjoyed having me there. I think the guys, you know, had a positive response, you know, to our time together. But, again, there hasn't been any deadlines set on me. There hasn't been any contract, you know, floating in front of me for me to like, well, we're giving you until, you know, March the 8th to make a decision on this contract.

2:27:51Charlie McAvoy:There's been nothing to that respect. So in that manner, I'm just, you know, I'm working out because the reasons I told you, first and foremost. And I'm spending time with my better half and, you know, interested in what the conversation will be. But there hasn't been any progression when it comes to that.

2:28:13Pat McAfee:Okay, so you're saying it feels like all parties are trying to figure out what is what going forward. Not just you, because the team, Steelers, are in the middle of rebuilding this in McCarthy's vision. You know, not that they're wanting to do a full rebuild, which is why they hired Coach McCarthy. This isn't a time to do a rebuild. This is a, hey, take where we are and kind of go for it. They have to make decisions. What you're saying is you have not been told that any decision needs to be made from their end. And on your side, you have not put yourself in a mental place to have to make a decision.

2:28:39Pat McAfee:Because once again, that is a gigantic decision, obviously, for you to make at this stage of your life. I do appreciate, though, the hell out of this multiple times now where you've mentioned her. your wife and you this hey this is the reason for your glow whenever i facetime you and have you heard all of the conversations you've had to have about your wife because nobody knows i've never met her obviously i've never met that was a story yesterday as if when when as if i would have met exactly exactly when's the last time we actually hung out and when would i have time to potentially No offense, okay?

2:29:14Pat McAfee:I would love to hang out with you. But on that note, the times in which people have hangout times isn't necessarily conducive to daily sports show human beings. But on that note, it's not just about me. There's other people that have said it as well. There's a lot of conversation and conjecture about your relationship. And I think you, whenever you announced said relationship on this particular program, you talked about how, like, hey, the lady that I am with right now is not signing up for everybody just to tear her down because she is. in a relationship with a guy that's good at football. I think you've set the standard for that.

2:29:47Pat McAfee:But boy, it has been a lot of conversation by everybody about your relationship. Have you heard it? Do you want to talk about that at all? Good for you, by the way. It seems like you have found... It feels like you found your one, brother. It genuinely does. So congratulate. We are very happy for you in that particular sense. You need to know that as well. There's people out there that are very fucking happy for you as well that you're in love.

2:30:09Charlie McAvoy:The obsession is fucking bizarre.

2:30:11Pat McAfee:Okay.

2:30:11Charlie McAvoy:That's the only way to put it. The obsession is really bizarre.

2:30:18Charlie McAvoy:You know, you guys know you laughed about this, you know, many times. You showed pictures of it. But I'm not, we're not living, you know, at the beach anymore. Part of it is I have legitimate stalkers. And I don't say that lightly or flippantly. I've been getting stalked in my house for about a year and a half when I was living there. Not just that, but stalked at the coffee shop I would frequent, the gym at Proactive that I would go to, which was really bizarre. It still is. And then the paparazzi was stalking me for a long time, flying drones over my house. and had a, you know, I've learned had it has has had a bounty on getting a picture of my wife, which I think is very bizarre as well.

2:31:11Charlie McAvoy:I understand the attention that comes with somebody who's accomplished what I've accomplished. And so in no way, you know, am I making this a woe is me, but when it comes to your personal safety and now it's not just me, it's me and her. uh it's really fucking bizarre and you know when we met back in 2017 like i knew that there was something crazy special about this and i wanted to be with her and she would make funny comments like i would never live in green bay and i don't want to be a you know player's wife she just she's not a public person and you know then she she moved back across the pond and i got myself into crazy town.

2:31:56And I was with individuals who called the paparazzi, who leaked or talked about where I

2:32:05Charlie McAvoy:was living, who coerced me to make the proverbial Instagram, social media posts. I never really wanted to live a public life. I mean, if you look at the saga with my family for years, they was one-sided they were making shots in the media saying bullshit i never say anything until it got to the point where i'm like all right enough is enough and i don't honestly i'm not i if you look at my instagram i think i posted one time you know and it was a it was a you know a post about the uh you know the atvs i got the boys i don't post on x like i'm not a social media guy anymore so i only know about this stuff because of my sweet sister mia who actually has a

2:32:50Pat McAfee:message i'm going to read at some point okay all right so i've learned this mia i've learned mia i've only learned of you over the last couple days sounds like you are a dog and uh i would like to let you know i appreciate what you've done look how happy he is look like you feel fully feel fully empowered feel like fully supported it seems like is how you are describing your relationship and i think whenever you come out and speak about this for her feels like you're trying to support her as well saying hey like she didn't well she didn't she didn't sign up for this

2:33:19Charlie McAvoy:bullshit you know she signed up because she loves me and she supports me and she wants to spend the rest of our lives together and start a family she didn't sign up to be out front you know uh social media wag like she doesn't want any of that bullshit you know and i don't either you know And I was with that, which is even more telling. Do you understand? I was with it. I lived that life. I didn't like it. I dealt with it. I didn't like it. Now I'm out of it. I don't want to be back in it. I don't want to be a part of that. I understand when I play, if I play, that there's scrutiny. There's a tension that comes with it.

2:33:58Charlie McAvoy:But I'm fully content on living a private life. But you have people out there that say shit about me and create these narratives and talk about my wife and talk about this and that and search for a wedding certificate and all this different bullshit. We're not living a public life. We're not going to now, not in the future, not ever. When this is done, it's Kaiser Sose. And you won't see me. You won't see me. I'm not doing TV.

2:34:24Pat McAfee:Kaiser Sose? I don't think I know what that is. Context clues tells me it means disappear.

2:34:28Charlie McAvoy:Usual suspects. Yeah, usual suspects. Usual suspects, yeah. I'm not going to be out and about. Ken Spacey. Yeah, yeah. this whole nother guy is that what you do that's aj's guy but the but the narratives you know have just gotten a little bit ridiculous you know and i just to some of those i want to say like just fucking move on it's been years and years and years you know and i dealt with you know i dealt with clinically bipolar i dealt with depressed relevant seeking i dealt with people that wanted to, you know, search out other possibilities and, and before they could commit to me. And then, you know, then they go on TV talking about how I ruined their lives and all this shit.

2:35:11Charlie McAvoy:And I just want to say, just like, move on with your life. Stop lying about me. Just move on with your life and be happy. Like it's, it's not just them, but it's other people in the media. That's like, there's this relevance that they feel that they have to mention my name. Like I'm not seeking relevance. I'm not seeking attention. I'm not doing, this is the only thing I've done this entire off season, right? And we haven't seen you since training camp. And I would only do this. I would only do this because this is the only platform that I want to be a part of where there's positivity. But, but I think it's the obsession with my wife is very, very strange.

2:35:48Charlie McAvoy:And I have a super small circle. It's getting smaller by the minute. And the people that are in that tiny circle, they know. And they've met her and they love her. And the people that aren't, it's just the way it is. Like that's life. That's life. You learn, you grow, your circle gets smaller, you have less time to spend with other people. But just like the obsession with like what I'm my personal life, it's just, it's strange. It's very strange. I understand the attention that I get because of what I've accomplished, but I'm not going to put up with any more bullshit about her and I'm going to protect them and that's why we're not living at the beach anymore and I'm happy, very happy with that decision and in life man, life is great

2:36:35Pat McAfee:yeah it sounds like it, congratulations getting that off your chest that was a lot that was a lot of shit that had been boiling up at some point you know

2:36:44Charlie McAvoy:at some point it's just like the narrative gets so far out there it's like just stop

2:36:50Pat McAfee:that's how Aaron Rodgers Tuesday started actually like people don't know that is you didn't talk you like literally never talked is kind of what the thing was and then everybody else was kind of talking for you and then whenever i say everybody else i mean just a few people were talking for you everybody else that was around you was saying the same thing oh he's a bro he's a dude teammate and obviously he's unbelievably talented every athlete had respect but when those narratives just continue to grow i told you i think the first time i saw you during a rain delay down the bahamas when you're doing a golf tournament to raise money for something terrible person uh also had us down the bahamas awesome time thank you thank you for doing that but there was a little rain delay there and there was a couple cocktails ty had maybe 30 or 40 of them me as well i mean let's not get crazy but i say like dude i feel like i don't really know much about you and i feel like you're a mount rushmore guy and that was because you didn't really come out and do your stuff that's how aaron rogers tuesday started and then you would talk once okay a week and then all of a sudden this guy wants to teach like no everybody does this once a week just so happened you're listening you know why because you have heard a a lot of things about him, but you never heard his side of things.

2:37:51Pat McAfee:And I think there's going to be people that are always going to have their feelings about you because of all the narratives there at the beginning. But anybody that's ever watched you on Aaron Rodgers Tuesday, anybody that's ever hung around you and all your teammates, like 99.99999 % of your teammates and coach have all said the same thing, you're a bro. We appreciate the hell out of what you've done for sport and how you go about living your life. And you're definitely unique. And I appreciate you taking a stand here for your wife because there's been a lot of thoughts. There's been a lot of opinions.

2:38:17Pat McAfee:There's been a lot of ideas. and I like the fact that you're standing your ground double down saying no you don't like what are we talking about this isn't a decision for you to make about us this is a decision for us to make about us and I'm a football player I understand there's going to be pressure that doesn't in spotlight that doesn't mean that she just has to sign up for hell you said you better in 2017 that's a new piece of information that's a new piece of information I didn't know that I didn't know we knew her for a long time and I just want to let you know after all that especially after i i heard you uh going through different reports that we had seen there in your brain and kind of giving your angle of this entire thing like hey there's two sides of this story if you would like to potentially think about that in the human existence and then you just go i'm there in 2017 i was like whoa whoa did we know that congrats i didn't know we had deep long time history with somebody and then we decide that we're gonna go ahead and when two become one and then all of a sudden we're living a great life and we're happy like good for you man good for all of it i just want to let you know that good for all of it well it's like it's like i said i mean like when you

2:39:19Charlie McAvoy:when you meet that person um and even though we had years between it like there's always that draw you know so like you know one thing i will say is like i think i've been accused of being emotionally unavailable yeah i own that for sure because i met i met my person in 2017 team and I and after after it didn't work out at the start I dove into football and I made football my number one uh from that point forward and and gave everything I had to the game because I fucking love the game but when things came back around you know a year and a half ago or so at the end of 2024 like man to be able to just have that freedom uh that being in the with the right person gives you and there's just no there's no substitute for that when you feel it when you have it you just fucking know and it's like man like it just frees it freed me up in a way i'd never experienced before to be able to just truly enjoy football and i said last year you know when i wanted to play like it was about having fun because this game gave me so much and a big part of that for sure was was the steelers and the guys i met and mike t you know and arthur and tom arthur and and that part but a bigger part was the home life was a different space than it's ever been

2:40:42Pat McAfee:and she deserves all the credit good for you man happy or happy happy or happy i think i read somewhere uh somebody said i used to hate my life but i love my work so i made my work my life now i make it work and i don't know if that's necessarily like the best initiative but i I don't think you're alone in that entire thing. I think it's happened in the past. And your best version of you is going to make you the best version of you as a football player. So I'm happy you found that. And I hope we get to see it again. I hope we get to see it again. On that note, there's others that hope that's it.

2:41:17Pat McAfee:Not putting any deadlines on you. Okay? Not putting any narratives out there. Icelandic water is delicious. Yes.

2:41:24Charlie McAvoy:It's fantastic. It is fantastic. And certainly that was a good one too.

2:41:27Pat McAfee:You needed that too because a lot of shit came out there. He needed a nice take, a nice deep sip of the Icelandic water there to get it. I'm not the only one, though, that hopes that I get to see a super happy Aaron Rodgers also playing his best football at this stage of life. Let's go to one half of the hammer. Dad! Cowboys, Jens are a piece tone.

2:41:45Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, he's right, Aaron. I would love to see you back in the black and the gold, but you do what's best for you. It was awesome this last season watching you. There was a lot of surreal moments. some of my favorite moments on the year is when someone would fuck up and you would chew them out on the field. That was the absolute best. There was a lot of that, unfortunately. But you've been around a lot of Pittsburgh guys your entire career. We've talked about it even before you were a Steeler. Back when you were a Packer and you've heard all these stories and how Pittsburgh is. Did the city and the Ingers and the fans and everything, did they live up to the expectations that everyone sold you before you actually became a Pittsburgh Steeler?

2:42:20Charlie McAvoy:Better, I would say. I mean, just the fan support that we have. It started training camp, and I said this before, but the fact that the Steelers still go to Latrobe is so fucking cool. I mean, it really is. I got to give a shout-out, if Ben's still watching, to Meadows. Meadows makes a DQ Blizzard knockoff, which is honestly better than DQ. So shout-out to Meadows. We went there. DK came a couple times. The funny thing about that is that the one time that DK came was the time where the girl who was working at the front, we became kind of regulars, actually wanted an autograph. And so Ben felt real sensitive about that, which was great.

2:43:01Charlie McAvoy:But the fact they do that and then so many fans show up in La Trobe is just, it's awesome. And it's such a great team bonding stuff because there's nothing to do. You're staying in old school dorms. I know Mr. Rooney spent a lot of money in that school, but DK and I were sharing a bathroom, sharing a shower. You know, we had a good time, but so much great team bonding happened in La Trove. And I know Mike is excited for that. You know, it's a harken back to when we'd go to St. Norbert's across town in Green Bay for so many years and just had a blast and all the crazy shenanigans that were pulled over there at nighttime by the Flens and TJ Langs and Josh Sittons of the world and John Coons.

2:43:39Charlie McAvoy:But that was a great, I think, intro to the whole team and just see their response from the fans and how much they love the black and gold. And then, you know, Akashur, other than the field surface itself, is a great place to play. They're fixing that. I mean, I'm not saying anything out of my eyes.

2:43:54Pat McAfee:Everybody knows. Yeah, everybody knows. Yeah, everybody knows.

2:43:57Charlie McAvoy:But I will say, you know, I had so many cool moments over the years in Lambeau. And Lambeau, as far as songs go, is known for like, roll out the barrel and jump around. But jump around, they share with the University of Wisconsin, you know, and people still get into it. But roll out the barrel and jump around are kind of the two songs. but when they play Renegade I mean it is it's awesome

2:44:21Pat McAfee:we were trying to sing you before you got over there literally the first thing I think we did as soon as you came on and talked about going to Steelers we were like do you know Renegade because this is about to be real that oh mama yeah that's a real moment

2:44:34Charlie McAvoy:the first bar hits like the whole crowd goes fucking crazy it's incredible I had a really good experience and the people were great I always joked for years there's something in the water out there because you think about all the Hall of Fame quarterbacks that have played there. But the people are just really fucking good people. It reminded me of Green Bay. Obviously, it doesn't have the infrastructure and the architecture. Pittsburgh's a little different than Green Bay. But just I'm talking about good-hearted, kind human beings. Like Pittsburgh, man, I can't say enough good things about it.

2:45:07Pat McAfee:Yeah, football people, you know that. And actually, The Football Town is the NFL Films film that was made about the history of Pittsburgh. and 750 Western Pennsylvanians have been drafted to the NFL.

2:45:17Charlie McAvoy:That's a lot. Did you narrate that or were you the intro to that or the whole thing?

2:45:22Pat McAfee:I watched it last night for the first time. I watched it. They sent it to me because I wasn't able to make it to the premiere because the combine was happening here, and it's being shown in Cayman Science Center. Cool. Got that wrong all day yesterday as we were promoting it. Cayman Science Center, which is the old Carnegie Science Center. it's a 55 minute movie uh that is shown on uh pittsburgh's version of the sphere okay which is what the cayman science center has and they made this film with super special cameras to obviously be able to showcase it i think there's like obviously vibrations and sound it's like an experience that you go and do it and it's the history of pittsburgh and football and it was i watched it yesterday they sent me a copy of it and uh they wrote me a really nice note because the Pittsburgh Steelers are a part of it.

2:46:07Pat McAfee:The Rooney family is a part of it. NFL Films was a part of it. And they like thanked me, obviously, for my work. And Keith Cosrow, who is from Pittsburgh, has been at NFL Films for like 25 years, took this on as like a real passion project because the draft is coming to Pittsburgh. And I'll tell you, I watched it last night. I cried. I cried that I was, I got like real emotional that I was even asked to be a part of it because growing up in Pittsburgh, you're going to be shown things about Pittsburgh. I think it'll be this. I think this will be a must-watch for basically every school in Pittsburgh because it tells the history of the city, obviously talks about Pittsburgh, showcases the pride, showcases the uniqueness of Pittsburgh and what it is.

2:46:50Pat McAfee:And the fact that I was voicing it, I should not have been. There's so many people that have gone for Pittsburgh. So I'm watching the first five minutes, and the first five minutes is like the open, like basically setting the scene. And it's a lot of me talking. And as soon as it's over, then it goes to the football town with the entire thing. and then it says as told by pat mcphee i just started i like i actually just like started crying as i was watching it i'm like this is like if you were to tell young me that i was a part of this i would i would have felt as if it was the honor of a lifetime and i still feel that way so we're gonna try to do something draft week we'll send an invite to you i don't know how busy you'll be but i'm gonna try to rent out that whole place and invite anybody that's going to be uh talking

2:47:26Charlie McAvoy:about the draft and the draft is in pittsburgh this year yeah dude you should come you want to be a part of it draft spectacular but i bet you i bet you koontz thinks he should have been

2:47:36Pat McAfee:narrating that instead of you yeah exactly but he's not the only one you know there's a lot of that should have been in there um in the fact yeah it was crazy it was just really really cool and i i think i don't know what the award the number that somebody said that there's a rating i don't know if they were telling the truth or not yeah i was just oh you're just making that up but i do think after watching it i'm like hey this is some real fucking artsy shit like this is i I looked to see if it was on Rotten Tomatoes. I couldn't find it. It's a good story, man. It tells the issue.

2:48:03Charlie McAvoy:Tony, you're just making it up, just giving them what.

2:48:04Pat McAfee:Yeah, he says 98 % on Tomato Meter. I didn't know if he was being serious because that's how much effort they put into it, though. Like, they put into it.

2:48:11Charlie McAvoy:Certified Fresh, right?

2:48:12Pat McAfee:Yeah, I did Google it. That's what Tony would say. He's just making it up. But it is, it was really cool when I was watching it, and I fucking cried. But I think it goes back to what you're talking about. Like, that place since the beginning is a people of, like, togetherness, grit, and football. and that story is told in the football town, I'm happy you experienced that. Joining us live from Manatic in Ohio is a college football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Ryder Cup winner, A.J. Hawk. Hey, Hawk. Hawker, how you doing? You don't look blurry at all. Good to see you, dude.

2:48:40Darius Butler:What's going on, boss? I'm doing great. They've been working on my audio. I couldn't really hear everything going on. You say you're coming back or not. Where are you going? What are you doing? Good question.

2:48:49Charlie McAvoy:Pittsburgh? Is it Pittsburgh or bust? I already sidebarred you about this. I knew you were going to.

2:48:54Pat McAfee:Is it Pittsburgh or bust? that's a good question aj and the j stands for journalism go ahead uh aaron if you would like to tell him to stop or we can mute him again if you'd like us to do yeah let's mute him again all right come back okay let's see you all right see you hey sorry you couldn't hear anything let's move along here uh connor has a question for you aaron yeah aaron always a pleasure there's

2:49:13Darius Butler:multiple things i'd love to talk to you about but this is you had a great year oh my god so much yeah yeah i'd say pal uh but speaking of things you know only 3.8 million files worth

2:49:25Pat McAfee:I'll tell you that was a lot of time on the internet and I'm sure you're taking a lot of victory laps now is not time let's remember this is a sports show but I do think you two should potentially get together and link up for a podcast to keep us all updated on what's going on on your internet

2:49:37Darius Butler:yeah that would be very fun but Aaron I would love to

2:49:40Pat McAfee:okay there's a deal so you guys are doing a show Connor Spiracy with Aaron Rodgers yeah bingo

2:49:46Darius Butler:conspiracy files perhaps I don't know

2:49:48Pat McAfee:Connor Spiracy files with Aaron Rodgers okay sweet look for the first episode

2:49:52Darius Butler:next week yeah it'll be very fun we'll start with you know. That'll be another show. Speaking of sports, though, bringing tears to eyes, the Olympics, like the last couple weeks have been amazing. You know, we've talked to men's and women's hockey players that have won gold. Were you able to watch it? I know you said you were on a ski trip. Did you watch any of the Olympics or your thoughts about it? Did even watching those Olympics also kind of, you know, inspire you even to continue to want to play? Is there anything that you thought of or took away from the Olympics because I mean for us it took over our little break and that's all we could really watch and talk about.

2:50:29Oh I loved it I loved it uh you know I I like to you know tease my wife one of

2:50:34Charlie McAvoy:my favorite events is the biathlon just because I think it's so silly that it's such a like a European Eastern European sport where it's how it how it how it started well let's uh let's cross-country ski that'd be fun nice little workout but what if we get out there we see some animals we want to kill all right let's bring our rifle the biathlon is skiing with the rifle shooting it's incredible and it's like all like you know the u.s has rarely been been great at that and i think there's a reason for that but but so i definitely watched a lot of biathlon stuff but of course i watched i watched our men and women playing hockey and uh i've gotten to know uh night hillary night um i got to know her because she's there's so many wisconsin connections Wisconsin, I don't know why they don't have an NHL team because there's so many great hockey players that come from that state.

2:51:26Charlie McAvoy:But so I was definitely tuned in for the women, and they were just an absolute bust, weren't they? I mean, they were scoring five goals plus every single game to the championship, but that was an awesome, awesome win. And then the men, you know, like I knew there was a lot of talk about this is a year and stuff, but it's always kind of, you know, it's been Canada's sport. Not anymore. Not anymore. Not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah, no more poutine. And those brothers, I mean, studs. The two sets of brothers, the Kachuks and the Hughes, man, that was – I mean, this play right here, just to pop it over, was unbelievable.

2:52:02Charlie McAvoy:And I was watching it and going absolutely nuts when Hughes put this in the back of the net. And I think like most Americans who were watching were. So, man, that was awesome for our country. I've always thought, you know, we won a Super Bowl in Green Bay, and you can say you're the best in the world. So you're really the best in the United States. But when you win an Olympic medal, you are truly the best in the world. Now, they didn't let some of the Russian athletes in. You know, I think obviously we know there's been some doping issues in the past with some of those athletes. But they're the best in the world.

2:52:33Charlie McAvoy:You know, everybody that won medals. And I think, you know, gold obviously gets focused on so much more. And there's so many great Olympians that won gold for us. But so many who won silver and bronze should be really proud. I you know I was going back and in some of the because I just like the history like isn't it amazing that the really the best country over the last I don't know how many 10 Olympics plus maybe forever is Norway that Norway wins the medal count every year I know some of us it's just a country of that that small yeah to be that dominant at so many different sports is pretty amazing but I love the new sports too I think you know just going skiing and then watching watching some of these events where they do like crazy moguls into like backflips or they're doing

2:53:17Darius Butler:skiing half pipes or they're skiing just yeah it's it's and you had michaela on right she she won another gold like that was amazing um but yeah i mean i'm i'm really uh so proud of

2:53:30Charlie McAvoy:of all of our olympians as an american i think i want to take this time to talk about the absolute hose job that our our pairs dancers got okay you know there was a lot of stories about them they got absolutely hosed by the french judge not surprising classic they should have won they should have won uh won gold for sure but but they won gold in the team competition which is great but they're the husband and wife uh duo i think it's ice dancing um but they were awesome to watch and so yeah man i definitely tuned in uh it was cool on uh on peacock shout out to peacock because They had like Scott Hanson's on the – Yeah, the gold zone.

2:54:10Charlie McAvoy:They had the gold zone. That was awesome. The gold zone was great.

2:54:13Pat McAfee:It kept us rolling there. Yeah, I mean, anytime.

2:54:14Charlie McAvoy:They had a lot of curling, though. A lot of curling was shown on the gold zone.

2:54:18Pat McAfee:Yeah, too much boring. I think curling had a run.

2:54:20Charlie McAvoy:Not the most exciting sport. No.

2:54:22Pat McAfee:Yeah, curling had a run there with curling Matty Hamilton and the boys on the stone whenever we were really winning. Wisconsin guy. An absolute stud, obviously, with the stick and the stone. I mean, he has the capabilities to kind of do it all on there, but I don't need to be watching Great Britain take on who gives a fuck in curling in the afternoon. Especially if there's a hockey game going on between Canada and who gives a fuck.

2:54:45Charlie McAvoy:But there was the fun little drama where the one guy accidentally touched a stone.

2:54:50Pat McAfee:Oh, the Canadian, you're saying? You're talking about the muddy, what's it called?

2:54:54Alex Ferreira:It wasn't across the hog line. You wouldn't get it. Sorry about it. It wasn't across the hog line.

2:54:59Pat McAfee:No, from my understanding, there were some people they were saying that was a penalty in curling because the extra boom, I guess, in Olympic play not necessarily okay. And then didn't the Canadian woman

2:55:11Aaron Rodgers:do it as well? That's because the full rock has to be past the hog line.

2:55:16Pat McAfee:Well, then why was everybody telling me you guys were cheating? Oh, that's why he won the gold medal. Who won the gold? Canada. And the women? And the men's. Oh, so the lady that cheated did not win? No. What about the hockey? Yeah, what did happen with the hockey?

2:55:29Aaron Rodgers:Like I said, congratulations.

2:55:30Alex Ferreira:I've said it probably 150 times now.

2:55:33Charlie McAvoy:It was three on three. It wasn't real hot.

2:55:38Alex Ferreira:You run into a hot goalie. That happens. Goalie stood on his head. What are you supposed to do?

2:55:42Pat McAfee:He's out of the buck. Medal of freedom. Immediately just follow it up. I'll tell you right now, I had everybody vote. If anybody says no, we're not going to do it. Fucking everybody, yeah. Connor,

2:55:55Charlie McAvoy:Connor, can we get that one guy out of the locker room though and get him working on something else i'll tell you what i saw some bad luck i saw

2:56:09Pat McAfee:i saw some people now he is a uh beer league hockey player i do believe like he still does pick up ice hockey with the lads so i think he is a massive hockey fan but i was shown some presentations of some potential happenstances taking place at that exact moment and then what happens, especially with what the world's got going on. I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess there's some titles that you shouldn't be tying one on, I guess. We did beat Canada, though. It was hard not to get lost in a moment, I assume. You know, McDavid's on that team. Exactly. Celebrini. But then there was somebody that... He was hurt.

2:56:47Charlie McAvoy:Awesome guy. Hey, shout out to Shorzy. Shorzy, if you haven't seen the show, seriously, go watch it right now. It's fucking hilarious. I know my man Jared Kelso is Canadian, but unbelievable show. And that got me. I've always loved watching playoff hockey, but that got me like that and going to a Penns game this year and watching the old guys, Geno and Sid and Letang, still playing in their 21st year and just seeing that support there. But Shorzy got me way, way more into hockey. So there's a new season out as well, season five. I haven't been to it yet, but shout out to Mr. Kelso and everybody with Shorzy because that's a hell of a show.

2:57:31Pat McAfee:Hell yeah, that's a great way to get into hockey. However you get into hockey, you should get into hockey. Hockey is spectacular, and the cultures of the hockey are even better. Like the humans and the way they're supposed to act. And then the PWHL, the Boston Fleet are about to go on a run and win the entire thing. So we're all in, and we're happy you are in on the hockey as well. I'm happy you went to a Penns game. We saw you there. I think we saw you there. We saw you at the game. That's a good time. Good time over there at the PPG Paints Arena.

2:57:58Charlie McAvoy:Great time with the big boys. With the big boys. Took the line over there. Had a good time. And Mason showed up. Will showed up.

2:58:05Pat McAfee:Skyler. I can't remember if Sky showed up or not. Bad teammate. You're a bad teammate.

2:58:09Charlie McAvoy:No, I think Sky showed up. Sky showed up. Somebody else put this together.

2:58:11Pat McAfee:Not you, obviously. You were not a part of that. Somebody else did this for you because you would never do something.

2:58:15Charlie McAvoy:Well, listen. I mean, I had the idea, but I got to give a shout out to Big Head, to Cam Hayward, because Cam has a connection over there. He's been there forever. Cam had the connection. I had the idea. McCormick, I love fucking McCormick. He's the best. You know, he was kind of the ringleader getting some of the line to go. And then the QB room was great. You know, anytime we had something going on, there was kind of an understanding that everybody was going to be there. So you knew that, you know, Mason, Will, and Sky were going to be there.

2:58:43Pat McAfee:Terrible teammate. You're a terrible teammate.

2:58:44Charlie McAvoy:Sky was probably loyal to the Panthers. Spent some time down there in Miami. Oh, you think he's a Florida guy. Oh, and they're a Kiesel, too. The best. What a beauty he is. He likes to have a good time.

2:58:55Pat McAfee:Yeah, he's still there. And to be clear, he still might be fourth most popular Steeler, active or retired, just because of how much he does.

2:59:02Aaron Rodgers:He was a big night out doing it.

2:59:04Pat McAfee:Yeah, we loved him. We love everything about him.

2:59:07Charlie McAvoy:Who do you put above him?

2:59:09Pat McAfee:Ben, Big Ben is a big deal. He's the most tenured Pittsburgh Steeler of all time. So I think he's obviously conversating. John Kuhn. On the Pittsburgh Steelers?

2:59:20Darius Butler:Yeah, Kuhn is a Steeler. Got a ring.

2:59:25Pat McAfee:That was a nice little Jeopardy trivia that he wanted to get in there. Happy birthday, by the way. Chris Fuamatu Maafala, maybe the original Kuhn. So maybe Kuhn's hero, Chris Fuamatu Maafala. Happy birthday to him. I'll put him up there for sure. Palomalu deserves it up there. I mean, there's some greats. Cordell Stewart gave us some good times back in the day. Tommy Gunn. I mean, it depends on how you really want to go through it.

2:59:48Charlie McAvoy:Tommy Maddox.

2:59:49Pat McAfee:Terry Bradshaw never gets talked about. Before him, there was no Super Bowls in Pittsburgh. But I think he's come out and hasn't been like, okay.

2:59:57Charlie McAvoy:What about Mel Blunt?

2:59:59Pat McAfee:Oh, dog.

3:00:00Charlie McAvoy:Still big cowboy hat.

3:00:02Aaron Rodgers:Big cowboy hat. Later to change the game. Fucking me, Joe Green.

3:00:06Pat McAfee:A.B. Huge. Antonio Brown, I mean.

3:00:08Aaron Rodgers:Hines.

3:00:09Pat McAfee:Hines is way up there. One of the greatest wide receivers of all time on the field, obviously. Heath. Heath Miller had a great chant. He was one of the original. You know where he was kind of going. Casey Hines. There's a lot in there. So what I'm saying is it's good to be in that top amount, and that's what Kiesel has done because of how present he is for the people of Pittsburgh all the time. And you were the same way, and we appreciated how you treated Pittsburgh. That was for real. Now let's talk about you treating younger players, especially with how terrible of a teammate you are and how bad of a leader you are and everything.

3:00:38Pat McAfee:Go ahead, Ty.

3:00:39Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, Aaron, great to see you, as always. Before we get to that, I know you acted on Game of Thrones. If you're looking for a new show, if you haven't watched it yet, that Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Dive is so good. Thrones is all the way back. Is it really? It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

3:00:53Charlie McAvoy:Is it better than House of the Dragons? Yes.

3:00:56Aaron Rodgers:I never watched The Ridge. I never watched The Ridge.

3:00:58Pat McAfee:I watched this. Don't have to watch The Ridge to watch this. No, you don't. It has been fantastic. Connor sent me a text and said, hey, I know you're never going to be able to. You don't have to. This one's even better.

3:01:07Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, and it's only six episodes, so you can knock it out very quickly, but it is immaculate. I think you'll enjoy it.

3:01:13Charlie McAvoy:What's it on? HBO. HBO.

3:01:16Aaron Rodgers:Yep. Soon to be. Yeah, soon to be Paramount Plus Max or something. They're spending a lot of money. They are all in on everything. They are. Everything's going to be on there eventually.

3:01:26Pat McAfee:Hey, they love live sports. Maybe a daily sports talk show. We'll see. We'll see. That's good.

3:01:32Aaron Rodgers:But Aaron, I am curious, because we didn't talk to you throughout the season, how much were you watching college football? Do you claim Fernando Mendoza as a Cal Bear? No, okay, you don't. but then I was just curious if... You know it! You tell the story!

3:01:51Charlie McAvoy:You had a good time in Berkeley. Yes, I did. I don't like what you just did. How can you not with Marshawn, though? What a fucking legend.

3:01:58Pat McAfee:He delivered the goods. He did. Right on time, right on the stage. That was pretty fantastic. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

3:02:04Aaron Rodgers:No, you're good. I'm surprised he hasn't reached out because it seems like... I mean, we talked about this a little bit with you a couple years ago where you've gotten to the point in your career now where half the guys in the league talk about how you were the player that they looked up to, and then just that moment being able to kind of pick your brain a little bit. Do you have just a laundry list of guys? Are guys very actively and frequently kind of reaching out to you, younger quarterbacks in the league, and asking you how they can get better? How has that been? Do you still enjoy that aspect of it where you kind of are just like you're the forebear of all this quarterback knowledge and you get to pass it on to the next generation?

3:02:41Charlie McAvoy:Well, I'm available if anybody wants to learn. I would say that the younger player is more hesitant, maybe. Like, my phone's not ringing off the hook with guys wanting to learn. So I'm just going to talk about one guy that I really poured into this year a lot and that was incredible to work with, and that's Will Howard. You know, I knew about Will watching him fall out for Ohio State. I didn't really pay a ton of attention when he was at Kansas State, I'll be honest with you. But I loved watching him with Ohio State because, obviously, age was there and I followed the team for a long time and enjoy watching them.

3:03:24Charlie McAvoy:But I didn't know what to expect when Will came in or how he'd be with me and Mason and Sky for that matter as well. But the room was a fantastic room. I mean, I love those guys. and we still have a group chat that lights up all the time. But Will in general, I think, has what it takes from a personality and a moxie standpoint to have a long career in the league. You never know what's going to happen until the live bullets start flying. But I went to him early in the season, early in camp, and I said, listen, I help you as much or as little as you want. you know it's kind of my my nature to inject you know during a drill work or during a meeting because I want you to see the game the way I see it and I want you to be thinking about the things that a young player should be thinking about and a lot of this goes back to when I was a young player and how I was treated and and it's the way that I wanted to treat my backups when I became starter and and and the way that I you know I feel like I worked with Jordan Love and and Zach in New York even though that was only for a year but but I really wanted to pour into Will and make sure he knew that I cared about him and I wanted him to be successful and anybody who's in Latrobe who watched practice was like damn this Will Howard pretty damn good I mean he was having a real nice camp until he had a fluke injury which kind of allowed him to just kind of reset and learn the game.

3:04:48Charlie McAvoy:You know, he was going through his rehab on his hand and different things. And throughout the season, it was fun to see him get suited up later in the year. But Will Howard's the right – he's got the right mindset. He's a very humble guy. He asks a lot of questions. He was in my hip pocket for a bunch, and I loved it. I mean, I really did. I'm a big Will Howard, not just fan as a human, but believer as a player, that when his time comes, he's going to be more than capable of being not just a consistent starter, but a guy who can stick in league for a long, long time. And it's because of his mindset.

3:05:21Charlie McAvoy:He's got kind of an old-school mindset where he takes notes. He's talking about the right things he cares about. He takes care of his body. And I think he's got even more to give from that standpoint. But that's what I'm excited for him. I told him this when Mike was hired. Like, Mike knows how to work the quarterback room. And Mike knows how to be involved, to teach the game, to teach defenses, to teach you how to be an expert of the offense, and then give you the keys to take control. So I love working with Will. You know, I love seeing guys across the league. Like, you know, I've got a charity thing coming up in a few weeks, and it'll be fun to see Sam Darnold.

3:05:57Charlie McAvoy:I mean, what an incredible story that Sam has gone through, and to be a Super Bowl champion and to play so well this year, it's fucking awesome. I mean, that's what it's all about. You know, it's guys that second and third chances, and you start to figure it out, and you've been cast off by this negative, you know, constant critiques of who you are as a player and you're a washout, you're a bust, whatever it might be. And I thought Sam just handled himself so well this year. You know, I think I would have had a hard time not chirping a little bit more. No. People who tried to fucking crush me because they crushed him.

3:06:30Charlie McAvoy:Crushed him. Guess what? He's got a ring now. Forever. A lot of people are dining on some crow. So I love the fraternity that is the quarterback room, and I'm always open to helping guys out. But it starts with the guys in my room and on my team, and I loved working with Mason Sky and Will, and I hope Will – and I think he did. I think he learned a lot this year, and he's got a bright future.

3:06:56Pat McAfee:Okay, quick follow-up on Will. Incredible answer there. Appreciative of your answer for how much you care about ball and the future of ball because quarterback position is the future of ball. Will Howard being talked about immediately. if Aaron doesn't come back, maybe Will Howard gets an opportunity finally to kind of run the team. Big Mike McCarthy spoke about it all, and he said he wanted to watch the practice reps of Will throughout the season, and he said he just wanted to see how he processes the defense. How much can you get from watching Will at practice as opposed to what it was training camp whenever he got back healthy and was doing some work maybe against the defense?

3:07:25Pat McAfee:Was there things that you saw, like, okay, feels like his arm can keep up with the NFL if he had to, and his brain could do the NFL if he had to? Were there things in practice that you can know? You said you can't tell until live bullets, but were there indicators that's like, hey, he physically would be able to survive in the NFL as well, not just because of his leadership, which we saw up close and personal with Ohio State every single day. He had a dance and a celebration with everybody on the team. It was unbelievable watching him lead. But when it comes to being physical of quarterback, was there shit you saw in practice that Big Mike might have been mentioning or alluding to whenever he talked about watching his practice reps all season?

3:08:01Charlie McAvoy:Yeah, I think so. I think it all comes down to processing for a young player. Can you process the defense quickly? What play are we in? Is it a check with me play? Is it a run it versus anything? What's the progression? Where do my eyes start? That's why I talk to him a lot about where do your eyes start with each play because you need to simplify things in order to process quickly. And then part of processing is anticipation. Can you throw with anticipation? In college, you see a guy open, you throw it. In the NFL, you expect the guy to be open, so you anticipate and throw, and the windows are tighter, so you have to throw with anticipation.

3:08:39Charlie McAvoy:So, I mean, I saw that late in the year as he returned to practice. I think from an intelligence standpoint, processing the pre-snap stuff, I think he's going to be great at that. You know, he was my right-hand man with all the signals this year. He was phenomenal at it. You know, he sat next to me in every meeting. He was sitting next to me in the quarterback room. He sat next to me in the big room when we went offense. And I loved it because I was always, you know, whispering things to him about this or remember this or take this note or, hey, remind me of this thing. And he would come with, you know, he'd learned how I did.

3:09:12Charlie McAvoy:You know, when I was a young player, I studied defenses and I studied, you know, defensive signals and secondary and different things. And that's what he was doing. And then he was watching me, self-scouting me on what signals I used during the week. And I think it was anything but a wasted year. It was a year that he's going to look back on at some point and be really thankful that he learned football in that way. And, yeah, I'm proud of his progression. And like I said, he was playing great in training camp before he had that fluke hand injury. And he came back and got back into it. And he can throw it.

3:09:45Charlie McAvoy:He can move. And as he continues to refine his body and get more reps, I think he's going to realize his potential.

3:09:52Pat McAfee:Hey, Will, get your ass in shape. Now, on that note, he is big. He is big. And I think that's the thing is like he has the capability, okay, to be a strapping dude. And if he's able to piece everything, not that he isn't now, but I'm just saying like, Will, if you were to go. Will, everybody we've talked to that knows you says if he gets to the next step, which is where he's headed, he's a guy. And I think that means like body, mind, everything. And that's exciting news, Will. We're happy for him. I would like him to be very successful. So thank you for leaning in on him because I was very loud going into the draft about him being a guy.

3:10:30Pat McAfee:So you doing everything you did for him last year? Thank you, sir. That is going to give me a good, you know, just like I fucking said it was. You know, that gives me one of those. A little victory lap. Which is big in this business. This business, as you know, that is a big deal. Receipts, huh? Yeah. Well, they don't have a scoreboard here in our particular profession. In sports, there is, which is why it's the greatest you actually find out, you know. But in sports media, there isn't. But every once in a while, you've got to let people know, I did, though. We did score here. And at the time, I was getting – he got real loud.

3:11:04Pat McAfee:He got real – from real big people saying things about me. And it's like, come on, Will. I believe in him. I happen to hear you do as well.

3:11:12Darius Butler:AJ has a question for you, Aaron. Yeah, getting back to it. Well, I said Pittsburgh or bust earlier. Is that a situation that you wanted to address? You're a very open-minded person, so I assumed you'd be open to play anywhere. but I don't know with your ties to Pittsburgh and obviously Big Mike, it all seems to make sense to me. That's a good question. What makes sense? You going back to Pittsburgh, playing for Big Mike. Campy is there. Mark Lovat is there. There's a lot of great Green Bay people back in town. Grant Thorne? Oh, yeah, Grant Thorne, amazing. There's some amazing characters.

3:11:42Charlie McAvoy:Yes, there's some great characters. I mean, like, there's not been a line if I didn't say that that was something that I enjoyed seeing, you know, like all those guys getting back together And, you know, it's some of the guys that had the greatest impact on my career. You know, you're talking about James Campin, who used to take me out when I was a rookie on the road because I didn't know where to go, what to do. And there wasn't a lot of rookies back then. You know, there's less rookies making the team than there are now. And Campin would take me out to dinner on the road a lot. And he always says that I took him out one time to a Mexican spot that costs, you know, 10 bucks a person.

3:12:16Charlie McAvoy:And he used to take me to, you know,$50,$60 a person dinners. But James was an influential person in my life as a young player, especially. I love Coach Camp and a ton. Obviously, Mike. I've talked about him a bunch. Mark LeVat. You know, it was Barry Rubin, who I love. Barry Rubin, one of the all-time greats in the league, strength coach. And Mark LeVat was his assistant back then. And I watched Bloke, you know, go from assistant to then Dave Redding came in. Redman, just what a fucking legend. You remember Redman, AJ. What a great guy. And then Mark took over and had a lot of fun, success with him.

3:12:49Charlie McAvoy:He's one of the great human beings in the business that I've been able to be across. And Grant, you know, watch him come in from, you know, a young guy trying to sort it out. We gave him a ton of shit, you know, all the time. But, you know, with him and Thaddeus Jackson, you know, just some great guys I was able to be a part with. So obviously that would be a draw if I decided we'd go down that path. But again, it takes two to tango, and we'll see what happens as we get in the free agency and everything. But obviously I have so much love for all those guys I mentioned. And Tom Arth. Tom was there in the offseason, my first offseason.

3:13:23Charlie McAvoy:So to be able to play for him last year was really special. And Jari Evans was a teammate of mine. He's an assistant offensive line coach now. You know, Jari's an awesome guy. Like I love – he just felt so secure with him at guard. Like, okay, this guy is an absolute mauler, and he's going to take care of his guy every play. So, yeah, I mean, I love the staff. Pat Graham was there for a year with us as well. So, you know, I was teasing. I can't remember who I was talking to. Like, Pat Graham was a little puffier back then. Like, Pat looks like he's kind of shredded now. Oh, is that big? He looks like he's in shape.

3:13:55Charlie McAvoy:Like, he was a little puffier back then. So, and Scott McCurley, he was with us for a long time. He's still a linebacker coach. So, obviously, I know a lot of that staff and have a lot of love for those guys. And I think Mike's done a really good job of putting that together. Even his chief of staff, Scar, was with us in the Jets, an awesome guy. So I think he's done a good job putting the whole thing together.

3:14:16Pat McAfee:I think some Steelers fans are going to be thrilled that somebody from the Jets is in there. But on that note, sounds like a great guy.

3:14:22Charlie McAvoy:He's not a life for Jets.

3:14:24Pat McAfee:Okay. Not many of those. Okay. Yeah, do those exist? I know if you have a last name, maybe. That's it.

3:14:31Darius Butler:Fireman Ed. Wow. He did actually say recently he got an autopsy and they cut him open and they said, oh my God, sir, you bleed green. We've never seen this before.

3:14:40Pat McAfee:Fireman Ed? Yeah. Thank you. So I'm happy to hear that that is the case.

3:14:44Charlie McAvoy:Fireman Ed. He's been doing autopsy when he died. What's he doing?

3:14:47Darius Butler:Well, that's the thing.

3:14:48Pat McAfee:Connor said he was dead a couple times.

3:14:49Darius Butler:Yeah, he's been dead twice, three, four times, five times, six times, seven times.

3:14:54Pat McAfee:That man is death-defying, is what Fireman Ed is. Runs towards the fire, so let's never forget that. And just because he just so happened to get put into a spot, they have to cheer for the worst fucking... You didn't say this. Take Aaron off the screen, please. Can you take Aaron off the screen? The worst franchise fucking ever. Sorry, put us back up there. That is not Fireman Ed's fault. Okay, there's a lot of people like Fireman who have given up. And then obviously because they're in the spotlight, it's talked about, I think all people just would like to have success there, which he did at one point, wanted just to have success there.

3:15:23Pat McAfee:And I'm worried about that place forever.

3:15:26Aaron Rodgers:No, they're supposed to be really good this next year.

3:15:28Darius Butler:Yeah, I have a lot of faith in this year, especially from what we saw at the combine.

3:15:32Pat McAfee:I know, but Jets fans deserve it. I think we all...

3:15:34Darius Butler:Do they?

3:15:34Pat McAfee:No, they don't. Why are you guys so mean Jets fans? Greeny. Greeny does. Yeah, what about Greenberg? Greenberg said he would cut off. You remember?

3:15:43Darius Butler:Yeah. Cole. Michael Cole? You don't think he deserves it? Exactly. I want to see Cole squirm forever. Gary Vee? Good call. Thank you, Aaron. He's going to own them soon, dude.

3:15:55Pat McAfee:That's a long road, I think, especially with what they're valuing the Miami Dolphins. Yeah, 12.5 billion is the valuation for the Miami Dolphins as Lin Bin, Chinese billionaire, comes in and buys 1 % at$125 million. It's not just the Dolphins, though. It's also the F1 race down there. It's also the tennis tournament down there.

3:16:16AJ Hawk:It's also the... No, I'll just let you know. Let everybody know. It's race week for F1s. We know. Yeah, we know. Yeah, we know. Australia, baby. Melbourne.

3:16:24Darius Butler:See you Saturday at 11 p.m., baby. Really?

3:16:27AJ Hawk:Melbourne? Yeah, Melbourne.

3:16:28Pat McAfee:I can't believe you still...

3:16:30AJ Hawk:America's team.

3:16:31Pat McAfee:Andretti is doing it. Who's running the Cadillac? Is it Andretti's? Who is it?

3:16:35AJ Hawk:I think he's a part of it.

3:16:36Pat McAfee:All right, I'm in on it. But nonetheless, what the Seahawks are going to go for, crazy. So if Gary Vee was to ever get the Jets, I think he's going to have to start moving some real Gary Vee mons out there. It's going to have to be a lot of them. They're going to have to get up there a lot. And we will try to continue to promote the eager eagle. Come on now. Okay, we will continue to try that. But I think it's going to take a long road to get there. And I don't know how the Jets got buried in this whole thing, and I apologize for that. Your fans don't deserve it. But everybody tried to win over there, including this guy.

3:17:04Pat McAfee:Now, will you play in the future? We don't know. What we do know is you're seemingly enjoying the hell out of your life with your wife right now. D-Bud has a question about that.

3:17:12AJ Hawk:Yeah, completely away from ball, like you said earlier. It's March 4th. I know it's the time of year where I kind of dial in, binge some old TV shows I haven't watched. Homeland's one of them, Peaky Blinders, with the movie coming out down the lines. And then I got a 17-year-old daughter, so whatever I can do to hang out with her, she allows me in. Love is blind. I'm hooked. Big show tonight. Any show that you've been dialed into lately, Eric?

3:17:34Charlie McAvoy:I love that you said that, because it is Wednesday and this is the last episode. What a fucking great season.

3:17:40Pat McAfee:Everybody loves Love is Blind. What an amazing season.

3:17:44Charlie McAvoy:I can't believe they cut last week before we get to the altar for everybody, man.

3:17:50Pat McAfee:That's Love is Blind. Cliffhanger.

3:17:52Charlie McAvoy:You know what? I enjoyed it so much. I went back and I'm watching last season of Love is Blind. What a wild season. The poor half Chinese, half Mongolian guy.

3:18:02Darius Butler:Oh, man. Patrick. He just got a fucking real, described by everybody. Patrick got screwed. You said the guy with brown hair. That's the only way you describe him, AJ. I don't know the show well enough.

3:18:15Pat McAfee:I haven't seen the show. I assume that it's a piece.

3:18:18Charlie McAvoy:What's going to happen, DB? Who do you got as locked? I got the big guy. I got the big guy and the woman. And Christine has a lock.

3:18:26AJ Hawk:Black dude with dreads. They're locked. No drama. I think that's the only two. Oh. Oh, I think Bree and Connor, I think they're going to make it.

3:18:38Darius Butler:You're a fool. I think that was set up. Who's the hell got a chance?

3:18:41AJ Hawk:I think Bree and Connor make it. You think that was set up? Really? I think it was set up. I think Bree and Connor, I think they make it. I think Mike says no right off the bat. How many of these people are out here?

3:18:49Pat McAfee:What the hell is going on? Right now, there's five couples. What about the Italian guy?

3:18:53Darius Butler:The Italian guy. Oh, he's going to win for sure. Yeah, I think it starts with him saying no. He said no. He wants kids. Yeah, he wants a family.

3:18:59Charlie McAvoy:He wants kids.

3:19:00Darius Butler:And she won't lock it. That's Italian, baby.

3:19:01Pat McAfee:Are they all dancing around with each other or all these? No.

3:19:05Darius Butler:Solo. That's Love Island.

3:19:06Pat McAfee:Okay, so where that guy went running into the water and his lady was getting packed. Exactly, yes. That's Love Island. Correct. Montoya. Just came back to that. That was his name. Nailed it. Montoya, I believe. Okay, so that's Love Island. Inigo?

3:19:18Charlie McAvoy:Inigo Montoya?

3:19:19Pat McAfee:Nice. I don't know if his... I don't know if... What is that from?

3:19:22Charlie McAvoy:Princess Bride. But DB... Jesus Christ.

3:19:25Pat McAfee:A Princess Bride drop right there? I would have never...

3:19:28AJ Hawk:Love is blind tonight. Can't wait for the finale. Okay. What about traders? To Columbus, by the way. Columbus, Ohio.

3:19:35Darius Butler:Do they ask height and weight of each other? Do they have any idea what they look like? No, you can't ask any feature questions. You can't tell what race you are, what color your hair is, anything.

3:19:46Charlie McAvoy:Yeah, but the Chinese Mongolian guy said that he was Asian. He loved this guy.

3:19:51Pat McAfee:So does it say Chinese Mongolian Patrick?

3:19:55Darius Butler:That's his name on this thing? It just says Patrick, and he specifically asked. What are you?

3:20:01Charlie McAvoy:How about when she breaks up with him and says, it's not about your looks, and they go, like, 45 minutes earlier, and she's just like, yeah, I could never be attracted to him. It's not going to go.

3:20:11Pat McAfee:This is not even a moment. Didn't I text you? Middle of vacation. You said this is not something that you would ever think about, but you need to think about love is blind is electric, is what you said.

3:20:23Charlie McAvoy:I'm telling you, it's been a great season this season, too. I'm glad you brought that up, DB. Hell yeah. I have been watching, man. I can't wait.

3:20:30Pat McAfee:Good luck to all those couples. I hope you find them.

3:20:33Charlie McAvoy:Couple of them do. It's already happened. Yeah, it's already happened.

3:20:36Darius Butler:There's been like, this is the ninth season, and there's been like eight or nine weddings like that go through.

3:20:42Aaron Rodgers:That's pretty cool. Wow, that is awesome. Well, sounds like Mongolian Chinese guys about to get his heart broken. No, no. You already left?

3:20:49Darius Butler:Yeah, that was last season. Oh, that was yesterday. Okay, okay. And he did. And the reunion was fireworks. All right.

3:20:56Charlie McAvoy:Tell me. I haven't got there yet. I'm going to. All right, okay, okay. Go back.

3:20:59Pat McAfee:There's seven other seasons, too. It sounds like you can fucking dive on in, bud. Houston's wild. I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to start watching that. Okay, so let's recap this conversation, shall we? You're very happy. Wife, Brittany, awesome. Mia, dog, would like that. You would like people to move on from stalking you, obviously. That would be cool if that would stop happening. Both people that have been in your life and also people that are trying to cover your life. football. There has been no movement in decision making, both on your side and any other side. So, like, when that time comes, you'll make the decision.

3:21:36Pat McAfee:You're staying in shape and you love, fucking love, love is blind. Is that basically a good recap of everything we got here? And we're launching a show that has a logo. Look for the first episode coming soon. Boom! The Connors Spiracy Files with Aaron Rodgers.

3:21:53Darius Butler:See him, Pots. we got the whole cni we got yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of things now i don't know if that

3:22:04Pat McAfee:necessarily is ai's greatest go at aaron rogers but that's pretty close he looks good yeah we'll shop it we'll workshop it a little bit so anything we missed in there is there anything we missed in

3:22:15Charlie McAvoy:there i don't think so no i mean if we're gonna call it i just wanna i gotta i'll get my ass whipped if I don't read this that Mia told me. Oh, yes! That was the message.

3:22:25Pat McAfee:Foxy, actually, also love his blind fan.

3:22:28Charlie McAvoy:Oh, no, he's... Hey, shout out to all the boys in the back. I fucking miss you guys. Thank you, Aaron. Appreciate you, dude. But Foxy just dropped

3:22:38Pat McAfee:into my ear there and was like, we gotta hear from Mia. Gotta hear from Mia. That's what he literally just said.

3:22:43Charlie McAvoy:I'm gonna sign off on this because my phone's dying, too. Okay. Alright, I gotta read this here. Full screen for you, buddy.

3:22:49Pat McAfee:The floor is yours and Mia, I guess.

3:22:51Charlie McAvoy:This is from Mia in her voice. She says, bitches, stop flat out lying. I don't have a sister named Christy and I have more than two sisters. Also, I've never lived in Wisconsin. Stop using my brother's name for clicks and views, you fucking weirdos. And one more thing. I learned football this past year and more than half of sports media should not be reporting on football, a game they know nothing about. They too should keep my brother's name out of their fucking mouths. Thanks, Mia.

3:23:26Pat McAfee:Was that a period or exclamation point at the end?

3:23:29Charlie McAvoy:Thanks, comma.

3:23:31Pat McAfee:Formal. That's unbelievable. Well, thank you, Mia. That was phenomenal.

3:23:36Charlie McAvoy:Love you, Mia. Thanks, guys.

3:23:38Pat McAfee:We love you, man. Thank you for joining us. Great to catch up with you. Good luck with everything. Yeah, dude. Do your journey of life. We've been appreciative following along with all of it. Yeah, it sounds like you.

3:23:49Charlie McAvoy:I'm loving it.

3:23:50Pat McAfee:How happy you are, dude. You're floating.

3:23:52Charlie McAvoy:I am.

3:23:54Pat McAfee:Aw, dude, that's super cute, man. I'm sure this will kind of stop all the conversations about that. It should. Yeah, I'm sure.

3:24:00Darius Butler:I'm sure. It will. Always does. You're the best.

3:24:04Pat McAfee:Ladies and gentlemen, Brittany's husband.

3:24:06Darius Butler:I was right about COVID. Yep, thanks.

3:24:09Pat McAfee:Aaron Rodgers. First episode of Connorspiracy Files with Aaron Rodgers coming out soon. We'll dive into that.

3:24:22Pat McAfee:I'm sure that'll be an early one. Let's just go ahead and set our credentials. First things first, here was Aaron in 2020. He got a 500-page report done. Here's his demonstrate, I don't know, presentation. Presentation, yep. Which he did. You go back. Hey, do you mind if I... Go ahead, buddy. Page 147.

3:24:43Aaron Rodgers:Yep.

3:24:43Pat McAfee:I consulted with plenty of doctors people that know my body type know my blood and also talked to Joe Rogan so all anybody said was this guy talks to fucking Dr. Joe Rogan he thinks he's a fucking genius it's like this guy had a 500 page report done on why he does not want to do this or whatever and it's like wow I think he and many others like him are feeling

3:25:09Aaron Rodgers:vindicated pretty

3:25:11Pat McAfee:I would like to hear it Say it again. I would like to. I would like to. I don't know if you're ever going to get that, Aaron. I also don't know if you're ever going to change anybody that, you know, feels already a certain way. But I do appreciate the fact that there comes a time in Aaron's life we have realized where he's like, fuck it. I got to say something. I'm done with this. And he just unloads. And that's definitely what that was for a lot of the reports of his relationships he's been in, the relationship he's currently in, the way he deals with things, the way he handles things, the way he does everything.

3:25:38Pat McAfee:So I'm appreciative of him doing that. I hope he's even happier. and I'd like to reiterate the fact the last few days where I've gotten a chance to catch up with him via FaceTime here, this is by far, by far the happiest I have ever in the year, I don't know how many years we've known him now at this point. Nine? Eight years? By far those are the happiest FaceTimes that I've ever had with him. And AJ, you talk to him a lot more than I do. I love the fact that you were just trying to find out if he was Steelers or Buss if he was playing. Thank you for doing that. Obviously we stumbled out of the gates with you being muted.

3:26:10Pat McAfee:I don't know what happened. That was actually you being muted, by the way. And I appreciate you pushing that, but he seems so fucking happy. That's kind of my big takeaway of it all, AJ, legitimately.

3:26:19Darius Butler:Yeah. Seems to be in a great spot. Yeah. I mean, we'll see. It's March 4th right now, so yeah, who knows when anyone knows anything. That's how he knows stuff.

3:26:27Pat McAfee:This is him trying to not talk about anything. Yeah, you heard him. He said everything that needs to be said. Fuck, just talk to him. I don't need to be saying anything about any of it. That's why I was muted, actually. Fucking keep me out of this. We're going to continue to ask you, though, as the days roll on and we got to talk about something. Speaking of talking about something, huge news out of New England. The New England Patriots have informed Stephon Diggs that he will be released after the start of the league year next week. Remember, free agency frenzy on Monday at noon. All the deals are basically announced.

3:26:55Pat McAfee:Then Wednesday at four, new league year begins, I do believe. And whenever that happens, that's when everything has to be certified. And that's when you see a lot of players leaving teams and beginning new adventures. Obviously, Stephon Diggs bought into the New England Patriots this year on the field and in practice. Had a great year for the New England Patriots, I think, in the locker room and on the field. There was a lot of noise towards the end, though, on the outs. A lot of noise. Everything that you potentially were worried about happening with Stephon Diggs seemingly all happened at one time, and it was at the very end.

3:27:25Pat McAfee:You got some legal stuff happening. You got personal drama stuff happening. You got things getting loud, and then obviously you guys don't win the big game, so everything is being recalibrated. I would like to say that this won a lot better than I could have imagined for how long it went. And him being released is surprising because of the on-field and locker room production. But I feel like Vrabel has to set a precedent here on like, hey, we can't just have so much shit outside. It feels like that's potentially what the news is. I don't know. Conman, your thoughts on them moving on from Stephon Diggs?

3:27:57Darius Butler:I think originally when he signed the deal, it was a three-year deal, but everyone, once the contract was released, kind of saw, okay, after the first year, there is an out for sure. I mean, it went basically as good as it could have gone. Drake May took a massive step. Stephon Diggs was a 1 ,000-yard receiver. I believe he hit a lot of his incentives, let alone the stuff he did just in the locker room like you mentioned. Him giving speeches before games was awesome. Him just kind of buying in to the entire culture. I think looking back on it, when we just talk about the Patriots specifically and the on-field football stuff, He will be a big part of kind of the beginning of the Vrabel era.

3:28:33Darius Butler:But now all eyes turn to, you know, A.J. Brown, something like that, making a trade for a big-time receiver, or that being kind of the premier thing for free agency next week. So hats off to Stephon Diggs. The stuff off the field, one thing, just him as the football player, fantastic as a Patriots fan.

3:28:50Pat McAfee:Your thoughts, D-Butt, as the Patriots move on now to maybe new wide receiver one or maybe new future offensive weapons coming in instead of the veteran that they had for year one of Mike Vrabel?

3:29:01AJ Hawk:I mean, he's been productive everywhere he's been and kind of just to piggyback on everything, comments. I think the deal, you know, essentially it worked out once we saw it come out, been a three-year deal with an out after the first one. He was productive. You know, he didn't have a big game, you know, late in the playoffs or in the Super Bowl, but he was definitely productive. I think he helped the locker room. I think he helped Drake May. And they got a ton of money, so they'll move on. It'll be all right. I hope he's good off the field legally or, you know, with everyone involved. But still a productive player.

3:29:29AJ Hawk:I'm sure he'll end up with another team and he'll still go on and do his things. You know, I'm a Diggs fan on the field. Not only how he plays and how he produces, but how he competes. And he showed kind of a different side of him with the leadership stuff on the New England Patriots last year. So I'm interested to see where he ends up.

3:29:46Pat McAfee:NFL researcher just put out a tweet. Stephon Diggs has 1 ,000-plus receiving yards in seven of his last eight seasons, most seasons with 1 ,000 receiving yards since 2018. him and Mike Evans, both of them available. Okay, so we'll see what happens in the future. Obviously AJ Brown on that list, is he available? It depends on which day you're listening to which insider.

3:30:06Aaron Rodgers:Yeah.

3:30:07Pat McAfee:Okay? Like, no, he's not available. But if somebody offers something, he's definitely available. So is he available? No, we're not really. But anybody kind of is. You know, that's kind of the conversation around AJ Brown right now, so a lot of talent potentially on the move. Where will they go next? We shall see. Who'll be throwing to Justin Jefferson? I mean, that's an entire... And then if you think about the Patriots going to a new number one, it is A.J. Brown. We start drawing up some trades that could potentially work before the show started. Evan Siddery says the Eagles are asking for a future first and second round pick in any potential A.J.

3:30:48Pat McAfee:Brown trade. It's like, where are the Patriots picking?

3:30:51Aaron Rodgers:After today's trade, I don't know if I see them getting that. Why? Well, today's trade was a 25-year-old who is now coming off two back-to-back all-pro seasons.

3:31:05Pat McAfee:Ode$100 million, probably.

3:31:06Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, but I mean, that was not a first and a second. That was a first and a third, obviously. That's a lot for A.J. Brown. I mean,

3:31:15Pat McAfee:What if it's a 31st pick?

3:31:17Aaron Rodgers:Some teams did give up two firsts first off, so I mean, it could happen. Not some teams.

3:31:22Pat McAfee:One team.

3:31:22Aaron Rodgers:Yeah, the Colts. Good point. Oh, that was the Colts, wasn't it?

3:31:25Pat McAfee:And we're still happy with that. We know he's going to show up next year and be a key piece. Us losing seven straight, though. Tough. After doing that. That's not a great start.

3:31:38Darius Butler:At least you know that quarterback's coming back, though. Right? In November, he's going to be hot. Everybody's talking about how, in the Colts world,

3:31:50Pat McAfee:about how, boy, they fucked us up. Yeah, they are all talking about that. Alec Pierce was on Up and Adams with Kay earlier today and said, oh, look, I love Indy, but, like, I've earned it right now to see what free is. I'm gone. Yeah. Let me just go ahead and check. Let me go ahead and check under the hood of some places and see what they got going on, if they want to add a few hundred ponies to that engine that they got going there. Alec by far plays best football this past season.

3:32:12Aaron Rodgers:He's a good ball player.

3:32:13Pat McAfee:By far. He's tough. He's gritty. He's athletic. He drinks two beers. Why? Yeah, he's young. I mean, he wasn't always this guy, though. Like, we actually watched him develop here in Indy. Now, was he not always this guy because he didn't have a fucking quarterback and everything was turning over? I could have been part of it. Maybe. Maybe that's what it was. And maybe this year he had his best opportunity to kind of do who he was. Whatever the case, he definitely had his best year this year, and now he's hitting the market. And people are going to watch his highlights, and they're going to see his numbers, and they're going to say, yeah, I think we'd like to take the top off of this fucking two-shell defense that's fucking playing against everybody.

3:32:48Pat McAfee:And he's got it. He's tough. He blocks. He's good. And he's gone. And then Daniel Jones is not necessarily going to be here either. And then Pittman, are they going to be able to? Hopefully now, yes. But who knows? Up in the air.

3:33:04Aaron Rodgers:They like their guys. They do like their guys. That's what you can kind of fall back on.

3:33:08Pat McAfee:Yep. That's what I do. I heard an impression of him by somebody else in the NFL at a high-ranking position. And I did not like that. Pretty good, though? I felt disrespected.

3:33:20Aaron Rodgers:That's right.

3:33:22Pat McAfee:This guy was phenomenal at it, too. Well, I'm not going to say what he said. I'm not going to say what he said. There was a couple drinks, and they go, listen to him, because I brought up some things that have happened. I said, we haven't won the division here in Indy. Do you know that? We have not won in 11 years, 12 years, we haven't won the AFC South. Damn. Okay, the juggernaut. The AFC South. Correct. Every other team has. Every other. Think of the teams in the AFC South. they have won the AFC South more recently than the Indianapolis fucking Colts have. Do you know that? Like, do you know that?

3:33:53Pat McAfee:And they go, no, I didn't know. So you're telling me Chris is not... They're like, we did not know that. And then one person, we had that conversation a few different times, you know, because I always ask people to trade their good players to Indy. Sure. I always, every time I talk to them, fucking Josh Allen would be great over here. Hey, why don't you send me fucking your best fucking wide receiver? I need him over here. I've pressed bean for Josh Allen publicly and privately more than 30, 40, 50 times. What would it take? What would it take? I would trade myself quicker if I would trade Josh.

3:34:24Pat McAfee:And then the Bills Mafia were like, yeah, actually, let's do that. There's a lot of people saying that. Oh, yeah. Definitely. He's got a lot of heat on him up there. Yes, he does. He's got a lot of heat on him. I assume he knows that in this entire thing, but I'm sure he knows that. You have Josh. Yeah, Pagoula didn't help him. It's very real. I tried to get T.J. Watt from Pittsburgh, though. I mean, I was trying to trade for everybody. I was walking around team to team, who's your best player? I fucking want them here in Indy. And I don't think I have enough say at this stage of life yet to really make a deal.

3:34:55Pat McAfee:But what would it look like if it had to look like it? Because that's kind of what Indianapolis Combine is. So I was trying to do that with every player. And then one of the teams, I'd say it was the fifth team I approached with a deal for their best player. And then we weren't going to give up anything, by the way. Sure. I think it would have been a good fucking deal. they go, oh, yes. We can actually do the negotiation right now. And the guy right here just drops into Chris Ballard. And then he was negotiating as Chris Ballard.

3:35:27Aaron Rodgers:Oh, that's good.

3:35:29Pat McAfee:What an asshole. Pretty high up. Pretty high up.

3:35:34Aaron Rodgers:I didn't know Jerry Jones had that.

3:35:36Pat McAfee:No. No connections with Dallas Cowboys. We have no connections with Dallas Cowboys. but we have kind of, I think we're pretty plugged in if we really wanted. If we wanted to get in the insider game, which I don't know if anybody wants to be in there right now with Schefter. Okay. Schefter's got it.

3:35:52Aaron Rodgers:Not this week either. He'll, he'll cut your throat.

3:35:56Pat McAfee:Schefter dunked, dunked on pies on Florio. Yeah.

3:35:59Aaron Rodgers:That's a shame.

3:36:00Pat McAfee:Really hard. And I didn't even know I was kind of opening a can of worms yesterday whenever I said Schefter, like every time you break news, we're all trying to figure out the angle. And then he'll say like, that's like most of the time when you guys think that I'm getting something, it's not from who I think it's from. And I don't really like this narrative. I'm like, ooh, he kind of took offense to that. I guess that's probably what's been said about him a lot. Turns out it was happening at that exact moment, and I did not know that. So Florio Pro Football Talk, and we will say Florio Paisan, West Virginia guy.

3:36:25Pat McAfee:We know him. He founded Pro Football Talk, was a lawyer, just started writing basically all day every day about football, starting drama, and what he became is one of the most influential websites. He sold that thing twice. Like he, Florio has been a part of NFL football for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time. So let's, you can't undersell Mike Florio's impact in the NFL. It's very real, which is why NBC has signed him and brought him into Football Night in America. Like that is, but he does every once in a while go, oh, it's interesting how these insiders are operating. What happened with that 4-4, 4-5, 4-6?

3:37:01Pat McAfee:So Schefter's just copy-pasting bullshit and just putting it out there basically? Must be nice that that's the insider game. Floria thought he caught Schefter. Oh, yeah. Floria thought he caught Schefter. And for the good of ball, that can't happen. And Schefter says, is that right? You think I copy-paste it from Rosenhaus? Here's a thousand text messages I sent around the league, basically, saying, hey, what was the time? Go ahead, keep rolling through them, please. Keep rolling through all the – yeah, they just keep going. They just keep going and keep going and keep going. This is what Schefter – Schefter dunked on Florio, the hardest we have seen.

3:37:35Pat McAfee:Shattered the backboard. The ball. And also, I would like to, and look, he only thanked one person, so now we got to, who was that? Who did he say thanks to only one team? I'm assuming it's the Niners. Okay, now, that's exactly how everybody would feel. But on that note, it's like Schefter actually giving up kind of how the juice in the sausage is made, but also not giving away the name while getting a dub here over Florio has to feel good for Schefter to execute this. Oh, yeah. And the entire internet saw it. Everybody. saw it. Florio will have his get back, though.

3:38:09Darius Butler:Yeah, his moment in the song. He'll manufacture something.

3:38:12Pat McAfee:Florio, exactly. Florio will find something. And I don't think enough people know, like, most NFL buildings, every single computer in every coach's office, the homepage is basically profootballtalk.com. And it's like, what rumor did this fucking guy hear about him might need to know about? And he's in there. So, congrats on both of them. I like a good Godzilla, King Kong.

3:38:34Aaron Rodgers:Yeah. Unbelievable. That would be the way all. Done better. And I like good internet. And Schefter, that was fucking, that was beautiful internet.

3:38:42Pat McAfee:Great caption, too. Now, Florio could come back immediately and say, with modern AI, do we really know?

3:38:50AJ Hawk:You don't need AI for that. You can text yourself.

3:38:53Darius Butler:Yeah, he could be texting his mom or his wife.

3:38:57AJ Hawk:Boom. Edit. Boom. Edit.

3:39:00Darius Butler:Huh.

3:39:01Pat McAfee:Oh, no. Don't do that.

3:39:02AJ Hawk:I'm just saying, you could.

3:39:04Pat McAfee:I don't have the fucking time to do that.

3:39:07Darius Butler:You can text yourself. Oh, yeah. That is what he would say. Let me hear the full thing.

3:39:13Pat McAfee:Hold on. Adam, people are saying that it was very easily possible that you just kind of did that to yourself.

3:39:20Aaron Rodgers:You think I got the fucking time to do that? I got calls coming in every fucking second here. Every second. You think I got time to text myself, edit it, crop it down? No. No. What about AI, though? Let him think what he wants. Let that asshole think what he wants.

3:39:39Aaron Rodgers:Oh, you can text yourself.

3:39:41Pat McAfee:Oh, Tone just found a new way to sell himself. Honestly, I... That's cool. I can't wait to see how you utilize that. There's going to be people texting Tone about how good his bets are and hammered down. He's so good, dude. Thanks for doing that.

3:39:55Aaron Rodgers:Guy said, great show today, pal. I said, thanks.

3:39:59Pat McAfee:All right. let's all start sending ourselves text messages of positive and gratitude so we understand and appreciate that we're all trying our absolute fucking best out here and let's enjoy it all, we're lucky to be alive very thankful for everybody that stopped by today very very thankful for Charlie McAvoy and Alex Ferrer for what they did for the United States of America and for our program congrats to both of those absolute legends Aaron Rodgers stopped by for a long time great to catch up with him and AJ almost did some real journalism at least he tried multiple times boys in the back got a rightful shout out You should.

3:40:29Pat McAfee:Gumpy, we're done talking about the 1904 Canadian World Champion.

3:40:33Aaron Rodgers:Or Four Nations last year. Yeah, that was not the Olympics. Oh, it wasn't.

3:40:37Pat McAfee:Is Four Nations even a real thing? I was going to say that. It's not like that was kind of made up and out of nowhere. On that note, WBC is happening. Yes. Okay, that is real. That's right.

3:40:46Aaron Rodgers:What's the score? It is currently 2-1. We are winning. Judgey hit a homer in the first inning. I'm trying to figure out how he scored our second run, but, you know. Soto hit another bomb for the Dominican. Fuck.

3:40:56Pat McAfee:And did the place go crazy? Oh, yeah. See, that's next time we need to go to one of their games down there. Here's Aaron Judge. See ya. I've decided this ball needs to fucking exit the stadium. Exactly. That's 1-0 USA.

3:41:12Aaron Rodgers:I ain't a fucking cheapie. Look how fucking far he hit this thing out of the goddamn stadium. You know what's also nice is the Dominican Republic, when they have to, they're not playing in their fucking everyone's backyard down there. They're going to be coming to art territory. So we'll see if everyone's throwing bags of loose-leaf tobacco in the air and all that kind of stuff. They're not going to be doing that. They might travel. Yeah, they will travel. I think they will be looking for the dubs up there, brother.

3:41:37Pat McAfee:I do believe they will be.

3:41:38Aaron Rodgers:You guys think that they're going to take over half the stadium in Miami? Not half. No, no, not half. Yeah, okay. A thousand Dominican fans come up and go to that ballgame. Okay. Okay, sounds good. You guys want the Dominican to win. No, I don't. No, I don't.

3:41:57AJ Hawk:I'm on the team. I got a jersey. I'm on Team USA.

3:42:00Aaron Rodgers:These guys hit two homers, and oh, boy, we can't beat these guys. They beat the Tigers 12-4. It's their fans. Look at our fans.

3:42:08Darius Butler:Show the judge over and again.

3:42:09Aaron Rodgers:Those aren't our fans. Those are somebody else's fans. It's because we have an expectation. These games don't fucking mean anything. Come Friday night when we play Brazil. Are you all right? No, what was that? You know, he's pounding the pain. There you go.

3:42:24Pat McAfee:pounding the table for these boys. That's right. I appreciate that. And I'm on team. And I love our team. I know. So start acting like it.

3:42:32Aaron Rodgers:This ain't a Ryder Cup situation.

3:42:33AJ Hawk:All right? No, no, it's not. Don't even bring that. It's not even close. Okay, it's not.

3:42:38Pat McAfee:I'm telling you, though, whenever you see that atmosphere down there in the Dominican, it's hard not to go like, whoa. I get it. They're a bit more excited about this than us. And then Aaron Judge hits one fucking 500 feet today. It's like, let's go ahead and let's all remember here. We're in reality. And this is a good time. Holy fuck, we should have been at that. Yes. We should have been in there. That's one of those. That's like an SEC college. We need to go do one of those, too. Those SEC college baseball. Yeah. Yeah, they go absolutely crazy. Mississippi State or something. And then ours is fun.

3:43:09Pat McAfee:Ours is Mickey Mouse.

3:43:11Darius Butler:Ours is an expectation. Imagine what Venezuela's like right now. Japan.

3:43:15Pat McAfee:How about fucking Japan? Yeah. Have we got eyes on them? Who are they playing? Because when Shohei hits a fucking home run over there, I bet that entire wherever they're fucking. Tokyo Dome, brother.

3:43:23Aaron Rodgers:Suzuki did hit a big fly over there, and they did go crazy. That's what I'm saying.

3:43:27Pat McAfee:I'm a little bit worried that the boys aren't feeling enough juice from the country. It's a preseason game.

3:43:31Aaron Rodgers:I was going to say, were you going crazy when we beat the fuck out of some Mickey Mouse Eastern European team in pool play and in the hockey and the Olympics? No, that was the expectation. Good. We should beat the fuck out of these clowns. And that's exactly how we're treating the Rockies, who haven't won more than fucking 45 games in the last 10 years. Who the fuck did we play yesterday? Giants. They stink. Okay? This is the expectation. That's fair. This is the expectation. We're trying to beat teams 50 to nothing in this pool play. And then when we see DR in the semifinals, then we can talk.

3:44:03Aaron Rodgers:Then we can talk. We'll see who they're going to throw at us.

3:44:06Pat McAfee:I just want to make sure that the American baseball fans are understanding that, hey, the boys need us. Yeah, other fans.

3:44:12Aaron Rodgers:But also to that point, those Dominican games, those will be worth watching as well. Because there is a chance that they hit 15 homers a night. Okay.

3:44:20Pat McAfee:Let's get into world baseball. I'm pumped for World Baseball Club. Yes. Legit. I am very pumped about it. Especially because we met all the boys and it's like, hey, we got some legends rolling out there that love representing America right now. This is good news. All right. Let's get the fuck out of here. 3.53 today. Let's remember that whenever we go short tomorrow. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change your life. We're in this thing together. Hey, great work this week. Great to have you back. You too, brother. Great to have you back, team. Great week. Team on me. Team on three.

3:44:45Pat McAfee:One, two, three.

3:44:46Darius Butler:Team. Goodbye. From 30 for 30 Podcasts.

3:44:58Aaron Rodgers:Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami, gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian.

3:45:06Darius Butler:Boys, grab him. An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with somebody. This might be a hit. You want the truth.

3:45:12AJ Hawk:Biggest one of conviction. Being placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.

3:45:19Pat McAfee:911, where is the emergency?

3:45:21Aaron Rodgers:It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen to Bridge of Lies coming March 10th, wherever you listen to podcasts.